Well $h!t... That Didn't Go As Planned...
The Addictive Nature of Sweets
A one-shot dark...ish comedy
Written By: SeanofTheDead
Edited By: CartsBeforeHorses
Proofread by: insert Editor’s name here
Shat Upon by: ...Well, hopefully nopony...
Celestia rode in her carriage towards Ponyville, her mind weighed down by her most faithful student’s seemingly innocuous reports of the day to day life in the small town where she had found herself residing quite comfortably, up until recent days.
To say these are disturbing would be the understatement of the century, and I should know!
Twilight’s letters to Celestia had always been neat, tidy, well ordered, and positive. Lately, however, the letters were, more often than not, covered in crumbs or small splotches of icing. If that were the only thing wrong with them, Celestia would have assumed Twilight was going on a binge of sweets. But this continued to happen more and more frequently, getting worse. The letters had begun to feature more and more written inconsistencies as well.
It had started simply enough: the word “cookie” instead of “cooking,” or “cupcake” instead of “mistake.” Every error was somehow related to baked goods. It had gotten so bad that one letter had only been a list of various baked goods sold at Sugarcube Corner, in alphabetical order, with the prices listed next to them. Then these last three had happened.
One was a list of ponies who owed Twilight money. Ranging from one bit owed to her by an earth pony mare called Roseluck, to three hundred fifty seven bits owed to her by an earth pony stallion named Hard Knock. The disturbing part about this letter was that at the top it said, “DO NOT SEND TO THE PRINCESS!!” Also, quite a few ponies on the list had gone missing over the last month.
The next letter was a detailed line graph showing a direct correlation between Twilight’s studies and how much money she had and a letter in a combination. Twilight had sent it to Celestia last week, telling her that due to a lack of bits, Twilight had been unable to partake in several friendship building/creating activities, and as a direct result, her studies had begun to suffer.
Celestia was unwilling to tell Twilight that she couldn’t partake in her studies or in the fun her friends were having. The princess had sent the poor dear some five hundred bits. It wasn’t until later that Celestia remembered that one of Twilight’s friends was the element of Generosity. Which meant she would have lent Twilight the bits necessary to join in the fun, if needed. And barring that, one was the Element of Kindness and another was Loyalty. It just didn’t add up.
The last and most disturbing letter by far had arrived earlier that very morning. It was composed of words cut out from magazines and glued to a piece of parchment. And it read as follows:
Dear Princess Celestia,
I your most faithful student Twilight Sparkle have foalnapped your sister and your pet Philomena and demand seventy thousand cookies, cakes, pies, muffins, and doughnuts for their release.
Faithfully yours,
Twilight Sparkle
P.S. I’m really sorry, please don’t take my library card.
Celestia had laughed until everything had clicked into place. Which meant that she had inhaled to laugh, then stopped, then choked on the tea she had been drinking at the time spraying it all over Luna and Philomena. And then everything had clicked into place.
Celestia had heard that the crime rate in Ponyville had seen a significant jump in recent months. And Sugarcube Corner’s sales had also seen a dramatic rise despite the recent tragedy of the Cakes’ base-jumping accident. They now had several stores in each major city, and one in every town regardless of its size. And now that Celestia knew something had gone wrong, she intended to stop it. Especially since Luna wouldn’t quit hounding her about it now that something had gone wrong with her plan.
As her carriage stopped in Ponyville she heard a very demure voice state. “Don’t anypony move this is a holdup. Oh…I’m so sorry about this...but you need to give me all the sweets and money you have or I’ll have to rip your intestines out with this pitchfork, and I really don’t like that part... I-If you don’t mind that is…”
Celestia was stunned to see none other than Fluttershy searching the carriage drivers for anything of value and throwing it into a blood-stained sack marked with two words. The first word having been crossed out read “EVIDENCE” while the second word read “LOOT.”
Fluttershy gasped. “You had a cookie and you didn’t tell me?” Fluttershy was clearly very hurt, she even had tears in her eyes and her ears were pinned against her skull. “Now the voices want me to stab your fetlocks with my pitchfork and beat your withers with a rock...oh dear. I’m really sorry about this.”
She raised the tool over her head in both her hooves.
