Becoming Cupcake

Chapters

Chapter One: Open Theatre
Chapter Two: Standard Procedure
Chapter Three: First Firefight
Chapter Four: Train of Pain

Chapter One: Open Theatre

“Aaarghh…” you groan as you slowly come around. You’ve been to some hardcore parties before, but whatever gave you a headache this bad must have been awesome. Seriously, it’s like somepony took a hammer to the inside of your head while you were asleep (or out cold, whatever). Stallion, does that hurt! So does most of your back, and this cold, hard thing you’re lying on doesn’t relieve any of it. Eyes still closed, you try to pick yourself up, on to find your front hooves refusing to budge. All you can guess is that you, or somepony else, has fallen asleep on them and they’ve gone dead. Curious as to whom you might have fallen asleep with, you crack one eye open and take a peek.

There’s no pony lying on your right hoof, and you realise that it’s not even numb. It’s tied down, pinned in place by a wide, elasticated band around your ankle. It’s tight, far too tight to consider trying to slip your hoof through it. You turn your head and look to your left hoof, to find it pinned down in a similar way. Both are held straight out to your sides. After a little struggling, you work out that both your hind legs are tied down too, as straight behind you as your haunches will allow. A few thoughts run through your head as to what might be going on here, and you quickly become intrigued by one thought: this is a bondage scene. All the right things are in the right places for it, although maybe cold steel isn’t the best kind of table for such and act, but still, tied down on your back in a way that allows easy access to your stallionhood? Bondage, no doubt. Of course, such a scene doesn’t work with only one pony, so who and where is your partner?

You glance upwards, or behind you, and find no one. However, there are some… interesting looking things back there in the gloomy room, mostly looking like machinery, each piece being centred around a steel table with straps on poles – much like what you’re strapped to now. Except these don’t look like the sort of devices you’d find in a kink basement. These look like the kind of devices you’d find in some sort of torture chamber. Of particular note is one blood-splattered piece, with knifes and saws held in long mechanical arms, unpowered but allowing the blades to be manoeuvred easily with one hoof. Panicking a little, you look above you and see that your bed is fitted with similar extensions, as well as being surrounded by a few tables that present gleaming, more manual instruments upon white cloth that’s been stained red in more than a few places. Trying to find some sort of relief from your growing fears, you look down. And immediately wish you hadn’t.

There’s a huge hole in the skin of your underbelly, which easily extends up to your sternum. You can clearly see your breastbone moving up and down with each panicked breath, gradually getting faster and faster as you start to hyperventilate. Your guts lie in a twisting clump in the hollow of your belly, occasionally shifting with a soft squelch. Perhaps worst of all, no, definitely worst, is the way your heart is thumping away in you opened chest, broadcasting you panic to the entire room. And, as if somepony was listening to Radio Terror, the double doors at the far end of the room are pushed open.

“Oh goody, you’re awake!” a scarily cheerful voice notes, as a shockingly pink filly trots her way through the room towards you. “That makes things a whole lot better! I mean, I did start while you were asleep, but it was BOOO-RING! It really helps if you can talk to somepony while you work, don’tcha think?”

“Who the… where the… what the…?” is all you can manage to answer with.

“Wow, aren’t you the talkative one?” the floss-maned filly says as she takes position next to you, “So many questions you can’t help but trip over them all, right? Well, don’t worry! You’ll find out what’s going on soon enough!” She turns away, fiddling with something on one of the table, before turning back to you, her right hoof now adorned with some sort of bladed claw gauntlet. “Oh, this is gonna be a scream!”

If you weren’t so terrified, you likely would.

Chapter Two: Standard Procedure

“Oh, don’t look so silly! This’ll be FUN!” the pink filly completely fails to reassure you, “It’s just like playing Operation, only without all the beeping and light-up noses, which I’d find kinda distracting anyway.” She waves her hoofs around for emphasis as she talks, keeping your eyes transfixed with horror on the cold metal talon attached to her leg. Your exposed guts churn uneasily as you unavoidably imagine what such a device could be used for…

“Wh-what are you gonna do to me?” you managed to ask, more because of your anxiety than despite it.

“Oh, nothing much. First I gotta get something though,” she replies, placing her free hoof on the table’s edge and lifting her front half up to loom over you. “Now you might feel a slight loss of breath,” she says, and plunges the balled-up claw into the underside of your ribcage. Your breath gives way completely as your diaphragm is dislodged and she presses against your lungs, making you panic, trying desperately to get air. You try punching her away with your front hooves, but the straps hold firm, reducing you to little more than minor struggling as she roots around inside your chest. You feel her hoof twist inside you, and there’s a sickening slicing noise, but then she pulls out. You can breathe again!

“Well, there we are!” she cheers with a flourish as you gasp for air, taking a few deep, heavy pants before looking back at her. The mere sight of what she’s got is enough to make your blood run cold.

The talon’s closed around one very, very disturbing piece of pony: a heart. Your heart. She just cut out your heart. As the full wave of shock hits your mind and you start guessing how long you’ve got left to live, she brings her left hoof to the side of the device and twists it. With a plop, it opens and drops your severed organ back on top of your bony breast.

“Now where did I put those…” she wonders aloud, as she leaves you to stare in horror at yourself and goes looking around in the dark. “Well, here’s the tape, so I can’t have left them far awa- aha!” she cries out suddenly.

“Oh, where are my manners?” she asks, startling you as she reappears right by your side. “I’m Pinkie Pie, and I’m gonna be your surgeon for today!” Without pause, she grabs your heart up in her left hoof and slaps it unceremoniously onto something in her right hoof with a wet smack. She then reaches up to something on the ceiling and pulls down a long tube, like the barrel of a very wide gun, which is releasing a steady stream of red vapour. You realise that the same red gas fills the room like a mist, but it’s a lot more concentrated near this device, which hums softly to itself. Pinkie plunges your heart into the thicker fog, and watches intensly.

And then, as if by some dark science, your severed heart beats.

And it beats again, and the filly starts to smile.

And then-

BLAM.

“Um… whoops,” Pinkie Pie says as the last bits of your heart slide off of her onto the floor.

“Well,” you quietly say with a sense of finalisation, “now I’m definitely dead.”

“Oh, don’t be silly!” Pinkie says in her usual bubbly voice, “I can fix this! Just gimme a few seconds.” She drops the device onto the table and wanders into the room, before opening a fridge and browsing through it. Since you can’t see what she’s doing very well, you take a look at the device instead.

