Skullybug 'n Crossbones


Written by Septia.


“What's the holdup, Juniper? Any of your costumes I'm sure would look great on you.” Mayday said, standing in the open hallway to their apartment, dressed from tip to tail. 
	“Ooh I know, I know, that is such an inconvenience,” Juniper called out with her dramatic flair building by the word. “Which one to don when they are all… so… precious…?” 
	Juniper held her hoof to her temple as she swooned around the corner, casting a glance towards her flatmare. Mayday's siren mare costume fit her to a T', the shimmering opal and turquoise scales of the faux tail complimenting the leafy cyan of her coat. 
	Mayday rolled her eyes and swished her tail, “Whichever you choose, nightmare night isn't about to wait for anypony, Baltimare's already in full swing out there.” 
	-Thnk- -Thnk- 
	Mayday opened the door to a pair of colts outside the door. Dressed as a dragon front and a dragon rear, though not connected. They sang: “nightmare night, what a fright, give us something sweet to bite~.” 
	Mayday made a wild gesture to the candy seekers, tapping her hooves to the ground. 
	“Phaaa,” Juniper sighed, “you go on ahead, I'll meet you at the plaza in just a flash.” 
	“Long as you don't leave me hanging, the night's still young, hun. Or Ill beckon you with my siren song,” Mayday said as she handed a hoofful of caramels to the colts and bucks out the door. 
	“Oh, anything but tha-… Oh, she's gone, right,” Juniper said with a smack of her lips. She peeked out the window. The streets of Baltimare laid speckled in a congregation of costumed celebrants. All looking like ants from four stories up. With a sigh she peered over the costumes laid out on the couch. There was the witch suit, so casual; the troll outfit, but she'd gone with last years success; onyx hero, did she really want to wear something so glossy? She sighed again, lumping back into the armchair. -Chhrnnfst- only to remember that's where she stored the costume crate, carton crinkling under her cheeks. “Ouch, right, right, sorry.” She apologized to the box, the front of which laid crumpled by her flank. The bend dipping down the cardboard, where a sheen of coal dooned over the booty-sculpted valley. 
	“Hmm?” Had she forgotten a part of the hero suit? The mare dug around in the crate, fishing up the accessory. Heavy. She grasped it with both hooves to keep it steady. 
	“Thought Mayday had her own crate,” Juniper mumbled. This wasn’t one of hers. It was jet black with a hue of cobalt shining through on the horns and mandibles, an abstract simplicity in its design clashed with the quality of its material. The uniform hue solidified the appliance of paintwork that was far form incomplete. 
	“Why make something, intended to cover an entire head, so bulky?” Juniper asked, peering down the wide jaw nestled between the spread mandibles. The scrutinizing eyelids flung open. “Hold your horseshoes, there are no eye holes on this thing? How are you intended to-.” 
	-Crrtwwllspch-. As soon as she had turned it over, a tendril tethered to her cheek with a crinkle of oil. 
	“Gghuaa…?” Juniper wheezed. -Crrlslfslt- A creeping crinkle from the tether winding back along her neck. 
	-Cttlwchslp- Another tether struck the opposite cheek. 
	“Whha-whaua?” Juniper squealed as the tar crept to encircle her ear, meeting with the first… -Crhslt-. They merged. 
	-Cthrlrphthcwp- The mask bounced onto her face and with the straps now secured, Juniper felt her world overtaken by darkness. 
	“Gyrbbaa whaua, what is the matter with this, get off of me.” She tugged at the brim, clasping around the horns and tugging. But the tar of the straps laced within the mask, were consuming her face. 
	“This isn't funee, eeaay eeegghhhhen-.” -Cthtnk- thick prongs around the mouth of the mask sunk in past her lips, prying backwards to warp her mouth to its whims. 
	“Ghrngs Ghsbghs-.” The mare's words and throat alike contorted. “Aahhaahnnngagahahhrrr-.” Unable to close her mouth, but each time she opened it wider, the prongs constrained her from closing, eliminated any retraction. The hole in the mask long since breaching its limits, moulding itself and Juniper into rubber. . 
	“Ahhghrrrcc hrrrllclrc-.” Juniper’s voice puttered out her gaping throat in a frantic wheeze. The mandibles twitching… -schleps- Charcoal sludge oozed down the mask, sprawling down, enveloping her salmon coat in a sheen of satin. After one more wail, a close up of the abyss of flesh sponsored by black prongs… the mare fell out of shot. 
The apartment, crept, with the moist creaks of mud. Flakes of silence fall to blanket the room. 
	A hoof darts into frame, clinging onto the sofa. A set of claws chitter from the base. A uniform, coal cobalt broken up by streaks of bone ivory. “Hoohohoho,” came e a heaving, huffing laughter as that darkened mare rose into frame, the satin sheen of polymer covering her from tail to tip, mane under wraps with horns sprouting in its place and a glour of glee enraptured her complexion. 


