It's a Mad Cupcake World

The Crystal Empire was a welcome sight after the frozen wastes of the north. Even with ponies the width of streets making it hard to maneuver around, it was warm here. Warm and somewhat comforting, even with all the destruction.

They were dressed in covering clothes. Not wanting to risk exposure. Not after everything. They’d managed to work their way toward the palace, hoping to raid what was left of its kitchens, but hadn’t been able to get inside.

Cadence and Shining filled the royal courtroom making it impossible to enter through that way. A pony in the kitchen was blocking the back door with stomach fat alone, much less the other non-visible residents of the castle.

Sunburst was like everypony else they’d found. Eating himself literally out of his house, chewing mechanically on an endless stream of cupcakes.

Starlight tried to talk to him, even shouted and screamed and cried. All he did was chew in return. It took Trixie to get her to leave him be. Probably because Starlight had been staring longingly at one of the cupcakes for a little too long.

The pair were able to scavenge some though. From houses and other businesses. It was hard going, trying not to step on the growing masses. In some spots, especially near the Crystal Palace, it was impossible to go anywhere without having to crawl over some massive body part. Starlight wasn’t sure what was worse: having to do it, or knowing that the people they were using as a road didn’t care.

Squeezing between two ponies, walking between the fat-packed space between their heads, Starlight could observe the endless stream of magic that fed them all. Cupcakes mostly, but other foodstuffs too.

As she climbed over the fatty remnants of somepony’s face, she suddenly realized how close she was to one of these magical streams. She only realized when her horn connected with one of the cupcakes. Ending the magical spell over it, the cupcake fell onto Starlight’s head. Part of it impaled on her head, part of it slid down her hood and onto her cloth covered shoulders.

Starlight froze, her aching legs suddenly feeling like they were made of jelly. She could feel the pieces of the cupcake falling down around her, and as she began the tricky descent to the actual crystal street below her, she couldn’t help but feel clench her jaw and press her lips into a tight line. She wanted desperately to get the bits of cupcake off her, to throw away her clothes, but she couldn’t. If she took them off, the merry dancing lines of cupcakes would start flying towards her.

Panting for breath, wheezing and trying not to cry, she could have collapsed into tears. She couldn’t risk it though, if she swallowed a crumb that would be enough.

Shaking, clutching at the road like a lifeline, panic and anxiety finally washed over her. Sobbing, close-mouthed, tears streaming down her face, she half expected for a tiny particle of cupcake to enter her mouth. She froze, still crying. Half expecting to fatten up or start eating uncontrollably.

After a few moments, she started to calm. Looking down at the spilled frosting and crumbs around her. Then looking up to Trixie, who somehow hadn’t noticed Starlight falling behind. It...hurt to see Trixie like this.

Trixie had always been slim and athletic, mostly from traveling and performances. Now she was bordering on unhealthily skinny. Not there yet, not with the muscle she’d packed on during their forced march, but close. Her bones were starting to be visible, especially the ribs and hip bones.

Slowly climbing to her own hooves, not wanting to lose Trixie, Starlight couldn’t help but look at her own body. Well as much as she could without a mirror. Her legs were slimmer. On instinct, she raised a hoof to touch at her face.

Starlight had never been athletic, not really, but she’d never been fat either. She’d always been somewhat softer than Trixie, but this was a new level of thinness for her. Her cheekbones and jaw were more prominent now, lacking the softness she’d always possessed before.

Looking around as she walked slowly after Trixie, all Starlight could see was the peaceful ponies around her. Peaceful, unafraid, maybe happy. It was hard to say exactly, since most faces were so bloated with fat that they couldn’t emote anymore.

Starlight came to the sudden realization that she missed those peaceful emotions. Missed them so much that it brought a lump to her throat to realize she couldn’t remember when she’d felt all of them at once. Couldn’t remember when she’d felt safe and secure and that was almost worse.

Glaring up at the cupcakes, she couldn’t help the bitter bile that rose up in her throat. All of this was their fault. Why they needed to crawl through crumbling towns and over fattened blobs. Why they were starving and afraid.

A blast of magic knocked a cupcake from the stream, and Starlight raised a hoof to crush it. It wouldn’t fix her problems, but it would be cathartic. She froze, her emotions swirling in her gut like the constant edge of her hunger.

