//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7 
// Story: Pinkie Pie Clicks a Cookie 
// by Kwisatz Haderpone 
//------------------------------//

	Twilight Sparkle’s friends were starting to worry about her. She’d been standing in the same spot, staring up at the factory, slack-jawed, unblinking, and unmoving, for nearly two whole minutes.
“Hello? Earth to Twilight! Anypony home?” Rainbow Dash waved a hoof in front of Twilight’s face, trying to elicit some sort of response. “Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this out of it before.”
“Well, can you blame her?” Rarity said. She pointed at the factory. “Just look at this place. It’s so drab and lifeless! I daresay whoever designed this building had absolutely no sense of style!”
Applejack rolled her eyes. “Right. That’s the biggest problem we’re dealing with here.”
“All I’m saying is that a coat of paint couldn’t hurt. It would certainly brighten things up a little. Oh! And maybe some decorative—”
“Give it a rest, will ya, Rarity?” Rainbow interrupted. “We gotta snap Twilight out of her funk and figure out our next move.”
“Don’t worry, I got this!” Pinkie Pie said. She bounced up to Twilight’s side, leaned in real close, and licked her ear.
Twilight shrieked. “Pinkie! Yahhh! What are you… why would you… ew! Just, ew! Ew ew ew ew!”
Rarity grimaced. “Pinkie Pie! That’s disgusting!”
“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?”
“That is beside the point!” Rarity shook her head. “You can’t just walk up to a pony and… oh, why do I even bother. You’re probably not even listening.”
It was true. Pinkie Pie wasn’t listening. She was too busy bouncing cheerfully away toward where the mayor was preparing to make her speech.
Twilight, now thoroughly snapped out of her funk and rubbing her ear in an attempt to clear out the icky wet sensation, suddenly remembered why she was here. “The mayor! I have some things to discuss with her!” She darted off after Pinkie. The rest of the girls, not knowing what else to do, followed.
“Oh, hello, Twilight, girls,” the mayor said. She paused when she saw the look on Twilight’s face. “Is something wrong?”
“Wrong doesn’t even begin to describe it!” Twilight said, her face uncomfortably close to the mayor’s. “This—” she waved a hoof at the factory “—this building didn’t exist this morning! It shouldn’t be here! It’s impossible! But it’s here! And now you’ve gathered everypony in Ponyville here to, what? Celebrate?!”
The mayor took a step back. “I admit I wasn’t expecting them to finish the construction quite so quickly, but—”
“Wait. You knew about this?”
The mayor cleared her throat. “Well, yes. Surely you know that all new construction in Ponyville must be approved by my office before—”
“You— you approved this?! When did you approve this?!”
“Why, just this afternoon. I was skeptical at first, but that adorable little kitten with his suit and tie and tiny briefcase was very convincing during his proposal.”
Twilight blinked. “What.”
“Even after all that, I almost didn’t believe they’d actually be able to pull it off in such a short amount of time, but, well, here we are, aren’t we?” The mayor gestured toward the factory. “I’m always happy to welcome new businesses into our—”
“Does none of this strike you as odd in any way?” Twilight interrupted.
The mayor gave her a blank look. “Odd, you say?”
“Yes, odd!” Twilight snapped. “As in, kittens don’t normally wear suits and ties, or carry tiny briefcases, or make business proposals at Town Hall, or construct entire factories in a matter of minutes!”
The mayor tapped her chin. “You know, now that you mention it, that does all seem a bit odd.” She shook her head. “No. More than a bit odd. Downright impossible! How strange! It all made perfect sense right up until a few seconds ago! I was all set to announce the grand opening and everything! What in the world is going on here?”
“Chaos magic,” Twilight said. “The kittens must have used it to cloud your mind. But you’ve finally seen through it, so you should be fine now.”
“Chaos magic?!” The mayor exclaimed. “Oh dear! Is Discord up to no good again?”
“Not exactly. Let’s just say one of his little pranks has unexpectedly spiraled out of control. But don’t worry, we’re on the case. My friends and I are going to shut this factory down, whatever it takes, and put an end to it. You should probably clear these ponies out of here, just to be on the safe side.”
“Of course. Good luck, girls!” The mayor stepped up to her podium to address the crowd. “Fillies and gentlecolts, may I have your attention, please?”
“Come on, girls,” Twilight said, as the mayor made her announcement. “We’re going in.”


