//------------------------------// // Part 14: In Troubled Waters (An Old "Friend" Part 3 of 3) // Story: Going Deep Under // by The Bricklayer //------------------------------// Fancy snarled as the Kraken fired green spiraling energy beams with the sound of lightning cracking from the ends of it’s tendrils that scored blow after blow on the already weakened Moby Dick. Small explosions rocked the ship, and sent poor Twilight into the side of a console, drawing blood. Spent Thrift abandoned his position at his own console and quickly grabbed ahold of her and inspected the head wound. “You alright, Twilight?” He asked, calling her by her given name for the first time, a showing of his change in demeanor. “Y-Yeah, I’ll live…” Twilight murmured as Spent bandaged up her head wound and stopped the bleeding. “Though for how much longer is a good question with the Kraken hounding us like a bat out of Tartarus.” “Well, we’ll just have to go faster than it then,” Spent murmured before his head whirled around to face the now Commander Fancy. “How goes the repairs on the thrusters?” He asked as he looked worriedly at the consoles all around him. Damage reports were in the red and a klaxon was blaring at an almost deafening tone. With a snarl, he unholstered a shotgun from his back, before pumping it and firing at the klaxon bursting it open like a pinata. “There, that ought to shut that thing up. Least it’ll do is help our ears a bit,” Spent thought to himself, though a loud screech from the Kraken cut that train of thought off right at the crossing. “Then again, with that thing bellowing at us we may lose our hearing yet.” “Celestia above, I hope somepony figures out a way to kill it before it kills us, or worse… makes us all go deaf.” Spent muttered before Twilight gave him a stare. “You might need to reexamine your priorities.” She deadpanned before Silver Spanner answered over the comms, the headset making her voice crackle. “You don’t want to know, boys. That thruster… Lost to us entirely. I’m working on getting an alternate source of power to the shielding but I’m not making any promises mates.” She said, before there was another explosion that sent Twilight flying out of Spent’s forelegs and into Night Glider, knocking her down. With a blush, Twilight helped the night blue pegasus up and whispered a small “Sorry.” Night Glider smirked a flirty grin. “It’s alright, wouldn’t be the first time a mare barreled me over for my affections.” She teased, making Twilight blush red and Night Glider cackle before another explosion sent Night Glider into Twilight’s arms. “H-Horseshoe’s on the other foot now, i-isn’t it?” Twilight teased, still blushing as red as a tomato. Night Glider could only snicker. “You’re getting good at the jokes. I’m surprised no filly or colt your age has asked you out on a date yet.” Night Glider complimented. “W-Well… I… Uh…” Twilight stammered, unable to come up with a good response to that. “Shame, bet they’re missing out on a really good time. It’s always the quiet ones, y’know.” Night Glider continued to tease. “Oh will, you stop your flirting?” Silver’s voice yelled after she muttered out a curse while hitting something hard with a metallic object, probably one of her infamous wrenches. “Starting to sound like a Dostoevsky novel up there.” “Weren’t those novels filled with lots of sob stories?” Twilight asked her. “Pretty sure there was some romance in them… Or maybe it was that trashy porn novel I picked up in Sudoku’s office.” Silver responded, in a tone of voice that made it impossible to tell if she was being entirely serious or not. “...What was your name again egghead?” Wildfire’s voice asked in a questioning tone. “Her name is Twilight Sparkle, but you can call her “Idiot” for not knowing her Dostoevsky novels!” Silver deadpanned before she hit something again. Twilight was somehow beginning to get the feeling the thing feeling the abuse and being hit with a wrench was Wildfire. “Damn it Spanner, get us something we can use!” Commander Fancy snarled over the comms. “Well, here’s a thought… You’ve got custom made artillery by the Blast Sisters and that company of theirs, whatever its name is… SO START BLOODY USING IT!” She snapped back. “It should make a nice boom.” Fancy nodded before shouting “Powder, Fuse! You know what to do.” “Time to make things…” Blast began in rising excitement. “Go boom?” Powder continued, finishing her twin’s sentence and Fancy nodded before both mares hoofbumped and yelled out in unison. ”Finally, we thought you’d never ask for what we call BOOM TIME!” Fuse smirked before she said “Alright, it’s finally time to break out the big guns! Time for us ragin’ cajuns to show that there oversized octopus the meaning of HEAVY artillery!” She then slammed a hoof on a