It was a calm and sunny day above the plains before the northern mountain ranges. A soft breeze caressed Silent Knight’s blue mane as he cast his gaze across the sky. Taking in the winter air, fresh, although there was a certain tension to it. If air could taste of tension, that is.
But all adventure novels spoke of that calm before the storm, so his beloved bride had assured him.
Silent Knight straightened himself and narrowed his eyes against the sun. “Mare your posts, you ragged daughters of two-bit fish-hoarders!“ he yelled, having them all stand at attention. He pushed the tricorn on his head up an inch and gestured towards the sun. “There you can see ‘em, those high-borns with their armada! Sent by Princess Celestia herself to knock us down a peg o’ two!” He turned with a flourish and a swish of his frock to address his crew directly. “Our enemy is most formidable. But we will not submit without a fight!” He mulled over that. “Scratch that, crew, we won’t submit a’ all! In fact, I say we crush that presumptuous colonel!”
“Presumptuous, eh?” a voice called back over the distance that seperated the flocks of airships. Where Silent Knight’s armada was orderly set up in battle formation, the enemy had opted for two simple rows and a twin spearhead of light vessels at the flank. “That’s funny, coming from you, Silent Pirate!” Shining Armour gave him a cocky grin. “We will destroy you!”
“You wish, colonel!” Silent Pirate yelled back, resisting the urge to attack right away. “Me crew has twice the heart and three time the determination yours has!”
That elicited a laugh from the white unicorn. “Oh, my dear boy, I’ve been playing at this game a lot longer than you have.” He straightened his red uniform with the golden trim. “And that’s Airship Admiral Armour to you, scoundrel!” He sneered slightly. It was not a pretty sight. “I can see you upon your favourite ship, the SilentWishes. It looks like she’s falling apart already! Did you run her ragged in an attempt to escape your inevitable demise?”
“On the contrary, Admiral,” Silent Pirate suavely replied, in keeping with the old pirate tradition of mocking your enemy by being polite. “This is ‘er first actual battle. You should feel honoured that I deemed ya important enough to gaze upon ‘er!”
The pegasus on deck behind him looked up. “Wait, are you saying I’m not important?”
Silent Pirate fought back a growl. “Not now, first mate! In the middle of something. Must taunt Armour!” He raised a hoof to his chin, scratching it. “Also, you’d just set her on fire, Runic.”
“I would never!”
“Didn’t say you’d do it on purpose.”
“… Fair point. Can we start firing now?”
“Permission granted, first mate! Commence the attack!”
Princess Celestia, who was watching from the saftey of the far side of the battlefield, leaned over to her dark sister. “He is taking this very seriously, isn’t he?” she whispered. “I wonder if we should be worried…”
Luna gave a dismissive wave of her hoof. “Nay, sister. It is entirely normal for him to fight as hard as he can.” She scooped up a hoofful of popcorn with her magic. “Also, Shining Armour is just as determined. He is just better at hiding it.”
The pirate captain growled in irritation as the admiral claimed two more of his escorts. “You’ll pay for that, you will!”
Shining Armour had a sad smile for him. “You should give up now, save yourself the embarassement.”
“Nevar!” He whirled around. “Officer Azurite, get to the harpoons and get me that cruiser!” He pointed towards the TMS DreamsAndDisasters.
“Aye, captain!” The little mare chimed before turning the harpoons mounted to the sides of their flagship.
Admiral Armour narrowed his eyes as the supporting flagship was pulled alongside the enemy’s. “That is a direct assault on TwiDashia, Silent Pirate! Do you have a death wish?! Because if you lay so much as a feather on her…”
“Should not’ve brought ‘er ‘ere then!” Silent Pirate retorted as he borded the ship. “Everypony, get on the bloody ship!”
“Aye, sir!” Wointerspear shot past her brother as she led her squadron of pegasi hunters around to evade a salvo of magic missiles from the enemy’s actual flagship, the TMS L.O.V.E. “We’ll show those snobby unicorns who’s boss!” She then doubled back just to lean down to Azurite and offer a “no offense” to the short mare. Then she led her unit, expertly avoiding enemy fire and using the combined force of her pegasi enforcers to smash the propellers of a battle cruiser, subsequently immobilizing it and leaving it to the mercy of the aerial tides. Which picked up just in time to give Winterspear’s knights the boost they needed to pull her unit out from behind enemy lines.
