G5 Adventures in Muppet Treasure Island

The night was cold, dark and cloudy, with a chance of rain lingering in the air. A cozy building sat on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean, known as the Admiral Benbow Inn to all those who stayed here and drank at the pub during the day.

A shimmering portal opened up outside the inn, and the Mane 6 stepped out of it to get a good look at their surroundings. “Huh… definitely doesn’t look like a place that we’ve ever been in before,” frowned Zipp as she scanned the surroundings with her visor. “It looks like some sort of inn.”

“I wonder who the Unity Crystals want us to help here,” Misty said in thought just before Pipp groaned. “Whoever we’re supposed to help, I hope THEY can help ME get some service on this phone of mine!”

“Um… excuse me, good ponies.”

The Mane 6 swiftly turned around at a soft, timid voice, and there was another pony standing in the doorway of the inn. It looked to be a young pegasus mare, with soft violet eyes, a pink coat with darker pink feathers on her wings, a blue, green and purple mane and tail (though her mane was a bit short), and a cutie mark of a treble clef.

The pegasus approached them with a kind expression. “Pardon me for interrupting, but… I wanted to ask if you all needed a place to rest. It looks like you’re a bit tired from whatever journey you’ve been on.”

“Well, if you don’t mind,” said Sunny, “we’d love a place to rest up before we have to find our mission. Is this your inn?”

“Oh, no… me and my friends just work here,” the pegasus shook her head. “It’s actually owned me a woman named Mrs. Bluveridge, who feeds us and provides us with a roof over our heads. Oh, sorry… where are my manners? I’m Harmony Oceansong. And… you are?”

“Sunny,” the earth pony mare shook Harmony’s hoof. “And this is Hitch, Izzy, Zipp, Misty and Pipp.”

Harmony smiled politely and bowed to them. “It’s a pleasure to meet you… wait,” she paused, looking at their unique cutie marks. “Your cutie marks… they’re familiar to me somehow. Like I’ve heard of them in the stories that my friends have told me.”

“Hey, Harmony!” called a voice. “Everything okay out there?”

“Yeah!” said a second voice. “It’s freezin’ in here!”

Misty gasped upon hearing those voices. “It’s Gonzo and Rizzo, guys! Come on!”

The Mane 6 rushed toward the inn at top speed, leaving Harmony to blink, a bit confused, before clearing her head and flying after them.

XXXXXXXX

“Gonzo? Rizzo?” Misty called as the Mane 6 looked around the Benbow Inn. “Are you here?”

Gonzo, a blue-furred creature with a curved nose, and Rizzo, Gonzo’s best rat friend, looked up from their world upon hearing such a familiar voice. “Holy provolone!” Rizzo cried out with a smile. “It’s our old pony pals!”

“Man, this is such a surprise!” Gonzo said as he hugged Sunny and Misty tight. “What are you guys doing here?”

“We’re here for our latest Unity Quest mission,” Sunny explained. “What are you and Rizzo doing here at this inn?”

“They’re the friends I told you about,” Harmony told her new friends with a smile. “Oh, and there’s one more-- Jim! Jim, you have to come and meet Gonzo and Rizzo’s friends!”

Out of the back came a young blonde-haired boy in old-fashioned clothes that Pipp would have described as… quaint, but his smile seemed genuine. “Jim Hawkins, please welcome Sunny, Izzy, Misty, Pipp, Hitch and Zipp-- some old pals of ours,” Gonzo introduced the ponies. “Guys, this is Jim Hawkins!”

“Pleased to meet you all,” Jim said, shaking their hooves politely. “Have you come for a visit?”

“In a way. We’re sort of on a mission right now, and since we’re here, we might as well catch up on what all we’ve been through since the last time we saw you,” Hitch said with a chuckle. “Do you think it’s possible for Mrs. Bluveridge to let us stay here?”

“Ohhh… I bet if you guys earn your keep around here,” Harmony said hesitantly, “I suppose it wouldn’t be such a big deal.”

“A big deal for what, lassie?”

A huge, fat woman with long black hair came out from the kitchen, causing Harmony to squeak in surprise. “How in the world does she do that…?”

“Um… Mrs. Bluveridge, these are Gonzo and Rizzo’s old friends,” Jim said politely, although a bit nervously as well. “They were wondering if they could stay here for a little bit, until they complete their mission, of course.”

