Discord levitated a cucumber sandwich up to eye level, as he said, “Oh, you should have seen the look on the Duke’s face, then! So, he said, ‘The Smooze? I’ve never heard of it. Where is it?’ And you know how I replied?”
He paused his story to freeze the cucumber sandwich in a block of ice, blend it into a smoothie, and take a long sip of the resulting drink.
Fluttershy giggled. “Did you make a pun about how the Duke had been schmoozing all night?”
“Ha! No, but I should have. What I said was, ‘You’re soaking in him!’”
“Well, it’s like they say…” Fluttershy gave him a sly smile. “You win some, you Smooze some.”
Discord laughed so hard, his head fell off his neck and rolled around the patio table.
Fluttershy and Discord were holding their usual tea party outside this week, rather than inside her cottage. Both had agreed that this spring weather was far too nice not to take advantage of—although Discord’s definition of “take advantage of” meant summoning a dozen checker-patterned clouds that snowed mashed potatoes. Still, the potato precipitation cleared up enough that they could now appreciate the lovely sunset.
“Oh, Fluttershy,” Discord said, as he picked up his head. “I’ll make a real comedian out of you, yet.”
As Discord grabbed the last cucumber sandwich with his free hand—and attached that sandwich to his neck—Fluttershy smiled back at him. His pure, unbridled joy was infectious enough to nearly quell the unease in her chest. Fluttershy had been planning this next step all week, and Discord was a very dear friend—no, something even closer. Everything was going to be okay.
The cucumber sandwich opened wide and ate Discord’s head—then transformed into his head. “Well!” he said, levitating from his chair. “It’s been yet another lovely party, but it’s getting late now, and I’d hate to cut into your beauty sleep. Not that you need it, of course…”
“No, wait!” Fluttershy stood. “Can’t you stay a little longer? Maybe step inside for a bit?”
“What? If you wanted to have our tea party inside this week, why didn’t you just say so?”
“Not a tea party, silly. Starlight Glimmer is watching Angel bunny for a few days. And my other animal friends agreed to spend the night at the new sanctuary. Which means we’ll be alone…” Fluttershy smiled at him, with half-lidded eyes. “The whole cottage completely to ourselves.”
Discord threw his arms up in the air. “The whole cottage?” His arms landed five feet away. “It’s a lovely home, of course, but I have no idea what to do with half those rooms.”
“Well, I was hoping you could spend the night.”
“A sleepover!” Discord squealed with glee, his arms teleporting back onto his body. “Oh, this will be so much fun! We can do each other’s manes and cook s’mores and tell scary stories and I can accidentally crash a tree through your window…”
“Not a sleepover! Discord, I want to have sex!” Fluttershy’s eyes widened as soon as the words left her mouth. Discord looked just as surprised at her outburst—but she didn’t shrink back. “You asked before about taking our relationship to the next level. And I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I feel I’m ready for it.”
She hovered up to Discord’s height, and placed a hoof on his shoulder. “I love you with all of my heart and all of my soul. Now, I want to love you with all of my body.”
“Fluttershy…” A few tears ran from Discord’s eyes, then sprouted wings and flew away. He cupped Fluttershy’s cheek with his lion paw. “Dear, sweet Fluttershy, you’re a better pony than I deserve. I would be honored to join you in such activities on this lovely evening.”
In a flash, he snaked his way around Fluttershy, then landed. Fluttershy suddenly found herself reclining, prone in Discord’s arms, as he walked towards the door. “And I must say,” Discord continued, “I love this bold side of you. Perhaps you can show me more of it tonight?”
“Um,” Fluttershy said, “why are you carrying me into my own house?”
“It’s a visual gag, dear,” Discord answered. “A real classic.”
“Okay… But—”
Discord snapped his fingers, and the cottage door opened for him. He carried Fluttershy over the threshold—and his hoof landed directly on a banana peel. “Whoa!” Discord shouted as he slipped.
“Eeeeeee!” Fluttershy fell out of Discord’s arms, only to continue tumbling down a flight of stairs. Her house didn’t have a basement, but Fluttershy was too preoccupied falling down these illogical stairs to wonder where they’d come from. “Eeep! Oof! Aaa! Ouch!” She rolled on, bouncing off each step with her head, her back, her rump, over and over, into the depths.
“Oop! Ouch! Uufp!” At her side, Discord wasn’t faring much better. “Ack! Oof!” He flopped head-over-heels down the stairs uncontrollably, like a non-branded generic metal spring toy. He’d land on a step, face-first, then his long body would pile atop him, his own momentum squishing him down—only to propel him back up with a loud Sproing! so his rear could land three steps down, then compress and bounce back and land him on his face again, and the whole cycle would start over.
Fluttershy curled tighter and tighter as she fell, and then she bounced, caroming off a step like a yellow-and-pink volleyball. The stairway made an abrupt turn, and she rebounded off the wall, then ricocheted off the ceiling, sailing further down the passage. Boing! Boing! her body sounded, every time she bounced. “Eep!” she cried with each collision.
Boing! Sproing! Boing! Sproing! Farther down, Discord and Fluttershy fell—the pony ricocheting chaotically off every available surface, while the being of pure chaos slunk down methodically, taking three steps at a time, every time. Boing! Sproing! Boing! Sproing! To Fluttershy, careening down the stairs, the whole world spun around her too fast to comprehend, so she never noticed the strange twists and turns the staircase took—loop-de-looping and doubling back on itself in non-Euclidean ways.
An open door appeared in the wall and—Boing!—Fluttershy bounced through it, while—Sproing!—Discord slunk right by. Fluttershy smacked into the window which covered the opposite wall of the room, so hard that the pane shook in its frame. Instead of bouncing off, her momentum flattened her against the glass, reducing her to a circle about the diameter of a serving tray, with her pink tail draping to the floor.
Discord, meanwhile flopped down the rest of the staircase and finally reached the bottom. With a Thunk! he landed one last time on his head, then fell on his back, his tail pointing away from the stairs.
He lay in an enormous factory, a room so large that the far walls were lost behind the massive machinery—which was currently active. Automated assembly lines stretched from one end to the other, their conveyor belts passing over and under each other at various heights. Each assembly line was devoted to a random assortment of different foods: pizzas, breakfast waffles, cream horns, granola bars—and the line nearest Discord was making bubblegum. At the ceiling, high above, crane arms carried huge buckets back and forth. A nearby corner of the room was occupied by an industrial-scale kitchen, with an oversized icebox and similarly oversized sinks and drying racks.
“Ahhh,” Discord said, relaxing on the floor’s smooth, polished vinyl. “So glad that unpleasantness is over with. I wonder, where did Fluttershy get—”
A slight tug on Discord’s tail cut him short. That white tuft of hair on the very tip was caught in the oversized rollers of the bubblegum assembly line. “Hhmph!” Discord gave his tail a curt yank to free it—but it remained stuck, and even sank deeper as those rollers continued turning. More concerned now, Discord pulled harder on his tail a few more times. But the metal cylinders refused to let go, tugging him even farther; already, the tip of his tail poked out the other side, squashed as flat as a stick of gum.
Discord gulped. “Oh, dear. This may be a problem.” He turned over, then then flapped his wings and scrabbled desperately for a handhold—anything to pull himself free of the machine. But the rollers pulled harder than his wings, and the support beams of the other nearest assembly lines were just out of reach, and the floor was too smooth, too slick. He hooked his claws into the floor, but that just gouged parallel lines in the vinyl as the machinery swallowed his tail further. Inch by inch, foot by foot, his flattened body emerged from the other side.
As Discord’s hips drew inexorably closer to the rollers, a yellow warning light bulb turned on—by sheer coincidence, just above Discord’s head. “I’ve got an idea!” he proclaimed. “And it’s crazy enough it just… might… work!” He placed his feet directly on the rollers—his lizard foot on the top one, and his donkey hoof on the bottom. Then he straightened his legs, bracing himself against those crushing cylinders. He couldn’t pull himself free from the rollers like this—but they couldn’t pull him any deeper, either.
