Chapter XCIX: High Seas Chase

My neck almost cracked from how quickly my head turned towards the crow's nest.

"EMIYA!" I shouted up at him, because I didn't have that convenient Master-Servant bond. "THEIR FLAG, IS IT —"

"I don't recognize it!" he called back. "No sign of Blackbeard!"

I held the breath that I was tempted to let out. Okay. There was that, at least. My eyes weren't wrong. The Revenge wasn't in that fleet assembled across from us, which meant that we didn't have to suddenly worry about facing Blackbeard with a fucking fleet of Noble Phantasm level ships. We'd managed to dodge that particular bullet.

"I know I don't really believe in him," said Rika, "but thank God."

That didn't mean we were home free, though. The fact that Blackbeard wasn't among them didn't mean that the fleet that had just shot at us wasn't very much prepared and willing to sink our ship or that they were suddenly our allies. It just meant that they weren't automatically our enemies either.

"Is that really a good thing?" asked Ritsuka. "At least if it was Blackbeard, we'd know he wants Euryale alive. These guys don't look like they care either way."

"I-I'll protect us the best I can, Master," Mash promised, "b-but…against that many ships, all firing on us at once…"

Depending on how many cannons they were bringing to bear, it might be too much even for her. Even with less power packed behind every shot than Blackbeard's had been, enough cannons firing sequentially would wear her down — in terms of energy, if nothing else.

However we looked at this, fighting them was the worst idea. If it was just the numbers, then there were ways to mitigate that as a factor, draw them into a series of one-on-one engagements that would be to our favor, but when those were all a part of some Heroic Spirit's Noble Phantasm, that mean they outclassed us in terms of firepower, too, and the Golden Hind wouldn't be able to do any meaningful damage.

"I could shoot down the first barrage on my own," Arash warned, "but I can't do that consecutively. It takes me a minute to prep the arrows for that."

Emiya landed next to us with a soft thump.

"Unfortunately, I can't even promise that much," he said grimly. "If we knew who the Servant was, I might be able to take him out first, but in a fleet that big, there's no way of telling without an obvious flagship."

And on the defense, the Aias would only last so long, too, before it got overwhelmed, no matter how incredible it was.

We needed to negotiate.

I took three quick strides over to the wheel. "Captain Drake."

"Yeah?" She glanced at me askance. "You got any ideas there? Because this situation here looks a little hairy, and I'm not game to run up against a fleet like that all by our onesome."

"We need to surrender."

Drake's head spun towards me so fast that I wasn't sure she hadn't given herself whiplash.

"WHAT?"

But she wasn't the only one to shout that at me so incredulously, because it sounded like half of the ship had decided to join in with her, including the twins, Mash, and even a couple of the Servants.

"What's the big idea —"

"Are you out of your —"

"Just whose side are you supposed to be —"

"Senpai, I'm usually all for your plans, but —"

"Is this your idea of protecting —"

"EVERYBODY, SHUT UP!" Drake roared, and the furor died down almost immediately. She glared daggers at me and pointed with one finger my direction. "You. Explain. Fast. While we still have time before they sink us."

"We can't fight them," I said simply. "The only place we can retreat to is another four days of sailing away. We need to try and negotiate. The only way we can make that happen is if we surrender first."

Drake stared at me, silent.

"It might work," Arash added. "We'd have to be extremely careful and ready to run at any moment. But in the worst case scenario, it should tell us who's in charge over there."

"So we can attack them?" said Emiya. "You know, I'm pretty sure there's an article about that in the Geneva Convention."

Calliope, who had been so quiet that I had almost forgotten she was even still with us, snorted. "You mean the agreement that won't be signed for another four hundred years?"

Emiya shrugged.

Drake, without saying anything else to me, whirled back forward and barked, "Bombe!"

"Aye, Cap'n?" Bombe shouted back.

"Furl the sails!" Drake ordered him. "Make sure the cannons aren't exposed! And then…bring our flag down."

Bombe did a double take. "C-Cap'n? Are you sure?"

"Did I stutter?" Drake demanded. "Yeah, I'm sure! Get those sails furled up and that flag down off the mast! We don't wanna give those tossers any reason to shoot us all full of holes!"

"A-aye, Cap'n!"

Bombe turned to the rest of the crew. "Well, you heard her, you sorry sacks of shit! Hop-to!"

