Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jonny woke with a start at the terribly loud breakfast bell. He’d been waking up like this for years, but it never got any easier. Six in the morning was brutal, but if you were an officer of the king’s law, it was necessary too.

Jonny sighed as he pushed himself up from the bed, taking a quick look around his -still pretty empty- barracks. He kept swearing he’d find time to decorate, but he was out at sea for sometimes days on end, so it wasn’t like he could just come back on a break and freshen it up.

He took a quick shower, shoving on his uniform directly after. He did have a meeting with the King later in the day, and his schedule was too busy otherwise to bother trying to get back to his barracks in time to change. Sometimes he wished he hadn’t taken this job, and had went to a simpler life instead, such as farming! But alas, he thought he’d be helping people with this one, when he was really only helping his king.

King Reginald was a nasty man, who thought everyone below him in life were usually worthless. Jonny remembered having to work himself to the bone in order to get the minimal respect he had from the King now. It disgusted him how the man could treat the poor villagers when they came to him for help, or how the bastard treated his own wife and son, even worse.

His wife, Queen Betsey, was a kind woman, fairly pretty, and the princess of a kingdom far away. Their marriage was arranged as soon as she was born, the kingdom already having a prince to take the throne. It was unfortunate, that she was forced to marry a man who treated her as if she was worth nothing every day of her life.

The King, when his son was born, tried to teach him to be the same way as his dear old dad. Prince Austin, however, was like his mother, sweet and caring. To save face, he acted as terrible as his father in front of the King himself, but whenever he wasn’t around, Austin showed his true compassion for the people. Jonny hoped that he would last long enough to see that boy crowned king. He knew the kid would fix this kingdom as much as he possibly could, and in the two years it’d take for him to turn eighteen and be crowned, his father would do the opposite. Still, it was hopeful to believe in the boy’s ability and strong will.

Jonny made his way to the great hall for a quick breakfast before he was to train new recruits to the King’s navy. He would need his energy to deal with the King himself later, after all. And new recruits were usually always a hassle to deal with. They had millions of questions and little to no real experience yet, which Jonny knew all too well from his time as one. Luckily, today there were only three in his group. He just had to hope that they weren’t completely incompetent in the ways of the kingdom’s navy.

———

Unfortunately for Jonny, that hope was not fulfilled. The three new recruits showed up not knowing what to expect, and considering they were top of their class you’d think they’d know how to work a ship at least, right? Nope!

The cadets didn’t even know how to steer properly, let alone how to waypoint or tell time of day from the sun alone. They had a lot to learn in the way of hands-on things, but a bit of good news was they knew how to read a map perfectly, not that the talent would help much in the long run, if they didn’t know how to move the boat.

“Let’s start with your names. You, on the left, start us off!” Jonny ordered in his most gentle but commanding tone.

“Cadet 3215 sir!” They answered, almost immediately. They followed order well it seemed, but not instruction.

“I said your names cadet, you’re telling me your parents really named you ‘Cadet 3215’?!” Jonny corrected, attempting to be playful, though it didn’t seem to work.

The cadet stumbled over their words a little before finally getting out what they meant to respond with. “S-sorry sir! My name is Mello, sir!” An odd name indeed, but not as odd as their assigned number being their name.

“Good.” Jonny commented, and another of the three interrupted before he could say anything else.

“Excuse the interruption sir, but why would you want our names? Everyone else just uses our numbers.” This one was bold, and had an accent that probably meant they were originally from a different region of the kingdom. Jonny turned to face them, and looked them in the eye. They wore the same uniform every other cadet did, and their chocolate-colored eyes stared back defiantly at him. This cadet was a good one.

“And what is your name, cadet?” He asked, watching them closely as he waited for a response. He could tell they were worried that they did something wrong, but still they didn’t back down, and simply answered.

“Datchia.” They said, standing as tall as before, even through their clear fear that they’d made a mistake.

“Well, Datchia… I’m glad you asked.” He responded, and he visibly saw the surprise on all three of their faces. “I, unlike most other leaders in this force, prefer to address my crew as people, and not as a simple number. We are all the same race, and we should treat each other as such. Now you,” he said, gesturing to the last of the three, “what is your name?”

They answered with no hesitation, confidently giving their name with the new information about this circumstance. “Redjet sir!” They said, their stature filled with determination. This was a pretty stubborn group of kids, and he knew he had his work cut out for him in training them. But Jonny believed that anything was possible. And looking at this group, he knew he was lucky to have been assigned them.

“Call me Jonny.” He told them, straightening from his leaned over position and turning to the ship. “Now, we’ve got some work to do.”

———

At lunchtime, Jonny released the cadets from their studies, and made his way to the throne room for his meeting with the King. It had been said that the matter they were discussing was not to wait till after lunch, which meant it had to be of at least some urgency. He quickened his pace in order to arrive on time when he noticed the clock about to strike twelve. He had to be there by ten after, and it was a long walk to the center of the castle from the dock he’d been training the recruits on.

As he reached the room, the King was waiting for him, sitting expectantly on his throne. Jonny decided to get straight to the point and try to go through this fast. So, he asked the question. “What have you called me for, sire?” He asked, bowing as he did so, considering he’d stopped moving and the King wasn’t one to piss off.

“A mission, admiral.” The King answered with a sly smile. “You may rise.” He got up from his throne as Jonny stood straight, and started to slowly walk around the room. “You see, I have come across a very interesting map, one that promises all the treasure a king could want! Take a look, why don’t you?” He said, handing a scroll to Jonny. Opening the thing, it showed a treacherous way to a place everyone had thought long gone forever. The city of Atlantis.

“What?!” Jonny couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise, “but… my King, Atlantis is just a myth!”

“This map shows otherwise, now doesn’t it?” The man responded, fully believing this evidently fake scroll. “I want you to take a crew and follow it. Find me that treasure, at ALL costs.” He said coldly. “I believe you can do it, admiral. You haven’t failed me yet. Now take this map and leave at dawn. Don’t you dare come back empty handed.” The King’s tone shifted to one of threatening nature. “You know what happens to those who disappoint me.”

Jonny gulped, bowing once more as he rolled up the scroll and tucked it into his jacket. “Yes, sire…” he mumbled, before leaving the throne room to go prepare. He’d need a good crew, and while most of the king’s navy were fine sailors, he had someone better in mind. The King did say at all costs, didn’t he?

———

Later that afternoon, Jonny set out to hopefully hire a certain pirate and his crew to aid in this journey. He had to keep it under wraps - otherwise he may be charged with treason - but the King had said at all costs, and Jonny couldn’t think of anything better than the infamous Captain Alex Pear, or as he was better known by, Captain Riptide. This nickname was given to him by the people of the kingdom, because when he struck anything, it was strong and quick, just like a riptide.

In less noticeable clothes, Jonny made his way through the rough part of the coastal kingdom, looking for wherever a pirate would hang out. Now, instead of his uniform, he wore simple clothes, a red-and-black plaid jacket over a plain black shirt and some pants, with a dagger sneakily attached to his belt and hidden by his jacket. He also wore newly made sunglasses in order to hide his eyes and blend in with the more shady people in this coastal town. Eventually, he found an inn that screamed bad energy, which usually meant a dangerous group hung out there. Such as pirates. Without a second thought, Jonny stepped inside and surveyed the room.

Immediately the smell of rum and a sticky heat hit him, and as he looked around he could see why. Thugs of all kinds were all around, most drinking, and many playing games or starting something. He resisted the urge to go and stop a bar fight that two men were having, but he didn’t pay it any mind as they tussled and broke things. Soon enough, some others pulled the two apart anyway, so Jonny just continued to search around for Pear.

Eventually, he spotted some pirates guffawing over in a far corner, and he snuck closer to try and see inside the circle of them. They way the pirates were standing hid whoever was talking, but Jonny did manage to scoot close enough to hear the story that was being given. He tried to stay hidden as he listened to what he could. It seemed whoever was speaking was currently boasting about a recent plunder. Jonny caught most of the end, but no context was given before loud laughter overtook the voice.

“There was NO way he was getting out of that one, so y’know what I did? I told him to have fun with his stupidity and took the treasure for myself!” The voice yelled confidently, earning a round of applause and cheers from the crowd around the pirate telling the story. Jonny would assume whoever was talking was the captain he was looking for, though he had never heard or seen Pear himself. Just then, a burly man on the very outside of the group notice him eavesdropping.

“Hey, who’re you?!” He asked menacingly, grabbing hold of Jonny’s shirt collar as if he’d try to run away. Shit. Jonny thought to himself. This was not how he’d wanted the meeting to go.

“I’m just trying to-“ he started to say, but he was cut off by the man again.

“Trying to what, find out where those goods are? You ain’t from around here, I can tell that much!” He yelled, and he was about to start a fight when the voice from before yelled from the inside of the circle.

“Hang on! Bring em here.” The pirate holding him immediately complied, have pulling and half throwing Jonny straight into the middle of the group. There he faced the man who had been speaking, younger than Jonny had expected, he had white hair that fell just to his shoulders and piercing blue eyes. “Now what do we have here?” The man questioned with a sly grin, looking him up and down. “It looks like there’s a higher up amongst all us ‘ criminal’ folk, huh?” He said, and the pirates instantly started to murmur amongst themselves.

“Let’s kill em’!” One of the pirates yelled, and cheers erupted around the circle.

“No no, we can use him… tell me, how much does King Reggie up there need ya?” The white-haired pirate asked, the question obviously being a mix of a threat and a tease.

“Please, Captain Pear, I just need to talk to you about-“ the group surrounding him erupted into laughter suddenly, cutting him off. The pirate in front of him died laughing too, which Jonny thought was odd. He hadn’t said anything funny, had he?

“You- you think I’m captain- HA!” The pirate said through his laughter, which only served to confuse Jonny even more.

“Please, I just need to hire-“ He started to say again, but was cut off by another round of guffaws from the entire group.

“Hire?! Pfft- who are you to think you can hire Captain Pear?!” The man in front of him asked, completely unserious. The constant interruptions were getting annoying now, especially if this man didn’t even care about what he was really here for. Through all the laughter, Jonny heard a voice cut in, louder than every other pirate. It shut them all up promptly, even the one in front of him.

It was Captain Pear. He moved into the circle, and Jonny could tell instantly it was him with how the pirates rushed to part ways for him to come through. “Hacked.” He said, a commanding tone in his voice as he looked at the white-haired pirate. “Let the man speak.” Pear looked pretty young as well, but the way he held himself gave it away that he was the obvious leader of these pirates. Jonny felt stupid for thinking the other one - Hacked, as he now knew - was the Captain. Pear had sharp blue eyes that sparkled like the sea itself, and he wore a bone white shirt with a sword strapped to the brown belt that accompanied the outfit. Black pants and dirty brown boots completed the look, and his chocolate-colored hair fell just past his ears, which had crosses hanging from piercings he seemed to have had for a while. Jonny, knowing he was waiting for an answer, jumped quickly into professional action.

“The King has given me a map to the sunken city of Atlantis, and he wants me to take a crew out tomorrow to sail there and gather the treasure that lies beneath the water.” Jonny explained.

“And you want my crew to do so?” Pear questioned, giving an unyielding stare.

“Not exactly. I want you yourself, and any others you wish to bring along. The reward is to take half our findings for yourself.”

Pear seemed to think about that for a moment before responding. “And what’s to stop us from killing you, stealing the map and taking it all? You had to have come prepared for that.”

Luckily, Jonny had an answer ready. “I did.” He said, “I’ve made sure to memorize the map and hide it in a secure place where no one shall find it. If you kill me, there’s no way you’ll get there and back. Also, the king finds out about this and we’re all dead anyway.”

Pear took a second to respond to that, and when he did it sounded like a warning. “The last person outside of my crew that I trusted left me to die when I needed him most. If you try anything funny, I’m going to do the same to you.”

“I promise that I won’t.” Jonny said, offering his hand to shake. Pear took it, sealing the deal… for now, at least.

“Then I won’t either.” He answered. “Let him leave!” As Jonny made his way back out into the streets, it was all he could hope for that Pear also kept his word.

Making deals with pirates was never very wise, but Jonny knew what he was doing with this one. At least, he hoped he did.

Chapter Text

“Danno, are you seriously STILL trying to find that stupid imaginary island of yours on the map?” Riggy’s loud - and quite frankly, annoying- voice cut through the air.

The Spirit Fire was docked at a small island for sailors, which usually just meant anyone who made it this far out into the Archipelago. Mainly Pirates, like Danno himself, but there were a few merchants and other folk who were lucky enough to survive the seas in order to get here. Currently, Danno was fussing over the map for the tenth time in under two weeks, and the rest of the crew were out at the nearby tavern. Drinking, presumably.

Well, except for Riggy, the random cross-breed freak that Danno had found in the forests of Mal’dure bleeding out from a scratch across his entire torso. The same one that was now Danno’s first mate and personal demons. For some reason, the rabbit-monkey was terribly violent, even for a pirate. Sure, he didn’t go out and pick fights, but if he were in one, he’d go further than someone with any sort of morals would. And with Pirates, that was saying something.

Danno sighed, knowing the Runkey too well to hope he’d leave so Danno could finish what he was doing. He’d been working at this for at least a week straight, but Riggy took every opportunity to tell him it was dumb and pull him away to do something else. “I’ve told you before Riggy, I’m close to finding Atlantis. Every phenomenon we’ve encountered links back to some sort of point on this map, and they all connect around this area!” He pointed to a place on the far right corner in the top of the map, “besides, legends mark it around here too. I just need to figure out the exact point, and we have a big score. You know we need it.”