“Ha ha!” Discord said. He shifted his feet outward a few inches, to counteract the rollers’ inward rotation—then did it again, and again. “Now all I have to do is stay like this, until dearest Fluttershy comes along to help me.”
Meanwhile, in the control room overlooking the factory floor, Fluttershy fell off the window and bounced like a coin, before landing face-up. Her pupils spun around, inside her flattened eyes, for a few seconds longer.
“I’m sure she’ll be along any minute,” Discord continued. His legs trembled slightly from the strain. “And besides, I could do this all day! Staying in one position for a long period of time should be a cinch for a powerful and handsome Master of Chaos like me! …Wait…”
And then his feet both slipped, and the rollers immediately resumed devouring him—quickly flattening his ankles, his legs, his hips. On the other side, his feet and legs emerged, crushed just as flat as his tail. “Oh, woe is me!” Discord cried, swooning dramatically as the machine dragged him further in. “Doomed to become as two-dimensional as Celestia’s personality. What a cruel fate! …Oh, what have we here?”
A large metal panel was suspended in the air, sticking a few yards out from the assembly line’s side on metal pylons. The panel just bore a yellow-and-black lever, and red text above it: “FAILSAFE.”
“Ha, ha! Just what I needed!” Discord grabbed the lever with his lion paw, and gave it a good, hard pull—and nothing happened. The lever didn’t move at all. Discord pulled again, as he sank up to his waist between the rollers—pulling him nearly taut between them and the panel—but the failsafe lever refused to budge. “Well, what do you know?” Discord muttered. “It failed.”
Then the machine pulled Discord tight, adding its own force to his arm strength, and something finally budged. The lever itself remained immobile, but the panel cracked open. Loose electrical wires fell out the crack—and Discord had enough time to gulp before their exposed ends landed right on his paw. Loud buzzes and crackles filled the air—Bzzzzzt! Bzzzzt!—as thousands of volts zapped through his body. Discord turned completely black, while his skeleton, from his funny bone to his humerus, glowed like Hearth’s Warming lights. Bzzzzt! Bzzzzzt! Lightning arced from his body, scorching black marks on the floor and the nearby machinery. Yet in spite of the electric bolts, the rollers inexorably continued crushing Discord, drawing closer to his shoulders.
After a few seconds, the panel belched a cloud of black smoke and shorted out—and the electricity mercifully stopped. Discord returned to his normal coloration, albeit singed in many places. His lion paw still clutched the lever tightly, so as he sank deeper into the crushing machinery, his un-flattened upper body stretched like rubber.
Discord shook his head and said, “I must have some words with the nincompoop who designed this place.” He paused to cough out a smoke cloud. “A failsafe lever that electrocutes you? That makes no—”
With a loud Clunk! the lever finally turned in Discord’s grasp.
Then a safe fell from the ceiling, directly onto Discord’s head.
It landed with enough force to embed several inches into the vinyl floor. Discord lifted his eagle talon triumphantly, and his muffled voice came from beneath the safe: “Now THAT’S a failsafe!”
Meanwhile, Fluttershy was taking huge gulps of air to reinflate herself. When she regained her normal proportions, her hind legs buckled, and she slumped to a sitting position. “Oooohhh, my head…”
Down in the factory, Discord was himself in a very awkward position: his head was pinned beneath the safe, while his left shoulder sank into the maw of rollers, and his right hand remained firmly clasped around the failsafe lever. So his eagle talon, already crushed flat, waved in the air behind the rollers, while his neck and right arm stretched farther and thinner.
Then, the safe shifted. Discord’s head popped from underneath and—with a rubbery Twaaaaaang!—his neck snapped back, smacking his head into his shoulder. The vibrations traveled up his right arm, shaking so hard that the lever snapped off in his grip. Twaaaang! His arm snapped back, until the lever slipped from his hand, and both angled away from each other. His paw’s momentum carried it past the rollers—while the broken lever flew right into them, wedging in place right next to Discord’s head. The machinery groaned, and the two rollers finally stopped rotating.
“Well,” Discord said. “That’s a relief.”
Then his lion paw collided with an exposed gear train above the granola bar assembly line. A second later, those metal teeth grabbed Discord’s paw, squashed it flat, and kept pulling—rotating even faster than the bubblegum roller. Discord felt the tug on his arm and said, “Oh.” Then he was yanked back out of the rollers, towards the hungry gear train.
Meanwhile, in the control room, Fluttershy finally felt clear-headed enough to stand once more. Motion caught her eye, so she turned to look out the window, down to the factory floor.
She was just in time to see Discord’s head smack into those gears. “Fluttershy!” He cried, “Avenge me!” just before disappearing between their teeth. His shoulders, his arms, and his already-flattened torso, legs, and tail quickly followed, before Fluttershy could process what she saw. Up, down, up, down, his squashed form looped through the gear train.
“Discord! No!” Fluttershy cried, somewhat late, as she smacked her forehooves against the window, rattling the pane once more.
Discord finally emerged from the far side of the gears—squashed paper-thin, and bent back-and-forth by those interlocking teeth. He was a draconequus-sized ribbon, meticulously crinkled. Then he landed on a bed of mixed nuts—carried by the conveyor belt directly into the granola machine.
The first station on the assembly line was a set of six blades. Chkka chkka chkka chkk they went, as they chopped and diced the nuts into smaller and smaller chunks.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!” Fluttershy’s mouth twisted, and her eyes widened; she grabbed her head in her forehooves as if to contain the abject horror contorting her face.
Next on the assembly line was a quartet of metal pistons, slamming into the conveyor belt like mallets. Thwomp! Thwomp! Thwomp! they went, as they smashed the already-diced nuts into even smaller pieces.
Fluttershy screamed again—this time, her voice rising to a pitch only audible to dogs. She grimaced so hard, the corners of her mouth threatened to leap right off her face. Once again, she grabbed her head, before sudden dizziness made her slump against the adjacent water cooler and then to the floor.
Then, the assembly line dropped the tiny nut fragments onto two metal rollers with interlocking teeth. With a low Mrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, the rollers ground those fragments into a fine powder.
Fluttershy lifted her head, just enough to peek through the window with one horrified eye. What she saw made her stumble again—but this time she caught herself.
The fear left her eyes, replaced by a glint of anger and determination. Her face hardened, and with a cry of pure, assertive rage, she leaped into the window.
The pane swung out on its hinges.
Fluttershy hovered in the air, her anger immediately replaced by confusion. She glanced down, at the floor dozens of feet below her hooves. “Eeep!” Then she fell.
Directly below were garbage cans and a few cleaning supplies. Fluttershy hit the one garbage can that was laying on its side and bounced off it sideways, like a pinball bumper. Her hooves slipped into a quartet of floor-waxing pads, and she careened across the floor.
“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?” Fluttershy said, gaping at the floor as it sped by beneath her. The wax below her hooves eliminated all friction with the vinyl, allowing horizontal momentum to propel her uncontrollably across the floor. Her long mane and tail flapped in the air behind her, as she slid fast enough to rival Rainbow Dash’s airspeed.
She had brief glimpses of various machinery as the factory blurred past her: Nozzles topped waffles on their assembly line with maple syrup and whipped cream. (Wham! The conveyor belt was at the perfect height to smack her face as she sped by.) A giant blender mixed some thick batter. (Smack! Fluttershy’s face hit the mixing bowl handle.) Pastries bulged as vanilla cream squirted into them. (Bong! Her head whacked into the metal pipe carrying the vanilla cream as she zipped beneath.) A crane arm emptied a jar of lightning into a machine, providing power to the pizza assembly line. (Crack! The crane’s arm lowered just in time to strike her face.) The refrigerator towered like a monolith over the industrial kitchen. (Whang! Bang! Clang! Zang! Fluttershy sped under a row of frying pans hanging from hooks, smacking every single one of them with her face as she went.)
Fluttershy shook away the stars circling her head, as she zipped into the alley between two assembly lines. “Discord!” she called out. “Where are you?” When she looked ahead again, her eyes widened. “Oh dear…” Directly ahead were mouse traps, dozens upon dozens of them spread over the floor. Then Fluttershy’s forehoof caught on an electrical cord, and she fell forward, sprawling on her trim belly—which barely slowed her down as she continued sliding.
