Baking Bad

by XMark

In Medias Res

"What is going on here?" said Twilight, backing away from Gilda.

"That depends." said Trixie, flicking back her mane and turning her nose up to Twilight. "We came here to do business with you, but I had not expected that you would be... you. Also, you would do well to know that my name is Trix now."

"That's a stupid name."

Gilda closed the distance between them. "Trix, I say we just waste 'em. She's working for Celestia!"

Trixie raised an eyebrow. "What makes you say that?"

"That's ridiculous! I haven't even spoken to Celestia in years!" yelled Twilight. Her heart was racing, and she was straining to figure out a way out of this situation.

"If you're out of contact with Celestia, then why were you there when Celestia's goons busted me?"

"What? How did..."

"I'm half Eagle, genius." Gilda began to slowly and threateningly pace around Twilight and Pinkie. "I saw you plain as day, hiding in a bush with your pals Rainbow Dash and Applejack. And if that's not enough, your brother is the captain of the fuckin' guard."

Trixie tapped her front hoof on her chin. "Hmm. It appears that there is a RAT in our midst!"

Pinkie jumped and started frantically looking around the ground. "Eek! a rat? Where is it? Where is it?"

Gilda curled her right talon into a ball and punched Pinkie in the face, knocking her unconscious. Twilight saw a moment of opportunity when both Gilda and Trixie were distracted, and focused a Teleport spell around herself and Pinkie. Her horn glowed, but Gilda caught the glow in the corner of her eye. She turned with frightening speed and smacked Twilight's horn with her other fist. The spell fizzled and she felt a sharp pain jolting through her head and spine.

Gilda roared and thrust her claws in front of Twilight's face. "Don't try any of that unicorn shit on me! You do that one more time and I'll rip you open, understand?"

Twilight staggered, reeling from the spell interruption. "I'm... not... a rat!"

Gilda turned to Trixie. "So what do you say, Trix?"

"Let's not waste a good opportunity, Gilda." she turned to Twilight. "The Great and Powerful Trix demands that you demonstrate your skills to us."

"That's good!" said Twilight, forcing a smile. "If I show you my secrets, you'll let me live, right?"

Gilda ruffled her feathers. "You're in no position to bargain with us. You're going to show us everything you know, and we'll decide what to do then."

"Well come on then." said Trixie. "We haven't got all day."

Trixie levitated Pinkie's unconscious body into the balloon, and Gilda unhooked the ropes. The balloon floated up out of the tree cover.

"Here's how this will work." said Gilda. "If you need to use magic you let me know in advance. If I see that horn glow without permission I cut you. When you're using your magic, if I see your horn glow any brighter than a simple levitation spell, I cut you. I know the difference. You give me lip, you look at me wrong, I see anything suspicious whatsoever, then guess what I do?"

"Bake me some cupcakes?" said Twilight sarcastically.

Gilda swiped Twilight's side with her claw, tearing a painful gash next to her cutie mark. Twilight yelped.

"I'm fuckin' serious here, bitch! Now get cooking!"

"We're still in the air! We need to be on flat, stable ground. I can't work like this."

Trixie laughed. "You'll be surprised what ponies can do with the proper motivation. Gilda, give Twilight some motivation."

Gilda grinned and raised her claw again.

"Wait!" yelled Twilight. "I'll do it! My horn's going to glow a bit - I'm going to levitate some things."

Gilda nodded, but kept watching her like a hawk. Maybe more like a griffon.

The balloon floated over the Everfree forest, trailing some smoke as Twilight brought the first ingredients of her mixture to a boil. Normally they would have been doing this on the ground outside of the basket of the balloon, with plenty of breathing room. In this situation she really should be wearing her gas mask...

An idea popped into her head.

"Trixie? I mean, Trix... Can I get a little help?"

Trixie rolled her eyes. "I am the management of this operation, and I do NOT get my hooves dirty. Do it yourself!"

"My usual assistant is unconscious, and this will go much faster with a unicorn's magic than a griffon's claws. No offense, Gilda."

Gilda grumbled.

"Very well. What do you need of me?"

"I need to use my own magic to compress the vapor of the rainbow juice while somepony else adds the parasprite wings. Only a small amount at a time. They're in that bag over there."

Trixie opened up one of the large bags of equipment, and started searching through it. She pulled out Twilight's yellow dress. "Oh Celestia, that dress is hideous. It's so plain, so ugly, so frumpy..." Trixie raised an eyebrow and grinned at Twilight. "So you!"

