Author's Note:
Chapter 13… It's bad luck! (Well, for Mister Scroop, of course)
Here are the suggestions I've got so far from readers... And thank you to those readers, who've made this chapter so far.
Sky-Pirate325: Make him swab the decks! Or peel some veggies/fruit!
The Benjanator: Blow him up/out of the laser cannons! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Banana-Ramma Dragon Man: Cook one of his pincers!
(I may use some of these ideas in the next chapter if I can't fit them all in this chapter…)
Chapter 13: Scroop's Misfortune
Today was the day. It was the deplorable day of slavery. Scroop swung down from his hammock and stretched out his appendages.
The one he was temporarily serving, Ariah Clarke, was nowhere in sight. She must've already gotten up. He sighed and clicked quietly out of the crew's sleeping quarters.
The crimson alien sauntered onto the upper deck. Without warning, he was hit by something cold flying into his triangular face.
The thing stuck to his face and he quickly removed it with an angry claw swipe. That something was Morph, who was giggling loudly at Scroop's furious expression.
"Why you..." Mister Scroop raised his other pincer, threatening to crush it onto the little pink blob, when another voice interrupted his wrath.
"Ah, ah, ah..." Ariah's voice chided. "You are now entering the first of the many hours of serving as my personal slave; that is, until midnight tonight." The young woman stated smoothly. "And so, such bouts of anger and violence shall not be initiated." Ariah laughed. "Or else you'll just have to be punished."
Scroop narrowed his golden eyes and looked up. A shadowy figure hanging in a full body harness leaned against the shaded side of the mainmast. The figure leaned forward into the sunlight to reveal Ariah's familiar face with a sly smirk on it.
"Now the first thing you're going to do is..." Ariah paused, for suspense, and smoothly flipped out of her pre-loosened harness.
The teenager landed lightly on the main deck in front of Scroop, the grin still on her face.
"Swab the deck until I can see my face in it." Ariah wore an ivory peasant top, dark brown trousers and her regular red vest.
"But-" Scroop interjected.
"Tut-tut, Mister Scroop." Ariah wiggled her left index finger at the alien. "You're my slave today, so get used to it... or else I might have to give you a tutu and refer to you as Mister Giggles for the entirety of the day, like I did with Meltdown." Ariah briefly tossed 'Mr Mop' and 'Mrs Bucket' at the alien before strolling down to the lower deck.
Scroop allowed a controlled hiss to escape through his fangs. He reluctantly took the mop into his claws and dipped it into the bubble-filled water. The silver-haired arachnid then began to unenthusiastically trace circles into the deck.
"Wake up Jim!" Ariah shook awake the sleepy-headed teenager.
"What?" The teenager grumbled. He slowly lifted his head from the folds of his hammock. His brunette hair fell in a mess around his face. "What is it?" He asked.
"Today's the day you've been waiting for!" Ariah exclaimed.
"We've arrived?" Jim asked excitedly, his water blue eyes brightening at the thought.
"No… you silly." Ariah ruffled Jim's messy bangs. She promptly pushed Jim out of his cloth hammock and proudly placed her hands on her hips. "Today's the day you get to switch places with Mister Scroop."
"Huh?" Jim raised his eyebrows up at the hyperactive sailor.
"You get to be a sailor for one whole day!" She hollered, much more excited than one should be so early in the morning.
"Great." Jim rubbed his stiff neck. "So I have to be a creepy, spider psycho?" He pricked his eyebrow.
Ariah laughed. "C'mon Jim, let's go!" She grabbed Jim's arm and dragged him out of the crew's quarters.
Jim barely had any time to grab his boots, let alone pull them over his socked feet, before he was forced to follow Ariah out onto the main deck.
Already a few tedious hours into the day and Scroop had managed to polish the Legacy's main deck until it glimmered like a charged solar sail. He sighed tiredly and glanced around the deck.
A stray few sailors roamed the main deck; they were all waiting for Silver to finish cooking breakfast. Ariah walked up to the crimson alien.
"Hmm…" Ariah smiled contently.
She looked amorously at the shimmering, wooden planks, seeing her faint mirror image.
"Well done, Mister Scroop." The black haired sailor pushed back her red bandanna and smirked. "Now you can help Silver with breakfast..." She turned on her heel and sauntered off to the mainmast, where Jim was waiting.
Scroop growled loudly, only just stopping himself from kicking Mrs Bucket out into oblivion. Had he done so, he likely would've had to swab the entire deck once more... or worse. Scroop irritably clicked down the steps to the galley; most of the crew avoided him while he was in a sour mood.
"Here." Ariah hopped weightlessly onto the riggings with skilled agility.
Jim sluggishly climbed up behind her, still tired from Ariah's wake up call.
"Help me open this solar sail." She instructed.
"Why was it closed?" Jim grumbled, narrowing his pale blue eyes as he climbed up.
"Well." Ariah sighed. "We don't really want to get launched ahead a few galaxies at the first ray of light in the morning." She stated. "So, we shut some of the solar sails after dinner." She smiled as-a-matter-of-factly. "That's why it's also the group on watch's job to check the sails as well as the rest of the ship."
