The next thing Rainbow Dash did in the city of mammoths was a little different. When the day had come, Alykon took her to meet her Trunkball team and see the court they practiced on. It was actually located on the eastern outskirts of the city, outside the gate and around the houses and warehouses that the farmers and quarry workers used. Rainbow Dash would’ve liked to have sat down with those guards like she had promised the last time she saw them but again she had something else to do. In the end all they did was wave and say hi to each other. Something she’d have to rectify in the future. Speaking of guards she really had to go see Mallom again too, for being the first mammoth she had met she only saw him on that very first day.
Larkon had allowed them to go out completely on their own too, not wanting to embarrass Alykon and probably figuring there was no harm in it anyways. Rainbow Dash didn’t know what he was doing right now but probably something to do with planning the next place to take her. There were still a few days after this one until the festival and Larkon probably wanted them all to be packed.
For the moment though she and Alykon were just walking between houses and other buildings. The twists and turns they had to take through the closely clustered and tall buildings would’ve been disorienting if Rainbow Dash couldn’t fly. Already she had to float along next to Alykon at a fairly slow speed since the snow wasn’t shoveled too well in these little side streets and alleys either and Alykon had to slog through it.
“It’s just up ahead! I told my friends to make sure the court’s been cleared of snow. I can’t wait to see the looks on their faces when they see you,” Alykon said to her.
“Heh, me neither,” that was always something Rainbow Dash would enjoy.
There had already been other mammoths they had seen in this dizzying labyrinth of buildings, some children and some adults who had all been surprised and happy to see Rainbow Dash in their little area. She didn’t see those punks whose trunks she had tied together though.
Rainbow Dash and Alykon walked onto a dirt path where the snow was piled along the sides, sitting up against the brick walls of the buildings that enclosed the pathway. Up ahead was a clearing in the buildings that Rainbow Dash could see. The voices of several talking mammoths came down the path from it and Alykon couldn’t help but pick up her pace now with an excited grin on her face.
She was practically running and Rainbow Dash was lightly speeding up behind her when she emerged from the path and into this new park area. Rainbow Dash looked around at the empty lot stuck between a few buildings, there was a grassy patch on one side with some playground equipment like seesaws, pull-up bars, and swings, while the other half was taken up by a dirt rectangle with two hoops at either end of it.
The Trunkball court. Only not as well maintained or professional as the one at the stadium. Where that court had a polished hardwood floor this one really was just dirt. At least Alykon’s friends had shoveled the snow out of the way or that would’ve ended the fun quick.
“Hey guys!” Alykon shouted as she jumped out with Rainbow Dash behind her.
Three teenage mammoths at the Trunkball court turned to face them, it looked like they had been kicking around the big red ball used for it just previously. All of them were boys so Alykon must’ve been the only girl on the team. Speaking of that, all of the pro players were guys, maybe it was more of a guy thing and Alykon was unusual for being a girl mammoth that played Trunkball.
When they got onto the court, Alykon looked at Rainbow Dash and pointed to the others. “Rainbow Dash, meet my team. Team, meet Rainbow Dash.”
“Hey,” Rainbow Dash casually grinned and waved at them while she hovered in the air.
One of them stepped right up to her and looked on in wonder. “Wow… I can’t believe I’m really meeting someone who’s not a mammoth...”
Alykon slapped him upside the head with her trunk. “Stop gawking and introduce yourself! All of you!”
“R-Right,” the first mammoth lifted up his trunk so Rainbow Dash could shake it. “I’m Dathon, it’s nice to meet you.”
Dathon was the tallest of the group but still nowhere near the height of a full grown adult. Another thing about him was that his fur was much darker than any other mammoth she had seen so far. It was almost more black than brown. His expression changed from one of starstruck awe to joy as soon as Rainbow Dash started shaking his trunk.
“Nice to meet you too, kid,” Dash said to him.
The next mammoth then came up and instead of waiting for her to shake his trunk he grabbed her hoof and shook the flying pony with gusto all on his own. Being a mammoth he did it hard enough to rattle her brain and shake off a few feathers. “I’m really happy to meet you too! My name’s Orsal!”
He finally stopped shaking her so Rainbow Dash’s dizzy eyes could focus on him. Unlike Dathon, his fur was the normal shade of brown and he looked slightly on the heavy side with even his trunk and tusks being a little chunkier than she had seen.
“Hey Orsal...” Rainbow Dash rubbed her head as she greeted him.
“Uh… I’m Makom. Wow...” the last mammoth said as he walked up to Dash. “My father said he saw you when you were at the quarry.”
