Hey! It looks like you're new here. You might want to check out the introduction.
Organised by
RogerDodger
Word limit
2000–25000
Cider and Fireworks, the Way to Complete Domination
“Then, we have an agreement?”
“Trixie accepts the terms of this arrangement.”
The three hunched figures pulled their coats tighter, lest wary eyes gain a curiosity to the alleyway they were standing in.
“Trixie shall provide the fireworks, which will be amazing, because besides being the greatest and most powerful magician around, Trixie is also a skilled pyrotechnic.”
The two unicorns opposite of Trixie nodded, “And we shall provide the “refreshments” to make your magic shows the most memorable and dazzling in all of Equestria.”
Trixie nodded, pleased, “Trixie shall meet back here next week to discuss additional terms should this arrangement not hold up to Trixie’s expectations.”
“We’ll do the same. Pleasure doing business with you, Miss Lulamoon.”
“All business done with Trixie is pleasurable!”
The two unicorns raised their eyebrows inquisitively at the showmare. Trixie caught her mistake and flushed, “So, next week then?”
All three nodded, before turning their separate ways and disappearing into the night.
“PREPARE TO BE DAZZLED, STUPIFIED, AND OTHERWISE ENTERTAINED BY THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE!”
Fireworks burst from the corners of the stage, exploding and lighting the sky in a collage of colours. The audience oooh’d and aaaah’d at the display, as the showmare herself appeared on the stage from the smoke.
Trixie is very smart of installing that trap door!
“Mares and Gentlecolts, I, the GREAT and POWERFUL Trixie, is here to bring excitement to your dull and pitiful lives, to enrich your daily routine with the flashy, powerful spells that only I, Trixie, and definitely so Twilight Sparkle, could perform!”
More fireworks exploded behind the magician, to add exaggeration to her speech. The smoke died again, and Trixie turned to face the audience.
There wasn’t a single round of applause, or even a smile, from the ponies in the audience. Trixie swallowed nervously. Then came the usual treatment…
“Did she call us pitiful!?” One mare asked, pointing a hoof at Trixie incriminatingly.
“I think she did!” A colt from the back yelled.
Trixie doesn’t think this is going too well.
More voices began to speak up, expressing their distress.
“She thinks she’s better than us!”
“I heard she got thrown out of Ponyville for the same act!”
“I-…, I mean Twilight Sparkle would definitely be able to do these spells as well!”
That’s when the booing started. The amplitude of it forced Trixie to back against the wall of her stage, as she tossed her head back frantically to look at the wave of angry ponies suddenly advancing on her. From every direction, they came, frowns on their faces. Trixie knew what would come next.
“We want a refund!” bellowed about every pony in the audience.
Get a hold on this audience, Trixie, Trixie can do this!
The showmare pulled herself from the wall, and walked towards the horde of displeased customers.
“Trixie will admit she was a bit… rude… but I’m sure we can figure this all out. Right?”
“REFUND! REFUND! REFUND!” chanted the audience.
It was all or nothing now.
“But Trixie has had the good intentions to provide refreshment to her customers provided they stay and watch!”
The crowd fell silent, before one pony spoke up. “Refreshment?”
Trixie gestured towards the left side of the stage, past the fireworks canon. And there it stood. A table. Not much by any standard, as most people have tables, but what was on the table was important, for ponies put appeasing things on tables, and this table was no exception. There, on the table, in massive amounts sat mugs, and in those mugs….
In those mugs rested cider.
The crowd was now locked on the table, focusing on the beverages that, had Trixie been telling the truth, had been made just for them.
Trixie gulped, droplets of sweat pouring down her brow. “Trixie invites all her friends to relax, and have a drink.”
The ponies turned to look at Trixie, and then back towards the table, to Trixie, and back towards the frothy beverages of ultimate refreshment. One pony in the back spoke.
“Well, if she’s offering us free cider, I guess we can stay for a bit…”
The crowd murmured in agreement, and headed towards the table.
Trixie’s eyes lit up in glee, and she rubbed her hooves together apprehensively.