big red button on Gallant’s console marked “In case of emergency only!!!” and with heavy clanking and whirring sounds, the bottom of the Moby Dick opened up and a huge double barreled cannon was revealed turning itself all 180 degrees to fact the Kraken behind. The barrels extended and lit up bright red and made audible humming sounds of magical charges loading up. Then, the weapon the twosome nicknamed “How we do things down South” fired its payload. With heavy thudding sounds that sounded like thunder breaking open through the atmosphere, crimson red balls of magic were unleashed at the Kraken and hit it with tremendous force doing damage to it’s armor again and again. “Hope you can smile even without a beak, you sunnuva bitch,” Powder snarled. “Now, we’re making pro-” She smirked before soundly being cut off as the Kraken shrieked again and fired more energy blasts and another series of explosions rocked the ship. “...Hey, wasn’t this thing compared to the Titantic? Y’know, unsinkable?” Twilight pondered. “Wasn’t the Titantic a giant luxury cruise liner that hit an iceberg and we’re in a submarine that’s being attacked by a giant squid?” Silverspeed deadpanned. “OCTOPUS!” Twilight corrected. “And the point still stands!” “Well, guess we’re going down with the ship. Like I said before… We’re all going to die.” Silverspeed replied still in that deadpan tone of voice. “Not today we aren’t,” Fancy snarled as he looked out the sub’s window and saw what looked to be a giant Neighponise style gate made of solid stone in front of them. “Powder, Fuse, as soon as that thing gets below the gate, smash it to pieces!” “Got it!” Powder responded with a salute. It wasn’t long before the Moby passed under the gate and soon the Kraken was nearing it as well. “NOW!” Fancy barked. With twin blasts of magic, the gate was smashed in two down the middle and the remains crumbled on top of the Kraken, burying it in the rubble. “T-That thing must have taken thousands of years to build! Thousands!” Twilight stammered out in shock. “Who might need to reexamine whose priorities now, Twilight?” Spent thought with a chuckle. “And what, we just killed a Kraken with it in what… Oh, ten seconds?” Fuse asked with a laugh. “No, not kill. Only buy us some time and give us some breathing room.” Fancy muttered knowing perfectly well that dropping a gate on top of the Kraken wouldn’t kill it. Even as he wiped sweat off his brow in relief at their very narrow escape before Spent spoke up. “...Guys, I know where we are. We just passed the Neighlantis gate.” He said, stunned beyond belief. Fancy let that sink in for a moment before his expression turned firm. “Alright, that does it. I’m calling a meeting in the Captain’s personal quarters with all senior members and Twilight at 1800 hours. We’ll discuss our options from there and see if we can think up a way to actually finally find a way to kill that Kraken, and let Twilight tell us how we get from here…” Fancy said before taking a deep breath. “To Neighlantis.” Fancy sighed as he adjusted himself in Rainbow Blaze’s chair. He felt uncomfortable sitting in it, it wasn’t his chair nor desk he was sitting at, it was the Captain’s. Fancy knew he could never take up that position, Rainbow had led the crew this far, despite a few… minor missteps along the way. He looked skywards even as the hour hand ticked down. “Rainbow, wherever you are, I hope you can send me some sort of sign that I’m cut out for this job, and not just filling in for you like I deeply suspect half the crew thinks I probably am. I’m just a simple RAF Commander, not a sea captain who led his crew through treacherous storms and brought down mighty beasts time and time again. Bloody Tartarus… Silverspeed’s probably right, we’re all going to die aren’t we? Please… Somepony give me a sign that I’m wrong.” Fancy waited for a few minutes, and when he received no answer he slammed a hoof on the desk and swore quietly to himself. Something shattered and hit the floor. Fancy at once looked downwards to what had fell. It was a glass framed picture of Rainbow playing with a younger filly that looked almost exactly like him, except with a lighter shade of blue as her fur color with Grape Vine looking on the background smiling even as he polished a speargun mounted to a wall. Fancy somehow got the feeling this was one of the few happy moments Rainbow ever had in his sadly too short of a lifetime. Fancy’s resolved tightened. He’d lead this crew to safety, no matter what it took, if only to get Rainbow Blaze a proper sendoff and to help Grape fulfill his adoptive father’s last dying wish. That was his main goal now, not to find the treasure of Neighlantis and prove it existed. That one was still on his to do list, as he still had a promise to keep