That evening, I had two ponies. Starlight had stuck to us firmly, through Cindy's new clothing getting right on back to our room. I had slipped in some headphones along the way that had little brain symbols on either side with a big slash through them, keeping me from hearing all her thoughts.

People did not need me listening directly to their thoughts. But, I also didn't need to hear her thoughts to get the implications when she just casually hopped up onto the bed and got to cuddling the heck out of both of us. I was hot stuff, a god, and she wanted to worship me, not as some distant idea, but something she could wrap her arms around and run her hooves over.

"You have magic too," I gently discouraged. "I bet you could do some of the things I do, if you practiced."

"I can make things float around," she rolled her eyes. "I haven't figured out a thing past that. Twilight has theories, but that's all they are."

Sleep came, and found me wedged between two people that were ready and willing to be as physical as I let them.

I contemplated what that meant, one arm wrapped around a guy I liked, the other a mare.

"Thanks for coming." Miller looked up from his computer, thrusting a hand over his desk. It was met by a female who sat across from him.

"Not a problem," she assured. "Not every day we get an HR request internally like that. I'm glad you realized there are a lot of specific laws at play." She set down a slender folder. "You mentioned they can source food, and that sounds great, but there are obstacles to that. Food has to have a known source, and, from what I've read, this isn't a known source. How do you plan to get around that while remaining above board? Our funding comes in no small part by direct government grant, so..."

Miller tapped his fingers on the desk in a thoughtful way. "So she needs a food sourcing license?"

"Basically," she agreed. "For now, I suggest she just not do that. There are plenty of things we need that do not need licensed sources. Her producing meat means she has to explain where the meat came from. If she just gives over a box of pens, nobody cares where a box of pens comes from. No medicine, no food, no drink. Basically, if it goes inside someone, the paperwork involved makes it unlikely to be worth the trouble."

Miller rolled a hand from palmside down to palmside up. "Alright, accepted. What if we didn't hire her?"

"You sound like you have an alternative?"

Miller nodded firmly. "What if she just became a vendor? We put in orders to her, and we pay her what we would normally pay a vendor to get it to us. Less paperwork that way, right?"

She sat up, obviously considering the angles there. "You're pulling her right back out of my hands, but that isn't an awful idea. If she's listed as a vendor, you don't have to worry about a lot of things, including benefits. You just order things, and pay for what you get."

Ugh, why couldn't I have normal dreams anymore? There I was, just kind of loosely 'there', watching the conversation go back and forth. Still, Miller! Man, he was going to bat for me, even if he was also arguing I wouldn't get any sweet benefits, boo.

On the other hand, my work could be done in a flash, so if I wasn't doing full time work, what benefits did I really deserve?

"We already have price sheets," continued Miller. "If she can match or beat them and provide superior service, why not let her have the chance?"

"Again, no food," warned the HR lady firmly. I floated up to her, despite not having a real body. I had checked, I wasn't there, but I had a point of view and moved up to have a look at her. She was in her forties, seemed nice enough at a glance.

I could imagine her as a pony. Unicorn, still would have the glasses she had. She'd be so cute!

She could be that pony. I could do that. I could make her just fall off the chair right onto hooves.

That would have been an incredibly terrible thing to do.

"Right." Miller typed something on the computer and I wasn't watching what it was. "I'll send her an email then. Let's see if she can fill an order. Thank you for coming."

"Thank you for having me." She stood up and suddenly I was inside her, my face seeing squishy internal bits doing what they do. I yanked myself free, but I had seen something in that precious moment.

They shook hands and she moved to leave, but I was on her, darting in. "I don't know if this is a good idea..." But I tried it anyway, reaching inside of her. She gasped and fell against the frame of the door she had been trying to walk through.

I gave a sharp pull before I could change my mind, yanking out a little ball of slime from inside of her. "Let's not let this have a chance of growing."

Thankfully, Miller was right there to help the lady recover from my impromptu surgery. She would need a little help, but she wouldn't get cancer. A fair trade?

I awoke with a shudder, not from what I had experienced, but for the fact that there was literally a snout pressed right into me. Cindy was mouthing at my chest in a lewd way, but he was also crying, making that a confusing set of signals. "You alright?" I asked, waking up in a hurry.

"No!" He lifted a leg behind himself.

Looking at it, I could see why. His human foot had gone partially-hoof. Ugh, I could remember when that happened to me. I couldn't even walk. "Poor thing... It passes in a day, then you can walk normally again."

Starlight yawned as she blinked her eyes open. "Hm? What? Oh." Her eyes settled where mine were, seeing the misshapen hoof-feet that Cindy had. "You got it right in the middle."