Never had Silent Pirate been so proud to call her his sister. She had perfectly calculated when the wind would pick up in order to deliver a quick and painful strike, and now one of Admiral Armour’s seven battle cruisers drifted out of formation and would soon be easy pickings. While Silent Pirate didn’t understand the mathematics she used himself, he knew that there was in fact a way to calculate the air currents, and while he himself only gambled with the probabilities, his sister had used them to her advantage.
As a bonus, the fresh gusts of winds dispersed the smoke screen Runic had covered a quarter of the battlefield with in order to realign their lefthoof three battleships in a spearhead formation, using the five escorts his Captain had given him as buffers for his attack. The battlecruisers sped through the enemy lines, their harpoon and crossbow fire claiming one more battle cruiser and seven escorts. Adding them to the ones Winterspear had destroyed with her pegasus squad, that left twelve out of twenty escorts, three battle cruisers – none of which came close to the calibre of the TMS DreamsAndDisasters – and the flagship of Admiral Armour himself. And Runic's formation was still ploughing through enemy lines, although his escorts had taken heavy fire.
“Ready to surrender yet, Admiral?”
He wasn’t graced with an answer. At least not the one he expected. “First mate, activate pink unicorn love bubble of doom!” he sternly ordered. Immidiately a shield built up between his remaining ships and Runics forces. The grey pegasus gave a cry of annoyance.
Silent Pirate grolwed, but then he leaned beack with a confident smile. While the admiral’s attention had turned to his right flank, Winterspear was left to wreak havoc amongst the escort ships on his left flank at her leisure. Which she enjoyed, by the looks of things.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” she called to Iridescence, who failed to hit any of her targets with the barrage of magic missiles she conjured up from the ship’s arms, just before she had to abandon it. “You know I love you, but family’s gotta stick together, right?”
Iridescence set her jaw. “Good to know where your loyalties lie,” she murmured.
“Aww, don’t be like that!” Winterspear flapped her wings and hovered face to face with her fillyfriend before she booped her on the nose. “You know what they say; All’s fair in love and war!”
“Indeed…” somepony interrupted with a bone-chilling cackle and an extended thermal lance that cut Winterspear’s momentarily stationary forces in half. “And I’m coming for you, Azurite!” Lieutenant Sunny Day beamed with a grin like a shark.
“Eep!” Azurite hid underneath the next table as soon as she spotted the other mare on deck of one of the burning escort ships. “S-Sunny! That ship is on fire!”
“Hah! Doesn’t matter if it gets me closer to my prize!”
Silent Pirate was impressed by her tenacity, risking her own safety upon a ship that seemed just about ready to drop out of the sky, but his attention was quickly captivated by the pegasus stallion that facehoofed off to the side of the battlefield. “I can’t watch…”
“You should’ve stayed with us, Azurite!” Sunny yelled as she indulged in the task of chasing Azurite around on the TMS DreamsAndDisasters, which was still tethered to the SilentWishes. The expression on her face made clear the almost sick pleasure she felt in doing so.
Winterspear swooped low, grabbing hold of Sunny and catapulting her back to her own side of the battlefield, but the damage was done already. Without Azurite in command, the forces Silent Pirate had dispatched to the TMS DreamsAndDisasters were pushed back, and although they maintained what control they had over the ship, they lost a lot of potential ground as the remaining crewponies barricaded themselves in the armory.
“Um… Captain, I think we’ve taken as much of the ship as we can.” A disheveled looking Azurite poked her head over Silent Pirate’s desk.
“Do we ‘ave control o’ 'er weapons?”
She shook her head. “They took all the ammunition with them to barricade themselves with. We could break into the armory and force them to give it up, but that would take time.”
“And we don’t ‘ave that kinda time,” Silent Pirate added. “Without Winterspear‘s pegasi their escorts are tearing our’s to pieces. Shoulda gotten them upgraded for speed…” He stood and sweeped his wing with a dramatic billow of his frock. “All airships, fall back immediately! To the spire!”
There was a gasp from three pretty mare mouths on the other side of the battlefield. Admiral Armour looked around for a cat to stroke. “No need to fear, ladies. I already suspected as much when he showed up with only five airships.” He stood himself, raising his sabre as he commanded his forces. “Do not let them get away! All forces, advance and attack!”
