For the prompt MORTAL ENEMIES...
Nemeses
by Carabas
Captain Rose Quartz of the Osprey, as a rule, didn’t appreciate her airship being ambushed and overrun by sky-pirates in any circumstances. But as she was forced out of her cabin at cutlass-point and marched up to the main deck, she acknowledged the nice day that shone down on proceedings. Past her ship’s envelope, the sun was high and bright, the sky a brilliant blue, and the hulking forms of great white clouds made mountainscapes in the expanse.
“Forward, now,” said the pirate by her, urging her forward with a polite jab to the side. “Captain Sparkle wants a chat.” That name rang a faint bell for Rose, but she had trouble placing its source. Regardless, she grudgingly obliged after spitting at his hooves for form’s sake.
As she trotted forward over the deck’s timbers, she took stock of the damage and her crew. The latter had been corralled together down by the bow, and to her vast relief, looked largely unhurt, with only a few bruises where the boarding parties had crimped the enthusiasm of a few would-be defenders.
Pirates marauded hither and thither, a mix of hard, sinewy-looking stallions and mares, earth ponies and unicorns and pegasi. Those that weren’t menacing and leering at the corralled crew with cutlasses and flintlocks moved with purpose about the ship, helping themselves to fallen trinkets and delving into and re-emerging from the ship’s hold and cabins with chests and crates in tow. They’d open them, inspect the contents, and as this went on, a few would canter over to a unicorn mare by the ship’s starboard railing. She stood with her back turned to Rose, and seemed to be watching the clouds while absently twirling a musketoon with her magic. They’d whisper in her ear, she’d nod, and a purple-and-green dragon whelp that perched on her wither would make a note on a clipboard.
“Captain Sparkle!” barked the pirate by Rose as he led her closer to the unicorn. “Found their own captain belowdecks. Want the usual details from her?”
Captain Sparkle turned, and Rose Quartz met bright purple eyes set in a light mulberry face, fleeting distractedness in them fading away rapidly in favour of sharp calculation. The mare was garbed from withers to hooves in a long justaucorps that fell back over her haunch. It and the broad tricorn on her head were made from the same dark brown, sturdy, and practical-looking material. The only nod to embellishment was a long white feather that had been set in the tricorn at an angle that might have been calculated to achieve maximum jauntiness. Set with scientific precision, even.
“Captain Quartz, I presume?” said Captain Sparkle, setting down the musketoon, and Rose was surprised by the abashed smile that flickered on her features.
“Correct,” Rose replied stiffly. “Your advantage is plain. I surrender on behalf of the Osprey, and ask that my crew not be hurt.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Captain Sparkle. “Just a few bruises and hurt feelings so far, and no more if everything goes smoothly. The drills I’ve been running with my crew have really been improving efficiency.” Her eyes lit up. “Once we dropped out of cloud-cover, we were able to entirely subdue your vessel in three minutes and twelve seconds. That’s a whole ten-percent drop from the last time we took a similarly-sized ship, and, well, not to brag, but that’s —”
As she spoke, Rose’s eyes lifted to the airship which had been tethered alongside the Osprey with ropes and grappling hooks, and to which a few pegasus pirates were already heaving crates of plundered cargo. It was a sleek-looking vessel, all smooth lines and neatly-trimmed ropes and suspension. Its envelope was the purple of the dusk sky, its cannon-lined gondola was painted black. Along its side, Rose, with a jolt of recognition, saw the name Shooting Star.
“I’ve heard of you,” she blurted, cutting Captain Sparkle off mid-flow in her tangent about the new idea she’d had for stealing some harpoon guns and rigging them launch the grappling hooks in future. “Twilight Sparkle of the Shooting Star? You’ve left a trail of empty holds and frustrated shipping investors from New Canterlot to Griffleheim!”