Cindy reached for my right hand, only to recoil. I was still holding a little slime ball.

I threw it in an arc, thump, right in the trashcan, two points! Cindy was right back on me. "Fix it! Do that crazy magic." He wriggled his fingers at me. "Go ahead, just get it over with."

Starlight shook her head quickly. "Do you want hooves, or feet?"

"I'm not arm-wrestling with Ponid," I stated flatly. "I don't know what that could cause, and I don't want you getting hurt, Cindy."

"Then help it instead." He sat up and folded his legs just so to be able to put a foot forward, giving me a face full of not-quite-hoof. "Fix it, please, girl. I know you can do it."

"This is not how I wanted to greet the day." I took his hoof-foot and ran fingers over it, feeling where one ended and one began. "Nice big hooves for a big stallion?" I was already imagining it as I worked, as much playing clay with him as anything else. "Nice and round and clip-cloppy..."

He moved, rousing me to full awareness and also making it clear that it left an indentation of my finger on the side of his hoof, oops! I reached back to yank him closer. "No moving!" And back I went to getting it right. "I was never that good at drawing..." But sculpting! I... would have to get good at in a hurry.

The other hoof, I cheated. I pulled out a mirror and held it up between the two feet, showing a reflection of the first foot where the other foot would be. "A perfect match." Drawing the mirror away, it was just as such. Pow, two lovely hooves.

Cindy was eager to put them to work, setting his hooves on the ground and standing up. He wobbled dangerously, but he could stand properly, it seemed. "You are a literal life-saver. Now... bathroom."

"Race ya!" Starlight hopped down and galloped with wild laughter, beating poor Cindy to the restroom. The slamming door marked her victory.

I grabbed for my laptop as they formed an unruly queue to the bathroom.

Good Morning, Doctor Miller,

I may have been naughty. Your friend, the lady from HR? I saw something that shouldn't be there and yanked it out. Is she alright? I was pretty sure it was... bad. Let me know.

There was an email waiting for me that I noticed as I sent in my daily report.

It was that order. It was entirely as if I was just Amazon and they were putting in an order. There was a list of items, a price per unit and a total price per line. There were totals, including expected shipping.

If I could make it all, I'd make the money. Simple! I pulled straight the jacket I hadn't been wearing, feeling super businessy at that moment. "Alright, we can manage this." I reached up and adjusted my glasses. "Nothing like a little logistics to get things going."

He must have been listening to the nice HR lady. The very first thing on the list was Pens (Black) x 200. I grabbed a pen off the bed table and held it up. "Just like one of these..." I dropped it in a bag that hadn't been there and gave it a shake before turning it upside down, allowing a little waterfall of identical pens to rain free. "That... looks like 200."

Wait, cheat! I slapped down a scale and put down one pen. A little under a gram! Easy. I grabbed a bunch of the fallen pens and began piling them up on the scale until it was just shy of 200, 198 or so. There, That'll be 200 pens, maybe a few extra. I swept the extra pens under the bed, confident they'd never be seen again. "Two hundred pens!"

"What are you doing?" There was Cindy, standing by the bathroom impatiently.

"Filling orders." I waved a pen at him. "Two hundred pens was the first line."

"Shouldn't they be in boxes or something, girl? Who wants 200 loose pens?"

He... was not wrong. I spread my fingers to stretch out a rubber band that I had just decided was there to be stretched and began adorning the pens, making bundles of twenty each, ten of those. Oops, I did have some extra, just a few in their own little bundle. Close enough. "Next!"

Paperclips, straight up paper, and other sundry items that were taking up more and more room as I created stacks of them. I was smiling. Creation was fun!

Hands grabbed my hips and I looked over my shoulder to see Cindy there. "You look really happy."

"I am." I smooched him right on his furry snout. "Making things is fun, and it's work, and I like getting work done, so double points." I looked past him to see Starlight lounging on the bed, watching us. "Starlight, what's next on the list?"

"Looks like you got the basic things." Starlight's horn glowed as she tapped at my keyboard. "Office supplies, down. Next section seems like recreational things for other patients, like us. Three medicine balls."

"Why do they call them that?" I pulled out a big pill and blew into it until it was nice and round. "Ta da, medicine ball."

Cindy laughed and reached to grab it. "Wow, it feels like one too." He was turning it around and bouncing it off the ground. "Two more to go."

They were having fun, and so was I. We created things, some of them normal-looking, but plenty with a little extra touch. It was a silly, and productive, way to spend the morning. "And one controller," I declared with finality, setting it atop the pile of other things. "Alright, all done! What did I make?"

