A Conspiracy of Order

“Goodbye, hon!” Lyra called out the door. “See you tonight when you get back!”

“See you then, dear.”

“Take care, love you!”

“Love you too!”

The earth pony waved back at her before getting on the carriage to the town center. Lyra kept waving back, the unicorn smiling brightly until the carriage was out of sight. Even then, she felt the remnant of it on her face, a little bit of happiness that always lingered from Sweetie Drops’s presence. They were so close, these days, and it always felt like a bit of a shame to see her head to town to do her job, but –

Well, such was life. She would have the other mare back again for their evening, at least, and until then, she could do some work around the house to make sure that it was properly presented for any guests. Lyra didn’t have many these days – they’d all started dropping off over the course of the last few weeks, as if all their free time had completely disappeared – but she still hoped to have one or two pop by. Entertaining was, after all, part of her life.

The mint-green mare hummed to herself as she shut the door with a hind hoof, nudging it shut with a gentle push. As it clicked shut, she looked over the living room and sighed.

“I’ll be at this all day,” she muttered, glancing at the blankets, the recipe books, and everything else that had been left scattered all over the couch and floor. “Sweetie, we really need to talk about the clutter…”

But that would be for later. When Sweetie got home…and after Lyra had the chance to freshen up a little bit.

She trotted toward the back of the house, nudging the bathroom door open. The shower was already fairly clean, though wet from her girlfriend’s earlier shower, and the toilet lid was already up. Lyra turned around, backing her rump toward the little oblong throne. She shuffled her hind legs around the sides of it and lowered her hips ever so slightly, not quite touching it but moving them into the right position for elimination.

The soft hiss of her bladder relieving itself filled the air, and she winced in self-conscious embarrassment at how loud it was. Some ponies were perfectly fine with doing this outside, even, but the sheer fact that someone would know that was what she was doing embarrassed her. The idea of anyone doing something like that…

Not a lady-like thing to do. Not a very good or neat thing, either.

She shifted from hoof to hoof as the last few droplets escaped her. Lyra started to slide away –

“AH!”

And then, something touched her.

It was such a shock that she felt like her heart would leap from her chest, and only long-learned instincts kept her from freezing up completely. Even as she ran forward, all but leaping from around the toilet, she felt that thing curling against her pussy, almost as if it was about to ram in, and something else had been so close to her other hole that it sent shivers right down her spine. She hit the far side of the bathroom, whipping her head around, and stared.

Sticking out from her toilet were two tendrils, almost wooden but too smooth to be that. They swayed back and forth, and one of them – the one that had to have been the one about to invade her anus – was covered in little fronds, with an open end. Something poked out before slithering back inside, almost like it was hiding from her.

“By Celestia…”

They twitched toward her, and that was all that Lyra needed to see to know she had to get out. She kicked down the bathroom door and ran down the hallway. The only reason she wasn’t screaming was because she lacked the air to do so.

Out of the house and down the road, not even remembering to shut the door behind her: that was how freaked out she was. That thing, that creature in the toilet, had just tried to violate her, and she didn’t even know why. Whatever it was, she had to find Sweetie and tell her that something had gone wrong. Something was very, very, very wrong.

It took her over a half-hour to reach the town center, and by the time she got there, she was barely able to keep on her hooves. The fear-driven gallop had drained her completely, and she barely managed to lean on one of the old railings around the town center. Her girlfriend was just getting off the carriage, straightening a wide-brimmed hat, and Lyra groaned as she dragged herself over.

“Sweetie…Sweetie!”

“Hmm?”

The yellow-tan mare turned, then gasped.

“Lyra, what in the world –”

“Things…things in the…in the bathroom…”

“Honey, honey, what’s wrong?”

“Things…tried to…tried to…”

The unicorn couldn’t get the words past her lips. The insanity of it was hitting her now, making it impossible to believe that she’d seen what she’d seen. The horrific idea of almost getting raped on her own toilet had finally pushed through the fear-shock, too, and she cried as she almost collapsed right then and there.

