The waves were high and the sky was practically pitch black. The rain was hard and cold. The air was thick with humidity, smoke, and sulfur. Everyone's ears were ringing from cannon fire. Despite all these horrible conditions, neither of them were dissuaded in the least.

"Reload the cannons faster or I'll shove your miserable arses in them next!" Arthur barked at the crew. "Do you want that gold or not?!"

If the crew wasn't already running around like chickens with their heads cut off, they were as soon as they saw Arthur walked down the steps from the helm. The last thing any of them wanted was to be kicked off the ship in the middle of a battle.

"Somehow, I think biting their heads off might just make them panic and fuck up," Marceau quipped, walking up beside him.

"They wouldn't expect any different from me," Arthur scoffed. "Besides, there's 30,000 gold on that ship. More than enough to compensate a little bit of stress."

"Assuming we can get the gold without being scuttled," he pointed out. "We already have four patches on the hull and the crew is working on fixing a few more. That's not to mention the fact that we barely have a sail anymore."

Arthur brushed him off, though, and gestured out to their target. "Perhaps, but they don't have a mast at all. They aren't going anywhere anytime soon. A few more minutes and we'll have the gold, the bounty, and more than enough scavenged wood to repair our own ship with." At least until they got back to the docks.

"And if we run into the navy on the way?" Marceau asked, thinking of their recent bad luck.

"Then we lower our flag and play the battered merchant ship. It'll work out in the end. Just be patient, love." Marceau made a derisive noise from his throat, but stayed standing with Arthur. It would be more than enough gold to pay out to everyone and still have them set up for their next outing. Depending on the bounty, they may even be able to add another ship to the fleet.

The other ship might've been bigger and had more guns and crew, but they were sloppier. It was easy to get the drop on them and shoot the mast down with chain-shot and well-aimed canon fire. By the time they realized what was going on, the mast was already falling on their heads. The less mobile a ship, the easier a target it made. It raised the question of whether or not they were even worth the bounty. And how the hell they managed to acquire so much gold. Taking them out was just… too easy.

"They're almost sunk! Drop the sail and start moving closer!" Arthur shouted. "We want to be able to loot the remains as soon as possible!"

"Look at that. You were right for once," Marceau remarked.

"I'm always right. Shut up," he chuckled in response. "We're going to be rich after this."

A few moments later, as they were progressing towards the other ship, Marceau stalled and looked at Arthur. "Did you… hear that…? What…"

Arthur cursed and did several quick looks around the area. "Mortar fire! What the fuck?!"

"How the hell did they manage that?" Marceau growled. There was no way that ship had mortars on it. Something was up.

Before they could figure out what exactly, the shot found their ship and all hell broke loose. Half of the crew was lost instantly and nearly everything caught on fire. Arthur and Marceau were both blown off the ship. Cannon fire accompanied the mortar, but Arthur had no way of knowing what happened to his ship or Marceau. He was dead shortly after hitting the water. The only thing he saw before it went black was Marceau hitting the water after him.

"How the fucking hell did you get mortars, you cheating twats?" Arthur demanded, switching his mic and audio over to Discord only to hear gloating laughter. "You're nowhere near that level!"

"We―we called Leandro over!"* Gilbert cackled into the call.

Ramiro added in, "He w-was behind the island just fucking waiting!"

"I'm going to fucking―" Arthur snarled as he turned the webcam back on and yanked his headset off. He sat there stewing for a good ten seconds, just glaring at chat for spamming "F."

The only thing that pulled him out of his funk was Marceau rolling his chair over from the other side of the room to give him a kiss on the cheek. "We tried. I told you it was a stupid idea, but at least we tried."

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Oh, piss off. You wanted to sink their arrogant arses, too."

"Well, yes, but we should've waited a little longer. You just got greedy, Capitaine." Marceau snickered after seeing his sour expression. "Oh, cheer up. Your face is going to get stuck that way, you know."

"Yeah, yeah… Remind me of this the next time they want to do a group stream," Arthur sighed.

"Sure, sure." He kissed Arthur again before leaving his area. Marceau knew they would all stream together again no matter how frustrated Arthur got with them. They were definitely an odd group, but it was what worked for them.

Leandro is the name I chose for Portugal. He is Ramiro's cousin.

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