A simple short contained story.
Ponyville. Two days have passed since the Darkrai event and Nightmare Night is just two days away. The two worlds have finally managed to live together in harmony.
At Sweet Apple Acres, the usual was happening with a side of Applin. And thanks to the party last night, Applejack managed to convince humans and pokemon to come to try their apple foods and drinks. It was beyond a success. Their pies, fritters and tarts were a smash hit. Having other species try your stuff was genius. On this day, a peculiar visitor arrived through their home door. He was of old age and wore a suit that had a tag saying Oppurtunity.
"Well hello there. This is the Apple family home am I right?" The man said.
"Yes? Can help you, sir?" Granny Smith answered.
"Good to meet you. My name is BigTime Ben. I come from Goldenrod city in the Johto region. And I'm here to give you the bigtime opportunity!"
"What kind of opportunity Mr BigTime?" The old pony asked.
"From what I've heard, your family's apple making business has recently been reaching the other world, my world that is. I understand that you're already booming in your world here in Ponyville. So how you like to make it ten times as big with my offer." He sent out a Gothitelle from his Pokeball suddenly. "Picture this." His Gothitelle cast a psychic projection that showed Granny Smith and apples.
"Your business will expand from just Ponyville and small parts of our world.." Then the projection showed a huge megalopolis that had signs with the names of each apple member on them. "It becomes a huge connected business with each family member having big-time buildings and stores with their names on it. Throughout entire regions. Whether it be the chilly Sinnoh region or the warm Alola region, you will be just as famous as other big business that I helped start."
"Hm." Granny was impressed, by both the projection and the offer. Then, Applejack walked into the room, seeing the projection.
"What's going on here, Granny?"
"This fellow by the name of BigTime Ben is lending us some big offer."
"Correct! I know of you as well Applejack. Your apple business would become so grand it would become possibly the biggest businesses in the world, overshadowing the rest. Silph Co. Macro Cosmos, all of them would be nothing. So.. what do you ya say?"
"No thank you," Granny replied.
"HAH?!" Both he and his Gothitelle were shocked as the projection went down.
"I appreciate the offer Mr BigTime. But I'd prefer to make our family business big with all the honest hard work we've been doing for years now." She was very clear about her answer.
"Hm. Fair enough. Hard honest work is better than shortcuts most of the time. Then how about something smaller that you may like?" Gothitelle created another projection, this time showing a much smaller scale projection.
"You can help your business by having some essentials from my company. I can give you some of my high-tech quality scanners. They'll allow you to see the quality of something to better know if it is good, bad, great or terrible." The scanner was shaped like a mini-dome.
"That does sound helpful but.." Applejack considered it but wasn't sure.
"It won't be too extreme. It will just let you know if something is off at times. I'm already positive you know how to make wonderful produce. But even the best of the best slip up here and there."
"Well then. We'll give it a go for a while and see how it goes." Granny decided to go with it. To give it a test run.
"Splendid! And if you aren't satisfied with it, you can just easily return it to me. My Gohtitelle will be able to know thanks to its psychic prowess. Ben got out the tiny scanner, lending it to the old earth pony. "Well. I'll be off now. Other potential big-time businesses are waiting for me. Come on Gothitelle." He had left Sweet Apple Acres, leaving to the other world.
"He does raise a good point granny. Sometimes our product doesn't come out as dandy at times and just falls flat at times."
"We'll see."
Time passed as in the span of 7 minutes, every pie that was made had been scanned and properly placed and trashed. This scanner could perfectly tell what was right and what was off. Pinkie Pie had come over as she could smell pies from afar.
"Sweet! Mind if I have a pie, Applejack?"
"Sure. But, Pinkie, can I ask you something quickly?" Applejack requested.
"Go ahead!"
"If I give you two pies, would you be able to tell which tasted good and which was a bit bland?" She asked.
"You silly filly. Your pies are always delicious! At least from the ones that I've eaten."
"Well then let's find out." Applejack held the scanner in her mouth as it scanned the two pies. The right one was deemed as great, while the left one was only decent. "Alright. Try the right one first and compare em."
"Okie Dokie!" Pinkie Pie took a big bite of the right one, crunching up the pie. She took a while to taste it and she loved it. "Delicious! That was much better than the last pie I had!"
"Then how 'bout the left one?" AJ asked. Pinkie took a bite out of that one as well, taking a moment to feel its taste.
"Hmm. It's good. But the first one was better."
"So it is effective. I didn't think it would be able to tell really."
"What? That little thing? AppleJack you silly pony. Since when did you start using tech stuff?" Pinkie said.
"Some guy name BigTime Ben came along and recommended this to us. Wants the entire Apple family to go big across both worlds."
"Well, why not? It'd be great if everypony from all over this world and the other knew of the sweet delicious pies and cider you all make."
"Yeah, but we'd like to do it more simply and traditionally. Besides... I still haven't forgotten about my time in Manehattan. Oh boy, that wasn't the life for me."
"Whatever you say. See you at Nightmare Night in two days! Oh by the way. There's this big blue thing outside that's been eating some of your stuff. Just wanted to let you know. BYE!" Pinkie Pie gobbled up the last of the pies as she went off to do whatever it is she does. She didn't pay attention to the blue thing eating her stuff part since she was too busy fixated on the scanner. She then placed it on the table, not wanting to bother with it anymore.
"Eh. I can easily go a long time without using it anyways." As she left the room, it was just there on the table, as Apple Bloom walked in, spotting it.
"Oooh.. what's this?" She picked it up as it scanned her teeth, showing her that a part of her teeth was not as clean as the other one. "That part of my teeth ain't clean? I could've sworn it was." The scanner then scanned a nearby can, showing that they were both expired. Apple Bloom took a while to notice what this thing was. And when she did, she got an idea.
