HELLO AGAIN TO ALL CURRENT AND UPCOMING FANS AND FOLLOWERS OF TREASURE TROPOLIS!
My tenth chapter of my TREASURE TROPOLIS is now out.
I got this chapter some time ago finished, but I wanted to wait a bit for the perfect moment to publish this.
The another reason to wait is that I have a couple another stories with which I also want to proceed.
Enjoy the reading... and give then the review after it.
After Judy and Ben quietly stole one of the boat by untying its rope attached to the tree and pushed it quietly to the water, they rowed together through the river and the jungle the long way until they finally reached to the laggoon, where Zoopaniola was floating in the anchor.
The sight of Zoopaniola was far from comforting. The ship was quite dark and even creepy-looking at the nighttime and under the pirates black skull flag, which was still floating with the night wind in the top of the main mast. The ship itself with its current appearance under the pirates and even the half-thick night fog over the laggoon gave the very threatening atmosphere.
Zoopaniola seemed to be abandoned, but, however, Judy and Ben stopped the rowing towards the ship and stayed in the place a long distance away from the ship, because Judy was dead-seriously sure that Wilder wasn't that stupid that he didn't left someone in the watch to the ship while the most of the crew were on the island after their group and, as they believe so, the map.
Whoever Wilder had left to watch over ship, approaching the ship so carelessly and without suspecting that nothing bad would happen may possibly cost to Judy and Ben their lives.
And the last thing Judy wanted on their mission was waste their precious time to find the map and sabotage the gunpowder before dawn by drawing the possible guard's attention to them and obviously forcing them to deal with the guard whatever he was by the species.
Judy had took with her the telescope, with which she at first checked Zoopaniola's decks and the windows of the captain's stateroom. The decks revealed to be empty but there was the weak light in captain's stateroom. Probably the lantern candle, which is soon burned out completely.
At least it told Judy that there was someone in the stateroom.
Despite the fact of someone's precense, the way to the deck and to and under the deck seemed to be clear, but still, just in case and without attracting unnecessary attention of anyone who was in the stateroom and yet unaware of their precense, Judy and Ben rowed to the neck of the ship as quiet as they were able to row.
When Judy and Ben eventually reached to the side of Zoopaniola. Judy tied the longboat to the anchor's rope to keep it from floating away while they were in their mission to find the map and sabotage the gunpowder.
After it was done, Judy, Ben and Flint, who was sitting on Judy's left shoulder the mouth gaged just in case to prevent him to make loud voices, climbed through of anchor rope to behind of Zoopaniola's bow deck's railing, but before they climbed over the railing, they peeked over the railing to make sure yet one more time that there was no one on the deck in the watch.
Sneaking over the railing to the deck went well without any sounds, until Ben stumbled over a bucket of water, which caused him to trip over his own feet and the yak fell to the deck, loudly yelping in pain.
"BEN, QUIET!" Judy whispered loudly nervously, fearing that Ben's clumsiness would draw attention of the guard or guards, unless they had either gone to sleep or gone out by excessive drinking of rum while being in the watch like that woodchuck pirate in the watch near of the waterfall and pool.
"Sorry, Old Ben's bad." Ben muttered as he stood up.
The light in the captain's stateroom was now more stronger and brighter, telling to Judy that someone out there wasn't in the sleep as she had thought, so they had to do this as quietly as possible and use every minute for the benefit to sneak to the cargo hold, find the map, remove the gunpowder from the ship and then get out of here as long as guard is unaware of their presence in the ship.
And they had to do it quickly, because without the looking to the clock, Judy did not exactly know how much yet they had time to dawn, when Wilder and his crew would eventually return to the ship to carry out Wilder's threat to destroy Ben's cave with the volley of the cannonballs and kill everybody in there.
Judy and Ben sneaked quietly from the bow deck to the staird leading to the cannon deck and climbed down the stairs.
Judy and Ben went the whole cannon deck through while searching for the map, during of which Judy kept an eye on Captain Flint to make sure that the monkey wouldn't run away. but when there was no any sight of the map in the deck, they had to go to search the map from the cargo hold.
"Alright, I'll get the map, you wait here and keep watch." Judy whispered to Ben, referring him to stay in the stairs.
"Roger, Juicy. Old Ben's gonna remove the ship's gunpowder, sir!" Ben shouted in a whisper, giving to Judy the salute before he suddenly departed to the deck.
"What? No! No! Ben! Ben! Don't! Come back!" Judy whisperely yelled after the yak but completely in vain. Her words fell to the deaf ears of the naked dumb yak.
"Yo-ho, yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life for me." Ben sang while he disappeared to search the ship's armory.
Judy run her paw down through of her face, rolled her eyes and sighed in annoyance for Ben's stupidity. They were supposed to sapotage the ship's gunpowder after the map was in their paws.
Not just yet again forgetting that they were in the hostile area, but now that yak just had do disobey her direct order by making the change in the plan by himself... even though Even if in his mind would have been a great temptation even once to be useful somehow.
However, instead of going after Ben, Judy eventually, though reluctantly, allowed Ben go take care of the other half of their mission and even that would be taken care of out of the way, as long as Ben does not just give out their presence.
Judy only lightly shook her head and desperately hoped that she did not need to regret of allowing Ben go to sabotage the gunpowder on his own, and went herself to search the map from the cargo hold Captain Flint with her.
Ben arrived quickly to the ship's armory, which was not hard to find due to its door beimng smashed and nobody of the pirates had bothered to repair the door.
