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Equestria Apocalyptica

Part 1 - The Ritual Begins

As the first trumpet sounded, I heard a voice like thunder say "Come and see!" I looked, and before me was a white stallion. On his flank was a bow, and on his head was a great, curled horn that was empty inside. His face was blemished by scars, and wherever he rode, ponies and animals would be struck with illness and plague, for his name was Pestilence.

And when the second trumpet sounded, I heard another voice shouting "Come and see!" Then another stallion emerged, with a coat as red as fire, with wings the color of shed blood, and a mane and tail of liquid flame. On his flank was a sword, and wherever he rode, nopony knew peace, and strife grew in his hoofprints, for his name was War.

Then the third trumpet sounded, and yet another voice called "Come and see." I looked, and there before me was a black stallion. On his flank was a set of scales, and his ribs showed through his hide, and an endless hunger burned in his sunken eyes. Wherever he rode, plants and crops would wither and die, and both ponies and animals would go hungry, for his name was Famine.

When at last the fourth trumpet sounded, one voice spoke quietly as a whisper. "Come and see..." I looked, and I saw a pale stallion, with bones between the feathers of his pallid wings, and a green flame burning on his horn. On his flank were a silver scythe, and wherever he rode, all life ended, for his name was Death - and oblivion followed close behind him.

Twilight Sparkle felt her mane stand on end as she translated the ancient book, word by word, and she felt her heart sink with each one she read. If only she had translated it earlier, maybe she could have done something - or at least put it before Princess Celestia, like she had done with the prophecy of Nightmare Moon. But if this was a warning, it was far too late. It had been weeks since the four trumpets resounded across the land - heard by everypony. Not long after, the refugees had begun to stream into Equestria from the neighboring lands, telling tales too horrible to contemplate... and yet, she had no choice but to do exactly that. And so she had burrowed into her library with fanatical zeal, searching desperately for any hint as to what was going on.

She had found it - but the knowledge brought only despair, not hope. The Four Stallions of the Apocalypse had been unleashed upon the land. Equestria, being a central kingdom, might not yet have been touched by their presence, but it was only a matter of time. Already, an ominous air was suffusing the kingdom, the Royal Guard was out in force, and the borders were closed. At first, Princess Celestia had welcomed the refugees and travelers who had come, fleeing the inexorable march of the Four Stallions, but then word of infectious diseases amongst the refugees began to spread... and a couple of close misses proved that it was no mere gossip. To protect her own people, Celestia had found no recourse but to shut her borders to all - and Twilight Sparkle knew better than anyone how much it pained the princess to have to make such a decision.

Thus, now more than ever, she was determined to help - someway, somehow. And that meant doing the only thing she knew how to do - research. However terrifying this prophecy was, it was SOMETHING - a place to start. Now, she just had to follow the thread of knowledge to something more useful. She glanced over her shoulder, and spotted Spike precariously carrying an immense stack of musty old books she had asked him to retrieve from the dankest depths of her library. He quietly deposited them next to her, and then returned to the shelves for more - moving quietly so as not to break her concentration. Only a few weeks ago, such a stack of books would have made him stagger and complain - but today, he did neither. The ominous air and oppressive fear that laid heavily over Ponyville had sparked a radical change in Spike's draconic physiology - not as radical, mind, as that time when he'd started mutating into a full-sized dragon, but very nearly.

His body had grown to what could best be described as 'adolescent' proportions, and his mind had apparently matured along with it. His tendency towards joking, napping and overeating had been replaced by a stubborn determination to help and protect his pony friends in any way he could. He spent half his time helping her with her research, and the other half playing watchdog for Rarity's shop - she wasn't entirely sure when, or IF, he slept. Rarity's growing affluence - owing mainly to Canterlot's nobility suddenly buying a lot more expensive dresses as they partied with a quiet desperation, trying to drown out the sound of the world collapsing around their ears - had made her a target for many of the poor, desperate refugees that had drifted into Ponyville, and there'd been several attempted burglaries and hold-ups - until word got around about her fire-breathing guardian. Twilight suspected that his entire change basically came down to some sort of defensive/protective instinct, but she didn't have the time to research it properly, and thus had no choice but to have faith that he was still her Spike, albeit a somewhat more helpful version.

With a sigh, she brushed those thoughts aside. She really couldn't afford to wonder about Spike's sudden ascend into puberty right now. The end of the world was knocking on Equestria's gates, and it was once again up to Twilight Sparkle to find a way out, while Princess Celestia was busy holding the terrified kingdom together. Already, she was diving into the 'forbidden' part of her library - books that Celestia had only begrudgingly allowed her to keep, and warned her not to explore until she was older and more experienced. But there was no time for such constraints and, with a mounting headache, she started translating her way through yet another ancient tome.

It was many hours later when she hit gold. Or, at least, something close enough for her desperate, sleep-deprived mind. Looking around, she realized that she was alone - Spike had slipped out quietly at some point, no doubt to protect Rarity and her home for the night. She wasn't even sure how late it was, beyond 'dark'. Around her were stacked the entirety of the oldest part of her library, faithfully carried there by Spike. And now, she had an idea of what to look for. The tome she was reading now seemed to indicate that the 'prophecy' she had first found wasn't a prophecy at all, but a first-hand account of an EARLIER apocalypse... which would indicate that someone had somehow SURVIVED it. Now she just needed to find out how.

By the time the sun started peeking above the horizon, she'd tracked it down. Perhaps the oldest book in her collection, bar none - badly worn and faded, and written in a language and script so archaic, she could only just barely make out bits and pieces of the text. But it was enough. The Four Stallions had run rampant across the world before, but one kingdom survived - and had thus become the origin of all the nations of today. Sweat beading on her forehead, she deciphered every letter she could. "Pale Death... most powerful and oldest of the four... fascinated with life, for he is its antithesis... a pure Princess offered up herself... body and soul... by her sacrifice, the Four passed her kingdom by." That was about all she could make out. The rest of the text was too fragmented, but seemed to suggest that the kingdom collapsed some years after the apocalypse - presumably due to losing all of their allies and trading-partners as well as their ruler - and its scattered ponies had formed new tribes that eventually grew into the modern kingdoms.

The thoughts raced in Twilight's tired head. If she brought this discovery to Princess Celestia's attention, the princess would no doubt go through with it - sacrificing herself for the good of the realm. But that would only lead to the same outcome as last time - without the Princess holding the kingdom together, it would collapse. That would lead to a loss of centralized organization... the final fall of civilization. It would all start over again from the bottom, with barbarian tribes forgetting the wisdom of their forebears. She couldn't allow that. Tiredly, she flexed her wings. They still felt oddly alien. She'd been a unicorn all her life... but her ascension to Alicorn-status was still recent. It had increased her magical powers, granted her the power of flight... and meant that she was, technically, royalty. A princess. An... EXPENDABLE princess.

Knowing what she had to do, and at peace with the determination that now burned in her heart, she opened another book and, using what she'd learned of the ancient kingdom, soon found what she was looking for. A ritual she wouldn't normally have been able to figure out what was for - it could only be performed by an Alicorn, and a cursory translation suggested that it would summon 'great misfortune.' But now, she knew what it was - a ritual to summon the embodiment of Death, so that one might bargain with him. It was not, however, a ritual she'd want to attempt in the middle of Ponyville, or after having been awake for something in the neighborhood of two whole days. Closing the book, she carefully hid it in case Spike or one of her friends wandered in while she slept, and staggered up to her bed, where she fell asleep before her head even reached the pillow.

When she awakened, the darkness was thick around her. It took her a moment to realize that she'd slept clear through the day, and a quick glance at her clock told her that the time was nearing midnight. Spike had apparently been around at some point, considering that she was nestled snugly under her covers, despite being quite sure she hadn't pulled them on herself - and the books she'd read through and discarded all across the floor of the library had been collected and returned to their proper place. Right now, however, she was alone - which suited her just fine. If any of her friends realized what she was about to do, they'd try to stop her, and she couldn't afford that.

Collecting the old magic-tome containing the summoning ritual, she started towards the front door. Then she reconsidered, and left through the upstairs balcony. She wouldn't put it past one of her friends to be keeping an eye on her door in case she discovered something important and suddenly came bolting through it shouting 'Eureka!' But alas, this discovery was one best kept... quiet. And she needed a remote and quiet place to do what needed to be done. Hovering in the chill night air, the light of a sickle-moon barely making the town around her visible in the darkness, she ran through the options in her head, and soon realized that there was a perfect spot within flight-range...

Her wings carried her swiftly across the gnarled trees of the Everfree Forest, towards an old, crumbling ruin which has once been a great and glorious castle... the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, to be specific. In ancient times, before Princess Luna had been corrupted by jealousy and turned into Nightmare Moon, it had been Equestria's seat of government. However, during the initial struggle between the sisters, most of it had been destroyed, and afterwards Princess Celestia abandoned the place to set up a new government at Canterlot. She and her friends had actually started an effort to restore the castle, but it had fallen swiftly by the wayside when conditions began to deteriorate.

And, for Twilight Sparkle, it was where everything began. There, she had discovered the Elements of Harmony, along with the Magic of Friendship, and fought to redeem Nightmare Moon. The perilous journey through the Everfree Forest and the crumbling castle had, in many ways, made her who she was. It almost felt like cheating to just fly right across the whole thing - but hey, she had wings now, and she was pressed for time. Dead ahead, emerging from the forest like the petrified stump of some immeasurably ancient and immense tree, loomed castle - its crumbling parapets marked by the passage of time, as well as the scars of battles both recent and ancient. It seemed a very suitable place indeed to summon the very embodiment of Death... and for her story to end. Few ponies got to have such a symmetrical life.

It was with such dark thoughts in mind that she flew through one of the bare windows, long-devoid of glass, into Luna's old throne room. This was the very spot where, on that fateful Day of Darkness, she had faced Nightmare Moon and found the Spark of Friendship within herself. Even now, looking across the hall, she could almost see it - Nightmare Moon, great and terrible, standing on the dais where once she had held audiences with those few who had sought her out. The Elements of Harmony, shattered at her hooves. And... her friends, dashing up the winding staircase to join her, not knowing or caring what dangers awaited. It had been the most glorious moment of her life.

But this time, nobody would be dashing to her rescue. She'd made sure of that herself. In the middle of the floor, surrounded by the vine-choked stone pillars that still endeavored to hold up the groaning roof (and would hopefully continue to do so for at least a little longer), she sketched out the Summoning Circle with her hooves, drawing arcane symbols around it, and filling them with magic from her horn. From the book, she then recited long-forgotten words that echoed ominously in the abandoned hall... and the circle began to glow with a sickly, blue-green fire.

There was a sound like tearing cloth, as if the universe was wrenching itself apart, and suddenly he was there. Standing in the midst of the circle, lit from beneath by the arcane fires. She found the sight difficult to comprehend. His mere appearance was frightening enough on its own - his coat was pale and sickly, seeming almost translucent, just as the old story had claimed. Bones peeked out between the feathers of his vast, pale wings. His mane and tail were as pale as to be practically invisible, seeming more like a vague mist than any physical thing. One thing the description of the Four Stallions had left out, however, were his eyes... empty sockets of seemingly bottomless darkness, with a single spark of greenish fire burning at their depth.

But while his appearance certainly was terrifying - it would've made for one kickass Nightmare Night costume - that wasn't what made the blood freeze in her veins, or her legs tremble with paralyzing terror. It was the sheer WRONGNESS of the creature before her. She could feel the aura of death around him, like an icy fog. The negation of everything that lived, from the mightiest alicorn down to the tiniest tick. And yet... unmistakably... he was ALIVE. She could see his flanks expand and contract as he breathed, tiny flickers of blue-green light emerging from the corners of his mouth and his nostrils as he did. His mist-like tail fluttered, his wing-feathers shook, and the way he folded his wings into his flanks as he looked at her with those empty eye-holes... it was just like a real, living pony, despite her every instinct telling her that he was the exact OPPOSITE of a living thing.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she suppressed her immediate, overwhelming desire to flee home and hide under her bed for the rest of eternity, and put all her willpower into preventing her voice from shaking as she addressed the inconceivably ancient, unthinkably powerful creature. "I have called upon you to strike a bargain. You are Death, yes?"

A smile flickered across the pallid lips of Death, and she could feel the greenish sparks of his eyes focus on him. His expression was... different from what she had imagined. Almost roguish. More like a boy plotting a splendid joke than an ancient being stoically accepting a sacrifice. When he answered her, another surprise... "So the ancient bargain is still remembered? How remarkable. You ponies have such short lives, I was all but certain that our last visit to this world would be entirely forgotten." She had expected his voice to boom ominously, like words from beyond the grave, or maybe resound like thunder the way Nightmare Moon's had... but instead, what emerged from the stallion's mouth was a pleasantly smooth baritone. Rather than make him less intimidating, however, it just added to the uncanny sense of 'wrongness' about him...

His voice continued smoothly. "You understand what you are surrendering, yes? The very core of your being, the source of life... it seems a big sacrifice for such a young filly." Twilight gritted her teeth and nodded. "You may take what you will from me, if only you and your brothers will pass this kingdom by." The pale stallion returned the nod, and a spark of green light burned at the tip of his tall, spiraled horn as the grin on his face grew wider. "Agreed. Equestria will remain untouched while the rest of the world burns." The green light in his eyes flared, and a pale, bloodless tongue emerged from his mouth to lick across his lips hungrily. "Now... perform the sacrifice! Offer yourself to me... turn around, and kneel!"

