084 - Tortuga of the Thousand Tales

Mashu Kyrielight

Somehow, Mashu ended up in charge of the ship's logbook. It was a strange responsibility and she wasn't too sure what she was supposed to record down in the book, so she decided to err on the side of caution and did her best to record everything. Olga became captain and Haku-senpai was the helmswoman/quartermaster/navigator/gunnery officer/everything else.

Then Fou popped out from somewhere and Haku promptly named him their nap officer. And then she handed out pirate hats for everyone, including Fou! He looked adorable, puffing up his tiny chest with pride and wearing a tiny pirate hat on top of his tiny head.

The task distribution didn't sound very fair, but Senpai looked very excited about it, so it was hard to raise an objection. Mashu still took it up to herself to climb to the crow's nest to play lookout, but that was more her own selfishness and wanting to see as much of the sea as possible than anything else. Reaching for her new pirate hat with a hand to keep a sudden gust from blowing it away, she allows herself a small smile.

This is nice, and Senpai's enthusiasm is somewhat contagious. She's looking forward to what comes next and even Olga has only grumbled a little bit about how insane everything is!

A slight change above the sealine draws her attention, making her narrow her eyes in an attempt to see it more clearly. Even with her improved Servant senses, she's no Archer and there's only so much she can do to pierce through the distance, but that sure looks like… Yes, it's becoming clearer and clearer as they get closer.

"Ah, that is…! Right, what I'm supposed to say is…" She trails off once she's sure of what she's seeing, pumping her fists as she nods to herself, before cupping her hands around her mouth. "Land, ho!"

When she makes her way down the crow's nest, she finds Olga, Fou and Senpai pressing themselves against the prow's handrail -or, in Fou's case, standing on top of it- and trying to make out the coast's outline. Senpai is the first to relax and lean back, letting out a cheerful laugh.

"Well, I'll be damned. Of all the places we could've tracked a Grail-like signal to…" She shakes her head in amusement. "I was hoping we would get to search for buried treasure, but it looks like someone else beat us to the punch."

"What do you mean?" Olga asks the same question that was in Mashu's mind. "How do you even know that? We've barely caught sight of the place."

"Because, that's not an island that hides treasure." Haku answers with a small, wistful smile. "That's an island where people gather before setting sail in search of treasure… or come back afterwards to celebrate after finding it."

"You know where we are?" Olga frows. "I thought the Singularity rendered all navigation charts useless?"

"Oh, I have no idea where we are, nor the first clue on how to navigate the place." Haku agrees easily. "But I would recognize that island anywhere: That's Tortuga."

"Ah, you mean…" Mashu interjects now, remembering the name from some of her books. "The legendary Pirate Island in the Caribbean Sea?"

"Every child dreams of stealing a ship and sail to Tortuga under a pirate flag at least once, amrite?"

"Can't say I have, no." Olga shrugs uncaringly.

"Err… is that how it was supposed to be?" Mashu questions, pressing a finger against her lips.

"Fou, fou…" Fou shakes his head.

"I'm surrounded by weirdos." Haku sighs in disappointment, only to immediately recover her smile, wrapping her arms around Olga and Mashu's waists to pull them closer to her sides. "But don't worry, I love you all anyway!"

"Wha— Haku, unhand me this instant!" Olga tries to push herself away with both hands, only for Haku's grip to refuse to release her no matter what she does. "This is insubordination! Mutiny! I'll have you walk the gangplank for this!"

"I think this is pretty nice." Mashu comments diplomatically, trying to play peacemaker.

But that was seemingly the wrong thing to say, because the situation only got rowdier.

Francis Drake

They have new arrivals in Tortuga.

A small ship crewed by three girls and a weird white squirrel-dog. A motley crew if she had ever heard of one, but they were hardly the exception in a place like this. The weird, the rebels and the crazy… Tortuga welcomes them all.

