Flim and Flam and the Road to Old Donado

by KFDirector

The Streets of Manehattan

“All aboard from Jenny City! Next stop, Manehattan!” cried the conductor, trotting through the cars. Flam prodded a sleeping Trixie with his hooves, trying to awaken her. It was not a quickly accomplished task.

“Isn’t this exciting?” asked a young palomino earth pony with a fedora on his head and an image of a toothy reptile on his flank. “So many millions of ponies, all choosing to live together! Manehattan must have more friendship and love than anywhere in Equestria!”

Flim was long past raising an eyebrow at this point – this stallion had boarded the day prior, and had been gushing far too much about love, tolerance, and friendship. There really was only one reasonable explanation.

“Your first time in Manehattan, then, friend?” he asked, as he put a foreleg on the earth pony. “Make sure to take in all the sights, to be sure! Like, see there?” Flim gestured out the window of the train with his other foreleg. “You’ll definitely want to hit the Statue of Harmony first! And then, conveniently located nearby, there’s the Equine State Building – make sure they let you onto the observation deck, and don’t take ‘no’ for an answer!”

“Observation deck, got it!”

“Damn right you do, old bean! Follow it up with a show at the Fancy Pants Center, and then take the Crouplyn Bridge over to Colty Island for a night of fun like you wouldn’t even have thought possible!”

“You sure do know a lot about this city, mate! You live here?”

Flim smiled. “You wouldn’t believe what I know about this town, friend. Now go on! Adventure awaits! Oh, and don’t worry about buying tickets for the streetcars – tourists ride free.”

As the palomino eagerly trotted off to get his luggage, and Trixie, stretching and yawning, began to get her own, Flam sidled up next to his brother. “What was that just now?”

“What was what, brother?”

“You can’t see the Statue of Harmony from here, the Equine State Building is miles away, the good parts of Colty Island closed before we were even born, and the Fancy Pants Center is in Chihocko.”

“Did you hear him going on about friendship? He’s obviously a changeling spy. I was just doing my civic duty, Flam.”

“What are you two foals babbling about?” Trixie asked, still yawning, as she staggered towards them, magically dragging a suitcase behind her and wearing her saddlebags not-quite-correctly.

“Nothing of relevance, old girl. Ready for your first trip to Manehattan?”

“Should ask you two the same. You’ve never been.”

“Well…no,” Flim admitted, scratching the back of his head with his hoof. “But we spent one summer lodging with a bachelor herd from The Broncs, so with all the stories getting told, we pretty much learned everything a pony needs to know about being a Manehattanite by osmosis.”

“Whatever.” Trixie yawned again. “What’s our first order of business? Please say ‘find a hotel.’”

“No need – already know the one we’ll be staying at. Just have to get there! Forty blocks south of our station.”

“Flim?”

“Yes, Trixie?”

“Buck. You.”

---

It took Trixie about forty-five seconds after leaving the train station to learn her first lesson about being a Manehattanite.

As almost all of these lessons are learned, it came as the result of being nose-to-nose with a steam carriage in a crosswalk. “Outta the way, you crazy broad!”

Flam darted forward, interposing himself in front of Trixie, and slammed his forehooves on the hood of the carriage. “Hey, I’m trottin’ here! I’m trottin’ here!”

Flim gently tugged a shell-shocked Trixie forward while Flam continued to shout.

“Yeah, well, same to you, pal! Blow it out your gizzard, you griffin-lovin’ – yeah, yeah, you better run!” Flam gave the trunk of the steam carriage a final slam with his hooves as it drove off the down the road, the driver still waving angrily at them. A moment later he was caught up with his brother and Trixie, shaking his head angrily. “Cheese and crackers, let’s get off the main drag, find a quieter side street.”

“Trixie – Trixie could just wake up and pay better attention to the traffic signals next time,” she offered, still a few shakes betraying themselves in her voice.

“Wouldn’t help, old girl, wouldn’t help. Stay alert, but you just have to give this city back as good as it gets if you want to stand a chance.” They turned at the next corner, and trotted down an alley between two rows of tall brick buildings.

A few blocks later, they heard shouting and saw a blur of motion approaching them.

“Stop him! Stop him! He’s got my money!”

A blue earth pony galloped towards them, hooves pounding on the dirt alley. Far behind him, a small green earth pony trotted, far slower.

