Twilight's Diet 2: Diet Harder
Twilight’s Diet 2: Diet Harder
It was a perfectly normal night in Ponyville, save for the rather cool and harsh temperature for the time of year. No one knew why, as the weatherpony hadn’t predicted anything strange. It was supposed to be calm and serene, but instead it was harsh and foreboding. It was the kind of day that’s best enjoyed indoors by a fire, drinking hot cocoa and eating graham crackers.
Twilight was currently enjoying the fire, but unfortunately, the sweets were denied her at the moment.
“Stupid diet,” she grumbled. She stared at the meager helping of carrots and celery Spike had brought her as a snack. She was six weeks into the blasted thing, and she swore those weeks had been the longest of her life. Jogging with Rarity, weight training with Rainbow, diet tips from Fluttershy, encouragement from Applejack and Pinkie, that’s all her life had been. Her mood throughout it all had been neutral at best and sour at worst, and while she was at least getting results, it was wearing on her.
Grudgingly, Twilight lifted up the vegetables and munched on them. It was automatic at this point, a mechanical motion that she got no enjoyment out of. She merely did it to lessen the emptiness in her stomach, but with such tiny portions, it didn’t do much.
Twilight sighed. She wanted something with substance. Never mind that she’d lost twelve pounds and was two-thirds of the way to her goal; she wanted some freaking chili cheese hay fries. Or a Double Deluxe Ice Cream Surprise with extra caramel. And while she was at it, some chocolate cheesecake, spaghetti, deep-fried pastries, and maybe even a continent or two—
Twilight hesitated. She looked up from the book she was reading and ran a hoof down her face. Such thoughts had been come randomly since she’d had that hallucinogenic dream. She wished she could shake them, but with the constant, gnawing hunger, her brain seemed to be fixated on it.
“Hey, Twilight?” Spike called from the other room.
“Yeah?”
“I’m heading to bed. Do you need anything?”
Yeah. Food. Lots of it. The more calories the better. Just start cooking and don’t stop until told otherwise. Send word to every kitchen in Equestria, too.
“No thanks, I’m fine,” Twilight called back. “Good night, Spike. I’ll be up soon.”
Spike’s response was preceded by a yawn. “Don’t stay up too late.”
She left was left alone in the quiet of the study. Idly, she stretched her legs and cracked her neck with a loud pop, then put her book back up on the shelf. She looked at the clock, jumping as she realized it was almost midnight.
“Didn’t realize it was that late,” she muttered. It’d only felt like she’d been reading for an hour, but the entire afternoon and evening had slipped away under her nose. She hadn’t meant to get that caught up in her studying, but unfortunately, such occurrences were more common than she’d like to admit.
Twilight looked down at her half-eaten snack with distaste. She was sick and tired of healthy food. She wanted something real. Something with some actual substance, something that would actually fill her up! Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything like that in the library. They had gone full-on health food with the place, and even if she wanted to cheat, there wasn’t anything open this time of night. She was stuck with staying on the straight and narrow for now, and by morning, her resolve would return like it always did.
Twilight closed her eyes, her mind returning to that lovely dream. She wished she could have it again. It had felt so good to eat whatever she wanted, to feast endlessly, to grow bigger and bigger without end until nothing could contain her—
“Grrehehgh.” She held her head in her hooves. She needed to stop dwelling on that! The dream was a random occurrence, and she wouldn’t be able to recreate it. She knew next to nothing about such things, and it’s not like she knew anypony that was an expert on the matter—
Twilight stopped dead.
One of her ears twitched slightly.
She looked out the study window, up into the sky, where a crescent moon was shining softly in the indigo sky.
Twilight stood stock still, considering her options, but eventually, she set her jaw and nodded to herself.
“Spiiiiike!” she called.
“Mmmh… yeah?” came his sleepy voice.
“There actually is one thing I need before you turn in.”
A pause. “What is it?”
Twilight smiled. “Can you send a letter to Princess Luna?”
<(*_*<) ^(*_*)^ (> *_*)>
Two Days and a Few Correspondences Later-
Twilight sat on the edge of her bed before bedtime in her loose, baggy pajamas. It was midnight again, and in her hooves was a newly-arrived letter. She read the message over again for the third time, making sure she understood all of it.
Twilight Sparkle-
Indeed, there is a way to recreate dreams. ‘Tis something I do for myself on a regular basis, actually. While the specifics of which would make for a lengthy letter, the simple explanation is that all creatures never truly forget the events or settings their subconscious creates. Instead, they are stored within the Dreamrealm—the place where all sleeping minds go upon entering Occulerius (you might be more familiar with the modern term, ‘REM Sleep’). It is a simple enough matter to call up and view the Dreamrealm’s recollection of a dream, or at least, simple for those who are familiar with such magics.
Enclosed is a headband of my own design. It is set with an enchanted stone called an Undrae gem, one that I made myself. Simply put the garment on before you go to sleep, and think of the dream you wish to have. Once you fall asleep, the Dreamrealm will pull it from your subconscious, and you will have the choice of re-experiencing the dream from the beginning, or continuing it from where you last left off. I assume you’ll be able to take it from there.
Feel free to contact me again, should you have any other problems or questions.
Pleasant Dreams-
Princess Luna
Within the scroll was a small cloth. Wrapped carefully inside was a thin, silver headband, set with a navy gem that pulsed with starlight. Twilight lifted the headband up in her aura and inspected it from all sides, admiring how it shone in the dim lamp light.
“Beautiful,” she murmured. She brushed her fetlock against the gem, and found that it was cool to the touch. The cloth was fine silk, and the whole piece weighed next to nothing. She went over to the mirror on the wall and carefully put the headband on, situating it just below her horn. It didn’t look half bad on her.
