Between.

Twilight Sparkle drifted weightlessly. She might have welcomed the sensation of being so unburdened, however brief it was.

The smoky abyss surrounded her, swirling with the dust of eternity kicked up in a frozen wind.

What would await her? Could she handle it? What would happen if she couldn’t?

The black prowled through the nothingness, a storm of emotion. It was billowing in her direction.

She couldn’t see her friends. She hadn’t the faintest idea where they might be. They could be miles away for all she knew, unable to help her.

But she could feel them. She was aware of them. They burned within her heart. They could not be separated so easily.

The black recoiled as if struck.

And then there was color. The real world. Equestria.

The words “to go” came tumbling from her mouth before her knees buckled and she nearly collapsed.

“Whoa, careful there, Twi!” Spike’s hands found her just in time. He held her gently, only for his grip to slacken, seeming just as taken aback at the feel of her pliant flesh as she was by the sensation of his claws squeezing her.

“Th-thanks, Spike,” she muttered back in turn while steadying herself once more, reacclimating to the weight and the pressure.

“Oogh, I think I’m…gonna hurl,” Applejack grumbled from somewhere nearby.

“Wh-where are we?” Fluttershy asked aloud, though she might have been having difficulty seeing their surroundings in the first place.

Twilight Sparkle looked past her friends (and her lips). They stood on a broad cobbled stone path, carving its way along hills. In the distance below them there were the dark shapes of buildings, trending toward considerably taller and grander structures than the likes of those seen in Ponyville, metropolitan centers and grand estates. Not unlike Ponyville, though, there were a great many lights on among the houses, uncharacteristic for the dead of night (even though the alicorn suspected that it ought to be morning by now), in a scene that was reminiscent of the last time she had teleported to the outskirts of a town. She had no doubt that Canterlot was experiencing a similar state of unrest at the metaphysical hands of the corruption.

But she was reasonably certain that their objective was not down there in the city. No, everything they had learned pointed to the subject of their mission being two particular ponies. So, instead, she turned about and looked in the other direction the path went, to where the slope leveled out, and beyond that…

She balked.

Canterlot Castle was decidedly different. She recognized the approximate structure of the architecture sprawling across the field, spilling over the side of the mountain and hanging in open air. She saw the pale marble and the golden accents along the gates and rooftops and high towers that would appear to glitter and gleam in the light of sunrise or sunset. But the shapes of the buildings had been…distorted, as if a giant hand had taken them and reshaped them as easily as clay. And there was a very obvious pattern to it all. Minarets that no longer tapered to points but were thick and ended with bulbous phallic flares. Rooftops bulging into domes that were topped with the raised bumps of areolae and nipples. The front gates, which were laid open before them, had their opening swollen into the shape of bulging labia. The whole structure twisted and distorted toward the farther half of the complex, the anatomical bodies becoming larger and more numerous. The wing that she thought contained the throne room looked like it had been molded into the shape of a mare’s torso, rounded stomach and bared breasts holding up the chambers above it.

And yet even beyond all that, which no doubt the others beside her were now drinking in as well, there was still the aura which surrounded the castle. The air itself was rippling, pulsating with virulent magical energy, crackling pulsations of purple rippling like an aurora. Even just in looking at it, Twilight Sparkle felt herself drawn in, a silent call to venture in and discover what must await her. Immediately in that moment, she understood what the message had meant when it described this event as a “singularity”: something which threatened to consume and eclipse all of Equestria as they knew it.

“I can’t say I’m a big fan of the princesses’ redecorating,” Rarity mused with a grimace behind her lips, “it seems terribly garish.”

“I dunno, it’s kinda got a consistent feel to it, at least,” Pinkie Pie added, holding up her hands in front of herself to frame the castle in her field of view, “I can appreciate them being up-front about this, so many monarchs would prefer to hide their affairs from the public.”

The white unicorn gave a grumbling hum.

“So that’s where we gotta go, right?” Rainbow Dash asked, cracking her knuckles. It couldn’t be said how much use she was going to get out of her fists when she was more likely to smash into another pony with her lower body.

Twilight Sparkle nodded hesitantly. She felt her anxiety flaring up anew. “We can’t be sure what might be ahead of us. I don’t like the way this magic looks; we have no idea what it’s capable of.”

“Can’t be much worse than standing around here and letting it keep going, can it?” the pegasus scoffed back, and she flapped her wings and laboriously carried herself forward.

“C’mon, everypony, let’s find some flanks to kick!” Applejack crowed, a battle cry to rouse their ragtag crew of soldiers.

The alicorn watched as if in slow motion while her friends stirred one after another, taking their first steps down the road toward the castle gates. It wasn’t so much that she felt the situation spiraling out of her control again, not necessarily that she wanted to rein them in. It was that seeing all of them move with so much more ease than her made her all the more conscious of the exertion she had to go through just to put one hoof forward, the weight that she carried and the flesh that ground together. She felt as if she was getting used to it, but that wasn’t making it any easier, especially with the pangs of arousal that throbbed through her loins.