Jim sat down on the rigging. "That makes sense. Sort of."
Ariah climbed up above the sail and she tossed a rope into Jim's hands. He looked up at her with anticipation and she smiled back warmly.
Plop. The wooden ladle Scroop had been using to stir the crew's breakfast fell below the bubbling surface. He hissed, opting to find a pair of tongs to retrieve it. But he didn't know the Legacy's galley as well as others he had been in.
Quickly, with a loud snarl ripping through his fangs, Mister Scroop lunged his right pincer into the boiling soup. He ambled around the piping hot stew, trying not to holler from the excruciating pain zapping through his right arm.
Finally, his claw brushed up on the wooden ladle. He furiously snatched it and extracted his throbbing pincer from the cauldron. He sighed with relief and brought himself over to the galley's sink.
"You're a little short on common sense, Scroop." Silver chided as he laughed half-heartedly. "The tongs were on the lid the whole time..." He chuckled. He clicked the tongs in his organic hand to prove it.
Scroop hissed in response. He looked over his injured pincer, now soaking in the sink full of cool water and grimaced. It had been in the piping-hot stew long enough to change from its normal crimson colour to sickly white.
Talk about a white-hot pincer.
"Do you hate Scroop that much?" Jim asked, tying off a knot for one of the riggings.
"Nope." Ariah smiled warmly. She smoothly rappelled from the rigging. Then she walked out onto the bow's netting and sat down on the chords.
The female sailor clipped herself to the Legacy's outer railing and she sighed, relaxing in the fresh morning breeze.
"Scroop's one of my best friends." She stated as she leaned against her arms.
"Well, you're not very nice to him." Jim grumbled. He sat down across from her on the net after tying a lifeline around his waist.
Ariah pouted. "You can't trust that many people, Jim." She sighed calmly. "And you've got to be tough..."
"Did Silver teach you that?" Jim raised an eyebrow.
"No." Ariah said faintly, she opened her copper-brown eyes and looked at her boots sadly. "Unfortunately, I had to learn it, the hard way..."
"Oh." Jim sighed. He waited a few moments in silence. "Hey, you never answered me to why you're with Silver." He stated.
Ariah smiled. "No, I didn't." She sighed and leaned back against the net. "Silver, and Scroop, took me out of my foster home. It was four years ago, when I was fourteen. I don't know why they got me, or how they knew me, but they saved me from bandits that invaded and burned down my foster parent's home." She looked out to the infinite number of galaxies ahead. "That was my eighth set of foster parents since my mom died, when I was five." She sighed. "I've been sailing around with Scroop and Silver for the past four years, and I trust them."
"Oh." Jim deadpanned; he rubbed the back of his neck nervously.
Ariah smiled and smoothly stated. "But like all friendships... we tend to argue amongst ourselves." She chuckled. "A lot." She added. "Besides." Ariah cleared her throat. "I'm not being very nice to him today because he's my slave."
"Ouch." Jim chuckled.
"Not that I would treat a full-time slave like that." Ariah tried to redeem herself. She shrugged nonchalantly. "I just like taking advantage of these kind of days."
"Ever have to serve as a slave?" Jim enquired.
"Nope." Ariah smiled warmly. "Call me unbeatable when it comes to challenges." She laughed. "Though on most voyages, I'm assigned to scullery maid, because I'm a girl… which is kind of like slavery sometimes."
After a warm breakfast Ariah walked up to Scroop, there was a small smirk on her face.
"What now?" The crimson arachnid grumbled.
"Well naturally you're going to wash all of the dishes." Ariah stated. She sucked the last bits of stew from her spoon. "And then you're going to…" Ariah paused to think for a moment. "Clean out the laser cannons."
"What?" Scroop exclaimed.
"Get to work, Mister Scroop." Ariah smiled and placed her empty bowl of stew on one of the mess hall's wooden tables. "A clean ship's a happy ship." She declared.
Ariah scampered back up to the main deck. Jim followed her up the stairs to the deck, giving Scroop a sly grin before leaving the mess hall.
Scroop grumbled angrily, trying to keep control his inner rage. He returned to the galley and began to wash the tilting piles of dishes.
"Why are you just hanging there?" Jim asked Ariah. He sat on a solar sail rigging above her while she slumbered in her full body harness.
"Because this is what sailors do when there's nothing else to do…" Ariah yawned and eased back in her harness.
She clicked her retracted solar glider's bundle to her back, for later testing if ever the mood struck her.
"You've probably got the most hands-on job on the entire ship as a cabin boy." Ariah stated as she gently closed her copper-brown eyes and admired the summer air.
"Oh." Jim sighed and leaned back against the mast of the ship and began to doze off a little bit.
Though being a sailor wasn't as adventurous as he had thought it was, the job was better than a dishwasher's. Now he could see why brawls and challenges were such big things when it came to a sailor's life.
Scroop finished off the last pile of dishes and left the stuffy galley. He sighed tiredly as he exited the lower deck and felt the warm starlight against his sweating face. A summer-like breeze circulated the upper deck pleasantly.
