The train between Ponyville and Canterlot slowed to a stop, and Twilight-Drone woke from the forced, timed nap that she had put herself into. When one knew the time that it took to get from one point to another, it was simple to just turn the mind of a host off and let it rest until the time came to wake it up again.

In this case, the parasite had timed it almost perfectly. The train was just slowing to a halt in the station, other ponies were starting to get up from their couch-seats, and still others were already making their way to the doors. The purple-furred alicorn stood up slowly, the sensation of control running down her limbs in pulsing fashion, until her hooves were all planted on the ground.

If she had been traveling with her ‘friends’ in the same coach, she would have had to be more active. There would have been more pretense, more bounciness, more enforced excitement to match what the host was supposed to show. Traveling alone, the parasite inside was allowed to take its time, show less excitement, expend less energy. It allowed it to think and remember the plan for the Nest at Canterlot.

Flicker.

Flicker.

The parasite’s memory came in a flurry of images, almost like photographs through Twilight-Drone’s mind. Three months since the expansion began, and in those three months, the other settlements – from Appleloosa to Manehattan – had been infiltrated and altered by the various drones that had been sent to them. Cloudsdale was mostly conquered, the Crystal Empire was run by the drones that Cadance and Shining Armor had brought there, and the whole conspiracy to infest everypony - everypony, everywhere - was going well.

Flicker.

Flicker.

All that remained were the powers that be in Canterlot. Specifically, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. The others were influential, of course, and Twilight-Drone knew that there would be others that were targeted, but most of her work had to focus on bringing the two Princesses down. They were the most powerful ponies still free, and if either of them caught wind of the conspiracy, it would be war.

War meant less hosts. Less hosts meant more fighting among the parasites for a body. Less hosts meant that the Nest would no longer have tools to help it spread and run its world. They would be vulnerable.

The Nest could not accept that.

Twilight-Drone used her magic to pull a suitcase down from the upper rack of the train car, floating it behind her as she joined the line of ponies leaving the train. The very fact that so many ponies had come from Ponyville alone – just a sleepy little town, despite all the influence of her ‘friends’ – meant that the plan was off to a good start. Once she was in the city, she would find out just how good a start.

Clip. Clop. Clip. Clop.

Eventually, she was able to step down from the train to the station, and from there, she could see the great walls of Canterlot. The massive city, dwarfing almost any other place in the world save for Manehattan, was big enough that it threw a shadow over them all. The old remnants of the shield that kept out the changelings once upon a time still lingered, though it was only an aura these days compared to the bubble of protection that it had once been. Twilight-Drone could feel some of the magic in the air, unspent but waiting to be tapped by those that knew how to use it.

The parasite made a note of that. It might prove useful in the future.

But more than the buildings, more than the various houses and palaces and grand structures that dominated the skyline, Twilight-Drone took note of a tree that was new since the last time she’d been here. What passed for a smile for her these days pulled at the corners of her mouth; it wasn’t a true smile, barely more than a twitch, but it was all the parasite would do without having to fake one.

It grew properly. Good…good…

Twilight-Drone was still relatively proud of the idea. She and several others in Ponyville – she couldn’t remember exactly which drones, perhaps one of the Apple family – had come up with an idea of getting a Nest tree to Canterlot without exposing just what it was. They’d sent it as a gift, a sort of tribute for the upcoming festival that Celestia wanted to throw for the peace and friendship that had become so much stronger in the land.

It had been a little touch and go at the time, but sending a few arborists of the town, plus a few parasites that had been snipped ever so carefully from the Nest tree in the library, had ensured that they had a few ponies on the inside. Celestia’s gardeners had approved it as safe, and the Nest tree had been left to grow.

And grow it had, standing almost a hundred feet tall in the distance. It would be more than sufficient for their plan. It would be more than they needed to get what the Nest wanted.

Twilight-Drone followed the swell of the crowd toward the security checkpoints at the station. Despite how quiet the conspiracy had been, the security checkpoints were still a mild danger. They didn’t have anyone taking ponies off to the side and examining them inside – which was the only way that the security could have found one of the parasites in a host – but there was the chance that some of their goods might be looked at a little too closely.