“Yeah?” Dash raised an eyebrow. “He work there?”
Makom nodded. He was almost as tall as Dathon but looked more muscular at the same time, with fur the same average brown shade as Orsal’s. Unlike any of his teammates he also had red tattoos on his tusks, jagged lines that went up and down them, if it wasn’t for how peaceful mammoths were Rainbow Dash would’ve thought they were meant to be intimidating. “My father works as a digger at the bottom levels.”
“I probably saw him too then, tell him to say hi if he sees me down there again cause I’ll probably go back at some point,” she smiled.
Makom returned it. “Certainly!”
“Okay, okay! Now that that’s out of the way we can finally play some Trunkball!” Alykon shouted.
“Is she just going to watch us practice?” Dathon asked.
“Uh, yeah, for now at least!” Alykon said and ran over to the red ball they had been using. “Rainbow Dash said she’s a coach of something called Buckball back in Equestria, I wanted her to watch us and see if she can help us out or give us any tips.”
“But she’s basically a stranger to Trunkball,” Dathon raised an eyebrow at Alykon.
“Hey now, don’t make any assumptions here,” Rainbow Dash said and flew between them. “I’ve got a pretty good handle on it already and I’m awesome. I can coach any sport. That’s just part of being the most amazing athlete in the whole world.” She frowned and looked between the two of them. “So you guys don’t already have a coach of your own or anything? Aren’t you in an official division?”
“It’s an official division but not very serious or organized,” Makom said.
“Oh,” Rainbow Dash slumped a little. “Well whatever, you guys wanna play Trunkball then play however much Trunkball you want! Who are you playing against?” She looked around the park to see if there were any other mammoths she missed.
“Um… no one?” Alykon shrugged. “We have to just play two on two.”
“But-” Rainbow Dash started but then stopped and sighed. “Well, okay… I guess that’s still alright.”
The pegasus flew over to the side of the court so she could have a commanding view of the entire game. “Show me what you four can do!”
The four separated into two teams, Alykon and Makom versus Dathon and Orsal. Instead of having two players on dedicated offense and two on defense they were all going to play the full court. Made sense, they just had to do the best with what they had. Alykon bounced the ball on the ground a few times and already Rainbow Dash could tell the dirt wasn’t going to be as good a material as the hardwood. The ball only pathetically got up to about her own chin and dust was kicked up with every bounce. Couldn’t they at least have pavement here or bricks or something?
Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened and she flew over to Alykon. “Hey wait!”
“What?” Alykon looked up at her in surprise.
Rainbow Dash grinned and winked at her. “Don’t you want to let me throw the ball up for you?”
Alykon and the others were surprised but grins quickly spread across their faces and Alykon tossed the ball to Dash. “Sure.”
“Alright, get ready!” Dash said as she held up the ball. It was slightly awkward since it was almost the same size as her but it was just a big rubber ball. “Go!”
She heaved the ball as high into the air as she could and then flew out of the way so the others could fight over it. Surprisingly it was Orsal who got his trunk on the ball first after jumping to a commanding height. Alykon immediately charged him to get the ball and from there the scrimmage devolved into a melee. There was no rhythm, no strategy, no real teamwork, they did nothing but fight over the ball and try to muscle past each other. It didn’t look like the professional game she had seen at all. In fact, it looked pretty bad.
Is every junior division team like this? Rainbow Dash winced as she watched.
It might have partially been due to the court too but there was so much mishandling of the ball and poor dribbling that often saw the ball bounce or roll away from them and they had to scramble to retrieve it before it rolled off the court. None of them were particularly quick runners and there weren’t any trick plays or shots used or even attempted. And a number of shots that were attempted were way off the mark and completely missed the hoop and pole altogether.
There was no question about it—Alykon and her team were bad at the game.
“This might take a little work,” Rainbow Dash bit her lip.
It’s not like she expected them to be on the level of the pros, right? But she expected at least some competence. Especially with how passionate Alykon was about it. But the four of them looked like they were practically just messing around and throwing a ball back and forth, not even really practicing or working on how to play a good game of Trunkball. And they didn’t really seem to be the best athletes in general, with Alykon being the quickest and the others mostly just reacting to her moves. It was closer to seeing kids play make believe or pretending they were serious players while not actually knowing or caring about the rules to the game.
She wondered if all the junior division teams were like this.
Dathon and Orsal ended up accidentally running into each other and tripping onto the ground, giving Alykon the free space she needed to make the first two points of the game with a clean dunk. She cheered for herself and walked back to Makom for a high-trunk.