There were eyes on her from all around the square, staring, judging. She didn’t care. She had to get the words out.

“There was…something…in the toilet…”

“Hon…are you okay?”

“I’m not crazy!”

“I – I didn’t say you were,” Sweetie said, taking a few steps back. “But you can barely talk. Come on. Breathe. Take a second. Then try and tell me again. This…this is sounding a little hard to swallow, heh.”

“It’s not…it’s…it’s…”

Breathe. Breathing was a good idea. That insane gallop had taken it out of her, and then some. She forced herself to stop talking and start breathing, but every time that she closed her eyes – and she had to, to keep breathing and not try and shout at her girlfriend – she kept thinking about the way that those things had almost penetrated her. Coming from underground, coming for her, trying to…trying to take her and…and…

The thing inside…that thing that could have…slithered into my…my rump…

The very idea was enough to send chills down her spine and leave her eyes watering. What if it had managed to get inside of her? What would it have done? What would have happened to her?

There were so many questions running through her head that she could barely get a breath in, and she felt like she would collapse at any second. Her legs shook and her head spun, and everything just felt like it was too much.

“Lyra? Lyra, look at me.”

She opened her eyes. Her girlfriend gently squeezed her face between her forehooves, holding her in place. Their eyes were locked together, and it was…well, at least a little bit comforting. At least she wasn’t completely lost in her head like this, and it wasn’t quite as bad as being alone with her thoughts. That said…she could already tell that Sweetie didn’t believe her.

“You need to relax. What I want you to do is go down the road, talk to the Cakes, and get yourself a treat. I’ll be back home later tonight, and we can talk about the bathroom and whatever happened there, okay? As long as you don’t go to that room, you should be fine, okay?”

“…Okay,” Lyra said, hanging her head.

“Good. I’ll be back as soon as I can, but this is an important meeting. Canterlot and Bon Bon stuff, you know?”

“I know. I know. You…you take care of that. I’ll be okay. I’ll be okay.”

Getting a soft kiss, Lyra watched as her girlfriend trotted away. The wide-brimmed hat and the slow sway of Sweetie’s hips made her look almost a little seductive. Probably something that she had learned from her time working for Canterlot, Lyra supposed, but it was something that she enjoyed nonetheless. Or, at least, would have enjoyed a great deal more if it wasn’t for the shakes still running down all four legs and down her spine.

It was real. She knew that the nightmarish thing oozing from her toilet had been real, but her girlfriend hadn’t been ready to believe her. Yes, she knew it sounded impossible, but at the same time, she could…well, she couldn’t prove that it had been real, but she could have explained it. Or…talked about it, or something. Something that would make someone believe her.

Maybe I really did just…

Lyra rubbed her forehead with a forehoof, shaking her head. No, no, it was real, and she wasn’t going home. Not yet, maybe not until Sweetie was due back. But she could get herself a treat at the Cakes, and that’d go a long way towards settling her racing heart, she imagined.

She walked down the road. It didn’t take long to find the bakery at the Cakes and Pinkie Pie ran, and she stepped inside with a weak smile on her face. The soft sound of the dinging bell felt a bit louder than usual, almost jarring, and she blinked as she looked back at the door.

“…That’s strange…”

“Ms. Heartstring!”

The cheerful voice of Mrs. Cake greeted her, and she turned around with that same semi-forced smile, looking at the baker mare. The older pony leaned over the counter, chuckling.

“You look like you’re in a bit of a state. What can I get you?”

“I…don’t know. Something sweet, something that’s really, really sweet. Like, hurt your teeth kind of sweet.”

“Bad morning, dear?”

“Something tried to…” Lyra tried to stop herself, but since she couldn’t tell Sweetie, she had to tell someone. “Something tried to…to violate me this morning. On the toilet.”

“O-oh?”

It had to be her imagination, but for a split-second, she was almost sure that there was something else in the compassionate older mare’s face. Something that looked more than just shocked, but…worried? No, not quite that; it was almost like seeing something angry and irritated, but not that she had almost been hurt. Almost like…like it was upset that whatever had happened hadn’t happened.

