“Sweetie Belle!? Sweetie Belle!? Are you here, little sister!?”
Rarity’s breathing and worry became apparent as she galloped all over the town of Ponyville. The unicorn felt like it had been five hours into her search for Sweetie Belle while in reality, it had only been five minutes. She stopped between the prank store and Roseluck’s rose stand, shoot her head both ways for any trace for her little sister. Unfortunately, there was none to be found. Rarity’s paranoia grew as she began to realize the different possible outcomes of what might have happened to Sweetie Belle... none of which accounted for her becoming the size of a small bug and almost eaten by the fashionista.
Rarity looked in the square with the stone statue of a mare standing on her hind hooves. Still, there was no sign of Sweetie Belle anywhere. Rarity checked the shops, the restaurants and the town hall. All in all, there was nothing, not even a pink lock of her mane or tail anywhere. The fashionista was torn between denial and reality. Sweetie Belle must’ve been alive, but what would her father and mother think?
They would, in her words, surely be annoyed.
“Sweetie Belle!? Sweetie Belle!?” the unicorn called out, grabbing the attention of the nearby ponies. “Oh, Sweetie Belle, WHERE ARE YOU!?”
The screams echoed numerous times throughout the city. Everypony stopped and turned a shocked eye towards the alabaster unicorn sitting in the center of the thriving town. There Rarity sat, her head raised up high to shout up to sky and the pegasus ponies above for her little sister. All at once, everypony went back to their routine, conversing with each other, selling goods at the vending stand or transporting bales of hay with a wagon. Rarity grunted frustratingly and threw herself on the ground, smashing the dirt to form dust cloud under her hooves.
“Oh, this is simply horrid!” she yelled to herself. “If I can’t find Sweetie Belle by the time Twilight gets back from her trip, she’ll be very annoyed with me! What am I to do!? Oh, what am I to do!?”
“Apples! Get yer homegrown apples here!” Rarity perked her head up as she heard the Southern drawl of her friend, Applejack come around the corner of the nearest building on the right. The cowgirl pony dragged an apple vending wagon, loaded with rich red and succulent apples with Big Macintosh at the flank.
“Apples! Get yer apples here! Nice, sweet an’ juicy apples all grown and picked fresh from the farm!” Applejack turned to see Rarity gallop up to her with intense worry plastered on her face. “Well howdy-doo, Rarity. How are y’all doin’? And’ why do ya look upset?”
Rarity threw herself at Applejack’s forehooves, the latter lifting her right hoof out of uncertainty as the unicorn blubbered out her tragedy. “Oh, Applejack! You have to help me! It’s Sweetie Belle! She’s gone! Vanished! Disappeared!”
“WHAT!?”
Applejack lifted her other foreleg up from Rarity’s grip, but found her shoulders restrained by the same crazed unicorn. “It’s horrible, Applejack! I barged in on Sweetie Belle when she was practicing her teleportation magic for Twilight! But then, I made her lose her concentration and she was herself teleported to Celestia knows where!”
“WHAT!?”
“And the worst part is, I can’t find her-er-er! I’ve looked everywhere! In my home, around town, inside the stores! And still, I can’t find Sweetie Belle anywhere!” Rarity grabbed her country friend’s face by the cheeks and brought her close to her perturbed face. “Applejack! You wouldn’t happen to know if Sweetie Belle is at your farm, do you!?”
“Ah can’t say Ah have, Rarity,” Applejack responded. She pulled away from Rarity and fixed her brown Stetson hat. “But Ah’ll run back to that farm ta check. Hopefully Sweetie Belle transported somewhere in the orchards, maybe she’s with Apple Bloom at this moment.” Applejack turned to Big Mac, who wore his usual stoic visage. “Big brother, could ya watch the stand while Ah’m gone?”
“Eeyup,” answered the red stallion.
