Lockheart

“Any luck?” asked Celestia, entering Luna's room. She was dressed in her evening gown, a soft, pale pink dress that reached down to her ankles and was comfortably fastened at her waist. On her feet were a pair of slippers that looked like evening clouds turned pink by the light of the setting sun. Her mane had a calmer flow to it as it rested against her back, appearing a step ahead of the rest of the princess’s body in turning in for the night.

Watching her sister, Celestia observed her sitting cross-legged on a plush cushion with a crescent moon hand stitched upon it. She was dressed in a comfortable pair of stretchy, black pants with a matching brazier. She had her hair in a ponytail that was draped around over her right shoulder and held in the palms of her hands as she idly fiddled with it. Her breathing was calm and slow and her eyes closed while her horn glowed a deep midnight blue, at least, till Celestia spoke and broke her concentration and caused her magic to fade.

“Not yet,” she shook her head. “I still have yet to find Spike’s dream door or any clues as to where he might currently be.”

“Twilight’s reports on Spike did say he was most likely to be asleep by now,” recalled Celestia. “It’s still too early for Twilight to retire for the night too, so the odds of him being up to sneak a late night snack aren’t likely either.”

“If he was still living happily in Twilight’s care in all likelihood he would be,” Luna pointed out. “As we discussed, Spike is hardly in a situation where he’ll be able to relax and rest easily. With all the stress he’s likely experiencing right now, there’s no telling when he’ll finally drop his guard and allow himself to fall asleep. I, of all ponies, should know this better than anyone.”

“Strange, I’ve never pictured you as the type to stress out so much that you cannot sleep,” commented Celestia.

“No, not me,” she clarified. “But you’d be surprised how erratic the sleep patterns of mares and stallions alike get during tax season.”

“With all the holidays we celebrate, how else are we supposed to budget for them all if they don’t help pay for them?” Celestia argued. “Fun isn’t free. Uh, anyway, keep on looking. No matter how stressed and cautious that dragon might be about his current situation, he, like all creatures, cannot avoid falling asleep forever. In time, he will tire and you will find him. Surely, a task like this won’t require the Princess of Dreams more than a single night to accomplish.”

“I know the realm of dreams as well as I do the back of my hand,” Luna assured Celestia, leering at her as her abilities were challenged. “The second he puts his head to a pillow and the door to his dreams appears, I’ll pry his location from those scaly lips of his by any means necessary.”

“Very good then,” Celestia answered simply and turned to leave her younger sister’s room. “Then once more, I’ll leave you to your vigilance.”

“Before you go,” interrupted Luna, making Celestia turn back to her.

“Yes?” asked Celestia. “Was there something else?”

“I was just wondering what you were going to be up to while I did this,” Luna elaborated.

“What I always do once I have lowered the Sun, sleep, of course,” Celestia answered like it should have been totally obvious without the need for an explanation. “I’m the Princess of the Sun after all. It won’t rise without me and how can I rise if I don’t go to bed for my eight hours of beauty rest?”

“Fair point,” Luna agreed. “I’m just a little surprised you can sleep with all the stress that you must be feeling, what with the attack on the Changeling hive but a week away on top of Spike on the run and armed with the knowledge about your gem mines. Oh, and we cannot forget about the current state of the Crystal Empire either. Being the pony standing at the top of all of Equestria, I am impressed that you can so easily sleep with all that weighing down on you at once.”

“Of course it is,” confessed Celestia, remaining stoic as she said all this. “But I do not let such things get the better of me. I simply do all I can and take it all one step at a time. Knowing I did that, I can sleep soundly knowing I did my very best and that worrying will only cloud my judgement when I require it clear as a recently cloud-busted sky.”

“As inspiring as ever, sister,” stated Luna, not sounding as impressed as her words would have indicated. “Well, if stress won’t keep you awake, don’t let me be to blame for any bags you might get under your eyes. I’ll even make sure you have wonderful dreams once you turn in.”

“No need to bother,” Celestia retorted. “My sleep is always filled with wonderful dreams. Just remain focused on your task at hand.”

“If you say so, sister,” replied Luna as she returned to her crossed legged sitting position and closed her eyes to concentrate. “Take care.”

“You too, sister,” replied Celestia as she took her leave, closing the door behind her. Then, no sooner had she done that, she began to walk away, not towards her own sleeping quarters but towards the barracks where many of Canterlot’s finest were slipping on armor and sharpening blades despite the late hours. As Celestia power walked her way over, her horn glowed, causing a ring of light to start at her feet and rise up, stripping her of her nightgown on the way up and then replacing it with her full body plate mail armor, all while she didn’t so much as slow her pace.

Along the way, she passed by a couple of guards who were standing watch at the hall. They had witnessed this seamless exchange of wears, noticing in particular the brief moment when she was stripped of her nightgown and completely naked. Celestia didn’t even seem to notice she had an audience as she had done her wardrobe. She just kept on walking with a constant and quick gait, her eyes locked on looking straight ahead of her.

The two guards didn’t say anything or even bat an eye at such a sight, but they did blush a bit and their calm, attentive looks did gain a slight smirk from their curling lips. “And they say guarding the castle’s halls is boring and thankless work,” one of them said once he felt Celestia was far enough away not to hear him speak. “Well, it is, but a moment like this makes it all worth it.”

“Not really,” the other replied with a sigh. “Not for three seconds in one of many eight hour shifts of standing around with nothing to do but count the ceiling tiles over and over again.”

“Guess so,” he sighed before letting out a chuckle. “Heh. Can you imagine if there was a world where everyone just walked around totally naked all the time because they didn’t wear clothes?”

“Getting to see the princesses butt naked at all times would be sweet, but would we even care as much if that was the norm?”

“Maybe not as much, but still definitely quite a lot,” he stated, thinking very lewd thoughts from their little chat.

Making her way into the barracks, Celestia saw that preparations were coming along as nicely as she could have hoped. Nearly all the soldiers were suited up, with only a few left working to get their arm and leg guards strapped on or to take their turn at sharpening their blades at the sharpening wheel. After briefly looking everything over, she headed for the private quarters of the commanding officer.

Without even knocking, she opened the door to find a red furred Mare with a short cut, black mane and tail finishing up some last minute paperwork and reports at her desk. Her eyes were hazel and engraved on the crest of her armor was her Cutie Mark of a sword and an olive branch in a cross shape. Seeing Celestia walk in, she barely turned her gaze up before returning to her work at hand.

“It appears like all our preparations are complete for the attack,” noted Celestia. “Wonderful work, Commander Blitzkrieg. Our crusade against the Changelings will be a swift and complete victory the way I see it.”

“If it wasn’t, I’d have to change my name,” she retorted as she continued to focus on the paperwork in front of her. Despite the heavy, clunky armor she had on, she didn’t have any trouble at all writing with a quill on paper or at reaching for a goblet filled with a murky, green liquid inside that had a horribly bitter scent to it, but she took several gulps of the drink without even reflexively scrunching her face. The sight of her doing this, however, was even enough to make Celestia’s normally iron fortitude crack with a grimace.

“It’ll probably take me longer to finish writing all this than it would to complete our assault,” Blitzkrieg continued to say. “Especially considering just what our attack plan entails. Honestly, I’ve known you long enough to realize just what kind of a pony you really are, but even then, I’m surprised that you would even consider doing something like this, be they enemies or not. You’re a lot darker than your sister is and I’m counting her time as Nightmare Moon.”

“I just do what I must for the betterment of all my subjects in Equestria and myself, of course,” stated the Princess of the Sun. “And it shouldn’t come as a surprise that sometimes doing what is for the best requires rather… unsavory methods. In those cases, it is far better that the populace remains unaware so they can live as carefree as ever. As their princess, I’ll gladly dirty my hands to keep theirs clean. All I desire is that as they continue to look on at me, that they continue to admire me as the bright sun casting light down upon their world.”

“I suppose ignorance is bliss,” Blitz chuckled. “Though I hope they don’t stare too long or they might end up blind… like that one student of yours.”

“Yes, well, and what of you?” Celestia questioned Blitzkrieg. “You know of my goals and intentions yet you choose to follow my orders just as loyally as young Twilight does.”

“When your ruler is an unbeatable demon,” she answered, not choosing to word her response with any delicacy despite who she was talking to. “Is it not better to be their right hand man than the fool who dares challenge them? Of course, I am merely speaking metaphorically.”

“Of course,” nodded Celestia. “So, are you all done with the paperwork? If so, I would like for us to begin our departure for the Badlands.”

“All done,” she nodded, picking up the sheets of papers to straighten them up into a neat pile before placing them back down on her desk and then started to recite the general information on it from memory. “I wrote it all down just as you wanted me to. Tonight we head out on a diplomatic mission of peace, giving the Changelings a chance to release the Crystal Empire and its citizens in exchange for no harm to befall them for their actions. We generously provide them till the end of the week to surrender, however, they spit on our offer and retaliate, declaring they will do the same to Canterlot next. With no other choice we are forced to defend ourselves and fight. They come at us like ravenous beasts, leaving us with no choice but to wipe them all out before they can, to us.”

“And once the fighting ends, we are the ones still standing, with Queen Chrysalis and her drones crushed,” finished Celestia. “And the world will see it merely as us swatting some bugs that had this coming for far too long.”

“And since they are such undesirables, nobody would pry too deep into the matter or, even, at all,” added Blitzkrieg. “To try and determine if not everything we tell the world is the absolute truth about our ‘negotiations’ tonight.”

“Which is why I know I can trust you to keep silent about what will happen at daybreak,” Celestia stated, running her fingers over her ponytailed mane. “And to ensure none of your soldiers will divulge such sensitive information either.”

“I’ve never let you down before,” Blitz reminded her.

“And see to it you never do,” smiled Celestia as she then rubbed at the side of Blitz’s cheek, making her blush a little. “You are my precious, little answer. I’d hate for you to become my problem.”

“N-Never, my princess,” she stuttered with butterflies in her stomach as she gazed at Celestia lovingly. Seeing this, Celestia then offered her hand to Blitz and watched her take it in hand to plant a soft kiss upon it. “It is the purpose of my life to serve you, after all.”

“Good,” stated Celestia, turning to leave her office. “Take a minute to recompose yourself and then we shall be off.”

“R-Right,” she nodded before taking a few calming breaths. “It won’t take me more than a minute.”

The night was still young as the matured drake continued to dance about for all the griffins and other creatures clustered in front of his stage. Huffing and puffing, the drake was panting for it. His body felt aflame from moving about for so long with barely a moment to rest. Sweat seeped from his scales as he pushed himself to the limit to entertain his adoring public that was cheering and chanting his stage name over and over.

“Dragdonis! Dragdonis! Dragdonis!”

As happy as he was to hear so many admirers calling out to him, the effort to acquire such fame was not worth it to him. Spike had never worked so hard before in his life, at least not in such a manner while he was under Twilight’s care. In his exhaustion, Spike couldn’t help but reminisce about the simpler times when he merely saw himself as the Alicorn’s number one assistant and longed for those simpler times. It all seemed far less stressful than forcing himself to dance about in any kinky manner he could come up with. Currently, he found himself doing squats and shaking his thick dragon ass and thighs for the crowd to gawk at and get mesmerized by how they bounced and wobbled about while shiny from the light reflecting off those sweaty, purple and pale green scales.

While he continuously busted a move, Spike remained cautious about how his tail swayed about, keeping it raised up and away from where the audience stood. He didn’t do this so much to avoid smacking anyone in the head with it. It was mostly to avoid allowing it to be grabbed so his many admirers could pull him down into the crowd and leave him at the mercy of everyone horny beast to ravage all his sexiness and satisfy their cravings. Earlier on, he had nearly allowed that to happen, but he was able to win the tug of war with them at the time due to still retaining the bulk of his stamina.

Now that he wasn’t feeling so fresh and had begun to reek of perspiration from every nook and cranny on his figure, the dragon kept a wary eye on his audience and their raised arms. With so much fatigue setting in as he panted heavily, he was far from confident that he could win another struggle like that. His slowed movements and heavy breathing informed his fans of just that much and kept them attentive and waiting for the next chance they’d have at him.

There was an occasional clattering of metal coins as the patrons tossed handfuls of bits onto the stage. With how long Spike had been dancing, the coins were really piling all around him. With a few gemstones tossed in too, it was like Spike was surrounded by his treasure horde. However, for the dragon, he found little joy in how much he was earning, not when it all had to go to the greedy, blue griffin who was watching every moment of the show just off stage.

“Is this enough yet?” asked a wiped out Spike, turning his head to meet Gallus’s gaze.

“Still not enough. Keep going,” he signaled back, twirling a finger to silently communicate with him. Letting out a heavy sigh, Spike turned back to his adoring public, gripped his crotch with one set of his claws and placed the other on the floor along with his tail for added balance as he kicked his legs out real quick before returning to a crouching stand. He did this several times, attempting this move to see how well it impressed the crowd. As more pieces of shiny metal rained down around him, he saw it as another successful move to add to the repertoire of his dancing career (one he really hoped would end soon, along with this night).

“What a haul,” thought Gallus, picking up some of the coins that had ended up near his end of the stage. He counted them and then dropped them into a sack that was already full of a great sum of Spike’s earnings. “If that dragon was a pony he’d be earning his Cutie Mark right now.”

“As a sexy dancer?” asked the griffin manager coming over with an even bigger sack of money in his feathery hands.

“As someone making me a fortune,” he explained with a laugh. “It’d be something like a big gold coin with my face on it.” Gallus blushed and smiled at such an image permanently imprinted on Spike’s glutes. “Oh, now there is an ass I could stare at all day long.”

“Owning this place, I’m hardly one to say something about the weird things others enjoy doing,” he admitted with a chuckle. “Anyway, Dragdonis here is every bit the crowd pleaser you promised. We’ve at least breached the maximum capacity limit of the hall twice over now to fit everyone in. To be honest, it’s almost a miracle we’ve gotten away with it.”

“Well, the fire marshall is here too,” commented Gallus as he peeked out again to where he last saw her.

“Come on now!” she called out, one of many screaming voices in the crowd. “Slap that shiny, scaly ass of yours!”

“Yeah, but this place hasn’t been so overly packed in ages,” the manager went on. “Not since those three sirens were in town to put on a show. Of course that was to use their magic on us to make us fight so they could feed off the conflict. Heh, too bad they didn’t know we are all pretty much like that anyway and they didn’t even need to do anything. They still made themselves a pretty penny and myself as well.”

“Speaking of making money,” stated Gallus, eyeing the sack of money in the other griffin’s hands. “Is that my cut of tonight’s profits?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, handing it over. When Gallus gripped it and the other griffin let go, the weight nearly made him drop it, but he drew more strength into his arm to prevent that. “Ten thousand bits. Quite the haul for bringing in this many patrons in just one night. I guess that means you just need another 20K from the crowd and he’s all paid up for whatever he owes you for.”

“Well, this is the money I get for bringing you in that crowd,” explained Gallus. “So, I don’t see why it should count towards the whole thirty thousand.” Looking back out on stage, he saw more bits raining down as Spike gripped the pole on the stage and hung on it upside down with his legs split as far as he could make them go. “Besides, I’d say he’s making more than enough in tips to cover his costs.”