And then it was gone, leaving only that sympathetic, if disbelieving, expression behind. Mrs. Cake shook her head.

“I think that you might need this one on the house, sugar.”

“It happened. I swear, it happened. There’s a thing…there’s things in there, and…and if you won’t believe me, I’ll find someone that will.”

“I’m sure you will, honey. But for now, take this.”

Mrs. Cake passed her a bun covered in frosting that was still oozing down the sides, warm and wet and looking as sticky as it felt. Lyra took the wrapped-up treat with a forehoof, looking down at it and trying to find a way to explain herself. Mrs. Cake had already left the register, moving to the back rooms, and Lyra slumped inward.

What the hay am I going to have to tell them to make them believe me? Just…do I have to bring them back to show them? Do I have to…what do I have to do to make someone believe me that this exists?

And what were they in the first place? Why were tree roots – or at least, things that looked like tree roots – pushing up through the toilet? Why were they trying to grow into her? What was that thing that was inside one of the roots that pulled back in as soon as she tried to get a good look?

What was going on?

A gentle pressure reminded her that she hadn’t actually finished using the toilet back at her own place. She shook her head, putting the roll down on the counter before making her way toward the back. The Cakes had a toilet in the back of the bakery available to customers, and she could use it before she left.

She had just rounded the corner to where the bathroom door was usually closed, only to stop in her tracks.

Pinkie Pie was right beside the toilet, staring straight off to the side. One inch further forward, and Lyra would have been in her line of sight, but where she stood, she just barely managed to avoid being seen. But it was…it was the things coming out of the toilet that took her breath away.

The pink mare stood there, her face completely blank. There was no sign of the usual smiles and giggly grins that dominated Pinkie’s face. Her mouth was slightly open, slack but controlled slack, and her tail was raised. Two tendrils, just like the ones that had come out of her toilet, were lodged inside of the mare, spreading her rim and her sex alike, and both of them occasionally rippling. Not thrusting, not grinding, just…twitching, a tiny ripple that started in the water and went right up into the mare herself.

And then…then Pinkie started…urinating.

The sight of the clear fluid running out into a tray, falling down that into a pitcher, was enough to make Lyra’s guts clench. It was wrong, and unnatural, and…and there was no sign of any life in Pinkie’s eyes. No movement, no shifting her legs from one position to another. She was stock-still, statuesque, almost…almost dead-looking. The only thing that made her even look alive was the occasional breath that almost seemed forced as she kept standing and peeing.

She doesn’t see me…

No, it was more than that. She didn’t think that Pinkie Pie was even aware of what was going on around her. She didn’t look like the same mare that she’d known for so long. There was no sign of the party girl that everyone in Ponyville knew threw the best celebrations. There nothing, nothing at all. There was…there was just a shell.

Before she could lunge forward and try and knock Pinkie Pie off the toilet and away from the tendrils, Mrs. Cake stepped into view. Again, just barely leaving Lyra out of sight, but the mare turned to her adopted daughter and –

“Almost done. This host will replace you.”

“This host will release itself shortly.”

“Syncing is required,” Mrs. Cake said.

“…This host is removing itself now.”

The terrifying lack of emotion was almost enough to make Lyra faint right then and there, but the way that Pinkie Pie just slid off the tendrils without a word or even a huff told her that something else was wrong. Something…

The thing inside the tendril?

She remembered it, almost worm-like, and wondered if it had already gone into Pinkie Pie. What if the mare had been completely converted into something else already, something that didn’t care about all the fun things that she used to do? What if they –

What if that roll had been poisoned?

Lyra screamed inside, but managed to keep the sound from escaping her throat. She slowly backed up, taking her time to move as quietly as possible, before she reached the front room again. She turned on her hooves and charged out the front door, barely keeping her scream inside.

Something’s wrong. Something is so, so, so wrong.

She had to find someone that would listen to her. She had to find someone that would come and look at this before she lost her mind, or before they found her and forced her back against the tendrils.