"Remove the gunpowder from the ship without sound and so quickly as possible." "We have to do it together." C'mon! What is the big deal with that? All we gotta do is pick and throw overboard one or a few small powder kegs." Ben muttered as he stepped into the armory.
Much to the yak's surprise, he discovered that there was countless powder kegs of different sizes and the ones, which were so big that only elephants or non-elephants but still a big and strong animals like bears, rhinos, hippoes, gorillas and buffaloes would be able to lift them from the ground and even carry them overboard.
This half of the mission was bigger what he at first had thought.
"So quickly as possible" said Juicy. But the Old Ben says… This is gonna take the whole night." Ben muttered to himself.
Meanwhile in the cargo hold, Judy was firmly but with poor results searching the map from among of the cargo, to where he believed Captain Flint had hidded it.
When the seaching wasn't gonna get successeed, Judy started slowly fear that maybe the pirates, or at least the one of them in the watch, had eventually found the map from the ship's cargo hold and brought it to the captain's stateroom, to where was too risky even to try even to break in.
However, Captain Flint eventually started to pull Judy hardly backwards by her shoulder and eagerly referred her to follow him.
At first, Judy believed that Captain Flint wanted only to play hide-and-seek game, just like he eagerly wanted to play tag during the mutiny, even though Judy was not and still is not in that mood. But fter remembering that Flint was the only one who actually knew where the map was, Judy eventually followed the monkey.
Captain Flint led Judy to his own secret trove in the form of the wooden box full of all kind of stuff, which Captain Flint had stolen from the crew during of the voyage. Probably it contained also the map, which Ben stole from her during the mutiny.
Judy began immediately to rummage the box, picking up every small object from the box – during of which Judy found several of belongings which belong to Otterton, Susan and Leodore... such as Leodore's fat burse, Susan's blue captain hat and Otterton's watch plus some of his medical stuff.
Eventually, Judy got something under of her fingers which felt like the paper – very old paper. Picking it up from the box, Judy's eyes widened and her lips formed into the wide smile.
It was the map.
Judy sighed in a deep relief that the map was in her paws again... safe and sound.
Judy also nearly immediately noticed that Captain Flint had of course accidentally torn the map in half, which the monkey standing next to her admited a bit embarrassed, pulling his hands behind of his back, lowering his a bit blushing head down and rolling his feet.
However, this did not bothered Judy. The main thing was that when the map was in their paws, they also had partially the upper hand over the pirates.
With the map, they are able to take down two birds with one stone. One; They may yet find the treasure. And two; the map in their possession guarantees them that they have the upper hand over the pirates and even protection for them against the pirates lethal force such like the deadly volley of the cannonballs as Wilder had threated.
With the map in her possession, Judy began to think that maybe she could consider Wilder's earlier offer yet, but this time on her own terms, to avoid the needless bloodshed between of the crew and the pirates.
Suddenly, Judy heard the loud gunshot coming from the main deck, which badly alerted Judy.
"BEN!" Judy exclaimed with the knowing and exasperated look on her face as she realized that Ben had somehow got into his head to start to play with the armory's firearms.
And then, she heard the another loud gunshot more.
"No, no, no, NO, NO, NO!" Judy exclaimed as she stuffed the map in her pocket and started running back towards the deck from the cargo hold.
Meanwhile, back in the armory.
As Jusy had guessed, Ben's curiosity of all of the pistols and muskets in the armory, which the pirates had not taken with them, had indeed taken him over. And his quickly excessive interest to the firearms - probably due to he having forgotten that what is the firearm? - had drove him to test the couple pistols.
He was at first examining the pistols in his hands - even a peeked inside the barrels of the guns, and yet his hoofed fingers were resting on the pistols triggers as he kept peeking inside the barrels of the pistols, continuing from the one in his left hand.
Suddenly, he had accidentally pulled the trigger of another pistols in his right hand, which he had unintentionally turned to aim his head. The loud sound of gunshot caused him quickly turn his attention – and taking his eyes off from the top of the barrel of the pistol – to the pistol with wich he accidentally fired. It was because of the sheer luck that Ben was still alive, because the bullet had narrowly missed his head, but it had flied through of his hair and scratched his right horn in the process as the bullet flied over of his head.
As Ben's tensed attention had completely turned to the pistol in his right, his tensed finger unintentionally and by the reflexes pulled the trigger of the pistol in his left hand and fire to the ceiling of the armory.
Ben startled again, and this time so badly that he dropped both the pistols to the floor.
However, despite being badly startled by the loud gunshots, tensed and a bit shocked Ben quickly relaxed himself.
"Bad Ben! Bad Ben! Juicy said "Quietly!" Bad Ben! Bad Ben!" Ben scolded himself as he eventually lost his interest to the pistols and started to roll the powder kegs out from the armory.
Judy was at the same time reached to the cannon deck and rushed towards the stairs to Ben's help, muttering much to her annoyance about Ben's stupidity.
"That stupid yak is gonna get us all..." Judy muttered when she ran to the stairs, until she suddenly stopped abruptly at the bottom of the stairs as she raised her head up.
Judy's eyes then widened in shock.
"…to killed!"
Much to Judy's horror, she realized the guard Wilder had left to watch over ship was none else than... MR. ISRAEL GREY, who was most certainly alerted by the gunshots Ben fired in the ship's armory.
The evil fox pirate was standing in the top of the stairs but the couple steps a bit lower, telling to Judy that Grey was most likely already checked the decks, finding no any intruders – which meant that he was yet unaware of Ben's presence – and was then about to come down to check the cannon deck and cargo hold.
