“Stupid superstition,” Twilight Sparkle muttered as she crawled into bed. “Stupid, gullible...”

“Are you still mad about that?” Spike asked. He was already settled into his basket at the foot of Twilight’s bed.

“Of course I am! I’ve never met a zebra before. I could have learned so much from talking with Zecora. But no! My friends went and scared her away with their wild accusations and nonsense about curses!” Twilight turned off the firefly lamp, plunging her bedroom into darkness.

“Yeah, but what if it isn’t nonsense?” Spike gulped and glanced around the darkened room. “What if there really are—”

“Goodnight, Spike.” Twilight snorted and pulled her own covers over her head.

—————

“Beware! Beware, you pony folk!” Perhaps it was just a trick of the shadows, but Zecora’s lips appeared to curl into a smile as she said it. “Those leaves of blue are not a joke!”

Twilight gulped. In spite of her insistence on giving Zecora the benefit of the doubt, she still found it a bit intimidating to confront a stranger—and in the Everfree Forest, in the fog-shrouded dead of night, no less. Fortunately, Twilight had her five friends here to help.

Though some were less helpful than others. “Y-you keep your creepy mumbo-jumbo to yourself, ya hear?” Applejack called back to Zecora.

The others also opened their mouths to hurl accusations of their own, but Zecora did something that shut them all up. She reared back and stayed that way, maintaining uncanny balance on her hind hooves. Then she began dancing. Her hooves stepped to the rhythm of an unheard song—giving fleeting glimpses of her shapely legs through the folds of her cloak. She wiggled her hips, and the fabric fell in just the right way to highlight the sensual curves of her haunches. Twilight’s gaze traveled up the zebra’s hypnotically swaying body, and she found Zecora staring right back at her.

Zecora’s deep cyan eyes spoke to Twilight of the wisdom of far-off lands, and burning desire—and no small amount of danger.

Twilight glanced away, nervously. Then she noticed her five friends—all of them were staring, slack-jawed at the zebra, and there were green spirals in all their eyes. “Uh, girls?” Twilight said. “Are you okay?” She reached out and tapped the nearest pony, Rainbow Dash, in the shoulder.

Rainbow snapped out of the trance and shook her head. “Whaaa... huh?” The other four did the same.

“Oh, dear,” Rarity said. “Zecora’s getting away!”

Indeed, the only sign of the zebra were her hoofprints in the path, leading deeper into the dark, foggy forest.

“What are we waiting for? Come on!” Rainbow Dash darted down the path, and four others followed a second later. Twilight was last. She gulped as she followed her friends—just what had she gotten herself into?

As she trotted, Twilight’s thoughts drifted back to Pinkie Pie’s impromptu song about Zecora:

She’s an evil enchantress!
She does evil dances!
And if you look deep in her eyes,
she’ll put you in trances!

Twilight had scoffed before, but now she had to admit that the song had been oddly prescient. Perhaps, she thought, it would be wise to look at the rest of the song for similar portents. What were the lyrics, again?

Then what is she doin’?
She’ll make you her balloon!
She’ll inflate you up
as big and round as the moon!
Soooo... watch out!

No, she thought, that couldn’t be right. Could it?

Before she could resolve the question, Twilight caught up with her friends, and found all five of them staring up at the sky. Dark storm clouds were circling overhead, faster and faster. Strong winds whipped through the forest, bending the trees ominously and forcing the six ponies to crouch. At the center of the storm, a funnel cloud extended and began stretching towards the ground.

“Land sakes! A twister!” Applejack held her hat tight, to keep it from blowing away.

“Ha! Piece of cake. I’ve wrangled worse storms in my sleep.” Rainbow Dash smirked at the other ponies. Twilight thought she saw the green spiral in Rainbow’s eyes again, but when she looked a second time, it was gone. “I got this, girls,” Rainbow continued. “You go find Zecora. I’ll catch up as soon as I take care of this. There’s only one way to deal with a raging tornado...”

