"Fifty-eight... fifty-nine... sixty!"
Breathing heavily from the exertion of his wing-ups, Soarin got to his hooves and wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow, relishing the endorphin rush that one could only get from a good bout of physical exercise. As a Wonderbolt, Soarin took his physical fitness as seriously as any professional athlete would be expected to. Each of his muscles was to be kept toned and firm at all times, which entailed a strict diet and exercise regimen that he followed almost religiously. He even had his own personal gym at his palatial Cloudsdale home, where he had just finished off his daily endurance and calisthenics routine. Feeling the satisfaction of a job well done, he got ready to hit the shower before rewarding himself with an indulgent hour or so of relaxation.
As Soarin got ready to head to the bathroom, however, he heard a sharp few raps at the door. Puzzled as to who could be calling on him over the weekend, he headed to the door and cracked it open, only to reveal empty space before him.
"Huh?" Puzzled, Soarin looked around, before looking down at the doorstep revealed a small brown parcel, with his name and address scribbled on the front. It looked like whoever it was had left the package there then legged it for some reason. His curiosity piqued, Soarin took the parcel in his mouth and brought it inside to the kitchen. The room was a sleek, modern affair, with gleaming steel utensils hanging over a long, smooth kitchen island in the centre of the room with dark red art deco bar stools running along either side. Soarin set the package down on the island, before sitting on a stool and quickly unwrapping it. The contents of the package only baffled him further.
Sitting neatly in the centre of the brown paper was a silver foil pie tin, empty save for a folded piece of paper. Soarin picked up the paper and unfolded it, revealing writing on it:
I know you happen to have a weakness for pie, Soarin. Well, I just wanted to make sure you get the best pies you can get from now on! A Wonderbolt deserves nothing but the best, right? And this will certainly give you the best—the best you can imagine, in fact! Enjoy!
"What?" Soarin shook his head and looked from the note, to the tin, then back to the note. Was this some kind of joke or something? This was just a stupid empty pie tin! Soarin glowered. If there was one thing he could not stand, it was ponies reneging on promises of pie.
"Great. Now I'm starving," he muttered, throwing the paper onto the island before getting up from the stool and huffing in annoyance. Might as well head out for something, then, he thought. Come to think of it, I've got a hankering for some apple pie, or-
Pop!
Soarin nearly jumped out of his fur at the loud popping noise that had emanated from behind him. He spun around, and gasped. Sitting there on the table, looking as fresh as if it had just been plucked from the oven, was a shiny apple pie in the pie tin.
"Whaaaa?" Soarin gasped, his brain scrambling to make sense of what was going on here. "How... how is that even possible? That pie just... it just magicked itself out of nowhere!" He started to pace around the kitchen. "How did that happen? How can that happen? How... wait a minute."
Soarin practically tripped over himself as he scrambled over to the island where the paper lay. He grabbed the note and read it again.
"Weakness for pie... nothing but the best... the best you can imagine... hang on. The best I can imagine?" Soarin blinked. "That apple pie seemed to appear just after I thought about heading out for some... apple pie." The gears in Soarin's brain whirred and clicked, before his eyes widened as he finally put two and two together.
"I have a magic pie tin."
There was no real emotion in his voice when he said it; it was just a plain statement of fact to an invisible audience. Then, a small smile crept over Soarin's face, which grew into a big, toothy grin as he repeated himself, his voice trembling with excitement.
"I have. A magic. Pie. Tin."
Licking his lips in eager anticipation, he stepped over to the pie. The note had said that the tin would produce the best pies he could get—well, there was only one way to test that, wasn't there? Sitting himself on the stool once more, he leaned in and took a bite from the pie.
Instantly, an intense burst of flavour shot through Soarin's mouth. The light, fluffy pastry, combined with the juicy tartness of the apple filling, formed a veritable tidal wave of deliciousness, crashing down over his taste buds and down his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut in rapturous silence as he chewed, then swallowed, before immediately taking another bite. Before long, he had finished it off, and was looking at an empty tin once more.
Oh, wow! he thought. That really was one of the best pies I've ever had! And it was true; somehow, that pie had managed to outdo even the masterpieces that were whipped up at the Grand Galloping Gala.
"Now," he said to himself, a sly smile on his face, "let's see if lightning strikes twice... I sure could go for a cherry pie right about now."
Pop! In a brief puff of smoke, a fresh cherry pie materialised before Soarin, who let out a joyous whoop. This was almost too good to be true! Whoever the mystery pony who sent him that pie tin was, he was forever indebted to them for giving him something this amazing, this wonderful. He immediately took a bite from the new pie, closing his eyes and screwing up his cheeks in pleasure once again as the sweetness of the cherry filling hit him.
"Mmm... now that's damn good cherry pie," he grinned. He looked at the pie tin once more with a pensive expression.