Starlight squinted at something on the screen. "Well, if they're paying you the total here, that's a few hundred dollars. Not a bad take for a day. How about we celebrate with some food?"

If they kept sending me orders, my bills would get paid. Hirrah! "Breakfast time." I grabbed up both of my precious ponies and floated from the room with them caught under my arms. Neither strongly opposed it, even if they were a bit surprised by it.

I set them down at a table and looked around for Jake. Nope, another cafeteria worker, in a hazmat suit, boring. I ordered lunch anyway and sank down to sit with them. "Thank you both for helping out. I have a house and I don't want it foreclosed on while we do this, so keeping employed was a high priority."

Cindy shook his head. "I was renting." Then it hit him. "Shit... They're going to take all my things."

Starlight glanced between us. "You could just grab his things?" She swept the air with a hoof. "Just reach out and, you know, your thing."

She had such complete confidence in me... "By the way, just to be clear, I am not a god."

"You're a friend that can do whatever she wants. Call it whatever you like." Starlight crossed her arms and sat back. "I like it. If you don't, punish me."

The way she said that almost sounded like she kinda wanted it. I wasn't sure how to feel about that. Fortunately, there was a Cindy there to distract me. "You gave me nice hooves." I heard them tapping on the ground out of sight. "I mean, hell, girl, they're hooves, but if you're going to have hooves, at least good ones?"

Starlight rolled a hoof in the air. "By the way, I know you're nervous around Cindy, still changing and all, I get that! Totally get that. But I'm all done." She smiled lasciviously, brows giving just a hint of a wag. "I am a willing canvas. What do you want? You spent all morning working for the lab. Get some you-work done."

"That is too trusting," I stated flat out. "You do not wander up to a person and just casually surrender bodily autonomy to them. That is..."

"Kinky?" she attempted to finish my thought.

"Kind of odd," threw in Cindy. "You alright over there, girl?"

"Starlight... You said not to touch living things, remember?"

"That was yesterday." Starlight waved it away. "You already shaped Cindy this morning, remember? You can do it, and it didn't even look like it hurt."

"It didn't," confirmed Cindy. "But I did it because I couldn't walk. What's your excuse?"

I heard the elevator opening. Peeking that way, I saw four folks headed directly for my room. They were all dressed for hazmat, with heavy carts at the ready. In they went with their own key and they entered, grabbing all the stuff I had produced for the lab. Huh... guess I didn't need to report it was ready. Convenient, but also a reminder that privacy sure wasn't a thing at that moment.

Starlight raised her hooves to her chest. "I know you like those, down there. You could put them up here, or make a second set?"

I slapped down my hands. "Woah, you can stop that line of thought!" My friends were not silly putty for me to work out kinks with! "If that's something you want, that's one thing, but you're really creeping me out."

Cindy was eyeing Starlight. "That is... super kinky."

"You can read my thoughts." She was looking at me directly. "You know why I'm asking."

Actually... I pointed to the headphones I was still wearing. "These keep the thoughts out."

Her magic glowed on them and yanked them right off of me. "You are the manifestation of my deepest, lewdest, not-very-secret-anymore desires." She hadn't moved her lips or said anything out-loud. "Use me gently. Use me lovingly, but go ahead, use me. I want to be your willing toy, to know without a doubt that I am your most prized little possession."

I grabbed the floating headset and jammed them back on my head, blocking out her silent whispers. "Don't do that ever again! I didn't ask to hear thoughts, and forcing that on me isn't nice. I didn't make friends with a blow up doll," I exploded at her so loudly she fell over.

And rolled off the chair, her mouth in a permanent O shape. She had no fur, just a lustrously smooth plastic hide. She was an embarrassingly perfect pony sex doll. Cindy stood up with equal shock, just to fall over backwards on their new hooves, scrambling away a few inches.

"Starlight?" I squeaked, terrified. "Oh, god, tell me you're alright." But Starlight didn't reply. Sex toys didn't talk. They just waited to be used. "This isn't funny anymore!" I grabbed my headset and yanked it off. "Think at me."

I could hear screaming. Starlight's screaming. She was alive, in there, unable to move. "I'll help, just be calm." I threw the headphones aside. "Okay, we went to this, we can come back from this..." I lifted into the air, going over the table and down at Starlight, grabbing her by the cheeks. "Nice and furry," I demanded. "With that little scent on her breath." I could remember it, one of her appealing features. "With eyes that could blink..."

The Starlight Doll blinked suddenly, but was still plastic. Her O-mouth closed partially just to open again. A little voice issued from inside of her. "This is... Wow..." I reached for her ears, rubbing them as fur began to return. This was too damn slow. I snapped my fingers and the universe paused, focused.

