Pinkie Pie Clicks a Cookie

by Kwisatz Haderpone

Chapter 9

“This way, girls! Hurry!”

Twilight and friends raced through the storage room, dodging fallen crates and wandering clusters of sentient cookies as they searched desperately for the exit.

“Wait! Dead end! Turn back and take the left fork!”

“I thought this was the left fork!”

“It was, Rainbow, but now we’re going in the opposite direction!”

“Cookies incoming! Heads up, y’all!”

“There’s a gap! Push through!”

Cookies bounced and scattered as the ponies charged past. One unfortunate straggler was trampled to crumbs beneath six stampeding sets of hooves. It was shortly replaced by ten new cookies, bursting out of a crate to join in the pursuit.

“Oh my goodness oh my goodness oh my goodness…”

“Twilight, we’re going round in circles! I’m certain I’ve seen that crate before!”

“How can you tell, Rarity? All these crates look exactly the same!”

“Look! Up ahead! I see a door! It’s the exit!”

“We’re almost there! Pick up the pace!”

A crash from behind, followed by a cry of pain, brought the chase to an abrupt stop.

“Oh, no! Fluttershy!”

Fluttershy lay sprawled on the ground amidst the remnants of a broken crate, dazed from her collision. Around her, scattered cookies stirred and rose to their feet.

“Fluttershy! Get up! They’re coming!”

Fluttershy looked up, saw the cookies surrounding her on all sides. Her eyes widened with fear, and she let out a quiet gasp. Two of the nearest cookies, attracted by the sound, turned.

Rainbow Dash leapt into action instantly. With a quick flap of her wings, she rocketed toward her fallen friend, whipping past the stacks of crates at breakneck speed. Yet even as she took off, she knew that it was hopeless, that despite her best efforts, the cookies would reach Fluttershy before she could stop them. Her heart sank. “No…”

Fluttershy froze, paralyzed with terror, unable to do anything but watch as the nearest cookie shuffled toward her, reaching out with its chocolate-chip-studded claw-like appendage, filling her field of vision, grasping cookie-fingers inches away….

THWACK!

A flash of silver, and the cookie vanished from sight. An unearthly shriek, fading into the distance, cut short by the solid thud of a sentient cookie impacting against a wooden crate at high velocity.

A sudden silence fell over the room as all the cookies paused and looked up. Fluttershy glanced up to see what had grabbed the cookies’ attention, blinked, and did a double take.

Hovering there just above Fluttershy, brandishing an oversized spatula in her two front hooves, was a very pleased-looking pegasus filly wearing a Filly Guide hat and sash.

“Oh, wow! Didya see how far that cookie flew? If there’s a record for cookie launching, I think I just broke it!”

“Yeah, that was pretty far, I guess,” a voice called from behind. Fluttershy turned to see the source—a second Filly Guide, leaning against a crate next to a giant wooden spoon, wearing a bored expression on her face. “Nothing I’d write home about, myself, but, you know, whatever.”

“Oh, you’re gonna be like that, huh? Well, I’d like to see you do better, ya crumbum.”

The second Filly Guide shook her head. “Nah, not worth the effort. We both know how it would end.”

“As if! Maybe you’ve got the power, being an earth pony and all, but power ain’t everything, you know. It takes skill to make a shot like that!”

“If you say so. All I know is, the harder you hit something, the farther it goes.”

A third voice chimed in, this one from the side. “Hey, cut it out, you two,” the third Filly Guide said around the huge whisk she held in her teeth. “We have more important things to worry about.”

“All right, all right, don’t be such a donut,” the first Filly Guide said, rolling her eyes. “It’s not our fault your horn crapped out on you, so don’t take it out on us.”

“Would you stop saying that! I keep telling you, my horn didn’t ‘crap out’. Something in this room has been messing with my magic since we came in here.” The third Filly Guide sighed and set her whisk down, then trotted over to Fluttershy. “Sorry you had to hear all that, miss. Those two tend to get really competitive at the worst possible times. Are you okay?”

“I think so.” Fluttershy stood, still a bit shaky from her ordeal, and looked up at the first Filly Guide. “Um, thanks, for, you know, earlier.”

“Don’t mention it,” the Filly Guide said, slinging her spatula up over her shoulder. “Filly Guides are always ready to help those in need. It’s kinda our thing.”

“Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash rushed in and tackle-hugged her friend to the ground. “Oh man, am I glad you’re okay! I thought you were a goner for a second there.”

“Rainbow… can’t… breathe….”

“Oh, sorry, heh heh.” Rainbow released Fluttershy just as the rest of their friends trotted up.

The girls and the Filly Guides stood there sizing each other up for a few moments before the first Filly Guide broke the silence.

“Right. Introductions. Name’s Chip Shot. That’s Crumbum, and that’s Donut. Good to meetcha and stuff.”

“Chip!” The third Filly Guide shook her head. “Ugh. Look, just ignore her. She thinks she’s funny but she’s really not. I’m Phyllo Dough. Not Donut.” She shot a glare at Chip, then gestured toward the second Filly Guide. “And that’s my cousin Berry Crumble. Definitely not Crumbum.”