“Twilight, are you okay?” The sound of Spike’s voice from beside her was such an interruption to her focus that it was like an explosion, prompting her to gasp and flinch. He preemptively steadied her even though she didn’t lose her balance this time.

“I’m f-fine,” she stammered back, unconvincing to both herself and the dragon. “I don’t…I don’t need help with…” Her mouth shut itself, as if unwilling to finish the sentence. She didn’t want to admit that the effort of walking alone was something she couldn’t do on her own power.

“Twi…” Spike looked at her sadly. His palm stayed on her shoulder. But he didn’t say anything else, didn’t try to coerce her to respond.

“Oh, sorry sugarcube.” The two had been so caught up in their moment that they didn’t notice Applejack trotting back in their direction. She rubbed the back of her head as she looked over Twilight Sparkle, particularly her crowded legs and groin. “Guess y’all got a hard time walkin’ ‘round like that, huh? Gosh, an’ I thought I was havin’ a rough time with this.” She gestured to the lower body extending back from her waist and she chuckled wryly.

“O-oh, n-n-no,” she stuttered, emphatically shaking her head, even as her neck and jowls jostled, “I’m j-just…just…” Once again she found herself unable to say anything else.

“Now, Twi.” Applejack’s voice grew stern as she crossed her hands over her chest. Despite the absurdity of her proportions, it was quite effective at completing the image of a mother scolding her foal. “I would’ve thought you’d know better by now than to try to hide your problems from us.”

Twilight Sparkle shrank into herself, clutching at her stomach, unable to bring herself to make any further denial, doing a good job of playing the role of the misbehaving child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

“Well, nothin’s gonna get done if it takes you an hour to waddle your way over to the castle.” The orange pony turned around, facing away, before lowering her rump to the ground, and she patted her back again. “As long as I’ve got this, why don’t I give you a ride?”

“A-Ap-plej-j-jack!” she exclaimed, feeling a blush rise on her cheeks. “I can’t…” A sharp glare from those emerald eyes silenced her, so instead she asked, “Are y-you sure you can…handle that?” Her own eyes were now drawn toward the earth pony, to the gravid womb of her underbelly, its girth inhibiting her ability to sit down.

“Aw, Twi, you know you got nothin’ to worry about,” Applejack replied, winking now, “I’m an Apple, I’ve had to deal with worse nonsense than this. C’mon, Spike, give ‘er a hand for me.”

“You got it, ma’am,” Spike replied with a chortle before he pushed on Twilight Sparkle, urging her forward. She could only sputter in protest as he dug his hands underneath the folds of her sides to grip her by the waist. He grunted as he pulled, lifting enough for her hooves to part with the ground, and he slid her forward onto Applejack, who completed the process by backing up underneath her and raising her hind legs. This resulted in an exclamation of shock from both of them as Twilight Sparkle felt the toned form of the earth pony press against her, into her, sliding between the swollen mounds of her groin.

“Ooh…that’s…” Applejack grunted, trembling from the exertion.

“A-Applejack, are you ok-kay?” she hurriedly asked, “is it t-too much for—”

“I’ll be fine, sugarcube,” she interjected through a strained grin, “I jus’…wasn’t expectin’ you to be so…moist.”

The blush on Twilight Sparkle’s cheeks made it feel like she was burning up. She was conscious of her gut pressing against the back of the mare’s upper torso, and between her ass cheeks and nether lips she was just about completely covering her lower body. The firm structure of her back, the bones and the muscles, ground against her clit, spiking through her brain. All the same, that didn’t stop Applejack from starting forward, steadily, if slowly, putting one hoof in front of the other, four legs moving in a doubled rhythm.

“C’mon, Spike, don’t dilly-dally!” she called back over her shoulder at the dragon, “Come walk by me, make sure the princess here doesn’t slip off!”

Spike came up beside the mares, managing to walk without much difficulty by keeping his balls in front of his legs, rolling from one side to the other with each step. “See, Twilight?” he said to her, still taller even with the added height she had from perching on top of Applejack. “It always helps for friends to stick together, even at times like this.”

Twilight Sparkle didn’t reply—partially owing to her continued mortifying embarrassment. As they caught up to the rest of the group, though, she noticed that they were paired up as well. Rarity stood beside Fluttershy and led her along by the arm, guiding her forward through the difficulty that she had with seeing. Not that Rarity had much of an easier time herself, still having to push down on her lips. Pinkie Pie had tied a rope around Rainbow Dash’s cock again and was helping to pull her along like a balloon while also chatting to her phallic head, despite the cork preventing it from responding with more than muffled moans. The pegasus herself seemed to have difficulty doing more than flapping her wings to keep herself aloft alongside the buoyancy her buttocks provided, squirming uncomfortably, testicles shaking underneath her.

“You okay, Rainbow?” Twilight Sparkle called to her.

“I…ugh,” Rainbow Dash grunted back, “it’s these bucking nuts, they just keep filling up!”

