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        Bridle Black.        

        “I don’t know, Rainy, are you really sure that this spell can make Hickory like me?” the bright yellow unicorn pony asked, her voice tinged with both embarrassment and hope.  She fidgeted under the cool, collected gaze of her new friend and mentor, Rainy Day.

        “Fire Flicker, do you not… trust me?” The dark blue, almost black unicorn pony began a slow, almost menacing stalk around the younger mare, leaning in to sniff her flanks, storm grey eyes glittering with avarice.  One stocking clad foreleg rose and brushed the vibrant red tail of her young and increasingly nervous friend.

        “Don’t trust her, Flicker!” someone in the audience said loudly, before being promptly shushed by everyone near.  Embarrassed, the pony ducked his head below the top of his seat.

        “It’s not that I don’t trust you!” Flicker hastened to assure her older friend.  “It’s just that, I don’t know if I should be using magic to make somepony like me.  Shouldn’t he like me, you know, for me?”

        “Why Fire Flicker, I simply adore you for being you,” Rainy Day purred seductively.  “This magic isn’t harmful, it’s simply like a spell to style your lovely mane, or curl your eyelashes.  Just more… potent.”

        Flicker’s eyes darted back and forth as she turned her head away, only to have her chin gently pulled back to the front as Rainy completed her circle.

        “Just look at me, dear, as I use the power granted to me by the moon, Moonlight Seduction!”  The dark unicorn pony’s horn glowed with magic, making her lavender mane dance and sway in an unseen breeze.  Magic flowed over her, making her eyes glow with the cool white light of the moon, eyes that bore into Fire Flicker’s own.  Slowly, Rainy Day sent that magic at the bright pony, guiding it with subtle motions that brought her horn down to lightly trace the side of Flicker’s nose.

        Flicker’s nostrils flared as the magic sank into her, and her bright orange eyes grew heavy lidded with bliss as the pony she admired gently stroked her face with the tip of her horn.  She shivered visibly as the horn trailed delicately between her eyes and suddenly was rubbing alongside her own horn, which glowed with sympathetic magic.

        “Their horns are touching…” Twilight Sparkle whispered, her eyes as big around as saucers.

        Pinkie Pie jammed a hoof full of popcorn in her mouth and chewed enthusiastically.  “’s good,” she murmured to herself, never looking away from the action onscreen.  However, even Pinkie wasn’t immune to what happened next, as the dominant mare nuzzled close and, with a shocked gasp from the crowd, kissed Fire Flicker full on the lips.

        Fluttershy squeaked in shock.  Pinkie’s jaw dropped, Applejack and Dash’s cheeks burned like the setting sun, and Twilight appeared to have gone comatose.

        Rarity fanned herself gently with a quiet, “Oh, my.”  She had a faint blush decorating her own cheeks, and an open, largely forgotten bag of Reese’s pieces in her lap.

        But it didn’t stop there.  The bigger pony put her legs around the stunned Flicker’s neck, and began kissing up the side of her face.  The audience gave little gasps as Rainy Day moved.

        Dash tried to stop her wings from rustling uncomfortably, and eventually grabbed Applejack’s hat from where it rested on the arm of her chair and started turning it round and round as something to keep her hooves occupied.  Applejack noticed a second later and snatched it back.

        “You know,” Rainbow Dash hissed across Rarity and Pinkie’s laps to Twilight Sparkle, “when you said we were going to see a racy movie, this was NOT what I had in mind.”

        Onscreen, Rainy Day’s perversions grew even more lewd, as she reached the base of Fire Flicker’s horn and began licking it like a popsicle, holding the mare firmly as she all but melted into a pile of trembly goo.  Licking sensuously to the tip of the horn, which sparked and sputtered several bits of magic.  Rainy Day suddenly leaned down, engulfing the horn with her mouth, all the way to the base.

        Applejack almost bit a chunk out of her hat, but it was tough enough to withstand her sudden uncomfortably nervous chewing.  A few unicorns in the audience had their horns spark in sympathy.

        “Can they do that in a movie?  I don’t think they can do that, can they?” Dash whispered to her quietly.  “Shouldn’t somepony get in trouble for that?”

        “It’s restricted, Dash,” Rarity informed her from the side.  “That makes it Art.”

        “Well this ‘Art’ is making my feathers stand on end,” Dash hissed back.

