//------------------------------// // Chapter 4- Big trouble in the very little city // Story: BIG Business // by BottleH2O //------------------------------// Tiny, high-pitched screams filled the air as the little ponies of Manehattan rushed for cover, trying to avoid the colossal hooves of the two giants, who had just arrived in the city and were now strolling about it. Entire streets disappeared under the immense gray and yellow hooves. Carts were squashed and humongous craters were left in their wake as they walked by without a care in the world. “Well, look here dear Jet Set, looks like we did make it big in the city after all!” Upper Crust jokingly said as she stormed down main street, buildings only coming up to her ankles. “Agreed my dear!” Jet Set said as he followed his wife. The entire city trembled from each one of their steps, bouncing the bug sized ponies in the air. Upper Crust rounded a corner, her tail brushing against a building, at her new size, the powerful strands easily peeled away a section of it, exposing the tiny office and even tinier workers inside. “Make way little dears! We’re coming through!” Upper Crust boomed as she passed more clusters of buildings. Down below, ponies huddled together as the gigantic noble passed over them, her hooves barely missing the frail, little cart they were in. The ponies sighed in relief as Upper Crust walked by, and continued down the street, only for them to be caught inside another shadow. The ponies looked up and squealed in fear as they saw the underside of Jet Set’s hoof lowering itself towards them, the titan completely unaware of the mite sized ponies below him. All they could see was the underside of his muzzle as he looked ahead, following his wife. The ponies clamored out of their cart, scrambled off the sidewalk, and into the closest building just as Jet’s hoof came down with a thunderous THOOM, shaking the entire city, before the gigantic hoof lifted up and flew forward, leaving behind a hoofprint that took up the entire city street, and the splintered remains of a small wooden cart. Jet Set caught up to his wife and gave her a quick nuzzle as the two continued downtown, side by side, with little bits of destruction left in their wake and rattled ponies forgotten far down below. “Hello Upper and Jet! We have finally arrived!” another familiar voice thundered from behind them. Jet Set and Upper Crust turned around (sending more ponies below into more of a panic as they tried to avoid their hooves) and beheld the mountainous forms of Enterprise Pursuit and Lily Shine, the two of whom had just arrived to the city, Enterprise and Lily both stood a head taller the Jet Set and Lily. Some of the tiny ponies groaned in exasperation, it had been annoying enough trying to avoid the two colossal noble ponies before and their nonstop annoying talking but now there were even more! Will it ever end? “Ah! About time you got here old sport! Jet Set said happily as the two groups met up in the center of town, taking care to avoid any crowds. The little ponies in the city let out a collective sigh of relief at the brief reprieve. Happy that the earthquaking hoofsteps had stopped for the time being. “So how was the sightseeing?” Upper Crust asked her two associates. “Oh, it was so wonderful!” Lily said squealed excitedly, prancing in place, to the dismay of hundreds of other ponies “The ponies were so tiny and cute, and so were their teeny weeny widdle towns. This was the first time in years I got to see the countryside and I never dreamed it would be like this!” “And how was it for you Enterprise?” “I must admit I did have fun looking around the kingdom as well and interacting with the locals. Though if I am being honest, I sometimes forget how powerful we are now,” Enterprise replied, a little bashfully however, as he recalled the mustache incident. Upper Crust giggled “Well, since we’re all here now, shall we get started and conduct our business?” she asked The others nodded enthusiastically, as the whole reason why the business nobles became giants in the first place came back to them. Confused? Here’s a quick recap: Because the Princesses constantly ignored the nobles’ requests to expand their businesses, their competitors were now starting to take advantage of that and managed to expand theirs. Resulting in the noble ponies starting to lose profits. So why were they in the city now? Well, they wanted to give their competitors a little payback because there had been a rumor going around that Enterprise, Jet Set, and Upper Crust’s major rivels had banded together to try and put them out of business. Whether or not this was true was another matter in of itself, but one thing was clear, the three were indeed starting to lose their hard-earned money. “Since our competitors are in different locations in the city, I say we should probably split up again for the time being,” said Jet Set “Upper and I will go pay my rivel Currency Trade a little visit further downtown, while you two go and see your competitor,” Enterprise and Lily nodded “I can’t wait to see Stock Value’s face when he see’s you,” Lily giggled, putting a huge hoof on Enterprise’s chest “If he was intimated by your size before, wait till he sees you now!” Enterprise chortled good naturedly “Now dear, I don’t want to hurt the poor young colt, just give him a stern reminder of who’s in charge of the cart industry,” Lily nodded “Of course dear, I was just thinking a little scare would be pretty funny,” Chuckling, the gigantic couple turned back to Jet Set and Upper Crust “So it’s all agreed then? After we finish let’s head back to Canterlot. I believe Blueblood should have distracted the princess long enough by then,” Upper Crust said The others nodded and turned around, the city rumbling as the two gargantuan groups set off to their intended targets. Upper Crust and Jet Set watched the little building tremble as they strolled trough the city, faint Thooms echoed through the air as they went. Their destination? The Second tallest building in the city, owned by Jet Set’s rivel Currency Trade, the tallest building owned by Jet himself. Currency was a dark green stallion with a line green mane to match. His cutie mark was two piles of bits with arrows pointing at each other, symbolizing trade. The two made their way over to Currency’s building, with Jet Set taking special care to carefully step over his own building. As soon as they arrived, Upper Crust kneeled down and peered into the offices. Her gigantic blue eye filling up several stories of windows. Upper Crust smirked as she heard several high-pitched squeals of fright emanating from within. She focused in on one particular individual and narrowed her eyes “Well, hello down there Currency Trade, aren’t you looking