But...she lowered her hoof, setting it on the ground beside the cupcake. The pain, fear, and anxiety could disappear. With one bite everything could be okay again.
“Starlight?!” Trixie yelled, finally realizing Starlight had fallen behind. She turned around, coming back to stand in front of Starlight and the cupcake, “What are you doing?”

“I-I…” Starlight broke into tears again, unable to speak.

Trixie wrapped Starlight in a hug, doing her best to comfort her friend, waiting for an explanation.

“I just want it to stop,” Starlight sobbed, “I’m tired, and hungry, and I don’t want to do this anymore!” Starlight tried to continue to talk, but her sobs prevented her from doing so.

Trixie tried to break through to her, but was unsuccessful. After a few moments, needing to yank them away from the blob of a pony Starlight had crawled over because the flab was encroaching closer, Trixie finally had enough. A slap to the face knocked Starlight free of whatever panic she’d been dealing with.

“You can’t give up!” Trixie yelled, “You can’t leave me here alone!” Voice edging into hysteria, “I need you Starlight, and I won’t last without you! If you give up so do I! You’re the only reason I’m still sane.”

“What are we supposed to do?!” Starlight snarled, her sadness and fear rapidly spinning into anger, “We’ve been trying for months! We don’t have much we can do!”

“We should give up trying to find a safe place. We need to focus on finding a cure. We can’t keep travelling like we have been, Starlight. Not unless we can guarantee more food.”

Starlight leaned into Trixie, her breath still hitching in her throat. She nodded, “Okay...okay. It’s worth a shot. But you need to promise that if we can’t find a cure that we’ll both just eat a cupcake and join everypony else.”

There was a lengthy pause, during which the two mares had to get going. Starlight despondent and Trixie full of nervous energy. As they picked their way out of the Crystal Empire, Trixie sighed.

“Okay, Starlight,” She said reluctantly, “We’ll eat them together, promise?”

“I promise,” Starlight nodded. They shook on it.

“Well...where are we going to set up?”

“I was thinking outside of Ponyville. There’s a lot of places we haven’t scavenged for food there yet. And if we do have to leave to get more food it won’t be too long to get anywhere,” Starlight replied.
“To Ponyville then,” Trixie said as the pair walked into a blizzard raging outside the Empire’s magic.

___

It took them almost a week to reach Ponyville. During this time, they’d used back roads and cut through wilderness to find what wild food they could before reaching Ponyville. The closer they got to Ponyville, the more things seemed to change. Reflecting on it later, Starlight couldn’t help but feel irritated that she’d been surprised. At the time though, she’d been vulnerable, and watching the world descend even further was a scary thing to see.

The sky became less and less blue as they got close, changing into a cotton candy pink. Clouds, thick and overgrown the last time they’d been here, were gone. Replaced by endless spirals of cupcakes. Streams were coming from the edges of the spiral, showing a constant state of moving cupcakes.

Getting closer and closer to the town proper, it became clear that the streams were going to individual townsfolk. Not surprising, given what they’d seen elsewhere. What was surprising though was the fact the unicorns weren’t directing the cupcakes. Not anymore.

Standing atop a hill outside of Ponyville, the two mares watched as the blobs they’d once known as friends continued to expand. Fleshy bodies creeping slowly to cover everything.

“It must be Discord,” Starlight said after a few minutes.

“No kidding,” Trixie replied dryly, “This is where all this started. Makes sense it would be the first place to go absolutely crazy.”

Even from a distance, they could see the ponies were gigantic. The smallest of their number literally breaking out of houses and buildings to spill flab outside of broken out doors, windows, and walls. Other homes were destroyed completely, leaving the oblivious blobs covered in wreckage.

Some ponies were so large they couldn’t really be identified as anything other than ‘blob’. Heads, hooves, tails, manes-anything that could make a pony a pony was gone. There seemed to be...well a hole of sorts where heads had disappeared into. At least that’s what Starlight hoped. Streams of cupcakes were streaming into these caverns endlessly.

After a few minutes more of watching, the pair got dressed in protective clothing and made their way into town. It was horrifying, but they needed to see the scope of the damage.