        “And your wings,” Applejack muttered, pushing an offending appendage out of her face.

        Dash blushed and tried to get her wings under control before she blocked someone’s view from the back.  From the looks of the audience, she wasn’t the only pegasus with a problem.

        Rainy Day pulled back from her captive, leaving her barely able to sit upright on her rump.  “Now you see, my little pony, after a spell like that, who could resist?”  She stretched up on her hind legs, waving her hooves about.

        “No one could resist you, Mistress,” Fire Flicker said, her eyes swirly as they stared at the dark unicorn.

        “Ohohoho yes!” Rainy said, reaching out one foreleg for Flicker to nip and hold the end of the stockings with her teeth.  She drew the leg back, stripping the nylon mesh off to reveal a wild tangle of hair just above her hoof, then repeated the motion with the other, leaving the stockings to fall in a pile between her legs.  “Mmm, how could you resist this?  You’ll do everything I want, won’t you, Fire Flicker?”

        “Unshorn fetlocks, how daring,” Rarity murmured, finally remembering her candy and popping a few in her mouth to melt slowly.

        “Yes, Mistress…”

        “Excellent.  You will make the perfect ingredient for my next spell!  Ohohohohohoho!”

        The scene changed, and the two ponies were accompanied by newcomers, a red pegasus pony with a green mane and a white earth pony with a blonde mane.  Both walked in unison, their rumps swaying into each other, rubbing as they walked across a creepy forest clearing lit by torches and fireflies to join Rainy Day and Fire Flicker.

        A few ponies in the audience, discovering that the film wasn’t really for them, got up and left.  One or two had an angry expression, offended by the content of the movie.

        “R-Rainy?  What are we doing out here?” Flicker asked.

        “Call me Mistress,” Rainy chided.  “And we’re here to have a party!  This is Rose Thorn,” she said, indicating the red pegasus, “and Twinkie,” she added, indicating the white earth pony.  “Everypony, this is Fire Flicker.”

        “We’ve heard so much about you,” the two ponies chorused in eerie harmony.  “Welcome to our special occasion.”

        “Very nice to meet you!  I like parties, but doesn’t this seem kind of, I don’t know, dreary?”

        “But this is a special Walpurgisnacht party!  You’re our guest of honor, and soon, we’ll send out invitations to make this an even better party!”  There was a disturbing gleam in the eyes of the three ponies.

        “I-invitations?”  

        “Yes, to our friends from beyond the Nightmare.  Beings of starstuff and spacedust, who can visit us again now that the moon is no longer guarded by Princess Luna.”

        “Pft, I knew it,” Pinkie Pie complained.  “It’s always eldritch abominations with this director.  What a hack.  I could throw a way better lovecraftian party than that.”  She was quickly shushed by Twilight.

        Back on screen, Rainy Day was continuing.  “But first, we should get out… the party favors.”

        There was a sudden crack of thunder out of nowhere, and directly after the flash of light that blinded everyone, a new pony was there in the clearing with them.  A pony in a black, hooded robe, standing on her hind legs.  A pony with something dark and scary in her hooves.

        “The Black Bridle,” Twinkie and Rose said with reverence, suddenly also in robes.

        “The Black Bridle,” Rainy Day repeated, a menacing smile twisting her lips.  “Who should we put it on, I wonder?”

        Slowly, all four of the other ponies turned to stare directly at Fire Flicker.

        “Um, not it?”

        “Get her!”

        “Eeeek!” Flicker screamed, backing away.  A significant percentage of the audience gasped or shrieked along with her.  She turned to run, but Twinkie and Rose were faster, with Rainy seizing her head with her forehooves, she was held back and pinned in place, unable to escape.

        The bridle was so black it was hard to see in the firelight provided by the torches, but the cruel, barbed bit was shiny and glinting.

        “No!  Nooooo!  Please don’t!” she cried, attempting to thrash her head back and forth but prevented by Rainy Day’s hooves.

        The new, unnamed pony stretched the bridle out between her hooves before slipping it over Flicker’s head.  At first Flicker struggled, keeping her mouth closed firmly against the intrusion of the shiny bit, but the pressure was too much and the metal bar was forced between her lips and teeth.

        “Mmmph!  Mmmmph!” she cried, tears in her eyes, but Rainy just gave the rope attached to the bridle a sharp jerk, bringing her under control.