Trixie feels her performances may just become better after all!
“This is the besty… the breast-… the bestest show I’ve ever coulda attended… tonight… I guess.” The colt stumbled into his buddy, wasting his mug of cider all over the trodden earth beneath. “I spilled my cider…” Tears formed in his eyes.
“Hey…. Hey, dude… hey… hey… don’t worry, have some of mine, it’s just as great.” His friend consoled him, handing the mug over.
“Thanks, dude, listen… listen up… you’re… you’re like a brother to me.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Hug?” He opened his arms with the offer.
“Hug.” The two ponies locked in an embrace, before promptly collapsing into a drunken pile on the ground.
Meanwhile, Trixie stood triumphantly on the stage, the enamoured audience following her every move between mugs of cider and periodic spats of vomiting.
“So Trixie says to this stupid, purple unicorn, that all her feats are just Ursa Minor!`
The crowd exploded in laughter, the bawling and chuckling easily waking up at least half the town.
This is going much better than expected. Trixie is pleased!
And pleased she should be, for not only have the cider worked in keeping the mob from destroying everything, the noise had attracted a dozen more ponies that had paid and stayed to enjoy the show. And best of all, they were liking it!
“TRIXIE! TRIXIE! Tell us the story about how you defeated the Ursa Major again!” Clamoured one pony in the front row.
Trixie looked at her hoof, it was now past midnight. “Well, Trixie isn’t sure she has time…”
The audience sighed in disappointment. Trixie smiled inwardly, “But Trixie can make time!”
The cheering echoed into the night again.
Meanwhile, in the vestiges of Ponyville a crowd was gathering around a familiar machine. It wasn’t a happy crowd, judging from the looks of disapproval on their faces, but that didn’t stop the singing of two red and orange ponies.
“…SUPER SPEEDY CIDER SQUEEZY SIX THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAND!”
The various beep and boops coming from the massive contraption behind them died down as the song ended, leaving Flim and Flam crouched on the dirt in a classic presenting pose of “Here’s our awesome machine, please don’t kill us.”
The group of ponies that had gathered weren’t buying it, however. The colossal mass of several hundred frowns and hateful stares were slowly causing the calm attitude of both Flim and Flam to falter.
“What do we do, Flam?” Flim whispered towards his brother.
“Just let me take care of it, brother.” Flam stood and approached the crowd, a smile on his face. “Greetings, ponies of Ponyville, how would you all like to try some delicious cider?” He flashed his impossibly white smile, typical salesman style.
“We don’t want your cider here anymore,” spoke a pony from the crowd. The group parted, revealing a straight-haired pink pony. “It only brings disappointment and clumps of dirt that get stuck between our teeth.”
Flam was sweating now, struggling to keep his smile genuine enough looking. “But this cider is different. Pure and delicious and certainly not composed of earth, rocks and grass!”
“Please, leave,” the pink pony mumbled again, all joy gone from her features. “We don’t want another repeat.”
Flam turned to look at his brother, and made a quick whistle while clapping his hooves together.
Flim immediately rose from the ground, and broke into a sprint towards the cider contraption.
Where did she install those things!?
He clambered onto the machine, searching high and low until he had arrived by the cider control mechanisms. There, right by the simple ‘on’, ‘off’, ‘on faster’ and ‘no earth in this batch please’ buttons was a new, azure colored switch. Flim gulped, put both hooves on the switch, and threw it.
The SSCS-6000 whirled and hummed, blowing smoke from many a lose spot on the machine’s hull, as a dozen different vertical tubes rose from the body and aimed skyward. Flim, Flam, and the group of gathered individuals, including the pink pony, all turned their eyes to the sight, the former two out of complete fear of failure, the latter two because cool sounds often lead to fun times.
Then the machine puffed twice and died, all the whirling gears inside grinding to a halt.
