"Alright, just realign the biomodulator... record the genome output levels..." Twilight flicked between microscope settings with delicate brushes of her magic, observing the embryonic cells that dwelled in the bottom of her petri dish. She looked to her notes once more, a detailed diagram of the Everfree's Mirror Pool in the centre, annotated with equations and lines of magical theory. Twilight focussed on her dish, slowly extracting a string of ethereal essence and placing it in suspended stasis.

Casting another spell, she analysed the cellular content of the sample, recording the metastatic evolution of the contents before placing the residue in a small flask. Satisfied with the findings, she scribbled down notes with a pencil she produced from the pocket of her lab coat and set everything down, needing to take a moment's breath.

She couldn't believe how close she was. Since the concept of magical cloning was discovered, ponies had endeavoured to be able to create beings organically through a combination of magic and science, rather than duplicating them. Through much trial and error and plenty of research, Twilight had made some serious headway on just how such a thing might be achieved, her spell in its later stages. With hope, she'd soon be able to materialise a creature from thin air, essentially. Or, rather, grow one in an extremely small space of time.

And it would be a huge breakthrough in regards to both environmental protection and paleontological study. By reviving creatures long dead and bolstering the number of those that were endangered, ponies could not only protect nature, but help it to thrive. Twilight was incredibly excited by the thought, enough so that she spent most of her time at work between a serious frown and a satisfied smile, but the task was far from over.

Twilight lifted her head with a sigh, constant effort beginning to mix with fatigue as the day wore on. She took more samples, she recorded her findings extensively, and at times, she felt her thoughts drift away to just what kinds of creatures she might be able to bring into being with the help of her magic. The accolades and recognition that would come with the accomplishment didn't interest her nearly as much as the result itself, be that the conception of a goblin, a fairy, or perhaps even a creature resembling the humans from the other side of the mirror portal.

The creatures on Sunset's side of the portal had always fascinated Twilight, and she often found herself envisioning their strange bodies, their broad statures. There was the fact they were always clothed, too, it had always added a specific sense of allure to the anatomy of the creatures, a feeling of mystery and wonder that bedazzled the mind. Twilight had found herself staring in the mirror once or twice whilst in her human form, studying the breasts that manifested themselves on her chest and the smooth feel of her furless body.

She'd often wondered what the male counterpart might look like in a state of undress. She'd never had the chance to find out, and she imagined that their bodies were just as fascinating, just as oddly attractive as her own had been in that state, if not more so...

A blush adorned her cheeks as she envisioned herself stripping one of the strapping males she'd encountered in her trips, taking off their garments with a sultry gaze and marvelling at what laid beneath. She was sure that she'd find something particularly interesting to study if she did so, and she was happy to take her time and run multiple tests if it ensured total accuracy...

Her mind was falling into the gutter, and she could feel it. Why was she growing so distracted all fo a sudden? She'd been fine all day, before now. She'd worked diligently at her task, the only important factor being progress, and now, she was fantasising about another species? She could feel an ache in her body, and it was slowly graduating to a burn the more she tried to ignore it, almost as if an insatiable need was growing inside her, slowly revealing itself as it dwarfed all reasonable and rational thought alike.

She only realised what it was when it had totally took hold of her, when she could scarcely even look at her scientific equipment and remember what she was doing in the face of the sordid fantasies plaguing her mind. She must have been in her heat cycle again, it was exceptionally clear, and her body was telling her that the obvious recourse was to go out and find a good lay, wherever one might be.

Well, who was she kidding? One wouldn't do it, it never did when she was in estrus. It'd be eight, nine, maybe ten days until she could think straight again, and finding a suitable partner would only temporarily dull the feeling inside her. Satisfying it entirely? She'd never known a mare who could, not even Cadance.

Plus, since becoming an alicorn.... Her last couple of heat seasons had been significantly stronger. Her cheeks tinted rose, ears folding back as she remembered one night that Rainbow Dash had basically had to pry her off of Applejack if only because of how good her mane smelt. It was like hay, hay and cinnamon, and she was sure she would have kissed her right then and there if it wasn't for the timely intervention.

Now, as a rising salacity began to take hold of her, the thought of the scent alone was enough to invigorate her senses, to make her want to go out, forget all of her findings, and cut loose. Maybe have a couple of glasses of wine, meet a friendly stud, invite him back to the castle...

No, she needed to work. She had to. She'd gotten too far to give up now, even if her body was screaming in protest, telling her she wanted nothing but to be rutted until she couldn't stand straight any longer. It was a stupid and irrational feeling, but Twilight couldn't shake it. It gripped her like iron, and refused to budge even when she threw every manner of protest imaginable at it.

Twilight shook her head frantically as thoughts of her friends plagued her mind, mares and stallions alike, of what they could be doing for her right now, doing to her... "No. Think, Twilight. Think of a solution. Setting this back a week is the same as setting this back a month, the samples you've cultivated won't last that long, and it'll take you weeks to grow them again!"

Her mind told her all of this was true, but her ears told her that Starlight was upstairs in the castle's kitchen, perhaps baking or making a coffee, and the soft hum reverberating through the ceiling was like a siren's call to Twilight, almost delectable in its tone, inviting her upstairs to partake in a little 'student teacher time'.

Anddd that sounded like a great way to lose a friend. Unless Starlight was in heat too... or maybe even with Trixie? Heck, a threesome sounded like a really good time, maybe she could just take a few hours away and see how she felt after?

"No, no, no!" Twilight felt as if her voice was the only thing left to give a reasonable protest against her thoughts, so she exercised it with force, standing and planting her legs in the ground as an act of rebellion. "I'm not going anywhere, and I'm not doing anything like that! No, I'll just stay here, and think of a solution, simple as that."

Unfortunately, saying and doing were two very different matters. Why did it have to come now, of all times? It didn't seem fair in the slightest, that such a burden was an automatic feature of being born a mare, that three times a year your body went into complete overdrive and you were reduced to something just short of a sex-crazed lunatic. It hadn't been so bad when she was a unicorn, but with these alicorn hormones? Damn, was this frustrating.

Maybe that was the solution, after all? She was forced to be an alicorn no matter what, but an estrus cycle only affected mares in this way, not stallions. Stallions were automatically attracted to mares in heat, but they didn't lose their minds over it, or anything. If Twilight was a stallion, she'd likely have no trouble whatsoever continuing in her studies with minimal distraction.

