//------------------------------// // Chapter IV - I Can't Stomach This Feeling // Story: Snack-Sized Sweetie // by Autismo555 //------------------------------// Sweetie Belle managed to regain her hearing after Winona’s barking deafened her for a short time. Unfortunately, the first sound she heard was the wet gurgling of the dog’s stomach she was trapped in. After all that Sweetie Belle had been through for the past couple of hours, the unicorn filly was starting to get used to being eaten alive. Maybe it was the work of euphoria? She didn’t know. What she did know was that there had to be a way out. Her horn used up the last of her magic, and so, it had to wait and charge up like a battery. Winona’s stomach acid was about knee-high but was just as potent as acid itself. The grass, dirt and mud were dissolved in the volatile liquid, slowly churning away into soup for Winona’s nutrients. There were only a couple of ways for Sweetie Belle to escape her stomach, but both were easier said than done. Option number one was to somehow reach the surface of Winona’s mouth. Sweetie Belle couldn’t climb up a slippery, wet surface all the way to the tongue. For one thing, she didn’t have anything with her to help climb up the moist esophagus. She could try and wait for Winona to somehow burp or throw up like all the dogs do, which brought her to option number two. She could escape from Winona through the natural way. Obviously, the answer was a strict NO. She was not going to become the next dropping that Winona left behind. Even if she could, there was no way that she would survive in the acid... or in her bloodstream, if she was sucked in through the villi. “Great. Now what do I do?” Sweetie Belle moped to herself. “It’s no use, I can’t get out of Winona now. I’m just gonna perish in here as Winona’s next meal.” The unicorn sighed, watching the grass blades and little specks of dirt dissolve into the corrosive liquid. “Oh, Rarity. I wish you were here with me right now. I don’t know what else to do.” Sweetie Belle curled up in a fetal position on the mound of stomach flesh, drooping her ears back. She wondered how everything was going outside with Apple Bloom and Winona. Hopefully, their day was going better than her’s did. ==== “Oh, dang it! It came apart!” Scootaloo wiped her forehead as her attempts to reconstruct a bicycle fell in pieces. Both of her hooves were struggling to turn a screwdriver both ways, making her wonder how Spike made turning it look so easy. She disassembled and reassembled a unicycle once, so why wouldn’t it work now!? Because those parts she used to assemble those cycles had pop-in parts that attached to another part, that’s why. This was a tough challenge that Princess Twilight intended for the young pegasus to complete for their next Twilight Time, so Scootaloo couldn’t argue with that logic. Giving a tired sigh, Scootaloo picked up the frame and the wheels, preparing to once again assemble the bicycle with determination to get her Cutie Mark. “Scootaloo! Hey, Scootaloo!” The pegasus filly’s ears perked as she heard that young, familiar Southern drawl from outside of her bedroom window. She looked out to see Apple Bloom and her dog, Winona standing at the base of the backside of her house, the border collie’s tail wagging and panting happily. “Apple Bloom? What you doing here?” Scootaloo asked. “Shouldn’t you be at home potion-making for the next time we meet with Twilight?” “Ah was, Scootaloo, but we’ve got a major problem!” Apple Bloom yelled, her voice cracking at the word, major. “Applejack told me that Sweetie Belle’s gone missin’! She said Rarity messed her up with her teleportation spell and now she might have been teleported somewhere in Equestria!” “WHAT!?” Scootaloo screamed, leaning over the edge of her window. “You’re kidding me!? You’re not serious, are you!? Are you saying that Sweetie Belle is gone and is somewhere stranded in Equestria!?” Apple Bloom nodded, leaving the pegasus to slam her hoof on the windowsill. “Oh, ponyfeathers! AB, it looks like we have a Crusader who’s MIA! We need to gather our stuff and go look for Sweetie Belle, pronto!” “No need, Scootaloo! Ah got all the help that Ah need right here!” Apple Bloom replied, showing her hoof to Winona. “Her? What do we need your dog for?” The pegasus asked, causing Winona to tilt her head in confusion. “Winona’s not just a dog!” The farm filly argued. “She’s mah dog with