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// Story: Evil Expandtress 
// by RadPanic 
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// 5. Grading on a Curve 

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.]