1. And Then There Was One

“Stupid superstition,” Twilight Sparkle muttered as she crawled into bed. “Stupid, gullible...”

“Are you still mad about that?” Spike asked. He was already settled into his basket at the foot of Twilight’s bed.

“Of course I am! I’ve never met a zebra before. I could have learned so much from talking with Zecora. But no! My friends went and scared her away with their wild accusations and nonsense about curses!” Twilight turned off the firefly lamp, plunging her bedroom into darkness.

“Yeah, but what if it isn’t nonsense?” Spike gulped and glanced around the darkened room. “What if there really are—”

“Goodnight, Spike.” Twilight snorted and pulled her own covers over her head.

—————

“Beware! Beware, you pony folk!” Perhaps it was just a trick of the shadows, but Zecora’s lips appeared to curl into a smile as she said it. “Those leaves of blue are not a joke!”

Twilight gulped. In spite of her insistence on giving Zecora the benefit of the doubt, she still found it a bit intimidating to confront a stranger—and in the Everfree Forest, in the fog-shrouded dead of night, no less. Fortunately, Twilight had her five friends here to help.

Though some were less helpful than others. “Y-you keep your creepy mumbo-jumbo to yourself, ya hear?” Applejack called back to Zecora.

The others also opened their mouths to hurl accusations of their own, but Zecora did something that shut them all up. She reared back and stayed that way, maintaining uncanny balance on her hind hooves. Then she began dancing. Her hooves stepped to the rhythm of an unheard song—giving fleeting glimpses of her shapely legs through the folds of her cloak. She wiggled her hips, and the fabric fell in just the right way to highlight the sensual curves of her haunches. Twilight’s gaze traveled up the zebra’s hypnotically swaying body, and she found Zecora staring right back at her.

Zecora’s deep cyan eyes spoke to Twilight of the wisdom of far-off lands, and burning desire—and no small amount of danger.

Twilight glanced away, nervously. Then she noticed her five friends—all of them were staring, slack-jawed at the zebra, and there were green spirals in all their eyes. “Uh, girls?” Twilight said. “Are you okay?” She reached out and tapped the nearest pony, Rainbow Dash, in the shoulder.

Rainbow snapped out of the trance and shook her head. “Whaaa... huh?” The other four did the same.

“Oh, dear,” Rarity said. “Zecora’s getting away!”

Indeed, the only sign of the zebra were her hoofprints in the path, leading deeper into the dark, foggy forest.

“What are we waiting for? Come on!” Rainbow Dash darted down the path, and four others followed a second later. Twilight was last. She gulped as she followed her friends—just what had she gotten herself into?

As she trotted, Twilight’s thoughts drifted back to Pinkie Pie’s impromptu song about Zecora:

She’s an evil enchantress!
She does evil dances!
And if you look deep in her eyes,
she’ll put you in trances!

Twilight had scoffed before, but now she had to admit that the song had been oddly prescient. Perhaps, she thought, it would be wise to look at the rest of the song for similar portents. What were the lyrics, again?

Then what is she doin’?
She’ll make you her balloon!
She’ll inflate you up
as big and round as the moon!
Soooo... watch out!

No, she thought, that couldn’t be right. Could it?

Before she could resolve the question, Twilight caught up with her friends, and found all five of them staring up at the sky. Dark storm clouds were circling overhead, faster and faster. Strong winds whipped through the forest, bending the trees ominously and forcing the six ponies to crouch. At the center of the storm, a funnel cloud extended and began stretching towards the ground.

“Land sakes! A twister!” Applejack held her hat tight, to keep it from blowing away.

“Ha! Piece of cake. I’ve wrangled worse storms in my sleep.” Rainbow Dash smirked at the other ponies. Twilight thought she saw the green spiral in Rainbow’s eyes again, but when she looked a second time, it was gone. “I got this, girls,” Rainbow continued. “You go find Zecora. I’ll catch up as soon as I take care of this. There’s only one way to deal with a raging tornado...”

Rainbow shot into the air, her incredible wingpower allowing her to fly steadily even in the midst of the buffeting winds. The funnel cloud was halfway to the treetops now, and she positioned herself in its path, directly below. Rainbow opened her mouth wide. The cloud rammed down, straight into her throat. Its width forced Rainbow’s jaw as far apart as it would stretch, and her cheeks swelled from the cloud forcing itself into her. “Mmmm! Hrrmmm hmmmm...” Rainbow mumbled as she began gulping down the storm cloud. Her belly swelled into a paunch, like she had eaten a large meal—and it just continued swelling.

“Ummm...” Twilight said. “Is that really the right way to control a tornado?”

Rainbow’s belly inflated larger as more and more of the storm cloud pumped into her. She looked like she’d swallowed an adult mare, and she was quickly working on her second. Her wing-flaps were becoming erratic, and she flailed her legs, but she still remained airborne, clinging to the tip of the funnel. “Mmmnnnmmmfffff! Hmmmmnnnn!” she tried to call out, her voice muffled by the mass of cloud in her mouth. She inflated to two, three times her old volume, and then even larger.

“Well,” Fluttershy answered, “Rainbow is on the weather team, and... we’re not.”

Rainbow’s legs stiffened and stuck straight out, making balloon-like squeaks as they filled with cloud mass. The same happened to her wings, each individual feather inflating thicker and blunter. Even though she couldn’t flap her ballooned wings, the lightweight clouds that had pumped into her—six times her old volume and counting—were enough to keep her in the air. The larger Rainbow swelled, the more spherical she grew.

“Yeah,” Applejack added, “all that pegasus pony weather magic is way over my head. If Rainbow says the right proper way to control a twister is by eatin’ it, then I trust her.”

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!” Rainbow screamed into the funnel, as it inflated her to ten times her old size, then larger still. She was making progress: the dark shelf of clouds in the sky was noticeably smaller—but only slightly. The mass of clouds still remaining was easily fifty times more than what she had already swallowed. Rainbow’s outstretched legs were sinking into her torso now, as it ballooned larger and larger.

“Yes, it seems Rainbow has things well in hoof,” Rarity added. “And she did encourage us to proceed without her, so I see no reason to linger and let Zecora escape.” With that, she continued down the forest path, and the other ponies followed.

Except for Twilight—she paused to spare a glance back at Rainbow Dash’s ballooning form. Then that glance lingered until it became a proper stare. The pegasus grew more and more spherical with every mouthful of cloud pumped into her, her wings swelling rounder, her huge body swallowing her legs as it bloated even larger. A shiver ran up and down Twilight’s spine as she watched her friend inflate further, and as she imagined just how large Rainbow would be once she swallowed the entire cloud.

Rainbow glanced down and met Twilight’s gaze. She winked at Twilight.

Twilight turned and ran after her other friends.

—————

She stopped when she collided with Pinkie Pie’s rear.

“’Bout time you showed up, Twi,” Applejack said. “Any bright ideas for gettin’ ’round this?”

Just beyond where the five ponies had stopped, the forest transitioned to a rocky bluff. On the path’s right-hoof edge was a sheer wall of rock, and on its left-hoof edge was an abrupt drop into a ravine. It was at least a thousand feet deep, but the fog obscured the ravine’s true depths. And the path itself was blocked by a house-sized pile of diamonds. The cut stones glittered and shone in spite of the darkness, mocking the ponies with their inconvenient perfection. And the pile grew larger as they watched: a mine shaft had been cut into the mountain above, from which a conveyor belt poured more diamonds in a constant stream.

“Well,” Twilight said, “I guess we could—”

“Ah, ah, ah!” Rarity interrupted as she stepped forward, between the pile and the other ponies. “Gems are my speciality, so this task clearly falls to me!”

“Makes sense to me!” Pinkie Pie chirped.

Rarity advanced on the gems. “And there’s only one way to deal with this many gemstones...” She opened her mouth wider than Twilight thought possible and shoved her face into the pile. After stuffing her cheeks full, she swallowed, and her fashionably trim stomach bulged out from the mass. Another mouthful soon followed the first, and then another, expanding Rarity’s waistline further.

“Ooookay...” Twilight said. “Is Rarity part dragon and nopony thought to tell me? This is weird. Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks this is weird.”

Rarity had been eating diamonds from the bottom of the pile, which destabilized it. A landslide began, with enough gems rushing towards Rarity to completely bury her. She was twice as wide as before—too heavy to jump away in time. Instead, she stood her ground and simply opened her jaws, letting the precious stones flow right into her mouth. She even formed a funnel with her magic, catching the diamonds that would have flowed to the side and directing them into her waiting maw. Her belly bloated even wider and thicker, squishing against the inside of her legs as it expanded. It was too wide now for Rarity to reach her own forelegs around it.

“Well,” Fluttershy said. “Rarity is the gem expert. If she says this is the best way, then I trust her.”

A decent chunk was gone from the pile—it was still the size of a house, but now it was a smaller house. Rarity stepped closer to stuff more diamonds down her gullet. Her gem-stuffed gut dragged on the ground as she moved, and her legs squished deep into its side with every step. Rarity was almost as wide as three ponies now, with how far her stomach bloated out.

“But this isn’t the best way!” Twilight forcibly tore her gaze away from the unicorn stuffing herself. “We could just climb over the pile! I could use my unicorn magic to tunnel a path through the pile! If all else failed, we could just push the whole pile into that ravine right there! There’s no logical reason to eat the diamonds!”

Rarity flared her horn and summoned her fainting couch. She dramatically reclined on it, her massive belly piled high atop her. The couch creaked and sagged, but held its owner’s weight. Rarity formed the funnel out of her magic again, this time catching the stream of diamonds from the conveyor belt. Every few seconds, she grabbed a heap of gems, almost the size of an adult stallion, from the pile and dumped that into her funnel as well. Larger and larger, Rarity expanded. Her belly, spilling over the sides of the couch, was large enough to serve as a bed now, for herself or for anypony else—if she were upright, the mass in her gut would have lifted her hooves three, then four feet off the ground.

“Twilight, you’re a great friend,” Pinkie Pie said. “But sometimes you think about these things way too hard!”

The fainting couch groaned in defeat, then broke into dozens of pieces. Rarity flopped onto the ground without losing her concentration: the flow of gemstones down her throat didn’t halt for a second. Moaning, she massaged her belly as it inflated even further. The rest of her torso disappeared under her gut’s expanding bulk, and her legs squished deep into its sides. Just as Rarity bloated to fifteen times her old size, she finally paused her bizarre meal.

“There,” she said. “I cleared the path for you.”

Rarity was right. Over half of the diamond pile still remained, but she had nevertheless eaten enough to form a walkable path through.

“Now, why don’t you four go ahead. I’ll catch up once I’ve finished here.” And with that, Rarity resumed gorging herself on the gems, inflating even larger.

Twilight wanted to point out the absurdity of this plan. With the apparently endless stream of diamonds pouring off the conveyor belt, Rarity might very well never be finished here. And she was already bloated too large to walk anywhere under her own power.

But before Twilight could even open her mouth, Applejack said, “Sounds like a plan to me!” Then she galloped away, with Pinkie and Fluttershy close behind her.

Twilight lingered once again, though she circled around Rarity first—with how large Rarity was expanding, she was liable to block the path before too long. Twilight placed a hoof on her friend’s belly in what she hoped was a comforting gesture, but another chill raced down her spine as soon as she made contact. “Rarity, are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

Rarity didn’t pause her meal, but gave a vaguely affirmative moan in between mouthfuls of gems. For the briefest moment, Twilight thought she saw green spirals in her eyes.

—————

By the time Twilight rejoined the others, the path was once again running through the forest. And the path was once again blocked—this time by a huge wooden barrel, again the size of a house. The label on the side read: Apple Cider — Product of Sweet Apple Acres.

Applejack snorted and stepped forward.

“No!” Twilight darted between Applejack and the barrel. “You don’t need to do this!” She placed her forehooves on the farmer’s chest and tried to hold her back.

“I reckon I do, honestly.” Without breaking stride, Applejack advanced, pushing Twilight backwards. “That there’s my family’s cider from my family’s farm, so that makes it my job to fix it.”

“But remember what happened last Applebuck Season! You don’t need to do this alone! We can all figure out a solution together—there’s no need for you to eat this whole barrel!”

Applejack paused and raised one eyebrow. “Who said anything ’bout eatin’ it? I’m just fixin’ to buck it outta the way.”

“Oh.” Twilight released Applejack. “That’s reasonable. Okay, then.”

Applejack trotted over the barrel’s side. After a quick stretch, she lined herself up for the proper position. Her hind legs left the ground—leaving Applejack balanced on her forelegs for the briefest instant—then shot straight back. With a loud thunk! her hooves connected. The barrel rolled, pushing over several trees before it came to a stop, just off the path.

“Wonderful,” Twilight said. “Now let’s move on, before—”

“Oh, applesauce!” Applejack interrupted. “That there’s a calamity!” She rushed off the path, to the cider barrel. There on the side, just below eye level, a crack in one of the planks had appeared.

“Nooooooooooo!” Twilight tried to race towards her, to tackle her friend and drag her away from this madness, but she felt like she was trudging through molasses.

Ignoring her, Applejack continued, “We can’t afford to lose this much cider! And there’s only one way to deal with this...”

The board cracked again, and a chunk of wood flew out. Applejack shoved her muzzle into the hole, plugging it before even a single drop could spill out.

Gulp! Gulp! Gulp! Applejack’s eyes widened as, instead of pouring onto the ground, the cider rushed straight down her throat. Her gut bulged, shaking and sloshing from the force of the liquid filling her. As her belly bloated larger, her backside kept pace with it. Applejack already had thick, muscular thighs, thanks to a lifetime of applebucking—but now they were swelling rounder and softer as they filled with cider, bouncing atop her hind legs.

Applejack looked up, staring at the immensity of the barrel and its volume of apple cider, just waiting to inflate her. And as Applejack looked, this time Twilight was sure she saw the green spirals in her friend’s eyes.

“Hhhrrrmmm,” Applejack mumbled against the unrelenting flow of cider. “Mmnnnmm hnnmrrrrrmm!” Her ballooning stomach reached the ground and swelled to the side, wider and wider. She had enough rump for three mares now, and her tail bobbed up and down atop her swelling, sloshing backside.

“Well. Applejack is the cider expert,” Fluttershy said in answer to a question that hadn’t been asked. “If she says... Oh. Never mind.”

Twilight snapped out of her paralysis and rushed over to Applejack’s side. Right next to the farm pony’s stomach—so big, so soft, so full of cider, getting fuller by the second... Twilight shook her head and grabbed Applejack’s shoulders, hooking one foreleg over her friend’s neck in the process. She tried to pull Applejack away from the barrel, but the pony’s muzzle refused to dislodge from the hole. Twilight could feel Applejack sloshing with every yank—every jiggle sending another pleasant jolt up and down her own spine, which she tried her hardest to ignore. By this point, Twilight couldn’t reach Applejack’s shoulders without leaning against her inflating belly—her own barrel squishing further into Applejack’s stomach, feeling the pressure build with every gallon of cider she swallowed.

Applejack planted one forehoof on Twilight’s chest and pushed the unicorn away, causing Twilight to land on her rump. “Hnnm—” Gulp. “—rrrrrmm—” Gulp.“—mmnnn—” Gulp. “—nnmm!” Applejack muttered, waving her foreleg to indicate somewhere behind Twilight.

“What’s that?” Twilight asked. “We should go ahead and you’ll catch up?”

Applejack stopped waving her foreleg, but didn’t lower it. One by one, her other legs lifted up and pointed out, spread eagle—straightening and stiffening as cider filled each of them. Her great, sloshing belly was inflated taller than her old height. Every mouthful of cider she swallowed was a large bulge rushing down her neck to add to the even larger bulge of her gut, and her whole body was rounding out as she swelled larger and larger.

“Come on, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie was suddenly at Twilight’s side. “You gotta stop thinking so much and go with the flow!”

“No! This is insane!” Twilight flailed a hoof in the air. “I don’t know what the hay’s going on anymore, but we shouldn’t have left Rainbow Dash or Rarity behind, and I’m not going to abandon Applejack, too!”

Twilight stood up and suddenly found herself dragged backwards—Pinkie had grabbed Twilight’s tail and was now pulling her down the path. No matter how much Twilight struggled and pawed at the ground, she couldn’t pull herself free. She could do nothing but watch as Applejack inflated, to three times her old height and even further. Her legs were sinking into her body as her torso bulged even more. She was so round that, thanks to her coat color, she ironically resembled a giant orange more than anything else.

And Applejack, as thick as she had swollen, was still dwarfed by the cider barrel and the volume remaining inside—waiting to fill her even further.

—————

Pinkie spat out Twilight’s tail and gasped. Twilight just groaned and turned to see the latest obstruction in the path. It was a steel tank of helium gas, laying on its side. It was five feet long and just under a foot in diameter, perfect for inflating an obscene number of party balloons.

“Don’t worry, everypony!” Pinkie chirped. “Party supplies are my specialty!”

“Pinkie, no!” Twilight interjected. “This is just stupid!” She trotted forward and, without breaking stride, stepped over the tank. “See? It isn’t even blocking the path! We can step over it, or walk around it!”

Pinkie ignored the tirade and approached the tank herself. “And there’s only one way to deal with this...”

“No there isn’t one way! There are plenty of ways to deal with it, and the majority of them don’t involve—”

“Twiiiiiiiliiiiiiight,” Pinkie said, a dopey grin on her face. “You really need to lighten up.” She closed her eyes, pressed her lips up to the nozzle, and cranked the handle. The valve opened with a hissss, and gas began pumping into the pink pony.

“What the hay?” Twilight said, raising her voice. “What the hay? Are all my friends going crazy?”

Pinkie’s whole torso puffed up larger than an apple barrel. She lifted one leg to prod at her distended middle, voicing a muffled laugh as her hoof sank in. Then her other three hooves lifted off the ground; Pinkie rose into the air from the volume of helium pumping into her. The steel tank weighed down her head, so it was her rump—already wide enough to serve as a filly’s mini-trampoline, and growing larger by the second—that lifted the highest. Pinkie’s laughter merged with the squeaking sounds of her skin as she inflated larger and larger.

“Umm...” Fluttershy answered. “I don’t feel very crazy.”

Twilight wheeled on Fluttershy, who shrank from the unicorn’s crazed expression. “That’s okay, right?” Fluttershy said. Twilight hugged her and held her tight, as she turned back to watch Pinkie.

Finally, Pinkie opened her eyes and reached for the valve’s handle. Twilight briefly allowed herself to hope that the party pony had regained her sanity and was trying to shut off the flow of helium. But Pinkie’s hoof fumbled and spun the handle all the way open. “Mmmmrrrrrrmmmmm!” Pinkie shouted into the nozzle, her eyes widening as she inflated even faster than before. She grabbed the handle again, only for her leg to slip off, then stiffen straight out. With even louder squeaks, all her legs inflated, filling with helium to twice their normal width. More and more gas rushed into Pinkie, pumping her as large as an economy-sized bounce house, and then even larger.

“Twilight,” Fluttershy whimpered, “I can’t breathe... You’re squeezing... really tight...”

“Sorry!” Twilight loosened her grip, but didn’t completely release Fluttershy from the hug.