“Danno, you’re going crazy over something that doesn’t exist anymore!” Riggy argues back, throwing his arms up for emphasis. “Atlantis was a fable in the first place if you ask me, and besides, it’s much easier to just get our score from closer-to-home options. Like stealing?”

Danno put his head down on his desk ag the mention. Riggy was always suggesting stealing from people, “like real pirates do”, but that isn’t how Danno was raised. The only time he actually would steal something from another living, breathing, human being - or any being for that matter- is if it was for a greater cause. His family had so far made their name not on terror, but on their cunning nature and honest work. Not what you think of when you first think of a pirate, of course, but they made their living off of buried treasures and finding lost items for people. A few times they had even been sent to find someone lost at sea.

Either way, his family had sailed the seven seas for generations without stealing, and he wasn’t about to start now. He was already doing worse than his brother was, and he wouldn’t cross that line for anything. “Riggy, you know how against stealing I am. We aren’t taking things from people. I know you’re used to being a criminal, but I’m not. I don’t want any part in that sort of thing, and if it means my downfall then I will die on that hill. Leave me alone.” Danno told him as stern as he could. He was never really good at being a leader, which is odd considering he was a Pirate Captain. He shoved Riggy out of his cabin and onto the deck, shutting and boarding the door behind the Runkey so he couldn’t be bothered with this again. He didn’t know how long rabbit-monkeys loved, but one of these days, that one had to learn to shut his mouth. Or it may get him killed.

———

“Danno! Hey, open the door!” Riggy yelled, banging on the wood of the entrance he had just been unceremoniously shoved out of. He’d tried the handle, but Danno seemed to have boarded it from the inside now. The Captain could be so frustrating at times. Riggy was only trying to look out for the idiot! After all, stealing is better than running around chasing a ghost of a lead for months. The crew had strong spirits, but not that strong. And Danno hadn’t been taking care of himself well at all while trying to figure something out to find a place that sunk into the sea what, millions of decades ago? For a chance that there might be something, anything , useful to them? A small chance at that! It was absurd.

Yet even if the whole rest of the crew got bored of Danno’s wacky delusions, Riggy knew he wouldn’t leave. He’d probably want to, of course, but he owed Danno his life. If the Captain hadn’t been in the forest that day, who knows what could have happened…

It had been a clear day with a bright blue sky. What sun got through the dense trees emitted a warm glow across the forest floor, and Riggy had been minding his own business when he guessed he stumbled into the territory of a hungry Jaguar. He’d gotten lost, separated from his home by some sort of rip in the space between the worlds, and he was trying to be careful since everything had seemed way too big at first. Unfortunately, this Jaguar was not going to go easy on him.

It must have thought he was free food, because what it saw him it started to sprint after him. He ran, of course, but he was much smaller than the big cat and it was directly on his tail the whole way. Eventually, he was cornered. The trees were too dense to move through, and the Jaguar looked ravenous.

Unfortunately for Riggy, it seemed to like playing with its food, because instead of ending it quick and biting right in, the monster slashed him straight across his gut, deep enough to cause a ton of damage, while still not being deep enough to kill him directly. No, this thing wanted to watch him bleed out slowly, dying in the most excruciatingly painful way it could make him. Just when the Runkey thought it was over for him, when he thought that this would be how he’d die, Danno had come in, scaring the thing off effectively with some sort of wound. Riggy hadn’t really seen any of what happened, too busy being crumpled on the ground, trying to stop the bleeding now that he knew he had a chance.

Danno had come over directly after scaring the thing off, and despite not having a clue what species Riggy was, saved him. Danno was the one to stop the bleeding and clean the wound and all that jazz, and if he hadn’t been there to scare of the Jaguar, Riggy wouldn’t have lived to see another day in this world, or in his own.

That was why Danno was so important to him. Even if the Captain was an idiot sometimes, and even if he refused to steal to survive just because it’s “wrong”, he was still the only one who cared enough to help Riggy when he needed it most. Riggy still remembers seeing Danno’s face clearly for the first time, a week after the incident with the Jaguar. He had given a small wave and a goofy smile, not talking yet since he had no idea Riggy could speak English. It was still one of the best memories he had in this world, even after two years of loving in it, just trying to find a way back home to Rosie and his friends. Through it all, he had Danno to help him, and that was not a bond even the stupidest decision the Captain made could break.

However, when he shut Riggy out like this, there wasn’t really anything to do. Riggy sighed, giving up on trying to get back in. Unless he broke the door down, there was no way Danno would allow him to step foot in the office again that day, and to be honest, he didn’t care enough to break the thing. The Captain was more stubborn than Rosie had been when she set her mind to something, so it wasn’t like he’d listen even if Riggy went through the trouble.

Defeated, he made his way out to the island’s tavern, where the other crew members had gone. When he went inside, the insanely loud noise and flashing lights made it feel like an entire party was taking place, which, with pirates, very well could be true. Riggy moved his ears back to block out some of the annoying sound, and went to sit at the bar. He hadn’t planned to get anything at the tavern on this stop, but evidently that wasn’t going to happen. So he ordered a drink. Nothing too big, even though he could hold his liquor, but just something to help him deal with the tremendous feeling of failure. He felt wasn’t good at doing anything in this business. He couldn’t plot courses or even reach the steering wheel from the floor, he was too small in this world to provide any fighting support, and he couldn’t even see over the lookout post’s railing. The only things he knew how to do would be stealing and lying, two traits any normal pirate would be proud of! But not this one. Danno valued people too much to steal, and there was no reason to be a liar when you do honest work anyway.

Riggy let his head fall onto the counter, pissed at himself for going back to self-depreciating thoughts. Rosie would be disappointed if she were here.

Eventually, one of the younger pirates in the group noticed him in the tavern, and Riggy heard the boy come over and sit down next to him. The kid was only a bit younger than Danno himself, and he was the newest recruit on the crew. Riggy had always assumed that Danno felt bad for him when he was found, since the kid’s parents were gone. His name was Carter, but he was so sweet and bubbly that he always reminded Riggy of one of the drinks they had in his world. It had always been his little sister’s favorite, a fruity drink that probably wasn’t good for her, but was good TO her nonetheless. He still wondered if she was doing okay since he’d left home, and eventually ended up in this completely different world. He wondered if his family knew he was missing, and if they’d cared when they found out. It wasn’t like he was too important to them when he was there, after all.

Carter spoke up a few minutes after sitting down, interrupting the once again negative train of thoughts. “You okay, mate? You’ve been sitting here like that for a solid fifteen.” He said, eyeing Riggy with an inquisitive and curious look.

The runkey sat up straight once more, turning to face Carter. “I’m fine Kapri, just a long day.” He lied, forcing a tired smile. Carter, none the wiser, grinned at the nickname.

“I’ve always wondered what that actually means.” He says, and Riggy instinctively tensed. It was something that didn’t exist in this world yet, but that was back in his home. He didn’t want to start talking about where he once lived, especially to someone even younger than Danno, who wouldn’t likely understand anyway. So, he hurriedly gave an apology and an excuse about something random he forgot to do while on the ship, promptly running away right after.

He ran all the way down to the dock, and sat down cross-legged on the rough wood. Riggy felt his ears lower as he caught his breath. Thinking about his world always simply caused sadness for him. The sorrow of not knowing if he’d ever see his friends and heck, even his family, ever again always started to weigh down on him within seconds of thinking about it. A part of him still believed he’d find a way to get back, but then there was reality. It simply didn’t seem possible.

The sun set on the horizon slowly, marking an end to the day and the beginning of another dark night in this big blue world. It was kind of depressing, being alone out in a world where he was different from everyone else. But the distant clouds in the sky painted a pretty picture of mist across the sunset, so Riggy guessed it wasn’t as bad it could seem at times. After all, at least he’d found a friend. And he could help but think that maybe this time, he should listen to that friend. Danno’s delusions usually didn’t last as long as this one had gone on, so maybe - just maybe - he was actually onto something now.

Riggy sighed, letting himself relax on the dock. He would follow Danno even into death if need be, and it was possible that the captain was right for once. Atlantis, as Riggy knew, sank into the sea thousands of years ago. But maybe there was a chance that it was still there, under the salty water of the seven seas.

If there was that chance, then Riggy would go with Danno. But until then, on the dock he stayed. After all, the ship wouldn’t be leaving for a while. When it did, they’d be on their way to Atlantis. And even if he didn’t believe it was still standing, he’d go along anyway. He had nowhere else to go, and it wasn’t like Danno would leave without him either. That man mad an odd point of insuring that the whole crew was there. Riggy had no idea why, but who was he to care about Danno’s quirks?

He couldn’t keep up with all of the craziness the Captain had in him. He was only one Runkey.

——

It took almost a week. But Danno had done it. He had found the location of the fabled city called Atlantis.

He busted down the door of his friend Cryospace’s quarters in his excitement that morning. “CRYO!” He yelled, not even taking a second to breathe after running all the way down from his own quarters, “I FOUND IT! I FINALLY FUCKING FOUND ATLANTIS!” He didn’t know how fast he was talking, but based on the look Cryo was giving him, it must have been too fast.

Cryo finished pulling on his second boot and stood. “Hang on, so you’re telling me you actually found the location of Atlantis, which, mind you, sunk below the sea thousand of years ago? The same one from those fables our mothers told us as fucking bedtime stories?” He questioned, his tone showing his skepticism. He totally did not believe this. But it was true no matter what he thought.

“Yes! Cmon!” Danno demanded, grabbing Cryo by his arm and dragging him all the way to the deck, where he had stuck the map. Riggy was already there, gawking at the map like it was a real-life hydra.

“I cannot believe it…” Riggy murmured. “You actually found a location?!” He looked between Danno and the map pinned to the ship.

“Absolutely! I told you I was close!” Danno responded, proud of his work. “Now, we’ll set sail after we gather everyone. Cryo?”

“Uh- oh, yeah… o-on it…” Cryo stammered, shocked by the proof of discovery. As he went off to gather the rest of the crew, he muttered something about going crazy. To be honest, Danno hadn’t expected to find anything exact himself, but it had happened, and now they would go off to find the treasures that may lie within the city’s sunken stature.

Everything was settled now, and after the crew had been gathered onto the deck, and the anchor had been lifted, they would set off to find the one and only Atlantis.

Chapter Text

“For the tenth time cadets, you’re too inexperienced to come with me on this journey.” Jonny said, using his most commanding tone. These three were stubborn, and they hadn’t stopped bothering him about coming with on the quest to Atlantis since they learned of the assignment.

“But it’d be a good hands-on experience, would it not?” Datchia countered, unfazed by the hardness in his voice.

“It’d be dangerous is what it would be!” Jonny argued back. “I’m putting my foot down on this. You three are going to stay right here and continue your studies. And that’s final.” He didn’t like being so harsh with them, but he was running out of time before he needed to meet Pear and whoever he was bringing around the bend. They had to get going before sunrise, after all. Jonny had even been surprised when he found the trio of cadets awake so early, but it made sense. They did spend a lot of late nights together, that was blatantly obvious by the amount of not-so-quiet shenanigans that went on at 2 AM and all other hours.

He didn’t have any more time to argue with them, so he simply said a hasty goodbye to the cadets and climbed onto the ship. He and Pear had agreed to take the royal vessel, even though the pirate captain hadn’t been too stoked about leaving his ship in the hands of his crew. To be honest, Jonny wouldn’t have been either, just from the few times he’d met the likes of Pear’s group.

Speaking of, as Jonny sailed around to the meeting point, he wondered who Pear had picked to come along. Jonny had chosen to come alone, and he had therefore told the pirate captain to bring at least enough people for a small crew. Hopefully, Pear knew well enough to pick people that would actually be useful during the journey, which Jonny would soon come to find said hope to be true. After all, Pear wasn’t an idiot (like some people).

——

The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon when Pear showed at the dock. He and Hacked were the only two Jonny recognized, but there was about five other crew members trailing along behind the two.

A younger one, with rainbow-colored tips at the end of his dim white hair caught Jonny’s eye. “Who’s that one?” He asked when they got close enough to him, gesturing to the boy.

Pear turned to look at who he was talking about, seeming a little surprised to see the kid. “That one’s called Toby, I don’t know why he’s with us though.” Pear looked quizzically at his first mate as he said this, who immediately threw his hands up in defense at the silent accusation.

“Hey, cmon! It’s not my fault he knows the exact time and place to be…”

“You invited him to come along, didn’t you?” The captain interrupted.

Hacked hung his head, sighing in defeat. “Yes, I did. How do you always know!?” Pear didn’t give him an answer to that, just laughing and turning away.

“Either way, I suppose he’s got good tracking skills. He might prove useful in some way.” Pear commented, addressing Jonny again. The admiral nodded in response, looking over the rest of the group. Behind the captain there was also a bigger guy with a scar running down his face, a determined-looking woman with a longsword at her hip, and a few others.

Jonny made a mental list of them all, taking note of any of them that looked as if they may cause a problem. He was alone, after all. Best to know the dangers.

Of course, Pear himself would be the most dangerous, but if it came to it, the crew would need to be bested first. Jonny sincerely hoped it wouldn’t come down to having to fight the pirates, considering he was outnumbered and probably outmatched, but it was always good to be prepared.

Jonny invited the pirates onto his ship, and got to know all their names. There was Darrek, the one with the scar, and the woman’s name turned out to be Anna. She had joined in simply for the money, and wasn’t actually part of Pear’s crew. But she had apparently proven to be resourceful and strong, so the captain had let her on. There were also a pair of twins named Pete and Repeat - Jonny couldn’t help but laugh at the second name, though he wondered what the parents had been thinking giving their poor kid a name like that. No wonder he became a pirate! And then there was Cheryll, someone who he couldn’t tell the gender of and could tell even less what they were thinking or feeling, as their stoic face was rock solid and wouldn’t be broken by any sort of joke he tried to crack.

