"You can do this." I said to myself, trying not to burst into a sprint as I walked to the castle doors. My success in that matter...could have been better. Apparently resisting the magic had some side effects, for instance, as I touched the door my neck slung back in an uncontrolled twitch. "Oh, this hurts." I said as I snapped my neck back into place and trotted off. At first I just wanted to see what it was like to be, well, not me. I traveled around the empire without any real goal other than just getting the feel of being a pony, though I'm sure the spontaneous twitching wasn't helping my disguise. I stopped off in the park, I had to get off the ground because the magic was just getting to be too much and I felt like I might burst into flame at any moment. I had hopes for a bench I could sit on but as time would soon reveal, I wouldn't need one.
"LOOK OUT!" a young unicorn filly screamed at me, running atop a large, caramel colored boulder. I turned around just fast enough to see it before it hit me but instead of being crushed, as I expected, I was sucked into it. I found myself rolling around in a greasy cavern with fleshy walls and absurd amounts of cheese cake, all the while it was still rolling. I tried to climb out but every time I stuck my hoof down to stick to the walls, I slid further and further into the cavern. Soon enough the cave stopped, and a light blue aura of magic surrounded me and pulled out of the cavern. "Oh my gosh, are you ok?" the golden maned, blue eye and coated filly asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm not sure how, but I'm alright." I turned around to see a head sticking out of the boulder, meaning it was actually a pony. A really, really fat pony. Meaning that cavern I was in.... my mouth slowly opened in disgust of the liquids covering my skin, and cheesecake. At least, on the inside. On the outside I didn't seem to be affected very much, but on the inside I was screaming. "Can I kill myself now?" I asked the filly.
"A little extreme, don't you think?"
My eyes widened and I leaned closer into her face and replied, "Nooo."
"Come on, it's not that bad! I mean, it could be worse." she chuckled.
"I WAS IN A PONIES ROLLS OF FAT!"
"What's your point?"
I grabbed her by the head. "My point?" I threw her face into the fleshy folds of the ponies enormous body.
"WAIT! PLEASE! THERE ARE BEARS IN HERE AND EVERYTHING SMELLS LIKE CHEESE!"
I pulled her head out of the fat and said, "Not so-"
A voice echoed from the open void of fat, "Hey, Booboo! Let's maul the next one who comes in here!"
We simply stared at the closing cavern for a good five seconds before I continued, "Not so bad, huh?"
She punched me, I fell to the ground holding my cheek. She shouted at me, "You jerk! That was an accident, you should have moved quicker!"
I sighed, got back onto my hooves and replied, "Whatever, just don't go running over other ponies." and walked away. Until she grabbed my tail.
"Where do you think you're going? You're helping me push my brother to the hospital."
"And why would I do that?"
"Because there are bears in there." she grinned.
I put my hoof to my chin and considered the statement, saying. "You make a strong argument...and I would like to avoid becoming bear poop..." I nodded, "You've got yourself a deal!" I galloped over to the mass of flesh and shoved my hooves under it. I lifted with all my strength. It meant absolutely nothing because my hooves got sucked right in and he kind of just hovered there in an eternal jiggle. "Ok, you're going to have to explain to me how he got like this and how you expect me to help."
"My brother's a chef and he likes experimenting with magic in some of his recipes. End result of a failed one...well, another failed one." she came over and continued while pulling my arms from the folds, "And if you want to move him, it's simple." she grabbed several rolls, pulled them and tossed them over her brother's massive body. He rolled, a little. I understood what she had in mind and joined in. It wasn't long after that I wish I'd let her continue demonstrating, because when her brother started moving like we wanted, it was down a hill. And my hoof was suction cupped to one of his rolls. It was like being slammed into the ground by a hamburger, repeatedly. It wasn't made any better by the filly assuming her position at the top of the ball, running along my custom groove. And face. "You enjoying yourself?" she asked.
"I hate you! Both of you!"
"Good to hear!" she shouted with a laugh. After several minutes of being run over she stamped on her brother and launched me out through the hospital doors, oddly, with a bottle of ketchup in my hooves. I would never ask how this happened and I feel it is better that way.
I slid across the marble flooring, and shuttered as I reached my stop at the side of a doctor. "You knew this would happen...didn't you?" I snarled at her.
She hopped off and laughed, "Yeah, yeah I did. This isn't exactly the first time he's gotten like this." she turned to her brother, "Bellcurve, wake up!"
