i actually originally wrote this bcuz i wanted growltiger to be killed by griddlebone but i never got around to writing more than one chapter haha

so heres the first chapter!

misto might seem slightly out of character but in growltigers last stand hes portrayed to be terrified of growltiger and always cowarding and fainting which i think is very funny. so yeah, while hes really confident and proud of his magic, in the pirate play in the middle of a play he's shy. weird.

The water was calm that night, so the crew had gotten to sleep for once. Normally, Growltiger, the Captain of the ship, would make them do shifts. Half would sleep, while the other half was up on deck, manning the ship.

Currently, Growltiger himself was up on deck. He had seen the calm waters earlier and decided that he was going to do everything himself.

It was quite strange for the crew to all be sleeping at once. They normally only had two places set up to sleep, for there were only five of them and three were awake at a time.

So it had taken them a bit to clear up the room to make space for more sleeping areas.

Even now, the arrangements were a bit strange.

Skimbleshanks had his own corner, had insisted on it actually. He continuously repeated that he had a wife and arranged boxes and crates of who-knows what, so that his little corner housed him and him alone.

On the other side of Skimbleshanks boxes, the two brothers, Munkustrap and Rum Tum Tugger, were forced to share a sleeping area. They had always made sure in the past to never work the same night shift, as Tugger got on Munkustraps nerves so much that the two would wake the whole ocean with their arguing. Now, they slept with their backs to each other. The remains of anger lingered on their faces even as they slept.

The last sleeping arrangement was an awkward one. Alonzo and Quaxo were not close, and only occasionally talked. They would have preferred to not be sleeping next to each other, but the tiny storage room on the tiny ship only permitted so many boxes to be moved a certain way. If the two men wanted to stretch out comfortably, they would have to share a space.

There they were, sleeping as peacefully as five men shoved into the same small room on a boat could sleep, when there was a shout.

Of course, the only one who actually heard this first shout was Quaxo, for he is always alert and ready to jump at any movement on the ship. If he's being completely honest, he would say that he's terrified of being on a pirate crew, but Quaxo never expressed anything through words.

Either way, that first shout woke Quaxo, and he bolted upright. There were no other sounds, and he started to lay back down, only to be jolted back up by the pounding of feet.

"Eep!" He squeeked, cowering against the boxes, as the door swung open and almost hit him.

Growltiger, the self-proclaimed 'Terror of the Seas', stood. For a minute, only his outline showed, and Quaxo coward against the crates of junk, before the large man leaned forward. He shoved his ugly face in front of the young man and screamed,

"This crew 'had better be awake soon, unless you idiots want to be attacked by another' ship!"

Quaxo all but faints, and is happy when the Captain turns to go kick the other men fully awake.

Slowly but surely, the others begin to stir. The crew had already been dressed, not taking off their garb in the first place, so all that was left to do was find weapons in the mess of the ship.

Sure, Growltiger always claimed he was the 'Terror of the Seas', but for all three years that the crew had been working with him, they had never seen him in action. The most that the pirates did was steal junk and trinkets from small towns; there had never been a raid on another ship before, they had never found buried treasure, and they had never killed another pirate.

Well, at least four of them hadn't. Skimbleshanks, on the other hand, claimed that he had been on Growltiger's crew for over ten years, and that the man had performed many dastardly deeds.

No one believed him.

Weapons were eventually found, and it had barely been ten minutes by the time the entire crew came onto deck.

Munkustrap was the first to arrive. Although he thought that Growltiger was an utter joke with bad eyesight, which made sense because he only had one eye, he took everything very seriously. During the nights, he would be sure to have full command over whoever the two people he was working with were. Munkustrap would order them around, having them make sure that everything was in place and organized for the next shift to come up.

He quickly rushed over to the edge of the ship, where Growltiger stood and looked off into the distance.

To his great surprise, there actually was a ship there. It didn't look much bigger than their own, and seemed to be coming towards them. The other ship was moving at a relatively slow pace, and did not seem as though they were going to attack. There was a high chance that this ship wasn't even another pirate ship.

The ship could belong to a governor, some men who had saved up, even to the king himself. You never know what that guy was up to, he might be sending in spies.

"Alright, boys!" Shouted Growltiger. "Now, you raffish bunch are going to be helping' me with all o' this. We're gonna take whatever we find, whether it be women, clothing, money; anything that could be sold or used!"

