The Open Sea

by NahB

Fake Out

Twilight turned to look at the red sun ahead of them. It loomed, large and imposing. Twilight used to think that it was “Celestia’s Sun,” until she realized that it kept on going without the princesses’ presence. Now she knew it was just a natural occurrence. The sun revolved around the planet, nothing else to it.

She looked back again at the Cult’s ship, noting how close it had come. It was faster than the Mare. Swifter. Better armed. All the Free Mare had was four cannons, and they’d never had to use two of them.

“Twilight. What are we going to do?”

Cheerilee had approached the unicorn from behind.

“I don’t know, Cheers. We’re going to have to fight them. I don’t know if we can win.”

There was an uncomfortable silence after that, and Twilight could feel Cheerilee’s eyes boring into her head from behind. She looked at the former teacher, and read her expression.

“No. Just no. The Sea won’t allow it, Cheers. They don’t work anymore. We’ve tried. Before we took you aboard, we tried, and it didn’t work.”

The mare looked tired after that. “Then if you’re not going to try the elements, then you’ve got to try and fight them the regular way.”

Twilight hung her head and waved her hoof.

“Tell everypony battle stations. And then tell AJ to turn this tub around. I want to have the fight brought to them for once.”

Cheerilee nodded, nervous. Twilight didn’t blame her. She was nervous too. But regardless, they had work to do.

It was time to fight. Time to defend their way of life once again. First it had been pirates. Then it had been someone she thought she could trust. And now it was a cult of psychopaths. Twilight gritted her teeth, and went below.

There she found everypony arming themselves. Ponykind was not used to battle. Twilight had had to engineer ways for everypony to defend themselves in a hurry. She took stock.

All the earth ponies (except for Granny Smith, who was in no shape to fight) were arming themselves with harnesses that stuck long, metal rods out past the ponies’ heads. This was to combat swords, if the enemy had them. They could push the swords out of the way and fight them hoof-to-hoof. It worked better than Twilight had expected the first time of their use.

The pegasi were more support roles. Their first job was to throw seawater and packets of jello mix into the enemy’s cannons, disabling them. Then they would fly around, dropping buckets of sand on the enemy combatants’ heads, impairing their ability to fight. The pegasi also short rods, like those the earth ponies used, in order to combat other pegasi. The mix between disabling enemy personnel and weapons, paired with constant harrying, made their role extremely important.

The Unicorns, Rarity, Sweetie Bell and Twilight, ran magical interference and damaging the enemy’s ship. They both ran a thin barrier over all their crewmates, preventing telekinesis from working on them. The three unicorns would board the enemy ship behind the earth ponies, taking saws and hammers. Their primary job was to destroy all important parts of the ship, mainly the mast. That was their first target, every time.

Spike was armed with a long pole that he used as a staff, more proficient with it than anypony except an experienced unicorn.

They didn’t want anypony to die. None of the weapons were actually weapons – they were tools to prevent death. They’d already won six fights with the strategy they used, and they didn’t plan on losing this one.

“Fluttershy, Rainbow, Scoots – Go on. I want those cannons disabled. I don’t want to be broadsided. Rarity, c’mon, we need to reinforce the ship.”

All of them walked forward out of the quarters except for Fluttershy, who was shivering in the back.

Twilight grimaced and trotted over to the scared Pegasus. “Fluttershy, please. It’s not safe for Scoots and Rainbow to go without you. They need you. Or the enemy may actually kill them.”

Fluttershy hardened her eyes, then. “Okay. I’ll go. And make sure nopony does any killing today.”

Twilight smiled, but it was a sad smile. It had taken her an hour the first time to convince the harmless Pegasus to fight. Kill was the word that set it off – once she heard that word, Fluttershy turned into an impenetrable shield around the other two pegasi.

Twilight and Fluttershy walked out on deck. The three pegasi, ready, flew off in the direction ahead of the ship, towards the Cult’s ship, out to disable the cannons. Twilight stared at the ship ahead of them. AJ had done a good job aiming them – they’d come right alongside the Cult’s ship in a few moments.

Twilight looked ahead, and saw the three pegasi fly under the Cult ship’s cannons. They quickly swept seawater into the cannons using buckets and flung the jello powder into them. As they disabled the enemy ship’s final cannons, their own pegasi went out to greet the Mare’s.

Seeing their plight, the allied Pegasi sped back to the Free mare to re-equip themselves. The trailing ones, five in number, flew back to their own ship.

At this point, the two ships were only two hundred feet apart and closing.

It was at this point that Twilight sprang her secret weapon – out of the front of the Free Mare, a sturdy pole stuck out, ready to snare the enemy ship into a death grip until Twilight or Rarity released it, and the foe’s ship could pass.

As the ships closed in distance, they could see each other’s forces.

The Free Mare held three unicorns, three pegasi, six earth ponies, and one dragon.

The Cult of Fog was better equipped to fight. Seven unicorns, five pegasi, and four earth ponies awaited them.

The two ships met sterns – and the hook grabbed it. Twilight, with Rarity and Applejack in tow, approached their own. Across the way, a unicorn in a long cloak walked forward, with a pegasus and an earth pony behind it.

“Why are you following our ship?” Twilight called, raising her pole.

“Twilight Sparkle, you have been charged with the breaking of the Orb of Clouds. This is punishable by death.”

Twilight, angry, was about to make a retort when she felt a hoof on her back. Looking, she saw Applejack giving her the ‘think before you act’ look. Twilight nodded, forgetting her words that she was about to speak. Instead of a pointless argument of philosophy, she intended to stave off a fight.

“I did no such thing. Nopony in my party did any such thing. The Orb had already been broken by the time my companions and I reached the vault.”