“You mean… for free?” Mrs. Bluveridge asked with a raised eyebrow. “What do you take me for, a fool?”

“We would be willing to give you as much money as we have,” Zipp said, “and we could help our friends with their chores around here too.”

“Please?” Izzy asked Mrs. Bluveridge with a sweet voice. “We really don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Mrs. Bluveridge seemed to consider this for a few moments. Sure, a few extra helping hooves would be pretty helpful, especially with all these customers.

And the white pegasus did say that they would give her what money they had on them.

So eventually, the woman let out a sigh. “All right… you start immediately, and can sleep in Harmony’s room,” she said. “Now get to work! There’s dishes to be collected and tables to be cleaned!”

“Yes, ma’am!” Hitch saluted quickly before the woman walked out of the room, honestly frightening Hitch with her stern attitude. “Well, you can stay,” Rizzo smiled. “But I have a feeling she’s gonna be extra hard on you all due to your new nature.”

“We’ll be fine, Rizzo,” Misty brushed off. “Just show us what to do, and we’ll tell you all about what we’ve been up to the past few months.”

XXXXXXXX

The Mane 6 were quickly put to work alongside their friends, old and new, tending to the customers and cleaning up after them while telling Gonzo, Rizzo, Jim and Harmony all about the adventures that they had been on over the past few months.

But while they weren't telling their own stories or when they weren't working, the ponies found a comforting spot in the inn to listen to stories that the customers in the pub had to offer.

One of those gentlemen was a scallywag by the name of Billy Bones, who was rumored to be first mate to a fearsome pirate captain named Marcus Flint.

And on this very night, Billy Bones recounted one of his most classic and terrifying tales, and the Mane 6 had a front row view to everything. “I was Flint's first mate that voyage, three days east of Tortola in the Caribie,” Billy began the tale. “Flint knew an island. That's where we buried the treasure. Gold and blood, they were Flint's trademarks. He'd leave both behind him that day.”

And as she continued to listen to the tale, Sunny actually began to see a vision of that faithful day play out in her mind, a song beating in her ears as the tale continued.

Pirates: Shiver my timbers, shiver my soul
Yo ho, heave ho
There are men whose hearts are as black as coal
Yo ho, heave ho

Inkspots: And they sailed their ship across the ocean blue
A bloodthirsty captain and a cutthroat crew

Crocodile: It was dark a tale as was ever told
Of the lust for treasure
And the love of gold!

Pirates: Shiver my timbers, shiver my sides
Yo ho, heave ho
There are hungers as strong as the wind and tides
Yo ho, heave ho

Possums: And those buccaneers drowned their sins in rum

Sal Minella: The devil himself would have to call them scum

Crabs: Every man aboard would have killed his mate
For a bag of guineas or a piece of eight

Crocodile: A piece of eight

Octopus: A piece of eight

Mosquitos: A-five, six, seven, eight!

Stone Faces: Woona wacka, woona wacka, something not right
Many wicked icky things gonna happen tonight
Woona wacka, woona wacka, sailor man beware!

Crabs: When de money in the ground, dere's murder in de air

Totem: Murder in the air

Stone Face: One more time now!

Pirates: Shiver my timbers, shiver my bones
Yo ho, heave ho
There are secrets that sleep with old Davy Jones
Yo ho heave ho

Snakes: When the mainsail's set and the anchor's weighed
There's no turning back from any course that's laid

Skulls: And when greed and villainy sail the sea
You can bet your boots there'll be treachery

Shiver my timbers, shiver my sails
Dead men tell no tales!

BANG!!!

XXXXXXXX

The sound of a gunshot ringing through the air was enough to bring Sunny out of her vision, causing her to shake her head as Billy began to conclude the story. “Oh, aye. Fifteen men went ashore that day, and only Flint, his own self, returned.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, hang on,” Zipp interrupted, wide-eyed. “You mean… he killed his own crew?”

“Indeed, lass,” Billy nodded. “And then old Flinty up and died afore they could get back to that cursed island and dig up the treasure. No one knows to this day who has old Flint's map.”

“Now, isn't that a story worth the hearing?” all the patrons in the pub chorused all at once. “It was the first dozen times we heard it,” another patron muttered, causing another one to swiftly agree. “I'll drink to that.”

