The Pride of Racing

by Rebel Brony

Chapter 2

“He’s going to kill us.” Rolling Thunder said, shocked by Slide’s tale. They sat at a table in Rolling Thunder’s house, which was more like a shack. The kitchen was a small corner in the living room, dimly lit and barely big enough for the two stallions. There was a small window, showing the front yard. The living room itself was barely wide enough for company. A small door was the only entrance to the only other actual room ,the bedroom, and it was surprising that a pony could get in there, let alone sleep. The ‘house’ was all Rolling Thunder could afford. He was happy to have a permanent settlement, something to call his own. He had been trying to get High Slide to buy a house and settle down in Ponyville. High Slide, however, hasn’t had a permanent home since he was but a young colt, preferring to travel and race whenever he had the chance.

They had been silent for a moment, then Slide spoke, “ Well it’s not a particularly good move in my book either; but we don’t have much choice. Besides, if we quit what would we do?”
“Form a union, but we both know how that would turn out. Come on we have to go.”

They walked out onto the street and headed towards Berry Punch’s house. When they arrived, they knocked on the door and heard somepony say they were coming, when the door opened, there stood a surprised Berry. “I wasn’t expecting you guys here! Come in. Come in.” The two entered and upon looking around, they saw breakfast laid out on the table. “Are you two hungry?” Berry inquired.

“Yes! I’m starving,” Thunder announced, “we just came to ask if you wanted to come watch the qualifiers, but I’m sure we have time to stop and have breakfast.”

“ I suppose we could stay and visit for a little while, it still is rather early,” Slide said, thoughtfully.

“Unfortunately, we have some bad news,” Thunder said.

“When is it ever good news?” Berry asked rhetorically. Slide began to tell Berry about the incident last night. He explained how he had shown the lavender unicorn his car and how they ran into Mr. Stakes. Then he told her about the car he is now supposed to drive and why it was a catastrophe waiting to happen. He concluded that just finishing the race in a single, living, piece would be a miracle.

Berry stared at a wall for an awfully long time lost in thought. These two stallions were practically her family. She couldn’t think about losing either of them. She remembered how they helped her so many years ago on a dark and stormy night, what could have happened, what almost did happen. She was scared for her life and of what would happen to her daughter if those wretched stallions, who wanted to forcibly take advantage of the mare, had succeeded.

She wasn’t going to let it be easy and fought as hard as she could to keep them from doing what they wanted. Then one stallion put a knife to her throat and attempted to start his assault, but a kick to the knocked the stallion to the ground when a pegasus swooped down and attacked another stallion before he knew what hit him. A cowardly third stallion ran for the hills after seeing his friends dropped so easily. Berry didn’t know who was helping her, in fact, she barely registered what happened, she sat and tried to process what happened; she was in shock and scared beyond reason. All she knew a minute ago, was that she was about to be assaulted. But, who had saved her and how did she survive. “Angels.” she whispered, one of the ‘angels’ heard this and decided it best if they took her to the hospital.

When they arrived the pegasus went straight to the front desk in a rush. “Nurse, we need to get help immediately!” the pegasus said with a sense of urgency.

“What happened?” asked the obviously worried nurse.

“She was almost raped by a group of stallions.” the stallion said. Crime in Ponyville was a very rare thing and almost unheard of. The nurse immediately paged a few doctors who took Berry and rushed her to the ER. She thanked Celestia that she survived and she became good friends with the ponies that helped her, but now, she felt she had to help them in whatever way she could.

“Berry, Berry, earth to Berry come in. Hello? Can you he-” the navy pegasus began, but got cut off by an enraged Berry.

“Of course I can hear you! Can a mare not think!?” she yelled at the top of her lungs.

“Sorry.” Rolling Thunder squeaked apologetically. Slide couldn’t help but chuckle. He always got a good laugh around those two. However, there was something he didn’t understand, he had two amazing friends, both of whom he was lucky to have, but he still felt lonely. He has never understood why that is, he didn’t have any known relatives that were still alive. But, he knew that wasn’t it. “So what is it?” as he thought to himself his thoughts flew towards the lavender unicorn, “Could that be it? If it is, then perhaps I should think about having a long term relationship with somepony. That can wait till later. Right now I have more urgent matters to attend to.”

Slide got up and thanked Berry for the food. He told his friends that he was going for a walk. As he walked he noticed a green stallion approaching him, Slide recognized him as an acquaintance whom he had met a few weeks ago. His name was Fighting Chance and he was an earth pony slightly larger normal, but still fairly average looking. He had green coat and a short- cut black mane. His tail was short, but not by much.Finally,he had a cutie mark of a boxing glove. He was being followed by a unicorn colt that had no relation to him, but apparently Chance took him in for an undisclosed reason. The colt was of average size for a pony his age. He had a black coat and blue mane. his tail was cropped and unlike the older stallion he had no cutie mark. “Hello High Slide, how're ya?” Chance greeted, with a smile.