“We can always take the cork out,” Pinkie Pie chimed in, one hand already reaching toward the obstruction jammed into the mare’s urethra-mouth.

“No way!” she shouted immediately, no matter how much of her discomfort the cork might have been contributing, “Then this damn thing is gonna start running its mouth again!”

“Aw.” The pink pony wilted disappointedly, and the penis mirrored her by becoming slightly less erect.

Twilight Sparkle chewed on her lip before turning her attention to her other side. “What about you girls?” she asked to Rarity and Fluttershy.

“Hmm?” The unicorn looked toward her, distracted, as if she hadn’t heard anything until that moment. This was accompanied by her stumbling as the rhythm of her six legs was broken, and Fluttershy gasped when this jerking motion pulled on her. Thankfully, neither of the giant mares fell over. “O-oh, well, I’m…managing, I suppose,” Rarity mumbled while she corrected her pace. “It’s so utterly bizarre, Twilight, but…” She passed her palm over the sprawling curve of her chest, a single breast that was gargantuan in its girth, pliant flesh compressing in response to her touch. “I can’t entirely bring myself to say that it’s…unpleasant. Even considering the extenuating factors that are present.” Much like the alicorn, she had her own obstructions lining her undercarriage, and despite her efforts to do otherwise she couldn’t always keep her legs in such a position that her hanging teats weren’t dragging across the road, each brush eliciting a twinge across her features. “Were our circumstances less dire, I would take the time to explore how best to accessorize these forms. Just think about the ensembles that might be possible with such extravagant bodies.”

“You’d need a whole roll of fabric for just one dress, Rarity,” Fluttershy commented with a quiet giggle.

She chortled back and replied, “Such are the sacrifices that one must make in the name of fashion, darling.”

Twilight Sparkle allowed herself to put on a faint smile, warmed by this display of sincere affection, and she then asked, “What about you, Fluttershy?”

The yellow pegasus quieted momentarily before responding, “I’m okay.”

“…Okay?” she repeated questioningly.

There was a longer pause before the next answer. “I don’t…understand it,” Fluttershy admitted, “but…I like the feeling it gives me.” She reached to touch the base of her shaft, swaying from side to side as she walked, in the process pushing into the side of her bosom with her meaty arm, and the pressure prompted her nipples to sigh delicately. A soft blush rose on her cheeks. “I feel…capable.”

It was absurd, but Twilight Sparkle thought she understood. She couldn’t deny that she would have relished in the opportunity to better explore what had happened to them, as well as what they might be capable of. Beyond the impossible anatomies which each of the ponies possessed, it seemed as if the physical tolerance of their bodies had increased dramatically. Applejack was certainly a testament to that right now. On that note, she leaned forward and spoke, “Are you holding up alright, Applejack?”

“Jus’ fine, Twi,” she grunted tersely.

There was a tense quiet. “…Do you…feel alright with the whole…”

“I don’t want to think about it right now, if you don’t mind,” Applejack muttered.

Twilight Sparkle’s bulk prevented her from leaning forward, so instead she ignited her magic and brushed a fragment of ethereal light against the mare’s back. She sighed quietly.

The castle walls soon loomed over them, the gaping vaginal gateway welcoming them. The drawbridge had been left open, and it creaked when all seven of them (technically six, given Rainbow Dash wasn’t actually walking) were standing on it, but it remained steady. The fur along the nape of Twilight Sparkle’s neck bristled as they all stepped over the threshold. She could see the currents of energy that twisted through the air, lashing serpentine bolts of corruptive magic eagerly seeking something to latch onto.

“Gosh, the colors really do come out this time of year,” Pinkie Pie remarked out of the blue, and the others turned to see what she was looking at.

The walls of much of the palace were painted a rich purple color. On this day, however, it looked as if the paint was in the process of melting. Murky swirls and splashes of shades of amethyst were irregularly spread across the entirety of the walls in the entrance hall, only interrupted by distinctly phallic marble columns that held up the ceiling. Not only that, but the rippling patterns were moving. Like curling wisps of smoke, or a drop of blood in a clear glass of water, the purple churned across the walls of the castle halls, forming billowing inchoate shapes. It was not unlike the magical resonance that pervaded the building, but Twilight Sparkle also dimly thought it resembled the shadows that she had seen prowling in the Between. The corruption was raw and unfettered here.

But her attention was drawn just as much to the ponies who were scattered about the chamber. She assumed that they were the royal guards, and on some of them she could see the remains of armor clinging to their frame, but one would never expect these creatures to be the loyal soldiers with their stolid composures and refined physiques who stood in support of the crown. Ponies of forms that had been warped and distended and swollen, bending over each other, groping and bucking. Their indistinct groans of pleasure produced an eerie chorus, resounding across the room. It didn’t seem as if they noticed that there were intruders—even if the alicorn and her friends would typically be guests of honor—in their midst. Between the guards not doing their due diligence and the gates being wide open, the castle was open for anypony to just waltz in. Of course, anypony sensible would be liable to just turn back at the sight of all this.

