Rarity whistled to herself as she fed the cloth through the sewing machine, then reached for another bolt of the special thick material she was using for the latest commission and didn't get it.
Looking up, she frowned – then checked the drawer, then her desk, and didn't find any of it there either.
The fashion-conscious unicorn let out a loud sigh. “Oh, what a terrible time to run out of cloth!”
Her couch slid into position as she swooned, and she lamented her fate for a little longer before getting back up again.
Now the pleasantries were handled, it was a practical problem, and Rarity began thinking about what else she needed at the moment.
“Well, there's not nearly enough milk in the fridge,” she said to herself. “And I think Sweetie and her friends tried to do some Prench cooking last night, so… actually I should probably just buy a full load of food.”
A few more things went on the shopping list – needles in case she ran out of those, an extra blanket to embroider for the colder nights ahead...
Satisfied that she hadn't missed anything important, Rarity locked the door behind her as she went shopping.
Most of what she was after was a relatively quick job to get hold of, and before long Rarity was entering the final shop on her list.
“What will it be?” the stallion behind the counter asked.
“Oh, just a few things,” Rarity told him. “Fourteen carrots, seven boxes of hay fries, eight tomatoes, and two sticks of celery.”
The stallion gave her a worried look, which then turned furtive as he checked whether anypony else was in the grocery shop. Seeing nopony, he leaned a little closer to her. “We're out of celery,” he told her. “We have some leeks, though.”
“Out of celery?” Rarity repeated. “Then I suppose I'll have to have leeks.”
“Understood,” the shopkeeping pony nodded. “Fourteen carrots, seven fries, eight tomatoes, four leeks.”
The words seemed to echo in Rarity's head when he said them all together, and she suddenly remembered an urgent appointment.
“Actually, darling, I'll be back later,” she told him, already heading out the door.
She needed to get dressed for her appointment.
The store clerk gave a worried nod and continued to look around, feverishly tapping away on the countertop as he did so.
Rarity hurried down the street, wondering how she had managed to forget such an important meeting. She dashed around a corner into a dark alley, her horn lighting up as she conjured up a wardrobe out of seemingly nowhere. It’s a good thing she always kept her emergency closet full of clothes, for such a situation as this! She scanned the items available to her, pushing aside some to peer further in. No… no… goodness, no, that one was completely last season…
Finally satisfied, she selected an elegant evening gown and slipped it on, popping her head through the neck and slipping her hooves through the short sleeves. Checking to make sure the skirt was dragging in the dirt, Rarity slipped on a rather elegant hat as well before shutting the wardrobe and making it disappear in a puff of magic.
She stepped back out into the street, slowing her previous hurried canter into a more leisurely stroll. After all, she didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention to herself. That would be most uncouth!
Rarity headed for her destination, taking the obvious route – halfway down the main street, down a side alley, back out the same side alley, go into a shop for four minutes and inspect their really rather tasteful blown-glass figurines of swans, out onto the street and take the second left…
After several more minutes of purposeful but quite complex wandering, she came to the door of a large house – almost a small mansion, in fact.
The door was open, and an earth pony butler was greeting ponies as they came up to the doors. Rarity trotted up the steps, letting her gown swish from side to side, and got most of the way to the doors before the butler cleared his throat.
“And you are, milady?” he requested.
Rarity answered automatically. “I am the Lady von Pampf, of course. Do you not recognize me?”
“Apologies, milady,” the butler said, bowing and stepping aside – leaving Rarity to wonder for a moment why she had introduced herself in such a way.
Before she could ponder on it for long, however, she passed through the door – discovering it to contain socialite ponies engaged in a party, talking amongst themselves.
Rarity began to wander among the ponies, occasionally stopping to discuss pleasantries with one stallion, or comment on the dress of another. She, of course, never spent too long in one place, lest somepony actually recognize her. After all, the absolute worst thing that could happen at a party like this would be to actually be seen! Rarity paused in her aimless trotting, suddenly a bit confused. That… was how these type of fancy parties worked, right? It must be, why else would she have given such a silly name to the butler? Nopony really wanted to be seen here, they were only here to see if they could find other ponies who didn’t want to be seen here.
As she trotted about, she suddenly spotted somepony else. She wasn’t sure why this pony was important, he didn’t seem to be of a particularly higher class than any of the other ponies here, but something told her she needed to talk to this pony in particular, and soon. She began to trot over to him, still trying her best to not look too obvious before stepping up to him. “Ah, Cuddlesworth, I’m glad I’ve found you! I’m dreadfully sorry our… meeting had to be postponed so.”
“Ah, von Pampf, so long since we've talked,” the stallion replied easily. “Charmed, charmed. And yes, it's a dreadful pity.”
He made a little self-effacing gesture. “Still, what can one do, when duty calls.”
“Of course,” Rarity agreed, not quite clear on what the duty would be but thinking that had to be the sort of thing one said in a situation like that. “Still, one hopes that the duty would be a little less onerous?”
“Perhaps, perhaps,” Cuddlesworth said.
He turned, sweeping Rarity along with him, so they were a little out of the general flow of the fancy do. “Now, I had a few minor issues to discuss with you, my dear.”
Rarity frowned slightly, wondering if she should move on – certainly Cuddlesworth recognized her by her false name, but what if other ponies got a good look at her and realized who she really was? “I'm sorry, but I must-”
“Don't you wonder?” Cuddlesworth interrupted. “How the owner of this mansion made their money? It seems like the sort of thing a pony would want to find out.”
“I…. suppose that's true,” Rarity agreed.
“And, perhaps, if there was a pony who might be able to find out, they should go and find out by day or by night,” Cuddlesworth went on. “Don't you think?”
“Yes,” Rarity agreed again, sure that she should agree with that. Her sense that she should talk to this pony went away, replaced by a sudden insatiable curiosity about the subject they'd been talking about.