Another thing Jonny had noticed when they were getting ready to set sail, is that Hacked’s appearance had changed quite a bit from last night. His hair was now a sort of light purple-ish color, and he wore the same kind of glasses Jonny had on that night, which was actually the pair he had with him right in that moment. When he asked, it had been a simple enough answer; Hacked had dyed his hair… apparently again. Jonny asked Pear about it later and got no answer whatsoever, and whenever he tried to ask anyone else they usually just told him to go away. Pirates were so difficult to deal with.

But soon they had set off, and Jonny found Pear up in the crow’s nest watching the horizon. Jonny tried to see what Pear was looking at - or for, - but his eyes found nothing as he gazed upon the rising sun in the distance. Suddenly, Pear broke the silence. Without even glancing in Jonny’s direction, he sharply asked, “and what do you want?” This caught Jonny a little off guard, as he hadn’t expected Pear to notice him so quickly. So he started with a different question than the one he’d had in mind.

“How’d you know I was here?” He inquired, moving forward to lean on the rail with the pirate.

Pear glanced at him a moment in a look that said “really?”, but said nothing out loud as they both watched the waves crash against each other and bang on the sides of the ship. It made Jonny wonder what exactly was going on in his mind.

A sort of silence fell over the two for a minute, only interrupted by the constant sound of the water and the crew making noise. Jonny began to approach Pear, but stopped as he noticed the pirate tense. He settled for sticking to words. “Well, um… so I had an actual question I wanted to ask you, and-“

“Shoot.” Pear replied, effectively cutting off the awkward sentence Jonny had been saying.

Alright then. “Why did you agree to all this? It seems like there’s something bigger than just the money in it for you, so don’t say it’s because of that.” Pear crossed his arms and looked away from the admiral, the topic seemingly uncomfortable for him. He didn’t have to answer though, because they both noticed then that a fight had broken out on the deck between Toby and Darrek, and Pear groaned and told Jonny they’d continue this later. Jonny could see the relief in his posture though as he went off to go break it up. Jonny followed suit, a bit curious to see what was going on. When he got close enough to hear, a shouting match was taking place between the two crew members, which only stopped as soon as Pear showed up, yelling at the both of them to shut it. “What the hell is going on here?!” Pear demanded, glaring between the two of them, his tone carrying all the authority you’d expect a feared pirate captain to have.

Darrek answered so fast not even a black marlin could catch him. “Captain, I caught this little bugger stealing from my stash of bottles! He wasn’t even drinkin’ ‘em! Just dumpin’ em out and tryin’ to sneak away!” He explained in such a tone that you could nearly see the annoyance dripping from the words. He had an Irish sounding accent, and Pear looked quizzically at the scarred pirate, most likely debating if Darrek was lying or not.

Before he could answer though, Toby burst into tears. “NO I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING!” He cried, extremely upset by the accusations. “HE’S LYING! HE ALWAYS LIES ABOUT ME!” The kid yells through his tears, which draws the attention of the rest of the crew -or at least those who hadn’t already been watching the fight- including Hacked, who came over to see what was going on. Hacked gave a glance to the captain that asked the question effectively, to which Pear just shrugged. From there, the focus switched to trying to calm Toby down, and the fight was momentarily forgotten. As the rest of the pirates seemed to focus on the kid, Jonny noticed Darrek throw his hands up and roll his eyes, walking away soon after as the whole thing just ended there and then. Jonny thought he heard the man say something about no one listening to him, but the words were lost on the wind. One thing was certain now in the admiral’s mind.

This was going to be one heck of a voyage.

———

The waves crashed against the shore as a woman watched her son play. She herself hadn’t gotten close to the ocean ever since her husband had left to sea. There wasn’t any need to. He hadn’t come back, but she still held out hope for him. Until then, her boy was the thing in life that she loved the most. She knew he was different from most other kids, since she had been too. He had certain… abilities. Ones that others would only dream of. She had planned to teach him how to use these abilities when the time was right and his father had come home.

On a day such as this, where the sun shone brightly and the sand glistened in its light, nothing felt as if it could go wrong. Until it did.

He remembered it in pieces, a bottle stuck in the sand, put there by the cool water of the sea. A note, in his father’s handwriting, trapped inside the glass. His mother’s tears as he hugged him close. He had no idea what had happened back then. He did now.

His father had died, lost at sea.

And now here he was, facing the same journey.

The journey of a true pirate.

Pear stood on deck, watching the stars as they passed overhead. They were headed to the northernmost border, a two days journey in order to reach the end of this kingdom, and the seas of the archipelago. It was a relatively quiet night, and when heading to the valley of the sun, that was rare. He supposed that they weren’t quite close enough to their halfway point for it to get dangerous yet, though the area around said chain of islands was said to be riddled with disaster.

He was alone on deck, with the rest of the crew down below either sleeping or doing their own things. It was late, so it’d make sense for no one else to be up, but pirates were pirates, and of you thought they’d have good sleep schedules you’d be more wrong than a fish out of water.

Pear could probably say with confidence though that he had the worst one, barely taking a break for anything in this career. Including sleep. That was why he spent most of his nights above deck, watching the stars and waiting for something. Something he didn’t even know he was waiting for.

Suddenly in the quiet night, something crashed, and Pear could hear hushed voices from close by telling each other to ‘be careful’ and ‘shut up’ because someone might still be awake. Pear quietly made his way to the cabin, from which he heard the commotion, and peaked inside main room to see three people, dressed in cadet uniforms from the castle. “Hey!” He exclaimed, stepping into full view. They looked nervous as they noticed him, and stopped in their tracks whatever they had been doing. They seemed pretty young, which tracked if they were cadets of Jonny’s. Yet they couldn’t have been brought on by the admiral, as he had insisted he hadn’t brought anyone else, and considering how nervous the three cadets looked at being caught, Pear reckoned they snuck on themselves. They had plenty of time to do so earlier, after all.

“What are you kids doing here?” He asked, crossing his arms as he did so. He was a little too used to doing things like this, it was how he’d found Toby in the first place. The idiot teen had snuck on a shipment ship they’d been robbing, and gotten caught in the crossfire. Pear hadn’t known what to do with him, but Hacked had insisted on keeping Toby, kind of like a little kid begging for a turtle. Not wanting to deal with a pouting first mate, Pear had just let Toby join the crew, and it had caused nothing but problems since. Darrek sure didn’t like the kid, and a few of the other members (including Pear himself) just found him annoying. But Hacked enjoyed the teen’s presence, so Pear had decided to tolerate it for his best friend’s sake.

Now though, faced with three new troublemakers, he held no tolerance. The three of them looked around at each other nervously, knowing they’d been caught and trying to think of how they could get out of this one. Finally, after what felt like forever, one with messy brown hair and a determined look answered the question that still hung in the air.

“Jonny let us-“

“Nope, no he didn’t. Why are you actually here?” Pear wasn’t going to let them lie, not when he knew otherwise.

“Fine. We snuck on, we wanted to be a part of this!”

One of the other two continued on with that statement, explaining why. “Atlantis is an ancient city that was said to be lost years and years ago, do you KNOW how much any other researcher would give to have this opportunity?!”

So they were interested in Atlantis, huh? Figures, who wouldn’t be? But Pear wasn’t about to be babysitting three more teens that weren’t even supposed to be here.

“I’m getting Jonny. I’m not dealing with… all this.” He gestured to the three of them as he said the last part (earning some offended looks from them all), and shut the door behind him, blocking it from the outside so they couldn’t find a new hiding place while he found the admiral. Tonight could not get any weirder.

Right?

-~-~-

“You disobeyed a DIRECT ORDER. You snuck onto a ROYAL SHIP, and you put all of your lives at risk doing it. What do you have to say for yourselves?”

Pear could hear Jonny scolding the cadets through the damn wall. He was about to go in there himself to tell the other to shut the fuck up (or at least quiet down), but decided against it because it’d just be a huge waste of time. Not like the admiral would likely listen anyway. Pear doubted the other even liked him… he wasn’t a very good person, after all.

He could hear Jonny tell the cadets that at least they were safe (for now) and that since they were kind of stuck on the ship now, he supposed they could join in on the journey officially. They all seemed happy about that.

Dawn came soon after the talk with those three had finished and the royal navy dweebs had gone back below deck. The days of their voyage passed slowly, and one pretty boring trip to the border later -plus a day- had gotten them to the Valley of the Sun. It was a quaint little island that always seemed to be bathed in sunlight, and it marked the halfway point of their journey.

They reached it as the sun was rising on the fourth day of being out at sea, and as they did, a second ship on the other side of the island came into view. Before anyone could do anything, a battle had broken out, and this trip had just gotten ten times more bloody. Just their luck, now wasn’t it?

Chapter Text

Pirates. Why did it always have to be pirates?

Yeah sure, Danno’s crew technically count as pirates too, but these were the ruthless kind. Or, in other words, the “kill you till you’re dead” kind.

Worst of all, Cryo couldn’t seem to find Danno himself anywhere ! They only had a little time before the other crew noticed either their ship or one of the members, and the window was closing faster with each second they stayed on the island. At this point, Cryo was sure conflict was inevitable, but he unfortunately couldn’t do anything about it without Danno’s order. That was how their crew worked, and Cryo would respect that to his last breath if it came to it.

He finally managed to find Danno belowdeck, doing some inventory shit or something. Running over to the captain, Cryo didn’t notice Riggy on the floor, and nearly tripped over the blue nuisance in his haste.

“Hey, watch it!!” Riggy snaps, crossing his paws and glaring at the quartermaster.

“Oh you’re so lucky I don’t have time to punt you.” Cryo shoots back, before grabbing Danno by the arm and yanking him to the opposite side of the room, ignoring the captain’s surprised yelp in the process.

“Cryo, what’s going-“

“Shut. Let me explain before you start asking your million questions.” Cryo interrupts him, not in possession of the time nor the patience to deal with Danno’s endlessly curious nature. He always tried to find information on anything and everything, and though the habit sometimes came in handy, it was also frequently the bane of Cryo’s existence. Like now. Except now, they both had other things to worry about. “We have a really big problem. There’s another crew of pirates docked on the other side of the valley, and they don’t look like the friendly kind.” Cryo crosses his arms, averting his gaze as he continues, “They haven’t spotted us yet, but when they do… a battle is inevitable.” Danno looks down, thinking.

“Can we get everyone back on the ship before the other crew sees us?” He asks after a moment, determined to avoid conflict as much as he could.

“We can try..?” Cryo responds. He didn’t really have any faith in that plan, but he wasn’t about to argue away the time they had.

“Start rounding everyone up and get them to the ship. Riggy, go make sure the pirates don’t notice us. If they do, it might mark the end of this voyage for all of us.” Without another word, Cryo and Riggy set off, though the rabbit-monkey is less than joyful about his job. Whereas Cryo starts running to find everyone that had gotten off the Spirit Fire, he merely sets off in a slow walk. One of the many reasons the quartermaster hated that toon was his lack of care for others. He doesn’t have the time to dwell on it, or to kick that runkey’s ass, but he swears he’ll get to one day. If they survived this mess, that was.

And that was a big if.

-~-

Spying? Really?!

Danno obviously didn’t deem him good enough to grab the rest of the crew. He could do so much more than staying silent and watching people from the shadows!

Riggy had never felt more insulted in the past two days of his life than now, as he settled down on a hill to watch the other crew. Two pirates were fighting, a big burly man and a puny kid. Riggy was a bit surprised the bigger one didn’t just punt the kid, but he supposed the kid might be high-ranking, like he was. He knew that was probably the only thing that ever stopped Cryo from flicking him off the ship. That one was annoying like that, and he never seemed to relax for anything. To be fair, Riggy rarely relaxed himself, being stuck away from the home that needed him and all, but he still did it. Cryo just never seemed to accept that everything was okay.

Riggy was jolted out of his thoughts for a moment when one of the pirates down below yelled so loud he was sure Danno could hear it from the other side if the island. But, it was just the big guy shouting at the kid. Nothing to worry about. Then Cryo came up behind the Runkey, scaring his socks off… or at least it would’ve if he was wearing any. “What? What do you want?” Riggy snarls, in a bad mood already from his given task.

Cryo didn’t seem to appreciate that tone, though he rarely did with Riggy anyway, so it wasn’t uncommon. “Oh shut up. It’s time to go, the others are already headed back to the ship.”

“Finally.” Riggy says, getting up and dusting the dirt off his fur. “Let’s go.”

“Wait.”

“What? Why?!”

“I know that crest. Are you sure they didn’t see us?”

“Wh- of course they didn’t! What do you think I am? An idiot? I would’ve noticed if they’d spotted us.”

“Are you sure they didn’t, or were you not paying attention and you wanna seem like you were?”

“Hey, I-!”

“Look over there! They aren’t supposed to be here!” A resounding shout rang throughout the clearing, interrupting the two’s argument.

“Well fuck. They have now.” Cryo comments, glaring at Riggy.

“Don’t look at me! You started this!”

“And it’s your annoying voice that got their attention!”

“Ay, my voice is NOT annoying!” Riggy denies, before taking a second to actually think about it. “Y’know what actually you might have me on that one but STILL!!”

Their argument had cost time they didn’t have, and they both realized that the pirates were going to be on them any minute now. Riggy took off at a sprint, but considering his size, it wasn’t very fast compared to a human. Cryo meanwhile, pulled out his sword and raised it high as he ran, the crew’s signal that a fight was incoming.

“We can’t lead them to the ship, split up!” Cryo yells to Riggy, and even though he wasn’t happy about following something Cryo came up with, the runkey obliged, knowing very well what might happen if those pirates found their ship. He split left as the quartermaster veered right, and their three pursuers followed, one coming for Riggy and the other two presumably heading the other way to try and block off Cryo.

