Equestria Mystery Dungeon

by AJ Aficionado

Rating: mature
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Other, Romance, Princess Cadance, Fetish, Pokémon, Crossover, Sex
Length: 46412

Four pokémon are tasked to explore a mystery dungeon on the very edge of the world. Their path leads them to an another dimension.

**** Pokémon Main Character Tags: Umbreon, Espeon, Glaceon, Leafeon. All characters should be considered 18+. A crossover between MLP and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. ****

Team Allure is your average Pokémon exploration team. Well, except for its uncommon sexiness. But sexiness isn't the same thing as relevance and the job is starting to get a bit stale for the middling squad of dungeon explorers, forced to pick over the leftover discoveries by far more successful teams.

Until one fateful Sunday morning when Ebon, team leader of Allure, discovers a special delivery in the mail. The unknown sender beckons them far beyond the known realms of Pokémon World, to a very unique and sexy adventure in the far-off interdimensional world of Equestria.

Fetish tags: Incest, exhibitionism, earplay, bisexual male, bisexual female, rough-sex (biting, consensual) threesome. More will be included as chapters are added.

Edited and cover art arranged by Firesight

Prereaders: Shakespearacles, Silentwoodfire, Patches In Equestria
Sleeping Cobrox

Cover image sources:

Espeon C. 2015 Vermeilbird

Leafeon and Umbreon Wallpaper

Glaceon by daintyhyacinth

Cadance by Rick-M

Published 2022-03-24 09:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2024-03-10 21:58:40 UTC

Team Allure

Author's Note

My first serious attempt at a crossover. Fooler's Rush In doesn't count because it's a complete mess. Pokémon: Explorer's of Time and Darkness is the only canon recognized by this work since I haven't played the other games. Equestria is more or less the same as canon but with obvious role changes. Will add characters as they appear later on.

Note the word 'Pokémon' and its associated species are in lowercase. I'm aware that they're technically supposed to be capitalized. However, as the main characters are represented by nicknames instead of species, and I tend to write the ponies and their sub-species in lowercase letters, I made the decision to treat all species equally for the sake of consistency.

Enjoy!

Edit: 2/10/2024 I misspelled Nickit. :rainbowlaugh:
Edit: 2/12/2024 Editing pass complete.

Team Allure

Equestria Mystery Dungeon

By AJ Aficionado

The pleasant white noise of rushing water greeted the umbreon’s ears as his eyes stirred open.

The cavernous room was nearly pitch black, save for the soft, golden luminescence of the many rings covering his mostly black, furry body. He looked around at the three other beds, made of rough straw similar to his, noting their emptiness.

“That’s some uncharacteristic initiative from my team,” he muttered sleepily as his muzzle gaped open into a yawn. He hopped out of his nest-like bed of straw, shaking himself off in a doglike fashion, and began gathering seeds and berries from barrels lining the cool walls of his cave home, mixing them together in a bowl which he then filled with water from another barrel.

The balancing act of keeping the bowl secured snugly in the gap between his two large ears as he walked from barrel to barrel would have been quite a sight to the more bipedal of pokémon species, but to eeveelutions — evolved forms of the notoriously adaptable dog/cat/foxlike pokémon, eevee — it was just another day in the life.

He sat and munched on his meal, tail swishing behind him contentedly as he read the note left for him at the table.

Ebon,

Sorry for leaving you in the dark (literally). Me and the gals are in Treasure Town shopping and scouting out missions for the day. We brought the Explorer’s Bag with us in case you’re wondering where it ran off to.

I’m hoping someone’s discovered a new continent or something so we can have a change of scenery for once. We’re getting stronger but the enemies we face just… aren’t, you know? Sometimes it feels like the world is getting smaller and I’m tempted to just go back to the village. We have plenty of money from combing over ruins and arresting bad pokémon to live out our days comfortably.

So why not just quit? I admit the thought has occurred to me more than once. But then I think about how much Glassie would hate not having violence to dish out and how awkward it would be to tell Sike we’re retiring just after recruiting her. And that’s not even considering how hard you’d take it. Oh, just listen to me ranting onto the paper. I’m sorry to dump my frustrations like that onto you, love.

To get back on topic, we’re also hanging with the old guildies to try to get Sike to come out of her shell. The espeons I’ve met have all tended to be reserved and even withdrawn, particularly the ones raised by non-espeons. I guess that’s the cost of being as highly specialized as we eevees are — we’re also highly confusing, even to our own family. I’d probably feel awkward around others too, honestly.

I’ll meet you on the road out of town. Wherever you decide to send us, please don’t forget to grab an escape orb at the bank in case things go to heck! Glassie tells me to tell you she wants to try another hail/blizzard combo run, so bring 3 weather bands too so we don’t all get battered with hailstones all day. I swear, that glaceon wants nothing more than to tackle dungeons all by herself. That and sleep with barely-legal starter types. I can’t honestly tell which she enjoys more, but she’s nothing if not excellent at her job.

Regardless, I look forward to exploring with you, as usual, handsome.

- Edelweiss

“That’s my Edelweiss, my leafeon psychiatrist, quartermaster and second-guesser.” Ebon the umbreon muttered before continuing to eat breakfast. He’d have a chat with her later about what the team was saying in his absence about getting burned out. Did they share Edelweiss’s sentiments? Was he the only one who still enjoyed their work?

Ebon thought about his team, imagining them together at the old guild hangout chatting with its wigglytuff guildmaster, Commander Snuggles, and the rest of his former colleagues. Sike was a recent acquisition to the team — an innocent civilian hiding away from the world who had the misfortune of being robbed by a gang that holed up in a nasty place called Shimmer Hill with a bunch of other criminal scum. After she’d seen them capture the leader and recover most of the stolen goods, Sike asked to join Team Allure.

Her reasons seemed sound enough. She’d said she wanted to learn how to fight so she could stand up for herself as well as pay the team back for their kindness, given she had no reward to offer them upfront. Even if she was inexperienced, it was an offer he was only too willing to accept. Espeons were typically valuable assets to an exploration team for their ability to read minds and send telepathic messages if they were properly trained. When things went wrong and seconds counted, instant communication was priceless.

But in Sike's case, Ebon just thought she was impossibly cute with her forked tail and amazing flanks and simply looking at her was reward enough. If she weren’t so shy and he wasn’t her boss, he might forgo taking Sike to mystery dungeons and just train her in bed.

Glassie the glaceon had come from humble beginnings, serving as an artificial snow maker for a ski-resort in Sinnoh — a fate that she’d confided had been such torment for her, she had recurring nightmares of somehow ending up being forced to do it again if for some reason she couldn’t go exploring anymore.

Unable to endure the indignity of putting her magical abilities to such mundane use as making snow for other pokémon to slide around on, she’d struck out on her own, fighting in arena combat. She’d done that until her body could no longer handle the constant abuse, ultimately deciding that joining an exploration team would be a good way to ‘settle down’.

She also had an unstoppable libido if the rumors were true, which made a lot of pokémon happy. Everybody except him, who had a prime glaceon rump right in front of him and couldn’t take it as her leader and boss.

“The sacrifices I make…” Ebon grumbled, before taking another bite of his meal and washing it down with a small vial of elixir.

Edelweiss the leafeon was Ebon’s first partner, both in the explorer and sexual sense. She was also his sister, but he carefully kept that information to himself. They’d departed from a place called Eevee Village, which was home to the namesake pokémon and all of its variants, in search of treasure and fame. The village also had a completely justified reputation for being tolerant of inbreeding and incestuous pairings. It was unquestionably a paradise for those such as he, and Ebon found himself regretting leaving it at times, given how different the outsiders and their culture were.

If these outsider pokémon knew Ebon had been ‘slipping his sister the bone’ and ‘tying her in knots’ from time to time, he could expect to find his own face on a wanted poster.

Both he and Edelweiss knew they’d never be a ‘proper’ married couple, but he still looked forward to quality time with his sis when the two of them were alone and had nothing else going on.

With breakfast finished, he picked up a broom designed for eevees to hold in their mouths and began sweeping the cave floor of scattered hay and dirt into a big pile. Satisfied, he pushed the pile with his broom over to the waterfall taking up nearly one full side of his cave and swept it away with the flow. Not only did it serve to both obscure their exact location, it gave them a much-needed shower after a long day of running missions. A door painted to blend in with the greens and browns outside their home was the primary means of leaving and entering, but as an early-morning pick-me-up or a fun way to cool off on a hot day, the four would often take turns jumping through the waterfall and climbing back up to the cave to do it all over again.

If his teammates were normally some of the most beautiful pokémon to ever live, they looked even better with wet fur.

Next on Ebon’s to-do list was the overflowing trash can next to the ice stone-powered freezer he put Edelweiss’s letter into. No use leaving evidence of their less-than-platonic relationship for the others.

Glassie had apparently finished off the last of her Hoggin’ Pawz half-gallon carton of ice cream and left it snarkily turned upside down on top of the already-compacted garbage of used grimy food, used technical machines — single-use ability kits to train new abilities — milk jars and junk food wrappers.

“Arceus, darn it, Glassie!” Ebon growled through his teeth as he dragged the overfilled bag, still partially wedged inside the can, and dragged it outside through the door and placed it inside the can for the scavenging nickit pokémon to steal. He knew he would have to yell at her later for such a flagrant disregard for the rules and that after looking into her beautiful blue eyes, he’d lose his nerve quickly. Maybe she’d consent to being relentlessly bred as a form of punishment instead. It was no more than she deserved.

“I really need to get laid. I really, really, really need to get laid.” Ebon whimpered to himself, taking a leak into an open trench dug for just such a purpose outside his cave. He was even now still erect having shaken himself off, images of his teammates in compromising positions flashing in rapid succession through his mind.

By the time he was done cold-showering himself off in the waterfall —and gaining some welcome limpness in the process — the sun had finally come up, shining through the many open windows. Looking out from the one in the kitchen, he could make out his eevee-shaped mailbox near the dirt road leading into town; one of its ears was pointing up, indicating a new delivery.

“Weird. The post doesn’t even run today.” A strange excitement gripped him as he pondered the implications. “Could it be… Wonder Mail? No way…” He finished eating and washed his dish before putting it back in the cupboard.

House rules stated that everyone washes their dishes immediately after using one and as leader of Team Allure, he had to live by example.

After quickly tying his old Wigglytuff’s Guild scarf around his neck and tucking his map into his fluffy chest fur, he raced outside through the door.

“And now, the moment of truth!” Having reached the mailbox, he opened it to find a sealed envelope without any sort of address or identifying information on it whatsoever. His earlier excitement grew as he beheld the runed seal holding the letter closed. He didn’t dare try to force open a magically-sealed item in a world that contained creatures that would blow their messages (or even themselves!) up rather than face capture, and so he looked for alternate means of entry.

It was at that moment he noticed the seal perfectly matched the rune on his scarf.

Smiling, he then knew exactly what to do, pressing his scarf rune into the seal. Glowing bright for a moment before it faded into nothingness, it released its magical hold on the paper, leaving Ebon able to open the letter easily with one quick swipe from a single claw.

“This is incredible! I thought the secret rank thing was a joke!” He gave a whooping cheer and he leapt into the air on all fours.

His team had once rescued a scizor from a lovestruck froslass, and it’d granted him and his team the ‘secret rank’ which would allow for missions to be sent for his eyes only. Other explorers he’d spoken to had never heard of such a thing. To his great annoyance, they treated him like a ‘special needs’ umbreon whenever the subject of the strange rune pinned to his scarf came up. Over time, he’d trained himself to never even think about it at long last, after years of nothing, was this very secretive-looking letter being held in his paws.

His eyes scanned over the letter. It was an invitation to explore a mystery dungeon he’d never heard of called ‘Ponyta Passage’ — named after a horse-like pokémon native to the Kanto and Galar regions. Comparing his own map with the one sent, he was not surprised to learn that his map did not know the location. That soon changed as it absorbed the new information with a flash of golden light; Ebon watching with the eagerness of a young eevee cub.

And then he yelped in surprise when the letter burst into flames atop the mailbox where he’d set it, singing the base of one of the mailbox’s flag-ears before Ebon could bat it away.

“Jeez. Well, I guess that’s one way to keep it a secret. Just wait until the team hears about this!” He set off towards Treasure Town at a full sprint. The ladies could wait on whatever missions they discovered. They were off for a real adventure.

Ebon didn’t stop running until he reached town. As promised, Edelweiss was there with the bag. The other two were nowhere to be seen.

“The bag's a little heavier than when I picked it up at the hideout. Kek the Kecleon’s Shop had a great deal on reviver seeds today so I bought them all!” The corners of Edelweiss’s toffee-colored eyes crinkled up. “Hopefully, they’ll make us all a bit smarter.”

“I was kind of hoping for something to make me a bit less horny.” Ebon kissed her freckled cheek and licked the single strand of grass gracing her forehead before tracing his tongue wetly up the length of one of her long, leaflike ears as his sister cooed with delight. “But lacking it, I guess I’ll just have to relieve my urges on you,” he cooed.

She gave a pleasured sound of her own. “What happened to your principles, brother? You’re in authority over me! How dare you take advantage of me in front of the townsfolk?” Edelweiss teased as she leaned her ear into the contact.

“Not if they don’t look our way!” Ebon whispered to her before slipping his slurping tongue into her inner ear in an act of intimacy he knew she loved as much as him — her ears were just too big and tempting not to touch and explore.

“Ebon! You should at least drag me into the bush first before you have your way with me!” she only half-protested. The umbreon considered his sister’s words, unsheathing his canine member which slowly filled until it extended nearly half the length of his body before silently cursing his luck and backing away as Glassie strutted up to the two of them like the mayor of Treasure Town. Sike was with her, a few feet back and with her tail hovering low to the ground as if she were under threat.

Instinctively, he put his sister between himself and the rest of the team to block his erection from view. “Hey, Glassie.” Ebon couldn’t quite hide the disappointment from his voice. “What’s with Sike, is she okay?”

“No, I’m not okay!” Sike sat down huffily, slashing her tail angrily behind her. “Glassie tried talking some bidoof into asking me out and he did!”

Ebon knew this particular bidoof, a rodent-like pokémon fond of building huge, elaborate dams along Pokémon World's pristine rivers, with large buck teeth. A nice guy if rather unsophisticated in his mannerisms.

“Glassie!” Edelweiss growled, pawing at the dirt road.

“Um… you’re welcome!”Glassie shouted back at Sike, indignantly.

“Glassie, I know you mean well, but you need to consult with your teammate before trying to pass her off like an unwanted hold item you pulled out of a nickit’s hoard,” Ebon said sarcastically. “I mean, do you even know if she likes guys?”

Glassie looked back at Ebon looking as if she were holding back laughter. Sike’s face turned deep red and Edelweiss did an about-face, looking up at him with exasperated anger. “Ebon!”

Ebon felt his face become hot and tugged at his scarf, nervously. “Not… that it’s any of my business. I’m sorry, Sike.”

Arceus, I am a stupid idiot. Ebon thought to himself. He didn’t know what he hated himself for more at that moment — that he was an unwitting participant in Glassie’s bullying or that he still hoped deep down he’d have a chance to rut the beautiful espeon senseless someday, especially given the fact she was genuinely curious about her sexuality.

He blinked and shook his head at the thought. Check that — a stupid, horny idiot who still needs to get laid, badly.

“Apology accepted, Ebon.” Sike looked awkwardly at the road beneath her, running her paw daintily over its dusty surface. “I’m just not comfortable talking about scary stuff like sex yet… or seeing any other pokémon.”

“And there’s no rush, sweetie.” Edelweiss coiled a vine around Sike’s back and stroked her silky soft fur. Sike responded with throaty purrs that filled the umbreon with contentment.

“Yeah, I’m sorry… I guess.” Glassie grated practically through her teeth. “But speaking of scoring some action, where are we going today, boss? Hopefully somewhere with a lot of grass and ground types for those sweet, sweet type-advantage criticals. I wanna wreck some faces!”

Glassie did a backflip on the spot, landing squarely on all four paws; bent forward low to the ground with her ribbon-like tail quivering behind her like skorupi’s sting as she bore her teeth in a display of predatory pride.

Despite her aggressive stance, the intimidation factor was completely undone for Ebon who immediately imagined himself mounting the eeveelution from behind. He vividly imagined filling her icy love tunnel with a sticky avalanche of hot umbreon seed while she begged for more, not content to stop until there was a brand new eevee growing in her belly…

“Ebon! Hellooo! Ebon!” Glassie scowled up at him. “Dude, what the heck is wrong with you this morning? You’re all spaced out!”

Ebon imagined an entire brood of Glassie’s brown-and-tan striped eggs surrounding them in a candle-lit circle, each resting in their own nest of straw. The glaceon begging for just one more eevee as his erection sank deep inside her again and again — the whole room soon overflowing with eggs. He knew he’d have to stop eventually but his hardness never faltered as he seed instantly replenished with each climax.

“EBON!”

“Huh?” Realizing he was daydreaming again, Ebon shook his head and silently cursed himself again. “Uh, sorry. I didn’t sleep all that well.” He wished he hadn’t been too tired the last few nights to masturbate before bed, given how pent-up he felt now. Living in the same room with three other pokémon was a major drawback in more ways than one, given it didn’t always allow the privacy he needed to take care of his more personal needs.

“But enough of that. Actually, I have some fantastic news to deliver to you all. Give me your maps. I need to update them.”

“Update them? What do you mean, Ebon?” Edelweiss asked, before she pawed over the map she’d stowed in her leafy green chest fluff.

The other two did likewise and Ebon, not answering Edelweiss, instead collected their maps and stacked his on top. The stack illuminated briefly as each map updated to match his.

“Wha- How did you do that without taking a mission from the guild?” Edelweiss asked, the other two party members adding their own confused expressions.

“That Wonder Mail system actually works! I got a mission to go to someplace called ‘Ponyta Passage’. Completely unexplored territory!” Ebon pawed the updated maps back to his team.

“‘Ponyta Passage’?” Sike replied slowly, repeating back the words as if they were spoken in some foreign language. “It’s filled with ponyta, I presume?”

“Just their luck they’d have a type-advantage over me. Not that it’ll save them from my blizzard!” A breeze wicked past them, sending a plume of powdery snow from off of Glassie’s back and into the air.

“I don’t know what lives there, Sike. The message didn’t say and it sorta… caught fire and burned up after my map updated,” Ebon replied delicately. “I guess I screwed up. I didn’t really read the message closely. I saw the name of the dungeon and the map and was too excited to catch the rest. I just couldn’t believe the Wonder Mail actually worked!”

“Completely understandable, bruh… I mean boss,” Edelweiss quickly added as Ebon cringed slightly. “What matters is we have someplace new and interesting to go to for a change!”

“Yeah!” Glassie made another backflip, giving Ebon a brief but tantalizing view of her backside before striking her trademark pose.

“Yeah…” Sike’s ears drooped.

“Aw, don’t worry Sike. We'll keep you safe. Whoever might be living there, they won’t come anywhere near you.” Glassie breathed ice onto a nearby rock, freezing it solid instantly. “And if they target the whole room with an ability… well… at least you know how to dig a hole to avoid it.”

“Glassie’s right, Sike. We’ll treat this like the final dungeon we’ll ever have to run and bring plenty of reviver seeds.” Ebon said, nodding. “Unfortunately, Glassie, I don’t think we’ll be able to let you just blizzard bomb the entire site.”

“Aww, why not, Ebon?”

“It’s a strong strategy but its strength is brittle. There are too many things that can go wrong in a dungeon you don’t know with strategies that rely on a single trick. Sure you can control the weather but other pokémon can too,” Ebon explained.

“Point taken, Boss.” Glassie chuckled. “You know, others say I think too much like I’m fighting in the arena. They might have a point, huh?”

“I find the only real item you can truly rely on to save your hide in all situations is the escape orb,” Sike opined. “Retreat is sometimes the best option.”

“I agree you should never forget to bring one escape orb,” Edelweiss nudged her brother with her tail. “Eh, Ebon?”

“Yeah, yeah! I’ll remember it this time, Mom!” Ebon gave a barklike laugh. The other three laughed as well. “So we’re all okay with heading into the unknown for a change?”

“Yeah!” Team Allure chorused back at him.

Ebon tied the Explorer’s bag to his back and started walking to the bank. “Smiles go for miles. Sort out your abilities with Alec, say goodbye to all your friends and be back here in fifteen minutes. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us.”

His team nodded and split off towards a large, yellow electric-type anthropomorphic pokémon standing behind a counter.

Ebon stood at the bank, thinking as Temujina the motherly kangaskhan waited patiently for him to sort out his inventory while the rest of the team were at the Electrivire Link Shop modifying their abilities.

Surely valuable treasures awaited in a location no one had picked over already, so he couldn’t just cram his bag with sixty reviver seeds as if he were facing down a guardian or something. As they needed plenty of room to lug their likely loot, they would travel light — no greater than twenty-five items. He also couldn’t waste time trying to cover all of his bases with helpful seeds and orbs when the dungeon itself could be counted on to provide them plenty of oran berries for healing. So he deposited all of his berries except three and withdrew ten reviver seeds in their place.

There was also the imperative need for food once they got there. How many floors did this location have? How many rooms were on each floor? He assumed the worst and grabbed five huge apples.

There was Sike being isolated from the group to worry about as well. She wasn’t as useless as your typical glory-seeking escort stepping into dungeons well beyond their ability to handle, but until she was more seasoned, she was still the weak link in the chain. If a warp trap isolated her from the group, Ebon would have to corral her quickly. So he withdrew three rollcall orbs next.

Bad luck with traps draining their abilities was always a problem so three max elixirs went into the bag as well to restore their powers.

That left space for a single escape orb if everything went completely to the houndooms. It hadn’t happened yet to his group given how powerful they were and how well they worked together, but there was still a first time for everything.

He didn’t bother with held items. Far too situational and one sticky trap away from being utterly useless dead weight.

“Perfect! Now that that’s settled, Temujina, I want to deposit all of this again.” Ebon plopped the bag back on the counter. “I’ll take all this stuff out later once I’m on the road from one of your statues. For now, just give me 10 oran berries and apples for me and my team to eat.”

“But you’ve been sorting this out for the last ten minutes! Isn't this all a bit anticlimatic?” she asked.

“Sorry, lovely. I’m not much of an abstract thinker. I’ve got to have the stuff right in front of me to think properly,” Ebon replied, scratching his head.

“Hmph! Boys…” Temujina waved him off.

Glassie turned to look at Ebon, clearly upset that she’d had to swap out ‘hail’ for ‘water spout’.

“Stupid, water-type move…” Glassie grumbled, walking away from the Electrivire Link shop. “I feel like such a sell-out…”

“You’ll thank me when the whole dungeon turns out to be fire and ground-type. Now let’s move out!” Ebon exclaimed, circling his tail to signal his party for final assembly at the road out of town.

The townsfolk cheered them on, wishing them the best of luck. Temujina even hugged them all around the neck. “Return safely, Team Allure. We await news of your glorious triumph!” She called out to them.

“We’ll bring you back a gold ribbon, Temujina!” Ebon called back before the four waved to their fans and departed. The cheering grew quieter and quieter until soon they were on their own. The umbreon adjusted the strap carrying one of the four tents in addition to the Explorer Bag on his back. They wouldn’t have to worry about food and shelter during the six-month-long journey it’d take to get there, but he knew he and his party were going to be really sore before it was all over.

Six and a half months later, their destination came within sight of Team Allure’s caravan. Bad weather and the occasional raid from criminal bands and even feral pokémon — the latter living in caves and holes in the ground — had certainly made things lively and dangerous. Especially as they ventured further out; the settlements they passed grew smaller and smaller until civilized pokémon had disappeared from sight entirely, replaced by bad roads and pristine wilderness. It was like they’d fallen off the map into an entirely new world.

Upon arrival at the location marked on their map, they set up base camp in a dark wood, bisected by a river near the shadow of a tall mountain that had no name.

Previous experience had taught Ebon and his team that once you got a glimpse of the kangaskhan statue — a magical access portal to the bank account back in Treasure Town — you’d found the entrance to your mystery dungeon. This particular statue was set in front of a wide-open cave mouth that let up into the mountain; not for the first time he wondered how the statues had been transported out there in the first place.

But then so did everyone else.

Regardless of the answer, their objective reached, they immediately went to work pitching tents, digging wells, camouflaging the perimeter of their camp, and otherwise building their new home for the foreseeable future.

Fire was normally difficult to generate or manage among the four inappropriate elemental types so they brought a fire stone to manage the task. Refrigeration was covered, thanks to Glassie, who found a small cave near their camp which she was able to freeze over, using her blizzard ability and then seal off with a boulder to keep their provisions cold. In short order, they had a fridge stocked with meat courtesy of the area’s feral pokémon population, obligingly provided by Ebon himself who went off into the wilderness at night to hunt.

Ebon, Glassie, and Sike were sitting near a small fire on top of conveniently-placed boulders, pointedly refusing to sit on the rough wooden bench ebon had built atop which their dinner of seasoned wild scorbunny chops and tumblers of water sat on dinner plates. Not that he could blame them given the surface of said bench resembled a jolteon’s backside and would do just as much damage if sat on.

Edelweiss showed up unannounced and sat at one of the vacant boulders around the fire.

“No intelligent pokémon around for miles but they definitely once lived here. Or something did…” Edelweiss tossed Ebon a stone, inscribed with runes he could not translate but recognized as an older version of the language he spoke. “Another artifact I found while I was scouting the area. I’m betting it’s connected to our ‘Ponyta Passage’.”

“Excellent find, si- Edelweiss.” Ebon quickly corrected himself. "You must be starving. Help yourself to some dinner! We’ve just about got this place whipped up into a proper camp and I was thinking we can start our first excursion into Ponyta Passage tomorrow.”

“Are we going to talk about how often you two get each other’s names wrong?” Sike asked, eying the pair of them with apparent suspicion.

“No, we’re not,” Edelweiss stated plainly, forking over a plateful of scorbunny for herself to eat. “And thanks for the offer. This scorbunny looks delicious!”

Glassie swallowed her mouthful of food and belched loudly before patting her stomach. “I love expeditions. City living is so soft. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, we have fulfilled our destiny as eevees — to adapt and overcome all obstacles and live as free ‘mons!”

“Hear, hear!” Ebon toasted his frosty friend with a mug of crystal clear river water.

“Closer than brother and sister, we are. No secrets among family.” Glassie stopped speaking to look into the faces of her teammates. Ebon inwardly froze, shooting his sister a look which she shared back with him. A look that said ‘I don’t like where this is going’.

“What I mean to say, Team Allure, is if there’s something going on between Ebon and Edelweiss, then there will be no protest from me. We should not be ashamed of being desirable to other pokémon just as we shouldn’t be ashamed of who we share our bodies with. That is all I have to say.” Glassie set the knife and fork down on her empty plate and began grooming her paws.

A spot of pink appeared on Ebon’s cheek as he caught Glassie’s attention. She was clearly giving him an out but it was obvious to him he had to say something in response. “I… appreciate the sentiment, Glassie but I feel it’s inappropriate for me to ‘share my body’ as you say with any of you. As your leader, it’s my job to ensure you’re all treated equally and seeing any one of you puts my impartiality into question.”

“Quite a progressive way of viewing things, I’d say,” Sike nodded her approval at Ebon.

Glassie grunted and rolled her eyes.

“Oh, what is it now, Glassie?” Sike said irritably. “What is your counterpoint to this? Do you think he should be sleeping with all of us? Maybe we can all be evaluated on how well we can suck his…his…”

“His what?” Glassie replied with all the false sweetness of a smiling mawile.

“Glassie, I’m warning you!” Edelweiss threatened.

“Sike, I know you don’t like reading other pokémon’s minds because you prefer not to know what they’re thinking so I’m going to spell it out for you: You’re breathtakingly gorgeous and Ebon has noticed.”

The room went silent from Glassie’s proclamation before Ebon cut in. “Glassie, this is not cool…”

Glassie continued speaking as if she’d heard nothing. “He’s noticed all of us are beautiful, sexual creatures and in his mind, he’s imagined having sex with all three of us. Am I wrong? Tell me, Ebon. Just answer me this one question. Am I wrong?”

No, you aren't wrong but I’ll never admit to that! Ebon refused to say, maintaining a stony gaze with his subordinate.

An awkward silence filled the room again. Ebon noticed Sike’s ears had perked up and her face began to flush crimson.

“No worries, Ebon. You don't even have to say it,” Glassie said with a look of pure unfiltered smugness.

“I’ve never been told…” Sike spoke in a barely audible whisper.

“Told that pokémon find each other attractive?” Glassie asked in apparently genuine concern so far as Ebon could tell.

