Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Two — Fetching Help II: Re-Re-Kidnapping
Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Two — Fetching Help II: Re-Re-Kidnapping “Joe,” I said past my panting. My heart was thudding away at my chest, like a rabbit trying to run free. It wasn’t just the sprint back to the yard, or the way I practically carried Sally to make us move faster. Well, it wasn’t just that.“Are you guys alright?” Joe asked.I started to nod, then shook my head. “Joe. Can the Manatee fly?”“What?” he asked.Sally jumped ahead to explain. “Their friend, the blonde one, she was kidnapped and taken on an airship.”Joe turned back to me. “So... what? You want to take the Manatee?”“We need to catch up,” I said.“You have your own ship,” he said. “It’s a lot nicer than ours.”“Ours isn’t made to go fast,” I said. “And it’s big besides. I think the Manatee might be faster.”“Well too bad, we’re not just giving you our ship.”I swallowed. “I’m asking you to come with us. Please?”Joe crossed his arms, feet set and jaw locked in place. And then Amaryllis huffed a rather dangerous sort of huff and stomped up in front of the boy. She reached out and grabbed him by the lapels with her talons to pull him close. “Listen to me, you stupid human boy. One of my best friends is in trouble. Now, Broccoli here is too kind a soul to just take your stuff to save our friend. I’m not.”“Are you threatening me?” Joe asked. His eyes were darting around, to Amaryllis, then to his friends who didn’t seem to know what to do any more than I did.“I’m saying that if it was one of your friends, I don’t doubt you’d do what you had to do to save them, right? Awen’s been kidnapped by some men that I plan to fry.” Sparks of electrical mana snapped and crackled in the air around her. “Do you want to join them?”“The Manatee’s never flown,” Joe said.Amaryllis let him go with a shove. “Let’s at least try, damn it.”I pressed a hand on her shoulder. I didn’t like seeing her so violent, but I could get it. I wasn’t like that, not to someone that I didn’t think deserved it, but I could get why she was so nervous.Joe licked his lips and looked to his friends.Sally jumped ahead and tore the tarp back off the Manatee. “Come on, Joe. Let’s get her ready.”Joe and Oda locked eyes, then he turned back to me. “You owe us one,” he said.I nodded. “If we can save Awen, then... I mean, even if we can’t... Just... please help us.” My hands came together and twiddled together, neither knowing what to do. “Please?”Joe sighed and turned to jump aboard the Manatee. “Oda, get the engine going. Sally, make sure the sails are set. Do we have enough fuel?”“Not much in the tank,” Oda said.“I’ll be right back,” Bastion said before taking off at a dead sprint.I jumped aboard the Manatee too. It wasn’t a big ship. In fact, I was pretty sure it didn’t count as a ship at all. I looked around for something to do, noticed how the ship had some stains and was on the wrong side of dirty in spots. So, I started tidying up.Oda gave me a strange look, but he didn’t raise a fuss. “Engine’s primed,” he said.We all paused as he pulled a cord. The engine spun, choked, and died before even coming alive. Oda pulled the cord again, and again, and again, to no effect. He dropped to his knees and started fiddling with something on the underside of the engine.“What’s wrong with it?” Amaryllis asked.“It’s an old engine,” Joe said.“I’m aware,” Amaryllis said. “I wasn’t asking about its provenance, I was asking what’s wrong with it.”“The spark runes are old,” Oda said. “Everything else is old too.”“Show me where they are,” Amaryllis said. When Oda pointed to the right places, she nodded and set her talons on the spots. “This model needs the cam turning while the runes go off, right? Good, pull on one. Three... two... one!”Sparks flew, the air filled with the tang of ozone, and the engine burped once, then twice, then it started to rumble and gurgle and shiver in its mounting. “It’s working!” Oda said.“Check your fuel intake,” Amaryllis said. “It’s dying off.”Oda jumped to it, quickly adjusting a few knobs and pulling at a lever. That didn’t hide the huge, proud smile he wore the entire time. “Got it! You know your engines.”