Rainbow Dash shivered as a cold breeze ruffled her mane. Keeping her eyes shut, she rolled over and fluffed her cloud into a little blanket. She pulled it over herself and yawned. Moments from drifting off to sleep again, a shrill voice snapped her back to her senses.
"Hi, Rainbow Dash!"
She flinched in surprise. Her eyes popped open to see Scootaloo staring down at her with a smile so wide, it looked like it had to be stapled in place.
"What the- Scootaloo?" She rubbed her eyes. "How did you get all the way-" Her words faltered as she noticed the rope leading up from the filly's midsection. Her eyes followed it upward to the basket of a purple hot air balloon where Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom stood, peering down at her with equally crazed expressions.
Scootaloo shook with excitement. "Ready to take us to Rinky Dink's Funtown? You said you would today. Remember? Remember how you said that?"
Rainbow Dash massaged her temples with both forehooves. "Oh… Uh, yeah," she groaned, vaguely recalling that she'd promised to take them to Ponyville's new play place as the only adult in their sphere without prior engagements. The fillies had all promised each other that they'd only go to the new amusement together. Her eyes returned to the hot air balloon that was apparently anchored to her cloud by Scootaloo. "Who let you use the balloon by yourselves?" she questioned suspiciously.
The three fillies side-eyed each other uncomfortably, mumbling a word salad explanation.
"Do you even know how to land that thing?"
"No," they admitted in unison.
"Fine," she sighed, fluttering up to the basket. - - -
"Just keep walking briskly but don't run," explained Rainbow as they casually stepped down the sidewalk, away from the crash site. "Running is what guilty ponies do and we're not guilty. And whatever you do, never look back at the thing. If someone stops you and says 'Hey, you know anything about this thing?' then it's okay to look back at the thing but then you have to go 'Oh, jeeze, that's crazy! Who would just crash a hot air balloon and leave it flopped over somepony's house like a dirty sock that didn't make it all the way into the laundry hamper?'"
"I thought you knew how to fly the balloon," accused Sweetie Belle shakily.
"I never said I did. Why would I know how to fly a balloon?" shrugged Rainbow. "I can already fly. I don't need a balloon. I just assumed it couldn't be that hard and I'd figure it out… I was wrong."
"Maybe you should have stopped to ask an adult."
"I am an adult," she bristled.
"I mean an adultier adult."
"I think what you actually mean is 'somepony who knows how to fly a hot air balloon.' Now if you seriously want to go to Ricky's Whatever ville, I suggest you change the subject… Anyway, an 'adultier adult' isn't going to teach you important life skills like the old run 'n' shrug."
"But Ah thought yer not 'sposda run," said Apple Bloom.
"Ah, you were listening," she smirked.
The fillies led Rainbow into downtown until they got to a congested area with flags and banners crisscrossing above the street.
"Here it is," exclaimed Scootaloo, prancing ahead. "This is it!"
All at once, the three fillies began chattering manically at full volume and gesticulating wildly as if their manes were on fire.
"I'm gonna play they got this huge eat so much ball pit with these rolling game and the candy makes you dizzy Twist went on the big slide pizza with maple syrup so many tickets from just the one first we have to shooting the balloons best prize for my birthday party when they let you touch all the ice cream with forty flavors won it three times in a row!"
Rainbow squinted up at the big sign skeptically and scratched her chin as the Cutie Mark Crusaders continued running circles around her, spewing their word cloud.
The elaborate woodcut sign was painted in every color and read Rinky Dink's Funtown. Above it was a cartoonish smiling showpony, almost clown-like in appearance.
She grumbled, staring uneasily into his eyes.
C'mon! C'mon," yelled the fillies.
Rainbow looked down to see them leaping at the front door like piranhas on a ham hock. She followed them through the swinging door to the front desk.
"Welcome to Rinky Dink's Funtown," droned the dour looking mare at the admissions counter.
Rainbow blinked in vague recollection of the drab-looking pony she thought she'd met before. Her eyes shot down to the nametag on her vest which simply read 'Inky.'
"Uh four, please?" shrugged Rainbow, unsure of how the establishment worked. She eyed a prominent plaque of rules by the counter which she proceeded to scan over lazily. All foals must be accompanied by an adult. No Smoking. No cheating. No swearing. She skipped to a field of barely noticeable fine print at the bottom. Violation of the rules may result in a permanent ban from Rinky Dink's Funtown. Any disagreement over violation of the rules may be resolved through 'trial by funbat.'
"What?" scoffed Rainbow, still squinting at the sign.
Present your hooves," grumbled Inky Rose. The desk worker fumbled with an adjustable rubber stamp before picking it up in her mouth. She stamped each one of them in turn just below the fetlocks of their left foreleg. The Cutie Mark Crusaders paused at the turnstile to marvel at their stamps.
"Cool! We all got special matching tattoos," exclaimed Scootaloo. "It's like we're all part of a secret club."
The fillies smacked their hooves together up high. "Yay!"
"It's so you don't get kidnapped by weirdos," added Inky flatly.
The three of them exchanged perturbed frowns and let out a second, much less exuberant "Yay…"
The group squeezed through the turnstile and into a cacophonous arcade full of beeps, boops and fast-paced rock music. Rainbow scanned the interior which she thought would be much smaller from the outside. She couldn't even find a wall. The place was cavernous. There were dozens of arcade cabinets, pinball tables, scores of games that spat out reams of tickets, floor to ceiling tube mazes, massive ball pits, a show stage and a food court.
She grinned and made a break for the competitive games but stopped herself suddenly in a pang of adult responsibleness. She wasn't here to have fun; she had to supervise the fillies. Rainbow did an about face to find the trio scampering away in three different directions. "Hey!" She zipped through the air, rounding the three of them up in a dogpile on the floor.
"Okay, first let's all try to stay in the same general area and let me know what you're doing before you do it."
Wild-eyed, the fillies began frantically talking and pointing all at once. Rainbow frowned in frustration and then shouted over them, "Let's go play some games."
Sweetie Belle jumped up and down in triumph while the other two looked disappointed and antsy.
