“Rrrrrrgh!” Monket flung a wooden table across the office.
Nixkit and several of Monket's servants flinched.
Skagra, however, remained ice-still, even as flecks of splinters scattered across his fetlocks. He took a sip out of his glass, swirled it, then muttered: “So... lemme guess. Your village was raided by a marauding gang of tables when you were foal.” Another sip. “Hrmmm... Would certainly explain things...”
“Shut your trap, Skagra!” Monket snarled, pointing an angry hoof at the top dredger. “I've been cruising across half the seven seas trying to clean up after the damage the monster caused my crew and you are not making things easier for me!”
“Is that so, fancy-panties?” Skagra shuffled over and slumped back in a chair. “Would you like me to reclaim all the trinkets I gave you to make kissy-kissy with Mudtop?”
“I'm talking about the bullshit your dredgers pulled with the Rohbredden featherhead!” Monket seethed, heaved. “You and your idiot coal scrapers just got us in deep with the Right Talon!”
“The Right Talon doesn't know jack, Monkey Milk.”
“Oh! Lemme guess!” Monket folded his forelimbs while smirking bitterly. “Next up, you're gonna ask me to go dump the guardian's sorry puss-butt in the brine!”
“Don't be ridiculous,” Skagra slurred, taking another sip. “I want you sending your fastest pegasus messengers east to deliver a message to Chandler.” The top dredger stifled a belch. “Then I want you drowning the griffon.”
“Skagra... Skagra...” Monket hung and shook his head with a billowing sigh. “...eeeugh... I think I was better off dealing with just the fat cat.”
“To what end?” Skagra's good eye narrowed. “Assuming that jade-jackin' bastard was ever capable of scavenging all that's left in the Syndicate's shadow, just how much would he be willing to share the salty pie with you?”
“Well, one thing's for sure!” Monket frowned. “He'd know better than to get entangled with the Right Talon of Verlaxion!”
“And why do you think that is?”
“Because he knows them, you half-headed freakazoid!”
“Ah... and for once, the fat cat has an advantage that can service us.” Smirking, Skagra leaned forward in his lazy chair. “If the Right Talon lands on Red Barge, then the Rainbow Rogue is lost.”
“Yeah. No shit.”
“Listen...” Skagra held a hoof up. “A smart stallion knows when he's a badflank... as well as when he's just dayum lucky. My boys below deck? They had luck on their side when they bagged the catbird. Granted, the griffon was snooping around where he shouldn't have, but all the pieces fell in the right place for him to eat rust through his beak.” He took a sip. “Now... all members of the Right Talon at once? THAT'S something we can't mess with. I'd have more luck plucking every hair from my testicles with bolt cutters.”
“Maybe you should try it,” Monket droned. “It'd make for a great antidote.”
“Just listen to me.”
“Do I have to?”
Skagra spoke: “Chandler knows we're boned if all of the Talon show up. And if we're boned... then he's boned, because his investment in the Rainbow Rogue is way bigger than ours, no matter how we shake it.”
“So what, then?”
“So now...” Skagra leaned back, swirling what was left in his glass. “...we gotta find a way to make sure his panic outflies the wrath of the Right Talon.”
“That's a tall order.”
“Good thing I don't slouch.” Skagra half-smiled. He glanced aside. “Nixxy?”
Nixkit cleared his throat. Reaching towards a shelf, he grabbed a black satchel, then hoofed it over to Monket.
Blinking, Monket reached into the bag. He pulled out an immaculately shiny helmet made out of silver-plated titanium. “Whew...” He whistled, pale red eyes darting across the way to meet Skagra's. “You weren't kidding.”
“When do I ever kid?” Skagra said.
Monket bit his bottom lip. He glanced left... then right...
Skagra pointed. “Give that to your messengers. Have them fly east and drop it off at the first Consortium supply depot they find.”
“This is your plan to intimidate him?”
“I'm not finished,” Skagra said. Both his eyes narrowed. “Have your pegasi make this perfectly clear to Chandler. The fat cat has four days to show up here at Red Barge... in person.”
Nixkit blinked.
Monket squinted. “In... person?”
“Yes. Or else we'll toss the Rainbow Rogue into the drink as well,” Skagra said. “Both she and the griffon can learn to do the underwater ballet with anchors tied around their necks. Or...” He cleared his throat. “Chandler can prevent that by showing up at the Barge. Not his messengers. Not his hired hoof terrorists. Him... in the flesh. And he'd better come with bits. Over ten million of them.”
