Author's Note

Twilight finds a couple of volunteers to help with this entry. Wonder if big sis will let her little sis help ever again after this.

Couples Chimera

“Are you sure this is safe Twilight?” Applejack asked as the three ponies walked into the Fire Swamp. Twilight was there with her camera and her notebook. Applejack was with her because she knew the area and would be part of this experiment. The third pony was younger and had volunteered.

“O’course it is AJ. Twilight wouldn’t lie to ya.” Applebloom said as she walked along beside her sister. “B’sides. Ya know Catrina got three heads an two of ‘em is predators. We brought the cheese fer the goat, but th’ other two heads is getting’ us this time.”

Applejack groaned a little, still not entirely sure bringing Applebloom along as “snake food” was the safest idea. Even if Catrina was smart enough to know it was for a book. Twilight looked at her friend and nodded. She wouldn’t let anything happen to Applebloom and if things got too dangerous, the little filly would be the first one teleported home. Applejack finally sighed and looked straight ahead.

“Alright ya big varmint! Git out here and face us like a pony. Or are ya too much of a scared little pussy cat!?” Applejack shouted and Twilight immediately dove for a bush. Applejack had the gouda for the goat. She also knew that provoking Catrina would get her to do what they wanted her to do.

A roar behind her nearly made Twilight jump out of the bush she’d found as a massive shape leapt over her, growling, hissing and bleating. “Rude little pest. I’ll devour you whole!” the tiger yelled and Applejack threw the gouda at the goat head. As predicted, the goat snatched the gouda out of the air mid lunge and Applejack pushed Applebloom out of the way as the tiger head wrapped around the older pony.

Applebloom, of course, panicked seeing her sister swallowed whole and jumped at the big cat. Just as they’d planned. The snake head swung around and bit Applebloom’s leg. Extensive research on the denizens of the Fire Swamp assured Twilight that the snake wasn’t venomous. It was a paralytic bite. Sure enough, the filly fell to the mud in a stiff heap. The tiger started to go for her only for the snake to hiss at her. “Thisss one is mine, ssssissster. You got the big one.” the snake said and quickly snagged Applebloom’s head in her maw. Twilight remained silent, watching the whole thing and taking notes with her magic.

Twilight watched, slightly shivering, as the snake swallowed Applebloom whole. The bulge of the little filly traveled down the throat and into the belly, causing it to bulge out more with the two mares inside. Now Twilight had to wait until Applebloom’s paralysis wore off or the teleport could actually hurt her. She knew how long it would take, so she kept her notes close to her as she counted. No internal shots yet… but she was sure Catrina would be hungry again soon.

A minute later, Twilight’s horn lit, and the two ponies were teleported out of her and off to safety, arriving in the carriage they’d rode here in. The guards who pulled the carriage knew to wait. They knew what was happening. As soon as the chimera’s belly was flat again, the snake started complaining. “You digessssted them to fasssst, Sisssster. We didn’t get to enjoy them.”

“How about me?” Twilight asked as she stepped out of the bush, her notebook clutched to her chest and invisible so they wouldn’t see it. Her camera had been ditched for a magical contact over her eye that would record everything.

“You’ll do.” The tiger head said as she lunged. Twilight stood still, pretending to be too afraid to run, as the maw came down around her. Just like Applejack. The contact lit her eye and the surrounding maw as soon as it was in darkness and recorded the process. The undulating throat muscles as the big cat swallowed her, all the way to the tight sphincter in front of her opening to accept her into its now hungry belly.

As soon as she touched down in acid, she cast her resistance spell, wrote her notes, and waited. The spell would last at least four minutes, long enough for the chimera to figure out something was wrong. The intention was to see if this magical beast would be able to adjust the acidity of its stomach acids. Living somewhere as dangerous as the Fire Swamp, with creatures with hides thick enough to withstand the flames these swamps belched out, it would be nice to know if the predators that lived here could magically adjust their stomachs acidity to break down those tough hides.

Four minutes passed and Twilight noticed a sting on her left hoof. Her bubble had failed. Chimeras could adjust the acidity of their stomachs. Teleporting out, Twilight found herself back where they’d been with no Chimera in sight. She’d walked off somewhere else after downing Twilight, possibly thinking there might be another unicorn nearby to get her out too. Looking off in the direction she assumed Catrina had wandered off too, Twilight promptly headed the opposite direction.

Her horn wasn’t wasted but she had to wait for a spell before teleporting again.

While she walked, she compiled her mental notes into written words.

“The multiple heads of a Chimera lead to the same stomach, as observed with the aid of assistants. As the goat head of the Chimera is strictly vegetarian, it had to be distracted with its favorite snack, Gouda Cheese, in order to get the other two heads to act.

“The snake head on the Fire Swamp variety of Chimera is venomous. It does not appear to be a deteriorating variation of venom and merely a paralytic sort, meant to make swallowing prey easier. As the snake head is also the tail of the chimera, it has a much smaller entrance into the stomach and cannot swallow something much larger than a filly.

“The tiger head, present in most Equestrian Chimera, is fully capable of swallowing an adult pony whole in a single bite. Its fangs are bult to tear through flesh and bone, but swallowing its prey whole seems to be the preferred method. Due to the intelligence of the Chimera, it can be assumed it does this because it gets a sort of pleasure from the pleading of its prey.

“Further observation of the Chimera’s stomach proved that it could adjust the acidity of its stomach acids to break down the most stubborn of prey. Life in the Fire Swamp, among creatures who adapted to withstand the boiling temperatures of the waters as well as the occasional gout of fire from the ground itself, has made the Chimera evolve to make itself the top predator of the swamp. Without a testing strip, the acidity of the stomach acids could not be ascertained. From a guess, they can become hot enough to melt stone. As such, bone would be no problem.

“That could be why there aren’t any bones in the Fire Swamp. Many a creature is preyed upon by the Chimera and if their acids are strong enough to melt bone, there would be no bones to leave behind.”