> You Take the Moon and You Take the Sun
>  by TheDriderPony
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> You Take Everything That Seems Like Fun
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marzipan City. A bustlng metropolis filled with every kind of creature imaginable. Somewhere south of tomorrow, left of the infinite plains, and if you pass Flavortown then you've gone too far. Where logic takes a permanent holiday and fun takes the wheel while no one's not looking.

And within that city, many important things were going on. A woolly mammoth refused to sell people fruit unless they listened to his stand-up routine. A small pink creature taped clandestinely taken pictures of her boyfriend to her wall, adding cutouts of herself over any faces that weren't his.

And in an odd little building shaped vaguely like a mushroom, a young bear... cat... boy... thing could not be more eager to start the day.

"Oh, I'm so excited!" he gushed, "I can't wait to see what I'm gonna learn to make today."

"Radda radda, radda." A deep and grinding voice came from his left, where a tall, brown rock monster with neck for days swept up what crumbs remained of yesterday's cooking.

"No, I am not going to mess it up, Shnitzel!" the boy replied indignantly, much to the rock monster's chuckling amusement.

"Chowder!" A new voice cried as its owner entered the kitchen. It was a tall blue man, rail thin, with a chef's jacket, a finely sculpted moustache, and a nose you could play cricket with. "I hope you're ready, focused, and prepared for a very special day."

"Sir, yes, sir!" Chowder saluted before being distracted by a blutterfly that had flown in the open window. 

Mung Daal sighed dismissively. "Well, you're enthusiastic, so one out of three ain't bad. Anyway, we have a very special order today."

Mung reached into his jacket and pulled out a fancy-looking scroll, its edges embossed and watermarked with motifs of stars and horseshoes. "Tell me boy, have you ever heard of Equestria?"

"No, is it tasty?"

The chef gave him a light bop to the noggin. "Of course not! Get your head in the game, Chowder. Equestria's a place, not a food. It's a colorful, magical land, filled with all sorts of strange and fantastic creatures."

"Sounds weird." Said the chef-in-training monster thing whose appetite could give Dream Warrior Kirby a run for his money.

"Radda." Agreed the living rock with a penchant for dirty jokes.

"Yeah, whatever. We've served weirder people before. The important thing is this:" Mung held up the scroll which seemed to glow for a moment in a heavenly light. "This is a letter straight from her Royal Highness, Princess Celestia!"

Chowder's eyes lit up. "Wow! A letter from a real Princess?"

"Oho, you'd better believe it bucko." Mung grinned. "Our first royal commission."

They were interrupted by a scratchy and grating old voice from the next room. "Ach, I remember back when we were first married," it said, "He promised me that my life would be like a princess fairy tale." And then her tone turned sour. "I just never thought I'd be living the Cinderella story in reverse."

"Woman, I am working on it." Mung yelled back. "Give a man a few years to get things in order."

"It's been four centuries you doofus!"

"Wait a minute," Chowder interrupted with a perplexed expression, "How did the Princess find out about us? I don't think I've ever seen us do literally any advertising."

Mung shrugged. "Search me. But as long as customers keep coming in, however weird they are, I don't question it."

"Radda radda." Shnitzel said pointedly.

"Good point Shnitzel. So," he loosed the scroll's ribbon so it unfurled like a banner, "Princess Celestia is celebrating the er... something-something anniversary of her reign and wants us to make a special cake for the event."

"Ooh, cake!" Chowder rubbed his hands together as a small line of drool made its escape towards the floor. "I love cake days. There's always so much batter to lick up!"

"Mhm, mhm." Mung's eyes continued to scan over the page. "Oh! It says here, she wants us to surprise her with what type of cake we make and that price is no object. She underlined and circled that three times." He pulled the other two close. "This is it boys! The big leagues! An open-ended order from royalty!"

"Radda? Radda, radda radda." Shnitzel commented as he continued to read the scroll in Mung's hand.

"What? What guest chef?" Mung's eyes poured over the scroll, blazing through the lines so quickly they began to smoke. "I will also be forwarding a supply of local fruits and produce," he read, "as well as a baker to help you use any which you may be unfamiliar with. She is a personal friend, and has my upmost confidence and support." He slammed the paper onto the counter. "Well isn't that just great!"

"What's wrong Mung?" Chowder asked, "I thought you liked working with other chefs."