“D’you think we should ask any of them if they’ve seen that singularititty lurking around?” Pinkie Pie then asked.

“We’re better off not disturbing any of them,” Twilight Sparkle said, ignoring the conspicuous misspoken word, “we can’t afford to waste time.” She doubted there would be any cogent answers anyway.

“Shouldn’t we…try to do something to help them?” Spike asked next, worriedly looking from one tangled mess of bodies to the next.

“They’ll…be fine,” she replied, trying not to sound unconvinced even as she watched a pair of guardsponies yowl simultaneously in release and pump semen into the breasts of a third, having penetrated their nipples. “The fewer distractions we have to deal with, the bet—”

She didn’t get to finish her sentence before a new set of thunderous, quaking hoofsteps rang out, and a figure came lumbering into view of the open doorway that led to the rest of the palace. Twilight Sparkle dimly recognized the dark bronze coat and rust red mane, albeit splashed with purple and blue, as belonging to Brazen Shield, formerly the Night Captain, now Captain of the Guard after Shining Armor had left the position open. He had always been a particularly burly specimen of a soldier, but he now appeared more akin to an overgrown ogre, a veritable wall of meat that just about completely filled the opening he stood in, a mountain of fat and muscle from head to hoof. His plump lips couldn’t hide the sharp definition of his chin and cheeks, or an expression which could have only been described as hungry, looking over seven scrumptious morsels before him. There was also something about his eyes, though, that struck as being particularly glassy even in comparison to other corrupted ponies they had seen.

The alicorn was preparing herself to cringe at whatever he was about to say. Certainly some crass and hypersexualized comment about the lot of them and how eager he was for fornication, or worse. She felt that the others were steeling themselves as well, Applejack tensing beneath her, ready for a charge.

Instead, when Brazen Shield started to mumble, poorly enunciating his syllables but distinct enough to be coherent, the words were immediately familiar. “Seeds sprout…and…take root,” his gruff voice came crooning at them along with a susurrus of whispers.

“What?” somepony stated flatly.

“Let…passion…guide you,” he murmured while taking one laborious step forward.

And then another voice from the rutting masses of ponies spoke up. “Consume the chains…that seek to bind you.”

The chorus rapidly transformed into a dull chant, the words that had buried themselves into their subconscious minds.

“Caress their sweet nectar. They clamor for your reprise. Time slips through a sieve. Pain is a distortion of the real. Your colors are running together.”

“Twilight, I don’t like this,” Fluttershy whimpered, shrinking away despite her own immense and imposing physique.

“Haven’t we heard this?” Applejack asked, warily trotting in place, now eyeing all of the ponies around the room suspiciously.

“I faintly recall hearing it…it was always at the back of my brain while I was…under control,” Rarity said grimly.

“Twilight.” Spike turned toward the alicorn, eyes wide. “Do you think this is the singularity?”

“I…I don’t know, it might be,” she muttered, her mind abuzz with the possibilities presented to her, “or at least it’s related to it.” It seemed to her that this was an effect of the corruption taking greater hold over ponies, completely subsuming their personalities in favor of the mantra of pleasure that bound them together. The atmosphere around them was growing hot and heavy, cloying, weighing upon them as if it were a physical force. She didn’t know what this might entail, but all that mattered to her present tunnel vision was that there was something standing in their way, and every second they spent deliberating over it was another second that they weren’t getting to the heart of the problem.

“Pinkie.” All eyes turned toward Rainbow Dash. The pegasus was squirming and bucking her hips at the air. She kept flapping her wings, but that had no effect in keeping her balls—which seemed noticeably larger than they had already been—off the floor. Nonetheless, she kept a resolute, if discomforted, expression. “When I tell you to, take the cork out.”

“Ooh, okay!” Pinkie Pie replied with eagerness and a hint of devilish mischievousness. It seemed as if she immediately cottoned on to what Rainbow Dash’s plan was without anything more, as she not only positioned herself with her hand on the cork but also hefting the indigo cock over her shoulder. They both held the shaft steady, aimed at Brazen Shield, whose own giant penis was throbbing and pulsating as it jutted out from beneath his gut, ready to skewer some pony along its length. The face at the tip of the pegasus’s cock grinned through its makeshift gag.

“You all might want to…get out of…the splash zone,” Rainbow Dash muttered, and the others were quick to step back. She was already locked into the rising high toward climax, jaw hanging agape. Brazen Shield now had his focus entirely upon her and Pinkie Pie, bearing down on them.

“Rainbow!” Applejack called, worry etching her tone, and Twilight Sparkle again felt her tense up.

“N-now!” Rainbow Dash cried while thrusting her hips forward.

“Fire in the hole!” Pinkie Pie shouted as she yanked out the cork.