They saw them coming from miles away, and word spread fast, but nobody was in the mood to set sail and intercept. They were sailing under the Jolly Roger and they didn't seem to have any trouble navigating their ship, that's all the endorsement most people around here required. They all wore damn stylish hats too, even the weird squirrel-dog thing, and that earned them a lot of points in her own personal book.

Some idiot floated the idea of setting up a welcome committee, so she congratulated him for his new promotion to welcoming officer and kicked him out of the bar before he could figure out what was going on and try to protest.

She'd admit that she was feeling a little bit curious, but…

She just got back from her own adventure. And it had been a damn amazing adventure, too! They found Atlantis, fought Poseidon himself and kicked his divine fatass to stop the End of the World before plundering every single treasure from his city. She even got this shitty golden cup out of it!

She's not in the mood for figuring out a bunch of newbies, she's in the mood for drinking herself to a stupor while trying to see how much she can exaggerate her tale without everyone calling her on her bullshit!

In fact, she was deep in her third… ish retelling of her final battle -Poseidon's size had been steadily growing with each retelling and had already reached the realm of the firmly implausible, but everyone was just as drunk as her, so nobody noticed- when the guy she had kicked out finally came back.

"Yo, cap'n! We beat all the other crews to the punch!" The guy… whose name she's pretty sure she knows but isn't really coming to mind right now, calls for her from the entrance. "I threw the new guys a welcome party like you said. And they liked it so much that they wanted to meet you."

She will very magnanimously ignore the way the bastard tried to throw her under the bus by implying the whole welcoming committee idea was hers. Because that's the pirate way! And she's too drunk to get angry!

…And she would've probably suggested it herself if the idiot hadn't run his mouth before she could.

Anyway!

"You got a shiner on each eye, man. You look like a fucking panda." She points a finger at him, before turning it towards the trio -and squirrel-rat- stepping into the bar behind him. "And they look fresh and pretty like garden roses. How drunk was your welcome committee that a few newbies kicked your collective asses, man!?"

"Shaddap Cap'n! It's not fair!" The man whines and tries to deflect. "They wiped the port floor with me and the boys, and Bart's boys, and the Black Swan's crew, and… I think half the crews sent at least some boys and they still beat all our asses like it was nothing! There's no way they are no newbies!"

She can't help but nod in approval, trying to blame anything and everything other than oneself is also a very pirate thing to do after you lose. It's what keeps them getting back and coming for more, after all.

Still, she lets out a thoughtful hum and lowers her bottle to take a closer look at the guests. The squirrel-dog looks harmless enough to murder her very sense of wariness. The white-haired fluffy-head has all the markings of a noble daughter who ran away from home during a rebellious phase. The cheerful redhead feels like she's trying to pretend she cannot slaughter the whole island with her bare hands, so she probably didn't show off for a bunch of drunken lowlives. And, lastly, the one who probably did the actual fighting, is an utterly adorable girl who carries herself with the poise of a trained warrior and carries around a huge…

"A shield?" In spite of not having been drinking at the moment, she nearly does a spit-take anyway. "You got beaten by a fucking shield!?"

"You haven't seen that abomination in action, cap'n!" The guy… who looks like a panda… the Panda Guy! The Panda Guy whines a bit more. "That shield is a murder weapon!"

"That's not true! Nobody died!" The girl with the shield gasps in indignation, stepping ahead to protest the accusation. "I hit them with the blunt side!"

Which is a protest that, of course, can only be answered in one way.

"Pffff–hahahaha! Ahahahahahahaha!" She only tries to hold back the laughter a little bit at the start, and that's more for dramatic effect than anything else before she erupts into roaring cackles. "That's fucking hilarious!"

With an introduction like that, how could she not invite them to celebrate with her? Food was eaten, drinks were drunk, stories were traded and merry was made. The warrior girl turned out to be a cinnamon roll -as expected- the fluffy-white turned out to be a magus -which explained the stick up her ass- the cheerful redhead turned out to be fucking scary -also as expected- and the squirrel-dog disappeared somewhere halfway through the introduction and nobody saw it again.

