Meanwhile, a kilometre high above in the cloudy blue sky, inside the low brig of The Perfection, Rarity and Sweetie Belle are inside their cells as per usual. With the ambient noises of wood creaking and hooves trotting along the upper floors as their only permanent company, the two prisoners are practically statues in beds, waiting to come alive and eat when Chopin brings them food in a few hours. However, the loud metal creaking of a door snaps the two out of their ceiling-bound glance and the two sisters look to see what’s causing the noise. Much to Rarity’s surprise, it’s Slasher pulling the lever to Rarity’s cell door. Her gentle hoofsteps were not able to be noticed by the two prisoners as they expected the mime’s heavier stomps.

“Slasher?” Rarity silently exclaims to the chipper pirate, “What are you doing here?”

“Captain’s recalibrating his suit,” the brown mare calmly replies as she approaches Sweetie Belle’s cell, “It’ll take a while, so I thought it’d be nice to show yous around The Perfection.”

“Aren’t you worried about us escaping?”

“How? We’re thousands of metres above sea level, on one of the heaviest militarized ships in existence,”

“Fair point…”

“It’s tough to pull these without magic, err,” The brown unicorn pulls down the adjacent lever and opens the filly’s prison door.

“Thank you Miss!” Sweetie cheers as she bolts from her caged room and hugs onto the small mare’s leg.

“Aw, you’re so adorable! So, where would you two like to go?”

“The treasure room! Please?!”

“Now Sweetie Belle,” Rarity firmly retorts, “we trapped on a boat filled with cutthroat pirates, no offense, and I don’t think they’d appreciate us messing with their stolen valuables.”

“Yeah,” Slasher answers, not even most of we are allowed in there. Oh! We have the gardens, you can visit there!”

“Wait, a garden?”

“Yeah, we grow all sorts of plants and foods there, especially potatoes. They’re delicious. Can we go there? I want to go there with yous.”

“Sure…”

“Yes! Follow me. With Slasher Gutzoult leading the trio, the mares head up the stairs and enter the medical area. There, they come across a light green mare with a silvery mane and tail and wearing a nurse’s coat, cleaning the wooden floor with a mop.

Rarity instantly recognizes her and instantly calls out, “Hello Lilis.”

“Hm?” The nurse looks up from the damp flooring and is surprised to see the ship’s captives free from their cells without Korsan or Chopin with them, “Miss Rarity? What a surprise. How’s that cut of yours doing?”

“My cut?” Rarity looks back at her hind legs and sees her right one wrapped in a thick white bandage cloth. “Oh, I nearly forgot about that. It’s doing well. Thanks for taking care of it.”

“Rapiers make a might of a gash in you if you’re not careful.”

“I figured.”

“So, where are you taking them Slasher?”

“I’m just showing our guests around while Korsan’s recalibrating,” the cat-loving mare enthusiastic replies bouncing up and down, causing her black mare to flop in front of her green eyes.

“Please tell me it’s not your room. Your cats have already put me to hard work with whatever diseases they manage to pick up.”

“No, it’s the botany chambers.”

“I’m not sure the cooks would like you interrupting their work.”

“It’s fine. I promise.”

“Fine, just make sure that Yu and Yin don’t see you. Don’t want that little foal with you picking up on bad habits.”

“Will do Lilis. By the way, who revisited lunch this time?”

“Fawnswa,”

“Oh…”

“We should get going,” Rarity interrupts as she holds back her disgust, “right?”

“Oh, yes. Quickly now,” Going around the set wood, the trio makes their way upstairs into the lower cabins and reaches the entrance of the gardens at the end of the hallway of rooms. Peaking inside, Rarity and Sweetie Belle are immediately shocked by the rows and rows of plowed land and water spanning across the entire room. Carrots, watermelons, pumpkins, wheats, all neatly organized. Slowly following their guide, the two sisters look around the massive indoor farm, all brightly lit by lanterns hung onto the ceiling.

“How is this ship this massive able to fly?” Sweetie Belle asks.

“Especially with an entire farm built into it?” Rarity adds.

“I’m not entirely certain,” Slasher sheepishly answers, “I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I think Korsan said something about electrocuted anti-magic built into The Perfection’s structure counteracting a magic air-field, making it able to fly regardless of massiveness. I don’t know too many big words.

“My friend Twilight would probably kill to learn about this anti-magic stuff your captain knows about.”

“Princess Twilight Sparkle?!”

“Yes? You saw her at Thieves’ Hold didn’t you?”

“No, I was busy cleaning a spare sail while Korsan and half of the other crew members entered the bar three days ago. But I heard that the battle was amazing! Princess Twilight and Captain Korsan, beating the ever-living daylights out of each other, exchanging blows one right after another. I wish I’d been there to see it. How’d it start anyways? Did your team and Korsan’s team stand on opposing sides of the bar and then charged into each other like an epic action book?”

