Some Time Later….

After Gretchen succumbed to Stable Fever or...whatever it was, Cappy had worked almost double time to get the Stable door to open. No luck thus far, but he’d cleared up a lot of errors and firewalls and whatnot in his way. His neck hurt even more because of all the work, and he worked tirelessly. So much so he didn’t see much of Divinity anymore. It was okay, though. Kehtel had more help now, and was happy to keep Cappy updated on everycreature’s conditions.

Divinity was...well, she wasn’t nearly as immobile as Gretchen was, but unless she used her magic and all the belly boards available to her she couldn’t move. Even with the belly boards and overextending her magic, her movement was limited. She was content though, now she didn’t need to move for food, and was happy to binge all day while she watched her shows.

Gretchen...Gretchen was someone he was more concerned with. She...well, she hadn’t moved from the kitchen. After just a couple of days near the primary food outlet for the Stable had had her gain enough weight she hadn’t been able to get her feet on the ground long enough to try to drag herself forward...or backward...or any kind of movement, really.

She was now so fat that her flab pressed down on all the buttons for her, keeping her completely fed all the time. No need to even speak. With every day, or week, that passed, her fat kept inching closer to the alcove where the nozzles and dispensers were. It wouldn’t be too long for her fat to enclose her head completely, creating a little alcove for her head and the machine.

Speaking of help, one of the secondary robots came in, breaking Cappy’s train of thought. As he watched it tidy up his snacks, he couldn’t help but think of the veritable army of them that were running day and night to keep Gretchen looked after. He watched them work sometimes, since Gretchen couldn’t turn her head to look over her shoulder to the door behind her. Nor could she look over to see the door off to her left. With every pound she gained, she lost more and more mobility. Not that she seemed to care. All she seemed to notice was how ‘they’ weren’t going to ‘starve her out’ or some such thing.

Cappy was still worried, and wanted to help her, but Divinity thought it best to leave her alone. Because every time they actually tried talking with her, Gretchen started yelling. Mostly incoherent, but still. Not good.

Speaking of, Cappy had worked on this long enough. He cleared his throat, earning the little robot’s attention with a chirp.

“I’d like to go see Gretchen, then Divinity if you don’t mind,” Cappy smiled.

The robot chirped, an apparent affirmative, before bustling out of the room. It didn’t take long for the little robot army to return. Some going behind Cappy, some in front, and two to each side. With all their might, it took them to maneuver Cappy’s hoof-made cart out of the room.

He couldn’t judge Divinity or Gretchen in any way. Not really. His limbs were now so coated in fat his hooves had been sucked into ‘sleeves’ of fat. He’d seen this happening, so between him and the robots they’d built him a custom-made cart to lay in. He would have flapped his wings to help push him forward, but they were so bloated with fat he didn’t think they could flap anymore.

In spite of his bulk, it didn’t take long for him to get dragged to the kitchen. There, the robots paused. Both for his request and also to give their overworked motors a break.

From the doorway, behind Gretchen, he could see Gretchen’s mass oozing across the floor. He must have made some noise or another, because he could audibly hear Gretchen spit out one of the nozzles. Pausing enough to screech something incoherent. Then:

“GO….’WAY!” Gretchen yelled in between great, heaving wheezes. “ALL….MINE!”

Gretchen was, to put it mildly, very large. Her limbs were so far beyond gone that you couldn’t see the stumps of her paws or claws. Unlike Cappy, who’s little nubby hooves were still visible. When she wasn’t shouting, her fat mouth was wrapped around the nozzles. Usually drinking...well, Cappy didn’t know what, but she was constantly eating or drinking something.

The aforementioned army of robots caring for her were hard at work. Keeping her clean, massaging what parts of her mass they could find, and so on. Trying to keep her content. Which was a hard job even before she’d started crying more often than she talked.

Motioning his robots forward, Cappy sighed as he was carted into the entertainment room.

Divinity’s mass was centered on the crushed remnants of her favourite couch, using her magic to mindlessly shovel her extra-extra-extra buttery popcorn into her mouth, the grease smearing across her muzzle. She drank little else but thick milkshakes and Sparkle Cola. Her stomach eclipsed her hind legs, her plot pushing against the remnants of the couch. It didn’t look comfortable, the armrests on either side were obviously pinching Divinity’s sides, making a roll appear there, but she said it was fine.