“I’ve never been told I was very pretty before…” Sike’s content seemed to radiate out from her with the warmth of the fire in the center of their tent.

“I’m pretty sure I have!” Edelweiss replied crossly.

“Glassie, what do you think is pretty about me? I have to know!” Sike’s forked tail twitch and spasmed as if dodging Zeraora’s electric wrath.

“Your exquisitely soft lavender fur, your soulful matching eyes, your spectacularly large ears just demanding to be worshiped with tooth and tongue…” Glassie’s hooded eyes, like an arbok, bore into the espeon now. Ebon suspected that having finished her dinner, Sike was going to end up being dessert to a still-hungry glaceon.

And he decided he was okay with that. More than okay. Especially if he got to watch.

“But sylveon’s ears are bigger!” Sike slapped both forepaws to the side of her head.

“Sylveon’s ears are longer but not as broad.” Glassie countered, but then her expression changed from aroused to apprehensive. “Also, sylveons are kind of terrifying to me, especially under low-light.”

“Terrifying?” Ebon and Sike echoed while the latter gave Glassie a highly dubious expression.

She hesitated for a moment, but answered. “I’m not proud of admitting it but yeah. There’s just too much action going on up there, you know? Those fluffy ears are swaying, the tail is wagging, those two eyes popping out at you… and the fangs — those throat tearing fangs are constantly showing because they are almost always smiling for whatever reason!”

As she spoke, Glassie’s voice became higher and higher pitched as if she were genuinely in fear. “And to top it all off, their ribbons are all swaying at once! Like they could just jam every one of them inside of you at any moment and no one will even hear you scream!”

Glassie’s head whipped around and looked outside at the growing darkness behind them as if half-expecting an assault of amorous sylveons at any moment.

It was everything Ebon could do to keep from laughing, jamming both of his forepaws into his muzzle to suppress it. To think of the team’s most notorious sex fiend being terrified of any sexual engagement was too incredible for words.

Admittedly, the idea of being cornered by a sex-crazed sylveon and taken advantage of did give the weaker-typed umbreon a bit of a thrill which he quickly squelched. That was just a silly obsession and no one else had to know about it.

Sike’s ears drooped so low, they nearly touched the ground. “Great, now you’ve given me more things to have nightmares about, Glassie!”

“Look, Sike. My point is that you’re beautiful.” Glassie got up from her seat at the table and sat next to Sike, lifting her lilting ears up and bringing her muzzle to within mere inches of Glassie’s own. “And no sylveon can ever have that over you. You deserve better than to be alone.”

Her cheeks flushed a deeper hue. “You really mean that?” she asked, to which she received a sharp nod and a steady gaze back.

“Wow, Glassie… I never knew…” Sike whispered before their lips made contact.

“Wow…” Ebon whispered, receiving a poke to the ribs from one of Edelweiss’s leafy tendrils in return.

“Sorry,” Ebon mouthed silently back to Edelweiss who shook her head in disbelief. It didn’t stop his eeveehood from evolving beneath him, however, rapidly expanding at the sight of his two female teammates making out for the first time.

And it kept happening. To his surprise and delight, Sike wasn’t recoiling with fear and retreating as she had so many times before from affection, even allowing Glassie’s blue tongue to enter her mouth through the gap formed at the side of Sike’s muzzle.

The popping of spit as the two kissed was soon joined by a low, sensual purr from Sike’s throat.

Ebon felt her sister’s paw clutch his, turning to steal a quick kiss from his sister as their teammates were distracted.

“Later, brother. I think tonight is our best chance!” Edelweiss mouthed silently and winked before the pair turned their attentions back onto Sike and Glassie who by then had broken from their spell.

“Sike… Do you want to continue this before we go to sleep, tonight? Somewhere a bit more private?” Glassie asked, gently running her paws over the espeon’s ample flanks. “I have many more reasoned arguments to share about why you’re beautiful. Want to hear them?”

“I’d like that, Glassie.” Sike’s tail was reared now, twitching ever so slightly as if of its own accord. Ebon could recognize Sike was using her psychic abilities to the fullest, predicting Glassie’s next move. “Meet you at my tent?”

“I’ll be right there. Just let me hang back for a quick second, okay?” Sike nodded back in response to Glassie’s question and bowed low at Ebon and Edelweiss before running back to her tent.

“That was… a most unusual turn of events, I must say,” Edelweiss said in surprise understatement as Ebon could only stare. “But not entirely unwelcome!”

“I take it that you’re thanking me, then,” Glassie replied, frowning back at her.

Edelweiss sighed. “Yes, I suppose I am. Just be gentle with her, okay? This is progress for her, but it can all be ruined in an instant if you push her too far.”

Ebon nodded his agreement, finally finding his voice again. “You’re also going to tell her that this… encounter of yours is a one-time thing so she doesn’t expect wedding bells to come out of all of this.”

Glassie winced. “Yeah, I know how this looks. Just have a little faith in me, okay? You two are the ones who need to go slow and take it easy. Ebon looks thick enough to breed a zoroark!”

Glassie sauntered off, flicking her ribbon tail up and giving Ebon a good look at her hollowed icy cave as if to remind him of what he was missing out on. “Can’t wait to go exploring with you two tomorrow.”

“We’re going to make history! Don’t stay up too late,” Ebon called back to her as she followed Sike into the tent, leaving the pair alone for the first time all day.

Edelweiss extinguished the fire with a bucket of water, stirring it up carefully and dousing it again until they were satisfied it wouldn’t start back up.

“Brother?”

“Yes, Edelweiss?”

“My tent, now!” she lashed a pair of tendrils around his belly and began dragging him towards her own tent.

“Y-yes, dear!” he said as he made only a half-hearted show of resisting, letting his toeclaws dig into the ground as if he was being dragged there against his will. Which was anything but the case, but they did enjoy a little roleplay now and again.

And Glassie thought sylveons could be assertive! That was the last thought he had before he disappeared inside the tent.

Ponyta Pass

Author's Note

Edited on 2/21/2024. Didn't change much but noted one cringy bit of dialogue between Sike and Ebon.

Ponyta Pass

The two siblings slept in, and they weren't the only ones. The sun was high in the sky before they’d climbed out of their sleeping bag — and only after Ebon had unknotted himself from Edelweiss’s inviting pokénest — and went to bathe in the river. She’d been insistent on keeping quiet as he worshipped her majesty for the better part of the night — and again as they bathed — pumping a week's worth of pent-up sexual frustration into his sister’s willing womb.

“You slept well!” Glassie winked at Ebon and Edelweiss as she sat down to a breakfast of miltank sausage, dried oran berries and shredded tall grass in the camp’s kitchen tent.

“I could say the same about you, Glassie. Must be that fresh mountain air agreeing with us.” A momentarily sated Ebon took a deep breath and sighed contentedly.

“Or the smell of fresh grass against your coat, eh, Ebon?” Edelweiss, dressed in her flower apron tickled the umbreon’s nose with the tip of her tail before joining the rest of the party around the cooking fire.

“Oooh! Check that out, Sike. Even Edelweiss is starting to loosen up! Not that she had much of a choice considering what was going inside of her!” Glassie gave Ebon's sensual sister a knowing look.

Sike didn’t reply but Ebon could hardly blame her. She and Glassie had walked into the tent with their tails tied behind them like lovestruck teens after their first kiss, and she hadn’t taken her eyes off Glassie once. The purr motor in her throat was going full bore; wetness along the surface of Glassie’s neck and ears showed evidence of recent intimate grooming between the two eevees.

“Psh! Take you all night to think of that one, Glassie?” Edelweiss retorted between mouthfuls of sausage.

"Are we just flat out admitting to the team we're having sex now?" It would have been nice to talk to me about this first, sis!

"Yes, she is. And no we don't care." Glassie said dismissively. "but we appreciate that you don't keep the team up all night! Artecuno knows, if I were you, I'd be tempted!"

"That's more like it!" Edelweiss rapping an empty plate on the bench. "Keep in that flattering state of mind and there's hope for you yet of getting some of this!

Ebon grunted. I guess if the team doesn't mind, it doesn't matter. I just hope they don't find out about Edelweiss being my sis-

“Hey, Sike. You may want to eat some actual food before we head to Ponyta Pass. You’re going to need your strength!”

Sike turned to face Edelweiss in apparent confusion that others were in the room with her, given how her eyes went wide upon looking up and seeing Edelweiss and Ebon. “Wha? Oh. I guess so…”

Sike never released her hold on Glassie’s tail all through breakfast, Ebon noted. Thankfully she was at least looking at everyone else and nodding at all the right times as the topic of the morning took a turn for the substantive as the last bits of sausage were finally gobbled up.

Ebon wiped his muzzle with his handkerchief and cleared his throat in a request for silence, to which all present respectfully complied. “So… I’ve been having a good think about what we’re going to face inside this mystery dungeon, and my thoughts about our current situation. To put it simply, we still know almost nothing. But what little we’ve learned thus far is encouraging.

“We haven’t spotted any outlaws since arriving here weeks ago and there haven’t been any aggressive moves from the denizens of Ponyta Pass itself. I can’t remember the last time I’ve visited such a peaceful place.” The team nodded at Ebon’s words. “So I’ve decided that we’re going to treat our current mission as a diplomatic visit and make an overture of peace to the pokémon living here.”

“Peace sounds good to me!” Edelweiss piped in. “So long as my leaves stay sharp, if you get what I’m saying.”

“You mean we won’t have to fight at all?” Sike added, sounding relieved. “Seems a rare commodity for explorers.”

“Not as valuable a commodity compared to raiding ruins filled with savage pokémon, but one I can live a lot easier with,” Ebon replied grimly as he licked the remaining specks of food off the fur of his muzzle.

Glassie shook her head. “Combat makes all pokémon stronger, Ebon. It elevates the civilized and the savage alike! It’s an insult to the savages we’ve brought out of the darkness to suggest a good beating wasn’t exactly what they had coming.”

“This all seems a bit too deep for us four to decide on our own, doesn’t it?” Edelweiss said uncomfortably.

Ebon had to agree with his sister about that. The truth was no one really understood why some pokémon were intelligent and capable of living peacefully while others were little more than territorial beasts. Making matters all the more complex were the existence of ‘savages’ as Glassie had referred to them — semi-organized bands of wild pokémon who would sometimes surrender after being fought to submission in honorable combat in close-quarters. Most would be allowed to flee after being defeated, depending on the circumstances.

What was at least clear was that ferals were fair game as sources of food in the wilderness while nuts and seeds cultivated in the peaceful settlements of Pokémon World provided the necessary protein for the omnivorous eevees among others.

“And yet, if given the choice between peace and war, we ‘civilized’ often choose war for the benefit it offers to us.” Ebon wasn’t sure where that thought had come from, or why he had suddenly decided to tackle such a large issue just before a mission, but it felt wrong not to say out loud. “It’s not unlike rescue and explorer teams who exploit their clients and other teams just trying to do the right thing. I don’t claim to be some vaporeon pacifist, Glassie, but the line between a good pokémon and a bad one begins to blur when you start pillaging their stuff and justify it by calling them ‘savage’.”

Glassie sat quietly for a moment, tapping her empty plate with one of her claws before speaking. “I think you give savages too much credit, Ebon. But I understand your point about being peaceful if only because we’re hundreds of miles away from backup and we don’t exactly know if the pokémon we face are savage or just very isolated civilized folk.”

“That seems like a fair compromise for now.” Ebon hefted the Explorer’s Bag with one paw. “We’re going to offer to trade with them — bring some of the gear from our bank and sell it for poké to fund this expedition if they’re willing to play nice. Maybe make us some new friends out of all of this. If they attack us, we use the escape orb back to camp, equip ourselves suitably for battle and you all know the rest.”

“Do I ever!” Glassie’s blue eyes and the tips of her pearly-white fangs positively gleamed.

With consensus appearing to have been reached, Ebon called it to a vote. “All in favor, say ‘aye’.”

All four present affirmed the plan.

“We leave for the entrance within one hour.” Ebon looked into the eyes of his team, praising the creator of all pokémon that he should be so blessed to serve with each of them. “May Arceus watch over all of you today.”

“For glory, for money, and for eevee!” Glassie saluted Ebon with one paw over her eyes.

“For the brother I love…” Edelweiss began to say when Glassie and Sike gave her a baffled look, “...back in Eevee Village!”

Really smooth, sis. That wasn’t a completely transparent lie, not at all, Ebon thought to himself, giving his sister a grimace.

Sike threw her forelegs around her new partner and gave her a hug. “For Glassiiiie!”

“D’awww!” Edelweiss exclaimed. “You two are adorable together. Don’t ruin a good thing, Glassie!”

Glassie gave a sort of resigned chuckle. “You know me, Edelweiss, Ebon. I always do.”

*****

The four teammates stood in a single file line at the kangaskhan statue, withdrawing everything from their bank back in Treasure Town they’d need. Neither of them questioned how this was possible or who even put the statue in front of the entrance. It was a matter of concern to Arceus and no one else.

Ebon just wished the statue could move much larger quantities of goods through it, like the barrels of seeds and fruit he kept back home. Maybe even lumber, heavy tools, oran and apple trees to make settlement easier. Alas, life could only be convenient to a point and no further.

Ebon placed a special parcel into the statue, detailing all the actions they’d taken while at their camp, how to find it and where they were going. If they fell in battle, they could expect no one to rescue them but there would at least be a record of their deeds and a place of refuge the next group of explorers could use before taking on the dungeon themselves.

“Listen, I’m not saying I don’t trust my combat ability, but I’m glad you’re taking point and not me, Ebon. Just in case they do decide to fight,” Sike said timidly as Ebon set the party’s order of march with himself in the lead.

Ebon paid her no mind. “Edelweiss, you’re the caboose. Glassie, right behind me as always. Sike, you’re on orb duty but don’t throw out the escape one unless I say so! This is not the time or place for panic.”

“Aye, sir,” Sike replied, downbeat.

Ebon looked back at Sike. “This isn’t the time for doubting yourself either! You’ve got ability but you lack confidence and patience. Let the enemy see nothing but your smile; this is what the guild master taught me. So show them your smile as you smite them!”

Sike smiled sweetly. “Yes, sir!”

“There’s a good eevee.” Ebon nodded his approval and gestured for the column to move.

Ponyta Pass

4F

Ebon stopped to check his map again. They had made good time thus far; three floors had come and gone with little action to show for it. But also nothing in the way of treasure.

He could see himself and his team, represented by four yellow dots, set in a line moving forward between one room to the next with the unexplored part of the floor left resolutely blank. If there had been anyone meaning them harm, he’d see a red dot appear on the map but there’d been nothing. If there was any treasure to be collected, it’d register in blue but the place was barren.

If things had been uneventful, they’d at least been peaceful, even beautiful in terms of scenery. Upon climbing the stairs to the fourth floor, Ebon saw the room they were standing on was filled with colorful, luminescent gemstones that sparkled brightly off of Ebon’s golden glow. Mysterious pink water trickled down the walls and pooled in low spots on the cave floor from some unknown water source.

“That might be poison. Be careful, team!” Ebon announced, the four threading their way through the maze of watery obstacles between themselves and the doorway on the opposite side of the room.

Edelweiss grunted and Ebon could only imagine from the muffled thud, her face had recently come into contact with a soft, lavender espeon rump. “Sike, why did you stop?”

The sound of a paw being shoved into one of the pink pools was heard, followed by the soft pitter-patter of water on stone.

“Whatever this pink water is, it isn’t poisonous,” Sike announced to the party.

“Do I even want to know why you decided to find out for yourself? ” Ebon grit his teeth.

“I saw a pink stone at the bottom of one of the pools and picked it up!” Ebon turned back to see her sitting down with it, cradled in her forelegs like an egg. “It’s warm to the touch!”

“Hmm. Well, if it isn’t killing you, I suppose there’s no reason you can’t hang on to it. Let’s keep going but let me know if that gem starts doing something evil. You never really know with that sort of thing.”

“Okay, Ebon.” Sike tucked the gem into her chest fluff and started walking again.

“All this water and no water or ground types,” Edelweiss groused.

“Bah! Every second dungeon we go into is filled with water and ground!” Glassie retorted. “Where are all the flying-types?”

“Keep your ‘ominous wind’ death fetish to yourself, Glassie! I want to make it back to Treasure Town alive!”

“Ahh chill out, you two!” Sike gave a carefree giggle. “This place isn’t so bad. I don’t know why I was ever afraid of coming in here.”

Glassie cackled. “One bit of treasure and Sike is all about adventuring! Here’s to many happy returns, partner!”

Having successfully cleared the water obstacle they entered a winding corridor, so narrow not even two eevee could walk abreast one another.

“Yeah… it’s so weird. I’ve never felt so… completely okay in all my life.” Sike replied blissfully. “This sounds crazy but I think this pink stuff is good magic. It feels like I’m somehow closer to all of you since I picked that stone up. Like I want to — Arceus, this sounds creepy — like I want to be somehow closer.”

Having ears that paradoxically faced backwards — unlike his eeveelution kin — Ebon could not only pick up on every word but every inflection change in those speaking behind him, even if they were a great distance away. He didn’t need psychic powers or backward-facing ears to know that Sike was extremely turned-on and his body, knowing what it liked, acted accordingly.

Go away, boner! Ebon mentally chastised his illicit erection.

“Close enough to start reading their minds?” Glassie asked; the dangerously devious edge to her voice causing Ebon to involuntarily whimper.

Please don't read my mind. Please don't read my mind. Please don’t-

Oh, Ebon! Glassie was right about you! Sike’s voice invaded a hapless Ebon’s mind.

Craaaaaaaaaaaaap! Ebon felt his erection throb so hard it brushed up against his furry belly followed by an accompanying wave of lightheadedness. Some pokémon had told him in the past he had a big heart but even that had a hard time filling in an erection of his size without making sacrifices elsewhere. Sike, this isn’t the best time to be scanning my mind. Think of the mission!

But I can feel your thoughts, Ebon! Even still you’re becoming more aroused at the thought of me. This is so cool! Sike continued her mental dialog. I’ve always thought you’d make a desirable mate! I would have never guessed you felt that way for me.

Sike… Please, we can’t be doing this right now! “Ow!” Ebon’s face bumped straight into the wall of the cave.

Glassie wasn’t even bothering to muffle her laughter.

Behind him, Edelweiss growled. “Whatever you’re doing to our leader, Sike, it’s not very helpful. Please stop.”

Sike gave a pout and broke the psychic connection. Ebon thanked Arceus for that one small favor. Though somehow, he felt more distracted than ever, navigating the dungeon ruminating on the fact that one of his subordinates not only knew how badly he wanted to stud his nubile, young recruit, but that his erection would possibly never go down at this rate.

Ponyta Pass

15F

A welcome distraction at last for Ebon arrived in the form of treasure, though as he couldn’t be sure whether or not the denizens of this particular dungeon were friendly or not, he made the painful decision to leave it all behind.

Hordes of poké coins, useful hold items, and other valuables were piled up inside rooms behind unlocked heavy wooden doors. They were lit with the dying embers of the twilight sun streaming in through barred windows that opened to stark and barren gray cliffs covered in jagged and spiky stones.

And yet, there wasn’t a guard in sight, as if the treasure held no value at all. The real shocker was when they discovered what appeared to be the dungeon’s ‘larder’. Boxes and barrels of seeds and berries of all types were piled high against the smooth stone walls, such that they could only scarcely be seen.

The water that seeped into the lower floors thankfully wasn’t present here, but the cave still felt very cool — perfect for storage. The home-y interior of floor fifteen now more closely resembled the interior of a castle. The small room they were standing in was lined with wooden beams on the ceiling and floor that must have taken great care to hammer into place by either a pokémon with hands or a psychic-type. Torches were bracketed to the wall as well and there were basic wood chandeliers holding a number of worn, wax candles. These were unlit and would remain so with no source of fire between the four of them.

“That settles it. These are obviously civilized pokémon living here.” Ebon whistled, thumping the side of one of the rough-wooden barrels with his paw. “I think it’s also reasonable to suggest they don’t come here very often and never anticipated four explorers to come marching in the back door. They must have another way of getting in that they keep a closer watch over.”

“That sounds reasonable. But we’ve already climbed fifteen floors and we still haven’t encountered anyone.” Sike pointed out towards the hall. “We should find something to sleep on and have something to eat.”

“I can’t think of a reasonable objection to that. Though for the sake of our hosts, let’s eat from our bag and not from their stash.” The rest of the team nodded at Ebon in agreement.

Glassie brought a paw to her chin, looking contemplative. “I think whoever lives here might have some objections to us being here at all, given all this food and loot. Best be on our guard. Sleep together here in this room, bar the entrance and post a watch to keep an eye on the map for hostiles.”

“Oh, I don't know about all that, Glassie!” Sike waved a dismissive paw. “I think whoever finds us will be more surprised than anything finding us sleeping in their home, drooling all over their crates of food. Maybe... and this is just an idea... you and Edelweiss can go scout out some rooms for us. And I can stick around... here? Yeah! And help Ebon with the first night watch.”

The look Glassie gave Sike was as if the espeon had sprouted antlers.

Eben and Edelweiss shared a look. Psychic abilities were entirely unnecessary to read her mind.

“You’re all pretty tired and it will be dark soon,” Ebon started to pace the hallway slowly. “I’m sure it will be okay to sleep in your own rooms. I can take the first watch. If I need you, I’ll signal distress.”

He pawed at the command medallion he wore around his neck at all times. It bore the likeness of his face and would allow him to give instructions to his team even when split up inside a mystery dungeon.

“Ebon, I…” Glassie started to say. Ebon had never seen her act so indecisive with her words before and would do anything to be able to read her mind right then. “I could use food. Let’s eat!”

Glassie wiggled her ears and gave Ebon a sly grin.

Not a single challenge from Glassie on the logic of splitting up. Steel-clad proof of the sleeping arrangements being a trap to set up him and Sike, even if Glassie wasn’t in on it from the beginning, judging by her earlier reaction. Regardless, her consent was the final nail in his proverbial coffin.

“Seems I’ve entered the monster house, huh?” Ebon grinned sheepishly as he opened up his bag, withdrawing four apples and placing them next to his incomplete dungeon map on top of the barrel he was standing next to.

Across from him, Sike put on the least-convincing smile Pokémon World had ever borne witness to.

His recently subdued erection began to creep back up again.

“You bet your eleven inches you have, boss!” Glassie turned towards the door, scooped one of the apples up with her ribbony tail, and casually tossed the apple on top of her head, balancing it effortlessly as she strutted from the room — abandoning him to his fate.

Ebon turned to face Edelweiss, knowing he had to say something to her. “I will talk to her. We’ll sort this out, okay?”

Edelweiss nodded as the leafy skin beneath her toffee eyes crinkled ever so slightly, filling his heart with ease once more. “Don’t let it stop there if you’re willing. We trust you, Ebon. Now trust yourself and do what’s right.”

She leaned in and planted a kiss on Ebon’s cheek, tickling his belly and engorged pokéhood with her grass tail, though she kept it carefully out of view of the others. “If you need me, you’ll know where to find me. Goodnight!”

Ebon's sister left, her apple dinner stowed behind one ear and gently closed the door shut behind the remaining pair.

Filled with an impulse to jam his eyes shut, he did so. His face was aflame — the embarrassment rising to the surface once more.

“I’m not very good at starting conversations. Help me out?” Sike’s voice battered at the walls of his sheltered mind, but this time, he wouldn’t let her in.

“You saw… everything, Sike.” Ebon’s eyes remained closed.

“More than you know, Ebon. I saw into the minds of Edelweiss and Glassie too.” His sensitive ears could just make out the gentle pattering of dainty paws as she crept closer. “I think… if we could all read each other’s thoughts, this would all be so much easier to talk about.”

“I’m afraid to ask but I have no choice,” Ebon was trembling slightly now. “Do you know about me and Edelweiss?”

“I was surprised but yes,” Sike replied with an air of forced calm. “I understand that sort of thing is okay where you’re from. I don’t get it but I respect the traditions of your town. You’re not a bad pokémon, just different in your outlook is all.”

“I see. I’m relieved to hear you say that, Sike.” Ebon’s eyes remained firmly closed as he heard Sike sit down next to him. He couldn’t help but marvel at how quiet her tail was as it swept back and forth across the floor and couldn’t help but imagine how plush it’d feel against his paws.

“Your love for her is genuine, and hers is for you as well. Or, so I guess,” she ended somewhat lamely. “I mean I’m not an expert on love or anything like that, but it didn’t feel deceptive or shallow. It’s really hard to explain reading minds. Just trust me, okay?”

“I trust you, Sike,” Ebon muttered. “I’m just worried about what Glassie said and what it means about me.”

Sike pressed her body against his and for the first time he felt it. Softer than the finest silk and warm to the touch. The touch of an espeon.

He opened his eyes and looked at her face. The orb on her forehead glowed softly with solar energy — the source of her great power. It was duller than usual, no doubt from the lack of direct sunlight which had retreated behind the distant treeline and cast their room into semidarkness. He lit the golden rings on his body; all the better to illuminate his beautiful companion.

The exhaustion she was feeling must have been intense. Seeing her state, he was immediately relieved they’d stopped exploring when they did, making a note to let her bask in the morning rays of the sun before they continued their journey.

Sike giggled as she again read his mind. “I appreciate your consideration for my well-being, Ebon. But I’m not completely drained of power just yet.”

“Sike…”

“Yes, Ebon?”

“Telling me what I’m thinking… Answering my thoughts…You’re a full-fledged espeon teammate now.” Ebon made what passes for a grin to the naturally aggressive-looking dark-types like umbreons — opening his maw wide and flashing his teeth — and the two started chuckling, eventually bursting into laughter.

They remained sitting there for some time, Ebon contentedly feeling his partner’s body against his. The tension slowly drained away but for a knot that remained and that he alone could address.

“Sike, about my sister… Is she upset with me? About my desires? What will come of me and Edelweiss? I want to be with her but I know I can’t.”

Sike began to purr again and the remaining tension that had settled deep within his soul began to melt away. Ebon felt his own throat begin to rumble in reply. Purring was a trait both espeons and umbreons shared and Ebon felt it served its purpose well at that moment.

“Ebon, none of us has any idea whether you’ll end up with your sister or not, but she is genuine in her love for you. If you… do the, uh, thing… with me…” Sike groaned and smacked herself on the forehead. “That sounded so ridiculous, I might just die.”

“I think I know what you’re saying, Sike.” Ebon draped a leg over her shoulder and kissed the back of her ear at its base. “I believe you, Sike. I trust you. I trust all of you with my life.” He kissed it again, trailing his tongue across its considerable length. “Sometimes, I need to be reminded of what you all mean to me. What you mean to me right now…”

“Ebon… don’t stop,” Sike spoke in barely a whisper, and Ebon wasn’t about to.

In the silence of the sealed room, each kiss seemed accentuated ten-fold. Her gentle moans were soon joined by an erotic fragrance from her hindquarters from his insistent aural grooming.

Bite them, Ebon. Let me feel your hunger for every part of my body. Sike communicated directly into his mind.

Ebon licked his lips and growled softly before starting to gently mouth her sensitive ears with his fangs. As you wish, my beautiful and sensuous Sike.

A little harder. Make it hurt but just a little! Sike quickly fired back into his thoughts.

How much is a little? Your ears are super sensitive! Ebon thought back in some worry to her.

Enough to make me a little scared. Just try something! Sike was sounding really impatient now.

Okay, okay! Even by eeveelution standards, this was a bit more intense earplay than Ebon was used to. It sounded like she wanted him to use her pride and joy like a baby eevee’s chew toy.

He growled again and nipped her sharply across the back of her ear and helical fold, causing her to emit a yowling moan loudly enough to echo repeatedly against the walls. A single drip of honey-scented secretion splashed onto the floor.

“Oh, Ebon~!”

She continued chanting his name softly as he repeated the treatment on both of her ears, licking those parts which he bit as a sort of apology, half-expecting her to react angrily at any moment.

She never did, though her erotic flow did intensify along with her intoxicating pheromone fragrance.

Walking around behind her, he stuck his nose beneath her tail and inhaled her scent deeply, allowing the exquisite espeon aroma to captivate him fully before crouching low and pressing each of his paws against her rump. Pausing only briefly to savor the moment, he spread them apart to reveal more of her feminine entrance to him; the puffy and slightly darker lavender lips of her labia separated with a wet squelching sound to reveal a treasure far more valuable and enjoyable than anything they could ever find in a dungeon.

“Aw… abandoning my ears so soon?” Sike asked, sweetly. “Not that I’m not really worked up already!”

That’s how it is, eh? I’m not letting you off that easily, Sike. Ebon got up and sat back down in front of her, stroking one of her ears in his paw. “You want me to work for it, don’t you? Don’t feel ashamed to ask better of me, Sike. I must do my best as your leader to take care of all of you.”

