Salty Sea grunted as he and Rocky Bottom pulled in a net of fish out of the sea, doing their best to keep the wriggling mass under control long enough to open the ships hold and dump them inside. Fish and other meat products weren’t very popular in Equestria except for the few Griffon and the more adventurous citizens but they had to get it from somewhere and unlike other meat products fishing didn’t get the same scrutiny from the bleeding heart ponies that cared for animals across Equestria. Probably had to do with the fact that fish weren’t as… expressive as most animals.

Idly kicking in the stray fish into the hold Salty Sea and Rocky Bottom threw the net back out to catch another load. “Been some good catches recently.” Rocky Bottom said trying to start a conversation.

“Mm hmm.” Salty Sea responded scratching at his beard.

“Sea Farer said that a storm is going to be coming down from up North in about a week.” Rocky tried again, looking out at the relatively calm sea and bright blue sky. Out this far the Pegasus’s couldn’t control the weather so they were at the mercy of the sea.

“Hmm.” Salty judged, looking up at the sky.

“I’m ah; I’m going to go check in with Sea Farer. See how we’re doing.” Rocky gave up, moving away from the port side of the ship and walking away, up the stairs to the navigators’ room and saying hello to the Captain. It wasn’t that big of a boat, he could have just yelled up at her to get her attention. Salty for his part continued to look out at the shifting water and the boundless horizon. To the West laid Equestria, to the East the mountain cities of the Griffons and beyond that the vast island chain of the Minotaur’s, and to the South the scorched equator of Dragons.

In the idyllic world he, as a sailor, would have visited all of these places. Stopping at far and exotic ports bring stories at the sights and customs he’d witnessed. But he was a fisherman, just as his father had been and his grandmother and so on down the line until who knew when. A lot of ponies in Sea Stable came from families like that, living their lives on the coast between Balitmare and Fillydelphia and being one of the few towns to not be consistently swarmed with tourists. ‘Burns Mayor Fredrick’s tail feathers it does.’ Salty thought of their perpetually unhappy mayor who continually tried to get Sea Stable on the map. ‘Got to remember to save him the biggest fish we catch. Should be a good enough thank you present for-’

A breeze flew past his ears and they twitched and for a brief moment he thought he heard a tune, stopping his thoughts dead in his tracks for a moment. He looked around and listened, was Sea Farer playing more of her records? Those were usually louder and about activities no good honest Sea Stable mare would involve herself in. Shrugging after a moment he mumbled to himself and looked down at the water, trying to see if anything was close enough to the surface to spy on.

“Mmm mmm, la da da da.” A soft voice whispered into his ear and Salty Sea nearly jumped. He swung around to see if Sea Farer had snuck up on him and found no pony there. He looked back at the sea and found it calm as can be. “Da da.” The voice continued and Salty Sea suddenly began coughing, leaning against the ships’ railing. “La la la, da.” His vision began to swim as he tried to move away from the railing.

Instead, as if some other worldly force had overcome him, he tumbled off the side and into the water. Sea Farer and Rocky Bottom wouldn’t notice he was gone until three minutes later.

“Wait, what are ya sayin’ this thing does?” Apple Bloom asked as they peered down at the red rubber clown nose on the center table in their tree house. The commotion with Juggles had calmed down an hour ago, with Big Mac and Applejack still gone after taking the near dead clown to the hospital and Granny Smith going back to napping after telling the Former Cutie Mark Crusaders that they should probably all head home/bed. Sweetie Belle’s potential discovery overruled that order.

“I think it was what was making Juggles act crazy and keeping his costume clean.” Sweetie Belle explained.

“Are you sure he didn’t just, you know? Snap?” Scootaloo asked skeptically.

“Then why didn’t his costume or face paint get dirty at all?” Sweetie Belle countered. “He’s been wandering around for three days but his clothes were fine! And as soon as I knocked the nose off him he started actually drinking water and his clothes got dirty!”

“Alright the clothes thing is weird but he still could have just been nuts.” Scootaloo responded. “Maybe the nose held together whatever uh, mental image thing he had for himself and brought him back to reality.”

“In that case the clothes would still be worth investigatin’. Maybe they only work together?” Apple Bloom input. “But how are we supposed to get to them now?”

“No, it’s the nose!” Sweetie Belle argued. “He said that he’d been entertaining children for three days after he got his new nose in.” She reminded them the story he had related to her. “He didn’t say anything about his costume or makeup.”

“Alright alright it’s the nose.” Scootaloo conceded and Apple Bloom nodded in agreement. “But what do we do with it?”

“What do you mean?” Sweetie Belle asked. “We go back to arguing about what to do with the dice and now this nose.” She answered, nudging the nose with her hoof which caused Scootaloo to flinch.

