Ocean Above, Sky Below

Ocean turned back towards Schwarm when he heard him yelled. He poked the changeling to stop for a moment to make him think. He then facehoofed and groaned. "Me little changeling mate. Do ye mind flying back to that there airship? There be a misunderstanding when I actually said I'd be peeking around...." The changeling flew back to the airship with out any protest, kicking the earth pony off when he got there. "Ooof. Why do ye bloody bastards kick me off ye backs?" He shook his head and stood up, coughing. "Blimey boy...When I said I'd be peeking around, I literally meant I wanted to peek around, you bloody idiot!" He was about to say something more, but then clouds stated to cover his view and he could hear the sound of cannons being fired from the other airship right next to the one he was on....The airship with the shield he hated so very much.

On the deck on the Gentle Touch, two figures rushed around trying to figure out what had just happened. One figure seemed larger than a regular pony and the other had what seemed like a horn sticking out of it's head. Then the two figures tripped over themselves as the ship was hit with what seemed like cannons that exploded. "ROCKY! GET THE SHIELDS UP! WE WON'T LAST ANY LONGER IF THAT CANNON FIRE KEEPS UP ANY LONGER!!" A feminine voice shouted as the two figures ran to opposite sides of the deck.

One of the figures, the larger one, ran down to the lower decks of the airship and did something to make a dark blue shield to appear around the airship, while the other figure ran to a room that would have most likely been the captain's quarters. The figure's horn glowed a dark purple as it grabbed a quill and paper and started scribbling something down on the paper.

"I'm sorry mister Captain. But I don't call the damn shots. I'm the crew's Scout." Elsi yelled at the stallion in charge. Disappearing again and appearing off the deck and with her arms and front paws around her captain, holding him like a teddy bear, "Sorry captain, but if we don't go back now I think we may just end up in the ocean." She said flying as fast as she could back to the Gentle Touch. Not waiting for the changeling counterpart to her crew.

Schwarm smiled a broad smile as Elsi carried Ocean away, leaving the solitary changeling on the deck. "Finally. We're done here." He turned to the rest of the crew and pointed at the changeling. "Kill him or chase him away, I don't care. Just get him off my ship." He pointed at three unicorns in particular. "Prepare to raise the shields again." He gestured to another three. "Check damages and initiate preliminary repairs."

The six of them scurried off below the top deck. The other thirty or so of them dropped their wood capsules and began to unleash a hail of magic laser fire upon the changeling, some aiming directly at him and some aiming in the space around him, to a radius of two metres. All except for the space behind him, where there was naught but the emptiness of the sky where the deck terminated.

Finally, he turned to Gin. "Walk with me for a little while, won't you? I want to talk to you."

Sky noticed that the pirates were retreating, and jumped in happyness. Apart from the large shockwave that slightly shook her ship, it didn't damage any of it, and thus she was happy that her advanced shielding systems worked as intended. The cannons stopped their fire some time ago and now moved inside the ship, the hatches closing after them. Sky went to the bridge to check on other systems, but didn't lower her shields just yet. She turned the wheel slightly, bringing the Crystal Viper closer to the Scaphism, her intentions were to bring it close enough to be able to board it.

A little off put by his tune Gin's anger subsided. "Uh...uh sure." He took his place next to tCaptian Schwarm. "What is this about? My insubordination? Endangerment? Bad hygiene?"

"None of those, at least not today." Schwarm said calmly. He turned to the other unicorn crewponies currently blasting away at the changeling. "Let the Crystal Viper's captain board if she wishes." He turned back to Gin and walked to the bow of the ship.

"Now," he continued, "I realise that you are relatively new to the crew, so I can't possibly expect you to know all the procedures. I highly doubt you made it all the way up to Fifty-three in the manual I gave you."

He stopped as he reached the figurehead of the golden eagle and looked up into the sky. "Gin, do you know anything about Procedure Fifty-three at all?"

Ocean was a bit startled when Elsi held him like a teddy bear. It was a tad bit embarrassing for him to be held the way he was. He was also a tad bit made his second in command had been left behind, but shrugged it off as something the changeling can handle. There was a little flash in front of his face and he was hit in the face with a scroll. He unrolled the scroll and read through it quickly. "Elsi....Ye might want to slow down! Ye gonna fly right into-." He was cut off when he and Elsi had slammed into the shield that was around the Gentle Touch.

The changeling hopped off the ship before he was hit with anything, flying after Elsi and Ocean. Then he heard the sound of then hitting a shield and stopped almost immediately. He glared at Elsi, not saying a word, kicking against the shield before it dropped for a moment for him, and his captain to get on the ship.

Off against the back side of the Scaphism, a chestnut pegasus, who had been apparently forgotten about, clung to the airship. He had just barely made out the sound of someone being fired at and the sound of wings flapping. The mechanism on his hoof changed around to be that of a tiny crossbow. Due to the clouds covering his view, he decided to fire a bunch of small arrows at the crew members, randomly.

"What do you mean Captai-." Elsi said. This wasn't a normal event in any case and had in fact slowed down long before they hit the shield, she knew it was up but it had apparently been widened since the last time it had been used. This was actually the first mishap that Elsi had ever made, and so no reason as to why she received such a glare. Had it been her voice this entire damn pirate act wouldn't have happened, "Damnit that bunch, it's not like anyone knew where the damn ship was, and don't look at me like that the shield has gotten bigger since the last time they used the damn thing, I slowed down as I normally do, a bit of warning on the engineer's behalf would have helped." She said still holding Ocean Blade like a large teddy bear against her chest while carrying him, going inside after his vice-captain, bringing the captain to the ships cargo port, that had, as long as she could remember, served as her landing point, the outer exit opening as the two closed in, first setting the captain down further in and then landing herself.

'Well, it seems we got our selves in a right bit of trouble there, ei Lassy? Looks like the Vice Captain is a wee bit miffed at ya. Might wanna let me take over for a bit.' Sweeps thought about inside the twi's shared mind.


Elsi sighed out loud before she responded to Sweeps,  'Only because he seems to work better with other meat heads like himself that Captain of ours.'


With that Elsi simply slipped inside the airship, the obvious amounts of pain from transformation a clear sign that now wasn't a time for her to be scolded if she was to be scolded. Running to the barracks the obvious first shrieks of pain that came with the transformation were heard loud and clear throughout even the furthest of rooms, her body growing larger, and broader, into a male griffon, her body became heftily muscled and well built compared to Elsi's lithe and frail frame. This however wasn't over in a split second, no, this was the next twenty minutes after they had docked and that entire time pain and sickening cracks were all that could be heard, bones popping in out of place over and over, breaking and healing exponentially, just to a comedians this change of gender and soul.

The small arrows hit a few of the crewponies, sending them reeling backwards in pain. However, they soon re-sounded the alarm with a quick holler to Schwarm. "Captain! I think we've got one more pirate still hanging around!"

"I'll take care of it." Schwarm muttered, closing his eyes and letting his horn come awash with a subtle glow. "Don't bother to go, Gin. I'll handle it myself. Though I would still like an answer, hm?" His eyes still closed, Schwarm turned to face him and said, "I doubt you do. Your reaction was a little too violent to be practised."

From the still-open hatch, a group of six metal hawks emerged slowly, checking around, then flying over to the source of the arrows. One of them opened their mouths, and a metallic version of Schwarm's voice issued from it towards the pegasus.

"Please leave." It said simply. "Or I'll have to make you. And I don't think either of us want that."