Knock, knock, knock.
“I’m coming!”
Knock, knock, knock.
“Coming!”
Knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock!
“I SAID I’M COMING!”
Slice opened the door. Standing before it was a goldish gray mailstallion holding a shitload of letters.
“Sorry to bother you sir,” said the mailpony, “But you haven’t been collecting your mail for the past two weeks, and I was getting worried, especially since some of these are bills.”
“Um, sure...” said Slice. “I’ll take them.”
“Okay,” said the mailpony with a tip of his hat. “Take care.”
Slice closed the door and brought all the mail to the kitchen table. He rifled through the bundles of paper, throwing out the all junk mail (which was most of it) and placing everything addressed to Cakelestia on the table. He wasn’t expecting anything for himself, having long since removed all of his business from the untrustworthiness of the ‘snail mail’ in favor of the ultra fast, high-tech world of email, streaming, and cloud computing. He wasn’t disappointed, either: there was absolutely nothing addressed specifically to him.
Once all the mail had been sorted, Slice, out of both curiosity and a total disregard for other people’s privacy, tore open every envelope addressed to Cakelestia and rifled through her mail. They were mostly letters from old friends, asking how she was doing and saying how much they missed her, blah, blah, blah, but there was one letter in particular that stood out to Slice.
It was a red letter that came in a red envelope. It read as follows:
Dear Princess Cakelestia:
Your balance has not been paid as of the date of this notice. As a result and according to the terms of service in our contract, various fines and fees have been added to your total balance. Your current balance is 10,000 bits. This entire balance must be paid immediately! This is a serious matter and your urgent attention is required. Failure to act promptly will result in a visit from the Repo Pony, who will ‘reponyssess’ your TV and your video game console as compensation.
Sincerely, the CONcast Corporation.
P.S.: You may disregard this notice if you have already paid us.
Slice was mortified. The cable company was threatening to come to his treehouse and steal his TV and his Hexbox unless he paid them 10,000 bits!
“How dare they?” cried Slice. “This is extortion! But I don’t have the money to pay them, and they know that! They’re probably just doing this because they’re fundie moral guardians who want to take away my vidya gaems.”
Slice tried to figure out a way to defeat the ‘moral guardian fundies’ himself, but he couldn’t think of anything except paying the protection money.
“I must go find Princess Cakelestia!” he declared. “Maybe she can pay the protection money. After all, she has a credit card!”
Spike dashed out into the street and accosted the first civilian pony he could find: a pale persian blue pegasus mare with a cutie mark of a cloud in front of a sun.
“Hey, you, cloudpony!” said Slice. “I’m being threatened by the fundie moral guardians and they want me to pay them protection money so they don’t steal my vidya gaems but i don’t have the money but that white alicorn pony Cakelestia does but she ran off to go save Princess Yeastrise got ponynapped and now I’m trying to find her do you know where her kidnapper took her?
“Uhhh...” said the cloudpony, ”Can you slow down and repeat that?”
“Ugh, fine,” groaned Slice. “There are these ponies who want me to pay them protection money...”
“You’re being harassed for protection money?” asked the cloudpony. “By somepony besides the mayor?”
“Yeah,” said Slice. “And they want me to pay them now, but Cakelestia has the money.”
“But Cakelestia went to go rescue Princess Yeastrise,” said the cloudpony.
“I know that,” said Slice. “So I’m trying to find her. Can you tell me where she went?”
“Well...” said the cloudpony, “You might be too late for that. Cakelestia and her five friends have been gone for two weeks.”
“I don’t care,” said Slice. “I need to find her, dead or alive. Which way did she go?”
“”Woah there,” said Slice. “She went that-a-way, to the Neverfree Forest. Said something about there being a big scary old castle of darkness in there.”
“Kthxbye,” said Slice as he raced off towards the forest.
“Uhhh, you’re welcome?” said the cloudpony confusedly as she watched the dragon manchild zip towards the woods.
Princess Yeastrise Bakel sat in a cage, groaning and writhing, suffering degrees of pain beyond measure. Just a few feet away from Yeastrise’s cage there was a TV playing a short music video on infinite loop.
The video featured an animated anthropomorphic yellow blob frying some bacon in a pan over a stove while singing:
“Bacon pancakes, makin’ bacon pancakes, take some bacon and I’ll put it in a pancake. Bacon pancakes, that’s what it’s gonna make, bacon pancaaaaaaaaaake!”
Then the video repeated, with the same blob frying the same bacon while singing the same lyrics. Slice swore he heard the instrumental of Jay Z’s ‘Empire State of Mind’ (featuring Alicia Keys) playing in the background, perhaps with Keyboard Cat on piano.