The orgasmic eruption was accompanied by a loud boom that was nearly akin to an explosion. Cum jettisoned from the pegasus’s loins as if launched from a cannon, and the colorful fluid was no longer a muddy mix of color but a vibrant rainbow. The stream hit Brazen Shield straight in the chest, splattering erratically in all directions, and though it didn’t silence his murmuring it did prompt a flash of surprise to cross his brutish face. He stood his ground for a scant few seconds before the force of the ejaculation toppled him, the resulting earthquake nearly toppling everypony else as well, for a moment seeming as if the whole room might collapse around them before finally the chaos ended. Brazen Shield groaned and languidly writhed on the floor, but seemed unable to right himself. The chanting murmurs died down, leaving only the clamoring cries of passion from the orgy.

“Uh…well…that works,” Spike said, unconvinced of his own words, “awesome job, Rainbow…?”

But Rainbow Dash’s orgasm still wasn’t over. The eruption kept painting over the rippling purple on the walls and several other ponies caught in the crossfire, her enraptured groans adding to the cacophony around them. Her friends knew that she was one to go above and beyond, so it might not come as much surprise that she would do so even in such a vulgar display as this.

“…R-Rainbow?” Twilight Sparkle stammered, unable to keep from staring no matter how debaucherous and ludicrous this whole scenario was.

“Just…just a…” she panted in turn, gasping for breath, mechanically continuing to buck in a weak rhythm even as the flow of semen diminished from that of a broken water main to a fire hose, a garden hose, and finally a lazy dribbling.

This conclusion then resulted in the final few gallons pouring right over Pinkie Pie’s front, eliciting a plain exclamation of “Oh” as she watched the rainbow ooze slather across her breasts and her own penises.

“O-oh, sorry…Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash said, speaking tiredly, as if that orgasm had taken a lot of energy out of her, now hunching forward with her arms propping her up from the base of her cock.

“No no, Dashie, it’s fine,” the pink mare said while finally stepping out from under their makeshift cum cannon. Bright colors trickled over and clung to her. There was a soft hissing noise added to the sounds of the room, and Twilight Sparkle realized that was the sound of her own climax, three penises leaking gaseous semen simultaneously, now without any balloons to collect in. The face beneath her puffy mane was stricken with a strange curiosity, lips curled into a faint smile. Her eyes appeared glassy, almost listless, as she traced a finger over a breast, collecting a glob of colorful goo as if it were frosting from a cake.

Another prickle ran along the alicorn’s spine. She looked from one to the other, Rainbow Dash becoming increasingly lethargic, Pinkie Pie’s unabashed sexual craving. And as the earth pony raised that finger toward her mouth, her pupils pulsed with a red glow.

“Stop!” An aura of magenta light seized both ponies, holding them still, as Twilight Sparkle shouted. “Snap out of it!”

“Wha—?!” Rainbow Dash sputtered as she bolted upright, as if startled out of sleep.

Pinkie Pie blinked confusedly, her gaze darting about. “Huh? What happened?”

“Twi, what the hay’re you doin’?!” Applejack asked, twisting around to glare at the pony mounted on her back.

“I…” Twilight Sparkle felt her chest rising and falling heavily, and she felt the multiple eyes that were focused upon her, expecting an answer. “I think…they might’ve been starting to revert to the corruption’s control.”

“What?!” Rainbow Dash gasped in alarm, now undoubtedly completely awake.

“B-but…I was…” Pinkie Pie stammered, eyes slowly widening, “I’m not…sure I even remember what I was doing just now.” She clasped a hand against the side of her head. “It’s like a big ol’ blank in my noggin.”

“What could’ve caused that to happen?” Rarity asked worriedly.

“The corruption affects us by flooding us with pleasurable stimuli to shut out anything else,” Twilight Sparkle explained warily, “I think that…if we experience too much of that, if we give ourselves over to excess, that has the risk of jumpstarting the corruption all over again.”

There was a tense silence over the group (as silent as it could be, anyway, given the noise that still surrounded them). Those with penises suddenly felt a great deal more cognizant of the fact that they seemed to be permanently erect, their testicles clenching and spasming at erratic intervals and the slightest stimulation. Twilight Sparkle herself was suddenly filled with the impression that the lances of pressure spiking up through her body as her labia were pushed by Applejack’s rippling musculature were like a venom that was rapidly filling her bloodstream.

“…So we’re just going to have to power through and get this done, then,” Fluttershy muttered, anxious but decisive.

“I can approve of that much,” Applejack agreed.

Twilight Sparkle released Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, also using a spell to clean the latter of cum as much as she could, eliciting a quiet, almost comforting giggle from the mare. They all tromped through the pool that had been made on the floor (Rarity earnestly tried to step around it, but there was only so much careful stepping one could do while maneuvering with six legs) and continued deeper into the palace. They were met with much of the same, warped ponies and warped décor, and of course fluids everywhere. Paintings and statues that depicted famous figures from Equestria’s histories had been remolded into lewd parodies thereof, figures bearing grotesquely exaggerated proportions and anatomy and engaged in gatherings of depravity where there should have been scenes of political import or glorious battle. There was strangely little consistency—Princesses Celestia and Luna were shown almost completely differently in each portrayal, different emphases, different additions, amorphous goddesses beyond the capacity for mortal artisans to capture. Guards stood about listlessly at random intervals, either pleasuring themselves or engaging with each other, and occasionally they passed by halls filled with ponies who were all moaning out the whisper of the corruption, prompting them to give a wide berth, walking along corridors where the floor and walls buckled and twisted around them.

