Money Versus Wellbeing
Two buses pulled into the Royal Farms Arena parking lot, unloading a mare covering the top of her mane under a black hood. Ripped pieces of tape wrapped around her hooves as she walked down the hallway to her locker room along with her team of trainers, opening the locker room door and thrown the hoodie down in a bean bag chair.
✮Champion vs. Challenger✮
Tonight’s Main Event Extravaganza:
Tiger Lilly attempts to dethrone the defending ten-time World Heavyweight ChampionRainbow Dash, live from the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimare. Tickets are sold out!
You do not want to miss the main event of the year!
Posters for tonight’s main event fight surrounded the locker room wall, between reigning and defending champion, Rainbow Dash against Tiger Lilly. She has defended her title for a consecutive ten times with any challenger who would put up a good fight but not a lot of them fared up at all. She hoped that tonight would be different. Rainbow’s trainers rolled out the training equipment on the floor: punching bags, yoga mats, and protective guards for productive striking.
“Rainbow, time to do a few quick stretches.” Blossomforth stretched her forelegs back as she arched her back, bending both forehooves down on the soft yoga mat.
Rainbow bent down to her hooves, and pulled the back of her right foreleg up to her head. “I don’t know how you are used to this all the time, argh!”
“I take a lot of yoga classes. You’ve seen how flexible I was when you helped me train against Aurora last week. Want to try the punching bags now?” Hanging the bags under steel chains as they dangled from the ceiling, Blossomforth plopped down on a steel chair and watched the ring announcer stand in ring’s center holding a microphone.
“Mares and gentlecolts, next up is your main event of the evening! Live from the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimare and broadcasting across countries all across Equestria, you wouldn’t want to miss Tiger Lilly, the challenger take on Rainbow Dash with her title on the line inside of a steel cage!” Mic Check projected his voice into the microphone, blaring through the speakers.
A sinister structure of cold hard steel surrounded each corner of the four-sided ring, cheering from the crowd continued until complete silence was present as the cage reached the black mats that covered the concrete floor below. One referee entered the ring to call the match down the middle while the other referee opened and locked the door, to keep both competitors inside the steel cage.
Dash jumped over the jump rope, her hooves touched down on the floor and leaped up to start the cycle all over again. After finishing up her jumping rope exercises, Cloudchaser and Flitter strapped body shields around their wrists as the champion separated her forehooves to get a closer look on the task at hoof. Rainbow threw a couple of punches on the body shields, striking against soft material imbedded on the shields and raised her shin kicking both shields before taking a look at the monitor in the room.
“Scouting the competition?” Blossomforth looked directly at the monitor, watching Tiger Lilly finish her entrance and enter the ring, accompanied oddly enough by Iron Will.
“Yep, I’d hate to do this to her. Another pony to add to the list of victims I’ve beaten really doesn’t make me feel right. It’s like I’ve-” Rainbow held her breath for a moment as a knock came at the door.
“It’s open,” Rainbow Dash dropped down on her back to the yoga mat, placed both forehooves behind her head as Flitter held her hind legs down. She kicked her knees to her abdominal area for a better chance to increase the strength in both her legs and stomach, looking up at Flim blocking the ceiling light. “What do you want?”
“As the promoter for your match that is in a few minutes, surely you know how important this match is. Think of it this way, losing your title tonight can show that you’ve lost a step or you might never get to reach that brass ring at the top, the only option here to walk out still the champion is to end her career,” Flim said, holding on to the filled saddlebags at his side filled with bits.
“But I’ve never ended somepony’s career in the last ten fights I’ve been in. Why would I start now?” Rainbow popped up on her hooves, stared directly into Flim’s eyes with a steely gaze.
“Because, the fans would lose all of their respect they had for you if you lost tonight. Think about it,” Flim walked out of the room, the bits jingled around with each step he took.
After he left the room, Rainbow turned over to her three trainers and stretched her arm over them. “Whatever happens tonight after the match, I just hope that you guys will stay by my side.”
