A Massive Appetite

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

“Hey! Get out of the road!”

“Move it you useless lump!”

“What the hell is that thing?!”

“Whatever it is, it’s blocking traffic. Someone should clean it up.”

A cacophony of blaring sounds and loud voices assaulted Twilight’s ears as she appeared… wherever she’d teleported to. In her panic, she hadn’t given any thought to her destination, just that it had to be where she couldn’t hurt anypony.

Getting up and looking around, Twilight could determine that there certainly weren’t any ponies anywhere in sight

“Oh, it’s some dumb giant horse. Get out of the road! Go on move it!”

Something gave Twilight’s rump a solid thwack, which made her jump forward. She was surrounded by walls on all sides, with odd, hairless bipedals and larger, shiny cocoons swarming the little open space there was. She nearly stepped on one of the big yellow ones, and it let out an obnoxious roar which sent her stumbling backward.

Something caught her hooves and she fell, her rear end crushing one of the big yellow cocoons. Screams erupted behind her and four of the little hairless bipeds rushed from inside the cocoon, shouting at her as they ran.

A loud rumble rose up from Twilight’s stomach. Oh, right. Hungry. She rolled over—squishing more hard round cocoons in the process, and sending more little critters screaming— and examined the object she’d squished.

It had a hard outer coating, but it hadn’t hurt when she’d sat on it. She pressed down on it with the soft underside of her hoof, watching in silent curiosity as it caved in further with a grinding creak. It didn’t hurt. She tried it again, stomping on the little toy with all of her weight. It was almost… fun.

She stomped down the street, crushing cars and laughing as the little critters ran in every direction, some flinging small objects at her, which bounced off harmlessly. It was as though she could no longer feel pain. It reminded Twilight of when she’d exited the library, except then she’d been trying to avoid crushing her friends. Here? Well, these creatures meant little to her—she was crushing cocoons. Much too fun to worry about lives at stake, right?

But her stomach would not be forgotten, and it roared loudly above the metallic crunching. Twilight stopped. Her outer skin seemed impenetrable, but what about the inside? She reached down and sniffed one of the cocoons. It smelled of oil and tar—not very appetizing. But her stomach urged her to try it, and she took a tentative bite.

While the main body of such cocoons was hollow, the front seemed to be filled with solid bits of metal. She crushed them easily in her teeth, and found them… surprisingly tasty. Tangy, but palatable. She picked the cocoon up and tossed it a bit so she could get her mouth under it, snapping her jaw down over the front half of it. Mmmm, crunchy. She bit off a chunk and swallowed with some difficulty. It went down with less trouble than the pink pony from before, though.

Her stomach quieted down after that, but the small bloat her stomach had gained was already shrinking. Wow, this spell really works fast! Her hunger sated, Twilight returned to gleefully crushing cocoons, though she was disappointed that there were no longer any screaming critters scurrying away as she squashed their transports.

It had become a game. The streets of what was clearly a large city became emptier and emptier, devoid of the little critters that had scurried everywhere when she’d arrived. Twilight believed she now had a name for them. They were mentioned in a few of the forbidden books Twilight had snuck with her when she'd left for Ponyville. A girl’s got to have a bit of adventure, right? If Celestia had known, she hadn’t said anything.

The book mentioned an extra dimension or two. Well, 42 to be exact, but within them there were different universes, and in one of these was a world not unlike the one she was in now. If Twilight’s hunch was correct, these were the humans her friend Lyra from PCSGU had been so obsessed with. Perhaps, now that she knew where she was, she could find a way home. Her stomach let out another loud groan. Well, if she could ditch this spell first.

She reached down and chomped down another cocoon. Wait, no. Car! Yes, they were just like the cars mentioned in the book. Twilight frowned. Cars weren’t edible. The spell seemed to be allowing her to consume any substance as long as she could fit it in her mouth. Well, it had said ‘everything in sight’.

She came to a break in the tall buildings, where a raised railroad crossed her path, with a train heading her way. Heh, this should be fun. Squashing several cars and buses, Twililight bounded forward. She made sure to step on as many cars as she could; destruction was too fun to pass up, and the humans were all out of the way anyway. She smashed right through the railway, following her stomach’s lead. She positioned herself in the path of the oncoming train, and opened her mouth wide.

Come to me, tasty train. I want to see how yummy you are. There came a loud screech as the train put it’s brakes on, slowing nearly to a halt as it reached the torn up end of the rail, right in front of Twilight’s waiting maw.

Unfortunately it didn’t come sliding off the end of the rail. Much to Twilight’s disappointment, it made a complete stop just before it would have plunged into the abyss at the back of her throat, allowing hundreds of little humans to come scurrying out and running down the track in the opposite direction.

