Ultimate Equestria

by Leo Pachino


Chapter 025: Disruption

With the sun dipping into the sea at the horizon and the moon rising for the night, The Perfection’s kitchen gained a moody glow from the red light made from the torches, furnaces, and other heat-operated artifacts. The dim red glow from the kitchen clashed against the silky white and blue radiance of the moon just outside the windows. At one of the several preparation tables, Sweetie Belle and Ivan Voorhees, the chef, were cooking a large stew. Butch Taylor, meanwhile, was sifting through the inventory against the wall, his back turned away from the windows and his fellow cook’s backside.

“So now the pepper?” Sweetie Belle asked the hulking massive black stallion.

He was chopping onions next to her in a rapid fashion, though, not a tear shed from his eyes oddly enough.

“Aye.” He dryly replied.

“Wait, Burgundy or Ayleen?” Sweetie asked, holding two shakers of peppers.

“Ay-”

“Oh wait, I remember, the Ayleen.”

“Aye.”

“This is actually a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be.”

“Aye.”

“Do you do this every day?”

“Aye.”

“Is it difficult?”

Ivan paused a brief moment, thinking of what technically counts as “difficult”.

“…Aye.” He answered, bobbing his head side to side.

“But I guess it’s worth it from what I’ve heard. Yin and Yu told me all of adventures you guys have, not just pillaging, but those as well do sound fairly impressive.” Sweetie remarked.

“Aye.”

“Korsan’s ‘joyride’ from earlier was like being on a massive roller coaster. It was awesome!”

“Aye.”

“I wish my friends were with me to experience it though.”

“Aye.”

“Well, tough luck,” Butch replied back in a solemn voice. “The captain isn’t all that accepting of non-unicorns hopping on his boat. Unless they’re prisoners,”

“Aye.” Ivan nodded.

“Wait,” Sweetie Belle asked in confusion. “Aren’t you, I don’t know, supposed to be strong followers to whatever your leader’s intentions are?”

The large blue pirate, Butch, calmly corrected Sweetie Belle, “Listen, most of us aren’t as, determined, as Korsan is with his plans. We pretty much see this as a better lifestyle than being in a rut. But that doesn’t mean we’re barbarians or something like that. Hey, Ivan, I’m going to check on the potatoes. Got that?”

“Aye.” Ivan stoically answered as he continued to cut onions.

“Thanks.” Butch said.

The elder Butch walked around Sweetie and Ivan and headed down the nearby stairway into the cellar below.

“Aye.” Ivan quietly said.

The small filly looked back at Ivan, noticing his stiff face.

She asked, “Are you seriously not crying from this?”

“Aye.”

“Huh, cool.”

As Sweetie finishing her bit of stew, several distinct voices faintly echoed from the cellar, catching her ear. The foal immediately remembered those exact voices from earlier, when she, Rarity, and Slasher were in the gardens. Curious of what they’re saying now, the filly crept towards the large stairs and listened in.

“Has anypony seen the captain recently?” A familiar mare asked out from an unseen sector of the chamber. “He seems to be a lot more chipper than recent. Could it be because of that mare, Rarity? I mean, he even showed her around his private stash.”

A second, older mare replied, “I know, even when Korsan was hitting on November, he never showed her his treasure gallery.”

“Please don’t remind me of that wench.” The first mare groaned.

“That’s not important to the matter we’re here for. Did you clean up our last attempt?” The voice of the second stallion from before echoed.

“I did.” The third stallion crankily replied. “How was I supposed to know that Korsan would be pulling another joyride at this point?”

“None of us did. At least none of the other crew members are in the know of what we tried to pull off. For all they know, that mast broke when Korsan decided to drill out of a cave.” The second stallion declared.

“Well, given our newest itinerary, more options may be available to us.” Butch’s aging voice boomed in response.

In an instant, Sweetie Belle realizes that he’s was the initial stallion she heard from the rogue pirates’ previous meeting.

“Korsan’s already discovered the secrets of the Diamond Eye. We’ll being heading out to locate Alicorn Island any second now and we may never be able to strike as soon as the captain becomes an alicorn.” The second stallion warned Butch.

“Perhaps we can use Rarity to our advantage.” The first mare suggested.

“That’s ridiculous.” The stallion retorted. “Even with Rarity on our side, he’ll be able to notice any direct advances onto him just like anyone in the lot of us.”

“Have any better ideas?” The second mare rudely asked.

“…A storm,” the second stallion cryptically declared.