Snap! Snap! Snapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnap… Fluttershy slid out from the alley with mouse traps clamped onto her muzzle, her cheeks, her ears, her shoulders, and all up and down her forelegs—even a few in her mane and tail. She zipped past shelves, some loaded with raw ingredients, others with jugs of water. Then—Thunk!—she collided head-first with a wall. The impact mercifully knocked most of the traps off her, along with the waxy hoof-pads.
“Uuugghhh…” Fluttershy said. “Well, that’s over, at le—Ouch!”
A jar fell from above and bounced off Fluttershy’s head, then rolled away unbroken. It was a jar of lightning. Fluttershy gasped at how close she’d come to a nasty electric shock. Then she glanced up.
It wasn’t a wall Fluttershy had slid into. It was another shelf, utterly packed with lightning jars—dozens of which now teetered on the brink, thanks to the recent collision. When one of them tumbled over the edge, Fluttershy’s forehooves shot out, catching the jar mere inches above the floor. As she stood up, another jar fell—she dashed over just in time to catch it, too. And then fell a third jar. Fluttershy caught it with her left forehoof, while still clutching the first two jars to her chest with her right leg, standing on her hind hooves to do so.
Fluttershy flapped her wings for balance—and one of them jostled the shelf. Two more lightning jars fell over the edge, then three, then the deluge. Fluttershy’s limbs darted out faster than she thought possible, the pegasus acting on pure instinct. She caught jars with both forelegs, lining them up in row along along each limb, up to her shoulders. She spread her wings to grab even more, balancing jars on her ulnas when she couldn’t grasp any more with her feathers. As a jar slipped past her wings and forelegs, she stuck out her left hind leg and caught it, and then a half dozen more like it—leaving her just one leg to stand on. As more and more jars fell, they stacked on top of Fluttershy, forming pyramids three, four, five jars high. One jar fell straight towards her head—and she leaned back just right to catch it on the tip of her snout.
And like that, the rain of jars ended. Fluttershy panted as she stood there, balanced on her right hind leg, with dozens of lightning jars clutched desperately or stacked precariously on every other limb. She swayed slightly on her hoof, and hopped backwards to regain her balance—and landed right on that very first jar, already on the floor. It rotated beneath her hoof, and she bounced frantically forwards to maintain her footing. That just spun the jar even faster, propelling Fluttershy backwards—until she collided with another set of shelves, spine-first. She bounced off and came to a stop. Miraculously, the jar below stopped spinning underhoof, and the jars above wobbled and swayed dangerously, but none of them fell.
And the shelf gave a loud Snap! as one of the supports cracked from the force of the collision. On the top shelf, the side nearest Fluttershy dipped down an inch—just enough for the contents to roll off. Cans of olives fell—Bonk! Bonk! Bonk!—and each of them bounced off Fluttershy’s forehead. These were quickly followed—Donk! Donk! Donk!—by larger cans of condensed milk. Then—Clonk! Clonk! Clonk!—even larger cans of pineapple slices and—CLONK! CLONK! CLONK!—supersized cans of tomato sauce played percussion on Fluttershy’s head.
Last of all was a jug of drinking water, for the cooler. It slid off the shelf and sailed through the air. And its opening landed right between Fluttershy’s lips. Her eyes widened as water poured into her mouth, but with the lightning jar still balanced on her nose—and dozens more still keeping her other limbs occupied—she could do nothing to get rid of the jug. More water filled her cheeks, swelling them like balloons until they nearly touched the lightning jars on her shoulders.
Then, with a defeated moan, Fluttershy swallowed, her cheeks shrinking and her slim belly bulging. All she could do now was drink—and drink, and drink, and drink. Gulping down mouthful after mouthful, her stomach swelling like she’d swallowed a volleyball, she stared pleadingly up at the jug—taller than her, and wider—draining inexorably into her.
Fluttershy swayed slightly on her precarious perch. Her belly, already the size of a beach ball and still inflating larger, sloshed with the motion. With every mouthful she swallowed, a thick bulge slid down her neck, to add another inch of diameter to the wobbling mass of her stomach. It grew big and round enough to brush against the insides of her haunches, and it just kept growing. Pint after pint poured into Fluttershy, filling the formerly thin pegasus larger and larger.
“Hhmmmglblblglglbl…” Fluttershy moaned against the flow of liquid down her throat—her eyes darting back and forth in a panic. She’d swallowed her own mass in water already, and still it kept pouring into her. Her bloating belly squished hard against her haunches, bulging around her stifles and forcing her left leg to stick out farther to the side. Slowly, Fluttershy leaned backwards, to counterbalance the weight of the water filling her gut larger by the second; the jars clinked and swayed with her movement, while her belly gurgled and wobbled.
“Mmrrrrrrblblblglglgl!” Fluttershy’s pitch rose, desperation in her voice clear even through the waterfall down her throat. More and more, her once-trim stomach expanded, jiggling now with every mouthful of liquid added to it. That belly’s sides squished over her haunches like love handles, even as her left hind leg spread as far as her hips would allow. And when Fluttershy’s forelegs grew tired and dipped an inch or two, they brushed against the yellow exercise ball her gut had become. She leaned back a little farther, her right hind leg trembling. “Blblglblglmmmmrrrr!” Her pupils narrowed to pinpricks, as she filled with gallon after gallon of water.
And then, the flow stopped. Fluttershy swallowed the last mouthful, adding those final few inches to her oversized belly, then spat out the empty water jug. “Puh!” She stood there and panted—her limbs all trembling, her water-filled stomach jiggling, and her lightning jars clinking but somehow yet unfallen.
“Huh… huh… Okay. Now I just need to—”
The jar beneath her hoof shattered.
Glass shards scattered across the floor. The metal lid shot away like a non-branded generic flying disc.
And the electricity jolted straight through Fluttershy’s body. She flailed all her limbs at random, as she flopped to the ground. Her bloated, water-filled gut softened the fall; it wobbled and bounced her up and down from the impact. As the electric shock ended and Fluttershy regained her senses, she sighed—and then glanced up.
The lightning jars, dozen upon dozens of them, had been flung straight up. Some just now reached their apex, and others were already falling. Fluttershy shrieked and tried to scramble away.
Meanwhile, a few yards away, the flying metal lid struck the pizza oven’s side window. The window slid open from the collision.
Fluttershy continued her mad dash—too panicked to realize she wasn’t actually moving. From her perch atop the beanbag chair of her belly, a full foot remained between her hooftips and the floor. Fluttershy’s attempt to gallop just made her legs dig into her belly’s water-swollen sides, shaking that big yellow balloon even harder.
The lightning jars crashed and shattered. Bzzzzzzt! Crack! Boom! Bolt after bolt struck, each blasting the oversized pegasus with its full fury. Fluttershy’s legs and wings all stuck straight out, while she bounced a few feet up and hovered there. The few mousetraps still stuck to her body all burst into flames and disintegrated. Crackle-bzzzzzzzzzzt-crack! Her body became a dark silhouette—a large, round one—while her skeleton glowed brighter than the sun. That, and the flashes from the continuous lightning strikes, cast the rest of the factory floor into deep shadow.
As Fluttershy hovered in the midst of the electrical onslaught, a spot of white appeared in her great, round belly. The spot grew into a small cloud—and her belly grew with it. The lightning’s heat was evaporating the gallons upon gallons of water in her stomach, inflating her enormous body even further. Her back rounded out, and her entire torso grew more spherical as she swelled with water vapor. Already, her diameter was twice her normal height, and still she expanded larger.
Bzzzztzzzzztzzzzzt-crack! Fluttershy was now a black weather balloon in an electrical storm—except, unlike a normal balloon, she grew even more with every lightning strike. Three, four times her height she swelled—her huge, round body shaking all over. Gallons of liquid inside her became cubic yards of gas, inflating her inch after inch, foot after foot. This new, round Fluttershy could have towered over her old self, and still she grew ever larger.