“This is doubtful. You are the only intruder in the palace in over two months.”

Twilight frowned. “When did you last look at the orb?”

The opposing unicorn, whom Twilight identified as a mare of greenish color, seemed startled by the question. “Would you have a temporary truce?”

Twilight was the one startled in return. It wasn’t like the Cult of Fog to do this. Their reputation said that they were bloodthirsty, fanatical fighters.

What it didn’t say about them was that they were devious in any way.

Suspicious anyway, Twilight nodded. “Free Mare, please continue in a non-hostile fashion while we sort this out. Twilight’s little party and the other mare’s party moved forward, and the only thing separating them was a couple feet of open air between the sterns.

“Twilight Sparkle, captain of the Free Mare, the Cult of Fog has a problem,” the other mare intoned.

Instead of being flippant like she wanted, Twilight forced herself to be serious. “In what way?”

“In the past year, our Vault has been penetrated by no less than six different parties. We do not understand why this is. How did you enter it?”

Twilight was startled by this news. As far as she knew, her little group of five had been the only group in several years to target the Cult. “The Vault was protected by a special magical system that involved certain combinations of touches to the door. I forget the combo now, but I had a paper from my client when I was there.”

The other pony looked depressed at that. “That is just it, Twilight Sparkle. A month before your arrival, we had that system destroyed and the vault sealed, literally sealed. Nopony should have been able to get in except for the Master.”

The lavender unicorn frowned even further than before. “I can see now why you’ve been pursuing ponies so avidly. I truly hope you believe me, Miss…”

The green unicorn pushed off her hood, and a whitish mane greeted Twilight. “You can call me Horn. Behind me is Wing and Hoof. And I believe you, captain Twilight Sparkle, because I have to. If you broke the orb, then we could not get to the bottom of this mystery. I want to hire your crew, miss Twilight.”

Twilight would have found the situation amusing were it not downright deadly. The reason her ship had been in the Cult’s vault was to steal a valuable artifact in the first place. Now the very group they had stolen from was hiring them to investigate how they and other thieves had done it.

Unfortunately, they already had a job. “I apologize… Horn, but we’re already currently employed. We’re out here to-“

“Explore Torres Island, yes, we know. We had eyes all over Crest. We’re prepared to offer you twice the Zebra was paying.” Horn seemed confident. Bits usually changed the minds of most ponies.

“We don’t operate like that, Miss Horn. When we agree to a job, we do it.” Twilight’s frown straightened into a thin line, determined. “No amount of Bits can buy a reputation.”

Horn nodded, expecting this answer. “If you had taken the bits, we would have likely fired you immediately. We need somepony who-“

Twilight cut her off. “I’ll work for you after this job. But if I’m going to take orders, it’s going to be without stupid tests like that. Do you hear me?”

Twilight could afford to be more forward, now that she was being offered a job she knew she was the only pony who could do it.

“Understandable. We will refrain from doing so in the future. Okay then, Twilight Sparkle, captain of the Free Mare – we will agree to hire you after your current job.”

“How do you propose to meet afterward? Am I to-“

It was Horn that interrupted this time. “You misunderstand, captain. We are coming with you. Free of charge, we will assist your exploration of the Island. It is to our benefit that we speed the completion of your current task.”

Twilight stared, and then nodded. “Okay. Let’s go. Only a day or two there, according to ‘the zebra’.”

The two parties separated. Twilight’s horn glowed, and the extension holding the Cult’s ship to theirs retracted. “Applejack, get this boat turned around!”

“Yes, ma’am!” The earth pony yelled. She dropped her weaponry and galloped to the Pilot Deck. The ship soon turned around, and found itself behind the Cult’s ship. Now that she had a better look, she found the ship’s name emblazoned on the side – The Nimbus.

Made sense.

It was then that Twilight felt her heartbeat finally slow. She realized that adrenaline had been pumping through her, and just now was she relaxing.

They had avoided what could have been a deadly fight. Now they had to get along with this fanatical cult for the several days they would explore the Island without starting anything.

Twilight grimaced. It was going to be trouble. She didn’t think they were out of the hot water yet.

Pinkie, nearby, chuckled. “Oh Twilight, you’re so funny.”

Twilight stared at the pink earth pony, but wrote it off as Pinkie being Pinkie.

A day or two until Torres.

Why did it feel like these were going to be the last two normal days of her life?

Comments

[NahB]

Foreshadowing and a huge fake out.

I'm sorry for the latter. I know you were all expecting awesomeness, but I couldn't see it in my mind. Don't worry, I'm still thinking about it, trying to work out how it would work, and it WILL happen. Trust me. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. If I lie to Pinkie Pie, I can kiss my flank goodbye. Seriously. It'll be Magnificent.

No, Horn is nopony you know.

[GoG ToXiC]

Psyche out much... I'll let it pass this time, but I fully expect some kickass naval combat in the near future.

[NahB]

1100877

I cannot stress enough that I am so sorry about that. But it helped advance plot. And don't worry, the Free Mare is going to get some scrapes on her hull soon.

And Jello in cannons. Try loading one of those.

[Rask]

Apologize not for your story. You will find ship captains non too keen fighting a evenly matched battle far away from help. Drowning is a poor and painful way to die.

[NahB]

1101330

That too.

And I will apologize. I had, in fact, originally planned on going that direction and found myself incapable of writing it at this point. That's why it took me four days to post this.

Regardless, BLARG! I dunno if I'll put up a chapter this weekend. First class of college is monday, so I be preparing.

[rem-dog]

I like this. It reminds me of Hornblower, which I love.

[TwilightsmyMare]

Nice, I really didn't think they'd have cannons. Looking good.