“How did Trixie ever find herself in this ridiculous predicament?” Trixie said to nopony in particular.
————
“Why?” Trixie asked. “Why does the factory order its sugar as syrup, rather than in granular form?” She lifted a can—empty and ruptured from the inside. “And why from a supplier whose subpar cans explode at room temperature?”
“Dunno,” Waffle Cone, the floor supervisor, said with a shrug. “Supposedly they’re the cheapest supplier? We do a lotta weird things here that’re supposed to save money.”
“Yes...” Trixie said, furrowing her brows. “Like leaving the peanut butter vats running 24 hours a day. Or only hiring one night watchpony for this whole factory.”
Both ponies stared at the adjacent area—an entire assembly line cordoned off by caution tape. The floor and machinery were still ludicrously sticky with syrup from the accident five hours ago.
“Hehe,” Waffle Cone said. “I’d sure hate to be in the watchpony’s horseshoes tonight.”
“Ahem. Trixie is the night watchpony.”
“Well! Stinks to be you, then. Watch where you step.” Waffle Cone walked out. The door slammed behind him, echoing through the nearly-deserted factory. A second later, the lights shut off.
Groaning, Trixie picked up her lamp and began her rounds.
Five minutes later, she stepped into the space between Peanut Butter Vat #12 and Cracker Assembly Line #3. “Do Trixie’s eyes deceive her,” she declared, “or does she spy something that doesn’t belong here?” She lifted the object in question into her lamplight. It was a can of syrup. A full, sealed can, outside the refrigerated storage.
“Oh, horse app—” she managed to say, before the can exploded.
————
“Oh, right. That’s how.” Trixie sighed.
Her coat and mane had been spattered with the syrup, but the majority of the can’s contents were on the floor around her. She tried to lift her fore hooves, then her back hooves, to no avail. She applied her telekinesis to one hoof—it lifted an inch before it snapped back to the floor. She was stuck in place by a sugar syrup stickier than any glue she had ever seen.
“Trixie knew that work in the Peanut Butter Crackers® factory wouldn’t be all sunshine and rainbows, but she never imagined it could be so... so...” She groaned and lowered her head, barely stopping before the tip of her mane touched the sticky floor. “That’s it. Trixie is quitting.”
She raised her head again, defiantly. “As soon as somepony extricates Trixie from this mess, she will run out that door and never come back. Hmmph! Oh, what’s that Trixie sees?”
Several cables and hoses had come unattached in the explosion, and now they swayed back and forth, some dangling from the assembly line and others from the vat. One of them, Trixie recognized as the peanut butter hose. The voice from that irritating “Instructions For New Employees” video echoed in Trixie’s head: strict rules for keeping the assembly line sanitary, and rules against eating any of the product on the factory floor.
“Trixie wonders...” She grasped the hose’s free end with her telekinesis and moved it towards her. “Whether ’tis nobler to quit a lousy job, or to be fired?”
Smirking, she held the hose at eye level for a few seconds. Then, she slipped her mouth around its end and flipped the switch to activate the vat pump’s lowest speed. Then she felt a slight dampness on her lips.
“Mmmmh?” Trixie said around the hose. She tried to spit it back out, then tried to telekinetically pull it out—it didn’t budge. This end of the hose had also been spattered with the impossibly sticky syrup. No force in Equestria—well, no force that Trixie could muster—would get it out of her mouth.
“Mmmrr mmmm!” The creamy peanut butter had traveled quite a ways down the hose. It was now only a few feet away from Trixie’s lips. Trixie turned to shut off the pump, but the cheap handle snapped apart in her telekinesis. And the pump whirred faster and louder, having somehow been bumped up to medium speed by the broken handle.
“Mmmh mmm mmnnnn!” Trixie’s eyebrows furrowed with impotent rage. “Mmmh—” Her mumbles were cut short by the mass of peanut butter rushing into her mouth. It tasted very, very good. Even better than it usually tasted on the crackers, in fact.
Trixie shook her head. She couldn’t let the deliciousness in her mouth distract her. (The incredible, otherworldly deliciousness...) She had to shut this device off before it pumped her full of more peanut butter than she could take.
Casting her telekinesis, Trixie felt around inside the pump controls. The peanut butter filled her mouth completely, and it continued pumping, puffing her cheeks out. She swallowed, but this only brought temporary relief. She continued probing the pump for several agonizing seconds without finding anything. When her cheeks puffed out again, larger than the first time, her reflexes took over, and she swallowed a mouthful involuntarily.
“Mmmmmm,” she moaned as her mouth began filling again. The peanut butter was, in spite of these circumstances, the best she had ever tasted. She shook her head once more and focused her mind on the pump. She swallowed again—and her stomach bulged slightly with this mouthful—before she found the mechanism that would certainly shut the pump off. She pushed it into place.
The pump instead shifted to high speed. Trixie’s ears folded back. “Mmwr mm—” With a loud gulp, she swallowed. “—mmuh mmh?” Gulp. “Mmmmh—” Gulp. “—mmrrrmn—” Gulp. “—mmnnm mmhn—” Gulp. “—mmnnrm!” Now, anytime she swallowed, it only cleared her mouth for a second or two before she had to swallow again.
