The sun rose over the quiet town of Ponyville. The streets were empty, and very few ponies were up and about in their homes at all. This was nothing new to the town, as most days started off this way. Among the average homes of everyday citizens, there was one structure that stood out from the rest. This was the town library, made of a fairly large tree. This place was home to a particular studious and secluded pony, a unicorn named Twilight Sparkle. She lived with her assistant, a young dragon named Spike. They happened to be up at this point in the day, as they usually were. Twilight would often study early in the day until late at night. She endlessly sought to explore the world around her, striving to gather all the information she could about anything and everything. This is what she loved to do. This kept her content with her life.
As the world evolved outside the library, Twilight could barely keep up with the changes, as she was wrapped up in her eternal studies. She went out every so often, so she was not entirely antisocial. She enjoyed spending time with friends and having a good time apart from studies as well. However, she had involved herself in a rather large project in recent times, leaving her next to no time to come out of her home. Any time she needed to get something at the store, she would send Spike to retrieve it for her so that she did not lose a single minute of solving her problems. As a result, these actions caused the whole cider craze to almost completely fly under her radar. When she did finally go outside after days on end of studying, she found that something was abnormal in town. It did not appear to be major at first glance, but soon she found that she had stumbled upon something huge.
At first, she began to notice the more obvious signs, which were the signs themselves. Posters and billboards all over town proudly proclaimed the profit-gaining cider of the world famous Flim-Flam brothers. Twilight, reminding herself of the time they first came to Ponyville to challenge Sweet Apple Acres. "They must have finally gotten themselves on the right track," she thought to herself, "or they are once again up to no good here in Ponyville."
As she went about her daily business, she ran into a few ponies who were noticeably getting into an argument. Among the group were two of her closest friends: a pegasus who went by the name of Rainbow Dash, and an earth pony named Pinkie Pie. Hoping to resolve the argument, she stepped in to try to make sense of the situation. As she looked closer, she began to hear their argument clearly: they were fighting over the last cup of cider being sold for the day. Suddenly, the ponies could not stand verbal arguments any longer, so they decided to let their hooves do the talking for them. Within seconds, every pony in the small group tackled one another to the ground, literally fighting each other for the last cup. She paid the greatest attention to Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, who had a rage in their eyes that made them seem as if they were intending to destroy each other. Twilight could not bear the sight of this any longer, so she used her magic to pull the cider out of the crowd. By doing this, she got the attention of the crazed ponies, and she proceeded to scold them for their reckless and unnecessary behavior. Storming off in disappointment, she brought the cider back to her library. The ponies began to feel ashamed of their actions, and apologized to one another. Hearing their apologies behind her, Twilight felt a bit satisfied, but she also knew that she had some questions that needed to be answered.
After hours of testing the cider, she had gathered quite a bit of information. The research led her to an interesting but also quite expected solution: Flim and Flam had once again created a nefarious scheme. The cider was made to taste good, there was no doubt about it. However, that wasn't all there was to it. A few ingredients used in the cider linked to an interesting data point. Not only was it delicious, but it also had a hint of addictive substances in it. Drinking the cider once or twice would not have created any sort of mesmerizing sensation, but the fact was that most ponies would drink about five or more due to the cider's delightful taste. In doing this, they had ingested enough of the addictive substances that it would cause themselves to actually develop a need for the cider. The more they drank after that would only increase the sensations further. After about twenty ingested cups, the ponies would become dependent on the cider, going crazy if they were separated from the cider for too long. Eventually the effects on a pony would be amplified so greatly that they would resort to physical violence if it meant getting another cup of cider.
"I bet this whole mess is surely bothering the Apple Family," she thought to herself after gathering this information. "Perhaps I should head over there and see if I can help them in some way." Sneaking out of town, she quickly trotted over to Sweet Apple Acres, which had been tightly fenced off from anyone attempting to take the apples from the trees.
Heading up to the barn, she knocked on the door. The loud and somewhat intimidating voice of Big Mac shouted at her from inside. "Get off our property! We're not lettin' you take a single one of our apples! You better high-tail it out of here before we come out there and chase you out!"