“Well, don't let me keep you,” Cuddlesworth went on, and stepped back.
Rarity made her way through the party to the edge, still trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, and reached a small alcove out-of-the-way of the main group. She summoned her wardrobe again, removing her gown, and replaced it with a maid's outfit complete with a short miniskirt and a feather duster.
She wasn’t giving much thought to her choice of dress. It simply seemed the most necessary at the time. And she did need to find out just how exactly this pony managed to procure their money, after all…
Stepping back from her wardrobe, she began to trot through the mansion, occasionally stopping to dust some windowsill or bust of a pony. After all, if she wanted to look the part of a maid, she needed to act accordingly!
As she walked through the mansion, Rarity’s mind began to drift off. Wasn’t she supposed to be doing something? Something that didn’t involve staking out somepony’s house? Was it groceries? No, that couldn’t be it, that seemed much too ordinary for somepony like herself to be doing!
Her daydreaming was interrupted by somepony trotting down the hall, looking her over. “What are you doing here?” He barked out. Rarity found herself at a loss for words. What was she doing here? She wasn’t supposed to be here, this was somepony’s house, she was just here for the party! And why was she wearing such a ridiculous outfit? “Get back to the maid’s quarters now, before Madame Bloompers gets down here and sees you wasting time on dusting when there’s other chores to be done!”
Rarity squeaked and hurried off down the hall. This was horrible, everything was going wrong!
As she turned the corner, she suddenly bounced off of two ponies, who looked down at her through dark shades. “She’s the one?”
“Yep.”
“Alright, let’s get her to questioning.”
“Questioning?” Rarity repeated, a little breathlessly. “But I'm just a maid trying to do her job!”
Her plea didn't seem to convince the two ponies, who took her and began marching her through the corridors of the mansion.
There were several twists, turns, long flights of stairs (leading both up and down) and Rarity had a nagging feeling that she'd gone a lot further than should be possible in a building the size of the one she'd seen from the outside – which itself seemed a lot bigger than there should really be nearby…
Puzzling over it, she nearly lost track of the situation – until the shades-wearing ponies took her into a large room, with two seats for them and one with a big adjustable light over it which was probably for her.
“Sit down,” the first pony said, and Rarity sat – fiddling with her feather duster absently.
“Who are you working for?” the second asked.
Rarity paused, realizing that was actually a very good question. She didn't even know whose mansion this was!
“I don't know,” she admitted.
“Why are you here?”
“I… don't know that either?”
“What do you know?” the first pony said.
Rarity was forced to shrug, not sure what they wanted to hear and knowing they wouldn't appreciate her entire life's history.
There was a muttered discussion between the two shades-wearing ponies, and then one of them adjusted the lamp so it was shining directly at her. The other did something with a switch on the wall, and suddenly bright, coloured lights were flashing into Rarity's eyes.
“Alright, I want you to listen to me very carefully…” The first pony said. Rarity gave a small nod as she stared into the colorful lights. Despite how bright they were, she found it hard to look away. Any time her eyes did managed to pull away from them, she just ended up staring back again as a feeling of need washed over her.
“Now, we need…. Investigate…. Puffers gang…. Incognito….” Rarity had a difficult time following the conversation, as if it was full of a bunch of words she didn’t know. She simply stared up into the lights, focusing more on their colorful shifting than on the words being spoken to her…
A moment later she blinked, the lights having been turned off and the two ponies stepping away from her. “Alright, you know your mission, now go deal with the gang. ‘It’s a cold day for pontooning.’” The words echoed through Rarity’s mind, and she suddenly jumped up to her hooves, gave a quick salute, and began to trot back up the stairs. She didn’t even register the rather puffy diaper she was now sporting under the skirt of her maid outfit as it crinkled loudly…
Waddling a little as she trotted up the stairs, Rarity looked around.
What was she supposed to be doing again?
She had to clean up, surely? She was in a maid's outfit, so that seemed like the logical conclusion. But at the same time, she had to investigate a gang, so perhaps that was because she had to clean up in a metaphorical sense.
“Madame Bloompers, just the pony I wanted to see!”
At the sound of a conversation from just around the corner, Rarity stopped – taking a few cautious steps back so she would be out of sight.
She didn't want to run into Madame Bloompers, who would definitely ask her why she hadn't been doing the cleaning! She'd have to put on some kind of disguise…
Summoning her wardrobe, Rarity looked through her choices. All she needed to do was not be a maid, but perhaps she should try something that would let her follow her instructions to deal with the gang?
The conversation between Madame Bloompers and the unknown stallion she was talking to got closer, and Rarity took the first outfit that caught her fancy.
She pulled out a black pinstriped suit and vest, slipping them on and tugging the pants up as quickly as she could. She gave no notice to the fact that rump of her new disguise was at least twice as large as the one for the maid outfit, and forced her hind legs to be spread apart. She placed a hat upon her head as the final piece before waddling back out into the open. Madame Bloompers was too busy chatting away with whoever this new pony was to pay much attention as Rarity did her best to hurry on by.
She slipped out a back door, finding herself standing in a rather dingy looking alleyway. She wasn’t able to pay much attention to it as she began to hurry down the streets of the town, making her way towards the warehouse district…
Rarity pulled out a pocket watch from her jacket, checking the time. It was… 15:72, still plenty of time, she figured before stowing it. She soon found herself standing at the front of a warehouse with a faded sign reading ‘Cream’s Creamery’ above the door. She knocked, and a section of the door slid away to reveal somepony’s eyes staring down at her. “Yeah? Watcha want?”
Rarity's mind blanked for a moment. She didn't think “I'm here to infiltrate the gang” would go down well, but nothing else seemed to occur to her…
“I'm… an inspector,” she said quickly.