Sike cooed at his touch. “You’re not the umbreon I used to know. I-I love this one even more!”

“I love you too, Sike.” The two eeveelution’s muzzles touched as they leaned in close, pressing softly together in what was initially the most tender of kisses.

More. More! Sike’s telepathic voice spoke once more as she licked the spot of her lips where his lips had touched.

As you wish… He kissed her again, more roughly this time, their tongues dueling fiercely as the sound of popping saliva filled the room. Ebon found Sike surprisingly assertive by the standards of his previous conquests. He was once again struck by how odd this was for such a timid espeon to change this much over the course of a day, but he was also unable to give the thought much attention as they continued mouth wrestling — the time fast slipping away from him in a haze of heated passion.

Ebon felt her start to pull back and he moved to break their sloppy kiss that dribbled down his muzzle and neck.

Sike’s cheeks were dark purple; her mouth curled up in a fang-toothed silly smile. Umbreon’s golden light shined back at him brightly off of her gorgeous purple sclera. Her building lust echoed back at him through their shared psychic connection. She needed to be relieved of at least part of her burden.

So he lunged towards her left ear, sloppily licking its interior clean as her squeaky moans began to echo ever more loudly against the stone walls. The sloshing noises of spit echoed deliciously through his own ears where his tongue made contact; he could only imagine the sound it was making in Sike’s.

But he didn’t have to imagine the feeling which had begun bleeding through into his own mind to the point it felt like he was licking his own ear. He felt the tip of his pulsing erection begin to chill from the night breeze cooling his precum saturated slit.

This worship. This pleasure! Ebon, I’m going to cum! Sike gave out a long, loud cry as her knees gave slightly and the cacophony of sound from a very satisfied female rose up from the floor where it’d streaked a viscous, fragrant trail of espeon love honey across it.

“Ebon… you did that… from my ear alone!” Sike breathed heavily as she leaned on him heavily, ready to collapse to the floor below.

“I hope you’re ready for more. By the time I’m done with you, we’ll both need elixirs!” Ebon punctuated his words with another strong nip to her ear.

“You have my full permission to do whatever you want with me, Ebon!” Sike turned and presented herself fully to him, flagging her tail to the side.

But he wasn’t in any mood to mount her just yet.

Her heavy tail flicked up and down, its forks slapping against his rump suggestively as he kneeled down with his forelegs and began slowly peeling back his lover’s imposing labial mounds with his tongue to tease out the most sensitive parts of her pokénest as she non-verbally and non-psychically conveyed her approval.

“Bless you, Sike. You are perfect.” Ebon stopped to rub his face against Sike’s rump, delighting in the feel of its supple softness and warmth against his face. The fine lavender hairs tickled him with each pass.

“S-so are Glassie and Edelweiss,” Sike replied. “We all love you. I have seen it!”

“It’s like I can feel them with us too…” Ebon muttered, unthinking. But that’s nonsense talk, he decided. How can he, a dark-type possibly know that?

And yet somehow, he knew it must be true. Glassie’s mischievous spirit and Edelweiss’s protective soul were present with them in the room. This is what they wanted for the four of them; a union not only forged in mutual combat, blood, sweat, and treasure but of flesh.

He wanted them both, too. He wanted them all! But here and now, it was Sike who would have his full attention. I will take my time on you, Sike. This I promise.

Ebon licked her slickened labia clean of honey from her previous orgasm and began slowly working his tongue inside of her. Searching for her erogenous zone was made all the easier by their psychic link, though given his long experience with lovemaking, he hardly needed it. Words had given way to the primal language of the espeon species as her lust and love for him crooned intermittently through her voice box.

Her cries only grew louder and more insistent as his tongue came into contact with her diminutive clitoris. He teased and tickled it with his long wet tongue, massaging her rump as he worked.

You’ve done this many times before. Edelweiss wasn’t wrong! Sike’s voice broadcasted to him as she made a particularly loud screech, the churning of her inner walls intensifying by the second.

I had to train and get better so I could be my best for you, Sike. Ebon replied in a like manner.

Sike began to trill, the sound growing louder and louder until her walls squeezed themselves gently around Ebon’s tongue, a tremor in her hind legs forming until she gave an echoing cry and a rush of honey-like spoor flooded into his eager maw. He trapped it, letting it pool on his salivating tongue to better savor its flavor.

Sike turned to look at him, apparently pleased. “Waiting for me to watch you swallow it? Such a gentlemon!”

Ebon opened his mouth wide, displaying his well-earned prize to her before gulping it down thickly. “Now I know what a gold gummi tastes like!”

The pair shared another laugh before nuzzling each other affectionately.

“Ebon… you’ve been very kind to me and I almost feel bad having to ask you for another favor but… you’re my first.” Sike turned from him and lifted her rump high into the air, kneeling low on her front legs with her tail tilted to the side. “Please… be gentle with me.”

“I will, Sike.” Ebon straddled the smaller pokémon who wrapped her agile forked tail around his back. It was like being gripped by a pair of pincers but much nicer! Sike was nervous but very eager as his pointed meaty tip slowly slipped its way past her virgin lips; she was so wet and ready that he slid in with astonishing ease.

“By Arceus himself, you’re a great fit!” Ebon said huskily. Most eeveelutions had a tough time handling his stature in the past to the point he’d actually been turned down a lot for sex. He didn’t like to admit it, but it was a big reason why he’d focused so much on oral technique. The one partner he’d had previously that could reliably fit him had been his one and only sister.

He pressed himself in deeper, Sike grunting softly as her slickened walls accepted him inside one exquisite inch at a time. As it was with his sister, several of his inches remained outside in the cold unable to fit. “You’re holding up well!”

“Not the brutal agony I was expecting!” Sike cooed. “Glassie told me I’d bleed like a stuck tepig my first time!”

“Who knows. Maybe she did!” Ebon replied. “It’s different for every female. I can lie and say you did if you want…”

“Ooooh yes! I like that idea! She'll think I'm super-tough!” Sike gushed gleefully, a contented silence falling between them as Ebon began thrusting his hips.

Ebon rocked gently back and forth, spurts of espeon honey drenching his sack with each thrust, filling the air with the sensual sounds of fluid and air mixing inside a very erotic pink tunnel. Sike’s will throbbed into his head, her thoughts urging him to nip and bite at the ruddy fringes of her immense ears, to sate her desire to taste but a small manageable pain to season the waves of pure pleasure like a dusting of hot powdered oran berries on a sausage. Sparks of fear triggered by primordial eevee instincts to flee hungry predators were followed paradoxically by sudden attachment to the source of her very fear.

It was unreal being able to feel another pokémon’s kink, her hidden fetish, being satisfied in real-time.

“Ebon, I’m fertile. Give me your seed. I want to… carry your egg.”

Though his heart all but melted to hear those words, he stopped mid-thrust. “Sike… You’re sure about this?”

“Fill me, Ebon. Let me carry your young. Breed me. P-please?"

Ebon felt a pang of anxiety at the realization his life was about to change, and yet the tugging at his soul told him he was ready. “As you wish, my love.”

Sike kneeled lower and he began pistoning himself inside of her as her cries grew louder and more insistent. “Don’t… you… dare… stop!”

“Sike, I’m knotting!” His thrusts became much shallower as the canid knot at the base of his phallus bulged out. His head swam and his balls contracted; the rush of pleasure started at the end of his phallus and surged to the very tips of his paws and tail as he let loose a cry as he climaxed. The tail grip on his back tightened around him like a vice, as if to prevent his escape, if that were possible.

Sweating profusely and suddenly aware of the chill of the night air closing in around him, Ebon — still fused with his partner — leaned into her and kissed the tip of Sike’s ear.

But before he could offer her a single word or lick, the door to their room opened, a flood of firelight causing Ebon to wince harshly. There a ponyta stood, a surprised look on its face before it appeared to smile.

Both Ebon and Sike froze at the sight of him, but far from being hostile or angry, the beautiful visitor bowed low, giving Ebon a good look at its colorful multicolored mane and spoke with a delicate, feminine voice. “Ahh. Our honored guests have arrived! Welcome, friends, to Ponyta Pass!”

A Royal Greeting

When the ponyta walked into the center of the room and lit its horn, the torches lining the walls and ceiling burst to life, filling the room with warm, orange light.

“Um…” Ebon looked back at the ponyta, unable to move with his knot still lodged inside his partner. “I hope you’re not here to battle because I’m a little preoccupied.”

The ponyta giggled into one of her gold-capped horseshoes. “Now what kind of host would I be if I attacked my guests on sight?”

Glassie, followed quickly by Edelweiss burst into the room, the latter speaking as she beheld the three of them. “Whoa. This is not good! We gonna rumble, boss?” She took a combat pose as she spoke.

“Not quite yet, Glassie,” Ebon replied, his voice still husky and deep from his earlier exertions, wishing for one of the very few times that his knot would subside more quickly.

Despite his predicament, he faced the ponyta, noting her elaborate attire. It included four golden shoes, a royal crown, and an ornamental breastplate. Whoever or whatever this strange-looking pastel-colored ponyta was, she surely held a very high station in her society. “Were you the one who sent me that letter, stranger?”

“No, umbreon, but I commissioned the messenger who sent it to you on my behalf. Or is that the same thing as me sending it? My stationery doesn’t spontaneously combust after being opened.” The royal-looking ponyta shrugged its equine shoulders. “I’ll leave you to decide that detail.”

“Riiight,” Ebon replied slowly. This was surely the daftest encounter with a ponyta he’d ever had, though thankfully not the most threatening given his vulnerable position. “Why did we not encounter anyone at the entrance? Feels odd to think we’ve been walking around your house for the last several hours and no one’s stopped us. We were expecting hostile pokémon here.”

“Oh, we’re not hostile. No!” The ponyta shook her head. “We are called Ponies; equines of the West Tellusian Herd that form the great nations of Equestria and the Crystal Empire. As to why we’re here it's complicated. I’ll explain everything in time, but you must understand we didn’t intend to be uncharitable and not be here to greet you. We had no idea when you’d arrive given how distant your town is from here. It must have been quite the journey getting here without teleportation.”

Indeed it had been, though they at least were able to rely on the newly-invented electric and steel-type pokémon amalgamated machine called a ‘klinklang train’ to travel part of the way.

“That’s a fair point,” Ebon responded, trying not to be too obvious as he tried pulling his knot out of Sike. “As you can see, you, uh, caught me at a rather… private time here, Miss…umm-”

“Right, my name!” The mare — at least Ebon assumed she was a mare because of her voice — drew herself up importantly and sketched a bow. “Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, ruler of the Crystal Empire and Element of Love at your service. But please, call me Cadance.”

“Hold up!” Edelweiss butted in. “Sike, that stone you found is pink like this ponyta’s fur. You were right about it not being poison. It’s actually love!” Edelweiss pressed against her paws against her furry cheeks. “Awwwwwwwwhhhh!”

Ebon shut his eyes again. Will the embarrassment ever end?

Sike pulled the stone from his chest fluff and held it up for the room to see. “You think this stone made what we did happen?”

“Oh, don’t think that, Miss Sike,” Cadance said consolingly. “It didn’t make anything happen you didn’t otherwise want. It merely amplified the love each of you feel for each other so you could more easily express it. It’s also proof positive that your kind are harmonious beings!”

“Harmonious beings?” Glassie chimed in with a glance at Edelweiss. “You’ve clearly never faced us in battle!”

Ebon found his voice again. “What do you mean by harmonious, Cadance? Aren’t you a pokémon like us? I’ll admit, I’ve never met a ponyta that looks like you before. You’re not even a fire-type!”

Cadance blinked and shook her head. “A fire-type? It’s my turn to admit ignorance of such terms, I’m afraid. I am an Equestrian pony — an alicorn, to be precise — and I’m a traveler from a different dimension.”

“Oh heck. Oh crap!” Edelweiss ran to the window and looked nervously out it. “If Palkia finds out you’re here, he’s going to end up blaming our team for it! This always happens!”

Cadance grimaced, leaving Ebon guessing that the conversation wasn’t going the way she’d wanted. He suddenly wished he’d turned right around after finding the pink stone and just spent the next month or so endlessly studding his three teammates.

“You’re all the first pokémon I’ve met who can talk. No ‘Palkia’ or anypony else has come here to cause trouble,” Cadance explained. “I’ve encountered pokémon in the wild and tried to bring harmony to them using a second Crystal Heart I fashioned before taking the portal to your world. It was no use, though. All they seemed to want to do is attack us mindlessly. Sadly, we’ve had to knock several of them out lest they injure our exploration teams with their powerful magical abilities.” Cadance hung her head. “I am truly sorry for injuring your kind.”

Ebon gave a guilty thought at the miltank sausage in his stomach. “It’s no problem at all, Princess. We’re not entirely sure why some of us can think intelligently and why the rest of us can’t. Rest assured, we’ve had to knock out quite a few ourselves and we don’t hold a grudge.”

“Violence is the one true law in Pokémon World, Princess Cadance,” Glassie said gruffly. “It makes us all equal under our God, Arceus.”

“I see. Then perhaps I should speak to your god sometime, Miss…” Cadance searched for the name.

“The name’s ‘Glassie’, Princess, and unfortunately we can’t help you there. No one’s seen Arceus in ages. Keeps to himself; lets pokémon do the work of managing the universe he created while he presumably creates more.”

“Interesting…” Cadance looked contemplative for a moment. “We both have a great deal to discuss and now probably isn’t the best time but…”

“B-but what?” Sike finally chipped in, giving her an askance look.

“I-I just couldn’t help myself but come,” Cadance’s voice was quivering with emotion. “I had to see such potent love expressed for myself. Perhaps it is a weakness of mine, but sometimes, I get a little carried away.”

Glassie and Edelweiss smiled at her. Ebon grimaced and Sike grunted as his penis finally popped out of her, splattering the floor loud enough to be heard by all with the mingled scent of their lovemaking.

Even though they all blushed, Cadance merely smiled. “Ah, yes. Perhaps a bath is in order for you two before we discuss why I’ve asked for you to come. And some proper bedrooms to sleep in. I daresay you’re hungry as well after coming all this way, too. We can talk about our respective peoples along the way. Come, enjoy our hospitality!” Cadance turned on her tail, the foursome following her out with all their belongings into the hall in the formation they’d entered in.

It might have been his mind playing tricks on him but Ebon couldn’t help but see the feminine entrance beneath her three-toned yellow, pink and purple tail wink occasionally as she walked.

Whoa… did we turn her on? Did I? The umbreon allowed himself a moment of pride in both his lovemaking and its effect on others — even those not of their realm — as the five climbed yet another set of gray stone steps.

Ponyta Pass

35th floor

They’d spent nearly the entire climb talking and even now Ebon still had questions, least of all was how they were speaking the same language, albeit with vastly different dialects.

The gist of what he’d gathered from the winged pony was that the dimension she’d come from was dominated by a small number of so-called ‘nations’ that governed the affairs of everyone living there. This was vastly different from the heavily decentralized confederated states that pokémon lived under, filled with tribal nations, microstates and vast swathes of wilderness set between them.

The pony race to which Cadance belonged was made up of four subgroups of pony: unicorns who had horns, pegasi and bat ponies who had wings and earth ponies who lacked both wings and horns but possessed great strength and hardiness.

While no one in Pokémon World possessed the means to dominate the planet, aside from the Legendary Pokémon, huge wars followed by lengthy periods of peace saw the races of “Tellus”, the planet Ponies came from, fill in the unexplored parts of their world before seeking out new races to develop relations with through interdimensional travel. Their stated goal was to share their message of cooperation and goodwill with the goal of achieving Harmony for all.

It all sounded quite high-minded to Ebon, but he had to admit the technology this ‘Princess’ had used to reshape this forsaken wilderness into a palace was beyond his reckoning. Maybe she was right and this ‘harmony’ ‘peace’ and ‘tolerance’ thing could make things better for the pokémon?

Maybe life didn’t have to be endless fights over food and shelter. Ebon thought of the klinks and klinklangs that drove the train he’d traveled in, happily performing their one and only job until their gears wore out but otherwise living in safety. He was sure pokémon like them would love living in such a place.

Maybe it was just him, but he kind of liked his peace and quiet and didn’t want to be told what to do by others; his sister serving as but one example of the consensus being wrong in his eyes. Many pokémon shared his sentiments, and he couldn’t imagine all of them going along with the pony way of doing things.

But he’d told his team they would treat this mission as if they were diplomats, and so he listened attentively to the pony Princess as they walked together.

And like any good diplomat, he was sizing up this pony as a potential rival, carrying on a constant conversation with Sike through telepathy.

What's the verdict on this pony's typing, Sike? Ebon asked. She looks kind of like she's from Galar.

Heaven's no, Ebon! Sike replied. Galarian Ponytas can read minds too. And this Cadance is far too large and powerful to be a ponyta. She looks more like a rapidash than anything. Whoever named this dungeon made a serious categorization error, I think. There was silence along the psychic connection before Sike continued. But I digress. Cadance is... quite the mystery. Her power is reminiscent of that of fairies but less chaotic.

That doesn't tell me much, I'm afraid, Ebon replied, hoping he didn't sound too insulting. Would Sike be able to deduce the intent of speech easier through psychic connections than with natural speech or would she deduce layers of mendacity in his words even he wasn't conscious of expressing? Not that you aren't doing your best, Sike!

Sike made a cute little psychic giggle, alleviating Ebon's concerns. You're so thoughtful, Ebon! The only thing I can say with certainty is Edelweiss is right in her guess about Cadance's power being tied to this stone I found. Whether it is love or not, I find it benevolent and comforting. What she can do with it will take more time to learn. I must be careful how far I dig into the mind of a powerful creature, lest she discover what I'm doing and thump me! Scratch that. Thump all of us!

Ebon silently appreciated the fact that while Sike might not be the best fighter, her aversion to conflict made her a practical spy. Wise choice, Sike. I think our best option for the time being is to try to get the ponies to reveal their abilities as much as possible while still being friendly to them until we can understand their limitations. I know if I were her, I'd be doing the same thing to us.

Remarkable as the Ponies’ renovation had been, Cadance hadn’t accounted for factors like the hallways throughout her massive palace randomizing every time a guest showed up — completely changing the interior spaces as all mystery dungeons do. As a result, most ponies stayed close to the upper chambers of Ponyta Pass and left the lower floors alone. That explained the lack of attention earlier.

It also explained why Cadance was so sweaty after all the walking they’d done and had just as much trouble navigating the twisting corridors and dead-end rooms.

“Whew! This place is huge but we’re almost there, I promise.” Cadance pointed to a distant room at the end of a long hallway. “The rooms on floor thirty-five and above don’t move. There are warm baths, latrines and as many clean towels as you can ask for. I daresay we brought too many.”

“You are too kind, Princess.” Edelweiss bowed respectfully. “Now I think about it, I’ve never seen you take a warm bath, Glassie. That won’t hurt you, will it?”

“Seriously? I’ve been blasted in the face with more flamethrower attacks than I can count. No bathtub could ever hope to vanquish ‘The Glass Cannon!’” Glassie struck her favored skorupi pose once more. “But in all seriousness, I could get sick if I stayed in heated water long enough. For an ice-type, I’m about the most resistant to heat-related sickness there is since, as an eeveelution, I still thermoregulate. Another mark in the win column for the ever-adaptive eevee.” She puffed her chest out in pride.

“So I’ve heard!” Cadance looked at Glassie, nodding. “We’ve learned a lot about what sorts of conditions the native life of Pokémon prefer and done our best to cater to their needs. We’ve even developed quite a taste for the local food. It agrees with us quite well as we ponies are natural vegetarians.”

Ebon looked up at the taller mare and nodded. “So you really are cultivating your own seeds and berries here. The formidable stores you had downstairs hinted you were far more than mere scavengers.”

“Not anymore, no,” Cadance replied. “But we were surviving on assistance from Equestria for years before we could start producing our own food while still remaining inconspicuous. Once we concluded the creatures here couldn’t be tamed, I sent out agents to learn more about the world and discovered civilized towns and cities. We then disguised ourselves and integrated into pokémon society to study it.”

Ebon exchanged a look with his teammates. This isn’t just some random human-turned pokémon intrusion. It sounds to me like an alien invasion! I better keep my eyes on these ponies. “How many of you are here? Are there more of you coming?”

“Not unless you ask!” Cadance said cheerfully. “That’s why you’re here. So we can finally speak to each other as equals. Forgive our intrusion on your lands. Our secrecy was an attempt to not disrupt life in your world.”

Ebon shook his head. “And you’ve asked for us, an exploration team, to speak on behalf of all pokémon? That doesn’t sound very fair, Cadance.”

Cadance look down at him and frowned. “Why do you say that, Ebon?”

“Because I’m not in charge of anyone outside this team of mine. They are my whole world and the reason I exist. But no one in Kanto, Sinnoh, Alola, Galar, Johto, or every other continent ever commissioned me to speak on their behalf. I would be doing them all a disservice to suggest my interests are the same as theirs.”

“I see…” Cadance looked crestfallen.

Ebon felt a leafy tendril worm its way around his abdomen, compelling him to stop walking. “Edelweiss, what gives?”

When he turned to her, he froze, for Edelweiss looked downright furious. “When we were outside earlier, you said we weren’t going to treat this like an ordinary dungeon but a diplomatic mission! Now all of a sudden you can’t speak for other pokémon?”

“Yeah, sure I said that!” Ebon told his sister. “I couldn’t be sure if hostiles were waiting inside or interdimensional ponyta — er, ponies.”

“I’m pretty sure all those pokémon in Kanto, Sinnoh, Alola, Galar, and Johto would have appreciated the fact you were thinking ahead and not starting wars with powerful creatures that can travel across dimensions seemingly at will!”

Glassie nodded, apparently enjoying the show by the look on her face. “She’s got a point, you know. Ebon Umbreon: Career Diplomat. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

“Imagine if the first intelligent pokémon Cadance met were those baddies who robbed my house!” Sike trembled. “Cadance would probably have declared war on us! The incident with the Time Gears was bad enough, thanks!”

“Your friends seem to think you’d make a great representative of your race, Ebon, and I have to agree.” Cadance put a wing over his back, it was large enough to drape over his entire body like a tarp. “You don’t always ask for leadership or authority, young umbreon. It wasn’t until I evolved when I finally realized that.”

Ebon blinked. “You… evolved?”

She smiled again, closing her eyes at what seemed to Ebon a pleasant memory. “It’s very rare in ponies but it’s true. When it happened, I gained the ability to fly as well as channel the power of love. Before then, I was just an emotionally confused teenager who kept being force-fed the feelings and emotions of everypony I came into contact with.”

Ebon couldn’t imagine how traumatizing that would be. At least Sike was able to turn her powers on and off. It was a wonder Cadance wasn’t a mental disaster after what had happened to her. Now that he thought of it, that pink stone Sike found wouldn’t likely have been placed where they’d found it by intent. Might Cadance have produced the stone as an incidental by-product of her magic? Her power would have to be staggering to pull it off, on par with the Creator Trio themselves!

“Like a psychic-type…” Sike muttered, then she froze. “C-can you read thoughts too, Princess?”

Cadance smiled as Ebon’s eyes went wide–had she been reading his earlier thoughts, both when he’d been ogling her and trying to categorize her type? “My abilities are more empathic than telepathic. I can read the emotions of all of you easily enough, but not your thoughts. Thankfully, I’m not a teenager anymore and can control my abilities much easier. It took a lot of time and patience to master, though. Another, far older alicorn named Celestia was a huge help there.”

Ebon could see the team had accepted him as being some sort of ambassador or pokémon kind but it still seemed implausible. “I get what you’re saying, Princess Cadance. But do you all think I could or should be doing this? We are not on the same level of power as you and hold no positions of authority. Were there no legendaries you could speak to instead?” he asked her earnestly. “Given your resources and influence, one could easily have sought out pokémon with a lot more recognition than me.”

Cadance appeared caught off guard by the question and removed her wing from his back. “Now that you mention it, yes. I did attempt to contact others. Pokémon spoke of many champions of your race but those who answered our summons were more interested in fighting us than speaking with us. By the sun itself, we had emissaries almost killed just for saying ‘hello’!”

“Oof!” Glassie exclaimed. “That sounds pretty believable, alright!”

“And after all of that, you still want anything to do with our species?” Ebon shouted, a bit louder than he intended to. He felt his face begin to flush again as all present looked at him. “Um, sorry. Got a little carried away.”

“Yes, Ebon. We do.” Cadance replied soothingly. “And that is why I am engaging you this time. So-called ‘average’ pokémon such as yourself have been far easier to deal with than your ‘leaders’ who seem more content with hiding themselves away behind endless hallways than trying to make life better for everyone. And having observed you, I believe you four particularly are a good match for the mission I have in store for each of you.”

Ebon’s ears perked up at that, as did those of his teammates. “A mission?”

Cadance nodded. “We can go over the details later, but I intend to send you to my homeworld to collect certain tokens of affection from the ponies starting tomorrow… if you accept my offer, that is.”

Ebon rubbed his chin. A client from another dimension asking for him to do a job? This could only be ridiculously hard. But hadn’t his team openly said they wanted more of a challenge, at least according to Edelweiss’s note he’d read all those months ago before they’d set out for points unknown? If he had to be honest with himself, this was a task they would be up for, even with the possible dangers, and they desperately needed resources to get back home.

Especially if they were going to ride the train in first class again. And pay for all the alcohol the four were going to drink after this.

The group started to walk again.

“And if we succeed, what then?” Ebon asked Cadance.

“You will be well-compensated for your time, of course. I have collected some pretty valuable treasures in all the time I’ve been here. Even visited a number of mystery dungeons so we have money to offer as well,” Cadance replied, then her voice turned something close to coy.

“But there’s a treasure more valuable than I can possibly offer waiting for each of you in Equestria. This I promise you!” The Princess of Love winked at Ebon.

“Let me guess… love?” Edelweiss asked in a coy tone of her own.

“A chance to prove myself worthy in honorable combat?” Glassie added eagerly.

“I’d like to learn more abilities and become stronger!” Sike’s tail twitched excitedly as well.

“Yes, Edelweiss. Yes, Glassie. And most likely you will, Sike! I’ll have you know that Canterlot, Equestria is home to the finest magic school in all the realm. Even nicer than the ones in the Crystal Empire, I regret to say. It’s my intention to send you all there.”

“Why not send us to the Crystal Empire if that’s where you’re from?” Ebon asked.

“Because Princess Twilight is the Element of Friendship in our world. In that authority, she asks that all foreign visitors be sent to her and her five friends first before we allow them to roam free.” Cadance saluted another pony covered in a coat of steel from its hooves to its neck inside one of the rooms as they passed by. It saluted back.

Look, Sike. A steel-type earth pony! Ebon thought to himself.

Normal type, actually. Sike corrected him. This is really fascinating! Do you know what this means, Ebon? I don't fully understand it myself admittedly but it implies that ponies aren't defined by physical attributes the way we are. The fact they're normal means they have potential to learn many different abilities. Pretty versatile, huh?

Just like eevees! Ebon smiled as the pair continued their secret conversation. Say, Sike. I once knew an espeon guy who could converse with multiple pokémon at once through telepathy. Seeing as we're diplo-spies or whatever working on behalf of all pokémon, it'd be awesome if you could learn that too.

Definitely! Espeon nodded animatedly at Ebon. That could be a challenge to multitask like that seeing as I've only started using this skill but once you master the basics, the rest will come in time.

You've changed, Sike, Ebon replied. Your confidence is radiant!

Sike stuck her tongue out at Ebon. You and the Team helped a lot with that! This stone too. I feel like as long as I have this stone with me, I can accomplish anything! Sike's expression grew more cautious. But I shouldn't get carried away, huh? It will still take some time to learn, A week, maybe sooner? Hard to say.

It’s fine, Sike. We’ll all do our best and succeed. Ebon’s mind was immediately filled with the sound of Sike’s purring. Was that really a message you could send telepathically?

“That all sounds reasonable to me. What do you think, Ebon?” Edelweiss asked.

“I’ll let you know after I get a bath and take a very long snooze. After knotting Sike, I’m too tired to even eat at this point.” Ebon yawned.

“Understandable that you are exhausted. Do make yourself at home, Team Allure. I will speak to you all again in the morning.” Cadance separated from the group and made for a nearby staircase. “The doors trimmed in gold are spare rooms. The one trimmed in quartz is the bathroom.” She yawned loudly. “I could use some sleep too. If you get hungry, the dining hall is just up this set of stairs. Sleep well and see you in the morning.”

The four were left outside the door to one of the rooms.

