A Conspiracy of Order

Twilight-Drone made notes. There was no technical need to make them, as the parasite could contain all the information that they took in while they were watching the process of the under-librarians being turned into drones, but there was something that spoke to the host of the old style of observation, so the parasite indulged it. There might be need for other hosts to read it in the future, perhaps, and there was never harm in having a back-up copy of the information.

That said, there was, perhaps, also the possibility of it being affected by the host’s mannerisms, and there was the possibility that it was being over-indulged. It would check with the Nest if it had been somehow corrupted, but in the meantime, the alicorn’s horn glowed and a quill darted across the parchment of their blank book.

The three under-librarians had been easily drugged during a lunchtime meal that they had shared. The meal had been confirmation that urine did not work so readily as seed or vaginal fluids when it was applied to others, and it was weakened further by the fact that it had been harvested some time ago. Twilight-Drone had made a note of that in the book, as well, though it was little more than a footnote compared to the various other notes and observations that they had been making since.

Watching the process would have been fascinating for the alicorn if she had been completely free of the parasite. As it stood, there was a hint of something pushing through the emptiness that had become her life. The personality of Twilight Sparkle was still there, still held in reserve, but the emotions were dampened, held down, ensuring that obedience always came quickly without sensations of guilt or anything else.

The process, though. The process.

The Nest was hooked up to each of the three under-librarians, their tails high and their taut rims becoming looser with each pulse of information to and from the Nest. The three of them had been hooked up to drink-tubes, each one made to suck down either some of Dapper-Drone’s harvested seed – which seemed to hold its potency, coming from no later than the night before – and a bit of her own urine. The mix was vaguely sweet, as far as she could tell, and it seemed to agree with the potential hosts, keeping the quiescent and uncomplaining.

The speed of the process, however…

There was no denying that the Nest was working as hard as possible, and it was quite apparent that the bigger Nest – nearly breaking through the ceiling of the basement, now, and starting to grow out rather than just up – was certainly more competent and powerful than it had been while resting in a pot. However, even with the greater growth, she could tell that the various potential hosts were nowhere near converted, and it was entirely possible it would take multiple days to do all of them at once.

It was something of a problem. They could close the library for the weekend, she supposed, but at least one of the under-librarians had a family member that would come looking for them, wondering where they had gone.

Twilight-Drone might have had an answer, but the parasite controlling her was more interested in seeing this through. There was the whole job of securing the library for the experiments, for the gathering of hosts, and that was its focus. The risk of having one of the under-librarians found missing was deemed less serious than the possibility of one of them stumbling on the Nest and revealing it to the town.

So, this was the decided lesser evil. They would convert all three at once and hope for the best.

Well, convert two.

Twilight-Drone’s eyes shifted to the more catatonic of the three. An attempt had been made at rapid infestation, the worm introduced before the pony in question had been properly programmed. The result had been…problematic. There had been a fight, one that had forced Twilight-Drone to utilize her magic to make the under-librarian to go still, and now, the older mare had one of her front legs in a cast, and her eyes had gone funny, one looking in the wrong direction compared to the other.

The Nest had yet to tell them what had gone wrong, but she had no illusions that part of the problem had been an attempt at integration at too early a stage. A pony that was not yet fully programmed could fight back against a parasite to a limited extent, and the resulting exchange of signals up and down an unprepared nervous system could start frying things left and right. The mare might not be able to move without assistance for the rest of her life due to that, if Twilight-Drone didn’t miss her guess.

It was a reminder that they were forced to move slower. They couldn’t just take a parasite and ram it into someone else without doing a great deal of preparatory work. Perhaps, just perhaps, they could sneak a worm into someone if the pony in question was particularly well drugged up first, so out of it that they weren’t aware of the parasite sliding in and integrating itself with their nervous system. Perhaps, then, they would be able to take control of another pony without risking serious damage.