The men sleepily nodded. There was a high chance that they had no clue what was going on.

They all stood there for a minute, and then Growltiger began screaming again.

"Go go go! Raise that damned flag! Fix the sails, we're going to them!"

Munkustrap quickly got to work giving the other members the correct orders. The men might act stupid and useless most of the time, but somehow, they all knew what they were doing, and it generally worked out in the end.

It was no time at all before they had almost reached the other ship, which, now that they had gotten closer, looked like it was just... idling there.

No one was on the deck. There were no crates, no humans. It was easy to board, especially for a crew that had never performed this task before.

Skimbleshanks, as one of the people who had been working with Growltiger for the longest, was charged with staying back on the ship and ensuring that they would have a speedy getaway. After that, everything came simple for the crew, as it was just like a normal robbery.

Growltiger thought he was in charge, but behind him, Munkustrap re-issued all his orders correctly and made sure everything was okay before going to open a door on the other side of the ship. The Captain simply stood there, observing. He was too above himself to actually do any work.

Alonzo slithered in and out of doorways with Munkustrap, checking each and every spot on the seemingly empty ship. As far as those two could tell, it was completely empty.

Directly in the middle of the ship is a trap door. This is fairly common for ships, as things are usually stored down there, like prisoners, supplies, and canons.

However, Tugger and Quaxo were struggling to pull the door up on its hinges. Perhaps it was a bad idea to have the ship's idiot and scaredy-cat do the muscle work, but they got along better than they did with anyone else, so they usually worked together.

"Ah, Captain, could you lend us a hand with getting this open?"

Their Captain sneered at them. "Of course, young crew. Munkustrap! Alonzo! Help these lads open the door!"

So the four of them did their best at grabbing the door and pulling. When it finally did open, they were greeted with... Absolutely nothing.

The trap door led to the bottom area of the ship, which was expected. However, instead of having crates and people inside of it, it was empty.

Growltiger walked over to them at last, a little impatient at what was happening. He wanted his treasure, and he wanted it now!

But Growltiger was met with the exact same sight that the rest of them were: A completely empty ship.

"Ahg!" He growled in frustration, shaking his fists. "I am Growltiger, Terror of the Seas! I need my treasure!"

He stomped his feet once, then again. "Boys, you go and look down there! Something must be in this ship!"

So Quaxo and Rum Tum Tugger slowly descended the ladder to the bottom, while the other two men waited at the top. Growltiger did nothing, so he isn't counted in this scenario.

"I wouldn't suggest standing that close to the edge," Said a voice.

The remaining crew and their Captain whipped around, and were greeted by what looked like hundreds of people surrounding them. All of them wore near identical masks in the shape of cat faces, and all of them seemed to be ten feet tall.

They were quiet when they walked, they must have been, or they wouldn't have been able to sneak up on the men like that. They all moved in perfect synchronization; a cock of the head, a step forward, a sword in hand.

"Arms ready, boys!" Screeched Growltiger.

"Pull out your sword," Reiterated Munkustrap to Alonzo, who looked confused.

The three stood with their backs to each other, surrounding the trap door. Munkustrap and Alonzo both held their swords high above their heads, ready to slash down at any moment, while Growltiger did the exact opposite, and before they knew it, Slash!

Someone had made the first move, and the fight broke out around them!

The group was quick to move away from the trap door, as no one wanted to fall in, not even this enemy. Every pirate wants a fair sword fight in their life, and it's not fair if one falls to their death, especially not on their own ship.

At some point, Growltiger was separated from the group, and Munkustrap and Alonzo found themselves closer to their own ship than to any of the enemy pirates. They took this perfect opportunity to get back over.

"Skimble!" Called Munkustrap, "Get the ship ready to move as quickly as possible! We don't want anyone else to get on here!"

The man nodded, and the two others looked back over.

These other pirates, however, didn't seem to have any interest in boarding their ship. They all just went after Growltiger, slashing and banging at whatever they got close to.

They even ignored when Quaxo was shoved up and out of the trap door by Tugger, rolling on the deck for a minute before popping back up. He quickly ran back and helped the other man grab whatever they had found, before bolting around the other pirates to make it back to the ship.