A scowl gripped her face, and a purple glow enveloped the train. The sides all crunched inward at once, and the whole thing shot off in the other direction, crushing the humans in its path under its wheels. She lifted the train and brought it to her mouth. Crunching it angrily between her teeth and swallowing. Her stomach barely even bloated a little this time.

By now Twilight could see over the tops of some of the shorter buildings, and located another train on a different part of the rail. Perhaps she could have some fun with this one. Bounding over to it, she planted a hoof on top of the front most car, drawing the train to a stop. She ran it backward and forward a few times, ignoring the cars that fell off the track amid screams and crashing metal.

There was nothing particularly interesting about this train that the other one didn’t have. Twilight wasn’t really sure what she was expecting, but trains were definitely more fun to eat than to play with. For good measure, she pressed down on the roof of the train, enjoying the feeling of crushing it beneath her hooves. More screams came out this time, but no humans. She levitated the whole thing up and downed it pretty quick.

After the trains, Twilight’s stomach gave her a few minutes break from the constant starvation. She turned to go tour the rest of the little city, but found she was now too large to fit comfortably between the buildings. Her shoulders and hips pressed against the bricks on either side as she squeezed down the main street, crunching little cars along the way.

Finally, she saw a break in the buildings up ahead. Her shoulders scraped against the buildings on either side of the broad street in front of her as she bounded forward, cars and humans darting every which way. Freedom! She tumbled out into a wide expanse of grass and trees, landing clumsily on her stomach. Of course, it only extended for a mile or two, and it was surrounded on all sides by more buildings, but still, open space! Twilight rolled over onto her back, squirming a little to smoosh the trees that were poking into her back, then closed her eyes. It was a good time for a nap.

Then something tickled her flank. She twisted herself so she could see what it was without crushing it. Several tiny humans were rushing toward her, throwing little pebbles and prodding her with little sticks. She gave a quick smirk, and rolled over them, enjoying the screams as they were silenced. Twilight chuckled as she thought of the silly things final thoughts as they were squashed by the titanic purple monster from above.

A spark of her old self lit up for a brief, shining moment. What was she becoming? She wasn’t even Twilight Sparkle anymore. What had she become? As the thoughts began to slip from her deteriorating mind, Twilight Sparkle decided to call herself something else, until she found a way to escape this prison she’d crafted out of her own body.

”I am Sparklezilla... And I will crush all of you.” The last few words were spoken from a mind entirely not her own. Twilight Sparkle was gone. Only Sparklezilla remained.

Sparklezilla turned her head and noticed a clearing in even the trees, where a huge crowd of tiny humans had gathered. She got up and strode over to it. The grass was completely covered by humans, all scurrying around playfully. Most of them stopped and turned to look at her as she approached. The others took a little longer, but soon all of the tiny humans were staring up at her. A greedy, gluttonous thought crossed Sparklezilla’s crazed mind, and she hungrily embraced it.

Sparklezilla enveloped every last one of the humans before her in her magic. It was easier to think of them as one large group, rather than thousands of individuals. She compressed the mass of humans into a tight-knit ball and squashed it a bit to resemble a burger. Floating it over to herself, she opened her mouth really wide, ready to accept the meal she’d gathered up. She was only able to get it about halfway in, but it was no matter. She closed her mouth over the humans in its range, released her magical hold on them, and tilted her head back.

It took several gulps to get all of them down, but Sparklezilla managed to swallow all of the humans in her mouth. The others still hovering in the air began screaming loudly as she lowered more into her mouth. She took another large bite, but there was still a good chunk left. She repeated the process she’d just completed, and gulped down a few hundred more humans. Finally, she stuffed the remaining ones in her mouth and just chewed them for a while, grinding her teeth over several, before dunking them back. They were crunchy.

For the first time in a while, Sparklezilla actually felt as though she’d eaten too much. Her stomach was now distended, and she lay down on the grass clearing she’d created. Now was a better time for a nap. Sparklezilla closed her eyes and went to sleep.

~ ~ ~

Sparklezilla awoke to find herself in a strange new world. She stood in a green clearing, and small metal buildings spread out for miles around her. Here and there were a few of them that could reach above her head, but most of them only came to her chest. She could see no humans in sight—no food in sight. No cars either. There was nothing. They had fled. Sparklezilla’s stomach cried out hungrily for sustenance. Her vision now separated into food and not food, and there was a lot of not food.

Then she heard a sound she did not recognize. She strained her ears to hear it. There, to her right, off in the distance. It came closer, and she could make it out. A rapid and repetitive booming, coming from a small black dot in the sky. Food, perhaps? She ran toward it, narrowing the distance in a few short minutes. Where had all the humans gone?