Ebon pushed open the door to one of the bedrooms and the four of them gasped.

“Wow!” Edelweiss exclaimed.

It was unlike any room Ebon has ever seen before. The yellow walls, pink floor and purple ceiling were made of solid crystal matching the pattern of Cadance’s mane and tail. There were other smaller doors with what he guessed led to closet space. The room had no visible lamps, lanterns or fires. The entire room itself seemed to give off its own radiance. A matching tick-tocking wall clock read 10:25 PM.

“Wow, look at that… I would have been happy with hay on the floor!” Sike walked up to one of what appeared to be a box made of cloth and pressed her paw against it. It yielded easily to her touch. “It’s so soft and looks so comfortable! What do you think, Glassie? Glassie!”

Glassie was nowhere to be seen.

“I’m in here!” a muffled call came back.

The three looked at the source of Glassie’s voice, which seemed to be coming from a large black rectangular box humming softly against the wall. When Ebon opened the door, he was greeted with a green paw clasping a fudge-coated ice cream bar. “A walk-in freezer! This is the best dungeon ever!”

Ebon laughed, watching Glassie chow down on the icy treat with gusto. “Don’t ruin your breakfast with too much midnight snacking! We’ll pack all our stuff in here in the morning when we’re all a bit more awake.” Ebon threw the explorer’s bag up onto the single bed — effectively calling dibs on it — relieved to be rid of his burden. “In the meantime, let’s hit the showers, everyone!”

A chorus of “me first” went up from all present and scrum followed by a brief wrestling match formed at the door that Edelweiss won handily who cheated using her grassy tendrils.

“Stop her, Glassie!” Ebon called up from the floor he’d just been planted into.

Apparently, she’d selectively heard his instruction and laid down a track of ice on the floor which sent him and Sike falling over a second time as Glassie stuck her tongue out at the pair before disappearing behind the quartz-trimmed door and out of sight.

Another classic case of doglike eeveelutions conspiring against the catlikes! Ebon vowed to get revenge.

Despite his only half-feigned anger — he really did need that bath! — Ebon felt himself gently lifted off the floor with telekinesis. “Thanks, Sike. Looks like the two of them won this bathroom brawl. Don’t worry; we’ll be ready for them next time!”

“I guess we’ll have to wait until they’re done, huh? I was really looking forward to that bath.” Sike said grumpily.

“I’m sure there’s room for four in there.” Ebon nuzzled his friend. You know how to psychically pick locks?”

“Sure, but I can do you one better!” Sike replied, the pair sprinting the whole way to the quartz-trimmed door.

Ebon looked at the handle on the bathroom door, wondering idly what Sike had in mind for defeating it. The handle was conventional enough; a standardized long, steel wedge buried into the face of the door that would allow most pokémon to grip using whatever limbs Arceus gave them to open it.

He draped a leg over the handle and pulled down on it. The door didn’t budge. Looking closer, this particular door didn’t have a keyhole, meaning his idea of picking the lock, even assuming they had the tools and knowledge, was a no-go.

“Check this out!” Sike lay, rear-end facing the door, barely managing to slip her tail until the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor beneath it.

She then scooted herself back until her firm, juicy rump was plapped flush against the door. That was followed by a slapping of her tail against the inside of it, along with an uproar of eevees from inside the bathroom. But it was too late for them to respond as the door was pulled open from the inside — Sike grinning all the while like the liepard that ate the magikarp.

Glassie and Edelweiss were looking up from over the lip of the oversized, pearl-colored bathtub like curious eevees as the two intruders casually sauntered up the bathtub and jumped in with a loud splash.

Before anyone could say anything, Ebon pulled his sister into a deep kiss. And from what he could hear from behind him, Sike was doing the same with Glassie.

“Great entrance, brother,” Edelweiss said softly, her sultry gaze bringing his eeveehood out of hibernation once more. “Just one problem; you left the door open.”

Ebon licked the length of one of her ears before whispering into it. “Problem?”

Edelweiss giggled and passed him a bottle of what smelled like shampoo. “The only problem here is you, stinky! You can have fun with us tomorrow after a good night’s rest and thorough cleansing. If you get really lucky, you might even get a shot at studding that pretty, pink pony Princess!”

Ebon gave his sister a good-natured splash of soapy water as he found his mind turned to the possibility of things turning sexual in Equestria. If ponies really are pokémon, and fit in the field-type egg class like ponytas do, we might be able to cross-breed. But an interdimensional being that’s reproductively compatible with an eevee? There’s no way Arceus would allow it!

*****

Ebon’s eyes fluttered open, wrapped up in his sister’s vines atop their unusually tall but cozy bed while Sike and Glassie had taken up residence in the room next door.

As soft as the light of the room was, he wished it weren’t there to make him sleep much lighter than usual and obscure the time of day. He supposed it was still night, otherwise, Edelweiss would be soaking in the rays of sun pouring in from the large open window.

“Hey, sis.”

Edelweiss moaned softly and opened her eyes. “What?”

“I need to go for a walk.”

Edelweiss groaned her discontent. “Fine, but close the window before you go. Too cold!”

“Don’t let Glassie hear you say that,” he teased her before Edelweiss released him with a groan. He kissed her on the muzzle before hopping off the bed, closing the window, and walking out into the hall.

He wasn’t even sure where he was going. Halfway down the long hallway he’d walked in from, he realized he left his map along with all of his gear back in the room. Oh well. It wasn’t like he was going to get himself lost on a single dungeon floor.

Another steel-clad pony, this one unmistakably a unicorn, passed by him as he wandered the halls and caught his attention. She wore brightly-colored armor in the same pattern as Cadance’s mane. Even her exposed face, neck and fetlocks seemed to glow as if they were crystalline. “Trouble sleeping, sir?”

“A little anxious, I guess. That and I’m not meant to sleep at night.” Ebon replied.

“Your appearance gives some hint of that, sir,” the horned pony guard replied. “I daresay you were born under the influence of Princess Luna. She loves the night, too, and takes it upon herself to raise the moon every evening.”

She sounds like a very charitable lady. And possibly a dark type! Ebon thought. “She controls the entire moon? That sounds like a lot of work.”

“A labor of love, she calls it. I’m sure your Palkia feels the same way about it.” The steel-sheathed mare replied, offering him a brief grin.

“Maybe. I’ve never met Palkia and I hope I never do. Life has enough difficulties.” The mare looked back at Ebon with something like sympathy after he’d spoken.

Despite her pitying expression, Ebon suddenly worried he might be close to offering offense. “I mean no disrespect to you or our legendary protectors with my words but most pokémon, myself included, do not revere them the way you do the Princesses. They don’t speak to us as equals or have anything to do with us at all. When they do, they have sometimes-selfish motivations like you and I. They are examples in the sense that they are strong and all pokémon wish to be strong but they are generally not considered all good or bad. They’ll ruin your day if you make them angry though so avoiding most of them is a good idea.”

“I can’t even imagine…” The mare shook her head as she considered his words. “Is there anything I can help you with while you’re up mister…?”

“Ebon Umbreon at your service, Miss.” He bowed respectfully to the guard pony. “I could use some fresh air and moonshine. Do you have a balcony or anything?” Ebon asked.

“Private Strawberry Lemonade, Royal Guardsmare,” she introduced herself. Her armor clinked lightly as she bowed her head. “And as it happens, we have one on this very floor. Follow me, Sir Ebon.”

Sir…? He blinked at the formal term of address as the pony ‘guardsmare’ took him to an arched doorway leading to a stone balcony that looked out over the forest. There were chairs and a table set up along with what looked like some sort of pony board game being played on it. The pieces on one side were mostly white, the other side mostly black. It looked like white was winning because they had more pieces on the board.

“And there you are. I’ll be patrolling the halls if you need me. Have a good night, mister Ebon!” The pony smiled and left back through the archway.

“Take care, Strawberry,” he bore his teeth to her cheerfully as she left before turning to face the moon. He put his paws up on the lip of the balcony and looked down at the trees. They were moving gently from the chill breeze flowing down from the mountain. He could see through his keen night vision, feral pokémon scurrying through the trees, looking for something or someone to eat.

Given the deepening chill at that hour and elevation, he could also see his breath spill forth in gouts from his muzzle, though his coat was more than sufficient to keep him warm. The crisp, mountain air filled his lungs with a welcome freshness after nearly a full day indoors. The moon shone bright and clear in the starry sky; it beckoned him to announce his presence to the night. His red eyes facing the celestial body, he gave a long, cry up to the moon.

Seconds of echoes later, the forest below erupted into the song of many lonely cries from the ferals below. The poochyenas and mightyenas bayed back first before the vulpixes, fennekins, and nickits added their voices to the chorus.

Even a feral with seemingly no mind of its own holds a measure of harmony in its soul. The thought appeared suddenly in Ebon’s mind, leaving him wondering where it’d come from.

Ebon cried out again and again to feed the pokémon chorus, feeling every bit of the loneliness inside all of them as the moon slowly traversed the sky.

He then turned his head in surprise as another cry rang out behind him.

“Edelweiss?” He flashed his teeth at her. “When did you get here? How did you find me?”

“You left the map behind, silly!” She withdrew it from her chest fluff with a flourish and passed it to Ebon. “I guess that means I was technically in charge for a couple hours.”

“You were the one in charge earlier, when we were talking to Cadance.” Ebon stepped down from the guard rail overlooking the forest and laid down in a pony-sized chair, big enough to fit two eeveelutions side by side. Edelweiss joined him.

“I just thought you needed a bit of encouragement at that moment,” Edelweiss replied, teasingly.

Far from reassured, Ebon went downcast. “Yeah, I needed encouragement alright. I choked back there, and we both know it.” Ebon thought back to the note he’d read so many months ago from his sister just before they’d set off on their journey to Ponyta Pass. His team had been so bored of adventuring that they were near quitting and hadn’t even bothered to come to him and mention it.

Her expression softened. “Ebon, I know what you must have felt like back there. None of us expected to find interdimensional creatures inside of a mystery dungeon. We didn’t sign up for any of this.”

“It’s not just that, Edelweiss,” Ebon explained about the note she’d left and how it made him feel. She looked surprised that he’d remembered that particular at all but nodded along as he spoke.

“I hope you haven’t gotten any crazy ideas in your head about them trusting me more than you, Ebon.”

He exhaled heavily. “The thought may have crossed my mind once or twice, but that’s not what’s bothering me. It got me thinking about the time gears and Darkrai.”

Edelweiss nodded as he spoke. “We’ve got a very bad track record when it comes to visitors from other dimensions, sure enough. Do you not think Cadance is being truthful with us? She seems like a good ponyta — er, pony — to me.”

“I can’t find anything wrong with what she’s saying,” Ebon replied. “But I never really thought of myself as some heroic explorer. Everything that’s happened to us seems like it should have happened to someone else like Team Raider. And besides, if you’re a Princess of some vast pony kingdom, why not summon the saviors of Time and vanquishers of Darkness instead? Aren’t they more on your level?”

Edelweiss remained silent but continued gently stroking his paw with hers as he continued to rant.

“No one’s ever really heard of us and yet we were invited all this way. Do we truly deserve this honor? Am I capable enough to lead us through Cadance’s challenges, or am I going to be a disaster? We’ve been picking over the leftovers of far greater teams for so long. I guess when I read your note and then Cadance was standing there asking me to be the representative of all life on this planet, I lost my nerve.” Ebon rested his other paw atop Edelweiss’s, even though he also had to look away. “I’m sorry I let you all down back there.”

Edelweiss draped a pair of tendrils around the back of his neck, drawing him close until he had to meet her loving and patient gaze. “Listen, you haven’t let us down yet, Ebon. Not once in all these years. And we haven’t let you down, either. Sure, we’re not the flashiest team out there, nor the most celebrated. But we are the most alluring. It’s right there in the name!” she finished with a lopsided grin.

Ebon chuckled. “So, you think sheer eeveelution sexiness is going to win the day?”

“Couldn’t it, Ebon? I think you’re expecting the worst without also hoping for the best, and it's making you a nervous wreck…”

“My ears face backward for a reason, sis,” Ebon replied grimly.

“Because that which seeks to ambush the umbreon will always approach from behind,” Edelweiss finished for him. “I get it, brother. I’m not an umbreon but I understand your paranoia at least. We once greeted Dusknoir as a friend, after all.”

Ebon could hardly forget about the time he saw two pokémon kidnapped and brought to the future by one they’d both revered as a great hero.

Ebon lowered his voice to barely a whisper. “It’s not that I don’t trust our hosts, it’s that I don’t trust anyone right now. I think we need to send one last message to the folks back in Treasure Town before we set out tomorrow and not make it too obvious to our hosts what we’re doing. Tell them what we’ve learned about the ponies and what they might expect if they turn hostile. If they want our help, they can certainly grant us access to the kangaskhan statue one last time. If they don’t, we make a break for it.”

Edelweiss nodded. “I agree, but I think only one of us should go or they might suspect something.”

“Good thinking. We’ll send Sike down to do it. She’ll be able to sniff out a trap better than us if things go bad and flee to safety. I want us as near to full strength as possible if a fight does go down.”

“A solid plan,” Edelweiss approved and then looked up at the full moon. “Feeling any better now, big brother?”

Ebon turned his attention to the crying of the pokémon still going on all around them. “Now that we have a plan? Yes. I’m still nervous but nothing is going to change that until we’re out there making a difference.”

“We already have, Ebon. And tomorrow we have a chance to do even more good.” Edelweiss stood up and walked over to the railing, followed closely by Ebon who did the same. “Shall we say goodnight to our friends?”

“I think we should.”

The pair joined in the chorus of pokésong, Ebon drawing comfort from the sound of their cries that carried him back to bed with Edelweiss and into a restful night’s sleep.

Author's Note

It's so hard to trust outsiders when they seem to bring nothing but trouble. This Cadance lady seems pretty nice though. I have a good feeling there's going to be more sex where our heroes are going.

Edit 2/21/2024: Serious editing was needed here. I'm not proud of the mess I made in explaining Pokémon Typing applied to ponies. I never established when and how Team Allure learned the different pony races either. 2022 AJ Aficionado was clearly in a steep decline after two years of being a semi-famous horse writer.

The Duelist

Author's Note

Warning: M/M fantasizing from the main character in this chapter.

Writing this chapter felt very good for me. It's some of the best work I've ever produced, in my opinion. A day in the life of four very interesting people.

Thanks as usual to my editor Firesight as well as my usual prereaders, Silentwoodfire, Shakespearacles, Patches in Equestria, SleepingCobrox and my newest prereader, PeerImagination. Your time is as appreciated as always.

2/22/2024: The great editing pass continues. This chapter looked so good, I barely had to change anything! Three was awful. Just awful. I am so sorry to whoever had to read that scuffed effort back in the day.

The Duelist

There was a knock at the door to Ebon’s room. “Sorry to be a bother, but Cadance wishes you all to join her upstairs. It’s about the mission to Equestria,” the feminine voice on the other end called into their room. “The sooner the better. Those poffins go pretty fast and I’d hate for you to miss out!”

Ebon had stirred immediately awake at the sound of the knocking and called back. “We’ll be there!”

Ebon pressed his paws against his eyes and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Wake up, sis! The ponies are going to feed us poffins!”

Edelweiss grunted in response to her brother, but her eyes stayed shut. Ebon could feel her grassy tendrils clutch tighter around his barrel as they lay facing each other. There was something of a grin playing upon her lips.

“I know you’re in there, sis… You never could fake sleeping to save your life.”

In seeming response, Edelweiss’ breathing slowed down, her breaths becoming uncharacteristically deeper.

“Not bad. Not bad. But your cover is already blown, little lady.” Ebon pressed his lips against hers. Edelweiss cooed softly and unexpectedly, she rolled herself up and on top of him, finally opening her eyes.

“We’re not going.” Edelweiss shook her head, frowning.

“Oh? And you think you’re going to spoil my appetite for poffins?” Ebon replied, giving her a happy flash of his teeth.

She stood up and turned on the spot, her leafy tail exposing her wet, quivering canine spade. Wet drips splashed across his muzzle, carrying the scent of aloe vera. In a near instant, his erection was fully filled out and the familiar feeling of lightheadedness had washed over him again. “You’re going to be eating your breakfast in bed, brother!”

Before he could think up something clever to reply with, his sister’s succulent spade was within tongue’s reach. He inhaled the scent of his sister’s bounty and gave silent thanks to Arceus that a lover so devoted could be found in his immediate family.

With practiced touch, he massaged her buttocks; the sound of grass crunching softly underpaw greeted his ears. Still deeper beneath layers of her beige-colored grassy coat, he could feel warm, undulating flesh beneath, wrapped in dense muscle. The strength of a hardy adventurer concealed beneath the soft exterior of an alluring leafeon form.

“I have waited too long for this.” Ebon licked the aloe clean from Edelweiss’ bearded iris before plunging his wriggling pink intruder further inside.

“That’s my Ebon…” Edelweiss cooed. “You’re always ready to perform. You’re going to put an eevee in me eventually, you know.”

Ebon gave the only reply he could, licking her ever more sloppily, filling the air with the squelching sounds of intense sexual greed.

“S-Sike isn’t going to fight anymore,” Edelweiss said. "She won’t risk harm to the egg now growing inside of her. When this is all over…hah!” She cried out in pleasure as her fluid began to overflow from Ebon’s mouth onto the crisp, formerly-clean sheets beneath him. “When this is over — when I’m in season… you will give me an eevee of my own. Won’t you, Ebon?”

It should have been my sister first, Ebon thought as he felt a stab of guilt in his chest.He hadn’t even been thinking about Sike’s reaction to possibly being impregnated, but only how good it made both of them know that they were bringing a new life into the world.

Edelweiss stood back up and turned to face Ebon once more, who was wiping his mouth with the back of his paw.

“We don’t know for sure she’s pregnant.” Ebon scratched the side of his head nervously as his sister’s smile began to slump. “But… you’re right. We will be a happy family together. I just know it!”

Edelweiss licked his face, dragging her tongue from the bridge of his muzzle up to the gold ring at the center of his forehead. “We must succeed in our mission, Ebon. Our ten future eevees are counting on us!”

Ebon felt his face begin to warm. “T-ten eevees?”

Edelweiss brought a thoughtful paw to her chin. “Well… I mean, I don’t want to come up with an unrealistic number here. Just spitballing. Personally, I’d shoot for twenty if we had the money…”

“Twenty!?” Ebon could feel the hair on his back begin to stand up. “Are you sure Glassie and Sike are going to be okay with caring for so many eggs?”

Edelweiss looked blankly down at Ebon. “Glassie and Sike? I haven’t asked them how many eevees they want to have with you yet. Ooo! I can ask at breakfast this morning!”

Ebon brought both of his paws to the side of his head, his mouth open as if silently screaming. “Sis, this is escalating a bit fast, isn’t it?”

“Imagine, if the ponies lay eggs too!” Edelweiss’s smile grew even more fanatical. “I’ve run the calculations in my head and if you maximize your mating ability usage for each day while we’re there and we stay for only a week, you could impregnate one-hundred-sixty-eight of their mares without using a single elixir!”

“This is getting a little scary, Edelweiss! Check that, a lot scary! It sounds like you want me to start my own village or something!”

“What a fantastic idea!” Edelweiss drove on top of her brother, causing him to grunt loudly, and gripped him tightly as she buried her muzzle into his fluffy chest. “You're still the mon I fell in love with, even after all these years!”

Ebon thought about all the reasons that it wouldn’t work and discarded them immediately as he returned the hug. “You’re going to make a wonderful mother of one-hundred and sixty-eight, Edelweiss," he replied, his voice thick with irony.

Edelweiss emerged from his chest fluff and gave him a sharp nibble to one of his long ears. “And you're gonna teach them all to mate and fight like arena champions!"

“Ouch!” Ebon rubbed the spot she’d bitten, the searing pain making him cringe slightly. How Sike ever got into being bitten on the ear, I’ll never know! "I will but please, don't bite my babies so hard! There isn't enough physical damage resistance in the world to make that feel good."

"Are you saying I should have fallen in love with another leafeon or that you'd rather I shoved your ear into my pokénest?" Edelweiss whispered in Ebon's ear before kissing it at the base. "That'd probably feel amazing, to be honest!"

"Deal, but you better not awaken anything inside me, by Arceus!" Ebon said before nuzzling his sister's face.

“Oi!” A harsh female voice could be heard between the heavy thwack of a ribbony tail smacking the door to their room. “You’re forgetting about our breakfast right now! I hear those poffins calling my name. They’re saying, ‘Glassie! Glassie! Glassie!’”

“Glassie, I don’t think it’s such a good idea to eat all the poffins. What would our hosts think?” Sike’s forked tail appeared beneath their door and having quickly found the handle to their door, actuated the handle and opened the door. It seemed the espeon had learned a new trick she would not soon forget!

“Hope I didn’t spoil your breakfast too badly, stud.” Edelweiss gave Ebon’s still-stiff erection a flick with the blunt part of her tail before hopping out of bed and joining her two teammates at the door.

Ebon licked his chops slowly before climbing out of bed. “Yeah, right. We’ll see how confident you are after our tenth poffin!"

Sike looked at Ebon with a quiet “hmph!” and turned up her nose, lifting her tail importantly while exiting stage right down the hallway.

"Guess that's our cue to leave," Ebon started to walk out into the hallway.

"Ebon, don't forget the Explorer's Bag, ya big goof!" Edelweiss picked it up off the floor with one of her vines and slipped it around Ebon's neck.

"Oh right! Though I don't think I'll need the food just yet..."

Ebon’s erection was still throbbing beneath him as his sister followed him through the door. “I wonder if Sike would be okay with having twenty eevees too?”

I heard that! Ebon stopped to clutch his head at Sike’s sudden and unexpected intrusion of his mind. He was silent for the rest of the walk with his tail between his legs as the four began walking up to the dining hall, almost all thoughts of sex and pregnancy driven from his mind.

“You look better than you’ve looked in days, Sike. Have a good snooze?” Ebon asked.

“I did! I even got up early so I could soak up some solar power.” The orb on her forehead which had appeared so dull the night before was now filled with pearly light.

“You’ll be pleased to know I spent most of the night in the freezer so I could be ready for action as well.” Glassie gave one of her rime-covered head ribbons a flick with her paw.

“How about you, Edelweiss? Think you can still fight after all this time in the shade?” Ebon shot his sister a playful wink, nudging her slightly on the barrel.

“My synthesis is spectacular and my energy ball is as exciting as ever,” Edelweiss replied, poking him in the back of the head with one of her tendrils. She started laughing when he turned around to face behind him.

“You got me. You got me…” Ebon made a barklike laugh. “Very funny. Save some of those tricks for the enemy, next time, eh?”

A furry creature striped with white, black, and gray fur walked out of one of the side rooms. The unfamiliar animal caused the four of them to halt immediately.

“Meow!” it said, holding its ground.

“Whoa!” the four pokémon exclaimed.

“I wasn’t expecting a random encounter against an enemy after Cadance’s guarantees of our safety. Perhaps this is a test?” Glassie speculated, watching their new foe carefully.

“Doesn’t look very formidable to me. It doesn’t seem to want us to pass, though.” Edelweiss turned to Ebon. “Orders?”

“I’ll handle this!” Ebon took a step in front of the other three and looked down at the creature. “Do you have a name, creature?”

Ebon figured if it did, it was with the ponies and if it didn’t, it must be a feral pokémon. But hadn’t Cadance said she sent them all away?”

“Meow!” the cat repeated.

The four continued staring the creature down.

“It must be feral. Why doesn’t it attack? Maybe we’re too high level for it,” Ebon said, thinking out loud.

“I can’t take this suspense, Ebon! I’m going to try reading its mind.” Ebon turned to face Sike as the orb on her forehead began to glow.

“Rrrreeeeeeaaar!” The cat looked at Sike and hissed.

“Aaaah!” Sike jumped behind Ebon; by the feel of her ear tips rubbing up against his pokéballs, it would seem she’d ducked her head as well. “It didn’t like that, Ebon!”

Glassie stepped forward in front of Ebon, gently pushing him back with her tail. “Let me handle this!”

“Don’t attack it, Glassie!” Edelweiss exclaimed as Glassie turned to face the pair.

“This feral must belong to one of the ponies.” Ebon gestured to the animal. Glassie nodded her understanding. “Let’s just walk around it. The creature would have attacked us already if it was strong enough to threaten us. We probably just startled it.”

Glassie chuckled. “You’re probably right.” She turned back to face the creature, kneeling down to speak face-to-face with the catlike beast. “Your bravery is commendable, creature. Perhaps you might one day evolve to challen- Argh!”

The creature struck without warning, causing Glassie to leap back into Ebon, knocking him to the floor. When she stood back up, blue blood began leaking from three slash marks across her muzzle. Within seconds, the wounds closed up, flash-frozen by her command of ice.

“Oh my goodness!” Another one of Ponyta Pass’s unicorn guards arrived and the cat scampered back into the room it had come out of in full retreat. “I’m so sorry, Miss Glassie!”

Glassie cackled, apparently quite pleased about something. “Don’t mention it, pony. Your pokémon showed remarkable courage in striking me. Were it not apparently feral, I would challenge it to a proper duel!”

“Battle? Battle… with my cat?” The unicorn looked confused. “Oh, silly me! That isn’t a pokémon, Miss. Mister Fluffykins is a domesticated cat or just ‘cat’ for short. We keep him as a pet. A companion to keep our spirits up.”

“Huh. A companion that doesn’t fight.” Kinda sounds a bit like Sike. I can’t imagine wanting to have sex with that cat, though — much less succeeding! Ebon grinned, his imagination going to places he hoped Sike wasn’t actively monitoring, lest she’d think he’d gone crazy.

“Fluffykins is really quite a gentle boy most of the time. But he’s never met pokémon who can talk before. Why, he usually greets me by rolling on his belly. That’s how you know a cat feels safe. It bears its weakest point to you.” The guard looked intently at Glassie’s face. “Did you freeze that injury with your magic? That must be super helpful! But you’ll want to clean that injury. Cat claws are quite infectious.”

“Infectious? Have I been poisoned!?” The tips of Glassie’s fine, blue coat began to sheath itself in a coat of fine, powdered snow. Ebon could feel a chill breeze roll past him through the narrow hallway, causing him to shiver.

“Glassie, no!” Sike cried out.

The guard took a step back. “You’re not poisoned, I swear!”

“Not poisoned…” The cold breeze stopped. “Oh… well, why did you have to go and scare me like that?” She touched her face, wincing.

Ebon, Sike and Edelweiss breathed a sigh of relief.

“Follow me, Glassie. Let’s get that cleaned up. There’s a bathroom you can use a little ways from us you can use.” The pony smiled down at Glassie who wagged her tail in return, a shower of snow falling to the stone floor below.

“Why don’t you three head on up to breakfast?” The guard gestured down the corridor ahead.

Ebon gave Sike a knowing look before looking up at the guard. "We'll do that."

I’ll keep watch over Glassie’s mind, Ebon. Don’t worry. I sense no duplicity from the unicorn. It will be fine. Sike nodded, wordlessly back at him.

Thank you, Sike. Ebon kissed her on the tip of her ear and the trio continued on without their duelist companion until they reached an archway set with alternating pink, yellow and blue stones and walked through it.

The trio gasped at the sight.

Ebon’s first impression was that they were situated in what appeared to be a valley surrounded by the mountains they’d spent so much time walking their way through. That impression soon changed as he walked over the sturdy, steel bridge lined with pale blue crystal railings and was able to see they were approaching yet another mountain peak, set apart like an island from the castle they’d been exploring.

Larger mountains loomed over the disc-shaped grassy clearing, dotted with many exotic-looking flowers on the opposite end of the bridge like the shadow of Giratina; their waters rolling down hundreds of feet into the valley below.

“Ebon… look at the water!” Sike said in awe.

Ebon looked down and saw it was tinged with pink. “This is finally starting to make sense to me. Let’s keep going,” he shouted over the roar of rushing water. Having left the bridge, his paws were met with smooth, blue crystal that he couldn’t help but notice felt warm to the touch.

Ebon’s eyes took in more of the unusual details surrounding him. The path they were walking along was but one of eight spokes in a wheel that met in the middle around a similarly blue ornate crystal castle. Streams of light poured from the glowing pink crystal spire at its pinnacle, gushing ribbons of blue, pink and green jets of color into the clear, sunny sky.

“The ponies weren’t kidding about being here for a while. It must have taken them years to construct such wonders!” Sike clutched at the crystal buried deep in her chest fur. “I think the stone is reacting to the energy here!”

The three stopped to watch as Sike showed it to them. It was pulsing occasionally with a radiant glow.

“I like these ponies, Ebon.” Sike hid the stone away again and continued walking forward. “I just can’t help but trust them.”

