Moonlit Skies

Moonlit Skies

Chapter 3:

Here we come, fife and drum, propellers in the dawn...

The Australis and her two pony crew drifted through the skies over the mountains that bordered the southern jungle. The skies were clear, save for the two airships floating through a few wisps of cirrus clouds. Wait... two ships? Oh right. Pirates. Well, sucks for the Australis.

The moment the sky began to lighten, the pirate ship’s fires were stoked, and her propellers began to push the ship closer to the Australis with a quiet thrumming sound. Violet's ears twitched as they picked up a strange noise coming from outside. She slowly sat up, and suppressed a groan. "Uhh... Verdant!? Do we really need to go right now?"

There was no response.

"VERDANT!"

"Aah!" He flipped over sideways and fell off of the couch. "Ugh... what?"

"These fuzzy ears here are a bit sensitive, and you woke me up when you started the propellers."

"Huh? What are you talking about? I didn't- Oh, buck me... Violet, get down. Now.”

“What?”

“Lay down on the floor, right now.”

“Can’t we do this on the bed? It’s right here.”

“What are you- Eugh! Seriously!?”

“Wait... what were you talking about?”

“Not that. Definitely not that. Now get on the floor.”

“Tell me why first.”

“You are insufferable! Fine. Those propellers you hear? Those aren’t-” He was interrupted by a series of distant cracks. “DAMMIT JUST GET DOWN!” he yelled, tackling the surprised mare to the floor.

Before they even had time to hit the floor, the east wall of the bedroom imploded in on them. Splinters of wood buried themselves into the backs of the two ponies, and a cannon ball tore through the room, missing Verdant's head by a centimeter.  All across the ship, the volley of metal spheres tore through the hull. The two ponies impacted the floor, and laid there for a second to make sure that the barrage was over.

Violet looked up at the pegasus on top of her with a mischievous grin. "I thought you said you didn't want to do this."

"What are you-? Augh!" He quickly rolled sideways off of her.

"Aww..."

Verdant stood up and started pulling a series of levers. As he pulled the last one, a hidden compartment in the south wall opened, revealing what looked like a long brass tube attached to a hot water tank by a hose. He looked at Violet and got a grin of his own. "Maybe later."

They pressed themselves against the wall as another barrage impacted the ship, doubling the size of the hole to their right. Verdant dragged the strange contraption to the hole, then stood up on his hind legs, holding the thing like a rocket launcher. Which as it turns out, wasn't that far off.

He looked at Violet behind him. "See that valve there? Open it." She wordlessly did as he asked. "Good. Now get down." She promptly dived to the floor, having learned better than to argue when Verdant says 'get down' (Nor make any jokes about dancing). At the same time, Verdant pulled back on the weapon's oversized trigger. With a puff of pressurized steam, a projectile was sent flying into the sky before them. It made it a very short distance before starting to arc downwards. A small array of clockwork sensors in the tip of the device detected the change in wind speed.

Violet watched as the projectile suddenly exploded mid-flight. "... Well that sucked."

"Be patient."

After a couple seconds, a series of large explosions occurred on the incoming airship as the small pellets that were released by the initial projectile reached their target. "Oh. Okay. That makes sense."

"The sabot was loaded with enchanted explosive pellets and a directional charge. Doesn't work at long range, but those idiots were dumb enough to get close. Look at those bastards now!" The enemy's airbags had ignited, and almost half of the ship was completely shredded by the explosive hail.

Suddenly the ship flickered and wavered before seeming to reverse time, fallen pieces of it's hull flying back to it and repairing. The fires extinguished themselves, and the airbags sewed themselves back together. In a matter of seconds, the ship was completely fine, it's iridescence glimmering as the sun peeked above the horizon. The emblem of a skeletal bird with a trail of that irridescent purple could be spotted on the side of the ship. Violet tilted her head to one side. "Is that a normal occurrence on this planet?"

"Not usually, no."

"I see... What now?"

"Cannons?"

"Sure."

They both dived out of the hole and took flight, using it as a shortcut to get to the top deck faster. Verdant demonstrated to Violet how to operate a cannon, doing so more slowly than normal for her benefit. He then took aim and fired it at the rapidly approaching airship. It bounced off the ship's airbags. Verdant looked at his cannon, then back to the pirates, then back to his cannon, then at Violet. "Uh-oh."

"Yeah that pretty much sums it up."

Verdant abandoned the ineffective cannon and ran over to a box that was sitting just outside the cabin of the ship's bridge. He reached in and pulled out something that looked similar to the flintlock-bow that he had used two nights earlier. It was slightly more sleek and compact, and the flint had been replaced by a solid metal cylinder. "I've been trying to find an excuse to use this baby for a long time." He ran back to the starboard railing.

By this point, they were close enough for Verdant to hear the pirate Captain yell, "Fire!"

Verdant stopped aiming and took cover behind the railing. "Horseapples! Violet, brace!"

“Wha-?” It was too late by the time Verdant realized that Violet wouldn’t know that ‘brace’ was synonymous with ‘take cover so you don’t get hit with cannon balls’. Violet’s question was cut off as one of the aforementioned cannon balls ricocheted off of the deck and impacted her right wing, throwing her to the floor.