“A storm?”

“While everypony is busy during a heavy storm, we make our move and give that quill-pusher a taste of his own medicine, by pushing him.”

“Huzzah!” Butch proclaimed. “Wait, what about Slasher?”

“That pipsqueak? Don’t worry, she won’t be stepping out of line now that she’s with us.”

A quiet series of chuckles echoed from the unseen sectors of the cellar. Having heard enough, Sweetie Belle galloped to Ivan, but stops halfway as a chilling thought came to her head.

Wait, she thought. What if he’s in on this too?? If I tell him, what’s going to happen to me? I should probably stay quiet for now…


The moon and stars emerged in the night sky above the island, casting their nightly glow across the island and sea. Spike watched the spectacle from the lip of the massive volcano. With the red head from the boiling lava pool several hundred metres below providing heat for his reptile body, Spike felt as if he was at peace with the world. He outlined the shapes of famous constellations with his claws for minutes on end, as well as creating his own in the shape of himself and his friends.

However, his stargazing was suddenly interrupted by the earth violently shaking below him. The baby dragon Spike yelped in panic as he stumbled on the vibrating ground. Small surrounding rocks and pebbles started to pour down the face of the steep mountain, followed by boulders of ever-increasing size. Even the surrounding hills began to bend to the will of the tremor.

“What the hay is going on?!” Spike screamed as chaos erupted all around him.

Crawling along the ground, he looked over the edge of the volcanic crater and saw the pool of lava rapidly rising up the cone.

“This isn’t good.” He uttered in horror.


In the midst of the thick jungle, Applejack, Applebloom, and Scootaloo were recovering their hoofing as the earthquake continued to roar. The large palm trees around them collapsed one by one, sending even more panic throughout the unsuspecting ponies, having to now dodge them. The two fillies squealed as more and more of the wood towers fell, nearly crushing the. As the trio scampered through the woods, one of the larger pine trees ahead of them collapsed and plummeted directly at them. Applebloom and Scootaloo embraced themselves in fear.

CRASH!

A loud smashing noise bellowed across the entire island. Much to the fillies’ surprise, they found their bodies still intact. Applejack stopped the falling tree with her body. With her hind legs digging into the snapping wood and her front hooves buried in the fallen vines and bush, Applejack found herself stuck and slowly losing strength against the mass of the tall tropical pine.

“Oh shoot!” The orange Earth pony declared. “I’m stuck!”

“Sis’!” Applebloom cried. “You can’t get stuck now, we have to go!”

“You two just have to get to the meadow or the beach. I’ll last.” Applejack assured them.

“We’re not leaving you!” Scootaloo exclaimed.

“Oh yes you twos are. Go!” Applejack demanded.

“But-”

“Go!”

Applebloom tried to plea, “Please, we can try-”

“Go! Get out! Scat!”

Overwhelmed by the elder mare’s demands, the two foals decided to follow her command and ran into the further reaches of the tumbling forest ahead. With her hooves now embedded into the landscape, Applejack remained stuck for at least a minute as the quake still continued.

“Move! Move! Move!” She told herself.

As hard as she tries, kicking, punching, and destroying her Earth pony muscles, her body continued to stay firm.

“If only I could use magic to lift this darn thing, then I’d make sure that my lil’ sister’s safe out there instead of worrying back here. If only I was a unicorn… What would they think of me for trying something that insane?

A distant voice hollered out from behind the mare, “Help!”

“What the-?”

Stiffly turning her head, Applejack saw that it was Spike, running right to her.

“Spike?! What’s going on?” She asked.

“Volcano’s erupting!” Spike screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Volcano?!”

Applejack’s green eyes immediately darted towards the middle of the island. She saw that the volcano was in fact erupting violently, as pillars of smoke rushed from the top and large rivers of molten lava rained down from the cliffside. The destruction was charging straight towards her, Spike, and the fillies. In an instant, her body gained a second wind and the mare immediately launched the fallen tree from her hind legs with a mighty buck. She then yanked out her hooves from the earth with a series of rapid tugs, freeing herself in less than three seconds. She charged towards Spike as he ran towards the coastline.

“Don’t look back!” Spike exclaimed.

Slightly curious of how close the lava was, Applejack looked back for a split second, immediately jumping in shock as she saw a massive wave of flowing molten rock rapidly speeding right towards her and Spike. The wave incinerated any fallen trees or plants in its way with no sign of slowing down.

“Oh shoot, oh shoot, oh shoot!” Applejack rapidly cursed.