The white-haired boy he’d seen earlier was the pirate chasing him now, and Riggy rushed to find some way to avoid a fight. He was good with his sword, but considering the fact that literally everything in this world was bugger than him, that didn’t really matter in battles like it did for others. Riggy twisted and turned, trying to lose the kid in the tall grass of the valley. But unfortunately for him, this pirate was good at tracking. No matter how much he weaved through the blades of grass and ducked and dived through rocky outcrops and dusty clearings, the white-haired boy was always on his tail. He had to think of some way to get out of this mess, and he had to do it fast. If he didn’t, there was no telling what could happen to him or the rest of the crew.

Riggy could tell the pirate was catching up, being both bigger and able to cover more distance than he was. So, at a moment’s notice he switched his form with haste to his paper version -a helpful little trick he’d found out he could do on a random mission some months ago. The paper Runkey then slipped through the grass sideways and threw himself under a rock. He held his unneeded breath as the pirate slowed, having hopefully lost track of Riggy when he swapped to his paper form. The kid looked around carefully for a few fleeting moments, hastily trying to locate where the Runkey had slinked off to. He stepped slowly around the rocky patch that Riggy had hidden in, and he ended up right next to the rock the toon was under after barely a few minutes. Riggy thought for sure that the kid knew where he’d gone and was going to find him any moment now. His instincts told him to run, to shoot out from under the rock and break for the ship, but he knew better than that. After all, if he was wrong and this pirate didn’t already know where he was, attempting to run would be a death sentence. There was no way he’d be able to outrun the other, and if he jeopardized his hiding place, he’d be a sitting duck for the enemy to exploit. And so he stayed. Riggy held completely still, sharply watching all of the white-haired pirate’s movements, no matter how minuscule they were. Silence fell like a concrete block, crushing everything around them, even the distant sound of waves smashing against the island.

Then, to Riggy’s immense relief, someone called for the young pirate, grabbing the kid’s attention away from finding him. The other glared around once more before he took off, going to report back to whomever had called him. Riggy waited until he was sure the pirate was gone before cautiously crawling out from his hiding place. He shifted back to his 3D form and ran in the other direction, making a beeline for the Spirit Fire . He needed to warn Danno of the potential threat, and get their crew off the valley as fast as possible.

Odin only knows if they would survive otherwise.

~-~

Cryo rushed through the grass, ignoring how close the lady chasing him was. She had been the one to call out their presence, and she tore after him like a moth to the flame; pushing him to go faster than his body would usually allow.

Cryo knew he wouldn’t be able to ditch her with how close she was to him, and there was no way he would get far enough to fake her out and turn around. No, he was only delaying the inevitable sword fight by running. As they tore across the ground, Cryo came up with a way to win an advantage.

So she wants a fight? He thought to himself, getting ready to pull a move he’d only had to use sparingly. Then she’ll get a FIGHT.

Cryo made the turn so fast that his pursuant barely had time to react as he whipped his sword at her, cutting into her wrist just as she pulled her own sword free of its holster. She cursed, but switched hands with ease and sliced back in an instant, the blade of her weapon only just barely blocked by Cryo’s. They clashed time and time again, and Cryo could tell that first hit was lucky. He didn’t have the time to think though, as the next attack came as fast as the waves of the sea. Her blade smashed full force into his in quick succession, trying to brute force the sword from his grasp. But he was equal in strength, and while she was distracted he kicked her away with the same force. He didn’t hesitate to attempt another slice, but she leaped out of the way the second he cut down. Her sword’s tip bit into his left leg, a sneaky attack aiming to crush his resolve. But Cryo wouldn’t be defeated that easily.

He spun around with lighting speed, catching her off guard and cutting at her torso. She snarls, jumping to attack once again, only to be blocked by his blade. Her curly hair bounces on her shoulders as she switches to a side-slash, easily stopped once again. But Cryo didn’t see her other hand with a hunting knife, and the small blade was able to slice into his skin. He countered almost immediately, knocking the knife from her fingers as he advanced on her, slashing at her neck, but narrowly missing. She threw a fury of strikes back, but Cryo managed to avoid each one. He jumped back just as she thrust, and he took the opportunity to dig his blade into her outstretched arm. She yelled her frustration at his hit and took it as a chance to get back at him in the same moment. It was her turn to kick him away, knocking the air out of him as she landed the blow to his gut. However, as he ran back to meet her sword with his, she didn’t take notice of his own knife. It bit into her shoulder guard, denting the material but unfortunately not reaching through to her flesh. She used her free hand to grab hold of his as they faced off, their blades stuck in a cross whilst she tried to rid him of the second weapon. In a split second, he forced her off with a hard blow using the blunt end of his knife’s hilt. She stumbled back, but recovered fast and threw an infuriated slice. Their blades met, Cryo having to lose the knife to use both his hands for the defense. He glared at her, and she glowered back over the shine of the metal.

They were interrupted then by a third party knocking the woman away, and Cryo’s gaze snapped to the new person only to notice it was Danno . “Get away from my friend, you bitch!” He yelled at the girl, his sword held in front of him in challenge and an angered expression on his face. Cryo looked back to the opposing pirate, and they both knew she wouldn’t win this. So she growled once before she ran off, darting away before the situation could escalate further. Cryo watched her leave, the adrenaline of the battle finally dying down now that the threat had vanished. He shoved his sword back into its scabbard, only now noticing the blood that coated the blade. He looked to Danno as the captain did the same, putting his own weapon away.

“Thanks.” He breathed, doing his best to ignore the creeping pain of his injuries. Now that he looked around, he could see how close they were to the shore of the island, the waves of the sea crashing against rock and sandy beach alike.

“Of course,” Danno responded, looking concerned as he took in the bleeding cuts and stab wounds on his friend. “Looks like I got here just in time, too. If you can believe it, Riggy was actually the one that told me about where you went.” That was certainly a surprise. Cryo thought the runkey hated him even more than he hated him !

Danno looked around, suddenly wary of being so out in the open. “Cmon, we’d better get back to the ship, there’s already a full-blown battle between us and them. Besides, you look like you’re about to fall over.” Cryo looked down at himself noting the blood flowing freely from the stab in his leg and the way he unconsciously favored the right one.

“Yeah, maybe you’re right…” he agrees, also noticing the sheer amount of dust and dirt on his clothes. That definitely wouldn’t work well with open wounds. He was also sure he had quite a few bruises from his assailant’s boot smacking into him earlier, but he wouldn’t be able to check until they reached the ship. Without another word, he allowed Danno to help support his left side, and they set off for the ship.

Unfortunately for them, this was going to be a very long day.

-~-

Danno paced on the deck as he waited for Cryo to emerge from the cabin. He wanted to make sure his friend was okay before he left, and he needed to find a way to stop this bloodshed anyway. What he had in mind at the moment was crazy, but it just might work depending on who the captain of this opposing crew was. On the way back to the Spirit Fire, Cryo had told him about the royal seal on the ship the other pirates had come on. It was the seal of King Reginald, the guy who’d forced Danno’s own king to take his love away from him with an arranged marriage. It could mean only two things; the pirates were working with the king - unlikely, considering they were pirates - or they’d stolen the ship, which was equally as bad because it meant that this pirate captain was strong-willed, and even stronger in their abilities. Whoever they were.

But still, Danno was sure his idea was the only way they could all make it out of this alive. Bloodshed was never something he liked, preferring to act as a pacifist in these trying times. He only had to hope this pirate was at least a little considerate of their men (and women, apparently, seeing as the pirate Cryo had faced off with was a lady).

Speaking of Cryo, he came out in the middle of Danno’s pacing, and in true Cryo fashion, he immediately knew something was up. “Alright, what stupid thing are you planning to do this time?” He asked without skipping a beat, crossing his arms. Danno stopped mid-step, turning to face his friend instead of continuing his pace.

“What, no ‘Hey Danno’ or anything? Just jumping straight to the point?” He teased back, a little hesitant to say his plan out loud. He wasn’t confident it would work, and he felt as though he would be laughed at should he voice it.

Cryo simply raised an eyebrow at him, knowing he was avoiding the question. Danno sighed, giving up without a fight. They didn’t have the time for him to be stubborn.

“Fine. I’m going to go and convince their captain to stop fighting.” Danno said, averting his eyes from Cryo’s gaze. “And to do that… I have to go to the heart of the battle.” Cryo was silent for a moment, processing what Danno had just suggested.

“Wha- Danno that’s a death sentence!” Cryo suddenly yells, stepping forward and immediately seeming to regret it when the weight shift sent pain through his left leg.

“I know, but I have to try. And if I don’t do it, no one else will. I have to stop this battle before we lose anyone to them… I owe them that much.”

“But you’ll be putting your life at such high risk for something that might not even work! We don’t even know who their captain is! How’re you going to find someone you don’t know?!”

“I’ll find a way.”

“No.” Cryo shakes his head, “I’m not gonna let you walk into slaughter like this. You’ll be killed before you make it past the first line! There’s too many of them out there.”

“Cryo, I have to stop this battle! I can’t just let everyone else lay down their lives because I didn’t have the guts to save them!” Danno shoots back at him, “besides, I can take a few stragglers if anyone attacks me. I’m not helpless.”

“No, you aren’t helpless, you’re headstrong. There isn’t just one or two pirates out there that are going to go after you. You can take on one or two, but what happens when it’s five on one and all you have is your wits? I’m not letting you go.”

“I can’t just stand by! I have to at least try , Cryo!”

“Then let me to come with you! There’s no way you’ll make it through on your own!”

“Cryo, you can barely stand. I’m not putting you in any more danger either. You can stop me from doing this, and you know it.” Cryo looked upset by that, but it was the truth. Danno could definitely tell how much the wounds he’d sustained in that fight still hurt like hell, even freshly bandaged and taken care of as they were.

Cryo sighed, knowing Danno was right. “Fine.” He said, “but if you die out there I’m gonna kill you for it.”

“Didn’t think it was possible to die twice.” Danno responds.

“I’ll invent it then.” Cryo says, giving him a small smirk, though Danno knew the smile was only a mask. It failed to reach his eyes. Danno gives his friend a small salute before he sets off, climbing down from the ship and rushing into the fray. He refused to look back, but he could feel Cryo staring after him. He knew that if Cryo could, he’d have jumped down right after him and fought to the ends of the Earth to keep him safe. Danno considered himself lucky to have such a loyal friend, but he was honestly glad that Cryo couldn’t logically put his own life at risk. Danno had to do this himself. It was the only way he’d prove that he could handle this pirate business, and hopefully the way he could prove to Layah’s father that he was way better for his daughter than some haughty prince from another kingdom.

Or maybe, just maybe… it was the only way to prove to himself that he was worth all the trouble his friends and family went through for him.

Though he’d never admit that if you asked.

Chapter Text

“What are they doing this time?” Pear asked his first mate, uninterested in the answer, but needing to take care of whatever fight had brewed within his crew anyway.

“Actually, they’re not fighting each other for once.” Hacked replied, as surprised as Pear was at the statement.

“Really? Then who the fuck are they fighting?”

“Apparently there’s a second crew on the island, Anna got in some trouble with one of them and got banged up pretty badly. So then I guess everyone else kinda declared kill or be killed and started a fight?” Hacked shrugged, using the information he’d managed to get from the few crew-members he’d pulled aside before they too had joined the battle. Pear looked a bit skeptical, but he had seen the other ship for himself earlier. And knowing his crew, it wasn’t too hard to believe. They could start a fight literally anywhere.

“Well, should we do something about it?” Pear asked his first mate, not honestly caring about the battle so long as no one died.

“Might wanna, yeah. A couple people have said stuff about a blue blur slicing at their ankles. I think they may be starting to hallucinate or something.” That was indeed a possibility, if the other crew was good enough to deal actual damage. Suddenly, Toby came running up to them, panting from how far he’d come across the battlefield, and from getting past the actual raging battle itself.

“Captain, their…” he huffed once more before he could continue, “their captain is out there right now, and he’s looking for you.”

“Really? What the hell could he want?” Pear inquired, not actually expecting an answer, as he was just thinking aloud.

“I don’t know.” Toby answered anyway.

“That was rhetorical.”

“Oh.”

Pear rolled his eyes as Hacked assured Toby it was alright. So did Toby, Pear noticed. He still didn’t trust the kid, but Pear guessed he should go see what the other captain wanted anyway. He had nothing better to do at the moment, after all. And If it was a sword fight that was to be had out there, he’d make quick work of it. Otherwise, he was mildly curious what else the captain could possibly want. So, both wanting to get away from this interaction and wanting to see what was up, he left to go find the captain Toby had spoken of.

He did make sure his sword was with him before he stepped out into the fray, caution his number one priority. But soon enough, Pear was only looking for this captain, turning this way and that and effortlessly blocking a few feeble attempts to initiate a battle with him along the way. It was like finding a needle in a haystack. Except slightly more annoying.

In the end, it was actually the other captain that bumped into him! He’d been on the sideline of the battle, unable to get through the stupid amount of fighting. That’s when Captain Cal of the Spirit Fire got  thrown into him from the other side of the fighting.

“Ay!” Pear protested as he was knocked over.

“Sorry! I’m trying to find the captain of this crew!” Cal had said, rolling off of the ground and offering Pear a hand.

Pear rolled his eyes for the second time that day and batted it away. “Who’s askin’?” He eyed the other suspiciously, crossing his arms as he stood on his own.

“Uh, I’m Danno Cal. The captain of the crew you guys are currently trying to murder?”

“So you’re the guy who was looking for me. Huh, I thought you’d be older.” Pear comments, a bit mockingly just to test Cal’s limits. This seemed to be lost on the other captain though, as he just looked a bit flabbergasted at what Pear was implying.