“Fluttershy! What in Equestria are you doing?” Celestia demanded, her eyes wide and her ears pointed skyward in surprise.
“Oh no...It’s the Pony! Come on, Angel, we need to go...no, the voices said they get to keep their livers…I said NO!” Fluttershy said as she grabbed the sack containing everything the drivers of her carriage had been wearing. Angel reluctantly hopped along after her.
“Fluttershy, stop now!” Celestia yelled at her as she prepared to take flight.
“Fluttershy wait!” Celestia called, “I just want to talk!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Princess, but I don’t have time to talk,” Fluttershy said before turning around and attempting to fly away again. “Pinkie doesn’t take trade-ins all day, you know. I have to hurry if I want my goodies today.”
Pinkie? I should have known this would happen, after all I did enlist her...and him, with this project Celestia thought as she took off at a gallop for Sugarcube Corner. As she passed by an alleyway, she saw Twilight talking to a stallion who was laying on the ground sobbing.
“You know I don’t want to do this, but if you don’t pay me, I have limited options, Hard Knock,” Twilight said, as she beat him with a metal rod that she held in her magic. The occasional noise like the cracking of a bone punctuated the stallion’s sobbing with a shriek of pain.
As Celestia left, she distinctly heard the stallion holler, “Not the good flank!!!”
Shuddering, Celestia galloped onward, hoping to free the town from the evil holding it in a death grip.
What have I done? she thought as she ran through the ruins of Ponyville. Almost every building was destroyed. Random buildings on both sides of the street had been riddled with holes both large and small, with parts of them burning. The buildings that weren’t hadn’t fared any better, at least four of them had large chunks missing as though they had been teleported away two were nothing but burned out shells now. One of the burned out buildings held Lyra Heartstrings who was slowly rocking back and forth in the fetal position and chewing on a VERY dirty sock, while her eyes faced opposite sides of her head. Smoke filled the air, and the occasional scream or animalistic growl punctuated the eerie silence that filled the town. A brief stab of panic hit Celestia’s mind as she remembered that today was a school day. Quickly changing direction she forced her body to gallop even faster than before towards the schoolhouse. She breathed a sigh of relief as soon as she saw the undamaged building, which could have been in a MUCH worse situation.
Rainbow Dash hovered over the school screaming in a rage, “You little shits had better gimme my crispy rice treats back or I’m gonna kick your scrawny little asses so hard we will need a doctor to surgically remove my hooves from your mouth’s!”
Scootaloo stuck her head out the window, her lips covered in what must have been the aforementioned treats and replied with the ever eloquent, “Bring it, you ugly dyke!” Applebloom followed her friends lead and said “Yeah! Ya dumbass bitch! And last came Sweetie Belle with the equally witty “You look like a living Gay Pride Flag!” And so the Great insult/threat war of Cheerilie’s schoolhouse had begun in in earnest.
Celestia moved on from the school towards the broken clock tower which had (since she arrived anyway) chimed ten o’clock at least a thousand times, or maybe it had chimed five o’clock five hundred times? I was currently impossible to tell due to what appeared to be cookie dough covering the entire top of the clock tower, which was slowly being covered in ponies eager to lick it clean.
As she galloped on she came across quite the sight. A sight which helped her to realize where at least some of the damage to the buildings of Ponyville had come from
Derpy was having a pitched kung-hoof battle with Bon-bon over a muffin. Bon-bon looked as though she had challenged the General Bon-bon leapt into the air while spinning around, in an attempt to catch Derpy off guard as she lashed out with her left hind hoof.her efforts proved futile when, Derpy, with a scowl on her face grinned manically as she caught Bon-bon’s leg and swung her into a nearby house straight through the wall. Derpy yelled for all to hear, “MY MUFFIN!” Try as she might Celestia couldn’t stop herself from staring as two of her little ponies beat each other senseless for a small treat that was half the size of her hoof. Why can’t stallions fight like that over me? she thought as she trotted over and picked up both of them in her magic and sat them down. on either side of the muffin, before setting it on fire with a simple incendiary spell. Soon the muffin was nothing but ashes and as soon as it was she let them go. which allowed them to resume their epic battle, this time over the ashes. Which had already been scattered to the wind. Celestia shook her head as she walked away.