the best nose in Equestria! We picked up on Sweetie Belle’s scent back at the farm and we need that scent ta track her down or we’ll lose the trail! We can’t find Sweetie Belle if we lose that trail!” “Alright, alright! I’m coming down right now!” Scootaloo said, making Apple Bloom beam with a smile. “But first, my stuff!” The filly quickly zipped back into her room. Pots, pans and other metallic objects crashed and clanked from the outside as Scootaloo descended downstairs and came around the back of the house on her scooter with her wagon trailing behind, wearing her purple helmet and a backpack stuffed with survival gear. Scootaloo skidded her scooter to a halt, leaving marks in the dirt where her wheels dug into the ground and smiled a ready look on her face. “Ya packed all that stuff fer this little adventure?” Apple Bloom asked. “Of course. Since we have a fellow Cutie Mark Crusader gone missing, it’s our duty as her friends to find her and bring her back here, safe and sound." Scootaloo reached back and threw on a blue helmet on Apple Bloom's rose-red mane. "Now come on, AB! We've got a search and rescue to perform!" "Yeah! We could be--!" "CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS SEARCH AND RESCUE DUO!! YAY!!" the two fillies chanted in unison. "Winona! Keep followin' that scent, and don't ya dare lose that trail!" Apple Bloom ordered Winona, who barked in happy compliance. The border collie led the two fillies towards downtown Ponyville, using only her nose. Scootaloo's stubby little wings buzzed like a motor and the two ponies drove after Winona, unaware that their friend was closer to them, but yet, so far from their grasp. As of right now, the dog's stomach began to gurgle. If only they knew at that moment that Sweetie Belle was struggling to keep herself from being digested by the rising acids. ==== *GUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRGLE* Sweetie Belle held tight to the lump of squishy stomach flesh as the acids slowly rose into a small lake. The fleshy prison began to churn, and those movements, adding in the motion of Winona running, made it all the harder for her to hold on for life. The stomach became hot and smelled of sulfur, diminishing Sweetie Belle's strength by the minute. A slight little slip and the unicorn filly would be burnt alive. She would be turned into mush and dissolved into the soup, only to be passed along with the bile and released as excrement. Sweetie Belle was NOT going to become that excrement. She had to stay strong, not just for herself, but for Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle... even Rarity. If she let go, she would be letting her friends and her family down. There was no way she would become nutrients for the dog! If she had to get out, she had to let Winona know about her current predicament. Holding onto the lump of flesh, Sweetie Belle reeled back her hind hooves and jammed them against the stomach walls. All of a sudden, the stomach stopped moving. Winona must've stopped when she felt the sensation in her tummy, though it did nothing to stop the rising stomach acids. Sweetie Belled heard the muffled voices of her friends, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. She didn't make their conversation out exactly, but she was sure they were asking why Winona stopped. After a moment of recovery, Winona began to move again. Her tiny captive was losing her grip on her little "mound," the only thing keeping her from making contact with the acids. Sweetie Belle reared up her hind legs again and applied a harder kick, one that made a different reaction than before. The mucus-secreting walls undulated, and Winona stopped once more to feel the slight aches of the supposed "bug" she ate a little while ago. But there was an upside to it, though. The muscles that Sweetie Belle kicked caused them to spasm, thus draining a small amounts of the acid through the sphincter to the intestine. "That's it..." the unicorn muttered, feeling her breath shorten by the sulfuric atmosphere. "Just... one... more... kick... and then I'll... I'll be... free..." Sweetie Belle weakly reared her hind hooves once more. Then Winona jumped over a trash bag in an alleyway in Ponyville. The unicorn filly felt her world floating around her as she was flung up to the ceiling of the dog's stomach, hitting it hard with a wet SPLAT! Dazed by the high amount of sulfuric gas she breathed in