Missing In Action: From Underhive With Love - Two Disc Ultimate Edition

by LSTS Connor

Rating: mature
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Princess Cadance, Alternate Universe, Romance, Drama, Original Character, Profanity, Adventure, Shining Armor, Violence, Sex, Human
Length: 36079

Months after the war, the last two to shed blood, former-human Spartan Noble Six, and reincarnated changeling King Phasma, find a new adventure involving giant alien spiders, romantic tension, and a MacGuffin that doesn't really matter in the end.

Noble Six: Spartan, human, pony, and listless. Adjusting to life after war with the changelings is jarring and difficult at best. Home is where the heart is, and Six finds it difficult to place the centerpiece of her cardiovascular system anywhere but within the safe confines of her armor plating. But one day, she receives a visit from an old friend, sent hurtling straight into her office.

King Phasmatodea, the changeling ruler of the Fifth Hive, returns to upturn Six's day and harass everyone within earshot, fresh from voyages across the multiverse. The chance to rest is rare, and with good company even rarer. But as they slowly ease up to each other more, an ancient changeling demigoddess stirs the pot and sets them on a daring adventure through the most dangerous environments on the planet. Will they survive? Yes of course. Will there be steamy hoof-holding scenes? No, not before marriage.

But they will kiss passionately.

Cover art by diggymeow on discord
Written in collaboration with K.K Slider in my mothers basement
Warning this story contains spoilers for the two stories A Noble Death and Changing Expectations

Published 2024-09-18 00:30:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-09-18 00:30:00 UTC

1- How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love The MacGuffin

“Why won’t you just stay dead?!” King Phasmatodea grunted as he rammed a broken pipe straight through the abomination crawling towards him.

Letting out a stream of curses that would make Commissar Ciaphas Cain proud, Phasma hurled a Focused Will laser blast that obliterated the wall closest towards him and threw himself through the hole. The dingy, filthy, and oppressively dark alleyway afforded only marginally better circumstances than being inside.

Already, the malformed, blackened, and twisted horror that was once Fancy Pants was ripping itself free of the metal that had pinned it to the ground. Blackened blood spurted from the stump of its seventh arm, and it began crawling towards Phasma once again.

Buzzing his wings, the King took to the skies and hovered up to a nearby rooftop. It would take the abomination some time to crawl up the three stories up to his position– and he dared not fly further, lest he attract the attention of the flyers lurking around. He couldn’t see them, but he definitely could hear the flap of their wings. The changeling surveyed the city around him, chest heaving from the exertion of the fight.

Seven times he had jumped without rest, and seven times he had found himself on hellworlds, each intent on ripping him limb from limb and sucking out the insides. This final eighth time was no different from the rest, and Phasma felt the exhaustion seep deep into his chitin.

Around him, Canterlot was a pale parody of what it was supposed to be. Its gleaming white walls and shining gold roofs were cast in a sickly green light. What was visible was a decaying shadow of its former splendor; mage towers listed to the side or were half blown to bits, homes were crushed and splintered, plazas were overrun with sights that Phasma dared not to look too closely at. Above it all, above where the Royal Palace should have been, a miniature green sun bathed the world in hellish light.

King Phasma had to tear his gaze away from the sun, for when he looked at it, he could have sworn that it stared back at him. And he had been on the road long enough to know to trust his instincts.

The sound of stone cracking and breaking drew his attention to the former-pony behind him. It was already two thirds of the way up his building, and climbing fast. The changeling fired off two ice blasts, ripping limbs and freezing muscles. He only slowed it to a crawl, the damned thing was growing limbs as fast as Phasma could cut them.

He raised his fetlock and examined the jump drive mounted there. The display was filthy and cracked, but it read its status clear enough for the changeling to take the risk. He tore open a hole in reality and all but fell face-first through it. But as he placed his hoof through the portal, King Phasma felt a familiar sensation tickling at the back of his mind. It felt like… like a Weave. One he had experienced before. The orange portal swirled with eddies of red energy that rippled across it, drowning out the orange surface and tinting the whole portal dark red.

Phasma couldn’t even lean away from the portal before it started pulling him in. With an alarmed cry, King Phasma was dragged through it, hindlegs kicking at golden clay tiles before they too disappeared into the red magical doorway.

Six was not having a good time, bureaucracy was not something a Spartan of her caliber was cut out for. She was currently in what counted for her office, stacks on stacks of paper, and several broken quills littered the desk in front of her as she idly fiddled with her knife.

Dexterously weaving it from one hoof to the other across her outstretched feathers, the pegasus known as the Angel of Las Pegasus was bored beyond measure. There was only so long a Spartan can look at form ‘C-729’ regarding training budget allocation before it made any person mad. And Six was no exception.

Reaching out with a wing she grabbed the tip of one of the broken quills as her free hoof picked up a document from the table. With a flick of her wrist she flicked it into the open air before flexing her wing and sending the sharp tip of the quill careening through the air.

As if a bolt had struck the spinning paper it flew into the far wall, impaled by the quill to its cluttered surface. Another victim of Six’s boredom joining the wall peppered with documents, both signed and unsigned by the Spartan. Were any of the many bureaucrats to see this collage of murdered paperwork they would surely faint, luckily for her though the only one she ever saw in person couldn’t care less.

With a knock on the door, the Alicorn in question entered the room just as Six sent another document to its grave. Already having grown used to the many unique tendencies of the Spartan, Luna didn’t bat her one good eye.

“You do know you will have to collect all those later, right?” She spoke with amusement, the corner of her lips curling up into a wry smile.

Six shrugged as she placed her knife down and onto the desk, “I needed some target practice, and we both know paperwork isn’t a Spartans strong suit.”

Luna glanced at the wall, “I think everypony knows.” She moved to stand before the Spartans desk,” But anyway that is not why I am here, well… partially it is but-“

“Wait.” Six interrupted, bringing Luna to a standstill, “Do you hear that?”

Everything went silent, their ears swiveling for several seconds until suddenly, very slightly, Luna heard a low whistle. The sound began to grow, getting louder and louder as it turned to an ear piercing screech, forcing their swiveling ears to press against their skulls.

With a sound not too dissimilar to paper being torn the room was bathed in a crimson light as just above them in the corner of the room the membrane of reality tore open. It existed for only the barest fraction of a second before, with a shudder, it belched out its contents and vanished with a boom of displaced air.

Yelling, a figure wreathed in a puff of crimson flame careened into the princess, the alicorn too surprised to react in time. With a tumble both fell to the ground as Six leaped up onto the desk with gritted teeth and her knife at the ready.

“Son of a cussing cuss word, that hurt!”

Six froze as the sound graced her ears, she knew that voice. “Phasma?” She asked experimentally.

The small amount of smoke that had obscured her vision dissipated giving her a complete view of the tangled mess of limbs below her. Luna was lying on her back, the orange changeling above her getting onto shaky limbs.

Phasma groaned, “Ah, hello there! Noble Six, is that you? The hell are you doing out here in the multi…”

It was at this moment the changeling realized what position he was in before scrambling backwards to give Luna some room.

The alicorn raised an eyebrow, “My, aren’t you a bold one.”

Phasma grimaced, gripping and rolling a shoulder as he frowned at Luna, “You can’t make that reference, you don’t know the source material. Where… Am I back?”

Six, seeing that there was no imminent threat, began to smile as she lowered her knife and jumped down from the tortured desk. The ground shook briefly as her heavy hooves hit the ground, “Certainly looks like it.” Six stared at the alicorn still rising to her hooves, “You do know how to make an entrance, Phasma.”

The tall changeling stumbled back, knocking over a chair and practically flipping over a low table, “W-woah! What can I say… Uh, probably some witty joke about walking away from a landing. Urf, the room is still spinning…”

With a grunt, the stallion fell down onto his rump, rubbing his head.

Luna brushed off her shoulder and stared down the changeling, “Have you been eating well, King Phasma? There appears to be thrice the amount of mass to you than what is visible!”

“... Are you calling me fat–”

“Yes, I am calling you fat.”

Phasma sighed, “No. As a matter of fact, I haven’t eaten much recently. Or slept much. Or just relaxed in general. I’m very tired, exhausted, and some other third thing. Sore? Yeah, we’ll go with sore.” The changeling slowly fell backwards, crashing backwards onto the table, “Ah! Mmm, it’s laying-down time.”

As Six moved from behind her desk to check up on the changeling, Luna rolled her eyes, “Truly, your grasp of Equuish is astonishing. A great poet of our age.”

In response, King Phasma weakly kicked a hindleg in her direction, falling several paces short of Luna.

Six grabbed Phasma’s shoulders and pulled him around and up to all fours, “Let’s get you to the infirmary.”

He grunted and leaned down against the stalwart Spartan for support, “Yeah. Sure. I think I’m fine, but I won’t argue with getting a bed, shorty.”

“Call me shorty again and I’m carrying you,” Six replied, heading towards the door.

“Shorty shorty shorty shorty!” Phasma chanted quickly.

Everything hurt, but not in the oh-goddess-cut-it-off sort of way. Which Phasma took to mean that nothing was seriously hurt. That was a step up from last time he had been in this universe.

Speaking of which, that particular fact bugged him. He had never been in the same universe before. His jumps across the barriers between realms had always been blind and had never carried him backwards. He would have to completely disable the jump drive around his fetlock and take a look at its innards. Clearly, something was broken– and jumping with a broken drive was just asking to be turned into a puréed changeling smear on the wall.

Currently, the King was laying back in a hospital bed, with Celestia, Luna, and Six crowding around him.

“I thought we were rid of you for good,” Luna remarked.

“I said I was sorry,” Phasma whispered back.

Celestia lowered Phasma’s charts back onto the foot of his hospital bed, “Everything seems to be in order. I think, as I don’t exactly have much knowledge of changeling physiology.”

“The inside bits stay inside, the outside bits stay outside,” Phasma replied, fiddling with a screwdriver to open up the jump drive around his horse-wrist.

“By that measure, you are perfectly healthy,” Celestia smiled. “Now, onto the question that is on all of our minds; why are you back? Not that you are unwelcome, but we weren’t expecting to see you again.”

The top panel of the fetlock-mounted device popped open, and Phasma immediately cast a few scanning spells into the exposed maze of circuitry, gemstones, and a two-thirds full tank of glowing white Electrum Mana.

“Neither was I,” he said quietly. “Now my jump may have been a tad rushed, but I have never gone backwards in my journey. Not even when I tried to. Something happened to my portal, something that changed the way it behaved. Pretty concerning, if you ask me, as this is my only way home.”

Luna eyed the changeling’s work, “Perhaps your device recognized you could use the break?”

Phasma scoffed, “If this thing developed sapience, I would have a lot of concerns about it. No, something else happened. I’ll have to take some time to figure that out, could even help me learn to navigate the multiverse with accuracy. Hope you don’t mind me sleeping on your couch for a bit.”

Celestia chuckled, “After your help with the changelings? I believe you have earned that and more. Though do not worry, we have ample enough spare rooms that you could use.”

“Or we can find you a couch,” Luna added.

“I know a good one,” Six half-grinned.

Phasma pointed at Six, “Look, she’s making an expression! Someone take a picture before we lose it!”

Six winked at him, before returning to her usual stone-faced expression.

Phasma blinked in surprise, before refocusing on his work, “Seems like a lot has happened since I was last here. Your parade-rest attitude was nearly unbreakable, Noble Six. I’m also noticing the absence of a certain pink alicorn and her boy-toy…”

The changeling paused, holding his breath.

Celestia nodded, “Cadance and Shining Armor are handling the emergence and reintegration of the Crystal Empire.”

Phasma slowly let out the breath he was holding, “... The bastard’s dead, then?”

“Yeah,” Six said. “He’s gone.”

The changeling idly tapped on the open panel with his screwdriver, “You seem to have all emerged from that fight okay. I wish… Nevermind.”

An awkward silence came upon the group, before Six cleared her throat, “Wanna go get a drink?”

“Huh?” Phasma’s head snapped to her.

“Huh?” Luna repeated, staring at Six.

“Nice,” Celestia smiled.

Six stared back at the three of them, “What?”

“Suuuuure,” Phasma said slowly. “Um… That is unexpected. You’re the last person who I would expect to ask me to go do something with you. Well, you or your Luna.”

“I do not belong to anypony!” Luna bristled, her one blue eye glaring daggers at the seated changeling.

Phasma returned to working on his jump drive, “Sure, love. Just saying one version of you saw something in me, enough of something to pursue. Are you really going to try to discredit yourself? C’mon, you’re like the best judge of character I know.”

Luna quickly looked away, her cheeks redder than normal.

“See?” Phasma smiled. “All you gotta do is shower her with compliments and break through that icy, cold exterior, till you find the beautiful mare who loves strawberry ice cream.”

“I have things to do!” Luna quickly exclaimed, before hastily trotting out of the medical ward.

“Now that you have thoroughly embarrassed my sister,” Celestia began.

“Hey, she loves it,” Phasma interrupted.

“– I must return to my own duties. I shall leave you in Six’s… care. Do be careful with him, Six. He seems to be a nice stallion under all of that abrasiveness.”

The bug chuckled, “I’ll have you know that I have dozens of friends! Doz– okay, maybe a dozen, singular, but that’s still a lot of friends!”

“I will have somepony show you to a suite when you are ready,” Celestia said. “Then you two will be free to carouse to your hearts’ content. Or until Phasma is reminded of his physical limitations, whichever comes first.”

“Thanks, Celestia,” Phasma said honestly. “I appreciate the hospitality. Good luck telling nobles to shove it up their plots.”

“I do not need luck with that, I have Six for that. Take care, you two.”

Six nodded her goodbye, “Celestia.”

“Ooooh,” Phasma grinned as Celestia left the ward. “Someone’s on a first name basis with Sunbutt!”

“I also seem to be on a first name basis with you… Chitin… butt?”

He chuckled again, “You’ve got a long way to go before you master the witty one-liners. Maybe if you took a class on being a villain, that could help? I know a few good teachers. But then ponies would be gossiping about how you’re hanging out with bad boys!”

“Like whom?” Six asked.

Phasma rolled his eyes, “Discord, Chrysalis, rough dudes with leather jackets and motorbikes… me.”

“I think Shining Armor owns a leather jacket?” Six questioned out loud.

“Alright but without the bike he’s never gonna complete the Tough Guy look. Plus isn’t he a bit too…. fragile for you?”

Six shook her head, “He is quite capable in the sparring ring, and has proven to be a tough adversary in the battlefield.”

The King groaned, placing his face in his hooves, “Everything just flies over your head, doesn’t it?”

“We’ve already discussed this,” Six insisted. “Nothing flies over my head without me noticing. I would catch it.”

“Whatever you say, M1A1 Bradley,” Phasma laughed, thumping her chestplate.

The setting sun cast rays of yellow and orange through stained glass windows, decorating the Palace hall with a rainbow of colors. The Royal Guards shifted wearily, eyes locked on the huge changeling sitting with his back to the pair of them.

“... I can taste your fear,” his deep voice rumbled out.

The two stallions shared a glance before readjusting their grips on their ceremonial spears.

“It’s delicious,” Phasma continued. “Though you may want to have your prejudices and racism reexamined. Hatred doesn’t look good on you ponies. You’re cute, fluffy demeanor and looks undercuts it.”

As much fun as it was fucking around with the Royal Guard, goading them into a fight would be a bit too far. Phas couldn’t talk his way out of the trouble that would cause. And, he supposed, he also didn’t want to fight them. Of course, his first concern was always making sure to not get in trouble, before deciding whether or not he could– or would– do things.

The sound of hoofsteps on marble echoed louder and louder through the hall as someone approached from around the corner.

“Finally,” Phasma sighed. “What took you so long, Noble Six? I know for a fact that you don’t wear makeup.”

Six rounded the corner and immediately raised Phasma’s eyebrows to the top of his head. She had shed her armor for the first time in his presence, and was instead wearing a leather jacket lent to her from Spitfire, emblazoned with the Wonderbolt logo. It was unzipped in the front, the smaller jacket physically unable to close around the Spartan’s massive frame.

“I am sure you are aware that removing Mjolnir Mark V armor is not a quick process,” Six replied, stopping before the staring changeling.

Phasma whistled, “Damn, Six! I never knew you were a muscle mommy.” Six blinked in response, unable to process the comment, and Phasma continued, “You weren’t supposed to take the leather jacket thing seriously. Who did you beat up to steal that thing from?”

Six shook her head quickly to bring herself back to reality, “Spitfire let me borrow it. She is having one custom made for me, but offered to let me borrow hers for the night. It will have to do.”

“Well, alright then! I don’t have anything to put on, sadly. And I’m not going disguised, I’ve decided. You got a problem with me striding through Canterlot, as naked as the day I hatched?”

“Everyone else seems okay with it,” Six remarked. “The naked part, not so much the changeling thing.”

Phasma laughed, “They’re just gonna have to get over their fear of the color black. Humans did it, eventually, and they can, too.”

“It took several wars and social movements to get to that point,” Six pointed out.

“Good thing you’ve got a head start!” Phasma grinned wide. “Now you just need the social movements. Alright, what bar are we terrorizing tonight?”

“The Angel’s Tap,” Six answered.

“Lead the way, muscle m–” Phasma started saying before he clamped his mouth shut. “Hey, uh, you ever seen a therapist about your whole ‘anger issues thing’ yet?”

“I do not have anger issues,” Six snapped, guiding the two out of the Palace and into Canterlot. “Anytime I have responded in anger, that was always the correct response. However, I have been talking with Cadance and Luna about… being a civilian.”

Phasma waved at the ponies gawking at them, “Considering I saw you half-smile, it seems to be doing you some good. Those two w– are a great help in that regard. They care about us, no matter how hard we try to convince them otherwise.”

“Exactly. Why can’t they let us get drunk in peace?”

“Their lives are too boring. They live vicariously through meddling in the lives of others. Just look at Celestia and her protege, Twilight. Do you know how many letters those two swap?” Phasma shook his head, “A lot, the answer is a lot.”

Gawking ponies– and a number scrambling out of their way– aside, the journey to the Angel’s Tap was relatively quick and quiet. The austere bar boasted a freshly painted sign hanging above its door, featuring the Noble insignia behind its lettering. Phasma took in the detail immediately, recognizing the triangle and fancy chevron from Reach.

“... You own the place or something?”

“They just know me,” Six replied.

“As descriptive as ever,” Phasma grunted, shaking his head.

“I don’t know, I’m not the owner,” Six replied just as simply.

Phasma chuckled, “You know, I’m sure I can find some foal books to give to you to read about describing things. The big, brown apple, the quick fox, the lazy dog. Descriptive words and explanations are important, you know.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Six said sarcastically. “Why don’t you open the wooden, rectangular door to the drinking establishment known as The Angel’s Tap, which resides on 433 Cantering Boulevard, Canterlot, Equestria. You should do so by extending your hoof or grasping the handle with your telekinesis and pull it outwards towards you, as per firecodes all doorways exit outwards.”

“... Much better, thank you,” Phas said as he pulled open the door and stepped through.

The Angel’s Tap was slightly more fanciful inside than it was outside, but only slightly. The place would not look too out of place on Earth, featuring red leather bar stools and seating booths, and overhead lights that casted the place in dingy yellow lighting. The gruff looking stallion behind the counter bore a number of faded-pink scars across his muscled forelegs and shoulders, glancing up at the two as the pair entered the establishment. The rest of the patrons, well toned stallions and mares to the last, kept to their quiet conversations and drinking.

“Gentlemen, this is an invasion!” Phasma declared as he stepped inside. “Put your hooves in the air and prepare to be podded!”

The room went silent at that declaration, the music coming to a halt and conversation dying along with it. A multitude of pairs of colorful eyes staring at him in disbelief, too shocked to rapidly respond.

“That’s not funny,” Six said as she shouldered past him.

Upon seeing the Spartan push past Phasma and walk into the bar, the ponies visibly relaxed, though none turned back to their conversations. “Barkeep, the usual. And something weaker for my friend here.”

“Friend?” The barkeep echoed.

“I don’t bite,” Phasma waved. “Not usually.”

“He’s with me,” Six answered. “Poor jokes and all.”

“Aw, come on!” Phas whined, following Six towards one of the booths. “Making light of horrible tragedies is part of the coping mechanism. Did I ever tell you about… uh... hmm… Okay, maybe it’s a bit hard to come up with jokes about that stuff.”

Phasma scooted in across from Six, tapping the table between them and shifting around.

“... Is this steel-reinforced?”

Six half-grinned, “I am a frequent flier here. I believe I went through three chairs before the owner just gave up and gave me this.”

“Would’a been cheaper to just ban you,” Phas said quietly.

“Ah, but then they don’t get the Princesses’ paycheck for my liquor.”

“Ha!” Phas slapped the table. “Now that is a check I am very familiar with receiving! I get it, I get the hustle.”

“Yeah, they wouldn’t have renamed the place after me if I wasn’t worth a few chairs.”

The bug frowned, “... The Angel’s Tap? You don’t look like a beer dispenser, so are you some kind of angel, then? Pretty sure Angels of Death belongs to a different IP.”

“IP? I do not believe internet access has anything to do with it,” Six answered.

Phasma shook his head, “You know, you can drop the straight man routine when we’re not making jokes for other people.”

“I am not a man, I am a woman.”

The stallion groaned and put his head back into his hooves, “I mean, technically right now you’re a mare. Goddess, they really didn’t include a humor class in your training, huh?”

“Nope,” Six smiled.

“Aw, you can smile,” Phasma grinned back. “You should try doing that more often. Looks better on you than a grimace.”

Six shrugged, “Sorry, I am just used to always wearing my helmet.”

Phasma giggled to himself, “You know, with a sharpie I can give you a smile on the outside of your visor. If Emile can have a death’s head on his visor, I’m sure you’re within regulation to have a big ol’ smiley face on yours.”

“Emile was never in compliance with regulation,” Six remarked, “but his combat effectiveness was cause enough for his superiors to look the other way.”

“All the more reason to add a big smile on your visor!” Phasma insisted. “I’m sure the ponies will love you even more!”

Six laughed, shaking her head as her deep chuckle drew a glance or two from the nearby ponies.