Lyra arrived at the hospital, hoping against hope that some doctor would be able to tell her what was going on. She managed to find a nurse – Nurse Redheart – but before she could explain what she’d seen, the mare silenced her with a hoof to the lips.

“You won’t be able to talk coherently until you relax a little bit. Come with me.”

The nurse led her to a garden in the back of the hospital, and for all that the panic still had her heart racing, Lyra would admit that there was something calming about being among the plants. The soft, sweet smell that filled the air all around her was enough to bring her heart rate down by a few dozen beats per minute, and she was able to catch her breath, finally.

The nurse was silent, for some reason. She expected some sort of comfort, something that would make her feel better, but Nurse Redheart never said a word. She just walked along, plodding beside the unicorn while they circled the garden, taking one path after another. Occasionally, she would look into the plants, then look back at Lyra, but she never said anything.

It was nearly a half-hour later when Redheart smiled.

“Are you feeling better?”

“Much…much,” Lyra admitted, and it was true; she felt like she could breathe again and that she was finally being taken seriously. “Can I…can we talk now?”

“I would love to, but I’ve been getting paged for a while,” the nurse said, shaking her head. “I need to take care of some of the patients elsewhere in the hospital, but if you can wait here for a few minutes, I’ll send Doctor Stable down to you.”

“Doctor…yes. Yes, I can…I can wait for the doctor.”

“Good girl. Everything will work itself out soon enough.”

The head-pat she got from the nurse was a little condescending, but she was relieved enough to have someone that wanted to take her seriously that she didn’t care. All she wanted was to get this over and done with. Someone, somewhere, had to know what they were dealing with. The doctors were people that dealt with worms and parasites in ponies all the time; surely they could tell her what was happening to the Cakes?

Nurse Redheart walked away, leaving her alone. Lyra kept shifting from hoof to hoof, suddenly aware of the sheer vibrancy of the greenery around her and the thick layers of it that hid everything from the hospital itself. Nobody would be able to see this deep into the garden; anything that happened here –

A rustle in the leaves was her only warning. She was calm, but not quite that calm; her heart went from just a little above normal to racing again in less than a second, and she kicked backward with a hard buck. She hit something that had been creeping from the green and leaped forward. She landed with a loud click on one of the stepping stones through the garden and looked over her shoulder.

The same tendrils that she’d seen in her toilet and the Cake’s were above-ground here, and the open one was more visible now. A real worm was in there, alright, and it was just barely starting to pull back. She saw the root-fibers that stuck out of it, and could only imagine what that would do if it was inside of her rather than…

The tendrils weren’t stopping this time. They pushed out, chasing her, and she ran. She ran right out of the garden and out through the hospital, screaming her head off.

Lyra approached Sweet Apple Acres, hoping and praying that there was someone there that would be able to help her. With the doctors at the hospital compromised, she had to rely on someone else. Maybe they…maybe the Apple family had an idea. They were skilled farmers, worked with plants all the time. Maybe they knew what was going on out there?

She found Applejack first, and she tried to talk to the mare. No sooner had she addressed the famous farm girl, however, than Applejack looked at her like she was crazy again.

“I’m not…I’m telling the truth!” she said.

“Sugarcube, I know when I’m talking to someone that’s telling the truth and someone that’s seeing things. You’ve been seeing things.”

“But…but…”

“Besides, only thing like that is something that we got in the barn, and it’s harmless.”

“Those things are not harmless.”

“Ya can take a look at it, if ya want.”

Applejack gestured at the barn. The door was open, just slightly, but even as Lyra glanced at it, she could see the hints of vines and tendrils inside. She shook her head, taking a slow step back –

“Sugarcube. Ya better take a look,” Applejack said. “Come on. If it’s that bad, ya can show me.”

“I – I –”

The soft wee-whoo of a distant siren cut her off. Lyra whipped her head around, staring down the road as a carriage pulled by medical ponies approached the farm. She turned back to Applejack, her eyes going wide as the compassionate expression of the farm mare dropped to that same, empty face that Pinkie Pie had shown on the toilet.

