The Tale of the Baked Goods

by Ponygood11

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rainbow Dash, Comedy, Random, Derpy Hooves, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 1526

Confection-based shenanigans abound, and three loveable characters are smack-dab in the middle.

This is the story of a tragic tale. Three friends, bonding over sweets, forced to battle over their most favoritest sweets in the world. Rainbow Dash, the Representative of the Cupcake Collective. Derpy Hooves, the Muffin-Chosen. And Pinkie Pie, the unfortunate friend stuck in the middle, forced to choose sides. Who will be the ultimate winner in this riveting epic tale of tragedy, conflict, and loss?

Rough draft made in collaboration with OmnipresentMicroorganism and Sonic Rainboom Dash.

Published 2017-10-02 02:10:12 UTC
Last updated 2017-10-02 02:10:12 UTC

Chapter 1: Cupcakes vs. Muffins!

One fine summer afternoon, a lone pegasus sat at a table in sugarcube corner, humming merrily as she chowed down on her tray of muffins, with a pair of saddlebags dumped beside her. Derpy Hooves was currently on her 5th muffin, and she had no intention of stopping until the whole tray of 12 muffins was consumed. She might even order seconds.

Suddenly, a very prismatic pegasus dashed through the front doors, forgetting for the moment that she had wings, and rushed past Derpy's table, muttering something about cupcakes.

Now, most ponies wouldn't think much of this occurence. Rainbow Dash had had occasional bouts of cupcake cravings before, and she was likely to continue having them in the future. But Derpy wasn't most ponies. When she realized Rainbow Dash was going on about cupcakes and not what she thought was the most divine food ever in existence, she got mad. She turned toward Rainbow, hurredly gulped down a whole muffin, and called out angrily to her. "Hey! Cupcakes are terrible compared to muffins!"

This made Rainbow stop in her tracks. She slowly turned towards Derpy, her eyes filled with utter loathing. She was about to retort when a very pink pony made her timely appearance from behind Rainbow, to the surprise of nopony. "Did somepony mention muffins?" she asked sweetly.

Derpy's eyes widened, and she hurredly put her hoof in front of the muffin tray. "Oh, uh, no! Not at all!"

Pinkie's eyes narrowed in suspicion, and she said, "I can still smell them."

In response, Derpy pulled out a noseplug from her bags and put it over Pinkie's nose before crying out "No! You can't smell any muffins! They don't exist!"

Beside them, Rainbow Dash was cheering Pinkie on. "Yeah, you show her! Cupcakes rule!"

Pinkie grinned in Rainbow's direction, then turned back to Derpy, her ear flopping madly. "My Pinkie Sense is tingling. You can't possibly hide your muffins from my Pinkie Sense, Derpy!"

Derpy very slowly and obviously shoved her tray of muffins behind her back, in plain sight of everypony around.

Pinkie blinked. "Huh. Guess there weren't any muffins after all. Sorry about that, Derpy!"

Rainbow now focused her glare on Pinkie, looking as if she had just been betrayed. "Pinkie! I trusted you! Why have you sided with the inferior muffins!?"

Derpy chuckled nervously. "Uh... no, there are no muffins here! Absolutely nothing to worry about, especially not relating to the muffins that are not behind my back! Eh heh heh..."

Pinkie slammed her hoof on the table. Unbeknownst to them all, a few ponies were looking mildly interested in the spectacle. "But I know there are muffins here! We will find them, and bring justice to their eater!"

Derpy pointed over at Rainbow Dash, saying, "I think she has them!"

So Pinkie lunged at Rainbow, screaming "For cupcakes!" Rainbow was just barely able to get out of the way, and called out to Derpy. "Hey, Derpy, I think your muffins are getting soggy!"

Derpy looked crestfallen for a moment. "Oh, no!" And then, getting a wonderful, desperate idea, she catapulted all the muffins on her tray at Rainbow, who didn't dodge in time and got splattered with muffins. "And by mine, you mean yours, right?"

Pinkie was still lunging towards a now muffin-faced Rainbow. "I will expose your muffin-filled treachery, Rainbow Dash!"

Now it was Derpy cheering Pinkie on. "Yeah! Look at her face, all covered in muffins! It's the face of a GUILTY MARE!"

But she was not able to capture Rainbow, and she flew whooping out of the window of Sugarcube corner. She sighed dejectedly. "It's a shame we don't have any torches and pitchforks to chase after her."

Derpy and Pinkie looked at each other, and determination showed on Derpy's eyes. A she swung her saddlebags over her back, she said, "We do have something, though. To the Muffinmobile!"

They rushed out of the confectionary shop and into the streets. There were ponies all around them, but Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be seen. Then Pinkie belched loudly, drawing a few glares from those nearest. "I... I think I ate the Muffinmobile, Derpy."