Crackle-boom! The last jar finally shattered; the last bolt of lightning struck its target. Fluttershy returned to her normal colors and opacity, mostly. Much of her mane and tail—both sticking straight out—were blackened, and smoke drifted from the scorch marks spread across her body. It was an enormous body—Fluttershy was swollen just over five times her normal height. Her legs had sunk halfway into her balloon of a torso, as had her neck. Her tiny wings stuck straight out, yet she continued hovering in the air—while her shrunken, unblinking eyes stared off into the distance.
Then Fluttershy opened her mouth. She rocketed backwards, white clouds blasting out of her mouth as she went. She sounded like a steam whistle as she zipped back and forth across the factory. Fluttershy twisted and turned; she looped and swooped; she wove between the giant buckets hanging from the ceiling, at speeds that even Rainbow Dash would envy. All the while, she shrank closer to her normal size, spewing out a trail of steam to mark the path of her uncontrolled, rump-first flight.
As she deflated almost all the way, Fluttershy made one last loop-de-loop, then blasted towards the pizza assembly line. With a Whunk! she flew into a boxy machine, wedging her rear into its side. Her rump and haunches stuck through a tight window, while the rest of her slim body—restored to its normal proportions—dangled limply outside.
Fluttershy hung there, her eyes spinning in their sockets until she shook her head. “Uuuugghhhhh…” Then she sniffed the air, perking up. “Something smells… funny…” She glanced around for the scent’s origin. To her left, the conveyor belt carried pizzas towards her—loaded with cheese and fresh vegetables, and completely raw. To her right, the same conveyor belt carried pizzas away from her—cooked to perfection.
“Wait a second… Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Fluttershy darted forward, yanking her backside out of the oven’s window.
She was on fire, bright orange flames flickering across her haunches, rump, and tail.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Fluttershy cried as she rocketed away, her frantic wingbeats carrying her on a panicked, unthinking flight. That just fanned the fire on her backside even larger, those flames licking further up her haunches, and down her hind legs. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!” She left a trail of smoke in her wake, as she blasted in mad loops around the factory.
Then Fluttershy spied the kitchen. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!” she cried hopefully, as she made a sharp turn and beelined towards that industrial-sized refrigerator. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!” She halted before the freezer door. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!” She grabbed the handle and gave a mighty yank. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!” The freezer door flew open. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Fluttershy spun around and planted her rump right on a chair-sized block of ice. “Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh…” Fluttershy relaxed, eyelids lowering in an expression of pure bliss, as her burning backside was extinguished. A cloud of steam billowed from the freezer behind her, and she murmured with pleasure.
Then the freezer door slammed shut.
The kitchen was still. Running assembly lines could be heard, clicking and clacking and whirring several yards away—and, underneath that, faint thumps and muffled cries came from inside the freezer. The noises came fast, the thumps beating at a frantic pace—until, after about a minute, the voice went silent and the thumps slowed considerably.
The freezer door swung open. Before the door could automatically close again, a block of ice slid out, then stood on two yellow legs. Fluttershy’s whole upper body was encased in ice; only those parts that had caught fire were now spared.
Her eyes darted around within their frozen prison as she swayed back and forth. Fluttershy took one step—then she tipped dangerously to the right, and found herself shuffling in that direction to avoid falling over. Balancing on her hind legs was certainly more difficult with her forelegs and wings immobilized. Fluttershy stepped sideways, past the sinks—until she crashed into the wall just below the wire shelves of the drying rack, hard enough to put a crack in the wall. Then she fell back, onto her rump.
Fluttershy kicked her hind legs feebly, her face frozen in a silent shout. In the wall behind, the crack spread straight up, until something in the drying rack snapped.
A large saucepan fell directly on Fluttershy. As it bounced off her, several hairline cracks formed in her icy prison. A wok fell on her. The cracks grew larger, and more joined them. A cast-iron skillet fell, shattering the ice into a hundred fragments—and clonking Fluttershy’s exposed head on the way down.
And then another skillet fell, and a frying pan, and another saucepan, then dozens more. Bong! Clong! Clang! The flood of stainless steel and cast iron continued until Fluttershy was completely buried.
Bong! After the last pan fell, the pile of cookware was still for a few seconds. Then it shifted, as Fluttershy poked her head out—holding a thick skillet above her head as a makeshift shield. “Is that it? Is it over?” she whispered.
Absolutely nothing happened. “Oh, thank goodness…” Fluttershy said, putting down the skillet. “Discord! I’m coming for y—”
That’s when the tea kettle fell on her head. “Ouch!” Instead of bouncing off, it rested upside-down atop her mane. Fluttershy glanced up at the offending object: the kettle was also stainless steel, and smaller than her own head.
And then—Clang!—another skillet fell onto the kettle, shoving it down until its mouth reached Fluttershy’s neck. Her entire head was inside the kettle; a few inches of her mane poked through the spout. Clong! A giant saucepan pushed the kettle down past Fluttershy’s shoulders, pinning her forelegs against her constricted chest. Bong! A wok fell, forcing the rest of her torso into the kettle, up to her haunches. Thunk! A metal cylinder fell—an extra roller from the bubblegum assembly line—shoving the kettle down so hard that it swallowed Fluttershy’s entire body. The tea kettle bounced from the impact and landed upright—just in time for its lid to fall, perfectly in place.
Thwomp! An extra piston from the granola line crashed down. But the kettle was quite durable: instead of breaking, it popped out like a tiddlywink. It soared across the room, spinning end-over-end, with those inches of pink mane flapping in the air. A muffled whimper came from inside, as the kettle reached its apex and descended towards the cream horn assembly line. It bounced off the cream injection nozzle—causing that entire crane arm to spin away, pulling the cream hose with it—and landed in the pastry oven, directly on a heating coil.
A bubbling, churning sound became audible, as the kettle’s base began glowing red. The burbles grew louder. The red glow crept upward, and the kettle began to vibrate. A shrill whistle pierced through all other noises, echoing through the factory.
Across the room, the cream injector bumped into the topping rack over the waffle assembly line, and came to a rest.
The entire tea kettle glowed, shaking and dancing wildly atop the heating coil. The whistling grew louder and louder, until…
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…”Fluttershy spewed out the kettle’s spout, into the air. “EEEEEEEEEEE…” She sailed headfirst over the assembly lines—eyes screwed shut, her legs and wings fluttering limply behind her—tracing a parabolic arc that nearly reached the factory ceiling. “EEEEEEEE—Aaaugh!” She opened her eyes, noticed how high she was—and promptly forgot how to fly, clamping her wings to her side while she flailed her legs in the air.
Fluttershy’s momentum carried her to one of the huge ceiling buckets, and she grabbed at it desperately before she passed by. Her forehooves hooked over the bucket’s lip—on each side of the pouring spout—leaving her dangling against its outside, as it moved slowly over the factory. The crane arm carrying the bucket wobbled a bit from the pegasus’s sudden landing, but held for now.
“Oh dear,” Fluttershy said, glancing at the floor, moving far below her. “Discord, where are you? I should be able to see you from up here, but—” Then the bucket, unbalanced by her weight, tipped towards her. “Oh dear oh dear oh dear!” She kicked her hind legs in a belated attempt to climb up, but her hooves touched nothing but air. “Discor—Uumph!” As the bucket tipped further, its spout poked right into Fluttershy’s open mouth, forcing her jaws open. “Hhhrrrmm?”
And then the bucket’s contents began trickling down the spout: pure maple syrup, warm and sweet. It filled Fluttershy’s mouth, until she swallowed reflexively, that first mouthful settling heavily in her stomach. As the syrup kept flowing, some spilled out the side of her mouth, dripping onto her left wing and gumming up her feathers. Then her mouth filled again, faster than the first time; as the bucket tipped further, the flow of syrup gradually increased.
Fluttershy herself was gradually increasing, too—as she swallowed mouthful after mouthful, her rump began to swell, followed soon by her belly. Those shapely supermodel haunches grew round and bulbous; her thin rump cheeks inflated to the size of honeydew melons, then even bigger. Her stomach expanded until she resembled a pregnant mare—and then a pregnant mare with twins.
