Chapters Captain Rusty Anchor watched, his green eyes sweeping across the deck as his crew scurried back and forth, rigging lines, checking sails, and generally preparing to set off. Today seemed to be a bright and sunny day, with a little bit of cloud here and there. Perfect for sailing. Rusty was an Earth Pony, he had a copper colored coat and a blood red mane. The silver in his mane was natural, and definitely not brought on by age, and if anypony ever said otherwise he would deny it. He may have been getting into his late sixties but he was still as spry as ever, or so he said. He was captain of the Dandy Giant, the best and biggest ship the Equestrian Navy had to offer. She was a beauty, a seventy gun ship of the line, she had a full crew complement of Two hundred and Fifty, and could carry a hundred extra souls in her decks. He was proud of his ship and he knew what she was good for, she was made for fighting, for war. And she had been reduced to hauling cargo.
He sighed, that wasn't really true, she was hauling medical aid, doctors, provisions, and some guards. Hell they had all of their cargo space filled up and had the maximum amount of ponies onboard that they could support, but it still felt like a downgrade. They were being sent across the sea to the lands of the Griffins, to help them recover from a rather nasty storm that had hit their coasts. Their Kingdom was still being put back together, so they would take all the help they could get, after you got through that stupid Griffin pride of course.
"Captain" a voice came from his left, he looked over and saw his first mate, another Earth Pony named Silent Sail. With his cloud white mane and sky blue coat, and how he was constantly active and jumping around the ship, one would think he was a pegasus, the crew certainly made jokes about it. But he was a good kid, just quite young, and as all the youngsters these days, extremely hyperactive. He looked at him.
"Aye, silent?"
"We're about ready to set off Captain, we got all the supplies and ponies aboard and down below, we've got the wind at our backs, and we've nearly got the sails ready. just waiting for them to finish, and for you to say the word." He said. Anchor smiled, Sail was a good lad, why, he was pretty sure that he'd take his job in the next few years, he didn't mind, his retirement was coming up.
"Well then," he said. " Let's be getting them sails up and getting off, aye?" Sail smiled, and saluted.
"Aye Captain!" He shouted, and ran off down the steering platforms stairs, yelling to the crew to pick up their pace, with little slightly false threats laced within and between each shout. Anchor smiled once again, yes, the boy would definitely take his job, and he'd be damn good at it. He walked over to and leaned against the steering wheel. today, despite his frustration over being made into a glorified and heavily armed cargo ship, was shaping up to be a good day. Yes, he did indeed think that nothing truly bad could happen today.
Author's Note
Well, let's see how this goes. Tell me if it's good or sucks. And if I could use some help in punctuation or writing, because while I can read it I'm not certain if anyone else can.
Chapter 2 - Eye of the storm
He was wrong. He was so, so wrong. Things indeed did go bad that day. It started out quite nice, as he had expected. Just a pleasant and small voyage out of harbor, and then the beginning of a three day long journey to the Griffin Lands. Or at least, that was what it was supposed to be. What had really happened was around a three hour trip with nice weather and semi clear sky's, and then a storm had rolled in. A massive freak storm that was completely and utterly unexpected. Even the Pegasi on board hadn't sensed it until it was right on top of them, and they were fucking magically connected to the weather! Even the youngest Pegasi with absolutely no training should be able to detect this storm from miles away! It was as if it hadn't actually existed until it was on top of them.
But, that ultimately doesn't matter. What does matter is how they were going to survive this storm. They had already been battling it for over two hours and the crew was getting tired, they had had a few close calls and some ponies almost went overboard, but none had so far. And the worst part, the storm seemed to be getting worse.
"Pull the fucking lines! Somepony get on the lines!"
"We're tipping! We're tipping!"
"Hard to port! Get over that wave!"
"The fucking water pumps aren't enough! We're still sinking!"
"Barrel! Get five ponies and get below deck to start bailing! We're taking on too much water!"
Captain Anchor stared out over the ship from the quarterdeck, watching as his crew ponies scurried back and forth across the deck and from below. They were fighting hard to keep the Dandy afloat, but it seemed as though it was never enough. There was always more to do, always one more emergency cropping up at exactly the wrong time, they were lucky they hadn't lost anypony yet, mostly thanks to the tireless work of the crew. He watched as his second, Silent Sail ran from the below deck and began to ascend to the quarterdeck.
"Captain!" He called. "we're taking on too much water, and we're already quite low in the water thanks to the extra crew and cargo we're hauling! We can't bail quick enough, and the pumps are already working overtime! if we don't get higher on the water soon all our effort will have been for nothing! Sir, we need to lighten the load, we need to throw some cargo overboard."
