//------------------------------// // Amethyst Star and the Bocce Champ III // Story: Amethyst Star Isn't Prepared For This // by MagicS //------------------------------// The grassy field she had checked out yesterday was quite a bit different now as Amethyst Star and her “team” walked out onto it. Guesstimating as she was it was probably only twice as big as the field Ponyville held its Sisterhooves Social obstacle courses on, if that. Obviously Bocce wasn’t a sport that took up a lot of room. In fact there was quite a bit more space given to the crowd, rows of collapsible stands had been set up on the side of the field by the town for everyone to watch the tournament. She spotted only a few dozen ponies out on the field itself, other teams and officials most likely. And she also noticed that the field had been changed in some ways, the grass looked freshly cut. Immaculately so actually. So short and so perfectly even it looked unreal. Maybe they had a perfect grass trimming spell? She wouldn’t put it past them. And there were chalk lines that made up several rectangular courts that were new as well. It must’ve been all done last night or early this morning. She spotted four courts in total, so four games and eight teams at a time? “How many teams are participating in this tournament?” She glanced at Lorn as they walked towards a large table placed on the far side of the courts from the stands. “Looks like ten or twelve, and one more once we register,” he answered. “So not everyone is going to be playing at once?” He shook his head. “Nope, don’t have enough space. Every team will be stuck sitting on the sidelines and just watching at some point. Traditionally we separate into two brackets and do a double round-robin with all the teams in our bracket, then move to single elimination, and eventually the winners of the brackets face each other in the end.” “Individual matches don’t take too much time but this will still likely be a long day,” Mavis said. At the table Lorn was walking towards there were four ponies holding scoreboards at the ends and three more in the middle sitting around a bell all discussing something with each other. They seemed to be fussing over some piece of paper but Amethyst Star couldn’t tell exactly what it was. When Lorn approached them he coughed to get their attention, getting the three to look up at once. “Lorn?” An elderly stallion with glasses in the middle said. “We thought you weren’t playing in this tournament.” “Well some things changed, sorry for the last minute arrival, do you mind squeezing us in?” Lorn asked. “It’s no problem, we couldn’t decide on the bracket anyways. Putting in one more team isn’t a problem,” Chaffey answered, Amethyst Star now recognizing her as one of the ponies at the table. The elderly stallion who had first spoken looked behind Lorn at his teammates and Amethyst. “Where’s Conzo?” “Sick still,” Lorn replied and put a hoof over Amethyst Star’s shoulders. “This is Amethyst Star, she’ll be filling in for us today.” All the ponies at the table seemed surprised and Chaffey raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re from out of town. What made you want to participate in our tournament? Do they play Bocce wherever it is you come from?” The breadmaker asked. Amethyst Star shook her head in the negative. “No, I just really want to beat that jerk champ you’ve got right now.” “And there you have it,” Lorn grinned. “Well nobody will blame you for that,” the elderly stallion rolled his eyes. “He gives a bad name to the entire town and sport of Bocce. I hope you four will be able to knock him down a peg this season...” As if on cue loud music suddenly began blaring on the field. All the heads around the table were turned to see the Bocce champ striding forward to the middle of the courts, proudly holding his head high up to the sky. The champ was wearing a golden cape while three ponies behind him were wearing smaller red ones. Amethyst Star assumed those three were his teammates. And behind them were the minstrels that the champ had hired and forced her out of her hotel room with, playing a loud arrangement of fiddles, flutes, drums, lyres, and ocarinas. Was this some sort of king’s progression? It certainly looked like it. Once they made it to the middle of the field, the champ lowered his head and grinned at the audience and the other gathered teams. “My, my, what a lovely day it is to win my tenth tournament in a row! I’m glad so many came out to watch my impending victory. And so many opponents have gathered to make my victory even greater, hahahahaha!” The champ’s loud laughter mocked the others on the field. Amethyst Star’s eye twitched as she watched him. It’s like the guy was the antithesis to this town. “Try not to let him get to you,” Balt said as he came up beside her. “That guy thrives on stuff like this. If you get angry you’re just falling into his trap.” “I can’t help it. Just look at him,” Amethyst Star responded, watching as the champ had his teammates disrobe him instead of bothering to take the cape of himself. “Yeahhh...” Balt could only frown and scratch his head. “Forget about that for now. Just relax until the brackets are posted and the matches begin. We’re