Pony Fortress 2: A tale of nine friends

by Thetrainenthusiast

scout chapter 1: play ball!

There was a tense feeling in the air, or maybe it was the smell of the sewers. Nopony could ever pinpoint this stuff. Especially in Manehattan, where the streets were full of homeless ponies laying on the sidewalks, not having taken a shower in months probably, while rich and middle class ponies walked by. It was practically a cesspool of half the problems in the world today and unless you got lucky. It wasn't fun

A certain cyan pegasus however wasn't focused on any of that right now. Instead she was focused on the dark grey pony with a jet black mane as messy as hers on pitching base in the middle of the sandlot. He had a baseball in his mouth and was giving a death glare to Rainbow.

Is this guy for real? She thought with a smirk. The colt out there wasn't doing a very good job with his intimidation tactic.

Still. He seemed to be taunting her out there, making it seem like he was going to pitch, only to prepare just a little bit longer. She couldn't really blame the guy though. It was bottom of the ninth inning and there were already two outs. The teams were extremely close with rainbow's just one point behind the other team. Rainbow's team had one pony on second base so all she had to do was hit a home run and they won. Likewise, all the pitcher had to do was strike her out and they lost.

Hurry it up! Will ya?! She thought to herself annoyed. It. Seemed like he had been there for an hour getting prepared.

Then, like he had read her mind, he spat the ball at ground and it bounced up to about chest height. He then proceeded to turn around and kick the ball towards Rainbow. It came in pretty fast, probably about seventy five miles per hour, which threw rainbow off. She swung too late and immediately began cursing herself in her head.

come on dash, you can do this. She thought as she she put the bat back in position. She looked back out onto the mound to see the pitcher cracking his neck for another pitch. He'd obviously gotten a bit more confident as she could see a tiny smirk on his face.

oh I am gonna mess you up. She thought while another pitch came to her. This time she swung too early and almost threw her bat on the ground.

For fucks sake dash, GET IT TOGETHER! She told herself mentally and quite furiously.

She looked back out to the mound to find the pitcher's smirk had turned into an all out cocky grin.

She prepared her bat again and this time did nothing but focus on the pitcher.

this is do or die dash. She reminded herself. She couldn't miss this swing. After all she had a reputation to keep.

That's when the third pitch came and time seemed to slow down for rainbow dash. Like she'd just drunk some seriously powerful energy drink and now she was moving faster than everything around her. The ball came right into the middle of the strike zone at what seemed like the speed of sound. She closed her eyes and swung the bat.

CRACK

She opened her eyes to see the ball flying high through the air. The pony on second ran to third base and had a sure path for home. The teams were now tied.

Rainbow couldn't help but smile a bit. She'd won it for her team. Or at least she thought she had as she then saw the ball fall into the outfield, just short of a home run, and multiple ponies from the other team were scrambling towards it

"crap" she said the realization hitting her

She immediately bolted towards first base and was there in a matter of seconds. She managed to get a peek of towards the outfield to see one of the outfielders picking up the ball with his mouth. She was almost to second when she saw him begin to throw to it to second. She Ran even faster and right before the pony on second could catch the ball she tackled him and both ponies rolled along the dirt ground as the ball went away to left field.

"Sorry about that" she said as she made a beeline for third base. By the time she was there she noticed that the ball had been picked up by the pony in left field.

This was it. She thought. She turned her head to home plate and ran as fast as her legs could carry her. By the time she'd made it halfway to home the pony in left field had thrown the ball and it was coming in fast. She made a final attempt by diving into home plate and dust flew up from the dirt blocking everyone's vision.

Now before you go saying how cliche this is, allow me to explain how it ends. Most would assume the catcher caught the ball and as the dust cleared rainbow would've had one hoof on home plate. No, what actually happened is quite a bit funnier. Rainbow didn't touch home plate with her dive. Hell, she was like 5 feet away from it where she landed. But the dust that made everyone not able to see what was going on also affected the catcher. So much so that he couldn't see the ball coming right towards his face.

boink!

"GAH! SON OF A BITCH!" he said as he covered his muzzle.

Dash looked up from her dive to see the cursing catcher holding his rapidly bleeding nostrils. He should've been wearing a catcher's mask but to hell if anyone could afford one. She looked around a bit before beginning to awkwardly crawl to home plate, trying to not bother the colt in front of her.

Both teams watched the strange set of events go down. As soon as rainbow touched home plate her team began celebrating and throwing it in the other team's face. The other team however, was just confused.

Rainbow let out a sigh "well that was anti climactic"