"Whatever they did to this tin, it's obviously using some pretty powerful magic to conjure up food of this quality," he said to himself, placing a hoof on his chin thoughtfully. "I should use this power wisely. I know this is the most amazing gift I've ever gotten, but let's keep things nice and sensible. Can't afford to let myself go mad with power or anything, after all."
Ten seconds later...
"Apple pie! Apple tart! Apple cobbler! Banoffee! Cherry! Chess! Chiffon! ALL THE PIES! ALL THE PIES EVER!" Soarin yelled, cackling madly as the pile of pies on the kitchen island before him grew larger and larger with every command directed at the pie tin. Soon, he had a pile of pies nearly two feet high and four feet across, steaming lightly and filling the whole room with the intoxicating aroma of freshly baked pastry. Soarin regarded the pile with wide eyes and the beaming, drooling smile of a stallion who has long since abandoned rationality for instinct. He giggled and trembled with anticipation as he got ready to dive in.
"Hedonism," he proclaimed, "thy name is Soarin!" And with that, all semblance of restraint left Soarin as he charged forward and dug in.
Barely even thinking about what he was doing, Soarin tore right into the huge pastry pile in an unbridled orgy of gluttony. Huge bites were taken out of random pies with complete abandon, his frenzied chewing and gobbling leaving pie crumbs and globs of filling strewn across the counter and across his own face. Each bite he took was accompanied by rapturous moans as flood after flood of intense, impeccable flavour washed over his tongue, pastry and filling working together to produce a true Nirvana of deliciousness. If flavours could sing, those pies would have been a heavenly chorus. A fitting metaphor, for Soarin really was in absolute heaven, almost weeping with joy as he indulged himself in pie after delicious pie.
Unbeknownst to Soarin, all those pies were starting to take a slow but steady toll on his body. His athletic metabolism, normally used to more sensible amounts of vitamins and carbohydrates, was now struggling to cope with the mountain of calories and fats that was being brought crashing down onto it. With every few bites, Soarin's midsection was expanding a little bit, his stomach gradually moving from being discreetly concave to distinctly convex. As well as that, small deposits of fat were starting to build up around his belly and flanks from where his naturally faster pegasus metabolism had already finished digesting some of the ludicrous amounts of pie being forced upon it. The deposits started off small, but would just keep growing larger as Soarin continued to gorge himself on his bounty.
"Must... eat... pie. Found... new purpose... in life," he gasped, his eyes savage with desire as he glutted himself on yet another pie, throwing up a sticky spray of filling as he shoved his face into the pastry and chowed down, barely even taking time to breathe in between bites. The bar stool underneath him was starting to creak in protest as he grew wider and heavier, having gone in a short space of time from looking like a paragon of physical fitness to looking like a stallion who hadn't moved from a couch in months. Where once he had firm, toned muscles proudly on display, he now had soft rolls of fat and love handles running all along his barrel. His belly had become a big, soft sphere of adipose, hanging down over his wide, tree-trunk thighs. His rump had swollen out into a pair of thick, quivering cheeks that were now hanging off the sides of the stool. Once again, all this went unnoticed by Soarin, whose eyes were now on the final pie, resting just within his reach.
Panting from the feeling of overfullness that had overcome him, Soarin reached out a chubby hoof, grabbed the pie and raised it to his crumb and filling-covered lips. He opened his mouth wide, bit into the slice, and chewed with great gusto, before swallowing it. As sure as anything, he greedily ate every last bite.
The calories from the pie that went into yet more of Soarin's newly-acquired fat proved to finally be too much for the poor stool to take. With a loud cracking sound and a yelp from Soarin, the legs buckled and sent him falling backwards onto the floor, his belly rippling from the impact.
The shock of hitting the ground seemed to knock Soarin out of his trance. As the euphoric fog cleared from his mind, he started to take stock of his situation.
One: he had put on weight. A lot of weight. Hardly surprising, considering he'd just consumed a full baker's inventory's worth of pies in one sitting. As he curiously pressed a hoof into his belly and watched it sink into his newly-formed mound of flesh, he realised that he had just pretty much undone all the diet and exercise he had stuck to since the start of his career.
Two: he was an absolute mess. His face was slathered with a great, sticky mess of crumbs, jam and cream, accompanied by an even larger layer of filling and cream all down his front, the different colours all mixing together to form what looked like an abstract art piece. He could even feel his wings sticking to his fleshy sides from the jam that was stuck to them. The kitchen was in an even worse state, with the island looking like it had been at the centre of a violent argument, and small sprays of filling even landing on the walls. The place looked like the aftermath of a frat party.
"I... ugh... I think I might have overdone it a bit," Soarin mumbled, grimacing as he realised that there was no way he could explain this easily to Spitfire and the rest of the team tomorrow. After a moment, he closed his eyes and sighed, a little smile appearing on his pudgy, messy features as he patted his big, bouncing belly with a hoof.
"So worth it."
END
