//------------------------------//
// VI. 
// Story: The Worlds End 
// by Alcatraz 
//------------------------------//

	"Sky," I ordered the captain. "Slow down and stop! If we run away they'll probably end up either shooting us out the sky," if they had guns which I doubt, "Or tearing our balloon and send us plummeting."

I knew, through the look in his eyes, that he wasn't happy taking orders from me but knew it is for the best regardless. He locked the wheel and threw a nearby switch that shut off the rear propeller, bringing us to a drifting stop an agonizing minute later. Throwing an anchor was out of the question. What the hell would it have caught on?

"Luna, take everyone else and go downstairs. Let me and Sky handle this."

"What?" Luna froze, aloof in her confusion. She was sure she could fix this scene on her own. "But I-"

"Please! Just go downstairs!" I snapped. Perhaps I was a bit too harsh in saying that.

"Fine!" She seethed her obedience harshly. "Just promise me you'll be okay."

"I will... But all of you also have to promise me the same thing for yourselves."

"I can fight, Midnight!" said Bullseye.

"Me too!" Ratchet also called out.

"Are you sure? I don't even know exactly what we're up against."

Ratchet puffed her chest up a little. "It's nothing we can't handle. I've dealt with pirates alongside Sky before. We have been working together for about five and a half..."

"Alright, fine. Let's get this over with, guys. Luna," I repeated. "I can't let you get hurt! Get down below."

In a burst of mental frustration, Luna hesitantly obliged to my command, taking shelter downstairs alone. She was alone, but she was not scared in the least bit. As if everything was normal, she climbed onto my own bed and tried to utilize the situation as an inspiration to meditate. The method Bullseye explained to her seemed like a much better way to organize the current frustration she was containing within herself.

Luna loved her father so, after all he did and all the sacrifices he made to raise her, to love her, and even keeping her from turning back into Nightmare Moon for Celestia's sake! But a part of her pulsed with an intense anger, stemmed from how he just treated her like a foal; like she was the child she once was, barley able to wield her own magic.

"Why can you not see, father?" she asked herself. "While I am still your daughter, I am no longer the filly I one was, tormented by all my nightmares..."

Back up top, the gryphon captain at the front of the ship signaled for our door to open. Sky hesitantly pulled a switch Ratchet would normally be in control of, but he was closer to it. Then, as it was slowly opening, we all saw two Diamond Dogs appear from a hatch below deck, one holding a wooden board in his paws. The other one, the bulkier of then, carried up the full length of a rope with a grappling hook at the end he was holding.

"Looks like they wanna board us." Ratchet said, full of confidence. "I hope these guys will actually be willing to negotiate... I'm so sick and tired of running into pirates."

"How many have you run into, exactly?" I asked, perhaps rhetorically, as I tightened my grip on my knives, figuring out which position would be best to hold them. I held the Tanto in the reverse grip in my left hand, while my right held the Kukri. I left the sheath to my Kukri at the side of the room, next to where my bag laid. But the sheath for the Tanto I still wore across my chest.

"You know it. I swear, that's an actual reputation we have." Sky answered my question proudly.

Finally, after having exchanged a few wordless words [from our perspective] with the Gryphon captain, the Dog with the rope tossed the hook inside our ship, through the progressively widening gap that the lowering door provided. It caught on one of the pipes about twenty feet away from it, and it was observed, as a heavy example of cause and effect, that they were pulling their ship close to ours as far as distance would permit. The other Dog laid its board across the gap between our ships, at which point afterward, four more of the bastards stormed from below of their ship and rushed the door to get onto our ship. They were all bipedal, wearing ragged and torn pants and spiked collars around their neck.

Why the hell can't pirates be reasonable people? They have nothing at all, they should know how to appreciate that.

As the total of seven assailants came rushing over the sturdy board, our ship filled with a thick, noxious-tasting air. I found it really hard to breathe at first, but it wasn't enough to keep me from fighting.

Thanks to our tinted window, they couldn't see how prepared we were. And, despite the heavy smoke, I managed to swerve to the farther side of one of the Dogs and buried the Tanto into its chest as he ran past me. He was charging recklessly like a fool. I listened to the satisfying sound of it tearing through his flesh. With plenty of force behind him, he started to flip over it, and I managed to lift him up using the blade, digging inside him even more and throwing him the way he came from a short ways. Not that I could really see where anyone else was anyway, but I hoped I would hit one of the other pirates.

"Ugh! Get off me!" I certainly hoped that wasn't my doing. I heard Sky cry out for help as I heard a quick 'THUMP', followed by his voice. Then, miraculously, Ratchet bumped into me. There wasn't much time to talk.

"Sup, buddy," she backed up to me as we braced ourselves with the emergency around us.

"Hey."

"To your right!" she suddenly told me. Just as I caught partial sight of her, she moved again, yet I still followed her command, keeping an eye out to my right, more than anything else. I started to move with much caution as I peeled my senses.

Far in the same direction, I managed to see of the Dogs wrap its arm around Sky's entire midsection, constricting his movements as the Dog withdrew and held a filthy, rusted looking knife close to his throat. That thing is just loaded with tetanus... 

The smoke was beginning to clear, but I started to feel a choking feeling in my throat. Slight, but enough to be a bother. When I saw him being attacked by a second Dog, I started running toward him. Bullseye was far to my left. A Dog to my right had thrown a larger-sized dagger my way, but that's when the Zebra called out to me;

"Midnight, DUCK!" And so I did, avoiding the flying blade I didn't see. It flew right above my head as I ducked my head down and kept running forward toward Sky. Lesson number one: When someone tells you 'Duck', don't ask 'Where?' just crouch. Very rapidly, I might add.

Bullseye was being approached by a thin, more shaped Dog wielding a hatchet and a makeshift wooden shield of sorts. As the Dog tried to swing at him, Bullseye took advantage of his own light stature and avoided the hasty horizontal slash, leaping up high with a push at the Dog's back, sending him on his ass. Then, as the Dog got back up, Bullseye caught the approaching blade in midair, swinging his body around to curve the sharpest point of the dulled blade across his neck. He fell again for the last time. Continuing his momentum, he swung around again and threw the dagger at his original attacker, the tip of it puncturing the Dog's cheekbone, and the toughness of his skull caused the tip of the blade to break. But that Dog ended up falling too, for the last time.

