The group of friends rushed down the hillside, sliding on the gravel with their armor and shields, quickly reaching the sandy beach area on the other side of the small island.
“This is the typical Lagiacrus hunting ground”, Scootaloo said, searching around to see if Ol’ Spire was on land, “Plenty of land and sea herbivores, and some pretty large sharks they could snatch.” To her disappointment, she didn’t see him anywhere.
“Holy mother of the princesses!”, Twilight exclaimed as a large Leviathan shot out of the water and tackled a roaming Aptinoth. It killed the herbivore in an unsettlingly gruesome display of power, and devoured all the meat it could pick off. When he looked over towards the girls, the crusaders quickly recognized him as Ol’ Spire.
“He’s still here!”, Applebloom shouted, running towards the large monster to give him a hug. Ol’ Spire nuzzled her and seemed to give off an amused huff. The other crusaders went up to hug his head or rub his snout (which he really didn’t seem to mind).
“He’s…. He’s incredible!”, Spike exclaimed and walked up to the Lagiacrus, admiring his damp, dull, and scratched scales. He reached out to feel them, a little nervous that Ol’ Spire wouldn’t let him, but before he knew it, his hand touched the rough surface of the monster’s armor. “Damn… You must be ages old.”
Twilight did the same thing, reaching for the scars on his chest, and noticed the wound around his neck. She took note that while the creature he battled with wasn’t much above average strength, it was still large, and dangerous with a sharp grip. Thankfully for his thick scales, though, it wasn’t too deep a wound.
“That looks pretty bad”, Twilight stated, hovering her hand over the gash, careful not to touch it. Since it’s been almost a day since the battle, it stopped bleeding, but still looked painful.
“Yeah, but it was just a lucky shot”, Babs said, “It had no real chance against our friend.”
The crusaders, Twilight, and Spike all sat around a campfire with Ol’ Sire surrounding them as he rested. The sun was high in the middle of the sky, indicating that it was about lunch time. Spike had left for a short period of time to retrieve food and came back with a string of fish and a jar of honey he collected.
“When did ya get so good at gathering?”, Applebloom asked.
“When you’ve been working in Twilight’s library as long as I have, it’s not that hard to spot what you want and know where to look for it”, Spike explained. He pulled a few skewers from his bag and placed them near the fire with the fish hanging from them. He blew into the fire to make it grow, careful not to burn the fish too quickly. “Even as a baby, I could find any book Twilight had in her library, and as I grew older, I read some of her hunting books. I might not have much experience out in the wilderness, but you’d be surprised at how much you could learn from Twilight’s collection.”
Before anypony could say anything, Ol’ Spire lifted his head up, hearing something in the distance. He stood on all four of his legs, and turned to the ocean. Out there, in the middle of the large, blue field of water, was a large ship. It was battered and scorched here and there, and it dawned a large, threatening flag with the skull of a unicorn and the bones of pegasus wings crossed under it. A pegasus stood on the front of a ship with a large hunting horn and sounded it. Ol’ Spire howled back at it, feeling compelled to go fight the sounder. He dove into the water, swimming quickly towards the boat.
“Luna damn it!”, Scootaloo cursed. Without thinking she went to the chest and pulled out a long, smooth board. Scootaloo ran towards the water and jumped, putting the board under her feet, while flapping her small wings as much as she could. Even though Scootaloo couldn’t fly, she used her wings for propulsion, which helped her skip across the surface of the water towards Ol’ Spire and the ship.
“Who are they?”, Applebloom asked, gathering her equipment, sensing a fight on their hands. Twilight got up and set an enchantment on her bowgun and prepped it with pellet shots.
“Poachers”, Twilight answered sternly, “Everypony, get to the boats, Scootaloo can’t do this on her own.” Spike pounded his fists together, and let out a threatening roar. Sweetie Belle finished sharpening her sword, making sure it was razor sharp, and Babs downed a bottle of demon drug, then picked up her hammer with ease. The group all piled into the three boats. Twilight linked them all with her magic, and Spike started pushing all three boats. They all shot towards the battle that had already ensued.
Ol’ Spire shot a charge of electricity towards the ship, but a unicorn from the crew caused it to dissipate with his magic. A female earth pony appeared, launching herself from the unicorn’s head, and through a large spear at Ol’ Spire. It impaled his hood and he roared in pain. Scootaloo soon jumped on the boat and landed a powerful punch on the earth pony’s face, knocking her down into the water. The unicorn then tried to restrain Scootaloo with his magic, but was knocked over when Ol’ Spire rammed the ship. The pegasus flew off the ship, holding a bow and arrow, searching for Ol’ Spire, but it was hard to see through the water with all the ripples.