Even as he talked, the pale stallion started walking forwards, leaving the circle - it had never been designed to CONTAIN him, after all, for nothing COULD - and moving steadily towards her. She hesitated for only a split second before complying. She wasn't sure why she needed to turn her back on him for the ritual, though the kneeling was an obvious sign of submission - but then, there'd been quite a lot of detail missing from the account she'd read of the original sacrifice. With a wry grin, she closed her eyes. Even now, as her existence sped towards its ultimate end, she couldn't stop being a researcher, always striving for greater knowledge and understanding. How fitting that her last thoughts would be meaningless contemplation concerning the ancient ritual of sacrifice that she herself was at the center of...

She felt his presence hovering above her, and his forelegs brushing past her folded-in wings as they hit the stone floor in front of her shoulders. Her ever-active mind only had a split second to realize what sort of position he was putting himself in and how it fit together with the position he'd told HER to assume, before she felt an entirely unfamiliar pressure on her rear end. A sudden, sharp pain shot through her as her youthful vagina was forced open, and her tightly-closed eyes flew open in shock. Her mouth swiftly followed suit, but all that she could get out of it was a few grunts and stammers as she felt the unexpected intrusion push deeper into her until-recently-virgin pussy.

"What... what are you doing?!?" she finally managed to push out before another forceful thrust pushed her forwards into the cold stone floor, driving the air from her lungs. He lowered his head, positioning his mouth right next to her ear where she could feel his breath quite keenly - it seemed both hot and cold at the same time, like the feeling you got from touching something that was either scorching hot, or frostbite-inducingly cold. His bizarrely pleasant baritone voice rumbled in her ear, barely louder than a whisper. "Can't you tell? I'm reaching for the core of your being..." His powerful hindquarters bucked behind her, and she sucked in air as another spark of pain shot though her. "See? Can you feel it? The source of all life that rests within you... I'm right at its entrance..."

She could feel him leaning into her, pushing her into the floor with his weight and strength. He wasn't going any deeper, though. Inside of herself, she could feel him, pushing against something, applying a painful pressure to her internal organs. It was her womb, she realized. Virgin though she might have been, she'd studied every subject she could get her hooves on - including pony sexuality. She knew what her sexual organs were, and what they were for, even if the actual sensations involved were new to her.

And now that she thought about it... it actually didn't feel that bad. There was an unpleasant stretchy feeling throughout the length of her birth-canal as her young body sought to accumulate the fully engorged girth of a full-grown stallion, but other than the initial jab of pain from having her maidenhead broken, and minor ache from when he'd bounced off her cervix, it had actually felt somewhat pleasant. At least compared to what she'd EXPECTED to feel, namely a brief pain followed by a lot of being dead.

Now that he was standing still for a bit, and wasn't stretching open more previously-unviolated parts of her anatomy, she couldn't help but notice that the stretching sensation wasn't ENTIRELY unpleasant, and that there was a tiny, tingling sensation of pleasure radiating from her clitoris. It had, she realized, been pulled out of its hood by the friction when Death had thrust into her, and now rested against his shaft. She could feel his paradoxical heartbeat through it, and feel his strange hot-yet-cold body-temperature both there and deep inside.

He waited like that for about a minute, whether to let her get used to his size or for his own inscrutable reasons she wasn't sure. Then he began to move again. Slowly, deliberately, he pulled back as far as he could without actually stepping backwards, leaving less than half of her pussy still filled with his thick shaft. When he thrust forwards again - quite a bit faster and smoother this time than the first - he once again bounced painfully off of her cervix, and she dimly realized that she wasn't getting anything like his full length.

Caught by morbid curiosity, she glanced over her shoulder, through the space between their bodies, and saw his huge shaft - the same pale color as the rest of him - sticking out of her rear end. The thickness of it made her eyes go wide - it was nearly as far around as one of her LEGS, and she couldn't believe she'd managed to take it within herself with so little pain. As for the length... now that he was as deep inside of her as anatomy allowed, there seemed to be a good 10 inches between her pussy and his radial ring - which, she knew from her studies, was the point a stallion was SUPPOSED to go to.

And while that meant that her cervix was getting a decidedly unpleasant pounding, it at least seemed like he knew he wouldn't be able to fully penetrate her - he made no move to try and force the rest inside, or voiced any complaints as he gradually turned the long, slow thrusts into a regular rhythm. Twilight's breathing grew labored as she felt the unfamiliar, tingly sensation in her groin begin to spread, reaching her rapidly-racing mind and gradually pushing away the entirely reasonably question of how she'd managed to find herself kneeling on the floor of a crumbling castle getting vigorously fucked by the embodiment of Death.

It seemed like Death was increasing the speed of his strokes almost imperceptibly over time, and as the minutes crawled by, Twilight's breathing grew deeper and more intense as the pleasure overwhelmed her. Despite the growing pain she could feel radiating from her womb, the delightful sensations emerging from her clitoris and the rest of her pussy were as irresistible as they were unfamiliar, and before she knew it, she reached her first-ever orgasm - cumming with a quiet whinny as her eyelashes fluttered and her eyes rolled back in her head.

The pale stallion above her gave no sign of noticing or caring about the sudden flood of pleasure rolling through her system - he merely continued screwing her with both single-minded determination and slowly-increasing speed. With her otherwise-sharp mind entirely mixed up by the unexpected situation and the unfamiliar and overwhelming pleasure of the orgasm, Twilight began to lose her sense of time, and her sense of self. There was only her breathing, his breathing in her ear, the squelching sound of their sexual organs moving against one another - she'd started lubricating quite plentifully after reaching her first climax - and that constant, ever-increasing pleasure. Even the slight pain inside of her started disappearing as the constant pounding made her cervix go numb.

She came, again and again, forgetting the world around her. She didn't realize that she was pushing her hindquarters backwards, inviting the stallion behind her to fuck her harder and deeper, and she wouldn't have cared if she knew. A steady flood of pussy-juices were running down her thighs, pooling around her hooves and running into the grooves of the chipped flagstones that made up the floor. Her tail, which had been simply pushed aside by Death's initial advance, was now curled up along her back - the universal equine body-language for 'Fuck me please'.

Later, when her mind had recovered from the ordeal, she would make some calculations based on the movement of the stars visible through the yawning holes in the castle's stonework that had once been windows, and determine that her first-ever sexual encounter had continued for at least two hours - far longer than any mere mortal stallion could have lasted. But finally, long after she'd lost count of the number of climaxes that had shaken her young body, she felt his cockhead swell inside of her, taking on the characteristic backwards-bell-shape of an equine penis in the moment of orgasm. It filled the tight canal of her pussy completely, stretching it beyond the previous limit and ensuring that not a drop of the enormous load he now unleashed directly into her 'source of life' could escape.

She felt it pump into her, all the way from her tautly-stretched labia to her badly-battered, mostly-numb cervix. His cock jerked and bulged as the torrent filled her womb, stretching it as her vaginal passage had been stretched earlier. Soon it was pushing back against the flat surface of his cockhead, but the tightness of her young snatch ensured that there was not a single crack for it to bubble through. There was thus naught for her womb to do but stretch further, ballooning into an entirely unfamiliar size, making it a visible bulge on her midsection as she groaned on the floor. Finally, just as she felt certain that she would rupture from within, the flood stopped.

He continued to stand over her, his thick shaft still inside her, still rock-hard, still blocking her cervical sphincter with his flattened cockhead. She was only now conscious of the fact that his breathing had grown ever-so-slightly labored, but the thought found no purchase in a mind still flooded with the afterglow of more than a dozen orgasms. If it had, it would have been interesting to see which would cause the most consternation - the implication of him not being completely tireless, thus adding another discordant note of mortality to the physical embodiment of Death, or the fact that he could obviously keep going MUCH longer before he was anywhere near exhausted.

Finally, after a few minutes of rest, the pale-coated stallion took a half-step back - pulling his still-hard shaft out into the cool air. The flaring of the head had gone down, but the rest of it remained turgid and obviously ready for another ride. Meanwhile, Twilight's tender pussy remained invitingly open, pulsing slowly while a stream of thick spunk gurgled out of it - flowing straight from her womb, which finally had the ability to ease the pressure. Most of the sperm ended up caked in the short hairs of Twilight Sparkle's coat around her groin and thighs, though a fair amount also managed to gather in a pool between her hind-legs, mixing with the pussy-juice that had been building up there for a while.

Twilight didn't move - she was still too discombobulated by the events and the orgasms to think, let alone act. So she simply remained there, front legs bent and ass in the air, with her tail curled along her back in an open invitation, while her head rested on the flagstones and her eyes hung sleepily half-open. Then, Death stepped forwards, once again covering her body with her own - but this time, it wasn't her well-worn pussy he was aiming for. Instead, his cock - coated in a slimy mix of his own sperm and her lubricating juices - homed in unerringly on a small, brown hole above it.

Once again, his powerful forelegs came down in front of her shoulders like iron bars - and this time, they served a rather solid purpose, for while his initial deflowering of her had pushed her into the ground, the angle of THIS assault was more horizontal, and if those legs hadn't been there to stop her, it would've pushed her forwards onto her face. Her tiny, virgin asshole certainly put up a good struggle, but with her body jammed between his forelegs and the rampaging cock, it ultimately stood no chance. Protesting all the way, her sphincter gave way to the well-lubricated cockhead, reluctantly granting it entrance into the tight, dank tunnel beyond.

The resulting burning pain - nay, agony! - was sufficient to snap her out of her torpor, and her head flew upright as she grunted in pain, teeth grinding. "That's... not the way to my 'source of life'..." she gasped, her head clear enough to string the sentence together only thanks to that selfsame pain. Death merely chuckled next to her ear as a painful thrust of his powerful hindquarters pushed several more inches of his cock inside. "Close enough. And hey, if you got a problem, you're welcome to cancel the deal..." She gasped again, tears in her eyes as another couple of inches worth of icy-hot shaft was forced into her intestines. "No... no, it's... fine..." she struggled to get the words out as the pain in her rear mounted, entirely washing away the pleasure that had gone before.

He chuckled again. "That's a good filly. I take it whatever account of the past bargain you've found was... couched in ambiguous language, maybe a bit too florid? So I'll tell it to you straight... you want this deal to stand, you have to satisfy me with your body. And since I couldn't get all of my length into your pussy, I'll have to go THIS way instead." Another jab of his hindquarters, another couple of inches of burning agony spearing into her ass. "And you better believe... one way or another, I WILL keep going 'till my balls hit that poor little overworked pussy of yours."

Those crude words, spoken in such a smooth, charming voice, by such an august creature, made her mind boggle all anew. But along with the refreshed sense of discord came a gripping fear - her studies of pony anatomy told her that her lower intestine did indeed proceed relatively straightly past the point where the mouth of her womb marked the end of her useable vagina. But... generally not THAT much further. And if he honestly meant to force his full length into her - not stopping when he reached the radial ring, as was the norm - it would be more than just a tight fit.

But it wasn't as if he was offering her any kind of choice... except, of course, to tell him the deal was off, and then watch as Equestria burned around her. She'd gone into this fully expecting to sacrifice her life, and if she instead had to sacrifice her virginity, her dignity, and her intestinal integrity, then she'd do so. Even if the ordeal left her as a shattered wreck of a pony, it would be worth it - MORE than worth it. And so, she clamped her mouth shut against the screams, and simply whimpered as the colossally powerful creature behind her continued to force open her ass with his intruding shaft.

He had, by now, a solid 12 inches inside of her - and apparently, he considered that enough to shift tactics. Rather than just try to ram more into her, he pulled back a bit - causing her asshole to bulge out around his cock despite the abundant lubrication - and then forcefully thrust it back inside. The added inertia was quite effective at opening still more inches of a tight, hot orifice that had never been designed to accommodate something nearly as thick as one of her forelegs. And as he got deeper and deeper, he was able to add still more speed and power to the thrusts. Every time, her whole body was shaken as the energy shuddered through her, jamming her shoulders against his unwavering forelegs. And every time, she gritted her teeth and suffered through the pain.

Finally, she felt it - his radial ring. The pain in her sphincter was enormous at this point - as much as her intestine in general had been stretched, the sphincter still got the worst of it, for his cock got thicker and thicker towards the base. The radial ring added nearly an inch to the diameter, albeit briefly, and she felt it bounce off of her already-overstretched sphincter on one thrust. The next was the same way. It wasn't just a matter of thickness, after all - the radial ring marked the end of the stallion's sheath. While the shaft itself was smooth, if veiny, hide, the sheath was thicker and rougher, granting it a great deal more friction. So for a moment, Twilight Sparkle entertained the notion that the pale stallion had been exaggerating for effect when he threatened to ram his FULL length inside of her.

Then she heard him grunt. "Huh. Guess I need a bit more... lubrication." She felt a tingling around her still-open pussy, and looked back to see a stream of gooey liquid surrounded by a greenish glow rise from her pussy, to smear across his radial ring and sheath - the only part of his cock that remained visible. Her jaw trembled as she saw the reality of it. Past the radial ring, there was at least 7 or 8 more inches of sheath before her hindquarters would be too close to his underbelly to allow for further penetration. She was frankly amazed at how much he'd been able to fit inside her nubile young body already - for the past three or four inches, she'd expected every thrust to hit the sharp bend in her lower intestine that would effectively bar his way... with unpleasant consequences for her.

But beyond despair, there was nothing she could do but lower her head as he resumed thrusting, now aided by extra lubrication from her own source. Two more times, the radial ring bounced off her tortured sphincter, as the thrusts grew faster and more violent. Then, finally, it gave in, and the ring slipped inside along with the first half-inch of sheath. Its thick, rough hide ripped across her already badly worn sphincter like a cheesegrater, tearing a yelp of pain from her mouth despite her tightly-clenched teeth. It didn't help that, while not as thick as the radial ring itself, it was still a half-inch thicker than what had gone before - and she knew it would only get worse.