“Maybe I should start wearing more silver.” Twilight chuckled and reviewed to see if there was anything else to do before she turned in. She couldn’t think of anything. Spike was already in bed, her checklists were filled out, and the only thing left to do was turn out the lights.
“Well, then,” Twilight said with a deep breath. She got into bed and shut off her lamp. “Here goes nothing.”
She was worried that she excitement or nervousness might inhibit her trip to dreamland, but just like always, the softness of her mattress and feather pillow allowed drowsiness to overtake her. Not even the discontent of being hungry was enough to keep her awake, and a few minutes later, Twilight was sleeping soundly, the Undrae gem glinting on her brow.
<(*_*<) ^(*_*)^ (> *_*)>
Twilight hung in the immensity of space, at a loss of what to do. She had just devoured the star of her homeworld, but still, her impossible hunger had not been sated. Her appearance had been altered by feasting on the sun’s cosmic energies, and now she looked like a veritable goddess. Her coat was blindingly white, so bright that it hurt one’s eyes to look at. Her mane and tail were comprised of dazzling, dancing flames that swept all around her body. Her eyes were a deep reddish-orange, the color of the star she’d just eaten, and most impressive of all, a pair of pristine, feathered wings had sprouted from her shoulder blades.
And, of course, there was also her size. Twilight was a titan now, one billion times her original height, and larger than anything in the solar system. Her eyes alone were larger than the distance between the Moon and the Earth. The Earth was smaller than a drop of her sweat, and she could’ve crushed a gas giant between her hooves. Her godly magic thrummed and coursed throughout her body, making her feel alive and vibrant, and she felt like she could do anything at all.
Yet stil, she still felt so very small.
Twilight ignored her hunger pangs for a moment and looked out at the distant stars. They were very, very, very far away. So far, in fact, that even at her size, she knew it would take weeks to fly to just one of them! She didn’t have that kind of time. Fortunately, she had an alternative, one that would make space travel much easier.
At random, Twilight spun her hoof around and stopped it. She found that she was now pointing at a small, far-off star. Smirking, she focused on the pinprick of light, and her mighty horn flared to life. Her entire body glowed, and for a moment, she resembled the star she’d just devoured. She wove her spell carefully, and then, she vanished from the solar system in the blink of an eye.
FLASH!
An instant later, Twilight had teleported to another quadrant of space, dozens of light years away. Before her was the star she’d chosen, an orange dwarf slightly smaller than her awesome form. It wasn’t as bright as she’d expected, but then again, she was new to this and hadn’t put much thought into it. Perhaps she’d put more thought into her next teleport.
Twilight eagerly made her way towards the orange dwarf, her own gravitational pull doing most of the work. She got goosebumps as she approached, the plasma’s warmth tickling her coat. The star’s bulk filled her vision, and finally, once close enough, she bent her head in and took a lick, shivering as the hot, roiling gases flowed into her mouth.
They tasted like cinnamon.
“Ohhhhh...” Twilight dove her head in and began slurping away at the star, letting the energy cascade down her throat. She was inhaling it more than anything else, using her magic to siphon it into her mouth and swallowing without needing to chew. She sank into the celestial body and embraced it with her wings, wrapping around it like a feathery cloak. Twilight took her time with her meal, enjoying the sweet, spicy taste and swelling larger with every bite. She revelled in the warm tingling feeling that suffused her body, and it was all she could do not to moan in delight.
Soon, the star began to fall apart and lose consistency, and a short while later, all that was left was the core. It was thicker than the outside part of the star, viscous and piping hot, like a bowl of soup on a cold winter day. She closed her eyes and nibbled at it, relishing the unique, sharp, tart taste of hydrogen and helium. She savored it as much as she could, but eventually, her hunger got the best of her, and she chomped it down quickly, the last of the star disappearing down her gullet.
Twilight suppressed a burp and looked around, eager for her next course. She had now doubled in size, just a little under two million miles tall. She cast a quick spell to see if there were any planets in this system, and sure enough, there were. A hoof-full of gas giants hung in distant orbit, and she quickly flew out to locate them, finding the first one rather easily. It was greenish blue and about the size of Jupiter, with three moons orbiting it in a strange, irregular pattern.
Compared to Twilight, the planet was smaller than her cutie mark.
Twilight opened her mouth and ate the planet in a single bite. It tasted sour at first, but when she got to the thick, syrupy core, it became as sweet as candy. She ate the moons as well, though they were so small that barely had any taste at all. Once done, she went out to the other seven gas giants and repeated the process, each one tasting similar as the first, but not quite as good.
Now a good one-third larger, Twilight considered her next course. She enjoyed eating this smaller fare, but it was more of an appetizer, if anything. What she really wanted was something more… filling. She admired the beauty of the cosmos for a short while, contemplating her options and rubbing her grumbling stomach, until an idea struck her. She focused briefly with a quick scanning spell, searching to see if what she had in mind was nearby, and sure enough, it was! About forty light years away was her goal, no more than a hop, skip and a jump with her power.
With a wide, toothy smile, Twilight vanished soundlessly again, leaving behind only debris in the now-empty solar system.
FLASH!
Twilight’s eyes went wide. She suddenly wasn’t sure if she was seeing things, but she certainly hoped she wasn’t! Before her was an absolutely tremendous star, a hypergiant among hypergiants, so big that even at her size, it made her feel utterly insignificant! It was a stunning deep red in color, and its gravity was so strong that she could barely resist its pull.
