Starting from the background.

~~Threesday, 03-30, 55°57'03"N 0°18'23"W, North Sea~~

I've stared on the pile of paperwork in disbelief. Maps, cargo roster, crew roster, something I don't even recognize, several books, a pile of driver licenses and a cat. Why the cat? I have no idea, but Mist insisted that bringing the cat was necessary. As well as every single piece of paper with words on it not locked into the container. I can't argue, she's the competent one - it took her only an hour, and no one on the ship have noticed her, but since she was not sure what to look for, she took it all. And the cat.

We already knew we were on some kind of ship, but the question of location and direction remained. Location was easy - since Maire was kind enough to pack GPS navigator. To find out where our small (only about 4x3 containers, with our being central in the front row) ship was taking us, we needed to gather the intelligence. Mist volunteered.

Now, there was one little problem with what she managed to find, and that wasn't even the cat. The papers were, probably, very interesting and very useful, but none of us were familiar with basic Chinese they were written in. The maps was not much help either, since the lines on them made no sense to me. The only thing that was legible in all of that was one copy of Denmark's Customs declaration (in English), that listed our container full with canned peas, designated to Qaqortoq, Greenland.

I'm no expert in this, but even I can see signs of a contraband when I see them. Also, it was quite clear, that the cargo of explicit peas we were riding was never intended to go to Greenland - who goes there this late in the year? From this, another problem arose - since those guys was up for no good, the last thing they would need on their boat is some witnesses, especially, of the kind that have seen "the peas". Of course, it was late night, but even then soon someone had to notice the missing papers and start searching the ship. Our location wasn't ever hidden well - the only reason we went unnoticed for so long was that no one really looked and the ship crew was small. Mist brought seven licenses, so that was likely the whole crew, not counting the cat. We needed to leave, and leave soon.

Luckily for us, the weather was fine, the moon was full, and we were only about a hundred kilometers from the shore of Scotland. Nothing two perfectly healthy (if a bit sore) flying horses can't cross, right? Wrong, if one of the horses is nearly flight-incapable. Even with the weather being calm, the waves were high enough to not even risk our trick with flying low - Strict was adamant on that touching the water would end up badly. And flying high... I wish I could. We still have packed our saddlebags, but spent nearly an hour on top of the container waiting for me to build up enough courage to take off. Thankfully, the universe still hates me, or we would be there still.

During one of the unsuccessful attempts to force myself to fly, when I've crouched down for jump, the window in the back of the ship suddenly flew off the hinges with a loud bang, zipping right above my head. If I wasn't crouched, it would've decapitated me. Following it, came rather small pony stallion, white in color, with dark mane and yellow eyes. He skipped to me, jumped on my back and shouted into my ear frantically:

"你在为瓦亭？飞走！"

I have no idea what that could mean, but my already not very stable position, combined with his jump and the startle he gave me with his shout was enough to tumble me overboard. That was good, since the guy that appeared in the window next was armed and put several bullets through space I just vacated. He was briefly pacified by Mist throwing the cat at him. Since my wings were already spread, instead of letting sea claim us both I began flapping them and we shot from the ship, followed by extremely unfriendly screams of the crew and the cat, and some gunfire. Mist have caught up to us a moment later and guided me into a turn to the west. As it became clear, my fears are not that powerful over the dark night waters of the Atlantic, since I was able to maintain safe altitude without freaking out too much. The weight on my back wasn't welcome, though not impeding my ability to fly. There was one thing interesting about my passenger, and when I became sure that I  can maintain the flight, I had to ask.

"Who the hell are you?"

"That's Mountain Sage, if I recall correctly, he's in Earth squad, under Captain Solid," chimed in Strict. "The only member of the squad to naturally have Guard's colors, except for the eyes."

"Me Ren Shan," answered presumable Mountain Sage. "Me not speak English, very. Grateful for safe."

"Oh, just my luck, another language barrier," I groaned in frustration. Mist wobbled a bit in the air, then slowed down to fly side-by-side with me.

"Alex, what wrong, why we fly over sea?" she asked, eyeing Ren carefully.

"Cutie mark is mountain sage flower, special talent - speleology. Have two older brothers in EUP. Loosely related to Pie family," Strict decided to continue his personal files recital.

"Me need shore, we fly, yes?" asked Ren, poking my head with a hoof.

"Why you have this strange pony on your back? Is he somebody you know?" Maire wasn't giving up on my attention either.

"Orders are to monitor him as a possible keeper of the Earth tribe weapon knowledge."

"You understand, right?"

"Are you sure it safe to fly him this way? Maybe we go to ship instead?"

"SHUT UP EVERYONE!" There are not many things in the world that I hate more than several people talking to me at once and ignoring each other. There are probably even less that can ignore the mighty roar of Royal Canterlot. Even the waves below seemed to flatten for a moment.

"Hmm... never knew I had the talent for that one, commented Strict.

"Neither did I, but seriously, shut up. It's hard to understand him as it is."

"Now, Ren, could you, probably, explain, why you were in such a hurry to leave?" I finally asked now-shivering stallion on my back.

By the time Ren have finished telling his story (and it took a lot of time, since he wasn't kidding about not speaking English, very), we realized, that our already quite impressive list of close calls was expanded once more, and with a big one. I'm not sure what was in those containers,  but that stuff was much hotter than contraband porn. The magazines were just the top layer, the fun stuff was in the bottom, and it was something big. So big that the bribed customs officials haven't even looked in the direction of the containers when they were flown by a plane from Finland to Denmark, and then loaded onto the ship that had to take them to Canada. That's probably the best thing in it, since it saved us from being discovered. Ren knew that for certain, since he was the captain of the ship, up until the moment he became Mountain Sage. For some reason (I wasn't able to decode it), his crew was less than happy to discover that fact, and the only thing that saved him from becoming fish food was that he noticed us through the window. Now he was set on to punish them for such disloyalty by selling them off to the local authorities, and for that he needed our help to get to the shore.

The shore in question was already nearby, and soon enough we landed on brown grass near some kind of parking lot not far from the water. Since it was still early morning, no one was around, so no uncomfortable questions were asked. We were getting good in smuggling ponies across the border via sheer dumb luck.

That was the point where Ren have left us, though. His drive for revenge pulled him off to the nearest police station, and we still had the ocean to cross, and no real legal means to do that, since officially we weren't even in the country.

We were arrested before we left the town. Apparently, Ren got too carried away in selling accomplices.