They're... ON HOLIDAY?

by Nameless Narrator

Day 1 - Shippy time: 5/9

“Hello!” 36658 smiles at a tall, white earth pony wearing a dark red vest with a bright red pin bearing a golden pony head raised up, “Do you want to hear about High Score the Shiny Bringer?”

“Привет а также hет,” rumbles the stallion busily, not slowing his pace as he pushes a trolley filled with neatly arranged plates containing what’s probably some cuisine from the pony’s homeland.

To the changelings, obviously, neither the language nor the food mean anything, but the lack of aggression in his voice and absence of any shoving or kicking bodes well.

“You know,” 20100 scoots closer to the wall to let two more trolleys going in the opposite directions pass, “I didn’t realize it until now, but out of our group the two of us have the most experience with ponies.”

“Huh…” 36658 scratches its head, “I think that makes us the ambassadists of all drones. We gotta represent.”

“What does that mean?”

“No idea, but I feel like High Score will provide an answer.”

“Then we gotta head downstairs,” 20100 nods sideways to the staircase.

“How come?” asks 36658.

“Well,” 20100 points at the signs above the stairs, “Deck one - cruise services. Deck two - nobility. Deck three - retinue. Deck four - staff. Deck five - maintenance. As the most skilled drone, High Score would be as far down as possible so it will be the easiest to hear it there.”

“Huh,” 36658 ponders it as it heads down the stairs to the staff deck, it asks a question, “Does it mean that the great gablonk is all the way down and High Score is looking up at us?”

“Makes sense to me,” says 20100, “Things are always looking up when High Score is around.”

“You’re a genius!” 36658 pats 20100’s head, which isn’t a smart thing to do on a staircase, and it tumbles all the way down, “Whoah! That was fun,” it stands back up, unharmed due to its carapace, “Note to self - this makes the world a little spinny.”

“Staff deck…” 20100 examines multiple plaques on the opposite wall of the even narrower corridor than on the upper decks, “Look!” it gasps, pointing at one, “Celestial Seas Catering - Cooking with love.”

“Wooow…” 36658’s jaw drops, “How do you think they do that?”

“Let’s go ask! I tried Miss Ladle’s stew once and it was delicious, but if we learned how to add love to it too that would be so amazing!” 20100 hops up and down, “We gotta learn their secrets.”

Following the arrow on the plaque, they stop by a double door with a round window in each wing, behind which they can hear constant chatter, occasional yelling, and clanking of metal. There doesn’t seem to be any handle on it, so 36658 simply pushes through, somewhat surprised that the door just gives way.

The chaos begins.

“CHANGELIIIIIIIIIIIINGS!”

*Hissss!*

“AAAH!” screams a pony wearing a white apron covered in boiling soup he poured all over himself as he saw the changelings enter.

“Crap crap crap!” curse a mare next to him, backing away from the spreading boiling pool on the smooth floor while patting down her sprayed front.

A big earth pony stallion wearing a puffy, tall, white cap huffs and rolls his eyes.

“Celestia-damned jumpy Canties…” he whispers before raising his voice at the drones, “What the hay are you doing here? This is a kitchen and, as far as I can see, neither of you is a cook!”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” 20100 points at the groaning burned pony lying on the floor and nudges 36658, “Do your thing, buddy!”

“Oh, right!” 36658 darts past the head chef towards the victim.

“HEY!” the head chef calls out.

“We, umm, we read that you can cook with love and, you know, we eat love, so we wanted to learn how you do that,” explains 20100.

“...what…?” the complete absurdity of the statement makes the head chef turn back to 20100.

Behind them, 36658 approaches the lightly boiled stallion who points its blistering foreleg at it and wheezes:

“No, no! Get away!”

36658 spits out a quickly hardening chip of green goop.

“Eat this, it’ll help with the pain.”

“No, no more cocoons or green goo! Go away!” the pony raises its voice into a grunt.

Stunned 36658 gets grabbed by another member of the aproned staff, this time a unicorn, who levitates up the green chip.

“What are you doing? What’s that?”

“I’m being completely stunned by someone being afraid of us drones. It’s usually us who get spooked by things, and for a good reason,” replies 36658 hanging like a cat grabbed under its forelegs with complete honesty, “And that thingy is an agonysl- nope, too technical right now. It’ll help with the pain. Successfully tested and recommended by 9 out of 10 changelings, and the last one just said it needed one more.”