"Sure, it's a great way to learn. But this is going to be some fancy, hoity-toity, high-class, snooty, nose-held-so-high-she'll-drown-if-it-rains royal baker. Here, in my kitchen. Touching my things and making snide comments about how it's so rustic or authentically pedestrian."

"Oh." The bear-cat-boy looked sad for a moment before brightening again. "Well I hope we can all be friends anyway!"

Just then, the doorbell rang, announcing someone's arrival.

"Package for Mung Daal Catering," said the short bird-man in his crisp blue delivery uniform.

"Bring it in here!" Mung shouted, before adding to his assistant and apprentice, "That's probably the local ingredients now."

The bird-man entered the kitchen, pushing along a dolly with a wooden crate big enough for Chowder to fit in comfortably. He set it down and passed a piece of paper to Mung. "And you have a letter as well."

"Thank you my good man, now off you go."

The delivery man waited, coughed into his hand, and held it out. Mung rolled his eyes. "Oh. Of course. Chowder, tip the man."

"Okay!" the lad scrambled over, nearly falling over himself the process and pushed himself suddenly into the face of the startled delivery man. "Never try to eat a Puckerberry! Always share gum with Truffles! Stinky Cheese Logs need to be rolled at 135 miles per hour!"

He rattled off random trivia and cooking advice in a single unending, uninterruptible breath. It didn't take long before the bird fled in terror.

"Good lad." Mung tossed him a cookie which Chowder caught in his mouth. "Shnitzel, get a crowbar and start working on that crate. Meanwhile, I will open this completely ordinary and probably inconsequential letter."

After a moment of tool-hunting, they approached their parcels at the same time. Shnitzel with his crowbar and Mung with his letter opener. The moment one of them made contact-

"Hiya!" a bright and cheery voice suddenly called out.

Chowder yelped in shock at the pink thing that had suddenly emerged from his hat. More of its body came out until there was an entire pink pony standing on his head with his hat on hers. She hopped down and flipped the hat back onto Chowder.

"Sorry for the surprise," she said, "Couldn't find a handy portal, so I had to make my own way here."

In his long life (especially the years since taking on his apprentice), Mung had seen far stranger things and was thus unfazed. "I take it you're the special chef Princes Celestia spoke of?"

She grinned, a wide cheerful thing that spoke of a genuine pleasure at meeting him. "That'd be me!" She offered a hoof. "Pinkamena Diane Pie, at your service. But you can call me Pinky!"

Mung took the hoof and shook it even as the mare's eyes had started to wander across the kitchen. Alas, here came the disparaging comments.

"Wow!" she exclaimed with eyes ashimmer, "This place is enormous-mous-mous...!" Her voice echoed in the high-ceilinged room. "It makes my kitchen back home look like a toy set!"

He raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were a royal chef?"

She laughed at that. Her laugh was like tinkling bells. "Oh no way! I'm just a friend of a friend of the princess who became a friend herself. I work in a small bakery in Ponyville."

Mung felt then something shift in his heart. His preconceptions melted away as he was opened to understanding. This was no haughty baker who instructed subordinates and hadn't touched a spoon herself for years. This was get-your-hands-dirty, do-it-herself, bake-it-from scratch type chef. The kind who put the quality of her food and service above all else. A tingling sense of kinsmanship swelled up within him.

"Well I'm happy to have you, Pinkie of Ponyville Bakery." He cracked his fingers. "If you'll start unpacking your ingredients, I'll go check my mega-cookbook for a suitable dish."

"But Mung," Chowder interrupted, clearly not reading the mood, "I thought you said-"

"Ha-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bup!" He squished a finger to his apprentice's lips, effectively silencing him. "Just... forget all that and go help Shnitzel and Pinkie with the crate."

Nodding, he waddled over to where Pinky and Shnitzel nearly had the lid off and were already deep in conversation.

"Really?" she was saying, "I never knew! And after so many years of rock farming..."

"Radda radda." Shnitzel leaned on the crowbar once more as the crate's lid finally popped off. Chowder peered in. The box was brimming with all sorts of strange fruits and foods, the likes of which he'd never seen before. Not even in Gazpacho's hyper-exclusive secret stall (which, truth be told, was just full of normal Marzipan fruits that had by chance grown into unusual shapes).