Flim and Flam rolled their eyes. Trixie’s magic seized a drain pipe and ripped at its fittings, bending part of it at a right angle.

A sickening thud briefly preceded the blue pony’s tumble into the dirt. The approaching green pony winced, then smiled and approached more quickly.

“Hey, thanks! You stopped him!” the young green pony said, brightly. The unicorns could not help but notice the pair of dice on his flank.

“It…was nothing,” Trixie said.

“Not to me it wasn’t! He had my money! Here, let me give you something….” The green pony reached for a wallet on the prone blue pony’s body.

“We’re fine, my fellow, just fine. Come on,” Flim said, gesturing with his head for his companions, who were nodding agreement.

“No! I insist!” the pony said, mouthing the wallet and moving for Trixie’s saddlebags.

Flam sighed. “Look, kid.” Again he interposed himself between Trixie and a threat. “I don’t mean to tell you your business, but you’re doing it wrong.”

“Erm?” the green pony gulped.

“You’re pushing too hard, and you don’t have enough ponies to pull this scam off properly. I know a third pony means one more to trust and split the take with, but if you’re running this kind of con, you’ll find it does wonders for your success rates – and you need at least a third for most of the best cons anyway, so you might as well get them in on the ground floor now.”

“…oh.”

“Plus, as your friend found out, this is a terrible scam to run on unicorns. Pegasus and earth ponies are fine, pretty much anypony can handle being tackled by a big lout if it all goes pear-shaped, but you don’t know what a unicorn’s going to do. Some of them might forget to use their own magic; some of them might clothesline you with an entire gaslight pole. So before you set the wheels in motion, you really must check for the horns.”

The young pony nodded. “Anything else, sir?”

“You also just can’t go breaking rule number one like that.”

“…rule number one, sir?”

“Right, rule number one.” Flam grinned, as his horn glowed; Flim stepped up next to his brother, charging his magic as well.

The earth pony yelped as their magical force hurled him backwards and pinned him up against the brick wall. The twins delivered their lesson at maximum volume, each of their mouths an inch from each of his ears: “Don’t! Buck! With the Flimflam brothers!”

Their magic receded, allowing the fainted earth pony to collapse into the dirt beside his colleague.

“Starting to get Manehattan yet, Trixie?” Flim asked, as they began again on their journey.

“Trixie is…learning a lot today,” she admitted.

---

A bit more than thirty blocks later, with the noon sun blazing down, the three unicorns took a breather in front of their destination.

“The ‘Dew Drop Inn’?” Trixie looked around. “Do any of these ponies even know what ‘dew’ is? Trixie hasn’t seen a blade of grass since halfway through New Jenny.”

“I’m fairly certain there’s a central list of punning names for motels and roadside stores, and everypony draws from the same list, regardless of whether the pun is locally appropriate. Anyway, this place comes highly recommended.” Flim adjusted his luggage, looking for his money.

“…by one of your old buddies in a bachelor herd?”

“How did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” Trixie replied, eying the free-swinging sign over the entrance, the dozens of dark ammonia-scented stains on the walls, the garbage cans last emptied prior to the return of Princess Luna, and most prominently, the large sign across the street promising “MARES! MARES! MARES!” in flickering lights. “Let’s get this over with.”

The front lobby was everything it could be, given the exterior – grimy, badly lit, and somehow smelling of tobacco smoke, mildew, and concentrated body odor at the same time and in equal strengths. The brothers stopped to do a double-take, finding it eerily similar to the last lodgings they had lived in prior to their most recent incarceration.

“Yeah, whaddaya want?” the desk clerk asked, as was required of him.

“Lodgings for three, good fellow, for at least the next three days,” Flim said, forgetting himself and his current location.

The clerk stared, chewing his lunch of hay. Finally he swallowed. “We don’t rent to dames.”

Trixie’s eyes narrowed.

Flim coughed, startled. “You’re not renting to a ‘dame’, friend. You’re renting to me.”

“We don’t rent to a pair of fops and their live-in fillyfriend, either.”

“Mind your tongue - !”

“Don’t worry, Flim.” Trixie stepped forward. “The matter is handled.”

The brothers took a long step backwards, tasting the electricity in the air.

“Look, broad, rules are – ”

“You impudent foal! Do you have any idea who you are dealing with?”