Berry Crumble looked up at the sound of her name, saw six pairs of eyes studying her, nodded, then went right back to ignoring everypony in the room.

“Ooh, introductions!” Pinkie Pie squealed, hopping up and down. “I love introductions! Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie! That’s Applejack, and Rainbow Dash, and Rarity and Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle! We’re on a top secret mission to—”

“Ooookay, that’s enough of that,” Applejack interrupted, shoving a hoof into Pinkie’s mouth. “Well, it’s nice to meet y’all, I guess, but you girls really shouldn’t’ve wandered off from the tour. This place is dangerous.”

“Dangerous, nothing!” Chip snorted. “These cookie monsters are the most dangerous thing we’ve seen so far, and they’re so slow and stupid they might as well be cardboard cutouts of themselves! Besides, you six were the ones who wandered off from the tour first. We just followed you here.”

“Well then, y’all shouldn’t’ve followed us. We’re here for a very good reason. And we can handle ourselves in sticky situations.”

“We can handle ourselves too! We’ve all three of us got badges in hoof-to-hoof combat, urban exploration, improvised weaponry, first aid, and baking!”

“Now wait just a minute there,” Applejack said. “I’m pretty sure they don’t give out badges for—”

“That’s beside the point anyway,” Chip interrupted, waving a hoof dismissively. “What I’m trying to say is, we heard you all talking during the tour, about your plans to shut this place down and stuff, and we want in!”

Applejack blinked. “You what now?”

“Look, Filly Guide Cookie season is coming up in a few weeks, right? Well, if these guys start dumping millions of cookies into the marketplace, it’s gonna mean bad news for our fundraising efforts. Like, driving-the-Filly-Guides-out-of-existence levels of bad news! And there’s no way we’re gonna let that happen! So whaddaya say? Partners?” She offered a hoof to Applejack.

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “You’re joking, right?”

“No way! I mean, the only reason we were on that tour to begin with was to gather intel on this place to figure out the best way to close it down! We’re on the same side here, so why not work together?”

Applejack turned to Phyllo Dough. “Okay, you seem like the reasonable one here. Can’t you talk some sense into your friend?”

“Believe me, I’ve tried,” Phyllo Dough said. “But Chip gets these ideas in her head sometimes, and it usually leads to nothing but trouble. And the more you try to talk her out of it, the more she wants to do it. At this point all I can really do is be there to help her out when things get crazy.”

“Unbelievable,” Applejack muttered, shaking her head.

Meanwhile, Berry Crumble glanced up at Rainbow Dash, who had drifted up close and was carefully inspecting the Filly Guide. “You want something?”

“So what’s your story?” Rainbow asked. “You here to keep her out of trouble too?”

“Nah,” Crumble shrugged. “Mostly I’m just here to hit stuff.”

“Oh, so you’re the tough one, then?”

Crumble shrugged again. “I guess you could call it that, if you really wanted to.”

“Okay, I’ve heard enough,” Applejack said. “Look, it’s cute that you girls want to help and all, but we’ve got this covered. Why don’t you three get back to the tour group and let us handle things from here on out?”

“Yeah, ’cause you were doing such a great job before we showed up, right?” Chip said. “I mean, it’s not like I saved your friend from being cookie chow or anything.”

“And she thanked you for it! We’re all mighty grateful, believe me, but now it’s time for you three to—”

Berry Crumble cleared her throat, interrupting Applejack mid-sentence. “So, yeah, can we wrap this up already? In case you haven’t noticed, the cookies are starting to regroup.”

Twilight Sparkle glanced around worriedly. Though most of the cookies remained stationary, a few had once again continued their advance and were shuffling ever closer. She sighed, then turned to the three fillies. “Okay. You girls wanna help? You can help. But you have to do exactly as I say, okay?”

The three girls nodded.

“Wait, you’re not actually going to—” Applejack’s objections were cut off by Twilight’s hoof inserted into her mouth.

“Right. Here’s the plan. The six of us will go on ahead and figure out a way to shut down the central reactor. That leaves you three to handle the very important task of containment. We’ll lock the door behind us when we leave. You make your way back to the other entrance and seal the cookies in. Don’t let a single one escape. These cookies are contaminated with chaos magic, and it’s imperative that we prevent it from spreading beyond this room. Once the factory is shut down, we’ll come back and figure out what to do with all the cookies. Got it?”

“Yes ma’am!” Chip saluted. “You can count on us!” She turned to her fellow Filly Guides. “Well, you heard her! Let’s get this show on the road!” Without waiting for a response, she darted toward the nearest cookie and swung her spatula.

THWACK!

The cookie shrieked as it soared through the air, right up to the moment when it slammed into a stack of crates, exploding into a shower of crumbs and gooey chocolatey lumps. Another THWACK, and another, and two more cookies met the same fate.