But it's not like she could just become a stallion all of a sudden, right? Twilight's thoughts were drawn back to the events of her duel with Trixie a couple of years ago, back when she had the alicorn amulet, and she remembered the gender swap spell she'd faked in order to befuddle Trixie and trick her out of the artifact. It had been well beyond her power then as a unicorn, the ability to turn a mare into a stallion or vice versa, but perhaps now, with the huge deposits of magic she had at her disposal, she'd have more luck attempting to do the same thing to herself?

Question was, did she even have the mental incantation on hand? Magic was a tricky thing, a combination of imagination that gave your magic power and glyphs to cast safely. The more complex spells required you to mentally draw out your process and all of its required components and steps to ensure that you did it right, they also required a more complex understanding of the theory of that which you were undertaking. It was the reason Starlight was so adept at advanced magic despite being a unicorn, she'd had the chance to study Starswirl's spells extensively before meeting Twilight, along with many other high level magi.

Twilight thought hard about her dilemma, but eventually shrugged, opting to throw caution to the wind. She understood the concept of a gender swap spell, she'd just never had the raw magical power to pull one off. Surely now, she could do it without any real issue, and everything would work itself out perfectly afterwards.

It was simple, she'd turn into a stallion for long enough to complete her research, and maybe to wait off the remainder of her estrus period, and then she'd become a mare again. She'd cast it with faux-permanence, rather than using a continuous spell, so it would likely drain her of a great deal of her magic reserves, but she didn't need strong spells for her research, just the mental faculties she was currently lacking in face of her sudden horniness.

So it was that she set about beginning to change herself into a stallion. The spell was slow to charge, and she spent the time doing so considering each parameter of her own body, the changes she'd need to make to the subtle intricacies of her frame, organs, bone structure, even genitalia and overall genetic makeup—no one said this spell was easy—and memorised various facts and estimations regarding her body so that there was an extremely limited chance of any mishaps.

Once she was doubly sure that she had everything accounted for, she finally set about to casting. The magic she'd built up in her horn surged out as she felt the transmogrification set in, rapidly changing and resetting every element of her body and restructuring them around the frame of a male. She'd be herself, only a stallion, and as time passed, she felt her legs grow and her chest become more pronounced, her muzzle lose its curve and her eyes become sharper, her entire frame becoming less petite and more stocky and muscular.

When she was sure she was finished, she let out a heavy breath, fighting dizziness. The spell had been draining, but she pushed through the fatigue to find a mirror, making sure it had worked. A young, handsome stallion looked back at her. He was the same colours as her, but his mane was rougher and his cheeks lightly stubbled, his fur shorter and neater and his coat less sleek. He had strong, thick legs and a sturdy barrel, and even below that Twilight felt another appendage that she'd often dreamed about owning, if only for how curious she was about it. Unfortunately, she couldn't see it, as it was hidden by the lab coat she still had on.

But above all, Twilight realised that the screams of her feminine body had left her. Twilight was a stallion now, with no heat cycle to speak of. It had worked!

Twilight was extremely proud of himself, having worked through his problem and ensured that he wouldn't waste all the time he had devoted unto his tests on pointless flings and silly desires. He barely had a thought for other ponies now, even testing himself so much as to attempt to fantasise about Starlight upstairs, like he had just earlier with an almost overwhelming urge to go up there and proposition her.

The thought was pleasant, and he was sure he could feel a light twitch downstairs, but it was nothing compared to moments earlier, and when he chose to drop it, it was gone, as if it had never mattered in the first place.

Yep, this had definitely worked. Knowing that he'd conquered his issue, Twilight set back to work, but the frantic pace of his research soon gave way to hunger. It would be easy enough to simply go upstairs and fix himself something to eat, but he didn't particularly feel like facing Starlight right now, nor explaining to her exactly why he was currently a stallion. Surely, she'd understand, but it was an awkward conversation to have all the same.

'Hey, Starlight. I couldn't stop thinking about screwing you when I was a mare, so I decided to become a stallion for a few days. Neat, huh?' He doubted that'd go down well.

That left eating in out of the question, but surely he could just go to a restaurant or cafe in Ponyville? He was pretty sure he was recognisable like this, especially being an alicorn, but if he didn't draw too much attention to himself...

He still had the lab coat on. Maybe without his wings on show, ponies wouldn't automatically realise that it was him?

It was worth a shot, if only to get some food in his belly. If anypony did catch on, he'd just say he was running an experiment on gender spells and leave it at that. Leaving the perishables in a cool environment and packing away everything else, Twilight teleported up to his room to grab a pouch of bits.

The residual effects of the teleportation hit him all at once, making him feel as if he'd just sprinted for half a mile. Panting, he half leaned, half fell back onto his bedroom desk, attempting to reorient himself. The spell he'd used had obviously taken a lot out of him, so powerful magic was out of the question right now. That meant sneaking his way out of the castle without Starlight or Spike seeing him.

Once he'd caught his breath a little more, he began to head downstairs.

Luckily, no encounters on the way out the front entrance. Something must've had Starlight and Spike occupied already. Was Starlight in heat, again? Twilight really couldn't remember.

Thoughts of dandelion and lily sandwiches filled Twilight's mind as he walked, the brilliant light of a Ponyville day warming his coat and lifting his spirits. He'd been cooped up in the basement level of his castle for so long now, it was nice to be outside for a change. He could feel the weight to his steps, the swing of his shorter tail and the flounce of his rough mane. It was exceptionally odd, being in this body, but Twilight was growing increasingly accustomed to it as time passed, even starting to like it.

He carried on walking until he eyed one of Ponyville's larger cafes, a reasonably priced place that was always busy on a summer's day. Twilight decided it would do nicely. He fondly remembered the last time he ate there with his friends, and a tasty sandwich in the sun sounded lie just the solution to the pit in his stomach.

He situated himself at a table, propping himself up in a seat and levitating over a menu. Huh, even levitation spells were burning his horn a little right now. It was certainly going to take days to build up the energy to switch back to being a mare, there was no doubt about that.

He barely even managed to get eyes on the menu before it was being lowered by another's hoof. Puzzled, Twilight looked up to see a cute mare looking back at him, a cream coated unicorn with a burgundy mane. "I'm sorry, is this seat taken?" she asked, a soft smile on her lips and a flick in her tail.

"No, no, go ahead." Twilight responded, and he was shocked by the gruffness of his own tone. He sounded deep and slightly imposing, manly and strong. Looking around before returning to the menu, he noticed that there were many other free tables about. Had this mare chosen to sit with him because she found him to be attractive?