“An inspector?” the pony replied. “We don't need an inspector.”
“You don't want an inspector,” Rarity corrected him. “But, dear me, you need one! How else are you going to ensure quality control?”
She spun around, incidentally bumping into the door with the bulk of her outfit. “Why, imagine if you delivered damaged or subpar goods? You could be liable for all sorts of damages! And that's not even getting into the woodworm that's been going around!”
“Well, uh...” the pony began, thrown. “I, guess you'd better come in then...”
His eyes disappeared and the eye-hole slid closed, and a moment later the door opened – making Rarity stagger back a step or two, as she'd still been leaning on it.
She retrieved her clipboard, and began looking around the door, making a few notes. “Yes, this is still in quite good shape… there's some dreadful rust around that lock… and it looks like it swells in the damp, to boot. I'd say you need to get this looked at.”
The guard pony simply stammered and muttered a bit, still a little unsure of what exactly this new pony was supposed to be doing. Rarity ignored him, trotting onwards and making a few more fake marks on her clipboard. “Oh yes… Oh, I see… Hmm, that’s definitely worth acknowledging.” She spoke on, trying to sound as official as possible while going about her business. The pony followed after her, Rarity lifting up a box and giving a soft squeak of fright as a few spiders scurried out from beneath it across the floor. “You’ll definitely want to take care of those.” She said, actually bothering to make a note about spiders to remind herself never to come back here again.
Continuing onwards, she pushed open a door to reveal several burly looking ponies hurrying back and forth, each carrying large boxes around. “Oh my word, and what is this?” Rarity asked, walking up and taking several notes. The pony began to glance about nervously, sweating bullets as he wondered if his bosses were anywhere nearby. Rarity stepped up to one of the boxes a pony had just placed. She let out a gasp upon seeing what was inside. Unfathomable! Inconceivable! The most despicable, horrible, evil thing one could ever create!
“Smuggled baby formula!”
“Who said that?” one of the ponies asked.
Rarity blinked, but rallied. “I'm the inspector,” she explained. “And this is-”
“Hey, stop her!” shouted the forestallion. “She's not supposed to be in here!”
Turning, Rarity tried to gallop away – wondering if she should have learned Twilight's teleport spell – but the thick bulk of her outfit made her waddle, and she stumbled and tripped.
The gang ponies cantered up to her before she could get back to her feet, and two of them took her legs while a third slipped a magic blocker over her horn.
“Well, well,” a new voice said, deeply amused. “What do we have here?”
Rarity turned as much as she could, and saw a mare wearing a slinky dress.
“It looks like we've caught a sneak,” she went on. “Bring her this way, we know how to deal with ponies like this.”
She nodded at the door pony, who was looking shocked. “As for him… make sure he doesn't mess us up with any more accidents.”
“No!” the doorpony cried out. “Please! I'll be good!”
“You will be good,” the mare said. “And nice and well protected, too.”
Rarity was hauled off in one direction while the stallion was dragged off in another. She struggled feebly against the grip of the ponies, but it was of little use. The ponies pulled her into a side room, throwing her unceremoniously into a chair. The slinky dressed mare trotted up to Rarity, looking smugly down at her. “So, you were sent here by the Soggins gang, weren’t you? Spit it out, I know who you work for!” She said smugly.
Rarity simply shook her head, trying to maintain her composure. “I swear I’ve never heard of them before! I don’t even really know why I’m here! I was at a party, somepony wanted to see me, and…” Rarity’s voice trailed off as she wracked her brains. What had she been doing at that party?
The mare just gave a snooty ‘hhmmpph!’ before trotting away from Rarity to the other end of the room. “Won’t talk, eh? Well, that’s just as good, I suppose. We’ll have you talking soon enough, but it’ll be about the Soggins’ secrets once you find them out!” She gave a cartoonishly evil laugh.
“What do you mean?” Rarity asked.
Instead of answering, however, the mare flicked a switch on a nearby gramophone. It began to play, producing a series of odd sounds.
Rarity frowned, wondering why this obviously criminal pony was playing her music instead of trying to force her to speak, but her concentration wavered as the music played – drawing her in, making her feel light-headed.
“That's better,” the mare said, laughing again. “Now those fools won't know what hit them! Why, I imagine they'll be flabbergasted!”
“Flabbergasted,” Rarity repeated, the word sparking something off. Suddenly she knew there was something else she had to be doing, immediately if not sooner.
“Why yes,” the mare agreed. “Those Soggins will be made to marvel at my genius!”
As she gloated, however, Rarity got out of her chair. She slipped off the horn ring with a quick movement, then cantered off.
“What?” the mare asked, turning back to look. “Blast!”
Rarity found a quiet corner, and summoned her wardrobe. She took off the pinstriped suit, and replaced it with an all-over outfit a little like a boiler suit – but much thicker and softer, and with a bulge in the rear which was even larger than any of the outfits she'd worn before.
The word flabbergasted still echoed in her mind, and she knew what she had to do – though she wasn't really clear on the why.
She puffed the wardrobe away and began to waddle back down the street away from the formula warehouse. Her rump swayed from side to side, each step being met with soft crinkles, but Rarity hardly even noticed. Instead she simply trotted through the town, making her way towards the center of town.
Standing in the middle of town square was Mayor Mare, dressed in an elegant sequin dress (one she had actually bought from Rarity), giving a very long, and admittedly dull speech about the importance of lamp shades. Rarity snuck into the crowd, trying her best to avoid bumping her puffy rear into the other ponies. With how large it was, though, this was a near impossibility. Ponies grumbled, moving out of Rarity’s way as she trotted up to the front of the crowd.
As she approached, she reached into a pocket in her suit, pulling out a rather large water pistol. She took careful aim at the Mayor, and pulled the trigger.
