The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 had packed it in once and for all about a mile out of Ponyville; impressive sparkling geysers of vapor jetted from the thaumic engine's ruptured plumbing as it sat stricken on the side of the dirt road. Lubricating oil trickled from a damaged seal and pooled on the hard dirt. It was done, and so too were Flim and Flam, who had hastily loaded their various belongings and their earnings from the cider sales into their packs and were preparing themselves to continue their hasty exodus on hoof when Scootaloo caught up with them.
Flim and Flam stopped their work and considered the heaving, breathless little pegasus cautiously.
"Can I," she huffed, "ask you a few questions—gasp—about your—wheeze—machine?"
"What, this wreck?" replied Flim, glancing disdainfully at the stricken machine. "Kid, this thing is hosed."
"Totaled," Flam confirmed, waving a dismissive hoof.
"Innnn..." Flim aimed a halfhearted, sidelong kick at one of the drive wheels, "operable."
"No more cider today, half-pint," concluded Flam, "Or ever again, probably. We lost the bet and frazzled this blasted contraption to smithereens in the process."
"So what's it going to take to fix it?" Scootaloo asked. The traveling salesponies, however, satisfied that the youthful interloper wasn't the vanguard of an angry mob, turned their backs on her. They were growing weary of her presence, and thus directed their attention back to their packs.
"Are you just going to leave it here?" Scootaloo asked.
Flim and Flam paid her no mind.
Scootaloo paused to gather herself, rebuffed and just a little perturbed by their cold shoulder routine. She shifted on her hooves and coughed politely. "So... I can have it then?"
"What?" Flim spun in place, aghast. "For free? No!"
"It kinda looks like you're abandoning it, to me," Scootaloo replied, somewhat dryly.
"No, we're not abandoning it. We're... going to find someone who can fix it," Flam interjected.
Scootaloo's ears drooped as disappointment set in. "Oh. Well, sorry to have bothered you..." She cast another sidelong glance at the cider squeezing machine as she turned to walk back to town.
Flim stood in repose for a moment, calculating. He smelled an opportunity to make a quick bit and did not plan to allow it to slip away. "Although," he drawled, pausing for emphasis, "we might be inclined to entertain offers, if somepony were to make one."
Flam's ears perked almost imperceptibly at Flim's change in tone. They had worked innumerable shills and confidence schemes together over years; he knew that his brother had a plan in mind.
Flam leapt in to support the pitch, "Yeah, how badly do you want it? Best offer."
"Talk bits to us, kiddo. We haven't got all day here, y'know." Flim pressured.
Scootaloo rummaged through the contents of her saddlebag with a frantic savagery, looking for anything of value she could trade to the two traveling salesponies. At the bottom of the bag wedged in the seam was a ten-bit piece. She withdrew her head from the bag and held her prize up for them to see.
"FEN BIFSH!" she slurred victoriously.
Flim looked knowingly at Flam. Ten bits was horseapples; the machine was easily worth a hundred, even in its current shape. On the other hoof, they'd netted a tidy profit of 500 bits from the cider sales — salvaging a few extra bits from the scrap of the ruined cider contraption would take time and fixing it, especially in the hostile town, would likely wipe their earnings clean out — providing they could even find someone competent enough to do the job.
Besides, they had been preparing to abandon it. The ten bits the nosy filly had proffered was ten bits more than they would have had otherwise.
Flam nodded.
"All yours, kid—" Flim ignited his horn and pulled the title to the Cider Squeezy out of his pack, holding it just out of the Scootaloo's reach, "—provided you don't tell anypony which way we're heading. Deal?"
Scootaloo nodded, dropping the ten-bit piece into Flim's outstretched hoof. "Deal."
Flim dropped the title to the machine at her forehooves and turned to follow his brother. As he left, he laughed over his shoulder, "Good luck dragging your new toy back home."
"So you're sayin' they just gave it to you?" Apple Bloom's hooves fought for traction in the dirt road as she strained to push the Cider Squeezy from the rear.
"Uh huh! Well, almost. I paid ten bits." Scootaloo had tied a sturdy hemp rope to her scooter to pull from the front, and was buzzing her wings with such fervor that the rope fairly sang under the strain and vibration. While her pegasus magic had not yet allowed her flight, her tiny wings did produce a startlingly prodigious amount of thrust. It was slow going, of course, but the Cutie Mark Crusaders and their acquisition were making reasonable progress towards Sweet Apple Acres and their clubhouse.