~ * ~


Upon entering through the sliding glass doors, the girls found themselves in a well-lit reception area. Their hoofsteps clattered against the dark wood floor as they made their way across the room. They walked along a wall papered with vertical blue stripes. Three large paintings of chocolate chip cookies hung there. Beneath the paintings was a cushioned bench, flanked by a pair of end tables piled with assorted cookie-related magazines. A potted ficus stood in the corner. Soothing, slightly jazzy music filled the air, along with the tantalizing aroma of freshly-baked cookies. Against the far wall, an orange kitten wearing wire-rimmed spectacles and a headset sat behind the reception desk. It looked up as they approached.
“Hello and welcome to Fuzzy McWhiskers’ Old-Time World-Famous Original Chocolate Chip Cookie Factory. Meow may I help you?”
A few moments passed.
“I’m not crazy, right?” Rainbow Dash said. “You all heard that kitten talking just now, too?”
“Yep,” Applejack answered.
“I heard it,” Rarity added.
Fluttershy and Twilight nodded in agreement.
Pinkie Pie rushed up to the desk. “Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie! Are you Fuzzy McWhiskers?”
“Oh, no,” the kitten replied. “I’m just the receptionist, meow.”
“Do you know if Fuzzy McWhiskers is here? I’d really like to meet him.”
“I’m sorry,” the kitten said, “but Fuzzy McWhiskers doesn’t actually exist, meow. He’s just a composite of several popular cat-related corporate mascots, meow.”
“Oh.” Pinkie’s excitement level deflated a bit. “Never mind then.”
Twilight pushed Pinkie aside. “Actually,” she said to the kitten, “we were looking for some information about your operations here.”
“I see.” The kitten looked over the group. “We are currently offering guided tours of the facility to members of the public, meow. I am certain you would find it very informative, meow.”
“Uh, would you excuse us for a moment, please?” Twilight said. She gathered the others into a huddle.
“I say we take the tour,” she whispered. “We can use the opportunity to learn more about what we’re going up against.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Rarity agreed.
“Maybe if we ask nicely, the tour guide might even help us find the button,” Fluttershy added.
“Nuts to that,” Rainbow whispered. “Let’s just bust in there and wreck the place. Cause some chaos of our own, and snag the cookie button on the way out.”
“That’s a terrible idea, Rainbow,” Applejack whispered. “This place is huge and we don’t even know where they’re keepin’ the button. I’m with Twilight on this one.”
“I wonder if they give out free samples,” Pinkie whispered. “I’ve got a hankering for some cookies all of a sudden.”
“When do you not have a hankering for cookies, Pinkie?” Rainbow asked.
“Well, sometimes I have a craving for cookies, and other times I have an appetite for cookies, and other other times it’s more of a taste for cookies, and once it was a weird tingly sensation behind my left ear, but I think maybe that one could have been a mosquito.”
A few moments of awkward silence ensued.
“Oooookay, then,” Twilight whispered. “So that’s four votes for the tour, one vote for all-out assault, and one vote for whatever Pinkie Pie was talking about.”
Twilight looked up from the huddle. “We’d like to take the tour,” she announced.
“Excellent,” the kitten said. “Tours run every twenty minutes, and the previous group has just left, so you will have to wait, meow. If you’ll take a seat over there, I’ll call you as soon as the next tour is ready to start, meow.”
“One moment, please,” Twilight said. She ducked back down into the huddle.
“We can’t afford to wait twenty minutes,” she whispered. “The chaos magic will be building up even faster now that they’re mass-producing cookies.”
“All-out assault is starting to sound pretty good right about now, huh?” Rainbow whispered with a smug smile on her face.
“No, Rainbow. We need a plan. Or at the very least, a map. If we get lost in there, it could take us much longer than twenty minutes to shut the place down, get to the button, and get out.”
“Um, I have an idea,” Fluttershy whispered. “What if we asked them nicely?”
“Right,” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “‘Hey, chaos kittens, we think it’d be swell if you would kindly shut down this factory and give us back our cookie button, even though it goes against all your plans for cookie-based world domination.’ That’ll work.”
“No, I meant—”
“Rainbow’s right, I’m afraid,” Rarity interrupted. “Negotiating with cats is difficult enough when they aren’t corrupted with chaos magic. I know you’re good with animals, but I think even you might be out of your depth here.”
“But I—”
“Do you think they make other kinds of cookies here?” Pinkie whispered. “Like oatmeal raisin, maybe?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Applejack asked.
“Just ignore her,” Rainbow whispered.
“Maybe they have gingerbread cookies! Shaped like little ponies! I like to bite the heads off first.”
“Pinkie, focus!” Twilight whispered sharply. “We have to come up with another plan.”
“We could always just send Pinkie in to eat all the cookies,” Rainbow suggested.
“I know you’re not being serious, but there are thousands of cookies in there. It would take an army of Pinkies to eat them all.”
“Oh!” Pinkie whispered. “There’s always the mirror pool!”
“No!” four other voices whispered simultaneously.
“Say,” Rarity whispered. “Where’s Fluttershy?”
The others all looked up from their huddle, just in time to see Fluttershy approach the reception desk.
“Um, excuse me? I know the tour group has left already, but my friends and I have plans for later and we really can’t wait twenty minutes for the next group. Is there any way you would consider letting us join them, even if they’ve already started the tour?”
“I don’t know, meow….”
Fluttershy flashed her kindest, gentlest smile. “We would be ever so grateful.”
“Very well,” the kitten sighed. “Proceed through the door on the left, meow. But you’ll have to hurry if you want to catch up to the group, meow.”
“Oh, thank you so much!” Fluttershy said. She turned around to find her friends staring at her in stunned silence, and immediately became very self-conscious. “Oh dear. Um, Twilight said we didn’t have time and then you all started arguing and I don’t like arguing and so I thought that maybe… um, I’m sorry?” She shrank back into her own mane.
“Fluttershy, dear,” Rarity said, “you have absolutely no reason to be sorry. That was brilliant!”
“Yeah, great job sweet-talking that kitten!” Rainbow added.
Fluttershy blushed. “I didn’t really do anything all that special, though. I just asked nicely. I’m sure anypony could have done it.”
“Yes,” Twilight said, “but anypony didn’t do it. You did. And it was great! Now let’s go catch up to that tour group!”


