Godfrey turned his newly procured cutlass over in his talon, inspecting it closely. The blade was sharp and free of dust or rust thanks to being stored and cared for properly in the armory of The Scourge. It was just an average sword with nothing much special about, just a placeholder to replace the one Rainbow Dash had tossed into the drink until he could find one he liked more. He didn’t consider himself a sword aficionado or anything but some were definitely made of a higher quality than others.
“Eh, this’ll work,” Godfrey said and stuck the blade into his scabbard. He couldn’t wait to get the opportunity to use it.
Walking over to his desk he slammed his talon down on a white plate and stabbed his claws into a cooked steak, grabbing it and bringing it up to his beak so he could start tearing it to shreds. They had a lot of meat stored and preserved in barrels of salt onboard. The ponies here didn’t care for red meat, fish sometimes, but it was all for Godfrey anyways.
He took a deep stretch after swallowing down the tasty meat and looked out the back windows of his cabin. It was starting to get later in the day.
“I wonder if they’ve been found yet… for my crew’s own sake they better have,” Godfrey grinned.
Briney was a large, muscular, yellow earth pony with exceedingly bad teeth who could normally be found on the gun deck of The Scourge barking orders and whipping other ponies into shape. Now he was paddling on a boat with five others in search of their prey. It wasn’t something he liked, but no one was dumb enough to disobey the Captain. A few crewmates who did were now wearing eyepatches or worse. At least he was put in charge of the rest of these scallywags by Sea Shanty.
Their boat was searching through the many inlets of the island’s scarred and broken coastline that The Scourge was too large to travel down. Quietly they paddled so as to not make a ruckus and get themselves found out first.
Sea Shanty had told them to just find where the ship was hiding and report back to Godfrey. But Briney had bigger ideas. He wanted to show up their first mate, maybe get promoted to that position himself, and to do that he had to make the Captain happy—not only that but show he was tough and could handle any situation. The Captain appreciated strength and nothing else. Everyone on The Scourge knew that.
Briney grinned to himself and licked his lips, he’d be cracking his whip at everyone onboard The Scourge soon enough.
Nobody spoke just yet as their longboat turned a corner leading further into the island from the beachhead they had explored earlier. Briney kept his eyes open, this was the perfect place for a smaller boat like their prey’s to hide. A large galleon like the The Scourge could never get here, and there were a lot of different routes and waterways to take by the look of things. He had to make sure their boat slowed down even more as he inched towards the front of it so he could look around the corners that the cliffs made before the boat itself was visible.
The latest corner they reached and Briney just barely stuck his big face past it to see where this water passage led.
He practically had to bite his lip to keep from cheering when he saw the small, single-mast ship calmly sitting in the secluded pool of water, protected on all other sides but this one by smooth walls of rock.
“Shh, stop!” Briney whispered and had the others on the longboat stop paddling. “It’s there, right in this pool. Get ready you landlubbers.”
Some of the other pirates shared a few looks before one with an eyepatch frowned at Briney.
“Get ready for what? Aint we just turning back and telling the Captain we found where they’re hiding?”
“You backtalking me? What we’re doing is getting that merpony and her treasure and gutting the rest of them!” Briney fidgeted in anticipation, his tongue coursing over the missing teeth in his mouth. If things went well he could get some gold teeth to replace them.
“But-“
Briney smacked him in the mouth with the back of his hoof. “Shut the deep up, I’m the one in charge here so listen to me. Unless you want to go meet the Leviathan early in your sorry life.” He grabbed a knife from inside the boat and peered around the corner at the ship again. “On my signal we go out there and take em by surprise.” He put the knife in his mouth and got ready.
“I dunno, I kind of think you should listen to the other guy.”
Briney blinked. He turned around with the knife still in his mouth, gripped between two rows of teeth with quite a few of their number missing, and looked at the pegasus mare that was sitting in the back of their boat. All the other pirates in the longboat had turned to look at the pony who had come from out of nowhere as well. They were all quite confused.
She smiled at him and shrugged. “You’re kind of picking a fight with someone out of your league. So if you want to just go back quietly I’ll let you, otherwise...”
“Who the—where did you come from?” A still stunned Briney asked as the knife dropped out of his mouth.
“Rainbow Dash, nice to meet you. And I just dropped in cause I saw some dumb pirates trying to sneak up on us. You guys mind letting us get out of here peacefully? I mean, a big storm is coming too and if you get caught in it then that’s not going to be any fun. So if you went back to Godfrey and told him you found nothing—that’d be awesome. Then we could get out of here and you could weather out the storm on the island instead of getting caught in it when you try and chase after us. Would you do that for me?”
