This Ball Pit Holds 17,000 Guaranteed Mandatory Fun Spheres
When you are a filly in Cloudsdale in the nineties and your mom and dad want to have some quiet time without having to bother with a babysitter, there's only one place to go: WonderZone. It was "where foals wanna go!," as every colt and filly knew by heart; most could even sing the radio jingle when the topic of being left behind came up. It was an arcade par excallance. Upon entering, Mom and Dad climbed through old wooden doors to cool their heels to the sound of smooth jazz on the second floor while pretending not to fret about their rambunctious children down below. But foals were given a "WonderPass" - a tight plastic strap around the hoof - and left the wood and concrete foyer behind to enter the colorful Danger Maze, a path of brightly colored tubes and inflated rooms that ultimately ended in a three-story slide - leaving the boring real world behind and entering a magical new world of "amazement and joy" (a phrase which also came from the radio jingle).
Rainbow Dash, who was totally the coolest pony in Cloudsdale – talk to her friends, she made certain they agreed – exited the slide; the acrylic cover to the slide kept her from flying out like she would have preferred, but the tumble across the padded “adventure crag” (cleverly designed to split up groups of high-speed rolling ponies so heads wouldn’t collide) sent her tail over teakettle and laying on her back, giggling, while looking upside down at the new zone of wonder she had entered.
Near her, there was the arcade; fillies and colts were lined up in front of each machine, the glint of flashing pinballs shining in their eyes, trying their best to make the ill-repaired flippers bounce the ball into just the right sweet spot. Beyond that was the squirt gun room, where fillies chased each other through darkened mazes to give each other a zot on the flank with freezing cold water. On the other side of her upside down head was the rumpus rooms, where ponies bounced to their hearts’ content, and collided no small bit. A bit farther off was the tube chase, where you could climb from ground level to the ceiling in a maze of primary colors. And deep in the heart of that tube chase was her goal, sparkling like the rainbow. Staggering up, Rainbow Dash scampered for her destination.
She was a great flyer, but the cramped tunnels was hardly enough to spread her wings, so she had to climb. She vaguely remembered the pattern – from the ground level, the tubes were mostly red and blue, but changed to purple and orange then green and yellow as you got higher and higher – so as she climbed inside a spiral tube (rolling over a small unicorn colt in the process), the sudden transition from orange to blue confused her.
“I’ll never get out of here – oh wait there’s the cargo nets.”
This room was a huge pit, separated from the rest of the store by nets. There were two ways to progress from the tubes to the games beyond: either climb the cargo nets down, take the long way around through the baffle mats, and slowly climb a cargo net up – or hazard the spinny climby cylinders, transferring from one climbing pole to another, until she reached the raised platform.
Or, as a pegasus, she could just fly. And that’s what she did, a few flaps taking her around the climbing cylinders and over the baffle walls and to the raised platform at the other end.
“Cheater!” called one unicorn filly, making a serpentine sprint through the baffle walls; “Spoilsport!” called an earth pony colt, who had spent the better part of ten minutes just clinging to the middle climbing cylinder, trying to time how to transfer to the next. Ignoring their cries, Rainbow Dash did a spin and bowed in mid-air.
“And that’s a little thing I like to call, winning,” she crowed to her just that much slower peers, as she finally climbed the rope to the final edge. And there – there – was the target of all her fillyhood dreams.
Below her, tiny spheres were splayed out as far as the eye could see, in every color of the rainbow and a few more as well. The entire room was inside a larger climbing wall, which allowed dirty balls to be rolled out through a Rube Goldeberg-esque cleaning contraption, only to be shuffled into an escalator and poured back in from random holes in the ceiling. This was no mere playplace; WonderZone’s infamous Endless Ball Fountain was a kinetic sculpture of endless color and motion. Something in it spoke to her. It called to her. It dared her…
“CANNONBALL!”
It practically begged her to splash balls all over.
