Update: There is now an audioplay for this story
Silver Spoon versus Breakfast
By: Your Antagonist
Editing Courtesy of: TheWattsMan, Plyxe, Brony2893, Cpl. Hoovesand Aziraphael
Round 1.... Bite!
The faint rays of the early morning sun peeked through the curtains of a certain filly’s bedroom in Ponyville. Slowly but surely the light crept along an inch at a time before finally illuminating and warming the curvatures of her blissfully exposed face. As it played across her eyelids, the sudden change in light became apparent to the lightly dozing filly, who began to stir and squirm beneath her sheets in preparation to make the transition back to the waking world. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she opened her eyes, taking her surroundings in one blurred shape at a time.
Yet even as her vision returned to its fullest extent, the shapes remained blurry and somewhat unrecognizable. This wasn’t new to the filly, however. Reflexively, she reached out to the nightstand on her left and retrieved a pair of thick-rimmed baby blue glasses that she affixed to her face promptly after acquiring them. She heaved a held breath as the world around her came into immediate focus. With a yawn, she drowsily slid out of her bed, landing unceremoniously on all fours. She trotted over to a large vanity mirror just to the right of her bed and began assessing her appearance: unruly bed-mane, tear stains around her eyes from her recent yawn, and chunk of hay and carrot from dinner the night before stuck in her teeth. Nothing a quick trip to the washroom couldn’t fix.
Just as she began to turn her attention away from the mirror, she noticed there was a note stuck on the upper left hand corner of the looking glass. Curious, the filly ripped the note down and began to read through it.
To our precious little Silver Spoon,
The silver-maned filly rolled her eyes as they scanned over the opening salutations. “Geez, mom and dad... really?” She wasn’t a little filly anymore, yet her parents insisted on babying her at every turn. Shaking the thought from her mind, she returned her attention to the letter and continued to read.
Your mother and I have urgent business to attend to at the Canterlot silver refining plant. As such, we will be home late tonight, perhaps even tomorrow morning. We’ve left you some bits for food on the kitchen counter, and a little extra just in case you wanted to invite Diamond Tiara over tonight, but we didn’t have enough time to cook anything for you and there are no leftovers, so you’re on your own for breakfast. You’re a smart girl though, I’m sure you’ll figure something out.
Love,
Poppa and Momma Spoon.
A slight smirk crawled across Silver Spoon’s lips as she mouthed the words “I love you too” in response to her parent’s closing line. A weak growling from her stomach and a glance at her disheveled appearance in the mirror reminded the filly that she still had a routine to adhere to. Without any further hesitation, she dropped the note in a nearby wastebasket and retired to the washroom just down the hall.
Much to her surprise, she found that a bath had already been run for her. She trotted up to the tub and cautiously dipped a hoof in the waters to test the temperature. While it wasn’t piping hot, there was still a pleasant sizzle to the water. Thinking nothing more of it, Silver Spoon slowly immersed herself into the tub, allowing the soothing waters to cascade over her head and shoulders, rejuvenating and relaxing her muscles with each minute she spent in their depths.
After what seemed like an eternity of bliss, she finally pulled the tub’s plug. As the water drained out, the residual moisture caused a slight chill to flow through Silver Spoon’s exposed flesh. She reached for a nearby towel and, after drying herself off, passed by the sink and contemplated brushing her teeth. Another slight gurgle from her stomach swayed her opinion rather quickly. “Nah,” she said to no one in particular. “I’ll do it after I eat breakfast. Toothpaste makes food taste weird anyway.” Her mind set, Silver Spoon vacated the bathroom and was en route to the kitchen when she heard something unusual.
“Oooohh, yeeeaaa!”
Silver Spoon stopped where she stood and looked around, searching for the source of the sound. After finding nothing out of the ordinary, she shrugged, and decided to press on. “Must’ve been the wind,” She mumbled.
“Are you ready for the madness!?”
That was definitely not the wind. Silver Spoon jumped and whipped her head around frantically in search of the voice. Yet again she found nothing. “H-hello? I-is somepony there?”
Silver Spoon waited nervously for a response, but only silence answered her. She knew for a fact that she had heard that voice two times now, yet it refused to respond to her. Cautious and on edge, Silver Spoon resumed her walk to the kitchen, arriving only a moment later. Much to her relief, she heard not a peep from the voice during the trip, and silently hoped that the source had left in that time period as well.
Pushing the voice to the back of her mind, Silver Spoon returned her attention to the matter at hoof: selecting a suitable source of nourishment. In theory it seemed like a simple task, but Silver Spoon herself lacked any real experience or intimate knowledge with her family’s kitchen as her parents had always prepared her meals or ordered out. She wasn’t unfamiliar with the idea of leftovers in these instances, but as her parents had specifically stated in their letter, there were none. Silver Spoon’s attention wandered from cabinet to cabinet, drawer to drawer, and finally the refrigerator.