The evil fox pirate was at first surprised and a bit confused to see the intruder nearly running into him in the stairs. But whenGrey eventually recognized that who the intruder on Zoopaniola was... his expression turned from the confused and surprised into a bloodthirsty grin.
"Aah, capin bunny." Grey hissed sadistically as he pulled out the loaded blunderbuss and the large ax.
"Such of pity that Wilder isn't here right now. I would have like to see that what is his reaction when I dig one of your pretty eyes out of your tiny little head." Evil fox pirate growled, reminding Judy about his earlier and quite similar bloodthirsty threat he had planned for her and given to Wilder before the mutiny.
As Judy had already realized, that without Wilder's protective interfere back in her and Israel Grey's first fierce and nearly brutal met in the beginning of the voyage – which had turned out to be just a cover his true intentions and that Judy did not missed especially HIS protection anymore after his emotionally hurting betrayal – Israel Grey was now completely free to kill him right here and now.
Judy's felt inside of her the great urge, which told her to run for her dear life.
That urge didn't have to tell her twice.
"RUN!" Judy shouted to Captain Flint.
Judy quickly turned around in the stairs I started to run as fast as she could down to the cargo hold, Mr. Israel Grey right behind of her.
While running in the corridors of the cargo hold, Judy threw on her way some cargo down in order to desperately slow him down. But after every attempt to slow him down, the evil fox pirate, who was running after her with all fours in the savage lust for bunny's flesh and blood, was still right behind of her.
As Judy felt the fox hot breath on her neck, she didn't dare turn back to look, because if she did so, every wasted minute would only grow the fox pirate's best opportunity to catch her.
So, Judy put all her natural instincts and her entire focus into putting one foot in front of the other and praying that she wouldn't trip.
The monkey knew that he was just giving to Judy the needless extra weight, which slowed her down and gave to the fox the opportunity to reach her. So, Captain Flint decided to make the possible suicide attack in order to buy Judy enough time to escape from the fox's claws.
Captain Flint then surprisingly leaped from Judy's shoulder and attacked Grey's faces as the fox pirate was about to lock Judy's neck between of his sharp-toothed jaws into the deadly bite. Such of counter attack came to Wilder so unexpectedly, that he had no time to prepare for Captain Flint's counter attack.
The monkey was already upon of Grey's faces, battering them by biting him from his nose, punching his face with his tiny fists so hard as he was able and yet pulled painfully from Grey's ears, causing him to bark in pain and growing anger.
The monkey eventually had no match for the fox pirate as the pirate grabbed painfully with his claws from the monkey's back and threw Flint aside before he continued the hot pursuit after the bunny.
"Come back you little…!" Grey yelled and began to shoot with his blunderbuss and the multiple pistols towards Judy multiple times, narrowly missing Judy's head but instead hitting only to the wooden stuff of the ship.
Grey even threw his ax towards Judy in order to chop off Judy's head with its large blade, but Judy managed to dodge the weapon's strike just nick in time before it managed to chop off her head or embed into the back of her head and embed instead to one of the cargo holds supportive wooden pillars.
As Judy rushed to the corridor which led to the crew's cabin, narrowly missing Grey's last couple shots which hit into the wall next to her right kneel and her left ear, an enraged fox pirate threw his to "useless" declared pistols aside and picked his ax from the support pillar and continued the hot pursuit.
In the half-panic due to being like the hunted prey animal, because the bunnies and foxes were in fact the mortal enemies and she was ironically at the moment hunted by the savage fox pirate, Judy run into the crew's cabin and much to her shock and horror, there was the wooden grin placed o nthe way which led from the crew's cabin to the deck, meaning that she was in tracp in here.
And much worse, the another way out was blocked by suddenly appeared Israel Grey, holding the ax in his paws and with the savage look on his face. The fox was quite pleased from this "sweet coincidence" because he... or in fact the dumb bunny had got herself trapped in the securited crew's cabin due to hasty panicking.
The evil fox pirate then with the savage rage attacked Judy and began to swing his axe towards the bunny, trying to hit to Judy's neck to chop off her head with the one swing.
Judy tried to get the fox to mess himself into the hammock by jumping and moving fast in between of them to which Grey, as bigger than Judy and because of being Fox, wasn't able.
Grey got immediately and badly stuck in the hammocks, which messily wrapped around of his upper body, holding her in the place, as soon as he run into them while he chased after Judy without noticing the hammocks.
But however, savagely barking in rage, Grey savagely started to shred with his claws and with his ax every hammock, into the shreds to get out from the mess and to continue hunting down the rabbit.
Judy tried then to use the wooden chair as shield against Grey's attacks, but Grey hacked the chair into pieces with his ax. Grey tried hit her to head again, but Judy managed to dodge it by bowing out of the weapon's way and it embed and get stuck in the room's wall.
While Grey angrily tried to pull his ax free from the wall, Judy took advantage of this by running underneath of the wooden table. She managed to get on her feet and run towards the crew's cabin... and just nick in time as Grey finally managed to pull the ax off from the wall and immediately raised the ax above of his head and savagely hacked with it the cabin's table in half in order to hit Judy.
After Judy managed to get out from the cabin, she slammed the door close in front of the charging Grey – making him to hit his nose into the door, which caused him to loudly yelp in pain – and after that, Judy quickly barred the door with another chair in order to buy herself enough time to escape to the stairs.
But the door didn't hold the enraged fox for long as the fox grabbed and loaded the blunderbuss and blasted the door, along with the chair, partialy into pieces just when Judy managed to get out of the cargo hold.
