Dream Cycle - Twilight

“Oh, no, Twilight! It's Nightmare Moon! What are you going to do?” Spike shouted. Darkness swirled around the field, wind whipping Twilight's mane as she stood proudly in front of the cackling alicorn. Her friends were waving for help from a comically oversized toy chest floating behind Nightmare, only for her to snap it shut, lock it, and make it vanish before Twilight's eyes.

“Hahaha, there's nothing you can do to stop me! Even if you were to get the key back, you could never save your friends and their elements, muhahaha!” Nightmare twirled the key in front of Twilight, taunting her.

Twilight's brow furrowed as her magic surged forth. A blast shot forward, knocking Nightmare out of the sky. The key fell down to the ground, and Spike rushed forward to grab it. Nightmare quickly took flight again, soaring down to attempt to reach the key before Spike could. Twilight cheered, sure that Spike would make it well before Nightmare could, but as she watched, Spike's dash was slowing. He huffed and puffed, becoming exhausted before flopping to the ground mere inches away. Twilight wasn't sure, given she was standing so far away, but she thought his gut seemed a bit... rounder than it had been before.

“Ahaha!” Nightmare laughed, scooping up the key in her hoof. “I'm unstoppable! You can't stop me! That's what unstoppable means!”

“But I can stop you!” Twilight protested. “I mean, I will stop you!”

Her horn lit up as she put together a powerful lightning spell, sending it flashing towards Nightmare, and she got a direct hit!

Twilight felt like cheering, until she saw that the attack had just made a little shower of sparks and nothing else had happened.

“Was that supposed to hurt?” Nightmare demanded, sounding amused. “That doesn't seem like the kind of spell I'd expect to see from an alicorn princess of magic.”

“What – why didn't that work?” Twilight asked herself, baffled.

She was sure that had been a powerful spell!

Nightmare was preparing a counterattack, and Twilight cast a shield spell to protect herself as she galloped over to Spike to make sure he was okay.

He seemed all right as she got close enough to get a better look, though Twilight was sure he should have been in better shape, but she could only look for a moment before Nightmare cast a spell that hit her shield.

The shield shattered into a thousand pieces, making Twilight gasp with surprise. It felt like Nightmare had needed to spend no effort at all to break through her strongest shielding spell.

“Is that it?” Nightmare demanded. “Is that the best you can do?”

She chuckled. “Well, I suppose you are a very young alicorn princess...”

“No, it's not!” Twilight countered. “I'm strong enough to beat you!”

The Element of Magic threw another attack, then another, but none of them seemed to impress Nightmare Moon at all. One of them she just batted away with her wing, another she actually opened her mouth and ate…

Nightmare dropped to the ground, and Twilight wondered if maybe she'd be able to gallop over and take the key. Then Nightmare slammed her hoof into the ground, sending waves of darkness rippling out as the ground itself shook underneath her.

Twilight flared her wings to try and control herself, staggering to the side, and nearly fell over.

Twilight stood tall once again, but as she made to charge towards Nightmare, she found her hooves were stuck in something. Looking down, Twilight let out a yelp as she saw the ground was now covered in a jet black rubber to match Nightmare's coat. Twilight tugged against it, but was unable to free herself.

Spike was in a far worse state. He had been completely covered by the vinyl goo, and was trying to sit himself up straight. Twilight's horn glowed, and she managed to take hold of Spike's claw, lifting him into a sitting position. The vinyl surrounded him with several creaks, however, leaving him pressing against his gut. He squeaked with every poke and prod, and each breath of his was muffled by the vinyl. As he huffed, his gut seemed to get bigger. His cheeks puffed up, and Spike wriggled about, as if he was being squeezed inside a thick rubbery suit. Nightmare wandered over, whistling softly as she produced a paintbrush and several small cans. She dipped the brush into the purple paint before starting to slather it on Spike. The paint was drying quickly, and once the base coat had been placed, Nightmare happily moved on to painting the green of Spike's belly and spines.

It wasn't too long before Spike's new ever inflating suit now resembled the dragon stuck inside, albeit with a big dopey grin spread on his face. He squished his cheeks with his mitten like claws, his 'mmphs' of struggles now sounding more like giggles of delight. He was able to stand up with a bit more help from Nightmare, who then pet him on the head softly. “You make a lovely toy, Spike. Perhaps you'd like Twilight to be one too?” She asked.

Spike shook his head, but Nightmare just laughed, taking her brush in her magic again and starting to paint circles in Spike's eyes. “Are you sure? I bet she would feel good squished into your belly.” She finished the circle, then moved to another circle, and another color.

“Smothered under your butt.” Another circle, another color.

“Feeling her flattened as you inflate.” Another circle, another color.

“And then just as big and bouncy as you.” Nightmare had finished the circles, before flicking the brush upwards. The colors swirled in Spike's eye's, and he giggled again. “Don't you agree?”

Twilight had been staring as all this happened, torn between total shock at what was happening to Spike and trying to dispel the strange latexy corruption to actually be able to move and help.

When she saw Spike's eyes start to swirl, she tried to take off – her wings hammering at the air – but that just made her bounce up and down a bit, and Spike giggled.

He waddled over to her with a squeak, his suit swaying from side to side as the air moved, and Twilight spoke up for the first time in a while. “Spike! Are you okay – we've got to do something!”

Spike nodded, giggling again, and wrapped his puffed-up arms around Twilight – pulling her into a hug, her hooves coming free of the black rubber surface but leaving them in four big round balloonlike blobs instead.

The force of the hug took Twilight's breath away, leaving her gasping instead of protesting, and Spike seemed to take that as agreement – continuing to embrace her, rolling onto his front and squishing her with his balloonified weight.

“Mrph!” Twilight protested, wriggling as best she could (which turned out to be not well enough) until she caught sight of Spike's eyes.

It seemed oddly easy to just stare at the spirals…

...until she shook her head, managing to squirm free somehow!