“NO!” screamed Yeastrise in anguish. “STOP IT! NO MORE, NO MORE! FINE! I SURRENDER! PLLLEEEEEEAAAASSEEEEEEE! JUST MAKE IT STAAAAHHHHHPPP!”
A shadowy hooded figure emerged from the shadows and pushed a hoof on the TV’s off button. In its place, some quiet yet still mildly tension-inducing music played in the background for dramatic effect.
“So, you’ve finally heard enough of my theme song?” asked the shadowy hooded figure. Then it flung its head back, unhooding the shadowy figure in the process and revealing its identity to be none other than….
Bacon Pancake!
“Or would you like to hear a little more?” asked Bacon Pancake.
“Two… weeks...” rasped Yeastrise. “Two weeks of that… atrocious… theme song… nonstop! No more!”
“Yeah, I do admit that it’s pretty lame,” said Bacon Pancake, “But I needed something that was breakfast related, you know? And that song fits me just perfectly!”
Bacon Pancake giggled to herself for a bit, then adopted a more serious demeanor.
“But now back to business.”
Bacon Pancake used her alicorn magic to unlock Yeastrise’s cage, then she levitated Yeastrise into a chair facing a fancy table. Bacon Pancake took a seat at the chair on the opposite end of the table.
“These are my demands:” began Bacon Pancake, “First: I demand that you pay me, out of the Royal Treasury,... ONE MILLION CHITS!”
Yeastrise burst out laughing. “Oh, Bacon Pancake!” she said, “Who are you, Dr. Evil?”
“No...” said Bacon Pancake, offended. “It’s just that this evil lair was really expensive, and I need reimbursement for it.”
“Come on, Pancake,” said Yeastrise. “The treasury of Bakequestria should not have to reimburse you for doing evil things against it.”
“You’re in no position to negotiate!” said Bacon Pancake. “You’re still my prisoner!”
“Then why did you-” said Yeastrise, “-ugh, never mind. Fine, the already bankrupt treasury of Bakequestria will reimburse you for your evil lair, but certainly not one million chits. There’s no way this place cost that much.”
“You’re right,” said Bacon Pancake. “This place didn’t cost all that much. Especially since it’s in the Neverfree Forest. But I still need one million chits so I can pay my minions.”
“What minons?” asked Yeastrise. “I haven’t seen any minions around here. You’ve been working alone since day one.”
“I may have been working alone to handle you,” said Bacon Pancake, “but I still hired some minions. You know, to guard the castle.”
“Prove it,” said Yeastrise. “Show me that these minions really exist.”
Bacon Pancake made a sigh of exasperation, but she had no choice but to follow the command.
“SYRUPBOLTS!” she cried in her Royal Caps Lock Voice. “RETURN TO MY CHAMBERS AND PROVE TO MY PRISONER THAT YOU EXIST!”
After a few minutes, several ponies outfitted in scarlet tunics with blue gorget patches on their collars and epaulettes of navy blue, riding breeches of midnight blue which bulged at the thighs and had yellow stripes running down the seam of each leg, brown leather riding boots, brown leather gloves, brown leather campaign hats, with brown leather Sam Browne belts featuring pouches carrying handcuffs and pistol magazines loaded with 9mm Parabellum rounds, and brown leather holsters containing Smith & Wesson Model 5946 semi-automatic pistols, stormed into the room and stood at attention.
“Syrupbolts reporting in, ma’am!” said the Syrupbolt closest to Bacon Pancake, who had three yellow chevrons and a crown on the upper sleeves of his tunic to distinguish him from the others.
“Sergeant Red Serge, prove to my prisoner that you exist,” commanded Bacon Pancake.
The sergeant stepped forward and faced Yeastrise.
“Your majesty, I exist,” he said.
“Ha, nice try!” said Yeastrise. “I know this is all just an elaborate illusion to scam Bakequestria out of more money, but I’m not falling for it!”
“Sergeant,” said Bacon Pancake, “shoot her.”
The sergeant whipped out his Smith & Wesson Model 5946 semi-automatic pistol and shot Yeastrise.
“Ow!” said Yeastrise. “You shot me!”
“Sorry,” said the sergeant.
“Now do you believe they exist?” asked Bacon Pancake.
“I believe that one exists,” said Yeastrise. “I don’t know about the other ones, though.”
“Syrupbolts, shoot her again” said Bacon Pancake.
The other Syrupbolts whipped out their Smith & Wesson Model 5946 semi-automatic pistols and pointed them at Yeastrise.
“No, don’t shoot me!” cried Yeastrise. “Okay, okay, I believe you now. All of them are real.”
“Good,” said Bacon Pancake. “And you’ll be paying for the cost of that bullet on top of that, by the way.”
“Fine,” grumbled Yeastrise. “Let’s just get this over with. What else do you demand?”