Captain Sparkle beamed. “Oh? Well, I’m glad news of my successful work precedes me. Really, it all comes down to good, thorough planning. Information-gathering, devising a plan of action, making a checklist, checking that off with reference to another checklist, making sure my crew know what’s meant to happen inside and out, the odd bit of stabbing to fix anything that goes awry … simple as that, really. Though I’ll admit the holds aren’t left entirely empty in most cases. Space aboard the Shooting Star isn’t as great as I’d like — I tried optimising our holding space, but the crew threatened to mutiny unless I put the toilets back — so we just skim off the more valuable goods.”
“I … I didn’t think these skies were your usual haunt. Why are you here?”
Captain Sparkle coughed. “Well, the prospects and pickings here are good. And also...” Her countenance darkened and her cheeks flushed as she turned her gaze back upon the clouds. “An enemy has been reassigned here. Somepony who I’d pursue across the world, into the Unsounded East and the Shadowmere itself if need be. I will find her.”
At this point, the dragon whelp on her wither nudged the side of her head with the clipboard in his grasp, and said, “Twi? Pillaging first, your beautiful and maddening nemesis later.”
Captain Sparkle froze, coughed, and smiled an embarrassed smile at Rose as she made eye contact again. “Ahem. Anyway, I shan’t keep you. Just as much of your cargo as the Shooting Star can carry and a few questions before I’ll be on my way. Ready, Spike?”
“You ought to know that the Principality’s been taking pains to secure this region of airspace,” said Rose coldly, as the dragon whelp expectantly set pencil to clipboard. “It’s the main route to Perytonia. There’s cloudforts and aerial garrisons and regular patrols all over the expanse, noting who comes and goes and making sure all ships are furnished with dragonfire-imbued paper to call for help if they need it. If you keep this up, a royal mare-of-war will be on you like a hunting hawk.”
“I’m counting on it,” replied Captain Sparkle. “And I’m aware of the rest. Now, as for my questions ...”
“Ask.”
“What’s your cargo?”
“Carpets, silverware, tea, and official and personal communiques.”
“Destination?”
“Orto, in Perytonia.”
“Never been there myself, but I’d love to visit some day.” Captain Sparkle looked thoughtful as the little dragon scribbled. “Which cloudfort did you call at most recently, and what’s its position relative to us?”
“Fort Featherfall. Six leagues nor’east by north.”
Captain Sparkle glanced at the dragon whelp, who lifted a sheet of paper on the clipboard and scribbled a point on something underneath. “When you left, what was its aerial garrison?”
Rose drew a breath. “One tethered mare-of-war. Under the command of —”
“Cap’n!” a stallion at the stern bellowed, and both captains available whirled round to him before Rose realised he was one of Sparkle’s crew. “Ship ahoy! It’s her’s!”
Captain Sparkle’s eyes blazed. “What?” she breathed, before abruptly galloping away from Rose. Rose’s own eyes lifted skywards, past the Osprey’s envelope to the edge of one of the great white clouds. Out from around, there came a great airfrigate, its lines long and powerful. Its envelope, she recognised with glee, was banded with the sky-blue-and-silver of the Principality Aerial Fleet. The gondola under the envelope was trimmed and decorated, a silver alicorn rearing at the prow as its figurehead. The long mouths of cannons swept out from its decks, over the flowing, silvery type of the ship’s name. The Cutting Retort.
And at the bow, standing proud and upright, she sighted the ship’s captain. Another unicorn mare whose purple mane billowed artfully in the high breeze, sporting an immaculately-styled blue jacket over a pearly white hide. A black bicorne perched atop her head, a roc’s-worth of lavender feathers cascading out from its back.
Rose breathed out with relief, and while Captain Sparkle seemed distracted, she spat out a chewed strip of dragonfire paper over the ship’s side that she’d been keeping pressed into the side of her mouth. It had only needed a little tear to be made to send the alert off, and she’d done that as soon as her cabin door had been kicked in. It was an impressively swift response time from the Fleet, though.
