Author's Note

This chapter contains, uh... bad cake.

Baked Bads

The bedraggled pair had stepped through a door, but on the other side they found themselves standing on a flat surface, with no door in sight. In front of them rose a vast stack of cylindrical shapes, which they quickly realized was a cake. It had three tiers, each one in a different color frosting. The frosting was slumped, though, oozing down the sides as if it had been applied while the cake was still warm and had melted. Crumbs dotted it, showing that the decorator hadn't known about applying a crumb coat before doing the actual frosting. The decorations were sloppy, big fat ropes of icing looping from the top of each tier in uneven coils. They were the blobby, round shape of frosting applied from the piping bag without a decorator tip. The colors were bad too, muddied as if the baker hadn't bothered to clean her frosting bowl in between batches.

It was, in short, a supremely ugly cake. It was the kind of cake to make Pinkie Pie cry. It was the kind of cake that would inspire customers to strangle their baker. It was the worst looking cake Celestia had ever seen, and she'd judged baking contests for years.

It was also absolutely enormous. The lowermost tier was taller than either alicorn, and the total height of it would have reached to some of the higher towers of Canterlot Palace, if it were dropped in the palace courtyard. Celestia couldn't help imagining that, and the immense splat it would make if such a monstrous cake were dropped from any height.

Ahead of the pair, next to the base of the cake, there was also a lever sticking out of the floor. Celestia approached it. It had Luna's cutie mark etched on the handle, while at the base were two symbols, one a simple drawing of a cake, the other the same drawing inside a circle with a slash. "Cake and no cake," said Celestia, as she looked at it. It was currently set to the "no cake" position. "And I suppose you're meant to throw it." She looked over at Luna, wincing a little at the sight of the state of her. She herself looked no better, she knew.

"Very well." Luna stepped up and pushed the lever to the "cake" position, but nothing happened. They exchanged puzzled glances.

"Perhaps there is something else we should do first?" said Luna.

"Perhaps. Let's explore some more."

They wandered through the room, checking for more levers, switches, or anything else useful. They found a kind of raised dais against one wall that held two circular panels of what seemed to be cloudy glass set into it, with four hoof marks on each. They stood on the marks, but nothing happened there either. Then, on the far side of the cake from the lever, they found a panel set into the floor, etched with Celestia's cutie mark. When Celestia put a hoof on it, it depressed slightly, and a little amber light came on.

"Ah. I believe if I push this down while you throw the lever, something may happen," said Celestia.

Luna nodded and circled around the cake, out of sight. "I am at the lever!" she called out after a moment.

"I have pushed the switch!" called Celestia.

"A light came on by the lever, I shall flip it to the "no cake" position!" There was a pause, then Luna added, "Nothing has happened. I shall flip it back to the "cake" position." She did so, and there was a whirring hum rising in pitch, like an engine spinning up. Both mares could see a golden glow blossom against the wall, where the dais with the hoof marked circles stood. Celestia took her hoof off of her switch, but the glow remained.

They both trotted over to the dais. Little lights had come on beneath the clouded glass, making the hoof markings even more visible.

"I guess we climb on, then," said Celestia and stepped up onto the glass circle. She put all four hooves on the marks, and as soon as she did, she vanished.

Luna stood blinking for a moment, then shrugged and stepped on the other set of hoof marks. Then she too was gone.

Celestia found herself in pitch darkness, with a sense of pressure all over her body and a strange, heavy, sweet scent thick in the air. She attempted to move, but could not so much as twitch any part of her save her head. She invoked her magic and a spark of light blossomed at the tip of her horn. She was in what seemed to be a tiny cavern, with her body embedded in the stone itself. But then the scent she had been smelling became clear—sugar and chocolate—and she realized that she was inside the giant cake.

She squirmed, struggling to free her limbs, but could make no progress. The cake was heavy and dense, not light and fluffy, and she was thoroughly trapped. She could hear herself panting in the small space, and knew she had to get free soon. The cake might not be perfectly airtight, but it would be close enough to suffocate her eventually.

There was only one option. She bent down and took a bite of the cake.

Then she nearly spit it out again. It tasted vile. The chocolate scent that hung in the air was nearly all the chocolate present, so the cake would have been bland, except for the fact that somehow, despite it being dense and heavy, the baker had obviously used far too much baking soda, leaving a strong, bitter, chemical taste. And it was dry, too, the crumbs sticking to the inside of her mouth.

