Hell On Wheels

Note: Credit will be given to my best friends Shadow Streak, WaferThin, and Shinola for proof reading the latest installment of my first fan fiction.

The Perfect Cup

“One bad apple taken care of, but there are many more, all the ponies in Equestria think that you’re a bore.”

“Flam? Flam!” Flam suddenly perked up.”You look exhausted, perhaps you should let me take the wheel?” Flim worriedly suggested. “Besides, there’s really no reason to be driving so fast. Your body can’t handle this much stress! After all, everypony has a limit to how much magic they can use.” Flam blinked and looked around at his surroundings. He noticed that they were driving along side an apple orchard and that the sun is now high in the sky.

“Flim, how long have we been driving?”

“I’d say about an hour, maybe less?” Flim replied, still worried about the condition of his brother.

What’s gotten into him? Flim has been asking himself this question for about six straight hours now. He started acting strange back in Trottingham, like he wasn’t himself. Something about what he said last night didn’t seem right.

“Oh my, I sure feel dizzy.” Flam looked as if he was about to faint. “Perhaps it’s best that we just stop for a little while and fix ourselves a nice refreshing cup of cider?” Flim suggested. He figured that this is a good idea, with his brother acting strange, perhaps a drink would fix him right up.

“Alright, that sounds like a great idea, brother!” Flam’s horn stopped glowing and their quickly came to a grinding halt.

“There are some apple trees just over that fence, surely whoever owns this orchard wouldn’t mind if we borrowed some apples? Nyahaha!” Flam gave a hearty laugh and jumped over the white picket fence that separated him from the first ingredient. Just moments later, he returned with six red delicious apples. He placed them into the machine and gave his brother a wave, signaling him to start the machine.

“Um, Flim?”

“Yes Flam?”

“Do you smell something odd? It smells like something putrid.” It didn’t take long for Flim’s nose to discover the rancid smell that surrounded them. Before either of them could come up with any ideas as to what the scent could be, the cider was ready.

The two brothers walked around the machine and pulled the lid off the barrel of freshly made cider. They were both blasted with an aroma that contained apples and something awful. upon examining the contents, they noticed that the cider was slightly discolored and had a slightly pink hue.

“Well, brother, to us and our success!” The brothers cheered in unison and lifted their cups to their lips.

After the first drops of cider touched their tongues, they immediately cringed and spat it out.

“Perhaps it was the apples?” Flim tried to convince himself that it had nothing to do with their performance the previous day. “There must be something wrong with the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000.” This made sense to the two salesponies, for it was highly likely that results of yesterday’s performance was caused by a fault in their machine.

“Well, shall we head to Appleloosa for repairs?”

“I was just thinking the same thing.” The ponies hopped into the seats and sped away.

The brothers drove very carefully, as their only means of making money was in critical condition. They soon came across a small orange earth pony with a yellow mane and a brown stetson hat. They immediately recognized the character and stopped dead in their tracks.

“What in tarnation?” As the dust settled, the ponies expression changed from confusion to pure anger. “Ah thought ah told y’all never to show yerselves around these here parts ever again!”

“Applejack! Are you alright? What happened?” A cyan pegasus flew through the cloud of dust, “I saw a cloud of dust and rushed over as fa--” she stopped herself mid-sentence and frowned at the sight of two familiar looking salesponies.

Flim and Flam knew exactly that they were still not on good terms with Ponyville, so they had to be short and sweet.

“Oh, if it isn’t the young filly of Sweet Apple Acres? Applejake was it?” Flim broke into a nervous sweat.

“It’s Applejack, and ah told you that I never wanted to see y’all here ever again!”

“Please, do hear us out, we were just on our way to Appleloosa to get our, uh, machine repaired. You see there is--”

“Ah don’t care, just move along. Ah swear, if I see you putting any cups into anyponies hooves, I’ll personally destroy that there precious machine of yours!”

The salesponies gulped and quickly sped down the road.

“So what, that’s it? Applejack, you’re just gonna let them go?!” The cyan pony complained.

“Well, Rainbow, we beat their behinds pretty good last time, I reckon they won’t cause any trouble for us.” Applejack retorted.

Rainbow Dash was still not convinced and flew away in frustration, she planned on having her own justice, nothing out of the ordinary for Rainbow Dash.

The two ponies soon got a strange feeling, like they were being followed. They stopped and waited. They remember the rainbow pony’s behavior and assumed that it was her that was following them.

“You can come out now!” Flim grinned.

“We know it’s you, Rainbow Dash was it not?”

Rainbow Dash flew down to the ground from the cloud she was hiding on and in an accusing tone said, “Alright, what are you two up to?”