Planet-sized globules of drool fell from Twilight’s tongue. She hadn’t been expecting this. She’d just been searching for the largest star in the area, not something so huge that it made her feel like a gnat! The size boggled her. She could barely even believe that a star this large existed! It was positively enormous! A part of her wanted to do some research, maybe figure out the consistency and makeup of the star for analysis—
Her stomach quickly overrode that train of thought.
“All right, all right,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Sheesh.”
Twilight dove into the hypergiant star with a happy cheer. Upon entering it, the gravity immediately pressed down on her, re-orienting her and giving her a sense of balance. It was like she was swimming in a delicious red ocean. She opened her mouth and let the yummy energies flow into her, devouring it all as fast as she could.
Even at almost two and a half million miles tall, it still took Twilight a while to eat the hypergiant. She went around the star in circles, making passes and ravenously eating the delectable celestial object without rest. It tasted wonderfully sweet—like vanilla with a hint of strawberries, and the more she ate, the more energy she had. She moved faster and faster, and all the while she ate, she continued to grow. She could feel her limbs lengthening, her frame widening, her whole body surging outward and upward as she became bigger and heavier at an accelerating rate. Five million miles tall. Ten million. Fifty million. One hundred million. Five hundred million. She was reaching absolutely impossible sizes, but still, all she wanted was more.
Twilight’s stomach relentlessly kept up with her feast, stretching and groaning as it digested it all. She could feel the power inside her, suffusing every part of her body, making her stronger, greater, more massive, but she couldn’t get enough. It got to the point that she couldn’t tell how long she’d been spent eating, but she didn’t really mind that. She just wanted to eat and grow as much as she could, and overall, she was greatly enjoying her time in the star. The tickling wisps of energy felt like a mix between a jacuzzi and a nice, hot sauna, and it was a welcome change from the chilliness of space.
After a long while, Twilight’s mass surpassed that of the star’s, and the plasma began to drift towards to her, making it even easier to eat. She giggled at this. Apparently, the star wanted to be eaten by her! She could grow even faster, now, and within minutes, she broke one billion miles in height. Not long after that, though, she noticed that she wasn’t getting entire mouthfuls anymore, and finally, she took a bite and found that there was nothing but void.
“Mmmmmm...” Twilight wiped the last remnants of hydrogen from her lips. She was beyond titanic now, absolutely enormous in every respect. Her wingspan was so great that she could’ve touched the Sun with one wing, and Saturn with the other. Her pupils alonenow were over one hundred times larger than the Earth. Idly, she wondered how long it would be before she grew to a light year at this rate, but she knew she had quite a ways to go before that. Luckily, she wasn’t left wanting for food. She had a whole galaxy full of stars to eat!
With a shrug and a chuckle, Twilight teleported to the next star system, eagerly looking forward to her next meal...
...or at least, that’s what she intended to do. Before she could, she felt something... strange tugging at her body. It was faint, almost unnoticeable, but now at her size, she could just barely feel it. It was a... force, of some sort, something that tugged at her godly body, beckoning, almost taunting her. She wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but one thing was for sure—if it was calling out to her, she definitely wanted to see what it was!
Twilight oriented herself towards the disturbance, focused her magic, and teleported herself...
FLASH!
...to find nothing. Completely and totally nothing. It was a blackness within blackness, a hole within a void, an invisible entity from not even which light returned. It wasn’t bigger than her, not even close, but it was much, much, MUCH more massive! So massive, in fact, that Twilight found it pulling at her with monstrous strength, more than even she could resist!
“Eep!” Twilight panicked and quickly teleported away. An instant later, she was a safe distance from the mighty gravity well, and she could think for a moment as to what this thing actually was. She used a few spells and calculations to plot out her location in space, and when she did, she realized with a start that she was in the center of the galaxy.
And if that was the case, that meant that this disturbance was...
“Whoa...” Twilight stared in awe at the supermassive black hole. She hadn’t expected to come upon it yet, but now that she had, it greatly intrigued her. Black holes were known for their immense quantities of mass, and as it so happened, mass was something she greatly enjoyed consuming. There was nothing known to pony science that could break up a black hole, though—they were considered to be the all-consumers, the ultimate form of oblivion, with nothing being able to escape their terrifying might.
Twilight licked her lips. She always did enjoy a challenge.
Twilight enshrouded the black hole in her colossal magic, giving it an experimental tug. Predictably, it was stubborn, not wanting to break apart. She focused harder, but it only resisted her more. She realized that it was a positive feedback loop, held together by its own gravitational pull, and any kind of force introduced to it just made it stronger.
Twilight ceased her efforts and analyzed the problem from a logical perspective. Black holes were essentially great quantities of tightly compressed mass. She should theoretically be able to eat the thing, but diving right into it didn’t seem like a good idea. If a method could be devised to gradually extract the mass out of the black hole, the whole thing would eventually disperse, and she could eat it at her leisure.
There was a flaw with that, though, as the amount of power required to do that would normally be astronomical, maybe even impossible. Magic might give her a workaround, but it’d be tricky. If she could utilize teleportation and summoning magic together in a particular way, there might just be a chance, but she wasn’t sure what would happen.
That line of thought had never stopped her before, though.
Twilight concentrated. She could feel the unbelievable amount of mass within the hole, so tantalizingly close and tempting. She selected a tiny, tiny fraction of the its mass, no more than a pinprick compared to her, and readied herself. She wove an exceedingly complex teleportation spell, making it so that rather than teleport herself into the black hole, she teleported/summoned a portion of the black hole to her. The void around Twilight wavered and pulsed in response to her power, and her horn began to glow white.