She turned back to Captain Sparkle, hoping she’d been distracted for all of that.
Captain Sparkle seemed very distracted. “Alright, everypony!” she snarled, scooping up her musketoon again and gesticulating wildly with it. The pirates on the Osprey’s deck rallied, dropping whatever they’d seized and drawing their own weapons. “Prepare for battle! Standard rules of engagement! Captain Rarity’s mine! Anypony who gets in the way gets a comprehensive and close-up understanding of the term ‘keelhaul’! To your positions! Don’t embarrass me!”
As she spoke, the Cutting Retort swept round past the cloud and towards the Shooting Star and Osprey, cutting a course that kept its gondola several metres above their own envelopes. Rose tracked its progress avidly, until a brief moan from Captain Sparkle caught her attention. “She always does this. She always arrives when I’m nowhere near ready to receive her. Er, am I presentable?”
Rose’s head turned as if it was being dragged. She met Captain Sparkle’s worried gaze. Lilac magic tugged the dark brown tricorne off her head and twiddled it anxiously. “What?” Rose managed.
The little dragon whelp shook his head ruefully.
“I shouldn’t have worn this,” Captain Sparkle groaned, looking down at the tricorne. “I should have worn that bicorne I stole from her as a trophy after our first-ever duel was interrupted by that erupting volcano. The white one, with the dark blue trim. I hug it at night and think hateful thoughts. Why am I not wearing it?”
“What?”
“Captain Quartz, we’re dealing with my nemesis! Please don’t just say ‘What’!” Captain Sparkle caught herself and breathed steadily. “No. No, I’m going to be poised. I shall be poised and cool and aloof as we meet again and I put an end to her. This time for real. Is my mane alright? There’s nothing in my teeth, is there?”
“...No?” said Rose.
“Right.” Captain Sparkle steadied her breathing. Again. “Right. Okay. I’ll make do. Er, Spike, could you …?”
“Go somewhere where I won’t get in the way of any bladework, yada yada.” The dragon whelp hopped off her wither and moved towards the ship’s railing, stopping only to roll his eyes in Captain Sparkle’s direction. “Like always, you’re being silly.”
“You’re being silly!” she snapped back. Spike snorted and withdrew. Captain Sparkle and Rose turned their attention back up to the sky, where the Cutting Retort was flying past and just over the Osprey. Uniformed and armoured aerines lined its sides, brandishing their own muskets and naval cutlasses. At its prow, Captain Rarity had drawn a long, straight rapier whose blade shone alive in the light. It hovered up in her magical grasp, and she carefully gripped it between her teeth. And then, after briefly assuming the poise and stance of a diver before the plunge, she leapt off the Cutting Retort’s side.
Captain Sparkle yelped and Rose boggled, but before anypony could move, Rose saw one of the many ropes that made up the rigging running up and over the Osprey’s envelope snap free in a single tug of blue magic. It whirled out towards Captain Rarity as she descended, and she caught it smoothly in the crook of a foreleg, cutting her descent short. She kicked her hindlegs, and the motion and momentum swung her round to one of the struts connecting the deck and the envelope. The rope caught, twirled her smoothly in a complete circle, and she sprang clear to alight on the deck just in front of Captain Sparkle and Rose.
Captain Rarity released her bite on the blade, swept it up and flourished it in her magic, and bobbed a brief bow before straightening her posture and smiling at Captain Sparkle. “La.”
Rose boggled once more for good measure, and glanced round at Captain Sparkle. All the other pirates, she noticed, were watching from a distance but were allowing them a wide and wary berth. Captain Sparkle’s flushed face writhed in the manner of somepony looking for a good response. Eventually, she settled for drawing free her own battered, sturdy-looking cutlass alongside her musketoon, pointing both at Captain Rarity, and stammering out, “You!”
