A Conspiracy of Order

Awareness came with the slow withdrawal of the Nest tendril in her ass. Rarity-Drone blinked; her eyes had been open all night, and the host needed to have them moisturized again so she could see properly now that she was conscious. As she blinked, slowly, deliberately, the tendril flicked out of her raised hole, the ridged rim of her other hole flexing and closing slowly as her body was brought to awareness.

The familiar tingling of downloaded plans and ideas itched and tickled at the back of her mind where the parasite was integrating it into the host memory. They would come out when needed, probably during the day when she wasn’t dealing with customers. There were many outfits to be made, many fashions to be put on the market to maintain her disguise as a ‘free’ pony.

Her legs moved slowly, hind legs pushing her up almost like a mechanical lift, while her forelegs pulled under her to support her one by one. Her hips clicked slightly, not quite in age, but more like everything was getting in the right position as she got ready for her day.

The host turned her head left, then right. All down the line around the edge of the Nest, other hosts were being synced. Student-ponies that had come for ‘overnight studies,’ other mares and stallions that had come for the ‘book club,’ and employees of the library that had moved to live there, all lined up and impaled on a tendril of the Nest. Their eyes were open, just as hers had been, and they were static, statuesque, barely even breathing as they were merged with the Nest for the night.

The parasite in Rarity-Drone finished integrating the download and set them on a slow pace out of the library. Though it could override her sensations, the host’s legs were sore from the long night of sitting in place rather than lying down, and there was nothing that could be done about that outside of a slow-walk to relieve them. The unicorn plodded her way up from the basement and into the library proper.

There had been changes since the advent of the Nest in Ponyville. The library itself hadn’t changed much to most ponies, but there was something different about it. The great boughs that sheltered it from above were slowly getting choked out by the Nest down below, and the roots of the Nest went deep, deeper than anyone but the drones knew. Its branches had started weaving around the library tree, and a gentle dust had started falling from its leaves.

It wasn’t anything special, not yet, but the hosts were aware that the various ponies that came to make use of the library’s resources left slightly more foggy-brained than they came. They were nearly entranced, and not by the books any longer, but by the mere presence of the Nest itself and the dust that drifted down from it.

Dust.

Spores.

Even the parasite in Rarity-Drone didn’t entirely know what it was. The Nest had said that it was making things better, though, and that was all that mattered. They followed orders, and they did it beautifully.

As the host walked through the library, other changes were apparent. Some of the ponies that worked at the library were kept on the main floor during the evening hours, their rumps backed into shelf-corners where tendrils could plug in during the night. Rarity saw them, their eyes wide open but the mind behind seeing nothing.

They were the eyes of the Nest, and it used them to see the world around it, keeping an eye on everything. Rarity-Drone had served a shift as the eyes, and it had been quite draining; her mind had taken a day to come back to full function after that, requiring rest from the intense use of the Nest.

There would be a greater shift later on, the parasite in her believed. Some of the infested pony stock would be used as nothing but eyes for the Nests, installed like equine gargoyles around the Nest-sites. It wouldn’t matter if they were drained or damaged; there would be sufficient hosts at that point that they could afford to keep a few of them on eye-duty at all times.

But that was a long way off, and for now, they were taking it in shifts. Rarity-Drone looked at one such pony – an earth pony stallion with a blue coat and a pair of glasses for a cutie mark – and then moved on. There was no sympathy for the male; he was merely fulfilling a purpose, just as she did. The most that either of them could do was make sure that they fulfilled their duties to the Nest as beautifully and wonderfully as they could.

Beauty.

Wonder.

Such words were things that barely mattered to the mare any longer. They were remnants of what she used to be, echoes of what used to matter more than anything else in the world. Even her friendships had been meant to echo with the beauty that they brought to the world, and the elegance that she could give them by being part of the close circles of ponies that mattered to her.

But now, all that mattered was the Nest. All that mattered was what she could do for it.

