Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego

by MagicS

True Pegasus XIV

It was a normal day of training for Rainbow Dash and her squad and the seven ponies were currently in the mess hall at their regular table chowing down on a big lunch of oats and grits. The morning routine had pretty much passed by in a flash with running, weight-lifting, sparring, and your normal exercises like push-ups and wing push-ups leading to all of them building up a huge appetite. The hundred or two hundred ponies in the mess hall at the moment all felt the same way and the sounds of them loudly guzzling down their food almost made it impossible for Rainbow Dash to hear herself think. It didn’t help that Clear Skies was sitting right next to her and he was the loudest of them all, practically inhaling a bowl of milk and oats. It was like watching Twilight eat hayburgers.

“Did you guys hear from the sergeants what we’ll be doing after lunch? I want to get more flight practice in,” Rainbow Dash asked the whole table.

“I didn’t hear nothing,” Fierce Current shrugged, the red pony not even taking his eyes off the grits beneath him.

Wild Wind then cleared his throat to grab the attention of everyone. “Actually, speaking of that, there’s something different going on today that Lt. Moon told me about. I was going to wait until we all finished eating until I told you.”

“What is it?” Summer Rains asked as the others leaned in.

“As it turns out, the officers are having a meeting today, I was not informed as to what the meeting is about but it leaves us with essentially a free schedule for the rest of the afternoon. The Lieutenant suggested using it to do our normal exercises but essentially we could train or practice anything we wanted,” the corporal informed them.

“Well then I’m flying,” Rainbow Dash stated.

“Whatever we do we should stay together as a squad,” Wild Wind said. “I don’t think anyone will have a problem with flying though? Whether it be the obstacle course or practicing maneuvers.”

The corporal looked around the rest of the table to see if anyone dissented but no one spoke up. It looked like their squad would be heading up into the clouds once they finished their lunch. A thought then occurred to Rainbow Dash, if the officers were busy and weren’t going to be around, did they really have to do anything? Who was watching? They could take a break for the rest of the afternoon and she could just nap and who would bother her about it?

“Uh, actually… do you guys just not want to do anything?” Rainbow Dash asked the others.

“What do you mean?” Summer Rains asked, fixing her with a questioning look.

“These guys run us ragged every day. Why not just take a little break?” Dash shrugged. “Just have some fun and mess around instead.”

“I’d be up for that,” Flashbolt muttered as he swallowed down a mouthful of grits.

Skychaser on the other hoof wasn’t so sure. His face knit up and he ran an uncomfortable hoof through his mane. “I don’t know… we’d probably get in trouble if anyone found out we didn’t do any sort of training.”

“And what would we even do?” Clear Skies asked Dash. “Just lying around doesn’t really appeal to me.”

Rainbow Dash sighed and sat back. She should’ve known they wouldn’t be as up for just taking a nap somewhere like she was. “Okay, just give me a second. What do you guys really do for fun around here? Besides watching fights.” She glanced at Clear Skies.

He immediately closed his mouth.

“There isn’t exactly much to do really. Aside from compete with each other,” Fierce Current said.

“Competing huh?” Rainbow Dash leaned back in her seat and looked up at the ceiling. “If only you guys had Buckball up here...”

“What’s Buckball?” Wild Wind asked, confused.

Rainbow Dash grinned and tilted her head back. “Only the greatest game to ever come out of Equestria!”

That made the corporal just a little bit nervous and he frowned as he looked around at the nearest table to make sure no one else heard Rainbow Dash say that. “I’m not sure we should be talking about it then. Much less playing it. In fact we should just hurry up and eat our lunches and then we can get back out onto the training clouds.”

“Oh come on!” Rainbow Dash pleaded. “We’re not doing anything else and it’s literally perfect, look, it takes two teams of three to play and there are six of you! You guys can play and I’ll instruct and coach you. And it’s really easy to learn and everything, all you need is a bouncy ball and two buckets. Come on, let’s try it!”

Fierce, Clear Skies, Flashbolt, and Summer Rains looked like they might be a little interested but Wild Wind and Skychaser weren’t as enthusiastic and none of them looked like they were all in on it. Even the more adventurous ones were kind of worried of what could happen if they got caught playing a game from Equestria.

“I really don’t think we should,” Wild Wind shook his head.

“But I coach Buckball back home, and it’s still something that requires physical exercise. We’d still be getting a workout by playing,” she tried to convince him.

“How do you play it?” Clear Skies asked her.

Rainbow Dash smiled at him. “Okay, well traditionally you play with a pegasus, a unicorn, and an earth pony but-”

“Stop!” Wild Wind put up a hoof. “I’m sorry Rainbow Dash but I have to stop you right there. Are you saying this is a sport that is played using a member from each tribe and not just pegasi?”

“Er, yeahhh...” she let her eyes wander away from him.

“And not just that but the pegasus, unicorn, and earth pony are supposed to work together on the same team? Is that correct?” He continued.

Rainbow Dash winced. “Uhh… maybe?”

Wild Wind sighed deeply. “I’m sorry but I can’t let us play this game then. We’ll get in more than just a little bit of trouble if one of the officers catches us. I think you can understand why but Commander Blizzard would not be happy to learn about this Buckball game. It’s bad enough that it’s a sport from Equestria, but one that utilizes earth ponies and unicorns? He’d see it as dissent, a subversion of society.”

“Well you don’t have to play it like that. Three pegasi could easily do everything you need,” Rainbow Dash said with a roll of her eyes.

