Chapter 3
Nightmare
Octavia sipped some of the punch, enjoying the raspberry flavor. She can see the poor raspberry pink Earth pony behind the table with sweat on her brow. She’s worried. Octavia grinned at her, causing her to jump.
“This is really delicious,” she said calmly getting a small grin from the Earth mare making her blush.
“Thank you, Princess,” she said, bowing. Octavia walked away to a window to look out at the stars. She sighed drinking more of the punch.
“Ah, dear niece,” she jumped at the voice and turned to see her uncle, Prince Blueblood. She curtsied before him.
“Uncle- I mean Prince Blueblood, I’m sorry. You startled me,” Octavia said carefully, worried. Prince Blueblood chuckled, bowing in return.
“My, my, my, what a dress my brother picked out for you, my dear. It is truly beautiful.” Octavia blushed and stood back up.
“Thank you, I think it is beautiful, too.” She said turning her head away. Octavia felt his fingers under her chin as he steered her head to look back at him. Octavia really felt nervous. She was slapped many times by Prince Blueblood just for making a glance at him. Blueblood’s eyes went wide seeing the pendant around her neck.
“Luna’s Tear,” Blueblood whispered with awe. His hand moved down to lift up the jewel.
“Oh, uh, yes, your Highness. My father passed it to me earlier tonight.” Octavia said as calmly as she could as she tried to control the jitters for being near him. Her eyes kept a close watch on his hand.
“May I take a look?”
Octavia gulped wondering what to say. “Uh-”
“Prince Blueblood! What an honor to see you, sir!” A stallion proclaimed walking over. Several stallions and mares came over to take Blueblood away from Octavia and engaged him in conversation. Octavia let out the breath she held in her chest as she shivered from his touch. She never liked her uncle and experience had taught her to be careful and to stay out of his reach.
She started walking past the windows, admiring the view when she blinked seeing something in the distance. She leaned into the glass and squinted her eyes to see the small dot getting larger and brighter.
“Octavia,” Octavia turned to see her father and mother standing side by side. She turned away from the speck as she joined them at the punch bowl again to chat with other guests.
The speck grew larger and larger as it seemed to move toward the ship.
♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫
The small sloop of war was filled to the brim with Hybrid pirates, all dressed in black or midnight blue clothes. Swords clanking together as two sailors spared, getting ready for the killing. Suddenly a door opened, making all the pirates pause, watching as the giant mare walked up the steps to the quarterdeck. All of the pirates bowed low to their captain and queen. The first mate, a white pegasus with a dark blue mane ran up the stairs to the quarterdeck bowing to the captain.
“The crew is ready for action, captain.”
“Good,” the chilling voice responded. “Prepare the laser cannons.”
“Aye,” the pegasus turned to the crew below her. “Prepare the cannons!”
The pirates below started screaming for blood as they ran for their positions. The giant laser cannons were revealed by removing the tarps off of them. One Earth pony with an eye-patch over her left eye, leapt up on the chair where she would aim the cannon from. She grinned leaning forward to peek at the scope next to her, moving the crosshairs over the large glass windows overseeing the party. She lifted up her hand to show she was ready. The pegasus at the quarterdeck nodded. The pirate returned to looking through the crosshairs, grinning and licking her lips. More hands and fists went up from the shooters’ positions on the cannons.
“Fire!” the Captain shouted.
The shooters pushed forward on their sticks then the cannons boomed loudly. The purple laser balls zooming ahead as the ship sped towards the giant merchant ship.
♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫
Inside the ballroom, everypony screamed and fell to the ground after the barrage of laser balls destroyed the windows. Octavia fell into her father who caught her. Octavia started coughing, from the smoke and dust that the impact had caused. She turned and gasped to see the party guests standing up while others stayed on the ground, dead. Tick Tock wrapped a tight arm around her.
“Rainbow,” he screamed out. Rainbow Dash sat up from her fall hearing her name. She grabbed her hat and ran to where she saw Tick Tock and his family. She pulled out her pistol standing with him.
“What was that?” Sapphire exclaimed looking around with fear.
“Pirates,” Rainbow spat, looking at the smoldering curtains. “I saw the ship before the cannons fired.” There was another lurch and the ship trembled, causing everypony in the room to yell out. Rainbow started screaming out names of personal guards as she looked around for any pirates.
There was a scream as everypony turned to see a servant with a sword cutting a mare’s neck. The servant started cackling in laughter as he pulled off his disguise to reveal his pirate clothes. Everypony started to scream as more servants revealed themselves as pirates in disguise.