~ * ~


“Wait! Wait for us!” Twilight shouted to the tour group at the far end of the hallway. One of them must have heard her, because the group stopped moving until Twilight and the girls caught up, slightly out of breath.
“I see we have some late additions to our little group,” said the tour guide, a tabby kitten wearing a tiny blue bowtie. “Well, come along, then. We were just getting to the exciting part! Behind this door lies the future! Let’s take a look, shall we?”
The guide opened the door at the end of the hall and the ponies in the tour group filed through: a trio of energetic Filly Guides pushing and shoving each other in their attempt to be first; a pair of pegasus ponies Twilight recognized as part of the Ponyville weather team; a cream-colored earth pony with a pink-and-blue mane, whose name eluded Twilight for the moment; and finally, Twilight herself and her friends. They found themselves in another hallway, this one wider than the first, and with a row of windows along the right wall.
“Here at Fuzzy McWhiskers’ we believe that cookies are the future, and no part of this facility exemplifies that more than our Research and Development Laboratory. Now, we can’t let you into the lab for safety reasons, but we can offer you the next best thing. Through these windows you can catch a glimpse of our scientists and engineers, hard at work, designing and testing new and improved ways to bring our cookies to you!”
The guide led the group to the first window. “This first team is currently testing alternative conveyor belt technology. If these tests go well, we’ll begin upgrading to these new, sturdier conveyor belts within the next few days, bringing a significant boost to efficiency and productivity.”
The three Filly Guides pushed their way to the front of the group to get a good view through the window, but were disappointed by what they saw because, well, conveyor belt technology isn’t the most exciting thing in the world.
“Everyone gotten a good look? Excellent. Now, if you’ll all move along to the second window, some of our more magically inclined researchers are attempting to summon fully-formed chocolate chip cookies from thin air.” The guide peeked in through the window, where a pair of kittens wearing pointy wizard hats were using brooms to beat back the dozens of writhing, slimy tentacles emerging from the portal they had inadvertently opened. “It appears they aren’t making as much progress as some of our other research teams.”
“Oh my. Are they going to be okay?” Fluttershy asked.
“They’ll be fine. All our researchers are trained to handle situations like this.” Even as the guide spoke, the two kittens succeeded in pushing the last of the tentacles back and began the ritual to close the portal. “There, you see? Disaster averted.”
“So, uh, does this sort of thing happen often around here?” Applejack asked.
“Well, we haven’t been operating for very long yet. But yes, this is not an uncommon occurrence. Let’s move on.”
The tour group paused in front of the third window, where a trio of kittens wearing white lab coats and safety goggles watched over a series of bubbling flasks. “Ah, this is one of our more interesting experiments. These scientists are attempting to transmute various materials directly into cookies, thus bypassing the production line process entirely and greatly boosting the rate at which we can produce cookies.”
One of the flasks suddenly spewed out raging bluish-green flames and melted to the table. A kitten rushed in with a fire extinguisher to douse the fire before it spread.
“Hmm. Apparently copper is not a viable candidate for cookie transmutation. Well, a negative result is still a result. Hopefully they’ll have better luck with one of the other materials. Come along, then. On to the final window.”
The tour group followed the guide to the window at the far end of the hall. “Here we have our most ambitious and exciting project to date! Our scientists and engineers have really outdone themselves on this one. If you’ll look through the window, you’ll see…” The guide’s voice trailed off.
Behind the window was an empty room.
“Right. It appears they’ve gone and moved it. Again. Without informing me. Well, never mind, then. It’s not as if this was the highlight of the tour or anything.” The guide put on a slightly forced smile and turned to the group. “So, are there any questions before we move on to the next part of the tour?”
“Yeah,” said the cream-colored earth pony. “What used to be in that room?”
“Well,” the guide said, “the thing about that is, since they removed it from the tour and all, I don’t know whether I’m even supposed to tell you about it anymore. Which is a shame, since, as I mentioned, it’s exciting stuff. Made the whole tour, really. My apologies. Anyone else?”