“You’re the captain?! I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but you ??” Pear would admit he didn’t dress like most pirate captains did, he just didn’t see the point in ‘keeping up with the trends’ as Hacked had put it. It wouldn’t do to call attention to himself by dressing stupidly.

Still, he took a bit of offense to Cal’s bewilderment. “Hey, you don’t look like a captain yourself! If you hadn’t ran into me, I’m pretty sure we’d never have come across each other.” Pear told him, a little harsher than he’d meant to. Oh well, tone of voice didn’t matter in the long run. “Now what do you want? A fight?”

“No, no! I want to STOP the fight! Like, tell our crews to stand down? Is that something pirates can do? Stand down?”

“Yes, of course we can stand down. Where the hell were you raised, a well?!”

“Jeez, no need to snap. Though I guess that’s the norm for people like you…” Cal muttered the last bit, but he wasn’t being quite quiet enough for Pear not to hear. Safe to say, The Bloody Crown’s captain was not amused. He glared daggers at Cal as he replied to the earlier implied inquiry.

“Why should I?”

“What?”

“Why should I tell them to stand down? One of yours started this.” Cal seemed to take offense to that, as he immediately got defensive.

“He did not ! Your crewmember started that fight!”

“Okay, one, she’s a mercenary hired for the job we’re on, not an actual part of the crew. And two, my point still stands. From my side’s point of view, you guys started this.” Cal took a moment to think, turning his sea-colored eyes down at the grass below. He seemed to search for something, then raised his gaze back to the older pirate before him. He opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated a second before deciding to continue.

“I guess it doesn’t matter who started it, the point is that we don’t want any trouble and I’m sure you guys don’t want a setback of time for whatever quest-thingy you’re on. Just, work with me here.” He pleaded, and Pear, though still a little salty over the other’s earlier insensitive comments, relented.

“It’s true we have to get going soon…” he sighed, “Fine. I’ll tell them to stand down. You do the same, or I’ll have your head.” With that, Pear turned to push his way to a good vantage point. He noticed Cal following his lead almost immediately as the younger captain began to shadow him. It wasn’t worth anything to tell him to go away, they were doing the same thing. Besides, this way he could keep an eye on him.

Pear made his way to the center of the battlefield, stopping momentarily to quote on quote “assess” the situation. Really, he was just letting Cal catch up to him a little, but he’d never admit that if asked. Eventually, they both arrived in the center, and Pear turned to face Cal again with his arms crossed. “Oh- uh… what a coincidence we go to the same point in the field, am I right?” He laughed a bit nervously, obviously worried Pear would be upset about being followed.

“Right.” The Bloody Crown’s captain responded, giving a sly smirk to the man before they each turned to address the crowd. Pear, being the more experienced pirate that he was, whipped out a Bosun whistle. Cal, however, seemed to have virtually no idea of how to get his crew’s attention over all the noise. The lack of efficiency said wonders about how often this other crew had actually been in battle.

Nevertheless, Pear had some work to do, so he paid no mind to the other captain as he blew the thing at such a distinct frequency there was no way anyone in his crew could mistake the order. The violently loud noise rang throughout the battlefield, and pirates on both sides ceased fighting immediately. For The Bloody Crown’s crew, it was because they recognized the command. For Cal’s folks, it was just out of pure confusion.

Both sides looked to the middle of the field, where the captains stood side by side. Pear unsheathed his sword in one fluid motion, gaining a noise of surprise from Cal; especially as he proceeded to lop it straight into the ground. “You do the same.” Pear reminded him under his breath. Cal jumped into action at that, having forgotten one of the many pirate’s cease fire rituals beforehand. He stabbed his own cutlass into the Earth so the blades were crossing, and made a motion to his crew that Pear figured meant ‘stand down’ or something along the lines of it.

“Alright. Now, all ye pendejos best get back to work before I wring yer necks myself!” A few pirates grumbled as the crew of the Bloody Crown dispersed, sheathing their weapons and going back to all the odd jobs they had been working before.

“So um… what now?” Cal asked as his own pirates (if they could be called that, they honestly looked like they’d fit the role of transferring goods across the sea better than being actual pirates) began to gather themselves and leave.

Pear looked at him with what could be interpreted as anything from disdain to genuine concern for his mental state for that. “ Now ” he said as he pulled his sword free from the ground, “we both part ways and never speak again.”

Cal looked a bit sheepish as he avoided Pear’s gaze once again, simply giving an ‘oh, right’ in response. He grabbed his weapon and walked away, surely embarrassed to some capacity. Of course Pear wouldn’t care about anything to do with him after the battle was remedied, they weren’t friends or anything.

Pear did feel a little bad about how harsh his tone was, but that was an occupational hazard that came with being a pirate captain. Or at least one that came with HIM being a pirate captain.

He supposed he shouldn’t dwell on it. It wasn’t like he’d ever see “Danno Cal” again in his life.

Right?

In any case, Pear made his way back to his ship to help with the preparations to leave. After all, they did have  a sunken city to go find.

Besides, it’s not like this delay could get much worse now that the quarrel had been dealt with. They had to use the daylight they had and get moving.

Lest something else goes wrong.

-~-~-

“And you’re sure you can deal with it yourself, Glitch?”

“Yes, I swear I can. I just need to take care of someone first, he’s too dangerous. He’ll interfere with your plans for Jonny.”

“Alright. But do it quickly. We don’t have much time.”

“Of course. It shall be finished by the morn.”

Glitched closed the communicator as the call ended abruptly, piecing together a plot to get rid of the biggest threat to his plans. One knock on the door dragged him out of his thoughts, which was annoying enough. But then the voice of the first mate melted through the door, asking if they were okay in here. Glitched called back a quick response in the nicest voice they could muster at the moment, reassuming the mask they’d hid behind for weeks. Their response thankfully seemed to satisfy Hacked for now, as they heard the base model’s footsteps fade away while he left. He was probably the one that trusted them the most, a foolish choice on his part. Because unfortunately for him, his best friend had now gotten in the way. And now, they came up with a plan to be rid of him for good. With permission from their boss and the means to enact it, it wouldn’t be long before Hacked’s misplaced trust would become the downfall of this entire crew. It was near flawless, if they could pull off their plan.

As they opened the door, they took back their role as “Toby”, and smiled for a false reason. Because they had figured out a way to make their boss’s plans a reality.

All they had to do, was get rid of that meddlesome Captain Pear.

-~-~-

Pear couldn’t care any less about the three cadets running around the ship, contrary to Jonny’s belief. Jonny was trying (and failing) to keep the kids on their best behavior, though they were too busy studying everything in sight to listen to him. The admiral might think Pear wouldn’t want them messing around, but in all honesty, the pirate captain would really only care if it was actually his ship.

The Bloody Crown was still back in the harbor at home, much to his continuous dismay. Pear couldn’t help but think this whole trip would have gone faster if they had his ship. The Bloody Crown was known for its unmatched speed just as much as it was for its cutthroat crew. But, that blasted king of Jonny’s would flip if he ever found out the admiral was even WORKING with pirates let alone using their vessel. So it was safer for them to use one of the royal ships instead. Pear wouldn’t chance a -presumably- innocent life for no reason. He wasn’t that heartless.

“Captain!” A voice behind him says, one all too cheerful to be mistaken for anyone else. Toby. Ugh.

“What is it now , Toby?” Pear sighs, turning to face the young swindler. The kid is always way too full of joy and a pain to deal with. Pear couldn’t see how the hell Hacked could like him so much.

“Um, well… there’s a problem with that other crew on the island? I think I saw them preparing to attack us again through my spyglass!” Toby explains, the hesitation clearly evident in his voice.

“Really?” Pear replies, sounding as deadpan as anyone could ever dream of and then some.

“Umm… yep!” Toby seems nervous about something, but then again he always did when talking to Pear. Hacked was about the only one in the crew that didn’t ever get nervous around him. And that was probably just because they grew up together. Also, the fact that they would both trust the other with their life might have something to do with it.

“Uh-huh… and you want me to do what exactly?”

It seems Toby wasn’t ready for that one. Ha.

“Eh- wha- but a-aren’t you the captain? Y-You’re supposed to-“ he began to stammer, his nerves somehow showing even more than they had been before. It was kinda funny seeing the younger ones quiver.

“Ah, I’m just kidding. I’ll go check it out, where did you see them?” Pear asked, his amused tone turning quickly serious as he considered the young adult before him.

“Um, actually, I think it’d be better to take you to them myself. Better to have backup, right?” Toby suggests, offering up an unsure smile. Pear sighs again, bored of Toby’s presence already.

“If it’ll shut you up, then fine.” Pear says, stepping right past the younger pirate. Toby hurries to follow, sticking close… for some reason. Pear doesn’t really care why, he just wants to get this over with. Cal better not be planning something, for his sake.

-~-~-

They could not believe that WORKED. Pear may be dumber than they first thought!

Glitched followed the captain closely, pointing out a direction that would lead the two far away from the ship, and far from the sight of any spyglass a nosy pirate might train on them. They took note of the sword on the captain’s hip, their own glorified knife feeling heavy in its mostly-hidden sheath. It would be pretty hard to take care of such an experienced fighter such as Pear, but Glitched was sure they could pull it off. It wouldn’t be a face to face encounter, after all. They wouldn’t even give Pear the time to draw his cutlass.

The lying afterwards was the easy part, made even simpler by the other crew docked just across the valley. They could spin some story about the captain of the other crew catching the two of them off guard, Pear losing his life in the process of the consequential fight. After all, from the information they had on Pear, he had never backed down from a fight, even when it was evident he wouldn’t win. The ensuing chaos after their lie would provide its own cover for them to melt back into the background, getting away with their crime cleanly -and more importantly- quietly.

Once the two were far enough away from the ship, they directed Captain Pear to a predominantly hidden space between some large rock formations. “And why exactly are we over here?” Pear inquires, and Glitched pulls yet another stupid excuse out of their pocket.

“This is where I saw them! We should be able to get a good look at what they’re doing from over here!” They answered immediately as they stealthily pulled their short sword free of its sheath while Pear’s back was turned. All it would take was one good swing. They found where they needed to strike and moved to a better position. Maybe this would be easier than they originally thought.

As they raised the glorified knife to strike, however, they were stopped by the Captain’s voice. “I wouldn’t do that if I was you.” He says to them without so much as looking in their direction.

“Do what, Captain?” They responded, trying to keep their voice from revealing their true emotions about the sudden comment. The mask was beginning to slip, but it didn’t matter. It was just the two of them, and one would be dead soon. It truly didn’t matter if they let it fall.

“You know what I’m talking about. It won’t end well for you if you go through with it.” They give up on being “Toby”. They have the upper hand in this situation anyway.

“And why not? It’s he said she said, and you won’t be around to tell anyone the truth. I think it’s going to end pretty well!”

Pear scoffed, still not turning around as he speaks once again. “You have no idea how easily I can kick your ass, do you?”

“You’re not in a position to be making threats like that, Captain . I’m not the one with a sword trained on me. One wrong move and this thing goes straight through your heart!”

“Wanna bet?”

“What? AUGH-!” Glitched hadn’t even had a second to process what Pear had just said when a weird vine thing shot out from the rocks on their right, smacking into them with such great force that it sent them flying straight into the other formation. “OW-!” They protest, but they don’t get anything else out before Pear has his cutlass pointed directly at their throat.

“Well that was fast. I expected something more from such a skilled spy.” He comments.

Fuck.

-~-

“Toby” is pressed so flat against the rocks Pear might even think they were part of the formation if he hadn’t been the one to shove them there. He kicks their short word even further away for good measure, before turning back to the sly little sea wolf. “W..What the hell was that!?” The spy spits out, “That wasn’t fair!”

“I’m a pirate, ‘fair’ really isn’t my style.” Pear tells him. “So, what say you give me your actual name, hm? After all, you won’t be going anywhere for a while. Might as well call you what you really are, sea snake. ”

“I don’t have to tell you anything !” They snarl back, and Pear only raises an eyebrow at that. It’s cute they’re still fighting the inevitable.

“I think you put it well earlier, ‘ one wrong move and this thing goes straight through your heart ’? I’d suggest you don’t make that wrong move, yeah? So. What’s your name.”

They growl in response, but give up when it doesn’t get any sort of response. “…Glitched.” They finally answer, pouting a little at having been cornered like this.

“Okay, Glitched . What are you?” Pear asks next, catching the teen(?) completely off guard.

“Huh!?” They exclaim, their light blue eyes widening in surprise.

“What, you think I didn’t notice?” Pear smirks, “I’m not stupid .” Glitched goes quiet then, pouting even harder as they realize what that all means. “Seriously, you really need to get better at blending in. Even Hacked noticed something was off, and he’s the one that likes you the most! Or well, he did.”

“What do you mean did ?” Glitched’s inquiry is answered unexpectedly by Hacked himself as he swings down from the vantage point he’d been on.

“I did, before I found out you’re a dirty turncoat.” He says, crossing his arms and glaring down at them with disdain.

“Wha- where the hell did you come from!?” They shout, exasperated by just how much they hadn’t accounted for in this stupid plan.

“I had him on stand by in case you actually did manage to disarm me. Anyway, I’d suggest you start talking before you end up in Davy Jones’ locker, Glitch .” Pear responds, saying the shortened version of their name with such venom that if words could kill, they’d be dead about five times over by now.

Growling once more, Glitched finally answered the captain’s earlier question, and then some. “I’m a copy. My boss sent me to keep an eye on your stupid king’s little errand boy. You were getting in the way.” Pear could tell they weren’t telling the full truth, but he’d have to take it for now. It was evident by the fact they gave up that information unprompted that they were not going to reveal their real reasons for being here, even if it would cost them their life.

