Rainbow Dash Eats a Kitten

by Shark8

Chapter 14: Applejack — Crackerjack of The Sea

Chapter 14: Applejack — Crackerjack of The Sea
(Or Mare of the Mare.)

“Here Applejack, read this map.” Twilight said, floating the paper up to the orange mare in the ship’s crow’s nest. “See if you can see where we are.”

As Applejack stared at the map, the characters of the names seemed to slide around, contorting, even as she tried to concentrate and determine their position.

‘Ah, blasted dyslexia!’ Applejack thought, biting the map to rub at her eyes with her forehooves in an attempt to get her eyes to focus, ‘Always at the wrong time.’

Looking back down at the map, everything seemed once again fine and normal, looking out at the sea she saw the edge of the coastline on the port, and a small chain of islands in the distance off to the starboard… so they must be about there on the map.

“We’re about —” Applejack did some calculation, given their speed of about 10 knots, and the destination, “six hours out.”

“Thank you!” Twilight yelled up to her orange, apple-bucking, earth-pony friend.

It really was strange how easily the farm-pony had taken to the sea, almost like it was in her blood… but then again Twilight had seen a lot of strange things, like the Elements of Harmony suddenly summoning Aquaman. That was quite mystifying.

His summoning by itself would have been puzzling, but conjoined with his appearance during Rainbow Dash’s trial it seemed to be almost too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence… the hero was currently in the hold below, along with Spike (the vampire) and Spike (the dragon), all of whom were sleeping.

Given the trip time she had plenty of time to ponder the strange changes in the Elements. That was, she thought, the most pressing issue at the moment. — How did Honesty, Loyalty, Kindness, Generosity, Laughter, and Friendship relate to Aquaman? — Was it because after his initial summoning the Elements recognized him as the epitome of the concepts the elements represented? — And so it went with Twilight Sparkle absorbed in hypotheses and possibilities.

For how long she didn’t know, until her thoughtful and ruminative woolgathering was suddenly disturbed by the ship shuddering and shaking.

“Where’d this sweater come from?” Twilight asked herself, looking down at the new mottled red sweater that she was wearing before chuckling self-depreciatively, “Ah, woolgathering! So obvious! — Oh, no time for that, Twilight!”

The unicorn’s self dialog was interrupted by the appearance of a giant tentacle grasping upward, as if directly drawn to the tips of the ship’s masts, even as more broke the surface and embraced the ships’s deck as if to hug the ship.

Rarity was at the helm, arguing with Pinkie Pie about whether or not this was cause for a “hug party” — the unicorn was firmly of the opinion that such a ‘reprehensible ruffian’ should not get hugs while the pink party-pony insisted that everything was better with squids, even hugs. (She even pointed out that the Matrix’s robots were indeed robot-squids, and that that had made the movie better — unfortunately for her the unicorn had never seen any such movie.)

“E-everybody, I think we should run.” Fluttershy was saying in her quiet voice, urging the ponies to abandon ship and let the squid drag the vessel to the depths.

That was when Applejack swung into action, cutlass firmly in jaw, swinging from a line high on the spars, deftly slashing at the main tentacle and driving it back.

The pain, however, caused the squid’s arms to tighten their hold and railing shattered like a model ship in a wrathful child’s grip.

Rarity handed conn to Pinkie Pie so she could blast the squid’s arms with magic bolts, joining Twilight with the defense of their vessel. Bolt after bolt struck home, leaving bruised and bloodied flesh in their wake and causing the squid below to writhe in pain.

Just as the tide turned and they were sure of driving the tentacles back, Spike the Dragon stepped onto the deck from below just in time to be snatched by a retreating tentacle.

“Spike!” Twilight yelled as the drake was pulled under the waves.

An instant later an orange form sped past and vaulted into the sea — Applejack, the most dependable of ponies, had galloped overboard to save Spike.

Rushing to the side of the ship Twilight peered at the waters trying to discern the depths but only seeing the dark waters splash against the side of the ship, each second pressing more and more concern onto her withers.