Water was sent flying up onto the stage, soaking the Mayor’s face and her dress. She sputtered, shaking her head as her mane flopped about. “What the? What’s the meaning of this?” She looked through the crowd, trying to spot the culprit. “Pinkie, is that you again?”
Rarity turned, canter-waddling away from the stage. She fired her water pistol at another pony as she did, making him yelp in surprise, and the sound made the crowd scatter.
That only led to enough space around Rarity that some of the other ponies in the crowd could actually see her, and one mare pointed a hoof. “That's her!”
“It's not Pinkie!” added another pony.
Rarity began to move faster, her suit crinkling more loudly as the thick butt swung from side to side, and she used the water pistol twice more to help clear her way to the nearest alley.
As she waddled, though, she wondered why she'd just splashinated Mayor Mare. It didn't seem like the sort of thing she'd do.
Ducking into the alley, Rarity quickly changed her outfit again. The thick, soft suit went back in the wardrobe, replaced by an equally thick diaper, and she put on her maid dress again – it just seemed right.
The stampede of ponies chasing after the waterpistolier stopped at the entrance to the alley in a remarkable display of coordination, looked in to see who was in there, then stampeded off in another direction.
A few seconds later, Rarity trotted out of the alley, ready to go to her next assignment.
Assignment? Rarity shook her head. Her next appointment, that was it.
Rarity trotted in the opposite direction of the crowd, brushing a bit of dust off her jacket. She thought for a moment. If that gang had been smuggling foal formula… then somepony in town had to be buying it… and the only ones in town interested in that would be at the Foal Foundation! She began to trot quickly in that direction, determined to get to the bottom of this mystery she had only found out about several minutes ago.
The building of the Foal Foundation rose above the surrounding houses in ponyville, looking distinctly out of place for such a quaint town. Rarity marched up to the front door, only to pause and shake her head. No, no, no, this wouldn’t do at all. She couldn’t just walk in the front door like some normal pony! She was supposed to take the employee entrance for important meetings like this! She quickly turned on her heels and walked around the side of the glass building towards a back door.
Pushing open the door, she quietly stepped inside, her frilly dress ruffling slightly in the breeze as it rushed in the door after her. Now, if she was a super secret illegal smuggling ring… where would she hide?
“There you are!” a mare called, and Rarity jumped.
“Why haven't you cleaned the sixteenth floor yet?” the mare asked crossly.
Rarity stared for a moment. “Madame Bloompers?”
“Don't you give me that!” Madame Bloompers told her. “Now, get up to the sixteenth floor and clean it!”
Rarity bobbed her head, too intimidated (and confused) to argue, and trotted over to a conveniently nearby lift.
Once she was in, however, she saw that there were whole rows and columns of buttons. Three blocks of them, then a gap, then another block.
Inspecting the numbers, Rarity realized that there were floors from one to thirty, and from forty-one to fifty – but an entire block of ten floors was missing entirely!
She touched the area between the two blocks of buttons, and it rattled slightly.
Rarity's horn lit up as she got ready to pull the panel away, but suddenly a thought struck her. Shouldn't she be doing what Madame Bloompers said? She didn't want to get into more trouble!
The conundrum puzzled Rarity, leading to her sitting on the floor – producing a crinkle – and wondering how to solve it.
She tossed the ideas around in her head, trying to figure out what to do. She really ought to get to that meeting, it did seem very important to her that she should be there, even if she couldn’t piece together why it did. On the other hoof, if Madame Bloompers was this fed up already, she didn’t want to get on her bad side! Surely cleaning the 16th floor shouldn’t take that long… right?
Rarity pressed the corresponding button and the elevator began to rattle, carrying her slowly upwards. Rarity wondered how there were 50 floors in the building, it certainly didn’t seem that tall from the outside, but wasn’t able to wonder much longer before the doors opened to reveal the floor.
The floor was full of delicate china pieces, each coated in a layer of thick dust. Rarity give a gulp. Perhaps she shouldn’t have put off cleaning this place for so long… She waddled out into the floor, conjuring up a feather duster as she got to work wiping down a vase as the duster cleaned off a decorative plate.
The vase was easy enough to do, the dust sliding off easily and collecting on her dusting cloth, but then Rarity realized a problem – as she did more dusting, then the cloth would get dirtier until she might be adding as much dust as she was removing.
Deciding to think about it later, she moved on to the next piece – gently removing the dust, diapered rump waving back and forth as she did as she was told. The feather duster moved back and forth as well, just inside her sightline as it cleaned the less-breakable pieces in line with where she was working.
Something about the repetitive movement and simple work soon had Rarity just going along with it, until she reached the end of the first row – surprised at how quickly things had gone.
She glanced up at the plaque of the piece she was cleaning, which denoted it as being presented by 'Lord Piddlepants'. The name barely registered, certainly not as unusual, but a moment later Rarity shifted uncomfortably as she felt the need to go to the bathroom.
She looked for a sign that might indicate one, but the whole floor seemed to be nothing but one large room of china pieces on pedestals – so she went back to her work, not wanting to waste too much time, and saw the plaque again.
This time she'd barely finished reading the plaque before her bladder let go, and she gave an embarrassed whimper as she soaked her diaper.
Her padding swelled up as she wet it, growing squishy as she waddled to the next piece of porcelain. She tried to push the thoughts out of her mind as she continued her work, though the occasional squish from her padding made that rather difficult. She had moved on to polishing a large trophy, one that read ‘#1 Puffbutt’. No matter how much she rubbed and polished the trophy, however, it absolutely refused to grow any cleaner. She levitated over her feather duster, rubbing it swiftly across the gold surface. Still, the trophy remained dirty.