“Regardless, I can’t give the go ahead on this,” the corporal shook his head at her. Although he had proven to be an amicable and understanding enough pony, Rainbow Dash could see the hard look in his eyes that said this was no longer up for debate.

“Maybe we could always just invent a game of our own? We have the free time today,” Flashbolt said, his face bored. “Perhaps for reference, Rainbow could at least tell us about Buckball?”

Rainbow Dash grinned. Heh, nice one, Flash.

Skychaser shot his cousin a disapproving look but Flashbolt merely began to whistle innocently. The horrible off-tune whistling that was supposed to be nonchalant made Fierce Current and Clear Skies laugh, Rainbow too couldn’t help but snicker a bit.

“I don’t know about this...” Wild Wind frowned.

“I don't think it’s a problem if we’re just getting ideas from her. As long as we aren’t playing the exact game meant for all tribes of ponies,” Summer Rains interjected. He tried to sound all unbiased and logical but Rainbow could see the glint in his eyes. The others likely saw it too.

“Great! Let me tell you how it works!” Rainbow Dash slammed a hoof down on their table and said before one of the naysayers could say anything. “Okay, so like I said you need teams of three, that’s the first part. And you don’t need like, a court or anything, you just need some open space really. Uhh… there are three positions on a team, an attacker, a defender, and a catcher. The attacker is the one who—okay wait—maybe I should talk about the equipment first. You need two buckets and a bouncy rubber ball to play. Everyone following me so far?”

A chorus of meager “Yeahs” and “Uh-huhs” came from the other soldiers at her table. Rainbow decided that was probably the best she was going to get and continued on with her explanation of how to play Buckball.

“So anyways, the attacker will use the ball to try and score. You can throw it or bounce it or buck it or whatever to try and get it into your bucket, which is held by your team’s catcher. That’s what the catcher tries to do, catch his team’s ball in the bucket when it’s thrown by the attacker. But! What makes the game more difficult and intense and everything is the defender. Now his role is to block the ball from going in the opposing team’s bucket. So they’ll be flying around around the catcher’s bucket and trying to hit the ball away after the attacker throws it back to their own attacker so he can score.”

Fierce Current raised a hoof. “I think I’m confused.”

“Yeah, the defender blocks the ball from going in the enemy’s bucket? So he’s always going to be in-between the attacker and the catcher on the enemy team?” Clear Skies asked.

Rainbow Dash nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. Uhh… let me try to explain better. Try to picture that you were playing.” She grabbed a few of the plates and bowls on the table and gathered them up in front of her, using them to symbolize the six players that would be playing a game of Buckball. She pointed to one plate that was set up between two others. “So your defender will stay around the enemy team’s bucket and catcher. They’ll block and deflect balls thrown by the opposing attacker and try to send them to his team’s attacker. Got it?”

“More or less,” Fierce answered for the group.

“Just one question,” Summer Rains said. “Does the one holding the bucket have to stay in the same spot?”

Dash shook her head. “No, he can go wherever he needs to get the ball from the attacker in.”

“That could actually make the game quite a hectic and exhausting experience,” Flashbolt mused.

“You know it, some Buckball games get crazy competitive,” Raindow Dash grinned.

“Well we wont be playing one personally to find out,” Wild Wind stated. “After all this entire conversation has only been to hypothetically help us play a game of our own in the future. Correct?” He narrowed his eyes at the ponies under his command.

“Yeah, yeah...” Rainbow rolled her eyes and went back to despondently eating her lunch. She really wished she could’ve started a Buckball game with them, and then maybe an entire league with the rest of the barracks and other soldiers on the base. That would’ve been awesome! And it would’ve been just the kind of thing this city needed, a sport from Equestria, and one where you need to work together really well and that was made for ponies of different tribes. Rainbow Dash really hoped she could open these guys up some more so they could play Buckball together in the future.

“So we still haven’t decided how to actually spend our afternoon,” Clear Skies mentioned.

Wild Wind gave a small shrug as he continued to eat as well. “We’ll go flying up through the obstacle course and work on flying in our squad formation too.”

It was at least better than doing more push-ups to Rainbow Dash. Or worse, running. If Wild Wind was set on making them do some real training and exercise while their officers did who knows what then at least she could take some enjoyment from the fact that they’d be flying.

Rainbow Dash gulped down the rest of her oats at once and waited for the others to finish. Skychaser looked a little uncomfortable through the rest of the meal but he didn’t say anything, a bit out of character for one who liked to talk so much but Rainbow Dash knew he didn’t like when something was brought up that was against the Empire’s traditions or that Blizzard wouldn’t like. Soon enough the others had had their fill and the squad of seven left the mess hall. It was a shame that Dash knew some of them would’ve enjoyed playing Buckball or learning more about Equestria but that had been shot down. A frown tightened on her face, she’d figure out how to get them to play Buckball somewhere down the road.

Comments

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

Great chapter!

When is Rainbow Dash going to begin speaking about a Equestria to the Pegasi of the Empire despite the rules being set in place?

It’s like to them the penalty for speaking or hearing such things is death. What are the consequences for such things as that?

[MagicS]

10451631
Rainbow Dash isn't afraid of speaking her mind but she knows the others would be punished if anyone found out and she's not the type who'd want others hurt because of her actions. Blizzard wants as many soldiers as possible so he wouldn't put any to death but they'd likely be temporarily imprisoned and their families be punished in some way as well. They might also have to go through a coliseum fight against Blizzard himself to beat the ideals of the Empire back into them.

When is Rainbow Dash going to begin speaking about a Equestria to the Pegasi of the Empire despite the rules being set in place?

Perhaps something will happen that will change things...