“You won't beat me that easily,” she began, then realized something felt odd. Looking back at herself, she gasped – she had a big black inflatable diaper on, as well as the big black inflatable things on her hooves!

“I've, I've still got my magic!” Twilight added, as Nightmare chuckled.

“Oh?” Nightmare asked. “Well, let's see your magic then~?”

Twilight should have realized something was wrong, but she was too flustered, and she summoned her magic – only for another blob of puffy black rubber on her horn to suddenly puff up, drinking up the energy of her magic and making all the inflatable blobs of vinyl get bigger!

Twilight let out a squeak of fright to match the squeaks from the thick balloons growing along her body. She instinctively tried to shove the diaper off her rump, but all she succeeded in doing was making herself blush as the spheres on her hooves indented into the vinyl. Nightmare fired a small bolt of magic up to Twilight, who tried to deflect it with her own spells. Naturally, all that happened was the vinyl swelled up once again, though the spell had missed her by a mile anyway.

She blushed, realizing Nightmare was just toying with her.

She looked down to see Nightmare leaning in to whisper in Spike's ear. He gigged, squeezing his cheeks once again as his painted on grin widened as he squished his face around. He leaned back onto his tail, carefully positioning it beneath his rump like a spring. The vinyl crumpled as he leaned his weight into it, sinking slowly lower and lower to the ground. His belly and rump swelled as the air was forced into separate parts of the suit, Nightmare backing away a few steps. Her horn glowed, and a spectral hose started to snake from his belly before materializing into a pump which Nightmare placed her hooves on. A band could be heard clicking, and Spike wiggled his rump. Then Nightmare began to pump.

Spike's belly swelled outwards, growing steadily rounder and rounder, the giddy dragon pressing his claws into it to feel how the vinyl squeezed himself inside it. Bigger and bigger he grew, head and chest starting to inflate as well, though he retained a disproportionately bloated bottom half. It wasn't long before he was now bigger than Nightmare, and the starry hose and pump vanished in a puff of smoke. She trotted up behind Spike, placing her hooves on his shoulder.

“One...” She pressed him downwards, the sound of metal straining could be heard through the creaking vinyl before she released the pressure, and he rose back up slightly.

“Two...” She pressed him down further, the creaking growing louder before she once again let go of the pressure.

“Three!” She shoved him downwards until he was laying flat on his back, his arms and legs sprawled outwards. The sound of metal snapping echoed around as the band wrapped at his tail base gave way and all his new air rushed down into his tail. Spike was propelled upwards, and before Twilight could react, he collided with her mid-air.

The impact made a loud squeak, and Spike hugged Twilight again before holding her in his big squeaky paws.

They were hanging in the air for a lot longer than Twilight thought really made sense, but it was hard to focus on that – then it got even harder as Spike pressed into the squeaky diaper on her rump and Twilight felt a spark of magic rush involuntarily out of her horn.

“What-” she began, breathlessly, and Spike pressed again to make another spark of magic flow out and swell up her inflatable booties and diaper.

“Any good toy has a button that makes it do something,” Nightmare observed, chuckling, and Spike pressed harder – making Twilight produce a continuous stream of magic, which made the vinyl swell up and swell up and make her more and more lightheaded.

The squeaks and creaks and crinkles echoed all around Twilight as the black material spread, changing colour and becoming purple as it engulfed her, and it was all really confusing but for some reason it felt like she was turning into a toy just like Spike had…

...and Twilight and Spike landed with a bounce and a creak and a squeak, springing twelve feet into the air before bouncing again and again and finally coming to rest with big white balloon bars all around them.

Twilight wobbled to her hooves, feeling her big inflatable diaper swaying behind her, and looked down at squeaky, crinkly plastic covering her hooves… her body… everything.

There was no roof to the bars, making it clear that it was an inflatable crib with inflatable blankets and inflatable pillows – the blankets were covered with a pattern of stars over the top of a black “night sky”, which made it obvious where it had come from – but when Twilight tried to get out her inflatable-covered hooves couldn't get enough grip. Then Spike hugged her tightly, pulling her back into the crib, and Nightwear trotted over with a smirk.

“There you go,” she said. “You just needed the right accessories.”

Twilight tried to protest as the blanket was pulled over them, but all she could do was squeak – and yawn, because she felt very sleepy all of a sudden…

“There you go, see?” Luna asked.

Twilight blinked, a bit confused, and looked down at the toys they'd been playing with. There was her balloon-animal version of herself, and a balloon-animal version of Spike, all tucked nicely into a balloon crib.

They were really impressive pieces of balloon art, but Twilight was sure they'd been playing with… something else?

“Now, let's get you ready,” Luna added. “I said you'd get something special if you were good, and you were good, so you get something special!”

“I know how language works, Luna,” Twilight mumbled around her pacifier.

“I don't think you do,” Luna replied. “Or you'd have remembered that we can't understand what you mean when you mumble like that~”

Twilight pouted, feeling very put-upon by that logic, and poked the balloon crib as she wondered how the play session had actually gone.

She remembered some things happening, but it was all kind of vague, and – would she really have said those things should happen? Not to mention that she remembered being the Twilight who was battling Nightwear, unless that was just a thing about imagination.

Luna picked her up all of a sudden, making her yelp, and the elder alicorn used a hoof to hold the pacifier in Twilight's mouth as she lifted her onto a changing table. A diaper was already waiting for her, and Twilight looked down to make sure she was actually still wearing one.

“But – I've already got one,” she mumbled. “Do I need two?”

“Of course you do!” Luna said, putting her down on the diaper. “If I say you need a diaper, you need a diaper – after all, you might have wet yourself and not noticed!”

Twilight blushed deeply at the idea, but she was sure she hadn't wet herself – and, besides, Luna was now putting the second diaper on on top of the first one. Twilight was about to ask why again, but Luna slipped something into the space between the two diapers before taping them up.