The King sighed, letting his head hit the back of the booth seating. “... Fuck. It’s been a while since I could do something like this, Six. Last time was… shit, was it when I was here? How long ago was that?”

“Months.”

Phasma slowly shook his head from side to side, “... Probably comparable for me. No way of knowing. I, uh, I’ve had some bad luck, Six. A lot of bad luck. To put it bluntly, I’ve found myself in situations that would have earned me one of those Helljumper titles the ODSTs have, time and time again.”

“Want to talk about it?” Six asked.

“Uh,” Phas said, lifting his head to look down at the smaller pony. “I’m afraid the story is mostly the same every time. I jump to a new world, I find new ways for things to try to kill me, and I kill them first. There seems to be a lot of death in our corner of the multiverse. Lots of ways for things to go wrong. Lots of ways for the corpses to pile up. You know what I mean. You’ve seen it. You’ve seen what happens when civilization dies…”

The Spartan remained quiet. Thoughts of New Alexandria burning filled her mind’s eye, the pillars of light burning from the heavens to wipe away her people. She struggled with a proper response, but was unable to come up with something. In the end, Six reached out and placed her hoof on top of one of Phasma’s. The stallion looked at her in surprise, before offering a sad smile.

“... Thanks,” he said quietly.

“Don’t mention it.”

“... Hey, Noble Six? I, uh, I’m sorry about the fight. Sorry about breaking your knife, too.”

Six kept her hoof on top of his, “Call me Six.”

The changeling snorted, “Six. Call me Phas.”

The two sat in silence, holding hooves and quietly staring into each other’s eyes, the Spartan’s cyan eyes a stark contrast against the changeling’s orange slitted eyes. When the barkeep arrived, a platter of drinks on his back, the two withdrew their hooves in an instant, looking away from each other and clearing their throats. It took a bit for their faint blushes to fade away.

“Right,” the barkeep said. “The Angel’s Special for the Angel, and a Cadance’s Kiss for the Angel’s guest.”

Sitting next to a tall beer mug filled with frothing dark liquid was a tall and wide martini glass, filled to the brim with a hot-pink drink and lined with rose petals. A colorful umbrella poked out of the brew, across from a silly straw.

“... Thanks?” Phas asked more than said.

“You’re here only because of her,” the barkeep reminded him.

“... Sorry?” Phas asked.

“You can try that again later, with more conviction,” the gruff stallion said before turning away and leaving.

Six frowned, “He’s not like that with Spirit.”

Phas picked up the feminine drink with his telekinesis and brought the silly straw over to his mouth, “I think he might be upset with me maybe for the joke I made earlier. Maybe.”

The Spartan nodded in sudden understanding as Phas loudly slurped on the silly straw, drawing the colorful liquid through its loops and twists.

“I told you that wasn’t funny,” Six said, grabbing her mug and bringing it to her own lips.

Deep within the Palace’s gardens, a gaggle of ponies watched on as a changeling attempted to rip apart the fabric of reality and shove himself through really quickly.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Celestia asked.

“I mean, I’ve jumped easily a few hundred times already,” Phas muttered, recalibrating the fetlock-mounted device.

“And how many times have you been brought somewhere unexpected? This was the first, as I recall you saying.”

Phas turned and gestured to Celestia with a flick of his fetlock, “You know how to work this thing? I have to take risks if I want to get back home, Celestia.”

Celestia frowned, “Perhaps if you would let me–”

“No,” Phas cut her off.

“... I would feel much happier if your work was checked by a peer of some sort,” Celestia pouted.

Luna sniffed, “You could always bring your student in on this. I am sure Twilight Sparkle would salivate at the chance of examining such a device.”

“No!” Phas shouted. “No for the same reason! I don’t want anyone learning this technology. It’s dangerous, it’s messy, and it’s mine. I don’t want to get sidetracked for a year as you fumble around with multidimensional travel and need my help. This is a can of worms you don’t want to open.”

“Why would somepony fill a can with worms?” Luna asked.

“To let them out,” Phas chuckled. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to tear open the fragile barrier between realities in your backyard.”

Celestia looked up at the sky, her spring sun hanging high, “We should wait for Cadance to arrive. She should be due this afternoon. You know she would be upset to have missed you.”

The changeling clenched his teeth, “I am aware. This is happening now.”

Six remained silent, taking a cautious step back from the bug.

Clearing his throat, Phas fiddled with the display on his expensive wristwatch. The magical hum was sensed by the two alicorns present as Phas opened a portal to another world. The jagged orange tear widened by the second, until it was wide enough to let the King through. Phas stepped closer, double-checking his jump drive before waving goodbye to his friends.

But when he turned back to the portal, the red affliction had once again appeared and diffused its color, like a drop of coloring in stirred water. Grimacing, Phas checked his fetlock device again before shrugging.

“Seems to be okay! At least, I can’t see anything wrong. I’ll have to gather more data before I can be certain if any of the parameters have changed. Welp, wish me luck!”

“Good luck!” Six shouted to him as he stepped through.

Once more, the portal seemed enthusiastic about Phas stepping through, to the point where it rapidly pulled him in. In half a second, the bug had vanished into the jagged red hole in reality. After a few short moments, the magic faded at the edge, before the portal spun itself out of control and vanished, leaving the alicorn sisters and Spartan alone in the gardens.

“I will have to explain to our niece about what she has missed,” Celestia said ruefully. “Luna? I may need your help redirecting her ire at missing the erstwhile changeling monarch.”

Her sister sighed, “At least her husband won’t be so hard to appease. I can already picture his reaction now with my mind’s eye; he’s smiling.”

Six stared at the hedge that sat on the far side of where the portal once was. There was, once again, nothing left of the only other human she had seen in many months.

“I have to get back to work,” she announced.

Celestia faced Six and studied her closely, “... Do not despair, Six. I am sure your love interest will turn up again soon. You’ll find that Harmony favors such outcomes, even when considering the vast distances between realities.”

“Celestia… what the hell are you on about?”

“Ignore her,” Luna waved a hoof. “She is still upset about losing her last, as she put it, ‘love interest.’ Isn’t that right, sister?”

Celestia’s gaze fell to the ground, “... Perhaps. I apologize for inserting myself into your horseshoes, Six. I have my own duties to return to. As do you, sister.”

“Indeed!” Luna said, grinning. “I for one can’t wait to leave behind the intrigue and mysteries involved with realmwalking, and return to my glorious duties of hoofing through paperwork for hours on end! Come, Celestia, let us enjoy this task together!”

“Oh, you don’t have to rub it in,” Celestia smiled as they began walking away. “I told you, tax season is busy season. It will get easier soon.”

“It’ll get easier if we assign these duties to those who are more suited to the task!” Luna insisted, following her sister out.

For a moment, Luna paused and turned back, looking at where the changeling left their world once again. She caught Six’s eyes, and the lunar princess offered the Spartan a shrug before leaving.

Kicking once at the dirt, Six turned away and trudged back to her office in silence. The Royal Guards she passed by saluting her, despite the fact that she was not their officer. When she arrived, Six opened her office door, entered, shut it behind her, and froze in surprise. Laying against the overturned table on the side of the room, Phas gave her a wave and a smile.

“You mind if I crash here? Haha, get it? Because I crashed.”

“Yes, I get it,” Six said with a barely contained smile, “I take it that something went wrong?”

Phas grinned wide and placed his chin on steepled hooves, “Why, not at all! Can’t you see that I’m clearly on my way home? I’m absolutely not s-stuck in a world far from my own!”

The changeling’s smile disappeared in an instant as he got back up to his hooves and dusted himself off.

“Right. I’ll, uh, I’ll be going now.”

With much less fanfare and trepidation this time, Phas opened a portal up across the room. The papers on Six’s desk rustled in the magical wind as the orange flow outlined the stallion.

“Okay. Yep. Goodbye for real,” Phas said. When the portal turned red again, the changeling groaned, “I swear to Panar, if this doesn’t–”

And he was gone once more.

And with a loud crash and splintering of wood, he was back again, deposited from a red portal that shot him out with just as much speed as the first time. The table did not survive catching him for a third time.

“... Urf. Uh, hi, Six. I don’t suppose that you, uh… also came to another world and I am speaking to a future version of you?”

“No.”

Phas sighed and rubbed his eyes wearily, before laying back against the splintered mess that was once Six’s table.

“Fuck!” He shouted at the ceiling, slamming a hoof against the tilted remains of half of the table, breaking it even further. “Six! This isn’t good! I don’t, I don’t like this!”

Turning away from him, Six stuck her head out the door and shouted at a Royal Guard passing by, carrying a stack of papers. Six got his attention, and also got a small storm of papers flying through the air for her efforts.

“Get the Princesses here now!” She hissed.

Not wanting to argue, the Royal Guard saluted and sped off, his paperwork abandoned. Six went back inside and walked over to the prone changeling. Phas was still laying back on the floor, covering his face with his bare foreleg.

“Phas?” Six called to him. “... King Phasma?” Still no response from the bug, so Six reached out and grabbed his foreleg, removing it from his face.

The changeling opened one eye, the orange slitted orb darting across the room before fixing its gaze on her.

Six let go of his foreleg, “Look at me, soldier.”

Phas squinted and hissed, “I’m not a soldier, I’m a bureaucrat.”

“Don’t care. Look at me.”

He snorted in anger and remained silent, staring up at her.

Six continued her facial expression stern as she intoned every word, “It is not over yet.”

The large changeling bared his teeth and pulled himself upright, shedding little bits of wood as he rose.

“I know that, jarhead. You think I just give up? I can’t figure out what went wrong, and I know this is gonna be a bitch and a half to figure out. I just don’t– this really sucks, Six. I’ve been running to home base for so long… if I can’t run anymore… Damn it, I hate metaphysics. I hate that bitch for causing all of this. Fucking… I need a drink. I’ll start working on this tomorrow. Tonight, I need a drink and a training dummy to rip to shreds.”

The Spartan’s facial expression softened, “I know a guy who can get you both.”

“Look, I know you like that bar, but I think I wore out my welcome rather quickly.”

“I wasn’t talking about the bar.”

Shaking his head, Phasma flipped over and rose to his hooves. With an angry grunt, he kicked the remains of her table, shattering the last intact half of it.

“... Need a new table. And… I need Twilight Sparkle. As much as I admire Celestia’s intellect, this is a bit beyond her– and Twilight is scarily quick on the uptake.”

The door to the office was ripped open suddenly. Celestia cantered in, Luna a pace behind, and twelve of the Royal Guard’s finest behind them both, fanning out to fill over half of the small study.

“Oh!” Celestia exclaimed. “You’re back, King Phasma. Already wishing for another rest?”

“Did something go wrong?” Luna asked, a bit more to the point.

Phas huffed and turned away from the ponies, “No, can’t you see I’m well on my way home?”

Celestia nodded to her guards, “I believe there is no crisis here. Thank you, my little ponies. You may return to your stations.”

With a salute, the sergeant in charge of the squad led the ponies out, but not before giving Six a respectful nod. As they left, Luna picked up a piece of shattered wood, glancing at Phas.

“... I take it the same thing which brought you here happened again? Only this time, Equestria’s finest champion wasn’t there to break your fall?”

“Yes!” Phas snapped. Instantly, his demeanor softened, “I mean, yes. Something something, you’re soft and cuddly and a table isn’t. I don’t know what went wrong, all I know is that I need help. Yes, the dreaded H-word, I am asking for it. Can you go get Twilight Sparkle?”

“If that is what you wish,” Celestia nodded once. “I shall send for her immediately. Though, it does not hurt to remind you that her esteemed tutor is standing before you right now, and is willing to aid you.”

“Consider myself reminded,” Phas grunted. “But I know from experience that her brand of neurotic insanity would be most helpful here. If I need a sane and stable opinion, I’ll ask for yours. For all your experience, you never cracked the conundrum of Starswirl’s unfinished spells like Twilight can.”

“Oh, she can, can she?” Celestia repeated. “That is good to know.”

“Uh huh, uh huh,” Phas muttered quickly. “I’m sure this is the first time you’ve thought about this. Six! I need to break something!”

“Follow me,” Six beckoned him.

Before they could brush past the alicorns taking up the center of the room, the door to Six’s study was kicked open for a second time. A white unicorn in purple armor stomped through, shield up and protecting the pink alicorn at his side. Upon seeing the four faces staring at them, Shining Armor dropped the shield.

“Princesses! We heard there was trouble!”

“Your attention to duty is as admirable as ever, Captain,” Celestia greeted him.

“We arrived in the Palace only minutes ago,” Cadance explained, staring past the sisters and at Phas. “When we heard there was an emergency in Six’s office, we came as soon as we could.”

Six heard Phas say something quietly under his breath before he spoke up, “Oh great, a third one. Are there any more alicorns you want to fit into this room?”

“... I do not know, are there, King Phasma?” Celestia asked.

“Quit fishing,” Phas told her off.

“King Phasma,” Cadance said slowly. “I received word that you were back. I hope we weren’t interrupting something? Were you fighting again?!” She asked, glancing between the two former-humans suspiciously.

“No,” Six replied curtly.

“Ah, I see,” Cadance nodded. “You were just… wrestling and broke the table?”

“No,” Six said just as curtly. “Now, if you will excuse us, we need to go break some things.”

As Six started to lead Phas back out, Celestia turned to her niece, “Sorry about this, Cadance. Let us go somewhere where we can properly sit and welcome you to Canterlot.”

But as Six passed the pink alicorn, Cadance leaned over and whispered, “Remember to use protection.”

“I will be wearing my armor,” Six answered.

As the door slowly swung shut behind them, the last thing Six and Phas heard was Shining letting out a very confused, “... Him?!”

The Dreamscape twisted upon itself, stretching into infinite points and compressing down into nothingness at the same time. The effect was nauseating to Phasma, who tried to take it in stride despite still feeling the effects of drinking three bottles of whisky in a row.

“Who the fething…” He muttered, turning around as he found himself in a warped version of the Crystal Caves.

His reflection was scattered across a hundred angled mirrors, each a facet of a grand crystal in the natural formations around him. However, where there should have been tints of pink, white, blue, and other colors, each and every single crystal was colored blood red.

Phasma heard someone knocking on a door. His ears twitched and swiveled, aiming to pinpoint the sound. Yet the more he heard the knocking, the more he realized that he couldn’t hear the knocking, he instead felt it with his soul. More than that, it felt like rap-tap-tapping on his mind.

On his Weave.

He let it unfurl out from his body, letting it spread across the Dreamscape like wings of an Elder Dragon, leagues across. With his consciousness melded further with the Dreamscape, Phasma pinpointed the knocking in an instant. Pushing through the Dreamscape as if he was rowing through water, the world around him blurred and rushed by, till he was in a completely smoothed chamber in the Crystal Caves. The walls and ceiling stretched high in black stone, while the floor was more blood red crystal. It was perfectly smooth, reflecting an inverted world, an inverted Phasma looking up at him as he looked down.

His reflection’s eyes flashed and turned blood red. His orange coloring, tinted red, transformed to fully embrace the crimson coloring. His reflection’s features melded and twisted upon themselves, till he was looking at someone else entirely. A changeling royal, crimson coloring, lacking the holes every other royal besides him had. Her eyes glowed, streaming wisps of magic from their edges. Across the front of her chest, crimson energy flowed freely from an ugly, deep wound. Behind her head, an inverted pink heart pulsed with power.

Phasma blinked, “What–”

The room flipped over. The ceiling became the floor and the floor became a scarlet mirror across the sky. Phasma fell, his wings not working. The crimson queen watched unmoving as he scrambled and kicked at the air.

Instead of crashing into black stone, he fell further and further, till the red pool was a distant speck of light in an unending sea of blackness.

With a pained grunt, his back hit something hard, forcing Phasma to open eyes that should have already been opened. The wind was forced out from his chest, and he willed himself to breathe as he quickly took in his surroundings with practiced effort.

He was in no cave. Though some part of him still knew that he was fathoms below the surface, Phasma was in a Hive. Ancient spires of stone, metal, and chitin rose into the stygian black above him. Bands of magical energy streaked above the spires like the Aurora Borealis, only a far wider kaleidoscope of colors. Nearer to the ground, enchanted crystals bathed an abandoned city in faded white light. Between the spaces of their illumination, things crawled and slithered.

“... This is not Kansas,” Phasma whispered, looking back up at the sky. Flashes of light revealed a ceiling so far above him that he could not make out the details. “This is the Underhive, isn’t it?”

The knocking returned. Despite having no physical location, it prompted the King to turn around. Phasma unsteadily rose to his hooves, feeling hair at the back of his neck rise, despite the fact that it had been gone for years now.

Rap tap tap.

“Getting real tired of this,” Phasma growled, turning to face the unwelcome visitor to his dream.

It was a citadel, tilted to the side. The colossal, perfectly smooth pyramid of pure ruby was leveled off at the top. Any reflection was lost to darkness that shifted inside its form, just a few paces from its surface. Yet unlike the things that skittered between the lights, this darkness was different. How different, Phasma could not tell.

Atop the pyramid, so far away that he could barely make out the details, a baleful red light pulsed outwards, radiating tentacles of ethereal essence across the Hive and into the lights above. Phasma squinted, trying to see what was on top…

His eyes widened when he saw himself, viewed from behind. He took a step back in surprise– and quickly turned around when he felt the ground give way underneath. He had almost slipped off the ruby edge of the top of the pyramid, the streetlights like motes of light far below. The one he had landed in was now noticeably empty, as Phasma was seamlessly transported to the top without him noticing.

Sighing, he turned away from the ledge. The shapes he saw, but couldn’t quite understand, were missing now. Whatever was on top of the pyramid had been replaced by a lone wooden door sitting squarely in the center of the pyramid’s top. Its lower half was cast in red from below as the ruby shimmered underhoof.

In front of the door was a pedestal, atop of which a red velvet pillow cushioned a pink jewel. It resembled an upside-down heart, and it was the source of the questing tendrils of magic emanating from the pyramid. As Phasma watched, one tendril cut through an aurora of blue magic, turning the whole thing red.

“.... Right. That’s my MacGuffin.”

2- Rules of Engagement

“This is going to be exciting!” Cadance beamed.

“Uh huh,” Phasma grunted quietly, rocking from side to side in the armchair by the window.

“You and I have different definitions of exciting, Cady,” Shining grumbled.

Phasma tapped the table in front of him, staring out the train’s window and paying only half a mind to the pair of lovers. He had checked and rechecked his gear four times before departing Canterlot, and everything had been accounted for. He patted his fetlock-mounted device, a nervous tick of making sure it was still there. Bringing Twilight up to speed on its working was a risk, but there was no other choice. The purple unicorn was locked away in her private sleeping room, working over the math that Phasma had provided. Cadance and Shining were free from any such distractions, and were bugging the King to no end.

“This is the first time we’re going to see how the changelings live, Shiny,” Cadance said, scooping her husband up into a hug.

“First time for you,” Shining countered. “I bucked down their front door last time I was here.”

Cadance nuzzled Shiny, “Really? I could have sworn that that was Six…”

“There were a lot of doors to kick. And she merely loosened up the hinges!”

“Hey, King Phasma, what is the Hive like?”

Phasma turned away from the window. The pair of ponies were staring at him, cheek against cheek, love pouring out like waves lapping at a shoreline. Even from across the train car, the effect was nearly painful to the lone changeling.

“It’s…” Phasma trailed off.

It was a bit warm in the dining cart, and Phasma shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Proverbially speaking, the Princess of Food was practically bathing him in delicious emotions. It took actual effort to keep his muzzle clamped shut and rear parked on the seat. Staring out the window offered some distraction, but now his focus was on the two beacons of love.

“It’s fine,” Phasma answered in a short, clipped tone. “Like a city, but made of flesh. Bug flesh. Kinda weird if you ask me, as cities should be made out of bug vomit. But when in Rome…”

Cadance frowned, head cocked to the side, “Really? That’s… Shining, how should I feel about that?”

The unicorn huffed, “It’s not– it’s fine, Cady. Just looks like chitin, or matte black stone. You know that Blackstone fortress I’m making? The Warlance 40,000 one? The buildings look like that, but more… insect style instead of Abbyssian.”

Cadance frowned, “... Not getting it. Little help here, Phasma?”

The bug’s stomach growled, drowned out by the steady clack-clack of the tracks.

He shook his head to refocus, “Ponies like making their homes using circular shapes, as well as from wood, thatch, plaster, and so on. Changelings use hard angles, stone or other hard materials, and care less about useless things like stairs. Expect to see more geometric shapes and… um…”

Grunting, Phasma rose from the armchair and walked past the ponies to the bar that took up a quarter of the car. He leaned over the counter and started to rifle through the contents underneath, fishing out a bottle of whisky and jar of peanuts before bringing them back to his seat.

Shining eyed the changeling, “Isn’t it a bit early to start drinking?”

“You’d also be drinking before noon if you had eldritch gods leaving telegrams in your brainpan,” Phasma sighed, uncorking the whisky and drinking straight from the bottle. “Mmm. And as usual, instead of telling me about my car’s extended warranty, this one promises pain and uh…” The bug started shoveling peanuts into his maw, “You know, stuff. Adventure stuff. You finish the thought.”

“That’s why we’re bringing friends!” Cadance smiled, her enthusiasm practically intoxicating.

“So this is what it's like to be Tantalus,” Phasma said under his breath. “Speaking of which, where is she? Isn’t she awake by the crack of dawn or something? Shouldn’t she be here by now?”

“Six is prepping her Spartans,” Shining answered. “You know, because last time they were in your Hive, they were put within spitting distance of death.”

Phasma raised an eyebrow, “Glad to hear the old boys gave her a run for her money. Really, I’m just dragging this conversation out, as this world has a funny sense of timing. I said, shouldn’t she–?”

The door to the dining cart slid open as the drink in Phasma’s hooves rippled in time with heavy hoofsteps.

“Ah, there’s the muscle mommy,” Phasma half-smiled as Six entered the dining cart.

As the Spartan approached, Cadance’s eyes widened and eyebrows shot up, “Excuse me? What did you call her?”

