Your hooves click cheerfully over the polished floor of the mall. You haven’t been here in a few months, and while the mall itself hasn’t changed all that much, your favorite arcade was bought out, and recently reopened after renovations. You didn’t want to admit it, but you were a little worried that the place would be ruined just like all the other arcades in the area, with cheap machines and the stupid little swipe cards instead of tickets. You are pleasantly surprised when you see that almost nothing has been changed, apart from a new neon sign that blazed a cheerful pink, reading ‘Sweetie’s Arcade’. You trot inside, the same fluffy black carpet brushing at your hooves, and you can’t help the smile that forms on your face. You drop a pair of Bits into the token machine, which rattles and whines, same as it always did, before spitting a hoofful of tokens into a paper bag. You take it carefully in your mouth, and start wandering through the dark, but cheerful arcade.
You’ve been coming to this arcade ever since you were little, and it’s nice to see that even though old Nutty no longer owned it, most of his decor and his machines were still up and running. There were new games, and as you wander through the mostly-empty arcade, you spy a pair of mares playing some sort of cake smashing game. Judging by the pudgy potbellies that jiggle and sway as they slam the buttons, you figure with a sly smirk that they’ve been smashing quite a bit of cake outside of the arcade. Continuing on, ignoring a majority of the cabinets, you finally come to your row, the one you’ve made a home in for a long while. Pinball machines line the back wall, and you are extremely pleased to note that none of the machines have been tossed out, and some of the ones that had sat broken for ages have been repaired. You place your token bag on an old favorite, the Wonderbolt machine, when something catches your eye.
You look left, and spy an absolutely massive pinball machine, easily twice the size of all the others, flashing and twinkling in the gloom, clearly brand new. You take your bag and instead place it on the new machine. It has two sets of flippers, and there’s artwork scrawled all over the inside and outside of it, depicting a pony made of what appears to be peppermint fighting off hordes of carrots, apples, and other healthy food. You smile to yourself. Dessert items seem to be a big part of the new direction the arcade is taking, and while you’re not the biggest fan of sweets, as long as ‘sweet’ new games get brought in, you’re fine with it. Your eyes are drawn to the scoreboard, mounted high inside the backglass, showcasing some impressive artwork of the peppermint pony skewering a carrot with a sharpened stick of peppermint, underneath big bolded letters reading ‘DIETBUSTER’. The backglass is surrounded by a concave mirror, letting you see yourself with startling clarity. You strike a little pose, imitating the artwork, giggling to yourself while you wait for the high scores to roll around on the display. Sure enough, the highest score displayed is a mere 100,000 points, or ‘calories’ as the machine calls it, set by ‘FAT’. You laugh, thinking it’s part of the joke, until you see the manufacture label on the inside of the machine.
“Fantastic Arcade Technologies.” You mutter to yourself. “Never heard of them before.” You shrug, and pull a token out of your bag, sending it into the machine, which lights up even further, a disco ball spinning near the top of the play area. Speakers at the front bellow out a challenge to ‘all those who oppose disgusting diets’, and you have to laugh again. A silver ball drops into the launch chute, and you hook your hoof under the plunger, giving it a quick pull, and quickly putting your hooves on the flipper buttons, wincing at a sudden static shock that sparks through both hooves and up your forelegs. You dismiss it as you scuffing your hooves too much on the carpet, and the shock quickly fades as you get into the game. You quickly figure out how the gimmick of this machine works, hitting bumpers and other targets with desserts on them nets you ‘calories’, while the ones with healthier foods lose you points. You settle in, maximizing your points, enjoying the little minigames and animations that pop up from time to time on the display screen when a ball goes down into one of the point holes near the top of the machine. It isn’t long before your score nears the factory set high-score, and you lock in even further, determined to drive the score up even higher before you even lose your first ball.
You’re so in the game, in fact, you don’t notice the changes that are happening to your own body.
With every point, with every loud ‘ding’ from the machine, you’re getting fatter. It’s subtle, at first, a general softening of your usually toned body, the only real indication is a steadily increasing warmth in your belly and a slight churning sensation that you write off as a touch of indigestion from your lunch. Your flanks begin to swell, swaying and jiggling more and more as you hit the flippers, and your belly begins to grow towards the floor. You don’t even notice the double chin that appears, nor the chubby cheeks that bloat your face or the dimples that deepen by the minute. Anypony walking by would have assumed that you’d always gone a little overboard when it came to desserts, and as the points and pounds piled on, you only kept growing. You would have remained oblivious for a while longer, that is until your score begins to creep up over the 100,000 point mark. You finish a rollover target that flashes ‘CAKE’ before a pair of bumpers rise up into the middle of the table, both decorated like chocolate fountains. You grin as you watch your ball fall towards them, eager to push the high score as far as you can. Your ball hits the bumper, and pings off into the other, the machine celebrating with a loud ding… and you feel a slight sudden rush of heat and pressure inside your stomach. The ball caroms off the other bumper, and then you taste chocolate on the back of your tongue, just as your stomach lets out a loud groan, and it feels like you’ve just chugged a few chocolate milkshakes. Confused, you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and you gasp. At first, you think the sudden width of your hips is just a trick of the mirror, but you didn’t look that before you started playing. You tear your eyes from the mirror, and see yourself in the reflection of the main glass, your eyes widening as you watch your new double chin grow even more pronounced. You’re so in shock that you let the ball fall past the flippers into the drain. The machine chastises you with a loud ‘DIETBUST… FAILED’, and your next ball appears in the launch chute with a quiet clunk, but you don’t want to play anymore, you’re too busy frantically inspecting your new size. Your belly, now feeling almost painfully full, sloshes audibly as you whip your head back and forth, unable to believe what happened. Your flanks are easily double the size they were when you first walked in, bloated and soft with fat, they jiggle almost uncontrollably. You feel your belly against your thighs, realizing with a start that it’s almost hanging down to your knees. Your forelegs are bloated, wobbling with every movement, looking more like water floaties than actual limbs.