“Violet!”

“I’m fine!” She yelled in response, gritting her teeth and stumbling to her hooves again. “It was just a grazing hit.” After a few seconds, she tried to  flex the wing. She cringed and folded it back before it could fully extend. “I think there might be a fracture. Shouldn’t break unless I try flying.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll make them pay for that one.” He reached into a saddlebag that he had apparently picked up at some point. He came back up holding something that looked like a pistol round, but it was more oblong than the usual round pellets, and with one end flattened. He pushed the bow’s sight to the right with one hoof, revealing a small opening. Careful to make sure that the flat end was facing the back, Verdant loaded the round into the bow, popped out from behind his cover, and took aim with his weapon.

He bit down on the firing mechanism. The string was released, and it shot forward. The metal cylinder impacted the mercuric fulminate at the back of the pellet, causing it to explode and ignite the powder charge in front of it. The pellet, now perfectly round once more, was sent flying in the direction of the pirate vessel. One of the pirates partially became red mist in the ensuing explosion.

Violet gagged. “That was nasty...”

“Better him than us. Anyway, I’m calling my new toy a complete success.” He then proceeded to reload the caplock-bow in under five seconds, firing again. This time he missed all of the crew, but the explosion took out at least two of them.

“Why do they explode exactly?”

“Those are the same pellets as the ones in that launcher from earlier. Got a unicorn in the Canterlot underground to enchant them to detonate if they hit something at a high velocity.” He reloaded and fired again, taking out one of the ship’s cannons, and causing a small chain reaction with it’s powder stores. A small portion of the pirate airship was blasted to pieces.

The ship once again flickered and repaired itself. Then the entire thing teleported the last of the distance between them. The next time Verdant stood up to fire, he found himself surrounded by pegasi, and face-to-face with a gryphon- no, a pegasus- no, a unicorn- no... “What the bucking hay are you?”

“I'm a horned hippogriff, you insolent dog.”

“How’d that happen?”

“Well, apparently me mother had a good meal once she was was done with t' unicorn.. Speakin' o' which, I like t' looks o' your bat-win'ed crewmate”

Verdant just rolled his eyes. “Pirates. You’re all the same.” He proceeded to fire his caplock-bow point-blank into the hippogriff’s face. It didn’t work.

“Lookin' for this?” The captain asked, levitating the small pellet beside him. He gave a wry grin, then threw the pellet at Violet. The explosion propelled her over the railing, and off the ship with a yelp.

“VIOLET!”

“I wasn't hungry anyway.”

“I’LL KILL YOU, YOU FILTHY, MOTHERBUCKING, PIRATE!”

“Pirate? That's t' second time you've said that. I suppose introductions be in order. I be Captain Carrionrook o' t' airship Raven Mocker. We're no pirates. We're bounty hunters, and you, mister Aurora, be our bounty. Wanted dead.

Meanwhile, a few hundred feet down, Violet spread her wings to stop her fall. The moment she did so, the bone in her right wing broke completely, causing the appendage to bend in on itself, sending her into a spin. Her screams were just barely audible to the ponies (and hippogriff) above. She fell into an uncontrolled downward spiral, the frozen peaks below rapidly rising to meet her.

    Verdant did indeed hear her cries, and he was pissed. He pulled his cutlass out of it’s mechanized sheath, which kept the blade glowing white-hot. Giving no chance for retaliation, he slammed the blade into the hippogriff’s horn, creating a small nick in it’s side. Carrionrook screeched in pain, and Verdant immediately launched himself past the distracted creature.

Violet looked up at him, tears in her eyes. She mouthed, ‘Goodbye.’ and right before she hit the ground, Verdant found himself teleported back to the ship, facing a very angry bounty hunter. “You chipped me horn. You're gonna die.”

“You're way in over your heads, it seems.” He punched the hippogriff in the face, then stabbed the pegasus to his left. He carved his blade through his dying opponent, and lodged it in the side of another pegasus’ head. He he flipped around, pulling the blade out as he did so, and deflected an incoming attack from Carrionrook with a reverse slash. He used the momentum left at the end of the slash to allow the hilt of his burning cutlass to turn in his mouth, holding the blade out to his left once again, and blocking a downward strike from the Captain.

Quickly finding himself outmatched by the hippogriff in terms of sheer strength, he flared his wings and used them to push himself backwards, cutting down the last pegasus along the way. He realized that there was no way to win through conventional tactics. He threw his cutlass at Carrionrook’s head, causing him to dive to the side, and giving Verdant just enough time to draw his pre-loaded flintlock-bow from it’s holster. He fired it into the bag of enchanted ammo, which he had left lying by the railing.

The impact set off one of the enchanted pellets, causing the others to go flying in all directions, exploding all over the ship. Amidst the airborne sea of flames, Verdant lost sight of Carrionrook, then gave in to the comfortable pull of unconsciousness as he fainted from exhaustion. The next time he woke, he was still on the Australis, which was still on fire. He realized too late that the airship had been falling out of the sky the entire time he was out. The once-mighty ship impacted the side of a snowy mountain peak, erupting into a giant ball of fire as the powder store ignited.