And more annoying, it slowed them down getting to the fairgrounds. With only a week to carry out their plan, they had to move quickly. Any delay could cost them.

As she joined the lines of ponies waiting to get in, the soft thud, thud, thud of wingbeats in the distance caught her attention. Twilight-Drone looked to the sky and immediately saw the source. Princess Celestia was flying overhead, making her way to the fairgrounds while at the same time putting in a royal appearance for those that were just making their way into the city. The rainbow-maned mare nodded benevolently at the crowd as she passed over, a smile on her face before she disappeared.

The parasite felt a glimmer of old admiration from Twilight-Drone, but it was distant, little more than a memory compared to the other bits and pieces that the drone and the parasite ‘felt’ together. Compared to the necessity to serve the Nest, there was nothing that mattered. They had their priorities; they would fulfill them.

The line moved slowly, and by the time that Twilight-Drone had reached the head of the line, bodily functions were starting to become a factor. The host was starting to feel a swelling in their bladder, something that they would have relieved on the train if they hadn’t been asleep and the parasite focused on other Nest-associated tasks. It was becoming a minor annoyance, something that the parasite had to keep shut down rather than allowing it to become more of a focus for the body.

The security pony, an earth-stallion, looked up from a small clipboard as the host stepped forward, and Twilight-Drone forced a wide smile on her face.

“Name?” he asked.

“Oh, come on. You know me. Twilight Sparkle.”

“Uh-huh. And the reason for your visit?” he asked.

Click. Clop.

It was a subtle double-hoof click, but any Nest-host would know it. Twilight-Drone’s grin dropped, fading away the moment that the parasite knew that they didn’t need it.

“Just visiting for the festival,” Twilight-Drone said, voice as cheerful as her face was not. “Have to show my support for the Princess, after all!”

“Uh-huh. Yeah, got it. And anything that you’re bringing with you?”

“Just a whole bunch of friendship!”

“Yeah, no law against that, heh.”

Click-click, clop.

And nobody waiting to link with her and sync up. Twilight-Drone had wondered if there might be a night for an update before she got to the festival grounds, but it seemed that everything was already sorted out.

The Nest was working as efficiently as ever.

Once she reached the grounds, she could tell that the whole thing had grown from the original concept and plan. What had been a simple tourney that the Crystal Empire would use as an excuse to bring a great many hosts in at once had turned into a sort of ‘National Fair,’ where ponies were invited from hither and yon across the land, bringing with them all their crafts and their ideas, all their new dishes and their various bits of culture for everyone to see. Representatives from all across the kingdom had started setting up stalls around the massive Nest tree in the plaza in front of the palace, and the plaza itself seemed even bigger than it used to, as if several buildings had been cleared to make room for it all.

Twilight-Drone had already been assigned a tent, and the host made for it, passing by stalls and tents and carts that had been set up in rows and lines. Several large swathes of space had been kept clear for the tourney events, and for a few other spectacles and celebrations, but the fair space was mostly just massive stretches of tents and wagons and more, waiting for people to show up and buy things and show off where they came from.

It was also a massive collection of Nest-hosts, though she didn’t know who was and who wasn’t infested. That would be something that they worked out later.

“Twilight!”

Twilight-Drone put a smile on her face, drawing it back to the precisely-measured distance suitable for Applejack as the other drone drew up alongside her. They trotted along, their grins as perfect as could be. They moved a little bit closer, not quite so close as to make it look like they were whispering, but close enough to see any other signals that the other might share. Ear twitches, shifts in expression, and more.

The one thing that they had to avoid was the temptation to march in step. As soon as they were close, they had to stop talking to adjust their cadence. It was hard to keep from moving exactly in tune with each other, but they managed.

“How was the trip?” Applejack-Drone asked.

Were there any complications?

“Oh, it was great. Lots of beautiful things to see, and I got a lot of reading in.”

No complications, time passed quickly.

“Heh, great to hear, sugarcube. Got any plans?”

Good. Are you free?

“Not yet. I was going to settle in first and see if anything came to me.”

I will go to my tent and sync with the Nest.

Applejack-Drone nodded. It seemed that was the plan for that host, as well. The other mare peeled off, heading toward a different part of the fairgrounds, while Twilight-Drone continued her journey toward her assigned tent.

