Lex surveyed the deck of the ship, watching as the doctors he’d assembled to help Vanhoover’s citizens treated the ship’s crew, and cursed bitterly.
It was nothing short of miraculous that nopony had died. Given that they had been taken by surprise by a larger, albeit only slightly larger, force that was more aggressive and better-armed than they were, C. Shells and her crew had fared incredibly well. Lex had asked her about that, and she’d attributed it to little more than luck, and the fact that her crew had focused more on defending themselves and keeping those things from getting below deck than on trying to attack. Lex had been tempted to lecture her when she’d told him that; a purely-defensive posture, with no focus on attacking, couldn’t win. But even he had been able to recognize that this wasn’t the time to be giving lessons.
As it was, there had been myriad injuries dealt to all of the ponies that had been above deck – save only for Nosey, who had somehow managed to scurry into the crow’s nest without being accosted – but only two of them had been so serious as to require Lex to make use of magical healing to assist their recovery. The rest of them were being treated by the grateful doctors and nurses that they had protected.
Lex knew that he should have felt relieved at the outcome. But while he was aware that things could have gone much worse, that knowledge brought him very little comfort. Instead, what he felt was anxiety and self-recrimination that he hadn’t anticipated something like this happening. It was a lack of foresight on his part that was utterly inexcusable.
It wasn’t as though the idea of Vanhoover being beset with monsters had been beyond the realm of imagination, or even plausibility. That had been the case in Tall Tale, after all, so why couldn’t it be true here as well? No matter that Twilight’s briefing about the situation here had made it sound like the monsters had left when the elemental bleed had ended; she had openly admitted that her information was incomplete. And yet he had acted as though what she’d told him had been extremely reliable, with Tall Tale’s situation being completely anomalous.
But it wasn’t that he’d made such a foolish mistake that upset him. Rather, it was what that mistake had almost cost him.
The ponies on this ship had come to Vanhoover under his auspices. That made them his responsibility; if any of them had been killed, it would have directly impugned his ability to defend those whom he had implicitly sworn to protect. That would have struck at the very heart of what he wanted to accomplish most, which was to prove that he was a better ruler than the alicorn princesses.
Those miserable fish-creatures had, in other words, tried to make him into a failure. And because he hadn’t taken their presence into account, they had almost succeeded. That thought made him grit his teeth.
That, and they had actually injured Sonata! Just remembering that made Lex’s blood boil, and he had a vicious urge to swing Severance at something again. He quashed it, however, as he noticed C. Shells walking towards him.
“Well, it looks like everypony’s going to be okay,” she said as she moved to stand alongside him, directing her gaze towards the activity on the deck. “There are still some pretty serious gashes, but nothing so bad that you need to work that magic of yours anymore, according to the doctors.”
Lex gave a grunt of acknowledgment.
C. Shells was silent for a moment, then continued talking. “Ocean Spray probably wouldn’t have been able to fly again if you hadn’t done whatever you did to fix his wing. Same with how badly Scrubby’s hoof was mangled. And Sandbar…” she trailed off for a moment, shaking her head before continuing. “He told me what happened. Wound like that, he should be dead, but now they’re saying that other than a nasty-looking scar and a sore throat, he’s gonna be fine.” She chuckled for a moment, then added, “He’s pretty excited about the scar, too. Says that it makes him look tough.”
Lex was quiet, unsure why she was telling him all this. Was that really something he needed to know? Or was this one of those inscrutable social rituals that he’d never been able to decipher? He didn’t have a chance to ponder that before C. Shells spoke up again, finally turning to face him. “Look, can I be blunt?”
“I’d prefer that you were,” answered Lex, turning to face her in kind.
“I don’t know how to talk to you,” she replied. “None of us – my crew and I – do.” She swept a hoof towards the assembled ponies on the deck. “When I was checking on everypony just now, you wouldn’t believe how many times I heard them say that they wanted to thank you. But not one of them felt comfortable approaching you…and not just because you’re still all covered in blood, by the way.”
Blinking in surprise, Lex rubbed a hoof on his face for a moment. Noting how it came away with dark smudges, he sighed in exasperation. Before he could look for a towel, C. Shells produced one from somewhere, holding it out to him. He took it wordlessly and began to scrub his face.
“They’re really grateful to you,” she continued. “And I am too. Not just for saving us from those things, but for everything…fighting that dragon, fixing my ship. Heck, even coming here to try and help Vanhoover. A lot of the crew have friends and family here, you know. But you make it really hard to tell you that.”
“Get to the point,” muttered Lex as he finished cleaning himself off, tossing away the towel that was now thoroughly stained with dark fluids.
C. Shells snorted at the terse response, but didn’t seem too upset about it. Instead, a rueful smile crossed her lips. “The point is, even if you are rougher around the edges than a patch of barnacles, that we’re all behind you one hundred percent.”
“…we need to figure out what to do next,” said Lex after a moment, changing the subject. It was enough to add a genuine twinge to C. Shell’s rueful grin. Coming from a pony as salty as him, that was about as graceful of an acknowledgment of everyone’s feelings as could reasonably be expected. “Right now we have no idea if there are more of those things or not, so we need to assume there are and work to maintain a defensible position.”
She nodded, turning serious as they focused on the situation at hoof. “Can you fortify the ship somehow? Keep more of those things from getting on?”
Lex thought for a minute, then shook his head. “No. I do have defensive magic that can help to secure a position, but nothing that would stop them from simply climbing up the sides. But that’s not what worries me.”