“Wait, a copy? Of who?” Hacked questions them then, switching his position to be ready when Pear gave the order to take the scallywag back to the ship.

“Look at me, and look at you. Who do you think?” Truth be told, neither of the pirates there would have guessed that Glitched was supposed to be a copy of Hacked. For one, their hair was still white, un-dyed except for a couple small strips at the front. They also looked younger than Hacked, but as Pear was looking at the both of them together, it actually made sense.

“Why Hacked? He has no ties to Jonny whatsoever. If anything I would’ve thought you’d be better off as a copy of one of those cadets he’s got if you were trying to spy on him.” Pear asks the clone, who just shrugs in response.

“Who am I to ask why I was made this way? The boss has his reasons, and that’s all I need to know.”

“Sounds like this boss guy is pretty important then, huh? Why don’t you make it easy and just tell us where he is now, save us all the trouble. We’ll find him eventually anyway.”

“Heh, not that easy. I’d rather face a kraken than betray him.”

“Why, does he scare you that much?” Glitched doesn’t answer for a while, just glaring up at the two pirates in silence.

“I’m done talking to you two.” He says as he turns his unhappy gaze away from the both of them.

“Welp, then I guess we’d best get going. What do ya say we throw ‘em in the brig for now, Hacked?” Pear remarks, looking to his first mate as Hacked grabs Glitched by the collar and pulls them up.

“Sounds good to me.” He replies, securing the clone’s hands behind their back and starting to head back to the ship whilst dragging them along by the collar. Pear follows suit, shoving his sword back into it’s sheath and quickly grabbing the fallen cutlass that once belonged to Glitched. They wouldn’t be needing it anymore, but it was still good to have it on hand.

When they got back to the ship, they immediately threw the clone into a cell below deck, and then called the crew together and told them what had happened. They were outraged that the damn traitor had tried to kill their captain, of course, but most weren’t otherwise surprised at the news.

Jonny later approached Pear on deck, standing next to him at the rail as he had up on the crow’s nest when they had first set off on this journey. “What.” Pear asked, though he didn’t put any energy into it, so it didn’t even sound like a question.

“Just wanted to check on you. You did get your life threatened by one of your crewmembers earlier.” He responds, and he definitely takes note of the way Pear just shifts his gaze to cooly glare at him.

“I’m fine. Believe it or not, this is not the first time someone’s tried to kill me.” The amount of sarcasm the captain responds with just HAS to be illegal. Then again, Jonny wouldn’t be surprised if Pear -or any other pirate for that matter- disregarded the law. “Besides, I never liked Glitched anyway. It’s not as if I’m heartbroken they turned out to be a snake.”

Pear turns his eyes back to the horizon, but there’s only a moment of silence before the ship shakes with the sudden impact of a cannon. “What the hell!?” Pear shouts, immediately running to see what was going on. Jonny follows, only for the both of them to find a ship positioned in front of theirs. “That thing came out of nowhere!” Someone behind them shouts as a second shot is fired.

“Ah, Carajo… MAN THE CANNONS! We’ve got company!” Pear yells, running to his own station as the pirates prepare for battle. Jonny runs off, probably to find the cadets or something. Pear isn’t sure if he should trust him with all the times he’s been out of sight in the past forty-eight hours. But right now he has bigger fish to fry. No one knew the hostile ship’s motives for attacking theirs, but with how fast it looked like the opposing vessel was closing in, their only intention could be to board. It was likely pirates looking for a good score; they were on a king’s ship, after all. Not exactly inconspicuous out on the great sea.

In any case, they couldn’t allow that. A raid would be hard enough to fight off after being caught so off-guard, especially since they were using a smaller crew so far out from the motherland. With no backup and little forces to begin with, they would likely be outnumbered fast. To be attacking a king’s ship, you had to be sure of yourself and your crew. You didn’t just go in with two or three men and hope to win! So their best bet was to make sure the other vessel didn’t get even the slightest chance to board. If they did… well, hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

Cause if it did, they’d all be screwed.

Chapter Text

The offending crew had finally reached the ship.

Cryo had been watching the attack on the pirates play out from afar since he’d heard the first cannonball fire. The pirates had done heavy damage to the other ship by now, but by some otherworldly power, the thing still hadn’t been sunk. It hadn’t even taken on much water, just kept pushing on through until the crew was close enough to board. Smoke billows out of both ships as minuscule figures of both pirates and the other sailors clash, their swords glinting in the blinding light of the afternoon sun. Of course, Cryo couldn’t guess the reason for such a bloodthirsty battle through his spyglass, but he could tell who was winning. And it wasn’t looking good for the pirates.

“Danno!” Cryo yelled from the crow’s nest, making a hasty decision to include his friend and boss in the idea of going to help. It was stupid yes, but they would have a better chance of surviving all this by helping the pirates get rid of the offending crew rather than just trying to flee. They had no idea what the attackers were there for, so they had no way of knowing if they’d be a target next. And if the pirates were losing against them now… they probably wouldn’t even stand a chance if the attackers turned their eyes on them later. Danno arrived on the crow’s nest faster than Cryo would have expected, but that was fine because there was really no time to lose.

“What’s going on?” The captain inquires, coming up behind and a little to the side of Cryo.

“Namely, that.” The quartermaster answers, gesturing out to the raging battle across the valley as he hands the spyglass to Danno.

“Holy shit-!” He exclaims as he sees the turmoil across the way. Before he can continue, a familiar annoying voice comes out of his pocket.

“Wha? What’s holy shi-“ Riggy starts to ask as he pops his head out of one of the captain’s pockets. Danno doesn’t even let him finish before lowering the spyglass so Riggy can look out through it. “Oh… Holy shit!”

“Exactly.” Danno comments, curling the tool into his full grip.

“So, what do you suppose we do? I mean, if the pirates are struggling to defeat those guys on their own, we don’t stand a chance if they come for us next!” Cryo explains to Danno. Usually, he’d be able to just read the captain and understand exactly what his friend was planning. But right now, Danno just looked… conflicted. Understandably so, as either option would likely mean a lot of loss on their end. If they helped the pirates now, they had a better chance of defeating the offending crew, but they would still lose a lot of people in the process. The other option was to stay away and risk the attacker’s next move being to go after them for seemingly no reason, in which case they would either lose none or all of their lives. It was a tough decision to make.

But time was of the essence, especially as a huge explosion engulfed the side of the pirates’ hull, letting water flow in fast and furiously as the ship rocked enough to knock everyone off balance. If they didn’t act now, it was very likely that everyone over there would perish at the hands of these mysterious others. None of them needed a spyglass to know that.

“Get everyone ready.” Danno commands abruptly, jumping into action. “We’re going in.”

-~-~-

“What’s the plan?” Cryo asks quickly, dropping down from the ladder to the crow’s nest a split second after Danno.

“We’ll take half the crew over the valley to stall, and the others will take the ship to flank the attackers and do as much damage as possible to their ship. We have the best chance at defeating them here, so we have to make it count.” The captain explains, “I want you to lead the ship’s attack. Me and Riggy will take the stalling team over as soon as possible.”

“Aye aye.” As Cryo was about to go prepare, Danno grabs his arm for just a second.

“Cryo, I trust you. But please don’t die.”

“Ha,” Cryo turns back to his captain real quick, giving the best confident smile he can at the moment. “You aren’t getting rid of me that easy. I’m with you to the end, remember?” Danno tries to hide the small smile he always gets when Cryo teases him about the oath they’d made to each other when all this began, failing epically as always. He lets his hand fall, turning to start gathering the ground squad.

“Godspeed, Cryo.” They part ways quickly after that, Cryo rounding up the materials and crewmembers he’d need for his half of the plan. They had no time left to lose. Meanwhile, Danno and Riggy set off on their own mission.

“Alright everyone, listen up!” Danno called back to the group of sailors that had agreed to risk their lives on the ground team. They were almost across the valley at this point, and they needed to have a plan of action ready. “We need to stop the opposing crew from leaving as long as possible, so pick a target and do absolutely everything in your power to subdue them. Aim for the legs, feet, and wrists. We don’t have the time to do anything more than put each one out of action. And remember! We’re working withthe pirates here, it’s our best shot at defeating these guys.” Danno takes a deep breath as they reach the remains of the pirate’s -probably stolen- ship. “Good luck everyone.”

“Let’s kick some ass!!” Riggy yells, upsizing to his full height as he jumps out of Danno’s pocket. Every sailor there whips out their swords in less than a second and charges full-on into the fray. They surprise several pirates along the way, jumping into the battle to help and turning the tide 180. Captain Pear and someone Danno recognizes as Admiral Razer are each locked in an unfair battle on top deck of the ship.

“Riggy, wanna try that trick I taught you?” He asks the rabbit-monkey, who doesn’t even need to answer with words to convey how much he wants to. In a flash, Danno whips around and grabs hold of his companion’s gloved hand, spinning around to gain momentum and lift the small toon off the ground. This trick was all about timing and angle, and luckily, they had a clear shot to Jonny. Danno lets the rabbit-monkey fly and immediately dashes after him to the top deck. He quickly notes how Riggy splats onto an enemy’s face and joins Jonny in the fight. He doesn’t see the admiral’s reaction though, because it isn’t even a moment later that another enemy comes after him, a sailor with inhuman green eyes and a dumb tophat-looking thing. Danno is quick to bring up his cutlass to block the other sailor’s sword, the clang of metal on metal reverberating through the battle from not only his combat, but from every other pirate and crewmate on board the entire ship as well. The enemy he faced took an offensive position, hammering down on Danno’s blade once, twice, three times… each with an increasing force that threatened to bend the very steel of the cutlass. The captain responded by kicking the other’s knees out from under him, giving the sailor no time to regroup before skillfully disarming the other, flipping the second sword miraculously straight into his own hand. “Stay down!” He growls at the man before dashing off again to hopefully make it all the way up to top deck this time.

Meanwhile, Riggy is helping Jonny by scrambling about on the heads of the enemies, blinding them while simultaneously taking their attention away from Jonny long enough for him to get in a couple good blows on the other one. One of these enemies looked suspiciously like Jonny, so sometimes Riggy messed up and jumped to his head instead, but he always fixed it lickety-split due to the other crew being in uniforms of bright yellow. Whoever made those must have been really stupid, making the color that noticeable.

Danno made it to top deck without any more trouble, mostly because whenever one of the opposing sailors started to try and stop him, either a pirate or one of his own people jumped on them. Working as a unit like this was certainly doing the trick! Now they just had to find a way to finish it.

Danno came across Pear, who was locked in a losing battle against three attackers at the same time. They held him back against the railing, evidently trying to force a surrender. One of the opposing sailors was even talking, while the other two put enough pressure onto Pear’s sword it seemed as though it may go straight into his own neck. They were so focused on the captain that they didn’t even notice Danno sneaking up behind them. Granted, Pear didn’t either, but he was kind of preoccupied with not dying, so he got a pass.

“You know you won’t be able to win against us, Pear. You’re outplayed and outnumbered. Sounds like pretty bad odds, right?” The one in the middle was saying when Danno got close enough to strike.

“Then let’s even those odds.” He says as he cuts into the back of the one who had been talking, taking them out effectively as they fall to the ground, their weapon flying out of reach of their hand.

“Cal!?” Pear exclaims in surprise as the others whip around to attack Danno back. He blocks them both with some effort, using the sword he’d stolen from that other guy as well as his own to stop their attacks at the same time.

“Hey!” He greets, giving a smile to the other captain even as the two enemies on either side of him attempt to push him to the slowly tilting ground.

“Oh, you lovable bastard.” Pear comments, then shifts to getting the attention of the enemy. “Alright then boys… you ready for round two?” He doesn’t give them any time to answer before lunging at the one to Danno’s left, freeing up the younger captain to kick the ass of the other attacker. Together they made quick work of the yellow-clad enemies, though more take their place as soon as the first are dealt with. They just kept coming! One managed to fling the stolen blade from Danno’s fingers, and it was very clear that they weren’t going to calm down with their vigorous attack style anytime soon. They seemed to have no real plan of attack, instead relying on heavy strikes and repeated outnumbering to try and knock the captains into a more vulnerable position. What’s worse was that their guns-blazing tactic seemed to be working. There was no time to switch up where you blocked when there’s five people aiming at you from different directions, after all.

Suddenly though, out of nowhere, a mysterious sailor from neither Pear nor Danno’s crew sliced clean through the ranks of the attackers surrounding the captains. He looked a lot like the person Danno had fought earlier - minus the top-hat, and his eyes were actually normal - yet he seemed to be opposing their attackers as much as they’d been. “G’day!” He salutes, his accent foreign to Danno. He interrupts his own introduction momentarily by running through an attacker who’d been charging at him, and then turns back to the captains. “How’s the fighting been going?” He sounds cheery, like that’s just a normal conversation starter anyone would say like they were talking about the weather. He leans on his sword for a second, grinning at Danno before slicing through another of the yellow-clad sailors.

“Uh.” Danno manages, before being interrupted by one of the attackers coming after him. He deals with them, and the break in enemies this new guy had caused allows him to see the opposing side’s ship, slowly moving away and trying to turn. “HEY!” He shouts, hoping someone could hear him and get to the cannons to stop them. “THEY’RE JUST LEAVING!?” It was outrageous, the ship was leaving what was probably most if not all of their crew behind. Who would do that!?