In the cannon deck, which was lighted with the ship lanterns, Judy turned and went into hide behind of one of the deck's cannons. She was finally to take some breath after such of hasty running away from that fox for her precious life... until Israel Grey suddenly appeared to the deck.
"Come out, come out, where ever you are, dumb bunny!" Israel Grey teased with the dark sadistic humor as he slowly but treateningly walked towards Judy's cover behind the cannon...
As Judy carefully peeked from behind of the cannon, the fox did not seemed to even pay the any attention towards the cannon behind of which she was hiding. This got Judy to wonder that was he either pretending to be unaware that where Judy was in hide or was he just trying to push her out from her hiding spot by saying something tricky and very disturbing.
"We're on the boat, you little freshy shish kebab. There's no way to run away. But go on... keep doing that as you want... flee, flee and flee... run for your life... you can hide, hide, but eventually the fox finds you with the high sensitive sense of smell."
Grey started to sniff the air for five seconds.
"Ooh! Smelling the warmth of the rabbit's flesh... especially the warmth of the rabbit does flesh... hmmm...! It's so delicious scent... tasteful scent..."
"Grey's mouth dropped and his tongiue fell out and and remained hanging from his mouth while drool begins to fill out from his mouth.
"It's not the first time but instead of the very long time since I've devoured such of delicious rabbits like you."
A bit sight of fear strike to Judy's heart. Not just being the bloodthirsty and treacherous pirate, but all of that means that this fox pirate actually EATS THE BUNNIES!
Judy frozed into her place by the growing fear for her life, unable to even move in the fear of revealing her location to that savage bunny-eater fox.
Even though Judy did not dare to watch, Grey was pulling out two daggers, whose blades he grinded against each other, which caused the sounds which caused her furry skin to rise into goose bumps.
"When I found you, I'm gonna use these daggers to skin your furr off you slowly – while you're still alive of course - and place you into skewers and put you above of the fire. As I said, It has been a long time since I've last time ate the fresh roasty bunny. And this time, it's going to be easy for me now when that pathetic Wilder isn't here to save you!" Grey said darkly… slowly and sadistically.
The one drop of tear water ran down Judy's cheek, as she managed a bit fight back against her own fear as she slowly and silently pulled her pistol out and loaded it with the fresh bullet... after she realized, or at least she believed so, that that fox was just trying to trick her... tyring to lure her out from the hide by poisoning her courage with the fear and such of unspeakable things he openly mentioned and what he was "gonna" plan to do for her.
Judy started to gather all her courage together in her heart, because she absolutely wasn't willing to go down or get to be eaten by that homicidal fox without the fight. And she silently declared that if she was gonna go down, she would take that fox with her too.
As Israel Grey was slowly coming closer – having spotted Judy's slowly upright raising ears behind of the cannon and at first slowly and then hastily rushing towards her raising his ax abobve of his head - Judy quickly jumped out from behind of the cannon and pointed the gun in Grey's face.
The pirate fox stopped dead in his tracks, mere inches from the barrel of Judy's gun, and quickly back off after he spotted the pistol in the bunny's paws.
"If I were you, you little shish kebab, I would drop the pistol because I got some friends with me here... RIGHT BEHIND YOU!" Grey suddenly and loudly exclaimed as he pointed with his clawed finger towards the stairs.
Guided by her instinct, Judy turned around to peek over of her shoulder and turned her pistol towards the stairs. Realizing – too late - that there was no one in the stairs.
"Dumb bunny!" Wilder mockingly laughed and smashed the ship lantern with his ax and quickly pulled out two pistols and fired with them two another lanterns from the another side of the cannon deck... cutting all the lights out from the cannon deck.
"Hey!" Judy yelled into panic turned annoyance and frustration as the lights died.
Judy quickly turned around to where Grey was a moment ago standing, but the fox pirate, much to her horror, was no longer in behind of her.
Judy cautiously turned to everywhere, searching frantically for Israel Grey... or at least trying to spot him moving in the dark, but she had forgot that the bunnies do not have the night vision unlike the foxes does.
Even the bright light coming down from the moon didn't helped her to spot the evil pirate fox.
She blindly pointed her pistol around and breathed in panic. She tried to catch the any single voice or the sound of breathing or steps with her sharp sense of hearing, but to her confusion... he didn't heard any kind of sound neither the voice, even in the form of whispering.
Awkward and distressing silence was upon of her among the dark.
Judy turned a bit her head to her left side, sligthly peeking over of her left shoulder after she thought that she saw something moving in the corner of her eye. But when Judy looked in that direction, there was nothing there.
Even though Judy had gathered enough of her own courage to face that fox – behind of her pistol of course - she became yet again increasingly terrified.
Every hair on her slender grey body was sticking up as she sensed the danger, but she was unable to locate where it was.
Suddenly, two golden eyes appeared from the dark and lowered down to scowl her from above… right behind of her.
It was Israel Grey. After he had killed the lights, he had somehow managed to silently sneak under the cover of the darkness behind of her and climbed onto the cannon above of Judy, moving and breathing so quietly as he could to prevent Judy to locate him with the rabbit's natural sensitive sense of hearing.
Smiling sadistically, and knowing that he had both upper paw over the "dumb bunny" and advantage of surprise, Grey started slowly, quietly and carefully place his dagger to Judy's throat… planning to slit her throat open from behind as long as the bunny was unaware about the threat right behind of her.
Suddenly, Captain Flint appeared out of nowhere right front of Israel Grey's faces and while the evil fox pirate was looking at the monkey confused, Flint took opportunity from this and pushed two of his fingers to Grey's yellow eyes.
