Small Town, Big Business

by Shamrock95

Chapter 6

Hotshot owned Ponyville.

Under most other circumstances, that point of view may have seemed ridiculous and melodramatic, but in Hotshot's case, there was no exaggeration—the town was now his. There wasn't a single resident left in town who hadn't tasted his food, and their uncontrollable desire for it had left them at his mercy. Hotshot was like a malevolent king, forcing his subjects to pay tribute to him on pain of cutting them off from their precious food if they refused.

After so many weeks of Hotshot monopolising Ponyville's food supply and feeding the townsponies food laden with hundreds of calories' worth of fat, salt and sugar apiece, the town had become a strange kind of living ghost town. The streets were filled with obese ponies of all ages, spending their days waddling to and from either Hotshot's Grill or Sugarcube Corner in their endless quests to slake their insatiable appetites. No matter how much they ate, they still craved more food just a couple of minutes or so later. All around town was the ceaseless sight and sound of ponies eating, and eating, and eating. They ate in their homes, they ate in the streets, they ate in the school, they ate in the parks. They lived for nothing other than to stuff their faces and grow fatter and fatter.

Of all the ponies in town, only about two-thirds were ever seen outside any more. The rest had met the same fate as Thunderlane, Flitter and Cloudchaser—confined to their homes, having become too heavy for their exercise-starved muscles to support them and unable to summon the energy to move under their own power any longer. They relied on Hotshot's delivery ponies to keep them supplied with food, and occasionally on their still-mobile friends and family to tend to them in between their gorging. If one were to look through their windows, they would see these blubbery behemoths laying helpless on flattened remnants of beds and sofas or piles of cushions, able to do nothing but eat and sleep. Their enormous, sauce-stained bodies wobbled as they ate, the only movement they knew any more being the perpetual chewing motions of their jaws and the wiggling of their useless legs.

And overseeing all of this, every day, was Hotshot. He spent his days directing his deliveries, personally serving those ponies who managed to heave their bulks to his restaurant, and making sure that they remained nice and submissive. At this point, he had them all under his hoof, and was more than happy to continue milking them dry while they continued to secure Ponyville's position as the heaviest town in Equestria.

With nopony in town in any state to leave or to run the trains, all the residents too far gone to think of standing up to Hotshot or calling for help, and Princess Twilight herself feasting on deep-fried pizza in her castle, Ponyville had become isolated. The only hope for Hotshot to be stopped would be if the planets aligned correctly and fate itself lent a hoof. Otherwise, the town was doomed to simply eat itself into the ground.

---

Early one morning, Hotshot was tending to the fryers in his kitchen, currently host to several hotdogs swimming in butter and lard. He liked to ensure that the calorie counts in his food were cranked as high as possible—the fatter and lazier he could keep the townsfolk, the better. The exceptions to this were his delivery ponies, who he always fed and paid with special food designed to keep them subservient, but still physically able. A delivery pony who was too weak to get out of bed was not much of a delivery pony, after all.

As if on cue, he thought, as he caught sight of one of his delivery ponies coming through the door—a mint-green unicorn mare named Lyra. Her physique was typical of the dozen or so delivery ponies who Hotshot kept comparatively lean and hungry; a good fifty or sixty pounds overweight with a bulbous, bouncing belly and plot, but still capable of moving around freely while only occasionally needing to stop to catch her breath. Compared to most of the other ponies in town, she was downright skinny, but she was as much under Hotshot's spell as anypony else, willing to do anything for a taste of his food.

Hotshot looked at Lyra with a raised eyebrow. "What time do you call this, Lyra?" he asked, nodding towards the clock, which said that Lyra should have been there ten minutes ago.

"I know, Hotshot, I'm so sorry," Lyra panted. "I overslept and *huff* then I had to check Bon Bon for bedsores before I left. It won't happen again, I swear."

"I hope not, Lyra," Hotshot said, giving her an icy look. "It would be a shame if I had to cut you and Bon Bon off, wouldn't it?"

"No!" Lyra gasped, looking as wide-eyed and panicked as if she'd received news of her own death warrant. "Please, don't! I'll do anything... just please keep giving us food!" she shouted, on the verge of tears.

Hotshot let Lyra sweat for a moment, looking her up and down, before he spoke.

"Since it's a first offence," he said slowly, "I suppose I can let you off this time."

Lyra's tubby body visibly sagged with relief. "Oh, thank you," she gushed. "Thank y-"

"But," Hotshot sternly interrupted, "this had better not happen again, Lyra, or there will be consequences. Consider yourself officially warned. Understood?"

Lyra gulped and nodded.

