Cover Art: Solace O'Autumn
Chapter 30
There was hardly time to do anything.
Time enough to panic, time enough to question just how and in what way his capture could lead to the "end of the world" but not time enough to do anything about it. He only had the time to rouse Meera, the girl stumbling out her bedroom with dishevelled hair and wearing a thin white nightdress.
"I have to go," he told her. "I'm leaving Vacuo tonight."
And suddenly the girl was wide awake. "What? Why?" Her voice cracked. "You were meant to stay another month at least!"
"There are people after me. Cinder heard them planning to kidnap me." He couldn't tell her it was the Grimm, that would be impossible for her to believe, but he had another option. "It must be remnants of that gang Cinder and I helped put a stop to. They want to get their revenge."
"But… But… But that's not fair," she whispered. "It's too sudden."
"It feels that way for me as well. I'm sorry. If anyone comes here asking for me, you should tell the truth and let them know I left this night. Don't try and hide anything. It won't matter once I'm out of Vacuo and I don't want you risking yourself."
Meera was struggling to keep up. She kept shaking her head, as if she could convince herself this was all a nightmare. He wished it was. The Grimm after him? Some evil plan? The end of the world? It was all such incredible bullshit, and yet his Semblance had never been wrong before. Every time it warned of consequences, those consequences came true.
"I'm sorry I couldn't stay lon—mphhh!?"
Meera's lips crashed into his and her arms wrapped around his neck. She kissed him hungrily, pulling her warm body into his, the thin material of her gown doing little to conceal what was pressed against him. Her tongue probed his mouth and he let it in without thinking, his eyes closing as it brushed against his own.
It lasted forever and no time at all. Jaune's mind was blank for much of it, body acting on autopilot as he brought his hands to her hips and held her against him. One of hers found its way into his hair and gripped on tightly, and she ground her body into his.
Which was the exact moment Cinder chose to arrive. "Hurry, we— Seriously!?" she snapped. "We don't have time for farewell sex!"
Meera and Jaune separated, both flushed bright red and panting a little bit. The Vacuan girl shot Cinder a dark look, but she didn't take her hands from Jaune's shoulders.
"I was hoping we could go on a real date together," she told him. "I know nothing here would have lasted forever with you travelling, but I wanted us to be together for a bit. To make memories that would last."
"Meera…"
"I know it's stupid, but will you be my boyfriend for this moment? Just for now? So I can say I asked you out and you said yes? I want you to be my first—"
Cinder groaned and threw her hands in the air. "We don't have time!"
"Yes," Jaune said, pressing his forehead to hers. "Yes, I… I will. And I would have if we'd had more time. Damn it, this is unfair. If only we had more time."
"Which you do not," Cinder helpfully reminded him.
Meera scowled at her. "Have a heart! This is goodbye—"
"Have a brain!" Cinder fired back. "He's running away now but he can come back next month if he really wants to!" Meera froze. "And it's not like you're chained to Vacuo either. Go visit Argus to go on your stupid dates with him, or time a holiday to Vale when he's there!"
"Oh." Meera blushed and looked back at Jaune. "I guess we could do that. Aheh. Um. You're going to Vale next, right?"
"Assuming these people don't change my plans. We'll stay in touch," he promised. "We can make plans."
Meera's smile was beautiful, even when she was crying. "Okay." She kissed him again, but it was short, and she pulled back after. "I'll hold you to that. It's a promise made to your one-day girlfriend."
"It's a promise."
"Good! Great!" Cinder grabbed him by his arm. "But we're wasting time, and you will die if you don't get out of Vacuo. Girl, buy us time if people come. Tell them what room he's meant to be in and play dumb. Let them ransack the room. Do not get in their way. You will die if you try."
"I… I'll pretend I was asleep all night. Good luck. And don't forget me!"
He wasn't sure he could.