Larger and larger, Pinkie swelled. “Hhmmrrmmm!” Pinkie’s screams were muffled by the nozzle, and nearly drowned out by the hiss of the gas and the squeaks of her expanding body. “Mrrmm nnnmmm!” She flailed her inflated legs—or rather, waggled them back and forth, the few inches they could still move. Her haunches were merging with her torso, and her cutie marks were stretching—each individual balloon the size of a beach ball now. There were green spirals in her eyes as she stared down at the steel tank. “Hhhhhhhhnnnmm!”

“Pinkie Pie is the balloon expert,” Fluttershy said. “But... honestly, I think your way would have made more sense, Twilight.”

Twilight did a double-take at the pegasus. Fluttershy continued, “Obviously, Pinkie’s plan is to fill herself until she can fly away with the tank. But that’s not possible. If there were enough helium to counteract the weight of the tank itself, then it would have already drifted away.”

“Yes! Of course!” Twilight wore a manic grin. “Because clearly that is the only flaw in Pinkie’s plan!”

“Well, I guess we should keep going...” Fluttershy stood up, but Twilight continued clinging to her and made no effort to stand on her own. “Um, Twilight... do you think you could, maybe, let me go, if you don’t mind?”

“Please don’t leave me.”

“Oh. Okay then.” Fluttershy began walking, dragging Twilight along with her. As she stepped around the tank, she ducked her head to avoid bumping the huge curve of Pinkie’s body. If the party pony had surpassed an economy-sized bounce house before, now she was bigger and bouncier than a super-mega-jumbo bounce house (the heavy-duty kind even the adults could play on, with an attached waterslide).

As Fluttershy dragged her away, Twilight couldn’t help but wonder whether Pinkie would make a good hot-air balloon. She’d be as big as one, soon enough.

—————

Fluttershy came to a stop. “Oh, dear.”

A kaleidoscope of monarch butterflies blocked the path ahead. The lepidopterans formed a roiling cloud—opaque and impenetrable—that stretched from the ground to the forest canopy, from one side of the path to the other.

Twilight whimpered. “I suppose there’s no way to talk you out of this, is there?”

“Well, animals are my specialty...” Fluttershy trotted forward—having somehow wriggled free of Twilight’s embrace without the unicorn noticing. She pointed a hoof, and a dozen of the butterflies landed on her outstretched leg. “There’s... there’s...”

Fluttershy sighed and lowered her head. “I’m sorry, Twilight, but I can’t do it.”

Twilight blinked.

Fluttershy continued, “I’m supposed to say, ‘There’s only one way to deal with this many butterflies,’ and then eat all of them. But that’s mean, and I just can’t! So, I’m sorry, but it looks like we’re stuck here until—”

With a pop, the insects on Fluttershy’s leg all transformed into sticks of butter. A second later, the airborne ones followed suit. The sky was thick with great gobs of butter, flitting about on gossamer wings of pure magic.

“Oh,” Fluttershy said. “Don’t mind if I do!” She leaned forward and opened her lips—and as soon as she did, the sticks of butter on her foreleg flew straight into her mouth. Without even giving her a chance to chew, they forced their way down her throat, merging into thick lumps that flowed down her neck and settled heavily in her stomach. Fluttershy’s graceful little tummy bulged a few inches with every lump.

Fluttershy finally gulped down the last of them and just stood there, panting. Then she looked up. The swarm of airborne butter had gone still—the uncountable sticks and lumps no longer flitting back and forth, but simply hovering in the air. Even without eyes, they gave the unmistakeable impression of staring expectantly at Fluttershy. The pegasus’s eyes widened and her wings flared—but she didn’t close her mouth.

The butter swarmed in, rushing between Fluttershy’s open lips with enough force to knock her onto her rump. Her paunch jiggled from the motion. Her cheeks bulged from the mass of dairy rushing into her, even though she swallowed as fast as she could. Her stomach bloated further, its underside resting on the ground between her hind legs. Though not remotely thin anymore, Fluttershy’s ballooning gut was strangely alluring as it swelled larger—and downright hypnotic every time it wobbled from a feeble kick of her hind leg, or from a particularly large lump of butter forcing its way in. As a certain photographer might have said: even her inflation was graceful.

Thicker and thicker her stomach swelled, filling the space between her haunches, then pressing against them, squeezing over the top of her stifles. She rested her forelegs atop the growing cushion of her gut—already large enough that Twilight could have curled up inside—and a ripple spread across it as her hooves pressed slightly into its soft surface. It pushed her haunches out as it widened. Seated on her rump and spreading her hind legs—anypony could have made that pose look lewd, but Fluttershy somehow made it...

Twilight snorted and shook her head. That caught Fluttershy’s attention, and she turned slightly to face the unicorn, her gut sloshing from the motion. Her eyes softened, and she somehow smiled around the mass of butter still rushing into her mouth, her swollen cheeks dimpling slightly. With one forehoof, she patted her belly—which had expanded almost to the tips of her hind hooves, and drew closer by the second—and with the other she beckoned Twilight closer.

Twilight’s brain told her to resist—told her that her adorably inflating friend was tempting her to do something stupid and dangerous and just plain wrong. Twilight’s hooves didn’t listen. As she trotted forward, Twilight glanced back and forth, from Fluttershy’s face to the inviting curves of Fluttershy’s gut. Slowly, Twilight reached out, then hesitated mere inches away from the butter-yellow belly—until Fluttershy took Twilight’s hoof in her own and guided it the rest of the way, pressing the purple hoof softly into her stomach. Electricity raced down Twilight’s back as she felt the gut shifting beneath her touch, pressing back against her as it expanded. She placed her other foreleg on Fluttershy’s stomach, and both hooves squished deeper into that soft mass as she rested her whole upper body weight on it. Fluttershy closed her eyes in response and gave a demure little moan.

And then she fell on Twilight.

Fluttershy’s rear hooves touched the ground, then lifted off as she rolled forward on her belly bed—then her fore hooves’ reunion with the ground was equally brief before she rolled back. Her gut was large enough to lift her several feet off the forest floor, to squish around her legs even as it spread them further apart, and to completely pin Twilight underneath. The unicorn was so stunned that she didn’t even struggle at first. She just lay there—her forelegs curled against her own ribs by that tremendous mass, her hind legs splayed to wrap around that huge stomach, her snout pressed deep into its unimaginable squishiness. Only her forehead and horn on one side, and her hind legs on the other side, weren’t buried under Fluttershy, yet. That inflating belly was a warm, impossibly soft cushion, molding itself tightly to Twilight’s every curve as it pressed down on her face, her neck, her torso, her belly, between her haunches, her loins...

“Mrrrrmmmfff!” Twilight shouted into Fluttershy’s stomach as she finally began to struggle. She writhed and wiggled her legs, attempting in vain push away the butter-stuffed mass of her friend. “Mmffmmnnn, hhhrmmm!” That ballooning belly just sloshed from the motion—and as it filled ever further, it pressed back even more tightly against nearly every inch of the trapped unicorn. Twilight grew warm from the exertion; her feebly kicking hind legs were squeezing deeper into the side of Fluttershy’s belly as it expanded further and further. “Mhhhhmmmfff!”

Finally, Twilight flared her horn. With a crack and a flash of light, she teleported out from under Fluttershy, landing on her hooves a few feet away. Her mane and coat slick with sweat, Twilight panted and stared at the butter-filled behemoth that Fluttershy had become. The formerly supermodel-thin pegasus was splayed atop a belly ten times as large as she was—a belly still wobbling from Twilight’s sudden departure, and still inflating with more butter.

In spite of how much Fluttershy had already swallowed, she had barely made a dent in this flying butter swarm. But it was enough to clear a few feet between the ground and the bottom of the swarm—enough space for Twilight to continue down the path on her own.

“I’ll find Zecora,” Twilight said to Fluttershy. “And I’ll come back for you, and all the others. I promise.”

Twilight gave a reassuring pat to her friend’s huge belly—and shivered as she felt it still swelling larger beneath her hoof. She turned and galloped away.

2. The Unbearable Largeness of Drinking

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Just as Fluttershy’s ballooning form disappeared around the bend in the trail, Twilight paused to tilt her ears. She heard a voice, somewhere in the distance, singing. The voice was one Twilight couldn’t place, but her words were Pinkie Pie’s:

“She’s an evil enchantress, and she does evil dances...”

“Hello?” Twilight called out. “Zecora, is that you? I know we didn’t start off on the best hoof, but—”

A loud snap drew Twilight’s attention to a tree only ten feet away—and the cloaked silhouette emerging from behind. Startled, Twilight squawked and backed away a few steps. As she left the path, her hind hoof felt nothing but air, and she fell backwards, tumbling down a steep hill.

Twilight finally stopped rolling and sprawled on the ground, disoriented but unhurt. The trees of the Everfree loomed ominously over her, and the fog was so thick that she couldn’t even see the hill she had just come down, let alone the path through the forest.

And a set of striped legs stood before Twilight.

“Do you wish to befriend me on this night? Your friends all fear me...” Zecora leaned down, until she was muzzle-to-muzzle with Twilight. Her lips twisted into a dangerous smile. “...and they’re quite right.”

Everything was a blur. Somehow, Twilight was on her hooves again, and running. She wasn’t running towards anything, just away from Zecora. Trees emerged from the fog, zipped past, and disappeared again as Twilight pushed herself as fast as she could go.

She spotted a circle of trees that looked like a good hiding place, and she dove inside. She listened for the sound of pursuit and heard nothing; she carefully peeked around a tree and saw nothing.

Zebra hooves grabbed her rear and squeezed. “She’s an evil enchantress...” Zecora chanted.

“Aaack!” Twilight tried to buck her away. Her hooves met nothing but air, but at least the grip on her rump ceased.

She ran again. After fleeing for a few minutes, with no sign of pursuit, she took shelter in a ditch.

Hooves stroked her belly. Twilight was not resting on dirt, but atop Zecora. “...your tummy she enhances,” the zebra continued.

“Eeep!” Twilight flinched so hard, she bolted several feet straight up in the air, then she zipped away at near-Pinkie speed. She took shelter behind a thick log.

There was a small hole in the log, barely a hoof’s width. Zecora’s head and neck popped out of the hole, and she whispered into Twilight’s left ear, “She fills you up, till you can’t fit in your pants-es...”

Then she blew. Her warm, wet breath rushed down Twilight’s ear, filling her chest and expanding her torso a few inches.

Twilight bolted again. She felt like she’d gulped down several lungfuls of air and couldn’t breath it back out, but that didn’t hamper her running. A rocky outcropping appeared ahead, and Twilight hid behind it.

A pile of small rocks rested on the crack between two large boulders. The rocks shook, then scattered as Zecora’s upper body emerged from the crack. “Bigger and bigger, her little ponies expand-ses...” she whispered into Twilight’s right ear before blowing again.

Twilight raced away, moving slightly slower than before. Her belly was swollen so much she looked pregnant, and it brushed awkwardly against her legs as she ran.

Forget it! Twilight thought. Every time I try to hide, she finds me. So I’m just going to keep running!

She tripped and fell.

Twilight sprawled on the forest floor, her puffed-out barrel squishing slightly beneath her. There was a small puddle on her left, less than a foot away. The surface rippled, and a gray-and-black head emerged from the water.

“Too round to walk, or canter or prance-es...” Zecora whispered once more. Yet again, she blew into Twilight’s ear, her breath swelling the unicorn further. This time, Zecora didn’t stop until...

“Gaaaaaa...!” Twilight pulled away and rose awkwardly to her hooves. She tried to run again, but wobbled and barely caught herself before falling. Her torso was swollen to twice its normal width; she could only stand with her legs at an awkward angle, and she could only move by waddling. So waddle she did, as quickly as possible away from Zecora.

Without any sound of hoofsteps, Zecora was in front of her. The zebra paralyzed her with a piercing stare and an unwholesome grin. “Soooo...” Zecora leaned forward until her nose was inches from Twilight’s. “Watch out!”

Zecora kissed her. Twilight’s eyes widened as those soft but strong lips pressed against her own, forcing her mouth open. Zecora’s breath was a spicy flavor that Twilight couldn’t name, but all the tastier for it. And then her breath was a rushing wind, inflating Twilight even further. Twilight felt the pressure building inside her, the stinging sensation as her skin stretched. She tried to pull away, but Zecora held her tight with her forelegs, breathing more and more air into her. Twilight beat her hooves against Zecora’s chest, once, twice. Then—fwoomp! fwoomp!—her forelegs filled with air and stuck straight out, then her hind legs did the same. She was helpless now, puffed up to twice her old height and still growing larger.

Zecora had downright impossible lung capacity, and she filled Twilight relentlessly. The unicorn frantically tried to move her legs, but those puffed-out limbs could only waggle a few inches—and even that freedom decreased as they sank into her ballooning sides. Larger and larger she grew—to three, then four times her old height—until she dwarfed the zebra inflating her.

Finally, Zecora stopped blowing and pulled away, clamping one hoof over Twilight’s mouth before any air could escape. Zecora smiled at her work. The unicorn was a purple balloon now—just over six times her old height, with her legs sunk halfway into her round torso. The unicorn balloon stared back at Zecora, wide-eyed, between cheeks inflated to the size of softballs. A blush lit up nearly her whole face.

Zecora removed her hoof.

“Phbtbtbtbtbtbtbtbtbtbtbtbt...” Twilight flew into the sky, propelled backwards by the air rushing out her mouth. She bounced off the tops of the tree canopies; she twisted and turned and made loops in the air as she went. “Phbtbtbtbtbtbtbtbtbt...”

Twilight had shrunken almost halfway back to her old volume when she heard crashing water. A waterfall was nearby, and loud enough to be heard over both the wind rushing past her and the wind rushing out of her. Then she dipped into a clearing in the forest. The old Ponyville water tower lay on its side in the middle of the clearing, abandoned after its use in pacifying that Ursa Minor. Twilight’s inflated rump smacked into it with a loud Bwooong! and enough force to knock the roof off the tank, sending both flying in opposite directions.

Twilight continued deflating, circling the clearing and bouncing off tree trunks until she was nearly back to normal size. “Phbtbtbtbtbtbtbtbtbtbtbtbt!” The last gust of air propelled her into the canopy, where she came to a stop in midair. Twilight shook her head and looked around—feeling the embrace of thick vines all over her body as she did. She was tangled in them, hanging belly-up, at least a hundred feet above the forest floor. The vines splayed her fore and hind legs, and they curled around her her body: her torso, the dock of her tail, the base of her horn, even between her haunches. They were softer than Twilight expected of a jungle plant, and covered in soft fuzz, but they held her so tightly she could barely move.

Nearby, the water tower’s lid landed with a loud clang of metal against rock, and the noises of the waterfall intensified.

More worryingly, there were hoofsteps approaching. Twilight twisted her neck to look down—the movement making all the vines shift and slide along her body in a most distracting manner—and saw Zecora. The zebra had a tall ladder balanced sideways on her back, and she looked straight at Twilight as she neared the tree line. “If your plight you wish to improve,” she said, smirking, “then it would behoove you not to move.”

Twilight resumed writhing, pulling against her bonds with all her might. There was enough slack to move each of her legs just a little—but when she pulled, that just shifted the nest of vines surrounding her. If she moved her right foreleg, that pulled her hind legs further apart. If she moved her left foreleg, then one vine brushed gently against her right cheek, her belly, and her teats. If she moved her right hind leg, the vines around her chest tightened like a hug, and another loop tightened around the base of her horn, sending a pleasant jolt of magic straight into her brain. And when she moved her left hind leg, a vine pulled her tail up, while another brushed tantalizingly up and down against her loins—sending an entirely different sort of magic into Twilight’s brain.

And as luck would have it, that was the leg with the most slack—and thus, Twilight’s best hope of escaping this predicament. So she went to work, kicking and twisting that leg, ignoring as best she could the pleasurable rubbing down there. It was something she would just have to put up with until she could escape. Her back arching, her face flushing bright red, her eyes half-lidded, Twilight wriggled her left hind hoof closer and closer to freedom. Sometimes one of her other legs would twitch, causing a vine to massage her teats or squeeze her horn—Twilight would just have to put up with those as well.

Down below, Zecora bent to pluck a dandelion stalk, and gently blew on the seed head. The seeds scattered and drifted in the air—but one in particular caught a sudden upward gust. It drifted towards the unicorn entangled in the vines overhead. The seed hovered briefly over her writhing, sweaty body before falling. Its descent was a lazy, meandering arc—that ended right on the most sensitive spot on the tip of Twilight’s snout. Twilight’s eyes shot open. “Ah... Aaaaah...” She wrinkled her nose and tried to resist the tickling sensation, all four of her legs vibrating from the effort. “Aaaaah...” She shook her head, but that feathery seed refused to leave her snoot.

“Aaa-chooooo!” Twilight’s sneeze convulsed her whole body, made her legs flail chaotically, and thrust her backwards. The binding vines shifted and twisted around her, tightening and rubbing in a full-body massage that just prompted her to wiggle and flail even more. More and more vines clamped around her ribs and belly, or rubbed between her hind legs and under her tail. There was more of Twilight covered by the tendrils—and subjected to their thorough ministrations—than uncovered.

As Twilight panted and finally came to rest, she realized a few things. First, that she was even more tightly bound than before; second, that her horn was glowing red-hot and had burned away the vines around it; and third, that she was a very silly pony for not remembering her horn sooner. With an embarrassed grin, Twilight fired a bolt of magic at one of the vines binding her right forehoof. It snapped immediately, and Twilight sank slightly without its support—causing every single other vine to slide a few tantalizing inches along her. A dreamy smile spread across her face, as she shot another bolt at another vine, with similar results.

The next few minutes passed in a blissful haze of slicing through vines and getting a near-full-body rubdown with each one. Finally, only two vines remained: one each on her left hind hoof and her right forehoof. Still dazed, Twilight failed to notice that the right-hoof vine was wrapped around a tree branch nearly a hundred feet to the side.

So when she cut the other vine, she suddenly found herself swinging to her right. “Whoaaaaaa!” Twilight was sailing through the air, straight towards a rock wall. And as she did, the sound of falling water grew even louder. This was the waterfall she had heard all along, only now there was a disruption: the water tower’s lid had lodged itself into the rock wall, upside down, in the ideal spot to catch all the falling water and form an impromptu funnel.

Too late, Twilight realized the vine was swinging her straight towards the narrow end of the funnel. “Whooaaaa—umph! Ulp! Ulp! Ulpulpulpulp...” Her mouth squeezed tight around the same makeshift nozzle that had fed the Ursa Minor—and she began gulping down enough water to satisfy an Ursa, as the entire output of the waterfall poured out the nozzle and down her throat. Twilight’s rump and haunches filled with water, swelling to twice, then three times, then four times their old size in a matter of seconds. Her belly’s inflation only trailed slightly behind.

All the while, Twilight stared, wide-eyed, at the funnel she was hanging from. She finally roused and clapped both forelegs at the funnel’s underside, attempting to push herself off the nozzle. Her bloating form jiggled and shook from the movement, but between the shoving and her own weight, Twilight slid her lips almost an inch down the metal surface. Then she felt two spots of pressure on her rump—enough to slide her back up the nozzle, even farther than she was before. It was Zecora. The zebra was balanced on her hind legs, atop her ladder, and with her forelegs she pushed up on Twilight’s rump—holding the ballooning unicorn in place to inflate even further.