“That's some, sweet, sweet, salvation,” she cried with slits opening to a pure eye white, shimmering like spotlights into the dusky apartment. 
	“Well what do we have here? Ahah,” they chime and peered down their back, a beetle bulb resting over their back, stopping just before the pale cutiemark of a skull at their hindquarters. Giving off the impression of a stylized saddlebag by its position and texture. The mare stretched out her hind legs, slumping to the ground only to arch back up in a smooth arch of a scythe. “Flexible, tensile, my kind 'a gal.” they snickered fervently. 
	-thnk thnk-.
	Their eyes shifted to the door, a smile dressed in a hue of bones curled over her lips. 
	-Krrrnnnc-. The door drew back. The trio of fillies and colts begun to recite: “nightmare night, what a f-… f-… fright~?” Their tune rhythm tapered off as they were met by the crazed expression behind the door. 
	The mare's eyes twinkled. “… Give us something, soft, to bite:” She completed their rhyme, spellbound, their hoof sweeping them up past the threshold of the door. Sealing them in with a -Cthc- click of the lock. 
	“Aaaaaah-.” 
	“Aahahahhnfm-.” The fillies cried out as the shadow of the mare loomed above them, tongue drooling out of her maw before the gape swung wide open with a squeal of grease -Crhssllc- -cjnfngjs-. The maw surpassed the girth of a trashcan lid, displaying a fleshscape in pale ivory and dripping with white drool.
	-Haaaooomfpshg- The lips sunk over the hem, the fillies' veiled past their necks, over the front hooves before they even felt the pretence of the humid sinew, but once it did… -Chrllrpstah- it suctioned to flat to their coats. -Shrrlptsh- 
	“I don't wannam play th-mmpgs… Ghrrmg.” 
	“Stoop-fmpg fmwmpght-” Their cries dampaned as their bodies were muffled to a series of droves in the distended mare's lips and cheeks, a cocoon of flesh ensnaring their squirms to faint bumps crowding over the cobalt coat. 
	“Gnhgs. Aphga aha. Ahaha… ck.” The sole colt remained outside, behind his friends with his back against the door. 
	“Mmfhahawma oomph yeeashfss,” the mare cried out and scooched forwards -Chrlrlpsthaht- -Cththsmp- a crinkle of damp coats drooping, soggy in saliva and a thud from the colt in his eel costume getting pinned to the corner of the door by his friends, feeling their wriggles working against him as they waded in war involuntarily past the mare's gape. -Glgmpgsh- Glllggmmmochs- he heard the swallows echoing down the mare's throat, as their frames were siphoned down their gullet, their wailing faces flashing up as contorting dunes. 
	“Mgmmps amapwha an ahhoirys cohoming tfooo~.” The mare cried out as she grasped the colt and flipped backwards, throwing him high into the air as she slid across the ground through the corridor and into the living room. The colt flailing as his arch neared its conclusion, right in line with the stuffed, swaying maw. 
	-Thhngnpgbfwfs- The colt slammed into the mouth, the bloats of the fillies mangling down the throat in a guttural gulp -Ooommpglglphsahgs-. The mare's neck billowing outwards like a pair of sleeping bags threading though her throat. -Cllgtpghgosb- -Glpghsghat- The bloats hoisting down to settle with -Clpghpgbs- rumbling jostle of her stomach, inflating it with the scrambling hills of the writhing fillies. All whilst the mare wriggled on her back, tongue slathering the colt in drool as she threaded the slimmed, smooth tube of an eel pone down her neck, -Gllgmphh- -Glgpogmsp- -Fhmgmpblgpghs- the swallows reeling in more and more of the pony, till she cradled him as an obease drove on her gullet. -Glhmooomfpsgls- and massaged him down with a satisfied swallow, tugging on her throat to ease his journey past her neck and into the crowded gut. - -Glblpthhgs- Entombing him with his friends in a jostling bundle of taut skin. “Moghhsnn Mongh mohghs, room service of his place is dee-.” -Bhhuraaaaahaouurrrrlllspporp- A gratuitous belch sealed them in, wafting from their fluttering lips. A hail of spittle and gullet tremors disrupting the air, with handful of feathers and colorful cloth patches falling in a gluttonous confetti, “-lightful.” 


~ 1 ~


-Grrrbbhhgdlspghhs- A heave of the mare's dangling abdomen had the marinade of chyme within give off a hollow jostle. “Wooohooh Wowsers, you candycorns holding up any in 'ere?” Skullybug asked, prodding through their guts which parted and concaved along the march of their hooves. “Oh come on, pals, can I call you pals? Gut buddies? Stomach chumps? Spelunkers?” Skullybug teased and kneaded their hooves into the big gut, sculpting droves and craters in the black film over their abdomen. -Chrlpgsh- -Bhbffsgl- bubbles dislodging and wavering in the compacted, sagging, jelly jigglinggut “Could call you wind-breakers but I don't think we're at that part of our relationship.” -Bbfppprrwth- A think, stocky tangerine haze swirls behind the mare. “Phaa, spoke too soon, did I? Ooh hey, watch it,” the mare chimed. Skullybug followed along the sways of their gut in exaggerated motions, swinging to and fro through the apartment. “If you won't keep it together I can't guarantee the same, you hunk of rascals,” she huffed out until her winding path led her to the window across form the hall. 
	-Cllpfthbhgs- Her stomach pancaked onto the pane, the coal skin bulldozed along bales of pudge peeking out at the sides of the windowsill. The pony tore their attention off the gut, and witnessed the gathering celebrations below. 
	“Ooohohoo, who forgot to invite me?” They mused, and tugged down the window. -Cbfhfflprgglsgp- their stomach blubber bulldozed over the brim in a bloated batch of belly, the mare peering out and leaning her whole upper body outwards, spying toward the distance… 
	“Fools, you are all fools to have gathered here today.” 
	But their attention was stolen, by a voice right below… 