It looks like a big, rounded button, with three big pins sticking out of the flat of it. There’s a pressure gauge and a few metal vials on the back, but it doesn’t give you many clues as to its purpose. Suddenly there’s a loud BANG, and the pin is joined on the table by another heart. One that is easily three times bigger than your own heart used to be.

“What,” you ask with a sense of dread, “is that?”

“It’s a manticore heart!” Pinkie replies cheerfully. “Your own heart, like most ponys’, was far too weak to handle the Überpin’s high voltage. But this,” she says, gesturing to the massive organ before her, “ought to do the trick!” With that, she grabs the pin, slides it into the larger atrium, and hefts the whole thing up in both hooves. Again, she holds the heart in front of the tube. Again, it beats.

And beats.

You watch in amazement as the heart begins to beat faster and faster, pounding furiously in the pink mare’s now red hooves, threatening to throw itself clear. The pressure gauge on the pin’s wavering frantically between being in the red zone at the end and being completely off the scale, and the whole device is sparking and sputtering, emitting an awful piercing whine. And Pinkie Pie’s laughter, dear Celestia, it’s frightening, the laugh of a truly psychotic pony enjoying themselves in causing mayhem and creating unholy monsters. The heart begins to glow, a bright, burning red. You turn your head sideways, and so, to your surprise, does Pinkie. The whining gets higher and higher, reaching up to and earbreaking point-

And then it’s all over. The two of you look back at the heart, which is now coated in a metallic red sheen.
“Wooow…” Pinkie stares in wonder at the shimmering organ, her eyes growing wide, before dumping it unceremoniously in your bowels. “Hey, it’s king of against the rules, but if I untie you, would ya mind helping me? It’s just that the next bit is kinda hard, and I’m not strong enough to do it by myself.”

You’re unsure at first, which is only to be expected. “Well, what do you need me to do, exactly?” you ask timidly, still a little afraid of this filly.

“Oh, I just need you to hold your ribcage open a bit so that I can slip this heart in there!” she explains simply.
That sounds dangerous. “What’s the alternative?” you ask, a bit less timid this time.

“Well then I’d have to get the bonesaw, and a new ribcage, and a diaphragm, and it’s waaay too much hassle. Plus, I’m not really sure how to rebuild somepony’s chest anyway, so it could end up looking kinda freaky. Actually, funny story,” she begins, as you weigh up your options, “when the last medic here was operating on our current leader, he accidentally knocked out all of the poor guy’s ribs, so he emptied out a beer keg, dropped the solly’s heart and lungs in there, and welded it to his spine! I guess you could say that now, he’s barrel chested!” She breaks down in fits of giggles, smacking one hoof repeatedly on the edge of the table. You, however, aren’t feeling so merry for some bizarre reason. It’s probably got something to do with the way you’re picturing yourself with a keg for a chest. Now, you’ve always said you need to get better at holding your beer, but that…

“Okay, I’m helping!” you say urgently.

“Alright!” Pinkie cheers, nearly jumping up and down with glee. “Y’know, everypony here is usually such a sour apple, but you seem kinda fun!” She darts underneath the table, and you feel the band around your right hoof tightening a bit. “Ww oumt t hng mmt mmr whn dff ff fver!” she cheerfully mumbles, before you feel the bond go slack and she pulls it away. A few seconds later, and both your hooves are free.

“Okay,” she says, reappearing by your side and placing both hooves on the glowing heart, “you ready?” Ready fails to describe what you are right now, but you dutifully place both hooves on the bottom of your ribcage, mostly unsure on how, exactly, to make it much bigger without breaking something. Without further warning, Pinkie Pie shoves the massive heart into the bottom of your ribcage. Your breath goes all over the place as you struggle to keep your ribs open, while the beating organ intrudes on your lungs’ personal space. There’s a squelch and a pop, and Pinkie leans back again.

“There we are!” she announces, “All done! Now, let’s just get you zipped back up and bouncing on your way!” The seemingly novice surgeon turns away, grabbing the barrel of the ceiling-mounted machine and pulling it to within inches of where your skin should be. The machine’s dull humming shifts up a few pitches and grows louder, as its nozzle stops lazily emitting a fine mist, and releases a vivid stream of vapour that channels straight into your insides. Before your very eyes, muscle, skin and hair begin to fill in the vacant space, stretching from the edges of the wound and across the wide gap. In a matter of seconds, you’re fully healed, with not even so much as a scar to remind you of what just happened. Which, thinking about it, would make a bloody good question right about now.

“What just happened?” you ask, whilst prodding tentatively at your unblemished belly.

“Oh, just a little mandatory surgery, nothing major!” Pinkie smiles, holding a hoof out to help you off of the table. “It’s always kind of dull, so I try to make it more fun. Personally, my favourite part’s that bit where I pushed the pin thingy into the heart. It’s like pin the tail on the pony, only with beeping and lights and more dangerous and stuff!”

You take Pinkie’s hoof and clamber carefully off of the workbench. “So, what was the point of it all, giving me a new heart with a beeping pin thing in it, when I already had a perfectly good one?” If there’s any organ of yours that needs replacing, it’s probably your liver.

“Oh, your heart was fine for your old life, but now that you’re here, you need something a bit more new-school to stay where the company needs you.”

“Company?” You ask anxiously, “Have I signed myself up to something I’ll regret while drunk? Because that’s happened before.”

“If you did, you’re not the first!” Pinkie Pie answers in her usual, slightly disturbing cheerfulness. “Our old demo was awful, I’m not sure he was ever even sober! Thank Celestia we got you to replace him!”

“’Replace him’? What happened to him?” you press for more answers, even though you dread what they might be.

“Oh, he took a rocket to the head, standard stuff, but the forgetty-forgetterson computer plain forgot to respawn him! It does that sometimes, so try not to go dying too much while you’re here!”

Rockets? Respawn? Dying? “What the hay have I signed myself up for?”

Pinkie Pie keeps on smiling through the pretty grim description of your new job. “You’re working for RED now. That’s an acro-thingy, but I can’t remember what it means. Basically, we’re working for this company to fight against the guys working for another company. We all get to wear team colours and stuff, so I like to think of it as a kind of big game of tag, except with bullets and explosions and stuff to liven it up a bit! I’m a medic, so it’s my job to stop everypony from dying and going through respawn too often. You,” she says, pointing a hoof at you, “just became our new demopony, so you get to play around with all the loud and colourful explosions!”

“So, what, I’m being paid to blow up other ponies on behalf of some kind of greedy beurocratic corporate money grabbers?” You summarise.

