I really had no idea what to do at that point stage. Like, none at all.
"I, uhm... Bullseye, you still got your bow and arrows. And all those spears?"
"I got a dozen arrows and half a dozen spears," the zebra answered me proudly. "And I'm pretty sure you want me to get them, huh?" He had already started his way down the main corridor before I answered this time.
"Get them, and some rope from my bag, please." He heard that last bit, and called in response. Then I turned to Luna. " If you don't mind, Luna, Bullseye's gonna ride you." She only nodded, knowing what needed to be done. "And we're going to tie him to your back so he doesn't fall off. Work your own magic to help keep whatever that thing is out there away from us."
From that point onward, I was solely speaking my quickly manufactured thoughts, coming straight from the book as I observed the anatomy of the creature and basing them off whatever form it was that I made out. I was clueless, really.
"Aim for the face and head, the rest of his body probably has some sort of armor to deflect the spears." But hey, I'd love it if he tried.
Bullseye came back up with much haste, as well as his spears, plus the rope from my satchel. However, the creature also knocked the ship around again when the he reached Luna and I, sending us tumbling across to the starboard side of the room in a bundle. We quickly righted ourselves, with Bullseye now straddling Luna on her back. I tied his legs together underneath her stomach so he wouldn't fall off, and then I cut the excess rope hanging from them. I opened the door for them, and Luna dove out into mid-air with an eager but intimidated ally on her back.
"And what of you?" asked Ratchet, seemingly out of nowhere.
"Good question. Make us go as fast as you can towards the island, keep doing that and steer clear of the thing if you can at all, we don't want to risk damaging the ship any more than it already has been."
"That's probably the best bet we can take." She then headed to the control panels.
"Oh, and me? I have no bloody idea yet."
Sky was still at the helm, taking care of the actual steering part as a big help to the situation, and Ratchet joined him by working her profession. They were both confident, and I knew they would perform above average.
Right from below the ship, I heard a deafening roar come from the that thing, presumably a painful screech. Luna and Bullseye must have been doing well out there, nailing the monster in the face with one of his spears, I gladly imagined
Screw it, I'm just going to call that thing the Leviathan for now. Maybe Luna knew what it really is. Though she probably would have mentioned that beforehand.
I glanced out the front most window to see the beast--the Leviathan--flying out and back towards us. The drawing in the book made it seem rather tame-looking, but up front, like, straight up front, was a completely different story.
It was utterly horrifying! It looked like a hammerhead shark, only the two ends of it's flat head was bent forward, and two glowing red eyes sat recessed in the middle of it's face. And just below his head, on it's neck and downward from that point, there were about half a dozen nasty, pointy looking feelers.
It dipped and rose in the air as if swimming on the air currents, and the rest of it's body followed. As it did, I caught a better look at it's anatomy before it disappeared from sight again.
It was mainly a shell, if you could call it that. Like an ocean crustacean. It looked as if it was all one huge mass that shielded the middle of it's body, but it moved and rippled as the rest of it swam through the air, ignoring the immense weight that it's rocky armor must have held.
It's feeler things eventually slid forward out of it's face all meeting at one point.
"Aw shit," we all slurred off our tongues. The Leviathan started to look as if it was charging some kind of energy while it flew through the clouds. It was now starting to fly through them more frequently as Bullseye and Luna shot at the it. Every time it reappeared, though, I saw a red ball of energy grow ever bigger at it's chest.
"Holy!" We saw Luna and Bullseye come in from the right as we all caught them just at the right moment. Luna shot a beam of her magic at it's creepy looking head, but it merely bounced away, her shot curving around it and going off in the sky.
Magic resistant armor? Hmmm...
I saw the Leviathan's body dip down just in time after the attempted attack to it's head. But before it delved down, the giant red ball it now held was thrown with an outward push of it's feelers. The shot was aimed below the ship, and it missed us entirely, but not by much.
"NOPE! All aboard the nope train to Fuckthisshitville!" I watched the spectacle in a mixture of absolute horror and wonder. We were barely scathed, but it was enough push to shake us form our standing again.
