The bipedal pegasus starts to make his across the room and up to the frightened bounty hunter, revealing himself in the light of the candles on the tables. His large black cape stretches down to the floor with its corners trailing rainwater from outside as the captain walked. With his back turned towards Twilight’s table, the ten heroes get a good look at Korsan’s backside machinery. Clutching to Korsan’s back is a giant mechanical device just as large as its user’s torso, made completely of shifting gears and pistons.

“So, a funny thing just recently happened.” Korsan speaks as he slows down to further distress the grey pegasus, soon being followed by two of his crew members, “I was just walking into a bar when I heard the funniest joke ever. ‘Where can I find Korsan now? I want what he has; I can take him down if it means becoming the richest pony in the world!’” The brown pegasus then chuckles as he continued his walk towards his victim, only to stop three hooves in front of his upward looking face. “And you know what the best bit about that was? The pony, who said it, was a pegasus. What a laugh am I right?” All around him, the patrons of the bar laugh nervously, fearing what he’ll do if they did not laugh.

A loud gulp can be heard from the bounty hunter he replies, obviously trying to sound intimidating, “So, what did you do next huh? Did you and the challenger fight? Did the challenger proved pegasi were just as good as unicorns?” The stallion then twirls around to face his body towards Korsan and engages a combat stance.

“Oh, we did fight, more of a banter to be worded correctly, but…” Korsan give a side glance to the crew members to his right. The unicorn’s horn begins to glow and in an instant, the rival’s legs are pulled from under him. The bounty hunter’s torso immediately slams into the wood floor with his legs being pulled away from him, to the point of nearly being ripped off. The unsuspecting pony looks to see that a faint red aura is surrounding his hooves. “The results weren’t what my challenger expected.”

“What? Afraid to fight like a stallion? Needing your lackeys to take on just one pony?” Another short chuckle escapes from Korsan’s mouth. He then kneels down to his opponent’s eye level on the floor, giving him a look of pity.

“Oh, you poor creature, you actually think that?” In one swift gesture, Korsan stretches out his right hoof in front of the grey stallion’s face. He observes in horror as the five spikes attached to his shoe transform into metal dragon claws. “Did you ever have the feeling, of, a great pain?!” His metal fingers immediately pinch the fallen pony’s nose on cue, causing a large shockwave of pain to rattle through his body. “A pain, so great,” his claw then starts to twist the nose, making the pain more unbearable as the stallion gives a hard roar of pain, “but, you can’t do anything about it, making it even more painful? For over twelve years of my life, I had that pain. I was powerless against my family bullying me because they had magic and I did not. Yet I learned a valuable lesson, unicorns are superior, all they have to do is perform a tiny spell, and any non-unicorn is bent to their every will and desire. That’s why my crew and I have been the most effective pirates out there.”

“Then why do they listen to you if they’re all that superior.”

“Direction, my imbecilic rival, that’s why. Sure they have the magic, but with my help with the invention of physical anti-magic and far superior intellect, we achieve the greatest of riches. And about the whole me-being-a-pegasus part, I plan to fix that.”

“But how?” The bounty hunter squeals with his nose being turned even more sideways, “The only way you can change your race is ascension, and that requires the magic of the most powerful of ponies. And so what if you get a horn, it takes years of education to master the art of magic.”

“Not true once again,” another laugh bellows from the pirate’s mouth before continuing, “I have studied magic all of my life, what types there are, how to use it, how to tamper with it, how to forge it into weaponry, and many other applications of it. I also have gathered a vast variety of books, old and new that go into the history of it, so it should come to no surprise that I would find another way to get what I desire. Alicorn Island, a legendary island somewhere in uncharted waters that is said to have an artifact what will grant a pony the wings of a pegasus, the strength of an Earth Pony, and the horn of a unicorn. I’m so close to finding it as well, I just need a little more time.” He then lets go of the victim and instead grabs him by a wet purple suit hidden under his cloak. The unicorn that was holding me down lets go of his magic as the bounty hunter is lifted up to Korsan’s standing eye level. “So what do you say?”

“I say that you’re playing cheap.”

“You still want an actual fight with me? I was going to kill you one way or another. At least it’s going to be fun for the both of u-… wait a minute.” Korsan’s eye darts down and sees the purple silk of the stallion’s suit poking out of the black. “This silk…” He raises his prey a little higher as he begins to pull his face closer to the suit that is beginning to tear from being stretched so much. The trapped pegasus tries to flaps his wings and escape the iron grip, but the cloak and suit are too soggy from the outside and Korsan holding the tight silk up so high isn’t making the situation better. The pirate captain then starts to sniff the purple suit and brushes the tip of his nose over it, creating a very awkward situation for the stallion above. “This mulberry silk has been dyed with Tyrian Purple, a rare and expensive dye made from sea snails only native to the local waters around Saddle Arabia. The stitching of the cloth has been done with the finest precision of magic. The only ponies that would be able to wear such a luxurious piece of equipment would be royalty, bestowed by royalty, or be insanely rich. I know where you got this, this clothing given to you by the king of Saddle Arabia as a reward for catching a very high level criminal, considering your profession is that of a bounty hunter, you would be chasing after highly dangerous ponies.”

