Mother's Day: Chapter 4
A/N: Sorry for the wait but I have been on break and without a laptop for the entire time. Shout out to Crystal Persian for her idea.
P.S: Chapter two will also be edited so please re-read that part as well.
When mistakes are made, a parent is at much a fault as the child.
A friendly visit with a friendly face and an evening of merry-making seemed to be just the thing that Peabody had needed. While looking at mementos from the past, the man had realized something very important and now the threat of Ms. Grunion and the pending fork in the road seemed to be the farthest thing from his mind again. At the moment, he was now focused more so on Sherman's history education after realizing of course, that it had been quite a while since the two had last enjoyed a trip in the WABAC. It was when the Peterson's first came to dinner that they took their latest trip, and that had been at least a fortnight ago, unfortunately, that had also been the day that most of New York had learned a the WABACs existence, including one nosy neighbor who just couldn't let it go.
"Ursula, I assure you, nothing will happen this time." Peabody said sternly into the phone as he watch an exited Sherman from the corner of his eye. "Would it make you feel more comfortable if I waited to use it?"
Sherman groaned in annoyance at this answer and buried his face in his hands. The excitement was draining rapidly from him as he listened to this droning conversation. A part of him preferred how things used to be, back when the WABAC was a secret and back when they didn't have to get an OK from the downstairs neighbors to use it. This always made him regret showing it to Penny and taking her to Egypt, even though he would never admit out loud that that much had been his fault. Shaking this thought away, he looked up and attempted to listen in on the adult's conversation again.
"Sherman will be happy to hear that," Peabody said suddenly, his voice sounding less stern now. "Thank you, now go lay down and get some rest. I'll call you back once we've returned. Good bye, Ursa."
"Geez, we spent on evening with her and now-" Sherman was cut off by a curious glance from his father.
"Now what, Sherman?" Peabody questioned with a soft laugh, taking this chance to tease his son. "She gets a say in the use of the WABAC? Because she said we could, you know."
"I wasn't going to say that." Sherman said in a matter of fact way. "I was just going to say that you talk to her like a pal now."
Peabody rolled his eyes as he walked towards the elevator and pressed the button. During this time, Sherman hopped off of the couch and rushed after him, excited at the thought of a trip back into time and space. Taking his place at his father's side, Sherman waited for Peabody to either say or do something, since it usually wasn't like him to stay silent on the elevator ride.
"Sherman, I've known Ursula for years." Peabody said in his usual tone as he stepped into the open elevator and hit the button. "And the other neighbors get a say in our trips as well, mainly because a certain someone almost destroyed time and space as we know it."
"Yeah? And Penny said she was sorry for it." Sherman joked, earning a ruffle of hair from Peabody, followed by a sarcastic laugh.
"Yes, I'm sure she was." Peabody mumbled, raising his eyes to the heavens before lowering them back down to his son. "Anyhow, today we shall be going to visit one of the greatest pirates in history."
"Black Beard?" Sherman guessed, his eyes widening in amazement, only to lower as Peabody shook his head.
"No, we are going to back to the date, October 1720 to the imprisonment of the pirate, Anne Bonny." Peabpdy said as the elevator dinged loudly behind them.
"Anne Bonny?" The ginger echoed curiously, having never heard of a female pirate before until now.
"Yes, also known as Queen of the Pirates in some pop cultures, though that title may be a tad far fetched if you ask me." With that being said, the pair existed the elevator and stepped onto the red platform as it wisked them away to the opening of the WABAC.
"I wasn't going to, but okay." Sherman laughed, suddenly more excited about the trip than he was about what his adopted father thought. "Does that mean we get to sword fight with other pirates?"
"Of course not." Peabody said sternly, typing in a few things first and then slamming his paw down onto the shiny red button on the dashboard of the WABAC. "Anne Bonny will fight however. We will be taking out leave the moment the 'King's Ship' arrives. Understood?"
"Yeah, yeah." Sherman glumly replied, though enthusiastically had his face pressed to the windshield. "Are we there yet?"