accidentally and the sudden lurching movements, Sweetie Belle saw herself stuck to the stomach, facing down towards a deadly lake of acid. By the time she saw it, it was already too late. Winona landed on all fours, and the unicorn filly was plunging straight down to the liquid. There was no way to avoid the inevitable already. This looked like the end of Sweetie Belle for sure... ...if not for the stomach acids draining out completely by the time Sweetie Belle landed on the stomach floor with another SPLAT! Sweetie Belle laid flat on her belly, the impact doing so much to the shrunken filly. Her contact with Winona's stomach ceiling must've somehow made the acids drain out faster than she could realize. Thank Luna she was merciful to her today. Although she had already been weakened enough by the gas of the acid alone, which rendered her unable to move, let alone think clearly. Her world around her became dizzy. Her senses were too sluggish to respond. She couldn't feel anything against her body until the feelings came to late. Take the stomach, for instance. The walls began to close around Sweetie Belle, slowly massaging her aching body, but also pushing her through the stomach sphincter to the mile-long (to her) intestine. Sweetie Belle's vision and nerves came back to partial restoration a little too late as she saw herself moving into another long, dark and squishy tunnel tunnel. The unicorn whimpered, slurry but fearfully while she felt herself gently squeezed along the intestine and heading towards her second option. Out of Winona's "back door." Sweetie Belle was too weak to stop the process now. It was only a matter of moments now until she was free from the insides of Winona, at the cost of her morale... and, if this got over, Rarity's water bill for the amount of showers she would have to take just to get the stink off of her. With a sigh, Sweetie Belle slowly passed through the border collie's gut. "This isn't gonna end well," she slurred, no pun intended. ==== TWO HOURS LATER ==== Winona kept running like any fit dog would in Equestria, tracking the scent of the missing unicorn filly all over Ponyville for the last two hours. Scootaloo panted as her tiring wings buzzed sorely, trying to keep up with Apple Bloom's active dog while she grew anxious with every passing minute of not finding any real trace of their friend. It was only then when they stopped around the Carousel Boutique where Sweetie Belle disappeared, only to find the dog with her nose stuck in the garden, sniffing where the shrunken filly began her perilous journey. Scootaloo grunted. "AAAAAAAAAHHHHH! I can't take it anymore!" the pegasus filly said, throwing her hooves down on the handlebars. "We've been following that dog throughout Ponyville for hours looking for Sweetie Belle and all she's doing is stopping to smell the flowers! What's next, is she gonna buy the roses from Roseluck's stand or something!?" "Scootaloo, calm down!" Apple Bloom urged. "Winona's doin' her best ta track Sweetie Belle down! These things usually takes time!" "Yeah, right! If I'm tracking Sweetie Belle down, then Winona's gonna buy flowers from Roseluck!" Coincidentally, the collie tracked the scent she picked up from Sweetie Belle to the aforementioned pony's stand. She came to the near base where she found something in somepony's hind hoofprint. Winona turned and barked at the fillies. "See? What'd I tell ya!? She's gonna buy roses for Owlowiscious or something!" "Now hang on, Scootaloo! Maybe Winona's found somethin'!" The farm filly said, jumping out of the wagon. "What? A rose petal?" "No." Apple Bloom galloped towards her dog and looked to where she found something in the ground. She gasped as she delicately picked up the object and showed it to Scootaloo. It was a curling piece of tail, the colors of the dull tones of pink and violet unforgettable. "This." "So what? That's only a tuft of Sweetie Belle's tail," Scootaloo said. "So what?" "SO WHAT!?" Apple Bloom snapped. "It's not a part of the tail that's worryin' me! Look at it! Sweetie Belle's tail only has those two kinds of curls at the end! Only this version of her tail is just..." The farm filly gasped once more, this time out of horror. Something inside of her clicked into place. "...smaller." "Say what?" All of a sudden, Apple Bloom darted off towards the inside of the Carousel Boutique, her eyes full of panic and enlightenment. Scootaloo galloped