Of course, plastic balls don’t flow like water. As she hit the surface, the surface hit her back, and the little filly bounced back into the air, flipping tail over teakettle for the second time that day. Only this time, having been sufficiently chastised by the laws of physics, did she slip under the little plastic spheres once she hit the surface. As Rainbow Dash sank, the tiny little globes pressed in all over her – and she wriggled back. This was it. This was where she belonged-
“Uhm, h-hi-?”
Also, it seemed to be where other kids belonged, too.
“Hey,” Rainbow Dash said as she got back to wading level, looking around. “I’m Rainbow Dash! And you are…?” As she whirled, she tried to make out a pony, but all she heard was a squeak. “Hey, where are you?”
“Down here.”
Rainbow Dash soon realized that one of the ‘balls’ in the pit was, in fact, a yellow hoof. Parting the sea of color below her, she saw that that hoof was attached to a small filly with pink hair and a nervous bite to her lip.
“Hey, what’re you doing down there?”
“Hiding,” the smaller filly admitted. “It’s quiet here, and nobody bothers you and you don’t bother anypony-“
“Yeah, that sounds cool,” Rainbow Dash said, as she sat back on her haunches, looking around. “Hey, wanna play Dodgeball?”
“Uhm, I don’t think we’re supposed to throw the balls-“
“Great! You can be the gold team,” Rainbow Dash said, tugging the filly up until she too was wading, “And I’ll be the blue team, got it?”
Rainbow Dash’s new playmate made a sound, which she decided to interpret as ‘yes’. She laughed for her impending victory as she sank down opposite the yellow foal.
“Now, you can’t just throw the balls,” Rainbow Dash said. Her playmate made an appreciative sort of sound, so Rainbow Dash continued – “You gotta bank em. You gotta toss the balls against the guard posts, and from there you can peg the other pegasus, got it?”
Instinctively, the yellow pegasus wrapped herself up in her wings as a protective shield.
“Great! Now, we can begin on the count of three: One… two…”
The sound of a ball falling from the Endless Ball Fountain smacked behind the smaller filly, and she squeaked, causing Rainbow Dash to throw her first ball in preemptive retaliation-
“…three!”
Soon, the air in the ball pit was full of whizzing shots, as Rainbow Dash threw spheres of every color against the guard posts around the cage. A red ball brushed the filly’s pink hair, and she squealed; another ball hit the surface just in front of her, and she shied away, backpedalling as far as she could with three hundred little spheres having a grip on her legs.
“C’mon, kid,” Rainbow Dash laughed, as she sent another half-dozen balls in the air, tossing one in each hoof to fruitless effect, “You’ll never win a ball game if you don’t throw the ball!”
Sometimes, the fates conspire against you, no matter what you say. At that moment, the goldbergian Endless Ball Factory had sent one freshly-cleaned yellow sphere into the Endless Ball Fountain, which rolled down a yellow railing in the ceiling above, popping out a yellow pipe, and beaning a yellow filly right on the bridge of her little yellow muzzle. For a moment, she looked cross-eyed at the impact point; the fear and awkwardness of the past ten minutes, combined with surprise and physical pain, all of a sudden flipped a switch in her eyes… and the little yellow filly began crying.
“C’mon, kid,” Rainbow Dash egged on, her throws halfhearted but unceasing. “That wasn’t even a good hit…”
Of course, that was Rainbow Dash’s way of being comforting; since it was an assurance that it wasn’t as bad as it felt. But her playmate interpreted it the other way – that a good hit was coming – and her sniffles became wails. There was a commotion of hooves on the wooden floor above the WonderZone – and in a minute, an imposing earth pony stallion was staring daggers at Rainbow Dash through the ballpit, while her father looked defeated. “Fluttershy,” the earth pony stallion commanded, “It’s time for you to get out of there. Maybe over by the Plushie Shack – somewhere where they won’t play so rough,” he growled, although this growl was aimed at Rainbow Dash’s chagrined father.
“Y-yes, sir,” Fluttershy agreed, as she slinked out of the ballpit – never taking her eyes off of Rainbow Dash – and took the short spinny slide out, following her father to a land of stuffed animals and quiet naps. Rainbow Dash turned around and looked up at her father, who only sighed.
