“So did you bring the bits?” asked Flim looking at the small herd of ponies gathered around him and his brother. The two inventors had spent the night under canvas just outside of the town. The Music Maker had chugged away until dawn and now towers of cases sat around them.
“Yes, just like we agreed,” said Cheerilee holding up a large bag. Next to her stood Bluenote and around them stood a few of the townsfolk who had offered to help the school teacher transport the new equipment to the school. Two of them were hitched up to carts.
“Thank you,” said Flim taking the bag in his aura. A stream of currency flashed out of the bag and make a quick circuit around the stallion's head before flowing into his saddlebags. “That seems correct. Congratulations on your purchase, you won’t regret this.”
Bluenote shifted uneasily on her hooves. She hadn’t spoken to Medley since their argument yesterday and she was feeling bad about the whole incident. She really did think she was in the right, the school needed both instruments and a good teacher. At Medley’s prices they couldn’t afford both. Still, maybe she should have handled the whole situation better. The Manechestian mare had a strong sense of personal pride, she hadn’t liked to lose out to the brothers. Bluenote supposed that the whole incident must be a shock to her friend. If instruments could be made so cheaply now she would really need to look into changing how her business worked. To be honest she still thought the deal was a bit shady, despite their smiles there was something about the brothers than just felt wrong to her. Could Medley have been right that there could be some con going on? “Um, maybe we should just have a look at some of the instruments, just to check them?” she suggested as the cases were loaded onto the carts.
“Oh, I suppose that makes sense,” said Cheerilee.
“Well of course,” agreed Flam quickly, he pushed through the crowd of assistants and took several cases in his aura, opening them and whirling their contents quickly around in the air. “What would you care to examine? Drum, recorder, double bass?” He recited as the instruments flashed past. “Perhaps something from the brass selection? Something easy to test?”
“Uh, maybe a trumpet?” suggested Bluenote, feeling a little dizzy as the instruments flew past her.
“A good choice,” said Flim as his brother quickly packed the other instruments away in their boxes, the clips closing with a snap. The older twin searched through a pile of identical boxes before carefully extracting a case from near the bottom. “There you are,” he opened the case to reveal the golden instrument.
Bluenote carefully lifted the trumpet from its packaging and gave it a quick once over. It looked alright, maybe not quite as polished as the violin from yesterday, but certainly functional. She took the instrument to her lips and blew a few notes. It wasn’t perfectly in tune but nothing that couldn’t be quickly fixed.
“Satisfied?” asked Flam.
“Yes, everything seems in order,” agreed Bluenote feeling a little self-conscious now that her fears had been shown to be unfounded, “Sorry, but I wanted to test...”
“Not a problem,” said Flim with a smile, “We pride ourself on our quality. Now I’m sure you’ll want to get these into storage as soon as possible. Ready for all those eager foals to try out tomorrow.”
“Actually, as Bluenote is busy tomorrow they’ll have to restrain themselves for another day before they get to try them out,” said Cheerilee conversationally as she finished loading the last of the cases.
The two brothers shared a look for a moment. “Maybe we could stay in town for another few days’ brother?” suggested Flim. “We could take up Miss Scratch’s offer to examine her work?”
The elder brother rolled his eyes. “We both know what you would like to examine about Miss Scratch, brother. Still her reputation does precede her, we might learn quite a bit from her. We can talk about it further once our customers have left,” he said pointedly.
“Of course.”
Slowly, the small convoy of ponies started to make their way back into town. “You know,” said Bluenote, “they might be right about how eager the foals will be about their new instruments. Maybe I can shift my time table about a bit and free myself up tomorrow afternoon, at least for an hour or so.”
“It would be so nice if you could,” said Cheerilee, “I should be able to get the contract for you teaching by then as well, we can talk about your hours.”
“Thanks,” said Bluenote with a smile, her earlier worries evaporating. It looked like everything was going to work out fine. Sure Medley might still be in a mood, but it was nothing that wouldn’t pass in time. Maybe a batch of her famous cookies might help. She was sure that once the foals had tried out the school’s instruments they’d start to bug their parents to get them ones of their own and Medley would be in just the right position to profit from that. Nothing to worry about at all.