"We need to buy tokens first," said Sweetie "The machines only take tokens."
"Okay… You got money for that?" asked Rainbow hopefully. To her relief, the three nodded. They went over to the row of exchange machines and began feeding bits into their slots. After a downpour of clinking tokens, they rushed back to the gaming area with cups of coins. Apple Bloom went for the arcade video games while the rest gravitated toward the ticket based physical challenges.
Rainbow laughed over a colt's shoulder as he played a whack-a-diamond dog game. She picked up the mallet at the neighboring machine and put a token in.
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo set up at an air hockey table.
After some time, Apple Bloom eventually cut herself off from feeding the Wonderbolt shmup cabinet and left to join the rest of them. Rainbow cycled through several different games before running back into the fillies again.
"Hey, the machines keep giving me these long strips of paper," began Rainbow, holding up her winnings in one wingtip. "What are you supposed to do with them?"
"They're tickets," explained Scootaloo, holding up her own bunch. "You get more, the better you do and then you take them to the prize counter and exchange them for prizes."
Rainbow's eyes bulged. "Prizes?" It was officially on. She resolved immediately to flex her unparalleled competitive greatness, win all the games and get the best prize of them all… whatever it was. She rushed back to the games. She continued sampling the challenges she hadn't done yet, a pneumatic shooting gallery where you shot out a clown's big piano teeth. She tried a stop the wheel game. There were other chance games too that just looked like slots and pachinko for kids but she passed over them, more interested in things where she could prove her skills.
Rainbow stopped in front of a row of skeeball games, little ramps where foals rolled wooden balls into various sized hoops for points. She studied the players for a moment until she'd nailed down the basics.
I will master this game, she thought to herself as she rolled her first coin into the slot. The balls released and roared down the chute to her. The game was based on risk and reward with the higher value targets being smaller and farther away. She paused with a ball in her hoof, eying the big points before rolling the ball up the lane. It hopped at the end and rattled around in the hole before dinging for a maximum score of five thousand points.
Rainbow threw up her forelegs. "Wooo! Did you just see that?" she shouted at the mystified filly playing next to her. "Five K, first try!" She picked up the second ball and let her prodigious muscle memory take control. It rumbled up the ramp and went in the same hole in almost an instant replay. "Yeah!" The third went in for five thousand. Then the next and the next. The Cutie Mark Crusaders gathered 'round, flanking her on both sides to watch enthusiastically. Her streak remained unbroken until she was holding the final ball. It hit the side of the little ring and circled all the way down.
"Ya bowled a perfect game," gasped Apple Bloom.
"You're amazing," gushed Scootaloo.
The machine hummed as it spat out ticket after ticket after ticket. "Woah," the four of them exclaimed in unison.
"I'm the greatest!" Rainbow ripped the strip off with her wingtip. "Let's go get prizes," she shouted.
The fillies led her to the ticket exchange counter. A great wall of dozens of prizes stood before them behind a glass case counter that was crammed with even more prizes.
Rainbow's eyes danced across the collection behind an apathetic Inky Rose.
"Count your tickets for you?" she grumbled.
"Yeah," said Rainbow, slamming her winnings on the counter. "Wait, I thought you were working the door."
"I only work the door on my lunch break."
"Oh…" The answer didn't really make sense to her but she was too distracted by prizes to care. She looked back at the fabulous wall. There was a turntable, an electric guitar, a thousand piece model kit of Canterlot Castle, a camera… Her eyes landed on a stuffed toy of an unidentifiable Wonderbolt mare. It was highly detailed. Her eyes lit up. She looked at the little number posted below it which she assumed was the price. "Twenty, thousand?" she blurted. "That seems like a lot."
"You have a hundred and seventeen tickets," declared Inky, indifferently.
"A hundred? How is it possible that I can't even afford a single prize?"
"You want the under five hundred cabinet." Inky tapped her hoof listlessly on the glass counter.
Rainbow's eyes fell upon the case to behold a rogue's gallery of cheap, but colorful, lame garbage that looked like party favors. She looked back up at Inky with furrowed brow.
"I thought this place was called Funtown? That's not very fun."
Inky shrugged. "It's all subjective. What is fun but a distraction from the looming inevitability of death?"
Rainbow frowned harder and the two shared an awkward existential pause.
"I'll get the manager," she droned in defeat. "Mr. Fun?" she called in the same tired flatness without moving a muscle. "He makes us call him that."
Suddenly the lights above them dimmed and a pair of little spotlights raced around on a previously unnoticed red curtain just to Inky's left. There came a short drumroll that crashed with an explosion of multicolored confetti and streamers which burst from cannons on the ceiling. The curtain rose to the tune of kazoo fanfare and revealed a tan, heavy set earth pony stallion in a triumphant pose. He wore a head to hoof candy-striped suit and hat and sported an ear to ear smile beneath a waxed curled mustache. His vest was festooned with an array of silly button pins.
Rainbow Hated him immediately.
The three fillies were delighted beyond measure.
Inky's deadpan expression remained unbroken as fanciful confetti gathered softly in her dark, braided mane and the lights returned.
"It's Rinky Dink," squealed Sweetie Belle.
The mustachioed stallion slid jauntily up to the counter. "That's my name," he chuckled. "But my friends call me Mr. Fun!" He playfully tipped his hat, allowing a cascade of taffy candies to pour onto the counter in front of the three astounded fillies.
"It sounds like someone's not having very much fun," he whimpered like a hurt dog in put-on sadness. "What can we do to turn that frown upside down?" He gave his biggest button a spin which was just a picture of his own face with the exact same expression.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders giggled with their mouths full of sticky taffy.
Rainbow almost opened with a question about him apparently waiting behind a curtain for an untold time simply for dramatic effect but decided that she just wanted to keep the conversation as short as possible.
"Your prices are insane."
"Why, thank you," he winked.
"No one could possibly get enough tickets to buy any of that stuff. Not even I could get enough tickets."
"Not enough tickets?" he gasped in horror. "Wait a minute. What's that in your ear?" He reached one hoof behind Rainbow's ear and produced a single ticket.