“You’re one damn greedy birdie, ya know,” the manager commented as he made his way back to his office. “Even the most miserly creatures would seem charitable by contrast.”

“Gee, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” said Gallus as he patted the heavy sack of money and sniffed the greasy metal scent of oodles of cash like it was a bouquet of roses.

“Is that enough yet?” wheezed Spike, wiping the sweat from his forehead. The lights overhead had been on him for over two hours now and even his flameproof self was feeling the heat from it. Looking at all his admirers, they didn’t seem nearly as weary after so much time had passed. They didn’t seem broke yet either by the coins in their hands that were shining in the light. Just seeing their fistfuls of bits was enough encouragement to Spike to keep it up. He had no choice if he was going to get the Element of Discord for Tamati.

“Maybe,” he guessed, nearly losing his grip on the pole he was hanging from and ended up sliding downward. In the nick of time, Spike clenched his fists harder on the pole, stopping himself from hitting the floor with his head and accidentally leaving an imprint of his claws behind.

The end of Dragdonis’s tail did, however, hit the stage with a heavy slap, drawing everyone’s attention to it. From there, their eyes followed it all the way up to the drake’s exposed rear with the spaghetti strand wedged between his cheeks. The sight of this sent more bits flying his way, many clanging against other coins that had been thrown prior.

“I might have enough,” panted Spike, thinking as cautiously let go of the pole while avoiding hitting his head. “But I can hardly stop to count them during my show and I sure as Tartarus don’t want to have to do another show if I’m short.”

Carefully getting himself upright, Spike was once more on his feet, but his legs shook and buckled, dropping him to his claws and knees. Falling down also caused all the air in his body to try and escape from his maw. Spike was too tired to try and hold back an accidental burst of fire down on his adoring fans. His muscles tensed in fright, however, instead of what should have been a breath of flames and embers that would have set the audience into a fiery panic instead came out as a light smoke that spewed out over the stage. Rather than screams and shrieks, the audience cried out in further excitement, everyone mistaking it as an intentional stunt by their beloved, sexy, dragon dancer.

“That was close,” panted Spike, glad that he didn’t cause a fire in the middle of such a packed room. “But, damn, I’m so exhausted that I can’t even stoke my furnace. I really can’t keep this up much longer.” Taking a few more deep breaths, Spike tried to stand again. His legs were still shaky, but he was able to maintain his balance better this time. As for performing any more, that was another matter entirely.

“It’s times like these I really wish I had been able to train some more with Bulk,” thought Spike looking down at his fattened frame. “I wasn’t very diligent in exercising alone, when Twilight had me under house arrest.”

“Dragdonis! Dragdonis!” chanted the crowd, waiting for him to show off more of his sexy body. “Dragdonis! Dragdonis!”

“And it looks like this crowd still hasn’t had enough of me yet,” grumbled Spike. “Why must I be so damn attractive?” Mustering what little strength his body still had, Spike opened up his wingspan. “Guess I’ve got no choice. I’ll fly overhead around the room once and let them get a gander at my sexy, flying body like that. Heheh. If that’s not a satisfying finale, then I don’t know what would be.”

Seeing his arms out, the crowd’s screams of excitement grew louder. They cheered his stage name some more, eager to see him soar. Taking a few more breaths to prepare himself, Spike took several big steps forward and leapt up in an attempt to glide around the room. That was his aim, but he overestimated himself with what he was able to do in his fatigued state. Dragdonis soared as gracefully as a rock, plummeting off the stage and onto his audience.

Closing his eyes, Spike readied himself to crush a number of his admirers under his thick girth, a fate that was debatable worth dying over, however, despite falling, Spike once more was spared a collision with the ground. All the people in the audience around him managed to catch the large dragon and hold him up over their heads like he was a rockstar who had just done a stage dive.

“Well, that could have ended badly!” Spike said to himself calmly before he was suddenly pulled down into the audience and could feel countless hands reaching and grabbing all over his body to grope and rub wherever they could reach. In his weary state, Spike lacked the strength to resist them touching, prodding, groping, and fondling every scaly inch of him. Spike also found that he even lacked room to move his body at all. The only thing the immobile drake could do, at this point, was go along for the ride.

The helpless draconic dancer could feel his arms and legs tugged to keep them all fully extended. His hands and feet were then played around with, as some of the lewder audience proceeded to lick at them or suckle his digits. It was truly a weird sensation for Spike, however, all that was very minor compared to what was happening with the rest of his body.

Some of those with an even lewder nature approached his body lustful desire before moving in to get their money’s worth for the show.

Right away, Spike’s tail was lifted up out of the way and hugged by a number of his rear-loving admirers who couldn’t quite reach his cheeks. He couldn’t look back to see those playing around with that appendage, but he could clearly see the ones admiring and rubbing up against his chest that was still well toned despite all the weight he had put on. Some also gave him a few belly rubs and gave his scaly hide some gropes wherever he was pudgy enough to grab at.

Hardly a surprise was all the attention that his ass and crotch got during all this as those spots were the first to be grabbed at. The speedo he had been wearing just moments ago had gotten tugged off his body with ease, though with all the commotion going on and how it did nothing to clothe him in the first place Spike was completely unaware of its absence.

More than a few digits and faces managed to work their way right up to Spike’s ass, cock, and balls. He could feel tons of eagerly firm gropes to his ass and even a few gentle fingers running down the base of his tail to the hole between his cheeks. None of them managed to venture further than that as Spike reflexively clenched it shut. Even with their access denied, the hands still hovered close by like onlookers peeking through the window of an exclusive club and pondering how they could earn VIP passes to get inside.

On the purple dragon’s front end, it was receiving just as much attention as his backside. Unlike his tailhole, Spike was not able to do anything to keep his member from poking out and allowing his fans to play around with it. Just from wearing such a tight, slim speedo and entertaining everyone with all the kinkiest dance moves he could come up with, left Spike hard and all the fondling of his body was only serving to keep him stuck at full mast to allow everyone around to get their first sighting at the mighty obelisk a mature dragon possessed. Hands grasped at chunks of his impressive length while palms cupped his equally girthy nuts. Murmurs of those around him commented on both his tools, saying things like, “I knew dragons were big, but a length like that could split me in two,” “damn these things are big as apples,” and “where have you been all my life.” As exhausted as Spike was, even he couldn’t help chuckle at such comments and feel his ego inflate a bit from the praise.

After a while, in his pool of his admirers, Spike grew used to all the attention his body was receiving. “I wonder if this is just a typical day for Tamati and his harem?” he pondered with a small smirk. “His harem is massive compared to mine. I can only imagine the limitless endurance he must have to satisfy them all day after day.” Spike noticed the seemingly crazed crowd was actually more organized than one would expect as those nearest to him took the time to love over him for a few minutes before slipping away to let others have a turn with his big, buff, and chunky figure. Once more of them got a turn in, the room started to finally calm down as the show finally seemed to be coming to an end. “I’ve still got a long way to go to be up to his level, but tonight proves I’m at least making progress towards that goal.”

“Looks like this night is finally over,” yawned Spike, the bit of adrenaline he got from everyone ravaging his body already gone and fatigue had started to set in on him once more. “Not sure if I can make it to bed before I collapse.”

“Don’t worry, I gotcha,” Gabby assured Spike, managing to make it to him easily once the crowd became light enough. Reaching up, she placed her hands on his head to lower him down a bit. The two locked lips with one another, sharing a passionate kiss for all those around them to see and applaud. They let out one more cheer for Dragdonis that went on for about another minute before the party was officially over and the crowd finally dispersed leaving just Gabby and Spike alone in the audience area, the latter leaning on the former to remain on his feet.

“I must say,” commented Gallus, sweeping up all the coins on the stage into a dustpan. “This was quite a haul you made tonight. You should really consider making this your full time career and I wouldn’t be opposed to being your manager… for a modest percentage of your earnings, of course.”

“Sorry my fowl, feathery friend, but I’m officially retired from this line of work, now and forever,” Spike informed him. “However, you’re welcome to cover yourself in glitter and shake your ass to funky music for bits if you want.”

“No thanks,” Gallus replied casually as he nonchalantly poured all the tips Spike earned into his money sack. As for the other one that contained Gallus’s own earnings, he had already safely tucked that away and kept it out of sight from the two of them. “As a savvy business bird, one must know what work they should do and what work they should let their flunkies handle, places like this being a very obvious example of the latter.”

“Well, since this ‘flunkie’ is all done here, how about you give me what I worked so hard to earn and we’ll be on our way,” yawned Spike, giving his eye a rub as he felt another wave of fatigue wash over him.

“Not just yet,” Gallus replied as he finished collecting all the bits he could find, his sharp eagle eyes being thorough enough to not even miss one. “I have to make sure all thirty thousand bits are here. I am not one to allow myself to get burned by a deal.

“I’ll burn you,” grumbled Spike under his breath as he snorted some smoke out of his nostrils, finding he was still much too tired to unleash any flames even with the blue bird angering him.

“Hang on a little longer, Spike,” smiled Gabby, being a pillar of support for her harem master. Despite being such a dainty avian creature, she proved herself to be surprisingly strong in helping keep Spike on his feet. Even so, she knew if Spike ran out of strength to help support himself, she didn't doubt they’d both instantly drop to the ground. Turning back to Gallus, she tried to plead to him for Spike’s sake. “You already jacked the price up on us to an insane amount. The bits on the floor here have to be way more than enough to satisfy even you. Can’t you just let Spike have that jewel so we can finally get some shuteye?”

“It’s not a good business practice to complete an exchange without counting the money first,” he pointed out. “But, if you two want to go off to sleep, I won’t stop you. Just find me tomorrow and I’ll give you the trinket then… provided all thirty thousand bits are here.”

“N-No, that’s okay,” replied Spike, sinking his fangs down onto his lips, using the pain to fight off the sleepies. “I’m not that tired. Count away. I’ll stick around till you’re done. It’s not that I don’t trust you or anything, but it’s bad business manners to leave before a deal is completed, right?”

“Very true,” nodded Gallus, smirking a bit. He saw he wasn’t going to be able to pull another fast one on Spike and he could respect that. “Well, here I go then.” Reaching into the sack full of coins, Gallus pulled out as many as he could and counted a stack of ten before putting the tower of golden coins down. “Ten.” He then counted another ten. “Twenty.” He continued to count.

Spike’s vision blurred as he started to drift off, but with pure strength of will he stayed awake. “Guess this night is still not over yet,” he yawned. “But I can’t get to sleep just yet.”

“No buts,” argued Media, standing at Sting’s bedside with a stubborn look on her face while her hands were on her hips. “You need to sleep and you’re gonna get some right now.”

“I know that, but isn’t this a bit much?” the warrior Dragling asked, his body bandaged where he was wounded. He was also tightly strapped down to his bed by his arms, legs, and abdomen. Even with his impressive strength he couldn’t escape his confines, not in the condition he was in without overexerting his body further. Sting, normally so composed and stoic was actually pouting, not pleased to be tied down like this. “Do you really not trust me enough to believe I’ll remain in bed on my own?”

“Nope,” she answered him simply. “At best, I’d say you’d stay till morning and then sneak out to train.” Sting didn’t say anything, but Media could see in his eyes that her assumption was spot on. “You should stay in bed for at least a week to recover, but, if you promise not to do anything too strenuous, you can at least get out of bed in three or four days so long as you continue to take it easy. Can you accept that?”

“Like I have a choice?” he sighed, turning his head away from her and closing his eyes. Media just smiled, rubbing the back of his head a few times.

“Think he’ll actually stay in bed for that long?” asked Zircon, sitting beside Nat as Media put Sting to bed.

“Not a chance,” chuckled Nat as he shook his head. “If it was anyone else, they’d be more than happy lazing about as a bed bug. If I was in his place, I’d take the full week and stay even longer, at least till I was forced out of it, one way or another.”

“You and Sting are like night and day,” commented Zircon. “One is a tough, stoic warrior ready to tackle any foe no matter the odds… the other is the world’s best mommy.”

“I am not a mommy,” argued Nat, his outburst causing Flurryheart, snoozing in his arms to start to stir. Quickly, he rocked her, helping her to stay asleep. “There there~ It’s alright, lil one. Just rest a lil longer and I’m gonna let you see your real mommy and your… uh, other real mommy soon. I know they’ll be overjoyed to see you.”

“Provided they are all done with their time with dad,” commented Media, turning away from Sting once she felt certain that he was asleep or at least been faking long enough that he might start to doze off for real before long. “If they are, please see if any of them might have an answer to helping Sting. He really needs help that we just don’t have here in the hive.”

“Those two and Sunburst are our best hope at finding some pony that can give Sting the therapy he needs. Surely one of them has to have some ideas,” Zircon assured Media. “If not, then we’ll just have to go look around ourselves till we find one.”

“Thanks and good luck you two,” Media smiled happily at them. Then, without looking at Sting, who was sneakily attempting to loosen the straps holding him down in bed she warned him, “Now, don’t make me glue you to the bed.”

As Sting sighed, unable to overcome the foe that was Media’s bedside manner, Zircon took her leave with Nat who continued to carefully cradle Flurryheart in his arms. The two made their way from the medical ward to the throne room, the most likely place to find the ponies they sought.

“Uh, so, you think they are, you know,” commented Nat very vaguely while using an awkward tone.

“Are what?” asked Zircon, looking at Nat wondering what he was trying to say.

“You know,” he tried to explain better. “Still doing it… together… with dad.”

“Uh, well, I suppose that’s possible,” answered the Dragling Princess, not considering the possibility that Tamati and his harem was still in the midst of a heated session of amour. Now she looked just as awkward as him. “But it has been a while since our attack on the Crystal Empire. Surely, they must be done celebrating by now… though, this is dad we’re talking about and he’d have never fathered all of us if he didn’t have balls for days.”

“So then the odds of us walking in on them still in the middle of… doing it, is very high right now,” figured Nat, shuddering a little.

“Yeah, but let’s not forget that we just finished our conquest of the Crystal Empire. It’s not like that didn’t tire him out any. He went claw to hoof with both the prince and princess of the empire. Surely even he needed some rest after all that.”

“Probably,” nodded Nat. “But, just in case, you go in first to make sure they’re not still preoccupied.”

“Why do I have to go in first?” she argued.

“Well, because you’re his favorite,” replied Nat, saying whatever he could to win this debate. “Anyway, you already did it with Sunburst, right? It’s not like this stuff should be new to you now.”

“That was one time,” she argued back at Nat. “And dad’s on a whole other level when it comes to this kind of thing. He probably has moves we can’t even imagine when he’s with his harem.”

“So then it’s a good opportunity for you to learn some more moves,” suggested Nat.

“That is not something I need taught to me,” snapped Zircon. “Anyway, I’m the princess here. You should go to spare my eyes from seeing anything potentially unsightly.”

“Well, I have been charged with taking care of Flurryheart,” he reminded her. “There’s no way I can expose her, another princess to such crassness. You’ll have to go.”

“Just leave her in my care,” argued Zircon, the two arguing like any other siblings, neither wanting to risk walking in on their parents getting it on. “Your princess commands you to do it.”

“I follow the orders of no princess,” asserted Nat, as the baby alicorn started to yawn and stretch, finally done with her nap. Looking down at the precious bundle of fur and feathers in his arms, Nat couldn’t help but smile and hug her. “You’re an exception, of course, my lil princess of cuddles.”

