//------------------------------// // Tails Between Your Legs // Story: Rainbow Dash Around the World // by MagicS //------------------------------// Blue hooves landed on the deck of Junk #1, right in front of Godfrey. “Well you really came out of nowhere, didn’t see or hear you coming at all,” Godfrey said to Rainbow Dash. A smirk then tugged up his beak. “Ohhh… the unicorn, right. She around here too?” “Maybe,” Rainbow Dash shrugged. Godfrey’s smirk turned downright malicious. “You know I’m a little annoyed with you not taking my threat seriously enough. It’s almost like you’re looking down on me. Like you don’t fear me even after the times I’ve trounced you—even when you know what kinds of things I’m capable of doing.” “If I let myself get afraid of every jerk I’ve met in the world I’d never get anything done,” Rainbow narrowed her eyes at him. “You know what? I do take you seriously, you’re strong, you’re determined, you’re trouble. But you know something else? In the end I don’t think you’re anything special either compared to who and what I’ve already dealt with in my life. I thought you were special for a while in a different way cause… well, that’s not important anymore. You’re just a really persistent pirate.” “That so?” Godfrey coldly said to her and the two continued their face-off. A Bosche soldier finally noticed Rainbow Dash being here and started rushing towards her—but ended up clotheslined by Godfrey when he tried going past the griffon. The soldier flipped over onto his back, sputtered once, and fell unconscious. Godfrey picked up the axe he had been carrying and held it out towards Rainbow Dash. “I’m really going to make you regret ignoring me. Maybe you’ll get it when I go get that Princess and start peeling off her skin scale by scale,” he smirked. “Of course you’ll be dead by then so what in Tartarus do you care?” “That’s not happening. We’re here to rescue her and get back the Necklace you stole,” Rainbow glared at him. Godfrey snorted and briefly ran a talon against the dangling crystals of the Necklace, causing it to glow slightly for a moment. “And that’s worth all this death to you? Knowing how angry I would get, knowing that if you weren’t standing right here in front of me I’d already be tearing that lizard Princess apart just out of spite?” “Well I’m stopping you aren’t I?” “Heh, fair enough. But I’m tired of you, Rainbow Dash. I’m tired of not coming out perfectly on top. Not losing, but not winning as hard as I should. It ends here. You’re going to die and you and your friends are never getting this Necklace back. It’s going to take me straight to the Trident after today,” he finished with a glare at her. “Says you,” Rainbow Dash scoffed and rolled her eyes. “You know what I say? I say that we’re taking apart this whole fleet and sending Bosche—and you—running away with your tails between your legs. And considering how well the attack sounds like it’s going to me already? Guess which one of us I think is more likely to get their way.” “Please. We both know the rest of what’s happening right now doesn’t have near as much of an effect on who’s winning today as which of us wins our fight,” Godfrey grinned. “We can both turn the tide for our side completely.” “True, so I guess I just need to beat you myself. Oh wait, I was already planning on doing that,” Rainbow smirked back at him. “And keep me distracted with this pointless talking so I can’t stop your friends from rescuing the Princess?” Rainbow Dash frowned. “That too.” “I figured. After all, you can act as confident as you want, but beating me all by yourself is hardly a certain thing at all,” Godfrey said and swiftly threw the axe at her horizontally to the deck. It sailed through the air and Rainbow Dash hopped up to avoid it while Godfrey jumped at her at the same time. A talon clenched into a fist and a blue hoof smashed against each other with the sound of a wrecking ball. Junk #1 was actually a bit larger than the other Junks in the fleet, its interior more varied, and several quarters for additional officers had been added to make it fitting as a command vessel. That made it very busy below and behind the main deck, with most of the servants onboard either cowering out of the way or running around in a panic. Which was why despite the camouflage cloaking them almost perfectly, Daylight Gleam, Gilbert, and Smooth Tongue were still moving slowly and carefully. They didn’t need to run smack into a soldier who couldn’t even see them. However they were still in a hurry and couldn’t stop the pounding of their hearts. Since it was just invisibility too they had to whisper to each other if they wanted to talk. “Do you have any idea where she might be held?” Gilbert whispered to Daylight. “No clue. I think only Breakwater knows the interior of these ships. My guess though would be she’s either held in the captain’s quarters or somewhere down below,” Daylight said. “I can sense her general location with the totem but what if some of the doors in here are locked?” Smooth Tongue asked. “I use my key and we start a real ruckus down here,” Daylight said, pointing to her horn. Smooth Tongue gulped. “Well if the totem is still sensing where she is then you should probably lead the way,” Gilbert said. “Is it getting