“That should keep you nice and entertained~” she said sweetly, and picked up a remote control by the side of the table before turning a control knob on it.

Twilight squeaked as the thing Luna had snuck into her diaper began to buzz, taunting and teasing her and making her squirm! “M-rff!”

“See?” Luna asked. “Told you you'd like it!”

Twilight whined and whimpered, pressing her front hooves down into the fluff of her diaper. She suckled instinctively on her pacifier as a soft tingling surrounded her from Luna's magic.

Twilight looked down to see a star speckled onesie being held open below her. She suddenly dropped down, the onesie squishing her two diapers and the buzzing toy between them into her tighter and forcing an embarrassed “mmpph!” from behind her pacifier.

Her eyes spun as Luna zipped up the sleeper and patted the bulging butt that couldn't even pretend to hide her diapers. She was softly levitated over to her own oversized crib. While it wasn't nearly as big or puffy as the play one was to her toy self, it was quite spacious, with enough room to line it with pillows just as puffy as the padding she was wearing... which Luna had graciously done.

Twilight rolled back and forth in the crib, burying her muzzle in the pillows as Luna draped a thick comforter on top of her. The fluff was almost restrictive in the way it pressed Twilight down into the mattress, but in spite of that and the rumbling of her padding, Twilight let out a long yawn as she found herself growing tired yet again...

Twilight shifted in her seat slightly, feeling just a bit... off. She wasn't sure why, but something was making her heart flutter and her breaths just a bit airier than usual. She tried not to think about it as she watched Nightmare fiddling with the lamp hanging in the entryway. “A-are you sure you don't need any help?” She asked, sure that if she had offered before, she really should offer again to be polite.

“Oh, don't worry, I'll be fine,” Nightmare told her, smiling in a way that Twilight was sure wasn't a smirk. “I'm just setting up a nice new voice-activated lamp, that's all. All I need to do is say the right phrase and the Twibrary light will go off just like that!”

“All, um, all you need to do?” Twilight asked.

“Of course,” Nightmare replied. “You wouldn't trust just anyone to be able to turn your light out, would you?”

Twilight shifted a little, and she had to admit that, no, if she would trust anyone it would be Nightmare because she trusted Nightmare so much.

“Exactly,” Nightmare said, tapping the light a few times. “All I need to do is to say, 'Twi-Lights Out', and out the light goes.”

The light went off, just like Nightmare had said, but Twilight felt dizzy all of a sudden, until the light went back on again and she shook her head.

“Sorry, I… think I missed some of that?”

“Well, you don't really need to know how to turn the light back on again anyway,” Nightmare said. “You can just trust me to do that sort of thing. Now, let's go and have a look to make sure all the books are in the right places.”

“Umm… weren't you doing that already?” Twilight asked, frowning. There was a crinkling sound as she got up, and she blushed to realize she was wearing a diaper… but, after a moment's thought, she wondered why it was embarrassing at all.

After all, she could clearly see the big book of diapers over in the Twilight's Clothes section, in pride of place. So she was wearing the right thing anyway.

“There's a lot of organizing to do,” Nightmare said simply. “I can't be sure, but I think Celestia got involved with getting everything confused and mixed-up in here so nothing's in the right place.”

“Celestia?” Twilight repeated. “She's a meanie-head!”

Something about that description sounded a bit odd, but everything else about it sounded just right, so Twilight put it out of her mind.

“For example, this section's been mis-labelled,” Nightmare said, as Twilight waddled out from behind her desk to see what she was looking at.

It was a section about Fluttershy, and Twilight looked at it before looking at Nightmare.

“Are you sure that's mislabelled?” she asked. “It looks…”

She paused, wondering why the word she wanted to say didn't seem to be there.

“...right,” she finished, a bit lamely.

“It's a mis-spelling,” Nightmare explained. “And there's a few books that need to be put here instead of the ones that are here now.”

The odd tingly excitement Twilight had been feeling got suddenly a bit stronger as Nightwear worked, changing the label to Floodershy and putting in some books about soft toys and cuddling, and when Nightwear was done Twilight had to admit that it did seem to fit better with what she remembered about her friend Floodershy.

“I've already changed a few other misspellings I've noticed. Your friend Rainbow Splash, your remember what she is, right?” Nightmare asked.

Twilight thought, plopping down on her padded tush to poke at her head as she did. Rainbow Splash had always wanted to be big, right? A big celebrity... bigger than a celebrity, she wanted to be a blimp! A big, blimpy... baby...? “Oh! She's mascot of the Wonderbutts, isn't she? I still have tickets to see her show!” Twilight said, suddenly very excited upon remembering her friend had invited her to a game.

“Oh goodness, it seems I've missed something, she's a member of the Shadowbutts, remember?” Nightmare said, trotting over to a separate pair of sections. They were considerably smaller than the one on her friend, but Nightmare was quick to unlatch the labels of Shadowbolts and Wonderbolts and switch their places... and scratching out the original words to be more accurate to Splash's new job. “I'm sure you'd enjoy her show, her blimp butt can get so big she smothers the audience, you know!” Nightmare chuckled, almost seeming to crinkle as she did.

Twilight shifted in place, blushing just a bit as the tingling sensation grew stronger. Nightmare noticed, her smirk widening as she watched Twilight fuss a bit just as a bored filly would. “Perhaps you better leave this to me for now, I think we'll find something you'll enjoy more soon enough. I think it's almost time for your favorite subject.” She winked, but before Twilight could ask for clarification, there was a strange jerking sensation just behind her naval as she felt herself being tugged backwards…

Twilight stumbled slightly on the stairs.

“Nightwear!” she called. “What are you doing?”

There was no reply at first as she reached the top of the stairs, and Twilight looked around before deciding to check the bedroom.