Monket's jaw dropped. “Ten... million...?”
“Cram them all into platinum bars if he has to,” Skagra muttered. “It doesn't really matter what price in the long run. So long as he feels like he's cutting himself open... bleeding wide before us... before our seafoam and filth.” Skagra's eyes narrowed. “If Chandler wants the rats of the seven seas to deliver for him, he's going to have to learn who's really in charge... and just how much it's going to have dirty him to receive scraps from our table. I want him taking the smell back with him to Rohbredden, where all the snow will turn brown in his wake.” He turned towards Nixkit, motioning with a hoof. “Never make a deal with a rich pony unless you're able and willing to make them eat their own shit in open view of mares and children.” He took a final sip and tossed the shattering glass behind him before reclining lazily. “Chandler will get his Rainbow Rogue, but at the cost of his dignity. And when every cold-hearted bastard that deals with the flankhole learns of it, they'll turn to you and me—Monket—and they'll get boners for life. As for Chandler? He'll die just as he was born, friendless and covered in his mother's shit. You understand?”
“I understand that you're crazier than a fresh water jellyfish.”
“You got any better plans?”
Monket clenched his jaw shut.
“Then what are you waiting for? Get a hop to it. I'm getting sick of your dreads.”
Digiff stood on top of a section of bulkheads along Red Barge's southern strut. He stared north, squinting at where Monket's steamships were moored. Saxon strolled up to him, shouldering a shark prod.
“Time to switch shifts, Digfarts.”
“Hrmmff...” Digiff grunted, staring across the metal bulkheads. “Cute.”
Saxon cocked his head aside, following Digiff's line of sight. “...the hell are you looking at?”
“Monket.”
“Didn't realize you were that into slavers.”
“Hush,” Digiff grumbled, scratching his beard. “Looks like Skagra and him are finally going through with the plan.”
“Really?” Saxon reached for a spyglass hanging around his neck and squinted down the sight.
From a distance, both stallions watched as Monket paced before three pairs of shackled slaves on board a steamship's deck. Monket got finished shouting and barking at the pegasi. Then, whistling to another servant, he had the manacles around the slaves unlocked. Motioning with a hoof, Monket shouted a few more commands, then hoofed the centermost pegasus a helmet and a scroll.
“And there's the package...” Digiff muttered.
“I don't get it...” Saxon blinked. “Why's he choosing the messengers at random?”
“It's not random,” Digiff said. “Monket knows what he's doing.”
“Oh?”
Digiff pointed. “The slaver of waves spares no expense in buying hooves from Mudtop to make up his crew. Those pegasi? They're all siblings. They're raised in the birthing tunnels together. They greet the sun together... work above and below deck shackled to one another, always. And now?” He exhaled. “Monket's separating them for the first time in their lives.”
“Pffft... what for?” Saxon grinned, twitching. “Kicks?”
“No.” Digiff shook his head. “Leverage.”
From afar, the stallions watched as the pegasi were spared one short minute to hug, nuzzle, and part ways. Then—with strong wings flashing in the sunlight—they lifted skyward, soaring due east.
“The slaves know that if they don't return from their trip to Rohbredden,” Digiff said, “Monket will kill the siblings that are left behind.”
The three lone pegasi on the steamship gazed longingly east... that is until Monket's shouting voice rattled them. They marched below deck, preparing to re-enter the engine room and ready the dredge coal for fueling the furnace.
“You know... there are times when I think being seafoam is the shittiest thing ever...” Digiff's nostrils flared. “...and then I open my eyes.”
“Wow. That's deep, Digiff.” Saxon glanced aside, smirking. “Deeper than your mother's corpse in the cesspool.”
“Saxon... were you—like—born a cyst inside a whale's uterus?”
“Heh... get as weepy as you want, sissy-saddles. You just wish you were the one who bagged us the griffon.”
“Are you dense?” Digiff snarled at Saxon. “You're the reason Red Barge is in such hot water right now!”
“Well maybe some hot water will do us some good!” Saxon snarled back. “Skagra's all talk! It's high time he flexed his muscle, you think?!”
“Ever thought that not having to flex your muscle is the best way to stay alive in these filthy seas?!”
