Sorry for how long this chapter took. Since i am taking this fic more serious i am making the chapters longer (Next chapter will be far longer) it takes a little longer. Stay swaggin

-Vespi

“North Star I’d like it if you looked at me when I talked to you” Twilight Sparkle said with a reprimanding voice

North Star finally gave out a loud, obnoxious exhale and removed his face from the window; the sun was just setting beautifully. Ever since he was very young he loved watching that big yellow ball of light and energy goes up and down, signaling the start and end of the day. The sun was almost like stress relief to North Star. On one side of the ship was a massive storm; on the other was a tranquil sunset.

“What were you saying Twilight?” North Star asked; trotting in the direction of the bridge.

“I do not like it when you contradict me in front of the other sailors” Twilight said with a sigh

“I didn’t do anything; Lyra started it” North Star said in his own defense. He wasn’t the type of pony to throw others under the bus but this time he was serious; he hadn’t done anything wrong.

“I hope the admiral believes you North Star, I really do” Twilight said

“What is that supposed to mean?” North Star asked, they were now approaching ever closer to the bridge, they were now walking up a set of metallic stairs.

“Well it isn’t like she brought you down here to give you a medal” Twilight said with a giggle.

“True” North Star said “Or maybe I’m just getting a promotion”

“Sure whatever you say” Twilight joked. They walked in silence for the rest of the time; which wasn’t very long. The 2 finally headed to the bridge, the pacing admiral was anxiously awaiting their arrival.

“Hello you two” She said “Please follow me… so somewhere where we can talk in privacy” She began to trot towards a door guarded by 2 burly looking marines wearing glowing golden armor and gilded helmets. One of the guards instantly rushed to open the door for the admiral.

“Please feel free to sit down” Admiral Flotilla said, motioning to chairs facing a fancy wooden desk. For a giant ship, Admiral Flotilla lived like the princess. Her room was more like a house compared to the sailor’s accommodations; her living area had several rooms! The front room where North Star stood seemed to be her office, which seemed amazingly prestigious and professional. Although the ship was a metal cage almost her room had wooden paneling and snug rug carpeting. On the walls were pictures of the distinguished Admiral. The room itself felt more like the house of a young married couple then the barracks of an admiral on duty.

“Nice office” North Star noticed

“Thank you” Admiral Flotilla said, taking a seat at her desk. North Star didn’t want to be blunt about the subject, but on Admiral Flotilla’s desk was a picture that seemed out of place. Most of the pictures in the room were of just Admiral Flotilla. But in one picture, stationed on the corner of her desk, was a picture displaying not one; but two white mares. North Star was hesitant at first about putting a name on the 2nd mare but evidently knew who it was. The 2nd mare was the fashion model Fleur De Lis, North Star instantly noticed the resemblance, in Fleur De Lis’s small, elegant hand writing was:

“To my big sis

-Fleur De Lis”

“Like this picture?” Admiral Flotilla said noticing North Star’s infatuation with it.

“Meh; I was just trying to guess who the 2nd mare was.” North Star said, he was already pretty embarrassed at the moment. The way he had found out about Fleur De Lis was through a magazine actually; a grown up magazine, about… fashion.

“Is that Fleur De Lis?” Twilight asked “My friend Rarity talked a lot about her, I heard she is one of the top models in Canterlot!”

“That sounds like her” Admiral Flotilla said “She just could shake her flank to get what she wanted; I had to actually work for it.”

A dreadful awkward silence filled the room like a toxic gas

“Anyways tell me what happened in the signaling bay today” Admiral Flotilla asked

“Well we just had a little problem with discipline and North Star-“Twilight Sparkle was cut off by the admiral’s aggravated glare.

“I mean what did you see?” She asked impatiently

“There was this big storm I saw while using my drone” North Star said, giving Twilight a mischievous smile while the admiral wasn’t looking.

“I understand” Admiral Flotilla said “We would just like to assure you that this is nothing to worry about and most likely this ship will not even be near the storm in several hours. Storms like these tend to pass by the ship, as they are not meant to occur out in the middle of the sea. We just wanted to tell you that there is nothing to worry about. After all when the ship is using coal and wind at the same time we could outrun the storm in a matter of half an hour!”