“Ignore him,” Six said, stopping before the two ponies and one bug. “Princess, my team is ready. Phas, any idea what we’re gonna face down there?”

Now it was Shining’s turn for his eyebrows to raise, “What did you call him?”

“There’s a lot down there,” Phasma interrupted. “No telling what we’re gonna fight, only that it’ll make any previous fight look tame in comparison. Only brightside is that it’s… what’s the term? Free fire zone?”

“Unless there are any civilians down there,” Six nodded.

“No, it’s– I’m quoting one of Noble Team, Six. Something about the whole place being a free fire zone.”

Six’s face hardened, “Funny.”

Phasma blinked and took another swig of whisky, “You know, the whole stone faced routine doesn’t work on empaths.”

The bottle was ripped from the bug’s hooves, pressed it against her lips, and tipped the bottle back till every drop was draining down into her gullet. She finished with a grunt, wiping her lips clean.

“Stay focused, I can’t have you inebriated before a mission.”

“... Shit girl, you can really hold your breath, huh? I bet you’re gonna make a stallion very happy in the future.”

Cadance’s and Shining’s eyebrows could not raise any further, but they could exchange a glance that carried several conversations.

“Soooo….” Cadance said slowly. “How’s your home life, Phasma? How’s Luna?”

The changeling stopped smiling, “How would I know? I haven’t seen my wife in years.”

The alicorn grimaced and sucked in air through her teeth, “Oh. I’m sorry, I forgot about that detail. I didn’t– I’m sorry, Phasma.”

“I know,” Phasma said.

As another awkward silence smothered the group, Cadance tried again, “Hey, Phasma? I have a question.”

“I might have an answer.”

“Since changelings eat love, wouldn’t that mean you feasting on emotions is like… cheating or something?”

The King stared at Cadance, “... No. Taking emotions is far from being romantic. And besides, Luna and I are… were… open to ideas?”

“What does that mean?” Cadance asked.

“Well on Sundays, Luna and I would meet with Thorax and his coltfriend Double Diamond…”

“Uh huh?” Cadance nodded, prompting him to continue.

“And we’d all have sex.”

The pony princess blushed, “Ah! Forgive me for prying!”

Shining elbowed his wife, “So about that birthday present I asked for–”

A pink wing smacked the side of his head.

“And you bring this up because…?” Cadance trailed off.

Phasma shrugged, “Changelings need to eat, and my wife has very stern opinions about murder or hurting other people. Now, I’m not given free reign or anything, but… it’s complicated. I dunno, I imagine there’s a lot to talk about and catch up on when I see her. Because I am going to see her again.”

“Of course!” Cadance smiled, visibly relieved to have the conversation switch tracks. “I have no doubt that once we figure out this strange prophecy of yours, Twilight will help you get on your way.”

Phasma nodded and turned towards Six, “And how does our walking battleship feel about our call to arms?”

“Indifferent,” Six said with her signature resting bitch face.

“Hey hey hey,” Phasma waved his hoof, “remember what I said about that not working on an empath? You’re allowed to smile, Six, I can feel your excitement. Don’t worry, I filled out the smile requisition forms before we left. You are allotted four before we return to Canterlot.”

Six allowed a grin to fall upon her face and shook her head, “I don’t– oh. We have arrived.”

The rest of the group followed her eyes when Six’s head locked to the side. The badlands outside the window were broken up by the outer spires of the newly rebuilt changeling hive. Cadance all but dropped her husband and pressed up against the windows, hooves tapping excitedly on the glass.

Where once the foreign King saw only a train station and a massive crater, black towers of stone and chitin socialized with pony-style homes and shops, creating an oasis of civilization in the desert. Changelings walked and buzzed around, while a few ponies dotted the streets like islands of color in a thin sea of black. There was quite a bit of gold to those islands of color, as Phasma noted that many were wearing the armor of Royal Guards.

Shadows crossed the train car as the train pulled into the heart of the town, the building cutting off the harsh sun. Drones stopped to watch the train pull into its station. Being used to the strict regime, the changelings noticed the off-schedule arrival– and their curiosities would only be deepened when they saw through the windows that most of the train cars were empty.

“Welcome to the Hive Eternal,” Phasma told the ponies. “Give me a minute to think of a clever joke to go with that.”

A lone robbed changeling stood against the ponies and Phasma. Behind the drone, the rose quartz Hall of Vendratis was abuzz with the silent activity of worship. The holiest space in the changeling hive was guarded and populated by the Silent Priests, and currently one was denying the party entry.

At the head of the retinue of ponies, Phasma stepped forward and waved a hoof to the side, “Let us pass. We have business inside.”

The robbed changeling turned his head to the side, glancing at Phasma from underneath the raised cowl. When he spoke, his lips never moved, for he spoke only through his Aura and across Phasma’s curled-up Weave.

“You may pass, for you are known to us, King Phasma. These halls are open to you, holy Royal, at your pleasure. The company you keep may not desecrate this hallowed space and must remain.”

“They’re with me,” Phasma said, pointing to Six, Cadance, Shining, and the Spartans. “We share the same business and will need to travel together.”

The monk tilted his head to the side, “There is nowhere to travel through this Hall save for the Hall itself. It is forbidden for any spurned by the Empress to have a place so close to her sepulcher.”

“I’ve received directions from a less-than-enthusiastic-to-see-me former-despot,” Phasma told the drone. “She said our best chance at finding an entrance to the Underhive is here, in the deepest parts of the Hive.”

The monk turned from the King and regarded the Spartans and the gathering of ponies. Each had donned their war gear and were burdened with layers of armor, saddlebacks and backpacks, weapons, magical charms, and enough belts and buckles to put a BDSM party to shame. Even Princess Cadance had been fully equipped, intending to delve into the mysterious Underhive despite Phasma’s ominous and vague warnings.

“The denizens of below have more than enough to feast on without your help,” the Silent Priest remarked.

“I’ve handled my fair share of creepy crawlies and demons, priest. I am more than capable of guiding these ponies, despite the fact that this is my first time in the Underhive. I’ve heard positive reviews of the place and don’t want to miss out.”

The stare the Silent Priest gave in return spoke volumes of his decreasing opinion on Phasma’s intelligence.

“Trouble, King Phasma?” Cadance asked. “What is he saying now?”

“Nothing,” Phasma explained. “He’s just staring at me, and I’ve forgotten the joke I was going to say. It was really funny, damn it! Look, priest, I need to go home and the only way out is down. Don’t blame me for bringing ponies here, blame Panarthropo. Ain’t no way I’m going down into the Underhive without a meat shield of expendable lives. No offense, Six, Shining, and Spartans.”

“Offense taken,” Shining said quietly.

“Okay, okay. You’re not expendable, you’re more like early warning systems of something going wrong. Priest, we have to pass. There is no other way– unless you have some other uncollapsed route into the Underhive?”

“... What does the Empress have to do with your foolish journey to the depths?” The Silent Priest asked. “Or do you just take your name for the Empress in vain?”

“It was revealed to me in a dream,” Phasma entoned. “My way off this blasted rock is to find whatever is interdicting my escape down in the Underhive and shut it off. These ponies are coming with me because I can’t do it alone. I need help. You will not stop us.”

Phasma felt a stirring across the insides of his chest. The Silent Priest pursed his lips in frustration, frowned, and shook his head.

“Reveal your Aura to me, Royal. Unsheath it. I have need to inspect it and see if there is truth to your words.”

Phasma shifted on his hooves, “Sounds dirty. I don’t know what you’re playing at, but if this is some kind of mind reading…”

The monk shook his head, “No, nothing of the sort. If you have received a message in your dream from the Empress, there are signs to look for.”

“Fine,” the King huffed.

Reaching into his armored saddlebags, he flicked the magical doohickey off that concealed and contorted his Weave. At once, the pressure at the back of his mind was lifted, and he felt the presence of the thousands of changelings within the Hive around him, each like a blade of grass brushing against him.

The Silent Priest closed his eyes, staring straight through the Royal before him. The drone lifted a hoof and started waving it side to side, as if flipping the pages to a book. With a smile, he opened his eyes and stared up at Phasma.

“It is there, the mark of the Empress.”

“Panar damn it, not another branding on my soul. What is it this time?!”

“Calm yourself, Royal. There is no cause for fear or anger. It is said that when the Empress deigns to speak to us, a portion of her radiance is left within our souls. A mark akin to the glare in your eye from staring into the brilliance of the sun. There is a thread of red within your vast Aura, King Phasma. The Empress herself has spoken to you.”

Phasma frowned and glanced back at Six and the ponies, “The Empress spoke to me? It’s good to put a name to an ominous vision, but I am not sure what the implications of that is.”

“That all depends. Would you grace us with her words?” The priest looked up at him hopefully.

“The Empress didn’t talk to me, not like that. She just showed me a lot of visions.” Phasma chuckled, “I guess they do say that a picture is worth a thousand words, so she basically flashbanged me with a short novel with all those visions.”

The drone’s ears flicked backwards anxiously, “If you do not wish to share, none here will question your judgment. But…”

“Yes, yes, I’ll tell you,” Phasma smiled, patting the priest on the head. “Down boy!” The priest frowned, ducking under and away from the King’s hoof, before Phasma continued, “So no shit, there I was…”

As the oversized changeling told the story of his vision, more and more silent monks started to gather around the bug. Quietly, Cadance turned to Shining and remarked that with the size difference between them, Phasma looked like a kindergarten teacher at story time. Six, having caught this comment, smiled for an entire quarter of a second in amusement.

From the ponies’ point of view, his story finished with the priests exchanging crazed glances, gesticulation, hoof waving, and the tried and true tool for settling religious debates: threats of violence. All silent, of course.

The Princess of Food cleared her throat, “Phasma? Did you say something to offend them? Should we be concerned?”

The Big Bug nodded, “Yes that’s me, yes I am sure I offended one or two, no you should not be concerned. Now! On with the tour! You there, silent priest monk guy who I spoke to initially. We need to get to the Underhive. You know, the whole reason why we’re down here?”

The first silent monk broke off from his comrades, bowing to the royal, “Yes, of course! Your plight is sacred, none can argue against this! Most of the ways into the Realm of the Gods have been sealed shut. The dangers that lurk within the primordial realm have proven too dangerous for any to venture within. None are worthy to bask in its glory. None save you and your party, it would seem, perhaps the Empress herself is guiding you on your path. Come, there is one last tunnel that remains uncollapsed. Its hallowed hall is one of our greatest secrets, the way has remained secure in our hooves for generations.”

After that long silent response, Phasma turned to the ponies, “We’re on! Look lively, he’s gonna show us the way down, and then we’ll be in the Underhive. No more joking around, no more carelessness. You want to survive? Remember what I’ve told you all.”

The Spartans nodded in understanding, and Six remarked, “You were the only one joking here.”

“Yeah, well, the jokes stop now,” Phasma said, starting to follow the hooded drone. “Eyes on the swivel, speak up if you hear something, and for the love of Panar, don’t split up!”

The monarch’s posture and attitude had flipped like a light switch, earning a shared nod from the ponies trailing behind. The jokester royal suddenly being so serious stripped away the levity and casualness of the moment like being plunged into a cold pool.

The Spartans fanned out on either side of the Princess and Prince in formation. Six strode ahead of the couple, catching up to walk side by side with King Phasma. From posture alone, Six’s squadmates could not tell the difference between the two as rigorous combat training and experience matched the two former human’s demeanor together like two cogwheels.

The formation marched down the central promenade of the Hall of Vendratis, passing by dozens of closed doors, stained glass murals, and countless marble columns. Ahead, the statue of The Crimson Empress grew in size as they approached. The black stone statue stood on its hindlegs, rearing back and spreading its one remaining wing wide. Its right foreleg was gone, as was anything above the shoulders, leaving exposed the interior of the statue. Lines of red material snaked through the black stone like marbling, emerging like blood where the statue was decapitated.

It stood on a raised plinth, above the heads of the drones offering prayers. Red candles were clustered by the hundreds around it, covering the front edge of the pedestal and the space around the statute. Dried wax coated the front of the plinth and pooled beneath, like the stone itself was coated in gore and viscera. In front of the Empress’s only remaining icon, a massive golden bowl set low was half-filled with ash and the remains of burnt offerings, both organic and material. Within the ash, glints of red sparkled as ruby gemstones lay scattered within the white debris. Four smaller ruby-encrusted gold censers stood at each corner, the smell of burning incense filling the space. Scrolls of parchment were stacked high underneath the statute’s belly. It formed an uneven mound, and the group watched as a hooded priest levitated up a furled up scroll and deposited upon the stack.

Their guide parted the small crowd of worshippers and led the group around the side of the mighty statue. The Empress’s shadow fell upon them as they skirted the edge of the plinth, making their way out of sight behind its bulk. There, hidden behind it, stood the Eternity Gate.

A gateway of red-tinted steel and golden accents, its surface was covered in an ancient script none could recognise nor identify, and was inlaid with a crimson material equally unidentifiable. Its swirling patterns all pointed towards two small holes near its center, and finally a spiderweb of rubies surrounded each opening before leading into a larger upside-down heart of crimson jewels above the door.

Gazing upon this hunk of steel its observers found the hairs (if they had any) on the back of their necks standing up as its angles seemed to change when not looked at directly. Instincts long buried and abandoned rose to the forefront of everyone’s minds as they beheld the Eternity Gate.

The monk stopped before it and turned to face the royal changeling, “This is it. The path to the Imperial Palace, Empress bless its holy grounds, lies behind the Eternity Gate. To open it, the hoof of a chosen Venator and the hoof of a royal must be used in tandem.”

Phasma glanced around, “It’s just me this time.”

The priest nodded solemnly, “But you walk with the Empress’s blessing! She would not set you on this path only to be turned away at the nexus of her sepulcher.”

With that, he gestured to the gate, bowing as he stepped aside. Grunting an acknowledgement, King Phasmatodea stepped up to the Eternity Gate and looked up. It seemed to stretch further than the ceiling would allow. Blinking away bright spots in his eyes, he leveled his gaze with the holes ahead of him. Though they were in line with each other, the one on the right was considerably wider.

Hardening his resolve, the King lifted his right hoof, pressed it against the slot, and pushed it in.

“And with the right hand of doom, I will unleash hell,” Phasma whispered to himself.

Something gripped onto Phasma’s hoof. It sucked his foreleg in, pulling him practically off his hooves and smashed his face against the door. He grunted in surprise and began yanking backwards, trying to free his foreleg. The sound of mechanical thumping, like gears turning and the door unlocking, echoed throughout the hall. Just when Phasma was starting to fear that something about to severe his entrapped arm, it sprung free and sent him sprawling to the floor.

The doors began to creak open, rolling away from the prone changeling. Beyond, there was only darkness.

Six stepped forward and quickly helped Phas up to his hooves and the two squared off against the growing portal of stygian black. The silent monk made his retreat, passing behind the Spartans and watching from afar as Phasma’s horn glowed orange and a bright arcing projectile was shot out. The bright flare soared through the air and passed the Eternity Gate, illuminating the hall beyond.

There was a clear divide between here and there. Just past the doorway, not even a full meter beyond, the smooth marble flooring, walls, and ceiling ceased abruptly. What lay beyond was once the same, but was now covered in more gouges than could be counted, scores rent into stone and metal, no clear divide where one began and one ended. Rocks and fallen masonry littered the floor, long shadows cast as the flare soared past. The next thing to be noticed was the smell. The cloying scent of incense and oil was all but drowned out as a breeze came from beyond the gate, bringing with it the burning smell of sulfur and the foul stench of decay.

There was a moment of silence as everyone watched the flare pass through the hall beyond the Eternity Gate, disturbed only by the quieting crackle of its passage.

“Form up,” Six commanded her troops. “Lights on.”

The group all activated the crystal lamps built into their helmets, lighting up the path ahead, and stepped into the Underhive.

The path forward had fallen into an abyss.

For what seemed like an hour, the ponies and changeling had walked along the royal causeway, descending into a new realm as it sloped more and more downward. The signs of civilization- what little remained after being exposed to flora and fauna for centuries- had eroded away, and the group was now traversing through a rough looking cavern.

But now, ahead the hallway was just gone. A great slab of rock had shifted downwards, completely cutting off the path forward as if a whole section of the world had simply shifted downwards, exposing the rock that used to lay above the ceiling. In front of the collapsed section, the floor was a deep pit which their lights could not find the bottom of. The foul breeze was stronger now, easily felt on chitin and fur as they peered into the bottomless pit.

“Only one way forward,” Phasma remarked, casting a slow-fall enchantment spell on everyone.

“Not all of us have wings,” Shining shook his head, and began to drive a piton into the rock at the edge of the pit.

As he began to deploy a long rope that fell into the pit, he grabbed a second piton, this one far longer than the first and capped with a large blue gemstone. He drove it into the wall above the far side of the pit.

“Breadcrumb deployed,” the stallion relayed. “We’ve only got about three dozen more of these. How far is the Imperial Palace? Do we even know?”

Phasma pressed a hoof to his ear, turning on the earpiece that Twilight had concocted for all of them, “Testing, one two. That depends on what layer of the Underhive the Imperial Palace is at. If my theory is correct, it’ll likely be on the Sunless Sea. That means we have about…. Four layers to go. This path downwards likely leads to the Unending Dark, which means we will just have the Sunken Rot between us and the Sea.”

Cadance sniffed, “These names are not inspiring much hope.”

“It was a right of passage for royals to make expeditions down here,” Phasma responded, watching Shining tie a rope to the first piton. “There’s things down here that historically had alicorn-equivalent demigods for breakfast.”

Six stepped closer, “What should expect down there in the Unending Dark?”

The bug scratched his neck, “Um. I believe Princess Procho mentioned lots of little guys. No megafauna, just packs of monsters. Uttus, psoglavs, and myrmekes, that sort of thing.”

Pixy sighed, “Giant spiders, scaly wolves, and ants of an unusual size, got it.”

Phasma turned his back to the edge of the pit, “Hey, look at the bright side!”

“... Which is?” Pixy asked after Phasma fell silent.

“There isn’t one,” Phasma smiled, and jumped backwards, wings buzzing as he descended below.

Shining started to repel down the rope behind Phasma, the slow-fall spell allowing him to make great leaps downward. The Spartans followed next, but Cadance stopped Six with a hoof on her shoulder.

“You two make a great team, you know,” Cadance began.

“Who, Phas?”

Cadance nodded, “Yeah! You two might not see it, but you seem to compliment each other’s leadership style very well. I am sure the same extends to fighting styles, too.”

“You are basing this off of a silent hike through a tunnel?” Six asked, face blank behind her visor.

The Princess of Love smiled and wiggled her eyebrows, “There’s more to language than words, dear. Both of your body language speaks of comfort around each other. Closeness. Casualness. L–”

“Don’t use that word.”

“I was going to l… luh luh luh…” Cadance tapped her chin. “I don’t have a recovery. Fine then, that’s a step too far. Still, I think you should give him a chance!”

Six gestured to the pit, “Is now really the best time to talk about this?”

The Princess nodded and closed her eyes, “Love dwells in all realms. It is the calm between storms, the peace that exists and fights against chaos. It is the power which connects all of us. How about–” Cadance opened her eyes again, only to find Six was gone.

Quickly, Cadance leapt towards the pit and saw the beam of light descending from Six’s helmet.

“Talk to him!” Cadance yelled down to Six, before spreading her wings wide and taking her own leap of faith.

“Twelve o’clock!”

“Burn ‘em! Burn ‘em all!”

“Falling back, they’re pressing hard!”

“Mare, these bucking giant spiders are no joke!”

“Cadance, look out– oh, nice shot!”

“Focus on yourself, sweetie. I learned how to fight from the best!”

“Cut the chatter!” Six barked. “Form up, we need to press forward!”

Phasma stood behind Six, blasting great uttu spiders to pieces as Six ripped apart any who got close using her wingblades. Behind them, the ponies were in a scattered formation, slaughtering the arachnids as they emerged from web-covered holes in the cavern walls.

“Spirit, Cadance, in the center!” Six ordered. “Shining, Sparrow, Pixy, circle formation around them. Nothing gets close! Phas and I will lead the way! You all move with us!”

The group tightened their spacing and followed orders, forming a wall of death between the two squisher members and the horde of giant spiders which hissed and clicked their mandibles in anger at the trespassers. Six and Phas began inching forward, cutting a hole in the scittering wall of legs and thoraxes. Blue blood daubed their armor and bodies, torn off limbs crunched underhoof, and the two moved in perfect tandem as they weaved around each other, not letting the spiders flank them– the ones on the ceiling were particularly troublesome.

“I can smell earth. Dirt…” Phas grunted under his breath. “There’s a way down into the Sunken Rot nearby!”

“Find it!” Six barked, cutting an uttu in half with a flick of her wing.

“Cover me!” Phas returned, ceasing his spell casting to conjure a large flame at the top of a hoof. He pointed it upwards, towards the ceiling, and watched as it flickered, “... Winds coming from four o’clock. That’s our best bet!”

“Breadcrumb deployed” Shining called out as he drove another enchanted stave deep into the ceiling above. “Halfway out!”

Six did not call out her next order, instead she started to shift to the right, cutting and weaving between sword-like limbs and mandibles in her signature dance of death. Phas was with her the whole way, bringing up shields, blasting away spiders with force spells, casting nets of slow enchantments, and keeping the whole area lit with flares. The two moved like parts of a well oiled machine– or more accurately, like partners in a waltz. With ease, they knew each other’s movements before they knew their own, and never let the enemy have an opening.

Now shifted to the right, the pair began forging a path forward, thinning out the uttu spiders and pacing forward.

“Below!” Six bellowed, wrapping a bladed wing around Phas and hauling him off his hooves and rolling him onto her back.

Phas yelped in surprise, letting out a curse as he found himself being carried by Six. Where he stood a moment before, the ground rose up and sprung open as an uttu with a trapdoor nest lunged for a bite. Its reward was an armored hoof crushing its exoskeleton skull.

Curled up on her back, Phas pointed ahead, “I see a glow!”