Finally, the spell was done. With gritted teeth, she cast it. An instant later, a teeny-tiny, black, globular mass appeared on tongue, no more than (comparatively) the size of a flea.
SPLORT!
Without the black hole’s gravity keeping it compressed, the matter was free to break apart, and break apart it did, filling up her mouth like she’d just eaten a whole packet of pop rocks.
“MMF!” Twilight cheeks puffed out as some of the matter squirted past her lips, even going up her nose. She clutched her muzzle and used her magic to recompress it, but she couldn’t hold it for long. She swallowed the mass as fast as she could, her massive throat bulging as her esophagus struggled with the mighty meal. The entire process was rather unpleasant for her, but she refused to back down. There wasn’t anything in the universe she couldn’t eat, and she was going to prove it! She straightened her neck and gulped hard, pushing with all her might. She also used her magic for some extra oomph, and at last, she got the matter down, sighing in relief as it fell heavily into her stomach.
“Ugh.” Twilight panted for breath. That was much, much harder than she thought it would be. She hadn’t even gotten to enjoy the taste! True, she’d reduced the mass of the black hole, but it was still there. She could eat the whole thing using the same method, yeah, but she wouldn’t get any enjoyment out of it. No, that wouldn’t do. She wanted this to be a pleasant experience.
Twilight narrowed her eyes at her invisible foe. The problem was that all the mass was so tightly compressed. If she could just find a way to siphon it out, it would be easy for her to eat. But how to do that? Teleportation magic would almost certainly be involved, but in what format? She did a few mental calculations, carried the one, compensated for the curve of space-time, etc, but she couldn’t think of any great ideas. A one-way forcefield might work, but that’d be difficult to maintain, and there was no guarantee that—
Wait.
Why did she feel funny all of a sudden?
Twilight felt tingly... very tingly, in fact. It almost felt like it did when she was growing, except way, way, way stronger! It was a blooming warmth that filled every mile of her being, from her stark-white horn all the way down to her immaculate hooves, and it was the best feeling she’d experienced in her entire life. As her body began to rumble, Twilight let out a long, pleasurable groan, and her stomach gurgled yet again.
Not with hunger this time, but rather, with preparation.
Twilight abruptly doubled in size. There wasn’t any ramp-up, nor was it gradual in any way. It was just a titanic growth spurt in the span of a few seconds from one billion to two billion miles tall. She then doubled again a few seconds later, to stand at a respectable four billion. She could now easily fill the space between the Sun and Pluto. But she wasn’t done there. She doubled once more shortly after that to be at eight billion, and again to be at sixteen! She was now bigger than her entire home solar system, and the tingling feeling of growth was only intensifying, filling her body with raw, electric power.
Twilight loudly voiced her approval as she kept doubling. Each surge of growth felt better than the last, and her mind was lost in a sea of bliss as her stomach continued to digest the black hole matter. Thirty-two billion miles. Sixty-four billion. One hundred twenty-eight. Even the largest stars were like thimbles to her now, and planets were practically microscopic! She couldn’t believe how good she felt, and the growth was only accelerating.
Two hundred fifty-six billion. Five hundred and twelve billion. One trillion! She was beginning to fill up the space between stars, but finally, at this point, the growth began to subside, and she only grew a paltry additional seven hundred billion miles before her body finally came to a rest.
Twilight came to her senses, at a loss as to at what had just had happened. She still felt somewhat dazed, but was able to focus through the afterglow. She realized that she’d made a rather amusing mistake—even though she’d only eaten a tiny, tiny fraction of the black hole’s mass, that mass was still exponentially more than all the mass she’d eaten up to this point... combined. Over a thousand times more, in fact! Her stomach had eagerly gone into overdrive to use it all up, and the energy had made her already cosmic form grow bigger... and bigger... and bigger.
“Whoops.” Twilight giggled sheepishly. She hadn’t quite meant for that to happen, but she wasn’t about to argue with the results. Her entire perspective had shifted, and she was now hovering in a colorful disc of free-floating gases. She was still pretty small—not even a full light year yet, but that just made her more excited. Think of the studies she could do at this size! She could measure the unknown effects of spacetime! She could figure out what dark matter was! She could—
Her stomach grumbled.
—then again, maybe not.
Twilight absentmindedly made shapes in the nebula gases while she pondered what to do next. She was big enough now that it’d only take a minute or so to fly between stars, which would probably be quick enough to keep her hunger satiated. But no, she was more interested in the thing that had made her grow so fast, and so quickly. And since she was never one to leave a task unfinished, she decided to continue where she’d left off.
Twilight returned her attention to the black hole. It wasn’t quite as daunting now, as her magic had grown proportionately with the rest of her, but she wasn’t about to get complacent. The anomaly was still thousands of times more massive than her, and was daunting in both its gravity well and roiling waves of kinetically-generated heat. But while it was also slightly intimidating, it was also exciting. Rivulets of spittle fell from Twilight’s tongue at the thought of eating all that mass, shivering at the thought of how much it would make her grow.
With a laser-like focus, Twilight cast her spell again. She felt the tiny mass appear on her tongue again, and it immediately tried to fizz up like the first one had. She was ready this time, though, and she kept it under control. She then eased up on the pressure just a teeny-tiny bit, letting it fill her mouth so she could get a good taste.
Twilight’s eyes rolled into the back of her head. The taste was like black licorice, which she absolutely loved. The texture was thick and creamy like ice cream, but it was also hot, like cocoa. She swished it around in her mouth, humming contentedly before gulping it all down, licking her teeth to get every last bit.