As the two stallions growled and spat with one another, a tiny brown shape scurried past them. With bright amber eyes, Swab studied the two, then dashed the rest of the way downstairs into the brig.
The one-eared colt heard muttering voices as he arrived at the barred window overlooking Rainbow's cell.
“You're telling me that you've been inside that strange black structure that was hidden underneath the Reed?” Keris' voice echoed.
“Yeah. And what's more—there are others just like it. One in lower Shoggoth. Another in the Nealend Atoll. Another west of Kihutaja...”
“Wait... wait... wait...” Keris took a deep breath, staring through his bars at Rainbow's cell. “So... what you're trying to tell me is that every place the Rainbow Rogue has been... you've purposefully encountered these... anomalous metal structures?”
“Well, not everywhere,” Rainbow muttered. “Rust didn't have one.”
“Ah. I see.” Keris nodded. “So only a fraction of your psychotic exploits can be excused on otherworldly phenomena...”
“No. Dude. It's... grnnnghhh...” Rainbow Dash rubbed her head. A few seconds rolled by, and she muttered, “... ... ...tell him to leave, Fluttershy. This isn't a good time.”
Keris blinked inside his cell. “Tell who to leave?”
“Hey!” Swab grinned wide. “You're both talking! Cool!” He fiddled with a bag hanging off his tiny flank. “And here I was thinking you wouldn't get along!”
“Kid...”
“Huh?” Keris craned his neck, wincing from his bruises. “Who's there?”
“Uhm... I couldn't smuggle any food this time,” Swab muttered. Nevertheless, he pulled out a canteen from his bag and grinned victoriously. “B-but I did manage to get this! It was left on East Strut by a dredger working on the lateral steampipes. He didn't take too many sips from it. So... uh... I-I doubt his saliva's in it. At least not much, anyway...”
“Thanks, kid,” Rainbow breathed.
“Hey!” Swab grinned, lowering the canteen down through the window. “It's still not rice!”
“Little child...” Keris spoke hoarsely, wincing. “You really shouldn't be here! I know enough about the creatures who run this place to realize they're not merciful to foals who are out of place.”
“Oh, don't worry,” Swab said, stifling a giggle. “I'm pretty small and can move around quickly.”
“Young sir...” Keris frowned.
Swab craned his neck, trying in vain to see Keris' cell from his vantage point over Rainbow's. “Also, I'm smart enough. For instance, I know not to go all the way down there. Less places to hide in case the guards come back, you see.” He gulped. “Otherwise I'd totally give you some water too, Mr. Unlucky Griffon Sir.”
“Mrmmmfff...” Rainbow took a swig, exhaled, and spoke: “Don't worry, kid. I've got it covered.” She shuffled off to the opposite edge of the cell and slid the canteen through the bars towards Keris. “There you go. Wet your... uhm... beak.”
“... ... ...” Keris hesitated at first, but eventually reached out, grasping the canteen. As he unscrewed the thing with his talons, he spoke: “You encourage this urchin of ill-fortune?”
“Why not?” Rainbow shrugged against the bars. “It's been my experience that little scampy badflanks are capable of dang-near everything.” She blinked, then glanced aside. “Yes, Fluttershy, but... I-I don't think we quite have the time to share the story of Kera Tin Mehjj with Mr. Griffon-Who-Wants-To-Arrest-Me.”
Keris took a sip of the canteen. “And just how long has this little foal been making these visits to you?”
“Oh... just all week!” Swab answered before Rainbow could. He sat, smiling with eyes shut. “She's really nice when you get to know her! And she has this sweet, kind friend named Fluttershy! Oh, and her pendant's all awesome and glowy...”
“Heh...” Rainbow's shoulders shook through a half-hearted chuckle. “Kid's got good vocabulary. Gotta give 'em that.”
Keris took a last sip, then slid the canteen back with a glare. “You're endangering him. You do realize this...?”
Rainbow sighed out her nostrils as she picked the canteen up. “The way I see it...” she spoke in a tone that only the griffon could hear. “...if I make a big fuss about him, he will be in danger. Besides...” She glared across the shadows of the brig. “...I doubt he can get joy from much else in this Celestia-forsaken place.”
“Even still...”
“I can tell you're worried about him, dude. Trust me. So am I.” Rainbow's lips curved slightly. “Don't worry. I've got eyes on him at all times.”
Keris raised an eyecrest. “I don't see how you can say that.”
