Cooking For Others
Equestria Invading Chapter 15
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Before the Equestrian Military rolled into town, made state property of his house, and was forced to host three anthropomorphic obese ponies of enormous proportions, Vergel Voor De Vader did not have friends. Blame it on the militant human-only terrorist organization seeing to topple the new status quo responsible for the death of his only family. It put a damper on his ability to make meaningful connections with people, not helped when said group may or may not be composed of his neighbors. But even if it wasn't for that, the human just wasn't very social; he had acquaintances, names he could assign to faces, and while he was cordial in passing, nothing would ever develop beyond that. So it came to him as a great surprise that his first friends would spring forth from the trio of blubber-laden ponies that effectively invaded his home.

Vergel went into preparing dinner with no expectations of a happy ending. Not to say he wasn't good in the kitchen; he was the town's resident 'banketbakker' with a small 'pâtisserie' on Plum Street, and you don't become the former with the latter without at least a smidgen of passion for the culinary arts. But he had always worked alone and, under the pretense that cooperating with others in the kitchen would be awful, had no intention to change that. But working with JD, Spitfire & 86? To say that he had a nightmare making supper with them would be a

Total lie.

The kitchen, one of the bigger rooms in the house, once was spacious, but with the addition of the obscene amounts of 'rations' the military had dumped, and the ponies' presence made things much snugger. The human among them put a fresh apron on and washed his hands, prompting Spitfire to do the same, digging out from the many crates a cloth garment that could double as a bed-sheet. "Uh...Vergel?" The host raised his head from the sink and turned around to face the mustard-colored horse looming over him with a visible blush on her fat-swaddled cheeks as she held her apron. "Do you mind If you could...help me get this on? The last time I've cooked was about two hundred pounds ago, and now it's too tight for me to tie the straps." Vergel took a moment to observe the garment trying to contain Spitfire's monstrous middle; yes, it was huge, but her frame was a little too much to handle without some maneuvering. And, of course, she asked him instead of 86 & JD; the latter was busy trying in vain not to eat more of his furniture, and 86 was off doing God knows what in his room.

"Uh...sure, Spitfire..." Vergel shrugged, only realizing the impossibility of such a task after he agreed to it. "...how?"

Spitfire took in a deep breath, and her prodigious stomach briefly inflated enough to bump the human in the chest. "Climb?" She gave off a sheepish smile and gestured subtly to her shelf of a backside that was pressed up against his oven, above which was the only place the straps could reach together to be knotted. Vergel mirrored Spitfire's face with blood rushing to his cheeks, more visible thanks to a lack of concealing fur, but, realizing he had already agreed to the chore, silently walked around the width of her massive belly to carry it out. Goosebumps ran up along the commanding officer's form as she felt the human use his hands and feet to ascend her steep wall of a posterior before he made it to the top, perched atop the twin globes and trying to stay balanced on the wobbling surface. He reached forward for the strings at the hips, accidentally exhaling on the pony's vivid orange tail as he tied the knot, making all her fur stand on end.

"A-and at the neck, too, i-if you can..." Spitfire swallowed thickly, to which the human had to press up against her back to reach, gently grazing her bare shoulder with his fingertips as he stood atop her butt-shelf. "Th-th *Khem!*...thank you, Vergel; I know that was an unorthodox request." She tried to make her tone professional and detached, but it was apparent she was flustered, and with the human still settled on her rear end, she walked forward and bent down to wash her heavy mitts in the sink. Vergel, equally discombobulated, hopped down to his kitchen floor to join her at the sink to ensure she was cleaning correctly.

"Bacteria likes to hide under your nails," Vergel micromanaged, impulsively grabbing Spitfire's hands. "You want to make sure you clean them very well when preparing food."

"Any excuse to touch me." Spitfire joked, though her cheeks were slightly flushed. "You're so transparent."

"I take my cooking seriously. Speaking of, what exactly are we cooking?" Vergel dried his hands and brought another towel for Spitfire to do the same. A feast fit for a pre-invasion king was his answer. Several well-seasoned and perfectly cooked chickens would be the appetizers. Simultaneously, succulent vegetables in colorful arrangements sat off to the side while a rack of lamb flanking a pile of juicy beef steals would take center stage off. Four large bowls filled with buttery mashed potatoes for each corner would top everything off; it was described as 'something light' by the commander.