The crew jolted and then scrambled to follow the order, running about across the deck like mice in a trap. The ropes pulled taut as they took the sails from full to furled, and I watched the canvas steadily roll upwards as someone else went to bring down the flag that was flying from atop the center mast above the crow's nest.

"Chaldea is…technically a UN organization, right?" Ritsuka muttered.

"Yes, Senpai," Mash told him just as quietly. "The Chaldea Security Organization is a joint venture between the Mage's Association and the United Nations, which means we actually are beholden to international law."

"Remember when the Boss Lady made the others into Master-cicles?" Rika reminded him.

Ritsuka nodded. "I remember that it was against international law to do that without consent."

"And she said she'd worry about something so meaningless later," Rika said with a bit of humor.

"I hope you know what you're doing," Euryale told me scathingly. "We have no guarantee that these pirates will be any more reasonable than that creep, after all."

We didn't. All we had to go on was the fact that they'd been willing to fire a warning shot instead of just sinking us outright, and while that didn't prove anything, it might mean they were at least reasonable enough that this negotiation would work.

I hadn't quite figured out what we were going to do if it didn't. Like I'd told Drake, the only place for us to sail back to was another four days of sailing away, and it would put us right back where we were when we left it.

The air was tense and quiet as the sails were fully furled and the flag brought down. The ship slowed to a leisurely cruise, never quite reaching a full stop, and everyone seemed to be holding their breaths as we waited on the fleet to see if they would accept our "surrender." No one was willing to break the silence, like doing so would somehow ruin the whole thing, and the churning in my stomach had nothing to do with the rocking and bobbing of the ship under the waves breaking on its side.

After what felt like an hour, however, the fleet finally started to move, advancing on us as one, solid mass, all congregated around a single vessel at the front. Whether that meant anything about the Servant in charge, I couldn't say. If he was a man well-versed in tactics and strategy, that front ship would be a decoy, and the real flagship would come up from behind, after we were surrounded, and wait for us to make one wrong move.

It was how I would have done it.

"Is that it?" Rika asked anxiously. "Are they coming here to, you know, negotiate?"

"Looks that way," Drake said solemnly. She wasn't smiling. Her hands were gripped to the wheel like vices, her knuckles a stark white.

"How would we know for sure?" Ritsuka asked.

Drake's mouth quirked into a humorless smirk. "Five minutes from now, we'll still be here instead of swimming with the fishes."

Mash's hands curled into fists.

The fleet drew steadily closer. As it did, I could make out more of the details of the ships in it, and they were all fairly impressive. Warships, definitely. None of them were exploratory or cargo ships, they were all decked out with cannons and weaponry, ready to engage in a fight at any instant, and they were built like sailing fortresses.

Whoever this guy was, he was probably an admiral or something like that in life. A bigshot who led entire naval battle groups into combat and probably had quite the history behind him.

The fleet came within range of the Golden Hind's cannons, which put us well within reach of theirs. Despite the tension that was thick enough to cut with a knife, no one fired or was fired upon. Their cannons seemed to be out and ready to go, but the fuses were unlit and the threat they posed was aimed at an oblique angle — a miss, if it was fired at us, but still situated in such a way that it could change very quickly.

"Looks like your idea is paying off," Drake said grimly. "Whoever this guy is, he respects a surrender well enough, I'll give him that. Might be he really is willing to negotiate like a civilized person."

"Then it looks like that's our cue!"

My head whipped up — along with almost the entire rest of the crew — just in time to watch four bodies drop down from above, leaping from…

…Was that the Revenge?

"Since when could it fly?" Rika burst out hysterically.

So high in the sky that I had to squint to see it against the glare, the massive bulk of the Queen Anne's Revenge hung aloft as though it was suspended on invisible strings. Even before my eyes, it was sinking rapidly down, coming closer and closer to us with startling speed and casting an ever expanding shadow over the Hind.

Fuck. How long had he been following us? Had he actually done something as ridiculous as avoid our sensors by being too high for us to detect?

"Always!" Blackbeard shouted down from above. "You don't think I'd show off all of my trump card on the first go around, do ya?"

"Arash!" I shouted, and in the same motion, I ripped my Last Resort from its sheath and tossed it towards the deck.

Arash leapt into action, snatching my dagger out of midair, and he collided with a CLANG with the lithe, teenage Alexander, driving them both down onto the deck. The crew scattered and scrambled to get out of the way, giving the two of them wide enough berth to avoid being caught in the brawl.