And it did - rather quickly. His next thrust pushed two more inches of shaft into her, and while it still didn't find the absolute depths of her asshole, the effect on the other end was bad enough. Between the stretching it had taken to accommodate the radial ring and the roughness of the surface that was now being forced past it, the imperceptible thickening of the shaft that came with those last couple of inches was just a touch too much. The overstrained muscles of the sphincter gave up, and an agonizing tear formed in the rim of it. This, finally, made her scream.

The pale stallion clucked his tongue. "So noisy... I suppose I'd best do something about that." A vile, greenish glow suddenly streamed from his horn, snaking around their intertwined bodies, and dove into the bleeding wound he'd just created. And just like that, the pain was gone. Not just from the new wound - all of it. The agonizing sensation of having her bowels stretched open was gone. She wasn't numb, however. She could still feel him inside of her. Feel herself stretched around him. Feel his pulse through the entire length of his cock, deep inside of her. She could even feel the blood trickling from the open wound in her sphincter, and the roughness of his sheath against her sphincter, her sensitive intestine, and even the raw tissue of the wound. It just... didn't hurt. At all.

"Death takes away all pain, child... you should know that." The whisper in her ear, for the first time, had an ominous tone to it. She found it oddly comforting, considering the dissonance his voice usually embodied. Then he began to move again, and she found herself suddenly moaning. With her sphincter torn, there was a lot less resistance for him to work against, and the blood probably added nicely to the lubrication, too. Without the pain, the feeling of having him moving inside of her, stretching her open, was remarkably similar to what she'd felt when he'd explored her pussy... too similar, almost. The familiarity was further enhanced when, finally, he hit something solid deep inside of her. It was the sharp bend in her intestine that marked the limit to how far he could go - only something thin and far more flexible could've continued past that point.

And, at the same time, she felt the hide of his underbelly brush against her tailbone - and heard a wet smack as his dangling ballsack swung forwards to hit her pussy. Somehow, her body had managed to contain his massive erection, if only just BARELY. He did not give her much of a chance to rest on her laurels, however. The rhythm he'd built up while gradually penetrating deeper and deeper inside of her was barely slowed - he just kept fucking her with the same enormous strength and endurance as he always had, though by now that included 'bout 7 inches worth of rough-skinned sheath stimulating her sphincter and the lowest part of her intestine, as well as a radial ring popping past her sphincter every time he pulled back or pushed in. And of course, his cockhead was smashing into the very depths of her being with significant force at the end of each thrust, sending a shudder through her internal organs, while his balls delivered yet another smack to her well-worn pussy.

A few minutes earlier, the combined sensation would have been torturous, and would've had her writhing and screaming in agony. But now that there was no pain... it was a different kind of torture. She could feel the pleasure building up inside of her, but with her clitoris untouched (albeit still proudly erect, out from under its hood, and vibrating slightly in the cool air) and her pussy only BARELY touched by the stallion's swinging balls, there was nothing to set it off. No release. Within minutes, she was on the precipice of an orgasm, but she couldn't get that last bit of the way there...

As the thrusts continued to pour into her ass, she remained there, struggling for that last bit she needed for release. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, as she found herself desperately pushing back against the stallion's huge cock in the hopes that it might impart her with just a BIT more stimulation. It only succeeded in pushing her somehow even CLOSER to an orgasm without quite giving her the ability to reach it, however. After half an hour of this torment, her lover finally seemed to notice it, and chuckled in her ear. "You know, I never said you couldn't... help yourself. You've got magic of your own, no?"

His words hit Twilight Sparkle as a flash. She'd never even considered putting her magic to such a... venal use, but at this point, she was far, far past any such concerns. Her horn glowed violet and a tentacle of magic reached from it, back across her shoulder, past the point where her ass met Death's cock with a wet, slobbery noise and repeated thuds, and down to her pussy. Being careful to keep it out of the way of the ballsack that was, after all, adding a LITTLE stimulation, she reached down to caress her clit... and instantly screamed out in a mind-shattering orgasm.

Rather than fall apart due to her shattered concentration, however, the simple spell was reinforced by her orgasmic thoughts, and the tentacle of magic thickened as it fastened itself over her sensitive, so-far neglected clit. As Death continued fucking her ass without any sign of slowing or stopping, the tentacle continued delivering magical stimulation to the tiny nub of nerves - ensuring that she remained caught in a nonstop chain of orgasms even more mind-bending than the ones she'd received when he plundered her pussy.

For hours, this carried on. Perhaps the 'mere' two hours Death had lasted in her pussy was down to millennia worth of blue-balling, or maybe he just enjoyed the way she writhed in ecstasy beneath him. Either way, it was nearly morning when finally, his cockhead swelled within her and a fresh load of cum began to pour into her ass. By this point, Twilight's voice had gone hoarse from screaming and moaning in endless orgasm, and her mind was a pleasure-blasted wasteland. Nothing existed there except the sensation of a huge, hot cock moving in her ass, a gentle slap against her pulsing pussy, and a radiating star of sensation from her clit. As he came - pouring what seemed like gallons of thick cum into the depths of her ass - her orgasms briefly intensified, leaving her tongue lolling from her mouth as she panted for breath.

As soon as he stopped cumming, he pulled out - not even waiting for his cockhead's flare to die down. On its way out, it stretched open the length of her intestines just a LITTLE bit further, sending one last orgasmic shudder down her spine before the thick shaft left her ass at last, closely pursued by a torrent of brown-stained cum. At this point, her hind-legs - which had been more than a little shaky for the past couple of hours - finally collapsed, as if the cock in her ass had been the only thing keeping her upright. With a splash, her groin landed in the pool of mixed sexual juices that had accumulated below it throughout the night, and she barely noticed the unwholesome mix soaking into her coat as she gasped for breath in the afterglow of several hours worth of nearly non-stop cumming.

The pale stallion, however, did not seem particularly inclined to let her rest, as he clopped around her prone form to stand in front of her, proudly displaying his still-hard fifth leg in front of her face. Looking up at it, she could only marvel at how all of that had gone inside her tiny body. "You're almost done, filly... just one more thing, and you'll have satisfied me." His deep voice was once again strangely comforting. His cock jumped slightly as the blood continued to pump through it. "My tool... it has been stained by you, right from the flare to the sack. Clean it. With your tongue and lips."

She tiredly crawled under his body to reach it, her mind still barely functioning after being blasted with pleasure for so long. She wasn't really acting out of duty by now, but rather, was simply obeying the order for lack of any will with which to contradict it. The thick shaft that hovered before her wasn't exactly DIRTY... she HAD gone to the toilet before heading out on her fateful trip, after all... but considering that she'd been there for most of the night already, and that this cock had spent most of that time buried deep in her ass, it wasn't exactly CLEAN either. And yet, she barely hesitated as she leaned forwards and ran her tongue over the still-flared cockhead.

A significant amount of cum was caked on the flat, slightly-slanted surface of the flared head, and her tongue collected it like frosting from a cupcake. The taste was odd - a bit salty, but with an underlying, almost sickening sweetness. She swallowed it eagerly, her stomach rumbling after a night of hard 'exercise' and no food. Then her lips closed around the tiny nub of the urethra, sticking out from the surface of the flare like a loose bit of tubing, and she sucked a half mouthful of cum out of it that hadn't quite made it out on its own.

With this out of the way, she started down the trembling shaft, carefully licking both above and below, and on both sides, cleaning off every square inch. Here and there, the taste was mixed with a sudden bitterness, but she was too hungry, tired, and pleasure-blasted to care. Once she passed the radial ring, the taste took on a more metallic tang as she cleaned her own blood off of the thick, rough skin, along with the thick mix of cum and pussy-juice that had been smeared on it as lubrication. Finally, after leaving the sheath dripping with her saliva, she moved on to the dangling ballsack, splattered with the contents of her pussy through repeated collision. She carefully cleaned the entire surface of the twin globes, sucking on the smooth skin that covered them, both the cum-spattered front and the unstained back - where she was mildly surprised to taste the salty tang of sweat, though she could not at the time think of why that was surprising.

Finally, with her task completed, she collapsed on the ground again, and looked up to find the pale stallion smiling ominously down at her. "You've done well. Dawn has reached us, now, and I am... satisfied. For now. But since you seem to have learned less than half of the whole story from whatever source brought you here, I'll gives you a heads-up as a courtesy... in three days, at the stroke of midnight, the second part of the ritual will commence here. At that time, I'll be with my brother, Famine, so you'd best bring an abundant appetite. And maybe a friend."

After that, she heard the clip-clop of his hooves as he returned to the magic circle she had sketched at the night's beginning, and she saw the green glow that heralded his disappearance. She didn't actually see it, though - she was too tired to turn her head. Too tired to get up. Too tired to do much of anything, actually. It had been an indescribably exhausting night for her, and now - finally - she could close her eyes and drift off to sleep, right there on the cold stone floor, lying in a puddle of sex-juices.

Twilight sparkle slept through the entire day, waking only as the sun dipped below the horizon. Her mouth tasted like a whole family of skunk had died there, in some particularly unpleasant way, and the by-now dried-up mix of pussy-juice and cum that covered most of her hindquarters had left her smelling like a randy goat... wearing week-old gym-socks. She badly needed a bath and some mouthwash, not necessarily in that order, but preferably at the same time.

She kept her mind focused keenly on the thought of those two things - and her nice, soft bed, which would be a very pleasant change indeed from having spent a whole day sleeping on a cold stone floor - as she spread her wings and took to the skies, heading back towards her home in the Golden Oak Library. It kept her from thinking about anything else for now. She couldn't afford a mental breakdown at this point. Her friends would have realized she was missing by now - they were probably searching for her already, and they'd get to the old castle eventually. She couldn't let them see her like this.

The thought of what 'like this' entailed made her briefly drop in the air as the trauma of last night froze her wings, but she forced herself to focus on her goals. Mouthwash. Bath. Food and drink. Bed. She wasn't sleepy, but she was still dead tired. She knew she had a lot to think about, but none of her books would help. So she'd do her thinking in bed. Her course steadied, and her wings continued to beat. Soon, Ponyville was in sight.

She landed on her upstairs balcony with exquisite care... and with good reason, as it turned out. Just inside, Rarity was sleeping - in her bed! Twilight swallowed something, and carefully walked around the bed towards the bathroom, putting down her hooves carefully, walking around boards she suddenly remembered - with startling clarity - were prone to squeaking. Rarity's breathing continued, steady and deep, behind her - but only when she (carefully) closed the bathroom door behind her, did she breathe a sigh of relief.

Then, she did a quick once-over of her cover-story, got into the shower, pulled the curtain, and started it. The hot water caressed her mane and flanks, washing out the sweat - both dried and fresh - the accumulated grime from spending most of 24 hours on the castle's floor. And, more importantly, the... residue covering her rear end. She was able to enjoy it for almost five minutes before she heard a hoof tapping on the door, followed by Rarity's hesitant voice. "Twilight Sparkle, is that you in there?"

Taking a deep breath, she forced casual cheer into her voice and replied. "Yes, Rarity, it's me." The door opened a crack, and Rarity stuck her hair through, carefully keeping her styled mane from catching on anything. Twilight's heart leapt a bit as she leaned her own head around the bath-curtain and saw the concern in her friend's eyes, but she kept her voice steady and a smile on her face. "Sorry if I woke you up - I noticed you sleeping on my bed when I got home. You looked exhausted." Rarity shook her head airily. "Don't worry about me, darling - we've ALL been worried SICK about YOU! Where HAVE you BEEN?"

Twilight's smile became almost genuine for a moment as she heard the familiar rise-and-fall tone of Rarity at her most melodramatic. "I'm sorry if I worried you... I just needed to clear my head and get some fresh air, you know? Too much time spent with too many dusty books. I needed to think. So I took a flight around the place... wound up getting lost in thought and going further than I'd intended, so it took me a while to get home - and BOY do I need a bath!" She rolled her eyes, simultaneously thanking the stars that she was a better liar than Applejack. Although, at least the LAST bit was pretty much on the money.

Rarity's face lit up in a smile. "Oh, that's wonderful! We all feared something had happened to you... what with all the... types running around here these days." She sniffed, and Twilight winced internally. After the break-in attempts, Rarity's attitude towards the refugees had become uncharacteristically severe, but this was hardly the time to discuss that with her. Apparently not noticing her reaction, Rarity carried on. "Spike in particular was devastated, the poor dear. He kept saying that if you'd been kidnapped or hurt while he was away, it would be his fault for not being there to protect you. He's been running all over the place searching for you... well, of course, we ALL did!"

Twilight winced visibly this time and looked at the floor. "I'm sorry I caused so much trouble..." That, at least, wasn't a lie. Rarity just nodded. "It's okay, darling... I'll tell the others that you're back, safe and sound, so they can call off the search! Oh... and is there anything you need, before I go?" Her warm smile exemplified the Element of Generosity that she so beautifully embodied, and Twilight found herself nodding before she could think not to. "Well... actually, I could use some food and drink. I haven't eaten since yesterday, now that I think about it!" At least nothing she'd care to remember, she added internally - the image of a thick shaft covered in suspicious goo suddenly popping up in her mind, sending a shiver down her waterlogged mane.

It was several hours later when she finally got to the end of her original 'list of priorities' - climbing into bed to think. Rarity had fetched her a small feast, and the rest of her friends along with it. They'd all wanted to see her to make sure their fears had been unfounded, and had wound up sticking around to eat and chat - something they'd done far too rarely as of late. Fortunately, by then, Twilight had washed off all visible signs of the previous night's ordeal - and while eating, drinking and spending time with her best friends, it had been almost disturbingly easy to repress all memory of it, laughing along with the rest of them.

