Worst temple ever
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Daring Do and the Temple of Balloon

Worst temple ever

It was obvious which floor tiles were booby-trapped. Even though they weren’t marked any differently from their neighbors—this was not one of those corridors designed to weed out those who didn’t know its secrets, but a corridor meant to kill everyone foolish enough to enter—the trigger tiles were the only ones not quite level with the rest of the floor.

Daring Do stepped around the trigger tiles. Sure, she could have flown over—she had full use of her sexy, sexy wings on this particular adventure—but she didn’t want to give that trap any more dignity than it deserved.

Really disappointing for a booby-trapped temple, she thought as she turned the corner. You have to do better than that to—

The stone floor collapsed beneath her. Daring fell.

She spread her wings. Before she could flap once, she struck a steep stone incline. Bouncing away, disoriented and with her breath knocked out, she saw a thick vine and grabbed wildly for it. She bounced off the incline again, and the world spun around her. Even though she held the vine as tightly as she could, it did nothing to stop her fall.

Another vine appeared, close to Daring’s face. She grabbed the end with her teeth. But this vine also popped right off the stone and fell with Daring. As she continued bouncing and spinning down, she vaguely noticed that the vine between her teeth felt and tasted wrong.

Daring bounced one last time, then fell uninterrupted. She had fallen through a ceiling, into a massive chamber—and the stone floor was rushing towards her. She screwed her eyes shut and waited for the impact. But it never came. Something pulled her legs up. This force flipped her upside-down and stung her hooves a little, but it also slowed her descent. After a several painful seconds, she came to a complete stop and hung in the air.

Daring opened her eyes and laughed (but the vine in her mouth muffled it). She was suspended from the ceiling of the chamber, dangling a few feet above the floor. Her four hooves were bound together: somehow that first vine had wrapped around them as she spun.

Daring smiled wryly as she thought, Now that’s what I call a trap. The smile faded as she looked back up and saw the irregular hole she had fallen through. No, apparently that was just shoddy stone work and natural decay. Worst temple ever.

She turned her attention to the second vine, the one in her mouth, and realized it wasn’t a vine at all. It was a black rubber hose. She tried to spit it out, but found she couldn’t open her mouth. The hose had wrapped itself around her muzzle at some point during the fall, tying her mouth shut over its end.

Daring sighed and looked around the chamber for some means of escape. To one side, there were rows upon rows of stone benches. It was ancient auditorium seating, and Daring was apparently dangling over center stage. On her other side, the stage was bound by stone walls. The stage left wall had an open door, with an obvious trip wire spread across it. Stage right ended with a circular pit—a fire pit, judging by the scorch marks on the stone.

A large, wooden water wheel stood before the upstage wall—completely immobile, because the trough beneath the wheel was utterly dry. A wooden arm was attached to the wheel’s edge. The other end of the arm ran to a squat, boxy device. Daring didn’t recognize this device’s purpose, but a black rubber hose ran from one end of it. Sweat broke out on her brow as she realized this was the other end of the very same hose she couldn’t dislodge from her own mouth.

“Daring Do?” The sexy voice of Daring’s favorite adventuring companion drew her attention back to the open door. Rainbow Dash stood there, in her full, prismatic glory.

Daring shook her head. She tried to warn Dash, but with the hose in her mouth it just came out as, “Mmmhmmmh!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of there!” Rainbow said.

“Mmmnnmm hhmmmm mmmmmm!”

“Just hang in there!” Rainbow spread her wings. She looked so cool as she soared over the obvious trip wire, through the door. She looked significantly less cool as she hit the disguised wire above and behind it. The wire magically wrapped around her hoof, then yanked her away faster than the eye could follow.

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaooof!” The wire criss-crossed the auditorium multiple times, running through a needlessly complex series of pulleys on the walls, ceiling, and floor. This was the path the wire pulled Rainbow Dash along. “Ooof! Aaah! Ouch! Aargh!” She yelped with pain and annoyance (mostly annoyance) every time the wire slammed her into a wall.

She gets the good traps? Daring thought. That’s just not fair.