“Now settle down my little ponies!” cried Cheerilee. The class obediently stopped their own conversations and all sat up straight looking forwards at their beaming teacher. “Thank you! Now I have a special surprise for all of you today. Over the weekend the school got a batch of brand new musical instruments! You can all have a go at trying to play them!” Excited mumblings broke out amongst the class again. Cheerilee gave them a few moments to digest the news before signalling for silence again. This time it took a few moments for the noise to stop. “Now before you start I’d like to introduce somepony to you all.” She stepped aside to allow Bluenote to step forwards and wave a hoof at the class. “Some of you already know Miss Bluenote, but you’ll be seeing a lot more of her over the coming months, she’s agreed to be your new music teacher! She’ll help teach you how to use your new instruments.”
Bluenote grinned as several of the foals in front of her, including her current pupils, started to stamp enthusiastically at the news. “Hi kids!” she cried over the noise, “I’m Miss Bluenote. Some of you already know me, some of you I’ve even taught before. I’m sure we’re all going to become good friends over the next few weeks.” She trotted over to the storage cupboard near the back of the room and yanked the door open. “We’ve got all sorts of instruments for you to try out!” She grabbed a random case in her mouth and tossed it onto a bench before tapping the latch, revealing the flute within. “Some of you already know the instruments you prefer but the rest of you can just try out what you feel like. Even those of you with some experience can give something else a try if you want.” Bluenote nimbly stepped aside to avoid the herd of foals that descended on the various cases and containers, easily tearing them open and snatching at the goodies inside.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” asked Cheerilee worriedly.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure the instruments can take it, and until they’ve tried out a few choices I won’t know what they’re good at,” she replied. “Ok everypony,” she cried over the general hubbub, “Just pick one for the moment, you can try something else later. Play around with your instrument for the moment, just get a feel for what it can do. I’ll be round in a few minutes to give you a hoof. Don’t worry if you can’t do things perfectly yet. I’m sure given a few weeks’ hard work you’ll be able to do wonders!”
Around the class a cacophonous sound arose as each foal started to try out their various chosen instruments. Cheerilee’s ears laid flat against her head as she tried to block out the noise but next to her Bluenote stood with a faint smile on her face, one hoof tapping against the ground marking out some unheard beat.
“Miss! Miss!” came a call from the crowd. Bluenote turned to see one of her personal pupils, Tootsie Flute. The foal was waving one of the flutes from the supply cupboard above her head with a flickering aura. “I think there’s something wrong with this one!”
The music teacher lifted the instrument from the filly and carefully examined it. At first glance It looked alright, it was certainly the right size and shape. However, rather than the normal silver colour of a metal flute it was orangey gold with patches of a greenish crumbly material here and there. Frowning, Bluenote raised the instrument to her lips and gagged at the taste of verdigris, the metal was rusting! She tapped it against a nearby table and a chuck detached itself leaving a hole in the instrument. A strong feeling of unease and dread started to make its way along Bluenote’s back. Maybe it was just a one off, she thought desperately. A bad example? “Let’s see if we can find another one?” she suggested to Tootsie, mostly trying to reassure herself. What if Medley had been right? Trying to stop herself from galloping she forced her legs to trot over to the pile of cases. Now that she was paying attention she noticed that, although secure looking from the outside, most of the boxes were constructed of cheap scraps of wood on the inside. Quickly searching through the boxes Bluenote pulled out a second flute only to find it in just as bad a state as the first. It too was made out of substandard materials, badly corroded brass or copper.
“Oww! I got a splinter!” complained a foal behind her. Bluenote turned but Cheerilee was already examining the stricken foal. Bluenote snatched up the guitar the colt had been playing. The body was rough! It seemed to be made out of something like chipboard! A feeling of panic started to play over the music teacher, this couldn’t be happening! She’d told Cheerilee everything was going to be alright. She’d been sure that Medley was wrong. She’d trusted the Flim Flam brothers. She started to tear open case after case only to reveal more and more instruments made out of shoddy materials, some were already starting to fall apart. She turned to Cheerilee, her eyes wide. Her fellow teacher was pale, but gave the foal a reassuring smile as she carefully removed the splinter of wood from his frog.