“If nothing else, they’ve certainly proven themselves powerful,” Ebon replied. “I can’t decide if they’re trying to be nice or just trying to intimidate us.”

“So negative!” Sike shook her head, her large ears waggling cutely.

“Trust us, Sike. Ebon’s got a point,” Edelweiss interjected. “Once you’ve witnessed an evil pokémon you thought was a hero kidnap some of your friends and bring them to a world of your worst nightmares, you won’t ever trust ‘nice’ pokémon ever again.”

“But you’re nice, Ebon…” Sike muttered, hanging her head as she walked.

“Which is why I’m keeping an eye on him at all times for you, Sike.” Edelweiss wrapped a leafy tendril around his midsection; her powerful grip stopping him dead in his tracks. A second, smaller vine teased at his pokéballs until his only recently receded erection was back in full force. “Any sign of evil and I’ll give the signal to strike!”

“Not if I strike first!” Sike threw her forelegs around Edelweiss’s shoulders and drew her into deep kiss. Ebon felt his sister release him.

“I always took you for a traitor, sis, but even I, the dark-type mastermind of Team Allure, couldn’t have imagined your fellow traitor would end up being my double agent!”

“Uh oh. Cadance is coming, girls!” Ebon managed to say before Cadance flew out to greet them.

“My, my! You three are quite sensitive to the effects of the Crystal Heart. Though, as much as I love the sight of mutual affection, now is the time for eating. Please, come join us!”

“Yes, Miss Cadance,” Ebon replied with a bow and the four started walking towards the clump of tables.

“Still carrying your love stone, I see.” Cadance smiled at Sike. “The members of my exploration group sometimes go into the lower caves to collect those stones when they have nothing else to do. Keepsakes for the foals back home and objects of study for the universities.”

“Is the Crystal Heart what’s creating all these stones, Princess?” Sike asked.

“Yes. Though, I’ve never seen anything like this phenomenon where I’m from,” Cadance replied.

“So you don’t put them there just for fun? You seem like the kind of sweet-natured poké- er, pony, who would do something like that.”

“Aww, thank you, Miss Sike!” Cadance nickered, the corners of her mouth turned upward. “That was very nice of you to say but I won’t take credit where it isn’t due. I think something about your world causes magical elements to manifest in the form of crystals.”

Edelweiss arched an eyebrow at Cadance. “They don’t where you’re from?”

Cadance shook her head. “They don’t. While physical objects can conduct magical power, store magical power or even take the form of certain colors when channeled, conjuration doesn’t manifest in the physical realm, save for cases that would require a great deal of time and a more appropriate teacher to explain. If you go to Equestria, I’m just sure Twilight Sparkle would love~ to give you all a detailed lecture about it.

Sike’s eyes gleamed like those of an awestruck eevee.

“I would love to hear it! Mmm~!” Sike stopped walking and brought a paw to her midsection, gently massaging her belly.

“What’s up, Sike?” Ebon asked.

“My… e-egg just moved.” Sike took a deep breath and exhaled loudly.

Ebon took her front-right paw in both of his and kissed it. “Your team is behind you, Sike. We will raise him to be both great and good.”

“Miss Sike. Are you expecting so soon?” Cadance looked delighted. “Congratulations!”

Sike gave a weak laugh. “Yeah… I guess from a certain perspective, it doesn’t take very long. In a couple more days, I’ll be ready to lay my egg and… and…” Sike sniffled, the corners of her eyes becoming wet. “...I’m going to have a baby!”

Cadance and Edelweiss both squealed with delight as they nuzzled the espeon affectionately, the sole male in the group feeling his masculinity draining away like the Crystal Heart meltwater tumbling down the mountain. He vaguely wondered if it’d crystalize somewhere in the Ponyta Passage basement to be stolen away by a crafty nickit.

“Oh, Ebon! You’re going to be a daddy too!” Edelweiss squeezed him tightly enough to make breathing a taxing affair. “Oh, I hope it’s a male so he can make all the eevees happy!”

“Edelweiss! This really isn’t the ti-” Ebon’s jaw gaped open when he saw Cadance start laughing.

Cadance sized up Ebon with her eyes. It was the last thing he saw before closing his own. “So I see! But we’ve embarrassed him long enough. Congratulations to you all!”

“You can open your eyes now, Ebon,” Edelweiss said before gently nipping one of his ears. Thankfully not as hard as earlier that morning.

The redness from his face hadn’t completely subsided as the four walked past the row of tables adorned with seeds, berries, and the much-heralded poffins — the famed ‘pokémon muffin’ that resembled neither a pokémon nor a muffin but was instead a glazed, fruit-filled sweet roll baked in a stone oven, coated with a sugary glaze and covered with sprinkles. But the sight of those delicacies was not what drew the ponies’ attention.

They were all staring at them. Words like ‘adorable’, ‘cute’, and ‘terrifying’ stood out among the whispers of the candy-colored equines present. He supposed the ponies didn’t know how acute eevee hearing was as he could hear everything they said. While Ebon found the ponies very pleasant on the eye and strangely almost all female, the sight of so many alien creatures in one place filled him with a sense of unease.

To his surprise, the chairs sitting in front of the table were straight-backed — designed for bipedal pokémon. Ebon scanned the assembled group; all present were quadrupeds. Maybe it’s a sanitation thing. The ponies just want to keep their food well above the ground to keep dirt from being kicked on it. Ebon speculated internally. The ponies themselves seemed to have no issue at all sitting in them despite how little sense it made from an ergonomic standpoint.

But before he could dwell too much on how he would situate himself into one, they found four eevee-friendly cushioned platforms they could lay on top of. At about neck height to an umbreon, they’d let the four eeveelutions reach the table easily once they’d clambered on top of them.
“For you, of course!” Cadance gestured at the pokémon chairs.

“Don’t mind if we do!” Ebon said briskly, the three climbing into position. Cadance sat opposite of them in the biggest of the chairs, naturally patterned in the familiar yellow, pink, green and blue motif of the castle. The head of the chair was adorned with an odd symbol - a blue crystal love heart flanked with gold filigree.

If the ponies were one thing, it was color coordinated. Ebon supposed the eeveelutions at least had that in common with their interdimensional neighbors.

Hey Sike! Come in, Sike! Can you hear me? Ebon thought to himself.

After a moment of blankly staring off into space, Ebon heard Sike reply. Oh hey, Ebon. What’s up? Sorry, I was just checking in on Glassie. I felt a sting of pain on her face earlier from some potion that pony put on her scratch but she feels better now. She just told me she’ll be back soon.

That’s a relief! I’m sure Glassie is disappointed, though! She looked like she was ready to rumble with that guard back there, Ebon thought.

I should probably give her my love stone so she won’t get us all thrown into the dungeon! It’s not like we’re in any position to resist these ponies. I’ve been looking into every one of them I meet and they’re really tough! Ebon silently agreed with Sike’s opinion. But, I suppose you wanted to talk about something else. What’s up?

Sike, check out that symbol on her chair. Do you think that’s the Crystal Heart?

Probably. I mean it looks like a heart-shaped crystal, right? Sorry, that sounded sarcastic… I mean, it likely is, Ebon.

Ebon supposed he had sounded kind of daft the way he’d phrased it.

What’s interesting is the way that symbol seems to be… I dunno how to put it… Like it’s brushed into the fur on her flank. It looks like some sort of watermark. Sike’s thought continued.

Ebon thought back to seeing Cadance the previous night. He hadn’t been able to see her flank at all. The ornamental armor she was wearing covered that part of her anatomy, even if it didn’t quite manage to hide her very large and gaping vagina. I didn’t see anything like that on her flank.

You just weren’t standing in the right place. From where I was standing, I could see it. Another thing to make note of. Oh, and Ebon, you should probably say something out loud. You’re looking kind of spaced out right now…

Crap! The ponies were all looking at Ebon as if expecting him to say something. At least those not reaching for the plates and bowls to grab food out of.

“You’ll have to excuse Ebon. He’s not really him when he’s hungry,” Edelweiss told Cadance who was eying him suspiciously.

“Sorry. I missed what you said, Princess.” Note to self; no psych calls during breakfast with royalty. Ebon mentally kicked himself.

“I was just saying it was really great to finally meet you and your team at last. I’m sure you have a lot of questions as do I. But for now, do try some of our pokémon cuisine!”

“I think I will, Princess. Thanks!”

“Waaaaaait!” Glassie came sprinting down the path at full speed, her hind legs kicking out behind her in a laughably exaggerated way Ebon always found very amusing. It was like she had something glued to her hind paws she was trying to throw off. “Whew! Hey everyone, I can have poffins?”

“You can have as many as you’d like, Glassie,” Cadance replied with a smile.

“Aw heck, if I’d have known we had enough for everyone, I’d have slept in a bit!” Glassie grinned wickedly. She appeared to be expecting laughter because the grin slowly faded from her face as the stony faces from dozens of ponies stared back at her, clearly affronted. “Kidding! Kidding!”

Ebon couldn’t help but wonder how she was able to pick up so many sexual partners over the years while being so bad at reading a room. But then, Ebon found her curious anti-charisma had a charm all its own. Glassie was always so candid about everything, he found she made an excellent sounding board in any discussion. And on a hot day, there was no better friend to snuggle up with than an ice-type.

Ebon and his team piled up their bowls with as much food as they could carry and ate directly from their bowls. Looking up, he could see the curious faces of many ponies looking at them. Each had an eating utensil somehow attached to their hooves. Looking around him, he noticed he had similar utensils sitting on napkins next to where he was lying.

“We don’t use utensils, Cadance.” Sike smiled awkwardly at the pony Princess. “Too hard for our paws to grip for very long. How are you able to do it?”

“Hold out your paw, Sike.” Cadance reached out her hoof to the espeon. “Touch my hoof. It won’t bite!”

Sike spent some time rubbing the visibly hard exterior shell capping her leg, finally feeling around on the inside. “It’s soft and stretchy!”

“Yep! We can suction onto objects and even stick them between the gap in our toes.” She showed the bottom of one of her hooves where the handle of the fork was hopelessly immobilized in her grip as firmly as if it were being grasped by a hand. “Our grip is very strong.”

“We can sort of grip things with our paws but they’re no replacement for hands, sadly,” Ebon replied between mouthfuls of peanut butter and banana-filled poffin. “We rely on our fellow pokémon with hands to craft a lot of what we use to survive.”

“You are doing quite well at it, from what I’ve seen,” Cadance replied. “And I and many other ponies have really been enjoying your amazing food!”

A number of ponies nodded eagerly, happily munching down their breakfast. In the formerly empty seat next to him, Glassie had one leg wrapped around her bowl, aggressively rooting around in her dish as the tablecloth beneath her bunched itself up into a mess of creased fabric and food stains.

Ebon couldn’t take his eyes off of her as she bit into a fully laden poffin, this one strawberry, the filling gushing from the crust as if Glassie had severed its carotid artery.

“Oh?” Sike asked.

Cadance cringed ever-so-slightly at Glassie before continuing. “As strange as it is you say, having only just met you, ponies by now already have an extensive history of cultivating plants native to your world and experimenting with different recipes. Why, don’t be surprised if you see shops in our dimensions selling the same fruits, seeds and nuts you’re already used to once you’ve arrived in Ponyville!”

“By Arceus!” Ebon exclaimed. “Princess Cadance, you told us you’ve been living in our world for years, yesterday. I must ask, how many years have you been here?”

“Fifteen years next month.” Cadance daintily nibbled at the large plain seed on her plate. “Delicious! But I know what you’re thinking and replicating the flora of Pokémon World wasn’t particularly difficult — at least, not in Equestria.”

“Without the guidance of Arceus’ wisdom?” Ebon’s paw slammed the table, hard enough to launch his spoon into the air. The pony Princess obligingly caught it and carefully placed it back on the napkin next to his plate. “I refuse to believe it without seeing it!”

“That’s the spirit!” Cadance punched at the air with her hoof, apparently enjoying herself. “Please, do help yourself to more, Ebon. I haven’t had any of it poisoned, you know.” Cadance arched an eyebrow at Glassie. “If Glassie is any indication, that is. Dear, you have something on your face.”

“Oh, sorry, Princess!” Glassie lifted the tablecloth with her paw and wiped her muzzle with it. With uncharacteristic meekness, she muffled the enormous belch that followed. “My compliments to the pony chef!”

A few of the gathered unicorns in their colorful clothes looked horrified. The steel-clad ponies without horns mostly looked amused, exchanging glances and grins as if they were sharing an unspoken joke.

Ebon nodded and helped himself to a pair of grape poffins, seed meal and dried oran berries. “Princess, my team stands ready to visit Equestria with the consent of all members present.”

“I’m dying to know how you’ve grown trees so quickly in your world, Princess. As a grass pokémon, this certainly piques my interest. I stand with my leader, Ebon!” Edelweiss announced, before whispering into Ebon’s ear and kissing it. “I love you, brother!”

The platform beneath Ebon’s belly suddenly became uncomfortably confining.

“You’ve certainly gained the confidence of your leafeon friend, Ebon!” Cadance clopped her forehooves together. “How about you, Sike?”

Sike dramatically rose onto all fours as if on cue. “I stand with my leader, Ebon, too! There is power in your world that I simply must understand. Power you have already brought here!”

Sike displayed the stone she’d collected the previous day and held it up over her head for all the assembled ponies to see. The stone’s presence seemed to have stirred them greatly; nickers, whinnies, and even a snort or two joined a cacophony of fresh whispers from the equine assembly. Sike saw that most of them had put their right forehoof over their breasts and bowed their heads ever-so-slightly.

“You won’t even have to see Equestria to learn more about our magic, Miss Sike!” Cadance gestured towards the nearby tower. “After breakfast, you’re going to encounter the source of that power for yourself and see the portal we used to get here.”

The building. It houses unspeakable power! Sike’s voice cut into Ebon’s mind. Don’t forget what we talked about yesterday.

The mailbox. I won’t let you down, Sike! Ebon replied.

“And how about you, Miss Glassie?” Cadance was looking at Glassie, perhaps with a hint of concern that Glassie might try to eat her next.

Glassie patted her belly and sighed. “If there are battles to fight, then count me in! I relish the opportunity to show off my skills to the greatest champions of your realm in honorable combat!”

The reaction of the assembled ponies was much the same as before, with the softer-looking ponies looking on with disapproval as the smiles of the steel ponies made themselves known.

“In that case, perhaps you’d honor me with a friendly spar, Miss Glassie?” A female voice called. A peach-furred unicorn with a long, flowing mane of brown hair stood up for her seat. “With your blessing, of course, Princess.”

It was bound to happen sooner or later, Ebon supposed. It might even be a good show!

Cadance nodded. “You have my blessing, Aura Edge, with Glassie’s consent.”

Glassie looked up at the challenger, smiling nefariously, before giving the slightest of nods — black-flipping from her seat and landing on all fours in the grass. “I accept!”

All eyes were on Glassie and the lovely pony who Ebon now had an obstructed view of as she rounded all three rows of tables to join the glaceon on the field. She was not covered with flashy, Cadance-themed colorful armor as the other soldiers were but slate-gray steel. A gold-trimmed handle stuck out from a scabbard attached to her flank that rattled slightly with each step.

“As the challenged has accepted the duel, and by my authority as the Princess of the Crystal Kingdom and leader of this expedition, I will officiate this duel with Ebon’s blessing.”

“Granted, by the sole condition that the winner be declared by fainting, rather than death.” Ebon knew the duel was friendly but stating the rules aloud was a formality.

“Naturally,” Cadance replied airily. “Alright, everypony! Those who wish to view the match, follow me.”

Most of the tables cleared out immediately and followed, Team Allure joining the throng of ponies. Seeing so many of them up close and all at once, it was obvious these were not pokémon as he understood them. The stallions of their race had a squared-off look to their muzzles that made them look much tougher.

I guess they’re expected to do most of the fighting in case they’re attacked; the Legendaries of ponykind. But then what does that make Cadance? Ebon wondered. Maybe there are so few so they don’t hurt the females. That has to be it! Clever ponies…

And the stallions were so much taller than the mares who were about the same height as an umbreon. Ebon noticed his muzzle was about level with the bulging pokéballs on the male just in front of him and idly wondered why it was such a hardened figure of masculinity appeared to be so pent up or why Ponyta Pass wasn’t filled to overflowing with the young he sired. I knew it. The females really are holding them hostage!

And the musk coming off of him was indescribable. It poured down his throat like the rivers on all sides of them. Ebon’s tongue watered as the salty yet bitter tang touched his tongue. He began to breathe deeper, savoring the sensation. This unnamed stallion and he had one thing in common at that moment; they both needed relief.

His sister had left him without release and this pony had been without release for days, perhaps even weeks. They each had what they needed. What they desired most. He was sheathed up so there was no telling how big he was but if stallions from his world were anything like the ponyta in his, then he would grow to magnificent size if given the proper stimulation.

And he wouldn’t be Ebon’s first stallion, that much was certain. The umbreon licked his slickened chops as his eyes lingered northwards to the pink, tightened hole beneath his tail. The stallion had certainly never felt a tapered penis buried eleven inches in his backside before. But there was plenty of time for him to learn…

Um, Ebon? I hate to interrupt your fantasy but we’re standing in front of the arena ready to watch our friend possibly get beat up.

Aw, crap! Sorry, you had to witness that, Sike. Ebon’s ears splayed back like a scolded eevee caught with his paw in the cookie jar as he pondered on the great truth that no matter male or female, an eevee’s bisexuality was a given. Though, he admitted to himself that most eevees weren’t as strident about it. You know, I could learn from Sike about keeping a lower profile.

Without even thinking about where he was going, Ebon now found himself standing on the outside of a large, pink dome looking in at Glassie and the unicorn Aura Edge — the latter having removed both her armor and sword. The two were talking but the background noise of so many bantering ponies, also ringed around the entire circle looking in, meant even the keen-eared umbreon couldn’t make out a word.

“While you were distracted, that pony removed the armor from her body!” Edelweiss pointed at the discarded armor lying in the grass just outside the dome of light.

“The sword, too!” Sike chimed in. In fact, that pony is completely normal-typed now. I can’t even imagine… removing your own armor…”

“Maybe she changes form based on the weather,” Ebon thought aloud. “Good thing I told Glassie not to use hail. That would have been a nasty shock if she played into the unicorn's strategy.”

Edelweiss frowned at Ebon. “I don’t think this is going to end well for Glassie. Think of how many pokémon the ponies have already seen fight if they know how to just conjure up an arena. How much do we really know about Cadance’s research on us?”

“We’ll just have to use this battle as our first piece of field research on them, Edelweiss.” Ebon looked at Sike and began to think. Sike, our friend had a lot of pride and a lot of previous experience with fighting but you need to feed her all the information you can about this pony’s magical effects and status. You must make her listen! Threaten her with abstinence if you have to!

Will do, Ebon!

“Combatants, prepare yourselves for battle on my word!” Cadance called out. The ponies began to cheer the name of their champion, sitting on their haunches and pumping their right forehooves in the air.

“The pony champion has the support of their kin. We must do the same for ours! Both of you climb up on my back. Edelweiss, you’re grass so you can stand on top! We’re going to be the tallest creature in this audience and make ourselves heard over even their biggest stallions!”

“Yeah!” Sike climbed up onto Ebon’s back, the latter feeling a degree of regret once the factor of Sike’s ample rump fat began pressing down on his hindquarters.

“Yeah!” Edelweiss being not much lighter than Sike, was at least a more evenly distributed mass of sexual allure. But his plan had worked. They towered over the ponies standing next to them.

“Glassie! Glassie! Glassie!” The three began to chant, though the glaceon herself did not shift her gaze from the sight of her foe standing five yards from her but Ebon knew she could see their display and was drawing courage and strength from them.

“FIGHT!” Cadance finally shouted, beginning the battle.

The pony did not immediately act but the horn on top of her head began to glow. Perhaps she’d been expecting a ranged special attack from the ice-typed glaceon and thought she had time to act. She was wrong.

Glassie, her limbs tensed like coiled steel — tail curled in her traditional skorupi stance, leaped forward with her fangs bared and raked the mare across her flank with her razor-sharp claws. The crowd gasped as the pony stumbled in retreat, trying to distance herself from her enemy.

“Glassie sure is murderous today! Edelweiss called over the noise of the crowd. “Using a Quick Attack instead of an Ice Beam!”

“That’s our Glassie! Keep her guessing!” Ebon shouted.

But the pony had apparently bought all the time she needed and she unleashed Flamethrower; a wave of searing flames from the top of her horn. Glassie tried to leap aside but had been caught by surprise; the flames striking the glaceon across her right flank and sending her to the ground.

She cried out in pain and frustration as she stood back up on four wobbly limbs, the tips of her azure-blue fur smoldering. Ebon thought it a miracle she had gotten up at all from such a powerful attack.

Even the ponies had stopped cheering when they saw the look of duress on Glassie’s face.

“Flamethrower was super effective!” Cadance announced to the crowd. “I don’t think she’ll last if she takes another hit from that. Aura Edge is a highly adept magus with over a decade’s worth of military experience.”

“I have as many years in the arena!” Glassie roared savagely before pouncing the mare again, unleashing another Quick Attack.

Glassie’s body rebounded off the invisible wall of force the pony had erected around herself with a reverberating clash of concussive force. Though thwarted by Aura's Protect move, the glaceon gracefully arched her back, pushing off the barrier to flip over twice before landing on all fours.

Flamethrower!

Glassie anticipated the unicorn’s countermove this time, leaping out of the way of the wall of flames that scorched a swath of seething destruction where she’d just vacated. Landing wrongly, Glassie slipped on the grass and landed on her side. She gave an agonizing shriek as she hit the ground.

“Oh, no! That pony must have burned Glassie with that first attack!” Ebon punched at the arena barrier. “She’s going to faint if she doesn’t end this fight — and fast!”

“Don’t give up, Glassie! Make her pay for that burn!” Edelweiss shouted at the wounded glaceon, who was struggling back on all fours with a streak of smoking green grass stuck to a shiny red blister covering the right side of her barrel.

“Have you considered surrender? I’d surrender about now!” Sike contributed, drawing reproachful looks from the nearby pony soldiers.

“Your espeon friend is wise, cub.” The mare said as she circled Glassie. It’s not a question that you have some skill, Glassie, and a lot of nerve. There is no dishonor in conceding defeat.”

“I agree… Aura. So… are you…” Glassie gritted through clenched teeth. “...conceding defeat?”

Aura laughed. “You have some snark, too! Have it your way then…” Her horn began to glow dangerously red once more.

Glassie grinned evilly and said something quietly that Ebon couldn’t hear but was able to read her lips quite easily. "Water Spout!"

Glassie's mouth opened wide and a highly pressurized jet of water struck Aura all across her front. It hit with such force that she was hurled no fewer than fifteen yards back, nearly slamming up against the magical barricade, before striking the ground hard. Her horn glow quickly dissipated and she did not get back up.

“Aura Edge is incapacitated. Glassie wins!” Cadance called out with a raised hoof as the pink barrier separating the ponies from the onlookers disappeared.

The two females leaped off of Ebon and ran up to Glassie with Ebon close behind.

“Eh heh. I won!” Glassie coughed, waving away the smoke emanating from her singed fur before collapsing forward onto her belly with a crunch on the grass. She was smiling but her jaw was set tightly and her whole body was trembling as her tail lay limp and motionless behind her.

“With a water spell, no less!” Sike checked her fluffy chest for a berry to heal Glassie but she didn’t have one.

“Don’t worry, Sike. I planned ahead!” Edelweiss opened Glassie’s jaws and placed a large, blue berry with a lime-green stem into her mouth. “That must have been some hit you took!”

Glassie chomped and slurped, the juice gushing from her mouth and down her chin. Swallowing she looked up at Edelweiss. “One more hit like that, and I’d probably have needed to recover in the hospital. That pony was a lot tougher than I expected.”

A flash of light from Cadance’s horn caught all four of the Pokémon’s attention and Aura Edge slowly picked herself off of the grass.

“An ability that can recover fainted Pokémon without seeds?” Glassie, perhaps not wanting to face her adversary from a position of weakness, forced herself back onto all fours herself. “You weren’t kidding, Sike. That alicorn is not to be messed with.”

Sike gave a sorrowful espeon cry as she looked down at Glassie. “And neither was that unicorn! Don’t tell us you didn’t get burned by that attack; I see how much you’re hurting.”

“It would have been worse if you hadn’t given me the Water Spout idea. I’d have never guess her type changed to fire while she was casting her ability! Sike, you really saved my rump out there!”

“You say her typing changed, Sike? That’s very interesting… and useful!” Ebon turned to see Cadance walking her way.

“Sike, Glassie. Great job, girls! But let’s keep this new bit of info secret. And get Glassie a cheri berry to treat her burns.” Ebon bowed in greeting at Cadance who had just arrived and used some sort of spell on Glassie.

“There! That should help you feel a little better. Congratulations on your win!” Cadance smiled warmly at Glassie who, looking surprised but delighted, repeated Ebon’s respectful bow.

“Thanks, Princess. But how are you reviving others without seeds?” Glassie asked.

“Through careful studying of its effects so I can recreate its effects with magic,” Cadance replied. “It’s a costly spell though and my unicorn assistants still find it more useful to just extract the magic from the seeds themselves the way pokémon do. I do like to save the taxpayer back home funding this expedition whenever I can, so I help when possible!”

“I appreciate that you do not take from the land more than that is required as well, Princess,” Edelweiss wrapped a pair of tendrils around Cadance’s leg and hugged it.

“Well fought, Glassie.”

Cadance and Team Allure turned to see Aura Edge standing there, soaked through to her fur — splayed back comically across her body from the intensity of Glassie’s attack, she looked as though she’d been standing in front of a dam that had just burst. “You’re a peculiar and dangerous foe. Your ice is strong and yet you never employed it on me.”

“Subtlety to the point of typelessness. That is how I direct my opponent’s fate.” Glassie nodded in acknowledgment to her vanquished foe before making her way silently back towards the distant breakfast tables.

Aura Edge gathered up her armor in a field of blue levitation and strapped herself back into it in a marvelous display of tactile aptitude no hands could ever achieve. “Quite a mysterious one, that glaceon. And hungry too. I underestimated her resourcefulness. I pray I never have to face such an enemy in battle. Best of luck to you in Equestria, honored guests!”

And with a loud pop, the unicorn disappeared.

The four pokémon gasped.

“Oh, don’t worry about her, Team Allure. She’s just gone back to breakfast.” Cadance directed the four to follow her back to the tables. “She’s right, you know. You fought quite well. But now seems a good time for me to tell you what I need.”

Ebon bore his teeth, cheerfully. “I’m an eeveelution, Miss. I’m all ears!”

Cadance giggled. “You are all quite blessed in that regard! And you’ll be meeting a pony who is of the same mold. In Ponyville, there is a beautiful if somewhat skittish mare who sells flowers to the other ponies in the village. She has a mark of a red rose on her flank but her ears are the first thing you’ll notice. Procure from this mare a single red rose and bring it back to me.”

“That’s… it?” Sike tilted her head at Cadance. “What’s the challenge? Oh! Is she inside of a Mystery Dungeon? Ebon, we’ll need to bring a ton of reviver seeds!”

Cadance shook her head. “Ponyville is filled with the friendliest ponies you’re ever likely to meet, though suspicious to outsiders when you first meet them.”

“We won’t have to fight any of them? I’m with Sike here; this sounds really easy.”

“The ponies won’t attack, though they may run away if you startle them,” Cadance continued, her tone sounding evasive, even teasing, to Ebon. “So your first mission is to gain their trust. Walk among them as friends and gather a single rose from the pretty, large-eared earth pony at the counter.

They really are interdimensional ponyta if they’re all liable to run away at any second. I’d best be on my best behavior and try not to look too scary! Ebon nodded in understanding at Cadance. “So the trick is to not scare the ponies? That shouldn’t be too difficult. Everyone knows an eevee is the cutest, fluffiest, most inviting presence any pokémon could ask for. We’re naturally lovable!”

“Which is precisely why I asked for your team, Ebon,” Cadance replied. “Your reputation as a good-natured helpful team with a kind and… alluring disposition was pivotal in my decision to go with you.

“Hah! You hear that, Ebon? We truly live up to our name!” Edelweiss puffed out of her chest, her tail held high in the air. “But I have to ask, what’s an earth pony?”

“So, you’ve met our group here in Ponyta Pass. They’re unicorns — they have horns and use magic. Pegasi are… flying-type ponies with wings. Earth ponies possess neither horns nor wings but possess a connection with the earth, or ‘ground’ that manifests in several fascinating and useful ways: powerful self-regeneration, immense strength and athleticism, an affinity to growing plants faster, larger and more plentiful than other races. They get overlooked a lot but the pegasi and unicorns are very powerful in their own right.”