Berry Crumble cracked the faintest hint of a smile. “Excellent.” She took up her giant wooden spoon and charged headlong into a cluster of cookies. Thrusting the spoon forward like a spear, she shoved one cookie backward into another, then into a third, smashing them to bits. Her ear flicked around at the sound of a fourth cookie approaching from behind, cookie-claws reaching for her tail. A swift, solid kick sent it tumbling back into yet another pair of cookies, knocking all three to the ground. She crouched, then leapt into a backflip, somersaulting and twisting through the air, landing with a CRUNCH on two of the fallen cookies, bringing her spoon down on top of the third with a CRACK that echoed through the room.

Phyllo Dough rolled her eyes. “Showoffs.” She bent down and grabbed her whisk in her teeth. “Don’t worry,” she said to a stunned-looking Twilight. “We got this.” And with that, she trotted off after her friends into the mayhem.

A moment passed.

“Wowsers,” Pinkie Pie said, breaking the silence. “They’re good.”

“Surprisingly good,” Rarity agreed. “I admit I had my doubts, but it seems those girls really can handle themselves.”

“They do have some pretty cool moves,” Rainbow admitted. “Nothing compared to me, of course, but not bad at all for a bunch of Filly Guides.”

“It don’t matter how good they are,” Applejack said. “This still ain’t no place for little fillies!”

“Of course it isn’t,” Twilight replied, pushing open the exit door. “That’s why I sent them back. Now let’s get out of here and get this door locked up before they figure out we’re ditching them and try to come after us.”

~ * ~

“Hey, wait a minute,” Chip Shot said, screeching to a sudden halt. “I think we just got ditched!”

“What are you talking about?” Berry Crumble trotted up beside her. “Dough didn’t ditch us, she just fell behind. If anything, we ditched her.”

“No, not Dough, ya dummy! I mean—”

“Will you guys slow up a minute?” Phyllo Dough panted, finally catching up to her friends. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you were trying to ditch me!” She glanced around. “Hey, where’d all the cookies go?”

The immediate area was indeed deserted, with no sign of cookies save for a scattering of crumbs and a few smashed crates.

“Huh,” Crumble said softly. “Weird.”

“Ya think maybe we got ’em all?” Chip wondered.

A few moments of silence, broken by a quiet shuffling-dragging noise somewhere in the distance.

“I think maybe they’re hiding from us,” Crumble said. “We must have made an impression on them.”

“Well, whatever the case, this is perfect,” Phyllo Dough said. “We should have a clear shot back to the entrance now. We can lock up just like Miss Twilight said and—”

“What? No way!” Chip shouted suddenly. “That’s exactly what she wants us to do!”

Crumble and Dough looked at Chip, then back at each other, then back at Chip again.

“Uh, yeah?” Dough raised an eyebrow. “That was the plan, remember?”

“Yeah,” Chip snorted. “Her plan to ditch us. We gotta get back there fast!”

“No,” Dough countered, “the plan was to deal with the chaos magic. You know, seal the room, keep the cookies contained, and all that.”

“So it’s a plan to deal with chaos magic and a plan to ditch us at the same time. Plans can be two things at once, you know.”

“Look,” Dough insisted, “whether she ditched us or not, containing the chaos magic is still an important mission! Miss Twilight and her friends are counting on us! You wanted to help, right? Well, this is helping! So suck it up, and let’s get back to the door, and lock these cookies in!”

Chip sighed heavily. “Fine. They’ve probably already got the exit sealed up tight by now anyway. We’ll go along with the plan. Make our way back to the door, and lock up.”

“Glad to see you’re finally listening to reason.”

“Then we hit up a map and find a path around this storage room and catch up with Twilight.”

Dough groaned.

“Right,” Crumble said. “That’s settled. So we done standing around here? The longer we wait, the more time the cookies have to find hiding places. And I ain’t done smashing yet.”

~ * ~

“Just… about… there!” Applejack shoved the heavy, near-ceiling-high file cabinet the last couple of feet across the floor. “That oughta keep them cookies from bustin’ out.”

The file cabinet joined an upended table, a stack of chairs, and a potted ficus, all pilfered from a nearby conference room and piled up in front of the doors to create a makeshift barricade.

“Oh, I’m so glad to be out of that horrible room,” Fluttershy said. “Those awful cookie creatures…” She shuddered. “So scary.”

Meanwhile, Twilight studied her map of the factory. “We’re close,” she said, horn aglow, as she traced a hoof along a path on the floating map. “It’s just down this hallway here, and through this—”

“Hey!” Pinkie Pie chirped. “Your magic’s working again!”

Twilight jumped in surprise. Her horn flickered, and the map dropped a couple inches before she regained her focus and caught it again.

“Well, mostly working, anyway,” Pinkie said.

“The interference is definitely lower here,” Twilight agreed, “but it’s not completely gone. The more distance we put between us and that room full of cookies, the better.”

“So what are we waiting for, then?” Rainbow said. “Let’s get moving! It feels like it’s been months since we’ve made any progress!”

“Right. This way, girls.” Twilight Sparkle marched down the hallway, took the second left, and came to an abrupt halt. Her friends, following closely, nearly bowled her over as they turned the corner.