“This is getting us nowhere,” sighed Zircon, rubbing her temple as she felt a headache coming on. They were at the door to the throne room and couldn’t proceed without looking inside to see what was going on. However, before their bickering could resume, Cid came up behind them holding a few rolled up scrolls.

“Excuse me,” he said to them. “If you aren’t going in, could you step aside? “I need to bring Tamati these inventory figures for the lower floors.”

“Wait, so father isn’t busy in there?” asked Zircon as the two draglings stepped to the side to allow him to walk past. “Busy with his harem, we mean?”

“He had a session with them after returning, but it was only a short one,” he explained. “Now he’s handling lots of preparations for this big move we’re going to make within a week’s time.”

“A big move?” pondered the dragling princess. “So soon after taking the Crystal Empire?”

“It’s the big boss’s decision and since we’ve been making very steady progress in our conquest of Equestria under his rule I have no reason to argue with him,” replied Cid as he went inside and the two draglings followed him in. There they saw Tamati was busily pacing back and forth as he looked through a bunch of scrolls he already had in claw.

“This place has a lot more store rooms than I expected it to have,” admitted Tamati, scratching at his scaly head. “But it looks like it won’t be too hard to limit ourselves to the most essential items first and then take what else we want. Yes, we’ll be more than ready within a week.”

“Sir, I’ve finished jotting down the information for the lower floors like you wanted,” Cid reported. “Is there anything else you’ll need?”

“No, this should be fine,” he replied, rolling up the scrolls in claw and set them down before he planted his rear upon his throne and raised up his feet, flexing and curling his toes as he let out a weary yawn. “I think now’s as good a time as any to take a little break. I’ve already sent Biggs, Wedge, and Sunburst to do the same and you should join them. We can pick this up in the morning.”

“Sounds good to me,” yawned Cid. “A little snack and then I think I’ll head to bed.”

“Mmm, think I’ll do the same in a little bit,” said Tamati, nodding and smiling. “We can get back to work first thing in the morning.” Reaching down, Tamati proceeded to rub at his crotch, a crack of a smile spreading on his face as a low murr vibrated on his lips. “Actually, let’s push that back to the second thing we do.”

“In other words, first thing in the afternoon,” joked Cid as he took his leave of the throne room. Tamati chuckled, not doubting the accuracy of his statement.

“Uh, dad, do you have a minute before you start playing with your unicorn horn,” commented Zircon, chiming in before he got himself hard. Nat snorted a snicker at that comment while Tamati fumbled about, not aware they had been in the room at all.

“Oh, uh, um, Zircon and Nat,” he mumbled. “Kids, how long have you two been here?”

“We came in with Cid,” she explained. “So, what’s this big move you are preparing for?” She looked around at all the scroll paper he had been going through. Picking up a few to check them out, all she found was inventory lists for the hive and nothing that provided information about anything else. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you’ve already got your sights on our next operation, even after we just took down the Crystal Empire. So, where are we planning to invade next?”

“Invade?” asked Tamati, carefully crossing his legs as he removed his claws from his nethers. “Well, I suppose you could call this an invasion and one that’ll make the Crystal Empire mission seem like a cakewalk in comparison.”

Hearing this, Nat and Zircon swallowed hard. The battle was still fresh in their minds and while it had been an overwhelming success to them, even with all the preparations, intel, and element of surprise on their hands, it still took everything they had to pull off. They grimaced at the thought of another battle so soon that would make what they and all the other Draglings just experienced be deemed as “easy.”

“And this is taking place in a week?” asked Nat, recalling what he heard from Tamati’s conversation with Cid. “So, where are we heading off to next? Canterlot to take the capital? I can’t imagine many other places that would be more heavily fortified than the Crystal Empire was.”

“Canterlot,” repeated Tamati with a sigh. “I wish it were that, but no. We’re not going there yet. I plan to complete the Lockheart before going there.”

“Then where are we going to hit?” wondered Zircon.

“I’ll reveal that when necessary,” he answered. “But, for now, could you two please not speak of this to anyone else? I’d rather allow the rest of the hive to take this time to relax and unwind after the battle. The thought of more fighting would only make them stress out.” Hearing this, Zircon and Nat looked at one another as Sting immediately came to mind.

“Very well,” agreed Zircon. “We promise not to tell. Now, could you do us a favor and tell us where those three ponies we brought from the Crystal Empire are.”

“You mean Sunburst, Shining Armor, and Cadence?” he inquired, leaning closer to his offspring. He then pointed a claw towards the passageway to Chrysalis’s private chambers. They are down there along with Chrysalis. I want to ensure they are kept safe here at all times. Two of them are a part of my harem, after all, and, more importantly, they are key figures in Equestria and are considered very valuable to a number of the ponies who will be our opposition in the near future. Having them to tip the scales in our favor could be the difference between victory and defeat and I prefer to stack the deck in my favor whenever possible.”

“Thank you,” curtseyed Zircon to her father. “Mother has shown me the path to her quarters so I know the safe route there.”

“Care to tell me your interest in those three?” asked Tamati as he pondered the reason and took note of Flurryheart. “Oh, is it to let the parents see their little bundle of joy?”

“Well, that is another reason we want to go,” explained Nat. “I wanted to take her to see them earlier, but then there was a little incident with Sting and now we’re hoping they can help us help him.”

“There’s something wrong with Sting?” questioned Tamati, the concern in his voice increasing. “He seemed fine at the end of the battle. What happened?”

“Maybe he was, but, I think as he started to calm down the guilt started to come in for those who we lost in the fight,” Zircon explained. “I feel hurt too that not all of us made it through, but he was leading us and he probably sees it as his failure for not doing enough.”

“I can’t imagine him doing more than he had,” added Nat. “He charged in first and was like an absolute beast with how many soldiers he mowed down with sheer force alone. I could hardly believe how strong he was.”

“I can,” chuckled Tamati recalling his one-on-one training with Sting against the maulwurf. “He trained all he could for the battle. I doubt anything more could have been done and I have no doubt that our casualties were as low as they were by his determination as much as all our other preparations for the battle.”

“Still, that wasn’t enough in Sting’s opinion,” continued Zircon. “Even after we got back to rest and recoup, he jumped right back into training, fighting against that overgrown mole. Sting was still exhausted, barely able to stand and yet he kept on fighting. Media said that he was going berserk and nearly attacked her in his rage.”

“Oh, dear,” replied Tamati, increasing worry in his voice upon hearing that. “This is all my fault. You had all matured so quickly I thought you would be more than ready to fight. Dragons, we’re trained to be fighters as soon as our nails get sharp enough to rend flesh and our fangs are capable of crunching rocks like carrots. Typically, that takes several years after we’re born. After that, we go through daily training till our molt when we get our wings and are then recognized as full fledged warriors in our own rights. With your Changeling genetics, you all grew and matured almost overnight. I didn’t expect it and was so excited to be able to expedite my plans this much, but in the end, I was just too hasty.”

“I don’t doubt any amount of time would have fully prepared us to fight,” Nat said to comfort his father. “But regardless, Sting needs help and the rest of us might need it too. That’s why we must find someone who can strengthen our souls while you do so for our bodies and seeing as there isn’t a Changeling here who can handle that job, we’ll have to find a pony instead.”

“Then I’ll leave it to the two of you and wish you both the best,” he told them. “Just remember, our big move will be in a week’s time. If you can’t find them by then it might have to be delayed for a while.”

“Can’t you postpone the move?” wondered Zircon. “After all, you just said you were being too hasty.”

“I would if I could, but we’ve already declared war on all of Equestria by invading the Crystal Empire. I even had you two as well as Sting and Media deliver the children to Canterlot, not just as an act of mercy, but to force them to act and us to react in turn. As of right now, they are no doubt readying their forces to attack us and we must be ready for them if we don’t want to end up crushed,” Tamati explained, grabbing a pile of the nearby scrolls, he crushed them in his claws to demonstrate his point. Only after he did it did he realize he had just crumpled a portion of his work. “Oops. Uh, my point is, we gotta move forward with the next phase of my plan, but trust me when I say nobody is going to dread this more than me.”

“Well, we don’t have any time to waste in finding help for Sting,” said Nat as he and Zircon proceeded down to Chrysalis’s private quarters. When they were out of earshot of Tamati, the blue Dragling murmured, “What the hell could we be doing next that even our dad is dreading?”

“No idea, but I don’t think I wanna find out,” Zircon whispered back as they vanished down the tunnel.

“Whoever they find to help Sting,” sighed Tamati, craning his head back in his throne. “I might need a session after him.”

The duo made their way down the twists and turns to Chrysalis's bed chambers. Zircon led the way, taking the correct tunnels that led them safely to her hidden quarters. Finally, when the tunnel widened up, they emerged within the cozy abode where the ex queens and ex king were resting. The scent of lust and perspiration was still present and strong on them all and the lack of ventilation didn’t help. Sunburst was there too, busily looking through the dark artifacts that were in Chrysalis’s hidden cabinet.

“Oh, is this what I think it is?” he nerded over a hand mirror that was in a golden fitting and encrusted with diamonds.

“The Mirror of Alterio?” scoffed Chrysalis. “I picked that worthless thing up, oh, I don’t know how many moons ago. I heard that it can act as a window of sorts to gaze at other versions of oneself from different dimensions. With it, I figured I could observe some alternate realities of myself finally conquering all of Equestria and gorging on the love of all my most hated enemies. My original intention was that it’d clue me in on how to conquer Equestria myself, or, at the very least, provide me something enjoyable to watch.”

“I, uh, take it that things didn’t work out well with what you saw on the other end,” Sunburst assumed.

“That’s putting it mildly,” she grumbled and gagged. “True, there were some that I did win in, but plenty I lost, either by one group of ponies or another. Sometimes I even lost to some other villain in a reality in which they won against the Ponies before I could and suddenly we became their target.”

“I guess I never considered just how many villains try to conquer Equestria,” commented Sunburst. “What is it? About two or three a season or something like that?”

“I suppose that’s right,” replied Chrysalis. “And those sickening Ponies deserve every last attempt to strip them of their freedom, happiness, and magic, even if it all ends with the villain’s defeat. Still, it’d be nice if one of them could actually succeed at that in our dimension. But even with more failures than I will ever admit, the reality we live in is still far more tolerable than some other worlds I’ve gazed at. There was even one in which I was betrayed by my own hive and they, ugh, transformed into some grotesque colorful, holeless, beetle things. They sided with the Ponies and I was forced to flee from my kingdom. I even went a little nuts from loneliness, needing to draw minions to have someone to yell at.”

“That’s awful,” Sunburst told her. “Did you at least get your revenge at some point?”

“I never went back to the mirror to check,” she added. “Not after I saw a far more nightmarish image.” Sunburst, along with Shining and Cadence turned their attention to Chrysalis, curious to hear what could have been worse than the loss of her entire kingdom. “In this one demented dimension I saw me, but I wasn’t anything like the me standing before you. I was some sickeningly sweet, namby pamby butterfly abomination that spread love and happiness across Equestria. I was so mortified by what I saw I could have been that I shrieked loud enough that the whole hive could hear me. After that, I didn’t dare so much as take a peek, afraid to see an even more horrifying image.”

“W-Well, mind if I give it a try?” asked Sunburst with a pleading smile on his face.

Lacking the empathy to be moved by such a face, Chrysalis just snorted to blow her mane out of her face. Fortunately for Sunburst, however, she didn’t really care one way or another if he used it. “Knock yourself out.”

“I’m gonna assume you don’t mean that literally,” he chuckled nervously. “Now, if I recall what I read about this thing, I just turn this little knob here to tune it to the dimension I want to view and then give the mirror a little shake and…”

Doing all this, the orange pony then watched as the mirror showed his reflected image but more like it was on disturbed water than on flat glass. As the water started to settle, the mirror returned to normal, but it wasn’t reflecting Sunburst anymore, at least not the one holding it. Instead, he saw himself from another dimension. This one, however, was far different in appearance. Wearing a cape as black as night, with red trim on it, he stood upon high looking down at all the different creatures of Equestria, chained and enslaved by him. An evil green and purple haze radiated from his eyes and a wicked grin was upon his clean-shaven face.

Clasping a dark tome in one hand and a skull adorned scepter in the other, he raised the latter up, causing hurricane force winds to roar and thunder to boom merely due to a whim of his. As the wind blew against him, it caused his cape to flutter behind him, revealing he was shirtless, allowing him to show off a very toned body complete with a six-pack and hulking biceps. On his equally impressive back was a large set of batwings, a proper fit for a dark ruler such as he.

Turning around, he gazed at a set of statues of both the greatest heroes and villains of Equestria. Each was adorned with a look of horror on their faces, the final expression they were able to make before he mercilessly petrified them to be trophies of his conquest over Equestria and undoubtedly, soon the world.

“Looks like in this world I’m some sort of great and terrible wizard who has single-handedly defeated every other powerful being and now rules over all of Equestria with an iron fist. Also, it looks like I’ve been hitting the gym in this dimension too.”

“Sounds like the perfect life,” sighed Chrysalis.

“I don’t know about perfect,” commented Sunburst. “I mean, where’s his, uh, my, uh, our beard?”

“You must be joking,” Chrysalis stated bluntly. “You’re the most powerful being in that universe and you are griping over facial hair?”

“Now I know what you mean about not liking other versions of yourself,” replied Sunburst, putting the mirror back where he found it. “Just because we can see what our lives might have been like, that doesn’t mean we should.”

“I hope we’re not interrupting anything,” Zircon said as she and Nat entered the room.

“Just resting after our time with your father,” Chrysalis replied.

“I hope you two aren’t too tired from… relations,” Nat chimed in, hesitating with his words when he had to think about a delicate way to put it. “Especially with this bundle of love here to see his mommy and… uh, other mommy.” Lifting the baby Alicorn up, he showed off the happy, giggling baby to Cadence and Shiny.

“Oh, is that our Flurryheart?” asked an excited Shiny as she and Cadence got up and hurried over to their little, infant girl. Taking her from Nat, they cuddled and kissed all over her cheeks, making the toddler giggle excitedly. “We missed you so much, our little princess.”

Flurry was ecstatic to once more get embraced by her affectionate parents and though Shiny was not the same papa she knew him as, she didn’t appear to notice anything out of place. As the loving family continued to embrace a bit longer, Chrysalis, feeling slightly peckish, couldn’t resist opening her maw to drain away a portion of their strong and deep affection for one another to sate herself for the time being.

“We’re sorry that we’ve been busy… uh, getting to know Master Tamati better, but, from now on, whenever our great dragon king doesn’t have any need for us, we’ll hurry right back to you.”

“Well, knowing dad,” commented Nat. “He’ll probably keep you busy quite constantly and that means finding someone to take care of her in your stead.”

“Hmm,” Cadence pondered this. “Back in the Crystal Empire, we had Sunburst to watch her, not to mention a year’s worth of volunteer babysitters lined up for the job.”

“If I recall correctly, even you were there to offer a helping hand and to take care of our lil FlurrFlurr,” added Shiny to Chrysalis, rubbing her belly after an almost too sweet meal of parental love.

“I was only there to kidnap your baby, consume all the love she was filled with, and use her for some diabolic revenge scheme,” the former queen reminded them with a venomous hiss at the end. “And I would have succeeded too if you didn’t add singing to part of the job description.”

