Of Ponies and Muffins

Chapter 12: Cupcakes, Thievery and Wormholes (Again)

        Alex was getting bored, and quicker than usual. Rarity had gone off to some fashion exhibition and had closed down the shop while she was gone, so he was off work until she came back. She had given him advanced pay, to compensate for that (hey, she was the element of generosity for a reason) and he had nothing to really do. He only really went out to the clubs after work and pretty much only worked. He reached up and rubbed the spot where Cameron had nailed him with a book when he wouldn't stop complaining about there being nothing to do. At this point he was more than halfway done with his community service, and wondered what exactly he would do once he was done with that.

        He glanced at the clock, seeing it was about noon. His stomach grumbled. Man, i’m hungry, might as well get lunch. He got up and proceeded to walk out the door. When you become a strictly vegetarian species realizing that meat is no longer on your palate can come as a bit of a dietary shock. He had also managed to build up a tolerance to the sugary treats that at one point had hospitalized after an extreme regiment from Pinkie. Might as well get a cupcake or something. He headed off in the direction of the confectionary to satisfy his hunger.

        Alex opened the door and ducked just in time to not get hit by the incoming sugary missile of a cupcake. He got up to see that it had somehow gotten loosed during the chaos laid out before him. Both of the cakes were busy moving pastries around and dashing back to the counter to take the orders of the customers. He saw Pinkie dashing back and forth from the kitchen and the counter, placing ponies orders up front. He figured that he should wait for the chaos to die down before he decided to order, just to give them a bit of a reprieve from the madness.

He sat down at one of the tables and waited for about thirty minutes until it had calmed down enough that he figured that it would be a decent time to order. He proceeded to walk up to the counter, placed some bits on the table and stated his order. “Hey, can I get a chocolate cupcake? And what's going on exactly, I know you guys get busy at times but this is just ridiculous.”

Mr. Cake turned towards him. “Well we have this event we are catering at and we need to get all of the food ready for transport”. He pointed with his hoof over at the boxes in the corner. And now its gotten so hectic that we need to find a foal sitter since Pinkie is busy tonight.”

Alex thought about that for a while, recalling his experiences with children back on earth. He might as well offer since he had nothing better to do anyhow. He took a quick breath and asked. “What about me? I’m good enough with ch-... Foals and I have nothing planned for tonight so it wouldn't be a problem for me to do it.”

Alex had a bit of trouble processing what happened next, Mr. Cake darted into the back then come rushing back out again with a few rushed thankyous and he was handed some contact information, a list of needs for the foals and finally all of the boxes were quickly moved outside and both of the Cakes were gone. I will take that as I got the jo-.... Wait.... He let his thoughts process for an extra second. “YOU NEVER GAVE ME MY CUPCAKE!”

V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V

Cameron shook his head as he flew above the quaint little town. Being able to fly above everyone else made him feel like a boss. He had gained a new admiration for birds back on earth, and realise his life was gonna suck when he wouldn't be able to fly around. He had practically given up on the notion of figuring out how Pegasi worked since they lacked hollow bones, until he had found a book that had explained that they actually use their wings to instinctively grab the magic that permeated the entire world around them and used it to pull themselves around, which also explained why some Pegasi created streaks of color or patterns behind them.

        He had actually gotten into a lot of equestrian literature since the whole series of unfortunate events he had gone through. Twilight would still pester him about human culture but Cameron had decided it would be best if the human race remained a mystery. At any point he could just say whatever he wanted and could probably make it so that indiana jones was not a fictional character and could replace all of the gods of ancient greece with comic book characters. He thought about that for a moment, envisioning Batman being Zeus. Huh... a billionaire badass as a king of gods.... Ancient Greece would have been awesome.

        He looked over the cloud where he had perched himself, seeing if there was anything fun going on. Sadly, Cameron was a clumsy human and an even clumsier equestrian, so he promptly fell off the cloud. Crap! He began to fall, forcing him to rely on his instincts as a Pegasus. These instincts gave him a rather particular reflex, that reflex you ask? Flail around and pray to Celestia that he didn't become a fleshy pancake. He decided to open his eyes to see where exactly he would become the potentially delicious (albeit somewhat meaty) breakfast item. However he saw a rather familiar sight, a wormhole. Oh you have got to be kidding me.

He plunged through the gateway and opened his eyes, feeling rather bipedal again.  He saw the skyline of his home city in front of him, flipped upside down and moving downwards (or would it be upwards?). Despite this, he went past the adrenaline rush and did something he thought he would never do. He yelled. “Hallelujah I’m back in this hellhole I call home!”

“Yeah well, don’t get too happy. I would like to point out that you don’t have wings any more.” He said in a rather snarky tone.

You know Brian, I hate you so much right now that I don’t even know where to begin. He glanced down, hoping that he was about to crash right into a pool, or a trampoline, or possibly even a massive tub of jelly. However it looked like Equestria was not quite done with trolling Cameron since he saw yet another wormhole beneath him. WHY THE HELL DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPEN?

        He fell through the portal once again and immediately felt the hooves and wings he had come accustomed to. However the brief moment of joy at the reacquisition of this appendages was short lived when he realised that he had created a small crater in the ground. He pushed himself up from the ground and swore. “Celestia damn it all, why does this happen to me?”