Peabody didn't have to answer this question, as a dark, nighttime sky suddenly replaced the electric blue waves that made up the time space continuum. A dark, wooden ship took the place of the patchy walls of the time machine as the sounds of crashing ocean waves replaced the hum of the WABACs engines as they powered down. The clothing of the father and son now changed to tattered trousers and button down, white shirts.
"Wow. A lot of the places we visit sure wear similar outfits." Sherman said, taking his clothes into consideration as his spoke. "Did we wear these during the reign of terror?"
"These clothes are universal, Sherman." Peabody explained, with a shrug. "Meaning that they can be worn in any time zone and we would still blend in."
"Oh? Well, I guess that makes sense." The boy said as he took a look around the ship.
There before them, there stood a figure of medium height and a slim build. She was a young woman, who looked to be about 33 years old at the youngest, with ripples of black hair that fell around her back and ended in a low caught ponytail, held together with a bloody red ribbon. Her clothing consisted of an off white, button down shirt, a dark maroon bandana around her forehead, and stained trousers that were tucked into black boots. A rather tattered and long, brown coat was the staple of the outfit, it's many golden clasps making it the focal point of it all.
"Damn." The woman hissed under her breath as her face turned stern and an eyepiece was brought to her left side and she looked through.
At that moment, a man entered the deck of the ship, clad in similar attire as the woman except his jacket seemed a tad neater than hers. His face was grave as he looked out to the seemingly calm waters around the ship, and just like the other pirate, he took notice of a black speck, bobbing up and down in the distance.
"Mr. Peabody? Who is that?" Sherman whispered, tugging at his father's hand.
"That my boy, is Jack, or as he is more commonly known as, "Calico Jack" Rackham. He is the captain of this ship as well as the husband of Anna Bonny." Peabody responded, gesturing to each pirate as he spoke, and then to the speck in the distance. "And that my boy, is the King's Ship."
"That damn ship must be three leagues away." Anne growled, quickly passing the eyepiece to her husband.
"Or in Nautical miles, 6076.12 feet away." Peabody said, a tad louder in voice as he took a step forward. "Which if that ship travels one nautical mile, or 2,025 yards every five minutes then we have exactly 20.25373 minutes before their arrive."
"Oi! And who the hell are you?" Anne Bonny, who finally took notice of the two, barked loudly as she drew her sword and aimed it at the two. "And whats all this mad talk of you's?"
Peabody did not flinch at the pull of the sword, as he was expecting it the moment the two first arrived at the ship. He already factored in quite a bit of what was going to happen, which included a brief explanation of himself and then a quick chat with the pirates after coming up with a decent lie as to who they were and why they were there. After that, it would be a quick and safe trip back home before things got to rough. With this being in order, he cleared his throat and calmly placed a finger on the paw and nudged it so that it was not aimed at his chest.
"We are the more, soft spoken members of your crew." Peabody lied, though his tone sounded truthful. "We spent most of our time working on the lower deck an-"
"I 'eard enough, now prove your truth before I slaughter ya," The female barked, setting her sword back at it's original target. "Yer talk is a little too fancy to be any member of my crew."
"Simple, you are Anna Bonny, and this man is your husband and captain of this ship, Calico Jack." Peabody began but was cut off yet again.
"Yeah, yeah. Knew that much was obvious, now get to it." If the sword closing in on him didn't make Peabody cringe, then the woman's horrible sentence structure did.
"Of course..." Peabody muttered, leaning away from the sword and holding up his hands in his defense. "Might I also add that the rest of your crew is currently at rest or drunk beneath the deck? All except for you, Captain, and Read of course. As for my 'mad talk', I was simply speaking of how many minutes we have before that ship comes close enough for an attack."
With this, Anne suddenly lowered her sword and then placed it back in it's sheathe. Shaking her head, she let out a low chuckle before turning back to the sea again to look out. Since no one else but a member of the crew would know of the other's partying, she had figured that the man was being truthful, and bought the lie.
