As the month went by, the Golden Delight cider craze had spread from small towns to much larger cities, even reaching the likes of Canterlot. Flim and Flam apparently had a working business on their hooves. Within the last few days, Applejack had seen actual advertisements for the cider popping up, and at this point, they were almost everywhere imaginable.
Billboards and signs with the smug look of the salesponies plastered onto them proudly proclaimed the wonders of Golden Delight cider. They had become so popular that they were on the front page of newspapers and magazines for days on end. Radio news reporters asked them about their successes. Often their reply was simple: "It's all thanks to our new secret recipe, it just makes the cider irresistible!"
Even the new invention of color televisions portrayed the successes of the cider. Many commercials were being put up. One had the well-known tune that the brothers used to sing when they came into town. Others had a more interesting style of advertising, in which they had hired the somewhat famous minotaur, Iron Will, to be their spokesman. The tone of aggression with which he spoke seemed to draw in more buyers than Flim and Flam initially thought.
But the main way the news of Golden Delight traveled throughout Equestria was always word of mouth.
Deeply involved with her research, Applejack was snapped out of her trance-like state by her younger sister, Apple Bloom, who told her that Granny Smith was immediately holding a family meeting in the kitchen.
Granny Smith spoke with a hint of irritation in her voice. "All right, youngins, these are some bad times for us. Our profits are goin' down, and we ain't gonna be able to compete with Flim and Flam's fancy-schmancy new brand of cider. To make matters worse, them dastardly brothers opened up a new-fangled factory out near Hollow Shades, where they plan to use the orchards there to grow some more apples for their business! Ah fear that they'll buy out other orchards, so we'll have to do what we can to keep 'em from takin' ours!"
Apple Bloom chimed in: "We need to spread the word to other Apple Family branches, so that they know not to give up their orchards to them fiends!"
"Great idea, Apple Bloom!" Applejack responded. "Flim and Flam better not mess with our family, because they ought to know that they got another thing coming if they do!"
Only two weeks later, the brothers had built their company headquarters right in Hollow Shades where they had made their first sale. The factory was fairly large, noisy, and definitely effective. Cider production had skyrocketed for the company, bringing sales up with it. They had also bought the apple orchard owned by Hollow Shades as well. However, the orchard would prove to be an ineffective means of supplying apples for the gargantuan factory. At all hours of the day, smoke fumes piled out of the smokestacks. The machines inside never stopped working to create the cider. This indeed proved to be a problem, as the orchard did not grow apples fast enough or in a large enough quantity to meet the factory's speedy production of cider.
At first, the Flim-Flam brothers did not take notice to this impending problem, as they were too busy with all the attention they had been receiving to take any time to discover this possibility. However, in a few days' time, they soon saw that most of the apple trees were already bare.
In their headquarters, which was overshadowed by the larger factory adjacent to them, Flam pointed this out to his younger brother. Flim went into a quick panic, but then an idea struck him.
"We'll just have to buy out other apple orchards and use their apples!" he exclaimed proudly. His brother questioned him, "I know we're getting quite rich off of this cider, but don't you think that will be difficult?" Looking down at his desk and pulling a document out of his drawer, Flim showed it to his skeptical brother.
"Not if we're already millionaires."
Indeed, the document had proven that their company had already gave them a million bits. After a brief but energetic celebration, the brothers proceeded to seek out other apple orchards in Equestria, hoping to make a deal with them. They had the money to buy out apple orchards to spare. And as time went on, and more profit came to them, they had a whole corporation on their hooves.
The more money they got, the more orchards they bought out. The more orchards they bought out, the more cider they produced. And the more cider they produced, the more money they got. The cycle continued like this for months, until everything eventually balanced out. They had bought out every orchard they could get their hooves on.
Every orchard, that is, except the Apple Family orchards.
Following the success of the Golden Delight cider brand, the Apple Family, calling the Flim-Flam brothers their sworn enemies, refused to allow the brothers access to their extensive network of farms across Equestria. Ranging from Ponyville to Appleloosa, to even the outskirts of Manehattan, Apple Family members everywhere would not let the brothers have a single one of their apples.
The brothers noticed this apparent trend, but hardly saw it as a threat. As far as they were concerned, they were bringing in enough apples to the point where it became more than enough. They had to build other factories to keep up with the amount of apples they were bringing in. As long as their cider was being sold, the brothers saw no problems with their cider. The Apple Family wasn't faring nearly as well, as their sales saw a massive decline as a result of their competition. Soon there would be no place for the Apple Family in Equestria. They continued their research of the brand, in the hopes that there could be a hope to beat them. In the hopes that they could once again have relevance. In the hopes that they could soon return to the days of Apple Family quality cider, made from love and care rather than money and power.