“Criminals!”
“You’re fakes!”
“I want my bits back!”
“Get out of here! We know you’re both con-ponies! Don’t show your faces in this town ever again!”
Flim and Flam jumped onto their latest contraption and quickly left the enraged town. They stopped by a nearest restaurant to get a bite to eat.
“Brother of mine,” Flim said. “Do you happen to have any bits from that last scam?”
“I don’t have a single drop of charity from our customers,” Flam sighed.
The two brothers sat down at an empty table with a pile of blueprints for their next schemes. The waiter walked over to them and placed a menu in front of each of them.
“How are you two gentlecolts doing today?” the stallion asked arranging the silverware onto the table.
“About as a fine as Breezies on a windy day…” Flim groaned.
Flam stopped the waiter from arranging anymore silverware. “That won’t be necessary son. We haven’t got the bits to eat right now.”
“Oh is that so?” the waiter raised his eyebrow. “What happened? Did you get the hoof or did you spend all of your money on that giant submarine outside?”
Flam started laughing. “Choose your words more carefully boy! That ‘giant submarine’ is going to change the future!”
“Honestly now, how is that? It looks like a piece of junk,” the waiter said.
“Call it what you will, but The Marvelous Massive Machine of Time will blow your mane off!” Flam announced as he got into the waiter’s face.
“A time machine?” the waiter looked puzzled but interested.
“Calm down brother of mine!” Flim yelled. “What is the point trying to sell a failed product?”
With that, Flam disappointingly dropped back into his chair. The waiter looked out at the window in interest. “Would you mind if I went to check out your marvelous machine?” he asked.
“Go ahead,” Flam rubbed his mustache with irritation. “You can keep it too.”
The waiter smiled and ran out of the restaurant. Flim and Flam continued looking at their pile of blueprints. “So what item would you like to sell this time?” Flim asked. “Do you want to try the Alicorn Generator or The Foe to Friend Potion?”
“I do not know,” Flam moped. “That Apple family has ruined business for us. There isn’t a town who doesn’t know of our scams.”
Flim pulled out a map of Equestria and began marking out places they have already been. “What about Manehattan? The city is big and surely not everypony can know us?”
“Unfortunately being famous ruins the chance of finding new faces,” Flam said.
Suddenly the entire restaurant began cheering and laughing. Flim and Flam turned toward the entrance to see an orange coated Earth pony standing on a big blue ball. He had a bright yellow shirt and brown curly hair that really stood out.
“Cheese Sandwich,” the brothers groaned in unison.
They watched him go over to a family in the corner. He pulled out a cannon and aimed it mistakenly at the brothers. Before the brothers could react, a bunch of sticky string shot out at them. They sat there not amused as the kids laughed up a storm and the sticky string melted on their face.
Cheese walked over to Flim and Flam with a towel. “Sorry about that, guys. Here! This should help!”
Flam went used the towel on himself but the towel was covered in more sticky string. There was sticky string covering his entire face and melting all over his mustache. Flim and the crowd laughed at his brother’s peril until Cheese turned his attention toward him.
“Don’t worry!” announced Cheese as he pulled out a big brown bag. “I have more for you too!”
He poured an entire bag of sticky string on Flim. The two brothers sat there in anger and embarrassment as the entire restaurant laughed at them. After finally wiping off most of the string, they saw the mother of the children trying to pay Cheese for his hard work.
“I couldn’t possibly!” Cheese said in serious tone. “I live and breathe to make sure everypony has a great party!”
With that he slowly walked out the restaurant and into the sunset. Flim and Flam left as well and went to their failed machine.
“I can’t believe he made a fool out of us,” Flim said.
“I can’t believe he made a fool out of us and refused to take any profit from it!” Flam added.
Suddenly the waiter from earlier appears before them. “So I was working on your Marvelous Massive Machine of Time and I quickly realized what kind of magic you were missing. So I put the pieces together and I managed to make it to where you can at least travel from the past and present.”
