A Pie by any Other Name

In a shadow unseen. The reward for disobedience and the punishment for following orders. A new life for those fallen from grace. A last goodbye.

The town of Ponyville is one of those in which the concept of choked alleyways or shady corners - besides those under trees or patches heather - seemed wholly unnatural and disconnected from reality. It was something that happened to other places rather than in the slow provincial town of Ponyville - even as it began to get a sort of hustle to its old fashioned bustle.

Despite this, in the dimness of the receding day, a pony had found such a shaded corner beneath the overhang of a larger building. They stood silently, looking this way and that as if scanning for another pony or some lost possession.

"You did well." A voice whispered in the shadow beside them. The pony's heart nearly burst from their chest, but in the end they regained composure like a champ.

"I did what you told me to do."

"I know." The voice in the deeper shadow acknowledged.

"I did it for you, you know? I... I knew you were serious and I had to show you I was just as serious, so I did it. Just like you told me to." The first voice said, nervousness dripping from it.

"I know." The second voice said once more, no more emotion evident than the first time. The first voice's pony tried to spy the other pony, but failed - a second of thought bringing the voice's pony to the conclusion that it should keep talking. It might be safer and end with better results.

"Are... are you going to... you know-"

"No." It answered monosyllabically.

"B-but I did it for you!" It said a little louder, though still quiet enough to stay in the shadow.

"I told you to ask for divorce. We both know you didn't do that." The second voice said calmly.

"I... I know, but there was interference. I could've died!" The first voice went on.

"Excuse me, but I thought you were the type to mean it when they say 'I'd die for a chance to be with you', Cheese Sandwich." The second voice said, ripping what mask of anonymity the first voice had to begin with.

"I... I..."

"For disobeying me, I won't choke you until you are dead."

"W-wait, you weren't exaggerating? You were going to kill me‽" Sandwich said in no little amount of shock. It was only pure self preservation of a sort of upside down kind that kept his voice to a harsh whisper.

"Of course, I'm the type of pony that means it when I say 'I will choke you until you slip past unconsciousness into death', Mr. Sandwich. I thought you knew that."

"I just figured you were super kinky."

"No, Mr. Sandwich, I was quite serious." The second voice said in flat tones. Cheese Sandwich gulped, unsure what to expect now that the threat of killing him had been made plain to be an actual one that only just wouldn't be completed... because he hadn't done what he was told?

"Wait... so I'm not going to die because of this? You said I disobeyed you and you think it a punishment to not kill me?"

"Mr. Sandwich, I fully intend to make you come around to my point of view that dying now would've been your best option." Sandwich took a step back, exposing one of his hindlegs to the dying light of twilight.

"What are you going to do to me?" Sandwich asked, shaking profusely at the thought of what could make him wish such a dire thing.

"First, tell me, have you actually ever cheated on Pinkie? Answer honestly, the result of this question might affect the state of your genitals going forward." The second voice said in darker tones than what Cheese was used to or had wanted from the voice.

"N-no."

"So I would've been the first?"

"Yes, I... I mean, no..." He answered. "I... I... I'm sorry, I lied! Please forgive me!"

"How did you lie, Mr. Sandwich? Tell me what you said that was wrong and then tell me the truth. I again implore you to understand the fate of your dick is on the line."

"Please, I... I fooled around, I-"

"Ah ah ah!" The second voice interjected. "Do it properly like I told you, Mr. Sandwich."

"I... I'm sorry that I lied when I said I hadn't had any affairs. I actually fucked at least one mare per town I entered. Most of them were the mothers that couldn't pay for their foal's parties. Some were the pony who's birthday it was - those were only the eighteenth birthdays or the super hot ones though!"

"I see, so quite a few ponies then?"

"I... I don't know the number."

"Was it more than ten?"

"I guess?"

"Come now," the second voice said in the tones of a teacher extracting a valuable nugget of learned knowledge from a student, "Surely you can count to ten? Surely you haven't forgotten every face or cutie mark you fouled with your seed."

"I... yes, more than ten."

"More than twenty?"

"I d-... I g-... yes! More than twenty!"

"My goodness." The voice said with no real inflection of surprise or mirth. "Would you say that you've likely fucked, say, a hundred mares? More, fewer?"

"W-what? I don't even remember the names of a hundred ponies!"

"Oh no, I'm not asking you to remember names," The second voice soothed, "I'm not even asking for faces, just holes or cutie marks. Surely you can remember those since they matter so much to you."

"I... fewer. I travel slow and some towns don't have any mares I want to fuck!"