From out on a balcony on the third floor rose, a mare, clad in a patchwork of bronze armour hastily painted midnight blue, highlights of purple with accents of a dim sky. “You believe this all to be folley? An amusement?” they called out, as the crowd condensed, staring up at the mare now cast in spotlights. 
	You forget your place, ponies. For this night, this eve, belongs to me, nightmare,” she began and rose on her hind legs, giving the signal to the pegasi below to stir up fog in a lilac haze, as she proclaimed, “Nightmare Moon.” 
	Thunder was provided by hovering pegasi above, to punctuate their entrance. 
	The crowd gathered in a cheer at their show. 
	“You may clap now, but sooon, you shall cower,” said the cosplayer drumming up to rise once more. “For this night shall last, forev-.” 
	“Geronimoaaaaaafmph-.”
	It all transpired in a blur, the nightmare night subsumed by a darkness from above, outline of onyx and shimmering cobalt veiling their frame. 
	Confusion murmured through the crowd. The spotlights rattled and working to aim back on the shifting silhouette, as it rose. 
	“Mfmg h gmp-” mumbles rustled in the under an insulation of meat. A mare rose in place of the mare of darkness. Cheeks and gullet ballooning with a melange of sinuous dunes, jiggling in the high contrast of the spotlights with frantic tremors. The mare parted their maw wide, shimmying their jaw to let their throat gnaw down on the face peering out from her throat, -Shfhr- -Cshrhrlsl- Sinking with a crinkle at the back of the maw, trailing out down on the white tongue as the bloats contorted down her throat in a gratuitous assault of swallows -Ghrbbghs- -Ghbhgs- -Cllgpsh- -Oormmpggslak- -Chrlpgsh- With the dunes siphoned down their gullet, and their stomach steadily -Bfbhghhrs- swelling to brush onto the floor as the metal balcony rafters grinded, in a sloppy squelch of chugging honey, the globules ironed out and the crown -Krlslpth- hooked onto the tongue. 
	“Phawheha,” the mare guffawed, and flung their head to the side, flinging the crown down the walkway. 
	“The night, is saaaaved, by the meritorious Skullybug.” The black clad pony proclaimed at the top of her lungs. 
	A cricket played in the distance. 
	“O-oh? That's, is that…” 
	“I don't think that’s…” 
	“But wasn't it supposed to-…” a murmur simmered through the crowd.
	“Oh but, oh sure, no need to thank me, I just banished that pesky deity for ya, tomorrow the sun will shine on eveyponieys' beautiful faces.” Skullybug declared. 
	Somepony made the effort of an awkward clap. Though it soon spread. 
	“Cuz tonight’s a time to fill yer own bellies with sweets, an, dance as with the horrors of our world, and fill up on candy for yer own sakes, huh? Whathwosabout that?” Skullybug's made sure all of ya eats swell tonight.” 
	The applause grew all the more genuine. Whilst there were befuddled glares exchanging between ponyfolk all over, the mood had picked up in the light of their new hero, who gracefully bowed -Grlclugghtch- as much as their gut allowed. 
	


Mayday crooked their lip, “Odd.” 
	“Odd is indeed the word I would use, dear citizen.” A lime green pony said shuffling up to Mayday. 
	Mayday tilted her head towards him. “Aahm, yeah? There is nothing abou-.” 
	“Indubitably, you wonder who I am to say such a thing.” 
	“I, said it first.” 
	“Kelp, Kelp knot, don't wear it out.” The stallion was dressed in a long coat and pointed hat, scratching their chin as they observed the horned mare crashing the show. 
	“Oh, I get it, you are getting into the character of your costume.” 
	“Costume?” Kelp knot asked, “Unimportant, what matters now is identifying this mare, and ensuring all went to schedule, imperative to catch her at an opportune occassion.” 
	Mayday peered at Kelp, then peeked back to the rafters. 
	Kelp turned. The mare was gone. 
	“Blast it,” they exclaimed and trotted off into a gallop, following a flash of onyx. 
	He tailed them down the alley from the plaza, creeping along as the shadow rounded the corner to the interspace between buildings, even in the darkness the pegasi's sharp gaze spired the outline of the blocky mare with their gut weighed to the ground. 
	“Aha, time for yo-.” 
	-Ghhrbrbrglglpghaht- A growl of gruel quaked through the alley -Chhrrgtbgtlapts- The rousing brewing of boiling porridge heralding the silhouette's sculpt compressing, the low hanging gut reeled up to a pouch of pudge that jostled with a scramble of gelatine -Chrrlljjss- -Cllghshcrhs-. 
	“-a…” Kelp wheezed, and ducked behind a crate, to further his investigation in secret.