Regeneration, strength, fertility. It sounded to Ebon like these ‘earth’ ponies possessed a connection with either rock, ground, or even grass typing but said nothing. “You mentioned a mark on her flank like a rose and noticed you had a mark on your flank too.”

“Ah, yes. They’re called cutie marks. We gain them as we grow up. They’re connected with our talents and interests. You can consider them a visual representation of what we most identify with,” Cadance explained with a nod at hers.

“It’s gained when we discover what that talent is and is a coming-of-age event for all ponies. Though, it’s not always entirely certain what the image on a pony’s flank is supposed to represent. I heard of a filly who discovered a pony skull on her flank one day. Her Mom nearly panicked, thinking her filly’s special talent was murdering other ponies. But as it turned out, it was just an interest in archeology.”

Ebon made a note to himself not to explain how cubone pokémon wear the skulls of their dead mothers on their heads. Or to any other pony for that matter. “I see…”

“Well, I think that explains the basics of the mission. Are you willing to visit Equestria today after breakfast?” Cadance asked.

Ebon nodded. “Sounds good. I have one request though.”

“Of course. What is it?” Cadance asked.

“I’d like to be returned to the entrance of the dungeon. I have some business to deal with at the camp before I go.” Ebon felt like explaining the mailbox was need-to-know information and Cadance didn’t need to know.

“You built a camp? Huh. You concealed it well, Ebon. I do not know its location. Certainly, you can tend to any affairs you feel appropriate. I can fly you all down and carry you back up here if you please, though if at least one of you can stay behind, we won’t all have to completely rewrite our maps for each floor again. We’d all really appreciate it!” Cadance made a horse-tooth smile that couldn’t help but make him laugh.

“Certainly!” This was going to be easier than he thought. “Sike, how about you go and… take care of business for us?”

“Can do, Ebon!” The espeon saluted him with her tail.

And so it’s settled. Team Allure’s first real test is about to begin, Ebon thought as she departed. Though our first mission may seem easy, it takes place in a realm we’ve never visited and can only scarcely imagine, filled with powerful creatures that may very well rival ourselves. Our actions will not only define how these ponies see pokémon as a group, but they may even ultimately determine the fate of us both. It’s only a matter of time before the Creators learn of the ponies' presence in our realm and do something about it. If we upset the ponies and any harm come our way, then Arceus will surely demand just retribution for their offense.

I must not falter in my quest and see to it we succeed with honor. And maybe even meet a few new lovers along the way!

And with that thought, he curled up next to Glassie in her seat back at the breakfast table and kissed her on the ear. “Tonight, us!”

Glassie turned to face Ebon and kissed him on the muzzle. “Business before pleasure, Ebon! Consider my egg as a reward should we succeed.”

“Everyone loves a winner,” Ebon wrapped his tail around hers, enjoying the touch of cool against his sweaty coat of fur. It had really warmed up since the night before.

“I love you too, Ebon.” Glassie slipped her tongue into his mouth briefly, before returning her attention to her bowl full of food. The contact lit a fire beneath his hind legs, but he knew it was not the time to indulge it.

Maybe later, once we get to this ‘Ponyville’. And all to find a single mare bearing a single rose? I still don’t entirely believe it’s that simple, but whatever awaits us, by Arceus, we will not fail. Ebon vowed before diving his own muzzle into her bowl, exchanging the occasional bumps and nuzzles with her sister as they ate.

Everfree Fracas

Ebon knew he had blacked out but for how long he wasn’t certain.

Lights flickered in front of him, glaring rudely through closed eyes. He was moving but no wind brushed against his fur — compelled downward as if by gravity judging by the intermittent pattern of the glow. Now panicked, Ebon opened his eyes to see himself falling through a starry sky, his body wrapped by the same shimmering white sparks that wreathed the crystal pillar.

I’m trapped! Why couldn’t the teleportation have knocked me out? Ebon tried to move but the bands of electric-like energy held him in place.With great difficulty, he managed to look down slightly and saw green grass, the outlines of what appeared to be buildings, and shadowy indistinct figures standing still as if frozen in time nearby. Declining his head further, Ebon opened his mouth to scream but made no sound as he fell through a black tunnel into another star-filled sky.

But this time, he wasn’t alone.

Ebon screamed again noiselessly as a human appeared in front of him, bound by chains of white like those that imprisoned the umbreon. Short, adolescent, and skinny with sleek black hair through which no wind was blowing despite their rapid descent. His eyes appeared to be tracking his progress down the dizzying, starlit tunnel.

“Is that a ghost? Am I a ghost? What’s happening to me?” Ebon mouthed noiselessly.

While the human couldn’t have heard him, he seemed to register his presence because his head slowly crept up until their eyes met. He looked completely shocked.

At least he’s not here to haunt me! But then what is this spirit doing here? Cadance said nothing about spirits between dimensions!

FOUND YOU!

A booming voice from somewhere above Ebon roared before the entire tunnel around the human went black. Ebon felt his skin writhe in discomfort as the solid mass of dark energy barreled harmlessly past him.

CROSS ME AND YOU’LL BE NEXT, UMBREON! The disembodied voice threatened as the human falling next to Ebon vanished completely.

*****

“Nooooooo!” Ebon shouted, reflexively springing onto all four paws to fight back before realizing he could not only hear himself shout but that his paws had ground to stand on. Soft, earthy-scented, damp ground that gave easily beneath him. “That was one heck of a nightmare!”

Ebon expected some reply to his proclamation but none came, save from the chirping, skittering and creeping sounds of creatures unknown to the Pokémon, unseen beneath the shady bows of trees that crowded him in all directions. “Cadance? Team Allure? Speak up if you can hear me!” Ebon called out but none answered.

The heavy scent of flora and pollen struck Ebon immediately and he sneezed violently enough to crick a vertebrae in his neck. “Great… interdimensional allergies on top of everything else!” He had the rather juvenile and embarrassing thought that perhaps he should wait around for the responsible ponies to come and rescue him as if he were a little lost eevee. “First contact with a new dimension and not a soul to greet me. I don’t know if I should be honored or insulted.”

Ebon lit his golden rings, heedless of the fact he was giving away his position to a potential unseen enemy. I’m the most dangerous thing in this forest. And I need to find my friends. He thought to himself, walking past glowing purple mushrooms along a dark, dirt path through a swath of drab, forlorn-looking, vine-covered trees.

If the ponies have harmed my friends… If they’ve betrayed my trust, so help me, they will all pay! Ebon bore his fangs, all but daring the forest to take action against him. As soon as he’d had that thought, out of the corner of his eyes, he spotted two glowing green circles off in the thicket, a short distance above the forest floor and snarled in their direction.

It snarled back before the green light extinguished itself. Just then, the sounds of activity or the entire forest seemed to stop. Even the very air around him seemed to stagnate. Instinctively, Ebon connected the two events. Whatever it was, it was preying on the other creatures in this forest.

Following suit, Ebon extinguished his rings. Two could play this deadly game. But he had no idea where he was; moving into the forest to pursue would not be a good idea. And so he allowed his vision to widen, taking in every detail of the forest in front of him through his peripheral vision as he walked straight on across the grassy path. Time to see who will glow first.

While Ebon’s eyes discreetly scanned the tree line for activity, his ears searched for the sound of anything untoward occurring behind him but all he could hear was the occasional creaking and groaning of laden tree branches. He turned back to look, expecting to see something leaping off of them but they remained as motionless as everything else. Whatever it is, it must be near to or as large as I am, judging by where its eyeballs were. It’s not jumping across the branches.

Ebon’s stride grew more aggressive. Whatever it was, it could ambush him at any time, having the advantage of knowing the terrain. But against that, it didn’t know what he was — or so he hoped. If it was a pony, he didn’t want to think of the consequences. They knew him, befriended him. Even saw him demonstrate his combat abilities.

But from what he already knew about them, ambushing someone in the middle of the forest didn’t seem like a very pony thing to do. They were flashy, pastel-colored and fond of decoration. Clad in powerful armor and upright in posture. Sturdy, proud and honorable folk who fed them and took care of them instead of creeping up behind them in the dark like a rattata.

And therefore, whatever was out there was not a pony.

Ebon grunted as something hard and scaly slammed into his side, knocking him off the path and into the brush. One paw clutched to his ribcage where it impacted, he had time to recover when a heavy, lumpy and scaly body fell on top of him.

The creature, looking down at Ebon with glowing green eyes reduced to narrow slits, snarled at him, opening his wolflike maw to reveal two rows of sharp, wood-like fangs. He could smell the creature’s breath and had to stifle a gag at how it reeked of rotting oak wood. His golden ring light revealed further details; he could pick out green grassy hair atop its head and leafy eyebrows profiling its glowing eyes. Ebon struggled to move but the wooden wolf was too heavy. Its barklike skin dug into Ebon’s body, bruising him more and more as he struggled to break free of its iron grip to no avail while its clawed paws slowly penetrated deeper into his flesh.

I’m going to die! No, I can’t die! Ebon felt a wetness other than blood seep through his skin and into his coat. He was pouring sweat. As his primal fear peaked, a stream of sweat shot out from the tuft of fur that adorned his chest, catching his assailant in the eyes.

The creature yelped as if in pain and leaped off of Ebon into the grass next to him. It whimpered miserably as it slowly backed away, eyes locked on the umbreon as Ebon stood back up on four wobbly legs.

“You can’t eat me, creature. My sweat… is poisonous!” Ebon managed to say through gritted teeth.

The beast lifted its head and gave a low howl before the air was pierced by a loud crack, like the splintering of wood. The creature morphed slowly before Ebon’s eyes, sprouting tendrils that drove themselves into the earth, its face stretching and deforming until it becoming indistinguishable from lifeless wood until it resembled the stump of a tree; a small sapling covered in lively green leaves grew up from the still, lifeless wooden lump as if seconds were being accelerated into weeks.

Ebon bowed before his attempted leafy assassin respectfully and put a paw on the rough wooden stump. “It was only ill fortune that prevented you from vanquishing me. While fate was cruel to you in this life, I pray to Arceus it shows you kindness in the next.” His legs seemingly unwilling to function anymore, Ebon dug into the Explorer’s bag which had survived the fracas, leaned up against the stump of his defeated enemy, and ate an Oran Berry.

“Ebon!” Edelweiss’s voice cut through the darkness.

Ebon turned his gaze towards the voice, which came from the path he was on. “I’m here!” he shouted back.

Edelweiss, followed closely behind by Glassie and Sike came running down into the shallow depression Ebon was sitting in and regarded him with concerned looks. “Ebon, what happened to you? You look like you were just in a fight!”

“I was. And I lost pretty badly too,” Ebon replied somberly. “If I hadn’t coated him in poison sweat, he might have killed me.”

“Huh! Glassie nodded her head at Ebon, grinning in apparent approval. “That officially makes this the first time I’ve ever heard of that obscure Umbreon ability ever coming in useful. But as we don’t want you poisoning our new friends or us…”

Glassie helpfully hosed Ebon with a decidedly downplayed version of her water spout, washing his poisonous sweat and a good amount of blood away onto the forest floor below him.

“Thanks, Glassie! I needed that.” Ebon admitted as he shook the excess water away.

“You’re welcome. So where is your attacker now?!” Glassie clenched a forepaw like a fist and pressed it flat against her other. “Say the word, and we’ll go beat him down!”

“He’s right here,” Ebon tapped the trunk of the tree, speaking through a mouthful of berries before swallowing, feeling the welcome rush of healing energy through him. “I think part of it is still alive. I hope so, anyway. I don’t want to imagine I just killed someone. But it ambushed me out of nowhere like it was the forest itself striking out at me!”

“Oh my goodness, Ebon!” Cadance landed next to Glassie, her wings remaining splayed even after she landed, sitting back to clasp her regally adorned forehooves against her temples. “I am so sorry! The transporter displaces in both time and space. We lost you on the way down and have been waiting for you to appear ever since! We’ve had problems before, but this is the worst mishap we’ve had in years!” The tall ponyta-like figure snorted in apparent frustration.

“It’s fine, Princess. Any interdimensional mishap you can walk away from is a good one, I reckon!” Ebon finally stood up on all four legs, feeling much improved after his restorative meal. “For my part, I’m very sorry about the wooden wolf creature. I’ve only just arrived, but I’ve already had to hurt someone.” He bowed his ears in submission before her.

With a glance at the stump, Cadance smiled and shook her head. “Then let me put your mind at ease, Ebon Umbreon: The timberwolf is only hibernating. Once she’s healed up from the damage you dealt, she’ll be back to her old self again. Timberwolves are immortal, you see. So long as the Everfree Forest stands, at least.”

“It’s a ‘she’? How do you know that, Cadance?” Sike looked up at the alicorn, tilting her head to one side as she looked at the sapling.

“From the shapes of the leaves,” Cadance explained. “As I’m sure you’ve already noticed, the Everfree is not a normal forest. The Timberwolf is a living tree endemic to this forest that takes the form of a wolf and mates with other wolves the… old-fashioned way before taking the form of trees once more.” Cadance wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“The females then produce seeds that grow into more timberwolves while the males bloom with the most beautiful and fragrant purple flowers in all of Equestria.” Cadance detached one of the flowers from a slumbering nearby tree and floated it down into Sike’s open paw.

“You know what this means, Cadance? I have interdimensional grass-type cousins here on the other side!” Edelweiss wagged her perky tail, cheerfully. “I’m sure once Ebon teaches them proper manners, we’ll all be the best of friends!”

Ebon, Edelweiss and Glassie laughed as Sike inhaled deeply from the flower she was holding, arching her spine in enjoyment while making a sultry sigh.

Ebon was instantly brought back to full erection at the sight of her stretching sinuously.

“Such a wonderful scent. What I wouldn’t give for a perfume made with these flowers!” Sike cooed again, as Ebon’s titillated masculine member carved a growing divot into the soft earth, suddenly very glad that the short grasses hid his state.

Cadance winked lasciviously at Ebon before plucking several more flowers from the timberwolf tree and sat them in a small pile in front of Sike. “I could help you with that! There’s a place in Ponyville that sells them, and they would be more than happy to do custom work. But that can come later. Take these flowers for the time being to hold you over!”

“Ooo! Thank you, thank you thank you!” Sike brushed the tuft of fur beneath her ear across Cadance’s hoof, marking it with her scent in a sincere show of eevee appreciation.

“Sike, if I might make a suggestion?” Glassie chimed in, not even bothering to hide her evil intent, jumping up and down with all the subtlety of a galumphing goodra greeting its bestie. Take everything you got there and smear it all over your ears!”

“What a great idea!” Sike exclaimed as she began to do just that. “You all are such good friends to me!”

Ebon’s expression grew strained as the turgid member beneath his belly began to throb, threatening to explode right then and there.

“I’ll help!” Edelweiss said sweetly, snatching up pawfuls of flowers slathering their fragrant, pollen-coated pedals indulgently across the lightly-furred, expansive surface of the back of her right ear.

“I’ll help too!” Cadance chimed in, using the delicate manipulation of her levitation spell to daintily dab the inner folds of Sike’s antihelical folds on both of her ears while Glassie and Edelweiss worked the backs and edges as Sike’s coos grew louder and louder.

“Oh, ladies! Don’t stop!” Sike gave a distinctive loud espeon cry. “I feel so beautiful!”

By the almighty Arceus, this is the greatest moment of my entire life! Ebon thought to himself as he stared slack-jawed at the eeveelution action taking place before him, as firmly rooted to the ground by his accentuated arousal as the trees surrounding him.

“And now you smell as beautiful as you feel. Isn’t it wonderful?” Cadance kissed the top of Sike’s head, the impromptu beauty treatment having been concluded with the contents of each petal from a score or so flowers lovely applied to her generously endowed navy-blue interior of her espeon auricles. “Consider it an apology for what happened to your friend.”

“Apology accepted!” Ebon grunted out in a husky voice to which his team all nodded their accord.

“Glad to hear you’re all in agreement!” Cadance launched a bolt of light from her horn that burst in mid-air above the canopy of the trees like a miniature firework. “I’m signaling the pegasi flying above the forest that you’ve been found, Ebon. Just so you know, I don’t think it’s safe to send you back to your world until we’ve discovered the issue with our transporter. But in the meantime… enjoy the hospitality of the ponies! We’re only a few miles outside of Ponyville. Just follow me.”

“Um, Cadance?” Ebon asked, grimacing slightly as he again felt the weight of his engorged organ hanging below his belly, threatening to drag on the ground beneath him.. Could I, uh… hang back for about ten minutes? I just need a moment to… gather myself after that battle. Preferably with Glassie and Edelweiss keeping me company?”

“Ten minutes, you say?” Ebon detected more than a hint of feigned shock in the sovereign’s voice, which only made his already warm cheeks flush openly. “I suppose I can afford you ten minutes longer in the dark, but is that truly all that you want?” she said in an air that suggested to him that she already knew his intent. Or had he just imagined it?

“It’s all I need, Princess.” Ebon looked his beloved sister in the eye. She looked back, pupils dilated, as though stalking her next meal, and licked her lips.

Cadance only grinned more broadly. “Somehow, I doubt that, Ebon! But no matter. Take as long as you need.”

Glassie had turned her back to Ebon, exposing her quivering icy-blue spade to him, tail aloft as she called back to Cadance and Sike. “Go on ahead, Sike. You’re already carrying an egg while the boss and I have unfinished business. We’ll catch up with you later. At least you can bet I will!”

Sike giggled into her paw. “I look forward to it, Glassie!”

A pair of stout, handsome and likely well-endowed — their armor regrettably obscured their dangly bits — white pegasi stallions in gold-plated armor arrived, hitched to an equally gaudy cart of what appeared to be solid gold. A heart-shaped pink emerald, reminding Ebon forcefully of Sike, was set dead-center within a filigree trim depicting an eight-petaled flower.

“Ready to leave the spooky forest, Sike?” Cadance rested a wing on the Espeon’s back.

“Very much!” She nodded and with a final wave to Ebon, jumped in the back of the cart with all the grace and dexterity her kind was well-known for.

From being beaten up and robbed to being treated with the sort of respect few pokémon would know outside the Legendaries. I’m glad I could share this experience with you, Sike, Ebon thought to Sike and she took off into the sky; the backwash from the acceleration making her ears flap around like a beached wailord.

I love you too, Ebon. But it’s not my turn this time! Treat Edelweiss and Glassie well! And tell me all about it when I talk to you later! The connection between the two of them broke as Sike disappeared into the night, with Cadance following close behind her.

I will Sike. And we will share each other’s company once more after our eevee is born. Be safe! Ebon thought as he waved his goodbye.

“Hey there, Ebon!” Edelweiss planted a kiss on his freshly cleansed cheek. “Been a rough day for you, huh?”

“Covered in battle scars and the injuries of combat. Arceus, I could force myself on you right now!” Glassie snarled at Ebon before rolling over on her back, tail flopping in the grass. “But as badly as I want you inside me right now, I don’t want to freeze your phallus! I need to thermoregulate before you can properly treat me like the champion I am.” Spreading her hind legs as far as they’d go, she began vigorously stroking and stretching her spade as she panted heavily, with her tongue splayed out the side of her maw.

Ebon grinned, knowing that before mating a non-ice-type, she first needed to thaw her frigid core. Despite the wait it entailed, he gazed lustfully into the Heart of Winter snow, awaiting the first sign of spring’s thaw, when Glassie broke the spell cast over him. “As much as I enjoy you watching, I’m not the only eevee in need, Ebon. While I’m warming up, your sister awaits your attention,” she said with sudden relish.

“My what!?” Ebon’s muzzle dropped open.

“Our what!? Edelweiss echoed soon after, her jaw equally agape.

“As much as I like to see you two squirm, the truth is I already knew.” Glassie continued pawing at herself as she lay back watching the pair over her stomach, a smug grin on her face. “As far back as the night before we came to Equestria. Seriously, it wasn’t that hard to figure it out on my own.”

She’s smarter than I thought. For as much of a clueless mess she can be in social situations, the old Arena Master never misses a trick when treasure is on the line. Mine included! A still-reeling Ebon thought to himself. “Care to… bring us up to speed, Glassie? If no one told you, what gave us away?”

“It wasn’t anything anyone said, Ebon. It’s what you didn’t say when we met.” Glassie inclined her head towards Edelweiss. “That you two were an item. I mean, think about it — there was absolutely no reason for you two not to tell me that. It’s not like you’re going to be worried about ‘conflicts of interest —” The Glaceon made scare quotation marks with her forepaws before continuing to pleasure herself — “in a two mon team.”

Is it hot in this forest or is it just me? Ebon didn’t say out loud. Then again, he sensed his expression said all it needed to.

“Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of fighting all sorts of characters, Ebon,” Glassie continued, looking quite proud of herself. “And I’ve met more than a few country eevees along the way. But if there’s one thing I learned about the country eevees I’ve hung out with or met in the arena, it’s that they love keeping it in the family. I’ve known at least three others along the way who did. So I’ve suspected you two for years but didn’t want to pry. Tease you a bit, maybe, but never pry.”

Glassie brought a paw to her mouth, her face rife with conspiracy as she lowered to voice. “And then there’s the fact that just maybe I’ve had some fun of my own with my little brother over the years! You think you got it bad keeping secrets? It was at least more or less acceptable where you two come from! But that sort of thing gets you hard time in Jubilife City!”

Ebon gave a low whistle as he exchanged an impressed glance with Edelweiss. “Sounds like we dodged not just an ice shard, but an entire avalanche there, sis!”

“Glassie, I have watched you knock out dragons ten times your size and eat half your own body weight in poffins.” Ebon couldn’t help but smile at his sister’s joke. “But of all of them, this… this! Is the most impressive thing I have ever seen you do!”

“Oh, Edelweiss! You know how much I like flattery! That’s got me hotter than anything today!” Glassie growled her apparent approval, beginning to paw at herself even more urgently. “You know the only thing hotter than that is seeing him standing there ready to rut you. So what are you two waiting for?”

“What indeed…” Ebon turned his head to find Edelweiss was already nearly on top of him, her fragrant breath like freshly mowed grass ticking his nose. Her mouth was open slightly and she was slightly breathless as she sought access to his muzzle with her own. He opened his maw wide, his nose meeting hers with a gentle bump as their tongues unfurled like sprouting grain along the banks of Serenity River, clashing wetly above a chaotic ocean of pink.

Their practiced dance of coiling serpents bore immediate fruit as the two swiftly found themselves flushed and in dire need of more. With a quick swipe of pink flesh against the pointed tips of Edelweiss’s fangs, Ebon pressed his lips against the hollow of her lower jaw, trailing a line of kisses lower and lower across her neck. It was an act he knew from long experience that she loved as he softly nibbled the fine beige hairs of her regal coat, delighting in the mild, salty-sweet taste of her supple skin.

“Ebon!” Edelweiss whispered gently. “No more foreplay. We only have t-ten minutes, Ebon!” she felt compelled to remind him.

“Less than that after all that talk! So get to it, you two!” she ordered like she was the team leader instead of Ebon.

“Yes, ma’am! You heard her, sister…” Ebon whispered back, paying her words no mind as he licked the perspiration from her prominent green chest leaf. Crying out softly as he kneeled, Edelweiss stepped over and onto Ebon’s back, allowing him to support her weight, as he rocked her gently back and forth, grinding the scent from his long ears deeper into the soft fur of his lover’s belly, marking her anew as his own. “So let’s give our longtime teammate exactly the show she desires…”

“Arceus, strike me, Ebon! I don’t just want a show! I want exactly what you’re giving her!” Ebon wished he could have seen the look on Glassie’s face whose voice sounded labored through the wet squelches of paw against her moist, succulent flesh.

“Fine, but me first! I always got dibs on my brother, Glassie.” Dismounting him, Edelweiss flopped over on the grass and presented herself to him. Ebon took time to savor the view and lick his chops before diving in, salivating as he eyed her two rows of taut, light pink teats. It was all he could do not to pounce her to see her laying docile before him, her tail unfurled like a green carpet inviting the umbreon into still deeper hoards of treasure.

“Oh~! Ebon…” Edelweiss’s voice cracked severely as he began tongue-bathing her belly breasts, giving each teat attention in turn. She sounded to Ebon as if she were speaking through a very long tunnel. “We shouldn’t keep Glassie waiting!”

Glassie. Ebon had heard that name before. But he couldn’t quite remember it as his aroused sandaconda—his sister’s longtime nickname for his phallus—furrowed a sticky trail across a part in his sister’s fur as he repositioned himself over her face, coating her chin and petite button nose with a fine coating of saliva before directing his much-validated attention to the base of her ears. The sticky sweet taste of her ear’s natural honey inviting his tongue deeper in, he bathed it with as many licks as he could; his boofy tail swaying lazily behind him as Edelweiss giggled and squeaked beneath him.

“That’s enough, Ebon!” Glassie growled, her voice snapping Ebon out of his trance as he turned to face her. Her normally erect ears, stiffened by a thin coat of ice lay limp across the sides of her head, sopping wet. At her paws, shards of melting ice soaked into the grassy battlefield still stained with Ebon’s blood, giving her the appearance of a large blue eevee standing in the middle of a raging rainstorm. Even the ever-present crown of ice atop her head glinted with a stream of meltwater trickling from her glacial crest joining the small pool of feminine arousal below.

“Enough? But I thought you wanted this!” Ebon teased as he continued to worship his sister’s ears, eliciting a series of increasingly needy sounds from her that only stoked his arousal further.

“I am… sufficiently stimulated by your brazen act of brotherly love, Ebon.” Glassie teased off a shivering shard of ice from her nose with a lazy sweep of her tongue. “I’ll need another minute or two before I’m ready, but I’m very much enjoying the show! Now enough foreplay! I want to see you two move on to the main event! So how about you fill her up for me, fearless leader?”

Said leader turned to look back at his sister, who looked back up at him with her leafy tail wagging expectantly. “You heard her, brother. She’s rather insistent. And I’d hate to disappoint her.”

Ebon could only grin, feeling yet another fantasy come true. “So would I. I assume you want us both to turn away so you have a direct view of the action?” He shifted enough to point his hindquarters at her and raise his tail, showing off his large set of erotic eevee attributes.

But to his surprise, Glassie only giggled. “SIlly Ebon! Turn towards me! Because I want to be able to see both of your faces…” she replied sweetly. “I want to know how much you really care for and love each other! That’s what turns me on the most.”

Ebon and Edelweiss shared a surprised look, the latter giving a confused cock of the head while the former gave a sort of encouraging nod before nudging his sister forward to face Glassie. “Wow, Glassie. You’re a lot more sentimental than I thought!” The leafeon teased even as she stretched her vine-y back which Ebon rested a paw on.

“Yeah, well, don’t spread it around! I’ve got a reputation to uphold…” Glassie said, continuing to eye the pair as she gently stroked her cute little feminine button from her back, which Ebon instantly noted now gleamed warm and pink.

“Your secret is safe with us,” Ebon said silkenly, then his grin turned lopsided. “Any other requests?”

“Oh! I know. Maybe Glassie wants us to tell her how much we love each other before you split me open.” Edelweiss nipped Ebon’s ear before turning to face her Glaceon teammate again.

“Good idea.” Ebon returned the favor with another wet lick starting at the base of her ear up the grassy tip of her helix that made her yelp like a little eevee. “I love you more than life itself, dear sister. And I’ll gladly spend my whole life rutting you senseless regardless of the rules. How’s that, Glassie?”

“Not bad at all…” Glassie smiled and licked the icy emission from her paw. “Though If I could ask for one more indulgence, I’d just like to know when… things got to be more than just brother and sister between you two.”

“Such uncharacteristic prudishness from the arena brawler!” Edelweiss giggled into her paw. “It happened after I evolved, naturally. When I could finally… fit him inside of me.” she laughed and wrapped her vines around Ebon’s shoulders as he continued pleasuring her ears. “Not now, brother. It’s your turn to talk!”

“As you wish, sis!” Ebon reared up and rested his erection against her spine, just above her tail. “If you must know all the dirty details, it would have been around four years ago, just before we decided to leave Eevee Village to go exploring. Edelweiss had only evolved just that day and… it’s kind of embarrassing, really…”

“Oh, hush!” Edelweiss said playfully as Glassie guffawed loudly. “I didn’t do anything most gals in the neighborhood would find peculiar!”

“The thing is, she didn’t tell me she’d just evolved…” Ebon winked at Glassie, hoping she’d get the hint.

“Oh no, no, no, Ebon!” Glassie waved her sopping wet paw at him. “You don’t get to skim this confession. Enquiring eeveelutions have got to know the full truth now matter how obvious the implications. Let’s hear it, then.”