"Nice job, Shnitzy!" Pinkie hopped over and delved headfirst into the crate. "Now let's see what the princess sent." She dug through the ingredients, tossing time behind her like a dog digging in sand. Most landed in surprisingly neat order on the counter, but a few went astray that had Chowder running to and fro to try and catch.

"Ooh! She packed some good stuff! Crystal berries, furians, dragonhorn melon, impassion fruit, loquat-udeds, Lunar lotuses, Sunfire melons, smolderberries, Zebrican zip flour, zap apples, Neighponese cheery cherries, and a kumquatucopia!"

She turned to see Chowder staring at the assortment, his eyes and mouth contesting to see which could water the most. She grinned in recognition of the look. "You wanna snack?"

He nodded wordlessly.

Pinkie reached into her saddlebags and added a few more things to the pile. A large sandwich, a somehow still steaming pie, and a very plain looking bran muffin.

"We should probably save that other stuff for the cake, but I can share my packed lunch with you."

"Oh wow thanks!" Chowder immediately chomped down on over half the sandwich in a single bite. Tears peaked out of the corners of his eyes, and those tears (with tiny faces) shed tears of their own. "It's so good..."

"Well it'd better be!" Pinkie grinned, "It has all the best ingredients. Cream cheese, pickles, dill, hard boiled eggs, cucumbers, roma tomatoes,  sweet yellow onions, lobster soul... and I think a few others, but I forget them."

Licking away his own salty tears as a palate cleanser, Chowder turned to the pie, a bit apprehensive now after how good the sandwich had been. "What kind of pie is it?"

"Pie flavored."

He took an equally large bite and his eyes lit up in surprise. "It is! I don't know how, but it is!"

Finally, he turned to the last of Pinkie's tasty treats, the ordinary looking muffin. 

"Oh don't worry about that. It's just a MacGuffin Muffin. My friend Derpy gave it to me when she heard I was headed out of town. I'm saving it for later though." She dug into her saddlebag once more and produced a small, colorful, paper packet. "If you still want something to chew on though, I have a few sticks of Check-Off's Gum."

Chowder started to reach for one when Shnitzel reminded them of his presence with a quick "Radda radda radda."

"Oh yeah, that's right. Maybe later." Chowder decided. "Mung always says it's not good to chew gum while you cook. It changes how the food tastes."

She slipped the package back in her bag. "Have it your way."

"Eureka! I've found it!" Mung's excited voice carried from the cookbook room.

He rushed back to the group, hastily removing the climbing harness needed to scale the mega-cookbook. "I have found the perfect cake for your Princess Celestia's anniversary party!"

He held up a page onto which he'd transcribed the recipe and clipped a photograph from the mega-cookbook.

"A Scrumbortitious Salatorious Seraphim Cake!"

It was a glorious behemoth. One that defied description. So amazing, that Mung had to angle the photo away from the author so he wouldn't be forced to go into countless unnecessary paragraphs struggling to describe just how amazing it was.

"Oh that'll be perfect!" Pinkie cried, "I can tell she's gonna love it already!"

"Then there's no time to waste!" Mung clapped his hands together. "Now let's! Get! Cooking!"

The group cheered before breaking apart to either start preparing ingredients or warming up the equipment.

Reaching into... somewhere... Pinkie grabbed a navy blue apron with black trim and sparkling star motif and tied it around her waist.

She took a step forward. Stopped. Looked down at her apron. Stepped back. Forward again. Back again. Forward. Back. Forward. Back.

Chowder walked by with a bag of sugar. "What are you doing? Some kind of cooking dance?"

"No, I just like how the fabric's pattern stays in the same place even when I move." She commented. She walked forward, continually this time, as different patterns of stars shifted across her apron with each movement.

Chowder shrugged and continued on. He glanced at the table where the muffin still sat. It looked ordinary, sure, but so had the sandwich and pie. It teased him, slowly filling his view as everything else seemed to fade away. Surely she didn't need all of it. A little bit wouldn't go amiss.

"Chowder! Where are you with that sugar?"

"Coming, Mung!" He quickly replied and scampered off.

On the table sat the muffin, with a single bite taken from it.





It had taken some time, but the first few steps were done. All the ingredients were measured, processed, and prepared, and nothing had exploded or caught fire yet.

Aside from the ingredients, the kitchen space was packed with fifty giant machines. Each looked like someone had tried to build a blender using only a verbal description for reference, and had also somehow introduced tesla coils and Jaboticaba's ladders to the design.

