Wet Dreams

by totallynotabrony


Chapter 11

Pausing for a moment below decks before jumping over the side of the ship was the smartest thing I had ever done. It gave me time to slip into my Pressurized Hardsuit for Diving (PHD, pronounced “fudd”)
I had built the suit out of the spare robot parts I had lying around. I’d never used it, because I’d never had the opportunity before. Heck, it hadn’t even come up in conversation until now.
At any rate, it was very effective at keeping me from becoming eaten. Sharkbait, ooh hah hah.
“So, um, are you guys finished?” I asked.
“Yeah, I guess so,” said one of the sharks, spitting out my armored foreleg.
“This kind of goes against the whole ‘come play with us’ thing you were saying earlier,” I pointed out.
“Well duh, we’re sharks,” said one of the others.
I nodded. At least they were honest and upfront. “So now that I’m down here, I might as well go ahead and meet your leader.”
“Sure, we’ll take you to Shark Supreme,” said one of them. “By the way, my name’s Hammerhead.”
“But you aren’t,” I said.
He rolled his eyes. “It would be pretty stupid to be named that if I were a hammerhead. I mean, it would be like if I had a pet sea cucumber named Sea Cucumber.”
“Are there any hammerheads named Great White?” I asked.
“Yeah, I know that guy,” called one of the other sharks. They all grouped around me, and I followed them towards the bottom of the sea. It got kind of dark down there, but between the breathing apparatus and the crablike pincers I’d cobbled together, I’d also managed to install lights on the suit.
I had no idea how deep the bottom of the sea was, but the suit didn’t implode, so I didn’t care. There was kind of a cavern down there, and inside we found Shark Supreme.
He was kind of big and looked rather old. I’m not really sure how I knew he was old, he just looked like it. Some of these things you can just tell.
“You’re kind of funky looking,” he said.
“Probably because I’m a pony in a metal suit,” I explained.
Supreme shrugged. “Probably.”
“I came here on a mission of international goodwill,” I told him.
“That’s nice,” he said.
I paused for a moment. “So…let’s get goodwilling.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know how,” explained Supreme. “We don’t get many visitors here, other than dolphin diplomats.” All the sharks shuddered when he said that.
“Huh, goodwill,” I said. “Honestly, I was hoping you knew. I’m not usually the guy who takes care of this kind of thing.”
Supreme thought for a moment. “So we’re basically ad-libbing this?”
I shrugged. “Sounds about right. Why don’t we just say that we had some goodwill and call it good enough?”
He nodded. “I’m down with that.”
“Okay, see you,” I said, walking out of the cavern. I suddenly realized that the suit was too heavy to float back to the surface.
Several minutes later, Hammerhead asked me, “Are you finished.”
“Just a sec,” I told him. “Celestia motherbucking bitchass creationism!” I took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m all out of swears.”
“So how are you going to get back to the surface?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Do you have any ideas?”
He thought for a moment. “Well, there is the device.”
“What device?” I asked.
“We’re not sure,” he said. “It arrived here one day and we can’t figure out how to get rid of it.”
“Take me to your device,” I told him.
“There’s one problem,” he said. “We kind of worship it as a god.”
“My previous statement stands.”
Hammerhead led me to a small shrine that had been set up near the cavern. A few sharks were around, appearing to pay respects to something in the middle of the circle.
“Wow, a minisub,” I said. “I wonder whose it is?”
“Swim back from the device,” a guard told me.
“I’m walking,” I told him.
He frowned. “Walking?”
“Sorry,” I said. “Land joke.” I looked past him to examine the submarine in more detail. It wasn’t very large, probably only big enough for a couple of ponies. The exterior hatch looked bigger than pony-size, however. The sub was wrapped in chains that connected to a large anchor that looked more than big enough to hold it down.
“So this thing just came here one day?” I asked Hammerhead.
“That’s right,” he replied.
“Have you ever considered that maybe it should go back?” I asked.
“Heretic!” shouted one of the sharks.
I suddenly realized that I was in trouble. Usually when that word gets busted out, you know you’re about to be chased by a torches and pitchforks mob. Or whatever the shark equivalent was.
Well, things couldn’t get much worse. I dashed forward and applied the suit’s pincer to the anchor chain. I figured that if I cut it loose, the sub would rise and take me with it.
“He’s violating the sanctity of the device!” I heard a voice shout.
Suddenly, everything went dark and I realized that a shark was trying to bite my head off. I felt a couple more latch onto other parts of my person. Pony. Pony-shaped metal suit. Whatever. I’m not great at thinking during a shark attack, okay?
I felt the chain fall away, and sure enough the sub started to go up. The sharks hung on. I waited patiently while we came up from the depths.
The sub had quite a bit of excess buoyancy, and bobbed violently as it broke the surface. The sharks were knocked off me and I slammed into the underside of the sub’s hull. The glass viewing portal in front of my face cracked and a trickle salt water dripped into my eyes.
Pulling myself out from under the submarine, I managed to scramble up on deck. I saw the good ship We’re going to kill you all off in the distance.
“We’ll get you one day!” shouted a shark, shaking a fin at me. They swam away as the ship approached.
“Valiant!” called Twilight. “We thought you were dead!”
“Um, I kind of stole the sharks' religious artifact,” I said.
Her face changed to a mask of horror. “Why would you do that?”
“Well, it’s not like they were using it for its intended purpose,” I said. “Sharks don’t need submarines.”
“While we’re here, we might as well investigate it,” said Rarity. “There could be treasure onboard.”
We tied the sub up to the side of the ship. Wiping some muck off the hull, I noticed that a name was painted on the bow. Astikus Alchés.
With a little help from Twilight’s magic, we got the hatch cranked open and looked inside the submarine.
All the controls were suspiciously large, and appeared to have been set up for an operator who didn’t have pony hooves.
I ran a quick inspection. The sub had been sealed tightly, and the interior was basically perfect. I found a wooden box on the floor. Inside was a small key, and a piece of paper.
The paper had a cloven-hoofed print near the top. Below was a single line of print. Property of her Royal Mooseness.
“Well gang, it looks like we have a mystery to solve,” I said, in my best impersonation of Fred Jones.
“Moose?” said Twilight. “I’ve heard of them, but nopony knows where they live.”
“Well, let’s take this submarine under tow,” I said. “If we can’t locate the owners, then it’s finders keepers.”
I had a sudden thought. “Wait, we have two vessels now. It’s a small fleet, but a fleet nonetheless. I could be…a Fleet Admiral. Ha! In your face, bird!” I pointed at Admiral Falcon. He gave me a look, but said nothing.
I climbed out of the submarine. “Well, it’s been a productive day. I’m going to take a nap.”
“You infuriated all the sharks, possibly stole a Royal Moose naval craft, and we still don’t have any vitamins!” shouted Twilight.
I shrugged. “Never a dull moment, huh?”

Author note:
Thanks to TheUrbanMoose for the idea.