“That’s an Albatross engine, of course I know it,” Amaryllis said with a huff.Just then Bastion returned, still running, though he now had a pair of cannisters held by his side, both of them sloshing with something liquid. He slowed down, barely even winded, and dropped one so that he could take the other in both hands. I rushed to help him carry it up. “What is this?” I asked.“More fuel. We’re going to need to push hard to catch up to anyone,” Bastion said as he passed me the second container. “Are we missing anything?”Joe muttered something, then sighed. “No. Come aboard. Oda, gravity down? We’ll need to push off the ground hard.”I nodded. If the engine could lower the weight of the dinghy enough to make it buoyant in the air, then we’d still need a strong push to get us up. Or something like that. I didn’t know how gravity engines worked. “I’ll get it,” I said as I rolled over the edge of the Manatee. Once on the ground, I moved under the ship, thankful that it was mounted on some logs.“What are you doing?” Amaryllis asked.“Is the engine running hard?” I asked.“We haven’t figured out how much gas we need to give it for anything,” Oda screamed.I bunched my brows together. “Then give it lots.” My feet came up, close to my chest, my back pressing into the ground and my feet planting on the hull above me. “Get ready!”If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.The engine roared louder, and I felt the ship rising just a tiny little bit. Then I shoved as much stamina as I could into my legs and let out a grunt of effort as I shoved as hard as I could.The Manatee launched up a few meters, and kept climbing.I rolled back onto my feet, then shot up into the air after it.I miss-timed my jump. For a moment I thought I’d miss the ship entirely, but then Bastion leaned over the side and grabbed my outstretched arm. I planted a foot on the hull, and he pulled me aboard where I rolled to the floor.“We need a second person on the paddles!” Joe said.He was at the ship's wheel, which was just a tiny thing near the front. Sally was moving to the back, but Bastion grabbed her arm. “Watch the sails,” he said. “Broccoli, take one of the pedals, I’ll take the other.”“No,” Amaryllis said. “Joe, how much experience do you have as a pilot?”“Um, none?”“I’m taking the wheel,” she said. “Get on the pedals with Broccoli and Bastion, rotate. Sally, give us quarter sails on either bow.” Amaryllis jumped behind the wheel and pulled at a lever that had the nose of the Manatee rising a little. “Get that prop turning!”It took a moment for everyone to settle down, but soon we were all in our positions. Amaryllis at the wheel, Joe standing awkwardly next to Bastion and I while we pedaled as if our lives depended on it. Oda stood by the engine and tapped and twisted things around it. Sally, who was surprisingly comfortable with heights, hung halfway off the side arranging the sails as Amaryllis ordered.Once the prop got going and we caught some wind, we started moving with surprising speed. The Manatee was a lighter ship, and that was obvious whenever a gust hit us at a strange angle. Still, that lightness, combined with Bastion and I going all out on the pedals, had us moving at a speed that the Beaver Cleaver just couldn’t match.“Broccoli! Which direction did the ship head off in?” Amaryllis asked over the wind.“West!” I said. “West! It was a bigger ship. Red and black hull.”Amaryllis nodded, reached down around her neck to grab her goggles, and slid them on. “Hang on!” she said.The Manatee dipped forwards, gaining speed as it lost altitude.“Sally! We need more sail!”“I can’t deploy on both sides at once!” Sally called back.“Joe! Help her!”Joe stumbled to the front and hung off the side near the port sails. “Ready!”“Deploy to full on three!” Amaryllis said. She was leaning forwards, looking at something that I couldn’t see from way off in the back. “One! Two! Now!”Sally’s sail unfurled first and the Manatee jerked to the side, almost rolling as it caught the wind and sent us off-course. Joe’s sail shot open a moment later and our flight righted itself. We caught some sort of updraft that had the Manatee shifting up and into the sky.“You never told me you were this good a pilot!” I called out.“You’d have me working more,” Amaryllis said.I blinked. Had we accidentally brought Rosaline disguised as Amaryllis along?