A few seconds later, Dash’s pummeling ended, and she fell right in front of the water wheel. With a slow rumble, the stone beneath her sank several inches into the floor. There was a matching rumble as a large stone in the wall, next to the open door, lifted about a foot. Water streamed out this opening, down the trough. The stream hit the wheel, and it turned—slowly at first, but steadily picking up speed. One end of the wooden arm moved along with the spinning wheel. As it moved, it raised the other end of the boxy device, revealing accordion-like pleats. It was a bellows.

“Mmmmnn!” Daring flapped her wings and pulled her legs, but that only made her swing back and forth a few inches. “Mmmhnnmmm mmmmmm hhmmmhhmm!”

Pffffffffffff.

Dash stood up and looked around, just in time to see the bellows close and Daring Do inflate. Seconds before, the explorer had been slim and well-toned; now her cheeks were puffed out and she had a bulge in her belly, as if she had swallowed a basketball.

Rainbow Dash wiped the drool from her mouth and folded her wings (which had somehow stuck straight in the air, of their own accord) back at her side. Scanning the room for some way to shut off the bellows, she spied a large lever at the base of the water wheel. “That’s gotta be the switch!” she said as she grabbed it. She turned to smile at Daring Do as she effortlessly pushed the lever down.

The stone at the end of the trough lifted another foot. More water rushed out, and the wheel sped up.

Pffffffffft! Pffffffffft!

“Mmmm! Mmmmmm! Mmmmmmm!”

The bellows pumped twice—inflating Daring to just below beach-ball-sized, then well above it—before Dash snapped out of her shock. She yanked the lever all the way up, and the stone lowered... but not all the way. About six inches of clearance remained, and enough water continued flowing to slowly turn the wheel.

Before the bellows could close again, Dash leaped and planted all four hooves on the rubber hose. “Okay! Umm... What do we do, Daring? I’m kinda out of ideas.”

“Mmmmrrrrrmmmm...” Daring glared at Dash, past her own cheeks—now large enough to hold an entire apple each. Her cheeks and belly weren’t the only parts of her that had swollen. Her withers and back were more convex than they’d been before, and her haunches and rump had gained a few pant sizes. Her cutie mark was certainly a few inches larger.

“Okay, okay,” Dash said. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of this somehow.”

A bulge formed in the hose, just behind Dash’s hooves, and it slowly grew. Dash glanced at it. “Weird,” she said. “For an abandoned temple, this is in awfully good shape...”

A striped foreleg punched Dash’s face, knocking her across the room. As luck would have it, she landed on the lever just right to push it all the way back down.

The air from the bulge rushed into Daring Do, abruptly adding several inches to her diameter. She felt a tight sensation across her shoulders and barrel. She had inflated too large for her safari shirt.

Pffffffffft!

As she expanded further, the shirt’s bottom hem slid up a few inches, towards her head. Then it caught on her fur and would slide no further. The seams visibly strained to contain Daring’s expanding belly, and several of their threads were already coming loose. Her butt, unconstrained, swelled larger and larger, and her belly tried to keep up, pushing harder and harder against the tight fabric.

Pffffffffft! Pffffffffft!

The shirt struggled valiantly to contain Daring’s expanding girth, but it was a hopeless fight. It stung, its hem digging into her barrel as it inflated more and more. The two halves of the front stretched further and further apart—the buttons straining as they tried in vain to hold the shirt flaps together, and the fur of Daring’s chest poking through the exposed gaps between the buttons.

Pffffffffft!

The shirt could resist no more. It practically exploded, its seams tearing and its buttons popping off, one by one, while air rushed into Daring’s belly, expanding her to a more evenly round shape.

Pffffffffft!

One of the shirt buttons ricocheted off a wall and smacked into Rainbow Dash’s cute face, rousing her. She shoved the lever back up, to the slowest pump setting. Then she glared past the ballooning Daring Do, at the equine who had just punched her. “Zecora! How could you betray us like this?”

“Oh, Rainbow Dash, don’t be so dumb...” the zebra said.

“Didn’t we warn you to trust no one?” her almost-identical and equally sexy twin sister, Coreza, said as she appeared at Zecora’s side.

