Author's Note

Well, after two years, welcome back to the story, folks! I'm truly sorry it took so long, but my rewrite of Midnight Rising took precedence as I needed it at least mostly complete to set up the ending here. For those of you have read the updated version of Midnight Rising, you'll finally see (mostly) what that griffon arc was all about and what plans Middie enacted. For those of who didn't? I hope that this tempts you to read it to get the whole story.

Well, I could go on, but I don't want to keep you after waiting so long. So let me just post the boilerplate content warning and some mood music, and then I'll set you loose to read this:

Chapter contains: A highly abbreviated reprise of events experienced during Midnight Rising's Enter the Griffons arc, including the magical corruption of an entire city and all attendant fetishes you already know from the story, including cock and ball growth, breast growth, uncontrolled arousal, semi-consensual giving away to full consensual sex, gangbangs, a single female to futa conversion, dissolving clothes, and implied incest. There's also a brief moment of an aroused Spike, but worst of all is a science lesson or two as Midnight flexes on Eclipse, and just plain shows off.

Thanks go to AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire and Silverblade5 for hitting this chapter on short notice, given I had a hard deadline of Halloween night to launch it. That deadline is now met, and hopefully you'll enjoy this as much as they did. Of course, this being Halloween night, here's some appropriate mood music:

Enjoy! And I promise you won't be waiting two years for another chapter this time. Expect another one before Christmas.

—Firesight

39: Midnight vs Eclipse, Part 1

As the confrontation between the corrupted Twilight and ascended Sunset Shimmer proceeded, Starlight Glimmer found herself watching the proceedings in both hope and horror.

Hope that somehow, Sunset Shimmer had a workable plan for defeating Eclipse instead of seemingly offering herself up for surrender. That she had some other trick up her normally human sleeve that would allow her to surprise and take down Twilight before her insanity consumed them all. That there was some method behind the other mare’s madness in presenting herself to Eclipse, and that all the work Starlight herself had done to spring Trixie free to flee across the portal wasn’t for nothing.

And above all else, that the former student of Princess Celestia would save her from being turned into the sexual plaything of Eclipse. For as soaked in sensual scenes and curse-boosted mating auras and pheromones as she was, it was an outcome that she found she increasingly desired, if for no other reason that the agony of waiting for her inevitable sexual subjugation and subsequent corruption would be over with.

Even curiosity over what form she would take, and if she might be able to match Twilight’s power then. For perhaps then she could then turn the tables on her! Show her that the student had surpassed the master! And when she vanquished Eclipse, she could take her place as Queen! Remake Equestria in her image! Take her oldest friend and first crush Sunburst as her stallion, and then elevate him to alicorn to rule eternally alongside her!

And then together, they would rule the two worlds as King and Queen! Husband and wife! Lovers and progenitors of a new alicorn line that would eventually spread her version of Harmony throughout the very stars, binding all the worlds together into a new Erotic Empire of Equitability! Where all would be truly equal and none would be deprived of friendship or love!

Where her praises would be sung, and all would adore her, working to spread her vision of equality throughout the realms!

But her increasingly fevered thoughts of fancy were tempered by the certainty that such dark and dangerous fantasies meant that not only did the curse magic already have hold of her, waiting only for her inevitable sexual climax to claim and convert her—by the sun and moon above, she was already infected with it, and there was no way to purge it! Her fate was already sealed! —but that she still had some very ugly and evil parts of her psyche buried deep within her, waiting only for an opportunity to burst free.

And that knowledge only made her fear her coming conquest and corruption all the more, wondering how many more ponies she would hurt in her attempt to establish some unworkable and completely unnatural utopia for a second time. And even worse, on a far larger scale than she had before.

But even as she watched the initial battle of wits between Sunset and Eclipse unfold followed by the former escaping certain defeat with an incredible, last-ditch attempt at ascension that by rights should have killed her—by the stars themselves, she’d never known there were ways to reach Alicorn-level power on the spot! How could she have not been aware of them? She’d clearly had tunnel vision all this time, missing out on so much that might have helped her one-time quest for true equality—it was only when she saw the epic battle of overwhelming Alicorn might unfold she finally knew where she stood in the pantheon of pony magical abilities.

That being at or near the top of unicorn power still meant that she was far, far below that of an Alicorn. And worse, that even among unicorns, she wasn’t the best. For all she saw out of Sunset Shimmer even before her incredible ascension, it became clear that the long-departed and far-out-of-practice former student of Princess Celestia was a much better mage than her.

It was a hard pill to swallow as not only did she wield an equal level of aura, but she was much more magically learned. Worse, she possessed an arsenal of arcane spells and ancient knowledge that ultimately enabled her to not only risk a one-on-one confrontation with Eclipse without fear of being corrupted along the way, but ascend and challenge her alicorn power directly.

For as awe-inspiring as that ascension had been to behold, and for the strong flame of hope it gave Starlight that finally—finally—somepony might duel and defeat Eclipse before she doomed them all, it only left her reflecting on her own inadequacies as both a pony and a unicorn. Even as she counted and cataloged all the myriad and intricate incantations the ascension rite involved, she realized that even knowing them, she wouldn’t dare attempt them without a great deal of time, preparation, and practice.

And even then she wasn’t sure she could pull it off, lacking Sunset Shimmer’s ironclad will and willingness to endure excruciating pain without letting her focus slip for even an instant. It was simply a quality she didn’t feel she possessed, at least not without something—or someone, to use the odd-sounding human term that she still hadn’t gotten used to—to fight for.

And thus, she was left but a helpless spectator to a duel that would ultimately decide the fate of two worlds. All she could do was witness the epic clash of spells and aura alongside the captured human Twilight and a mare she barely knew named Delta Requiem, who was likewise snared only too easily despite whatever exotic magical art the latter knew. As she watched the two overpowered combatants exchange both insults and incredibly powerful incantations that seemed to be inspired by human shows and video games—she’d tried the latter once or twice but had a great deal of trouble playing given her ongoing unfamiliarity with human fingers—she finally understood what it meant to be an alicorn.

Watching the endless exchange of superspells was bad enough, from both the damage they could inflict and the simple fact that the pair could not only cast but withstand them. But the biggest blow of all to her reeling psyche had been at the very end, when for a single, tantalizing and terrifying instant, she thought the ascended Sunset had beaten Eclipse with a final, incredible magical attack that seemed well-suited to her new name, which Starlight wasn’t sure came from choice or was somehow a byproduct of her ascension—Solar Inferno!

But even that moment of triumph proved short-lived against the magnificent magical mind of a corrupted Twilight Sparkle. Starlight was forced to witness her final hopes crushed as her former mentor decisively turned the tables on Sunset at the very end, using her own mastery of fire against her. And yet, it wasn’t just for that reason that the young mage internally despaired.

For it meant that even if the curse-caused transformation somehow increased her power ten or twentyfold, she was still no match for an Alicorn. It left her wondering again just why she’d never sensed or seen such power from Twilight before—not even in the throes of their battle throughout the various timelines.

Then she really wasn’t lying—she held back on me that entire time? Even allowed me to strip her cutie mark from her when she could have beaten me on the spot? One-shotted me as humans say? But why? WHY? she asked herself over and over in bewilderment, only to arrive at a single, inescapable conclusion:

It was because Twilight Sparkle was, as Eclipse herself had stated, terrified of her alicorn power. Because she was deathly afraid of hurting Starlight, or worse, her friends and the other ponies around them if she fought back or performed anything more than the most rudimentary low-mana magic.

But with those restraints not just lifted but shattered by the curse, and now that Starlight could witness and feel the overwhelming strength of an unleashed alicorn aura, she understood just what it meant to be one. And worse for her, just how little a threat even the most potent of unicorn power was to them.

Compared to them, I’m nothing. NOTHING! The thought crossed her mind even as Sunset improbably fought Eclipse to a standstill and even seemed to have the upper hoof, only to finally fall to the latter’s well-hidden but superbly executed strategy. It was one that the tactician in Starlight had to admit had been a very subtle and well-conceived plan, accepting a massive magical attack that she—and the protective shield maintained by nearly a hundred cyberponies backed by Nightmarity’s inherited Steedgyptian sorcery—could only barely survive as the price for winning the duel and seemingly sealing her victory over not just Sunset Shimmer, but all Tellus.

