Mistress (Adagio's Big Comeback)

“AAAGH!”

Swapping spit through kissing is one thing, but when she's this big!? You're covered in the stuff. Plus, as you scream, you get a mouthful of her saliva.

“Eeew!”

But the eeew quite irrelevant. The most important thing is the fucking AAAGH!

You're stuck between Adagio's massive jaws and surrounded by razor sharp teeth as long as your legs. Every time you inhale, it's filled with the smell her breath, an oceanic, salty scent. It's dark, cramped and humid as you continue to stay wrapped around Sunset and do your damnedest to maintain the unicorn energy field. At least the threat of being swallowedwhole gave you another sorely needed shot of adrenaline to keep your magic flowing.

All of this can't suppress the thought that, in some deeply troubled area of your psyche, you're in danger of developing another kink.

You feel Adagio grumble at your occasional, involuntary outbursts, but as life continues to spin into wild, unimaginable scenarios, your poor logical side just can't keep up. At least she's a smooth flier. And her tongue's surprisingly comfy. Small victories, you guess?

Adagio grunts in pain as she no doubt experiences another pulse of energy from her stone, but besides her tongue tensing, she's mercifully gentle with how she holds you in her mouth. She can't close her jaw all the way, so you can see the night sky between her parted lips, and the occasional passing cloud from her flight back to, you presume, the Crystal Empire. You soon feel her dip forward to descend, then slows to a stop.

You hear a female voice, muffled from being stuck in Adagio's mouth. “No quick movements, Adagio! Where are Sunset and Radian!?”

Twilight?

The securing pressure from Adagio's mouth loosens as she lowers her head and she uses her tongue to drop your wet bodies on the soft grass.

It's a hell of a scene. Twilight, Celestia, Luna, Cadence all stand alert, and beside Cadence stands a white coated, blue maned stallion who's projecting a massive barrier around the city. You realise it must be Shining Armor. Behind them stands a large group of pegasi guards, as well as all five of Twilight's friends.

You slowly stand and say, “Sunset needs your help! She's badly hurt.”

Adagio grimaces and says, “it's my fault. I'm sorry.” She cries out as her gem fizzles.

“Don't say that,” you say, “just... forget about that for now! It's my fault anyway, I-”

Twilight calls out, “enough with the blame-game! This isn't solving anything! What I see is a siren with a stone that's harming her and an injured unicorn. That's all that matters!”

Adagio slowly coils up as she lands softly and hangs her head low. You once more press against her muzzle and you feel her manage a small smile as she gains comfort from your presence. It's so damn good to have her back.

“Are we good, Twily?” Shining Armor says.

“Yes,” Twilight says with a nod, “lower the barrier. Can someone get Sunset to the palace doctor?”

“Allow me,” Celestia says, “but we should have him check her over before we move her.” Celestia teleports in a flash of yellow magic. Pinkie and Fluttershy approach Sunset and watch over her, quietly reassuring her.

“Now we need to see about you, Adagio,” Twilight says and approaches her.

“I can't believe I'm about to say this,” Adagio says with a growl, “but we need to get my stone out of me... it's torture! Can't we just get me through the mirror portal? It'll come out of me then, right?”

Twilight shakes her head. “While I think I can expand the mirror's aperture, the mirror itself is still damaged. If we try to use it now, and the portal breaks, the damage on both sides of the could be catastrophic, let alone anypony in transit. While we could hurry the repairs, it could still take days to fix...” She looks at the still weeping wound on Adagio's chest and bites her lip.

You're no doctor, but it looks infected. The flesh where the scales give way to where the misshaped stone is embedded is dark, as if rotting, and the fresh blood seems to be taking on a purple hue, which reminds you of dark magic. If you had to guess, the energy the stone was supposed to drain isn't channelling into her properly, and even the ambient magic it likely absorbs is just malformed and impure. It's probably poisoning her.

You can only imagine that this was what caused Adagio's 'beast' to take over when the stone struck her; the sudden shock of the transformation, on top of her addled mental state fired up her fight-or-flight, and her darker side taking over as a coping mechanism. The ongoing pain just helped maintain it.

