//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8 
// Story: Flim-Flam Fever 
// by EHAN 
//------------------------------//

The princesses, standing among the crowd, were recovering from their cider craze. Luna had snapped out of it first, and as she finally came to her senses, she furiously exclaimed: "Brothers Flim and Flam! Step forward!" Flim and Flam immediately went into a panic, but then slowly and reluctantly walked over to them, knowing that they wouldn't be able to escape their punishment anyway.

As they came over to stand at their feet, the sun glared through the windows. Covering their eyes momentarily, they stood face-to-face with all three princesses. Celestia and Cadance had also recovered fully by this point, and Cadance spoke up first. 

"I'm sure you both know that you're going to be punished for this, so I'll just cut to the chase. You two are to use whatever profits you gained from this business to clean it all up. You can start by recalling all of your cider from the stores, so that we can either use it to create more of the antidote to cure any other pony suspected to still be affected by this... 'Flim-Flam Fever,' as it were, or so that we can dispose of it safely so that no pony ever becomes grasped by the cider's addictive properties. You are to return the property you bought to their respective owners. You are also to pay a fine so that we can repair what has been destroyed because of the mob. And if you ever try to start up a cider business again, we will have it shut down as soon as we hear about it."

Celestia then added, "And speaking of 'shut down,' your cider business shall be closed permanently, effective immediately."

Within a few days, the brothers were back down at rock bottom: completely broke, widely shamed and disgraced, with all traces of confidence sucked out of them. They wandered Equestria as they had before, with nowhere to go, and nothing to work for. Even worse than not being able to make their own cider anymore was the fact that nobody in any other job would ever think to hire them.

Walking along an empty road, Flim spoke to Flam: "We've got no job, we've got no money, we've got no shred of public acceptance. Everyone hates us now, and who do we have to blame but ourselves."

Flam replied, "Everything does seem bleak for us right now, brother of mine. We were pretty much destined to go down this path though. That was our final option, and even if it failed from the start, we would end up where we are now anyway."

Flim though for a moment about what his brother said, and just looked down and kept walking. A thought entered his mind. He cringed at the thought, but felt he had to speak his mind.

"There is one place we haven't tried to get hired at..." he said weakly.

A few weeks later, the sun was high over the barn at Sweet Apple Acres. The Apple Family was busy relaxing, lying out on the grass. Applejack, in a wooden chair, called out to two ponies who were busy working out in the orchard. "You two! Get over here! I've got somethin' for ya!"

The two unicorns dropped what they were doing and walked out to her. She grabbed two glasses and handed one to each of them. "Drink up!" she said heartily to them. "You boys need to stay hydrated! The heat starts to get to ya after a while!"

They drank the water out of their glasses and set them down on the table next to Applejack. She then said to them, "Can I get ya anything else, Flim and Flam?"

The brothers declined their offer and walked back out to the orchard. They had been manually pulling the apples off of the trees, since they didn't have the physical strength to buck the trees. After a few minutes, Flim said to Flam, "You know, this was all your fault."

Flam replied to his brother, "Oh, my fault is it? Well, you were the one who brought up this dumb idea!"

"You were the one who decided to go through with it! You could have said no!" Flim said as a retort.

"Well you made it seem like a good idea at the time! Besides, what else could we do? We were out of work, and this was the only job available to us!" Flam shouted back.

"Anything is better than this though! Having to work for our rival... how degrading!"

Applejack looked on as the two brothers continued to bicker. Giggling to herself, she took a sip of the water. Then, she said to herself: "Those two are a couple of professionals, alright! Professional goofballs... nonpareil!"