“I demand that I and my Syrupbolts be formally pardoned for shooting you,” said Bacon Pancake, “And that I be formally pardoned for all the havoc I wreaked when I interrupted the Summer Bake-Off and Oven Festival.”
“How about we just sweep that stuff under the rug?” asked Yeastrise. “We’ll pretend your Syrupbolt never shot me and that you had absolutely nothing to do with it.”
“But what will the castle staff say when you come back with a big bullet hole in you?” asked Bacon Pancake. “Surely they’ll suspect that something happened.”
“I have the perfect alibi” said Yeastrise. “I’ll tell them that I went on another hunting trip with Dick Cheney.”
“Fair enough,” said Bacon Pancake. “But I still have two other things.”
“Okay, what are those two other things?” asked Yeastrise.
“The first is that, upon your release,” said Bacon Pancake, “I will be allowed to resume my duty as the bringer of breakfast to Bakequestria.”
“Fine by me,” said Yeastrise. “It’s kind of a burden to have to serve two meals at once.”
“And my second demand,” continued Bacon Pancake, quickly getting out her phone and playing ‘Low of Solipsism’ on loudspeaker at the highest volume, “is that you open a restaurant that will serve breakfast… ALL DAY!”
Yeastrise gasped. “All day? Bu-but… that’s impossible!”
“Oh no, it is possible,” said Bacon Pancake. “It’s possible as long as you believe.”
“Are you not already satisfied with the pancake house?” asked Yeastrise.
“The pancake house closes at 2 PM,” said Bacon Pancake. “I want a restaurant that serves pancakes at 2 AM!”
“2 AM!?” exclaimed Yeastrise in shock. “But that can’t be! Not even Taco Belle stays open that late!”
“As hard as it seems, we have to try,” said Bacon Pancake. “Otherwise, the gap between Fourthmeal and Breakfast will continue to be monopolized by convenience stores and sketchy Mexican restaurants!”
“But isn’t Waffle House open 24 hours? Surely they-” asked Yeastrise.
“WAFFLE HOUSE DOESN’T SERVE PAAAANNNCAAAAAKEEEES!!” cried Bacon Pancake.
The Syrupbolts sang along to the “Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhh-aaaaaahhhhhh-aaaaaahhhh-aaaaahhhh” chorus at the end of the song as Yeastrise pondered this. She was absolutely devastated.
“H-how could this be?” she asked tearfully. “HOW COULD THEY DO THIS?!?”
“It was hard for me to accept too,” said Bacon Pancake. “But that’s how it is.”
“But why?” sobbed Yeastrise. “Wai? Wai-hai-hai-haiiii?”
“I don’t know,” said Bacon Pancake, “but it’s a dark knowledge that I’ve had to live with for the past thousand years.”
“B-but the Pancake House serves waffles,” said the teary Yeastrise. “Both the Original Pancake House and the International House of Pancakes!”
“And yet those bastards at Waffle House refuse to serve my delicious pancakes,” said Bacon Pancake. “Even though they had explicitly agreed to do so when they signed the Treaty of Azarath at the end of the Titan-Pancake War!”
“Indeed,” said Bacon Pancake. “The only reason I spared them from my full wrath was because they had enough sense to not serve The Accursed Dish.
“I don’t understand,” said Yeastrise. “Why would anypony be so audacious and stupid enough to break any of the terms of the Treaty of Azarath?”
“Because,” said Bacon Pancake, “They’re SOUTHERNERS!”
Yeastrise winced in horror as memories of rednecks flooded through her brain, like floodwater through the streets of a certain Louisiana city after a hurricane broke its levees. She feet sharp, jagged tires of muddy monster trucks driving all over her cerebral cortex, the foul odor of unwashed pony and mushy bayou mildew stinging her hippocampus, and she could feel the moonshine-soaked cocks of young cousin-cuddling stallions violently abrasing the interior of her spinal cord while millions of unaborted future GOP congresspony fetuses thumping her pituitary gland with their fetus-sized copies of the New Testament.
“YEASTRISE, SNAP OUT OF IT!!!” yelled Bacon Pancake.
This brought Yeastrise back to her senses.
“Oh, Pancake, what are we going to do?” she asked. “How are we going to stop the southernization, the mexicanization, and the convenience store-ization of our early morning snacks?!?”
“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” said Bacon Pancake, holding Yeastrise in an embrace. “We’re going to open a restaurant. But not just any kind of restaurant, we’re going to open a new kind of restaurant. A kind of restaurant that’s always open, that serves everything at anytime, a place where you can have pancakes for dinner and milkshakes for lunch! A place where, sixty years from now, guests will come to sit back, relax, and enjoy delicious, hearty meals 24/7, every day of the year, from breakfast anytime to satisfying lunches and dinners - if the guests are in the mood for it, the restaurant will be serving it - a place where you can go on in anytime, park yourself in a comfortable booth, take a seat at the counter - whatever you want. Trust me Yeastrise, when we open it, it won’t take long for you to understand why it will truly be Bakequestria’s Diner!”