Rainbow shot into the air, her incredible wingpower allowing her to fly steadily even in the midst of the buffeting winds. The funnel cloud was halfway to the treetops now, and she positioned herself in its path, directly below. Rainbow opened her mouth wide. The cloud rammed down, straight into her throat. Its width forced Rainbow’s jaw as far apart as it would stretch, and her cheeks swelled from the cloud forcing itself into her. “Mmmm! Hrrmmm hmmmm...” Rainbow mumbled as she began gulping down the storm cloud. Her belly swelled into a paunch, like she had eaten a large meal—and it just continued swelling.

“Ummm...” Twilight said. “Is that really the right way to control a tornado?”

Rainbow’s belly inflated larger as more and more of the storm cloud pumped into her. She looked like she’d swallowed an adult mare, and she was quickly working on her second. Her wing-flaps were becoming erratic, and she flailed her legs, but she still remained airborne, clinging to the tip of the funnel. “Mmmnnnmmmfffff! Hmmmmnnnn!” she tried to call out, her voice muffled by the mass of cloud in her mouth. She inflated to two, three times her old volume, and then even larger.

“Well,” Fluttershy answered, “Rainbow is on the weather team, and... we’re not.”

Rainbow’s legs stiffened and stuck straight out, making balloon-like squeaks as they filled with cloud mass. The same happened to her wings, each individual feather inflating thicker and blunter. Even though she couldn’t flap her ballooned wings, the lightweight clouds that had pumped into her—six times her old volume and counting—were enough to keep her in the air. The larger Rainbow swelled, the more spherical she grew.

“Yeah,” Applejack added, “all that pegasus pony weather magic is way over my head. If Rainbow says the right proper way to control a twister is by eatin’ it, then I trust her.”

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!” Rainbow screamed into the funnel, as it inflated her to ten times her old size, then larger still. She was making progress: the dark shelf of clouds in the sky was noticeably smaller—but only slightly. The mass of clouds still remaining was easily fifty times more than what she had already swallowed. Rainbow’s outstretched legs were sinking into her torso now, as it ballooned larger and larger.

“Yes, it seems Rainbow has things well in hoof,” Rarity added. “And she did encourage us to proceed without her, so I see no reason to linger and let Zecora escape.” With that, she continued down the forest path, and the other ponies followed.

Except for Twilight—she paused to spare a glance back at Rainbow Dash’s ballooning form. Then that glance lingered until it became a proper stare. The pegasus grew more and more spherical with every mouthful of cloud pumped into her, her wings swelling rounder, her huge body swallowing her legs as it bloated even larger. A shiver ran up and down Twilight’s spine as she watched her friend inflate further, and as she imagined just how large Rainbow would be once she swallowed the entire cloud.

Rainbow glanced down and met Twilight’s gaze. She winked at Twilight.

Twilight turned and ran after her other friends.

—————

She stopped when she collided with Pinkie Pie’s rear.

“’Bout time you showed up, Twi,” Applejack said. “Any bright ideas for gettin’ ’round this?”

Just beyond where the five ponies had stopped, the forest transitioned to a rocky bluff. On the path’s right-hoof edge was a sheer wall of rock, and on its left-hoof edge was an abrupt drop into a ravine. It was at least a thousand feet deep, but the fog obscured the ravine’s true depths. And the path itself was blocked by a house-sized pile of diamonds. The cut stones glittered and shone in spite of the darkness, mocking the ponies with their inconvenient perfection. And the pile grew larger as they watched: a mine shaft had been cut into the mountain above, from which a conveyor belt poured more diamonds in a constant stream.

“Well,” Twilight said, “I guess we could—”

“Ah, ah, ah!” Rarity interrupted as she stepped forward, between the pile and the other ponies. “Gems are my speciality, so this task clearly falls to me!”

“Makes sense to me!” Pinkie Pie chirped.

Rarity advanced on the gems. “And there’s only one way to deal with this many gemstones...” She opened her mouth wider than Twilight thought possible and shoved her face into the pile. After stuffing her cheeks full, she swallowed, and her fashionably trim stomach bulged out from the mass. Another mouthful soon followed the first, and then another, expanding Rarity’s waistline further.