“Off this funnel, you shall not sink,” Zecora said, still with that smirk on her face. “I vow you’ll get enough to drink.”

“Mrrrrrrrrrrm!” Twilight groaned, scowling as best she could with her cheeks inflated and her lips wrapped around a massive nozzle. She shoved against the funnel again, to no effect. She tried to kick at Zecora, but her belly was so swollen with water—and growing larger by the second—that it pushed apart her equally-bloated haunches, so she couldn’t reach the spot directly beneath her tail anymore. Twilight wobbled from her futile struggle until—Gloosh!—one of her hind legs filled with water and stuck straight out. A second later—Gloosh!—the other hind leg did the same. Both legs inflated to twice as thick as before, stiffening beyond Twilight’s control.

“Mmmmmrrmm?” Twilight glanced nervously at her forelegs, still desperately pawing at the funnel overhead. As she shoved against its metal surface one last time, she felt the pressure and stiffness building inside those limbs. “Mmmmmmm!” Gloosh! Gloosh! Both her forelegs swelled as thick as her hind legs and splayed out, of their own accord.

Twilight had been filled with eight times her volume in water by now and (having forgotten about her horn, again) was now helpless to do anything but inflate even further. Her backside was bloated largest—her haunches and rump cheeks swelling into a pair of watery globes that were already beginning to swallow her hind legs—but her belly was close behind. And not just her belly, but her entire torso was rounding out as she filled ever larger. Underneath, Zecora continued holding Twilight in place, while slowly lowering her forelegs to give space for the purple water balloon to inflate further. Even so, Zecora’s hooves sank deeper and deeper into the unicorn’s increasingly bountiful rump, even after she stepped down one rung of the ladder.

More and more water Twilight gulped down—thirteen, fourteen, then fifteen times her own weight. She’d already drank more liquid from this nozzle than the Ursa Minor had that night, and the water just kept pouring. Her thick, puffy legs sank slowly into her sides as she bloated larger than the water tank had been. “Mmmmhhhmmmm...” Twilight moaned into the funnel as it continued pumping endless gallons of water into her. “Mmmmmmmm!”

Zecora now had her forelegs spread wide and her head lowered, holding Twilight’s massive backside with her shoulders, much like ancient Atlas carrying the dome of the sky. Of course, Twilight wasn’t that large yet—but at the rate she was inflating, she was bound to catch up. As the pressure grew inside Twilight—and as the ballooning unicorn butt pressed harder against Zecora, squishing around her legs, shoulders and head as it swelled larger and larger—the zebra stepped another rung lower on the ladder.

The flow of water was inconsistent: sometimes it surged, and sometimes it slowed. But even at its slowest, the waterfall pumped many gallons per second into the unicorn-turned-water-balloon—enough that she’d already swallowed thirty times her old volume. And with each gallon, Twilight could feel every square inch of her skin stretch, maddeningly. Rounder and rounder she grew as she inflated—her bloated torso had swallowed her legs over halfway already, and even her neck was beginning to sink into the fat globe of her body. As her face squished between cheeks swollen to the size of cantaloupes, Twilight’s eyes darted back and forth, desperately. She tried to flail her legs one more time—but the puffy appendages, sinking deeper into her ballooning sides, could only waggle feebly a few inches. Her inflating body sloshed from the movement.

As luck would have it, Zecora was stepping down one more rung at that precise moment. With only one hoof on the ladder, even that slight wobble from the bloated mass above was enough to knock Zecora off-balance. Her hoof on the rung slid right off, while her free hind hoof desperately flailed for something solid to stand on. Zecora’s chest landed on the top step of the ladder (the one with the “This Is Not A Step” warning), hard enough to knock the air out of her lungs. Then, before she could suck another breath in, that massively inflated purple unicorn butt landed atop Zecora. The zebra flailed her back legs and tried to push against the ladder with her front legs, but found herself pinned in place by Twilight’s water-filled mass—squeezed tighter and tighter as Twilight continued swelling.

“Mmhhmmmmm!” Twilight groaned. Even with Zecora no longer supporting her, that ladder was still enough to hold the ballooning unicorn in place on the funnel. The waterfall surged—but didn’t decrease, and the boosted water flow pumped Twilight up even faster than before. She blasted past the sixty-times-her-old-volume benchmark and sped towards seventy. Her legs sank deeper into her ballooning sides—now only her thickened hooves were still protruding. Her neck had likewise disappeared, swallowed by her body; her inflating torso was pressing up against her swollen cheeks, to squish her face between them even more. Larger and larger her entire body bloated, pumped relentlessly larger by the endless flow of the waterfall.

Underneath, Twilight’s enormous backside pressed against Zecora, tighter and tighter, as it grew. Zecora was completely surrounded—below, by the ladder, and on every other side, by the water-bloated unicorn squishing around her. And the pressure from Twilight only increased, until at last air began leaking out Zecora’s mouth with a faint hisssssssss, squeezed out by the weight from above. Which was odd, because Zecora didn’t have any breath in her lungs (somehow, she was unharmed by this development), yet Twilight’s ballooning weight forced more and more air out of her, compressing the zebra flatter and flatter. Beneath Zecora, the ladder creaked ominously, its feet sinking into the river’s muddy bottom.

Twilight inflated to over one hundred times her old size, gulping down uncountable gallons of water, even faster than before. With a quiet sloshing sound, her bloating torso finally swallowed her hooves completely; now, just in-folded divots marked the spots on her massive, curved form where her legs had been. Twilight’s head had sunk partially into her huge globe of a body—the inflated mass that had been her back and shoulders now squeezed her cheeks and forehead, squashing her mane against her scalp and brushing the side of her horn.

But if Twilight remembered her horn now, she was mentally in no condition to use it. Sensations flooded her brain, much like the water flooding her body. As every inch of her stretched further and further to contain the volume pumping in, her skin felt like fire—but the endless frigid water filling her was enough to counteract that, to make the ever-escalating pressure inside feel good. And the larger she inflated, the more sensitive she became. As she gulped down over two hundred times her volume, every wobble and slosh across her bloated mass—every ripple and current of the growing lake inside her—was a massage to rival Ponyville Day Spa’s best. And the ladder below felt as good as Lotus or Aloe’s hoof as it pressed into Twilight’s inflating rump.

“Mmmmmm...” she moaned as the ladder creaked under the pressure of her increasing weight—the wooden legs bent inward slightly, and the purple water balloon wobbled from the slight motion. In between the bloated unicorn and the ladder, that slow hisssssssss stopped as Zecora was completely flattened. She was now a paper-thin zebra shape, folded into a zig-zag pattern as the ever-growing weight above pressed her into the ladder’s steps. The ladder itself sunk a little deeper into the mud below, but not nearly enough to relieve the pressure from Twilight’s body, four hundred times her old size and still growing—so the ladder groaned and buckled further under her titanic weight.

As Twilight grew, the world shrank around her. There was just her, stretched beyond all rational limits (and then some); the hundreds of thousands of gallons churning and sloshing inside her like an impossible liquid massage; the waterfall and funnel pouring even more into her, pumping her larger with no end in sight; and that ladder, utterly minuscule in comparison to her immensity—five hundred, then six hundred times her old volume—but making her wobble most pleasantly every time it bent under the pressure of her unrelenting inflation.

Her eyes were wide open, lit up with a confusing mixture of excitement and fear—yet her field of vision grew smaller and smaller as her torso squished around her fattened cheeks, over her horn, inflating further and further. Her head was over halfway swallowed by the massive globe of her body, and sinking deeper as she gulped down seven hundred, eight hundred times her volume. “Hmmmmmmm....” she mumbled, her voice muffled not just by the funnel pumping her larger, but by her own bloating torso as it crept up the side of her muzzle. “Mmmrrrmmm!” Her helpless moans were barely louder than the creaks of the ladder as it bent further beneath her. “Mmmnnmmm! Mmhhmmmm!”

Twilight sank into darkness like a soft blanket, as her body completely swallowed her head. She was just a purple balloon now—over a thousand times her old size, filled with an Ursa Minor’s volume in water—squished between the funnel on top and the ladder below. The only remaining signs that she had once been a pony were her cutie mark, stretched as tall as three or four adult ponies, and her tail, a minuscule tuft of hair just above her vast rump.

“Mmmmmmhhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!”

With one final groan, the ladder snapped—leaving the gargantuan Twilight simply dangling from the funnel as she kept inflating. Zecora, now just a paper-thin zig-zag shape, fell from the spot where the ladder had pressed into that massive backside, and fluttered slowly down to the shallow river below. Once she landed, she groggily shook her head, then sucked in several lungfuls of air—enough to inflate her back to her normal proportions.

Zecora chuckled and said, “Now that was strange, I must confess. Perhaps this game went to excess?”

“MmmmmmnnnnnnmmmmMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!”

Zecora stood up—and the tip of her mane brushed against Twilight. The unicorn was still directly overhead, and still gulping down water, looming ever closer as she bloated larger and larger. Zecora gulped, then ran to the side.

With another screech of metal against rock, the enormous funnel slid out of its gouge in the cliff face. It, and the monstrously inflated unicorn still attached to the nozzle, seemed to hover in the air for a second before plummeting. Twilight shook the earth as she landed, sloshing wildly from the impact. Zecora almost reached safety, but was squashed once again beneath Twilight’s bloated mass—this time, at least, her head and forelegs were free. And as luck would have it, Twilight landed just right to continue catching the waterfall in her funnel, which was still shoved deep into the divot where her head had been—so she continued swallowing gallon after gallon of water, expanding even larger.

Zecora groaned as she wriggled to free herself from beneath Twilight’s inflating mass. With her forelegs, she pulled herself away, but it was slow going, as she barely outpaced the unicorn’s expansion. For every three inches Zecora crawled out, Twilight’s body spread two inches over her. Every movement of Zecora’s sent another jiggle rippling across that enormous purple globe. At last, with a Pop! the zebra pulled her haunches free—by then, Twilight had added another two hundred or three hundred times to her total volume—and that shook Twilight enough to set her rolling away from Zecora.

Twilight rolled out from under the waterfall, finally giving her a well-deserved rest from further inflation.

And then she just kept rolling—away from Ponyville and towards the center of the Everfree, bowling over every tree in her path like she was the largest, purplest cannonball ever.

3. Find Your Thrill

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Twilight flopped to the ground, her brain fogged with dizziness from having rolled so far. She shook her head and, a second later, realized the significance of that: she could move her neck and legs. A quick glance confirmed that Twilight was her normal unicorn self once again, not a water balloon.

She turned forward again, and her snout brushed against something smooth and wet. It was an indigo ball, hanging from a shrub just in front of Twilight. Clusters of similar balls were spread all over the bush—visible in the night, in spite of their dark color, somehow.

As Twilight’s head cleared, she recognized the bush. It was a blueberry plant, but like none she had seen before, with utterly massive berries. The smallest were the size of navel oranges, and the largest rivaled honeydew melons. All of them looked delicious. Beyond this bush lurked another one, and then another; in fact, it was a whole row of blueberry plants. To the left and right stood more rows, the bushes heavy with tart, juicy berries. Twilight was sprawled on the ground, in the middle of somepony’s blueberry farm, surrounded by countless ripe, delicious fruit.

As Twilight processed this, the berry she had touched with her nose continued bobbing on its branch. Twilight found it hard to look away from the blueberry’s hypnotic swaying. Back and forth, back and forth—she almost thought she could see the grapefruit-sized berry sloshing with the juice it held. It was going to drop; she was sure of it. A single bead of condensation slid down the berry’s skin and fell off—then landed right on Twilight’s tongue. Her mouth was open—though she didn’t even remember opening it—and positioned perfectly to catch the berry when it fell. That berry, so delicious, so juicy, so filling...

Hooves clopped against dirt, and underbrush rustled somewhere behind her.

Twilight snapped back to attention, recoiling from the bush and leaping to her hooves in one swift motion. And not a second too soon—the berry fell where her head had just been. It splattered on the ground, its dark juice spilling out... and spilling... and spilling. The berry had been grapefruit-sized, but the juice that poured out could have filled that volume three times over, then four times. As the juice kept pouring out, then began flowing down the row of plants, Twilight backed away from the bush and the impossible stream of berry juice. And she backed right into another shrub, knocking three more berries to the ground. They began gushing just as much juice as that first blueberry.

There were more hoofsteps behind, and closer now. Twilight ran.

The dark forest surrounded this blueberry farm on three sides. On the fourth side stood a house, and that was the direction Twilight galloped. Branches stuck out from the shrubs, reaching out as if to grab Twilight as she sped by. With each branch she brushed against, more blueberries fell and began pouring out impossible quantities of juice. As she passed the center of the field, Twilight tripped but caught herself just before falling. The obstacle she had stumbled over was a low metal plate: the cap on a drain. Juice from the fallen blueberries was already pooling around the cap—the whole farm was graded to funnel all liquids to this precise spot.

Twilight pushed that out of her mind as she kept running, towards the house. It resembled an ordinary Ponyville two-story home—with exposed timbers and a thatched roof—except it was covered in black and white stripes. Its starkly monochromatic appearance, from the foundation to the weathervane at the very top, Twilight found vaguely disquieting, but she saw nowhere better to run. She jostled one last branch, dislodging a few more berries, before she closed the distance to the front door and darted inside.

Once she shut and locked the door behind her, Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. But she didn’t completely relax. The hoofsteps were still drawing closer, slowly but steadily trotting towards the door. Twilight turned away, her gaze darting around the room for something she could use to barricade the door. And she realized this was not a normal room at all. A variety of hoses hung from one wall, each neatly coiled on its own hook and organized by diameter. Some hoses ended in a simple screw coupling; others were attached to masks, the perfect size to fit over a pony’s muzzle, with rubber straps to hold them in place. One hose, oddly enough, had a cupcake stuck on the end. Other walls were lined with huge tanks: some glass, some metal, all hundreds of gallons in volume. Directly beneath a few of those tanks’ nozzles sat most of the furniture in the room: a few wooden arm chairs and a few gurneys, all with shackles or restraining straps. The only other furniture was a wooden workbench in the corner. Resting atop it were odds and ends, arranged with no rhyme or reason: a stuffed doll of a purple pony, a magic-powered leaf blower, a dozen unlabeled potion bottles, a bicycle tire pump, the largest fireplace bellows Twilight had ever seen, a plate of cookies, and an “ACME Suck-O-Lux” model vacuum cleaner.

The hoofsteps were climbing the front stairs now. The front door rattled, but did not open. Twilight held her breath.

A familiar voice called from the other side of the door: Zecora’s voice. “It’s such a droll end to our little chase. You’ve chosen my house for your hiding place!”

Twilight’s eyes widened as she scrambled away from the door.

A key slid into the door lock.

Twilight darted into the nearest hallway.

The doorknob clicked and slowly turned.

Twilight found an open door to her left, ducked into it, and shut it behind her.

The front door swung open.

Twilight descended a staircase, her hooves practically flying down the steps.

The front door slammed shut.

Twilight clung to the wall at the bottom of the staircase. In spite of her agitation, she had no trouble keeping her breathing steady and quiet, to avoid giving herself away. Zecora’s hoofsteps drew closer... and then went away, as the zebra trotted past the basement door.

Twilight was safe for the moment, but she needed to find a way out, or a more secure hiding spot. This basement was vast—Twilight almost fancied that the entire Golden Oaks Library could fit inside this room. Though the lamps were all unlit, a set of windows near the ceiling permitted enough moonlight to see by. Said windows were wide, but too short for even a filly to crawl through, so no good as an escape route. Set into the wall beneath them was a large control panel, an angled desk covered in buttons and levers. Between the windows and the control panel, an open pipe stuck straight out of the wall. The adjacent wall, opposite Twilight and the staircase, was lined with glass tanks, most filled with a dark blue liquid.

And in the center of the room, standing directly in a beam of moonlight, was another pony. She was a unicorn, and though it was difficult to make out her color in this light, Twilight got the distinct impression she had a purple coat and mane. All four of her hooves were tied to iron loops, themselves bolted to the concrete floor, but there was enough slack in the ropes that she could have walked several feet in any direction. On her haunches, a paper sign reading “Test Subject 6” obscured her cutie mark. The upper half of her face was hidden behind a cloth blindfold, while one of those same masks from upstairs covered her muzzle. A clear plastic hose hung off the mask, its other end not attached to anything. It was long enough to stretch across the whole room diagonally, but its length twisted and coiled along the floor around the pony.

Looking at the bound mare, Twilight felt the nagging certainty that she should know this purple unicorn—that she was somepony very close to Twilight—but her name clung stubbornly to the tip of Twilight’s tongue. Still, whoever she was, Twilight wasn’t about to leave her to Zecora’s mercy. Twilight crept forward silently, up to the unicorn’s side, stepping over the plastic hose as she did. “Pssst. Quiet,” she whispered.

Tilting an ear towards Twilight, the unicorn quietly mumbled something vaguely inquisitive.

“I’m a friend. I’m here to rescue you.”

“Hrrrm?”

“Let me get these ropes off...”

“Nmm!”

Twilight bent down and mouth-grabbed the knot from the unicorn’s nearest hoof. But when her teeth sank into the rope, a jolt of electricity shot through her entire body. She recoiled, barely restraining herself from crying out from the pain. Instead, she whispered, “What the...?”

“Nmmmmm!” the bound pony whisper-mumbled.

Twilight approached the pony again. One of her hind hooves stepped right into a loop in the hose. Tentatively, Twilight prodded with a forehoof at another rope’s knot. Again, the current shot through her body, more painful than before. Twilight recoiled and stepped back again, too dazed to notice as she pulled the hose loop tight around her hind leg. Her half-fried brain wondered if the electricity had made her skeleton visible, then she shook her head to dismiss the absurd thought.

“Nrrm!” the purple unicorn said through her mask. “Nrrm, nrrm!”

Twilight stepped in front of the pony, dragging a few feet of the hose behind her. This time, she reached out with her telekinesis, grabbing the straps that held the mask over the mare’s face. The electric backlash was swift and violent, blasting Twilight away from the unicorn before she realized what was happening. As she flipped end-over-end through the air—pulling more and more of the hose with her—she had just enough time to see which wall she was about to collide with.

Oh dear, there’s that pipe, Twilight thought—remarkably calmly, considering the circumstances. A pony could get really hurt if she hit it.

Fate smiled on Twilight for a change, and she didn’t hit the pipe. She hit the wall just below the pipe—smacking her spine into the the concrete, with her head pointing straight down. So when gravity reasserted itself, it was Twilight’s forehead and horn that hit the control panel below. She kicked her legs on pure reflex, and the plastic hose flopped with her hind leg—then with a quiet pop, the hose’s coupling snapped onto the open pipe and held tight. The loop around Twilight’s leg loosened, and she rolled off the control panel, onto the floor.

“Whuh...” Twilight said as she stood back up, swaying on her hooves. “Did anyone get the license plate on that pegasus?”

“Mmmm?” the bound unicorn asked.

Twilight shook her head clear. “Right, first things first,” she muttered. She began scanning the seemingly endless rows of buttons, levers, and display dials. “Maybe something on this control panel will release her, or shut off that electrical barrier, or...”

Hooves clopped in the hallway upstairs again—and Twilight’s heart tried its very hardest to leap straight out her throat. This time, the hoofsteps stopped right outside the basement door.