“It seems like there are a few problems with the new instruments children,” she said in a reassuring tone. “You can all go to an early recess while me and Miss Bluenote sort things out.”
A little confused but mostly happy at the news the foals started to file out of the room. Once they had all left Cheerilee slumped where she was standing. “How... how bad is it?” She asked quietly.
“I’m sorry Cheerilee, I really am...” began Bluenote.
“How bad?” Interrupted Cheerilee with more force.
“Bad.” Bluenote searched through the scattered boxes again. “There are a few decent instruments, just enough to fool us I guess,” she gave a bitter laugh, “but most of them... most of them are junk. I’m really sorry. I didn’t know. I really thought...”
“I know, I know,” sighed Cheerilee holding her face in her hooves, her dejected tone like a knife in Bluenote’s guts, “I should have checked, I should have known you don’t get something for nothing. I just don’t know what I’m going to tell the school board. I guess we’re just lucky that none of the foals were really hurt. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of us catching up with those con-ponies, they’ll probably be miles away by now...”
“Yeah, I’m really really sorry...” Moaned Bluenote. There had to be something she could do to make this better, “Wait a minute, they don’t know we tried out the instruments today, and they said they were going to visit Vinyl! We might have a chance to catch them!”
“You really think so?!” asked Cheerilee but Bluenote was already rushing towards the door as fast as her hooves would carry her. After only a moment's hesitation Cheerilee followed her colleague.
The strange egg like shape of Vinyl’s residence came into sight as the two teachers galloped through town. For a moment Bluenote feared that the brothers might not be there, that they had already left town, but then she caught sight of the Music Maker parked only a short distance away. A further glance showed the two tall unicorns standing just next to it while Vinyl’s hindquarters protruded from a hatch in the side of the machine. While the elder brother seemed to be explaining something to the element of magic the younger seemed more transfixed by the parts of the mare protruding from the vehicle. His ogling caused another burst of anger in Bluenote and she put more effort into her pounding hooves.
“Brother!” exclaimed Flam as he noticed the two angry teachers quickly closing in on them.
Flim broke his eyes away from Vinyl’s wiggling posterior and looked up at the sight that had alarmed his brother. “Oh, dear!”
“Junk!” yelled Bluenote as she came to a halt only a few feet from the brothers. “All your stuff is junk!” She was too angry to come up with a clearer explanation.
“You’re crooks!” yelled Cheerilee arriving only a moment later.
“Huh?” asked Vinyl as she crawled out of the workings of the machine, “What’s up?” She had a variety of tools floating around her.
“These two!” Bluenote jabbed an angry hoof at the brothers. “Have conned us! All the instruments they sold us are useless, dangerous even, they’re falling apart already!”
“Give me my money back!” demanded Cheerilee stamping towards the brothers.
The two shared a worried look and took a step back. “Now, now,” said Flam calmingly, “I’m sure we can deal with this.”
“Are you sure the instruments themselves are faulty? Foals can sometimes play a little roughly with their new toys,” suggested Flim.
“They were defective! Useless!” growled Bluenote. She could not believe how angry she felt right now, the con stallions were even trying to blame her foals!
“Now, now,” exclaimed Flim. “The element of magic herself can tell you how effective our machine is; it only produces the highest quality instruments.” He turned to Vinyl who was standing next to him with her brow furrowed.
“Well, yeah. I didn’t see anything wrong with it. It’s a wonder of mana engineering really, maybe a bit bigger than it needs to be, but not faulty. Makes the best instruments you could get from whatever you put in it.”
“Well these were faulty! Rusty metal! Chipboard! Useless!” yelled Bluenote. “Medley was right, they’re con stallions!”
“We do not have to stand for this slander!” exclaimed Flim, suddenly angry, or doing a good job of faking it. “We only use the highest quality of materials, you yourself saw our demonstration! You will be hearing from our lawyer!” The stallion floated up a business card with the name ‘Saw Goodstallion, attorney at law’ embossed on it.