“Geez, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash complained. “How about a warning next time you decide to stop in the middle of the….” She trailed off when she saw why Twilight had stopped. “Oh.”

The FMCW Tactical Enforcement Drone Series 409 was situated in the center of the hallway, squatting like some nesting mechanical flightless bird on its massive metal legs, bent backward at the knee. The main body, a large battleship-gray oblong shape, was capped by a sleek black dome, behind which were presumably situated any number of sensors and electronics, and upon which, strangely, thin catlike whiskers were attached with sticky tape. On either side sprouted two stubby “arms”, bristling with menacing-looking weaponry. “SECURITY” was painted on each arm in bold white block lettering. The whole thing was capped off with two fuzzy blue cat ears glued to either side of what could be considered the head. It towered over the ponies, at easily three times the height of any one of them. It was a machine designed first and foremost to intimidate, and despite the addition of ears and whiskers, it was doing an admirable job.

“This is not good,” Rainbow said.

At the sound of her voice, the drone came to life. With a mechanical whirring and groaning and creaking, it rose to its full height and swiveled downward to train its weapons on the group of ponies. Then it spoke in a booming synthetic voice: “ATTENTION. THIS IS A RESTRICTED SECTOR. PRESENT AUTHORIZATION CODES OR LEAVE THE AREA. YOU HAVE TWENTY SECONDS TO COMPLY.”

“This is so not good.”

~ * ~

“This is soooo boring!” Chip Shot groaned. “We haven’t seen a single cookie in forever!”

Phyllo Dough rolled her eyes. “It’s been like two minutes, Chip.”

“Yeah, but Crumble smashed that one before I could get to it!”

“I didn’t see your name on it,” Berry Crumble said.

“Well, I’m calling the next one, then!”

“If it’ll shut you up, then fine. Next one’s all yours.”

“If we even see another one before we make it to the door,” Chip muttered.

“Speaking of which…” Dough pointed ahead, toward the door on the wall at the end of the row of stacked crates.

Chip snorted. “Figures. I don’t even get one last swing before we have to leave.”

Dough galloped on ahead toward the exit, followed closely by Crumble. Chip took up the rear, plodding along dejectedly.

They made it about halfway to the door before the sound of a distant crash startled them to a stop.

“Whatever that was, it sounded big,” Dough said.

“Probably just a stack of crates falling over,” Chip said uncertainly. It had sounded far too heavy to be a stack of crates and they all knew it.

“We should keep moving,” Crumble said.

But before they could take a step, another crash echoed through the room, and another, and another still.

“Okay, definitely not falling crates,” Chip said.

“I think I felt that last one,” Dough said nervously.

They stood absolutely still for a few seconds, listening, waiting.

Nothing.

Finally Crumble spoke up. “I think it’s over.”

Another crash, this one definitely louder than before, rattled the room.

“Or not.”

“Yep, definitely felt that one.”

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

CRASH!

The entire building shook with the force of the blow, causing the three fillies to stumble, and bringing stacks of crates tumbling down all around them.

~ * ~

Meanwhile, twenty seconds or so ago…

Twilight’s friends were on the verge of panicking. Well, one of them was, anyway.

“I think we should go back please let’s go back I want to go back we have to go back.” Fluttershy cowered and trembled and hid as best she could behind the nearest available object (Rarity’s tail).

“We can’t go back, even if we wanted to,” Applejack said. “The door’s blocked off, remember?”

“YOU NOW HAVE FIFTEEN SECONDS TO COMPLY,” the security drone announced.

Twilight Sparkle boldly stepped to the front of the group, glaring up into what passed for the drone’s face. “We’re not going anywhere.”

“Twilight, it’s probably not a good idea to antagonize the giant death robot,” Rarity cautioned.

“I don’t care,” Twilight said without looking back. “It feels like we’ve been running around in a panic all day, and I for one am tired of it.” Her horn began to glow. The drone responded instantly, lurching forward menacingly and growling like some large jungle cat, but Twilight stood her ground. “I’m done running. Either this thing gets out of our way, or I move it out of our way.”

“YOU NOW HAVE TEN SECONDS TO COMPLY… NINE… EIGHT… SEVEN…”

Twilight’s magical glow intensified. “Should I take that as a no?”

The drone continued its countdown. “SIX… FIVE… FOUR…”

“Have it your way, then.” Twilight’s horn began throwing off sparks.

“Duck and cover!” Pinkie Pie shouted, tackling Applejack and Rainbow Dash to the ground. Rarity and Fluttershy took several rapid steps back.

“PONY DESIGNATION TWILIGHT SPARKLE IS DISPLAYING HOSTILE INTENT. I AM NOW AUTHORIZED TO USE PHYSICAL FOR—”

Twilight’s eyes opened, glowing pure white with magical energy. Her horn flared brightly, and with a shriek of twisting metal and a shower of sparks, the drone’s left arm was wrenched from its body and tossed aside. The drone stumbled backward and raised its right arm, attempting to launch a counterattack, but it was too slow. Twilight’s horn flared again, and the barrel of the nasty-looking weapon aimed in her direction crumpled in on itself, as easily as if it had been made of paper.