It didn’t take long to find. Due to the drone’s status as the Princess of the Sun’s favored student and friend, she had a tent near the palace, just a few plots away from the bigger, more opulent tent that Celestia was doubtlessly going to be spending time in. Twilight-Drone imagined that there were already holes in the ground just waiting to be filled with Nest tendrils, and she looked forward to the moment when Celestia knew that her tent – and her city, for that matter – wasn’t as safe or impregnable as she imagined.

Twilight-Drone ducked into her tent, letting the flap shut behind her. It was simple enough, perhaps ten feet by ten feet. The rug on the ground had clearly been placed by someone other than the royal staff, thrown down seemingly haphazardly, with a small pot intentionally laid over a small divot in the carpet. Anyone else would think that it was just there to pin the carpet in place, but any drone would know that it was there to hide something.

Twilight-Drone looked over their shoulder, face falling flat now that she was out of the public eye. No sign of anyone following, nor any sound of anyone approaching the tent. It was as good a time as any.

Letting her bags fall from her shoulders, Twilight-Drone turned around and faced the tent slit. Using a hind-leg, she nudged the pot further and further back, feeling it pop up from the hole in the ground and dragging the rug as it went.

As soon as the hole was completely cleared, the familiar rasping, slithering sounds of the Nest roots coming her way filled her ears. A faint hint of something approaching excitement filled Twilight-Drone, and the parasite lifted her tail, keeping her exposed from behind and her eyes peeled for any sort of interruptions that might come her way.

The familiar sensation of the tendril rubbing against her hindquarters before seeking inward would have brought a chill down the spine of a free mare. Thankfully, she was not; she remained still as the tip probed about, eventually finding the edge of her anus and sliding inward.

Again, the shock that came as it made contact with the familiar fibers and nerve endings inside of her rocked her world. The host stiffened, a single stomp following before Twilight-Drone went still.

The shimmering, pleasurable sensation that always came with information exchange flooded through the mare’s body, making everything tense up. The mare had long-since lost the focus on pleasure, though the parasite could still tell that she enjoyed it. There was, instead, a background that had been labeled as ‘good’ that framed, fuzzed, and distorted the information between parasite and Nest.

Pulse.

Pulse.

Pulse.

It didn’t take long for the standing mare to start dripping her pleasure down her hind-legs, though none of it showed in her face. Twilight-Drone remained at rest, little more than a watch-dog while the parasite inside of her talked to the Nest.

Yet, even so, the familiar flicker of images popped through her head, impossible to completely ignore.

Flicker.

Flicker.

A sense of something out there, something that was supposed to start soon. All the hosts, all the drones in the festival preparing drugged food, drugged drink, drugged everything to have the other, non-hosts in the mood. They would be serving that all day long, and then –

Flicker.

Flicker.

Then it would be the hunt. All the hosts that could believably do it would be going around, taking part in one-night stands with the other ponies of Canterlot, spreading the addiction to pleasure between them. There’d be very few conversions that first night, of course, but the point wasn’t to convert; it was to make the other, non-infested ponies interested in spending more time with the invested ones.

Flicker.

Flicker.

Other images passed up and down the drone’s spine, telling her parasite what it needed to know and no more. Some of it didn’t make sense to Twilight-Drone: images of Big Mac on the prowl, images of servants in the palace she didn’t know, images of Luna begging Celestia for something. They were all there, but none of them meant anything to her.

But that was fine. Drones were not meant to understand. They were merely meant to obey.

The information continued to pass up and down Twilight-Drone’s spine, and the pleasure continued to hum through her body the way that it always did. At some point, there was a spike in the bliss, her sex clenching and winking for a moment as a stronger burst of fluid ran down her hind-legs, and she knew that she’d had an orgasm. It was strong, as it always was, but it wasn’t quite enough to interrupt the flow of data.

Was that getting weaker? She didn’t know for sure, as she hadn’t been tracking it, but it was a question worth asking. She knew that there was something going on with her, something that changed with each connection and each day that she spent plugged into a Nest tree, but she couldn’t tell what it was. The fact that her orgasms were still strong but didn’t affect her the way that they used to could be a piece of data –

No.

