Clawing at the liquid prison around Maxie was doing nothing against the struggle, and no matter how hard he fought, he seemed to only be slipping down further. But yet he didn't know if he was pushing against the blackening ocean around him or sinking deeper on purpose—all he knew was that the dream was always the same and he was always determined, even if he never knew what end he was heading so strongly toward.
There was a swift intake of air, or lack thereof, as Maxie's lungs nearly filled with water. The salty tang of sea was brusque on his tongue, leaving no room for imagination about the boundaries containing him. He was drowning, or choosing to drown, in the ocean, and yet there was no fear in his heart. He barely perceived his soft red hair, suspended in animation, flow in front of his visage as he swam further down. The light of the world above him grew ever weak and was instead consumed by darkness, enveloping and more powerful than the penetrating rays overhead. Maxie felt his lungs grow tight, his precious air becoming scarce, but he did not make a motion to return to the surface. Somehow, he willed himself down further, as if he was chasing something much more potent than his life.
Maxie felt his jaw unlock as he opened his mouth, as if to call out a name, but a rush of water into his throat silenced him, and suddenly, everything was blacker than it was before.
Slam. Slam. Slam. Three heavy-handed knocks shook the door to Maxie's quarters as the man sat up with a start, gasping as the invisible water in his dream was once more replaced with nothingness. He blinked, eyes adjusting to the impervious nighttime gloom, the lantern at his bedside blown out long ago. Groaning softly at the sudden awakening, Maxie ran a thin, gnarled hand over his angled jaw and tousled his shoulder-length hair. He wasn't sure what the time was, but he was certain that it was not an attractive hour to be roused. He was on call tonight, so he should have been expecting some rude emergency to take place, yet he was disgruntled at the interruption.
Slam. Slam. Two more thumps came from outside and Maxie hissed. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" He shouted. Fumbling at his bedside table, feeling for his flint and striker to light the small oil lantern, hitting the stones against one another and the ensuring spark making the Wailord fat roar silently to life. Shadows cast themselves with shrinking anguish against the walls of Maxie's cabin as the short, slight man stood, taking the flame with him. The orange glow imprinted on his white sleeping gown, bunched at his knobbed knees and lacings undone along his prominent collarbone.
Sleepily, Maxie stumbled to the door, grumbling as he stubbed his toe on the old wood floor. He barely managed to undo the lock before swinging the egress wide open, the light from the well-lit hallway of officer's quarters flooding his senses and blinding him briefly. With a squint, Maxie's blurred vision could make out the fuzzy red form of what was likely a naval private—probably one of the night sentries, Maxie decided. Heavens, he needed his eyewear, but his unexpected visitor had given him no time to fish around for them in his room.
"Private! What is the meaning of this?" Maxie demanded. "Why do you call so late? Do you know the hour?" Maxie didn't—it could have been midmorning for all he knew, but his duty as a captain was to strike as much guilt and fear into his underlings as possible.
The private snapped to attention. "Captain Matheson! One hand past the midnight hour, sir!" he shouted. Maxie cringed—it was far too early to be yelled at by anyone, even if it was out of respect.
"That was not the meaning of my question, imbecile," he rumbled. "Answer me! Who calls at such a time?"
"Admiral Tailor, Captain, sir!" the private yelled. Maxie still couldn't make out his identity, for he was completely unable to see anything without his eyewear. "You have been summoned on urgent matters to his quarters, sir! I was sent to fetch you, sir!"
At that, Maxie's ears perked and his interested was piqued. Admiral Tailor? The bastard was fat and incompetent, but he at least knew enough not to bother his officers during their precious rest. Maxie had never been summoned from sleep by Admiral Tailor before, which turned his current situation from a minor nuisance into alarm. Whatever required his attention was surely dire. "Well, then, Private, you have done what was expected of you," Maxie said, hoping the edge in his voice wasn't detectable. "You are dismissed. I will dress and make my way to Admiral Tailor's quarters myself."
There was a loud snap—the private's boots clicking together, Maxie assumed—and the private hurried away in a flurry of fabric, disappearing down the hall. Maxie rubbed his right eye with his unoccupied hand and, turning back into his room, sighed noisily. Heading back toward his nightstand, taking up nearly half of the space in his enclosed quarters, Maxie placed the lantern down and opened the table drawer, rifling about for his eyewear—two pieces of thick, convex lenses attached on either end with an elastic band that went around his ears and connected across the bridge of his nose. During his adolescence, Maxie's eyesight had grown to the point where functioning without some sort of apparatus became impossible. Indeed, even though he was now a serious captain of the British Royal Navy, he still felt humiliated every time he slipped the device over his eyes and around his ears.
And, as Maxie turned to the closet doors that contained his uniform, he'd remembered that sometimes, he could be truly blind—so blind that even his eyeglasses couldn't see for him.
It was baffling indeed to be dressed to the nines in his surly officer's coat, a brilliant sapphire with gold trimmings on the seams and sleeves, and his white waistcoat and knee-high shipman's boots this early in the morning. It was stranger even to be standing in front of his commanding officer's quarters, the entrance large and intimidating, even for a man such as himself. Maxie released a breath he didn't know he was holding and adjusted the black cap, ensuring the brims were folded back just enough—all he was missing was his wig, but he hadn't found the time to search for it in his cramped bedroom. He hoped Admiral Tailor wouldn't mind. He knew what a stickler the man was for appearances.
Just as he lifted his gloved knuckle to rap on the door, a voice rattled the hinges from inside. "Captain Matheson," it said, profound and bellowing, deep as the ocean. "Come in, please."
