Chapter 3
Dough or Die
On the plus side, Pinkie Pie had customers the next day. Sure, there weren’t quite as many as normal, but it was a far cry better than yesterday. On the down side however, Pinkie Pie was still in a bad mood. Her melancholy had partly to do with the fact that she was now standing in front of The Muffinry, and partly to do with what the Cakes had said to her when she came in to work that morning.
“Good morning, Pinkie,” Mr. Cake had said. Standing next to him was his wife, and they were both looking quite cross.
“Oh. Good morning Mr. and Mrs. Cake!” Pinkie had said cheerfully, before noticing their dour expressions. “Umm, What’s going on? You guys are usually all smiles in the morning! Why are you looking so grumpy?”
“We heard about what happened between you and Ditzy Doo yesterday.” Mrs. Cake answered.
“Oh.”
“I for one was especially intrigued by the part where you bet our bakery in your little... game,” Mr. Cake added.
“Oh.”
“I understand that this is important to you.” Mrs. Cake said. “But we can’t allow you to endanger both of our careers over something so small.”
“Oh.”
Mr. Cake had looked at her even harder then. “Don’t just sit there and say ‘Oh,’ Pinkie.”
“Oh. Umm, I mean... Am I fired?” Pinkie finally asked.
Both of the Cakes’ faced had softened a bit at that. “No, Pinkie. You’re not fired,” Mrs. Cake answered. “But we want you to go and apologize to Ditzy. Tell her that the contest is off. We just aren’t comfortable risking our livelihoods on this game of yours.”
“After all,” Mr. Cake added. “We have foals to take care of.”
“Apologize!?!” Pinkie blurted. “Why do I have to be the one to apologize? Ditzy’s the one who went crazy on me! Ditzy’s the one who went and bought her own bakery! Ditzy’s the one who’s trying to put us out of business! Ditzy’s the one who should apologize!”
The Cakes gave Pinkie a moment to calm down before responding. “Pinkie,” Mr. Cake began. “I know this is difficult. We realize that you aren’t the only one at fault here. But you have to understand that Ditzy has some... unique... challenges. That means that the responsibility to be the bigger pony rests on you.”
This was why Pinkie now found herself at Derpy’s Muffinry on her lunch break, instead of, say, eating her lunch. She took a deep, calming breath, and then stepped through the door into her rival’s bakery.
“Hello, and welcome to Derpy’s Muffinry!” The minty unicorn at the counter began. “What can I do for... Oh, hi, Pinkie Pie. Wait, Pinkie Pie!?” Lyra quickly took a defensive stance. “What are you doing here? This is the sovereign territory of the muffin queen! Ye heathens of cupcakery are not welcome here!” At this point, any normal pony would have been rendered speechless, unable to do much more than give Lyra a ‘What in Equestria are you talking about’ look. Pinkie, however, was relieved at the idea that she might be able to have some fun and countered without missing a beat.
“Greetifications to the Muffindom! I have come under a white flag to talkify with thy queenie aboutist the politicsful standings between our kingdom thingies in hopes that we may be at peace.” Pinkie not-so-eloquently said.
“I say thee neigh, trickster!” Lyra replied. “We will not be fooled by your attempts to speak with a silver tongue! Indeed, thy tongue's nature is as aluminum, not silver! The muffin Queen gave strict orders not to allow passage to anypony who fights under the cupcake banner! Also, many of the words thou speakest with are not even real words.”
“Hey, I’m making this up as I go along! Besides, this gag is gonna get old fast anyway. I need to talk to Derpy!” Pinkie slipped back into normal speech.
“No. She doesn’t want to see you!” Lyra crossed her forelegs across her chest.
“Of course she doesn’t! I don’t want to see her either, but I need to! You have to let me in!” Pinkie implored.
“Not gonna happen.”
“Pleeease?”
“No.”
“Pretty please?”
“No!”
“Pretty please a la mode, with vanilla icing, rainbow sprinkles, and a cherry on top?”
“No! For Luna’s sake! Why do you need to see her so badly?”
Pinkie took a deep breath. “Because the Cakes told me that I’m not allowed to bet Sugarcube Corner on the game, so I have to see Ditzy so I can call the game off and come to some sort of arrangement, even though I don’t really want to and I’d rather see where this goes, it’s out of my hooves so I really really need to talk to her!”
“That’s not going to happen.” Pinkie and Lyra both turned to see Ditzy glaring at both of them. “It's too late for second thoughts now, I have my little muffin to think about. If I don’t beat you Carrot Top is going to have to take her away.”
“We... we can work this out! Can’t you get your old job back?” Pinkie tried.
“No. I quit without giving them any notice. I can’t reapply there,” Ditzy replied.
“Maybe...”
“No. I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to use trickery to make me give in. Well, it won’t work,” Ditzy said, struggling to get both of her eyes focused on the pony in front of her.
“That’s not it at all, Derpy!” Pinkie protested.
Ditzy’s nostrils flared “Of course you’re saying that. And I told you before; Only my friends are allowed to call me ‘Derpy!’” Pinkie Pie, for her part, was staring at Ditzy in disbelief. In the back of her mind, she noted the grim irony: usually it was other ponies giving her this look.