The flicker-flicker of information transfer focused on her. It didn’t matter what was happening. All that mattered was that she continued to serve the Nest to the best of her ability. Questions, curiosity, research: none of that mattered unless the Nest said it did.

Twilight-Drone agreed. Of course, there was nothing else that she could have done.

The tentacle pulled out slowly, the delicate slurp of the root dragging out of her as sensual as it always was. Her sex gaped for a moment before the parasite pulled her closed, its control of her muscles making her clench shut in a way that she never could have done for herself. In a way, it was kind of nice; it meant that there was never a mark of being filled or stretched, and it meant that – in a time where it mattered – she would have had her modesty protected.

That no longer did matter. And in fact, something else mattered quite a bit more as the Nest tendril retreated underground.

That same bladder pressure that Twilight-Drone had felt in line had come back with a vengeance, and she knew that it wouldn’t be held back for long. Rather than run for the toilets, she used her magic and flicked open her bags. A jar floated out of the pockets, spun out from under the lid, and pressed up between her hind-legs.

The hiss that followed was as loud as it was aggressive as she voided her bladder into the jar. The warmth was strong enough that she could feel it against her hind-legs through the glass. No shift in expression, no change in stance; she had done this enough times, and the parasite knew exactly where to hold the jar to make sure that none of it spilled. It ran down in little streams into the jar until it was full, and her bladder was empty.

Using her magic to grind the glass edge of the jar against her sex a few times to make sure that even the last few drops were collected, Twilight-Drone put the jar back where it belonged. Magic sealed the lid back in place, and the jar was put away, far from any prying eyes.

That will make a good drink for someone, if I find anypony interesting, she thought. Keep them from thinking about the fact that they are fucking the body of Celestia’s favorite student, and more about just keeping their cock up…or their tongue busy…

It wouldn’t be enough to break them and bring them into the Nest, but it would be enough to keep them coming back for a few nights. That would be enough.

After all, the fair was going to last for a week. A week of being around their altered fluids, being filled with the aphrodisiacs of the Nest, would be enough to weaken their minds that a long night of being connected to the Nest would corrupt and infest them properly.

That was the plan for the festival. The sheer mass of infested individuals that had come for it – all completely allowed to be there due to the various celebrations going on – meant that they outnumbered the locals. The servants, the Canterlot ponies, the minor nobles: there were no less than three infested for every uninfested. For the week of the fair, they would be bringing that number down further and further, all while setting up for the next phase of the Nest’s plan.

Which is…

None of her business, it seemed, as the parasite within didn’t see fit to share it with her. For today and tomorrow, all Twilight-Drone had to do was oversee the different goings-on in the fair, check in on the other infested, and make sure that everything was proceeding at the proper pace.

The purple-furred alicorn stepped out of the tent. A little surreptitious tug on the fabric dragged it against her sex, getting rid of the last bit of damp back there so that it didn’t give her away. That done, she proceeded down the lane between the tents, wagons, and everything else that had already been set up.

Twilight-Drone drifted toward the cluster of wagons that had come from Ponyville, unsurprised to find that the Cakes had already started setting up their bakery section. There was no sign of the breeding tube that Mr. Cakes used to milk himself of semen to fill his various cream-puffs, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it was located at the back of their wagon, waiting just out of sight for the right time. They’d brought their oven and other goods, as well, so they were clearly planning on making more.

Her parasite drew her lips up in a smile and trotted her over to them, bobbing her head in greeting. The other hosts turned and grinned in return. It was quick, calculated, to all other eyes real.

“Twilight, so good to see you. Do you want a snack, honey?” Mrs. Cakes asked.

“No, I’m fine for now. Expect to see a lot of business?”

“Oh, we’re already seeing plenty,” the older mare said, nodding toward the palace. “The Captain of the Guard already placed an order for dozens of loaves of bread for the morning, so me and the Mister are going to be pretty busy, heh.”

In other words, there’d be drugged food going straight to the palace barracks by morning. That was a great start for the plan; having the guards even less focused during the day would let the hosts have a lot more space to operate on the morrow. Twilight-Drone nodded in congratulations.