“Me,” replied Captain Rarity. “Did you like my little display there, Twilight Sparkle?” Her teeth gleamed in a dashing smile. “I thought you ought to see one more impressive thing in your life ere this last tête-à-tête of ours. Ere I put a sword through that black heart of yours, once and for all.”
“I … I’ll sword your heart! I, er ...” Captain Sparkle waggled her cutlass in the air, and then eventually decided on, “I told you you’d see me again, you cur!”
“And I recall counselling you on much the same thing, darling. No reassignment, no conflicting duty, no span of miles or all the perils of the high skies would ever keep you safe from me. Lo and behold, they haven’t.”
“Excuse me,” Rose interjected, in the vain hope that some route would still lead from this to a place of relative sanity. “Glad you could make it, captain. Captain Rarity, I take it?”
Captain Rarity blinked and looked uncertainly at Rose, as if only now realising she was there. “What? I … oh, yes, indeed. Captain Rarity of the good ship Cutting Retort. Here at your service, and ready to defend you and your crew with every bit of the élan ponies deserve to witness. Though I’m afraid I can’t claim to be the help you summoned, captain. I never received any message. This was a separate hunt of mine.”
“A separate hunt?”
“Indeed. The Admiralty insisted that I relocate from the Griffleheim Main to aid aerial endeavours over here, but I took the scenic route along the way. Searching for this one.” Captain Rarity gestured with the rapier at Captain Sparkle, and the gleaming length trembled with barely-contained wrath. “I have the distinct impression she was avoiding me!”
“I was not avoiding you!” Captain Sparkle snapped, her voice cracking. “I intercepted your relocation orders! I came here ahead of time, and I thought you’d be punctual. Instead, you kept me waiting!”
“How on earth was I to know you were here?” said Captain Rarity, her blade listing and her tone’s indignation falling away in favour of sad flatness. “There wasn’t any word about your whereabouts, there wasn’t any sign my orders had been tampered with, there was just ... nothing. I thought you’d gone into hiding, or been defeated by somepony else, or ...”
She gulped, and choked out, “Or that you’d ceased being my nemesis altogether.”
“Never. Do you hear me? Never.” Captain Sparkle stepped closer to the sniffling unicorn. Captain Rarity lifted her head, and a look of gratified surprise glowed from her features as Captain Sparkle spoke. “Every day, I curse the fate that assigned a villain like you to be my nemesis. I couldn’t have asked for somepony I loathe more, or who so utterly galls my soul. When I was waiting here all this time, I kept that picture of you on the wall of my cabin, and I cursed it every night before bed, and in bed, I dreamed happy dreams of your downfall at my hooves. You’ll always be my nemesis, up until the point I slay you.”
Captain Rarity seemed utterly lost for words, and when she didn’t speak for a long moment, it was Captain Sparkle’s turn to cast her gaze down and to the side. “And after this … am I still yours?”
A white hoof extended and gently lifted Captain Sparkle’s chin up, to where she and Captain Rarity met one another’s gazes once more. “Till your inevitable and well-deserved demise, you wretched affront to all that is decent and good,” Captain Rarity said softly. “And till then, you and none other.”
For a long moment, they held their positions, and the high sky winds murmured all about. Then Captain Sparkle cleared her throat. “Er, shall we attend to business, then?”
“Oh, of course.” Captain Rarity stepped back, and breathed out and swished her rapier through various wards. For her part, Captain Sparkle readied her cutlass and musketoon.
“I’ll, er.” Rose looked from one to the other. “I’ll just stand out of the way, then, shall I?” No answer came, and so she stood out of the way. And no sooner had she done so, than battle erupted.
Captain Sparkle tore forwards, both musketoon and cutlass thrusting forwards at Captain Rarity. But the white unicorn was ready and swept aside, her blade a silver ghost in the air that slashed up from under the musketoon’s barrel and forced it into the air just as Captain Sparkle tried to jam it forwards. There came the deafening crack of the musketoon firing at this close a distance, two paired snarls, and then the scream of steel on steel as the unicorns crossed blades at blinding speed.