Step.

Step.

Step.

The slow movements gradually picked up the pace as the soreness worked its way out of the host’s muscles. She plodded out the front door with the sun barely over the horizon, her parasite making her turn and fake a tired yawn of greeting for the pony standing at the doorway. Her fellow infested looked back and – after a split second – returned the nod in recognized behavior.

There were other ponies, of course, other infested that had been hidden in the tree. She knew, for example, that if she glanced over her shoulder and looked into the tree top of the library, that she’d see some of the troublemakers that had come to the library and found the Nest down at the bottom of the tree. The little sneaks had been caught and infested, then put into the top-most branches. They served as the most common watchers for the Nest, their holes open and their eyes looking down on the town at large. Nothing escaped their vision, and so the main Nest was constantly informed of the movements of many ponies through town.

She knew that the Nest watched her as she left, and Rarity-Drone felt safe. If anything did happen to her, if anyone did find out that she was not a ‘free’ pony, then the Nest would know and take care of her. That was how it worked.

Time passed. She was out of it, then awake again when she opened the door to her shop. The host had been put to sleep while she was not needed and awakened now that she was once more. Work would require her attention.

As she walked to the back room of her salon, Rarity-Drone felt the parasite pulling out design after design. She could see her own ideas present inside of each possibility for a new garment, but they had been twisted.

Gone were the accessories and twists that she would normally have spent hours slaving over, making each one completely perfect, unique and distinguished. All of that had been planned and adjusted by the Nest, taking all the creative work out of the designing process and making it happen faster, faster, faster, giving her more time to get the work done rather than spending it all in the planning process.

It was…

A piece of the mare believed that she should have hurt from knowing that none of the designs were truly her, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was doing what the Nest demanded of her: getting the designs done so she could maintain her cover.

She got to work, her mind working through the first design for a smart suit for one of the local stallions. The various political functions that were happening more and more often meant that more of the Ponyville population wanted to look their best. They were coming to her, begging her to make something sharp, something smart that would let them stand out in the crowd in this once-in-a-lifetime election for their small, sleepy town. They wanted to make it something to remember.

Being in a unique position like that, Rarity-Drone’s designs were modified further. She was still putting out the unique, elegant garments that her shop was known for, but there were tweaks to them now, little adjustments that would go almost unnoticed until the time was right.

The Nest would spread.

She would make it happen.

Snip.

Cut.

Sew.

The mechanical motions were as swift as her face was dull. There was no smile, no hum of happy activity as she worked on the downloaded designs in her skull. None of it brought her joy; only the service to the Nest brought that these days. The beautiful designs that should have come from her vibrant imagination were nowhere to be seen. What came out of her magic scissors and thread looked like her work, her brainchildren, but had nothing to do with her. It was all the product of the Nest and its tendrils and parasites in her mind.

None of her.

All of it.

And that was fine.

Snip.

Rip.

Tear.

Sew.

The garments came together bit by bit, and once the pattern was going, she felt herself shutting down again. There was no need for the host while the parasite could follow the plan properly.

Rarity-Drone woke from her ‘sleep’ when the bell dinged. The parasite in her dragged her forward, reading her personality, the plans, the scripts. What was on the schedule for the day, what were the planned visitors that could come around?

Several infested ponies were on the list, well-known among the drones to be safe, but there were others that were either questionable or undoubtedly free ponies that would be coming by. There were appointments, but Rarity-Drone had always had a more open schedule than many designers. It was a downside, but there were things that the Nest had to maintain in order to keep her cover up. That was, unfortunately, one of them.

The scissors clicked against the design table as the mare put on a smile, her face tugging back, then adjusting forward. Not too big; a proper lady only had a small smile, not a wide grin. One couldn’t go too far.

She turned around, the blue-white magic on her horn pushing the door open as she walked to the front room. A client –

Drone. Host.