(Zecora has longer, hotter legs. Coreza has a cuter butt. That’s how you tell them apart.)

Both zebras brandished large knives, then lunged. Rainbow Dash dodged and drew her own knife, and the fight was on.

“Mmmrrrrrrrmmm...” Daring Do groaned and rolled her eyes as she ballooned larger and larger. Her rump was now at least twice its original size. Her belly had inflated so much that her bound legs were beginning to dig into its side.

Pffffffffffff...

Her wings unfurled of their own accord and pointed straight out—the longest, sexiest feathers brushing against the ground. Daring tried to fold her wings back again, but found them stiff and unresponsive.

“Hmmmrrmmm?”

Pffffffffffff... Pffffffffffff...

Her wings inflated. The individual feathers resembled long fingers as they filled with air. Meanwhile, the furthest point of her belly brushed against the inside of her pasterns—the point where the vine bound her four hooves together.

The sounds of Rainbow Dash’s totally awesome knife fight with the hot zebra twins carried to Daring Do, over the squeaking of her own stretched skin and the slow but relentless puffing of the bellows.

Pffffffffffff... Pffffffffffff...

Her rump and haunches swelled larger and larger. Her wings inflated further—the feathers expanding in every direction, their tips blunting into ovals. Many of the feathers were at least a hoof’s diameter at their midpoint. The longest ones pushed against the ground enough to rotate Daring’s body slightly, angling her head upward.

Pffffffffffff... Pffffffffffff...

Her ballooning belly pressed up and out, harder and harder against the insides of her legs and the vine binding them. The sides of her belly squeezed out between her limbs. The legs themselves inflated slightly—the vine cut into her pasterns as the skin puffed out on either side. And the vine gave, ever-so-slightly.

Hey, Daring thought, if this keeps up just a little longer, I can get free of this stupid vine!

Pffffffffffff...

Her rump swelled a little more. Her ballooning wings pressed a little harder into the ground. The vine dug harder into her legs, and her legs dug further into her huge belly. She felt the vine give just a little more.

With much creaking and rumbling, the entire chamber shook. About a dozen large stones fell from the ceiling... and one of them landed right on the rubber hose.

“Hmmhrrrhmmmmhrrr!” Daring scowled. At that moment, she definitively proved that it was impossible for a pegasus to channel their frustration into spontaneous telekinesis—because if it were possible, she would have done it.

Pffffffffffff... Pffffffffffff... Pffffffffffff...

She tried to wiggle her legs, but her belly squeezed around too tightly for them to move the slightest bit. All she could do was listen to the sounds of the knife fight (it was so cool—you totally should have been there) and watch as the hose bulged on the other side of the stone.

Pffffffffffff... Pffffffffffff... Pffffffffffff...

A few minutes passed this way. Just as Daring took notice of how badly her legs and belly stung, and just as the hose bulge grew almost as large as Daring herself, a loud Thwack! sounded through the chamber. Coreza flew past Daring and smacked headfirst into the stone blocking the hose. The stone split in two from the impact, and both halves fell to the side as the air rushed into Daring Do.

Several things happened very quickly. The vine snapped from the force of air inside Daring. Freed from that constraint, Daring ballooned out a few feet in every direction. Her wings expanded against the ground, hard enough to bounce her into the air.

And as soon as the vine was gone, Daring reached forward with her hooves to remove the hose from her mouth... or rather, she tried. Because the instant they were freed from the vine, her legs and hooves filled with air, puffing up until they were just as stiff as her wings, tearing her shirt sleeves in the process. And her haunches and shoulders also inflated around the bases of those legs—four smaller balloons attached to the large balloon of her torso—snapping her legs straight out, spread-eagle. So when Daring tried to reach for the hose, she found she could do nothing more than wiggle her puffy forelegs in ineffective circles.

Well, the wiggling wasn’t completely ineffective. It did cause her to rotate in mid-air, so she landed on her huge, round belly rather than on her outspread, inflated wings.

Pffffffffffff...

Coreza shook her head and stood up. Daring Do looked at her, past her cheeks which were now swollen to the size of grapefruits, and Coreza met her glare. The zebra gave a wicked grin and turned away, offering Daring an excellent view of her rump, which jiggled slightly with ever step she took. Daring, however, wasn’t in a mood to appreciate the view.

