It was an enriching sight to behold: A sunny blue sky peppered by just the right amount of cloud, the relaxing sound of the waves gently lapping against a pearl-white beach dotted with several large shells of different shapes, sizes, and patterns. To complete the picture, the fronds of the sparse palm trees and other vibrant greenery gently swayed and fluttered in a tropical breeze.

Suddenly, a dark spot appeared in the water a distance off the coast that slowly made its way to the beach, beginning to trail a small wake as it evidently approached the surface. Out of the water and onto the beach stepped a human wearing a black tricorn hat and undershirt with a red coat accented by golden trim and tassels distinct to a nautical officer. Interestingly, despite having freshly emerged from the sea, he didn’t appear to be trailing any water and even his perfectly windswept brighter-than-dark-brown hair didn’t show any sign of suffering from seawater.

Sloop Masters swept his gaze out onto the scene before him, appearing to take stock of the beach around him and the sheer slope of darker, rockier terrain that led into a denser cluster of greenery. He made a satisfied smirk and nodded, then brought up his right arm pulled at the sleeve to gaze at three face-like marks upon the skin of his forearm: A white coated equine with a stylish purple mane and a single straight, spiraling horn, a bright orange coated equine with a bright blond mane done in a more practical style wearing a simple stetson hat, and what looked to be a partially-featureless white mask with two hole-like eyes. Each of these faces thankfully weren’t distressed, but clearly not happy. Below each of them in wavy calligraphy was the same word: ‘Traveling’ each in a bright green color.

Sloop made a relieved expression and slipped his sleeve back into place. Then closed his eyes with a serene expression and held both of his arms extended outward. In both hands appeared his distinctively-designed arrowgun twin weapon. He then brought both arms together and placed the front end of one of them to the back of the other, and with a brief flash of light and a twist, both of them merged into a larger projectile weapon. Sloop aimed the horizontally-gripped front end upward and gave both handles a squeeze with a specific set of fingers.

From far out into the ocean with the island and its beaches, hilly grasslands with more arboreal trees, tall rocky mountains extending from the other side and their waterfalls pouring into a large lake with a few rivers snaking down the land to pour into the ocean in the distance, two bright flashes shined from the front-facing coast. From these flashes, two bright projectiles erupted skyward both with a high-pitched continuous noise, trailing streaks of the same color, and loudly erupted in the sky to send out a pair of simplistic willow effects, one slightly lower than the other.

Out in the gently curling waves of the open ocean was a solid-black boat with an unusual figurehead emerging from the apex of the bow: A humanoid upper-body with a flexible, leather-like form and a mask like the one marked on Sloop’s forearm. Percival held a hand above his narrowed eyeholes. Then they brightened up as he clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “That’s Sloop’s ‘I’m okay, it’s safe to come here’ signal!” He then twisted on the upper prow to look at both passengers in his present boat-like form. “He must have found the island where the ship and the others washed up on in the storm!”

Rarity, once again holding the end of her split-end forming mane in a hoof as she sat in Percival’s form, pouted and made a high-pitched sound. “The sooner we find my luggage and the brushes I packed for this ‘easygoing’ voyage, the better, darling!” She then sadly looked at her life vest and loudly sighed. “And this shade of orange is definitely not my color!”

Applejack tore away the gaze she desperately kept fixed on the horizon to look down with discomfort and rub her belly. “I regard myself as as hardy a pony as any… But honestly, just driftin’ like this for ‘s long as we have is startin’ to make something ache like the neck of a ram with overgrown horns in the bottom of my stomach!”

Percival’s eyes gave a look of mirth and he softly laughed in his many-layered voice. “Well then, hold on tight! Because this water taxi’s shifting into ‘Express!’” Perrival turned back forward and extended his arms outward. In six yellow flashes, his enchanted weapons appeared at his sides. With a few motions the focuses floated to the port and starboard sides of his form, three each pointing back at a different angle spreading outward. Percival then clasped both hands with a clapping sound and each focus suddenly became enveloped in a watery membrane. Holding his hands overhead for a moment he quickly brought them downward in a spreading motion and each focus began firing an intense jet of water which began to propel him and his passengers to the island at a breakneck speed.