She wasn't quite sure what Nightwear was doing, but the filly had been silent for more than five minutes which meant she had to be doing something.

As she entered the room, though, Nightwear didn't actually seem to be doing anything. She was standing there with a pile of blankets in front of her, and frowning slightly.

“Overdid it there a bit,” she said. “That's easy enough to fix.”

“What are you talking about?” Twilight asked, confused.

Had she put on too much padding?

“Twi-Lights Out,” Nightwear replied, and Twilight suddenly felt very tired-

Twilight blinked, trying to remember what she had just been saying. She was drawing some diagrams on the chalkboard for the students to take notes on, but felt something poking at her rump. Looking over her shoulder, she blushed as she realized the chalk was continuing to write the figures on a diaper the same gray as the board, pressing and poking her rear as it continued along. “I... um...” she blushed, trying to keep her composure as her magic pulled the chalk away. She wasn't entirely sure, but it almost felt as if it was still poking her slightly, which did nothing to help her blush.

“Miss?” asked a filly alicorn in the front row, holding up her hoof in a vague sort of way. “Weren't we going to learn about how magical research is done?”

“That's right!” Twilight said quickly, glad for the hint or reminder or whatever you wanted to call it. “Magical research is an important topic, because not every pony can just come up with the spell they need at the moment they need it. In fact, most ponies can only do that when it involves their cutie marks, and even then it doesn't always work out well. And ponies who aren't unicorns have to do that kind of thing as well, to make sure that they actually can do the thing they're aiming for-”

She coughed, realizing she was going off topic, but the odd thing that seemed to be keeping her distracted was still there and it was just as annoying as before. “That is, um, magical research is in two types. Either a pony knows what they want to achieve and they tweak something that's close slightly until they get there, or they're coming up with a whole new magical combination and they want to see how it'll work nearby.”

Twilight looked around, hoping she'd remembered to get some kind of materials ready for the lesson, and sighed in relief as she spotted the TV over in the corner.

“I'll show you a film about it,” she said, using her magic to wheel the TV over for everypony to see, and started the video tape with the press of a button.

A picture of a laboratory came on screen, along with two ponies wearing lab coats and diapers, and Twilight wondered why they both seemed so familiar…

Twilight fiddled with the knob on the side of some large contraption, making sure everything was calibrated properly and ticking off a box on her checklist. She placed her clipboard down before turning to her partner, who was closely inspecting a series of flasks filled with various potions. “Alright, what was our first test, Nightmare?” Twilight asked. Nightmare flipped over a page on her own clipboard, scanning the contents.

“Absorbance was first on our list. We want to make sure the new product can stand enough liquids without leaking, considering it's the whole purpose of it,” Nightmare replied as she levitated a few beakers over. Each contained several beads of... something. Twilight tried to think what exactly it was they were supposed to be examining, she was sure it should be obvious, but she couldn't quite remember what it was. She figured she'd remember as they went about their experiments, so she simply stepped up beside Nightmare, who was holding some bottles of water above the beakers. “First beads are the Super Fluffs,” she said as she began to pour the water in. Each bead swelled slowly, sucking up a bit of the water. Twilight quickly jotted down the starting size and final size of the beads, noting they didn't grow very much before the water started to pool within the bottom of the glassware. “Rather disappointing, I'd say. Padding that thin would hardly be worth wearing.” Nightmare said with a bit of a smirk.

Twilight nodded, though she wasn't fully listening as she looked at the other two beakers sitting on the table. True, they hadn't swelled that much, but if the checklist said they expected 10, maybe 100 times the absorbance... Twilight wondered what might happen if those puffy beads were to overflow in the lab and bury her in the squishy, soaked...

She shook her head, as they moved on to the Storm Clouds.

“Okay, so we're looking to see how much of the bottle these beads soak up,” Twilight said out loud, to get the thought clear in her mind, and nodded to Nightwear to pour out the bottle.

The water splashed into the beaker, and Twilight shifted from hoof to hoof – not sure why she was feeling a little bit antsy and tingly.

Maybe it was just the thought of doing science – but then she gasped as the beads swelled up much more quickly than the Super Fluff beads had, soaking up almost all of the water in the bottle and filling the beaker just about to capacity.

“Well!” Twilight said, impressed, and noted that result down. “I think this means that the Storm Clouds have won that test!”

“They certainly did better than the Super Fluffs,” Nightmare agreed. “But what would science be without testing all three?”

“Oh, good point,” Twilight admitted, as Nightmare held the third and last bottle of water over the Wonder Butt beads. “Well, the starting level is at ten percent of the volume of the beaker...”

Nightmare poured in the bottle, and the beads began to swell.

“That looks like the same performance,” Twilight mused, then her jaw slowly dropped as she watched.

The Wonder Butt beads kept swelling, and swelling! They got far bigger than they'd started, bigger than the Storm Cloud beads, bigger than should really have been remotely possible with how much water had been in the bottle – each individual little bead swelling to at least the size of the original water bottle, overflowing the beaker in an endless, slightly squishy wave and pooling on the floor of the lab, and Twilight finally shook her head to make sure she could focus in the first place.

“Nightmare!” she called, looking for her trusted assistant. “What should we do?”

“Hold on a minute,” Nightmare replied, sounding completely un-worried. “I'll sort it out.”

“Well, can you hurry?” Twilight asked, as the lab began to fill with squishy beads. They didn't really feel wet, any more, just… big, and fluffy, and squidgy, and there were more and more of them every second until Twilight was sort of halfway between floating, wading and swimming in soft cushy beads.

“We just need to compress the beads down into one space,” Nightmare said, and since the beads were near the ceiling Twilight wasn't sure where Nightmare was to be saying it. “And it's a good thing too, because you forgot some of your protective equipment. Hold still...”

Twilight pressed against the beads as they continued to grow, starting to shove her downwards and smother her beneath them. She tried to break the surface, but every wriggle and attempt to climb her way back upwards only sent her falling back down once more. There was a rustling, crinkling, and squishing, other than the ones being caused by her struggles.