Adagio grimaces and looks at her chest as well. She says, “as strong as I am, I don't know if I can last that long, and the longer we wait, the harder it's going to be to extract it as well... then there's nothing for it. It's got to come out.”

“But how?” you say. “It's part of you! And so much bigger than it used to be.”

Adagio bares her teeth, takes a deep breath and trembles as if she's about to explode, and finally says, “we need your help, Twilight.”

You're proud of her for casting aside her pride. This situation can't afford any sort of bickering, let alone enough conflict to possibly make Adagio's condition worse. You ask Twilight, “any ideas?”

Twilight bites her lip and paces. “I... I don't know.”

Celestia reappears, with a unicorn in a doctors coat and a couple of nurse mares. They head over to Sunset and begin assessing her, removing the ruined saddle, and gently using magic to lift her onto a stretcher.

“Wait, I need to talk to her,” you say, and run up to them.

“Make it quick,” the doctor says.

“It'll only take a second,” you insist, and focus on Sunset, who looks at you wearily.

“What's wrong?” she manages.

You take a slow breath. “I just needed to say something. You were a part of the loss of someone dear to me. I don't know if I'll ever forget that.”

“I get that,” she whispers and closes her eyes. “And as repetitive as it's getting, I'm sorry. For everything. And for snapping back there about this. You're still the wronged party, and I think we're all a bit on edge. I should have tried another way.”

“Maybe, but I've not exactly been easy to deal with, either,” you say. “Besides, you saved my life. I don't even know how I could repay that.” You shake your head. “It shouldn't have come to this, that's for sure. That's on me.”

“We're all screw-ups here,” she says and manages a pained laugh. “Welcome to the club.”

You give a soft chuckle back, then follow your heart again as you turn serious. “But most important of all, despite what you've done to me before, you were a far bigger part in bringing my Addy back. Thank you.”

“You're welcome, I just hope I can do more-” she starts.

The words just flow out of you.

“Which is why I forgive you.”

She gasps, despite the obvious pain. You can't tell if it's the absolution or the injury, but she begins to cry, yet keeps the smile.

You feel lighter, as if in flight. Unburdened.

“Damn it,” she says and looks away.

You tilt your head. “Wait, what? I don't understand.”

“Does this mean I don't get the job any more?” She winks at you.

Your jaw goes slack, then you can't help but laugh loudly as your eyes haze over from tears as well. You give her a funny look and say, “if it makes you feel any better, you still owe me for the labour and parts on my science fair project. My textbooks for the fire extinguisher thing... we can work out the cost, plus years of interest, when you get better. I'll work your ass for years yet.”

She tries to laugh, but just groans in pain. “I'd expect nothing less, Ray.”

You smile and nod, and gently brush her mane with a hoof. “See you back home.”

“Take care of Dagi,” Sunset says and nods to Adagio. “She needs you, more than ever.”

“Thank you,” you whisper.

“Sunset?” Adagio says.

You both look at the forlorn siren.

“I... just get well soon.” Adagio looks aside, ashamed.

“Adagio, listen,” Sunset forces herself up, despite the doctor's protests. “It wasn't you that did that,” Sunset says. “I've lost control before as well, when I took Twilight's crown. And I was forgiven, despite the things I did... and have done.” She winces but forces herself to smile. “I'll just pay it forward.”

Adagio nods, but looks unsure.

You turn towards the doctor. “I'm sorry, thank you for waiting.”

The doctor bows to Celestia, who teleports the medical team away, then joins her fellow alicorns.

You notice Twilight's been conferring with them. Even more, her friends have moved near Adagio, complete with Applejack and Rarity offering support, quietly chatting to her. Your heart's already aching from your talk with Sunset, but seeing them help your girlfriend, despite her intimidating presence and size, just makes you feel even warmer.

“Any luck thinking of a solution?” you ask the alicorns, but mostly Twilight.

She shakes her head. “I'm afraid not, but I can think of someone who might.”

“Who?”

Twilight's horn glows, and she hovers your emitter in front of you. “We stand ready to assist, Dr. Wave. There's nopony more qualified!”

Wait, wait. “What, me?”

