//------------------------------//
// Lunchtime at the Academy 
// Story: Wondergrowth Academy 
// by Star Sage 
//------------------------------//

“Ooh ooh! I know just the best ingredient!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she scooted around the kitchen. The mess sergeant, a rather bulky looking pegasus, sighed again. 

This was way, way harder than it should’ve been. Oh, yes, the recruits at the Wonderbolts Academy were still the same awesome group as always. None of them pushed him too hard, but nopony could know it since he always wore an expression similar to a drill instructor. This new mare, though, was allowed to stay thanks to a special order from the Princess herself. She was “special”, but not in the good sense. The sergeant rubbed his temple again, his hoof pushing against his face as he once again considered smacking himself into unconsciousness with it.

“Miss Pie! I told you countless times that this “stuff” is for all the recruits, and it doesn't need any extra ingredients. We only need to give them enough food to fill them up, and that’s all. I'm going to the storage docks now to get some more vegetables. You stay right here, and stir the soup. I don't want you adding anything weird to it or trying to bake another cake. Understand?” he asked, trying his best to be intimidating. 

Of course, what worked on the new recruits from the Academy completely failed to register inside Pinkie Pie’s brain, as she simply nodded without listening a word he said. Sighing again, the pegasus walked out the back door heading to the storage docks. It was past lunch anyway, and if anypony was late, they would have to wait until dinner. They would have to wait a while longer as he took a break from the crazy hyperactive pony.


Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash and Cloudchaser continued their training. “Good job Cloudchaser! Now, how's about another hundred wing ups before we stop?” asked the cyan pegasus as she and her wingpony for the day finished up with their twenty laps around the Academy. 

Cloudchaser was still breathing hard, but she managed to make a grunting sound that’s probably best left untranslated. Rainbow Dash knew her partner was in worse condition as her and nodded.


“Okay, I suppose we deserve a break. We’ve been running for five hours straight. What do you think if we get some grub and then come back later with fresh energy?” asked Dash. Her idea received an approving groan from her partner. The pair swiftly turned around and headed towards the mess hall, much to Cloudchaser's relief.


Pinkie Pie listened from the kitchen as the door of the mess hall opened. She quickly approached them to greet her new visitors. “Welcome to the mess hall!” she exclaimed. She moved so fast that Rainbow Dash and Cloudchaser thought Pinkie had teleported in front of them, presenting them with an empty table ready to be served and holding a small notepad in one hoof and a pencil on the other.


“Do you have, how do you say, reservations?” said Pinkie, putting on some odd accent as she flipped lightly through the blank pages and licking the end of her hoof for some reason as she turned them.


Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes around. “Pinkie, we just need to grab some grub and then get back to training. Can we cut the act today?”  Rainbow Dash was happy to have Pinkie Pie at the Academy, but after so many days, Rainbow Dash was wondering whether her presence was something good. Pinkie always wanted to want to hang out with Rainbow Dash, never getting the message that Rainbow Dash was here to train, improve her awesomeness and prove that she was ready to wear the title of Wonderbolt.


“Ah, okay,” Pinkie replied. “Well, we kinda have to wait for Mr. Grumpy Wings to get back. He said I couldn't make anything myself.” The small podium and notepad quickly vanished, leaving Pinkie Pie alone as she trotted with the pair and placed them in a table.


Cloudchaser looked over the counter at the big bubbling pot on the stove, steaming vapor under the intense heat from the stove, now resting. “How's about that soup then? It smells great, and it looks ready.”


Pinkie Pie scratched her chin. “Hmm, I this could work. He said it needed something more, though. He told me that this soup should help you grow and turn into big, strong Wonderbolts.”  An idea quickly rushed to her head. “Ooh, I know just the perfect ingredient!” she exclaimed before vanishing again, this time heading inside the kitchen. The two pegasi looked each other and shrugged. After all, they both lived in Ponyville and knew how crazy Pinkie Pie could be sometimes. Besides, she was a good baker, so there was nothing to be afraid of.


Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Pinkie was having some trouble trying to give the final touch to the soup. The sergeant had ordered her not to put anything weird in it, but then again, weird was a word with different meanings. Pinkie was sure that the sergeant meant not to use her own ingredients, but that was fine. She already spotted the perfect ingredient inside the kitchen’s big closet. Entering the closet, she quickly made her way around several shelves and crates before stopping in front of an open crate. She rummaged through its contents before taking out what looked like a purple salt pot. The small etiquette portrayed a pony and another shape standing behind the first one, only much bigger.


“Just one second. This will be the best soup ever!” shouted Pinkie as she walked over to the boiling pot. Using her hoof to undo the top, she smelled at the powder. A scent mixing of brimstone, nutmeg and sulfur drifted up from it. Pinkie poured a small part of its contents inside the pot before dumping everything inside and using a spoon to mix everything.


A few seconds later, Pinkie Pie exited the kitchen standing on her hind legs as she carried two bowls of soup with a spoon on each one. “Here you go!” Pinkie Pie said as she placed the bowls on the table. Setting them down with a clatter, she smiled at them before vanishing into the kitchen again and proceeding to clean up the soup bowl. Outside the kitchen, Cloudchaser and Rainbow Dash stared at each other for a long moment, each leaning forward to sniff at their own bowl, finding the scent wafting up from the soup to be not unpleasant, but with a twinge of something that made them nervous.


Of course, Rainbow Dash wasn't about to let a soup beat her, and started to attack her meal without hesitation, her snout diving into the liquid as she slurped up with reckless abandon. Cloudchaser, staring at Dash, decided that she was too hungry to be so cautious and picked up her spoon with her hoof. Just before she got a spoonful of the stuff though, her stomach reminded her pointedly that she'd been forced to skip most of breakfast this morning thanks to Rainbow Dash, and so, both pegasi found themselves slurping the soup as if they hadn’t eat anything in centuries.