She tried to spot Nightmare, but the only clue of her whereabouts was the crinkling growing louder. She suddenly felt a hoof grab hers and hoist her back to the surface.

Twilight blinked as her vision was once again filled with the bright lights of the lab after the dark of the smothering puffy beads. She was standing beside Nightmare, and the room seemed to have been cleared of the beads. She wondered momentarily where they had all gone, only to let out a gasp of surprise as she tried to step forward.

Her padding was absolutely huge! Almost reaching down to the floor, it swallowed so much of her tail she could no longer wag it. With every step she felt her padding slosh back and forth, turning her already wide waddle into an even wider stagger. She blushed as she tried to slip out of the diaper, but Nightmare coughed as she held up a pair of goggles for Twilight. “Here, you better put these on before the next experiment or you might get stuck again.”

Twilight complied, though she wasn't entirely sure how goggles would have stopped her from drowning in puffy fluff.

“We're working on mixing some potions to give someone a bit more bounce in their step,” Nightmare explained as she trotted over to an overly complex glassware apparatus. Pipes and tubes bent and twisted this way and that, and Twilight struggled to make heads or tails of the network. “Watch closely, it's important to see how these potions interact with each other.” Nightmare was hooking up some beakers to the pipes, burners starting to kick into gear and slowly bring them to boil.

Twilight watched a the bright blue and red potions at the start boiled, the way their colors shifted as bubbles rose within them, only to turn into turquoise and pink gases that began to flow through the pipes. They spiraled and spun as they rushed around, turning back into a liquid and dripping into another beaker which had a neon green potion laying within. The colors swirled together as they mixed, and Twilight found it hard to look away.

“…swirling,” Nightmare said. “...focus… concentrate...”

Twilight was doing her best to focus and to concentrate, but the best she could do seemed to be to focus and concentrate on the swirly colours instead of on what the potion was actually doing.

Or was it that what the potion was actually doing was moving colours around? Twilight couldn't really muster enough coherent thought beyond observing the swirly colours to think about what actual science was going on here… but wasn't science about observation, anyway?

Her trusted lab assistant was saying things, and Twilight nodded along – sure that Nightmare was right about whatever it was she was talking about.

Like how it made sense for Twilight to be the one who did all the experiments and tested everything out. That was just… obviously correct, in a way so deep that Twilight didn't feel like it was worth spending any time thinking deeply about it.

Or how diaper science was more important than non-diaper science. That was obvious and correct as well, and Twilight's only real wonder was why exactly Nightmare was bothering to mention it.

Naturally Nightmare was the one in charge, because she knew better than Twilight and it was always the scientist who knew better who was in charge.

And because she knew better, and she was in charge, it made sense that she'd remind Twilight of all those things…

“..all right, it's ready,” Nightmare said. “Drink up, Twilight.”

“Oh, um, yes,” Twilight replied, blinking a few times and trying to shake off the sudden feelings of fuzziness.

She must have been woolgathering instead of focusing on her duties, because she hadn't noticed the potion being distilled into a bottle. It still had a swirly, rainbow effect to it, and when Twilight moved the potion bottle a bit it swirled around in a spiral that drew in Twilight's attention for several long seconds.

Nightmare coughed, and Twilight blushed before downing the potion in one go.

The taste was very sweet and sticky, like liquid candy, and Twilight found herself wishing she had more than the mouthful she had been given. She hiccuped, her eyes swirling as she suddenly felt like she had the wind knocked out of her.

She took a deep breath, only to hiccup again and have the same sensation. She took another deep breath, and another, and another. The waistband of her padding felt a bit tight, and she wiggled as... something made her quiver with delight. She tried to take another deep breath, and her waistband felt even tighter. Her rump swayed before she fell onto it with a crinkle and a squeak. She looked down, and noticed she looked quite a bit pudgier than she remembered. She poked her gut, feeling it squish beneath her hoof, and she let out a giggle, hiccup, and another deep breath. She tried to get back to her hooves, but was distracted by Nightmare suddenly poking and prodding her swelling rump.

“Hmmm, pliable, squishy... all we need left is to see if you bounce.” Nightmare swiftly picked up Twilight, who let out a squeak-hiccup of surprise. Despite her increasing size, she was clearly easy to hoist upwards, as if she was just a big bouncy ball. She wriggled as Nightmare tossed her into the air a few times before suddenly bouncing her into the floor. She let out an 'eek!' as she flew through the air, only to be caught before she was sent crashing into the machine she had been calibrating before. She gasped and gulped in more air, swelling outwards yet again.

“My, Twilight, you're almost a beach ball! At this rate, we'll need to fit you for a new lab coat.” Nightmare smirked, watching Twilight's belly continue to stretch outwards.

Twilight tried to protest, asking just what they were studying, but when she took a breath in to ask she just hiccuped again.

Her wings swelled up and out, wobbling slightly as they took on fixed positions, and Nightmare trotted calmly past to examine the machine Twilight had been working on.

“It looks like this is ready to go,” she said. “Excellent. Hold still, Twilight...”

Twilight wanted to complain that she couldn't really move whether or not Nightmare told her to stay still, but that wasn't really an option.

“Aim,” Nightmare went on, writing down on a piece of paper as she spoke. “Test the Critterification Ray.”

She poked a button. “Diagram: the ray is pointing at my faithful assistant, Twilight.”

Twilight squeaked, wanting to say that that wasn't a diagram.

“Method,” Nightmare continued implacably. “We point the ray at Twilight, turn the dial to the highest setting, and press the button.”

She put action to words, slowly turning the dial click by click, and then hit the button with a zap!

A bolt of tingly lightning ran through Twilight, and suddenly she began to change.