Flim’s pupils constricted to the size of dots, “Oh sh-”
BANG. The Cider Squeezer exploded in a dazzling display of lights, music, and fireworks. They shot airborne, twirling and spinning, before combusting into an array of dazzling colors and seizure inducing flashes. The ponies around the machine suffered and slow expression change, the frowns turning to smiles, while Flim and Flam breathed a sigh of relief. The display continued, detonations lighting up the sky of Ponyville, while the ponies expressed their amazement at the act and the Flim Flam brothers sent a small thankful prayer to Celestia.
“This changes everything!” One pony declared from the crowd.
“Fireworks are so pretty!” Another added.
“We want cider!” A third said. And there it was, the inevitable change of expression. More began to join in on this chant, the bellowing auditory noise causing the ground to shake.
“Cider. Cider. Cider. Cider!” They chanted.
Flim and Flam smiled deviously. They were back in business.
“Step right up and have a mug of the finest beverage this side of Equestria!” Flam announced.
Flim hopped up top onto the machine, turning his attention to the various cranks and gears required to operate the cider making machine. “All for the price of FIVE bits. Best deal in all of Ponyville,” he called down to the approaching masses of suddenly thirsty ponies.
The mugs poured, ponies swallowed and enough cider was consumed to fill a small ocean, but by the end of the day, as the last pony vomited onto the ground and turned to wobble home, Flim and Flam collapsed onto the ground.
“Jeez, it’s almost mind-blowing how much some pyrotechnics can change the mood,” Flim muttered into the nice, cold earth.
“Never doubt the mood changing abilities of explosions, bright colors, and cheap cider, brother,” Flam responded, sat against the side of the SSCS-6000.
“Back in business?”
“Back in business, indeed.”
Somewhere, in a nearby farmhouse, an orange earth pony dropped the basket of apples she had been carrying and broke out into tears. A red stallion rushed to her side.
“What’s wrong, sis?”
“It’s over… it’s all over…”
A week past, and the startling news made its way all across Equestria. Tales of a magic act so unique, so amazing, with a showmare whose beauty was unequaled swept from town to town. Every show caused her audiences to grow, and more and more ponies began to speak of her prowess for the arcane arts. The showmare, who goes by Trixie Lulamoon, has announced Equestrian wide tours, from Stalliongrad to Cloudsdale and Whinnpeg. There’s rumor she even has private audiences booked with Princess Celestia. A small library also closed up in the town of Ponyville, but the correlation between the two events was never found.
Then there were the cider reports. A machine and two brothers who had single handily ended world thirst and sobriety basically overnight. Wherever there was a thirsty pony, tired of see straight, they were there, with their delicious cider and fabulous firework displays, appeasing to the eyes, and the mouth, more so going down then coming back up. Flim and Flam are speculated to own more bits than the Royal Equestrian Treasury of Celestia herself, and more coffee than Canterlot’s own Pony Joe. The two have announced that they are starting their own company, and are already looking for employees. There are rumors that more Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000’s are in the works.
And at the end of this tremendous week, several ponies reported cloaked figures stealing away to the most threatening, dark corner of Canterlot, where only the vile and misbegotten lurked.
“Trixie is very much pleased with the outcome of this deal,” the unicorn announced as she clanked her mug against the other two.
Flim and Flam nodded, before taking drinks from their cider beverages. “Yes, it was quite the plan, wasn’t it?” Flim asked.
“Never doubt booze and fireworks, I’ve told you this.” Flam chastised.
“Trixie agrees, the two work well together.” The showmare nodded and nursed her own drink. “Trixie also wonders how long this will last.”
“You keep with the fireworks, and we keep with the cider. This could last as long as we want it to, maybe even a secret to pass onto our children. We’ll have more bits than every pony in Equestria added together. Heck, we could buy Equestria!” Flim raised his mug towards the sky, his voice growing louder. “Imagine that.”
“Trixie, Ruler of Equestria! That sounds like something Trixie would like.” The showmare’s eyes grew round with the implications.
Flam finished his cider, and slammed his mug down onto the table with a relieved sigh. “Well, everything appears to be working dandy as is, so… this time next week? Same place?”
Flim nodded, “Works for me.” He placed his mug down too.
Trixie smiled, “It is indeed good for Trixie, thought she will no doubt be exhausted from her many shows and fans.”