“But this belongs to somepony.” Apple Bloom cut in. “It ain’t like the dice where we found it in the woods, this is Juggle’s property. Us taking it alone was stealing!”

“Property that drove him to ignore all of his needs to the point of death!” Scootaloo argued.

“Yeah we saved him by taking it.” Sweetie Belle agreed. “And if our Cutie Marks are about locking up weird and dangerous stuff then we have a right to take it away.”

“What’d mean we have a right?!” Apple Bloom asked shocked. “We can’t just go around takin’ things we think are weird and lockin’ them away if they belong to somepony! What if they’re important to them?”

“This nose mind controlled Juggles!” Scootaloo countered. “We can’t trust that ponies are always in their right minds around or about them. That’s why we have to destroy/study them!” She and Sweetie Belle said at the same time, giving two different answers. “Not this again, Sweetie Belle how can you support messing with them?! Those dice attacked you!”

“Which means it could defend itself!” She argued, starting the old back and forth as Apple Bloom threw her hooves into the air and slammed her head to the table. “If we find out exactly what they can do we can figure out how to lock them away even more safely than they are now.”

“And if we get destroy them we’d know that they can’t, you know what? No.” Scootaloo stopped. “I say we put this to a vote right now. Destroy vs. Testing.” She proposed. “I vote destroy.”

“What about just leavin’ them as is?” Apple Bloom counter proposed. “The dice can’t get out of its chest and I don’t see how the nose would be able to.”

“Because we don’t know what they can do.” Sweetie Belle explained. “Which is why we should test to find out.” Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle looked to Apple Bloom to cast the deciding vote. She mused the thought over in her mind before she stumbled upon something that should have struck them long ago.

“Sweetie Belle what makes ya think we’re going to find out anythin’ that Twilight didn’t?” Apple Bloom asked her friend.

“Well I’m not saying we do anything that requires equipment or all that stuff just, you know, basic stuff.” She answered glancing away at being pressed for details. It wasn’t like they even knew how to use all that scientific stuff anyway. “Like whether the dice and the cup can be separated, if a smaller number of dice have the same effect, or if we can add more dice.”

“You want to do what?!” Scootaloo asked shocked. “What if that makes it stronger?!”

“Well we wouldn’t know if we don’t try it at least!” Sweetie Belle reasoned. “And it’s not like it really affects how dangerous it is, it can’t do anything in its chest. If someone else finds it and takes it for whatever reason we need to know what they could potentially do with it.”

“Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom said turning to her other friend, “what do ya think we should do if we find one of these things that’s not dangerous?”

“What?” She asked perplexed.

“We’ve found two of these things now. Who knows how many more there are out there or that they’re all going to be dangerous?” Apple Bloom proposed.

“Umm,” she glanced away just as Sweetie Belle had done, “I, I guess that’d be fine. I’d don’t know why we would bother locking it up then, if it’s just weird we should let somepony else figure out why.”

“Exactly!” Apple Bloom shouted. “We decided that our Cutie Mark means that we catch and lock up weird and/or dangerous things! Never said we had to decide what to do with them.” She reasoned. “When a cop catches a bad guy they don’t decide how they’re punished. That’s for a judge to do.” Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle nodded in understanding. “So we just hand them off to whoever handles stuff like this!”

“But how can we find them? If these things have always been around then whoever handles them has been keeping them secret.” Sweetie Belle brought up.

“Let’s just show them to Twilight, she can ask Princess Celestia who is bound to know!” Apple Bloom reasoned.

“Uh, we already tried that remember?” Scootaloo reminded. “We had to go to the hospital because they thought we knocked our heads to hard.”

“Which is why we test with them until we can prove without a shadow of a doubt that we are not liars or crazy and that these things are weird!” Apple Bloom declared and stuck her hoof over the table. After a moment of silence Sweetie Belle did the same soon followed by Scootaloo. “Cutie Mark… Weird Thing… Catchers.” Apple Bloom struggled to come up with a proper name. “YAY!” She gave up and just cheered which her friends soon followed.

“OK.” Apple Bloom said as Scootaloo carefully set the cup of dice down onto the table, the much feared object having left its chest for the first time in three weeks. A growing lack of daylight had pushed them to begin testing of their collection of strange objects to the next day after school. “What do we do?” She asked turning to Sweetie Belle expecting the avid supporter of testing to know what to do.

“Uhhhh,” she droned, “we try to separate them?” She suggested, falling back on one of her previous idling’s.

“Alright let’s, let’s get them out of the cup.” Apple Bloom said and a whooshing went past her. She turned around to see Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle directly behind her and firmly against the wall.

“Try to roll them out in the exact opposite direction please.” Scootaloo requested. “It seemed to work well for Twilight.”