Mayor Mare had destroyed Town Hall completely during their absence, and was now filling up the entirety of the Town Square. It took them near an hour to crawl across her shifting, expanding body to find the remnants of Sugarcube Corner. Or what they thought was Sugarcube Corner.

In it’s place was Discord, armed with an armada of floating ovens. As they watched, still perched upon some part of Mayor Mare’s anatomy, the ovens opened. Cupcakes left to join the streams and unbaked ones replaced them.

Discord was...Discord’s limbs were all so submerged into their own fat that they were no longer visible. He was very similar in stature to Mayor Mare. In fact, Starlight could see where some of their fat was pressing together.

“They’re so big,” Trixie managed, staring up at the four separate streams that were going into the rolls that she hoped was where Discord’s head lay.

“Gigantic,” Starlight agreed. They continue on, needing to crawl their way over Discord in the hopes of reaching Twilight’s castle.

Nothing could have prepared them for the sight of Twilight and the others. Nothing they had seen since all of this had started was even a fraction of what was required to believe what they were seeing. Not Mayor Mare, not Discord, not Ponyville.

Twilight’s castle was gone. Crushed and demolished by its residents. Leaving the six mares, one dragon, and three young fillies completely exposed to the elements. All ten figures were keenly visible, even from a distance.

Spike and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were the smallest. The size of small houses each, only a couple of streams going to each of them. Pressed together because of their fat. Squeezing them into a more upright position than the sprawling ones they’d seen in Mayor Mare and Discord.

The others though, Twilight and her friends, were...well they were mind-bogglingly huge. Trixie and Starlight had to pause to look at them, and even when they resumed their journey, their minds refused to truly comprehend what they were seeing. It seemed impossible. They were basically mountains of pure flab. It had been them that had crushed the castle, and they towered over everything.

How Trixie and Starlight hadn’t seen them before now, they weren’t sure. Wishful thinking? Not being able to truly comprehend this sight? Being too absorbed in the sights of Ponyville? Starlight didn’t want to know. There was no way to adequately describe them, but she didn’t want to look that closely. But they needed to.

As they got closer, Starlight started to pick out details. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were on the smaller end of ‘mountain’. Rarity and Twilight were in the middle, with Pinkie being larger enough for there to be a noticeable difference.

Fluttershy was easily double Pinkie Pie. Squished in tightly between her two friends, raising her up so high that she would be level with clouds. If there were clouds around.

Meanwhile, countless streams of cupcakes were flowing into each pony (and dragon) present.

“We need to get to work, Starlight,” Trixie breathed.

Starlight nodded, struck dumb by what they were seeing.

“We need to finish this before...before Fluttershy’s size becomes the new lowest weight for ponies,” Trixie continued.

Starlight nodded again.

Even with the building sense of urgency and panic, the two friends watched for a few more minutes before turning back and going back to the wagon. They had work to do.

___________

More time had passed, Starlight noted. As per usual, she couldn’t begin to guess how much time.

The pink sky had spread, all the way past the still visible Canterlot. The end of it was no longer visible to Trixie or Starlight, and the vortexes and streams of countless cupcakes had followed.

Ponies were still eating and growing, even the lighter ones finally breaking out of their houses. Everypony was left without shelter, and without walls. Without barriers.

There were a few...well, growing problems that Starlight couldn’t begin to guess at solutions for. She didn’t know what to do.

Firstly ponies were running out of room. For instance, Mayor Mare had grown past Town Square and was starting to grow onto nearby ponies (or beings like Discord), who owned businesses or homes near the square. She hadn’t completely covered sompony yet but it was clearly only a matter of time.

Fluttershy was another example of this as well. She was higher than the vortexes of cupcakes, and her rolls were starting to really sag down onto Twilight, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie. Those three were doing the same to Applejack and Rainbow Dash, while those two were starting to overtake the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Spike.

Starlight wasn’t sure if the magic keeping everypony alive would be enough to stop a death by suffocation. That was something she didn’t want to test if she could help it.

Secondly, and just as worryingly, the foundations of Canterlot were starting to buckle under the weight of everypony. The mountain town wouldn’t survive much further expansion. Not without extensive reconstruction anyway. Not a job the two mares could hope to undertake by themselves.