“I see it!” Amaryllis said a moment later. “At least, I think I do. There’s a magical hotspot about two clicks that way!” she pointed off above and to our left. “We need more height.”I looked to Bastion to see how he was doing. The man wasn’t even sweating yet, which I couldn’t claim about myself. The constant pump of my legs had turned into a heavy burning sensation a minute into our flight and it was only getting worse. “Aim us up! We’ll give it more on our end,” I said.Any amount of sore muscles was worth saving Awen for.“Got it!” Amaryllis said.She pulled a lever down, and the little directional flaps on the back of the Manatee changed their angles so that we were pointing up.Bastion and I both grunted as we started spinning the pedals faster. The prop behind us started to hum just a little louder and we started to move a pinch faster.“What’s the plan once we’re near the bastard?” Amaryllis asked.“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” I said.“We’re not getting involved in a real fight,” Joe said.I wanted to argue, but he was probably right. This wasn’t his fight. “Can we cut across their deck and land on it?” I asked.“And then what?”I shrugged, then regretted it as it made me lose my timing with the pedals a little. I held onto the edge of my seat to stay in place. “And then we grab Awen and run. And if anyone gets in our way, we beat them up.”Amaryllis was quiet for a while, then she started chirruping in her strange birdy laughter. “A bun, a harpy and a sylph land on a pirate’s deck. It sounds like the start of a bad joke.”“Yeah, well the joke’s going to be on them. No one kidnaps my friends except for me!” I declared.Bastion chuckled. “No one’s going to believe my report,” he said.“Shows that you don’t know what being with Broccoli is like,” Amaryllis said. “The day we became friends she led an undead army against a squadron of cervid mercenaries to try and save me.”“Hey!” I said. “I didn’t just try. I totally saved you.”“I would have figured it out,” Amaryllis said.Bastion stared at us, then shook his head. The scallywags didn’t seem to know what to think either.The ship we were following grew larger as we approached. It was a nice ship, with a few old scars but a lot of character.Unfortunately, even as we came closer and its smaller details came to light, I couldn’t find it in my heart to appreciate the ship. Not after it had taken Awen.We’d just need to take her back.
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Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Three — No Plan, Just Survive Contact With the Enemy
Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Three — No Plan, Just Survive Contact With the Enemy We didn’t have a plan.In fact, I felt surprisingly weary, as if all of the excitement of the last few minutes was finally catching up to me, and for a moment, even thinking felt hard and sluggish. But that had to be set aside, at least for the moment.I huffed and puffed, breathing hard as I felt my stamina slowly depleting away with every thrust of my leg against the pedals.“We’re going to slow down, just a little,” Bastion said. “You’ll need your stamina.”I nodded, and when he slowed his pace, I followed suit. “Do you have a plan?” I asked.Bastion looked at me. “You’re the captain.”“I’m a very new captain,” I said.Amaryllis looked back at us, but she seemed just as uncertain as I felt.“This is such a disaster,” Joe muttered.“Alright,” Bastion said. “If you don’t mind, Captain Bunch, then I suspect I have a bit more experience with these matters.”“You’ve boarded ships full of enemies before?” Amaryllis asked, her tone biting and more than rude.“As a matter of fact, yes,” Bastion said. “As a Paladin of the Royal Inquisition, it’s my duty to ensure the safety of the crown and the sovereignty of the Sylph nation. I’ve fought pirates before. That has included boarding their ship. Once at night when they did not see us coming, once in a pitched battle. I suspect this will be more like the latter.”“That’s awesome,” I said as I looked at my friend with a new light.Bastion just nodded once. “Do you think you’ll be able to negotiate with the kidnappers?”I bit my lower lip. “Do you think I can?” That would really be the best case scenario.“No,” he said. “You’ve surprised me before, but even your diplomatic skills will be hard-pressed when boarding another’s ship to take away a prize they already think they’ve won. That, and we don’t have anything to negotiate with.”