        A voice to his side chimed in, sounding rather royal. “You ask that question as if I would know”. At the sound of the voice Cameron's eyes became as wide as dinner plates on steroids. He slowly turned his head to see two immortal alicorns standing by a throne.

        “Um.... Sup?” Cameron replied hoping that this was just a hallucination caused by something he ate, and that he hadn't just made a rather impossible entrance to the royal throne room, he also realised that he felt fine, if not a little beaten up. He looked over at the Alicorn standing next to Celestia, who he assumed was Princess Luna. “You must be Luna, my friend who wound up in your bedroom and became your personal lackey for dream creeping says to go die in a hole.... And also to stop going into his dreams when he’s off duty, he says showing up in one dream and making it.... Interesting was bad enough, but 5 times is considered stalking. And technically rape.”

        The princess looked at him straight in the eyes and replied with something that chilled Cameron to his very bones. “We are sorry. After the first four times he seemed to start enjoying it. And tell him he still has 10.37 hours left in his service.”

        Celestia heard all of this and looked back and forth between the scene laid out before her. Whether she was speaking to Cameron Or Luna was a mystery, but she asked an important question. “Do I really want to know what you two are talking about?”.

        Both turned their heads and in unison said “No”. Cameron sat back on his haunches and started to speak again. “Look, I am having a seriously annoying day and honestly I don’t see how it could get much worse.” He began to rub his temples with his hooves and then he smelt something burning. He saw a scroll appear in a gout of green flame. This fell to the ground, and then in another burst of flame he saw two pictures tag along with it, one of himself and one of Alex.

Wait a minute... A message to the princess and pictures of me and Alex... Cameron realised that this specific combination of things meant only one thing, Twilight had stabbed him in the back and had decided to tell Celestia about him and Alex. Twilight, you are SO dead when I get back to Ponyville. He quickly dove for the scroll did the only thing he could have done in the situation. He ate the scroll.

Chapter 13: A Cliffhanger With a Side of Foal Sitting

        Alex had dragged himself back to the house (he had eventually gotten the cupcake after hunting down Pinkie) and braced himself for taking care of the two foals, he figured that it couldn't be much harder than dealing with two children, right? He had been left a list of things that he needed to take care of for the foals, and from what he saw on there it wasn’t much different from human baby needs.

        Along with it was a second note that he assumed Pinkie wrote, since it was done in a pink ink and was a different writing style than the original note, the weird thing about it was that it said: “In case of tears, pour flour on your head”. Honestly at this point he didn't even bother attempting to understand what that meant, or if Pinkie was just attempting to troll him. The thing that perplexed him most though was how to earth ponies could have both a unicorn and a Pegasus for children, because that made absolutely no genetic sense at all. Then again, he just got a note from a pink hyperactive talking equine that asked him to pour flour on his head, so that seemed rather normal at the moment.

        He trotted up to where the two were asleep, and was glad that he only really needed to do something if they woke up so he just started to keep himself busy. He went on like this for maybe an hour or two, and then checked the clock.Huh, they said they would be back about midnight, and its only 10:30, so there is not all that much left for me to wait for. Might as well check on the foals again.

        An hour later, he regretted that decision, if that wasn't already apparent by the explosion.

        “Wow. I regret that decision” Alex thought out loud. Luckily, nobody had died save a couple rats. Apparently, Equestrian explosions are quite selective. The explosion was the least of Alex’s worries, though. The entirety of Sugar cube Corner looked as if a tornado had swept up the magma from an exploding volcano. There was furniture strewn everywhere, the remains of what used to be various pies, cakes and cobblers were splattered all over the walls, frosting was strewn everywhere.

        His thoughts were interrupted as he was hit in the face by a bag of flour being thrown around by Pumpkin Cake with the unstoppable force of a Tyrannosaurus Rex with those plastic claw-arm things you can buy at toy stores.

        Then everything just... stopped. Both Pound and Pumpkin stood in the one clean spot in the whole of Sugar cube Corner, aghast at the sight before them. A couple seconds later, they began laughing in that particular cute baby way. The subject of their ridicule was none other than Alex, who was now covered from hoof to mane in flour.

So that’s what Pinkie meant. The cakes love flour, apparently. Weird, if you ask me. Then again, less work for me.“So... You like flour, huh? How about this?” Alex then picked up a bag of flour with his magic and dangled it in front of them. The Cake twins’ eyes followed the bag, enthralled by it’s contents. The bag levitated up the stairs, and the baby cakes hypnotically followed it step by step. They followed the bag all the way into their bedroom, and into their cradles.

        “Now, for the Piece De Resistance.” Alex quickly ran over to the cupboard and pulled out two small bags of flour that were next to this strange blue liquid and placed them next to the Cakes.

        Caution: What happened next will make anyone with heat conditions, prone to overreaction to cute or adorable things or the elderly will have a heart attack from the sheer adorableness of the situation. You have been warned.

        The cake twins wrapped their forehooves around their respective flour bags and began to snuggle with them, sucking their hooves in perfect symmetry with each other. Because Alex had a heart working at 1/2 capacity, his heart exploded a bit, sending him onto yet another coma.