“Mmmmglglglglblglgbl…” Fluttershy moaned against the flow of syrup, properly pouring into her mouth now, swelling her cheeks out several inches. Her eyes darted all over the bucket—and as she realized how many times bigger than her it was, her ears folded back. She kicked her hind legs helplessly, making her thick belly wobble and her fat rump cheeks slap lewdly. Her haunches grew twice, then three times as wide as normal—and still her gut bulged around their sides, as it likewise filled with more and more syrup.
As she inflated even larger, her whole torso began to round out. The curve of her back became convex; her chest grew softer and rounder; even her shoulders starting puffing out. The maple syrup was filling Fluttershy’s entire body now, not just her stomach and backside. As she tried to kick her hind legs, they felt stiffer and less responsive. Syrup flowed into them as well, inflating those limbs thicker.
Fluttershy gave an embarrassed, muffled squeak, as her wings stuck straight out of their own accord. When she tried to fold them back, they just waggled in the air a bit. Then, starting with her rearmost coverts and secondaries, her individual feathers filled with syrup, each making a subtle sloosh as they did. Sloosh—sloosh—sloosh… Feather after feather swelled into a thick oval, the wave of inflation gradually working upwards.
Fluttershy gulped more rapidly, as the syrup poured into her mouth even faster. Her torso was nearly spherical by this point, and wide enough to fit two grown mares inside—but still it swelled even wider, as gallon after gallon flowed down her throat. Her hind legs gave one last, feeble kick—wobbling her bloated body again—before they stuck straight out. Puffed up twice as thick as normal, those legs were now swollen too stiff to flex anymore.
The bucket tipped further, jiggling the bloated pegasus and pouring its sugary payload even faster. Now, Fluttershy had to swallow constantly just to keep up with the pace. She whimpered into the flow, while her wings completely inflated—the foremost of her primary feathers thickening into balloons. More worryingly, the syrup was filling Fluttershy’s forelegs now. They swelled as she watched—and already her grip on the bucket weakened, her hooves trying to straighten as they puffed out. “Mrrglblglblglbl!” she cried, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks.
The crane arm creaked ominously overhead, and Fluttershy filled ever larger. As her globe of a body grew even more, it began to swallow her hind legs—her haunches swelling like doughnuts around the spots where her legs sank in. Her wings swelled even further, each individual feather growing thicker and blunter by the second. As Fluttershy’s forelegs inflated, they trembled with her efforts to keep those hooves firmly clasped to the bucket.
“Hhmmmblblblbl…” she whimpered—and then, with a sloosh, her forelegs let go and stuck straight out, inflating to thick, yellow marshmallows. But she didn’t fall. The spout was wedged into Fluttershy’s mouth tightly enough to hold her up—even as she filled large enough to comfortably fit Harry the bear inside her wobbling belly, and then just kept expanding. The syrup was no longer pouring—it was flooding. It flowed continuously, straight down her throat, faster than she could swallow. Sometimes it surged too fast, and the syrup that couldn’t fit in her mouth would flow over her head and drip down her back, hugging the huge curves of her inflating torso. But the vast majority of that sweet liquid made its way into her belly, expanding it larger and larger. Her hind legs sank deeper into her bloating torso. Her forelegs were likewise being engulfed by her body’s continuous expansion, her shoulders inflating into doughnut shapes around their bases.
Fluttershy screwed her eyes shut. “Hrrmglblglblglbl!” she screamed against the flood of syrup, filling her beyond all rational limits. Her body was a massive globe, swallowing her legs as it inflated wider and wider. Her chubby cheeks squished against her torso’s expanding sides. Her wings expanded, each individual feather nearly as thick as a mare’s torso; they bulged against each other as they kept growing. Inch after inch, foot after foot she grew, as gallon after gallon poured into her, inflating her even further. “Mmrrrhhblglblglgl!”
Then the flood of syrup slowed to a trickle, and finally stopped. Fluttershy blinked, her huge balloon of a body wobbling on the end of the spout, but no longer expanding. “Hmmm?”
The spout broke off the bucket.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee—Oof!” Fluttershy plummeted to the floor, the entire factory shaking from the impact of her gigantic rear. She sloshed and shook violently from her landing, then lost her balance and rolled onto her back. Her enormous gut, the largest part of her enormous body, was piled high atop her. She was a yellow globe, squashed a bit by her own weight: four times the height of a normal mare, and nearly twice as wide as she was tall. The fat finger-shapes that had once been her wing feathers now splayed across the floor at her sides, jiggling and wobbling along with the rest of her body. The maple syrup that leaked onto her back before, now squished between her body and the floor, spreading further over her back and seeping into her tail.
The crane and the bucket both shook from the hefty pegasus’s sudden departure. They moved a few yards away—then the crane creaked and the bucket dropped. It struck the pizza oven at just the right angle to fall on its side and roll across the floor.
Even in Fluttershy’s current, bloated state, the bucket was larger still. And it rolled directly towards her.
“Eeep!” Fluttershy couldn’t see the bucket advancing on her: her fat rump faced that way, so she had the entire mass of her inflated gut blocking her view in that direction. But she could hear the ominous low rumble as the metal cylinder rolled towards her, and she knew enough at this point to be afraid of it. She tried to flail her limbs, tried to right herself so she could escape, and her puffy hooves—the only parts of her legs that hadn’t been swallowed by the fat doughnuts of her shoulders and haunches—waggled frantically. That made her syrup-stuffed belly jiggle even harder atop her, and did absolutely nothing to roll her over.
As the sound of the rolling bucket grew louder, closer, Fluttershy grimaced and froze up—though her swollen body continued wobbling of its own accord.
The bucket rolled into Fluttershy. Her rump was the first part to fall beneath its crushing embrace, reduced from fat to flat in mere seconds. Meanwhile, Fluttershy grimaced, her eyes widening and her cheeks bulging even larger. She opened her mouth, and—“Pbtbtbtpbtpbtpbt!”—a geyser of maple syrup spewed out at an angle, landing several yards away, as the liquid in her now-flattened rear was forced out her mouth.
Onward the bucket rolled, not slowing down as it squashed her hind legs and the curves that had once been her hips. It crawled over her belly, squeezing her paper-thin with every inch it went. Fluttershy’s flattened tail emerged from the bucket’s other side; dried syrup made that long, pink hair cling tightly to the metal cylinder.
“Pbtpbptbtbtbtpbt!” Meanwhile, gallon after gallon of that same syrup shot out Fluttershy’s mouth, squeezed from her body as the bucket rolled further, squashing the rearmost feathers of her wings. Her rump and hind legs—flat and round, like a huge, yellow rug—appeared as the bucket rolled onward. Unlike her tail, Fluttershy’s crushed body stuck to the floor, glued there by the syrup on her back. Even when that tail pulled completely taut and began to stretch—as the bucket worked further forward, crushing her wings completely—her flattened backside remained stubbornly on the floor.
Fluttershy’s puffy forehooves waggled one last time before they disappeared under the bucket’s inexorable, crushing mass. On and on it rolled, over Fluttershy’s chest, squashing those curves completely flat. It pulled her tail as it went, stretching that pink hair to twice, then three times its normal length. When her tail could stretch no more, her backside finally relented, and gradually peeled off the floor like a sticker. But the bucket continued forward, faster than her body could rise from the floor, stretching her like a sheet of yellow rubber.
“Pbtpbtbtbtpbtpbt…” Fluttery finally stopped spitting syrup—just as she felt cold steel on the base of her jaw. “Oh,” she said, her eyes wide and her ears folded back. Then her head disappeared, as the bucket rolled over her.
Meanwhile, more and more of Fluttershy’s body pulled free from the floor. The back half of her torso joined her haunches and hind legs—wiggling in the air, and stretching as the bucket rolled farther. This was just the back half of her body, but already it extended farther than Fluttershy’s normal length. Her wings and more of her torso pulled free, and the whole flattened mass vibrated like a plucked guitar string. Her tail began to curve around to the bucket’s far side, as it rolled even farther.
The bucket rolled over the pizza conveyor belt, crushing that machinery as easily as it had flattened the pegasus.
Fluttershy’s forearms, shoulders, and neck peeled away, leaving just her flattened head stuck to the floor, face-down. The rest of her body stretched and stretched—four times her normal length and still growing—and even shrank narrower the more it extended. But her face remained firmly, stubbornly, attached to the floor.
