//------------------------------// // Chapter 14: Risk and Reward // Story: How to be Happy // by Leafdoggy //------------------------------// “This is it?” Pinkamena was staring up at a nice, if slightly run-down, home near the center of Ponyville. The white paint that covered the walls had chipped away in places, the railing around the porch was missing a few balusters, but it looked like a perfectly fine place to live. There was even a garden gnome sitting in the shaggy grass. That said, though, Pinkamena couldn’t recall anypony ever actually living in the house. She was confident she knew everypony in Ponyville and nearly as confident she could chart out where they all lived, and as far as she knew this house was empty. It had never even crossed her mind that it might not be; Ponyville had plenty of empty homes, just waiting for somepony new to move into town. “It’s more than it appears,” Octavia replied mysteriously as she hopped up onto the porch. She was wearing a tight blue dress that clung to her just the right amount, and she’d tied her mane up in a bun. Vinyl Scratch followed close behind, sporting a showy white jacket. Pinkamena, despite having no wardrobe, had politely declined the others’ offers to loan her clothes, and so all that she had to stand out was her newly dyed fur. Octavia led the group inside of what, still, seemed to be a normal house. It had a normal layout, normal furniture, and a perfectly normal amount of dust for a house that had been empty for years. “Are you sure this is the right place?” Pinkamena asked. Vinyl Scratch laughed sharply. “C’mon, P, have some faith.” “I do,” Pinkamena replied, “I just don’t get it. This is just a—” She cut off mid-sentence. Octavia had led them into the kitchen and opened what should have been a pantry, but behind the door wasn’t at all a place to keep food. The door opened to a cramped, all-metal elevator lined with bright fluorescent lights. Octavia stood aside to let the others in. Vinyl went in right away, but Pinkamena faltered. The elevator looked old, really old, and there was hardly room for two ponies, let alone all three of them. “Is this thing safe?” She asked cautiously. “Oh, almost certainly not,” Octavia replied, “but the odds of us being the ones who it breaks on are pretty low. I’ve piled some heavy stuff in here before.” Pinkamena still hesitated, but soon enough she forced her hooves forward and onto the cold, thin metal floor of the elevator. She took up a spot next to Vinyl, having to stand practically shoulder to shoulder with her, and Octavia followed her in and shut the door behind herself. The elevator didn’t actually have buttons. Instead, there was just a lever stuck to one wall, and once they were all situated Octavia reached up and pulled it down. There was a deep groan as the elevator shuddered to life. Ancient, probably rusty machinery ground together above them and filled the air with the awful screech of metal scraping metal. The box they were huddled in shook and rumbled for a moment then jolted down an inch before beginning its slow descent into the unknown. The wall past Octavia started sliding upwards, pulling the door to the surface away from them and replacing it with bland, uncaring concrete. “So,” Vinyl spoke loudly to be heard over the machinery, “you never actually told us about your legs. Pinkie never seemed like the kinda pony who’d get that sort of work done.” “That’s—” Pinkamena started, then realized she was being too quiet and spoke up. “That’s the point. Sometimes when I got sad before I’d wanna do it, but I never did cuz I knew I’d hate it once I felt better. Now that I’m not Pinkie, though, I can do whatever I want.” “That’s quite the leap,” Octavia said. “I wanted something big,” Pinkamena replied. “Like, really big.” “Well, did it work?” Vinyl asked. “Yeah!” Pinkamena held up one of her legs proudly. “I love ‘em! It was super worth all the pain.” Before either of them could respond, the concrete wall behind Octavia started to slide away, revealing an empty expanse beyond. Suddenly, they were in midair, being slowly lowered through a massive cavern. Pinkamena’s eyes went wide as she looked out. The space was huge, easily as big as Ponyville itself, and filled with buildings carved out of the stone. Unlike Ponyville, though, very few of these buildings were houses. Most were massive structures, stadiums and amphitheaters and big, boxy buildings housing who-knows-what.  It was made all the more astonishing by the lighting. Neon was everywhere, adorning signs, lining the roads, marking the edges of buildings. It gave definition to stone that should have been too far to see, marked out a sprawling city that otherwise would have remained hidden to her eyes. Then there were the ponies. The space was bursting with them, just as full as Ponyville in midday. They were roaming the streets, running and playing and chatting just as ponies did in Ponyville before the sun went down. Pinkamena recognized a few faces—Lyra, Maud, Cheerilee—but the vast majority of them were strangers to her. “Woooaaaahhhh.” Pinkamena was absolutely stunned. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “How did I not know about this?” “It’s just not really a Pinkie kinda place,” Vinyl told her. “I mean, the ponies are nice, and it always felt like we should introduce you—er, her?—to them, but the attractions are a bit too, uh… Seedy.” “You know I live next door to Dracula, right?” Vinyl Scratch stared at her. “I did not know that.” “I can’t imagine Dracula invites you to many underground fighting rings, though,” Octavia said. “Nah, we don’t have one of those. Fluttershy’s been looking into ways to do it safely, cuz some of the vampires grew up fighting and still wanna do it, but—” She cut herself off and blinked. “Oh. That’s the kinda thing that’s down here?” “Yeah, fights are in, uh… That building,” Vinyl said, pointing out into the city. “We’re not gonna start there, but hey, who knows what the night may bring.” As they spoke, the ground slowly came nearer and nearer, and before they knew it their conversation was interrupted by a sudden jolt as the elevator hit the bottom of its track. The three of them hopped out, and as soon as it was empty the carriage reversed its direction and started to return to the surface. “Wait,” Pinkamena said, “how do we leave when we’re done?” Her question went either unheard or just unanswered. “C’mon, this way,” Vinyl said as the took the lead down the busy main street. As they walked, Pinkamena glanced at the places they were passing. Bars, clubs, a few unlabelled businesses with bouncers standing outside their doors. All of it carved from stone. All of it lined in brilliant neon. They passed by a hotel, one of the taller buildings in town, and Pinkamena suddenly realized that she hadn’t seen any houses. She’d hardly even seen any shops, and those she had seen were all specialized places. There was no living space in sight, no general stores for ponies to get groceries from, no quiet places to take an afternoon stroll. The entirety of the space seemed devoted to entertainment. “What’s this place called?” Pinkamena asked. “Oh, we’re still in Ponyville,” Octavia said. “Just, well, under it.” “So there’s just a whole secret second half to Ponyville?” “Well, I wouldn’t call it a secret,” Octavia answered. “It’s just a bit taboo to talk about these types of places in polite company.” “I’d imagine most of the ponies up top at least know about this place,” Vinyl added, “and it’s not like we had a big town meeting and agreed to keep you in the dark. Just… Nopony told you.” Pinkamena hummed sadly to herself. “I can handle this stuff. I’m a grown pony.” “Well, wait til after we actually show you around to say that,” Vinyl told her. “We’re about at the first stop.” Vinyl Scratch turned and started making a beeline for the entrance to a moderately-sized stadium. The lights that circled the walls of the building swirled around, changing colors rapidly and making the building feel like it was constantly changing before their eyes. There were no signs indicating what the building was actually used for, but banners with logos and pictures of athletes were strung about. “Ooh, excellent choice,” Octavia said. As they walked closer, Pinkamena started to make out sounds from inside. Mostly cheering crowds and an indecipherable announcer, but behind it was what sounded like a cluster of things rolling around and crashing together. “What is it?” “Oh, you’ll see,” Vinyl Scratch teased. When they finally reached the wide double doors and pushed one open, they were greeted with a rolling wave of sound. Screaming, excited ponies just about drowned out everything else, but the rest was clearer now. It had definitely been rolling she heard before, and now that she could tell that it was the rolling of wheels, she was starting to get a hunch at what she was being brought into. Vinyl didn’t take them in straight in. Instead, she turned down a hallway and went deeper inside. “You picked good ponies to come with,” she told Pinkamena. “Between me and Octavia, we oughta have an in just about everywhere.” They came up to a row of doors all labeled as ‘reserved,’ which had a single pony standing watch to make sure nopony went in who wasn’t meant to be there. He was tall and stoic, but much too thin to actually be intimidating, so he wasn’t really a bouncer. He was more of just a monitor. He nodded politely as the group approached. “Hey, DJ, it’s been a while. You booked tonight?” “Nah, just showing a friend around,” Vinyl told him. “Any empty rooms?” “Just about all of ‘em,” he told her. “Slow day. No big players here today.” Vinyl laughed. “Socialites,” she said disdainfully. “The newbies are the best part.” They walked into one of the rooms, a private booth with a few comfortable chairs, and Pinkamena had her suspicions confirmed. A smattering of ponies were whizzing around the court on skates, blocking and slamming into each other as they cleared a path or tried to stop the other team. It was a bit of a violent sport, but it certainly wasn’t something Pinkie was opposed to. As the other two got comfortable, Pinkamena raised