Javelin

by McPoodle

Chapter 3

Javelin

Chapter 3

---

Wednesday morning began with a highly-uncomfortable groveling session at the library. With that out of the way, Vinyl taught Twilight the diagnostic spell she used to play a record without a phonograph, gave the researcher the least-used record in her collection (“Muskrat Love”–it was a present from her grandma, OK?), and left her to her work with the shiny discs.

The rest of the day was spent at the Carousel Boutique. Rarity had scheduled several clients for fittings and adjustments, and she did her best to sell DJ Pon-3’s talents to each of them. In this, she was more or less successful, but alas, it was not the right season for a party or event that required those talents. The right ponies were out of town, or something big was anticipated, or finances (outside of the funds for the dress, of course) were temporarily in a less than optimal condition.

“Well,” concluded Rarity at 3:30, when she decided to close up shop, “perhaps your pessimism was somewhat justified.”

“What did I tell you?” said Vinyl. “This industry is…”

“…yes, well I believe we have quite well driven that joke into the ground. There are a few more hours until sunset, so why don’t we…”

Rarity was interrupted by a knock on the door and a call of “Yoo Hoo!”–both of which came from Pinkie. Rainbow Dash had apparently mastered the art of the javelin, and was prepared to show it off at Sweet Apple Acres.

“Why Sweet Apple Acres?” asked Vinyl, as Pinkie could be heard bouncing down the street to tell the others.

“She’s going to throw a great big pointed stick,” Rarity replied. “Just be glad she picked a place far away from most windows. Are you coming?”

Vinyl thought for a bit. “Actually, I need to throw together a couple of acoustical tiles for me to use tomorrow night. They’ve got me playing in a regular cave.”

“Acoustical tile? Let me see, isn’t that made from cork board covered with cloth?”

“Yes.”

“Then you are coming with me. The cloth’s right here, the lumberyard’s on the way, and Applejack will let you borrow the tools you’ll need to put it all together.”

“Well…”

“Spike will be there,” Rarity teased.

“OK, you talked me into it.”

---

When the seven ponies, one dragon, and one toothless alligator arrived together at Sweet Apple Acres, they shared mostly-mundane stories of the day’s activities. Pinkie Pie claimed on a cake delivery to have performed an impromptu exorcism upon an icebox possessed by “The Thing That Wouldn’t Stop It”. A confused Vinyl followed the others’ lead in not saying anything (or perhaps nodding sagely and not saying anything). Spike demonstrated a bit of “dragon throat singing”–the ability to sing two notes at the same time, a talent he had taught himself earlier that day while Twilight was working. Everyone concluded, in the politest possible manner, that his skill had room for improvement.

“Speaking of Twilight, have you got any further with that compact disc?” Rarity asked.

“I’m afraid I’ve hit a wall. It turns out that the grooves on a CD are nothing like the grooves on a record. It’s some sort of digital code.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Rarity assured her.

“Oh, I think I have figured it out, but that doesn’t really help me. Once I’m done with the demodulation and error-correction, I still have a stream of stop and start signals I don’t know what to do with.”

“Let’s hear it,” said Vinyl, finally lifting her head from her work with the acoustical tiles. “Give it to me at your fastest speed.”

“Well, alright…” said Twilight uncertainly, and her horn began to glow. Part of Vinyl’s spell was used to produce a sound, an extremely-rapid alternation of clicks and silence that resembled a concert of hornets.

“Yup, you’re stuck all right,” Vinyl concluded after a moment’s thought, and resumed her work.

---

“So, is everyone ready to see me make sports history?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed impatiently with an object in her mouth.

“I’ll announce!” Pinkie Pie and Spike declared at the same time.

“I don’t see what’s the big deal about a javelin,” grumbled Applejack.

“The big deal,” Twilight answered, pulling a book out of her saddlebag, “is that the javelin throw is one of only two track and field sports inherited from the Ancients that no pony has ever been able to reproduce.”

“What else does your Big Book of Sports have to say about it?” asked Fluttershy.

“That is all the book had to say about it.”

“Is there a reason why it hasn’t been done before?” Vinyl asked, putting away her work with the tiles.

“Well, javelins are made from cedar,” Dash explained, “and that wood’s really flexible. The metal points on this one make it even more unstable. You could pick it up in the middle and toss it like an elephant tosses a log, I guess, but if that was the point, why make them so long?”

Vinyl applied some thought to the matter. “You could pick it up by one end with your mouth and toss it that way.”

“Which end would you pick up?” Pinkie interrupted.

“Uh, does it matter?” the DJ asked.

“Nope,” replied Pinkie, “just so long as it lands gold-end first.”

“I tried that,” Rainbow said, answering Vinyl’s original question. “It just fell.”

“…gold-end first,” finished Pinkie.

Vinyl tried to continue to ignore Pinkie. It wasn’t easy. “You could pick it up with your mouth and flick it sideways.”

“Naw,” answered Dash, “that’s where the flexibility gets in the way. A javelin will wobble like crazy unless you throw it absolutely straight. And I gathered you all here because I figured out how to do just that! Now, I’d like everypony to keep paying attention to the spot I’m standing on right now, ‘cause that’s where the history is gonna be!” With a sudden “whoosh!”, she launched herself straight up.

“Well,” Spike said, settling into his role as announcer, “Rainbow Dash has climbed way, way, way up high, carrying the javelin in her teeth.”