Shouts and clashes rang out from the rest of the Osprey, as the crew of the Cutting Retort construed the duel as their invitation to get stuck into proceedings. Aerines varyingly swung across on ropes, flew, and teleported into the ranks of the crew of the Shooting Star. Muskets and flintlock pistols barked, cutlasses flew and clashed, hooves swung into what was sometimes their intended target. The Osprey’s crew huddled where they’d been corralled, though a couple of more enterprising crewmembers took the opportunity to sidle out and kick pirates in the back of the head.
Rose tore her gaze away and looked back to the ferocious combat unfolding between Captains Sparkle and Rarity. The former lashed out with both her cutlass and the stock of her musketoon, tearing at her nemesis from either direction at once with unrelenting and dizzying speed. Captain Rarity’s own blade blurred in impeccable form as it caught the blows and turned them aside and, between blows, thrust forth and sought to glide around Captain’s Sparkle’s guard. Their hoofwork was rapid, their positions constantly shifting as they circled and sidestepped, their anticipation of one another’s actions uncannily accurate.
“Your form, as ever, is in dire need of work, Twilight Sparkle!” Captain Rarity panted during one exchange.
“Why improve it? Why waste good form on you?”
“Ooh, you’ve been trying to improve your repartee! Trying, but still falling short of my desired standards.” Captain Rarity stepped back with a ragged pant, and donned a teasing expression as she tapped the flat of her blade thoughtfully against her chin. “I bet if I had some other nemesis — Captain Lulamoon, say — I’d be furnished with vastly better repar—”
“Be quiet! You take that back!” Captain Sparkle stormed forward in a sudden onslaught of violence, her cutlass and musketoon all but invisible to the eye, and forcing Captain Rarity to backstep hastily as she warded off the blows. She regained her bearing and lunged forward, but lilac light flashed and she found herself thrusting through empty air. Captain Rarity wheeled swiftly as Captain Sparkle teleported right behind her, cutlass already raised.
But before she could bring it down, the bulky form of an earth pony aerine quickly loomed at Captain Sparkle’s side, and before she could react, they spun nimbly on their forehooves and bucked her across the deck. Her musketoon and cutlass clattered free as she sprackled insensate over the timbers. Captain Rarity turned on her rescuer, eyes wide and pupils narrowed to pinpricks.
“Got her, captain!” chirped the aerine, seemingly oblivious to the rising hiss coming from the unicorn’s gullet. “Let’s get her bundled onto the Cutting Retort and hauled off to Fort Featherfall. Unless you’d sooner mete out royal justice, here and now —”
He got no further, as at that point, the hiss released itself as a bestial snarl and Captain Rarity lashed out with the flat of her blade, forcing him to cower and cover himself with his forehooves. “No! Get away! Mine!”
“Aagh! Captain —!”
He protested to little avail, and Rose watched him be harried off across the deck to the tune of “Mineminemineminemine!”, punctuated with smacks from the rapier. As he fled, Captain Sparkle groaned and feebly twitched her legs, and the dragon whelp, Spike, came hurrying up to help her to her hooves. “Call it a day?” he urged softly.
“No,” groaned Captain Sparkle, and blinked blearily in the direction of Captain Rarity. “Haven’t finished slaying her, yet.”
As she spoke, Captain Rarity finished watching the aerine scurry away to somewhere less dangerous than by his captain, and she turned back on Captain Sparkle with a look of dismay. “Twilight! Are you alright? That other pony didn’t hurt you too much before I got to, did he?”
“Barely,” wheezed Captain Sparkle. Her magic groped blindly about the deck for her cutlass. “Just got to … just got to find my thing. Then I’ll be able to resume sending you to the Hereafter in pieces —”
Rose glimpsed a motion from off the ship’s side, and the same thing caught the attentions of Captains Sparkle and Rarity. They all turned to behold.