But if the pony in question was even half-aware of what was happening…

Well, the results spoke for themselves. Twilight-Drone put it out of her mind – or rather, the parasite put it out of their mind, guilt and all – and they went back to taking notes of the process.

It had been six hours of work, and it was clear that the three under-librarians were less than a third of the way programmed. Even the one that had been damaged and infested wasn’t quite ready for release to the general public again, considering the way that she had to be kept drugged as much as the others. There were occasional flexes of movement, the parasite attempting to try out its new host, but it was never quite smooth enough, never quite natural compared to the way that the pony was supposed to move.

Time, it seemed, was still against them.

Twilight-Drone made a note of that, as well as the parasite and host’s estimates of just how long this would take. Eighteen hours, minimum, for three hosts to be completely taken in, and possibly as much as thirty-six. It was not an optimal procedure, and they would need to find some way to speed it up. To expand the Nest to a sufficient number of hosts that it would not be able to be taken out was going to be problematic if they had to take a day or longer per host to do it.

How do we make that faster…how do we make that better…

It was not sufficient to merely wait for the Nest to grow on its own. While that had sped up the process to some extent – Twilight-Drone was aware, from the shared information during the syncing with the nest – that Dapper-Drone had taken multiple days to be completely conditioned, programed, and infested, while Twilight-Drone had taken little over a day, and Westin-Drone had taken slightly over half, but that was still a considerable amount of time for a pony to be completely brought over to the side of the Nest. In a small town, that worked, but in a larger settlement –

Twilight-Drone was caught slightly off-guard by that thought, though the surprise, again, was smothered beneath the general conditioning of the parasite. Until that moment, the entirety of the mission had been related towards just expanding the power of the Nest, focusing on building it up, making sure that it would continue to survive against the possibility of discovery. The idea of expanding out of Ponyville, heading to the different areas of Equestria, had yet to push itself forward as a possibility.

Yet, now it had…and it intrigued the host.

The parasite and the host were of one mind on this, and neither needed the encouragement of the other to push forward with various thought experiments. Twilight-Drone wondered how the greater wills of other princesses would stack up against the power of the Nest. The parasite wondered how the powers of those princesses would allow them to do things with different parasites, or how it would allow the Nest to grow in different ways. Twilight-Drone wondered if it was possible for the Nest to move. The parasite knew that it would be difficult to uproot and transport something the Nest’s current size, but that there might be other ways.

Other possibilities.

Other ways forward.

Other Nests, even.

Twilight-Drone would have blinked at that thought, but the host was already curious enough to pursue that, and the parasite encouraged it. Perhaps it was merely a way to keep her from thinking about the situation that they were currently in, but the host was more than willing to pursue that thought-path rather than think about –

Knock-knock.

The sound echoed down from the ramp leading to the upper part of the tree, and Twilight-Drone stiffened. There would have been no knocking from any infested that was part of the Nest, and the only employees that would normally come down were down here already.

That meant that either one of the clients of the library wanted access to the basement…or one of the other hosts had come back with someone on their tails.

Either way, it meant that she had to be more careful. That they had to be more careful.

Twilight-Drone shut the book of notes, carefully floating it out of reach, before turning away from the Nest. The drugged fluids would be sufficient to keep control over the various ponies being conditioned to serve, and she wouldn’t be away for long. She trotted up and around the ramp, making her way up, and she just hoped that it wasn’t that serious. What could have happened?

Westin-Drone wasn’t keen about the whole idea of bringing the nurse with them back to the tree, but the parasite inside was more interested in the idea of the possibilities she brought in. It was actually almost surprised, inasmuch as a parasite could be, that the host was so against bringing someone to the Nest in the first place.

She has possibilities.

She’s got connections, too.

That makes her desirable.

That means there are witnesses. People that come looking, Westin-Drone said. That means that there’s going to be people that notice her go missing.

The parasite didn’t believe that was the case. They had converted Westin without anyone knowing that he was gone, and he was rich and famous.

I’m also someone with a reputation for going off and doing what I want. If this nurse has a regular job, she’s got patients, ponies that expect her.