They moved quietly and tensely, prepared at any moment for another pony, some other swollen monstrosity, to step out in front of them and try to stop their progress.

It was only ruined by a single voice.

“Aw man, can’t you just feel that?” Rainbow Dash’s cock said, crooning, licking its lips, “It’s in the air here. I can taste it.”

The pegasus continued in vain to attempt to shut the sentient appendage up, wringing and shaking herself. It had been deemed unsafe to try to use the cork again as it posed too much stimulation for her and letting her cum build up again could be catastrophic.

“What is ‘it’ that you’re tasting?” Twilight Sparkle asked, unable to quell her curiosity.

“What, you mean you don’t know, toots?” it asked in turn, and it snickered as it glanced in her direction. “Only the absolute motherload! There’s some real heat up ahead! I can’t wait to plow whoever’s presentin’ ‘emselves like that!”

“There’s gonna be a lot of heat, alright,” Rainbow Dash grumbled.

“You sure we’re headin’ the right way, Twi?” Applejack asked with her own cautious discontent.

The truth was that she definitely wasn’t sure. They should have had a straight shot to the throne room, but they were presently walking through a dining hall that seemed sunken inward at the center by the one blob of a pony that was feasting at the table, and this was immediately after passing through the guards’ changing rooms, stinking of sweat and juices. The occasional window that they passed by showed not any identifiable view of the mountainside but a murky void of purple and black. The castle had been completely scrambled without any sense of rhyme or reason, in such a way that she would have had a hard time believing that Discord wasn’t involved under different circumstances.

“I don’t really know,” she muttered, “but I don’t think it matters. I think we’re being drawn in. It’s only a matter of time before we get to the epicenter of all this.”

Sure enough, they only had to go through one more upside-down ballroom before they found themselves in the antechamber that preceded the throne room. Grand golden doors emblazoned with the sun and moon stood in wait on the wall across from them. The shifting hues of purple along the walls seemed more intense here than they had been anywhere else thus far, swirling nebulae of color that churned across their surfaces, seamlessly traversing corners from one side to the next. There were no guardsponies to be seen, chairs and tables sitting abandoned, save for one desk.

“Ah, greetings, Princess Twilight Sparkle and esteemed guests,” Raven Inkwell called to them with a languid wave, speaking in a bubbly manner—both in regard to her carefree cheeriness and the way her voice sounded like it was bubbling, words sopping wet. The unicorn was behind her desk, her form swollen and rotund, looking as if her middle was earnestly making an effort to swallow up the rest of her, limbs and neck sinking into the central mass. Her pale-furred skin was discolored by a shade of black that seemed to be bleeding through, the same black that oozed from her nipples and between her legs. The stench of bodily fluids was replaced with the acrid smell of ink. “Have you come to seek an audience with the princesses?” she then asked, unheeding of any of the stares she was receiving.

“Um…yes,” Twilight Sparkle replied with a moment’s hesitation. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what might be awaiting them. She didn’t want to admit that some part of her was still holding out hope that her fears were unfounded.

“Okay then!” The secretary’s horn lit up and levitated a quill toward a booklet on her desk, a necessity given that her arms certainly couldn’t have reached that far, scrawling something on the pages. “You’re all good to go on in.” When she turned back toward the alicorn, her expression and tone were perfectly innocent, but that didn’t keep her from seeming ominously threatening. “They’ve been waiting for you.”

With an audible gulping down of her fears, Twilight Sparkle nodded, and she urged Applejack onward. The farmpony was muttering something under her breath, prayers perhaps, for her sake and for her friends and family. Spike stood tall beside them, muscles along his arms tensing. Pinkie Pie retained a slight smile and spring in her step despite the severity in her eyes. Rainbow Dash had her brow furrowed and her jaw clenched, and it might have been for more than her continued frustrations with her phallus. Rarity managed a steady gait despite the unwieldiness of her lower body. Fluttershy had let go of Rarity’s hand to lumber forward on her own.

They were as ready as they could possibly be.

With a push from her magic, the doors opened.

Gravity pulled hard on them, toward a churning vortex of purple light.

It was as if the floor were tilting, the angle of incline rapidly increasing. Applejack’s legs buckled as her hooves tried to keep purchase on the red carpet beneath her, but there was little she could do while carrying Twilight Sparkle’s bulk, and the slope was quickly turning completely vertical. Even less once the cavalcade of engorged bodies slipped and crashed into each other one by one with a chorus of terrified cries and shrieks mounting in volume. The cushy softness that came from them pressing against each other wasn’t enough to provide comfort. Even Pinkie Pie couldn’t bring herself to scream joyously as she would when riding a rollercoaster.