Amid Percival’s hearty laughter, Rarity slid back to the stern with a look of terror, trying to keep herself upright by pressing against the tapering sides of the inner boat with her hooves. Applejack, however, abruptly forgot her onset of seasickness and stood up to hang onto the portside edge of the bow with her front hooves wearing an excited expression. She held onto her hat with one of her hooves to keep it in place amid the sudden salty wind, then cried out an enthusiastic “YEE-HAW!” as they all raced to the beach where the signal came from.

***

Roughly two days earlier, while maintaining his practiced nonchalant demeanor as he stood on the edge of the Silver Shoals’s docks, on the inside, Sloop was as giddy as he was when he learned his first spell as a little kid. Though he’d practiced his boatmanship in the many underground lakes and rivers in the caves within the Heart of the World, some of which being oceans in their own right, this was his first time captaining a voyage across the sea.

As images of the free open sky and the vast living woods were held in the hearts of every air and earth tribe elementals, the deep, mercurial ocean was the dream of the water tribe of Core Metro for the thousands of years they’d lived so far underground. The memory was kept alive across the generations by the endless stories of romance, discovery, and thrills their ancestors experienced every day. And now, it was his turn.

He barely suppressed an embarrassing squeal of glee like he used to do when he was an apprentice upon hearing the distinctive sound of hooves on a plank deck at the anointed time, but his intentionally daring grin fell upon turning to take a look.

A couple weeks prior, he’d heard that the ship he’d sunk in what was left of his share of the McMasters fortune to build was nearing completion, but ever since he signed the last invoice he’d been doing a lot of reading. Sea charts, oceanography, published ship logs, and economics surrounding shipping all from the last half of the millennium.

Taking all that into consideration and what he could pick up around Canterlot any opportunity he got a chance to bum a room in the castle, he’d decided what kind of voyage he wanted first, and who he wanted to crew it. Much like the socialites down in Core Metro’s Grand District, the upper crust of Equestria's capital were always on the lookout for something new and exotic so that they could reserve the right to say that they liked the next big thing before it was so popular.

So naturally, he was met with unpleasant surprise when Rarity and Applejack were followed along by three fillies running around and chanting “Tropical vacation! Tropical vacation!”

Sloop did not let his annoyance overwhelm him, but scrunched his eyes shut to pinch at the top of his nose and sigh. Then he looked back at his guests and their plus-three. “What’s this, Miss Rarity? When I told you about my idea to gather in bulk several unique species of fruits from the various desert islands off the coast of Southern Equestria, I knew you’d jump at the opportunity to help if it meant you could shmooze with potential clients for yourself at the events and dinners with those fruits at the centerpeace. And I even agreed to give a generous percentage to Applejack here if she helps with the manual labor and her experience with handling fruit. But you didn’t mention that I should have added a daycare center to my new boat!”

Rarity narrowed her eyes and made an elegant smirk, scratching under her lower jaw before pointing with her hoof. “Oh… Really, Mister Masters, then who’s that on the dock behind you?”

Sloop turned around for a moment, spotting none other than Miss June wearing a light green blazer of a tougher material open over a white tube-top with knee-length denim shorts. She spared a glance and a wave at Rarity just as she finished crunching the numbers to assess the additional passengers on a glass terminal-like archival construct floating in front of her.

Sloop turned around with a squinting-eye sneer and pointed with a thumb back at his secretary. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find good help these days? Especially willing to work pro-bono amid hard times?”

Miss June dispersed her construct in flecks of light with a flick of a mint-green manicured finger and gave a soft laugh. “I’d bet not half as hard as finding a good boss, hard enough to be willing to work pro-bono if you know they’re good for it!”

Rarity’s face brightened up at Miss June’s glance, then she gestured with a downward hoof. “It’s been ages, June dear, and you look as elegant as ever, darling! And I just love what you’ve done with your hair!”

Miss June blushed at that and made a tight smile. Shyly turning away as she fidgeted with the dark plait hanging frontward over her shoulder.