to Night Light, but he wanted more than anything for a little filly to have a father figure in her life. He knew the feeling all too well of growing up without a dad, his father had passed away when he was just a colt, and it was only his nannies and servants that kept him well-fed and the like. But money didn’t solve all of the world’s problems. Sometimes… All you needed was somepony to love you. Fancy didn’t have that luxury growing up. He would make sure that this little filly did. With a little bit of help from Spent Thrift, Twilight sat up a very heavy projector on top of a table and let the film reels roll as she cleared her throat and began a speech she had always wanted to say. “Take it away, Miss Sparkle.” Fancy said. “O-Okay… Say there was a city, a great one with technological and architectural advances far beyond ours, even today. To give you an idea of what the city might have been like during its golden age, here is an artist's impression of it." Twilight said before advancing to the first slide, only to her great embarrassment find herself showing a slide of herself trying on an inner tube and snorkel for the first time. “Why does this always happen…?” She thought as she blushed red and Silver Spanner snickered. “Sheesh… I used to take lunch money from girls like this.” She muttered before Night Glider smacked her in the arm and hissed “Be nice!” “A-Anyways, let's move on shall we?" She stammered before finding the right picture, a beautiful piece of artwork depicting the lost city as it might have been. There were gleaming spires resembling but not quite Greek design, and a grand temple in the middle of the city as ponies walked in the streets. Other buildings were built in styles resembling that of other ancient cultures like the Mayans giving the impression that Neighlantis was the source of all great civilizations that were known today. Twin statues of Kitsunes flanked a grand palace with ancient runes written above the entrance. Twilight quickly checked her father’s book for the translation and it read “The Dragon’s Den”. Twilight frowned to herself, nothing about Neighlantis said anything about dragons or even hinted at it. Then she showed another piece of artwork, of the same city falling into the seas and being swallowed up by the very ocean which it rested upon. “How… How did that happen?” Spent questioned and Twilight quickly flipped through her father’s notes. “I… I’m not quite sure. My dad’s journal mentions a great power but nothing more. It’s not quite clear.” Twilight murmured causing Silver to mutter out “Wonderful…” “Facts on this city are quite hard to come by, if you haven’t noticed.” Twilight deadpanned before she looked at a particular passage and her face paled, going white as a ghost as she let out a small “Oh dear.” “What? What is it?” Fancy asked in worry. “...There’s a guardian.” Twilight squeaked out in a small tone of voice. “Of course there is…” Silver Spanner muttered as she thrust her forelegs up in the air. “They call it the Leviathan. It was mentioned in the Book of Job, some sort of giant sea beast. Probably some sort of tall tale to scare off the locals, but after meeting the Kraken, I’m not quite so sure.” She then quickly re-read the passage again and her face paled even further, if that were possible. “Oh boy… Crap, crap, and more crap,” Twilight muttered. “That guardian… It also goes by the name The Devil Fish and we all know what that means.” A collective silence filled the room. “It gets worse. That Kraken, it won’t stop hunting us, no matter what.” “Is there any way to escape it?” Fancy asked, with a hint of worry in his tone. Spent nodded. “Yeah, there is. There’s a little passage, goes down into the depths of the Lonely Mountain and then goes right back up again into an open cavern. Gets very tight. It’s quite difficult to put into words. Just imagine it as one of those grease traps in your sink, if you will.” Spent explained. “Don’t think the Kraken can follow us there, can it? Damn thing’s just too big.” Powder said with her twin nodding along with her. “You’re forgetting one important fact. How big is this sub again?” Fancy pointed out, and everypony nodded as this simple fact sunk in. “We’ll just take the Sub Pods in through and leave the Moby Dick for the Kraken to have as it’s meal ticket. We’re going to blow this sub up, and hopefully take that beast with it.” Fancy said firmly. “As far as I can see, an implosion of that size and magnitude will be the only thing to finally kill that creature.” “As much as I hate to destroy my baby…” Silver Spanner trailed off. “You’re right, we’re going to have to take that thing out by whatever means necessary before it gets us.” Commander Fancy nodded grimly. “Then it’s settled. We’re blowing the Moby Dick.”