Twilight felt as if she was getting fatter, although that wasn't quite the right sensation either. There was more bulk to her, sure, but all of it felt so much lighter than she normally was. But she wasn't inflating larger either.

It felt like the soft hug of her padding was creeping along the rest of her body. She tried to wriggle her legs against her swollen gut again, and this time there was far more crinkling than she would have expected. She tried to turn her head to look, but the puffiness off her body held it comfortably in place. Nightmare was happy to levitate over a mirror, however, placing it down in front of Twilight before lifting a second one to give her a look at her backside. Twilight's eyes widened as she saw her tail had become just as puffy and crinkly as her diaper. In fact, her entire rump seemed to be swallowed in a puffy crinklesuit!

Though the longer Twilight watched, she could see her already taut body puffing outwards, her coat growing a bit shinier as it was replaced with crinkly plastic. Seams ran along her belly as tapes folded over to hold them together.

Twilight let out a squeak of surprise as she suddenly felt a weight pressing down atop her. Looking in the mirror she was just able to make out Nightmare leaning back onto her like an over sized beanbag chair. The shifting of her weight was pushing the crinkly material further forward on Twilight. She gulped as soon her upper half and forehooves were being converted to crinkly, cushy fluff.

“Results... an especially comfortable, cushy, bouncy, bloated, beanbag, Twilight!” Nightmare laughed as she sank a little further into Twilight to surround herself more with her faithful scientist's puffiness.

Twilight tried to complain, wiggling back and forth a little, but all she was able to do was to bounce a little bit and make Nightmare bounce up and down.

“With a massage setting, as well!” Nightmare added, chuckling and sounding like a salespony like Flim and Flam. “Order now and get a complimentary gem holder!”

She summoned a clipboard from the table, holding it where Twilight could read it over her shoulder. “Now, tomorrow we could work on puffiness, absorbancy, compressibility… there's all sorts of tests to do on a recently crinkle-ified Twilight...”

Twilight could clearly see that the things she'd listed off weren't even the half of it! The checklist also mentioned helium capacity, relative floofiness index… it was enough to make her blush, and Nightmare winked before putting the clipboard to the side.

“But for now, well, science is really quite tiring,” she said, with a little smile. “So… Twi-Lights Out.”

Twilight yawned, suddenly feeling very sleepy…

...she blinked as the film ended, and one of the fillies in the class raised her hoof to ask something. Before Twilight could call on her, the filly said something about “lights out”, and Twilight yawned, suddenly feeling very sleepy…

“...are you all right?” Nightwear asked.

Twilight startled awake, her diaper crinkling as she jumped to her hooves – or tried to, with the sheer puffy padded bulk preventing her from standing up properly. “Yes!”

She blushed. “Sorry, I was… kind of...”

“It's all right,” Nightwear assured her. “I know you work hard, but it's not the end of the work day yet...”

Twilight shook her head, trying to come back to her senses, but she felt unusually drowsy. She tried to get to her hooves again, but all she was able to do was squeeze her padding with her hind hooves as they flailed for the floor. “S-sorry, I don't know why I'm soo....” Twilight yawned and tried to peek at the clock.

It was... she wasn't sure what time it was... she wasn't even sure she could read the clock at all. But if Nightwear said it was a long time until the end of the work day, then it must be. She wobbled back and forth on her padded rump as she looked around. She vaguely wondered why she wasn't sitting behind a desk, and instead at a short plastic table with a few blocks and foal's books strewn about it. She supposed that she must have been pretending to be a big grown up librarian, and that these small books were the ones she was checking out to Mr. Smartypants, who was sitting opposite her in his own small chair.

“Well, um... how much longer is it?” Twilight asked as she tried to organize the books in front of her. Nightwear was spreading a large play mat out on the floor, which looked like a birds-eye view of Ponyville. Twilight thought she even saw a few ponies stitched into it going about their day.

“A few hours still, which is a long time, and from the look of things, you're in need of a nap!” Nightwear said, smiling at Twilight. “I have an idea, though. If you'd like to take a nap and just enjoy the warm, cushy diapers you have on, I could run the Twibrary for you for a little while.”

“Wouldn't it be the Nightwearbry then?”

“Nonsense, silly! It will still be your Twibrary, I'll just be the one taking care of it. You do trust me, don't you?”

“Of course, Nightwear! But... I think you need a Twibrary card to run the Twibrary... And I don't know where to get another one.”

Nightwear chuckled and patted Twilight on the head. “Well, the solution seems obvious, doesn't it?”

“I, umm...” Twilight began, blinking a few times. “Sorry, but – it really doesn't?”

“Just think a little, it'll come to you,” Nightwear advised, trotting off with a soft crinkling sound into the stacks.

Twilight watched her go, then frowned – yawning, wondering why it was that she couldn't work it out when Nightwear seemed to think it would all be so very simple.

So… she wanted to give Nightwear a Twibrary card, but… she only had one, and it was hers.

Twilight wondered whether that was what Nightwear meant, but she was distracted for a moment as Nightwear trotted back out of the stacks again with a rolled-up poster.

“Just need to replace this,” she said, taking down the food pyramid on the walls and replacing it with a new one.

“Why's that?” Twilight asked, looking at the new one.

Bottle of milk, sippy cups of apple juice, jars of mushy foal food, candy…

Had it always looked like that?

“It's much more colourful than the old one,” Nightwear explained with a smirk. “Now, do you think you've managed to work it out yet?”

“Well...” Twilight began, uncertainly. “I guess I do have a Twibrary card I could give you, but it's mine...”

“Oh, don't worry about that,” Nightwear told her. “I'll take good care of it. You trust me, don't you?”

“Yeah,” Twilight agreed.

There wasn't really another answer she could give. She did trust Nightwear, on a really deep level.

“Then there isn't a problem, is there?” Nightwear asked, the very soul of reason, and Twilight nodded.

She started looking around for where her card was, hoping she hadn't left it a long way away, but – it was right there, on the table.