Her spirit crushed by the knowledge that they’d not only lost the war to save Equestria, but how little she actually mattered to the affairs of alicorns, Starlight slumped to the stone surface she remained bound to, wondering how things could possibly get any worse.

Her mind steeped in despair, she barely reacted as she sensed a sudden and violent stirring of power from within the human Twilight. She’d heard in passing from Sunset during an earlier visit to the human world that there had been some incident regarding her, where she’d suddenly gained more magic than she could mentally handle.

She hadn’t given it much mind, since the bespectacled human Twilight was now their friend and seemingly all was okay with her. But all that was revealed to be the worst and most dangerous lie imaginable as the crying and terrified ‘Sci-Twi’ broke free of Nightmarity’s hexes just long enough to tear off her amulet, causing her alternate and quite insane personality of Midnight Sparkle to erupt out of her.

And then Starlight was aware of nothing but an overwhelming god-like aura that drowned her senses and drove home her utter insignificance. Her synapses sizzling from the sensory overload and her very horn feeling like it was on fire from the sheer amount of magic in the air, her final thought was to wonder if anything she did mattered in the least as her mind shut down in an attempt to preserve her sanity, causing her to black out along with the rest.

The newly emerged goddess that was Midnight Sparkle magically dressed herself in a facsimile of her human dominatrix outfit as she approached her captured quarry, holding her fast within her inescapable magical grasp. She considered her other self lazily for a moment as the still-weakened Eclipse struggled futilely against her revealed power, delighting in the other mare’s shocked expression at finally experiencing the transcendent level of aura her human counterpart possessed.

Despite Eclipse’s disbelief at what her senses were telling her—she’d heard how potentially powerful her corrupted human counterpart was, but this level of magic was unthinkable! Unbelievable! —the former Princess tried to summon up some spine. “Gah! Get your human hooves off me, you unworthy excuse for an alicorn!” she ordered to no avail, trying and failing to cast only for the spell to rebound painfully from her hexed horn.

“Make me—if you can!” Midnight laughed, but then her eyes narrowed and the wind rose around her. “And do not insult me by calling me a mere Alicorn, Twilight Sparkle, for I am far beyond even that!” she proclaimed as a series of interdimensional rifts began to form around her in the air itself; their appearance causing Eclipse to gape.

“Surprised? So only now you learn the truth. But as you spent this entire time denigrating me, I have no sympathy. In fact, it is only at the insistence of my other self that I will not remove your power permanently, though I would personally find it a fitting punishment for your severe misuse of magic,” she said, her thestral-fanged grin anything but pleasant. “And I thought Lemon Zest was bad? After only a single evening of evil, your crimes already far dwarf hers!”

“Crimes? And my severe misuse?” Eclipse snarled, then her lip curled. “This from the human mare who is the very epitome of insanity?”

“Silence!” Midnight ordered, slapping a bond over Eclipse’s mouth similar to the one Nightmarity had used to block Delta Requiem’s spellsinging. It had the same effect, preventing Eclipse from speaking; her eyes could only bulge with outrage and unexpressed anger while her casting ability through her horn remained blocked.

“Ah… much better. Goddess knows I listened to you prattle on for long enough earlier while trapped within my lesser half. So now, the only question becomes your punishment. One both me and my other half will find acceptable…” She regarded a mute and shaking Eclipse lazily as she considered the question, then grinned.

“Ah, the possibilities. You know, so-called Queen, I could simply strip you of your will and make you my obedient servant. I would find endless amusement in toying with you, or perhaps whoring you out to any other demigod beings I might seek to ally with or entertain,” she suggested idly, causing her counterpart’s slitted eyes to go wide as she realized that the threat was not only fully within Midnight’s power to make happen, but that she also had no qualms whatsoever about carrying it out.

“Oh, yes. I could think of two individuals back home who I would love to see unleashed, given how terrified they are of truly letting themselves loose. I might even unlock their psyches so that they could then properly punish you themselves for turning on your own teacher!” she suggested as she cast a second spell that retrieved the crystalized statue of Princess Celestia, setting it down near them.

Eclipse could only gape at yet another impossible feat, knowing that Midnight had no way of knowing where the statue was and thus, should have been unable to cast a retrieval spell on it. But seeing her counterpart seemed struck speechless for a moment, and not just for the magical gag over her mouth. Midnight grinned and went on.

“So this is what you did to your mentor? Trapped her in magic-feeding crystals that leave her witness to everything but unable to affect anything? Sickening. I’m sure that my world’s Celestia and Luna would be more than willing to pass sentence on you, given how teaching is so near and dear to their hearts—they hate seeing respected instructors disparaged more than anything! I daresay that it would be a fitting atonement for your many crimes this Halloween Night,” she said as she slowly circled the other mare from her hover.

“But such pleasures lie in the future. For I would only let them have you after you are punished for your equally innumerable affronts to my name, lover, and power!” Midnight’s expression turned angry as she tightened her grip on the former Princess, dissolving her remaining clothes and armor away until she was stripped naked, with her enhanced belly breasts and new male sheath fully exposed.

“For slandering me and seeking to subvert my beloved Sunset, there is an important lesson in humility to be learned. So I’m not only going to strip you of your ill-begotten crown but conquer this magic-rich world in your place!” she promised, her eyes glitteringas she ripped open a fresh portal into what Eclipse recognized was the Gryphon Kingdom’s Hall of Heroes in its capital city of Arnau, where only a few guards stood sentry as the museum was closed for the night.

They turned to see the glowing portal in shock, but Midnight ignored them. “And now, to drive home your defeat deeper, I’m going to force you to watch as all your grand designs are undone. So tell me, my defrocked and quite pathetic excuse for a pony princess—what was that you were saying about me not being a deity, or the one true monarch of magic…?” she asked idly as she removed the bind over the other mare’s mouth, watching with great satisfaction as Eclipse openly gaped when she saw the rifts, only then comprehending the full strength and sweep of her doppelganger’s enormous power.

“But… this… isn’t… possible!” the former Princess protested weakly, finding her aura completely blocked and interdimensional rifts appearing that she knew took an absolutely enormous amount of magic to open—orders of magnitude over what even the most powerful alicorn could generate! “You can’t be this strong!”

“Not possible for you, perhaps. But me? I can do anything!” Midnight boasted as she next tore open a rift right into the ancient Steedgyptian tomb where the portal to Earth now sat, causing even a bound and depowered Nightmarity’s eyes to go wide at the ease with which it had been created. She then fainted as she realized that even her own enormous power and vast arcane knowledge was now completely useless against the goddess they now face.

“That’s right, ‘filly’. You’re completely out of your league with me. Now sit back and watch, feeble excuse for a Queen, as I do what you could not and remake this magic-rich world in my image!”

“Feeble?” Eclipse’s slitted eyes flashed even as she was held captive with her horn hexed, her arousal ended at least for the moment as she found herself for the first time on the losing end of a power equation. “By Luna’s moon, how could any version of me be so insane or arrogant?”

“Hello, Kettle. I’m Pot. You’re black,” Midnight replied with a grin and a sneer. “I admit I can be a bit over the top at times, but what can I say? That’s simply who I am. I am best described as the id unleashed, to use the Freudian term. And therein lies the point, Princess—be assured that I know exactly what I am and what I can do. But you don’t—at least, not yet. That’s what I’m about to show you.”

“Don’t you dare compare us!” Eclipse’s glowing thestral eyes suddenly flashed bright and for a moment, her eyes cast about the forest to the fallen forms of her forces, settling on Cyber Belle for a moment. “I am nothing like you, you evil and insane sorceress! I earned my power and ascension to alicorn by creating new magic! What did you do except steal it from others?”

“Oh, I stole it? And what did you do to earn your followers or new power except be a victim of circumstance?” Midnight quickly countered as she yanked Eclipse close and held her up before her in front of the portal to the griffon lands. The guards inside recognized her with some shock, and immediately called for reinforcements to deal with what had to be a horrifically powerful threat to overcome an alicorn.

