“So, how do you play this game?” Pinkie asks, fumbling with five playing cards in her hooves as she sits at a small round table with three stallions sitting with her, each with their own five cards facing away from each other. To her left is Cecil, a tall pegasus in a blue and white striped shirt and brown trench coat. To her right is a large and stout green Earth pony with an eyepatch and white iron shoulder armour on his left arm. Finally, across the table from the pink mare is a small red unicorn with a black top hat and tuxedo.

“Seriously?” The red unicorn replies, “You don’t know Five-Card Draw?”

“Take it easy Maurice,” Cecil calmly replies, “She’s probably from very far away.”

“But it’s the simplest universal variant on Poker, everypony knows it.”

“Maurice does have a point,” the green Earth pony retorts.

“Who asked you Jarvis?” Cecil ripostes.

“Don’t pick on Jarvis because he’s right.” Maurice replies.

“You know what, we can argue all night or we can just explain the rules and move on.”

“Gah, fine,”

“Typical Cecil…” Jarvis mumbles under his breath.

“Excuse me?” Cecil responds.

“What? I said nothing.”

“So Pinks,” Maurice speaks to her, “You place a bet, you discard the cards you don’t want, draw new cards to replace them, and the pony with the best hoof in the end wins.”

“Oh that variation,” Pinkie cheers, “I get it.”

“Good, it would’ve been a nightmare explaining the different types of hooves.”

“I’ll set the starting bet at ten bits.” Cecil calls out as he pulls out ten bits from his pocket and sets them in the center of the table by the card pile and lit lantern. Maurice follows by adding ten as well.

“Oh dear,” Jarvis utters, “I only got eight with me.”

“Oh come on Jarvis,” Maurice moans, “for the second time?”

“In two months.”

“We only go here once a month and stay a week.”

“Well I would’ve had more if somepony didn’t trick me into doing business near the Scorched Lands. Cecil.”

“I didn’t trick you,” Cecil retorts, “I just said it wasn’t very popular with pirates.”

“For good reason, there’s nothing there.”

“What were you even doing there for three weeks?” Maurice asks.

“You know,” Pinkie interrupts, pulling out twelve bits, “I can just give Jarvis two of mine.”

“Well-I-uh, fine, you’re too nice of a gal, I’m too nice of a bloke. Let’s just do it.”

“Nice my flank.” Jarvis mutters.

“You need to start taking responsibility for your own money Jarvis.” Cecil speaks.

“Funny coming from you,”

“You guys seem to argue a lot,” Pinkie says, “are you all sure you’re friends?”

“Friends?” Maurice replies with a confused face as he puts two of his cards under the deck and draws two from the top. “We’re not exactly friends. We each run our own ships and loot alone and all,”

“Not really opposing rivals either,” Cecil adds.

“We’re more…” Jarvis replies as he switches a card while he and the others think for a moment.

“Rivals with benefits? I’m keeping my hoof.”

“Yeah-yeah,” Maurice nods.

“I like that.” Jarvis complements. As the three stallions congratulate each other on their self-given titles, Pinkie looks at her five cards. In the warm light from the lantern in front of her, she sees that she has two Jacks, two sevens, and one eight. She discards the eight and to her delight, she draws a Jack. “You others are in for it now,” Jarvis proclaims with a grin. “I once won one of the crown jewels from the king of Camelu using these skills, so there’d be no way that you’ll beat me.”

“Says the stallion that only brought eight bits,” Cecil retorts with a smile, causing Maurice to snicker.

“For reasons caused by somepony,”

“Whatever, I just trumped you all.” Dramatically, Cecil places his cards facing up flat onto the table. “Three of a kind,”

“Drat,” Maurice groans as he places his down, “Two pairs,”

“Ha!”

“Pity,” Jarvis responds as he slowly sets his hoof down, “I got a full house.”

“What?!”

“Ha!” Maurice shouts back for irony.

“That’s funny,” Pinkie replies as she displays her cards, “Full house for me as well.”

“She’s got Jacks and sevens, you got tens and sevens.”

“So does that mean I win?”

Jarvis quickly replies, “No-”

“Yes!” Cecil interrupts.

“Hooray!” Pinkie loudly cheers as she grabs the forty bits and drags them to her.

“Alright Jarvis,” Maurice speaks amidst the cloaked pony’s celebration, “no more games for you.”