Luckily though, just as the ship began to turn, an explosion hits it right in the rudder. “Ohh no, I didn’t say you could leave!” A shout resounds across the waves. Cryo has arrived. Danno can see the Spirit Fire blocking the other ship’s way now, his comrade and friend at the head. Cryo doesn’t waste a second, swinging over to the stopped ship as soon as he was close enough, despite his injury from earlier. That man was gonna be the death of Danno one day with how little he cared about his own health. Still though, Danno is grateful to be given the chance to get back in the fight without worrying about the opposing ship getting away in the meantime. Apparently, they’d gotten whatever they came for. He wanted to make sure they didn’t get any further than that.

He turned back to the fight in front of him, joining the new guy and captain Pear in battle once again.

-~-~-

“UGH! WHAT. Was THAT?!” Preston screams at those on deck. Their ship had just rocked and stopped moving back, presumably due to the younger clones’ incompetence. Again.

Apparently though, it seems this time he’s wrong about that -a rare occurrence, mind you- as sailors from the crew that’d been on the opposite side of the island started to cross over to their vessel. Of course, his ship crew was was still incompetent, so they just scrambled around like idiots as they started getting taken out one by one. It’s fine, they were all expendable anyway. There were only a few clones here that actually mattered; Glitched -who had information on Jonny RaZer-, Melon -who the boss liked for… some reason-, and of course, himself. Preston was the highest ranking by far, having even been trained in the sword directly by the boss himself! He’d been the only clone who’d gotten to pick his own name, too. He was the boss’s favorite by far, and everyone knew it.

One of the intruders dropped down just a little ways away from him, colored blue, like Preston was -except this guy was a much lighter shade. He stumbled a little as he landed, and Preston immediately noticed a part of his leg where a bandage was presumably wrapped underneath his clothes. He pulled out his own blade -the offending sailor already having drawn his- and grinned, chuckling dangerously. He had the advantage in this fight. He knew the ship, and he knew that his opponent was already injured. Now he only had to exploit that fact. He darted toward his enemy with enough speed to become a blur, already heading straight at the injured leg. He missed as the sailor jumped back in time, but he’d been prepared for that. He looped to his right away from the lighter blue form and flung two of his knives in quick succession. He heard the hiss of pain when one of them hit, and he turned back to his opponent, sneering. “Your move.”

~-~-~

This little fucker was as fast as Riggy. He looked a lot like the annoying runkey as well, yet unlike Riggy, he had no tail.  He was also tricky, he’d already managed to land a hit -the knife in Cryo’s side- seemingly without even trying. He taunted Cryo now, actually waiting for him to make his first attack, like they were playing chess instead of in a sword fight. Cryo already hated this guy. And it hadn’t even taken a full minute of meeting him! That had to be a record of some kind.

Cryo evaluated what he could do now that he knew this thing was clever. He could go in head on, but that would probably either end up with him being blocked or dodged too easily. However, it would make the rabbit-thing in front of him underestimate him further, like his obvious injury probably had already. He could also choose to break left or right, but that would be an opening for a hit on him too. He decided the route of underestimation was a good one, and lunged forward, purposely making himself look like an idiot in the process as riggy two jumped to the side. He wasted no time in cutting back at Cryo, who just barely dodged the slice. He danced back a little, trying to make himself look like an amateur. It was working. Riggy two darted forward again, running back and forth to try and confuse him. Oldest trick in the book. Make the opponent think you’re going to be somewhere you aren’t. Cryo tried not to roll his eyes at the degrading way he was being treated right now. He noticed it when Riggy two changed course to go and flank him, and he saw his opportunity. He swung around, their swords clanging as they come to meet. Without wasting a second, Cryo uses the other’s height to his advantage, grabbing Riggy two’s ears and flinging him away as hard as he could. Not enough to eliminate him from the fight, unfortunately, but it still did some damage. Mostly to the ship.

“Ugh!!” The smaller sailor yells, jumping to him feet, furious. “That’s not fair!”

“Neither is going for my leg, but that didn’t seem to stop you earlier. Think twice before you say something else stupid, copy.” The term copy seems to make riggy two hesitate.

“How do you know that?” He growls, baring sharp teeth as he glares up at Cryo.

Cryo doesn’t know what he’s referring to, but any chance to get information out of this guy would be great. He just has to play a little game of bluff to get him to reveal something. “I know a lot of things.” He says with a mean smile, “you’ll have to be more specific.”

“How the hell do you know we’re- no, wait. You’re bluffing, aren’t you?” Cryo was right when he thought this one to be clever. But not clever enough, it seems, as he’d already let Cryo know what he’d gotten so worked up about.

“Bluffing about what? The fact you’re a clone?” He shoots back, and the rabbit-thing pauses. So he was right then. They’re clones. He doesn’t have any time to react when the clone -presumably of riggy, since he looked so much like the little prankster- lunges forward with enough force that it knocks him against the railing of the deck. His sword clatters to the ground as he’s thrown nearly overboard, and the faker’s blade comes to meet his throat, the tip of it pressing just short of drawing blood.

“I could just kill you mercifully, now that I know you’ve figured it out. But I like a show, and I don’t think that leg of yours will do very well when it’s wet, right?” He says, his tone full of a calm viciousness that was more scary than if he’d just gotten outright angry about all this. “I hope you like water, sailor. Because you’re gonna be sleeping with the fishes tonight.” A maniacal smile grows on the clone’s face as he pushes Cryo further into the railing, the wooden beams of it digging into his back as his mind races trying to come up with something he can do. His sword is on the ground a ways away. The hunting knife at his back is unreachable because of the railing. He doesn’t have a weapon. The fake riggy is smaller than him, but he doesn’t really have the room to so much as shove him away, and even if he did the tip of that blade is still at his throat, able to kill him if it pokes much further into his skin. He can’t get out of this. Not in a way he should. The only way out is the very thing that could and would very likely kill him… into the water. He tries to find another way, but the copy is done waiting. He pushes at Cryo with what must be all his might, sending him flipping over the side. He tries to reach for his knife, to catch himself on the side of the ship, but it happens too fast.

The water is ice cold when he hits it, and he tries to surface before he forgets which way is up, but even though it’s calmer closer to the island, the waves still do their best to pull him under. He knows how to swim. He should be fine, he should be able to take care of himself, even with salt water in his lungs already from the initial plunge. But as the clone had thought, his leg didn’t want to work. He’d already been putting too much on it by fighting, even by swinging over to the ship. It was screaming now, salty water seeping through his trousers and then further through the bandages, stinging the wound and causing electric agony to shoot up his leg. This was bad. He was going to drown if he didn’t think of something, fast. But no matter how hard he tries or how many situations go through his head, everything seems to lead to one, dreadful outcome.

His lungs are begging for him to breathe, but he can’t- he can’t reach the surface. Darkness tries to start creeping into his vision then, blackening the edges like a flame to parchment. This is it. This is how he’s going out? Really? Pathetic.

He’s fine with dying, that’s not the problem. Sailors drown all the time, it’s literally a warning they give you in the job description. No, the problem is what he’ll have done if he dies here. He’ll have failed Danno, he’ll never see her again. Oh, she’d be so heartbroken. She told him to be careful! And now look what he’s gone and gotten himself into.

The darkness covers half of his sight now, as he struggles to breathe under the waves. The last thing he thinks of in that moment are words. Just two of them, pointless if he couldn’t say them aloud, but still impactful in their meaning.

I’m sorry.

-~-~-

Danno sees it happen. His quartermaster getting flipped over the side of the other shop would draw anyone’s attention. But he’s in a sword fight, he can’t get distracted. Cryo knows how to swim, he’ll be fine, right? But that injury… No! No, he’ll be fine! Danno refuses to give up on him. But. He doesn’t see his friend surface again. A full minute passes, and something screams at him that this is wrong. Something’s wrong. Danno slashes at the person he’s fighting and runs over to the side of the ship. Nothing. Okay. Okay, he can do this. The captain sheaths his sword in a swift movement, and without wasting a second he leaps over the rail.

The water is cold, but he barely registers that. He doesn’t care how his eyes immediately start to sting from the salt. He reminds himself to hold his breath. His eyes dart around, searching for his friend. He spots Cryo somewhere a bit closer to shore than where the captain himself had jumped in. His body is limp in the water. Danno doesn’t waste time.

He swims over quickly, grabbing his friend and hauling him back to shore as fast as he possibly could. He isn’t breathing.

No, no no no no no! You can’t die on me Cryo!

He has to get the water out of the other’s lungs. He tries everything he knows how to do. Come on. Breathe, dammit! Finally, something works. Cryo suddenly starts coughing out water from his lungs, and Danno is quick to move him onto his side so he doesn’t choke. A few minutes and a lot of coughing later, Cryo is breathing again. He’s sopping wet, and probably some level of traumatized, but he’s alive. Danno hugs his friend maybe a little bit too hard. Any longer and he could be… no. He shouldn’t think like that. He’s okay. Cryo’s okay. That’s what matters.

“Don’t you dare do that again you idiot!” Danno says after a while, earning a breathy laugh from his quartermaster.

“S..sorry. Didn’t mean to take those years off your life.” Cryo jokes back, his voice rough from all the coughing. Danno rolls his eyes, but really he’s just glad Cryo can joke. That was too close of a call.

Silently, Danno promises himself he won’t let anything like it happen again.

As it turns out later, the fight with the opposing crew had ended while the two of them were onshore, the pirate crew and theirs, as well as that random guy that jumped in, being the victors of the entire thing. They had won this day, this hard day filled with terrifyingly close calls. But unbeknownst to all of them… the shorts wars had only just begun.

Chapter Text

The aftermath of the battle was disastrous. They had lost so many of the handful of people Pear had brought with him, which was a whole thing to deal with when they got back. Condolences to their families and whatnot. He may be a pirate, but Pear wasn’t heartless.

Still though, so much was damaged. The ship they’d been sailing on for the past however long wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, the hull damaged so badly that it was a surprise it hadn’t sunk even in the more shallow harbor. Well, any more than it had already.

“Captain!” Yet another pirate says, and Pear begrudgingly turns his attention to them. They look a little wary, sensing how ticked he already is about this whole situation. “The traitor has escaped.” They inform him, wincing a little as they say it as if it physically pains them to say aloud.

“What.” Pear sighs, pushing past the crewmember without waiting for a response. If Glitched escaped… that had to be what the stupidly dressed sailors had attacked for. It was a distraction! Gods damn it!

When he gets down to the brig, his boots getting wet with the layer of water covering the floor, Jonny is there with Datchia, one of the cadets that had snuck onto the ship with them back when this whole trip began. They’re inspecting the damage, the metal of the bars Glitched was behind bent back as if it was peeled like a banana. A gaping hole was blasted through the side of the ship, ending just above where their ship had sunk to in the water. A couple still-smoking cannonballs lay in the rubble pile of wood scraps inside the ship. Datchia was currently busy over by the cell, trying to figure out what kind of thing could bend the iron with such strength. Jonny turns to Pear when he notices the captain there, however, a weird little blue creature not much taller than a toothpick sitting on his shoulder.

“They certainly did a good job for a rescue mission.” The admiral comments. “I think all this is kind of overkill, but hey, we didn’t even know he was gone until about five minutes ago.”

Pear sighs again, approaching the bent bars and crouching down to inspect them for himself. “To do this they’d have to have a copy in their ranks of someone stronger than reinforced steel. You kingdom folk really like your ensured security when it comes to prison cells.” It wasn’t a secret anymore that the sailors who’d attacked them were clones, both Cal’s quartermaster and the new guy, apparently called Bundun, had confirmed that. Speaking of, those three were over at the clones’ ship right now, trying to find traces of where they’d come from. That ‘boss’ guy was serious business, and Pear didn’t like the air of mystery he had to him. Not even Bundun knew much, just that he was the leader of the clones, hidden somewhere out in the archipelago and rarely talked about. The clones all reported to him, and that was about all anyone knew of him or who he was. Apparently, Bundun had been out hunting down the clones with his old captain, the infamous Joe Caine, for years. Caine had all but retired now, though he had stepped down from his position as captain. They’d found out things about the second crew that had come to help them too, the fact that they were also headed to Atlantis being the most blaring thing. The current truce was still in effect though, and to be honest, Pear didn’t care if they wanted to find the same place. It could help his crew anyway, if there was a second set of people helping the search. Even with their dwindled numbers, Pear was sure they could kick the sailor’s asses if they needed to anyway. Anna had already fought and arguably won against their quartermaster, who was presumably the best fighter of the lot. So it was safe to say his pirates would win a head on battle.

No one said anything to him for a bit, but he did hear Jonny chatting with the creature on his shoulder, ‘Rigby’ or something like that. Datchia had moved on by now to report what they’d found, which from the background conversation wasn’t very much. They hadn’t ever seen something like this, to be fair. But something about the way the metal sunk in certain places, lines of squeezed iron held by a death grip seeming so… familiar. It was something he’d seen only once before.

He was seven or eight when it happened, a storm out at sea having blown all sorts of junk onto shore. He’d been messing around with this crab he’d found, confusing the creature by continuously flipping it around when it was walking. Maybe it was a little mean, but the little guy didn’t seem to mind the constant setback, never snapping at him with its claws or anything of the sort. All the animals seemed to like him, maybe it was because of what he was… what he is. But he didn’t know then, and he didn’t care now. Anyways, he had been messing with this poor crab when the sand he’d stepped on had been just enough to release a loose piece of metal that had been tossed from the ocean. It had fallen right onto him, supposedly karma for what he was doing with the crab, and effectively squashed him. It hurt, a lot, the metal too heavy for his younger self. His mother came to help almost immediately, but even she could not move the mass of scrap metal more than a few inches. It wasn’t enough. So, she pulled vines from the ground, using her shapeshifting to her advantage. The vines were strong enough to haul the scrap off of him so she could pull him out of the way. It had been the only time he’d seen that amount of sheer strength from anything, even his own vines couldn’t ever match it.