/-/
Cinder set a ruthless pace through the dark streets of Vacuo. Even this late, the city was alive and filled with people, all of whom made both for crowds to hide among but also crowds to get in their way.
"Flights are grounded," she said. "And the shipping lanes are being watched."
How the hell had the Grimm pulled that off? He wanted to ask, but Cinder didn't even know the Grimm were involved. "Who did you overhear?"
"It doesn't—" Cinder changed her mind. "No, it does matter. One of them was a scorpion faunus and the other was a huge, hulking man with dark skin and a beard. I didn't catch their names but if they're introducing themselves to you then it's already too late. If you see them, stay away. Run. Don't be caught and don't fight."
He didn't need to be told the latter. Direct combat was still something out his reach, especially when it felt like his enemies kept scaling up, to use videogame terms. They weren't, obviously. The reality of it was just that those in powerful positions tended to be powerful people. He could probably beat a normal person in a fight, but normal people weren't the ones who would be trying to ambush and kidnap him in the middle of the night.
"Are we leaving Vacuo on foot, then?"
"No. No, that's the first thing they'll expect once they find the hotel empty. They'll check the flights and ships, see you're not on them, and then race to the trade routes in and out the city. Once those prove clear, they'll double back and assume you've gone to ground here. That buys us time. Not much, but it's something."
"Then how are we getting out?"
"You," she said. "I'm staying here to buy time."
"You're going to fight them!? Cinder, no!"
"I'm going to buy time," she corrected. "Deflect. They'll question everyone present in that stupid battle of the bands. I'll distract them by cooperating and taking them to a few places I know you frequent. Keeping them busy under the guise of helping them while you get away."
Then she wouldn't be fighting them. That was a relief. Cinder was strong, but she was still a student in Haven – for all that she seemed to spend a lot of time not in Haven Academy. Either way, he didn't want anyone dying on his behalf.
"Mercury and Emerald are reaching out to smugglers to find a way out."
"Criminals? Can they be trusted?"
"In a word, no, but pay them enough and they'll take you along – and they'll be used to having ways out the city that don't rely on the well-known routes. It's your best bet," she said. "Better to trust your life to smugglers than to the people chasing you."
There was no arguing with that. The Quest from his Semblance had made it abundantly clear that the consequences for failing this were not acceptable. It demanded he "escape Vacuo" and that was what he'd do, even if he had to risk crooked people to do it.
"Okay. I'm in."
Cinder flashed him a tight smile. "Good."
"But I want you to check up on Meera for me once I'm gone. Make sure she's safe."
"Ugh. Fine. If it'll stop you feeling the need to come back and check on her, I'll make sure the hormonal little twit is safe. Just do not make contact with her until you're far, far away. We've no idea if they can trace a call."
Cinder flagged down a taxi and pushed him in, then clambered into the front seat to direct the driver. Jaune laid his guitar over his knees. Cinder had demanded he leave his luggage behind, but she knew his instrument was his weapon and was fine with him bringing that. Obviously, he'd brought his scroll, wallet, ID and the other things he might need as well. It was just clothes and souvenirs he'd been forced to abandon.
The taxi ride gave him time to catch his breath and think. The Quest was vague. It warned him that someone was after him, that they were involved in the Grimm, and what the consequences for failure would be, but it made no mention of why they wanted him or what they intended to do with him.
Maybe it didn't matter, and maybe the quest was kept simple because it came with such a tight timeframe. It wasn't like he needed to know his fate if captured, but this was the first time in memory that it had flatly listed "?" as a result. Normally, it was either very specific in mentioning who would suffer, or it went with vague terminology like "loss" or "immense guilt" to try and goad him.
Surely, it could have gone with "death" here or even "unimaginable pain" if it wanted to be theatrical. Did this mean the person after him was yet to decide his fate? Or did it mean there were some things out there which could trump his Semblance? The only way to know would be getting captured and finding out, and that wasn't an option.