Her magical aura engulfed the entire drone now, wrapping it in a purple glow. Strain showed on her face as the damaged machine lifted one inch, then two, then three inches off the ground. She tilted her head to the left, and the drone was hurled sideways with tremendous force, crushing what remained of the its right arm and leaving a spider web of cracks in the wall. She tilted her head to the right, and the drone flew across the hallway and smashed into the opposite wall. She tilted her head back to the left, and once more back to the right, pinballing the drone back and forth, each impact sending bits of stone and metal flying in all directions.

Breathing heavily, she allowed the drone to float helplessly in the middle of the hallway for a few seconds, then jerked her head upward, rocketing it into the ceiling, smashing partway through the floor of the room above. Finally, letting out a shout, she jerked her head downwards, and the drone plummeted, hitting the ground like a meteor falling from space, shaking the entire building and rattling windows in houses up and down the block.

As the dust cleared, all that was left of the FMCW Tactical Enforcement Drone Series 409 was a mangled, smoking heap of wreckage half-buried beneath a pile of rubble. The power indicator LED on what remained of the drone’s head flickered weakly for a couple of seconds, then blinked out. The glow around Twilight’s horn gradually faded, and her eyes returned to normal.

“…Whoa,” Rainbow Dash gasped, eyes wide with amazement. “Remind me never to get on Twilight’s bad side.”

~ * ~

Deep in the bowels of the factory complex, behind a door labeled “SECURITY CENTRAL COMMAND AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY”, a tiny black kitten with white paws stared slack-jawed at the carnage unfolding on the monitor in front of him. A tiny gray kitten, taking a break from batting around a ball of yarn, peeked curiously over his friend’s shoulder.

“Say, Bill, whatcha watching there? Some kinda action flick? Is that new? I don’t remember seeing this one. Scoot over and let me have a peek, yeah?”

Bill stepped wordlessly to the left to let his friend take a closer look.

“Wow, that purple one’s really wiping the floor with that robot!” He leaned in and peered closely at the screen. “You know, that looks a lot like one of our TED-409 drones, don’t it?”

“That’s because it is one of our TED-409 drones, George,” Bill said.

George took another close look at the monitor. “Hey, you’re right! I didn’t know we were lending out drones to movie studios as props.”

Bill smacked George across the back of the head.

“Ow!”

“That’s not an action movie, you nitwit! It’s the security feed! That little pony just single-hoofedly wrecked a TED-409! Smashed it to bits! And she made it look easy!”

A beat.

“Oh.”

“Oh indeed!” Bill turned from the monitor and paced back and forth nervously. “This is an absolute disaster! Management is not going to be pleased! We’re sure to take the blame for this! They’ll probably fire us! Out of a cannon! Into the sun!”

“I think you’re overreacting, Bill,” George reassured his panicky friend. “I mean, what, some little pony broke a drone? Who cares? Armory’s full of ’em. And not just the TED-409s, either but all sorts of different models. They’re not gonna miss just one measly drone, right?”

Bill stopped his pacing suddenly. “You know something, George? You’re absolutely right.” He rushed over to the nearest console and began typing furiously. “We do still have plenty more drones. And I’m going to send every last one of them after those ponies.”

George’s eyes went wide. “A-All of them, Bill? Do you even have the authorization to do that?”

Bill continued typing, the tip of his tail twitching back and forth. “Of course I do. In emergency situations, the ranking security officer—that’s me—has free rein to handle the emergency, taking any actions he or she deems necessary. And after what that pony did to that TED-409, I deem this action very necessary.” A few final keystrokes, and he stepped back from the console, looking very pleased with himself. “Done. Let’s see them smash their way out of a full-on level five security lockdown.”

~ * ~

A chime sounded throughout the building, signaling an imminent factory-wide announcement. All the kitten workers paused what they were doing and looked up at the loudspeakers in anticipation.

“Attention all Fuzzy McWhiskers’ personnel: as of this moment, a level five security lockdown is in effect,” a chipper synthetic voice proclaimed. “Security drones are now active in all sectors. If prompted, please present your authorization codes immediately in order to avoid a messy, violent demise. Also, a reminder: all employees are required to thoroughly wash their paws after using the litter box. That is all.”

The chime sounded again, signaling the end of the announcement, and all the kittens went back to work.

And in one particular hallway deep in sector 6-F, a group of ponies did not like what they had just heard.

“I don’t like what I just heard,” Applejack said.

“No kidding,” Twilight agreed. “We should go before any more of those drones show up.” She took two steps down the hallway, stumbled, and collapsed to the ground.

“Twilight!” Rarity exclaimed, rushing to her side. “Are you all right?”

“Ugh,” Twilight groaned. “I’m… totally drained. Those last few spells… took a lot out of me. We must still be too close… to that chaos vortex in the storage room.”

“Oh my!” Fluttershy gasped. “Maybe you should take a few minutes to rest.”