“But you have such a wonderful voice, mother,” Zircon assured her. “How could you not pass on account of that?”

“Singing songs about revenge, my evil plans, and conquering all the Ponies in this realm and feasting on their love is what I prefer to sing about. Not about love and togetherness and, yuck, sunshine and rainbows. I practically gagged on the first verse of this smile song they wanted me to sing. In the end, I decided it wasn’t worth it, undid my disguise and flew off back here.”

“Well, I know I love hearing you sing, ‘How I’ll Get Revenge on All the Ponies Who Have Crossed Me,’” Zircon told her. “The title’s a bit of a mouthful, but your aria is so amazing I feel it right down to my core. It certainly is far more enjoyable to hear that than those namby pamby Pony musicals.”

“I suppose I could stretch out my vocal chords if you care to hear it again,” smiled Chrysalis to her daughter.

“Anyway,” Cadence resumed the original point of her conversation with Nat. “We had more babysitters than we knew what to do with in the Crystal Empire, but, here, we only have Sunburst to count on to help us and he might be busy at times helping our master with his research. Also, considering all the female Changelings will be busy pleasuring our master along with us, we can’t count on them either.”

“In other words,” continued Shiny, holding his baby and taking notice of how she babbled happily while reaching for Nat to hold her again. “We’ll need someone else to look after our dear Flurry and seeing how fond she is of you, maybe you’d like to be our goto babysitter.”

“Your goto babysitter,” Nat repeated, trying to be nonchalant about the whole thing, when he was more than happy to love and care for Flurryheart whenever he was given the chance. “Well, I’m a busy Dragling, after all, one of the greatest in the swarm. I’d have to see if I have the time once we start preparing for our next attack.”

“Sorry,” Cadence apologized. “It was presumptuous of us to ask you such a thing when you’ve already done more than we could have asked for. We’ll find someone else to help us out.”

“No!” cried Nat, immediately dropping his cool guy act. “I really don’t mind it one bit. I’ll watch her every chance I get.”

“Well, so long as it’s not a bother,” Shiny said, holding Flurryheart for Nat who happily cuddled her once more, much to her giggly delight.

“Hear that, lil Flurrflurr. I’ll be able to take care of you lots from now on.”

“Ugh,” gagged Chrysalis, sickened by such a sweet display of affection from a creature that was composed of both Changeling and Dragon genealogy. “It’s such sweet love, but such a sappy display of affection. Makes me sick to my stomach.”

“If you can tolerate it for a little longer,” joked Zircon. “There is one other reason we came down here. We’re actually trying to find a counselor for Sting and we don’t have any in the hive.”

“We never had a need for such things,” explained Chrysalis. “We just considered any troubles we had as the fault of our enemies and sought vengeance upon them, fueled by that conviction. That’s what I’ve always done and look how I turned out.”

“Didn’t an alternate version of yourself lose all her Changelings and go mad from loneliness when she didn’t even have them to yell at?” Sunburst reminded her.

“I was only a little nuts,” she hissed. “But, perhaps, a counselor couldn’t hurt. Still, where do you plan on acquiring one?”

“We were hoping our new pony friends might know of a good one,” explained Zircon.

“So, do you three know anyone good?” asked Nat, cradling Flurryheart.

The three didn’t need much time to think before Cadance had an answer. “Shiny’s sister would be a great choice. She cares deeply about others and does all she can to help them when they’re in some sort of dilemma.”

“Naturally,” giggled Shiny. “She is the Princess of Friendship, after all. If Sting is having trouble, then she’s the one who can help.”

“If you drag that one in here you’re inviting our doom as well,” scoffed Chrysalis. “She and her friends have always spoiled my plans and it’s not like she’d just willingly help us, especially not after all we’ve just done.”

“Couldn’t we just seduce her like Zircon did with Sunburst or with how dad got those two to join us?” asked Nat.

“An Alicorn has too much magic to be manipulated for very long if the magic isn’t strong enough,” explained Chrysalis. “From what I’ve heard from Tamati, his attempt on Twilight with the Lockheart wore off a short while later. He has used the Elements of Discord to power it up and its effects haven’t yet faded from Cadence, though I’m keeping an eye on her just in case she breaks free. I’m sure Master Tamati will reapply the magic of the Lockheart on her from time to time as well to ensure his hold on her doesn’t loosen.”

“Father is too busy with his work to help us right now,” figured Zircon. “And there’s no way in Tartarus we’d be allowed to borrow the Lockheart ourselves, so Twilight is off the table. Isn’t there anyone else who would be almost as good as her?”

“Why not try her student,” scoffed Chrysalis before a devious smirk spread across her face. “Actually, yes, that is a great idea. She’d do nicely and I could even consider it as revenge therapy for myself.”

“She’s definitely a great choice,” agreed Sunburst. “And I’d love to see her again.”

“And I’m sure she’d love to see you too, Sunburst,” nodded Zircon as she proceeded over to the orange pony, pulling Nat to follow her. “And you could be just the pony to help us get her.”

“So we’re all leaving tomorrow to go look for him,” Pinkie explained to the Cutie Mark Crusaders. All four of them were having a meeting in the CMC’s clubhouse immediately after Twilight made the decision to search for Spike. After hearing all Pinkie Pie had to say on the matter, a look of frantic concern filled the expressions of the three young adult ponies.

“After all the hard work we went to sneak Spike out of Ponyville, we can’t let them find him,” cried Scootaloo.

“But we sent him all the way to Griffinstone,” Sweetie Belle reminded the others. “That’s clear across Equestria. Without any leads they’d never imagine he’d go there of all places.”

“But what if something went wrong,” worried Applebloom. “Like the potion I brewed wore off too soon or the package fell into a lake with him trapped inside or… or… or something else terrible happened and we will never get to see our sexy stud of a dragon master ever again!!!”

“I’m sure he’s doing fine,” Pinkie Pie told them to keep them positive, though her own concerns made it hard to keep the worst case scenarios from her mind as well. “I made sure that I’d get to check to the eastern part of Equestria so I’ll be the one covering Griffinstone.”

“Then we can go with you and finally reunite with him after so long!” cheered Sweetie Belle blushing brightly and imagining the feeling of his warm scaly body embracing her soft, snow white coat while running his claws through her curly hair. Just the thought filled her with lust and made her sensitive spots feel tender and wet.

“It hasn’t even been a full day since we’ve been separated from him,” Scootaloo reminded her. “And we gave him one hell of a sendoff session too.”

“I know, but it still feels like forever and if something does happen to him do you want those to be our last memories with him?” asked Sweetie Belle. “As a prisoner in his own home and now on the run?”

“Well, it is kinda a kinky concept,” admitted Applebloom and the other girls couldn’t help but agree. Reminiscing about their last time pampering their dragon lord rekindled their lust and made them eager for the next time they’d get to embrace their mate. The fact that they had no idea how far away that was made their longing all that more intense.

“But I know what you mean,” Applebloom continued, returning her focus to the discussion at hand. “As our master he should be treated like a king, being loved and embraced by his harem as he indulges in both food, sex and whatever else he desires and deserves.”

“Yeah, pampered and spoiled even more than that pain in the sunbutt princess of ours,” grumbled Pinkie Pie bitterly and she pounded her fist on the table they were sitting at. “Just where does she even get off making Spike out to be a wanted criminal just because he’s finally becoming a man?”

“Make that a really, really attractive and sexy dragon of a man~” murred Scootaloo, recalling that big and buff yet soft and round figure Spike had. Closing their eyes, they could still see their large, purple-scaled stud and recalled the feeling of embracing and loving him from head to toe and, just like that, their hatred towards the mare who forced their beloved dragon away was shoved all the way to the back of their minds.

“Well, once we find our master on the run, we’ll more than make it up to him for all the turmoil he’s been needlessly put through,” assured Sweetie Belle.

“Uh, we?” asked Pinkie Pie, looking at her three fellow harem members.

“This will be our first being this far away from Ponyville,” stated Scootaloo, sounding excited for the journey alone. “Plus, there’s no telling how long we’ll be gone… or if we’ll ever return.”

“And it’s in Griffinstone too,” added Applebloom. “It’s supposed to be the Griffin capital city, just like Canterlot is for us.”

“Uh, girls,” Pinkie Pie tried to interrupt them. “About this whole going to get Spike…”

“You think they have a ruler like Celestia and Luna who live there?” wondered Scootaloo.

“I don’t think so,” pondered Sweetie Belle after taking a few minutes to try and recall just who was supposed to be in charge of the avian feline combos. “I don’t recall ever hearing about a Griffin king. Anyway, even if they live right on the border, they still live within Equestria so technically, their ruler would be the Princesses Celestia and Luna as well. Anyway, we shouldn't be wasting our time talking about this stuff. We should be getting ready for the trip. We’re gonna leave first thing in the morning to find Spike so we’re going to need to gather lots of supplies for the trip.”

“That won’t really be necessary,” Pinkie Pie attempted to chime in once more, raising her volume to help draw their attention back to her. Once more, it didn’t work.

“You can leave getting food to me,” stated Applebloom. “Granny Smith made a bunch of apple pies earlier today and I doubt she’ll even notice if one goes missing. Getting some water, a bushel of apples and some other vitels won’t be too hard to procure either.”

“Then leave transportation to me,” replied Scootaloo. “I’ll get my scooter hitched up to a wagon and drive us at full speed to Griffinstone.”

“But you three can’t expect to come with me,” Pinkie Pie tried once again, but still to no avail.

“In that case, I’ll handle the finances,” contributed Sweetie Belle. “If we’re taking the most direct route, we’re going to need to take a ship across the water to reach it.”

“Then looks like we’re all set to go, Pinkie Pie,” said Scootaloo as the three girls finally turned their attention back to her, their plans already set.

“YOU THREE AREN’T COMING!!!” snapped Pinkie Pie, getting a shush from them for raising her voice loud enough for half the orchard outside the clubhouse to hear.

“Pinkie Pie,” shushed Applebloom. “Don’t be so loud. What if Applejack heard that? She’d stop us before we could take one step outside of Ponyville.”

“And what do you mean we aren’t coming?” questioned Sweetie Belle. “Of course we are. We stand a much better chance of finding him if we all go together and, even more important than that, we have to be there for our big, dragon stud to support him and not just sexually. Even if all of Equestria is now his enemy, we’ll still stand by his side and gladly share in his fate too.”

“Girls,” sighed Pinkie Pie, seeing the serious and determined look on their faces reflecting just how much resolve they had to do just as Sweetie Belle had said. She couldn’t deny that she felt no different and would have loved to have them all embrace Spike in the most loving and pleasurable ways possible. “I’m usually the Pony that needs to be told this, but, right now, we have to think with our heads and not our hormones. You three have to stay here. There is no way your absence would go unnoticed for very long and the last thing we want to do is inadvertently cause additional trouble for our master. For now, we need to take things slow. This is my chance to reunite with Spike, but I’m certain you’ll all get a chance too. Till then, you have to stay here, remain patient, and keep your eyes and ears open.”

Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Applebloom looked at one another, not the least bit happy to be left out of the search for Spike, but they sighed, knowing Pinkie was right. “Alright,” agreed Applebloom, speaking for the group. “We’ll stay here and wait for our own chance to be with Spike. But, if you reunite with our master without us you better show him a good enough time for all four of us till we can show him some tender love and care of our own too.”

“You girls have nothing to worry about,” promised Pinkie Pie, a slight hint in her tone that she was really looking forward to having plenty of one-on-one time with Spike. “If there’s one thing I’m really good at, it’s showing someone a really good time~”

“Just not too much of a good time,” Scootaloo chimed in, obvious envy on her lips that was shared with her two friends.

“So whatever you plan on doing, just bring it down a skosh,” instructed Sweetie Belle.

“Okie dokie lokie,” nodded Pinkie Pie. “Bring it down a skosh. Now, girls, if you’ll excuse me, I’d best head home to get some rest. Gonna have to be up bright and early to start my trek to Griffinstone.”

“Alrighty then,” smiled Applebloom, waving goodbye with the others. “Good luck!”

“Sleep well!” added Scootaloo.

“And when you see Spike, make sure to give him a big, passionate kiss,” finished Sweetie Belle. “One for each of us.”

“Will do,” she called back to them, climbing down the ladder to the CMC’s clubhouse and then hurried off back to Sugarcube Corner to get herself ready for her expedition.”

“Well, girls,” smirked Applebloom, once Pinkie was no longer there to provide counter arguments as to why they had to stay behind. “You know what we have to do now.”

“Come up with a good excuse for why we have to leave town for an extended period of time that nobody would give second thoughts too,” answered Scootaloo, cracking her knuckles before she crossed her legs and tried to think. “I’m already on it.”

“And we already know who is taking care of what preparations,” commented Sweetie Belle, rubbing her chin as she brainstormed as well. “So, once we figure this out, everyone take care of what you need to do and get some rest cause there’s no way we’re going to let Pinkie Pie go and have Spike all to himself.”

“Not a chance in Tartarus,” agreed Applebloom, joining the other two in thinking. Feeling a little fatigued, she opened her mouth to let out a big yawn.

Spike slowly closed his maw as another big yawn finished escaping past his lips. The crowd that all wanted a piece of that big slab of dragon beef had long since left and more than likely headed home to bed. The Roost had long since closed for the night and save for some inattentively snoozing security guards, only Spike, Gabby, and Gallus were left inside. Gabby had momentarily left Spike’s side, making her way to the changing room to get Spike a new cloak to cover over his naked, sweat soaked and glitter covered body for when they’d discreetly make their way back to her place to rest. This just left Spike with Gallus to finish settling his debt for the trinket that started all this.

Stretching and rubbing his eyes, Spike doubted he had ever felt as exhausted as he did right now and despite that, he displayed enough willpower to fend off the Sand Man’s all too alluring embrace to dreamland, for at least a bit longer. Long enough for Gallus to finish counting his bits and then make it back to Gabby’s and a nice, soft bed to collapse on.

With a claw full of bits, Gallus dropped them into a thick, leather money bag one after another. As they landed inside, they clattered against the numerous others that were already inside. Behind him were several other bags that were already filled and heavy with most of the bits the blue giffin had already counted. “Seven… eight… nine… and ten makes twenty-nine thousand nine hundred,” Gallus informed Spike as the weary, purple dragon rubbed his eye. “Just another three hundred more bits to go.”

“You mean a hundred more,” corrected Spike, still not too sleep deprived to let Gallus pull a fast one on him. “Just finish counting the last bit of bits so I can sleep for the next century or two.”

“Guess there’s no pulling the wool over your eyes, Dragdonis,” he chuckled and continued his count again, to finally accept the last bit of payment for his Element of Discord. “But, it looks like it’s gonna be close. You actually might be a handful of bits short.”

“Here,” replied Spike, holding his arm out to drop a fist full of bits onto the remaining pile that Gallus was currently counting. “Sorry if they smell funny. Some rather lewd tippers decided the safest place to put my tips was up my…” Blushing, Spike was too embarrassed to finish that sentence. Just taking into consideration just what he did, he was certain this was the lowest point of his life. On the other hand, he had earned more money in one night than from everything he had done for Twilight in all the years he had been her faithful, number one assistant. Letting out another big yawn, Spike decided it was best not to pursue this train of thought any further, especially while he was at the edge of exhaustion.

