//------------------------------//
// 5. Flamily Reunion 
// Story: Renaming Starlight's Village 
// by Brass Polish 
//------------------------------//

Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Party Favour had all sent letters off to their families.
“Everything will be fine,” Apple Bloom assured the clearly nervous Party Favour.
“Ever since he got his plumbing cutie mark,” Party Favour groaned, “he made it pretty clear he never wanted anything to do with me again.”
“The worst thing that can happen is he ignores your letter, then,” said Scootaloo.
“No, the worst thing that can happen is he gets so full of anger after reading my letter that he comes along and uses his plumbing skills he hates so much to flood the Village,” frowned Party Favour. “I can hear him now. ‘You gave me this cutie mark! This is your own fault!”
The Crusaders knew his imagination was running away with him, but none of them knew what to say to ease his anxiety.

*****

As soon as the Crusaders entered the Cafe to let Big Macintosh and Sugar Belle know that they’d sent their letters, they knew something was amiss.
“Where’s the comic book?” asked Apple Bloom.
“Where’s the jar with Phlegm’s cutie mark?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“Ow!” shouted Scootaloo, hovering above the floor and holding one of her hind hooves. “I think I found it.”
She’d stepped on a shard of glass. There was no sign of Big Mac or Sugar Belle. Apple Bloom called, but there was no reply.
“I’ll look out back,” said Scootaloo, still flapping her wings to avoid stepping on any glass shards.
As Scootaloo flew towards the barn door at the back of the cottage, Sweetie Belle magiced the glass shards off the floor and into the recycling bin. Apple Bloom darted after Scootaloo once the floor was clean. Scootaloo was already there, staring out the barn door with a mixture of excitement and concern in her expression.
“He’s out,” she said when she saw Apple Bloom coming.

*****

Apple Bloom looked out into the yard. Big Macintosh was standing next to a pile of soil, holding a torn comic book. Sugar Belle was standing next to a large Wolf River Tree, holding the lid of the broken jar. And standing next to a large freshly dug hole in the ground was Phlegm. At first, the Crusaders didn’t recognise him; they thought he was either Flim or Flam. But then they spotted (just) the skinless apple cutie mark. Sugar Belle saw the Crusaders in the barn doorway.
“Here he is,” she said.
Big Mac glanced away from Phlegm, and spotted Scootaloo’s injured hoof.
“Sorry about that. I got startled when the comic spat him out and I knocked the jar over,” he said. “He tried to run, but his mark caught up to-”
Taking advantage of their distraction, Phlegm used his magic to hoist Big Mac off his hooves, and flung him into Sugar Belle. Both tumbled into the hole.
“Stop!” shouted Apple Bloom, darting out of the barn extension, followed by Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo.
Phlegm levitated the Wolf River Tree over the hole, casting a large threatening shadow over Big Mac and Sugar Belle trapped inside.
“I’m gonna squash these two like grapes if you don’t take my cutie mark off and destroy it!” he growled.

*****

Sweetie Belle felt awkward; Phlegm was looking squarely at her when he made his threat.
“I… I don’t know how to take somepony’s cutie mark off,” she said. “I’m only a…”
“These two were just telling me about you, Cutie Mark Crusaders!” snapped Phlegm. “Go on! Go on a crusade against my cutie mark! Get it off and destroy it!”
“You can’t destroy a cutie…”
Phlegm let the giant apple tree drop a few feet. Big Mac and Sugar Belle yelped.
Apple Bloom thought quickly. “You’re related to Flim and Flam, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. Let me guess. They cheated you out of a home and job,” Phlegm frowned. “Or they tried to.”
Apple Bloom decided not to mince words. “Yeah.”
“Well guess what. I made them that way. Do you want somepony like me running around? No.” Phlegm looked back at Sweetie Belle. “Get it off, or those two are mulch!”

