“Do you think she’s alright?” Senax asked Breakwater as they stood together on a southern raft.
“I think she’s Rainbow Dash,” he shrugged.
Daylight Gleam and Gilbert meanwhile were working with the security team of the Wandering Island, and a few crews of other vessels who couldn’t leave in time. They were coordinating with them to prepare for the potential attack of the Bosche Junks as they got closer to the island. Hopefully Rainbow Dash would stop that from happening at all. The five ships had spread out and they were steadily approaching but so far they were still too far for any of them to really see what was going on above deck. Their eyes couldn’t make out if Rainbow Dash was there and doing anything.
Regardless, with them here, Bosche was going to have a harder time than they expected to do anything. They picked the wrong time to come mess with the Wandering Island.
Rainbow Dash was going to have to do the heavy lifting with the soldiers but the ponies here on the rafts still vastly outnumbered the attacking Boschese. All they needed to do was put up a united front and the slavers might be forced to abandon their attack altogether if Rainbow could do enough damage. Which Senax had to admit she probably could.
The merpony sighed as she watched the middle Junk, where Rainbow had gone towards. “I hope you’re right.”
A spear slammed down into the deck right in front of Calhoun and Rainbow Dash stood on top of it, balancing on one hoof just to show off. “Hey by the way—how many slaves are onboard this ship? I gotta know how many ponies I need to rescue. And don’t lie either or it’s just going to get even worse for you.”
Commander Calhoun had no intention of answering her. In fact he just glared up at her with rage. There was no time to really answer anyways as several spears were thrown at Rainbow Dash’s back. She hopped over them and did a backflip to land on the wooden deck of the Junk and face off against the remaining soldiers.
By anyone’s count it had been one and a half minutes.
Quite a few soldiers were lying unconscious or tending to their wounds.
One soldier, a particularly robust earth pony, came at her swinging his halberd down where she was standing. She jumped out of the way of the blow and then had to immediately duck under another throw spear that was aimed at her head. The soldiers were still coordinating well but they didn’t have the same numbers to overwhelm her with anymore. The earth pony soldier tore his halberd free of the wood and brought it swinging horizontally at her. Rainbow Dash jumped over it and slammed her hooves down on the end of it. For a weaker soldier it might’ve knocked the shaft free from his hooves but he was strong enough to hold on. Instead he tried to lift her and the weapon up at the same time to throw her off-balance. Rainbow Dash let him think that was working, jumping up with the blade and extending her wings for extra altitude, jumping over him entirely and kicking him in the back of the head as she went.
He stumbled forward, hurt but not out. For a pony like him her hooves didn’t carry the power at that speed and distance to knock him down. She needed a weapon. The leather armor and chainmail beneath was causing problems too—their heads were really the only place she could hit that would cause any damage. Unlike Applejack who could probably just buck these guys in the side and send them into next week if she was here.
However, this was just the same problem she had already dealt with back when she first fought Boschese soldiers. She had beaten them just like she’d beat these ones.
A group of soldiers formed two lines of five ponies, creating a half square around her and coming at her with their spears leveled. Rainbow Dash tensed up and got ready for them—but it turned out to just be a distraction as spears were thrown from behind the lines coming at her. She twisted out of the way of them just as the others rushing at her came in to try and skewer her on their own and the halberd-wielder came at her from behind. They probably thought an overwhelming pincer-attack like this was a good idea but Rainbow Dash was about to show them why it wasn’t,
The slight nudging of some of the spears before they hit her sent them shooting past her body towards the pony coming from behind. He had to break off his attack and step back to avoid the deadly weapons now going right at him. With an opening now, Rainbow Dash darted forward as fast as lightning. She shot between two of the soldiers, opening her wings for a split second and catching the two of them in the throat. They gagged in pain and dropped their weapons while Rainbow went fully past the two lines and went for the smaller group of soldiers that had stayed back.
The ones who had thrown their spears and were now currently defenseless.
A cocky grin was plastered on her face as she tackled the nearest one. It actually kind of hurt her a little thanks to the armor he was wearing, but she didn’t care, she wanted to show off her toughness to the others. To show that she wasn’t just speed. With her on top of the soldier she punched him in the face and slammed his head into the deck, jumping off just as two more came lunging at her.
They stopped before they ran into each other but didn’t count on the pegasus to grab their heads and smack them together anyways.
The halberd-wielder came barreling at her again, wildly swinging his weapon at Rainbow’s head, her legs, and her wings. A few of the other soldiers came at her and backed him up, not trying to pull any sneaky maneuvers anymore. Several weapons all coming at her body at once made it a little tough to deal with even with her incredible speed and reflexes. And these soldiers weren’t cowards or the type to get tired. It was a steady advance by them that she was only able to halt by repeatedly knocking away the spears’ shafts with her hooves and dodging in ways they couldn’t predict thanks to her ability to fly.
Since it was passing the four minute mark though, Rainbow Dash decided to finally end things and finish off the rest of the soldiers.
The next time one of the spears went for her face Rainbow Dash grabbed it and flew up, carrying the soldier with her until he let go out of fear and fell back down ten feet to the deck. She twirled her newly gained weapon around and decided to really let loose. Taking a deep breath, Rainbow Dash shot across the deck of the Junk, becoming nothing more than a blur, and smacking every soldier still standing in the head with the spear. Teeth along with leather helmets went flying.
