When Legends Rise

The voice made Autumn pause, enough so that her eyes flickered for a moment, before the green glow dissipated completely. The mutated pegasus seemed to stare into nothing for a moment, blinked owlishly, then looked outright horrified that she was essentially choking Alee and hastily put her down, a few whispered pleadings to ensure the stunned kelpie was okay before turning to focus on the source of the voice.

Stepping out of the shadows of the stairway came a hunched figure, concealed in a dark and tatty cloak which had small tears, offering the vaguest of glimpses behind the fabric. Their gait was uneven, as if they had a limp or were perhaps walking on only three limbs when they should have been using four. A strange four-digit hand, which looked more like the talons of an owl with two fingers and two thumbs, seemed to worm its way out from the left side of the cloak and grabbed hold of the handrail to steady its owner for a moment. He seemed to revel in the confusion and suspense his appearance had caused as his let out a low, almost choked chuckle, before removing the hand from the handrail to slowly grab the edge of the hood of the cloak and pull it back, revealing the head of this strange newcomer.

Whatever it was was definitely draconic in nature, my first thought was perhaps some hybrid, a kirin or dracoling or something, though its true identity was completely hidden beneath a cage-like mask which was pitted and rusted, like it had spent a good few years languishing at the bottom of a lake, a series of horns being the only thing permitted to poke through, along with a strange orange glow coming from the eyes which seemed to leave a subtle trail akin to when the light of a sparkler gets burned into one's eyes for the briefest of moments.

As we all stared at the being with varied reactions, from fear to unease to going outright defensive, I felt Fantasia come crashing into my mind, practically screaming with rage.

~~“What have they done to him!? what did they do to one of my chosen warriors!? those curs!!! I demand their damned souls for the depths of oblivion!!!!”~~

it was such a mental uproar that I physically winced, clearly by the way Octavia grimaced she seemed to feel it too, though the others seemed oblivious. The creature continued talking, seemingly oblivious of the visorak and changelings now working their way out of the stairwell, Octavia and Autumn both scowling with no small amount of loathing at the sight of the bug-like ponies, the latter even letting out a low canine-like growl. Vinyl seemed to cotton on mere seconds later and a similar look of loathing; clearly, despite being quick to adapt to her blindness, she was still at some disadvantage.

“Seriously!? You killed everything up here!? Gah, he’ll have my ass for this for sure” he said, before turning to those around him, including another being, clearly of changeling origin, but clearly also hordika; four-armed, bipedal and bulky, moving in a manner best described as hauling himself along.

The first figure continued ranting at those around him, seemingly being the one in command. “Visorak! Let your hearts hold no mercy! We’ve no time for prisoners here: slay the lot, and let their worthless “gods” sort them out! 'Lings, los Gehts; the rest of you have fun…!”

At this, the Visorak surged towards us, Autumn was the first to counter charge, stopping to grab one by the jaws and pull upwards and then apart, forcing the Visorak to lock eyes as she unleashed an almost unnatural roar, before spinning on her heels to send it screaming over the edge of the ship.

Whilst everyone else was occupied forming a defensive circle around the injured, both Wrakjon and Heimutian marine working together simply to keep the visorak at bay, the stranger ran and jumped onto the deck’s rail, grabbing hold of the rigging as he looked back. “Pharynx, no dawdling!” He shouted at the four-armed behemoth who had accompanied him.

“But I smell a royal guard…!” The larger figure growled, gesturing over the chaos towards Autumn with a couple arms as he locked his hungry teal-and-purple eyes with his leader. “One I’ve smelled before, and I'm hungry! I wanna drain 'er!”

In form, this guy looked like some unholy fusion of a wolf, some kind of reptile, the type of aquatic creature that brought the words “Black Lagoon” to mind, and a Changeling, but with all the latter’s teal accents swapped for red and purple. He also seemed to be part organic and part machine, more seamlessly so than Autumn now was. Given what little could be seen of the cloaked figure's body, it was safe to say they both shared the same condition.

There was a massive explosion from somewhere below decks that rattled the entire ship, nearly throwing our invader off and almost knocking us to the floor. “No time, Pharynx! We gotta move!” With that, the cloaked figure jumped off the edge, two tattered draconic wings with transparent teal membranes spreading from underneath the cloak as he went. Any Pegasi who tried to fly after him were either blasted by lingering Changelings or hit with Visorak spinners, I was unfortunate enough to see one Pegasus turned to dust by a spinner launched by a blue Visorak.

The one he’d called “Pharynx” leapt across the deck to knock Autumn flat on her back before the creature grasped her neck and pulled her up until their snouts were practically touching.

“You may be Hordika now, but know this; you and your brethren will pay for the loss of mine!” he snarled “count yourself lucky today that I am required elsewhere” And with that he shoved her to the deck and leaped towards the railing, paused for a moment more to get a bearing, then jumped over the side, as he disappeared from view I just caught sight of four dragonfly-like wings sprouting from his back.