No, maybe it wasn't that, maybe she was just being friendly. He looked up from the menu once more to find her biting her lip, staring right at him. She hadn't even bothered to pick up a menu of her own. "So... where are you from? Around here?"

Twilight's breath caught as he tried to think of what to say. Did he just play it cool? "Canterlot," he answered, and it wasn't exactly a lie. "What about you?" The longer he sat there, the more he realised that there something about this mare that was making it difficult for him to look away. He could almost sense some sort of issue, something that drew him to her body, as if she had a natural scent about her that drew and maintained his attention.

It took Twilight a couple of moments to realise that they were her heat pheromones, they must have been. Stallions had a natural sense for that, but why was it this strong? Stallions were meant to be good at dealing with this, yet the longer Twilight sat there, the more conscious he became of the feeling, rooting itself in his belly and culminating in the stiffening of his brand new cock, gradual but nonetheless pronounced.

The tightness of hardening skin down there was like nothing Twilight had ever felt, the way the blood rushed and pushed his shaft out from past his sheath, causing it to brush against both his lab coat and his belly. He'd not even been talking to her for twenty seconds, and yet he was already becoming incredibly turned on, and he could scarcely understand why! All the while she was talking, saying something or other about how long she's lived in Ponyville, and Twilight couldn't concentrate through the steadily growing temptation to take her somewhere quiet and screw the living hell out of her.

But that wasn't right, it wasn't like Twilight at all. He could control these stupid urges, surely. He nodded at whatever the fuckable little unicorn mare said, desperately attempting to focus on his menu despite the thoughts of testing out his new equipment on her instead. Why eat and fill his belly when he could fuck her and fill hers?

Okay, calm down, Twilight. Keep your head. Stop worrying, you're going to be fine. You're not going to do anything with this mare, just stay rational and work through the thoughts. "—and if you wanted, I could show you around Ponyville? I know all the good places, and a few of the more romantic ones if you catch my meaning?" She punctuated her offer with a wink, and Twilight's mind was sent reeling. All this time, she'd been hitting on him, and that single wink coupled with everything preceding was enough to send his mind for a total tailspin.

"I-I..." Suddenly, Twilight didn't feel like a strong stallion, he felt like an awkward mess. He averted his eyes as the young mare leaned in, her perfume almost as strong against Twilight's snout as the pheromones exuding from her body. "I don't think I'm hungry anymore..." Panicking at his own words, Twilight could feel his voice raising in pitch. "Not because of you, of course! Just, I need to go and get my train! Yes, my train... Back to Canterlot! So, uhm, it was nice meeting you... and—"

The mare in the seat next to him narrowed her eyes. "You know, if you didn't like the look of me, you could have just said."

"No no, I do!" And it was the truth, Twilight really fucking did, so much so that she was literally forcing herself out of her seat before she did something she'd regret. "It's just, y'know..." Think, Twilight, think! "I have a wife, so, uhh..."

"Oh." Suddenly, the mare's tune seemed to change, and she gave a muted nod.

"Yeahhh..." Twilight tried to give the most sincere smile he could, as if he was letting her down easy, but it came out looking completely socially inept. "It was nice meeting you though! Miss, uhm, unicorn?" Stop thinking about fucking her stop thinking about fucking her stopthinkingaboutfuckingher.

Twilight turned and walked away before this conversation could get any more awkward. As he left, he began to feel himself growing more conscious of the unique scent of every mare around him, and any time he walked past or even close to one that was in heat, it set his body alight, forcing him to change directions even as his body told him to home in on them.

It was the eighth forced turn of his directionless walk when he bumped into a mare, literally walking right into her. He froze up immediately, eyes shooting up as he took in her presence. He immediately recognised her as the local mailmare, Derpy, blonde mane and grey fur, fluffy wings and those big yellow eyes that could never stay completely even. She was a cutie, that was for sure, and her body was emanating the same enticing scent that every other mare in the vicinity seemed to have been, except with her it seemed slightly more... muted, more tolerable.

Still, she was totally hot, it's just that her heat seemed a little less overwhelming to Twilight's senses than most of the mares she'd encountered so far. "Princess Twilight?" she asked, looking up at him with a vague interest in her focussed eye.

"You recognise me?" Twilight asked, a little shocked it had taken someone this long to.

Derpy flashed a grin. "Well, of course I do! I deliver mail to you every week. So you're a stallion now, huh? That's pretty cool."

Trust Derpy to not even question how something like that might have happened. Just nod and smile. Twilight kind of liked that quality about her, actually. It was simple and endearing. "Only temporarily, it's a magical thing."

"You trying to stave off your estrus cycle?" Derpy asked with a knowing grin. Too knowing.

"How did you guess?" Twilight bit his lip, part of him wishing his bangs were long enough to hide behind. He was out of his element, and this was hardly a discussion you wanted to have with a mare you barely knew, yet here she was, and she seemed to understand Twilight's motivations enough to assume them.

"I've seen what it can do to a mare. Imagine a lot of them would want rid of it." Her answer was as simple as that, and she made no effort to expand on it. Still, she looked happy as ever, carefree too, exactly how she did when she dropped off the mail in the mornings. This conversation really was just an everyday occurrence in her mind, huh?

Yet she was clearly in heat, Twilight could sense it so strongly. "Well... yeah, I suppose I got it pretty bad." An awkward giggle, eyes shifting left and right. "What about you? Doesn't it bother you so much?"

"I'm a mother, princess—well, prince, I guess." Derpy snickered. "I don't get it as badly anymore, now that I've got my two little ones. You know... I've always been interested in having a third, and you're a stallion right now."

Wow, she was blunt! She didn't even beat around the bush, just said these things clear as day, and it left Twilight wishing the earth would swallow him already. His arousal could only be contained for so long. "I-I'm not sure that's a very good idea, Miss Hooves. I mean, you're lovely, and everything, but the idea of just impregnating another pony is..."

"Is what?" Derpy's eyes aligned for a moment, and they seemed to echo her curiosity. "I'm a good mother, and the stallions that sired Dinky and Amethyst did so because I asked. I'm not looking for a relationship or anything, Twilight. Just another foal to raise."

Was it really that simple? Twilight's body was in overdrive, each of his senses beseeching her to take Derpy up on this offer. She was a fit mare with a slender body and a rounded flank, one that looked like the perfect cushion for Twilight's new cock, but could he really just do something so intimate with her with no ramifications? "But it'll be my child... I don't know if this is a good idea."