I ran my hands over the Starlight Doll, quickly reshaping it back into the lovely unicorn it had started as, mumbling little apologies as I did so. Time resumed just as I tapped her restored horn.

Starlight's eyes focused on me. "Why'd you stop?"

Cindy threw a hand aside, standing. "You were... Did you die?! Girl, that wasn't funny."

"That wasn't funny," echoed Starlight's thoughts, but she sounded way more interested in it. "Now we know you can do that," she said out loud, like it was all good news. "And undo it too. See, nothing to be scared of."

With a chime of an arriving elevator, a new set of people arrived, familiar people.

Oh god, it was that jerk with the club. They were all armed guards from other floors. Had they watched what happened? Well, of course they did. I just would have thought Miller wouldn't have called for them. Did I just miss that part?

Fearing the return of pain, I grabbed a helmet from nowhere and popped it on my head. "I surrender!"

They shoved Cindy and Starlight away, sensibly enough in my view. "It was an accident, I swear. Everything's fixed. We're all good," I hurriedly blurted out. "No hitting, please."

The guard that had broken several bones already prodded me with his club. "You're really bad at keeping out of trouble."

I was being watched, of course. Doctor Miller was there, shouting into his computer. "Get off my floor. That is my subject--"

"Patient," I corrected from the window on his monitor that showed me.

"--And I did not request assistance." He took off his glasses. "This is a complete breach of protocol."

"I made the protocols," spoke another scientist I didn't know on the screen. "Don't quote them at me. She's too dangerous. We're taking her, and her friends."

"That will only--" He didn't get to finish. I was too busy popping out of his monitor.

"The hell you will!" I roared at the other scientist on the screen I had just come through. "What did they do?! You're mad at me, fine, but you keep it between us."

I could see the guards all looked confused, as they should, seeing as I just vanished into one of the cameras. Good luck finding me, suckers. Despite my vanishing act, they were handcuffing my friends. Cindy behind his back, while Starlight had all four of her hooves bound together and she was hoisted upside down, held like a random furry child. They were taking them away! "Put them down!"

"I will not. Go with them and you get to keep an eye on them. I am ending this call." And the window closed. Smart, I realized after the fact, because I could have hopped over through it. Well, too late to do that.

"Miller..."

He set his glasses on the desk. "I feel confident you're already aware. This isn't my idea, Lauren. You are happy with your friends and being productive. You are not a meaningful threat to me or my floor. I will not tell you to go with them, or not to go with them."

"It isn't really your floor, is it? This whole place..." I waved at the walls around us, floating there. "There's a boss. You're here so long as he's happy."

"That is typically how it works," he agreed with a thin smile, reaching for his glasses. "We performed a biopsy on the sample you extracted. 80% accuracy for cancerous cells. There was some damage done, but even a surgeon would have been hard pressed to cut it closer. She will make a full recovery. Thank you. I can't pay you for that. You don't have a medical license."

Yeah... that would have been super illegal. I was a walking, floating, illegality. "You're welcome... I need to get my friends back." I looked around the office. It was the same I had imagined Starlight in. Was that imagination? "Hey, question. Did you ever tell Starlight to like me?"

"I did," he admitted without preamble. "A mistake. You two were entirely compatible to begin with."

"She's still hung up on that," I noted with a little frown. "Doc, keep with being a doc. Docs don't play matchmaker, alright." Lashing my entire body around like a snake, I dived into the camera window I had started from, reforming in the middle of the guards. "Let's go."

My vision swam, pain throbbed. That right asshole had smacked me on the head on the helmet hard enough to still knock things loose. "You." I threw a hand out at him and he slammed against the far wall. By the time he hit the ground, it was with much smaller hands. "Grow up," I huffed. "I give up, no more hitting and we can do this smoothly."

The other guards, thankfully, didn't press. They handcuffed me, too damn tight, but didn't hit me again. I could hear the bawling of the new infant behind me as they led me to the elevator. Maybe that guard would have a better second childhood...

As we rode the elevator, one of the others poked me in the side lightly. "Why are you wearing that?"

I looked down and realized I had, at some point, put on a very sciency-doctory top. A nice clean white shirt and a stethoscope dangling. "Huh, oh, saved someone before." I wriggled my trapped arms, realizing I could break free any time I wanted. I was playing along with them.

Just playing.

I could be free the moment I wanted to be. "Where are we headed?"

"Bottom floor," replied the same one that had asked me a question. "Your friends are already there."

Author's Note

Let's go to a different floor! Surely this will work out.

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