The leviathan then swam under the ship and disappeared from view with Luna and Bullseye following it, and not two seconds later we felt it knock the ship to the side again. This time it wasn't just a bump, though.
It... It picked us up from our place in the air!
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING YOU UGLY ASS SHIT?!" The ship was more than hallway from being tilted a complete ninety-degrees upward. Sky tried shaking us out of the Leviathan's grasp loose, but he just couldn't
"CELESTIA DAMMIT!" He screamed/ The flip made all of us have to find new footing. That part was easy enough, but maintaining our duties was harder than the latter.
"It's taking us away from the island!" shouted Sky.
Thinking rather bluntly, I carefully ran below the bridge to get the longer length of rope out from my bag, uncurling it and tying one end around my waist and belt as I ran back up.
"Wait!" Sky called at me, but I kindheartedly ignored him. I hastily headed through the tall door to the outside where I finished making the knot around my waist, with the other end of the loose rope tied securely to the pipe I used to brace myself on when I would ever look out to feel the clean air out there.
"What in all of Tartarus are you doing?!" screamed Ratchet, holding onto the control panel tightly. I had to shout back to her over the sound of the metallic screeching as we continued to be carried away from Evisica.
"Probably something I'll regret!" I took the tanto out from it's sheath on the small of my back and opened the door again. I looked below, and I could see the bottom of the ship a few meters below me, and beyond what I could see the gleaming black skin of the Leviathan's tail. I jumped out with my arms and legs splayed, falling down and landing on it's tail a couple of seconds later.
I don't think the Leviathan felt me, because it was busy carrying the ship and launching attacks of it's own In a possibly futile attempt. I really struggled to climb over to it's back, but again, with every step I took up it's body, I stabbed it with the knife, and the the beast didn't respond. Finally, I reached the lowest region of it's back where I plummeted the knife into it's back. Much to my surprise, it sunk right in. The leviathan cried out again. This rocky shell must have been more sensitive than I originally thought; either that or Bullseye nailed him again.
Amongst the tense, high-altitude temperatures of the engine's exhaust, I repeatedly stabbed his pliable shell, carving out a large square section.
"You may be resistant to magic, but you sure as hell aren't resistant to close-quarters shit!" I would have thought the beast would be bleeding something fierce, but it wasn't. It must have had a thick hide, even underneath it's crustacean shell.
I still kept stabbing away at a square section I selected, trying to remove it as a whole so Bullseye could try and get a hit on the softer parts of his body. Thinking about it, it was an enormous task on my part but the armor was coming off with less effort than I may have really been. Face shots and energy beams are only going to go so far.
I scraped off the heavy layer of rocks and looked underneath. The flesh resembled the appearance of drawn muscles tightening around the Leviathan's spine, like rubber bands would—by way of comparison. Then I put my thumb and my index finger in my mouth and whistled as loud as I could. I also raised my blade up high, hoping that the sun would reflect off of it, or some light, being under wide shade. I was trying to get Luna's attention again.
She must have immediately seen or heard me; she flew around to my side only seconds later, the Leviathan still seemingly roosting under the ship and taking a break. She saw me clutching a large piece of skin, as well as the gaping hole in the side of this thing. I made motions resembling the shooting of arrows from an imaginary bow, pointing at the exposed area.
With a nod, the duo suddenly flew around the creature, making a bee-line for the general area, and the next thing I saw on the beast's body was a spear jutting out of it's other side, accompanied by a deafening roar.
I decided to get on my feet, crawled over to the spear's shaft and put all my weight on it, pushing the spear deeper and deeper into the monster. Then they came about again and Bullseye shot another spear into the flesh, followed my my insistence to push this one deeper in, too. After the seventh spear, the Leviathan started to descend lower and lower, slowly parting it's feelers from the ship and leaving it's control back to Sky.
I put my knife back in it's sheath on my back and waved my arms frantically as I too was drawing further from the ship. The rope attached to my waist snapped taught just a second later, and then I watched the Leviathan fell away and flew forward, away from the ship.
I just hung from the rope, watching it sink and scream in the agony it was in. Then Luna came around, her and Bullseye giving me a hilarious look. I snickered along with them.