While she hadn’t exactly been holding back earlier—since things were serious—she hadn’t exactly utilized her full capabilities either since she wanted to see how good she could actually fight. Was practice for the rare moments when she would actually be facing opponents she couldn’t just effortlessly wallop.
Like a certain griffon pirate who she was sure she’d see again one of these days.
At last she came bearing down on the earth pony with the halberd, he was the last one standing, and he raised his weapon to try and lop of her head as she passed by. Rainbow Dash spun around it and cracked him in the side of the jaw with her spear. A sickening crunch was heard as the soldier stumbled and fell over while Rainbow Dash let her spear clatter to the deck.
“There. Only like four and a half minutes too,” she said.
Meanwhile Commander Calhoun had been steadily trying to inch his way towards the cabins so he could get away from her. He was about halfway there when a rainbow blur shot in front of him and he yelped, cowering to the deck.
Rainbow Dash calmly stared down at him. “I asked you a question, didn’t I?”
“Who are you and what have you done to my ship?”
Rainbow Dash blinked, surprised to have received a question of her own, and turned around to see another pony striding out from the door leading to the cabins at the back of the Junk. Despite the situation he stood calm and regal, not seeming worried at all despite all the soldiers lying about injured and out cold. He had on an elaborate silk uniform and beside him stood a much less composed servant, his jaw open in shock, and behind him were two shackled slaves carrying palm leaves. She narrowed her eyes in anger when she saw the slaves and stared up at the taller stallion.
“I’m Rainbow Dash. You some Bosche bigwig?”
His lip curled. “How crass. You have the privilege of speaking with Admiral Xing, of the most honored and noble Xing Family, second-most Admiral of the Bosche Navy. Do you have any idea of the magnitude of what you’ve done here? Bosche will not stand for this.”
“A-Admiral, she-” Calhoun tried to speak.
“Second most?” Rainbow Dash cut him off, tilting her head. “Who’s first? Your mom? I guess that would explain how you got the job.”
Admiral Xing’s face went red. “How dare you suggest such a thing. You think you can disrespect my family and the Bosche Navy like that? You will regret such insolence!”
“Okay,” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “I’ve heard threats like that before. What are you going to do about it? Cause I told this jerk-” she pointed at Calhoun. “The last time we met to tell his superiors to stop doing stuff like this, cause I would stop it whenever I could and then some. That your ships wouldn’t be able to safely go anywhere as long as I’m around. Since you’re even higher up on the food chain than he is, maybe you’ll actually get the message this time. Stop enslaving and terrorizing others.”
“Hah,” Admiral Xing scoffed. “Don’t make me laugh you common sea rat. Bosche will not bow to the whims of one pony.”
“One pony who’s totally dismantling your ships and stopping your attack here.”
The Admiral frowned and for the first time really looked around at all the defeated soldiers. “Yes, I see that things will not go as planned today. It matters not, we have many more ships, many far larger raids planned and occurring as we speak. You are a fly to Bosche. You will be hunted down and taken back to our home as a slave for the rest of your life, spirit broken, forced to work agonizingly in whatever way your new master sees fit.”
Rainbow Dash stared right back at him and narrowed her eyes. “Like I said. What are you going to do about it? I mean you. You’re talking pretty big for someone with no soldiers around to help him. Do you think just because you’re an “Admiral” and not one of your rank-and-file soldiers that somehow means you’ll be okay? That nothing bad could happen to you? That I’d treat you with dignity?” With each sentence she stepped closer to him. “After what you just said to me, you think some slaving scumbag is going to scare me with some future threats? You’re living in your own little world if you think that’s the case.”
Admiral Xing actually paled slightly and took a step back from her. “I-I am a noble of great descent, you know not what you-”
A hoof shot towards his face.
“!” The Admiral flinched and squeezed his eyes shut—but didn’t feel himself getting hit. Opening his eyes back up he saw Rainbow Dash already walking away from him.
“You’re lucky you’re just old enough where I’d actually feel bad for beating on you,” she paused, glancing back over her shoulder at him. “Well, maybe not that lucky, since I don’t think those two have the same problem as me.”
“Those two?” Admiral Xing blinked and turned around, seeing that his slaves had dropped their palm fronds and were approaching him with menacing looks on their faces. He gulped. “F-Fanbearer’s—pick up your leaves this instant and resume your duties. Slaves, I am your master and I command you at once!”
Rainbow Dash smirked and looked over at Calhoun while that was going on. “Right. Now how many other slaves are onboard? I need to get over to your other ships and deal with them too, so don’t take my time. And by the way, I’ll leave you one ship for all you Boschese to pack yourselves on and sail away with this time. The rest are getting sunk.”
“C-Can I at least ask that you go easy on me this time?” Commander Calhoun begged.
“Ehhh… no.”
A short while later, both a beaten and bloody Calhoun and Xing hung upside-down from the front mast of their Junk, suspended by a chain wrapped around both their back legs. The Admiral painfully turned his head to glare at the Commander.
“Calhoun, you’re Leviathan-feed once we get back home.”
“Yes, Admiral.”