“Don’t worry about that,” Gallus told him, giving the money a curious sniff, but seeming to only pick up the wonderful aroma of money in the air. “Considering what goes down in this place, it’s basically an unwritten rule to wash and disinfect every last coin you earn here because there’s no telling where it was last. In related news, you probably want to go get your… you know what washed the next chance you get… and the rest of you too.”

“Duly noted,” yawned Spike as Gabby made her way back into the room and over to them.

“Everyone else has left,” she reported to them as she helped the big, himbo dragon slip into the cloak she brought him. Spike let out another of his increasingly frequent yawns. Gabby did her best to help keep him standing in spite of how much more massive he was than her. “So, we can sneakily make our way back to my place once your business with Gallus is finished.”

“We’re just about done,” Spike told her, his weariness causing him to mumble a little. “I think with the fumes I’m running on, I’ll just about make it.”

“And it looks like you can get going now too,” the blue griffin announced as he dropped the last few bits into the leather bag in front of him. Grabbing some rope he wrapped the mouth of the pouch closed and knotted it to keep it that way. “That’s all thirty thousand bits and you’ve even got a little left over for yourselves.”

Looking down at what remained of the small fortune he made, Spike wasn’t sure if he would have laughed or cried if he had the strength to feel anything but dead tired presently. “Wow, twelve bits. Not bad for dancing my ass off for the last few hours to a very horny crowd.”

“Well, if you reconsider doing it again,” offered Gallus. “And with my meager fee as your manager…”

“No,” replied Spike, not letting him finish. The big, purple dragon was impressed with how tenacious Gallus was just as much as he was annoyed by it. “No to doing this again and to you being my manager.”

“Well, then our business is conclud-” Gallus started to say as he turned to leave, but a heavy stomp from Spike stopped him cold. Spike then extended his hand, palm up for something to be placed in it.

“There’s still the matter of procuring that little trinket that I just worked my ass off to get,” reminded Spike, a murderous gaze in his eyes as his muscles tightened in his arm. At the moment, rage was providing Spike with enough adrenaline to stave off any fatigue. “Wouldn’t it just be terrible if after all this, I didn’t get that little bauble I wanted. Oh, I just don’t know what I’d do if that happened.”

“Y-Yeah,” nodded Gallus, fearful of the bloodlust Spike was exuding after being provoked one too many times by him. Eager to quell the wrath of the dragon, Gallus promptly placed the Element of Discord onto Spike’s awaiting palm. He then took a couple steps back to safely position himself out of harm’s way. “Well, there it is and our business is complete. So, till next time. See ya!” He hurried to gather up his bags of bits and leave, the shakes still with him.

Looking down at the tiny thing that hardly appeared worth all the aggravation, Spike’s mood calmed and he smiled. “This is stone number three,” thought Spike. “Now I just gotta meet up with Tamati to give it to him.” Another yawn forced itself out of Spike’s maw, fatigue taking over again. “Right after some much earned rest.”

Looking down at the lovely griffiness hugging his side to help hold him up, Spike smiled a bit bigger. “Time to go, Gabby.”

“Yes, let’s,” she smiled and the two made their way out of the Roost and out onto the dark streets of Griffinstone. It was very nearly pitch black with hardly enough torches placed about to light their way. Fortunately, the sky was just clear enough to allow some illuminating moonlight to occasionally leak through the clouds as they walked.

“So, do you live far from here?” asked Spike, finding his big, heavy body harder to move than he expected as they trudged along.

“Not far,” she answered him. “A five minute walk at most.” Nodding at her, the two made their way forward, Gabby doing her best to guide him forward, one slow step at a time. From how slow they were able to move, it was clearly going to take at least twice as long as Gabby had told him.

Spike let out another yawn and for a moment his consciousness started to fade, but luckily he caught himself before he flopped onto the ground, squashing his new harem member in the process. In an attempt to help him stay awake, Gabby tried to make more conversation with him. “Uh, so, you didn’t seem to enjoy dancing like that much, did you?”

“Actually,” he confessed, looking around to make sure they were alone. “It was a lot of fun. I did enjoy moving around and looking very sexy.”

“So, I guess you just didn’t want Gallus to keep bothering you about doing that then,” Gabby figured.

“That’s part of the reason,” he nodded, managing to keep on moving without stumbling. “But, I’d rather save shaking my ass about in a spaghetti string speedo just for those I love, the members of my harem, like you.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you too say,” smiled Gabby, hugging Spike’s side. “And very sexy too. Maybe next chance we get, I can be the one doing a sexy dance to get you all excited to fuck.”

“Mmm~” murred Spike, heart pounding and dick twitching at the thought. “I’d definitely like that, especially if I can get Pinkie Pie, Sweetie Belle and the others to all join in too. It’d certainly be a wonderful way to celebrate us all coming together.”

“Then I’ll work on a great routine for when that day comes,” she told him. “I just hope it’ll be soon.”

“I hope so too,” nodded Spike as they made their way closer and closer to their rest stop.

When they finally reached it, Gabby unlocked the door and watched as Spike crouched down to avoid hitting his head on the top of the door. After locking the door behind them, Gabby led Spike to her bedroom and carefully helped him into bed. Before she could even get the blanket over what little of his body it could cover, Spike had already begun to snore, sleep taking him the instant he allowed his body to relax.

Gabby merely smiled at the sight, finishing putting the blanket on him and then carefully got into bed beside him, nuzzling close to his strong scaley body and resting her head on his soft gut. “Rest well, beloved,” she whispered and soon joined him in a much-needed, well-earned rest.

“What do we have here?” thought Luna as she peered off her balcony down to the barracks on the far side of the castle. There she could see a number of Pegasus soldiers were moving about, clearly not on patrol, but getting ready for a mission. She also saw a number of the Unicorn mages following the dark silhouette of Celestia, likely deep in discussion as chariots were prepared for the departure of a sizable force. “Either Celestia is about to invade the kingdom of Confectia because she ran out of cake or she’s going behind my back to invade the Changeling Kingdom without me.” Luna rolled her eyes before turning to go back into her room, scoffing. “Anyone’s guess which it is.”

She made her way back to where she had been sitting in deep concentration. The dream watcher had been searching the realm tirelessly for the door into Spike’s subconscious till her flank became so sore and stiff and her legs felt like pins and needles that she had to get up for a little while to allow her blood to better circulate through her body. With her lower half feeling better, she took a deep breath and sighed.

“You certainly find a way to use every little thing to your advantage, don’t you, sister,” Luna grumbled. “Even Spike’s escape is giving you the perfect chance to keep me busy while you do as you wish. Even if I were to confront you now, you’d preempt me by saying I was not performing my duties and make me out to be the bad guy. Oh, once, just once I’d love to be the one to shine while you end up the one eclipsed.”

Smiling at the thought, Luna slowly shut her eyes and left her physical body behind as she dove into the world of sleep in search of Spike’s dream door. “Let’s see now,” Luna said to herself as she flew through a place that appeared like an endless void of nothing save for doors of all shapes and sizes floating lazily all over. “Surely Spike must be asleep by now. Practically half the night is over and he must be exhausted after running away from Twilight.”

Luna continued to float around, searching for one particular dream with the same ease of finding a needle in a haystack. What made it even more difficult was that at any moment, a door could suddenly vanish as the dreamer would awaken and, shortly after, another would then appear to take its place, forcing the princess of the night to backtrack and see if Spike’s door might have appeared where she had just been looking previously. Letting out a big yawn, Luna found this task her sister had left her with as tedious and boring to her just as much as she viewed it as a totally unethical abuse of her power and responsibility.

Another ten minutes passed by with no luck at finding the door of the purple drake and she considered taking another break to see if Celestia had already taken off with her force, however, another door suddenly appeared close by her, a small purple one with a green frame and a ruby doorknob. One look at this and the dark blue Alicorn recognized it at a glance.

“Sp-Spike’s door,” she spoke quietly, like she might accidentally awaken him and cause his door to vanish if she made too much noise. Taking a deep breath and snorting out her nostrils, Luna focused, knowing how important her task was in spite of Celestia’s alternative motives. “This mission of mine has to go off without a hitch. Leave nothing to chance.” Luna’s horn glowed a pale blue as she cast a spell upon Spike’s door, her aura surrounding the frame of the dragon’s likeness, keeping it from floating about lazily in the dreamscape.

“Okay,” breathed Luna, slowly floating closer to the door. She continued to converse with herself. “With his spell in place, he won’t be able to awaken till I release his door from this realm. Now all I have to do is probe his subconscious for his location without him realizing it.”

“That shouldn’t be difficult at all. I’ve seen plenty of his dreams before. Usually it involves him and Rarity living in a castle of ice cream. A nice place to visit on an uneventful night when I’ve got the munchies.”

“Well, this is no time for snacking. Besides, it’s been ages since I’ve visited his dreams. No telling what he might be dreaming about now, especially with all the changes he’s gone through as of late. I have to be ready for anything. Now, are you ready, Luna?”

“I’m ready,” she nodded. “Are you ready, Luna?”

“I was born ready,” she spoke boldly, but couldn’t help chuckling at how ridiculous she had to look speaking to herself. “I really should consider hiring an assistant. I’m getting way too used to talking to myself while I work.”

Shrugging that off, Luna gripped the door to Spike’s dream world and opened it. She was a veteran of countless dreams and just as many nightmares. The princess of the night was certain whatever was inside here, there was nothing she hadn’t already seen a million times before. Regardless, she took one last big breath to fill her lungs and steel her resolve.

Stepping inside, she found herself walking out of a closet in a large castle that smelled very sweet. With a finger, she dragged it over one of the brown tiles on the wall. It felt cold and she dug out a small bit of the tile onto her finger. Bringing her finger to her lips, she sucked it clean and smiled.

“Still an ice cream castle,” she observed and continued to walk and peek down some of the branching corridors. “And it appears to be the same layout as usual. Knowing Spike, he’ll likely be in his throne room sitting beside Rarity as they enjoy some sundaes while she strokes his ego with plenty of praise. Heheh, it’s such an adorable sight. I hope he won’t mind a visiting dignitary showing up this time around.”

As she walked forward, Luna’s clothes changed, going from the comfy garb she had been wearing when she entered the dreamscape to a formal black dress with a crescent moon brooch upon her chest. She had on some nice, black, toeless shoes as well as a pair of spectacles to add a flare of professionalism to her appearance. She kept her hair done up in a ponytail and carried herself like a mare who was all business. “I don’t think Spike would bat an eye at Princess Luna, an envoy from the Topping Kingdom stopping by to discuss negotiations for a sprinkle trade. From there, I can casually pry the information of his location from him.”

She chuckled proudly at her cunning plan. As she came to the large double doors leading into Spike’s throne room, she, quietly, opened it a bit, to spy on what was going inside to wait for the right moment to make her move. What she saw through her narrow field of view had her jaw drop literally to the ground. She quickly reached down to put it back into position and then take another look into the throne room to make sure she wasn’t simply mistaken. Inside, she saw Spike sitting on his throne with a big sundae just waiting to be eaten, however that was the only thing that fell within Luna’s expectations and only barely.

First off, Spike was not the short, pudgy drake she knew him as. Rather, he was the large, big-gutted, and buff scaly she had heard he had become, but could hardly believe until she saw him for herself. The hunky dragon appeared similar to the knightly form he often dreamt himself to be, though this version didn’t skip leg day and was dressed in nothing but a crown on his head and a few diamond studded bracelets on his wrists, shins and tail. Other than that, he was completely nude with his dick, hard and thick, jutting out proudly from his crotch and his balls, heavy and hefty, resting upon his lap as if on display for all to admire and envy.

Instead of having Rarity sitting in a throne beside the drake, Spike had a harem of five girls all around him and the fabulous white mare with an elegant purple mane and tail was not among them. The quintet of ladies were dressed in bikinis that were so skimpy that they left nothing to the imagination. The fact that they were so revealing only served to draw one’s eyes more to their impressive assets that they shamelessly flaunted close to Spike, hoping he’d treat them to a flirty grope or even a lustful embrace.

Luna continued to observe this radically different behavior than she was not used to the formerly little drake possessing. Eyeing the group of his lovers, it was clear by their flirty and shameless behaviour how smitten they were with their draconic king nuzzling and rubbing all over his body and taking turns to feed him some ice cream from a large, golden serving bowl. Every so often, one would lean close to the side of his head and speak his praises as they nibbled at his ears teasingly. Spike often responded with a giggle then a murr as he blushed blissfully at such lavish treatment of his person.

“This is certainly different than what I minaginged when coming in here,” confessed Luna, helplessly distracted by the seductive playfulness of Spike and his harem. The look on everyone’s face showed they were all enjoying their time together without a care in the world and loving every moment of lust-filled embracing they shared. “But it’s nothing I haven’t seen before and I will not allow it to distract me from why I’ve come here.”

As she said those words, the Princess of the Night’s attention was once more captured by the enticing scene before her as King Spike proceeded to give his girls a few firm gropes to their bodies when a soft, tender spot on their bodies came in range of his eager claws. When their muzzles hovered close to his, he responded by holding his head still to let them lick the ice cream stains from his muzzle. After that, the royal dragon of sweets then puckered up his lips to share a deep, passionate kiss with one of his loving ladies before eyeing the next who was more than eager for their turn with the scaly smoocher.

The girls included Pinkie Pie, Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Gabby. However, they were not the only ones in the room to keep Spike company. There was one more with them who had a different role to place from a short distance from Spike’s throne and this one was dressed in a goofy clown getup, complete with bright yellow, baggy clothes, a curly rainbow-colored wig, and red, comically-oversized shoes. It was Gallus, dancing around like a fool and providing his audience some amusement while they warmed themselves up for the real fun they would soon be having.

“This is certainly shaping up to be one hell of a wet dream,” admitted Luna, rubbing her thighs together, the lustful energy given off by the dreamer enough to even make her a little tempted to join in. “I guess Spike really had matured and developed as a dragon. It’s even enough to influence me a little. Still, I’m surprised that out of all the ponies he’s flirting with on his throne, Rarity isn’t included. Did he move on from her? No, that’s not something I need to be speculating about now. After all, who isn’t here is not important. What is important is the harem itself.”

Pausing from observing the girls over again, Luna adjusted her gaze back upon the blue griffin as he stumbled in his dance and fell face first into a pie, much to the great delight of Spike and his entourage. “And maybe him too. I am definitely sensing some vengeful vibes from him. I don’t know what he did, but he must have really pissed Spike off.” Luna then looked back over to Spike’s harem once more, focusing on Gabby. “I am fairly certain Spike hasn’t ever had dreams about Griffins before nor have I seen him regularly associate with any before either. They certainly have to be a clue to his whereabouts if they are on the upper levels of his subconscious. I’ll need to probe his mind a bit closer to be certain, but it’s at least a decent place to start.”

“That’s enough, my fool,” announced Spike, smirking down at Gallus, who was picking himself up off the ground with a face covered in whipped cream. The little cherry that had been on the comedy confection ended up on the tip of his beak. “You have done enough to delight me. You’re excused to go give yourself a wedgie back in your room.”