The parasite confirmed it, and Rarity-Drone’s smile…remained. They were allowed to drop the disguise in private, but both drones knew that this was not private. A store could be entered at any time, and they had to keep up the pretense in case someone did walk in.

“Darling, you’re looking well. Here for your outfit?”

“Of course, of course,” the red-furred stallion said, chuckling as he turned to the side. “Why, can you imagine me turning up in working leather? It’d be ridiculous.”

“Oh, indeed, dear, you would be admired for nothing but your muscles. And they are fine, of course, of course, but we can do better than that.”

It was…almost strange to hear her own way of speaking from outside, Rarity-Drone thought. There was nothing to it that was really her, not anymore, but there was something…

It was strangely intimate while at the same time sounding like a stranger. There was no soul in it, though she doubted that anyone that didn’t know her incredibly well would have noticed. The imitation was otherwise perfect.

The white-furred, purple-maned mare fussed over the farm stallion, helping him out of his leather vest and into the bespoke suit that she’d made for him. Just like the others that were made for the drones, there was a little slit in the bottom. Most stallions would keep their bits covered during the social functions, or at least, vaguely hidden behind a layer of cloth, but drones needed to have access to that for the sake of expanding the Nest. At the same time, they couldn’t be too obvious about it.

The solution that the Nest had come up with via Rarity-Drone’s designs was a cut of fabric run right over the sheath, pulling it up against the belly but not quite hiding it. From the side, it would look as if it was covered, but the moment that the parasite inside a host needed to make a cock drop, it would come free with ease. The fabric line would even serve as a partial cock-ring to make the shaft that much more appealing to the drugged minds of the unwary partners.

She ensured that the slit of fabric worked the way that it was intended for the stallion host, nodded to herself, and smiled as she walked back around the counter. It was all drawn from her memories of past encounters with her customers, and none of it was genuinely felt. It, like everything else in her life that wasn’t involved with connecting to the Nest, was an act.

“Now, payment.”

“Ah, yes. I don’t suppose you’d take some farm goods?”

“Darling, I’m afraid I must insist on bits.”

“Heh, pity. Can’t blame a stallion for trying.”

“I know, dear, just like you can’t blame a diva like me for insisting on the real thing.”

She tittered – once more, a sound that felt almost wrong coming from her lips, as if she was judging her past self for what she had been – as the stallion passed over his payment. The suit looked good on him, objectively, as he walked out the door.

The rest of the day sped by. Rarity-Drone was awoken several times more for other infested ponies, giving them their suits and dresses and whatever else they bought. Now and then, she had to deliver a ‘special’ order that involved ringing a stallion’s shaft to make sure that it would be properly displayed (mostly for parasites that had infested an older male whose biology was not quite up for the task of seeding others) and once, she had been pushed to add a spreader to one of the mares that had come in.

Theoretically, that had been for the sake of smuggling goods from one Nest to another, to allow for an easy deposit inside, but she doubted that it would be a technique that they would use for long. Even a tail pulled down over that spread sex would likely lead to someone taking a closer look, eventually.

There were many different things that the Nest was trying to make sure that its various pieces were able to stay in touch. The hosts were able to be updated, synced to the different Nests, and there was the slow back and forth that was Westin-Drone and his entourage bringing information from one Nest to another, but that was barely suitable for just two Nests. Sooner or later, as they gained more Nests in different towns, they’d need something else. What that would be, nobody knew, but they trusted the Nest to figure it out when the time came.

Rarity-Drone was ‘awoken’ again to take a break from snipping and sewing to refill the pitcher in the customer lobby. She stepped away again, taking the glass pitcher from the windowsill. The contents were dumped out, and the usual slices of cucumber and water were added, but only to the halfway mark.

Setting the pitcher down, the host was marched over it and encouraged to squat down ever so slightly. Her hind legs spread to make room for the glass pitcher between her thighs, and then –

Pressure.