Twilight wanted more. She cast her spell a third time, teleporting in another tasty mouthful of the black hole. It was utterly divine. She devoured a fourth, fifth, and sixth, and by the time she’d eaten those, her body was absolutely thrumming with warmth and growth. Soon she was not doubling in size every few seconds, but tripling, and in no time at all, she was so big didn’t even need to keep the matter compressed anymore. It wasn’t even coming close to filling her mouth, so she just let it form on her tongue and fizz up pleasantly before swallowing.
Twilight was a light year tall and still growing without any sign of stopping. She kept right on eating without nary a thought as she continued to triple in size, reveling in the delightful sensations and tastes. When she got to nine light years, she felt two spots of warmth on her flanks from brushing against the nearest local stars. They both collapsed into her pure-white coat, making it glitter and sparkle with stardust. More stars quickly followed suit as she became larger still, and by the time she’d broken one hundred light years, her body was gleaming with the shining essence of the galaxy.
A short time later, Twilight noticed that the black hole was beginning to break up. Realizing what was about to happen (and not wanting to waste any of the tasty treat), she quickly teleported to the anomaly and snapped it up in a single bite. An instant later, the black hole lost compression and burst in her mouth, filling it to the brim with thick, creamy goodness. She stopped it with her magic before any of it could come out of her mouth, but she almost didn’t, as she’d underestimated how much there still was. She quickly got it under control, though, and she happily chugged it all down in three giant swallows, suppressing a burp and patting her placated stomach.
“That was good,” Twilight said, smiling dreamily. She smacked her lips and reveled in the last bits of matter on her tongue. She surveyed the galaxy from her location, and it was then she noticed just how much her perspective had shifted. Billions of stars and solar systems stretched out before her in every direction, making up clouds of periwinkle blues, murky whites, pale reds, and deep oranges. They surrounded her in in long, curved arms, spiralling around her in an ornate, beautiful circle.
Twilight was speechless. She simply hovered in space for a time and stared, marvelling at the ocean of stars before her. Her body was now at an unprecedented scale, larger than anything else in the galaxy, and that thought pleased her greatly. Her eyes alone were each over a light year in diameter. The width of a single one of her hairs was greater than her home solar system. Her gut was working merrily to digest the monumental feast she’d given it, and she almost felt full for a change. She felt warm, satiated, at peace, and she almost felt like she could drift off—
She suddenly felt funny again.
Twilight’s blazing eyes snapped open. The warmth in her body now felt like a blazing furnace, and she could tell what was about to happen. Now with goosebumps, she grinned ecstatically and hugged herself, murmuring softly as she waited for it all to start.
“Yes…”
Her body surged out, doubling in size again. Two hundred light years tall—over a quadrillion miles in height, and still growing rapidly. Two hundred became four hundred, with the euphoric feelings only strengthening.
“Yes!”
Eight hundred light years. Hundreds of stars were disintegrating into her titanic form, saturating her body and wings with various colors. Sixteen hundred light years. Her mane and tail now resembled great swirling nebulae, iridescent and dancing with divine power.
“YES!”
One final surge, and the sensations subsided. Now at just shy of three thousand light years, Twilight was truly a cosmic entity unto herself. With giddy awe, she took in her new size, marvelling that she could only make out the brightest of stars below her. The galaxy was like a swimming pool to her, filled with teeny tiny dots of light that glinted at her enticingly. Those lights were billions upon billions of solar systems, each of them filled with planets, planetoids, gas giants, anomalies, and various cosmic debris.
She smiled a wolfish smile. It all looked absolutely delicious.
Twilight began with the stars closest to her, leaning in and eating tens of millions of them in a single bite. They tasted sweet and chewy, almost like cotton candy. She then flew around in a tight circle, eating up all the nearby star clusters so they wouldn’t go to waste. She used her magic to help her as well, collecting up hundreds of thousands of outliers at a time and greedily licking them up. From there, she worked on the spiral arms of the galaxy, following their trails until she’d gotten to the outer edges.
By the second time she’d done this, she was over fifty thousand light years tall, with billions of stars passing her lips every time she opened her mouth.
Twilight ate, and ate, and ate. More than three-quarters of the galaxy sat in her belly, but three-quarters wasn’t the whole thing. She made one more pass and ate few more dozen billion stars, and with that, her home galaxy had vanished down her throat. She now stood at one hundred thousand light years tall—over six hundred quadrillion miles, and it was now that she turned to the other galaxies in her local galactic group.
“Hmm.” Twilight raised a hoof to her chin. Which one did she want to eat first? They all looked so appetizing, and they came in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Some were oval-shaped disks that looked like flat, fuzzy hoofballs. Others were majestic spirals with blindingly bright centers. There were wispy ones, dense ones, big ones, small ones, and every other kind that you could think of. And that was just what was nearby! Far off in the distance she could see other clusters of galaxies, numerous beyond count, and the mere sight of so many was enough to make her feel even hungrier.
Twilight decided to start small. Nearby, there was an orbiting dwarf galaxy; bluish-white and only twenty-five thousand light years across. She flew over to it and sampled it with her magic, delighted to find that it had a robust, salty flavor. She eagerly dug in and finished it off in a dozen bites, then, growing larger, she teleported over to the next-closest one, a bright-green elliptical galaxy a few times her size. She couldn’t have that, of course, so she used her magic to compress the thing down until she could fit it all into her mouth. She gorged herself on the apple-sized ball, enjoying the buttery taste and swallowing it whole, devouring hundreds of billions of stars in an instant. She then hiccuped from her meal, but when she did, her belly digested the galaxy and made her triple in size.
