“I’ve got you now!” Sunset about knocked the shop door off its hinges with how hard she threw it open. Breathing heavily, sweat dripping down her brow, she knew she’d all but won.

Just seconds ago a wisp of Equestrian magic had wiggled under the entrance to this store. She’d been chasing it for what felt like hours, hoping to corner it before it could cause any problems in the human world. Part of her regretted not calling the other girls for help when she first saw it, but she had a feeling the exhaustion would all be worth it once she single-handedly solved this little problem.

The store was empty, save for a clerk at the checkout station a little ways down. He seemed unfazed by her outburst as he didn’t even look up from his phone. He mumbled a canned line his managers no doubt forced him to say every time someone came in: “Welcome to Game Zone. Bargain bin is in the back.”

Sunset didn’t respond, looking around to continue her hunt. She hadn’t paid attention earlier when she was chasing down the wisp of magic. Rows of shelves greeted her, each toting plastic boxes with colorful, violent, or violently colorful box art. Stacks of collectables broke up the otherwise monotonous offerings of the store with plushies, vinyl figures, and other stuff.

Scanning around, Sunset’s head snapped to the side when she caught something out of her peripheral vision. The wisp of magic, rounding a corner of a nearby shelf.

“No you don’t!” She yelled, not caring if she sounded like a maniac to the cashier. She raced after the pink, sparkly miasma. By the time she reached the shelf, she saw it was already snaking down the hall. Despite how tired she was, Sunset barreled after it. She chased it all the way to a plastic bin in the back of the store, where it sneaked in with a collection of discounted, old games.

Sunset’s hands crashed into the messily stacked games, swiping them this way and that in her pursuit of the Equestria magic. She knew it had no sentience of its own, but it sure felt like it was trying to hide from her.

Finally, she caught it. It slipped into one of the game cases, causing it to glow with a soft, pink-ish hum. She fished it from the pile, knowing it was too late to stop it. The magic was enchanting this game, just as previous wisps had affected other parts of the human world.

Some part of Sunset was relieved by this. Though she hadn’t managed to stop the magic or send it back to Equestria, she had managed to corner it. Now no one else would be about to get involved with it. She could keep an eye on it instead and make sure it wouldn’t cause any trouble.

Turning over the game case, Sunset found herself curious what title had just been enchanted. This was the bargain bin the cashier had mentioned, so it wasn’t like this was some new or well known game. The logo on the cover said that it was for an X-station, a console she actually had back home.

When she took a look at the title proper, she nearly did a double take.

Pampered Princess and the Cozy Curse

The pastel pinks and purples made it feel like it should be a kiddie game, but it was actually rated M. The cover art featured a full grown woman dressed up like a fairy princess, with translucent, glittery wings, a tiara, and a poofy pink dress. And, hiding under the hem of the skirt, a giant white diaper covered with yellow stars.

“What on Earth?” She turned it over and back again. She wasn’t seeing things. Sheer curiosity had her read the description on the back of the box.

“The land of Diaperia finds itself under siege from a terrible curse. It’s up to the kingdom’s Princess of Pampers to track down the witch responsible and set things right, no matter how wet and messy she gets along the way.” Sunset blinked, and looked around. Thankfully no one had heard her give voice to those words. That would’ve been just a bit embarrassing.

Is this a… fetish game? She looked at the screenshots of game play, which featured a scantily-clad (and padded) woman in various kinky situations. Spanked by enemies, groped in a pit of tentacles, etc. Definitely a fetish game, Sunset realized, much to her dismay.

She wanted to drop the game back in the bin then and there. She felt gross just holding it. If it weren’t for the Equestrian magic swirling about within its code, she would have.

She couldn’t just let this thing run wild. It would probably just end up in the hands of some creep and who knows what they’d do with it. She couldn’t destroy it either. The magic would only run free to a new host then.

Sunset sighed. Her only option was to take this thing home with her.

Her eyes shifted to the bored-looking cashier. Embarrassment flooded her cheeks at the thought of having to purchase this thing. Even if it was just a random cashier that didn’t know her, she didn’t want anyone to think she actually enjoyed something like this.

Her fingers tightened around the enchanted game. An idea wormed its way into her brain.