Derpy's smile was caring and considerate as she took a step closer to Twilight. "You can be as involved as you want to be, of course, you'd always be welcome to visit and spend time with them." She took another step, their manes were almost brushing together from how close they were, Twilight could feel Derpy's breath on her, causing his own to come out in shallow pants.

"And you're..." he gulped, Derpy looked so easy to kiss right now, to bend over and have his way with. "You're sure it would be alright?"

"Completely. Plus, you'll enjoy it." Derpy shifted her tail to the side, wiggling her backside as she looked back at it. "What do you think?"

Was he really going to turn an offer like this down? He could rationalise it, say he was doing something good for another mare, but he'd rather just kiss her already. So he did, pushing past her lips and skipping straight to the tongue, the roar in his body suddenly intensifying as he made the contact he'd been thinking about for so long. He was finally going to do something about his pent up frustration, and Gods, did it feel different in this new body, the novelty only intensifying the experience.

They kissed slowly, intimately, Twilight's hardness at near bursting point already from the feeling, his eyes closing as his partner took him to realms beyond the imagination. Twilight was a stallion, and he was about to fuck a mare, impregnate her. It was almost too much to comprehend, and the fireworks going off in his brain from each subtle brush of Derpy's tongue were only making the idea more appealing by the second.

Pulling back from the kiss, Derpy turned around, spreading her wings and hitching up her tail. "You wanna do it right here?"

Twilight's cock seemed to like the idea more than he expected. "What if someone sees us?"

"Twilight, half the mares in Ponyville are in season. I doubt they'd mind."

It didn't take him long to realise that even if her argument had been completely false and invalid, he probably would have agreed anyway. Slowly, realising he'd never done this before, he manoeuvred his hooves around Derpy's barrel, rising to his hind legs. "I'm not too heavy, am I?"

Derpy gasped as Twilight pressed her weight down a little, trying to find a good balance. "I like feeling you on top of me, actually..."

Twilight risked a single spell to unbutton her lab coat, and luckily it wasn't enough to exhaust her. With a slight pant, he shifted herself forwards, Derpy bending down on her forelegs and pushing her ass out like a target for Twilight to aim for. He tried to line himself up with her entrance, already wet and glistening, but found that it was a difficult thing to do right. Every time he tried to push it inside, even though they were both undoubtedly ready, Twilight slipped and it ended up running along her lips instead.

They'd both groan at the sensation, as teasing as it was, but it wasn't what either of them were looking for. Twilight just wanted to be inside her already, but it was so slippery, so difficult to position himself... Eventually, Derpy pushed back against his cock, and with a slow but forceful motion, Twilight finally found his way inside Derpy's tight hole.

Her walls squeezed and milked Twilight's cock, and it was only now that he was on the other side that she realised what bliss sex was for stallions. All around his length, he could feel Derpy massaging him from the inside, her pussy contracting and squeezing as she adjusted to Twilight's rather significant size.

It was hard for Twilight not to cum just from the feeling of her adjusting, the smell of her, the sounds she made... Staying extremely still, attempting to fight off a welling feeling inside, Twilight waited until Derpy was finished and perhaps a little longer until he finally felt he was ready to thrust deeper inside.

The first push was a rapturous thing, the smoothest and most pleasurable sensation of being stroked by pussy all over, it coursed through Twilight's cock, the heat spreading all over his body, synapses in a state of renaissance as he rediscovered his body and just what it was capable of. He didn't have time to acclimate, however, as Derpy backed up, intent on getting fucked, and Twilight began to think of just how he'd feel in this situation being the mare as he usually was.

He'd want his partner to stop being so still and fuck already.

In keeping with the thought, Twilight began to build a rhythm, pushing halfway inside and then backing up, being sure to include a deeper stroke every few pumps for Derpy's benefit. This was so different to what he was used to: while he imagined that Derpy was feeling a tingle up her spine that shook her withers and pleased her entire body, most of Twilight's sensation was concentrated solely in a pressure that built in his lower belly, extending to the tip of his embedded cock. He pushed harder, wanting to capitalise on the feeling, and it only intensified with each thrust, each moan sounding from in front of him.

And, true to Derpy's word, a crowd had began to gather, and none of them seemed to mind all too much, if Twilight considered how their legs were spread and the way they rubbed at themselves.

It spurred her on in the moment. A group of hot mares watching him rail this cute little MILF, likely jealous of the treatment she was getting. It made Twilight want to perform, a direct contrast to his usual, more chaste attitude.

But he wasn't the same pony right now, he wasn't even the same sex. He leaned forwards, nibbling on Derpy's ear and licking over her neck as he bottomed out inside her, pushing with all the gusto he could muster and watching Derpy's body shake in return. He drew back slowly, running kisses along the base of her spine before holding her by the barrel, keeping her in place and beginning to pound relentlessly. He hadn't expected to last this long, but even two minutes in he was feeling as if he was just getting warmed up, getting ready for the main event.

And what an event it was. All thoughts of his partner dissipated in the face of the monumental sensation he was feeling, he slammed her like a fucktoy if only so he could feel her growing hotter and squeezing tighter in the face of his movements. His cock was flaring, engorging and feeling as if it was ready to burst at any moment, the heaviness in his balls only mirrored by the difficulty to continue, to stop, to do anything as he finally felt Derpy cum around him, her pussy pulsing with pleasure as she threw her mane back and cried out in unashamed ecstasy.

Twilight was about to do it, he knew it. He was going to impregnate her. His cum was about to splash into her womb, he was going to bring a foal into this world, and above all else, she wanted his child. The thought was enough to send Twilight over the edge, and with a heavy groan and a tense of every muscle in his body, Twilight experienced his first male orgasm.

He could feel the hot cum shooting out of his cock, lacing Derpy's pussy and filling her up. It shot out in strings as shot by shot riddled his body with satisfaction, broke him down and built him back up again in less than a second, shook him to his core and stole his breath even as it replaced it with something better than breathing. It was unreal, yet it was happening, it was factual, it was amazement and bedlam.

When Derpy finally pulled away, turning around and thanking Twilight, he could feel that his cock still hadn't gone completely soft.

"Hey, Twilight?"

"Yeah?" Twilight panted, her views and morals in a state of unbalance as she considered what she'd just done, what the result could be, how she might come to regret this in the future.

"I think they want you next," Derpy winked, pointing a hoof.

Before her was a group of at least fifteen mares, all smoking hot and definitely in heat, some of them still rubbing at their bodies, others presenting themselves to him, and a couple simply giving him the eyes, daring him to come over and see what they had for himself.

...Screw morals, screw her worldview. She had fifteen more mares to knock up.