-Pppffllrlrwclrprtsh- Whistles of compressed gruel fluttered between the cheeks, through the center of the canyon a shape took form, towering over the black hills — The fabric retracted from the bulb like oil on water, showing the pink brim twitch and protrude under the gape of another -Bbrrrrwwwcllptthsp- gaseous cloud. But in this one, through the scent of pickled ink and fat was interrupted by a plugging crinkle of lard. -Chrlrpsthshfhgst- The Pucker distended, morphing to the width of the umber fed through the mare's bowels. -Scrrjjlfllfpssffrt- They exited under a storm of crinkles, the crisp cry of candy wrappers still soaked in saliva scrunched up for the trash bin. -Slflpthths-… -Crprplfth- The raw manure, a deep auburn with a tint of tangerine welling through the brim… -Clltpthpgsbghthh- And dropping without ceremony to a malformed lump on the ground. -Schhrrlpfffssth- -Tthhfnfsssspkdt- “Awwwnsmf that's more like it, out you come, don't wanna stay in my moldy old ass, do ya? Fart twice for no.” 
	-Bbrrfffwmmtptsh- The tailless mare wriggled her flank, pinching over the fog flooding through her hind and painting a musky hue of burnt banana peels in the air. “Pffhhr, well tough crud, cus yer all outta there.” She started a chuckle that blossomed into a full cackle, swaying her ass whilst the brim distended. 
	-Chrlrpghs- The pucker warped past the width of her hoof, -Bfhngng- and with another swelling reverb down her rectum the mound cleaved her cheeks wide as a hip. -Cfffjrrrllprtths- -Brrgrllrpsshp- A bubble of the brewn smog petered out as the obaese mound of mulch moseyed out her malaise derriére. The manure filled the brim and inflated outwards in an arc down the pony's cleft, the girth of the orange dune of steaming muck only ever growing so wide past the perimeter of the pony's pucker before -Cshhrrlpfhhtpsth- dropping to join the gathering tangle of muck below them. With their stark hue and bottom heavy shape from collecting and swelling out the brim, they took the liking of decorative dumplings: the clog marching and dispensing numerous bloated rectum grown gourds, polished pristine and glossy by the generous amount of bowel lube, -Cllptbghphs- betraying their shape when their outline muscled and melded into each other in the pile below while they cropped free. Mangling, their surface melding under a sticky foam of gutter gunk grinding up between them. 
	“Mfmgnpah phaaa. Oh, such a great time to take a load off with a friend, ey? A well deserved fmsmsm… unwinding after saving the city, you guys are basically the real heroes.” She toted whilst her hind bellowed between bouts of bowel bile -Bbfrrmmrooofmgpths- -Cllpthgs- -Krlpshts-.  Muck flooded out, inflated by her hind until it lobbed free, slumping into the mire below
	The gourd loaves toppled with further regularity. Then and again the ends of them -Cllpthths- wedging and splaying the pucker with a stalk of a femur embedded in them, growing wider, and wider with each new batch, prying Skullybone's hind to its limits as the buns -Chhrflfllfpsthah- wedged wide over the bloated bottom of the engorged gutter glob. -Cllgpsh- -allpgshthas- this batch loomed over the rest, wide as her hips, the broad surface of the tanned mound creaking as bowel lube trickled between the fragile fluid cracks segmenting the filth. Umbers and yellowed hues bleeding into each other like oozing inks, distributed by the pocks of air bubbles and deposits of hair from discolored coats cropping up in tufts alongside the cracks… 
	-Clld-cllscpls- -Chrrvllffpwlrslaths- The bale passed the zenith, and hauled forth like a sack of wet flour. -Clflpwthahthsat- It displaced the dung gourds around it as folded in a drove of dung with an accumulated mass of numerous ponies, baked into this muddy slop. Skullybug rocked back and forth as the mound extruded, unfurling and deflating behind them to a plinth of orange gruel. -Slfphht- - -Chrlrstah- 
	“Mfmhgs, phaa, we're not done,” She mused. -Flpthhrth- Her pucker wafted out a miasma of bowel cured vinegar boar clapping shut with a moist smack -Cllsstpshpt- -Clrlprthhst- When it parted again, the brim bloomed over a globe of clean polished ivory, doming outwards to be held snug by the mare's cheeks whilst the brim gradually sealed along the object's girth… until… -Cllptgfst- -C-Cllktnfhhts- The Cranium clattered onto the muck below -Fjltsplsh- Sinking into the bed of filth on its side, one socket submerged in the reeking sewage putty. “Mfnggsha all of ya's better head out~,” Skullybug mused as -Cllflpththah- another patch of pale bone prodded through her posterior. -Flcpshths- An echoing clap of gunk displacing into a crater beneath the skull. -Lclpthht- Then a third… a trifecta of polished skulls drooling a clean, viscous fluid down along their surface like a sheen of molten wax. -Crrlflfsalsthh- Then… the last one crowned… 
	“Ooh tha's one's a fighter, but what's a fmsm a few arguments between friends huh?” Skullybug mused as they squatted, their pucker bending open over the melon of a cranium. -Chrhflfpsthfslpthat- The Skull clattered with a thrum of a xylophone against the three nested below it. A pyramid of skulls, the first three's diminished stature made clear by the adult unicorn cranium crowning the cavalcade. Its socket stared into Kelp Knot's very being. 
	A shrine to the fate of the ones who crossed path with the masqued mare, veiled in the fetid mists of gullet miasma left in the wake of the manure stack. 


“G-ggpha…” The pegasi stammered. 
	-Crkkrthch- A crack of bones echoed in the alleyway as Skullybug's neck twisted far too much. At once, Kelp Knot was faced with the silhouette of darkness, framed by the glowing wide eyes. Then he saw the pearly white grin manifest through the dusk. The black skull had him in her vision. 
	The mare pounced backwards. Running at him rear first before she could correct her pace. 
	“Ghyyaaa,” Kelp knot cried and turned tail, leaping towards the plaza. Cursing himself for the heavy suit tying down his wings. He heard her hoof steps clattering the cobble behind him… with sweat pouring he reeled in a breath. 
	“Everypony,” he yelled as he saw the light of the gathering ahead, “Mayday, Mayday, everypony run, Skullybug is-.” 
	-Cllpthgh- he was knocked to the ground. The crowd of people in the plaza trembled to see just a sliver of the stallion's face before it drew back in the shadows. “H-hellgmp gmpgsh.” His squirming hoof fighting to hold onto the cobblestones, reeled back and swallowed by the darkness. 
	-Ffmgpsh- -Omffpghs- -Oommpggh- -Glursskk-. -Bhuruaaaaoaoorpp- The belch echoed out into the open plaza. Commotion still rousing through the crowd, but those near the alley's entrance, frozen solid. 
	Mayday noticed the stillness, just on the edge of it herself, walking between ponies in all manner of costumes to see what the fuss was about. 
	-Bhuaaaahororosap- -Grrrllssfht- Through the air, launched by the hot breath, flew a tattered hat, slathered in drool. -Chtsk- As it hit the ground a magnifying glass lobbed out -Tlchskg- -Thsnk- clattered to the ground. A drawn breath through the crowd. 
	Mayday held over her muzzle. And peered to the alley. 
	Through the darkness, a blacked cobalt mask emerged, mandibles chattering and brushing off saliva, crowned with tangled horns, and a sporting a rambunctious, thrashing gut. -Cghgosh- -Clpgghahg- -Gglpthshats- 
	“Mmpgs gampw,” -Wmpfhfg- -Ammwpmdwh- came from the stomach as it jostled beneath the pony's frame. 
	“What'cha all gawking at? There's no needs to be worried about tha inspecta,” they flashed a grin with a wicked conclusion, “I've got a clue where they went.” 
	“…”
	“Everypony, Panic.” 
	It was unclear who yelled. But soon they were drowned out in dozens of voices. The crowd further back uncertain where the danger was, but all knew to scatter. Mayday like the others, trying to get a good look of Skullybug's trajectory as she planned her route. It was nerve wracking to run through crowds of a colour and shape disparity, when one such individual was an actual threat. 
	“Juniper,” She realised. It had hardly been enough time for her to pick out her costume. But… if she was… With her resolve intact, she ran to their apartment. 


