//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: The Tournament // by CORACK //------------------------------// It was a warm, sunny Saturday morning in Ponyville. There wasn't a cloud in the sky because for once Dash had woken up early. She was glad she did, there was a mix up with the weather schedule and what should have taken her an hour, took almost three as she fought to clear a storm that had no business being in Ponyville. Still, it was good work, and she wasn't going to let the bad start ruin the day. Today was the day of the big tournament after all! She hummed to herself happily as she flew towards Rarity's boutique. It was just about a year ago when Rainbow had first been introduced to competitive crossbow shooting. Twilight had been looking for something to do with Shining Armor for his birthday and Cadance had mentioned he enjoyed watching archery competitions and suggested she take him to one. She looked into it and found out that there was going to be a small tournament just outside of Canterlot the week after his birthday, so she picked up two tickets asked him if he'd like to go. Shining had been thrilled, he thanked Twilight profusely and she was looking forward to getting to spend to spend some time with her BBBFF. Unfortunately, the night before the tournament, Twilight got a letter from Cadance informing her that Shining had come down with a nasty cold. He wasn't going to be able to make the tournament. Twilight was devastated, and she kicked herself for not having spent more time studying healing magic in the past. Still there was nothing to be done now, even if she knew a spell to cure Shining quickly, it would take too long to get all the way up to the Crystal Empire and back again. She decided to go to the tournament anyway since she had already bought the tickets, and since she had a spare she invited Rainbow Dash. While she was sad Shining hadn't been able to come, she ended up enjoying the tournament anyway, but Rainbow had loved it. Her favorite event was the crossbow competition. In fact she liked it so much that after the competition she snuck into the player area so she could talk to the winner of the 30 yard match, a pegasus by the name of Sureshot. Fortunately for Rainbow, Sureshot had see her perform the sonic rainboom at the Best Young Flyer Competition and was a fan. He promised to answer any questions she had about crossbow shooting for a private demo of her latest stunts. That suited Dash just fine, and she took to the skies. After the demo, she asked Sureshot about a hundred different questions and ended up picking up a crossbow of her own the very next day. Rainbow thought back to the first time she had gone out with her crossbow and laughed. She had invited all the girls to come with her to Ponyville's local range figuring they could make a day of it. She hadn't really expected Rarity to show up, figuring the normally frou-frou pony to have no interest in shooting a crossbow which is what made the end result of the day so funny. ##### Steady Aim looked at the group of mares standing in front of him, the grey unicorn had never seen any of them before. "So have any of you been here before?" he asked. "Nope, this is our first time here," Rainbow said. "Ok, do you know what you are planning on shooting today, and do you need to rent any equipment?" "Well, I brought my own crossbow, I figured we could all take turns with it," Rainbow said. "But I've never used it before, so if you have any pointers..." "Sure thing but first let me go over the rules." Steady Aim took time going over the various rules of the range. Then he walked the group over to the 10 yard range and showed the group how to load Dash's crossbow, how to aim and demonstrated a few shots. "You girls can start here, once you get the hang of it you can try the longer ranges." The group stepped up one at a time. Dash managed to get 8 of the 10 bolts onto the target, with the rest of the ponies hitting between 4 and 6. All except for Rarity, she didn't make a single hit. Steady Aim walked over and offered a few more pointers. "Do you girls mind if I try again?" Rarity asked. "Go for it Rarity!" Pinkie said with a big smile. "Good luck" Fluttershy whispered. Rarity brought the crossbow up, she looked at the target, took aim and fired, missing the target completely. Not ready to give up, she loaded another bolt. She went through eight of the nine remaining bolts and missed every single shot. Frustrated she set the crossbow down and stomped a hoof on the ground. "I can't get the hang of this silly thing, I'd be better off without it!" She levitated the last bolt into the air, took aim and tossed it as hard as she could. She turned around and started to walk away, not even bothering to see if it had landed. "Sweet Celestia!" Rainbow Dash said. Rarity turned around to see what all the other ponies were staring at. Looking at the target, she saw why. The bolt she threw had landed in the absolute dead center of the bullseye. Even Dash's best shot had been two rings out from the center. Even Steady Aim looked impressed. He walked over to her. "Normally we ask guests to not throw anything but that was one heck of a throw. Care to try it again?" "I guess so," Rarity said with a shrug. She went and grabbed the bolts and stood back at the firing line. Taking careful aim she went through all ten of the bolts. Ten throws and she got five bullseyes. The rest of the throws were pretty close to center as well. "Miss, do you by any chance play darts?" Steady Aim asked. "No, I can't say that I ever have," Rarity said. Steady Aim explained the game, telling Rarity that the club had a friendly little team dart competition every Saturday in the clubhouse. The darts were smaller then crossbow bolts, and the board was closer but he wondered if she wanted to try it out after the group was done shooting. She accepted the invitation and later afternoon the girls made their way to the clubhouse. Rarity turned out to be a natural. Her years of using magic to work on dresses had left her with fine control with her levitation abilities. It turned out that Steady Aim needed a new partner, so for the last year, every Saturday Rainbow and Rarity headed to the club, Rainbow to practice with her crossbow, while Rarity played darts with some of the club regulars.