“You’re one of them.”

“This host believes you should go into the barn.”

“AAAGH!”

Lyra spun around, running away. She barely avoided the lasso that Applejack threw at her head by running through the trees, and she could hear the hoofbeats of the Apple family clan running at her back. The only thing that saved her was blind terror, leading her through the trees and towards a different road, a side road that she and Sweetie had taken time and time again. They were the only ones that knew it, and it took her to safety, temporary as it was.

The day passed slowly, and everyponythat Lyra approached showed her how bad the situation really was. Her hopes for help from Rarity were dashed as the well-connected fashionista tried to drug her with a poisoned pitcher, and her desperate attempts to get in touch with someone outside of Ponyville were quashed with the postal ponies not letting her mail a letter without going to a back room with them.

Everybody, everybody in power seemed to be part of some grand conspiracy, and she was the only one that wasn’t taken. She was twitching up a storm as she approached her last hope: the library.

If anyone could still be free from the conspiracy, it had to be Twilight Sparkle. She was the most powerful alicorn anyone had seen since Celestia and Luna, and she was smart. Lyra hadn’t always gotten along with the purple-furred alicorn, but desperate times called for desperate measures. If nothing else, Twilight was always willing to listen to something that was new, and hopefully she would have a book that would be able to tell her what the hay was going on in Ponyville.

She walked through the front door, her eyes twitching in fear and exhaustion as she made her way down the aisles. A few ponies watched her, and she wondered in the back of her head if they were in on it, if they were members of this horrible cult-like conspiracy to take over the town. She didn’t know, and worse, if they were, she couldn’t do anything about it. All she could do was hope.

She eventually found Twilight Sparkle at the center of the library, sitting behind a desk and reading a book, as usual. The glasses-wearing alicorn looked up, and Lyra saw herself in the lenses. The day had left her a mess, with sticks poking out of her mane and her hide completely bedraggled. She looked nuts.

“Oh my!”

And yet, Twilight immediately put the book down and fluttered over to her. Someone fussing over her, gently pulling the sticks out of the way and making things better for her, was nearly enough to move the mare to tears. The unicorn slumped against Twilight’s side, shaking her head.

“I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy.”

“Shh, shh. I know. I know. Come here. Sit down.”

There were no drinks, no snacks. No traps that might have poison in them. There was no sudden removal to a back room. There was no attempt to isolate her or call the medical ponies again to drag her to the hospital where she could be trapped and…and infested with that thing the way that everyone else already had been. Nothing but a gentle nudge to a couch, where Lyra laid herself out and fought the urge to just cry her eyes out.

“Now, what’s going on?” Twilight asked.

“I’m not crazy.”

“I know. But just…tell me.”

And so, the story came out. Every twist in the tale, every little moment of betrayal and shock, starting from the near-rape at the start of her day to the various infected ponies that she had met when she tried to expose the whole thing. Lyra had to stop and start again and again, each time apologizing, only for Twilight to pat her and tell her that it was fine.

She finally finished with the revelation about Rarity, looking up and sniffling. Twilight’s face was still kind and gentle; nothing had shifted.

“We…we have to go to the Mayor. No. We have to get to Celestia. Tell her everything. She has to…has to burn them out. It’s wrong, it’s wrong. We’re all going to – they’re going to take us all if we don’t do something.”

“You’re not wrong,” Twilight said.

“I know I’m not! Come on! We have to do something. You can fly – you can take us to the train station and – and we can get to Canterlot before it’s too late.”

“Lyra –”

“I’M NOT CRAZY!”

“…Lyra. It’s already too late.”

“…No…no, not you – not you, too!”

The mint-green unicorn tried to push herself up from the couch, but she was too tired. She was too slow this time, and the roots came up from the floor around her hind legs, pinning them in place as others started to wrap around her middle. The faces of every pony all around the room went blank as they stared at her, a revelation that the conspiracy had already completely consumed the library and everyone within it.