“Not really, Korsan was about to attack November and her dad and Twilight decided to intervene by smashing a chain into Korsan’s back.”

“Oh no, he said too much again.”

“Who? November’s dad? What do you mean?”

“A little less than three years ago, several months after… then… We visited Thieves’ Hold and the bar which had been recently built then by November and Nitin Gale. When we first walked inside, Nitin was talking about his experiences with Captain Korsan, namely, his childhood. I wasn’t able to hear much before the captain got furious all of a sudden and attacked Nitin Gale. He bashed the old ex-member into every corner of the bar in a seething bloodlust, never stopping and even tossed November across the bar when she tried to stop him. After a while, Korsan ran out of steam and ordered us to leave immediately.”

“That’s horrible. How old were you when you saw this?”

“I was fourteen, but I’ve seen worse even before then.”

“Aren’t you in the least bit concerned about Nitin Gale and all that he went through? Aren’t you upset at your boss doing such a horrible thing?”

“I was concerned, and I was even going to try to break it up if the captain continued. When he ordered us to go, I was practically furious with him. However, as we were leaving Thieves’ Hold, I saw the captain head up into his chambers, looking as if he was about to cry or something like that. There I realized that Korsan was regretting what he just did and trying to hide his shame from the rest of us. Look, I know that the captain appears to be this merciless maniac, but he really does care for us. He has feelings and emotions like the rest of us.”

“Is that really a reason to forgive him for attempting to kill most of my friends?”

“Well, no, it’s just… He has good reasons-”

“Good reason my flan-”

“Shhh!” The energetic mare hisses at Rarity as they reach the edge of the gardens and enter a large glass room with trees inside it. With the sunlight from outside beaming into the massive tree room, Slasher and her two companions turn deathly silent and listen to the sounds of what seems to be stallions inaudibly whispering that can be heard above them. “That sounds like its coming from the cellar, follow me quietly.”

Sweetie Belle murmurs, “But why-”

“I said quietly,” Confused, the two sisters listen and follow the small brown pirate as they sneak across the dirt floor of the room, bobs and weave between the trees, and climb up the staircase in the chamber to the top of the room which turns out to be the floor right below the kitchen and galley. Peeking their heads over the landing on the top floor of the hull, the trio looks through the already open doors and into a large room filled with wooden barrels of liquids with seemingly no pony inside. The voices grow more audible as they draw closer to the room. Slasher’s thin ears sharply point forward towards the cellar in attempts to interpreting the voices.

“What’s going on?” Rarity asks.

“I don’t know, for a while, I’ve been hearing this talking around this area whenever Korsan’s busy with something. Now shush,” Curious of what Slasher’s hearing, Rarity sharpens her ears towards the mumbles and begins to hear them clearly.

“…so that’s when we’ll hit him?” The voice of an older stallion utters.

“Yeah,” A younger stallion replies in a strict tone of voice, “he won’t know what hit him.”

“Is this really the best idea? You saw what he’s capable of late night.”

“For all we know,” a mare replies, “He could be very well knowing of what we’re planning and will strike back when we do. Why else would he have been showing off during that fight against that wench we got?”

The second unseen stallion retorts, “He’s an oblivious moron. Listen, if we don’t get this done sooner or later, he will find out and we’ll all be dead.”

“Well,” a third stallion replies, “you’ll at least be dead. After all, you know more than we do.”

“Dead pony tell no tales,” the elder pirate adds.

“The sooner we complete this mission,” the second pony declares, “the sooner we get the riches. I’m sick and tired of that twit running us into the ground. High time we do something about it…”

What’s going on? Rarity thinks to herself as her eyes blankly stare ahead, It sounds like they’re upset at somepony. Wait, Slasher said something about Korsan’s cousin… As Rarity slowly turns to the focused teenager, Sweetie Belle right between the two begins to wrinkle her nose as some loose dust tickles her insides. In one swift motion, the filly violently sneezes, causing the other two to cringe in fright if their cover being blown. “They didn’t hear that right?”

“Somepony’s over there, check it out.”

“Oh no,”

“Shoot!” The pirate mare silently exclaims. “Rarity, get your sister and run back. If they know we’re here-”

“What about you? Who are they?”

“Just go!” Frantically, Slasher head-butts Rarity’s side and urges the two down the stairs to the room floor. Getting the message, the two sisters dart into the gardens while Slasher returns to her position at the stairs. Silently running as fast as they can, Rarity and Sweetie Belle dark into the cabin area. However, as they turn around to the stairway down into the lower floor, they accidently collide with Yin and Yu walking up the stairs, sending the two brothers tumbling down and smashing into the lower floor.