“So,” Pinkie finally formulated her reply. “That’s how you’re going to be. Fine! No, better than fine. Good! Great! I was hoping you’d refuse to listen to reason! Now I’ll have no regrets about stomping you into the ground!” She turned around sharply and trotted out the door. pausing only briefly to kick over a rotating pie display before she left. It landed on its side with a satisfying crash.
Ditzy turned to Lyra. “Would you mind going and picking that up?”
Lyra nodded and went to go do so. She looked down at it. “Looks like the pies are done for.” She reported.
“We can make more,” Ditzy replied. “There’s only one Pie I’m worried about. We had best be on our guard. The next time she shows her pretty little pink face in here we will show her no quarter!”
“What if she wants to buy something for 75 cents and pays with a bit?”
“I’m going to assume that was a joke.”
++++++
“-And she completely refused to even listen!” Pinkie finished. Upon hearing this, Mr. and Mrs. Cake exchanged a glance.
“Well then,” Mr. cake said. “I suppose it’s up to us.”
“I’m afraid so,” Mrs. Cake replied. the two turned back to Pinkie. “Alright dearie, we’ll go talk to her. You watch the shop, alright?”
“Okie dokie, Mr. and Mrs. Cake,” Pinkie replied, snapping a salute.
The Cakes exited the shop and Pinkie took her place at the counter. She watched them as they crossed the road and went into the muffin shop. They re-emerged a few minutes later looking very angry. Mrs. Cake had muffin batter in her hair. They came inside and Pinkie flashed them an innocent grin. “So, how’d it go?”
“Pinkie,” Mr. Cake said angrily. “Take. Her. Down.”
++++++
Bon-Bon was furious when Lyra came home that night covered in muffin batter. “Lyra! What did you do?” she demanded to know. “And why are you tracking muffin mix all over my clean floors?”
“Um... well, Derpy and I had a little disagreement with the Cakes...”
“To look at you, I’d say it was a bit more than a ‘little’ disagreement,” Bon-Bon noted dryly.
“Okay, It may have been closer to an altercation.”
Bon-Bon sighed. “Just... go wash up. And then I want to know exactly what happened.”
“Yes, Mom.” Lyra grumbled slinking into the bathroom.
“You can complain when you start paying your share of the rent!” Bon-Bon called after her.
“Hey, I got a job now. Can you please get off my back? You’ll have your rent money when Derpy pays me,” The bathroom door replied.
Bon-Bon was about to reply to this, but she was interrupted by the sound of rushing water. She shook her head. “Sometimes I wonder why I put up with her. It can’t be good for my blood pressure.” She smiled grimly, and then, in a different voice, said, “Talking to yourself now Bonnie? You’re becoming just as crazy as Lyra. Soon you’ll be spouting nonsense about humans too.”
“Shut up, me,” she replied to herself.
A few minutes later a very wet Lyra stalked into the living room. She located a chair and made for it. “What are you doing!?!” Bon-Bon cried.
Lyra looked up at her curiously, her posterior hovering just above the seat of the chair. “Umm... sitting?”
“Not on one of my chairs while you’re still sopping wet! Lay down a towel first!”
“You’re not the boss of me!”
“I am if you want to keep living here.”
Lyra straightened up and made an effort to appear stung. “What? How could you turn me away? Where could I go?”
Bon-Bon shrugged. “Hay if I know. Maybe you can run off to the forest and be raised by wild humans.”
“Humans don’t live in forests, silly!”
“Just go get a towel and stop dripping all over the floor.”
“Whatever.” Lyra trotted into her room and returned with a towel, which she draped across the chair before sitting down in her usual odd manner.
“Okay,” Bon-Bon said, satisfied for the moment. “Now what happened with the cakes today?”
“Alright,” Lyra Said. “First of all, Pinkie Pie came in around lunchtime and tried to trick us into giving up with her silver gypsy tongue.”
“Somehow, I doubt that’s actually what happened...” Bon-Bon muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Please continue.”
“Okay. We saw through her deception right away, and told her to leave, but then a few minutes later the Cakes came in and tried.”
“Okay...”
“But of course we weren’t having any of that. I mean really, Pinkie just tried the same routine! So Derpy took her mixing bowl and threw it at Mrs. Cake, but she missed and hit me instead.”
“What did you do then?”
“Well, what do you think? We had a food fight!”
Bon-Bon looked astonished. “The Cakes too?”
“Um... I’m not sure, It’s all a bit of a blur, All I know is that when the flour settled they were both already gone.”
“Of course they were,” Bon-Bon muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
++++++
Pinkie Pie sat in her darkened room, looking out the window at the bakery across the street. “It can’t really be helped can it?” she said to the empty room. “I have to end this as quickly as possible, and it doesn't look like things are going to work out on their own.” She turned away from the window and examined the small circular space. She trotted over to her bed. Getting down onto her belly, she reached into the dark space and pulled out a wooden box. “If things don’t start turning around soon...” She popped the latch on the box and flipped the lid open to reveal what appeared to be a miniaturized party cannon. “I may have to cheat a little.” She caressed the hoof held cannon. “I can hardly wait to give this baby a test run.” She lifted it out of the box and aimed it at a dart board that was tacked to her wall. She flicked it upward slightly in a way that simulated firing, and made an explosion sound effect with her mouth. “I’ll give it three days,” Pinkie concluded. And then, smiling to herself, she ominously added, “Dun, dun, duuuuun.”