The fillies exchanged slack jawed expressions.
"He can do magic tricks without a horn!" exclaimed Sweetie Belle, clopping her hooves together.
"Do you have enough now?" he asked, letting the ticket flutter to the counter in front of her.
"No," glared Rainbow.
"Oh? Well, I think I see some more in there." He reached behind her ear again and pulled out another single ticket.
"How about now?"
"No!"
The three fillies were practically choking in hysterics.
He pulled a third ticket from behind Rainbow's ear. "What do you mean, you don't have enough tickets? Why, you've got tickets coming out of your ears!"
"Stop that!" Rainbow covered her ear with one hoof. Listen, I don't have time for this so let's make a deal. I'll give you all of my tickets for that doll and we'll call it even."
Rinky Dink twirled his mustache in deep thought. "Hmm, counteroffer: you give me all of your tickets and I'll give you… something from the glass case that is a hundred tickets!"
"Get a popper," suggested Scootaloo excitedly.
Rainbow squinted at the bin of little, rubber semi spheres.
"I'd have more fun just lighting the tickets on fire in a back alley. There's no way I'm gonna blow all my hard earned winnings on half of a bouncy ball." - - -
"I don't like him," grumbled Rainbow, sliding a piece of pizza onto her plate. "He's like if someone glued Flim and Flam together and dressed them in a haunted circus tent. This place is a scam."
The other three began attacking the pizza that Inky Rose had just brought to their table.
"It's not really 'bout the prize value," began Apple Bloom thoughtfully. "The real product they're sellin' is the immaterial fun an' dopamine high ya get while playin' the games. The prizes are just a cheap incentive ta keep us spendin' money on games. If all ya want is the prizes, ya can go ta the store an' get the same thing fer a tenth the time and money ya spend here. Wouldn't be a sustainable business model if they had 'spensive prizes that anypony could win after spendin' just a couple a bits; you'd be hemorrhagin' money six ways ta Sunday."
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Ugh, you're missing the point, Apple Bloom. I did amazing at skeeball, therefore I deserve an amazing prize. Does this look like a proportionally amazing prize?" She held up a little green popper on her hoof and scowled.
"Well, no," she shrugged.
"Then we have a problem."
"Those are cool," argued Scootaloo, snatching it away. "You just have to know how to do it." She began trying to squeeze the rubber dome inside out with both hooves, her tongue pinched in her teeth with intense focus.
"We need to get a prize off of the big wall," continued Rainbow, jamming her hoof defiantly into the table top.
"But Ah wanna go in the playplace tubes," complained Apple Bloom, sensing a time intensive scheme on the horizon.
"And I wanna see a show," added Scootaloo, still struggling with the popper.
"There'll be plenty of time for that later," argued Rainbow dismissively.
"How are we even gonna get that much tickets," Apple Bloom shrugged dubiously. "Even if we pooled all our tickets together, it'd take us a weeks worth a visits ta this place."
"Not if we're really efficient at winning."
Apple Bloom frowned, still skeptical.
"Just let me figure that part out," smirked Rainbow, leaning back in her chair.
"Look, you just set it back on the table and it pops up in the-" for the umpteenth time, the popper sprang before Scootaloo could lay it down. "I swear this is a thing," she cried frustratedly. - - -
Rainbow gazed inquisitively up at the slowly crawling jackpot numbers over the cluster of kid slots. "You sure about this?" she mumbled.
"Absolutely," replied Scootaloo, vehemently. "You get the tickets eventually. I've already seen two ponies get like thousands of tickets. It's worth it, trust me."
Rainbow shrugged. "Okay." She turned to the other two. "Sweetie, Apple Bloom, you're with me." She cocked her head for them to follow and they assembled at the skeeball games.
"Alright, Sweetie Bell, we're going to get you bowling perfect skeeball games just like me and we'll be raking in tickets."
"But I'm not as good as you," she complained.
"You don't need to be as good as me," replied Rainbow, slipping a token into her machine. "You just need a little extra help. See that little hole at the top that says five thousand? I want you to hit that every single time by plunking the ball in with your magic."
"Isn't that cheating?" Sweetie Belle pointed to a placard on the game depicting the crossed out silhouette of a unicorn horn.
"No. We were the ones who were cheated by outrageous prices. This is just leveling the playing field and righting that wrong."
"Oh… Yeah, that makes sense."
Rainbow swung her foreleg to demonstrate. "So just roll the ball up the ramp, then guide it in with your magic."
"What if I get caught by someone?" whispered Sweetie anxiously.
"That's what a lookout is for. Apple Bloom is going to watch and warn you if anyone's looking, especially workers; right, Apple Bloom?"
Apple Bloom scratched her head. "Well, Ah, uhh…"
"I'll be bowling right next to you, so you don't have to worry about anything." She popped a coin in the neighboring machine and the balls rolled down.
"Okay," nodded Sweetie Belle, tentatively. She looked around and then eyed the five thousand hoop. She rolled the ball like she meant it. It zipped up the ramp, hopping off of the jump a little off target. She deftly snared the ball in her aura and floated it to the 5k hole, letting it drop inside."
"Nice one," Rainbow slapped her on the back. "See? Easy money. Rinse and repeat like a hundred times and we got it."
They went at their games with furious tenacity. Sweetie Belle became quick and efficient at cheating, only needing half a second flash of magic to finish her rolls. Her score was even better than Rainbow's who would still miss on rare occasion, amazing as she was. Eventually her machine ran out of tickets and she had to move to another.
"Rainbow, I'm out of tokens," said Sweetie, levitating a giant wad of tickets.
"Okay, why don't we go check on Scootaloo?" she replied, stuffing her own folded up tickets into her satchel.
"If ya hate him so much, why are we spendin' so much money here?" asked, Apple Bloom as they started back toward the slots.
"It's not about the money," Rainbow shot back. "it's the principle. They intentionally made those prizes impossible to get. They're just there to be a carrot at the end of a string… But you do raise a good point that I might have a solution for."
The orange pegasus was sitting in the exact same place they'd left her, eyes locked on the reels as she methodically stopped them one after another.