"Are you sure?"

"I... I... no!" He said, a thought of his balls egging him on.

"I see." The second voice entoned.

"B-b-but you were different! I had to have you - I have to have you! Please, I'll live in your basement chained to a wall if it means you let me sleep with you even once!" The second voice huffed, as if such an offer wasn't distasteful, but merely far too little in exchange for what they'd have to offer.

"Mr. Sandwich, because of those answers, you get to keep your junk. I'm still on the fence about it, but I suppose your reward for obeying every other line of our agreement wouldn't have the same... punch if you lacked your genitals."

"Oh thank Celestia..." Sandwich said on a sigh, his stance slackening.

"Why, Mr. Sandwich, I didn't think you would particularly want the next part of the agreement so openly. I thought as a stallion shortly to be unwed you might prefer certain amount of autonomy in your life - however much remains." The second voice said with a trill.

"Wait... w-what do you mean?" The second voice just laughed gently at the question before answering with an invisible smile.

"Do you recall the second half of the agreed prize you'd gain for obedience?" The second voice asked with a playful tone that was the same sort of playful as a cat was to a mouse.

"I... uh... you said you were going to fuck me so hard that I'd never be able to be with another mare or stallion again." Cheese Sandwich said uncertainly.

"Oh my, dear Mr. Sandwich, that is so close and yet so far from the important details." The voice said with an airy laugh before a hoof lashed out and wrapped itself behind Cheese Sandwich's neck, drawing him in close to the second voice's pony. Sandwich gulped, staring into the light that dimly reflected from those steely-blue eyes.

"I told you, Mr. Sandwich, that - and I quote - 'after you cum for me, you won't find a mare or stallion or otherwise that can be my equal. How you will try, but none of them will ever match me.' Now, I can see why there might be some confusion, but allow me to clarify." The second voice's pony was illuminated suddenly by the flaring up of a horn in a light blue aura.

Cheese Sandwich suddenly locked up, his mind suddenly gone from him. He stood still, his breathing regular as he stared into nothing. The hoof around his neck let him go, and still he stood still as he awaited to be filled with words.

"Cheese Sandwich," the second voice announced in the secrecy of the shadows, "when I next say 'goodbye' a variety of things will happen. First, you will cum and have the strongest orgasm of your life. You will clean up after yourself and then leave Ponyville as quickly as you can by whatever means you can. You will not pack, you will not gather, you will leave. You will leave and never return here nor to Canterlot or anyplace you know Pinkie will be or is currently.

"From now on, when you need money, you will sell your body. Your body is your only asset and you will use it constantly because you constantly will need money. If you don't serve at least seven ponies in a week you will be forced to spend all your money in a strip club before leaving all your belongings with the establishment's lost and found. If you have to do this more than three weeks in a row you will take up a job in the strip club and be unable to cum for the two months you will work there, after which if you've been good and served fourteen ponies in a week you'll be allowed to quit.

"Each time you get to the point where you have to take a job at a strip club, you will have to increase the amount of ponies served in a week by seven. From seven to fourteen to twenty-one to twenty-eight and so on. If you reach seventy ponies needing to be served in a week you will no longer be allowed to quit work at the strip club.

"If, by chance, you end up needing to serve one hundred and forty ponies in a week, you will find a way to reach out to me and send me a little package. It will contain a picture of you fucking somepony you have never met, a letter describing why you regret cheating on Pinkie Pie, and all possessions you own at that point. From then on, you will spend only what you have to to survive and send all the rest to me.

"To conclude this whole situation, from now on your name is... Fuckable Sandwich. You will just go by 'Sandwich'. You will live this life that's before you, but you will remember who you used to be without being able to tell anypony. You will remember all these commands - though I dare say that won't stop you from testing to make sure if they are true.

"You will also be released from all other commands that I have given you besides being unable to harm anypony once I bring back your mind. All this will be true when I awaken you and return your mind to you." The second voice finally concluded.

Cheese Sandwich didn't reply, but instead another light blue glow illuminated his features briefly before he came to all at once. He staggered back, blinking a few times before staring up in horror at the shadow.

"What... WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME‽" He roared, no longer caring for privacy. "You... you sick bitch!"

"Now now, Mr. Sandwich, let's not be like that." The second voice chided in mock affection.

"You're... you've got to be kidding me! You... you're making me into... and then... oh no..." Sandwich stumbled backwards, slamming against the wall of the house opposite. "You... you made me lose Pinkie..." He breathed out with a growing malice.

