Shark(tocrab)tavia 8: Diet Hard with a Vengeance
“I’ll have the seafood sampler platter.”
“Certainly, ma’m. And for you?”
“Uhh… how about some mozzarella sticks?”
“Will that be all?”
The two ponies at the booth nodded. Satisfied, the server departed.
Vinyl Scratch waited a moment for the server to leave earshot of their booth. “Tavi,” she hissed, “what are you thinking? You know seafood doesn’t exactly agree with us.”
“That’s why we’re here? Honestly, I know it’s a shame to spoil an all-expenses-paid vacation like this, but strings were attached. The fishing boats are reporting more frequent and closer disturbances; I’m confident that the attack will take place within the next twenty-four hours, so I might as well be prepared for it.
“Now, the Horseshoe Bay area is rather large and I can’t predict where exactly they’ll surface…” Octavia put on a gentle smile and teased, “Do you want some of the scallops? A bite of fish, perhaps?”
Vinyl sighed. “Does it come with any shrimp?”
Octavia nodded. “Jumbo.”
“Alright.”
Once again, the attack started with a rumble, a few odd ripples in the water, and the screams of ponies as they fled away from the dreaded Something in the water.
Rarity sighed. Things were happening exactly as she expected, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t find the brutal death of her peaceful vacation any less disappointing. In a few more moments, about two to six oversized crabs would break the surface of the water and start swinging their claws around. She had learned the first time that they liked bright and shiny things, which roughly translated to “brightly colored unicorn”.
She rolled onto her hooves, picked herself up off her blanket, and pulled out a few contemporary essentials from her beach bag: a white sapphire-studded quarterstaff to match her coat and cutie mark and a pair of leg band holsters – also white – with about a dozen sapphire shards held by each. She quickly slipped the leg bands on and started for the crabs.
The first one had just made it to dry land. It noticed Rarity long before she had gotten close to it. She didn’t want to sacrifice all her momentum, so she kept a close eye on its claws so that she could dodge the first swing. When she got close enough, she lunged for it, clearing the small claw that shot towards her.
“Hyaa!”
The metal tip of her quarterstaff landed with the satisfying crackle that she had hoped for. Rarity retreated a few steps as the crab retaliated with its larger claw.
Behind the plume of sand raised by the crab’s missed swing, Rarity saw that several more crabs had surfaced; there were almost a dozen of them bumbling dangerously about now.
Rarity plucked a shard from a leg band with her telekinesis and shot it into the newly formed crack in the crab’s armor. It shrieked as it dropped, something which Rarity had always found peculiar. She didn’t think that normal crabs even had vocal chords.
That was one down. Some of the others had just reached shore a small ways down the beach. Rarity stole a second to frown before charging towards them. She had to keep them from passing the sand, something that had been tricky enough that first time she had to stop a mere three giant crabs. This time, she had at least eight more to go.
The next crab turned when she got close and gave her what she imagined was “kind of a sideways glance”. Nevertheless, Brightly Colored Unicorn Syndrome took effect and the crab started to scuttle towards her. Rarity used to take pride in being the shiniest, most interesting thing thing around, but when the attention came from big dumb crustaceans, it seemed more of a bad joke. At the very least, her influence hadn’t yet failed to turn them away from potential property damage.
Rarity teased the crab with her movements until it invested in an especially hard swing. She rolled around the threatening claw, cursed the existence of sand, and put her weight into a counterattack of her own. The staff made contact with the underside of the crab as planned. Rarity smiled as she sealed the fate of the second crab, accelerating another gem shard through the weakened spot.
The quarterstaff and its enchantments had made for a cheaper option to breaking a giant crab’s armor than enchanting each sapphire shard to hold a sharp enough point without shattering, even if it did reduce her combat range.
The third crab fell to the same tactic. After that, Rarity waited at the edge of the shore for the next one to approach. Regrettably, another crab or two seemed to have surfaced and the now-baker’s dozen of them had spread out some. It wasn’t a wide spread compared to the size of the crabs, but compared to the size of a pony, Rarity figured that she had some jogging in her future.
She entertained one of her less exciting thoughts again: she could meet them out in the water. That sparked an internal debate about whether it would be worth getting soaked. Owing to her personal biases, she settled on using her magic to create a bright light to attract the crabs’ attention.
She hadn’t fully gathered her magic or settled on the proper spell when one of the crabs suddenly dropped. It flailed around for a few seconds before something appeared to impact it a second time. Then it stopped moving entirely.
Rarity watched where the crab had fallen. Clearly, something in the water had brought it down, but she hadn’t seen anything in the water put up a fight against the crabs before. Usually “something in the water” just meant more crabs.
Rarity watched for a moment, wondering – if there really were some unseen ally – which of the remaining twelve crabs would be targeted next.