Grey yelped loudly in pain holding his eyes with his paws, and thanks to Flint's interference, Grey's loud yelp in pain revealed to Judy her enemy's whereabouts, much to Bunny's surprise and horror.
Angrily ignoring the pain and enraged for losing the advantage of surprise and the great opportunity to slit Judy's throat, Grey angrily and roughly tossed Flint again aside before he turned back to Judy.
The evil fox pirate swung his right arm and fist towards Judy's head, roughly punching the bunny into the face and tossing her down to the ground, knocking in the process her pistol out of her paws, which flied far away from her reach.
Grey attacked her again, raising the ax above of his head in intention to split Judy's head in half with his ax.
Judy gasped in shock of this and quickly tried to crawl up on her feet and reach to her pistol. But Grey hardly and roughly to her abdomen, causing her to loudly squeak in the burning wave of pain from the kick to her abdomen and she fell violently back to on her back on the floor.
Grey rushed to her, grinning both sadistically and triumphantly, as he pinned with his foot Judy to the ground and began to swing his axe towards Judy's head.
Judy managed barely to dodge the fox pirate's couple attacks with his ax targeted to middle of her head, as the ax landed only less than five centimetres away from both of her cheeks.
Judy soon spotted that the pirate's blunderbuss – probably reloaded - was lying nearly next to her. Israel Grey had probably dropped and completely forgot it at some point of their fight.
Knowing that she cannot dodge the fox attacks with the ax for long without something with which she could fight back, she quicckly strenched her arm towards the weapon and picked it as Israel Grey was preparing for a new attack with his ax.
Judy quickly pulled blunderbuss into the way of the fox pirate's ax, defending herself with it against Grey's attacks by blocking his strikes.
Meanwhile, back in the armory.
Ben, who was completely unaware about the fight between Judy and Grey on the cannon deck, had gathered to the deck the half of the gunpowder next of the main mast and had started throw powder kegs overboard the keg by keg, starting from the smaller and lighter ones and leaving the bigger and heavier ones for to be thrown overboard later.
After he had thrown less than a couple dozen powder kegs, whuch he was able to carry in his arms, to overboard, he returned to the armory to get more powder kegs.
After he had rolled new dozen next of the main mast and was going to get more, he suddenly spotted and took interest of the fabric bag full of the odd metallic balls with the narrow rope hanging out from them.
They were grenades! Which one of the pirates had probably hidden in the bag to the armory during of loading the ship's cargo hold.
Because he didn't know or even remembered for what purpose the grenades were for, he decided to test them, forgetting once again that what was his original and true mission with the armory and the powder kegs.
Ben spotted the ship lantern standing on top of the nearby water barrel and walked to it to light up the grenade's slowmatch with its candle's flame.
As the slowmatch was in fire, Ben held the grenade in his paws with the excited expression on his face.
As grenade's slowmatch had almost burned out, in the seconds bored Ben, who was waiting something great to be happened, eventually threw the grenade away into the air and was about to go back to work, until the grenade eventually blew up in mid-air before it hit to the water.
Ben was at first startled and stunned by the grenade's sudden explosion, until he started childishly lope around of the deck with joy.
"Fireworks!" Ben shouted with joy and began to gather more grenades from the bag. One by one he light up their slowmatches with the lantern's candle's flame, waited a little time and then he threw them one by one into the air, watching eagerly as every grenade exploded in the mid-air.
"OLD BEN LOVES FIREWORKS!"
Meanwhile in the cannon deck, Judy was still desperately fighting against Grey, until some sudden explosions coming from the deck got both of their attentions from the each others and their fight.
"What was that?!" Grey exclaimed as he felt in his nose the scent of the burned powder.
Unlike Grey, Judy immediately knew without guessing that who was probably behind of the sudden explosions on the deck. None else than Old Ben, who was now doing something... VEEEERY STUPID... and thoughtless once again, either out of the shipwrecked yak's curiosity or pure idiocy instead of doing his job to remove the gunpowder from the ship.
Quickly, Judy returned to the the present moment, and she knew that she had to act now as long as distracted Grey's attention was elsewhere thanks to the sudden explosions.
Taking advantage of this, Judy quickly kicked both with her feet to Grey's stomach with all rabbit's natural strength she had in her legs, causing the surprised fox pirate to let out the loud "UGH!" from his mouth as the unexpected and hard kick from the bunny's legs forced him into the bowing position.
And when he wrapped his arms around of his sore stomach and gritted his teeth in pain Judy kicked him again, and this time into his face. Loudly yelping in pain, Grey stepped from the power of the kick violently backwards, so that he eventually lost his balance and fell on his back to the floor, allowing Judy to aim with the blunderbuss to the cannon deck's ceiling's grids and blasted the hole into it. Big enough for her to fit out of it.
Grey recovered quickly from Judy's fierce kick and enraged about it he attacked her again.
Judy quickly jumped back on her feet and with the support of the nearby cannon, she bounced to a high leap over the fox pirate's head, narrowly dodging his axe, and landing on his head and jumped again towards the hole, nearly flying through of it but was nearly gonna fall through the hole back to the cannon deck if she did not nick in time grabbed from the another holes of the grids and using them she climbed out of the hole in hurry to the deck.
"Ben! Ben! I got the map! We have to get out of here and…" Judy called for Ben, until she was interrupted by Israel Grey's roar in fury from the cannon deck
Suddenly, with the savage expression on his bloodthirsty face and in the berserk-like rage, Israel Grey jumped unexpectedly through of the grids behind of Judy, much to her shock and horror, and attacked her once again, nearly cutting off Judy's ears with the ax if Judy had not bowed down in the last minute out of the axe's way.