Drat! Twilight thought. Almost out of time. Do I make my own escape? Or do I hope I can free this other pony, and hope that the two of us can overpower Zecora together?

Of course, that was barely a choice. Up above, Zecora’s confident, sing-song voice called out. “My guest is nowhere else inside. Just one more place where she might hide...”

Sweat ran down Twilight’s forehead as she continued her desperate search of the control panel, her gaze darting this way and that.

Sloooooowly, the basement door opened, its drawn-out creak like nails against the chalkboard of Twilight’s mind.

“Aha!” Twilight found a green button labeled “Open”. Without hesitation, she pushed it with her hoof.

It didn’t have the effect Twilight expected. Absolutely nothing happened to the bound unicorn in the center of the room. Instead, a loud shriek sounded from outside, through an open window. It wasn’t from a pony or any animal, but from a metal hinge that desperately needed lubrication.

“That came from the field, plain as day,” Zecora said. “I wonder how she got away...” She galloped, away from the basement and out of the house.

Twilight breathed a huge sigh of relief... then perked up one ear. She could hear Zecora outside, searching the rows and rows of blueberry plants—but there was another sound, closer. That pipe above the control panel was gurgling, quietly at first, but growing louder with every second. “Uh oh,” Twilight said, as she put the pieces together.

“Hmmmhmmmmhmmmm,” the other purple unicorn whimpered.

A dark blue liquid poured from the pipe. It rushed down the plastic hose, and into the mask strapped to the bound pony’s face. Her cheeks bulged out as the liquid forced its way into her mouth, and she began swallowing.

Twilight wanted to slap herself. It was so obvious in retrospect: the button she’d pushed had nothing to do with the imprisoned pony, because it opened that drain in the center of the blueberry field. And the gradient of the field funneled every liquid towards that drain, especially the juice from those berries—the illogically massive volume of juice gushing from the fallen berries.

Twilight rushed over to the purple unicorn’s side. The mare’s stomach bulged out nearly a foot from the juice she had already drank, and it swelled further as Twilight watched, gaining an inch or so with every mouthful swallowed.

“Don’t worry!” Twilight hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. She gave the unicorn’s belly a reassuring pat, and it jiggled slightly at her touch. “Listen, um, what’s your name? Oh, right. Your sign says ‘Test Subject’—so I’ll call you T.S. for now, okay?”

T.S. just groaned.

Twilight continued, “I’ll get you out of this, T.S....” She reached for the unicorn’s mask—and at the last second, she realized what she was doing and pulled her hoof back, resting it on the unicorn’s paunch again. “Um... somehow...” She paused like that, her hoof pressing against that gut, squishing into its expanding side, feeling the liquid pressure building...

Twilight coughed, then turned and bolted back to the control panel.

“Mrrrrhh,” T.S. answered, in between gulps, while she bloated to the size of a mare ten months pregnant with twins, and then larger. The sides of her belly squished against her legs, pushing them a few inches apart as it spread wider. She gulped down her body weight in blueberry essence, but the juice just kept flowing; in fact, with every passing minute, the flow increased. Her swollen gut—hanging just a few inches above the floor now—wobbled with every gulp, and wobbled again with every inch her legs spread to accommodate it.

“I just need to find the button to close the drain,” Twilight muttered to herself—but it was easier said than done. Logically, it should have been adjacent to the button she had hit in the first place, yet she couldn’t find that button again. It had been a green button, but now the control panel was an endless field of blue, red, and yellow, with not a single green in sight. The label had said “Open”, but now the labels weren’t even in Equestrian, but in a mishmash of foreign alphabets that was almost certainly gibberish.

Behind her, T.S. inflated even larger. Her belly brushed against the floor, then rested heavily on the concrete. With no more room to expand down, her gut spread out and up, squishing against her ribs, flanks, and legs. Even as the mare widened her stance further, her limbs squeezed nearly half their diameter into the sides of her expanding stomach.

Twilight gave up on the control panel. She reached up to the pipe with her telekinesis and gave the hose a good, hard pull. It refused to budge. Twilight yanked a few more times, but the hose was attached securely, with a coupling mechanism so complicated, she couldn’t make heads or tails of it. She fired more magical power at it, intending to brute-force the hose off. But this activated a magical countermeasure: the pipe and coupling rapidly heated up, then just as rapidly cooled down, melting them enough to fuse the hose in place, without obstructing the flow of juice at all.

“Aw, nuts,” she said.

More sounds came from the field outside: beating hooves, more rustling branches, more plops and splashes. Zecora, in her continued search for Twilight outside, was knocking more and more berries to the ground—adding more streams of blueberry juice to the current filling the imprisoned pony. The flow was so great that even the hose was swelling now. Bulges the size of a mare’s head formed and slid down the hose in rapid succession, adding more and more to the sloshing mass in the unicorn’s stomach.

One of T.S.’s forehooves lifted off the concrete an inch, as her gut inflated far enough to raise her into the air. “Mrrrnn?” she said as she tried to reach for ground again—but as she did, her other hooves also lifted off, one after the other. Two inches, three inches, six inches she rose atop her ballooning stomach. “Nnnnrrrr!” She kicked all four legs frantically, desperately scrabbling for a solid surface—but all she could reach was her belly, wobbling beneath her as it inflated ever larger. “Nnrrrr, nnnnrrr!” Her cheeks puffed out further, stretching the straps of her muzzle mask. Her hooves batted against her massive gut, squishing into its sloshy softness, while it lifted her to nearly twice her old height.

As frustrating as it was, the control panel was clearly Twilight’s only hope of ending this nonsense. But as she resumed her search for the button to solve her problems, she only found herself more lost than before. She couldn’t remember what color she was looking for, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t blue—yet all the buttons and levers were now dark blue, the same color as the juice filling that other pony. Every one of them was distinctly labeled—but the text was all Zebraic. A few of the gauges had helpful pictograms instead of numbers or text—but they were all pictograms of purple unicorns in various stages of inflation, their bellies (or rumps, or teats, or entire bodies) swelling like balloons.

With a groan, Twilight smacked her face against the console. Something clicked beneath her snout—a big, blue button she had pressed with her face. There was a low, powerful rumble of heavy machinery, then the ground shook, and the entire basement with it. Twilight felt her jaw rattling before she fell to the floor, and T.S. wobbled all over every inch of her enormously bloated belly. Beyond the rumbling, Twilight heard Zecora cry out in surprise—and then a veritable chorus of splattering fruit and rushing liquid.

After thirty seconds, the artificial earthquake abruptly stopped, but Twilight just remained on the floor and groaned. The damage had already been done: the shaking had knocked every remaining blueberry on the entire farm to the ground. She didn’t want to imagine how much of the impossible juice was pouring out now.

And she didn’t really need to imagine, because she could already see it. The hose bulges were each as large as an adult mare now, with less than a second’s pause between them as they rushed down the hose, into T.S.’s mouth. The massive bumps in the hose became slightly-less-massive bulges in her neck, which sped down her esophagus to fill the small lake in her gut fuller by the second. The imprisoned pony wasn’t really swallowing the juice anymore; the liquid just forced itself down her throat at its own escalating pace.

“Mnnnnmmmm...” she moaned against the flood. Her bulging cheeks, bloated almost as large as the berries outside, stretched the straps of her mask to their very limit, but the rubber still held. She was over twice her old height—quickly approaching three times that—atop the squashed globe of her still-inflating belly. She still kicked her legs, but lethargically, as though she knew it were futile but hadn’t quite admitted that to herself. Her elbows and haunches squeezed several inches into her soft gut, and every motion of her legs sent ripples across its expanding surface.

Hoofsteps approached from outside the house, and a shadow partially blocked the moonlight through the window. Zecora stood just outside, facing the house, though Twilight could only see her legs from this angle. The zebra’s laugh made Twilight leap to her hooves and back away from the window, until her rump bumped into T.S.’s huge gut.

“You’re a sneaky one, my pony friend,” Zecora called down, “but now our chase is at an end. I know you’re there, you cannot run—so our real game has just begun...”

Twilight’s gaze darted around the basement one more time, and she sighed as she realized where her best potential hiding spot was. So Twilight ran, circling around the inflating mare just as Zecora’s head squeezed through the open window. With that massive, juice-filled gut between her and the zebra, Twilight rose up on her hind legs and pressed herself against T.S.’s belly—to better hide herself, of course.

A loud clop signaled Zecora’s landing on the floor. “My, my, test subject, what happened here? You weren’t like this when I left you, dear. I must find the one responsible...” She prodded the unicorn’s gut a few times, causing it to wobble against Twilight. “...and give to her, my thanks in full.”

As Twilight pressed herself up against the expanding stomach, she focused on the sounds of Zecora, preparing herself to respond to the zebra’s next move. So she paid no heed to how decadently soft that stomach was. She dutifully ignored the pleasant sloshing of the juice inside. She especially didn’t notice how the belly bulged around her, as she stood still against its ongoing inflation.

However, a small, detached part of Twilight’s mind did notice that the inflating mare really was purple—exactly the same shade as herself. Funny, that.

Hoofsteps! Zecora walked a few paces, clockwise, around the bloating unicorn. As quietly as possible, Twilight shuffled clockwise herself, listening intently. When Zecora stopped, Twilight froze as well. Zecora moved a few more paces, and so did Twilight. Trot... pause... trot... pause... Twilight mirrored Zecora perfectly—that is, if mirrors reflected radial symmetry around a massively inflating mare.

And that mare, riding atop her growing belly, suddenly jerked to a stop, with a “Mnnnmmm!” She was four times the height of a normal mare—but could expand no higher, because the ropes binding her legs to the floor had all pulled taut. Stuck between T.S. on top and the floor below, her already-wide gut widened even faster than before.

Meanwhile Zecora began chanting again: “She’s an enchantress most scary...” She prodded the stomach again before taking a few more steps. “She loves juicy berries...”

Zecora reversed and began trotting counter-clockwise; Twilight matched her.

Darn it! Twilight thought. She’s keeping herself between me and the stairway out.

“They say that the taste is quite extr’ordinary!” Zecora was louder now, properly singing. She moved in an odd, irregular dance-step—and Twilight surprised herself by matching it perfectly. Even as they matched each other’s steps, they moved further and further apart, widening the circle they walked to make room for T.S.’s expansion in between.

“Mnnnmmm! Mrrrrmmm!” T.S. moaned through her mask. She arched her neck as far back as she could, before dropping forward to rest her head atop the gigantic gut underneath. Her head and neck were perfectly horizontal, so large was the belly holding her up, and her chin sank slightly into its bloating mass.

“And she’ll feed you and feed you, till the weight you can’t carry!” Zecora prodded the unicorn’s gut once more; it wobbled hard enough to slap Twilight’s head.

Twilight bit back a grunt and rubbed her forehead. Then her gaze traveled to the nearest wall, and to the glass tanks lining it, full of blueberry juice. Another plastic hose—identical to the one pumping juice into T.S.—dangled from a nozzle on the nearest tank. Twilight lifted the free end of the hose and smiled.

As T.S.’s mumbles grew more frantic, her gut spread further, bulging between her legs and the ropes that bound them. That stomach was squeezing against her limbs, around the edges of her haunches; its had already enveloped the lengths of rope it pressed against. Then, when her body was no longer enough to stop her belly’s upward expansion, it began squishing around her torso, slowly but steadily—as the relentless flood of blueberry juice pumped her ever larger.

“Your belly will fill to a size legendary!” Zecora reversed again, stepping clockwise around the bloating unicorn.

Twilight, however, continued going counter-clockwise—towards Zecora. By Twilight’s calculations, they would converge behind the inflating mare’s backside. This ends now, she thought.

“Soon your body will be one we call planetary!” As if sensing Twilight’s resolve, Zecora also trotted steadily towards that spot.

Twilight took a deep breath, brandished her hose, and leaped around the curve of T.S.’s gut.

Zecora wasn’t there.

“Sooo... be wary!” the zebra shouted—from above.

Twilight looked up just in time to see Zecora leap from her perch on the massive belly, directly towards her.

In one smooth motion, Twilight ducked and shoved the hose up—forcing it right into the zebra’s open mouth.

Zecora fell to the floor. She rolled upright, then paused, staring with wide eyes at the object lodged between her jaws.

Twilight telekinetically opened the tank’s nozzle, releasing a current of blueberry juice to rush down Zecora’s throat. But as she gulped mouthful after mouthful down, Zecora’s belly remained as slim as ever. The juice was accumulating elsewhere: in her rump and haunches. Thicker and rounder they swelled, resembling absurd backside transplants from a fatter mare.

“Ha!” Twilight barked. “Maybe you should have been more wary!”

The only answer she got was a “Mmhhrrrmm!” from T.S. somewhere above, as she inflated wider and wider. Her belly completely engulfed her legs, the ropes, and even the hooks on the floor—they all dug so deeply into her gut that, from above, she almost resembled a flower with four petals. A very fat, juicy flower. Enveloped by her expanding gut, the binding ropes began to fray. T.S. still rested her head on her belly, but said belly was sloping up now—slowly lifting her head and neck as it inflated taller. Her torso sank deeper into the soft, squishy expanse beneath her.

Meanwhile, Zecora stood up, her thickening cheeks bouncing upon her hind legs. Her skin stretched to contain the volume of juice, expanding her stripes and sun-shaped cutie mark with it. Glancing at that mark, Twilight realized Zecora’s posterior was almost as large as Princess Celestia’s. Which wasn’t awkward at all. Because Twilight certainly didn’t think those haunches were hotter than Tartarus. And she’d absolutely never-ever fantasized about the Princess spilling strawberry glaze over every inch of them, then asking her Most Faithful Student to clean them with her tongue. Nope, not one bit. It was so not-awkward that Twilight bit her lip, until Zecora’s backside inflated even bigger, and the resemblance to the Sun Princess was no more.

No, her backside resembled a pair of globes now, the width of two mares. Those cheeks and haunches jutted a foot out in every direction, and every time Zecora shifted her hooves, they wobbled and sloshed, slapping against each other and against her hind legs. And Zecora was shifting her back hooves over and over—sometimes swaying her hips for good measure—keeping her backside in constant, hypnotic motion as it inflated larger. Twilight had no idea why the zebra was doing it, but she wasn’t about to complain.

“Mmmhhhhrrrrrrrmmmmmm!” T.S. cried through her mask, through the rush of juice filling her to ludicrous sizes and beyond. Her belly bloated and squished around her, and her torso sank deeper by the second. Engulfed by her stomach bulges, her legs shook uncontrollably from the pressure inside, and the ropes frayed further, individual strands snapping one-by-one. Between that and the force of the blueberry juice pumping into her, the whole surface of her gut trembled—every uncountable square inch over the endlessly increasing liquid mass. “Mmmhhhhrrrrrrrmmmmmm!”

Zecora laughed, muffled by the hose in her mouth.

Twilight tore her gaze away from the zebra’s wobbling, inflating posterior to smirk back at her. “What’s so funny?”

Smiling around the hose, Zecora lifted one forehoof and held something up for Twilight to see. It was a stuffed doll—the purple unicorn doll from upstairs. With a quick flick of the wrist, Zecora tossed the doll up and backwards. It bounced off her backside, setting her haunches a-jiggling again, and landed on the floor behind her. Then Zecora sat on it—that is, if jerking her hind legs up and allowing gravity to smash her ass onto the floor and the doll, counted as “sitting”. And at that precise moment...

“Ooof!” Twilight smashed into the concrete and flattened, thinner than a pancake. She was was a unicorn-shaped rug on the floor, her legs splayed straight out. Twilight tried to raise herself, but an unseen force pressed against her—and the same thing happened when she tried to lift her head, or simply move one hoof. She could move her eyes in their sockets, somehow, but nothing more. The downward force felt like, well... Twilight had never before been crushed underneath an inflating, fifty-times-her-size zebra butt—yet somehow she knew that this was exactly what it would feel like.

Of course, Twilight thought. A voodoo doll.

As Zecora scooted her rump back and forth against the doll, Twilight could even feel the ghostly hairs brushing over her, and the weight of the juice sloshing inside those haunches. Then Zecora, apparently satisfied with the size of her bloated posterior, pulled the hose out of her mouth. Ignoring the stream of juice it poured, she stood up and walked on three hooves towards the flattened Twilight. “You’re clever, true,” she said, “but should think quicker. For trouble caused, now you’ll grow much thicker.”

She scuffed her hoof once, twice over Twilight’s flattened horn. This stimulation caused Twilight’s magic to flare up, involuntarily repeating the last spell she cast: it telekinetically opened the nozzle on the juice tank even further. Zecora then tossed the hose away, without even looking. Between the force of Zecora’s throw, and the jet of blueberry juice blasting out, the hose whipped and flopped through the air—until it slammed into T.S.’s rump, popping into place right beneath her tail.

“Mmmhhhhrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmm!” the unicorn screamed. As the juice pumped into her from both ends, her bonds finally gave out. All four ropes snapped at once, and she swelled explosively the instant she was unconstrained. In mere seconds, that gut lifted her to five, then six, then seven times her old height. In the blink of an eye, her belly filled out in the spots where her legs and the ropes had dug into them—and the bulges in between shrank back slightly, only to bob out again, thanks to the doubled flood of blueberry juice. That massive stomach wobbled all over, and T.S. shook it even more—bowing her back and thrusting her hips, while with all four legs she alternately beat her hooves against her belly, frantically, then prodded and squeezed the sloshy mass as hard and deep as possible.

Zecora, meanwhile, grabbed Twilight’s tail with her teeth and galloped away—Twilight fluttering behind like a purple banner—mere seconds before T.S.’s sudden growth would have engulfed both of them. She set Twilight down, prone, at the base of the staircase. They were safe there, for the moment—but at the rate T.S. was expanding, it would only be a few minutes before her juice-filled belly spread from wall to wall.

Quickly and efficiently, Zecora folded Twilight’s legs and tail across her torso. Then, beginning with the posterior, she rolled Twilight up like a rug. Having reduced the unicorn to a portable purple roll, Zecora balanced Twilight atop her still-inflated hindquarters, then started up the stairs.

From her perch, there were only two things Twilight could do. She could feel the swollen zebra rump beneath her, sloshing with every sway of Zecora’s hips, jiggling with every hoofstep. And she could watch T.S.’s continued inflation. Twilight hadn’t known that this much blueberry juice even existed in the world, yet here it was, and more—filling T.S. so large that her belly now pressed against all four walls of the basement. The inflating unicorn finally stopped writhing, and simply splayed limp atop her bloating gut, with a final, “Hmmmmmmmm....”

Then her mask strap snapped—stretched beyond its limit by her inflating cheeks—and the plastic cover fell off T.S.’s muzzle. She swallowed her last mouthful of blueberry juice, then, upon finding there was no more to drink, said “Huh? What the...?” With a now-freed forehoof, she removed the blindfold from her eyes.

Looking at her now, Twilight knew that face was a familiar one, but she just couldn’t remember where she had seen it.

But T.S. focused on the mask and hose, still spilling more of that juice. She lifted them with her telekinesis, yanked the mask off the end of the hose—then shoved the hose back in her mouth.

If Twilight weren’t flattened and completely unable to move, she would have gasped.

T.S. finally noticed Twilight and winked at her, as she resumed massaging her belly—expanding even larger, lifting her higher and higher.

