Spike was both excited and apprehensive about what was coming, all the ponies that had fought Shining Armor were now in the collaring room of the processing center. He was not happy about the fact three entire towns would need to be collared, turns out the earth pony and bulky pegasus were from the same place. In addition to acquiring those places, Spike had to name them, mostly because Garble’s taste in names was as uninspired as it was narcissistic. Garble and all the other visiting individually had left the site almost four hours prior, which left Spike with more than the usual cleanup from such events.

Spike let out a shallow, drawn-out sigh before saying, “First thing, above all else, I need to have your names on file and record, I keep tabs on my ponies and having their names in files helps due to my lack of ability to keep up with names at times. This is my new personal aide,” he gestured to Chrysalis, “her name is Chrysalis, her main duty is to keep me on task. Secondly, we will be getting you decent meals; attire might be a bit tricky at the moment on account the pony I usually call on for this sort of thing has a few more months of punishment to contend with for behavioral issues. That all said, I would like to learn your aspirations in addition to your names; I find my subordinates and subjects are more productive when they have a choice in the matter of what they do.”

The four all looked at Spike in surprise, they had all gone practically their entire lives not being called their names in a public environment or any dragons before now. Rainbow, who had a brashness to her that hadn’t been beaten out of her, stepped forward and said, “My name is Rainbow Dash, I don’t care what I do as long as I’m the fastest around and can prove it.”

“Hmm,” said Spike, “Pinkie did say something about needing a dedicated delivery service, she also said the faster things get to their destination the better, I’ll post you with her until you ask for a change of employment and we’ll see if we can work something more your liking and speed out.”

“Um, thanks,” said Rainbow in surprise, “who is Pinkie?”

“One of my special ponies that I keep in the city, said Spike, “she runs and manages a party store, I’ll give you a proper introduction to her later. Now, who is next?”

“My name is Bulk Biceps,” the bulky white pegasus practically shouted, “as long as I can put my muscles to use helping out I don’t really care where I go.”

“Ah,” said Spike, “we have some construction crews that made some help requests recently, we’ll see if they require a pony with your physique as soon as we can.”

“Already have it marked down on the to-do list,” said Chrysalis, “and I just sent a message to one of my runners to look into the matter.”

“Brutally efficient as always,” said Spike, “that’s why I always make sure to set time aside to ‘reward’ you properly.”

“That’s scheduled for the end this week,” said Chrysalis with a smirk, it was clear she didn’t miss a beat.

“My name is Neighsay,” said the unicorn, “I am interested in furthering the education of ponies in a manner that will be mainly to their benefit.”

“It is on the itinerary and I have some subordinates looking further into the matter,” said Chrysalis as she scribbled something in her pad.

“Excellent,” said Spike, “I take education in my territories more seriously than most other dragons. And you, my dear?”

“I’m Garden delight,” said the green earth pony mare, “I just want to give everyone tasty food.”

“Excellent, there are some communities in my territory that need good dining establishments.”

“I’ll see to it that the crews working on the new town near Macintosh’s farm get word so they can begin prepping for a dining establishment,” said Chrysalis, “you did say we needed to be on the lookout for potential businesses for the area.”

“Indeed, I did,” said Spike, “now, another reason why I require your names is because I like to have the names of all collared individuals right there on the front of the collar, it’s so if I ever encounter you at a later time or date I can know who you are at a quick glance. Now, behave yourselves and things will go quickly.” With a gesture, the collar replacement team entered the room and with that, he and Chrysalis left the room.

__________________________________________________________

“How do you think things are now?” Twilight asked Pinkie, she was quite a bit worried, Rainbow looked like she hadn’t a good meal in ages; if that was how Rainbow was then things probably weren’t any better for Fluttershy.

“You said Shining won the match,” said Pinkie as she placed the last of the roasted almond pegasus figures on the four-tiered rectangular cake with frosting that made it look like as if it were a cloud, “I’m sure Spike’s just orientating them all to how things work in his territory and making some much-needed arrangements.” She took out her set of frostings that were designed to act like paints and started painting the almond pegasi to look like Rainbow Dash, “I didn’t need your report on that, I was there for the match too. You think this world’s Dashie will like her welcome cake?”

“Definitely,” said Twilight, “if she has as much of a high opinion of herself as our Dash. She would probably appreciate it more if it came at the end of a good meal, one where she could just stuff herself.”