Just the other day, while they’d been washing their clothes in a nearby pond, they’d heard a terrible crack and looked up in time to see one of Canterlot’s support beams break and fall down the mountain.

As if trying to find a cure wasn’t stressful enough for Starlight.

Thankfully, she’d made some progress in spite of the lack of resources, outside help, and extensive collection of books. Starlight worked on it every day in spite of the dwindling supply of food, the sleepless nights, and the lack of help from Trixie. Trixie simply didn’t know enough about this kind of thing to help. Progress was made, but it was made in baby steps.

The biggest problem was the fact they couldn’t test anything Starlight hoped would work. Mostly because of Starlight’s own misgivings about what cold happen. If it just freed somepony mentally from the cupcakes, that would just be cruel. Anypony they ‘freed’ would be beyond helpless, and potentially cut off from the magic keeping them clean, alive, and comfortable.

They’d tossed the idea around of one of them eating a cupcake and then trying the cure, but at best that would give them two chances at a cure. It also went against their agreement, and was struck down fairly early on.

They’d settled in the Castle of the Two Sisters. Mostly because they were far enough away that they didn’t need to move camp everynight to avoid the ever-expanding, crushing waves of fat. The forest offered some protection as well, which was good. It gave them more time while still being fairly close.

Starlight was resting for now, exhaustion weighing heavily on her mind, eyes, and in her bones. From the room they were using, they could see Ponyville adequately enough with a telescope to track ‘progress’ in ponies’ gains.

With a resigned sigh, Starlight decided it was time to check. Using the telescope, Starlight oriented herself using the best marker now available: Fluttershy. It was hard to see some of the smaller blobs, and impossible to see some, but Starlight still liked to try to look at all the blobs she could and remember the ponies that were buried under that much fat. It was hard, but it kept her hopeful for a cure.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Starlight couldn’t help but pray for the nightmare to end. Either by cure or addiction. She didn’t care which by now. She just wanted to be able to stop worrying all the time.

A door opened, and tired hoofsteps jolted Starlight out of her thoughts. She turned as Trixie entered the room, two ragged sets of saddlebags slung over her back. Trixie discarded the protective clothing, slipping the bags onto the ground. Starlight couldn’t help but wince.

Trixie looked like somepony who was starving, which was true. They were starving. The outline of her bones were starting to become prominent now, the muscles she’d built over the early weeks and months finally starting to be eaten away. Her eyes were sunken with dark circles under them, cheekbones protruding. Ribs were easily visible, and her stomach was concave now.

Trixie was smiling though, which was odd. Scavenging trips were becoming less and less fruitful, which made the two mares even more testy.

“Did you find anything good?” Starlight asked.

Trixie used her magic to empty out the saddlebags on the floor, “Not much food, but I found so much that could help the cure! Herbs and books! From...well Zecora. She burst out of her hut, and I took as much as I could. Look, I even found some canned peaches.”

Starlight stood on shaky legs, using her own magic to put the cans with their meagre food supplies. One pony could maybe survive on them for a week. With two, it would last a few days. Some dried hay, one jar of preserved apples, three cans of peaches, a half-bag of potatoes, several bags of potato chips, and a can of beans. Plus their water supply.

Starlight’s stomach growled, a sharp pain running through her. She rubbed at her own stomach, feeling her bones underneath her skin and fur. Starlight squeezed her eyes shut and grit her teeth. No. She ate breakfast.

Grabbing a can at random, she handed it to Trixie, “Here. You’ve done a lot today.”

“Starlight, I can’t,” Trixie protested, trying to give the can back. It was peaches, “You need to find a cure and you can’t do it on an empty stomach.”

“And you can’t keep scavenging on an empty stomach!” Starlight protested, “You’re doing so much more physical work than I am. You need this!” She shoved the can back at her best friend.

Trixie stared at it for a moment, then sighed, “Okay, but you’re eating something tomorrow morning.”

Trixie pulled out their well-worn can opener, and before Starlight could turn away, was muzzle-deep in the fruit. Slurping up like a mare starving...Which they were.