For a long moment she considered. Maybe it would be possible to just pull chunks of the terrible cake free, and not actually eat them? But no, doing that would fill her clear space long before she could get herself dug out. There really was no option. She braced herself and took another big bite of the cake, trying to swallow it as fast as possible, but it was so dense and do dry that it took some chewing before it would go down. She made a face, but kept going.

Gradually she started to make progress, as the divot she was eating into the cake turned into a pit. Each bite was gag-worthy, but she ate on, eating her way down until she reached one foreleg. The she set about widening the pit into a trench. She finally cleared just enough of the cake from her leg to wrench it free, then held still for a moment, recovering. Mostly she was letting her stomach recover. She'd already eaten a normal cake's worth of the giant disaster cake. But she couldn't wait too long, there was only so much air left.

After that brief pause, she set to work on the other foreleg, grimacing as she chewed and swallowed. She was starting to feel a little too full, but she had to at least free her other foreleg. She ate and ate her way down towards her goal, getting fuller and fuller, and more and more disgusted as she went. Faust, this tasted vile. It was all she could do to not vomit as she stuffed more cake into her already bulging stomach.

At last she freed her other foreleg. Her torso and hind legs were still trapped, and if she ate enough cake to free them that way she would probably explode. Or at least vomit, which in this small space would be truly awful. But now that her front hooves were free she could try something else. She struck out at the cake with all her force, slamming her hooves into it. It gave way. It was too dense and springy to merely push down, but with her alicorn—and therefore earth pony—strength behind it, she was able to slam the cake flat and make more room without having to eat any more of it. Thank heavens.

She kicked and clawed, flattening cake and clearing space until she had a large cavity opened around her front half. Then she started using hooves and teeth to tear and rip at the cake still trapping the rest of her. Chunks of it flew and before long she'd freed her hindquarters as well. Her cleared space was now nearly filled with loose cake rubble, but she didn't care. She lunged forward, attacking the wall of vile, hateful cake in front of her, pushing loose pieces back behind her, and began to burrow sideways through the cake.

Suddenly her hooves struck soft frosting and a moment later she was through, out into fresh air at last.

With a lunge she burst from the cake, sending frosting flying, and emerged into the room, tumbling to the ground from the cake's lowest layer with a sugary splat. She lay in a smear of frosting and crumbs, panting, for some time.

"Ha!" Celestia looked up to see Luna burst out of the top of the cake. She immediately collapsed to lie half out of it, her forelegs and wings spread out on the frosting. It was some time before either alicorn moved. At length Luna dragged herself fully out of the cake. Her wings were so matted with dried slime and frosting that she couldn't fly, so she jumped down to the next tier, where she landed with a gross splat and sank partway in.

Celestia slowly pulled herself to her hooves, thinking she should probably help Luna, but before she could think what to do, Luna wrenched herself free of the second tier and tumbled messily to the lowest, and then from there to the ground. She landed on all four hooves with a solid thud and stood, glaring at everything in sight, including Celestia. She was covered in a muddy rainbow of every frosting color on the cake, which dripped from her hair and nearly hid the fact that she was still in the latex clown suit beneath it.

"I shall never, ever, ever eat cake again," she declared angrily.

Celestia snorted. "That wasn't cake, that was a crime against baking." She licked her lips, tasting the frosting, which was saccharine but nearly flavorless, and slightly stale. No doubt it had been made with shortening rather than butter, the vanilla had been left out, and the sugar had been on the shelf for years before being used. Completely disgusting. Also there was a hint of something rancid to it, which she decided she didn't want to try and figure out.

"Are we done here?" Luna looked around, and Celestia joined her in scanning for a door. To both their relief they found one, standing open, a glowing EXIT sign hanging above it.

Celestia decided it was too much to hope that the sign meant this was the end of Discord's "maze".

She tiredly headed towards the door, her frosting-soaked wings and matted tail leaving colored, sugary trails as they dragged on the floor. The ruined ruffle of her clown costume was half torn off now, and caught in her front legs as she walked. She halted and in one swift motion tore it from her. Her teeth were bared in a snarl as she expressed all her frustration for one moment of pointless violence against fabric by trampling the ruff under her hooves. Then she gathered her self-control once more and stepped through the door behind Luna.