“Shit,” Rainbow cursed and starting to shoot at the servant running towards her. The shot killed the pirate. Octavia screamed in horror seeing the servant dead.
“Get them out of here,” Rainbow ordered firing another shot. Tick Tock nodded, grabbing his wife’s hand and started up the stairs as the fight continued in the ballroom. Stallions with swords and pistols of their own, fought back the blood thirsty pirates but there were more disguised pirates than Royals and guards.
Tick Tock reached the third landing of the stairs, he could see the door. The door exploded causing the family to fall back down the stairs, moaning from the impact. Tick Tock lifted himself up on his hands and knees coughing, looking up to see shadows and hearing screams on the other side. More pirates ran into the ball room, screaming and roaring for more blood. Tick Tock grabbed a large piece of wood that was from the doors. He stood up, holding the piece of wood like a club, he swung at the first pirate he saw.
“Run!” he screamed out, parrying a sword before smacking the pirate in the face. Octavia felt her mother grab her by the arms to get her to stand up.
“Run to the kitchen,” Sapphire screamed, pushing her daughter ahead of her as the two run to a door at the back of the room. But there were more pirates that way.
“This way,” Octavia urged, dragging her mother with her towards the window to hide behind the tables. Octavia ducked down and gasped with horror seeing the same mare that served the punch, dead with a splinter in her throat, her eyes had rolled to the top of her head. Octavia felt her dinner trying to come up, but swallowed it down. She quickly grabbed a towel from the table to cover the servant’s face.
Octavia turned to see the small ship float next to them. Octavia was in awe, the ship looked well equipped and filled to the brim with hungry, evil pirates. She looked up at the solar sails to see them in the color of deep purple. There was a shout and the pirates pulled out rifles with strange boat hooks as projectiles. The guns fired and the hooks were shot towards the rails, hooking into them. Once they were secured the pirates started screaming war cries as they swoop across the gap and crash through the windows causing glass to fly over the mares. Sapphire used her body to shield her daughter from the shards of flying glass as more pirates leaped over them.
One pirate landed on the table and laughed like a maniac down at the two mares. He raised his sword for the kill. Sapphire pushed Octavia down hoping to shield her from the blow. Suddenly the pirate’s face contorted as a laser beam slipped out through his forehead. The mares screamed in shock and fear as the pirate tilted towards them. A blue hand grabbed the pirate’s shoulder and threw the pirate away. Octavia grinned happy to see Rainbow Dash standing on the table looking down at them.
“You two, alright?” Rainbow was about to say more when she was interrupted by a war cry. “Get down,” she screamed as she pulled the trigger of her pistol as another barrage of pirates swung through the windows, tackling Rainbow to the ground on the other side of the table.
Out of nowhere, a very tall, dark mare leapt on the table. Sapphire ushered Octavia under the table. Octavia quickly crawled under the dinner table to get away. Sapphire reached a short distance under when she felt hands grab her legs. Sapphire shrieked in horror as she was being pulled back. Octavia turned with shock.
“Go!” Sapphire screamed as she was pulled out from under the table screaming again. Octavia started crawling fast with tears of fear in her eyes.
“What's going on!?” Octavia thought desperately, “I have to do something!”
She reached the end of the table line. She peaked out from under the table through the white table cloth to see the door to the servants’ kitchen. She crawled out from under the table. Staying on her hands and knees to keep from being noticed, she continued to crawl to the door. Suddenly a knife thunked into the door where she was reaching for causing her to turn and gasp to see the giant mare, grinning.
The mare’s coat was the deepest black; her eyes were a bright blue color. Her mane... her mane reminded Octavia of a purple-blue cloud. The mare was dressed in deep blue colored clothes. The giant mare reached out and grabbed Octavia by her mane making her whimper, then scream in pain as she was pulled up on her feet.
“Well, well, well, an Earth pony Royal? That is downright surprising for you to be this old. By far, other than my pirates, you are the oldest Earth mare I have ever seen,” the mare said with a chuckle enjoying how Octavia cringed away from her.
♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫
Vinyl had to hide on a number of occasions when the pirates attacked. She had to kill a pirate that was disguised as a servant. If it weren’t for the knife in her sleeve, Vinyl would have been dead. She reached for her communicator, panting.
“Scootaloo, where are you for Luna’s sake?” She screamed out loud not even worried about being caught when ponies were being murdered left and right. She waited for a few seconds, hiding with her loot. She heard the beep and sighed in relief.
“We’re right behind you,” the voice of her mechanic spoke up. “Uh, Vinyl,” Scootaloo asked with worry.
“What,” Vinyl snapped with annoyance.