on the roster and with any luck we won’t be playing the champ’s team early so Amethyst can at least get a little practice in,” Lorn said. “Alright...” Amethyst Star wasn’t totally satisfied but she went along with Lorn and the others to the sidelines now that he had finished up talking with the officiators. She couldn’t stop watching the champ and his weird antics though. He had his minstrels set up next to the stands while his team stretched and got ready for their first match too. The champ wasn’t stretching though, some mare was combing and brushing his mane and applying makeup to him. It was so odd compared to everything else going on she half-suspected he was doing it just because it would garner this kind of reaction. The other half of her though thought he really was such a dandy that he thinks nothing of it at all. “I am going to ruin that makeup.” Amethyst Star darkly said to herself Lorn had them all gather up by the side of the courts away from the stands. Here they could rest and strategize for a while since the matches wouldn’t begin for at least another thirty minutes according to Mavis. And it was far away from where the champ was currently dining on an eggplant steak while seated at a red velvet curtained table that some supporters of his had dragged out onto the field. Amethyst Star forced herself to tear her gaze away from that as she joined her teammates in stretching. She was not exactly in the best shape, or the most limber or flexible pony in general, but minor stretches were no problem for her. It was a far cry from some of the other things she had to do on this trip. When they were done stretching, Lorn had the three of them sit and face him. “Here’s how our lineup is going to be,” Lorn said. “Balt, you’ll roll first. Then you, Amethyst Star, you’ll be our second roller. Then Mavis, and last will be me. Any questions?” Amethyst Star raised a hoof. “Uh, yeah. Are positions actually important?” “Quite so,” Lorn nodded with the same kind of enthusiastic smile any pony has when they’re given the opportunity to talk about something they love. “You generally want someone consistent to be your first roller, then have your weakest member in the second spot, then your two best rollers in the third and fourth spots.” Amethyst Star flatly stared at him as he pretty much just called her their worst player. Not like she could argue but that was still rather direct. “Uh huh.” “The reason for all that is that you want someone who can roll close to the ball at the start, to potentially make it difficult for the opposing team, while still leaving your strong rollers at the end to knock away other balls and make more difficult shots if needed. The number two spot meanwhile simply has the lowest possibility to do damage,” Mavis explained. “We know you’re going to try your best and we don’t mean anything by it, but you want to win don’t you?” The newbie Bocce player sighed. “Yeah...” “Sorry,” Mavis apologetically smiled. “I’m sure you’ll still get plenty of chances to show your stuff.” “Potentially all of this could be meaningless depending on how the other team rolls anyways,” Balt said. “It could be that all four of us roll before even their first roller is finished. That just happens sometimes.” He shrugged. “I’ll do my best to make sure you’re not in a troublesome position or anything though.” “Thanks. I mean, I want to do a lot more but I guess that’s probably unrealistic,” Amethyst Star shrugged. “I’ll try my best too to not mess anything up.” A loud ringing came out over the field and everyone turned to look at the officiator’s table. Chaffey had a smile on her face as she rung the bell to get everyone’s attention. Even the champ had his cohorts remove the table he had been eating at and all of the teams gathered themselves up and walked to stand in front of the large table. The elderly stallion that Amethyst hadn’t gotten the name of put up an easel with a large board on it on the table, showing the two brackets and the schedule for the tournament. It then occurred to Amethyst that she had no idea what any of the teams’ names were. Including her own. “Great, we’re not in the same bracket as the champ. That means we won’t have to face him until the finals,” Lorn said. “Lucky for us, Amethyst can get in a lot of practice, the other teams in our bracket should be easy pickings,” Mavis grinned. Made enough sense to Amethyst Star. “We’ve got a match right off the bat too so no sitting around for us, come on!” Lorn enthusiastically said and whisked Amethyst Star away to the court they’d be playing on. Their opponents didn’t look like anything special. But then again neither did anyone else aside from the champ. It was a team of four stallions who looked so similar they must have been brothers or cousins, their brown coats and black manes practically blending together in her eyes. Like everyone else in this town though they were friendly and polite, waving to Amethyst Star and her teammates. She wondered if the champ’s teammates would be snooty like him or not. “Hi Lorn, thought you weren’t playing today cause of Conzo?” While Amethyst Star’s head was in the clouds one of the opposing player’s had walked up to them to say hello. “Things