Six wrapped her wing around him tighter and swung him around in an arc ahead of her. The changeling, seeing the spiders suddenly far closer than normal, instinctively conjured a focused-will laser beam and sliced through the spiders in front of him like a knife through hot butter. Six finished swinging him around, depositing the larger stallion back at her side, and resumed the march forward.

They smelled the Sunken Rot before they reached it. Truly earning its name, everyone swallowed bile as an acrid smell of decay and rotting flesh assaulted them. Cadance nearly doubled over, gagging, but was quickly pushed along by her husband. The two heavy hitters at the front bought everyone else some breathing room- just enough to get everyone to the entrance below. The group barely had time to take in the yellow and blue glow from the bioluminescent fungal flora emerging from the pit below them. Long coils of growth snaked out like vines. Fat mushroom caps swelled like oversized towers, mimicking the wizard towers of Canterlot. Thick viscous ooze dripped from the gills of the largest mushrooms, pulsing with color as it fell from fungus large enough to carve a home out of.

Phasma leapt into the hole, landing on a curved cap that dwarfed entire plazas in the city above them, sliding to the side as he called for the others to follow.

“Fly, you fools! Jump!”

Six needed no further prompting and leapt into the hole, falling a dozen lengths before crash landing onto the giant mushroom below with a splash as her impact forced more slime from its pores and into the open. The world opened suddenly. Whereas before, it only existed in the spaces she looked, lit up by helmet-mounted light sources, she found herself in a open cavern that stretched from horizon to horizon: an endless fungal jungle, writhing and glowing sickly green and bright blue, its trees were the mushrooms that towered dozens of meters high, it's floor was a carpet of mycelium and slime molds, wiggling slowly in time with luminescent pulses, and its gods heralded by distant roars and crashes far beyond sight.

The towering mushroom did not take Six’s weight without issue. It listed to the size, indenting in far where her hooves touched down. Great creaks and groans echoed across the endless cavern as the ponies and Spartans followed the two down.

“It’s falling!” Phasma yelled helpfully. “Keep going!”

“Should’ve put you on a diet,” Shining Armor grunted as he followed in Six’s deep hoofsteps.

Above, the spiders crawled. They fanned out across the ceiling, clinging to it as they gnashed their chelicerae hungrily. Albino white bodies poured out by the dozens, several beginning to drop on thick cords of webbing. The protagonists leapt down to a smaller tower cap, rolling with the fall- or crashing right through, in Six’s case.

The armored Spartan fanned her bladed wings out as she ripped straight through the cap and gills. Her left wing dug into the stalk of the massive fungal tree, pulling her to the side and throwing her about as she rode the stalk down. The whole stalk shuddered as its neighbor crashed into it, nearly throwing Six off the thing and sending her plummeting several meters to the ground below.

She craned her neck, seeking out her friends. Two things resulted from this. First, she saw them leaping from the second mushroom she was riding down, falling towards a smaller third one closer to the ground. Second, Six lost her grip, sliding out from the stalk and freefalling towards the ground.

Six had expected pain, broken armor, and potentially broken bones when she hit the floor. Instead, she hit it and kept going for half a meter, squelching into a layer of decaying matter, dirt, and mycelium. Pausing only to catch her breath, Six rolled onto her belly and clawed her way out of the writhing crater she found herself in, fighting the walls as they worked to knit themselves back together and seal the wound. Her head snapped from side to side, scanning the jungle for her allies. Spotting the shaking stalk of the third tower cap they leapt to, Six galloped over to regroup as they finally made it to the ground level.

“Injuries?” Shining barked.

“Negative!” Each Spartan replied as they got to their hooves.

“No,” Phasma answered. “We have to keep running, those giant alien spiders are no joke!”

“To where?!” Cadance asked, looking around.

“Do we have any fire?” Six asked, entirely intending on something else.

“This whole place is covered in a methane cloud,” Shining pointed out. “A single spark could detonate this section of the cave!”

“It can’t be that much gas,” Cadance reasoned. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to breathe!”

“Methane is lighter than air,” Shining continued his train of thought. “It’s going to be close to the top of the cavern- we could light it on fire and stop them from coming!”

Phasma sighed, “Fine! Cover me, get the ones closest. I’ll burn them all!”

As Six fell into formation around Phasma, she nodded towards her Prince, “You sure know a lot about mushrooms, Captain.”

He smiled, “Twilight thought she could solve world hunger by mutating the stuff when she was six. It tasted worse than garbage.”

“How do you know what garbage tastes like?” Six asked.

Shining grimaced, “You get very bored in boot camp…”

The skittering horde clambered down from the oversized tower caps, closing in on the group. The Spartans and pony royals opened fire on the uttu spiders, carving through the monsters and the thick fungal forest behind their targets. Those unfortunate enough to get close met their end at Six’s wing blades and hooves, not to mention Sparrow’s crossbow finding its mark and adding a wooden unicorn horn to the head of many abominable creatures. Yet for every dozen they cut down, more spiders took their place. Their sickly pale legs stamped into the soft ground as they slowly crept closer to the group.

“We need that fire now!” Six called out as she danced through her foes, wings dicing them like fruit.

The changeling king grunted under his breath, “Really tired of the endless horde shtick…. Shining! Sweep them back and launch them up!”

“On it!” The Prince yelled back as he switched from magical bolts to a telekinetic push spell.

A thick cloud of mushroom spores and dirt sprayed upwards in a circle around the group as the Prince unleashed his magical strength against the spiders. Normally, fighting against their telekinetic field would be taxing for a unicorn, but Captain Shining Armor was more than an expert in expelling creatures. Immediately, he followed this up with a ground-pound spell, hurling a shockwave through the soft mushy mycelium underhoof.. The spell gained strength as it traveled, threatening to topple over the Spartans, while completely bowling over and flinging the spiders upwards. The tower caps toppled away from the group as the targets were lined up.

The King yelled as he cast his spell, “Get d–”

With a crack that sounded to Six’s ears like a gauss warthog’s cannon, a line of burning white energy fired from Phasma’s horn. Six had to turn her head away as her visor auto adjusted to block out the ensuing light which traveled along the energy line a heartbeat later. She watched the shadows move from in front of her hooves, swiveling around to behind her as an orb bright enough to shadow stars erupted from the changeling king. In the short glimpse she got of the now-airborne spiders, they were incinerated limb by limb as it slowly passed them on its way to the distant cavern ceiling.

Far above them, in the tunnels they had left behind, the light bounced off the stone walls for kilometers as the ball of superheated plasma approached. For a brief moment, the Unending Dark was anything but as the artificial sun extinguished all life in its path. Then, it hit.

‘Alexandria,’ Six thought, the name coming unbidden to the forefront of her mind as she witnessed the terrible destruction. A sphere of orange and blue energy– visible only due to her advanced visor screening out enough light to blind any foolish enough to look upon it directly– grew from the impact point, consuming everything within. Six fell to her side as the ensuing shockwave crashed through the formation like a tidal wave. Everyone else flew back several lengths and tumbled away, but the destruction was not yet over.

The lethal methane mix atop the cavern ignited in a growing ring of hellfire. The breach was engulfed as it started to collapse downwards, the tunnels and ceiling falling to the cavern floor. The fiery scourge reached tendrils of fire out from the inferno, setting the cavern’s ceiling ablaze for leagues upon leagues. Ash and chunks of flaming fungal growth rained down upon the survivors below, starting their own fires where the growth was dry enough to allow it to spread.

Six pushed herself to her hooves, tearing her eyes away from the mesmerizing inferno above and focusing on her soldiers and royal charges. She could see her Spartans talking, pulling each other up off the ground. She saw Cadance, blood dripping from her ears, leaning down to pluck Shining off a singed matt of moss and bringing him up to his unsteady hooves. Behind both groups, she saw King Phasma prone, struggling to get even a single hoof underneath him.

Six trotted over, digging a wing underneath the monarch to hoist him up and lean him against her bulk.

“That’s a lot bigger than I expected,” Six told him. “You’re quite impressive for a changeling.”

Phasma’s witty retort was aborted when he vomited, all but limp in Six’s wing as smoke streamed from his horn. Weakly, he spat on the ground and pointed with his head forward.

“Shel’er,” he groaned.

Six followed his nose, seeing a mass of fungus within the churned field of destruction ahead. Only, as she continued to stare at it, she noticed that the fungus was actually growing across chiseled stone blocks, each the size of a pony.

‘A structure.’

“Soldiers, on me!” Six ordered her Spartans. “Pick yourselves up and keep moving!”

The ponies and one changeling drone groaned in response, but picked themselves up regardless, used to her impossible demands. They formed a loose formation around the Prince and Princess and trudged after their leader. Six all but carried Phasma as he wilted, shaking his head.

“Have to keep moving,” he panted.

“We are,” Six answered.

“Faster,” the changeling groaned. “Loud enough to attract a megafauna!”

Six recalled the briefing Phasma gave them all. Megafauna. The worst thing down in these sunken depths. They were exactly as their name described: giant monsters. Even more giant than the oversized arachnids that nipped at their heels. At his warning, Six scanned the horizon. Smoke darkened the air as the fungal forests burned and smoldered, taking its time to extinguish itself.

Their progress towards the overgrown structure was slow, and they felt its footfalls before they saw it.

Tower caps rustled and toppled to the side as something vast strode from the smoke and into the ash plain. Six recognized it at once from her CBRN hazard classes, falling into the ‘biological’ category of potential weapons. A bacteriophage towering a hundred meters tall shook the world with its approach. With a elongated polygonal sphere for a head, a thick stem that would make redwoods seem like sticks, and four massive legs that punctured through any they fell upon like hypodermic needles– if those needles were as thick as telephone poles, it was one of the most manufactured-looking designs Six had ever seen in nature. It instilled a deep sense of danger in her soul, which she reacted to instantly.

“Double time! Now, go go go!”

She pulled Phasma onto her back, blades cutting him deep as she jostled and pinned him onto her.

Six galloped ahead of the group, practically flying over the treacherous terrain in her haste. She glanced back only once to make sure everyone was moving. At her relief, they were doing their best to try to keep pace with her. She also saw beneath the base of the megafauna’s gigantic trunk were a dozen tentacles, whipping around, cutting, and pulling everything under it into its hidden mouth like an octopus feasting.

“Storm Rider!” Phasma wheezed. “The hateful god, the doom of Anobii! A servant of Morgo–” he grunted in pain as he bit his tongue.

The safe haven loomed ahead, glowing green and blue from the fungus, and now orange and red from fire. The flames burning away the organic shield that had entombed it for millenia revealing its polished blackstone surface that seemed to eat all light that impacted it– a void in the fabric of reality made physical. To Six, it was the closest thing she saw to safety.

The footfalls of the giant grew louder as Six crossed the threshold of an open portal to the black burning pyramid. Ahead, darkness yawned once more, cut only by the flashlight of her helm, revealing yet another hallway that sloped upwards. Six deposited Phasma against a wall and turned to run to help the others. First she pulled Cadance through, the stumbling Princess still disoriented from the explosion, blood on her cheeks and spittle on her lips– she clearly had it just as bad if not worse than the exhausted changeling King.

Shining came next, smaller legs but in a far better shape. Only Cadance lacked the military training ingrained into them all: don’t look at explosions and cover your ears. Her Spartans arrived last, putting themselves between their charges and the danger. The ponies and changelings scrambled deeper into the tunnel, running or scooting backwards.

Scythes, chitin sharp enough to carve rock, slashed and hacked at the tunnel mouth, stretching in as Storm Rider arrived upon its prey. The black temple shuddered under its legs as it positioned a circular mouth against the tunnel entrance. Protruding from the circular base was a black beak, big enough to swallow a pony whole. It gnashed and bit, the sharp point scraping against the floor as acidic saliva dripped from its hungry mouth. The blackstone sizzled where it fell. Yet whatever this pyramid was made of was more than capable of resisting the hungry god’s anger.

“Away from the walls!” Spirit screeched, recoiling away from them.

The ponies huddled together around Phamsa’s prone form as red liquid shot along the grooves between the stones from deeper inside the hall. Six watched as the sanguine liquid reached the mouth of the tunnel and extended further out. It shot out like a spike, tearing straight through Storm Rider’s stem, spraying green ichor out the other side. A second spike from the other wall joined the first, impaling Storm Rider a second time.

The lesser god screeched in pain and anger, shaking the air with its fury as it ripped itself backwards, scythes trailing through the air as it fled. The red substance receded as the creature retreated, pulling back into the darkness beyond them.

For an entire minute, the ponies and changelings sat in silence, panting, catching their breath, and applied medical triage to the wounded. Mostly just to Phasma’s cuts inflicted by Six.

‘I should come up with training for how I can pick someone up later without hurting them,’ Six thought, looking down on the stallion. ‘It could be necessary for evacuating civilians and VIPs.’

“What the hay was that?!” Shining broke the silence. “You all saw that, right? The blood-thing?!”

The Spartans nodded, and Spirit explained, “That was the Queensblood! I had only ever heard stories of it, it was said to defend Her Majesty’s saints. It was said it could create entire cities from nothing, and render armies to dust.”

“... Won’t hear any complaints from me,” Shining half-smiled.

“Y-yeah,” Spirit said, drawing her hooves closer to herself. “Try not to scratch the walls.”

“Everyone up,” Six ordered. “This is no safe place. We’re heading further into this building to find out if it has a way down.”

“You think it has a way down?” Shining asked, casting a healing spell on Cadance’s ears.

“You wanna go back out there?” Six pointed to the retreating Storm Rider.

Shining hissed slowly through his teeth, “That thing put the tarrasque to shame. No ma’am!”

“Up,” Six ordered again, prodding Phasma.

“Urrfff,” he grunted.

“You alright, soldier?” Six asked him.

“No,” he answered quietly. “Panicked. Threw out a stronger spell than I meant to. Tired.”

Six sighed, “We will have to make camp in here, then. Can you walk further in?”

“No,” Phasma repeated and raised a hoof up to Six. “Uppies.”

Six rolled her eyes and crouched under Phasma, swiftly pulling him sideways on her back. She made sure to keep her wings folded, believing that was enough to not dice him again. Now falling in line with the two royals, her Spartans took the lead. The hall rose sharply and Six’s hooves pounded across thick metal grating when it leveled off. Their path opened up to one singular chamber with no other exits. It was dome-shaped, the walls beginning to glow white as they stepped into the antechamber. Grooves between the walls flickered to life like luminescent light bulbs, bringing much-needed reprieve from the darkness.

The chamber was mostly bare, save for four things. In the center, on a raised dais, a pure black altar made of the same stone as the walls, floors and ceiling, only this perfect rectangular prism had its edges outlined in Queensblood. As they approached, the blood flowed from the edges onto the top, but Six could not see what it did after that from her spot at the entrance.

To the left of the altar was a circular pad. Green emeralds lined the base of it in perfect order, and glowing blue lines marked some kind of magic circle on its top. To the right, a similar pad of red rubies mirrored its green sister. But this one was cracked in half, split from end to end. It was only when Six circled around the altar, spying out for any danger, did she see the fourth landmark of this bare chamber. A third and final pad, this one lined with gold, diamonds, rubies, and yet more Queensblood.

She gave it a healthy distance.

“I guess we’re making camp here,” Spirit said, slowly sitting down against the raised dais.

“You sure it’s safe?” Cadance said, quietly brought up to speed on the conversation she missed.

“Don’t break anything and… maybe,” Spirit answered, watching the Queensblood writhe on the top of the altar.

Pixie looked around, fiddling with her prosthetic wing, “What is this place?”

“Forward Outpost Hunter’s Grotto, Sunken Rot, Her Majesty’s Realm,” Phasma answered. All eyes turned towards him, and he motioned upwards. Between the lights, chiseled into the stones themselves, Six made out faint outlines of hieroglyphics. “Says so right there. Also says any unworthy should not touch the royal teleporter, opened and be damned and all that. Three guesses for which is the royal teleporter.”

“The other two are safe?” Shining asked.

“It doesn’t say,” Phasma shrugged, wincing and immediately regretting the action. “But judging by the look of the red one, we only need to concern ourselves with this green one. Red means stop and green means go, so uh…. I wonder where this one goes?”

“Any more long-lost stories?” Six asked, addressing her changeling Spartan.

Spirit shook her head, “Nothing. I’ve never heard of anything within the Underhive like this. There are tales of the Empress's Realm, but nothing more than fairy tales, and nothing to do with ancient esoteric public transport.”

Phasma grunted in pain as he slid off Six, slowly limping up to the altar.

“King Phasma!” Shining hissed. “What are you doing?! Haven’t you ever seen a horror movie before?! Stay away from that evil altar!”

“My job is to poke things,” the bug responded. “Yeah it’s woken up ancient evils before, but I’m still alive… What do we got here…”

“Then poke it carefully,” Shining stressed.

“You got it, Princess,” Phasma smiled, placing his forehooves on the altar and looming over it. Six stepped up beside him, ready to shield him from any explosive trap. Or bladed trap. Or noxious gas trap. Or-

“BIOS error?” Phasma gasped. “Are you fucking… Hey Six, do you have a disk copy of Windows on you? We might need to flash this thing.”

“Would VISR OS work?” Six asked. “My suit should have an adapter port.”

“What are they talking about?” Cadance asked, but Shining and the others only shrugged and shook their heads.

Phasma frowned, “I dunno if this thing has a USB port, Six.”

“What is going on?” Cadance asked them directly.

“Have you tried turning it off and on again?” Six suggested

Phasma barked a laugh, “This thing’s operating system is down. Don’t ask me how ancient mystical technology operates on the same basis as space-age futuristic stuff does. This world works in mysterious ways. Don’t say it, Cadance.”

“As does love,” Cadance ignored him. “Can you get it working again, if you know how it works?”

The changeling King shrugged, “I don’t exactly have a degree in ancient computer science, lovebutt. Last time I got something like this to work, I… oh son of a bitch.”

“What?” Six asked.

In response, Phasma extended his right foreleg above the altar. Biting into the gauze she had applied to a cut there, he ripped it offer and dug one of his fangs a bit into the cut. Cadance grimaced in disgust as blood flowed from his wound and down his fang. Phasma yanked his mouth free, spitting blood and letting the rest fall onto the altar.

The moment the drops landed, the Queensblood formed concentric circles and lines around the impact points, like a target reticule, before it converged and devoured the blood.

“Fucking blood magic,” Phasma sighed. “It’s always blood magic with ancient changelings. Don’t ask me why.”

The lights flickered as two of the teleport pads suddenly began humming with magical power. The lines atop each pulsed with green dimensional energy. The Queensblood writing on the altar flowed into new words as Phasma rebound his foreleg.

“There we go. New boot order, just as I had hoped. Yeah, I definitely planned that. Royal protocol now instated, all three teleporters are working! Wait, no one is broken.”

“Which one?” Shining asked.

“The one we need,” Six guessed, starting to pick up on how her new world worked.

“Red means down,” Phasma nodded. “And green means up. Red Queen’s realm below, and green shit above? That’s how I would have designed it.”

Pixy hammered out a dent in their faux-wing, “Soo…. this isn’t a way down, then?”

The bleeding King glanced back at the gold encrusted pad, “Not for everyone. I have activated the royal pad by bleeding all over these fine ancient electronics. However, this altar is displaying another warning: royal and one servant only. Please form a single file line, mind the pad.”

Cadance tallied everyone up, “Three royals: myself, Shining, and Phasma. Four ponies: Six, Sparrow, Spirit, and Pixy. Somepony is going to have to go back up.”

“Everyone is going to have to go back up,” Phasma raised his eyebrows. “You think this system considers you or Shining royalty?”

“Oh, fiddlesticks!” Cadance huffed. “What’s the plan now? I don’t know how long we can survive out there, especially since we’d be blind looking for an entrance to further below. It’s a miracle we found this one so quickly.”

Spirit stood up, “So it’s over, then? We’re heading back to the surface?”

“No,” Six growled. “Spartans never abandon their mission. Not while there’s still a chance at victory. I will go further with Phasma. Everyone else, you all head to the surface.”

“Ah, great,” Shining shook his head. “Splitting the party. Sounds like the most efficient way to find your grave, Six.”

Six smirked, “I already found mine. Didn’t quite fit.”

“Damn that’s a good one liner,” Phasma chuckled. “Both of us have tasted death before. I don’t really know how that’s gonna give us an edge on this, but Six punches like a girl. A really mean girl. One who you owe child payments to. We’ll be fine. Or at least, Six will; I am an absolute glutton for pain and injuries.”

To emphasize the point, Phas shook his bandaged legs and barrel.

Cadance looked to Six, “Are you sure you both will be alright? Two layers in and we’re already about to give up. You two will have to keep going and come back up.”

“It’s a Helljumper’s job to fall feet-first into hell, Princess,” Six said. “But as a Spartan, I think I do the job just as well. Besides, if we can take this teleporter down, surely we can take it right back here? Where does the royal pad lead, Phasma?”

Phasma pursed his lips, “I think its network is down and has fallen back on its emergency backup location. If that’s anything other than the Second Hive itself, I will eat… something. Something dramatic and inedible.”

Shining cocked an eyebrow, “We’re lucky to have a changeling royal with us, capable of reading hieroglyphics and knows enough about ancient changeling blood magic to accomplish all of this.”

“If I wasn’t here, you wouldn’t come down to this hell,” Phasma pointed out.

“... Are you going to be okay to keep going?” Six asked, stepping close to the changeling stallion.

“Yes,” Phasma answered instantly. Then, he wavered, leaning in close to Six, “I… Maybe. Theoretically, we might have a second shot at this, but we’re already this far and I don’t want to risk being down here a second time. My reserves are nearly tapped out, you’re gonna have to be the heavy hitter.”

“Your love reserves?” Spirit asked. “I can provide some if you need it.”

Phasma shook his head, “A drop of water in a lakebed, Spirit. I’ll just have to be careful and drink a lot the next time I get access to love.”

3- Close Quarters Combat (The Part You All Came For)

Author's Note

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3- Close Quarters Combat (The Part You All Came For)

A fluorescent white beam shot out of the golden pad, shooting up towards the sunless sky. It rapidly shrunk to nothingness, motes of energy slowly falling upwards as Six and Phasma stepped off.