"Hold on a minute. This thing's a game changer!" She rushed out with the scanner, heading to the CMC treehouse to tell her friends. "Girls! Girls! I found something useful!"
"What'd ya find?" Scootaloo asked.
"I don't know what its called, but I think it tells you what's bad or off."
"Ooh let me see!" Sweetie Belle grabbed it as it scanned her hair, telling her the front of it is smooth but the rest on the back is sloppy and a bit rugged. "You weren't kidding! I didn't even notice."
"Don't you know what this means girls?"
"What?" They both said in unison.
"If this thing can tell something from good and bad, it can help us find our cutie marks."
"How? I'm pretty sure looking at the quality of things won't help us get our cutie marks." Scootaloo responded.
"Well yeah. But! If we can find out what's off, we can help fix it and make it good. That way, we'll be able to get out cutie marks. At least... that's the idea."
"I get it! That makes sense to me!" Sweetie Belle agreed with her.
"You got a good point. Our future skill is in the hands of.. that thing." Scootaloo said.
"Then let's get going!"
As they went out, they started using the scanner to see what was off. They started with a pony's pile of plums. They scanned the plums, however since they were all piled up, it was letting them know multiple goods and bad. So they took out multiple plums at once, making them all topple, falling all over the ground. The pony who had those plums noticed this and turned to the three.
"Hey!" They ran off, to avoid any scolding as the plums rolled over to a Munchlax who devoured them as they came by. "My plums! Don't eat em!" Next they went over to a honey stand, there were jars of honey being sold. The scanner then went over them and found out that some of them were mediocre at best. They volunteered to help customers pick out better quality jars. This went horribly wrong though, not from the crusaders, but from a group of Combee who were pulled into that wonderful honey.
After a few tries and eventual busts due to their meddling or a Pokemon's meddling, the girls didn't know what to do next.
"This isn't helping at all. Maybe we should use it on much smaller things?" Sweetie Belle recommended. They weren't getting anywhere with all of this until they bumped into a human. One with distinct green hair and green eyes.
"Oh sorry, mister!" Apple Bloom apologised.
"Don't worry. I must be too tall to really see sometimes." The man was Cilan. An old travelling companion of Ash and a Pokemon Connoisseur. Due to his amazing skills of being a connoisseur, he noticed that the three of them were feeling down. "You three look a bit down. Something wrong?"
"We're just having trouble. See I found this thing that lets us know what's good or bad. We're using it to try and get our cutie marks." Apple Bloom explained.
"But so far it's going nowhere." Scootaloo finished off.
"Oh, I get it now. I do recognize these things. I came across someone using them in Kalos. They are very good at scanning I must say." Cilan said.
"Yeah but that's no good for us." Apple Bloom responded.
"Well, you don't need to rely on this little thing."
"Huh?" The three of them said.
"As a Pokemon Connoisseur, it is my job to know the compatibility of people and pokemon. But I can also tell other sorts of things such as fine arts. That scanner can examine things pretty well. Even better than most people. But the one thing it lacks that we have our own tastes. We wouldn't be so different without our own preferences. But I'm not sure about your whole cutie mark situation though. That's new to me."
"No no! You said something great!" Sweetie Belle yelled out. We don't need this thing to tell us what's good or bad. Besides.. a guilty pleasure. I like quesadillas a little bit more than most ponies.
"Yeah. If we're gonna get our cutie marks, we gotta get them with our own bare hooves and hard work." Scootaloo followed.
"You girls are something. Well, good luck getting your cutie marks. And remember. You have to decide yourselves. Although sometimes machines are pretty handy at the end of the day." Cilan walked off, leaving them behind.
"You know girls. I can get behind what my sister said one time. She said that hard work is tough and takes a lot out of a pony. But at the end of the day, its honest work. And it gets you pretty darn far." Apple Boom recited her sister's motivational speech.
"...Wait. What does any of this have to do with our cutie marks again? And what was the point of this scanner?" Scootaloo said.
"I don't know. Wanna head home and have some pies with me?" Applebloom asked.
"Yeah!" The two of them responded as they walked off, heading for some sweet delicious pie. As the scanner was dropped down, a sort of tentacle grabbed it. The tentacle belonging to the evilest Pokemon to ever exist. Malamar. The overturning pokemon had a devious look on its face as it disappeared into the shadows. It had a secret base that was hiding underneath a rock. Lifting it, it went underneath as inside was a collection of various things collected ever since the two worlds collided. A mane from a unicorn, a piece of a dragon fang found in Hammerlocke and one particular item it managed to come across due to the flash.
An element of harmony. Specifically, the element of magic. Malamar had many plans. These items were the foundation on its number one plan that it has had since day one. World domination. It knew that with the existence of someone like Celestia, and the meddling of the rift, it wouldn't be easy. But Malar had one ace in the hole that always worked. Its potent mind control. What's a leader without minions.
A few hours passed and BigTime Ben came back to the Acres.
"Well. How did it go?" He asked.
"Oh, the dome thingy? Eh, it's gone." Granny said.
"Gone?" Ben responded.
"Eeyup." Big Mac finished off.
"Not like we needed it anyways. It was nice of you to lend it to us, Mr BigTime. But our family likes to notice quality on our own. With our own scents anyways."
"Hm. You're right. Perhaps I shouldn't try to take away the traditionality of someone just for shortcuts. Instead! I'll just make shortcuts for non-traditional things. Hehehe! Wait till the boys at Altru Inc get a load of my newest creation! Their business is gonna be so much more different! The big time man walked off, out to make more business practices.
"What a weird fella. Now don't just stand there, Big Mac. Nightmare Night needs as many pies as it can. Lines are gonna be full that night. They'd better be."
Chapter 10 End.