Had it been there before?

Twilight levitated over her Twibrary card, holding it up for Nightwear. “A-alright, I suppose. Just take good care of it, okay?” She said. Nightwear gave her a soft smile as she patted Twilight's head and took the card from her.

“Don't you worry, Twilight, I'm not taking it forever, just until I finish a few changes.” Nightwear immediately turned about, and started to shift books around on a much larger scale than she had before, while Twilight watched in amazement at the colorful books swirling all around her. She watched and several books were moved from dislikes to likes, and vice-versa, while a few more were tossed out of the window. Twilight thought she caught the title of one, “There are no Monsters in the Closet”, before it fell outside, and she couldn't quite remember what she had been thinking of... as well as the sudden strange urge to make sure she never went towards the dark door in the back of the Twibrary.

After the flurry of books and paper died down, Nightwear trotted up to the front desk and took a seat, looking over at Twilight with a small smirk. “So, Twilight, I hear you're here for your first Twibrary card?”

Twilight was going to say she already had one, but then thought for a moment. She didn't think she had ever been to a Twibrary before, so why should she have a card? She nodded, looking back up to Nightmare expectantly.

“Well, to get a Twibrary card, all you have to do is answer a few questions for me. First, what's your favoritist, most bestest toy?” Nightwear asked.

“Oh, Mr. Smartypants! He's the bestest, snuggliest plushie ever!” Twilight answered eagerly.

“That's good to know,” Nightwear said, writing it down.

Somehow, having it written down made it... more true, in a way that Twilight didn't really understand or think much about. It was already true anyway, wasn't it?

“Now, the next thing we need is to put down your family,” Nightwear added.

“Oh, um...” Twilight began, frowning.

The first person she could think of was Nightwear, but she couldn't really say to put down Nightwear, could she? These cards were for, um… for something the Twibrary didn't already know, so if it was Nightwear then Nightwear would already have filled in the card…

Twilight spent quite a long time thinking about it, finding it very hard to concentrate properly, and after a few minutes Nightwear smiled.

“Perhaps you were having trouble thinking of Mommy Luna?” she asked.

“Mommy Luna?” Twilight repeated, confused, but Nightwear's pen was already writing,, and a moment later Twilight nodded. “Yeah!”

How had she forgotten that Mommy Luna was the one who took care of her?

“Next I need your age,” Nightwear told her. “Hmm… you look like you're about twenty-four.”

“I do?” Twilight asked. Somehow that sounded right, but at the same time it sounded wrong.

“Yes,” Nightwear said, writing it down on the card.

Twilight suddenly felt a bit less fuzzy, and frowned as she did her best to concentrate hard… something about all this was really odd, but what was it?

“Twenty-four months, that's you,” Nightwear concluded, adding a little capital M to the end of the age field, and Twilight's thoughts fuzzed up again.

Whatever she'd been thinking about wasn't important.

“There's still a few things to add,” Nightwear told her. “Let's see… we need to put what you're allowed to do, what you can check out without parental approval… oh, and we need your ID picture and your name as well, can't forget those!”

She smirked. “Of course, I can help with those first sections. After all, it would be a little silly for a filly to decide what she does and doesn't get to do, right? Then you'd have them staying up all night or eating ice cream for dinner!”

Twilight was sure that Nightwear was right about that, she had been right so far, but the more she thought about it, the more fun it sounded to be! Having cookies and ice cream all the time sounded good! And why shouldn't she get to stay up all night watching movies or playing?

“But... but those sound fun! I want to eat ice cream!” Twilight said, stomping her hoof for emphasis, and not at all because it seemed like the only way to properly convey her frustration that she couldn't have candy for breakfast.

Nightwear gave a small smile, bending down to be at Twilight's eye level. Twilight wasn't sure if she was bending more or less than she would have expected, but was too preoccupied to really care. “Are you sure? You're going to get a tummy ache if you eat like that all the time!”

Twilight nodded, absolutely, positively, 100% sure that she wanted cake and candy for lunch! Nightwear's grin widened as she stood straight again, marking something down on the card. “Very well, I suppose that will also cover the favorite food section. Hmmm, I suppose we might as well let you pick the thickness of your padding. After all, it never hurts to give a foal more fluff.”

Twilight nodded eagerly, thinking it to be perfectly natural to want thicker diapers to parade herself around in. “And plushies too! I want to play with my plushies!”

“Of course, of course, you'll be able to do whatever you want with you little stuffed ponies,” Nightwear continued to add on more ideas of Twilight's, which mostly involved what she could play with and a few obvious things she couldn't do, like cross the street on her own or run with scissors.

It was really comforting to Twilight for Nightwear Moon to clearly lay out everything she wasn't allowed to do, as well of course as the things she was allowed to do, and she snuggled Smarty Pants as Nightwear continued to fill out the Twibrary card.

Next came the reading level, and Twilight proudly proclaimed that she was able to read anything!

Nightwear looked a little skeptical, and gave Twilight a book to read as a test – The Decline And Fall of the Romane Empire by Edgar the Griffin.

Twilight opened it, eager to show off, but she couldn't understand any of the words at all! They seemed to swim on the page, making no sense, and after twenty seconds or so she had to admit defeat.

She didn't even begin to make the connection with all the dictionary pages Nightwear had thrown out the window.

Nightwear nodded, taking the book away and giving Twilight a much simpler book. This one was about a silly dragon who went shopping, but who got so much stuff he couldn't carry it all home… so he ate it all, and then he couldn't fit into his home!

It had a lot of pictures, and only a dozen or so words on each page, and Twilight had to get help with a couple of the longer words but eventually puzzled her way through.

“That's very good,” Nightwear told her, putting down her reading level, which wasn't a very big number. Twilight felt a bit huffy about it, but Nightwear had tested her and Nightwear knew best.