Anchor grimaced, he trusted his second wholeheartedly, and if he said they needed to lighten the load, then they needed to lighten the load. But still, the docs and relief teams weren't gonna be happy about it.
"Do it." He said. " And if they give you any trouble, force your way through."
Sail grimaced. "Aye sir." He saluted, and ran off to do his job. Anchor sighed. If they survived this, he'd have to deal with the bloody paperwork of all that lost cargo. Fucking great, maybe being lost at sea wasn't so bad after all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sail rushed through the bowels of the ship, down one flight of stairs, then another, making it onto the third deck.
"You, you, you, you, and you!" He called to five nearby ponies, calling them over. "Powder!" He said to one of them. "Get ten other ponies and get them down here to help us throw some cargo overboard, we gotta lighten the load. The rest of you, with me!"
Powder saluted and ran off, the rest continued down to the fourth deck. As they ran they were constantly moved and buffeted around by the sharp rocking and tipping of the ship, always threatening to tip over at a moments notice. When they finally made it down to the fourth deck, they could see the extra personnel they had on board running around, trying to keep the supplies they had strapped to the wall or ground, and trying to keep from being crushed by the myriad of boxes.
Sail looked around trying to find somepony who looked like they were in charge, he eventually just grabbed one of the ponys running by.
"What's your name!?" Sail shouted, trying to overcome the sound of the boat crashing through the waves and water around them. The pony in the white doctors coat looked startled.
"I- I'm Scalpel! Doctor Scalpel!"
"Well Scalpel, tell your ponies to start removing boxes and bringing them topside, we need to throw some overboard to lighten the ships load!"
Scalpel stared at Sail for a second, in a shocked silence.
"Are you mad!?" Scalpel finally said. "Do you have any idea how much some of this equipment costs!? How much went into procuring the supplies!? Not to mention how hard it was to get the Griffins to accept them in the first place! We simply cannot-"
CRACK-A-THOOM!
CRACK, SMASH!
Scalpels ranting was interpreted by an extremely loud lightning strike, followed by an equally loud and worrying sound of cracking wood, and smashing timbers. Sail looked around wildly, looking for any sign of a beach in the hull of the ship. Seeing none, and not hearing any of the crew shouting about a breach, he looked back towards Scalpel.
"Listen doc! You got two options, you help us throw your shit overboard, or you get out of our way and we go do it ourselves! Because the third option is death! And I very much prefer to live!"
Scalpel looked around the deck wildly, shaken and sweating, seems the crash had gotten to him bad. He looked back towards Sail.
"R-right…" he managed to say, stepping back towards the cargo boxes to tell his ponies what they had to do.
"Follow him." Commanded Sail. "I'm gonna go topside and see what that crash was." The ponies around him nodded, and followed the doctor back into the maze of cargo.
Sail sprinted past crew ponies, heading towards the stairs leading up topside. He passed some more ponies led by Powder, coming down to help unload the cargo on deck four. He cleared the top deck in just over half a minute, and noticed something immediately.
"Where's the main mast!?" He shouted. The main mast was gone, not destroyed, not toppled over, gone. All that was left was a cracked and singed stump where it used to be. It seems that one of the crew ponies had hear him over the noise of the storm raging around them.
"Mast broke!" He shouted. "It was struck by lightning and fell over! Was barely hanging on! A Unicorn had to cut it the rest of the way off and push it into the water so it didn't tip us!"
"Shit!" Sail swore. "How the hell are we supposed to survive this storm now!?"
And that, is when a miracle happened. They reached the eye of the storm. Or rather, it reached them. The clouds above them began to clear up, the rain lessened, and though the waves were still rough, they weren't as choppy or high as they had been.
"What in Celestia's name?" Sail said. "Did… did we reach the eye?"
"Looks like it." He heard behind him. He turned to see Captain Anchor approaching him. "But, we really shouldn't have." He continued. "Cloudy told me the eye was still two miles south just five minutes ago, and while Dandy's fast, she certainly ain't that fast. So it seem more like the eye reached us, instead of us reaching it."
Sail thought about that, Cloudy Skies, the ships navigator. A Pegasus who had served with the Captain for longer than he had, she was not only great for navigating around the world with a map and the stars, but she was the ships weather expert too. And if she said something about the weather, she ment it, she had almost never been wrong with her predictions either. So for her to get the location of the eye of a storm this big wrong was… unprecedented, to say the least. Worrying at most, as it ment that either something was wrong with her, which was unlikely, or… something was very wrong with this storm.
