Chapter Text
The next couple of days were filled with each crew member trying to spend time with Tommy and trying to get him out of his shell. But the person that was in the room with the large tank every day without fail, was Philza. And Niki was able to figure out Tommy’s true age based on the color of his scales and the size of his pectoral fins. In human years he would be considered 24, but apparently according to Niki, Siren outlive humans by a lot of time. Which meant one Siren year would equal three human years. Tommy, technically speaking, was 8, so still very much a child despite already being a larger creature. It was easier to gain Tommy’s trust than Phil thought, especially with a language barrier. What he guessed, was that since Tommy is younger, he is therefore not as likely to have broken trust issues.
But Philza still kept the visiting from other crew members to not be that much, until after just 2 weeks of Tommy being on board he had met and was willing to hang out and play with everyone on the ship. This was good because no matter how much he loved Tommy like his own son, Philza couldn’t be with him all the time. Since he is Captain, he had other duties as well. One week in, Esempii made a pit stop at Vivialo Island, to trade get more supplies, and maybe look around, they would stop at the Islands for 3 days and then set sail again. Those three days were the three days where Tommy truly met everyone on the crew. Because they all took turns to watch over him and bring him back trinkets from the Island.
It turns out, that Tommy’s favorite things in the world were buttons and blankets. Despite being underwater, both of those things seemed to be a bug comfort for Tommy so while at the Island they got as many of both as the tank could comfortably fit. Tubbo and Ranboo hung the most with Tommy and from what Philza could tell, all three became very good friends. It took many reminders from Niki and Dream, to get the two navigators back to work on a regular day. But it was all in good fun, no matter how long people would stay with Tommy. Things were going well and Tommy seemed to be the biggest bundle of joy the crew members had ever did see.
Things got very serious though, when they encountered another ship, it was a royal ship for Anania. The most powerful Kingdom, that the Esempii, definitely wanted to avoid. But couldn’t avoid it any longer, as the captain of the ship called out to them.
“Pirates of the Esempii, we have come to your ship to negotiate with you! Please halt and allow conversation!”
Dream was next to Philza at the steering, and scoffed, “Like we would stop just because of that.” Dream paused took a deep breath and spoke again, “I’m sorry captain, I spoke out of anger, what would be your decision?” Philzas blood was also boiling at the sight of Anania, they had done so many awful things to the actual ship and the crew members. Hell, it felt just like yesterday when he and Dream found the two poor navigators in a cell underground shivering, skinny, and scared for their lives on another Anania royal ship. They never treated others that were not humans like living breathing beings. And like objects to throw around. They were also known, for having the most abundant of hunters for Sirens. Things would go terribly if they found out about Tommy. Philza decided his next line of action.
“Dream, get Niki, Quackity, Sapnap, and Karl to try and hide Tommy the best they can. Try not to let him see them panicking or showing any emotion that anything has gone awry. I’ll allow Anania to step onto the ship, but you are NOT going to let anyone on this crew who was once prisoners to their kingdom be seen. I want Eret and Puffy to get the other members ready for a fight against this ship.” Dream read between the lines, it was an order to keep the youngest ones on board safe and okay. It was a plead, to keep Ranboo, Tubbo, and Tommy safe. Dream nodded and ran to go get the people. Philza took the wheel and spun it to go towards the Anania royal ship. Trying to calm his heart rate down a little.
“Shits going to go down.” Philza, was already getting really nervous.
All the crew members of the Esempii stood at the main area of the ship (Except of course a couple of select people to stay with Ranboo, Tubbo, and Tommy to protect and comfort them.) as crew members from Anania Stepped on board, so many dirty glares and silent threats rattled everyone's heads until the captain of Anania cleared his throat.
“Captain Philza, I have come to your ship in hopes of finding out some information. And to negotiate for a couple of key things.” Philza raised an eyebrow, still with a frown upon his face. He lightly tapped Dream's hand 4 four times, which meant to have weapons at the ready. Despite wearing the smiley mask on him, Philza knew he had a dark scowl written across his face.
“What information? What are these key details that you speak of Captain Aedan?”
He smirked, “Well, something has slipped out of the Kingdom’s hands that’s very important to us and we want to know if you have any information about a Siren?”
Philza felt Dream tense behind him, Philza looked to all the other crew members. ‘Good, their following orders to not show emotion to anything Anania was saying.’ He faced Aedan and spoke.
“My apologies Captain Aedan, I have heard no word of any Siren being lost, and besides, even though they may be close to eradicating.” Philza put emphasis on the last word, venom dripping from that sentence and onto the ship. “It could be any Siren that’s living in the sea? How can we tell they are the ones you’re looking for?”