changed,” Lorn shrugged. “And if not us then who else is gonna stop that jerk from winning ten in a row?” “You saying we couldn’t beat him?” The stallion smirked. “But yeah, yuck, that’d be awful if that guy actually did win ten in a row.” He turned around and waved goodbye as he headed back to his team. “Good luck!” “Good luck!” Lorn, Mavis, and Balt all said to him. After that it was time to begin. All the teams that were playing a match this round got assembled at their courts while referees came by carrying cases that held all the balls they would be using. When the eight for her team were deposited at their hooves, Amethyst Star grasped one to get a feel for it. It was heavier than she expected, kind of like a small bowling ball. She wouldn’t have any trouble rolling it though, that was for sure. Her team was given green ones to roll while their opponent had red. One referee each stayed by the courts with a whistle and a measuring tape (Balt explained that naturally sometimes the distance between balls was too close to tell just by your eyes) to watch over the match and keep score. Amethyst Star’s team shook hooves with their opponents and after a coin toss it was decided that the other stallions would roll the Jack first. Their first roller came up and threw the Jack a bit over halfway down the court and then rolled his first ball towards it. The coconut sized red ball came to an easy stop about two inches away and to the right of the Jack. From what Amethyst Star saw as she watched, the balls rolled very easily with just a small amount of force, so she didn’t want to throw them too hard, it would be better for her to let their own momentum do the work. The stallion who had just rolled smirked at Balt. “Your turn.” Balt snorted and went to stand at the court’s line. “Yeah, yeah, at least make it difficult for me before you get all smug.” His confidence proved to be rightly placed. Balt easily rolled his first ball to the Jack, actually making it curve slightly so it ended up behind the Jack and about an inch closer than the first stallion’s ball. Balt smirked back to the other stallion and moved aside, letting the other team get into position to roll again. It took two more balls before they had prime position again, the second stallion on their team hit both the Jack and Balt’s ball when he rolled, knocking them to another part of the court where one of their red balls was closer. After that Balt rolled his second ball and got into the closest position again since he could actually plan out exactly where he wanted to roll and wasn’t just blindly knocking other ones away. But this time the other stallion rolled well and managed to get so close to the Jack and Balt’s ball that the ref had to come out with the measuring tape. After a second it was decided that the red team was closer and now it was Amethyst Star’s turn to roll. “Okay,” she breathed in and out to calm herself before picking up one of the green balls and walking to the line. “Don’t worry, you can just use this to get some practice. Get a feel for the ball, its weight, and how it rolls,” Lorn reassured her. “Thanks,” Amethyst Star kept her eyes down-court on the Jack and the various other balls around it. She wondered if the team they were playing thought they had it easy now cause she was a total newbie. Probably, even though they were obviously too polite to say anything. Well Amethyst Star didn’t like being underestimated or taken for granted. That may have just been her biggest pet peeve that led to this whole adventure in the first place. “Hup!” With a grunt she rolled her first ball onto the grassy court, it bounced lightly and sped towards the Jack at a higher speed than she intended. She and everyone else watched as it rolled right past the Jack and other balls, heading off the court. “Dang,” Amethyst Star frowned. “No problem, you’ve got one more, that was fine for your first shot!” Mavis told her and smiled. It was nice to have some honest encouragement and know her teammates weren’t going to get upset with her or anything. But she still didn’t like letting down herself. That was the most important thing. If she didn’t do at least a little in this tournament it wouldn’t feel like a win to the mare trying to prove herself. Unfortunately her next ball also didn’t get anywhere, this one she tried to see if she could use to knock one of the red ones away but she missed entirely again. Amethyst Star grit her teeth and growled under her breath, moving aside to let Mavis take her shots. “Don’t feel bad,” Lorn patted her back to try and make her feel better. Amethyst Star sighed. “I guess I hope we have enough rounds and matches so I can at least score one point today...” Their first match continued much the same way through the various rounds they played. Sometimes their team would get the points, other rounds the other team would score. Throughout it all Amethyst Star now simply tried her best to improve and be of some use to her teammates. But in the end it mostly came down to Mavis and Lorn getting all the points. When the score was 15-10 in their favor the sudden booming laughter that was all too familiar rang out over the courts. “Hahahahaha! An easy win for the