"Well, no use lollygagging around form something that benefits us." The Captain started. "We need to fix up the ships hull, retighten the cargo we can keep." The Captain looked at the stump where the main mast used to be. "And find out to survive without a main mast."
Ten minutes, that's all the time that got to use. Cloudy had given them thirty, maybe forty five minutes before they left the eye, but all they got to use was ten. But, this was not because they had left the eye, no, it was something much more mysterious and... terrifying.
'A dragon, it has to be a fucking dragon.' These were Sails thoughts as he heard the loud roars that were slowing increasing, as whatever was making them got closer. 'But.' he thought. 'it hasn't stoped, even a dragon wouldn't be able to roar for a minute straight.' whatever it was, it was getting closer, and they were in no way prepared to handle it.
The crew was in chaos. Some were trying to load cannons, believing that whatever it was they could fight it off. Some were running around trying to fix up the ship, thinking that maybe they could escape it somehow, even without the main mast. And some had just broken down, crying in the middle of the deck or just going stock still, he couldn't blame them. After everything that had already happened today, there was what seemed to be a dragon coming straight towards them. The situation had just overwhelmed them, and they collapsed under it all.
Yet, as the noise got closer, it began to sound even less and less like a dragon. It sounded more, mechanical. Like the trains that ran though town sometimes back in Manehattan, but louder. Much louder. Whatever it was finally came into perspective, or, at least the outline did. Whatever it was it was blinding to look at. The sun shining down on to it and reflecting back in all directions like a shield of light. it seemed to be flying through the air, and it was metal. An airship? If it was an airship, it was not any kind of airship Sail had ever seen. It came right over the ship, the roar reached it peak. it hurt his ears. But, now there was something else, a quiet sound, in The background behind the roar. It sounded like… music? No that can't be right, who would be playing music, and why? What was it for… Sail suddenly felt an overwhelming wave of tiredness pass over him, like he hadn't slept in days. He- he needed to lie down, he was so, so… tired…
THUNK.
Author's Note
Scene/Perspective skip ~~~~~
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Chapter 3 - Close encounters of the third kind
The first thing Sail noticed was pain, horrible pain. His head felt like it was being crushed, stabbed, and liquefied all at the same time, it was worse than anything he had ever felt before. But, thankfully, it didn't last long. It only took around a minute for the pain to dull to a light but constant throbbing. Finally, being in enough of a good headspace to move, he started to slowly open his eyes, and lift his head. The first thing he saw was metal, metal, and more metal. It was everywhere. Every surface seemed to be made out of it. He lifted his head enough to look straight ahead, and saw what looked like a Unicorn shield projected over the large doorway of the room he was in. It was shimmering a faint blue, but it was also see through. What he saw through it was what seemed like a hallway stretching off to both sides past the doorway, and across from him he could see another room shielded by another faintly blue glowing barrier. There were ponies in it.
"Well, welcome back to the land of the living Sail." He heard from behind him.
"Wha-" He tried to say, his mouth felt extremely dry.
"Oh, here." Said one of the poines, handing him a plastic cup full of water. He grabbed it and chugged it. It tasted metallic, and was slightly warm, but it quenched his thirst. He sat the cup down, and took in a few breaths. Now that he was able to concentrate without pain, he managed to look around the room he was in.
The room was a box, a completely metal box. Every wall was covered in metal, he didn't know why somepony would need to use so much metal in one room of seeming non importance, but he didn't ask. The room held eight beds, four on each side wall, put into a square on each side, two above, two below. On the back wall sat a single toilet, and a single sink. The beds themselves didn't look two comfortable, all they were was a hard looking pillow-ish thing and a thin sheet on a plate of metal suspended off the wall by two cables. The beds seemed to be able to fold up against the wall. Sail looked around the room at the ponies with him.
"What happened? Where are we? Where is everypony else?" The sailor that had given him the cup looked at him, he was a Earth Pony, and he had spoken with a semi-southern drawl. He didn't know his name but he knew who he was, One of the ship's carpenters.
"Well Sail, I'll be honest, I don't rightly know what happened, where we are, or where the hell everypony else is. What I do know is we're being held captive, and if you look outta the cell we're being kept in, you can see more cells all down the hallway. Can't see the ends though."
It took a couple seconds for Sails mind to process the information, it not seeming to stick through the slightly painful haze that still encompassed his mind. When he was finally able to find his thoughts, before he could ask another question a loud clack clack clack started echoing up the hallway.