after her with Winona following suit. "Hey, slow down, Apple Bloom! What's the big rush about!?" Scootaloo yelled after her. "Ah don't know, but it's somethin' Ah've gotta check out!" The farm filly shouted back. The fillies and Winona all zipped past the foyer and into Sweetie Belle's room. If intuition served right, then Apple Bloom knew that there was something in her room that could help tie in to the mystery of Sweetie Belle's disappearance. She slammed the bedroom door open and scanned around the perfectly tidy room (courtesy of her stickler-to-neatness sister, Rarity) for any clues. Eventually, her orange eyes fell onto something sitting in on the floor of her room: a lone apple and the instruction sheet to Sweetie Belle's lesson of teleportation spell. Apple Bloom read the sheet. Then her eyes widened and her pupils shrunk. "Oh mah..." "What? What's going on?" Scootaloo asked with growing concern. "Scootaloo, look at this sheet fer a minute, would ya?" "Why? What's that got to do with anything?" "Just read it. Please." Scootaloo read the instruction sheet carefully. She took in every word written down, every number of steps needed to take, even the little sketches to help illustrate the point. Scootaloo read it a few times, her gears failing to click into place together. "I still don't get it," the pegasus said. "Why am I reading this? What's this got to do with Sweetie Belle's disappearance?" "Everythin'!" Apple Bloom snapped, shocking her chicken friend back a hoof. "Look! Ya see how it says ta teleport this apple onto her nightstand!?" "Yeah?" "Well, what if that teleportation spell had already worked on Sweetie Belle!?" Apple Bloom asked, her answers coming out anxiously. "Think about it: Rarity interrupted her when she tried ta teleport this apple onto her nightstand, but she only struck herself with the magic!? That little piece of her tail we found outside can't be a coincidence! What if she also accidentally shrunk herself and teleported herself onto her nightstand as a result!?" "Even if that were true, then where could she be!?" Scootaloo rebutted. "At her size, she could've been squashed, or sat on, or..." GUUUURRRRGGLE! Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both froze in horror as they heard the grumbling of a stomach come from Winona. They turned to the border collie with shocked looks, while Winona happily panted and wagged her own tail. Then they looked at each other. Both of them knew what the other one was thinking and slowly turned back to the collie. "Winona? Did ya, by any chance, see Sweetie Belle a little while ago?" Apple Bloom reluctantly asked. BARK! BARK! "Was she the size of a bug when you saw her?" Scootaloo asked, also reluctant. BARK! BARK! "Where is she now, Winona?" The border collie turned over on her back and looked to her tummy. The gurgle they heard a minute ago was her digestion commencing. If the two Cutie Mark Crusaders didn't know any better, they would imagine that Sweetie Belle was inside her stomach, or even a little further. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo looked at each other and face-hoofed. The good news was, they know where Sweetie Belle teleported off to. Bad news was, she was going to be let out from a very uncomfortable place in a few hours. "Oh, horseapples," they said in unison. ==== "Anything yet?" "Nope. Ah'm tryin' mah best ta hold in mah lunch, though." "Let me guess... hay and cheese sandwich with an apple, apple cider and a slice of apple pie?" "How'd ya know about that?" "I'm psychic. Oooooooh." Despite Scootaloo's sarcastic remarks, Apple Bloom had repeatedly eaten the aforementioned food items for lunch every day. It became so routine, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle could memorize it all in their sleep. And speaking of Sweetie Belle, they waited for the unicorn filly to be dropped from Winona, who took behind the bushes while her master's younger sister watched her carefully. Scootaloo was too squeamish to watch herself, but she didn't want to admit it. It would label her as a "chicken." A big blow to her pride. It had been thirty minutes, and yet, nothing happened. "How long is this gonna take!?" Scootaloo grunted. "Don't you know that by the time Sweetie Belle will come out of Winona, she might not be Sweetie Belle anymore!?" "Scootaloo, bite yer tongue!" Apple Bloom barked. "Don't ya dare talk that way about Sweetie Belle! She's a