“Ooh. I hope you’re right about this, Applejack,” Rarity said with a shaky voice. “I simply cannot imagine Sweetie Belle trying to survive in a dangerous environment. I’m not sure that she’ll make it!” At once, Rarity’s insecurity was drained from her nerves by her friend’s reassuring hoof. It felt like all hope for her wasn’t lost yet.
“Sugarcube, of all the times Ah’ve been with you and yer sister, Ah know deep down that Sweetie Belle is a strong little filly. She won’t ever give up, even if the situation is as grim as the Everfree Forest. She’ll come along. Ah know it and you know it too.”
“But.. but... but...” Rarity stuttered with her words, clearly too worried to get Applejack’s message through to her. “But what if she’s alone in the Everfree Forest!? What if she was kidnapped and held for ransom by the Diamond Dogs!? What if--!?”
“She’ll be fine! Trust me, sugarcube, she’s got a heart as strong as horses! What’s the worst that could happen to her?”
====
Sweetie Belle continued to lay in the forest of tall grass, choking with her sobs. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her. But somehow it was. Sweetie Belle, one of the cutest fillies to trot on the streets of Ponyville was now shrunken to the size of a small tack. The dirt underneath her hooves felt like a field of tiny pebbles. The grass stood as tall as Ponyville’s town hall... when Sweetie Belle was at regular size.
But that wasn’t the worst part about being one inch tall for Sweetie Belle. The worst part was how everypony towered over her like giants. She would be crushed easily underhoof like a bug, eaten by a giant-sized bug or an animal... and nopony would ever stop to think twice of the “bug” they disposed was actually a tiny unicorn filly who only wanted to earn her Cutie Mark badly.
The aforementioned worst part? All of these fates that would befall on her would be at the hooves of the ponies she loved and cared for the most: Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Twist, Pipsqueak, Cheerilee, her mom, her dad... even Rarity. These dulcet fears came to light when Rarity nearly sealed her fate with a glass of ice water had it not been for her quick thinking. It was close call... perhaps too close for her. Now she was shaken up in a fetal position, crying out of fear and sadness with all that was happening to her here and now. She prayed to Celestia that she would show mercy on this miserable soul.
That’s when Sweetie Belle perked up in realization.
Princess Celestia was a divine alicorn princess, just like Princess Luna, Princess Cadence and even Princess Twilight.
“That’s it!” the unicorn chimed. “I know how I’m going to get back to normal size! All I have to do get to Canterlot and get Twilight to grow me back to normal! That sounds like a perfect idea!” Then something suddenly came over Sweetie Belle that made her doubt about her idea. “Oh, wait. There’s still one big problem, though.”
By big problem, Sweetie Belle meant the town abundant with giant ponies. This was serious... everypony to her was like a 100 foot giant ready to step on her. In order to seek help, she would have to get across the street full of giant stomping hooves and rolling wagon wheels. If there was any chance for Sweetie Belle to return to normal size, she would have to take that considerable risk.
“Alright, Sweetie Belle. Deep breaths,” the filly told herself. “You’re going into dangerous territory here and you have every reason to be scared.” The marshmallow filly raised her hoof and yelled upwards to the sky. “Because I’m a Cutie Mark Crusader! I’ve got a heart as strong as horses and I won’t ever back down from a challenge!”
Coincidentally, Sweetie Belle felt the ground tremble underneath her like multiple rhythmic earthquakes. She looked up to see a towering figure of Octavia Melody, a grey Earth pony with a black mane, wearing a white collar and a pink bow tie on the front. Her Cutie Mark was a violet treble clef and her mane was styled to be posh like the upperclass ponies in Canterlot. Walking with her was Vinyl Scratch, a white unicorn with a frizzy blue-and-teal striped mane, wearing magenta shades over her eyes. Her Cutie Mark was a black beam note and was well known in Equestria for her career as a disc jockey.