This one doubts that it will matter for a day.

You haven’t spent time recovering in the hospital after a cider bender…

Westin-Drone was silenced after that. There seemed little point listening to a host that would fight just to be contrary.

And it believed that the nurse would be useful. Access to a hospital, or even to a ward of different pony patients, meant that there was a possibility that they could have access to those that didn’t have the stamina to stand up to the infestation process. The time spent programming them, if they could find a way to bring the Nest to them, would be far less than it would be here, among healthy ponies.

There were things that the parasite knew that it was missing – following a strict program did not, after all, leave one unaware of the holes in said program – but the parasite followed the directions of the Nest. And that was all.

Knock-knock.

“Are you sure that she’s down there?” Nurse Redheart asked from behind. “I mean, I understand that you probably are acquainted with Miss Sparkle –”

“Quite.”

“But wouldn’t she be up here, looking after the books?”

“She’s probably running an experiment.”

“Ah…that would make sense.”

And it was better than the truth. Westin-Drone felt exasperated in the back of the host-mind, and the parasite almost shared that feeling. It could feel the slight tension in the air, and knew that it needed help to cut through that.

The whole difficulty stemmed from the fact that the nurse believed that Twilight Sparkle didn’t know what she was dealing with, that she should know that she had someone potentially abusing a substance under her roof. Normally, that wouldn’t have been that much of an issue, but the fact that the nurse insisted that she talk to the Princess of Friendship about this, for the sake of clarity, meant that there was no clear way to get her somewhere private to prep her for infestation.

If all went well, it wouldn’t matter. And if it didn’t…well, the parasite had other ideas for how to handle this. Westin-Drone, in his own way, was something of a source of inspiration, it must be said.

Thankfully, the library was all but empty. Everyone that might have been a client of the library for the day had either gone home or not attended this morning. Westin-Drone was thankful, and so was the parasite. They would need that privacy if things went badly.

One more knock, and Twilight-Drone finally poked her head out of the basement. The alicorn slid through the crack in the door, shutting it before the faintest whiff of the sexual happenings in the lower levels could come through the gap. She put on a smile – one that he recognized as just another parasite-grin – before turning her attention to Nurse Redheart.

“Oh, hi. Sorry, I was busy down there; can I help you find something?”

“Um…no, I was just returning him to you.” Nurse Redheart flicked her head and mane in his direction before looking at Twilight more carefully. “Are you alright, Miss Sparkle?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. I just had a long night.”

“You know that you’re not supposed to do that.”

“It happens. It’s not that big a deal.”

“You know it is. For an alicorn, in particular, with all that magic, it’s very key that you get sufficient amounts of rest if you want to use them properly. I know; I’ve studied how to care for ponies like you.”

Westin-Drone moved back from the pair, the infested pegasus carefully positioning himself between the nurse and the exit. If things went bad, then he would need to do something to keep her from running.

The parasite in him wanted to communicate the situation to Twilight-Drone, but there was no clear way to do that. With cock-twitching, lowering his shaft and flicking it around, he might have been able to communicate to Dapper-Drone with the rudimentary code that the Nest had imprinted on them, but with Twilight-Drone, there was no way for her to respond. The most he might be able to do was get a message to the parasite and her host, but that would also risk Nurse Redheart seeing just what was going on with him, and that would raise even more questions.

The lack of a way to communicate was irritating, and it was stored in the back of the parasite’s own mind for bringing up with the Nest later.

“You need to take it easy from time to time,” Redheart said, continuing her lecture. “If you don’t, then you’re going to need to go all the way back to Canterlot.”

“Why –”

“Why? Are you that tired? Dear, don’t you remember?”

Twilight-Drone looked vaguely overwhelmed, as if the parasite was trying to find some sort of information that it couldn’t quite understand. The result meant that Twilight herself looked more than a little confused, dazed, as if smacked over the head.

“Twilight? Twilight, are you still with me?” the nurse asked.