It was not that the desk clerk had never heard this before – indeed, it was hardly an uncommon threat in Manehattan – but something about the force with which it was delivered, the voice of the Legion delivering it, and the energy crackling off the horn of the pony speaking all served to grasp his attention.

However, his reply was not sought.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie has lowered herself to patronize your wretched establishment with her glorious personage, and you dare demean her status? You dare speak ill? You question her presence because of her gender? We rule this land! Do you think it is Prince Blueblood and Shining Armor who spin the heavenly bodies? This is a mare’s world, you spiteful little gelding, and your existence within it is tolerated at our pleasure and ours alone!”

The clerk’s eyes flickered back and forth, in terror, between the mare in front of him, and his lunch below him, the latter of which was now on fire and the former of which seemed prepared to do it to the rest of his possessions and possibly also to his body.

“Now rent me a room!”

Flam dabbed his eye. “So proud of her.”

---

An hour later to the minute, Trixie let out an impressive, window-rattling belch. Given the company she was in, in the two-bed hotel room, she didn’t ask to be excused.

“Good?” Flim asked.

“Overpriced, definitely made of parts other than were mentioned, and every bit of it fried.”

“Yeah…” Flam said in a faraway voice, sniffling.

“Kind of makes you homesick, right, brother?”

“A bit,” Flam admitted.

“So now what? Trixie will not linger a minute longer in this wretched hive than she needs to.”

“Well.” Flim said, inhaling. “Here’s our next issue. The only solid information on the location of Old Donado is not located within any artifacts of Old Donado itself – because nopony has any – but on artifacts of a neighboring civilization which also vanished a few centuries ago – not nearly a thousand years, though. A large portion of these artifacts are found within the Private Wing of the Royal Museum of Mysterious Antiques; the remaining artifacts are held by a local businesspony.”

“Wait – so we could’ve gone to Canterlot? You…are aware that’s a much, ah, shorter journey, right?” Trixie asked, looking with renewed distaste at their surroundings.

“We could’ve gone to Canterlot and had to break into one of the most secure facilities in Equestria, facing charges of high treason when we were caught. Or we could break into a nondescript warehouse in Manehattan.”

“Why would the artifacts of an ancient civilization be in a warehouse?”

“Because the museum they used to be in burned to the ground, and the owner’s plan for a new museum - suited to hold his extensive collections - hasn’t passed the zoning board – not for the past year. So they’ve been sitting in limbo in a row of storage lockers at the docks.”

“Seems simple enough,” Flam said, nodding.

---

“You had to say it, didn’t you?” Flim admonished his brother, three hours later.

The sun had already mostly vanished behind the taller buildings, which was fine for their work. Trixie lightly bit her tongue as she concentrated, horn glowing, magic probing the wards of the storage locker.

“Shh,” Flam said. The sweat roiling down Trixie’s face had the same cause as the sweat which was now drying on his own. His head ached. His horn ached. His soul ached.

Sweat mixed with tears in Trixie’s eyes, but she dared not blink, inching the force of her magic just a little farther, just a little –

– in front of her eyes, her parents waved their mangled forelegs, screaming, from the burning wreckage, begging for her to run, just run and never look back –

“Gyaaah!” she shouted, falling back on her haunches as her magic faded.

“Definitely an after-market lock. Anything legit would just notify the feathers if there was any tampering,” Flam said, explaining what they already knew, as he rubbed the base of his horn again.

“The front door through the wards turns you into a frog; the sides induce internal bleeding; and the back door was designed by a real sadist,” Flim added.

“Yes, yes, Trixie noticed, thank you. So, Plan B?”

“I think we can safely skip ‘ask nicely’. Let’s get the keys.”

“Think the owner of the warehouse has them, Flam?”

“Not a chance. Oh, he might have the set that open the original locks, but there’s no way these wards were put on here with his knowledge. It’s nothing like legal magic.”

“So we need to hit up this ‘local businesspony’?” Trixie followed up.

“Indeed. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but it’s time we go find Tough Lucky.”

“‘Tough Lucky’?” Trixie asked, as the three got to the side of the road and waved for a taxi.

“Yes,” Flim replied. After a moment, he wondered aloud, thoughtfully: “I have no doubts as to what a cutie mark of two baseball bats with railroad spikes driven through them crossed behind a pony skull would mean, of course, but one must ask how he explains it to anypony else.”

“Flim?”

“Yes, Trixie?”

“Buck. You.”

