Operation Firework

At least the top deck is well-lit, you think to yourself. Lanterns are hanging at almost every corner. This must be why you were able to see it from the harbour.

It's been about an hour since you surrendered without a fight. They've had you chained to the top deck, in front of the ship's fo'c'sle, ever since. The shackles holding you down are thick, but rusted. Not that you'd try to break out. What would be the point? You could fight. In fact, no, scratch that. It didn't work last time, when both you and Tempest were facing just one of them. Alone against a whole crew would be madness. You could teleport, but not far. And if you could escape, there's no way in Tartarus that you're leaving your partner behind.

You look to your left. Tempest Shadow is slumped against the fo'c'sle walls right next to you, still unconscious. Her lips are no longer blue-cold, however, and from where you're sitting, she's clearly still breathing. That has to count for something.

You look to your right. Aside from the utterly unnatural crew members walking by and ignoring you, there's a small, wooden row-boat that hangs over the edge of the ship itself, ready to drop into the water below at a moment's notice. If you could just cut that boat down, save Tempest, and row away, you could make it out alive. All of that's assuming, of course, that none of the crew touch you in that time.

All of them seem to have the same condition as the cold assailant from earlier. They all freeze on touch.

All of them seem to be ponies of round the same size. All of them seem draped in similar grey cloth. It's entirely possible that this group is some form of cult, given the unnatural freezing magic and matching robes that conceal most of the body and face.

Without warning, the pale form of Tempest blots upright and screams a short, panicked yelp, like one would do waking up from a nightmare. An Elite Operative such as yourself does not usually flinch, but this was one of the few exceptions. Your partner's mind starts catching up to her body. She looks around at the ship, the apathetic crew, her shackles, then finally you. The look on her face when she notices your own chains is one of dismay, followed by disgust.

"I thought I told you to escape," she snarls.

"No," you reply. "You didn't."

Her loathing subsides, however briefly. "Really?"

"That ice-using... thing made you too cold to talk," you explain. "I couldn't hear anything. Then you passed out."

"For how long?"

"About an hour."

"So why didn't you escape then!?" Tempest scolds you.

"I- what? I tried! I couldn't teleport us both back."

The conversation pauses as another hooded cultist trots by, probably to inform the head honcho that Tempest had awoken. While you are shackled down, the chains themselves allow for some movement. You shift as close to Tempest as your chains will allow. She does the same.

"This is gonna sound strange coming from me," Tempest whispers, "but is your horn feeling any better?"

Yeah, that did give way to a moment of awkwardness.

"Wha?"

"As in, can you teleport now?" she asks. "Even if it's just a short distance? It was an hour since you last tried."

You quickly close your eyes and gauge how much your head had recovered from the mental exhaustion earlier. "I can probably teleport short range once, maybe twice, but any more and I might pass out."

Tempest is silent for the longest moment you've ever experienced. As if she's making peace with something, or somepony, in her mind.

"That's good," she finally says. "Short range is all you need for what I've got planned."

"Let's hear it."

"See that boat over there?" she nods towards the wooden row-boat you saw earlier. "When the time is right, I'm going to break these cuffs; they're rusted, it'll be no problem for me. When that happens, I want you to teleport out of your own cuffs, and make it to the boat. Cut it down, then row away. I'll keep the crazies distracted during that time."

"What about the gunpowder, though?" you ask. "Even if we do make it out, they'll still have that stuff."

"They won't," Tempest retorts. "I'll take care of that while you row to a safe distance."

"Take care of the gunpowder? How?"

The dark violet unicorn says nothing. The small flicker of energy from her broken horn, however, tells you everything.

"Tempest, no!"

"Why not!?" Both of you had given up whispering at this point. Tempest especially.

"How in Tartarus would you escape the-" you catch yourself talking loudly about potentially blowing the whole ship up, and hastily lower your voice to ease the still-not-listening cultists. "How would you escape the blast?"

Tempest hesitates for just a second more than you'd like. "I'd delay it somehow. Pour some gunpowder on the floor as some kinda fuse, light it, and run."

"All by yourself?"

"So long are you make it back to Canterlot alive, you can report the mission as a success as soon as you see me blow this rig up." Now you know why she was making peace with herself earlier. She's genuinely serious about going through with that plan alone. But not out of selfishness, as she would have used to. Out of responsibility. She's the one who convinced you to teleport here, after all.

You just glare at her. It's your attempt at that same glare she gave you back on the train to Vanhoover; the don't-even-entertain-that-thought kind of glare.

Tempest notices. "Oh, so you hated me replacing your old dead buddy, but since we rutted in a hotel room earlier you're suddenly supposed to care?"

"I wouldn't approve of you getting yourself killed, even if I still hated you," you argue. "Which I don't."

"There's no way I can convince you to leave me behind, is there?" she sneers.

"Call me clingy, but no."

"Okay, fine," she rolls her eyes. "When I break the chains, you teleport, but not towards the boat this time. I'll distract them while y-"

The door to the fo'c'sle slams open. She wisely stops talking, but you give Tempest a knowledgeable glance. You get the gist.

The leader of the group - the one you and Tempest failed to subdue earlier, strangely enough - trots out. Just as the hooded excuse for a pony opens its mouth to greet us, Tempest gets the first word in.