It was Aedan's turn to stop smiling, he clenched his fist around the arms he was crossing.
“Blonde hair, blue eyes, and ugly red-looking scales.”
Dream whispered in Philzas ear with a clenched jaw “I’m ready to punt this bastard into next week if he calls Tommys scales ugly ever again.”
“Sorry, but we’ve never even seen a Siren before, so you’re going to have to look somewhere else, Captain Aedan.”
Aedan only had one word to respond with.
“Bullshit.”
And chaos broke out.
Men from Anania's ship ran towards the plank and surged forward to the other crew members on the Esempii. What was great for the gunnermen though, Sapnap, Quackity, and Karl could operate the canons and give other people weapons from the carpenter station at the same time. Since Aedan had made a bold choice for all the fighters to be on the Esempii to fight. There was shouting and sounds of swords clashing together but Philza kept his focus as he battled Aedan. The fight was Philza defending himself against Aedan's attacks, which wasn’t an issue to Philza, he could wait for Aedan to tire out.
Dream, and Puffy, despite the hatred for death, had no issue taking down the people of Anania, they were okay fighters. But Puffy and Dream were better than okay fighters. After fighting and spending time together as mother and son for so long. Their actions and swings were like a waltz, it was timed perfectly, the hatred towards the Anania kingdom caused these soldiers to lose limbs with blood dripping down the side of their bodies. Anania soldiers loitered the Esempii ship as time went on. And unfortunately for Anania, the Esempii crew wasn’t getting any bit tired. The enemy ship had gaping holes in the side facing the Esempii.
Niki and Eret, were in Tommy’s living quarters, hugging or just cradling all three of them, whispering reassurances for any loud bangs, noises, or shouts. Rubbing their backs to calm them down, running fingers through hair to remind them of protection. So far Niki and Eret didn’t need to jump out of the room to protect the three yet and were hoping that it wasn’t needed, to not scare Ranboo, Tubbo, and Tommy even more than they already were. Until there was one loud thump and everything seemed to go quiet.
Philza was in a bad situation, Aedan stopped brute forcing his attacks and tried to go through Philza’s defenses instead. Things were getting sticky when Aedan cut Philzas’ neck and left a red line that started to bleed. His chest got cut, and Philza stumbled from the impact of the sword. Aedan swept his leg under Philzas and he fell to the ground. A sword at Philzas neck was ready to strike until there were three loud gunshots. Aedan looked down to see three small holes in his stomach. As he fell, he dropped his sword and Philza moved quickly to let Aedan fall to the floor.
Standing just about where Aedan was, Dream had a single pistol in hand that was smoking a little. He blew it off and ran towards the captain throwing his smile mask to the ground and grabbing the captain's hand to pull him up.
“Captain! Oh, my righteous prime! Are you okay?!”
Philza winced in pain at the cut from the neck and chest. Dream threw an arm over Philzas and supported him from falling down again.
“Well mate, I’m somewhat upright I believe.” He laughed quietly. Dream shook his head and kept on walking the captain to a medical bay. Philza had a sudden thought and shouted.
“Are the boys okay? Were they taken? Is the entire Esempii doing alright?-” He was cut off by Dream, “I’ll tell you as much as I know when we get you some help for your cuts.”
Philza was put onto one of the makeshift beds as Dream went to go grab gauze and alcohol. When he came back over he started summarizing everything that he knew went down while Anania was on the ship.
“While you were battling Aedan, all the other soldiers had fallen, so I ordered the rest of the crew to go onto their ship and see if they find anything worth taking. And then I realized that Aedan still wasn’t dead yet, so I shot him. Niki and Eret still haven’t gone out of the room where they were hiding those three kids. But the people that were near the room said that they were all a little shaken up but physically okay.”
Philza let out a sigh of pure relief that he didn’t realize that he was holding in but asked one more thing.
“Dream, have you heard about anything that people have found on Anania’s ship?”
“No, Philza, not that I have heard of, but I highly doubt there isn’t anything on the ship, so once we get you wrapped, maybe you could sprint with me to that ship and overlook what might be going on?”
“That would be great Dream, thank you.” Philza had a tired smile, as Dream wrapped the wound one more time with gauze. Philza slowly got up from the makeshift bed, Dream supporting his arm. He walked a couple of steps around the room and shooed Dream off of him and paced around the room in a brisk walk. Philza motioned Dream to follow him, and they proceeded to walk onto the Anania ship.
“CAPTAIN PHILZA! HUGE DISCOVERY!” Sapnap was yelling at full volume and running towards the two newcomers.
“Woah Woah Woah! What’s the issue?” Sapnap was catching his breath when Philza asked.