It was only now that she was alone (well, mostly - Spike was downstairs cleaning up after the party, having refused to leave her side yet) did it all hit her. Under the covers, she sobbed quietly, curled up in a fetal position as the trauma of what she'd gone through finally hit her. She'd performed an arcane ritual expecting to sacrifice herself, sure - but she had envisioned something swift, possibly painful, certainly spectacular... what else might happen when you offer yourself to Death Himself as a sacrifice? But things hadn't worked out that way, and the things she'd done - and had done TO her - made her young mind reel.

But gradually, her shivers receded. Things hadn't turned out as planned, certainly. But Death HAD agreed to pass Equestria by, which meant that she's met her goal - keeping her home and her friends safe. And while the experience had certainly been humiliating, it had not been... ENTIRELY unpleasant. Certainly, she remembered the horror of feeling a large, heavy body forcing her into the ground, pillaging her body, taking her by force... and the pain of having her sphincter pushed open and bloodily torn... but she also (dimly) remembered hours of mind-bending pleasure. And the pain was gone. Even now, hours afterwards, she could feel the damage he'd wrought on her ass - the tear in the edge, the stretching, the internal pounding - but it didn't HURT.

And she could also still feel a tingling in her pussy as the memory of the experience ghosted through her mind. It had been uncomfortable, painful, and above all else HUMILIATING - especially the last part - but she'd ultimately spent the majority of the time enjoying herself, and she WAS still alive, which had to count as a fairly large plus.

Uncurling her body, she let her head poke out from under the covers and stared at the ceiling as she replayed the last words of Death... what she'd gone through was only the FIRST PART of the ritual. In 3 days, it'd happen again, and apparently, one of the other 4 Stallions of the Apocalypse would be there as well. She had little doubt about the implications by now. The 'sacrifice' she had made for the ritual was to surrender her body to the entertainment of the Pale Stallion - if the second part involved both the Pale Stallion and the Black Stallion, then that almost certainly meant that she'd be called upon to 'entertain' BOTH of them.

And handling even one had brought her to the brink of complete exhaustion. She'd basically collapsed as soon as Death was done with her. If there'd been two of him... the thought sent shivers down her spine, but oddly enough, the shiver seemed to stop somewhere between her hind-legs. Just a single stallion had brought her so much pleasure... having TWO of them going at her in the same way... what would that be like? Absentmindedly, she let one of her front hooves slip down between her hind-legs, and started playing with her pussy. It was still sensitive from the beating it had taken the night before, but her abused clitoris had at least managed to retreat under its hood. Gentle sensations of pleasure rolled through her as she continued to think and plan her next move...

In the end, there wasn't much she could do. If she was to save Equestria, she'd have to carry through with the ENTIRE ritual. So 3 days later - well, 2 days by now - she'd return to the castle in the dead of night. Death had suggested that she 'bring a friend' to lighten the load on her, but there was no way she was getting anyone - least of all her precious friends - involved in this. SHE was the sacrifice. She'd do it by herself.

To avoid suspicion, she told her friends that the 'flight' the day before had done wonders for her concentration, and that she might take another one in a few days, so not to worry if she disappeared for a day or so. She then threw herself into her research again with theatrical zeal in order to prove it. Of course, there wasn't really much point in further investigating the Four Stallions - she'd already mined all her sources dry on that one, and learned enough to know that her present course of action was the only one that might prevent utter annihilation.

So to keep up appearances, she instead set about studying something she'd previously pushed aside - Spike's sudden 'growth'. When the present state of emergency had first begun to sink in, Spike had started growing into larger, more muscular proportions, resembling the adolescent dragons that she and her friends had seen during a 'study trip' to a dragon-colony some time ago - and his temper had taken a turn for the serious. Both she and her friends had initially been afraid that he would, like in an earlier incident, proceed to grow into a full-sized dragon and wreak havoc - but it hadn't happened.

Based on both that earlier incident - where greed had resulted in the transformation - and this one, Twilight Sparkle was coming to the conclusion that the growth and size of a dragon had far less to do with age than with external factors. Now that she took the time to run through some proper sources and tomes - including some of those ancient, forbidden ones that she'd dug out of the archives while searching for information on the apocalyptic stallions - she was able to transform that vague theory into a solid understanding of what was going on.

Dragons, it seemed, were creatures of instinct, and their bodies followed their minds. When Spike had become obsessed with a desire for physical wealth, his body had transformed into the most suitable one for hoarding such wealth - that of an 'adult' dragon - and he's gained a mindset to match. But the present tension had triggered a different instinct - a protective one. He wanted to protect his 'nest' - his friends - and his body had responded. His present form was muscular, agile and flight-capable (having grown set of functional, bat-like wings), while still being compact enough to, well, FIT in Ponyville. He was also tall enough to look down on even the biggest stallions in the village, thanks to his bipedal stance, which made him a rather effective intimidator. And, of course, his mindset had been adjusted to suit his instinct, too. There was little room for childish games in the head of a dedicated protector.

Based on her research, however, it seemed likely that his body's transformation into the draconic equivalent of adolescence would have also triggered... OTHER instincts. As had, indeed, been the case when he turned into an 'adult' - even while collecting wealth, he'd also gone out of his way to abduct Rarity, the girl he'd been pining for since they first came to Ponyville. And now, he was spending half his time protecting that same Rarity.

Just a couple of days ago, she wouldn't have been able to wrap her head around it, but she'd been rather forcibly matured, and now... she got it. And she wasn't worried. Spike probably had certain desires now, but his protective instinct would override it. He wouldn't try to force himself on Rarity, or anyone else. On the other hand, he MIGHT proposition her... if that was the right word. Which might cause some ripples in the close-knit circle of friends, to say the least. The problem bounced around in her head for a bit, and she was stunned by the first solution that it hit...

Spike WAS her responsibility, after all. She'd always looked after his needs. If he had NEW needs, then... well, she should really look after those for him, too. If his equipment was proportional to his newfound size it shouldn't offer any logistical problems, and his lean, muscular frame suggested a pleasant combination of strength and staying-power...

Images of Spike bent over her back, his tail swaying as his hips pumped, sweat on her flanks and a moan on her lips, popped into her mind as clear as crystal. Angrily, she shook her head, banishing the idea along with the images. While that approach MIGHT keep Spike from suggesting anything problematic to Rarity, it was hardly what one might call a wise course of action. Clearly, her newfound 'worldliness' was making her seek sexualized solutions to mundane problems. And ultimately, there might not BE a problem for much longer - once the ritual was complete, the Apocalypse would sweep around Equestria, finish scouring the rest of the world... and then it'd all be over. No more state of emergency, no more Guard-Dragon Spike.

With that conclusion reached, the spent the next day covertly slacking off - making sure she got plenty to eat, that she stayed hydrated, and that she was well-rested. The following night would be the second part of the 'Ritual', and she had no illusion that it would be rough - so she did all she could to make sure she'd be ready. As nightfall approached, she casually told Spike that she might head off on another flight early in the morning, so not to worry if she wasn't there when he came back from his guard-duty at Rarity's store. The look he gave her was both severe and worried, but he nodded. "All right, Twilight - if you say so."

She waited for an hour after he'd left, to let the darkness outside deepen. She still didn't want anyone to notice her flight, or the direction she left in. Fortunately, it was cloudy tonight, hiding both the moon and the stars, leaving Ponyville cloaked in oppressive darkness. Then, she once again set off from her upstairs balcony - across town, across the Everfree Forest and towards the crumbling ruins of the castle. She noticed something on the way... an absolute silence that lay across the forest like a dense fog. The forest, everyone knew, was filled with insects and animals, many of them quite dangerous. Even at this hour, the sound of the night-hunters and the nocturnal insects should be buzzing up from it. It had when she first flew across it, three nights ago. But now that she thought about it... when she'd flown home the next evening, it had been silent too. She'd just been too tired to notice. Perhaps the beasts of the Everfree Forest had sensed the creatures that had emerged - and would soon emerge again - in their midst... and fled. Sensible of them.

But she couldn't afford to be sensible, or to let a midnight-dark, creepily-quiet forest scare her off. The promised hour was fast approaching. Soon, she once again winged her way into the crumbling room that held so much history for her by now. It was easy to spot, even in the darkness, for a vague, greenish glow was rising from the floor. Not a strong light by any measure, but on a night like this, it was like a beacon. The light came from a circle on the cracked flagstones, slowly forming on its own, expanding from a simple circle to an elaborate magical construction. It was, of course, the one she'd created three nights earlier - a gate for the heralds of the Apocalypse, albeit now being opened from the other side.

As the circle continued to inscribe itself, she sought to distract herself from the emotions now welling up inside her by looking around the chamber and considering what she knew about it. Based on what she'd read in Luna and Celestia's journal, this had apparently been Luna's personal throne-room back in the heyday of the castle - less grand than the main throne-room where the sisters had been enthroned side-by-side, but still a nice little place where the Princess of the Night could welcome more personal visitors. There had been a similar room for Celestia's use, of course... but that one had been destroyed during the battle that followed Nightmare Moon's initial rise.

It was to this room that Nightmare Moon had teleported - perhaps purely on instinct - after she'd stolen the old Elements of Harmony from her. And it was here that she had faced their terrifying Nightmare Moon along with her friends and seen her fall... and the resurrection of the kind Princess Luna. Whether because of the frightening memories that lingered here, or just out of instinctive respect for the history that lay thick there, the restoration-efforts that she and her friends had started pouring into the castle before the present state of emergency altered their priorities had never reached this room.

The circle was nearly complete. The midnight hour was nearly upon her. And the feelings that fluttered through her stomach were rising to a crescendo. What she felt frightened her... because she WASN'T afraid. Or rather, she was, but not much. Instead, she felt... excited. Eager. She felt DESIRE. The sensations that had washed over her three nights hence, bombarding her young mind with pleasures she hadn't realized existed... she wanted to feel like that again. But it was all wrong! She was here to sacrifice herself for the good of Equestria, not to feel good!

Her inner conflict was pushed aside as the circle finally completed itself, and in a flash of green fire, the Pale Stallion, Death, stood before her again. As he walked out of the circle, the flame that burned in the magic circle changed color, becoming suddenly blacker than the moonless night outside - and yet, somehow, they continued to spread an odd light in the room. The flames roared high, and flashed... and the Black Stallion appeared in front of her too.

He was lean, all right, but he somehow seemed less emaciated and more... in SCARILY good shape. There clearly wasn't an ounce of fat on him, and his lean, sinewy muscles could be seen working under his taut hide as he moved out of the circle. A golden set of scaled was on his flank, and gleamed strangely in the black light. His face, however... the sunken eyes burned with hunger. His broad grin - showing starkly-white teeth that had clearly never been used - was the hungry smile of a starving predator that had just spotted a lamed doe. He had no horn, no wings - but it was obvious at a glance that neither the world of magic nor the cloudy skies were beyond his reach.

"Ah... what a tasty morsel I see before me... my brother's tale did not do you justice." A cold shiver ran through Twilight. Death's voice had been mysteriously pleasant, and creepy simply by NOT being creepy. Famine, apparently, went for a more classic 'just plain creepy' vibe. His voice was rough and gravely, like a pony who had not drunk a drop of water in days, and carried a strange, whistling undertone.

"She is beautiful indeed... though 'tis a shame she came alone." Death's jarringly pleasant baritone replied as he shook his pale head in mock sadness. "I fear she has underestimated us. You think dealing with two of the Stallions of the Apocalypse would be merely twice as strenuous as one? Foolish filly." His grin was thoroughly unpleasant. "We are part of a greater whole, not simply individuals. We are more than the sum of our parts. The more of us stand in one place, the greater our power." He sighed and looked out one of the broken windows at the cloudy skies beyond. "I guess War and Pestilence will be disappointed. You will not survive this night alone."

Twilight was just trying to parse the implications of his statement concerning the last two Stallions of the Apocalypse, when a clear, familiar voice rang out through the chamber. "She is NOT alone!" The dramatic rhythm was unmistakable, and even before her eyes sought the source of the voice, she knew what she'd see. Rarity, her white coat displaying a mystic radiance in the light of the black flames, midnight-blue mane and tail flawlessly styled as she strode into the room, head held high. She swore under her breath. How had Rarity found her? What was she DOING here?

The two ancient stallions in the room simply stared at her with raised eyebrows as she cantered across the room, nose in the air, to stand at Twilight's side. She opened her mouth to ask her friend the question that was foremost on her mind, but then closed it again. She was no fool - she could figure it out herself. Her 'acting' apparently hadn't been as good as she thought. Rarity had noticed something off about her after she returned from her first ordeal. Spike had no doubt told her about the second trip, and she'd decided to covertly pursue her to find out what she was REALLY doing.

"Are you okay, darling? I don't know what you're doing here, but I WON'T let you do it ALONE!" It was Rarity who broke the silence, giving Twilight a glance that contained equal parts concern and sheer stubbornness. Twilight tried to come up with a decent reply, but could only manage a wan sigh. The two stallions, meanwhile, was looking appraisingly at Rarity. "Well, now. I suppose that changes things. Two for two. You might make it after all." Famine's voice rasped, as he turned to wink at his pale-skinned brother. "I take it you want the new one? She's just your color... and you know I don't mind sloppy seconds." Death nodded graciously. "Well, if you're sure... I certainly WOULD enjoy breaking her in. I'm sure our dear Twilight will provide you with suitable entertainment, too, after all the practice she got last time."

A look of consternation was growing on Rarity's face as the two stallions divided them up as if they were cupcakes on a tray, and Twilight could see her front legs begin to shake. "Umm... Twilight, dear, would you mind terribly bringing me up to speed?" she asked shakily, her over-long eyelashes fluttering. Twilight sighed again. "You shouldn't have come, Rarity. Go back to Ponyville, please! I came here knowingly, to sacrifice myself for the good of all Equestria! There's no need for you to suffer too." Rarity blinked. "Sacrifice? Suffer? Aren't we supposed to FIGHT those ruffians?"