Then there was more rumbling. Rarity saw another one of the crabs suddenly keel out of the corner of her eye, but her attention had been captured by the shadow rising to the surface of the water, preceded by a strong surge of water. The sound of it finally breaking the surface was concussive.
Rarity gaped at the sight: the form stood a little under twice as tall as the crabs themselves, and it took her a good minute for her mind to play catch-up and properly identify what she was looking at. The new creature had the face of a shark – a hammerhead, if she had it right – and the body of a giant crab. This one was a little more blue than the tan-to-red variety she usually fought. She could have wrapped her head around that much without too much difficulty, if not for the several massive tentacles emerging from its latter half.
Rarity’s heart sank. It was also part crab, and it was her best guess that it was on their side. If she saw correctly, the something-else that had taken two crabs down was actually something else. Maybe they would fight and leave her with the crustaceans she knew how to fight?
The new shark-crab-octopus, which Rarity decided to shorten to “sharktocrab”, half-scuttled half-crawled with its tentacles surprisingly quickly. It surprised Rarity that the tentacles were actually by far the most graceful half of the motion. It turned out that her fears were short lived, and so was the nearest crab. The sharktocrab picked up the giant crab with several tentacles, raised it overhead, and brought it down with enough force that Rarity could feel the shock as far away as she was, through the sand.
All of the other crabs stopped. In unison, they turned to the new threat. All Rarity could do was watch as two more crabs were cut down by the yet-unseen force underwater before they reached the sharktocrab, and then as the sharktocrab brutally crushed through their armor with its own claws, tore various limbs off, and bit into whatever still moved.
Then it was over. The giant sharktocrab retreated into the water, leaving behind floating chunks of crab meat, shell fragments, and an oddly peaceful beach.
Rarity closed her gaping mouth.
“Well. Far be it from me to complain about Nature cleaning up after herself.”
“Seriously, you know it’s a pain when you slam them into the water, right? Some of us swim down there.”
“Oh, hush. I didn’t turn me into a mareshark.” Octavia opened her menu and continued nonchalantly. “So, wasn’t that one of your Ponyville neighbors fighting the crabs?”
“Yeah, and speaking of, here she is right now. Rarity!” Vinyl waved.
After Rarity made her way over from the restaurant entrance, Vinyl continued. “What are you doing here? After fighting the crabs off, I mean.”
“I was feeling adventurous. I hear this place serves an excellent seafood platter.”
“Oh. Care to join us, dear?” Octavia asked. “I’m pretty sure we have a lot to talk about.”
“If you insist.” Rarity took a seat. “What brings you two out to the Horseshoe Bay?”
“Crabs,” the two ponies replied.
“You mean the giant ones?”
Octavia nodded. “Oh, yes. They’ve been getting more prolific. We were actually hired by several of the tourist attractions around here, including this one, to chase them off.”
Rarity cocked her head thoughtfully. “Funny you should say that; I have an uncanny knack for being right where they attack. After my second encounter with them in Manehattan, Celestia arranged for me to do much the same wherever crabs are suspected to appear. She commissioned some of the finest artisans to make some of my equipment too. It would have cost a dragon’s fortune otherwise. I’m surprised we haven’t met like this already.
“Now, pardon my asking, dear, but how exactly did you attempt to chase them off this time?”
“Last night, I ordered the seafood platter,” Octavia replied. “This wouldn’t be interesting in the slightest, except that I’m part mareshark.”
“You what?”
“The rumors that they exist are true, yes. Anyway, eating seafood triggers… that.”
“We’re actually both part mareshark,” Vinyl volunteered. “I, uh, actually turned her when we first met. I didn’t mean to, but when you’re a shark and you get hungry…. You know?”
“Honestly, I haven’t the faintest.” Rarity turned to Octavia again. “What do you mean part mareshark?”
“That’s a long story. Suffice it to say that I stopped several of those crabs myself.”
Vinyl beamed. “I call her ‘Sharktocrabtavia’ when she’s like that. She’s freakin’ amazing.”
Rarity’s mouth fell open. “You… How could that possibly be…?”
Vinyl shrugged it off. “Do you know anything about the creep behind the crab attacks?”
“You mean they aren’t natural phenomena?”
Vinyl snickered.
Octavia just sighed. “They most certainly are not. We have other motives for repelling the crabs, as it happens. Allow me tell you about one of the oldest forces of evil in the oceanic underworld: the Squizard.”
Author's Note
You can blame Wizards of the Coast, FanofMostEverything, and PresentPerfect for this. Also CoffeeMinion for the title I borrowed. You can see all the evidence here.
I realized, after I got sucked into writing this, that I am oddly qualified to write an MtG card-prompted story about Rarity fighting giant crabs.