Coreza grabbed the lever and pulled it down. The stone opened all the way again, and the water rushed down the trough, and the wheel and bellows ran at their top speed.

Pffffffffft! Pffffffffft!

“Mmmmhhhhh! Mmmmhhhhh!” Daring called, hoping Dash could hear her over the puffs of the bellows and the squeaks of her skin as she inflated further and further. She hated to admit it, but that stupid, sexy blue pegasus was her only hope of getting out of this mess.

She really resembled a balloon more than a pony now. Her belly was so swollen that, even if she could still bend her legs that way, she couldn’t have reached the ground. Her compass rose cutie mark was stretched larger than almost any map Daring had ever seen. Each of her wings had roughly the volume of an adult mare. With the wheel and bellows running at maximum speed, she had less than a second’s rest between each new blast of air. And each resulting bout of growth came before the last had ended.

Pffffffffft! Pffffffffft!

As she inflated, the skin of her barrel, her haunches, and her rump stretched tighter and tighter. And now that Daring could do absolutely nothing but wiggle her puffy legs and wait to be rescued, she couldn’t help but notice how much she stung as she stretched.

Pffffffffft!

“Mmmmmmmmmmmm!” she tried to shout. I don’t think I can take much more, she thought.

Pffffffffft! Pffffffffft!

“Mmmmrrrrmm! Hrrrrrmmmmm! Mmmmmmmmm!” Daring tried to shake her legs as frantically as possible, but they could only wiggle a few inches in any direction. They had sunk about halfway into the balloons that had once been her shoulders and haunches.

I can’t take any more! she thought as she inflated a few more inches.

Pffffffffft!

“Hmmmrrmmm!” Okay, she thought, now I really can’t take any more!

Pffffffffft!

“Mmmmrrhhmmm!” Okay, now I can’t take any more!

Pffffffffft!

“Mmmmmmm?” How am I still alive? she thought. Oh my...

Pffffffffft!

“Mmmmmmmmm....” This wasn’t a muffled cry for help or shout of impotent anger, but a moan of intense pleasure. Daring’s eyes rolled back and a blush spread across her face. The painful tightness of her skin stretching a few more inches was suddenly matched by a fire deep inside—a pleasantly familiar sensation in her loins.

Pffffffffft!

Injuries, traps, and torture are an unpleasant reality of Daring Do’s line of work. Anypony who seriously pursues a career in archeology-adventuring will sooner or later give themselves psychological conditioning, to immunize themselves against pain as much as possible. But Daring wasn’t like most adventurer-archeologists. Whether by accident or by design (she herself wasn’t sure) her conditioning had rewired her, not to ignore pain, but to to be aroused by it.

Pffffffffft!

“Mmmmmmmmmm...”

Coreza shot Daring a confused look, but Daring barely noticed. Her mind was elsewhere: every square inch of skin on Daring’s massively ballooned body was now sending wave after wave of sharp, stinging pleasure straight to her brain. And that sensation increased exponentially with every puff of the bellows—and with no upper limit in sight.

Pffffffffft!

“Hmhmhmhm...” She let out a muffled giggle as she wiggled her legs even faster than before. They had sunk up to their pasterns and could barely move an inch in any direction, but it stung so good to move them.

Pffffffffft! Pffffffffft!

She was practically a blimp now, her diameter many times her old height. Only her hooves stuck out from her inflated shoulders and haunches—which merged with her massive belly as they all continued to expand. Her wings were so inflated that an adult stallion could have comfortably fit inside the largest feathers. Her inflated neck was merging with her ballooned torso, and slowly swelling over the base of her head. Her cheeks, now each the size of a cantaloupe, brushed against her expanding neck—and their contact was another maddeningly painful sensation jolted straight to the pleasure center of Daring’s brain.

Pffffffffft! Pffffffffft!