One of the pegasus ponies—Flitter, or maybe it was Cloudchaser? I get those two mixed up all the time—raised a hoof. “So eventually you do plan on having actual cookies on your cookie factory tour, right?”
The guide chuckled. “Yes, my impatient friend, there will be cookies. In fact, our next stop will give us a nice view of the factory floor itself, where the cookies themselves are made!”
“Now we’re getting to the good stuff,” Rainbow whispered to Twilight.
The guide pushed open the door to the next room and gestured to the group to follow. “Come on, then! Let’s have a look!”
The group found themselves in a shorter hallway than the previous one. This hallway had a single long window running nearly the entire length of one wall, overlooking the factory floor below.
“Impressive, isn’t it?”
Twilight had to agree with the tour guide. The factory floor was huge. Conveyor belts crisscrossed the room, creating a path from one piece of complicated-looking machinery to another. One machine dropped dollops of dough onto the belt, which were whisked away to another machine that shaped them into perfectly round balls, then through what appeared to be an enormous oven, and past another that sorted out improperly cooked or misshapen cookies, and into another machine that packaged the cookies neatly into boxes. Here and there, kittens wearing yellow hard hats were inspecting the machinery, and loading sacks of flour and sugar and eggs and salt and baking soda and chocolate chips into gigantic mixers, and stacking boxes of cookies onto pallets.
“Very impressive,” Twilight said. “Exactly how many cookies is this factory producing?”
“An excellent question,” the tour guide replied. “As you know, we have only recently finished construction, and as such, our production lines are nowhere near running at full capacity yet. But we should be up to speed by tomorrow, at which point our humble little factory will be pumping out over a quarter of a million cookies per day!”
Twilight gulped. “That’s… a lot of cookies.”
“And if all goes well, that’s only the beginning. Aside from the new conveyor belts, we’re in the process of upgrading several other vital pieces of equipment. When the upgrades are completed toward the end of next week, we expect a new daily output of nearly thirteen million cookies!”
“I take back what I said before,” Twilight said in a shaky voice. “Suddenly a quarter of a million cookies doesn’t sound quite as… well, big.”
“Yes, it is impressive.” The guide looked over the rest of the group. “Any other questions?”
“I’ve got a question,” Rainbow Dash said. “What’s powering all these machines and stuff?”
“That would be our central reactor. It generates all the power we need to run everything in the factory: the machines, the lights, the soothing background music, the sliding doors.”
Rainbow peered through the glass. “So which one of those is the reactor?”
“Oh, it’s not on the factory floor,” the guide replied. “The central reactor is located in a restricted sector, which means unfortunately that we will not be seeing it on the tour today. Any other questions?”
The rest of the group remained silent.
“Very well. Let’s continue on, then. If you’ll all follow me….”
Twilight motioned to her friends to hang back as the rest of the tour group headed into the next room.
“I’ve seen enough,” she said in a low voice once the group had gone. “The guide’s obviously not gonna give us directions to the reactor. We’ve gotta find it ourselves and shut it down, and fast.”
“And the button!” Pinkie added. “We can’t forget my button!”
“Aw yeah!” Rainbow said. “Finally, it’s time for some action!”
“Right. This way, girls.” Twilight pushed open a door marked “RESTRICTED AREA EMPLOYEES ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT” and led them through, totally unaware that her every movement was being watched.


~ * ~


The kitten at the reception desk watched on its monitor as Twilight and her friends broke away from the tour group and wandered onto the factory floor. It sighed, and pressed a paw to its headset.
“There’s been a breach, meow.”
A pause.
“A group of troublemakers ditched the tour group and entered a restricted area, meow. I had a feeling they were up to something the moment they walked into the building, meow.”
A pause.
“Yes, I’ll alert Security shortly, meow. They won’t make it very far, meow.”
The kitten removed its paw from the headset and sighed again. Knowing how Security treated intruders, it almost felt sorry for the ponies. The yellow one in particular. She was so very kind, after all.