“Good idea,” said Pinkie, “if her preferred foods are like those of the Rainbow we know, I know just what to make for her. Good thing the shop is closed the public right now, they’ll probably come to visit here at some point. I better get to work on the buffet, I’ll make it as good as I can do with what I can get a hold of.”

“I’ll help, whichever of the four comes to visit, they will need some good food. Besides, more ponies means more you can haul back. Where is Sweetie Drops?”

“I already have her out gathering more baking supplies, which is going to be hard when you consider the state of most businesses at the moment.”

“Then we better get a hurry on this, no telling when they could come by.”

*******************************************************

Rainbow was surprised, the four of them weren’t eating together as a unit, they were each taken to a different part of the city and set up with potential work partners, those work partners were the ones that took each of them out for some food. Rainbow was nervous, she was the last of the four to be brought to her first place of potential employment. The structure looked like some giant being had barfed up a bunch of party materials, but in an attractive way, and there was a lot of pink! Rainbow had no problems with pink; it was an okay color, her best friend back home had a naturally pink mane after all.

When she entered with Spike and Chrysalis she saw a purple unicorn setting out dishes on a collection of pushed in tables, it all looked so good she could feel her mouth watering. Then it happened, the sexiest pony she had ever seen bounced into the room in nothing but a blue apron, her bubble pink coat, and fluffy dark pink mane was eye-catching in all the right ways. She was little pudgy in the gut and plot, but just meant more to play with and love. She started wondering where those thoughts were coming from; she had never had any kind of feelings of that nature regarding other ponies.

“The unicorn is Twilight Sparkle,” said Spike, “she's my head researcher, but she focuses mainly on magic in her studies. The pink pony over there, that is Pinkie Pie, she is my greetings and party specialist, she also happens to be one of my best cooks outside the castle.”

Rainbow’s wings just flashed out in sexual excitement as the pink mare approached, “Hi there,” said in a bubbly voice, the happiness in it was almost contagious, “I’m Pinkie Pie, and you must be Rainbow Dash. If you’re wondering how I know, I make it my business to know everypony.”

“Ahem, yes,” Spike coughed, “Pinkie is also in charge of the backups for all dossiers and personal files, she knows how to keep them safe and I know she won’t abuse the information at her fingertips for malicious reasons or ends.”

“I made a buffet of things I’m sure you’ll like,” said Pinkie, Spike and Chrysalis, along with Twilight, took this as their cue to leave, “you can go about it any way you want.” By the end of the sentence Spike, Twilight, and Chrysalis had left the building, “and when you’re done with all that I have special sweet I made just for you.”

Rainbow saw the plates but ignored them, she just went straight for the platter of sandwiches and tore into them like a dragon in a sea of gemstones. After that she moved onto the wraps, then rolls. She paused at the omelets, she had no idea how to approach this food.

Pinkie just giggled in amusement at it all; Rainbow was even thot her giggles were cute. This food was the tastiest thing she had ever had, which wasn’t saying much when you considered most of the food she had been given over the course of her life was something you could barely call food to begin.

About a half hour after Pinkie had shown her how to dig into an omelette, and even fed her personally with the first one, Rainbow was sitting in a chair enjoying the feeling of a full stomach when Pinkie came out with a massive cake that looked like it had been made emulate clouds that was adorned with little versions of her. This was the best day of her life, it almost made her feel bad about going as hard on Shining Armor as she had. Rainbow and other ponies had learned Shining’s name during Spike’s orientation session.

Pinkie set the massive cake down before Rainbow and placed a plate, fork, knife, and napkin down just a little bit closer to Rainbow than the cake. “Enjoy,” said Pinkie in her chipper voice, “if you want, after this, we can either go out for some fun or stay in and have some fun, it’s all up to you.”

Rainbow looked at the cake, she was still feeling stuffed from her gorging several minutes prior but she also felt it would be rude to not eat the cake as soon as she possibly could. It was at right around this time she realized she was still naked; Pinkie didn’t seem to mind though, at least she didn’t say anything about it. Usually this wouldn’t bother her but Spike had said something about getting her and the others clothes, it kind of looked like the term “attire” was stretched to its furthest limit with Pinkie only going about in an apron, she had seen other inhabitants of the city going around in a variety of outfits, some more revealing than others.

Rainbow wondered, just what would her outfit be like? Who would be involved in the decision besides herself? Why was she sexually attracted to Pinkie Pie?

Author's Note

Well, that took shorter to write than I thought. Next chapter we go somewhere that hasn’t been shown yet.