The room they found themselves in had a rocky natural cave feeling to it, but was far more majestic than anything that would be found on the surface. Only the Crystal Caves would hope to hold a candle against the sight before them. Past a blackstone platform ringed with more teleport pads encrusted with various jewels was a large open expanse reminiscent of a cathedral from old Earth. The walls were lined with crystal-like scales, glittering and shimmering in rainbow incandescent light that flickered behind and within them. Formations as big as a falcon helicopter extended from the ceiling above, a natural chandelier that cast the room in warm yellow light. At their hooves, a thin cyan mist clung like vapor in a cold room. Before them, a grand passaged yawned, lit up in all the colors of the rainbow. The blackstone path continued forth into it, plunging deeper before a flattening curve far below. At its edges– unlike the pyramid, intricate gold filigree etched out a rectangular pattern.

Phasma let out a breath he was holding. The next he let out was tinged with pink mist, but the third was back to normal.

“Where have we landed?” Six asked, relaxing once she saw the immediate area was free of hostiles.

“Somewhere deep,” Phasma answered. “You can’t feel it? It’s in the air.”

“What is?”

To show her, Phasma reached up and tapped his hoof to the tip of his horn. When he drew the keratin edge back, an arc of rainbow-colored static electricity danced between his hoof and his horn.

“Magic. It’s so thick down here that it feels like I’m swimming.”

“Great,” Six said through gritted teeth. “Will you be fine in a fight?”

Phasma traced a shape on the ground, watching the mist swirl, “I might be able to levy the environment’s ambient magic rather than my depleted reserves. I’m going to be slower in a fight.”

“What can we expect down here?” Six asked.

The changeling gestured towards the crystals beyond count that grew from the walls, “We are in the most magical place on this planet, Noble Six. This is Requiem! This is to changelings what the plains of Africa were to humans. This is our crucible. Our Garden of Eden. You can expect the greatest wonders you will ever see in any of your lives, as well as monsters so terrible that they fell civilizations with a sweep of a claw.”

Six considered this, “.... Do they bleed?”

Phasma laughed, “I guess we’ll find out. Or better yet, we don’t and can just pick up the MacGuffin.”

“Requiem,” Six recalled the name. “You mentioned in the briefing that the Queen’s kingdom might be down there. Down here. Have we been teleported to the front door?”

He nodded, “Without a doubt. The Red Queen would’ve built her palace down here. Let’s get moving, the sooner we get the MacGuffin, the sooner I can go home.”

“Let me try my radio. The Breadcrumb system might work through the teleporters, right? They’re both magical.”

Phasma shrugged, “The teleporter is not active now, but they might have an ambient channel linking them. Otherwise, how else would it know where to send its users? Might as well try.”

There was a moment of silence and stillness as Six suddenly found herself recalling her radio etiquette training. It had been just over a year since she had last used her radio. It had been just over a year since Reach fell.

“This is Sierra-B312, Noble Six, calling Breadcrumb. How copy?”

Six held her breath unconsciously, her mind playing a memory of Emile answering. He was the last Noble member she had spoken to, before she would join him in death.

“Six? I can hear you.”

The voice was quiet and full of static, and most definitely not Emile’s. Cadance’s radio etiquette left much to be desired, but Six was thankful to hear her.

“Princess. We have arrived in Requiem, in the Queen’s kingdom. No casualties. What is your status?”

“We’re back on the surface, looks like somewhere near the Rainbow Falls. Quite a walk back to Canterlot, in fact the Empire’s closer. We’ll wait in town for you two. I’m glad to hear that you two are okay. How are you feeling?”

Six resigned herself to the impromptu therapy session, “Tense. Phasma has told me that the worst might be yet to come.”

“That’s usually the best part,” Cadance said under her breath, not knowing it was picked up. “Understood. Keep an eye on the wayward King. He didn’t look like he was doing okay when we left.”

“He’s walking,” Six noted. “That’s an improvement.”

“Ask him how he’s feeling.”

“Why– nevermind, hold on,” Six sighed, switching off her microphone. “Phasma, Princess Cadance asks how you are feeling.”

The stallion squinted, “You know that brutal Mongolian execution method of tying someone to their horse and dragging them around, running them over rocks and stuff till they die? Something like that.”

Six flipped her mic back on, “He says he’s feeling better.”

“Good, good,” Cadance seemed relieved. “Now that you two are alone, remember all those lessons–”

Six turned her radio off.

“Right. What’s our heading?”

Phasma pointed towards the downward sloping ramp, “I was thinking we take the one exit there is out of the room, but if you have any better ideas, I’d love to hear them. Wanna try the teleport pads like a bad game of Russian Roulette?”

Six started down the path, slowing down a moment later to let the changeling catch up. She noted that he was limping a bit, and that she would have to pick him up again if they had to flee.

They descended even further into the planet, hoofsteps echoing uncomfortably loudly in the crystal tunnel. As she got her muscles moving, Six noticed that it was much warmer down here. The previous layers ranged from frigid in the Endless Dark to tepid and lukewarm in the Sunken Rot. But here, Six had no doubt that they were deep enough for sulfur pools and magma pools to form, if Phasma’s intel was correct.

She glanced backwards, checking in on the bug occasionally. His attention seemed to be on the walls around them, occasionally reaching out to tap one of the glowing crystals. Six decided that it would be best if she took full responsibility for keeping an eye out for danger; Phasma was perhaps too sluggish at the moment to be relied upon. So, she kept one eye on her motion sensor, and the other and the path ahead and behind them.

The floor began to level out, and the wide cavern suddenly opened up to a vast cavern. Its true size was comparable not to the endlessly busy Sunken Rot that extended beyond the horizons, but to the changeling Hive far closer to the surface. While the Sunken Rot felt like a cramped natural cavern with mushrooms extending almost up to the ceiling, this was too perfect to be anything but the planned wonder of a civilization.

It was perhaps as tall as the modern changeling hive within its cavern, but this crystal snowglobe was at least four times wider. Even from their low distant point at its edge, Six could see that this hidden world was divided into sections. Her mind classified each one, already assessing each one for dangers.

The first, where she and Phasma now stood, would be the outskirts. Crystal formations, pools and streams of water, great chasms, and thick rock formations that thrust into the sky formed a landscape similar to the world of a barren world, cast in neon colors. Like the world above, it seemed almost like a fairy-tale in beauty.

Next, ahead stretched their blackstone path, arching over a sudden drop and towards walls of solid crystal. Thirty meters tall, they glowed faintly with the same rainbow hue that imbued every translucent surface in this place. Six marveled how the crystal was formed not into chunks but as one solid piece, but lingered for only a moment, as beyond it lay something that existed only in paintings.

It was a twin of the changeling hive they had traveled through– yet this city immediately made the new hive seem like a crude joke of an imitation, a child’s drawing not fit for the fridge. The inhabited hive above was like a stalactite and stalagmite carved into a city, with drones buzzing to and from the various spires that hung from above or reached from below.

This ancient sculpture that dwarfed Canterlot was two pyramids, one above and one below. Its spires were perfect cylinders and rectangular prisms that were carved with generations of care and dedication. She could see a pattern to them, as if they were planned to form a shape visible from below or above.

Crystal, gold, gems beyond count, silver, copper, and metals that gleamed in every color shined from the spires and pyramids. It was the wealth of entire worlds. It was the greatest single art piece they might ever see in their lives. It was the Queen’s Kingdom.

And it was as silent and still as a grave, frozen in time.

“It reminds me of Nisir,” Phasma said, breaking the awed silence. “Though they didn’t quite have as much gold, metals, or jewels. This is… This is more gold and gems than I thought could exist in one world.”

Six’s response was quiet and slow, “Was there any place like this on our homeworld?”

He thought for a moment, “Any place on earth with a fraction as much planning was always mired by greed and corruption. There were legends of cities of gold on distant shores, but this is… There was perhaps one place.”

Six turned to him, attention fully captured.

Phas stepped closer and smiled, “They called it Tenochtitlan. It was an ancient city built into the lake of a vast valley. I believe it was one of the most beautiful in its height. No gold lining the street, though, as those who came to its distant shores would find. Pyramids and wide avenues of beautiful painted stone, colorful artwork, and magnificent carvings, and its king wore a crown the likes of which would never be made again. A plumage of feathers, plucked in pairs from a bird that would only ever grow two, seated headdress of gold. Of all the ancient wonders, I would have liked to see that one the most.”

Six frowned, “If it was so wonderful, why wasn't it taught or talked about in my time?”

Phas looked back at the perfect city, “Because its people were only known for carving out the hearts of their captives to offer to their cruel gods.”

“Six, come in. It’s Cadance.”

Six clicked her microphone on, “Noble Six reporting.”

“See? They’re fine. I told you they’d be fine. Six, everything is fine, right?”

“... Yes,” Six answered. “Anything else?”

Six and Phas had been walking down the path for five minutes now, slowly approaching the great bridge that spanned the chasm before the city. They had done so in silence, sticking close together and keeping an eye out for monsters.

“What do you think of King Phasma?”

“I think he is injured and operating at less than optimal levels,” Six surmised. “But the mission comes first. I agree with his thinking that a second trip is too risky.”

“No, no,” Cadance interrupted. “Like… Personality wise. What is your take?”

“He’s an arrogant ass who takes nothing seriously,” Six said, staring daggers at the bug through her visor.

“He seemed pretty serious back there when we were together,” Cadance retorted.

“And I like him for some reason.”

“Oh? Oooooooh–”

“Stop ‘oh’ing me,” Six hissed. “I told you this radio is for mission-critical information only.”

“This is my mission!” Cadance smiled.

Six definitely heard the smile.

“What is your mission? To annoy me?”

Cadance hummed, “Not at all. My mission is to improve your capabilities. Yeaaaah. Let’s go with that. It’s important to test boundaries, riiiiiight?”

Six frowned, “Where are you going with this?”

“Would you consider him a friend?”

Would she?

Six stared at the back of the changeling’s head, thinking. She thought about the moments they shared together, specifically back when she tried to kill him. He actually did quite well in that spar, and the fight would be very informative in case she ever had to face a skilled spell caster. He pushed her limits. Too far, considering what he did to her knife, but he also made up for that later.

She then considered the other moments with him. Talking about Earth and Reach, humanity, and history. He was a window to a life she had left behind. It hurt. It felt nice. It felt weird.

Six stuck out one of her left legs underneath him, causing the larger stallion to trip forward and fall onto his belly with a grunt.

“Oof!”

Six stopped, looking down at him, “You alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine,” Phas muttered quietly, slowly getting up. “Just tired, sorry.”

It felt very weird, which only made Six even more annoyed.

She turned her microphone back on, “We don’t choose our brothers and sisters in arms.”

“No, we don’t,” Cadance admitted. “We don’t choose our family, either. Not often. But you did with your Spartans. Shining asks if you can picture yourself drinking with him. Something about comradery? Yes, Shining, I just asked that.”

Her motion scanner was still empty, so Six returned her focus to the question.

“We’ve already drank together once,” Six recalled. “It wasn’t horrible. He made an ass of himself, but we’ve already addressed that point.”

“Would you go a second time?” Cadance prompted.

“Yeah, I think I would.”

“Sounds like he’s a friend, then,” Cadance replied. “Maybe not one you’d chosen, but one you don’t want to let go of?”

Six ground her teeth together, “... Is there anything else you needed?”

“It’s really boring up here, you’re the only interesting pony I can talk to,” Cadance sighed.

“I’m not a pony.”

“Yes, yes, you are so interesting Shiny. I meant… I am feeling hungry, can you go get us something to eat? Love you! Now… Six. Six, six, six. Six. Six!”

“Princess Cadance.”

“Would you kiss him?”

Six killed her radio, welcoming the silence.

‘Seriously, what is it with these ponies?’

By the time the two had reached the great bridge, Six still was turning in circles in her head. The pair walked up to the edge and gazed down, finding a moat of molten lava several dozen meters below. Around the edges of the chasm, waterfalls fell into open air, spraying rainbow mist in stark contrast to the deadly molten floor.

“Is that even a possible geological formation?” Six asked Phas.

He nudged her shoulder, “Magic ‘n shit. If it wasn’t before, it is here. C’mon, the doors are up ahead.”

At the far end of the bridge, which was easily a hundred meters long by itself, were two massive steel doors were covered in carvings that Six was too far and too mentally distant to care about. The Queensblood lining many of the carvings was a different matter. It branched out from the hinges like tree branches; but when it pulsed, Six likened it more to a circulatory system.

“The defense system is still online,” she told Phas.

“Stay close,” he advised, and Six did as suggested, squeezing against him. “I don’t know if it’s designed to attack ponies or anything non-changeling. My aura should cover you, or maybe trick the defenses into thinking you’re podded or something.”

“Mages have a hard time detecting me through my shield,” Six said. “Perhaps all magic has trouble detecting me through it?”

Phas’s horn glowed orange as he scanned the bridge, “It’s stable. In fact, it’s probably even stronger than the foundation of Canterlot. Suck it ponies, changelings are superior builders!”

With that, he stepped forward onto the bridge and over the moat of lava. Six followed immediately, sticking against the tall insect, keeping an eye out around them. But despite the fact that she could not forget that they were right above a pit of certain death, the journey across the bridge went by quickly and in silence, much like their walk to it.

The doors loomed above them, stretched in size as with everything else they had found beneath the changeling’s hive. They seemed closer in family to the blast doors of the Charon class light frigate than something that would be used by people. The Queensblood pulsed faster as the two approached, and Six found herself pressing even harder against Phas.

“Just gonna slowly walk through the front door,” Phas said quietly, slinking forward towards a gap between the massive gates. “Shhh, nice creepy blood magic. We’re all cool here.”

The pair squeezed past, Six’s armor scraping the edges of the metal as she followed Phas. Now through the curtain wall, the two got their first look at the outer district of the immaculate city. The streets were lined with rows of squarish buildings that were more in line with the angular architecture of changelings and humanity than ponies. But these homes and shops were empty husks. Window frames and doorways stood empty, stalls lay completely bare, gardens were completely flat and featureless, and grand avenues of dirt on either side of the main thoroughfare were utterly dead. Metal circular grates indicated where trees might have stood, or some facsimile of tall growths. But as far as the eye can see, there was nothing but bare featureless dirt. Six spied boxes of dirt beneath windows that were just as empty, and lattice fences that might have supported ivy were just as stark and naked.

The whole city was sterile.

A shiver went down Six’s spine as they examined the closest house. It was empty. With no windows, doors, or furniture inside, it was as if someone sucked out every bit of life and personality from the home. And every single building was like this.

“We,” Six said, then paused as her voice echoed farther than she wanted. “We should keep moving,” she said more quietly.

She tugged at her suit’s collar, feeling hotter inside her suit. Not quite re-entry hot, but it was noticeable. They turned away, towards the heart of the city. The buildings grew taller as they moved.

“I’ve heard stories of the Second Hive,” Phas whispered as they set forth toward the great pyramid ahead. “A washed-up skeleton, haunted by its sins. This place seems nothing like it. The Second was at least… there was life in its decay. Nothing is here. Not even the wind.”

Six felt like there was something missing with what the King said. Some unremarked fact that had escaped both of their notice. This whole city instilled the idea in her mind that things were just… off.

Old instincts kicked in and Six kept glancing at her motion sensor every second, expecting an ambush. She stared at the eaves and roofs of the buildings, looking for jackals. Her eyes darted back and forth, looking for any sign of movement that betrayed the presence of a camouflage sangheili.

The fact that nothing continued to happen only made the paranoia worse.

“Phas,” she whispered.

“Six.”

“There’s too many angles. Too many nests. We need to get out of the open.”

“Six? The way forward is… forward?”

She grabbed him, jerking the stallion backwards as her hoof threatened to crack his chitin shoulder.

“Too. Exposed.”

Phas looked around, horn glowing orange. His eyes glowed, too, lit up with his magic.

“There’s nothing, Six. No souls around us, and I detect no malevolent magic that heralds the undead. We’re alone.”

But Six couldn’t shake the feeling that they weren’t.

“We can’t be,” she insisted, staring into empty windows.

Phas relented, reaching across her chest and grabbing her far shoulder to lead her off the street. They took a side way off the main path, plunging into the rows of blank buildings. Six’s paranoia retreated, but did not vanish. They were being watched. Her heart beat hard, pushing adrenaline through her veins as she tensed her wings.

“We need cover,” Six said quickly.

This time, she pushed him towards a seven-story tower, pressing up against the wall beside the doorway as he stumbled forward. He fell again, flat on his belly with another ‘oof.’ Seeing her in combat mode, Phas huffed and rolled to the side, pressing against a wall and out of direct sight from the doorway.

“What is…. Uh,” Phas mumbled. “Hold on, hold on,” he said as he opened his armored saddle bags and pulled out a black marker.

He tested it on his right fetlock, then clicked his tongue as the black-on-black didn’t really show up. He wrote the word ‘Danger?’ onto the ground and looked around.

“There was one god in this layer I was warned about,” he told Six, staring at the doorway. “That Which Consumes. The Good Friend. Subject 004. It has many names, and even more victims.”

“What is it?” Six asked, eyeing the street wearily.

“I don’t know. No one does. That’s how it gets you. You can’t remember it when you look away. It’s the Silence.”

“How do you kill it?”

Phas looked down at his writing. Beneath the word ‘Danger’ was just empty space.

“You have to find out if you’re being hunted first. Then, you stab it with the pointy end till it stops moving. So far, so good. We could be freaking out over nothing…”

“What do you suggest our next move is?”

Phas looked around, “We should get somewhere high. Somewhere where we can see it coming, somewhere overlooking a number of streets.”

If this were a movie, it would have been raining out. The water would have pitter-pattered off the metal shingles of the tall tower Six and Phas were holed up in. It would have forced them to huddle close against a fire for warmth. But this was no movie. Down here, the stillness was jarring. Utter silence dominated the city, not even the sound of wind blowing disturbed them way above the ground, twelve stories up.

Six glanced down at the marker held in her hoof. There was still nothing below the word danger.

“What am I looking for, again? How will I know when I’ve found it?”

Phas looked up from his spot on the ground, “When you check your little message and find something there that you didn’t write. If that thing is here, we should be able to spy it. I know it’s not small.”

“Large enough to appear over the rooftops?”

He nodded, “So it would seem.”

Six went back to her silent vigil, hoping for an uneventful night. Or, at least, what she considered night, the time of day was always bright, despite there being no sun. Six had experience with guard duty, having to sit around and wait countless times in her brief stint in the military, which has lasted two lifetimes at this point.

An hour was easy to pass by.

Two was a struggle, without even the wind to cool her down. It really was warm in this city.

Three was getting painful. She had looked around for a reprieve, anything to occupy her time, but this tower– which must have once held a large bell– was just as featureless as every other building.

At fours, she woke Phas. Both to sake her need for stimulus, and to get him ready for his watch.

“Nothing,” she reported. “Are we sure it’s here? It might be something unique to your world.”

Phas stretched like a cat, sticking his rear into the air, “It could be. My world definitely seems more dangerous than most. An uneventful night means we should be all clear. If it’s hiding somewhere, then there’s nothing we can do.”

Her face twitched, “That is not an acceptable answer.”

Phas walked over and sat down next to her, peering out the wide open wall-less side of their impromptu camp. After looking around, he turned towards her, smiling.

“Welcome to my worlds. Sleep is hard to come by, and good conversation even harder.”

Six reached up and freed the airtight locks on her neck, popping off her helmet and letting her mane spring free. She set the helmet down and tugged uselessly at her armor’s collar.

“It’s too hot down here, and my suit’s cooling isn’t helping. An orbital reentry isn’t this hot, damn it!”

Phas chuckled, “Bugs like it warm. For some damn reason, we put our ancient city in a fucking frozen mountain on my world. It sucks. How long can a Spartan stay in their armor, by the way?”

Six wiped the sweat off her brow, “Until the thing falls off by itself.”

“Uh-huh. You smell like a fursuiter.”

She scowled, “The hell is a fursuiter?”

His smile widened even more, “Hahaha. It’s… nevermind. Don’t worry about it, we’ll get a cold shower when we get back. Go lay down and sleep, you’ll need it.”

“It’s too hot to rest,” Six complained.

Phas reached up and pressed his fetlock to her forehead.

“Are you feeling ill?”

Six’s scowl began to scowl, “No. I am fine. It’s just too hot here.”

“It ain’t that hot,” Phas said, horn lighting up in his magic again.

Six felt sudden relief as a block of ice materialized on top of her head and on the back of her neck. Her expressions softened, even going so far as to tighten into a small smile.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Phas winked. “Actually, do mention it. Your Luna really thinks low of me.”

Six sat back, starting to relax somewhat, “You didn’t make the best first impression.”

“Yeah, I’m not good at those. My teacher says I ‘don’t play well with others,’ whatever that means,” he said, motioning air quotes with his hooves.

She grinned and chuckled, “You should have seen my first impression.”

The bug pursed his lips in thought, “Let me guess, you crashed through a staircase because your armor weighs so much? There’s diets for that, you know.”

Six laughed, throwing her head back and pressing her muzzle up against the ice before looking back down at him.

“No, they arrested me.”

“Oh, psshh,” Phas dismissively waved his hoof. “They like doing that. I’ve gotten arrested dozens of times, I tell ya. Dozens.”

“Care to recount your crimes?”

Phas scooted over till he was bumping shoulders from her and took the marker from her hoof. As he began his watch and looked out over the city, he recalled some tales to tell.

“I think the funniest was when Prince Solaris called the daily court in. Not many ponies were fond of the idea of their Princess suddenly having a penis. I think it was funny, especially when Celestia showed up.”

She laughed again, pushing a lock of her mane out of her face, “What happened next?”

Phas shrugged, “What do you think? I called her a changeling imposter and ordered the guards to arrest her!”

The two of them broke into laughter, enjoying their moment together.

Six wiped away a tear, “I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in years. Or… maybe in my life?”

“Oh,” Phas’s eyes widened. “Then I probably shouldn’t tell you about the part where I tackled her, rolled over, and tried convincing the guards that she was the fake Celestia, not me. Despite the fact that she had ruled as a Princess for thousands of years, they still were pausing to point their spears at me. I tell you, with magic, any prank is possible.”