Briney stared at the colorful pegasus, dumbstruck. “You can’t possibly be serious.”
“I am. But I’m pretty sure I know what’s going to happen next...”
“What’s going to happen next is we skin ya and bring your head back to Godfrey, you crazy flying rat!” Briney yelled and grabbed his knife. “Get her!”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Figured.”
The two pirates nearest to her lunged at Rainbow Dash, not even giving themselves time to grab any of the swords or knives they had brought along with them. After all, she was right there, and she was just some dainty pegasus mare. What was she going to do?
They got their answers as a swift elbow apiece knocked them into the drink.
“No wonder Godfrey’s the one in charge,” Rainbow Dash snorted.
“I’mma gut you like a fish!” Briney roared and ran across the length of the boat at her, knife in hoof. With every heavy step he took he rocked the boat from side to side.
“I thought you were gonna skin me?” Rainbow said as she got up and hovered slightly above the boat, the other pirates making room for their charging leader.
Briney swung his knife right at her throat as soon as he got close enough, but to Rainbow’s eyes and reflexes it was slow and clumsy. Nothing compared to the savagely fast slashes and thrusts that Godfrey had sent her way. Nothing would probably come close to him on this ocean. She easily ducked under the blade and kicked the knife right out of his hoof. It flipped through the air before landing blade first back into the boat—right between the legs of another pirate.
“Ouch. Close call,” Rainbow snickered.
“Ragh!” Briney attempted to jump on her but Rainbow Dash flitted away and he just ended up flopping onto the bottom of his boat. He slammed his hoof down and yelled up to the other pirates. “Come on, get her!”
Two of the other pirates on the longboat were pegasi, they grabbed cutlasses of their own and flew up to jointly attack Rainbow Dash. The first to reach her thrust his blade right towards her stomach, so Rainbow Dash sucked in her gut and dodged to the left before stiffly punching him in the face and knocking him away for the moment. The other one came at her from behind while she was “distracted” and tried to lop off her head. A very fast kick behind her without even looking caught him in the chest and made him double in pain, wheezing with the air knocked out of his lungs.
A unicorn from below threw a harpoon up at her that she spun away from and let sail away into the water of the inlet.
Briney as well grabbed the knife that had impaled itself into the boat and pulled it loose, flipping it around before throwing it right at Rainbow Dash as well. That came at her a lot faster, so Rainbow decided to do something a little special with it to show these pirates just how outmatched they were. The knife was coming right at her face so Rainbow Dash turned ever so slightly and right as it went by her mouth she bit down on the blade and caught it with her teeth. Right out of the air.
She then went green in the face and dropped it into the water.
“Bleghh! I just remembered you were holding it in your mouth too, gross!” She started frantically wiping her tongue with her hooves. “Ugh, why’d I have to try and do something cool?”
The two pegasi with swords had recovered and came at her again while she was busy trying to wipe the disgust out of her mouth. This time they tried to coordinate their attacks as best they could—coming at her from the right and left and attacking her at the same time. She flew backwards to avoid them both together and force them to come at her from the front, where she could see both of them at all times. They flew at her with their cutlasses and both tried to disembowel her, but they just as often got in the way of each other as anything. Rainbow Dash quickly flitted about up and down, right and left, avoiding their slashes and waiting to tire them out.
“Geez, does Godfrey not give you any lessons on how to fight with a sword?” She said to the two of them.
As soon as one of them started to breathe heavier, Rainbow Dash moved in and punched him in the gut, then kicking him down and into the water. The other gave one last heaving thrust towards her that she ducked under before headbutting him in the face. He dropped his cutlass and crashed down along with the other.
“I could’ve taken your whole ship on my own...” Rainbow grumbled.
“Oh yeah?!” Briney yelled up at her. “Come down here and say that!”
“Alright,” Rainbow shrugged and dropped to the boat, rocking it when she landed and tucking her wings in. There was still one other pirate on the boat but he was keeping well away from the two of them.
Briney charged again and threw a heavy punch at her head. Rainbow saw the muscles in his limbs and realized that despite him being slow (both in mind and body) she definitely couldn’t let him actually land a solid blow on her. She easily juked out of the way of his punch and sent one across his outstretched hoof to smack him right in the mouth. His head whipped back but just as quickly he turned back to glare at her, looking none the worse for wear. Slow but strong for sure.