"Here's how this is going to work," she orders. Like the flick of a switch, Tempest adopts the same sadistic persona that haunted her through her career with the Storm King. Commanding. Intimidating. Almost daring her opponent for an excuse to fight. "Tell me what you plan to do with the gunpowder you stole, and I will hurt you."

The hooded leader froze - figuratively this time. "Don't you mean OR I will hurt you?"

"I know what I said."

Kudos to Tempest on that insult; you actually see the equine figure flinch before remembering the shackles holding her down.

"Moving on," he slowly asserts, "it's good to see you awake, Tempest Shadow, No doubt your sidekick has filled you in on how he surrendered as soon as you lost consciousness."

Wait, what's that about a sidekick!?

"How did you know my name?" your partner demands. Slowly, more and more fiendish robed figures start to appear, be it from inside the fo'c'sle, or simply moving into position on the top deck. You count six, including the leader.

"Oh please, I'm adept at hiding among my former kind in Vanhoover," the leader scoffs, a chilling mist pouring from his maw. "I've read the news - every pony worth their salt knows who you are, ex-commander. But all you seem interested in is our gunpowder. For your information, we're just trying to save Equestria with it. We're not the villains here."

Yeah, as if that was easy to believe.

"What do you mean, saving Equestria?" you order, clearly not trying to compensate for being called a sidekick. "How's twelve barrels of boom gonna help with that!?"

The leader's gaze shifts toward you. You shake off the cold feeling in your gut.

"Tell me," he impassively drones, "are you familiar with the story behind Hearth's Warming Eve?"

"Who isn't?" you resist the urge to shrug at your evil captor. "The three pony races, the Windigos, the Fire of Friendship, it's all basic storybook stuff."

"So you say," he utters in a condescending tone. He turns between you and Tempest. "Can either of you tell me where the Windigos went after the Fire of Friendship did away with them?"

That question sounded so easy until you realise the story didn't cover that part.

"They went to sleep," the cultist declares. "In a last-ditch effort to keep cool, the Windigos retreated to an ancient ocean to the north, built a huge iceberg with their frost-magic, and slept within it."

"You're wasting our time," Tempest spits at him. "The gunpowder. Tell us about that."

"I'm getting to that, you impatient harlot!" the hooded fiend bares his icicle-teeth. Callously, he treads his freezing hoof on Tempest's shoulder. She gasps from the biting cold. "Need I remind you who's wearing the shackles here!?"

Seeing the frost work its way from her shoulder to her neck, you yell the only thing that comes to mind; "Let her go!"

The leader ignores you, pressing his hoof deeper into her skin. "As you can probably gather by now, we found that very iceberg. We studied it. Learned how to harness the Windigo's magic for ourselves. And as you now witness, it changed us in ways you could never imagine. So as thanks for our new powers, we've decided to set them free, and in the process, save Equestria."

With that, he releases his bitter grip on Tempest. She instinctively retreats backwards, pressing her back against the fo'c'sle walls.

The cultist leans forward, mockingly invading Tempest's personal space. "That's what your precious gunpowder is being used for, Little Miss Hornless! We're going to blow the iceberg-prison right up! Boom! Freeing the Windigos once and for all! And sure, they'll leave Equestria well enough alone because the Fire of Friendship is still burning! So where will they go!? Anywhere else!"

The cultist's maniacal rambling rises with each statement: "There's no Fire in the Storm King's Realm, dear! They're falling in on themselves since he died - power-vacuums do that! There's no Fire in the land of the Hippogriffs, either! They never needed one, the cowards! Those colourful changelings are learning about friendship, but they're slow at it; we'll just freeze the hive before they figure it out! Klugetown, Griffonstone, the Dragonlands, they don't even know what friendship is half the time!"

As the insane pony continues to divulge his plans, a trait surprisingly common among the villainous population, you exchange glances with Tempest. She nods, bracing herself for just the right time.

By this point, his mad rambling is almost incoherent; "And once the Windigos have turned all of those lands to ice, Equestria will be protected! Right in the middle of a ring of impenetrable, frosty death! No more invasions! No more wars! No more risking the lives of citizen and princess alike! Celestia would never allow such an extreme solution, the weak fool, but this is for her own good! We're going to be gods! We're going to freeze the world and all who oppose our mighty land, and the Windigos will be our deadly herald! WE! WILL! SAVE! EQUESTR-"

C-CRACK!

The mad cultist never finished that - in one swift movement, Tempest brakes the rusty shackles holding her down, and flings a horseshoe-clad fore-hoof, with all her strength, into his jaw. His body is sent absolutely careening through the air, until he lands almost on the other side of the ship. The other five cultists scramble to get their beloved leader back on his hooves.

He stands there, grasping his jaw in agony. His hood is down, revealing eyes that are little more than dark, empty holes with a pinprick of light in each socket. His ears are permanently in a turned-down position, one of them chipped like an icicle. His mane is dark and slick, as if it were dampened down and subsequently frozen solid. He has no horn upon his head; an Earth Pony. Further confirmation that his magic was by no means natural.

His jaw, wounded by Tempest's punch, is grotesque; dangling half-shattered from his face. There's no blood. Only ice and mist.

Fixing a chilling scowl upon Tempest, he presses his jaw back into place. It rapidly freezes at the wound, sealing all cracks, until there's no evidence of a strike there at all. Then he points a hoof straight at you both, and shrieks.

"Brothers! Kill!"