I threw my arms around Luna's neck she and Bullseye tried to make a seat for me on her back, but that would have never worked.
"We'll just tell someone to pull you up. Hehe. We promise." And so I waited for them to get back inside, and soon enough, I felt a tug on the rope that held me up thousands of feet in the sky. Then I felt a stronger tug, pulling me up a foot more. But the last tug was continuous, pulling me closer and loser to the ship as I had observed behind me.
I caught the edge of the door after about a minute of them pulling and me climbing up the thick rope. I pulled myself onto the damaged platform with the help of Bullseye, Ratchet and Sky.
"So, I take it you still regret that decision?" the pilot asked. I just sighed, taking in a whole gust of air.
"Yes and no. That was both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time." Then Ratchet came up to me and gave me a quick hug with one hoof before looking away for a second. But then her head came back to me.
"Dude, that was insane! We probably could have gotten him off another way, you know. Hehe."
"Yeah, well...I guess it just came to me." I pulled the rest of the rope inside just then and shut the door behind us as we all entered. We had all collapsed, sprawled on the floor for Celestia-knows-how-long just gasping for air, from the ordeal that was a gigantic creature we fought against.
"What... Was... THAT!?"
All of us were still wondering the same exact thing, pretty much. Even after fifteen minutes of just recovering, the sudden feel of a threat was still there.
Luna had recovered faster than the majority of us, and she told us that she also had the answer to our unanimous inquiry. She pulled the book back from her little pocket, holding it in her aura and flicking over to the page with the illustration of the beast that I called the Leviathan.
"I cannot read that passage," she said. "Tis an old language and I can barely make it out." However, the picture of the thing was more than enough to know that it was bad news.
"Well then, let's just call it the Leviathan, I guess." They all nodded.
After a few seconds Ratchet turned to me and said, "What's a Leviathan?"
"Hell if I know, but doesn't it seem fitting?"
"Oddly enough, it does," added Bullseye.
On another distant note, I called out to Sky in an authoritarian voice, "Damage report captain." He answered.
"Nothing major. Distending on the bottom and a few busted pipes, but nothing that won't hold until we get to the island."
I turned to Luna. "Luna, can you fly outside and use your magic to turbo charge the propeller?" She looked at me like I was crazy. She was still catching her breath a little bit.
"Sure..."
She flew out the door without saying a word, and the next thing I felt was my ass on the floor. I fell backward onto the floor as we sped back to the island with all due haste towards. I grabbed a random pipe that laid on the floor from after the ship flipped twice, and I used it to steady myself as I clambered to my feet.I made my way to the front window.
"Holy hell! This IS fast!" I could already see the island rapidly approaching, and judging by the distance we were closing, we would make it in twenty minutes ,as opposed to... however long it would have taken the ship running on it's own full speed.
The time soon grew closer, and eventually we passed over the edge of the island and now were officially over it's land. I could feel the ship start to slow down.
"Alright, we're slowing everything down. We'll drift for a while to cool the system off." Ratchet informed us of our advancements and went into the double doors. I heard the audible flicking and twisting of various buttons and switches. I heard various groans and whirrings of machinery as everything slowly turned off.
Then the other door, the one to the outside platform, flew open and Luna landed in the doorway, just looking at me. Then she immediately closed the door behind her as she entered.
I felt like a total douchebag. I had been thinking about Luna ever since she worked her magic on the propellers.
"I'm sorry, Luna... For getting snippy just before. It was just, kind of a..."
"Stressful moment?" she finished my sentence for me. "I understand, and you are forgiven. No harm done. None at all."
I heaved a sigh of relief and began to untie the rope from my waist. When I did, I curled the rope around my arm in as many sequences to fit it's length. Then I slipped it off and bundled it up tightly.
My sense of sight had been turned to the slab of the skin on the floor the whole time I was turning the rope. One could almost describe it as a volcanic, obsidian-black in color; it was that dark and shiny. Everyone else's line of sight followed mine. Sky and Ratchet eyed it with morbid disgust, and Luna just... looked at it. Expressionless and blank.
Finally, Luna was the first to say something about it spoke.