“Sorry!”

“Ow…” One of the brothers moan in response.

“It was an accident!” Sweetie Belle cries out.

“Figured.”

“Hey,” the other tangled unicorn speaks, “why aren’t you two in your cells? We were just going up to find yous when we found your cells have been opened.”

“We were just taking a small tour of the boat, nothing more,” Rarity quickly replies.

“With who?”

“With… Fawnswa, yes!”

“Oh, he needed an escort after his technicolor spitting fit. That makes sense in his case. We told him not to try carpentry upside with a shot of Anton’s stuff.”

“What were you two even doing down there?”

“Fetching you two. Yeah, Captain wants to see you Rarity in his private chambers.”

“What about Sweetie Belle?”

“She is going to be supervised by Butch and Ivan while they prepare dinner.” The first brother proclaims, “Something about letting her interact with the crew and having fun.”

“In the kitchen?”

“Don’t worry. They’ll keep a good eye on her.”

“…”

“If you don’t like it, too bad. Captain’s orders,”

“Oh come on Yin,” Yu playfully retorts, “Don’t be in such a downer because you slipped down a few stairs.”

“Your hoof in in my spleen,”

“Oh. Sorry.” As the two pirate brothers start to untangle themselves, worry sets into Rarity’s mind as she wonders about what’s happening to Slasher now.

Please let her be okay, both Rarity and Sweetie Belle think to themselves.

Upstairs, in the back of the top floor of the quarterdeck, Korsan is inside a small library recalibrating his suit. With his front left hoof resting on a golden table and his right turning a wrench jammed inside his left elbow’s metal parts, all the bipedal pony can do is look around to see the same sights he has always seen in his library. Hundreds of shelves, each packed with books of all sizes and colours, neatly organized by his personal system, lining every wall of the room all the way to the ceiling, with only two sets of dual doors in each corner of the triangular room not bombarded with books. On the table where his hoof lays are the two Diamond Eyes stacked on top of each other, buried in a small pile of notebooks and broken writing quills. As the pirate captain feels his mechanical armour beginning to squeeze his back and joints, he gives on final tug on his wrench embedded into the gears of his suit before yanking out the wrench and tossing it onto the corner of the massive table before him. A slight gasp escapes the brown stallion’s mouth as he sets himself into a nearby chair and examines an open journal in front of him.

“Let’s see,” Korsan mumbles to himself, “It’s in a combination of both a greater integer function and a quantic function, similar to a diamond’s particle structure when in crystalloid formation. Graphing the equations on a single table and transforming the image created by the graph gets me somewhere, but where’s the next step? Is this step even finished? Perhaps I need to read on Bloomsburg’s studies on the ‘Alicronicom’ again and cross reference it with ‘Daring Do and the Lost Kingdoms of Trihearth’ and Star Swirl the Bearded’s-” Before he can finish his monologue, a knock on the right set of dual doors interrupts his train of thought. “Who is it?”

“Rarity-Gram.” Yu replies behind the closed doors.

“Let her in.” Slowly, the doors swing open to reveal Rarity nervously standing there.  As organ music now echoes from the adjacent bedroom into the library, the two ponies silently stare at each other for a moment while Yu has already fled. “Rarity,”

“Korsan,” The white unicorn replies in a sharp, yet frightened tone.

“I see that your leg’s doing well.”

“Why have you brought me here? You know now more than ever that I’m neither a fan of you nor your work and would request that you let me and my sister go.”

“It’s been merely three days. Surely you’re not as insistent as you believe yourself to be.”

“What does that mean?”

“’Phycology Studies 13C’, you should read up on it, it’s a good book. What I’m trying to put is that you’re probably interested about the bells and whistles that make up this fine ship. I can arrange something to help that craving. I can arrange a private cabin for you and your sister, give or take a few moves. I can also arrange a little private get-together between you and me, just to know a little more about each other.”

“Aren’t you saving yourself up for November Gale?”

“Not exactly. I have very limited variety of choices for a good mare by my side. I’m just trying to find which one fate truly has set for me.”

“You, some super-sciency pirate, believes in fate?”

“To a scientific extent, you see, everything in this world can be given a numerical value. And if you’re clever enough, you can use these numbers to better your odds in whatever goal you’re trying to achieve. Fate is just another one of those numbers. I myself will never be able calculate all the numbers in the world, but I can get quite a few for my life close enough.”

“So what? Are you now planning to go on some date with me?”

“That’s the concept.”

“Never in a million years.”

“Oh, we’ll see in fair time. Now, how about that personal tour?”