Starlight busied herself with the telescope as Trixie ate the whole can, licking the lid and can clean so to get every last calorie possible.

The sun began to set as the two cleaned up and got ready for bed. Somehow, Celestia and Luna were still doing their jobs. Which was a blessed thing, really.

Starlight climbed into her sleeping bag trying to ignore her growling stomach. It felt like her stomach was trying to eat away at her spine, and it was hard to sleep while in such pain. Even though she was beyond exhausted.

As she finally drifted off, Starlight realized she was to have her nightmare. Again.

It started off as it always did: at a party in Ponyville. One of Pinkie’s town-wide parties in the Town Square. Everypony is there, from Ponyville and a few ponies from elsewhere.

Starlight is having fun, dancing and drinking punch and laughing with her friends. Until a cupcake falls from the sky. Starlight looks up to find a pink sky and a swirling vortex of cupcakes. Cupcakes beginning to rain down.

Ponies start eating them. Off the ground or snatching them out of the air. Starlight is frozen for a crucial moment before she starts to panic. Ponies were getting fat, and that was not a good thing to be stuck in the middle of. Running around the square, trying to find a way out. Half-blind from terror, she only stops when she runs into something. A soft something. It was Trixie, who was fat and was eating another cupcake. Increasing her size.

“What’s the matter, Starlight?” Trixie asked, her stomach touching the ground with another swallow, “Aren’t you hungry?”

Before Trixie could do or say anything, Starlight started to run again, but was stopped in her tracks by Twilight who waddled up to her, cupcake floating in front of her like an offering.

Starlight tried to run again, but was struck with the sudden realization she couldn’t escape on hoof anymore. Growing ponies surrounded her, blocking off any exits she might have used. Starlight tried to teleport, but her magic refused to work.

Panting, shaking, trying not to cry, Starlight continued to try to find some way to escape. As the space got smaller, Starlight found herself more and more unable to move until she was starting to get squished between the growing ponies.

Sobbing, crying, screaming, she couldn’t help but panic more as their growing increased in speed. She wasn’t just squished now, she was getting smothered by the fat around her.

A roll covered her completely, leaving her in darkness. There are several heart-stopping moments of terror where she can’t see or move or use her magic until she can no longer breathe.

Starlight woke with a strangled screech, panting and sweating and shaking, twisted up in her sleeping blanket. She shot up, trembling and crying. It took her a few moments to be free of the bedding, where she immediately went to the telescope.

The nightmare was out here too. The real world in which she lived in was like her nightmare. The blobs and mountains having visibly grown since she checked on them last.

Trixie, somehow, was still asleep. Snoring heavily. Which was fine, she needed all the rest she could get.

Starlight caught sight of one of the books Trixie had found. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again, Starlight settle herself against the window so she could read by the light of the moon.

____

The books Trixie had found made all the difference over the next couple of days. Starlight had found several interesting remedies in them, but needed more books. Between the remains of Twilight’s castle and Zecora’s hut, they found more books with more remedies.

Independently, they wouldn’t work, but with a mixture of different ones Starlight figured they could make a cure that had all the potential to work. They searched high and low for ingredients, and now Trixie was doing some housework as Starlight brewed.

Things were desperate now. Food was so scarce they had maybe a day left. They’d searched while they’d been looking for books and ingredients but they hadn’t found anything. Nothing at all. No cans, no bags, just cursed food.

The cure Starlight was brewing would be their last-ditch effort. It it worked properly, it would cure and prevent whatever magic was in the cupcakes from being so addictive. If it worked, they could eat the cupcakes and everything else without risk. It would be a win/win.

After a few more hours of brewing, Starlight figured the cure was ready. A thick, purple potion that smelled like sticky grape soda. Starlight had wanted to test it on one of them, but Trixie demanded they test it on somepony else first. Somepony already effected so they could see the effects right away.

Starlight filled several flasks and filled them with the potion while Trixie got their clothes ready. After packing their saddlebags they were ready.

They knew their target, and they knew where they were going. They were going to climb up to Fluttershy using Spike, the Crusaders, and everypony else along the way and somehow get her to drink the cure. If Fluttershy could be okay, that would mean the cure would work on anypony. Hopefully any creature.

They just needed to get to Fluttershy first.