Her ballooning neck pushed her pith helmet forward until its brim covered her eyes. But she didn’t care that she could no longer see. The outside world did not exist as far as Daring Do was concerned. The stinging of her ballooning belly (and rump and haunches and shoulders and wings and cheeks) overwhelmed her brain. With every puff of the bellows and every inch she inflated, Daring set a new record—in fact, completely shattered the record from a second before—for how much delightful pain she could experience at once. The pleasure—ever-increasing, unrelenting waves of it—completely obliterated her capacity for rational thought as she expanded further and further.

Pffffffffft! Pffffffffft!

If she weren’t completely lost in her own mind, Daring would have been interested in what was happening in front of her. Rainbow Dash and Zecora’s knife fight had brought them back to the stage. Coreza leaped back into the fray. The three continued their deadly dance right in Daring Do’s ever-growing shadow.

Just as the fracas passed over the rubber hose, Rainbow swung low. Zecora easily dodged it, but Rainbow laughed boastfully anyway.

Zecora smirked. “Why laugh so hard when you miss?”

Coreza furrowed her brow. “Nay, sister, what is that hiss?”

Dash hadn’t aimed for Zecora at all—she had aimed her knife for the black hose. With a loud hiss, air rushed from both of the just-severed ends. The zebras exchanged a glance, then smirked as they grabbed the two halves of the hose.

When Dash lunged again, Coreza dodged and thrusted her hose right into Dash’s mouth.

Rainbow stepped back—her cheeks blushing and puffing out, her eyes widening as she stared down at the hose in her lips. So startled was she, she didn’t watch her back at all, allowing Zecora to bolt behind and ram the other hose right between the lean, muscular cheeks of her rump. At that, her eyes bugged even larger than before, her wings stuck straight into the air, and her legs wobbled before giving out. She fell flat on her belly, which had already inflated large enough to cushion the fall.

Pffffffffft! Pffffffffft!

With two sources of air, Rainbow Dash inflated much more rapidly than Daring had. Her belly approached and blasted past each size category—pregnant, beach ball-sized, pregnant with twins, double beach ball-sized, pregnant with triplets, pregnant with three overinflated beach balls—in quick succession. She was lifted higher and higher off the ground as her belly expanded larger and larger, beneath her.

Pffffffffft! Pffffffffft!

Her rump kept pace with her belly, quickly inflating larger than Fluttershy’s cute butt; then larger than Rarity’s exquisitely curved derriere; then larger than Pinkie Pie’s big, beautiful ass. It swelled big enough to catch the attention of even the gayest stallion or the straightest mare. Rainbow’s expanding rump even blasphemously surpassed Princess Luna’s royal backside and Princess Celestia’s divine white cheeks.

Pffffffffft! Pffffffffft!

Dash didn’t struggle at all as she expanded. This entire scenario was her own, most private fantasy made shockingly real, so she was too surprised and aroused to think straight, let alone react. For about the first fifteen seconds of her inflation, she could have easily reached both hoses with her hooves and removed them, but her legs just splayed out, limp on the ground. When her hooves finally did lift from the ground, it was not of Dash’s volition.

Pffffffffft! Fwoop! Fwoop! Fwoop! Fwoop!

One by one, her legs inflated, swelling with air to twice their original diameter and pointing straight out. Rainbow moaned with pleasure as the skin stretched, as she felt the limbs stiffen beyond her control.

Pffffffffft! Fwoop! Fwoop! Fwoop!

Her wings inflated, each feather in rapid succession ballooning to the same diameter as her puffed-out legs—or even larger. Each expansion elicited a muffled yelp from Dash, and caused the blush to deepen on her swelling cheeks.

Pffffffffft! Fwoop! “Mm!” Fwoop! “Mm!” Fwoop! “Mmmhmmmhmmmmmm...”

Rainbow ballooned to many times her own height—her puffy legs beginning to sink into her sides, her butt large enough to seat a family of five, the cutie mark on her inflating haunches stretched big enough to pass for a real cloud—larger and larger, to proportions she herself hadn’t dared imagine.

Pffffffffft! Pffffffffft!