Ratchet passed by Bullseye, high-hoofing in approval, and then she ran at Sky's stalkers along with me. I prepared myself for a full fledged blood-bath, holding my weapons in both hands. Bullseye followed us too, but right at the very moment he started pursuit, one of the pirates pulled out a stick that had a metal cylinder attached to it. He pulled a cigar from out of his mouth and I could see the target of the cigar's burning ember. The rear of the metal cylinder. I've seen enough TV and movies to deduce this is a primitive type of hand cannon. The sound of the weapon was clue enough, but we didn't intend on dropping everything to find out.

"Fucking freeze! ALL OF YOU!!"

It was the Gryphon. The pirate captain. Ratchet and I saw the two Dogs ahead of us let their paws off Sky, eyeing them hatefully and breathing heavily. The toxins from the gas in the air had been dissipated by all the moving bodies, but it was still enough to make him get on his knees, coughing up a storm. Soon after taking a moment to catch my own breath, I started coughing too, and so did Ratchet. Then, as vulnerable as we were, the captain approached me.

"You," he ordered either of the two Dogs surrounding Sky. "Make sure the girl doesn't try anything that may get herself killed."

Upon command, a Dog moved over to Ratchet, picking her up with with one hand and pitting her against the wall. Sky was in no condition to fight back; As one of the Dogs restrained him and muffled his cries for help, the other had repeatedly punched Sky in his stomach, keeping at it until the Gryphon ordered the ceasefire.

And Bullseye? The shot from the primitive cannon weapon left him completely helpless, groveling all over the floor as blood escaped through his multiple gashes. It looked as though the mixture of what I can assume is poorly made black powder wasn't concentrated enough to be as powerful as it could've been. The schrapnel that was stuffed down its barrel had only caused shallow flesh wounds on Bullseye, but that's cause enough for blood to start trickling down him.

Finally, he walked right up to me, and I couldn't do much other than resent him and ask myself.

"Why us?"

He pressed his taloned foot on my chest, pinning me down to the floor. I didn't say a word as much as I wanted to—I was too busy trying to keep the poisonous cloud out of my lungs. He watched me struggle, and he must have been enjoying my suffering. Then, with one eye blind, he lowered himself to my level, proceeding to sit on my torso, pinning me down with even more weight on top of me.

"So, freak, where is the princess at?" He barked at me with his cracked, yet fluent voice.

By now, the toxins in the air had been completely inhaled by everyone. It had no effect on the Dogs or the Gryphon, it seemed. But even so, I refused to answer his insensitive question. Instead, I stared at him with a burning fever in my eyes. I tried to catch him off guard and unravel my arms from underneath him, but it was of no use as he just gave me a restless smirk that refused to leave his face. He reeled his clawed hand far back and halfway spread open. Then he struck me, his sharp talons making me writhe in pain at the top of my lungs, and doing so caused me to momentarily lose consciousness as the mild amount of toxins from the cloud began working their way through my system.

"Damn you to HELL!" I rasped.

"Don't make me ask again, you dirty ape. Where is the god damned princess?! We know she's on board!"

I spat in his face. I was disgusted though, when it dripped back on me.

"Insolent bastard!" He reared up his other hand, readying a full-frontal strike with his fist. I prematurely flinched and closed my eyes, but the strike never came. I cracked an eye open to see a Dog holding his fist back, blocking the strike with his own paw.

"We were told not to harm any of them, stand down!" he said.

"And why should I? Look at what they've done to our numbers." He didn't sound at all empathetic toward his Dogs. Between Ratchet, Sky, Bullseye and myself, we had taken out three of his crew. But three still remained, in addition to the firearm-weilding captain.

"Do what you always do, just recruit more."

The Gryphon looked as if he had actually gotten off track for even a mere second. "Fine," he said as he loosened his tightly clasped fingers. He started to get back on his feet, and he grabbed me by my shirt and walked me over to the wall. I couldn't try to fight back. "Try anything stupid and you and your friends will die." He told me. "I don't care what anyone says..."

"No need to ask him where she is, commented a Dog as he headed toward the ship's corridors. "Just keep these guys busy till we find her. There isn't any place outside this ship she could've gotten to."

All of us who could protect her were up here on deck, beaten down and unable to stop them. Luna would have to live up to her claim, that she could defend herself and fight. It was our last hope.

The captain picked Ratchet up on our trip to the wall and smashed our faces in it.

"You have no hope, lovebirds."

The three Diamond Dogs went below deck to search for Luna, and it was quite a while until me and Ratchet did in fact hear some sort of hope. It was the sound of a small explosion, and the Dogs were the victims. But I guess it didn't matter because a feminine scream entered our ears afterward.

"Luna!" I helplessly called out her name, and then, fearing the worst...

I stared crying. I feared so many things, but protecting Luna was the only thing I didn't fear. It was the only thing I knew I could do right. "Luuunnaaaa!"

I reached my breaking point easily. I bent my right leg and pressed my foot against the wall, pushing myself back with enough force to make the Gryphon budge and stagger behind me. With Ratchet out of range, I swung around and withdrew the sheath from across my chest. I took my aim low and swung the heavier end up at his chin. At least, that's where I hoped I would end up hitting him. Without a word though, he lifted his left leg up and launched it at my weapon, pushing it down to the floor. The force put a significant strain on my wrist.

"Are you quite done?" He questioned me simply, as if his automatic counter was normal. Then, pretending to suffer an exaggerated pain to my wrist, I quickly swung at him again, but he was even faster to counter my attack once more. This time, he stole the sheath from my weakened grasp and counteracted the original measure I had taken. He smacked the side of my face with the very end of it, and before I even lifted an arm in defense, I suddenly found myself looking up at him from the floor.

"Stop!" Sky called from his distance. "Why are you doing this?!"