"Good. Now," Hotshot continued, "since you're here, I have three deliveries for you to make. Cart's waiting out back. Destinations are the spa, the hospital, and the school. Get it done as quick as you can, then return here for your payment. I need hardly add that you are not to touch anything on that cart. Got it?"

Lyra nodded again.

"Right. Off with you," Hotshot ordered. Lyra immediately turned around and waddled outside to the cart, using her magic to hook the harness onto herself. Already sweating a little from the morning heat, she started her slow but steady pace on her delivery route.

Her first port of call was the Ponyville Spa, about two blocks away from Hotshot's. Panting, the cart rattling behind her, Lyra lumbered up to the front door and knocked. It was answered almost immediately by the spa's newest employee, Bulk Biceps. He'd put on as much weight as anypony else, but his muscular body underneath all his flab had given him the build of a sumo wrestler, possessing enough incredible muscle power to not be as severely hindered as he may have been. Like Pinkie Pie, he hadn't let his extra weight affect his zeal at all.

"FINALLY!" he bellowed, blowing Lyra's mane back with the force of his voice. "I was starting to think the food would NEVER get here!"

"Bulk?" Lyra said, surprised. "I didn't expect to see you still working here."

"I'm helping out Lotus and Aloe!" Bulk boomed.

"Is that so?!" Lyra boomed back. "A favour for friends, eh?!"

"Exactly!" Bulk took the sack with Lotus and Aloe's names on it from Lyra.

"You can bring the food straight in, Bulk, my friend," came a breathless voice from inside. "And remember, once you're done feeding us, it's time for our sponge baths."

"Yes, ma'am, Miss Aloe, ma'am!" Bulk called back enthusiastically. "Appreciate the help!" he roared at Lyra, before turning around and heading back inside. Before heading away, Lyra caught a glimpse of Lotus and Aloe laying in the main spa area, their hulking, heaving bodies resting on cushions piled around the floor, their multiple chins and near-spherical faces covered in chocolate and sprinkles. Bulk produced several boxes of doughnuts from the sack and began to feed them to his impatient, ravenous wards.

Next stop was the hospital, where the reception area was filled with roly-poly doctors and nurses, some still dressed in strained and torn hospital uniforms, either asleep or following Lyra with hungry eyes. Lyra dropped the hospital's sack off next to a tired-looking unicorn sitting on one of the padded benches, his doctor's scrubs opened to allow his huge gut room to breathe. He thanked Lyra, before getting up with some difficulty and using his magic to deposit the cakes and pies in the sack next to the eager mouths of the other doctors and nurses.

"If you have the wrong food, you'll just have to make do," he said as the noise of messy eating echoed around the large room. "I don't have the energy to deal with mix-ups anymore."

Lyra's final port of call was the schoolhouse, which looked fit to burst. Cheerilee had taken up more or less permanent residence inside, her knees having buckled under her as she attempted to leave a week ago. She'd been laying in that one spot by the chalkboard ever since, her enormous girth taking up the space where her desk once was. Filling up the remaining floor space were the fillies and colts who still retained enough mobility to make it to school, motivated by the bountiful supply of free food there. They lay either inside among the shattered remains of their desks or in the playground, too hungry to learn and too tired to play.

"Ah, thank you, Lyra," Cheerilee wheezed. "Alright, my little ponies, help yourselves," she called to the class as Lyra left, who grunted and groaned as they heaved themselves to their hooves and lumbered over to get their fix.

Now that her deliveries were over and done with, Lyra was to head back to Hotshot's with the cart and collect her payment of ten pounds of cookies and ten pounds of hotdogs. She would then make her way home to Bon Bon and the two of them would pretty much just eat for the rest of the afternoon.

Lyra salivated at the thought of her precious hotdogs as she came to a bend in the road that ran along the edge of a steep incline. You'd have to watch your step if you didn't want to fall. Lyra, lost in thought about her food, neglected to watch her step, and as she came to the middle of the bend, she stepped in a small pothole. She lost her footing, teetered dangerously close to the edge, then went over the side with a yelp, the strained straps on her back breaking free as she did so.

Lyra's extra weight gave her enough momentum to roll down the slope at a frightening speed. She shrieked in terror as the world blurred around her, the cart careening wildly after her before flipping over and coming to a rest next to a rock. Lyra kept rolling. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the end...

Lyra smacked right into a pear tree at the bottom of the hill. Fortunately for her, her blubber absorbed most of the impact. Her weight, combined with the speed she'd been going at, was enough to knock most of the pears loose from the tree. One of them fell into Lyra's mouth as she gasped for air. Instinctively, she bit down on it.