Her cheeks were so swollen she could barely have seen over them. But it was a moot point, as Dash had already rolled her eyes back in her head, completely losing herself in the joy of inflating bigger and bigger: the wonderful pressure building inside her entire body, the sharp tightness of her stretching skin, the sensation of complete immobility and zero control over her limbs, and the intense fire between her hind legs. The more she grew, the harder her brain was spurred into its aroused frenzy.

Pffffffffft! Pffffffffft!

Rainbow Dash ballooned even larger than Daring Do had been. Her diameter was dozens of times her old height, and still growing. Her inflating torso swelled over the tips of her hooves, leaving just divots of in-folded skin to mark where her legs had been. Even the smallest feathers of her wings were swollen enough to hold two full-grown stallions. Her head sank further and further into her ballooning body, squeaking as her massive cheeks squished against the folds of skin that had once been her neck. Every inch of flesh against flesh—every bit that her own inflating body enveloped—served to inflame Rainbow’s passion even further.

Pffffffffft! Pffffffffft!

“Mmmmmm...” Dash’s torso ballooned around her head, muffling her ecstatic moans even further, until the pumping bellows and her own squeaking skin completely drowned them out. So when Rainbow Dash screamed with joy from her most intense orgasm ever, no one else even heard it.

Pffffffffft! Pffffffffft!

Coreza gave a wry smile at the still-expanding blimp that had been Rainbow Dash just a few moments before. But as Dash’s head sank further into her torso, until only the tip of her muzzle remained visible, Coreza had a sneaking suspicion that she had forgetten something. Something very important.

Two hind hooves bucked Coreza in the back of her head. The blow knocked her into Rainbow’s massive belly, hard enough to send the blue pegasus blimp backwards a few feet as well. Dash gave a muffled yelp from that, then a long moan. More sounds carried from behind her—a cry from Zecora, a crash, and someone rapidly swallowing something.

Daring Do—once again her original, wiry size, now that her deflation had fueled Dash’s inflation—pushed the hat back on her head. Coreza lay at her hooves, senseless from the blow but quickly regaining consciousness. Daring only had a few seconds to act.

The first thing Coreza felt was soft pony lips mashed tightly against her own. Then she heard the sound of hissing air and felt her stomach grow tighter. When something cold wrapped around her muzzle, she snapped her eyes open. Sky-blue fur filled her entire field of vision, save for a bit of rainbow mane directly in front of her.

Daring Do had pulled the hose out of Rainbow Dash’s mouth and shoved Coreza’s own mouth in its place.

“Mmmhmmmhmmmmmm!” she cried as air rushed out of Rainbow, into her own stomach, inflating her as big as a beach ball, then larger and larger.

Hissssssssssssssssssss...

Coreza pushed against Dash’s torso (which squeaked as her hooves sank into it a few inches), vainly trying to back away from the blimp whose entire volume of air was inexorably rushing down her throat, ballooning her bigger and bigger. But the rubber hose around Dash and Coreza’s muzzles held fast—and Daring herself pushed against Coreza’s butt, so the two pairs of lips remained tightly locked together.

“Mmrrrrmmmrrrmmm!” Coreza mumbled as she shoved and kicked harder, and her body inflated more and more.

Hissssssssssssssssssss...

Both of Coreza’s striped rump cheeks jiggled and shook from her futile resistance. Those wiggling, jiggling buttocks—and the oh-so-inviting way Daring’s hooves sank into that squishy flesh with every push—would have been very distracting, had Daring Do been anything less than a consummate professional. She turned and shoved the rump again with her shoulder, and as her head rested against one of those soft cheeks, Daring tried not to enjoy it too much.

Hissssssssssssssssssss...

Coreza’s struggling lessened and finally stopped, seconds before—Fwoop! Fwoop! Fwoop! Fwoop!—her legs all inflated and jutted out, stiffly. Daring released the sexy zebra butt, which had swollen so large she couldn’t wrap her forelegs around it anymore, and hovered back to admire her handiwork. Coreza’s diameter was about three times her original height, and still growing. Much like Daring herself minutes ago, Coreza could no longer move her inflated legs more than a few inches. Satisfied that the zebra would not escape her impending balloon fate under her own power, Daring circled around Dash to look for Zecora.

“Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug!”

