Sunny let out a small groan, although not too loud. They might hear her.

The Marketeers had been keeping an eye on the Sleipnir branch of Blubber King for a few months now. Things were steadily improving, at least in terms of sales. Not so much for staff morale.

The day they had gotten there, immediately Sunny had recognized that they were different to the standard colony goers. She had immediately fetched Di from her office to ask her simply “Is that them?”

“Yup.” was all she had replied.

Two stallions, one unicorn, one earth pony. Both had simply ordered a meal and sat down, observing what was going on in the store around them. They had done this until they finished their meals and then showed their corporate badges, disappearing into the back office to speak to Di. Neither were pad users,obviously needing to keep their weight down due to their roles but, neither were exactly thin either. There was certainly an air of swagger about the two as they waddled their hefty, suited up frames into the back office that day. Sunny was impressed that both of them were wearing exceptionally smart clothes. They almost looked like agents.

Since then, there had been some major changes. A number of her colleagues had immediately been let go. Within a day in fact, new ones replacing them a few days later. Supposedly brought in by the company, or so she heard from hearsay from who was left. Of the new hires only two were colony locals.

For the ones that were left, there was a gruelling and rather invasive hour long questioning session with the two Marketeers. It was not unpleasant, but not nice either. She had come out at the end feeling as if her loyalty had been tested, having a large meal to calm herself down.

Now a number of months on, it seemed the two stallions were wrapping up what they had come here to start. She had heard rumours too. That they had sent threatening calls and even paid customers to go in purposely dissatisfied to the competitions establishment. There had even been a small news story about a pony who had gone in, cleaned out their entire kitchen and then complained when they couldn’t feed him anymore. It was embarrassing for Plump Palace and had certainly hit their customer numbers, however they were still operating. It didn’t seem like the goal was to shut them down entirely, rather just sway the bulk of the custom back to Blubber King. It seemed to have worked too, customers numbers has risen again since.

Sunny remembered back to Di’s little speech, she had been right. The two stallions had been ruthless in achieving their goal. But it had worked. Sunny was as busy again as she had been when the store first opened, but something was missing. It felt like the soul of the place had been sucked out in the endeavour to keep it from closing completely. Her new work colleagues were mostly silent, just concentrating on their jobs. Before there had been a team camaraderie between the employees. Now everypony just kept their head down and aside from the ones on the registers, kept their mouths shut and worked their shift without complaint.

Sunny had always maintained a special bond with Di since she started, at the end of her shift she stopped by her office to say goodbye, also asking her when she got off.

“In about an hour, since we’re closing up. Why?” Di had asked her.

“Can we um, can we meet? After work?” Sunny had asked, Di raising an eyebrow and giving her a little bit of a concerned look.

“Where?” was all she asked.

“The park, just outside of town. Maybe near the pond. I’ll be on a bench.”

“Sure, I’ll see you later.” Di had replied, turning back to her desk and resuming working.

As agreed about an hour later, Di parked her pad next to the bench Sunny was sat on. It was a simple question Di decided to ask Sunny.

“What’s up?”

“Work is um...interesting.”

Her boss smiled. “Well that’s one way of putting it. I thought you might want to talk about this.”

“Well yeah but, away from the store. Those two stallions give me the creeps.” Sunny replied.

“I did tell you they were ruthless. I’m glad they kept you though, I’d have been having words with them if they had gotten rid of you too.” Di said, turning her head to look at Sunny.

“You could do that?” Sunny asked.

“Well...I could have tried. How successful I would have been, I don’t know. Those two rank in the top echelons of the company. Like I said I hate calling them but I had no choice. I had projections come in from corporate Sunny, if we didn’t do something drastic we would have been shutting the store within six months.” she confessed.

“So this was the only option?” Sunny said.

“It was the only option I had left that I knew with certainty would work. Like I said I’ve run other outlets. I’ve used them before. They work.” Di replied.

“At what cost though?” was the next thing Sunny said.

“What do you mean?” Di asked.

“The atmosphere Di...it’s gone. I feel like I’m working with a bunch of robots these days. Nopony even sneaks the odd fry from the fryer anymore. The ones of us that are left from before the take over are too afraid, the new ones are so disciplined that I think they’re actually losing weight because they work so hard.” Sunny said, a little wistful. “I somewhat miss how it was, even though we were failing.”

Di moved her pad a little closer to Sunny, trying her best to wrap her pudgy frame around her where she could to give her a little comfort hug. “I know Sunny, but this is the cost. If they hadn’t done what they did, there wouldn’t be anything left. We’d have shut up shop and then none of us would have a job. You’d have likely never seen me again, I’d have moved on to another colony to run another branch.” she explained, giving her coworker a squeeze and then letting go.

“I know, it’s just...I wish we could have pulled through on our own. You know?” Sunny said, getting up off the bench. “Thanks Di, I guess I’ll see you for my next shift.” The young mare said, starting to waddle away.

“Sunny.”

Sunny stopped, turning to her boss.

“Believe me I wish we didn’t have to call them in, I really did. They’re going soon, then things will go back to how they were.” Di said.

“Really? Because of that happens, all they’re gonna do is come back again. I don’t think things will ever be the same…” Sunny said, sounding a little defeated, waddling away towards home.

Di stopped for a moment and thought. She was right, she didn’t relish the idea of them coming back. She had to do something herself, something that would ensure she never had to call the Marketeers in again. What it was though, she wasn’t sure, at least not yet…