Rainbow Dash flew down to collect the ball again while Dathon and Orsal picked themselves up. Makom walked to the center of the court to wait for things to start up again but Alykon happily hopped right over to Rainbow Dash. She wanted to speak to her before the next round of play.
“What did you think?! How are we?” Alykon eagerly asked the pegasus.
Rainbow Dash fought back an uneasy grimace as she looked down at Alykon, and then over at her teammates who were also awaiting the answer.
In the end she handled this the same way she handle everything. Directly.
“You’re pretty bad.”
Alykon looked like a kid that had just been told they couldn’t have any dessert. Makom rolled his eyes behind her and Dathon just shook his head. Orsal was the only one who didn’t seem to be upset about it.
“I told you, Aly. There’s a reason we’ve never won a game,” Dathon said.
“Wait, never?” Rainbow Dash questioned.
“We’re kind of in last place in our division,” Makom said.
Orsal shrugged. “I’ve never seen any reason to get depressed over it.”
“Most of the junior division isn’t very good anyways,” Dathon said. “Every team is pretty much around the same bad level as us.”
“Well that’s… good?” Rainbow Dash tilted her head as she dropped the ball and let herself go down to the ground too. “I guess with just a little help you might be able to start beating your opponents and everything. Maybe it isn’t as bad as I thought. A good coach could go a really long way in the first place.”
“Sorry we aren’t better,” Alykon said. She looked like the only one who was still really bummed out after hearing what Rainbow Dash said and the reality of their situation coming to light. She couldn’t meet Rainbow Dash’s eyes and was kicking at the dirt of the court.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. You didn’t just drag me out here to show me off to your friends, you wanted me to help you out too and that’s what I’m gonna do, count on it!” Dash reassured her.
“Thanks… er, sorry I didn’t tell you at first how bad we were. I guess I was kind of hoping everything would just work out,” Alykon said.
Rainbow Dash thought over the very poor display of Trunkball she had just seen. “Yeahhh, don’t think that was ever gonna happen.”
“So what do we do?” Makom asked.
“We don’t have a game until a week after the spring festival at least. That’s plenty of time for practice,” Dathon said.
“You guys don’t need to worry about anything. I’ll handle it,” Rainbow Dash said. “Just listen to me and I can coach you through it. First thing’s first: exercise. Before you all just start practicing I want you to exercise every morning. That means push-ups, sit-ups, running, lifting weights, whatever. You’re going to get plenty of exercise to get in the best shape of your lives. And then you’re not just gonna run around the court like a bunch of headless chickens either! You’ll alternate between practicing on offense and defense, do you even have set roles at all?”
Alykon shook her head. “No, whoever wants to play whatever position on that day just plays it.”
“Well then we’ll figure out who’s the best suited for what and make it work,” Rainbow Dash nodded, thinking. “After a few practice games we should be able to tell which of you should be dedicated defense and dedicated offense.”
“I wanna be on offense!” Orsal said, raising his trunk high into the air.
Dash grinned. “Okay, we can try you out there first. And next up, I’ll play some games with you too so you can test yourselves against a real athlete.” She finished that up with proudly puffing out her chest.
“How are you going to play?” Dathon raised an eyebrow at her. “The ball is as big as you are, you have to dribble it, and if you wanted you could just fly out of our reach.”
“Well we can make some special rules for me? Like I can’t fly higher than the poles, and I still have to dribble it like you do even though that’ll be tough depending on how high I am. And don’t worry about the size of the ball, I’m strong enough to carry it easy,” Dash said.
“I think playing against her could give us some good experience,” Makom said.
“Me too. Maybe we could even figure out some kind of new strategy or way of playing with Rainbow Dash’s help?” Alykon suggested.
Orsal just looked up as he wracked his brain before looking at his teammates. “I just think it’ll be cool playing with her.”
Dathon shrugged, not like he was really against it from the start anyways. “Alright, I suppose it’s something we should be happy about considering who you are.”
“Great!” Dash said and flew up above their heads. “First order of business—give me twenty laps around this park! Go, go, go!”
Her commands rang out across the court and the four mammoths were quickly whipped up into activity, seeing how serious the blue pony was about coaching them. Today she was going to run them until they were sweating and collapsing in exhaustion. After all, Rainbow Dash demanded the best from everybody. And as she saw how they started to struggle not even halfway through their running she knew her work was going to be cut out for her too. But that was fine, Rainbow Dash loved a challenge too.
“I really wish I had a whistle...” she grinned at the running mammoths.