“We will stick by you through thick and thin, just like back in Cloudsdale, we’re confident that you will make the right decision.” Flitter said, gathering around the others in a circle and huddled around one another with a big hug.
“That’s the team I know. Come on, let’s do this,” Dash unbuckled the title around her waist, walking out of the room and towards the main entrance.
She followed the white arrows directing her to black curtains behind the main entrance ramp, shaking out her limbs to loosen her nerves a little and taking a deep breath as her ears listened in on the familiar tune of her entrance music. She knelt down on one knee and moved one hoof down to the ground, collecting dirt on the tip of her hoof, taking a moment to look around at all the adoring fans in the crowd cheering her name while holding up signs: “Victim #11: Tiger Lilly, The Beast in Unleashed, Game Over.”
Rainbow directed Blossomforth’s hoof to tap down on her arm, holding her wrist up to her ear and cupped two hooves around her mouth shouting out to the crowd. “It’s clobberin’ time!” The prized fighter turned her back to the ring as she nonchalantly walked down the ramp, hopping on the apron before sliding through the middle rope.
Both competitors backed away to their corners as Mic Check began his introductions. “Mares and gentlecolts, the following contest is a Steel Cage match for the coveted World Heavyweight Championship of the world. The only way to win this match is by pinfall, submission, or by escaping through the cage door or over the top but both hooves must touch the floor. Introducing the challenger, from Sireland, weighing in at 245 pounds, Tiger Lilly!”
“Introducing her opponent, from Cloudsdale and now residing from Ponyville, weighing in at 256 pounds, she is the current World Heavyweight Champion, Rainbow Dash!” Mic Check made his exit out to ringside, the referee proceeded to hold up the title for everypony to see, opening the cage door and handing the title to the other official. He closed the cage door, then wagged his hoof to the bell keeper as he rang the bell three times.
Rainbow stepped out of her corner as Tiger Lilly did the same and both mares gave each other a respectable hoofshake. She came out of the gate with a knee aimed for Tiger’s stomach, ramming the knee deep into her midsection. The champion charged at Tiger as she backed her into a corner with an arm buried into her waist, she glanced over to her three trainers cheering her on. She paced back and forth to the center, giving Tiger a cheeky grin, raising her hooves to the air.
Tiger Lilly moved slowly out of the corner, dark red marks stretched appeared on her stomach. She ran to Rainbow with a forearm stretched out to her neck, missing her intended target as Dash ducked under the forearm, and wrapped tightly around her stomach lifting her into the air only to drop her down to the mat on the head. The referee stepped in between them to check on Tiger, kneeling on his knee.
“Rainbow, back up now!” The pony wearing a clear white shirt with black stripes raising the volume in his voice, backing Rainbow into the corner and pointed his hoof at her.
Tiger struggled to get up to her hooves, grabbing the bottom rope as a way of maintaining her balance. Moving the referee out of the way, and jumped forward with an onslaught of punches to Rainbow’s face, she hammered her elbow down along her back.
Rainbow brushed a hoof across her face, wiping away the river of blood running down her muzzle. Slumped down in the corner on her flank, she ran a forehoof across the red bumps on her back and winced at each bump she touched. The referee walked by her side and moved his forehoof carefully on the sensitive bumps that his eyes couldn’t look away from, blood flowed from the open wounds as he stopped Tiger Lilly in her tracks. “Stay right there, don’t move! Can you continue, Rainbow?”
Tiger shoved the referee to the mat, she trotted at full speed in midair as her forelimbs came crashing down into Rainbow’s chest causing her to drop out of the corner. She quickly grabbed her mane and launched Rainbow Dash face first into the steel cage, her head bouncing off the unforgiving steel as the whole cage rattled from the impact.
“You give up yet? Show me what you can really do!” Tiger continuously smacked Rainbow across the face, before turning around at a three hundred and sixty degree angle and reeled her left foreleg back.