champ! One step closer to ten straight tournament victories!” The champ was celebrating with his teammates after they just got done crushing their opponents, making all the rest of the players grumble in annoyance at his loud behavior and lack of sportsmanship. “I really don’t like that guy...” Amethyst Star grumbled. In two more rounds of their own, Amethyst Star’s team grasped victory in their first match of the tournament. Moving up a space in the bracket and getting closer to Amethyst’s goal of beating the reigning champ. She celebrated with the others even though she personally didn’t have much to celebrate at all. Together they watched the other teams that were still playing finish up, and did their best to ignore the champ’s team that was enjoying a wine tasting session in-between matches. Unluckily for Amethyst Star they weren’t going to be playing immediately again so she’d have to wait a while before she got some more practice with the balls, but it did allow her to completely focus on how some of the opposing players played. Including the champ. He always goes last… She realized as she and her teammates watched his game. Although she didn’t really know the intricacies of the game and how to roll she could tell that he was a confident and precise player just by comparing him to how Lorn and the others played. And he won his second match even faster than the first, bragging about how easy of a time he was having through it all. So naturally his team was finished up first again and they briefly retired from the field to go do some other annoying thing, Amethyst was sure. She tried to take Balt’s advice and just ignore him for now, instead focusing on who else was left playing, especially those in her bracket. It honestly didn’t make for a great spectator sport though and she didn’t understand how the ponies of this village could sit in those stands and be so enthralled. They even cheered sometimes. Maybe they’d feel the same way about Buckball? Loud music cut off her thoughts and she glanced over to see the champ’s minstrels starting up a song. At least it fit the festivities. When it was time for the next round of matches to begin, Amethyst Star got up with her teammates and went to their designated court. It was an easier game than their first one but Amethyst Star still didn’t really get to do much. She never got to do much and she couldn’t tell if she was getting any better or not. The pink and purple unicorn may as well have been a bystander on her own team the way this was going. On her most recent roll she knocked a ball away from the Jack but her own careened in a different direction as well, not netting her team any points or a better spot. She bit her lip in response and tried thinking of how she could make better rolls in such a short period of time or at least convince Lorn to give her a more important position. I want to go last so I can face off against that jerk! It was a selfish thought and she knew it but Amethyst Star didn’t care. The rest of the tournament proceeded the same way with Lorn, Mavis, and Balt doing their thing and the team moving up in the bracket every round. The champ and his team unsurprisingly were doing the same in their bracket and the crowd was joined by defeated teams that watched the survivors with rapt attention. Amethyst Star continually tested the best way to roll a ball and how to curve it and decide how to aim it the right way to bounce other balls effectively. She knew that with the right trajectory you could make the ball ricochet just the way you wanted it to but actually knowing how to do that and execute on it was a far more difficult matter for the mare. But after hours of Bocce and getting carried by her teammates Amethyst Star finally ended up in the finals facing off against one of the most obnoxious ponies she had ever met. And she had to be the one facing him directly. “Please, please, please, please change the lineup for this match so I can go last!” Amethyst Star was begging Lorn with her hooves clasped in front of her as she kneeled on the ground. Since she was doing this in the middle of the field everyone else got a front row seat to it too, making Lorn rather embarrassed. “Amethyst I know you want to participate more directly and have more impact on the game but against an opponent this good that’s really not a good idea. We’ve been doing it like this because beating him was the most important thing, right?” He tried to reason with her, partially just so she’d get up and everyone else would stop looking. “But I haven’t done anything, it would feel like I didn’t contribute at all to taking down that jerk! It’s important to me to show him up,” Amethyst Star pleaded. "You’ve been improving but are you really okay with throwing away all the effort we’ve put in to stop him from winning ten in a row?” Lorn asked. Amethyst Star said boo to that. “Oh come on! You don’t know that would happen for sure! You’re just naturally assuming that I’m gonna lose to him or screw things up?” “I wouldn’t say screw things up but you can hardly even call yourself a beginner and he’s the best roller around,” Lorn said. “Also you don’t really care about Bocce,” Mavis cut in. “Winning a tournament is