This was mob combat at its finest. Valey spun a pirate by their tail like a throwing hammer, barely able to anchor herself in place against his heavier weight, and launched herself at the same time as she threw him, jumping out of the way of a cutlass and uppercutting a flier who looked nervous to get near the chaotic brawl. Only the mares were armed, she realized, which made things quite a bit easier. Still difficult enough to be fun, though.
Sploosh! Another batpony got dunked by a double-overhead slam, sending them careening into the drink as Valey landed back on the disabled boat. These pirates were bad... Actually, probably just accustomed to fighting large, moderately competent crews instead of a single master, but bad nonetheless. Some of them actually looked confused about why they were fighting, though there was plenty of rage to make up for it, and too much cacophonous eeeing in the air for Valey to think about it. The more she took down, the less would be on her friends, though as always she did her best to stay nonlethal and let the pirates decide when to stop coming back for more.
Eventually, they had had enough. She backflipped onto the boat's stern, but remained unapproached, a hoofful of mares shooting her death glares while everyone still conscious either flew away for shore or tried to fish their companions out of the water. Several insults were spat, though they lost their effectiveness by being in a language Valey didn't understand. The pirates might not have surrendered, but they were taking an uneasy truce... and that was good enough for her.
"Look, uhhh..." Valey rubbed the back of her neck, stretching and testing her joints one by one. She was breathing hard, but overall still in relatively good shape. "I don't speak Misty Mountain-ese, or whatever, so you guys can yell your heads off but I still won't get it. What you gotta get is that you don't mess with me. Now wanna tell your buds on my ship to back off, or should I kick their rears too?"
Most of the stallions either ignored her, focusing on their soggy companions, or looked utterly clueless at her dialect. The mares just looked offended, and one spat. "Heathen."
A spell broke, and the other mares joined in, though there were only four in total and it wasn't as loud as it could have been. "Seriously!?" Valey bellowed, outmatching them all. "I get enough of this from all the Garsheeva morons in the empire day in and day out, and now you guys think I'm a heretic too!? Your Night Mother is dumb! I'm done with this! Go take a hike!"
She blasted off, soaring over all of their heads in a streak of green and back to the Immortal Dream, now with far less inhibitions against taking the invaders to town.
With a flicker of light, the crystals seeping out from under a doorjamb dissipated, and the door slid open, Maple's tan hooves stepping into an unlit hallway.
"Ummm..." She hummed under her breath to herself, glancing both directions and trying to remember where she had put the small cache of healing potions they received from Kero's mercenaries. The realization that she might have to fight through some other pirates to get there was a thought she desperately kept from crossing her mind, both because she had no clue how to fight and because winning would just involve hurting more of them.
She turned left. In the back of her mind, she knew Starlight was right about how ridiculous she was being. Worried about hurting a hostile pirate by trying to subdue them when the alternative was being killed or captured? When had she become that degree of a pacifist? If she really got in a fight, would it turn out to be a passing thought and allow her to defend herself? Hopefully it was something just triggered by seeing a defeated opponent beaten and abused... by Starlight... because really, it was an inconvenience that would get everyone-
She nearly walked into a shadow materializing from the floor as a stallion slithered out from under an unoccupied door and stood up, his eyes widening in surprise. "Eeee?" He jumped, wearing the shamelessly guilty look of a thief caught in the act.
Maple reacted instinctively, dropping back and shielding her eyes and sticking both forehooves forward. The flash club unpocketed itself in them instantly.
Flash!
A jet of light filled the hallway, and the stallion flailed and yowled, caught massively by surprise. He saw a weapon, and he was getting out of there, and scrambled away down the hallway... until there was a much louder explosion, and a door right next to him was blown completely off its rails. It flew into him along with another stallion, slamming both against the wall, and Maple hardly had time to get her balance back before they both fled in panic further down the hallway.
"Ugh... nngh... What?" she coughed, the air slightly smoky, staring at where the door had once been and a few jagged edges of wood now remained. Shinespark was going to be mad...
"Hmmph," an imperious little voice complained, and Jamjars stepped out, horn glowing and lacking her massive wig. "Serves him right."
"Jamjars?" Maple coughed again, waving a hoof to clear the air. "What happened?"
Jamjars noticed her and brightened. "Oh! Maple. A gross stallion snuck into my room and was eyeing up my things, so I blew him up. You're welcome. You probably didn't want him on this ship anyway."