“I told you not to look back!”

With Applejack now right behind Spike, the orange mare quickly lifted Spike onto her back with her head as a scoop.

“Hot-hot-hot!” Spike exclaimed as his tail hovered over the lava sea.

“Wait, don’t you dragon types not burn in lava?”

“Yeah, when static enough, not when it’s just come straight out of the volcano and flowing at rapid speeds!”

“Oh.”

“Your tail’s on fire!”


High above the erupting anarchy of nature, Rainbow Dash looked over the carnage in utter shock. From her high view, the cyan pegasus could see large chunks of the island breaking apart and sinking into the ocean below, sending whatever life and molten rock on it plummeting into the roaring waters. The island was falling apart and sinking, fast. Dash swooped down to get a better look around the epicenter of destruction. She saw Pinkie Pie standing on top of a stone spire poking from the lava flows along the side of the volcano.

“Pinkie!” Dash called to pink Earth pony from above. “Hold on, I’m coming to get you!”

“Look at the lava, it’s so cool!” Pinkie cheerfully replied. “Look! Look! It’s making pretty red bubbles!”

“Now’s not the time to be goofing around!”

“Aw, but lava’s so fun to look at.”

Disregarding the energetic mare’s intrigue, Dash soared towards the top of one of the thicker clouds and immediately started pounding into it, releasing a small shower of rain from it onto the volcano. The pellets of water struck the lava in an endless barrage of liquid missiles, quickly cooling the molten stone and turning it into a thin, black bed of obsidian. Pinkie moaned at the sight of her entertainment being destroyed and her mane and tail turning into a flat mop of hair from the rain. However, before her mild lament lasted for long, Rainbow Dash landed down onto the new rock floor and approached Pinkie.

“Are you okay?” She asked.

“I’m as cool as a cucumber,” Pinkie happily replies, immediately getting over her melancholy.

“This whole island’s about to go under if we don’t get out of here.”

“Aw, that’s a shame. I saw a bunch of really cool stuff in the jungle.”

“We have to find the others and make sure they’re okay.”

“Okey-doke-”

An immediate jolt erupted from seemingly nowhere, sending the two mares to the back of the obsidian platform.

“What was that?” Rainbow asked, shocked.

“Yay! We’re lava-rafting!”

“What?”

The stunned pony looked around to find that the large stone sheet she made had split up into smaller slabs, all being swept down by the raging flow of lava. Looking forward, Dash saw that the platform they were on was approaching the edge of a cliff, about to hurdle over a lava waterfall.

Dash screamed, “Ahhh! Pinkie!”

The pegasus attempted to grab her friend and lift her off of the ground. Rainbow Dash flapped her wings violently as the impromptu raft started to teeter over the edge. As hard as she tried, Pinkie is too heavy to be lifted even a fair inch for only a second at most.

“You s-should r-really start to lay off of the c-cake.” Dash groaned.

“Hold on tight, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Please keep your hooves, legs, wings, horns, and head inside the vehicle at all times.”

“Oh, relax. Don’t you like doing stuff like this? Or maybe you just completely lost your touch as soon as we hit the sea and have become a stick in the mud. Come on, don’t be a stick in the mud.”

“I’m not a stick in the mud.”

“Prove it. Let’s have some fun and turn that worried frown upside down!”

Upon hearing those words, a rush of overwhelming pride and adrenaline flares through Rainbow Dash’s body. This was a challenge, one that Dash could not deny.

“No backing out?” Dash asked.

Her face scrunched into a determined stance, her mouth slid open into a grin, and her hooves locked into the cracks of the obsidian slab. As long as the challenge stood, Rainbow Dash will tough it out and prove herself victorious. Just as Pinkie had planned, Rainbow Dash was back in her good old fighting spirit, ready to take on a bet and have a good time.

“No backing out.” Pinkie confidently declared.

The slab began to accelerate off the cliff, revealing the true height of the drop. At that moment, Pinkie realized what she had done.

“Oh-”

“No backing out.” Dash declared.

“Uh-oh.” Pinkie said.

“Don’t tell me. You just realized that this was a bad idea, and we’re now plummeting off a sheer cliff face.”

“Yep.”

“We’re going to get seriously injured from this?”

“Most likely,”

“Bring it on.”

The large slab fell from the cliff edge and rocketed down the lava waterfall. As it tumbled several dozens of meters to the molten jungle below, the whoops of Dash and cries of Pinkie echoed across the island.