Their retreat would be bloody. But Silent Pirate knew how to handle it. “Officer Azurite, send the TMS DreamsAndDisasters to intercept their main force. Use ’er as a shield.”
That elicited a horrified gasp from the blue mare. “B-but captain…”
“Do it!” he ordered sternly. “I will not accept defeat, no matter what the cost!” Not even if Admiral Armour’s sister would come to claim his head in the wake of this battle, he would stand victorious.
The spire would ensure that. It was the newest addition he had made to his arsenal. A tall airship, barely more than a balloon on a stick, armed from top to bottom. While it had very little mobility, any ship that neared it would be torn to pieces in a matter of minutes.
“Captain, I just wanted to inform you that we managed to disable the orbital friendship canon device on the TMS DreamsAndDisasters,” Azurite sqeaked.
“Very good!” he put his hooves together and rested his elbows on the edge of the table in satisfaction. After all, rainbows of weaponized friendship could be a bother.
He smiled contently as the oncoming forces had to maneuver around the TwiDashia flagship in order to get to them, and they also had to cease firing, out of fear that they might hit their allies.
Now Silent Pirate set his pride and joy on the board. The last piece that would assure his victory. The spire. He still had his flagship and two of the three medium sized battle cruisers he had given Runic. His crew was prepped and ready should the enemy try to attack, and while Sunny’s appearance had taken out their entire right flank, he was confident the spire would even the odds again. They could simply retreat into its firing range whenever things got dicey. Nonetheless, he couldn’t suppress a twinge of irritation as Iridescence managed to pick off a couple of straggling escort ships.
“All forces, full stop!” Shining Armour ordered.
“Answering full stop, sir,” was the response as his airships came to a standstill just outside of the spire’s range. Clearly, it wasn’t the first time he faced a threat like this.
Shining Armour sought eye contact with Silent Pirate. “Last chance, boy. Surrender now.”
“No can do, Admiral!” Silent gave back with a grin. “You shouldn’ave messed with a pegasus in aerial combat! At the very least, ya should ‘ave brought a pegasus of yer own!”
The admiral sighed. It was a sigh filled with deep regret. “Very well. You leave me no choice. Prepare the Canon!” he ordered, and Lady Cadence rummaged through the chests in the cargo hold.
Silent Pirate exchanged a glance with Azurite as Runic got to work on repairing their damaged vessels. “You said you disabled the canon, didn’t you?”
“Canon is ready to attack on your orders, sir!”
Admiral Armour nodded sternly as he sat down in his chair. “Make it so!”
The mare was just about to nod when the spire burst into flames. Silent Pirate stared in shock at the winged figure that had appeared on the enemy lines. “Who said I didn’t bring a pegasus of my own?” Admiral Armour smirked.
“But… That’s a wonderbolt! They’re not a military group!”
Soarin cleared his throat. “Well, not really, anyway. But Spitfire’s a bit of a special case. You know, military background, family obsessed with success… Yeah, you’re pretty dead.”
With the arrival of the flaming knight, Silent Pirate’s lead melted away. His spire fell within minutes, and while it stood its weapons failed to even graze the nimble Pegasus with the flaming contrail as she set his entire armada ablaze.
“Looks like I’ve won,” Admiral Armour said, smugly.
That was the last straw. He could not allow this. His crew had fought far too hard to just roll over and die now. Silent Pirate flared his wings, grabbing his cutlass as he closed the distance between himself and his opponent, but the admiral’s sabre caught his weapon mid-swing. The force of their strikes was so powerful, however, that the cardboard weapons did not survive making contact. Half of Silent Pirate’s weapon whirled past his face and he lost his balance, not having calculated the lack of weight in his grip, whereas Shining Armour managed to quickly sidestep his opponent and put the rest of the toy sabre to his throat.
“You’re finished, Silent Pirate.”
Silent Pirate, true to his name, didn’t say a word.
It was then that Princess Luna decided to intervene. “I must humbly ask you to pardon this vile criminal, Admiral Armour,” she said with a smile playing at her lips. “I do believe he can be redeemed, and it would be a tragedy to rob Crystal Wishes of her husband so close to their honeymoon.”
“With all due respect, Princess,” Shining Armour retorted, “I believe I shall drag him to the Crystal Empire right now to bring him to justice. I can’t have the pony taking care of my family lose in a game so important as Airship Armada!”
“A fair point, Admiral,” the princess snickered.