“Victim? Circumstance?” Eclipse shouted in outrage. “All I did was seize the opportunity Harmony itself granted me! All you did was stumble onto a way to siphon magic out of others! And your understanding of it was so dimwitted and limited that you were then dumb enough to unleash it!”

But Midnight just laughed. “Sorry, Princess. Call me an idiot if you like, but you’re only insulting my weaker half! I grant that she acted out of ignorance, but what do I care if it created me? And you’re hardly one to talk. So tell me, what created you except a cascade of coincidences?” she then challenged the other mare, who fell silent at what she feared was the truth of it.

“Yes, Twilight Sparkle. I already know the nature of this ‘curse’, even if my lesser self was too addle-brained to see it. I knew it was coming long ago, and made plans to contain it—along with another threat already gathering unseen. Which is not to say I knew exactly how it was made, but now that I can examine it directly…?”

Midnight made a show of scanning Eclipse with her aura, and grinned. “As I suspected. I have now identified all the myriad forms of foreign magic in you and can see how they were pieced together. An interesting accident of alchemy, perhaps, but that was ultimately all. So for all your posturing, it is you, my dear defrocked sister, who had your new powers bestowed by dumb luck and happenstance!”

“Happenstance? Or Harmony?” Eclipse countered, again making another concerted magical effort to break free. Runes appeared around the base of her horn below the level of the hex for a moment in an attempt to undo those of her more powerful counterpart, but they were swiftly dispersed. “I was bestowed these great gifts for a reason! And that is to unite both realms under my holy banner!”

“Your ‘banner’?” Midnight outright cackled, causing Eclipse’s anger to grow. “Of what? ‘Fwiendship’?” she mocked in a Trixie-like tone. “I don’t think much of it as a concept, but even I know that friendship isn’t friendship if it must be compelled! Sunset Shimmer was right, you know—your rule would bring about the ruin of both realms!”

“Says the sorceress ripping the very bonds of reality asunder?” Eclipse challenged with a glare, her twitching tail starting to droop towards the ground but not quite able to reach it. “Are you so drunk on your power that you don’t understand what unchecked interdimensional rifts like that can do?” she pointed at the portal to the griffon lands, where forces on the other side were still gathering.

“Oh, please, Princess. Unlike you, who blunders her way from one opponent to the next and refuses to look further ahead than her next move, opponent, or partner, I know exactly what I’m doing. I’ve been preparing for this day ever since the Friendship Games while keeping my other self as clueless to my intentions as you! She sought to keep her plans secret from me by using the remnants of the memory crystal? I turned around and used it on her to keep her from learning my intentions! Which just goes to show that I am the only one in either world who can properly plan or wield this level of magic!” she boasted, causing Eclipse to grind her teeth.

“The truth hurts, doesn’t it? You’re only angry because you can now see for yourself that I’m right. Not even your so-called Chaos God over there could challenge me now.” She nodded over to Discord’s fallen form. “Though I grant that from all I’ve heard, he might give me some minor amusement for a minute or two. I would be tempted to revive him for that reason alone. Seeing his spellcasting should also allow me to master chaos magic myself!”

“Challenge him? Then you’re an even bigger foal than I thought,” Eclipse needled, earning a pair of narrowed, aura-rimmed eyes. “I would dare you to duel him, except I’m worried about the damage to reality such a battle would do! And just what do you mean… preparing?” she probed. “You said you saw all this coming? How?”

But Eclipse only raised an eyeridge, never losing her smirk while keeping her forelegs crossed triumphantly over her chest. “Ah, yes. I admit I’m tempted to do the usual supervillain trope and reveal my schemes, but no. Unlike you, I’m not evil, and if I’m going to get on my beloved Sunset’s case for anything later, it’s talking too much when she didn’t have to, giving away the game on where the portal was hidden and not taking you down when she had the chance. So sorry, Princess, but I’m going to get right down to business. And since I’m not going to just hover here loving the sound of my own voice as I detail all my grand designs, I’m afraid that you’ll just have to watch them all unfold instead…”

She trailed off as she turned them both to face the portal to the Griffon Kingdom, where the green-armored guards had formed a Magus-backed battle line in front of the glowing portal with shields and spears at the ready, the latter tipped with crystals that both Midnight and Eclipse could instantly sense were intended to disrupt spellcasting, able to pierce metal and magical shields alike.

“Not evil?” Eclipse repeated in disbelief. She watched the approaching griffons warily, her mind racing, grappling for one of her contingency plans only to realize that at the moment, they were well out of reach. “And you’d better not hurt them…”

Midnight took visible offense at the statement. “Hurt them? Of course not! Just as I told your Delta Requiem, I may be a dark goddess, but I am most assuredly not an evil one. For if I was, I would enslave the griffons just as your King Sombra and Nightmare Moon once tried and failed. And as you planned to, turning them into your own personal army subservient to your rule and will!” Her aura-rimmed eyes narrowed.

“No, Princess, it’s quite the opposite. Though I said I would conquer this magic-rich realm, I consider it far more a form of liberation. For I’m not only going to help the griffons realize their full potential in both making love and war, but for being the preeminent military power of Tellus with bodies perfectly adapted for both sex and soldiering, I fully intend to make them this world’s saviors!” she proclaimed as she charged her alicorn horn and gloved hooves with a fresh spell and fired it right through the portal.

But instead of a beam, it emerged as a spreading wave of magic that washed over the gryphons and into the walls and statues surrounding them, even passing right through the magical shields that four griffon mages had erected to contain the magical rift to infuse both the soldiers and their surroundings.

The green-armored soldiers—Paladins, Eclipse remembered they were called, being the Kingdom’s equivalent of Celestia’s royal guard; elite soldiers tasked with protecting both their Queen and the Capital city of Arnau where the Kingdom’s greatest national monument called the Hall of Heroes was located—froze as the magic reached them and soaked into them to no noticeable effect, leaving them glancing at each other in wary confusion while even the stave-wielding mages were equally uncertain, not understanding what had just hit them.

“What did you just—” Eclipse also didn’t know the purpose of the complex and potent incantation that Midnight cast, except to recognize that it was some kind of complicated magic release spell of a type she’d never seen before. Such spells were used to unleash or otherwise awaken dormant magic stored in stone or crystal, though this one also possessed an even more powerful and unbreakable version of the imprint incantation that Sunset Shimmer had used to prevent her from retrieving the portal to Earth.

“And you call yourself the mistress of magic? Yet again, you disappoint me, Princess. For if you had any magical awareness at all, you would already sense the incredible evolution about to occur. An evolution that in fact happened once already, even if it had to be temporarily undone!” Midnight proclaimed grandly.

“But then again, perhaps I expect too much of you, Twilight Sparkle, given your clear lack of vision. For as carefully hidden and deeply buried as my seed was planted all those months ago, it will take a few moments for it to absorb my power and awaken. But be assured, it is coming—quite literally! Now wait for it…” Midnight then directed in eager anticipation.

“Wait for what?” Eclipse demanded to know as she recognized the same question on the faces of those griffons who understood Equish, all of whom were watching them warily.

“This!” Midnight announced as the crystalline wall sconces and ends of all the Magus staves suddenly ignited with a fierce purple glow. Despite the efforts of the shocked griffon mages to silence their disobedient casting tools, their magical emissions swiftly turned into a swirling whirlpool of energy that somehow both emitted a massively powerful mating aura, while also simultaneously sucking matter into itself selectively.

Acting like a gravitational singularity whose pull only affected clothing and weapons, they swiftly stripped the armored griffons of not just their armor but even their protective enchantments, leaving them naked and unarmed except for their beaks and talons. And also uncontrollably aroused as their cheeks flushed, wings stiffened and their beaks fell open to witness their own male and female attributes alike begin to enormously engorge.

The tiercels sat back and gave repeated invocations to their Ancestors to see their spears and sacs swelling to impressive size, reaching stature that might even satisfy a Saddle Arabian. Quartets of eagless mammaries likewise grew prodigiously large beneath female griffon bellies; the effect redoubled as they saw and scented the massive amount of male arousal around them, involuntarily raising their tails high to expose their already puffy and glistening erotic orifices.