She grunted, “Mmm!”

Six’s grip on her helmet tightened, and she drew little circles on the top of it as she tried to recall any pranks she pulled. Or any jokes she told. Or anything that had something to do with living, and not just surviving.

‘Did I even have a life before this?’

“I hear all this talk about Cadance about love and life, but I just don’t get it.” Six looked up, meeting Phas’s stare as she spoke her thoughts out loud. “All my life, I’ve been trained to be a soldier, a Spartan, a gun for someone to point at their problem and tell me to make it disappear. I’ve never had what Cadance calls a childhood, or senior year, or college. That type of thing. That wasn’t… I don’t know what life is outside of being a Spartan. And… quite frankly, I’m afraid.”

Phas looked away, tapping the marker on the ground for a moment, before looking back at her. He reached over and pressed a hoof against her chin, lifting it up so their muzzles were pointed at each other.

“Remember what I said the last time you told me this, Six? There’s no straight answer. You’ve been on the other side of the razorwire. You’re always gonna have that twitch, that instinct to respond to danger. You aren’t the first to be like this, and you won’t be the last. I think you should start somewhere small. Build a life, piece by piece, and as the years drag by, you can look back and suddenly find yourself with something to be proud of.”

“How do I start?” Six asked him.

She almost leaned forward. She almost pressed her muzzle against his. But she didn’t know why she wanted to, so she ignored the idea.

“One hoof forward at a time. Friendships, then hobbies, then pull your hair out while looking at buying a house or apartment, then… Hopefully, by then, you’ve found someone. Some best friend who you wanna bang. That’s love, by the way.”

He chuckled, then pressed a hoof to his horn, hissing in pain.

“Are you okay?” Six asked.

“Yeah, fine. Just forgot to use the ambient mana to summon that ice. I’ll be fine.”

Six snorted, “Really? You were defeated by a chunk of ice? The great King Phasma, brought low by solid water?”

He whined, “My reserves are empty! At my peak, I could cast two dozen of those sun spells! Or like, one really big one!”

“Then why didn’t you recharge,’” Six added air quotes, “when we started this mission?”

He shook his head, “It ain’t that easy. Recharging love stores, well, there’s two options. Either I find someone who won’t be missed and drain them to the point where they are an emaciated husk, or I try something even rarer.”

“What is that?”

Phas raised his eyebrows, “Use the traditional methods of gathering love. I seldom use them, but they are there.”

“What is it?” Six asked, curiosity shining in her voice. “I don’t know much about changeling biology… Other than the colors inside,” she added at the end sheepishly.

The stallion rubbed the back of his neck, “You know. Gathering love. Making it. Sex. I’m talking about sex, Six.”

“Ah.” Six blinked slowly, “I believe that was stunted in Spartan creation. It would interfere with our operations too much, so the sex drive is suppressed during a Spartan’s augmentation.”

Phas frowned, “Oh. Shit, Six, I didn’t know. That’s…”

“I didn’t know, either,” Six continued. “It’s hard to miss something you never had.”

He exhaled slowly, “Man. I guess the brightside is that you still got bones of adamantium or vibranium or whatever?”

“And I have wings,” Six smiled, extending them and showing them off. “Not that I can fly, but clearly I gained some things with the arrival to this world.”

“Oh yeah,” Phas leaned in close. “What else did you get?”

Six stared into his orange-slitted eyes. The complexity, the color, the shape, it was… soothing, in a strange way. Six briefly thought this was what it’s like to have a favorite color.

“The annoying itch of having to preen feathers.”

He chuckled, “Yeah, that sounds annoying.”

“And…” she continued.

“And?”

“The need to do this,” Six whispered, and leaned forward.

She pressed her lips against his. His eyes widened in surprise before slowly settling. Phas reached around and pressed against her back, forcing her to lean against him. She wrapped her hooves around his chest, hugging the stallion. Six noticed the faint sense of suction on her lips and mimicked it, guessing that was part of the whole ‘kissing’ thing.

Phas pulled back, breaking the kiss with a giggle, “Mwah! Hahaha, slow down there, Six. If you fall onto me you might squish me.”

Six’s ears pinned back as her muzzle reddened for the first time in both of her lives, and she sat back, “Sorry. I shouldn’t have– that– I don’t know what came over me.”

He reached up and brushed her cheek, “Don’t apologize, you look cute with that blush. Just be careful with yourself, you don’t want to hurt your prospective partner by crushing his or her pelvis. Despite the memes, it’s actually not a good thing.”

Six cleared her throat, “This is the middle of a dangerous operation, it’s no place for… exploring. I should not have done that.”

Phas rolled his eyes, “Are you kidding? I doubt I would have been able to concentrate with a space heater full of random emotions next to me. I knew you wanted to kiss me before you did, and that’s not some chauvinist bullshit, changelings can read emotions.”

“What do I want now?” Six asked, not knowing the answer.

Phas pressed a hoof to her lips, shushing her, “To go to bed. I’m counting on you, Spartan, to carry my well-pampered ass tomorrow. Get some rest and you can do some exploring when we aren’t literally in the physical equivalent of hell.”

Six didn’t have the words to reply, so she just nodded, collected her helmet, and walked over to the center of the bell tower before lying down. She rested her muzzle on her armored hooves, pressing one against her lips. Six knew that somehow, somewhere, Cadance was laughing.

‘It wasn’t horrible,’ she smiled.

When they set out again, somewhat rested and confident, they stick to side streets in their approach to the city’s heart. With the buildings closer in on either side, and the spooky emptiness somewhat less noticeable, Six’s paranoia abated enough for her to remain focused.

Unfortunately, her focus was endangered by the Princess of Food.

“Six! It’s Cady! You two still okay down there?”

Six mentally groaned as she activated her mic, “Minor scare of our imminent demise, otherwise fine.”

“Oh! Did you fight more monsters?”

“Thought we were being hunted by one, but we seem to be all clear,” Six said, glancing at her right foreleg.

A marker dangled on a piece of string, and her titanium vambrace lay clear of markings. Phas sported a matching one, and was walking ahead of her so he could write on the ground if he saw something. Black marker still didn’t show up well on chitin, after all.

“Spooky! Up here in the Rainbow Falls, it’s nice and calm. Seems impossible for this place to be in the same world as the Underhive…”

“Roger.”

That did not deter the Princess of Boredom, “Any new advaaaancements? Six?”

“N-no?”

“You stuttered there,” Cadance pointed out.

“No.”

“Ahhh, something did happen, didn’t it?” Cadance smiled, her grin once again so easily imaginable.

Six stared at Phas, watching his red fin tail swish from side to side, “No, nothing happened. And if it did happen, it is none of your business. But it didn’t happen.”

They passed a wide intersection, some sort of concentric road that circled the palace in the center. The etching on the blackstone street changed from gold to small rubies as the buildings grew taller and the facades more intricate.

“But of course it's my business! I’m the alicorn of love! Do you know what that means, Six?”

“You invade everyone’s personal business?”

“Precisely!” Six heard Cadance clap her hooves. “Now, spill the tea. All of it!”

“We have water rations, no beverages.”

“The details, Six! The details! Tell me everything!”

“We are under attack,” Six said in a monotone voice. “It’s violent. I have to go.”

“If you turn off your radio again– because I know you’re doing that, then I’ll convince Luna to take you dress shopping.”

“Last night, if you can call it that,” Six began breaking instantly, “I spoke with Phas.”

“Oh wow, talking! You never do that!”

“He described a few of his stories that he accumulated. We spoke of what it means to be a civilian.”

“Go oooon,” Cadance goaded.

Six sighed, “We kissed.”

“Let’s gooo, woooooo baby! That’s what it’s all about! That’s what I’ve been waiting for! Yes, Shining, we’re all fine in here, go back to your patrol…. Wooooo!”

Six checked around for hostiles, ignoring the loud cheering in her ears.

“I am proud of you, Six! So proud! Now, my young apprentice,” Cadance’s voice dropped low. “Speak of it. Did you feel the power of the–”

“What are you doing?” Six asked, running out of patience.

“Am I not allowed to be proud of my little Six growing up?”

“I could crush your head between my thighs, I don’t think I am considered little.”

“Oh please. I mean, you enjoyed the kiss, right?”

Six rubbed her helmet’s seal, thankful for the temporary cooling enchantment Phasma placed on it when they woke up. It was already fading and the heat building, but it was something.

“... Yes,” she admitted.

“And you wanna do it again?”

“I am considering it, maybe. This is hardly the time and place for that.”

“Good, good, my young apprentice. Let the love flow through you.”

“That sounds painful.”

Cadance chuckled, “No, that’s the best part. You’ll get there eventually. Hold a moment, I know I have my beginner’s guide to seduction around here in my pack somewhere. I can read it off to–”

Six turned her radio off again, resigning herself to going dress shopping with Luna.

‘I am going to have a serious talk with her about only packing mission-critical equipment. The actual mission, not her… Damn it, she’s not gonna listen.’

Six sighed again, shaking the thought from her head.

“You alright back there? You sound like a tire losing air,” Phas quietly called back.

“Would you accept Cadance as an answer?”

“Oh yeah, her,” Phas hummed. “She’s one of a kind. What is it this time?”

“She’s… you know… talking about…. stuff.”

“You’re not very good at lying.”

“Thank you,” Six nodded. “I am used to staying silent. OPSEC and all that.”

“No spooks around here,” Phas smiled, turning around and walking backwards. “Just a shapeshifting emotional vampire that can half-read minds. So, is there a reason why your emotions taste like you’re a teenager at your first prom?”

“What’s a prom?”

He winked, “It’s where teenagers go to make memories they will look back upon in embarrassment for the rest of their lives. Dancing, kissing, no small amount of hazing and bullying that causes serious depression and suicidal thoughts.”

“That sounds horrible.”

“Yeah, High School was only the peak of life for those with not much going for them. The auspicious janitors and burger flippers of the world.”

“I’ve never had a burger,” Six said.

Phas turned back around, facing forward, “Don’t ask for a hamburger. Cows are people around here. Hayburgers are the equivalent.”

“Are they worth trying?”

“Lady, you’re talking to someone who gargles down the taste equivalent to what methamphetamine does to the brain. Nothing is worth trying compared to love.”

“Are they worth trying?”

“Do whatever you want!”

“Do you want to try them with me?”

Phas paused, nearly getting run over by Six in the process, and turned to her, “What?”

Six repeated, “Do you want to try them with me? When we get out of here, I mean.”

He looked at Six, staring into her blank visor. Then he examined her, boots to helmet, taking his time.

“... Sure?”

“Okay.”

Phas stared at her some more, before shrugging and starting forward again, “Anyways. We seem to be getting closer to the ominous gigantic pyramid on the horizon. Look, it’s right there. I’m pointing at it.”

Six saw him pointing, “Yes. You are.”

Their little sidestreet had twisted and turned throughout the little boroughs of borrows and hive spires until it dumped them back onto the main thoroughfare. As the squarish buildings got fancier, Six took in the more unusual architectural methods. The simplistic methods had given way to more fancy hexagonal structures and designs, almost like many of the windows, doorways, and towers were ripped from the heart of a beehive. There were colors, too. Metals and gems adorned arches, doorways, plaques written in the changeling hieroglyphics, and on tall street lamps. The rubies that lined the road were now joined by a shallow groove filled with red liquid.

Six walked closer to the center of the road, taking care to avoid the Queensblood.

It pulsed in small waves from ahead as they walked on. The movement grew stronger and more pronounced as they neared the palace. When Six looked at the center of the palace, where the two sections met, it shimmered and moved, as if cloaked in a heat mirage above a hot surface.

Phas’s ears flicked in annoyance, “There she is, the Red Queen.”

“Where?” Six looked up at the pyramids, then around.

“Can’t physically see her, but I can feel her presence against my wrapped-up Weave. It feels weird, like waves pressing against a ship.” He scratched his neck, “I don’t know if unfurling my Weave is a good idea. Spirit isn’t here, but it could alert anything nearby.”

“What are the benefits of doing that?”

“You know that feeling you get after getting into a cold shower after a long day in your armor? Like that.”

Six frowned, “You should not remove your armor if you’re expecting a fight.”

“Well, it goes both ways. I’d be able to feel out enemies, too. If there’s any changelings within this city, I would know.”

Six considered their situation. They had the advantage of stealth. If Phas’s Weave worked in the way she guessed, it would be the equivalent of using Sonar. It can find the enemies, but it will just as easily let the enemies find them.

“We continue in stealth for now,” she decided. “If it gets messy, you can… do whatever with your hive mind thing.”

“It’s not creepy, mom,” Phas giggled. “Everyone’s got a hive mind nowadays– all the cool kids are doing it!”

“Let’s just get out of the open,” Six relented, “and into that palace as soon as possible.”

The cityscape broke, ending abruptly into a massive empty space around the pyramids. Towers continued to climb into the sky, interrupting the emptiness of the field as they formed an equidistant pattern around the pyramid.

Six had no frame of reference for the structure, but to Phas it looked like someone had taken two Necron tomb structures and painted them ruby red. From corner to corner, it spanned a quarter of a kilometer. That’s 250 meters for those who can’t do math. It stretched into the sky, forcing the two to crane their necks painfully back to see the accompanying base at the ceiling. Now that they had arrived, they noticed the anomaly which rested at the very center of the city.

Between the two tips of the pyramid, light bent out of shape. It raced around a perfectly circular black abyss, warping and stretching itself thin.

“That’s not possible,” Six muttered.

“What did I tell ya,” Phas beamed. “Changeling builders are the best in the world!”

“That’s a black hole!” Six stomped a hoof. “That’s not possible!”

“Skill issue.”

Six elbowed Phas, knocking him over, “Skill issue my ass! That thing should rip apart this whole planet until there is nothing left!’

Phas stood back up, dusting himself off, “Then clearly it’s not a black hole, huh?”

“If it’s not a black hole, then what is it?”

Phas threw his hooves into the air, “How should I know? It could be where they dump the city’s sewage for all I know. C’mon, this big scary passage right here is the way in. Look, I’m pointing at it.”

“I have eyes too, I can see things before you call attention to them,” Six deadpanned.

Set into the center of the pyramid’s base was an indent, as tall as the city’s outer gates, only a hundred times more opulent. Rubies were the motif, and were done to the point of being exhausting. There were thousands on each of the two massive doors, glittering as Queensblood cascaded between them. The sanguine liquid formed into a symbol, one they recognized: an upside-down heart. The symbol of the Empress.

Six and Phas stood before the doors, staring at them. Phas felt the waves against his Weave intensify, adding a heat as if he was standing under the sun and feeling it upon his chitin.

He cleared his throat, “What–”

The doors began to grind open, squealing metal putting the two of them into a combat-ready stance on instinct. A passage that had been sealed shut for thousands of years opened on its own, the great gates swinging without hinges outwards. The two backed up, keeping an eye out for danger. Beyond, crystal torches flicked to life, bathing a great stone hall in pale white light.

The doors clicked into place, shuddering with a groan as they stopped moving.

“Welp, that’s our invite,” Phas said.

“Is this reacting like the teleporter, or something else?” Six asked.

“Something else,” Phas said confidently. “Someone’s rap-tap-tapping on my Weave.”

“Is it a trap?”

Phas tapped his chin, “A strange vision luring us to a dead city in the deepest layer of hell, now opening two doors in the spookiest fashion possible for us? Nah. No way.”

“... It’s a bad day to have no guns,” Six bemoaned.

The two walked inside, no other choices available. As they entered, the great gates ground shut behind them.

“Banners,” Phas pointed out, motioning towards the silk tapestries hanging across the grand hall.

“And?” Six asked plainly.

“Those should have degraded away like the rest of the city’s furniture. This place was preserved.”

Long red banners with upside down hearts hung from the walls between paintings of changeling royals. All colors of the rainbow were represented in the bright colorings in each’s hair, elytra, and eyes. Even the base chitin had several hues present, from black to gray to white. Several posed with open tomes, others with swords or staves, and a few were drawn in the midst of great battles against monsters or ponies. Pegasi warriors featured heavily in a number of these latter depictions.

Phas pawed at the ground, finding a plush red carpet laying across the hall. Fine wooden side tables topped with marble held golden jars and bowls underneath the paintings. Flickering lights behind pearl and glass sconce torches, casting bright white light, closer to a lightbulb than a flame.

The two set forth, hoofsteps muffled on carpet as they stuck together. When it opened up into a large central hall, with four doors on either side and a grand staircase in front rising and splitting to two doors, Phas and Six stopped and stared up at the great colored glass window at the far end of the room. Rays of vibrant light fell from the window, decorating the staircase in the window’s depiction of a tall red royal changeling. Her crimson elytra was splayed wide, atop her head lay the crown which Phas recognized as a red-tinted equivalent to his own, the Gift of Panar. It was a solid gold crown with hoof-sized diamonds studded across it like embrasures, and a huge gem, ruby in this world, towering above the rest at the forefront. Unlike his, a long veil hung from its edges, obscuring almost the entirety of the Empress’s face, save for her two slitted crimson eyes judging any who entered her hall. A great glass chandelier hung in a tall dome above their heads, covered in pink crystals.

Arranged in formation along the sides of the grand staircase were twelve statues of female royals. Each stone facade was painted and perfectly preserved, and each wore black robes, tall simple headdresses with matching black veils, and a single reversed heart-shaped gem on their fabric, each in the royals’ unique color.

Six looked to each of the doors, “Which way next?”

“Up,” Phas answered. “And left, arbitrarily.”

They stalked past the guardian statues, walked through the light cast through the Empress, and continued up the stairs. Another hall, much like the first, stretched beyond the opened door on the left. It twisted slowly up and to the left, with ornate wooden doors leaving the whole place feeling like the Equestrian royal palace, only with prominent shades of red. Their path chosen, Six and Phas kept walking.

The unease from outside had fled, replaced by a sense of wonder– and a growing sense of boredom.

“There’s only so many Palaces of Versailles you can walk through before they all look the same,” Phas groaned. “Where do they even get this much gold? Back on Earth, all the gold ever mined could fill a ten meter cube. This is ridiculous.”

“They carved out an entire city down here,” Six thought out loud. “It stands to reason that they got lucky?”

Phas poked a bejeweled urn as they passed, “Or the high magic concentration led to more jewels and rare earths forming in these lower layers. Adamantium and Mithril were only naturally occurring here in my world, but I have yet to see either in this city.”

“Who needs so many rooms in one palace?” Six grunted. “And why wooden doors? That is exceptionally insecure.”

“You think trees grow down here?” Phas laughed. “This is a sign of prestige and wealth. Every piece of wood was shipped from the surface, without a doubt.”

“That makes more sense than having a black hole in the middle of your city,” Six relented. “TIme itself should be slowing down as we get closer.”

“Maybe it does within the event horizon,” Phas looked up at the ceiling. “According to my chronometer spells, it’s flowing normally. Whatever preserved the interior is some other magic bullshit.”

Six grit her teeth, uselessly flapping her wings to try to cool herself off in the Palace’s obscene heat, “I. Hate. Magic.”

Phas recoiled away from her blades, “Hey, watch it! If you want more ice, I can summon it, just don’t take my head off!”

She glared at him through her visor, though feeling a bit guilty, “How is it that you are so unaffected by this damn heat?”

He shrugged, “Feels fine to me. I watched you survive orbital reentry, how is a little humidity killing you?”

“Magic. Bullshit,” Six insisted as she removed her helmet to get some more air. “As much as I hate to remove my armor in a dangerous locale, drowning in sweat is tactically unsound.”

“Whatever you say, sexy space babe,” Phas winked. “I am constantly checking around for nearby souls– literally– and we seem to be good. I’ll let you know if something’s coming, muscle mommy.”

Six stopped in her tracks, “What did you call me?”

He shrugged, “You know. Muscles, as in you’re capable of crushing a watermelon with your thighs, and mommy, as in the fetishization of the mother-son relationship, albeit with the incest removed and instead all of the focus placed on the domination aspect of the relationship?”

Six’s mind skipped several beats, “... Is this something Cadance told you? Your mouth moves and yet I hear Cadance’s voice.”

“She’s the Princess of ‘wuv, Six,” Phas reached around her and tried to pull her closer into a hug, only succeeding in pulling himself against her. “Romance, seduction, lust, that sticky stuff on the floor that gets all over your hooves in the nightclub bathroom. It’s all her domain.”

Six leaned away, “I have never been to a nightclub bathroom, and I don’t think I want to now.”

“Well you don’t go for the cleanliness. In fact, that’s usually why you go there: because you can get away with having sex.”

“Who would want to have sex in a bathroom? Cadance told me it occurs in bedrooms.”

The changeling nodded, “Usually. But sometimes, you’re with a mare or stallion, dancing your heart out, getting sweaty and feeling frisky. Kisses work for a time, but you can’t get your hooves off each other, and you just need a relief for the heat now. And the risk of getting caught gets your heart pumping just a little bit harder, so you pull them into a stall and–”

Six walked forward, causing the King to fall flat on his face, “That’s enough.”

As he righted himself, Six checked behind one of the doors out of curiosity. There was a large sitting room full of fine upholstery, a cold fireplace, a view out into the glittering crystal cave, and enough pillows and blankets to fill seven barracks. Aside from the honeycomb geometric patterns on the walls, Six found nothing of note, and shut the door before she could think too much about the mirrors around a bed in the corner.

She put her hooves in front of her and started walking, but her thoughts stayed behind. Sitting down somewhere with a single point of entry sounded nice. Plenty of material to form barricades, too. And a bed, a real bed. It wouldn’t do much with her armor still on, but something was an immense improvement over nothing at all.

And there was the matter from last night to think about, as much as Six avoided it.

“I think the other way went to the throne room,” Phas sighed. “We’re probably gonna have to find a side route.”

Six didn’t hate Phas. Not anymore. Sure, he was a stallion who couldn’t get his hoof out of his mouth. And he was a changeling. And he was a royal. And he was a gigantic asswipe. But he was human where it counted, and every guy in uniform tended to be gigantic asswipes. Especially those from ONI. Six was used to that, and could tell there was a soft side to him. Deep down. Way deep down. She wondered if he thought the same. Did she have a soft side? What even constitutes a soft side? Are there accurate metrics to determine one’s soft sidedness? These were Cadance-Questions to be asked later.

