(Disclaimer: I own nothing.)
Just the Way it Should Be
The ships were almost parallel to each other now. The Urchin's crew had given up on their plan to empty the ship, realizing it would never make their ship fast enough, and the Vasudeva's Folly had taken advantage of this setback by picking up its speed. Now the daunting vessel had all but closed in on her victim, and the towering figure of Scarborough himself could be seen at the wheel.
Pintel was still standing nervously by the opposite rail, with Ragetti still fearfully clutching his arm. The lad gaped ahead at the mysterious intruder for a tense moment, then lifted his head and carefully tugged on his friend's sleeve.
"Who's that?" When he got no answer, he tugged harder. "Pintel?"
"Shh!" the older man hissed with a nasty warning glare. "Quiet!"
"Who is 'e?" the boy whispered then, determined to know.
"Scarborough." Pintel grumbled impatiently. He twitched his sword arm slightly and stared guardedly at the Scotsman again.
Ragetti studied him as well. "…Looks big," he commented, oddly calm. "Kinda' nasty too. And scary. Really scary. I wonders if 'e—"
"Alright, shut up!" Pintel snapped with an angry jerk of his arm that rattled the boy. He was having enough trouble staying calm even without this unnerving commentary. Heart racing, the burly pirate craned his neck sharply as the Folly's captain loudly voiced his arrival.
"Captain Pellinore!" the fiery-haired giant roared mockingly. A fiendish sneer of a grin was stretched across his face. "It seems yeh're a bit unfamiliar with navigatin' these waters!"
All thirteen heads of the Urchin's crew spun around to stare at their leader just then. Pellinore was twitching in his boots, and clutched the wheel with white knuckles. He met his rival's taunting glare reluctantly.
"Why have you come here?" he demanded.
"Yeh're hardly in the position to be askin' questions—I'm the one with the upper hand in it, after all!"
"From your point of view," the Englishman added dully. Then he called out louder, "You should not have come. Our business has been squared and settled, and I have the upper hand. Do you understand no code of conduct?"
"There be only one code that I care to understand," the Scotsman sneered proudly. "And it says 'take what yeh can and give nothin' back.'"
Pintel saw Pellinore stiffen. "You'll do no such thing!"
"I'm afraid it'll take a great deal more than that to convince my crew likewise, Captain Pellinore. These gents are all itchin' to collect a bit of profit, and yeh're just the fellow to collect it from at the moment." When the Englishman shifted his stance—nervously it seemed—Scarborough added, "It's a shame yer crew'll be losing the prize, after all their efforts to claim it. Perhaps it's best that yeh never told them its contents."
This comment got Pintel's attention, and his eyes shifted over to his captain a second time. The black-eyed devil was right; Pellinore hadn't even spoken about the black case since they'd found it. What was inside it? Suddenly, his suspicions were reawakened.
Of course, the Englishman was unable to deny this clever accusation, and so he stood a little straighter instead.
"This is your last chance, Captain Scarborough!" he called. "Leave us or die!"
The towering fiend stretched his grin even wider and turned to his cutthroat crew. "Set to it, lads."
Pintel felt his blood go cold.
The attack began swiftly with a hail of gunfire. The Urchin crewmen all sprang back in shock, narrowly dodging the treacherous shots. Even Pellinore had to jerk away from the wheel to avoid a hit and the burst of splinters that followed. A second later, their enemies took advantage of this temporary confusion and went to the ropes. Twenty snarling men swung over the water, crossing the threshold from ship to ship, and came down hard on deck with their weapons ready. The Folly's crew was aboard the Glass Urchin.
And then the fighting started.
Pintel scooted back frantically. "Let go!" he shouted.
Ragetti stared up at him, puzzled. "What?"
"Let go! Hands off!" Then he shoved the boy away. No sooner had he done so than one of the attacking pirates caught sight of the lone crewman and charged towards him.