It was then that a thought occurred to Twilight. If she could do that with just one galaxy, what was stopping her from doing it with several? Heck, why not do that with all the galaxies in the group? Or the cluster? Or the supercluster? She certainly had the magic for it—she was so powerful now that she could feel a sizeable portion of the universe, immeasurably vast and filled with cosmic treats. After coming this far, she was pretty sure that her stomach could handle anything, so why not swing for the fences?
Twilight’s mind was now made up. She wasn’t going to rest until everything in the universe was in her belly. First thing was first, though. Before she could eat any of those yummy galaxies, she had to bring them all closer. That was a simple enough task, though; she could use the same spell she’d used with the black hole, just on multiple targets on an exponentially larger scale.
“Here goes.” Twilight readied herself and stretched her senses outward, locating hundreds of galaxy clusters for megaparsecs around, each one containing tens of trillions of stars. She enshrouded these clusters in her bright pink magic, and with a divine flare of her horn, she teleported them all to her local space.
FLASH!
In an instant, where there had once been empty space, there were now thousands upon thousands of scintillating galaxies. They circled soundlessly around Twilight, magnificent in their size and grandeur, and she was awestruck at their variation and intricacy. More than half of them were bigger than her, and she could feel their gravitational pulls warring with each other, fighting to see who would become the new center.
Twilight snickered. She decided to have some fun with this. Using her magic again, she compressed about half of the galaxies down to a manageable size—a mere forty-five hundred light years each in diameter. They looked like grapes to her now, succulent, multicolored galactic grapes. She floated a cluster over and popped one into her mouth, rolling it around on her divine tongue. It didn’t have much of a taste, but when she bit down on it, it flooded her mouth sweet, tangy juices.
“Ooooh!” Twilight let out a happy squee as her tastebuds were blasted with cosmic goodness. She began her intergalactic banquet without further delay, taking two to three galaxies at a time and chewing them up slowly. The combined flavor of hundreds of billions of stars was positively scrumptious, sweet and sour and so very filling, yet despite all she’d eaten, she found herself starving, wanting more, and more, and more.
It wasn’t long before a few galaxies at a time couldn’t satiate her. Twilight moved up to half a dozen, but that shortly became a mere snack. A full dozen was soon an appetizer, and a few minutes later, she was big enough that she could stuff hundreds of galaxies into her maw at a time. Her body was buzzing, practically burning with growth, and her focus was entirely on the feast before her. One million light years. Two million light years. Four million. Eight million. She could be measured in megaparsecs now; a unit normally reserved for calculating the space between galaxies! But still, she wanted more. The energies of the universe were hers to command, and they fueled her ascension to greater and greater heights.
Twilight finally lost all restraint and just funneled the rest of the galaxies of the supercluster into her mouth. They flew past her lips at impossible speeds and right down her throat, making her experience a particularly potent growth spurt a moment later. She groaned and stretched her wings out as far as she could, reaching farther and farther by the second. When it was all done, she stood at a whopping twenty-four megaparsecs, or, in smaller units, seventy-eight million light years, or four hundred and fifty-eight quintillion miles.
But even still, she was a mere speck in comparison to the rest of the universe.
“Still not enough,” Twilight muttered. She surveyed the luminous expanse around her, getting a feel for her new surroundings. The neighboring superclusters were all banded together in long, sparkling filaments, stretching out like twinkling ribbons for thousands of megaparsecs. She couldn’t believe how many there were. Millions of megaclusters surrounded her on all sides, each one containing hundreds of galaxy clusters, which in turn contained hundreds of galaxies and tens of trillions of stars, planets, and planetoids.
It was at that moment Twilight got a sense of how big she really was.
“Wow…” She looked down at her godly form. Her hooves were now over fifty times larger than her home galaxy, and her rump alone was larger than the local galactic group. Her whole body was glowing brighter than a quasar, and her fiery mane and tail stretched out to illuminate the great cosmic voids. Her cutie mark was ablaze with all the colors of the rainbow, and her majestic wings thrummed with raw, immeasurable power. There was no darkness in her presence, and with her exponentially amplified vision, she was able to see things that she couldn’t before. The Great Attractor was a bend in spacetime that resembled a whirlpool. Afterglows of gamma-ray bursts flashed far off in the distance, circling around themselves in delicate, multicolored rings. It was all so magnificent, and even as humongous as Twilight was, in that moment, she didn’t feel like much. It really made her think about her place in the grand scheme of things, as well as what she should do with her life—
Her stomach grumbled again.
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Never happy for long, are you?” She patted her complaining tummy. “Oh well. At least you know what you want. I suppose that’s good enough.”
Twilight wasted no more time. She teleported over to the neighboring megacluster, casting her spell again and bringing all the galaxies close to her. She didn’t need to compress them down now; she just lined them up in an orderly fashion and sucked them all up. They tasted like sweet, juicy pieces of candy, and the warm, tingling flowing through her body that followed each bite only spurred her on to eat more. Soon, that supercluster was digesting in her gut, but still, she was so very hungry.
So she teleported off to eat another supercluster...
And then another....
And another...
And another, and another, and another.
When Twilight grew past fifty megaparsecs, she stopped needing to teleport. She could just fly through the endless expanse now, gobbling up megaclusters with but a flash of a magic and a few tremendous bites. At one hundred and fifty megaparsecs, those few bites became only one. She didn’t even need magic to gather the galactic groups together now; they were close enough together that she could get all of them by just opening her mouth. The Great Attractor became nothing more than a memory as she scooped it up with her titanic tongue. The Hydra Supercluster was next, followed by the Centaurus, the Hydra-Centaurus, and the Pavo-Indus. She began to make her way down the Sloan Great Wall, gobbling up the twinkling filament as fast as she could with gusto. Her stomach kept pace with her, digesting all that was put before it, making her grow astronomically larger every second.