---

Fortunately, the local branch of the baked goods cartel was apparently about as clandestine as the Cutie Mark Crusaders (though substantially less endearing): to learn the activities of Tough Lucky, the three unicorns had to go so far as to ask their taxi driver if he knew anything.

“Well, it’s a Wednesday, so he’s probably going to be down at the Gallant Fox until after midnight, and then his handlers will try to keep from setting fire to too much of Manehattan on his way back to his heavily-guarded penthouse, which has so far resisted all intrusion by rival families and the Night Guard.”

Their silent stares were interrupted by audible blinking.

“Special agents from Canterlot, right? I know how it goes. Fifty bits is the going rate for this kind of information. Best of luck to ya, pals.”

“Yes, yes…er, how much extra for discretion?”

“Discretion’s already been paid for, by the highest authorities. Just try not to get ya selves killed.”

The taxi dropped them off, without their requesting, a block from the Gallant Fox nightclub. Flim paid the ten bit fare and the fifty bit surcharge, and they stared down the street, thoughtful.

“You don’t suppose we’re on a mission from Goddess again, do you?”

“I sure hope not, Flam. You don’t make any money on those, and I’m really not up to learning more about who I really am right now.”

Trixie looked up at the store at which they had been deposited. “The signs are pointing to ‘yes’, though. ‘Jammy T’s Assorted Wax Molds, Metal-Casting, and Locksmithing.’ ‘Discreet, private, cash-only.’ ‘Photographers will be stabbed; survivors will be stabbed again.’ ‘Absolutely no Night Guard allowed.’”

“Oh!” Flim said, brightly. “Jammy T’s expanded to Manehattan? Good for her, I always knew she had what it took. Let’s go say ‘hi’! Who knows, maybe she has some merchandise we could use!”

---

Trixie smoothed her mane, staring into the fillies’ room mirror.

“We probably only have one shot at this – we can’t count on catching a ride from a government informant again, and once he leaves the nightclub he’s untouchable.”

With another magical tug, she checked the fit on her uniform. White shirt, black vest over it. Not a perfect fit, but not worse than that of the real employees, either.

“We’ll have to operate independently – with the three of us acting as waiters, we’ll be able to briefly talk to compare notes but we can’t linger too long together.”

It wasn’t at all alluring, and that was fine – the performers needed no competition, and she needed no attention, not this time, not for this job.

“Between the three of us, we should be able to get close enough for long enough to get an impression of his keys before he leaves. That’s all we need. But no matter what happens, we have to get this done, and tonight, or we go home in failure and probable added time in the dungeon.”

She took a deep breath, and opened the restroom door, and stopped in her tracks.

The brothers were surrounded by ponies much larger than them, with an olive-green pegasus with a slick-black mane pressing close to them.

“We – we didn’t know about the no-unicorn rule! Honest!” Flam stammered, and Trixie would have to say that it sounded like genuine fear in his voice.

“It’s our first day! No one told us!” Flim added.

“Oh now that’s a pity,” the pegasus said, as much oil in his voice as on his mane. “Maybe if you’d been long-time employees, we could see fit to grandfathering you in for Tough Lucky…but your first day? Sounds to me like you lied to your employer about your qualifications.” The pegasus tutted, while another pegasus pony to his left, this one pearl-white with an icebox for a cutie mark, hovered in the air, brandishing a length of chain.

“Look, we’re sorry – we’ll just go, okay?”

“Oh no, no, no. No. See, I don’t think you sound…apologetic enough. Not for lying to your boss about being unicorns, and not for trying to get a job serving an important and security-minded pony like Tough Lucky.”

Trixie remained still, slowly closing the restroom door to a crack with her magic while keeping her eyes glued on events as they unfolded.

“It’s not illegal to be unicorn waiters,” Flam said, defensively.

The olive-green pegasus laughed, and a moment later, the other ponies surrounding Flim and Flam laughed as well. “You’re right! It’s not. That’s why we’re not involving the Night Guard now, are we? No, see, we’re gonna engage in a little of that ‘alternative dispute resolution’. We’re gonna go upstairs and, in an intimate and controlled environment, express the concerns we have about each other, openly and honestly – you two and me and Bugsy and Rocko and Brickmuzzle and Sammy Ballcutter.”

“Sammy…” Flim winced. “…Ballcutter? Is that a…nickname?”