I had no time to watch it, because the other three had dropped with him — Hektor, Anne, and Mary — and I had to rush as quickly as I could to get to safety as Mash stepped forward with her shield. The ping of Anne's first shot ricocheting off of its surface might as well have been a thunderclap for how closely I listened for it.

"Bradamante!" I called next.

As though she'd already been in motion before I even opened my mouth, Bradamante leapt into the fray, charging towards Anne, except Mary rushed to her defense with that ridiculously huge cutlass, and despite her small stature, she was very much an expert in its usage. She deflected Bradamante's opening strike towards the side and pressed the opening, and even though she wasn't quite good enough to land a hit like that, she didn't need to be, because Anne had lined up a second shot in the interim and forced Bradamante to take a step back, too.

It would almost have been an amazing sight to watch, the way the two of them weaved around each other, like they were dancing partners out on the floor, if only they weren't our enemies. Instead, it was a problem, because it meant that Bradamante couldn't get in for a decisive blow — when Anne's shot was deflected, Mary swooped in to attack the opening, and when she had to retreat, Anne was there to give her the distraction she needed to do it.

They covered for each other like they'd been doing it their whole lives. All things considered, maybe they had been.

Even when Artemis jumped in to lend a hand, they were just too coordinated, and Bradamante and Artemis simply weren't, because the sum total of their time fighting side by side was against the wyverns on that island. At the very least, however, the sides seemed evenly matched enough that I wouldn't have to worry too much about Bradamante and Artemis losing.

I chanced a quick glance past them towards Arash, but nothing had changed. He and Alexander were still going at it in a lightning fast melee that I could barely see at all, and I had no hope of keeping track of who was doing what specifically. Their arms were just blurs to me.

The crew, at least, had managed to find places to hide or just avoid the fighting. I was a little ashamed to admit that I didn't pay that as much attention as I should have been. The approaching fleet from earlier had slowed down, like it was waiting to see what happened first, so we couldn't expect any help from them.

My eyes flitted about, trying to keep some semblance of connection to each of the fights. Emiya had vanished, no time to think about where. Anne, Mary, Alexander, with Blackbeard still on the Revenge. That left —

I whirled around. "Hektor!"

He appeared amidst us much as he had before, smiling ruefully. He'd used the chaos of the other fights to try and sneak up on us again. "Guess I've been found out."

He whipped his spear around as the others turned to face him, and Bellamy went flying with a long, drawn out, "Shit!" He tumbled over the railing and into the water with a splash, much as I had a few days ago.

Mash gasped and spun about. "Miss Taylor!"

Hektor's spear lashed out again and found purchase on Mash's shield, and with her footing precarious, she couldn't stop herself from being forced back a step. In that brief moment, he spun back around to face Asterios, who towered over everyone at his full height. Those massive halberds were gripped tightly in his hands.

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"I'm gonna need you to step aside, big guy," said Hektor casually.

"No," Asterios rumbled like the ocean tide.

Hektor sighed. "I guess if that's the way it's gonna be…"

He whipped back around, lashing out with a strike that landed on Mash's shield with a thunderous CLANG, and I saw behind him Asterios lift one of those enormous halberds to attack Hektor's unprotected back.

Except Hektor wasn't that sloppy. He would never be that sloppy.

"Don't!"

I couldn't get the word out fast enough. The halberd came down, and I caught the barest glimpse of Hektor's grin as he spun back around again. The halberd missed and slammed down into the wooden boards of the Golden Hind's deck — Drake's furious squawk was so unimportant right then that I barely even noticed it — and Hektor stepped into Asterios' guard as he cocked his spear back and magical energy surged.

"Durindana Pilum."

Blood splattered across the deck. Asterios stumbled backwards, a keening groan tearing from his lips as one of his halberds clattered to the deck limply.

"No!" Euryale cried. "Asterios!"

"Asterios!" Mash echoed. She made to jump to his aid.

But she was forced to stop after a single step when Hektor turned his spear back our way. "Step out of line," he said without looking, "and I'll take the chance you give me to kill those Masters of yours."

Mash stepped back, teeth gritting and hands clutching tight to her shield.

"This guy," Rika growled, "he really doesn't fight fair, does he?"

No, because fair was for knights in their honor duels and kids playing games. On the battlefield, you did what it took to win, even if it was distasteful.