Mung walked Chowder through the maze of machines and up a flight of stairs to a control panel on a raised platform. While he wanted his apprentice to help, he couldn't discard the fact that this was a dish for royalty and Chowder's particular brand of well-meaning help tended to end... messily, at best. So rather than have him running about and making sure he put the right ingredients in the right Blendinator at the right time, Mung had a simpler job for him.

"Now Chowder, this is a very delicate part of the operation. In order for the cake to come out right, all fifty flavors of batter need to be mixed at the same time. Which is why I've brought out my full collection of Blendinators."

Chowder marveled at the shiny exotic-looking appliances. "Wow... Where did you get all these fancy machines?"

"An old friend who didn't need them anymore. Something or other about a platypus problem he was having. Anyway," They reached the control panel which looked as if it could launch space shuttles, "Chowder this is a simple job, but an important one. This panel controls the speed for every Blendinator in the kitchen. All you have to do is keep each needle in the green. If they go red, turn the knob down to reduce the speed. If they lean blue, turn the knob up to rev them back up. You got that?"

Chowder nodded and gazed at the controls. They gazed back, fifty dim eyes taunting him to catch them in the act of changing color.

"Pinkie, Shnitzel! Are you ready?"

"Aye aye, captain!"

"Radda!"

"Then let's light this popsicle stand!"

He pulled an oversized lever on the wall and a half-hundred green eyes flared to life as countless machines began revving up. He dashed back down the stairs, joining Pinkie and Shnitzel as they darted between machines dumping in ingredients in a very specific order.

Chowder kept a close eye on the console, but everything was blue, flickering into green as they came up to proper speed. His stomach rumbled alarmingly, and not in it's usual way.

"We're falling behind!" Mung shouted as he dumped a tray of smolderberries into Blendinator #21. "We've got to pick up the pace!"

"I'm going as fast as I can!" Pinkie replied, her legs spiraling in a figure-eight-like blur from her sheer speed.

"Radda!" Schnitzel agreed.

Mung grimaced, but there was no other option. He needed to call in reinforcements, though he'd pay for it later. "Truffles! Come quick, we need your help!"

"Oh sure! Like I don't do enough already with the taking the orders, the balancing the budget, and the ordering supplies. Now you want me to cook too?"

"Please Truffles! It's for the royal cake order!"

In a blur of green, red, and purple she was in the room. "Why didn't you say so?! Now tell me what goes where."

"Chart on the counter." He simplified while jumping over Pinkie with a basket of diced meaches.

She made a beeline for it, flying over the chaos below. Truffles was no trained chef, but decades of "occasionally lending a hand" had well developed her ability to understand her husband's diagrams. "Got it!" She declared quickly and grabbed a pitcher of juiced moodfruit destined for Blendinator #15.

Pinkie quirked an ear up at the entrance of the chef's winged wife, though she did not slow down her deliveries. There was something oddly familiar about her. Her wrinkled face, purple hair, and excessively large mushroom hat rang no bells, but there was something about her that struck a chord with Pinkie that she just couldn't quite put her hoof on.

For what felt like ages they rushed; running, flying, and galloping across the kitchen to make sure every ingredient went where it was supposed to go when it was supposed to go in. Finally, Mung called a rest.

"Okay, we can slow down now," he gasped, "We're past the worst of it. Just need to let them mix a while now. Everything green up there Chowder?"

He gave a thumbs up. "As green as sing beans!"

As those who had been running sat down for a much needed break, Pinkie took a moment to ask the question that had been preying on her mind all day.

"By the way," she asked Truffles,"Do I know you? Cause I really feel like I know you."

"I don't think so," Truffles replied.

"Hmmm..." Pinkie was not convinced. She knew when she knew people, even when she didn't know how she knew them. Stretching across a table, she grabbed a scroll and tossed it to Truffles. "Here. Could you read this please? Just the first and last lines."

"Ah, okay." Never one to let down a (paying) customer (especially a stand-in for royalty), she put on her horned-rimmed reading glasses. "Dear Mung Daal Catering," she read, before moving quickly to the letter's conclusion. "Signed, Her Royal Highness Princess Celestia."

"Okay, now just the first word and last two." The feeling of familiarity was rising in Pinkie's mind like a hot souffle ready to pop.

Truffles pulled the edges of the paper together and read across the new combined line. "Dear Princess Celestia."