"That's all you've got?" scoffed Rainbow, looking down at a mediocre line of about twenty tickets coming out at Scootaloo's hooves.
"No, I got these too, she said, pointing at another machine without looking away from the first.
Rainbow glanced at the base of the second machine to see an equally underwhelming ticket tape.
"Yer almost completely outta tokens," scolded Apple Bloom. "Ya shoulda switched games a long time ago ta somethin' with a better payout."
"This is the only game you need," hissed Scootaloo. "Fast paced, lots of sitting, big jackpots."
"Where are the jackpots?" demanded Apple Bloom belligerently. "Ah think yer just addicted."
"Well I'm not; I can stop anytime I want," she argued, still clicking her buttons.
"Then stop now!"
"No. Don't you get it," she snapped, breaking eye contact with her reels for the first time. "If I quit now, all of this was for nothing. That jackpot is coming- Hey, get away from my machine," she spat angrily at a filly trying to sit next to her. She covered the neighboring coin slot with her hoof. "I'm working that one too! Sweetie Belle, give me your tokens."
"I'm out," reported Sweetie flatly.
"Great, I'm gonna lose my progress and it's all your guys' fault."
"See, eyes on the prize," nodded Rainbow. "We all need to be more like Scootaloo."
"She's just wastin' money," grunted Apple Bloom.
"Don't worry about it; I have an idea. I'm gonna go get us more money. Stay here, I'll be right-"
"Wait, you're leaving the building?" asked Sweetie in alarm.
"Yeah."
"But you're not supposed to leave-"
"It'll only take a couple minutes," Rainbow assured her. "Stay right here, hold the slot machines and count the tickets. You'll be fine. Remember, you got the stamps," she smiled.
Sweetie looked down at her little ink stamp, recalling how it was supposed to be a deterrent for abduction and was immediately filled with renewed anxiety over a fear she'd just managed to forget about. When she looked up, Rainbow was gone. - - -
"Three thousand one hundred and twelve," said Scootaloo, tossing an accordioned strip of tickets to the floor.
"Plus whatever Rainbow has," added Apple Bloom.
"She already gave us hers."
"No, Ah think she has more though."
Sweetie Belle sat on the floor, fidgeting, her eyes glued on the entrance. "Shouldn't she be back by now?"
"You've been saying that for the past ten minutes," sighed Scootaloo.
"How long has she been gone?"
"Ten minutes."
"Well, ten minutes is longer than 'a couple,'"
"Just chill out; we do stuff without supervision all the time and nothing bad has ever..." After a moment's thought, she couldn't, with any sincerity, finish the sentence.
"'Sup," blurted Rainbow, appearing from nowhere. "I got a surprise for all of you. Let me introduce you to slugs."
"Slugs?" shrugged Sweetie.
"They work like tokens but cost about a fifth the price." She dropped a heavy sack on the floor with a jingle and pulled open the top. "If they pop out of the coin return, just keep putting them back in the slot till they work."
"They look like washers," mused Apple Bloom, squinting into the sack of probably hundreds of metal disks.
"They are washers," laughed Rainbow. "Washers I got from the hardware store that are all the same size and weight as Funtown tokens."
Rainbow fished out a washer and popped it right into Scootaloo's favorite slot machine, eliciting a little electronic jingle, signifying one credit added.
"Gimme," raved Scootaloo," grabbing at the bag.
"Okay, just don't show these to anyone and keep them kind of out of sight," she began, gathering up their token cups. "Like on the floor under your machine."
"Isn't this stealin'?" asked Apple Bloom, bluntly.
"Stealing?" gasped Rainbow indignantly. No way! Like you said, we've already more than paid for the prize with real money. This is just getting us the rest of the way as a formality. When you boil it down, it's a fair exchange but they just won't see it that way because everything here is set up like a grift. Get it?"
Apple Bloom scratched her chin, trying to think of a logical rebuttal.
"Less thinking, more ticket farming."
Everyone went back to their usual games, this time with heaping cups of slugs, and simply picked up where they left off.
"We're getting lots of tickets but the games have become a boring chore," moped Sweetie Belle.
"It'll be worth it to see the looks on their faces," argued Rainbow.
"Will it?"
"Just keep going; we're almost there!"
"No we're not. We're still less than half way there."
"Well, yeah, with that attitude," scoffed Rainbow.
"What does that even mean?"
"It means just keep going."
Sweetie Belle kept going, maintaining an unbroken streak of over a hundred rolls into the 5k hole. She was bored of games now and was ready to go explore the playplace or do anything else. Apple Bloom was bored of just watching for danger. Scootaloo, however, was content with watching her reels, indefinitely hanging on the thrill of a big payoff just around any corner.
They sank into a robotic trance devoid of joy and scored by the sounds of clinking washers, clicking ticket reels and rumbling wooden balls. Sweetie Belle was almost ready to demand that they move on to something else when they heard Scootaloo crowing from across the arcade. Rainbow stopped mid roll and whipped her head around. The flashing lights above the slots read ten thousand.
"That's it," she gasped. "We got it! C'mon!" Rainbow ripped her ticket tape and abandoned her game. As the official ticket keeper, Apple Bloom wrangled the last tickets into her bag before following Sweetie Belle.
The three of them gathered, awestruck around Scootaloo as she whooped excitedly in her growing tangle of tickets. "I told you! I told you I'd get it!"
By Rainbow's estimation, this motherload was enough to put them over their goal. "Good job, Scootaloo! Let's go get that prize!"
They reconvened at the ticket counter where Inky Rose stood waiting.
Rainbow smugly set the massive tumbleweed of tickets atop the glass and opened her mouth to speak.
"A hundred and thirteen poppers, please," chimed Scootaloo.
The other three looked at her with horrified expressions.
"Scootaloo," chastised Rainbow. "What are you doing?"
"What? I thought we were getting prizes."
"We're getting one prize. We're pooling our tickets together, remember? Poppers don't even do anything and you want to buy a hundred of them?"
"But I won most of the tickets," she argued.
"I gave you most of the tokens you used," Rainbow retorted.