They arrived at the docks. Not the ones Jaune had arrived at, but an industrial dock with warehouses and freight ships and cargo containers. Cinder dragged him out after paying the driver and they moved forward, swiftly hailed over by Emerald, who was stood in the shadow of a warehouse.
"Speak," Cinder commanded.
"Mercury has managed to find someone who is smuggling drugs out of Vacuo and to Mistral," she said. "They're going west tonight. It took a little threatening and haggling but they've agreed to take an extra person." Emerald glanced his way. "He'll have to assist with shifting the cargo on the other side, though."
.
Quest: White Gold
Ensure the shipment of Grade-A Narcotics reaches its destination in Mistral and complete the deal without either side double crossing one another.
Success: +Rep Cartel. -Rep Mistral. Title: Smuggler. +Exp.
Failure: -Rep Cartel.
.
Just great. Absolutely wonderful. Jaune did his best not to groan at another quest – at least this one didn't have awful consequences for failure. He could just choose not to complete it once he reached Mistral. Even if he couldn't refuse, it was still a better deal than staying here and finding out what the "end of the world" looked like.
"Sure, fine, as long as I'm out of here."
They hustled on to where a fishing vessel was bobbing in the water with several shady people around it. Jaune's Semblance handily gave their real names even as they introduced themselves with fake ones. The strongest among them was Lv.10, which wasn't all that impressive compared to Cinder, Mercury or Emerald. They were just crooks, however. In a sense, the lack of levels was a comfort because it probably meant they hadn't killed people or been involved in gunfights. They were just small-time drug-runners.
"This is the one you're taking," Mercury said. "He has to make it to Mistral in one piece."
"Isn't he the musician?" asked one. "Seen him on TV. Wait, and aren't you—"
Snarling angrily, Cinder said, "I am the one offering you money to take him away – and I can just as easily offer death for betraying me. Do not tempt a huntress."
"Uh. Yes ma'am. Course not. You… uh… good to help us out on the other side, kid?"
"Yes," lied Jaune. His Charisma was more than good enough for the man to believe it.
"Great. Then help us lug the cargo on board and we'll ship out. Some problem with the main computers right now, it's grounded all flights and even stopped most vessels moving. This is a good moment for us to slip out."
Cinder had been right about that, then. It sounded like the systems had been hacked, which was a strange skillset for someone working with the Grimm to have. Why did the Grimm need control over computers? Why even would someone choose to work with them? It didn't make sense when Grimm were mindless monsters.
But, yet again, it just wasn't something to worry about right now.
Escape Vacuo first, worry about the details later.
Cinder, Mercury, and Emerald helped shift crates and bags of drugs onto the ship alongside Jaune, the four of them making light work of it and speeding things up significantly. A sizable amount of money was handed from Cinder to the smuggler. Jaune had no idea where she'd gotten it but made a promise internally to pay it back. He definitely had enough cash; he just didn't have the time to slip to an ATM. And if the people tracking him could shut down flights, they might also be able to monitor his cards.
Before the ship left, he pulled Cinder aside.
"Thanks for all this," he told her, "but I have a bigger question. What do I do now? My original plan was to travel but are these guys going to keep chasing me? How far? How long? Do I keep running for the rest of my life?"
The question appeared to trouble Cinder just as much as it did him. Running away was fine, and his Semblance would presumably give him a heads up whenever they got close, but a life on the run wasn't much of a life, and it'd only take them getting lucky one time to end it.
"There may be someone who can help you," she said, after several minutes of thought. "Your plan was to go to Mistral, correct? You can probably still do that, but you'll need to do it in a disguise of some sort. If you need somewhere to stay, my house is free."
"You own a house?"
"It's from inheritance when my adoptive mother died," she said, waving it off. "It's unused with us living in the dorms in Haven. I can give you the spare key and you can hunker down there. We can come up with a new plan of action once things have calmed down. Just make sure you enter Mistral without revealing yourself. Contact me only once you're inside."