He really wasn’t paying attention. If she just tucked it away in one of her jackets inner pockets… she might just be able to walk out with it.

Shoplifting.

Old habits die hard, she thought bitterly.

Her old self wouldn’t have even hesitated. She’d already be out the door, in fact. Never to suffer the humiliation of having to buy a diaper fetish game.

It would be pretty easy. Her thoughts felt like a devil on her shoulder. Glancing at the price on the outside of the been was like fuel to the fire. It’s only fifty cents…

If there was an angel in this discussion, they weren’t making their voice heard. Sunset was only finding more and more excuses to just steal the game.

Her hand was already tucking it in her jacket. Eyes darted to the cashier. Oblivious.

This is wrong. She reminded herself one last time in vain.

The game slipped into her pocket. Snug as a bug. She was really doing this.

Better a thief than a pervert, she reasoned.

Sunset snatched another, random game from the bin. An old-school racing sim. It served as her cover to avoid suspicion, and she bought it before leaving the store.

I did a good deed, she told herself. She was taking a dangerous, maybe even deadly game out of the grasp of the public. Yeah. It was all in the name of safety.

This wasn’t a backwards slide into her old ways. And she’d still given the Game Zone her business anyway. No one was harmed by this.

Yet Sunset couldn’t shake the strangling sensation of guilt as she scuttled home, hand never leaving the game’s box.

——

She slammed her door shut like she was being followed.

Sunset had made it all the way to her apartment without giving into her better nature and going back to pay for the game. She was ashamed to say she felt a bit of a rush, her heart was pounding from her crime. But more than anything she was relieved.

She was relieved the Equestrian magic was contained. She was relieved she hadn’t been caught. And she was relieved no one had seen her with this bizarre video game.

Sunset took the Pampered Princess game case out of her jacket. It’s poppy, girly art style stared back at her. She swore the character on front was giving her an “I know what you did” kind of look.

“At least you won’t be causing anyone any trouble,” Subset told the enchanted game. She wasn’t sure the magic was sentient, but just in case she figured she ought to let it know who’s boss.

It didn’t respond. Not even a glow or a twinkle.

Sunset frowned, flipping the game over and back again. Is the magic… really in there?

Maybe it had slipped out during her run home. It wasn’t impossible, that’s for sure.

It made her angry that it was plausible. If the magic had gotten away from her, it meant she’d shoplifted for nothing!

Sunset clenched her jaw. She didn’t like that, and she really didn’t like the thought of that magic causing trouble elsewhere. But the only way to be sure that this game was still enchanted…

She bit her lip. The only way to know for sure was to play it and see what sort of mischief it caused.

Sweet Celestia, am I really going to have to play this thing? It was a rhetorical question. Sunset knew herself well enough to know she wasn’t going to be able to sleep tonight until the matter was settled. She needed to be sure this game was enchanted. For everyone’s safety… and to soothe her guilty conscience.

It’s the only way I can know for sure I did a bad thing for the right reason, she told herself.

As a last-ditch effort she popped open the game case and inspected the disc within. She was hoping for the soft flicker of Equestrian magic to do the confirming for her, but no such luck.

With a heavy groan, Sunset went to fish out her old X-Station from back in her closet. She had no idea how long it would take until her suspicions were put to rest. Maybe something crazy and magic-based would happen five minutes in. Maybe three excruciating hours would go by and the magic wouldn’t reveal itself at all. She had no way of knowing for sure, and she felt like it would take a lot to convince herself the magic had actually escaped from her.

Plugging in the console to her TV, Sunset popped the disc in and plopped down on her bed. A cutesy jingle played and her screen went pink. After a few seconds, bubbly magenta letters appeared onscreen

Pampered Princess and the Cozy Curse

-press start-

Sunset followed the command, her stomach churning with what she should expect. True to the style of the box art, it was child-friendly and very, very girly so far. But she knew this game’s true intentions and she wasn’t looking forward to exposing them.

The screen faded in on a story book, titled with the game’s name, though now in cursive gold font. It opened on its own, flipping a few pages in before landing on a two-page image of a lush kingdom in sepia tone. Narration filled Sunset’s ears.

“Long ago the people of Diaperia lived together in harmony–”

Sunset hit the skip button the second it appeared onscreen. She really wasn’t interested in the story for this game. Or anything about it, really.