A neigh of laughter emerged from the two stallions, and Twilight winced. "FIGHT them? They are the embodiments of Death and Famine, respectively. More ancient than the world itself. They CAN'T be defeated, only... mollified. Appeased. I found out about an ancient ritual to do just that. You... don't want to know what it entails. Just run, and don't look back. And don't tell anyone!" She looked at her friend with pleading eyes, and for a moment, Rarity seemed to be on the brink of complying, her eyes seeking the stairwell she had first emerged from. Then Death spoke again, his baritone rolling across them in a way that was far too pleasant for the words it carried.

"That's all very touching, but I feel I would be remiss if I didn't provide you with... full disclosure. Frankly, I would've thought this obvious, but apparently you still haven't figured it out. There are FOUR parts to this ritual, and only when all four are completed will Equestria be spared. If you die tonight - which you will, if you seek to satisfy the both of us alone - the ritual ends there. And Equestria will fall like all the other kingdoms - to Pestilence, to War, to Famine... to Death. And Oblivion will take it."

Rarity's legs stopped shaking. She gritted her teeth, and glared at Death. "I do not know what this 'ritual' is about - but I WILL stand with my friend, and endure it by her side! If she can sacrifice herself for Equestria, then so can I!" Twilight, meanwhile, was paralyzed by indecision. On one hand, she wanted to get her friend to safety, even if she had to FORCE her. On the other hand... if she bit off more than she could chew and wound up dead, it would all be for nothing. Then Rarity would perish anyway, along with the rest of her friends, and her kingdom.

Ultimately, she could say only one thing. "Rarity... I'm sorry you have to go through this. I never intended for anyone else to get involved." Rarity just nodded. Then Death's voice rang out again. "Splendid. Then let the ritual commence! Both of you... turn around, and KNEEL!" Twilight took a deep breath and complied, as she had the first time. She could tell Rarity what was about to happen to her... warn her. Her friend clearly still didn't understand what this 'ritual' was all about. But what difference did it make? It was too late to keep her out of it. She'd learn, the same way SHE had.

Seconds later, Twilight felt the familiar looming presence of a stallion above her, and a pair of jet-black forelegs landed in front of her shoulders. She wondered how Famine would differ from Death. Dimly, she recalled Death saying - before he'd left, 3 nights ago - that she should bring a 'hearty appetite', but she couldn't make any sense of that. For now, though, the sensation of her labia being pushed apart by a stallion's invading member was entire familiar... and not entirely unpleasant. Last time, she'd been a virgin, and the initial stretching her vagina had endured had been somewhat painful. Of course, she wouldn't feel any pain at this point regardless, but she rather suspected she wouldn't have anyway.

From what she could feel, Famine was just as big as Death had been, at least in girth, and he wasted no time plumbing the depths of her pussy. The soft walls of her birth-canal strained around the thick, veiny shaft, caressing it as it pushed deeper and deeper - but all too soon, it reached the end of the line. As before, her cervix stopped him in his tracks while leaving much of his shaft still out in the cold - something that a quick glance over her shoulder could easily confirm.

Famine appeared unconcerned about this, however, and merely began pumping his hips, using as much of her limited depth as he could manage. Like Death before him, he didn't bother to exercise any restraint, and the rapidly-accelerating thrusts poured through the length of her pussy to strike the cervix beyond with bruising power. Last time, it had taken quite a bit of time before the pleasure of the continuous vaginal stimulation (and, more importantly, a clitoris pulled into direct contact with his cock by the sheer tightness of her pussy) overwhelmed the resulting pain, and pulled her into a world of pleasure...

But tonight... she felt no pain. Her pussy wasn't as tight as it had been before, and her clit - while erect and eagerly peeking out from under its hood - wasn't getting any direct contact. Nonetheless, she was moaning gently after only a handful of strokes, the heat in her loins rapidly rising to sweep away her concerns and worries. The by-now familiar pleasure rose to caress her mind and body, and already she could feel the first edges of an approaching orgasm. As her breathing grew heavier, she relaxed her body, surrendering entirely to the pleasure - and to the rutting stallion above her. This was a necessary sacrifice, for the good of all... but there was no reason - no reason whatsoever - why she shouldn't ENJOY the process.

She was only dimly aware of the groans and shrieks of pain and surprise coming from her right. Glancing over, she could see the pale form of Death bent over her friend, Rarity. The colors of their coats complemented each other rather nicely. Rarity's expression was one of shock, and tears were running from her eyes - ruining her as always elaborate makeup. But Death, of course, would not be dissuaded. His hips were bucking, pushing his turgid shaft ever-deeper into Rarity's pussy - and by the looks of things, Rarity had just as little experience with such matters as she'd had until 3 nights ago.

As the pleasure rose in her like a raging tide, she found herself strangely fixated on the sight of her friend's brutal rape. Just a few nights ago, SHE had been in exactly that place. She remembered it well, including the unfamiliar pleasure it had brought her. Seeing the whole thing from the outside - watching the way Rarity's flanks labored futilely to pull away from the invading member and the pain it spread through her no doubt inexperienced pussy - was strangely arousing. She knew without shadow of a doubt that before long, Rarity too would find a rising pleasure overtaking her pain and despair. Soon, they would be moaning in pleasure together.

For now, though, her own first orgasm of the night - which she felt confident would be only the first of many - was finally cresting, like a wave preparing to hit the shores. But just as the familiar burst of climactic light exploded through her brain, she felt something unexpected... the rapidly-thrusting cock inside of her had stopped. And the head was swelling, flaring. Something thick and hot was pouring into her womb, filling it. Expanding it. The sensation redoubled her orgasm, leaving her writhing on the very peak of pleasure for several endless seconds, and it was only after it started to recede that she was able to consider how odd that was. Death had lasted easily HOURS, but Famine hadn't been fucking her for more than maybe 10 MINUTES. Could he really have such poor staying-power?

Her speculations were brought to naught, however, when he started to move again. His flare had softened, but not disappeared, and its edges were now raking delightfully across her insides. Meanwhile, the cum was leaking out of her womb, coating every inch of her vaginal canal as the bell-shaped cockhead pulled back, only to get smeared all over when it drove back in. The sounds emerging from her rear end were rapidly escalating from 'sexual' to 'obscene', and she could feel thick droplets of escaped cum rolling down the inside of her thighs.

Soon, she was rising towards a fresh climax, carried rapidly towards it by a host of unfamiliar sensations. Foremost amongst them was the feeling of her cum-filled womb being repeatedly jostled by the thrusts, making its gooey filling slosh around like punch in a bowl. A really thick, slimy, sticky sort of punch, mind. She was vaguely aware that she wasn't the only one moaning by now, though, and glanced over at her friend to confirm that her prophecy had indeed been fulfilled. Rarity had stopped her futile attempts to escape from Death's tender ministrations, and her eyes were half-closed by now as she panted for air. As Death smoothly thrust into her, visible shivers ran down her flanks, and every other time he bottomed out, a small moan would escape her lips.

A smile curled Twilight's lips as her second orgasm arrived. It was so nice to do things together with your friends. Then the fresh orgasm washed over her, and as her mind blanked out, it happened again. The stallion standing above her froze in his tracks, and as the thrusting stopped, the spurting began. No more than 15 minutes after the last one had filled her, a fresh load of cum pumped through the thick shaft, blasting into her already half-filled womb. The intensity of the stretching sensation burst through her mind like a beam of light, deepening her orgasm. And even while her womb ballooned into a small, hard bulge on her abdomen... there was no pain.

Once Famine's flare receded again, and he began to move, the accumulated contents of her womb was more than just eager to escape. By then, her pussy had been loosened enough for it to slip around the edges of the shaft in more than just the occasional drop, and high-pressure jets of sticky jizz were soon bursting out around her labia to arc through the air. The arcs would grow longer whenever he thrust into her, and turn into more of a gooey waterfall when he pulled out - but she didn't bother looking at it. She was too busy enjoying the indescribable sensation of having the pressure inside her pussy increase with every thrust, as his flat cockhead compressed the vast quantities of cum ahead of it.

It continued like this for over an hour. Every time she climaxed, Famine would follow suit, and yet another huge load of cum would be forced into her already-overflowing orifice. And even as the mounting pressure allowed said cum to escape with increasing ease (and speed), it also gradually forced open her insides. Her abdomen arched down like that of a pregnant mare by now, jiggling with every thrust - and while she could not see it, inside of her, something else was being stretched. The high-pressure stream of cum that emerged from her womb every time Famine pulled his cock back was pushing open her cervical sphincter, the muscle there already in poor condition due to the pounding they'd received during both the previous session and this one.

Towards the end her womb had been forced open enough that, when Famine stopped moving with his cock fully embedded inside of her, the very tick of his flared cockhead was actually poking into her cervix rather than just bouncing off of it. The final load - as huge as all the rest - thus blasted straight into her already overstretched womb with no chance to escape around the edges. She could feel the enormous strain as her bloated uterus pushed against both the smooth skin of her abdomen, and her internal organs. Her bladder (which, fortunately, she'd had enough foresight to empty before she left home) was completely squashes, and her breathing was labored as the massive, cum-filled balloon pushed against her lungs.

The pain, had she been able to feel it, would have been blinding - paralyzing. While a mare with foal would have her uterus expand more than that, it would happen over a period of months, not in the space of less than an hour. Her internal tissue was strained to the limit. And she was cumming harder than ever before. Since her mind could not read the intense sensation as the pain it should rightly be, it instead reached her as pure, mind-bending pleasure. Lost in it, she hadn't even noticed that the moans emerging from her neighbor had turned into screams of agony. Death had followed the same pattern as before, and switched to exploring Rarity's virgin asshole.

But finally, after that last load had been deposited, Famine pulled out. His cock was still rock-hard, and covered in a thick layer of his own spunk - a layer that only got thicker when his retreat was closely followed by a fat stream of high-pressure cum emerging from her finally-unblocked pussy. She panted as she felt her womb empty itself, compressing back down to something approaching its old size while huge quantities of thick spunk burst from her rear end. Her buttocks, her thighs, her legs... they were all completely covered.

She was only mildly surprised when, instead of forcing his well-lubricated shaft into her asshole like Death had done when he tired of her pussy, he walked around her and presented his shaft to her face. It was utterly covered in a ropey mess of white goo, dripping from every part of it. He didn't say anything - merely grinned down at her - but she knew what he wanted, and complied. With her lips and tongue, she began to clean the messy layer off of his cockhead and shaft, starting from the top and working her way down.

It was an interesting experience for her. Last time she'd cleaned a cock, she'd been completely blitzed out on several hours' worth of bone-shatteringly intense orgasms, and while she wouldn't exactly refer to herself as 'clear-headed' right now either, she was at least a tad more conscious of the world around her. Of course, the last cock she cleaned had just spent several hours soaking in her ass, so not being all there for it was probably a good thing. This one, however, had no suspicious brown spots - it was mostly just cum, thinned with a bit of her own pussy-juice.

The taste was... salty and bitter, with an undertone of sour-cream. Not unpleasant, really, which was a good thing considering how much of it she had to gulp down. Most of the huge shaft seemed to have an inch-thick coating of it, and whatever didn't go down her gullet, wound up covering her face and mane. Even the dangling ballsack - which hadn't been anywhere NEAR her pussy, considering that several inches worth of shaft had never managed to enter her - had a thick coating of the stuff on its front, courtesy of the high-pressure jizz-jets that had been shooting out around the shaft for much of the session. Of course, when she cleaned that, she did the whole surface - and found herself once again struck by the uncanny 'lifelike' traits of the stallions. Only the front of the sack tasted like cum, having been coated in it. The rest of it tasted like... sweat. He'd worked up a sweat fucking her. Somehow, that was just WRONG.

She didn't have much time to contemplate the oddity of an immortal, nigh-omnipotent avatar of starvation, drought and famine being capable of sweating, however. Once she'd cleaned his balls to his satisfaction, he nimbly jumped backwards and swung one of his legs over her back, catching her between his legs and pinning her wings close to her body. His cockhead - still dripping with her spit - was now dangling right in front of her face, looking imposingly large despite the absence of a flare. "Open up, little filly... it's time for you to be fed..." Famine's voice was as gravelly and ominous as before, and with a shudder, she complied.

The cockhead barely fit in her mouth. Her tongue was jammed against her jaw as the frontal ridge pushed across it, and seconds later, it was muscling into her throat. After taking several deep breaths, she tried to relax her throat-muscles, suppressed her gag-reflex with a twitch of sheer willpower, and opened her jaw as far as it could go. With a pop, the large cockhead entered her throat, forcing it open and creating a visible bulge on her neck. More of the shaft soon followed as Famine jerked his haunches in much the same way Death had done when he first stretched open her rear holes. The breath whistled in her nostrils as she fought desperately to keep the air flowing through her compacted windpipe, squeezed half-shut by the overstuffed esophagus.

Standing the way she was, her esophagus was perfectly straight - all the way to her stomach. And Famine seemed determined to take full advantage of every last inch of it, pushing deeper and deeper until the bulge on her neck disappeared past her collarbone - and beyond. She could feel the thick shaft thrumming in her throat, feel the beat of his paradoxical pulse through it... and thanks to Death's perverse 'blessing', she couldn't feel the pain of her overstretched throat, laboring lungs, or nearly-unhinged jaw.