Twilight never would've imagined the ramifications of her activities that one day eleven months ago. And the day after, and the day after that. The whole week, really.

Point is, she had a lot of sex with a lot of mares who clearly wanted a lot of foals, and her new equipment seemed both eager and devoid of any refractory period, so of course she was willing and able to facilitate those desires. Needless to say, she wasn't thinking with her head at the time, or at least not the right one.

Since changing back to her usual self, the stresses of estrus well past, Twilight had had time to let the prospect of motherhood, fatherhood, whateverhood sink in, and she was well to terms with the fact that she was going to be a mother. No, wait, father.

...parent. She was going to be a parent.

It was difficult to keep in touch with over forty mares through the entirety of each of their simultaneous pregnancies, especially when you didn't exactly get their names and numbers at the time what with how they were lining up, but Twilight had done her best to make sure that Spike kept fairly regular contact with all of them.

And sometimes, she even visited them herself. Today was one of those days, but rather than a social call, this was hospitals and screaming and dilation and labour. Derpy was rooms away, likely soon to progress to the birthing, and the only reason that Twilight wasn't with her was that the hospital was apparently so packed today. As such, Twilight ended up in a waiting room with Derpy's two girls, Dinky and Amethyst Star.

The former was excitedly jumping in her lap while Amethyst paced in small circles, almost looking as if she was attempting to chase her tail. "I wonder if it'll be a boy! I wonder if it'll be a girl! ...ohmygosh, I wonder if it'll be a princess?!" Dinky had more energy than Twilight and Amethyst combined, which must have been owed to the fact that until now, she'd always been the youngest.

Twilight couldn't help but snicker at the display, but it did get her thinking. Were all of these children technically part of a royal line now? Were they classed as bastards who had no claim to her throne or title? Also, looking at the two sisters, she began to wonder just how difficult it'd be to contend with forty little ponies at once, how hard it'd be to even learn their names.

She was a little ashamed to admit that it had taken multiple sessions with Spike and a high, colour coded stack of flash cards for her to even learn the details of the mothers. She wouldn't be surprised if the births called for a repeat.

That said, she was definitely excited. Twilight had a pleasant glow in her chest and a slight tremble to her hooves, eager anticipation of the life she'd helped bring into the world manifesting and growing. Like Derpy, many of the would-be mothers that approached her made it quite clear that while they wished for a strong stallion to sire their child, they weren't expecting full-time commitment, but Twilight wouldn't hear any of it. It might have been a large split of her time, it might take her a good while to get a suitable routine in order, but she wanted to be there for her children as much as she possibly could.

Still... maybe she overindulged just a modicum? Forty was a lot.

She was distracted from her pondering by a loud 'wheee!'. Dinky was attempting to do a hornstand, all of her hooves but one in the air as she took the last away. She promptly fell on her side, giggling. "Mommy says horns aren't for standing on, but I'm going to teach my new brother or sister to do it too!"

Twilight felt a flash of alarm at the idea, the images of cuts and scrapes and broken bones flashing in the back of her eyes. "You should listen to your mother, you know. If she says horns aren't for standing on, then she's right." It was difficult to know how far was too far with someone else's child before you were venturing into the realm of rudeness, so Twilight kept her annoyance at the idea out of her tone, reminding herself to bring it up with Derpy later.

Not that Dinky wanted to drop it, of course. "But how does mommy know? She doesn't have a horn, and the only reason I've got one is because my daddy had unicorn in his blood. That's what Amy says."

Twilight turned to Amethyst, who was still pacing. "Did you know Dinky's father?"

Her eyes briefly locked with Twilight's every mid-turn. "Saw him a couple times is a more accurate way of putting it. They never really went strong, they were more of a 'for fun and mom wanted another kid' deal, from what I gather."

"My new brother or sister is lucky that you came to watch them be born. My daddy didn't visit." Dinky didn't seem too affected by what she was saying, and that might have been the saddest part about it.

Well, Twilight already had forty kids on the horizon, and the bits of time she'd spent with Dinky had allowed her to grow fond... would visiting her along with the new baby be that much hassle? It wasn't much, but from the sounds of it, Dinky would really appreciate having another parent figure in her life, in some crude sense of the word.

"You're better off without a dad like that," Amethyst smiled, walking over to Dinky and giving her a light pat on the head. "Mom has always been there for you, and dads are only worth it if they're actually gonna put the effort in. I'd rather have a dad that left after his job was done than one that pretended."

Dinky looked at her sister, eyes widened. "Are you only saying that because your daddy pretended to care?"

Oof, this was taking a rough turn. Amethyst went to respond, hoof raised, but she was cut off by the sound of the doors slamming open.

"Princess Twilight, Hooves family?" A plump nurse with a light blue coat waddled in, her eyes beady. "Your little brother has been safely delivered, and your mother is ready to see you all. However—"

"A brother?!" Dinky instantly jumped off of Twilight's lap, skipping and prancing around the unamused nurse. "I've got a little brother! I've got a little brother!"

The nurse cleared her throat with a pointed glare, attempting to quieten Dinky, but it only half worked. "However?" Twilight repeated.

"However, there was one complication with the birth, something we weren't entirely expecting... I think it's best if you see for yourself, princess."

That was definitely ominous. Twilight had told herself that she was prepared for anything that might have gone wrong. She studied birth defects and complications to the point of near obsession when she realised there was a chance that one of the children she birthed might have had some form of issue. She'd told herself a thousand times before now that no matter what, she'd keep composed.

But that was before being confronted with the reality of the situation, the all too real possibility that there might be something wrong with her baby, and that it might be down to her and her genetics. She needed to put a brake on her thoughts. There was always a chance that it was nothing, that she was simply overthinking again and that everything would be absolutely fine.

Sure, that's what everyone said preceding imminent disaster, but Twilight tried to ignore that all too present cynicism as best she could. Everything was going to be okay.

She couldn't fully mask her panic as she walked with the others through the hospital's corridors. It was laced with excitement and anticipation, the type that she'd never felt before for anything, save the strange, maternal feeling that had come with hatching Spike's egg all those years ago. Still, she'd been a child then, unable to comprehend the vast array of emotions fully, and now she was revisiting them in adulthood, they only felt that bit more intense.

"I wanna see him! I wanna!" Dinky was bouncing along in a way that would make Pinkie Pie jealous, her hooves only touching the floor for a millisecond at a time, Twilight's internal enthusiasm mirrored by her movements. It dawned on her then that over the coming weeks, she was going to go through this many more times with many more children, and that knowing the way she handled things, it would only become more intense with each instance.