really important for all of us too.” Balt nodded in agreement. She got a little red in the face knowing they were all against her but she didn’t really have the right to get angry. First off they were right. And secondly they were really right. They were the ones helping her in the first place by letting her on the team so she could even participate in the tournament at all. And she fully understood that if it wasn’t for them or if the game was just a one versus one kind of thing she wouldn’t have been able to touch the champ. Amethyst Star should be grateful to them and do her best in the second position so her team would have the best opportunity to take the champ down. Instead the pink and purple unicorn hopped up to her hooves... “But you wouldn’t even have joined this tournament today if it wasn’t for me! Don’t you owe me at least a little bit?” Amethyst Star was not especially gracious. It was clear that her shameless whining to get her way was bothering the three of them. Mavis awkwardly shuffled about with a grimace on her face while Balt just tried to ignore her and look away, Lorn was the one forced to deal with her and make the final decision. Something he did not relish. Amethyst Star locked eyes with his bright green ones and did her best at silently pleading to him. With a heavy sigh, Lorn finally gave up. “Alright, fine. We’ll put you in the last spot.” “Thank you!” Amethyst Star hugged him and then quickly pushed him aside and trotted over to the Bocce champ with a frenzied grin on her face. “Hah! I am going to beat you so badly!” She stuck her hoof out at him. The champ raised a nonplussed eyebrow. “Do I know you?” Amethyst Star nearly blew a gasket. “You cannot be serious right now! You just kicked me off your bench earlier this morning you jerk!” Her eye was twitching and a vein was popping out of he neck. “Doesn’t ring a bell.” “Gahhh!” Amethyst Star screamed and stomped off back to her team. “That’s just how he is,” Lorn tried to assuage her. Since this was the championship match the officiators moved their table up to the edge of the court being played on and all of the other teams and unneeded referees were standing around and watching too. The champ had his minstrels at one end of the court with the instructions to begin playing the moment he won and the rest of the crowd was relatively quiet too as they waited for the match to begin, only some ponies were muttering and whispering to each other up on the stands. Amethyst Star had to think all of them wanted the current champ to lose. The coin flip for the first round of rolling was won by Amethyst Star’s team this time and Balt rolled the Jack almost all the way to the far end of the court. It was part of his strategy, throwing it there made it more likely for anyone who overshot it to roll their ball out of bounds. Although at this high level of play there was probably only one pony playing right now that would do something like that. Balt’s first point roll was completely perfect though, his green ball came to a stop directly in front of the Jack, the only way for the champ’s team to get closer would be to first hit Balt’s ball and that would just as likely make your ball careen away as well. Amethyst Star surprisingly found herself sweating in anticipation as the champ’s first roller came up. Was she really this nervous? Did she actually care about Bocce this much? As the first round went on and on it only then occurred to Amethyst Star that she had originally intended to relax and do nothing here for a day or two. When it was her turn the enemy team had one ball closest to the Jack but the rest nearest to it were her teams’. If she could just knock that one ball away it could set up an early lead for them. She wiped her brow clean of sweat and stood at the line, focusing hard on her ball and the Jack. The unicorn had had a lot of practice now at this point and she was at least confident in her ability to make the ball roll near the Jack. Her first roll went wide. She didn’t need to look back to know the champ was sneering at her. Her second one made up for it though, she was able to hit the enemy ball that was closest to the Jack and made it go spinning away while her own was slowed down by the hit and came to rest close to the Jack. Now her team was in position to score a few points. The champ was up next though. With an easy grin he sauntered up to the line and yawned, lazily tossing his first ball onto the court as if not thinking about it at all. But that ball still ended up hitting Amethyst’s ball away and then the second from the champ rested flush up against the Jack after a perfect roll. One point for the champ’s team. Only one though, thanks to Amethyst and her teammates outperforming the rest of the champ’s team. I can do this. Amethyst grinned. The next round went even better for them and they scored some points of their own. The fact that they won even a single round against the champ sent murmurs through the crowd, although it couldn’t have been the first time, they must’ve been especially excited because it was the championship match. Maybe they dared to hope that their obnoxious champ could be deposed. “This is actually going well so far,” Balt said. “I