Her stomach was now swelling at a constant rate.
She probed the interior of the pump once more, but weakly. Between the constant swallowing, the newfound tightness in her gut, and the overwhelming flavor in her mouth, Trixie just couldn’t focus her mind. With a moan, she let her telekinesis dissipate, and she resigned herself to her fate. Her utterly delicious fate.
Trixie wasn’t sure if there was a paradise after death, where the souls of good little ponies went to be rewarded. But she was reasonably certain that if such a place did exist, all the food there tasted just like this. The Peanut Butter Crackers® company didn’t use any ordinary peanut butter for their famous peanut butter crackers. They sweetened it with sugar—or syrup, as Trixie had recently discovered—and mixed it with a proprietary blend of other vegetable oils. Other ponies (philistines!) thought it tasted cheap, but it was Trixie’s favorite food in the known universe. And, much to Trixie’s delight, it tasted even better like this, straight from the vat and slightly warmed.
Previously, other ponies would have called Trixie “underfed”, and she would have insisted she was “svelte”. Now, after a minute of eating, she looked like she was pregnant with twins, and might go into labor any at any minute.
Trixie found herself slipping into a rhythm. She wanted to savor every mouthful of this nutty ambrosia of the gods, but the pump wouldn’t allow her that luxury. However, by timing her swallowing just right, she could keep at least a minimum of peanut butter on her tongue at all times.
“Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp.
On some level, Trixie could feel the pressure building within her gut. Though her entire barrel was now larger than a beach ball, and still growing, it felt as dense and heavy as a bowling ball. However, that sensation took a distinct backseat to the flavor in her mouth.
“Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp.
She could also feel her barrel touching the inside of her legs as it swelled. First it brushed them slightly. Then it sidled right up to them. Then it kept swelling and pushed against her legs with a surprising amount of force. Her legs, still stuck to the floor, couldn’t move—so her gut bulged around them as it kept growing. Even that, Trixie ignored.
“Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp.
Her barrel was now about the diameter of two beach balls. It was heavy enough that Trixie bent her legs slightly to accommodate its weight. She would have bent more than “slightly”, but her gut was in the way. Her elbows and stifles could only bend by squishing into it, and “slightly” was all her gut would give.
“Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp.
She felt a bit of wetness as her gut brushed against the syrupy mess below. Then, the weight slowly disappeared from her back as her gut touched the floor, then rested on it. For one second, the weight was completely gone—then there was a force in the opposite direction. Her barrel, still growing, now pushed her spine upwards. Her legs straightened as her back lifted up. Her spine arched as much as it could. Still, her gut grew and continued pushing up. She resembled a pony stretched across an exercise ball—one that was her original height in diameter—trying to hold it to the ground. Her ballooning gut swelled to the sides as far as it could. It squished further around her legs, and they sank a little over half their diameter into its embrace.
But now, her gut could swell no further to the sides, nor up, nor down. Still, the pump kept churning. Something had to give.
“Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp.
In spite of her precarious situation, escape was the furthest thing from Trixie’s mind. Shutting down the pump, removing the hose, or in any other way cutting off the flow of sweet, sweet peanut butter to her mouth—the Great and Peanut Butter-Addled Trixie desired none of these. If, in her current state, she had realized how close she was to seriously injuring herself, she still would have considered it a fair price to pay for such a glorious meal.
The pressure grew inside. Her legs and spine first stung, and then genuinely hurt, as they slowly stretched. Where her stomach had felt like a bowling ball minutes before, now it felt like solid lead. All the skin on her barrel was beginning to tingle. Trixie would have panicked if she weren’t focused solely on the peanut butter symphony playing across her tongue.
“Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp.
Her hooves lifted off the floor: one inch, two inches, four inches. The syrup stretched with them, in vain trying to pull them back. With a slow sluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurp, the sugar syrup surrendered. Immediately, the pressure disappeared. Trixie’s legs and spine snapped back to their normal lengths. And her barrel, no longer constrained by bound legs, ballooned rapidly, as the compressed peanut butter in her stomach expanded to its normal density. She widened two feet in every direction in less than a second, then stopped. Her legs, pushed outward by her ballooning girth, continued in that direction for a few inches, then fell back against her barrel. The slap caused her entire gut to jiggle and wobble.
Before the wobbling dissipated, she resumed expanding at the normal rate.
“Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp.
As Trixie lost herself in ecstasy, her face flushed brightly, and her eyes rolled back in her head.
Her head and legs continued rising as her gut grew. Her hooves spread apart as her ever-more-massive girth pushed her legs further and further out. She was now twice her original height—her width was slightly greater—and still expanding.
She kicked her hooves, wobbling slightly. The stretching skin of her barrel was now particularly sensitive. As her hooves and the inside of her legs brushed against her barrel, the tactile feedback was surprisingly pleasant.
“Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp.