The sound came from a small flying car, at about her eye level. It sounded like someone very heavy was dancing in wooden tap shoes. Sparklezilla’s vision recognized it as food, and she smiled. It would make a tasty morsel.

Sparklezilla crouched onto her forelegs, and launched herself into the air. She snapped up the little flying car, then smashed through a tall building, knocking it over as she returned to the earth. It bit and clawed at her for a few seconds, but it did not manage to harm her, and she simply pressed it up against the roof of her mouth until it stopped struggling, and then swallowed. A delicious appetizer, but Sparklezilla needed more. She would need a main course eventually.

Sparklezilla wandered the city, but found no food. In a desperate rage she attacked one of the taller of the buildings. Perhaps if she could swallow cars she could swallow this. She tackled the tallest building near her and knocked it to the ground, then bit an enormous chunk out of it and chewed. It was very crunchy, and hard to chew, and went down slowly. Sparklezilla swallowed several times, using her magic to force the hunk down. Her jaws unhinged, and her neck became wider than her head, but she got it down. Not the tastiest meal, but it would do.

Sparklezilla’s hunger no longer left when she ate enough to fill her stomach. She could watch her world grow smaller now, as her belly emptied itself almost as quickly as she was filling it. As she noticed that her food also grew smaller with her world, Sparklezilla grew enraged, and smashed everything around her. Metal and concrete shards went flying, buildings tipped and fell beneath her onslaught. Her teeth tore off chunks, and down they all went, vanishing into the void.

As she stood up from devouring part of a tall building, Sparklezilla noticed a noise in her left ear. To her surprise, there was another small flying car next to her. She crunched it quickly between her teeth, and returned to leveling the city. She bit off another large chunk of the building beneath her hooves, and gulped it down. MORE!

As night fell, the light began to dim, because most of the city was simply gone. Vanished into Sparklezilla’s expanding gut. She left a few small buildings to provide light, but the rest she had devoured, and now began digging into the underground city. That’s when the noise began again.

More noisy flying cars had shown up, and they were pelting Sparklezilla with small sharp objects that hurt when they hit her butt and sides. She turned and scooped them up with her magic and ate them. They tasted so much better than the buildings. More of them came along the ground a few minutes later, and she ate those too.

Soon Sparklezilla ran out of city, and there was nothing at all to eat. She looked back in the direction the noisy cars had come from. maybe there was more food there. She marched on, her hoof falls thundering into the distance. She could not see where she was going, but it did not matter. She was too large for it to make a difference. Mountains might present her only obstacle.

She never found any more food. Nothing was large enough for her to notice, and there were no lights to guide her. With no food, Sparklezilla became weak. Her strength drained with each hoof fall, until at last the sun rose and she found herself in a valley, with a few scattered tiny houses nearby. As she went to raise her hoof, she found that she could not lift it, and tripped forward into the valley. She collapsed between two mountain ridges with a resounding crash. Whatever had been in the valley, it did not exist now. Sparklezilla could not move, and there was nothing near her that she could eat.

The sun rose higher and higher, and beat down on Sparklezilla’s back. It became hotter and hotter, and she wished she could just die. Her stomach cried out in vain for any sort of food, but there was none. Any there had been had fled, and what was left was no meal. Barely crumbs. She would starve to death in this blistering heat.

Sparklezilla could not keep her eyes open. She faded in and out of consciousness as she baked in the sun. She could hear her skin sizzling and feel it blister. She cried out in pain; deep, rumbling roars echoed throughout the nearby valleys. Her throat grew hoarse as the hours dragged by, and her roars slowly turned to moans, and eventually to low murmurs. Finally, as the light began to dim, Sparklezilla fell asleep, the last of her strength gone.

I just want to go home

~ ~ ~

'You could eat the mountains.' A voice called out in her head. 'They would sustain you. You could eat metal without trouble; rocks and earth should be easy.

'But what would I become?' She replied When would I stop? I've killed so many people, and so many ponies. I can end this, now. I just want to go home.

But your own body compels you to. Even now you are trying to gather your strength for one last meal. Except it will never be your last meal. With each feeding, you will grow larger and stronger, until there is nothing left to consume

And what would become of this world? I've ruined one city, slaughtered thousands, because of you. Why should I make matters worse?

But what would you go home to? You have no friends to speak of, and any you might have made have long since left the contents of your stomach. There is nothing for you there.

But what choice do I have? If I stay here, I'll just destroy the world, and then what? I'd starve, and the spell would wear off, and I'd starve again. At least if I go home now there will be a world to go back to.

They will never accept you there. They will remember the terror you've caused

So be it. I would meet the same fate here as there. At least I'll get to see Spike this way

Her mind made up, Twilight Sparkle summoned the last few drops of energy she had, and focused it through her horn.

Spike. Canterlot. Celestia.