“Sorry but we aren’t buying that,” Flam said.
The brothers pushed him out of the way and began wheeling their machine down the road. The waiter gallops over and tries to stop them. “If you just give me more time I can make it to where you can travel to the future as well!”
The brothers parked the machine on the side of the road. Flim glared at the waiter as Flam walked into the machine. “How about you go back to your restaurant? Don’t you have ponies that are waiting on you?” Flim then went inside the machine and shut the door to find Flam studying a hole in the middle of floor.
“What is that?” Flim asked.
“Something that waiter put in here,” Flam said as he put his hoof in it. The hole began to glow green but stopped as soon as Flam reacted by pulling his hoof out. He put it back in the hole and it continued glowing again.
“What did that brat do to our machine?” Flim asked.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Flam responded. “I just wish we could be famous and successful like Cheese Sandwich. Imagine if he worked for us! We would be rich!”
“We all know that is never going to happen!” Flim said as he turned back to the door. “I’m going to figure out what that waiter did to the floor.”
Flim opened the door and saw a little orange colt with glasses looking up at him. The little colt was terrified and breathing heavily.
“You appeared out of nowhere…” he gasped.
“Out of the way kid,” Flim said as he bypassed the colt. “Where did that waiter run off too?”
Flim looked around the area and suddenly realized that they weren’t in the same area as before. He turned back to the kid. “Where are we?”
“You are outside of Manehattan,” the colt choked out. “This is the road to Ponyville…”
“Manehattan!? We were on the other side of Equestria! How did we end up here?!” Flim asked.
“I don’t know.” The kid muttered while adjusting his glasses.
“Get out here Flam! I think somepony is pulling a prank on us!” Flim yelled.
Flam walked out and saw the little colt. “Who is this?”
“I don’t know. He is probably one of the kids from that Cheese Sandwich party.” Flim said.
“Do you think Cheese Sandwich is behind taking us all the way to Manehattan?” Flam asked.
Flim sighed. “More than likely, darn that Cheese Sandwich.”
“I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to do anything wrong…” The colt muttered at the ground.
Flim and Flam both looked down at the little pony. “Do you know something about this?” Flim asked.
“No, but…” the colt stuttered.
“What is it?” Flam asked. “Spit it out!”
“You guys keep saying Cheese Sandwich tricked you guys. Well…I am Cheese Sandwich…” the colt admitted.
Flim laughed. “Yeah and I am Nightmare Moon! Now why don’t you tell us what is really going on!”
“Flim…” Flam said. “I think he is telling the truth.”
Flam walked closer to the tiny colt and looked at him.
“So Cheese, where were you heading?”
“To Ponyville…I’m hoping to make some friends…” Cheese said quietly.
“You won’t make any there.” Flam told him. “That place is filled with greedy liars.”
“Really?” Cheese frowned. “I heard they were a bunch of nice ponies.”
Flim jumped in on the conversation. “Did your imaginary friends tell you that?”
“Well no, but…” Cheese’s eyes began to fill up with tears.
“Hey don’t cry,” Flam said while rubbing the tears off Cheese’s face. “We will be your friends. Won’t we Flim?”
Flim nodded and grinned at Cheese. “We are your friends. The only friends you will ever need.”
Cheese suddenly formed a smile on his face and blushed. “I don’t even know you…”
Flim and Flam both stood up. “We are the Famous Flim Flam Brothers!”
Cheese smiled and hugged them. They slowly pushed him away and Flam looked at him. “Now why don’t you go back to
Manehattan. We will meet you there.”
“Okay Flam! I can’t wait to show you guys off to everypony else!” Cheese yelled as he went running back to Manehattan.
Flim looked over at his brother. “I think I see what you are planning, Oh brother of mine.”
“We slowly raise him throughout his lifetime so he can help us succeed in the future?” Flam asked.
“Indeed.” Flim yelled. “Skip a couple years to break him into the hardships of life?”
“I like the way you think.” Flam replied as the duo laughed before going back into the machine.