“I will, till my rear aches as bad as being saddle sore,” he answered, bowing to his liege. Reaching into the back of his pants, he pulled on the elastic of his undies and tugged them up with all his might to make the fabric painfully wedgie his ass and crotch. A pained expression filled his face over his self-inflicted wedgie, making Spike chuckle with revenge-filled delight. With his underwear still being tugged upward, Gallus took his leave, waddling awkwardly out of Spike’s sight. He made his way towards where Luna was spying on them, unaware of her just as all the others were. Quickly, the moon princess hid behind the door, allowing Gallus to waddle right by her without detecting her presence at all.

“Well, his idea of vengeance is the same juvenile antics as it’s always been,” noted Luna, returning to spying on Spike once Gallus was gone from sight. “But this is definitely much different than any dream Spike has had before, at least from what I’ve witnessed him having.”

“Now that my blue-feathered pigeon has tickled my funny bone,” Spike stated, flirting with his ladies, the girls eyeing him seductively as they moved in closer with puckered lips. “How about we move on to you tickling my horny bone?”

“Like you even need to ask,” purred Gabby as she and the others peppered kisses onto Spike’s face, ravaging him with affection up there before they all took different positions to entice him.

“Just relax and let us take real good care of you, King Spike, the Great and Sexy,” flirted Pinkie Pie as she took the bowl of ice cream, scooping out some of it to decorate her chest before shoving that in front of Spike to lick it right off her rack. “Now eat up to your heart’s content.”

“And if you aren’t sure what to do with your hands, well, you could try to feel up our goods if you’d like,” suggested Scootaloo, picking up his big palm pressing it up against her chest to let him feel her up. Applebloom sat opposite the orange mare and did the same, moaning with bliss as she felt Spike start to grope their boobs, further turning them on. Thirsty for more of that wonderful bliss that only their master could provide them, the two Ponies spread their legs to allow their crotches to be out on full display. They then helped his claws scale down their bellies and reach their destination, those supple sideways lips between their legs. With his face busy licking and slobbering over Pinkie’s breasts, Spike clumsily fumbled to tease and finger their holes. However, once he got his bearings, he proceeded to rub and thrust his fingers into them, feeling his claws getting wet and sticky with their lust.

“And don’t worry about your tail,” Sweetie Belle chimed in, sitting down by the long, green-spiked appendage, holding it and hugging it, impressed by its thickness and weight. “I’ll take good care of it, love~”

“I’m sure you will,” murred Spike, pulling his muzzle out between Pinkie’s cleavage to tell her that. Maneuvering his tail about, he wrapped it around Sweetie’s body a couple of times before bringing the spaded tip to her pussy, teasing her hole for a bit as he peeked around Pinkie to the lustful and blushing of Scootaloo and Applebloom. “I’m sure you all will~” With a gentle shove, he pushed the end of his tail into Sweetie Belle’s pussy, listening to her moan with perfect pitch.

“Don’t forget me,” Gabby chimed in, standing before Spike with her palms on his lap as she marveled at his thick dick, giving it a few licks and kisses to get it twitchingly happy.

“Of course I won’t,” chuckled Spike. “As the newest member of my harem, you get the first cock ride of the night.”

“And what a ride it’ll be~” she murred, climbing onto the ample lap of her master and slowly dropped down to her knees as she lined up her vagina with his dick. Taking a few slow breaths, she relaxed her body as she eased herself down, feeling the pointed tip of Spike’s cock push apart the lips of her pussy and made itself at home.

Murring and moaning, Gabby already felt like she was in heaven with barely more than the first inch of her king’s length inside of her and it was already getting difficult to push any more of that thick dragon meat further down. Rising back up a bit, she brought herself back down, managing a bit more of his cock as her insides stretched a bit to better accommodate his penis. Panting a bit, Gabby pulled out once more before lowering herself down again to take another inch of Spike into her pussy and she didn’t stop there. Picking up speed, the lust-filled Griffin worked to get his entire monster cock inside her vagina before either of them reached their climax, an incredibly difficult task with how moist and warm her pussy started out and felt achingly close once the fucking had just begun.

“Damn that’s sexy as Tartarus,” confessed Luna, slowly leaning forward against the door to get a better look at the orgy going on before her while she was drooling at the lewd sight of Spike basking in the company of his wonderfully enticing harem. “It seems Spike really has changed a lot since I last visited him in his sleep. Such a complex scenario as this executed so smoothly just can’t be done from the mind of anyone who hasn’t experienced such things before in reality. But has Spike actually put together his own harem while in Ponyville? Certainly my sister would have at least shared that juicy bit of gossip with me if it was known, but for her to leave that out must mean she was just as unaware of this fact as I was. And no doubt Twilight was in the dark about it too, otherwise she’d have spilled such info. to Celestia the first chance she got.”

Luna smirked and chuckled a little as this small realization brought her surprisingly great joy. “So, Celestia truly wasn’t aware of everything in regards to Spike,” she continued to say to herself. “He’s already put together a following and it’s easy to see how, considering the bod and dick he has at his disposal. I'm even a little tempted to join in and have some fun too.” Luna paused, realizing what she had been saying and noticed how fast her pulse was pumping blood through her body. “No, Luna, you mustn’t even think about that. Abusing your powers like you are right now is already going too far. I shouldn’t even consider taking part in a wet dream… even if the euphoria of it all is so thick and strong that I can taste it from here.”

“Having a blast?” giggled Pinkie, adding another scoop of ice cream onto her chest to ensure Spike had something tasty to keep his muzzle preoccupied with.

“Oh, almost~” he joked, taking his face out of her cleavage to gaze into her eyes and press his chocolate-stained lips against hers, however, something caught his eye just to the side of her crazy, curly mane. He spotted Princess Luna, eavesdropping on them from the doorway, her own lustful desires unconsciously drawing her in yet again. “I think we’re being watched.” Hearing Spike’s words, the girls stopped reveling in their lust and turned to look towards the doorway. Luna bit her lip, realizing she had been spotted and froze up. “We can see you, so come on over.”

“Crap!” thought Luna nervously, looking back at the drake and his ladies. The fact that they were so far into their lovemaking proved a benefit to her as it kept them from immediately hurrying over to get answers from her. “I can’t believe I allowed myself to get caught peeping. That’s a rookie mistake.”

“Princess Luna? Is that you?” asked Spike as he squinted across the room and felt certain it was her. “What are you doing here in my castle?”

“It seems he doesn’t yet realize that this is all a dream,” gasped Luna, greatly relieved by this. “Then I can still pull this off. I just need to play along and probe his subconscious for his location. I just need to be more cautious while in such close proximity to his most lustful cravings.”

Gathering her confidence, Princess Luna made her way into the throne room. “Yes, it is I, an envoy of the Topping Kingdom, here with much to speak to you about. Please forgive me for interrupting your time with your harem.”

“Not at all,” he spoke to her, rubbing his chin and looking upon her with a lewd smile. “In fact, I was hoping we could discuss the unification between our two kingdoms. Together, we could be the Sundae Kingdom.”

“Well, I had merely come here to discuss the cherries, uh, I mean the sprinkles,” she said, fumbling over her words as she approached the dragon king, the lustful energy radiating from him and his harem was even more powerful than she imagined, making it tough for her to focus. Halfway to the throne and she could feel herself getting weak in the knees and sexually starved. The dragon before he was looking more and more desirable by the second and a yearning to satisfy her lust on him was quickly filling up her mind.

“I can hardly believe this is the same little dragon whose face would turn bright pink just from a simple kiss on the cheek. Just how much has he grown up since the last time I’ve helped him through a nightmare of a closet monster?”

“Well, cherries or sprinkles or even a banana to make it a split,” retorted Spike. “Such minor things will have to wait while I’m being entertained by my harem.”

“Th-Then I will just wait till later to discuss such things,” Luna replied, opting to take her leave til the dragon satisfied his own urges and his lust dropped down to a far more tolerable level.

“However,” he added, gesturing for his girls to get up so he could rise to his feet and approach the princess of the night. “What do you think about that merger of our two great kingdoms? Agree to my proposition and then I can let you join us in… celebrating.”

“W-Well, I,” she blushed, feeling herself becoming so turned on more and more by the dragon with every step he took to approach her. Luna herself found her body being drawn towards Spike as if their hormones were suddenly magnetically attracted to one another. She could feel her body burning hotter with desire as her pre seeped into the panties of her dress. Unable to help herself, Princess Luna began stepping more towards the Icecream King, gazing at him longingly, mainly at what she craved from him, that thick piece of dragon meat between his legs.

“Even the horniest of ponies have never been this overpowering when I’ve entered their dreams,” she thought. “The pure and unrestrained greed of a matured dragon is truly a frightful thing.”

“Come on now,” smirked Spike, approaching Luna close enough to place his claws on her face and rub her cheek. At that close range she could easily smell the mix of lust, sweat, and cum from his body. It tugged on the alicorn like she was caught in Spike’s pull, forcing her right into the arms of the drake. Only by sheer force of will was she even able to barely restrain herself from embracing the round-gutted, buff dragon standing before her as euphorically as any of the members of his harem would.

The option for retreat was soon taken off the table too as all five members of Spike’s entourage surrounded Luna on all other sides and slowly moved in to trap her where she stood. They then grabbed at her body making even moving something she’d have to struggle for. “This certainly escalated quickly,” she sweated silently, looking around at Pinkie Pie and the other girls, none of them disappointed to have her distract them from their time with their master. Rather, they seemed even more eager to participate in whatever Spike had planned for her.

Under normal circumstances such tactics would have been futile against someone of her magical capabilities, however, Luna didn’t struggle physically against them. She didn’t even attempt to concentrate magic into her horn to prepare some magical barrier to defend herself.

“I can’t fight back,” she kept telling herself. “If I ruin Spike’s dream he might become aware that I am real and realize my intentions here. If that happens, even if I can figure out where he is now, he’ll just hurry up and leave before we can mobilize to capture him and then we’ll be right back to square one in finding him.” Just the thought of having to admit Spike slipped through her fingers to Celestia aggravated Luna enough to upset her stomach. She was blushing with infatuation for Spike on the outside while gritting her teeth with frustration on the inside.

“No way in Tartarus are you allowing yourself to fail here,” Luna coached herself, really wishing she had someone to pep talk her now of all times. “You’ll just… just have to play things his way for now and…” Gazing down at his crotch, Luna couldn’t help drooling at the sight of the bunless hotdog pointed her way. “And, uh, suffer whatever lewdness he wishes to enact upon your body. It’s no big deal and you are plenty willing to take one for the greater good of Equestria and Celestia be damned if she ever questions your loyalty after this.”

“What’s it gonna be, my princess of the night?” cooed Spike running his claws through her star-sparkling hair. Gazing her deep blue eyes into his gorgeous greens, Luna leaned in to press her lips against his, hugging his buff bod tightly as she gave him her answer.

“Sorry for having cold feet a moment ago,” she told him once their lips parted and smiles of infatuation were now plastered on both their mugs. “I just wasn’t prepared to hear such a proposal. You’ve never shown interest in such a unification before.”

“Think nothing of it,” he chuckled. “The floor is made of ice cream after all. Cold feet are to be expected.”

“Oh… right,” she chuckled, the joke not quite funny, but she was glad that despite so many changes, Spike was still the same cute, dorky dragon at his core.

“As for your other inquiry, I’ve just gone through some changes as of late,” he explained. “Thanks to my new friend’s guidance.”

“Your ‘new friend?’” she asked, curious about this tidbit of info. “Who is that?”

“Something for when we’ve made our union more official,” he told her. “For now, let us celebrate. Ladies, if you would~”

“Right away your sexiness,” proclaimed Sweetie Belle as she and the others moved even closer to Luna, their hands reaching out to grab at her or more specifically, everything she was wearing.

“I’ll get her shoes,” announced Apple Bloom, crouching down low to remove her black, elegant footwear. Lifting up one leg, she slipped it off and then did the same with the other one.

“Oh, my,” blushed Luna, feeling her bare feet against the frozen cream ground and couldn’t help shiver while she felt almost a half dozen hands busily grabbing at her clothes to continue undressing her. “Is this really necessary? I can far more easily strip down on my own.”

“Now where’s the fun in undressing yourself?” asked Scootaloo as she undid the ponytail in her mane and then reached around to remove her spectacles.

“Yeah!” cheered Pinkie Pie, helping Luna out of her dress from the top, removing the moon brooch first and then slipping it off her shoulders and then down past her chest, belly and waist. Sweetie Belle then helped pull it the rest of the way down so the sparkly, black thing ended up on the floor around Luna’s ankles. “This way it’s a big dressing down party!”

“And that also means, welcome to Team Spike!” added Gabby, tugging at the strap to Luna’s bra to make it slip right off her more than ample chest and drop to the floor between her legs. With her chest exposed, the dark blue princess reflexively covered it with her arms, but this left her waist and panties completely vulnerable as all five girls took the black, lacy underwear in hand and yanked it down to her ankles in unison.

With her body completely naked, the five girls then stepped away, taking her clothes with them to ensure she couldn’t cover up again. This left Luna in the buff as she hugged her chest and looked over at Spike, his arms crossed as he eyed her exposed form.

“W-Well, what do you think?” was all she could think to say to him at present.

“Nice,” he answered coolly, as he casually inspected her slender figure. Already liking what he saw, the drake helped stir her horniness more by running the claws of one of his hands over her soft, sensitive body. Despite the obvious sharpness to the dragon’s nails, Spike proved himself very gentle and delicate as he made certain his touch didn’t cut or scratch the visiting dignitary. He did, however, ensure his digits tickled and enticed her, urging some giggles and murrs from her lips. The purple and green ice cream king also observed that despite him touching all over her sensitive figure, Luna didn’t squirm away from him. Rather, she moved in a manner to ensure his claws never had a reason to stop running across her figure and provide her with such delicate stimulation.

“Oh, you have such magical hands,” Luna told him between blushing cheeks. Hearing such praise and seeing how her body embraced his touch served to feed Spike’s ego and helped keep him enthralled in their little playdate.

“They are very nice, aren’t they?” Spike agreed, taking a moment to admire his claws. He looked them over, first his nails that remained sharp enough to rend flesh and cut into gemstones with ease, yet could be wielded masterfully enough to do no more harm than a gentle Spring breeze. After that, he turned his hand over to gaze upon his palm and fingers, noting that while soft they also possessed a callous roughness to them in several spots, a permanent reminder of Spike’s hard-working life as Twilight’s Number One Assistance and all the time had spent with her. Spike smiled warmly as some of his memories of Twilight came to mind, but his time reminiscing was very brief as the sight of Luna’s nude body standing behind his claws helped the young adult dragon return his focus back to the fun he was having with the princess of the night.

“They could do with a massage to help relax them,” Spike commented, dropping an all too obvious hint at what he currently craved, from the Pony princess.

“Oh, you mean something like this?” she asked him, taking his big, scaly hands in her own and started to rub and flex them for him. She watched a calm and peaceful smile spread across his face as he felt her stretch and soothe away any fatigue in them. Doing this also appeared to relax the rest of Spike’s body as he craned his neck back to let out a mighty sigh of contentment and looked almost ready to take a nap, despite the fact that he was already asleep.

“You are just so wonderful,” yawned a blissful Spike as he gazing lovingly at Luna. “As wonderful a Pony on the inside as you are on the outside and seeing that figure of yours, clothes-covered or not, you are one damn sexy beast. Probably, no, definitely the most beautiful of all the princesses.”