Deciding to gamble on pure luck of the draw, Silver Spoon opted to investigate a nearby cabinet. Upon opening said cabinet, Silver Spoon was disappointed to find it was empty, save for bags of potato chips and water crackers. Shrugging off the less-than-satisfying find, Silver Spoon chose to open another cabinet, which unlike the last one was filled with foodstuffs that required a little bit of culinary prowess that the silver-maned filly sadly lacked. Cabinet after cabinet, drawer after drawer, Silver Spoon searched until at long last she finally stumbled across a singular colorfully decorated box flamboyantly labeled: Mighty Minotarts!
Needless to say, Silver Spoon’s curiosity was piqued. Standing on her tiphooves, the filly swatted relentlessly at the box until she found purchase on one of the corners and dragged it down. Silver Spoon stood over the festive box and raised an eyebrow at what she saw. The box itself was yellow and littered with explosively-colored buzzwords framing out a manic masked minotaur in wrestling tights. Silver Spoon’s attention, however, was directed to the bottom of the box which depicted an image of the proposed cereal served in milk.
“Huh, I think I could make that,” she said, marvelling over the simple preparation of the cereal. “Guess I won’t have to miss breakfast after all,” she chuckled.
“You hear that, Hunger? Silver Spoon is hankerin’ to heave a hurtin’ at ya!”
Silver Spoon jumped away from the box, shaking in fright as though it were possessed. “Okay, seriously, who’s there? Who is that?”
“Ooooohhh yeeaaa! It sound’s like this ferocious little filly is gettin’ all heated up, Hunger! I would notwanna be you right now!”
Unable to pinpoint the origin of the voice, Silver Spoon backed away from the box, and into the refrigerator door. “Please, just leave me alone! Take whatever you want, but just leave our house, please!”
“Silver Spoon! You’ve gotta get the bowl and tag in the milk, brother!”
“But— what—you—I’m a girl! Why are you doing this!?”
“This ain’t the time for that, brother. Just grab the milk out of the fridge!” the voice roared back.
“O-okay, if I do this will you just leave me alone?”
No response.
Silver Spoon hesitantly turned around and opened the fridge. She didn’t have to look particularly hard to find the carton of milk on the lowest shelf and scooped it out of the refrigerator without a second thought.
“Nice tag-in brother! Now bring it to the ring!”
“What ring? I don’t have any rings! Please, I’m begging you, just get out!”
“The bowl, brother! You gotta use the bowl to channel the spirit of the ring!”
Silver Spoon sighed. Clearly this voice wasn’t going to show itself just yet, but she didn’t want to agitate it into doing so. With that in mind, she decided to follow along with the voice’s demands for now. She trotted over to the sink and retrieved a clean bowl which she placed the bowl on the counter along with the milk and the cereal box, which she was still exercising caution towards. “Okay, now what?”
“It is time, Silver Spoon. Open... the box!” As the voice shouted those fateful words, the kitchen shook violently, Silver Spoon stumbling forward on shaky legs.
Faced with no other alternatives, the shaken filly peeled the flaps of the box away, allowing a radiant light to pour through, effectively blinding her as it flooded the kitchen with light. Once the intense luminosity died down, Silver Spoon slowly opened her eyes and gasped at what was standing on her counter. Where the cereal box once stood, there was instead a minotaur—not unlike the one on the box— pouring the milk into the bowl, which was now overflowing with cereal.
Silver Spoon stared at the massively monstrous minotaur in dazed confusion, her mouth hanging agape as though it were waiting for words to fill it. It didn’t take long for her mind to find the appropriate interrogatives to load her maw with. “H-how did you get in my house!? Who are you!? Why are you doing this to me!?”
It was at this moment that an irkingly familiar voice grated through her ears like claws on a chalkboard. “Silver Spoon! Candy Ravage wants to ask you a question!” the minotaur’s commanding voice boomed.
Silver Spoon stopped her quivering long to enough to answer the minotaur. “Y-Yes?” she squeaked.
The minotaur named Candy Ravage leaped from the counter and stomped menacingly over to the frozen filly who cowered in the shadow of his bulky biceps. The minotaur flexed one of his massive forearms before bringing it down on Silver Spoon with violent force. Yet he did not strike her. Instead, the minotaur dropped the cereal at her hooves and crossed his arms in front of his chest, flexing them until his veins popped. “Are you ready to fight The Hunger, brother?”
“Uh... I uhh—”
“No you’re not!” the minotaur shouted. “You know why?”
“No.” Silver Spoon squeaked in return.
“Because you ain’t got no spoon! And if you ain’t got no spoon, you can’t dig it, brother!”