“Great to hear. Where’s Pinkie Pie, by the way?”

“Oh, you know how she is. She’s probably partying with some of the other ponies here.”

Probably out flirting, then. Flirting, or partying, finding the best places to be. When she eventually came back to her tent, Pinkie-Drone would probably download a great deal of information about where the locals went to have fun away from the fairgrounds. That would be good for Big Mac and some of the other ‘hunters’ that the Nest would be sending out to find more hosts.

“Well, I better keep moving. Gotta check on everyone, you know?”

“You be safe, dear,” Mrs. Cakes said.

Twilight-Drone wondered if anyone else would have felt sorry for Mrs. Cakes, knowing that the words were coming out empty and hollow despite the faked emotion behind them. The mare was as much a host as Twilight was, and that meant that anything that passed her lips meant nothing. Anything that would push the goals of the Nest was permissible.

A host that meant nothing with its words. A parasite that used the face of another to sell a lie. Nothing they said mattered other than to create an illusion that nothing had happened between them.

Such was life as a drone: one lived as an extent of the Nest’s wishes and whims, and in Twilight-Drone’s case, they were allowed to be aware of it because they were still of use. There were others that were not so useful, and as far as Twilight-Drone knew, all they understood were their commands. They were not ‘dead,’ precisely, but they were blind to so much of life compared to what she was.

Further into the fairgrounds, she found the tourney being set up by the Crystal Empire. ‘Knights’ of the Empire were busily painting the lanes that the jousting would take place in, while other, higher-up ponies were off to the side, talking to each other.

In the distance, she could just make out Cadance-Drone and Shining-Drone. They were barely visible behind the wall of retainers – 90% or more, Twilight-Drone was sure, were infested – but their eyes met briefly. Their expression shifted in the most minute way, their smiles becoming slightly more frozen, their cheeks and eyes less emotional.

It was just for a moment, just for the briefest of seconds, but it took them from looking like ponies to looking like something dead, something no longer thinking or acting for itself, but rather…directed, and waiting for more directions.

The moment passed. Shining-Drone and Cadance-Drone went back to smiling, laughing, being the guests of honor for one of the main events of the fair. As far as any-pony else was concerned, they were just the same as all the other guests, if a little higher up the hierarchy. They didn’t know anything about them.

Twilight-Drone wandered from one group to another. From Cloudsdale to Manehattan, from the griffons that had dragged themselves away from their breaking society to the few dragons that they had managed to reach, and all the way to the united tribe and city around Appleloosa, there were representatives from all over the equine lands. There wasn’t a single group that went unrepresented.

It would have been a beautiful display of the unity that Celestia had fostered, if it had been something that she had brought together. Instead, it was a show of what the Nest could accomplish in such a short time. While it hadn’t conquered all the lands, it had managed to reach its tendrils into the rumps of all the greater powers. Sooner or later, they would reach the point of being in charge of the whole world, where all bowed to their purpose of being nothing more than an extension of the Nest.

Twilight-Drone paused behind one of the stands, watching as a griffon stood over the water barrel in the back. The water would be used as part of the juice-making process for the fruit-sellers, but just out of sight…

Twilight-Drone observed the male griffon standing on his hind-legs, resting the forelegs against the top of another barrel. His sheath pushed and squeezed around his shaft, edging the head out of the fleshy tube. The perfect control of the muscles down there made it possible, even though it probably shouldn’t have been for a normal griffon.

Without a single change of expression, without relief, without groaning, with an embarrassing blush, the griffon urinated into the water. The yellow fluid fell into the clear, slowly fading away as it dissipated into the fresh water. The griffon kept going, releasing what had to be a full bladder-full of urine without comment, without even looking like he was even remotely aware that he was doing it.

And then it was done. The griffon backed up, put the barrel lid back on, and walked away. Twilight-Drone just watched, making sure that nobody else had seen, and then turned away.

The juices sold from that stand wouldn’t infect anyone, just like the breads and pastries that the Cakes sold wouldn’t infect anyone. All it would do was weaken them, lower their inhibitions, make them stupid.

And stupid ponies were easy to work with.