Silent Knight looked up at her. “Do I get a say in this?”
“You do not, little stallion.”
He harrumphed. “Well, you cheated, colonel. ‘Unicorn love bubble of doom?’ I am pretty sure we don’t have any action tokens for that weapon yet.” Meanwhile, Sunny was chasing after Azurite again, while Soarin stood by, looking pretty lost on what to do.
“It’s not cheating, it’s creative use of game mechanics,” Cadence protested while her husband helped Silent Knight up with a smile on his lips. “’Unicorns get a plus five bonus to magic attacks and shields, pegasi a plus seven aerial mobility and speed bonus, and earth ponies a plus five repair and combat strength bonus, as well as a two additional life points.’ We thought unicorns were a bit neglected, since you forgot the alpha-level spells some of us can use.”
“We lost, but that was a lot of fun!” Runic chimed in as his cousin nodded, accepting his defeat. The grey pegasus was currently occupied “repairing” their ships. Which meant that he dunked them in water in order to put them out. “We should send these new rules we invented in to have them added to the actual game. Ponies should be able to have as much fun as we did.”
“Well then, we shall have to make additional rules for alicorns,” Luna said with a grin, to which Iridescence groaned. “They should be able to command a knight and transfer their bonuses to them.”
“You just want to make Silent Knight OP so you can laugh as he crushes our armada!” the unicorn guard accused.
Princes Luna’s eyes widened in feigned terror. “Thou wouldst accuse us of such scheming?”
Iridescence gave her a flat look. “All due respect, yes.”
“Clever girl.” Luna patted her on the head.
“Speaking of fun…” Silent Knight turned to his sister. “Not that I mind winning, but did you have to massacre their escorts like that?”
“That’s not what you said a minute ago!” she indignantly pouted, hovering in the air.
Silent Knight wanted to elaborate that he was worried how her ruthlessness might affect her relationship with Iridescence, when the latter came stomping over to them and yanked her fillyfriend to the floor with her magic. “And you! You enjoyed that way too much!”
“Oh come now!” Silent’s sister exclaimed. “Look me in the eye and tell me that that wasn’t fun!”
“Well, I liked the part where we beat your plot,” the unicorn hissed, but to Silent Knight’s relief there was no actual sharpness in her voice.
“Oh, like you didn’t enjoy me beating your plot all night!”
Silent Knight, as well as everypony else in the room, took a step back. Princess Luna stifled a laugh. “Um, dear Winterspear, you may not have realized, but you said that out loud.”
Winter Spear looked around, then a blush crept onto her face. “Um… at games. That’s what I meant. Beating her. At games. All night.” Then she grinned. “Sorry, I just had to make that pun. But there’s really nothing like that going on between –”
“You know what I’m going to do?” Silent asked. “I’m going to turn around” – he did so – “and walk away from this conversation.” Talk about too much information.
“But… Hey, I was only kidding!”
“Not listening lalalalalala…”
“Hm. Well, that could’ve gone better.” Winterspear gave her gaping fillyfriend an apologetic nuzzle. “So anyway…”
“I can’t believe you did that!” she yelled as soon as Winterspear’s touch snapped her out of it.
“I thought it would be funny!”
“Oh, of course, because a spanking fetish is not weird or embarrassing at all!”
“Don’t be a sore loser,” Winterspear said with a grin. “You’re just mad I got one last jab at you.”
“I – you… Argh!” Iridescence stopped, panting like she’d just run a marathon. “You’re still doing the dishes,” she growled under her breath. “I beat you, you’re doing the dishes for the entire week. No, the entire month!” she snapped. “And one more misstep and I’ll make it a year!”
“About that Spitfire figure…” Silent Knight began, trying his best to ignore the argument going on in the background. “Where did you get that?”
“Oh, I made it,” Princess Luna confessed. “I made a few of them, actually. She is a rather interesting mare, after all, so I couldn’t help but feel the need to colour a few figures.”
A cry from the door stopped all ongoing discussions. “What happened in here?” A distraught Crystal Wishes hastily entered the room, followed closely by a worried looking Velvet Step. “I leave for half an hour to get all the luggage sorted out and say goodbye to everypony, and you try to burn down the castle?”
Velvet pulled up beside her friend, glancing around worriedly. “We saw smoke coming out of the window, so we sent Miley to get the fire extinguisher.”