“If anyone can think of a way to do this, it's you,” Twilight says and bows to you. “We're dealing with unknown energies, a siren and your special somepony. I'm sure you'll think of something! You're amazing at this!”

“And fast thinking, subduing us all like that,” Celestia says, and nods to you with a wry smile. “To hear your praises sung by my former student so verdantly, I have absolute confidence in you, young Radian Wave. I'm no scientist, but I can at least impart some advice when it comes to handling situations like this; stop, detach yourself from everything, and think it through logically. Calmly. The solution will come to you.”

Far be it from you to deny the suggestion of a pony that can literally control the sun.

“I've seen you think through worse,” Adagio says and smirks through her pain. “Use that weird mind of yours, my muse.”

You stop and do as they both suggest. A balanced individual needs a heart and a head, and despite all the good the former has done for you thus far, this isn't the time to let emotions run wild. This is the time for logic. To break down the solution into segments. The facts, and likely scenarios. Courses of action to take, predictions to calculate. This is your time to shine.

The components are thus; the siren stone is a separate signal from Adagio's own, but extremely similar. So similar most others wouldn't be able to discern the difference, and you certainly wouldn't know it if you hadn't scanned Adagio's stone earlier to learn the precise numbers. Also the surplus of earth energy, one that she gravitated towards when she didn't have her stone, should hopefully still hold sway in absence of both her own and her stone's power. A quick scan reveals that, true enough, she exhibits perhaps only a fraction of any sort of presence of earth power, but that's still something to consider.

Your anti-signal works by brushing aside the core power of a given pony or person, depleting their naturally forming energy stock. It agitates the presence of that power, and forces it aside. Simply put, it weakens them of their core powers and functions. However, it's so intrinsic to their being that, once you stop applying an anti-signal, they will recover, even if it takes time. That magic is always drawn to the individual, replenishing them... could it work in reverse? A depletion so drastic that an alternative source of energy is adopted if they're saturated in it? Especially if they've sustained themselves on it before. The siren stone reinforces this, which is likely why they're so powerful; two sources of the same power working in unison.

What if... yes, maybe? No, that would require three sources of energy simultaneously. You so need to build a better version of your emitter that can multitask properly.

But you do have a solid alternative...

“Twilight?” You turn to her and ask, “was I right in hearing from Starlight that any unicorn or alicorn can learn spells?”

“Of course, so long as they have a functioning horn,” she replies. “Some find it easier than others, and the type of spells matter, but with practice and dedication, it's entirely possible.”

“How quickly do you think you could learn my energy spell?”

A loud laugh snatches your attention, hoarse, crude and just a little mocking.

You look at the source as Rainbow Dash, hovering and struggling to stop her cackling as she wipes a foreleg against her eyes and says, “sorry, I keep forgetting you're new here. Just to get you up to speed, Twilight does magic like I do awesome.”

“Ignore her unrefined manner of speech, darling,” Rarity interjects, “but yes, Dashie's quite correct. If the name of the game is spellcraft, you couldn't be in safer hooves.”

Fair enough. You nod to the pair, turn to Twilight and say, “I'm not going to need you to learn all the minutiae, just to be able to create one particular energy, but I'll definitely need all your strength.” You finally approach Adagio and address everyone. “What we're dealing with is... well, a forced separation of two very similar fields, and a substitution at a critical juncture. We're going to bombard Adagio's siren stone with an anti-signal while using similar signal to her own wavelength in a positive form to maintain her strength, but we'll also need to weaken it to further release the stone's hold and effectively cut her siren powers off completely. That moment, Twilight, is when I'm going to need you to broadcast the strongest earth signal you can muster. Finally, I need someone to extract the stone from Adagio's body, and I imagine with some force.”

Adagio winces. “This is going to suck, isn't it?”

You sigh and confess, “yes. Big time. We're using the positive signals and even the trauma to force you to readopt your earth pony form. And the longer we take doing this, the harder it's going to be extracting the stone. It's still healing around the damn thing.”

