My Little Pirate: Friendship Ahoy

My Little Pirate: Friendship Ahoy is the fifth arc of IDW Comics' comic series, spanning issues #13 and #14. In the story, Twilight Sparkle and her friends become the crew of the notorious pirate captain Hoofbeard.
An event based on the arc, entitled "A Mermare's Tale", is included in Gameloft's mobile game.
==Summary==
===Issue #13===
Twilight Sparkle and her friends are on their way to Horseshoe Bay. Fluttershy had spent some time nursing a fish named Gil back to health, and she's reluctant to return him back to the ocean. Her friends then decide to help her out, making a trip to the beach out of it, and encourage her to take it slow.
As her friends relax and have fun around her, Fluttershy is in tears as she prepares to say goodbye to Gil. When she suddenly decides to not set Gil free and keep him, a wave of water splashes on her and carries Gil into the ocean. The wave is the result of a pirate ship washing ashore, and its captain, Hoofbeard, disembarks to greet the ponies. He asks them about any able stallions for recruitment into his crew. Rainbow Dash, evidently a big fan of pirates, is quick to offer up herself and her friends to be Hoofbeard's crew. Fluttershy is equally eager to join, hoping to find Gil.
Twilight is reluctant to join, especially since Hoofbeard's destination is the mysterious and elusive Gallopinghost Islands. But Hoofbeard challenges Twilight by saying only a skilled navigator could find their way to the islands—a challenge that Twilight readily accepts. Hoofbeard tells the ponies that they are to find his old crew and retrieve the "Map of the Wandering X" from them, for reasons he refuses to go into. Twilight's suspicions are raised even more when, during the voyage, Hoofbeard regularly has Spike throw messages in bottles into the ocean.
The ship makes anchor at an old port town, and Hoofbeard tells the ponies to recover his map while he stays with the ship. Fluttershy stays behind as well for unknown reasons. With Spike acting as Hoofbeard's "parrot," Applejack offers to stay behind too, as she's also suspicious of Hoofbeard's behavior and motives. While Fluttershy secretly finds and recovers Gil, Applejack tries to get an explanation out of Hoofbeard by filling him up with pineapple juice. He explains that his messages in bottles are love letters, and that his failure to get the treasure to which the map leads means "a one-way trip to Wavy Bones' locker."
Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity go to an old pub in town and encounter Hoofbeard's former crew. Rainbow Dash, enraptured to be around real pirates, makes a scene in demanding the Map of the Wandering X. The four ponies get into a brawl with the pirates, and upon discovering that Twilight is a princess, the pirates briefly consider holding her for ransom. They quickly toss that idea aside when Twilight zaps them with her magic.
Defeated, one of the pirates guides Twilight and her friends through a forest. He explains that when he and the other pirates were part of Hoofbeard's crew, the "X" on the map literally wandered, and Hoofbeard was driven to madness searching for it. The crew thus stole the map and, because it couldn't be destroyed, threw it into the pit of the "Ghost of the Gallopinghost Islands."
The pirate leads the ponies to said pit, and a creature emerges from it: a giant, ghostly crab.
===Issue #14===
The ponies distract the giant crab (which, as it turns out, is not a ghost but glows due to drinking too many energy drinks) long enough for Rainbow Dash to fly into its burrow and retrieve the map. Among the crab's hoard of knickknacks, the ponies find one of Hoofbeard's bottled messages. In it, he demands his "jewel" from the unknown recipient.
The ponies return to the ship and give Hoofbeard his map, but he remains vague about his goals. They find themselves with even more cause for concern when, after following the map for some time, they discover that they've been intentionally led in circles. After meeting and speaking in secret, Twilight and her friends decide to mutiny and seize control of Hoofbeard's ship. After they overpower the pirate captain and toss him in the brig, Twilight examines the map and realizes that the "X" really is moving. Using Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy's wings, the ship's sails catch the wind and Twilight plots a course back to Horseshoe Bay.
In celebration, Applejack prepares seaweed muffins for her friends. Fluttershy takes one to Hoofbeard in the brig and finds that he's more sad than angry about being locked up. In an effort to cheer him up, Fluttershy introduces him to Gil, who seems just as despondent about his current living conditions as Hoofbeard is about his.
Suddenly, a violent crash rocks the ship. Twilight discovers that the ship is right over the "X." Hoofbeard joins the ponies above deck, and Pinkie points to something in the water: the ship has come under attack by mermares. The mermares harbor much anger toward the captain, and it's discovered that the "jewel" Hoofbeard's been looking for is a mermare named Jewel that he's fallen in love with and that the other mermares are desperate to keep him away from (hence the moving "X" and the love letters).
The mermares attack the ship again in an effort to drive Hoofbeard off. Realizing what love really means, Fluttershy comes between the two sides. She tells the mermares that no one can be made to stay with anyone else against their wishes, and demonstrates this by setting Gil free. The mermares thus agree to let Hoofbeard and Jewel be together, and Twilight uses her magic to give Hoofbeard gills and fins so he can go under the water any time he pleases.
After Hoofbeard commends the ponies for their service as his crew and recognizes Rainbow Dash as a true pirate, the captain and the ponies part ways. Hoofbeard sets off with the mermares, and the ponies return to Ponyville on the back of a mantahawk. As the group departs, Gil appears with his family and Fluttershy is very happy for him. With that, Fluttershy waves goodbye, knowing that someday she'll see him and his family again, as the seven friends set off for home.
==Quotes==
:Rarity: Hello, sunscreen and little umbrella drinks!
:Pinkie Pie: And pinchy crabbies!
:Spike: Horseshoe Bay, here we come!
:Hoofbeard: Ye wee fillies seen any crew-worthy stallions 'round these parts?
:Rainbow Dash: Are you kidding me?! We could be pirates! Pirates!! I speak pirate!
:Applejack: Since when?
:Hoofbeard: Welcome to the Salty Sea Mare! Your quest be two-fold: find me former crew, get me special map back, and mind yer own business, savvy?
:Pinkie Pie: That's tri-fold!
:Rainbow Dash: Avast, me hearties! Which one of ye scallywags can point us toward the Map of the Wandering X?
:Rarity: Well, I'll be—our Dashie can speak pirate!
:Pirate: Look at the lot of ya—a princess, a fancy frock, a pink thing, and a wannabe pirate—it's the only crew he could get.
:Pinkie Pie: That's the thing about crabs, ya know? They can get awful crabby! Get it? "Crabby"?
:Rainbow Dash: Worst. Joke. Ever.
:Hoofbeard: Be it good or evil, I always keep me word, Ms. Sparkle. Always.
:Pinkie Pie: Bwah miiyh weawfy wooose, wooo waawty bofg!
:Rainbow Dash: Uh, Pinkie, we can't understand you with that sword in your mouth.
:Pinkie Pie: Oh! I said, "beware my stealthy moves, you salty dog!" Cool, right?
:Rainbow Dash: Totally cool!
:Rainbow Dash: Sooo, the mermares have the treasure?
:Hoofbeard: The mermare is the treasure!
:Hoofbeard: Ye scallywags have been an efficient crew.
:Rainbow Dash: Well, we are pretty great aren't—
:Hoofbeard: Me ain't finished! Ye have also been the most rebellious, insubordinate, fluffy, not to mention mutinous crew I've ever set eyes on!
:Pinkie Pie: Fluffy!
:Hoofbeard: Yer the best crew a pirate could ask for.
:Fluttershy: Love always finds a way home...
==References==
de:Die Salzige Seemähre
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