“Juniper, Juniper, are you in there?” She called out as she flung open the doors. “There's been an emergency, we need to stay put while…” The apartment was a mess. Sofa overturned, carpet bunched up from the hallway to the living room. Scraps of cloth littered the ground. And further ahead… the window was wide open. Frame concaved ever so slightly… 
	“Juniper…” Mayday mumbled. Planting her hooves on the windowsill, and looking down. Her fears confirmed. Their windows aligned with the overlook where the nightmare moon actor had stood: Where Skullybug had devoured them. 
	“Juniper…” Mayday wheezed. She was too late. Skullybug had gotten there first.


~ 2 ~


“Juniper?” Mayday called into the streets. For the first time in moons the streets would not reply. Aside from a scant few citizens roaming, the silence weighed on her chest. 
	“Juniper?” she wedged herself free of the lower part of her suit. The sequence tail drooping. Perhaps it wasn't. Perhaps, she had picked a suit. Maybe she was just lost in the masses, hiding in an alley, something. 
	“Juniper? I'll do all the chores for a week if you come out.” This was delusional. Mayday knew it. Though her legs carried her onwards, winding down the paths of the neighbourhood, spiralling to see every street. If she kept moving… she didn't have to stop and think. 
	-Pfmfhth- “Oopgshap” Mayday bumped into a brick wall, tumbling back on her flank an, buffered by the sequence tail. “Can't stop… looki-. Ooh. Apologies.” She said to the brick wall of a stallion standing in front of her. Armour strapped, a spear at the side. A proper royal guard.”
	“M'am, I must implore you to return to your residence.” 
	“But… Juniper is still…” 
	“If anypony's out here I urge them all to return to safety.” 
	“But, I… She can't have-” 
	A hoof landed on her shoulder. “What does she look like?” 
	Mayday shivered. 
	“Salmon coat, grey mane, a cutie mark of a three bottles She can never decide anything, and she's the sweetest thing.” 
	“Understood. I will keep my eyes sharp for this Juniper. Please, allow me to escort you to safety.” 
	Mayday nodded. They walked back along the alley. 
	-Cktlpghtsh- A clang of bone rung out before them. And, a pony's cranium clattered against the cobble before them. 
	The guard halted. 
	“Whoops, looks like I dropped something, mind throwing that one back, she was awfully cute.” 
	“Run,” the guard wheezed, turning tail as Mayday rushed ahead of him. The path was compromised. She had to… 
	“Wait up, I've still gotta bone to pick with you.” 
	Mayday looked back, up to the walkways, seeing the shadow scuttling down the wall, black horns grinding to the brickwork so sparks flew, and the white eyes open wide to pierce into her… 
	… Then it stopped. Skullybug was keeping pace, but now, Mayday left them in the dust. Her own pace, coming to a stop, as she stared back. It hesitated… 
	“Keep away from her.” The guard called and swiped the side of his spear across the monster's forehead. -Cllspth- it clapped into a gummy tar. But Skullybug's resistance worked against her -Spplltchs- a crackling of drying custard weaved through the air. As the spear had hooked into a cleft, and pried the black mass open under his own exertion.
	Mayday covered her muzzle. Seeing the creature mutilated, despite being a monster, was--… wait… that blackness, it wasn't skin. It pried back like… like a suit. And within. She saw a patch of smooth, salmon coat. The gap widened to the outline of a mask cracking open, Skullybug screeched in distress as the guard pinned them to the wall. Their maw gaping wider, and wider, stretching past their chest to a ravine of alabaster glistening the dark night. Streaks of grey mane slumped from the gap. 
	Mayday gasped.
	“Hhaaa -agamgphatat-.” Skullybug twirled back over the guard with a roar. "Stop, in the name -fmpagafmpgaht-” -Clslthhtpathhat- a sprouting crackle rustled the alley as the engorged gape wormed over the guard, encapsulating his upper body in a tent of black flesh. -Cslpltthah- The maw snapped taut, choking back this hooves, his spear dropping, as the monster begun to swallow -Chhbgggmso- -ooMmpgghsh-. 
	Mayday took a step forward. Trembled, then turned and ran. If she kept moving, she wouldn't think about it. There was something far more import. She had to plan ahead, she had to put a stop to them. 


