Flight of the Broadway

"That was AWESOME!"

"Uh - Pinkie? We're raht here next t'ya."

"That's a brilliant observation, Applej - "

BOOM!

Both earth ponies looked back up into the sky to see that another, yellow signal appeared, displaying the same letters; then, it dissolved like the first one after a few seconds.

Pinkie Pie's pupils were literally in the shape of stars and her mouth a gaping smile. "Encore! Encore!"

"I don't think this is a show. Maybe we can help," Twilight suggested.

Applejack countered, "But we'll miss this - "

"Yes, I know. But - "

Another "BOOM!" and Pinkie Pie got her encore; this time it showed in green.

"But it could be a call. You know what the letters stand for, right?"

"'Support our show'?" guessed Pinkie.

"It stands for 'save our ship.' I don't know what's down there with it being so heavily dense with trees, so there is a chance that a river with a troubled boat on it is in there."

"But that could get us in trouble!" Rainbow Dash said, pointing to the train.

"Well, fortunately for us, the river leads to Ponyville."

"The river?"

"There's no the river, but if there is a river, then we have a chance if this signal really is true. All major bodies of water in Equestria are connected in one way or another, according to the Cutie Map."

"We will also need to save the ship if we've got a chance," Fluttershy cut in.

"Well, what are we waiting for, then!?" exclaimed Pinkie as she walked over to the side of the cliff.

"Uh - Pinkie?" Applejack repeated.

"See you at the bottom!"

"Pinkie, what are you - ?" said Twilight.

"Geronimo...!"

Rainbow Dash crossed her arms, scowling as Pinkie's voiced trailed off. "That pink pony is so random."

"And dangerous!" said Fluttershy, walking over to the edge of the cliff to look down.

"Eh, I wouldn't worry about it; how many times has she defied the laws of phys - "

"OUCH!"

The scream had sent more than a few birds flying off, and concern in the aloof pegasus; causing her to respond with a gasp. She then ran off the cliff as if it were a runway, and took flight. "I'm comin' for ya, Pinkie!"

Fluttershy looked back to the others when walking towards the edge. "Well then, only one thing left to do." She did the same thing as Rainbow, only she flew in circles as she went down; opposed to the other pegasus' straight-down approach.

"What about us non-flyin' pones?" Applejack said.

"Get Rarity; I have an idea."

"Now, now; there's no need for that," said the heavily accented voice of the unicorn they had just mentioned. "I saw you were hurling yourselves over the edge of that cliff, and of course it got my curiosity flowing. Flowing enough for me to...well..." She looked down at her hooves, now covered in dirt-mixed snow.

"I'll explain when we get down there."

"Ugh! You mean you want us to go into the depths of that abyss! My hooves aren't getting any dirtier, you know!"

"I said I'll explain later. So if you could stand right here" - she pointed to an area right next to the "abyss" - "that would be great."

Rarity obeyed, but the scrunch on her face showed that she did so only grudgingly.

"I'll have you know that I paid good money for that hooficure I stated as my reasoning for - WOAHOHOHOHOHO!"

She had just been lifted off the ground and over the edge by Twilight's magical aura.

"This'll only take a minute, and I'll be sure to do it slowly."

So down and down, Rarity went; growing reluctant as the treetops grew larger. She held her breath when she got close, almost like she was going underwater. This may not be the ocean, but it sure was an entirely different world down here like it; and this world was much worse than she expected. Already, she was getting leaves in her mane from when she plunged through the branches. It got even worse; now that she was out of Twilight's vision, it made it harder for the alicorn above to focus on the pony she was levitating. So, her aura began to spin out of control.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Rarity screamed after it vanished way sooner than it should have.

She crash-landed into a sickly green pool of water.

"Turns out you were right about this place being a swamp after all, Rarity," a smug voice said from above.

"I said shut it, Rainbow Dash!"

"She's over here, girls!"

Fluttershy and Pinkie ran over to help their friend out of the water. Once she was, Rarity purposefully shook her mane off onto Rainbow Dash.

"Heyyyy!" the mare responded, but then immediately giggled right after when Rarity began to be soaked in another yellow fluid from above. But when she looked up to see who it was coming from, that giggle was stifled.

A terrified Applejack had just finished urinating, and was about to be finished being lowered by the flying alicorn right next to her as well.

"Applejack! Did you just...?!"

The newly-landed earth pony just gave an awkward smile; her freckled cheeks blushing on each side of it.

"Why you...you disgusting, repellent, nasty, distasteful, stomach-turning, loathsome, appalling, oversized foal! EEYICK!"