The clenching of her inner muscles around her bladder sent little shocks through her. Not quite pleasure or pain, precisely, but more of an awareness of fullness, an urgency, a need that had been suppressed all day long for it to build up to this moment. There was an odd sense of sensual denial that was tied into the unknowing obedience that left her oddly satisfied, and yet, at the same time, craving more.

The parasite squeezed her muscles around her bladder, forcing it to contract, and she felt the familiar heat of her urine rushing down her insides. A few short seconds later, it was rushing out of her into the pitcher.

The hissing sounds of it hitting the sides, then falling into the cucumber water below, would have once embarrassed Rarity-Drone. Now, the only thing she felt was the near-sexual satisfaction that came with obeying the Nest and her own parasite, giving into their control and power and plans for the world.

Her bladder emptied itself completely, a few last droplets – clear and transparent rather than piss-yellow – hanging from her sex before they, too, joined the cucumber water below. The brew that they made would be an intense drink for any pony that happened to partake of it, but there was more to come.

Or rather, to cum.

A spasm of physical pleasure rocked the host’s body, running from between her hind legs right up her spine and into her skull. It felt like it hammered a spike of bliss right through her brain, shattering what little sense of decorum she still had left. There was nothing of it there, nothing –

Cum.

Cum.

Cum.

The forced clenching of her inner walls, the stabbing commands right into her brain, the constant push from the parasite to keep orgasming and squirting into the pitcher overwhelmed her. Her legs locked on the parasite’s orders, and Rarity-Drone was nothing more than a pulsing fountain down there. The only motions that her body made were the soft clenches, squirts, and repeated clenches through her sex.

The splatter-sounds of her juices hitting the water’s surface were all that could be heard. It was…lewd, and sexual, and entirely beyond anything that a proper pony should do. It was something that would have humiliated her to do for anyone else, or at any risk of being seen.

And yet, here she was, fulfilling this order with the front door closed and locked. No way to be seen. No way to risk showing what she had become. Just following the orders of the Nest.

Pulse.

Pulse.

Pulse.

And then it was done. She was drained and the pitcher was full. A little magic lifted it up and put it on the front desk, waiting for some unknowing pony to come in and take a drink. Once that happened, she would drag them into the back for a proper fitting, getting their information, and see whether they would be worth bringing into the Nest immediately, or if they were safe to leave alone while they went for more valuable hosts.

All hosts were valuable, of course, but the Nest was starting to prioritize. There were those that might be risky to take, those that might be useful to take, and others that were merely hosts for the sake of hosts. The Nest had to choose carefully, or they could make dangerous mistakes.

She had scarcely put the pitcher down before there was a knock at the door. Rarity-Drone would have blinked if she had been around others, but the host did not react without need. Instead, it moved silently to the door, paused to put the proper expression on with the aid of a mirror, and opened it.

A ‘free’ pony stood on the other side. Stallion, of course, with a horn that glowed between jester bells that hung off either side of his head. He had a gray white coat, and looked rather embarrassed of himself.

“Hey, uh, I’m Marble Jester.”

“Mmm, yes, I gathered your name with your…choice of accessories.”

“Well, yeah, I guess…it is a little obvious, isn’t it?”

He floated the hat off his head and dropped it onto his back. Rather than the little shirt or other small accessories that most ponies tended to wear, he had a full-on green and red jacket. Blue stripes separated the various patches on his garment, making him look like some Christmas goblin that had leaped out of the pages of old books. He looked like he knew it, too, considering the way that he couldn’t meet Rarity-Drone’s eyes.

“I know how stupid I look. It’s a family thing, but I’m trying to be better about that. I was hoping – well, really, really, really hoping – that you could give me something to leave the family tradition behind.”

“Oh, darling, you want to actually improve yourself? How lovely.”

The smile that she’d fixed to her face was allowed to grow as the host led the stallion in. She subtly flicked her horn at the lock and made sure that it was sealed – of course, she had to use a pair of scissors for that, as her magic was more limited than Twilight’s, but it worked – and brought Marble to the front desk.