They fell through, and the intense gravity momentarily turned into weightlessness as they tumbled. It was like drifting through the Between again. Twilight Sparkle might have theorized that that was exactly what was happening.

And then, as quickly as it began, it ended with them being sent sprawling. The landing was far from soft—Twilight Sparkle’s skull knocked against the ground in a jarring impact while one arm twisted underneath her back and her wings were smothered. She was certain those should have been severe injuries, but she found herself moving again without any difficulty. Perhaps there were yet some unexplored benefits to the corruption; the physical strength that allowed them to so elastically strain each other with their oversized members seemed to also apply to their durability. Her adrenaline was pumping, though she still found herself struggling to stand, both from her own weight and that of a body that was on top of her. “Is…is everypony alright?” she called out.

“I th-think so,” came a reply from the mass on top of her, which turned out to be Fluttershy, engulfing much of the lavender mare with her bosom, wall of lips pressed on one of her breasts. Then the thing prodding at her vulva must’ve been the shaft. “O-oh, s-s-sorry, T-Twilight,” she stammered once she realized what had happened, and she hauled herself upright.

“It’s alright,” she grunted back, appreciating when the weight was gone, and she used her magic to assist in standing up as well.

An immediate cursory glance was cast over the rest of her friends. Rainbow Dash was fumbling to right herself and the heavy ordnance of her groin once again. The others were all clustered around a hysterical Applejack.

“Oh st-st-stars, h-hey, c-c-calm down there a-all’a you!” the orange mare exclaimed amidst gasps and groans, kneeling on her front legs and clutching at her gravid belly, which was churning and writhing, surface distending as its contents moved.

“Gosh, AJ, they aren’t even born yet and you’ve already got a whole party going on,” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, taking the situation remarkably in stride, while she patted at her similarly upset lower abdomen.

But the alicorn’s attention could only be spared on that briefly, quickly being pulled away to instead take in their surroundings. There was much to take in.

The throne room didn’t look much like a throne room anymore. It seemed overly generous to even call it a room. They stood on a floor that was sunken and bowed, concave, and the curves led up toward walls and a ceiling that were nearly indiscernible from each other, the whole chamber approaching a spherical shape. Sections of stained glass might have once depicted proud moments of Equestria’s history distorted into lurid acts of wanton sexuality, but now they had become so distorted, buckling and squeezing in on themselves, that they were completely unidentifiable, for better or worse. There were a number of twisted doorways placed at irregular intervals—there was no way to be sure which was the one they had entered through. In addition, though, there were gaps in the marble and granite, spots where the structure of the building was completely coming apart at the seams, and through those seeped more of the corruption’s vibrant dark energy. A red carpet floated in the air, twisted into a corkscrew, leading up toward a floating pedestal, upon which sat the twin thrones of the kingdom’s diarchs. They were unoccupied.

“Where are they?” Spike asked warily.

Twilight Sparkle didn’t have any answer, since she couldn’t possibly know. There was only one way she could think of to find out. “Princess Celestia!” she cried out, cupping her hands to her mouth, trying to part her swollen lips as much as she could to increase her audibility. “Princess Luna!” The sound of her voice seemed to rapidly die out after it left her, eaten up by the room instead of producing any echoes.

There was no response, no movement.

“Gosh, the big ink berry lady said they were waiting for us,” Pinkie Pie said with a huff, simultaneously crossing arms and planting hands on her hips, “you’d think they’d know not to keep us waiting.”

Twilight Sparkle certainly would have liked not having to wait. Waiting meant not getting an answer to any of the questions that were gnawing at her mind.

What happened here?

How could the corruption cause this to happen?

Was this the peak of the singularity or could it get worse?

Were they already too late?

Were the princesses really at the center of this?

The chamber rocked in time with a distant heavy thump.

“Hey, look up there!” somepony said. Twilight Sparkle didn’t pay attention to who it was, she was only conscious of herself turning her attention to look upward. In a doorway that to their perspective looked like it was embedded directly into the ceiling, there was something moving. A huge figure cast in shadow, its features impossible to discern. It was too big, too misshapen.

(please)

Something emerged. It was a mouth. It was lips. Gleaming indigo mounds. The distance made scale indiscernible, but they were large enough to completely occlude any view of the body beneath aside from arms which emerged to grab hold of the walls. It pulled, hauling and squeezing itself through the aperture.

“What is…?”

“Oh, Celestia…”

(please please no)

“Look out!”

Twilight Sparkle only barely broke out of her stupor enough to notice the warning as the gelatinous mass freed itself and came loose all at once, spilling out from the open gate and tumbling toward them. The ponies were scattering, but the alicorn felt her hooves unable to move, anchored to the floor. Hands grabbed her, scaly clawed hands—alongside the sensation of the dragon’s unnatural endowments pressing into her—and pulled her out of the way just before the impact. The floor tilted again, angling inward to the center of the collision, and for a moment it seemed as if they would all lose their hoofing all over again and slide in, but then the ground returned to its original shape, ripples spreading outward, like the surface of a gelatin mold. Spike gripped her firmly, keeping her steady through the rocking motions, until finally they were able to stand easily once again and look at the creature that had disturbed them, no matter how much any of them might have not wanted to.