"Eh, never could remember all of 'um anyway." She said with a shrug. "I believe ya."
Peabody and Sherman both breathed deep in relief, watching curiously as Anne took back her eyepiece and held it out to Peabody.
"Since ya so good with time and what not." Anne began, thrusting the object at his chest and then pointing out to the water. "'Ow long you recon until that ship becomes a problem."
Shaking his head, Peabody looked through the piece and at the oncoming ship. The conversation had taken about three minutes of their time, and since it had been about ten minutes in total since they last checked, he figured they had at least 10. 37233 minutes left to chat before it was time for the father and son to take their leave. A quick glance out to sea confirmed this and he turned back quickly to Anne to convey the news.
"We have about eleven minutes." He said simply, handing the piece back. "Which means its almost time to go, Sherman."
Peabody turned, and felt his blood grow chill when he realized that he son was no longer at his side, nor was he anywhere in his line of vision anymore. With only ten minutes left to find him, the albino man began to panic a little on the inside.
"Sherman!" He called suddenly again, looking about the ship quickly as if the boy would appear out of thin air should he just look in that direction. "Sherman!"
"Who?" Anne's gruff voice cut in, grabbing the man boy the shoulder and wheeling him back around.
"My son- The little boy with orange hair." Peabody described, trying to keep his calm in this situation. "I have to find him be-"
"Why you gotta find 'im? He your little spy or sumthin?" The pirate growled, turning to her husband and was ready to give orders to find and kill the brat, but then Peabody spoke again.
"No! He isn't a spy." Peabody said sternly, if not angrily. "And I have to find him be-"
A loud rumble suddenly cut off his words, followed by a violent swing of the ship, sending tall waves of sea water onto the main deck of the boat and knocking all present onto their sides before it straightened out again.
"That." Peabody muttered, standing up quickly and realizing that the second ship was now attacking.
"Thought you said we had ten minutes." Jack growled, leaping to his feet and drawing his sword quickly.
"Ten minutes before the ship was next to us and a problem. Not ten minutes from canon point." The albino corrected, suddenly taking up Anne's discarded sword, which had fallen out of place since the first attack. "We have two minutes left before they are close enough to being boarding."
"Rally the men." Jack barked, speaking to another shipmate who had just entered onto the deck.
"All 'ave drunken themselves to bed." This newcomer barked, tossing another blade to Anne before drawing another from a duel sheathe. "'Cept us."
the two minutes they had left were rapidly closing in on them, and just as Peabody turned to head to look back out at the water again did he see planks and hooks with ropes attached to the ends littering the side of the ship. He raised his sword and cut at most of the ropes, rendering them useless now, but it wasn't enough to stop the many other pirates now flooding the ship via board. Peabody didn't have time to find Sherman now, he would have to fight his way through until he found his ginger-haired child.
"Unless they find him first." He muttered dryly, swinging his blade at an oncoming sailor and knocking him clear off the board.
Adeline now fueled his every action, making him loose track of how many men had been fought off or spared by now. Time seemed to be at a stand still and his arm numb to the pain it would probably feel later from being swung with enough force to crack bone. Around him, Anne, Jack, and who he could only assume to be Mary Read, fought off those who didn't bother to waste their time on him, though many of them did. None of this looked like it was going to end well, but Peabody knew that he would have to stay and fight a little longer to ensure Sherman's safety. Just a little longer and then they could return home.
"Mr. Peabody!" Peabody turned his head away from the enemy for one second, searching for the source of the sudden call.
Just that one lone second was all it took. His child's cries of pain rang out loudly in his ears now, and by the time he turned again, he could see the crimson red of blood that dotted the once white sleeve of the boy's shirt, trailing down just as his boy's small form hit the ground and his voice fell silent. In his small hand, he clutched a small dagger.
"The armory..." Peabody muttered, suddenly seeing the world move slowly about him as he rushed to the boy's side and scooped him into his arms.
The last thing he remembered before everything turned to a blur... Was the hot blood soaking through from Sherman's shirt, to his own...
To be continued...