*****

“I know…” Apple Bloom began.
“You know how I feel?!” Phlegm interrupted. “Yeah, sure, that old platitude! I don’t…!”
“I wore that cutie mark for a day,” Apple Bloom said.
Phlegm was alarmed.
“I felt trapped. I felt desperate. So I know how we can help you,” insisted Apple Bloom.
Phlegm shifted the tree away from the hole and let it drop gently, before slumping to the ground with a grimace.
“I knew my cutie mark could never get me while I was in that enchanted comic book,” he gurgled as Big Mac and Sugar Belle climbed out of the hole, “but I never thought it might latch onto somepony else’s flank and ruin their life!”
He buried his face in his forehooves. Apple Bloom walked up to him.
“It ain’t quite like that,” she said. “I found it floating around, and asked a friend to swap it with mine to try and find out who it might belong to.”
Phlegm relaxed a little. “Oh, well that’s a bit of a relief. Imagine if it latched onto a blank flank during the night. He might not have known it wasn’t his. Everypony might’ve thought he just got it. And then what would happen to that poor foal?”
Apple Bloom wasn’t sure it would’ve worked that way, but opted to get straight to the point.
“Like I said, since I wore your mark for a day, I know how we can help you.”

*****

Phlegm stood up. “Alright, arlight. If it means nopony else has to be burdened with this awful thing, then I’m completely at your mercy.”
“I think the best place to start,” said Apple Bloom, “is to reunite you with Flim and Flam.”
“Those sinful con artists,” Phlegm growled. “I should never have created them.”
He looked around at everypony’s confused faces.
“When I was a colt,” Phlegm explained, “I went to Celestia’s School For Gifted Unicorns. I had my cutie mark at the time, but at first, everypony thought I was a blank flank. This skinless apple is so hard to see on my yellow coat. Ponies thought it made me look shady. But I was convinced it symbolised coming up with good ideas. I certainly had a lot of those in my head. The trouble was each of them needed my full attention and dedication, and I was working towards graduating. So I decided to try and clone myself.”
“With a spell?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“No. By making a potion that would temporarily turn me into a Parasprite,” said Phlegm. “It worked pretty well. I transformed, then I ate a brick of cheddar, and then I spat out two more Parasprites. Then I turned back into a pony, and the two parasprites I’d spat out also turned into ponies. I sent them out into Equestria to put my, or our, ideas into action, while I returned to my schoolwork. As time went by, news reached me about two business pony partners, the Flim Flam Brothers, leapfrogging from town to town setting up enterprises. But then, halfway through my final year of school, I learned how many hooves those two had trampled in order to build our businesses. So I left school and retreated to this Village out of shame.”

*****

Apple Bloom wasn’t quite so put off by Phlegm’s story as the others were.
“Now hear me out,” she said. “I don’t mind wearing your cutie mark again for a little while.”
Phlegm winced.
“I’ll need to be supervised, sure,” went on Apple Bloom. “But it might help you face your brothers if you’ve got a different outlook. My cutie mark can help you with that.”
Phlegm continued to pull uncomfortable faces.
“Come on. You can’t tell me you wanna turn down an excuse to not wear your own cutie mark,” Apple Bloom insisted.
“Oh, alright,” sighed Phlegm.
Apple Bloom smiled. “You’re clearly good at levitating ponies without breaking a sweat, so you can keep me under control if I go wild again.”
“Okay,” said the reluctant Phlegm, turning to Sweetie Belle. “Make it happen.”

*****

“Uh, like I said,” said Sweetie awkwardly, “I’m not good enough at magic to tamper with ponies cutie marks.”
“Oh, give it a try,” insisted Scootaloo. “If your sister’s brand of magic relates to her cutie mark, surely yours does too. And she discovered her unique magic before she got her cutie mark. Maybe yours is developing. Go on. Try it.”
So Sweetie Belle took a deep breath, and her horn lit up. She concentrated on the cutie marks of Apple Bloom and Phlegm, trying to will them to swap places. A minute passed, and it was clear to everypony that the spell they wanted was not coming.
“Well, it was a good theory,” sighed Sugar Belle.
“Eeeyup,” agreed Big Mac. “Looks like ya need a new plan, Apple Bloom.”
“No, I’ll just write to Starlight,” said Apple Bloom. “And while I’m at it, Phlegm can write to Flim and Flam, and ask them to come to this Village.”