~ * ~


Meanwhile, at Fluttershy’s cottage…

Spike, Angel Bunny, and Discord sat around a small table, each holding a hand of playing cards. More cards were spread in a pile on the table.
Spike studied his cards intently, tongue sticking out the side of his mouth.
Angel Bunny thumped his foot impatiently.
“Any time now, half-pint,” Discord said, scowling over his cards.
“Okay, okay, geez,” Spike said. He turned to Angel Bunny. “Got any threes?”
Angel Bunny gave him a smug smirk and shook his head and pointed to the pile.
“Of course you don’t,” Spike muttered. He picked a card from the table—not a three, sadly—and added it to his hand.
“My turn,” Discord said. “Hmm. Let’s see here…” He sent a piercing gaze toward Angel Bunny. Angel Bunny returned the stare, his tiny bunny eyes narrowing ever so slightly.
Spike sighed heavily. “Are you two gonna try to psych each other out like this every single time you get a turn? Because it got old like six turns ago.”
“Quiet, you. I think I’m starting to get a read on him.”
“Yeah, you said that five turns ago. I’d be more inclined to believe you if he weren’t beating the tar out of both of us right now.”
At that moment, an angry-sounding voice interrupted the game. “Enough of this nonsense! Cease your incessant mindless chatter this instant!”
All eyes turned toward the source of the voice, the cat carrier next to the front door.
“Good,” the voice said. “Now that I’ve gotten your attention, perhaps one of you clods might do something useful for once in your lives and let me out of this cage.”
“Well, the cat’s talking now,” Spike remarked. “That’s new.”
“Release me at once! I am losing patience!”
“See, this is why I don’t make talking animals anymore,” Discord said. “They’re always so rude to me for some reason.”
“Think it’s the cookies that are making her talk like that?” Spike wondered.
“They are calling to me! I must be free! I must join them!”
“Of course it’s the cookies,” Discord replied. He pulled a pocket watch out of his ear, flipped it open, and glanced at it. “Twilight and the girls certainly are taking their time stopping this mess.”
The voice in the cage cackled loudly. “Do you truly believe this is a thing that can be stopped? Fool! It has only just begun! The cookies grow in power with each passing moment! Your friends are doomed to fail! My brothers and sisters will see to it! There is no hope for any of you, no hope for Equestria! The future holds only despair, and cookies! Endless cookies, covering all the land in delicious, fresh-baked, chocolatey—”
“Okay, your turn to speak is over now.” Discord snapped his claw and a cone of silence fell over the cat carrier. A large, orange cone of silence, wrapped with bands of reflective tape. Opal’s ranting was almost entirely muffled. “That’s much better.”
“So,” Spike said, “is this a thing we should be worried about?”
“Not at all,” Discord reassured him. “She’ll probably go back to normal once the girls sort this whole mess out and all the excess chaos magic dissipates harmlessly into the aether.”
“Yeah, that’s all well and good, but I was really more asking about the whole ‘Equestria buried in an avalanche of cookies’ end-of-the-world scenario she was talking about.”
“Oh, that.” Discord shrugged. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. I have every confidence that Twilight and her Sparkle Squad can handle the problem before it gets that far out of control. And if they don’t, well, we can always move Equestria five miles down the road, out of the way of the avalanche.”
“I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not,” Spike said.
“If it makes you feel any better, neither can I, most of the time,” Discord said. “Now, where was I?” He glanced back down at his cards. “Ah, yes. Do you have any eights?”
“Go fish.”











For those of you who are curious, the wonderful, fantastic invention once featured in the final room of Fuzzy McWhiskers’ Research and Development Laboratory was…
A scratching post.
But not just any scratching post. No, this was an eight-foot-tall, multi-level, full-blown kitty condominium, with rooms for kittens to hide in, and little round windows for them to peek through, and those springy door stoppers that make that sproingy sound when you flick them, and toy mice dangling from strings, and a television playing a continuous loop of canaries splashing in a bird bath. So basically, Disneyland for kittens. Which kind of explains why the tour guide was so disappointed when he saw it was missing.
But why was it missing? Well, the reason for that is simple (and not very interesting). Shortly before the tour group arrived, the team of scientists and engineers working on the project declared it a success and had it installed in the break room. Apparently the tour guide missed the memo. Oh well. At least he’ll be pleasantly surprised during his next break.