"Just tell us what you want, please! Just not the princess!" Ratchet dragged me up to the base of the wall and lifted me up.

I didn't think these pirates would be such a hassle...

Luna's screaming instantly subsided as the three Dogs made their way back up to the bridge with the princess in their combined grasp. One of the Dogs got so irritated with Luna's 'bitching' that he held his paw pressed tight against her mouth.

Luna looked different, as we all saw. She didn't have her flowing astral mane like directly before, but her regular haired mane and tail in its place. My vision turned toward her head, and I spotted a small ring on her horn.

"Luna..."

It was a magic inhibitor. I wondered where the hell could they have gotten one of those.

"Noooo!" I cried her name. It was one of the only things I could have done.

This was all making less and less sense. These pirates would have had to know where we were going and who was on this ship to know exactly what to do and exactly what to bring.

And... The question. "Where is the princess, freak?!"

Why would they be looking for Luna??

"You two," spoke the Dog whose paws were free. He was talking to the other beasts. "Take her to the ship and keep her bound." And so they continued heading back to their own ship.

Luna's especially desperate eyes turned to me with a look of abstract horror in her eyes.

How could I have been so reckless. So careless...

As the Dogs escaped with Luna, the Gryphon captain gave commands to the last remaining, living Dog in the room.

"After you three get the princess settled in the ship, I want you to shoot this... ape with the cannon. All of them, in fact. But keep the girl, though." After that, he picked up the wooden board they brought in and exited.

What the frack?? I thought that was just a ballista that was on the deck, but apparently not. It was a full-fledged cannon! That or they had both, and the cannon was somewhere else on board.

I wasn't exactly keen to go out with a literal bang. But by the looks of it, with all of us beaten to hell like we were, it was going to be tough luck getting out of this.

I struggled to my feet,  trying to make a grab for one of the dog's broken knife on the ground. It was pretty far, but it was worth a shot as I pretended to obey orders to 'get my goofy ass up'. He caught me though, as he turned around.

"Hey!" I froze and dropped it, stopping all movement entirely, minus the enormous thumping going on in my chest. "What in the world do you think you're trying to do?"

I saw the Dogs from out the door. The two that were carrying a struggling Luna hopped down the trapdoor and inside the ship. The third Dog stopped next to the door to talk with the minotaur sitting in the ballista's seat. I saw him motion his arms in a circular direction above him, in a way that most likely indicated the explosion that would send me, Sky, and Bullseye, flying. I caught the look the Minotaur shot at me from across the way.

With a smirk, the Dog headed back down below deck. Their ship then briefly pulled away from ours, raising up high enough so the side of their hull directly sided along the open door to ours.

Bullseye and Sky were forced to cluster up with me. The Gryphon grabbed Ratchet's neck and cuffed us guys up tightly together. He then had us all follow his lead onto their ship.

"Bullseye... Sky..."

"Y-Yeah?" they answered in the same speech.

"I'm sorry. I'm so...so sorry you guys got wrapped up in this. You too, Ratchet." she didn't respond, probably couldn't anyway.

"It's... Not your fault," they said. "It's not over yet, you know."

"I know. Hey, they could slip up at one point or another. And we'd have a chance at something."

"Yes," flaunted the Gryphon, making Ratchet whine through his clawed grip on her. "Say your goodbyes while you still can."

Sky continued while I tried to resist understanding the cruelty of fate. "But what if they separate us? Will you be alright, both of you?"

"Wait a minute." the Gryphon interjected the louder part of our conversation. We were just about to step into their ship when he stopped us. "You three stay here, I've had a bit of a change of heart." That didn't get my hopes up at all.

It didn't get any of our hopes up.