Flim gave her a puzzled look, “Well, if you’re looking for another contest, I’m afraid that we’re not stupid, so I don’t believe that we’re up to the anything.

“Now if you’ll excuse us, we have places to be.” Flam was obviously very annoyed by this waste of time.

As the wheels on the machine began to turn, something completely unexpected happened. Rainbow Dash wasn’t done yet, she still had one more card to play. “So, what did the good ponies of Trottingham think of your cider?” She asked.

“Beg your pardon?” Now the brothers were legitimately confused. After a brief moment of thinking, Flim replied, “Well, if you absolutely must know, it was a total and utter fluke, I really hoped that orange pony would make everypony see things the way we do.”

“Oh, I wasn’t talking about that batch of cider, I was talking about the one that was left as a gift for the innkeeper this morning. Speaking of orange ponies, what did he think of it?”

In Flim’s head, suddenly all the pieces were starting to fit together. He knew that there was something odd about the barrel that Flam said he’d make. However, he was still in denial and nervously replied, “what are you talking about? What barrel?”

“Ugh, don’t even try! I know it was you two that turned Sunny into cider!” At this point Flam’s eyes began to twitch and heard a voice that didn’t belong to anypony he knew.

“Another bad apple, I told you there would be more. I believe that now is the right time to settle the score.”

“Flam... d...did you...” Flim laughed, trying to convince himself that this was just a joke and his assumptions were all wrong. All this stress was too much for Flim to take in and he passed out. Without hesitation Flam activated the machine and put all his strength into the hose that would suck apples into the machine, he then proceeded to point the open end towards Rainbow Dash.

“What the heck?!” Rainbow Dash began to panic and started to fly away. However, the cyan pegasus was not able to break away from the force of the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000. There was a loud sound of rushing wind and then silence.

“Ugh... my head... what happened?” Rainbow Dash awoke and quickly began to search around her environment and found that she was sitting on some sort of leather and noticed that there was a bright light shining in up ahead. Crawling up to it she looked out and saw what appeared to be Ponyville. "Heh, too easy, all I have to do is..." SMACK! "Ow! What the hay?" Rainbow Dash groaned. Wondering what she just hit, she put her hooves out to find that there was a thick pane of glass between her and freedom. She contemplated smashing through the glass, but soon ditched that idea. There simply wasn't enough room to move around. She stared out the window, trying to think of a way out, but her sight was soon blocked by a familiar face. “YOU! What do you think you’re doing?!” Said Rainbow Dash in a fit of rage.

“Oho, it seems you’re awake, don’t worry, I’ll help you. I remember your strife and your pains earlier when you didn’t get your own cup of cider. I will make you a cup of cider.” Flam gave a wicked grin and walked off to the left. The puzzled Rainbow Dash didn’t understand why she was inside the machine if he was going to give her some cider. However, with this thought and the sound of moving gears, it all became clear.

“Wait... hold on you guys! Please, you don’t have to do this!” Rainbow Dash Pleaded.

“You guys? You must be talking about my dear brother Flim. Well sorry to disappoint, but it’s just me.”

This puzzled Rainbow Dash, she assumed that since they were brothers, they'd always have each others' backs. The fact that it was only one gave her an uneasy feeling.

“We, I am going to make you the best cup of cider that anypony has ever dreamed of! And it’s all because of you! Don’t you feel privileged to become one with your favorite beverage?” With those words said, Rainbow Dash began breathing harder and harder as she became fully aware of what will soon happen.

“Oh my, I almost forgot! You my friend are not an apple. How silly of me.” Flam put his hoof on his face as he realized he almost made a mistake. “Since you are not an apple, the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 would just dispose of you, but I’m going to turn off the quality control check and let it do what it does best.”

With the press of a button, a green light bulb that was right above her head lit up and with a loud buzzing sound, her view of Ponyville disappeared into the depths of the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000.

The buzzing became louder and louder. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the dark and saw what appeared to be a rather large gear that was about the size of a pony. She was getting closer to it and in a matter of seconds, her head would be crushed. Out of pure desperation, she used her agility to turn her body, however, this was still a pointless effort. For now she was being dragged into the machine hoof first. She felt the coldness of the metal gear brushing against her hoofs and she pulled them back as far as she could, but soon enough, her hoofs were immediately caught up in the machine. Her hoofs instantly shattered under the might of the gear. She screamed in agony as blood started oozing out from between the gears and began to pool around Rainbow Dash’s legs. At this point, she began sobbing. The amount of pain combined with never being able to see her friends again made her experience even more brutal. Her bones provided no resistance as they shattered immediately with a loud crack that would make anypony throw up. The gear was halfway up her legs when suddenly, the machine stopped. It became so quite, she could hear her own heart beat. She heard a faint voice calling to her. “Hey, how you holding up in there?” Despite being unable to think straight, she automatically linked the voice with one of the salesponies.

