MVC: Muffins vs. Cupcakes

by Page Turner

Chapter 1: Those About to Pie

Chapter 1
Those About to Pie

Pinkie Pie glared at the muffins. Why had she even bothered making them? They were mocking her. They sat there under the glass counter laughing at her misfortune. Pinkie Pie growled.

“Stop It! Stop laughing at me! I made you and I can destroy you!”

“Oh yeah?” the largest muffin scoffed. “Prove it!”

“FINE!” With a shout of fury Pinkie scooped up the offending muffin and stuffed it into her mouth.

“NOOOO! I’m sorry! I take it back!” the muffin screamed as it was crushed between the Pink pony’s molars.

“Too 'ate fuh apologies, only deaf!" Pinkie Pie chewed the muffin up and swallowed, relishing the baked treat’s anguished screams as it traveled down to the burning hell of her stomach.

“Pinkie Pie!” Pinkie froze, her hoof halfway to her next victim. she turned her head slowly to see her boss giving her the ‘nono’ look. “How many times do I have to tell you not to eat the inventory when you’re on duty?”

Pinkie pie heard the tray of muffins breathe a collective sigh of relief. “But Mrs. Cake! It’s just the muffins! Nopony is going to buy them anyway!”

“Now Pinkie, we don’t know that for sure.”

“Yes we do! It’s been over a year since the 'baked bads' incident, and you know how many batches of muffins we’ve sold? Fifty-two! Fifty-two dozen muffins in a year! That’s one batch a week, all sold to the same pony!”

Mrs. Cake sighed. “I suppose you’re right. Nopony trusts our muffins anymore.” It was true: it had been that way ever since last applebuck season when Applejack had practically poisoned all of Ponyville. It didn't matter that it had only happened once. It also didn’t matter that the Cakes had Pinkie Promised® to never let it happen again, Once the citizens of Ponyville decided that something was bad, there was no going back. “There probably isn’t any point in continuing to sell muffins.”

++++++

Ditzy Doo looked lovingly at the muffins. Which one should she eat first? They were teasing her, laughing playfully at her conundrum.

“Pick me!” one muffin said.

“No, me!” said another.

“Those others are no good! It should be me!”

“Oh! I just can’t decide!” Ditzy giggled. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” she pointed to each muffin in turn. “Catch a Hydra by his toe, if he hollers let him go, eeny, meeny, miny, moe, my mother told me to pick... you!”

“Yay!” the chosen muffin cheered. as the gray mare lifted it to her lips. It melted into her mouth’s embrace, giggling happily as it fulfilled its destiny as Ditzy’s lunch.

“Now,” Ditzy said. “Who’s next?”

“MEE!” the muffins all cried out at once.

++++++

The door to Sugarcube Corner opened with a jingle. Pinkie quickly broke off the staring contest she was having with her pet alligator to greet the customer.
“Hi! What can I get for you today?”

The brown stallion looked shaken. “Two dozen rainbow frosted red velvet cupcakes please, and hurry!”

“Right away Doctor!” Pinkie saluted, “Do you need these to repel an invasion?”

“What? No! I just forgot that it was Colgate’s birthday today and I promised I’d bring cupcakes, and my name isn’t Doctor, It’s Sepia.”

“Whatever you say Doctor. That’ll be twenty bits.”

The brown stallion made his purchase and left, all the while grumbling about how nopony ever listened to him.

“Good luck saving the world!” Pinkie called after him, turning back to Gummy. “Staring contest round two! Go!”

The contest didn’t last long however, as the door jingled open again, admitting a grey pegasus.

“Hi Derpy! I guess you’ll be wanting some muffins?”

“Yep!” Ditzy nodded. “I just finished my last one.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you came by today, because as of tomorrow we are no longer selling muffins.”

The Wall-eyed mare froze. “Wh-what? Why?”

Pinkie shrugged. “You’re our only customer who buys them anymore, the store is losing money buying ingredients for a product that doesn’t sell.”

“Bu-bu-bu-but...”

“Besides, muffins aren’t as good as cupcakes anyway...”

Ditzy suddenly went red. “What. Did. You. Just. Say?”

Pinkie, totally oblivious to the mailmare’s rage, took the question at face value. “I said that cupcakes are better than muffins, It’s a scientifical fact! Cupcakes are full of sugary goodness and have icing on top! Muffins just have fruit. Not there’s anything wrong with that. I like fruit as much as the next mare. It’s just not as tasty.” Pinkie looked at Ditzy, who was literally smoking out the ears. “Um, Derpy...”

“DON’T CALL ME THAT! ONLY MY FRIENDS ARE ALLOWED TO CALL ME ‘DERPY!’” Ditzy screamed.