"Now…" Hektor turned his spear back towards Asterios. "I don't like doing it if I don't have to, but you're going to make me kill you before you give up that goddess, aren't you? And after I controlled my Noble Phantasm to avoid a lethal blow, at that."

Asterios, bleeding from a new wound that had been drilled into his body, growled and glared, hunched over. One arm sagged, rendered almost useless by the gaping hole through his shoulder. Hektor sighed.

"Guess there's no getting around it, huh? Oh well. You brought this on yourself."

"Rika, Ritsuka," I said lowly. "Get ready."

They glanced over at me, but they had the good sense not to ask me to explain. There wasn't time for it, right then.

Hektor cocked his arm back. "Stand still. If I aim this wrong, I'll accidentally kill that goddess, and then I'm in big trouble."

Asterios' lips pulled into a vicious snarl.

"Durindana…"

"First Aid!"

"Momentary Reinforcement!"

"First Aid!"

Two First Aid spells hit Asterios, stitching up at least part of his wound, at the same time as Rika's Momentary Reinforcement increased Emiya's strength so that when he came down on Hektor from above, his overhead chop nearly ripped Hektor's spear right out of his hands.

But only "nearly." Despite the power behind Emiya's attack, bolstered by Rika's spell, Hektor still managed to keep a grip on his spear and avoid taking any damage.

"Damn," said Emiya as Hektor backed away a step warily. "I thought for sure that opening was big enough for me to land a decisive blow, but it looks like you older heroes really do know what you're doing."

Hektor's mouth twitched into a smile. "Comes with the territory, I'm afraid."

He glanced around, taking stock of his situation, but the tables had decidedly turned. Even with Asterios still injured, this was now a three on one fight. If Mash stayed back, we were still in an advantageous position, because he was wedged between Emiya and Asterios with nowhere to go.

"Well now," he said mildly. "This is a pickle, isn't it?" His eyes flicked towards the other fights, still happening in the background, but too fast for anyone to take advantage of a moment of distraction. "Three on one, and me without any backup. Seems like the right idea here is to retreat."

My eyes narrowed on him, and when I saw his skill spread, my lip threatened to curl. Disengage. Of course. There really wasn't anything stopping him from cutting and running whenever he wanted.

"You're just going to run?" Emiya taunted. "So much for the vaunted pride of a Heroic Spirit."

Hektor huffed a short laugh. "That might have worked on another hero, but for an old man like me, pride doesn't mean too much. I know better. Pride just gets you killed." He hummed thoughtfully. "On the other hand, my boss is gonna be super pissed off if I fail to bring that goddess back a second time, so I'm not so sure I can afford to leave."

He sighed. "Guess there's nothing for it, then. Hey, Mister Archer, you wanted to see my Noble Phantasm for yourself, right?"

He hefted his spear again. Magical energy surged. Emiya choked.

"This close range?" he demanded. "Are you out of your mind? You'll be destroyed, too!"

Hektor smirked. "Then I guess you'll just have to block it."

He cocked back his arm, and Emiya threw one of his out.

"Durindana —"

"RHO AIAS!"

"Pilum."

A barrier marked by seven flower petals bloomed in front of us, just in time to block…a length of wood. It bounced against the barrier impotently and flopped onto the deck. Emiya's face reflected the stunned disbelief that churned in my stomach.

And instead, Hektor turned around, stepping towards Asterios, and lifted up his sword, the blade glowing a bright, brilliant white.

He'd tricked us.

"Asterios!" Mash shouted.

"No!" cried Euryale.

"Durindana —"

The sword came down.

"Spada."

Except a black shape threw itself between them, hand raised, and Calliope shouted something — over the roar of Durindana searing through the air, I couldn't hear what. Light flashed, bright and blinding, and I had to close my eyes against it so that all I heard was the tinkle of shattering glass and the crack of splintering wood.

I opened my eyes again as soon as I could, blinking the spots from my vision, to find Calliope gasping against Asterios, leaned back against his chest as he held her with his nearly useless arm. Red blood coated almost the entirety of her front, staining her dress a dark maroon, but she was still in one piece, still alive, even if she was grievously wounded.

Hektor himself was untouched, but he had stumbled back a step as though she had clocked him upside the head. He looked almost confused for a moment, until he laid eyes back upon Calliope.

"You."

Calliope sneered. "Me."