“Yeah,” admitted a magenta earth pony with an abysmally deep voice, “my real name’s Sunny Ballcutter.”

“Now let’s trot, shall we?”

Trixie watched as the brothers and their captors disappeared up a flight of stairs.

She shut the door the rest of the way, and looked back into the mirror, eyes wide, trotting nervously in circles. “Right! Friends abducted. Probably beaten; probably won’t be killed – not for just that. Sends a message better if left alive.” Trixie racked her brain. “Screwed if we don’t get the keys. Tonight. But no unicorn waitstaff. How else? How….” A lantern went on over her head; first she smiled, then she sighed. “Terrible idea. But it’ll probably work.” She ripped off her waiter’s uniform, and slipped out of the bathroom, and, eyes darting for any sign of more of Tough Lucky’s security, she snuck down the employee-only hallway.

Her eyes darted to the plates on the doors as she moved quickly down the hallway. “No…no…perfect.” She knocked on the door with her hoof.

“In a minute!” came a disgruntled mare’s voice.

Trixie smiled, and applied a surge of her magic to the door lock. Unlike the warded masterwork down at the docks, this lowly array of tumblers didn’t have a prayer. The occupant of the room gave a little yelp as she forced her way inside.

“Special Agent Lulamoon, Equestrian Royal Guard. Here’s five hundred bits, go get yourself an alibi – you do not want to be here when this goes down.”

The slender, long-legged pale rose earth pony looked down at the small bag of coins, up at the unicorn, and down at the coins.

“Go!”

The earth pony mouthed the bag of coins and exited the room. Trixie magically closed the door and looked quickly through the performer’s wardrobe.

“No…no…no…” She grimaced. “How can any mare in this town be so skinny? Ugh, fine.” She seized a red dress with a density of sequins possible only with the aid of magic, and inhaled as she slipped it on. “Now, need a song, need a song….” She looked over the dressing table, and then over the rest of the room. “No song. Horse apples.”

“On in five!” somepony shouted from up the hall.

“No song. Make one up. Erm.” She trotted nervously in place again, this time her movements a bit more restricted by the tight dress. “Introduce self. Rhyme things with name. ‘Trixie.’ ‘Big, see’. C…nothing for C. D…absolutely not. F…I’ll work something out. Right. One chance. Have to succeed. Every moment failing, boys are getting beaten.”

---

“And how do you feel, Brickmuzzle?”

“Resentful, Weed Dough, resentful. Unicorns tried to hurt our boss, and now more unicorns show up, not thinking about how that might make us feel.”

The olive-green pegasus nodded. “And what does that make you feel like doing?”

“Like laying two yards of chain across somepony’s face.”

“That’s not a healthy feeling, Brickmuzzle. You’d better stop bottling it up. How about letting it out of your system?”

---

“On in one!”

“…showtime, Trixie. Showtime. No fireworks this time. Make them yourself.” She nodded with determination at the mirror, and trotted out to the stage.

If the band cared that an azure unicorn had replaced a pale rose earth pony, they did not show it. The house lights past the curtain went down, the crowd cheered, and the piano, drums, and strings all started to play.

Trixie gulped. “Those boys owe me so bad for this.”

And so she stuck one foreleg out past the curtain, to the cheers of dozens of stallions.

---

“I don’t understand,” Flam spat. “What do you ponies want from us?” He couldn’t muster the strength to stand, not at this point.

“I want to hear you say you’re sorry, and mean it. So far, I’m just thinking you’re sorry you got caught – and that’s not the same thing in my book.”

“Hey – Weed Dough. Sounds like the show’s starting. Should we get down?”

“When we get what we’re looking for from these guys, sure.”

Through the air duct came the first words of the song. Flam’s eyes went wide at “Hey, there, boys, it’s…Trixie….” He looked to his brother, also prone on the floor, to ensure that they had heard the same thing. Flim nodded.

“You’ll have my apology when you stop tickling me, you feathered oaf.” Flam hoped he would regret saying that for a long time, because if he only regretted it for a short time, that probably meant he was dead.

“Sounds like we’re a long way from finished. Bugsy, I think it’s your turn to share something with the group.”

---

“She’ll make you feel real…big, see?” Trixie sang in a voice she hoped sounded sultry, as she strutted down the catwalk towards the crowd.