"I knew it!" Pinkie gasped. Reaching up, but also in a direction not quite quantifiable, she grabbed the edge of reality and pulled it down, scrunching and folding the world beneath her hoof like she was pulling down Venetian blinds. Behind the brightly colored world of the kitchen was a small, sparsely furnished recording studio occupied by a not quite middle-aged woman with a youthful complexion and golden yellow hair. 

"Hi Tara! I thought that sounded like you!"

The woman looked up from her script and smiled. "Hey Andrea. Doing another crossover project?"

"Yupperoni! Didn't expect to hear you here though."

"Oh you know me, I always have two or three projects going on at once."

"True, true." Pinkie nodded sagely.

Pinkie felt the edge of reality quiver underhoof and knew that her time was short. "Whoops! Looks like I better go before I break something. See you next season, Tara!"

Tara raised a hand in farewell. "See you then too. Have fun with your crossover."

And reality sprang back up and into place, none the worse for wear.

Chowder rubbed his head and groaned. "Ugh, I don't feel so good."

"Sorry," Pinkie apologized, "Thought I heard a friend and the wall is so much more resilient here..."

"No," he interrupted, clutching his stomach, "That's normal. This is... ugh... new."

"Are you alright Chowder?" Mung asked.

"F-fine!" he managed to reply, "Just a tummy-ache."

It was more than just a tummy-ache. His whole body was tingling in the strangest way. But he had a job to do. Somebody had to watch these dials, and by gumdrops, he was not going to mess up another order!

Something was changing in his body, but he ignored it. His face shrunk and his nose grew into something more muzzle-like, and he turned down dial #43. His legs started to shift into a new joint arrangement, and he propped himself up on the console and turned up dial #6. Mung was counting on him.

Then he ran into trouble as his fingers retracted. 

He could no longer turn the dials! Well, he could a little, but it took both of his new hooves and it was way too easy to overshoot.

And then the bones in his back shifted and he finally lost his balance.

With a startled cry he fell from the raised platform, suddenly encompassed by a glowing white light.

"Chowder!" Everyone cried and dropped what they were doing to rush to his side. 

"What happened boy, are you hurt?" Mung asked, worry coloring his voice.

"No... I- I think I'm okay. In fact, I feel much better now!" The cat-bear-boy stood up, eliciting a gasp from all around.

Other things aside, his species was suddenly much more identifiable. Where once had been a rotund bipedal something-or-other, there was now a portly earth pony colt with a grey coat and two tone purple mane. He bore a cutie mark of a spoon and fork twisted together at the ends.

"What's wrong?" he asked, "Is there something on my face?"

"You're a pony!" Truffles declared bluntly.

Chowder looked down, back, and around. At his hooves, his tail, and his cutie mark. Then he screamed.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-!"

At Mung's direction Schnitzel clamped Chowder's jaws shut. "Sweet Peas, Chowder, stop shouting! You're a pony, not a screaming mimi."

"B-but what am I supposed to do now?" He asked, his eyes going moist and misty. "I have no hands! I can't be a chef without hands!"

"Hey!" Pinkie interjected, somewhat miffed. "I'm a chef with no hands."

The sobered him up quickly as his sorrow morphed into embarrassment. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Oh. Heh heh... right, sorry."

Mung sighed and turned to his guest. "Pinkie, do you know what might have caused this?"

She shook her head regretfully. "No, I've never heard of someone just turning a pony before. But then again, most people I know are ponies, so maybe I'm not the best pony to ask. However! I do think I know what might fix it!"

Hopping back to where she'd left her things, Pinkie rifled through her saddlebag for a moment before finally finding something and returning. Shaking a piece loose of its paper, she offered Chowder a piece of black and white patterned gum which he took willingly.

Within seconds of chewing, a strange expression crossed his face. He began to shake, then glow, then with a sudden *poof!* of smoke, he was back to his usual self.

"Wow!" he exclaimed as he checked himself over to make sure everything was how it was supposed to be. "How did you know that the gum would fix me? Does it usually do that?"

Pinkie just shrugged. "Check-Off's Gum is a pretty good cure-all for any situation. Plus, it was the only other pre-established plot device we hadn't used yet since all the fruits went into the batter."

Mung's face paled. "The batter!" He rushed up the stairs to the control panel. Every indicator was red and some were starting to spark.

