Moby Dick: Mess Hall:
The mess hall was unusually quiet except for the mutterings of a certain lavender unicorn and the flipping of pages of a logbook. The Captain's Logbook recovered from the USS Sharptooth to be precise. Actually, it wasn't that strange for the mess hall to be this quiet, devoid of its usual assortment of ponies and griffins chattering over each other and the sound of silverware plunging into meat and assorted fruits and the sound of trays hitting the tables along with the occasional explosion coming from the kitchen with the sound of a fire extinguisher spraying soon following. None of that was occurring right now, for it was 3:00 in the morning and most of the crew was fast asleep. Celestia knew they deserved it after the hectic chaos of the past few days...
Three days before...
That was the sound of torpedos hitting rocks and coral stirring up silt and clouding the water all around the Moby as it dived deep into the waters to escape its pursuer, the USS Hayler. On the Bridge, it was chaos, with everypony at the controls trying to get the large and very obvious submarine out of the range of the Hayler's weaponry. Rainbow Blaze, in full Captain mode, was shouting (Only thing louder than him was the klaxon that was currently blaring over and over as red lights flashed everywhere.) coordinates to direct the Moby Dick towards. With a powerful burst of it's rear thrusters, it surged under a colorful orange and purple coral archway which was swiftly blown to pieces by a well fired torpedo shot.
"Damnit! That last one nearly hit us! I've got to say, Steel and his crew have certainly got their sights trained on us. Compliments to the crew and their shooting skills." Rainbow mused in respect towards his fellow Captain, never mind the fact that said fellow Captain was trying to currently kill him and the rest of his crew.
"Sir, not to object, but can we save the compliments towards the Hayler and her crew till... I don't know, AFTER they're done trying to kill us!?!" Target shouted from her position at the controls.
"Engage defensive shielding!" Rainbow barked, ignoring her and then a voice crackled from over the comms. It was from Silver Spanner down in the boiler rooms, trying to keep the rear thrusters going. She was hot, and covered in sweat and oil as steam burst from pipes all around her.
"Excuse me? Did you just ask what I think you bleeding asked you bloody parasprite for brained cloudbucker?" Silver Spanner snapped, her temper just short of completely blowing up entirely, which coincidently was what some of the boilers that powered the Moby Dick were very close to doing right now. "She's barely holding together as it is, and you want more power diverted to the ship? Let me remind you, CAPTAIN, that shield is still a prototype and barely held together the last time you used it! Power's not restored completely anyways!"
In the background, a tan pegasus pony mare with a black mane and tail spoke into her radio seemingly oblivious to the chaos surrounding her "Honey, if he just walked out of your quarters during sex before you finished, I don't think he's into you. Piece of advice. Dump him like a bad habit." before Silver Spanner turned on her after letting out a mutter of "Bugger him and his whole family!" after getting shouted at by Rainbow to and I'm quoting directly here "GET THOSE DAMN SHIELDS UP OR I'LL SEE YOU THROWN OUT AN AIRLOCK!"
"Wildfire, stop talking to your friend about her sex life and help me here with these damn shields, or we'll all get blown to pieces and you, nor your friend's sex life won't matter one jot anymore!" She barked and Wildfire at once dropped what she was doing with a "Sorry hon, gotta call you back. Let's just say somepony's thrown a spanner in the works of our conversation." She said, giving a dirty look towards Silver before grabbing a wrench and the twosome set to work. Soon, after a couple of minutes, Silver got back on the comms to Rainbow Blaze.
"Okay, I've managed to work on a few things down here to keep this whole bloody ship from blowing up, but I can only give you rear defensive power for a few minutes. So piece of advice... DON'T WASTE IT AND GET US ALL KILLED!" She shouted and Rainbow could swear he could feel his ears ringing from the shout. Once his ears had stopped ringing, he turned to Gallants.
"Mister Gallants, you know what to do." He said simply and the griffin replied with a "Aye-Aye sir." and once again, all the runes on the Moby Dick glowed green and before you knew it, a shield enveloped the entire rear aft section of the ship, tail, thrusters, and all. Some torpedoes hit the shield only to blow up on it, harming nothing. Soon, a few minutes later, with another powerful surge of the thrusters, the Moby Dick was well out of the Hayler's range and was delving ever deeper into the depths. Rainbow wiped some sweat off his brow and let out a breath he hadn't known he had been holding. They were safe... for now at least. Target sighed in relief before turning her head to the captain.