Hand quavering somewhat, Maxie reached for the knob and twisted, pushing it open and entering the room, quietly shutting the door behind him. Admiral Tailor's quarters, being the commanding officer of the Liverpool branch of the Navy, did not squander in size as Maxie's did—in fact, it was impressively large for a naval officer's cabin. A bed, immaculately made and crisp, sat in the corner, seemingly dusty and underused. Beside it, a bedside table much like Maxie's and closet took up only a fraction more of space. Far removed from the Admiral's personal area was a set of chairs and a table, all just as decrepit and rotting as the rest of the furniture throughout the naval base. And there sat Admiral Tailor in the left chair, just barely illuminated by several flickering wall scones.
Admiral Tailor was a behemoth of a man, standing close to a metre above him and weighing stones more, Maxie was sure (and Maxie was an easy man to top in weight). He stretched every part of his admiral's uniform, looking close to popping every button and join. Still, the man exuded the pomp and circumstance of a true British admiral—steely stare locked on Maxie, his attention focused, as if he were engaging an enemy in battle and not merely chatting with one of his underlings. Even Admiral Tailor's Meowth, curled on his shoulders and purring lovingly, did not deter him for only a second. As portly as he was, Maxie was sure he had been giving a rank promotion for a reason.
With a dip of his round, moon-shaped head, peeking beneath his powdered white wig, Admiral Tailor gestured toward the empty chair. "Captain Matheson, I am pleased that you could come on such a short notice," he said, his slightest words even creating authoritative tremors in Maxie's spine. "Please, sit down. We have much to discuss."
Maxie hurriedly took a seat, removing his hat in respect for his leader and placed it gingerly on the splinter-ridden tabletop. Mewling with excitement at the entrance of a new playmate, Meowth sprung down from Tailor's shoulders and landed elegantly on the floor, scurrying toward Maxie to rub against his legs. Gently, Maxie tried to shake the feline Pokemon away, afraid of getting cat hair on his leggings, but Meowth persisted and Maxie eventually capitulated.
"I am sure that you're wondering why I have called you here at such an early morning hour," Admiral Tailor said. "You see, within the day, there has been a… situation occurring." He nodded toward Maxie. "A situation that requires you, my best naval captain, to remedy."
Maxie loosened. Clearly this wasn't about his performance. "What do you need from me, sir?" he inquired.
The purple flame of the little candle at the center of the table began to weaken; Admiral Tailor frowned down at it and the object quivered, opening a pair of wild, inflamed red eyes that beheld Maxie with awe. Maxie hadn't even noticed that the candle was actually a Litwick. He wondered how many Pokemon Admiral Tailor had at his disposal. "Do you remember the buccaneer, Archibald Connell?" the admiral asked. "The son of the African. How he was jailed upon charges of treason for attacking other British ships?"
Archibald Connell. Immediately, Maxie could almost taste the bitter Wailord fat powering the wall scones at the sound of that name. A hundred, possibly a thousand days of memories entered his mind all at once, the shore at high tide. "Yes," he said, not as confidently as he could have hoped. "I sailed with him before I entered officer's training." They'd been stationed on the same buccaneer's ship, but only Archie had remained a career pirate; Maxie chose to follow the path of a refined gentleman, not a barbarian. He chose to dutifully ignore the fact that back when he'd sailed with Archie, a part of him loved the barbarism.
And maybe, possibly, it had something to do with Archie himself.
"I am aware," Admiral Tailor said. Minutes had passed and Maxie was still intimidated by his tone. "He mentioned you in his defense before he was sentenced to death. A sentence…" Admiral Tailor absentmindedly tapped his fingers on the wood before continuing. "… he has escaped."
Maxie was taken aback by these words. "Excuse me?" he echoed, startled. "Did you say escape?" He wasn't sure why he was so surprised. He knew Archie well enough that no prison would have kept him for long.
"He was liberated by his first mate this afternoon," Admiral Tailor said. "The naked woman, Shelly. His navigator took the upper floors of the penitentiary and freed his crew as well. They pilfered a Royal Navy ship in the harbor and have made off with the munitions, supplies, and valuables aboard. We cannot locate him and nor do we have the faintest notion of where he is going." Admiral Tailor's gaze settled fully on him and Maxie knew precisely where he was taking his end of the conversation.
"… you want me to go after him, sir?" Maxie somehow managed to dislodge the sentence in his throat and force it out. He hadn't even been present at Archie's court martial; he told himself it was simply because he didn't want to distract the pirate when he should have been focusing on his future ends. The truth, however, fluttered in Maxie's stomach like a flock of Beautifly and reminded him that he was just a coward—and that no matter how much he pretended, there was nothing he wanted more than to see that idiotic, bearded, gleeful face again. But there was nothing he wanted less than that reunion to be caused by a compulsory mission from the navy.
"Aye, Captain," Admiral Tailor confirmed. "Orders from the high command. They know that you were stationed with Archie. Your history as crewmates makes you more than qualified to hunt down the criminal and bring him back to English soil. Your orders are to assemble your crew and set out by dawn. Find yourself a navigator and a first mate; I do not care who they are, as long as you disembark by daybreak. The buccaneer Connell is our highest priority. Do you understand, Captain?"
Maxie's mouth was dry and his tongue useless as he racked his brain for a response. Truly, he was in no position to refuse orders from his commanding officer, though they were sudden and demanding. But never in his most farfetched dreams, surrounded by drowning and water as they were, would Maxie have expected to be woken up in the middle of the night to chase the embodiment of his past. When he'd heard the news of Archie's arrest and trial date last week, he'd simply assumed that the gruff traitor would have his head lopped off in the Tower of London, as all men of his stature did eventually. He'd believed that this would be a swift end to not only Archie's pain, but also his own.
"I understand," Maxie said. "I have just the people in mind."
"Have you any idea where he's going?" asked the Admiral?
Maxie should have remembered that nothing with Archie was ever simple.
"I've a hunch," Maxie replied.