But still, Judy was able to feel the cold flow of the air following the ax swung over her head in her ears, as the axe's blade cut in the process a few of her head hairs in half.
Enraged and bloodthirsty fox started to chase Judy around of the deck trying to hit her with the ax, damaging the ship's railings, mast, the deck and smashing the barrels and lanterns on the deck in the process. But thanks to Judy's natural speed and bunny's reflexes, plus the sheer luck, she narrowly managed to dodge the fox pirate's every stike.
Israel Grey, however, managed to tackle Judy by aiming his axe's wooden handle's another head to between of bunny's legs. But instead, the axe's handle hit painfully Judy straight to her left leg's knee. Judy yelped loudly in pain as the pain wave took over her leg and caused her to fall over to the deck... ands remained lying on the deck helplessly and defenseless at the mercy of her enemy... and only because of her sore left knee from the fox's strike, which almost sealed her fate.
Ignorin the pain, Judy managed once again to dodge Grey's ax, before it split her head in half. Grey tried to pull the ax up and try yet again to split the bunny's head in half... only to find out that the "accursed" ax had yet again got stuck to the deck next of the bunny's right cheek.
Half-relaxed and half-panicked, Judy took advantage of this and kicked once again the fox pirate straight to the face, causing him to yet again fall backwards and let go of his axe, whiuch came Judy a bit more time to laboriously get back on her feet and hastily limp towards the shrouds, starting to climb through of them to the main mast, in desperate attemp to get either far away from the savage fox pirate or then have the miuch better defensive position from the mast.
Grey once again quickly recovered from the rabbit's kick into his face and enraged from it, he looked everywhere trying to frantically find the rabbit from the deckwith his eyes.
Suddenly, he heard the light moanings in pain from above of him and raised his head up to look up... noticing and realizing that Judy was trying to climb through the shrouds into the main mast.
"What the dumb bunny!" Grey exclaimed and climbed back on his feet, after which he himself went in pursuit after her in the shrouds, knowing that the "dumb rabbit" like Judy was only gonna get herself trapped in the mast.
She actually did – or at least Grey believed so.
After the long and - due to Judy's sore knee - hard climbing up, Judy eventually reached to the crow's-nest in the top of the main mast, where Judy believed that she was in the better defensive position against Grey.
But she also knew that there was no another way out. Meaning, that she was in trap, yet again.
As Israel Grey started threateningly reach to the crow's-nest, Judy leaned against the mast and took her another pistol out, aiming with it the fox pirate, who was hanging on the edge of the crow's-nest, in the head.
"Stay back! No more step, Israel Grey!" Judy yelled to the fox, trying desperately fight mentally against her growing fear of the situation.
"Judy, it was your name, right?" Israel Grey asked at first, before he let out the deep and a bit exhausted smile.
"Judy. Have you ever even fired with the gun? Have you ever even killed somebody? How do you feel of yourself to take from another his life... particularly when you yourself are in the much better defensive position... and another one you're aiming with your little peashooter is hanging for his dear life at your mercy? In fact, I've never heard nor even seen the lovers of the peace like the bunnies actually killing anyone, because of their pathetic honesty and sensitive emotionality. Exception of the pirates, the killing, murdering, slaughtering, butchering and execution... either through grace or mercilessly ... either with or without compassion ... with or without remorse... always leaves the emotional scars in your mind. But if you're really killed someone for your own reasons, my congratulations for that. The bunny like you would made a good pirate." Israel Grey said.
"You can shoot me right here and right now... mercilessly as any other pirate does to his or her victims... and become just like me, when I myself without mercy, compassion or remorse sent Mr. Bogo into his watery grave." Grey smirked sadistically.
Judy tried to ignore what Israel Grey had just said, believing that the fox was only gonna try to get her off guard. But much to her shock, Judy found out that the fox speech was emotionally effective to her... and she even saw the truth in it.
She saw her paw around of the handle of her pistol and her finger on the pistol's trigger trembling and her head fur was sweaty because of the emotional anguish and a sense of guilt appeared out of nowhere. Even her ears went droppy because of the wave of emotional pain. and a sense of guilt and her face dropped down.
Even though she had already killed Wilder's pirates back in Ben's cave and possibly back in the Inn of Bunnyburrow when her home was under of attack by the pirates, she started to feel inside of her the emotional strong and guilt feeling urge to lower her weapon down and spare Grey's life because she "couldn't" bring herself to kill even the such of bloodthisrty and merciless murderer like him with the one single headshot as he was hanging in the edge of the crow's-nest at her mercy.
She certainly did not wish to make herself a similar murderous monster as Grey by killing him by the same way how the fox had killed Mr. Bogo during of their desperate struggle at the mercy of hurricane and the Endless Maelstrom.
"So, you can't do it. Pathetic." Grey taunted her as he tried to climb on the crow's-nest.
However, Judy suddenly snapped out of her thoughts and reacted to Grey's sudden move to climb on the crow's nest by raising her gun and aiming it to Grey's face, forcing him to back down a little bit.
Judy's ears jumped back upright above of her head and she locket her emotionally angered and bittered scowl in her eyes to the fox front oh her. She had realized that the fox wasn't trying to get her feel remorse for killing the lives but instead only trying to poison her soul and her emotions by threacherously and with the venom in his voice to encourage her to do what the real pirates are able to do without mercy, compassion or remorse to their victims and become to as cold-blooded murderer like them... like Grey."