“Then everything changed–”

Skip.

“Only–”

Skip.

“One hundred years passed–”

Skip.

The screen finally faded to black. The next transition wasn’t a fade at all. Rather, the black void split open to reveal a digital ceiling. It fluttered from black to ceiling and Sunset realized this was POV shot. For a moment, the soft ambient music of the game was all there was. Sunset couldn’t even control her character’s perspective yet. Still just an opening cutscene.

A knocking sound effect made her character’s head turn. She got a look around at an extravagant room. Elaborate Victorian furniture greeted her screen, along with a heavy oak door across the room. Another knock.

“Princess?” Came the onscreen text graphics. No voice acting, and frankly Sunset was not surprised. Who would want to lend their voice to a diaper fetish game?

The name attached to the text box was simply ‘???’. ??? spoke again: “Princess, please open the door. I know you need a change.”

So I’m playing as a princess. Sunset deduced. That's a bit unique. She was used to games opening her up as a prisoner, or a soldier or something like that. Easier to just get to gameplay that way.

The camera made it look like her character was getting up. Then it started moving throughout the room. Still no control for her, no matter how much she moved her controller’s sticks.

Instead of the door, her character moved to a mirror that stretched from the ceiling to the floor on a nearby wall. Sunset got her first look at this Princess, who was clearly a default character model. Brown hair, brown eyes. Bland, if cute, features. The game was old, and probably cheap, but the graphics weren’t half bad. Rather than chasing what amount for realism a decade or so ago, it had gone for something more stylized. Similar to anime.

The nudity also jumped out at her. Her character wore nothing up top. Cartoonishly large breasts jiggled ever so slightly with her character’s idle animation. Below that, clothing existed… in the form of a poofy, yellow stained diaper. But still, it was something at least.

Sunset was honestly a little surprised to see the game get right to the point so quickly. If this had actually been her thing, then she would’ve been pleasantly surprised, instead of eye-rollingly disgusted. She wondered how many perverts never made it passed this screen due to... distractions.

Suddenly character customizer sliders appeared, and Sunset’s control flicking did something.

She could change hair style, color, skin color, and a few other things. Sadly, breast size didn’t seem to be an option, and her poor character was going to be stuck with those massive honkers.

Sunset wasn’t a very good character customizer. Most of the time when she had that ability, she just made the character model look as close to herself as possible. And that’s pretty much what her autopilot did here.

She couldn’t get the yellow streaks in her hair, but long red locks were easy. Same with her slightly cyan eyes and orange skin. As she worked, the knocking sound effect occasionally came in to remind her that she was keeping someone waiting. Her character also yawned, stretched, and rubbed her eyes every now and again. Just in case the player forgot they had recently been asleep or something.

The face, she couldn’t do much about. Any of the features she rotated through for eyes, nose, and mouth all looked the same to her. She was forced to pick a lipstick color, which felt silly since her character had just woken up. Whoever designed this was definitely a man, she thought. Soft pink it was.

Lastly, she noticed a difficulty toggle near the bottom of the screen. It seemed weird to put that here at the customization screen. She changed it from “Baby Mode” to “Easy” and soon found out why.

Her character’s balloon tits suddenly deflated. They were still massive, but more within the realm of reality now, probably a DD cup.

Sunset found her eyelids lowering. She was unimpressed. While it was kind of a hilarious concept, she wasn’t in the mood to laugh. What she did want was a smaller breast size for her character. Even if she didn’t care about this game in the slightest, it was tradition for her to make each character represent herself as much as possible.

Changing the difficulty to “Medium” got her a D cup. Still too massive. The next, and last, difficulty setting actually wasn’t “Hard”. Instead, it was called “Brutal” and was written in a sharp, jagged font with blood red lettering, in contrast to the pink and white bubble letters of the rest of the UI.

It did get her character close to a C cup though, which was still a little big, but Sunset would settle. She wasn’t concerned about the game’s difficulty at all. She figured she’d get to the actual gameplay, try it out for a bit, and call it quits for the night. If nothing strange happened until then, she’d have to just assume the magic was still in the game somewhere.

She tapped the button to save, and a prompt came up.

“Are you sure this is the look you want? You can’t change it once the game starts.”