The males held back from the implicit invitation, at least at first. But it quickly became almost impossible as whether eagless or tiercel, their wings rose from their sides and feathers splayed so hard that their full wingspans couldn’t help but touch each other. Stiffened pinions brushed or even outright locked with those of their comrades, eliciting a series of startled squawks and some stumbles as the sexually sensitive surfaces were stimulated.

Through it all, the spell continued to hopscotch from sconce to sconce, stave to stave and even statue to statue as it moved in both directions down the great Hall of Heroes, though the latter didn’t immediately move or alter. The murals on the walls and ceiling did, however, as they shifted from showing the great battlefield victories of griffon history to depicting them won not by force of arms, but by sensual submission, showing well-endowed griffon warriors sexually subjugating their enemies by mounting males or simply weaponizing their own mating auras just as Midnight had, making their foes so aroused and desperate to rut that they couldn’t fight back.

The griffon males were likewise so desperate to relieve their newly overwhelming urges that they began making out with or outright mounting their comrades, and didn’t even care much if they were male or female. Even their eagless commander was suddenly pounced and thrown to the stone floor by several of her subordinates who began to mercilessly molest her, with the younger tiercels especially quickly discovering the pleasing size and feel of her large and still-swelling belly breasts.

Though she mildly protested at first, she ultimately didn’t resist and was soon begging for more as multiple sets of foretalons ran over her feminine form, freely fondling her quivering flight muscles and four jiggling melon-sized mammaries capped with thick protruding teats.

Within a minute, no less than three phalluses were sunk to the hilt inside of her beak, sex and sphincter while still others sought entry, with additional males availing themselves of her breasts, pressing them into the sides of their thrusting organ. Within seconds more, they had emptied themselves all over and inside of her only to find that they were ready and eager for additional ruts, allowing other guards to take their place while they sought new partners of their own.

“By Celestia’s sun itself…” Eclipse whispered almost reverently to see the intimate incantation in action, watching raptly as the previously disciplined and duty-conscious guards slowly surrendered to their altered bodies and awakened desires, her own phallus beginning to grow to full size despite her magically bound form.

Midnight watched her with a smirk. “Oh, you like that, Queenie? Not a bad piece of magic, if I do say so myself. For the record, it’s called the ‘sexual singularity’. But in fairness, I can’t claim credit for it. I may have enhanced and tweaked it, but a Changeling Hive that lived in the Griffon Kingdom invented it in another reality. Only their Queen was powerful enough to cast it, and she only used it very sparingly given the massive amount of ‘mana’, as you call it, that was required. But as that’s not a problem for me, it was just too good a spell not to steal. And now the griffons will know it, too! It is but one of many gifts I now bestow on them.”

“And by Luna’s moon…” Eclipse watched slack-jawed to see the instant curse-like effects her counterpart had created, one that seemed to not only equal hers in terms of sexual skill, but worse, far dwarfing her own slower-spreading version as it swiftly propagated throughout the Hall, infusing all griffons it touched—even well-learned and shield-protected gryphon mages. “I must admit, Midnight Sparkle, that I truly was limited in the scope of my sexual ambitions! You have opened my eyes, and for that, I will thank you.”

“Ah, so you finally see the truth? Impressive, isn’t it? But wait! There’s more!” Midnight said grandly, forcing a slack-jawed Eclipse to watch as the solid onyx statues of griffon and other Kingdom heroes past—the griffons were insistent on honoring not just their own kind, but all those who had served them in peace or war, Eclipse dimly recalled, whether pony or any other race—then morphed with groans of creaking rock to stand up and take very provocative poses, showcasing their male and female attributes to their audience or even inviting them to avail themselves.

Their exquisitely chiseled sacs and spears swelled to impressive stature as the griffons around them watched agape. Even the statues of eaglesses were affected, with tails raising high over their backs to show off their puffy pussy lips—Eclipse never liked that human slang, but in the presence of her human counterpart, she somehow automatically assigned it the term—and inviting anal orifices as the quartet of breasts beneath their bellies took pleasingly round and plump shapes, while their talons reached down alternately to grope their mammaries or stroke their spears.

Or in a few cases, spread their visibly swollen lips wide to allow visitors to peer into their depths, further inviting them to avail themselves of their statues.

Midnight watched the conversion of the Hall of Heroes with great satisfaction. “Ah, at last! Behold, Princess Twilight Sparkle, the rebirth of the great and noble Griffon Kingdom as the all-powerful and supremely sensual Gryphon Imperium!”

“The… what?” Eclipse blinked. “I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

“You wouldn’t, because it didn’t exist here. Before you ask, I found it out in the infinite expanse of the multiverse—an alternative version of the Kingdom that had already accomplished what you set out to do: conquer the world not through force of arms, but sheer erotic ability, turning desire and sexual prowess into their race’s greatest weapons while simultaneously not letting their prodigious passions overwhelm them to the point that they could no longer function as a society,” she mused, watching the spell continue to spread throughout the great hall until its conversion was complete.

Eclipse then ripped open additional portals to the left and right of the main one showing the outside of the Hall as the spell then continued to propagate throughout all Arnau, jumping from crystal to stave to statue to convert each of them in turn until the entire Kingdom capital was suffused with the magical release, which steadily altered all its inhabitants within and even the statues outside, whether life-sized or the size of dragons.

“I then let it leak into this world so it would alter it to match, but even after my defeat, I ensured I could bring it back. Those onyx statues of heroes past the griffons so revere proved the perfect vessel for my magic, keeping a dormant spell stored almost indefinitely and even ensuring it remained hidden until I was ready to unleash it. You will find this altered Kingdom more than a match for your forces, and more to the point, able to fight and defeat all future threats. Though to be sure, it was far more for the latter than the former, since I foresaw that you wouldn’t have a big enough force to be threatening by the time I intervened.”

Eclipse gave her a glare, her initial awe giving way to anger again as she was talked down to. “Foresaw? How, you accursed and hideously overpowered excuse of an alien Alicorn?”

“Temper, temper, Twilight.” Midnight wagged a hoof at Eclipse just as Sunset had done earlier, causing her rage to swell further and her fur to start smoking. “And don’t bother taking your fire form, Queenie. It may double or even triple your power depending on how angry you get, but that’s still nothing compared to me. So it will only drain you quicker, and I would hate for you to be so tired that you can’t appreciate the unfolding of my grand design.”

With great effort, Eclipse swallowed the explosion of searing heat and anger-fueled magic that was trying to burst free from her. “We will see, Midnight Sparkle. Underestimate me at your peril. So just how, by Celestia’s impressive apples, did you know all this was going to happen?” she asked with a flicker of her eyes over to her former mentor’s statue.

“Ah, yes. I suppose this is another instance where it’s better just to show you than tell you. But this time, there’s no trick to it except needing a truly godlike aura to accomplish,” Midnight replied lazily, igniting her horn and then simply firing an energy beam at a random location in the air, feeding a massive amount of magic into a single infinitesimal point.

“Wait, what? What are you—” Eclipse began in some initial confusion at the seemingly purposeless magical feed, her slitted eyes first narrowing and then starting to widen in fear. “Wait! No! You can’t! You’ll destroy us all if you do that!” she claimed, starting to struggle.

“Oh, I don’t think so. You have nothing to fear,Twilight Sparkle, because I have no intention of hurting you or this wonderful magic-rich world. After all, this is the second time I’ve done it!” she announced as the area around the point began to warp the very air around it, bending the light behind it like a funhouse mirror.

And then abruptly, it turned black in the center and then expanded outwards into a beach-ball sized object, severely distorting what lay behind it into a ring of smeared light.

“And there you are! What do you think, ‘Queenie’? Midnight asked as she floated the impossible object closer for a gaping Eclipse to inspect, who could feel the very heat being leached off her as grasses and nearby branches bent at least weakly towards the object.

“It is exactly what you think—an actual black hole, made from a simple but massive concentration of magic. For just as you could theoretically make one out of enough light concentrated in a small enough area as long as enough equivalent mass fell within the Schwartzschild Radius, the same holds true for aura. For Einstein’s immortal if oversimplified equation E=mc2 holds for both realms, and magical energy translates to mass as well! So are you impressed? Amazed? And do you finally comprehend just how badly you’re out of your league with me?