"Well, I guess but most of them weren't actually-"
Rainbow quickly put a hoof over Scootaloo's mouth. "Listen, we're going to buy that doll together for twenty thousand. Whatever is left of the tickets afterwards, you can have, okay?" She removed her hoof.
"Okay," Scootaloo nodded.
Rainbow turned back to Inky Rose. "We're buying that Wonderbolt doll." She pointed at the wall with hubristic conviction.
Inky lazily blinked her eyeshadowed lids. "Okay… Let me just count these." She cleared her throat as she began probing the giant ticket wad for an end to start on. The group waited impatiently as she rolled it over and carefully spread it apart with both hooves.
"Here, why don't I untangle that one while you start on these instead?" proposed Rainbow, dumping Apple Bloom's pack on the counter.
Inky sighed, picked up an arbitrary ticket strip and began counting. "Five… ten… fifteen… twenty… twenty-one… twenty-two… twenty-three… - - -
"Nineteen-thousand-nine-hundred and ninety-one… nineteen-thousand-nine-hundred and ninety-two…"
All three Cutie Mark Crusaders sat on the floor, eyes half-lidded in near catatonic boredom. The sound of Inky's tedious counting had completely sapped the rest of their energy, leaving them unable to even seek out entertainment elsewhere. Rainbow watched with muted anticipation as she neared the end with at least a couple hundred tickets to spare.
"Nineteen-thousand-nine-hundred and ninety-eight… Nineteen-thousand-nine-hundred and ninety-nine…"
All of a sudden, Rinky Dink arose from behind the counter as if out of thin air.
Rainbow recoiled at seeing the now dour faced stallion.
"This ticket exchange is hereby void," he grumbled uncharacteristically.
Rainbow blinked. "What?" she blurted, slamming her hooves on the counter. "Why?"
"You cheated," hissed Rinky. He tipped his hat sullenly, releasing a cascade of washers from atop his head. They clattered loudly on the glass case, rolling over the side and landing on the carpet at her hooves. "I trust you know what the penalty for rule breakers is."
Rainbow glared back at him. "This allegation is absurd. I demand trial by funbat… whatever that is."
Rinky gasped in suprise. "In the history of Funtown, no one has ever invoked the rite of trial by funbat!"
"You've been open for two weeks," quipped Rainbow saucily.
"Fun minion, regale our guest with the particulars of our ancient tradition."
Inky grumbled something unintelligibly. "Under the rite of trial by funbat, a dispute over rule breaking will be decided on the outcome of three Funtown games, one chosen by the challenger and two chosen by the house. Best out of three wins the terms of the dispute."
"Name your terms, challenger," commanded Rinky, adjusting his hat.
"Okay, if I win, the ticket exchange stands. We get the Wonderbolts doll and we're not banned."
"And a hundred poppers," whispered Scootaloo.
"And… you give us a hundred… poppers," shrugged Rainbow.
"Very well, and if I win, the house ruling stands and you must agree to do a skywriting ad campaign for Funtown and serve a hundred hours of community service."
"Rainbow crossed her forelegs and frowned disdainfully. "Throw in that you change Funtown's name to 'Lame Town' and you got a deal."
Rinky extended his hoof. "Then we have a deal."
Rainbow checked him suspiciously for pranks before reciprocating for their shake. It was clear that both were quite confident in their own chances.
"Participants, sign here," mumbled Inky, pushing a clipboard toward Rainbow.
"What is this?"
"A waver, notarized, binding agreement and affidavit. I mean… Aff-fun-davit."
"Seems excessive," she grunted, picking up the pen in her mouth. Then again, how was he ever going to make her do any of that stuff if she lost. She spat out the pen. "What's the first game?"
"House picks first," Rinky Dink pontificated, "and we pick Dance Diva Remix."
Rainbow scoffed derisively at the thought of him dancing. "Whatever you say; let's go."
The whole group assembled in the arcade around the DDR game.
"Highest score after one song wins the first round," proclaimed Rinky flamboyantly. His demeanor seemed to have done a complete one-eighty as if this ordeal were a special treat for him. He let a token whimsically roll down his foreleg and into the coin slot.
Rainbow stepped onto the colorful flashing floor pads and stared apprehensively at the big screen ahead. "Feels like this whole thing is kinda stacked against me."
Rinky shrugged apathetically from the other side of the stage. "You're here voluntarily and Funtown policy doesn't have to allow patrons to appeal their cases at all. But if it makes you feel any better, I'll let you pick the song, it won't make a difference."
"Oh yeah," she blurted arrogantly. "I'll show you!" Rainbow had only played on a dance machine once or twice before with okay results. She scrolled frantically through the list of songs, not recognizing a single title. She began looking for something that sounded easier but quickly had to just choose one at random before the timer expired.
"Oh, Midnight Rose. Good choice," giggled Rinky, rubbing his hooves together.
Rainbow rolled her neck nervously as the level loaded. Two translucent runways unfurled over a scene of a huge stone clocktower at night, the clock's hands almost at midnight. There was a short countdown over a closeup shot of a forlorn looking mare dressed in a flowing white gown. She stood at the railing of the tower's widow's walk and held up the head of a red rose in her hooves. Then the arrow prompts began to drop from the top of the screen.
Rainbow cringed as she was late on the first two steps but quickly found the beat and was on point soon after.
The rose crumbled apart into petals, whisked away on a playful breeze that meandered through the sky.
The nightcore track started out relatively slow with sparse arrows but quickly began to build. After the drop came a downpour of prompts.
Rinky Dink was surprisingly quick and limber for a stallion of his build, stringing together countless perfect steps with effortless flow.
"I get it," droned Inky. "The clock and the scattering rose are meant to be evocative of the transitory nature of life and the futility of our machinations as they're all blown away at the stroke of midnight."
The Cutie Mark Crusaders stared at her.
"How did ya get a job workin' at Funtown?" asked Apple Bloom, bemusedly.
She turned to them. "I interviewed and the manager thought it was funny that my name rhymed with his name."