*****

Two things hampered this plan. Phlegm could not bring himself to write a letter to the ruthless con artists he’d brought into being. Apple Bloom and the others tried to encourage him, and even mentioned Party Favour and how he mustered up the courage to write to his brother. Phlegm still refused, but when Apple Bloom ended up penning a message to Flim and Flam, he neither said nor did anything to disrupt her.
The sooner he can wear my cutie mark, the better, Apple Bloom thought as she sent off the two letters.
As it transpired, Apple Bloom’s letter to Starlight Glimmer was practically undeliverable. Starlight had gone on tour with Trixie, and Trixie hadn’t exactly drawn up a schedule or planned a route. Getting the letter to Starlight was going to be tricky and time-consuming. The letter to Flim and Flam, on the other hoof, reached them quite promptly, and a reply soon arrived in Starlight’s Village, announcing their imminent arrival.

*****

Phlegm paced around the Wolf River Tree, which had now been placed in its hole.
“I’m getting itchy hooves here,” he admitted to Apple Bloom, who was sitting next to the tree trunk. “The idea of Starlight coming back is bad enough, but…”
“We told you, Starlight reformed after leaving the Village,” said Apple Bloom.
“I’ll take your word for it. But if she doesn’t come before Flim and Flam do, I’ll never be able to face them,” Phlegm said through gritted teeth.
“Want me to try again?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“Yes, please,” smiled Phlegm.
“Just don’t strain yourself,” said Apple Bloom, shuffling over a bit.
She couldn’t move much; her tail was anchored to the ground by the roots of the Wolf River Tree. This was arranged by her and Big Mac so as to keep her in check when and if her cutie mark was swapped with Phlegm’s.
“Okay,” said Sweetie. “Here I go.”
Her horn lit up, her eyes fixed on the flanks of Apple Bloom and Phlegm, her breathing became harsh, her head started to hurt; it looked like another fruitless attempt.
“Need a boost?” came a pair of familiar voices.

*****

Phlegm nearly screamed at the sight of his brothers standing in the barn doorway.
“Ready, Flim?”
“Ready, Flam.”
“Let’s bing bang bam!”
The Flim Flam brothers shot magic beams from their horns right at Sweetie Belle, who’d been concentrating so hard, she was unaware the two stallions were even there. She could suddenly feel potent magic energy surging through her. Next second, Apple Bloom’s and Phlegm’s cutie marks shot off their flanks and replaced each other.
“How wonderful it is to be reunited with our triplet,” Flim announced. “How we’ve struggled without your guidance.”
“Very true. Ever since you disappeared, our various enterprises crumbled one by one,” said Flam. “How attractive the prospect of drumming up a business prospect that has a chance of sticking is.”
Phlegm might have cringed at this idea, but now that he was wearing Apple Bloom’s cutie mark, he wanted nothing more than to be with his brothers.
“I’m sorry I abandoned you,” he said. “I should have sucked up my shame and tried to clean up the messes I’d made.”

*****

That afternoon, Phlegm offered to show Flim and Flam around the town. It was a little tricky, as he’d technically not lived in the Village since the regime change. But the three brothers were so happy to be together again that it wasn’t so much a tour of the Village as a reminiscent conversation while wandering up and down the street.
“You proposed a rapid swap from steam to diesel traction?!” Phlegm uncharacteristically burst out laughing. “What were you two thinking?”
“Like we said, we were lost without you,” Flim grinned.
“We jumped from town to town running through every business idea we could muster,” said Flam, “while you sensibly hunkered down in a cult village.”
“Oh wow, I can only imagine what would’ve happened if you two stumbled upon this old hive of suckers,” chuckled Phlegm, wondering if his brothers might have been a match for Starlight Glimmer. “Anyway, now that I’m back, I can show you how to be successful entrepreneurs without trampling on any small businesses.”
But off hoof, Phlegm couldn’t muster any ideas how. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, who were following the triplets at a distance and supervising their walk around town, began to grow concerned when the happy conversation suddenly subsided.

*****

Sugar Belle brought food and drink to Apple Bloom, who was sitting stone-faced by the tree her tail was anchored to.
“Sweetie and Scootaloo told me Phlegm is doing well so far,” Sugar Belle said. “He’s been talking and laughing with Flim and Flam since lunch.”
Apple Bloom heaved a heavy sigh.
“How do you feel?” asked Sugar Belle.
“Maybe letting Phlegm borrow my cutie mark was a bad idea,” grunted Apple Bloom. “If he gets used to bonding with his brothers with my mark, when we give him his own mark back, he’ll probably just go right back to being all ashamed of Flim and Flam. And of himself. What’s there to stop him from hating his life all over again with this cutie mark?”
Sugar Belle found this encouraging; not for what Apple Bloom was suggesting might happen, but rather how different she was acting than the last time she had that skinless apple on her flank.
“I think I know what’s there,” Sugar Belle said.