“Impressed? Amazed? Maybe of your recklessness and callous disregard for the safety of everycreature on this planet! Are you out of your human-damned mind?” Eclipse stared in abject terror at the weapon of mass destruction that Midnight had created from pure concentrated magic, whose horrific world-rending gravitational pull was only held in check by her spellcasting. “That thing could kill us all!”

“Asked and answered,” Midnight replied easily as she started the orb spinning with a series of flicking motions with her hoof like she was spinning up a basketball on the end of her finger, causing the area of distortion around it to become more ovoid. “Just as my magic created it, I can restrain it simply by selectively manipulating the flow of time around it. This slows its pull on everything to a proverbial crawl, thus preventing it from ripping your world to shreds. But I’m not done yet…” she trailed off as she continued to spin it faster until finally it was moving at blinding speed, with the area of distortion flattening out horizontally until finally…”

Eclipse blinked as the object became see-through again, showing a chaotic scene inside. “And there we have it. This is how I foresaw this night, Princess Twilight. And in case you’re not up on our sciences, humans call this a naked singularity—a black hole stripped of its event horizons by either massive electrical charge or sheer speed of rotation. Such an object opens a usable Einstein-Rosen bridge—i.e., what we call a wormhole—which can be used to reach all points and times throughout not just our universe, but the entire multiverse!” she recounted in a tone of giddy glee.

“And though I haven’t tried passing through it yet, I can interface with it to see alternate universes and potential futures. That’s how I knew about the Gryphon Imperium. And that’s how I knew that this curse, which was but a pale imitation of my power, was coming six months ago.”

“Then you’re an even bigger foal than I thought! For I don’t have to create it to know that such an object can only show you any future except our own!” Eclipse spat out.

“Very good, Twilight. Maybe some of your CHS schooling took after all,” she mocked. “I’m sorry if you feel that’s too much of a gratuitous display of my magic, but I didn’t just make it to show off. I actually promised it as a reward to someone else for helping me during the CHS Friendship Games. And unless I miss my guess, she should show up any second now…”

As if on cue, there was a sudden flash of light that resolved itself into the form of the Highborne High Priestess.

“A shroudless void…” she whispered in pure reverence even as her clothes evaporated right off her, leaving nothing but her alabaster body and glowing gold eyes staring mesmerized at the exotic celestial object before her. “A potential gateway to all places, times and realities! It exists! By the stars and the eternal line of all thirty Juniper Neptunes, it exists!” she proclaimed in a tone of pure joy as she fell to her knees, tears of happiness streaming down her face.

Midnight smiled at the reaction. “Ah! There she is. It is good to see you again, Juniper Neptune the Thirtieth. As I recall, you had much the same reaction to seeing it previously. Do you now remember me and the events of Earth six months past? Or shall I jog your memory magically?” She held up a hoof charged with a spell.

“Events… yes…” the High Priestess said, squinting at Midnight for a few seconds before her eyes widened. “Yes!” she then said more forcefully before she gave a low bow with her wings flared wide, barely even noticing a disbelieving Eclipse. “You are… Midnight Sparkle. The ascended form of the human Twilight Sparkle. You appeared on Earth and first created this holy object there! And even then, I was drawn to it like a moth to flame, opening a portal from my own temple to reach it! But why didn’t I remember this?” She looked uncharacteristically befuddled for a moment.

“I’m afraid that I am in part responsible for that, High Priestess,” Midnight said apologetically. “I’m not sure how much you recall, but things didn't go quite as planned. Following my… setback, I was forced to wipe memories, including your own. But as I foresaw that defeat was at least a slight possibility, I prepared this contingency plan months ago before battling Daydream Shimmer, during my initial emergence at the Friendship Games of CHS,” she explained as the fair-furred thestralcorn stared mesmerized at Midnight’s cosmic creation.

“It was my assurance that even if I was momentarily vanquished, this ultimately destructive ‘curse’ could be overcome by the only society equipped to properly handle such an extreme level of desire. And could then fight and defeat the threat to follow.”

“Threat? What threat?” A flustered Eclipse demanded to know as she saw the High Priestess bow down before her counterpart and realized that she couldn’t count on her help. “A bigger threat to this world than you?” she then asked, to which Midnight gave her an annoyed look.

“I suggest you watch your tongue and your manners, corrupted Queen. Or at a minimum, I may yet mute you again,” she warned before turning back to Juniper Neptune.

“I promised you this ‘holy object’ as a reward for allying with and aiding me back on Earth, High Priestess. I am a goddess of my word, so I surrender it to you now. Use it as you see fit, with the understanding that I might occasionally wish to join you on your sojourns into the multiverse,” she said with a raised eyeridge. “As we have yet to attempt passage through it, I would very much like to be there for the inaugural journey.”

“Of course…” Juniper Neptune looked uncharacteristically giddy as her ever present erection surged to full attention, though Eclipse wasn’t sure if it was due to Midnight’s all-powerful mating aura or her simple excitement at getting hold of a celestial impossibility that could conceivably make all of her line’s longstanding dreams come true. “You honor me with such a godlike gift, Midnight Sparkle. I am in your debt. And I am yours to command forevermore!”

“Why thank you, High Priestess. I accept your oath, and knowing that loyalty is a hallmark of your line, I will otherwise leave you alone to manage your own affairs. There, you see, Twilight Sparkle?” Midnight then boasted as the High Priestess took the naked singularity into her aura and began to very slowly nudge it towards a portal that she opened to what Eclipse recognized as the inner sanctum of her temple. “That is how you win the loyalty of powerful beings instead of sexually compelling it.”

“By giving a potential foe a weapon of mass destruction?” she said weakly, to which the High Priestess shot her a glare.

“I swore no oath of loyalty to you, Princess Twilight Sparkle, nor would I in your current cursed-crazed state. Princess Luna ordered me to contain your threat, so I did, but with Midnight Sparkle here, that is no longer necessary. Though I grant she can be a bit… grandiose, she already proved to me in our previous encounter that she is ultimately a benign influence who only seeks knowledge and to protect sources of magic,” she said with another bow towards Midnight, who dipped her head.

“And if the cost of receiving this great gift is a few sexually liberated but ultimately stable societies, then so be it. But having heard your designs as I eavesdropped on the battle between you and Sunset Shimmer? I cannot say the same for you, so-called Queen. To me, the only weapon of mass destruction here… is the dystopian vision that you sought to impose,” she announced dismissively as she floated the exotic object through her own rift, which rippled hard with its passage.

“How dare you…” Despite her protest, Eclipse held her breath for a moment, fearful that the interdimensional passage alone would disrupt the protective enchantments restraining its gravity from ripping the world apart. But nothing happened, as the impossibly dense area of distortion simply floated placidly into place over a pedestal which then enveloped it in an additional magical field.

“There. From here on out, its protective wards will be sustained by the near-limitless cosmic power of my Batican Temple, which draws from the Twisting Nether itself. And there it will stay forevermore, in the care of the High Priestess of the Stars,” she promised as she stepped through the rift herself. “Be assured, Midnight Sparkle, that as it is the key to fulfilling all of my line’s grandest designs, I and all Juniper Neptunes to come will defend it with our very lives!”

“I would expect no less,” Midnight said in great satisfaction as she watched the thestralcorn mare pass through the portal. “Be well, High Priestess. And expect me to visit later, once my purpose here is fulfilled and I am satisfied that all is well.”

“I look forward to it, my glorious and generous goddess,” Juniper Neptune replied with another low bow. “I will tell my acolytes to expect you and to have my finest Highborne wines available. And as my services are no longer needed to maintain the quarantine around Ponyville, I will leave the final disposition of this curse and self-described Queen to you as I begin the long process of communing with this wonderful creation,” she said with a near-giddy note, only to catch herself as she thought of something else.

“I would ask, however, on behalf of Princess Celestia and Luna, that you not hurt or do anything permanent to your corrupted counterpart. For they would say that she is most certainly not herself right now.”

