The ship was still free of sirens as Valey and her mare squad snuck downward through its levels, most of the pirates they passed looking happily preoccupied with hauling loot from the captured merchant vessel Gazelle had snuck in on. Valey's neck prickled with the gaze of invisible security cameras, knowing he was watching them. But Gazelle could take a hike. She had a weapon to find.
"Nightmare Module..." Valey hissed under her breath as they descended another staircase, following Grapejuice's lead. Somehow, a quick headcount revealed each and every one of the pirates who raided the Dream were still with her; none had ran away to hide among their comrades or even fallen behind to nurse their injuries. And she had kicked some of them pretty hard...
Where was it? Valey tried to feel with her heart, remembering how it had exerted the same kind of internal presence she felt from the dusk statues and the Firefly Sisters' song. It stopped when she refused it, but if she could get it to call out to her again, maybe it would help in finding it... As Grapejuice stopped at an intersection to let a patrol pass and eee out some excuses to the leader about what they were doing there, she leaned against a wall, closing her eyes and feeling for any odd pressures whatsoever.
That got a few mumbles and murmurs from her pirates, but Valey knew what she was doing. She strained her senses to the limit, sniffing for good measure, and almost started to feel... Yes. Like there was something below her, quite a few floors down.
She fixated on that sensation, and it grew closer as they descended, the walls and ship architecture taking on a darker tone. Some of the hallways, someone had completely rebuilt using black wood, and soon she didn't have to concentrate to feel the sensation. It was bigger than the nightmare module had ever been, though, and soon she realized how much sense it made: with a ship this large and full of batponies, of course there would be a dusk statue. And it was the middle of the night, so it would be active, too.
Not only that, but it was their destination. They rounded a final staircase into an imposing lobby with a double-door, somewhere near the bottom of the ship, putting them on level with the feeling and facing towards it. Valey swallowed as Grapejuice casually shoved the ornate doors open with her flank, tail swishing. "So remind me, we're looking for the real head honcho around here to get someone official to yell at everyone to give back my bags, right? How's that going to work when all your inter-ship communication stuff is currently being sat on by Gazelle?"
"Nahhh. You got it backwards," Grapejuice lectured, scuffing her hooves carelessly against a thick purple carpet. "We go give our sob story to the monks and ask them to do our dirty work for us. Sphinx dude's royalty. They can ask the Night Mother what to do about him. I think you just get to do whatever you want."
Valey growled internally. What she wanted was to get her things and get clear of this place... well, with Shinespark and Grenada in tow. But not Howe. Maybe the mares. She really wasn't sure what to think of them, still. She had intervened to spare them from Gazelle, after all...
Before she could get her thoughts in any better of a line, one word in particular caught her attention. "Wait, monks? Not Mistvale Monks? Bananas, I hate those guys."
Grapejuice shrugged apologetically, then pushed her aside, eeeing at the next door's guards. All four of them raised heavy eyebrows at her, and several more of Valey's mares stepped forward to back her up. One guard said something threatening, and the mares started to bristle.
Valey hissed, but held her tongue. Wouldn't do if she chewed them out in a language they weren't fond of and revealed that she didn't know their own...
"Might have to teach them a thing or two," Grapejuice whispered, moving back for access to Valey's ear. "These dudes don't like anyone trying to rip them off."
"Rip them off?" Valey frowned. "What do they want?"
"Eh. Stuff." Grapejuice shook her tail. "For the monks. If you know what I mean."
"Alright." Valey stepped forward, raising her voice. "Not interested in any stuff. Hey, clowns! Hotshot, coming through!"
The four burly guards gave her cross looks.
"Nyaah." Valey stuck her tongue out. "Sorry, but if you wanted me to speak eee-ish, you shouldn't have made me need to talk in the first place. Backup is needed, so backup is needed." She fluttered, pounding her forehooves together. "Last chance to let us through? Pretty please?"
The guards frowned harder, and one raised and pointed a spear.
Scrrrrrkkkkkkkkkk! A speaker in the roof directly above the door blared with deafening static, causing all the guards and all of Valey's mares to wince and cringe. Valey's cutie mark warned her just in time to plug her own ears with her wings, as well as jump on Grapejuice and slam her hooves over the little mare's ears.
"Hello? Is this thing on?" Gazelle's voice crackled down from the ceiling. "Oops. Maybe a little too on, judging by the looks on your faces. Whoopsie!"
Valey spotted the camera and gave it a look, not bothering to reply.
Gazelle's voice suddenly switched, and he moved into a harsh, catlike imitation of the batpony eeeing. As he went, though, Valey realized he actually knew the language, his words causing the door guards' ears to fold and faces to fall in horror. More than half of her companions were blushing furiously.
Gazelle giggled as he talked, and halfway through a sentence one of the guards couldn't take listening anymore and slunk off. The other three, suddenly no longer the first to bail, didn't wait any longer and instantly evacuated the room.
"...Aww," Gazelle pouted, switching back to normal. "And I was just getting to the good part, too."
"Do I wanna know?" Valey raised a wary eyebrow.
"How does the saying go, again? Curiosity rewarded the bat?"
Grapejuice nudged her. "You get him to translate that stuff and you aren't gonna be able to concentrate on a thing, Bats."
Valey blinked, looking for anything to distract her attention. "That's, uhh, a kinda strange nickname when we're both batponies?"
"Yes, yes, it doesn't matter. Don't distract yourself, Bats. I've already gotten the fools up ahead nice and distracted, so getting what you want from them will be an absolute cinch!"
Valey frowned up at the camera. "What I want is-"
"By the way," Gazelle interrupted. "When I said I didn't like sarosians that way? I changed my mind. I'm wonderfully fickle. The seas just do that to me..." He sighed dreamily. "Now hurry up and do something entertaining before I drive myself insane. I'm waiting!"
"...Bananas," Valey sighed once the speaker went dead. "How Garsheeva keeps a place like this from exploding harder than Ironridge, I haven't got a clue. Or your Night Mother, for that fact. Look, I just want my stupidly-dangerous things back, and I can go tag my friends and we can all bail and woah!"
She backflipped away from the door, and a half-second later it burst open, swinging violently where her muzzle had just been. "Yo," she growled, "watch where... Uhhh. What the...?"
A suit of armor that looked like the Flame District incarnate stared down at her, a gray mare's plated face barely visible at the front. Covered at every angle by spiked radiator blades and five great turbine fans, the surfaces where the armor was actually exposed held tubes of glowing, orange liquid, and two large tanks were strapped to her sides beyond it. Valey doubted how much it would do for protection, but in exchange it was madly intimidating, and she would have bet absolutely nothing it had no offensive prowess.
The magmatic mare completely ignored her, however, glancing up at the ceiling. "Watch yourself, Gazelle," she said, voice level. "I can hear you."