It wasn't much of a plan but it was a plan.
He'd take it.
"Thank you, Cinder. Thank you so much. I won't forget this, and I will pay you back."
"Pay me back by evading capture. I've a feeling we'll both suffer if you don't."
The smuggler waved him over and Jaune shook her hand, then Emerald and Mercury's. As he boarded the ship and it slowly made its way out of Vacuo, he looked back with no small amount of regret. He was leaving Meera, and too soon for his liking, and there was more of Vacuo he'd wanted to see.
But the sweet, siren call of his Semblance telling him he'd completed the quest soothed those worries. Because the success rewards made no mention of anyone he cared about dying. Jaune let out a deep breath and turned away from Vacuo.
/-/
Cinder let out the breath she'd been holding when Jaune left Vacuo.
"Is this really okay?" asked Emerald. "To let him go?"
"We can't continue our plans if my employer drags us back to the Grimmlands for some petty show."
"I meant telling him to go to Mistral."
"Salem will have us split up and cover every kingdom in search of him. It only makes sense to leave Mistral to us since we're normally based there. We can limit what information she gets of him and, with any luck, she'll forget about this in a couple of months."
That was the hope anyway. Salem surely wouldn't still want to hear them play after a few months had gone by and she'd rediscovered her hatred for Ozpin and the human race in general. This was a passing fancy, a sudden obsession, and it would disappear as quickly as it had come on.
Though they'd need to make sure Haven's headmaster didn't see Jaune, because the coward would surely report him to Salem just to avoid trouble. A few well-placed threats ought to remind him that while Salem was frightening, Cinder was closer.
Cinder's scroll buzzed.
Jaune had escaped not a moment too soon.
"I'm here, Watts. What is it?"
"We're in Vacuo. Any luck at the hotel he's staying at?"
"He left in the night," she replied. "I spoke to the owner's granddaughter who was still asleep at the time. He took his guitar, but his belongings have been left behind and he hasn't formally booked out. It may be wise to have Tyrian keep an eye on the place to see if he comes back. He may have gone for a late-night walk."
"Vacuo is famous for its nightlife, I suppose. It'll make our job easy if he comes back drunk."
"Make sure Tyrian doesn't cause any issues with the hotel or the ones working there. We don't want him getting spooked and running away. Tell him that if he harms the girl working there, I'll make sure Salem finds out he was the one who gave the game away and sent Arc on the run."
Watts chuckled. "I'll instruct Hazel to watch over the place, then. He can be trusted to show restraint. Tyrian will check the casinos and I shall monitor the flights and shipping. Do you have any plans tonight?"
"I was going to check the orphanage that he saved the children at," she lied. "I doubt he'd be there this late, but it's a possible lead. And again, it'd be bad if Tyrian went and caused any damage."
"Hmm. I suppose it makes sense to have you meet with his contacts. You're all band members together, aren't you?" Watts laughed. "I can't wait to see your live performance to Salem. I've cancelled the shark suit order because I found a black and red one coloured like a Grimm. You'll be Salem's little Grimm sharkling."
Cinder grit her teeth. "We'll all be shark food if we keep wasting time, Watts. I'm getting to work and you should too."
She ended the call before he could respond and breathed a sigh of relief. He had no idea of her betrayal. Keeping Jaune safe would let her plans continue, and she'd have even more control over that if he came to Mistral.
If push comes to shove and Salem doesn't lose her obsession, perhaps I should subtly push him in the direction of Beacon. Ozpin would protect him if only to thwart Salem, and that would give me the perfect excuse to launch my attack on Beacon as originally planned.
It was a clever little plan that made her chuckle. Placing Jaune with their enemy so that Salem would focus back on what Cinder wanted her to focus on. At that point, it wouldn't matter if Salem acquired him, because Cinder would be in a position to take the Relic of Choice, and by then should have found and killed Amber already.
