The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

They're Pirates, Too

Whizzzzz!

Shinespark flipped under Grenada as both were thrown free from the airship's stern. They had been flying close to the water, and the impact of catching her sent them close enough to the waves that she could feel the spray on her face.

Before she could even right herself or transfer Grenada to her magic, there was a thunderous splash, and the airship gondola hit the water, inflatable pontoons from the lake causing it to bob and stay surfaced. Above, the dirigible smoked, leaning wildly with several holes punched in the side and the wreckage of the gondola support structure hanging below. In the light cast by fires as it began to burn, drifting towards the ocean a safe distance away, several figures could be seen flying, plus one that just jumped.

"W-What...?" Grenada trembled, clinging to Shinespark's hovering, upside-down form.

"I dunno." Shinespark swallowed. "But it looks like I was there at a very good time. I'm going to land us on the floating part before we go back to shore. Whatever caused that-"

There was another rumble from somewhere behind the gondola, and the dirigible exploded again, quickening its fall towards the sea. "Someone is shooting at them," Grenada managed. "That sounds like cannonfire."

Shinespark's eyes narrowed, her helmet lost amid the chaos, and she pulsed her horn, sending them flying back to the floating remains.

---

"Oh bananas." Valey swallowed, sitting atop the motor casing of the surviving batpony pirate skiff as its destination drew into sight. "That's a lot of dudes."

Ahead was the biggest frigate she had ever laid eyes on, which wasn't saying much when she was so new to the world of seafaring but still the best context she could make. If it was a building, it would be five floors above the waterline alone, and too long to fit horizontally in the Flame District's drill shaft. To one side was a smaller vessel, still larger than the Dream but less than half the big ship's length. To the other, the side she had a better view of, an array of ten cannons pointed, and one jerked backwards with a crack of thunder, aimed toward what looked like a burning blimp drifting toward the sea. A short distance away, the fire's light revealed something else ship-sized floating in the water, bit it was silhouetted and Valey couldn't make out the details. The sky all around was filled with fliers.

Some of the batponies who could began taking off, freeing up room in the skiff and jetting toward the engagement. The smaller ship drifted unnaturally along the bigger one's side, and Valey suspected it was harpooned. Whatever kind of fight this was, the big ship looked two against one, and it was badly winning.

"Uhh." She raised an eyebrow at the mares who were still in the skiff's stern, then pointed a wing at the engagement they were racing towards. "What gives?"

---

"Someone, extinguish the lights," Gerardo suggested, leaning forward. "I see something ahead!"

"Something bright?" Nyala dimmed the lights, then let them vanish, and the Immortal Dream's cabin was dark save for a few glowing meters and dials. "You see it too, then."

"What is that...?" Sirena frowned, staring out the windshield. "Looks like a ball of fire, but it's in the sky!"

"I see boats," Slipstream muttered, getting a spyglass from a hook on the wall. "Three... no, four of them, plus whatever's burning. One is the one Valey was chasing, another is big. Three masts. Can't make out the other two."

"Executive decision," Gerardo declared. "Since neither Valey nor Shinespark are here, I decide..." He gulped. "We stay back and observe! Whatever we've wandered into, we watch, and only go forward when we think we have allies in need of a rescue. Someone hand me a spyglass, I want to watch too."

---

Wham! Puddles hit the destroyed airship's deck just in front of where Shinespark and Grenada landed to get their bearings and straightening up, legs crackling with teal energy as she repaired herself of damage from the fall. She straightened up and grinned, tossing a glass orb in one hoof with gold flakes and an ominously-glowing core. "Hiya, cute unicorns!" she greeted with a grin. "Look what Puddles found! Are you back to watch the show?"

Shinespark's eyes widened. "A windigo heart! That must be the one those two stole in the Flame District..."

"What's that about the Flame District, now?" a shaky voice asked, and Neon Nova crawled out of a door onto the forward deck, trench coat and shades askew.

"Aha! Halt!" Howe zipped up by his side, flinging a hoof at Puddles. "You're wielding our ancestral treasure, mare! That orb belongs to us!"

Belinda and Golbez landed a short distance away, furling their wings, both looking at the warship and cloud of fliers surrounding it with expressions of a life well-lived. "Arr," Golbez sighed quietly. "It looks like this be the end of the road."

At least thirty winged shapes were already making for the fallen gondola. "Br... Shinespark?" Grenada trembled. "We need to go..."

Puddles stuck her tongue out. "No missing cute Puddles' party!" She turned and raised her muzzle towards the massive frigate, sniffing deeply, and her voice deepened. "Besides, we've almost found what I'm looking for."