“Hey, I learned something since we last met. I guess it’s true, you cannot rush perfection, the citizens of Ponyville have taught me that much that’s for sure. With that said, I’m going to take it slowly.” Flam started laughing like a madcolt as he turned the machine back on, reminding Rainbow Dash of the situation her legs were in.

Weakly, the pegasus pony let out a broken scream, “PLEASE! JUST END IT HURRY! I BEG OF YOU!” Tears began flowing down her cheeks. “Ugh, did you not listen to what I just said? You can’t rush perfection! Can I get you something to drink while you are waiting?” Flam began to laugh hysterically at the joke he just made.

It took a whole twenty seconds of bone crunching before the gear finally arrived at her waist. The combined sound and the pain of her internal organs being crushed was nothing she could imagine. With her legs gone, her intestines were loose and got caught in the grinder. The feeling of having her body being pulled apart from the inside was unbearable. She looked down at what was left of her body and immediately emptied the contents of her stomach. She tried to resist, and began desperately crawling away from the gear, further stretching her intestines. Despite her desperate struggle to live, the pain was too much and she stopped resisting, moments later the gear was at her chest. A loud snap was heard from the cyan ponies' chest. The gear had started snapping her ribcage. She immediately spat up blood that began to fill her lungs. She tried to scream but found out that her lungs had been pierced and ripped apart. She couldn’t breathe. With the amount of blood she lost, combined with the damage done to her body, she started slipping into a sea of black. She was no longer afraid as she had finally come to terms with her death. “I just wish I could see my fr--” Rainbow Dash's final thought was cut off as the gear finally crushed her head, ending the life of the rainbow pony.

Flam, who was sitting in the front seat taking a nap, heard a whirring noise and saw that the glass tubes were filling up with a red liquid. He noticed that there were several colorful hairs in it. With this sight, he couldn't contain his laughter. Moments later, a bell rung and a barrel was dropped from the back of the machine. He got up from his chair and walked over to the barrel. He popped open the lid, put his hoof in, and brought it up to his mouth. It was warm like cider and the smell of iron was overpowering. “Oh my, there’s no way I could possibly finish this on my own. I suppose I could give the good people of Ponyville my thanks.” He looked at the barrel and admired his handy work for he had just created the perfect beverage.

“Hey Applejack I hope I’m not being a bother but ummm... have you seen Rainbow Dash by any chance? I’ve been looking for her everywhere, she was going to show me a cool trick that she taught her turtle.” Fluttershy asked in her usual shy tone.

“Hmmm, nope sorry sugar cube, ah guess ah just haven’t seen her since this mornin’. She went off all gung-ho when she saw the Flim Flam brothers.”

“What? You mean the two that almost took away Sweet Apple Acres?”

“Yea, that’s them alright, ah juss’ hope they’re long gone by now.”

"Well, I hope Rainbow Dash is alright, she seemed really excited to show me her turtle."

"Ya heard anythin' about the twins causin' trouble? I warned them that if ah saw them, I'd give them the whoopin' they'd never forget."

“Well... ummm, they did leave something at your house.”

“Pardon?”

"They left a barrel on your doorstep."

“Well, I’m just gonna have to go check that out right now.”

As they walked towards the farmhouse, Applejack noticed that there were some trees that had been scratched up, nothing too serious, maybe the Flim Flam brothers bumped into it on their way out or something. She figured that there’s no sense worrying about it because they were long gone. They approached the house to see a wooden barrel sitting on their front step just like Fluttershy had said.

“Ummm... there’s a note under the barrel. Oh but I didn’t read it! I just couldn’t! It’s rude to look things that aren’t yours.” Fluttershy tried to back out of the hole she almost dug.

“Why thank you sugar cube. Much obliged. Now let’s see what this here note says.”

Applejack pulled the note out from under the barrel.

"Dear Applejack,

I just want to say how awful I feel about this whole thing. I feel like it’s my duty to bury the hatchet, as the saying goes, and just offer this barrel of delicious cider as an apology.

Sincerely, Flam

P.S. Do not worry, I didn’t use any of your apples. I was able to get my own ingredients."

“What does it say?” Fluttershy asked curiously.

“I dunno what ta make of it, but I think that those two feel pretty bad 'bout how they treated my family and friends earlier. I guess that they have given' us a barrel of cider as an apology. Well, enough talk, I’m thirstier than a dried up sponge. Let’s open this thing.”

Applejack opened the barrel with ease but was weakened by the sight she saw. Fluttershy immediately began to cry and Applejack looked down and closed her eyes and a tear fell into the red mixture.