The Esurient Equines

The elevator to the top floor of the Mamba Burger HQ was as smooth as ever, Stellar found the ride to be a little eery though, whereas before the building had been bustling with employees it was now mostly deserted, save the lardy receptionist who seemed to have tripled in size since she last saw her letting her in. She seemed to be well plied with food behind the desk which her whole body nearly covered.

Eventually she reached the top floor, which whereas before it had been full of rather slender ponies going about admin duties, all she could see was one mass...Vermillion seemed to have remained behind. She had grown too, just not as big as most of the others. Obviously the boss had ordered her to stay smaller to continue to fetch her whatever food she desired, but she had still ballooned a fair amount.

“Uh, Vermillion?”

Stellar tried to get her to speak, but the assistant simply looked up, almost in a haze. Clearly a bit confused, she just waddled her way to a store room, her frame squishing against the walls as she did so. Stellar just watched her go, returning a few moments later with a tray of burgers and coke. She must have mistook the ask from Stellar for her boss wanting more food in her dozy state.

She didn’t even respond to seeing Stellar there, and opened the door.

Inside was just a huge mass of flesh. Every wall was covered in flab. All Stellar could see very close to the door indeed was a head buried in blubber. She assumed this is what had become of Scarlet Song. She must have stayed in her office continuing to eat until her entire body had filled the room with its increasingly expanding size. Vermillion left after a grunt of “Put it over there.” from Scarlet, who seemed to be focusing her attention on a number of small screens planted directly in front of her face, projected by a small cube like item resting on her triple chins. The reinforced outer girders to her window had long given way, her gigantic tush was hanging freely out the window along with a large portion of her thighs and belly. Stellar wondered if she gained much more if she’d simply slip out at some point.

As Stellar entered the room she was overcome by the smell, it was horrendous. She guessed that Scarlet, unable to leave the office hadn’t bathed in weeks. Not that she could, she’d need a swimming pool to wash in. This was backed up by a small parp! The unashamedly sloppy CEO let rip a small fart to clear herself out a bit. After a moment she looked up, finally noticing Stellar.

“Nice of you to show up.” She simply said.

Stellar immediately looked perplexed. “What are you talking about?”

“Two weeks, two whole weeks we tried to get hold of you. I actually gave up yesterday…” The CEO replied, still watching her screens like a hawk.

“Oh well, you said a holiday. I took full advantage of it.” The mare replied.

“I know, no matter now, it’s too late for an antidote. I assume you’re here because you saw police at your lab?” She asked. “I can see them right now, going over everything you own, bit by bit…” Her voice trailed off again as Stellar simply shouted “WHAT?” and scrambled up her bulk to look at what she was.

Sure enough her lab was being crawled over by police ponies. Very fat police ponies, but police ponies nonetheless. They must have been the only ones left on the colony who actually had any clothing on, even then it was struggling to stay on their massive girth. Stellar realised the CEO must have planted cameras to monitor her employees so she could check in with them when she felt like it, she wondered why sometimes she’d get a cybermail asking her if she needed motivation on those days where she was slacking a little. It was almost as if they knew, well now she knew they did. She was being watched from the start.

“They’re looking through your notes, everything. Soon they’ll pin it on me, you and this entire company. If you’d kept your phone on we could have sorted this but, too late.” She said, sounding defeated and reaching for a burger, pushing it between her greedy lips. “All those years wasted, for it to come to this.”

“You know you could have gone to my lab yourself.” Stellar said, a little snippy now realising what was happening.

“Please, I was far too busy eating. I thought about an antidote at first but, I quite like it now.” Scarlet said, her body growled from under her as she consumed the food. Stellar scrunched her nose as she heard another little frrrttt! from somewhere behind her.

“So now what. We just wait for them to come arrest us? Well, arrest me probably. You’re not going anywhere, you have a prison of flab already.” Stellar snorted. Scarlet just looked at her with a pair of big lazy eyes.

“I suppose, what else can we do?”

“I have a plan.” Vermillion who had waddled up behind them spoke for the first time in a little while. “Scarlet all you need to do is crash directly below to the bottom floor, there’s a speedboat in the sewers below the building, positioned directly below you. Me and Stellar can make our way there via the lift and then wait until we hear the crunches of floors shattering. That’ll be you on your way down.” She said with a little smile. “You’re massive Scarlet, I’m pretty sure some jiggling will make that floor beneath you give way, as well as the rest. It’s already heavily sagging.”

The plan was absurd, but Stellar didn’t argue. Instead she just grabbed the ditzy Vermillion by the hoof and pulled her towards the elevator as time was short. There was no way this was going to work. For one thing, she was sure Scarlet, if she even did make it down, would just flatten the boat. Behind her, Stellar heard Scarlet begin to jiggle her body as best she could. The motion of all that blubber rocking back and forth and almost bouncing up and down meant that the building started to struggle under the pressure, Stellar could feel the floor underneath her start to give way and she pulled Vermillion along faster to reach the elevator just in time before bits of flooring started to come apart.

It was a bit of a squeeze in the elevator, it wasn’t made for ponies of the larger disposition. They reached the bottom and got out, waiting for what was coming.

Stellar’s ears twitched. She definitely heard a crunch, then another, more and more in quick succession. Once Scarlet had broken through the top floor, the rest were simply crumbling under her massive weight.

CRUNCH!
CRUNCH!
CRUNCH!
CRUNCH!

Louder and closer together as the speed increased, the two waiting ponies took a step back from where they thought she was coming through.