“Wait,” Silent Knight, taking off his tricorn, interrupted as the gravity of the situation began to dawn on him. “You thought the castle was burning. So you sent Miley, I repeat, our Miley Hooves, to get the fire extinguisher?”
They nodded.
“You sent her out of Runic's general vicinity to prevent disaster?”
Another nod, that was cut short by Velvet’s “Oh.” She looked around sheepishly. “Maybe not the best idea I’ve ever had.”
Princess Celestia chuckled. “I suppose we should go and reunite our paradox couple before, well, I don’t know…” She looked at her sister. “What do you think could happen?”
“Maybe she unleashes a fire-extinguishing foam monster that steals all of Equestria’s magic in under three hours?” Luna mused. “We should hurry.”
As his friends left the room, Silent Knight stepped closer to Crystal. “I’m sorry if we frightened you,” he apologized. “We’re not going to see most of them for a while, so I got a bit carried away. Although the idea to use Runic’s potions was not mine. It was Colonel Armour’s.”
She frowned up at him. “How does he know about Runic’s potions?”
“Apparently he read an interesting article in one of the old Mare’s Monthly magazines a while back and decided to see if Runic still manufactured dangerous but useful potions.” He scratched his chin. “He said using the highly volatile incendiaries would make the game more challenging and life-like. He was right, although…” Silent Knight looked over the gaming table, which – unlike his own personal one – wasn’t fire proof, then straightened himself. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Crystal stifled a laugh and smiled. “Well, I’m sure it did. Just try not to make every game one of life or death, or our Timberwolf sessions might have to drop from game night!” She turned around to leave and said over her shoulder, “I’ll go check if Equestria is doomed yet. Are you coming?”
He nodded. “You go ahead, I just have to do one more thing.”
She shook her head with a smile. “Stallions…”
Silent Knight stood still until she left, then walked over to the table. Their ship models had taken quite the beating. But he, Colonel Armour and Runic had agreed, that repainting them would only make the entire game more fun and realistic. After all, any battle-proven ship had to be repainted every once in a while.
Carefully the former pirate captain swept up the fallen round-event cards. Winterspear had counted them to find out when the best chance would be to catch a draft that could get her out of a tight spot with her pegasi squadron. Admittedly, it had been a gamble still, but it had paid off, the lieutenant thought as he placed the neatly stacked cards down on the table.
He then lifted up the TMS DreamsAndDisasters. He still didn’t know the story behind this ship, or whatever ‘TwiDashia’ was, but Princess Celestia and Lady Cadence had shared a knowing smile as soon as the sun empress had produced it from a very special wooden case to aid Shining Armour in his fight. And Shining Armour had not reacted kindly to an assault on it. Considering that the colonel had had the ‘home field advantage’-bonus since the field card they had drawn was the Crystal Empire, Silent Knight could be proud that he’d almost beaten his opponent.
The ship was very elegant, more so than the rest, a different model to be sure. It had aerodynamic rainbow-coloured ornamentations and a dark violet hull that sparkled like the night sky. Below its name it inexplicably sported the words “Greetings from Haywaii”.
Since it had been so precious to the Princess of the Sun and Lady Cadence as well, it had been the only ship they hadn’t set aflame. But it wasn’t what Silent Knight was interested in.
He very carefully set it down and turned to another piece on the board that was completely unique.
The Spitfire figure. The very pony that had cost him his victory. He lifted up his own model, painted by Princess Luna herself, to hover in front of the wonderbolt captain. “This ain’t over!” he threatened in a thick piratey accent. “You mark me words, lass, I’m gonna beat ya next time we meet!”
His head darted up as he quickly looked around, then it lowered back down. “Ah got me eye on ya!” he growled, before setting his figure back down.
Silent Pirate would not be defeated.
But first, he had a well-deserved honeymoon to get on with.
Author's Note
Inspiration struck. Well, he always was a pirate at heart. Ture, having Silent Knight being a pirate in a game is less appealing than the possibility of him being an actual pirate, but this is the more immediate solution to my dilemma.
Call me impatient.
The Game is some sort of Airship Armada/D&D/Guns Of Icarus crossover with round Event Cards, Special bonuses, dice rolling (for Winterspear and her pegasi, for example) etc. etc. ...
If anybody wants to call together some creative minds to make this boardgame an actual Thing, I'd totally be up for that.