Soon the rest of the gang reached the boat. Twilight flew up into the air, firing pellet shots at the pegasus. Sweetie used some of her energy teleporting onto the ship where she met twin unicorn brothers. They both had dirty blue coats, muscular builds, and piercing yellow eyes. The only difference between them was that one had a broken horn. They both carried identical iron greatswords and wore hermitaur pads to protect the wider areas, leaving their joints vulnerable.
“Wrong choice little girl”, the one with a broken horn said, smirking.
“Too bad too, she’s a cute one”, his brother said. They swung their swords from both sides, trying to hit Sweetie, but she was faster than they’d expected, and she jumped out of the way. Her action had caused the brothers to strike each other’s swords instead.
Babs and Applebloom were knocked over into the water by the earth pony, and forced to fight underwater. Both their weapons had been knocked away from them, so Babs and Applebloom had to fight hand to hand. The earth pony they saw just wore fur to cover her chest and waist. She was toned, and not very big, but she obviously had a speed advantage as she swam quickly over to Applebloom, and headbutt her, dazing Applebloom. Her green furn turned to a blur as she swam quickly past Babs, then back again to punch her in the gut. Instead of having the air being knocked out of her daze her, Babs used took advantage of the situation and gripped her opponents wrist, twisting it as much as she could. The earth pony writhed in pain, then swung her arm, throwing Babs at a pile of rocks.
Spike climbed up onto the ship, enraged at the nerve of these ponies. When he looked around, the captain of the crew walked out on board. She had an ocean blue captain’s hat covering her face, a blue coat that almost swept the ground when she walked, two cutlasses on each side of her waist, and two large, red wings spread out from behind her. She lifted up her hat, showing her blood red fur and smirked.
“Looks like its just you and me”, she said calmly. Spike’s claws grew a little and the spikes along his tail seemed to sharpen as he poised himself for attack. A deep growl sounded, but for some reason, the pony laughed. “You think a dragon like you can scare me? I’ve fought one on one with a Barrioth, and they’re-...” She was interrupted when Spike slugged her square in the jaw, launching the captain into a group of barrels.
“Talk is cheap, if you’re as good as you want me to believe, prove it.” The captain shot towards Spike with incredible speed. She grappled Spike, bringing him to the ground and tried to put him in a choke hold, but his spikes made it difficult. Spike struck her legs with his tail, injuring her ankle and making her fall. Spike was about to pick her up to toss the captain off the boat, but a large blast of magic energy, followed by another pony, knocked Spike right off the boat.
Babs did her best to try and bring Applebloom to the surface, but it wasn’t easy when a large Leviathan was in pain, mixing up the waters, and when a fast swimming pony was trying to beat her up. Babs was already running out of air, and failed to bring an oxy supply. The only two ponies that probably remembered were Scootaloo and Twilight.
The earth pony became a blur again, somehow using the water current to her advantage, and knocked Babs out cold. The pony smiled to herself and went to fight Ol’ Spire, leaving Babs and Applebloom to float to the surface.
Scootaloo hardly stood a chance against the unicorn. He simply blasted her with a wave of energy, knocking her off the boat with Spike. Then, the unicorn joined the twins, triple-teaming against Sweetie Belle. The unicorn with a broken horn chucked his sword at Sweetie. She ducked, but only to figure out that it was a distraction and feel the unicorn restrain her. The other two cast a spell on Sweetie, making her slowly slip into unconsci- ousness. Before Sweetie completely blacked out, she felt the unicorn holding her toss her over the edge and into the sea.
Twilight thought she could take on the pegasus. It seemed simple enough. Pegasus versus Alicorn. What she didn’t count on was everypony else getting defeated. While her magic was strong, she didn’t stand a chance against two other unicorns, and their captain. Twilight was about to fire another scatter shot at her opponent, but she suddenly started descending. Her wings felt like lead, and with each thrust, she became more exhausted, but Twilight still did her best to keep a steady shot. When she fired, somepony air tackled her, knocking Twilight into the water. Before she blacked out, the crew fired multiple tranqs at Ol’ Spire, successfully capturing him.