        “Now that is kinky,” Rarity admitted quietly.

        Hauling hard on the rope, Fire Flicker was dragged over and tied nose first to a post driven into the ground in the center of the clearing.  Rainy stroked her back with one deceptively gentle hoof.

        “Now now, it’s going to be okay.  I promise this won’t hurt me a bit.”

        “Mmmmph!” Flicker cried.

        Rose popped up out of nowhere, bearing an embroidered pillow and a wicked looking knife atop it.  It was about a foot long, almost a sword, with jagged edges and stains that were hopefully rust.

        “MMMMPH!” Flicker cried even louder.  She struggled but Twinkie and the unnamed pony held her back feet and kept her firm.

        “Mmmm, thank you, Rose,” Rainy purred, picking the knife up in one hoof.  “This seems… sharp enough.”  She trailed her hoof around in lazy little circles on Flicker’s flank, tracing the edges of her cutie mark of three dancing embers.

        In the audience, Twilight had foreleg covering her face, though she left one eye free to peek.  The other leg was thrown across Fluttershy’s face, but Fluttershy had cringed so low in the seat that Twilight’s leg was about a foot too high.  Fluttershy could see everything with her wide, scared eyes.

        Pinkie Pie was munching popcorn like a pony shredding machine, and Rarity watched the proceedings with bright, interested eyes.  Dash had her head buried in Applejack’s lap and her wings over her head, shaking in terror.  Applejack simply had her hat hanging on her nose and a hoof over each ear with an almost zenlike calm.

        On screen, magic erupted from Rainy Day’s horn and stretched the skin of the cutie mark away from Fire Flicker’s flank in a way that had to be painful, if her little muffled cries were any indication.  The knife rose high, gleaming in the light.  

        The knife came down.  Fire Flicker screamed.  The audience screamed.  Pinkie slurped on her drink.  Rainy Day held a piece of parchment with Fire Flicker’s cutie mark on it high, revealing the captive pony’s whole, but completely blank, flank, and laughed an insane, evil laugh.  “Ohohohohoho!  Now your cutie mark is mine!”

        From the back of the audience came such high, piercing shrieks of pure, unbridled terror that for a moment, everyone was jerked back to the present.

        An usherpony quickly found his flashlight, and shined it in the very back row, pinning three very scared, and very young, ponies in the light.

        “Uh oh,” Applebloom said, and gulped.  Beside her, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle gulped as well.

        xxxxxxxxx

        xxxxxxxxx

        “Applebloom!  How could you do this!  Sneaking into a restricted movie, of all things!” Applejack yelled, pacing back and forth in front of the three very much in trouble cutie mark crusaders, who all looked down embarrassed.

        “Well um, we did pay for our tickets,” Scootaloo offered nervously.  “We weren’t stealing or nothin, we just wanted to see the movie Dash was going to.”

        “How did you manage to do that?” Rarity asked, looking at them with a disapproving, but so far quiet, expression.

        Sweetie Belle brightened a little.  “I made us cloaks, like we saw Rose wearing in the movie poster, and we all stood on top of each other!  The ticket master thought we were in costume and actually gave us a discount.”  She pulled the cloak out of nowhere and put it on, looking for all the world like a tiny little pony cultist.  The other two followed suit immediately after, and they did look much like Rose, Twinkie, and the other pony from the movie.

        “Well, you just wait until I tell Mother about this,” Rarity said with a sniff.

        Sweetie Belle drooped again.

        “Oh, yes, you’re gonna be grounded for a month at least!”

        Rainbow Dash almost looked sympathetic at that.  “Oh yeah.  Sorry about that, Scootabutt, looks like we’ll have to wait until your punishment is over to take you kiteflying.”

        Scootaloo looked up in sudden horror.  “But, we were gonna go next week!”

        “Y’all should have thought of that before you snuck into an adult’s only movie!” Applejack replied in a stern voice.

        “But, I’ve been waiting my whole life to be taken on my first kiteflight!  And Dash was gonna hold my string!”

        “You’ll still get to go, you’ll just have to wait a bit longer,” Fluttershy offered gently.

        Scootaloo fell to her knees, hooves raised to the sky.  “Nnnnnnooooooooo!  I’m sorry!  I’ll never do it again!”

