//------------------------------//
// 11. Filler - That's a Nice Ship Ya Got There... 
// Story: The Strongest Man in the World 
// by Vesperia 
//------------------------------//

My tiny fishing ship drifted across the sea, I looked over and saw that my first mate was doing pushups. I didn't question his sanity while he worked out in this horrid hundred degree weather, he was a dragon so he had to have some sort of resistance to heat. But the longer I stared at him, the more that stupid ball of fire above us made me sweat. I put a hand above my eyes and stood up, my head nearly bonking into the cross of the only mast of the ship.

"Careful captain, that's our only mast." Said Twilight sitting in the crow's nest, absentmindedly flipping a page of a book.

"I know, I know." I said and stretched my arms, being careful to not destroy anything delicate. "I'm just so bored."

Twilight hummed in apparent disinterest and flipped her book once more. I sighed and was about to sit down until Twilight said, "Oh, by the way, there is a ship following us. Has been for the past hour actually."

That little reveal made Spike, who was now doing handstand pushups, lose his balance and fall down. I just gaped at her, "W-Why didn't you say something?!"

"Because they haven't done anything yet." Twilight simply said.

I just sighed and looked at the ship that decided to follow us. I looked at Spike and said, "Raise the sails Spike, let's meet up with our new friends."

Spike nodded and went to work.





The ship finally decided to pick up the pace and come and face us. Why they were waiting I had absolutely no idea, a tiny fishing ship was not something you needed to stop and plan an attack before hand. But we finally got ourselves a good look at the ship, it was a pirate ship, the first pirate ship I have seen so far in this world.

You could guess that I was pretty stoked about it. The jolly roger was the usual skull and crossbones but had something extra on it. A saber that stabbed through the middle of the skull vertically. I'll admit it looked kinda cool, but it could've used a bit of work. The ship itself looked like it was around a corvette class, with a large building-esque thing in the back, a building that I could easily fit into. Other than that there was nothing special about the ship, no decorations, no nothing.

But it was a nice ship, a nice ship that I'd be able to actually sleep inside of for once.

"I want it." I said to my crew mates.

Spike laughed, "I'd bet. You're probably tired of sleeping outside."

"You have no idea..." I grumbled. "Sleeping outside has been killer on my back. It'll be nice to get a bed or something."

"They're here." Said Twilight, interrupting our tiny conversation. Spike and I looked up to see the ship right next to us. A number of people-ponies at the railing of their ship. One, much more fancily dressed with a nice hat, appeared.

"Well hello there!" He said.

"An awfully cheery guy." I thought to myself. Shrugging I replied, "Hello to you too. What can we do for you?"

The fancy man chuckled and lightly tugged on his chin beard, "Oh not much. You see we were just passing through when we see a lone, little fishing ship just drifting through our waters. A ship that hasn't even paid its toll for using those waters mind you. What kind of business man would I be if I didn't collect?"

"A pretty poor one I'd say." I replied.

The man nodded, "Exactly! Now, the toll is at least ten thousand bits. Please hand it over and your lives will be spared."

I hummed to myself and stroked my mustache. I shrugged and said, "There is one problem though."

The fancy man rose and eyebrow, "Oh? Do tell me how there could possibly be a problem here?"

"You're currently standing on my ship. It's a nice ship, and I don't want you on it."

The man blinked as he looked down at us on our smaller ship. "I don't understand... I'm on this ship," He pointed at the one he was currently occupying, "not that one." He said, pointing at my tiny fishing boat.

"Exactly." I replied.

He looked a little confused for a second, his face scrunching up. Then something seemed to click in his head and he started laughing like a mad man. "Oh! Hahahaaa! Now, that is a good one! Just for that little joke the toll is decreased to twenty thousand bits!" He slapped a hand on his knee as he and his crew nearly doubled over in laughter.

"Don't you mean increased?" Spike asked.

"I know what I said!" The man said, still laughing his ass off.

"There is also another problem." I said, cracking my knuckles with Spike doing the same and Twilight crossing her arms in front of her. I decided to put my bisento aside for this one. I continued, "We don't exactly have any money over here. So, how about we cook you up some nice, refreshing, knuckle sandwiches. Family recipe."