*****

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were pleased when the conversation they were supervising started up again, but grew concerned when Flim and Flam started telling Phlegm how a few of their failed business exploits nearly resulted in the eviction of the Apple family from Sweet Apple Acres, and in the death of Granny Smith.
“How touching,” said Phlegm. “Even after all the trouble you two have caused her family, Apple Bloom still wanted to help me.”
“Oh you’re only saying that because you’ve got her cutie mark on,” chuckled Flim.
“I hate to think how he’d act if he had Applejack’s cutie mark,” Flam put on a mock fretful tone.

*****

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle saw Sugar Belle coming.
“How’s Apple Bloom?” asked Sweetie.
“She’s just fine,” Sugar Belle answered.
She grinned at the dubious looks on Sweetie’s and Scootaloo’s.
“And I think,” she went on, “there’s a good chance she’d be very happy to see you two right now.”
“Really?” asked Scootaloo, tilting her head a bit. “Are you sure she won’t want to try and get away from us?”
“She’s not acting like she did last time. Go on and see her,” insisted Sugar Belle. “I’ll keep an eye on the triplets.”

*****

When Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle walked through the Cafe and looked out the barn door, the sight of Apple Bloom sitting sulkily next to the Wolf River Tree wasn’t encouraging.
“Maybe she’s just lonely,” suggested Sweetie Belle. “Maybe she’s not just wallowing in Phlegm’s self-loathing.”
So the two of them walked out into the yard. Apple Bloom saw them coming and smiled broadly.
“You’re back,” she said with delight. “I really missed you two.”
Sweetie and Scootaloo were shocked, but pleased. They joined Apple Bloom under the shade of the Wolf River Tree, and they all sat talking for about an hour. Then their little picnic was interrupted by the three brothers.
“Can Phlegm have his own cutie mark back now?” asked Flam.
“He’s all soppy now,” chuckled Flim. “It just ain’t him.”
“I think I’m ready,” insisted Phlegm. “How about it, Sweetie?”
Sweetie Belle thought it might be a bit too early, but when she considered Apple Bloom’s current demeanour, she decided to give it a go.
“Okay, but I’ll need a boost again,” she said to Flim and Flam.

*****

Phlegm stood next to Apple Bloom.
“Sorry you had to spend another day with my mark,” he said.
“It’s alright. I had a good time,” replied Apple Bloom. “Well, for the last hour, anyway.”
Sweetie Belle stood in front of the two, with Flim and Flam on either side of her.
“One, two, three!”
Sweetie’s horn lit up. So did Flim’s and Flam’s. Their green beams of magic mixed with hers, and she shot a long jet of energy at Apple Bloom and Phlegm. Now they both had their own cutie marks.
“Still pleased to have us back?” asked Flim.
Phlegm nodded. “But remember my conditions for us joining forces.”
“Right, right,” grinned Flam. “We avoid trodding on others as much as possible.”
“But you know we can never avoid competition, no matter what we do, right?” asked Flim.
“Yeah, I know. That’s business,” nodded Phlegm. “But when we do have competitors…”
“Nothing underhooved,” and Flam. “We know.”
“We won’t have to with you leading us,” insisted Flim.
“Good,” Phlegm smiled. “Thanks for understanding, brothers. And thank you, Cutie Mark Crusaders. Thank you for convincing me to reunite with my family. How can I repay you?”
“Maybe you can get my tail unhitched from this tree?” suggested Apple Bloom. “It’s getting super uncomfortable now.”

*****

Applejack and Rarity were extremely satisfied with what the Flim Flam Brothers, along with their long-lost triplet, had told them on that Crystal Empire street.
“Sounds like our sisters are doing well in Starlight’s Village,” smiled Rarity.
“Yeah,” agreed Applejack. “I’m so glad I decided not to call Apple Bloom back to help me on the farm.”
“So, is anypony gonna bid for this shop?” asked the Owner of the building they were sitting outside. “I was planning to move away next month.”
“What do you say, Rarity?” asked Phlegm. “Up for some healthy competition?”
“Three against one?” Rarity spluttered. “Of course I’m game!”