Eclipse gave her a glare as Midnight replied with a nod and a smirk. “For as much as I wish to punish her, I suppose not. Much like Lemon Zest before her, she knows not what she does and thus, I must show her. Very well. I give you my word, Juniper Neptune the Thirtieth,” Midnight said as the High Priestess nodded.

“Thank you. And if I may trouble you on one other minor matter… I now recall that I took several human acolytes on your world—their names were Indigo Zap, Sour Sweet and Sunny Flare, if I remember correctly. Perhaps you could send them to me later so I can train them properly? Be assured that my mastery of time magic means they will miss no school, given I can put six months worth of lessons into six hours.”

“Those three? Well, I suppose, even if I don’t really understand what you see in them. Still, as I admit I’m somewhat curious to know what they look like in Highborne thestralcorn form, I’ll deliver them to you later, High Priestess. Though you might need to jog their memory a bit,” she warned with a wry grin. “I’m sure that sucking on your cock will do the job.”

Her words earned a laugh. “As it should. That is one of the many pleasures of my position, and an homage to me that all my acolytes are expected to perform,” she replied in equal mirth as she sealed the portal behind her.

Once it disappeared with a final ripple of distortion that quickly cleared from the air, Midnight turned her attention back to a visibly seething Eclipse.

“Now where were we, my dear Queenie…? Ah yes. Abject humiliation!” she proclaimed as she turned them both back to face the griffon lands, opening a series of additional portals through which they could watch the conversion of the Kingdom’s entire capital city. “You and your ‘curse’ took all night to consume but a single town. But watch as my previously planted seed engulfs and evolves the entire expanse of Arnau and its half-million inhabitants in mere minutes!”

“But…” was all Eclipse could sputter as the truth of the statement was made plain. She could only watch helplessly as the wave of irresistible magic overtook the griffon and earth pony population of Arnau alike—the latter were called Caleponians, descended from earth ponies who emigrated to the Kingdom centuries earlier to aid them in agriculture, she recalled—causing arousal and anatomy enhancement of all and outright orgies to erupt in everything from crowded pubs to between parents and offspring in simple single-family abodes.

It proceeded very quickly apace as the populace, and soon the royal palace of Queen Molyneux herself, fell under the influence of Midnight’s swiftly spreading magic. It even overtook the Queen as Midnight opened a portal directly into her bedchambers, which she slept alone in at the center of a large room with an open balcony on a circular bed.

“Ah, the mighty Queen Molyneux, or ‘Moly’ as both the Principals and Princesses know her. She’s the headmistress of Kingdom Academy on Earth, and by all reports, you don’t ever want to mess with the human version of her. As a school head, our two Principals respect her. But as a head of a powerful nation? Even your Princesses see her as a peer. She is as intelligent and well-protected as anycreature in the Kingdom, as you would term it. But not even she is immune from my magic, which has been lying in wait.”

As they watched, the statues and murals of her royal chambers morphed into far more sexualized versions of her family, including unlikely and rather incestuous scenes of sexual encounters and conquests past.

Though she didn’t immediately awaken, the Queen stirred and licked her beak as a large growing bulge suddenly appeared beneath her thin blanket in the vicinity of her hindquarters, pushing steadily outwards.

“Vesuvius… take me, my mighty and magnificent Dragon Lord…” she murmured as she suddenly rolled over from her side onto her back. The bulge popped upward and continued to steadily rise, causing the blanket to slide off it with a slightly slick sound of moving silk, revealing a massive bulbed griffon phallus and equally impressive quartet of still-swelling mammaries.

She even sprouted a surprisingly ample set of male testicles just over her slit as her new organ began to steadily ooze onto them. As if sensing her new attributes, she reached down her belly to start groping her newly enormous breasts with one set of talons as she stroked her imparted organ like she was already well-acquainted with it with the other.

“There we are…” Midnight said in satisfaction. “A full and impressively endowed futa, as befits the Queen of all Gryphondom.”

“But that was my plan for her…” Eclipse protested, to which Midnight only grinned.

“Oh? Then I guess I beat you to it, Queenie, by about six months. And the fact that these gifts come from me means that she will not obey you, not that I would have expected her to anyway. But I do so hate to see her pining for her lost Dragon Lord. She really did seem to love him—once she was increased to adult dragon size and fought him to a standstill, anyway. I was considering just letting her guards have her again, but I respect her too much to let her be gangbanged for a second time by her subjects. So…”

Midnight opened a fresh portal into what appeared to be the Dragon Lands off to the side of her bed, judging by the glow of lava and the smell of sulfur that suddenly wafted through to reach Eclipse’s now-hypersensitive nose.

The odor caused the Queen to awaken. “What…?” She then looked down at her body to see what she had become. “I am… restored?”

“Indeed you are. Greetings, Queen Molyneux,” Midnight called out, causing the griffon monarch to turn her head in surprise. “It is good to see you again. I trust you remember me?”

“Midnight Sparkle…?” the Queen dimly recognized, then noticed a shocked Eclipse. “And Twilight Sparkle? But how has she been turned into a thestral? And why is she your captive?”

“Because she is cursed, and I am here to cleanse it.” Midnight grinned at her counterpart, who glared back. “My apologies for visiting your bedchambers unannounced, but I have returned to deal with my corrupted counterpart here. She has been infected by a magical sex virus and was planning the subjugation of your entire Kingdom in order to install herself as ruler of the world. But you already know by now that I have no such designs on you, Queen Molyneux. I wish only for you to realize your full sensual potential, which I am restoring to not just Arnau, but your entire Kingdom as we speak.”

“I see…” Molyneux said as she sat up on the bed, ignoring her arousal, then turned her withering gaze on an altered Eclipse. “Then is it true what we were told by Princess Luna, Twilight Sparkle? That you have turned evil? Even turned on and imprisoned your own mentor?” For a moment, her aura turned as dark and intimidating as that of Midnight herself. “Know that if you harmed Celestia, it is not her wrath you must fear.”

“My name is Queen Eclipse!” the former Twilight claimed, slightly shrilly. “And I had to! She couldn’t handle the power imparted to her and pledged to turn tyrant, ruling all Tellus as Empress! For all our sakes, you must not listen to this abominable human copy of me, Queen Molyneux! I am not your enemy! She is far more insane and evil than I could ever be! And worse, she wields the undeserved and unchecked power of a god!”

“I am indeed a god. But am I insane or evil, Queen Molyneux?” Midnight challenged. “As my unleashed magic is also restoring your memory, you recall my last visit, do you not? Did I not treat you and your race well?”

The Queen’s gold eagless eyes narrowed even as they went distant. Her restored male organ twitched and spurted in memory as she recalled everything that happened that day, but despite the obvious headiness of whatever she was recalling, the Queen kept her composure and faced Midnight evenly, speaking to her as an equal.

“Well is a very subjective term, Midnight Sparkle. I certainly recall that you rather forcibly imposed some rather particular changes on us, overwriting our reality with another far more… virile one you found somewhere out in the ether.” She motioned down her body even as she couldn’t resist giving herself a lingering caress.

“But as you can plainly see, it would also be a lie to say that we did not ultimately enjoy it, and even welcomed it in the end. Much to my surprise, this feels normal and natural to me, as did everything that happened that day. Even if I ended up at least briefly the tuck toy of my own Praetorian guards and ultimately had to… settle who would rule the Kingdom with the local Dragon Lord.” She shifted uncomfortably on her bed and licked her beak again.

“So you did,” Midnight agreed amicably. “And I say again that I had no part in that duel’s decision. You challenged him and fought for the supremacy of both races without any help from me, earning each other’s respect and loyalty along the way. And though I enhanced your existing anatomy, it may interest you to know that I did not give you your male equipment, Queen Molyneux. They are simply a reflection of you in that alternate reality that I allowed to leak into this one.”

“You… what?” Eclipse gave her a shocked look. “Allowing another multiversal reality entry to this one? But that could have a cascade effect across all realities! And you call me insane?”

“Silence, Twilight Sparkle!” The Queen spoke sharply, causing the door to open as her rutting sentries abruptly remembered their duty and rushed into see the commotion, their armor having evaporated off from all the sexual singularities, with their wings rigid and greatly engorged organs hanging stiffly before them.