Still, those children were thoughts for later. What mattered right now was Derpy's foal, who they were growing so much closer to approaching with each passing second. The nurse pushed open a pair of double doors, and Twilight almost felt herself pushing past Derpy's daughters to get through first. No one complained, they understood her urgency.

The next one to be unceremoniously knocked out of the way by her flayed wings was the nurse, who stared at her indignantly with her fat, sweaty face.

But Twilight barely noticed amidst the sight she saw. Cradled in a tired, faint Derpy's arms was a beautiful baby boy. Twilight couldn't make out his face yet, but she could see his rather large wings from across the room, almost looking like those of a matured pegasus.

A little like Flurry Heart's wings, come to think of it. He had a blue coat, but grey mane, retaining one of his mother's colours, and as Twilight came close enough to study his full profile, she noticed two very important things.

His shade of eyes was exactly identical to hers, and he had a horn on his head. Wings. Horn. Wings and a horn. He had both. He was a bloody alicorn.

Twilight had given Derpy an alicorn child! It was... it was staggering! Unbelievable, and what's more, the first male alicorn in history! This beautiful child, Twilight already knew that he'd be destined for wonderful things. She'd have to inform the princesses, to start teaching him to use his magic as soon as she was able!

...but first, she just wanted to hold him. Derpy gave her a weak smile, and Twilight ran a hoof through her mane, soothing her. "How are you feeling? Did he give you much trouble?"

A few huffs, and the ghost of a giggle sounded. "I-it took him about—huff—a minute during the delivery to fold his wings, but after that, smooth sailing..." She lifted her hoof a little, being sure to support her new baby's neck, and held him out to Twilight. "He's wonderful, isn't he?"

Confronted with a child, knowing that she'd become a parent, it was a lot for Twilight to take in, and she felt faint just staring at him. But at the same time, it felt right, and she couldn't take her eyes off of him if she tried. "Wonderful doesn't even begin to describe it... Can... can I hold him?"

"Of course, just be sure to be gent—"

ZEEYW, BKSHH went the sound of their new alicorn baby firing a laser through the delivery room's roof and zooming away at breakneck speeds.

...of course. Alicorn baby. Made sense.

Since graduating from Twilight's friendship lessons, Starlight hadn't expected that she'd have to spend so much time cleaning up her mentor's messes. Surely that was Spike's job.

Well... maybe this one was a little bit too delicate for Spike at his age. Explaining to him why his mother/sister/owner suddenly had forty-two children might have been more than a little bit difficult.

Yeah, that's right, forty-two. Two of the mares Twilight knocked up had twins.

And Twilight had been chasing them around, rounding them up, and otherwise attempting to slow down their destruction of Ponyville for half the day now. One minute she was putting out a chemical fire in the castle's library, the next she was fixing the hospital's magic power surge, then she was off chasing after the newborn that decided it was a good idea to race the train to the Crystal Empire.

Starlight walked into the castle's kitchen to find Twilight, her eyes bloodshot and seemingly devoid of life, teetering over the counter with a bottle filled with dark brown liquid hovering in her aura. Starlight only had to squint to work out what it was. "Twilight, are you-are you drinking whisky?"

Twilight limply nodded her head. "Yeah, I couldn't find a good cigar on short notice. Celebrating, right?"

Starlight arched an eyebrow, studying Twilight's dishevelled form. "Twilight, you don't drink whisky. You also don't smoke, and I'd love to say you don't mope. What the heck are you doing?"

Twilight stared at the bottle intensely, as if it was a mirror for her thoughts. "I'm... coping." Sighing, she set the bottle down. "I haven't even drank any, it's just nice to think about, you know? This day's going so terribly already, wouldn't it be nice to just say to hell with it and drink until it wasn't an issue anymore?"

Starlight shook her head, gently and carefully pulling the bottle from Twilight's magic into her own. Touching it brought with it a keen sense of the worry and exhaustion present in Twilight's mind. "Yeah, you could do that, you could drink until you passed out and probably laugh a little in the process. Hell, we could do it together. But do you know what would happen when we woke up?"

Twilight grimaced as she looked down at the floor. "Everything would be exactly the same as it was today?"

Starlight shook her head. "Worse. Everything would be the same as it was today plus whatever your new children managed to obliterate in the interim, and we'd be too hungover to do anything about it."

"But what can we even do about it?!" Twilight's eyes were panicked like those of a doe with a cart speeding towards it, the shakes almost second nature to her by now. "I've considered our options, and every possibility comes up blank! When we dealt with Flurry Heart's erratic magic, it took the combined ability of so many of us, and a composite spell that we don't even have memorised! I don't have the source texts for that here, I can't recreate it!" Shaking her head rapidly, Twilight took a breath. "And even if I could, that would only be enough to help one baby, how am I meant to get to forty-two before something terrible happens?"

"Well, has anything terrible happened yet?"

"That's not the point!"

Starlight cocked her head. "Isn't it? There's still time, and through all of that worrying you've been doing, there's one thing you didn't think to consider."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

With a bright flash, Starlight summoned a diary from her pocket dimension. "I keep notes of absolutely everything. I can recreate that spell quick and easy, but casting it is going to be a problem... I've probably only got enough strength in me for three or four repeat casts, then I'd need to rest."

Twilight had a hoof to her chin as she thought over what Starlight had said. "And your magical ability almost rivals that of an alicorn, plus you've had experience with the spell... Even if we had Celestia and Luna helping, we probably wouldn't be able to cast it forty-two times in succession, it'd be too much."

Levitating the whisky bottle over to her and grabbing a glass, Starlight poured one out, a double. "Well, maybe there's another solution? If we can't cast it that many times in a row, maybe we need one big spell that will serve as a blanket and make all of these alicorns' magic docile?"

Twilight's eyes shot towards the freshly poured glass. "But how are we going to get all of those foals in the same room? Is that even safe? With their combined power, they could probably tear a hole in this dimension!"

"We're not, you're just going to make sure that none of them leave Ponyville. Get the girls together, they'll help you out."

"What are you going to do in the meantime, then?"

Starlight levitated the glass up to her lips, then downed it. "This. I'm also going to work out how the hell to cast a blanket spell over the entirety of Ponyville without making a bunch of ponies' heads pop off. Should be fun work."

"...alright. Well, I'm going to go and look for the foals again, reassure the mothers, get the girls to help, rally the townsfolk, inform the princesses, and you're going to..." She watched as Starlight began to pour out another drink, giving her a quizzical stare.