As Trixie rummaged through the bag, Twilight concentrated on trapping the fumes in the boiling flask. Trixie took the gas masks out of the bag, which caught Twilight's attention before she could catch herself. Twilight looked down at the gas masks, but then looked up again immediately to avoid telegraphing what she was thinking of. Unfortunately, Gilda had seen her sudden eye movements and the griffon eyed her suspiciously.

"Something's on your mind..." said Gilda.

"Yeah, a couple of drug dealers have me trapped in a balloon over the Everfree. I'm thinking of a lot of things at once here if you'll excuse me."

"Ah there it is." said Trixie, pulling the jar of parasprite wings. "although I don't understand what effect these would have on the Spark."

"It's more about the texture than the taste, so to speak."

Gilda scowled. "Trix, she's up to something, I fuckin' guarantee it."

Twilight sighed. "Do you want to get this Spark done or not?"

"You do anything, and I mean ANYTHING funny," threatened Gilda, "and I do a little science experiment involving a pink pony and gravity, you understand?"

"All right, let's all calm down here." said Twilight carefully. "I just want to get this over with and go home. It's pretty clear that I'm out of this business for good after today, and I can't rat on you guys without incriminating myself. Nobody needs to get hurt, you don't have to worry about me, and we can all have a happy ending here today. So please, let's just keep on cooking."

Trixie looked back and forth between Gilda and the jar of parasprite wings. Gilda relaxed herself a bit, but kept her eye firmly focused on Twilight. It took everything in Twilight's mental power not to let what was on her mind slip out in any way. Trixie floated the jar of parasprite wings up to the mixture.

There were a few facts in Twilight's mind at this time. One fact was that there was absolutely no way that Gilda and Trixie were going to let them live, no matter what Twilight said or did to try to change their minds. Another fact was that parasprite wings actually weren't involved until another two steps later in the process. Parasprite wings become very brittle and delicate after separation from the parasprite, and it takes a relatively small amount of force to turn them into a fine dust. A diffuse cloud of any finely-divided biological substance can be explosive, and so can just about every chemical involved in Spark production.

A few moments after Trixie began sprinkling the wings into the flask, Twilight released her magic field, and the suddenly releasing pressure sent the fumes of boiling Rainbow juice violently upward. Twilight ducked and immediately focused her attention on the gas masks. The releasing gas shattered the parasprite wings into particles and blasted them upward in a cloud which reached the balloon's burner, igniting in a brilliant flash of flame that temporarily blinded Trixie and Gilda. The flash was followed up by another explosion inside the flask, which erupted into thousands of tiny glass shards and a cloud of toxic rainbow-colored gas. Twilight, expecting the explosions, had turned away and covered her head, but still took a few shards in her back. Gilda and Trixie were not so lucky.

Gilda became a bloody whirlwind of fury, slashing her claws blindly around her. Trixie fell backwards, screaming, hooves to her bloody face. The balloon suddenly started falling when the flames from the explosion ripped a hole in the fabric. Twilight scrambled to get gas masks on herself and Pinkie while avoiding Gilda's thrashing claws.

"YOU FUCKING BITCH! I'LL TEAR YOU APART!" screamed Gilda.

Trixie's screams had now turned to crying.

As the balloon began to descend faster, the deadly gas cloud completely enveloped them, just as Twilight had managed to slip gas masks on herself and Pinkie.

"YOU'RE GONNA... (cough) YOU'RE GONNA FUCKIN' (cough) DIE..." Gilda started trying to fly away, but her wings got tangled in the ropes.

Twilight couldn't see anything through the cloud. She just heard coughing and retching, and in a few seconds, nothing. Twilight stood up just as a gust of wind hit the balloon, blowing her dress out of the basket, and dispersing the cloud enough to see that they were careening straight towards the slope of a mountain. And as if that weren't bad enough she heard a roar coming from a cave in the mountain. The explosions and the ensuing commotion had awoken a dragon!

A plain yellow dress floated gracefully through the air, coming to rest on the ground shortly before a hot air balloon fell on top of it.

-

Ooh! I think I recognize this part! I read it already! Are you going to write it again?

Pinkie Pie? What are you doing here?

Hiya! Don't mind me. I'm unconscious now, so I'm probably just dreaming this. You're just a figment of my imagination. Hee hee, figment. That's a funny-sounding word. Figment!

I'm trying to tell a story here, Pinkie.

You're telling it funny! You're supposed to start at the beginning. That's why they call it the beginning, silly!

In Medias Res. It's a common narrative technique. Look it up. Twilight probably has a book on it.

So are you going to write the introduction to your story again?

Well, I don't want to artificially inflate the word count or anything. I was thinking of just skipping to right after it. If anyone forgot how the story started they can just go back and read the introduction again. It was pretty short.