"You know nothing about me, fox! You know nothing about my feelings and my acts in the past. But yes, you were right with one thing. I'm killer as well as you and I've killed, but not become to as cold-blooded murderer and emotionless monster like you. I've killed only in self-defense... but not the animals in the right side of the law. I've killed the pirates, your kind and your buddies, and there is no need to feel any kind of remorse of killing the murderous and emotionless pirates like you. And yes, this is the same situation like back in the hurricane when you mercilessly killed Mr. Bogo in the background, but the the parties have changed; Mr. Bogo was back then at your mercy, and now you're at my mercy... You killed him mercilessly but now, if I'm gonna kill you, I'll kill you as self-defense and not because of being the cold-blooded murderer. But this doesn't need to end like this! You have a chance surrender and go peacefully into the ship's brig and remain in there until we get back to the home port, where you will be placed in front of the trial." Judy declared.
However, Israel Grey only tauntingly chuggled at this.
"Judy, Judy, Judy. Big talk, coming from someone who's the natural prey of my species. Anyway, I think that one of the two of us has to give up after our little cat-and-mouse game. Besides, you do not know me you neither. You should to be aware of the fact that such a harsh, ferocious, heartless and bloodthirsty pirate like me has difficult to surrender himself… to the such of little and accursed bunny brat like you!" Grey growled, forcing Judy to back off and lean harder against the mast.
Grey then took the evil grin to his face.
"But my congratulations, Judy. For the bunny, you're the most hard to kill than anyone else of my previous victims. Besides, Wilder was more than right about you on that night after the storm! You're sharp like the knife and spunky as any other hard-experienced sailor." Grey said and started to climb to crow's-nest, ignoring Judy's gun.
"Don't come any closer, Mr. Israel Grey, or I'll blow your brains out!" The sweaty Judy threatened.
"Ooh, really?" Israel Grey said as he revealed his sharp claws of his right paw's fingers.
"I don't think so, dumb cabin bunny!" Grey growled and unexpectedly he lunged at Judy and before Judy managed to react to it by firing with her gun, the fox quickly swung his claws towards Judy's face.
Grey's sharp claws scratched three painful and bleeding wounds to the left side of Judy's head and knocked at the same time her last pistol out of her paws, which fell over the edge and fell down.
Judy was now at the mercy of the merciless fox pirate.
Meanwhile, After Ben had already blow up eight grenades in the air, he wanted to see how big the explosion would be if he try the same with the one powder keg.
So, he rushed to the armory to pick one powder keg and chosed the perfect one, which was both big and small enough for him to carry it with the both hands and throw it into the air with his own muscular strength without any difficulties.
Ben took one slowmatch from the armory and put it partialy into the powder keg's hole and lit it on fire with the lantern's candle's flame.
Then he grabbed the powder keg with both of his hands and prepared to throw it to the air.
"This is going to be fun and…" Ben said eagerly, and swung the powder keg over of his head.
However, Ben swung the powder keg over of his head too fast that its weight pulled the barrel and at the same time also Ben violently backwards, and the hasty move and the weight of the powder keg together caused Ben, despite his best efforts to stay in balance, to lose his balance and Ben fell over on his back to the deck.
However, the powder keg slipped from his fingers and rolled rolled backwards until it stopped… just right to the main mast to where Ben had gathered the big number of the powder kegs in the pile around of the main mast.
"Whoops. Fire in the hole." Ben shouted innocently as he rushed to the cover.
At the same time in the crow's-nest, Grey had grabbed with both of his clawed paws from Judy's throat and brutally pinning her down to the edge of the crow's-nest that her head was over the edge, while he squeezed his fingers together around of Judy's throat.
Judy struggled in panic in Grey's strangling grip but she was unable to fight back in any way against the bigger and stronger fox. Her thoughts were stopped and she could barely even breath as she felt the fox's clawed fingers squeezing more and more harder around of her throat.
Judy felt how the life was escaping from her body as the fox's squeezing grip went even tighter and tigher, whiuch eventually led her to went limp due to the partial lack of oxygen.
Suddenly, one of Grey's paws let go of her throat but picked the ax from his belt, which Grey raised above of his head in intention to finally split the bunny's head in half.
The limp Judy barely managed to dodge the ax in Grey's a squeezing grip and when it got stuck in the wooden edge of the crow's-nest, Judy lifted her legs and kicked surprisingly and as hard as she could Grey to his stomach, causing him him to let go from both Judy's neck and the axe's handle- Judy's kick also nearly sent him to fall over the edge of the nest and fall down from the mast. Grey managed to grab from the edge of the crow's-nest and leaned himself to the shrouds.
Judy coughed heavily after getting finally free from the fox's strangling grip, but quickly gasped in horror that the fox wasn't yet finished off and leaned against the mast as the fox climbed back to the nest.
Grey crowled loudly at her with the savage expression in his face and his extended claws diged into the wooden foothold of the nest.
And when he raised his right hand from the behind of his back, he revealed to Judy that he was holding in his paws the nasty-looking and wide-bladed sailor knife.
"Chew this, damned bunny!" Grey barked and threw the knife towards Judy!
The knife hit and dug its way through of Judy's left shoulder, causing the bunny's eyes widen in shock and pain, and as Judy closed her eyes, the loud scream in pain and agony, which pleased Grey as he had finally got the bunny to scream in pain.