The bucket rolled over the granola assembly line. Those smaller rollers and piston mallets were shoved forcefully to the side, as if they were fleeing in shame from their superior. One of them flew across the room, to the giant kitchen mixer, and knocked away the bowl underneath. Meanwhile, the nut-slicing knives were flung upwards, spinning as they sliced through the air. All six of them landed point-first in Fluttershy’s flattened, elongated cutie marks—each knife poking a fraction of an inch into the center of a single pink butterfly.
“Hhrrrrrmm!” Fluttershy cried, straight into the floor.
Her stretched tail began to wrap around the bucket, while her body wobbled in the air and extended even farther. Longer and longer that flat, yellow body stretched, enough to reach from the front door of her cottage all the way to the back. The farther she grew, the more her circular body narrowed, until she looked about her normal width—from above, at least.
The bucket rolled over the pastry oven. The empty tea kettle, still glowing red-hot all over, sprung out like a tiddlywink once again. It ricocheted off a pylon and landed directly on Fluttershy’s right rump cheek—and the lid popped off, landing on her left cheek. Tendrils of smoke wafted from beneath both, and with them, a distinct sizzling sound.
“Mmrrrhhh!” Fluttershy cried, her voice still muffled by the floor. “Mmnnmm! Nnrrrrnnn! Hhhrrmm!”
Her elongated body vibrated as it stretched ever farther. She was long enough now to wrap around the outside of her cottage, and was quickly approaching enough length to wrap around twice.
The bucket rolled over the bubble gum assembly line. The broken panel—with the failsafe lever and the exposed wires—tipped onto the bucket, completing the electrical circuit. Thousands of volts zapped through the bucket, then straight through Fluttershy. Buzzing and crackling filled the air as she transformed into a very elongated x-ray print, until the bucket rolled a little further and broke the circuit.
“Hhhhhmmmmm…” Fluttershy moaned.
Then her face finally peeled off the floor. With a twaaang, her body contracted like a rubber band, flinging her head forward—and knocking away the blades and burning kettle. She zoomed past the bucket, until she pulled taut, and her body began to stretch again. Just as she started to slow down, her face smacked into an upright pole and stuck there. It was one of the beaters on the giant kitchen mixer.
The mixer turned on.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Fluttershy screamed as the beater spun her at blinding speeds. Like spaghetti around a fork, she wrapped around and around and around and around, tracing a continuous figure eight between both sets of spinning tines. Her body was pulled in after her: neck, shoulders, forelegs, and chest disappearing between the beaters in seconds.
All the while, her other side was slowly but firmly pulled in the opposite direction: her tail and part of her rump wrapped around the bucket as it continued rolling. So the further in the mixer pulled Fluttershy, the more she stretched, even faster than before. She reached her previous length in mere seconds, then rocketed past it, elongating with mind-boggling speed.
Around and around she spun; farther and farther she stretched. Fluttershy was skinny as a noodle now, and long enough to wrap around Ponyville’s perimeter. Her haunches and the back half of her torso—her only parts that hadn’t yet been pulled into the mixer or wrapped around the bucket—vibrated violently as they extended even farther.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
Then the bucket slid forward, instead of rolling. The tension from Fluttershy’s elastic body finally overcame the bucket’s weight, pulling that huge cylinder forward—faster and faster. Like a flying elephant, the bucket leaped from the ground and smacked into the mixer’s side. Fluttershy unwound from the bucket—her tail finally coming unstuck from the shock of that impact—just before it smashed the mixer straight into the nearest wall.
Fluttershy and the two beaters all shot off to the side, straight towards the waffle assembly line. One beater wedged itself into the the rack of nozzles above the conveyor belt. The other zipped just below and shattered one of the support beams, leaving the nozzle rack balanced precariously.
And Fluttershy landed on a strange raised platform: a black circle, with deep indentations in a grid pattern. She was unrecognizable, now—stretched and spun into a mass of yellow and pink string, tangled into a knot so large and complex, it would take days or even weeks to straighten her out.
Just behind the outermost layer of tangled strings, Fluttershy’s teal eyes opened. She blinked twice, batting her long eyelashes.
She glanced around, and said, “What… the…”
The waffle iron closed on her.
The two heating grids flipped over to thoroughly fry their contents. Hisses and muffled shouts came from inside as the waffle iron worked. Just after a minute, the grids flipped again, and opened. A perfectly cooked waffle—a yellow and pink one, with Fluttershy’s face on the top—popped out and landed on a waiting plate.
“Uuughhh… Discord?” she said, woozily, while her eyes pointed in opposite directions. “Let’s not come to this restaurant again.”
The conveyor belt moved, taking Fluttershy with it. After a few feet, it stopped again, under the rack of topping dispensers.
“The food’s okay, but I just really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really dislike the service h—Spuh!”
The first nozzle sprayed a very light mist of liquid butter, covering Fluttershy’s face. “Puh!” The pegasus-turned-waffle sputtered and spat to get the butter out of her mouth.
Then the nozzle rack—unbalanced by recent beater-induced accidents—slid off its remaining support beam and dropped several inches. It was just the right height for the butter nozzle to poke into Fluttershy’s mouth.
“Uumph!”
The other beater, wedged into the rack of nozzles, was jostled free by this drop. It bounced off Fluttershy’s forehead—provoking a muffled yelp—then sailed a few inches and struck the waffle assembly line’s control panel. It hit the dial labeled “Toppings Volume”, spinning it from “1” to “10”.
The butter nozzle, wedged into Fluttershy’s mouth, sprayed again, but this time more than a light mist—much, much more. Her waffle-y body bulged from the volume of butter—then her ears poked free, regaining their shape, followed by her snout.
“Hhhmmm?” Fluttershy asked, as her whole head rounded back out. The butter continued flowing; ounces, pints, and quarts pumped into her. The grid-patterned indentations all over her body filled back in. Her torso extended like an accordion bellows; her legs unfolded from her sides before thickening, allowing her to once again stand up.
Liquid butter, enough to top thousands and thousands of waffles, instead went into Fluttershy, filling her up. She reinflated back to her normal proportions—and then past that, as the nozzle kept spraying. “Nnnmmm!” Fluttershy protested, as her belly swelled with the extra volume of butter.
Finally, when her stomach was a foot wider than normal, the spray of butter stopped, and the nozzle retracted from Fluttershy’s mouth. “Whew…” she said. “That wasn’t so—Eeeee!”
The conveyor belt activated again, jerking Fluttershy a foot farther along—shoving her face right onto another nozzle. She blinked at the hose between her lips, and then a flood of maple syrup invaded her mouth for the second time. Her cheeks bulged again, and her belly shook from the sheer force of the syrup spraying into her.
“Hhrrrrglglblglbl!” Fluttershy’s eyes widened, her body freezing for the few seconds it took for her gut to inflate another half-foot. Then she grabbed the hose and pulled it away, frantically trying to dislodge it from her mouth. But her lips and snout stretched like rubber as she pulled; the nozzle was firmly lodged in, and continued filling her with more syrup. Already, her thick belly hung halfway to the conveyor belt and squished against the insides of her hind legs—and the larger it expanded, the harder it sloshed and shook from Fluttershy’s struggle with the hose.
More and more syrup poured down her throat, pumping her stomach to twice her normal width, and even farther. That belly pushed against her hind legs until her hooves slid away from each other. Unbalanced, she fell forward—but only dropped a foot before her overstuffed gut hit the conveyor belt, cushioning her fall. Fluttershy bounced up and down atop her belly, as it jiggled from the impact. But if she noticed, she paid it no heed—focusing entirely on her futile efforts to dislodge the syrup nozzle from her mouth. “Mrrrglblblblbl!” But the flood of syrup was unstoppable, filling her belly even wider, until it bulged around her hind legs and pressed up around her wings. Fluttershy even rested her elbows on the front of that gut—squishing them several inches into its soft, yellow curves—while her hooves pulled and pulled on the hose.