"I want to watch you burn down."


~~~***(Luna's POV)***~~~


So, it was certain that these Dogs wanted to ransom me off for, what anyone would assume, their own financial gain. But to whom they would auction me off to, I could not exactly fathom. Father and his new friends all did what they could for my sake, and I appreciate it. But curse them, they almost killed themselves for me! Father cried my name as I passed his presence earlier, and I wish I could have said something. Done anything...

"Just throw her on the mattress over there."

As crude as all pirates were, the Dogs underneath me had literally thrown me down on a weak, embarrassing excuse for a mattress. It was so terribly filthy, with rust creeping its way across the surface of the metal frame and the torn up box-spring mattress. But, then again, they didn't care about my comfort. The Dogs immediately shut and locked the door they brought me through afterwards. Then they pulled the light switch hanging above them, attached to a ceiling fan that just then started to cycle with its blades

Now that the thought of studying my surroundings approached me, I scanned the room. And though it was nothing more than a plain dead end room meant for who knows what, maybe the ship's magazine, the fact that they slapped an attached metal roof over me brought the peculiar thought that they were going to stick to their word of holding me for a ransom.

Even though the estimated ten other Dogs in the room detested.

"Aawww, why'd you put her in a cage?"

"You said something about we could like, touch her, iight?"

"Look at dat plot, dude!"

It was certainly a good thing I was in a cage. These beasts were incredibly repulsive, from making snarky, nasty comments all the way to discussing how they would torture me or... do something highly undesirable to me.

And it was before the last Dog finished his comment that the burliest one—the one who helped carry me—stuck his paw through the cage and removed the gag, a bandana, from my mouth that he had shoved in there earlier. I tried to crunch down on his arm as he removed it, but he avoided me and flicked my face hard as he spoke.

"Hey guys. Why does it always take one of these to shut a mare up?" He held the item up and threw it to the back of the room. No one responded to him; everyone's eyes were laid on me for reasons I suspected to be more vile than what I originally thought. "Hey, I don't know either. Heh."

"I know another way I can shut her up..." perked a Dog I could not see through the crowd.

"Shut your mouth, all of you!" I gritted my jaw as I tried to intimidate them with a weakened variation of my Royal Canterlot Voice. "What is it exactly that thou wants from us?"

"Us?" the bulky leader responded. "You mean... Those guys weren't also holding you hostage?"

"Of course not, you feeble minded dog. Those are my friends!"

"Even the Human?" another Dog asked. "What's his relationship to you?"

"The human is my father!"

Everyone started laughing in disbelief, and I started writhing with the insatiable urge to magically blast some posterior. Fortunately for them, though, my magic was bound just like my body was.

"Your dad, huh? Tell me then. What became of King Cosmos?" My eyes widened. They should not know that name. One of the Dogs on my left made his way to the front of the crowd. He tugged hard on the end of my tail, dragging me to the farthest end of the cage, and then started to stroke my own posterior with his rough paw. His jagged claws scathed the flesh closest to my uncomfortable stimulated entrance. The unusual, unforgiving pain made me want to break out crying. "Looks like you're still tight as ever, little lady. I can be your daddy, though..."

"I will NOT have you speak to your highness like this!!" I roared. "Now order your godforsaken captain to let us all go! We have committed NO felony!"

Suddenly, a few Dogs on the other end of this dirty cage started pulling on my now-haired mane, and my tied legs with enough force to knock me around every corner. One of them begged; "Come on, Jay! Let'er outta the cage already!" But the supposed leader of their group responded in deniable modesty.

"Okay, I get it. She's hot. She's incredibly freaking hot. But we can't do this to her. It'll affect our pay like nuts!"

"Dudebro, they'll pay so much more if we put her through shit. Like, lotsa shit. The kind of shit that breaks the regular mares."

"But guys," he interjected. "None of you saw the cute ass girl up there. Let's leave Luna alone, alright?"

Just then, at that moment, the door started to creak open, heading back along its loose hinges. But then it suddenly swung back, and the hugely built Minotaur from inside the cannon walked into the room, looking behind him with slight frequency.

"Come. In." he commanded with a shrill of aggression. And then, a quadrupedal figure entered behind him. The dim light was barely enough to identify who it was at first, but that quickly changed.

It was Ratchet. She was blindfolded, the loose knot visible as her head was down, following the Minotaur's voice and nothing else. Her horn had the same ring around it, but there was an addition above it. Was it another Magic inhibitor ring?

"This chick?" chirped one of the identified twelve Dogs as he ripple a glance at her rear end. "Damn, she is hot!"

"Hell yeah!!"

"I swear..."

"Man."

"This is seriously the best day of my life..."

After Ratchet entered the room and was surrounded by a fraction of the Dogs, the Minotaur spoke.

"Don't you guys wanna come up and see the big show?"

"Big show?" I asked aloud. "What is this 'big show' you speaketh of?" Then, responding to me, the Dog known as Jay furnished an answer.

"This guy, right here," The leader of the Dogs patted the Minotaur on his shoulder. "is gonna blow your daddy up, honey. Sorry you or your friend can't watch, but we've got plans for the two of you."

"No!"

"Yep!" said the Minotaur. "See ya!"

"NOOOOO GET BACK HERE, PLEEEASE!"

When the Minotaur actually did leave, though, all of the Dogs' attention fell to Ratchet. She looked and sounded as if she was sobbing, and when one of other bulkier Dogs untied the blindfold with little care, we all saw that she was.

Was this the end?

"Ratchet!!" I called out at her. She quickly raised her head and saw me, helpless in that cage.

"Luna!" She tried to launch herself at the closest pirate, but she was quickly slapped aside and knocked to the floor. Then four of them swarmed her in her even weaker state.

"DON'T YOU DARE HURT HER!!"

"DON'T DO THIS TO US!! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU ALL!!!" Good Lord, did that expletive come from me? I must've picked it up from Father when he let it slip on occasion.

"STOP!" Jay threw his lackeys aside as he rescued Ratchet from the many paws on her and the bodies around her. He lifted her up and led her through the crowded room, and finally in front of the cage. She looked at me with a hint of soulless desperation in her eyes, and I met her gaze, feeling the same exact way, in all honesty.

"...What happened to us?" That was all that slurred from her bruised lips.

"I don't..."

"Listen... Girls," Jay started,in a softer, quieter voice than before. "I really, really hate the life that I live. I hate being an Air Pirate, and more than anything... I hate having to take orders from my fucking boss."

What the the right Hell was he going on about? What suddenly gave him the sudden courage to speak up?

"Well... You know." I started, calming down significantly. "There are ways to change your life for the better. It's not too late."

Then, Ratchet looked at him. "It's never too late."

"Maybe you're right... "

"What the hell are you doing, man?" called a few Dogs in different variations. At the moment they suspected something, Jay whispered a single word to me and Ratchet.

"Thanks." He made sure no one saw what he did next, as he feigned an act of a certain unwanted advance that no mare should ever be victim to, against me and Ratchet. But what he was really doing was cutting my binds loose with his sharp claws. He freed my cramped legs, and I just continued to stare in awe as he reached for my horn

"Is this how you jerk unicorn girls off?" He spoke louder and faked further as he removed the Magic inhibitors from both Ratchet and myself. Then finally, he reached on the opposite side of the cage and clicked the simple lock open. In this case, he announced the revoking of his orders and the return of his original plan. The plan mentioning how all of these Dogs were going to force themselves onto and Ratchet and I.

We were the only ones who knew of his true intentions, though. We needed a scapegoat of a reason to be surrounded by these monsters. He led me out of the cage and threw me aside Ratchet, where we both were pushed by Jay into the middle of the room, with male stimulated males all around us. Not one of them were remembering one tiny detail, though...

Several seconds passed before the first Dog made his move toward Luna, and that's when Ratchet cast a spell that grappled the ceiling fan with the magical grip she wielded. She swing the poorly kept decor around both herself and Luna in small, circular motion, the metal blades also swinging the opposite direction. Many of the Dogs were disoriented by their filthy hopes.

She cut through most of them;  the insane whirring of the fan's thick blades literally sliced through all the thinner bodies, and also inflicted a significant amount of hurt on the crazily built Dog that the contraption flew into. It threw him back to the wall, making a deep circular crevice in it. And when he fell, the remaining Dogs, regardless of how scathed they had become, charged at us.

"Nice moves!" I complimented her as we prepared ourselves for their split-second assault.

"Thanks!" At that moment, Ratchet threw herself one way, and I threw myself another. One of the remaining six threw himself onto my horn, probably unsuspecting of my sudden movement. As I quickly swiped my body back, also dodging some of the dirty knives that the others tried to thrust at me, I threw the body off of my horn and then stole the knives from two of the Dogs with my magic. Three of the others were occupied with Ratchet, and the last one was sparring with Jay through hand-to-hand combat. I slipped the glance of him busting his opponent's face in with the uncomfortable looking brass bracelet he wore on his paw. And as I continued to avoid the grasps of my own two opponents, Jay's powerful aggression gave me inspiration as to what I could put these monsters through.

But suddenly, as I was preparing my move, I heard Ratchet call for assistance, so I decided to settle for a simpler plan of attack as I dropped the knives.

Since I was close to luring them close to the corner wall, I swung around them as soon as they were close enough and then I picked the knives up again, launching two each into their chests with more than enough force to pin them to the thick walls.

"I hope you BLEED OUT!" I was so furious right now, I didn't even care about speaking properly. I just needed to save my father I needed to save everyone. I knew they were still alive. I felt them, my father's comforting nearby presence, most of all.

"Get of me, NOW! Before I acquaint your facial features with a fundamental item used in the construction of buildings. Repeatedly." I headed over to Ratchet, who was being attacked by all three of her assailants. One of them had her whole body pinned down with his a single arm. Another one was preparing to position himself lengthwise along with her body, and the last one was looking as if he was going to kneel in front of her head and steal the knife he held through her upper body. I quickly came to her rescue when I angrily used my magic, clearly pushing my limits as I picked up the knife that the Dog at her front wielded. I shoved it in his chest and then tossed him toward Jay, who was now ready to pulverize another victim. Then, as I came closer to the one at her back, I switched routes and moved to the side, giving all of my absolute mental might to push the Dog holding her down back onto the other one.

"Luna! Help me, please!!"

And so I did help her. I screamed as my mind peeled at the unusual density of the Dogs' body, but I managed to toss him off of Ratchet's midsection and topple the other one off of my friend.

My friend...

The Dog that tried to have his filthy way with Ratchet was toppled and crushed by the terrible weight of the fattest one in the room. The engineer regained her hooves with haste.

"Oh god, that was close! Luna, you're a lifesaver..."

Jay was now near the corner, staring at the dead bodies that hung on the wall. They had bled out entirely, just as I hoped they would. Then, he came over to us.

"Damn..." he started. "If I hadn't changed, I'd be dead too, huh? Heh." Me and Ratchet couldn't respond immediately, as we were catching our much needed breath. "Hey, your legs weren't like that before, were they?" He continued, and I was suddenly drawn to a relevant difference in Ratchet's appearance out of the corner of my eye, now that it was mentioned.

All four of her legs looked as if they were split into two halves, heading up and down vertically. But what was really going on was-

"They're blades," Ratchet explained as she closed them up with no physical action at all. "Super sharp blades in my legs." No question; that was a bit strange to hear about. But then again, Ratchet was essentially half machine, physically speaking.

"I assume you didn't have the chance to use them." I assumed.

"Yeah. I'd have been fine if they didn't jump me."

"Now we've only got the captain to worry about," said Jay. He had fully caught his breath at that point.

"Shit! They're still up there, aren't they? I didn't hear cannon go boom or anything."

Ratchet pleaded to me that we all head up to the bridge and 'murder the crap out of everyone'. But I explained I already had plans to that regard.

"I'm trying..." It was a vague message, but with how much I was struggling with a new use for my magic, it just might have been message enough. And it just might have saved their lives.

My father and our friends...

"Ready to fire on your command, sir!" The Minotaur seated behind the cannon announced the completed preparations for our execution. Me, Sky and Bullseye all stood in our own ship, tightly bound together and without hope. The harsh evening sun preyed on us as we tried to look below the clouds, hoping that some freak miracle would save us.

"Are ya guys ready?" the captain teased. "Why don't you just kiss each other goodbye or something? It'll give you plenty of time to get me off!" His maniacal cackles actually echoed throughout the air, and haunted us as we faced the inevitable.



