An Undertale of Equestria

by David Silver

24 - Juicy Progress

As we approached the door, the building gave an echoing creak of metal resisting the wind that blew through the Equestrian arctic. I was glad for my jacket, and a little worried about going into a big old metal building.

Trixie didn't seem to share that worry, and pulled the door open. The interior was a patch of darkness. "Sweet, would you kindly go inside and look for a light switch." When she got a blank look, Trixie made a magical light switch floating in the air and flicked it up and down dramatically. "Push it up for us."

"Oh, alright." Sweet stepped forward cautiously, head swinging left and right before she vanished into the gloom. "Here it is!" A soft click sounded before lights flickered fitfully on and machinery began. With rumbles and clunks, the entire factory was turning on. Who connected that to a light switch?!

Trixie tilted her head. "Very good. Trixie did not expect it to be running. She wasn't even sure if the lights would work. All the better for us." She gave me a nudge with a hoof and off we went.

I could see bushels of berries dropping onto a conveyor belt and being drawn along to smashers and juicers. The whole thing looked operational. "I don't get it. If they got it working, why would they just turn it off and walk away?"

"I say, brother of mine, even that strange thing doesn't understand our methods." A pony stepped out from behind the machine with a jaunty looking hat on his head.

Coming out from another machine across from it, another pony that looked nearly identical, this one with a moustache. "If they don't know, why did they come here, brother of mine?"

"Couldn't rightly say," answered the first. "Perhaps we should introduce ourselves?"

"Do you think?"

"I do!"

Trixie scoffed at them. "Stop this nonsense. Trixie has come on important business and must investigate this building."

"Investigate she says."

"Spying is more like it." They leaned towards each other with a brow raised each.

"They've come to destroy our machine, again." His eyes darkened, shadowy trails beginning to leak from them.

"They're here to chase us away even from the frozen norths." His brother's eyes went dark as well, making a matching pair.

"Just like they promised."

"Just like they swore."

They began stepping towards us with unwholesome smiles, speaking together, "But we'll never be made to run again."

Sweet moved in beside me, shaking a little. "They're not dark ponies, why are they acting like that?"

I felt the tension growing. Conflict was clearly on us. "I guess other ponies can fall to shadow too."

With a sparkle of magic, Trixie threw up a wall in front of the two.

"Oh what have we here?" One pony drew out something that looked like a can opener. "Nothing the Flim Flam Amazing."

"Fantastic."

"Stupendous Arcane Slicer can't handle." He pressed it to the wall and cut a neat hole in it almost instantly for them to step through. "Now that you've witnessed how reliable our technology is, you're undoubtedly eager to see more!"

Hovering beside one I saw 'Question' and 'Question!' floating beside the others. The other had 'Flatter' and 'Support'. I went with the first one. "So, what kind of amazing technology do you have?"

Trixie raised a brow. "Why are you asking about that right now?"

"Because he has excellent taste!" exclaimed the one without a mustache. "Here, hold this." He threw a ball at Trixie who caught it easily in her magic. It exploded outwards from her grasp and wrapped around her, leaving her head poking free of a big rubber ball that held her tight.

Sweet withdrew behind me, and his brother noticed her. "Aw, don't be shy. Flim Flam technologies have uses for all kinds of ponies!"

"Why, even such delightfully--"

"--fantastically--"

"--deeply black ponies such as yourself, madame. Since your friend asked, here, have a gander at this." They turned as one to a machine to their left, which was softly humming but doing nothing obvious. "Why, with this, cleaning your house is a thing of the past!"

"Indeed it is, brother. With a flick of the switch." His horn glowed and the machine's switch clicked on and began making much more noise. "It's that easy! See how clean it is around here?"

Giving a look around, it really did look clean. The metal floors, ceilings, and walls were all spotless and shiny. The source of that cleanliness became clear as brushes emerged from the machine and began scrubbing dutifully. "You haven't even heard the best part!"

"Indeed they haven't. It gets out stains of all varities, avoids getting in the way, and even serves as a guard dog."

"Just the thing for getting rid of pesky visitors." Their expressions turned to malicious grins as they settled their eyes on Trixie.

Trixie squirmed inside her prison as a brush moved in front of her, pulled back, then swatted her like a golf club, knocking her right out of the front door with a scream, rolling all the way.

"Ta da!"

"Excellent shot, brother. As you can see, it does all that, and more!"

"How many can we put you down for?"

I dug out a few coins. "I'll take one."

Sweet blinked and pulled me against her front. "What are you doing?"

"Making a fine investment!" exclaimed one with a smile. "I knew you were a reasonable soul the moment I put my eyes on you, and a savvy buyer as well."

"One thing." I raised a finger to point at Sweet hovering over me. "I need it delivered to her house."

"Why that shouldn't be a problem."

"No, no problem at all! Just give us the address and your friend there will be enjoying modern living in no time at all!"

I gave them the address and they scribbled it in a notebook. "One thing. If you can make something that fantastic, why make this factory in the middle of nowhere?"

One of them looked downcast, ears going limp and shadow flaring from his eyes. "Nopony trusts, I mean, they fear progress! We put warning labels on the dials, but they usually ignore them, and blame us when it explodes."

"There was that one time we did it."

"I don't like thinking about that. Why do we even put in those higher settings?"

"I don't know, brother. It just feels like the right thing to do."

"Well maybe it isn't!"

I put up my hands. "Easy there, fellas. Science is about learning from our mistakes, not yelling at each other."

They turned on me with some confusion. "You know about science?"

"About innovation?"

"Of course I do." I stepped towards them, their eyes locked on me. "Where I come from, we're ruled by science."

"That sounds like paradise--"

"--an impossible place--"

"--where are you from?"