BANG came the retort of a pistol firing, and Hektor jumped out of the way of the shot that bit into the deck where he'd been standing. Bellamy, soaked head to toe and hanging from the rigging, cocked the hammer of his pistol back again.

"Asshole!" BANG! "Who even does that?" BANG! "Learn a new trick, would you!" BANG! "Mangy old dog!"

Hektor deflected or dodged each shot, his sword now a spear once more. Each round bit into the wooden planks beneath us, gouging more holes out of the Golden Hind.

"STOP SHOOTING UP MY GODDAMN SHIP!" Drake roared.

Hekter leapt up and landed on one of the railings, balanced there like some kind of acrobat. "I guess it really is time for me to get going, seeing as I'm so badly outnumbered. Before I do, though…"

His eyes slid over to Asterios, who was still clutching the bleeding Calliope, and I caught his intent immediately.

"Emergency Evasion!"

I snapped the spell off just as Hektor's boot came down where Asterios' head used to be — except it didn't, and Hektor landed instead on the very back deck, where Euryale was now undefended, because I had just given him a clear shot at her.

My stomach churned and fire flooded my veins. I'd been played.

Euryale screamed when he scooped her up under one arm and struggled to get free, but no amount of pounding her tiny fists against his thigh would be enough to make him drop her. Even if she was like Stheno and had been made stronger by becoming a Servant, it still wasn't enough to make up the gap in their abilities.

"Emiya!" Rika shouted like he wasn't right in front of us. "Get her back!"

Emiya bent his knees, prepared to throw himself at Hektor and rescue Euryale. He looked just as furious at being tricked as I was.

"Careful, now," said Hektor as he positioned the blade of his spear next to Euryale's throat. She froze, staring wide-eyed down at it, and so did Emiya and the rest of us. "My hand slips while I'm defending myself and we're both screwed."

"Damn it," Emiya breathed. "You really are a bastard, you know that?"

Hektor offered us a lopsided smile. "I'm just doing what my Master ordered."

A thousand different retorts sat on my tongue. A scathing comment about the Nazis and Nuremberg was in there somewhere, and I didn't particularly care just then whether Command Spells and the Holy Grail made that comparison less applicable. There were plenty of Servants who would have stuck to their principles even then.

I didn't get the chance to use them. Hektor leapt up and towards the crow's nest, landing with pinpoint precision on the very top of the mast. My hand rose up to track him as a spider's thread snapped in my mind's eye and my magic circuits flipped on.

"Gandr!"

"Senpai!" Rika said, panicked, thinking that Hektor might make good on his threat.

But my Gandr spell splashed uselessly against his body, flowing off of him like water off a duck's feathers. About what I'd expected, considering the level of his magic resistance skill. Nothing I could do without a week's preparation would be able to do anything to him at all.

Damn it.

Like he hadn't even noticed my attack, Hektor leapt up again, and the Revenge's anchor dropped down just in time for him to reach up and snag it so that Blackbeard could pull him back up. He looked down at us from there, his feet balanced on the anchor flukes, tilted his head, and offered us a mocking salute.

"Emiya —"

"Against someone on his level, a clean shot is too much to ask for. He dodges the wrong way, I'll hit Euryale instead."

And that would defeat the whole point. Fuck.

My mind raced for options, but there weren't many. My prosthetic's phantom limb wasn't a bad idea, but it wouldn't be strong enough to do anything meaningful, not like it had against Medusa. There was no way I could do something as ridiculous as pry his fingers off of Euryale one at a time, and even something like that would probably be blocked by his Magic Resistance.

But my prosthetic wasn't the only tool in my arsenal. Da Vinci had recently given me a new one, and while it hadn't worked inside the Labyrinth, this wasn't inside the Labyrinth, was it?

Not Siegfried, this time, not Jeanne Alter or Shakespeare. This required both precision and overwhelming firepower. When I tapped into the reserves inside my mystic code, I focused on the Servant we needed, and lines of light traced themselves across my body.

"Aífe —"

BANG

Something slammed into me with the force of a freight train, and for a wild fraction of a second, I thought I might actually have been shot, because as my body went flying, I caught a brief glimpse of Blackbeard's smoking gun pointed down at me. Whether he knew what I'd been about to try or just didn't want to give me the chance to try and be clever, he'd stopped me from summoning Aífe.

Just like in the movies, the sound of a ricochet pinged in my ears.