“Now, let's get your ID picture,” Nightwear told her, some minutes later. “There's still a few things to fill out, but I can ask them while you get into the outfit you want to wear for your picture!”

“An outfit?” Twilight asked, enthralled and confused at the same time.

“Of course,” Nightwear replied matter-of-factly. “You want to look your best for the picture, don't you?”

Twilight nodded as she followed Nightwear over to a large chest. Inside were a multitude of costumes, from princesses to space suits to pirates to dragons. Twilight started to eagerly rummage through them while Nightwear continued to ask questions.

Favorite pasttime? Reading, obviously! Her coolest friend's name? Rainbow Splash, everyone knows her! Cloth, or plastic? Both!

Twilight had been putting on a school-filly outfit over a pirate costume when she suddenly saw a jet black onesie with stars dotted all over it. She scooped it up and tried to wriggle her way inside, only to end up in a tangled mess of fabric.

“Dear, dear, Twilight! I thought you could at least dress yourself. Don't you worry, Nightwear's here to help.” Nightwear's magic surrounded Twilight to lift her gently into the air as her hind hooves were slipped into the onesie. Nightwear had to tug to get the suit over Twilight's bloated padded rump, which wasn't helped at all by the other costumes she had already tried to put on first. Twilight blushed, sure that she could have done this on her own, but finding it quite relaxing to let Nightwear do it for her. After all, she had picked out this suit because of Nightwear!

The zipper slid smoothly up to seal Twilight inside, leaving only her head free of the thick, warm fleece. She giggled as she pressed her hooves into her padding and rocked back and forth on her rump.

“Don't forget the last touch!” Twilight suddenly felt a pacifier being shoved into her mouth, one with a bright moon on the shield as she suckled instinctively. “You look perfectly adorable, Twily.” Nightwear grinned as she levitated up a camera. “Now smile big for your picture!”

There was a flash of light, and Twilight flopped back as her vision started to clear.

Nightwear put the picture on the card without any trouble, which was a bit odd but Twilight was far past thinking about that sort of thing, and some part of her mind started to constantly think of her as a little filly with a starry onesie and a moon-marked pacifier.

“Nearly done!” Nightwear pronounced, filling out a few more entries on the card. “I can do that bit myself… and that bit… now, we just need to write down your name.”

“Huh?” Twilight asked. “Don't you already know that?”

“I need to write it down,” Nightwear told her. “Do you know your name?”

“Of course I do,” Twilight said proudly. “It's Twilight Sparkle!”

Nightwear filled in that line. “So that's Twilight Tinkle?”

“Yeah!” Twilight Tinkle agreed. “That's my name!”

“Well, then, here you go,” Nightwear told her, giving her her Twibrary card. “You just need to sign it here, and you'll be all set.”

Twilight picked up a crayon in her magic, and scribbled vaguely on the card at about the right place.

“Excellent,” Nightwear told her, taking the card back and laminating it. “There's your card that makes you as a member of the Twibrary!”

“Do you have a Twibrary card?” Twilight asked.

“Of course I do,” Nightwear replied. “I've got the special card that means I'm in charge.”

She held it up, and it did indeed have Nightwear's name pasted over whatever had been there before – along with a picture of Nightwear smirking at the camera.

Twilight giggled slightly, and Nightwear patted her on the head.

“But I think it's time for you to go,” she added. “Isn't your mommy looking for you?”

Twilight gasped as she suddenly remembered, she was playing hide-and-seek with Luna! She couldn't be found, and all this time she was talking with Nightwear! She looked around, spotting the chest and jumping inside. She giggled to herself as she closed the lid, knowing she found the absolutely perfect hiding spot! Luna would never find her, this was a toy chest, so obviously Twilight couldn't be inside it, because she's not a toy! She giggled again, laughing at her brilliance.

She could hear Luna searching around the room, the sound of the closet door opening and a few toys being pushed aside. “Twiliiiiight, where are you? I didn't know you were such a good hider!” She trotted a few steps away. “Are you under the bed?” Twilight giggled, imagining Luna's face when she'd pull back the covers to see nopony there! “Hmm... I just don't know where she could be!” Luna said loudly, Twilight completely oblivious to the teasing tone of her voice. Luna's hoofsteps stopped just short of the chest. “Maybe she's...”

The lid of the chest opened slightly, and then suddenly as Luna stuck her face in to boop Twilight on the muzzle. “I found you!”

Twilight let out a small groan of disappointment, but she was smiling all the while. She climbed out of the toy chest, gasping a bit as her padding plopped onto the floor and she felt the toy buzzing between the diapers squish into her once again. She wriggled about a little before Luna helped her to her hooves, Twilight's face still burning softly. “I'm glad you're enjoying our games, Twilight. I do hope I'm doing a better job fulfilling your wishes as well,” She gave a bit of a smirk before bouncing her hips into Twilight to send her stumbling forward.

“I, uh...” Twilight began, blushing, and for a long moment it seemed like the buzzing of the toy got more insistent every time she was about to think of a word.

It made her swallow hard, her breath a little short, and Luna giggled. “Oh? I think somepony's too blissed out to answer~?”

She leaned closer, whispering in Twilight's ear. “Is it sooo hard for you to focus? To even think?”

Twilight nodded slightly, involuntarily, the buzzing of the toy like a reward.

“Easier to just be a good little Twilight Tinkle for your Mommy Luna?” Luna continued, and Twilight nodded again.

Luna's whispered questions all sounded so good… painting a picture of how she could be swaddled in plush, snuggled, teased, trapped like a good little filly and teased and loving it…

Twilight could only nod, agreeing, complying, obeying…

It felt so good to submit, to focus on nothing more than what Mommy Luna wanted to tease her with next and the buzzy, tingling toy and the diapers… on the thick plush onesie with the starry pattern to make her look just like Mommy Luna's filly…

Nightwear smirked.

It was so much easier to keep them captive when they loved it.