"Sweetie Belle, please tell me you've figured out how t' power this thing up." Apple Bloom's plaintive voice betrayed the fact that the exertion was getting the best of her, fabled earth pony strength be damned. Scootaloo was starting to tire as well, but her fatigue manifested itself in a loss of fine motor control — her scooter was beginning to slew left and right at the end of the tow rope like a furious dog on a chain. Still, they pressed on. Sweetie Belle walked slowly alongside the Cider Squeezy, closely studying the various pipes and tubes.
"Girls, I'm trying here, but..." Sweetie Belle trailed off. For her age, she was an able magic user but most of her training with Twilight Sparkle had been botanical in nature. Sorting a piece of thaumically driven machinery like the Cider Squeezy would require a competent mechanic or a unicorn with a degree in magic engineering. Fortunately, what Sweetie Belle lacked in formal training, she made up for with intuition. I don't really need to know how it works, Sweetie mused, so long as I can figure where I'm supposed to put magic into it.
Sweetie Belle lit her horn and reached out a weak tendril of magic to the Cider Squeezy, gently prodding at the magic gubbins that protruded from the top of the machine. Her first guess was to try to energize the oddly wired lamp globe, but applying low power there seemed to have no real effect. Next, she tried one of the smokestacks.
There was a faint electric crack and a green flash; Sweetie Belle squeaked, went cross-eyed and tottered precariously about for a moment before dropping to her knees, panting.
Pouf — the cider squeezing apparatus stuttered and rattled for a moment before stalling.
"Hot diggity, Sweetie, we've got contact! Scootaloo, get back here and check it out!" Apple Bloom cheered.
Scootaloo dumped her scooter and trotted happily back to her friends. "Way to go, Sweetie Belle! Can you do it again?"
"Wurf," Sweetie Belle mumbled as she gathered herself, swaying unsteadily on her hooves.
"Woah, nelly!" Apple Bloom leaned against her friend to help support her. "Are you okay? What happened?"
Now, Sweetie Belle had never powered a thaumic device before, and it was very fortunate that she'd had the pragmatism and foresight to start her career as an ersatz energy source at a low power level. Most magic users are accustomed to powering or lifting a load, an item that offers constant resistance against their application of force. However, a thaumic cell absorbs that energy; what's more, it has a minimal internal resistance when discharged. The cumulative effect of powering a discharged thaumic cell, if one is not experienced in the practice and expecting it, is not unlike heaving to push open a heavy door only to find that somepony on the other side has opened it when you weren't looking. At a low power level, you stumble for a moment and look silly. If they've made the mistake of doing this at full output, a pony can be potentially seriously injured.
"Yeah, I think I'm fine. I just need to be a little more careful about how I touch this thing, I think." Sweetie Belle shook her head and took a few somewhat steadier backsteps. She looked herself over for injury and found none; her power excursion had thankfully left her none the worse for wear.
With the mystery of the Cider Squeezy's power source solved, Apple Bloom was grateful to be relieved of her laborious position at the rear of the machine. As she took her place next to Sweetie Belle on the chesterfield mounted at the bow of the craft, though, it was clear that she was not yet entirely at ease.
"Are ya sure this is safe, Scootaloo?" Apple Bloom cocked an eyebrow at Scootaloo as she righted her scooter and pulled the tow-rope taut.
"Don't worry, it'll be fine. I'll still be up front doing most of the pulling; we're just powering it up enough so that you don't have to push anymore. So long as Sweetie Belle doesn't overdo it, it shouldn't damage it worse than it already is."
"I'm not worried about us damaging it, I'm worried about it damaging us!" Apple Bloom snorted derisively. "This thang almost hurt Sweetie Belle, and even those two shifty con artists abandoned it when it 'sploded on 'em."
"It didn't 'splode', it just overheated a little," retorted Scootaloo, "Besides, I think Sweetie Belle has the magic end of it figured out now."
Sweetie Belle nodded in affirmation. "Too easy!" she squeaked.
In a short time, the vehicle was trundling sedately, chuffing and popping at regular intervals; Scootaloo pulled out front with her tethered scooter while Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom rode along. With the exception of a false start when Sweetie Belle errantly charged the stack that operated the squeezing mechanism instead of the vehicle's drivetrain, the operation seemed to proceed rather smoothly.