“Hey!” Divinity chirped around a mouthful of popcorn, “Wanna join me? Watching a new one today.”

Cappy sighed, thinking it over. He was hungry and he was bored. He’d worked hard so far so why not take a break? Maybe he could figure it out once he’d rested a while. “Sure.”

The robots helped wheel him into place, bustling about to do some tidying as one of Divinity’s went to get snacks for the two lardy ponies and yet another went to get the movie started.

In spite of Gretchen, maybe today would be a good one. Cappy thought, sipping at his drink. Maybe, after all this, he’d finally be able to get the door open.

(LINE BREAK)

Dr. Foaming Flask stared up at the closed Stable door with exhausted, red-rimmed eyes. Leaning against his compatriot as the pair took in the scene before them.

They’d left the Stable door open the last time they’d been here. Judging from the scene outside the tunnel, it was likely whoever was inside had escaped the Raiders. Barricaded themselves in without realizing they were sealing their doom, just in a different way.

“Well,” Sunlit Breeze huffed, “It’s good we came.” There had been some talk back home about whether to keep sending parties back to check the Stable.

“Yeah.” Flask huffed a sigh, pushing away from Sun to start activating the controls. “Oooh they really locked themselves in. Must have been in a rush.”

“Considering the battle outside I’m not surprised.” Sun said dryly, waddling forward with a huffing wheeze. Needing to stay in motion if he wanted to stay standing for this long. “We should have checked earlier.”

“We couldn’t, not with Ponderous Gut being so determined for us to leave the Stable behind.” Flask was bent over the console, his neck bent as his hooves worked at the buttons. Tongue poking out of his mouth as he worked.

Foaming Flask was a descendent of some famous pre-war scientist, if Sun remembered right. Somehow survive outside a Stable, or escaped from one. Flask was well-read and a genius in his own right. Always building things, always having ideas on how to improve life back in the ‘Waistland’.

Sun would occasionally wonder what normal Stable life was like, not the strange and unusual science experiment that Ponderous Gut and others claimed it was. Though if asked alone, some might describe it as paradise if it wasn’t for the lack of moderation.

“ThereWeGo” Flask blurted out, giving the console a good smack, causing alarms to loudly blair out wildly. Such strange noises still frightened Sun, it was very much still alien to him how such strange artificial noises could be so loud.

The huge gear slowly sunk in, metal on metal scraping against each other as it was placed on a pinion to be rolled out of the way. Sun looked on in awe, while Flask merely gave it a yawn, rolling his shoulders to cause a few audible pops.

“I’m going to regret this” Flask moaned, “I know there’s going to be one Roller in there at LEAST. If there’s any more than one I’m gonna call it quits and yell at Thunderclap to get them out.”

Sun whinnied, “Come on, it’s going to be at least another hour round trip, and my hooves are so tired.”

Flask merely glared at his right hoof pony, “I’ve pushed out all the original occupants of this Stable INCLUDING your mother, I at least deserve a little bit of leeway.”

Sun grumbled a bit, but as the door finally stopped trundling out of the way, his ears perked up.

“Sir, I think I hear someone” Sun exclaimed, trotting close to the edge of the platform, awaiting for the reinforced bridge to extend. What he heard was loud and extensive wheezing and huffing.

“LEAVE… “-wheeze-“I’LL…”-urp-“SURVIVE!” The loud gasping and wheezing was undercut by painful squeaking noises.

“I’m calling Thunderclap” Flask groaned, fiddling with a hodge-podge radio at his hip.

Sun sighed, stepping inside carefully. Ears swiveling around as he looked about the entrance. The Stable, while nothing new to him, was something fairly rare. Only coming to check it once or twice a year to ensure it was left undisturbed, or more often if they needed the scrap or technology.

It felt weird to be here now, knowing other ponies had lived here besides his parents.

Sun was a butterball of a pegasus. His ancestors had been several of the few pegasi that had been granted access to the Stable. His light blue coat and grey mane and tail resembled the sky, or at least what bits of it that could be seen from beyond the ever present cloud cover. His Cutie Mark was a smiling, cartoonish sun. He wanted to help people, and by helping Flask, he was helping them.