“Ooookay...” Twilight said. “Is Rarity part dragon and nopony thought to tell me? This is weird. Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks this is weird.”

Rarity had been eating diamonds from the bottom of the pile, which destabilized it. A landslide began, with enough gems rushing towards Rarity to completely bury her. She was twice as wide as before—too heavy to jump away in time. Instead, she stood her ground and simply opened her jaws, letting the precious stones flow right into her mouth. She even formed a funnel with her magic, catching the diamonds that would have flowed to the side and directing them into her waiting maw. Her belly bloated even wider and thicker, squishing against the inside of her legs as it expanded. It was too wide now for Rarity to reach her own forelegs around it.

“Well,” Fluttershy said. “Rarity is the gem expert. If she says this is the best way, then I trust her.”

A decent chunk was gone from the pile—it was still the size of a house, but now it was a smaller house. Rarity stepped closer to stuff more diamonds down her gullet. Her gem-stuffed gut dragged on the ground as she moved, and her legs squished deep into its side with every step. Rarity was almost as wide as three ponies now, with how far her stomach bloated out.

“But this isn’t the best way!” Twilight forcibly tore her gaze away from the unicorn stuffing herself. “We could just climb over the pile! I could use my unicorn magic to tunnel a path through the pile! If all else failed, we could just push the whole pile into that ravine right there! There’s no logical reason to eat the diamonds!”

Rarity flared her horn and summoned her fainting couch. She dramatically reclined on it, her massive belly piled high atop her. The couch creaked and sagged, but held its owner’s weight. Rarity formed the funnel out of her magic again, this time catching the stream of diamonds from the conveyor belt. Every few seconds, she grabbed a heap of gems, almost the size of an adult stallion, from the pile and dumped that into her funnel as well. Larger and larger, Rarity expanded. Her belly, spilling over the sides of the couch, was large enough to serve as a bed now, for herself or for anypony else—if she were upright, the mass in her gut would have lifted her hooves three, then four feet off the ground.

“Twilight, you’re a great friend,” Pinkie Pie said. “But sometimes you think about these things way too hard!”

The fainting couch groaned in defeat, then broke into dozens of pieces. Rarity flopped onto the ground without losing her concentration: the flow of gemstones down her throat didn’t halt for a second. Moaning, she massaged her belly as it inflated even further. The rest of her torso disappeared under her gut’s expanding bulk, and her legs squished deep into its sides. Just as Rarity bloated to fifteen times her old size, she finally paused her bizarre meal.

“There,” she said. “I cleared the path for you.”

Rarity was right. Over half of the diamond pile still remained, but she had nevertheless eaten enough to form a walkable path through.

“Now, why don’t you four go ahead. I’ll catch up once I’ve finished here.” And with that, Rarity resumed gorging herself on the gems, inflating even larger.

Twilight wanted to point out the absurdity of this plan. With the apparently endless stream of diamonds pouring off the conveyor belt, Rarity might very well never be finished here. And she was already bloated too large to walk anywhere under her own power.

But before Twilight could even open her mouth, Applejack said, “Sounds like a plan to me!” Then she galloped away, with Pinkie and Fluttershy close behind her.

Twilight lingered once again, though she circled around Rarity first—with how large Rarity was expanding, she was liable to block the path before too long. Twilight placed a hoof on her friend’s belly in what she hoped was a comforting gesture, but another chill raced down her spine as soon as she made contact. “Rarity, are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

Rarity didn’t pause her meal, but gave a vaguely affirmative moan in between mouthfuls of gems. For the briefest moment, Twilight thought she saw green spirals in her eyes.

—————

By the time Twilight rejoined the others, the path was once again running through the forest. And the path was once again blocked—this time by a huge wooden barrel, again the size of a house. The label on the side read: Apple Cider — Product of Sweet Apple Acres.

Applejack snorted and stepped forward.