“Here. Have a drink, and I’ll start putting the paperwork together for you.”

“Oh, right. The paperwork, um, is this…is this going to be…”

“Expensive? Darling, for someone trying so hard to get out from under such bad fashion choices, this is on the house.”

“Oh thank you. Thank you.”

Rarity-Drone flashed a gracious smile as she disappeared into the back, only for the smile to drop as soon as the door shut behind her. There was no reason to keep it going when she wasn’t being observed, and it was a waste of energy.

As the host got the different pieces of paper out, each one meant to track a different bit of information about the customer, Rarity-Drone imagined the records that they would have on the various ponies in town by the end of this. She tracked her customers, the Cakes tracked theirs, and everyone else was slowly building a paper record of what they brought in, who bought from them, and more. There was a network of information gatherers under the Nest, and that information would mean that anyone could be targeted at any time.

And more, the combination of the Nest’s intelligence and the various memories that the information-gatherers would have meant that it could sort through all that information all at once. The paperwork was still useful, giving them secondary records if any of the hosts were to go missing or be found out, but the combination was perfect for precise targeted infestation.

Rarity-Drone was also just killing time, giving the drugged pitcher time to do its magic on Marble Jester. Considering his younger age, she doubted that it would take him long to be completely inebriated from it, and once he was wobbly, horny and high, she would be able to get easy answers out of him.

Did she need it? Probably not; he looked shy and needy enough for attention that she probably could have flirted the information out of him with ease, but that wasn’t what she was here for. She was here to follow orders, get things done properly, and ensure that he didn’t remember all the other measurements that they were going to do.

Discretion, one of her few surviving traits, was something that the Nest craved. She would be discrete about everything.

“Mmmph…”

“Darling?”

“Wow, this is…good stuff…”

A shadow of a memory of a smile was all that the host felt at the plan coming together. The host needed no more than that.

“Well, have as much as you want, dear,” she said, her cheery voice a marked contrast to the completely blank face she knew she had at that moment. “It’s all for the customers, and you’re a valued one right now.”

“Shanks…”

He was already getting tipsy, then. Probably had never had anything that potent in his life, and was getting the good stuff right off the bat. Rarity-Drone would have tutted in amused exasperation at someone overreaching their limits if she’d still been a free pony. There was a faint hint of what that would have sounded like in the back of her head, but then it was gone. Nothing like that was needed anymore.

After all, that wasn’t her. That was Rarity. She was Rarity-Drone, and that was a far better expression of her. None of that pesky little bit of free thought, none of the imagination that she used for far too many hours of the day. Rarity had been too inefficient. She was better at everything.

Eventually, the rest of the world would share her understanding and joy.

“Come back whenever you’re ready; I’ve got everything I need…”

Rainbow-Drone had to pull herself back when she flew with the rest of the Wonderbolts. The parasite inside of her had perfected the way she flew, and if she didn’t deliberately sabotage herself, she would have outraced all the other members of the team. Considering that she had been middle of the pack, at best, that would have required explanation, and that wasn’t something that she was ready to start giving yet.

The blue pegasus rounded the bend with the rest of them, racing from cloud to cloud above Ponyville. It was a combination free show as well as basic training for when they packed up and continued their tour over other parts of Equestria, and the other Wonderbolts were laughing and cheering as they pushed themselves harder and harder.

Rainbow-Drone joined in, the sound hollow in her ears as she just replayed her previous laughs and jokes as she flew in and out of formation. There was none of the past joy of flying; there was very little of anything besides keeping up the disguise of being ‘free’ and normal.

Compared to the other hosts, she had very little to do. The Nest recognized the potential of her being part of the Wonderbolt team and the access that would give her to a number of far-off areas, but until they were in a more secure situation, there was no infesting of the celebrity team. They were holding off until after the election, or failing that, until there was no chance of anyone finding out that it was happening.