“We don’t… have a few minutes,” Twilight said. “We… have to…” She struggled to a standing position, wobbled, and collapsed again. “Okay… maybe I do need to rest for a bit.”

At that moment, a security drone wheeled around the corner at the far end of the hallway. Not a TED-409 menacing-killbot-of-doom model this time, thankfully. No, this drone was a non-combat model, closely resembling a garbage can with sparks coming out of it, with a single camera-lens “eye” protruding from its domed “head”, and no apparent weaponry. The girls all looked up and watched as it rolled almost sluggishly down the hall and came to a stop before them.

“Is… is that a garbage can?” Rainbow said, raising an eyebrow. “On wheels?”

The rounded top of the garbage-can drone rotated around, pointing its camera eye at the group. From a speaker concealed within its dome, a high-pitched synthetic voice spoke: “PRESENT AUTHORIZATION CODES.”

“Ooh, a talking garbage can!” Pinkie exclaimed. She bounded up to the drone and peered into its camera eye. “Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie! What’s your name?”

There was a whirring sound as the camera eye adjusted its focus. “ERROR: INVALID CODE. PRESENT AUTHORIZATION CODES.”

“That doesn’t sound like any name I’ve ever heard of,” Pinkie said skeptically.

“ERROR: INVALID CODE. PRESENT AUTHORIZATION CODES.”

“Geez, don’t you know how to say anything else?”

“ERROR: INVALID CODE. MAXIMUM FAILED CODE INPUT ATTEMPTS EXCEEDED. YOU ARE TRESPASSING IN A RESTRICTED AREA. ALL TACTICAL ENFORCEMENT DRONES IN THIS SECTOR HAVE BEEN ALERTED AND WILL ARRIVE AT THIS LOCATION SHORTLY TO ADMINISTER AN APPROPRIATE PUNISHMENT. THANK YOU AND HAVE A NICE DAY.”

“Oh, you’re no fun at all!”

“Okay, that’s enough of that,” Applejack said, grabbing Pinkie’s tail in her teeth and dragging her away from the drone. “We’re leaving. Now.” She tossed a limp Twilight Sparkle over her back. “Sorry, Twi, but you’ll have to rest up on the way.”

Twilight groaned.

The girls brushed past the drone and galloped to the end of the hallway and disappeared around the corner. After a few moments, the drone spoke again: “SUBJECTS ARE ATTEMPTING TO FLEE. TRACKING MODE ENGAGED.” It wheeled around and rolled after them at a leisurely pace.

~ * ~

As the final announcement chime faded away, silence returned to Storage Room B, but only for a few moments. A faint shuffling sounded from beneath a large pile of toppled crates. Shuffling turned to scrabbling, scrabbling turned to grunting and cries of effort. One of the crates near the top tilted slightly, then rocked back to its original position. It shifted again, a bit farther this time, before finally toppling down, rolling and bouncing down the heap, crashing to the floor, smashing open and spilling its crumbly chocolatey contents. From the hole where the crate once rested emerged three fillies, looking a bit bruised and battered.

“Ugh, I think I pulled something,” Chip Shot grumbled, gingerly flexing her left wing.

“Oh? Let me see.” Phyllo Dough reached out and poked Chip’s wing with her hoof. “Does this hurt?”

“Ow! What’d ya do that for, ya donut?”

“Yeah, that’s not supposed to hurt. You probably shouldn’t use that wing for a while.”

“Hey, what are you doing back there?”

“Hold still, Chip. I’m trying to help.”

“It’s not that bad—ow! You did that on purpose!”

“I’m serious. If you keep squirming around you’re just going to hurt it worse.”

“I wouldn’t have to squirm if you—ow!—weren’t tying that so—ow!—tight!”

“And… done!” Dough stepped back to admire her work. “That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?”

“You kidding?” Chip craned her neck around to inspect her freshly bandaged wing. “I think it hurt less when that pile of crates fell on me!”

“Yeah, well, a stack of crates and a whiny pegasus fell on me,” Berry Crumble said, trying not to smile, “but you don’t hear me complaining.”

“Nopony asked you, crumbum.” Chip sighed. “This stupid room is giving me a headache with its stupid piles of crates and its stupid zombie cookies. Let’s get out of here and catch up with Twilight already.” She scrambled haphazardly down the heap of fallen boxes. At the bottom she paused, called back to Crumble: “Hey, toss my spatula down, will ya?”

“It’s not your spatula,” Crumble replied matter-of-factly. “You swiped it from that test kitchen we snuck through before we got here. Same place I swiped the spoon and Dough swiped the whisk, remember?”

“Seriously, Crumble, toss it down,” Chip said, a tone of urgency in her voice. “There’s a bunch of cookies down here, and they look a lot angrier than the ones from before.”

A second later, the oversized spatula came sailing down from the top of the boxes. Chip leapt into the air and caught it expertly in her teeth. The spatula was followed shortly by Crumble, giant wooden spoon gripped firmly in her mouth as she hopped nimbly from box to box down to ground level. Dough took up the rear, picking her way cautiously down the unstable pile of crates, huge whisk in tow.