Five hundred megaparsecs. A puny size. She finished off the Sloan Great Wall and went for the next galaxy filament, and the one after that, and the one after that, and the one after that. She was eating thousands of megaclusters at a time now, and the universe was becoming a smaller and smaller place. She surged to the size of a gigaparsec and grew even faster, devouring quasars, supermassive black holes, and plumes of free-floating gases all at once.
Twilight grew to two gigaparsecs, then four. She could eat multiple galaxy filaments now. Their scrumptious tastes blended together on her tongue like a divine ambrosia, and each bite better than the last. Eight gigaparsecs. Sixteen. Thirty-two. She reached the size of the observable universe, but Twilight could now see that there was much more beyond that. There were millions of galaxy filaments in all directions, stretching out like strands of fine webbing, and she was within the center of it all.
The sight made Twilight grin, and before she could stop herself, she used her magic to thread all the filaments together into a heaping helping of universal pasta. Once it was done, she crammed as much of it into her mouth as she could at a time, the astronomical amounts of mass making her grow in spurts of dozens, then hundreds of gigaparsecs at a time!
“Ahhhh.” Twilight ate the last bits of the filament with a satisfied burp, happy to be done with her meal at last. She stretched out with her magic to see if there was anything left that she’d missed, but it seemed that she’d gotten it all. She eaten every little bit of baryonic matter in the universe, and now there was nothing left but her. The universe was now a stark, bright white, illuminated by her body, mane, and tail. The boundaries of the universe—for indeed there were boundaries—were filmy and opaque, and had a thinness to them like a fragile membrane. She hung alone gracefully in this white space, content and full at last, and now that she’d everything, she felt like taking a good long—
She was interrupted by a familiar gurgling.
“Oh, come on!” Twilight threw up her two hundred gigaparsec-long hooves. “I can’t still be hungry! There’s nothing left! I’m floating in nothingness, here!”
But she realized with a start that that wasn’t true. Now that she’d lit up the universe, she could see that it was floating in a strange, translucent fluid, cool to the touch and pressing in all around her. It was almost gelatinous, really, and there was a heaviness to it that immediately fascinated Twilight.
“Huh,” she said, prodding and poking at the now-visible aether. “What do you know. I guess dark fluid theory is right, after all.”
Twilight opened her mouth and drank down some of the syrupy fluid. It didn’t have much of a taste, which would explain why she hadn’t noticed its presence before, but its viscosity was something else entirely. It was thick and gooey like a milkshake, and after swishing it around a bit on her tongue, she could detect the slightest hint of sweetness to it. It was actually quite a refreshing change after eating nothing but stars for so long, and she wasted no time in resuming her feast.
“Heh… I was getting thirsty, anyways.”
It was almost like when she was swimming in the mantle of her home planet. Twilight simply swam forward with her mouth wide open, letting the rich liquid cascade unimpeded down her gullet. She rapidly swelled bigger and bigger, her body shining even brighter as she filled up the remaining space in the universe. Nine hundred gigaparsecs tall. A teraparsec. Two teraparsecs. Four. Eight. She just kept getting larger without stopping, but then, as she slurped up the last vestiges of dark fluid, she found herself a bit cramped for room.
“Hrmph.” Twilight let out a frustrated grunt. Her horn was brushing against one boundary of the universe while her flank was pressed up against the other. Her hooves were curled up into her barrel, and she couldn’t stretch her wings at all. “Could use a little more space, here—ouch!”
She’d abruptly grown a few hundred more gigaparsecs. Now she was completely squeezed into a ball, and it was quite uncomfortable. Twilight twisted and thrashed, but it wasn’t quite enough to break down the walls. She could feel another growth spurt coming, too, so she knew she needed to think fast.
Twilight probed at the universe’s boundaries with her magic, and found that while they were solid, they had a bit of give to them. She focused her godly power, and the entire boundary glowed with her deep pink hue. She then pulled, hard, and with a ripping, tearing sound, she rent a hole in reality itself. She kept pulling, and the boundaries peeled away like a stage curtain.
RIIIIIIIIP!
Twilight wiggled herself free and extricated herself safely. In a few short moments, she was in a strange new place, watching in awe as the remnants of her universe crumpled like a piece of fabric.
“Well,” she said, trying and failing to process what just happened. “That happened.”
Twilight picked up the torn boundaries of reality and munched away at them as she examined the new place she’d arrived in. She was in a new kind of void, one that felt so charged with energy it made her skin prickle. It had an alien tone to it, as well, a mix of blue and gray, and there were strange sparks of light off in the distance that twinkled brightly. Intrigued by these sparks, Twilight teleported over to the closest one, not having the slightest idea what she might find.
FLASH!
The object turned out to be transparent sphere of light about half her size, awash with dancing, beautiful colors that reflected off her enormous, blazing eyes. She could just barely make out shapes within the sphere, and while it was hard to tell due to them being so small, they almost looked like fine strands of material, reminiscent of a spider’s web—
Twilight felt a chill.
“Oh…” She circled around the new universe a few times, taking in its size and dimensions. She couldn’t make out the specifics of what was within, but she imagined that what she was seeing was more of what she’d just emerged from. If that was the case, then it probably behaved the same, and more importantly, might even taste the same.