~ 3 ~


-Bhraaauruglps- Skullybug belched, a mouthful of fur whistling through the stream of her burp. Tapping her chest with a sigh. “Can't work wiff such a stiff audience,” she mumbled, sauntering through the apartment corridors. Until they came to one she recognised. Across from the door laid the still open window, capturing a canvas of the starlit sky. 
	“Peewee, that's more like it, I'mma star, I'mma star,” they huffed as she scooched in. 
	“Then make a wish.” 
	“Hauh?” 
	“Cuz this star's gonna fall.” Mayday pounced from the shelf, mounting onto Skullybug's back and jabbed, branding a pair of forks. -Cllptsh- -Clpsthtc- She jabbed them at the black of her head, curving and tilting them back. -Krrlsshrrlst- They dug through the grimy polymer until… -Cllpth- They met resistance, the mask. 
	“Gotcha,” she pried them back, wedging the mask forward. 
	“Mghtaygha-s agmamsah Heyrfamga, I didn't oderder no face lifts,” Skullybug cried out as the mask twitched forwards. Fractures sprouting in the tar and -sFllrpsthath- stretching forwards. Peeling off of a distressed, pale pink face. 
	“Gaghrha asha keep a-way-. Aaaaammmmaaay-daaay.” 
	The voice twisted, warping to resemble a tone she knew. Mayday's resolve invigorated, she stared at the horns. 
	“I'm getting you out of there,” she cried, chomping onto the horn, the black strafe fluid but its core steady, already drooping into her gums… 
	“Hyynghsgagmgpahawh-” -Ccchhhrrrrrltr-pghsthsltwoowp- The pop echoed through the apartment, Mayday's head arching back from thewaning resistance, the mask flying in front of her, with tethers of oily darkness curving back towards Juniper's face. She let go. And the mask clattered into the wall Cllrfhst- -Chrhrshfha- trailing down towards the floor with a cobalt trail marking its path. 
	“Ppmhahaahw. Huaha ahauao. Pha…” Juniper gasped for breath, breaching the surface to reality, she could breathe again. “Pmmgn pha… aaw… aaa. M-Mayday?” 
	“J-juniper…” Mayday huffed, and slumped over them in an embrace, wrapping their hooves around their neck. Feeling the black film drooling off her, an oil that slathered the ground below them in a dusky puddle, but Juniper. Still clinging to the mare's coat. She was free. 
	“M-Mayday… wh-what… what did you do?” 
	“That's, a complicated… story. Just, give me a moment.” 
	Juniper shifted free from beneath her, holding Mayday close in the embrace. “Mayday… you are pale as a sheet” 
	“It. It is ok.” 
	“I mean it, let-” 
	-Clltch- A clak of ivory. 
	Mayday's eyes burst open, staring at Juniper holding the mask. 
	“You look like you saw a real monster.” 
	Mayday stared ahead, as the mask settled back on Juniper. Her world growing black, then enveloped in white.


-Ghghslgp- -Ghoogmhph- Juniper swallowed. -Cslpth- Her black lips creeping over Mayday's barrel, ruffling the fur under as it wound past the precipice of her maw. -Ogogmpagh- -Fglglsh- Another gulp rattled through her cheeks, trailing through her engorged gullet. Swollen with the vague caricature of Mayday's frame. Each gulp wedging the bloats deeper, further into the catacombs of her guts. “Mmfpghsa… mpfa oOmmhps,” Juniper moaned over her flatmare's frame, lips sloughing over their hind, a toothless maw gnawing into the supple tissue, kneading it as its schemat- sunk ever downwards. -Cllpghtah- The wallows hoisted Mayday up, though peristalsis had already taken effect, the natural force of the empowered throat tensing and roiling muscles through the throat to trawl the mare deeper, forming little ruffling waves arching down her neck, through the gullet -dlspglhhat- and slotting into the rising, engorging tummy. 
	“Ahrm shorrwy,” the mare's moans rustling through her neck and out over the twitching legs as they sunk into the throat -Cllgpthahs-. Their words muffled by the pony clogging her neck, but their warped, choking satisfaction still roused through their words: 
	Mayday roused from her paralysis, “What in Luna's name was that?” 
	Juniper blinked, peered down the wriggling hooves, and wrapped her tongue up around them, scooping up the wriggling pair in a heave -Cllglpthtbgbo- thrusting them to the back of her throat, the globules clogging her neck curling thrown her frame, bloated to a sculpt of Mayday's legs fading as the skin bulldozed flat. -glpgbthahg- -Splspahghht- and the last of the mare stashed away in her guts. 
	“Phaaa,” Juniper sighed as she raised her hooves, -Gppgrrlgb- her gut bobbing to the ground as she let her weight rest on Mayday. 
	“Ghagnah S-staop. Quiet” came a squeal from the kneaded gut occupant. 
	-Cbhuraaarlps- -Krlspth- -Clllplch- flecks of sequence trickled over the floor, falling from the haze of a belch rolling out of Juniper's bone white maw. 
	“Mmfs. You feelssmaaa, so good in there though… It is a shame, May, I was hoping to share this with you.” 
	“Shut up,” Mayday yelled. 
	Juniper blinked, “Hmm?” 
	“Just… just shut up… You're not Juniper, I know it. I know she's gone.” 
	“Oh, where'd she go?” 
	“Where the pepper grows, up your flank you m-monster.” 
	Sullybug blinked. Then stood, “Really now?”
	Mayday curled up in the rocking quivers of the gut. -Splgath- clefts- -Crrrwlelelpstah- but another squeal, of stretching rubber and old glue strained, further in the distance… The mask… 
	“Mmgmpaha…” Juniper freed her head from the mask, brushing down down along her gut, molesting the surface’s mould and divots in concavities over its outlines, rubbing against the curled up mare. “See, I'm not wearing it anymore. It is just Me, It is just Juniper.” 
	“Wh… wh. But… w-why…?” 
	“I wish I could put it to words… How it feels to have your insides molested by a frantic meal that slowly wastes away to a rocking, soothing massage… mf… Even saying it has my mane standing on end… 
	“What do you mean,” Mayday damned and struggled to shift in the cocoon of undulating flesh. “Mmofsfah,” Juniper huffed out, grinding her stomach to the floor, and caressing the outlines of her dear friend. “You at, s fms, just… that. I knew you would get it. Fmsm.Just how I wish you could broaden your horizons as I did…” 
	“By eating ponies? Juniper snap out of it, it si the mask, the mask is making yo-.” 
	“Hungry? To be sure it does,” -Gllbhhthg- -Bhaarup- She belched -Cllpgths- the gout contrition in a tense convulsion. “But it was sated after the first handful of fillies.” 
	“Wh… whyou. Then wh-why-.” 
	“But, I wasn't…” Juniper shuffled along, dragging her stomach across the floor, into the bedroom. “I really am sorry, dear,” she said. As she pushed the separate beds together, and crawled aboard. -Brllphhhg- -Gggpllgaahhorrp- her stomach compressing, jostling and sloughing up onto the mattress with their gut -slclpsthaht- smacking over her legs in a doughy dip of pony packed pudge. “But even so… My only wish, is that I could feel more sorry than I am. You are a sweet mare, so be kind to digest like a proper, mm, guilty snack…” she huffed out, wiggling back into the mattress, and groping into the gut, wincing with a tremolo to her voice fluttering through her gullet. 
	“Mgmpgah gmapghga” 
	“Each mumble and struggle to make her bite down on her lip harder, savouring the struggles, and muting her own mind with the pain in her lip and the ache through her rough kneads.