"Is it s'posed to sound like this?" Apple Bloom shouted over the din of the clattering engine.
Sweetie Belle shrugged noncommittally. "I don't know, but it sure beats pushing it. I can't imagine getting it up this hill otherwise."
Apple Bloom nodded; the hill right before Sweet Apple Acres wasn't extraordinarily steep, but pushing it up the grade would have been impossible. At their current clip, though, they'd make the Crusader clubhouse within the quarter hour and be home in time for supper with plenty of time to spare.
As they neared the apex of the hill, Scootaloo called back to Sweetie Belle. "Alright, Sweetie, when we hit the top of the hill I want you to stop powering the engine. When she does that, Apple Bloom, you pull the brake lever enough to keep tension on the rope." Both fillies nodded in affirmation. The machine clattered slowly to the top of the hill and, as planned, began the descent down the other side in a nice, controlled manner.
Things, however, did not continue to go to plan for much longer after that.
Sweetie Belle stopped supplying magic to the engine, as she had been ordered. The engine, however, did not stop. The Cider Squeezy was slowly but steadily picking up speed.
"Sweetie Belle! I said stop powering the engine!" Scootaloo shouted back to Sweetie Belle, who was frantically clobbering the engine's exposed gadgetry with her forehooves in a last-ditch effort to shut it down.
"I know! I did stop! It's running away!" she shrieked.
For her part, Apple Bloom laid on the brake lever with all her might. The wooden brake shoes grabbed onto the runaway Cider Squeezy's drive wheels, but were no match for the combined energy of gravity and the engine. Within seconds, they were useless — red hot, billowing smoke and licks of flame.
Scootaloo muttered under her breath and sped up. Her scooter was tied to the front bumper, and she couldn't fly; she had no choice but to keep the rope taut in order to avoid being dragged under the runaway vehicle thundering behind her. If we can just run this thing out without hitting anything, I think we might be okay, she thought optimistically. She would, however, need to make sure that Apple Bloom understood that she had a plan.
Apple Bloom, however, was in no state of mind to hear plans. While she was a very physical little filly and showed burgeoning talent as a carpenter, she was not the sort who went in for high-speed stunts or mechanical show-offery. She was, in short, on the edge of wetting herself.
The machine was doing every bit of forty miles an hour as it hit the bottom of the hill. Whoever had invented the Cider Squeezy had intended for it to move smartly under it's own power, but clearly had not designed it to operate at these speeds. A great billowing plume of acrid smoke and road dust trailed it as it ripped down the road. Ahead on the left was the entrance to Sweet Apple Acres.
"Don’t turn!" shouted Scootaloo. This is not what Apple Bloom heard.
"Aaaah, turn!" is what Apple Bloom heard, and turn is what Apple Bloom did.
However, to describe what happened next as a turn would be like describing a Sonic Rainboom as a "quick dive".
Apple Bloom yanked hard on the tiller and the vehicle slewed wildly to the left. This caused two things to happen: First, the machine rolled up onto its two right wheels at speed and neatly shot the gap through the gate to Sweet Apple Acres. Second, because Scootaloo was very much expecting the procession to continue straight, she was taken completely by surprise when her scooter was yanked violently out from under her.
She, however, did continue straight on at a very high velocity sans scooter, until her equally surprised flank made contact with the dirt road and she tumbled to a stop.
The Cider Squeezy slammed back down onto all four wheels as Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom looked frantically at each other, screaming. Scootaloo was no longer at the front of the procession. The frayed remains of the rope that was tied to her scooter flailed at them.
Sweetie Belle was the one with the presence of mind to abandon ship. She grabbed the fear-frozen Apple Bloom in her forelegs and leapt from the runaway cart.
Big Macintosh heard it coming before he saw it, which was a good indication of both how fast the machine was going and what a terrible racket it was making. It sounded to him an awful lot like a cattle stampede, if the herd were being chased for some reason by a rabid, carnivorous steam engine.
Then the thundering stopped, replaced by the whistle of something heavy moving through the air and the groan of abused machinery. He peered around the corner of the Apple family house just in time to catch the Cider Squeezy in flight, a graceless, smoking missile. His jaw dropped.
There was a tremendous splintering crash as it sailed through the roof of the barn, leaving a smoking jagged hole. He regarded the calamitous scene in stunned shock for a moment, then turned his back.
"Nope."