“But I thought we were-”

“NOT ANYMORE! I JUST UNFRIENDED YOU!”

“But-”

“JUST GIVE ME MY MUFFINS!”

“O-okay.” Pinkie quickly dumped the two dozen (minus one) remaining muffins into a box. “That’ll be ten bits.”
Ditzy took the box and threw her money on the table before turning and storming out the door so fast it was nearly pulled off it’s hinges.

“Um, you forgot your change!” Pinkie called after her. “Also, what just happened?” she added to herself.

++++++

The gray mare charged out Sugarcube Corner at top speed, which, while not as fast as
Rainbow Dash, was plenty fast enough to do some damage when she rammed straight into the for sale sign across the street.

“Ow,” The wall eyed pegasus said. She rubbed her head and tried to focus on what she had broken this time. “For sale,” she read. She sat there staring at the sign for a long moment, and then, slowly, an idea came to her and she smiled widely.

++++++

“Ya Can’t Be serious.”

“I am.”

Boxxy Brown looked down at the piece of paper that Ditzy Doo had just placed on his desk. “After all them times i've threatened to fIre ya, and ya begged me to give ya one more chance, all of a sudden ya wanna quit?”

“Yes.”

Boxxy picked up Ditzy’s letter of resignation and read through it. “Why?”

“Because I’ve decided to follow my dream.” Ditzy Replied.

“Well, I can’t rightly stand between a mare and her dream can I?” Boxxy put the letter back down on the table. “Alright, you are no longer an employee of Cloudsdale Mail and Freight. Goodbye, and good luck.”

Ditzy nodded. “Thank you for everything.”

As the door closed behind her, Boxxy let out a sigh. “G’bye miss Doo, the place won’t be the same without ya.” he muttered.

++++++

“-And then she said, ‘Not anymore! I just unfriended you!’ and stormed out with the muffins. and I said ‘You forgot your change!’ but she was already gone!”

At the conclusion of Pinkie’s story, Twilight looked a bit sick. “you insulted muffins in front of Ditzy? What were you thinking?”

“That’s gotta be the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.” Rainbow Dash added from behind her copy of ‘Daring Do and the Seapony’s Tear’. “And you’ve done a lot of dumb things.”

“Rainbow!”

“Well, it’s true!”

Twilight shook her head in exasperation. “Getting back to the point, don’t you remember what happened to the last pony who insulted Ditzy’s muffins?”

“Oh yeah.” Pinkie’s... well... everything drooped. “Poor Berry Punch. She hasn’t been quite right since.”

“And now you are next on her hit list.” Dash noted. “Good job.”

Pinkie Pie went pale. “What should I do?”

“Hide,” Dash suggested.

“Apologize,” Said Twilight.

“What?” Dash looked at Twilight as if she had just suggested that Discord should raise the Sun. “You want her to just go up to an angry natural disaster on legs and say ‘Sorry’? Are you trying to get Pinkie killed?”

“Ditzy doesn’t mean to be mean. Her natural clumsiness just becomes strangely focused when she’s angry at someone,” Twilight explained. “If Pinkie apologizes, there will be no need for her to be angry, and things can’t get out of hoof.”

Dash and Pinkie both thought about that for a moment. “I guess that does make sense,” Dash finally relented.
“It’s settled then!” Pinkie said, “Next time I see her I’ll say I’m sorry.”

++++++

The real estate office seemed deserted when Ditzy entered. She looked around curiously before going up to the front desk. She cleared her throat.

“Hello?” She called. “Is anypony there?”

“Be with you in a moment!” a chorus of small voices called from the other room. Ditzy tilted her head in confusion she had heard those voices before. It sounded Like... “Cutie Mark Crusaders Realtors! Go!” The three fillies chorused as they filed out into the main room.

Ditzy looked at the three, mouth agape. “Wha? Where’s Mr. Charm?”

“He let us run the office for the day!” Scootaloo said.

“So we can get our Cutie marks as Realtors!” Apple Bloom added.

“Do want to buy a house Ms. Derpy?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Ditzy seriously considered turning around and running for the door right then and there. Ditzy had had dealings with the three ‘crusaders’ before, when they tried to get their cutie marks as mailmares. It had not ended well. Despite all that however, Ditzy decided to stick it out. After all, how badly could these three mess up taking her money and giving her a key? Besides, she had already quit her job. There was no turning back now. Ditzy Smiled, “Yes, yes I do.”

++++++

The next time Pinkie saw Ditzy turned out to be the very next day. Pinkie had just come down from her apartment over the shop and gone to the window to flip the little sign from the ‘Closed’ side to the ‘Open’ side.