The drone alicorn kept walking, eventually finding her way back to her own tent. Along the way, she’d seen numerous mares and stallions adding urine or other juices wherever they could. Some had been marking the fairgrounds with lines of urine, making sure that the scent marked out the fairgrounds as a place to have fun in the minds of the uninfested. It wouldn’t last long, but applying it semi-regularly would keep the local ponies slightly eager to return, because their minds would tell them that the fairgrounds was a ‘good’ place.

Some mares backed their rumps up against the poles of their tents, surreptitiously grinding against them, leaving excited stains on the poles that would linger as other ponies walked around.

Some stallions walked around with their cocks just barely poking past their sheaths, walking advertisements for others. They were excused as being foreign, of course, and they were just barely excited enough to drip here and there to keep a scent of their need in the air, but it was still one more tactic to keep everyone on edge.

It was a massive, concerted effort by the Nest and every Drone within it to make sure that the entire operation went off without a hitch. Every single uninfested pony would be constantly surrounded by drugged fluids, eating drugged food, and dealing with a mental haze that was going right to their genitals. They would not be thinking with their brains; they’d be thinking with cocks, pussies, holes. The risk of them being discovered was minimal –

“Twilight?”

Minimal, but not zero. Twilight-Drone turned on the spot, looking up and over her shoulder at the alicorn princess that had come to meet her. Celestia’s eyes were lidded with an affectionate smile, and her wings were pulled tight to her back as her endlessly wavy mane swayed behind her head.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you again, my number-one student,” the older mare said, bowing her head and nuzzling against her cheek. “I do hope that you’ve been well.”

“Oh, I’ve been great!”

Twilight-Drone’s enthusiasm was as much a lie as the care that Mrs. Cake showed her just an hour previous. Whatever feelings there were in the drone, they were nothing near what she showed in her voice. But it meant that Celestia would believe that there was nothing wrong, and that made it fine.

The embrace was different, strange. Twilight-Drone had to go deeper, feel the old memories, remember how she was supposed to react and feel compared to the times she’d gotten fucked or fucked others. Lust was easy; this connection was something different, something that the drone needed to focus all her attention on.

The touch faded. Celestia nodded her head, and Twilight-Drone followed after the princess.

“I must say, I’m very impressed at everything that you’ve done to make this happen,” the Princess of the Sun said, nodding around the fairgrounds. “I haven’t had so many ponies here since the troubles with Discord.”

“Well, I wanted to show you that I’d learned.”

“Indeed, you have, my pupil. Indeed, you have.”

They paused in front of Celestia’s taller, grander tent. It was covered in gold and white and purple, colors that resonated with the royalty of Equestria, and it was situated directly under the Nest tree. Standing so close to it, Twilight-Drone could almost feel the hunger that the tree had to have Celestia among the drones. Yet…

Not yet.

Not yet.

There was too much power in the Princess. The Nest had only felt it through Twilight-Drone’s memories before, but this close, they knew: there was no way to subdue the Princess of the Sun without weakening her first, and weakening her massively. They would need the full week of the festival to bring her defenses down, and even then, it was the riskiest part of the plan to infest her so soon.

But they couldn’t wait. Not any longer.

“Join me?” Celestia asked.

“Oh, I will, but not yet,” Twilight-Drone said. “There’s still so much to see! I mean, there’s griffons here, and then there’s the dragons – you know that there has to be something there – and Rarity promised to show me the stuff from Manehattan –”

Celestia was giggling before Twilight-Drone was even halfway through the list, which was the whole point. They didn’t want to be too close, not yet. Not when there was still a chance that the observant Princess might notice that there was something wrong with her. They needed to wait a day, maybe two, to let everything settle in. Once they’d knocked down her defenses, her wariness…

Then they could join her.

“Alright, Twilight. You have fun. But make sure that you join me and Cadance for a chat later, hmm? It’s been too long since I got to spend time with you.”

“I will, Princess, I promise!”

And she would. Oh, she would.

Author's Note

Summary: Twilight-Drone and the other ponies go to Canterlot to set up for a final push to take the leadership of Equestria into the Nest.

Tags: F/solo, M/solo, Ponies, Griffon, MLP, Twilight Sparkle, Parasite, Drone, Roots, Tentacles, Corruption, Conspiracy, Plotting,