You try to take your hooves off the flipper buttons, but they’re stuck fast no matter how hard you pull. You open your mouth to yell for help, but a chocolate-flavored belch rumbles forth instead, one that rattles the machine and causes your bag of tokens to spill to the ground. A light blinks on by the plunger, reading ‘auto-plunge enabled!’ and your second ball is kicked into play. Forgetting all about your high score, and just wanting to get away from the machine you’re somehow glued to, you decide to let the ball drop down without hitting the flippers, hoping that when you run out of balls, you can get away. Your hopes are dashed when you notice a small rubber stick rising up from below the flippers, that kicks the ball back up into play.
“No.” You groan, your voice deeper, huskier, as you watch the ball ping off one of the fountain bumpers. Your belly gurgles, and the pressure inside you practically doubles. You feel your growing gut brush the carpet as it’s filled with chocolate, another belch forcing its way out your clenched teeth. You feel sick, not only from the chocolate and the cloyingly sweet aftertaste it left on your tongue, but from the fact that you’re getting fatter, and fatter, and you can’t stop it. Tears sting your eyes as you watch the point counter scroll up, and up, your reflection widening along with it, your carefully maintained body being ruined by the second. Then, you remember. If the ball hits vegetable targets, you lose points! Maybe you can get rid of all the extra...
It's like the machine is reading your mind. The instant you remember the vegetables, the machine goes crazy. All the vegetable targets go dark, and the speakers proudly proclaim ‘DIET BUSTING FRENZY! DOUBLE CALORIES!’ You have just enough time to let out a whimper before the ball starts whizzing around the board, the lights flashing brighter and brighter, and you feel another flood of heat start in your belly, getting hotter and hotter with each ding!, sweat pouring out of you. Your eyes are locked on the mirror, watching as you fill it completely. Your belly isn’t just touching the floor now, it’s pushing against it, lifting you into the air. Your hind legs kick feebly, your flanks and thighs far too bloated for them to move much. Even though your vision blurs with tears, you can even see your cheeks bloating, you can feel your face getting fatter and fatter, and the ball keeps bouncing from one side to the other, the rapid fire dingdingdingding drowning out your whispered protests. Your belly spills under the machine, your chest squashed hard against it, and you feel cold pressing against your now-titanic ass. You let out a sob as you realize you’re big enough to be touching the other arcade machines behind you. You close your eyes, biting your lip, desperately trying to get yourself to wake up, to wake up from this evil machine and the hundreds and hundreds of pounds it's forced onto you.
‘TILT!’ The machine bellows, speakers buried under your chest flab. Your eyes flash open, and you see your belly has lifted the machine off the ground, enough that it’s stopped your game. The lights wink off, and your hooves are suddenly released from the flipper buttons, your whole body wobbling from the recoil. With a grunt, you try and seize your chance to escape. You push and paw at the machine, trying to get away from it, but even more bitter tears sprout as you realize.
You’re too big to move.
Your belly is larger than most ponies at this point, a bed of soft flab cementing you in place. Your flanks are huge, wobbling with every heaving breath. Your tail, carefully maintained, is swallowed between your massive cheeks, and your cutie mark stretched absurdly wide, almost unrecognizable. Your forelegs are bloated to the point of uselessness, unable to bend to wipe the tears off your chubby cheeks. Hopelessness crowds your flabby chest, and your calls for help are swallowed by belches and quiet sobs. It’s not long before you hear the shuffle of hooves on carpet approaching you, breaking into a trot as they get closer.
“Oh my Celestia! Are you alright? What happened?” A voice calls from over your shoulder.
“P-pwease. Helph me.” You mumble, your bloated cheeks still wet with tears muffling your words. The mare steps forwards, concern written on her face. You get a good look at her mane, pulled into a severe bun, swirled red and white like peppermint, her face framed by a pair of big, round partially-tinted glasses.
“Oh gosh, how could this have happened? Don’t you fret, my dear, I’ll get this sorted out lickety-split!” She turns and leans under the back of the machine, giving you an eyeful of her rather trim rear end that yours looked very similar to not long ago. She fiddles with the machine for a few moments, before coming back up, looking at you, the sympathetic pout on her face slowly transforming into a wide grin as her eyes flick up and down your massive body. “I fixed the problem. I thought I’d disabled the tilt mechanism. I guess I was wrong.” Her horn glows red, and the machine lights back up. You whimper, bottom lip trembling, as she guides your fat-swathed hooves back to the flipper buttons. “Enjoy a free game. On the house.” You feel another static shock as your hooves touch the button, and you let out a whimper, shaking your head as much as your bloated neck allows, but the unicorn just giggles. “Good luck on beating your high score!” The mare breaks out into high, shrill laughter, and walks away, mockingly shaking her tail without a second glance backward. The pinball machine begins to ding, and you feel the same sick, familiar heat flood your already massive belly as your points, and you, continue to grow.
And grow.
And grow.