“No!” Twilight darted between Applejack and the barrel. “You don’t need to do this!” She placed her forehooves on the farmer’s chest and tried to hold her back.

“I reckon I do, honestly.” Without breaking stride, Applejack advanced, pushing Twilight backwards. “That there’s my family’s cider from my family’s farm, so that makes it my job to fix it.”

“But remember what happened last Applebuck Season! You don’t need to do this alone! We can all figure out a solution together—there’s no need for you to eat this whole barrel!”

Applejack paused and raised one eyebrow. “Who said anything ’bout eatin’ it? I’m just fixin’ to buck it outta the way.”

“Oh.” Twilight released Applejack. “That’s reasonable. Okay, then.”

Applejack trotted over the barrel’s side. After a quick stretch, she lined herself up for the proper position. Her hind legs left the ground—leaving Applejack balanced on her forelegs for the briefest instant—then shot straight back. With a loud thunk! her hooves connected. The barrel rolled, pushing over several trees before it came to a stop, just off the path.

“Wonderful,” Twilight said. “Now let’s move on, before—”

“Oh, applesauce!” Applejack interrupted. “That there’s a calamity!” She rushed off the path, to the cider barrel. There on the side, just below eye level, a crack in one of the planks had appeared.

“Nooooooooooo!” Twilight tried to race towards her, to tackle her friend and drag her away from this madness, but she felt like she was trudging through molasses.

Ignoring her, Applejack continued, “We can’t afford to lose this much cider! And there’s only one way to deal with this...”

The board cracked again, and a chunk of wood flew out. Applejack shoved her muzzle into the hole, plugging it before even a single drop could spill out.

Gulp! Gulp! Gulp! Applejack’s eyes widened as, instead of pouring onto the ground, the cider rushed straight down her throat. Her gut bulged, shaking and sloshing from the force of the liquid filling her. As her belly bloated larger, her backside kept pace with it. Applejack already had thick, muscular thighs, thanks to a lifetime of applebucking—but now they were swelling rounder and softer as they filled with cider, bouncing atop her hind legs.

Applejack looked up, staring at the immensity of the barrel and its volume of apple cider, just waiting to inflate her. And as Applejack looked, this time Twilight was sure she saw the green spirals in her friend’s eyes.

“Hhhrrrmmm,” Applejack mumbled against the unrelenting flow of cider. “Mmnnnmm hnnmrrrrrmm!” Her ballooning stomach reached the ground and swelled to the side, wider and wider. She had enough rump for three mares now, and her tail bobbed up and down atop her swelling, sloshing backside.

“Well. Applejack is the cider expert,” Fluttershy said in answer to a question that hadn’t been asked. “If she says... Oh. Never mind.”

Twilight snapped out of her paralysis and rushed over to Applejack’s side. Right next to the farm pony’s stomach—so big, so soft, so full of cider, getting fuller by the second... Twilight shook her head and grabbed Applejack’s shoulders, hooking one foreleg over her friend’s neck in the process. She tried to pull Applejack away from the barrel, but the pony’s muzzle refused to dislodge from the hole. Twilight could feel Applejack sloshing with every yank—every jiggle sending another pleasant jolt up and down her own spine, which she tried her hardest to ignore. By this point, Twilight couldn’t reach Applejack’s shoulders without leaning against her inflating belly—her own barrel squishing further into Applejack’s stomach, feeling the pressure build with every gallon of cider she swallowed.

Applejack planted one forehoof on Twilight’s chest and pushed the unicorn away, causing Twilight to land on her rump. “Hnnm—” Gulp. “—rrrrrmm—” Gulp.“—mmnnn—” Gulp. “—nnmm!” Applejack muttered, waving her foreleg to indicate somewhere behind Twilight.

“What’s that?” Twilight asked. “We should go ahead and you’ll catch up?”

Applejack stopped waving her foreleg, but didn’t lower it. One by one, her other legs lifted up and pointed out, spread eagle—straightening and stiffening as cider filled each of them. Her great, sloshing belly was inflated taller than her old height. Every mouthful of cider she swallowed was a large bulge rushing down her neck to add to the even larger bulge of her gut, and her whole body was rounding out as she swelled larger and larger.