They rounded another cloud, and Rainbow-Drone took the parasite’s command to crash into the next one after that. It wasn’t a hard impact, but it sold the fact that she was still the new mare, still the one that they didn’t have to worry about. The rest of the team braked hard, coming around with a laugh.

She poked her head out with laughing fury, faking her own indignation from being seen that way. They bought it.

Dapper-Drone stood in the middle of a room in an inn. The new suit that he’d gotten from Rarity-Drone fitted him rather nicely, and he looked the part of a good candidate for mayor of the town. He leaned his head back, the parasite inside making him shift his hat slightly to make it look slightly different. Not completely precise, just a bit off, something that would appeal more to the common pony.

It was odd to consider himself in such a position, as much as the host could consider anything. The way that the world had changed around him was something that only he felt capable of noticing; the rest of the hosts were either more buried than he was, or were more content to take orders all the time. Dapper-Drone enjoyed the feeling of being in the thrall of the Nest, but more than that, he enjoyed helping others fall into that same thrall and finding ways to encourage further contracts, further deals, further enforcement of the way that society was supposed to work.

He imagined that the Nest took a great deal of ideas from him at times. He was flattered and honored to be a host that could contribute as much as he did.

The latest bit of synced-up news from the two major Nests (the one at Sweet Apple Acres was still growing, still a little too immature to easily sync with regularly) told him that he was doing well in the election so far. Mayor Mare would have to come out and debate him properly rather than hiding behind the smokescreen of being the one that had always been in charge. He had enough ponies interested in a change that she needed to be more convincing.

Whether that would give the Nest the opening that it needed to bring her in as an infested pony or not, he didn’t know, but he was doing his part. The Nest would be closer than it had been before, at the very least, and the others would have to take them the rest of the way.

Dapper-Drone turned away from the mirror, the stallion walking to the window. The parasite looked through his eyes at the streets below. The ponies out there were slowly but surely falling under the sway of the Nest. It was not enough, and never would be, but the fact that others were slowly being brought under the sway of a greater order…

It soothed something in him. The memory of Dapper-Bit Twist still remained, though it was no longer so emotional as it had been. The memory, however, still retained the same hunger for a society that did what it was supposed to do, that no longer operated so strongly on feeling, but instead on a simple set of rules and roles.

Traders traded and made money.

Farmers farmed and made food.

Teachers taught and made brilliant students.

Everyone, everywhere, had a proper place, and the Nest was able to find that place for them and made sure that they stayed there. Doctors, nurses, bakers, merchants: anyone and everyone had a place, and that was where they belonged.

Things were going right.

And in the background of all the works of their pawns, the Nests slowly spread. The roots of the great trees pushed through the underground of Ponyville, spreading from the hospital and from the library, edging, sneaking, digging through the soil to whatever drew them on. Sometimes food, sometimes something else, their instincts to spread and seed and take more hosts always pushing the trees to grow.

Here.

There.

Under.

Over.

The roots were vast and wide, forming a network under more than just the building where they were based. The many days that had passed since the first Nest tree was planted gave them both time to grow, spread, and even consume in the case of the original Nest tree. There were several homes that were starting to wither as it integrated with them, though none showed it so much as to be dangerous. The hospital Nest spread in different ways, pushing through and then ‘healing’ the homes that it touched, adjusting them, merging with them, making them better, though just like the first, never in a way that entirely showed to those that lived in them. It was nothing more than a feeling.

But the roots were always hungry for more, and the Nest themselves were not always guiding them with the greatest of attention.

So, bit by bit, the roots started to do more than just spread and touch the houses that were around them. The roots started to creep further upward, digging through the houses themselves to the little gaps and openings that most would never have touched, but still allowed an outsider to enter a house. Not doors, nor windows, nor even the sides of the house…

But through the toilets, and eventually, into someone that was using one.