And there was Rose’s help.
A great mare-of-war of the Principality Aerial Fleet came at them from the north, the same one she’d seen tethered to the aerodock at Fort Featherfall. The size of its blue-and-silver envelope could have swallowed up any of the other airships, and several rows of cannons ran along the sides of its great iron-clad gondola. Regal, it declared itself, and a magically-amplified voice rang out from the helm at its back. “This is Commodore Dreadless of the Regal! Osprey, hold fast! Cutting Retort, maintain your efforts! Twilight Sparkle and all crew of the Shooting Star, prepare to either offer your surrender or to meet your Creator!”
“Oh, no,” groaned Captain Sparkle, sagging as she regarded the Regal. She gave Captain Rarity a morose look. “After all this time apart, I hoped this could just be the pair of us.”
“As did I, my nemesis, as did I. First that uncouth aerine, and now this.” Captain Rarity set her gaze on the Regal. A steely light then shone in her eyes, and her jaw clenched. “But it shall be just the pair of us, come what may. As I’ll let any upstart commodore intrude on a personal matter like this.” She swept her head from side to side, and then, in a voice that outdid thunder, roared, “Crewponies! Back to the Cutting Retort!”
Fighting ceased, and even those groaning on the deck hushed. One of her crew dropped the pirate they currently had in a headlock. “Captain?”
“Must I repeat myself? Everypony, back to the ship! A new foe presents itself, who would muscle in on our rightful prize! Back to the ship, prepare the guns, and brace for action! That is, yet more action.”
“Same for all crewponies of the Shooting Star,” rasped Captain Sparkle, tottering upright. She’d found her cutlass and leaned on it, with Spike propping her up on her other side. “Back to the ship. Prepare the guns and the alchemical charges. Come on, all speed!”
Most of the pirates and fleet ponies on the Osprey’s deck sighed and gathered themselves with varying degrees of enthusiasm, slinging their groaning and gurgling comrades over their backs where necessary. Only one young-looking naval pony boggled briefly, looking from Captain Rarity to the Regal, to Captain Rarity, then to the Regal, before finally deciding on Captain Rarity as the subject of bogglement. “But cap’n,” she spluttered, “that’s one of ours.”
“Just you come with me, lass.” An older crewmare draped a foreleg over her wither and pulled her away. “And listen carefully to everything I have to say on how best to get a quiet life during your service.”
As the crews drew back to their stations on their original ships, Captains Sparkle and Rarity stopped briefly to look into each other’s eyes. Captain Sparkle broke the hush first, and breathed, “I hate you.”
“I know,” replied Captain Rarity.
And with that, and with parting looks that all but ignited the air between them, they both turned, and were off. The Osprey bobbed in the air as whole crews of ponies departed it at a time, quite forgotten.
Rose breathed out, and watched as the Shooting Star and the Cutting Retort received their crews and detached from the Osprey, both captains reappearing at their helms and barking orders. Engines roared, and both airships turned on the Regal, and then flew in unison at it, cannons readying. “This is not how either of you are supposed to react!” came the peevish bellow of Commodore Dreadless.
Rose stared after them. Then she blinked. Then she cuffed herself across the cheek, and blinked again.
“Cap’n Quartz?” Rose turned and saw her first mate, Periwinkle, come cantering up towards her as her bewildered crew milled about the suddenly-empty deck. “What in the actual rut was all tha—?”
“You know when you’re in a situation with other ponies, Periwinkle?” Rose said, as there came the distant thunder of cannons. “And you get that feeling that you’re a bit surplus to requirements?”
“Something of the sort, cap’n. Why?”
“Because I’m sure as Tartarus feeling that now. Let’s leave them to it.” She sighed and started in the direction of the Osprey’s helm. “Come on. What’s left of our carpets aren’t going to deliver themselves.”