"Why do you think we have whisky, Twilight? It helps me think. Listening to you bellyache doesn't. Now go on, shoo. Come back to the castle in a bit and give me an update, I'll tell you how things are coming along."

Twilight nodded, and off she flew with haste. Good thing for Starlight, too, she was starting to think she'd never get to have a drink in peace.

Oh, yeah, and the planning to avoid total cataclysmic destruction thing. That was pretty important too.

Twilight seriously couldn't believe her luck. To think that every mare she impregnated gave birth on the same day, what were the odds of that? She adjusted the weight of the foal she'd just rescued from a ten foot tall, animate apple on her back. It was nothing short of a miracle, no doubt, but Twilight wondered if it had any scientific connotations. Perhaps alicorn pregnancies were always the exact same length? Twilight would have to ask Cadance when she next saw her exactly how long she was pregnant with Flurry Heart.

But then, two instances alone weren't enough to make up a fair test, she'd have to consider other variables and call for a repeat in future. ...holy Celestia, was she really considering creating more alicorn foals just so she could study the results? Twilight truly was a broken mare.

She was distracted from her reverie by a guttural scream, like something you heard in a horror flick, dark and foreboding. Zipping around, she squinted her eyes to locate the source of the commotion, only to find Discord. Well, most of Discord.

He was apparently missing his legs. That and hurriedly floating away from a pair of unintentionally murderous babies. "Twilight!" Discord all but screamed, rushing towards her and pressing his face against hers, his eyes swathed in fear. "I-I thought I'd seen everything, thought I'd dealt with the most horrible evils in this world, but these things are something else. I'm scared, Twilight, please make them stop!"

Twilight couldn't help but growl in response, backing away. "Those 'things' you're talking about are my children!"

"Well, that explains it, anything with someone as unhinged as you for a mother is sure to turn out questionably at the very least."

Twilight scowled at him, then looked to the ravenous twins chasing after what was left of him. "You know what? Fine. Enjoy babysitting, Uncle Discord."

"NoTwilightyoucan'tleavemehere!" Discord crumpled himself up into a small ball, fortunately dodging the pair of speeding alicorns just as they went to dive into him. "You can't, you're too good for that, you... they pulled my legs off, Twilight!"

Twilight didn't want to betray her alarm, as much as it was beginning to grow. "Why do you care? You disassemble your body all the time."

"It's different when somebody else does it!" Discord's teeth were chattering to the point that they looked as if they were about to fall out, and then they actually did. Growling, Discord scooped them up and put them back in place. "Cross my aortic pump, hope to achieve high velocity, stick a for sale sign on my property, I promise to repay your debt in kind if you can just take them off my hands. Please, I'm begging you here."

Twilight raised a hoof to argue, only to realise that that really wouldn't be conducive to what she was trying to achieve here. "Fine, but you owe me. I need to round up all forty-two of my children, and then—"

"Forty-two?! Did your womb become a hotel without my knowledge?" Discord floated over in his legless form, inspecting her. "Where did you put them all, is the entrance to Narnia between your legs?!"

Twilight chose to ignore the parts of that she didn't understand and simply retort with something childish. "Well at least I have legs."

"Well don't go on about it, I might decide it's only fair you shared." Discord gave his goatee a small stroke, his eyes settling on the two alicorns circling him, one eye moving in each direction. "Suppose you're going to cast the Fledgeling's Forbearance spell on them all? Seal off their nasty magic before it goes completely out of control?"

Sometimes it was difficult to remember just how intelligent Discord was. "Yes, actually. That's the plan, Starlight's working on it right now, and—"

"Then consider my debt already paid. I'll go and help her right this instant."

"Discord, I'm not sure that's a good idea!"

One snap, and Discord had his legs back. Another, and he was gone.

Leaving Twilight to contend with three baby alicorns who seemed to be trying to out-belch one another. It might have been cute if each of their burps didn't produce a psionic wave that almost knocked her out of the sky. Kids, eh?

Twilight limped her way into the castle's throne room, six children in tow. She'd scarcely had time to tell Spike to inform the mothers that their foals were being taken care of, just another measure to attempt to delay the town-wide panic that was sure to manifest fully soon enough. What she found inside did little to assure her that the worst was over.

Discord and Starlight were apparently sharing a second bottle of whisky.

"—and then she asked me what the meaning of life was, which was funny considering the fact we were all dead, and I said to her: Luna, dear, if I had a bit for every time somepony had asked me that question, I'd have—"

"Forty-two alicorn babies to contend with?" Twilight interjected, drawing two sets of startled eyes. "No? I didn't think so. Nice to see that you're both so hard at work."

"Well, Twilight, after my horrible treatment at the hooves of your offspring, I decided I'd look for a better way to get legless." He jingled the glass before clinking it against Starlight's. "Honestly, your student does have good taste, why isn't she the element of magic? Or an alicorn, for that matter?"

"Just give it a season," Starlight slurred. "Bet you I'm an alicorn by winter, seems they're falling out of the sky right about now anyways."

"Well, if you count Twilight's many suitors' hind legs as the sky." The pair of them shared a chuckle between sips of their whisky, looking awfully dignified considering the circumstance.

Twilight had had enough. Hell, enough had been and gone already, she wasn't sure what she'd had, but she knew it couldn't get much worse than this. "You know what? Screw it, I'll have one."

Starlight shook her head vehemently, spilling a little of her drink in the process. "You don't drink whisky, Twilight."

"And why don't I drink whisky?" Twilight argued, honestly sick of being left out on this.

"Because the last time you did, you ended up impregnating half of Ponyville. Or don't you remember the bar after the public orgy? I told you to slow down but oh no, not until every mare in there had had a healthy dose of Mister Twilight Sparkle's seed!"

Oh yeah, the part of that day that Twilight tried her best to blot out. "Alright, fine. Probably not responsible parenting anyway."

"See, you're learning!" Starlight pointed towards the map table in the centre of the room, giving her a smile. "Besides, this is an actual celebratory drink. We've worked out how to fix everything, believe it or not."

No whisky in the world could've got Twilight more drunk than that statement. She was almost giddy as she pranced in place. "You have?!"

"A draconequus always pays his debts, Twilight!" Frowning, Discord held a finger up and shook his head. "Actually, no, we're notoriously bad about that, but I'm breaking the status quo here and coming through for you. See the Friendship Map right there?" Twilight nodded. "Well, with Starlight's help, I managed to jury rig it with a little of my signature chaotic magic. As such..." Discord snapped his fingers, and forty-two new icons flashed to life. "Ever seen such a wonderful family portrait, mother dearest?"