“How did you know that I was a bounty hunter?”

“It was very simple to put the pieces together. Your shadowy appearance, the way you engaged me and my ponies, the fact that you are most likely not from these local waters, the fact that you are willing to actually fight me, it was so blatantly obvious. Hey, make you a deal, I’ll put you out of your misery and I’ll take your lovely clothing from your body. Promise not to bleed on the suit, and I’ll kill you quickly.” Korsan laughs once more, turning maniacal as half of his crew that is still outside join him in the cheer. Rage soon starts to swell in the bounty hunter as the hysterical laughing continues. Within moments, the stallion kicks Korsan’s exposed eye with a hind hoof. Korsan immediately screams in pain as the opponent is dropped from his metal grip. The grey pony then springs into action and uses an unseen weapon on his wings to tear off the cloak and regain his hoofing. He and everypony else besides Korsan looks to his back left and right to see the weapons unveiled. Two, heavily armoured, extendable wing blades attached tightly at the front edges of the hunter’s wings. He opens the wings wide and flaps them down, causing the sharp metal blade to extend to a meter in length. The stallion then points the right wing at the tip of Korsan’s nose while he is still rubbing his eye, revealing how soft Korsan’s nose surprisingly is. Korsan eventually stops rubbing his eye and gives a good look at the blade about to strike him, then up at the bounty hunter’s face and into his orange eyes. He sees the eyes are boiling with determination as his rival stares back at him, with no fear being displayed between the two.

“Korsan, give up these felonious acts and come with me peacefully or I will use aggressive force.”

“Like you haven’t already?” The captain responds in a cynical, harsh tone, “that’s some mighty impressive equipment you got there. Almost makes me wish I didn’t give those wing blades away.” The rogue shakes his head in disbelief, before stopping to consider Korsan’s words.

“You made these?”

“Yeah I made them, but due to… unforeseen changes to my body; I had to sell the weapons to the black market, which is where you most likely got them from. Luckily, I always upgrade.” Korsan then reaches both of his front claws behind his back and pulls out his serrated cutlasses from deep inside the large back piece of his exosuit, glowing an even brighter shade of green than before due to the chamber’s dim lighting. “You still want to fight?” Korsan then begins to spin the two swords with his claws to intimidate his opponent pre-battle and demonstrates his capabilities with the blades.

“Bring it.” The two fighters lung towards each other and immediately begin to fight on the spot in the middle of the bar. Twilight observes the two fighting and is becomes entranced by Korsan’s fighting style. The metal blades strike each other in a harmonious rhythm, every strike, lunge, parry, jab, and grind, all perfectly timed. As Korsan and the bounty hunter duel, Korsan’s crew starts to flood into the bar and forms a circle around them, making sure the challenger isn’t going to escape. In a matter of moments, the customers observing the brawl join in the action. Shouts ring out among the patrons behind the crew’s backs, calling bets on when the grey pegasus is going to die, not even Cecil, Maurice, and Jarvis is immune from the heat. Eventually, the challenger gains the upper hoof and strikes Korsan’s left cutlass at the hilt with a powerful swing, launching it across the bar and hitting the bullseye on a dartboard. “Ha!” His other wing blade and Korsan’s right sword collide together and begin to grind vigorously, causing sparks to shower down. The stranger then swings his free wing once more to attack and just as it about to slice into Korsan’s side, it stops. A loud metal clang rings from the blade instead and echoes through the building, bringing a wave a silence to the area. The hunter looks down to see Korsan’s unarmed metal fist grabbing hold of the wing. He immediately shakes it side to side, but Korsan doesn’t let go.

“Impressive.” The grey stallion’s gaze returns back to his rival, who now has the most evil smile imprinted on his face. “Another design flaw I’ve noticed is that, pegasi weapons…” Before he finishes his statement, Korsan flings the blade and his rival’s body entire body into the air. Everypony watches in awe as Korsan performs three sideways twirls in midair with the opponent still in his clutches before landing and smashing him into an empty table. With apple cider pouring on his face, the bounty hunter is frozen stiff as pain is dancing throughout his veins. All the defeated pony can do now is to pant and wheeze, frozen in shock of whatever maneuver Korsan had just pulled. His eyes look to his right to see Korsan kneeling next to his paralyzed body, still clutching onto the wing. “They tend to be a bit clingy, don’t you agree?”