Rarity took off to find cleaner waters so she can wash off. And within seconds into her run, had already found a strange-looking river; it was pretty hard to miss from the mist and glow it was emitting that was the main light source down here in the darkness. Still rather greenish it is, but this being a lighter, more polished shade. It glittered, too; and to Rarity, all that glitters must be clean. Without any question, she dunked her head into it.

"So this is the river the boat must be on," said Twilight, leading the others to where Rarity was. "Hmm...it better not have already sank."

Pinkie pointed up the river. "Way ahead of ya, Twi!"

Belching smoke and paddling its way through the bluish-green liquid, a steamboat was coming towards them.

"Oh, it doesn't look like it's in trouble," Fluttershy observed.

"Why don't you go fly over there to see?" said Twilight.

"How about all of us winged ponies do so?" Rainbow Dash chimed in. She was once again the first to take off into flight, landed on the upper deck, and kicked open a door that led to the bridge. She walked in, and began to feel uneasy.

"Hello?"

"It doesn't seem like anypony's in here," Twilight said; Fluttershy landing right behind her.

"Let's not give our hopes up, yet."

Rainbow was looking through a side door she had just opened; Fluttershy and Twilight walked over to see she found a U-shaped staircase, with a lit chandelier hanging over the 180-degree turn halfway down.

Once at the bottom, they opened another door leading into the wheelhouse. Like the bridge, it was not heavily decorated, but seemed to have been used; it had a light on in the middle of the ceiling, and a full bookshelf that included such classics like Bridle Buck's Boat Chants and -

"Daring Do and the Riddle of the Sphinx!?" said Rainbow.

"Here we go, again..." sighed Fluttershy.

"Oh my gosh, it is! I've been looking for a copy of this forever! I mean, I've read every other published book in the series! And whaddaya know? I find it in a mysteriously deserted boat in a mysteriously dark forest in a mysteriously sparkling river! Can I pleeeeeeeeeeeeease keep it, Twilight?"

"The short answer: No."

"Okay, what about the long answer?!"

"Well, as you said, it's deserted; we don't know who was on board or who we could be stealing from."

Rainbow frowned as Twilight lead Fluttershy to the next door. "Yes, I said stealing. Now, come on. We've already wasted enough time on this empty boat. Why would somepony do that, anyways? Just let their own boat go down a river."

"How would you know they did that?" asked Fluttershy as they went outside.

"Yeah," said Rainbow Dash, "maybe they lost it, so they sent out those rockets to have somepony 'save' it."

"Save it from what?"

"I don't know. Maybe a waterfall or something."

"Well," Twilight began, "what we do know is someone was on it at some point." She pointed at one of two caged furnaces, each feeding a smokestack. "The boilers are lit."

"Okay, here's my scenario: So there they were, a band of pirates sailing the seven rivers - "

"Pirates don't use riverboats. In fact, they aren't in rivers at all; they would be found in an ocean."

"Will you let me finish my story?"

"No, I don't care. Don't make us spare more time to go to waste, Rainbow."

Rainbow frowned again, crossing her arms in mid-flight as they made their way across the right side of the boat next to its wheelhouse. There, they would find Pinkie pie running alongside the river. She was leading Rarity who kept looking back at Applejack; likely trying to keep herself at a distance from the earth pony that was still blushing.

"Seems like you girls did a great job at saving that ship. Bravo!" exclaimed Pinkie Pie, stopping to clap her hooves.

"That's because it was never in danger in the first place," said Fluttershy.

"Nopony is aboard," said Rainbow Dash.

"What do you mean?" asked Pinkie, continuing to keep up the pace.

"What do you mean, Pinkie?" Twilight said.

"Go look on the front of the boat, silly!"

Sure enough when they got there, a dark figure stood at the bow; back turned to expose a pair of wings. However, these were not the usual feathery ones of Fluttershy, Twilight, Rainbow, and virtually every other winged pony in Equestria. They were more like the wings of a bat they had seen on a pony only one other time. Fluttershy shuttered as she took note of this; shocked and intimidated to see that they might be an actual breed of ponies, rather than the product of a failed spell.

The pony turned her head, but she did so without having to move her body at all; revealing slitted pupils in her eyes - enough for them to see that she was indeed a bat pony, and likely the captain of this ship.

She turned the rest of her body around, evoking fear into the other two trespassers, in addition to Fluttershy. This fear only increased when she opened her mouth, showing her razor-sharp fangs...Was she doing this so she can use them? It is self-explanatory why sucking their blood is a possibility, but they had never seen one speak; only hisses from "Flutterbat."

Although, this one did.