//------------------------------// // Part 2: The Ports of Manehatten and the Moby Dick // Story: Going Deep Under // by The Bricklayer //------------------------------// Rainbow Blaze's apartment: Now Now let us flash back to the present time where both Rainbow and Grape sat stunned into silence and disbelief at Fancy's story of his niece and how she and her father's journal (The contents of which Fancy still hadn't divulged in the slightest) could lead them to the location of one of the world's greatest, if not THE greatest mysteries. "I'm sorry, no disrespect to you and your family and all..." Grape began slowly before he grabbed Fancy by his suit and yelled "BUT ARE YOU CRAZY?" Realizing everypony was staring at him, Grape flushed red which created a nice contrast against his dark purple coat after he'd realized his mistake and quickly backtracked. "What I mean is... Er, well to be honest I can't think of a way to put this delicately so I'll just go back to the yelling and questioning your sanity bit." Grape admmitted/mumbled to himself in a small voice, flushing even redder then before. "I'm with my servant in this." Rainbow Blaze agreed, to which Grape looked very pleased with. "Neighlantis is just a legend." "So was the Kraken." Fancy pointed out, and Grape's jaw dropped considerably at the Canterlot borne pony's audacity. Rainbow looked as if he was about to explode like a powder keg, but eventually leaned back in his chair and let out a resigned sigh of "...Fair enough." Manehatten Dockside Ah, the ports of Manehatten, one of busiest and most bustling ports in Neighmarica, if not the whole world. Ships came and went daily, carrying with them loads of cargo or passengers to and from the ports to their intended destinations. You can imagine the daily chaos in the ports with everpony running which way trying to get to a ship for one of those long cruises you took not just to go somewhere, but to have an adventure in the days long before the Wall Street Crash and the ensuing Great Depression which currently gripped the world tightly in it's harsh uncaring grasp and showed no signs of ever letting go. But Twilight Sparkle cared about none of that right now. Currently the only thing on her mind was the smell, the smell that wafted off a nearby garbage barge as it pulled into port. And what a smell it was indeed! Certainly, if all the filth of Tartarus itself could ever come up back to Earth, this was probably what it would smell exactly like in Twilight's mind as she, Fancy and Ender pulled up to the docks in that same black sedan Ender had first met Twilight in a few days earlier. "This stinks." Ender muttered to himself as he took in the surrounding smell. "Yeah, pretty sure we already clarified that." Twilight replied in a completely deadpan tone of voice and had a annoyed expression on her muzzle as she adjusted her glasses. If it was from Ender's statement marking him as "Captain Obvious" in her mind or from the general smell wafting in the breeze, it was pretty much next to impossible to tell. "No, not the smell, though I have to agree with you on it, it's..." Here Ender paused as he searched for the right word which Fancy was quick to offer with a "Horrid?" "Yes, that. But as I was saying I wasn't talking about the smell. I meant THIS." Ender grumbled in disgust as he produced a newspaper (The Manehatten Chronicler to be presice) or tabloid if I was to be honest and placed it soundly on the sedan's hood. Both Twilight and her uncle took a quick glance at it's title, and both sighed in resignation. They should have expected something like this. "Well, suppose we'd better go on and read this..." Fancy sighed as Twilight began to read off the headlining story. Fancy's Folly? Just yesterday, one Fancy Pants of Canterlot announced he was undertaking a great voyage. Now readers, you may be asking, where does this planned voyage intend to go and what kind of voyage is it actually? Well, you shall now have to wonder no longer! This "Grand" voyage is to the bottom of the seas in search of the famous lost city of Neighlantis. Yes, that one. A great craft has been designed for this purpose, although this reporter soundly suspects one of Manehatten's richest residents (Not that's saying much in these harsh times.) may be using up the last of his fortune to... Twilight stopped reading in rage along with complete and utter disgust. The article, if one could call it that as it barely reached the ability to be deserving to be called as such, went on to insult Fancy, along with the crew he'd gathered (The only useful thing Twilight gained from this was a few of the names of her fellow crewmates) several more times calling into question her uncle's sanity and/or soberness, among other things. You get the picture. As Twilight seethed, she was stunned to see Fancy not looking angry at all despite the many sordid things said about him in this work of "Journalism". In fact, he looked more confident then ever before. "A folly eh? Well! We'll be showing them once we find Neighlantis and who'll be laughing then? Us, that's who!" Fancy proclaimed and soon another voice joined them accompanied by two sets of hoofsteps. "So, I don't suppose you've seen the new article then?" Grape's own dry voice asked as he and Rainbow Blaze walked up, their own car parked nearby, a brillant cyan blue coupe of Neighmarican make if Twiligh had to venture a guess. "...Soooo, I guess you have then?" Twilight asked, going back into that dry deadpan tone of voice she'd used in Ender just a few moments beforehoof. "Tell me about it. Ghastly, isn't it?" Grape replied before he checked a watch on his right foreleg. Grape frowned, had to be a few minutes off. "Can't be 5:00 already can it?" He mused privately to himself and have it a small tap with his hoof as his eyes narrowed behind his glasses. "Something wrong?" Twilight asked in concern, as