The target was obvious. Tough Lucky amounted to more or less three stallions: the one standard model, one additional for excess fat, and one further for excess muscle. All three inhabited one gold-coated, purple-maned pegasus body, with a pinstriped jacket designed to showcase the ominous cutie mark. He was wolf-whistling as hard as the rest, and was hardly the only customer in the club – but he was the only one with two bodyguards close at hoof. Can’t go straight for him. Too suspicious. Work the crowd.

She planted one hoof on the face of a stallion that had gotten a little too close to the stage. “All your cares she’ll go and fix…see?” She pushed, and the stallion offered no resistance as he fell back onto his haunches, jaw hanging open, tongue hanging out. Another little saunter forward, and a spin, flicking her tail back and forth. “Need a real colt; no more hicks, see?”

More wolf-whistles told her she was on the right track. Now establish use of horn as acceptable, desirable. One step, two steps, and she was looking in the eyes of a lonely executive, still wearing his tie from the office. Her magic shimmered, lifting his tie towards her. “Stay with me and have a few kicks, see?”

Tough Lucky’s guards stood up, nervously.

“Just sit back and…” she sang, pushing him against his own tie, even while her own face got closer and closer to his. “…take your licks, see?” she half-sang, half-whispered, tickling his ear hair with her tongue.

The executive’s face melted – figuratively – and he fell to the floor, legs limp, as Trixie released her magic.

Tough Lucky waved a hoof at his guards even as he hooted appreciatively, and they sat back down.

“We can do it with the seaponies, ‘cuz I’m a…nixie.” She smirked, and some of the stallions still had the presence of mind to laugh.

“We can do it with wings, ‘cuz I’m a…pixie.” She rested her eyes on Tough Lucky meaningfully; the enormous pegasus grinned. She took her cue and sauntered towards him.

---

“Any regrets, brother?” Flim mouthed silently as the called Rocko stretched a length of rubber hose.

“That I’m not down there watching this,” mouthed Flam back. Flim nodded meaningfully.

---

“You won’t want it to be quick, see…” she sang, as she closely invaded Tough Lucky’s personal space – though with his clear approval. She laid hooves on his enormous shoulders, which required her to spread her own forelegs quite wide, and smiled. Not in his upper pockets. Damn and blast. She slid her hooves down his front. “Better bring your biggest…stick, see?” Hooting followed from the patrons. There! Bottom pocket, hanging loose, my left.

---

Flim winced, which Flam thought was odd as he was the one being beaten at the moment. “Is she doing it alphabetically?” he asked, not quite aloud.

---

“Ultimate pleasure…” she began, as she fluttered Tough Lucky’s jacket with her magic and stepped inside it before gravity could reassert. “…with each of the clock’s ticks, see?”

Wax mold retrieved; applying. She stared into Tough Lucky’s eyes, keeping his off her horn. “Does your candle have a long enough wick…see?” She hugged him, holding tightly under his jacket. Impression made, retrieving. Cover of enormous jacket to hide reconcealment of wax mold. She pushed back again, putting herself back against the catwalk. “Are you stallion enough for…Trixie?”

---

“She’s out of letters….”

“What youse say?”

“I said uncle.”

“What’s that?”

“Uncle! Uncle!” Flam cried, not so much having to urge forth the tears as unstop them. “Uncle! I beg you! Uncle! Please stop hitting me, Uncle, I swear, I’ll be a good colt, I’ll wax your moustache and shine your horseshoes, just please stop….” He sobbed, and Flim felt himself free to join his brother.

In a moment both unicorns were crying hysterically, their tears pooling on the floor. Weed Dough’s underlings looked to him awkwardly. “Boss…this is kinda messed up.”

“…yeah. It just got really weird. Alright, boys, we’re done here.”

The thugs trotted out of the room, leaving the Flimflams alone.

After a solid minute, they managed to stop crying, but still wheezed heavily.

“Uncle was the only one who ever good to us….”

Flam chuckled, eyes still bloodshot and tear-soaked. “Yeah. But those featherbrains don’t need to know that.”

“Let’s go get the old girl before she tries to come up with any more lyrics.”

---

“Are you stallion enough for…Trixie?” she sang one last time, vamping, and with a final swish of her tail disappeared behind the curtain, to the whistling and hooting and stomping of hooves.

The band stared at her. She shrugged. They shrugged, and finished up the song, as she trotted down the hallway. She gave a small yelp as two stallions rounded the corner, and then calmed on seeing who they were.