~ 4 ~


-Gbbrllgpgshah- -Gbbrlglpsh- The gurgles of the mare's gut reverberated beneath the blanket. The tension tickled through her spine. Her hooves brushing. 
	“Phaa, I'm sorry, Mayday,” Juniper said. She brought her hooves down to caress the clump of a stomach, plying her hooves into the guttural pony marinade with a gentle creak and crinkle worming through her abdomen -Chrlrlpsth- -Crrllsgsslt- “It didn't have to go this way, we didn't want to eat you.” She covered her mouth as her cheeks inflated. -Bhhrauauuurrsllap- She belched up a torrent of steam, carrying a hail of faux fish scales that drummed into the blanket. “Mpghs, phee, well at least that is not a complete falsehood,” she said and picked a scale out form between her teeth and flecked it off. “But I knew you were gonna make this a whole thing about 'Juniper, at least ask ponies before you eat them', concern, but this way none of us have to worry about it, right?” she said with a massage of her guts. This had been the back and forth ever since she took off the mask come the witching hour. Huddling up with her flatmare on their bed — pushed together at last. 
	-Chhchltlpts- her hoof suddenly sunk inwards as the stomach gave way to a vacuum, pudge drooping with a wind of congestion -Chrhrfflllptsh- “Oomph ooh it is hard to be upset when a friend is really fmsp, giving it their all to show my heiny a good mfm time fmms,” -Pfpbrbrpptthhs- A cloud of womanly fermentation and pickled sardines wrought the mare's cheeks and whipped blanket up to dance, the green smog wafting through the bedroom. “Mmfs, phaa, was gonna say it is ungainly for you to keep me waiting, you wanan get a move on in bed, did not take you for such a deprived mare, fms msmopsh oooh, you're serious, aren't cha?” She cooed out as her pucker trembled. -Cllpthths- Smushing her hooves into her gut for a trudging avalanche to wade through her guts -Cjjbrrrlslgnshas-. -Crlrlpsgshth- Twitching and whining, hinting at the stockpile behind its gate, the brim gradually widened, oozing moist fog to blur the sight of the bale below. -Chrrlstptsthah- with a crinkling of chewing a wrapping paper with just a smudge of toffee left, the pucker blossomed over the girth of Mayday and Juniper's culminated friendship. The brim gradually peeled back across the clot of olive stained silt, a hint of the orange pumpkin blemished the mound, bleeding into the verdant green and deep umber in a corrupted melange. -fractures riddled across the expanse, dividing the filth into to clumped patches of solid mud. -Chrlltpthshats- the clumps condensed as the brim came to a stop, the bale bunching up under the sudden pop of pressure, shifting backwards despite the strain from Juniper. 
	“Mmfpfh mpgsha… phaaa, oh by the stars are they all so big? Fmfms, this wmm was a lot easier with the mask, FMSH…” Juniper wheezed, wiggling back and forth in bed, kicking up the blanket and spreading her thighs to let her fudge hatch distend. -Cllpths- -Krlhpthts- -Prktpths- Thrumming throbs trembled through the thighs, trudging the thick tombstone through the taut tush. 
	“Mmfpfsh amha, but it feels so good,” she huffed out and squeezed down on her gut. -Clpsghht-s the built up tension easing with the force, -Shlslppssg- and, compression funnelling through, vents of gas shifted the bale forwards like talc from a tube.
	 -Chrllssppth- -Cbhtllspth- The mound of manure moseyed onwards, sloughing and warping the pucker wide as a watermelon around itself to heave forward in a spooling arch of bowel fudge. -Chrlrlspthahta- -Fkrlslpstbts- The grime welled forth like a fountain of mint fudge, slobbering onto the sheets while the vile mass advanced. moulded under coils of its own weight, loaves of batter compacting and spooling out globules of the rubber green mounds. The surface crackled as it sprawled onwards, the film of congealed bowel slime donning the mulch in a velvet gloss, a highlight of particularly ivory glow rising on the chunks of femurs and ribs jutting out from betwixt the fractures of muddy olive -Chrllptsh- Juniper's brim weaved over the onslaught extending in a solid pillar from her hind which soon caved under its own weight to join the billowing sludge-scape covering the bed. 
	-Sfhrrpths- -Chrrlsp- -Cllthwpwh- Clots of filth begun to portion over the edge, tumbling to the ground with the vague outlines of their original loaves subsumed in the melange -Flslpthaht- and fading into the uniform texture of bone riddled manure once it hit the ground. -Cshjflptsh- -Clspghth- A progression, heralded by the popping putter of exhaust: Solid by the presence of the bowels, mellowing and relaxing to a tangled web of roiling, obaese cables, and culminating in the vague hills sculpted from their bed. With that the mare lost physical traits, relinquished the final identifiable aspects of herself, brewn to a bone scattered grit. 