“Come on, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie was suddenly at Twilight’s side. “You gotta stop thinking so much and go with the flow!”

“No! This is insane!” Twilight flailed a hoof in the air. “I don’t know what the hay’s going on anymore, but we shouldn’t have left Rainbow Dash or Rarity behind, and I’m not going to abandon Applejack, too!”

Twilight stood up and suddenly found herself dragged backwards—Pinkie had grabbed Twilight’s tail and was now pulling her down the path. No matter how much Twilight struggled and pawed at the ground, she couldn’t pull herself free. She could do nothing but watch as Applejack inflated, to three times her old height and even further. Her legs were sinking into her body as her torso bulged even more. She was so round that, thanks to her coat color, she ironically resembled a giant orange more than anything else.

And Applejack, as thick as she had swollen, was still dwarfed by the cider barrel and the volume remaining inside—waiting to fill her even further.

—————

Pinkie spat out Twilight’s tail and gasped. Twilight just groaned and turned to see the latest obstruction in the path. It was a steel tank of helium gas, laying on its side. It was five feet long and just under a foot in diameter, perfect for inflating an obscene number of party balloons.

“Don’t worry, everypony!” Pinkie chirped. “Party supplies are my specialty!”

“Pinkie, no!” Twilight interjected. “This is just stupid!” She trotted forward and, without breaking stride, stepped over the tank. “See? It isn’t even blocking the path! We can step over it, or walk around it!”

Pinkie ignored the tirade and approached the tank herself. “And there’s only one way to deal with this...”

“No there isn’t one way! There are plenty of ways to deal with it, and the majority of them don’t involve—”

“Twiiiiiiiliiiiiiight,” Pinkie said, a dopey grin on her face. “You really need to lighten up.” She closed her eyes, pressed her lips up to the nozzle, and cranked the handle. The valve opened with a hissss, and gas began pumping into the pink pony.

“What the hay?” Twilight said, raising her voice. “What the hay? Are all my friends going crazy?”

Pinkie’s whole torso puffed up larger than an apple barrel. She lifted one leg to prod at her distended middle, voicing a muffled laugh as her hoof sank in. Then her other three hooves lifted off the ground; Pinkie rose into the air from the volume of helium pumping into her. The steel tank weighed down her head, so it was her rump—already wide enough to serve as a filly’s mini-trampoline, and growing larger by the second—that lifted the highest. Pinkie’s laughter merged with the squeaking sounds of her skin as she inflated larger and larger.

“Umm...” Fluttershy answered. “I don’t feel very crazy.”

Twilight wheeled on Fluttershy, who shrank from the unicorn’s crazed expression. “That’s okay, right?” Fluttershy said. Twilight hugged her and held her tight, as she turned back to watch Pinkie.

Finally, Pinkie opened her eyes and reached for the valve’s handle. Twilight briefly allowed herself to hope that the party pony had regained her sanity and was trying to shut off the flow of helium. But Pinkie’s hoof fumbled and spun the handle all the way open. “Mmmmrrrrrrmmmmm!” Pinkie shouted into the nozzle, her eyes widening as she inflated even faster than before. She grabbed the handle again, only for her leg to slip off, then stiffen straight out. With even louder squeaks, all her legs inflated, filling with helium to twice their normal width. More and more gas rushed into Pinkie, pumping her as large as an economy-sized bounce house, and then even larger.

“Twilight,” Fluttershy whimpered, “I can’t breathe... You’re squeezing... really tight...”

“Sorry!” Twilight loosened her grip, but didn’t completely release Fluttershy from the hug.

Larger and larger, Pinkie swelled. “Hhmmrrmmm!” Pinkie’s screams were muffled by the nozzle, and nearly drowned out by the hiss of the gas and the squeaks of her expanding body. “Mrrmm nnnmmm!” She flailed her inflated legs—or rather, waggled them back and forth, the few inches they could still move. Her haunches were merging with her torso, and her cutie marks were stretching—each individual balloon the size of a beach ball now. There were green spirals in her eyes as she stared down at the steel tank. “Hhhhhhhhnnnmm!”