As their journey dragged on and the hall seemed to be endless, Six grew more and more tempted to ask for that ice Phas offered. Then they ran into the big metal door.

“Oh, this looks promising,” Phas said as he poked it.

The big metal door was glowing with Queensblood etched into runes and lines, forming a carving of supplicant drones before the veiled Empress. Six gripped her helmet tighter as Phas poked uncomfortably close to the deadly substance.

“Out of power.”

Six tilted her head, “Can we supply it with power? Can you power it?”

“Sure, with love,” Phas said, scratching his head. “Fresh out of that to spare, though.”

“How can we replenish your love?”

The stallion shrugged, “As I said last night; either I kill someone, or bone someone. Most solutions to the changelings’ problems boil down to that.”

He turned, facing Six. Their eyes met, blue and orange locking onto each other. Six felt her heart beat hard in her chest. She felt the heat grow on her muzzle as she came up with a plan. She smiled bashfully, growing more confident in her desire to tell Phas what she really wanted.

“Let’s blow a hole in the wall next to the door,” she suggested.

She had been itching to blow stuff up, and Phas’s bomb earlier had reignited that desire.

“That could work! It’s a lot easier, and changeling’s love their security flaws. One problem though, that still requires love.”

Six frowned, “... What if we find another way in?”

“Hmm, like a servant’s hall door or something?” Phas suggested. “That could work. Maybe the doors are broken open there, or ran out of power while open? Or… Hell, beats just standing here.”

They retraced their steps and took the closest door. On the right this time, left had failed them. A wall of heat and steam met them as they opened it, revealing a large and lavish bathhouse. It held a large pool in the center, with two saunas to the side, a sizable hot tub, and flowing water that babbled and spat mist as it flowed into the cool pool.

Six was not happy with this finding

Phas whistled, “Do you have any idea how impressive this is, Six?”

“No.”

“All that water is heavy,” Phas said, waiving a hoof to it as he stepped inside. “It’s a gigantic pain in the ass to engineer a support system underneath pools strong enough to carry their weight. I bet any room directly under here has got to be lined with enchanted pillars of concrete or something.”

“Cool.”

He continued nerding out on obscure architectural knowledge, “Not to mention all the conflicting enchantments on pumping water and heating it and cooling it. Not as much of a problem as supporting the weight, but you gotta appreciate that they have to have sealing enchantments to prevent moisture from leaking into nearby rooms.”

“Oh for fucks sake,” Six muttered under her breath.

She glanced at the far wall, finding it far too sturdy to break through. Then, she looked down at the water. It looked cold. Finding a sudden inspiration lodged within her, she stomped past Phas and kneeled before the water. Then, she craned her neck down, shut her eyes, and stuck her entire head into the cold water.

Then she screamed.

She whipped her head back out, spraying water behind her as her mane dripped with wonderfully cold water.

“Shut up!” She yelled. “Just shut up! For the love of God, shut the hell up!”

Phas blinked in surprise, raising two hooves in a placating gesture, “Uh, okay? Sorry?”

“Fucking spook,” she growled, sticking her head back into the water and screaming some insect-oriented profanities.

When she emerged again, she felt considerably better. Phas watched in silence, frozen with his hooves in the air from her outburst. She brushed her mane from her eyes, flicking her head back to push it around. Then, Six adjusted her position, sitting down on the tile floor and cracking it.

“All I want,” Six said slowly, “is to just… take off this damned suit and get some damned R&R from this warmth. In silence.”

Phas pointed to his saddlebags.

Six raised an eyebrow, “... What?”

“If you are on the fence, I’ve got a Magic Eight Ball we can ask to see if we should take off our armor and relax. It’s around here somewhere–”

Six scowled, “We are not consulting a Magic Eight Ball for tactical decisions.”

The King produced the black pool ball, pointing the number towards Six.

“Are you suuuuuuure? It hasn’t steered me wrong before.”

“I somehow doubt that.”

Phas wilted, “I mean, besides the three ambushes it led me into. But I had fun in the end, and that’s what matters, right? Friendship and magic and relentless violence, as the ponies say?”

Six sighed and put a hoof to her temple. Phas shook the ball.

“... What did it say?” Six asked, hating her own curiosity.

“It says definitely not.”

“Then we should move on with the mission.”

“Yep,” Phas agreed.

Neither moved. A quiet click and murmur came from Six’s discarded helmet. But she found that she did not care enough to redon it, instead choosing to just sit there and enjoy the bit of cool water still clinging to her fur. Phas slowly undid the latches on his saddlebags, shrugging them off and depositing them to his side. He held eye contact with Six the whole time.

“Cannonball!” He yelled, galloping past Six and jumping into the pool.

Six shielded her face from the tidal wave of water that soaked her unarmored bits. Chuckling, she began to undo the seals on her armor. Her boots fell to the floor with an echoing clank and she started to shed her various armor-plating as Phas emerged from the pool. The bug splashed around, swimming from one end to the other, before stopping before her in the water.

“How do you piss in that thing if it takes an hour to remove?”

“It has a built-in filtration system, “Six answered, unlocking her chestplate.

“Ew,” Phas gagged, paddling around.

When at last her armor had been removed and just her undersuit remained, Six freed the seam and ripped off the magnetic seal on her back. She emerged from the suit like it was a cocoon, stepping out from the black body glove. She stretched her wings with a long groan of satisfaction, working each limb to shake it awake.

Six felt hooves wrap around her right foreleg and looked down just in time to see Phas pull her into the pool with a yelp. She pushed off the stallion and burst through the surface, spitting out the blessingly-cold water.

“What was that for?!”

Phas splashed her face, causing her to raise a wing to shield herself, “You took too long.”

Six stuck her tongue out at him. Phas paused, then shook his head.

“You of all ponies seemed least likely to do that, Six.”

“I am out of armor,” Six said, sluggishly paddling and struggling to swim as a quadruped.

“Yeah?”

“If I am to relax, then I will relax entirely. No point in half-measures.”

In response, Phas grappled the Spartan and pulled her under. The two wrestled underwater, squirming to put the other in a lock. They broke the surface a few times, enough to breathe, but their blind fight was mostly submerged. Six embraced the relief from the oppressive heat, letting it cool her core.

Six at last got her two hindlegs around the tall changeling’s neck and put him in a headlock. She reared back out of the water, scooting back up to the edge as he kicked in her grip. Six hoisted herself half-out of the water, dragging the stallion onto his back against the edge.

“Got you.”

The changeling thrashed, fruitlessly yanking on her leg. But with his elytra pinned against the wall and Six leveraging her whole strength, the stallion would not budge.

“Fine! Fine! You win!”

Six lessened her deadly grip, but kept the annoying bug locked down.

“... Now what do I do?” She asked him.

“Normally you let me go–”

“No.”

Phas craned his head upwards, squinting as water splashed against his face, “Alright, well…. What’s your plan, then?”

“I.. don’t… know…” Six said slowly, but with complete confidence.

Phas, still gripping her hips, looked up from between her legs. His horn poked her belly as he tilted in confusion.

“... You know, stallion will pay a lot of money to be put in this position.”

“Why?”

“What, you’ve never heard someone say that they’d love for you to crush their head with your thighs?”

Six scowled, “... Not while sober? Someone may have said that, and they may have found themselves skidding face-first across the stones outside the bar. Not my doing to be clear…I think.”

Phas shifted, his headfin brushing somewhere sensitive that caused Six to hiss through her teeth, “Uh huh. I’m sure many stallions have thought it, Six.”

“What’s the appeal?”

Phas tried his best to get comfy– since he clearly wasn’t going to leave this position– and started floating on the surface as much as he could. Between her hooves, Six got a good look at the ribbed chest of the changeling, and just a bit beyond. The chitin was perfectly smooth, leaving Six’s reconciling the fact that instead of the well-toned muscle of a warrior, Phas was practically in armor the whole time.

Inexplicably, she felt disappointment.

Distracted by her question, Phas missed her checking him out, “Either you are into dainty mares who look pretty, or you are into tomboys who could crack your spine. Something to do with power dynamics, I think.”

“And you are into the latter?”

He chuckled, tapping her gigantic muscled thigh, “I’m married to a demigod who hurls a celestial body around like a shot put. Yeah, I think I am into the latter.”

“Luna does not have the muscle definition typical to a soldier or to hurl a celestial body,” Six pointed out.

He smiled, “True. That’s why she uses cuffs.”

“Cuffs for what?”

“To pin– nevermind,” he said.

She squeezed her neck, bringing her hindhooves closer, “Cuffs for what?”

Phas pulled at her legs, “Ah! Six!”

“Answer my question.”

“To pin me down! There, happy?!”

She kept the pressure, “Why? When?”

The stallion was slow to answer, “You’re really gonna make me say it?”

“Yes.”

“When we’re having sex!” He spat out.

Six lessened her grip, letting him breathe, “Ah. Is that appealing?”

“Power dynamics,” Phas said between coughs.

“... Is the current situation appealing?” Six asked, her wings feeling restless and wanting to splay out.

“A bit,” Phas said, regaining his composure. “The water constantly getting up my nostrils is a buzzkill.”

Six sat up, her wings arching behind her, and she scooted backwards. Phas coughed and struggled as he was dragged across the hard edge of the pool. Six stopped when only his hindlegs remained in the water. Six and Phas panted from exertion, cold water dripping off their muscled and smooth bodies respectively.

“Better?”

“S-Six…. Where are you going with this?”

Six pursed her lips, “I haven’t found out yet. What do people typically do next?”

Phas swallowed, “If you’re talking about what a stallion and a mare would typically do next… They would move to the sauna and crank up the sexual tension ten times over till they are kissing and groping.”

Six released her hold. Phas let out a sigh of relief, rubbing his neck. He was not prepared for her to hook a foreleg around his chest and drag him over to the nearby sauna. His hooves scrambled and scraped against the tile floor as the shorter pony pulled the King forward against his will.

Stepping into the wooden alcove, Six hurled the bug against the far wall. The room shook from the impact as the King slumped onto the bench that ran the wall’s length.

He rubbed the back of his head and looked Six in the eyes. Six found it difficult to keep breathing as she stared back into his slitted orange eyes.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Phas asked.

“I’m not sure about any of this,” Six answered. “But I’m going to keep going. This isn’t for the mission. This is for me.”

Stalking forward, Six placed her forehooves on the bench on either side of Phas and leaned forward, pressing her lips against his. She pressed forward, pushing him against the wall. Phas slowly reached around Six and wrapped his forelegs around her withers, pulling her against him. He opened his mouth and pressed his tongue against her lips, slipping inside. Six’s eyes widened at the unexpected intrusion, and snorted in delight as his tongue met hers and wrestled in her mouth.

For what seemed like hours, they held each other, kissing and huffing. Needing to breath, Six broke the kiss, leaving a string of saliva connecting their muzzles. She reached up and touched her cheek, feeling it burning hot with a blush.

“... Did we… have sex?”

Phas laughed, “Hahaha, n-no. That’s still kissing.”

“Oh. How do we proceed?” She panted.

“By getting this sauna working,” Phas said.

He reached out with his magic to scoop water into a nearby bucket and poured onto a brazier of smoldering and twinkling rubies. Six watched as the water hissed and boiled into steam, filling the alcove with its cloying warmth. It built up inside her as she turned to face Phas again, and she desperately craved some way to quench its thirst.

Six swallowed, her mouth unusually dry despite the rather intense humidity now surrounding them, “I believe it is now operational.”

[Pump ze shaft, work ze balls]

Phas grabbed Six's hooves and placed them on his chest. He leaned forward, giving Six a small kiss. When he leaned back to break the kiss, Six followed, pressing the ends of their muzzles together each time Phas backed up. Slowly, Phas pushed down on Six's hooves, making them slide down his chest and belly. With her hooves on his hips, Phas gently spread his hind legs, presenting himself for Six.

“I… don‘t know what I am looking at,” Six admitted rather sheepishly as she found her gaze swapping between Phasma’s eyes and what lay between his legs. Little Phasma had yet to show itself fully but the feeling of Six‘s hot breath as well as her general position would change that in short order.

The stallion rolled his eyes, "Oh boy. This is going to be awkward, a bit painful, but decently fun."

He guided her hooves, pressing them against his thick package. The changeling grunted at the feeling of their hooves rubbing at his sensitive bits, and he guided Six through the motions.

"This is called a sh-sheath. My penis is inside, and w-will emerge in time as I get aroused. Below that are my balls, or testes. They're sensitive, so treat everything with care. Y-yeah, like that. Slow, soft motions. You can pick up with speed when pumping my– not like that! Just! follow my lead...."

Showing her what to do, Phas and Six rubbed at his sheath. The motions drew out the King's breeder, emerging slowly and hardening. He guided her hoof down to his orbs, showing her how to properly grope and fondle them. His cock, thick and hard, started black in color at the base and had transitioned to bright orange before his medial ring.

Six observed the now fully emerged organ with no small amount of curiosity, her gaze lingering on it as she took in its details. Slowly she raised one of her hooves to carefully run up its length, stopping briefly at his ring, her touch light as if the thing would break under the slightest bit more pressure. As this was happening Six began to feel something begin to tickle at the back of her mind, an itch of some kind that ran down her spine, making her wings shiver before coalescing somewhere inside her just behind her tail. This was also coincidentally where the heat that had annoyed her so seemed to be at its strongest, though she doubted that the sauna helped matters.

“So this is what Cadence had been trying so hard for me to find. It looks…” she poked its tip experimentally, “strange. Is this what we will use to have sex?” The one and a half thousand pound super soldier asked sincerely.

"Hahaha! Yeah, it is, Six," Phas tried and failed to suppress his laugh. "At this rate, I don't even see the point in talking dirty if all the terms are gonna fly over your head. Speaking of head, why don't we get started on the basics, then we can start moving onto the fun bits."

Phas lifted Six's chin up and leaned down to give her a short kiss.

"I'll return the favor in a bit- and you'll love that part. For now, start with stroking it, like uh... like you're cleaning the exterior of a gun barrel. Only without the elbow grease needed to get rid of a stain, it's sensitive..."

Nodding, almost as if she had been given an order by a superior officer, her attention returned to the organ, bringing her hooves to its sides. She started at his tip before moving downwards following the example set by Phas and thinking of the phallus as the barrel of a gun that required maintenance. She was partially right as while it was no firearm, the King’s long travels through the fabric of reality had given him scant opportunities to relax as he could now.

Her movements were more akin to that of a machine, each stroke and movement of hers precise– yet still surprisingly gentle and pleasurable to the changeling who hummed in pleasure at the sensations flowing up his spine like water.

Six, seeing the obvious effect her movements were having on the changeling, felt emboldened by that reaction and slowly began to pick up the pace. She could now feel the faint pulse of his heartbeat on her hooves, one that was steadily increasing in ferocity with every stroke whilst something similar happened to her too. She felt her own heart thumping in her chest and ears, the spartan breathing heavily as the itch began to grow stronger once more and the light feeling of sweat running down her legs registering in the back of her mind.

"Is this correct?" She asked, a bit breathless, looking for confirmation from Phas, though guessing from the look upon the stallion’s face she could guess at his answer.

He had let his head roll back and tongue droop, with a big goofy grin across his muzzle. He nodded slowly, relaxing as she worked his thick shaft.

"Y-yeah. Don't go any faster, that's a good m-max speed. Mmmff-y-yeah.... Stallions love hoofjobs like this, as this is how we help ourselves when we're alone."

The large organ pulsed in Six's grip, the tip widening as a bead of translucent liquid collected at the top.

"N-now," Phas stammered, "the lesser of the two f-fun bits. Mouths and tongue. It's called a blowjob, a-and requires a lot of skill. Your task is to wrap your lips around my tip and slowly bob your h-head up and down, taking more of the length into your mouth and throat. Don't let your teeth touch it, and use your tongue to lick all over it."

When Six paused her movements to parse his direction, Phas scooted over and leaned back onto the floor.

He motioned towards her rear, "Lay down on my stomach and go slow. Start with nuzzling, kissing, and licking, before trying to take the tip. Spread your legs wide, and I'll show you what mares get out of stuff like this. That itching and burning of yours is gonna get scratched in the best way..."

Six did as requested, stepping over the now lying down changeling until she stood fully above him with his twitching organ just below her head. She did not know what to expect, but with a nonchalance that showed the gaps in her knowledge, she promptly bent her knees to lie down upon the changeling's stomach. Her hind legs spread wide just as Phas had asked, giving him a completely unobstructed view of what lay between.

Her lying down on him also had the distinct side effect of subjecting him to her full weight, promptly forcing no small amount of air from his lungs that brushed into the damp place between the spartans legs.

The sudden feeling of cool blown air against her nethers sent a lighting bolt up her spine as forgotten nerve endings were suddenly shocked with activity, and, sensitive as they were from the increased blood flow, made Six’s controlled descent onto the King’s belly become a crash as her legs gave out from the sudden spike of pleasure.

The proud King deflated like a balloon under her, coughing and tapping her haunch to signal his defeat. The contact of his hoof against her Cutie Mark, so close to her burning nethers only made Six itch even harder.

"Ack! Six! Please, air! I thought your armor was heavy, gah!"

Quickly regaining her senses from the sudden jolt she rolled off to the side– much to the displeasure of the itch that had been momentarily, if slightly, appeased.

“Y-you alright?”

Phas patted his chest, looking down his nose and pressing his chin to his neck as he examined himself.

"Y-yeah. Nothing broken, save for my pride. Not the big important one, though, he still needs attention. Goddess, Six! You're not supposed to drop on a stallion like not, not with your muscle mass!"

“I wasn’t until you suddenly did something, and the next thing I knew my muscles were giving out from under me!” She huffed her gaze switching between the King's face and between her slightly twitching hind legs.

Phas turned to his left, gently pressing down her hindleg to take in the view of her dripping and twitching entrance.

He licked his lips, "Mmmm. You're certainly dripping with love and lust. Emotionally, too. Alright, since you can't keep your hooves under you, I guess I'm on top."

With a groan, Phas flipped over and slowly stood up. He shuffled to the side, standing above Six, planting his hooves on either side of her.

His thick brightly colored breeder draped against her muzzle. The changeling crouched lower, bringing his muzzle closer to her nethers- and consequently pressing Six' nose right at the base of his shaft as his balls rested on her snoot, blocking her vision.

"D-damn, Six, you're a mess down here. I'm gonna take my time, you should too. A lot of stallions and mares are into immersing themselves in the smell of an aroused stallion, b-but feel free to open your muzzle and start kissing and licking."

Pausing only long enough to let her get adjusted to the position, Phas stuck his tongue out, pressed it against her inner thigh, and licked upwards towards her pushy. He slurped up her dripping excitement, covering her inner thighs in kisses and licks, painfully just out of reach from where she needed his muzzle the most.

The reaction was immediate from both ends of the Spartan as her, until 5 minutes ago, lust deprived body took in the sensations with relish and no small amount of need. Her senses were engulfed in the strong pheromones she didn’t know she had needed or wanted from the organs that now rested mere millimeters away from her eyes and nose.

Endorphins flooded her system as the nerves being tended to by the changeling sent blaring messages of approval and want throughout her body. Her hips began to twitch as well now in a vain attempt to direct the changeling towards the knot of most need building in her core. Her wings beat against the ground, kicking up a small cyclone and vortex of steam around them, as for the first time in her life Six felt pleasure, lust ,and desire in something else other than a mission cleanly executed.

Through the rather intense feelings Six began to return the favor to the king through the haze of his own ministrations that made it hard to think for the slightly-writhing Spartan. Through her panting her senses were flooded with what could only be described as the pure smell of a male, one which she had only ever gotten tiny whiffs of when walking past soldiers fresh from PT. Now however it was something else entirely to her brain, it was something that made her mind go haywire with dopamine urging her for more.

She began to press her muzzle into the changelings underside, nuzzling his organ, and more specifically his balls like a cat would mark its scent on one's hand, until she remembered what Phas had told her. The next thing the changeling felt was the wet and warm sensation of a tongue going over one of his balls experimentally, before feeling like how an ice cream cone must feel as the writing mare beneath him ‘dug in.’

The stallion's mind short circuited as she started to worship his balls, "O-oh S-Six! F-fuck, that feels good!"

Determined to repay the favor, Phas pressed his tongue just above the Spartan's winking entrance. He dragged it forward, running it over her folds, stopping to lap at her clit, before pressing his long tongue just inside the mare. Phas made sure that every bit of her folds was given the attention it needed before he started to push his tongue into the prone mare, slurping up love and her juices in equal measures. Muzzle now rubbing against her clip and getting soaked, the stallion was driven mad by Six' scent, matching her own ferver with his mouth and dripping a line of hot pre from his tip onto her cheek.

A lightning bolt– magnitudes stronger than before– shot down Six’s spine, a bolt too strong for her inexperienced body to handle with grace. And as Phas’s oral assault on her nethers continued, the knot within her grew, and grew, and grew until… it snapped!

Every muscle in her body grew rigid at once as her eyes rolled to the top of her head in one agonizingly long moan as her nethers erupted like a geyser as a lifetime of tension was ended in a moment of pure nirvana.

The changeling felt Six clenching hard around his tongue and pressed his tongue down, spreading her as wide as possible. Her climax drenched his tongue and muzzle, and he lapped and licked every bit of it up. Phas groaned happily as he filled his stomach with her love, banishing that painful ebb of hunger as the changeling royal drank and drank until Six could only squirm and moan at his insistence on more. He felt his strength returning as the King was flooded with the instinct to not just feast on her love, but make love till they were both too exhausted to move.

He freed his muzzle, licking his lips to collect as much of her nectar as he could. Panting, he looked over his shoulder at the collapsed mare, giggling at the sight of her squirming with his package still covering her muzzle. His own muzzle was shining in the steam, covered all the way to his cheeks in the Spartan's juice.

"...F-fuck, you're hot, Six. And delicious."