"No, I simply accelerated the process." The second voice corrected. "You would've found some foolish way at some point to lose her for yourself, I just made it so that she wouldn't waste her youth with you."

"You stole her from me! What, you couldn't wait to get your grubby hooves on her?" Cheese Sandwich accused with an outthrust hoof.

"No, Mr. Sandwich, I couldn't wait for somepony that actually loved HER to get their hooves on her. I couldn't wait another moment in my ever shortening life to see her be happy with somepony who would be happy with her. I love her as a friend, and as such, I am dutybound to guarantee her long-term happiness. You, sir, are not it." The second voice said with minimal venom and miniscule amounts of ice.

"But I did! I did love her!"

"You loved her body, Mr. Sandwich. That doesn't count." The second voice said in the verbal equivalent of a harsh slap across the face.* "That is what we call 'Eros' - or love in the sense of the erotic. You might be able to say you love her, but it is only because you have but one word in your mind. No, a better way to say it is to say that you lusted for her. If you loved her, you wouldn't have had so many flings that you can't be sure if it was twenty-five or two hundred and five." The voice finished, showing no more signs of anger than when it started.
*It ought be noted that, seeing as ponies have hooves, slaps across the face in Equestria have the same sort of force as a rubber mallet across the face - if not more accounting for strength of the user or slapper - and as such, the words most certainly had a great deal of heft.

"I... I..." Sandwich faltered, unsure of himself.

"Now, I'm going to give you a chance for me to not call down my wrath upon you as delineated in that little memory that I have in your head of exactly what will happen to you otherwise." The second voice said, as if extending an olive branch with thorns on it.

"What do you want?"

"Oh, nothing much," The second voice said with the nonchalance of a stallion with a raging boner approaching the bar for a drink, "I just want you to go through the life I have arranged for you to keep willingly for two months on your own. If you manage to make it for two months, you'll be allowed to live your life freely and as you wish with the exception of not being able to reach out to or contact Pinkie or Lil' Cheese or anypony that knows Pinkie or Lil' Cheese, go to any place that they are or will be, and all around disappear from their lives. I'll adjust the commands I put on you to make this true if you only agree to this right now while you have your own mind available for consultation."

"Y-you... you can't be serious."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Sandwich, but I am - and that was your last chance." The second voice said with no joy or sadness detectable in their tones.

"What? N-no, I accept! I accept!"

"I certainly hope you do, perhaps accepting your life will make it easier to live. Goodbye."

Fuckable Sandwich left Ponyville shortly thereafter, leaving only memory and a damp patch at a shadow's hooves. After this point the history becomes a tad bit muddled.

A pony by the name would be arrested ten months later in Los Pegasus in connection to an event hosted by a strip club in which prostitution was a main feature - a rumor that it had been attended by three hundred fifty ponies who were all there for the arrested pony. Another pony that went by the name would be listed later in life as 'the world's greatest whore' in a popular tabloid from Saddle Arabia. Yet another pony by the name would become the subject of a bar song by the name of 'sucked me a hundred dicks one night' and would also be speculated to be the origin for the shanty by the name of 'Fetch me a Sandwich' - in addition to a few others that bare no mentioning.

Back in Ponyville in the past before a 'Sandwich' was less often used to describe food, a shadow sighed to itself. Shadows do this on occasion, though this shadow didn't do it because it was in a crypt that a group of adventures were wandering through or because it was in a haunted house, but because there was a pony inside.

The pony in the shadow stayed there for quite some time - only leaving when shadows extended into the gloom of night. As they left, though, they thought to themselves on the pony they had changed and the life they had created for them.

While some might've felt guilty for having treated a fellow pony so, this pony felt sorry only for not having done it sooner. "Certain things," they opined internally, "must be forced into place if brighter futures are to dawn."

To be fair, quite a few ponies would say a hearty cheer in their honor had they known the part of this pony in their adventures with a particular stallion. But then again, perhaps one or two ponies - in particular certain ponies of the street and of negotiable morality would curse the pony's name that had born such a monster that would outcompete them in their choice of industry.

That's the things about these... things - sometimes the right answer wasn't right and the wrong answer wasn't entirely wrong. Morally dubious? Certainly not - some things are black and white as far as right and wrong, but other things aren't so much grayscale morality as they are... uncontested morality.

Had this pony made the right decision? Who knows. They made a decision, and that's more than some have made. Just try and remember the wise old saying as you live in this world of complexities, grayscales, and uncontested morality questions:

Life's short, do something to a bagel.