“When you are in my presence, you will show proper respect! You call yourself a Queen, but you have categorically not earned that title in my eyes, nor those of the Kingdom! Or are we now the Imperium…?” she abruptly remembered as she held a halting if partially stiffened wing towards her guards, who were shocked to see the scene before them.

“Though that is the name of the Kingdom in the alternate reality I used to affect this one, that choice is entirely yours, Queen Molyneux. And that is the difference between me and the Princess here. I may occasionally visit, but I will leave you to your own affairs and charge you with protection of the entire world of Tellus.”

“I see. If you are altering us again, I assume you are also altering the Vesuvius dragon clan as well. Then where is he?” she suddenly asked in a deceptively mild tone, though for just a moment, Eclipse thought she detected a note of something close to schoolgirl excitement in the Queen’s sixty-year old voice. “Where is Dragon Lord Vesuvius?”

“Well reasoned and deduced, Queen Molyneux. But I would expect no less from a being as sharp and intelligent as you. As for the Dragon Lord himself, he is waiting for you,” Midnight nodded at the portal to the Dragon Lands. “I would not wish to keep the two of you apart, so by all means, go to him. Be assured that you are quite fireproof now, just as you were then. And can restore your adult dragon size at will in his presence. That is my greatest gift to you.” She bathed the griffon monarch in another spell.

“Then you truly do wish us well. And this ‘curse’?” Molyneux prompted, though she was clearly as eager to go to him as her sentries were to pounce on her, seeing her new and far more powerful futa form, which even Eclipse had to admit somehow suited her. “We were warned of its presence by an emergency message from Princess Luna relayed by Princess Cadance, who told us that Princess Twilight had gone mad and to be on guard against her. I had ordered my Magus and the Council of Crows to start devising counter-curses and ready our anti-Alicorn failsafes, just in case.”

“I see. I was unaware that she had contacted you, but I suppose I should have expected no less,” Midnight gave Eclipse a triumphant grin as she spoke.

“For as much as I might like to see those failsafes in action so my second self would be humbled yet again, you needn’t worry about her or anything else. My magic means that you are now immune to this curse, and easily the equal of any army or alicorn it creates. For you, noble Queen of the gryphons, were my contingency plan in case I couldn’t be here. You and your entire race, along with the dragons,” she explained shortly.

“Contingency?” Molyneux echoed, as her sentries fought with all their will to stand at her side without giving into the almost unbearable temptation to grope and even outright rut her.

“Yes. I saw you as most able to resist it even without my presence along with… any threats to come later. But as I am here, there is nothing to fear. So, enjoy yourself along with your subjects, and don’t worry. I already promised not to hurt the Princess here, even for as obnoxious and insufferable as I find her.”

“I’m obnoxious and insufferable?” Eclipse asked derisively. “Who do you take me for, ‘Sci-Twi’? Yourself? Or maybe Sunset Shimmer?”

Her words earned a sharp hiss and even some narrowed eyes from the Queen. “Do not call me that name or slander my cherished Sunset again, Twilight Sparkle,” Midnight warned her, a sudden flash of lightning and rumble of thunder behind her punctuating her words. “For even without her ascended forms, she is my beloved no less than the Dragon Lord is that of Queen Molyneux. Once she is a goddess again, we will rule the realms eternally as both masters and mistresses of all magic.”

“Then as long as that rule is benign, we will have no issues,” Queen Molyneux said amicably as she got out of bed and stretched languidly in front of her raptly attentive guards; her previously middle-aged muscles rippling and spine arching at the wave of pleasure that went up it at the sudden surge of additional blood into her supremely sensitive breasts and tiercel spear.

“By the Ancestors...” one of her male sentries muttered, his eyes roaming hungrily over her hybrid form.

“She is so powerful and virile...” one of the eaglesses agreed. “Such a worthy ruler of our race! It would be an honor to be bred by her.”

Their words earned a reproachful stare from Molyneux. “I belong to the Dragon Lord alone, my loyal guards. Only he or my long-passed father may rut me at will,” she informed them, turning to and bowing before the golden statue of her sire in a corner of the room, where his life-sized sculpture was depicted as standing upright and arching his back in mid-orgasm, his foretalons making squeezing motions against an imagined figure he held tight against the impressively large phallus that rose from his lap. “As for the rest of you, if you wish my sexual favor, then you must earn me through loyal service and unmatched combat ability. Is that clear?

“Yes, My Queen!” they all shouted as one, thumping their bare chests with their fists hard enough to cause eagless breasts to wobble and tiercel phalluses to twitch and spurt.

“Good.” She then turned her gaze on Eclipse. “And as for you, Princess Twilight, know that Sunset Shimmer redeemed herself in my eyes as well. I saw for myself how she had changed and even received her heartfelt apology for how she once was, so you would do well not to disparage her before me,” the Queen informed the former princess, causing her to fall silent.

“In any event, I thank you for coming here and explaining yourself, Midnight Sparkle. Though I would ask that next time, you present yourself to my court properly instead of simply barging in. Even for a self-described goddess, I would prefer that proper protocols be observed.” She raised an eyeridge at her, then glanced back at her quartet of guards, whose wings were rigid and tiercel cocks were equally erect, drooling a steady stream of clear fluid onto the floor.

“Of course, Queen Molyneux. I suppose that tradition and bureaucracy are ultimately forces that not even a goddess can overcome,” Midnight said with a twinkle as she bowed low.

“This was simply a social call. Be assured that both I and Sunset Shimmer will visit later, once my work here is done. As for your Kingdom, my magic will soon spread throughout all Aresia, and your society will settle nicely into its new and far more sensual existence over the next week or so… though I suppose you might be slightly fatigued and hungrier than usual by the end. I will ask Equestria to ship you additional food in the meantime, as I likewise mold them properly.” She gave a fuming Eclipse another grin and wink.

“As for this ‘curse’, I will cure it and replace it with something far more… sensible and societally stable, and purge my other self of her evil ambitions. But for now, I will take my leave, Queen Molyneux. I know you miss Dragon Lord Vesuvius, so be assured that he now remembers and misses you. I have let him know you are coming, and as you can readily see, he has already dispatched some of his adolescents to receive you.”

She nodded through the portal, which showed a group of male dragons lining up on either side of the rift, their dual cocks deployed and erect while their newly regained phallic shoulder tendrils were already waving about as if in offering.

Queen Molyneux glanced at them and grinned. “I see. Then far be it from me to keep an honored ally waiting! So to my side, my loyal Praetorian Guard! If I am to visit a foreign ruler, it must be with an entourage,” she ordered her slightly dazed and quite-naked sentries to fall in behind her.

“By your command, my beautiful and sensual Queen…” the head of the sentries said, staring fixedly beneath her upraised tail. “But may we spend some time with the drakes and drakinas while you are communing with the Dragon Lord…?”

The rest of the exchange was lost as Midnight sealed the rift behind them. “Ah, I truly do like Queen Molyneux. She is what a ruler should be. You could take a few notes on leadership from her, my lesser self,” she said, giving Eclipse another verbal slap.

“Well, you’re right about one thing, you obscenely overpowered idiot. I do look up to her as a model ruler. But what you don’t realize is that after witnessing your power, she’s going to make contingency plans… for dealing with you!”

“I would expect no less from her, or the griffons,” Eclipse said with a shrug. “That is why I chose them as my champions, and I would do the same in her place. But it doesn’t matter. What is important is the Kingdom is safe. For they are the key to securing the survival of both worlds.”

“Spare me. What I understand is that you are completely mad with power, and thus automatically a threat to everycreature!” Eclipse accused.

“Perhaps a threat to you, Twilight Sparkle. But be assured that I am no tyrant, but merely a seeker of knowledge. I do not conquer or corrupt for its own sake, unlike you.”

“You cannot be serious…” Eclipse stared at her in disbelief. “From what Sunset Shimmer said, you corrupted all of CHS, half of Crystal Prep, the entire capital city of the Griffon Kingdom and two large dragon clans just to see what would happen!”