“We have violence. That’s often a very useful tool when it comes to negotiating,” Amaryllis said.Bastion grinned. ”That it is.”I wasn’t sure I liked that idea. Not at all. But then Amaryllis twisted something and we were rocketing up towards the ship above.“We’ll jump off once we’re above the ship. Aim for the main deck and clear out the area. Keep moving, don’t let them gang up on you. Toss them overboard if you can manage it,” Bastion said. He turned his attention to Joe and the other Scallywags. “Keep close to us. Below their line of fire. We might signal you over at the last moment.”“R-right,” Joe said. Oda and Sally tried to look determined, but they looked just a bit too scared for it to be genuine.“We can’t take over the entire ship. We find the VIP, we grab her, we leave. If you can damage the ship enough to make a chase difficult for them, then that would be for the best. Got it?”I nodded. “Got it.”“I heard you,” Amaryllis said.The ship was coming up fast. Its name, emblazoned on its side in proud golden letters was the Golden Grove’s Revenge. It was, at a guess, three times as long as the Beaver Cleaver and about as wide, with a long black balloon festooned with golden banners along its sides.The ship was one of those that looked like an actual naval vessel instead of something more futuristic, though it had two nacelles on its sides with large paddle wheels within, and two smoke stacks somehow poking through the balloon above to spew out black smog into the sky above.It reminded me a bit of those ships on Earth after the age of sail, but before steamships were the norm.“Get ready to switch!” Bastion said.He started pedaling faster, and I pushed some more to keep up. The extra push sent us zipping right past the side of the ship and had a few of the sailors aboard looking up in surprise.“Switch!”I got up and tried to move up, fighting the angle of the Manatee and the push of the wind we were slicing through. When I reached the middle, I felt Bastion grabbing my arm and pointing me towards the Golden Grove’s Revenge. “Aim for the deck!” he said.Nodding, I narrowed my eyes, placed a foot on the edge of the Manatee then tried to ignore the way my tummy flip-flopped inside me as we reached the apex of our arc and started to dip back down.It felt as if the larger ship was rising up to meet us, and the backdrop of the open sea far below did nothing to help my sense of perception.“Now!” Bastion said. He launched himself ahead, spinning in mid-air to unsheathe his sword. I saw him slice a rope apart and catch the top part to swing deeper onto the deck all in one smooth motion.Then I refocused and jumped after him. For a moment I was afraid that my little bit of hesitating would send me smacking into the ship’s side, but I landed on a bannister just below the rails along the deck. My arms windmilled and I only just managed to catch onto the rails above just as a burly man stuck his head out over the edge.“Who in the World are you?” he asked.It was very, very rude of me, but I reached out under the rails, grabbed the sailor by the scruff of his shirt, and put all of my weight into pulling him down as hard and fast as I could.His jaw cracked against the rail and I saw his eyes watering as I climbed up and vaulted over him. He wasn’t knocked out or anything, because that was hard to do, but he didn’t look like he was in the best of shapes.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.The deck was a wide, rather cramped space. There were a lot of devices sticking out of the floor, with spools of rope and little machines that I couldn’t identify at a glance. Those didn’t matter, not as much as the dozen men on deck. Most were unarmed, or if they did have something, it was little more than a knife or a length of chain.Bastion landed at the far end of the deck, both feet crashing into the chest of a man that went flying and giving him the boost needed to spin around in mid-air and land at a crouch with his sword by his side.Amaryllis swooped onto the deck, ran to a stop, then huffed as lightning started to race up and down her arms and made her feathers puff out.I cleared my throat, then did it again when the sound was drowned out by the whipping of the ship’s paddle-like propellers. “Hello everyone,” I said. “My name is Broccoli Bunch, captain of the Beaver Cleaver, and you kidnapped one of my best friends.”“Pirates!” One of the men shouted.