“What’d I do?” Of course, in Rainbow Dash’s mind, the answer was nothing; the ball that hit that kid was fresh from the ball fountain, after all.
“Rainbow Dash,” her father sighed, shaking his head. “I think maybe it’s time for us to leave-”
“Leave? But I just got here!” Rainbow Dash shouted, throwing herself forward on her knees and elbows, ignoring the way that she was sinking back into the surface. “Please? Please please please please p-lease?”
Her father looked at his pleading daughter, then turned up to the overview. From the windows, Rainbow’s mom rolled her eyes and gave a shrug, and walked back to her table.
“Alright, Rainbow Dash” her father said. “We’ll give you another hour in the ball pit. But please,” he groaned, “You need to play nice with the other fillies and colts. And you need to stay put, because you have to be here when it's time to go, okay?”
“I can do that, Dad!” Rainbow Dash promised, sitting up straight and throwing him a salute. “I’ll be the nicest pony you’ve ever-”
“And that means no throwing!”
“Aaaw,” she pouted. But, as she saw her father’s gaze going from ‘unamused’ past ‘withering’ and heading towards ‘Hurricane Daddy’, she allowed herself to sink back down to wading level again. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now, I don’t want to see you being mean to anypony smaller than you anymore,” he said, as he walked towards one of the hidden doors that led back out of the WonderZone. For a moment, Rainbow Dash thought about throwing one ball, just to put up some token resistance to her father’s totally unfair rules. She even lifted it up in her hoof, contemplating it, looking at one of the various strike targets mounted on the walls. But she saw her father’s unhappy glance in a domed mirror, and she sighed, letting it drop in her lap in front of her. And then her father was gone.
Rainbow Dash leaned back in the ball pit (it doesn't take any particular work to find a comfy position in a ballpit) and began to sulk, ignoring even the endless fountain of colorful droplets continued to bounce off her head. It's not fair. I didn't even throw one... that hit her, she reasoned. And yet, somehow, she had been grounded - grounded! - to the ball pit. Granted, as far as unusual punishments go, "grounded to the ball pit" was only second or third weirdest punishment she had suffered, shortly behind sorting rice and pepper with tweezers and having to sing Hearthswarming carols dressed as a summer squash. But it was up there.
As much as Rainbow Dash hated being punished, she hated the thought of leaving the ball pit even more. And so, she wriggled down, her hips slipping down until she finally touched bottom in the enclosure. As she sank down, she finally pulled her head down, the light filtering in every color of the rainbow - quickly turning dark, more than a few hands down. And this suited her mindset just fine.
Rainbow Dash couldn't hold still, but she didn't want to be seen. So she pushed off the bottom and began swimming - the resistance and the motion making her feel better. And as she moved, soon a new image came to mind - her vindictive personality being entertained, if only in her imagination; her wings becoming fins and her angry pants becoming blood-curdling spittle. She was no longer a pegasus, there in her technicolor sea; she was now the vicious rainbow shark, and woe to anyone who dare disturb her lair of misery and sulking!
She began to plot it out in her mind. She'd swim down there for an hour, constantly in motion (because a shark can't pause), becoming invisible in the endless motion of the ball fountain. Her father would panic, and would have to wiggle though the tube maze to get in here - and he couldn't do it in half the time she could, she wagered. He'd drop down, panicking and panting and tired, and she'd sneak up from behind and jump up SO high and shout "Rar!" and the world would explode in a colorful spray - and best of all, her dad couldn't get mad because he said no throwing, not no jumping. It really was the perfect plan!
All she needed to do was wait. He'd be there in an hour, after all. And it was getting kind of hot. But that was okay; the tropical rainbow was a patient, deadly hunter, and could go from the bottom of the sea to breaching the surface in two seconds flat! Not even the distracting sound of ten-year-old top-40s tunes over the radio could distract her from her prey.