“Wait this ship uses coal?” Twilight asked; as a small town librarian and apprentice she didn’t know a mast from starboard bow.

“Yes, Equestria has had a lot of new inventions in the boat industry. Ponies put coal in hot furnaces to create steam to power turbines to power the ship to propel it.”

That didn’t make any sense to North Star but he did know that houses in Equestria used coal for heating.

“Okay” North Star said “That was it”

“Pretty much” Admiral Flotilla said “The only reason I summoned you both was because we didn’t want you to go tell everypony on board about the storm, since most of our EEC are non-sailors they will be scared to death. So basically please refrain from telling everypony that a small storm is trailing behind us.“

“Okay thank you Admiral Flotilla I believe we have to get back to work” Twilight Sparkle said

“Carry on then” Admiral Flotilla said; the two sailors then got out of the admiral’s comely looking office.

North Star and Twilight Sparkle then began their trek back to the nest.

A week came and went, 7 sun rises and sun sets presented themselves to North Star before plunging into the sea to prepare themselves for the next day. North Star continued to work in the signaling bay; learning many tricks and tactics from his friend on the wire, Spade, and his commanding officer Ziggy.

North Star also actively tracked the storm cloud; it seemed almost to follow the vessel. Sometimes when Ziggy wasn’t looking North Star would explore with the drone and find the dark mass haunting the ship almost. North Star didn’t feel as frightened about the storm as he had when he had first discovered it; letting the belief of the ship beneath him being destroyed. That is until exactly 7 days after noticing the storm.

North Star was in the middle of his rote procedures. He had to admit that being a signaler was pretty easy at times, and at others nearly impossible. Most of his time was spent hunting clouds with the marker gun; or if necessary the drone and then calling the targets into Spade; who in turn send a pegasus pony or two to stamp out the target.

There was only one time that North Star realized how difficult signaling could be; during the first storm. The first storm seemed almost like a dwarf to the one that was near the ship. Nonetheless it was almost impossible to finish your day while in the depths of a storm. Time after time North Star believed the storm had finished only for a new wave of clouds and rain to spawn in the sky instantly. The rain made it difficult to control and sea with the drone and the constant screaming (Mostly signalers calling in their targets) made North Star’s head throb. Sometimes he would fall asleep for a second; only to see a dashing yellow or emerald green, or azure blue marker fly by the glass and hit a nearby cloud. North Star spent the easy days resting for the hard days and trained on the hard days for the storm looming over the ship; if that day ever came.

The day started normal for North Star; Ziggy came in and woke everypony up; screaming and cursing all the way. Next everypony dressed themselves in their uniform (Almost like a type of camo, signalers were considered part of the army and not the navy) and everypony jammed themselves into the elevator to get into the nest.

North Star felt oddly awake that day; happily whistling while he made his bed and got dressed. He was on the first ride to the elevator (Who he took by himself, as everypony was still busy toiling on their morning chores) and trotted over to his desk, on the far left of the window. In fact he was “Signaler 1” or “Signaler Red”. North Star couldn’t help but smile at how technological the ship was, a week before he had no clue on how the marker gun worked, well on his third day one of the mechanics let him come up and showed him how it worked.

The marker gun was basically 6 turrets seated right above the bunker where the signalers stood. The signalers would aim and fire the guns using electronics that pierced the cement and worked its way up into the gun. From there when they fired the trigger the marker gun would launch a small bomb that magically stuck to clouds; this “round” as it was called then turned the target into its color destined by the signaler who shot the gun. North Star was red, Lyra was yellow, Fleece was green, Twilight Sparkle was light blue, Blue Orange was purple, and Cloudy Daze was white. It was an intricate system that required a dozen mechanics and tedious hours of maintenance in-between shifts. The same mechanic showed him how the drone worked; but that was simply impossible to understand.

Things with Twilight Sparkle seemed somewhat frosty. The two almost seemed like rivals but in reality North Star had nothing against Twilight Sparkle and Twilight Sparkle had nothing against North Star; the two just had 2 different ways of leading. North Star was more down to Equestria; he allowed the ponies to do what they wanted to do as long as they did their work (Even though technically he wasn’t even their superior). Twilight Sparkle on the other hand thought everypony should work 110% 100% of the time; which North Star in a way kind of respected. Either way Twilight and North Star both felt they were being pressured by the other to gain the hearts and trust of the other signalers and Ziggy.