Lyra had just enough time to register that she was still alive and to notice the taste of pear in her mouth when a searing, burning pain overcame her. She squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth as it felt like fire was coursing through her muscles. She writhed in agony, begging for the pain to stop. What was happening to her? What was...

Abruptly, the pain ended, and with a noise like a champagne cork being fired from a bottle, Lyra's excess body weight disappeared. In the blink of an eye, her body was returned to the slim, fit state it had been in before her first bite of Hotshot's forbidden fruit.

For a moment, Lyra just sat there in a daze, feeling like she'd just woken up from a deep sleep. Then, memories came rushing back to her. Her first taste of Hotshot's hotdogs. The days spent gorging herself to near-unconsciousness. Bon Bon, unable to leave the house. Everypony constantly eating, getting...

A wave of nausea hit Lyra, and she suppressed the urge to vomit. Instead, she tried to think about what had just happened. Something had snapped her out of her trance and slimmed her down, but what? She looked around, before her eyes settled on...

The pears.

Lyra remembered the pain she'd felt after she'd bit into that pear that fell into her mouth. There had to be some kind of correlation, right? That was the sort of thing Bon Bon might have said.

Bon Bon...

Oh Celestia, Bon Bon!

Lyra scrambled to her hooves. If what she theorised was true, then pears were the cure for whatever vile substance Hotshot had put into his food. And right now, Bon Bon was on the other side of town, eating her own weight in cookies. Lyra had to help her. Maybe they could find a way to finally stop Hotshot for good.

Lyra picked up as many pears as she could find—she had a feeling she'd be needing them—and put them into one of the empty sacks that had blown down the hill from the wrecked cart. She turned and took off towards home.

---

Within fifteen minutes, Lyra had made it to the house she shared with Bon Bon, next to the bakery that she ran so long ago. Gasping, she burst through the front door and charged upstairs to the bedroom. On the bed, Bon Bon lay on her side, swaddled in nearly six hundred pounds worth of blubber, breathing heavily but steadily.

"Lyra?" she asked, her chubby cheeks twisting in confusion as she looked her over. "You look... different."

Lyra wasted no time and shoved a pear into Bon Bon's mouth before she could react, then stepped back.

Please, please, please... she prayed silently, as she watched Bon Bon's features contort in pain just like hers had. With the same loud popping noise, Bon Bon's flab vanished into thin air and she fell to the floor with a thud.

"Oooooh, my heeeeaaad..." she moaned. "What did I do last-"

She was interrupted as Lyra leaped onto her and pulled her into a tight embrace.

"Bon Bon! You're alright, you're... oh Celestia, I..." she sobbed, unable to hold back her emotions as she shed joyful tears into Bon Bon's fur. As Bon Bon's memories began to come back to her, a look of horror and revulsion spread over her face, before she returned Lyra's hug just as tightly.

When they finally pulled apart from each other, Bon Bon looked up with murderous fire in her eyes.

"Hotshot," she growled.

Lyra nodded. "Listen, Bon Bon. I think I've found a way to stop him! When I ate a pear earlier on, it turned me back to normal, and now it's done the same to you. Whatever's in Hotshot's food must be counteracted by pears! We can use them to cure everypony!"

Bon Bon's eyes widened. "Pears? Really?"

"I know, sounds ridiculous," Lyra said, nodding. "But I'm telling you, it worked!"

"Sweet sisters," Bon Bon murmured, before speaking aloud. "Alright. You need to go to Princess Twilight right away and tell her what's happened. I'm going to find Hotshot..." She spat his name with venom. "...and make sure he pays for what he's done to us—to all of us."

"What? Bon Bon, you can't take him on! Don't be crazy!" Lyra pleaded.

"Maybe Bon Bon can't," Bon Bon countered, before giving Lyra a sly smile. "But Secret Agent Sweetie Drops can."

Lyra's jaw dropped, before she shook her head. "Well then, I'm going with you."

"No," Bon Bon said firmly. "You need to tell the Princess about the cure with the pears, and besides, it's too dangerous." Her voice softened. "I care too much about you to let you get hurt, Lyra."

Lyra looked dismayed for a minute, before pulling Bon Bon into another hug.

"Just be careful, okay?" she whispered.

"I will," Bon Bon whispered back, returning her embrace. "We'll get him, Lyra. I promise."

Lyra nodded, before picking up the sack with the priceless pears in it and turning to run out the door. Left alone, Bon Bon turned to her wardrobe and opened it, pressing on the back panel to reveal a secret compartment embedded in the wall filled with her spy gadgets, her utility belt, and her shades.

It was time to gear up.