Then Zecora squeezed her haunches through the doorway, into the upstairs hall, and closed the door behind her.

—————

At the end of the hallway was an open door with a bright light shining through, and Zecora casually trotted towards it. Twilight was facing forward now, but thanks to the constant motion—thanks to the swaying and bouncing of the enormous zebra backside—she couldn’t recognize the room until they were almost there. It was a kitchen.

For a kitchen, it looked perfectly ordinary: there were cabinets, drawers, plenty of counter space, a refrigerator, an oven, and a tile floor. All of them were painted black and white—a checkerboard pattern on the floor, stripes everywhere else. The only spot of color in the room was a glass bowl on the counter, filled with blueberries.

Zecora walked most of the way through her kitchen door, only to jerk to a halt. Her ass was stuck in the doorway. She pulled again, and her haunches remained firmly wedged between the frame—though they wobbled and shook at the motion, giving Twilight quite the ride on top. She then reached forward with her hind legs, bracing those hooves against the wall on either side of the door, and pulled. First one side, then the other, she slid her oversized posterior through, inch by inch.

Twilight bounced helplessly atop that quivering backside, until a particularly forceful jiggle sent her flying over Zecora’s head. She landed on the tiled floor, unrolled, then unfolded her limbs—laying flat once again. She could move her legs now, but in this state she couldn’t support her own weight or do any more than wiggle.

Zecora strained against the doorway even harder, until—Crack!—the frame broke. Her backside, suddenly free, rushed forward. She tumbled through the air and landed on her inflated posterior—right on top of Twilight’s entire upper body.

What Twilight felt was even more intense than being crushed in surrogate via the voodoo doll. Zecora’s cheeks suddenly became Twilight’s entire world—heavy, soft, and dark. The fuzzy sloshiness tickled maddeningly at her face and her horn. Her forelegs poked out from under Zecora’s rear, and Twilight curled them. She was trying to push that posterior away, of course—but in her current state, all she could do was press her hooves into Zecora’s bloated cutie mark and jiggle those cheeks further.

But Zecora had other ideas for Twilight. She stood up and turned around—wearing an imperious smile as she once more held up the flattened voodoo doll. Zecora whipped the doll through the air, once, twice, and it snapped back to its original shape.

Pop! Twilight, likewise, returned to normal.

But before the unicorn could take advantage of her regained third dimension, Zecora pulled a leaf from her own mane and stamped it to the floor, grinding it underhoof. Zebraic runes appeared on the floor, arranged precisely around Twilight’s hooves. When Twilight tried to move, the runes glowed bright blue, and her hooves refused to budge.

“Hey!” Twilight tried to move again, pulling her legs harder, but it was futile. “Hrrrrgh! Hrrrrgh!” The zebra magic had stuck her to the floor more firmly than any glue. Scowling, Twilight pointed her horn at Zecora and charged up her magic...

Then Zecora skewered a blueberry on her horn, and the spell fizzled out. The berry was the size of a large orange, and it slid smoothly down her horn until it was resting against Twilight’s head. Juice dripped out from where Twilight penetrated the fruit’s skin, but this time it was just a slow trickle.

Twilight shook the juice off her face, then readied another spell. But as she cast, something went wrong. The magic didn’t flow out Twilight’s horn as it should have; a few inches into the berry, the magic simply bounced back into her body. And then she felt something settle inside her stomach, as if she had just swallowed a cold drink.

“Don’t use your horn—you must take care,” Zecora said, smirking. “Or you’ll fill up like the mare downstairs.”

Twilight glared back at her. “Alright. What do you want?”

Zecora snorted and waved a hoof towards the front door, and the blueberry field beyond. “I want you to fix the trouble you’ve done: my berries are ruined, every last one!”

“Okay, that’s…” Twilight’s glare softened. “…reasonable. I guess I can help you grow more blueberries.”

Zecora nodded. “A berry with massive, unheard-of size—with blueberrasprites, you’ll surely grow me a prize.”

“Blueberrasprites?”

Zecora pulled another blueberry from the bowl on the counter... a blueberry with compound eyes, three pairs of jointed legs, and a mayfly’s wings. It bobbed up and down atop Zecora’s hoof and smiled at Twilight.

“Half parasprite, half yummy fruit.” Zecora answered, “You must agree they’re awful cute.”

She was right—that thing really was kind of cute. The strange fruit-insect hybrid opened its mouth and blew a bubble, the same color as its own skin. The bubble grew and grew, until it was the same size as the creature—at which point it split off and grew its own wings, legs, and face. So, their method of reproduction: significantly less cute.

“You said it’s ‘half parasprite’?” Twilight asked. “What’s a parasprite?”

“Good question.” Zecora furrowed her brow, then shrugged. “I have no idea. Logically, it doesn’t make any sense for parasprites to be in your subconscious. And speaking of which, you really ought to forget this part of your dream when you wake up, otherwise it’ll cause continuity problems.” Zecora turned to the audience and added, “That goes for you, too.”

There was silence for a few seconds.

“What was that?” Twilight asked. “Why did you stop rhyming?”

“What’s this nonsense that you speak? I always rhyme, you silly... geek.”

“No, you—Ulmmph!”

One of the blueberrasprites flew up to Twilight’s face and pulled her lips open. Before she could react, the insect forced itself into her mouth, then down her throat. Twilight tried to cough and gag it back up, but the sprite lodged itself in place every time. Inch by inch, the lump slid down her esophagus, until it plopped into her belly.

Twilight panted for a few seconds. The blueberrasprite was still alive; she could feel its legs and wings tickling the inside of her stomach. Glaring at Zecora, she said, “What the hay was—Uummlph!”

Zecora cut Twilight off by shoving a blueberry—a real one, this time—into her mouth. She lodged the berry between Twilight’s teeth, so tightly that Twilight could neither swallow it nor spit it back out, forming the perfect gag. It was also the size of a grapefruit. How it fit into her mouth was a question that baffled and somewhat frightened Twilight.

“There,” Zecora said. “Now your new friends won’t leave too soon, and your belly will be their comfy cocoon.”

“Nrrr hrrrmm?” Twilight asked through the giant berry. Juice trickled from where her teeth punctured its skin, accumulating inside her mouth.

Zecora just smirked in reply. She grabbed two more blueberries, then juggled them with one hoof as she sauntered past Twilight. She walked close enough that one of her enormous haunches slid against the side of Twilight’s face.

Meanwhile, the other blueberrasprite—the one outside Twilight’s stomach—hovered in front of the bound unicorn’s nose, holding her attention. As Twilight watched, the sprite blew another bubble, which quickly split off to become another sprite. And then she felt the one in her stomach do the same thing.

Twilight gulped—in the process, swallowing the juice in her mouth—as visions of exponential growth ran through her head. Two times two is four, she thought, times two is eight, times two is sixteen, times two is thirty-two, times two is—

Zecora flicked her tail as she walked by, slapping the tip of Twilight’s horn. By reflex, Twilight shot off another bolt of magic—which, just like the last one, was blocked by the berry on her horn and then transformed into juice inside her stomach, about a pint’s worth. Amidst the cool weight of the juice, Twilight felt more tickling in her stomach as the two blueberrasprites became four. Between the sprites and the juice, Twilight’s stomach had swollen a few inches.

“And now, we just need one thing more—” Zecora was directly behind Twilight now, and appraised her backside with a critical eye, “—a bar and lock for your backdoor...”

“Hrrrhm?” Twilight’s eyes widened, and she shook her head frantically. “Nmmm, nnmm!”

Swiftly and smoothly, Zecora rammed the two blueberries into Twilight’s posterior—one right below her dock, then the other slightly below that.

Twilight jerked forward—accidentally biting into the berry in her mouth, which made so much juice gush out that she had to swallow, twice—with a furious blush on her face. She felt so tight back there; both berries were thick enough to wedge in place, just as firmly as the berry in her mouth. And they, too, began to trickle juice into her.

Then Zecora bumped her inflated hips against Twilight’s, prompting the unicorn to yelp, “Mmrmm!” and clench involuntarily. This squeezed a gush of juice from both berries, abruptly adding several more inches to Twilight’s belly. After that burst, the flow reduced somewhat—but the juice was still pouring faster than before.

The blueberrasprites within Twilight’s stomach doubled again. Distracted by everything else, she had lost count of how many were inside her now; they were just a wriggling, ticklish mass deep within. Although, by this point they were no longer reproducing in unison—so at any given moment, there was at least one new sprite budding off. Either the sprites or the juice alone would have been enough to expand Twilight’s torso; together, they made her gut hang halfway to the ground and spread nearly as wide as two mares. It squished against her legs as it expanded, bulging around them while they remained stuck to the floor.

Twilight looked down at her snout, at the oversized blueberry wedged in her mouth. I wonder… she thought. Maybe I can just chew it enough to spit it out. And then get everything else in my stomach out that way. So she chomped down on it. Another blast of blueberry juice filled her mouth, swelling her cheeks until she was forced to swallow. Again she bit, then again, and again—as she did, gulping down more and more of the juice for the growing population of sprites to bathe in, and to fill her stomach even larger.

Something squishy brushed against the underside of Twilight’s belly, leaving a patch of wetness behind. Twilight turned to look at the source: Zecora had lain down and now rubbed a single blueberry against Twilight’s growing paunch, staining her coat dark blue with the juice. Noticing Twilight’s glare, Zecora laughed and said, “If you’re going to be the proper shade, I must begin, before your size upgrade.” Then she kept rubbing, spreading the juice, shaking Twilight’s belly with every brush. The juice sloshed inside her womb and stomach; the sprites filling her stomach writhed and tumbled over each other.

Then the blueberrasprites outside, flitting about the kitchen, caught Twilight’s attention. They didn’t look like blueberries anymore, but more like breezies. Actually, that wasn’t quite right: they resembled miniature zebras, with black-and-blue stripes and membranous wings—zeberrasprites. Over a dozen of them landed on Zecora’s rump and haunches, then proceeded to massage her. They kneaded and prodded at those stretched stripes, and Zecora’s swollen backside wobbled from their tender care. And then it began shrinking, much to Twilight’s confused disappointment.

Twilight had been chewing the berry in her mouth for some time, and now she had to admit that it was a lost cause. She couldn’t tear off any pieces of the fruit, no matter how hard she bit. It was like chewing on a toy ball, deforming between her jaws but always springing back into shape—that is, if a toy ball could spurt out more than its own volume of juice with each bite. So Twilight stopped chewing—then noted that the juice’s flow only slowed down halfway. Her eyes widened while her cheeks filled even further, and she swallowed yet another mouthful. “Hrrmmm…” she moaned.

More zeberrasprites buzzed through the air around Twilight and Zecora, close enough for Twilight to feel the breeze from their passing. One tickled her nose. Another brushed her horn—triggering Twilight to shoot off another jolt of magic, which became yet another pint of juice in her belly. And then another sprite brushed against her horn, and another. Twilight sighed.

Zecora pulled away from Twilight, just before the unicorn’s belly grew far enough to touch the floor. She had successfully smeared blueberry juice over the whole bottom half of Twilight’s expanding gut. As Zecora stood up, her backside shook—although less than before, thanks to the inches it had already shrunk. But now it was clear where those inches had gone: when the sprites squeezed the blueberry juice out of her haunches and rump, it accumulated in her teats instead. Already, her mammaries were the size of oranges, and they were still growing larger, jiggling slightly with every step she took. Of course, even with Zecora’s ass reduced slightly, it was still more than large enough for her to drag it against Twilight’s inflating belly as she walked, causing both bloated masses to slosh and shake against each other.

“Mhhrrrmmm…” Between her own treacherous horn, and the berry in her mouth, and the two more berries behind, and the sprites multiplying inside her, Twilight was helpless to do anything but bloat larger and larger. Her belly pressed against the floor now and spread further to the sides. Twilight moaned and tried to move her legs, tried to make room for her stomach’s continued expansion, but the magic runes held her hooves tightly to the tiles. So her inflating gut squished against her limbs, bulging around them to expand even further, squeezing tighter and tighter as the pressure grew inside.

Twilight felt that squishy scrubbing on her backside: Zecora was spreading the juice back there now. Back and forth, back and forth, the blueberry in her hoof rubbed against Twilight’s haunches. And instead of standing behind the inflating unicorn, Zecora stood to her side, pressing her striped barrel and Celestia-sized haunches into Twilight’s bloating belly as she reached around. Back and forth, back and forth she scrubbed, shaking Twilight’s gut with her every motion. Zecora shook as well, her backside jiggling slightly atop her legs, and her grapefruit-sized teats sloshing between her legs—squeezing together as they continued to grow. Squish, squish went her inflating mammaries; squish, squish went Twilight’s belly as Zecora pressed back against its expansion.

Then when Zecora moved on to her rump, Twilight reflexively clenched, squeezing even more juice out of the blueberries back there, into her bloating womb and stomach. Twilight’s gut swelled against Zecora as she smeared juice back and forth, back and forth across those cheeks, which flexed and wobbled under her gentle hooves.

And then those hooves sank deeper into Twilight’s rump. Juice flowed into her backside now, filling it larger and rounder—stretching her star cutie mark just before Zecora hid it under a coating of blue. The juice was filling out the rest of Twilight’s body as well. Her back arched, both from the juice inside it and from her belly’s pushing up. Her shoulders thickened against the bases of her legs and neck. Her legs puffed out, pressing back against her stomach’s expansion as they bloated thicker. Her stomach, undeterred, squeezed farther around her limbs even as they inflated, slowly engulfing them in its own spreading mass.

The sprites inside Twilight’s belly wriggled and churned, multiplying further by the second. Their legs and wings tickled every square inch of her stomach, which stretched farther and farther to contain their numbers. Outside, more and more sprites swarmed around her. Some of them helped Zecora paint Twilight with juice, carrying berries larger than themselves and smearing them against her bloating sides, her back, and her legs. Others simply flew around Twilight’s head, and they brushed against her horn almost constantly now—triggering surge after surge of magic, each of which just became yet more juice inside her. Still more of the sprites pressed down on her snout or up on her jaw, forcing Twilight to chomp into the berry again and again, letting loose a flood of juice down her throat, inflating her gut even further.

Wider and wider that belly spread, almost completely enveloping her legs. Those legs, twice as thick now and still rooted to the floor, trembled as they futilely pushed back against her stomach’s expansion. The runes beneath her hooves flared brighter and brighter, occasionally giving off sparks as the magic kept pace with the pressure from that inflating gut. Atop her hind legs, Twilight’s haunches swelled larger than pumpkins, wobbling with every ounce of juice that pumped into them.

“Mmmmm…” Twilight’s eyes were wide and unfocused from the sensory overload. The pleasant sting of her skin stretching; the electric surge of her own magic into her horn; the squishy flesh of the blueberry between her teeth; the sloshing of the gallons of liquid inside her; the tickling of thousands of sprites inside, their hooves and wings in constant motion—it was just too much for her to take in all at once.

So when Zecora stopped painting Twilight’s rump, stopped leaning against her expanding belly’s side, Twilight barely even registered it. She didn’t even think much of Zecora suddenly standing right in front of her, until the zebra started smearing juice all over her face. Her hooves glided over the unicorn’s snout, flicked across her ears, and squished into her puffed-out cheeks. She worked the juice deep into Twilight’s mane, scratching her scalp most pleasantly as she did. She began painting Twilight’s neck... but was interrupted.

Greater and greater, the pressure grew against Twilight’s legs. Her belly pushed out against them, harder and harder, but zebra magic fixed them to the floor, unmovable. Torn between competing forces, Twilight’s legs shook uncontrollably. Finally, the runes smoked, sputtered, and sparked, as the magic was completely overwhelmed. All four hooves sprang into the air, and Twilight’s legs stuck straight out—stiffened by the juice filling them—leaving her bobbing up and down on her massive stomach.

Twilight was a few feet taller this way, and her still-inflating gut was lifting her higher by the second. So Zecora set up a stepladder in front of Twilight before she resumed her painting. There Zecora stood: her hind legs on the ladder, one foreleg on Twilight’s bloated shoulder, while her free forehoof spread blueberry juice across Twilight’s neck. And thanks to this position, with Zecora’s underside directly over Twilight’s face, the unicorn couldn’t help but get an eyeful of juicy, oversized zebra teats. Zecora leaned and swayed as she scrubbed Twilight’s coat, and her cantaloupe-sized crotchboobs swayed a second behind her. Twilight’s eyes fixed on those soft, gray globes as they swung hypnotically—towards her, then away—towards, then away. They wobbled and sloshed, and they were large enough to squish against each other and against the inside of Zecora’s haunches. They shook side-to-side when Zecora switched which forehoof she balanced on. And all the while, they swelled larger still; every time they swayed, they swung a little closer to Twilight’s face.

Zecora, unconcerned about the show she was giving Twilight, continued smearing juice over the unicorn. She reached the point where Twilight’s neck was sinking into her inflating shoulders, and she shoved her hoof all the way into that crevice. She was going to ensure every inch of the unicorn was painted with dark blue juice.

Likewise, Twilight’s legs were sinking into her bloating shoulders and haunches—they, at least, had been completely covered in juice beforehoof. Said haunches were as large and round as a pair of exercise balls, and they began to merge with her torso as it expanded further—twice Twilight’s height, and even wider.

Zecora leaned forward to scrub a hard-to-reach spot, and one of her teats brushed the tip of Twilight’s horn. Twilight’s eyes dilated—and before she could even process what had happened, her biggest magic flare yet blasted into her horn, and was transformed into juice in her belly. And Zecora did it again and again—the contact between her crotchboobs and Twilight’s horn lasting longer each time, as her mammaries and the whole unicorn both inflated larger. And, incidentally, each contact caused Twilight to inflate even larger. After the twelfth time, Twilight lost count—and then her horn slipped between those teats and didn’t leave. They were the size of beach balls now, though slightly flattened between Zecora’s haunches, and they squeezed tightly around Twilight’s horn. Back and forth, back and forth they swayed, pulling her horn further into their deep cleavage.

Zecora had finished with Twilight’s neck and was now painting over the last remaining patches of purple, on the unicorn’s withers and back. As Twilight inflated even higher, Zecora had to lean farther to reach those spots—and then the ladder wobbled under her hind hooves. She jerked her hips, trying to regain her balance—shaking her teats around Twilight’s horn in the process—but it was no use. The ladder tipped even further, so she jumped onto Twilight, sinking her hind hooves into that massive, blue belly, while holding to Twilight’s shoulders with her forehooves.

That position brought her groin even closer to Twilight’s head—enough to engulf the unicorn’s entire face between her teats. Perched on the inflating unicorn, Zecora rose to three, then four times a pony’s normal height. As Twilight filled larger, she grew more and more round: her shoulders and haunches merged with her body, her legs sank over halfway into her sides, and now her neck was following. But Zecora paid no heed to Twilight’s expansion underhoof, nor to the head stuck deep within her cleavage—she simply resumed painting Twilight’s back with juice. Back and forth, forward and back, she leaned her whole body into each stroke. Twilight’s bloating body wobbled beneath Zecora’s hooves; Zecora’s enourmously swelling teats jiggled and sloshed around Twilight’s head.