"Shit, their back." Whispered the Carpenter. Backing away from the entryway.
"What? Who's back?" Said Sail. Slowly clambering to his hooves.
From out of the entryway he could see two figures come to a stop in front of the cell across the way. They looked sort of like Abyssinians, but they were taller. They had five fingers, and five toes on their feet. They also had claws on each of their toes, all of them extended. They had goat looking horns, looked more like a cross between a raccoon and a fox than a cat, and seemed to have shorter fur.
One of the Not-Abyssinians raised their hand, and taped a small button next to the other cell's entryway. The ponies in the other cells started to sway, and then suddenly collapsed. The other cell's shield collapsed, and one of the Not-Abyssinians made their way in. The Not-Abyssinian grabbed one of the ponies from the group, a Unicorn, and started to drag them out and down the hallway. The other one put the shield back up as soon as the first was out of the cell, and then left to follow the other Not-Abyssinian down the hall.
Sail watched the whole thing, stunned. Unable to completely comprehend what he was seeing. Two creatures, unlike any he had ever seen but also very similar in many regards, just walked up to a cell full of ponies, knocked them out with some kind of magic, and dragged one off.
"W-what…?" Sail stuttered. "What just happened? Who are they? What did they just do? Why did they drag that pony off!? What are they going to do to us!? How-"
"Stop!" The Carpenter yelled, interrupting him. "Stop. Don't ask so many questions so fast, and don't yell. They don't like it when we yell, they get annoyed. And if you annoy them they start to target you."
Sail stared at him, his mind reeling from what had just happened. Sure he was a first mate, but he had only served for two years, he wasn't supposed to be doing anything big, nothing like this was supposed to happen! He didn't vocalize his thoughts, but he wasn't able to get rid of them either. So all he was able to manage in reply was a stiff nod.
"Now then." The Carpenter said. "I know you have questions, lots of them." He leaned back against the wall."So ask away." It took over a minute to get his thoughts straight, but he managed to.
"What… What just happened? Where did they take those ponies? And what are they?"
The Carpenter sighed. "Let's start with what they are so we got something to call em. Since we can't actually understand em, we call 'um Foxcoons, cus, y'know, they look like a fox fucked a raccoon. Now to what just happened and where they were taken, well, we don't know where they were taken. Noponies ever awake for it so we ain't got any info on that. In fact the rest of the ponies still in the cell are usually still asleep by the time the one taken gets dragged back. Whatever they use to knock ponies out is powerful and leaves a mighty headache. But what just happened was them coon fellers came by and decided that one of those ponies was right for some kind of experiment of theirs. They knock out all the ponies using who knows what, and take one to who knows where to do stuff to em for who knows why. Most return, some don't. And those that do usually have a few new scars that they didn't have before."
The Carpenter paused to catch his breath, and stared at Sail with a serious expression. "As for if that could happen to us. It could. And there's fuck all we can do to stop it."
Sail stared back for a second, then sighed and sat down.
"Well… Fuck."
Rusty Anchor sighed, he didn't know if he was able to call himself Captain anymore. He had no ship, and sure he may have had a crew, but he had no true idea where most of them were. He assumed that they were further down the hallway his cell was connected to, but they could have been split up. Maybe only half his crew was here and half was somewhere else. Maybe only half of his crew was still alive.
But, no true use pondering those questions. They wouldn't help at all in the current situation. He went back to staring at the slightly blue glowing shield in front of him, trying to find a way to interrupt or break it. Or just find where it originated from. One of the Unicorns tried to blast through it with all his power, all it did was give him a case of magic drain. After a few more minutes spent just staring at the shield and thinking, he gave up once again. He hadn't thought of anything the last hundred times. He wouldn't figure anything out this time.
He turned around to look at the other ponies occupying his cell with him. He knew all of them, but the one he focused on was the yellow furred black maned Earth Pony huddled in the corner. He was currently being comforted by two others, and he was shivering. Rusty walked over to them.
"How's he doing?" He asked one of the ponies. A dark blue maned and lighter blue furred Pegasus stallion by the name of Wave Crest.
"He's doing better." Said Wave. "But he's still shivering badly, and loud noises still make him jump. But it's better than he was."
Rusty slowly shook his head. Three days ago the yellow pony, by the name of Sunray, was taken by the Foxcoons. But by the time they had all woken up, he still hadn't come back. It was two more hours before he had returned. He was awake, kicking and screaming, and crying his eyes out. He Was being pulled by four different Foxcoons, which was more than they had ever seen at once before. Now normally, if everypony is awake by the time the Foxcoons come back with the ones they take, they knock them all out again. But this time they just deactivated the field and tossed him in. Nopony was able to do anything anyway because they were all too shocked at what they were seeing.