Fluttershy’s stomach inflated to three times her usual width, and tall enough to lift her back to her normal standing height once more. And at that point, the flow of maple syrup finally stopped, and the nozzle retracted from her mouth on its own. “Ugh!” Fluttershy panted as she returned all four hooves to the conveyor belt below, her legs squishing deep into the sides of her belly as she tried to stand normally.
Then the conveyor belt turned on again, carrying Fluttershy further. Her eyes widened at what lay ahead: two nozzles this time, the normal whipped cream nozzle, and the vanilla cream injector from the cream horn line. “No!” Fluttershy cried, flapping her wings and waddling backwards—away from the threat of yet more sugary liquids forced down her throat. “No no no!” Her belly dragged along the conveyor belt, and she had to squish her legs deep into its sloshing, bulging sides with every hoofstep. Yet, miraculously, fear moved Fluttershy’s hooves and wings fast enough that she successfully dragged her swollen bulk backwards, faster than the belt could pull her forwards.
“No no no no no!” Fluttershy fixated so much on the two nozzles ahead, she didn’t notice at all when she backed into the syrup dispenser, and the nozzle slid right between her rump cheeks. She didn’t notice as one of her forehooves slipped off the side of the conveyor belt and onto the control panel, twisting “Toppings Volume” dial from “10” to “100”. She barely felt a thing as her rear collided with the butter sprayer, which slipped into place right next to the syrup nozzle.
But when both of those nozzles activated, pumping a mixed flood of butter and syrup into her rear, Fluttershy finally noticed. “No no nooooooooooohhhh what’s that?!” Her belly resumed inflating, squishing just over the sides of the conveyor belt as it spread even wider. She kept backing away from the cream nozzles, but found every step more difficult than the last: the sides of her bloating gut pushed back harder and harder against her legs with every passing second, every inch larger she grew. And as Fluttershy’s belly expanded upward, lifting her spine into the air, her hooves had less and less traction with the conveyor belt.
Fluttershy lifted her right hind hoof—but when she tried to take another step back, she couldn’t touch the belt. “No, no, no…” She kicked that leg again, trying to reach something solid, but all she felt was empty air and her stuffed stomach’s squishy side. Then her right hind hoof lifted into the air as well. “No, no…” Both her forehooves rose from the conveyor belt; Fluttershy’s belly inflated too large for her to reach the floor at all.
And in this position, stranded atop her still-inflating gut, Fluttershy couldn’t fight the conveyor belt any longer. Once more, she was carried towards the two dispensers ahead, already spurting cream in her direction. “Noooooouumph!” Both nozzles jammed into Fluttershy’s mouth, and the flood of sweet dairy down her gullet matched the flood of butter and syrup still pumping into her from behind. “Nnrrrrrglglblbl!” Her cheeks puffed up to the size of baseballs. Her belly shook and sloshed and expanded faster than ever—bulging over the conveyor belt’s edges, squishing around the sides of her dangling legs, and lifting her to twice her normal height, and even higher.
Riding atop her stomach’s inflation, Fluttershy kicked her hind legs back and forth, but only succeeded in squeezing her hooves deep into the soft curves of her stomach. She tried once more to pull the nozzles out of her mouth, but all that did was jiggle her belly beneath her. Just like before, those hoses remained stubbornly in place, relentlessly filling her with gallon after gallon of cream.
As Fluttershy gave another futile pull on the cream hoses, she felt her legs grow stiffer in a far-too-familiar way. They thickened right before her eyes, as the decadent mixture of cream, syrup, and butter pumped into them. “Hhhrrrblblglbl!” She yanked one last time on the two nozzles, and then her forelegs inflated beyond her control, each sticking straight out with a soft Floop. Seconds later—Floop, floop—her hind legs puffed up the same way. Her hooves swelled twice as thick as normal, her cannons swelled even thicker, and her shoulders and haunches grew thicker still.
“Mmmglglglblbl…” Fluttershy muttered, helplessly waggling her inflated legs, as she rose atop her still-swelling belly—three times her normal height, then higher and higher. Meanwhile, her wings unfurled all on their own, pointing straight into the sky. Then—Floop, floop, floop—the liquid filled her wings as well, inflating her individual feathers into long balloons. Those puffy ovals swayed back and forth serenely atop the jiggly, wobbly form of her endlessly inflating body.
As Fluttershy broke her previous size record and expanded over four times her usual height, the metal underneath her gigantic gut gave an ominous creak. Several support pylons bent or outright broke, and the conveyor belt sagged beneath her endlessly growing weight. Her belly sloshed and shook again from that slight drop, all the while it expanded even further. Her torso’s relentless growth began to swallow her legs; already, her shoulders and haunches ballooned into thick doughnut shapes that crept over her limbs, inch by inch.
“Nnrrrblblblgl?” Fluttershy glanced between the hoses in her mouth—filling her up with no end in sight—and her puffy forehooves. She gave them another desperate waggle, sending more ripples through her massively bloated body, but they could barely move a few inches. The more her inflating shoulders and thighs sucked her limbs in, the more restricted their movement became.
Then her belly’s jiggling proved entirely too much for the conveyor belt. It collapsed beneath Fluttershy, dropping her to the factory floor with a ground-shaking Thwomp! She bounced and shook even harder at that—her legs wiggling beyond her control, her huge, round wings wobbling as their feathers inflated rounder and blunter. And already she was at work on regaining her lost height, as those nozzles filled her relentlessly from both ends.
Fluttershy was as tall as a two-story building now, and almost twice again as wide, and still those nozzles kept pumping, expanding her larger. Her belly crept across the floor, foot by foot, as it grew even more. She bulged and squeezed against the uncollapsed segments of the conveyor belt; she pressed against the adjacent pizza assembly line. Farther and farther her legs sank into her bloating sides, nearly up to their fetlocks. Fluttershy’s neck, likewise, inflated thicker and began to merge with her torso. It brushed against the backs of her puffy cheeks—swollen as large as grapefruits now—promising to engulf her head if she continued growing.
But Fluttershy was, of course, helpless to do anything besides continue growing. The four nozzles were wedged firmly in place; the deluge of butter, syrup, and cream was unrelenting. Her wings were fat and useless; her legs could barely move an inch, and grew less mobile with every passing second. All she could do was inflate more and more: take in countless gallons from front and behind, spread wider and wider over the factory floor, and swell as tall as a four-story building, and then even larger.
“Hhblblglhhglblbl…” Fluttershy whimpered against the torrents of cream rushing down her throat. Her inflating neck had already swallowed her jaw and now squished further around her head—pressing her mane flat, pushing her ears forward, and squeezing her fat cheeks. Her legs were swallowed even farther by her ballooning torso; only her puffy hooftips still poked out from between the fat doughnuts on her sides. “Mmglblblhhblblgl…”
She gave one last, feeble shake with her hooves, then they sank completely into her expanding sides. She jiggled again from the motion, which just pressed her massive gut against the nearest machinery with even more force, until—Crash! Several more yards of conveyor belt collapsed under the unrelenting weight of Fluttershy’s growth. The waffle line’s control panel broke away, bouncing off the floor and landing next to the pizza oven—just as Fluttershy’s bulk shoved that onto its side.
And then, suddenly, the flood of waffle toppings stopped: no more cream flowing down her throat, no more syrup or butter pumping into her rear. Fluttershy was a jiggly, yellow whale of a pony, six stories tall and nearly twice as wide. Her wings were inflated so thick and round that even her smallest feathers could have comfortably fit two stallions inside—while her largest feathers were nearly blimps in their own right. Infolded divots of skin on the side of her torso were the only evidence that she’d once possessed legs. But she wasn’t inflating any further.
“Hhrrrm?” Fluttershy wondered, speaking through cheeks swollen as big as her whole head. “Mmrr hhnn hmmmm?” Her puffy cheeks were squished inward, and her ears were squeezed flat against her skull. Her head had sunk halfway into her bloated neck and torso, before this unexpected deliverance.
“Oh! The horror!” a familiar voice whined, as a lion’s paw groped feebly out of the wrecked pizza oven. “The horror…” Discord emerged from the oven, crawling across the other broken machinery. Like Fluttershy, he didn’t much resemble himself: instead of his normal colors, he was uniformly brown and grainy—transformed entirely into granola, from horn to tail. And, as another gift from the granola assembly line, all six of the nut-chopping blades were run through his torso.