“The outside world is now closed,” Pinkie joked to herself, being easily amused by the fact that, since the ‘Closed’ sign now faced inwards, she couldn’t leave the shop because she had to be there to greet customers. That’s when she noticed Ditzy Doo doing the same thing across the street. Pinkie stared at the sign on the newly occupied building.

“Derpy’s Muffinry? Oh she did NOT!” Pinkie immediately ran for the door, then quickly rushed back to turn the sign around again before going out to confront the googly-eyed grey mare.

Ditzy looked up when the little bell above the door rang. “Hello, welcome to Derpy’s Muffinry, where- Oh, It’s just you.” Her smile immediately fell off as she saw the very unhappy looking Pinkie Pie in her doorway. “What do you want?”

Pinkie looked around the small shop, marveling at how quickly the place had been set up. Somepony must have worked all night. She shook her head quickly in an attempt to get her thoughts back on track. She put on her best friendly smile. “Oh, nothing much, I just noticed you had set up a little place here, and I decided to come over and say ‘Hi’!” She said. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Ditzy replied.

“I am curious though.” Pinkie added. “Why would you start up a bakery right across the street from one that’s already established?”

“Well, after you said what you did about muffins, I decided to put what you said to the test. You don’t sell muffins, so I won’t sell cupcakes, and we’ll see whose shop is more popular!”

Pinkie’s eyes widened. “So, It’s a game is it? Great! I love games!” she said. “I actually planned to apologize, but if I defeat you then I won’t have to!”

“Great,” Ditzy replied. “First shop that goes out of business loses.”

“Deal!” Pinkie said. Holding out her hoof. “I’m warning you though, I’m not going to lose to you!”

Ditzy bumped Pinkie’s offered hoof with her own. “Neither will I!”

Comments

[Page Turner]

First!

[jcel4569]

Second?

[jcel4569]

Jcel's Quick Review:

I like it! I truly like it!
You have a well thought out, believable plot-line, and good characters to fit within.
My only problem is that it moves very quickly. It might just be me, but I like a story that moves at a moderate pace. This is a bit to fast for me. My advice would be to slow down, throw in some more character development and dialogue, and more detail in general.

In the grammar department, I did not notice much, but I was not reading to proof-read as much as to just read.

All in all, it's good. Not overtly outstanding, not skull-crushing terrible, but just good.

[Page Turner]

1945062
Sage advice. I will definitely take that into consideration for future chapters.

[Kwakerjak]

Pretty good, despite some capitalization errors. The setup went by fairly quickly, although whether or not that's a problem depends on how farcical the finished story is supposed to be. Still, keep at it!

(Also, do keep in mind that I'm more than happy to preread for my prereaders...)

[Page Turner]

1945247
It's definitely meant to be a parody of action movies, (war movies in particular) which is why I chose to give it a rather fast pace, at least here at the start. As for those capitalization errors, yeah, my unhealthy relationship with the shift key tends to be my greatest weakness.

[Stiggerzz]

this has potential, i shall be keeping track to see how it turns out.

pinkie promise now has a "rights reserved" sign.....
so am i not allowed to pinkie promise without pinkies permission now or....what?
1944949
1944975 *sigh* there's always some-pony isn't there? or in this case some-ponies
nah, jokes i really don't care

[_Kenzu_]

this looks interesting.
A pinkie and derpy fic?

i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/212/587/2667328774161692252111104.gif

[Page Turner]

1945440
Well, I figured if someone was going to 'first' my story, it might as well be me.

as for the Trademark on the pinkie promise: Of course! This way she can sue you if you break your promise!

[Stiggerzz]

1945761 fair enough, can't argue with that logic

also, pinkie pie does not sue you for breaking a pinkie promise
or need i remind you of when applejack did that?

[Page Turner]

1947177
Don't bring logic into this!

[Stiggerzz]

1947850
sorry

[Tangerine Blast]

Why is it Dash and Twilight that always give Pinkie advice on her problems?

[GAPDashie]

1950504
So Dash can tell her how weird/stupid/insane she is and Twi can give her the right answer.

[Inferno demon Dash]

OH GODS.....here we go I root for Derpy because she is best pony But DAMN.....this is going to get hetic, I love how Derpy is being spiteful towards Pinkie, talk about being enemies, this is goping to be so much fun. Though it's really hard to read, be sure to seprate when others speak as well as your pargraphs, I would suggest an editor. I'll be watching you and waiting for more, you seem like you might be able to make some some dark written Derpy stories

[Brony117]

Welcome to the fanfic of muffins Vs. Cupcakes! Where the greatest snacks assemble! Get ready for the ride of your life!