"Sir, requesting permission to go to the medical bay and visit a friend?"
Rainbow smiled, as he knew exactly who she was talking about. Truth be told, he'd like to visit Grape Vine as well, but his duties on the bridge prevented him from doing exactly that.
"Permission granted."
Moby Dick: Medical Wing
When Target made her way to the medical bay, she found herself seeing a rather out of the ordinary (even for this ship) sight. There lay Grape Vine, on his bed with Solar Blitz next to him, who was looking rather embarrassed and had a Celestia-why-did-you-do-this-to-me?-look on her muzzle, which was rather understandable as Grape was chewing on one of her wings.
"Mmm, bananas." Grape Vine, who in his completely stoned as Tartarus state obviously thought poor Solar's wings were bananas hanging off a palm tree. "Just like the ones they grow back in Florida... Or was that oranges? I'm not sure." Understandably, Target was gaping and found herself unable to get words to form in her mouth. Solar mouthed "Help me." and eventually Target sighed to herself and smacked away Grape's head.
"How...How long has he been like this?" Target asked once she'd finally regained the ability of speech. Solar blushed.
"Ever... Ever since I gave him the Morphine like you asked."
"And how much did you gave him?" Target inquired, a raised eyebrow visible from behind her red tinted shades.
"Er... Er... To be honest, I'm not sure. H-He was screaming in pain so I just gave him as much as I-I thought would work. I'm not a doctor, so I-I have no idea how much that is! I-I just guessed at the top of my head!" Solar squeaked and Target facehoofed. Honestly, the idiots she worked with sometimes. Then she noticed Bulk lying on the floor.
"Er, do I really want to know what happened with him there?"
"He... He may have fainted at the sight of all the blood coming from Grape's hoof?" Solar admitted sheepishly while blushing causing Target to let out a loud groan and mutter "Great, Hemophobes, that's the last thing I need..."
A dazed voice came from Grape Vine's mouth.
"Did... Did you guys know my daddy, my real one, not Rainbow, decided my middle name should be Sue? Had... Had it changed of course. Didn't want to be laughed at." Grape commented lightly with a laugh. "You... You know somepony should write a song 'bout that. Hey, maybe I could do it!" He cried in a giddy tone of voice before he seemed to notice something else.
"Hey... You know how all the colors look so pretty from where I am? Seriously, you should try this stuff! It feels great!" He laughed before turning his head back to Solar.
"Hey, she says she's hit the Mile-High club with her coltfriend, some Griffin, I think he is, but you know what? I don't believe her!" Grape commented as Solar blushed redder than before looking rather like a tomato. Target sighed before glaring at Solar who could only laugh nervously.
"Um... Sorry?" Solar replied in that same squeaky tone of voice before Target's glare harshened.
"Just get him off it. Last thing we want is him exposing everypony's secrets to everypony else on this ship like some sort of Gabby Gums." Target muttered before saying to herself "Celestia above, I need a stiff drink!"
"See, I told you she was a drunkard, I told ya!"
No prizes for guessing from who that came from.
Present Time:
Twilight yawned and took off her glasses to rub away at her eyes. She was tired, and she knew it. She'd been trying to translate this book all day and so far, had no such luck. It was in ancient Sumareian, which was about as useful to her as if the book had been soaking wet. Twilight sighed. She was lucky the box the book was in had been protected by Griffin Runes, otherwise she wouldn't have gotten as far as she had. So far, the log had been in plain Griffin-Tongue, which she knew how to translate but now she'd hit a wall. The only useful thing she'd learned was the Sharptooth captain's identity, from a picture in the book showing a white feathered female griffin with light green feathers around her eyes and at the back of her head with the name Captain Greta Stone beneath it. (Twilight had pumped her hoof in victory when she saw it. A Griffin, a female one at that reaching the status of Captain? That was a very impressive feat to say the least, especially in this day and age, where Griffins were looked down upon as a lower class and females much the same.) Then, Twilight's ears perked up at the sound of hoofsteps behind her and she whirled around only to see the white maned, black coated form of Spent Thift walking up towards her.
"You're up late." Twilight observed.