“I would say she is about 1.2 quintillion stories high,” Pinkie commented. “Ooh, she’s stopped climbing, and now she’s doing something…yes, she’s making a dive, and she’s transferred the javelin to under her left tucked wing.”

“Um, which end is she…?” Rarity asked nervously.

“Gold-end first!” announced Pinkie.

The other ponies breathed a sigh of relief.

I don’t get it, thought Vinyl.

Spike resumed the commentary. “She’s coming in. Faster, faster, faster…she’s released the javelin! It’s falling really fast, while Rainbow Dash has pulled out of her dive. Here it comes…”

With a loud “thwock” sound, the javelin embedded itself in the ground. Dash came around to land a few seconds later.

“Well?” she asked excitedly. “What do you think?”

“Well…” everyone said at once.

“Um, I think you’re supposed to throw it,” Fluttershy suggested in a meek voice.

“I did throw it!”

“Horizontally?”

“Oh,” said Rainbow, admitting defeat for the moment.

“Well I liked the ‘thwock’!” said Pinkie, giggling. “They should add the Thwock Dwop to the Equestrian Games! I mean Thwock Drop.”

“Pinkie, if you’re not going to be serious, then I wish you’d stop announcing,” Rainbow Dash said.

“I can be serious! Listen!” Pinkie assumed a deep (for her) and pompous voice. “Javelin throwing, more than any other event, calls for terrific muscular development.”

“That’s me!” Dash proclaimed.

“Plus height, weight and mental alertness,” continued Pinkie.

“Me, me and also me!”

“The javelin,” Pinkie intoned like she was accepting a Celestia Prize on the subject, “must be swung in a circle until terrific speed is attained…”

“Sure thing!” the speed pony exclaimed, yanking the javelin out of the ground before starting to spin, faster and faster.

“…and remember, hold on until I say to let go. Keep holding on! That reminds me of a verse from the immortal poem ‘If–’, by Redyard Quibbling:

“If you can make one heap of your winnings
And bet on a round of Snatch-the-Cupcake,”

“Um, Pinkie…” said Twilight.

“And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a sad word, though it aches;”

The still-spinning pegasus started wobbling. The sane ponies took this as their cue to find shelter.

“If you can force your heart and nerve and stretchy-bits
To serve your turn long after they are gone,”

“Pinkie…” Rainbow Dash said through clenched teeth.

“And so hold on when all else call it quits
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold On!’”

“PINKIE!”

“You’re interrupting my seriousness! Wait, was I announcing the javelin throw just now, or the hammer throw?”

Rainbow opened her mouth to complain, and things got very confusing after that.

---

“Does anypony know where it landed?” Dash asked a few minutes later.

“Well I know one thing: it didn’t land silver-end first.”

“Applejack, you didn’t think I forgot that, did you? I’d never let it land silver-end first.”

“It is a point to be remembered…I mean yeah,” Pinkie Pie said, remembering halfway through to switch back from her announcer voice to her regular voice. “Gold-end first might be a ‘thwock!’, but silver-end first would be more like a ‘BOOM!’, followed by a ‘!MOOB’, followed by another ‘BOOM!’”

Vinyl Scratch began to seriously reconsider her decision to hang around with this crowd, but there was one thing she just had to know: “Rarity, what present did you get?”

“Oh, this old thing? It’s just a gem.”

A mischievous glint flashed across Vinyl’s glasses, and she picked up a rubber hammer. “I wonder what kind of resonance it has…” she mused out loud.

The hammer was suddenly snatched away by Twilight’s magic and tossed in a random direction.

“I was just joking!” Vinyl exclaimed. “Rarity can vouch that I used to do that to her all the time!”

“You can’t joke about this gem,” a shaken Rarity told her. “Striking it would have very serious repercussions.”

Vinyl shrugged.

A few minutes later, Rainbow Dash had hunted down the rogue javelin and sat down to think. “I’ve just got to figure out the right way to throw this thing. It bounces too much to balance it while running three-hoofed.”

Twilight was consulting her sports book. “The rules of equine competition allow the use of simple mechanical devices in sport, so long as they do not create an unfair advantage and perform no appreciable work. For example, a hoof cup is used for the shot put event. Let’s try using a strap.”

A spare strip of the fabric Vinyl had been working with was used to lightly tie the center of the javelin to the flat side of Rainbow Dash’s upturned right forehoof. She began to run, but before too long the vibrations of the javelin had caused the strap to loosen and the pole fell to the ground. She tried again, several times, with the strap tied tighter and tighter, but the javelin kept escaping before any appreciable speed had been built up. On the final attempt, with a knot so tight it cut off Rainbow Dash’s circulation, the pegasus finally got to her desired speed and she attempted to launch the projectile, but it merely slid partway through the strap and dived into the ground, causing her to nearly plant her face into the soil. The others ran forward to help her up.

“Maybe a pony can’t throw a javelin,” Spike suggested.

“I’m not giving up!” Rainbow Dash insisted.

“Well,” Applejack said, “my Aunt Orange said she’d be attending a grand opening of some sports museum tomorrow night. Maybe I can ask her to ask whoever’s in charge for advice.”

“Actually, the exhibit’s first day of being open to the public was today.”

“How do you know that, Vinyl?” asked Pinkie.

“Because I was the entertainment at the grand opening last night…and tomorrow night.”

“Two grand openings? That must be the bestest, most wonderfullest sports museum ever!”

Vinyl wisely said nothing at this point.