"You... blew him up..." Maple blinked several times, eyes starting to sting. "With what?"
Jamjars shrugged. "A bomb. I stole a few explosives from a store while we were in Stormhoof. I figured they'd come in handy."
Maple shook her head, having no idea how to deal with this. "Right. Well, we're under attack by pirates. Can you please hide before more get attracted by all that noise? Valey is trying to deal with them, but we need to be safe!"
"Whatever you say," Jamjars grunted, and went back in her room.
Maple sighed and pressed onward. This was immensely stressful, but she was pretty sure the potions she was looking for were in the pantry, and that could be accessed from the cargo bay at the rear of the ship... She stopped the moment she reached the door there, freezing up. There were far too many voices coming from the other side. Not a good place to go. She'd have to go around.
The ship corridor was just light enough for her to see by if she was careful and took things slow. A single use of the flash club would blind her for nearly a minute, and it wasn't even guaranteed to stop her enemies so much as frighten them. At least most of the pirates she had encountered seemed cowardly... except the one mare she had gotten it in her head to help. Hopefully she wouldn't run into any more aggressive ones on her way down.
She halted at the entry to the library. It was occupied, a single stallion standing on his hind legs and reaching high up on a bookshelf. He pulled out a book, took it in his wings, held it open with an expression of eager joy... and his brow furrowed in confusion as he stared at the pages, until he stuck his tongue out, slapped it shut and put it back. Then he tried another with exactly the same process and effect. And another.
It would have been endearing if he was anything other than a hostile robber and foalnapper, but with the circumstances as they were, even his occasional frustrated eeeing hums were only enough to convince her to leave him alone. Maple slipped past easily while he wasn't looking, making for the staircase.
In the downstairs dining hall, two more stallions were making themselves busy, one mesmerizing himself with the glass window beneath the table that provided a view into the water below, the other standing on the table top and looking curiously at the winch fixtures in the ceiling used for retracting it when it wasn't in use. A very bored-looking mare sat guarding the door to the kitchen, and Maple froze, realizing it would be impossible to enter without being seen. She needed a distraction...
...No. A completely different thought crossed her mind instead: the potions were in the navigation room. Bottom floor of the ship, at the prow. She would just have to sneak through being in view of the dining hall for a single second...
Maple jumped down and made it around the staircase, hurrying through the hall and pressing herself against a wall once she was out of sight. Hopefully no one saw her, though the few words of conversation that suddenly struck up behind her gave her reason to think otherwise. She needed to hurry. She needed... there!
The cabinets were all empty.
Maple blinked, then frowned. Of course the pirates were clearing them out. What even was their strategy? Capture the ponies on the ship, and the ship's possessions, but not the ship itself? They could have just left everything in place and used the ship to carry it out... This made no sense at all. And hoofsteps were coming.
Flash! She readied the club and let loose the moment a figure walked around the corner. It was the mare who had been guarding the door, and she squeakily yowled, covering her eyes and reeling in surprise. Maple shoved her way past her, bolting for the staircase.
At the landing, she skidded to a stop, slid open the engine room door, and slammed it again, trying to make a decoy sound for where she went. But in the split second it was open, her eyes fell on something laying unsecured in plain view: the spent windigo heart. Ohhh, the windigo heart was there. And a trio of curious batponies were standing around it and staring, one tapping with a hoof, none quite sure whether it was treasure or what to do.
"Hey!" Maple yelled, getting them to all look up just in time to receive a facefull of light. Flash! All three batponies yelped and flailed, and she darted forward, landing a hoof on the windigo heart. There was a very good reason why she didn't usually do this, but... she pocketed the heart, instantly feeling a vague premonition of her muscles stiffening and slowing down. She just had to get it back to a defended position.
Maple ran before the ponies could recover and give chase, hooves pounding now against the wood, carrying the flash club and the heart and two jars of medicine in her cutie mark. She was starting to feel her weight increase, and just had the time to wonder if that would be an advantage in a fight before she made it out the door and something hit her from the side, knocking her off her hooves.
"Guhhh!" Maple wheezed, suddenly on her back and being grappled by the mare from downstairs. She was pinned, the mare laying on her so that her legs couldn't reach to push her off and shouting something in that language of hers. A call for reinforcements? A net? Something... She was caught, and cried out as well, though with as much noise as everyone was making it probably didn't do any good. Swiftly, the two stallions from below arrived, along with the three from the engine room, and she gave up and went limp, not surrendering any of the things in her cutie mark.