Flask followed after, pushing his glasses up his muzzle with a grimace. Ears perked for signs of trouble, “Any ideas?”

“Kitchen?” Sun suggested. They needed to go there anyway, see how the technology was holding up. See if Flask’s most recent lines of code could help make the food healthier and not as addicting.

“If she’s stuck there, we might not get her out.” Flask sighed, putting his radio away. Hearing the indistinct chatter that came from their little town. Thunderclap was heading out to meet them with a few others, good. They might need the help.

A monstrous, echoing belch prompted the two stallions deeper into the Stable. Trying to follow the sounds. The squeaking and whirring sounds grew louder as they rounded the final corner before the kitchen.

Neither Flask nor Sun were strangers to obesity, even at its most extreme, but this was something different and spectacular.

Flask had to hold himself from suggesting that they were witnessing a localized black hole as two immense orbs greeted them. Each one was practically on the verge of blocking the doorway in and grazing the ceiling. The immense black blobs wobbled and undulated slowly, like the heavily polluted waters of Geiger Pond, with additional rolls on the side to suggest that they were in fat, a set of massive plots. The rolls were practically at Flask’s head, suggesting that the hooves or paws were suspended several feet off the ground. Flask had to point out the hill of rolls at the top to suggest that it might have been a tail, which was difficult as it had been bloated to the point that it was now twice as wide as it was long, with a half sunken in puff of fur at it’s crater. The huge outstretched gut pushed several rows of tables and chairs out of the way, and would have spanned the length of a medium sized mobile home if one side wasn’t pressed up against the wall, causing its whole form to be lurched over onto its side. The sound of gulping and gobbling was undercut by wheezing and the sound of rushing oxygen closer up near the back of the dining hall.

Sun gulped loudly to himself, what was this creature? Some kind of heavily irradiated monstrosity? Has the vault been leaking radiation?

Flask continued up with curiosity, seeing scaled hairless arms that looked like someone tried using an entire sleeping bag as a sleeve, bunching up and forming many rolls, with a set of talons barely able to stick out, wriggling angrily.

“I think she’s a griffon,” Flask mumbled to himself, holding his breath as he attempted to peel back the rolls of white and blue feathers pressed against the wall. Until finally, bringing light to a face sunken into over a foot of her own chins, saw the gryphon’s face. Her eyes were squinting, massive cheeks the size of inflatable buoys and an avalanche of back fat forced her into a squint, with her dark blue eyeshadow accents being the only things suggesting where her eyes are. The beak licked up anything and everything that was being pushed into the cavern by the food production machine. Probably the most efficient way too, as her own jowls outreached her very beak. Some clear plastic tubes in her nostrils were providing her the air needed to withstand having her entire face, chest and back fat seal around the opening of the machine.

“Geh… away...” She huffed pathetically, that original outburst taking most of her energy.

“I dont… I dont think Thunderclap is going to be able to get her out” Sun whinnied, the breath taken away from such a magnificent/horrific sight.

“Not without removing a wall or two” Flask mentioned, “though knowing him, he will try anyway, just to prove me wrong.” The thin pony released the roll of flab, plunging the gryphon back into her self inflicted darkness. “Ponderous Gut might use this ‘rescue’ as an escape to properly gut the vault. Which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Though I’ll have to seriously put this griffon on a crash diet.”

“You mean the same diet you put DewDrop in for the past year? Tell me, how much weight has she lost?” Sun snickered, receiving a grumpy glance from Flask.

“She’s making… ‘progress’ to say the least” he grumbled, giving the immense griffon another poke in the gut, receiving some unhealthy sounding squawks.
“Uhuh,” Sun snorted, rolling his eyes. It was well known that Dew hadn’t lost any weight at all, in fact she’d probably gained a few pounds. She was supposed to be Flask’s assistant, but mostly she served as a wall to throw ideas against and...well like a mattress when Flask finally got to sleep.

Flask sighed, looking around, “Well, she can’t just be it. We have to be sure. Come on, we may as well take in the rest so Ponderous can blow it all out of proportion.” Padding his way through the other door of the kitchen.

WIth a heavy sigh, Sun followed after, wincing as the griffon continued her feast.

