Canterlot Academy Trials

When the group arrived at Pollux’s ship, they found that the mouse beastwoman had actually come clean and admitted to her entire ploy. Their entire time on the sea together for the past decades had been nothing but a way for her to line her pockets with extra gold while they weren’t her priority.

The end result? Beaten within an inch of her life.

“I can’t believe you!” a hedgehog beastman yelled.

“You’re no better than the ones who sold us off!” a porcupine beastwoman yelled.

“I wish I never followed you here! I can’t believe this…” a capybara beastwoman started to sob.

“There’s nothing you can do to make up for this,” a possum beastman screeched. “I hope ye rot in Davey Jane’s locker!”

Pollux coughed as she was bound by rope on the side of the deck with bruises in her eyes. “...you all are nothing without me! I’m the one who made ye into this crew! You can’t just toss that away! No matter how hard ye try!” she said with a hysteric cackle, trying to fight off how much pain she was in.

Eastman would then have something to declare. “...I vote for Marrow to be our captain.”

“W-wait, me?!” the rat man squeaked with his ears quivering. “A-are you sure that’s a good idea guys?”

The badger first mate would nod, “Of course. You were the one who risked your life for us. Came for us even before you found out the truth.” He then glanced at the rest of the rodentfolk who were all nodding in agreement, “I cannae think of no one better to lead us than the Barbarossa himself. Who’s with me?!”

“AYE!” the rest of the crew raised their swords and shouted in agreement.

“...O-oh! Well…if you insist…” Marrow got his fiddle and started to play a few notes, smiling once he noticed Nebula and the rest of his team board. The stallion would nod back at him, and Marrow felt a fiery passion burn in his heart as he got ready to play. “On the first order of business as the new captain…I’m makin’ music completely acceptable full time!”

“ORRAH!” everyone on the crew cheered in unison, then the capybara woman would appear next to Marrow, standing at three times his size with a shy look on her face as she held a horn in her paws.

“...Mind if I join in C-captain Marrow?”

“Oh not a problem, Layna! And-a one, and-a two…!”

As the ship set sail away from the Fragmentation Isles, Marrow would start up a song that the rest of the crew immediately knew the words to and joined in on.

“O ye faces of the sea…!”
“Calming waves and storms as violent as can be!”
“We fight for our lives!”
“And from here, we’ll thrive!”
“Soldiers of fortune are we!”

Blue started clapping along to the music, and snickered as he watched Pollux seething nearby. “Pffft. What a fuckin’ loser.” He then nudged Nebula with his elbow, causing the stallion to flinch ever so slightly--

“Ow, hey--”

“Dude, you should totally join in!”

Nebula shook his head in a modest manner. “...Yeah I don’t think so. This is their moment of liberation. Let them have it, Blue.”

Gloomtail then thought of something rather important. “Oh yeah, by the way. I think you should hold onto this.” He offered Nebula the case that contained the flute that Pollux had played on a bit earlier. “Don’t worry, I cleaned it. But I think you could get more mileage out of this than anyone else could.”

Grimrose glared at him for a moment. “...this isn’t some sort of ruse is it?”

“I don’t really have much of a reason to try and deceive you guys, honestly,” Gloomtail replied with a shrug of his shoulders, “But I can understand.”

Nebula accepted the flute case in his magic, and felt it resonate with his recorder. “...this is…”

“...something wrong, Nebula?” Mei asked as she glanced at the instrument from over his shoulder.

Just then, in a flash of white magic, his recorder and the flute floated into the air involuntarily, and fused with each other, creating a carbon-fiber silver-ivory flute that was more fit for his pony-sized lips as a result.

“...what the f--” Blue muttered as he watched the two instruments fuse, “...that’s on some funky shit right there.”

“It’s a performa,” Mei corrected with an upward tilt of her glasses, “Magic that’s granted to highly skilled performing artists. Duh. Was I the only one who was awake during the Arts class?”

“...shuddup,” the blue dragon coughed.

“I’ve heard of this,” Nebula muttered as he fit the new flute into his leg’s holster, “I wonder what sort of symphony it’ll create…”

Eventually, when they arrived at the dragon lands, the group would arrive at Smolder’s castle where the respective criminals would be imprisoned and await further trail as their charges were calculated.

“...holy shit,” Smolder chuckled from her throne, sitting in it sideways with her legs hanging over the arm of the seat, “So the person I thought was helping you guys out turned out to be a bigger sleaze than the guy I sent you after.” She changed her tune to a more sympathetic one as she glanced at Nebula’s team, “Sorry about that. I…had no idea.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mei replied, “We handled everything swiftly and accordingly. Even found a few treas--”

Nebula bumped the side of her body with his hoof to cut her off, “Ahem…we took possession of certain objects that we found to be of no use.”

Mei huffed, “...bruh--”

“Hey that’s fine by me,” Smolder replied with a shrug of her shoulders, “Seems that Gloomtail had no idea what was going on either. Pollux is going away for a long time though. You can trust me on that.”

Marrow smiled proudly, “Good. From now on, the SS Apodemus will be under the control of my paws for the sake of everyone, not just myself.”

“Hey, so what about Gloomtail?” Blue asked, “He didn’t seem to be all that bad once we got to know him.”

“Yeah funny you mention that,” Smolder went on, “We placed some of those griffons in prison for what they did, but the dragons working with him didn’t really do anything wrong except fight you guys. So we’re letting him off with a supervised warning, assuming he works to use his blood for medical purposes instead of personal profit.”

“Sounds like everything’s in order then,” Nebula replied with a nod, “We’ll need to rest for a bit before we head out for Kobold Canyon. Where’s that located again?”

Smolder reached behind her throne and pulled out a map that was imprinted on a scroll. She squinted at it before realizing it was upside-down and flipped it around. “Ah. Let’s see…there it is. Yeah, now I remember. Kobold Canyon isn’t actually part of our territory.”

“It’s not?” Nebula raised a brow.

Blue snapped his fingers, “That’s right. It was a joint owned location with Trotsylvania.”

That’s when Grimrose finally looked up from her book and spoke aloud. “...my hometown?”