“O-okay, I-I’ll just grab—”
“No need, Little Spoon! Watch this!” The minotaur reached behind himself and produced a block of steel. He slammed the block repeatedly against the kitchen floor until, through some miracle of physics and precision, he held up a crude and horribly bent ladle. “Here ya go, kid.” The minotaur tossed the mangled utensil into Silver Spoon’s cereal.
Silver Spoon looked at the ladle, then at her hooves, and looked back at the ladle again. “How am I even supposed to—” Silver Spoon looked up Candy Ravage who was preoccupied headbutting the everloving structural integrity out of her refrigerator. “Never mind, I’ll figure something out...”
“Wait a minute, Little Spoon, Candy Ravage hears something...” said Candy Ravage.
“Wait, what are you talking about?” asked Silver Spoon. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Candy Ravage knew it would only be a matter of time before you showed yourself... The Hunger.”
Just as the minotaur spoke those very words, a nearby wall in the kitchen exploded in a hail of shrapnel and dust. Through the wreckage walked a griffin clad in a black overcoat with ridiculous gothic makeup smeared across his face that was concealed under the shade of a large fedora.
“Who is that?” Silver Spoon shrieked. “Did you bring him with you?”
“Calm down, Little Dipper. You just eat some cereal and let Candy Ravage take care of this.”
“You know what? I don’t care if he came with you! Get out! Both of you get out of my house!”
“You hear that, Hunger? This little filly don’t want you here no more. I suggest you listen if you know what’s good for you.”
“I don’t want you here either! Both of you get out!”
The newcomer looked at Candy Ravage, then at Silver Spoon, and finally shook his head while drawing his thumb across his throat.
“Oooooh, Hunger! That was a baaad moooove, ‘cause you just pushed the go-time button!” The minotaur leaped onto a nearby countertop, successfully cracking the smoothed-out finish. He immediately ripped the torso off of his tights and pointed a massive log of a finger at the griffin. “Candy Ravage is comin’ for ya!” The minotaur gave one final unnecessary flex of his impressive biceps before leaping off the countertop, with his elbow to the ground and his hooves to the sky.
The Hunger cast his unimpressed gaze upon the incoming minotaur missile. The griffin took a step backwards just as Candy Ravage’s elbow impacted on the ground before him, scattering chunks of the kitchen floor in an explosion of dust and tile.
Furious, Candy Ravage picked himself up, ready to reel an emboldened uppercut into The Hunger’s exposed beak. He stood up, only to find himself staring directly into the griffin’s talons balled up into a fist, packing dangerous momentum behind it. As the retaliatory strike connected with minotaur’s forehead, his vision exploded into a sea of stars and darkness. Candy Ravage could feel the instant his hooves left the ground, and the gentle pull of gravity as he flew backwards, before he hit the ground back-first.
In his dazed state, the black-eyed minotaur’s gaze wandered around the kitchen, searching for something to focus on as he regained his senses. His doubling-vision fell on none other than the visage of Silver Spoon who was yelling something he couldn’t quite make out. The minotaur narrowed his eyes, and tried to concentrate on what she was saying despite the ringing in his ears.
“Get up! Get up! Get up and never quit!” This message of inspiration and encouragement rang through Candy Ravage’s ears, inspiring the minotaur to struggle to a stand. However, Silver Spoon’s shouting was more akin to: “Get out! Get out! Get out and never come back!”
Candy Ravage shook his head to clear his thoughts, and it was in that moment of clarity that he remembered The Hunger’s weakness. “Little Dipper!” he shouted, turning and kneeling in front of Silver Spoon. “Candy Ravage thanks you for your encouragement, but Candy Ravage needs your help to beat The Hunger! Do you think you’re up for it, brother?”
“Beat him?” Silver Spoon was flabbergasted at the insanity pouring forth from her unwanted ally. “How exactly am I going to do that!? If you haven’t noticed, he’s like, way bigger than me, and he just sent you flying across my kitchen, which you’re going to pay for by the way!”
“Lemme tell you something, Little Spoon! The Hunger is a mighty foe, but even he has a weakness. Do you know what that weakness is?”
“Uhhh...”
“Well, Candy Ravage is gonna tell you, Bronze Spork!” The minotaur flexed his bloated pectorals for no feasible reason.
Silver Spoon backed away from the odd minotaur, ensuring to keep her cereal bowl close. “Okay... uh, so, what is it?”
“The Hunger’s one and only weakness, is a f— Gwah!”
Silver Spoon recoiled in fear as Candy Ravage was lifted into the air, and hurled into her family’s oven by none other than The Hunger. The sullen-faced griffin then turned his attention to Silver Spoon, advancing menacingly.