Derpy looked over at Pinkie. Now that she thought abou it, Pinkie did have an oddly Muffinmobile-shaped bulge in her belly. She shook her head. "No matter. To the Pinkie-Piemobile!" With that, she rolled Pinkie Pie over and started rolling her down the street.

"Ugh..." Pinkie said dizzily. "I don't think this is the optimal situation for me..."

"Nonsense, Pinkie!" Derpy could see Rainbow now, and was rolling the rapidly accelerating Pinkie Pie in pursuit. "You are what you eat, aren't you? And you ate the Muffinmobile, didn't you? Therefore, you ARE the Muffinmobile!"

Rainbow was whooping loudly above them, and passerby could have sworn they heard a song of Pony Hill playing somewhere.

Pinkie grimaced. "Drat. I can't compete with that logic. You have bested me, Derpy Hooooves!" And with that, she vanished in a puff of logic, leaving Derpy to skid uncomfortably across the dirt path.

When Derpy finally came to a stop, she glanced quickly around, and saw no traces of either Rainbow or Pinkie. She raised her hooves into the air, crying out, "NOOOO! The makeshift Muffinmobile! What a terrible tragedy!" Then she grinned devilishly. "Oh well. Now that they're gone, I can finally do what I wanted to do!" She pulled out a small bag from her saddlebags, labeled 'Backup Muffins.' "I can finally eat my muffins! AH HAH HAH HAH HAA!"

Then Pinkie appeared out from behind a tree and approached Derpy. "You betrayed me. And that's super incredibly mean!"

Derpy gasped in horror. "Pinkie! No! I just wanted to eat my muffins!"

"You're incredibly soggy and crushed muffins!" Rainbow called out from above them.

Derpy lifted the bag of muffins in front of her face. "You can't see me! I don't exist!"

"Then I will MAKE you exist!" Pinkie replyed triumphantly, pulling out a weirdly-shaped gun labeled 'The Exist-O-Gun.'

"You can't do that, Derpy!" Rainbow called out again. "Squashed and soggy muffins are useless for hiding from Pinkie Pie!"

Thinking quickly, Derpy reached into her bag and threw a muffin right into the Exist-O-Gun. It beeped madly for a moment, and with a tremendous "ZOINK!" the whole of reality was converted into muffins. Then Muffin-Pinkie fainted.

Unnoticed by any of them, the muffins were evolving into their peak forms. They grew larger, plumper, and tastier than any muffin known to any creature ever. They... were the ultimate muffins.

Muffin Pinkie suddenly sat right back up. "Oh, hey! If all of reality is muffins, we can eat it all!" She then proceeded to eat absolutely everything, until it was only the three of them floating in an eternal expanse of nothingness.

Then Muffin-Derpy ate Muffin-Pinkie. And Muffin-Rainbow ate Muffin-Derpy. And, in a wonderful act of impossibility, Muffin-Pinkie ate Muffin-Rainbow. And they all vanished in a puff of food, and the universe was no more!

---===+++===---

"And that's how Equestria was created!" Pinkie finished before stuffing her mouth with yet another cupcake.

Pinkie was currently sitting in a hospital room visiting Twilight, who had just recently gotten into a flying accident and was being held in the hospital for a day. But when Pinkie had offered to tell Twilight an epic tale of tragedy, conflict, and loss, she was definitely not expecting the confusing mess of randomness Pinkie had given her. Though, now that Twilight thought about it, this was probably exactly what she should have been expecting.

Twilight sighed and put a hoof to her face. "Pinkie... what was that?"

"An epic tale of tragedy, conflict, and loss, of course!"

Twilight was speechless for a few moments. Then she shook her head. "Pinkie, I just don't think I get it."

Pinkie leaned in closer to Twilight, making large puppy-dog eyes and spilling a few cupcake crumbs onto the bed. "But- but-"

Twilight put her hoof up hurredly. "I'm not saying it was terrible, Pinkie! Far from it! I just... well, I just don't think I got the same enjoyment out of it you did."

Pinkie lowered her head dejectedly, and her mane lost a little bit of its poofiness. "I understand, Twilight." She turned away from the hospital bed and made to walk out the door.

"Pinkie, I'm sorry!" Twilight called out, but Pinkie had already left. As she exited the hospital, she turned around, smirking at where Twilight was.

"I may understand, but this still means war!" She turned and galloped away, leaving a bunch of mildly concerned ponies in her wake.

Author's Note

And there it is. I had quite a bit of fun writing this, and I hope you all can find some enjoyment out of it, too.

This story was based off of a fun internet battle titled The Tale of the Fries, which was between myself, Sonic Rainboom Dash, and OmnipresentMicroorganism/poolmagnets. We were inspired to turn it into a full-fledged story, and I'm pretty sure we succeeded. If you want a link to the transcript, Omni has copied it down here: (LINK TO GOOGLE DOCS)