"I... am warning you," Howe nervously warned. "That is an eldritch artifact you're holding, with terrible-"

Puddles smashed the orb between her forehooves, tiny needles of ice lancing out and into it. For a moment, she concentrated, a scowl growing on her face, and then the glass twisted, cracked... and shattered, leaving her scraping shards off its exposed blue core. She kicked the glass away, taking the bare windigo heart in her teeth and grinning.

Howe, Neon and Shinespark's eyes were all wide.

"Mmm... gulp!" Puddles tipped her head back and swallowed the artifact whole.

Shinespark winced and barely held herself in place, not sure whether she would run forward or backward if she let herself run at all. Puddles sat there for a moment, perfectly still, staring up at the sky... and then a quick sheet of teal energy crackled across her coat, and was gone.

"Tasty," Puddles burped, surveying herself and rubbing her belly with satisfaction. "Ohh ho ho I'm gonna feel that later... Puddles is in the house! Booyah! Who wants to tangle, morons!?"

Everyone but Shinespark flinched at her suddenly metallic, wintery tone of voice, but Puddles wasn't looking at the pirates. She had turned to face the oncoming swarm, now easily identifiable as batponies, and dangerously licked her lips, forehooves already crackling again with energy.

Flashhhhh! Puddles slammed her hooves against the deck, and two bolts of frost lanced their way to the edge, disappearing off the edge and causing a roar when they hit the sea. Several spires of ice soared up, rising in front of the ship like the bottom jaw of a mouth, and then they exploded, shards of ice flying off as the pillars carved themselves into more elegant forms.

Puddles' insane laughter nearly drowned out the noise of ice machinery grinding against ice as the pillars became hollow tubes and those became cannons, tilting themselves forward into a battery just as impressive as the one that had shot down the ship in the first place. Massive, rotating cores of ice dredged up from the sea fired themselves out of the tubes at the swarm as Puddles laughed, more energy pumping out of her hooves and into the water to fuel the contraption. Batponies shrieked, some were hit, others turned back, and precious few made it through the barrage only to flee again when Puddles turned her glare on them directly. In ten seconds of fire, the assault had abated.

"Oh yeah!" Puddles growled, cracking her forehooves together and letting the ice artillery collapse back into the sea. "I'm strong now! Hi five, anyone!?"

Shinespark stared wide-eyed at the offered hoof, Puddles radiating a frosty aura that glowed faintly blue, her hoof still crackling with energy. "Maybe I don't?"

Golbez whistled.

"Killjoys." Puddles' voice was every bit as threatening as the storm that had nearly annihilated Ironridge, and she stopped again to proudly rub her belly. "Well, that was an unexpected treat. Hah hah hah... Okay, pirates. Puddles wants a pirate fight. You're my seconds. Any objections?"

Belinda was slack-jawed. "Do you have any idea what you're going up against? You madmare..."

"No, but I sure know what I'm bringing to the party!" Puddles gave an echoing laugh. "Follow along, little birds and ponies. You wouldn't want to miss the show..."

"Follow along?" Grenada blinked. "How are-?"

Puddles leapt off the prow. Moments later, there was a flash of ice, and a staircase grew its way up from the sea to the ship's edge. Shinespark paced to the stairway and looked down... and there Puddles was, racing across the ocean's surface, hoofsteps transmuting the water to glamorous ice as she ran.

Fwoooom! To the side, the dirigible finally crashed, sending up a wave that briefly swamped the bridge, cracking it into pieces that automatically refroze in place. Puddles kept running.

"...Well?" Shinespark glanced to Grenada and the pirates, and they looked to each other and her.

"The Nocturne," Captain Golbez sighed, holding a wing to his chest. "Ye don't know much about pirate politics, do ye, lass?"

"No, I don't." Shinespark's eyes narrowed. "That's the ship out there?"

"Aye." Golbez gave it a nod of respect. "Pride of the sarosian fleet. In these waters, there be three main sides ye find. Sarosians, who pillage and plunder because their goddess demands it. My kind, who do the same, but ain't aligned with the night. Sometimes it be a way of livin'. Other times, it be a holy war. Garsheeva be against patrollin' these waters herself, only catchin' pirates when they come ashore. For criminals and outcasts, it can be seen as a path of redemption, though the imperials don't treat it as such. It also be the only path ye can take if ye want to fight the sarosians yerself. And then the third side be everyone who pillages and plunders but just doesn't care. There don't be a side for the law in these waters, lass. It seems ye've just walked into a pirate brawl, and that right there be the strongest of the strong."

Shinespark swallowed, then glanced back at Puddles, who was still running.

"Look out for yerself, lass," Golbez advised. "This ain't a fight ye be wantin' to be caught up in."

Comments

[alamais]

... This is going to end in IceMecha-Puddles vs Batpony-Nightmare-Module-Kaiju madness, isn't it?

[Czar_Yoshi]

9275043 Oh, please. As if I'd stop there when it could be taken even further.