she noted the purple pony's expression. "Hope not, my watch says it's 5:00 on the dot. Wouldn't want to be late for the final preparations for the off." Grape replied nervously. Rainbow and Fancy shared a look and checked their own watches before sighing in relief. It seemed Grape's watch was off, as their own said only 3:00. Rainbow smirked as a idea came to his mind. Fancy saw said smirk and groaned to himself. He could see what was coming, it wouldn't have been the first time Rainbow had pranked his servant. "No, you're not wrong. My watch reads 5:00 as well." Rainbow Blaze began and Twilight tried to tell the truth as she saw what her own watch said and knew Grape was being filled with. But before she could say anything, Ender shook his head and whispered "No, don't. Trust me, this'll be hilarious." As for Grape, he blinked as his brain processed the information before letting out a loud shout of "WHAT!?!" as Rainbow's statement registered with him before he fainted all four hooves pointing skywards as Ender and Rainbow snickered while Fancy sighed and rubbed his temples. "I fail to see to see the humor." Twilight could only remark upon seeing this. Later... Eventually, Fancy took pity on Grape Vine and informed Grape he'd been pranked and needless to say he wasn't pleased with the news in the slightest. As everypony made their way to the other side to the docks, Grape shot his master the odd dirty look and muttered various unkind things under his breath. Soon however, Twilight gasped upon seeing a sight that would distract her from Grape's mutterings. In front of them all, suspended above the water by several cranes was the submarine. No, submarine wouldn't do it justice. A work of art would be the better term. Obviously designed after a sperm whale or some other similar species, the gigantic size of the sub was awe inspiring. It was in various shades of bronze and gold, and had portholes at the tail section, obviously where the crew quarters were. Now normally where a whale's teeth would be, there was glass plating arranged in a dome style design instead where you could see the sub's controls and captain's chair behind it if one were to look close enough. The "head" of the ship even looked as if it were able to ram something and take very little damage. Despite all of this, Twilight could easily imagine this creation as a living being, swimming through the seven seas. "I... I..." Twilight gasped, too stunned to speak. Fancy smiled at his niece's wonderment. He too had a similar reaction when the plans for the sub had been shown to him by it's designer, Silver Spanner. "Thought you were done with the theatrics..." Ender mumbled towards Fancy in shock, who smiled at him. "Now when did I say that?" Fancy asked mysteriously. "The Moby Dick..." Rainbow Blaze breathed in surprise. "You actually finished it." He'd known for a while his friend had been making this, but he never imagined in all of his wildest dreams it was actually completed, not did he think that THIS was the sub to be used in their journey with him at it's helm guiding it beneath the waves. "Of COURSE it was finished!" A female voice with a English accent spoke up from behind everypony. "What'd you blokes expect with a damn genius like little old me?" The voice bragged and everypony turned to face the speaker who had a brown coat, a white mane and a silver wrench for a Cutie Mark. At the sight of her, Fancy smiled. "Silver, nice to see you again. Top of the morning to you." Fancy greeted the mare, who looked to be twenty at the very most. "...He does realize it's actually the afternoon right?" Ender whispered to Grape Vine, who could only shrug and whisper back "Gotta be a English thing." Twilight meanwhile took note of Silver's two companions and nearly gasped like a fanmare when she saw and recognized them. The first was a male pegasus with a white coat, red mane and glasses. The second was another mare, an Earth Pony with green fur, a cowcolt's hat, brown mane and a target for a Cutie Mark, which befitted her as she carried various guns on her. These were Sudoku and Target Quartermane, the duo who'd made worldwide news when they both spent five weeks over Africa in a hot air balloon. This last shock was too much for poor Twilight, who fainted even as Target walked up to Grape and greeted him like a old friend. Well, they were actually as they were both fellow members of the Gun Club. "Good to see you again." Grape greeted politely and was surprised to be handed a set of Colt six shooters by Target. "And you're giving these to me why?" Grape questioned with a raised eyebrow. Target shrugged and responded "Thought you'd like them." At this, Grape took great offence. "Oh, so you playing to stereotype then? Just because I'm a Neighmerican and from the South to boot makes you assume I'm some sort of gun loving lunatic!" He snapped, already annoyed from his master's prank from earlier as he began to rant. "Well I'll have you know that-" Whatever he had to say next was cut off with a "If you don't like guns why are you in the GUN CLUB?" from Target who said this in a dry tone. The sound of Grape's teeth grinding could be heard before he argu-No, asked nicely "What do you need all those guns for anyways? We're going UNDERWATER, no lions there last I checked." "What about sharks?" Target asked and at this Grape finally gave up and facehoofed as he muttered "She's bringing harpoons isn't she?" to himself even as Target finally took notice of Twilight and walked over to the unconcious mare. "She going to be alright?" Sudoku asked in concern. Then there came a shout of "Help me!" from somewhere nearby. "Yeah, she will. But I don't know about him. Come on!" Target shouted before taking off towards the direction of the shout. Grape took a quick glance at his pistols, before sighing and then shouting "Hey, wait for me!" and running after Target...