"Why did you take this with you? You could have thrown it away."
I shrugged, with an answer suddenly coming to me. "I saw what it did to your energy beam, so I thought I'd keep some in case the need for magical resistant armor came along."
"And what, pray-tell, do you think is going to happen?"
"I don't know, but be prepared. 'Cause you never know." I patted my knife sheath. "Anyway, are you able to use your magic and clean it off?"
"I really wasn't planning on it, but your explanation proves a valid precaution. What do you plan on doing with it?"
"Well, I was thinking of making it into a vest of some description."
You'd expect her to ask what that is, but within the first few weeks of my arrival in Equestria, some of my clothes were getting worn down and old. So I went to visit Rarity and ask her if she could make me some more clothes, and she was more than willing to, given her Element. She made repairs where I asked, and went a little bit overboard very quickly. She managed to stock the closet back at my house with clothes I could wear every day, including shorts, trousers, shirts, t-shirts, jerseys and so on, which is what I wanted.
Then she had the brilliant idea—although that was highly debatable—to make me clothes for every event and holiday Equestria observes. Vests included for Hearth's Warming. Luckily they weren't the horrid, wool-knitted ones your grandmother would make you...
Luna enveloped the slab of skin in her aura when she started to work on the rocky slate, and the fat attached to the underside of the skin disappeared.
Wow. That was sure fast.
"Keep that, it might come in handy."
Sky shot me a disgusted look. "What could you possibly use that gross stuff for?"
"You ever wander where glue comes from?" He shook his head at me. "Rendered animal fat," I deadpanned. His disgusted look changed to a horrified expression.
"What? Really??"
"Back before we had any modern glue that's made with chemicals, people made it out of fat. They would collect the fat and melt it, that's what rendering fat means. They would then apply the stuff to whatever the use was, and leave it to dry. Viola, glue!"
"And what uses are you going to have for glue?"
"Not just glue, fat has a myri-"
A massive, and I mean massive roar resonated through the air with no warning at all. It loud enough to break the smallest widow that gazed outside, louder than the ones we heard before.
My gut dropped like the weight of a certain sinking cruise ship that traversed the ocean. We all heard a metallic ripping sound as the ship rapidly began to descend to the jungle canopy below us. We were quickly engulfed in shaded green leaves. I could see various operational instruments going nuts; with dials in the red and blinking lights going off all over the instrument panel.
The sudden shock sent us all stumbling, and out the corner of my eye I see the Leviathan fly by the windows and off into the distance.
That bitch.
I grabbed another pipe so I wouldn't fall over as I regained my footing once again. I barely saw Ratchet as she hastily ran down the corridor, reappearing moments later.
"The fucktard tore a huge hole in the left side of the ship! Ripped through some of the gas lines that feed into the balloon!" She was absolutely devastated.
"Well at least he didn't actually rip the balloon, we'd be dropping like a stone otherwise..."
Perhaps that wasn't the best thing to say directly to her. Ratchet loved this ship.
Glancing out the huge looking glass behind me, I saw a break in the canopy, a clearing. "There!" I shouted, pointing a finger. "Land us in that clearing if you can!"
"On it!" he screamed in struggle.
Sky tugged and pulled at the wheel trying to keep the nose of the ship pointed towards the clearing, flipping his own set of knobs and switches. Ratchet also threw open the doors to the boiler, diving inside. I'm assuming she wanted to make sure nothing came loose and everything would remain to run fine—very loosely put—after the blow the hull took.
Luna held Bullseye in her aura as she herself was thrown across the room. She didn't want him to get hurt and get knocked around, being there nothing for him to hold onto, nor could he have really done much in the situation anyway.
The whirring, beeping, and otherwise extremely loud noises from all the instruments going nuts flooded both my ears and mind, making thinking rather impossible given the circumstances. All I could do was just hang on for dear life and wait for all this to come to an end.
And come to an end it did.
We were dropping too low too fast. The bottom of the ship's hull was scraping against the top of the trees. And eventually, we made a final stretch across some bordering trees and fell into the clearing, making a nose dive onto the forest floor.
Everything went black.