Twilight poked the universe with her muzzle. The walls resisted her like the previous ones had. It looked like she was going to have trouble getting in there, but that wasn’t exactly what she wanted to do. More like the opposite, really! She licked at the outside of the universe a few times, testing its taste and texture, but then she focused her magic and pulled on the new universe’s boundaries. A few seconds later, a mighty tear formed that split the whole thing in half.
CRACK!
The contents of the universe spilled out into the void, splattering Twilight’s face and flying everywhere else.
“Ack!” She recoiled in surprise. She furiously rubbed her nose and coughed, trying to get the feeling of unpleasantness out. The glittering globs of mass slowly drifted away, dispersing out into the new space.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Twilight growled. Her horn flared to life, and the floating blobs all stopped moving. She brought them back over and put them back together, then, she reformed her telekinesis into a giant drinking glass.
“There we go.” She brought this magical construct to her lips, and, with zeal, she drank down the contents of the new universe. This one was thick as well, but also frothy and foamy with a hint of fruity tang, and it went down smooth and easy. Her stomach rumbled its approval and digested the new food without pause, and by the time she was done, she’d grown to fifteen teraparsecs.
Twilight licked a few hundred stray galaxy filaments off her arm and turned her gaze to the spheres of light off in the distance. There were a considerable amount of them, almost as many stars as there’d been in her universe. Maybe even more! Twilight found the prospect to be greatly appetizing, and she couldn’t wait to get started.
Twilight moved to the next universe, cracking it open like an egg and swallowing its contents. She then went to the next one and ate that too, continuing the process of eating and growing until she was big enough to fit a whole one in her mouth. She opened wide and fit the glowing sphere in carefully, her jaw creaking with the effort. She then bit down on the rubbery lining, and with a loud pop, the whole thing burst pleasantly in her mouth. It was quite a mouthful, that was for certain. It took a few swallows to get it all down, but get it all down she did, the alien universe becoming just another part of her.
Twilight grew faster and faster as she ate her way through the multiverse, gaining impossible amounts of new mass and weight from the shining spheres. She broke one hundred teraparsecs, and now each universe was less than a mouthful to her. At two hundred teraparsecs, she could eat half a dozen at a time. At five hundred, she could eat several dozen. She enjoyed the feeling of them all snapping and popping as she crunched down on them, and their combined tastes were both delicious and robust.
The more and more universes Twilight ate, the more there seemed to be. There were so many, in fact, that she didn’t even need to move to eat more of them anymore. They just kept appearing all around her, seemingly winking into existence, and by the time she’d grown to a petaparsec, they looked like wisps of fog.
Twilight had finally found a place that was seemingly infinite, and here, she could eat and grow to her stomach’s and heart’s content. She feasted and feasted until she was a thousand times larger, but even at an exaparsec, she still wasn’t full, nor had she run out of food.
“Twilight…”
Another thousand times larger, now grown to a zettaparsec. She couldn’t even taste the spheres of light anymore, nor had she been able to for quite some time. She just floated through the ocean of universes, her mouth open wide and sucking up the microbial morsels.
“Twilight?”
Still another thousand times, but even a yottaparsec wasn’t big enough. She was now to a universe what her home sun had been to a pony, and she was constantly tasting slurping down countless quantities of mass. Fresh and unique flavors were always on her tongue, and it was almost enough to keep her satisfied.
Almost.
The multiverse kept stretching on into infinity, and Twilight kept right on floating through it, eating and growing and eating and growing and...
“Twilight! C’mon! It’s time to get up!”
<(*_*<) ^(*_*)^ (> *_*)>
“Mmh…”
Twilight’s eyes fluttered open. She was in her comfy bed, and the sun was just peeking over the horizon. The Undrae gem was still on her brow, and amusingly, her pillow was damp from a copious amount of drool.
Spike’s voice floated up from downstairs. “I’ve got your breakfast ready! You’ve gotta hurry! Rarity will be here in fifteen minutes!”
Twilight made a noise of disgust. She hated getting up this early, let alone having to go outside and go jogging. How anypony actually enjoyed undergoing this kind of torture would forever be a mystery to her.
“Uhhghghghh… coming…” Twilight reluctantly left her blanket’s warm embrace and staggered towards the door. She put the Undrae gem on her nightstand, then went downstairs and entered the kitchen.
Spike beamed at her as he tended to a steaming pot on the stove. “Morning, morning, morning! Your breakfast’s on the table. How’d ya sleep?”
Twilight yawned and slumped into her normal dining room chair. “M’was good... had a nice dream.”
“Hey, me too!” Spike said. “I dreamt that I was a superhero that could phase through walls and communicate with animals! I fought a giant evil toaster that was going to destroy the city!”
“That’s nice,” Twilight said, her eyelids still fighting to stay open. “I’ll bet you enjoyed saving the day like that.”
“Heck yeah, I did!” Spike said. He swung his spatula around like it was a sword. “No monster is a match for the handsome and courageous Super-Spike!”
Twilight snickered. “My hero.”
Spike looked over at her. “What was yours about?”
Twilight blinked. For the briefest of moments, the memory of flying through the cosmos flashed before her eyes, accompanied by the taste of a black hole.
“Uhhh… books!” she said quickly. “Yep. All about books. Reading them, organizing them, writing them, eat—er, editorializing them, stuff like that.”
Spike stared at her for a few seconds, then shook his head slowly and sighed. “Shoulda figured… shoulda figured. All right, well, you’d better hurry up and eat. Rarity will be here soon.”
Happy that she’d dodged the bullet, Twilight looked down at the food on her plate and found that Spike had made...
Oatmeal. Nasty, bland, gloppy oatmeal.
Twilight’s head hit the table with a thunk. “I wanna go back to bed.”
The End