clearer the closer we get?” “It will,” the lizard nodded. “I think I should focus on making sure I don’t accidentally drop this thing on my back anyways,” Gilbert said, pointing to the powder keg resting there. Daylight grimaced. “That’s a good point. I don’t know what Rainbow Dash plans on using it for but we definitely don’t want anything to happen to it.” Just then a couple of soldiers passed by so the three hushed up immediately and pressed themselves against the wall. They didn’t even breathe until the soldiers were well past them. Now acting as silent as possible they could hear the muffled sounds of shouting and explosions from outside. It was a reminder that they had to hurry up—even if they were fearful of the spears the soldiers carried being pointed at them. “Let’s go,” Daylight whispered again and had Smooth Tongue lead them through the bowels of the ship. All the while he held his totem close to figure out which direction to take and how much further they had to go to find the Princess. There were fewer souls onboard the further they went—passing by one room they found a cook angrily sweeping up broken jars and knocked over supplies in his kitchen. He seemed unaware as to what was truly going on at all. They came to a door that led to what should have been the bottom area of the ship going by how far they had walked already. Going through that they entered a long hallway that had several more rooms lining it all the way to the front of the ship. Luckily though, there weren’t any Boschese down here at the moment that they could see. Smooth Tongue felt something from his totem and went up to one of the doors. “Here! Here! She’s right through here!” “Calm down!” Daylight shushed him. “Are you sure?” Gilbert asked as he walked to the door. “Absolutely! The Princess is right in here!” Before Smooth Tongue could bang on the door he was held back by Daylight. “We don’t need to make anymore noise than that already.” Gilbert looked at the heavy padlock on the door and frowned. “Locked, just as we worried.” Daylight bit her lip and looked around at the long empty room they were in. With some hesitation, her horn pulsed and the camouflage spell she had over them was canceled. “Going to need to focus all the power I can for this… just be ready in case we’re interrupted.” “Hopefully we’ll be lucky,” Gilbert said. The anticipation was almost too much to bear for any of them, but especially Smooth Tongue, as Daylight got to work on cutting through the lock with her magic. If the Princess really was inside this room it would be a huge relief. Thankfully by the time Daylight had sliced through the lock and was able to remove it from the door, no Boschese had come by to bother them. “There we go,” Daylight said, sweating slightly, as she took the big padlock off. Smooth Tongue immediately pulled the door open and shouted inside- “Princess!” Daylight and Gilbert followed him in, seeing a room that was actually a bit more lavish and nice looking than they had expected. Of course the majority of it was still behind a wall of steel bars. It was a place for a slave, or a prisoner, but one who would be taken better care of than the average Bosche conquest. And huddled in a corner of that cell, frightened and shaking, was Princess Fairscale. Her eyes widened upon seeing who it was that had come in. “Smooth Tongue! And Senax’s friends!” “I suppose that’s good enough…” Daylight muttered under her breath. Princess Fairscale practically jumped to her feet and rushed over to the bars. “What’s going on?! How did you get here? Where is-“ She was stopped by Daylight holding up a hoof. “Princess—I understand you’re surprised and have a lot of questions, but we’re in a bit of a rush here. Suffice to say that we’re here to rescue you and all of the other lizards who were taken by Bosche. The rest of our friends and your people are here doing that right now. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to open up your cell.” Daylight looked down at the just as big and heavy padlock that was on the door to the cell. She rolled her eyes and sighed in annoyance. “I guess I really can’t expect anything different.” “Good luck,” Gilbert grinned and patted her on the back. “I’d rather have had the luck that the keys were just sitting in here too,” Daylight grumbled. “Don’t worry, Princess,” Smooth Tongue said to her in the meantime and smiled. “We’re all going to get out of here soon.” The captain of the Bosche Junk and his officers were thrown overboard into the cold ocean waters by the newly freed lizards. Poetic justice if there ever was any, they had only just before shackled them and forced them into cages, now they found their vessel completely taken over and themselves treading water as best they could with their heavy silk clothes. A hundred lizards from the ancient city screamed and cheered in victory as they crawled over every inch of the captured Junk. The lizards from the mountain who had helped rescue them were wary—but all were put at ease as Senax stood on deck. “Now! We must go forth and rescue the others! From this ship to the next one and the next one!” Senax shouted. “We will take them all and sail them back to your home! But please be careful, they won’t let this happen without a fight! You must