Famine didn't stop until his balls nestled gently against her lower jaw, while her horn poked into his abdomen right above the root of his cock. At that point, her mouth was wrapped around several inches worth of sheath - which had gone mostly untouched during her earlier tongue-washing, and thus still had the taste of crotch-sweat clinging to its rough hide - and his cockhead was pushing up against her stomach just as firmly as it had previously pushed against her womb. His cock traversed almost half the full length of her body, leaving her thoroughly impaled - and every shaky breath she took filled her nostrils with the musky scent of his crotch.

He stood like that for several minutes - whether to let her body adjust to the thick, hard intruder, or just because he enjoyed the way her throat was involuntarily (and futilely) constricting around it. It gave her just enough time to catch up on Rarity's plight out the corner of her eye, and she was glad to see that her friend wasn't screaming anymore. The pure white unicorn was just lying there, eyes screwed shut and her breath coming in short pants, as Death poured thrust after tireless thrust into her ass. If her own experience was anything to go by, she'd be stuck like that for hours - so it was probably for the best if she was settling in for the long haul.

She watched Rarity's relentless rape for maybe 10 minutes, all the while feeling Famine's cock pulsing gently - albeit unmoving - inside of her. Her pussy was growing hot and crying out for attention. The feeling of the thick cock buried in her gullet was mildly pleasant, if only because she'd already learned to associate the sensation of being violently stretched open with sexual pleasure - but it certainly wasn't going to get her off by itself. Remembering the previous 'ritual', the solution seemed obvious to her. But as any good scientist, she was eager to test the limits of her earlier discovery.

So, she sent TWO tentacles of bright, magical force snaking along her back, past her tail, to her pussy (which was still burping up small quantities of cum at every contraction). One found its familiar purchase on top of her erect and so-far ignored clit, gently teasing the sensitive nub - while the other dove in between her labia, widening as it did so, and quickly pushing all the way through the thick layer of cum coating her insides to reach her womb. It then began to move in and out, simulating the rhythm Famine had used whenever he wasn't busy cumming bucketloads.

The twin points of sexual stimulation didn't take long to take effect, and once again that delightful sensation of an approaching orgasm soaked into her. Her eyes remained riveted on Rarity as she started working herself towards that climactic peak, noting how her white flanks were shaking in exertion as she absorbed the anal assault, and how her tail had already curled instinctively up along her back just like her own. Impatiently, Twilight sent another tentacle of magic towards her rear end. That climax wasn't building fast enough! The second tentacle - by now thoroughly coated in the gooey contents of her pussy - quickly evacuated to make way for the third, while instead using its newfound lubrication to seek a higher target.

Her asshole opened easily before the prodding point of the cum-covered tentacle, and a moan of pleasure reverberated up her stuffed throat as both of her rear orifices were simultaneously stimulated for the first time. Unconsciously, she started moving her tongue across coarse surface of the sheathe filling her mouth, actively sucking on it as the orgasm finally began to crest. She could hear Famine chuckling above her, and realized - in a distant, vague sort of way - that he'd lowered his head to observe her magical masturbation. "About time you started USING your mouth instead of just standing there. Keep it up..."

As her first entirely self-inflicted orgasm rolled through her, Famine finally began to move. First he pulled out far enough to remove his by-now spit-soaked sheathe from her mouth, and continued until his radial ring was left hovering about a foot from her lips. THEN he started to face-fuck her in earnest, thrusting his hard cock back into her esophagus until the radial ring was lodged behind her teeth, and his rough-textured sheath was tickling her lips.

The foot-long thrusts poured into her throat with immediate speed and force - he wasn't bothering to do a slow build-up or ease into it - but his earlier passivity had at least allowed her body to adjust to his size. Her esophagus was handling the beating, despite the large, visible bulge on her neck moving rapidly back and forth. And she hadn't missed the message he'd given her earlier - even through the post-orgasmic haze, she maintained suction and kept her tongue moving, caressing every inch of cock as it passed through her mouth in either direction.

An odd chain-reaction was running through her. Her pussy and clit were the only direct sources of sensual pleasure, but right next to them, a smoothly lubricated tentacle was driving into the lower end of her digestive-system, providing stimulation by extension. And at the other end of her gastro-intestinal tract, the black stallion's cock was doing pretty much exactly the same thing. Robbed of her sense of pain, the feeling of being stretched open and the friction of the back-and-forth motion all flowed together into one. The violent throat-fucking couldn't have gotten her off by itself, but now that she was busy pleasuring herself, it WAS somehow magnifying and enhancing her sexual pleasure - conveying her swiftly towards the next orgasm.

Several more climaxes rolled over her as Famine continued fucking her face tirelessly. In the throes of pleasure, she didn't notice how the repeated bursts of pleasure once again reinforced the spell she was using to masturbate. The two tentacles driving into her rear holes grew in size with every orgasm, only stabilizing after half a dozen climaxes - at which point they were both roughly the size of the equine cock she had stuck down her throat, and pushing through to the very bottom of their respective orifices.

At that point, she was cumming just as hard - and just as frequently - as she had during the hour-long ass-rape Death had subjected her to during the previous ritual... and just like that time, her brilliant mind was rapidly disappearing under a thick blanket of ecstasy, leaving little behind but a quivering mass of overstimulated flesh. Her body was moving on its own, eagerly cooperating with the stallion above her, sucking and licking his cock with aplomb as she surrendered her body entirely to his use.

She had no idea how long it continued before finally, he came. With one final stroke, he buried himself fully inside of her once again, ensuring that the rapid spurts of thick, hot cum were blasted directly down into her stomach, which soon filled up with the thick goo. She could feel it like a ball of heat inside of her, expanding under the pressure like her womb had done before. When the flow at last stopped, she was feeling quite stuffed, and her belly was visibly distended.

Famine's still-flared cockhead raked at her esophagus as he pulled out, inch after inch of cock disappearing out of her mouth while she kept eagerly licking at it. The part of the shaft that hadn't been part of the stroke-length - and thus had spent all its time somewhere down in her throat - had a bitter tang to it, but she hardly noticed. The purplish-red magical tentacles were still busy stimulating her rear end, blanketing her senses with orgasmic pleasure.

Just when the flared cockhead popped out of her throat to fill her mouth, its back ridge resting against the inside of her teeth, it stopped. By then, Famine had taken a half-step backwards to keep up, and she was looking down the full (and rather imposing) length of his shaft while letting her tongue caress every bit of the head's surface that it would reach.. "I DO hope you aren't full yet..." he rumbled from behind her. Then she felt the shaft buck slightly between her lips - and a fresh burst of cum filled her mouth.

She swallowed rapidly, gulping down the thick goo just as the next spurt applied a fresh coat to her palate. The thick, bitter-salty taste covered her tongue completely, filling her mouth - and the moment she swallowed it, another burst replaced it. Her already-filled stomach groaned under the weight as she forced mouthful after mouthful of hot cum to slide down her throat, but she barely noticed. If her mind had been clear, she would have done the same thing, reasoning that failing to comply with Famine's orders might cause him to declare the ritual a failure. As it was, though, she was simply swallowing because the slimy sensation it gave her as it slipped down her gullet sent little jabs of pleasure through her, and because she was enjoying the thick, earthy taste of it. Pleasure was the only thing on her mind.

By the time she finally swallowed and failed to find a replacement mouthful delivered promptly, her belly was bulging down in a way reminiscent of her worst-ever bouts of overeating (her first visit to Sweet Apple Acres came to mind). Her stomach was rumbling in protest, but the pain its overstretched tissue should've imparted on her was as numb as every other kind, so she didn't pay it any attention. She merely focused on licking every drop of cum she could off of the rapidly-deflating flare of Famine's cockhead before it pulled out of her mouth to leave her breathing freely for the first time in a while.

As Famine stepped off of her and walked around her body, she found herself with a bit of spare mental capacity, and turned her head to get a proper look at her beleaguered friend. Rarity was in the same position she'd been in before - kneeling with her head on the ground while her ass was ceaselessly railed. But Twilight's keen sense of detail picked up on three new facts - firstly, a pink blush of flushed excitement on her cheeks. Secondly, a pale blue tentacle of magical light running from Rarity's horn, down past her flank, to her crotch. Thirdly, an obscene, slushy sound emerging from her asshole as Death continued to fuck her - indicating that he'd already cum once, and simply continued.

The last bit struck Twilight as vaguely strange, but she had little time to consider it as Famine jumped on her back again. One of her magical tentacles - the one that had been exploring the depths of her asshole - suddenly disintegrated before a far more potent magical force, and before her sphincter had any time to close on the sudden emptiness, it was replaced by Famine's thick, equine cock. The difference was stark. While her telekinetic tentacles provided pleasurable friction and a delightful sense of being 'stretched open', they had none of the texture of a real, living cock. The veins and ridges. The sense of heat. She no longer cared about how strange it was for an ancient, undying creature to radiate body-heat - she just needed that long, thick, hard shaft as deep inside of her as possible, RIGHT NOW!

Famine didn't disappoint. Between the coating of saliva on his cock, and the coating of secondhand cum that the magenta tentacle had applied to her lower intestine, he slid inside of her so easily that it seemed like her ass had been custom-fitted to suit him. He even gave a delighted whinny as his forelegs curled around her shoulders, giving him the leverage to push his full length inside of her. It made her feel strangely proud.

This, however, represented an interesting 'first' for her. Always before, when she'd been fucked by Death and later Famine, she'd been kneeling on the floor with her ass in the air, simply receiving whatever they chose to pour into her. Right now, however, she was still standing on all fours after the length oral session. Famine's weight was resting mainly on her back, his front legs wrapped around her rather than being a set of prison-bars in front of her. She could feel his sleek chest against her back, the hardness of his exposed ribs pushing into her hide, and even the steady beating of his heart. It was the way that ponies had mated since time immemorial - and in this position, she was not a submissive recipient, but an active participant in the act.

And, feeling the length of his hot cock inside of her - noticing how much better it felt than her own magical instruments of masturbation - she was quite okay with that. His first thrust had stopped as his radial ring touched her sphincter, but she knew she could handle more. That he could go deeper. And she needed it. Wanted it. As he pulled out for the next thrust, she matched herself to his movement, and as he surged forwards again, pushed back towards him. The radial ring popped through her sphincter, followed by several inches of delightfully rough sheath, and she heard Famine laughing above her.

For hours, they moved against one another like that, performing what no outside observer could have mistaken for rape. It was lovemaking, sex, mating, a shared pleasure... his cock deep in her ass, her magical tentacle continuing to stimulate her pussy and clit, while the orgasms flew thick and fast. He came several times, filling her intestines with his thick cum, never slowing for a moment even while spurting the white goo into her. She could feel it being pushed further up into her digestive system with each fresh climax, like a hot, slimy snake making its way inside of her. She idly wondered what would happen when it reached all the way to her already-full stomach, but the thought was quickly exorcized by another orgasm.

Absorbed in her own pleasure, she had little thought to spare for Rarity... but she DID notice when Death finally stopped drilling her ass and walked around to her front, if only because the sight of his long, hard cock, dangling below his belly, dripping with sperm, caught her immediate attention and made her drool. Rarity looked somewhat shaky as she got her front legs under her again, but she complied with Death's request for a proper cleaning (which was word-for-word the same he'd given Twilight 3 nights hence). Almost absently, Twilight watched Rarity perform the dirty duty, noticing that it seemed significantly more... stained, than she remembered it being when she was doing it. Maybe because Death had cum twice in Rarity's ass, 'stead of just once before pulling out. More lubrication to make things sticky, or whatnot.

This, of course, did not deter Rarity, who was clearly in an orgasmic trance much like Twilight had been back then. Her friend went about her humiliating task without hesitation, and once again Twilight felt oddly aroused by the sight. Rarity's lips looked so delicious covered in brown-flecked cum, and the way the cum and tears had made her makeup run all over her face gave her a trashy, slutty look that made Twilight's loins heat up strangely. She wanted to be over there, tasting those lips. Licking the cum off her face.

The next orgasm wiped the thought from her face like a tidal-wave, but burned the mental image into her mind as a vague shadow. As she watched Rarity finish up the tongue-washing of Death's throbbing erection, her desire continued to rise, and soon she wasn't merely pushing her rear end back against Famine's thrusts, but also rotating her rump to add additional friction to them. She moaned with desire as she watched the pale stallion mount Rarity from the front in much the same way Famine had done to her, pushing his cockhead into her mouth, then her throat, then turning it into a delightfully visible bulge on her slender neck.

Rarity looked so... vulnerable like that. Impaled on that huge cock, tears running from her eyes as she gagged on its girth, rear end exposed... cum dripping from her asshole, which seemed to be gasping like a landed fish after the beating it had received... and her tail still curled back as an invitation. And after the way she'd moved as she cleaned Death's cock, her rear end was basically pointing right towards Twilight. She could see it all.

Rarity's tentacle of light-blue magic was busily at work on her clit, probably doing the same thing hers was... but both her pussy and her asshole were empty, and so very inviting in their recently-used, worn-red glory. Her labia were swollen and flecked with cum, while her sphincter was bright-red from the wear and caked in it. Both looked like they needed the touch of a gentle tongue and a pair of soft lips to relax them... make the poor girl feel all better. That Death's head was hovering right above them, looking at her face and grinning in a rather lecherous way was unimportant to the point of insignificance.

She licked her lips, lapping at the empty air, almost imagining that she could taste it... those sweet pussy-juices, the slight bitterness of the ass, both mixed with a generous helping of delicious, salty stallion-cum. But she couldn't reach them - she was stuck under this big lug of a stallion and could only groan in frustration as she redoubled her masturbatory efforts, willing the orgasms to come faster and harder to compensate.