By the time she reached the bottom, Chip and Crumble had already jumped into action, charging headlong into this newest group of cookies, spatula and spoon twirling and spinning and thwacking cookies in all directions. Dough flinched as one unlucky cookie crashed into a crate barely a foot to her left.

“Hey, watch where you’re whacking those things!” she said. “That one almost hit me!”

Neither of her friends answered. They were having too much fun.

A low growl and a quiet shuffling sound to her left drew Dough’s attention away from the battle. She turned and, much to her surprise, came face to face with the very cookie that had nearly crashed into her moments ago. Unlike the cookies they had encountered earlier, this one remained relatively intact after its beatdown and subsequent high-speed trip into the side of a wooden crate.

“Uh, girls?” she called out as the cookie advanced toward her, snarling. “I think there’s something wrong here.”

“Save your thinking for later!” Chip said. “Right now it’s clobbering time!” She whipped her spatula around and with a loud THWACK, launched another cookie toward Dough. Fortunately, it missed her, crashing instead into the first cookie, sending them both smashing right back into the same crate as before.

“Seriously!” Dough exclaimed. “These cookies aren’t staying down like the ones from before! It’s like they’re less crumbly and more… uh, squishy and doughy than the last batch!”

As she spoke, the two cookies rose again from the splintered remnants of the crate. And they were, indeed, more squishy and doughy than the earlier cookie hordes.

So squishy and doughy, in fact, that they were stuck fast to each other.

Dough watched in horror as the two cookies struggled for control, their four arms and four legs flailing in their attempt to move in two different directions at once. Unable to keep their balance, they fell to the ground, snarling and writhing and clawing at the air. As she watched, the two slowly sank into each other, the four arms combining into two, followed by the legs, then their entire doughy bodies fusing into a single entity. Two distinct growls gradually merged into one, then went suddenly silent.

It blinked once, twice, rose to its feet, one doughy blob twice as large as either of its two predecessors. For a brief, terrible moment, it locked eyes with Phyllo Dough, staring at her intently, before shifting its gaze toward the battle underway before them. It opened its mouth and let out a surprisingly loud, high-pitched shriek.

Everything stopped.

Cookies and fillies alike turned to see the source of the sound. Dough took the opportunity to rush back to her friends’ side, while one by one, the cookies shambled their way past her toward the newly formed double-cookie dough blob.

“So I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that oversized chunk of cookie dough over there is what you were trying to warn us about earlier,” Chip said.

“It doesn’t look that tough to me,” Crumble remarked. “I bet I could take it.”

“Look around, Crumble!” Dough said. “Out of all those cookies you beat down, how many of them got right back up again?”

“Uh…” Crumble looked left, then right. Not a single fallen cookie in sight. “Huh. I hadn’t even noticed.”

“Of course you didn’t notice! When you get all ‘smashy smashy’ it’s like you’re in a whole other world! You and Chip both! Me, on the other hoof, I pay attention to things! Something you two might want to try sometime!”

At that moment the first of the cookie horde reached the smashed crate where the dough blob stood. The two creatures stared at each other, unblinking, for several tense seconds.

Suddenly, without warning, the dough blob lunged forward and grabbed the smaller cookie with both arms and pulled it into a sticky, doughy embrace. Within moments the smaller cookie had been completely absorbed, and the big, misshapen dough blob had grown bigger and more misshapen.

“Okay, yeah, that’s kind of gross,” Chip said.

“I still think I could take it,” Crumble remarked.

“Nopony’s taking anything!” Dough exclaimed. “We’re getting out of here! Now! While we still can!” She started shoving her two friends toward the exit door as the rest of the cookies slowly began to scatter.

Behind them, the dough blob continued its assimilation of the cookie horde. One cookie after another fell to its relentless pursuit, and it grew larger and larger with each catch. The fillies reached the door just as the dough blob was consuming its final victim.

Dough was first through the double doors, followed by Crumble, with Chip taking up the rear.

“Whoa!” Chip exclaimed excitedly. “Didya see how big that sucker got? I swear he was halfway to the ceiling!” She shot a grin at Crumble. “Still think you can take it?”

“There’s one way to find out,” Crumble replied.

“Will you two shut up for a minute and help me with this?” Dough said, struggling to push the doors closed. “I think the lock’s busted!”

“All right, all right, quit your whining,” Chip said. “Let me see.” She stepped forward to inspect the lock. “Yep. Definitely busted. We’ll have to improvise.” She snatched up Dough’s whisk and slid it through the door handles. “There. Problem solved.”

Dough eyed the makeshift lock dubiously. “You really think it’ll hold?”

A sudden crash sent the three fillies skittering quickly backward away from the door.

“For a while, maybe,” Chip said.

A second crash, then a third, rattled the doors and the fillies’ nerves.

Then, silence.

Several nerve-wracking moments of silence.

Finally, Dough spoke. “Maybe it gave up.”

At that moment, with a creaking of metal, the doors began to bow outward, straining against the whisk handle.