At the same time, a little black ant, roughly the same size as Sweetie Belle’s scuttled along the dirt road. It was clearly scouting out for some food crumbs that ponies messily left on the floors of their own homes. Unfortunately, the ant did not count on scurrying its way into the path of the conversing mares. A grey hoof lifted and loomed over for its next step, its owner unaware of the little ant crawling under her hoof.
BOOM! SQUELCH!
Sweetie Belle looked in horror as the giantess lifted her hoof, revealing the green splattered remains of the ant inside of a hoof-shaped crater. The underside of the giant hoof was also marked with the corpse of the crushed arthropod as Octavia inspected what she recently stepped on by accident. A face of disgust grew on the slightly posh pony’s face.
“Uuugggghhh... how disgusting. Don’t these bugs ever watch where they’re going before they end up like this?” Octavia complained. She scraped her hoof against the ground, wiping off the ant’s body only to leave behind a greenish streak in the dirt. “I ask you, Vinyl, how can you live in a town like this when there are so many pests crawling out of the woodwork?”
“Aww, c’mon, Octy. They’re just harmless little ants. It’s not like they wanted to squashed or something.”
BOOM! SQUELCH!
Vinyl Scratch perked up in shock as she felt an ant, a slightly bigger one at that, splatter from the bottom of her hoof. She turned her hoof over, seeing the little bug as paste for her big toe. “Well, that stinks. Looks like Flutters is going to be sore with us in the morning if she sees this.” Vinyl followed suit with Octavia’s actions, scraping the ant’s remains into the ground, leaving only a streak in the ground. “Poor little dude. He really should’ve looked where he was going. Sorry Octavia, were you gonna say something?”
Octavia sighed. “Not anymore, Vinyl. Come on, let’s go home. I’m feeling a bit peckish right about now.” The two giant mares strolled their way down the street, leaving the crushed bugs in their hoof tracks. Sweetie Belle looked on wide-eyed and jaw gaped open as she witnessed one of the many horrors about being a bug. Those unfortunate victims could’ve been her if she so much as went out into the street like that.
But there wasn’t enough time to think about stuff like that. What was important is that Sweetie Belle needed to get to Canterlot somehow. The only question about it was, how was she going to get there at this size?
That’s when it hit her... again.
The Ponyville Train Station. All she needed to do was hop on the Friendship Express and that would get her to Canterlot quicker than she thought. The only problem was was that the train station was across town. With Sweetie Belle’s condition, it would be nearly impossible for her to even accomplish, but she saw no other choice. She had to take that risk.
Swallowing a lump in her throat, Sweetie Belle ran into the street. In no more than five seconds, she was met two pairs of giant light blue hooves, the shadow of the right hoof looming over the shrunken filly. With a high-pitched scream, Sweetie Belle rolled out of the way as the hoof crashed down into the dirt with a BOOM! The shrunken filly panted heavily as she saw the hoof lifting back up, leaving behind the large print in the dirt. Thank Celestia that she got away just in time. Nopony would ever know that was the sister of Ponyville’s fashionista they would accidentally crush underneath their own hooves.
Sweetie Belle jumped back up and continued to gallop as fast as her tiny little hooves could take her. She navigated past and around the hooves of Daisy, who carried her prised bouquet of daisies in her mouth. She dodged the crashing hooves of the stallion, Time Turner, jumped from the stampeding hooves of Pipsqueak; she once even had a close encounter with Button Mash’s mom, who stopped at Roseluck’s vending stand to buy a couple of vibrant red roses. The tan Earth mare’s hind hoof loomed over her son’s micro-sized marefriend and brought it down on her. Sweetie Belle jumped away in time, only having the end of her tail caught beneath her pillar of a hoof. The unicorn filly had no choice but to rip out the end of her tail and escaped, just as Button’s mom took a step back.
Sweetie Belle huddled up against the side of the building near where Roseluck set up shop. She began crying once again, seeing as how she was forced to rip out part of her once wonderfully puffy and curly tail. Now it was only half a tail, ripped and tangled, a necessary sacrifice to ensure her own survival.