“Yup!” Pinkie confirms.

“Huh. So, what happens now?”

“Now?” Pinkie Pie asks, her tone dropping to something slightly darker than her usually bubbly voice. “Let’s go Meet the Team.”

Chapter Three: First Firefight

“IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU, YOU WILL”- a colossal explosion cuts off the hollering of the pony who just ran past your hiding spot, and you jam your hooves in your ears in a vain attempt to stop them ringing. A red steel pot helmet hits the dust just in front of you with a thump, making you jump again. A second later, a beer keg lands a few feet away with a hollow clang.

“So that’s, what, six times now?” you shout at the helmet over the torrential gunfire coming from the other side of your surprisingly bulletproof crate. You’ve been squatting here for the last quarter of an hour, not daring to raise your head for the spray of bullets sweeping your position. Given that you haven’t died yet, while the team’s most veteran member is waking up in a white room for the sixth or seventh time, you figure that you’re doing pretty well. Especially now that you’ve stopped vomiting every time a loose giblet flies past you.

“Soldier’s not very good at changing tactics,” a pony wearing a vest and a slouch cap calls out to you, while looking down the telescopic sight of the rifle held by his side. “Charge in, rockets blazing seems to be his thing, but when these bloody BLU’s stick up a wall of bullets, he hasn’t a hope in hell.” There’s a sharp crack as his weapon fires, and he jeers at the enemy, “You’re gonna have to find a new use for your neck, wanker!”

“Is everypony here that crazy?” you call back.

“Nah, mate, but it gets to us all sometimes. Pyro’s been here longest, and I’m not sure there’s a sane bone left in his body.” Another sharp crack. “If he even is a ‘he’. Hell, if he even has a body!”

“So what”- you begin, but are cut off by another loud BOOM, and when you can stand to open your eyes against the heat again, the sniper’s gone, as is a good portion of the wall he’d been shooting around.

“You will not turn my battlefield into a campground!” You hear someone shout from some distance behind you. Hesitantly peeking around your cover, you spot what’s keeping your whole team pinned down: not only is there both a soldier and a fully built-up sentry nest up ahead, but there’s also a scout lingering not far away, ready to pick off anybody who might make it through. And unfortunately, he spots you at the same time. Jumping to his feet, he starts running parallel to the incoming bullets, straight towards your crate!

You roll over onto all fours and back up a bit, angling your body towards the top of the crate. Maybe if he sees that you’re ready for him, he’ll lose heart and run back. You silently hope he will, because you still haven’t worked out how these guns are meant to fire when they’re strapped to your sides.

“HAH!” the scout shouts, as he jumps onto the crate. And is immediately knocked off of it by three shots of sentry gun fire. The turret watches the fallen scout for a few seconds, before resuming its sweeping of the area behind you, oblivious to the fact that it’s just a little bit on fire. Crawling back over to your crate, you decide that there’s really only one option now.

“Help!” you shout out, “Anypony, help!”

“YOU’D BETTER HOPE THERE’S HACKY-SACK IN HE”- the soldier shout as he charges straight past you, again, and gets mown down, again.

“Anypony with some sense, maybe?!” You call out again, sounding desparate.

“Those of us with sense,” somepony pipes up from a short way off, poking his balaclava-wrapped head around the corner, “are keeping quiet.” And he slinks away again.

You sigh, defeated. You’re not a hundred feet from the control point, and going nowhere. “Well, this sucks,” you summarise.
There’s an unsettlingly close BOOM, followed by another as a rocket hits the nearby sentry, and then amid the fire and smoke, the enemy soldier lands right in front of you!

“Suck on this, you skirt-twirling drunk!” he shouts, pointing his rocket launcher square in your face at point blank range. “If Celestia had wanted you to live, SHE WOULD NOT HAVE CREATED ME!!!” Sweat pours down your forehead as you try in vain to back away from the weapon, stopped short by your own cover. The soldier laughs, a long, drawn-out laugh of victory. There’s only one way this is going to end, and you resign yourself to your fate, slumping against the crate. The soldier leans in closer, steeling himself to take the final shot, grinning savagely, and-

“Hey, metalhead!” someone shouts, and the soldier backs up, looking around behind him. There's a dull clang as the butt of a weapon much, much bigger than your own collides with the back of the soldier’s helmet, and he staggers with the force of the blow. “Drop dead and give me twenty!” the voice continues, as you hear the revving of a chain gun spinning up. Before he can gather his senses, the soldier is torn apart by some seriously heavy firepower, as it’s wielder drops down between the two of you.

It’s a gryphon. Your team’s heavy weapons guy is a gryphon. And as she touches ground, you notice that she’s not alone. Standing on her back is a shockingly familiar, shockingly pink filly. It’s a few seconds before either of them turns to face you, during which you can’t hear anything other than the pounding of bullets into flesh, hot brass hitting dirt, and thousands and thousands of rounds being fired.

Eventually, though, the gryphon turns around, setting its massive gun down on the earth with a thud as it leans over you. Pinkie Pie jumps off of its back and turns to face you herself.

“Are you alright?” she asks, looking worried, “Are you hurt?”

“No, just very, very scared,” you admit.

“Wuss,” the gryphon pokes you verbally, before looking up at the sentry nest ahead. “You can thank me for the gunship rescue later; right now we’ve got about five minutes to make a very long walk down a very short alleyway.” She shifts her weight and hauls her gun up again, standing almost upright to counter-balance its tremendous weight with her wings. “You coming, Pinkie?”

“Right behind ya, all the way!” she cheers, before turning to you. “Come on, you too!”

“A-are you sure?” you ask nervously, “She didn’t ask for my help…”

“No,” Pinkie says, hauling you to your feet, “but I’m asking for it. You’ll make taking out that sentry a lot easier, and besides, it can’t be any fun for you to just sit here all safe-and-sound while we have fun getting shot at!”

“Pinkie Pie,” the gryphon pipes up, “has anyone ever told you that you’re random?”

“All the time, Gilda! Why?” Pinkie replies.

“Because they’re wrong. You’re not random, you’re just plain crazy! Now would ya get over here?”

Pinkie hops forward and lines up behind Gilda, and with a click, the nozzle of the device strapped to her sides starts letting loose a stream of red vapour. You quickly figure out that it’s a portable version of the ceiling device in the surgery. The two start walking forwards, as Gilda begins spinning up the minigun’s barrels again.