Suddenly, the powerful explosion on the deck and beneath of the main mast shook violently the entire ship, causing Grey nearly to lose his balance on the shrounds and the edge of the crow's-nest. And much to both's, Judy's and Grey's horror, the main mast began to swing dangerously and eventually – after the loud and the ominous sounding sound of in half snapping wood, wwhich came from beneath of both of them – the main mast began slowly but certainly to fall towards of the ship's bow deck.
Grey eventually lost his grip from the shrouds and the edge of the crow's nest and fell down from the mast. But Judy, who was pinned – and kind of nailed - to the mast by Grey's knife, fell down with the mast.
She was unable to pull the knife out by herself due to being greatly exhausted and because of the pain waves, weakened, until Captain Flint suddenly came out from nowhere and helped Judy to pull the knife out from Judy's flesh, freeing Judy from the mast.
Flint then grabbed from Judy and leaped from the crow's-nest towards the bow mast, landing quite hard, and painfully to Judy, to bow mast's own crow's-nest as the main mast fell to the deck, snapping in half of some the bow deck's raw yards from the starboard side and smashing everything which was beneath of the falling main mast.
Also the main mast broke in two immediately when it disastrously hit to the deck. Luckily, the most part of the main mast had fell overboard into the water, leaving only the lower part of the mast to lay on the smashed deck, so with the exception of the destruction the fallen mast had caused, it would not quite difficult to clean the deck up from this mess by pushing/carrying the the lower part of the mast overboard... but after when the first mess with the pirates was at first dealed off.
Holding with her paw from her bleeding wound in her left shoulder and groaning in pain, Judy took the look down to the deck and to the water, frantically searching for Grey with her eyes.
But, however, there was no any sign of the fox, leaving to Judy to wonder or believe that Israel Grey had either got killed either in the fall from the high place or then he was crushed by the falling mast. But because his body was nowhere to seen – not floating motionless in the water nor lying crushed under the mast - his fate was left open to Judy and Captain Flint.
Whatever happened to him, Judy pushed these thoughts aside due to having yet the more important things to deal off.
But before that, Judy turned her weak but grateful smile towards the monkey.
"Thanks Flint." Judy thanked weakly to Flint.
"Juicy?" The familiar voice suddenly shouted from bellow the mast, catching Judy's attention and she turned to look down to the deck.
It was Ben Yax, unharmed but surprisingly furious for unknown reason.
"The powder is removed from the ship, captain Juicy, sir!" Ben shouted.
"But by Old Ben's tail, Old Ben curses the one who ever came up with those loud metallic sticks and with those explosive balls! Someone needs to teach to the others that the such toys are not for the playing nor messing around!" Ben furiously added.
Judy shook her head in amuse, not having heart to tell Ben that he actually did so... played and messed around with the pistols and grenades... plus powder, which was probably the reason why the main mast suddenly snapped in half from the lower part of the mast and fell down.
Judy eventually started to climb down from the bow mast through the shroads, groaning in pain on her way to the deck due to her bad and still bleeding wound in her left shoulder and her sore knee.
And after she eventually reached to the deck, she began to walk - or more likely limp - towards Ben with the weak but quite victorious smile on her face.
But suddenly, she let the loud yelp in pain out from her mouth as the new and burning wave of pain from her sore knee took over her leg, after she took with it too hasty and reckless step forward. The wave of pain was so great that Judy gave up to it and was about to fall over to the deck.
"Juicy!" Ben exclaimed as he, without any hesitation, quickly rushed to Judy's aid and quickly grabbed badly wounded bunny into his arms preventing her to fall over to the deck and hurt herself more... and in particular, hurt her badly injured left shoulder into worse as it was already at the moment. Judy collapsed on the yak's arms and leaned against him for while, for a period of wave of pain in her left leg which caused her to grit her teeth in pain. Judy also let out the another yelp in pain and gritted her teeth harder as she felt another wave of pain in her shoulder after it moved a little bit backwards as it leaned against the yak's body.
As the wave of pain, slowly but certainly, faded away from her leg and her shoulder, Judy slowly and weakly rose back on her feet.
"I'm fine, Ben." Judy said weakly, as she tried her best to ignore her pains.
"I got the map. Let's just get out of here and back to the others." Judy said, as the new but a bit lighter wave of pain run along of her upper body from her left shoulder, making her groan in pain and nearly causing her to fall on her knees.
"Old Ben is disagreed with that that you're fine, Juicy. You're wounded and that's not a small scratch!" Ben protested, watching in shock and worry Judy's shirt, which was from around of her left shoulder turned into red from the bleeding blood.
"We have to get back to others in the cave, Ben. If we get back to your cave right now and get the map into the safety... far away from Wilder's greed fingers... we gain the upper paw over the pirates. But before we go, I go get at first Otterton's medical supplies from the stateroom for treating Susan's wounds, and then we can leave." Judy said, groaning again in pain as it was gonna get worse, despite her efforts to fight it back.
"It took from us almost an hour to get from the cave here. It may take now probably two long hours to get back to the cave." Ben said with the protesting tone.
"How you're in the world gonna get back to the cave if you bleed so much and you can barely even stand on your feet?"
Judy, however, ignored this, telling to Ben that she was fine. Judy then rip her shirt's on the left sleeve off and wrapped it around of her wound, as tightly as she could, so that it would block the bleeding.
"Get the boat ready, I'll get Otterton's medical supplies, and then we leave." Judy said and departed to captain's stateroom.
I hoped that all of you that read this chapter enjoyed of reading this chapter.
Well, I then published this earlier that what I'd planned, but who cares.
The eleventh chapter is on its way and soon out as soon as I got it finished.
See ya.