The bounty hunter stutters, “K-K-K-K-ma-ka-ko-”

“Don’t strain yourself, it’ll all be over in a minute.” The pirate then lets go of the wing blade, only to grab the collar of the vest once again. He then raises his prey up into the air with one claw and his sword in another before announcing to the attendants present, “Behold! This is what happens when you try to mess with me! Any Earth pony or pegasi that gets in my way will not live to see the next day, so you all better watch yourselves. Am I clear?” The room remains quiet, as all of the patrons are still shocked silent of the battle. “I said, am I clear?!”

“Y-Yes.” They all nervously respond.

“Good.” Korsan’s glare turns to the barmaid, in which he slowly walks to her with his fallen rival in tow. “Hey November Gale, open for the weekend? My ice phoenix Juliana has learned a new trick I would like to show you.”

“Go away Korsan,” she sternly replies, “you’ve already caused enough damage to this place. I don’t want your parrot to freeze this place.”

“Come on November, you know you can’t resist a pony like me.”

“Yes I can, and if you’re going to be causing any bloodshed, do it outside.”

“Fine. If you’ll excuse me, I have some business to attend to.” With that said, Korsan carries the bounty hunter outside of the bar, through the open door and into the rainstorm, having grown even more severe over the past hour. As the wooden door slowly swings close, Twilight and the others catch a glimpse of Korsan’s ship parked right outside. Faint mumbles are then heard amongst the rain outside through the walls of the tavern. Slowly, the patrons inside that are wearing hats take them off and hold them up to their chest, soon followed by the others simply clutching theirs. Korsan’s crew however roars and cheers as they seat themselves at any empty seats they can find. Twilight and the gang look back at November to see her clutching her chest as well.

“Poor soul,” November mutters in her breathe. A second later, the mumbling noises outside stops abruptly with an audible clunk sound. “Poor, poor, soul,”

“Did he just,” Twilight asks with her face rapidly turns pale.

“Yes. Another life has just been lost to us. I feel so ashamed just for even being associated with him at some point of my time. You’ve paid off your bounty my friends. Get out of here now while you still have the chance.”

“Oh my…” Spike utters in shock.

“I’m going to pass out!” Fluttershy quietly exclaims as her stomach grows queasy.

“I’m gonna puke.” Pinkie groans.

“That atrocity to all pony-kind!” Rarity hollers.

“We want to go home now!” The three fillies cry out in fear.

“That’s it,” Applejack replies, “I’m drawing the line here, somepony’s gotta stop him.”

“I second that.” Rainbow Dash adds, smacking her hooves together.

“Don’t!” November retorts, “You saw what he did. Not even a seasoned bounty hunter could stop him. He could kill all of you.”

“Not if we work together.”

“Even if the entire bar joined in, Korsan and his crew will just kill us all. I don’t want to let you all get sliced up into tiny pieces by him, get out!”

“We ain’t leaving.” Applejack snaps back, “Us friends are going to stick together and take on any weather he throws at us.” The front door then swings open once more as Korsan returns into the tavern with Chopin trailing behind, levitation the Diamond Eye and its counterpart behind him.

“The Diamond Eye,” Twilight silently exclaims, “and its other half, they’re here.”

“Just put the Diamond Eyes on that table,” Korsan commands to his mime accomplish, pointing at a large round table right beside Twilight’s. “I have some things to sort out.”

“Two Diamond Eyes?” With the pale unicorn gently setting down the two large crystals on top of each other, his captain walks over to the dartboard where his sword got stuck in and yanks it out before setting it back behind his back with the other sword. “If you can get the jump on them, we might be able to snatch the Diamond Eye and get out of here.”

“In our wreck of a ship?” Rainbow replies. “And besides, we’re going to stop Korsan.”

“His fighting technique was perfect against a veteran bounty hunter armed with his own technology. November’s served Korsan for quite some time, she knows what’s best for us.” With Twilight and the others watching while they argue, Korsan then walks away from the dartboards and billiard tables and approaches the serving counter.

“November Gale,” the pirate pegasus announces, “I assume that at least one of my bounties have been caught.”

“I’m sorry,” the bar maiden spitefully retorts, “but they paid off the bounty, all ten million bits.”

“What?! Impossible.”

“A messenger brought us the money from an anonymously named source. If you don’t believe me, look at what Grivs is guarding back there.” Korsan’s single eye rapidly switches focus to the back of the room and sees the giant grey unicorn sitting next to one of the massive apple crates, with golden bits visibly seen brimming the top.

“Northwestern Equestrian Oak, it is them.”

“Well, now that that’s been taken care of, how about you leave?”