“Did you know they’re torching the sails?”
“What?” Vinyl yelped out in shock. She looked outside to see a red glow. True to Scootaloo’s words, the pirates were torching the sails. They weren’t leaving any evidence of their attack. “Aw shit! Get over here pronto!”
“But the pirates,”
“Forget them, Scoots. They are busy with their spoils here anyways. Just get close to the windows and lower a line. Oh, and make sure there’s a basket to carry the sacks.”
“Aye, aye, Captain. Making contact now,”
Vinyl knew Scootaloo was waiting and the only place to go and escape was in the ballroom. She started to run with her cart again, placing her bags on the top for easy grabbing. She reached the ballroom to find it a mess. She watched as the pirates killed Royals left and right, screaming. The Royals, young and old, were yelling war threats or screaming with fear.
“Get down!”
Vinyl turned and witnessed the pegasus guard from earlier, being pulled off a table and crashed into the ground wrestling for her life. Vinyl ducked behind her cart as the fighting continued. She looked up to see the pirate ship moving away from the windows. She crawled behind the large tables dragging the bags of spoils to one of the broken windows.
“Go!”
Vinyl looked up, seeing a pirate pulling out a screaming mare from under the table. Vinyl recognized the mare from earlier, today. When Vinyl was still trying to find the kitchen she was guided by that same unicorn mare. It was actually the famed Duchess Hybrid unicorn that married the crazy prince. Vinyl reached up at the table next to her and grinned, finding a small grill filled with hot coals. She concentrated on her magic as she floated the burning coals in the air.
“Hey,” Vinyl called out.
The pirates and Royal unicorn look up as Vinyl’s hands glowed in a blue magical aura. She made a fist and made a punch in the air, causing the hot coals to fly towards the pirates. The pirates screamed as the hot coals latched on to their clothes. They ran away, burning and screaming. During the running, the unicorn mare had fainted from the shock. Vinyl grinned, feeling good to help the mare. She looked up and smiled. She can see a small ship, smaller than the pirate ship float nearby. Vinyl pulled out her small laser pointer and pressed a button to shine a blue beam up to the ship.
She watched as the ship glide close to the windows, but high enough for nopony to see it. A rope with a large basket was lowered to her position. Vinyl could hear a scream, but ignored it as she dumped the potato sack and her satchel into the basket then pressed her laser twice, revealing two lights to the ship above, then the basket was lifted away. Vinyl waited, seeing another line of rope being lowered, this one with a noose for her to hitch her foot on. She reached for the rope but a cry for help made her turn.
At the end of the table she saw the tallest mare she had ever seen holding on to the Earth mare princess, placing a blade to her neck laughing. Vinyl sat up, shaking her head. She can’t do anything about this... but... Vinyl turned with guilt, seeing the princess crying, trying to pull away from the pirate’s sword. The sword tip actually cut her skin slightly, letting a small stream of blood flow down her neck. Vinyl gritted her teeth then groaned.
“I swear, I’m going to regret this,” she grumbled, hooking her rope around a dead pirate’s wrist then found her knife in her pocket. She turned to see her cart still where she left it and grinned at an idea. She reached into her trouser pocket for a pair of large black rimmed, purple lensed goggles over her eyes. She stood up and started concentrating on her magic. Her horn started glowing then her hands enveloped into blue magic. The cart started glowing in her magical aura. Vinyl leapt up on the cart then squatted down. Once balanced she send out a boost of magic to make it roll.
“Hey, pirate bitch!” Vinyl screamed out loud for many to turn and watch with shock seeing the unicorn servant riding on her cart.
“Huh?” the Pirate Captain turned and screamed. Octavia opened her eyes and screamed as well. Vinyl leaned to the side with her arm ready, as the cart crashed into the pirate. Vinyl snatched Octavia as she turned the cart with her magic, smashing a few pirates on the way. Suddenly three unicorn pirates leapt in her path and held out their hands as their magical auras encased their horns and hands in various colors.
“Oh buck,” Vinyl hissed as their force of magic made the cart go into a screeching halt, causing Octavia and Vinyl to fly into the tables. Vinyl slammed into a cooked pig while Octavia slid off the table and flew out the window, screaming for help. Vinyl sat up with a cooked apple in her mouth. She spat out the apple, rubbing the greasy juices off her face. She turned and gulped, seeing the pirates walking to her, with swords in the air grinning at her.
“Hehe, ahoy, mates,” she said chuckling.
“Help!” Vinyl’s ears perked up hearing Octavia’s scream as she spun and float away into space. Vinyl looked down at the caviar bowls and grinned.