“Hey, wait for me!” You shout out, running up and falling in step to Pinkie. She flashes a smile at you, and you’re forced to smile back, but you can’t figure out why. “S-so, uh…” you start, suddenly nervous, “how do we actually fire these guns?”
“Oh, it’s easy!” she replies, “You just look at whatever you want to shoot, and think about shooting it!”

“What? How does that work?” you ask, having to shout as Gilda starts firing at the amassing enemies up ahead.

“I HAVE NO IDEA!” Pinkie shouts back, before glancing at a gauge on her device. “Gilda! We’re charged!” she called out.

“Hit it!” Gilda shouts back as the enemy’s sentry comes alive, beeping rapidly as it swings its head around to target the gryphon. It fires, loosing a salvo of rockets at her as red lightning begins to crackle around her. The rockets hit, and the explosion sends your ears ringing, blocking out everything except Gilda’s yelling. It’s terrible. Even with Pinkie healing her, there’s no way she could have survived that. Except, as you continue to listen, her yelling starts to morph into loud, happy laughter.

“I AM BULLET PROOF!” she shouts, and as the smoke clears, you see that she’s right. Both her and Pinkie Pie and coated in the same metallic sheen that your new heart had, and you instantly make the connection. The next salvo of rockets just bounce off of her, spiralling away and hitting the ground harmlessly. “Hey!” Gilda shouts back to you, “That thing’s slowing us down! Get rid of it!”

You turn your attention to the sentry, aim up a bit, and think to yourself, willing the grenade launcher at your side to fire itself. And, to your great surprise, it does, sending a pair of grenades rolling through the air towards the sentry. With a loud bang, they explode taking the turret with them. Grinning, you aim at the respawned scout from earlier as he tries to rush the three of you, and with another bang, he’s down, straight back into the white room he only just woke up from.

“I win, you git!” you shout, really getting into the swing of things now. It’s only a few more seconds and spent grenades before a klaxon sounds, and speakers holler all across the battlefield. “The final control point has been captured! RED team wins!”

You look at Pinkie and smile. She smiles back at you. Gilda turns around and grins at the both of you. You won! This silly battle’s over!

“I AM GOING TO ENJOY KILLING EACH AND EVERY”- the soldier hollers, rounding the corner again before stopping short with surprise. “Oh, uh… GOOD WORK MEN! Now everyone back to base for s’mores and, uh… my tales of amazing wartime valour, featuring ME!”

“So, since we’ve won, what happens now?” you ask as your trio walk into the base’s kitchen after Soldier’s started telling some pretty ridiculous war stories.

“Same thing I’ve been doing for years,” Gilda replies, “First of all, today wasn’t the end of this battle. We’ve gotta keep pushing forwards, as per instruction. I mean, did you think this’d end just because we’ve taken over some shiny metal disk in the middle of a construction yard?”

“Well,” you begin, before realising what she meant – that was hardly worth waging war over. “So what are we trying to do?” you ask, as Pinkie starts rummaging through cupboards, looking for something to eat.

Gilda sighs. “Truth be told, there’s a missile that BLU’s been building. If we don’t get to and deactivate it before it’s ready to launch, who knows what they’ll do with it?”

“Hang on a second!” You cry, “They can’t just go launching missiles inside Equestria’s borders!”

“And who said we’re still in Equestria?” Gilda points out. “So long as we’re not near Celestia’s playgrounds, we’re not her problem.”

“So, where are they most likely to launch this missile?” you ask, a bit hesitant.

“You really need to ask that? At us, duh!” Gilda rolls her eyes. “And wouldn’t that be a downer ending, since we’ve worked so hard?”

“You’re telling me,” you reply, “first day on the job and it turns out we’re on the brink of being blown to bits.”

“Aww, don’t be so loomy-gloomy, you two!” Pinkie says with her usual cheer, “This’ll cheer you up!” And she holds up two bottles of something that you instantly recognise.

“Booze!”

“A-an’, an’ that’s how, Equestria was a maid, I think.” Pinkie drunkedly concludes her tale, a cheerful story full of candy, colour and something called Caligula. She breaks down into fits of giggles again.

“…right,” Gilda says, barely halfway through her second bottle and barely tipsy.

“Pinkie, what are we drinking?” You ask again, seeing the world as if through a slightly steamy window.

“Oh, I make it myself!” Pinkie chirps up, “You mix Sasparilla, vodka an’ whiskey, and then pour in a whole bag of sugar! I call it thunder-b, thunder… Fun-der bomb? Something like that.”

“Whatever it is,” you decide, “it’s amazing. I feel like I’m drunk twice over, but I can still see everything!” You swing your hooves around to emphasize ‘everything’ and accidentally knock over an empty bottle. “Err… I meant to do that.”

“…sure,” Gilda says, sounding almost bored.

“Gilda, what’s wrong?” Pinkie asks, “you’re being not-fun, like a, an… unfun-thing.”

“Just quietly contemplating my life,” Gilda replies.

“Aww, you’re not still hung up about what Dashie said, are ya? ‘Cos you know you’re a changed mare now. Or lioness, or whatever”-

“she-gryphon,” Gilda interjects, “and I know what you mean, but for the better? I kill for a living now, what does that make me?”

“Better than soldier,” you butt in, “because you can actually do it!” Pinkie breaks into hysterics, but Gilda doesn’t so much as smile. “Hey, you know what? Once we’ve beaten this rocket thing, why don’t you just stop? If this upsets you that much, why keep doing it?”

“I guess you’re right,” Gilda says, “I just never thought of that before.”

“Wow, you’re smart,” Pinkie compliments you.

“Aww, no, I’m really not,” you bashfully disagree.

“Yeah you are, you’re a smarty-smart, clever colt.” She persists.

“Well, It’s nothing to what you are,” you say, “you’re really smart, I mean, you did that… thing, with the heart, and the glowing, and making Gilda bulletproof.”

“Aww, that’s not smart,” she denies your claim, “that’s just what they trained me to do.”

“Still, you’re pretty smart. And downright cute to boot,” you say decidedly, before your cheeks flush as you realise what you just said.

Both girls look at you in surprise. “You… you think I’m cute?” Pinkie asks.

“Well, yeah, ‘cos you’re always really cheerful and bubbly and fun and stuff,” you reply without hesitation.

“Oooh,” they both say in realisation, before Gilda continues, “Sorry, it’s just that on her first day here, our current engineer tried to force himself on Pinkie, saying pretty much the same thing.”

“Oh my gosh!” you cry out, alarmed at what you’d just done, “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to”-

“Aww, don’t worry about it, you didn’t know!” Pinkie smiles at you.