Now Trixie’s diameter was four times her old height. Her slightly squashed sphere of a gut brushed against the vat in front of her and the assembly line behind. Her legs, resting against the sloping side of her barrel, were beginning to squish into it.
“Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp.
Her barrel firmly pressed against the cylindrical vat, then began bulging around it. Behind her, she pressed against the assembly line. First her gut squished to the sides, then, slowly, it flowed over the top of the conveyor belt. At all the places where she pressed against a solid surface, Trixie’s skin felt warm and tingly and oh-so-good.
The vat buckled inward. Trixie jiggled as her mass rearranged itself to take advantage of the vat’s retreat. This sudden movement sent jolts of pleasure to Trixie’s brain—the first sensation to successfully overpower the taste of the peanut butter in her mouth.
“Mmm!”
But the distraction was short-lived. A second later, her mouth was again full. She swallowed and her mind was carried away once more on the peanut butter tide.
“Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp.
Trixie’s mind was no longer in the factory. She was millions of lightyears away, in a galaxy composed entirely of peanut butter. She was the Regal and Powerful Trixie, Queen of All Things Nutty and Delicious. All would love her, and show this love through endless gifts of peanut butter. And by scratching and rubbing her enormous belly. Trixie would graciously accept their love, feeding upon it until she was the size of a planet. It was good to be Queen.
Back in the factory, Trixie was far from planet-sized, but her diameter was ten times her old height and still growing. Or, roughly ten times—with how her barrel squished against the surrounding equipment, her dimensions would have been difficult to measure accurately. The middle of the assembly line collapsed under her expanding girth. The vat buckled inward once more, then again, as her gut continued pressing it. Each bit of weight-induced property damage inspired more muffled yelps of pleasure from Trixie.
“Mmmmmm...” Gulp. Crack. “Mmm!” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp. Crack. “Mm-hmm-hmm!” Gulp. Crack. “Mmmm!”
Trixie was now taller than the vat she was eating from. Taller than the vat had been at the start, that is—it had collapsed substantially under her expanding belly, and was now merely half its prior height. And now she was beginning to crush the two adjacent vats, #11 and #13. They were still full of peanut butter, so they put up more of a fight than #12 had, but in the end they yielded under Trixie’s unrelenting weight.
Her barrel crushed several more feet of assembly line. These weren’t clean breaks, and several sharp points and edges were poking into her skin. These weren’t enough to cut her—if anything, she was somehow blunting these points—but they stung Trixie’s sensitive skin quite a bit. Somehow, this stinging had pleasure all of its own.
To accommodate her barrel, her legs were now extended almost completely horizontal. Even so, they were squishing further and further into her gut.
“Mmmmmm...” Gulp. Crack. “Mmmm!” Gulp. “Mmmmmm...” Gulp.
The pump sputtered, then stopped running. Like so much other equipment in this factory, it was cheap—in fact, so cheap that running dry for less than a minute was enough to wreck it.
“Mmmmmmmm... mmrmh?” No gulp.
“Mmummum mmrhmm!” Trixie shook her hooves, causing her entire round mass to wobble and shake. She then pointed her horn at the hose and telekinetically forced the remaining peanut butter through the tube, towards her waiting mouth.
“Mmmmmmmmmmm...” This time, however, Trixie was in no hurry. She savored this mouthful for a full five minutes before swallowing. She did the same with the next mouthful. In that way, she made the final portion of her greatest meal, ever, last for over two hours.
————
Trixie looked over the tops of all the vats. She had never seen the factory from so high up before—like she was the mighty Queen, surveying her domain. Of course she could only survey her domain some distance away. Everything nearby was obscured by her almost-spherical barrel.
Trixie now resembled a massive globe—blue and slightly squishy—with a comically small unicorn attached to its top.
She tried to stretch her legs. They were so squished into her gut that she couldn’t move them more than a few inches to either side—but for those few inches, it felt so good as the insides of her legs brushed her barrel. She could, however, curl her legs up. And as she did that, her elbows and stifles pressed further into her barrel. She would have moaned again at the sensation, if she weren’t now slightly embarrassed at how much noise she had made as she was getting pumped to her current state.
She mentally thanked Celestia that nopony had been around to see her meal, then gave a muffled laugh. From the laugh, a slow wave traveled across her massive barrel. When it reached the floor, another ten feet of conveyor belt collapsed beneath her. This time, Trixie did moan.
Trixie thought about what she had done. She had broken a pump, three vats, and an assembly line. She had eaten an entire vat—2000 gallons—of the company’s peanut butter, and no doubt rendered unusable the contents of those other two vats. And she herself had ballooned so large that she wouldn’t fit through any of the factory doors, even the bay doors on the freight loading dock. They’d have to knock down a wall to remove her from the premises.
Trixie knew that, come morning, she would not merely be fired. Only the most extravagant of employee terminations would suffice for the Great and Powerful Trixie.
She curled and uncurled her legs a few times, giggling like a school filly. She stuck her tongue out to lick a little more of the peanut butter clinging to the inside of the hose. Totally worth it, she though, laying her head down to rest on her gut.