Searching the Stable took time, mostly for Sun to take a few breaks. The fat stallion was used to hard work, but that hard work usually consisted of sitting behind a desk and doing paperwork. At his size, moving around for any amount of time was hard on him, and they’d walked from Waistland.

Finally, towards the back of the Stable, they found the entertainment room. The door left open, letting the sounds of a movie, and the sounds of eating, to spill forth.

There were two ponies in the entertainment room, chewing loudly at various snack foods as the movie played on the screen.

The unicorn, a light grey blob that looked to be about half the size of Gretchen, obviously hadn’t moved in a while. Her coat stained with butter and crumbs, her chins sticky from soda and creators know what else. Eyes glued to the screen, completely absorbed in the movie on screen.

The pegasus, though...looked up when Flask and Sun approached. Hunched over, looking a lot like Flask. His eyes widened, staring blankly at them. He was in some sort of modified cart and was spilling over it, his plush sides rolling over the edge and hanging down. He was the smallest of the three creatures they’d seen thus far, only about the size of one of the griffon’s plot cheeks.

“Hello?” Sun wheezed out, peering around Flask’s withers to peer into the room.

The pegasus’s head raised, his neck obviously cracking at the movement. “No. Nonononono, you’re not real! I’m turning into Gretchen, Creators forgive me-”

“Hey, no, you’re-you’re okay!” Sun offered a smile, “No need to panic, we’re here to help-”

“We haven’t seen anypony-”

The talking got the unicorn to look over, squinting at the doorway. Her face brightened at the sight of new ponies, letting out a squeal and jiggling violently as she utilized her mobility and wiggled, “Oh! Oh! New ponies! Do you see that, Cappy? We’re saved!”

“No, no no, the door won’t open! We’re turning-”

Flask stepped forward and rested a hoof on Cappy’s flabby shoulder, shaking it harshly, “Hey! Hey! We’re here! We’re real-”

Cappy’s eyes almost popped out of their skull, and he wriggled frantically in his cart, the cart creaking at the sudden movement, “We’ve gotta get out, can’t stay down here-” Breaking off to cough weakly, breath wheezing as he huffed and puffed. Not used to this level of activity.

“Woah, there! It’s okay, the door is open and we won’t close it again.” Sun soothed, stepping through the doorway to stand a bit away, “You’re okay! We’re okay. Deep breaths there friend.”

Flask’s shaking turned into something more soothing, “It’s okay, deep breaths. You’re safe now. Been a long time since somepony came in, most of them saw the signs and turned around.”

“There were raiders,” The unicorn said softly.

“We thought so,” Flask replied, “With the battlefield outside. We’re just glad you all got here safe. Is there anyone else aside from you two and the griffon-”

There was a soft whirring as Kehtel entered the room. The robot paused for a moment as it noticed the two new arrivals.

“Oh! More residents! You’re late! I’m Kehtel, I see you’ve already met Miss Divinity and Sir Bent Cap! Please, follow me, I can get you settled in your Stable Tec authorized jumpsuits and bring you a meal! You must be famished-”

Flask scowled, going over to tamper with Kehtel’s wiring. The robot stopping mid-sentence and crashing to the ground.

Divinity shrieked, “Why did you do that!? I was going to ask him for some burgers! I’m starving!”

Flask quirked a brow, ears flickering. He snorted, “I hate to point this out, but you are far from starving.” He huffed a sigh, eyeing the two ponies critically. Trying to think of how they’d get them out. Cappy would be easiest to get out, and Divinity would be...rough. Gretchen might be impossible, at least for right now.

“I’m hungry!” Divinity whined, ignoring the giant bucket of popcorn nestled in between the rolls of her pigeon chest.

Flask huffed a sigh, rubbing his eyes. “Sun, could you?”

“Yeah.” Sun trundled to the proper terminal, punching in the required data and bringing a platter of burgers to Divinity as requested. Obviously trying to pretend his stomach wasn’t growling at the delicious scents.

“We have a team coming, they’ll be able to get you out of the Stable.” Flask continued, letting Sun ‘sneak’ back to the terminal and get what he wanted, “They’ll be here in a little over an hour. We can get you two out of here, I’m pretty sure, but your friend...She’ll be a challenge. She’s bigger than any of the ponies I got out of here twenty years ago.”