"Is it okay...Uhm, If I get to help?" JD, who had been sitting in the dining portion of the room as he drooled at the description of tonight's 'light' feast, suddenly piped up. "I-I promise not to eat anything! Well, I mean...none of the food, anyways..." The whale of a pony looked down at his hands, filled with gypsum-colored fiberglass from the hole he had subconsciously made in the wall. Vergel looked to Spitfire, who gave him a pleading look, before nervously shrugging his shoulders. While they started preparing the chickens, he was put in charge of cutting up the vegetables. With his stomach acting as a cutting board, he hesitantly sliced potatoes, doing a somewhat poor job of it; the vegetable was chopped unevenly, leaving some tiny chunks mixed with larger ones.

"You don't cook often, do you?" Vergel massaged peanut oil into the dead bird's flesh as he observed JD's work.

"When it's not raw building materials, I live off of microwave food." The laboratory experiment pouted.

"It's okay; those are going to be mashed potatoes. Nobody will know the military's secret weapon can't cut a tuber to save his life." Vergel loaded the bird onto a pan while Spitfire brought up another to season.

"I'll cut your tuber..." JD muttered under his breath with a smirk.

"Hmph!" Vergel huffed, aggressively running his hands over the chicken. Spitfire smiled, happy to see that the ice was being broken between the two males in the house.

"So..." JD got his bearings after his fifth potato and decided to make small talk. "You like to cook, huh?" It was a rare sight for him to see food be made; the people in charge of the laboratory prioritized him being fed over knowing what he was eating.

"Yeah. Bit of a sore spot, but I can talk about it." He did not look up from his work as he seasoned another five chickens. "I was big on cooking as a kid. My parents loved coming home from work in town to see I had made dinner. I loved coming up with new combinations of seasonings and sauces." A smile appeared on Vergel's face.

"This town is in the middle of nowhere, far from anywhere else. We only got the local grocery some years ago; before that, the nearest store was an hour away, so we'd buy things in bulk. When I wasn't cooking, I was nose-deep in books borrowed from this beat-up library truck that would come by once a month. I'd read cookbooks over and over until I could recite them by heart." Vergel's smile faded away to a slight frown. "Anyway, things were good until...I didn't have anyone to cook for anymore." The human swallowed as he transferred the last chicken to the pan, while Spitfire covered them with foil to put in the oven, doing her best not to smother him as she maneuvered in the cramped kitchen accidentally.

"...oh." JD frowned, regretting asking the question in the first place. However, he smiled as he thought to kill the nascent pregnant silence that was forming. "W-well, uh...maybe it's not so bad that we're here, then? Because you have us to make food for?" The whale of a unicorn had caught Vergel rewashing his hands when he made his statement, and with hot water pouring from the faucet still, he froze up. It lasted about six or seven seconds, in which the two ponies were on the brink of suspecting he had a stroke before he abruptly shut the water off his now bright pink hands. Spitfire was about to admonish her subordinate nonverbally but stopped when she noticed the tiniest hint of a smile on their host's face.

"Maybe." Vergel agreed while he walked over to help JD with the vegetables. The pony had it set up so that vegetables he had cut would roll off his makeshift cutting board of a stomach to the table where it would land in bowls. While his cutting skills were poor, it was honestly impressive how he managed to keep all the diced plants in separate receptacles, let alone off the floor. It wasn't until he started slicing green onions into tiny pieces with a very sharp knife that he talked again. "I guess...yeah, this is kind of nice."

However, the bonding moment was interrupted by a large crashing sound emanating from the hallway, in which the human almost cut off his thumb from shock. "...oops." 86's voice sounded out not too long afterward.

"I forgot to tell you...she can be rather clumsy." Spitfire bit down on her lower lip.

"She...can be in charge of the drinks, then. The least dangerous job" Vergel struggled to stay calm. "And I'll see what she broke later. After I throw out all the knives in the house."

Choice 1: At dinner, the three ponies open up to Vergel about themselves

Choice 2: Spitfire & Vergel keep getting into ... interesting ... situations

Choice 3: 86, despite being given the least dangerous job...
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April 19
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