Even with her eyelids shut, Twilight’s eyes rolled back in her head. Her entire world was softness, darkness, and sloshing juice. The tiny hooves of the sprites tickled her, inside and out, while she grew more sensitive with every inch she stretched. Rivers of juice flowed from the berries in every orifice, their currents sloshing inside her as they pumped her endlessly larger. Her puffed-out legs were almost completely engulfed in her inflated body—even if she’d still possessed the presence of mind to move them, only her hooves were free. And above all that were Zecora’s teats, their softness embracing every inch of Twilight’s face, pressing against her ballooning torso as her neck sank into it, and, best of all, squeezing up and down the entire length of her horn. She would have let her mouth hang open and her tongue loll out, if there weren’t a berry in the way, pumping still more juice down her throat as those teats squeezed it as well.

There was just one last patch needing juice on Twilight’s withers. As Zecora reached for it, she thrust her hips forward and squeezed with her haunches. The juice rippled through her enormous teats, squishing Twilight even more tightly with her cleavage than before. And then she clambered over Twilight’s head and stood on her back—but the damage had been done. She had finally pushed Twilight over the edge.

On some unconscious level, Twilight had been holding her magic back. Every time some horn stimulation triggered a magical burst, she still only released a fraction of a fraction of her potential power—the power that, even as a filly, enabled her to hatch a dragon’s egg and earn her place as Princess Celestia’s personal student. Now, spurred by that last embrace from Zecora’s teats, Twilight let go.

Every ounce of Twilight’s magical potential rushed through her horn, transforming into a massive current of juice that dwarfed everything that came before. She inflated to six, seven, then eight times her old height in mere seconds. Her hooves were completely swallowed by her ballooning sides, and her head was quickly following them. The magic blasting through the berry on her horn triggered reactions in the other berries as well: the two in Twilight’s backside gushed enough liquid to rival the Amarezon River, while the one in her maw only spewed a lake’s worth before exploding harmlessly. Before she could even think of closing her mouth—if she could think at all in this state—a dozen zeberrasprites rushed through her jaws and down her throat. Only the tip of Twilight’s muzzle poked out of her torso—inflating to twelve, thirteen, fourteen times her old height—but that was enough for the thousands of remaining sprites to swarm and force their way inside her. She wobbled and shook all over from the force of the juice from three directions and the sprites from the fourth. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty times her height she grew, as the last sprite disappeared into her mouth, and then her snout disappeared into her bloating body.

Strange geometries were at work here. Twilight was nowhere close to touching the walls or ceiling of this kitchen—even though she was now larger than Zecora’s entire house had appeared from outside.

Zecora, for her part, trotted across Twilight to better admire her work. Or rather, she waddled. Her backside had finally shrunk back to normal, while her teats hung all the way to the ground—which, in this case, was Twilight’s great, round back—and forced Zecora to spread her hind legs around them. She couldn’t take a step without squeezing a back leg into the side of those massive mammaries, which sloshed and jiggled beneath her.

In spite of that, Zecora couldn’t help but smile at what Twilight had become. The unicorn was filled to the brim with a mix of blueberry juice and sprites—then filled past the brim, past all rational limits. Her legs and head were gone, leaving just slight in-folds at the spots where they had sunk into her body. She was not a pony anymore, but an immense globe, squashed slightly by her own weight.

Best of all, Twilight was dark blue all over—every uncountable square inch of her coated in blueberry juice.

“Here’s my prize-winning berry at last,” Zecora said, patting the bloated unicorn beneath her, “her beauty and flavor both unsurpassed.” She prodded once more, squishing her hoof a few inches into the bloated blueberry and holding it there—where she could feel the pressure still growing inside.

The greatest part of Twilight’s inflation had passed—her magic surge was spent, and there weren’t any more sprites rushing into her—but she was still swelling larger. The berries in her backside continued pumping juice into her, and the sprites inside continued multiplying, slowly but steadily expanding the unicorn-turned-blueberry even farther.

There was a gleam in Zecora’s eye, as her smile widened. “But is she ripe? I don’t quite know. I think she needs more time to grow…”

4. Dragonfarce

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…filling me larger and larger with blueberry juice. I’m not sure just how big I got by the end. And now I’m almost out of paper, so I’ll have to tell you how I escaped and what friendship lessons I learned in my next letter.
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

Twilight quickly proofread her letter. Normally, she would ask Spike to transcribe her friendship reports, but she wasn’t ready yet to share the contents of this letter with him. Remembering the events of that trip to the forest—and that strange, vexing zebra she’d met there—still brought a blush to Twilight’s face. So she reread the letter herself to make sure it was absolutely ready to send to Celestia, glancing at the kitchen door every few seconds as she triple- and quadruple-checked the most important parts of her narrative.

She was alone in the central room of the Golden Oak Library. Surrounded by the bookshelves of her new home, the inviting scent of tree sap and printed pages, and the warm morning sunlight through the windows, Twilight couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of safety—as if the events in the letter had happened in another lifetime, to another pony. She barely shivered as she reread, for the fifth time, the parts about her own inflation and Zecora’s butt.

Finally satisfied, she rolled the letter into a scroll and called, “Hey, Spike!”

Spike poked his head out of the kitchen. “Yes, Twilight? Do you have a letter for me to write?”

Twilight waved her scroll in the air. “I wrote up this week’s Friendship Report myself. I just need you to send it.”

“What about that spellbook from your research shelf? Wasn’t there a spell to let you send letters to Celestia yourself?”

“That’s right!” Twilight turned back to the table, where a large book was open to her latest topic of study: a theoretical spell that would let her unicorn magic behave like Spike’s dragonfire. “This would be a perfect time to test it.”

She glanced between the spell and the scroll, then turned back around. “Are you sure you’re okay with this, Spike? I’d hate to take away your job…”

“Come on…” Spike trotted into the room. “I’m your number one assistant—don’t worry! No spell could ever replace me.” Spike was a bit taller than Twilight remembered. But that was to be expected—he was a baby dragon, after all, and still had years left to keep growing.

“Alright, then.” Twilight held up the scroll, visualized the spell in her mind, then cast. The magic turned green in mid-air before it enveloped the scroll. Seconds later, the paper was consumed, leaving a trail of smoke curling lazily in the air.

“Yes, Twilight!” Spike cried, leaping in the air. “You got it right!”

Then the smoke moved—but not towards the open window facing Canterlot. It instead raced directly towards Twilight’s face. Her eyes widened, but before she could do anything else, the smoke rushed into her mouth and directly down her throat. It settled inside her chest, puffing out her barrel like she had taken a deep breath—but strangely enough, it didn’t hamper her breathing or even make her cough.

“That didn’t work,” Twilight said, then groaned.

“Try again, you’ll figure it out.” Spike said, holding up a blank sheet of paper. “You’ll ace this spell, without a doubt!”

“Okay…” Twilight took the page, then scribbled a quick note explaining to Celestia that this was just a test, and the proper Friendship Report would be arriving soon. This time, she made absolutely certain that every component of the spell was perfect before she cast it. Once more, her magic turned into green fire and consumed the paper.

And once more, the smoke rushed down Twilight’s throat, inflating her torso a few inches more.

“Urrgh…” Twilight glanced at her puffed-out barrel. It felt like she had a volleyball in there somewhere—and it looked that way, too.

But she would not be deterred. She studied the spell in the book again to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, then grabbed another sheet of paper from the stack next to the book and cast the spell once again.

“No need for alarm,” Spike cheered her on. “Once more! Third time’s the charm!”

But the third puff of smoke just followed the first two, straight into Twilight’s mouth. This time, she felt it settling not just in her chest, but in her backside as well; a glance back confirmed that her haunches were rounder and a few inches wider than before. But they weren’t as wide as her barrel, which had gained a foot in diameter by this point.

Twilight sighed. “Spike? Can you try it? Maybe if I watch you, I can see what I’m doing wrong.”

“If that’s how you feel. Sure, no big deal.” Spike grabbed two sheets of paper from the stack and breathed a quick flame over both. A double-sized puff of smoke rose into the air and curled around itself.

And then that smoke rushed into Twilight’s mouth. Her rump grew several inches more, her barrel expanded until it brushed against the insides of her legs, and even her legs thickened a couple inches.

“Spike!” Twilight cried. “What did you do?!”

“Huh? I didn’t do anything new. Sent the letter to Princess Celestia, like I always do.”

“But it didn’t go to Princess Celestia this time. It went into me!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Twilight. Here, let me show you again—just hang tight…” Spike grabbed more paper from the stack, this time three pages.

“No!” Twilight shouted, reaching one foreleg towards Spike, squeaking slightly from the motion.

Dragonfire engulfed the three pages, and the smoke wasted no time before rushing into Twilight, filling her even larger. Her legs swelled to twice their normal width. Her torso bulged between them, forcing her legs to spread as it inflated further. And her rump expanded until both cheeks were the size of beach balls.

“There. Straight to Canterlot, see?” Spike said with a smug grin on his face. “Now if you don’t need me for anything else, I hear some comic books calling for me…”

“Fine…” Twilight said. She made her way back the table and her spellbook, but slowly and awkwardly. Her puffed-up legs were much stiffer than normal, while her swollen barrel pushed back against her limbs with every step she took. Her body squeaked with every motion as her legs rubbed against her inflated belly and her rump cheeks rubbed against each other. Eventually she reached the table and lifted the thick book in her telekinesis. She started to read…

“Don’t worry, Twilight, I’m sure you’ll get it right!” Spike punctuated this with a playful slap on Twilight’s rump.

“Eeep!” Twilight started, partly from sheer surprise and partly from how her inflated cheeks amplified the sensation of the slap. (She could almost swear it felt more like an adult pony’s hoof than a baby dragon’s hand.) On pure reflex, magic surged into her horn: the same spell she had cast three times in the last few minutes.

“Oh, no,” Twilight said, as the ersatz dragonfire washed over the thick spellbook. Smoke already rose from the flames and sped towards her. She clamped her mouth shut, but the smoke went into her nose instead. Closing her eyes, she scrunched her muzzle to keep her mouth tightly shut—which wasn’t easy, because the smoke tickled inside her nostrils as it slid down. More slowly than before, her barrel and behind ballooned one inch, then two. Her back rounded out, while less than a foot separated her swollen belly from the floor. Twilight snorted, trying in vain to push back the smoke invading her nostrils, gradually inflating her larger. Her legs thickened even as they spread to accommodate her swelling torso—her puffy hooves squeaking as they slid across the floor.

Then a tendril of smoke crept up Twilight’s face and tickled her right ear. That proved too much. Twilight opened her mouth to give an involuntary giggle, and then the clouds of smoke rushed in: filling her cheeks, forcing her jaws wide open as they poured down her throat, expanding her faster than ever. Her barrel puffed out until it squished against the floor—and then it was the only thing touching the floor, as her swollen legs stuck straight out, inflated too stiff to bend anymore. Resting on her smoke-stuffed belly, Twilight was actually taller than before, and she grew taller by the second as her torso bloated larger and larger. Her rump, twice as wide as before and still growing, now reached higher than her head.

Finally, the spellbook was gone, and the last of the smoke disappeared into Twilight’s swollen, rounded body. Her torso was an ellipsoid, over twice her usual height; her backside was a pair of cheeks the size of exercise balls. Her legs were thick balloons, squeaking as Twilight tried to move them and found they could only waggle a few inches.

Suddenly, there came a cough from the corner of the room. Spike, seated in his favorite reading nook, looked up from his comic book before coughing again—the distinct cough that signalled he was getting a letter from Princess Celestia! The smoke wafted out his mouth, but instead of hovering in front of his face like usual, it sped over to Twilight.

As the smoke of the inbound letter curled in the air before her face, Twilight said, “Huh. That’s odd. It—”

Then that smoke rushed into Twilight’s mouth, adding another inch to her already-enormous girth.

“Spike! What was that?!” Twilight called out. She waggled her legs frantically, squeaking up a storm. “Why did Princess Celestia’s letter do that?!”

“The letter was pretty short. Celestia’s probably wondering about your Friendship Report.” Spike put aside his reading material and trotted back towards Twilight. He walked on all fours now, and even in that stance he stood tall as an adult pony. Twilight couldn’t help but wonder how she hadn’t noticed him growing that much.

“Yes,” Twilight said, “but…”

Spike coughed once more—another letter arriving from the Princess. And this one sped down Twilight’s throat, as well, joining its brother inside her bloated barrel.

“I can’t blame Celestia for writing to you,” Spike added. “Your Friendship Report is pretty overdue.”

“Oh, no…” Twilight gulped. “I’m tardy?”

As if in answer to her question, another letter from Canterlot arrived and rushed into Twilight, inflating her another inch.

“I’ve got to finish this! Explain everything to Princess Celestia! Surely, she’ll understand…” Twilight telekinetically reached for her quill and another sheet of paper—in her hurry, forgetting that she had no way to get this message to Celestia quickly enough.

As she set the quill and to paper with her her magic, the aura around both suddenly turned to green flames, without any prompting from Twilight. “No!” Twilight cried. “No, no, no!” Desperate to quench the dragonfire, Twilight beat the paper and quill against the nearest surface—which was the stack of other papers. Quickly enough, the magic flame spread to that stack. Twilight’s ears folded back as she gazed up to the top of the stack; it towered over even Twilight’s inflated body, reaching into the cloud of smoke that already obscured the ceiling. This smoke wasn’t just from the stack of paper: every few seconds, another letter arrived from Princess Celestia, adding to the cloudy mass.

As the first puffs of smoke sped towards Twilight, she didn’t even resist this time. She just opened her mouth and let the smoke fill her even further. Her cheeks puffed up as large as melons, while each of her rump cheeks inflated as large as she herself had been, and then even larger. Her whole body quivered and squeaked as she swelled farther. And the squeaking was loudest at the base of her legs: her forearms and haunches inflated twice as thick as her already-puffed-out cannons and hooves, and they began slowly merging with her expanding barrel. Thicker and rounder her torso grew, nearly three times her normal height now. But as large as Twilight inflated, the top of that burning paper stack didn’t seem to draw any closer…

“Look what I found, Twilight!” Spike trotted in front of her, balancing hundreds of scrolls on his back: a stack taller than himself. “All these old Friendship Reports we forgot to send her. No wonder Celestia is so worried! I just hope we didn’t offend her.”

Twilight groaned, her voice slightly muffled by the mass of smoke still pumping down her throat. How had she let those forgotten letters pile up like this? She’d be in so much trouble…

“If I hadn’t noticed, these would’ve stayed in that corner forever.” Spike said. “I should send them now! Better late than never.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Nnnnggh!” she shouted against the flow of smoke. She reached out with her magic, pulling the stack of scrolls away from Spike before he could unwittingly add it to the mass inflating her.

Then her magic spontaneously turned into dragonfire again, setting all the scrolls ablaze anyway. Twilight whimpered, gulping down more smoke and ballooning larger all the while.

“Whoa!” Spike recoiled from the burning mass of scrolls, then bumped into Twilight. He squished into her huge, round side with a loud squeak, then both bounced away from the collision. Twilight spun in the center of the room; Spike stumbled towards the wall, where he bumped against a very plush couch, large enough to seat three ponies. And as Spike fell, he sneezed—setting the couch ablaze with his green flame. The smoke rose up, joining the dark cloud that obscured the ceiling, just waiting to fill Twilight even larger.

“Hhhhmmmm…” Twilight moaned as she spun and spun, inflating to four times her height and even higher.

Spike rose to his feet, then glanced between Twilight and the scorched spot on the floor where the couch had stood. “Oh, that reminds me! Today’s the day when Celestia’s sending all the books and furniture you left behind in your Canterlot castle spire. She’s teleporting them by dragonfire!”

“Mrrrhhm! Mmnnnnn!” Twilight shook her puffy legs helplessly. She continued rotating, and the smoke pumped her larger still.

Spike gave a small cough—and somehow produced a huge puff of smoke. “Ah, that looks like your encyclopedia’s volume one. Only a hundred forty-nine more to go before you’re done!” He coughed once again, producing an even larger cloud. “And there’s volume two! When Celestia’s done with the encyclopedia, she can send the rest of the library to you!”

Twilight shook her head as she rose even higher atop her inflating torso. This didn’t halt the flow of smoke down her throat; the tentacle-like cloud clung to her face like it was a living, solid thing. Then it spread over her muzzle and poured into her nose again, adding to the flow already passing through her mouth. Two more tendrils crept up the side of her face, tickling her cheeks until they reached her folded-back ears. Twilight involuntarily flicked them—which was all the opportunity the smoke needed to force its way into her ears and inflate Twilight even faster.

Her torso expanded to six times her normal height, then larger and larger. Her upper legs were round doughnut shapes attached to the enormous balloon of her body, swallowing her limbs up to her elbows and stifles now. Those legs squeaked even louder as Twilight wiggled them more, futilely trying to halt her continued spinning. Her neck thickened and began to merge with the huge curve that had been her shoulders. Her rump cheeks filled up, each as large as her mattress, and then larger still.

“There’s that sci-fi series you never read!” Spike declared. And then he produced a smoke cloud that dwarfed the encyclopedia volumes. “And there’s your old bed!”

As Twilight spun towards the tower of burning paper, she saw an opportunity to make this madness end. She magically created an airtight force-field around the papers, intending to choke off the towering inferno. A few seconds later, the shield turned into green flames, and ersatz dragonfire began consuming the entire table. “Hhhhrrrrrnnn!” Twilight protested as she spun away from the larger fire, inflating all the while.

Though the smoke was pumping into Twilight faster than ever, the cloud overhead wasn’t getting any smaller. Quite the opposite, in fact: the Princess’s deliveries and the fire inside the library were adding to the mass of smoke even more quickly than Twilight’s ballooning body could take it in.

“There’s your second bookcase!” Spike declared as he coughed up another jumbo-sized smoke cloud. “Oof, I can’t keep up this pace.”

As Twilight spun towards Spike, she reached out with her magic once more—desperately hoping that forcing her Number One Assistant’s mouth shut would somehow stop the deliveries from Princess Celestia. Instead, when she clamped his muzzle shut, Spike’s face popped off his head and hovered in Twilight’s telekinetic grip. It was just a cheap paper mask.

The face under the mask wasn’t Spike, or any dragon. It was a zebra mare with hypnotic cyan eyes and a haughty smirk on her beautiful lips. What had looked before like purple and green scales were now obviously just a costume—patterned spandex, or some similarly stretchy fabric that clung tightly to her body, leaving none of her shapely curves to the imagination. It covered from her hooves to her tail to her neck, leaving only her pretty face exposed.

And then, with a demure little cough, Zecora produced another enormous cloud of smoke. “That’d be your wardrobe, and some spare clothes,” she said, flashing a wicked smile at Twilight, just before the ballooning unicorn spun away. “It felt like a lot—rows upon rows!”

Twilight whimpered, inflating over nine times her old height. The forgotten paper mask, still hovering in her magic, smiled back at her mockingly—then burst into green flame. Its smoke drifted into the mass overhead, just another drop in the ocean steadily filling her even larger. But Twilight wasn’t sure how many more drops she could take. Her cheeks were puffed up, each as large as her own head, and they brushed against her inflated neck as it merged with her torso. Her expanding barrel engulfed her legs even farther: just six inches from her pasterns, now. Her rump, each cheek thick enough to fill a walk-in closet, was merging with the huge globe of her body. Her cutie marks were stretched to the size of bedsheets across her inflating haunches.