Rainbow Dash raised her hooves to block the oncoming attack, bruising her forelegs. A blind rage took over her as she pushed forward, swinging her hoof wildly at Tiger.
Her hoof gave a whooshing sound as it flew through the air, narrowly missing Tiger. Another blind swing came from her left hoof before Rainbow’s mind caught up with her. Look at yourself! This isn’t the way a champion fights! her mind screamed at her. It berated her for acting like an amature and losing her temper. Focus!
With that, Rainbow Dash shook her head and took a few steps back, bracing herself for another bout. She couldn’t help losing it. What Flim had said to her was still itching her mind. If she lost, it meant the end of everything for her. The words kept repeating in her mind, over and over like a tape recorder set on replay. “Because the fans would lose all of their respect they had for you, if you lost tonight, think about it.”
She couldn’t lose everything. Not after she had been a star most of her life. She worked long and hard to get to where she was. The blood she had lost, the sweat she perspired. There was no way she was about to lose it all in this fight.
But then, her conscience caught up with her. It hit her like a ton of bricks, breaking up her thought patterns. If she won this fight, Tiger would lose everything. Another pony who had worked and bled to get to the night she had probably dreamt of for years. A night when it would be her big chance to become something. A celebrity.
She probably spent hours training for this moment and even longer dreaming about it. Could Rainbow Dash deprive another pony their dream, just so she could have it another year longer?
The two debated in her mind like bickering children, stealing her focus away from the fight.
Like an opportunist, Tiger swung a forceful kick between Rainbow’s legs as she dropped down on to her knees and clutched the swollen area that felt the full force of Tiger’s blow that was dealt to her. She hoisted the fallen mare across her back then looked around at the crowd throwing cider mugs into the ring.
“The streak ends now!” Swinging her hind legs and hooves off the edge of her shoulder as she tossed Rainbow off in the opposite direction, slamming her face down hard into the mat. Underneath her barrel, small lacerations on her face started to form only for her eyes to look up at the ceiling lights that glared into her blurry vision.
Ringing in Rainbow’s ears canceled out the referee sliding into position for the three count. “One, two, three! Okay, ring the bell!” The bell sounded as the match came to a conclusion, once the cage retreated up to the rafters above and the official raised the victor’s hoof in the air.
“The winner of this match and the new World Heavyweight Champion, Tiger Lilly!” Tiger swiped the title out of the referee’s hooves, and hightailed it over the barricade out to into the crowd, pummeled by flying cider mugs bashing into her head from every direction possible.
Her three trainers rushed to their friend’s aid and rolled her under the bottom rope. They carried Rainbow’s dead weight on their shoulders up the ramp, the roar of the crowd booing and hissing did not make things any better either.
Bags of frozen ice cubes touched down on Rainbow’s open wounds, every inch of her body shivered from their cold touch.
“Ach, still hurts! Rainbow wailed out as Blossomforth and Flitter dabbed the wet cotton ball of cleaning alcohol softly pressed on her coat. “Tiger, what are you doing here? Wait don’t tell me, you are here to gloat about beating me.”
Tiger laid the championship strap over her shoulder, clearing her throat and crouched down on her hind legs. “I’m here to thank you for the good match. Also that before we had our match, Flim actually offered me money to take you out permanently, I declined.”
Rainbow and the others stared at Tiger, giving her a perplexed look. “So did I, and I’m glad we tore the house down tonight.”
“Me too. I’ll cut you a deal, you get a title rematch against me next week if you promise to always put your health and the health of others before wealth. Okay?” She gave Rainbow her signature cheeky grin, waggling her eyebrows.
“You got yourself a deal. See you next week, and bring your very best!” Rainbow and Tiger engaged in an intense staredown as their eyes quickly gazed at the championship belt that many mares wished they were able to win/defend.
“You know I will, see ya!” Tiger trotted into the hallway, the sound of her hooves clopped against the hard concrete floor.
“Always put your health and the health of others before wealth,” Rainbow never forgot those words from a worthy competitor and enemy.