Under a crescent moon, the stream of petals seemed to grow in length as it swooped and looped through the air. It whooshed into the cobblestone streets of the dark city below. Streetlights began to illuminate as it went by. Shops and houses lit up. Still fountains erupted with dancing water.
It was really elaborate and well done for something happening entirely in the background, thought Rainbow. It looked like a high budget commercial for an SSRI medication… Maybe that was just because of Inky Rose's commentary. No, she decided. The only thing it needed was a voiceover and some cautiously optimistic sounding piano music. The production was so captivating, it was making it difficult to concentrate on the arrows.
Their hooves pounded on the pads in near synchronicity. Rainbow's eyes kept darting over to the other side of the screen to see the game's call outs of Rinky's almost flawless execution. His score would be difficult to beat.
By the end of the song, the whole town had come to life in a big celebration and fireworks were exploding over the tower.
"Ask your doctor if Zamaphil is right for you," muttered Rainbow. She felt content with her performance but as the results screen came up, she saw that the score wasn't even close.
"The winner of round one is Mr. Fun," declared Inky Rose indifferently.
Rinky Dink turned to the small crowd of cheering onlookers and took a bow.
"Thank you, thank you."
"Alright, enough of this," bristled Rainbow. She pointed a hoof at him. "Get ready to be destroyed, 'cuz we're playing skeeball!"
Rinky Dink guffawed heartily. "I was born with a skeeball in my hoof. Lead on, colorful one."
The group reconvened at the skeeball games across the arcade, bringing the small audience of other ponies with them.
"You got this one in the bag," boasted Scootaloo as she set up on Rainbow's left.
The contestants stared each other down as the balls crashed into the rack, Rinky Dink making a silly face with crossed eyes and his tongue hanging out.
"Best score after a round of eight balls, wins the second round," said Rainbow, picking up the first with her hoof.
"Game on," he agreed.
"GOOD LUCK," she shouted obnoxiously in his ear just as he released his first roll. The ball zipped up the ramp and circled the 5k hole all the way down.
His eyes flicked over to her. "Any cheating will be grounds for disqualification and automatic loss."
"Well then good thing it's not cheating to wish your opponent good luck," shrugged Rainbow disingenuously.
They turned back to their respective machines and began rolling, trading strikes. Rinky was slower and methodical while Rainbow was quick and instinctual. Neither had missed one yet and at the end, Rainbow watched as her opponent plugged his final 5k shot, leaving them deadlocked.
Rinky Dink looked up at the identical scoreboards. "Well, look at that, we're tied. You're better than I thought."
"Oh, please," scoffed Rainbow. "I can do this all day, I know because I've been doing this all day. Just pony up another token and we'll keep going till you lose."
Their coins clinked and the balls rolled down again. Rainbow quickly rolled four back to back in the hole and turned to Rinky with ball number five waiting in her hoof.
"You know, if I did cheat," began Rainbow, lurching smugly into his personal space, "and I got disqualified, couldn't I just challenge you to another trial by funbat? It says any dispute can be challenged. We could be here forever."
Rinky aborted his interrupted roll and reset, trying to get his motion down.
"Guests are limited to challenging a ruling on a single house rule infraction," he grumbled in the surest sign he was becoming annoyed with her.
"Is that true or did you just make that up on the spot?" she laughed derisively. "Because you don't really seem like the kind of guy who actually thinks anything through... No offense. It wouldn't surprise me if you didn't see a giant exploitable loophole that it took me like two seconds to find."
Rainbow momentarily returned to her game and tossed another in the hole. Rinky tried to use the pause to quickly collect his focus and execute his roll but Rainbow returned immediately with more trash talk.
"You should add that little detail to the rule poster. It says 'any dispute.' It's sort of deceptive wording. Kinda scammy if you ask me… like your prize prices… No offense."
Rinky grinded his teeth, still trapped in a loop of practice rolls and cluttered thoughts.
"There is a detailed house rule book available for review upon request," he hissed.
Rainbow dunked another fiver without thinking about it. "Oh, a mysterious rulebook with extra, secret rules? That's not mentioned on the sign either," she chided. "How's anyone supposed to know about that? See? You're totally trying to pull something over on us."
On Rinky Dink's umteenth pump fake for the hole, the ball slipped from his hoof. It hit the runway with well under the necessary velocity to hit a big points target. Time slowed down. Rinky's eyes bulged in alarm as the little sphere rumbled away. It decelerated, lazily scaling the end jump. It stalled there, teetering on the crest where, for one tense second, it thought about rolling back before it plunked irrevocably into the bottom of the board for the trifle default score.
The crowd gasped at the ten point muff.
"Wow, look at you," smirked Rainbow. "Got it all the way to the end of the ramp."
Rinky Dink turned slowly to her. "This game isn't over yet," he growled darkly.
"Actually, it is," she replied, pointing up at her perfect score.
Inky Rose cleared her throat. "The winner of round two is the challenger, Rainbow Dash. The trial is tied."
Rainbow leaned full bore into her victory. "Thank you, thank you," she gloated. "Autographs are five bits."
Rinky Dink stood speechless, his eyes transfixed on the shameful ten at the end of his score.
"Well, let's end this," prodded Rainbow impatiently. Bring on the next challenge."
Rinky continued staring through the board with a faroff expression.
"Mr. Fun?" called Inky, warily. When she received no response, she turned to address the rest of the group. "The final challenge will be go-karts."
"You have go-karts here?" blinked Rainbow.
"They have everything here," grumbled Apple Bloom, "and we haven't done any of it."
"Fine," laughed Rainbow. "No one's ever gonna beat me in a race."
Rinky Dink finally turned slowly to lead the way and she lagged behind with the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
"He doesn't seem very happy," Scootaloo remarked, uneasily.
"I like him better this way," shrugged Rainbow. Then she turned to whisper to Sweetie Belle.
"Hey, Sweetie Belle, I'm the best at racing, obviously, but just in case something happens, I want a little bit of magical assistance."
"You mean more cheating?" she gasped with worry.
"We need to make sure we win this; you don't want to get banned do you?"
"No. But won't we get banned anyway if we cheat?"