“Alright, alright…” Ebon cleared his throat, trying to suppress the urge to enter her for just a minute more. “I’ll start at the beginning.”

“I love this story! Do it, Ebon. Do eeeeet!” Edelweiss pumped a clenched paw as if she were encouraging him to poke Arceus in the ribs with a stick.

“The truth is Glassie, that she wasn’t my first choice that night. That I might have been stood up by a date,” Ebon said as he stared at the ground beneath Glassie — she was a wet one! She must have already climaxed twice in addition to the meltwater if the puddle she’d formed was any indication. Helplessly, he found his gaze drawn back up to Glassie’s polar hole, still weeping with springtime slush.

“Before you ask, she was a gorgeous flareon with the thickest rear end you’ve ever seen and miraculously, a female! And well… she didn’t show up at our meetup.” Ebon rolled his eyes.

“Her loss. But that’s not where the story ends, does it?” Glassie ran a claw between her fangs and she used the other to pump her canine clit aggressively, causing a series of squishing noises to start reaching Ebon’s ears.

“Well, no, but…” Ebon swallowed hard. If she didn’t fill his sister soon, he was going to shoot his load all over her back! “But I’m getting a bit distracted. So now you know why this happened; all you need to learn is how. Care to cover the rest, sis?” he implored her.

“Since you ask so sweetly, bro!” Edelweiss kissed Ebon’s chin. “Ebon was coming back into town on the main road into the village. I could see him from the road when I came walking back from the Moss Stone I’d just evolved at. He was none the wiser and since my scent was different, he didn’t recognize me. I knew that look on his face as soon as I’d seen it, so I introduced myself to him as a complete stranger.”

“By Arceus himself… you seduced your own brother!?” Glassie looked at Edelweiss as if she’d just felled a rhyperior with a single Leaf Blade stroke. Her blue skin had turned entirely pink, indicating she’d reached mating temperature. “I may be an ice eevee, but by Arceus himself, that’s really hot…”

“Sure did, but I wasn’t being selfish. He was sad and needy, and I’m his sister! We’re family and I’m supposed to take care of him, right?” Edelweiss exclaimed. “He was always there for me when I needed him most. He’d saved my life by then more than once, too. And he’s so dashing!” The pair nuzzled each other before she continued. “But Ebon, you should show Glassie what we did, rather than us just telling her. Don’t you agree?”

“I do!” Ebon and Glassie said at the same time, prompting the latter to laugh again.

Ebon kissed his sister; the girl who he knew would never stand him up, savoring her familiar taste before mounting her behind. Reacting as if by instinct, Edelweiss grabbed him around the middle with her vines to help him steer. He knew that after rutting Sike, he needed to recalibrate his balance and he knew Edelweiss understood as well.

She truly was the best sister a big brother ever had.

Finally in position, Ebon felt himself sink slightly into Edelweiss’s crisp fur as his glans pierced her dark green spade. He gasped, nearing falling off to the side as the cascade of sensual stimulation struck his brain. At first, he was trapped, unable to proceed. Then Edelweiss began gently drawing him in with her powerful vines, absorbing his length inch by delicious inch as her deceptively powerful body began to accommodate his massive and mighty girth.

He glanced up just long enough to see Glassie’s icy blue tunnels boring into him with something like triumph as they twinkled in Ebon’s golden moonlight, but after that, his eyes closed in purest pleasure, trying to savor the familiar feel of his sister’s eevee interior.

As he finally hit bottom, he felt the warmth and wetness creep up the length of his shaft as she slowly drew him in with her powerful vines, his lover’s liquids trickling down his Pokéballs as he bottomed out inside of her. He buried his nose into his sister's back, inhaled deeply and howled into the pitch-black night. He withdrew with increasing difficulty before thrusting forward again as her reluctant nethers, grasping at his ever-swelling knot, tried to pull him back in.

Glassie gave a cry of her own to see the display, arching her head back with a loud cry, her bent-over ribbon tail gracefully framing the tops of her ears.

One day, I’ll impregnate these two for real. Ebon vowed to the cosmos before throwing his weight into her again. Edelweiss sang in a sort of series of high-pitched yelp as his knot began to nibble deeper into her core with each fresh thrust.

Glassie’s expression grew conflicted as the rubbing intensified. “By the snowy crown of Mt. Coronet! I can’t resist any longer! Ahh!” She leaned back and showered Ebon and Edelweiss with her glacial arousal. Ebon squinted, cringing as his left eye began to sting with a substance that somehow felt both icy and hot at the same time.

But he ignored the momentary discomfort in favor of a far more pleasant sensation; within seconds he was locked inside his sister, immobilized as he emptied his swollen orbs into his beloved, one stream at a time.

“I love you, little sis!” Ebon kissed the back of her head.

“I love you too, big brother!” Edelweiss gently stroked the top of his head with one of her spare vines.

“I love both of you two!” Glassie pounced, elegantly rolling in midair, turning over three times before landing next to Ebon and pressing a recently defrosted ear against his shoulder.

Contented silence between the trio punctuated only by the hooting of owls brought Ebon peace as he breathed in the familiar scents of his mates.

“Hey, Ebon?” Edelweiss eventually spoke, breaking the all-too-brief moment of pure sensual serenity.

“Yeah, sis?”

“Our first mission… isn’t starting off so great, is it?” Edelweiss traced a vine across a long, healing cut on Ebon’s flank where it’d pressed against the timberwolf’s barklike skin.

Ebon sighed and shook his head as he felt a brief sting. “No, it’s not if I nearly got killed. This is an unfamiliar world and we don’t know the dangers or the denizens. We’re not ready for what’s out here. Not yet.”

“The ponies seem so nice. Yet they build next to such a dangerous place.” Edelweiss spoke in a tone bordering on worried. “How do they deal with such threatening creatures?”

“No idea. But are we any different, though?” Ebon kissed the top of her head again. “I mean, think about it — I doubt the ponies would know what to do if they found themselves flung out into the middle of the Evolution Forest and encountered a ghostly intrusion.”

“I, uh, I grew up next to a… strip mall,” Glassie said in an uncharacteristically small voice as she pressed close against them. “But if the ponies ask, I grew up next to an angry Giratina.”

“You’re secret is safe with us, Glassie.” Ebon smiled reassuringly. She seemed to take heart at his words, her skin turning from pink to her typical shade of blue once more.

“My point is, brother. The next time we go anywhere, you’re coming with us!” Edelweiss punctuated her proclamation by wrapping up all four of his legs in vines. “Because no creature in this forest or any other is carrying you off to the Spirit World.”

“And boss or no, we agreed to a split of the loot and the glory!” Glassie’s fur shined white as the wind-driven snow, a cracking sound emanating from her like the surface of an icy lake filling the air. “So we’re chaining ourselves to you next time, if we must!”

“What Glassie and I are telling you, Ebon, is your solo adventuring privileges are hereby revoked. You got that!?” Edelweiss cupped his exposed Pokéballs with her tendrils, giving them a gentle pinch.

“Got it.” Looks like the only way I’m dying is if my ladies kill me first! The promise of their love, protection and continued hot sex brought a newfound courage and determination to succeed to Ebon. “Yes, ma’ams!”

It was only then the sound of a throat clearing reminded Ebon that they weren’t alone. “Er, I do not wish to interrupt your bonding time, but we’d best be off, honored guests,” a male voice was heard from somewhere on the path. A short while later, an armored stallion poked his head into the pit they’d been huddled together in. He glanced over at Ebon and Edelweiss and shook his head slowly.

“I know the Princess promised you ‘all the time you need’, but I would respectfully suggest that is best reserved for when you are in your new quarters. Take it from me that it is dangerous to stay in the forest for an extended time. As it would seem you two are… joined for a while, may we assume you will be together in the same cart then?” He sounded he like was trying to keep the amusement out of his voice.

Ebon’s cheeks turned from black to red. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry!” Ebon closed his eyes, willing the stallion to go away. But he didn’t go away, patiently awaiting their exit. Crap! This is really awkward!

“You’re right. We’re not going anywhere for a while…” Edelweiss said guiltily. “Sorry Ebon wasn’t able to split you too, Glassie. It wasn’t intentional.”

“Sorry? Don’t be! I got plenty from tonight’s show, I assure you!” Glassie slowly clapped her paws together. “You’ll get your chance to bone me, Ebon! Good things come inside those who wait!”

Edelweiss groaned. “You don’t laugh at your own joke, Glassie! Ugh… It was pretty funny though…”

“We’re all very sorry, sir!” Ebon apologized again. “Oh and nice double entendre, Glassie.”

“Thank you! Thank you!” Glassie curtsied before him, and this time, Ebon was certain that the stallion smiled even as he put his face in his hoof. But whatever embarrassment he might have been feeling for them, his horn ignited. With a fresh flash of magic, he quite easily lifted all three of them at once to place them into the back of an enormous golden cart.

“There you are! You three can consider yourselves in horny jail until we get you to Ponyville. And don’t worry about your knot, Ebon. We’ll be traveling at speed, so the chill in the air will loosen you up in no time,” he said in perfect deadpan, eliciting a fresh flush from all three and a swiftly suppressed chortle or two from the pegasus stallion pulling the cart. “I’ll head back on my own. Enjoy your journey!”

The stallion then signaled the pegasus and the three took off into the sky, floating weightlessly in a sky filled with unfamiliar constellations of countless twinkling stars.

“Horny… jail? Edelweiss said slowly.

“Don’t worry, Edelweiss. I can take them all on!” Glassie looked around as if for someone to challenge her.

“And what are we, chopped liver?” Edelweiss frowned at Glassie.

“Hold the liver. You two are just a sandwich!” Glassie laughed again as the other two groaned.

“Eat me.” Ebon prayed to almighty Arceus he could survive horny jail — and Glassie’s sense of humor — long enough to meet this ‘Princess of Friendship’.

“Hey, you three!” The pegasus chariot puller called back over his shoulder. “Er, I mean two. Glassie and the sandwich, we’ve got thirty minutes until we reach Ponyville. Are we good back there?”

Glassie threw her head back, now howling with laughter as Ebon and Edelweiss groaned a second time. “Yeah, we're vibing! A question, though: Did Sike go on ahead of us, Mister Pegasus?”

“Your friend Sike went with Princess Cadance,” the pegasus explained in an amused air. “She should be honored! Her Majesty seems to have taken quite a liking to your friend.”

“And I’m glad.” Ebon rubbed his chin as Edelweiss chimed in on Glassie’s conversation with the chariot puller. Despite the ongoing embarrassment of being knotted with his own sister to the obvious and ongoing amusement of their hosts, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was forgetting something. Something vital that he needed to bring up immediately.

I was attacked but everyone knows. Ebon eliminated that possibility from his list. I’ve still got the bag on me, so that’s not it…

Edelweiss sneezed, the vibration channeling up his still firmly-lodged male member like a tuning fork.

I’m not just a sandwich, but an idiot sandwich with a side of idiot! Ebon closed his eyes, trying to drown out the whistling of the wind around him. He found himself instantly transported back to when he was crossing over to Equestria, remembering all that befell him. He remembered feeling weightless, falling helplessly through the sky as a voice cried out from above him…

“Cross me and you’ll be next, umbreon!” Ebon abruptly blurted out.

Come again, Ebon?” Edelweiss replied hesitantly from beneath him.

“Hey, that’s my line!” Glassie joked, but her smile dropped to see the suddenly haunted look on his face. “Seriously, you okay, boss?”

He had to gather himself for a moment before he spoke. “I’m not sure. Did, uh, either of you hear a voice while you were teleporting down to Equestria?” he asked them calmly, only to earn some odd looks and shakes of the head. “Hear a threatening voice? See a human get attacked?”

Before they could answer, there was a loud pop and a rush of cold air as Ebon’s knot disengaged from his sister. A pool of eevee batter began to form on the plush burgundy carpet lining the interior of the chariot, leaving him briefly wondering if he now owed the crown princess of Ponyville money for trashing her property. Sorry, chariot cleaner, whoever you are. If I had a napkin or ten to mop it up with, that’d at least be something!

Edelweiss looked at Glassie and then back at Ebon, shaking her head. “No, Ebon. I don’t remember anything at all until I touched down just outside of town.”

“Outside of town? You’ve been to Ponyville already?” Ebon asked. How late to this party was I? Sheesh!

“Sort of,” Glassie said, noncommittally. “I mean, kind of? The sun was high in the sky and I could see these really quaint-lookin’ country buildings off in the distance. I did end up sprawled out on the dirt when I woke up and puked my guts out pretty good. Let me tell you, despite whatever you’ve been told, those poffins don’t taste good the second time around…”

The chariot pegasus cut in, his voice sounding concerned. “You were awake during the teleportation process, Ebon? That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of it happening.”

“You hear that, Ebon? You’re so good you accomplish the impossible!” came Glassie’s jovial reply.

“Hold on, Glassie,” the chariot pegasus cut in. “This is serious. Tell me everything you saw, Ebon. From the beginning, if you would.”

So Ebon did, starting with falling through the sky and ending with the assumed attack striking the human.

The chariot driver was silent, nodding as Ebon spoke before finally speaking up. “We didn’t find anyone but you in the forest, Ebon. We have means of spotting creatures we’re looking for that don’t rely on eyeballs alone. It’s funny, actually. The most difficult part of finding you waiting for you to appear and then being in the right place to scoop you up. As you noticed, you ended up furthest away and we couldn’t reach you in time to protect you from that Timberwolf attack. Apologies.”

“Not a problem, Mister…” Ebon hesitated, having no clue what the stallion’s name was.

“The name’s Storm Wind, sir.” He turned and gave the trio an off-hoofed salute. “I admit some concern in this matter from what Cadance has told me about some of the creatures living in your world. With due respect, they sound powerful and extremely dangerous. Still, this all does sound a little crazy. An unknown entity hijacking our transporter without us knowing? Unlikely to say the least. And a little frightening.”

“I want to be fair to Ebon because he’s definitely not crazy.” Edelweiss made a nasty smirk. “Glassie’s completely mental but not him.”

“Now I resemble that remark, sweetie!” Glassie wrapped her ribbon-like tail around the guardrail of the chariot. “Want to watch me bungee jump?”

“Don’t even think about it!” Storm Wind replied sternly. “Remember, we are thousands of feet in the air!”

“Anyways…” Edelweiss’s frustrated tone hinted to Ebon she hadn’t been expecting humor from Glassie at such a serious moment. “Mister Storm Wind, sir? Is it possible Ebon just had a bad dream?”

“Aw hay and biscuits, lass. I’m not an arcane theorist, just a wagon puller!” Storm Wind laughed. “Listen, you’ve got me interested, and I don’t think your brother is making this up. I don’t want you to worry about this anymore, though. I’m going to have a talk with some ponies with much higher salaries than mine and get back to you with any information I’ve got. It’s a fact that something went wrong when you went inside. We don’t know what, but foul play can’t be ruled out.”

How does this pony know about Foul Play? Ebon scratched his head. Maybe Cadance researched and named some of the moves she observed feral dark types using out in the wild?

He didn’t know, but he wasn’t about to press the matter when he needed all the support he could get. “Thank you for believing me, Storm Wind.” Ebon bowed to the pegasus stallion respectfully. “It means a lot.”

“Not a prob, my dark-furred friend!” Storm Wind banked the cart to the right and began to fly lower as the first signs of equine inhabitation lit up across a sprawling valley below. Dull orange light poured from the windows of thatched-roof cottages, making Ebon’s back fur stand on end. Nothing these ponies lived inside of should look so human-like!

Glassie licked Ebon’s cheek, the sudden shock of cold making him flinch. “Don’t pass out on us, Ebon! I see you looking like you’re ready to jump out of your fur.”

“I am now that you licked me!” Ebon protested. It’s probably nothing. Everyone is safe and I got to knot my sister. Happy endings all around! He tried to assure himself. I just hope this pony guy isn’t going to have to work too hard on my behalf. “I’m fine, Glassie. I’m just… today has been a lot for me. And all of a sudden I feel… unsettled.” He shivered again.

“Yeah…” Edelweiss frowned. “It was even longer for us than you. The ponies wanted to search for you alone, but Glassie and I insisted on coming along to find you. Been walking around that spooky forest for hours.” She nuzzled Ebon’s cheek. “But you’re okay, and the team’s okay. And now we’re going to meet another Princess!”

“So, have any pick-up lines you’ve got prepared for her?” Glassie winked lewdly, her hushed voice barely audible.

“Eh heh…” Ebon grinned sheepishly, unable to stop himself from wondering if this second pony princess would be as good-looking as the first. “Ladies… don’t you think you’re taking this joke a bit far?”

“I don’t know, Ebon, are we?” Edelweiss said with what her brother perceived as sincerity. “Now that we’re almost a part of Pony World, it seems like something we should talk about, doesn’t it?”

“I do recall you bringing it up in the bathtub, yes.” And I did my best not to answer you, Ebon reminded himself.

“And you blew it off by being Mister Cool and not answering at all as I recall,” Glassie said conversationally, as if she wasn’t casually destroying her boss for her own satisfaction.

Ebon winced. “Blunt as usual, eh, Glassie?” He glanced over at Edelweiss for support. She said nothing but looked back at him as if waiting for him to say something. If Edelweiss is passing up a chance to put Glassie in her place, this can only mean I’m the antagonist. Or is it the villain? I never understood the difference. I guess I’ll go with being the villain in this instance. Yeah, that sounds right.

Ebon cleared his throat and straightened his posture. “To tell you the truth, I never expected it’d come to me sleeping with my entire exploration team and… never stopped to consider what our ground rules would be. So I want your input.” Ebon sat before his teammates and rested a paw on Glassie’s and Edelweiss’s, gazing into their eyes. The two nodded silently in return. “I’m your leader in battle, not in this new relationship of ours. If we’re a family now, then everyone should have equal say. We are a democracy and everyone’s vote counts.”

Edelweiss raised both of her paws and her tail over her head, lofting it like a banner. “Point of order, Ebon. Sike isn’t here.” She followed it up with a nudge to Glassie’s side, who chuckled in response.

“Well taken, my sinister ministers!” Ebon smiled back at the two. “I suppose we’ll just have to vacate the meeting for the night-”

“Hold it!” Glassie bellowed, reaching out and booping the Umbreon on the nose. “Oops! I got carried away there.” Glassie half-grinned before pulling out a sheaf of parchment from her chest fluff. “I, uh, actually have notes from a previous meeting just us girls had with each other. Sike detailed her opinions on how a pack relationship between us should work. She signed it too in the most beautiful-looking fancy cursive script you’ve ever seen. Like something you’d find written on a signed letter from Arceus.”

“No way!” Ebon snatched the paper out of Glassie’s paw, his eyes scrolling quickly as he scanned the parchment. It was as Glassie had said, complete with lurid and unfiltered wish-fulfillment that had Ebon’s Umbrehood twitching in its sheath once more.

Ebon stuffed the paper into his chest fluff. I might need that someday when I have to rub one out! Whew! “So much for a point of order. Holding a meeting without me present? Democracy dies for dark-types!”

“I was there and can personally vouch for the note’s authenticity,” Edelweiss said, formally. “Sike seemed all too eager to share her thoughts with us. But what about yours, brother?”

“We’ll still need to clear anything we say with her after the fact but this will do for now. Do you two agree with Sike about me…” Ebon leaned in close, his voice lowering to a whisper. “... sleeping with the ponies?

“Bro, someone’s gotta do it!” Edelweiss stated emphatically as if she were stating mathematical principles to the newly hatched. “But then again, we don’t know if we can mate with ponies yet. Might it not lead to greater understanding if you test that out for us?” Her smile suddenly turned sly.

“I don’t think we have to worry, Ebon. We eevees are quite versatile. I’m sure any pony would be happy to be gifted with one to raise and lead into battle!” Glassie thumped her chest and, remembering they were thousands of feet in the air, refrained from doing a flip.

They’ve got a great point, Ebon mentally conceded as he glanced forward to see their pegasus pilot was staying silent, but keeping an ear trained on them. What self-respecting adventurer would say no to raising our offspring? “Aw, heck! I can’t argue with flawless logic like that, you two!” Ebon’s expression grew strained once more. “But you three don’t feel like I’d be a… I dunno, a traitor to all eeveekind or something?”

“Just don’t sleep with anyone we wouldn’t, alright?” Edelweiss put a leg over Glassie’s shoulder who, seeming surprised but happy, returned the favor, nuzzling the leafeon’s cheek.

“I will not betray your trust, ladies.” Ebon lowered his head in offering, the other two doing the same and the three exchanged scents with a long head rub. “We vote on everyone we get intimate with, okay? And none of this supermajority nonsense. It’s unanimous or nothing. Agreed?”

“Okay!” the two replied as one, saluting.

“I hate to interrupt your very interesting discussion, honored eevees, but have a look. We’re nearly in Ponyville!” Storm Wind called back to them.

Edelweiss gasped and pointed off to her right. “Look Ebon! Eeeeveee!” She hopped up and down, making the entire cart sway up and down. “It’s a giant crystal building! Sike must be in the presence of Arceus right now!”

“By the hoar frost of Articuno!” Glassie bellowed. “It looks like it could be made of ice!”

“So it isn’t just Ponyta Pass. Ponies really do live in style!” Ebon exclaimed before howling up at the moon, his eevee friends joining in with howls of their own.

Without warning, the crystal building burst into radiant light; rays of purple, blue and gold shone with such ferocity that Ebon had to cover his eyes.

Streaks of light shot out from the forests on both sides and from the manicured lawns of the crystal building looming ever closer to them, exploding into great balls of colorful light with a clap like Zapdos’s thunder.

Below him, dotting the landscape, Ebon could see them properly now as he averted his gaze downward away from all the light, ponies of every hue looking up at them as they passed. Several of the unicorns even fired their own sparks into the air as they waved up at Team Allure.

“Best… welcome… ever!” Glassie shouted, before giving a triumphant cry.

“Savor it, Glassie. You’ve earned the entrance of a champion.” Edelweiss nuzzled Glassie on the cheek.

Glassie looked back at Edelweiss, looking as if she might cry before managing to speak. “Thank you!”

It’s great to see my friends finally treating each other like friends instead of co-workers for a change! Ebon would relish their makeup sex later.

The chariot did a lap around the building as if showing off its every gleaming facet to the three before the chariot began to descend steadily towards a gathering of ponies at the end of a long, lit path. Edelweiss gave a yip of surprise as the back wheels of the chariot struck the path which yielded slightly to its touch, followed by the front two wheels and four pony hoofbeats muffled by the grass.

Throngs of ponies remained a respectful distance away and continued to cheer and wave as the cart rolled to a stop. One in particular stood out among the others, it was Princess Cadance and next to her stood…

“Sike!” Ebon called to her. She cried back to him in greeting.

“Your Highness! Guests of Twilight Sparkle. I present to you… Team Allure!” Storm Wind called out grandly.

Princess Cadance wrapped Sike in her aura and placed her in the cart with the other three eevees as some of the ponies, including one overly-enthusiastic pink pony, began to blow on some bizarrely shaped double-headed horns. Whatever that meant to the crowd, they seemed to indicate it was now acceptable to approach the cart and observe their guests up close.

What in Giratina’s name am I supposed to say to them? Ebon thought. “Hello, Equestria! I’m Ebon!” Yeah, good enough. Just keep waving at them!

“Oh my gosh! They speak Equish. So cool!” A tiny pony Ebon assumed was a starter form, said.

“So articulate! So distinguished! Look at that dapper gentlecolt with his golden rings.” A fancy pants-wearing stallion with a monocle proclaimed.

“Dude! That Leafeon is far out!” A green earth pony with very prominent eyebrows pointed up at Edelweiss, grinning.

“I love the pink kitty so much! Oh, can I go pet her, mama?” Another small one called out from atop its mother’s back.

“Bold! Ztriking! Look at her icy crown. Zimply ravishing!” A blue earth pony wearing shades over her eyes pointed a strange device at them that emitted puffs of smoke and flashes of light.

Sike’s thoughts forced their way inside of Ebon’s mind. Hey, I’ve seen one of those before, Ebon! It’s a camera from the Edo period of Johto’s history. I’ve only ever seen holo-images of those things. She must be a collector of really old junk…

I’m surprised you’ve seen anything like that, Sike. Johto must be brimming with frightening spirits for you to encounter such intimate details of humanity’s past.

Ebon got a brief mental image of Sike inside of a library, wearing huge wire-framed glasses and filling out a floral dress with her broad Espeon rump. We’ve got a lot to talk about when we get a chance but for the time being, are you ready to join me in clearing this monster house? With kindness?

Sure thing, Ebon. We won’t shirk our work!

Author's Note

Welcome back, readers! If you haven't already, have a peek at the earlier chapters. I changed things here or there.

Ghosts and Gateways

Author's Note

Hey readers. I know you want to get to the chapter itself but I have some updates and warnings to get through first. There's more M/M fantasizing this chapter, even if I think everyone still reading this is okay with the gay. Regardless, you have been warned.

Second, a reminder that this Cadance is not the one in the show. She isn't canon beyond season 2 and questionably so before that. This is an alternate universe story because I felt like I needed to write this outside of the canon to make it all blend properly.
So please disregard "The Crystalling" from Season 6 Episode 1 before continuing.

With that out of the way, enjoy!

2/21/2024: Edits made. Everything is 2024 compliant now. I'll continue to work on this story soon.

Ghosts and Gateways

Breakfast had been cleared out and replaced with lunch as Team Allure and their pony hosts showed off their best moves.

Ebon himself had suggested the idea as a way to attract the less martially-inclined ponies in attendance a chance to appreciate a more non-violent display of pokémon strength — to say nothing of it being a way to blow off some steam.

Cadance didn’t seem to think another duel was advisable, not after seeing Glassie get severely burned and one of her soldiers get knocked out cold. To the disappointment of Ebon, she didn’t allow another fight to take place afterwards, preferring to use the arena for non-violent displays of might and magic.

“No worries. It’s no use battling on a full stomach anyway!” Glassie said, after hearing the bad news from Cadance.

Ebon knew she didn’t mean it, but he couldn't help but be relieved. It had been a nasty-looking burn and glaceons in general just didn’t handle fire damage well. She wasn’t called ‘Glassie’ for no reason, being a strong but brittle fighter.

The sun was high in the sky by the time Sike updated Ebon about the return trip to camp, and while he felt some concern, time had passed quickly for the fun the feasting and festivities had brought.

The ponies are going to keep watch over our camp while we’re gone. Somehow, it just feels wrong to leave it entirely unguarded, you know? she had informed her leader. Much to Ebon’s chagrin, that was about all she told him, with her updates being sparse at best. He supposed maybe sending telepathic signals over such a distance every hour was taxing.

A bubbling pit formed inside Ebon’s stomach at her words; one that may or may not have been related to overdoing it on poffins. He’d found room for the salads and fancy bread pushed his way by the ponies between demonstrations of each creature’s unique abilities, at the cost of indigestion. Ebon wasn’t proud to admit it, but he did tend to overeat when he was nervous.

And that’s how his sister came to be standing in the area, ready to show her moves to the assembled ponies, Ebon gnawing on some crusty bread as he watched.

Edelweiss had the ponies toss chunks of their crusty bread into the air for her to slice through with leafy blades launched from the two long tendrils on her back buried beneath her tan coat. The ponies demonstrated their appreciation by stamping their forehooves on their tables.

“She never misses, does that one! And she even speared a moving target!” said one particularly excited unicorn with a bag filled with pointed sticks on her back; Ebon surmised they were intended to be launched by the wood and string contraption that sat next to her in its case.

“Just because I’m peaceful doesn’t mean I’m harmless!” Edelweiss said haughtily before selecting a nearby patch of sunlight to lie in, lounging out within it to recharge.

“You think that’s awesome? Watch this!” said a stallion with neither wings nor horn, clad in heavy plate armor — larger and more powerfully built than the other two species. “I’m going to show these pokémon why we’re called ‘earth ponies!’”

“I suppose you're going to want the largest boulder conceivable for this stunt of yours, eh Cold Steel?” Aura Edge asked from the crowd.

“Natch!” he replied, airily.

“Alright, buster. You asked for it!” Aura signaled to two other unicorns to help her begin channeling some sort of spell. Within seconds, a boulder about three times the size of the stallion was floating from the mountain range across the moat, carried by three beams from the unicorn's horns. “Now launch it, Steely!”

Ebon and the two other pokémon cried out “no!” in shock as the unicorns launched the enormous boulder straight at the defenseless stallion who had by now turned his back to the unicorn assailants.

Expecting the worst, the stallion gave a powerful buck with his hind legs that shattered the stone into many tiny fragments which sprayed, shrapnel-like across the active magical field.