X - Accept O - Make changes

Sunset hit X.

The game saved her progress. Disappointingly, the save animation couldn’t just be a little spinning wheel. It was a full on animated shape matching game in the corner of the screen. A square, triangle and round peg all bounced into their respective holes. They hopped and repeated the process over and over, until the “Progress Saved” screen appeared.

Usually customized touches like that were a sign a lot of love and creativity went into a game. It was a reason to get excited in her book. But in this case it didn’t make Sunset feel any excitement for what this game had in store for her.

The prompt went away and the cutscene picked back up. Sunset watched her character waddle around the room to the door. Immediately, she saw the problem with what she’d just done. She’d made a look-a-like version of herself to toddle around in a used diaper. A groan escaped her lips; she’d just made this whole experience more awkward than it needed to be.

But it was too late to change it. Sunset would just have to press on for the five or so minutes until she decided to call it quits. Not the worst thing in the world.

Her character opened the bedroom door, finally ending the incessant knocking sound effect. An NPC toddled in, and just the sight of her made Sunset groan again.

She knew this was a fetish game, but come on.

A woman dressed in an incredibly skimpy maid uniform stood before her nearly-nude digital self. As if to make things feel even more perverted, the maid’s short skirt didn’t exactly hide a diaper of her own, which poofed out to a ridiculous degree beneath the frills.

“You really kept me waiting.” ??? the maid said.

Sunset’s Princess character spoke with text. “I’m sorry, Rainbow. I was sleepy."

Sunset nearly dropped her controller. The name was enough of a coincidence, but it forced her to focus on the maid’s character design beyond just the horny outfit.

She had long, prismatic hair, and light blue skin. It made this whole thing feel more than a mere coincidence. Almost creepy. Almost… caused by Equestrian magic.

Had it somehow read Sunset’s mind and decided to fill this game with look-a-likes of people she knew? If so, that would be proof enough then and there to confirm the magic was in the disc still. But, Sunset paused.

Despite the similarities, this character was not a one-to-one of Rainbow Dash. For starters, instead of the sporty cut Dash rocked, this character’s hair curled at the end of each band of color into little spirals. If anything, it resembled Dean Cadance of Crystal Prep Academy, not her friend.

On top of that, instead of Dash’s red eyes, Rainbow the maid sported purple irises. If this magic was trying to recreate Sunset’s friend, it was doing a sloppy job.

It was then she remembered that she shouldn’t be surprised by a rainbow-haired character being here at all. Having this kind of multi-colored hair was rare in real life, but very common in video games. Most had at least one character with rainbow hair colors to make them stand out and feel more exotic. Though, ironically, it had led to a sea of interchangeable nothing characters in the early days of console games.

Even light-blue skin wasn’t that much of a coincidence. It was just basic color theory from a design perspective. It looked good when paired with rainbow hair. Simple as that

Same went for the character’s name. Just “Rainbow”. Pretty lazy, actually.

Eventually, Sunset had to conclude this wasn’t weird enough to warrant proof of the magic’s presence. She even remembered having a conversation with Dash about this in the past. Her friend had been pretty chuffed about the prospect of being in “every video game ever made” as she had put it. At least, until she learned that practically all of her video game counterparts were archetypal tsundere’s, most of which becoming pretty docile and submissive around the player character over the course of the story. Couldn’t expect creativity or originality from the gaming industry after all.

Sunset retrieved her controller from the ground. She’d been stuck on the Princess’ dialogue box for a while and finally clicked over.

The maid, who’s name text had been upgraded to “Rainbow” said. “Come on, let me check your diaper.”

Sunset found that pretty unnecessary. Most of her digital self’s diaper was yellow. It really seemed unnecessary. But the game proved her logic wrong, because the next thing that happened was Rainbow the maid reaching down and fondling Princess-Sunset’s crotch.

“Oh come on!” she actually said out loud. Her character even squirmed a bit, as if she was getting turned on by the touch of her maid.

This was the most blatant pandering Sunset had ever seen. She was certain any of the weirdos who played this game that did make it past the character customization screen definitely got stuck here. Watching a loop of the groping and squirming animations–that clearly weren’t going to end until someone hit a button to continue–would be enough to make those perverts drop their pants and jack it right there.