“Oh...so there were ponies here,” Cappy murmured, “We thought there were, but with Kehtel-”

“I forced his system into a reboot. Should have just deactivated him.” Flask huffed, “Then again, we don’t have people come up this way very much anymore. Haven’t found anyone in here for years. We usually come up once or twice a year to check the place, more often if we need things.” Flask rubbed at his eyes with a foreleg, looking exhausted, “We’ll have to hold a council meeting...I think it’s safe to say that you three will be with us for a while. And we’ll need a guard here for...Gretchen, was it?”

Cappy nodded, wincing as his neck flared in pain, the odd posture he was forced into by his rampant obesity starting to really come home to roost.

“She uh… didn’t take Stable life well” Cappy mentioned, shifting his girth, “though the fact that your willing to try and get her out is more than what I’d be willing to do.” Divinity firmly nudged Cap’s flank in opposition.

“Good, though weaning her off of the Stable food might be… difficult” Flask whinnied, “the addictive additive is quite effective in constant and increasing doses.”

“Additive?” Cappy asked, eyeing Divinity’s burger, watching as the mare gobbled it down without hesitation.

“Yeah, from previous documents, this Stable was made to test various dietary additives, specifically one developed by a snack food company to make their product ‘irresistible’. As you can tell, it works a bit too well.” He poked Divinity’s flank, watching his hoof sink a foot deep into one of her rolls.

“So… uh…” Cappy turned a bit self conscious, if not a little peeved at the fact he’d been tricked and drugged without even noticing there was something wrong with the food itself. “Other than the obvious, does this chemical have any other side effects?”

“Withdrawal is a real pain, I promise you’ll be desperately craving for the stuff for a month at least” Flask rattled off, taking a tape measure and measuring Cappy and Divinity with Sun’s help, “you’ll occasionally get the shakes, but thats temporary, along with coat discoloration, the only real permanent change in very rare situations is spontaneous cutie mark reassignment, but there’s only two recorded incidents of that happening.”

Cappy smiled nervously as he tried to look down at his own cutie mark.

“Sunny, go back to the entrance and radio in the news, we have a class four, a class eight, and class sixteen needing extraction” Flask commanded, “I’ll see if I can get the spare robots to cart them out the door to meet the crew. This might be an overnight job, so don't forget to ask for a sleeping bag.”

“Got it sir” Sunny whinnied, “I’ll just grab some snacks and…”

“No snacks” Flask barked, “your gut is on the verge of dragging already, and you didn’t bring a splash guard.”

“Awww, alright” Sunny moped as he began to head out. Flask on the other hoof began to leave the other two.

“I’ll check on Gretchen’s condition some more,” he informed them. “The reaction the chemical has on griffins is unprecedented so I’ll need to make sure it doesn’t have more serious effects.”

Such a statement was a lie and he knew it. Trotting to the canteen he could still hear her gorge her heart out, munching on whatever got within the range of her beak. His tired body slowly leaned into her feathery flank, feeling the soft fat yield to his own weight, causing him to sink deep into warm lard. A yawn escaped his muzzle, nuzzling deeper into the fur, the pony getting comfortable.

“Gretchen, you might quickly become a new favorite if you keep this up” he grumbled, slowly slipping into a deep nap, despite Gretchen’s audible groaning.

Author's Note

We did it! It's been a wild ride, it really has, but we've pulled it off. The final google doc for this entire fic is almost 60 pages long. It takes like a minute to load fully, it is a masterpiece.

Pheal speaks for both of us when he says: "That despite how long it took, I'm proud of how it turned out."

There has been some discussion about a potential epilogue, maybe a series of one-shots or an anthology series, but nothing has been set in stone. Guess it just depends on how much people want it and how much time we have to devote to any upcoming progress.

Thank you guys so much for your patience and support. This was fun, for the both of us. For me it was neat to chat with a friend and work on a project together. The banter has been excellent if I do say so myself, and it's neat to have a second person that you know is going to read it through and say if something is wrong or not.

Pheal says that messing with three types of coping mechanisms for ever increasing obesity and cabin fever was surprisingly fun.

Which is a fair assessment. We liked looking at these characters and seeing how we could...break them.

Anyway, I've rambled on enough. Hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as we enjoyed writing it!