It took several seconds to be able to identify the anatomy of the giant body that loomed over them. Flesh bulged and distended everywhere. If Twilight Sparkle hadn’t been standing on the side, she wouldn’t have been able to see the torso or head, the long serpentine neck and the two spindly arms that came from a single shoulder socket, the multiple eyes crowded onto the face, black and purple and green and pulsating red hearts. All of that was eclipsed by utterly massive lips which could have crushed an adult pony and four behemoth breasts over the front, each bearing their own sets of indigo mounds as well. They all mumbled and whispered.

“Pain is a distortion of the real. Your inklings are unnecessary. Flesh like artisanal clay. It comes again and again and again.”

There were too many voices to be identified, shifting from one word to the next. That wasn’t as distinctive as the creature’s coat, dark blue shifting toward snow white at the front, or the mane, which unfurled into a billowing curtain of color, undulating like the fins of a stingray, dotted with pits of black, eyes blinking at their surroundings. It was a mixture that seemed unfamiliar at first glance, but it wouldn’t take one long to notice the pattern of striped hues in the blue and purple or the glittering specks of stars that dotted the canvas, and Twilight Sparkle felt her heart sink into the very depths of her cavernous gut.

“Is that…Celestia?!” Applejack shouted.

“No, that has to be Luna!” Rarity asserted next.

But all Twilight Sparkle could manage to cry out was “Princess!”

And the long neck twisted about, and even with that wall of meat standing in the way she could still feel the gaze of ten eyes boring into her intently, and yet more from the mane. The giant body reared back, standing on hind legs so that its lower torso was fully upright, towering over the surrounding ponies all the more. This posture seemed strangely natural with its fore legs taken up by another pair of long arms. A knotted conglomeration of testicles crammed into one sac was crammed underneath its fat rump, flanks emblazoned with an eerie discolored cutie mark, at once a sun and a moon and a blazing red pupil.

“I…I think it’s both of them!” Spike said in alarm.

The twin rulers of Equestria, the princesses of the day and the night, fused into a single body. Celestia and Luna, existing as one being—Celunastia? And over the front of their bulging barrel, mashed against the floor before, was another set of immense lips, denoting a seam across the belly. Lids opened on the indigo surfaces, revealing four more burning eyes that stared intently.

It was through this mouth that they spoke.

“Twilight Sparkle.”

The lavender alicorn shuddered, and the others tensed as well. The monstrous mare’s words thrummed with power, terrible and arcane. The melodic, regal voices that they were accustomed to were buried under layers of masking reverberations. It was immediately understandable that this was not merely the princesses they knew but the corruption itself speaking through them.

“You have received the embrace of flesh,” they continued while their other mouths continued to murmur random phrases, “yet you have rejected the soothing of the mind.” The four eyes seemed, for a moment, disappointed. “Why would you deny yourselves of this blessing?”

“How can you possibly call this—” Rarity emphatically gestured both to herself and to the body of the princesses. “a blessing?!”

“This is what you were meant to be,” Celunastia said dully, words that were echoed several times over by subordinate voices, a chorus that filled the distended chamber. “It is better this way. Cast aside those meager thoughts and let happiness come to you.”

“See? This broad gets it!” Rainbow Dash’s penis gurgled with laughter.

The pegasus herself ignored this while laboriously she hovered into the air and yelled, “The only thing that’s going to be better is me putting my hoof up your ass until you stop being nuts!”

The alicorn mass made a number of noises all at once, deep crooning and laughter. They spread their twisted wings out to the sides, broad fans of purple and magenta tentacles, fanning apart and wriggling. An aura of intoxicating decadence exuded from them, and with it came the power that only a pair of alicorn princesses could muster. “Show us your force,” they beckoned, “and let us walk into the garden of delight.”

Author's Note

In which we learn that some light redecorating has taken place in Canterlot.

I probably should have done some weird architectural warping in the Carousel Boutique to better build up to this. Oh well.

Definitely not speeding through the palace to get to the point faster.

The moment with Applejack after going into the throne room was originally...different. It was way too dark for this story, all things considered. That's all I'll say about it.

Continued struggles with balancing characters. I realized that Fluttershy spends a long time without any lines or action through this last chunk of the chapter.

Oh fuckin boy having to describe the design of Celunastia. Also originally it was just going to be "Celestia and Luna" every time in the narration but I decided I didn't have the patience for that so I forced the hybrid name in.

The final line from Celunastia is a reference to the line you'd hear from Sylvia before going into every boss fight in No More Heroes: "Trust your force, and head into the garden of madness."

My original plan was that this chapter was going to span about halfway into the upcoming fight, but I decided it would be better to cut it here, so you're all just going to have to settle for a cliffhanger over the extra long weekend break.

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