Applejack decided to take her chance to get the conversation back on track. “Rarity certainly can’t watch the Sweetie Belle and the others if she’s not home, Big Macintosh is spendin’ the whole week at his wife’s, Granny Smith is helping out with some relatives’ farm’s applebuck season while they’re shorthoofed, and Scootaloo’s Aunt Lofty’s got herself a cold and her Aunt Holiday wants her out of the house while she nurses Lofty back to health. So that’s that I s’pose.”

After confidently delivering that bit of exposition, Applejack swept out her gaze across the dock with a concerned expression. “Say… You said Percival was comin’ along too. So where is he? And while I’m askin’, where’s the boat?”

Sloop took this opportunity to put back on a confident smile, gesturing out into the open waters. “He’s turned into my likeness and is taking his turn with my new boat. He definitely has my instincts in that form, but practical experience is the best way to hone them into something useful. Just like the first two laws of the sea: Bring a backup of everything, and never take something you can’t afford to lose!”

While Rarity’s eyes went wide and she floated her luggage to unzip and take a look, Applejack trotted to the edge of the dock and peered out with a hoof held over her squinted eyes. “Uh… Where’s he sailin’ at? There’s nopony or nobody out there!”

At that, Sloop made a cocky chuckle with a fist held to his chin, making a knowing look at Miss June, who rolled her eyes with a smile and shook her head. Sloop began gesturing while looking at Applejack. “Oh, don’t worry! Considering the time, he should be back right about…”

With a quick point, a huge, dark shape appeared in the water at the edge of the dock. Applejack’s eyes went wide as she stumbled back at the water so close to her began to swell as something big began to surface.

First, Percival in the form of Sloop poked out of the water with one hand tightly gripping a spoke on a small external helm in front of him, his other hand on a supportive enclosed ring around him. Next, an airtight cabin with paned windows at the front plus portholes and a valved hatch door lined against the side surfaced with the water streaming down its inclined walls. Finally, the deck surfaced with the water easily flowing down its slight inward inclines and out of the grated hole at the bottom of the center of the gunwale. Alphonse turned and waved at the cocky and amazed crowd from the top of the just over thirty foot-long structure.

After descending to the dock on an automatically-deployed gangway, Percival and Sloop gripped each other’s shoulders in an embrace. Percival gestured at his temporary twin. “She handles just like life: a dream! A triumph of nautical engineering! But you’d know that most of all, friend!” They then shared a hearty seaman’s laugh in stereo. When Percival saw Applejack, his expression brightened, then he separated from Sloop then melted into her form in the same motion, tipping their spontaneously manifested hat. “Howdy, Applejack!”

Applejack tipped her own hat with a cocked eye. “Howdy, Perce’...” She then gave the ship a similar expression accented by rubbing the bottom of her chin with a hoof. “So… is that a boat or one a’ those fancy submarines like that really fancy colt with the beanie and air tank cutie mark uses?”

Sloop made a chuckle and extended an arm to the vessel. “That’s the beauty of it, it’s both! Supposedly, the shipwright who drafted the design once saw a rare sight during his youth as an adventurer: While swimming the underground lake in the salt-crystal pillar cave system, he supposedly saw a basking shark straight from the surface ocean and based the whole thing on how it swam through the briny water of the lake! It can pull itself through the top and bottom of the ocean with a set of fin-like oars that can correct and adapt their strokes to any conditions based on a system linked to the ballast tanks that automatically monitors the surrounding waters and any seafloor terrain through the water pressure and flow of the currents!”

Applejack’s eyes went wide as she scratched the side of her head. Though this was beyond her expertise, her range of worldly skills allowed her to understand the wonder of such a work. “Golly… I reckon’ the right cap’n could take it just about anywhere in the whole ocean, above or below!”

Percival gave his friend a big grin, appreciating the value of her praise. “You reckon’ right, partner!” They then held out a hoof pointing near the top of their side of the bow. “All she be need’n now is a name stenciled on, and she’ll be ship-shape and ready for her maiden voyage!”

Giving his new flagship (and only ship) a warm smile, Sloop dismissively waved a hand from his crossed arms. “Oh… that can wait. I just thought I’d give it a name based on a sight I’d see on its first adventure.”