Yeastrise could no longer hold back her tears of joy. The crystalline teardrops of life flowed from her eyes like the water from the penis of that one statue in Brussels. She was happy, now freed from the oppressive meal schedules, now free to eat whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, and free from the constraining monopoly on early morning hunger relief which the vile Mexican convenience store owners from Dixie had forced Bakequestria to endure for a thousand years.
Suddenly, there was a blinding flash of light.
“Uggghhh...” moaned one of the Syrupbolts, who had been knocked off her hooves and onto the ground. “My head!”
“I-i-is everypony okay?” asked another, who was also on the ground.
“Oh, thank goodness!” cried a third, who was eagerly looking at her ?.
“Why, it’s so lovely!” said a fourth, who was admiring the third pony.
“I know!” cried the third pony, who was nuzzling her pistol. “I’ll never part with it again!”
“No, your epaulettes” said the fourth. “It looks just like your cutie mark!”
“Woo-ooh?” said the third pony, who was looking at her epaulettes with surprise. Then, looking at the fourth pony, she added, “So do yours!”
The fourth pony looked at her epaulettes and gasped in delight.
“Look at mine! Look at mine!” cried a fifth as she bounced over to the second. The second cast an appreciative glance at the fifth’s epaulettes.
“Awww, yeah!” said the first, admiring her own epaulettes.
The explosion of light had made Pancake’s tiara abnormally twinkly, which she now gazed upon with great pleasure.
“Gee, Pancake,” said the second Syrupbolt, “Ah thought you were just spoutin’ a lot of hooey. But I reckon… we really do represent the elements of--”
Suddenly, an empty coffee cup with a rolled up rim hit the side of her head. Its thrower, another Syrupbolt, shouted, “Go back to Calgary, you hoser!”
“Indeed you should,” said Pancake.
“Bacon Pancake” yelled Slice, coming out from the corner he had been eavesdropping behind.
“Slice, my sister’s faithful student’s unfaithful assistant,” said Pancake. “I knew you couldn’t do it.”
“But-- Princess Yeastrise told me I was supposed to help supervise the festival, but you--”
“She told you that you needed to lose some weight,” said Pancake, “Not gain more.”
Then she turned to face a brown alicorn (otherwise known as a ‘brownicorn’) who was lying on the floor. The brownicorn looked up with eyes that were at first sheepish, but then grew wide in fear when they saw Pancake. The brownicorn also gasped in shock, but the gasp came a few miliseconds after the eye opening because light travels faster than sound.
“It has been a thousand years since you have seen me like this,” said Pancake, who now appeared as a pale, light grayish mulberry coat, moderate violet eyes, and a mane of moderate sapphire blue with streaks of moderate violet and brilliant rose: otherwise the exact same physical appearance she had when she first appeared as Bacon Pancake, except in this form her mane was all messy with sticks and leaves in it and instead of a tiara she had a large pancake hanging over her forehead, with a slather of whipped cream dripping down her face, and chocolate chips and various colors of sprinkles affixed to the whipped cream.
Pancake knelt down beside the brownicorn, who was quivering in fear.
“Time to put our differences behind us,” said Pancake. “We were meant to cook together, little sister.”
“Sister?” gasped Slice and all of the Syrupbolts.
“Will you accept my friendship?” asked Pancake.
The brownicorn looked away in shame for a second, then turned her head back to face Pancake.
“I’m so sorry!” cried the brownicorn. “I missed you so much, big sister!”
“I’ve missed you too!” said Pancake as the two embraced.
One of the Syrupbolts blew her nose and cried like Niagra Falls.
“Laa-aame!” shouted Slice, ruining the moment. “I came here to find Princess Cakelestia, not some namby-pamby reunion scene.”
“Well, so-rry!” said Yeastrise the brownicorn. “If the return of my sister Princess Pancake isn’t good enough for you, then you should just leave!”
“I’m sorry,” said Princess Pancake. “But your princess is in another castle.”
“Are you telling me that I came all the way out here to the middle of the Neverfree Forest for NOTHING?!?” asked a now enraged Slice.
“Oh, no, no, no,” said Princess Pancake. “Teawreck’s Castle of Darkness is right next door. I remember Cakelestia and her friends went in there, but I don’t recall ever seeing them come out.”
Slice was off in a jiffy, speeding out of the room and gone in a flash. Princess Pancake just sighed and murmured something about how she wished she could have had a cool castle like Teawreck as an evil lair but instead had to settle with the one she had now because she couldn’t afford it.