The three ponies dawned their cloaks and exited the bar, stealing away into the night.
“Trixie accepts the terms of this arrangement.”
The three hunched figures pulled their coats tighter, lest wary eyes gain a curiosity to the alleyway they were standing in.
“Trixie shall provide the fireworks, which will be amazing, because besides being the greatest and most powerful magician around, Trixie is also a skilled pyrotechnic.”
The two unicorns opposite of Trixie nodded, “And we shall provide the “refreshments” to make your magic shows the most memorable and dazzling in all of Equestria.”
Trixie nodded, pleased, “Trixie shall meet back here next week to discuss additional terms should this arrangement not hold up to Trixie’s expectations.”
“We’ll do the same. Pleasure doing business with you, Miss Lulamoon.”
“All business done with Trixie is pleasurable!”
The two unicorns raised their eyebrows inquisitively at the showmare. Trixie caught her mistake and flushed, “So, next week then?”
All three nodded, before turning their separate ways and disappearing into the night.
“PREPARE TO BE DAZZLED, STUPIFIED, AND OTHERWISE ENTERTAINED BY THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE!”
Fireworks burst from the corners of the stage, exploding and lighting the sky in a collage of colours. The audience oooh’d and aaaah’d at the display, as the showmare herself appeared on the stage from the smoke.
Trixie is very smart of installing that trap door!
“Mares and Gentlecolts, I, the GREAT and POWERFUL Trixie, is here to bring excitement to your dull and pitiful lives, to enrich your daily routine with the flashy, powerful spells that only I, Trixie, and definitely so Twilight Sparkle, could perform!”
More fireworks exploded behind the magician, to add exaggeration to her speech. The smoke died again, and Trixie turned to face the audience.
There wasn’t a single round of applause, or even a smile, from the ponies in the audience. Trixie swallowed nervously. Then came the usual treatment…
“Did she call us pitiful!?” One mare asked, pointing a hoof at Trixie incriminatingly.
“I think she did!” A colt from the back yelled.
Trixie doesn’t think this is going too well.
More voices began to speak up, expressing their distress.
“She thinks she’s better than us!”
“I heard she got thrown out of Ponyville for the same act!”
“I-…, I mean Twilight Sparkle would definitely be able to do these spells as well!”
That’s when the booing started. The amplitude of it forced Trixie to back against the wall of her stage, as she tossed her head back frantically to look at the wave of angry ponies suddenly advancing on her. From every direction, they came, frowns on their faces. Trixie knew what would come next.
“We want a refund!” bellowed about every pony in the audience.
Get a hold on this audience, Trixie, Trixie can do this!
The showmare pulled herself from the wall, and walked towards the horde of displeased customers.
“Trixie will admit she was a bit… rude… but I’m sure we can figure this all out. Right?”
“REFUND! REFUND! REFUND!” chanted the audience.
It was all or nothing now.
“But Trixie has had the good intentions to provide refreshment to her customers provided they stay and watch!”
The crowd fell silent, before one pony spoke up. “Refreshment?”
Trixie gestured towards the left side of the stage, past the fireworks canon. And there it stood. A table. Not much by any standard, as most people have tables, but what was on the table was important, for ponies put appeasing things on tables, and this table was no exception. There, on the table, in massive amounts sat mugs, and in those mugs….
In those mugs rested cider.
The crowd was now locked on the table, focusing on the beverages that, had Trixie been telling the truth, had been made just for them.
Trixie gulped, droplets of sweat pouring down her brow. “Trixie invites all her friends to relax, and have a drink.”
The ponies turned to look at Trixie, and then back towards the table, to Trixie, and back towards the frothy beverages of ultimate refreshment. One pony in the back spoke.
“Well, if she’s offering us free cider, I guess we can stay for a bit…”
The crowd murmured in agreement, and headed towards the table.
Trixie’s eyes lit up in glee, and she rubbed her hooves together apprehensively.
Trixie feels her performances may just become better after all!