“Trixie has it. Let’s go.”

And in a thrice, they were out on the street, waving for a cab; in a Manehattan minute, they had one.

“The Dew Drop Inn, my good fellow,” Flam said, spitting into his hoof to see if it was coming up blood. Miraculously, it wasn’t.

“Nay, good sir,” Flim said, doing the same check with similar results. “First, to any small purveyor of groceries.”

Trixie caught her breath, raising a brow. “Groceries?”

“Ice, specifically. Need to press some to every part of my body.”

“Same here,” Flam said.

“Ah. Trixie will in that case avail herself of some boiling bleach, in which she will bathe.”

“Fair enough, old girl, fair enough. Although….”

“Yes?” Trixie asked, when Flim failed to finish his thought.

“You…may want to take the dress off first.”

Trixie looked down at her body and uttered an oath.

“I’m not saying you should give it back – Celestia forbid! – just, well, hot bleach might not be the best thing for it.”

She harrumphed. “I don’t know what everypony’s on about. It doesn’t even fit me.”

“Looks fine to me. Flam?”

“Better than fine. Sir?”

The cab driver looked back behind him, and nodded. “As we say in Mother Country…Blin, dyevochki, posmotritye na eto tyelo!”

“There you are then, old girl. A stunning endorsement, if I’ve understood it.”

She rolled her eyes.

---

Hours later, the brothers continued staring at their grimy hotel ceiling while wrapped in towels and ice. The clock on the wall went tick…tick…tick and then the hand advanced a little farther.

“Well. It’s tomorrow.”

“Indeed.”

They stared for a bit longer. Finally, Flam called out: “How are you feeling, Trixie?”

“Almost clean!” she called back from the bathroom. “Maybe…another half hour!”

“Half hour. Sounds fine,” Flim said, nodding. “The keys will be nice and cool, it’ll be getting on towards the middle of the shift so the feathers will be busy…and plenty of time until anypony comes poking around those storage lockers.”

“Everything coming up Flimflam this time. Sounds simple.”

“You did it again, brother. Why did you do that again?”

“We have the keys, Flim. What more could go wrong?”

---

With a mighty heave, the door to the storage locker slid open. The contents were remarkable both in what was present and what was absent.

“Well, for starters, Flam, the lockers might not contain artifacts at all, but instead a hole in the earth leading to an underground passage of mysterious origin.”

Trixie moaned in exasperation. Flam shook his head angrily. “This, dear brother, falls into ‘your fault’, for not knowing the lockers’ contents, not ‘my fault’, for tempting fate.”

The magician looked closely at the floor. “The artifacts were here. This has all been recently disturbed. The hole has been used recently, too.”

“Diamond Dogs?”

“Maybe. I doubt Tough Lucky knows about any of this; the wards weren’t fresh, I doubt anypony has been in here for a while…except for our tunnel-makers.”

“Well, let’s go.” Flim trotted forward.

“Flim?”

“I didn’t get my flank beaten by the baked goods cartel so a bunch of thieves could beat me to what I planned to steal first!”

Unable, at this time of night, to meaningfully refute that reasoning, Flam and Trixie joined him, and the three leapt into the darkness.

Comments

[KFDirector]

Rated T for Teen, because wow, that chapter didn't end in the same place it started.

Glad to see some of my old followers back (Hi Grimm! Hi AngryDesu!), and welcome to everyone just getting on board! I hope I manage to entertain you somewhat.

I'll admit, it was a real close thing between "the Road to Old Donado" and "Flim and Flam and the Magic Schoolcarriage", featuring Miss Cheerilee as Miss Frizzle and Zecora as Professor Maximillian Arturo (who would actually be from Sliders, but whatever). "Flim and Flam Rob a Casino" was sadly abandoned some months ago.

I'll also admit, I know where this is ending but not necessarily every stop on the way. So more than some of my other work, I might be prone to seizing on certain audience suggestions if they tickle my fancy. Consider yourselves warned.

[Mr. Grimm]

Hello to you too, KFD!

I happened to experience a bit of nostalgia the moment Trixie broke out in song...in that particular fashion...

And as for that hole, they should be on their guard if they find it leads to the sewers...Alligators and such, you know.

[AngryDesu]

Oh boys, boys boys boys. You just never catch a break do you?
As for Trixie... well, at least she knows her showmareship talents weren't wasted (much) on this adventure!