"Only if you get caught, so don't get caught. Now here's the plan, when I'm racing and I give you the high sign, that's this," she twirled her hoof in circles, "that's when you intervene with your magic. I want you to sabotage the engine of his go kart the next time he drives by you. Be looking for that signal. Just rip a cable out and I'll take it from there."
"I- I don't know," she cowered.
"Relax. Chances are that I won't even need help… but pay attention, just in case."
The previous go-kart race was just finishing as the entourage walked up to the starting line. The contestants cut to the head of the queue and settled into the two karts parked at the head of the pack.
"The race is five laps," proclaimed Inky, fiddling with Rainbow's seatbelt. "First pony across the finish wins the trial." She continued struggling with the buckle. "Sorry, this isn't the kind of four-point restraint I'm familiar with." It finally clicked. She shoved a crash helmet on Rainbow's head and left.
The kart keeper walked behind the vehicles and started their engines with a revving staccato of loud pops.
"Ready to get reverse swept, Mr. Fun?" mocked Rainbow belligerently over the idle rumble.
Clutching his wheel attentively, Rinky Dink turned slowly to face her with a pained, wooden smile. "I'm not Mr. Fun right now…"
Rainbow's face fell with inauspicious malaise. Unexpectedly perturbed by his response, she broke eye contact and looked to see Inky Rose nonchalantly removing the go-kart safety rules sign. Rainbow's mouth went dry. She tapped her hooves on the wheel anxiously, trying to ignore the ominous silhouette in her peripheral vision and its sustained gaze with unwavering plastic smile.
After what felt like an eternity, Inky signaled the start from behind the railing. "Racers ready…"
The green lamp lit up with a high pitched chime and Rainbow floored it.
Rinky Dink let out a blood curdling cackle that rose above the shrieking burnout of their rear tires. Their rubber caught the road and they shot forward, leaving a wispy trail of pungent smoke.
Rinky pulled ahead on the inside as they went into the first turn. They entered a long straightaway where Rainbow jockeyed to get around but Rinky swerved to block her. She looked ahead, trying to read the course for an opening to gain on him. There was a big hairpin turn coming up next. Rainbow faked left and then broke right a little before the turn and was able to open a hole right into the inside of the hairpin.
Rainbow veered to make the tight turn. Just as she pulled even, Rinky slammed into her, pinning her kart to the metal guardrail on the track's right side. Rainbow gritted her teeth from the blow as sparks began to fly from her bumper.
"You are a murderer of fun, Rainbow," he raved with wild-eyed fury.
"Oh, yeah? Well your pizza crust has the consistency of wet cardboard," she shot back, defiantly.
Rainbow spun the wheel to push back as they entered the speed humps. The karts rolled up and down, splitting apart, then clashing again.
Rinky cut her off in the next turn and she was back on defense.
The track was impressively long for a kart track and not just confined to one area of the building. It went up and did a loop above part of the sprawling game area. It wasn't until Rainbow saw the view from up high that she understood that the weird thing she'd seen in the rafters was actually the go-kart track.
The dueling karts swooped down and went through a jumble of snaking track before the final straightaway. They crossed the finish with Rainbow just a kart length behind. The Cutie Mark Crusaders cheered wildly from the stands.
"You should have just taken my tickets and forked over the doll," spat Rainbow.
"Never," he frothed at the mouth. "It would be a sin, an affront to the convention of gaming and entertainment!"
Rainbow tried to pull the same trick in the hairpin But Rinky Dink didn't fall for it, instead keeping his focus on the inside track. His erratic yet defensive driving made him hard to read and all but impossible to pass. There were plenty of other turns to capitalize on; she just had to become more familiar with the course.
Rainbow snaked back and forth in an attempt to throw him off her next attack. She wove around on his right but he immediately slammed her against the rail again. She grimaced from the impact. Then her mouth dropped open as Rinky took his eyes off of the road to robotically face her with gritted teeth.
"Listen now as I tell you a story," he howled over the popping engines and the scream of metal on metal as they scraped down the contour of the course. "Once upon a time there was a little girl who was nothing like you. This little girl loved the fair. She loved it so much, she never wanted to leave. But then one day she had to leave the fair. She was so sad that she cried for the rest of her life. The end."
"You're a complete lunatic," sputtered Rainbow in terror.
"Flattery will get you nowhere," he crooned.
Rainbow pumped the brakes, freeing her kart from his pincer squeeze. She dropped behind him at an opportune moment, as they entered the next turn. Rinky hit the outside rail while she zipped ahead on the inside.
"Can you hear her crying?" wailed Rinky from over her withers. "Don't you feel terrible? You know what it does to you? On the outside, you smile but on the inside, you're screaming. YOU'RE ALWAYS SCREAMING! EVERYWHERE YOU GO! EVEN WHEN YOU SLEEP!"
Rainbow scrunched down into her seat, desperately wishing her kart had rockets on it. She held a shaky lead to close out the second lap. Having him behind her was unnerving but keeping an eye over her shoulder, she did manage to stave off his wild charges through most of lap three.
It was towards the end when disaster struck. While weaving through the snake bends, Rinky Dink clipped the rear left of Rainbow's bumper at just the right moment to send her into a spin.
Funtown suddenly turned to a blur. Rainbow took her hoof off of the accelerator as her kart spun in a four-fifty before lurching to an abrupt stop. She grunted in frustration, looking side to side confusedly. Then she jammed on the pedal again and made a hard turn to reorient to the track. As she got back up to speed, she quickly realized that her opponent was far off, probably seconds ahead. She'd never catch him now, not unless he wiped out too. She'd had it with him and she was not going to do community service. It was time to use her ace in the hole. Two laps left. That was enough opportunity to erase his lead as long as Sweetie Belle did her part. Rainbow zoomed into the homestretch and twirled her hoof, side-eying the worried Cutie Mark Crusaders as she went by. Seeing Scootaloo's face gave her a sudden inspiration. The kart had a governor to cap its speed but her natural athleticism didn't. That was the key to her dominance in racing.