As predicted it was a bad plan, although Scarlet was absolutely enormous, the bases of buildings were a lot tougher than Vermillion had given them credit for. A final ear shattering CRUNCH! saw the blobby CEO land on the ground floor, completely cushioned by her size as her elephantine body just squished to absorb the impact of the fall. It was incredible to watch, her huge size seemed to spread as she hit the deck, her body going flat like a pancake and then springing back up as it absorbed the impact and did its best to deal with it. Apparently being hugely fat was a recipe for surviving what would normally be a killer fall.

The two gave it a moment before the jiggling of her flab stopped and to allow the air to clear, finally making it over to the rubble where Scarlet had come to rest. She seemed rather unphased as Stellar approached but, clearly the fall hadn’t done nothing to her body. She watched as Scarlet’s chubby cheeks bulged slightly as she tried to keep something inside. The noise of her stomach making blorps and gurgles was hard to ignore. Finally relenting, she opened her maw to let out what Stellar could hear gurgling and building up inside.

“UURRRRRPPPPPPPPPPP!!!”
As if the impressive belch wasn’t enough, this was followed by a huge and extremely gassy:
FRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!
Clearly the stress of hitting the floor so hard meant she needed a release.

“Uh, you okay?” Stellar asked.

“Fine, but I don’t see a speedboat…” She said.

“I just see cops.” Vermillion said. At that moment a number of police cruisers and shuttles appeared in the sky on what looked like a course towards the building. It was game over.

“I..I’ll give myself up.” Stellar said.

“Well, I’d give myself up but like you said, I don’t really have a choice.” Scarlet replied a little sarcastically. She still had some of her wit in her.

“No I mean, look. Perhaps if I cooperate, you’d have been wasting your time. I never made a cure, or anything to remove the effects of it. But if they give me a chance I could make one.”

“I figured as much, but why now? What’s the point? The colony is already in chaos. Ponies are already hugely obese. You can’t undo the damage.” Scarlet said, taking a bite of a burger, of course she had held onto those as she had crashed through the building.

“No but, I can at least stop a small apocalypse if I can cure ponies of eating like they are and maybe the colony can recover.”

“Well. Seems you have some principles after all Stellar.” Vermillion said with a little smile.

“Yeah, I guess so…” She said. Her voice low and almost at a whisper as the police arrived, she had to make it right. Somehow.

After explaining everything, as expected Stellar was arrested immediately. Scarlet and Vermillion were both put under guard until as such a time that Scarlet could be reasonably moved to a facility to handle her. Vermillion was tasked with looking after her, which didn’t help much. Any ponies that could be arrested at the current time were mainly placed under house arrest as the police had no choice really.

After being interrogated and listening to Stellar, the police of Chrion allowed her to carry through her plan of developing a cure. It was not quick, but building on the work of the original formula the scientists was able to develop a cure in a little under a year.

Unfortunately for the colony, by that time the effects had completely taken hold. The cure proved worthless as even though it was administered to ponies, they had gotten completely used to and depended on the taste that the formula gave to food. Any ponies who ate food with it removed found it to taste disgusting, tasteless or even made them puke. The powers that be made a decision that it was better to live fat than to feed their populace nothing and let them starve.

In the end, the cure was for nothing.

There was no point holding Stellar anymore, she had tried to sort out the problems she had caused and after reviewing the evidence the police force put the majority of the blame on the company. They were issued the biggest penalty fine available for gross business misconduct and key members were placed under arrest. However like the cure this would prove to be for nought, as they had made so much money selling their product that the fine was a spit in the bucket amount to pay.

Stellar left the colony a mere few months later, the guilt of her conscience utterly wracked by her actions. Yes she was working under a corporation but she had solved the issue. If it wasn’t for her, none of this would have happened. She disappeared into the void, the last ponies who knew her heard she had bought a one way ticket to a tiny, hardly developed planet on the perimeter of the colony worlds. Shortly after her departure Chrion was closed off to new entrants or visitors to the colony, except those with special permission granted. It was deemed unsafe for new ponies to enter and become one of the addicted populace.

Mamba Burger continued to soldier on, now no longer merely a fast food chain - it had a duty to feed the colony. It seemed in a way Scarlet had achieved her goal, any competition had been crushed and the company was making more money than she had ever dreamed of, but with the way things were it seemed a rather hollow victory. It was even more hollow now that in her state and stuck in the lobby of their headquarters after the failed escape attempt that the board of directors had punished her for her actions by promoting Vermillion to her role, looking after the main interests of the corporation.

Scarlet now served as a constant reminder for anyone who came into the lobby to see her what happens when you dabble unethically in things you shouldn’t try to control. At least one thing good had come out of it all, despite Vermillion now being her superior. She still had to feed her, the massive mare getting meals multiple times per day from her now boss. She had heard some grumbling from her about her delegating it to one of the peons, insisting she was now far too important to be doing this herself, but Scarlet insisted harder than she did. She liked reminding her that she was still number one, despite losing the title. Besides Vermillion was still a bit of clutz, it didn’t take much to persuade her to keep it up. In fact Scarlet had made some suggestions, piping for a start to feed cola straight to her. If she hated feeding her so much, why not just allow the food to come to her?

Scarlet already mostly filled the lobby, visitors having to clamber over her mass to reach the elevators. If she had grown this much in just a year of Vermillion continuing to feed her, she would continue to grow much, much more, beyond the building itself, more persuasion was clearly needed to keep Vermillion feeding her as well as push other methods forward. With even more to add to her mass, she could become the building even, why only grow outwards when you could grow upwards too? She couldn’t wait to see her she could achieve with even more at her disposal. The formula had done its work, the former boss just forever wanting more, forever wanting to be even huger than she already was.