You smile back, relieved that you haven’t upset her. “So, what happened?”

Pinkie looks thoughtful for a moment. “Well, he wouldn’t take me not being interested for an answer, and I started to get a bit scared, which is when Gilda showed up!”

“Seeing Pinkie Pie again was a bit of a shocker,” Gilda continues, “given how we originally met, but anyway, I told the engy to back off, you know? He wouldn’t, and said that he, well, ‘wanted’ her, and I told him that she was already taken. He didn’t believe me, so…” Gilda trails off, and you notice her blushing slightly as Pinkie stifles a giggle.

“So…?” You press her.

“So I showed him that she was, by, well, kissing her.” Gilda finishes, embarassed.

Pinkie burst out laughing. “The look on his face after we broke off! He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry!” You yourself are chuckling pretty hard at this, and even Gilda manages a smile. “So anyway, as he words it, ‘yer just damn lucky I’m not interested in fillyfoolers, or yer’d have ta fight me for her’ and he walks away!” Pinkie says.

“Like he’d stand a chance!” Gilda says, slightly boastfully, “the guy’s so overweight he can barely run!”

“He wobbles!” Pinkie giggles, “Not to mention being a grouchy old mean meanie pants! Not like you at all, umm, You.”

There’s a short pause. “’You?’” you ask, confused.

Pinkie Pie looks a little embarrassed. “I don’t remember your name,” she admits.

“Huh,” you utter, and then pause to think. “Okay, that’s worrying – I don’t remember it either!”

“Oh great,” Gilda says, “I guess we’ve got to think of a name for you until you remember, then.”

“Hmmm,” Pinkie muses, then spots the bottles on the table, “Hey, I know! We ought to call you Funder Blast, because you’re fun, and you blow things up!”

“You did not just name him after what we’ve been drinking,” Gilda mutters disbelievingly, “that’s just bad.”

“Aww, can’t you call me Cupcake, or something cute?” you cheekily ask.

Both girls give you questioning looks again, and Pinkie giggles. “Well, aren’t you the brave one! Hey, there’s a much better name! Let’s call him Bold!”

“That’s not too bad,” the gryphon says, “I had a cousin called Bold. Can’t remember what happened to him though.”

“I’m okay with this,” you agree.

“It’s settled,” Pinkie confirms, “I’m gonna call you Bold.” She stifles a giggle again, “At least, when I’m not calling you Cupcake or something cute.”

Your cheeks flush. “You mean you actually want to date?”

“Well, why not? You think I’m cute, I think you’re really fun to be with, so let’s date!”

“Well, alright!” You agree, and smile at your new fillyfriend. She smiles back, and leans towards you a little. You lean towards her. Inch by inch, the two of you gradually close the distance between you until you’re muzzle to muzzle, gazing into each other’s eyes like a pair of love-struck schoolfoals. Turning a bit, you peck Pinkie of the cheek, and she giggles, that cute, bubbly laughter that you’ve only just realised makes the heart she gave you a touch warmer.

“That’s not how you kiss a girl for the first time, silly!” Pinkie instructs you, “You’re meant to lean in, slooowly, and then hold back just a hair’s breadth away.” She demonstrates as she talks, moving so close to you as to give you a scent of her sugary coat. “Then the couple slip their hooves around each other,” she continues, curling her forelegs round your waist as you do the same, feeling her soft hair brush against your limbs. “And then,” Pinkie continues, “ever so delicately, he”-

“Oh, just go and make out right in front of me, why don’t ya?” Gilda says, breaking the atmosphere while rolling her eyes. Judging by the mischievous glint in Pinkie’s eyes, she’s as tempted to oblige the gryphon as you are, but neither of you move to do so, nor do you break apart. The two of you spend the rest of the evening like that, reduced to slightly tipsy, chatting among yourselves, with you and Pinkie embracing each other with romantic abandon.

Just outside the door, a gruff, slightly overweight pony wearing a hardhat grits his teeth at your back, and utters a single word: “Darn.” Unseen, he turns and trots away, already planning.

Engineers are good at planning.

Chapter Four: Train of Pain

“INCOMING!” You shout, alerting your teammates to BLU’s attempt at a counter-attack. Today’s battle started well, a hard push against some haphazard defences – Spy really came into his element dealing with that sentry nest before it got up to the big guns, and with the rest of you constantly pushing forwards, BLU’s engineer hasn’t had a chance to set up his base where it’ll help before you’ve torn it down again.

Your own Techy, however, is doing great, systematically running forwards with his dispenser, setting up a new teleporter exit and only then trying to knock together a sentry, keeping your walking wall glued together instead.
Seeing that they’re losing ground fast without a sentry or dispenser, BLU’s seemingly decided to push you back, giving their Engy precious time to set up and let them hold the line… assuming they don’t push you all the way back to resupply, of course.

“ROGER THAT!” Soldier shouts back to you, and trots over to a short concrete barrier for some cover. You notice most of the team moving up to your position and digging in, and you smile when you see Pinkie Pie using the brief lull to top up everypony’s Overheal. You yourself are up on a side ledge, ready to fire down on anypony that gets past you. As you busy yourself setting up a line of Sticky Bombs, your engineer runs up behind you and throws down a red toolbox, before unpacking his fully upgraded dispenser on your ledge.

“Easy access, several ways out, light cover, good spot for a teleporter exit,” he murmers to himself, dragging another toolbox off of his back and setting it down.

“IS GOOD TIME TO RUN, COWARDS!” You hear a very loud, very gruff voice shout from around the corner up ahead, signalling the enemy tide. The enemy heavy steps out sideways, and lets loose on his giant gun as most of your team returns fire. To your surprise, it seems that the Heavy’s ignoring the large and somewhat exposed threat of Gilda, and is instead focused on supressing your Soldier. It doesn’t take you long to figure out why – as the heavy steps across the narrow avenue, giving cover to the medic behind him, all of your team focused on him, their sniper pops his head around the corner. With a sharp crack, Gilda silently drops, hitting the ground with a loud thud alongside her own weapon.

“Damnit!” Pinkie Pie shouts, quickly ducking further behind her own light cover near the fallen gryphon. Her medigun flips over and up onto her back as her needlegun comes down on her left side – there’s nopony near enough to her for her to heal them, and she can’t risk breaking cover. Your own sniper looses a shot, dropping his BLU counterpart while yelling the usual sort of abuse… until a flare arcs across the battlefield and hits him dead in the chest, setting his hair alight.