“I – what are you talking about?”

The parasite in Westin-Drone knew what was happening. The same could happen to any of them; if they were caught off-guard, off-program, then there was a possibility that the parasite wouldn’t know what part of the host personality to pull up, what information to grab for. And if the host was not the most lucid at the moment – and considering Twilight-Drone was the Nest’s favorite tool to use for advanced programming and thought-processing, the mare was likely more than a little mentally exhausted to begin with – then the parasite could end up fumbling in a sea of information.

Nurse Redheart stepped forward, pressing one hoof to Twilight-Drone’s flank. Her eyebrows went up.

“Her heart rate is skyrocketing. How long has she been awake?”

“…”

“Sir, do you know how long she’s been awake?” Redheart asked, whipping her head around. “Her heart’s almost skipping beats. I don’t even know how she’s –”

Redheart whipped her head back around, her eyes wider still. Twilight-Drone’s breath seemed to stabilize, and Westin-Drone’s parasite imagined that the other host had just been forced to calm its heartbeat, to take direct control of the mare’s heart and make it beat slower.

Unfortunately, the action had been so out of context, so impossible, that any chance of trying to explain what was going on to the nurse had just gone out the window. It was time for plan B.

As Nurse Redheart stepped back from Twilight-Drone, her eyes wide, Westin-Drone’s cock dropped. It fell quickly, going from in-sheath to dangling nearly to the floor, then swung up. The parasite inside him managed to keep it from thwacking against his stomach and alerting the other mare, and he walked up behind her as she backed up.

Only a parasite of the Nest could control and position a body so well as this. Only a parasite of the Nest could line them up so perfectly that when Redheart backed up one more pace, she ended up impaling herself on the pegasus’s cock rather than him having to force it up inside of her.

“Ah!”

She gasped, her breath punched out of her as Westin-Drone was forced to force himself further and further up her rump. The parasite clenched around the prostate it was wrapped around, and the first gush of drugged seed went shooting deep, soaking into the anal walls like a bottle of wine at a debauched party. Just like the bottle of wine would make someone drunk at record speed, the application of corrupted, altered, drugged seed was more than sufficient to have an instant effect on the nurse. She started sagging, wobbling, her legs going funny beneath her, and her instinct to shout had been suppressed.

There was an odd moment of conflict. Westin-Drone wanted this in some fashion, but the force of it shocked the stallion. The parasite saw nothing wrong with the forced, rapid drugging of the mare beneath them, and the process continued. After all, the host had no power over its own body any longer.

Thrust.

Thrust.

Thrust.

The motions were as mechanical as they were powerful, each one forcing the mare further forward, each one knocking those thoughts of resistance out of her head with another application of seed. The punishment that the parasite had put Westin-Drone through had drained a great deal from him, but there was sufficient left for this.

Each pulsing throb from deep within pulled more of the converted seed in the sac up through the shaft, the muscles of the stiff equine rod squeezing down hard. The pulsing feeling was so strong, and the parasite used the actions to force Westin-Drone to feel each and every spasm of pleasure.

Spasm.

Thrust.

Throb.

Squirt.

Each action brought a different sort of pleasure, and the parasite not only allowed the host to feel it – something that it was not required to do, and, indeed, was often pushed to keep from the host to allow them to be more addicted to what the Nest offered during syncing – but it amplified the sensations. It made sure that Westin-Drone felt the spasms inside his cock when the seed was forced out. It made sure that the stallion endured the sensation of the silky asshole of the mare squeezing down around him as he was made to thrust inside. It made sure that the spoiled-rich male knew what he was doing, and that obedience would be rewarded, and resistance would be punished.

Thrust.

Thrust.

Thrust.

Twilight-Drone watched blankly, not in shock or judgment, but just in that patient way of another host waiting for the danger to pass and the moment to act to come. Westin-Drone continued, ramming his way in and pulling out again until there was nothing left in his sac, nothing that might be used to break down the mare any further.