“Pinkie Pie is the balloon expert,” Fluttershy said. “But... honestly, I think your way would have made more sense, Twilight.”

Twilight did a double-take at the pegasus. Fluttershy continued, “Obviously, Pinkie’s plan is to fill herself until she can fly away with the tank. But that’s not possible. If there were enough helium to counteract the weight of the tank itself, then it would have already drifted away.”

“Yes! Of course!” Twilight wore a manic grin. “Because clearly that is the only flaw in Pinkie’s plan!”

“Well, I guess we should keep going...” Fluttershy stood up, but Twilight continued clinging to her and made no effort to stand on her own. “Um, Twilight... do you think you could, maybe, let me go, if you don’t mind?”

“Please don’t leave me.”

“Oh. Okay then.” Fluttershy began walking, dragging Twilight along with her. As she stepped around the tank, she ducked her head to avoid bumping the huge curve of Pinkie’s body. If the party pony had surpassed an economy-sized bounce house before, now she was bigger and bouncier than a super-mega-jumbo bounce house (the heavy-duty kind even the adults could play on, with an attached waterslide).

As Fluttershy dragged her away, Twilight couldn’t help but wonder whether Pinkie would make a good hot-air balloon. She’d be as big as one, soon enough.

—————

Fluttershy came to a stop. “Oh, dear.”

A kaleidoscope of monarch butterflies blocked the path ahead. The lepidopterans formed a roiling cloud—opaque and impenetrable—that stretched from the ground to the forest canopy, from one side of the path to the other.

Twilight whimpered. “I suppose there’s no way to talk you out of this, is there?”

“Well, animals are my specialty...” Fluttershy trotted forward—having somehow wriggled free of Twilight’s embrace without the unicorn noticing. She pointed a hoof, and a dozen of the butterflies landed on her outstretched leg. “There’s... there’s...”

Fluttershy sighed and lowered her head. “I’m sorry, Twilight, but I can’t do it.”

Twilight blinked.

Fluttershy continued, “I’m supposed to say, ‘There’s only one way to deal with this many butterflies,’ and then eat all of them. But that’s mean, and I just can’t! So, I’m sorry, but it looks like we’re stuck here until—”

With a pop, the insects on Fluttershy’s leg all transformed into sticks of butter. A second later, the airborne ones followed suit. The sky was thick with great gobs of butter, flitting about on gossamer wings of pure magic.

“Oh,” Fluttershy said. “Don’t mind if I do!” She leaned forward and opened her lips—and as soon as she did, the sticks of butter on her foreleg flew straight into her mouth. Without even giving her a chance to chew, they forced their way down her throat, merging into thick lumps that flowed down her neck and settled heavily in her stomach. Fluttershy’s graceful little tummy bulged a few inches with every lump.

Fluttershy finally gulped down the last of them and just stood there, panting. Then she looked up. The swarm of airborne butter had gone still—the uncountable sticks and lumps no longer flitting back and forth, but simply hovering in the air. Even without eyes, they gave the unmistakeable impression of staring expectantly at Fluttershy. The pegasus’s eyes widened and her wings flared—but she didn’t close her mouth.

The butter swarmed in, rushing between Fluttershy’s open lips with enough force to knock her onto her rump. Her paunch jiggled from the motion. Her cheeks bulged from the mass of dairy rushing into her, even though she swallowed as fast as she could. Her stomach bloated further, its underside resting on the ground between her hind legs. Though not remotely thin anymore, Fluttershy’s ballooning gut was strangely alluring as it swelled larger—and downright hypnotic every time it wobbled from a feeble kick of her hind leg, or from a particularly large lump of butter forcing its way in. As a certain photographer might have said: even her inflation was graceful.