North Star was thinking of a way of showing up Twilight Sparkle, by suggesting some revolutionary improvement for the signalers, when his thoughts were penetrated by Lyra’s cursing.

“Lyra what is wrong?” North Star asked

“The storm you were talking about is getting pretty close…” Lyra observed; apparently the admiral had told her to not talk about the storm in public a lot; in a form to prevent the entire rumor of the ship sinking to spread (While full of colonists) like wildfire. Sadly even after that preventive measure some of the sailors had begun to notice the bulge of dark grey and black coming from the heavens.

“It is…” North Star said; the storm was closer to ever, and clearly visible from his desk; lighting was now easy to spot; bolting out of the inflamed black clouds.

“You don’t think it is going to come over the ship; do you?” Lyra asked with a worried face

“I don’t know; it has been like that for the last week” North Star admitted “It will eventually move away from the ship”

“I guess you’re right” Lyra said, turning back to her desk to continue working.

North Star for some reason found it hard to get back to work; the idea of the storm actually hitting the ship loomed in the back of his mind without pause. He tried to focus on work, calling in several nearby white clouds but that only allied with his fears, those poufy white clouds looked like nothing compared to the menacing and intimidating black clouds that made up the storm.

“Hey uh sir may I take a 15 minute break?” North Star asked, Warrant Officer Ziggy looked up from his magazine.

“Sure”

“Thanks” North Star called, he then picked up his headphones “Hey Spade going to take a 15 minute break”

“Okay whatever” Spade responded

North Star dropped the headphones and headed outside. He instantly felt a sense of fear trickle down his spine. The storm looked bigger than ever; and closer than ever. Two sailors were idly standing by the guard rails; gazing at the storm.

“That is one hell of a storm” One said

“You can say that again” The second one replied, flicking a match for a smoke

Looking at the giant mass of weather even made North Star cringe, the massive storm seemed to never end. Behind the first wave of clouds as it seems was a 2nd wave of clouds; just as brutal. North Star spent a lot of time and energy just thinking out how the ship would manage against the storm. North Star even began to fear a storm of that capacity would rain icebergs instead of hail and lakes instead of rain! Although that seemed pretty far fetch considering this was a simple storm it didn’t seem impossible. North Star almost went blind when a lone bolt of lightning came down and struck down onto the open sea, a second later a powerful burst of thunder almost popped North Star’s ear drums.

“Hey siggy colt you know anything about this?” The one sailor asked

“Nope” North Star said; playing dumb

North Star walked back to the bunker and opened the door; only to find the nest in a frenzy.

“What happened?” North Star asked

“The store sucked up Lyra’s drone!” Twilight said

“How was I supposed to know it would suck up the drone?” Lyra protested, her voice seemed more aggravated then afraid.

“Hey, hey I think that thing is getting closer to the ship!” Fleece said in his common frightened voice.

North Star instantly ran towards Fleece’s screen, he had been exploring the drone himself when he noticed the storm. Fleece always was more of a drone himself, Fleece never really had a social life on the boat and preferred to work overtime instead of relax with the other ponies on the boat. The storm looked more like a behemoth train then a storm; it was moving alarmingly quickly towards the ship. North Star cursed his luck; it was almost like the storm was waiting for them to be farther away from harbor to strike.

“Celestia it is coming right at us!” Twilight explained

North Star ran outside and looked over towards the storm; it was like a charging bull. The storm was heading right towards them without stop. North Star ran back inside, Ziggy was frantically calling some pony on the phone.

“Yes hello? This is Warrant Officer Ziggy, get all stations on high alert, we have found the storm of the century.”

North Star dropped his jaw almost to the ground; the moment he had been waiting for was upon him. North Star jumped onto his desk and rammed the headphones onto his head.

“Spade we got a problem” North Star said quickly in an unnaturally high voice

“What is it!?”

“The storm is here”

Next Chapter: The Storm Estimated time remaining: 15 Minutes