Out of sight, Zecora chanted, “She’s an enchantress quite smokey. She’s gonna burn down this oak-y…”

And somehow, Twilight continued spinning. Instead of losing momentum, she spun even faster than before; the walls of the library seemed to rush by too fast for her to focus on any details. Twilight used her telekinesis on herself, pushing against her rotation. But the magic aura just slid off the huge curve of her body and down to the floor, creating a circle of green flames in the rugs and the wood beneath them.

Twilight cast a stabilizing spell on herself, hoping that would hold her in place. It just bounced off her rubbery sides and struck a few dozen random books in their shelves, setting them all ablaze with more dragonfire.

Twilight cast her general failsafe spell. It exploded, scattering green fire over all the library’s walls.

“Spreading flames to make gas, on which you will choke-y…”

“Nnnnrrrrrrrr…” Twilight groaned as she spun even faster. The walls were a blur, dominated by dragonfire-green as the flames spread further and further. The whole room would be ablaze soon enough, and the entire tree after it—reduced to magic smoke that would just fill Twilight even larger. And the dark cloud above was more voluminous than ever, still growing faster than it could force itself into Twilight.

“It’ll fill you to sizes, that you just can’t revoke-y…”

Then she felt something brush against her expanding barrel, all along its widest circumference. Twilight had inflated to twelve times her height, and wide enough to touch the library walls. Her swelling sides squeaked as they slid along the polished wood and the bookshelves; the tickling sensation seemed to echo inside her massive volume. Then, with one final squeak, she stopped spinning—ballooned large enough to wedge herself in place within those walls.

Twilight lay dazed for a few seconds, her eyeballs spinning in their sockets—and she took in more smoke all the while, bloating larger and larger. Her belly pressed tighter against the floor, expanding to fill the corners of the room. She would have spread over the furniture, if there were any pieces that hadn’t already burnt to smoke.

“Cause you’ll burst like a bubble, if you touch anything pokey!”

When Twilight’s eyes stopped spinning, she found herself facing the front door—the only wall her ballooning torso hadn’t covered yet. More dragonfire licked across this wall; already, there were burnt holes large enough to see the outside through. And in front of it stood Zecora, still wearing her Spike costume, gazing up at Twilight’s immensity with an unusual expression—not the haughtiness the inflating unicorn had come to expect from her tormentor, but something softer. Zecora stepped forward and put one spandex-clad hoof to that inflating purple belly, almost caressing Twilight as she expanded even further.

Zecora said, “...So try not to croak-y.”

Then with a snort, she turned away, slapping Twilight’s side with her costume tail. Twilight’s face lit up at the sensation—and the squeak her belly gave in response, and the way it shook her huge globe of a body. Then she scowled and began pouring magic into her horn.

This was all Zecora’s fault, Twilight thought, and if she could just apprehend that pesky zebra, then all of this could be undone… somehow.

She fired an impenetrable force-field spell at Zecora. But the zebra dodged to the side without even looking back. Twilight’s spell struck the wall instead, instantly reducing half of it to smoke. And Zecora just strolled out that hole with a little extra bounce in her step—which in turn added a little extra bounce to her backside. Once again, her form-fitting costume left nothing to the imagination. Twilight shot off another force-field—straight at the perky, spandex-clad zebra rump—but Zecora sidestepped that shot just as easily. The magic bounced off the ground and struck a tree across the street, setting it ablaze with dragonfire—producing still more smoke to fill Twilight even larger.

And then Twilight’s inflating belly spread over what was left of the front wall, covering that hole and blocking all view of Zecora. Seconds later, her back squished against the ceiling. Inflating further, Twilight filled every corner and crevice of the room—her face pressing against the wall while her bloating torso squeezed into every doorway, every window, and every hole burnt by the fire. When there was no more space left for Twilight to expand into, she just kept inflating anyway; the flame-weakened walls cracked and bent outwards from the pressure of her unrelenting growth.

Zecora, standing outside the Golden Oak, could see the library wouldn’t last much longer. Green fire danced through the canopy, its smoke swirling into a dark cloud just a few feet above the highest branches. The trunk bulged outwards, and a ballooning purple unicorn’s sides squeezed out of every new crack that formed.

Inside, Twilight grimaced, screwing both eyes shut as she inflated even further. Her face was smushed between the wall on one side, and her own body swelling over every other side. Even that didn’t stop more smoke from rushing into her—and as her body stretched farther to contain it all, her skin grew increasingly sensitive. The walls and ceiling pressed back against her endless expansion, then cracked or bent, then pressed back again; the touch of the wood all over felt like Zecora’s caress, amplified a hundredfold. But where her body bulged against jagged cracks—where countless splinters poked into her expanding sides—she felt a persistent stinging. And the caresses and stings were spread all over Twilight’s huge balloon of a body, so she couldn’t tell where the pain ended and the pleasure began.

Twilight moaned, sucking down a few more cubic yards of smoke. The tree gave one last creeeeeeeeak of defeat, then exploded. Branches, splinters, and other debris—all of it on fire—either shot into the air or bounced off the side of the huge purple balloon emerging from the wreckage.

“Mmmrrrrrr…” Twilight moaned, inflating even taller than the library had been. She was more a gargantuan globe than a pony now, with just her head, tail, and hooves protruding from her nearly spherical torso. And still she ballooned even larger. The cloud of smoke, still filling Twilight, was just a little smaller than she was. And the still-flaming debris from the library continued feeding that cloud—and spread the dragonfire to three nearby houses, creating yet more smoke to expand Twilight even further.

In spite of the destruction, there were no screams of fear, no panicky ponies running through the streets—not even any gawkers. Ponyville was deserted, aside from Zecora and Twilight. Stranger still, the sky had grown dark. Beyond the mass that continued inflating Twilight, clouds of even blacker smoke hung over all of Ponyville.

Zecora pointed up at the sky. “That dragon you shooed off with dear Fluttershy—he’s gone but his smoke still fills the sky! Somepony must clear it, and do so right now.” She flashed a smug grin at Twilight. “And since I’m a dragon, I believe I know how.”

“Hhrrmmrrrrmmm,” Twilight mumbled. She had a pretty good idea what Zecora intended to do, but couldn’t muster the will to fight it anymore.

But Twilight didn’t expect Zecora to leap higher than a mountain goat and land atop a nearby roof. Another leap took the zebra to an even taller housetop, and a third took her to the very top of Sugarcube Corner. From there, Zecora sprang right into the smoke itself—and simply paused at the top of her leap, hovering in midair like a pegasus, or Pinkie Pie.

Zecora opened her mouth and inhaled. She sucked down lungful after lungful of smoke, faster even than Twilight had. Within seconds, her belly inflated large enough to fit another of herself inside, and then two. Her ass tripled and quadrupled in size, bloating disproportionately large, even in comparison to her oversized belly. She took in more and more smoke, expanding over six times her volume before the growth slowed.

Zecora’s costume was pushing back. That purple-and-green spandex had stretched along with her body—embracing her voluminous curves and leaving nothing to the imagination—but it could stretch no longer. Now, the outfit fought to contain the ballooning zebra, but it was a losing fight. One seam along Zecora’s belly was already coming undone, allowing stripes of gray and black to peek through; another seam on her backside followed suit.

Zecora screwed her eyes shut and sucked harder, puffing out her cheeks and forcing her body to expand another foot in every direction. More seams tore open, along her torso and rump, and even on her neck and legs—and Zecora’s bloating body bulged through these holes in the trembling spandex, ripping them even farther. With another great breath, she added another foot to her diameter—revealing more of her expanding, stripy body as the costume deteriorated even further. The fabric was shaking all over now, barely staying together under the pressure of holding back her huge, round body.

Scrunching her face, Zecora sucked with all her might, which filled her cheeks as large as pumpkins—and finally broke the costume. The spandex tore to ribbons all over, freeing Zecora to inflate in the blink of an eye to ten times her volume, then twenty times, and then even larger. Her legs puffed out, tripling in thickness and sticking straight out as they filled with smoke. Her now-uncovered rump bounced as it ballooned larger and larger, her cheeks rubbing against each other.

Zecora was as large as a hot air balloon, and still inflating larger—a black-and-gray globe with an ass nearly as enormous. The only color on her round, striped body were bits of purple spandex—scraps of the costume still clinging to her neck, tail, and hooves. Her legs had already sunk halfway into her bloated sides, and were swallowed further as Zecora filled even larger.

The end was in sight for Zecora. More of the sky was clear than smoky by now—and there was more smoke inside her already than left above Ponyville. Sucking in more and more of the remaining smoke, Zecora grew to the size of a two-story house and then even bigger. Her body engulfed her neck with its inflation, then started on her head—squishing her mane flat against her scalp and squeezing the sides of her swollen cheeks. Her sides bulged further over her legs, swallowing them almost to the hooves. Her backside was so huge, the sun sigil on her haunches looked large enough to eclipse the real Sun.

At last, inflated as large as a three-story house, Zecora swallowed the last of the smoke over Ponyville—save for the personal cloud that had kept filling Twilight this whole time, and was still going. In fact, the two equines were roughly the same size now, though they were different shapes: Twilight was nearly spherical and had the larger belly, while Zecora had the larger, thicker rump.

With the sky mostly cleared, Zecora ceased hovering and succumbed to gravity, only to careen off Sugarcube Corner. She bounced from roof to roof, soaring with the lazy grace of a beach ball—right towards Twilight.

“Hrrrmm?” Twilight muttered, as the bloated zebra drew inexorably closer. “Mmmrrrrrrr!” Frantic, she tried to wriggle her legs to move herself out of the way—but her limbs had been swallowed by her torso’s inflation up to the hooftips, and could barely move an inch now.

With one last bounce, Zecora closed the distance to Twilight. Their faces lined up, and Zecora rolled forward, pushing her swollen gray belly into Twilight’s purple sphere—and pressing her lips against Twilight’s as well. Twilight froze for a second, then closed her eyes and pursed her lips to reciprocate. When Zecora prodded gently with her tongue, Twilight opened her mouth to allow her inside.

Zecora exhaled right into Twilight’s mouth. Her breath didn’t smell of dragon smoke, somehow, but something in-between freshly grilled vegetables and a campfire on a brisk fall morning. And she just kept exhaling: the smoke that had inflated Zecora now rushed out her mouth to fill Twilight even larger than she already was. Twilight expanded to twice the Golden Oak Library’s height; her hooves sank completely into her swelling torso with one last squeak, leaving her head and tail as the only remaining evidence she was a pony, not an absurdly huge balloon.

Still, Zecora inflated her even larger. And she wasn’t the only thing filling her: while the zebra hogged Twilight’s mouth, the dark cloud overhead continued pumping smoke into Twilight’s nose and ears. Larger and larger Twilight expanded, swelling with unthinkable volumes of smoke. She ballooned wide enough completely fill the library’s plot of land—for her sides to brush against the houses on either side, and against a stick resting in the road, all that remained of the library’s branches.

Zecora shrank all the while, as every cubic inch she lost was one Twilight gained. And as Twilight’s unicorn shape disappeared further and further into her balloon of a body, Zecora gradually regained her figure. Her belly and backside shrank lazily; her neck slowly emerged from her diminishing torso, as did her legs soon after.

As Zecora’s kiss and the smoke overhead filled Twilight to unthinkable sizes, her gargantuan belly pressed harder against the houses to each side, firmly wedging herself in between. Her girth bulged around the walls and over the roofs. In turn, the corners and eaves dug into her inflating sides; at those spots, a reddish tint showed through her purple coat, then gradually spread as she inflated larger and larger.

Meanwhile, Twilight moaned into Zecora’s mouth, straining to push herself harder into the kiss, heedless of the smoke inflating her beyond all reasonable limits. Zecora’s lips were sweet fire against her own, a pleasant burn that rushed down her spine to the tips of her hooves, sunken somewhere inside her balloon of a body. It spread across every uncountable square inch of her expanding torso—and it intermingled with the sting from the house edges that poked deeper into her bloated sides. The red tint spread further, matching the fire she felt within; where the red deepened, her skin trembled. The deepest crimson was at the point where the stick’s sharp end dug straight into that expanding belly.

As Twilight inflated taller than Ponyville Town Hall, Zecora’s legs deflated enough that she could flex them again. So she reached forward to wrap her forelegs around Twilight’s head—squeezing her hooves between those puffy purple cheeks and the inflated neck and shoulders already trying to engulf the unicorn’s head. With her forehooves running through that purple mane, Zecora could hold Twilight in place to ensure she inhaled every cubic inch of smoke. But that wasn’t strictly necessary: even if Twilight could wriggle away, she was too lost in the kiss to even try.

Louder and longer Twilight moaned, as seemingly endless volumes of smoke filled her to ever greater sizes. The burning as her skin stretched closer to its absolute limits was matched by the heat of Zecora’s lips. The pain of the houses digging several feet into her inflating body—and the sharp stick concentrating similar pressure into a single point—was matched by Zecora’s gentle hooves on the back of her head. Twilight was more red than purple at this point, as she inflated closer and closer to her absolute limit. As her skin stretched further, it vibrated like overtightened violin strings, producing creaks and squeaks all over her gigantic body.

Finally, Zecora forced her last lungful of smoke down Twilight’s throat, just as the last traces of the cloud above disappeared into Twilight’s nose. There was no more smoke, no more burning debris, and no more deliveries from Princess Celestia. And just in time, too—this expansion had stretched Twilight all the way to the brink.

Zecora ended her embrace, pulled away from the kiss, and calmly slid down the pony-balloon’s massive curves, back to the ground. She was light on her hooves, yet Twilight’s drum-taut hide turned a deeper crimson at Zecora’s slightest touch.

Once released from Zecora’s hooves, Twilight’s head sank into own inflated body, leaving only the tip of her muzzle exposed. She was over twice the height of Town Hall, and almost completely unrecognizable as Twilight Sparkle—or even as a pony. The only remainings clues of her true nature were her tail, little more than a speck against her immense frame, and her cutie mark, extended as tall as a house but obscured by her pervasive, overstretched redness. Anypony who saw her—and she was visible from miles away, towering over Ponyville—would have mistaken her for a crimson blimp.

“Ooooooh…” she moaned, having finally regained control of her own mouth. “Oh, Zecora…”

Zecora landed on the street, then gave the massively inflated Twilight a warm smile. But the smile faded at what she saw: a blood-red spot where the sharp stick dug dangerously deep into the unicorn’s inflated belly. It was a miracle that point hadn’t already penetrated Twilight’s skin.

Zecora leaned towards the stick, then paused. This job needed to be done very carefully. The slightest increase in pressure, and that point would pierce right through Twilight’s overstretched body. The slightest move at the wrong angle, and that point could slice the unicorn wide open. Zecora needed to be absolutely precise…

In one swift motion, Zecora reached in, grabbed the stick with her teeth, then pulled it away.

Twilight’s entire body vibrated a little more—her skin intact, but still expanded to the absolute limit.

Zecora sighed and spat out the branch, away from the blimp that had been Twilight. “Great stars above!” she said. “I need to take the utmost care, when my fav’rite balloon’s so tight and full of air!”

When the stick hit the ground, it kicked up a cloud of dust. Then a wayward gust of wind blew the dust right into Zecora’s face. “Aaah… Aaaaah…” she said, rearing her head back. “Achoo!”

Green fire flew from her muzzle as she sneezed. It washed over the stick, consuming it in an instant. The smoke zoomed up to Twilight’s muzzle.

Twilight’s entire blimp of a body shook and creaked. She tried to scream, “MMMMRRRRRRRRRRRRR—”

The explosion could be heard from miles away. The shockwave shattered half the windows in Ponyville. Seconds later, a thick layer of smoke washed over the entire town.

Just as quickly, the smoke departed—flying for Canterlot at the speed of magic.

—————

Princess Celestia, alone in her private study, was reading a very engrossing biography when smoke suddenly poured through the open window. The first mass hovered above her head, but it quickly grew until it covered the room’s whole ceiling.

She said, “What—?”

And then the deluge began. Scrolls, letters, completely blank pages, whole books, bookshelves, couches, tables, beds, rugs, a couple trees’ worth of branches and sticks, and whole houses’ worth of timber and masonry—all fell from the smoke cloud. They completely buried the Princess before she could react, then continued falling until they filled the room six feet deep.

With its payload delivered, the smoke finally dissipated. The room was still.

Two ponies stirred underneath the avalanche. First, Princess Celestia poked her head out of the debris. Shortly after, Twilight Sparkle emerged as well—restored to her normal proportions and color, save for the blush on her cheeks.

The Princess blinked in surprise, before donning her usual warm smile. “Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student, it’s wonderful to see you. But this truly is a surprise. What brings you to Canterlot in this way?”

“Haha, well, it’s kind of a long story,” Twilight replied. “Let’s just say Spike really deserves a bigger allowance.”

5. Grading on a Curve

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Leaving the disaster area in the Princess’s study behind for palace staff to clean, Princess Celestia and Twilight trotted down the castle hallway, side-by-side. A thick carpet underhoof muffled their steps.

Decorating the walls were oil paintings from long-gone master artists, each depicting colorful events from Equestrian and pre-Equestrian history. To the left was a scene of the explorer Terra Sandy, in the act of saving her most famous expedition. When her airship canopy was damaged beyond repair, the purple unicorn inflated herself to serve as a replacement.

“Honestly,” Princess Celestia said, “You’re here a few hours earlier than I expected. But beginning now will be no problem at all.”

“Beginning what?” Twilight said.

To the right was a painting of Tiny Stream, the purple unicorn who saved her hometown from a flood. She discovered a leak in the dam holding back a nearby lake, then plugged the hole with her muzzle until help could come. But by the time help did arrive, over a week later, Tiny Stream had swallowed the whole lake, and wasn’t very tiny anymore.

Celestia said, “Your final exam in Theoretical and Applied Bhelometry, of course.”

“Oh.” Twilight’s eyes widened. “Of course.”

“Even though you moved to Ponyville, you still have to finish your last class from this semester, after all.”

Twilight was sweating now. “My last class… right…”

Next was a portrait of the Duchess Tasty Sprinkles—a cautionary tale from the pre-unification era. For years, this purple unicorn was infuriatingly unpleasant to all her subjects, until finally her personal servants snapped. They shoved a hose in Tasty’s mouth and force-fed her liquid chocolate, heavy cream, and uncooked cake batter until she swelled up too round to walk. Tasty Sprinkles lived the rest of her days as an stationary ball of flab and food, and the rest of the duchy was spared her insufferable presence.

Celestia said, “But I’m sure my most faithful student will have no problem at all with this exam.”

“Haha! Yes!” Twilight’s pupils shrunk while her smile grew too wide. “It’s not like I forgot signing up for this course, didn’t attend any lectures, and haven’t done any homework or studied at all! That’d just be crazy! Hahahaha.”

Then to the right was Triple Stratus, one of the few unicorns to make a career in weather work. The painting depicted that time the purple mare got her head stuck in a cloud output pipe. By the time her coworkers managed to dislodge her, she’d been pumped larger than the whole weather factory.

“Wonderful!” Celestia said. “And here’s where the exam will be.”

They were inside the School for Gifted Unicorns now. Celestia opened a door, revealing a chemistry class laboratory, but with ordinary classroom desks—the kind with folding desktops attached directly to the chair—filling most of the floor space. The usual lab tables were all lining the back wall, except for the corner with the emergency shower.