“Hhhhnnngmmhgaaaa…” Was her only incoherent response to his compliment as she fell limp, panting heavily as if she had not run a marathon but ten in a row. After a moment of deep breaths she spoke with words this time, “W-was…t-that…sex?”

Phas chuckled, slowly turning around and plopping belly to belly onto Six. He hooked his forelegs under hers, petting the top of her head. He nuzzled her cheek, then kissed her neck, whispering to her as they cuddled.

"Sorta. Mmm. That's oral. I ate you out, as the slang goes. As far as sex goes, think of it like getting some light exercise instead of doing PT till the pain's funny. Actual sex can come in a bit, you need a break." He paused to kiss her neck again, showering the mare in small affections. "Goddess, I missed this."

“I…have never… felt something… like that.” The spartan continued speaking as if she were having some kind of divine revelation.

Phas rubbed their cheeks together, "And this is called cuddling. Happens a lot before and after sex. But what happened to you is, well, climaxing. Cumming. Blowing or draining your load, if you were a guy. As a mare, you can do that back to back without rest. Normally it takes a while to reach that point, but you clearly needed this."

Six returned the gesture as more of her strength gradually returned, one of her wings weakly moving in an attempt to drape over the changeling “D-did you cum?”

Phas booped their noses together, kissing Six gently, "Heh, that was awesome, but not *that* awesome, blushy mare. You'll know when a stallion cums, the volume alone will leave you wondering where we keep it all."

“Shouldn’t I return the favor? C-Cadance told me it was the polite thing to do,” she responded as she found the strength to embrace Phas in a wing-hug, draping the two appendages over his back.

The changeling buzzed quietly with delight, not unlike a cat purring, as he was enveloped into the wing hug.

"Mhmm. Gonna breed you till you're walking funny for a week," he said, face still squished against hers. "In a few minutes, though. This is really comfy. You'll love 'returning the favor' even more, don't ch'you worry, jarhead."

Six sighed in contentment as she also melted into the comfortable embrace of the changeling that buzzed in her grasp. She had never felt more tranquil in her life as she idly returned each and every nuzzle from Phasma. She could feel her heart begin to slow and breathing turn from quick pants to deep and deliberate breaths, her eyes began to droop and darkness encroached on the edges of her vision.

Six stirred, blinking sleep from her eyes.

She didn't remember passing out, or where she was. A quiet snore from under her chin caused her to scowl and look down. Lifting a wing, she found Phas belly to belly with her, snoozing against the ground and her neck. His Kong limbs draped over and under her, holding her underneath his large form- and suspiciously light- form. Their recent activities return to Six's memories, as well as an accompanying feeling that was equal parts stickiness and what the Spartan could only describe as bliss.

A small smile began to grow on her lips as she watched the changeling rise and fall ever-so-slightly in concert with her breathing. The sauna had lost a good amount of steam with the air becoming significantly clearer and cooler though she still felt warm inside though to a much lesser degree than before.

After what Six estimated was half an hour of basking in the moment and ignoring the mission's objective, the stallion covering her stirred. Phas swallowed and licked his lips, nuzzling deeper against her neck, shifting his weight on top of her.

"Five more minutes," he whined.

Six couldn’t help but laugh slightly before whispering, “You woke up all by yourself.” She punctuated this by pressing her wings slightly tighter against his back in an affectionate squeeze.

He groaned, "Stirring of emotions woke me up. Sleep with one eye open when alone." He blindly reached up and patted Six. She scrunched her muzzle and closed her eyes as he hit her face first, before finding her hair and ruffling it gently.

“What…are you doing?” She asked, her muzzle still scrunched as he continued to ruffle her mane, further increasing its unkemptness.

"Head pats," Phas explained, ruffling her mane back and forth. "Yer suppose to like it."

“Well, I didn’t say I didn’t like it.” She said before leaning into it, “It's nice.”

Blinking an eye open, Phas stared up at the relaxing mare. As she leaned further into his hoof, he smiled coyly, and pressed his tongue against her neck, dragging it all the way up to her cheek. He ended it by kissing Six slowly, nuzzling the underside of her muzzle as he continued to give her head pats.

"It is nice," he agreed. "It's been so long since I've done something like this. Feel like I could punch a hole through steel down there..."

Six shivered at the feeling of his tongue going across her neck, “Strong enough to get us through that door?” She asked as she remembered the entire reason they had taken this detour, though a part of her mind hoped that Phas would say that he needed more energy if it meant they could stay here longer

He chuckled, vibrating Six's chest with the rumbling. Phas licked her cheek again, slowly dragging his tongue to a flick and whispered to her. "I said punch a hole down there."

While Six’s first instinct was to point out that what could punch through steel didn’t matter so long as something could, that comment died on her lips with another shiver as she registered the pulsing object that rested sandwiched against their bellies and between her forgotten, but now quite sensitive, teats.

“Oh…”

It slowly slid back and forth and Phas began to dry hump the mare under him. His hot breath on her neck, he continued to whisper to her. "It's hard enough getting a safe bed, let alone someone to share it with. Thank you, Six, for... being my friend. I needed this. And from what I can taste, you do, too."

“Y-you know,” Six began before having to stop to take a sharp intake of breath as the stallion's balls brushed against her gradually remoistening lower lips, “t-there was what looked like a p-pretty strong bed back in the o-other h-hall. “ Her voice was shaky as Phasma continued to push her proverbial buttons. Buttons she didn’t know existed until they entered this sauna.

Phas smiled, tracing a hoof down her side and circling around her aching nethers.

"Let's go break it."

He reluctantly climbed off Six, offering her a hoof up. Six accepted pulling up to her hooves– but succeeding only in yanking the stallion down onto her. They laughed before collecting themselves and stood back up as Phas motioned for her to take the lead, licking his lips with a mischievous smile.

Six fell for the trap, walking ahead as she retraced her steps to the bedroom she spied into. Hot breath against her flanks was the only warning before a tongue deftly licked her where she was most sensitive, sending sparks up her spine and halting her pace.

"Better hurry, I'm gonna keep doing this," Phas winked.

“Hng… not gonna make it to the bed if you keep this up!” She responded with a small grunt as she tried to remain focused at the task at hand of returning to the bed she had spotted earlier.

But as they were making their way through the bathhouse, even in her current state of newly-discovered arousal she simply couldn’t leave her armor sitting here unattended. Old instincts and training reasserted itself for the time being forcing her to ensure that her armor remain close by at all times. This was her first mistake, as when she leaned down to start picking up its various pieces, she had unintentionally left herself in a rather exposed position to the stallion.

Weight settled on her back as Phas mounted her from behind, gripping her shoulders. He scooted forward, rubbing his hips against her rear. Between her cheeks, his hard and dripping cock pressed against her entrance, rubbing up and down slowly, driving Six mad as the tip brushed below her clit and rubbed her teats.

"Hurry up~" Phas sang slowly. "You don't want your first to be in a pool, do you?"

“Eeep!” Six let out a very un-spartan like squeak at the sudden and unexpected contact against her equally dripping slit, freezing her in place mid reach towards a section of her armor.

Phas continued his teasing, rolling his hips and dragging his tip across her entrance, prodding it and testing her resistance. "S-Six, I need you…!"

Six didn’t know what she was doing, she was practically making it up as she went along, following instinct up until this point. And now, with Phasma on her back, the desire, need and desperation that filled his voice when he said those four words had never made her so sure of something in her life.

Trusting what her gut told her to do she shifted her hind hooves further apart, her wings coming up to Phasma’s sides and her neck moving to meet his when she whispered breathlessly, “I-I need you t-too!”

Her tone felt almost alien to her, so marred with nervousness that most would call impossible for a Spartan to experience.

Phas spread his hind legs to match hers, knocking against her hindhooves as he fell to his instincts. He sturdied his grip on her shoulders and pressed his cheek against hers, nuzzling her. His heart beat against her back, felt even through his chitin as his breath quickened. Pushing forward, the stallion's tip– dripping wet with a line of pre– pushed into Six's entrance. His breath hitched as the soft wetness rubbed his sensitive flare.

With a staggered sigh, he leaned forward, pushing the tip of his cock inside Six's tight, warm, and winking marehood.

Six gasped and felt her knees wobble as she tried to remain as still as possible, as overwhelming sensations of pleasure radiated outwards from where the two of them now became one. Even with just the tip, it was the most amazing feeling of her life. She felt her marehood be spread open like nothing ever had before.

Already, Phasma could feel how tight Six would be with his cock being her marehoods first ever visitor. He could just barely feel those gene-enhanced muscles rippling around his tip, trying to draw him further into heaven as well as the vice grip it already had on him. There was no doubt on his mind when he thought that this would be the tightest pussy he would ever have the pleasure of breeding.

“H-haaa…haaa…” cute small breathless moans escaped Six’s lips as her wings reflexively beat lightly against Phas’s sides, her hind legs shifting and trying to spread further apart to give better access and relieve the tightness in her core.

"Ahhh-fff...!" Phas gasped. "Try to relax, S-Six! Gonna go slow..." The stallion snorted, craving his muzzle down while Six held hers up higher, both deep in lust.

Phas shimmied his legs forward, bringing his hips closer to hers and pushing the wide tip of his cock deeper into Six. His shaft followed, keeping the mare's tunnel stretched wide behind his flare, filling her more than she thought could be possible. Phas rubbed Six's chest with a hoof, trying his best to keep her calm, and fighting his own instincts to push the rest of his painfully hard breeder in and rut as hard as he could.

"E-easy now, hot stuff. Squeeze too hard and I lose my favorite organ. Just take it in, breath, and let me know when you are ready for more..."

As those words registered in Six’s mind, she tried her best to follow his instructions, her mind consciously focusing on slowing her breathing front quick pants into slow and deliberate intakes and outtakes of air. She had to almost fight her own body down from its heightened state as the organ spreading her open in an extremely pleasurable manner had made her body believe it had been struck by a wounding projectile. But with every slow breath she took, she refocused her mind on that divine feeling of pleasure Phasma was giving her. She let out a shuddering breath as a dopey smile made itself known on her face.

“You feel… so good,” she said dreamily, her hips rolling slightly as every slight movement made her feel as if she were floating on cloud nine.

As she did so, her body began to relax and even push back against the stallion. Her lower lips winked almost constantly, spreading her juices throughout their conjoined hips– but it was as if there was one last barrier in the way that needed to be overcome for the fun to truly begin.

With a deep intake of breath she centered herself and looked Phas in the eyes, “I’m ready.”

Phas nodded once, kissed her on the cheek, and began to push his hips forward. His thick flat tip pushed deeper into Six's warm core, and the changeling had to stop himself from drooling from the pleasure and immersion in love. He tightened his grip and continued his slow assault, bringing their hindlegs and hips closer together. When he sunk his shaft halfway to his medial ring, Phas paused to let the Spartan get used to the feeling of being so full.

"Ah-haa, y-yeah," he grunted quietly. "S-Six- mmph- you feel amazing..."

“I…never knew… Sex felt this… goooood,” Six slurred her last word as she did, in fact, drool slightly at the mind-numbing ecstasy she felt as every itch she ever had, has and will have were scratched in the best way possible.

Has she been missing out on this feeling all this time? If she had taken Cadence a bit more seriously could she have reached this state of enlightenment earlier?

She peeked through her nearly closed eyelids at Phasma and came to a conclusion: this was the moment Cadence had been nudging her towards all this time, and she was going to enjoy it to the fullest until all those years as a weapon had been made up for!

She grew more and more used to the feeling of Phas within her, and Six felt her competitive side begin to take hold.

With a cheeky smile, only mildly ruined by the small strands of drool on her muzzle, she spoke “Is that all-“ a small unconscious hump from Phas briefly interrupted her with a minor hiss of escaping air through gritted teeth, “–is that all you’ve got?”

Phas raised his head at the goading, taking it hook, line, and sinker, "That's only a quarter of it, S-Six! You're gonna get every bit of it now!"

To Six's surprise, he leaned over and gently bit into her neck. His oversized fangs brushed against the side of her neck as he grabbed, growling and staring into her eyes.

Then she felt him pulling back on her shoulders and forward with his hips. The bigger stallion started humping Six, his massive shaft began to slide forward and back, exploring deeper into Six with every thrust. Deeper and deeper it went, rubbing and stretching every part of her core as Phas pistoned into her.

Her whole body rocked with the motion, leaning forward every time the changeling hit the apex of his thrust and began to pull out. Phas snorted hot air onto her neck, lapping up the pony's offered love as he claimed her marehood.

Six almost started to regret her decision to goad before the tidal waves of pleasure began to flow through her with every impact of flesh on flesh as more and more of Phasmas rod entered her tunnel. When she felt his medial ring begin to go over her clit, still as new to these sensations as she was, the burst of lighting that went up her spine sent her spiraling into a minor orgasm which quickly began to grow in intensity as Phasma got deeper and deeper, fucking her through her ever growing orgasm until with an echoing clap of hips to hips the stallions tip hit her innermost barrier. in the moment of silence that followed the bubble that, Six’s growing orgasm popped once more, sending Phas’s rod for a ride of its life, hilted within the cumming super soldier.

"Three!" The stallion grunted, letting go of Six's scruff. "Record is seven, and that– nnff– was a stallion! Ah, haa! We're gonna beat that, easy!"

His rod throbbed inside Six, dripping hot pre and rubbing it into her walls. Six gripped into his rod and instinctively milked it through her climax. Phas fought back, pressing down onto the Spartan till her chest was rubbing against the tiled floor. He snarled and growled, feral and backseat to his needs. The two worked up a sweat; smooth chitin rubbed against fluffy fur till they were both slick with sweat, excitement, pre, and a bit of drool.

What would have been fatally painful to Six as a human- and in short order Phasma once she got her revenge- was instead driving Six wild. She could feel his tip meeting something deep within her, deeper than she thought she could even have a sense of feeling. But her body knew, and it wanted.

She wanted him inside.

Six was in a type of daze after that last peak, her mind slowly catching up with what her body wanted, as a fire was lit inside her– one which was quickly growing into a blazing inferno as Phasma began to breed her in the most primal way possible. It was as if her insides were on fire and her deep recesses of her mind told her Phasma had the means to extinguish it. Even when, filled to the brim as she was at that moment, she still wanted-

“M-more!” Six practically shouted out as she began to push back against Phasma with everything she could muster, which wasn’t a lot thanks to her recent climax.

It was a miracle unto itself that her legs hadn’t given out already.

His heavy sack met her clit each time he hilted his whole length inside her, adding a steady plap plap plap plap to the sounds of their hips meeting and their panting and moaning. The pressure mounted within the King's package as his own climax grew closer and his thrusts grew more rapid. As much as he prided himself on his stamina, his body sorely needed this, and the super soldier was milking him for everything he had. Phas unconsciously lifted a hindleg off the floor, angling himself to pound as deep as possible into the mare he had mounted. Every thought in his mind turned towards filling Six with his foals, and at last he could not hold it back any longer.

"S-Six!" Phas moaned loudly, "I'm gonna- fff-aaahh S-Siiiiiix!"

His tip pushed through and into her womb, plugging it neatly. Now with the sensitive area round the flare being held fast by Six and the rest of his cock milked by her, Phas felt his balls contract upwards towards his body as they rubbed her clit. His tip widened, flaring out and sealing the entrance to the mare's core. Six could feel something pulse through the King's breeder as his load of royal changeling seed sprayed from his tip, coating her core in white stallion batter. Rope after rope of hot cum shot from his cannon, filling Six to the bim and more. The hot seed both quenched and fueled the fire burning within Six- the sense of relief and ecstasy raging through her whole body like a storm as she felt every single pump of his cock inside her. Even when there was no room left, the stallion kept pumping, breaking the seal around his engorged tip and coating his shaft and her tunnel in the virile seed. It coated their groins, dripping from her folds and down his balls to the floor where it pooled between their hooves.

Phas held tight, groaning Six's name as he bred her, "Ah-Yes! S-Siiiix! Mmmf! Ah-hahhh!"

“P-Phasma!”

Six responded in kind as the flood of gooey warmth set off her most powerful orgasm yet. Her body froze and shook in equal parts as her wings beat irrhythmically against Phas’s sides, before fully embracing him and pushing him closer.

“P-Phasmaaaaaaah!”

A further spray of marecum erupted from their union, joining the pearly white cream that was already leaking out of her. They remained locked like that together in euphoric bliss for what felt like hours simply basking in the afterglow from their shared orgasms. And then Six’s legs gave out from under her, their already weakened muscles finally giving up after that shared crescendo. Six yelped at the sudden loss of elevation for her face.

Phas's face hit the ground a half a second before Six, letting out a strangled cry of surprise as he collapsed onto the Spartan. Through a squinted eye, he looked over to Six, and failed to stop a smile from reaching the corners of his mouth.

He burst into laughter at their ridiculous situation, pulling Six into a lopsided hug, "Four! Hahaha! Halfway– hah– to a new record already!"

Removing the stars from her eyes with a small shake Six shuddered and sighed in contentment at the gooey warmth she felt in her core, and tail...and running down her hindlegs.

She returned the embrace with as much power as she could muster at the moment as her muscles demanded a break before they continued. Because this would not be the end of their time together, Six had a lifetime of catching up to do and she had a lot of tension to get rid of. Phasma had awoken a monster and it was not the one he thought he would find down here.

"If… if that is a record," she said through panting breaths,swallowing to wet her throat that had gone raw from her scream before her eyes met phasma's with the largest smile she could muster, "then let's go break it."

Six cupped his length with her wing, soft feathers pumping the orange rod as she played with it. So close to her muzzle, she marveled at the size and wondered how stallions functioned without passing out from blood loss any time they got aroused. Phas hummed happily and sat back on the table, spreading his hindlegs further while Six stroked him with her wings to completion.

With a cry, his long and hard organ throbbed, and Phas painted both her feathered appendages and her face white with seed. Drowning in ecstasy, the stallion missed the concerning creak from the table below. He definitely did not miss the sudden falling sensation as the large wooden table gave under his weight, snapping clean through the middle.

The shout he gave out was definitely masculine.

...

Six grunted with each thrust, brushing her mane out of her face. She had missed the feeling of feeling so full in the scant few minutes she had been without it, and let her tongue hang from her maw as Phas hammered away into her womb. That flared tip did unspeakable wonders to her, and she felt that burning need within her again. She bit a hoof to stop from crying out for Phas again. As much as Six wanted him to drain another load into her core, she was hoping this could go on forever.

Unfortunately, when the bed in the royal chamber had protested loudly to the Spartan being half-draped over it, it joined its dining table companion in breaking right down the middle of the short width of the bed, sending the two crashing into a pile of blankets, torn mattress, and pillows. The sudden drop forced his stallionhood to the base inside her, sending them both careening into another shared orgasm that spurted out from where their bodies met and filled the hall with the melody of their voices.

...

Phas was all but thrown back-first into the wardrobe, shattering its immaculate and intricately carved doors. His hard elytra and back pressed into the splintered remains, chitin unharmed. He had reared back onto his hindlegs as Six buried her nose against the base of his cock and inhaled deeply. That he had been prepared for. Her tongue cupping and fondling his sensitive sack was another matter entirely.

Six didn't care for the taste, but finding out she could make the stallion gasp and moan with a high pitched voice by giving him less attention rather than more was a discovery worth its weight in titanium-plated hyperweave.

...

Six's body was completely enveloped under Phas's. His forelegs hugged against hers against the wall in front of them, and his hindlegs and tail covered hers. He rested his head on top of her head, huffing with exertion as he swung his hips. The king's large royal jewels plapped against Six's sensitive clit and folds each time he hilted inside her. Her forelegs were shaking as she struggled to stay upright against the wall, electricity arcing up her spine and flooding her brain with endorphins each time her button of nerves was hit and her depths pistoned into. No matter how much she got, it was never enough, and she knew just how to get more.

The Spartan backed her hips up against each thrust, pushing the changeling's thick rod deeper into her and pounding their hips together until more mutual gasps of climax and the sound of fresh cream splattering between their legs broke through the sounds of shuddering flesh against flesh.

They froze when the wall they had put their weight against began to crack and cave in around their forehooves, sending the two of them tumbling once more, still in the high of orgasmic bliss.

...

The large upholstered chair had lasted less than a minute under their weight. It lay on its back with all four legs snapped off, and the pair had left it behind for the bed. The two of them had to move in tandem as Six categorically refused to allow him exit. They barely made it five steps before the two of them rutted like their adopted ancestors once more.

...

Now Six lay atop Phas, a shivering, huffing, twitching mess of feathers, fur, and muscle. Under her, Phas was splayed out on his back, arms loosely holding her in a hug. Behind or below them, depending on your perspective on quadruped anatomy, Six's hindlegs pressed into the now double-shattered remains of the bed, while Phas's drooped in the air.

Their groins, bellies, and muzzles were all thoroughly matted and sticky with drying liquid love. Six licked her lips, finding the taste from earlier still as unpleasant- and her body now ached in ways that even Spartan PT struggled to replicate, but it had all been worth it.

Six shifted her weight and her mind blanked as the thick rod still inside her throbbed at the sudden movement. She let out a tiny gasp, eyes rolling up as the tip flared for the final time that night. She wondered if the pinned and groaning stallion was about to put another load inside her already-full body, and with a final a weak shudder he did. The weak pulse pulse pulse of his final clip in the magazine flowed into her, one final deposit of genetic material for her womb.

She forced herself to slowly relax as she basked in that feeling of fresh warmth inside her- but not before grinding her rump into his sack under the dock of her tail as revenge for not having any more. Phas kicked a hindhoof in the air and gripped her hips, begging for mercy. Six was a merciful mare, however, and upon feeling his rod begin to shrink and slip out of her she rolled off to his side, the two of them now lying next to each other staring up at the ceiling.

She could feel a veritable waterfall of fluid begin to slowly drip out of her as the organ that had deposited it was now absent. The feeling made her shiver and twitch slightly, but above all she felt better than she ever had before.

Smiling, Six lifted a wing in front of her muzzle, depriving the stallion of half of his blanket as she examined her now-white feathers.

'I need another bath.'

4- In The Court of Queen Crimson (Yes, That Is a Jojo Reference)

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