an eyebrow at them. “I’ve played on a roller derby team before. I thought you were bringing me someplace, like… Bad, or something.” Vinyl snorted out a laugh. “Yeah, you played in a regulation game, maybe. Just watch.” Pinkamena shrugged and took a seat for herself. As much as she wanted to try new things, it had been a while since she’d seen a match. It was easy enough to settle into watching them, picking out the ponies with stars on their helmets to keep her eye on, and before long she started to feel the old excitement build up inside again. “Who are the teams?” She asked without taking her eyes off the action. “The pink team is Ponyville,” Octavia said. “The team’s called Black Hole. The ones in green are from the caves up in the Crystal Kingdom, I think their team is called Frostbite or something along those lines.” “Caves?” “Look at their wings, P,” Vinyl told her. Pinkamena looked closely, and understood right away. Instead of the light, fluffy wings most pegasi sported, the members of the opposing team all had sharp, leathery bat wings. “Vampires?” “No, they’re just bat ponies,” Octavia said. “Their home is a lovely place.” “You’ve been there?” “Oh, being a performer takes you all sorts of places,” Octavia told her. “It’s a wonderful life.” “That sounds awesome,” Pinkamena said. “Maybe I should do that…” With that thought on her mind, she turned back and started watching the match more intently. They’d come in right near the end of a tight game. Frostbite was in the lead, but if Ponyville got momentum they could easily turn it around before the end, and they knew that. Their blockers were putting their all into it, and the other team’s tired players just couldn’t keep up.  Ponyville scored a point, and the crowds erupted. Most cheered, but there was a surprisingly large section that was rooting for the other team and spat vitriol at the turn. Spurred on by both the support and the opposition, Ponyville scored another point, and then another.  It was right down to the end, and if Frostbite didn’t do something they were sure to be overtaken. As could be expected, they subbed out a player, but Pinkamena furrowed her brow at the sight of the new mare. She was a tiny, scrawny little thing who looked like she’d be thrown out of the stadium with a single blow, but she was being put on the track with incredible confidence. When the action started back up, it became very clear where that confidence came from. The little bat zipped onto the field, too quick and small for any of Ponyville’s blockers to do anything about her, and rocketed towards the pony with the star on her helmet. Pinkamena was sure the pony would just bat her away and keep going, but then something unexpected happened. Once she was close, the bat pony spread out her wings and flapped them once, launching herself into the air and pushing herself even faster. She looked like she was going to collide head-on, but at the last moment she twisted around in the air, opened her mouth, and sank her fangs into Ponyville’s player. With the shock of the bite and the force from how fast she’d been moving, it was then no problem for her to flip the bigger pony over and onto the floor, where she landed with a hard crack. Pinkamena gasped. Beside her, Octavia inhaled sharply through her teeth, and Vinyl Scratch barked out a laugh. “Th-They can’t do that!” Pinkamena was in shock. “They definitely can’t do that!” Despite her protests, though, the referees called the game. Ponyville’s player had twisted something in the fall, and there was no way she’d be scoring any more points. The victory was given to Frostbite. “B-B-But she bit her!” Pinkamena looked over at her companions with wide eyes. “Why weren’t they disqualified? Or at least penalized or… Or something!” “P, it ain’t like the stuff you’re used to down here,” Vinyl Scratch said. She leaned to her side and lifted her glasses to look Pinkamena in the eyes. “That’s the whole reason these ponies are here. I mean, look!” Vinyl pointed out to the track, and Pinkamena followed her gaze to see both the tiny bat and the pony she’d bitten, talking to each other and laughing about it like nothing strange had happened at all. Even though the bigger pony couldn’t keep one hoof on the ground, even though the bat pony had a stain on her leg from where she wiped her mouth clean, they were acting like friends. “I don’t get it,” Pinkamena mumbled. “They had fun,” Octavia said. “Some ponies just like things a little less… Sheltered.” “It’s fun?” Pinkamena looked back at her. “Getting hurt like that? That can be fun?” Octavia shrugged. “Sure, if you’ve the right mindset for it. Knowing you can push your body to the limit without too much risk, or even with fairly severe risk in some cases, can be exhilarating for some.” “Can…” Pinkamena looked out at the track and watched the players talk and laugh and celebrate each other on a game well played. She watched them rub sore spots, and even show off fresh scrapes and bruises to the other team, with smiles on their faces. Then she turned back to the other two. “Can I try?”