“I didn't say my eyes.”
Keris' beak clattered in confusion. But before he could speak—
“Are you both planning an escape down there?” Swab said.
Both Keris and Rainbow turned to face the direction of the colt's voice.
“Heehee... cuz that would be sooooo cool.” He grinned. “The Rainbow Rogue and a member of the Talon?”
“That's nifty and all, kid, but—” Rainbow started.
Keris sneered: “I would much rather suffer a thousand purgatorial blizzards on the way to the Spring Havens than make myself an accomplice in this abomination's freedom for even a mortal second.”
Swab blinked, his yellow pupils shrinking. “Oh... well that's too bad.” He smiled again. “Because she can get out at anytime!”
Keris' hawkeyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”
Rainbow sighed, waving a hoof. “That's enough, kid—”
“She totally can!” Swab grinned wide. “I mean, her wing may be busted and all, but see that shiny-shiny thing around her neck?” He pointed through the bars. “The moment she takes that off, she becomes ten times stronger and can bust through sheer metal—”
“Swab!” Rainbow's teeth gnashed. “Give it a rest, will ya?”
Swab blinked, his lips pursing. “But... b-but it's true.” He gulped. “You beat up all of Monket's thugs when they first captured you—”
“And I'm all for rotting to death in here if it means that doesn't happen again!” Rainbow snarled. “So get it out of your scrappy, one-eared head, okay?!”
Swab gulped. He scrunched down low, eyes slightly misty. “Mmmmkay...”
Rainbow sighed hard, eyes shut.
“... ... ...is that true?”
Her eyes fluttered back open. She turned and looked over her shoulder.
Keris stared through both of their collective bars. “The monks of the Quade said that the artifact around your neck is what destroyed the Reed.” His magenta eyes narrowed. “What else, pray tell, are you holding back?”
Rainbow gulped. “Something very... very awful. And...” Her ears folded. “...some ponies very... very special to me.” She glanced aside. “...even if I'm no longer special to them. Not anymore.”
Keris cocked his head to the side.
“You know that I don't blame you, right?” Rainbow muttered. “For coming after me, I mean. There's a lot that's dangerous about this pegasus you see. But there's a lot more danger in my biting the bullet.. at least for the world at large.”
“Bullet?”
“Mrmmmfff... sorry. Beyond-the-Blight stuff.”
“What has you convinced that you're so... astronomically important, Rainbow Dash?”
“How do you know that Verlaxion is your Goddess supreme?”
Keris' head jerked back. “Why... evidence of her miracles! Testimonies written by ancient prophets and preserved by wyvern scholars through the ages!”
Rainbow turned, staring at him melancholically from across the brig. “And just how many of these miracles have you experienced first-feather?”
Keris' beak hung open. He was at a loss for words.
“I may be a monster, buddy,” Rainbow muttered. “A strange pegasus who's made her own massacres. But believe you me... I've had plenty of miracles to make up for them... most of them, at least. It's just a shame that I can't share them with you any more than I can share them with my frien—” Suddenly she jolted. With a shudder, Rainbow looked over her shoulder, eyes wide. “They are? How many of them?” A blink. “Two?”
Keris squinted. “What are you babbling on a—?”
“Kid!” Rainbow hissed, flashing a look at the window above. “Two dredgers are coming down!”
Swab gasped. “They are?”
“Make a break for it! Go!”
Breathless, Swab scampered up the slanted corridor and hid his tiny body inside a shadowy alcove. Within seconds, an adult set of hooves marched down the incline. Once the legs passed Swab, the colt gulped, slid out of hiding, and galloped up onto the top deck—out of sight.
At last, Digiff reached the bottom floor of the brig. He paced back and forth, gazing into Rainbow's cell... and then into Keris'. “We having fun yet?”
“I'm waiting for you and the rest of your friends to attempt killing me,” Keris said. He smiled calmly under his beak. “Then I intend to have much... much recreation.”
Digiff clenched his jaw. He tried staring Keris down, ultimately to give up with a groan. “Friggin' birdpusses...” He tossed a tiny bucket in through the Lieutenant's bars. “Here. Your poop jar. Try not to smell up the joint.” He paced off to the far side of the brig.
As the stallion moved, Keris squinted across the bars. He mouthed with his beak: “How did you know...?”