“Gah! Fire!” he shouts, turning and bolting out of cover towards the dispenser behind you, not quite making it through the incoming fire.

“SO MANY ITTY BITTY TINY FOALS ON YOUR TEAM!” the heavyweight draft pony up ahead shouts, liberally spreading the area with massive bullets, allowing more and more of his team to round the corner and start firing. You spot the sniper lining up a shot at you, and quickly duck. When you dare raise your head again, he’s moved, stepping back to the medic and raising a hoof to him, evidently hurt. You blink, and suddenly the sniper’s just gone, with the medic stood in his place. The medic, in turn, moves away from the fire-drawing heavy and moves to heal the soldier instead… and disappears, with the soldier jumping a few inches to his left. It just doesn’t make sense – the enemy team is just disappearing, one by one.

“Well, Ah’ll be,” the Texan behind you says, watching the same thing as you, “how in the hell of it did he get back there?” His words only confuse you even more as the soldier leans over to the pyro as he charges past, stretching out a hoof before disappearing. At the same time, the pyro stops short and instead turns to the heavy, who turns his head to watch him. They look at each other for a few seconds, before the bigger pony is engulfed in a fireball, leaving only the arsonist. A hoof goes to the his rubber mask, and he pulls it off, dropping a thinner, paper mask to the floor.

“You couldn’t let me ‘ave that last one, could you, soldier?” the spy calls back, spinning his dagger on one gloved hoof.

“NEGATORY, but you’ve done me proud, son! That is what I wanna”- Soldier’s cut shorts by a loud BLAM that drops the spy to the floor.

“Hit the bricks pal, you’re done!” the scout from yesterday shouts as he rounds the corner. “You’ll never hit me, suckas! I am UN”- he jumps right as he charges your team, narrowly dodging a rocket, “FREAKING”- back to the left, he jumps clean over a wasted flare as it rattles across the floor, “TOUCHA”-

“Boom,” you say, bringing emphasis to the sticky bombs as they detonate beneath the scout’s hooves, launching what’s left of him into the air.

“ENEMY CLEARED,” the soldier shouts out, “MOVE UP!”

“Hey, demo!” engineer calls you, “Would ya min’ givvin’ me a han’? Ah jus’ need somepony to cover me while Ah move alla this gear up!”

“Sure thing, Tex!” you agree, sitting tight while the rest of your team moves forwards, their path a little easier until the next wave arrives. Pinkie trots over before she leaves, giving you a brief peck before moving on with the team. You follow her with your vision as she leaves, smiling gladly to yourself.

A grunt from the engy behind you brings you back to your senses, and you turn to see him struggling to fold up his dispenser into its toolbox. He seems really put off about something, frowning and grunting as he works. Most likely he’s just tired of doing this, so you try to lift his spirits a bit.

“You know, you’re doing a great job, Engy,” you offer, “if it weren’t for you, we’d still be fighting for the first control point.”

“You think?” he asks through a mouth full of metal, “You like what Ah’m doin’?”

“Yeah,” You reply, not sure what to say next.

“Well, Ah can’t say Ah’m like-minded,” he says, turning towards you properly.

“You don’t like what you’re doing?” You ask.

“No, that ain’t it,” he says, before rearing up and kicking you square in the face with his right hoof. You fall to your flanks, surprised at the sudden attack. “Ah don’t like what you’re doin’!” he continues.

“Wh-what d’ya mean?” you ask, confused.

“D’ya know how long Ah’ve been stuck out here?” He barks at you, sticking his hoof to your chest and kicking you over further. “D’ya know how long it’s been since Ah last even saw the hindside of a filly? Ah am not havin’ some two-bit rookie layin’ his hooves on that lil’ pink girl a’fore Ah do!” He stands over you, pinning your back to the floor with one hoof. “You wise up an’ back off, mister!”

In fear and desperation, you kick one of your back legs into the bigger pony’s ample gut, hoping to wind him and get out from underneath him. Except that that isn’t fat, that’s muscle. The enginner doesn’t even flinch at the wild assault.

“Oh, you did not just…” He grits his teeth and leans forwards, pushing his muzzle in your face. “You just go an’ do that again, why don’t ya, an’ see where it gets ya?” With no other real options, you oblige, ramming your hoof into his hardened belly. “Come on, are ya buckin’ me or ticklin’ me? HARDER!” he shouts, and you throw as much force as you can into your next kick, still failing to make him move off of you.

“Huh, Ah thought as much. You ain’t strong, you ain’t tough. Prob’ly rely on Town Guard to keep you safe back home, huh? Well, Ah got news for ya,” the Texan monologues in a low, sinister voice, “ya’ll ain’t in Equestria no more. Out here it’s just you, me, an’ whatever muscle we’ve got, an’ Ah got a hella lot more than you!” He steps back, moving his hoof off your chest, but you’re still too timid to move just yet. “An’ ya actually thought ya could hold onto a filly out here, huh? Here, lemme do ya’ll a favour,” he says, and before you know what’s happening, there’s a loud BANG, and pain engulfs your body, shooting up your spine from your midriff.

The tech smiles to himself with a chuckle as the shotgun by his side cocks itself. “Ya’ll should stay dead, if’n ya know what’s good for ya,” he taunts, “because believe me, ya got off lightly.” He turns and walks away, pausing only to pack up his dispenser with a single buck and demolish his teleporter before moving up to the front lines. “Don’t come back now, y’hear?” he calls back with a laugh as he rounds the corner up ahead.

You can’t move, the pain from your shot guts pinning you to the floor. You’re paralyzed, alone and far behind the fighting line. You lie hopelessly on the ground, struggling to keep breathing through the intensity of the gunshot’s pain.

“ATTENTION!” a loudspeaker nearby crackles into life, “FIVE MINUTES LEFT TO THE MISSION!”

Five minutes. You panic: respawn turns off in fifteen minutes! You’re not going to be dead in time to respawn! Smartflanked son of a horse, he’s set you up to die off for good! Amid the pain addling your thoughts, you decide on one thing: you’ve got to get moving, and you’ve got to do it now.

Bracing yourself against the pain, you gently roll yourself over to your front, holding your injured belly off of the ground on your hooves, before steadily standing upright. Good, you’re on your hooves, as the loudspeaker shouts two minutes at you. You dip your head and quickly study your wound, assessing whether you can walk with it or not. There’s a lot of blood and a lot of holes, but it looks like everything’s still in place, as in, still inside of you. You’ve had worse – you’ve had your heart replaced, even if you did have a medigun and a surgeon that time. You lift a forehoof and set it forwards, gently easing your weight onto it, before moving the corresponding hindhoof. With slow, deliberate movements, you make head back to resupply, that surgery, and where that medic will be. Hopefully.