well?” The stallion in question, who, just a few minutes ago, was yelling at his colleagues over a silly proposed idea for updating his latest model of airships, was now hiding underneath the meeting table. With his tail tucked between his legs, Currency Trade crouched down low on the ground, staring back at Upper’s giant eye in fear. “Why so scared darling? My dear husband and I have been looking all over for you!” Upper Crust exclaimed coyly “We have a few things we’d like to discuss with you in person,” She then pouted slightly (which Currency didn’t even see) “But…It’s so hard to see you in that itty bitty building! I’ll just have to get you out darling.” And with that, Upper Crust’s horn began to light up, with a similar glow beginning to surround the entire building. And slowly, the entire building, no bigger than a box of matches, began to rise into the air. RUMMMMBLE Currency Trade squealed in fear as he felt the little haven begin to ascend into the sky, the frame of the building left behind on the ground, completely removed from the earth. Upper Crust gave the building a little shake, jostling around everypony inside a bit before focusing her powerful magic on Currency. The tiny stallion let out an “Eep!” as he also began to rise into the air. Currency was carried outside of the building through the window by Upper’s powerful magic before the glow around him vanish completely, sending him into a free fall. Before Currency Trade could even scream, he landed with a soft plop onto what looked like fabric. Upper Crust looked down with a small smirk as she dropped the little stallion into her shirt pocket. She was so huge that the pocket was about as deep as a building was tall. “And speaking of buildings…” she though as she turned her attention back to the teeny office building, she still held in her magical grasp and began to slowly lower it back into the hole that it was effortlessly plucked out of. Once it was set back down, she and Jet Set watched as dozens of tiny little specks flood out of the doors and run off in different directions. Jet Set and Upper Crust chuckled at the sight, ponies now just looked so small and helpless to them. Why, they were practically unstoppable with their newfound size. They were already at the top of the social ladder with their status as nobles, giants in their own right, in their social sphere, so why not have their new gargantuan size as an added bonus? To physically show off how big and unstoppable they were now. Turning their attention to the speck in Upper Crust’s pocket, Jet Set leaned in “You know something Currency? There have been several rumors circling around that you and a few others have been trying desperately to put me and my associates out of business. This wouldn’t have anything to do with the plans for my latest airship model going missing last week, would it?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Currency Trade squeaked out “Tisk Tisk, you know how much I hate liars little Currency,” Jet Set boomed “Why don’t we go over to your airship production warehouse and see for ourselves?” “NO! You don’t want to do that! That’s a very bad idea!” But Currency’s words fell on deaf ears because the two titans had already set off, with Currency squeaking in despair. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The city continued to quake as the two noble giants continued through it, a few buildings cracking from the tremors and the ground getting demolished wherever a hoof landed. Within no time at all Upper Crust and Jet Set made it to Currency Trade’s airship warehouse. Jet Set reached down with his massive hoof and peeled away the roof of the warehouse like it was a wrapper, exposing the mite sized ponies below, sending them all into a panic. All the minuscule ponies streamed to the exits and out of site as the colossal couple leaned down to inspect the air ships. Jet Set felt a ping of anger flare up in him. The models laying by his foot were exactly the same as the ones he had just made plans for! “Currency! Explain yourself!” Jet Set boomed as he looked down into the pocket containing the little stallion, Upper Crust glaring at him too. Currency had made it to the top of the shirt pocket and had been peering over the edge but at the sound of Jet’s voice he had fallen back in. “Ummm well….” Currency Trade stammered, wilting at the sight of the two giants looking down at him. Jet Set’s horn flared to life as he lifted up the pony and suspended him in the air in front of His and Upper’s faces. “Care to explain how you somehow managed to produce airships that look exactly like my prototypes?” Jet Set asked in his thunderous voice “Did you or did you not steal my blueprints?” “I-I-I did!” Currency wailed, completely intimidated by the mountainous business pony “My company was falling behind yours so much we had to take drastic measures! I took the blueprints in hopes that if we managed to produce top of the line aircrafts before you, we’d get the business instead of eveypony looking to buy off you all the time! Then everyone would think you were trying to copy us and that would dirty your reputation and generate more business for us!” Jet Set sighed, the force of the breath buffering the speck sized stallion still hanging in midair “Well Currency, I can’t just let a little stunt like that pass. Looks like you need to be thought a lesson the hard way.” Jet Set raised his hoof into the air and brought it down with an earthshattering THOOOM! Completely flattening the warehouse and everything inside it. Currency watched on, slack jawed, as all the airships he worked so hard to steal get sent up in smoke. Upper Crust and Jet Set just let out a huff at his reaction before walking over to a nearby building and dropping Currency onto it. Currency landed on his rump with a small “Oof!” Rubbing his sore rear, he looked back up at the two giants as they stood back up to their actual height, glaring down at the little stallion. “Let that be a lesson to you Currency Trade,” Upper Crust said, “Don’t ever do something like that again.” Currency nodded, letting out a little whimper. And with that, the couple turned and headed off, their business rivel delt with and taught a lesson. “Come dear, it’s time to meet up with Blueblood,” Jet Set said as he stepped over a few buildings “Do you know what you’re going to demand from the princesses?” “Of course. I want them to give us more bits to compensate for the business we lost because of that dolt,” Upper Crust sniffed, her muzzle in the air haughtily. “An excellent suggestion my dear,” Jet Set exclaimed “We’ll be back at the top in no time!” Laughing, the colossal couple exited the little city and set off across the tiny Equestrian landscape, towards the capitol and Blueblood.