“Mrrrhhrrmm?” Fluttershy asked him, blinking her long eyelashes in surprise.
“By gosh, what have we done?” Discord reached forward, his eagle talon landing on the waffle control panel. He inadvertently twisted the “Toppings Volume” dial from “100” to “1000”.
All four nozzles sprang back into action, pumping their cream, butter, and syrup into Fluttershy, even faster than before. “Nnrrrrrglglblblbl!” she screamed as she resumed inflating once again. Huge bulges of liquid, each larger than an adult pony, sped down all four hoses to fill Fluttershy more and more. Already, she was approaching eight stories in height. “Nnnnnblglblglbl!”
“I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe, Fluttershy. I’ve seen…” Discord finally glanced over, and saw nothing but a yellow wall, several yards away but creeping closer by the second. He looked up—and up, an up, and up—at Fluttershy, his jaw dropping as he took in the sheer enormousness of her overstuffed body. “Oh. You seem a little preoccupied.”
“Nnnnn—” Fluttershy’s neck and torso finally bulged over her face, swallowing her head completely within her body’s expansion. Now the only remaining sign that this inflated globe had once been a pony were her tail, miniscule against her ten-story-tall curves, and her cutie marks, each butterfly stretched as big as a house. Her gut bulged completely over the fallen pizza oven, crushing it like an tin can. And still, the nozzles kept pumping into her, kept filling her larger.
Discord grabbed the control panel with his granola hands, just before Fluttershy’s bloating sides could spread over it. “Well, there’s no need to fear! Discord is here!” he proclaimed, taking about a dozen steps back—putting more space between himself and the ever-widening blimp that had once been Fluttershy. “Now, how does this thing work again?” He grabbed the same dial and twisted it once more, adding a few more zeros to the volume setting.
The butter, syrup, and cream flowed even faster. Great bulges of liquid, each as large as a bear, rushed down the four hoses and into Fluttershy, one after another. From the divot where Fluttershy’s head had been engulfed, a moan could be heard, muffled by that vast liquid mass. Yards upon yards of conveyor belt were crushed flat by her endless expansion. She filled to fifteen stories tall, and just kept growing.
“No, that didn’t seem to work.” Discord scurried away from the advancing wall of Fluttershy—stopping a few yards away from a conspicuous metal square set into the floor, outlined in yellow and black. “Oh, but what if I…?” He grabbed that same control dial again, and turned it even farther in the same direction.
Now, the hose bulges were large enough, Discord himself could have stood comfortably inside them—and they pumped into Fluttershy with less than a second’s pause in between. Wider and wider, her gargantuan gut spread: flattening the bubblegum assembly line, bulging against shelves of raw supplies and the bases of cranes. She was thirty stories tall now, and still inflating larger.
“Well, I’m stumped,” Discord tossed the control panel over his shoulder. He backed further away from Fluttershy’s ever-expanding gut; he dodged the falling pylons and collapsing conveyor belts, each destroyed by her relentless growth. When he stopped, he was right in the center of the metal square in the floor. To his left, just outside the square, a thin podium was set into the floor, with a bright red button on top. “Hmm…” he said. “Now that’s a shiny button! Can you help me rescue Fluttershy, Mr. Button?” The button beeped as he pressed it.
The metal floor fell away beneath Discord: a trap door. He glanced down, threw his hand to his forehead, and said, “Oh, what a world…” Then he fell in.
Fluttershy’s reaction to this development was incomprehensible: a vague, muffled scream from somewhere inside her blimp of a body, as she continued inflating. Ballooning larger and larger, her belly toppled cranes, shattered shelves, and crushed the industrial-strength fridge. By the time the Smack! of Discord’s crash-landing echoed up from the trap door—though greatly muffled by that vast stomach expanding over the hole—Fluttershy had grown to sixty stories tall.
Oceans’ worth of cream, syrup, and butter poured down those hoses, every drop pumping straight into Fluttershy. Her cutie marks stretched so far across the titanic curves that had once been her haunches, each individual butterfly was larger than an adult dragon. Wider and wider she spread, crushing every inch of assembly line beneath her stomach’s unrelenting growth. Her wings—each individual feather filled with a sea in its own right—squished against the ceiling, knocking down dozens of the giant buckets. Those buckets bounced off the stupefyingly huge globe of Fluttershy’s body, before crashing to the floor, where they were soon enough crushed like tin cans beneath the yellow behemoth. She expanded to cover the entire factory floor, pressing against all four walls. She was ninety stories tall, and still she inflated larger.
Down below, crashes and explosions and Discord’s hammy cries of distress drifted from the lower level—but they were nearly inaudible through Fluttershy’s massive bulk. Much louder were the creaks and groans and rumbles as that yellow blimp of a belly squished against all four walls, as her back pressed against the ceiling. A small city could have fit inside that factory room, yet Fluttershy filled it, all by herself. And still the deluge of butter, syrup, and cream continued unabated, pumping into the gargantuan pegasus, increasing the pressure with every passing second.
With an earth-shaking rumble and a deafening crash, the factory walls exploded outwards. The ceiling smashed to pieces, which bounced off Fluttershy’s vast curves as she surged even larger. And beyond the destroyed ceiling and walls was more of the same factory: vast rooms nearly identical to the one she’d just destroyed with her inflation, space enough for her to grow even further. Fluttershy was one hundred fifty stories high—taller than any skyscraper in Equestria, wide enough to cover Ponyville several times over with her bulk, a behemoth swollen beyond all rational limits.
A faint mumble came from somewhere inside that bloated yellow blimp. It might have been Fluttershy’s voice—or perhaps it was the oceans of liquid sloshing inside her. She inflated even larger.
—————
Fluttershy lost all track of time.
When she came to, she was floating in a mad, swirling void of endless purples—the chaos dimension that Discord called home. The factory was no more; the nozzles were mercifully gone, and she wasn’t inflating any larger. She was still gigantic, however, and she had no idea how large she was anymore. The only reason she could see was because Discord’s tail circled around her head, pushing back the flab of her bloated torso to expose her face to the outside.
The rest of Discord was just a few feet to the left. He’d been restored to his usual chaotic state at some point; now, he exploited some sideways gravity to lay on Fluttershy’s side like a bed. She was certainly more than large enough for the purpose.
Fluttershy blinked, her still-puffy cheeks jiggling even at that slight motion. She opened her mouth, and got as far as “Um…” before words failed her.
Sinking a few inches into her squishy, yellow side, Discord snapped his finger once to conjure a cigarette, then snapped again to light it. He took a long drag, then blew out a triangular smoke ring. Then he rolled to face Fluttershy. “Sooooo,” he said, a sincere smile on his face. “Was it good for you, too?”
Author's Note
https://derpibooru.org/217709
https://derpibooru.org/1086140
https://derpibooru.org/599
I swear I don’t hate Fluttershy. I just have a screwed-up way of showing that I like her.
This was inspired by the stories of Pablote, possibly the best pony inflation writer out there (and almost certainly the best writer for all that other cartoony pony slapstick, because he’s just about the only one). For a while, I’ve been trying to study the nuts and bolts of why his stories work so well, and apply those same principles to my own stories. I don’t remember how I specifically thought up this premise, but I thought it would lend itself well to a story in his style. So, with a little encouragement, I decided to dive headfirst into the metaphorical pool of cartoony violence that I’ve only dipped my toes in before, and which Pablote’s been swimming in for years.
Anyway, my other big inspirations were the Roger Rabbit cartoon shorts, which were so much more manic and gleefully sadistic than the classic cartoons they drew from. And one bit here is an obvious homage to the Merrie Melodies short “Feed the Kitty”. (With a nod to Pixar’s tribute to the same scene, in Monsters, Inc., as well.)
Deleted Scene:
“Um...” Fluttershy said, staring at the cigarette in Discord’s hand. “What is that white thing?”
“Oh, this?” Discord put it to his lips and inhaled again. “It’s a visual gag, dear. A real classic.”