Silver Spoon scrambled away frantically, only to find that she had backed herself into a corner. She looked to the left, and she looked to the right, but much to the filly’s dismay, there was nary an exit in sight. There was only the griffin, with his plumage spread wide in a display of dominance blocking her every hope for egress, and the cereal bowl, the contents of which had certainly gone soggy by now.
Silver Spoon didn’t want to die, that much was certain, but more than that, the filly didn’t want to die hungry. Choosing to accept the lesser of two evils, Silver Spoon clutched the awkward ladle with both hooves, dipped it into the bowl and brought the utensil to her lips. She greedily sucked down the soggy, shapeless mess of corn syrup puffs that had once resembled bullheads and fists, chewed it twice, and gagged as she swallowed it. As she felt the lumps of cereal travel down her gullet and into her empty belly, something very, very odd began to occur.
The Hunger, for all of his menacing size and intimidation, seemed somehow smaller to Silver Spoon. Experimentally, she took another ladleful of the cereal into her mouth, and watched The Hunger carefully. Just as she had expected, he shrank, if only by an inch. Realizing what Candy Ravage had been trying to tell her earlier, Silver Spoon tossed the ladle to the ground, and dove muzzle first into cereal bowl. Manners be damned, she was going to live through this, milk-covered muzzle or not. Silver Spoon sucked and swallowed every kernel in the bowl, and sure enough, The Hunger continued to shrink until he was the same size as Silver Spoon. Yet, despite Silver Spoon’s discovery, she still found herself at a disadvantage: she couldn’t fight. Something told her she wouldn’t have to.
A large shadow began to loom over the pint-sized griffin, and a familiar voice followed by the sound of cracking knuckles pierced through the tension. “Well, well, well, lookie what we have here...” The griffin squawked like a chicken as the massive hand of Candy Ravage wrapped around its gullet. “Heh, heh, heh, I know just what to do with you...” The minotaur tossed the tiny griffin in the air, and caught the bird firmly around the waist with both forearms. “Are you ready for the ride of a lifetime? Watch closely, Little Spoon!”
“Whatever, just do what you’re going to do and get out of my house. Please, I’m begging you, just leave.”
“You got it, Little Ladle! And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for!” Candy Ravage slid his feet apart, and straightened his back. “The Germane Suplex!” As he snorted those words, a fire sparked in the minotaur’s eyes. Candy Ravage bent his knees into a squatting position, before he rocketed backwards, arching his back like a rainbow. Just as his head was about to connect with the ground, the Minotaur threw his crossed arms back, forcing the griffin’s head to hit first, effectively taking all of the destructive momentum.
Candy Ravage stood up and brushed his shoulders off before retrieving his unconscious victim by the tail. “Thanks for the assist, Little Spoon, and just remember...” The minotaur reached into his tights and pulled out another box ofMighty Minotarts.“Mighty Minotarts are a part of a complete breakfast. Don’t be a foal, fight The Hunger.”
Silver Spoon gave the minotaur a look as if he had a unicorn’s horn growing out of his forehead. “Will... will you just get out of my house?”
“No prob, kiddo, Candy Ravage’s work is done here.” The minotaur turned and stomped out of Silver Spoon’s kitchen, and hopefully out of her life. Silver Spoon took a look around her kitchen and contemplated how she was ever going to tell her parents what had happened. It’s not like they were going to believe that a pro-wrestling minotaur broke into her house to promote a terrible cereal. With a sigh, the filly poured herself another bowl of Mighty Minotarts, but almost broke down in tears as she reached for the milk carton. “It’s empty...” It was going to be a very long morning.
A Few Hours Later
Silver Spoon had managed to push the catastrophic events from her breakfast to the back of her mind and decided to curl up on the couch of the family room with the technicolor television tuned to her favorite show: My Average Sized Human. She was going to be grounded regardless of what she told her parents, thus she decided to make use of whatever free time she had left. A slight gurgling in her stomach reminded her that it had been hours since her last meal.
“Hmmm, what should I have for lunch...” the filly mused as she hopped off the couch and trotted towards the kitchen. “I guess I’ll have a broccoli lettuce tomato sandwich and some of those potato chips,” she said to nopony in particular as she flitted about the kitchen and prepared her food, thankfully undistracted. Satisfied with her lunch, Silver Spoon set the plate down on the cracked counter and admired her work for a moment. “Not bad for somepony who can’t cook, but it’s missing something... ah, that’s it!”
Silver Spoon turned to the dented refrigerator, opened it and began searching the shelves, but was quickly disappointed to find that her search yielded no results. “We’re out of juice and soda? Oh no...”
At that moment a nearby wall exploded and the most unwelcome house guest of all introduced himself with a booming voice as he stepped through the wrecked kitchen. “Oh Yeah!”
The End.