While Quaxo carried one bag, Tugger carried two, and both looked proud of themselves. The bags were tossed across the waters before they tossed themselves over.

"Ay, what did you boys find?" Asked Skimble.

Tugger simply shrugged. "No clue! It was too dark down there to see anything, so we just grabbed what we could!"

This made Munkustrap sigh. Of course his idiotic brother didnt check what he was grabbing, he could have brought it over to the light that was coming in from the trap door!

"Well," He grumbled, "Put those somewhere safe. I'm sure that Growltiger will be very happy to see that."

Speaking of Growltiger, Munkustrap looked over back at the strange ship that they had just raided.

It seemed as though the number of people on board had diminished, but there were no bodies lying around. There were no bodies in the water either, and seeing as how there were no crates on the deck, it didn't seem as though they had hidden the bodies.

Growltiger was still going at it, wildly swinging his sword at the enemy pirates.

"Captain," Munkustrap shouted, "You need to get back on! We found something!"

Their Captain jumped, and slashed, and swung. He ran across the rails, pushing the other pirates aside as he made his way. It didn't look as cool as it sounded, but it would certainly be a tail that he exaggerated later to other men in the pubs.

His body finally crashed onto the deck of their small ship loudly.

"Go go go go go!" He shouted to Skimbleshanks, who was, surprisingly enough, already steering the ship away.

The rest of the crew looked back over as they pulled away. The ship, which had before been filled to the brim with people, was suddenly empty.

With a sigh, Growltiger turned back to his crew. "Well, boys? What did you find?"

Tugger opened his mouth to proudly tell him about the loot, but was interrupted but the quiet Quaxo.

"Sir, your bleeding!"

And it's true, for on the side of Growltiger's head, there was blood matting down his already matted hair.

The man brought a hand up to feel, as though he hadn't noticed before. His hand came away covered in blood.

"Quick!" Yelped Alonzo, "Get something to tie around his head!"

To everyone's surprise, little Quaxo was the first one to move. He ripped open one of the bags of loot. The rest of the crew has no clue why he did that, but it worked, for inside the bag were large, flouncy dresses.

The fabric on them was easy enough to tear from a bottom layer, and even easier to wrap around their Captains head.

"Damn," Muttered Tugger, "These guys must have been a bunch of perverts."

While some of the crew had been tending to Growltiger, and one of the crew had been steering the ship, Rum Tum Tugger had decided to open another bag, this time a bit more carefully.

The inside was filled, not with dresses, but women's underclothing. The crew watched on in amazement as he opened the third bag, which had pairs of shoes and socks.

"Great, just great!" Munkustrap said, exasperated. "We raid a ship, our Captain gets hurt, and you idiots steal a bunch of clothing! Look at how smart we are today!"

"No, no! This is good!" Insisted Tugger. "Look, all we have to do is go to a city that won't question us that much. People would pay good money for this shit," He gestured at the underclothing, "And as long as we don't question what they are going to do with it, they don't question us."

Alonzo nodded in agreement. "I've seen tons of trades like this go down. People don't like when you know their personal business, and they don't like to know yours either."

"Womens shoes sell for a good money as well," Said the quiet Quaxo.

Tugger nodded. "Have you seen the prices on some of those things in stores? Most people would be saving up for years to get that stuff! Stores would kill to have women come into their stores, because ladies love to shop." He winked at Quaxo. "That's the most I've heard you talk in one night, sweetheart!"

"Shut the fuck up."

For what felt like the thousandth time that night, Munkustrap sighed. "I guess you do make a point there. Skimble, you want to find us a village or town nearby? But far enough that that ship won't reach us tonight."

"Sure thing, my boy!" The older man replied.

Down on the deck, Growltiger lay, holding the dress that was tied to his head harder against his ear.

"Those damned pirates!" He screamed. "They had some kind of trick going on there, I know they did! Some kind of witchcraft! How else would they have gotten a hit on Growltiger the Great!"

"Well, lets see what it looks like," Munkustrap said.

He slowly let go of his head. When Munk removed the cloth, the bleeding had, thankfully, started to slow down. They wouldn't be losing their leader that night.

There was one thing that they would be losing, though, for the bleeding had not stemmed from a simple scrap of the sword or bump or hit.

No, Growltiger's entire ear was missing from the side of his head.