Zecora was hard to miss. When the Dash-blimp had smacked into her, Zecora had flown across the room, accidentally wedging her head into the hole in the wall... the same hole the water had streamed out of. A small volume of the water still flowed from the hole, around her head, but most of the liquid rushed straight down Zecora’s throat, filling her belly, bloating her larger and larger.

“Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug!”

Her ballooning body was quickly approaching four times her original height, and its width was even greater. Her entire water-filled mass sloshed and wobbled as she kicked her hind legs that were nowhere close to reaching the ground, as she feebly shoved and pounded her fore hooves against the wall—vainly trying to dislodge her head from the hole, to escape from the relentless stream of water filling her farther and farther beyond all rational limits, inflating her to unthinkable sizes. But as Daring watched, the struggle grew more and more sluggish.

“Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug!”

When Zecora’s legs inflated with water, the change was gradual rather than sudden. Her limbs swelled a little and grew heavier, and she couldn’t move them as quickly as before. They ballooned a little more, and she lost just a few degrees of articulation in every joint. Slowly, slowly, her legs filled more, and Zecora could move them less and less with every ounce of water they gained. It took a full two minutes before she completely lost control of those legs—now inflated to three or four times their original width—and all they could do was stick straight out.

“Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug!”

One of Zecora’s forelegs had several gold bands on its cannon. Daring Do winced at how the leg swelled around the bands, how they dug into her inflating flesh. She flew forward and grabbed that leg, but before she could even try to ease the bands off—Cling! Clang!—the first one snapped in half and fell to the floor. The other bands followed in quick succession. Daring let go of the leg, and it quickly ballooned to the same size as the others.

“Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug!”

Now completely immobilized, Zecora struggled no more and simply moaned into the unending stream of water. Even though she no longer shook herself, she sloshed and jiggled with every gulp of water she added to her ever-expanding volume. She was over ten times her old height, and still ballooning larger. Her cutie mark—the round pictogram on her wobbling, expanding haunches—was larger than any of the cauldrons back in her house.

“Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug!”

Her gold necklaces dug into her skin as her neck inflated with water. This time, Daring just watched. Soon enough, the force of the water pressure broke the gold bands, one by one, and they clattered on the stone floor. Each snapping band caused more jiggling and sloshing that rippled over Zecora’s entire bloating body.

“Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug!”

Pfffffffffffft.

The water that escaped the hole around Zecora’s head formed a small stream down the trough—just enough to continue turning the water wheel at its middle speed. So the bellows continued pumping air into Rainbow Dash’s rump. But the air escaped from Dash’s lips faster than it entered her backside. So while Coreza rapidly inflated, Rainbow deflated much more slowly.

Hissssssssssssssssssss...

“Mmmrrr! Mmmmm! Mrrrrrmmm!” Coreza mumbled, her eyes wide as dinner plates and her cheeks the size of pumpkins.

“Mmmhhrrrrrmmm...” Dash rolled her eyes, then scowled. Though she was calmer than the zebra, she clearly wasn’t any happier about this turn of events than Coreza was.

Pfffffffffffft. Hissssssssssssssssssss...

“Mmmhhrrrrrmmmmmrrr! Mmmmm!” Coreza frantically waggled her puffy legs as far as they’d go—which was not very far, since they had sunken half their length into her ballooning shoulders and haunches. Her inflating butt was now large enough that her sister and Rainbow Dash (in their original sizes, of course) could have comfortably fought their knife fight atop it.

Pfffffffffffft. Hissssssssssssssssssss...

Coreza’s ballooning belly reached the ground. Briefly, she and Rainbow were the same diameter—which was profoundly worrying, because Rainbow was still almost a blimp. Both mares were dozens of times their old height and thousands of times their old volume. How much more air would the bellows add before Rainbow finished deflating? And what about the air still in Rainbow’s wings? Coreza whimpered softly as she inflated even larger than the pegasus—while Rainbow deflated maddeningly slowly.

Pfffffffffffft. Hissssssssssssssssssss...

Her shoulders and haunches were merging with her inflating torso, as her legs sank further and further into them, up to the fetlocks and then past. She continued wiggling her exposed hooves, even though they could only move an inch in either direction—they squeaked from the motion and sent vibrations across her entire body, as it continued growing and growing.