“Hey, you guys, think fast” She screamed out, quickly scooping the bowls and throwing them at the pirates, getting shocked screams and yelps and curses as the fish eggs covered their faces. Vinyl leapt off the table, grabbing her rope and with her foot into the noose she swung out. She can see the Princess close ahead of her. She managed to swing hard enough to reach the Princess and grab her around her waist, hearing her startled scream. She screamed loudly into Vinyl’s ear, beating her on the chest, screaming for Vinyl to let her go. Vinyl just laughed as they were starting to rise up into her ship.
“Calm down sister! If I let you go, you’d go off to who knows where!”
♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫
Tick Tock slowly regained consciousness, looking around to find everypony in the ballroom practically dead. He strained to get up but his hands were tied behind his back.
“Highness,” Rainbow Dash whispered in pain. Tick Tock gasped to see Rainbow Dash waking up next to him.
“Captain, are you alright?”
Rainbow Dash spat out the blood from her mouth. “As fine as I’ll ever be.”
There was a laugh that made both ponies stare at the white unicorn with blonde hair. “Well, hello, brother dear.” Tick Tock gritted his teeth.
“Blueblood, what are you doing?”
Blueblood took a cube of cheese from a cart and popped it in his mouth.
“Doing what I should have done ages ago. Who would have thought notorious pirates can do a better job.” Tick Tock glared coldly at him. Rainbow Dash glared just as cold.
“This is treason!” Rainbow screamed out.
“Oh,” Blueblood stated with a raised brow. “Oh that’s right. You of all ponies would know of treason, Captain Rainbow Dash. Since you were a traitor yourself being involved with those . . . Earth ponies.”
“Why you-” Rainbow started.
“Enough,” a voice cried out. Everypony turned to the tall mare, walking over with a bloody sword, depositing a body to the floor, grinning as Blueblood was laughing. Tick Tock gulped back sickness seeing his wife dead on the ground with her throat slit.
“M-M-Melody,” Tick Tock whispered. Rainbow Dash jumped out of her anger to stare in shock at the mare dead before them.
“Ah, nice touch, Captain.” Blueblood said loudly handing over a bag of gold coins to the pirate Captain. The Captain levitated the coin sack without taking her hand out of her coat pocket.
“Hmm, thank you, Blueblood.”
Blueblood chuckled looking down at his brother to see his head bowed low over his wife’s corpse.
“What about the Princess?” Tick Tock’s ears went up in alert. Rainbow gasped looking up. The Captain chuckled.
“She went overboard as it were,” she smiled evilly to see Tick Tock glaring coldly at her.
“I’m going to kill you all!” He screamed out.
The pirates in the room all laughed at the outburst. Rainbow Dash glared coldly at Blueblood.
“Wait until the Queen hears of your betrayal!” The Prince only laughed.
“My aunt will never know about this. Except that I and a few trusted guards will be the only survivors. And Captain Nightmare Moon here, will make sure you two will have a hell of a ride to maybe, the Slave Pits as it were,” Blueblood said looking at the pirate Captain.
“Wait? You’re Nightmare Moon?” Rainbow Dash asked in shock. “But you were-”
“Yes, you can say that I have been killed off before. But I’m afraid you have missed your mark Rainbow Dash.” Rainbow Dash growled loudly, fighting against her bindings. “Ooh, I’m going to enjoy this revenge well, a Prince and his loyal, traitorous dog. This will be so much fun.” She said, cackling in laughter. Once she calmed down, with a sigh, she turned to her pirates. “Men, take these two to the ship in chains.”
The pirates sneered as they grabbed the two ponies and force them to stand up. Tick Tock spat at Blueblood getting a revolted look from him.
“I swear, Blueblood, once I get out of this, I will come after you and kill you!”
Blueblood sniffed turning away. “A wasted wish, brother, but let’s face it, ever since you married that Hybrid trash you were a target from the beginning. And now that your three are dead...Wait a minute. Where is Luna's Tear?!”
“Excuse me,” Nightmare Moon asked.
“The Princess was wearing a trinket called Luna’s Tear. Do you have it?”
Nightmare Moon shook her head. “No, why,” she asked with a quirked brow. Blueblood snorted looking out the window with anger. He walked away as his brother and his pegasus guard were dragged away to the small ship. Blueblood checked his watch with a stern expression remembering how close he was to that artifact.
“Well it turns out that Luna’s Moon will be back to being a challenge to find,” he stuffed his watch back in his pocket then pulled out a cigar lighting it. “It looks like it’s time for me to visit an old friend.”