Moby-Spike

Moby-Spike

Chapter 4: The Ghost Ship, Part 2

Continued from last diary entry

Ghost ponies. As far as I knew, they were just a myth. My entire life, I’d been told that when ponies died they were sent to Celestia’s kingdom in the sky for eternity. The ponies that were bad in life were sent to suffer in solitude alongside Discord in a realm of darkness, and that was that. But there I was, looking right into dead eyes.

The ghost slowly flew off the ship, unblinking eyes staring me down. They were almost as bad as Fluttershy’s stare. The other ponies on board immediately started freaking out. Some jumped ship, forgetting to lower the life boat in their hurry. Derpy and Rainbow Dash huddled at the top of the lookout post, shivering in fear.

I could have moved if I wanted to. I’m pretty sure I could have. But I just stood still while that ghost floated directly towards me. I was certain I was about to die. I shut my eyes and covered my face with my hooves, waiting to wake up and see my grandparents in the sky. But nothing happened. I didn’t die (thank Celestia), and I didn’t even feel anything at all. I moved my right hoof over my eye, and took a peek to see what was happening.

The ghost pony was still there, hovering in his special creepy way. More ghost ponies were moving around the ship now, scaring the crew even more. I could just hear Dash squeak; she must have been really afraid of ghosts.

But when I stood up, the ghost did nothing. It just kept floating, looking at me. I tilted my head in confusion; why wasn’t it eating me? Or killing me, or doing something besides just looking at me? I had to find out why it wouldn’t do anything.

“Um, are you…alright?”

No response, outside of a brief and quiet moan. Out of curiosity, I decided to touch it. Nothing bad was going to happen, I figured. And nothing did. I carefully reached my hoof towards the ghost, and got exactly what I expected. My hoof went right through, like there was nothing there in the first place. I waggled my hoof around inside him, hoping for some reaction. I wanted him to do something, even if he was going to attack me. I had plenty of defensive spells I could try if he attacked.

But he didn’t. He just kept looking at me, as if expecting me to know what to do right then and there. And then I realized something; he was waiting for me. I didn’t know what he was waiting for, but I knew he came aboard expecting me to do something. But what? I retracted my hoof from him, and began pacing around his floating body. Maybe he wanted me to attack him first? Maybe he wanted our treasure? Did he want us to help him sack the mainland or something? I had no idea what a ghost pony could possibly want that he couldn’t already take, so I sighed and sat down to gather my thoughts.

Rainbow Dash solved my problem for me. It was her that shouted from up above,

“W-w-what do you want from u-us?”

I looked up, to see that Dash had gotten back some of her courage while snuggled up next to Derpy, who stayed hidden out of fear. Finally, something happened. The ghost pony moaned once more, and looked inside his ship. He wanted us to go in his ship!

But I still didn’t trust him. What if he wanted us to go in there so he could trap us? He could torture or kill us in there; he was a ghost, after all. I wasn’t the captain though, so I raised my head back towards Dash.

“I think he wants us to go inside, captain Rainbow Dash. What should we do?”

She stopped her quaking for a few seconds, and put a hoof to her chin. Eventually, she turned to Derpy and whispered something to her, and Derpy then nodded. Dash puffed out her chest and pulled out her wooden sword, swooping down to the deck by my side.

“I’ll go inside, Twi. I’m the captain of this ship, and I’ll be able to handle this varmint if he tries anything funny.”

She smirked with pride, and started trotting towards the hole in the ghost ship’s side. I tried to convince her not to go inside; surely my magic would be better for dealing with ghosts, right? But she refused, and pushed me away the more I tried to protest. She disappeared inside the ship, and the ghost pony floated inside right behind her. I bit my bottom lip; what if this was the last time I would ever see Rainbow Dash? There were so many things I wanted to say right then.

There was silence from inside the ghost ship for a few minutes. I could only hear faint grumbles from Rainbow Dash about the ship being really old and dirty.

You’re one to talk about dirty, Dash. I've seen your house, and it’s no clean paradise either.