Vinyl turned to the Music Maker and started to sniff, her nuzzle twitching. “Something doesn’t smell right here.”
“Damn right it doesn’t” yelled Cheerilee throwing aside the business card. “It smells like...”
“What’s this?” Interrupted Vinyl poking at a hatch in the side of the machine making it spring open.
“Don’t do that!” cried Flam leaping for the device and slamming it shut, but not before Vinyl managed to levitate out various items.
“Scrap metal? Chip board? This stuff’s junk! You’ve been using this to make your instruments!” exclaimed Vinyl, turning on the two brothers.
“Oh dear, it seems we may have outstayed our welcome brother,” said Flim a little wearily.
“I did say we should have left last night, rather than try to impress miss Scratch, brother.”
“Yes, well that will teach me to put pleasure before business. We should be on our way.”
“You’re not going anywhere!” exclaimed Cheerilee, “Give me back my money! Then mum can decide what to do with you!”
“I’m afraid that’s not going to happen,” said Flam almost apologetically. He tapped his horn against his brother’s and suddenly there was a flash brighter than the sun. Bluenote gave a cry and clutched at her eyes. A nearby scream suggested that Cheerilee had been equally affected. For a horrible moment Bluenote thought she might have been permanently blinded by the spell but slowly her eyesight started to return. She blinked away the stars floating in and out of her vision and looked around. The Music Maker was already half way down the road, the two stallions mounted on the back, their horns glowing brightly. Despite the speed of its exit the device was still playing a jaunty tune. Vinyl Scratch was galloping along behind the vehicle, presumably protected from the blast by her glasses. Realising the con stallions were getting away Bluenote took to her hooves after them. Cheerilee joined her, still wobbling a little as she recovered from the flash.
It didn’t take long for the two earth ponies to catch up with Vinyl. The DJ did what she could to keep herself fit but she couldn’t outrace the magically enhanced muscles of her hornless friends. Unfortunately, the magic behind the Music Maker seemed even stronger and it was slowly but surely starting to pull away from the increasingly tired mares. “You might as well give up, my dears,” called Flim from the seat on top of the device, goggles covering his eyes. “You don’t have a hope of catching us!”
“I think... think he’s right,” panted Cheerilee. “Maybe we should just let them get away, get the police to track them down.” A foam was starting to form on the school teacher’s flank.
“We... we can’t just let them get away,” gasped Bluenote through gritted teeth. “We can’t let them run the same scam on another school! We don’t know how much more trouble they might cause before they get caught.”
“I... I got a good look at its insides,” yelled Vinyl through gritted teeth as she tried to keep up with the other mares. Around them the various inhabitants of Ponyville looked on in astonishment as the bulky vehicle and three mares rushed past. “I think I might... might be able to stop it... by draining the power!” She screwed up her face in concentration as her hooves started to beat out a rhythm on the road and her horn began to glow with a pink aura.
“I do think miss Scratch is trying to stop our wonderful device, brother,” commented Flim, taking a draw from a drink as he lounged in the driver's seat of the vehicle.
“Preposterous brother!” exclaimed Flam, looking up from the controls. “Such a spell would be...” He was cut off as the organ gave out a series of off key notes and juddered before the wheels started to slow. “I don’t...” He gasped before concentrating and making his horn glow even brighter.
“This isn’t possible!” gasped Flim as he joined in bolstering the machine, but despite his efforts it continued to slow, allowing the pursuing mares to close the gap.
“Surprise... chumps...” panted Vinyl, a grin of triumph on her face. “Your contraption might be impressive, but from what I saw it’s not very efficient. Give me some time with it and... oops.” Too busy concentrating on her spell, Vinyl failed to notice a loose cobblestone beneath her hooves and tripped, sprawling to the ground.