Everyone else was still focussed on maintaining our defense, but I had a sneaking suspicion about the explosion, there was now white vapour rising up from the side of the ship, obscuring the view beyond.

“Alee, Tarn, think you can help me?” I asked “We’re probably gonna be in big trouble real fast if we don’t do something about the cause of that explosion”

“Spreading us a bit thinly, don’t you think?” Vinyl said, throwing up shield spells in rapid succession to guard against rhotuka spinners.

“Onælan’s right” Tarn said “I’d put my money on that being one of the boilers...or a turbine” she finished with a wince.

“Do what you must” Octavia said, planting an arrow right in the mouth of one visorak, causing it to collapse in on itself under the effect of a small singularity which also drew other visorak in the immediate vicinity into its midst. “But make it quick!” not waiting any longer the three of us nodded and quickly set out for the stairwell. Once Tarn had stopped by our quarters to retrieve her bag of tools It was some struggle to try and find our way through the labyrinth of corridors simply to find someone to ask for directions, let alone find the boiler room itself. And when we did get there Alee went to open the door, only to slam it shut immediately as a jet of steam burst through the gap, nearly scolding her in the face.

“What the fuck was that!?” Alee yelped

“God’s, someone’s sabotaged the boilers! Probably turned the fires to full to try and boil them dry, no guesses who’s fault that is!” Tarn said, gingerly touching a hand to the metal bulkhead only to pull back with a yelp “Room’s full of steam, probably dropped a couple of fusible plugs...no wonder a boiler blew”

“Think you can get it under control?” I asked, I only had theoretical knowledge, whilst I understood what she said perfectly Tarn had the practical experience to be able to come up with a solution based on said knowledge.

“Pushing it slightly, but I might just manage” she said, pulling out three rags, trying one around her own face and passing the others to Alee, who in turn tied mine up for me before tying her own “if a boiler or two blew then the room’s full of gas, steam’s probably raised the humidity enough to prevent it from igniting, but that won’t stop a few lingering pockets...Alee, do you think you can control the steam? It won’t be pleasant but I need you to create a pocket for us to work safely”

“I feel like this is stretching the limits of what classes as water, but I should be able to,” she said, reading her blades, but forgoing unfolding them “Now that you mention it if I focus on it I can sense the moisture in there”

“Right” I said, placing my hand on the door and beginning to syphon off the heat being conducted through the metal, giving me something of a pick me up which I proceeded to syphon towards speeding up my own healing, then placing my hand on the handle “ready?” they both nodded and I turned the handle and heaved the door open. As the steam rushed forth my own resistant to heat diminished any injuries, but I probably would have still been scolded if Alee hadn’t started to manipulate the water molecules in the air to create a pocket of clear air in front of us. With a corridor opened up into the room we rushed forward, the door slamming shut behind us in a wave of Alee’s magic to prevent the corridors outside the boiler room being flooded by steam.

Even in our little pocket of clear air it felt unbelievably humid, and despite the fact Alee was successfully holding the visible steam at bay I personally felt like I was being pushed out of sorts by the overabundance of the one element which could directly counteract my own power, let alone the injuries I was already handicapped by. I would go so far as to say that the room almost felt oppressive, choking.

“Hot air indeed, I actually feel ill being surrounded by so much moisture” I thought, tarn must have taken note that something was up with me.

“You ok there, Onaelan?” she asked.

“It’s the moisture, it’s dampening my own powers” I said, the atmosphere in the room making my reply more snappy than I’d intended “let’s sort this shit out and get the fuck out of here”

“The heat ain’t so great for me, either” Tarn said, apparently in agreement with how I felt. The Kobald began to lead the way, first directing Alee to push the steam as far back as she could manage, so she could work out how best to proceed, first was to shut off the gas supply to the now missing boiler, which had left a gaping hole in the hull through which steam had been pouring out. Next, we had to go to the boilers and one by one shut off the gas to dampen down the fires, then I had to carefully syphon the heat out so as to cool the water back down below boiling, but not too quickly as to risk cracking the still pressurised boilers. By the end of it I not only felt ill from the excess moisture, but I almost felt over-fed from an excess of thermal energy, making me sluggish and short of breath.

“You do realise you are literally glowing right now, right?” Alee asked, eyeing me up and down warily, true to her word my skin had taken on a dull red glow, like hot metal

“I can’t help it” I said, panting as I painstakingly absorbed the heat from the last of the boilers, before adding in a half mutter “When we get out of here, I need a dunk in some ice water or something, gotta get rid of this excess thermal energy” Alee snorted

“Well, when we need some fireworks I’ll give you a shout, OK?” she asked, smirking as she began absorbing the excess of steam in the air. Out of the three of us she was seemingly the only one who wasn’t near-debilitated by the conditions, not in the mood to deal with her snark I ignored her.