“Ohoh,” she chuckled, enjoying such ego-inflating praise herself. “You’re just saying that. I mean, I know I’m quite a looker, but I somehow always seem to end up as either the second or third most beautiful Equestria Princess, typically battling it out with Cadence while Twilight, almost always ends up in fourth due to her not being as well known outside of Ponyville and Equestria. As for Celestia… she either wins by a landslide or narrowly loses to the point it might as well be a tie for first.” As Luna uttered that last part, there was very obvious envy in her voice.

“I couldn’t give a damn what a thousand or even a million Ponies might consider as beautiful,” remarked Spike. “All I know is that my harem is full of them and you are a beauty yourself, one that even your sister could never compare to you.”

“You’re quite the flatterer, Spike,” she smiled, unable to help but feel content at being placed upon a pedestal over her sister. It delighted her enough that she didn’t even mind her two full moons getting squeezed while Spike walked behind her. “And very handsy too, I see~”

“What can I say?” he chuckled. “When I see some low hanging fruit, I gotta grab it.”

“True, but why not climb up and grab at some of the higher hanging ones,” she encouraged him, removing her arms from her chest to allow him full access to her breasts.

“I’d love to,” he smirked, tracing a finger from her cheek to her waist. He then brought his claw up her belly and to her chest before groping her left breast with his same side hand while his other one did the same to one on her right side.

“So,” she murred, feeling his firm, yet gentle claws clench down on her soft flesh while being careful not to dig his nails in or squeeze to the point of pain. “What do you think? Not half bad for a pair of oranges.”

“I’d place them closer to grapefruit-sized, but they are definitely a marvel,” he assured her. “A perfect pair of breasts for my harem, made even more perfect by the mare they’re attached to.”

“You’ve got quite a way with words,” she swooned, finding herself enjoying this much more than she cared to admit. She gazed at the gentle, passionate expression on Spike’s face, seeing just as much romantic passion as there was lust. As he gave her chest another euphoric squeeze, Luna found herself reclining back towards him, pressing her body against his for support while her arms reached back to wrap around Spike’s neck and head. With her rear, she pressed it up against the big dragon’s cock, getting it sandwiched between her cheeks so that she could entice the sexy drake into putting it to work. Almost immediately, Luna’s pleasurable antics paid off as she successfully invoked a series lustful growl from the drake’s lips.

“If you like my words,” he replied, opening up his wingspan and he used it to wrap around both his and Luna’s bodies like a blanket. Spike then reached down to Luna’s rear and hefted her up off the floor, bringing her waist just about level with his dragon cock. “You’ll love my actions.”

“Then don’t hold back,” she flirted with Spike, spreading her legs a bit to allow him to easily slide her down and insert the tip of his dragonhood right into her pussy.

Not even putting an inch into her and Luna could already tell she was about to have one of the wildest rides of her life with one of the biggest dicks she’d ever had the pleasure of getting fucked by. “Oh, yes,” she uttered, biting her lip as every fibre of her being prepared itself for what was to come. Her mission in the dream was not quite forgotten so much as put on hold for a moment. “Fuck me good! I doubt even Celestia has had the opportunity to enjoy getting penetrated by such a mighty phallus, let alone one belonging to a dragon.”

Luna continued to be amazed by the sexy scaly making love to her. As he held her by her waist to fuck her, she couldn’t help but admire the strength of the lusty drake. It all seems so effortless to him even when being an Alicorn meant she was fairly larger than even a full grown stallion.

As Spike slowly lifted her up, the princess of the night was able to marvel at the bulging muscles in his arms while she could also feel her feathery wings rub up against the softness of his smooth-scaled chest along with the plush doughiness of his gut. Against the side of her head, she could feel his cheek rubbing up against hers before he’d bring her back down onto his cock. During that brief interval, the eager dragon didn’t waste it as he used it to nibble on her ear lobe to tease and whisper some lust-filled words to add even more fuel to their passionate fire.

While Luna was distracted with Spike’s words, his tail sprang into action as well. It had started to maneuver its way around her ankles and up her legs like a serpent ensnaring its prey. However, unlike such prey, Luna found herself even more enthralled the more Spike enveloped her body with his own.

“Don’t you worry,” smirked Spike, his response making Luna’s heart stop as she realized she just said all that instead of thinking it. Fortunately, as she felt a bit more of Spike’s length fill and stretch her insides, all worry faded away. “As for Celestia, don’t worry about her. Right now, it’s just you, me, and my harem enjoying a little voyeurism before I’ll give them a dicking too.”

“Get him nice and warmed up for us,” Sweetie Belle cheered along with the others.

“My record of riding him is three minutes without cumming,” Scootaloo called out next. “Think you can last longer?”

“Oh, I’ll, uh, certainly try,” blushed Luna before she moaned as Spike lifted her up off his cock before slowly plunging it back into her even deeper this time. All the while, his harem continued to further entice them with some sexy commentary as their session together was starting to accelerate to its climax.

“Damn he’s good,” thought Luna, feeling his thick length inch further inside her pussy each time he lowered her onto it, all while showcasing both his great strength and delicate care. “Fucking terrific actually. I didn’t want to probe his sleep for ethical reasons before. Now, to betray him after letting me experience such bliss, he’ll never forgive me. I know I certainly won’t be able to forgive myself.”

“Is something the matter?” asked Spike, sensing the tension Luna was feeling, mostly from how her muscles tightened, particularly the ones in her legs that were clutching tightly around the drake’s dick as he was finally managing to insert half his mast inside of her. Hearing the sexhy stud’s voice, Luna looked at him, still debating over what was right and what was wrong. “You seem tense. Is something bothering you?”

“It’s just my sister, Celestia,” she confessed without meaning to. Quickly, Luna figured a way to spin it in this dream of his. “She might not like the idea of me choosing to unite our kingdoms without her consent. She’s always had to be a control freak over… well, just about everything.”

“You don’t need to tell me about that one,” remarked Spike, rolling his eyes. “If I had to deal with her during negotiations, she’d probably broker a deal to annex my kingdom into hers and leave me with nothing, all while not letting me get a word in edgewise.”

“Very accurate… depressingly accurate, actually,” confessed Luna, finding it so sad that it was actually chuckle-inducing. “That’s pretty much how she managed to expand Eques- uh, I mean the Topping Kingdom to its full size while I was living abroad. She allowed herself and, by extension, her own people to thrive while making many more suffer as a result. Needless to say, I was never for that and am grateful that she hasn’t been able to do the same to you and yours.”

“Which is why I’m glad to be able to send for you to do our dealings,” smiled Spike. “You think she’ll be mad to hear that our two kingdoms will be one.”

“Delighted… provided she sits at the top,” answered Luna. “And no doubt she will do what she can to make that so.”

“Well, I’m more than happy to share,” stated Spike. “Just not with her. And, considering she won’t share with anyone, can I assume which side you will stand beside when the time comes?”

Luna was quiet for a while after being asked that. She tried to enjoy the feeling of Spike mounting his dick inside of her, his length managing to slide in, inching ever nearer to being ball’s deep. It was easily the greatest sex she could even recall having, with each thrust feeling that much more wonderful than the last as the dragon’s cock kept going deeper and began to pulse and burn with an intoxicating heat that stoked the moon princess’s own lust hotter as well. Their climaxes were coming in fast as evidenced by the mix of their pre oozing out of her pussy each time Spike pulled out.

A large part of Luna wanted this moment in time to just pause and never resume. She teared up a little, wishing so badly that she could simply embrace this euphoria forever and not have to think about how she was tasked to betray Spike or how tempted she was to take Spike up on his offer to choose to side with him against his sister, not just in this dream, but in reality as well.

“If it wasn’t betraying all of Equestria to get the better of her, I’d agree in a heartbeat,” she thought, eyes welling as her heart ached with indecision. “Just the chance to see an expression of defeat on her face would more than satiate me for another thousand moons, but I can’t risk all of Equestria for some shallow self-satisfaction… Can I?” Such a dividing conundrum left a very bitter taste in her mouth that not even the best sex of her life could distract from her conflicting feelings and desires.

“As tempting as your offer is,” Luna finally answered with a long sigh. “I can’t simply betry my sister. You know as well as I do how she basks in the light as if it washes away her sins and makes those around her view her as one who can do no wrong. To the world, they’ll see her as the victim being betrayed by her cruel and corrupt sister who has chosen to swear her allegiance to the Dark Dragon King or whatever cheesy propaganda my sister chooses to use against us.”

“Fair enough,” said Spike, not losing his smile as he slowly laid Luna onto the ground on her back and reached forward to rub the side of her face. “Then our two kingdoms shall remain as such and we’ll just do business as usual… once we finish our bout of fun first.”

“It’ll be for the best,” she agreed, placing a hand onto his cheek before the two pressed lips against lips and felt their passion surge. Soon, Spike found his hips pistoning into the Alicorn princess while he snuggled into her ample chest.

At the same time, Luna felt up the base side of Spike’s body, feeling up his broad shoulders and muscular back. She then placed her hands upon the trail of spikes running down the drakes back. The princess of the night then followed the bumpy path down to Spike’s waist and rear, stopping at the base of his tail to feel up and grope his buttocks, the cheeks on it big and soft, but with just the right amount of firmness to keep them shaped like a lovely purple and pale green heart.

Those gropes forced some murrs pure ecstacy to vibrate off of Spike’s lips and he treated Luna to just as much bliss right back as he groped along her form as well, while he continued to pound into her as hastily as ever, building them both up to experiencing the lustful delight of a shared orgasm that quickly filled her insides and left a slight bulge of seed in her stomach.

“How did you like that?” panted Spike, resting atop the princess for a bit as he slipped out of her and then proceed to pick her up off the ground. As he did all that, their mixed seed began to leak out of her, globs oozing onto the floor, but neither paid any mind to that as they simply reveled in that feeling of pure bliss that was slowly fading over time.

“Like a dream,” she answered, giggling, barely able to believe she had experienced such euphoria in a dream that wasn’t her own. Hugging her arms around Spike’s neck, she allowed him to carry her right back to his throne and seated her comfortably upon it.

“Glad to hear that,” he told her, running his claws through her shimmery hair a bit. “Why not take a little rest for now while I show my girls some love too.”

“You’re one lucky dragon,” she told him, watching his five girls approach, rubbing their leaking pussies. They were practically drooling from horny hunger after witnessing their master fucking another and wanted to finish what they had only just started before her timely interruption. “You have so many wonderful girls who want a piece of you.”

“Definitely lucky,” laughed Spike heartily. “In that regard, at least. Still, it isn’t easy to satisfy so many with my body so frequently. I definitely need to build up lots more stamina if I want to expand my harem more than what it currently is.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask about that,” commented Luna, her patience finally providing her with the chance she had been waiting for. “I recognize most of your members. Pinkie Pie, of course, and I’ve had the pleasure of coming to the aid of Sweetie Belle and the others on occasion too, but the griffin girl is a new one to me. When did the two of you meet?”

“Just recently,” he answered her, walking over to Gabby to wrap his arm around her shoulders and then crouch down to plant a kiss upon her cheek. “In Griffinstone. It’s a funny story, actually, if you wanna hear it.”

“You can share all the details about it later,” she told him, watching the four ponies begin to rub and grope at Spike’s body and even taking turns to lick and nibble over his cock and balls. All of this was quickly helping him become hard all over again for the continuation of their own love making session with the great drake. From this, Luna realized what Spike meant by a need for greater stamina if he wanted to please so many in one lust-filled session. The thought of him becoming such a virile creature served to return a stirring to her own loins and make her crave another go as the sexy drake herself.

“For now,” she continued. “I don’t want to distract you from your harem, especially when they are chomping at the bit for a taste of dragon meat.”

“What can I say,” he smirked, looking down at his lovely ladies as he slowly brought himself down to the floor to let them ravage his body like a swarm of horny piranha. “They can’t get enough of this beefcake.”

“And he’s just the beefiest~” swooned Pinkie Pie as the five girls soon buried Spike’s body under their own and got to work filling him with pleasure while they lustfully satisfied their own carnal cravings with the scalie.

Luna watched them go at it, unable to help but smile at how much they enjoyed one another and Spike’s balls and penis. “Such an endearing sight,” she thought. “In a hot as fuck sort or way.”

The princess of dreams then focused her gaze once more on Gabby, ready to be a turkey and gobble that dick as deep down her throat as she could get it. “Considering the other girls, I can’t imagine Spike would just make up another,” she figured as she thought through all she had learned from Spike’s subconscious. “Also, there was that other, male Griffin. It wouldn’t make sense for Spike to crave payback on someone who doesn’t exist. The two of them must be real and, considering that Spike was only recently able to move freely after his escape, he must have encountered them after that and in Griffinstone no less. It’s certainly an impossibly far trek to make in such a short amount of time, especially considering he should have been unable to fly while under the spell Twilight cast upon his wings. Still, if he had gotten aid from those four… I’m sure they found a way. But why go there? Even if it is a far away place in a land not too particularly fond of ponies or anything else that isn’t legal tender, even Celestia’s influence isn’t restricted in such a place.”

“Hey now!” laughed Spike as Gabby finished her turn at Spike’s hose and proceed to hug and cuddle his belly as she nuzzled into his chest. “Those feathers of yours are very tickly!”

“Oh, is Master Spike ticklish?” she inquired with a smirk before she latched onto his torso more tightly as she brushed her feathers all over his scaly form.

“C-Come on!” he spoke through his chortles. Seeing what was going on, the rest of his harem held Spike’s limbs down to keep him restrained as they watched him squirm and sweat from all those tickles. “Five-against-one isn’t fair.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t like it,” observed Applebloom as she observed Spike’s dick throbbing hard once more after climaxing a second time from his brief session with Gabby.

“A forest or a cave would have been a better choice,” Luna continued to ponder while being constantly distracted by the sexy sight right in front of her.. “The Dragonlands would have been more ideal, especially with the build he’s sporting now, yet he went to Griffinstone of all places and I seriously doubt it was by chance. He had a reason, one that Celestia will no doubt wish to learn about while she punishes him… and all the members of his harem… and whoever else he is involved with.”

With a heavy sigh, Luna felt confident that she had succeeded in what Celestia had tasked her with. Watching Spike and his harem, however, as they were having the time of their lives, the princess couldn’t help but hate herself for doing anything to get in the way of the infatuation they shared with one another.

The five girls had already ended their tickle torture game when Spike’s face started to turn a few shaders darker and he began to struggle for air. They then moved on to another, giving Spike a moment to refill his lungs with air in the time between. This time, Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo were making their way up to Spike’s head and proceeded to take a seat on it while Gabby and Pinkie were more focused back down at Spike’s big, thick length.

“Now I’ve gotta go,” she instructed herself, unable to avert her eyes as Spike had all the CMC sitting on his face, doing their best to position their crotches just right so that he could lick and sniff their pussies all at once while Gabby and Pinkie were rubbing their breasts up and down on his monster length, watching it twitch, throb and leak excitedly. They were all enjoying themselves so thoroughly that Luna hated the thought of doing anything to ruin it. The sight before her was so hot and kinky too that her body was aching to join them.