The force slowing it disappearing, the Music Maker suddenly shot forwards, the tempo of the music it generated speeding up, changing from a gentle jig to a demonic cacophony. The roar of its engine grew louder and louder as the brothers struggled to get it back under control. The streets of Ponyville quickly gave way to the fields beyond as the vehicle flashed out of the town. Suddenly there was a loud ping as something in the magic powered engine broke under the strain and the vehicle slewed to one side, turning off the road and onto the ploughed fields that surrounded it.
Flying from bump to bump as it thundered over the rough ground the Music Maker rumbled forwards. Bluenote felt a wave of triumph flow over her as the Flim Flam brothers were sent tumbling from their perch on top of the vehicle. Then she felt a moment's fear as she saw them land heavily, she hadn’t wanted them to get really hurt, but soon enough each of them staggered to their hooves. She started to turn aside to capture them before they could recover but then heard a scream from ahead. Turning her head she saw a pair of Ponies standing in the path of the runaway vehicle.
They must have been on Apple land as she recognised the younger of the pair as Applebloom and the elder as her grandmother Granny Smith. The foal was trying to pull her elderly relative out of the way of the approaching Music Maker but Granny was only able to move at a snail's pace, and with the Music Maker bearing down on her that was not enough. Unless something was done they would both be run down.
Glancing over, Bluenote saw that her companions had realised the same thing. Vinyl staggered back to her hooves and her horn flashed again, a lasso of light extruding from it and affixing itself to the vehicle. For a moment it looked like the spell might stop the runaway wagon but then the line drew tight and with a yelp Vinyl was yanked from her hooves and dragged along the ground behind it.
Racing along just behind the vehicle Cheerilee and Bluenote shared a look for a moment then nodded as they both realised what they needed to do. The Flim Flam Brothers forgotten, the two of them hammered their hooves into the ground at an increasing rate, drawing themselves alongside the Music Maker. Flexing their legs they leapt sideways, smashing into the side of the waggon with bone jarring force desperately trying to divert it before it could crush the pair of Apples who were getting closer and closer with each fleeting second.
Gritting her teeth Bluenote rammed into the side of the Music maker again, her flank aching with bruises. She felt the vehicle give a little but it wasn’t enough. Next to her Cheerilee tried the same and stumbled from the impact, she got her hoofing back in a second but that was enough for the vehicle to clear almost a quarter of the distance to the old mare, leaving the teacher behind. At the back of the wagon Vinyl had managed to get to her hooves but was still being dragged along behind, leaving a furrow in the ground as she went. A second magical rope shot from her horn to latch onto a branch of a nearby tree but the force tore it straight off.
Bluenote prepared to throw herself at the vehicle again, despite knowing it was not going to be enough. Mere feet in front of the hurtling vehicle she saw Granny Smith grasp her granddaughter in her hooves and throw the filly aside to safety. The action caused the old mare to slip and fall. She glanced up at the at the approaching vehicle for a moment before closing her eyes.
“NOPE!”
At the same moment as Bluenote slammed into the side of the Music Maker a red thunderbolt struck it as well. Wood shattered and metal bent under the joint impact and the great machine was sent flying, tumbling onto its side as it skidded past Granny Smith before crashing into a tree and coming to a stop, its song finally falling silent.
For a moment Bluenote led where she’d fallen, waiting for the world to stop spinning. Nearby she saw the battered form of Big Macintosh Apple struggle to his hooves and begin to stagger towards the fallen form of his grandmother. “Granny! Bloom!” he called.
“Big Mac!” came a cry from the youngest apple as she leapt into her brother’s arms in a tearful ball. “Ah was so scared!” With a smile on his lips the giant stallion cradled his sister in his arms.
“What happened here?” cried Applejack as she and her cousin Caramel arrived on the scheme. “Are you alright Granny?” She asked as she helped the older mare to her hooves.
“Don’t you fret none, I’ve seen worse than that whoseamathinger,” said Granny as she straightened herself, wincing a little.
“It was the Flim Flam brothers!” exclaimed Cheerilee as she staggered up to the rest of the group followed by a dazed looking Vinyl. “They conned the school and tried to run, luckily we caught them before they could...” She turned back to the point where the brothers had last been seen only to find it empty, “get away,” she concluded lamely.