“As I thought!” Tarn called from one of the cold boilers, before poking out of the firehole waving what looked for all the world like a large brass bolt with a hole running through its length “the whole lot of boilers are gonna need new plugs before we can get underway, unless the pegasu want to get out and push” Alee scrunched up her nose.

“Why?” she asked.

“This is a fusible plug” Tarn explain “it’s meant to be full of some sort of metal with a lower melting point”

“And that’s bad?” the Kelpie asked, I snorted.

“No” I said “it’s good that they all failed, it means we didn’t loose all our boilers. They’re supposed to fail, else the ship would have shat its guts by now” Alee scrunched her nose up.

“That’s vulgar” she said.

“But not wrong” Tarn said, though from her begrudging tone she clearly wasn’t any less disgusted by my remark.

The ponies up on deck had just finished killing the rest of the visorak when Reinesfell appeared from the stairwell, looking a little flustered, but nonetheless she quickly sized up the situation, and with a hastily barked order several of her guards surrounded Autumn with thaumic rifles and magic barricades, boxing her in so she couldn’t move.

“Take her to the brig” Reinesfell said, before focussing on the mutated pegasus “until such a time as I am certain of what to do with you” Autumn let out a low growl at this.

Midnight Quarry rounded on the empress, accompanied by Octavia. The Empress to her credit didn’t shrink under the shadow of the Yarvik mare.

“What the bloody hell are you doing?” Midnight asked.

“It’s because of Autumn that fewer ponies died” Octavia said “now you’re going to imprison her!?”

“Those things, whatever they were, have done something to Autumn” Reinsefell replied in a level voice, though her eyes held a sea of fury “I will not risk the lives of my crew more for the sake of one loose cannon of a freak!”

“You best watch it, you prissy bitch” Midnight drawled “Your social standing doesn’t prevent me from physically decking you six ways to sunday, merely gives you a greater excuse to throw your miniscule weight around” out of the corner of her eyes the titan of a mare caught sight of a particularly nervous marine levelling a rifle directly at her, and didn’t so much as break her death stare with the Empress as she pointed a hoof straight at the unicorn stallion “drop that rifle, you bloody girl...tougher girls than you have tried to kill me” the Tyke turned and began walking towards the unicorn, only for Reinesfell to speak up.

“I’ll give you a choice” she said, making Midnight stop, though she didn’t take her eyes off of the stallion, who still had the rifle aimed at her and looked about ready to piss himself in terror at the sight of the 7ft mare “...either Autumn retires to her quarters voluntarily and remains there for the duration of the journey, or we take her to the brig by force. You’re choice” Autumn let out a low growl, before her aggressive demeanor finally deflated and she hung her head with a sigh.

“Fine” she finally said, and with a nod from Reinesfell she was allowed to take her leave. Only once the mutated pegasus was out of sight did the Empress turn to address the rest of her friends

“I would suggest that the rest of you also retire for the remainder of the day” she said, before adding “that's a request, not an order, but I would prefer to reduce any risk of...altercations between yourself and my crew”

When the three of us returned to the deck we found that our allies were noticeably absent and I proceeded to collar Reinesfell.

“First of all, you’re down on a boiler, you have a hole in the side of the ship, and the rest of the boilers dropped their fusible plugs leaving this ship dead in the air, so you best have your engineers get on that pretty sharpish” I said counting off on my fingers, before looking around a second time, just to be sure “second...where are the others?”

“The relationship between my own crew and your friends is less than optimal” she began in a haughty tone “so I have requested they remain in their quarters whilst we work to rectify any damage” she then looked me up and down “for another thing I should not need to remind you of where you stand below me”

“Pardon?” I asked.

“You heard me, ape. Do not presume to give me orders” she said, at once Alee made to start, and I held my hand in front of her chest to physically stop her without a word. I had to pause for a moment to really choose my words carefully, and consciously reel in my own tone. When I spoke, my accent was noticeably polished up to the point when one could confuse me for someone of nobility.

“I apologise if I came across that way, the stress of battle along with the environment inside the boiler room has made me somewhat short in temperament. Elemental forces have a very real effect on me, and being exposed to that much moisture in the air has put me out of sorts” I said “I was not giving orders, I was merely outlining everything that had gone wrong for you to pass on to your own crew, to ensure as little time is spent searching for problems to rectify. As you said, you would like to ensure things run as smoothly as possible, I’m merely wishing to aid you in achieving this” the effect on Reinesfell was plain to see, she didn’t reply immediately, clearly taken aback, and blinked owlishly, before shaking her head.

“Um, yes...o-of course, thank you, you may take your leave now” she said, clearly startled enough for her carefully constructed decorum to slip for just a moment. I gave a simple nod and with that I left for the crew quarters, two clearly confused companions following behind.