On the southern part of the island, there is a place that the Lost Boys like best. Mermaids’ Lagoon in the day was the play grown for half-fish creatures to surf and sing their haunting melodies. While they weren’t exactly civil with the Lost Boys and the Darling children, they didn’t shy away from Rainbow who could chat with them for hours and even sit on their tails whenever she got cheeky. On sunny days in the Lagoon, the mermaids would play games with bubbles to pass back and forth with their tales.
However, Wendy told her that she never seen the Lagoon after sunset. In which Rainbow Dash was willing to do so, thus promoting the other boys to come along as well. In the moonlight, the cove seemed empty for the time being. Wendy was still up, stitching up new pockets, looking over towards the lonely rock in the very center of the Lagoon when she senses a change in the water. Shadows glide across it, turning the water cold and she could no longer see her needle.
When she could barely see, she heard something over the ebb and flow of the sea, voices and muffled oars. Even Rainbow Dash sat up, sensing something was wrong.
“What is it?” Wendy asked.
The mare stood up, her ears perked towards the water. A smile broke on her face, “Pirates!” she cried, waking up the other boys. “Wake up, we’ve got company.” Rainbow looked towards the sea once more before giving the command, “Dive!”
After disappearing behind trees and in bushes, the Lagoon seemed to be deserted once again with eyes spying the dinghy rowing into the cove. They could make out three figures. Two of them were indeed pirates, Smee and Starkey, and the third was bound in rope that to their surprise was Tiger Lily. The captures rowed around with the dim light of a dark lantern, heading towards the rock in the gloom.
“Luff, you lubber,” cried an Irish voice that was Smee’s; “here’s the rock. Now, then, what we have to do is to hoist the redskin on to it and leave here there to drown.”
Even when the two pirates lifted the girl onto the lonely rock, Tiger Lily was too proud to offer a vain resistance. After all, as the chief’s daughter, she must not show fear.
“Peter,” Wendy next to Rainbow whispered, “Do something!”
The multi-mane Pegasus thought for a moment to figure out what to do. Then she got an idea, focusing lower the tone of her voice as much as possible, she yelled out, “Ahoy there, you lubbers!”
“The captain!” said the pirates, staring at each other in surprise.
“He must be swimming out to us,” Starkey said, when they had looked for him in vain.
“We are putting the redskin on the rock,” Smee called out.
“Set her free,” Rainbow answered back, intimidating Hook’s voice.
“Free!”
“Ay, cut her bonds and let her go.”
“But, captain –”
“At once, d’ye hear!” cried Dash, “Or I’ll plunge my hook into you.”
Although conflicted, the two pirates cut Tiger Lily’s cords, and immediately she slipped into the water.
“Boat ahoy!” came another voice, at once; they knew that it was the thunderous sound was Hook’s. In the light of a lamp, a new dinghy rowed up to the rock. The captain took the lantern into his hook, “Is it done?” he demanded, “Where is the redskin?
“That is all right, captain,” Smee ansered complacently; “we let her go.”
“Let her go!” cried Hook.
“ ‘Twas your own orders,” the bo’sun faltered.
“You called over the water to us to let her go,” said Starkey.
“Brimstone and gull,” thundered Hook, “what cozening is here?” His face had gone black with rage, but he saw that they believed their words, and he was startled. “Lads,” he said, shaking a little, “I gave no such order.”
The pirates conclude that something strange was going on, and no one, not even the captain likes it.
“Spirit that haunts this dark lagoon tonight,” Hook cried, “dost hear me?”
Grinning from pointed ear to pointed ear, Rainbow Dash yelled out, “Ay, what do you want?”
For one tense moment, Hook didn’t blanch, even at the gills, but Smee and Starkey clung to each other in terror.
“Who are you, stranger, speak?” Hook demanded.
“I am James Hook,” she replied, “captain of the Jolly roger.”
“You are not,” the pirate captain cried hoarsely.
“Brimstone and gall,” Rainbow spoke back, “say that again, and I’ll cast anchor in you.”
“If you are Hook,” he asked inquiringly, “come tell me, who am I?”
Rainbow thought or a moment, “A cockroach,” she replied, “only a cockroach.”
“A cockroach!” Hook echoed back, hearing the sound of his pride crack. He saw his men draw back from him.
“Have we been captained all this time by a cockroach?” they muttered. “It is lowering to our pride.”
At this point, Rainbow Dash and Wendy tried and failed to suppress giggles from what had happened.
“Hook,” the captain called, “have you another voice?”
With a hoof on the dagger, the cocky mare couldn’t help but play along. “I have.”
“And another name?”
“Yes.”
“Vegetable?” asked Hook.
“No.”
“Mineral?”
“Nope.”
“Animal?”
“Yes.”
“Man?”
“Never!” this answer rang out in the Lagoon.
“Boy?”
Rainbow shrugged, “Maybe.”
“Ordinary boy?”
“No!”
“Wonderful boy?”
“Close enough!”
“Are you in England?”
“No.”
“Are you here?”
“Yes.”