“Thanks for the support.” Apple Bloom condemned dryly.

“We’re just maintaining a safe distance for testing procedures.” Sweetie Belle answered reassuringly with a smile.

“Right.” Apple Bloom responded and reached out and knocked over the cup, the dice tumbling out. They all tensed until the dice came to a rest at an 18, expecting some terrible punishment to befall all of them. “So now what?” She asked as she nudged one onto her hoof and carefully balanced it there.

“Now you just walk off with it. See how far you can get.” Sweetie Belle explained. “Try to keep your eyes on it for as long as possible. If you think you’ve gone far enough then just come back.”

“Alright.” Apple Bloom said and trotted carefully on three legs out the door and down the club house walk way, beginning to make her way across the farm. Sweetie Belle moved to observe the remaining dice and cup while Scootaloo stayed by the window to watch Apple Bloom’s progress. She watched as Apple Bloom made it to the one of the outer barns before suddenly stopping and looking around wildly.

“WHAT’S WRONG!?” Scootaloo shouted and strained to hear her response.

“it’s gone!” A faint reply came back.

“WHAT?!” She shouted back.

“…it blinked out!” Apple Bloom explained after a moment of silence. Not that it “Blinking out” made a lot of sense.

“She said that it disappeared on her.” Scootaloo turned to inform Sweetie Belle only to find her friend staring into the cup which continued to lay on its side, her mouth hanging open. Moving around to see what she was looking at Scootaloo peered inside the cup and her jaw dropped as well.

While the four other dice were sitting outside a fifth was resting inside near the base.

“It, it just appeared.” Sweetie Belle explained. “I didn’t even blink and it didn’t even make a sound when it landed. It was just there.” She suddenly closed her mouth and grew thoughtful. “Why did it teleport? The first time we used it they rolled themselves back in…”

“…Well I guess we got our proof.” Scootaloo said. “That was pretty fast actu- what are you doing?” She asked as Sweetie Belle gathered up the dice back into the cup and moved to the toy and games corner, rummaging around the pile.

“Getting another dice and cup.” Sweetie Belle answered.

“Why?” Scootaloo asked.

“To test with.” Sweetie Belle answered carrying a single red colored die and small blue cup with her.

“Oh no we agreed to test until we had proof for Twilight that these things are weird. We got that.” Scootaloo denied going so far as to put a hoof on Sweetie Belle’s shoulder to try and stop her.

“I just want to see if it’s the dice and the cup or just one or the other.” Sweetie Belle explained as she set the carefully took the cup with the dice and poured them into the smaller blue cup.

“What’s goin’ on? What happened?” Apple Bloom asked as she returned.

“The die teleported back into the cup. We’re trying it with a different cup, take this.” Sweetie Belle explained as she tipped the blue cup over enough for a single die to fall out, away from any of them naturally.

“Why?” Apple Bloom asked, not moving to pick up the single die.

“She’s lost her mind.” Scootaloo declared. “These things have driven her crazy.”

“I’m not crazy I’m just-” A cracking sound drew their attention away from each other and they looked down at the blue cup of dice.

Originally smaller both in height and width than the original green container it was now somehow stretching upward and outward of its own volition, the cracking sounds betraying the visually unhindered process. As it stretched splotches of green began to erupt along its body, spreading rapidly like a virus. Soon, after roughly 14 seconds, the process was complete and they had an identical green cup next to the original, the dice remaining in their new home.

“…Huh.” Sweetie Belle said after a moment. “Guess it is just the dice.”

“That’s it we’re stoppin’ this and goin’ to Twilight.” Apple Bloom decided and moved to gather up the dice which Sweetie Belle suddenly moved against her protectively.

“No we still have to see if you can add more dice!” She argued and Scootaloo snapped.

“And how are you going to test that Sweetie Belle!?” She yelled getting into her face. “You gonna roll them at us?!”

“What?! No!” Sweetie Belle answered horrified.

“Then how would ya find out Sweetie Belle?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Well… maybe it would have reacted in some way. Like they would have thrown the new dice out of the cup or something…” She trailed off looking down.

“Sweetie we got what we need, it’s not our job to figure out how these things work. If Twilight is right about them not being magic then I’d say it would be impossible anyway.” Scootaloo comforted. “Let’s just take the dice and the clown nose to Twilight, show them to her, and then answer whatever questions she or whoever handles these things asks and go on with our lives.”

“…I just wanted to know why it attacked me. Or why that nose pushed Juggles so far.” Sweetie Belle confessed softly. “I thought that maybe we could fix them somehow.”

“Ah don’t think they got a reason Sweetie.” Apple Bloom suggested plainly. “They just do what they do.”