He pulled out slowly, the soft ‘pop’ of the shrinking head of the shaft audible far more than usual in the otherwise silent library. The mare fell to her knees, then rolled to her side. She laid there, her mouth hanging open, tongue hanging out, her eyes hazed over as if she had been the one to abuse various substances rather than what she’d been ready to accuse him of doing. Her hole gaped, her asshole nearly ripped from the rough insertion, but she had adapted. Somewhat.

The oozing white pouring from her stretched anal ring looked almost artistic, in its own way. A stain of white running in a slender line down from the puffy dark hole, it looked like something that one could see in a museum.

Westin-Drone felt like it might laugh at that. The parasite quashed the growing hysteria from the host.

“That was inefficient,” Twilight-Drone said.

“You were almost caught.”

“It would have been handled.”

“This host doubts it.”

“This host has magic.”

“Then the host should have used it, should it not?”

“There are other experiments. Other things that need attending. Did you not think of witnesses?”

“They could be handled.”

“They have been. They are below.”

“Then –”

“The Nest is already busy. Now it has to be busier, still.”

There was a hint of shame, but greater annoyance from the parasite in Westin-Drone. The parasites had all been given a similar task – to preserve the Nest, and expand it – while also dealing with various other objectives. It appeared, then, that they were running over each other and causing problems. It did not like that. It did not like that at all.

Then, the library door opened, and the two of them turned.

Dapper-Drone trotted into the library with good news, though one would not have guessed it from his face. The parasite within had no need to hide behind a smile while walking through Ponyville. If engaged, it might have shown one, but as it stood, there was no need to smile without contact with someone else.

As it rounded the aisles of the library and stumbled on its fellow hosts and a broken mare between them, it had more reason to frown than smile. It did not; there was no need to express emotion through its host’s face without other, uninfested ponies around to read it.

“What happened here?” it asked.

“We were nearly uncovered,” Westin-Drone said.

“We were not.” Twilight-Drone started, then stopped herself from shaking her head. “There was no threat.”

“There nearly was. She recognized something impossible. You altered your host where she could notice.”

“It could have been explained.”

“Why is she still up here?” Dapper-Drone asked. “Someone else could come in and see.”

“There are others below,” Twilight-Drone said. “They are in the process of being programmed.”

“…”

“This one did not know of this,” Westin-Drone said.

“But you would have done this, regardless. Your host is affecting you,” Twilight-Drone said.

“And yours, you.”

“Regardless.” Dapper-Drone pulled their attention back to him. “We move her downstairs. Out of sight. And quickly. Clean as we go.”

The situation was out of hand, and it was only luck that had kept them from being completely exposed. If he had been returning with Big Mac in tow, as had been a possibility when they had gone out recruiting, then the whole secret would have been exposed. Big Mac would have attacked Westin, and that would have ended badly for all involved.

They worked together to get the body of Nurse Redheart off the floor and down to the basement. The thick scent of sexual fluids were starting to sink in everywhere, something that Dapper-Drone stored away for later. The drone was more present, he realized, more out, and he wondered if that had a hint of something to do with the way that the parasite was starting to realize something was wrong.

Was the parasite able to be aware of something being wrong? So far, it had only followed the programming of the Nest, but it had resorted to using him when Applejack had been furious and forced itself to just go with what he said. Was this another situation, when the parasite realized that the Nest itself was being threatened and it needed something else that would give it the chance to do its job?

He didn’t know, but it was a fascinating moment.

Just as fascinating as the sight of the Nest and the three ponies hooked up to it. One was clearly damaged somehow, but the three of them had been pulled in and locked to the Nest, each one being programmed under their raised tail. They stared ahead, mouths open, a tube slid into the side of their muzzles and taped in place. Fluids gathered from him or Westin-Drone dripped down their throats, ‘feeding’ them and keeping them compliant with the process, and he admired the efficiency of it.

As they put Redheart down at the side, Twilight-Drone gathering another line and container of drugged fluids, Dapper-Drone turned to Westin-Drone.