all work together, work together to save your families and your people!” “I think that’ll do it,” Breakwater said as more cheering erupted. It wasn’t just the Junk the two of them were on that was being overrun and taken over either. Already their allies were doing the same thing to a few of the other prisoner ships. Senax admittedly was worried that the lizards might start fighting each other but for now it seemed they were directing their anger in the proper direction. It didn’t take much to see that you had a common enemy right now. Senax pointed to the helm where several lizards were already gathered. “Take the wheel! Bring us to the next ship!” Despite their relative unfamiliarity with such a vessel, the lizards proved themselves adept enough at the simple task of turning the Junk to the side and practically crashing it into the nearest one still controlled by Bosche. Altogether they could jump to and invade the new one while around them cannonballs and massive arrows flew through the air still. The fighting still raged between the other lizard boats and the Bosche Junks without any slaves on them. That’s what allowed all this chaos to keep happening. Everyone was busy with their own problems. The captain of the Junk they had almost crashed into shouted commands at his soldiers to get into the ballistas and riddle them with holes. He didn’t care if the entire Junk was sank by that, he just wanted to stop them. But he and his soldiers were stopped by many lizards swinging from the sails and onto his Junk, attacking the soldiers and make sure the ballistas couldn’t be used. “And all of you—work together to use your magic against their ships! Make it so the ones with prisoners can’t get away! Change the currents to keep them boxed up here and try and divert the other vessels!” Senax shouted. “We will succeed here!” Rainbow Dash had a bleeding cut on her cheek. Godfrey had a bruise below his eye. The two of them walked around in a circle together on the deck of Junk #1, eyeing the other and preparing to make their next move. Rainbow’s eyes briefly flickered down to the Necklace Godfrey wore. She still didn’t know how exactly she was going to get that off of him. Godfrey continued to just leer at the defiant pegasus who had caused him more trouble and somehow kept surviving longer than any other opponent he had faced in his life. By now as well the sinking and burning Junk behind them had been “stabilized” and most of the soldiers and Bosche officers rescued by the Junk behind it. The three Junks at the front of the fleet’s formation still hadn’t joined to stop the assault because of that. But now that they weren’t so busy it was possible that they finally could. However quite a few soldiers had now also noticed the fight going on between the notorious griffon pirate and this strange rainbow-maned pegasus. Admiral Bin’Tavy and Admiral Tuon scampered over to the railing of the command deck to look down at the fight when they realized what was happening. Bin’Tavy grit his teeth in anger and roared at his subordinates and Godfrey. “Soldiers! Kill that pegasus or help out your comrades, don’t just stand around!” He pointed down at Godfrey. “And you, pirate! What are you doing? Can’t you see what else is going on here? If you’re our ally here how about you make yourself useful and go stop those lizards from rescuing their comrades! Do you not see the battle taking place?!” “Gehahahahahaha!” Godfrey laughed uproariously and looked up at Bin’Tavy with a smirk. “Admiral, you better believe me when I say that me keeping this pegasus occupied is giving you the best possible chance to win right now. Just get your soldiers in gear to stop the slaves from escaping if you can.” Admiral Bin’Tavy bristled in anger but turned his attention squarely to the soldiers anyways. “All of you—get Junk #46 behind us to turn around and back up our forces! We cannot let our bounty escape!” “There’s another thing you might want to keep an eye on. Right now there should be a unicorn and maybe some others who snuck aboard this ship to rescue the Princess I brought you. Send some soldiers below to stop that if you feel like it,” Godfrey grinned while Rainbow narrowed her eyes. “I’m not letting that happen,” Rainbow Dash said. “Gonna stop those soldiers and fight me at the same time?” Godfrey asked. “If I have to.” The griffon lifted a talon and made a beckoning motion towards her. “Come on then, do it.” “You despicable degenerate vagabonds!” Bin’Tavy yelled at the both of them. “Rainbow pegasus, I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here with these lizards but I’m hardly letting you get what you want!” He reached a hoof over to Tuon and practically shoved him over to the stairs. “Grab whoever you can and make sure that Princess doesn’t escape!” “Y-Yes, sir!” Admiral Tuon nodded and made his way down to the main deck. Rainbow Dash clicked her tongue and flew at him but was blocked by Godfrey. “You’re gonna have to go through me,” he said to her. She punched at his face but he blocked it with his forearm and pushed her away. The two narrowed their eyes at each other before both erupted into a barrage of blows trying to take the other out. Their fight continued practically from where all the others had left off.