“This is the besty… the breast-… the bestest show I’ve ever coulda attended… tonight… I guess.” The colt stumbled into his buddy, wasting his mug of cider all over the trodden earth beneath. “I spilled my cider…” Tears formed in his eyes.
“Hey…. Hey, dude… hey… hey… don’t worry, have some of mine, it’s just as great.” His friend consoled him, handing the mug over.
“Thanks, dude, listen… listen up… you’re… you’re like a brother to me.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Hug?” He opened his arms with the offer.
“Hug.” The two ponies locked in an embrace, before promptly collapsing into a drunken pile on the ground.
Meanwhile, Trixie stood triumphantly on the stage, the enamoured audience following her every move between mugs of cider and periodic spats of vomiting.
“So Trixie says to this stupid, purple unicorn, that all her feats are just Ursa Minor!`
The crowd exploded in laughter, the bawling and chuckling easily waking up at least half the town.
This is going much better than expected. Trixie is pleased!
And pleased she should be, for not only have the cider worked in keeping the mob from destroying everything, the noise had attracted a dozen more ponies that had paid and stayed to enjoy the show. And best of all, they were liking it!
“TRIXIE! TRIXIE! Tell us the story about how you defeated the Ursa Major again!” Clamoured one pony in the front row.
Trixie looked at her hoof, it was now past midnight. “Well, Trixie isn’t sure she has time…”
The audience sighed in disappointment. Trixie smiled inwardly, “But Trixie can make time!”
The cheering echoed into the night again.
Meanwhile, in the vestiges of Ponyville a crowd was gathering around a familiar machine. It wasn’t a happy crowd, judging from the looks of disapproval on their faces, but that didn’t stop the singing of two red and orange ponies.
“…SUPER SPEEDY CIDER SQUEEZY SIX THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAND!”
The various beep and boops coming from the massive contraption behind them died down as the song ended, leaving Flim and Flam crouched on the dirt in a classic presenting pose of “Here’s our awesome machine, please don’t kill us.”
The group of ponies that had gathered weren’t buying it, however. The colossal mass of several hundred frowns and hateful stares were slowly causing the calm attitude of both Flim and Flam to falter.
“What do we do, Flam?” Flim whispered towards his brother.
“Just let me take care of it, brother.” Flam stood and approached the crowd, a smile on his face. “Greetings, ponies of Ponyville, how would you all like to try some delicious cider?” He flashed his impossibly white smile, typical salesman style.
“We don’t want your cider here anymore,” spoke a pony from the crowd. The group parted, revealing a straight-haired pink pony. “It only brings disappointment and clumps of dirt that get stuck between our teeth.”
Flam was sweating now, struggling to keep his smile genuine enough looking. “But this cider is different. Pure and delicious and certainly not composed of earth, rocks and grass!”
“Please, leave,” the pink pony mumbled again, all joy gone from her features. “We don’t want another repeat.”
Flam turned to look at his brother, and made a quick whistle while clapping his hooves together.
Flim immediately rose from the ground, and broke into a sprint towards the cider contraption.
Where did she install those things!?
He clambered onto the machine, searching high and low until he had arrived by the cider control mechanisms. There, right by the simple ‘on’, ‘off’, ‘on faster’ and ‘no earth in this batch please’ buttons was a new, azure colored switch. Flim gulped, put both hooves on the switch, and threw it.
The SSCS-6000 whirled and hummed, blowing smoke from many a lose spot on the machine’s hull, as a dozen different vertical tubes rose from the body and aimed skyward. Flim, Flam, and the group of gathered individuals, including the pink pony, all turned their eyes to the sight, the former two out of complete fear of failure, the latter two because cool sounds often lead to fun times.
Then the machine puffed twice and died, all the whirling gears inside grinding to a halt.
Flim’s pupils constricted to the size of dots, “Oh sh-”
BANG. The Cider Squeezer exploded in a dazzling display of lights, music, and fireworks. They shot airborne, twirling and spinning, before combusting into an array of dazzling colors and seizure inducing flashes. The ponies around the machine suffered and slow expression change, the frowns turning to smiles, while Flim and Flam breathed a sigh of relief. The display continued, detonations lighting up the sky of Ponyville, while the ponies expressed their amazement at the act and the Flim Flam brothers sent a small thankful prayer to Celestia.