“Oh come on,” the stout Earth pony moans, “We’re rivals with benefits. Maybe I can have a free-be this time.”

“Here’s an idea,” Cecil replies, how about you bet that shoulder armour and we’ll each bet five bits. Sounds equal,”

“No-no-no, I got a better idea,” Maurice retorts, joining in on the joke, “How about you steal some bits from Grivs while he’s chugging on his cider?” The trio of pirates, followed by Pinkie, look over to the backmost corner of the large dining chamber to see a giant grey unicorn, with muscles bulging from his sleek, black jacket, drinking a cup of cider. On the table in the booth where he’s seated at alone is a large pile of golden coins and a few gemstones. Maurice and Cecil immediately laugh.

“I’ll do it.” Jarvis calmly replies, causing his rivals to choke on their laughter in shock.

“Are you nuts?” Cecil whispers, “Grivs is three times bigger than you. Not to mention that he escaped prison four times after committing mass murder each time.”

“I’m not scared of him. I’m going.”

“Don’t!” Maurice yells out in whisper as his friend exits from his seat and slowly walks towards the hulking giant.

“He is so dead.” Cecil solemnly groans. “And it’s all your fault!”

“My fault? You were the one getting all jokey when he ran out.”

“I wasn’t the one who suggested he’d walk up to death.”

“At least it isn’t Korsan.”

“What does that mean? It’s like comparing a shark with a Kraken. Both are death no matter how you look at it.”

“Wait,” Pinkie interrupts, seeing as this is her chance to transition to the topic of Korsan, “you stallions know of Korsan?”

“Do we know of him?” Maurice replies with a look of surprise, “Everypony and their mother here knows Captain Korsan. He visits this place every week. Honestly, who hasn’t seen his giant floating ship he owns with the black flags with the little red gear symbols on each of them?”

“Speaking of him,” Cecil responds, having mostly already forgotten of Jarvis’ departure. “Isn’t it odd that he wasn’t here last time?”

“He said he was doing some venture in Equestria, that place is fairly well militarized.”

“So was Cervidas, yet he showed off some pretty nice booty when he came back.”

“I guess, must be the memories or something.”

“Probably,”

“It’s just,” Pinkie continues, “I haven’t really heard all that much talk of him around here, and I’ve heard he’s a famous character.”

“Infamous you mean. The reason we don’t talk about him is because the bloke that works in the kitchen doesn’t want us to, it makes him uncomfortable and could cause him to say something wrong when Korsan comes around. That abomination of a stallion’s a psycho when he and the poor fella even look at each other.”

“His service might not be that well in good tastes,” Cecil adds, “but he and his daughter work with what they can to keep us gathered here. It’s our only true home apart from our boats. So we try to keep Nitin stress free while we deal with Korsan’s weekly visits.”

“His daughter?” Pinkie replies as she glances back towards the bar maiden.

“Yep, November and Nitin share the same Gale blood, blood that Korsan’s so thirsty for.”

“Why’s that? They’re just workers of the bar.”

“You see,” Cecil replies “their relationship with Korsan runs a bit deeper.”

“Cecil,” Maurice mutters to his blue pal, “shut up. We don’t want more mouths to keep shut. Could be an agent of his, you never know.”

“Pipe down. Do you see a horn on her head? No. By what we’ve seen from Korsan plenty of times, we can trust her.”

“Your funeral mate…”

“Now Pinkie, it all started,” However, just before Cecil can begin, a girlish scream roars from the back corner of the room. Everypony inside looks over to see what’s going on, stopping their conversation and games in surprise of the scream. Enwrapped in a crimson aura and hovering above the wooden floor, floats Jarvis while the giant grey stallion Grivs stands behind him, angrily huffing and puffing.

“Jarvis!”

“We forgot about him!”

“No pony touches my booty.” The gruff giant breathes as he holds the green pony in his magic grip. “I’m going to enjoy breaking every bone in yer wee body.”

“Please don’t, have mercy!” Jarvis squeals as he feels his spine being pulled from the inside. “It was Maurice’s idea!”

“No!” The small red pony squeals, “It’s all Cecil’s fault!”

“No it wasn’t!” Cecil frantically retorts with sweat dripping from his shivering face.

“It don’t matter with me,” the grey stallion growls, “I’ll just have to break each of yous, the runt, the loud-mouth, and the baby, all at once!”