They had their own tales to tell, about cities swallowed by cursed fire, countries besieged by dragons and empires embroiled in civil war. They were great, but since there was no sailing involved, of course her own tales about finding Atlantis and squaring off Poseidon himself were automatically ten times better. Still, this crew wasn't too shabby, she'll give them that much.

She was getting to the neat part about plundering a sea god's booty when something interesting happened. She had planned to show off by getting her next drink poured into her awesome new golden cup but, as soon as she pulled it out…

"Is that–!" Fluffy-white gasped the moment she caught sight of the thing. "No way!"

"The Holy Grail!" Warrior girl speaks up next, looking about as shocked as her captain. "Drake-san was the one who got it?"

"Funny that." As expected, the scary redhead was the only one who didn't seem all that surprised. "What a coincidence."

Francis Drake didn't get to where she is by being a fool…

Well, no. She is a fool. She's one of the greatest fools to ever live. Or, at least, she has never met a greater fool than herself. One needs to be an insane fool to find oneself involved in half the crazy shit she's lived through in her life, but that's the trick. One cannot overcome a challenge one doesn't take on. It takes madness or foolishness to rise above impossible odds and achieve the unthinkable, because nobody else would even consider trying in the first place.

But she didn't get to where she is by being dumb.

Even piss-out drunk, she doesn't need to have it spelled out to her. She just heard the Chaldean's tale, after all. There's a big crisis going on that's so far above her head that's not even funny, and this Holy Grail thingie is the key to solving it. That's what this motley crew is here for, her treasure.

And she's not so drunk that she hasn't noticed the way the scary redhead is sizing her up. If things come down to blows… Well, she wasn't truly serious when she said the redhead can slaughter Tortuga with her bare hands, but that still isn't something she'd want to put to the test.

Unfortunately, her pride won't allow her to surrender treasure without a fight, so…

Putting away the cup for now, she stands up from her seat and throws her jacket off her shoulders to fire both her guns into the air. The entire place goes dead silent, and she takes a moment to (get her bearings because standing up so suddenly made her feel a bit dizzy) bask in the attention before continuing.

"Very well, I have decided! You want my cup? Show me your worth, mano a mano!" Her guns click as she aims them at the scary redhead… one at each scary redhead. Shit, she wasn't expecting the scariest one to be capable of duplicating herself, but she's too far in to pull back now. "Pick a fighter and come at me! You win, you can have it!"

The silence immediately shatters, everyone exploding in cheers and jeers.

"That's what I was hoping to hear!"
"As expected of the craziest captain in Tortuga!"
"That's Francis Drake for you!"
"El Draco! El Draco! El Draco!" An enterprising idiot even tries to get the crowd cheering! "Temeroso…"

And, because these are pirates we're talking about here– No, because these are piss out drunk pirates we're talking about here… he succeeds.

""""El Draco!""""

It takes a good five minutes -and some idiots getting thrown out the windows- before everyone calms down enough for the Chaldeans to get a word in. Which, inevitably, means the scary redhead taking the spotlight. Nobody even seems to have noticed how they've all pulled away to make room for her.

A perfect circle in the sea of people, centered not around the Chaldeans, but around that girl in particular.

"Sure! We'll accept your challenge!" The redhead's easygoing cheer may hide a lot of dangerous things underneath, but Francis can at least respect how the cheer itself isn't fake. "I hope you're ready to face... Our Captain!"

"Eh?" Fluffy-White looks surprised.
"Eh?" Cinnamon Roll looks surprised.
"Fou?" Oh, look, the squirrel-dog is back.

Everyone, including Francis and the rest of the Chaldeans, is shocked by that declaration. She was sure she would have to fight the redhead, but this… Sending a glance towards Fluffy-White, she notes how the girl is inwardly panicking, yet doing her best to project an air of confidence.

Looks like she won't try to pull back or otherwise worm her way out of this fight.

Come to think of it… when was the last time Francis got a chance to duel a magus?

Now, this is getting really interesting!

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