don’t want us to get ahead of ourselves but do you think we can do this?” “It would be great to take that jerk down,” Mavis gleefully rubbed her front hooves together. “Let’s keep our mind on the game, guys,” Lorn said but then quickly smiled. “Although it would certainly be perfect to beat him like this, with Amethyst here it’s gonna hurt him even more.” “And because I’m the one facing him at the end,” Amethyst Star smugly stated. “Yeah,” Lorn rolled his eyes. That’s how the championship match went; a close, back and forth, affair that saw each team trying their hardest and Amethyst Star actually not playing completely terribly. If the champ was worried though he never showed it, it irked Amethyst Star that he kept grinning and laughing the entire match while she was focusing extremely hard on every one of her rolls. The crowd at this point had become completely silent, not wanting to ruin any moments with cheers, all of them patiently watching. Completely enraptured by the match. It wasn’t the adventure that she wanted but Amethyst Star finally really felt proud of herself, it was like her confidence and belief in herself was being justified with every point scored. They could do this. They were going to win. She was going to win and she’d have a reward, even if it wasn’t physical, to carry back to Ponyville. When the final round came it was 20 to 20. Just like the rest of the match it was neck and neck but Amethyst Star’s team had the slightest advantage, two point balls from Lorn were the closest to the Jack and the champ was the only one left on his team who could roll. Both the champ and Amethyst Star had a single ball left “Oh my, if I wasn’t me I would actually be worried,” the champ mockingly said as he stood up to the line. “Watch this everyone. I’m going to expertly ricochet my ball off of Lorn’s first and send it sideways into Lorn’s other ball, knocking them both away while mine comes to lay perfectly still next to the Jack.” Without a second more of preparation he rolled his ball down the court, just as he predicted it smashed into Lorn’s first and then went spinning… slightly off-center to his second where it barely nudged it and came to rest less than an inch farther away from the Jack. But that minute distance was all that was needed. “Oops,” the Bocce champ said as his smirk finally fell off his face. Lorn, Mavis, and Balt jumped up in joy and clapped their hooves together. “Yes!” They all said in unison. The crowd finally erupted too, with no more balls left for one team the round and match was essentially over and that obnoxious jerk had lost! Amethyst Star could literally just drop her last ball onto the court and call that her “roll” and put an end to it. That’s not what she did. No way, it’s not good enough unless I’m the one who puts him in his place. She thought. He can’t beat himself, he has to lose to me after all the disrespect he’s shown me! What kind of ending is this where he screws up because of not taking things seriously enough?! No way, I’m gonna show him and everyone else here that even if he made his shot I’d still beat him! Amethyst Star scowled as she stepped up to the line, aiming her ball right at the one the champ had just thrown. Seeing the look on her face, Lorn frowned. “Uh, Amethyst? You can just-” She flat out ignored him and threw her ball full speed down the court. “Take that, champ!” She cried out with a grin as her ball blindingly rolled across the grass. The whole crowd and all the other players watched with wide eyes and open mouths at her reckless play. But Amethyst Star didn’t care, they would still be happy and cheering when her ball knocked away the champ’s and they beat his team anyways. Lorn, Mavis, and Balt would pick her up off the ground and start throwing her in the air in celebration, immensely grateful for her giving them the opportunity to beat the champ. This town wouldn’t be ruined by a huge jerk anymore and everyone would thank Amethyst Star. She could already see it. Her ball smacked into Lorn’s and sent them both flying away from the Jack. Leaving the champ’s last ball as the closest. Amethyst Star stood there as still as a statue for a moment, no one else made a sound… until the traveling minstrels realized their employer had just won and started up a loud celebratory tune. All at once the entire spectating audience groaned in disbelief and despair at what had just happened. So close! It should’ve been over! “Hahahaha! Ten tournaments in a row! As expected of me, yet another easy victory!” The champ shouted out in glee from behind Amethyst Star as his teammates started throwing him into the air and carrying him over to the minstrels where they could celebrate some more. Amethyst Star gulped and turned to face her teammates, who were all looking at her with faces of supreme shock, disappointment, and betrayal. “I’ll um… eheh,” Amethyst Star nervously chuckled and rubbed the back of her neck while she began to sweat some more. “I’ll uh, see myself away… was a fun vacation, nice town you’ve got...” And without waiting for a response the wandering unicorn turned tail and ran. Time to push this latest failure out of her head and ignore any lessons that might be good to learn.