The three fillies backed away further down the hallway.

“It didn’t give up,” Crumble stated, wooden spoon gripped firmly in her teeth.

The doors bent more, groaning under the intense pressure. Small gobs of cookie dough began seeping through the crack between the doors. The wooden whisk handle flexed noticeably, then splintered and snapped in two with a loud CRACK. The double doors slammed wide open and a wall of cookie dough flooded into the hallway.

---

---

Meanwhile, at Fluttershy’s cottage…

Angel Bunny sat on the floor next to Discord’s discarded fruit-and-vegetable hat (which had been tossed aside without a second thought the instant the novelty wore off), browsing for a snack. He plucked a radish, inspected it closely, and, apparently finding fault, chucked it over his shoulder, where it joined an ever-growing mound of similarly undesirable fruits and vegetables.

Spike sat on one end of Fluttershy’s sofa, slurping a mug of hot cocoa and kicking his legs back and forth. Discord slouched on the opposite end of the sofa, holding his own mug of cocoa and counting the fruits and vegetables as they flew across his field of vision.

In the corner, in a cat carrier beneath an oversized orange traffic cone, a chaos-infused cat slept soundly, dreaming of world domination and chocolate chip cookies.

“So…” Spike said, breaking the silence, “I gotta admit I’m a bit curious.”

“You should be careful about that,” Discord remarked without looking up. “You know what they say about curiosity and cats.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve never heard anypony say it about dragons before,” Spike replied.

“Good point.” Discord straightened up in his seat and set his cocoa mug on a side table before turning to stare at Spike, resting his chin on his lion paw. “All right, I’ll bite. What are you curious about?”

“I want to know how the cookie button works,” Spike said, getting straight to the point. “Where do the cookies come from?”

“Oh, that’s an easy one,” Discord grinned. “You see, when a mommy and daddy love each other very much, they measure out two and a quarter cups of all-purpose flour and a teaspoon of baking soda and—”

“Just stop,” Spike interrupted. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“It’s not?” Discord asked innocently.

Spike groaned. “Can’t you be serious for once?”

Discord held out his paw. “Hi. I’m Discord, spirit of chaos and disharmony. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Spike glared at him.

Angel Bunny sniffed at a strawberry, made a face, and tossed it across the room.

A few seconds passed.

“Oh, very well,” Discord sighed. “Just this once, I’ll indulge you. Mostly because I’m incredibly bored.” He paused, glanced left, then right, then leaned in conspiratorially to whisper in Spike’s ear: “It’s magic.”

Spike facepalmed.

“What?” Discord shrugged. “That’s how it works. You press the button, then the magic finds a freshly-baked chocolate chip cookie and zaps it to your location. We had a lecture on this earlier, with a chalkboard and everything, remember?”

“But where does it find the cookies?!”

“Well,” Discord said, stroking his scraggly goat-beard, “it’s not so much a question of where as it is a question of when.”

“When…? Wait, you’re talking about time magic!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not time magic, it’s chaos magic.” Discord paused for a moment. “Chaos magic that takes cookies from the past and pulls them into the present, yes, but still technically chaos magic.”

“Are you nuts?!” Spike shouted. “Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to mess with time? Haven’t you ever read any comic books? Even the slightest change to the past can ripple forward and have terrible consequences! Twilight nearly drove herself crazy using a time spell once, and she only went back a week!”

“To be fair, it’s not that hard to drive Twilight Sparkle crazy,” Discord pointed out. “Besides, Pinkie Pie already spent hours this morning clicking that button practically nonstop. If there were going to be some sort of time-cookie-related crisis, it would have happened by now. And everything looks fine to me.”

“Sure, if you don’t count the strawberry-milk rain, or the mind-controlled kittens, or the possibility of being buried under an avalanche of chocolate chip cookies!”

Discord waved his paw dismissively. “Yes, yes, but those are all chaos-related crises. Nothing at all to do with time cookies.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better about any of this,” Spike said.

“Of course it doesn’t,” Discord replied. “You didn’t ask me to make you feel better. You wanted to know where the cookies came from. And now you do.”

“Yeah, and I’m starting to wish that I didn’t.” Spike sighed. “I guess this is why they say what they say about curiosity and cats.”

“Indeed,” Discord said. A few moments passed. “Well, I’m bored again. What shall we do next?”

“Honestly? Let’s just go back to sitting on the sofa and sipping hot cocoa in awkward silence while I try to forget everything you just told me.”

And that’s what they did.

Author's Note:

Not dead.

Just really, really good at not writing anything for months on end.

My bad, y'all.

So yeah. I do intend to finish this story. Next chapter will be out when it's done. Hopefully in less than eleven months this time.

Thank you, and have a nice day.

Comments

[Slipstream95]

Yay, you made another chapter! I really want to see how this ends

[buttonbelle]

I want that recipe!

[Emperor]

Well, if we're talking about time travel as chaos magic, I'm sure Celestia will come along to attempt to save the day, only for her sun-related powers to be neutralised as the giant cookie converts sunlight directly into cookies