	“Mpfm fmmh, And I presume you will put the cleaning dms duty to me, despite it being your mess?” She mused as she lounged back. Her thighs rattled under the tension prying her brim so wide. The contrast of the effort required to feel such relief simmered through her veins. -Psfbbrrbrlbsfft- vapours vented through the gaps in the mound, whistling past cracks and brushing the air in a scent scape of molten sequence, fermented hide, and ammonia. A haze building form the steaming refuse, weighing on the mattress as its moist hoof print soaked its wake. 
	“MFng mspfoo ooohf, thats, fmsh, did you furnish my hindquarters as well, feels fmsm, like I'm passing a chair.” The mare complained whilst her swollen midsection steadily deflated, mulch shifting down the tracks along with an obstruction. -Slflbttplsh- -cllspth- the brim pinched with a squeal and parted with a wrinkle, gradually expanding over a patch of enzyme polished bone. -Cllrpthfhspth- Her flatmare's manubrium protruded through her cheeks, forming a scoop as wide as her head, the bone divided the flow of gunk around it; a stream by each side, and a lions share weighing into the skeletal scale. 
	“Gmngsa pa poh, you would notmmfs,” Juniper huffed out, rattled by the sight of the bone scowl filling up as it teetered on the edge of her brim, slowly weighed down enough to jostle her rectum and trawl forwards with its cargo of crud. -Sfhhfltptsah- -Crllpfbbsfh- Until enough fudge had been packed up, and the bone dislodged. -Cslpthahg- -Krlpsthapthah- Juniper's brim popped open around the sturdy chest bone as it set sail from her hind as a canoe of sludge wading through the barrelling river of mud her hole had cemented. 
	“Mmgnsah mpahaa,” Juniper decompressed in a sigh, her brim flexing and twitching in the wake of the congestion. 
	-Chrllgrrlllsptchhs- The skeletal ship foraged down the slope, asail past the end of the world with a ballast of bile, -Chtltlpghabthtsh- Dropping into and displacing the manure under its fall into a crater of autumn leaf caramel, with a squeal of maple syrup slathered over butter -Chhbwrflpsah- -Tchfslpfsghrhs-. 
	“Phoo. Aamfnf nnfff, haa…” Juniper nurtured her moans and coo’s, emitting a satisfied sigh with all of her face, as the last cluttered globs of filth trickled out her hind. 
	“Thafmsm, that's is better. Mfms, least you felt real great, smmf, and won't have to worry about your bit of the rent,” she peered down to the sludge-scape that had been Mayday. “If you had forgone your heroic spirit, then perhaps we could just have had fun.” Juniper rose from the bed. -Chhbrbg- -Ghrbbgs- Her gut growling with an eerie curl of displaced marble. She shuffled up through the house, swaying her cheeks side to side. -Cllgh- -Clgsht- Her flanks clapping with the surplus of padding resonating on her cheeks; a less transient memento of her indulgences, all collected in layers of chub curving out her hind. She swung her cheeks in rhythm with the obstruction trudging through her barrel. -Clflsth- -Cllsprhtt- -Krlspth- Until she stopped, in front of the hallway, across the window she'd leapt out of just a few days before. -Clrrwpltsh- Her rear crinkled with a trickle of stretching glue. The mare steadied her hooves and spread her cheeks for the pucker to protrude, -Cslptthaha. And through its gaping unveiling a dome of clear, buffered bone. -Kchrrllrphst- The eye sockets eeked past the rugulouse ring of flesh, drooling with droplets of hind dew. “Mm fmphaa, apologies, once more, but this will be your last goodnight.” Juniper said, sucking on her lip. -Cthsahp- -Pwhllplltcp- The Cranium oscillated forth, dislodging from the brim peeling back shut behind it, a shower of viscous translucent slime spattering the ground in tandem with the unicorn's skull -clttohsrtt- rattling with a reverb of the moist tissue, before coming to a stop. 
	Juniper contemplated her friend's skull, then her eyes landed on the mask. 
	“On the other hoof,” she said, holding up the dark artifact, “the night is followed by dawn, and the fun has just begun.” 


~ 5 ~


The mask reverberated in her grasp. She peered back to the skull. Then back to the mask. “Curious,” she mumbled, trailing off her own sentence as she hoisted up Mayday's cranium. She held them towards one another. Gaping eye sockets witness to a gaping maw. Had She. Slowly, she revolved the mask, facing away from the skull… 
	-Cllthhclsph- A tar tendril, latched on.