Twilight, quite startled, called back to the voice: "It's me, Twilight Sparkle! I just came over here to ask if I could do anything to help! I know about Flim and Flam's scheme, I know about the cider, and I want to see if there is any way I could lend a hoof!"
Big Mac slightly nudged open the door, sticking only his head out. "You're not bringin' anyone with you, are you? We don't want any of them crazy ponies gettin' in here and causin' trouble!" Twilight replied, "No, Big Mac, I'm here alone. And I haven't had a single drop of the cider, I'm well aware of what it can do to a pony."
He opened the door a little more, just enough to let her into the barn. He quickly closed the door behind her just in case she was being followed. Big Mac led her down into the barn's basement, where the rest of the family was. Granny Smith was in the corner reading more about Flim and Flam's business in the newspaper, with a few other stacks of papers surrounding her. She had been working hard to keep the family up to date on their financial gains and other public statements. Lately, almost every article she read meant more bad news for the Apple Family. Meanwhile, Applejack and Apple Bloom were busy with their own tests on the cider. Although not as advanced as her testing tools, Twilight had to admit that they were putting a good amount of determination into these tests. Twilight was intrigued by the amount of work the family was putting into gathering information on Flim and Flam's cider. It was odd to see someone as... simple as Applejack actually taking time to try something so complex.
Walking up next to Applejack, she decided to brighten her mood a bit. "You know, this is quite different from what I'm used to from you, Applejack. You don't seem to be the kind of pony who would take time to fully research anything. But it's nice to see that you've decided to take up something that's more my speed. Maybe you could help me with some of my research sometime!" she said with a narrow smirk.
Apple Bloom turned to Twilight and whispered, "It's probably best not to bug her. She's way too focused on her research to talk to anyone." Applejack, however, didn't seem to take any offense to Twilight's remark, and replied: "For you information, I'm only doin' this because it's the only way I'll keep my family business afloat. They're our business rivals, and if they don't wanna play clean, then we gotta fight back."
Twilight then moved on to talk about the situation at hand. She went on to tell Applejack how the cider actually had addictive substances that Flim and Flam used to continually turn up a profit from the cider. She explained: "It's a vicious cycle; the more the ponies drink the cider, the more dependent on it they become. I refer to it as 'Golden Delight Fever.'" Applejack replied with disgust: "More like 'Flim-Flam Fever!'"
Applejack took a turn in sharing information. "Although their company has been makin' a huge profit since it started, it seems like it's not gonna last much longer. They're gettin' a huge supply of apples from all the farms they bought, but the demand is increasin' way too fast. They have nowhere to expand, and soon, their apple orchards won't be producin' enough apples to meet the huge demand for cider. Their glory is lastin' for now, but this is their peak. They've run themselves into a corner, and all it's gonna take is one spark to ignite the downfall of their company."
Meanwhile, at the Golden Delight factory, Flim and Flam had also started to realize their situation. Their statistics showed that ponies had begun buying the cider in bulk, purchasing an entire barrel at once. In some extreme cases, they even bought multiple barrels of cider. They were indeed turning up a huge profit from all of their sales, which meant they could still stay in business. However, they had been making so much money lately that they couldn't possibly shut it down. They realized that they couldn't possibly meet demand with the apple orchards they already owned, and since the Apple Family had made a pact to keep the remaining orchards out of the company's hooves, there was nowhere they could expand to.
They had run out of options; all they could hope for was that the demand would die down a bit. The addictiveness of the cider proved this to be impossible, however. Just after their unfortunate discovery, an employee at the factory quickly approached the room of the two brothers. He knocked on the door, and when the brothers came to the door, he said with panic in his voice: "Flim and Flam, we seem to have a slight problem at the factory gates."
Looking out a window, they saw a quite troubling sight. A group of ponies, hundreds or possibly even thousands strong, were pounding on the gates. They began screaming at the massive factory, demanding an increase in the supply of their precious cider.