The roll of pony jiggled, his body filled with ocean-like waves as he came to. "Huh, what? Are we there?"
"Yeah, we're there. We had to get a little help this time, though." she pointed to me.
"No problem!" I said with a smile, at least while my head was facing them.
A doctor, myself and a nurse came out of the hospital. The doctor looked at the situation and said, "Bellcurve, again?" The pony jiggled. I would have assumed that meant he nodded, but I doubt he had the neck to make such a gesture. "Nurse, get my whips and mace. I'm going in." the doctor said with courageous splendor. Once handed his equipment, he jumped into the rolls shouting "Begone, foul beasts!"
"BOOBOO! GET EM!" echoed from the gelatinous rolls of pony.
I had no idea what I was looking at so I gave a fake yawn and told the filly and her brother, "I think I'm gonna go lay down somewhere. Somewhere far away from here." and walked off. The filly grabbed my tail again so I stopped at gave her a deadpan glare. "Ok, we're going to need to establish some ground rules. First one being, no grabbing my tail." I pulled my tail away.
"We're not done yet. My brother is a chef, remember? He has a restaurant to deal with and we need to take care of it!"
I chuckled and said, "Why would I help you do that?"
She drew closer and said, "Why? I can't think of any reason other than I'll just knock your punk flank out."
I squinted my eyes and said, "You are just all sorts of mean, aren't you?"
"Silence slave!" she grabbed my tail again and dragged me off. She shouted, "To the Sea of Flavor!"
"This is not how my day was supposed to go!" I screamed, my hooves pulling entire mounds of dirt in a frail attempt to resist.
The Sea of Flavor was a rundown shack of a food joint. I could tell it was supposed to be a first class place, but clearly, no one kept up with it. The floor was covered with grime, the ceiling was housing what seemed to be mutant, crystal rats. They also laid eggs. The tables were broken down, the chairs were pretty much just sitting mats at this point. All things considered, it sucked, BUT... no..no wait. I actually can't think of anything that would be considered good. It sucked. "Alright, first things first!" the little filly said, standing in the center of the dining room, "We gotta finish the cooking. We don't want any customers getting sick from the food."
I looked around and said, "Customers? I'm the only one here."
"For now!"
"For now? I can see our hoofprints in the floor, you know."
"Yeah? And?"
"There is not a single hoofprint leading to the chairs and tables. Only to the kitchen."
The filly walked up to me and pushed her head against mine. "You trying to be smart with me?"
"I don't try to be smart, I am smart. Good day." I walked away. She grabbed my tail and dragged me into the kitchen. I would have resisted but I was scared I'd get an infection from clawing my hooves at the floor. The kitchen looked even worse than the dinning area, the utensils were covered with molded food, the pots and pans had rusted and there were vials of potion sitting on a shelf just pouring into some strange soup on the stove. "Oh...my...Celestia. WHAT IS ALL OF THIS!?"
"What? It's the kitchen."
"IT'S A DUMP! THIS PLACE IS A DUMP!"
"Hey! Watch what you say about my family restaurant! I'll have you know that ponies came from all over the world to come and eat here!"
"Oh yeah? When?"
She sat down and counted the air around her hoof. "One thousand years ago. Not counting the time we spent it celestial stasis."
A strange, limp, and fleshy blob fell down next to me and crawled out of the kitchen. "Alright, I'm done here."
"You're not going anywhere until you've helped me fix our main dish!"
I sighed. "Fine, what is it?"
"I don't actually know. But that's why you're here!" she pressed her hoof against my nose. "We're gonna find out together! And if we get things done quick enough, we'll find out why we haven't had a customer in so long!" A dish melted off the rack and into the soup on the stove. "Don't worry about that." She said trying to keep me from looking. "We keep the ingredients in the fridge, lets get to cookin!"
She pulled me over to the refrigerator and opened it. I screamed. And screamed. And screamed. Until a tomato reached out with it's hand, placed it's finger on my lip and said, "Shhh..."
"Alright, buck this, I'm done." I trotted out of the kitchen.
The filly grabbed my tail, again, and said, "Please don't leave!" there was a subtle sob in her voice. "I can't do this by myself."
I snatched my tail from her and took a deep breath which lead into a long sigh. "You want me to help you fix this place, right?"
"Right."
"Then we'll need to establish some ground rules. Again. Firstly, don't grab my tail. That actually hurts, you know."
"Right!" she nodded.
"Secondly, this place is a mess and I refuse to help ANYPONY under such conditions. We clean this place up first and then we deal with the food."