“Wait,” Maurice asks, “which one am I?”

“Doesn’t matter when I’m finished,” Swiftly, Grivs' sharp horn glows brightly as Cecil and Maurice as quickly enveloped in their own red auras and lifted into the air.

“Jarvis, Cecil, this maybe our final moments together as rivals with benefits. Before we die to Grivs, I have one thing to say.”

“I have something to confess as well.” Cecil replies.

“Me to,” Jarvis adds.

“Okay, all together…”

The three stallions then loudly shout at once, “I cheated during our first game! …What?!”

“Wait!” Pinkie yells out, running towards the hulking giant. “Don’t hurt them!”

“And why shouldn’t I?” Grivs roars at her, releasing a small cloud of foul breath at her.

“In all honesty, I am the one responsible. I won what was going to be Jarvis’ win, causing him to run out of bits to bet with.”

“Pinkie!” Twilight screams as she and the others charges towards their friend to aid her. “Are you insane?”

“What is this?” Grivs growls, “Some game to find out which one of yous to break the most?”

“Grivs Dinklesworth!” November yells at him as she exits the serving bar and slowly approaches him. With a scowl on her face, fear strikes through everypony as they look at her, not even daring to giggle at Grivs’ last name. “My father and I will not tolerate you causing indiscriminate slaughter in here. Now you put those stallions down and deal with them when you’re out at sea or else.”

“…”

“Do I make myself clear to you?”

“Yes ma’am.” Slowly, Grivs sets down the trio and returns to his seat, never taking his shrunken eyes off of the bar maiden’s glare.

“Now, are there any more problems that I need to take care of?”

“No November.” The four stallions immediately reply in unison.

“Good.” With the problem now taken care of, the mare turns around and heads back to her station.

“You cheated at our first game?”

“Whoa,” Spike speaks.

“Whoa is right there mate.” Maurice replies in a serious tone.

“How did she do that?” Pinkie remarks.

Cecil promptly replies, “She and her father are a force to be reckoned with around here. They are two of the only retirees of his crew.”

“You mean-” Before Pinkie can finish her question, a loud knocking rattles from the door, sounding like metal bashing against weak wood. “Him?” As the door then violently swings open, the caped bipedal appears on the other side, smiling a fearsome smile.

“Yes. Captain Korsan.”

“Hello everypony.” The captain chuckles as he walks towards the serving bar. Silence remains throughout as he draws closer and closer to November back at her position. In the right corner of his single eye, he sees the large group of cloaked heroes alongside the rivals with benefits and Grivs, all staring at him. “What’s going on over there?” He asks in a mischievous, yet curious tone, “Some sort of ninja cult? Though I’m more shocked to see Maurice and his friends standing next to Grivs of all ponies. By the way, how’s to going Grivs? Healed well after our last encounter?”

Grivs releases a very audible gulp from his throat as he clutches it with a hoof, silently responding, “Yes Captain Korsan.”

“Good. November Gale, how has things been? How has your father been?”

“We’ve been fine.” November hisses with a disgusted look on her stiff face. “You’re late.”

“I’m sorry. I had a run-in with a few pests. Which serves as a great transition for this, Chopin!” Immediately, a tall and fairly stout pale stallion wearing a beret and black and white shirt walks into the bar with a pile of ten papers in his black magic. Quickly, the mime-like pony silently trots over to a bulletin board at the left side of the room and sticks each paper onto the wall side by side with a small dagger for each. Twilight and her team look at the papers and sees that it’s each of their faces.

“Ten bounties? Are three of those fillies and one of them a dragon?”

“A baby dragon, and yes. Attention patrons, I have set up a ten million bit bounty for the capture of all ten of these ponies. Each pony had a varying set of value, so if you can’t catch all of them, you can just catch the more valuable ones. The pegasi and earth ponies are 750,000 bits each, the unicorn filly and dragon are a million bits each, the alicorn is 1,500,000 bits, and the older white unicorn is four million bits. I want them all alive.”

“Even the older white wench?” A mare customer seated at a booth asks.

“Especially her, I shall return in ten days, expecting my bounty then. You may want to search near the Central Ley Line.”

“Which are you more insane about? The ten million bit total bounty or thinking we’d risk our hides going anywhere near there?”

“Are you saying that my reward is too expensive?”

“No!”