More powerful hooks came from him, absolute haymakers that would’ve sent her into next week if they hit, but Rainbow Dash ducked and dipped around all of them. Still, Briney’s muscles weren’t for show and there weren’t any signs that he was tiring himself out even after overextending himself every time he tried to punch her. Even when Rainbow Dash punched him back in the face, the throat, the chest, he did nothing more than grunt and keep on pressing the attack at her. Sitting in this boat, with her lithe body, she just didn’t have the mass or force behind her attacks to really hurt a pony like this.
An uppercut delivered to his chin made Briney stagger back a step but he quickly wiped the soreness away and snarled at her. “If you knock out another tooth I’ll make you pay!”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow at him. “You already said you were going to skin me and gut me, what else could possibly be worse? Kiss me?”
Briney lunged at her so with a wing assisted jump, Rainbow hopped onto and over his back, kicking him in the back of the head as she went and making him stumble down into the back of the boat. The big earth pony growled and picked up a harpoon, turning around and swinging it at Rainbow Dash. Not simply throwing it at her he kept ahold of it and repeatedly tried stabbing at her with it.
She ducked under the initial swing and quickly moved her head to the left and right to avoid the follow up stabs. He could attack her like this must faster than just with his big clumsy hooves.
“Stand still!” Briney shouted.
“Make me,” Rainbow taunted.
One more thrust that went right past her ear and Rainbow Dash felt she had enough of almost being made into shishkabob. She grabbed the handle of one of the longboat’s oars and pulled it up, swiftly batting away the harpoon on Briney’s next attack. When he stabbed at her again she hit the shaft of the harpoon down with the broad end of the oar and snapped it in half. Briney’s eyes widened in surprise, so Rainbow Dash took the initiative and ran forward with her oar, smacking it into the now broken harpoon and knocking the shaft of wood completely out of his hooves.
Briney reared back in anger and prepared to punch her but Rainbow Dash was so much faster and now had greater reach with her oar it was almost comical for him to even try. She jabbed the oar right into his stomach and made him double over in pain. Then without letting up she smashed it into the right side of his face, then the left side, before finally lifting it up and smacking him on the top of his head.
The oar shattered into pieces when it hit his hard skull but Briney was swaying on wobbly knees, his eyes spinning about in his head.
“Did that do it?” Rainbow Dash grinned.
Briney teetered back and forth… before finally tipping over the side of the boat and falling into the water with a big splash.
“Seems like it.”
Rainbow Dash yawned and cracked her back—before blinking and turning around, seeing the last eyepatch-wearing pirate remaining sitting down and staring at her.
She frowned at him. “Take a hike.”
He nodded and jumped off the boat and into the water, swiftly swimming away.
“Ugh,” Rainbow Dash snorted and shook her head. With her business done here, she jumped up from the boat and started flying back to the Heart of Azure. Quickly down the narrow passage she came right back into the ocean water pool that their boat was safely—for now—anchored in. She dropped down on the deck where the others were waiting for her, Breakwater still going through the final touches needed for the sail.
“Are the pirates taken care of?” Daylight asked her.
“For now, but uh, we should probably leave soon,” Rainbow said.
“Can’t,” Breakwater said. “Have to make absolutely sure the sail wont tear or let any air through again. And it’s still too early—we have to wait for the storm to get closer.”
Rainbow Dash listened, hearing the sound of rumbling thunder in the distance. But much closer than it had been before.
“Godfrey is going to know where we are soon…” Rainbow frowned. “If we don’t go now we’re going to be trapped here.”
“If we do go now he’ll see us and blow us up with this cannons, or at the very least track us down and know where we’re going.”
“This is not an enviable situation to be in,” Gilbert mused, twiddling with his mustache.
“If only I was stronger when it came to magic...” Daylight sighed.
“Don’t be down on yourself, you’re the only reason we’ve lasted this far,” Senax said to her.
Rainbow Dash rubbed her chin, looking at the unicorn and the horn on her head. She furrowed her brow and forced her brain to work harder than it normally did. “Daylight… you said that you couldn’t do a big camouflage spell like that again today?”
Daylight Gleam shook her head. “No chance. I wouldn’t be able to even activate the spell, much less keep it up. I need at least another full day of rest before doing something that big and intensive.”
“Then what about… what about doing something not so big?” Rainbow asked.
Daylight looked at her curiously. “What did you have in mind?”