“No weird mind control stuff?”

“We’re drones, we can’t do that. Only high ranks can do that. This just helps with the pain and might make you sleepy. I didn’t get to do that much testing on ponies but he’s a big guy so I made it a bit stronger than for us drones.”

“Alright,” the unicorn gives the chip to the burn victim, “Try it. If you start acting funny I’ll throw these two overboard myself.”

A mare helps the earth pony swallow, and a short moment later a dopey smile appears on his face as he relaxes and his head drops on the floor.

“A-eeah! Wheee! Do you know you’re all my very best friends…?” he mumbles.

“Stir Fry, keep an eye on him. You, changeling, come over here. Everypony else, get back to work! We’re a pony down already, we can’t be wasting time as well.”

36658 obediently walks over to 20100 and they both look up at the head chef.

“...whoehadhe…” they hear the drugged pony moan again, “...I can see shinies…”

“What sort of injuries do you use that drug for?” the head chef furrows his brows.

“The usual,” 36658 shrugs, “Crushed and broken legs, mostly.”

“Oh dear… that clears things up a bit,” he sighs, “I’m not going to press any charges regarding this but I have to ask you to leave-”

“You said you were one pony down. We can help!” 20100 interrupts him, “We can, uhh, carry stuff. And there’s two of us… that’s more than one even when we’re smaller.”

“We could use servers during the afternoon rush,” the head cook ponders, “Do you have a good memory and can you carry a tray?”

*Synchronized nodding.*

“You’re not getting paid or anything, though.”

“Can we check some of your food for love? That’s why we came here,” says 36658.

“I already said that,” adds 20100.

“Uh,” the chef pauses, “That’s just a figure of speech. We don’t really cook anything special for changelings.”

“Awww,” frowns 36658 before smiling again, “Oh well, we already offered, and High Score would never go back on its promise, so we gotta help.”

“For sure!” 20100 nods, “We’re still not starving so it’s okay.”

“How do you eat love anyway?” asks a cook in the back.

“No more time to chat!” the head chef interrupts as he sees 36658 open its mouth, “I’ll get a tray and show you what to do. There’s an elevator in the back that’ll take you all the way up to the main deck afterwards.”

36658 and 20100 hoofbump.

“Yay, worky time during shippy time!”

“Two times at the same time! We’re so efficient!”

Comments

[StuffBuddy]

Forgive me father for I have sinned; I forgot to put this stoey on my Tracking list. Welp, at least in means I have more chapters to read in one go.

[Booster Spice]

In the Chefs Realm that is the Kitchen, there are but five things existing.

Chef.
Workers.
Servers.
Tools.
Food.

In no particular order.

The main reason it i not a good idea at all to take on a chef, is that they are trained, and equipped, with Everything they need to literally take you apart.

And then theres the kitchen fixtures.

[Kiue Jin]

11187611
When it comes to murder and body disposal, Chefs can look at a person and figure out exactly what meals each piece of meat needs to go with.

[Booster Spice]

11187638

And whether to serve with fava beans and a nice chianti?:Chrysalis:

[Scyphi]

“Huh,” 36658 ponders it as it heads down the stairs to the staff deck, it asks a question, “Does it mean that the great gablonk is all the way down and High Score is looking up at us?”

“Makes sense to me,” says 20100, “Things are always looking up when High Score is around.”

Gotta love drone logic. Too often, it makes more sense than you'd really think it would.

“And that thingy is an agonysl- nope, too technical right now."

Oh gosh, that's probably an inadvertent insult to one's intelligence if a drone thinks that drone logic will be too technical for a creature to grasp easily.

[Nameless Narrator]

11187598
High Score forgives you.
11187611
Drones are fine with being tools as long as they're not food.
11187638
Legs are best served lightly seared with white champaigne.
11187765
- They are extremely logical. The problem usually arises from them not using the same logic as anyone else or sometimes even each other.
- Come on, the guy just got horribly burned by a cauldron of boiling soup. That's no time for technobabble.

[ChakatRedstripe]

Good chapter, I really hope for that ponies sake they don't do random drugs tests XD