“Explain.”

“There was a threat. The threat had to be contained. The threat was contained.”

“Through application?”

“Physical application.”

“Through programming, or through choice?”

“…”

There was a moment of silence between them, and Dapper-Drone felt something from his parasite. A parasite that stopped relying on programming, pure programming, and started going too ‘rogue’ by making its own choices, was a danger to the Nest. The possibility that Westin-Drone might need to be drained and re-infested was something that neither of the parasites would want to consider, and the possibility that it could even happen sent a shiver down Dapper-Drone’s spine. It was another slight knock against the perfection of the Nest, one more reminder that it could make mistakes.

Not that there was much of a reminder needed at the moment, though.

Not after everything that had happened that day.

“…This host will be examined, and fixed.”

“And the Nest member within?” Dapper-Drone asked.

“…It will be fixed.”

“One would see it so.”

Just as Twilight-Drone finished hooking Redheart up to her drugs, the Nest rumbled. The great tree called their attention to it, and all three hosts turned around as one. Their eyes locked with the far side of the room as their tails went up, and they slowly backed up towards the rising tendrils waiting for them.

Dapper-Drone was, of all things, feeling a muted fury. The lack of cohesiveness among the other hosts bothered him. It felt like they were all flailing around for the sake of a grand – and worthwhile – purpose, but they weren’t given the right unity to do it properly. The mistakes that had been made today had come so close to exposing them, and now, they were –

Slick.

Squelch.

Clench.

The feeling of the tendril pushing into his rump was as satisfying and mind-numbing as always. It came with the too-smooth feeling of the tendril rubbing between his cheeks, lubed with its own strange juices, and the soft parting of his anal ring left him with a sense of anticipation that blossomed into satisfaction as the connection was made between him and the Nest. The shock that came and the clench that followed, keeping the tendril right where it was, pressing against his parasite and prostate, made him feel better.

The pleasure came afterward, the soft surge of energy that meant that he was getting downloaded. The memories of the day – both his and the parasite’s – were being pulled into the Nest, and so were the memories of the other two hosts. He could feel a vague backwash from them as the data mixed within the body of the Nest, hints of the curiosity and questions that Twilight-Drone had, and the surge of dissatisfaction, fear, anger, and frustration from Westin-Drone and his parasite, and –

And then the Nest stopped pulling. The connection remained, but for the first time, it was blank, as if the Nest was thinking before it did something. It was a strange feeling, almost like the long pause between a letter being sent and it arriving, like looking at someone in a magic mirror and wondering if you’d lost connection.

Then, the dissatisfaction came.

It was, somehow, far worse than if the Nest had a voice with which to yell at them. Instead of angry words, image-concepts of utter dissatisfaction in their work came down the tendrils. Dapper-Drone had a feeling that they were getting off lightly compared to the other hosts, for their mission had been accomplished, if in a sub-par way, while the others had done too much, reached too far, nearly caused the discovery of the Nest. Where satisfaction and approval from the Nest had brought pleasure, the annoyance and dissatisfaction that this reflected brought pain.

And not a good kind of pain, either.

The stallion nearly buckled under it, his top-hat falling off his head as he stumbled forward half a step. His eyes watered as he felt the shocks twisting up and down his spine, through his legs, along his belly. It was pure angry diatribe.

And then, it was gone.

What followed was a sense of correction, of little pieces being touched, twisted, altered. There were many things that could be better, many things that needed to be better. Dapper-Drone felt a hint of space being added to his little cubicle in the back of his mind, a window out that would allow him to see, to know what was going on, to affect things for the benefit of his parasite. It was not much, not much more at all, but it was a slight improvement.

More, it showed that the Nest could learn, and that was better, still. It meant that it was more than blind instinct, and that? That gave them a chance.

And as they were reprogrammed, part of their brainpower was taken to hurry the processing of the three under-librarians. They could no longer afford to take this slow.