Eventually, I started to consider running inside after Dash. There was no way whatever she was doing in there would take this long, unless it was sinister. I walked up to the hole, my heart beating heavily through my chest. There was a good chance if I went in there, I would die and join the ghost crew. I gulped, and lit my horn with a little magic.

Right before I entered, I heard Rainbow Dash call out to me.

“Hey, Twi! Come in here, we need your help with something.”

I let out a huge sigh; at least she was okay. I went inside the ship as she ordered, and followed a trail of hoof prints she had left. Strangely, the ghost ship supported my weight, even though I should have fallen right through it.

Something isn’t right here.

The trail led to a door, which I tried to open. But things just kept getting weirder when my hoof went right through the knob. This ship made absolutely no sense; parts of it were solid, but that ghost pony could float through whatever the buck he wanted to.

I sighed, and walked right through the door. Dash and the ghost pony were waiting inside what looked like an engine room. A huge metal engine that looked older than Celestia was jammed into the center of the room where Dash was waiting. I ran up and hugged her, but she just smiled and lightly pushed me off of her.

“Whoa, matey. There’s no need to have been worried; it’s not like this guy could’ve smacked me around anyway.”

Relieved, I asked her what I was needed for.

“Well, this guy’s engine is fueled by magic, ya see. He’s on empty, so he needs you to re-fill him with some of yer magic. Think ya can handle it?”

I took a look at the only meter on the massive contraption, and noticed it was on “E.” Not wanting to have to spend much more time on a creepy ghost ship, I powered up my horn, and started squeezing energy into the engine. It filled up faster than I expected, so I stopped using my magic once the meter looked to be full. The ghost pony moaned, as if to say “thanks.” But I still had some questions.

“You’re not a unicorn ghost, so why have an engine powered by magic? Why didn’t you just get some other unicorn ghosts to join your crew? Why can you phase through things, but parts of your ship can’t? And how is your engine storing magic, when I can put my hoof right inside of it?”

While I said this, I wiggled half of my body inside the engine, and felt nothing while I did it. The ghost pony gestured back to the meter, so I looked up at it again. I noticed something in fine print, just at the bottom of the meter.

Magic engine courtesy of Discord, god of chaos. Presence of this engine may cause special fluctuations, and loss of a grip on reality. If you are unsatisfied with this product, please scream horseapples at it until an octopus comes along to deal with your complaints. Toodles.

I gasped. Discord had been sealed up for years; how could he have made a magic engine? I peeked at the date of manufacture; it was just a few years ago. That meant that Discord had somehow made this entire ship go into chaos, all while trapped in stone. When I left, he was still in that garden, in that same pose. Something was really wrong. I tried to ask the ghost pony how he encountered Discord, but of course he was a ghost, and couldn’t answer me. I sighed, and led Dash off the ghost ship.

The moment we got off, the ship lifted into the air a little, and started drifting away. A minute later, the ghostly fog went away, and our crewmates started peeping out from their hiding places. Derpy flew down from her post, and enveloped us in a group hug. She was crying, and kept babbling about how happy she was to see us safe, but we couldn’t understand her because she kept talking in between sobs. Dash struggled her way out of the hug, and flew into the air, bellowing,

“When did I tell y’all that ya could slack off? No ghost ship is keepin’ us from our treasure! Keep on course for the Lemon Grotto, ya swabbies!”

The entire crew zipped into place, including Derpy. She wiped her eyes, smiled softly at me again, and flew up to her position. The ship set sail, and I predict we’ll reach the grotto by morning.

I’m still wondering about Discord. This is the second time I’ve found out his chaos magic has corrupted something since I left Ponyville, and I’m determined to find out what he’s up to and how he’s doing all this. The last time Discord got out, I nearly lost all my friends. I looked up at Rainbow Dash, that usual cocky smile plastered over her pirate’s face.

This time, I’ll be ready. I’m not going to lose the few friends I have left. Even if it kills me.