Rainbow had no response. She slinked back into the shadows until all the Lieutenant could see was the ruby glint of her pendant.
He might have shivered once or twice...
“No... No... No!”
Brye Chandler snarled, pacing stormily back and forth across the luxurious cabin of a company steamship. Scores of lit candles illuminated a make-shift gallery where half-a-dozen ponies stood before canvases, attempting to paint an iconographic sketch of the Rainbow Rogue. Outside the cabin windows, the ocean was drenched in night. Starlight wafted in, glinting off the green jades studding Chandler's thick coat.
“For the last time! She was in a battle at the Quade!” He pointed at one half-finished portrait, slathered in rainbow streaks. “The Rainbow Rogue has a scar across her brow! Right above the right eye!”
“But...” The artist gulped. “Mister Chandler—”
“That's Magistrate Chandler to you!”
“There was no scar in the photos you retrieved from Shoggoth!”
“That's because the Rainbow Rogue got her scar after Shoggoth!” Chandler face-hoofed, stifling a groan. “Paint it again!” He shook a hoof. “And get it right this time! One tiny mistake will mean five hundred thousand tiny mistakes once I get the wanted poster reprinted!”
Sighing, the five artists switched to blank canvases and exhaustingly complied. Not long after, there was a loud knock on the cabin door.
“Come in!” Chandler barked.
Two servants opened the door from the inside. A blue-coated unicorn in a tight suit and an even tighter manestyle shuffled in, levitating a silver helmet in one field and a scroll in the other.
“Longaze?” Chandler grimaced, waving his hooves at the floating objects. “Just what the Hell is this?”
“A message, I do believe, sir,” she replied, brown eyes cool and calm. “From three pegasi, sweaty from long-flight and smelling of Mudtop.”
Chandler did a double-take. “Mudtop?” He blinked. “...Monket”
Longaze nodded, then floated the two objects over.
Chandler first gawked at the helmet. He grasped it in his hooves. “... ... ...griffon metal. Talon.”
“Precisely, sir.” Longaze pointed at the scroll.
Glancing at her, Chandler swiftly unrolled the parchment and held it before his darting green eyes. Not long after, the stallion paled, slumping back to his haunches. “... ... ...betrayers... both betrayers...” Soon, he was shaking... gnashing his teeth. “Those... upstart little snotheads...”
The painters and servants shifted uncomfortably.
Fuming, Chandler breathed. “Leave me.” A beat. He turned and shouted at those in the cabin. “I said leave me!”
Fumbling, the artists abandoned their unfinished sketches of the Rainbow Rogue and scampered briskly out onto the main deck... followed by the door stallions.
Longaze turned to leave as well—
“Not you, Longaze.”
The mare stopped in her tracks. With magic, she closed the door, then pivoted to face the would-be-Magistrate. “Executive Chandler, sir?”
“... ... ...the game has changed... savagely...” Chandler crumpled the sheet up in his grasp. “Mrmmmfff... this is what I get for dealing with misanthropes with barnacles-for-balls.”
“I take it that Red Barge is stalling?”
“They've gone far beyond that,” Chandler muttered. “Skagra's now dipping his rust-stick into full blown exploitation. Uppity half-headed shit-eater...” He took a long breath, composing himself with eyes shut. At last, he adjusted his studded robe and reopened his eyes. “Longaze... you've read the latest trade reports, yes?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Are there any Consortium shipments headed to Rust?”
“Two, I believe.”
“Redirect them northeast. To Mudtop.” Chandler's eyes narrowed. “I think it's time we did some... expansion. See to it personally that the local populace—no matter how filthy—get a fair sample of our raw product.”
“Ahem...” Longaze adjusted her collar and said, “Such dredge coal will not have been refined yet, sir. It'll be highly flammable.”
“Yes. Just like our... misplaced product in Pine Prefecture,” Chandler said. His lips curved slightly. “In the hooves of the wrong ponies, it could prove disastorous. However, in the hooves of wrong ponies with just the right amount of envy for Skagra and what he's got hidden in his hold...”
“Ah.” Longaze bowed. “I see.”
“Not as much as Skagra is going to see...” Chandler's eyes narrowed. “And know... that there's no bucking with the future magistrate of these waters.” Calmly, the stallion picked up a paint brush and dipped it into a wad of bright paint. “The seas can always use more red in them.” And he flung a crimson streak across three separate canvases, smiling.