Rarity gave a bit of a huff, looking down at her rag. It was far too dusty, of course! No wonder it wasn’t working! Rarity looked around for someplace to shake out her dusty cloth, but there looked to be no good place to do so without dirtying up another piece. She looked over her shoulder at her thick padding, pausing before giving a soft shrug. At this point, she didn’t really think she had a choice.
She began to rub the cloth over her diaper to wipe it clean, but, rather than the diaper gathering up the dust, the padding simply grew shinier, as if she was removing more dust and revealing a silvery mirror coating beneath.
After what had quickly turned from cloth-cleaning to polishing, Rarity found herself with a mirror-bright diaper possessed of quite a slight curve – largely due to the sheer size of the padding.
She admired herself in it for a moment, or what felt like a moment, before shaking her head and returning to her cleaning. The cloth at least seemed to be cleaner now, which didn't really make sense, but Rarity dismissed her worries and got to work.
The amount of time she spent working on the room's huge assortment of porcelain plates, fragile china and assorted very dirty things was… unclear. The cleaning was easy, simple and monotonous, and Rarity was so used to it that when she knocked a plate off the shelf the smash made her jump.
“Oh, no!” she said out loud, wincing. “Madame Bloompers is going to be terribly mad at me!”
Looking around desperately for some way to sort the situation out, Rarity saw one of the last uncleaned pieces of china – which included a plaque describing it as being produced by Infiltration Quality Industries.
Suddenly, Rarity realized what she had to do – she was supposed to be in here to sneak around and find out something important, not to clean plates! Though she'd mostly finished with that anyway, looking around…
Shaking her head, and resolving not to get distracted again, Rarity summoned her wardrobe and replaced her maid's outfit with something better suited in her mind to going without being noticed.
In her conviction to not be distracted, Rarity entirely missed that she'd just put on a quite literal cat suit – one with cute paw gloves and a white-tipped feline tail – without actually changing her still-damp diaper.
She was about to waddle her way back to the elevator, when it suddenly struck her that was likely a very un-sneaky thing to do. She was supposed to stay hidden, and anypony could see somepony take the elevator! There had to be some other way…
As Rarity pondered, she felt a cool brush of air on her suit, causing her to look over her shoulder. A vent that had most assuredly not been there before was blowing a cool breeze over her diaper. She wandered over to it, bending down to peer in. It looked as if the air ducts went through the whole building…
Her horn began to glow as Rarity undid the screws to the vent before bending over and wriggling herself in. It took several minutes, with her thick diaper requiring an extra amount of struggling to squeeze it through, but soon she was scooting through the air ducts. The crinkles and squishes from her padding echoed around her as she pushed her way through the ventilation, trying to find some way up to the hidden floors. She soon approached a vertical shaft, looking up to see it travel up into seemingly nothingness. Lacking a better option, Rarity squueeeeezed herself through, hanging from the edge of the vent as she looked down.
Her diaper pressed into the vent walls as her hooves kicked to gain a hold. No matter how she wriggled and squirmed, she couldn’t stay put. Her face turned a bright red as she began to slip, her diaper crinkling again. She slipped a bit further, almost losing her grip on the vent. A bit further… futher… and…
Rarity began to slide down the vent, her horn flaring up instinctively as she tried to think of a way to stop her descent.
POMF!!
Rarity's fall was arrested all of a sudden by her diaper growing to a much greater size – wide enough that it filled the shaft, and tight enough against the walls that the force of gravity alone could not make her slide any further.
Blushing, Rarity looked down a little to see the fabric of her outfit – lit by the glow of her horn – squidged into the metal walls of the pipe. She breathed a sigh of relief, then began wondering how to get up to where she was aiming for.
An attempt to lift herself telekinetically didn't work, because she was so tightly wedged. She considered shrinking the diaper again the same way she'd expanded it, but dismissed that idea automatically – she didn't feel like reducing the scope of her poof… and she wasn't really sure how she'd done it in the first place, anyway.
Wiggling about, Rarity winced as one of her hooves hit the side of the pipe – but instead of producing the clang she was expecting, it just produced a faint squeaky noise.
Looking again at her hooves, Rarity saw they were in slightly-inflated plush paw mittens. That confused her, making her wonder why she'd been wearing them, but that worry too quickly went away as she realized she could use them to climb up the shaft!
No wonder she'd put them on, Rarity decided, and began to use both her telekinesis and her 'climbing equipment' to ascend the shaft – a process which produced an occasional squeak and squish from her outfit, and which took quite a long time per floor.
The missing floors were… thirty-one to forty, she remembered. This might take a while…
squeak
crinkle
squeak
crinkle
Rarity hoisted herself slowly up the shafts, panting a little from the effort. She had been climbing for… some time. She really wasn’t sure what that time was, but it was certainly a while. And she had lost track of the floor she was on. She had passed the 16th, she was sure of that but… was she at the 25th yet? 30? Did she go too far?
Rarity pushed the thoughts out of her mind and began to climb again. Surely, she hadn’t overshot it yet, she hadn’t really been climbing that long, she thought. She came up to another vent leading out of the vertical shaft, looking down it to try and spot what was happening on the other side of the grate. She heard some faint muffling of ponies talking, and curiosity spurred her to squeeze her way into the vent and crawl towards the grate. She peered out of the air duct, spotting a few ponies sitting around a large circular desk, each sporting thick padding under their fancy suits.
“Gentlemen… behold!” A particularly thickly padded pony at the front proclaimed as he pulled down a projector screen. The lights dimmed and suddenly a slide showing some overly complicated device appeared. “The Puffinator 3000! With this, it will become trivial to trap ponies in their own diaper fluff, allowing us to take over Equestria with ease!”
Rarity gasped – demurely, of course – and adjusted her position a little so she could see and hear better.