“But who has the map now, huh?” Billy then asked. “Some black-hearted, squid-suckin' buccaneer? Or maybe it's our very own Jim Hawkins. Eh, Jimmy?”

“If I had it,” Jim answered as he and his friends continued to do their chores, “my friends and I wouldn't be here serving you rum, Mr. Bones.”

“That’s right!” Gonzo said enthusiastically. “We'd be out searching for that treasure, sailing the seven seas on a five-year mission, boldly going where no man has gone before!”

“You know,” said Pipp with a smile, “that’s kinda catchy!”

“Huh. Not me. If I had that treasure map, I'd be tradin' it for a decent meal,” Rizzo said before noticing some scraps on Billy’s table. “Hey, Gonzo, you think he's gonna eat this?”

Deciding to not wait for an answer, Rizzo dove into the scraps. “Aye! Beware the one-legged man!” Billy warned the group. “He’s the one to fear.”

“Don’t worry, captain,” Jim assured, “we’ll watch for him.”

“Yeah, I’ll watch for him… if he’s deliverin’ a pizza!” Rizzo laughed at his own joke before Billy put an empty mug on him to silence him. “Even old Flinty feared him,” the old captain added. “If he comes pokin' around here, you run for me whippety-quick!”

“If we see him, we’ll tell you, sir,” Misty said as she continued to wipe the tables down. “Yeah. One leg, three heads, couple of dozen noses,” Gonzo said teasingly, “if anything weird happens…”

“And it'll be nay jokin' matter, hose nose,” Billy said, roughly grabbing Gonzo’s nose. “The one-legged man brings death!”

Sunny managed to pull Gonzo’s nose away from Billy, checking it for injuries before Mrs. Bluveridge came barreling through the inn. “Time, gentlemen! Closing time!” she announced. “Ya pays your bills, and then ya shove off. Go on, out ya go!”

With groans of disappointment, the patrons began to leave the inn, while Mrs. Bluveridge looked at the mess that was being left behind. “Kids, look at the state of this place!” she shouted, causing the group to quickly get back to work. “How comes it gets to be such a pigsty, huh?”

“Pigsty? Hey!” one of the pigs at the nearby table snorted in displeasure. “No offense meant, gentlemen, sirs,” Mrs. Bluveridge then said politely. “No offense meant.”

“Here’s to you, kids!” Billy said as he got up and tossed a few coins onto the table while the rest of the patrons began to leave. “I'm away to my room.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bones.”

“Thank you, Bill!”

“See you later, Mr. Billy!”

“There you go! Don't forget to come back tomorrow for our lunchtime special,” Mrs. Bluveridge told the patrons as they left. “Suckling potatoes!”

The pig shrugged as he left, only for a living potato to turn to Mrs. Bluveridge in distaste. “No... No offense, madam. No offense.”

The potato scoffed and left the inn after that, and after everyone had left, Mrs. Bluveridge turned to the ponies and their friends once again. “All right, you kids. When you're finished here, you can go and clean up in the kitchen. I left some table scraps in there for your supper,” she said as she began to climb the stairs to head to her room. “Oh, yes, and boys, last night you forgot to put out the lantern! If you forget that again, there'll be no table scraps for a week!”

And then, with a growl, she disappeared up the stairs. “Sheesh…” Izzy whimpered. “She’s not very friendly, is she?”

“She can be at times,” Harmony reassured. “She just has a reputation to maintain and she wants to keep us in line.”

“Even though she feeds you table scraps?” Zipp raised an eyebrow at this statement. “Isn’t that kind of wrong?”

“She doesn’t feel like she has to cook for us having to cook for all the patrons all day,” Jim answered with a bit of annoyance and sadness in his voice. “It’s kind of pathetic, really.”

“Sounds pretty pathetic to me too,” Pipp scoffed. “You guys should have the right to eat as much as anypony else!”

“Speaking of rights, we’d better get out there and put out the lantern, otherwise we’ll have no meals for the next week,” Harmony told the boys. “We’ll wrap up work in here while Sunny and Izzy go and help you guys outside, and then we can all start on the kitchen when you’re done,” Misty offered with a smile. “If that helps.”

“...it does, Misty. Thank you,” Harmony smiled before turning to Gonzo, Rizzo and Jim. “All right, follow me, boys… we’d better get into tower formation so we can show our new friends how it's done around here.”