Twilight stepped through—then Celestia followed, saying, “I’ll be administering this verbal test. We can begin as soon as you choose a desk.”

Twilight chose the desk at the front and center. She sat down, then suddenly—“Meep!”—something cold and hard slid up her rear. She tried to leap out of the seat, but the desktop rotated into place, locking with a loud click—and trapping Twilight.

“Careful now. If you speak out of turn, it will hurt your score.” Princess Celestia said. “I must deduct points if you do it any more.”

Her ears folded back, Twilight nodded and silently tried to free herself from the desk. But no matter how she squirmed, she remained stuck in place, with the foreign object—a hose nozzle—firmly lodged in her rump. The hose in question ran from beneath her desk to the front of the room, where it connected to the chalkboard.

Ignoring the plight of her faithful student, Celestia levitated a piece of chalk and wrote the first question on the board:

Write your name here.

Twilight squinted. “Uh… how?”

“Incorrect!” Celestia crossed out the question. “Your name isn’t ‘Um How’, Twilight. There’s no excuse not to get that right.” She motioned with her hoof, as if flinging the words away—and the words actually did slide across the chalkboard. They hit the far side of the board, broke into individual letters, and fell into a chalk-drawn cartoon of a blender.

“But, but…” Twilight said. “This is a verbal exam, but it said to write my name! How am I supposed to—”

“Speaking out of turn!” Celestia interjected. “That’s a five-point deduction you just earned.”

She wrote a large –5 on the board, then slid that away as well. The numeral quickly joined the first question inside the cartoon blender. And then the machine turned on, blending the letters and numbers inside to a thick liquid. That fluid, nearly a pint’s worth, drained out an opening at the bottom of the blender—and into the hose attached to the chalkboard. Twilight’s eyes widened at the sight of that hose bulge, slithering across the room towards her, and she resumed her frantic wriggling to free herself from the desk, or at least free the nozzle from her backside.

“Ahem,” Celestia said. She had written the next question on the board:

What are the three components of basic levitation?

Twilight smiled. “The three components are magical power, control, and Eeeeek!”

The liquid bulge reached the nozzle and sprayed into Twilight’s rump, filling her stomach in seconds. Celestia, meanwhile, shook her head, crossed out the last question, then slid it into the still-running blender—so it, too, could pour into Twilight. Meanwhile, she wrote the next question:

Who led the Wonderbolts during the Fourth Celestial Era?

Twilight gulped. “Crimson Dart?”

“You’re close, that’s a start. But the pegasus in question was Purple Dart.”

Into the blender that question went as well. Another mass of thick liquid flowed down the hose, towards Twilight’s backside. But Celestia already moved on, to the next question:

What’s the square root of five hundred forty-six?

“Twenty-three point three six six six four two—” Twilight scrunched her face, biting back another yelp as another bulge of liquid pumped into her rear. Her belly swelled into a paunch, one that jiggled and shook as she continued her futile attempts to extract herself from the desk.

Celestia shook her head. “The same problem many a student faces: not enough decimal places.” That question went into the blender as well.

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

“One is a rest for pens, and the other is a pest for wrens!”

“I appreciate the rhyme,” Celestia replied. “But the answer is, ‘Because it can,’ this time.”

Twilight scowled and barely restrained herself from verbally disputing that absurd answer. Her belly inflated larger, until she resembled a pregnant mare.

What is your favorite color?

“White.”

“Incorrect, I’m afraid. White is not a color; it’s a shade.”

What is that which in the Morning goeth upon four hooves, upon two hooves in the Afternoon, and in the Evening upon three?

Twilight perked up. She knew her mythology, so this answer was easy: “A changeling in a three-legged stool store, in a minotaur city!”

“‘Man’ is the answer that’s correct. You’re doing much worse than I’d expect.”

“What the hay’s a ‘man’?”

“Your score on this test is going to burn if you continue talking out of turn.” Celestia added another five-point deduction to the missed question, and shoved both into the blender.

Twilight rose a few inches in her desk, involuntarily. Her rump was inflating now, along with her belly, lifting her into the air as her cheeks swelled larger and rounder. She covered more and more of the seat, jiggling as she kicked her hind legs in a futile effort to wriggle free.

What color is Princess Celestia’s white coat?

Twilight gulped again—the motion made her bloated gut wiggle and brush against the desktop’s edge. “...A very, very light pink?”

Celestia shook her head. “The answer was in the question, right there. You’re usually not this unaware.” Into the blender that question went.

As Twilight inflated further, her back pressed against her seat rest, while her belly squished into the desktop edge—lodging her firmly in place. Meanwhile, her bloated rump spilled over the seat until her thickening cheeks sidled up against the metal struts of the frame. The larger she swelled, the smaller her chances of escaping shrank.

Solve this equation:
n² + 9 + 9

“There’s no equal sign, so by definition, that’s not an equation!”

“I hear problems, I hear a definition, but I’m not hearing any solution.” Celestia crossed the question out and tossed it into the blender.

Twilight struggled further, still trying to dislodge herself. But with each passing second, she filled larger, her stomach bulging over and under the desktop—wedging her in place even tighter. And now the liquid filled the rest of her body, rounding out her whole torso. Her back squished around the seat rest; her legs felt stiffer and heavier.

Then came the next question:

Don’t read this.

Twilight squinted at the sentence, then looked to Celestia for clarification. But the Princess just shook her head and added that question to the blender, to fill her student even larger.

Solve my maze.

Underneath that, Celestia drew a circle.

“Is… is that it?” Twilight asked. “Because that’s not a maze.”

“That’s an interesting question you raise. But still wrong, because you didn’t solve any maze.” Celestia shoved the sentence and the circle both into the blender.

Suddenly, Twilight’s hind legs stuck straight out, inflating too thick to flex anymore with a loud Gloosh!

Celestia snorted at the sound and added another five-point deduction to the blender, and to Twilight’s waistline.

“But that wasn’t me!” Twilight protested. “I didn’t say anything!”

Celestia just raised one eyebrow and gave Twilight a ten-point deduction.

Gloosh! Twilight’s left foreleg inflated beyond her control and stuck straight out. Gloosh! Her right foreleg did the same. Both noises earned Twilight further deductions from Celestia, bloating her even larger in her chair.

Twilight swelled to twice her normal volume, filled further and further by the fluid pumping into her rear. With her legs puffed-out and stiffened like this, Twilight no longer had any way to free herself from her desk—and with her rounded body bulging further around the seat rest behind and the desktop in front of her, she doubted anypony else could free her, either. Now, Twilight’s only hope to avoid bloating even further was to get as many exam questions right as possible.

And Celestia was writing the next question:

Butts twelve by pies?

Twilight blinked. “What.”

“Now, now, Twilight, let’s have no digression. I didn’t ask you to answer in the form of a question.”

“But there is no possible answer, because that isn’t a question—it’s just nonsense!” Twilight waggled her foreleg, sloshing her swollen body as she continued ranting. “Those four words have nothing to do with each other! They’re completely meaningless! Verbal garbage! An affront to language! You can’t take gibberish, slap a question mark on the end, and expect me to treat it like a serious query!”

When Twilight finally finished, Celestia’s only response was to write a very large –150 on the board. She flashed her student a wicked grin as she pushed that huge deduction into the blender.

Twilight resumed inflating, her swollen body bulging farther around the desktop, and almost completely swallowing the frame struts. Her rump cheeks were the size of prizewinning pumpkins, while her belly could have held one or two of her classmates. The desktop dug deeper and deeper into that bloating stomach—but just as the pressure became painful, it relented. The desk frame gave under the force of Twilight’s continued expansion, the desktop and seat back both bending outwards to contain her enormous girth.

But Celestia ignored this damage to school property and wrote on the board:

She’s a most wicked teacher
A real ethical breacher

Twilight squinted. “Wait a second. That looks familiar…”

Celestia just marked that incorrect and moved on.

Cause she fills up her students
With figures of speech-er

Twilight tore her eyes away from the chalkboard and looked at Celestia—really studied her—for the first time. The Princess seemed shorter than usual; she didn’t quite tower like she did in Twilight’s memories. In fact, as Twilight expanded farther, filling with over four times her normal volume, she was the one looking down on Celestia.

Larger and larger
No matter how you beseech her

And Princess Celestia’s mane didn’t look as thick and lustrous as usual. Even from Twilight’s position at the back corner of the room (which she didn’t think to question), that mane looked less like the locks of a goddess, waving serenely in the solar breeze, and more like cheap pastel ribbons taped to her neck. In fact, there was a magic-powered desk fan just to the side, clearly keeping Celestia’s cheap ribbon-mane in the air.

Meanwhile, Twilight grew wider and rounder in her seat, as gallon after gallon pumped into her rear. Her body squished further over every part of the desk that tried to constrain her; her back squeezed over the seat rest until it pressed against the emergency shower’s pipe. The chair legs buckled under her increasing weight, while the desk frame bent even further to accommodate her ever-expanding girth. Each time, the metal creaked loudly—earning Twilight more point deductions, and more gallons to fill her even larger.

From wall to wall
Your belly will reach-er

The more Twilight looked, the less Princess Celestia resembled herself. Her regalia looked less like gold and more like painted cardboard. Her white coat was clearly a dye-job—which was beginning to fade, revealing patches of darker hair underneath.

Likewise, Twilight resembled herself less and less with every gallon that filled her, every inch she gained. Her legs were sinking into her ballooning sides—which bulged further around the desk frame, even as the metal bent completely out of shape in its futile attempts to contain the bloating unicorn. Either of her individual rump cheeks could have taken up two whole seats; her round, wobbling belly could have held Princess Celestia, and was quickly growing large enough to hold Princess Luna as well.

As Twilight inflated even larger and taller, something brushed her mane from above, but she ignored it—focusing again on the front of the classroom.

Till you’re thick and heavy
Like a whale on the beach-er

As Celestia turned away from the chalkboard, back to Twilight, one of her flanks brushed against the wall—and her cutie mark fell off, drifting lazily to the floor. It was just a piece of paper with a drawing of the Sun. The real mark on those flanks was also a vague sun-shape, but it was made of thick black marks against a gray field.

Those dark parts on the rest of Celestia’s coat weren’t patches—they were stripes.

Twilight’s eyes went wide. But before she could say anything to the impostor, she felt that touch on the top of her head once again. She looked up and found herself staring right into the head of the emergency shower, mere inches away from her muzzle. And then another surge of fluid pumped into Twilight, inflating her those few remaining inches—planting her open mouth flush against the showerhead.

“Mmnnmm…” Twilight said into the showerhead, her eyes widening even further. “Hrrrrmmm!” She waggled her legs—puffy and half-engulfed by her swelling body—in an effort to pull away from the shower. But it was futile: she just inflated further, wedging herself between the showerhead and the chair below. Wider and wider Twilight expanded, until she felt the slight pressure of her back resting against a pedal at the shower’s side. It was the on-switch for the emergency shower.

And at that point, the last of the fluid pumped into Twilight’s rear, and she ceased inflating. “Nrrrrrmm…” Twilight said. She struggled no longer, instead holding as still as possible, lest she accidentally turn the shower on.

Meanwhile, Zecora—still in her cheap Celestia disguise—approached Twilight’s huge, rounded form. Slowly and gently, she nuzzled that enormous purple belly, pressing the side of her head a few inches into the liquid-filled softness. With every motion, Twilight’s back sloshed against the shower pedal, without quite pressing it.

“Hrrmmnnn nnnrrrmmm!” Twilight pleaded indistinctly, rocking back and forth beyond her control. Her jiggling body squished dangerously against that pedal; there was no telling which motion might finally activate it.

Zecora reared back and hugged Twilight’s belly. It would have taken a dozen Zecoras to completely encompass that bloated girth, but she squeezed as much between her forelegs as she could. Finally, she pulled away. The white fur dye had rubbed off her head and forelegs—fully revealing her face—and onto Twilight’s belly.

“So don’t overreach yer...self,” Zecora said with a smirk.

Then she turned away, smacking her thick haunches into Twilight’s stomach. The impact rippled through the huge purple balloon. Twilight’s back pressed against the shower pedal—all the way, turning the shower on.

Twilight had just enough time to whimper, “Hmmhhmmhhmm…” before the water rushed out the shower head and into her mouth. Her cheeks puffed out while her pupils shrank. After those cheeks had swelled enough to triple the size of Twilight’s face, the water forced its way down her throat, filling her enormous body even larger. Her desk groaned as it bent further beneath her inflating mass, swelling to six times her volume and then right past.

Meanwhile, Zecora resumed the exam and wrote the next question. Even with Twilight’s face pointed straight at the ceiling—held in place by the showerhead pumping gallon after gallon down her throat—she could hear the chalk scraping against the board, and knew instinctively what the question was:

Who was the most important conjurer of the Preclassical Era?

Twilight tried to answer: “Mmblblblrrrrmm!”

“I must admit, a surprising omission. I thought he was your fav’rite magician.”

Give the formula for calculating the volume of a sphere.

“Hmmglblglblglblglbl… mmmglglglglglhhhmm!”

“That answer, too, is quite incorrect. Much more of this, and your grade will be wrecked.”

Twilight inflated twice as fast now—the missed questions, filling her from below, matched the pace of the water filling her from above. Squeezed between her desk and the shower, she couldn’t grow any taller; she just swelled wider, even more quickly than before.

What is one hundred seventy-three multiplied by twenty-nine?

“Glblblblblblblblglglglblglblgl!”

Underneath Twilight, the chair’s legs buckled even more. The frame bent out even farther under the unrelenting pressure of her continued growth; it resembled a bizarre metal flower more than a desk at this point. Twilight’s inflating sides swallowed her legs, inch after inch—all the way up to her fetlocks by now. Her neck had lost all definition—inflating until it merged with her balloon of a body—and now it squeezed around Twilight’s head, squishing her puffy cheeks against her face. A tiny stream of water dribbled out the corner of her lips, but the majority of the liquid poured straight into her mouth, pumping her larger with every passing second.

Which princess raises and lowers the Sun?

“Mmblblblglblglblglblglblrrrr!”

The desk could finally take no more of Twilight’s relentless growth. The metal legs and frame just snapped into a dozen pieces—the noises earning Twilight a fifty-point deduction—and deposited her enormous, round rump directly on the floor. But by this point, it was only a one-foot drop, and Twilight was still inflated large enough to press her mouth tightly against the showerhead. Her whole body shook and sloshed from the impact, and she inflated over ten times her normal volume, as the flow of liquid from both ends continued without interruption.

What equation describes the flow of a fluid through an enclosed space?

“Glglglglglglglglglmmmhhmmglblgblgblgllllll!”

Summarize Meadowlark’s Second Theorem of General Magic.

“Hmmblglglglglglblblblblbmmmh!”

How many hooves do I have?

“MMBLBLBLGLBLGLHHMMMBLGLBLGLBLMMMMMRR!”

On and on, the exam ran, question after question. It was fate’s annoying joke that Twilight was only now getting comprehensible questions, with answers she actually knew—only after she had a showerhead in her face, drowning out her words. So every item that she would have aced instead became another wrong answer to pump into her rear and bloat her even larger.

As Twilight inflated over thirteen times her original size, her hooftips sank completely into her body—leaving just indents on her expanding sides to mark where her legs had been. Wider she grew, her torso squishing against the walls on two sides, while pushing desks out of the way on the other two sides. Taller she grew, as well—the huge curves that had been her neck and shoulders creeping upward inch by inch. Twilight’s head was over halfway swallowed by them, and sinking deeper by the second.

Twilight’s shrunken pupils darted back and forth. She scanned what little was left of her field of vision—between the showerhead rammed into her face, and her own body bulging around her head—frantically searching for some escape from this predicament. But the ceiling held no answers, and a dozen other sensations distracted her. There was a perverse pleasure as every square inch of her skin stretched farther to contain the countless gallons pumping into her. There was the soft but inescapable embrace where her own swollen body had engulfed her limbs. There was the pressure of the walls and floor pushing back against her—and from the metal shards of the ruined desk digging into her gigantic rump. And there were the thousands upon thousands of gallons of liquid inside her—swirling and churning and making her jiggle and slosh involuntarily, as yet more pumped into her every second.

“GLBLGLHHMMMBLGLBL—” Twilight cried out one last time, cut short as her inflating body finally engulfed her face and the showerhead. With her head and legs all sunken into her torso, and her tail stuck between her backside and the floor, she was just a giant purple balloon now, and still inflating larger.

If Zecora noticed this change in her faithful student, she certainly didn’t show it. She just continued writing questions on the board:

What was Mage Nebula’s most important spell?

Naturally, silence—broken by the occasional gurgle—was the only answer from the balloon that had been Twilight, as she expanded larger and larger. So Zecora duly shoved each missed answer into the blender—to bloat that round, purple figure even further.

Which enzymes are responsible for DNA replication?

As Twilight’s massive belly expanded, spreading across the floor, it pushed a half-dozen chairs in front of it. And every time one of those chair legs scraped a floor tile, Zecora dutifully penalized Twilight for the excessive noise—adding still more to that absurdly large bulk.

Who is my most faithful student?

At last, the final question was asked, answered incorrectly, and pumped up Twilight’s backside. She had expanded to fill that entire corner—a quivering purple balloon that covered a full quarter of the classroom’s floor space. And still she inflated larger, with the shower still pouring water down her throat.

Zecora trotted up and caressed that huge stomach. “Your performance was perfect—even better than I could expect…”

—————

Zecora gave Twilight a great shove, and the huge balloon of a pony rolled a few feet down the red carpet. They were back in the Royal Palace, inside the throne room. Purple light streamed through dozens of stained glass windows—each and every one depicting different purple unicorn mares, inflated to various sizes.

“Whaaaaa?” Twilight said, with the voice of a pony waking from sleep. Without the shower pushing her face down, her head was no longer completely engulfed by her enormous body: a few inches of her muzzle poked out now.

“My faithful student, do not be distressed.” Zecora said. “Congratulations! You just passed the test!” She shoved once more, rolling Twilight onto her back.

“I did?” Twilight jiggled and sloshed as she rolled further. “But I didn’t get any questions right…”

“The questions were merely a ruse, a distraction. You’ve proven your faithfulness, to my satisfaction. I’ll give you a new job, right here in the Court; directly to me, now, you will report. Serving beneath me, your talents will bloom. Together we’ll be, in this very throne room.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

Zecora rolled Twilight again, until the purple balloon rested on her gigantic belly at the end of the throne room. Then Zecora climbed up that huge, wobbling stomach, as easily as if it were a ladder. Partway up, she paused to nuzzle Twilight’s exposed snout.

“Mmmm…” Twilight’s face flushed. “When do I start this assignment?”

“Right now, in fact. No need to postpone…” Zecora clambered the rest of the way up Twilight, then sat down on top. Perched high in the air, she wiggled her backside, squishing it into the inflated unicorn. Her every motion made Twilight jiggle and wobble underneath.

Finally satisfied with her seat atop the purple balloon, Zecora said, “From now on, Twilight, you’ll be my new throne.”

[Pause for laughter.]

[End of Act 2. Close curtain.]

Evil Expandtress

by RadPanic

1. And Then There Was One

2. The Unbearable Largeness of Drinking

3. Find Your Thrill

4. Dragonfarce

5. Grading on a Curve