“Just what I thought. Now I must be off doing a little expedition of sorts. Oh! I almost forgot,” Hastily, Korsan reaches into his cape and pulls out a small crossbow-like weapon. He then aims it towards one of the dart boards and fires it, launching a small, green metal bolt out of the barrel. It hits the bullseye and deeply pierces the wall behind it, creating a loud striking sound that causes the onlookers to wince. “This custom multi-fire crossbow has specially modified anti-magic iron rod projectiles keenly designed for alicorns and evasive targets. It’s a prototype weapon I’ve been working on, just thought I’d like to share it with you all.”

“Impressive,” November replies in a deadpan tone, “now get out. Your sights already seem to be on another mare, so there’s no reason for you to be harassing me.”

“Oh, talking with you is always a delight to me.”

“Imagining you crashing your ship in a joyride is always a delight to me.” Korsan annoyingly grunts in response. Before he leaves though, the brown pegasus fires another bolt towards the dartboard, this time hitting the first bolt on the bullseye and causing the first to peel in two like a banana.

“Adieu.” Korsan and Chopin then quietly walk out of the bar and close the door on their way out. After a moment of silence, the usual activity restarts throughout the chamber, with the ponies waiting for Korsan to leave before beginning their bounty hunt.

“Aww,” Rainbow Dash groans as she looks at her picture, “they got my nose wrong.”

“That’s not what’s important,” Twilight replies as she and the others walk closer to the papers. “What’s important is that we’re all now wanted for a massive amount of money at Thieves’ Hold, the pirate central of the entire world probably. If we don’t either get as far away from here as possible or find some way to remove these bounties, somepony will find out and we’ll be in huge trouble.”

“What about the Diamond Eye?” Applejack asks.

“That might have to wait. Make yourselves scarce, go back to the ship. I’ll stay behind to see what I can do.” Quickly, the five other mares and Spike exit the bar with Korsan’s airship already out of sight outside and hurry down the ramp.

“Hey, Pinks’ friend,” Maurice calls out at Twilight as he trots up to her, “Where’s your buddy off to? We’ve only played one game.”

“She had somethings to take care of.”

“Is she going after the bounty?”

“Not sure, we’re deciding.”

“I see. See you later.” As Maurice turns back and heads towards his rivals with benefits, Twilight sighs with relief.

She thinks to herself, Good, he and his buddies are oblivious at the moment. Now, how to get rid of these bounties? I can’t just remove them off the spot, they’ll notice and I’ll be busted as well as my friends. We can’t make that much of a speedy escape with our ship in ruins. What to do- Twilight’s train of thought is abruptly cut off as a cyan aura surrounds her and launches her over and behind the serving bar. The purple alicorn’s now exposed face is then met with the bar maiden’s with a notably distressed expression.

“November?!” Twilight exclaims.

“Shhh, I not going to put yous up.” she immediately whispers, “I figured it was you and your crew being put up to bounty. That pet dragon was a dead giveaway. Luckily, I think only I was able to get a close enough look.”

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? I’ve saving you and all of your friends’ hides. By the way, did you actually bring three fillies with you to Thieves’ Hold?”

“Sort of, they snuck onboard. But the real question is why are you doing this?”

“I know what he’s going to do to each of you if he gets his claws on you. Korsan’s a lunatic. He’ll show no mercy to even the foals. And I’m not going to let him do that. Your best bet is to get out of here now. Save yourselves.”

“Thank you. But we can’t leave, especially now. We have to stop Korsan and get our rare artifact back to Equestria from his clutches. And seeing as how he’s been bothering you all, scaring even Grivs senseless, we have to help you.”

“That’s very kind, but with those bounties on your heads, you won’t be able to do much.”

“Can we get rid of them?”

“No, if Korsan found out we removed them without some form of payment, he’ll be furious. And paying off the bounty is utterly impossible. Ten million bits total, how would you be able to do that in only ten days?”

“My friends and I could work for you.”

“With what money earned? We can barely afford repairs and no pony will buy our more expensive items due to their low quality. You saw how your friend reacted to the cider. By the way, she still needs to pay.”

“Hm… How many drinks of cider would we need to sell in order to reach ten million bits?”

“Two-hundred thousand at least to pay it off, but where are you going to get enough resources to make that much cider? We don’t exactly have the best import sources. And what about selling them afterwards?”

“I have an idea.”