But that was the answer to what did this, wasn’t it?

“A shapeshifter.” He says, standing up again and turning back to Jonny.

“What? A shapeshifter?” The admiral asks, his own conversation halted.

“That’s what did this.” Pear explains, starting to leave the brig again. He had other things to do today.

“Wait, but… shapeshifters went extinct, didn’t they? They were all persecuted, right?” Datchia adds, their facts from their training resurfacing. Pear tried not to lash out. It’s just what they were taught by that wretched king’s followers. It’s fine.

“They were supposed to be.” Pear answers, leaving without another word directly after. Thoughts of his mother and the day they took her away were pushed out of his mind. He can’t waste time thinking about this. They have a mission to complete. Even if it is technically for the man who murdered his remaining family.

-~-~-

Pear’s cryptic nature isn’t something Jonny can dwell on right now, even if he kind of would like to. He turns to Datchia, giving them a few quick orders to gather the other two cadets, Mello and Redjet, and meet everyone out on the shore. The three that had gone to check out the clones’ ship, Captain Cal -referred to as just ‘Danno’ by Riggy, the runkey who’d helped the admiral in battle-, his quartermaster, and Bundun were going to be meeting up with Jonny and Pear to share whatever they’d found. To be honest, the admiral was glad for the truce the two crews had worked out. It would make the next steps in their course of action easier, having over double their numbers working with them for this. That is, if Danno and his crew were willing to help. From what Riggy had told him, Danno had a kind heart, so he’d likely agree. There was always the off chance he didn’t, though. Jonny suspects he knows which kingdom Danno is from, but he can’t really prove anything. Even if he could, what would it matter? It’s not like Jonny held any prejudice like some of the others in his sorry-excuse-for-a-king’s navy.

Out on the shore, a few matters are settled. The first of which, being where the hell the clones came from.

“Basically,” Danno says after a complicated explanation that Jonny is sure everyone got lost during at least once, “we don’t know.” He looks down, seeming a little bummed about that fact. Jonny gets him, and hey, at least they tried! But Pear shows no such compassion.

“Well then what the hell was that whole explanation for?” The pirate captain deadpans, sounding tired and already pissed off, though that seemed to be a constant state for him.

“Because!” Danno continues, “I wanted to emphasize that we searched through the ENTIRE ship, TWICE no less, before saying this next bit. Because, um…”

“Riggy’s pissy clone and presumably a few others are gone.” Cryospace, Danno’s quartermaster, cuts in. At Captain Cal’s look of ‘really? You had to cut me off?’ He just shrugs, saying “what? You were taking too long.” After that, Bundun hops in with his own input.

“The main clones that were probably on that ship, and the ones that got away, were Preston, presumably your ‘Glitched’, and most likely some other higher ranking clone.” He explains, “so we’ll have to watch out for them, especially Preston. He’s the highest ranking out of all of them, he’s the guy Cryo’s talking about.”

“That being said,” Jonny cuts in, addressing everyone present, “what are we going to do now? And how do we go about it? If these clones are as dangerous all the time as we encountered today, shouldn’t we do something about them?”

“The clones are interesting, but shouldn’t we stay on course with the mission we’re on?” Datchia points out to him.

“Yeah, what about Atlantis?” Redjet adds, “I know the ship’s kind of busted, but if we can go there maybe it’ll have something to help with the clones too. It is said to have treasures untold.”

“And, Captain Pear, didn’t Glitched say he was here to watch the admiral?” Mello jumps in as well, the three cadets each seeming more excited as new information clicks into place. Pear nods, presumably wondering where all this was going as much as Jonny is. “What if the clones go there too, because they know that’s where we were headed? We can’t let them get the treasure any more than we can ignore the fact they’re dangerous. We can stop them and get what we came out here for in one swoop!” There’s a moment where silence falls over the group, each individual thinking over that possibility. Th cadets were very convincing, but it seemed more problems with their plan arose. Like the fact of getting there.

Pear voices these concerns. “As you said though, our ship is as good as sunk. How would you expect to reach Atlantis to do all this?”

“You can come with us on our ship!” Danno offers, earning an incredulous look from his quartermaster. “What? It’s to get back at the clones.” He says to Cryo, more hushed.

“What would we do to stop the clones, though?” Jonny asks, and he’s answered by none other than the clone hunter himself, Bundun.

“We could just kill them, but they have a nasty habit of just coming right back. I think the best course of action on that front is to kick their butts so bad they won’t show their faces again.” He says, confident in his half-plan.

“I mean, I’m down for kicking some copycat ass!” Riggy votes, and it seems everyone else kind of agrees with that sentiment.

“Well, alright then. We’ll continue the course to Atlantis!” Jonny says, and everybody else gives their statements of agreement. After that, they all go their separate ways to prepare, Jonny grabs a few of his extra weapons. The cadets gather their research and everything they’ll need to do their thing. Pear gets his first mate to come along, and presumably a few other things, leaving Anna in charge of his pirates to fix up the ship and get going to meet them there, and then they all set off on the Spirit Fire. This was turning out to be one heck of a trip.

Jonny just hopes it doesn’t turn out to be his last, too.

-~-~-

It’s weird having two people on board that are captains. Thankfully though, Pear doesn’t have to do much in the way of running things for a change, because Danno’s crew don’t really bother him with much. It’s kind of nice to not have pirates complaining to him every five minutes about something or other. These sailors weren’t his crew, and that was a little disorienting, with him being so used to the role of captain, but it was… nice. For one thing, he wasn’t being called over to settle every single fight or anything. So that was at least a plus of the situation.

They’d been out on the waves for a few hours now, and Pear was honestly kind of bored. He was up in the crow’s nest, keeping watch of the sea because he had nothing better to do here. Hacked had been asked to help with something a few minutes ago, and Pear had no clue where the majority of the other people he actually knew on this ship were. Captain Cal was the only person he knew the whereabouts of, and that was just because he could see the man down on deck, at the helm. People milled about like ants across the deck.

Pear watches as the waves lap at the sides of the ship. They were more violent now, with the wind picking up from what seems to be a storm slowly rolling in. Dark clouds coat the horizon, marching on in a formation that only reminds the pirate captain of an armada. Then though, he notices something… strange… happening. The crewmembers on deck seem to move as one, going to stand near the railings of the ship. They act like zombies, just standing there and staring out at the ocean. He looks to Danno, seeing the sailor covering his ears and shouting at his crew, though they don’t seem to listen. That’s when Pear hears it. Singing.

Fuck.

They must have made it into siren cove, which is probably the most dangerous place for a sailor to be, and also an unfortunately necessary thing to go through to get to Atlantis. This cove is filled with not only the sirens as a species, who are dangerous to anyone all on their own, but it also has probably the most rock-filled terrain, which is really hard to navigate through while being forcibly soothed by the sirens’ ugly voices. Danno seems to be struggling already, unable to properly handle the steering wheel while still avoiding the sirens’ song. Fuck.

Pear makes the decision to help quickly, darting down the ladder to the crows nest and joining the others on deck. The song is louder down here, and more annoying than ever. It’s easy for Pear to combat it though, as he simply makes sure no one is watching and then shifts his dna, just a little bit, to mimic that of a deaf animal. Everything goes silent for him, and he runs up to the helm, shoving a very surprised Danno Cal out of the way and grabbing the wheel for himself. He’s dealt with sirens before, though he’s never been all the way out here to their den.

It’s hard steering, the storm rolling in making it even harder, especially since he has to use the wind because Cal’s crew is entranced. A few close calls and a hard break right later, and the ship finally breaks free of the cove, returning to calmer waters once they reach past the threshold of the storm. The sunset appears in the distance, marking the end of the treacherous waters… for now, at least.

Cal says something to him, and Pear has to quickly revert the changes he made to his body and just act like he’d been too focused to hear. He was glad that had worked though, he’d spent years perfecting that little trick of his.

“What?” He asked Cal, taking notice of his gawking.

“How… did you…” the sailor asks, dumbfounded in the way he’d just seemingly ignored the sirens’ song, which is technically what he did, but not quite. To Cal’s knowledge though, that should be an impossible feat. Pear doesn’t give an answer, just shrugging and giving the wheel back to its owner. The rest of the crew on deck have snapped out of it by now, and they go back to their original tasks, also extremely confused at how Pear had just done that.

Pear goes below deck to go bother his first mate, smirking to himself at their shock. Oh, if only they knew. It was funnier this way though, and safer for him. He’s already wanted for being a pirate, he doesn’t need a second bounty on his head for what he is.

Hacked is the only person he’s told about his heritage, and he’s the only person he’ll ever tell. He’s the only person Pear trusts on this damn ship, after all.

A while of sailing later, probably about two more days of nothing eventful happening, there’s anew problem. They’re moving along just fine, and everyone important seems to be out on the deck, just milling around doing whatever, when suddenly, out of absolutely nowhere, a storm strikes down on them. One moment, the sky was clear. And then the next, dark grey clouds filled it, and the waves picked up their pace to be going double time, crashing against the sides of the ship angrily. “What the hell!?” Someone calls, as the entire ship leans dangerously from side to side. Cal calls for someone to bring the sail back down, the wind so violent it may rip them off all on it’s own. His crew scrambles to get to rowing, and Pear and the others go to help too, though Pear joins Captain Cal at the helm.

“What’s happening?” He says, watching Cal struggle to keep the ship on course.

“I don’t know! This storm just came out of nowhere! Woah-!” He nearly loses his grip,  which would leave the ship to the wave/m whim, but Pear catches the wheel before that happens, yanking it back in the right direction.

“Cadets! What do you make of it?” He yells backwards, and the wind carries their voices back.

“I’m not certain, but this seems like it came in way too fast to be natural!” Redjet says first.

“Maybe it’s because we’ve gotten close to Atlantis! The storm does seem to have a feel of something magical to it!” Mello adds, but before their theories can get any more thought, the strong winds blow the ship off course again and the two captains have to fix it, overcompensating a little with their combined force. People are still scrambling about, everything and everyone sliding around on deck. Rain pelts down on them hard, making visibility a harder thing than it already was. It’s so bad, in fact, that neither of them notice the shallowing water until it’s too late to change course.

“Brace!” Pear yells, just a minute before the ship smashes into the shoreline, the waves crashing down hard into them and wearing through even more of the wood. Everyone gets lurched around, many of them completely flung when the ship collides with both the sea floor and the sandy rocks that make up the start of an island’s beach. Pear is one of these few flung, and everything comes to a stop when the pirate captain hits the ground, a sudden, hard pain the last thing he feels before things go dark.

-~-~-

When consciousness comes back to him, Pear sits up to find the sky clear yet again, though it can’t have been more than a few minutes. The Spirit Fire lay in ruins, crashed right into the shoreline and demolishes by those heavy waves. He’s on the sand, his hair covered in it from the way he was thrown. Cal also lays on the beach, breathing heavy from the whole situation. Hacked hops down from the remains of the ship, followed by Jonny and the cadets, as Cryospace and Riggy get the rest of the crew down onshore on the other side. Hacked immediately comes over to Pear, kneeling to check up on him. “Dude, are you okay?” He asks, “you guys kinda got flung..”

“Yeah, I can tell. I’m fine.” Pear assures him, though he lets Hacked help pull him up off the ground. Pear shakes out his hair, ridding it of sand the best he can in the moment.

“Well, what the hell do we do now?” Cryospace voices as he comes over from helping out the crew. Cal also shows up, Riggy following soon after. Jonny and the cadets join them, with Bundun tagging along as well.

“Don’t worry guys! I’ve got a plan.” Bundun announces, though no one seems very impressed by his enthusiasm.

“Enlighten us.” Pear tells him, as deadpan as one could possibly be. That doesn’t deter the clone hunter though.

“I can contact Joe to come and pick us all up, and we can go see what this island is in the meantime! It kind of seemed to appear out of nowhere, so it might have something of note to it!” Okay, that was actually a good point. Before anyone can say anything though, Bundun must take their silence as approval, because he pulls a roll of parchment and a quill with a small bottle of ink out of his bright pink jacket, leaving everyone kind of confused on why he just had that. He scribbled something on the paper, rolling it up and tying it off with a little piece of string he for some reason just had as well. “Anyone see a bird?” He asks when he’s finished.

“Why would a bird bring this specifically to Joe Caine just because you tell it to?” Pear asks, and Datchia answers for Bundun.

“Birds are very smart, and besides, there are messenger pigeons that fly all over the place. I’m sure we can find something.” They explain, though it wasn’t needed.

“Okay. Give me the paper.” Pear says, and Bundun obliges. Pear goes a ways away from the group, where they can’t see him, and he calls for a pigeon to come down from the sky half heartedly, using a bird call he’d learned from his father. He wasn’t expecting it to work all the way out in the middle of nowhere, but suddenly, a bird flapped down, perching itself on a low hanging tree branch and staring curiously at him. Well then.

Pear takes the note and ties it to the pigeon’s leg, which it looks confused on for a moment. “Do you know Joe Caine?” He asks the bird then, feeling a little silly. It seems to understand him though, nodding his feathery head. This whole thing was so surreal. “Take that to him, and I’ll give you food later.” He tells it, and again, for some odd reason, it seems to understand, even though he had used english to talk to it. Maybe it was something about his species again, whatever. The important thing is that the pigeon understood, or at least seemed to, as it bounced a little and then took off in the same direction the sailors had all come from. So weird.

Pear went back out to the others. “If that actually worked, we owe a pigeon some bread crumbs. So, where the hell are we going now?” He says, surprising them a little. As it turns out, Cal had told his crew to stay here and make sure Joe arrived safe, and their little group here were going to go explore. “Well alright then. Let’s get to it.”

Little do any of them know, they just arrived at their intended destination. And so have their enemies.