“Captain Philza! We found two more Sirens in cells under the ship! They are definitely way more aggressive than Tommy was, and older!”
Philzas’ eyes widened and shouted an order.
“Don’t try and move them to Tommy’s room yet! If those Sirens were anything like other prisoners of these ships, they’ll bite your face off if you come in the vicinity of them!”
“What do you suppose we do Captain? We need to get them to a body of water before they completely dry out!”
At this moment Philza was panicking and he didn’t know what to do, he didn’t want to hurt or upset the poor creatures. But he would also risk the crew and even the creature's safety in the process. While lost in what to say, Dream already had an answer.
“Everyone in this situation is going to hate this, but get sleeping and tranquilizer darts. Those Sirens won’t cooperate or get even close to trusting us if we don’t get them to a better habitat. If we move them close to, or with Tommy, hopefully, they’ll understand that he isn’t completely unsafe with us.”
Philza couldn’t believe the quartermaster's decision.
“Quartermaster! That’s awful, that just gives them even more reasons to not like people and not cooperate with us in the future!”
Dream retaliated that rebuttal
“Well, captain, what do you think we can do to get the Sirens with Tommy without hurting them or the crew members?”
Philza was at war in his mind, one part said ’What else? That seemed the only way to get them somewhere safer.’ And another said ‘No! These creatures have suffered enough. They don’t need more things to make them scared of us!’
But, something needed to be done and Philza sighed in defeat.
“Go and tranquilize them, I have nothing else in terms of a good solution.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” Sapnap said quietly, he ran off to the Esempii ship to grab the aforementioned tranquilizers
When Philza woke up from (A much-needed night’s sleep) he decided to visit Tommy’s room. He didn’t remember much but besides the crew members put both Sirens from Anania’s ship to sleep. When he went down and opened the door to the room, he saw that the tank they had made for the Sirens had gotten much larger. There was Tommy that was awake, trilling and smiling at the sight of Philza, he of course returned with his own smile. Two new Sirens were in the tank, asleep, both were extremely long with colors of their scales being much brighter than Tommy’s, the tallest one had golden-looking scales, and curly brown hair. Out of all of the Sirens he looked to be in the best condition base on first appearance, with no scars or cuts anywhere. But the Siren had a very gaunt face despite having no scars, and he was so skinny too, Philza could see the poor creatures' ribs jutting out. He would have to check in with Niki to see if they can ration the food a little to get the Siren to a healthier appearance.
The other Siren that was sleeping was slightly shorter than the one with golden scales (Philza was going to have to find out his name later) but had a feature that would make the Siren more terrifying to other people. He was built to destroy things and had way more scars on his body than the other two. The creature had Rosey and pink scales, and his hair matched the color scheme. This Siren had two symbols burned into the skin like how a code got burnt onto the back of Tommy’s neck. TB, huh, again Philza was going to have to ask what these Sirens are or what they could be called.
“Wilbur Gold, and Technoblade if you’re wondering, captain.” Niki appeared beside him waving and smiling to Tommy as he swam further away from the two new Sirens to go and find probably another trinket they gave him. And it was, of course, a button.
Philza turned to ask, “So Wilbur is the one with gold scales, and Techno is the one with pink?”
Niki nodded her head, “Wilbur was apparently shown off to other people in shows or performances, which maybe explains the fact that he doesn’t have many scars on him except the tattoo of his name on the back of his neck.”
“And when you mean tattoo you mean it was burned correct?”
Niki sighed, “Sadly, yes, and Techno was put into fighting rings against other Sirens which is why he has so many scars.”
Philza gave yet another explanation as to why he hates Anania on his mental list, “Do you know if they treat Tommy well?”
“Not that we know of but Tommy seemed ecstatic to see both of them before getting confused at why they were asleep.” Niki laughed a little, “Actually as soon as I went down here to turn the lights out Tommy had already snuggled with both of them with blankets! It was adorable!”
He laughed along with her “That does sound adorable, but we’ll see Techno and Wilbur’s reaction to Tommy.”
“Mhm definitely." Niki stayed quiet until she remembered one thing she wanted to tell Philza. "Oh! Philza one more thing about Techno and Wilbur that I think you should know.”
“What would that be Niki?”
Niki paused for a second before speaking, “When we first found them in the cell on the ship, of course, they showed off Siren noises. But, then Wilbur started yelling at us fully in English, and so did Techno.”
His jaw dropped for the second time that week. “Really? They understand English?”
Niki shrugged, “I mean Wilbur definitely is more fluent in it versus Techno but they both know English. Maybe we could get them to voice what Tommy wants or what we need him to hear.”
Philza nodded and turned to face the crew members. And just like with Tommy he said,
“Welcome aboard the Esempii ship.”