"Hit the deck!" He ordered and leaped off the platform into the safety of a potted tree. The others likewise dived behind whatever was available. Moments later, everything exploded. 

When the rumbling subsided and the aftershocks had ceased, five heads cautiously poked out of their various hiding spots.

The kitchen was a mess. Warzones would take insult at being compared to it. Batter had been flung everywhere along with metal shrapnel. Some flavors seemed to be adhering things together while others seemed to be eating through the walls. The batters made from the Lunar lotuses and Solarfire melons were floating in weightless blobs that seemed to be developing a semi-stable orbit around the kitchen.

"Oh peanut brittle. Well... this is going to take forever and a half to clean up." Mung complained.

"Radda radda radda. Radda radda."

Pinkie patted Shnitzel on the back. "Don't worry, you won't have to clean this up. This is probably somehow my fault, so I'll call in a favor." She cupped her hooves around her mouth and shouted to the sky. "Hey author! Wanna lend us a hand here?"

The author paused his narration for a moment, surprised to have found a character addressing him directly. Then again, it was Pinkie Pie in a world known to effectively utilize meta-humor. He glanced up at the view count, then consulted the ratings bar. Yeah, Pinkie'd pulled in a fair bit of traffic. He could spot her an easy fix. So long as she didn't try to make a habit of it.

"I won't!"

With a few strokes of the author's keyboard, the kitchen (sans occupants) rewound itself to just before Chowder's transformation. The piece of muffin, tainted by the void between worlds, also discretely disappeared from his stomach.

"Oh, so the muffin was what did it. Thanks!" Pinkie said with a smile. "Also, while I have your attention, you spelled my name wrong in the introduction and once more later on."

The author made a note to correct it before publishing.

"Whoo," Mung sighed as he wiped some sweat from his brow. "That was a close one. Nice job on the restore Pinkie."

"Anytime," she said with a salute. "Well, probably not anytime. I'm pretty sure I get like, two or three of those, tops."

The second attempt went much more smoothly than the first. Shnitzel watched the dials this time, while Mung, Chowder, and Pinkie walked between the mixers sampling each batter, the two experts explaining things about the various key ingredients in each mix. From mixing, they moved to baking, then assembly, then decoration. And then it was complete.

It was a mountain of a cake, fifty layers tall, each with a unique flavor and decorative color scheme. It took up most of the kitchen and the largest doily they had on hand.

As they all congratulated each other on a job well done, Pinkie took a couple of crystals out of her saddlebags and began arranging them around the cake. When she was done, a beam of light shot between each crystal, encasing the entire cake in a shining, lavender , geodesic bubble. She then approached the locals one last time.

"Well," she said with a note of melancholy in her voice, "I guess I'd better be going. Somepony's gotta get this cake back home, and then there's the whole rest of the party to set up after that."

Her forelegs stretching in an impossible manner, she encompassed all her new friends in a big bear hug. "I'm gonna miss you guys! You're all so fun and wacky!"

"Radda, radda radda."

"You're a fine chef, Pinkie. I hope we'll be able to work together soon."

"Just make sure that that Princess of yours pays her bill, alright?"

"I'm gonna miss you, and all your fun new foods."

Pinkie smiled, softly this time. "Oh, I'm sure we'll all see each other soon enough. I betcha I can convince Princess Celestia to invite you to the party. Hey, she'll probably try to get you to join her staff once she gets a taste of it!"

Releasing the hug, Pinkie backed up and stepped into the glowing field. She placed a hoof on one larger than average crystal and said "Okay Twilight, hit it!" Both she and the cake began to fade away with a strange metallic trilling noise as Pinkie gave one last enthusiastic wave to her new friends.

In moments, she was gone.

There was silence for a time.

"Well that was certainly an experience." Mung chuckled. "It sure was lucky that she had that gum on hand to un-pony you, Chowder."

"Yeah!" he agreed, "And it was lucky that none of the other ingredients she brought had the same side effect. You know, since we tried all of them."

They all paused as their stomachs rumbled in unison.

Suddenly, there was an enormous *poof!* of smoke, light, and colored sparkles.

When the smoke cleared and the lights had dimmed from their eyes, a blue unicorn, a green pegasus, and two earth ponies (coated in brown and grey) stood in the kitchen.

"Well..." the moustachioed unicorn started, "I probably should have seen that coming."

"Radda radda."