strong unicorn and she can take care of herself! There's no way she'll be digested in mah dog, unless Ah had ta force a whole bottle of laxatives down her throat!" "What's a laxative?" "It's somethin' that Granny Smith takes ta make her feel all regular again. But Ah wouldn't recommend takin' some. Trust me, Ah drank half a bottle, Ah felt cramps in mah digestive track and... well, let's just say Ah was forced ta clean up the mess." Apple Bloom shook her head embarrassed by what happened to her years ago involving her and a single drop of Flim and Flam's Super-Spectacular Laxative Tonic. "Trust me. Applejack was so angry, Ah hid away in the haystack until she got a chance ta cool off." "Well, your word's as good as mine," Scootaloo said, still not getting what a laxative did for the body. The girls waited for another ten minutes. Apple Bloom kept her eye on Winona. Scootaloo's patience was wearing thin. Winona was still happily panting and wagging her tail. Nothing out of the ordinary happened yet... except for... "Hey! Scootaloo, come over quick! Ah think this might be it!" Apple Bloom shouted. "I can see it fine from here!" Scootaloo lied. There was no way she was going to watch as nature called for Winona. Her pride of being a fearless pegasus like Rainbow Dash was on the line. Scootaloo waited for a minute as Apple Bloom kept watch over what could be a speck of white, pink or pale violet dropping from Winona's "back door." "Do you see anything yet?" she reluctantly asked. "Nothin' yet," Apple Bloom said, peering over the bushes. "Wait, hold on... wait... wait... is that?" The farm filly squinted her eyes. Then those eyes suddenly widened with their owner's gasp. She began to jump for joy, squealing with delight knowing that she found who she was looking for. "YES! IT IS! IT'S SWEETIE BELLE! OOOH, LOOK HOW TINY SHE IS AND--!" Apple Bloom sniffed a couple of times. Her face scrunched up with disgust. "...and how bad she smells," she remarked. "But that don't matter right now! She's okay! She really, really is okay! Scootaloo, come see this! It's Sweetie Belle! She hasn't been digested at all!" Apple Bloom's excitement and her claims of their shrunken friend being revealed were all the motivation Scootaloo needed to gallop over to where the farm filly found Sweetie Belle. She looked over the bushes and saw what she didn't believe to have seen at first. In the middle of the mess was Sweetie Belle at the mere size of a pea, struggling to sit on her haunches and rubbing her aching head. Sweetie Belle groaned a few times. Then the unicorn filly looked up to see the titanic faces of Apple Bloom and Scootaloo looming over her tiny self. To Sweetie belle, this was a glimmer of hope that finally shone in these short few tormenting hours. "So how's your day been going?" Sweetie Belle asked at an audible scream. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo looked at each other with two different looks. Apple Bloom had an excited look on that would've rivaled Pinkie Pie's regular look while Scootaloo looked on dumbfounded. She wasn't sure exactly how Sweetie Belle ended up at an inch height, let alone surviving Winona's stomach for this long. It didn't really matter. They were just relieved that their friend was safe and somewhat sound. Both heaved out a big sigh. "See? Ah told ya she was alright!" Apple Bloom chirped. "Okay, okay, I got it. I was skeptical and I was wrong," Scootaloo quickly admitted before turning to the shrunken filly. "Say, Sweetie Belle, how'd you--?" As the pegasus filly turned to Sweetie Belle, she and Apple Bloom made yet another terrifying discovery. Sweetie Belle was yet again gone! Standing near where she was a moment ago was Winona, who absent-mindedly slurped up the poor unicorn in her mouth again. Winona swished her morsel around in her mouth. She tasted a little repulsive on account of her traveling through the dog's bowels, but overall, Sweetie Belle had the distinct taste of marshmallows. Before Apple Bloom screamed something, Winona tilted her head upwards and, once more, swallowed the unicorn. A little bulge traveled down the dog's throat, disappearing into her chest. Then she began to pant and happily wag her tail. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo deadpanned at the dog. The farm filly sighed and rolled her eyes. "Ah'll go get the laxative then," she said, turning around and trotting back to Sweet Apple Acres.