"Let's go," she told her minions. "And remember, this never happened."
Mercury smiled hopefully. "And in return…?"
"Ugh." Cinder sighed. "In return, I'll pay to replace all the Guitar Cutie merchandise Jaune and I destroyed…"
Her idiotic minions cheered.
I'm not paid enough for this shit…
/-/
It must have been a full day from leaving Vacuo. Jaune stood on the edge of the ship, not really wanting to mix with the other crewmembers. They had been polite around him but not friendly, none of them trusting him to have their backs and Jaune not trusting them either. He'd played a few songs to keep their spirits up, and he'd helped with work on the ship as best he could.
He'd proven himself useful enough to keep around.
And that was about the best he could manage.
There was no Signal so far out to sea and he spent much of his time wondering about how Meera and Cinder were doing, and whether they were safe. They should be if they just played along with the people chasing him, but he still worried.
"We're about halfway there, boys!" called the captain. "Another day and a half and we'll be in Mistral."
There were some cheers from the crew. The open ocean felt so very lonely and they had to keep their spirits up. Out here, there was no one but one another. Even a simple falling out could prove fatal. It was a big part of why Jaune stayed distant. He didn't try and learn their names (even if he knew them via his Semblance) because they were criminals who wouldn't want an outsider knowing who they were—
The ship rocked suddenly, coming to a lurching halt that threw Jaune off his feet. There was a sickening grinding sound as if they'd hit rocks, and several other members shouted in shock. Some blamed the captain.
"Bullshit!" he roared. "There's nothing out here but open ocean!"
"Well we've hit something!" another shouted back. "What is—"
.
Quest: The Mighty Beast.
Slay the Sea Feilong before it kills everyone on the ship.
Success: +EXP. +Title: Titan Killer. +Rep Cartel.
Failure: -Rep Cartel.
.
Jaune panicked. "GRIMM!" he screamed.
The warning came mere seconds before the thing they'd ground up on lashed upwards and stabbed its tail up through the bottom of the ship. The black appendage speared up through the deck, showering splinters and bits of metal hull down on them. People screamed, and Jaune was suddenly and painfully reminded of their low levels as the water roiled and bubbled.
The giant that came up deserved its title of titan, and that was a title Jaune knew he wouldn't be claiming any time soon. His fingers trembled but he pulled his guitar around and began to play. First, a Discordant Note.
It splashed off the Grimm harmlessly.
Grimm were mindless and didn't feel fear. How could he make them afraid?
Instead, he turned to the crew and played a Motivational Song. Instantly, the panicking crew stopped running. They were such a low level, with low Charisma to match, that he might as well have mind controlled them like Jax had. On Sun and Cinder, both capable people, his music had simply made them fight and sing harder.
It had made Willow addicted.
It made these people suicidal. They grabbed harpoons and charged the beast without a care in the world, transformed from terrified victims to hardened warriors.
But only in mentality.
The Sea Feilong snatched one in its jaws and killed him instantly and swept its tail across to bisect another and send a third crashing into the water. In ten seconds, it cut the crew in half. It didn't even look to Jaune. It withdrew its tail with a sickening crack, leaving a gaping hole in the ship that filled its lower decks with water.
Looking out over the railing, Jaune took in the water all around them. Worse yet, there were sharks in the water. He'd heard they were drawn to Grimm attacks, knowing there would be food and knowing the Grimm would ignore them. It was like how carrion gathered before battles knowing there would be bodies to pick over.
We're out on the open ocean, Jaune realised with mounting horror. There's nowhere to go and no one to help. We're doomed. I… I'm going to die here. If it doesn't kill me, I'll drown or be eaten by sharks.
Sharks.
It was the dumbest idea he'd ever had.
"Hey! You!" Jaune leaned over the edge as the Sea Feilong attacked the cabin to get at the captain. "You! Sharks!"