“Oh, I’m fine. Have you managed to find a house yet?” Slide asked, in attempt to start a conversation.

“Well, we have a small apartment. But, we have a long way ta go.” Fighting Chance was not from Ponyville, but he was very well educated and could talk decently enough. But he still had a lot to learn.

“How are you, Thunderstruck?” Slide asked. Thunderstruck, a shy colt, did his best to muster up a response.”F-Fine, S-Sir.” the colt stuttered, he and his guardian was still getting used to things in Ponyville. Both of them were planning to attend the race, so they both hoped to get a little more social there. The three stallions decided to walk to the park.

There were several ponies already there. The stallions walked onto the path that led to a small clearing. Upon their arrival, Thunderstruck ran off of the path and into the open field and proceeded to smell the flowers.

“He can be so hilarious ta watch sometimes. Never once have I doubted my decision ta take ‘im in.” Chance chuckled, he couldn’t help but smile.

“Yes, but why did you take him in?” Slide asked curiously. Fighting Chance took a moment to respond. The answer was simple, getting it out was the hard part.

“Well, ah suppose ah should start from tha beginning. Ya see, ah’m from a ways off close ta tha outskirts of Equestria. There it is almost impossible ta find a decent pony and tha border clashes get fierce. But, tha real problem is gangs and radicals. Thunderstruck’s parents were killed in their home by a militant. However, they had me keep ‘im so he could be safe. They were good ponies, I met ‘em at a really tough point in mah life.” the green stallion finished.

“I suppose it was a good thing they gave him to you.” Slide responded, he couldn’t help but feel sympathetic for them.

“Yeah, I love ‘im as if he were mah brother. Son, if you’re willing to say that.” Chance said, he was a little different from some ponies in a few respects. He was kind of emotional and sometimes just seemed distant. High Slide couldn’t help but think there was more to the story than what he had been told. But he wasn’t going to ask anymore questions after all they were still a long way from being friends. They sat there and watched the sky for what seemed like forever. Neither said a word as they watched the colt investigate his surroundings. He seemed to be in his own world, where there was no pain and suffering, only joy and happiness. However, every daydream is doomed to be interrupted by reality.

“Scootaloo, watch out!” However, the warning came too late as a blur of black and orange went tumbling across the field for a few feet.

“Sorry, I should have been more careful,” said the pegasus filly,” my name’s Scootaloo, by the way. What’s yours?”

“Umm, h-hello my name is umm...Th-Thunderstruck.” the colt mustered up the reply, which took a lot of courage for him. He wasn’t used to talking to other foals his age, much less a filly. They sat there for a moment unsure of what to say. Finally, Scootaloo spoke.

“You must be new around here, where are you from?” Scootaloo asked.

“I’m from a town called Jackstallion.” The colt responded.

“Where is that?” The filly asked, curiously. The colt thought about that for a moment , he couldn’t quite remember where it was. Fighting Chance and himself had seemed to move from place to place for a while.

“I-Its a l-long way from here, b-but I’m not s-sure where.” The colt had spoken as if he had forgotten his life before Ponyville. In truth, he couldn’t remember much about himself or where he came from. He knew his parents died just not how. He also assumed he may have left behind a few friends as well. He was smarter than most foals his age, but just as naive. He believed that the reason for his parents deaths was an accident and nopony was to blame. However, he did not know that Fighting Chance had lied out of fear of the young colt being scared for life. Chance had an issue with paranoia it seemed he was getting better. However, he still had a lot to work on.

Meanwhile, High Slide had said good-bye to Chance while he was on his way to check on Thunderstruck. Slide realized he was running late, he had to hurry to be there on time. He ran threw the streets of Ponyville. Slide was dodging ponies left and right. He was running so fast he did not see the pony in front of him. They both fell over and tumbled to the ground.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you there.” High Slide wondered who he had run into. He saw a black stallion with a white mane and the cutie mark of a notepad. “Oh, its fine, it happens.” The stallion smiled. He then noticed who he was talking to,”Your name is High Slide, right?”

“Yes,sir.” Slide said, as professionally as he could muster. He surprisingly wasn’t used to having somepony recognize him automatically as he was not a popular driver among the crowd and even though he assumed he had fans, he never met many of them. Most of the ponies he met were just ponies that had bet on him or wanted to get him to sponsor them. he had won a few races, but none of them were very big victories.

“You don’t mind if I ask you for an autograph, do you?” the stallion asked.”No, I don’t.” High Slide responded. “I know a colt who told me he wanted to be like you one day.” Slide seemed surprised by the complement, but he nodded and signed the picture. “That colt should find a better role model.” The white stallion thought, as he walked away towards the V.I.P. entrance.