Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego

by MagicS

A Mammoth of a Problem XX

Rainbow Dash flew above the Trunkball court and watched as Alykon and her teammates scrimmaged against another team. As expected the other team wasn’t very good either but they were still a little better than Alykon’s team even after the training Rainbow Dash had put them through. So that was something that still needed work. There was certainly improvement in her team’s play thanks to Rainbow Dash’s coaching but there was also certainly room for much more.

At the moment Orsal and Dathon were on offense while Alykon and Makom handled defense. With them having real positions to focus on they had been able to make practice much more efficient. These positions weren’t completely certain but depending on how this scrimmage and maybe their first game or two went they could become permanent.

One of the mammoths on the other team got their trunk on the ball after a bit of a fumble by Dathon, they quickly dribbled past him and passed to another of their teammates on offense. Rainbow Dash nodded as she watched, time to see how Alykon and Makom handled the sudden attack.

Considering the opponent with the ball ran right between them while they ran into each other—not very well.

“Ugh,” Rainbow Dash shook her head and dragged a hoof down her face.

Down below the opposing team scored an easy dunk and two points.

Rainbow Dash flew down to collect the ball while the others got back into position. She was also working as the ref for this game, after convincing the other team that she could be impartial. Which meant that she’d have to keep any words of encouragement for Alykon’s team to herself at the moment.

“Ten to four now,” Rainbow Dash said as she grabbed the ball and flew in-between the four mammoths playing offense. Once she was sure they were ready she tossed it up into the air and backed away.

They had agreed to only play until one team got twenty points instead of going a full hour. So the opposing team was already halfway there and Rainbow Dash was not exactly confident in her team’s chances. At least Orsal was able to grab the ball first and take it into enemy territory. He had good moves but no coordination and he seemed to get lost in his own playing, forgetting where his teammates were and not thinking about anything other than scoring. Strategy was a foreign concept to him. Dathon on the other hoof didn’t have a lot of confidence, as opposed to when he trained with his friends, in a game like this he would freeze up and hesitate sometimes.

And even with all that they were still better suited for offense than defense. Go figure.

Alykon’s problems on defense were she got too aggressive whenever someone else with the ball came near and was liable to feints and tricks. Makom was just plain too slow.

All things that had easy enough fixes at least. Once this game finished, Rainbow Dash would have them running and doing push-ups until they dropped and then work out some specialized exercises and training for the four of them. Yep, she’d whip this team into fighting shape no doubt.

Orsal then had the ball stolen from him and the defending mammoth tossed it to one of his teammates on offense—who then of course proceeded to dance around Makom and make an easy shot into the basket.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. Eleven to four now.

“Give me a second,” she said as she flew down for the ball. Well at least this is still good practice, right?

---

“Okay, so a final score of twenty to eight. Could be worse,” Rainbow Dash said to Alykon and her teammates as they stood around the court after finishing the scrimmage. “But it could, and should, also be a lot better.”

“It sort of just got away from us,” Alykon said in embarrassment.

“Well yeah, you guys aren’t playing as a team. You need to be aware of your teammates at all times. This isn’t a one on one game, that’s your major problem. They beat you so bad cause they were passing to each other and had a real game plan. You guys were only thinking about what you individually were doing at any given time,” Rainbow told them.

“And another issue with that is we all had our own problems,” Makom said.

Rainbow nodded. “At least you’re aware of that.”

“So what now?” Dathon asked.

“There’s a lot of stuff to go over but after your normal runs that I’m gonna put you through the first thing we’re gonna deal with is awareness. You’re going to learn how to pass the ball back and forth to each other as quickly and efficiently as possible while I run interference and try to block you and take the ball away, got it?” Rainbow asked.

“Got it,” Alykon and the others said in unison.

“Good. Cause after that I’m going to work individually with each of you to work out your problems. Alykon, you’re so focused on the ball you’re not paying attention to what your opponent is doing or where his teammates are. Makom, you need to react faster, everything you do is too slow right now. Dathon, stop acting like your opponent is going to punch you in the face if your dribble the ball past them. And Orsal, you need to just pay more attention to everything,” she told all of them.

“I know, but I really like dribbling the ball, it’s mesmerizing,” Orsal said.

Rainbow Dash shook her head. “Ugh, look, we’ll figure out a way to deal with that.”

“Sorry… I just get nervous playing against others… and thinking of what it would be like playing in front of my parents and a bunch of strangers,” Dathon said, looking queasier with each word.

“Er, we’ll fix that too!” Rainbow Dash reassured him. “You just need some of the same kind of confidence that I have! Don’t worry, I’ve helped plenty of friends with stuff like that. You just gotta believe in yourself and know you can do it.”

“I guess...” Dathon shuffled about.

He wasn’t quite as bad as Fluttershy could be but he didn’t exactly do too well when things were important. He crumbled. Maybe that was why he had a fairly pessimistic view of things the first time they met.

“I’ll try and pay more attention to what Makom is doing on defense too, maybe we can cover each other?” Alykon said.

“That’d be a good start but you also need to keep in mind all of the other players on the other team. There isn’t just one mammoth on offense. You get tunnel-vision on the guy directly in front of you and you were faked out a bunch of times this game, you’ve gotta read your opponents better,” Dash told her.

Alykon nodded along to everything she said, at least she was eager to learn and would actually take the criticism to heart. She knew Dash only meant well too. “Thank you.”

“And I’ll um… run faster?” Makom shrugged.

Rainbow Dash snorted. “You’ll do everything faster, dude. Your throws, your blocks, your pivots, you need to speed it all up.”

“I’ll try,” he sagged, making it look like what she was suggesting was akin to torture.

“No, you won’t try, you’ll do,” Rainbow told him. “I believe in all of you, hard work and a little practice is all you four need.”

The four teammates looked between each other, Alykon was grinning widely and it seemed her positivity rubbed off on the others as they finally returned the smile and looked up at Rainbow Dash with confidence. Maybe this little pep talk had already helped them out. Only time could tell, they’d have a real game pretty soon. But first things first—work still needed to be done.

“Alright that’s enough standing around,” Rainbow Dash grinned and pointed her hoof to the far side of the park. “Give me twenty sprints to there and back! Now!”

Comments

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

Great chapter!

[superfun]

I wonder if this is going to surpass True Pegasus in terms of chapter numbers.