“Technically, we’re not-” I began, but it was far too late.One of the sailors that had a knife ran straight for me and started to swing his weapon around. I ducked back, looked around for something to use as a weapon of my own, then on finding nothing, let loose a burst of Cleaning magic at the man’s face.He covered his eyes, which meant that he never saw it when Amaryllis zapped him full on in the chest.“Amaryllis!” I said.“He’s probably not dead,” she said. “We have bigger things to worry about!”I wanted to say a bad word, but refrained. One of the pirates jumped forwards, a rope swinging around him and snapping around as if it was a living thing. I couldn’t focus on anything but ducking and weaving out of its way until the man twitched and swung his arm around to smack one of his own friends with his rope.The telltale electrical snaps around his body hinted at who made that happen.“Head in the game, idiot!” Amaryllis said.I nodded. She was right. No matter what, the one thing I couldn’t do was nothing.Something caught my eye, and I found myself grinning as I rushed over to the side, rolled past a man with a club, then picked up the perfect weapon out of the sopping wet bucket it had been left in.The mop head splashed some soapy water across the deck as I brought it up and brandished it at the three men that had followed after me. A glance to the side and I saw Amaryllis firing bolts of lightning at a few sailors while another, connected to her by electrified strings, was whaling into a comrade with little finesse and less skill.Bastion, for his part, was holding his own against five men at once, spinning and twisting out of their path and leaving shallow cuts through clothes and skin with the tip of his sword. It looked almost as if he was just toying with them.Maybe I should have Inspected his level at some point.“Drop the mop girl,” one of the pirates said.I spun the mop around and gestured with the head of it in their general direction. One of them even moved out of the way of the splatter of water I sprinkled his way. “I’m warning you, I’ve got expert cleaning skills and I know how to use this. Just give us back our friend and we won’t have to do anything drastic.”One of them didn’t take my warning seriously, he raised his bat and came at me with a roar.I slid my foot towards the bucket, then flung it up so that it smacked him between the legs with a wet splat. Then when he started to trip forwards, I hooked the mophead around his neck and pulled him down.I let go of the mop with one hand and started to concentrate on the first spell that came to mind. I was halfway into building it when the next pirate rushed me. I smacked his hand aside with the end of the mop handle, then poked it against his throat.He stumbled back with a gurgle and cough just as I raised my hand towards the remaining pirate, now with nine fireballs spinning around it. “Mass Fireball!” I called.The pirate ‘eeped’ and jumped out of the path of the balls of fire. They shot out, spinning around like balloons losing their air. Four went over the edge and burst in the sky, but the others smacked into the ship and sails and spread sticky flames across the wooden surface.“Oops,” I said.The door to the cabins at the back burst open and a dozen more men rushed onto the deck. These weren’t just sailors with whatever they had on hand though, they were all carrying proper weapons. Swords and studded clubs, a few long spears with hooked spikes at the end and...“Crossbows!” I cried before ducking to the side and behind a barrel.A bolt thumped into the wood right next to my head. I looked over to Amaryllis to see her hiding behind the man she was puppetting and Bastion... sliced the two bolts fired at him out of the air with a motion of his sword so fast it was little more than a blur.“Those are arbalests, not crossbows,” he said.“Oh,” I said. “My bad.”“No matter,” he replied before shifting his shoulders and letting his wings beat a few times. “I could use some support. Distract a few of them so that I can take the brunt without having to watch my back.”“You’re kinda scary,” I said.“Who in the world are you?” I peaked over the barrel and watched as a very angry Golden Rogers stomped onto the scene. “You three, get those fires under control dammit! And you idiots, who do you think you are, boarding my ship?”I swallowed, then stood. I was about to give this bully a piece of my mind.
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