“No?” C. Shells enquired, raising a brow.
“If they come over the side of the ship again, I can fight them. But if they start attacking the underside of the ship, the potential for catastrophe would increase dramatically.”
“Attacking the…hang on, I’ll admit that those things were scary as anything, but all they had were teeth and claws and basic weapons. Those aren’t enough to put a hole in the hull.”
Lex shook his head. “No, they aren’t, but we don’t know the full extent of what we’re dealing with here. If those creatures have something that we haven’t counted on, we’d be caught completely off-guard.”
“But you have repair magic!” protested C. Shells. “Even if they damage the ship, you could just cast it again and fix everything, right?”
“That would seal a rupture,” admitted Lex, “but you might recall, from when you saw me use that spell previously, that it takes ten minutes to cast. That wouldn't be time I had during a fight. Moreover, it wouldn’t remove any water that we’d take on in the interim. If the initial attack created a severe breach, it could conceivably be enough to seriously damage this vessel’s seaworthiness.”
“…you really think they have something that could do that?” C. Shells glanced around, suddenly feeling far more nervous than she had a few moments ago.
“In all honesty, no,” replied Lex. “I think that if they had something that destructive, they would have used it in their initial assault. But at this point we need to weigh different sets of risks, and remaining out on the water gives those creatures more of an advantage than I’m comfortable with.”
“So we’re headed ashore?”
Now it was Lex’s turn to nod. “Going inland is dangerous, but staying in a place where known hostiles can approach us completely unseen, surrounded by an environment that favors them, is more dangerous. We’re going to need to chance it.”
“And once we dock? Then what?”
“I checked a few of the warehouses while I was on the wharf,” answered Lex. “We’ll move everypony and the supplies there, and once we’ve cleaned and secured it, we’ll settle in for the time being.” Mentally, he made sure to make a note not to use the one that had bloodstains in it.
C. Shells frowned slightly. “That’s pretty close to the water if we want to avoid more of those things coming back.”
“We don’t have any better options,” retorted Lex. “Without knowing the city’s condition, going scouting in the dark is a fool’s errand. And since we’re going to be unloading the ship, having a closer location is easier. Right now, a warehouse is our best bet.” That wasn’t saying very much, he knew. Her point about that still being uncomfortably close to the water was a cogent one. Moreover, the effort needed to clean the place to the point of being fit for habitation would be considerable; worse, it would need to be done immediately, before anypony could be allowed to rest. Otherwise, the unsanitary conditions would become even more of a threat than those fish-monsters had been. “We have a long night ahead of us,” he finished.
“Yeah.” C. Shells let out a slow breath, running a hoof through her white mane as she did so. “Well, we went into this knowing that it wouldn’t be easy, right?”
Lex glanced at her, his approval of her attitude not showing on his face, before he started to walk away. “Let me know when the doctors finish treating the remainder of the crew. As soon as they’re done, we’re going to get started.”
“Yes, sir!” C. Shells snapped a salute, drawing a chuckle from the ponies that noticed. Lex briefly wondered about that, but decided to ignore it, going over to where a doctor was treating Sonata.
“How is she?” he asked without preamble, making the two of them look over at him.
“Very well,” answered the doctor, and older unicorn stallion. “None of her wounds were deep enough to require stitches, so with a little rest and relaxation, she’ll be right as rain in no time.”
“They still hurt though,” interjected Sonata, giving Lex her best dewy-eyed look. “You wanna kiss ‘em and make ‘em all better?” Both stallions snorted, Lex in scorn, the doctor in amusement.
After a brief reminder to change her bandages regularly, the doctor went to look at another crewmember, leaving the pair alone. That fact was enough to make Lex glance around slightly. “Where’s Nosey?”
“She went back below deck,” answered Sonata. “She said something about taking interviews later. And for the record, asking your injured girlfriend about another mare is, like, totes uncool.” She smirked as she said it, letting him know that she was teasing him.
Lex rolled his eyes, but instead moved on to what he’d come over to tell her. “I overheard some of the crew talking about what you did, stopping several of those monsters with your magic.”
Sonata puffed up with pride. “Oh yeah?”
He nodded. “You probably saved several lives, even if you did almost lose your own in the process.”
She gave a guilty grin at his mildly-admonishing tone, rubbing the back of her head. “Yeah, well, who knew those things would be such a tough crowd when it came to ‘maa-jik poh-nees.’ I mean, geez!”
“I wanted to ask you one thing though.”
“Oh yeah? Shoot.”
“Before, when we were heading to Tall Tale, I asked you if you had any spells that could cause physical harm, and you said no. So what were those sonic attack spells you used to fight those things?”
“Huh?” Sonata tilted her head in a show of confusion. “That wasn’t magic for ‘fisical harm.’ It was just me blasting them.”
Lex stared at her, utterly nonplussed by her explanation for a moment, before shaking his head. “Let me try this again. You said that all of your magic was for ‘messing with someone’s head.’ Exactly what part of a wave of concussive sound did that?”
“It’s, like, sound,” said Sonata, her voice making it clear that she thought this was obvious. “You hear it with your ears, and your ears are part of your head. Duh.” She smirked. “I, like, can’t believe I have to explain that to you, Mr. Genius. I…Lex? Hey, Lex? Why are you putting your face in your hooves? Lex?”
Honestly, her boyfriend could be such a weirdo sometimes.