The crowd cheered with gusto, Ebon among them howling his approval and beating his front paws against the barrier.

“Now that is my kind of guy!” Ebon shouted ecstatically, his arousal barely concealed beneath his belly.

Several mares started laughing and having stood up on his hind legs, Ebon realized he’d been exposing himself to dozens of ponies, including Cold Steel himself whose face turned pink at the sight.

Ebon said nothing but dropped to his belly until his erection went down.

Eventually, they’ll all have to forget the inappropriate thing they’ve just seen… right? Ebon lied to himself, hoping for the best.

“My turn!” Glassie took her place in the circled-off arena and walked importantly to the center of it. “Behold, ponies. Here is a mere sample of what a glaceon can do!” Her body stiffened and her tail arched up as she focused all of her considerable power into a single fell stroke, chilling the air in the clearing until it was filled with puffs of steamy breath and pony figures trembling from the cold.

Edelweiss grumbled —“show off!”— and walked back over to Ebon, pressing her body against his. Ebon grinned and nuzzled her on the cheek.

“By the sun! Is she… controlling the weather?” A nearby pegasus muttered.

Glassie glanced at him and smirked. Instead of replying directly, she answered with her power as a powerful gust of wind began to blow through the chamber, and soon the air was filled with perfect powdery snow.

“Great form, Glassie! You still have what it takes to work at a ski resort!” Edelweiss called out to her sarcastically.

“Heed not the insults leveled by our resident grass-type,” Glassie shot back Edelweiss a stern look before returning her gaze to the pony crowd. “For such abilities as I possess can take on a far more dangerous form.”

“Hey! This isn’t Hearth’s Warming!” one complained, as far from the positive reception Edelweiss received, the ponies had not seemed to appreciate the sudden onset of winter. They began tossing their tails to and fro, whinnying loudly and snorting their apparent disapproval.

“Not if it ruins my hot tomato soup lunch!” An aggressive-looking pegasus mare with a close-cropped pink mane and tail launched herself into the air and began somehow destroying the banks of clouds Glassie had created by simply punching or kicking them. She was met by several other winged figures in the sky, and within ten seconds flat, the sky was cleared. To Glassie’s further chagrin, their efforts quickly turned the air warm again, leaving only a melting layer of snow to mark Glassie’s efforts.

The ponies began to cheer and stamp their hooves again joined by Edelweiss who cheered the most loudly of them all.

Dejected and with her ears hanging low at her side, Glassie returned to sit next to Ebon. “Fickle crowd…”

“In fairness, you might have warned the ponies before you changed the weather,” Ebon said, though he couldn’t help but note that the winged ponies could apparently control the weather as good as or even better than any of eevee's evolutions.

“And your friends!” Edelweiss shook the slush from her back, turning the wet surface to face the sun.

Ebon looked back at the pony Princess who forced a smile mid-grimace, flicking the melted snow from her feathery wings, when she noticed the umbreon was looking at her. “My apologies if we somehow offended you, Princess Cadance. And please pardon my curiosity, but can all pegasi change the weather like that?”

“To the extent, they desire to learn how, yes.” Cadance took her crown in both forehooves and blew the snow off before returning it to her head. “They all have the potential to do so, but all citizens of The Crystal Empire and Equestria are left to choose their own paths. Many instead choose to focus on issues closer to the ground. I know one who became a keeper and helper of animals, for example.”

Ebon nodded. “So they’re like city pokémon. I have a flareon cousin who generates electricity using a steam engine working in Kanto. I’ve seen him at it; he and nine other flareons with an equal number of vaporeons powering an entire town by themselves.” Ebon shivered slightly, as if a ghost-type had flown through him. “Cities are crazy places.”

“Don’t forget those hardworking leafeons out there keeping the air clean and the soil healthy,” Edelweiss chimed in. “Not that I’d know, though. I’m a country girl; always have been and always will be. Right, country boy?”

“You said it!” Ebon pressed his paw into his sister's, squeezing it gently.

“You sound like a certain earth pony I’ve met, Edelweiss,” a smiling Cadance said. “And you’ll get to meet her soon enough. I guess you could say there’s a lot of grass-type in her as well.”

Glassie cleared her throat, making Ebon turn his head. She’d been so quiet, he’d forgotten she was even there.

“Sorry about the, uh, snow back there,” Glassie said meekly, looking up at Cadance. “I guess I got a little carried away.”

“Oh, what’s a little weather between friends?” Cadance giggled. “Apology accepted!”

Far from showing relief, Glassie appeared as gloomy as ever. “To be honest, Cadance, I’m not much of a smooth-talker and I’m not great with social cues. I pretty much just exist to bleed and breed.”

“Oh, Glassie…” Edelweiss threw her tail over the glaceon’s back, massaging it reassuringly. “You’re not that bad. Well, not mostly…”

Thanks, sis. Very convincing. Ebon thought to himself. “Glassie, you’re coming with us. Don’t even try to talk yourself out of it. Think about what Sike would say to see her hero turning down a chance to improve herself.”

“But I’m not nice, Ebon. I’m ice!” Glassie protested. “I’m hard, jagged and unpleasant.”

“And certain Pokémon have told me I look like I’m going murder them in my sleep,” Ebon replied. “But do you see me doubting myself?”

“You? Oh, you’re just a big, black huggable kitty cat, Ebon!” Glassie sat on her rump with her forelegs folded, a supremely adorable pout on her face. “Of course, the ponies will like you.”

“Well, what about Sike?” Ebon asked. “You remember what she was like, but even she could adapt and overcome. And besides, isn’t change what being an eevee is really all about?”

Cadance gave Ebon a wry look. “Well said, Ebon. It’s good to see you take your own advice to heart.”

Edelweiss giggled into her paw while Ebon felt his face begin to warm.

Before he could think to say something else, there was a sound of four dainty paws sprinting across the grassy field. “Hey guys, I’m back!” Sike ran up to the three eeveelutions, her round, alluring body a scene of constant motion as her large ears, cheek tufts, scrumptious roll of back fat, and forked tail bounded and swayed to the rhythm of four dainty paws beating, catlike, across the snowy field. “Awwh! I missed the chance to speak with Cadance!”

Ebon looked up at where Cadance had been standing only to realize that she was no longer there. For a big gal, she sure can make a silent exit. Ebon thought to himself.

Edelweiss put a paw to her chin. “I can’t be sure but I almost feel like she’s giving us space on purpose now that we’re here so we can talk privately.”

Sike’s eyeridges furrowed, and waving her forked tail behind her, she gazed intently at the pink Princess. “Wow, Edelweiss! You knew all that without being psychic!”

Ebon chuckled into his paw, knowing the reclusive psychic had been entirely sincere.

Glassie patted the espeon on the head. “That’s our Sike! So don't keep us in suspense. Tell us everything!”

“Ehh, limit everything to the pertinent details, just to be precise,” Edelweiss cut in.

“Run into any difficulties securing the camp and sending our letter to Treasure Town?” Ebon asked, trying to sound all business again.

Sike’s ears drooped, her face downcast. “So much pressure, I could dig a hole and hide right here! But no. The guards flew me down to the base — two big steel-covered earth pony stallions — and let me take care of it. They said some stuff about how clean and orderly we’d kept our camp and even offered to look after it for us while we were away. They seemed nice, so I took it.”

“I wouldn’t have given away our position so easily,” Glassie said with an air of unease. “But they must have left quite a positive impression on you to gain your trust so easily.” Sike nodded back at her in response.

Maybe it was a bad idea to send her off alone while wearing that pink stone that makes her so suggestable, Ebon cursed himself silently; the thought hadn’t even occurred to him until that very moment. “Then you sent a letter back to Treasure Town?”

“Oh, you bet I did. A real novel, too! I haven’t been this inspired to write in a very long time.” Sike’s tail glided spiritlike across the surface of the grass, sending ponies scrambling to avoid the moist spray of melted snow being flicked in their direction. “I told them all about the ponies and our camp and my pretty new love stone and I… may have mentioned having sex with you and Glassie — I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself, I’m still so happy! — and…”

“Whoa, whoa!” Ebon held out an extended paw. “That’s pretty TMI, don’t you think?”

“Please tell me you don’t mention all sex that goes on as a rule, do you?” Edelweiss winced slightly as she spoke.

Ebon couldn’t blame her. She’d surely known about him and Edelweiss sleeping together, and he wasn’t entirely clear what Glassie knew or thought about it, let alone relative strangers now thousands of miles away.

“I guess when you put it that way…” Sike looked uncomfortable for a moment. “It’s just that I hear Temujina loves her gossip and I’ve never really felt close enough with her to talk about such things, you know?”

Ebon slapped a paw to his forehead. “That’s even more reason not to tell her, Sike!”

Glassie stretched her legs and let out a low growl. “While I’m glad to know my sexual exploits are the talk of the Guild, I’m not so sure it was a good idea to mention the ponies, Sike.”

“But why not?” Sike asked in perfect earnestness, to which Ebon grimaced.

“Because the news will spread to those we’d rather not know about it. Not yet, anyway…” Ebon remarked, his expression grim.

“Hmph!” Edelweiss tossed her head back defiantly, causing the long leaf atop her head to quiver. “Who cares what they think?”

Ebon narrowed his eyes at her. “We’re not going to have a theological discussion over the Creators right now, but they’re something we need to consider as a possible problem… to say nothing of certain mythical pokémon we’ve had run-ins with, recently.”

Edelweiss looked like she was going to retort but bit back her words. “Fine…”

Glassie arched an eyebrow at Ebon and Edelweiss while Sike simply frowned.

Ebon sighed and rubbed the back of one of his long ears. “Ultimately, this is all my fault, team. Don’t worry about the letter, Sike. I should have been more explicit in my instructions.”

Sike walked up and gently nuzzled Ebon’s well-muscled belly. “Ebon… I’m worried about the bully pokémon too. But we can’t hold anything back from our folks back home. They deserve to-”

“Sike!” Ebon snapped, causing the espeon to shrink back in apparent fear. “I would appreciate it if you don’t label the champions of our race as ‘bullies’.”

Ebon felt the weight of shame come down on him as he beheld his eevee friend back slowly away from him. "I'm a fool, Sike. I should not have raised my voice in anger. Please accept my apology."

Sike eyed him warily for a moment.

Ebon put on his biggest smile. "Please, Sike?"

Sike closed her eyes momentarily and Ebon could feel his mind receiving a very thorough scan. Seemingly satisfied that his apology was genuine, she smiled back at him.

"Apology accepted," Sike replied, the two sharing a one-legged hug.

“You’ll have to excuse, Ebon,” Edelweiss told Sike, “Mythics and Legendaries are a touchy subject for him.”

Ebon didn’t appreciate his sister’s patronizing tone but made no mention of it. “At any rate, the Legendaries are a discussion for another time. Sike, grab some lunch and we’ll head to this portal. I’m anxious to get started.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I ate back at camp.” Sike winked at Ebon before speaking directly into his mind. And don’t worry about your little secret. I didn’t tell Glassie about Edelweiss, but I also don’t think she’d mind the fact that you’re sleeping with your sister based on what I know about her now.

Ebon glanced over at Glassie and flushed, covering both of his eyes with his paws. Sike, sometimes I think you could give Darkrai himself a nightmare.

“Hey, what is this about? What did I do wrong now?” Glassie shouted. Ebon peeked out to see her stomping one paw into the grass, making him suspect Glassie thought the pair were having an unflattering telepathic conversation about her.

I’ll take that as a compliment, boss! Sike replied sweetly before Ebon heard Edelweiss politely cough.

Edelweiss tsked at her espeon teammate. “Sike, you’re doing it to him again, aren’t you? Come on, Equestria is waiting for us! There are flowers to buy, ponies to see, berries to eat, and who knows what kind of treasures we’ll find?”

“I just want to find the largest, most powerful creature there and knock it out!” Glassie jumped up onto her hind legs, bearing her fangs and claws before splashing back down with her front legs into the soupy wet grass. “They will call Team Allure the best. Like no one ever was.”

“We will heal their stricken forests from blight and save their people from darkness!” Edelweiss chimed in.

“We will seek out the long-eared damsel and win her affection!” Ebon said, puffing out his chest.

Sike withdrew the pink stone from her fluffy chest and caressed its shimmering surface. “We will learn of the magic called ‘Harmony’.”

“Indeed you will!” Cadance, having approached silently, made all four of them turn their heads to face her. “Are you ready?”

After a glance at his teammates, Ebon nodded.

Cadance beckoned the four to follow with a wave of her hoof. “Then let us be off! Right this way, Team Allure.”

“Coming, Princess.” Their talk done, Ebon found his attention returning to their surroundings, including and most notably the overhead glow he'd noticed before. He found he couldn’t take his eyes off the ribbons of light in the sky, their pastel ribbons twisting and undulating across the sunny expanse; as they drew closer, they could hear a slight hum that seemed to emit from the central spire itself.

“Oh, Ebon! My stone is reacting to the tower!” Ebon could see Sike clutching at the stone which now glowed enough to cast all three of them in its pinkish hue.

“I can feel it too,” Ebon replied. “It’s like the warmth of the sun but it warms me from the inside!”

The skin beneath his fur tingled pleasantly, reminding him of the restorative sensation he felt basking beneath the moon after a long, difficult day.

Ebon quickly realized that he wasn’t the only one who felt that way as he looked over at Edelweiss. Her grassy back tendrils stretched above her and waved idly like a field of cornflowers, seemingly soaking up the magical radiation. Seemingly finding it every bit as invigorating as he did, she walked forward with her eyes closed, her mouth curved into a smile.

Even Glassie couldn’t resist, grinning proudly with her long, diamond-shaped tail suspended high above her head, seemingly basking in the flow of power and giving whoever was standing behind her a great look at her frosty fun holes. Ebon couldn’t help but be slightly jealous, being almost half a day since his last sexual experience — a lifetime by his standards.

“I see you four, like many ponies, draw strength from the Aurora Crystialis,” Cadance said, looking back at Ebon. “Not that there was any doubt you could, after you managed to draw love from the crystal remnant you collected.”

The sound of two heavy doors sliding brought Ebon’s attention to the tower’s entrance, now opened before him and leading into a room filled with shimmering bright lights. Ebon squinted his eyes before shielding them with his paw. “What in Arceus are you ponies keeping in there?” He asked.

“It looks like you keep your own sun there!” Edelweiss squeaked excitedly.

“Or a battery to power the whole universe!” Ebon saw his eevee friend was likewise shielding her eyes, though with her tail instead of her paw.

“Or a god-killing death ray!” Glassie said in awe, earning an odd look from Edelweiss. “What? I’ve read stories like that. I can read, you know!”

“I don’t think so. Looks more like the entrance to some sort of interdimensional rocket ship or something,” Ebon grumbled, still shielding his eyes.

Cadance laughed at their banter. “You four are too much! But I suppose we did overdo it a bit with the brightness. I’ll correct your eyes if it hurts to look at.”

“Thank you, Miss Cadance,” Ebon replied, somewhat constrained as his eyes began to water. “But only if it isn’t too much trouble. We’re not used to looking at something this… pastel.”

Ebon felt a sensation like an invisible blanket falling over his head, obscuring and darkening his vision for just a split second before he could see again with perfect clarity. Everything now appeared as if being seen through a blue-tinted mirror. Better yet, the harsh glare of the interior of the castle disappeared, replaced by an incredible sight.

The three girl mons all “oohed” simultaneously, to no surprise as far as Ebon was concerned. It was all he could do not to emit the same call as beheld the vast chamber covered in blue and purple crystals. The floor was as blue as a glacial cavern and equally as hard and smooth, while doors of solid amethyst lined the walls in every direction leading no doubt to treasures untold.

Or maybe buckets and mops? Even ponies have to clean their extravagant dwellings sometimes, Ebon thought to himself with a grin.

But the wonders didn’t end there. Jagged pillars of lapis lazuli spanned from floor to vaulted ceiling, extending perhaps thirty feet up by the umbreon’s reckoning. Oppressive bright lamps embedded into the ceiling had been carved from the largest diamonds known to pokékind, bathed the room in harsh, white light — accentuated by a pastel gleam completely foreign to anything Ebon had ever witnessed in all Pokémon World. “By Arceus himself… we aren’t traveling to a new universe… we’ve already stepped into one!” Ebon exclaimed, taking in more of the room’s detail.

Bisecting the room was a long hallway, adorned by plush, red couches long enough to comfortably seat three fully-grown arcanines with room to spare. No small feat considering the arcanine stood fully two feet taller than Cadance and probably weighed twice as much. The males were also extremely well-endowed, to put it mildly. But before Ebon could imagine what it’d feel like to try to fit one inside of his rarely-explored tailhole, his fantasy was interrupted by Glassie talking.

“I now understand why no one has sought to drive you out of the mountains yet, Princess. They took one look in here and went blind.”

Ebon clenched his teeth, sucking air slightly between them and creating an audible hiss, while Edelweiss put a paw to her forehead as Sike merely glared. We can't take her anywhere! The latter thought to Ebon, leaving him reflecting it had seemingly taken Glassie mere minutes to forget her earlier lesson about not offending others.

Cadance snorted before busting out in a fit of laughter. “I appreciate your candor, Glassie. You are truly irrepressible! Thing is, you get used to the brightness where I come from. All of our buildings look like this. Even some of the ponies have a crystal glow.”

Ebon wiped his forehead as Sike and Edelweiss breathed a sigh of relief. "Crisis averted", he muttered to himself under his breath.

“Your ponies glow, Princess?” Sike asked. “You mean like Ebon?”

Cadance looked thoughtful for a moment, her eyeridges furrowing slightly. “Ebon only glows from the rings, right?” Ebon nodded back at her. “And he can turn this glow on and off. Crystal ponies are permanently enchanted by the Crystal Heart to glow.

“All the time?” Glassie asked. “They can’t turn that off when they go to sleep?

“Even while wearing clothes,” Cadance elaborated. “You can even see straight through them… but don’t get the wrong idea, Ebon. You can’t see beneath their fur or clothes if they’re wearing it; you just see what’s behind them.”

“Like a ghost-type!” Sike said in a high-pitched squeal while Ebon reserved the thought that Sike had good reason to fear ghosts, having a psychic typing.

“Funny you should put it that way, Sike,” Cadance said as if something had just occurred to her. “We’re not in any sort of hurry, are we? Let’s have a seat so we can talk about the citizens of my country for a bit.”

“It’d be a shame to waste perfectly good couches, so why not?” Ebon replied with a toothy smile.

The four made themselves comfortable. Ebon supposing idly that the wait to go to Equestria must be a real headache if the hallway needed its own couches. At least they were a convenience to them now.

Once Cadance had achieved what Ebon assumed to be an ideally elegant pose with her two forehooves dangling just right from the comfy couch, she addressed Team Allure. “The Crystal Ponies are immortals who existed long before my birth. They were chained to mortality by a very nasty unicorn named Sombra who enslaved the ponies using powerful dark magic and forced them to mine gems day and night.”

Edelweiss winced hard.“Yikes! Not all harmony and good times in Equestria, huh?”

Cadance sighed. “It’s not a paradise world, no. There are bad ponies just like there are bad pokémon. We do what we can, but evil holds ground, often for longer than good would like.”

“How long did evil hold those poor ponies, Cadance?” Ebon asked.

“For hundreds of years. Until Equestrians defeated Sombra and ended the ponies’ slavery, they were in a hard place, immortals with broken minds and bodies weakened from exhaustion,” Cadance continued. “I created the Crystal Heart as a way to aid in the healing process, strengthening and bringing joy to Sombra’s victims, but in the process, it also affected their bodies. They now carry with them the beauty of their youth despite being older than even they can remember.”

“So they can’t die, still?” Glassie asked. “I don’t know how I feel about that…”

“But they can still produce new life, right?” Edelweiss asked, with an air of false confidence.

Ebon knew what she was thinking because he was thinking it too. That these ponies weren’t ‘alive’ in the traditional sense. And if they weren’t…

Cadance looked back at Edelweiss and Ebon could see, for the first time, the centuries of painful experience behind the Princess’s gaze. “There hasn’t been a single recorded birth in the entire written history of the Crystal Empire. Well… not until I had my foal.”

“I’m sorry, Princess…” Edelweiss’s ears wilted.

“Don’t be, Edelweiss. My ponies make good use of their immortality to learn and create and grow as individuals. They still have a reason to exist that keeps them thriving.” Cadance pumped one hoof into the air, grinning. “That said if I could have it be any other way, I would change this unfortunate limitation. But as my reign over the Crystal Kingdom is still young, perhaps one day, arcane science will make that dream come true.”

I don’t think there’s a cure for death, Princess, Ebon thought to himself. That poor mare, I can only imagine how awkward it is to talk about her foal around them.

I don’t envy her. But she really does love her citizens. And they love her back, Sike thought to Ebon. I can get a fleeting image of what they look like from her memories. They’re… gorgeous! They don’t look anything like ghost-types in our world. That said, I’m feeling a bit nervous about meeting them and saying the wrong thing.

You and me both, Sike, Ebon granted, grateful the Princess couldn’t eavesdrop on their telepathic exchanges.

“Well, that was a nice rest. And hopefully, you are now more informed about the Kingdom I rule So, shall we be going?” Cadance gestured towards the door at the end of the hall.

“Sounds good, Cadance. Let’s go,” Ebon said, the four walking two by two through the curtained doorway.

The five of them were suddenly standing in what appeared to be the center of the tall spire spraying the pastel aurora out into the sky, attached separately from the rest of the building the way the island stood in the center of the mountain range they were situated on. Where Ebon had been expecting more colorful crystal, the shaft of the tower was composed of a shiny, gray metal shell bracketing a pillar of milky, opaque quartz wreathed in shimmering white sparks that pulsed from the bottom of the shaft to the top.

The fur on Ebon’s back stood straight up as the tingling in his skin grew stronger in proportion to the growing anxiety within him. He made a futile attempt to dig his claws into the floor only to dull their razor-sharp tips. More shiny metal objects lined the room's walls; they appeared to be connected by wires to an equally shiny box lit by many gemstones.

Next to Ebon, he noticed his sister’s wilted demeanor — tendrils hanging limp at her sides like the branches of a weeping willow. She looked over at him, anxiously. Suddenly her tendrils sprung to life and Ebon was being pulled towards his sister who embraced him tightly in her trembling grasp.

“Ebon, Edelweiss… are you two okay?” Sike surveyed the pair of them with her head cocked to one side.

“This place is… a human laboratory!” Ebon gasped before burying his muzzle into his sister’s grassy dorsal mane, the scent of chlorophyll bringing him some semblance of relief.

Glassie prodded at Ebon’s back but he and his sister remained on the floor shivering.

“Oh my! You must be thinking the worst right now!” Cadance spoke from above Team Allure’s cowering commander and quaking quartermaster. “Wait, did you say something about a… human!?”

But far from being alarmed, Glassie cackled with glee, bringing Ebon a moment of wanting to smack his arena-loving assistant upside the head. “You’ll have to forgive them, Princess. Ebon and Edelweiss are country eevees; they’re strong but very superstitious.”

“But why? I don’t understand! I mean, we traveled through cities and wilds to get here, but they didn’t freak out like this!” Sike prodded Ebon’s belly with her tail.

“I’m sorry but I really have no idea what you’re going on about,” Cadance said in what sounded like sincere confusion. “Are you talking about the mythological talking apes you read about in comic books?”

She really doesn't know. All this time in the realm of pokémon and she doesn't know what a human is? Ebon thought to himself before tearing himself away from his sanctuary of sisterly love to look up at the Pink Princess. “This place… was it built by humans? Please, tell us! Human dwellings are cursed!”

“I guess it does sort of look like a laboratory, now that he mentions it…” Sike looked around at the room. “Should I be cowering too?”

“No!” Glassie shouted, shooting metaphorical icy daggers at Ebon with her eyes.

“If it eases your mind, Ebon, ponies built this place on top of the mystery dungeon located here. It’s one of the few permanent structures on this mountain.” Cadance lifted Ebon and Edelweiss up with her magical aura — Arceus, she is a strong one! Ebon thought to himself — “As far as any of our exploring parties know, your world is entirely made up of pokémon. There is no such thing as a ‘human’.”

Ebon sighed, forcing back the shame welling up inside of him to face Cadance properly. His sister’s tendrils were still gripping him tightly. He stroked them lovingly with the pads of his two free paws. “Humans haven’t existed in thousands of years but we pokémon will forever live in the shadows of their tombs. Their souls dwell here still. They are always watching us, Cadance. My sister and I do not wish to disrespect their resting places.”

“You never told us, Ebon!” Sike wailed. “I would have never asked you to travel through cities to save time if I knew how you felt about them.”

“It sounds silly, we know,” Edelweiss finally slacked her grip on Ebon, her tendrils falling to the floor with an audible ‘thunk’. “We like technology too, Sike. It’s just really intense to have such a strong reminder of it dropped on you like we just did.”

“My, my, my,” Cadance shook her head slowly. “To think that mythological creatures once lived in alternate universes! Wait until our ponies hear about this!”

Ebon looked over at Sike who looked ready to say something and shook his head once to each side. Not yet, Sike. I’m not ready to tell them more. Don’t forget about our mission.

I understand, Ebon, even if I don’t completely agree with you this time. Sike replied mentally before turning her attention back to the crystal pillar. “So, this is the room that’s going to send us to Equestria?”

“That it is!” Cadance said, walked up to one of the strange, corded metal boxes and stood behind it. Ebon spared the box a curious glance; it had a blinking light, a bunch of switches and dials, and a huge red button. “It’s really simple to use. I just tell the machine how many objects are going through and it creates a mirror spell in front of that pillar marked by that lovely Saddle Arabian rug on the floor.”

“Is this… going to be safe?” Sike looked over at Ebon and scowled.

It would be helpful if I could tell the Princess about the human-to-pokémon transformations that might see us get transformed into ponies once we arrive, Ebon! Sikemessaged, sounding more threatening than he’d ever known her to be.

Stay cool, Sike. They don’t have humans there and probably no Arceus either. And they didn’t transform into us when they came here… right?

“Of course, it’s safe! We’ve been using it ourselves for many years.” Cadance replied to Sike. "Though, there is a chance you may turn from Pokemon into ponies on the other side. That happened to us in reverse when we came here initially."

Ebon grinned back at Sike, guiltily. Let me guess, the guards told you and you forgot to tell me?

Sike rolled her eyes in response.

“It’s only temporary, though. Well, I’ve been told the odds are pretty high you’ll switch back to a pokémon if we did send you back. Look, I’m not a scientist or anything but we haven’t vaporized anything into a fine mist yet!” Cadance insisted, the barest hint of a teasing tone in her voice.

She’s joking. See, Sike? We’ll be fine! Ebon thought to Sike.

Sike looked back at Ebon, seemingly resigned to her fate. I hope so, Ebon. But since you’re our fearless leader, you should go first!

Ebon smiled, deciding that she was right — it was a duty that fell to him and nobody else. “We trust you, Cadance. In fact, I volunteer myself to be the first pokémon to go through!” Ebon thumped his chest, smiling. “I’m harder to kill!”

“Now that’s the Ebon we know and love!” Glassie returned the chest-thumping gesture. “Show that technology who’s boss!”

“In that case, step forward, Ebon,” Cadance invited.

The humming from the pillar grew in intensity, the rolling wave of sparks intensifying briefly before calming back down. And then a circular spiral opening in the space in front of him appeared, hovering over the decorative carpet in front of the pillar and swirling like a vertical whirlpool. Quaint pink and yellow wooden houses with thatched straw roofs appeared in front of him within the semi-translucent vortex, along with a single dirt road.

The scene looked strangely copasetic for an alien dimension. He had the passing thought that it might even be a good place to raise an eevee.

Despite that, Ebon found that he had to muster his courage before he took a step closer to the swirling mass. It seemed safe; he could make out tall hills now and what looked like full-blown snow-capped mountains in the far distance. Trees and wildflowers dotted the landscape and as he watched, birds and even a butterfly flew by. It looked like paradise!

It could be an illusion. Maybe it was all a trap but the promise of hope compelled Ebon forward one step at a time. He stopped briefly just before the edge of the portal to take one last look back at his team — his comrades, friends and lovers. I promised Glassie sex tonight and to take things further with Edelweiss. Even now, Sike is carrying our egg. Our firstborn. I’m not going to leave her without a father, so whatever happens to me in there, I will survive. For you three.

Bowing his head, to the trio, he turned back to the portal and stuck his paw curiously into the visible outline of the portal, and instantly, he felt an invisible cord wrap itself around his body. Whatever their nature, he had no chance to resist them before they yanked him through, plunging him into not just a vortex, but an overwhelming maelstrom of swirling energy.