"Right!"
"Thirdly, your refrigerator has living vegetables in it. And not only did one touch me, one of them looked at me in an oddly seductive matter. Burn it."
"Right! ....What's seductive mean?"
"BURN IT!"
"RIGHT!" She nodded profusely.
"Fourthly, under no circumstances do you question what I can do for you. Understood?"
"Yes!" She grabbed me for a hug and repeated herself going "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" for at least a minute I tried to push her off of me. Her gratitude was feeding into me, making it harder to keep my transformation, although I don't know why. She should have noticed the three times I turned back to normal, but she didn't. So I had to count my blessings that she was either really oblivious or just dumb.
"By the way, what's your name?"
"My name's Bright Side."
"Your name is a lie. Now come on, we need to get some supplies to fix this place up."
"Well alright but there's only one tiny problem..."
"What's that?" I raised a brow.
"We don't have any money. My brother has all our funds, and that was last seen under one of his chins."
"Don't worry about that, just leave it to me."
I came back to the castle, returned to my normal form and found a door on the second level with some fairly heavy panting coming from it. "Yeah this is probably it." I knocked on it and said, "Cadence, you in there?" I twitched.
"Yes! I mean--No wait, don't come in!"
"I need some money. What currency does the Crystal Kingdom use and where can I get a lot of it?"
"Uhh-" I heard a whisper through the door, "Not yet, he's still there!"
I rolled my eyes. "Well?"
"We use Crystal Gold, you should be able to get some downstairs in the repository. The one near the dungeon."
"I don't know where that is." I twitched again, this time my neck spinning around three hundred and sixty degrees. It hurt, but at the very least I knew I was immune to getting my neck snapped.
"Give me...half an hour. I'll take you there."
"Alright. Oh, by the way, Shining Armor are you in there?" I heard a gasp. "I thought as much." I turned around and walked back down the stairs, passing Sombra on the way.
"Variance, have you seen Shining Armor?" He asked, "A package arrived for him and I don't feel like signing for it."
"He's bumpin' uglies with your daughter." I said nonchalantly and continued to the bottom of the stairway. I don't exactly know what happened, but the next thing I knew, there was a loud scream followed by an even louder explosion. It didn't matter though, Cadence came down and led me to the reserve for their crystal gold. Small, gem-like coins made of gold. It was interesting to say the least, I could see through them like a crystal, but it was clearly metal. It was light, but at the same time had enough weight to make you feel that it was there. "Sweet."
"Yeah. Sweet." Cadence said, with some clear irritation in her voice. I pulled a bag from behind my back and started shoveling Crystal Gold into it. Cadence tilted her head and said, "Where did you get the bag from?"
"I've spent too much time around Pinkie Pie." Is what I said as I continued to shovel money into the bag, but in all honesty, I had no idea. I literally just put my hoof behind my back and expected something to come back. It didn't take long until the bag was as big as Cadence, and I still wasn't sure if we had all the money we needed. My neck twitched again, snapping back like I'd just been in a car crash.
"Why do you need all this again?"
I stopped shoveling and closed the bag. "The reason is quite simple," I jumped and shouted, "BOOM SHAKA-LAKA!" as I reached behind me, pulled out a smoke bomb in the form of a rubber duck and threw it down. Erupting it into a thick smoke screen. I ran out of the castle on my hind legs, bag over my head, and turned back into Pound Cake. I made it to The Sea of Flavor without anyone following. Somehow. The fact no one questioned or followed me made me wonder if all ponies from the empire were oblivious, or if I was just really lucky today.
Bright Side looked at the bag with her jaw hanging and stammered out, "Who..how...Did you rob someone!?"
"A little, yeah. But also not really. Hard situation to explain and I would simply rather not." I replied, playing with a few of the crystals I pulled from the bag.
"You're taking the heat if we get caught for this." She said.
"We'll be fine. Don't worry your pretty little head." I patted her on the mane.
"You think I'm pretty?" she lit up with glee.
"Ha! Of course not!" I smiled
"Feh." she turned her head.
"Now, lets go get..." In my head I listed all the things we would need to fix up this place. "A lot of stuff..."
"Just 'a lot of stuff'? Nothing specific?"
An ear of corn walked out of the kitchen with spider legs and crawled onto the ceiling and then borrowed inside it. Sounds of clicking and hissing radiated from the hole it left. "Flamethrowers. We will need flamethrowers. And a lot of them."