When Celestia arrived at Sugarcube Corner, a massive crowd of ponies gathered outside the bakery, all of them clamoring for one kind of baked good or another. And there in the middle of them... there she was, trying to open the door... “Pinkie Pie.” Celestia whispered
“PINKIE PIE!” Celestia yelled using the Royal Canterlot Voice to be heard over the crowd. “WE NEED TO TALK!”
“Oh, okay, Princess!” Pinkie said as she turned to face the crowd at her back. ”Sorry everypony, but the Princess needs to talk to me for a bit, and then you will get whatever you need, at ten percent off!”
The roar of the crowd nearly floored Princess Celestia, . As they went inside, she became grateful for the quiet, as well as the fact that she seemed innocent of any wrong doings. So it was actually not a surprise when Pinkie led her through the kitchen to a stairwell that led down to the current kitchen where a certain draconequus was weighing sugar with another white powdery substance. And there Celestia sat and hyperventilated for about five minutes or so before speaking.
“We cannot let this continue,” Celestia said, as Pinkie stared at her.
Discord and Pinkie looked at one another. And Discord was the first to speak.
“But if we stop now, we will never achieve your goal,” he stated.
“This isn’t what you promised would happen! You didn’t say that ponies would try to kill each other or themselves over baked goods!”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad; you are probably just nervous-cited or something,” said Pinkie
“On my way here, I saw Twilight beating a stallion to a bloody pulp!” Celestia complained. “I didn’t want this; I just wanted to be able to eat cake whenever I wanted without judgement!” Celestia appeared to be nearly hysterical at this point. So Discord, being a good friend, slapped her.
“Ow!”
“Your welcome!”
“You two were supposed to put a simple spell on the treats, which would cause everypony to make them a larger part of their diet, like me!” Celestia exclaimed, now completely livid, “not put dangerous chemical substances into them so they try to kill each other over cookie crumbs!”
“Well sure if you want to do it the boring way,” said a clearly disenchanted Discord.
Pinkie watched the proceeding argument from a lawn chair she had just pulled out of her mane, with great interest, while eating popcorn that had literally appeared out of nowhere. She froze completely the instant the Celestia reacted to discords last statement.
Celestia became dangerously calm, the kind of calm ALL males have learned to fear more than anything else on this or any world. The kind of calm that has sent shivers down the spines of males since the dawn of time. the calm that when it comes you are about to either sleep on the couch, or be woken up by the pain caused when someone repeatedly stabs you in the kidney with a butter knife.
“How about a new proposal Discord?”
“Oh?” Discord said, clearly not understanding that the danger currently present would make tartarus look like a kindergarten classroom during naptime, After the kindergartener’s had a snack of whiskey and vicodin, and a recess of hard manual labor with a nature documentary instead of free time.
“Yes, tell me what you think of it.” Celestia cleared her throat, “for every injury sustained by my little ponies I will crush one thousandth of a square millimeter of your skeletal structure until I am able to use you as a beach towel. Deal?
“Fine! I’ll make you a deal. I’ll fix everything so you can have what you want, AND nopony gets hurt,” Discord said his eyes wide with fear. “And in return. You have somepony try to ‘reform’ me. So I don’t have to be a lawn ornament for an eternity. Do we have a deal?”
“Yes. But you have to fix Ponyville and make sure that nopony remembers this,” Celestia said smugly. She had been planning to have Discord reformed anyway. “How does Fluttershy sound for a reformer?”
Discord hadn’t been expecting such ‘Kindness’ from his old enemy, so all at one time he felt a flurry of elation, confusion, and relief.
“That sounds a little too good to be true, but I’ll take it anyway!”.he said quickly, clearly so Celestia wouldn’t have time to change her mind.
And so it was that the Cakes were brought back to life, desserts were eaten far more frequently and were declared applicable as a fourth meal, several ponies were taken to the hospital, and for some reason that Twilight couldn’t fathom she woke up feeling completely stress free. Oh and after Discord’s reformation he spent three months as Celestia’s personal beach towel.
The End. There was a beginning? Huh weird.