Pfffffffffffft. Hissssssssssssssssssss...

“Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug!”

As Zecora bloated larger and larger, the water’s sloshing inside her massive torso grew more and more intense. With a start, Daring Do realized the water was forming a large wave, rolling back and forth—threatening enough force to finally free Zecora’s head from the hole. Daring rushed forward, slamming herself into the huge water balloon of a belly. She sank in about a foot, then bounced back to see the effect. Daring’s impact rippled across Zecora’s inflating body, interfering with the wave’s momentum ever-so-slightly.

“Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug!”

Daring smirked and zipped forward again, bouncing her whole body off Zecora’s rump, her belly, her back, over and over, in rapid succession. Slowly, the wave decreased, all the while Zecora’s size relentlessly increased. When Daring finally finished, Zecora sloshed and jiggled in every direction, but remained firmly in place as she inflated further and further.

“Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug!”

Zecora was inflated so large that Daring Do, Rainbow Dash, and Coreza (in their original sizes, of course) could have performed a song-and-dance routine on her back, with room left over for a line of chorus mares. The tips of her hooves sank slowly into her torso, with a slosh and a gurgle as the skin swallowed each limb.

“Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug!”

With her head wedged firmly in that hole, and her legs retracted entirely into her still-expanding sides, Zecora was almost completely unrecognizable. She was a black-and-gray, round thing—easily twenty times her original height, and almost twice as wide—more blob or water bladder than zebra now. Her tail, her only remaining equine feature, was comically tiny against the massive, jiggling slope that had once been her rump. And she continued gulping down water, swelling larger.

“Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug!”

Pfffffffffffft. Hissssssssssssssssssss...

“Hmmmrrrrmmm, mmrrhhhmmm!”

Rainbow Dash’s disgruntled mumbles made Daring turn away from the one inflating zebra, towards the other. Coreza was massive, larger than a hot-air balloon’s envelope, with curves that would make a domed roof jealous. She had rolled off the stage at some point and now rested in the theater seats, yet her back almost reached the ceiling.

Against her immense, striped sphere of her body, a tiny blue figure stood out, wiggling erratically. Rainbow Dash had finally deflated back to normal size—but as Coreza’s head sank into her inflating torso, Dash had been pulled in with her. Dash’s hind legs and haunches still protruded from the in-folded divot where Coreza’s head had been, and she slowly wriggled herself free.

Daring grabbed a knife that had fallen to the floor, then flew up to Dash. She gave the rubber hose a hard yank, pulling it free of Rainbow’s rump, and pulling Rainbow herself a little further from the folds of Coreza’s inflated body.

Dash wiggled herself far enough out to hold the skin open with her forelegs and look over her shoulder, at Daring.

Daring cut a few feet off the end of the hose. Turnabout was fair play—but shoving something into your enemy’s mouth that had just been up a pony’s ass... that was going too far. She offered the hose, air still hissing out of it, to Dash and said, “I think she’s got room for more.”

Rainbow’s whole face lit up. “Aw, yeah,” she said as she grabbed the hose and crawled back into the divot, towards Coreza’s head.

A gurgle and a slosh came from behind. Daring turned to look, and cringed. “Hey, Dash!” she called. “Change of plans!”

Rainbow was already up to her haunches into Coreza’s inflated folds. She didn’t crawl any deeper, but she didn’t respond to Daring, either.

“Forget inflating her any more, Dash!” She kicked one of those blue hind hooves. “Just get back out here!”

No response. Dash kicked and wiggled a bit in the divot.

“Dash! Get out of there! Now!” When Rainbow continued not responding, Daring grabbed her hind hooves and pulled. With much squeaking and wiggling, Dash slowly slid back out—then an even louder squeak sounded as Coreza’s back brushed against the ceiling. Rainbow had succeeded at reinserting the hose. The obscenely huge balloon that had once been Coreza, continued to grow even more obscenely huge.

With a pop! Rainbow flew out of the blimp, then Daring’s rump bumped into a soft, squishy, furry surface.