“Yes, but it was all for the sake of science. A great experiment, and one I daresay all involved considered a rousing success! But what role did you play in the spread of this curse, Queen Eclipse?” She then teased as she floated over with her to examine the felled forms of Eclipse’s army, bathing them briefly in her aura.

“Very little, from what I gather. I see from their memories that you in fact fucked very few of them, so you can claim next to no direct conversions. Instead, you had others do your dirty work for you.” She mocked her in full view of another rift, through which they could see the Saddle Arabian lands.

“Do not use that ugly human word in my presence!” Eclipse ordered, sparing a brief glance through the fresh portal as the armored equine guards in front of a sultan’s tent were stunned to recognize what appeared to be two versions of Princess Twilight Sparkle. But they barely had time to consider it as their armor likewise evaporated right off them and their organs started to rapidly engorge, shortly reaching over three feet up their belly to poke out between their front legs. “Or denigrate my beloved subjects who swore allegiance to me of their own accord! What I earned was their loyalty! Unlike you, who has to compel it!”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Queenie. I didn’t realize that you were as prissy as Rarity is about cursewords,” Midnight gave a low and mocking bow, grinning toothfully with a nod over at Nightmarity’s crumpled and only barely-starting-to-stir form. She then levitated up a few individuals of the various curse corruptions, examining them in midair before laying them back down.

“Just one more indulgence I’m finally allowed to enjoy when free of my more inhibited half. Still, I will admit that for all its annoying and occasionally outright infuriating randomness, this curse has had a few desirable effects…” she said as her gaze fell on Spike’s crumpled form.

She then picked him up in her aura and drew him close, her expression softening as she recognized his internal injuries from having fire dragged from his throat. She then quickly healed them with her aura, causing him to stir and murmur something unintelligible.

“Amazing… it not only matured him into an adolescent, giving him wings years before he should have had his first molt, but his form is also so much more resilient and fertile than before…” she muttered, and then on a whim, she spread his genital slit and used her aura to induce an erection, watching in delight as his dual drakehoods emerged and started to steadily swell before her eager eyes, surging forth to stand more than fifteen inches tall.

“Hey!” Eclipse shouted.

“Not bad at all,” a mesmerized Midnight said as she magically stroked the two rigid organs, already inducing a small trickle of fluid out of the tips of both tapered tips. “I look forward to having both of these in me. Perhaps I’ll even do so right here in front of you. For I can think of no greater a punishment than taking your scribe from you and addicting him to me!”

“Damn you, unhoof him!” Eclipse ordered imperiously as her horn sparked impotently again, but Midnight just smirked. “He is my son! So don’t you dare touch him!”

“Son? Well, I will grant he sees you as a mother much as my own Spike does, even though you treat him like a slave,” Midnight said with a sneer even as she continued to stimulate him.

“Slave!?” the former Twilight sputtered, but Midnight made a show of ignoring her, continuing to examine him.

“Such strength and virility, even more so than the adolescent dragons we saw previously. And an altered instinct to gather a hoard of mates and lovers rather than gold and gems? To create a clan of his own? A surprisingly noble side effect of this alchemic accident, but I suppose that like any mutation, even pure randomness will occasionally create beneficial effects. Yes, I believe I will leave this part of the curse unaltered. The rest, however, will need extensive reprogramming.”

“You… will… not… touch them!” Eclipse warned. “I love them as they are, and they love me! And be assured that they will fight you with ferocity once they awaken with all their newly enhanced strength and skill!”

“I’m quaking in my boots, Queenie. You may not be my equal, but your Spike is certainly superior to mine at this point—at least, for now. For as wonderfully loyal as they are, I would gladly take both yours and his as my familiars. But as for the rest of your so-called subjects, they are interesting hybrid specimens, but ultimately inferior to my own,” Midnight decided.

“Inferior…?” Eclipse’s rage was only growing at the disrespect shown to not just her, but her entire army. “I’ll show you inferior!” she proclaimed as her tail brushed a nearby branch and a sudden magical feed erupted from her core, fed down her spine and through her tail right into the wood. It then hopscotched from root to root and plant to plant into the fallen cyberponies, whose systems suddenly reactivated as they opened their eyes and stood up, their circuitry glowing bright with infused magic as text and runic forms flashed across their eyes.

And then they spoke as one. “Subject: Midnight Sparkle. Threat level: Omega. Primary danger: Interdimensional damage. Secondary danger: destructive and potentially irreversible reality alterations. Mandate: Contain and drain at all costs. Enacting Eclipse Anti-Goddess Protocol Midnight Curtain,” they announced as one, deploying various weapons from their backs that then targeted Midnight, who looked around in surprise as she was contained in a projected shield backed by all eighty cyberponies, followed by them training their various energy and projectile weapons on her.

Midnight looked uncharacteristically befuddled for a moment. “What? But your horn is hexed! You can’t cast! So how did you—"

“Ah, so you don’t know everything about us! But I would expect no less from such an ignorant and magically uneducated version of me!” Eclipse jeered, causing Midnight to growl as she attempted to override the cyberpony programming only to find her initial probes and attempts to break the shield around her repulsed. “I’ve listened to you insult my power and intellect for long enough! So now it’s my turn, you smug and sanctimonious human girl with a fractured psyche!” she spat out, to which Midnight only laughed.

“Sticks and stones, Twilight. So watch as I... what? I can’t—" she was surprised when her initial spells were improbably repulsed.

“Not able to invade their systems or break their shield? Not surprising, given they can pool their power and think at the speed of light, meaning that anything you can do, they can instantly sense and counter with their massed logic and magic! And since they were created from my human smartphone where I stored all the various magically encrypted contingency plans I had, they found yours! So they know exactly how to deal with you!”

“Ah, then you made a contingency plan for me? I’m flattered, Twilight Sparkle,” Midnight responded lazily as she simply stood her ground, keeping Eclipse close by while holding her further off the forest floor. “But also insulted that you think there’s anything you—or they—can do to contain me. Fortunately for you, I don’t want to damage such magnificent technomagical creations. Otherwise, I would simply obliterate their internal circuitry with a massive EMP burst here and now.”

“Electromagnetic pulse attack threatened. Reinforce Faraday Cage counter-curse.” the cyberponies chorused, adding an additional layer of protection to their shields.

“You were saying…?” Eclipse said with a sneer as Midnight’s expression dropped. “And for the record, that wasn’t me. They analyzed their own weaknesses and invented that defense on their own. So what will you do now, oh mighty goddess?” she mocked as the cyberponies continued to charge their weapons, forming a ring around her with everycreature spaced perfectly apart.

“Oh, please. You dare try to defeat me with human technology, which I know far more about than you?” Midnight’s horn glowed as she raised a gloved hoof towards them. “Their defenses are formidable, but as I don’t want to hurt them and their systems are based on your smartphone’s Appdroid Operating System, I can just deactivate them using the backdoors Lemon Zest showed me. Or better yet, turn them on you with but a single—”

Her words were cut off as her latest spell abruptly rebounded back on her, disrupting her aura for a moment as the cyberponies opened fire with bullets doped with magical disruption wards and spell-enhanced human energy weapons.

“What? Ow!” Midnight shouted as she was pummeled by a succession of physical and mystical attacks that kept shifting rapidly as the cyberponies coordinated their containment strategy under Eclipse’s direct command, each shot dispelling just a little bit more of her magic as Eclipse escaped her counterpart’s grasp and dropped to the ground, teleporting herself outside of the field. “How are they—? But this isn’t—"

“Isn’t what? What you foresaw? So maybe you’re not as prescient or powerful as you claimed!” Eclipse grinned maniacally as she watched the well-orchestrated attack unfold. “It doesn’t matter how. And thus did the mighty Midnight Sparkle succumb to a proverbial death by a thousand cuts. Drained and felled by the ultimate combination of human technology and alicorn magic, using a containment and dispersion strategy ultimately devised by me!” Eclipse informed her as she picked herself up off the forest floor and re-clothed herself with a flare of her horn, then sat back to watch the show.

“Just one more example of how simple strength isn’t everything, you reckless and ridiculous excuse for a goddess! I would ask how any version of me could be so smug and stupid, but I suppose the old canard of how absolute power corrupts absolutely holds true...”