"Ah'll go first." Applejack stated out loud. However, she hadn't thought of a story to tell yet, because most of her life is nothing but kicking trees. Suddenly, she had a brilliant idea. "Okay, so Ah'm going to tell y'all about the time I fought a giant mech." The look on the others faces were priceless. "What?"
"Really? You. A mech. Duking it out. I don't think so." Rainbow Dash replied, giving a skeptic look at Applejack.
"Oh, like you could, Dash?" As soon as those words left AJ's mouth, she saw angry magenta eyes. While it was far from the real deal, Applejack briefly considered if this was what "The Stare" felt like. Try as she might, it was hard to shrink back when falling.
"Yes, I can." With that Dash was back to her previous position.
"What? How did you do that?"
"Learned it from Pinkie. Let's see you do that, Jackie." Rainbow teased.
"Anyways, let's just start this here story..."
***
It was a nice day at Sweet Apple Acers. The scents of freshly harvested apples, backing pies, and saw dust filled the air. For Applejack, it was shaping up to be the best day of the week. It had been an easy day, with most of the apples already picked, and the new barn almost complete. The hardest part was baking the apples into pies, which wasn't too hard. Proud with her work, Applejack leaned against one of the blocks of hay.
CRASH!
This startled her. Stumbling away from the hay, she checked the barn. It was fine, and after taking a glance at the house, AJ looked over the orchard. If one of her trees fell, she would be able to see which one. While she did see that some of her trees had fallen, her wide eyes were more focused on the culprit. Walking towards the house was a five-story tall machine, vaguely resembling a pony in shape. It seemed to notice her, and a voice emanated from it.
"Why dear brother, look what I've found! It's none other than Ms. Applejack! Hello, there!" The machine took a few steps closer. "Just the mare we were looking for."
"Who, er, what are you, and how do you know me?" After a few seconds, an all too familiar tune started to play. It took a second, but Applejack finally placed her hoof on where she knew it from. "Flim? Flam? What in tarnation is this, and what are you vermin doing back on mah farm?" She demanded.
"What, two business owners can't talk to one another? We just wanted to pay a friendly visit to our old rival." Either Flim or Flam stated through the thing. "Oh, you're probably wondering that this is, aren't you?" As he said this, one of the iron legs moved and displayed the body of the thing. "Well, if you can remember, we stopped by here a few months back with one of our best inventions-"
"You mean that water you kept callin' a cure-all?" Applejack interrupted.
"Perhaps... back to it, you ruined the plan. After that, whenever we tried to go to a town to sell our products, we would be run out! Word of what happened here in Ponyville got around and ruined our reputation. We can't even buy food because of it. So, we decided that since you cause all our problems, to get rid of you."
Suddenly, the mechanical giant started galloping towards the newly built barn. Applejack rolled out of the way just before the large machine rammed into the barn at full speed, annihilating the newly built structure. This was AJ's cue to start running.
"Flam and I are going to destroy everything you hold dear like you did to us, and then... get rid of the opposition, let's say." It started walking towards the house. When Applejack saw this, her eyes almost fell off of her face.
"Look, you two are lyin', thievin' varmints, but y'all ain't murderers. Just don't, and Ah swear Ah won't ever tell no-pony about this! Just leave me and mah family alone!" She begged, but her pleas were either not heard or ignored. As the thing got closer to the house, Applejack's anger rose. "You filthy, no-good murderers! Stay away from mah family!" This time, the robot actually turned around.
"Well then, do you have anything in exchange?" The slightly metallic voices asked at the same time.
"Ah'll give you half of the orchard! Just move your... thing, away from my property!" Applejack shouted back.
"Hmm... alright." The orange mare let out a sigh and a slight smile. "However, we still need to bump out our competitors, and it just so seems our biggest one is right here." That smile quickly changed into a look of shock and horror. Before she could fully process what that meant, the large machine was already bolting at her, full speed.
It was right at that moment that she decided something: never make deals with Flim, Flam, or giant mechs.
***
"Wait, they gave up that easily?" Rainbow interrupted the story to voice her objections. "They're business ponies, right? So wouldn't they take a lot more to convince them?"
"Well, Rainbow, the answer to that is that it's mah story, and you interrupted before Ah finished, so kindly shut yer yap." Rainbow had a look of objection, but a stern enough look from Applejack made it clear that whatever she said would be pointless.
"Okay then..."
***
The mech was charging straight at Applejack, who was begging her legs to move so she could run, but they were frozen in shock. It was getting closer, and by now AJ was just looking for something she could use to protect herself. Then she remembered her lasso was by what was left of the barn door. That was enough to get her legs moving. It also happened to get her out of the way of the 50 foot tall death bot.
CRASH!
The cost for Applejack's life was 100 of her best apple trees, which increased her already simmering anger. As she grabbed her lasso, she heard the rather annoyed brothers in the mech getting the machine back up, with no shortage of unkind words for her. Once it got back up again, it started charging for a second time. Applejack ducked out of the way, but not before getting the lasso caught in between the metal pony's to front legs. This of course tripped the monstrosity, sending it crashing down. This was enough to break it. Unfortunately, it also set the engine on fire. Flim and Flam and just escaped the destroyed machine before it exploded in a ball of fire, destroying even more trees.
"What do y'all have to say for yer selves?" Applejack demanded.
"We should have built a better robot."
As the first police and fire fighter pegasi reached Sweet Apple Acers, Granny Smith woke up from her nap.
***
The other falling ponies mulled over the story before sharing their thoughts.
"Well, that escalated quickly," Was the general consensus.