"Yeah, sorry. Couldn't sleep. Been an insomniac most of my life sad to say." He admitted with a small blush before observing Twilight's mane, which was tied neatly in a bun. "You know, you should keep it like that. You look quite cute, dare I say."
Twilight glared.
"You know, I may be tired, but not enough to punch you."
"...Sorry, force of habit. Trying to break it." Spent apologized before he noted the language of the book in front of Twilight. "Say, that's ancient Sumareian isn't it? I studied that in college! Mind if I give you a hoof with that?"
"Sure. I've been getting nowhere fast." Twilight admitted with a blush. And so, Spent translated...
May 16:
Welp, we've finally done it. We've discovered the Neighlantis Gate, the Lonely Mountain known on our sea charts as the Pillar of Fire. It's actually not far out of the Bermuda Triangle, surprise surprise, and in the area known as the Sea of Monsters. If I remember correctly, it was so called that because this area was the supposed resting place of the Kraken, King of the Seas, the Devil Fish. But honestly, so far I've seen no evidence of it actually existing, if it ever did at one point. One would expect to at least to see some remains. But in all my years as a Captain, I've learned that there are many mysteries about the sea. For all we know, considering how far back the legends go, it may be a immortal creature (Scary as the prospect is) so it may exist, but why have we yet to see it?
May 17:
Nothing much happening today, really. The crew is... rather excited that we've discovered the entrance to the Lost City. When we get back, this will be the finding of the century! Griffins and Females alike will finally be respected among others! No more mockery, no more scorn, no more segregation! I've done a grand thing today, and I feel as if I should treat myself to a stiff drink. Only proper way to celebrate after all.
May 18:
Happy Day Today! Married my Number One. Not much to write really, as I'm more interested in OTHER things...
May 20:
Heard rumors from my Number One. And I don't like them. He says the crew is planning an uprising against me, for not continuing further into the Neighlantis Gate. But how can we? Our fuel supply is low, and we don't know what lies beyond the gate, how far the city is! If we ventured further, we may never return. That's why we've got to go back. There's an island nearby, we can refuel there and then try our luck once more.
May 22:
The crew's been getting restless, antsy you might say. Questioning my every judgement. I'm beginning to wonder if Number One is right. I hope to Boreas he's wrong for once. But he never is, never is...
May 22:
This is perhaps, no, I know it to be my last entry. The rumors were true. They're at my door now. I can hear them pounding. Dear Boreas, they've got explosives with them, probably raided from the weapons lockers! I leave this final note, along with the enclosed map, not for myself, but for the benefit of any creature who finds this, so that they too know how to find Neighlantis, and hopefully find the lost secrets of the city. This is Captain Greta Stone/Thrift, signing off for what I know to be the last time. Number One, if you ever find this, just know that I love you. G-Goodbye...
The last few pages were stained with teardrops, and the writing was hastily written. Twilight whispered "Dear Celestia..." before she noted Spent Thrift's expression. He was crying, tears streaming down his face and whispering "I'm... I'm so sorry my love. I failed you! I... I failed."
"Spent... You were the Number One aboard the Sharptooth?" Twilight asked in shock.
"DON'T CALL ME BY THAT TITLE!" Spent suddenly shouted, tears still coming from his eyes. "I failed her! I don't deserve that title anymore! Tartarus, I don't even deserve to be called her husband!"
"W-What happened?" Twilight asked nervously, suddenly very scared of Spent's fury. He took notice and looked ashamed of himself for scaring the young mare.
"I'm sorry... I never meant to frighten you." Spent said, pulling her into a hug. "As for what happened... I was there, for every second of it. I watched... Celestia above, I watched, as my wife was killed, all by that BITCH of a Griffin, Gilda, who dared to call herself Greta's most loyal, shoot my beloved wife three times! In the back! IN THE BACK! They forced her to turn her back to them, just as one last piece of humiliation towards her! Those damned greedy pieces of FILTH I shared a ship with!" Spent roared before his voice turned heartbreakingly soft once more. "She... She never had a chance. If... if only I could have defended her and got the scene quicker!" Spent whispered and for the first time Twilight noticed a marriage bracelet around one of his legs.
"You would have been overrun, it sounded like it was the whole crew after all, and probably would have been killed as well." Twilight replied, in an attempt to reassure her crewmate.
"...It would have been better that way." Spent growled before he walked off with Twilight watching him every step of the way with a sad expression on her face and let a tear slip from her eye...