Adagio grumbles, “I might need somepony to restrain me. Every time I get a spark from my stone, I can feel the old me trying to take hold. I've got her for now, but I'm afraid of what might happen if I'm left unchecked and if you're going to start ripping my gem out? I don't know what I might do in a fit of desperation.”

Shining Armor steps forward. “I can help. Shield spells are my speciality. A focused barrier around Adagio should hold her in place.”

Twilight nods. “Thanks, Shining. Alright, Radian, what do I have to do?”

“I've always imagined magic the same way as I learned to harness it back home. I think of the numbers associated with the signal, both receiving and broadcasting, and imagine my horn as an transceiver array.”

“That explains a lot,” Twilight replies and taps her chin. “You learned magic quicker than I imagined you would, even with your pre-existing experience and knowledge. Turning spells into such a simple form works for your particular style of magic, and I imagine any spells with very grounded physical rules may come easily to you, but suspect you might struggle to learn more complex and esoteric ones. But anyway, enough of that for now. Any suggestions where to start?”

“Well, let's see,” you say and rub your head with your hoof. “We can make light with our horns. That by itself bears the same principles of energy emission. Let's start there.”

Twilight nods and makes her horn glow, then intensifies the light.

You continue, “good, now try to envision the light as what it is: a transformation of energy into another medium, a less efficient one. It's an oscillation of that power, like a vibrating string, only happening millions of times a second. Can you picture it?”

She closes her eyes, and nods.

“Decrease the speed. Slowly but surely, without losing the 'distance' of the oscillation.”

Everyone, even the princesses, look on with a confused expression as the light from Twilight's horn fades. She grunts and grits her teeth. “It's difficult.”

“It is,” you say. “It took me years to work out how to make it work with a device. I burned out so many components through stress testing, and so many hours and days just fine-tuning it, honing it.”

She takes a long breath, and lowers her head.

Rainbow Dash suddenly falls from her hover, landing in a heap. “Ow! Hey, what gives? I feel... heavy.” She flaps her wings, but beyond pushing air, she can't take flight.

Everyone looks at Fluttershy, who also attempts to take flight, but the attempt is just as fruitless.

Finally, Celestia raises an eyebrow and spreads her own wings, struggles as she flaps, but manages to get airborne, but it's clearly taking considerable effort.

You'd love to begin theorising what this means in terms of alicorn magic use compared to the main three pony species, but this moment's too important.

“You're almost there,” you tell Twilight. “You need to focus it just a little more, and go a little lower in frequency.”

Twilight continues to focus, but your emitter beeps as it detects the shift.

Dash takes flight again and sighs. “Well, that sucked.”

Pinkie suddenly squeaks, wriggles, and says, “ooh, that feels tingly!”

“Funny, I ain't feelin' a thi-” Applejack suddenly shivers, her eyes lid and she moans in a very... suggestive way. All eyes turn to her as her cheeks go bright red, her muzzle scrunches up and she refuses to meet anyone's gaze. “What're you lookin' at!? That weren't me!”

You can't help but smirk, despite the situation. You turn back to Twilight and say, “that means you're a fraction off. It's skirting the earth signal enough that it causes an echo of the true signal. The... uh, 'tingly' sensation. As it decays and breaks down, it has enough leftover power to brush through a pony's own signature.”

A split second later, Applejack trembles and laughs. Her muscular frame tenses and flexes as earth energy pumps through her. “Whoa, Nellie! Now that's somethin' else! I feel like a million bits!” She grins as her frame thickens up and the grass around her hooves sprouts and flourishes.

Pinkie's hair stands on end and she begins vibrating on the spot. “Is everything getting slower? It's-getting-slower! Whyisitgettingslower!?” Dust clouds begin forming around her hooves as she appears to slide despite not moving, and you can feel tremors from her through the ground.

“You've got it Twilight,” you say and 'clap' with your hooves “Great work! Stop for now. Let's prepare.”

You approach Adagio, who looks at you with eyes that flicker gold as she suffers another spark and bares her teeth for a moment. You say, “this is going to hurt. I'm sor-”

“Stop. Don't apologise,” she says and smiles. “I'll be fine, or have you forgotten who you're talking to? You seemed so sure when you were facing the beast inside me down, saying how strong I was.” She lowers her head and gently bumps you with her muzzle. You suppose it's supposed to be a kiss, but even the tiny tap she gives you knocks you on your ass.