“But how are we going to prove that the nose is weird?” Sweetie Belle asked looking up. “It apparently only works when you’re wearing it and that would mean we’d have to…” She trailed off.

“No.” Scootaloo denied firmly. “That thing messes with your head, we have no idea what it could really be capable of or whatever it does to you goes away completely when you take it off.” That was certainly true. Aside from some basic news they hadn’t heard any news about Juggle’s condition other than it had been a very close call. “So there’s no way any of us are going to put it on.”

“Actually yeah!” Apple Bloom yelled and her friends looked quizzically at her. “Let’s swear right now that we will never test or use these things on any pony or other livin’ thing.”

“Aye.” Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo agreed, copying what voters always said when they approved something in the stories they’d read.

“Right,” Apple Bloom said nodding to the new cup of dice, “let’s get it, the nose, and another cup and load up the scooter. Twilight will just have to trust us on the nose.” She looked each of her friends in the eye. “Let’s go show Twilight.”

Rocky Bottom briefly set down the flashlight that he had been gripping with his mouth and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hoof. He opened them to find the dark ocean waters just as they were, lightening dancing on the horizon as a storm loomed threateningly having appeared seemingly from nowhere a few hours ago, and bit down on the flashlight again, going back to searching the dark water. He and Sea Farer had put a halt to their fishing as soon as they had noticed that Salty was gone and had been circling this same stretch of sea for the past day and a half searching for him. Predictably they had found nothing.

‘This is fucking ridiculous he wasn’t even wearing a life preserver.’ Rocky thought to himself. ‘We got to get back to Sea Stable before the storm hits and organize a proper search party. Get some unicorns to do some fancy life sensing magic in the water.’ A wave suddenly lifted the boat up and nearly threw Rocky into the air as it went back down. And if the string of curses from the bow was any indication it had struck Sea Farer pretty hard as well.

“What’s wrong kid? Thought you’d have your sea legs by now.” A scratchy and croaked voice said behind him and Rocky swung around and dropped his flashlight at what he found. Salty stood there, leaning against the railing and his coat soaked through and sickly looking after being in the sea water for so long. His lips cracking and eyes red as he struggled to breath out his words. “What? Never seen a water logged sailor before?”

“Sea, SEA FARER! HE’S BACK!” She yelled something back but Rocky didn’t listen as he continued to stare at Salty Sea, not even bothering to look at his captain as she stormed from the bow and found them.

“What in Tartarus happened!?” She demanded as she rushed to Salty’s side, lifting his head to look him in the eyes. "How did you fall of the boat!? How’d you get back on?!"

“…My Lady.” He answered with a smile and something drew Rocky’s attention to Salty’s throat.

“…What?” She asked confused not noticing what made Rocky Bottom begin to scream.

Salty Sea’s throat began to expand exponentially to accommodate whatever was moving around inside, his flesh rising and sinking in movement. Sea Farer managed to scream as Salty opened his mouth wider than any pony should have right to able to and a plethora of tentacles shot out, the slimy appendages worming their way into her mouth and holding her head in place. Rocky stood stock still in fear as Salty’s mouth opened wider, to the point it looked like he could swallow Sea Farer’s head whole.

It wasn’t until the tentacles started pulling her in that Rocky realized that was exactly what was happening.

Rocky turned and ran when her eyes screamed at him for help, or rather when a number of smaller tentacles wormed there way around her eye balls to get at what lay behind. He was halfway up the stairs when the sound of a splash reached his ears, Salty taking Sea Farer into the sea most likely but he didn’t stop to look. He stormed into the navigator’s room and slammed and locked the door behind him in a panic before he fumbled with the wheel and instruments trying to get the boat going back to land and away from whatever nightmare cursed these waters, tears in his eyes as he cried like a child afraid of whatever monster lurked in a shadowy corner ready to eat him.

But he was wrong.

Salty didn’t eat Sea Farer.

He took her to meet his Lady.

Author's Note

Originally there was going to be a lot more testing involved particularly with Bit Savvy's Nose but than I ran into the problem that The Cutie Mark Crusaders aren't the type to jump to experiments that could be lethal or irreversible. It's not like they have D-Class for that. And there's no way in hell that anyone would willingly put on something that could permanently alter your thought patterns like Bit Savvy's Nose.

Originally I planned that Sweetie Belle would go just a little over board and put the nose on herself as Apple Bloom and Scootaloo dealt with the now possessed friend but I just couldn't justify it. Like how I couldn't justify them keeping there collection a secret now that they had proof that didn't hurt anyone.

Don't worry, exposing their SCP's is going to bite them in the ass. Hard.

And those fishermen out in the ocean? Totally not a Keter Level item. Absolutely not.