This was just what she'd come to find out! The true plans of the ponies behind this nefarious plot, who were… apparently all just finding about this now, in a very convenient way.
Still, it was exactly the information she needed, so Rarity watched closely as the padded-up pony proceeded to proclaim the padding-pursuant plot.
Apparently the first step was to ensure that everypony in Equestria – from the smallest foal to the Princesses themselves – was so used to being padded up that they would barely be able to think of a situation where that wasn't the case.
The stallion explained this by showing some of their latest TV adverts, which Rarity watched avidly – though part of her mind was wondering whether she'd seen them before.
They blurred into one another…
... and when Rarity jolted back to full awareness the pony was already explaining how step three was to activate the sleeper agents hidden in the population.
Realizing she'd missed step two, Rarity shuffled a little closer to the vent to hear better as the pony explained how step four would be to launch the coup itself – trapping the Princesses and all their guards in their own padding, so they could just take over unopposed.
“Now, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the trigger commands,” the stallion went on, “one of you has been implanted with a trigger word. Don't worry, it's harmless, and the result will simply be to show how effective the commands are.”
He cleared his throat. “Who's a puffy diaper butt?”
The words echoed in Rarity's ears...
“Ooh, ooh, I am, I am!” Rarity suddenly heard herself shouting out, as if she was hearing some other pony say it for her. Her mitted paws immediately slapped over her muzzle, making them squeak along her own whimper of surprise. Everypony looked over to the vent, spotting Rarity lying there motionless. “Uh… um… squeak, squeak! I’m just a mouse!” Rarity tried to convince the conference fruitlessly.
She felt magic surround her, squeezing her into the grate before it popped off and she was tugged out of the vent and left hanging in the stallion’s magic. “Well, well, well, I don’t suppose this puffy diaper butt would mind helping out with the rest of our plan, then?” He smirked, looking her up and down. Rarity struggled to free herself, but it was no use. The stallion began to monologue, Rarity not paying much attention to what he was saying as her horn glowed brightly. Her wardrobe appeared and a thick diaper floated out, levitating itself behind the stallion’s head. It suddenly smacked into him, a puff of foal powder causing him to cough and splutter.
Rarity dropped to the ground as his magic faded and began to sprint towards the window. Everypony looked about in confusion as she attempted to make her escape. With a resounding crash, she charged through the window, leaping out into the air over ponyville. She began to fall down, tumbling through the air as the others looked out of the window at her diving down.
As Rarity fell towards the street, she realized that perhaps this hadn't been her smartest plan.
She looked down, wincing at the sight of the ground so far away, then twisted around – her kitty-tail moving as she swished her real one inside it – to look back up at the broken window she'd left through.
The hole was shaped just like her – well, like her with her costume and diaper, anyway – and there didn't seem to be any dangerous shards of glass, so she should be safe on that front.
Rarity thought about how to get out of the situation, noticing that she was falling oddly slowly. She certainly wasn't going to complain, but it seemed strange… though that was quickly overridden by trying to work out what to do.
She could try and find a glider in her wardrobe, perhaps, or something that would work as a glider costume. Or she could see if she had a grappling hook, or something to stick to the side of the building and arrest her fall.
Perhaps she should just land diaper-first and have that absorb the impact?
Rarity thought and pondered and contemplated, weighing the pros and cons of each method, and attempting to combine them together in a way to possible eliminate said cons. She tapped her chin as her mane fluttered wildly around her, unsure of which she preferred. She supposed the grappling hook would at least be a good place to start. Should it not work, she should be able to find the hang glider in time. As she opened her wardrobe mid-air, dresses, hats, diapers, and every bit of clothing imaginable began to fall out, being swept away by the rushing wind. Rarity didn’t really mind, though, she simply kept an eye out for the hook.
As a particularly large diaper swept by, though, she felt the tapes snag on her costume, the back fluttering in the breeze before…
Fwoomp!
The diaper caught the air, expanding to a rather silly degree as she began to slow her descent even further. She drifted away from the building as the diaper acted like a parachute, allowing her to slowly guide herself towards the ground.
When Rarity finally landed, after what part of her felt was an exhilarating few seconds but the rest of her insisted had been something closer to ten minutes, she packed what bits of her clothes she could find back into her magic wardrobe before waddling away from the scene of the crime as quickly as possible – lest she be charged with cause to affray, generalized loitering, or even littering!
Glancing behind her in case there was any pursuit, Rarity rounded a corner and promptly bumped into somepony.
“Oh – I am sorry,” she apologized, stepping back a pace, then got a look at the pony she'd run into.
It was a unicorn with a black suit and a pair of sunglasses, accompanied by another unicorn dressed more-or-less identically.
“Come with us, madam,” the first one said.
“Wait – what – who are you?” Rarity asked, feeling quite aggrieved.
“We are the Mares in Black,” the second one informed her, holding up a tube-shaped thing with a light on it. The light flashed, and Rarity suddenly wobbled a little on her hooves – feeling very dizzy.
“Come with us,” the first one repeated, and this time Rarity couldn't think of a good reason to say no.
Behind her, dresses and blouses and all manner of items of clothing rained down over the main street.
Rarity’s mind was all befuddled as she trotted behind the ponies, her padded rear swaying back and forth as she mindlessly followed along. The two ponies stepped up to a discrete carriage, one stepping inside while the other motioned for Rarity to get it. She climbed up onto the steps, her padding getting stuck in the door for a moment before the second pony shoved her inside before clambering in after her.
The carriage began to roll forwards, Rarity bouncing lightly along inside. She vaguely wondered where she was going, why she was with these ponies, and wasn’t there something she was supposed to be doing earlier too?
These thoughts were swiftly pushed out of her head as she bounced on her puffily padded rear, the squishes and crinkles distracting and soothing her.