The creatures, which had been circling the ship, suddenly took to circling the spot beneath him. "It speaks?" one said, in a voice that sounded like it was garbled underwater. "The food speaks to us?"
"I'm… I'm not food!"
"All is food. All except the shadow ones."
Not good. Not good at all. He didn't have a lot of time to negotiate with the deadly creatures, not when the captain was screaming, and his cabin was being wrenched away by the Grimm's mighty jaws.
"I am friends with the dolphins!" Jaune said. "You don't want to upset the dolphins, do you?"
"Friends? With the guardians?"
Guardians…? Screw it. The politics of fish weren't his forte. "Yes! Yes, I'm friends with the Guardian. One of them named me honorary brother. You can ask them, but they'll be angry if you eat me!"
"But we are hungry," said another.
"Then I'll buy you fish! Fish in quantities you've never experienced before – all for you. And steak!"
"What is steak?"
"Excellent meat – the best meat, beloved by humans." Jaune ducked as something flew past his head. It was a bloody arm. It splashed in the water and the sharks dove on it, tearing it to bloody chunks. Jaune whimpered. "P—Please," he begged. "You have to take me to land. I'll get you all the meat you can eat, far more than my body would provide. You wouldn't have to share me because there'd be enough for all of you."
"We have a deal, food. Jump. Jump in the water with us."
It sounded hungry.
"Jump!" said another. "We will catch you with our jaws!"
"You're going to eat me!"
"If you wait until the shadow one catches you, there will be nothing we can do BUT eat you," the first reasoned. "If you are truly a friend of the guardians of the sea, we shall aid. But if you are lying then you shall become food."
It was terrifying. A choice between certain death at the hands of a Grimm and almost-certain death in the jaws of waiting sharks. But the choice was easy to make. It was the jumping that wasn't.
That was taken out his hands when the Sea Feilong ripped its neck back and tore the captain's cabin asunder. It exposed the man, who shrieked before he died, but it also hurled machinery Jaune's way. Something heavy hit the back of his head. Unconsciousness did not come immediately, as kind as that would have been. Instead, he tumbled over the edge and saw the water approach.
.
Quest Failed: White Gold. -Rep Cartel.
Quest Failed: The Mighty Beast. -Rep Cartel.
.
His Semblance had a sick sense of humour.
Crashing into the water and under, he saw them – the sharks. Many of them. Circling. Smiling. All teeth.
"You smell delicious," said one, approaching with its open mouth. "Just a small taste won't hurt, right?"
Thankfully, consciousness faded before its teeth bit down.
/-/
Old Henrick was a seadog. A dog faunus that was born to fishing family and who called the sea his home. Out off the shores of Menagerie with his small crew and vessel, he'd made a living for forty years hauling in seafood for the locals of Kuo Kuana that his wife and daughter sold at the markets. It was a simple life. An uncomplicated one.
Or at least it had been.
"Captain! Captain!" An excitable young faunus came running up. Teddy was a friend of a friend, who he'd only agreed to bring along because the boy was apparently a dreamboat who needed some work ethic in his life. Henrick happened to agree with that assessment.
"Calm your tits, boy. What's the issue now? Don't tell me you lost your shoes again."
"No, captain! It's sharks, sir!"
"Course there are sharks out here, boy. They gather to nip at our nets and steal our fish." And, annoyingly, to sometimes get tangled in their nets and make their lives difficult. "They won't be a threat to us with all this food around, lad. Calm down."
"No, sir! They have a person!"
Henrick stopped. A person…? Sorrow overcame him as he imagined a poor soul. Sharks didn't often take faunus from the shores, but it did happen, either when they roamed out too far or a shark came too close. The White Fang, bless them, made it a habit to hunt down any faunus-killer sharks.
"There's naught that can be done for them if the sharks have them, lad," he said, not unkindly. "Other than to pray their end was a quick one."
"Uh. Captain." One of his more experienced crewmembers came up, sounding just a little awkward. "The person is alive and… well… I think you need to see this, sir. Won't believe a word I say otherwise."