Hmmmmm... good point! I read ahead a bit and I know I'm going to wake up in a few minutes so I'll just take this time to read the intro part again to catch up. Seeya, figment! Figment!

That was weird. Now, where was I...

-

Twilight fired a bolt of magic energy at the dragon as it appeared, but it fizzled harmlessly against the dragon's scales. It landed on the top of the mountain, breathing flames and roaring. Then it looked directly at Twilight.

"What are you doing here, pony?" roared the dragon, his deep voice shaking the world around him. Some pebbles came loose and rolled down the slope of the mountain.

Twilight stared up at the dragon, frozen with fear. The dragon lowered his head, leaning close enough to Twilight that she could feel his hot breath. She stared in terror as the dragon slowly looked away from her to Pinkie, then to the bodies of Gilda and Trixie. Then back to Twilight.

"Your friends are gravely injured." said the dragon. "You must leave here at once and find help."

Twilight came back to her senses. "My balloon is ruined. We can't make it back to Ponyville!"

The dragon looked around, and stood on his hind legs. He launched himself up and flapped his wings, blowing a strong wind over them. Twilight could see that the gust blew the remaining toxic smoke out of the balloon's basket. The dragon flew to the balloon and grabbed it with his back claws, hovering in the air with it. "Get in, pony. I will fly you to the edge of the Everfree Forest, but you must go the rest of the way yourself. I do not wish to start a panic in Ponyville. Now hurry!"

Twilight levitated Pinkie into the basket with her and the dragon flew with them in the direction of Ponyville.

Pinkie Pie began to stir at last. She started muttering something under her breath: "Figment... heehee... funny word."

"Pinkie, are you okay?"

"No mommy, I... wanna sleep in... farm rocks later."

"Pinkie!"

Pinkie's eyes fluttered open. She looked up. "Oh Hi Twilight, I must have dozed off. What's going... D.d..d.dd.d..d...d..dragon!" she looked to her left. "D....d...d.dead Gilda!" she looked to her right. "D...d..d.dead Trixie! Eeeek!"

Twilight Sparkle covered Pinkie's mouth. "No. No shrieking. No screaming or squealing either, okay?"

Pinkie nodded and Twilight removed her hoof. "W... what's happening, Twi? Are we okay?"

"...I don't know." Twilight said, staring blankly off into the distance.

"We're almost there" came the booming voice of the dragon. "I hope we are not too late."

When they reached the edge of the Everfree, the dragon set them down on the ground. Twilight turned to thank him, but he was already flying off. Twilight watched the silhouette of the dragon flying off into the sunset, and immediately thought of Spike. She sighed, climbed out of the basket, and walked a few steps before collapsing to the ground and crying. Pinkie Pie climbed out after her, and sat down next to her.

"What's wrong, Twilight?"

Twilight pulled her face out of the grass. "It was supposed to be simple. Just make some Spark and sell it. This shouldn't have happened." more tears welled up in her eyes. "I wasn't supposed to kill anypony."

Pinkie Pie shifted uncomfortably in place, for once not having anything to say.

Twilight stood up again. "Pinkie, can you check to see if they're dead? We need to plan our next move."

Pinkie frowned, and walked back to the basket. She held her hoof to Gilda's neck, then to Trixie's, then looked back to Twilight and shook her head.

"We're going to have to hide the bodies." said Twilight grimly.

Suddenly Twilight's ear twitched. She could hear the sound of a large number of ponies. She quickly levitated a pair of binoculars from the basket and looked toward Ponyville. "Ponies! Lots of ponies are coming this way! They must have heard the dragon!"

"They're gonna see us! They're gonna see the bodies! What are we gonna do?" said Pinkie.

Twilight looked frantically around, at Pinkie, at Ponyville, at the two dead bodies. She thought hard, then turned to look at Pinkie.

"I've got an idea!"

Comments

[ThoriumIsBestActinid]

Does Twilight have any hydrofluoric acid handy? Great chapter! I can't wait for the next one. Keep it up!

[MythrilMoth]

Twilight scrambled to get gas masks on herself and Twilight

Whoopsie!

Also, minor recommendation: you really should consider using "bucking" instead of "fucking", not because of any real filtering necessity, but simply because it's more...well...pony. And yes, I know Gilda is the one swearing and she isn't a pony, but still.

[XMark]

Bye bye goes the typo :)
And yeah, I was gonna use "bucking" but then I figured that if anyone in MLP was going to drop a real f-bomb it would be Gilda.

[Syn3rgy]

Awesome!

Still loving the story... this chapter was great.

~Syn3rgy