When the Foxcoons turned the shield back on and left, one of the ponies had tried to approach Sunray, but he lashed out, punching the pony across the face and retreated into the corner of the room. Sobbing his eyes out. They tried to get closer, but Everytime they did, he would just buch up and start screaming for them to go away. To took a couple hours for him to stop sobbing constantly, and over a day to allow anypony to approach. During all this time, the Foxcoons observed them. Usually one would come down and watch through the cell shield, sometimes two. But they always focused on Sunray. Sometimes if there were multiple they would yip to each other in that weird language of theirs, but nothing could be discerned from their conversations. When they did talk, Sunray would always sink deeper into the corner he had claimed as his.
They had finally got him to talk about what happened only two hours ago. According to him what happened was that after being knocked out, he had been woken up in a round metal room. They had strapped him to a slab of metal and flipped it upside down. He couldn't move his head or any of his hooves, so he could only see what was in front of him, which was the ground. Weirdly, while his body had been strapped to a metal sheet, his head had instead been sealed in a loop of metal that held it in place and stoped him from moving it. The reason for this soon became clear, as he felt a sharp point being put against his flesh just below his skull where his brain stem was. When asked to describe what happened next, he started to shiver and sweat, and his eyes gained a vacant look. All he said was "They put something in me.".
He said that after that, he doesn't remember much of what happened till they got back to the cell. The doc that's with us, named Bloody Cut, says that this is probably his mind intentionally forgetting and sealing away memories so as to be able to still function. I'm inclined to agree with him. Now though, he's also said that he's able to actually understand the Foxcoons! Or at least get the gist of what their talking about. He said he started noticing it yesterday. That sometimes when the watching Foxcoons started talking that he could at first understand a word or two, then a whole sentence, then basically the entire conversation. He doesn't know how this is happening or why, but guesses it has something to do with the thing they put in his neck.
He says that they talk about or make references to him mostly. That they mention him as "Subject 37", and talk about how "the experiment must have failed." And shit like that. Once again he doesn't know what they mean, but guesses it has to do with the thing inside his head. One of the Unicorns we have with us, a stallion by the name of Crackling Spark, took a guess and said that whatever they put in his head is like a Magi Crystal. Something that can hold a spell. And the spell this one holds is a translation spell. But the kicker is that it didn't work as intended. He guesses it was supposed to be two way translation, but it's only working one way. Like the doc, I'm inclined to agree with Sparks guess. Spark was one of the ships resident mages, experts in all things glowy and magical. And if he says it's a translation spell, then it probably is. Though, he doesn't know what kind of translation spell would need to be put on a Magi Crystal and then put into someponies body to work, as they work just fine on their own.
Rusty Anchor was shaken out of his thoughts by a metallic squeal, he looked over to the back wall of the cell and saw a small hatch open up in the wall. Through it fell multiple sealed packets of a substance that the sailors had come to recognize as the only food they were served. Three times a day, everyday, the same bland tasting mush in a bag. They weren't even given spoons, they either had to stick their muzzles in the bag to eat, or squeeze it out onto their tongues through a small hole they rip in the bag with their teeth. Rusty sighed as he grabbed his packet. They had been trapped for over a week, or what they guessed was a week, and they haddent found anyway out of this situation. It seemed like things couldn't get any worse.
He was once more distracted from his musings by the sound of the door in the hallway opening. He looked up to see two Foxcoons walking through it. They were one of the closest cells to the door of the hallway, so they were always one of the first to notice when something was happening. His eyes didn't move away from the hall, he was waiting to see who they would drag back with them. He had see everypony they had draged away, and he committed all their names to memory, just in case they didn't come back. Crystal Hammer, Shield Shard, Powder Keg, Rolling Barrel, Twisted Wire, and more. They had never come back. He waited to see which poor bastard they dragged off this time, praying all the while that they would come back. He heard the distinct clack clack clack of the Foxcoons always extended claws, and watched them as they came into view. The pony they were dragging, it was Silent Sail.
"...Shit…"
Author's Note
Wanted to share the song that inspired this story, and still makes me think of more things every time I listen to it.https://youtu.be/3Gc1MVz-sqA
Also should probably have mentioned this earlier but this may be a slow burn story
Chapter 4 - Red Lightning
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. 