Old Henrick frowned and followed his old friend to the edge of the boat. As Teddy had said, there were a lot of sharks in the water, but they were acting unusual. There was no feeding frenzy. Instead, the sharks were aligned pointing at the boat, and at the head of them was a shark with a person's arm in its mouth.
Still attached, oddly enough. In fact, there was a lack of blood entirely.
The shark circled and slapped the water and let go of the body, letting it drift until it struck the boat's hull. Almost as if it were tossing the person at them.
"What in the bloody hells…" he muttered. "Am I seeing this?"
"We're all seeing it, Captain. Should we fish him out?"
"I… Well, yes. Of course we bloody should! Get a net!"
Henrick would never send a faunus down into shark infested waters, so they had to fish the man out the water themselves with a net. It took three of them to haul him up into deck and spill him down. He wasn't moving and was drenched through.
"Sir," whispered another crewmate. "He's human."
And all of a sudden, no one was quite so sympathetic. Henrick liked to think he didn't judge but humans had done a lot of damage to them. His own parents had died in the Schnee mines, and it was the White Fang that saved him and offered him a place on Menagerie. The story was much the same for everyone else.
"He's as good as dead," said another member of the crew. It was a lie and they all knew it. "Might as well let the sharks have him."
Everyone looked to Old Henrick for permission. He felt just a little sick as he nodded. "Aye. The boy was dead when we dragged him on board." No one had checked if he was breathing. "That's what we'll tell everyone when we get back."
It was cruel, he knew, and he forced himself to watch as his men tumbled the human back over the edge. He fell with a loud splash into the water. In a sense, he'd been dead in the water when they found him. This was less murder and more… them choosing to let nature take its course. Henrick couldn't meet Teddy's shocked eyes.
The boy would learn one day that humans weren't their frien—
THUNK!
The ship was rocked suddenly, sending them all stumbling. Henrick caught Teddy before he could fall over. "Hell is that?" he barked.
"Cap'n!" yelled a sailor on the edge. "Cap'n, the sharks…"
"Are they having a feeding frenzy down there? Spare us the details, man!"
"They're not feeding, sir!" cried the sailor. "Unless it's us they want to feed on!"
Henrick ran back to the edge and looked down. The human was in the jaws of the shark again, but it was circling a small distance from the boat. The others, though. Never in his long life had he seen sharks act as they did. Forty of them at the minimum, all pressing their noses to the hull on every side and pushing. Ramming. They were threatening to capsize the ship.
And there were more sharks watching with their beady, evil eyes.
"Sea preserve us!" Old Henrick whispered. He was White Fang to the core, but he was also an old fisherman and deeply superstitious. "We've angered the ocean! We're sorry!" he cried. "We'll take the human!"
The rocking stopped.
And, again, the shark came close and let go of the human, launching him at the ship like a slow torpedo. This time, the crew dragged him on board and checked him. "He's breathing, sir," whispered his first mate. "Should I…?" He made a throat-slitting motion.
Henrick looked back over the edge.
The sharks were watching.
And, behind them, he thought he saw dolphins. Behind them, a fucking whale. An honest to goodness killer whale was parked off to their portside, its black and white skin almost making it look like a Grimm.
All watching him.
Judging him.
"Resuscitate him. We're taking him back with us."
"No one will be happy to see a human on Menagerie, sir."
"We'll make it the Belladonna's problem then. I'm not taking my chances throwing him in the water again. We've been warned once. The gods of the sea may not give us a second chance. I want to go home to my wife and daughter. Bring the nets up. Cut off what fish we have – let them have the catch. Release the fish!" he barked at his men. "Cut the nets! Do it now! Raise anchor, we're heading back to Menagerie!"
Warning: The sharks you meet in real life may not be as "bro" as these sharks. Lol.
Next Chapter: 15th September
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