But there was no time to cry about something like this.
She was braver than that. She knew her tail’s sacrifice would be in vain if she kept crying and already given up. Why would she quit now, when she’s already gotten so far up to this point? Wiping her tears away, Sweetie Belle got back up on her hooves and ran around the corner of the building, keeping to the brush against the walls as the gigantic hooves walked on by. She shuffled along the concrete walls on her hind hooves, her back up against the wall as she looked around the environment for any giants walking on by. The coast seemed clear to Sweetie Belle’s peripheral vision. Then she turned and galloped her way out to the open and down the street...
SMACK!
...and headfirst into a wall of vibrant yellow. Sweetie Belle felt her world spinning for a little bit. Then she shook her head and scowled at the obstacle, to which she trailed upwards. Her cute little scowl transformed instantly into a shocked face as her eyes trailed up the yellow obstacle to meet a pillar of red, belonging to familiar, stoic Earth stallion.
Big Macintosh.
To her perspective, Sweetie Belle considered him BigGER Macintosh.
Sweetie Belle discovered that he was watching the apple stand cart without any sign of Applejack anywhere in sight. She must’ve gone off with Rarity to search for her in Sweet Apple Acres. The filly knew that Rarity and Applejack would be wasting their time searching for her, since she was only a mere inch tall and completely out of their sight but not out of their mind.
“Wait a minute,” Sweetie Belle thought out loud. “This is actually the perfect ordeal: Since Big Macintosh is Apple Bloom’s older brother, then maybe he can take me back to Sweet Apple Acres and have Apple Bloom concoct a growth potion! This is perfect!”
Then Sweetie Belle perked up, remembering something important about the farm filly’s potion making skills. “Oh yeah, I forgot. There was that one incident during Twilight Time when Apple Bloom tried to make an apple grow up too fast. I still smell like apples from that little ordeal.” Indeed, since Apple Bloom hasn’t fully mastered potion making yet, a growth potion would prove fatal to the little filly. One drop of the liquid and she would grow, yes, but then...
“No. There’s no way I’m going to explode,” Sweetie Belle chided herself. “I’ll go to Apple Bloom’s house and maybe she can bring to Canterlot by the train. What’s the worst that could happen, anyway?”
Sweetie Belle immediately regretted those jinxing words. All of a sudden, Big Macintosh brought the front of his hoof up, knocking the little filly up on the yellow toe and bringing the hoof up to the red titan’s face. Big Macintosh used his hoof to wipe his forehead away from the sweat, flinging the filly, now drenched in sweat, headfirst into one of the worst possible places to find herself in: a big red apple in the apple stand. Sweetie Belle fell headfirst through the peel of the apple and into the sweet and succulent fruit, leaving her stuck with her hind hooves wriggling and writhing to get herself unstuck from her little trap.
That’s when the unthinkable happened. Sweetie Belle felt her and the citrusy trap lifting up in the air. The filly wriggled and writhed until she pulled herself out like a cork from a glass bottle, falling on the top part of an apple. She shook her head rapidly and looked up around her environment... only to find herself and the apple she held on to be inserted into the yawning, drooling maw of Big Macintosh’s mouth! Hot gusts of Big Mac’s breath washed over the filly as she screamed out in vain to the hungry giant.
"AAAAHHHHHHH."
“BIG MAC!! WAIT, DON’T EAT THE--!!”
CRUNCH!!
It was too late. In a split second, Sweetie Belle found herself and the apple inserted into Big Mac’s widened maw, splitting a big piece of the apple with his teeth. Sweetie Belle was thrown into the darkness onto Big Mac’s moist and squishy tongue. Soon the jaws began to shift, crushing the fruit into a pile of mush. The filly screamed and held on to dear life onto one of Big Mac’s taste buds, but her grip was too slippery for her to hold on for much longer. She was tossed from the tongue onto one of the deathtraps she considered to be the giant’s molars. The filly shrieked in terror upon seeing the top molars lower onto her. Like before, Sweetie Belle jumped from the teeth as they clamped onto each other...
