//------------------------------//
// Chapter 14 
// Story: Perfect Game 
// by Player 4 
//------------------------------//

Yes! Oh my goodness, yes, it is! A ringer! A ringer! That's a perfect game! A perfect game!

"Yeaahhh!", the crowd explodes with almost ear-piercing levels. In fact, it might not entirely be a "yeah" that they're saying, but more like a scream, or screech, or both at the same time, maybe. And it's no wonder why! At last, it has been done, my friends!

In conjunction with the intense crowd oviation, the buttons on the confetti cannons receive a swift, hard press, shooting a barrage of golden confetti from every corner of the stadium. It pours down all over the victorious arena.

"Yeah!" "Wa-hoo!" "Alright!", members of the crowd shout as they get covered with the celebratory confetti.

Before she even had time to process what had just happened, the incredibly eager ponies that were responsible for the awarding of the treasures skip over to Autumn and position the champion's medal around her neck. The medal is gold and reads "champion" on the front. In addition, they award her a white baseball cap with the text "perfect game" written on it in gold.

The exciting symbolism kept the crowd's red-hot energy burning. They continue to shriek. A loud horn also gets played.

Reporters then approach the winner for a post-game interview.

"Alright, Autumn, you did it! You accomplished the seemingly impossible! How does it feel?"

Having not been able to fully think about that due to the spectators' screaming and the shock of winning it all, she responds with a lot of stuttering.

"I... I really don't know right now. The shock is still, um, active. I need time, if that's alright."

The reporter giggles. "Okay, champion. We'll give you time."

"Thank you.", Autumn says as she walks away from the microphone in a sea of deja vu.

As she does so, Autumn's friends, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and later Shoeshine, who made the trip all the way down from the announcer's booth, show up to give her a hug. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were competitors in the game who had lost, but that didn't take away from the proud feelings they had.

It really is deja vu. Finally, after all those failures, the success had been achieved. Somepony got a perfect game. 10 gold ringers in a row were made.

Autumn takes a real-life look at this, observing the brown stake, with that completed stack of gold horseshoes circling around it. All ten of them, thrown by her.

She is unable to handle the tsunami of excitement in her and lowers herself to the ground while crying a few tears of joy. Her friends use this as a reason to only embrace her more, piling up into a hug puddle, still with the confetti coming down.

"Cry the happy tears all you need to, Autumn", Shoeshine says in a slightly-joking manner while smiling. "You deserve it."

This pattern continues for a long while.





Eventually, after the shockwave wears off and Autumn gains enough composure, she heads toward the microphone-holding ponies for an interview.

"Okay, I think we can skip the question of how did this feel.", the reporter begins. "We all know that. Instead, I'll ask: how did you do this? Out of all the 28 competitors here, what caused you to be the one?"

"I definitely have to say that the bad things I went through helped me in the end.", Autumn says. "By experiencing an adverse reaction to the crowd criticizing me for bad play, I was able to find a way to turn that on its head. If you don't go through an emotional hardship, how can you possibly amend it?"

"And, I just overall used the knowledge that ponies were thinking that event disadvantaged me. I made that into an advantage. I used the power of the underdog.", she says happily.

"Great words, Autumn. Now, only one more question: What are you going to do to celebrate?"

"Well, we still haven't done the trophy part yet, so I think I'll start with that."

"Great choice. See you later, Autumn. Congratulations."

"Thank you so much."

Another hug between Autumn and her cousin Applejack ensues.





After all the confetti in the big cannons has been exhausted, Shoe Stadium lines up for what they've all been waiting on: the trophy presentation.

With a stand set up for the trophy and its winner to be on, and with the path clear, the moment begins.

A horn tune courtesy of the Shoe Stadium Band sounds off as the trophy presenters walk out of blackness with the Perfect Game Trophy. At last, the appearance of it is revealed. It is a gold trophy with a stake poking out from the middle of the bottom foundation and featuring a horseshoe around it. Fitting!

As the presenters make their way to the top of the stand and the last horn notes fizzle out, the announcer gets to vocalize the sentence he had long been holding in.

"Alright, everyone! Here we present to you the winner of this amazing trophy. Autumn Apple, please come up!"

The crowd erupts into a loud cheer as the trophy's winner emerges onto the white stand that has extra confetti shooting out from its sides.

Starting off the next phase of the celebration, another microphone is pointed Autumn's way.

"To begin here, what would you like to say to everypony before the trophy raise happens?"

"All I want to say is that this is for you, the fans.", Autumn passionately says into the microphone. "You waited a long time for this. You were hungry for it. And I gave it to you. This trophy may be technically mine, but it's yours too."

"Yeah!", the crowd responds, with even more extra confetti shooting out.

"Now for part two, can both you and I pose with the trophy for a bit? It's tradition in sports."

"Sure!", Autumn responds. "It will look great on picture."

"Swell."

The leading presenter and the champion put their hooves to the trophy simultaneously and raise it up slightly. They pose for a photograph, which is taken by the camera team.

"Alright, now we have the best part, part three! Give it a raise!"

With no hesitation, Autumn performs the legendary trophy raise, to the appropriate roar from the audience. Clutching it with both of her hooves, she snaps them high above her head, displaying the horseshoe trophy in championship fashion.

Equestrian sports' traditional champions' song plays over the stadium as Autumn continues to hoist the grand prize. With these two things combined, the deja vu creeps back up and Autumn lowers down, starting to shed the happy tears again. She then pushes her head deep into the side of the trophy, signaling just how much this meant to her. It should mean a lot! Winning a professional sports championship is not something many ponies will ever accomplish. If you become among the ones who do, no reason to take it lightly! It's a massive thing to have written in your life record, and this pony here will have it there. Forever.

This couldn't go on without even more hugs. Shoeshine, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash got invited onto the champion's stand to give out some more proud-of-you affection to their first-place friend, while the crowd happily cheers for it and the trophy shines.

The beautiful moment continues on for as long as it needs to.





At last, it has been done. A perfect game has been achieved. 10 gold ringers in a row. Some ponies thought it wasn't possible, but it was. Somepony did it. They got that trophy. 

And it turned out to be Autumn, who had faced so much adversity that she could have easily gotten sunk, but instead, she chose to use it to sail to this point.

She truly is a champion.

The End