Summer Stampede

CHAPTER 1

Vince McMane sat quietly at his desk.  His unicorn magic dimmed from his horn, guiding the pen across numerous forms and papers.  Being the president of the Pony Wrestling Federation was a lot of hard work.  His grey slick-backed mane gleamed with a soft shine from the rays of the sun penetrating through the windows of his Manehatten corporate office.

A knock at his door brought a sudden stop to his workload.  A young mare popped her head in from behind the door.  The mare was his secretary.  "Sorry to bother you, Mr. President, but six ponies are here to see you," the mare spoke to her boss.

"I don't have any meetings at this moment with anypony," Vince returned with a voice of confusion.  His mind travelled all across inside his head, wondering if there was a meeting he had scheduled or missed.  His brain only drew blanks.

"They wish to see you immediately," said the secretary pony.

"All right, send them in," Vince answered.

His secretary quickly disappeared from his view.  He continued to trace out on who would want to meet with him.  Was there some new wrestlers signing into the promotion?  Some contract renewals?  Nothing was coming up in his thoughts.  Before he could even finish his internal questioning, the door swung open.  Six ponies slowly walked in.  To the president's view, in his sights were three Earth ponies, two pegasi and standing front and center stood a unicorn.  All were wearing black shirts with a familiar pink logo scrawled across the front.

"Violet Velvet," Vince spoke up at his unexpected view of his visitors, the Pony World Order.  "I see you brought the rest of your gang here.  What can I do for you at this unexpected occasion?"

"We have a serious discussion we want to conduct with you, Mr. President.  Something we should have talked about some time ago," Violet, the red unicorn, spoke with a bit of an unsettling tone.

The PWO ponies approached Vince's table.  One of the Earth ponies tossed a newspaper, the PWF Action Axcess, on top of McMane's piled of signed and unsigned papers.  "Read this!" Violet ordered to her unicorn boss.

Vince hovered his eyes over the front page of the company's newspaper.  A picture in the center of the sheet showed Pony World Order member, Ice Cold, covered for a winning pinfall against another pony.  Vince looked towards the top above the photo and read the header, "PWO's Ice Cold suffers lost to Aurora Moonlight."

"I lost to Moonlight.  Moonlight, Mr. President!  She has lost more times than the total victories I've achieved.  She's a jobber compared to me.  And I lost to her.  This was my most embarrassing loss to date," the blue Earth pony spoke with a sharp tongue.

"We've all been suffering, Mr. President," Violet told the stallion seated behind the desk.  "Loss after loss.  We were the most feared group of ponies in this entire company and now we've become the laughingstock of all the ponies.  We are no longer taken seriously."

"Even other heel ponies make jokes about us," Whiplash, the brown pegasus, revealed.  "We're getting sick of it!"

The complaints being thrown at Vince left him without a response for the moment.  He had six angry ponies in front of him.  He wanted to choose his returning words carefully.  "Calm down, ladies," Vince placed his forehooves in front of his body.  "I hear your complaints and can easily understand your anger.  I can only handle so much at a time.  You come in here without an appointment and shout out these bursts of frustration."

"There wouldn't be this much frustration from us, Mr. President, if we weren't such losers now.  And it's all because of that humiliating loss we suffered back at Hoovamania two months ago," Violet confirmed to her boss.

"Oh, when you fought against those six ponies from Ponyville, the Elements of Harmony, right?"

Like speaking a secret command word, mentioning those three words brought out faces of heated madness across the Pony World Order.

"Yes, them," Violet growled.

"I don't why see you should be holding such further anger or any anger in that case towards that day.  In fact, you six should be honoured.  You challenged and faced off against six ponies, who before stepping hoof into the ring, had no pervious wrestling experience.  And they had saved our glorious kingdom on numerous occasions.  That elimination match you twelve mares fought in was one of the best match-ups in Hoovamania history.  It even overshadowed the main event championship bout.  You were part of a history-making match," Vince told the wrestling ponies.

