“Give it up, Starlight Glimmer!” Twilight shouted from out on the front of the, now former, mayor’s house.
 
Without wasting a another second, Night Glider whizzed by Twilight’s head and smashed into the door, knocking it off its hinges and collapsing on the floor. The house filled with the rush of ponies knocking over things and opening every compartment there was. Night Glider rushed up the stairs, and loud bangs and a crash was heard, followed by screams and scuffles of the familiar voice of Starlight.
 
“Get off me! Oh. Gah! Rah, let me go!”
 
A repeated bang was heard, and Night came in sight, gliding down the stairs, with Starlight being dragged by the tail. She bounced and smacked into every step down the stairs until Glider flung Starlight forward, like a rag-doll. The mare was quickly held down by multiple ponies. Party Favor ran up behind Starlight’s head. He pulled out a large cork, and with force, pressed it down hard onto Starlight’s horn.
 
“That should keep her from doing any nasty tricks,” Party said.
 
Starlight was taken outside where all the other town ponies cheered at Starlight’s capture. Twilight and the others waited around Starlight until Sugar Belle and Night Glider came out with concerned looks.
 
“We checked high and low, but we couldn’t find your cutie marks,” Sugar said.
 
Twilight got up in Starlight’s face, who looked discontent in a bored sense. “Where are they, Starlight!”
 
Starlight gave the littlest of smirks. “You may have taken may town, but at least I can live knowing you’ll never be as strong as you once were.” Starlight was assaulted by the fuming faces of the other mares, their words striking her like daggers, but she basked in their anger
 
“I say we beat it out of her!” Rainbow Dash clopped her hooves together, sneering at the unicorn.
 
“Ah’ second that,” Applejack said.
 
“We’re not torturing her,” Twilight snapped. We’ll reason with her some way.
 
“What if we torture in a painless way,” Rainbow suggested.
 
“That defeats the whole purpose of the word torture, Dash!”
 
“Ohohoh! I have an idea!” Pinkie Pie squealed. “All I need is a large helium tank and a hose!”
 
“Pinkie, darling, this is hardly the time.” Rarity rubbed her temple.
 
“Actually, I think Pinkie’s on to something,” Twilight said.
 
“Uh, well,” Party Favor spoke up, “We should still have my old helium tanks in the shred. I gave it up when I came here. Pinkie could use that.”
 
Pinkie fetched the helium tank and wheeled it over. It was—”A deluxe, super condensed helium tank 2000!” Pinkie screamed in delight. “I’ve always wanted one of these.”
 
Party Favor smiled with pride. “Yup, that baby can make up to over a thousand balloons. Heck, if you had the stuff, you could make a balloon the size of a small blimp!”
 
“Wait, you’re serious about this, Twilight?” Rainbow interjected. “A party is really gonna help get our cutie marks back?
 
Twilight took her eyes off Pinkie unrolling the long hose to the tank to confront Dash. “I believe for Starlight’s sake it’s best to show her how forgiven we can be as soon as possible.”
 
“You’re kidding.” Rainbow stared down at her friend, eyes half lidded, and hooves crossed. As Twilight continued her ramble about forgiveness and reformation, Dash’s eyes slowly lifted, out of boredom, to see Pinkie carry the head of the hose in her mouth and approach Starlight; the mare looked disgusted at Pinkie’s cheerful eyes, and how her smile lifted her cheeks. Party Favor twisted the knob to the tank, and Dash saw the thin hose squirm and inflate in loops, racing to the head where the helium could finally be free.
 
What happened next was so sudden for Rainbow Dash to give out any kind of words. Pinkie took the hose in her hoof, then cupped her other hoof behind Starlight’s head while shoving the head of the hose into her unsuspecting mouth. The mare’s eyes went wide, she gave a squeal that was muffled by the hose, and could’ve been mistook for the wailing of helium passing a tight space. Dash could see the looks on the other girls’ faces: shock and confusing. Dash shifted her eyes back to Twilight and again at Starlight. Her eyes were spinning from how fast she went. Twilight was so into her moral speech that she had no idea what was going on.
 
At first, Starlight looked fine, if not pissed. But something was stirring in her that made her face drop. She tugged on the hose, yet the best she did was stretch out her lips. The head was stuck somehow. Starlight’s cheeks puffed out and grew pinker, then she inhaled loudly, and her cheeks deflated back to normal.
 
Dash gave Applejack and Rarity a look asking for answers, and their looks were equally confused, yet none of them did or said anything to Pinkie’s action. Twilight was STILL talking about her moral lesson, and Rainbow had just about enough. “Twilight!” Dash grabbed her friend by the face, and forced her to turn her head around to Starlight. The unicorn froze in her attempt at pulling the hose, while Pinkie waved at Twilight.
 
Twilight was stunned silent. She shook her head clear and shouted, “Pinkie!”
 
“What? You said—”
 
 
“I said? I said nothing of this. I thought you were going to throw a party?”
 
“Well, I can still do that. But I meant that we could torture her by filling her with air. That’s not painful.” Pinkie beamed like she was the smartest pony in the world.
 
“How in tarnation is filling her with air gonna get her ta’ talk?”
 
“Pinkie,” Twilight said sternly, “you’ve done some seriously crazy and outlandish things, but I think this one takes the cake!”
 
“What? Na-uh. There’s no cake. If there was, I would know.”
 
The friends started bickering again on their methods of handling Starlight, crowding together, one against the others face. The only one not present in the fuss was Fluttershy, who sat out on the side watching them. She shifted her sight on to the poor unicorn, who, she noticed, was showing a round belly between her legs. And what was more stirring was how it grew at a slow but steady pace. Starlight was well aware, and wasn’t taking it well. She watched with horror stricken eyes as her belly inflated down and out, a pink sphere shaped gut full of nothing but air.
 