“You know,” someone says from somewhere before you, “you could ‘ave just offed yourself. Save yourself a lot of time and agony.” A BLU spy steps around the corner, and you realise with a jolt that you’re in now fit state to fight him off.
“I’m not about to go suiciding just to make my life easier,” you explain, aiming to walk steadily past him.

“Ah, zhen it is not cowardice and fear, but courage and bravery zhat makes you refrain!” He says with a flourish. “I like zhat. I suppose you’ll not take too kindly to me for doing the job for you, either?” he offers.

“No thanks,” you grunt through the burning wound, “I’m good.”

“Not that zhat usually stops me, but like I said, you remind me a lot of myself, a courageous, dashing rogue who is chased by mares wherever he goes. A blessing or a curse, who is to tell?” His rather hammy attitude is perfectly complemented by the theatrical phantom mask he’s wearing, you note.

“I’m not chased by mares,” you point out as you walk past, “I just happen to have met one who likes me.”

“And you’ve been extremely gentlecoltly about courting her,” he replies in a slightly arrogant, slightly sultry voice, “and while I know zhat a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, I have other ways of learning zhese things.”

You frown at him as you walk. “Have you been spying on m”- you’re cut short by your own yell as you misstep, about to send yourself crashing to the ground onto your wound. Before you’re even close to the dirt, though, the spy sticks out a hoof and catches you, holding you steady for a moment before propping you back up onto your hooves.

“Erm, thanks,” you say, “but… aren’t we enemies?”

“Not all of us are as brutal as zhat illiterate ruffian you called ‘Tex’,” the spy replies, “and while you are being a gentlecolt I, too, am being a gentlecolt. Besides,” he says, pausing for no apparent reason.

Just as you open your mouth to question him, the loudspeakers spark into life again. “BLU SUCCESSFULLY HOLDS THE POINT!” a harsh-voiced mare at the other end hollers, “YOU HAVE FAILED!”

“We’re hardly enemies out-of-hours, are we?” the spy continues. “Now, I can hardly help you all of zhe way back to your spawn, but no matter. Ask, and my assistance is yours.”

You think for a moment. This guy’s not exactly the trustworthy type, but he’s all the help you’ve got. With failure being rewarded with your guns jamming, followed by a quick respawn complementary of the enemy team, no passing REDs are about to lend you a hoof. You accept, and with the spy’s help you make much speedier progress back to base.

“So, why the theatre mask?” you ask as the two of you round the corner to your spawn.

“Ah, zhat is a good question,” he replies, “it is to remind myself of what I am, and what I am not. Zhis mask, it reminds me zhat I am forever in disguise, zhat even when I am myself, I am not. Zhere is no one stallion beneath zhis mask, monsieur, instead zhere are just many, many more masks. No one mask has any more significance zhan any other, zhey are all just another paper face in zhe masquerade, as am I.”

“That’s… very poetic,” you reply, fairly confused but also marvelled.

“Indeed. Well, we are here,” he rounds off the conversation with another flourish, “and I fear I must leave you. If I were you, I’d get straight to zhe surgery, given zhat we are now more than ten minutes past respawn shut-off. If we meet again, it is likely zhat I will need to kill you, so do not be surprised if I try.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” you say, turning to look at him only to realise that you’re completely alone. “Spooky,” you say with a straight face, before turning and stepping inside.

“Ohmygosh, you’re BACK!” Pinkie Pie cheers, throwing both hooves around your neck in a hug before you’ve fully realised that she’s even there. “I’ve been waiting for you to get back for HOURS, and I was really scared that you weren’t coming!”

“Pinkie, battle’s only been over for twenty”- you start, then yelp as her weight pulling you forwards causes you to stick one hoof on the floor wrong and your heavily wounded stomach jolts.

“OH!” the filly cries out, spotting the blood dripping onto the floor, “Y-you’re hurt! Come with me!” she says decisively, and starts leading you downstairs to the surgery. She quickly has you strapped down and the ceiling medigun trained on your gut.

“So, how did you get this, anyway?,” she starts talking as she wheels up a tray of shining steely surgery instruments, “I mean, I didn’t see you at the front lines after you stayed back with Engineer, especially not close enough to receive a point-blank shotgun wound from beneath!”

“Well, see, that’s the thing,” you begin as Pinkie picks up a long pair of tweezers in her muzzle, “He shot me.”

“Engineer shot you?” Pinkie asked, looking puzzled, “but why?”

“Well, because he doesn’t like me dating you,” you say, before going on to explain exactly what happened as the pink filly busies herself with getting buckshot out from your innards. You’re not sure why, but the cool metal dipping repeatedly into your flesh, coupled with Pinkie’s warm breath on your belly, feels absurdly nice.

“And you didn’t shoot him back?” she asks as you reach the part where the Texan walked away. “I know you’re more of a lover than a fighter, but when someone shoots at you, you gotta shoot right back at them around here! Don’t let yourself be a target!” she lectures you. Agreeing to fight back next time, you go on with your tale, omitting the part about the BLU spy implying that you’re constantly chased by fillies. To your surprise, you’re able to recall word-for-word his monologue about his mask.

“And that’s when I walked in the door and we ended up here,” you conclude.

“And what happened then was that Pinkie Pie decided that the Engineer can go suck a sourball,” the surgeon continues in third person. She drops the last bullet on the worktop with a clack and moves around to your head. “If he thinks I’m going to start liking him for being a big mean meanie-pants to my friends, then he’s just being a plain Silly McSillerson! Ask Gilda, it doesn’t work.”

You smile at Pinkie’s slightly childish understanding of the situation, and she smiles back with a chuckle. “The only real problem I’ve got,” you say, “is that I’m worried that I might get hurt more if he knows we’re still toghether.”

“He’s not a smart cookie if he plans on hurting you more,” Pinkie explains, “you being hurt just means you have to come and see me, and we get to spend more time together. Although, I don’t really want to see you getting hurt either, not if it’s going to make you upset again.” She glances up at the medigun on the ceiling. “Hey, I have an idea!”

“Something tells me I might not like this,” you say with an edge of uneasiness in your voice.

“Oh, trust me, you will!” Pinkie reassures you. “I checked this machine yesterday, it’s still running on Type 1 medigun fluid. Our last resupply, as well as my personal medigun, are running the Type 2 Gel.”