~~~***(End Luna's POV)***~~~




"I'm sorry for what I said," I said to Bullseye. "You know, about the dishes."

"Aw dude, don't worry about it. I'll have plenty of time to improve to your level."

"I know you will..." I lied through my teeth. I knew nothing was going to be alright.

"Always look up," said Sky, literally doing as he said. He closed his eyes. "Always have faith. Always believe..."

What were these guys talking about? Were they going crazy?

This was the end! There was no faith to be had! There was nothing to believe in. Nothing was going to save us.

So much for my title as a father...

As soon as I had given everything up, just waiting to die, a searing sensation suddenly tore at the back of my consciousness. My entire mind just went blank, completely blank and overwhelmed with a certain nothingness.

"Midnight??" On the outside, Sky was insanely concerned with my condition. I was just standing there with them with my head limp and staring at the floor

"Midnight wake up!" Bullseye cried.

Then...

"Father." I don't know if I was already dead and merely having my life flash before me, or whatever, but... I saw Luna.

"Father," her figure spoke once more, and I heard her as clear as a whistle. "I am down here inside the pirates' ship. Ratchet is in good shape down here, as well as a pirate who has decided to turn himself around and aid us. But don't worry, he isn't hostile anymore."

"Luna. Hold your humans." I was totally lost as I found myself speaking too. How the heck was she talking to me? "What the heck is going on?"

"What's he doing? Who's he talking to?" Bullseye was freaking out, just a little.

"The princess, apparently." Yet SkySurfer was calm cool and collected.

"Should we do something to wake him up?

"Nah..." Perhaps he was way too composed, actually. His sigh sounded exhausted and defeated. Then he gazed up into the sky as he took his next, and possibly final breath. "Don't. Let him die in peace..." Finally, he reached his right foreleg over to me, holding onto my dangling arm. Bullseye did the same, reaching and hugging with his left, and he closed his eyes just as SkySurfer did.