Thicker and thicker her stomach swelled, filling the space between her haunches, then pressing against them, squeezing over the top of her stifles. She rested her forelegs atop the growing cushion of her gut—already large enough that Twilight could have curled up inside—and a ripple spread across it as her hooves pressed slightly into its soft surface. It pushed her haunches out as it widened. Seated on her rump and spreading her hind legs—anypony could have made that pose look lewd, but Fluttershy somehow made it...

Twilight snorted and shook her head. That caught Fluttershy’s attention, and she turned slightly to face the unicorn, her gut sloshing from the motion. Her eyes softened, and she somehow smiled around the mass of butter still rushing into her mouth, her swollen cheeks dimpling slightly. With one forehoof, she patted her belly—which had expanded almost to the tips of her hind hooves, and drew closer by the second—and with the other she beckoned Twilight closer.

Twilight’s brain told her to resist—told her that her adorably inflating friend was tempting her to do something stupid and dangerous and just plain wrong. Twilight’s hooves didn’t listen. As she trotted forward, Twilight glanced back and forth, from Fluttershy’s face to the inviting curves of Fluttershy’s gut. Slowly, Twilight reached out, then hesitated mere inches away from the butter-yellow belly—until Fluttershy took Twilight’s hoof in her own and guided it the rest of the way, pressing the purple hoof softly into her stomach. Electricity raced down Twilight’s back as she felt the gut shifting beneath her touch, pressing back against her as it expanded. She placed her other foreleg on Fluttershy’s stomach, and both hooves squished deeper into that soft mass as she rested her whole upper body weight on it. Fluttershy closed her eyes in response and gave a demure little moan.

And then she fell on Twilight.

Fluttershy’s rear hooves touched the ground, then lifted off as she rolled forward on her belly bed—then her fore hooves’ reunion with the ground was equally brief before she rolled back. Her gut was large enough to lift her several feet off the forest floor, to squish around her legs even as it spread them further apart, and to completely pin Twilight underneath. The unicorn was so stunned that she didn’t even struggle at first. She just lay there—her forelegs curled against her own ribs by that tremendous mass, her hind legs splayed to wrap around that huge stomach, her snout pressed deep into its unimaginable squishiness. Only her forehead and horn on one side, and her hind legs on the other side, weren’t buried under Fluttershy, yet. That inflating belly was a warm, impossibly soft cushion, molding itself tightly to Twilight’s every curve as it pressed down on her face, her neck, her torso, her belly, between her haunches, her loins...

“Mrrrrmmmfff!” Twilight shouted into Fluttershy’s stomach as she finally began to struggle. She writhed and wiggled her legs, attempting in vain push away the butter-stuffed mass of her friend. “Mmffmmnnn, hhhrmmm!” That ballooning belly just sloshed from the motion—and as it filled ever further, it pressed back even more tightly against nearly every inch of the trapped unicorn. Twilight grew warm from the exertion; her feebly kicking hind legs were squeezing deeper into the side of Fluttershy’s belly as it expanded further and further. “Mhhhhmmmfff!”

Finally, Twilight flared her horn. With a crack and a flash of light, she teleported out from under Fluttershy, landing on her hooves a few feet away. Her mane and coat slick with sweat, Twilight panted and stared at the butter-filled behemoth that Fluttershy had become. The formerly supermodel-thin pegasus was splayed atop a belly ten times as large as she was—a belly still wobbling from Twilight’s sudden departure, and still inflating with more butter.

In spite of how much Fluttershy had already swallowed, she had barely made a dent in this flying butter swarm. But it was enough to clear a few feet between the ground and the bottom of the swarm—enough space for Twilight to continue down the path on her own.

“I’ll find Zecora,” Twilight said to Fluttershy. “And I’ll come back for you, and all the others. I promise.”

Twilight gave a reassuring pat to her friend’s huge belly—and shivered as she felt it still swelling larger beneath her hoof. She turned and galloped away.

Author's Note

Thefurryrailfan drew a really nice picture based on Pinkie's scene from this chapter. Check it out at https://derpibooru.org/ #1423381, or http://www.furaffinity.net/ #23350932.