And cum she did, more times than she could count, blitzing her mind and engraving increasingly lurid scenarios involving herself, Rarity, and one or both of the stallions into her memory. Famine, too, continued to cum frequently, filling her ass with spunk to the point where big, slimy globs of the stuff would spray out around the edges of her lax sphincter with every thrust. When at last he seemed to grow tired of pounding her ass and pulled out, he didn't bother to wait for his flare to go down, and the back edges of it pulled a veritable deluge of cum out with it - adding it the growing pond of the stuff that had formed around her hind legs over the course of the night.

It was no surprise at all that he then stepped around her body again to present the cum-caked tool to her face, and she didn't even bother waiting for him to give the command before diving in. Her tongue nimbly cleaned off the accumulated goo, shoveling it into her eager mouth without hesitation. She was several hours past the point where the bitter tang of her own ass-juices and occasional spot of brown mixed in with the jizz could bother her even remotely. The only thing that DID bother her was that the huge cock was partially blocking her view of Rarity's delicious rear end.

And no sooner had she finished - wrapping it up with the mandatory ballsack-suck to clean off the globs of cum that had sprayed from her ass during the hour-long anal session, as well as the layer of ball-sweat Famine had worked up in the process - before something else blocked her view. Just as Famine was walking back around to her rear, Death pulled HIS thick shaft out of Rarity's throat, leaving her coughing and spitting bits of cum as he trotted around her, too. He didn't give her a chance to change the angle, though, so when he mounted her again, Twilight got a perfect view of it.

Rarity's labia bulged out, and then parted before the pale stallion's member. Her legs shivered as he slid smoothly into her, little bits of cum bubbling out around the edges as the pressure forced them back. Several inches still remained between the stretched-out pussy and his radial ring when he stopped, but it was obvious from the way Rarity's knees shook and bent slightly that he was, indeed, hitting the bottom. And that her uterus was still quite sore from the beating it had taken. But her legs still held, and her tail remained invitingly curled along her back. Even though SHE clearly still had the capacity to feel pain, she was holding up.

She was so busy admiring the view that she barely noticed another one of her magical tentacle-dildos getting summarily dispelled and replaced by a real live cock. Famine was apparently aiming for her pussy this time, and said pussy was only too happy to receive him. Watching Rarity's pussy getting pounded while Famine was giving her own the same treatment provided a delightful sense of synchronism for Twilight, redoubling her pleasure and allowing her to lose herself in the perverse fantasies now floating thickly through her lust-addled mind. She hardly noticed that the shaft's girth and movement was putting a new sort of pressure on her bladder, squeezing it like an orange. She didn't bat an eyelid when her urethral sphincter gave way to the pressure and, with a sizzling sound, added a stream of her piss to the puddle of mixed sexual juices surrounding her rear legs.

She did, however, notice when the same thing happened to Rarity, if only because it added a whole new set of perverted images to her internal picture-book. Pissing wildly while getting fucked hard, the taste of ass-fresh dick still on her tongue... one could hardly imagine a less ladylike version of Rarity. Or a hotter one, to Twilight's current mind. But something about it was niggling her. Despite everything, her keen, analytic mind hadn't been entirely drowned. She'd gone to the bathroom before she left for the castle. Most likely, Rarity had too. And yet, they'd both wound up with bladders too full to contain. Granted, they'd both been drinking... lots of fluids, but it still didn't make much sense. The night shouldn't be long enough for that.

That thought, however, was soon lost in more orgasms, more pleasure, more hard fucking. Famine continued to pound her pussy for hours, shoveling more sperm into her, stretching her womb like a balloon, and sending spurts of it back out around his shaft at high pressure. In front of her, meanwhile, Death was simply grinding his loins into Rarity's as if he was trying to tunnel right through her. Exhaustion was mixed heavily into the pleasure by now, further fogging her mind, and from the looks of things, Rarity wasn't doing much better.

The rest seemed all a blur. She couldn't remember how she'd gotten there, but she was suddenly lapping away thirstily at the yellow puddle between Rarity's legs. She also recalled seeing Rarity with her head shoved into the small pond of cum, pussy-juice and piss that had formed around her own legs, her once-stately mane soaking it all up like a dishrag even as she lapped up the mixture with a dazed look on her face. Then, Twilight found herself in heaven, her face pushed hard into Rarity's juicy cunt, her tongue and lips working frantically. Above them, two shadows loomed, as one of the stallions busily rode her ass while the other was thrusting away at Rarity's mouth and throat. Which stallion was which, she couldn't say, nor did she care. She was far too busy focusing on the sensation of her friend's pussy contracting orgasmicly around her tongue.

Beyond that, her eyes had been too tired to focus, but she was fairly certain she'd managed to clean the cum out of Rarity's ass the way she'd wanted to. She remembered the taste - salty, with undertones of sweetness, spread across an underlying bitterness with hints of iron-y blood. And she remembered Rarity's refined voice, hoarse from repeated throat-fuckings, crying out in pleasure. She also seemed to remember the feeling of a set of soft lips, and a strong, nimble tongue caressing her own labia, diving into her pussy, and sucking out the vast quantity of cum she'd had stored there. But it all seemed to be about halfway a dream.

Then, all of a sudden, in a split second, her mind was startlingly, almost TERRIFYINGLY clear... and she was looking right into the eyes of Death. Or rather, into the bottomless, black holes with pinpricks of greenish light at the bottom that passed for his eyes. His horn was glowing, and she immediately calculated an 87.4% chance that her present clarity was a result of some spell he'd cast. That number rose rapidly as he started to talk - with the same calm, masculine voice as always. "Well, little princess, it seems you've made it through yet another night - as have your friend, albeit only just barely." He glanced at the floor, and she followed his eyes to see Rarity snoring in the middle of a puddle of spunk, her coat and mane coated in sticky, rapidly-drying goo. "You still think you could have handled all this alone? The night, you must admit, was a bit longer than you'd expected..."

She swallowed nervously, not answering him immediately, but glancing towards the gaping windows. A light was spreading slowly across the horizon. Dawn was on its way... though she could've sworn that the night had lasted at least a solid 12 hours. Death chuckled. "Well, I DID warn you that our powers would be magnified as more of us gathered. Rest assured, the time-dilation effect will be much stronger than this in 3 more nights, when we return together with my dear brother, War."

His horn stopped glowing, and she felt clarity give way to bone-deep weariness as she slipped to the ground. Just before unconsciousness claimed her, she saw Famine and Death trot back towards the still-glowing circle. Famine disappeared first, and just before Death followed him, he turned to speak over his shoulder. "I suppose I should warn you, too... War is not as gentle as Famine and me. He likes to... play rough." With this offhand announcement, he entered the circle and disappeared, just as Twilight's grasp on consciousness did the same.

Twilight felt a confusing sense of déjà vu as she clawed her way back to wakefulness. The sun was dipping below the horizon outside. Her mouth tasted foul. The thick smell of evaporating cum and stale sweat tickled her nostrils. And despite apparently sleeping clear through the day, she was still utterly exhausted. Only the faint sound of regular breathing - another pony sleeping nearby - struck an unfamiliar note.

Despite the weariness in her limbs, she pulled herself upright, and winced at the resulting slimy sound. The pond of mostly-dried cum (and other miscellaneous sex-related juices) that she'd gone to sleep in was clearly reluctant to let go of her. Beside her, Rarity stirred at the sound. "Oh... what an absolutely HORRID dream..." she mumbled while Twilight studiously looked in another direction. She didn't want to see her facial expression when reality caught up with her.

A stunned silence lasted for about a minute behind her, followed by rapidly accelerating breathing heading towards hyperventilation... before it calmed down with one deep breath. "Twi... are you okay?" Twilight sighed, and turned to face her friend. She looked a mess and a half, mane and coat covered in dried sperm... although at least it didn't stand out so much against her white coat. SHE probably looked even worse. "I'm fine, Rarity. I've been through this before, after all." She forced a smile. "Although I'll admit, it was worse this time. Seems like they can twist time somehow, make the night last longer the more of them there are."

Rarity glanced towards the magic circle engraved in the floor. It was just a bunch of black lines now - entirely inert for three more days. "So... they'll come again, then?" Twilight considered lying to protect her, but after everything they'd been through together, her friend deserved the full truth. "Yep. In 3 nights, with yet another companion. And one more time after that. There are four of them in total." A visible shudder went through Rarity when she said that. Then, she pulled herself up straight.

"And you were planning to deal with all of that alone? WELL! I'll have you know, I meant what I said when I jumped in." Her voice softened, although it still carried a rough edge thanks to the beating her throat had taken the night before. "You are NOT alone. You're my friend, and I'll help you get through this." Twilight swallowed, feeling tears begin to flow through her stained coat at the reaffirmation of their friendship. Then she nodded. "I didn't want to get you or anyone else involved in this. Didn't want anyone else to have to go through this. But... I'm glad you came. I wouldn't have made it without you." She put a comforting hoof on her friend's shoulder, and Rarity's smile was bright despite her cum-streaked face.

Then, she spread her wings, flapping them experimentally. They were about the only part of her that didn't feel completely worn out. She could still fly. Then she glanced at Rarity, and sighed. "Well, you can't walk back to town looking like that. It's already getting dark out there, and the footpath is far too long. Get on my back. I'll carry you." Rarity's eyes moved towards the gaping window-arcs, taking in the fading light and the depth of the dark wood surrounding them, before swallowing nervously. "Well... if you're SURE you can manage it..." The gratitude was palpable in her voice.

It was a stretch, but Twilight managed it. With Rarity perched on her back, front legs wrapped around her neck, she soared through the door of her upstairs balcony and managed a mostly-sorta-kinda-elegant landing. Nopony else seemed to be there - no worried friends sleeping in her bed this time. Rarity rolled off of her back and got shakily to her feet, eyes immediately searching for the door to the bathroom with the sort of glazed-over desire in them that you usually only saw when Pinkie Pie spotted a new flavor of cupcake. Twilight couldn't really disagree. She felt like she needed TWO baths. Or maybe three.

Seconds later, they were in the shower, drowning their fatigue in the hot water. Neither one of them wanted to wait, nor did there seem to be any reason not to shower together after everything they'd done together the previous night. Nonetheless, after washing the worst of the grime off her face and out of her mane, Twilight found herself contemplating the wisdom of this shared shower. Mental images from the night before were suddenly popping back into her head, and she found her eyes suddenly glued to Rarity's curves as her friend vigorously scrubbed her white coat. The way the water was running over her body was... almost hypnotic.

Moving casually, she soaped up her hooves and approached her friend. "Here, Rarity... let me help you wash your back." Rarity gave her another shiny smile. "Oh, thanks EVER so much, Twi... I've got this stuff all OVER me, and I just can't reach it all..." Twilight just nodded and, as Rarity turned her back and draped her mane down over one shoulder, she started working the soap into her friend's smooth coat. With a gentle hoof she massaged her, soaping and rinsing while working her way down... soon, her hooves were caressing those ivory-white haunches. "Real mess down here..." she said casually as she ran her hooves all over her friend's no-doubt sore rear end. Rarity just nodded. Her breath seemed to have gone a bit more rapid than it had been before.

She was leaning on the shower's wall now, resting on it with her front legs while Twilight carefully cleaned off her hind legs and haunches (which were, indeed, quite a mess with dried spunk). Levitating the showerhead with her magic, she ran the stream of hot water up and down her inside thighs, and then let it play across the tender space between them. "There's some stubborn stains I can't reach... you need to spread your legs further." She was struggling to keep her voice level and casual by now, but Rarity just nodded again and complied.

Her pussy was now entirely exposed, the labia still pink from wear and tear. When Twilight directed the hot water across them, Rarity moaned slightly, and she felt her self-control slip further. So far, everything she'd done was entirely innocent. She was just helping her friend clean hard-to-reach places. Moaning when you got hot water sprayed across a sensitive spot was quite normal. And the way Rarity's soaked, dark-purple tail was draped across her back wasn't really an invitation to sex, but just an effort to keep it out of the way.

Then Rarity moaned again, louder this time, and thrust her hindquarters towards Twilight's face as the water coursed across her clit. Said clit, Twilight noticed - in her usual, highly attentive way - was erect and poking out from under its hood. Her self-control promptly checked out, and her tongue was buried in Rarity's pussy before the showerhead even hit the floor. "Twilight, what are you... ooo! Oooh... ahhh..." Her friend's protest degenerated quickly into a series of disconnected moans as her tongue continued the job of cleaning Rarity by lapping eagerly at her most private place.

She could taste traces of cum in there - salty and bitter, the remnants of last night's excess. Mixed with it was the fresh, slightly sweet tang of newly-produced pussy-juice. Proof that her friend was enjoying it, not that she needed more. Eagerly, she pushed her face deeper into the warm embrace of Rarity's thighs, letting her teeth rasp lightly across the outer labia even as her tongue extended as far as it would go, licking everything it could reach.

Glancing up, she spotted Rarity's asshole, twitching slightly with every lick. Offhandedly, she picked up the still-running showerhead again and directed the hot stream at the worn-looking orifice, drawing fresh moans of pleasure from above. It all seemed so natural, so obvious. Rarity was her friend. Making her friends feel good was a good thing. And she knew just how to do that. She wasn't sure whether it was instinct, or ingrained knowledge from the parts of the previous night that she couldn't clearly remember, but she knew just how to move her tongue to make Rarity shriek with pleasure...

With tongue and showerhead, she brought Rarity to an orgasm... and then another, not long after. At that point, the pony lost her grip on the wall and slipped to the shower's floor, twitching slightly. Twilight grinned and busied herself with rinsing off her tail and mane for a few minutes, before Rarity staggered back to her hooves and turned around with an odd gleam in her eyes. There were no words exchanged. Rarity just pushed her down on her back, and she let her. Then she spread her legs, showing her friend her own, invitingly pink if slightly bruised pussy. It was only natural - Rarity was the very soul of generosity. She would want to... return the favor. And sure enough, she did, her lips and tongue diving into the tender folds of Twilight's snatch without hesitation. She leaned her head back against the shower's wall and moaned as the familiar rising tide of an impending orgasm surfaced in her mind.