The cannon fired four seconds after the sentiment.

"I am speaking to you through your deceased state." Luna told me.

"So... I am dead? The pirates made off with you two?"

"No, we'll get out of here. And as for your current stature...physically, you still live and breath, and are merely under my influence. But mentally, you've thrown all of your hope away, and thus, allowing me to see what you're seeing."

"But Luna, I can't see anything at all except you. What are you really talking about?"

"Your desperation and lack of faith has left you unable to see my own sights. I am practically blind at the moment as I am lending you my Alicorn magic, which you should feel coarse through your veins. I am doing my best to help you understand the most important lesson in all of existence. "

"Really?" I replied simply

"Open your eyes, Father. That's all you must do."

I didn't know exactly how I managed to comply my body with her suggestion. But I did. I opened my eyes.

"Midnight!" Sky and Bullseye were both relieved and frightened. "Are you... The one doing this??"

With my head staring down, I opened my eyes, somewhat inspired by Luna's hopeful insight. One of the first things I saw was my wrist, guiding my whole hand up with my fingers spread as wide as they could be. My hand wasn't shaking at all, but... I wasn't even lifting it up at all. Luna must have been in control of my body, as crazy of a thought that was. But I believed it.

But then, suddenly, the mindless sensation had become evanescent as I seemed to feel the ripping of my own reality tear back into me.

"Luna..." I muttered as I decided to look up, following the conventional wisdom.

The cannon had indeed fired, but the gigantic iron ball just levitated there in front of the three of us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bullseye leaning his head back, calling out to Sky. But I couldn't hear anything he was saying, and his expressions and lips moved slowly.

What the hell was really going on?

Focusing back on the ball in front of us, I tried moving my hand around—just as a thought—to try and control the absurd mass. But sure enough, my slight doubt proved wrong, as I really was in control of it! As it continued to spin in the air, I closed my fingers to see if I could stop the movements. And I was able to do that too! I looked down to my right shoulder to see the intense glow of Luna's moon. Well, more specifically the gem.

I was using Magic! Holy hell! I started to laugh happily in pure and utter excitement.

"Alright, enough messing around."

I looked ahead, past the cannonball. I saw the slowed, futile attempts of the pirates to load another hunk of ammunition into the weapon.

But I was in control now. That wasn't going to happen.

I curved my hand so it pointed upward at a diagonal angle, picking the cannonball up so I could get a perfect view for where to launch it. But I needed no exact aim. This was sure as hell going to end them.

I swung my hand forward, throwing the cannonball back at the cannon, and it wasn't long before impact, because the explosion that followed had completely filled the sky, with my view as narrow as it was. Time's flow also seemed to return to normal then, as Bullseye and Sky screamed aloud.

"How in the world did you do that?!"

When I thought all hope was lost before, I would have never ever expected this sort of miracle, or any at all.

The massive explosion of blue fire massacred the ship into innumerable pieces, the sky now adorned with azure ribbons that would torch anything they touched.

It took a moment for the blissful state to wear off before I realized something important... "No, LUNA!!" With the three of us bound, we all moved our legs in unison as the immediate threat of their attack-gone-wrong put their Luna's and Ratchet's life in potential peril. We leaned against the wall that held the bulky ligaments that held the ship's door down and open

"Do you see anything??!" Sky asked me and Bullseye with much haste. And I didn't blame him."

"Not yet..." I heaved.

"I think I do see them!" Bullseye called out.

"Where?" We shouted out at the sky, scouring the scene for anything that moved, and it was hard because there was just so many things. But finally, after studying the scene enough, we saw something moving upward instead of plummeting downward.

"Looks like her!" I shouted excitedly.

"Ratchet better be with her... I'm not losing her." Sky continued to wear an improving smile on his face, but still remained doubtful of his own treasure, possibly lost. As Luna flew up closer to us, we saw her struggling to keep her flight track.

The Pirate captain had his right hand's talons dug deep in Luna's right hind leg, and we saw him start to climb up her body using his other arm. Ratchet lay hugged on Luna's back, kicking at the Gryphon's face. She kept on yelling;

"Get the hell off!" His pursuit was one to certainly be noted, though. He ignored her assaults and reached up for Luna's tail, the intense tugging now fully weighted on it. Luna's wings couldn't hold her up anymore with all this resistance, and she began to descend. But it was only for a short while, because Ratchet spread her right leg to the side and then swung it back behind her, cutting her bladed leg deep in the Gryphon's cheekbone, but not deep enough to hold him there, No, he fell, for the final time. The impact had killed him instantly.

As he descended, a major lift was given to Luna's continued ascent. And soon enough, the princess flew in the door with Ratchet.

"Luna!"

"I knew you guys would be alright!"

"I'm so glad you two are alright!"

"Yeah, you guys look great, too!"

Ratchet gave a witty smirk as she hopped off of Luna's back and freed us of our old bonds. She simply just ran her bladed foreleg through them with only a hint of force. Then, I hugged Ratchet, thanking her to no end. I rushed over to Luna's afterward as Sky met back up with his lifelong partner.

"Are you alright?" I kept on asking Luna in different variations. She was busy catching her breath at the moment. "What happened? How did you get free?"

She struggled to fully get back on her hooves, sputtering a couple of coughs as she nodded at me in approval.

"I... am fine for the moment, but next time this happens, don't you dare send me into hiding. This only proves to you that I can surpass your expectations when it comes to combat."

"I know, I know... And I'm so sorry!" I buried my face atop her back and felt a few tears come forth again. "I'm just so glad you're safe."

"So how've you been while I was gone?" Ratchet joked. But SkySurfer ignored the majority of the humor—sharing no smile as he hugged her tight.

"Ratchet..." he started. "I was so worried about you. As wimpy as that sounds... I'm not gonna lie.  I was scared."

"Awwww, you big baby." Ratchet hugged him back. She was scared for him too, but she chose not to admit it. Those two were inseparable. Ratchet was like a tough little sister for Sky, and Sky was a sensitive big brother to Ratchet. It broke my heart to see the incredible love they shared for each other.