The crimson alien clicked towards one of the few laser cannons equipped to the RLS Legacy and he opened the main energy hatch. This was where the laser cannon's energy crystals charged up, in order to form the laser cannon's ammo, when in use.
Scroop removed the light blue triangular crystals from the base of the hatch and he retrieved the round brush used to clean the cannons.
Ariah opened her copper-brown eyes as soon as she heard Scroop's familiar arachnid skittering below her. She yawned, stretching in place, and she eased down to the deck.
After unclipping herself from her bungee chord, Ariah felt a sudden ache in her back. She frowned, rubbing the tender spot gingerly, and then she decided to ignore it. She looked up from the deck and watched Scroop clean out two more laser cannons; one remained.
A lumbering alien, one of the few allowed to operate the laser cannons and maintain an even acceleration speed for the RLS Legacy -in its boiler room-, walked out onto the deck. He was wearing his usual grubby pair of dark violet trousers, barely held up by a thick leather belt, and a dark indigo open-chest vest that exposed his large stomach and much of his sweaty light orange skin. He looked over the laser cannon that Scroop was currently cleaning.
A sneaky grin spread across his gluttonous visage, for he –like most of the crew- enjoyed playing tricks on other sailors when the chance presented itself. And with Scroop's body halfway in an uncharged laser cannon, the overweight alien was itching to do something.
Ariah watched the rotund alien sourly. It wasn't likely that the other alien would severely harm her crimson slave by launching him out of an uncharged laser cannon. Still, there were asteroids floating around the Legacy, and even without the needed energy crystals, an uncharged laser cannon had the same power to launch any loaded object quite a ways away. The female sailor instinctively sensed something was bound to go wrong.
She clipped the end of her bungee chord to her fully body harness and scaled the mainmast rapidly, until she was beside Onus in the crow's nest.
"How's it going with big slaving day, Miss Clarke?" Onus asked with his thick accent.
"It won't be going anywhere good if my thoughts are correct." Ariah stated. "Look at what's going down on the main deck."
Onus pulled out his telescope with a peach-skinned tentacle and looked down at the deck with all of his eyes while Ariah squinted at the scene below them.
The two sailors watched as the light orange-skinned alien shoved Scroop completely into the main hatch of the laser cannon, locked the arachnid in the barrel of the laser cannon, climbed up to the aiming area of the laser cannon, and launched Scroop out of the uncharged laser cannon.
The crimson alien was propelled out of the laser cannon at incredible speeds after a rumbling BOOM and the roar of the obese alien's laughter could be easily heard from the crow's nest.
"Great." Ariah huffed furiously. She doubled checked that her harness was secured, flexed her shoulders and leapt out from the crow's nest.
The young inventor dived through the summery air towards the main deck. She released the chord that opened the solar glider's wings and fired up the rockets, powered by the stored pre-charge in the solar cells. Ariah soared from the limits of the RLS Legacy towards the outer space.
Ariah spotted the flying object, which was Scroop, while her solar glider soaked up the solar winds' energy. The wings began glowing a bright gold and the rockets released an additional blast of energy.
Rapidly, Ariah came up by Scroop's side and grasped him by the pincers. "You not getting away that easily." She smiled.
Scroop scoffed as Ariah turned around and soared back towards the RLS Legacy. She hit a retraction switch on her harness, which helped speed up their return, as they were against the solar winds. Ariah poor eyes were tearing up from the irritation of flying through space, unprotected.
Finally, Scroop and Ariah came up alongside the RLS Legacy. Ariah allowed her solar glider's wings to retract back into its backpack form as she and Scroop grasped onto the railing of the ship.
A small crowd of sailors were grouped around the laser cannon, waiting to see some more action. Ariah heaved herself over the railing and inelegantly dropped to the main deck while Scroop swiftly was on his feet, staring down the orange-skinned alien.
Ariah could see the anger in Scroop's eyes being fought back and couldn't help but be tempted to see what would happen if he should be allowed to release it. She lazily coiled up her bungee chord and clipped it to her harness as she walked out of the crowd.
All eyes were on her. She stopped, feeling the same ache in her back, and she turned to face her slave.
"I will allow you to fight him, if you want to Scroop." Ariah sighed tiredly. "I'm going to take a nap."
She looked up frankly at the crimson alien. He waited, knowing that there was more to it.
"But if you do decide to fight, please don't let it escalate so that the captain or Mister Arrow have to send you to the brig." Ariah warned directly. "I will still require your services as a personal slave for the next few hours…"
She paused and glanced at the trembling orange-skinned alien.
Ariah added briefly. "Try not to kill him. I'd imagine that Silver wants to keep our crew's numbers relatively high." There was a small smirk on her face.
The young woman exhaustedly trudged towards the steps that led down to the lower decks. She stopped at the first step and glanced back at her slave.
"Oh, and once you're done fighting; I want you to scrape the space barnacles from the bottom of the ship." She stated, before disappearing into the lower decks.
"Yes, Miss Clarke." Scroop's golden eyes glinted dangerously. He opened his pincers and prepared to release his anger that he had built up from that morning.
Author's Note:
Oh and 'thank ye' to Whisperwings for editing this chapter. You're awesome!
MG#6