Soon enough, Celaeno and the rest of her crew had caught sight of Tempest’s ship quickly heading towards them.
“Oh, that can’t be good,” said Casey.
“Secure the rigging, and prepare to be boarded!” yelled the captain parrot, while Boyle led the group of friends into their storage unit below the deck.
Once the hatch was shut, Rainbow did a nervous gulp, and sheepishly looked over at Twilight. “Heh, heh… um, you think she might’ve seen my sonic rainboom?”
The alicorn princess scowled at her friend, and she replied, “Are you kidding me?!”
Before Rainbow could try to defend herself, a harpoon was launched from the side of Tempest’s airship, which caused it to tilt a little to the side as it was brought in.
“Whoa!” All of the ponies shouted as they fell into one pile up against a wooden storage box.
Meanwhile, up on the main deck, Capt.Celaeno and the others remained quiet as Tempest slowly made her way onto the ship, followed by a cake-munching Grubber, a reluctant Capper, and a few Storm Guards, with one of them holding onto a half-frozen Starlight.
I don’t see any sign of them, thought the pink unicorn, taking a look around after she’d been placed onto the ground. So, where are they?
“Where is the pony princess?” questioned Tempest, speaking in her calm but serious tone, and Capt. Celaeno began to go through their log book.
“Uh, let me see… pony, pony, no, princess, princess… sorry, there’s nothing like that on here, we’re hauling only Storm King merchandise.”
Murdoch, the cross-eyed parrot, let out a happy squak while holding up a child’s toy version of the Storm King, and Tempest started to frown in disbelief.
“You all know that, if this ship were to be carrying fugitives… the Storm King would not be very pleased after finding out.”
Seeing that the Storm Guard beside her wasn’t paying much attention, Starlight attempted to move away just a little bit, but it was pretty difficult since her hind legs were frozen solid.
Okay, I’ve got to find a way to-
CRRREEEEAAAAKKK!
Ohhh, that can’t be good.
##############
Down below, a worried Twilight looked at the others, and whispered, “We have to get off this ship before they tell Tempest we’re here!”
“Twilight, we helped them get their mojo back!” replied Rainbow. “They’re not just gonna give us up.”
“Well, we wouldn’t have had to worry about this if somepony hadn’t done a rainboom,” hissed Casey, glaring at Rainbow, who did the same to him.
“Hey, I was only showing them how awesome I could be!”
Applejack shook her head, and whispered, “If you two don’t keep ya voices down, we’re gonna get caught anyway!”
A nervous Rarity looked over at Casey, and asked, “Um, Casey, darling, do you think your watcb could take all of us to that lovely place you told Starlight to go to?”
At the same time, Tempest was no longer in the mood for any sort of games.
“I’m going to count to three, and if I don’t see any sign of the princess… well, as they say, a good captain always goes down with their ship. One…”
Celaeno and the rest of the crew started to prepare themselves for a brawl, if that’s what would it come down to.
“Two…”
Looking back and forth between the two sides, an excited Grubber muttered, “Oh, this is so intense!”
Well, they asked for it, thought Tempest, and she opened her mouth to say-
“Wait!!!”
An alarmed Beck almost jumped back a few feet after hearing the draconequs’ scream, and before he could say anything, Discord pointed at something that was near Beck’s hooves.
“You gotta give me $200 bits!”
“What the… no, I don’t!” Twilight’s sole prisoner cried. “You haven’t even passed the ‘go’ square yet with your token! You only landed on it.”
Discord gave him a pleading expression, and he asked, “Oh, come on, Becky, it’s important… I mean, I have a daughter and wife to take care off!”
“You have no such people in your life like that,” exclaimed Beck, and Discord let out a chuckle as he used his bear claw to create a portal right next to him.
“In a parallel dimension, I do!” replied Discord, sticking his right hand into the portal, and pulled out a young pink hat-wearing pony. “See?”
Suddenly, to their surprise, the little pony started to speak. “Huh? What’s going on? Why am I in someone else’s story? Daddy!”
Then, a parallel version of Discord popped out of the portal, and growled at his counterpart while taking ahold of the purple pony named Screwball.
“Give me back my daughter, you handsome rip-off!”
POOF!
A few seconds later, the two of them were gone, and Beck blinked his eyes a few times before saying, “Uh… okay, here ya go… so can I take my turn now?”
After Beck handed over the owed amount of play bits to Discord, the draconequs nodded his head. “Yes, yes, continue!”
################
While Tempest was just about to count to three, Twilight was busy bringing over various materials to where they were standing at, and currently using her magic to pull down a nearby lever, much to the confusion of their friends.
“Um, Twi, you mind telling us what-” Applejack started to say, but then, they all heard a creaking sound, and before she could finish her sentence, something from above went straight through the deck’s floorboards, landing into Casey’s open hooves.
“Holy… Celestia, this is hea - wait, Starlight?” exclaimed Casey, who now found himself looking straight at the face of the surprised unicorn.
“Starlight?” repeated the others, but just as she was about to respond, Twilight had finally been able to pull down the lever, which caused the trapdoor underneath their hooves to open, and one by one, they all began falling down to whatever was down below.
“Oh, for CELESTIA’S SAKE!” yelled Rarity, while a nearby Fluttershy used her wings to cover up her eyes, and Pinkie was the only one having a blast.
As for Casey, who was still holding onto Starlight, he just looked at her with surprise and confusion. “What are you doing here?”
“Admiring the way that the wind blows through my mane,” replied Starlight. “I was Tempest’s prisoner this whole time, Casey, what did you thi- whoa!”
The next thing they knew, they were being brought over to an empty Storm King wooden box, along with everyone else, via Twilight’s magic, and Casey noticed that she was also using the rest of the fallen materials to create what looked like an air balloon.
“Where are we gonna get the fire to-” Spike started to say, but once Twilight entered the box, the alicorn squeezed him as tight as she possibly could, making the dragon blow out fire until the air balloon was stable enough to float on its own. “Right… sorry I asked.”
“Heeyew! Good quick thinkin’, Twilight!” complimented Applejack, while her friend let out cries of victorious satisfaction.
“Yahoo! Ha-ha!”
Getting up to her hooves, a wide smile appeared on Pinkie’s face as she asked, “That was fun! Can we do it again?”
While Twilight gave her an amused look, Rainbow flew out of the box so that she could push the floating contraption in the right direction. “Ah, yeah! Next stop, Mt. Aris!”
A confused Starlight looked over at both Casey and Twilight, and asked, “So, uh, what did I miss?”
############
“Well? Did you find anything?” asked Tempest, after Grubber had come out of the bottom deck that the ponies had been in, and the pudgy hedehog nodded his head as he showed her what he’d found.
“Um, looks like some sort of cupcake thing with sprinkles,” He answered. “Oh, and this…”
Grubber handed over a scroll to the dark purple unicorn, and she opened it up to see that it was a map, but with scribbles from Pinkie all over it. “Wow, now that is a work of art right there!”
As for Tempest, she looked over at Capper, frowning as she said, “It looks like they’re heading to Mt. Aris…”
“Really? Heh, heh, that’s my bad, I didn’t, um…” chuckled a sheepish Capper. “I, I’m sorry, I…”
Tempest motioned to the Storm Guards to return to the airship, but right before she and Grubber went after them, her broken horn started to charge up with her raw, electrical power as she prepared to destroy Celaeno’s ship. “Now, then, about your betrayal…”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!