“Right, so what’s the difference?” you ask.

“Well, among other things, when vaporised and inhaled, the gel stops a pony from feeling any pain, so they can shrug off all of the wounds that will quickly heal. That was a response to the fluid’s tendency to gets its targets killed as a result of it making them enjoy pain.”

“Come again?” You ask, uneasy again.

“You remember when I was operating on you, you could feel it but it didn’t hurt? Well,” Pinkie picks up a scalpel from the tray table, and grins, “this is going to be a lot more fun than that!”

Blade in mouth, the filly leans across you and touches the metal point to the right side of your chest, just inwards and down from your shoulder. Gently, almost lovingly, she easies the blade through your skin, eliciting a sharp gasp from you as the sharp knife goes deeper into your chest, causing a sensation you’re entirely unfamiliar with. Flashing you another grin, Pinkie moves across you, dragging the blade across and down your breastbone, drawing a deep well of blood that begins to soak into the hair of your coat, and bringing forth another, longer breath as you’re again subject to the excruciating… pleasure.

“Enjoying yourself?” Pinkie asks, pulling the scalpel out of your body.

“…Yeah,” you reply as your breath settles again, “I think I am.”

“Oh good!” Pinkie cheers, “Now hold still while I turn up the fluid emitters.” She reaches up to grab the nozzle of the machine above you, but in its retracted state it’s too high up. The pink filly taps one hoof on her chin, before placing both forehooves on the table beside you and hauling herself up onto it. Turning, she easily reaches the valve on the side of the device and turns it to full blast, letting loose a thick stream of fluid vapour that engulfs the two of you and starts to close up the wounds in your chest and stomach.

Pinkie twists around to face you again, and you realise with a flush that, for wont of a better word, she’s straddling you. Judging by the cheeky grin she’s wearing, she’s noticed too. She sets both forehooves down either side of your chest, and slowly lowers herself onto you, easing her weight onto your still healing underside. You relish the light pain with a slight gasp as she lowers her face to yours, filling your mind with the smell of her fur, that sweet, sugary plum-like smell. You begin to wonder if she tastes the same way, but instead focus on how she’s so close, mere inches from touching her muzzle to yours, and still moving closer. Your lips touch, and you feel all else fade as you focus solely on her lips, pressing again and again against your own, as her hooves curl around your chest, pulling her tighter against you as you push your lips back against hers. She moans into the kiss, and you use her pleasure as a weakness to push her lips apart with your own, turning your head slightly to open her mouth. You move to push your tongue into her, but instead have your teeth clamped shut as she bite down hard on your lip, making you gasp with pleasure again. She lets go, and you dart your tongue forward, only to be met with her own soft tongue, and the two of you begin twisting and struggling in your kiss, each trying to gain dominance, as she also begins to push her body against yours, rubbing her breast against your own with each breath, drawing her hooves tighter around your chest. You manage to get past her, slipping your tongue into her mouth, exploring her inside even as she begins to bite down on you, bringing with her another wave of stinging pleasure. One of her hooves slips out from beneath you, and a moment later a sharp pain in your side signals your turn to moan, as she drives the scalpel into you again. It twists, making you press upwards into her even as she pulls herself down onto you, her hind legs rubbing lovingly against your own, despite the straps holding them still.

She pulls back off of the kiss, pulling lightly on your tongue before letting you go, and then pushing back into you once more, this time easily pushing past you and sliding her tongue into your mouth, delving deep and exploring the insides of your orifice, her soft tongue travelling teasingly over every inch of your maw. As she touches the roof of your mouth, you moan again, and you feel her smile into the kiss as she begins rubbing at the spot, gently teasing more satisfaction into you, even as her hoof slips on the knife and pushes it too deep, sending even more burning bliss through your body. Ignoring the blade all together, she hooks her hoof around your shoulder, pulling the two of you into each other with even more force, rubbing her chest against yours with an almost primal lust, while pushing your head back against the table with nothing but her own lips, still eagerly and tantalizingly stroking your inner weakness with her soft tongue, sighing lovingly into you as you do all you can to press back against her, trying to make her feel the same bliss you feel.
Eventually, Pinkie pulls out from your mouth, breaking the kiss, apparently exhausted. She rests her head against yours for a few seconds as the two of you lie still, both gasping frantically for air while unwilling to let each other go. You feel a slight burning satisfaction as she pulls the knife from your side, letting the hole fully heal as the two of you gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes.

“I’m not… sure… we’re done… just yet,” Pinkie says between breaths, before she moves her head down towards your shoulder, tracing her muzzle gently across yours, down your cheek, along the side of your neck. You feel her soft lips touch the base of your neck, in the crook of your shoulder, and they part, moving around as she sucks gently on your neck, slowly engulfing more of your collar as you feel her teeth come into contact with your skin and she begins to bite, putting more and more pressure between her teeth, building more and more pleasure in your body, until your skin breaks and your blood begins to flow, bringing with it a surge of raw indulgence, making you gasp as the filly bites down more, brushing her tongue through your coat and your blood, savouring the rare metallic taste as you relax under waves of agonizing bliss.

“Hey, doc, I stubbed my hoof, could ya”- Scout stops short, both mid-sentence and mid-step, as Pinkie jolts her head away from your neck, still straddling you, her mouth ringed with your blood, with you slack underneath her. There’s a single second of silence, followed by Scout’s terrified yelp, and then his galloping away and screaming about the medic being a vampire.

Pinkie and you share a glance. “I’m guessing he won’t want any Übercharges for a while,” you joke, and the two of you chuckle, then giggle, then fall about laughing hysterically as the bite in your shoulder closes, no harm done. You both calm down quickly, and you lose yourself in Pinkie’s loving gaze.

“I... I guess I should untie you,” she offers, before sliding off of you and climbing to the floor. There’s a brief pause as she shakes herself, making her mane and tail seemingly bounce up a lot more. “This was really fun,” she says as she sets about untying you, “ww mmt tw dw wt wgmm smm twmm!” You slide off of the table yourself, straight into her waiting hooves as she pulls you into a tight hug.

“Yeah, we definitely should,” you agree, “only next time, don’t worry about strapping me down.”

“Huh? Why not?” Pinkie asks, pulling back from the hug to look you in the face.

“Well, if I’m tied up, how am I meant to please you?” You ask flirtatiously.

Pinkie giggles and blushes, but agrees to leave you unbound next time, before pulling you into another kiss, reminding you of something you thought earlier while supplying you with the answer.

Yes, she does taste like sweet sugarplums.