At that, Percival suddenly made a very less confident expression, than craned to look at his friend with a raised eyebrow and an upturned hoof. “Uh… Isn’t that bad luck? In fact, wouldn’t most sailor folk consider that… ivitin’ disaster?”

Sloop let out an arrogant guffaw and shook a hand at his formless friend. “Anyone can tell you that to invite hardship is to bring prosperity! It only makes sense!”

At this, Percival turned all the way around to give his old friend a worried look, his words taking on a heightened tone. “Now you’re tryin’ to be all logical with superstition? Have you been drinkin’ sea water again to see if it can hydrate you as a water tribe elemental?”

Sloop made a high pitched laugh, then dropped his crossed arms with a relaxed sigh. “Don’t worry! What’s the worst that could happen?”

Suddenly, all of them were surprised by a sudden cry from the landward side of the dock. “Yoo-hoo…! Navy boy…!”

Strutting out into the jetty was Crazy Jane, with a pair of rounded sunglasses even Rarity found gaudy; wearing a hot pink waterproof robe and white bikini set that in the tactful opinions of a conflicted Sloop and Percival left nothing to the imagination. Following a close distance behind was her younger brother Crazy Joe carrying several large bags in his arms and dragging his spiked ball by the chain behind, the only addition to his underworlder attire being a straw hat he'd clearly attempted to fashion himself from the quarter of the brim made up of unwoven stalks. Behind him was a younger human boy half their height in a dark-red hoodie and baggy denim pants with the same dark complexion and white hair of the bomb elemental siblings, all tied back sticking out of the rear of his head. This new character followed along despite his downward bored gaze looking at the yo-yo he was playing with, his toy tethered to his forearm by a rigid band.

Confidently walking past everyone and everypony that quickly made way for her, Crazy Jane came to a stop in front of Sloop, who took off his hat. “Cra-! er… Miss Jane! To what do I owe this… Visit!” In spite of his calm tone and inviting expression, Percival and Miss June recognized from the rough way he twisted his hat in his hands that Sloop was fighting back a lot of tension, desperately trying not to show his displeasure.

Crazy Jane, either ignorant or indifferent, made a sassy sway and accompanying chuckle before pointing a bright-red nail at the compass elemental. “I seem to recall a little deal we made. I would peacefully rot in that big hole in the ground you lot call a prison up here for a few months, then you would take me and my cute little brothers on a nice tropical cruise, three months all expenses paid!”

At this, Sloop avoided her gaze for a moment, rolling his eyes around as he cluttered for a few moments. Then he blinked and returned her gaze. “Well, this isn’t exactly the best time for that. This is the boat’s first voyage and it’s really not supplied for pleasure. I’d intended for it to be a business venture so I could actually pay for some expenses. Besides, we’re not even supplied to stay out for a week to make room in the cargo hold!”

Crazy Jane just nonchalantly waved her hand by the wrist. “Oh… It doesn’t have to be for three months straight! I’m fine with getting my dues cumulatively, even intermittently!” She then abruptly turned around and pulled down her sunglasses to look at the youth at the back of the line. “Those are some pretty definitive words, ones you’d find in written agreements and contracts! You better remember them, Roux!” The youth didn’t change his expression, but made an acknowledging if not annoyed utterance.

Crazy Jane then replaced her sunglasses and turned back forward, pushing past Sloop to make her way up the gangplank with Joe and Roux following up. At that sight, Sloop sighed and turned his gaze downward before replacing his hat back on his head, to Rarity’s relief being completely unharmed. “At this rate, I may as well have this thing registered as a passenger vessel…” Miss June perked up at that and with a wave produced a large pane of glass and numerous chip-sized ones below it. However, as Sloop ascended the gangplank, he raised an arm with an upward-pointing finger. “Jo-king Miss June!” Miss June dispersed her archival construct with a snap of the fingers and awkwardly turned her gaze away, the cutie mark crusaders giggling at that humorous display.

Author's Note

Same as before, one chapter a week from this point, then a hiatus to start writing the next story arc.