It wasn’t very long… or maybe it was, Rarity wasn’t all that sure, before the Mares in Black opened up the doors to the carriage and pushed her outside. She gasped as she looked up to see the magnificence of Canterlot Castle looming over her, the stones glistening in the sunset.
“Come on, we’ve got work to do, and you don’t want to keep Luna waiting…”
“Right,” Rarity nodded, not wanting to keep a Princess waiting.
She'd never heard of these Mares in Black before, but, then… that was the point, perhaps?
Shaking her head a little, dismissing such questions, she waddled behind the two black-suited mares through one of the postern gates of Canterlot Castle. They went up, down, along, around a spiral staircase, and ultimately came out into a large audience chamber – empty but for the throne in the far corner.
Rarity gasped. That was – Nightmare Moon!
“Is something the matter?” Luna asked.
Rarity frowned, put a hoof to her forehead, and then answered. “Um… no, I just-”
She stopped, not wanting to say it – it would sound crazy. For a moment I thought you were Nightmare Moon?
Dismissing the idea, she cleared her throat. “Ah – you wanted to see me?”
“That is correct,” Luna agreed. “We have something to discuss.”
She produced a large pile of cloth, with a spiral-swirl pattern on the outside, and a pacifier. The pacifier she dangled from a chain, and Rarity suddenly found herself fixated on it.
“We're just going to have a talk,” Luna went on, soothingly, as she swung the pacifier back and forth. “And you're a good agent, so you don't want to disappoint a Princess. Do you?”
“No,” Rarity agreed easily.
“Good,” Luna said, and Rarity didn't pay any attention to the smirk on her face. “That's right. Now, I need you to be a sleeper agent. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Rarity agreed, finding it just so easy to agree.
Luna unfolded the pile of cloth, revealing it to be a thickly padded sleeper- with attachable mittens, and a flap to open to get at the diaper or diapers underneath. “Then you know what to do, sleeper agent Rarity.”
Rarity nodded again, her horn lighting up as she levitated the sleeper over. She eagerly shoved the pacifier into her mouth without a second thought, giving it a few suckles as the chain clinked softly. She couldn’t help but grin as she suckled again, while she began to unzip the front of the sleeper. Slipping her hooves in, she gave a soft hum as she felt the warm fabric envelop her. She was quickly stuffing herself into the sleeper, the rear bulging out from the thickness of the pampers beneath it. The buttons on the flap strained, though were able to hold in the fluff of her rump as she pulled the zipper up snuggly.
Rarity was too busy wiggling her rear about and suckling on her pacifier to notice the fabric flowing over the metal of the zipper, sealing her tightly into the sleeper.
“Very good.” Luna said, smiling warmly. Rarity’s attention drifted back to the alicorn, who was leaning forward in her throne slightly. “Now, you’re a good puffy agent, aren’t you?” She asked.
Rarity nodded, shifting around to feel her diapers rub against the inside of the sleeper.
“And do you know what good agents do?”
“…f-follow orders?” Rarity guessed. She wasn’t sure why, but it seemed like the right answer.
Luna nodded, pleased with Rarity. “Good! Now, I want you to go and get me Celestia’s diary! She’s been keeping so many juicy secrets in there, I just have to know them!” Luna giggled.
Rarity grinned widely, giving a salute before she began to waddle off down the halls of the castle.
The fashionista-turned-agent paid little heed to the guards in the corridor, simply striding past them with a crinkle-crinkle-crinkle and assuming they would not stop her. She did notice, in a detached way, that they were turning to give her a close examination – but that, once they did, each individual guard just went back to stand where they'd been before.
And was she imagining it, or did they have something puffy under their armour?
Shrugging it off, Rarity ascended the last flight of stairs to reach Princess Celestia's chamber. She put her ear to the door and listened, hearing nothing, and was about to enter the room when she realized she wasn't thinking nearly enough like a proper agent.
Instead of just going in the front door, she trotted up another flight of steps to reach the window one floor above Celestia's window. She pulled a bouncer out of her wardrobe, fastening it to the ceiling, then got in and bounced down a floor to look through the window.
Seeing nothing, Rarity carefully used her magic to pull the window open. She had a little trouble getting out of the bouncer again – not only did it feel quite relaxing to just keep bouncing, but the clip holding it shut was hard for her mittens to press on – but managed, before sliding through the window and landing on all four padded hooves inside Celestia's apartment.
And there was the diary on the side! She made a step towards it, but was interrupted by a crinkle – and not from her own diapers.
Rarity turned slowly, only to gasp a moment later. Celestia was laying on her bed, wearing a diaper so thick it stretched nearly past her knees. She rolled over, mumbling something in her sleep. Rarity gave a soft sigh of relief, starting to inch towards the bedside table on which the diary lay. Celestia muttered something again, squeezing her diaper between her legs as Rarity slowly approached. Rarity caaaarrreeeeefully lifted the diary off the desk with her hooves before starting to waddle backwards towards the window again. Her padding puffed as it hit the windowsill, and Rarity let out a soft sigh. “Piece of cake…” she said quietly.
It was at that moment that Celestia’s eyes shot open and she sat bolt upright in bed. “Did somepony say cake?” She asked, licking her lips. She bounced up onto her hooves, her horn flashing as she suddenly was wearing a sleeper not dissimilar to Rarity’s. Rarity let out a yelp, Celestia turning to see her absconding with her diapery. “Hey! Stop right there!” Celestia whipped out a water pistol from seemingly nowhere, quickly taking aim and firing off several shots. Rarity yelped and bounced up into the bouncer, tugged up to the floor above her. She looked down at her diaper, giving a soft sigh upon seeing it was still dry. It wouldn’t stay so for long, though, as Celestia jumped out of the window and spread her wings, flying up to try and catch Rarity.