“Ah, ah, ah, I have some business I want to attend to, regarding your father.” Slowly, the brown stallion reaches behind his back and caresses the metal hilts of his swords. “I want to have a wo-”

“Captain Korsan!” Ryan Aran calls out to him from Chopin’s table.

“What?!”

“You might want to check this out.” Now annoyed, Korsan promptly stomps away from the serving counter and meets up with Ryan and Chopin, carefully observing the Diamond Eyes stacked on top of each other.

“What is it?”

“Well, while you were preoccupied Chopin was organizing the Diamond Eyes and made an interesting discovery. The two parts fit together not by their edges, but by their faces.”

“Demonstrate.” Swiftly, Chopin levitates the top crystal and motions his hooves over the bulges underneath. He then motions his hooves over the grooves on top of the lower Diamond Eye before putting the two together, with the bulges fitting inside the grooves and making a single thick Diamond Eye. “Impressive, they do go together. But why like this? Not all of the grooves have been filled. Nothing seems to be missing.” Silently, Twilight takes this moment and slides out of her seat and sneaks up behind the captain to get a good look at the Diamond Eyes as well. Peering over his shoulder, Twilight also tries to figure out what this means. “These symbols still don’t correlate with any of my studies on that blasted island. What am I missing? Another piece perhaps?”

“Could very well be Captain.” Carefully, Korsan grabs the two pieces together and lifts it so that the faces are facing him and the lantern at the center of the table, inadvertently causing the light from the fire to magnify through the crystals and temporarily blinding Twilight. Quickly, the purple alicorn hovers back in the air and recovers her vision.

“Where would it be though? In the middle of Eternity’s Crossing? No. Under Vaporia? No. Lost in the Ley Lines? No, no, no, it would’ve never gotten to any of those places. Based on records and my studies, there shouldn’t even be a third part. So what am I not seeing? Have you tried swapping the top and bottom?”

“Yes, but they don’t fit Captain.”

“Blast…”

“Careful, you might blind yourself with that reflected light.”

“Apologies,” Immediately, a memory flickers in Twilight’s mind.

Wait, Twilight thinks to herself, at the gala, when Luna’s moonbeams hit the Diamond Eye, symbols appeared on the wall because of the light. What if the second eye, with a snap of the neck, Twilight looks behind where she was hovering behind Korsan and sees a large wall of symbols made of light glowing on the wall, was a filter to condense the reflections into one image?!

“Bah,” Korsan groans, “I may have to look at this later. I have some business to take care of. Maybe another minute of looking,” Now filled with a sense of urgency, Twilight hastily scans the image top to bottom with her mind, memorizing every symbol and their position. Upon finishing, Twilight looks back over Korsan’s shoulder away from the light and decides to rub in her victory by blowing a silent raspberry.

Wait a minute. Korsan contemplates to himself as a familiar scent wafts into his nose, Northwestern Equestrian Oak. Within half a second, the pirate captain snaps his neck to the outer part of the combined Diamond Eyes and sees a blurry, purple reflection. Immediately, Korsan drops the crystals, leaps from his position, and swipes his hoof to where he saw the blur, only to swat at nothingness upon inspection.

“What?”

“Is there a problem?” Ryan asks.

“None, I think it’s time that I finish my business.” Quickly, Korsan hastily walks back up to the serving counter, unaware of Twilight’s absence, as she is hiding under Korsan’s table now. Carefully, the cloaked alicorn crawls her way back to her seat and listens in on her rival.

“You again,” November groans upon seeing him. “You don’t have any more business with me and my father anymore.”

“Oh really,” Korsan replies with a grin as he resets his hooves over his swords, “because I’ve heard he’s been doing a bit of talking recently, making a little stain upon my mark.”

“That bounty hunter told you, didn’t he?”

“Sang like a canary he did. Now, I don’t want to cause anymore killing sprees, I want to save those for when my image has been affiliated with being a unicorn. However, if somepony wants to keep word of my inferiority circulating around the world, I going to have to take action. May you please get your father out here?”

“No. Go away.”

“I’m not asking a question, I’m issuing a command. Get Nitin Gale, out here, now.”

“No!”

“Get him out here now!”

“Never!”

“I will climb over this counter and get him myself!”

“Stay back!” November screams, revealing a small dagger from underneath the counter and holding it up to Korsan’s chin. Korsan quickly retaliates by grabbing November by the neck with one of his clawed hooves and tossing her aside, causing her to smack onto the side of the counter.

“Time we meet again old mate!”  However, as Korsan begins to climb over the counter, Twilight jumps into action and swings her wooden chair at him, smashing it against his back. Roaring in shock and pain, Korsan hastily grabs one of his swords and swipes it behind him as he turns around. Although the blade misses Twilight, the gush of wind caused by the speed of the swing blows off the hood of the mare’s cloak, revealing herself to Korsan as he looks back. “Twilight Sparkle!”