As she swam, the sounds of the playpit and something being called over the intercom drowned out, letting that image take over. Her hooves were her fintips, teasing at sealife; her muzzle against the balls, covered with the sweat and tears of a generation of children, became the nose of a powerful predator scenting the sea for blood. The sound of a hesitant little yellow pegasus sneaking back in was studiously ignored, for the majestic rainbow shark had no time for crybabies that couldn't even play a little dodgeball in a ball pit. She ignored even that tugging against her leg -
Wait. That was the rope net, right? Yeah, it had to be. It certainly wasn't a current. Silly Rainbow Dash-er-Rainbow Shark, you're just imagining things. Now, go back to imagining things.
The patient hunter stalked some more, sullenly, waiting. It was going to be a great surprise. Where was her father? He was the one she needed there to do it, after all. Shouldn't he be in the least bit worried about her? Shouldn't he have come out to look by now? The rainbow shark splashed at the bottom of her rainbow ocean and grumbled.
Wait- there it is again! The balls down here - they're moving!
In a way, she was right. Being drawn by gravity down a subtle slope, the balls at the bottom of the ballpit would fall into a transparent gutter, where they would run down into the wash, only to be lifted up through a series of lifts, air bellows, and hammer swings. Any motion that stirred the ball pit would help to break loose any clogs in the system, and the balls were slowly draining. Rainbow Shark moved her tail just so - and that was enough to make the balls in the back shift more towards the drainage gutter, that entire layer of balls going with - every ball on top collapsing, and pulling Rainbow Shark with them.
"Wait, what?" And so, Rainbow Shark did what any pegasus would do when surprised: She spread her wings. Of course, what is normally a decent reaction when one is in midair and might possibly be plummeting down to earth is a terrible idea when surrounded by plastic balls; as her fin-wings sliced through the ballpit, they dug in, and the weight of the balls made it impossible to lift or fold her wings again, even as her frantic kicks caused another layer of balls to slide into the drainage gutter, the weight of the shifting ballpit pushing her down, further and further down, with an endless stream of balls falling from on high and her body draining towards some cyclopean sea creature with a maw like a rope net-
"HELP!" Rainbow Dash called, the shark-no-more thrashing in the ballpit (and drawing more down towards her) as she found herself unable to breach the surface. "HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME! THE BALL PIT WANTS TO EAT ME!"
As she thrashed, the thought of an anonymous death, drowned and devoured by the carnivorous elder god of ball pits, her screams became ever shriller and panicked. Eventually, the WonderZone staff could no longer pretend it was a kid just being a kid - and, with a sigh, a teenaged mare clambered up the wrong way on the slide and strode through the shoulder-high ball pit.
"Hey, kid."
"HELP! IT'S TASTING ME!"
The yellow mare with the fiery red hair rolled her eyes. "... take my hoof."
"I-whaaa!" shouted Rainbow Dash, as the yellow mare lifted her up. She didn't care that her embarrassed mother or shocked father were staring - she was safe, and she was free, and she wasn't going to get eaten. Looking at the ball pit lifeguard, she saw an angel - no, a princess.
"You. Are. My. Hero!" Rainbow Dash whooped, even as she was deposited down the slide with a bored teen sliding after her. "There were all these balls and it began to eat me and I was so scared and you were just like 'I'll save you!' and then woosh here we are-" She grinned, and squeaked. "You were so awesome!"
"Yeah," the lanky teen said, rolling her eyes. "Just - don't get in trouble anymore, alright?"
"Yes ma'am!" Rainbow Dash shouted, giving a salute. "Er-" she said, chagrined, as her eyes fixated on some of the pins on the teen's uniform. "What's your name, miss hero...?"
"Spitfire, kid." She rolled her eyes, watching the little filly flap her wings to get the rest of the balls out, knowing she'd have to clean it up and hating her summer job more and more. "Don't mention it."
"And when I saw the Junior Wonderbolts pin on her uniform, that's when I knew I was going to become a Wonderbolt."
"Dash," Pinkie Pie said incredulously, "your childhood was weird."