Abandoning the bouncer, Rarity began to waddle her way to the door. She reached it just as Celestia arrived at the window, and the enraged alicorn brandished her water pistol again before firing a burst at Rarity.
Some of the droplets splashed onto her sleeper, and Rarity blushed as they soaked in like magic – making her fully aware of the hit – before opening the door and doing as close to a gallop as she could manage in her sleeper.
She dove for the balustrade of the nearest stairway, sliding down one floor, and got off again with a faint squish sound from her diaper. Celestia could be heard following her, calling something about 'thieving unicornses', and Rarity racked her brains for what to do to slow the alicorn down.
An idea came to her, and Rarity ducked into one of the nearby rooms. She picked up needles, thread and blankets in her magic, and worked as fast as she could.
The door slowly creaked open as Celestia pushed on it with her horn's magic, and after it was halfway open she lunged into the room with her water pistol ready.
Firing at the first unicorn-shaped target she saw, she got it soaked – but then saw it was just a decoy, made of wool knitted together.
Before Celestia could react, Rarity unleashed the other thing she'd put together – a giant sewn-together soft toy tiger, which pounced on the sleepered Princess in the grip of Rarity's magic.
Exiting the room while Celestia was preoccupied, Rarity headed for the next staircase.
She leapt upon the bannister again, spinning about as the stairs spiraled downwards.
Celestia quickly managed to throw off the plush and began to chase after Rarity once more. Her own horn lit up as she conjured up several pillows. She tossed the pillows towards Rarity, one managing to hit and sending her flying onto the floor – but Rarity’s horn lit up as she cast a spell of her own, the floor turned suddenly soapy and sudsy.
Rarity slid along on her diaper with a prolonged squeak, Celestia leaping down and skating after her. Several more pillows flew past the unicorn, who, in an act of desperation, fired a shot of magic at some.
The pillows puffed up in a cloud of powder, suddenly stitched and decorated to look like fancy cakes. Celsestia slid by one, giving a soft “ooh!” as she became momentarily distracted. She picked up the large plush cakes, licking her lips again as she bit into them, only to spit out the mouthful of fluff a moment later.
“Why, that terrible tricky pony! I'll show you!”
Celestia’s suit began to puff up, stiches and seams running along her body as she became just as plush as her snacks. She began to gobble up the cakes, running after Rarity.
Rarity dared to look behind her, only to see nothing. Her dash was then suddenly brought to a halt as she ran into something with a large pomf! Looking up, Rarity let out a gasp as she found herself running into Celestia’s thick diaper, the plush alicorn now so stuffed with fluff she blocked the hallway! Celestia chomped eagerly down on more cake, wiggling her own fat rump as she bounced up to prepare to squish the small unicorn…
Rarity tried to turn and run – to waddle – to crawl away, but Celestia's bulky diaper loomed overhead as she stumbled. Then the crinkly mass of the Poofy Princess Padding came down on her with a flumph sound, trapping her completely beneath Celestia's rump.
“Ah, much better!” Celestia announced, shifting back and forth a little to make sure Rarity was completely trapped. “Now, agent, who sent you?”
Rarity's only reply was a mumble.
“Not going to tell me?” Celestia asked. “Well! There's only one punishment for lese-majeste in Equestria!”
Rarity tried to protest that she wanted to say who it was, but when she tried she suddenly stopped – finding herself sucking on her pacifier instead. Whenever she tried to tell her captor that Luna had done something to her, the pacifier became the most important thing in the world…
“...is it Magic Kindergarten?” Rarity asked, suddenly remembering her predicament.
“Of course not!” Celestia replied. “You're going to… The Playpen!” (crackathoom)
Even in her predicament, Rarity had to admit that that had style.
Rarity wriggled about beneath Celestia, trying desperately to tug her way to safety, but the princess of plush atop her was simply too heavy! “Oh, and before I forget…” Celestia’s magic tugged on the diapery, attempting to pull it out of Rarity’s grasp. Rarity gripped it tightly, being tugged out from under Celestia as she did. Unwilling to let go of the book, however, she was levitated in front of Celestia, who simply shook the book until Rarity was dropped into her hooves. The fat plush grinned as she pulled the waistband of her padding open and dropped the diapery down in to keep it safe and snug. Satisfied, Celestia stood up, waddling down the hallways as she gripped Rarity in her hooves, like a foal with her plushie.
The two soon came to another set of spiral stairs that Celestia waddled down down down down down… the air grew slightly cold as they found themselves in the dungeon, Celestia grinning widely as she tried to pick out the best place to put the thieving sleeper agent…
“Aha!” the Princess announced suddenly. Rarity looked up, startled, but only had time to catch a glimpse of a set of brightly-coloured bars before she was being levitated into the air by Celestia's magic.
After a few dizzying seconds, she landed on a floor with a rainbow-coloured pattern on it. Her diaper crinkled (and squished, a little) as she got up, and looked at her prison in greater detail.
There were piles and piles of soft plushes in one corner, and a set of bars for a foal gate in front of the door. The floor was soft and springy, and a few toys were scattered over it – though Rarity noticed the nature of the pattern on the floor, and lost her train of thought.
It was made from a great big four-armed spiral coming out from the middle of the floor, going through the rainbow three or four times before reaching the outer edge of the room. Each of the arms of the spiral had plenty of smaller spirals coming off it, and the background colour was a simple black to highlight the spirals better.
“You're staying in here until I decide you've been reformed,” Celestia told Rarity, then giggled. “But I think you're going to be a silly baby agent for a long time!”
Silly baby agent, Rarity's mind repeated. Silly baby agent...
Rarity began to search around for some way out of the playpen, her eyes tracking along the plushies, the spirals, the plushie… the spirals… the spirals…
This mission might be a bit of a tricky one…