I called aloud, for every one to hear.

"Hey, let's get a head count here." I noted everyone in the ship, pointing to each individual as I affirmed their name. " Okay, we've got Bullseye, Sky, Ratchet, Luna, and myself. Good, that's everyone. I know that was pretty pointless, but I felt it was needed. Who's hurt?"

"Aside from a sore throat, I'll be fine." commented Sky.

"Hey, I'm pretty good for the most part," said Ratchet, her arm still over Sky's back. "The most I'm really worried about now is the damage done to our ship."

"Luna," I started again, "Didn't you say something about how one of the pirates helped you escape? Where is he?" Luna put on a somberly portrayed face.

"He jumped off of the ship before it exploded. He did help me and Ratchet out of a very tight situation as I mentioned, and it really saddened me how such an insightful creature had to go out like that."

"Wait, so he just jumped?" we all asked, almost one after the other.

"Yes... I wish him the best, for he had resolved to turn his life around."

"Me too." Ratchet almost shed a pair of tears. And we all agreed.

"Yeah..."

"Now that I have the opportunity... I think I'm gonna go... Lay down." He started to turn away and head down the corridor at the back. But that's when I stopped him.

"Bullseye... Can I do anything at all to help you?"

"You're in a horrendous shape! What happened to you?"

"I..."

"The Gryphon dude shot him." I finished.

Sky then solemnly intervened. "I'll get back to flying the ship so we can get moving again. Don't want to hang around and have anyone in the area asking exactly why a whole ship was falling down in flames."

"I'll take care of that," said Ratchet. "The way Bullseye's looking right now, you'd probably need to help Luna and Midnight take him down and patch him up. Besides, if anything really is broken, I'll fix it. It'll speed up our way outta here."

"I've seen all the pain he was in... Alright, I'll do that. But be safe."

"I will," she sympathized. "I promise."

So Sky came our way, with me and Luna already helping Bullseye keep his confident hooves weighed on the floor. When he came over to us, he helped me support the Okapi's right side.

The poor guy...

"Thank you... So very much." he murmured. As the adrenaline from the earlier events subsided, it allowed all his pain and suffering to come back and haunt his built body.

"We're here to help you," said Luna. " If anything, we need to thank you."

"He was a real badass back there," Sky explained to her. I concurred.

"Yeah, you were. We'd probably be in way worse shape than we are now without you."

I felt Bullseye's heart thump through every part of him, and he started to excrete blood from his wounds again, dipping a weak trail of blood down the route we took down to our beds. He mentioned that he needed nothing from his own possessions as we carefully made it down the staircase.

"OH MY GOOOOD!"

"I'm sorry..."

"OoouAAH! FUCK!"

"We are sorry, Bullseye..."

We laid Bullseye down on my bunk bed. Laying on a few thick layers of medicine-drenched bandages that wrapped around his entire waist and midsection. The treatment seemed to be powerful at first, but then it came to wrap it around his body. He didn't scream out bloody murder, and he instead gritted his teeth, taking in many breaths and heaving those powerful breaths out as Luna took a few strands from the bandages and stretched the over his legs, covering some of his other, more critical wounds, such as the ones closest to his neck.

"Hey... Bullseye." I repeated his name for the third time straight, earning no response back. We all sat in chairs, close to him, monitoring his behavior. He was breathing, but he said nothing for a while. Until finally-

"Thank you... So much for helping me." He muttered through his lips.

"No, you're the one who needs to be thanked." I reached my hand behind his head, gently scratching my fingers at the skin underneath his mane.

"You're so brave," Sky told him. Bullseye smiled sweetly at us, telling us his wished he could get up and hug us both.

This guy was only a kid. He had his whole life ahead of him. He might not have known what he was exactly getting into by coming with us on our adventure, and his eagerness to join may have gotten me a little uptight, but now... I know what he was after.

He wanted to explore the world. He wanted a family he could call his own, he even told me. As we were washing dishes just last night, how his whole family left him not too long ago. He told me how they had no remorse at all. He told me how he was abused as a child. In a sense, he got the short end of every stick he caught.

But then, as a thought out way to die in peace, he left his secluded home near Neighagra Falls. He came across another Zebra named Zecora in the evergreen forest, just as he was about to fall asleep for the last time.

She saved his life back then, and  I remain forever grateful to her.

I heard something behind me, and I looked back to see Luna, staring at us and crying her eyes out.

"Father..." She got up from her seat and sat right back down on my lap, wrapping her hooves around me. Her tears went away after she saw Sky and Bullseye giving us both a great smile.

"Luna." Bullseye starting perking up with his voice. "You're lucky to have him as a father..." Luna lifted her head from my shoulder and stared at him with admiration.

"Oh Bullseye..."

"Hey, dude." I spoke softly to him. "I don't mind calling you a part of this group now. Not one bit."

"Really, Midnight?"

"Me neither!" Sky said, assuring Bullseye's dream.

Silly question. "But why...? What did I do?"

"You do enough just by being there with us." He knew exactly why he was loved, but he just wanted to hear it from one of us. Me, Luna or Sky.

"Oh hey, Midnight." Bullseye spoke to me once more, after the incredible bonding experience we all shared. "How did you save us earlier?"

"Huh?" I couldn't recall what he was talking about.  Unless... What happened before wasn't a dream or a mirage at all.

"Oh yeah! I was meaning to ask you that too!" Sky added.

But then, Luna spoke for me, and I closed my mouth and listened to her.

"In the simplest of terms, I used my father's desperate state of consciousness to send him into a dream-like state, more akin to a near death experience, and then I gave him a few words of encouragement—ancient Lunar words that allowed me to take control of his body and lend him some of my magic. And the way he was able to apply physical manifestation of that magic was through the gems he had me instill inside him."

Sky was more thrilled by the explanation than Bullseye seemed to be. The okapi had a more concerning looks on his face, perhaps questioning how I survived that process.

"Yeah Luna, I get it," I joked. "I can't use magic on my own just yet." In all honesty, it really was disappointing that, given the occasion, I was merely a vessel for Luna to use.