The fact that the characters closely resembled herself and one of her best friends was not helping. She tried to fast forward through this bit, but the next couple of text boxes appeared with the “diaper check” animation still playing.

“Geeze, it’s really full,” said Rainbow.

“I’m sorry,” Sunset’s princess said, with doe eyes.

“You really outdid yourself this time, Your Highness. What am I going to do with you?”

“It was an accident…” her character whimpered.

Finally, mercifully, she was able to speed past the animation. Rainbow pulled back and took the princess’ hand, leading her over to an obvious changing table. Thankfully the screen faded to black here, probably because the devs couldn’t make any decent changing animation. When it faded back in, Sunset’s character was lying on her back on the table, a clean diaper around her waist.

In the corner, the shape-matching save animation played again. It must do that whenever your character changed their diaper to serve as a quicksave.

“There you go, nice and clean, Your Highness.”

“Thank you, Rainbow.”

“Now hurry and get dressed. Your mother has requested to see you in the throne room first thing today,” Rainbow said.

Sunset sighed, and just started pressing X without reading any of the milquetoast dialogue. It was the beginning of the game, and she figured the only important parts would come when she reached the Queen. She could see the scenario writers falling asleep at the wheel here. The Queen would give her something to do, or tell her about a problem that would become an issue in a little bit, probably die or get kidnapped for motivation’s sake, and they’d move along into the real game.

She leaned back a little. Her bed was starting to feel really comfortable, and she was getting sick of how awkward this game made her feel.

crinkle crinkle.

Sunset paused. Did that… come from the game? She sat upright to look at the screen again.

crinkle crinkle.

She blinked. No… no it definitely had not. She realized that that comfy feeling of her bed seemed to wrap around her waist to. It felt plush, tight, and plastic-y. Kind of like a…

Sunset practically ripped her skirt off when she tugged it down to see. Her eyes confirmed what her brain already knew, but a surprised shriek still left her lips.

She was in a diaper!

“No!” Sunset cried. “No! No! No!” She grabbed the diaper’s waistband and pulled. She ripped at the tapes. She tried to push it down.

But it didn’t come off. No matter what she did, it stayed wrapped around her nethers and rear end. Her jostling only caused it to ride up and push itself deep into her privates. Rather than a scream, this got a squeak out of her.

Her face had never been so red.

“No! No no no no no! Nononononono!” Her panic mode was still firing on all cylinders. She stood up and still couldn’t push the padding from her butt. Worse yet, when standing she had to confront just how poofy this massive thing was. It spread her thighs apart. She doubted she’d be able to bring her knees together with it on. And nothing she did could get it off!

Her frenzy eventually died down, with anger coming in to replace it. “You!” She glared at her X-station, where the disc inside refused to respond.

This. This was all the confirmation Sunset needed. The Equestrian magic had never left the game. But it was going to leave her!

She hit the console’s power button. The TV blinked off, miraculously. Her X-station powered down too. The magic didn’t seem to react, not even trying to repower her X-station, even though Sunset waited a good minute or two, certain it would.

The game was off, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Her hands went to take the diaper off her now that it was over.

crinkle crinkle.

Sunset’s heart skipped a beat. She almost choked on that sigh while fiddling with her diaper. She tried again to rip it off.

crinkle crinkle.

“No…” she breathed. It wasn’t over after all.

Sunset dashed into her kitchen, forced to waddle thanks to the diaper. She didn’t even kick her skirt free from her ankles, making her look like an overgrown toddler who had a habit of stripping and running around.

She reached her junk drawer and ripped a pair of scissors out of it. She tried to use them to cut the tapes, the waistband, even just dragging them across the poofy layers hoping to slice them open. But nothing worked.

“No!” She screamed this one. “You can’t be serious! This can’t be happening!”

She was stuck in an indestructible diaper.

She may have turned her console off, but the game had only just begun.

Author's Note

Been off the grid for a while, huh?

Look, I've been pretty burned out on writing in general lately and MLP fics doubly so. Doesn't matter if I spend months away or try to force myself to power through. But, this was the first idea in a long, long time to get me tapping away at the ole keys. Can't promise it will ever be finished (oh boy could this get long), can't even promise that much more than this tbh. But... who knows?