"A history-making match we lost!" Violet raised her voice along with slamming her front hooves down on the table.  "That match was suppose to have been an easy victory for us.  They were the ones who should have been the losers.  Not us.  We had never been so humiliated.  We were laughed at.  Our reputation was gone like that.  It was a night we wish never happened.  But it did and ever since then, we had lost match after match.  We want that changed."

"How so?" the president asked.

"A rematch," Violet requested.

"Rematch?" Vince questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"A rematch against the Elements of Harmony.  We want to pay those little ponies back for our defeat," Violet drove at her demand.

"Yeah, we want to get our hooves on them again and show them that we aren't to be messed with," Stormer, the purple Earth pony, mentioned.

"We'll beat them this time and our reputation will be renewed.  All other ponies will once again know that the PWO rules over the locker rooms of every event we attend," Violet furthered her statement.  "Sign it, Mr. President!  We want that rematch against those ponies."

"What you are asking me Violet cannot be done," Vince answered back at Violet's demand.  In return, disapproved anger etched over the six mares.

"What?!  Why not?  We want a new match against those six little ponies," Violet shouted at the president.

"I'm sorry, Violet, but there is nothing I can do about it," Vince responded without flinching from the aggressiveness exiting out of the wrestling pony's muzzle.  "Those six little ponies you want to fight again are no longer with our company nor hold any wrestling contract.  On that night of their victory over your team, they retired from wrestling and therefore, out of our hooves.  Fans do want to see them again in the ring.  We have tried to negotiate a contract with them, but all our calls have been rejected.  Unless you have any ideas of a plan to bring them back into our promotion, I'm all ears.  If not, I have to ask you to leave.  I have some much needed work to get finished."

The news didn't sit well with the Pony World Order.  Frustration filled each one of the heel ponies.  They were angry at the answer from their boss.

"Fine," Violet snapped.  "If we come up with a plan, we'll let you know."

Not wanting to push their boss further to the point of a possible security escort out of the building, the six mares left the office on their own will.

The PWO exited the corporate headquarters of the Pony Wrestling Federation onto the one of many busy streets of Manehatten.  Their faces were still plastered with frustration and discontent of the failed meeting they had just moments ago.

"Well, that was a waste of time," Whiplash broke the silence of her teammates.

"No kiddin'," Honeycrisp, the honey Earth pony, agreed.  "Vince McMane is the owner of this company.  He can't get those ponies to sign back into it?  Why don't he just send his agents out to Ponyville and drag them into ah ring and then we can just beat 'em?"

"It's Vince McMane, Honeycrisp," the white pegasus, Sky Chaser, spoke.  "You expect him to do that?  I'd be more amazed if he ever step hoof in a ring and actually wrestled for once."  Sky Chaser's critique on their boss brought a small chuckle from the honey-coloured pony.

"So what do we do now?  Keep wrestling and be laughed at or go our separate ways?" Stormer asked.

"No!" Ice Cold hissed.  "The PWO doesn't part ways.  We were the most feared and strongest unit in the entire promotion until we lost to those little ponies from that country town outside Canterlot.  The ridicule we have endured since then will come to an end.  We will once again be the only stable in all of the PWF to bring all the fear to every wrestler like we did before.  If our boss isn't going to help us, then we will find another way."

Hearing the icy pony's lecture brought a sinister smile to their leader, Violet Velvet.  A possible thought had entered her mind; something bad.

"Ice Cold, I think you've given us our contract for those Elements of Harmony.  A way to get them back for us.  Mr. President isn't the pony we need to achieve their acceptance into fighting us.  There's another pony who can," Violet spoke with a grin that only spelled evil.

"Who Violet?" asked Sky Chaser.

The five ponies quietly awaited a response from Violet.  Who was the mysterious pony that would help them get a rematch against the Ponyville ponies?  Violet turned to face her group members.  Her smile was dark.

"Their biggest fan."