"You can't use it, yet, and only when my presence is close will you harness an incredibly powerful magic, just like me."

"But you're also saying... he can learn it over time, like, if he practices with it?"

I lifted the right sleeve of my shirt and showed Sky and Bullseye the image of Luna's white moon Cutie Mark on my shoulder. It wasn't glowing anymore, but when I tried to magically grab the single pillow off of my own bunk, it radiated an ambient turquoise shade as I lifted the pillow,  setting the top of it on my shoulder so Luna could lay her head on it.

"Man..." Sky seemed especially impressed, as Bullseye could not exert himself as strongly as our pilot could. Nevertheless, they spoke at the same time, completing each others' comments. "That's so cool!! Congrats!"

I blushed a tiny bit as Luna proudly looked at me and began to nuzzle my left cheek.

"May I see the other one?"

I pulled back my other sleeve and showed him the glowing, crafted sun that resided under my other shoulder. His eyes widened in surprise. "And...did you use the gems you got from the Beholder to make these?"

I nodded at him. "Kinda hurt like hell, though. Or, it would have, had Luna not anesthetized my shoulder." His expression then evolved into what could have been described as 'obsessive'.

"Holy crap, man. That's time!"

"Time?" I asked, he explained, and we all listened.

"Legend has it, but we know it for a fact now, that the Beholder wielded magic in his eyes, what we now know to be the gems. He had different kinds of magic, he could control earth, air, fire, and water. He also had a kind of parasitic magic that would drain the life from others, and that power was formed using both the time stopping gem and levitation gem, which of both you now possess. No one really knows what they all are. He had dozens of them."

"Are you saying...that I can stop time?"

"More like you can pause it. The magic in the gem pauses time inside a bubble that surrounds you. and You can move around in it while everything passes by super slowly."

"That was probably happening back up there too," Sky surmised, and he was correct.

"Yeah, it was, but he would need to be using a heavy degree of magic to be able to slow down time. The sun-shaped gem in his shoulder is the one that controls that power, but he can only channel magic through the moon gem, cuz the other one can only have its power harnessed through magical prowess."

"I wonder if there was a gem back down there that could let me go back in time or something. Or even accelerate it!"

"That is a rather nice proposition, and now that we're on the subject, I have something I would like to ask you, father." My eyes turned to Luna with a questioning gaze. I had a feeling I knew where she was going, despite her hugging me tighter. "Why did you order me downstairs when my magic could have helped you from the beginning?"

She was right, why couldn't I have seen it? I threw my head over Luna's shoulder, letting out a deep breath while I tried to make my explanation sound more reasonable than anything.

"I... I guess I was trying to protect you. I figured that they could have been deadlier than I thought. I'm sorry." I sat up further and wrapped my arms around Luna, repeatedly nuzzling her chest with my cheek.

"But yeah, seeing as how they made it out with you... I guess that wasn't the best decision." explained Sky.

"Oh yeah, totally," I replied.

"Listen... I'm just happy I'm still able to feel your heart beating, much like I am right now." Really, my heart was thumping out of my chest, even still. "I forgive you with ease, dad."

"I should have had more faith in you. I just didn't want you to get hurt. Next time you almost get mare-napped by pirates, we'll both fight, okay?"

She giggled sweetly. "Sure thing!"

Even during the late, dusk-ailed evening, tensions still ran high with all of us. We were still very on edge about the pirate incident, but the best thing we could do was just try to forget about it and carry on with the journey at hand. And I know, easier said than done, but there was definitely no harm in trying

With the last of the fresh food we picked up in a few of the market stalls in Alexmanedria, I cooked up a vegetarian curry, despite how tired I was feeling. I just wanted the day to be over. It wasn't what it could've been by any stretch if I had access to a wider variety of ingredients, but it did good nevertheless, as it helped alleviate the stress of the earlier events. Upon my own insistence, I took the duties of cleaning up once again.

Besides, this was the easy part. We all decided to save the battles' cleanup for another day.

As the evening wound down even further, we all went and did our respective activities alone. Ratchet and Sky were just finishing the repairs toward any internal parts of operation that sustained damage. Luna had also just finished raising the moon for the night, too. Bullseye laid in the bed behind me, in a deep sleep as indicated by how his pillow was locked in his gentle embrace. And I just sit against the wall, writing today's events in my journal as I listened to the okapi's quiet mumbles.

The journey was still going to be a long one, and keeping a log of it was, so far, helping me maintain some bit of my sanity, so I don't end up going completely crazy. Although I did kinda wish I bought along something to read.

Oh my god. The book I got from the library! Holy crap!

I honestly had no freaking clue as to how it slipped my mind so easily, considering how we all went through so much trouble to get it. At first, I thought I would find it in one if my bags, at the very furthest reaches under my bed.

"I really need to tidy up under here..." But I didn't even have to think twice as I felt a weighty rectangular object inside the bag. I wiggled it out of the pouch and brought it out with a two-handed grasp, looking the book over before I sat it down on the bedsheets. When I opened it to where we last looked inside, assuming my memory wasn't failing me, the illustration of a giant crystal in the middle of a room got me right back into it. I read forward from a random sentence that accompanied the image. But then I remembered how the language was foreign to me...

"Well damn... I can't read this", I admitted out loud, to no one in-particular. However, I just elected to look at the illustrations, surmising my own take on the events that were transpiring on the pages I was suddenly flipping. I thought about asking Luna to translate for me, but she still struggled to read that of what she was able to decipher.

Some of the pictures were right in the middle of the paragraphs. Strange symbols and depiction of bipedal creatures and other illustrations took up roughly half the page.

From the looks of some of the pictures, this book seemed to hold the story of some sort of ancient civilization that worshiped the crystal that was becoming more and more redundant with each image. I think I may have said that already, but... why?

What was so important about it?

I gave up trying to make up any more stories about it and decided to sleep on it instead. I slipped the book back in one of my bags that was easier to reach and stuffed the rest of my loose clothes in along with it, telling myself I would organize everything tomorrow.

It would give me something to do during the day.