She looked up at the ceiling, staring at the eyes that peered down at her, half-hidden and almost absorbed into the tree. She couldn’t believe that she’d missed that.

Looking back at Twilight, she watched as the love and care and friendship and eagerness that always glowed through her expression died. There was nothing left, only an emotionless, flat, barely-considering face looked down at her. It was like looking at someone that had lost any and all imagination, who saw only the facts in front of them, and that was all that they needed.

“The Nest welcomes you, Lyra.”

“Twilight, please –”

“This host is Twilight-Drone. You will become Lyra-Drone shortly.”

“NO!”

She was too tired to fight back, too weak from all her gallops away throughout the day. As the tendrils pulled her tail up, she could barely squirm against them. More pressed under her, one rubbing up and down against her sex, the other pressing against her raised asshole. Both were wet, slick with something that made them feel…feel better than they should, and her face burned as she shook her head again and again.

“No, no, no no no no no – NNNNGH!”

Then it was inside of her.

Lyra’s mouth hung open as she felt the stiff ends pushing inside of both her holes, spreading the open further and further as they probed for…something, she wasn’t sure. They were deep, though, and sliding around, and –

And Twilight had just shifted position. The alicorn mare pressed her lower half closer and closer to Lyra’s mouth, gently nudging her head down by her horn until they were pressed together. Pussy to mouth, warm, wet…

Hsss.

The flow went right down her throat due to the angle, an impossible shot for anyone else. She tried to pull away, but the tendrils had her tied, her horn was pinned, and then –

Zzzt.

Zzzt.

Two little shocks went from her ass up her spine, and any sense of movement just…disappeared. Her body felt like it went limp, like everything was cut out from under her, and exhaustion and whatever the tendril was doing left her paralyzed. She could do nothing but swallow.

No, she was being made to swallow. More little tingle-shocks went up her spine, forcing her to swallow the piss that was slowly flowing over her tongue toward the back of her throat. She couldn’t stop it, and each swallow –

“Ah…mmmph…ah…”

Little moans escaped her as heated feelings spread through her body. Warm, happy, contented, aroused…They were familiar, but normally so far from her, and she shouldn’t have felt anything like that…

Except she did.

It didn’t take long for her head to start going fuzzier and fuzzier, her body tingling from head to toe. Her lips started kissing gently against Twilight’s pussy, never in a way that made sense or felt right, but more like a remembered response of having something like that pressed against her face. It felt good, but…but…

But what?

But what?

Her head was so fuzzy and fogged up that when the tendril released the worm in her, she barely noticed. She even drifted away as it set to work taking control.

Lyra-Drone returned home that evening. She had been restored with a mix of magic and the natural rejuvenating feeling that came from being linked to the Nest, so she no longer had the same bedraggled appearance that she’d had upon entering the library. It felt right. Then again, everything with the Nest felt right.

“Lyra? Is that you?” Sweetie Drops called from further in.

“Yes, dear. Sorry for worrying you; I had to go out and do a few more things before coming home.”

“I, um, see that you knocked the bathroom door off its hinges.”

“Yes, well, I, um, I did have quite the fright earlier,” she said, as she shut the front door behind her. “I thought I was completely out of my mind for a while, but I suppose I was just seeing things.”

“Well, that’s a relief. You’re feeling better now, though?”

“Yes.”

Yes, Lyra-Drone felt much better than she had as a non-host. Being a ‘free’ pony was rather overrated, and it was better to see the truth and move forward. The Nest would need to be more careful with its tendrils in the toilets, of course; she had nearly exposed them and it was only through sheer luck that her friends had been among the infested already. If she had gone straight to the Mayor, then they would have had a far worse time.

“I was thinking that we could just spend a night in,” Sweetie Drops said from the kitchen. “Have a little snuggle time, think about the future.”

“I’m all for that.”

“Do you have anything in mind for dinner?”

“Actually, I brought a whole basket of treats with me. Compliments of the Cakes.”

And each and every one of them would start pulling Sweetie down the road to her own infestation. Starting with a sticky little roll that should have been rammed down her throat at the bakery…