The man and his crew stopped laughing and glared at us, "Then I'm afraid everything, including your lives, are forfeit to us." He unsheathed a saber, his crew doing the same.

I rolled my eyes and said, "I highly doubt that."

Spike and I jumped onto the opposing ship with our fists cocked back, Twilight's arms were already forming on the shoulders of some of our new enemies. I even saw a few sprout on the legs, her fists aiming for... Oh dear.





I sat down on the deck of my new ship, breathing in the fresh scent of new ship smell. "Aaahh! Look at all of this space you two!" I happily said, spreading my arms wide.

"We actually have some leg room to work with now," Said Spike as he jogged around.

"Yes, yes. We actually have a ship that's not a tiny fishing boat. Now how about you two make yourselves useful and go get our stuff from our other ship?" Twilight said, not even looking up, while using a pen to write things down on a piece of paper. She seemed to be organizing things and looking for anything of value around our new ship.

I rolled my eyes and looked down at Spike, "Since you're smaller how about you get the stuff inside the boat. I'll move all of the other tied up pirates onto our old boat."

Spike nodded in confirmation and jumped down to the fishing boat. I picked up a group of five tied up pirates with one hand and gently tossed them down to the other boat. I did that a few more times until all but the captain and all of their weapons remained. They didn't need the weapons anymore. Spike returned out of the fishing boat with all of our stuff, he looked hilariously ridiculous with all of that stuff on his back.

"Toss me my bisento while you're at it!" I called down to him. A moment later my weapon was flung upwards and I deftly caught it with my left hand. "Thanks!" I called down again.

"How about you catch some of this stuff?! I don't want to risk losing anything by jumping!" Spike called back.

I shrugged, put my weapon down, and held my hands out. "Alright! Ready!" A barrel of water was chucked upwards, I quickly caught it and set it down. I did the same for another, and another, and so forth. Soon, all of out stuff was brought onboard our new ship. "You got everything right?" I asked Spike as he jumped back on our new ship.

"Yeah, I triple checked every place we put stuff in." Spike said to me.

"We got any paint?" I asked randomly.

Spike looked at me oddly, eyebrow raised, "I.... think so? Why?"

I looked at the barren, white sails of the fishing ship. "Because, I want to draw my jolly roger on those sails, with the words 'Whitebeard, the King of the Pirates, has a present for the Marines' on it. This guy is suppose to be wanted right? I figured we could send them off to a nearby Marine base, I might even get a bounty myself." I pointed at the pirate captain lying unconscious on the ground at our feet.

"Yeah, I think he has a five million bit bounty on his head. But I'll see what I can find. You know what you want the jolly roger to look like right?" He asked me.

I took my coat off and turned around, I thumbed at the large tattoo on my back. "It should look like this, two bones in a cross, and a smiling skull with my mustache on it."

Spike looked at it, imprinting the image in his mind. He nodded and said, "Alright. I'll go see if we have anything. I'll even check to see if we have any blank sails to replace the ones that have this guy's roger on it." Spike nudged the captain with a clawed foot and headed inside of the ship. I kept a lookout after chucking the other pirate captain over onto the fishing boat.

Twilight came walking back to me. She stopped in front of me and seemed to read from her list, "Well, we have plenty of money now. At least three million, not counting anything fancy that we don't need and can sell. We also have a large collection of gems, but I recommend we don't sell those. Spike needs to keep up his gem consumption, so that his scales don't start to become soft. Other than that we have plenty of food and water, and if we bring those fishing nets with us we won't need to worry about finding meat for you two."

"That's good." I said, "Mind using your arms to grab the nets? Spike brought the fishing rods and bait already." Twilight nodded and looked over the edge of the railing with her arms crossed. Purple arms sprouted from the fishing ship, untying the nets. Arms sprouted from the railing of our new ship now, a new arm popping out of the palm of the previous arm until the final arms grabbed the net and pulled it over.

"There we go captain, now the only thing lefts is whatever Spike is going to do with some paint, and replacing those sails." Twilight smiled, I couldn't help a grin either.

"Things are looking up, eh, Twilight?" I said and laughed at our newfound fortune, with Twilight joining in.