Ragetti yelped and shrank back further when the two swords collided, making a gut-knotting clang that filled his ears. Dazed, the boy grasped the ship rail and stared in awe at the sudden duel unfolding just in front of him. The attacker was larger and obviously more experienced, but Pintel was the quicker thinker, and now that both of his arms were free, the two were an even match.
CLANG!
SLASH!
WHOOSH!
The taller man swung his sword sharply, and Pintel practically had to dance to avoid getting slashed open by it. Momentarily out of reach, he growled up at his opponent, then lunged again with a newfound vigor. The stocky pirate was anything but brave, but he was unbearably fed up with just staring at death at this point.
SLASH! SLASH!
CLANG!
The attacker's battle experience couldn't hold a candle to Pintel's temper.
"Yaaaahh!"
With two ferocious motions, the balding pirate violently sent his enemy's sword flying and jammed his own weapon deep into the man's stomach. Pintel's victory was short-lived though; Ragetti bolted back over to him the instant their attacker was down.
The older man grabbed the boy by the back of his collar before he could latch onto his arm again. Didn't this little idiot get it? They were in the middle of a blasted battle!
"No no!" he jabbed a scolding finger in Ragetti's face. "You go below deck!"
"But—"
"I ain't yer body guard, runt!" Pintel blasted back. Once again, he was in a fiery rage, but this time he felt completely alone and aidless, all thanks to this kid. "Now get outta' 'ere b'fore any more chumps spot us!"
Ragetti cowered warily. "What if they comes down after?"
"They ain't gonna go below deck," Pintel explained irately, "because our crew is on deck! We're the ones they're goin' after, not you, so get!"
But the boy refused to budge. That was the last straw.
Pintel's eyes smoldered black, and the wild din of the surrounding combat died in his ears. This boy had cost him everything. His personal freedom, his fellow crewmen's respect, and even his captain's support…all of it was gone now because this foolish, useless child had latched onto him and refused to let go. Ragetti had weighed him down this entire voyage, and Pintel wasn't about to let himself be weighed down in the midst of combat.
The anger in his eyes nearly burst into flames, and in an instant of unbound fury, he lunged at Ragetti and raised his sword. "Get!"
Ragetti stumbled back but locked his gaze onto Pintel's, trying to ignore the threatening blade. "But I don't wanna!"
Pintel bared his rotting teeth. "I don't give a rat's ass wot you wants! You got that?! I'm in the thick end of a fight 'ere, and I don't want you anywhere near me!"
"Why not?" Ragetti shouted, revealing his desperation.
"Because I've got as much use for your scrawny hide as your stinkin' mother did!"
That hit the mark.
Ragetti looked horrified. Silence seized him, and he stood frozen with his thin arms dangling at his sides. He looked like the same hopeless child that Pintel had first met on the docks three days ago, and when he saw no remorse on the older man's blazing features, the lost, broken look suddenly returned to his blue eyes. He had been forsaken once more.
Pintel hadn't even realized what he'd said until after the words leapt out. His temper had completely overtaken him, and in his anger, he'd said the worst possible thing to Ragetti: the truth. It was the truth. He wasn't any better than Rebecca. He didn't care about this child, and he never had. And after he realized that he'd said these horrible words, Pintel also realized that he didn't regret them.
This terrible frozen moment of theirs could have lasted for days, but it was abruptly cut short as across the water, a crewman who had stayed behind on the Vasudeva's Folly held a torch to his cannon's wick.
BOOM! BOOM!
An Urchin crewman's voice rang out. "Watch out!" But Pintel and Ragetti were too absorbed in their awful openness to hear the warning.
SMASH!
One of the twin cannonballs sailed towards the two, passing almost exactly between them and slamming into the ship's rail. Pintel felt a gust of wind envelop him as the collision threw him backwards, sending him forcefully into the mast. He connected with the giant wooden pillar with a sickening jolt, and fell heavily to the deck. Pintel lay still then, numb and winded for the moment.
He never even saw where Ragetti had landed.
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