“All the same, I don't know what's going to really happen. It's not like I've tested this before.”

Twilight stands beside you. “Oh, I've got a pretty good idea: we're going to succeed, Radian. I just know it! We're gonna restore Adagio to her pony form, then you can finish restoring the stone back home, and when you're ready, we'll try this again. It'll work next time!”

Adagio huffs. “Hopefully with a bit less drama. I never imagined becoming a siren again would be so damn painful. But whatever, let's do this. Someone restrain me so I don't freak out.” She snarls as her stone pulses. “Actually, you know what? Screw that. I've had enough with not being in control. I am my own siren, damn it! I will conquer this myself, with my Ray! And I guess you, Twilight... begrudgingly, and only because he said he needs you.”

Twilight rolls her eyes, then nods to you. “I'm ready.”

Shining Armor gives his sister a worried look. “All the same, Twily, if she starts getting violent, I'll contain her.”

Adagio sneers at him. “Try it, little pony, you'll fail! It's a pointless gesture anyway. I will succeed!”

Shining gulps and takes a few steps back.

That's your Addy! Your powerful, incredibly terrifying lover!

Everpony else follows the same cue and gives you plenty of space until it's just you, Twilight, Adagio and Celestia, who stands forward and says, “I shall extract the stone, Radian Wave. Simply give me a signal.”

“Thank you. Then let's begin,” you say as you set up the emitter. “Brace yourself.”

Adagio coils back up, but leaves her chest-stone exposed as she closes her eyes.

You fire the emitter, and bombard her with an anti-signal of her stone, starting weak but slowly growing in intensity. The stone pulses and Adagio grunts in pain. You then send out a siren signal with your own magic, full power.

Adagio begins writhing as the energies flowing through her begin to empower her, yet weaken the stone. The very core of her being.

No, that's not right... she has a heart inside her, after all. A real heart and a beautiful mind. This heart of stone is just part of her, but the real Addy is so much greater than just a siren.

Just as you're not just some guy with a gift for science and, arguably, magic. Be the best Radian Wave you can be. Be empirical and scientific, the way Adagio knows only you can.

Adagio hisses as she struggles through the pain. Her eyes flicker gold several times, each pulse sounded in with a bestial snarl, but they always return to that beautiful dark pink. “I can take it,” she whispers to herself. “I am not a beast!”

The anti-signal peaks as your siren signal begins to fade down into nothing, with your exhaustion beginning to take its toll once more, it's draining you to even maintain this precise, however weakening, energy. As you once wished, you're giving your all for Adagio. Your very essence. You wish you could close your eyes, but you can't, and watch as she struggles and suffers, but you need to see what's going on. Adagio screams in pain as the stone grows dark and lifeless, practically a dead part of her body.

You can't help but feel guilty as you blast her with an anti-siren signal, as hard as you can muster.

Adagio's eyes roll back as she begins to collapse.

You shout, “now!”

Celestia and Twilight both act in unison. Yellow light enshrouds Adagio's chest-stone, and Twilight unleashes a positive earth signal.

Adagio's form glows, a gentle red light envelops her as you brace for her impact, but instead she hovers, gently floating down. Celestia's gold light pierces the sphere, and the imperfect siren stone, once more small and shaped just as it was before, floats free from Adagio's transforming form.

You cut off all power, and the sphere shrinks, lands softly. Twilight stops casting her spell.

And your Addy is a pony once more, lying on the ground. But she isn't moving.

“Addy?” you say as you slowly approach her.

You look her over; just as powerfully built, just as beautiful, but you notice she's got a scar on her chest where the stone embedded into her, even shaped like the gem; a short tailed, angular comet. The fur around it is thinned, and there's a few golden scales surrounding the wound. She looks unharmed otherwise, but her stillness is awful... and you realise why.

She isn't breathing!

“Addy! Come on...” You grit your teeth and force another positive unicorn signal, then bombard her with earth energy and gently nudge her with your hoof. “Wake up!”

There's no response.

* * *