“Um, girls…” Fluttershy said softly. But the group were too engaged to listen.
 
Starlight continued to grow and bloat from the stomach. Her struggle to pull the hose out her mouth was in vain. She whined and grunted, but her voice was muffled. She winced at the sharp pain of her skin stretching and being push out and apart, feeling her nerves and skin cells forced to adapt to the change.
 
The town ponies stared and watched their former mayor blimp up. Starlight stared at Party Favor, pleading with her eyes for him to turn it off. He noticed and moved his hoof over the knob; relief started to fill Starlight, but Party Favor twisted the knob in the opposite direction, and before she could react, Starlight was assaulted by a powerful rush of air. Her belly grew wider at an alarming rate, the skin tightening more from the force. Soon her stomach was just as big as a beach ball and was pushing into her legs, which made her spread them out to accommodate her gut. Starlight tried shaking the hose off, anything to make it stop. She attempted to walk, or more like waddle, over to the machine when loud, irritating sounds filled her ears. When she looked down she found her chest protruding out wide, pressing also into her under arms. Starlight was so frightened that she backed up only to feel her legs squeak as they rubbed against her large chest and sphere belly. But even that wasn’t all, as while Starlight backed she felt her rear end rub together like balloons and creating the same sound tight rubber against each other. She dared to look back at her ballooning bubble butt, each cheeks surpassing exercise balls. Her thighs grew and stretched as a part of her expanding plot, making her butt look quite enormous. It was then she realized her butt was not just rising in mass, but also being uplifted to where her rear hooves left the ground. Her back legs kicked uselessly in the air, only creating the fart like sounds of rubbing balloons together.
 
Fluttershy trembled at Starlight’s bloating body, as her belly reached the ground, even while she was starting to fully hover with the helium filling her plot. A deep fold separated her gigantic belly from her monstrous upper body that was expanded from every side and making her body seem like only a few components of a head, legs, large butt, and inflated belly and chest. Even as Fluttershy watched, Starlight’s legs quickly began to cleave with the bloated body; her stubby hooves on top of round wide legs on top of a sphere of a body.
 
“GIRLS!” Fluttershy shouted at the top of her lungs.
 
The gang fell silent at the harsh sound of the usually tamed mare. However, their attention was quickly diverted up at the floating pink mass of mare, whose belly was now as wide as the house behind her and continued expanding out. Her back was arching inwards as her belly pushed out and her huge buttocks seemingly lingered over her head.
 
“Sweet Celestia! Get that hose out of her mouth!” Twilight cried. She pushed through her friends and tugged on the hose with her magic, but it wouldn’t budge. Twilight yanked harder, bouncing the large mare in the air lightly, but Starlight’s cheeks were pressed tightly together around her mouth. Her eyes pleaded, begged for Twilight to end her suffering, as her body showed no sign of stopping. The hose stretched to it’s length, leaving Starlight to hang in the air over the town, larger than a house, and increasingly growing passed two houses; she was an eclipse that covered the ponies and portion of the town in darkness. Her belly descended in its expansion and began pressing into the chimney and roof of the house below her, meanwhile, her plot was just as massive and magnificent, the star of her cutie mark larger than the sun in the sky.
 
“Okay, plan B. Pinkie, turn the machine off, quick!”
 
Pinkie Pie bounced her way to the helium tank and turned it off, the machine died down with a low hum. The expression on Starlight’s face showed relief, but was short-lived and turned to one of great concern. She looked like she was trying to move her legs, only succeeding in wiggling, barely, her stubby hooves. Starlight grunted and mumbled to get somepony’s attention as her body teetered and rocked from the gentle breeze, every inch of her either squeaking or groaning.
 
“Well,” Twilight breathed, “that could’ve gone badly.”
 
Rainbow Dash took to the air and hovered just before Starlight’s half engulfed head, giving the blimp a glare, that, in return, gave a flushed and deprived look. “What are we going to do with her now?”
 
Twilight tapped her chin and studied the floating mare with a stern look. She turned to scan the crowd around them, then knew what to do. “We’ll let them decide.”
 
 
 
Rainbow Dash and Night Glider flew behind the pink blimp of Starlight with string in their mouths, and, nodding at one another, tied the string to the mostly sunken hooves. They pulled hard, bringing Starlight’s massive rump down to level the inflated mare’s body. The two pegasi then tied the other end of their sting to the corner of the house that used to be Starlight’s. The unicorn’s front hooves were pulled down by Sugar Belle and Party Favor and tied down to the other corners of her house. The former mare struggled to speak with the tape placed over her mouth.
 
“Are you sure this is the best use of Starlight’s punishment?” Twilight asked Double Diamond, who was watching over the whole thing.
 
“Oh absolutely! I mean, she’s bigger than the prison house and can’t move, or use magic, so tying her up like a balloon is pretty fitting. She’ll have plenty of time to think about what she did and learn from us.”
 
“You think she’ll deflate eventually?” Twilight asked.
 
“Sure. Party Favor said the helium should slowly escape her body, in three weeks or a month.”
 
“What?”
 
“Don’t worry, we’ll make sure she’s fine. And once she’s back to her normal size, we’ll let you know.”
 
The two watched the blimp rock side to side from the light breeze, with the occasional squeak and groan of her body rubbing against itself. Her large cheeks puffed as the mare tried to talk behind the tape, looking for some kind of help or mercy from the ponies below.