Whether because her generosity compelled her to return any favor with interest, or just because the position gave Rarity easy access to Twilight's sensitive nub of a clit, it took THREE orgasms before Rarity relented and came up for breath, pussy-juice staining her otherwise freshly-washed muzzle. They were both panting at that point, basking in the glow of the shared pleasure. Both knew, vaguely, that they'd done something similar last night - but that was all a foggy, exhausted, half-asleep mess, and whatever they'd done, had been at the behest of the Stallions of the Apocalypse. But today, they'd sought - and found - pleasure in each other's bodies of their own impulse.

Neither of them knew how to put it into words, so they simply finished cleaning each other off in the shower (albeit with many a straying hoof finding sensitive points on each other's bodies), then dried themselves off and did their business on the toilet before heading back out of the bathroom towards Twilight's bed. Rarity made no move to leave, and Twilight had no intention of suggesting that she did. Her bed was plenty big enough for two ponies, as she knew from one (particularly chaotic) sleepover.

They were both too exhausted to further explore their newly expanded relationship in bed, but - with only a slight hesitation - they kissed each other on the mouth, tongues briefly intertwining. Then, close together, hooves naturally seeking each other's most sensitive spots, they allowed the fatigue of the previous night to catch up with them and drifted off to sleep again.

The next couple of days were... interesting, to say the least. Spike had walked in on her and Rarity early the next morning, just as Rarity was in the process of waking her up... with a vigorous round of cunnilingus. He'd been dumbfounded at first, but then something long, sleek and hard had emerged from the scales that covered his loins, and the two of them had unceremoniously dragged him into bed with them. The poor guy had been badly blueballed, it seemed - probably wrestling with unfamiliar desires ever since the rising concerns of the impending apocalypse matured him into his present form. The two of them had quickly solved THAT problem, and of course sworn him to secrecy.

In truth, Twilight was feeling a mite bit jealous about the whole thing, though. Oh, Spike hadn't hesitated to put his draconic cock - which was somewhat smaller than a full-sized stallion's but still delightful - to use quelling the burning desire in HER loins... but it was obvious that Rarity was the one who had REALLY gotten him caught up in the whole 'have lots of sex regularly' lifestyle. She was getting the lion's share of his virility, and was obviously enjoying it immensely.

Twilight thus found it eminently justifiable to use Rarity as a guinea pig for her new spells. Her newfound... 'worldliness' had opened her eyes, enabling her to figure out spells that had previously evaded her. She hadn't seen their use, or she'd made assumptions leading to mistranslations. For example, when she first read a certain old spellbook and attempted to translate it, she couldn't see what she might need a spell that would summon a sausage for. Now she got it - and the spell had proven capable of doing exactly what she thought it did.

Magically growing a cock was an interesting experience - several important parts of her anatomy were moved around, shrunk, scaled-up or just rearranged. The final result was most pleasing, however - particularly the way Rarity's moans rose in pitch when she pushed it into her tight little asshole while nipping at her slender neck. Spike had seemed a bit weirded out about it at first - especially when he noticed that she was better hung than him - but he'd perked up when she suggested that they 'share' Rarity.

She'd also worked to enhance her 'magical dildo-tentacle' spell, which was really just an adaptation of basic unicorn telekinesis. Originally, it was just an oblong shape cast from pure magic, with a minimal amount of friction to its smooth surface. But with a bit of work, she was able to alter its shape and texture in a variety of creative ways, ranging from simply imitating a pony-cock - with all its ridges and veins - to creating an impossible riot of thick ridges, bumps, and dulled spikes. The sight of Rarity writhing on her bed with Spike's slender, reptilian cock buried in her throat up to the root, Twilight's magically-induced erection impaling her ass as if to spit-roast her, and a telekinetic bundle of knobs and spikes rotating in her pussy to stimulate every square inch of it... was far more arousing in reality than it had been when it was merely a fantasy.

The self-indulgent sexual experimentation were brought up short on the day of the next ritual, however. Both Twilight and Rarity had decided to take it easy during that time, getting plenty of rest and keeping up their energy for the trials they would face during the night - and both of them were equal parts scared and aroused by the thought of what they would be subjected to. It was during this still before the storm that Rainbow Dash popped by with some news.

She and the other pegasi had been hard at work as aerial scouts and occasional messengers, patrolling Equestria's borders from the air. That day, she returned from delivering her report at Canterlot with bittersweet news. "The Crystal Empire has fallen..." she said in the matter-of-fact tone of someone who'd gotten used to delivering bad news. "The Gryphons invaded. Apparently, they thought stealing the Crystal Heart might help them keep the current disasters out of THEIR lands. They assembled a massive army and swept through the Crystal Ponies' defenses. The current troubles had apparently left the Crystal Ponies too downcast to keep charging the Crystal Heart, so they were mostly defenseless."

Then Rainbow Dash's mouth turned upwards in a familiar grin. "They didn't get it, though. Cadance and Shining Armor switched it for a fake, then led the survivors out of there. A whole column of them crossed the border yesterday with Cadance at the head and your brother guarding the rear." Her expression turned sour again. "Of course, SOME of the Canterlot nobles weren't happy to see a small army of refugees turn up on their doorstep, after we've officially closed our borders and everything. But Cadance - or rather, 'Princess Mi Amore Cadenza' - has far too many friends and allies in Canterlot to be turned away. And she refused to enter the country until ALL of her subjects had been allowed to join her there."

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes theatrically. "But of course, THAT doesn't stop 'em from complaining. Especially when they heard that she still had the Crystal Heart. They went all 'Mneh mneh, the Gryphons might attack us next if they find out, and we're scared little nobles who faint at the very thought of having to get our hooves dirty.' But of course, Celestia is backing Cadance, and the two of them are now working together on how best to use the heart to shore up Equestria's defenses."

Twilight bit her lower lip as Rainbow Dash harped on. She couldn't tell her that, having observed both the power of the Crystal Heart and the power of the Stallions of the Apocalypse firsthand, she knew there was no way the former would stop the later. It would barely even slow them down. Probably just annoy them, really. But more importantly, the realization that in her desperation to save Equestria, she had completely forgotten about the Crystal Empire (including her own brother and sister-in-law) was a crushing blow. If things had turned out differently, she might have saved Equestria only to leave two of the people she loved most in the world to die in another kingdom. Heck, if her original assumptions about the 'sacrifice' called for in the ritual had been true, that would probably have been exactly what happened. What luck things had turned out this way... if it WAS luck...

The thought stuck with her as she continued resting up for the evening ahead. Well, maybe she'd find out one way or another when she once again faced the Stallions of the Apocalypse. As night began to fall, Rarity knocked on her door and joined her in making the final preparations for the night's trip. Spike had been left behind at Rarity's shop to guard it overnight as he always did - they hadn't told him everything, either. Only that they were working to protect Equestria, and probably wouldn't be back 'till the following night.

Their preparations took the form of a basket filled with cupcakes, muffins, crackers and various bottled drinks. Hopefully, they'd be able to sneak a quick rehydration and some energy-refueling food at some point during the night - if the previous ritual was anything to go by, this one would last a subjective age. They'd also be outnumbered 3 to 2, so if they wanted to make it all the way through, they'd need every advantage they could get.

Rarity carried the basket as she set off by the land-route, leaving Twilight Sparkle with a bit more time to fret before she took to her wings and set off across the Everfree Forest towards the castle. For once, the skies above the forest were clear, though some dark clouds still lingered over Ponyville - Rainbow Dash having presumably been too busy with her new duties to keep them away. The castle looked both spooky and majestic in the light of the moon and the stars, as well as... slightly moist. Apparently, there'd been a rainstorm there at some point during the last 3 days, leaving puddles of stale water around the place. The windowless gaps of Luna's old throne-room offered little protection from the elements... which was perhaps a good thing, since the water had washed away most of the residue of the last ritual.

The magic circle still stood, though. A black ring, burning with a green fire that was already spreading through the arcane symbols surrounding it. The promised hour was near once again. Twilight spent a few minutes just staring at the spreading light, waiting for Rarity to catch up. She had an odd feeling, like an itch in her mane. Something was just subtly off. Then she heard the clip-clop of Rarity's well-manicured hooves ascending the stair and shook it off.

Greetings were exchanged, and the basket of supplies was stashed near the wall, out of the way of the events that would no doubt soon make a fresh mess of the central floor. Then, they just sat there, side by side, and watched the magical circle inch closer and closer to activation. That is, until a sarcastic voice quipped from one of the windows "Sooo... you two came all the way out here in the middle of the night just to look at some pretty lights?" Twilight and Rarity turned around in perfect sync, already knowing what they'd see.

Sure enough, there was Rainbow Dash, standing on the windowsill, leaning against the wall with one eyebrow raised and her hooves crossed in front of her. "Rainbow Dash, what are you DOING here?" Rarity exclaimed - but Twilight already had a pretty good idea. "I followed Twilight here." Yup, just as she thought. "I thought she seemed odd when I talked to her earlier today, and I had... other sources too. So I watched the library and decided to tag along when she left." In a wing-assisted jump, the rainbow-tailed pegasus was next to Twilight, mussing up her mane with one hoof while draping the other over her shoulder. "You're getting better at the whole flying-thing, Twilight, but you've still got a ways to go when it comes to developing the 360-degree awareness of a true pegasus. You didn't notice a cloud following you all the way from Ponyville, huh?"

Twilight sighed. "I guess you got me there... but you really need to leave! I don't want anyone else to get involved in this if I can help it." A new voice suddenly echoed through the chamber, from the direction of the stairs. "Well, that's a real shame, 'cuz we ain't leaving, Twilight!" Spinning around, she saw the familiar, bright-orange form of Applejack emerging from the winding staircase. Rainbow Dash's sudden appearance had distracted her from noticing the sound of her hoofbeats. Rarity could only sigh. "You too, Applejack?" The orange earth-pony nodded, "Yup", then fixed her with a penetrating look. "Sweetiebelle noticed her older sister wasn't actin' normal. She was worried! So she told her friends in the Cutie Mark Crusaders... and Applebloom told her big sis, o' course." Rainbow Dash cleared her throat. "Well, Scootaloo MAY have mentioned something like that to me, too, what with me being her mentor and all... but mostly, it was my keen observations and all-round insightfulness that tipped me off!"

Twilight glanced over at Applejack. She had a severe look on her face. One she'd seen a few times before, and knew well what meant. It basically translated into "I ain't foolin', I'm putting my hoof down and I ain't gonna move." And when Applejack put her hoof down, there was really nothing anyone could do to change things. The level of stubbornness she could display under those circumstances would shame a mule. With Applejack standing firm in front of the stairs, and Rainbow Dash hovering in front of the windows with a "Still waiting for an explanation" sort of expression on her face, Twilight and Rarity were thoroughly surrounded.

Twilight drew a deep breath, then exhaled. The circle was nearly complete. There wasn't much time. "All right, already! Get over here, you two. I'll give you the short version, so at least you know vaguely what you're getting into. If you still wanna stay after that, I can't stop you." She pointed at the magic circle. "You know all those disasters that have been rampaging across the world? They're caused by the Four Stallions of the Apocalypse. They're ancient, all-powerful, and completely unstoppable. Wherever they go, only oblivion is left in their wake. And three of them are about to step out of that circle."

Applejack and Rainbow Dash's eyes were immediately riveted on the spreading glyphs of green fire, and beads of sweat suddenly appeared on their foreheads. "So... we're supposed to fight them, right?" Rainbow Dash jumped up on her hind-legs and threw a few quick jabs into the air with her front hooves. But Twilight shook her head. "Impossible. Neither the Crystal Heart nor the Elements of Harmony has anywhere near the power needed to fight them. The only thing we CAN do is convince them to pass Equestria by. That's what this ritual is about."

"What kinda ritual is it, exactly?" Asked Applejack, and Twilight felt herself blushing while glancing across to Rarity. "Well... it's really hard. Exhausting. Painful. Humiliating. And there are several parts to it - this is the third, there'll be one more before it's complete and Equestria is safe. Look... me and Rarity handled the last one by ourselves. We'll get through this one too. You don't need to do this. If you leave before the circle is complete, you won't get involved." Even while saying it, she felt oddly conflicted. She wasn't actually sure why she was trying so hard to convince Applejack and Rainbow Dash to leave.

The more she thought about it, the sillier it seemed. The ritual certainly had its downsides, but in the end, it was more pleasurable than anything else. Doing one together with Rarity had deepened their friendship and given it new... benefits. If her other two friends stayed for this one, the potential for future fun-times expanded enormously. And besides, it wasn't as if they couldn't use the backup - two-on-two had pushed both her and Rarity right to the edge last time. Even with emergency supplies, three-on-two seemed like tall odds. Three-on-four, on the other hand, seemed quite favorable. And of course, knowing her friends, telling them to leave for their own good would just make them more determined...

Sure enough. "Well, I ain't leavin', sugarcube! Whatever this 'ritual' is, we'll face it together - as friends!" Applejack's declaration was followed swiftly by Rainbow Dash's. "Damn straight! There's no way I'm leaving my friends in the lurch - and besides, I wanna take a look at these so-called 'Stallions of the Apocalypse'." Twilight sighed and nodded. All of the reasons that had just run through her head were entirely valid, and yet, her instincts were still crying out for her to keep her friends as far away from all of this as possible. Too bad 'as far away as possible', in this case, could be measured in inches.

Then the circle was completed, and it was too late for anything. The ritual had begun again.

The End of Part 1