        “What in tarnation made you want to see a movie like that anyways?  I’m an adult pony and I didn’t even like it!  Dash kept her wings over her head half the time!”  Applejack carefully didn’t admit that she had her own eyes closed, too.

        Applebloom looked morose.  “We just wanted to see if we’d get a horror movie cutie mark.  Something cool, like a full moon with bats flying across it.”

        “Or a dancing skeleton!” Scootaloo offered.

        “Or a pony head and two robots!” Sweetie Belle added.

        Everyone looked at her, and then shook their head.

        “Hey, maybe now we can get our creepy cultist cutie marks!” Scootaloo said suddenly, brightening up.

        “Yeah!” the others said with renewed enthusiasm.  Quickly, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle held Applebloom face up on the ground, and Fluttershy’s rabbit, Angel, showed up out of nowhere in his own robe to stand above the little yellow pony with a carrot raised menacingly.

        Twilight casually used her telekinesis magic to pull Applebloom away and put her down beside Applejack.

        ‘There’s something wrong with that rabbit,’ Twilight thought, and not for the first time.

        “Well come along afore I got to hog tie you.  We’ll let Momma sort this out.”  Seizing Applebloom’s robe in her strong teeth, Applejack trotted away, dragging the protesting little pony.

        “Yes, come along, Sweetie Belle.  You’ll have to face the music for this, you know,” Rarity said.

        “Aww,” Sweetie Belle whined, looking dejected.

        “Dash?  Would you be a dear and take Scootaloo to her parents?” Rarity continued, looking at her rainbow friend.

        “Yeah, somepony has to do it.  Come on squirt, at least you’ll get a ride to your parents.” Dash picked Scootaloo up by the neck of her robe and deposited her on her back.

        “Yay?” Scootaloo asked, clearly unsure how to look at this change of events.  Then Dash took off like a shot, and did a few loops.  Terrified screaming soon floated down to the ground.

        “So… did anypony like the movie?” Twilight asked brightly as Rarity and Sweetie Belle trudged away.

        Pinkie Pie shrugged, then hacked and gagged as she felt a popcorn kernel caught in the back of her throat.

        “Um,” Fluttershy began.

        “Fluttershy?” Twilight asked.

        “It was... nice I guess?”

        “Nice?” Twilight asked incredulously.  

        “Well, it was… really something…” she said in a lower tone of voice.

        “That’s it?”  Twilight raised one eyebrow.

        Fluttershy sighed and lowered her head.

        “Oh, come on, you can tell me.  I know it was my idea to see it, after I heard Princess Celestia was present at the opening night in Canterlot, and I kinda liked parts of it, but I can’t say it was the best movie I’ve ever seen…”

        Fluttershy shrugged; looking away, then back at Twilight and Pinkie.  “Well…”

        Twilight looked at her expectantly.

        “The acting was acceptable but not especially noteworthy.  The characterizations were shallow.  We had no sense of who this Rose and Twinkie were, and that other pony didn’t even get a name!  She was just there as set dressing, someone to hold the bridle.  Far too much effort was spent on shocking the audience to prevent them from noticing all the plot holes.  The action whipped back and forth between cheap scares and cheap thrills too fast to get a sense of gravity, and we’re expected to care for the main character for no reason other than the fact that she’s the main character.  Rainy Day’s motivations were never explained and it’s obvious that the script had hasty rewrites after the Nightmare Moon incident so that Princess Luna would be portrayed as a protector instead of an antagonist, which is probably why Princess Celestia went to see such a shoddy movie in the first place.  There was plenty of mare on mare action to keep the stallion audience but there was absolutely no colt on colt, probably due to peer pressure, despite interviews stating that the director was open to such things.  The set pieces were competent enough but the story lurched along from incident to incident with nothing supporting them.  The writing was lazy, too many unexplained things were hoofwaved in, and the sequel is undoubtedly going to be even worse.  If he’d spent as much time actually making the movie as he did coming up with a snappy title, it would have been much better.  In fact, the only reason it was even made in the first place was to capitalize on the cheap scandal.  Frankly, the director should go back to his serious works, or possibly even remedial film school.”

        Twilight stared at her, jaw agape.

        Fluttershy took a breath and looked away, suddenly bashful.  “I-I mean, it was okay, for a girl’s night out movie…”

        “That movie made me hungry.  Who wants cupcakes?” Pinkie Pie asked brightly.

        The End.