Rainbow leaned forward, away from the seat, and unfurled her wings. She began to flap furiously just as Scootaloo would on her scooter. Her wheels began to spin faster. It was like having two engines. She used her wings to bank around the hairpin without even braking. Rounding the corner, she reacquired Rinky Dink. She quickly closed the gap as he slowed conservatively for the next turn. When they hit the S-bend, she was right on his bumper. Rinky's eyes widened as he noticed the chugging of a second engine at four o'clock. He turned back in shock to see Rainbow as close as his own shadow.
"Hi again," she chimed smugly.
"What? Impossible," he raged with a sneer.
"Shoulda made it a three lap race." taunted Rainbow. She swerved into his kart, pushing him into the outside rail and eliciting another rooster tail of sparks. As they came out of the turn, the two were neck and neck and entering the homestretch. She was edging just ahead as the both of them stomped the pedal all the way down.
They came to the finish line; it was now or never. Rainbow cast an expectant glance at Sweetie Belle who gritted her teeth in anticipation of their arrival. First place was still up for grabs and they needed that extra push.
The racers blew past the checkered line and Rainbow hazarded a glance back at her opponent's engine. There was no immediate change to his kart's performance but she saw a little burst of sparks shoot from the back. Sweetie had done something. Her confidence swelled as she turned her attention back to the course
Rainbow was able to ease ahead before the hairpin despite past difficulties with Rinky's aggressiveness. She kept her eyes forward as she solidified her lead. His efficacy as a competitor appeared to be waning.
Unbeknownst to the racers, Rinky's engine was now engulfed in fluttering flames as it spat out colorful plumes of sparks in every direction. Little multicolored embers bounced on the asphalt behind him and over the rails into the arcade. His speed began to fall off and Rainbow pulled further ahead. The popping of the sputtering engine died away. By the final turn, he was out of sight and she was practically in a race by herself.
Rainbow hit the checkered flag alone. "Yeah," she screamed at the top of her lungs. She took a hoof off of the wheel and pumped it over her head in triumph as she began her victory lap. "Woohoo! I won! Eat it, Lame Town! No one messes with Rainbow Dash! I…" Her words trailed off as the track became flanked with rising flames.
Rainbow's eyes widened as she let the kart roll to a stop. She scanned across the rest of the track, finding its whole length veiled by a roaring fire that was now spreading into the arcade. Over her idling engine came the sound of screams as ponies fled in every direction and the ceiling filled with smoke.
Rainbow chuckled nervously as she unbuckled her restraint. "Welp… better go check on the girls." - - -
Inky Rose stood huddled in an emergency blanket, staring into the gutted carcass of Rinky Dink's Funtown. Firefighters doused the last embers of the blaze, sending steam and ash swirling into the sky. It was bad luck that the whole fire department had been too preoccupied with a blaze at the hospital to be able to respond in time to save it.
"When dreams burn to the ground,
where do they go?" she asked the indifferent wind.
When your dreams turn to ash and
the ash blows away, what do you have left?
The same as always.
Nothing is forever.
Everything is a snapshot.
permanence is but a comforting illusion.
Death and chaos.
Life and order.
The pendulum Swings.
Another link in an endless chain.
From today's ashes come tomorrow's flower."
Rainbow, brushed a lock of singed mane from her eyes "I think it's pretty safe to say that it was extremely lucky for Funtown and Ponyville that I was in the building when this all went down," she concluded adamantly. "Things could have been a lot worse. I don't know what they were thinking with those indoor magic engines."
The reporter nodded and finished his scribbling. Then he thanked her before departing.
Rainbow's eyes shifted inconspicuously to Rinky Dink who was sitting alone on a bench, a blanket draped over his withers. A locket lay open on his hoof.
"All I ever wanted to do was make foals smile," he wept to the accessory. "I'm sorry, Bluebell! I've ruined your memory. I'll have to find another way."
He sat, quivering in sorrow as a line of foals came traipsing into the scene. Leading them was a demure looking pegasus. His mouth dropped open as he saw the destruction in the street up ahead.
"Oh, my, what happened?" he asked the inconsolable showpony.
"It's gone," he cried. "It's all gone!"
The foals hung their heads and groaned in despair.
"How terrible," sighed the stallion. "Well, come along, children, I'm afraid the Funtown sleepover is canceled. We'll be sleeping in the dormitory as usual."
"Now we have nothing to look forward to," cried one colt hysterically.
The stallion put a comforting hoof on his withers. "Oh, that's not true. Maybe you'll all get adopted tomorrow or maybe the rock peddler stallion will come back again some day and let us play in his wagon."
Rainbow scratched her head uncomfortably and turned back to the Cutie Mark Crusaders who sat disheveled and disheartened on the cement. "Well, I think it's safe to say if Twilight were here, she'd agree that the most important thing is that everyone's safe… and that today's friendship lesson is to always have your story straight before talking to the cops or media. Because four united friendship stories beats one evil story any day of the week and that's what loyalty is all about."
"Uh-huh," agreed Apple Bloom and Scootaloo tepidly.
Sweetie Belle just sat silently with a thousand yard stare on her face.
"Hey, girls," chimed a voice from behind them. A uniformed emergency worker appeared with a big satchel on her side. She fished out a Wonderbolt doll identical to the coveted one on the prize wall. "Would anyone feel better with a toy in their hooves?"
Scootaloo and Apple Bloom smiled and nodded their heads excitedly. Rainbow's mouth dropped open in disbelief. The worker passed dolls out to the fillies. The third one plopped in Sweetie Belle's lap, seemingly unnoticed by her as she continued to stare into space.
The mare turned away to find more foals to comfort.
"Uh, hey, where's mine?" asked Rainbow, grinning awkwardly.
The emergency worker squinted back at her skeptically. "How old are you?"
"Ten?" Rainbow floated hopefully.
The worker's scowl deepened.
"Eleven… ish," she rebounded. "I'm big for my age; what's your cutoff?"
Author's Note
"I'm not Mr. Fun right now…"
Why is this the scariest sentence I've ever written?
Ignore the date on the last post and don't be afraid to leave a comment if you have a thought.
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