...right into a bolus of mashed apples. Sweetie Belle struggled to get herself free from the pile of mush. Oh, how badly was the marshmallow filly’s timing. Just as she could get her hooves free, Sweetie Belle felt the whale of Big Mac’s tongue rise up to the rough ceiling of his mouth. Gravity took a hold of the apples and dragged it plus the screaming filly down to the back of the giant’s mouth, the throat muscles welcoming the food. Sweetie Belle reached for Big Mac’s uvula to find herself a ticket out of his mouth. Unfortunately, the uvula was too high up to reach and the apples began to slide down into the slimy tunnel of Big Macintosh’s esophagus.
“BIG MAC!! WAIT!! DON’T EAT ME!!”
GLURK!!
Then Big Mac let out a deafening swallow, sending the screaming Sweetie Belle down into the giant’s throat, the muscles squeezing her down like toothpaste. The trip down Big Mac’s throat felt like forever, more or less torturous for Sweetie Belle. The throat muscles squeezed the wind right out of her lungs. While her breath was crushed from her lungs, Sweetie Belle heard the attracting and retracting air from Big Mac’s breathing lungs. His heartbeat beat rhythmically like a giant drum, following with the sickly gurgles of the next and possibly final destination: Big Mac’s stomach!
Sweetie Belle and the mushy apples squeezed through the sphincter, the entrance into the sac full of gastric acid. The mush spilled into the volatile liquid with Sweetie Belle joining it. The filly popped out of the surface and the mush and choked, trying to recollect the air in her lungs. She looked around at her surroundings. Everywhere she saw, there was a few chunks of apples floating in the surface of the acid, all kept up in a prison of pulsating flesh.
Sweetie Belle worked her way to the stomach walls, being extra careful not to fall in the boiling acid. She began to pound the squishy walls, all coming out in little taps to the red stallion. “BIG MAC!! IT’S ME, SWEETIE BELLE!! CAN YOU HEAR ME!!” she yelled from the top of her lungs.
Sadly, there was no response.
Just a gurgle somewhere in the acid.
Sweetie Belle put all of her strength into her hooves and pounded on the walls hard. “BIG MAC!! PLEASE, YOU HAVE TO HEAR ME!! I’M IN YOUR STOMACH!! DO YOU HEAR ME; I’M IN YOUR STOMACH!! PLEASE, BIG MAC, YOU HAVE TO HEAR ME, OR AT THE VERY BEST FEEL MY POUNDING!! PLEASE!!”
Then the next shipment of apple mush poured through the sphincter. Sweetie Belle yelped as she jumped out of the way of the falling debris of mush, landing in the acid with a big splash. All around her, Sweetie Belle heard Big Macintosh’s signature “EEYUP!” resound through the walls. The filly sat on her haunches on a big chunk of apple and hung her head low.
“It’s no use,” she muttered to herself. “I can’t even get anypony to feel me, let alone in their own stomach.” Sweetie Belle sighed with melancholy. “I guess this is how it ends. Being digested inside my best friend’s brother’s tummy.”
Sweetie Belle sat on the apple chunk, deep in saddening thought. Oh, of all the things she could’ve done in her life for years to come. Searching for Cutie Marks, marrying Button Mash, maybe having a few kids of her own and passing away at an old age. Sweetie Belle shed a single tear. She wished she could’ve seen her friends one more time. She cursed her horn for making life so miserable and it hasn’t been lunchtime yet... for Sweetie Belle, I meant.
“Wait a minute... horn!?” Sweetie Belle yelped in realization. “That’s it! I’ve gotta use the magic in my horn to get out of here! I need to teleport out of here before I get digested!” Suddenly, a doubting thought struck her in her thoughts. “But what if my spell shrinks me down even further? What if I end up the size of a flea? I would be living for a lifetime in somepony’s fur and would never find a way down.”
*GUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGLLLLLLLLLEEEEEE*
The inside of the stomach roared like thunder, nearly blowing out Sweetie Belle’s little eardrums. The acids began to bubble up, spewing out foul-smelling gases that burned her eyes and the insides of her nostrils. Her makeshift floatation began to sink into the boiling acid, dissolving in an instant. Wow, what strong stomach acids this workhorse possessed! But that also spelled trouble as the mush began to break up and sink into oblivion.
Without a second’s thought, Sweetie Belle ignited her horn. She imagined herself somewhere in Ponyville, anywhere but the churning deathtrap! The horn flashed and the filly vanished from the stomach, just as the apple mush sank into the acids, dissolving to become nutrients inside of Big Mac’s flank.
===
A little gleam of light flashed. The unicorn filly suddenly appeared inside of the flash before she fell on the ground on her belly with an “OOF!” Sweetie Belle lifted her head up, her eyes spinning and tweeting stars orbiting around her head. She shook her head a few times and then gasped with joy.
“I’m... I’m alive. WOOO-HOOO!!” yelled Sweetie belle, jumping up in the air with a bright smile. “I’m alive! I can’t believe it, but I’m still alive!! I took on death and I survived the fight!! Now I can go to Sweet Apple Acres and tell Rarity that I’m still alive!! But...” Sweetie Belle looked around her, taking in the strange new environment she found herself in. “...where in the wide world of Equestria am I exactly?”
*BUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRPPP!!!*
A loud, thunderous belch resounded somewhere close and above. Sweetie Belle found out exactly where she was. She was on the streets of Ponyville... still the size of a bug!! She saw herself in the shadow of Big Macintosh, the big red stallion who nearly digested the poor unicorn without ever knowing of her presence. His belch was the result of the apple he scarfed down from the apple stand, the stallion throwing away the core behind him. Nonchalantly, he spoke his signature catchphrase: “EEYUP.”
“AW, COME ON!!” Sweetie Belle snapped at the heavens. “IS IT NOT ENOUGH THAT I SAVED MYSELF FROM ALMOST BECOMING BIG MAC’S NEXT POTTY BREAK, AND NOW I’M STILL AN INCH TALL!? WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU GOT IN STORE FOR ME, HUH!? WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU GOT!?”
Suddenly, Sweetie Belle’s prayer came to light. A shadow of Big Macintosh’s flank lowered itself onto the filly. She looked on deadpanned at the sky as the red hindquarters turned her view into red. “Thank you so much, Celestia. This is why I prefer Luna anyway.”
SLAM!
Sweetie Belle yelped as she was pressed into the dirt, flattened by Big Macintosh’s big and, might she add, squishy and bulky flank. The cheeks smelled of fresh and pungent sweat, meaning that the giant stallion worked in the acres before he came into Ponyville. Big Mac shifted in his seating and ground Sweetie Belle onto his cheeks. She was very sure this was the most humiliating way for her to go out: at the bottom of his best friend’s brother’s flank. This was arguably the most time Sweetie Belle ever interacted with Big Macintosh than with those previous times.
Then Big Mac lifted himself from his haunches. The flattened unicorn was stuck tight to his sweaty flank, still keeping her deadpan towards fate. She felt her tormentor’s cheek move along with his hoofsteps. The steps still sounded and felt like an earthquake to her, but it was fortunate that she was stuck on Big Macintosh’s flank. Otherwise, she would have to wander aimlessly around the streets, dodging hooves, flanks and even hungry nocturnal animals. She did not want any part of this whatsoever. And speaking of wandering, Sweetie Belle knew exactly where her giant tormentor was headed next.
Sweet Apple Acres.
Sweetie Belle hoped to Luna that Winona, the Apple Family dog was friendly around bugs. She also hoped that Luna would get her out of situations like this better than Celestia ever did so far.