Hook was stumped. Turning to the other two pirates, he said while wiping his brow, “You ask him some question.”
Smee tried to come up with one. “I can’t think of a thing,” he said regretfully.
“Can’t guess?” crowed Rainbow. “You give up?” They gave in. “Well then,” the mare drew out the dagger. “I am Rainbow Dash!”
In no time, Hook was himself again, and the two pirates were his faithful henchmen. “Now we have him,” Hook shouted. “Into the water, Smee. Starkey, mind the boat. Take him dead or alive!”
Rainbow flew out of her hiding place with a battle cry, “You ready boys!”
“Ay, ay,” shouted from various parts of the lagoon.
“Let’s kick their flanks to the moon!”
Thus the battle began. The Lost Boys went into the water while the pirates drew their swords and knives. Not to say that there was confusion during this short and sharp fight as soon as John capsized one of the boats. Here and there, heads appear and disappear beneath the waves where cries and war whoops rang in the lagoon.
As for Rainbow, she was after a much bigger fish in the water. Hook himself was swinging his iron claw underneath the waves as the Lost Boys and Pirates alike were trying to stay out of his way. However, the mare wasn’t afraid, she was up for a fight when the captain swam up to Marooner’s Rock for air that the Pegasus met him. The rock itself was slippery so the captain was having trouble trying to get on.
“Hey Hook,” Rainbow called out, stretching her hoof over to him, “Come on up so we can really fight.”
The pirate captain did, in which he took this moment to strike. Before Rainbow could react, she felt a sharp pain in one of her wings. Hook had clawed her through her feathers and flesh, in which the Pegasus used her other hoof to try to cut the arm that hurt her. However he reacted quickly and clawed at her hoof that was holding the dagger, letting fall into the sea.
Pushing her onto the rock, Hook climbed up on Marooner’s Rock, drawing his cutlass, “Finally,” he said. “Your luck has at last run out.” Rainbow couldn’t do anything but back away as he lifts the cold steel over his head. “Proud and insolent youth,” said Hook, “prepare to meet thy doom.”
Rainbow, knowing she was defeated, shut her eyes for the enviable. That was, until there was a new sound over the splashing of the waves.
Tick-Tock-Tick-Tock-Tick-Tock.
When the mare didn’t feel death’s grip, she peeked to find that Hook had turned white with fear. Before she knew it, the captain called for a boat for retreat. In no time, the pirates rowed up to the rock in which he jumped in. Sitting up, Rainbow looked around to see what brought this sudden but very fortunate good luck.
Tick-Tock-Tick-Tock-Tick-Tock.
In the moonlight, she could have sworn that she saw the back of a huge crocodile pursuing the pirates.
“Peter!” her ears picked up on Wendy’s voice. “Where are you?” Rainbow looked around on the slippery rock, and found Wendy swimming towards the rock, looking exhausted. “Peter?”
“Up here,” Rainbow said, carefully trying to reach out to her with her uninjured hoof. “I’m hurt Wendy.”
The girl climbed on the lonely rock, completely out of breath and dripping wet. The Pegasus tried to dry her off with her only workable wing. “We’ve really got to get off this rock,” she said, “I think the tide is raising.”
“We must go,” Wendy said, almost brightly.
“Of course we’ve gotta go.”
“Shall we swim or fly, Peter?”
Rainbow shook her head, “Can you swim or fly to the island without my help Wendy?”
“I don’t think I can, I’m too tired to do so.”
The multi-color mare moaned.
“What is it?” the human asked anxiously.
“I’m sorry, but there’s no way I can help you. Hook busted my wing and my hoof. I can’t fly or swim.”
“Do you mean we shall both be drowned?”
“The water’s rising fast. And… I don’t know what to do.”
Both of them had the thought that they would drown on that rock, which was until something brushed up against Rainbow. She looked to find it was the tail of a kite. The mare recognized it as the one Michael made a few days ago but got lose and flew away.
Suddenly, Rainbow Dash got an idea, “Michael’s kite, that’s it!” she grabbed the tail of it, pulling it down towards them, “If this thing lifted Michael off the ground, then why not you too?”
“Both of us!”
“But this thing can’t lift two; Michael and Curly tried it already.”
“Let us draw lots,” Wendy said bravely.
“I am not taking no as an answer,” Rainbow forcefully place the tail into Wendy’s hands. A wind from the sea came, and the kite flew, taking the girl with her.
“Peter!” she cried as she was lifted off from the rock.
“Don’t let go Wendy!” the mare cried out, watching the girl fly towards the island, hoping that she would be safe while she was left alone on Marooner’s Rock. She looked down as the waves lapped over the stone again and again.
For the first time since coming to this island, Rainbow Dash did feel fear. She couldn’t fly, she couldn’t swim, and she was alone. With no one, not her old or new friends to help her out, the sea was rising, threating to swallow it and her along with it. Only a thought came to her head before she felt the wind in her face.
“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”
She blinked a few times as the wind grew stronger, and before she knew it, she was flying again towards the window of the nursery.