“This changes everything!” One pony declared from the crowd.
“Fireworks are so pretty!” Another added.
“We want cider!” A third said. And there it was, the inevitable change of expression. More began to join in on this chant, the bellowing auditory noise causing the ground to shake.
“Cider. Cider. Cider. Cider!” They chanted.
Flim and Flam smiled deviously. They were back in business.
“Step right up and have a mug of the finest beverage this side of Equestria!” Flam announced.
Flim hopped up top onto the machine, turning his attention to the various cranks and gears required to operate the cider making machine. “All for the price of FIVE bits. Best deal in all of Ponyville,” he called down to the approaching masses of suddenly thirsty ponies.
The mugs poured, ponies swallowed and enough cider was consumed to fill a small ocean, but by the end of the day, as the last pony vomited onto the ground and turned to wobble home, Flim and Flam collapsed onto the ground.
“Jeez, it’s almost mind-blowing how much some pyrotechnics can change the mood,” Flim muttered into the nice, cold earth.
“Never doubt the mood changing abilities of explosions, bright colors, and cheap cider, brother,” Flam responded, sat against the side of the SSCS-6000.
“Back in business?”
“Back in business, indeed.”
Somewhere, in a nearby farmhouse, an orange earth pony dropped the basket of apples she had been carrying and broke out into tears. A red stallion rushed to her side.
“What’s wrong, sis?”
“It’s over… it’s all over…”
A week past, and the startling news made its way all across Equestria. Tales of a magic act so unique, so amazing, with a showmare whose beauty was unequaled swept from town to town. Every show caused her audiences to grow, and more and more ponies began to speak of her prowess for the arcane arts. The showmare, who goes by Trixie Lulamoon, has announced Equestrian wide tours, from Stalliongrad to Cloudsdale and Whinnpeg. There’s rumor she even has private audiences booked with Princess Celestia. A small library also closed up in the town of Ponyville, but the correlation between the two events was never found.
Then there were the cider reports. A machine and two brothers who had single handily ended world thirst and sobriety basically overnight. Wherever there was a thirsty pony, tired of see straight, they were there, with their delicious cider and fabulous firework displays, appeasing to the eyes, and the mouth, more so going down then coming back up. Flim and Flam are speculated to own more bits than the Royal Equestrian Treasury of Celestia herself, and more coffee than Canterlot’s own Pony Joe. The two have announced that they are starting their own company, and are already looking for employees. There are rumors that more Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000’s are in the works.
And at the end of this tremendous week, several ponies reported cloaked figures stealing away to the most threatening, dark corner of Canterlot, where only the vile and misbegotten lurked.
“Trixie is very much pleased with the outcome of this deal,” the unicorn announced as she clanked her mug against the other two.
Flim and Flam nodded, before taking drinks from their cider beverages. “Yes, it was quite the plan, wasn’t it?” Flim asked.
“Never doubt booze and fireworks, I’ve told you this.” Flam chastised.
“Trixie agrees, the two work well together.” The showmare nodded and nursed her own drink. “Trixie also wonders how long this will last.”
“You keep with the fireworks, and we keep with the cider. This could last as long as we want it to, maybe even a secret to pass onto our children. We’ll have more bits than every pony in Equestria added together. Heck, we could buy Equestria!” Flim raised his mug towards the sky, his voice growing louder. “Imagine that.”
“Trixie, Ruler of Equestria! That sounds like something Trixie would like.” The showmare’s eyes grew round with the implications.
Flam finished his cider, and slammed his mug down onto the table with a relieved sigh. “Well, everything appears to be working dandy as is, so… this time next week? Same place?”
Flim nodded, “Works for me.” He placed his mug down too.
Trixie smiled, “It is indeed good for Trixie, thought she will no doubt be exhausted from her many shows and fans.”
The three ponies dawned their cloaks and exited the bar, stealing away into the night.
Pics