Twilight was at a loss for words as she looked over the map. Each one of these icons represented one of her children, and sure enough six of them were in the castle like they should've been! "So we can track every single one of them from here, make sure none of them get lost? This is brilliant!"

"Not just that," Starlight added, "but we can interact with them through the map too. Remember when I used the Friendship Map as a means to bolster Starswirl's time travel spell? Well, I think I can get the same amplifying effect out of this spell I've drawn up." Starlight clumsily thrust a piece of paper into Twilight's snout.

Looking over it, Twilight began to make a connection between the words on the paper and what they were attempting to do, but only barely. "Starlight, this is riddled with misspellings and the hoofwriting is barely legible. What are you going to be able to do with this?"

"Did you never even see Starswirl's handwriting, Twilight? All of the best unicorns write drunk, it's the editing we do sober. But I don't need to edit this, that's what Discord's for." Another Deus Ex Snapina, and the paper was neat and pristine. Suddenly, Twilight could actually understand everything that was written on it. "So, you need them all in a three hundred metre radius for this to effectively hit them?"

"Theoretically, but Discord can't just lock on and teleport them, their magic interferes with that. We need to gather them all together, somehow."

"But how can we do that?.. If magic won't work, maybe Rainbow Dash can herd them all together!"

Starlight bit her lip. "Do you really want to risk that? With those horn bolts flying around, she could get fried up there."

"Hmm... How about Applejack? She could wrangle them up with a lasso!"

"And potentially strangle them in the process?! You're a terrible parent, Twilight."

"Hey, I've only had less than a day's practice!" Twilight huffed as she moved to sit down, scarcely noticing the six presences in her castle moving further along the map. "Alright, so if Applejack can't do it, and Rainbow Dash can't either, what other options do we have left?"

Starlight raised a hoof as she finished off the rest of her drink before clearing her throat with all the gusto of an announcer. "Luckily, I've thought of a solution for that too. All we need is a really, really big kite."

Twilight squinted. Starlight's face remained deadly serious. She squinted some more. "Just how much have you had to drink?"

"That's not relevant, just hear me out. Babies love mobiles, right? They calm them. So imagine a really big mobile mobile, one that floated through the sky and got all the babies to follow it into one area? Not only would they be distracted from whatever mayhem they were causing, looking at it would make them docile, and a lot easier to cast the spell on!"

Twilight gave that around twenty seconds thought if only for how ludicrous it was. She couldn't think of any better option. "...alright, provided that somehow worked, where exactly are you planning to get a huge kite slash mobile with moving parts?"

Discord gave a little wave.

"Oh yeah. Right. Well, guess I'll go get Maud."

"Have fun! We'll be here!" Discord turned to Starlight with a grin. "A toast to Twilight and each of her glorious monsters! First one to stop drinking has to tell her what happened to Rarity's boutique!"

Twilight stood in the crater where Rarity's boutique had once been, looking out to the horizon. Shadowed by the setting sun was Maud, her gait as measured and emotionless as ever as she carried the mother of all kites between her teeth, the thing drifting high in the sky above Ponyville. According to all known laws of aviation, there was no way that it should have been able to fly, but Discord's kite flew anyway because it didn't care what ponies thought.

Coming up and around it from all directions were alicorn foals from each corner of the town, all of them seemingly mesmerised by its colourful and iridescent moving parts. They drew ever closer, and for a moment, Twilight began to wonder if everything was going to go off without a hitch, if they would simply calm themselves just from staring at it and the spell would be the easiest part of this long, tiresome day.

Then, the foals started to attack it. Flying up in formation and throwing themselves against it, blasting holes through it with their horns and tearing it with the edges of their oversized wings.

Twilight looked from the chaos over to a barely standing Starlight. "Cast it cast it cast it!"

"A-alright, lemme just—hic!—gimme a sec..." Starlight chose that moment and that moment precisely to fall over.

"Oh for pete's—Discord, can you make her sober please?"

Discord almost looked offended. "Twilight Sparkle, what you're asking me to do is the very antithesis of chaos, I can't in good conscience—"

Twilight's glare was sharper than a scalpel. "If you don't help me, I'm going to send you up there with the damn kite."

"Alright, alright, snap."

And as was probably no shock, Starlight suddenly appeared a good deal less inebriated. "Okay, ready." She stood slowly, stretching her legs out and angling her horn towards the gathering gaggle of foals before firing a steady stream of bright blue magic over the designated area. The magic from her horn formed into a cone that gently washed over each of the foals, slowly stripping them of their offensive, out of control magic and reducing them back to calm babies. It was only when the spell was in its final phase that they all simultaneously realised the big issue with their grand plan.

The foals couldn't use their magic anymore. They were dropping out of the sky like lead weights.

It was a mad dash to snag every last one of them in magic or limb before they fell a hundred metres, but through perseverance and a good measure of freakish Maud strength and agility, they managed to save every last one of them. Setting them down was like putting a great nightmare to rest, and once they were finally on the ground, safe, asleep, causing no more havoc, Twilight was finally able to appreciate just what parenthood really was.

Hell. It was hell on earth. But their adorable faces just about made up for it.

She could only shudder at what they might be like in adolescence.

Twilight, Starlight, Discord, and Maud looked over the scene, and each of them had an equal smile on their faces—even Maud. It was one of placidity, relief, and above all, exhaustion.

And then Starlight began to cry. She was looking down at the babies as they huddled together in their sleep, wrapping wings around one another and snuggling tight, a perfect scene and definitely a moving one, but it still struck Twilight as odd. Never had she known Starlight to be a crier, and now that she was openly shedding tears, Twilight couldn't help but ask why. "Starlight? Are you okay?"

A few more open sobs, and she finally stifled one. "Y-yeah, I'm alright, Twilight. More than alright, actually."

Twilight walked over to Starlight and gave her a short hug, feeling the fatigue in her own muscles just from taking a few steps after the adrenaline had finally left her body. "Then what's got you all worked up like this? We did it, Starlight, we saved all of them, and we stopped anything else from happening in Ponyville. Everything's going to be okay, I promise."

"I-I know, it's just..." A small chuckle as Twilight patted her wither. "I'm just so glad that I convinced you to pull out and finish on my face that night at the bar, that's all. Could you imagine if I'd ended up stuck with one of these things?"

Discord scooped the pair up in a tight, constricting hug. "Three cheers for emergency contraception!"

"They're not things!"