“Celestia will still be gone for some time,” she figured. “And there really is no harm in me sticking around to watch… for a little while longer.”

It wasn’t even dawn’s rising by the time Celestia and her forces stopped short of their destination, the Changeling Hive. They stopped in the forest at the point where things were still green and full of life, but they could also clearly see the divide in which everything started to turn into a lifeless wasteland that stretched on for miles all around the towering colony of those black, holey insects. The Equestrian soldiers took this small break as a chance to catch their breath and quiet any jitters they developed on the way over. Celestia, however, walked on ahead, standing at the point the forest came to an end and sloped down into the badlands. She gazed ahead at their destination, their point of conquest and revenge, standing there stoically till the rest of her force moved to accompany her.

“Such an ugly blemish on my kingdom,” frowned Celestia. “I should have wiped out this infestation long ago…” Pausing her words, Celestia focused her magic and fired a small blast ahead of her. She watched as the magic quickly dissipated as soon as it crossed into the badlands. “Had it not been for that accursed barrier of Chrysalis’s, able to nullify all magic save for their own. It has been the one thing keeping them safe from annihilation…” Celestia turned to her side where a number of her Unicorn guards stood at the ready. They all held a corked bottle with a greenish potion contained within it. Turning to her other side, stood Commander Blitzkrieg, holding up a goblet full of the stuff for Celestia to take. The Princess of the Sun smirked as she reached down to pick it up. “Until now.” Raising her glass, she used her magic to help summon the sun to rise up and slowly bring light into the world. The first of its rays passed through the goblet in her grasp and bathed her face in the liquid’s green hue, making her normally deep blue eyes appear a toxic green instead.

“I trust R&D has made absolutely certain that this concoction will do as you promised, correct?” questioned Celestia to the nearest Unicorn soldier.

“Of course,” he nodded. “It was made from the extracted essense of some Changelings we had managed to capture over the years and… researched. With this brew in our systems, our magic will temporarily be mixed with that of Changeling magic and ensure their barrier does not hinder us.”

“And the only obstacle standing in our way will be no more,” declared Celestia, sounding purely happy as she marveled at the rising sun bringing forth more and more daylight. “This day is going to be perfect. The kind of day of which I’ve dreamed since I was small. Every drone and grub and mite. They won’t see another night. The sun will rise up as they all take the fall.” Celestia let out a dark chuckle, finally ready to begin.

“A toast!” she called out, prompting all the Unicorn to uncork their bottles and hold them up high, ready to drink when commanded. “It’s time for a new day in Equestria.” She downed the green elixir and all the others followed suit.”

“Ugh…” groaned the pig man after having down more flasks of ale than he ever had the pleasure of doing before in his life. He felt so lightheaded while his gut was achingly heavy, the whole thing swollen with so much booze. “H-Had enough yet, ya sexy lassie?”

“I think I can keep going for a little bit longer,” Dominazer flirted with the hog, rubbing his chin as he let out a belch that reeked of beer mixed with his normal bad breath. To just about anyone else such an odor would have made one sick to vomiting from one whiff, but to this hard core mare, it hardly compared to the terrible stenches she encountered back in the prison she grew up in. “Now, don’t tell me big, strong you can’t handle more than a few measly shots of ale.”

“A… A few?” he questioned her. “We’ve been drinking fer…” His words trailed off as he tried to think about how long they had been downing brews. It had indeed been a while, but he was so out of it that his sense of time was gone completely. His vision wasn’t much better as anything beyond the tip of his snout was a blurry mess he could barely make out. “Fer a while, I reckon. And why do ya not sound the least bit tipsy? Are ya even a wee bit shit-faced?”

“The oaf is finally catching on,” she thought, the smirk on her face not going away despite this. “Took him long enough, but even a dozen glasses earlier and he’d still be too wasted to do a damn thing about it.”

“Oh, nonsense,” she giggled, acting bubbly as she hugged up against him to rub his gut and cuddle with him despite how much it repules her to the point of making her skin crawl. “I’ve been drinking just as much as you are. You are just too drunk to realize it, but you’re definitely winning this game.”

“R-Really?” he mumbled, sounding skeptical, but his current mental state made him incredibly gullible too. “I’m… I’m winning?”

“So, very, very close,” she nodded, taking her shot glass and downed it as if it was a glass of water. “Whew! I don’t know how I managed another. I feel ready to pass my ass right out.”

“You… you don’t sound l-l-like you are,” he blurbled.

“Oh, don’t listen to yourself,” she told him with a flirty boop to his snout. “You’re drunk and just muttering a bunch of nonsense. Now, it’s your turn and here’s your shot glass.” As she said this she picked up the overflowing flask she had been using ever since his mind became far too hazy for him to know the difference. Bringing the tall mug of ale to his lips, Dominazer began to pour it all down his throats. Reflexively, the big pig began to chug, downing as much of the grog as he could, though plenty still overflowed in his maw and ran down his fat face to soak the collar of his shirt that was already wet from several of his previous drinks.

“Gluglugluglug,” he chugged while the sadistic Pony didn’t even allow him a breath of air till he finished. The hog’s gut groaned, aching from adding more fluids to it, while his head felt even woozier as another hit of alcohol pushed him even further beyond his limit.

“That’s a good boy,” she chuckled once she felt certain he finished the cup and pulled it off his muzzle to inspect. Seeing not even a drop remained, she smiled and placed it back down on the counter to have it refilled back up to the brim. “Looks like it’s my turn again. I don’t know if I can handle one more, but I’ll try my best. I just wish I could hold my alcohol as masterfully as you can, Mr. Piggy.”

The swine didn’t answer her with words. He didn’t answer her at all, unless the eruption of a massive belch that alerted everyone in the tavern was his last ditch effort to curse her out before he fell backwards and crashed to the floor was a sloshy BOOM! that shook the floor.

“Hey, are you okay?” whispered Sunburst, breaking out from his narration role, for a moment, to check on the Changeling playing the pig guy. “That looked like a pretty nasty spill just now.”

“Ugh…” she moaned weakly, transforming back to normal. Even back in her black, buggy form she still had a beer belly that she could barely wrap her arms around and her vision was still a blurry mess. Cadence and Shiny looked down to check on her to make sure she was okay as well. “The fall wasn’t so bad, but did we have to drink to the point of me passing out?”

“Guess I did get a little carried away,” apologized the pink princess Pony. “It has been quite some time since I last got to drink as much as I wanted. Too many royal obligations and family ones too so I couldn’t partake in more than one or two on a weekend.”

“Yeah,” recalled Shiny with a chuckle. “And I remember you used to be able to drink like a fish back then. I bet you still could drink this entire hive under the table if you wanted to.”

“Maybe if I can build up my tolerance again,” she nodded with a smile. “And now that I have more free time, I’ll be able to enjoy lots more booze… and other fun activities.” As she said the last part, Cadence turned to look over at Tamati who was enjoying the larp from his throne. With one hand brandishing his hard on, he gave a friendly wave with the claws on his other and smiled warmly at her.

“Well, if everyone is good, we can proceed,” Sunburst chimed in.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” groaned the Changeling, attempting to soothe her gut. “I just need to lay here… for a little while.”

“Then, let’s resume,” announced Sunburst quietly, prompting everyone to get back into character.

“Well, looks like it’s my win,” smirked Dominazer as she crouched down to pilfer the sack of coins attached to the pig man’s waist. Holding it in her palm, she felt its weight. “This should be enough to pay off my meal.”

“Uh, excuse me,” the minotaur bartender spoke, getting Dominazer’s attention. Though he was well built, his toned physique had dulled from age. While he had a thick, scruffy beard upon his face, the top of his head was in an advanced stage of balding. The minotaur also possessed an eyepatch over his right eye. “If you are all done, then there’s just the matter of paying what you owe.”

“Of course,” she nodded, placing the pouch in front of him. “This should cover it.”

With a skeptical snort, he opened the pouch and reached into it, retrieving the coins. Holding his palm open, he counted the coins for a minute and then poured it all back into the pouch and placed it beneath the counter.

“It is enough for your meal,” he confirmed. “But, there’s still the matter of all these drinks the two of you just had, which is easily more than double what your meal cost.”

“Oh,” muttered a flummoxed Dominazer. Her expression revealed everything on her mind from the fact that she had no means to pay it off and, despite doing her best to appear unaffected by all the booze she drank, she was clearly feeling more than buzzed at the moment. Needing a scapegoat for this new debt, she turned to the one she was currently using and pointed to the passed out hog on the floor. “Uh, just put it on his tab.”

“No can do,” he refused her. “He’s out cold and after seeing… all of this, you need to pay now.”

“And you waited till now to say something,” Dominazer pointed out.

“We were short staff to do the dishes,” he answered her. “And lo and behold, we’ve now got two-”

“Unhand me!” Elly growled, struggling with the dragon bouncer and a golem one too as they struggled with the cleric’s muscular build to escort her into the kitchen. “I didn’t concede the Mega Steak Challenge.”

“No, but roughhousing is not allowed in here,” the dragon explained. “And so you have the choice of either paying for your meal and the damage you caused immediately or we will contact the authorities to apprehend you. Now, we’d like to resolve this issue with as little damage to our establishment as possible, so please stop causing a scene!”

“I am doing nothing of the sort!” she snapped at them, pushing the dragon aside while grabbing the golem and tossing him with scary ease, right onto an empty table that was currently surrounded by three that weren’t. The diners were frozen with fright at the near miss they experienced. The golem, though mostly unharmed, remained on the ground, still trying to process the fact that, for the first time in his life, he had been sent airborne.

Two more bouncers were quick to take the golem’s place. One was a heavily tattooed ogre with swampy green skin and fiery red head. The other was a diamond dog with scruffy hair all over his body and spiked bands on his wrists, knuckles, and shins. He also had a matching collar around his neck that included a dog tag with his name, “Fluffy” engraved upon it. Though both were as ripped as any other bouncer there, they proceeded with caution towards the healer class character.

“Cause any more trouble and we really will go ahead and call the authorities,” warned the dragon. With a snort, Elly followed them into the kitchen, restraining her increasingly violent urges that made her muscles bulge and the veins in them throb.

“Make that three dish washes just like magic,” the minotaur amended. “Now, the kitchen is down over there. You can walk to it yourself, unless you require an escort as well.”

Without uttering a single word, Dominazer retreated to the kitchen. The sadistic brawler was very drunk and annoyed currently, but still not deprived of enough common sense to know that she was only in a position to make things worse if she didn’t concede this battle. All she could do was swallow her pride, for the time being, and vow cruel revenge at a later time and place.

Inside the kitchen, Chrissy was already toiling away at the sink, her hands wet and pruny. Beside the devilish witch, on her right side was a stack of washed and dried plates a couple dozen high. On her left were several more stacks of plates five or six dozen high and waiting for their turn to be cleaned. Next to them were baskets of dirty silverware and ale-reeking glasses of different sizes that were in need of a wash as well. If the sheer quantity of things to clean wasn’t bad enough, the pesky flies buzzing around added more than a little agitation to the situation.

“I can see why they were so eager for dishwashers,” commented Dominazer as she and Elly joined Chrissy at other sinks to all tackle this task at once.

“I think I would rather take on the demons dwelling in the darkest pits of Tartarus than this,” grumbled Chrissy as she glared at all the pesky gnats that were flying around her head bothersomely. “And if anyone so much as giggles or grins at the sight of my dishpan hands, you’d best pray for as swift a death as possible.” The flies around her were quick to fly off, the Changelings who had transformed into them didn’t wish to face the all too infamous vengeful wrath of their former queen.

“Well, slaying the scum living deep beneath our planet’s crust will have to wait,” replied Dominazer. “For now, we must focus on stuck-on foods and day old grease stains.”

“I look forward to doing battle with such fiends,” stated Elly, reaching for the first plate on the top of her stack. As she did this, Dominazer and Chrissy watched her in silence. With extreme care, in spite of her brawny, overly muscular form, she cleaned the dish with the greatest of delicacy. Neither of her two traveling companions could believe she could possess such soft movements. It felt even more impossible when she made a fist and slammed it down onto the corner, the force of doing so almost enough to cause all the plates to come crashing down. “I guarantee our group will crush all who stand in our way.”

“Speaking of our group,” commented Chrissy. “Where is that other one… uh, what’s her name?”

“Oh, you mean, Shiny?” asked Dominazer. “I remember she was eating with us, but I don’t recall her after, while we were attempting to avoid…” She paused to look down at the messy plates she was forced to scrub clean. “All this. Honestly, I thought she’d ended up here first of all of us.”

Just then, Shiny cautiously slipped into the kitchen and carefully approached her friends. “Oh, hey, everyone,” she spoke softly. “I guess things didn’t turn out so well for you three.”

“Or for you,” retorted Chrissy. “Well, grab some dishes and start cleaning.”

“Actually, I already paid for my meal,” she explained, getting surprised looks from her three friends. “I just wanted to tell you I was going to be spending the night at the inn next door.”

“Hold on a minute,” hissed Chrissy upon hearing all this. “ How can you afford to pay for your meal as well as a room at an inn on top of that?”

“Yeah,” agreed Dominazer. “When I released you from your prison cell you had nothing save for the clothes on your back.”

“True,” she nodded. “But I was a part of traveling performers, remember?”

“Yeah,” answered Dominazer. “And that’s sort of how you ended up with us too.”

“Well, we traveled all over and while most simply paid us up front to perform, we also went into contracts with certain towns, as us coming to entertain often helped with businesses there too. Part of that contract was that a fraction of the profits made during our visits was set aside as credit for us to use whenever we needed it and, well, while the rest of my troupe is gone, the contract still remains and I can make use of it.”

“Uh, and how much money are we talking about?” wondered Chrissy, she and the other two were greatly intrigued by this as well.

“Nothing too significant,” Shiny admitted. “Maybe a week or two’s worth of food and boarding for the entire troupe in at least a dozen towns and cities across the continent. “It’s hardly a king’s ransom, but I should be able to live comfortably while we’re on our travels.”

“And you didn’t mention this little nest egg of yours, why?” asked an increasingly agitated Chrissy, grinding her teeth as she looked ready to go ballistic and break plates.

“I tried, but you all ignored me when I offered to pay for our meal,” she answered. “Hopefully, in the future, we can try to work things out together rather than make it everyone for themselves.”

With that said, the graceful dancer of the group took her leave, yawning a bit as she looked eager to go and get some rest. The others could feel fatigue setting in too, but, until the dishes were washed, they had no choice but to keep working if they wanted to ever get out of the tavern.

“You know,” commented Dominzer, a few minutes after Shiny had left. “I was considering fighting my way out, but, on my own, I wasn’t confident I could do it. Maybe…”

“If we fight together we can do it,” finished Chrissy with a grin. She didn’t even have to think about it. “I’m in.”

“Me too,” flexed Elly, muscles bulging to show her eagerness. “Let’s fight.” All three girls grabbed a stack of dishes and held them up high and looked at one another.

Shiny had just reached the front door of the tavern when that sound of fragile plates shattering into countless tiny pieces filled her ears and the entire building. At once, all the bouncers hurried to the kitchen to see just what had happened. The unicorn just sighed, already aware of what had just happened. “This isn’t going to end well for somebody,” she sighed and took her leave for the inn, not daring to look back and see what chaos was about to unfold.