With the bowl now empty, Rainbow Dash leaned back on her seat as she placed her hooves on her belly, now full. “Aaah, not bad. Not quite like a zap apple jam sandwich, but not bad”. Cloudchaser, who was taking smaller gulps finished her own bowl a few seconds later, belching rather heavily as she finally set the bowl back down, rubbing at her distended belly.


“Heh, excuse me,” she said, still luxuriating in the feeling of being full, and wondering idly what Pinkie had put into the soup to make it so filling. The pair of pegasi sat back for almost a minute before Rainbow finally popped up out of her seat.


“Okay, that's enough lollygagging. Let's get back toooo... What the?” said Dash, her voice stretching out the words as she felt something weird going on. Her body felt like it was melting, her muscles going lax and causing her to fall forward, landing heavily on her stomach. Cloudchaser, concerned for her friend and flight lead, quickly tried to rush over to see what was wrong, only to feel her own body become stiff and her legs locking up even as she got to her hooves, freezing her in place.


Pinkie Pie was too busy working on the kitchen to realize something weird was happening to her friends. She rinsed, washed, and dried the dozens of bowls behind the counter, getting out several dishes for the night as well and setting them up to make them easier to use when the sergeant came back. Distracted as she was, her first warning that something was wrong was when she heard a groan from the mess hall itself, but she ignored it because Mr. and Mrs. Cake had always drilled into her to never leave a dish dirty or out of place.


Had she looked out towards the two pegasi, Pinkie would have witnessed Rainbow Dash finally regaining control of her body as her legs stretched, happy that she could move them again. Of course, stretching out was probably more apt than usual, as her legs seemed to be getting longer. Really longer actually, going from where she sat to kicking a table her own body length away. At first, she thought maybe that soup was in bad state and thus started to have hallucinations as part of a surprise endurance test. At least before her knee smacked into a chair, causing a sharp pain that made her realize this wasn’t an hallucination, but was in fact really happening.


Cloudchaser, in the meantime, was still stiff and unmoving despite her best efforts. Luckily, her jaw still worked, and so did her neck, allowing her to look around and gaze at herself as her body started to expand. But not like Rainbow Dash, who was getting longer, but more like somepony zooming in on a picture of herself, her body getting bigger with every second. A tingling sensation invaded her, making the process more comfortable but not less scary. 


The shout of pain finally got Pinkie's attention, and she quickly rushed to the window connecting the kitchen and the hall only to watch as her two friends were in the process of getting larger. Rainbow Dash's legs were now swelling as well as getting longer, her body soon joining it. She reminded Pinkie of a water balloon filling with liquid in uneven portions, but always growing, expanding, and more importantly, pushing everything inside the mess hall.


Meanwhile, Cloudchaser was still expanding evenly. Her body looked like it was held by invisible ropes, unable to move as her body continued expanding so big that her legs ran into the tables. The wooden furniture was designed to hold at least a ton of food and resist over a hundred pegasi, and they were incredibly heavy. Cloudchaser knew it since her unit had to move them around to make room for the cleanup team. As she surpassed twenty feet of height and her head clashed against the ceiling, her legs pushed everything along the floor with an earsplitting creak sound.


“Ooh, that looks like fun!” said Pinkie as she hopped over the counter. She walked around Cloudchaser, her hooves now far enough apart that Pinkie could fit between them without problem. She loved the idea of having a friend as tall as a building as her mind devised all the things they could do with her new size. What's more, Rainbow Dash's legs were now big enough to be mistaken as giant logs. The pink pony hopped up on one and trotted up, coming to a stop as she got to Rainbow Dash's chest, which was just starting to get really big like a balloon filled with helium.


“I think I might have put too much of that growth powder into the soup. But in any case, now you two will be the most powerful fliers in the Academy. Isn't that neat?” shouted Pinkie, who got a series of grunts from the two trainees in response. “But then we won't be able to play once training's over,” the crazy mare continued. “Oh I know!” she said before shoving her whole hoof inside her mouth. Both pegasi stared at the earth pony thinking she had finally lost her mind, but then she started to blow and expand in size. Her body blossomed outwards and her skin started to inflate. Parts of her body started to get round like balloons before her entire body quickly evened, her expanding body quickly covering the mess hall along the two pegasi. 


Soon, the trio of giant ponies was pressing the tables of the mess hall into the walls while Cloudchaser's head shoved rather awkwardly against the roof. Rainbow Dash continued growing, her body totally even and pushing against Pinkie Pie, who mistook it as a challenge to see who could grow faster. Below them, the floor designed to support tons and tons of weight was cracking, the sound deafening the trio of ponies. Their legs pressed against the kitchen’s wall, denting the wall before it finally gave up and their legs shot forward, crushing everything on their path. 

The mess hall groaned and cracked as the three mares continued to grow.  Countless bumps started to appear all over the roof and walls and the beams started to bend outwards. Meanwhile, on the inside, Pinkie Pie was filling the empty space as she continued inflating her body without surpassing Rainbow Dash.  Cloudchaser was being pressed against the wall by the other two ponies as she continued to growth without control. The mess sergeant returned with a sack of potatoes for tonight's dinner but stopped his flight midflap, plummeting softly into a cloud as his mess hall creaked, cracked, and then burst sending debris everywhere and revealing three mares standing in the ruins of his beautiful hall.


“I quit.” That was all he said. The three mares finally stopped growing, now each one the size of the barracks. Cloudchaser and Rainbow Dash were slow to recover from their ordeals as their bodies finally returned to normality and regained control of their limbs. Of course, they weren't nearly as thrilled with the situation as Pinkie, who was even now suggesting the biggest game of hide and seek ever played.