I shrugged. "Trixie, the one you kicked out, brought me here with magic."

"And is very angry!" Trixie stormed back in through the front door. "The nerve of you, throwing Trixie out like that! The Great and Powerful Trixie deserves respect from two shyster unicorns such as yourselves."

Their expressions darkened. "Look who's talking, brother. Why, if it isn't Tricksy, the deceiver."

"Tricksy, the failure."

"The Blue Bumbler."

"Ponyville's Reject."

With every insult they hurled at Trixie, she turned more and more red. "Stop that! Stop that right now!"

"Twilight's little--"

"Stop it!" Trixie reared up, holding a ball of angry magic between her forehooves. "I'll destroy your pathetic little factory if I have to! Stop it!"

"She thinks she's the only unicorn here."

"Shameful really, resorting to violence so easily."

I didn't like the coldly ready looks they were giving Trixie. "Mom, please stop."

"Oh ho, did you hear that? He calls her mother?"

"She couldn't get a stallion to look at her, so she summoned a foal instead."

"Priceless."

"Shameful."

Trixie hurled all the magic she had at them with a pained cry. "S-Stop it! Leave Trixie alone!"

They inclined their horns as one towards the incoming ball and ripped it apart between their combined magic, siphoning it off into the various machines of the factory that began to hum all the louder with the extra power. Trixie collapsed, on her back knees, her forehooves just in front of herself as she began to sniffle. "Stop..."

"She can hurl the insults, but she can't take them very well, can she brother?"

"Not at all. Perhaps little washed up showmares shouldn't step into the ring if they aren't ready to take a punch."

Sweet suddenly sprang in front of Trixie. "Enough! This isn't right. She shouldn't have called you that, but two wrongs don't make it fair."

I glanced back at Trixie, then turned my attention on the brothers. "No, it wasn't right of her. I don't think you two are trying to scam ponies."

"Well there was that one time..."

"Brother..."

I smiled a little. "Tell me about it?"

They both looked uncomfortable. "We were short of bits."

"Broke."

"Yes, well, we needed to get back in the black, fast, and we came up with a... less than honest proposal."

"It had a measurable benefit!"

"We sold fake medicine."

"Ponies felt better after drinking it."

Placebos. I remembered a video I watched about that. "There's a way to sell a thing like that without lying."

They both perked up. "What? How?"

I put up my mitted hands and brought them together slowly. "By not lying. Don't claim they'll treat medical problems, but you can say they'll make you feel better all you want. If they don't, your customers won't buy them, and if it does, then you didn't lie. Give refunds on the ones that aren't happy. The ones that are will keep coming back."

They stared at me blankly for a few moments before the one with the mustache slapped himself in the face. "Could it really be that simple?"

"So easy!"

"Too late for that now." He sagged a bit. "Ponies wouldn't trust us to sell them apple juice, let alone health tonic."

Trixie got back to her hooves, recovering from her intense magical blast, though still shaking a little from her lost duel. "Is that all you want, to sell snake oil?"

They scowled at her. "We dream much bigger--"

"--grander--"

"--fantastically! You wouldn't understand. You don't innovate, you've never even made a new spell before. You just use what others have done for you."

Trixie hesitated. "I... Trixie supposes that may be true... Trixie has not made a spell before. The only pony Trixie knows that has made new magic is Princess Twilight Sparkle."

One of them made a grand gesture around the factory. "We designed all of this."

"From nothing."

"Well we did borrow a few little parts, but most of it is ours."

Sweet tilted her head left and right as she looked over all the rumbling machines. "What does it all do?"

"Glad you asked that!"

"We'll show you!"

Author's Note:

This can only work out well.

Some good prying into characters happened though, so I very much enjoyed writing this chapter.

Comments

[Seeking Dusk]

Flim and Flam's habit of continuing each other's sentences while spicing it up with needless adjectives is equal parts amusing and annoying

[David Silver]

6680419 Keeping it true to character. Love these guys. <3

[Emtu]

Trixie collapsed, on her back kneed,

knees

[David Silver]

6680437 The typo is defeated, 1 bit for you! What think ye of the chapter?

[TheShippingJR]

Thou thinks that thou shalt continue stories. Thy stories amuse me.

[Tonto the Trotter]

That was good ^^, glad to see you handled Flim and Flam really well ^_^. Not that there was ever any doubt that you could do it. With Determination, you continue to hammer out these excellent chapters. I did enjoy the interactions of the brothers and Trixie, their technology is really neat and quirky as expected ^^. And Frisk resolves the conflict rather brilliantly, seems Trixie is still too quick to act and think with violence. Hopefully her LOVE won't go up with Frisk around.

Anyways, great chapter, can't wait to see you writing more of Flim and Flam.

[shinigamisparda]

"We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of. Others judge us by what we have already done."

[Emtu]

6680463
I didn't actually expect the brothers to be there.

[TheifofZ]

6680422 Not often authors make the effort to do that. It's refreshing to see, and really helped me keep their voices in mind when reading.
When you can read a line and hear it in the character's voice, then you know that it's close to being in character.

[Booster Spice]

Are flim and Flam shadowed, or are they just seeing dark?

[Xenolis]

6680437

Is it even called a knee though?

Haha jk. Or is it.

[Synonym Toast Crunch]

I wanna see more stories with the Barber Shop Duo, acting like this. How they want to lead the technological future, but are always targeted for mistakes by their inventions.

Maybe a story with the brothers and human?

[David Silver]

6682962 I hope I've portrayed them in a more realistic light in some ways. They're not angels, or devils. They want to bring wondrous new things, but fail. Poor guys.

[Synonym Toast Crunch]

6683450 you've done it well, I can't seem to find any stories like I've described, quiet a shame