Just as the concern was about to overwhelm her, the arm broke the surface, reeling high into the sky and flinging a purple form from its grip even as an orange speck wrestled with it.

Twilight caught the falling baby dragon in her magic and lowered him to the deck of the ship an instant before the squid’s arm came crashing down into the ship shattering the planks of the deck where it hit and evoking a cry of pain from Applejack. When the arm withdrew into the ocean, dragging the pony along with it, it left a smeared trail of blood behind it… the pained look on Applejack’s face before she disappeared over the side of the ship again made Twilight think that it wasn’t the squid’s.

The sea seemed oddly quiet and a sudden gust of wind caught something and blew it off of the ship into the water; it was Applejack’s hat.

Everypony stared as the headgear wicked up water and the Stetson began to sink under the waves. — The reverie was broken by a sound that was half-gasp half-sob and punctuated by the tears that fell from the baby dragon’s cheeks, “A-Applejack, no!” Spike shouted at the sinking hat.

“I… I’m so sorry.” Twilight said, though whether it was to Spike or her friend she didn’t know.

Rarity came over and laid a hoof over the small drake’s shoulder before she too started weeping.

A waterspout flung the sinking hat upwards and arcing towards the deck, and suddenly revealed in a splash of water the orange mare!

Applejack took a step and limped as a rivulet of blood ran down her foreleg, but it seemed to be closing up right before everypony’s eyes.

“W-what happened?” Twilight asked, shocked by the sudden reappearance of her friend, as well as the wound healing before her very eyes.

“Well, my grandpa, who could spend hours underwater, always said I took after him…” Applejack explained, pausing a moment as the purple dragon gave her his biggest hug, “Me, ‘n’ Big Mac ‘n’ Apple Bloom all’re good with water.”

“Heck, I was named my grandpa, well both really,” Applejack shrugged, “Piercey Danielle Applejackson.”

“Huh, does this mean I should worry about losing my job as number one assistant?” Spike asked, wiping the snot that had drained out of his nose as he’d been crying away.

Everypony gave him puzzling looks, unable to make sense of the question.

“P.D.A. I…—forget it.” Spike laughed and hugged Applejack again.

* * *

An hour later Aquaman strode out of the hold, rested and relaxed, stretching after his time asleep. Looking around he saw the havoc that had been wrought upon the ship, and when he asked what happened he gave Twilight an incredulous look.

“Why didn’t you wake me up, I am king of the seas after all.” he asked.

Twilight gave the appropriate response: a facehoof. How could she have forgotten Aquaman’s power to command the creatures of the sea? Or that he was even aboard?

“I guess I wanted you to have a good nap,” she said, making an excuse for forgetting the hero. “You had a good one right?”

“Yes.” the king of the sea smiled.

“Good dreams?” Twilight asked, wondering what sort of dreams he would have, if he had dreams at all.

“Yes! It was outrageous!” Aquaman said, the joyful excitement radiating from the hero, “I found myself in what was plainly the headquarters for a team of super-heroes, like the Justice League, but it wasn’t the Justice League. You know how dreams can be, anyway…”

Author's Note:

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Comments

[A Dark Reminder]

5759537
The image won't display for me.

[ghost8472]

Yay! A Riordan cross-over too!

"named after my grandpa" instead of "named my grandpa"

5759757
Sorry it's not showing It's a picture of the trading card titled "Worst. Companion. EVER" where we see a shot from the episode "The Best Night Ever" where Rarity is wearing Cinderella inspired shoes (including a moderate heel) to the Grand Galloping Gala. (The companion references the prince that was very un-charming).
I did another web search, and the only other instance of it I could find was an Amazon sale of the card, but the picture is too small to see the shoes...
http://www.amazon.com/Companion-Enterplay-My-Little-Pony/dp/B00QRYMI0S
So, then it occurred to me to search for "Rarity Grand Galloping Gala" ... most of the pictures don't show the shoes (suspicious). This one did:
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/55/d3/17/55d3174d38cd9e0e1253fe7cdb5c1f33.jpg