And then I hit the railing, and whatever breath was left in my body was driven from my lungs. As I collapsed to the floor, a distant part of me felt nostalgic. I'd had my back broken against Leviathan, too, hadn't I?

"Miss Taylor!" Mash cried.

"Senpai!" the twins echoed her.

Two heartbeats after I landed, I sucked down a gasping breath and realized, no, my back hadn't been broken, but it certainly felt like it. Even the act of breathing itself sent shoots of pain up and down my spine, like every vertebrae had been doused in acid and then shoved back into my body.

"First Aid!" a pair of voices shouted, and sweet relief rocketed through my body, easing away the pain of my wounds. It still took me an extra couple of seconds to gather myself and shakily pull myself back to my feet.

Mash had saved my life, I realized. She pushed me out of the way of Blackbeard's bullet. Even if she hadn't been gentle, the alternative was probably a hole the size of a grapefruit blown through my body.

Up above, those handful of seconds I'd been down had been enough for Hektor to climb back up aboard the Revenge's deck, and the instant he had, Blackbeard leaned over the side, stuck his fingers into his mouth, and let out a sharp whistle.

"Time to go, ladies!" he called down. "The train's leaving, and we ain't got no brakes once we get up to speed! Move it or lose it!"

Immediately, Anne, Mary, and Alexander broke off from their fights. Mary disappeared without fanfare, but Anne took a quick second to give Bradamante a salute and a wink, saying, "See you later, cutie! Next time, I'll be sure to plunder some of your booty!"

She was gone, too, before Bradamante could sputter an indignant response.

Alexander was the last to leave, laughing as he disengaged from his fight with Arash. "This was fun, Mister! Maybe next time, we'll be able to fight more seriously!"

I was tempted to snap off a Gandr shot against him, too, but even at rank D, his magic resistance was enough to completely nullify it. It would be pointless. A waste of energy.

Arash attempted a last second blow, but Alexander vanished, and my dagger cut through empty air instead. A scant few seconds later, he rejoined the rest of his team up on Blackbeard's ship, and the instant they were all back on board, the Revenge lurched into motion and started to fly away like it was sailing on wind currents instead of water ones, retreating away from the fleet that had stopped advancing — probably to watch the fight and figure out what was going on before getting involved.

"They're getting away!" Rika said unnecessarily.

"No!" Asterios cried. He attempted to stand, like he was going to chase after them, but Calliope gasped in his arms, and he looked down at her, torn.

"I can stop them," Emiya said hurriedly, "but I can't guarantee I won't hit Euryale in the crossfire. Master —"

"No!" And this time, it wasn't just Asterios who shouted that out, it was half the crew, Rika, Ritsuka, and even Mash.

"Like hell!" Drake added. "I wanna shoot bastard down as much as anyone, but we made a promise to that little lady, and I aim to fucking keep it!"

"If you have any better suggestions, I'm all ears!" Emiya snapped back.

"We have to follow them!" Ritsuka said. "Get Euryale back!"

If for no other reason than that Blackbeard didn't have anything else he really wanted from us, then yeah, we had to follow them. There was no telling where he'd go when he had everything he wanted, or what he'd do afterward.

Even if I didn't like her, I wasn't about to let him do whatever he wanted to her.

"Captain Drake!" I said. "Turn us about!"

Drake spun the wheel. "Aye! And get the sails down, Bombe, we need as much speed as we can get!"

"Aye, Cap'n!" Bombe shouted back.

The ship lurched back into motion as the sails unfurled to full, but I didn't need to be an expert sailor to see that the Revenge was moving away fast and we probably wouldn't manage to even finish turning before we lost sight of it.

"Hope you got some more plans stuffed away," Drake said, "because even if we had the wind on our side, it don't look like that guy's gonna wait for us to catch up!"

Asterios groaned.

"It's because it's a Noble Phantasm," Mash said. "Since it doesn't have to obey the laws of normal physics anymore, it can even do something as incredible as fly. If only the Golden Hind could do the same."

"I'm sorry," Rika said a little hysterically, "I forgot to bring my jar of fairy dust!"

Arash appeared amidst our group without warning. "I'll be able to keep track of them for a while, but only so far, and if they go above the clouds…"

It wasn't like I could send my ravens out either. Anne would snipe them out of the sky the instant she saw them, and I had no illusions I could keep them hidden from her for long enough to make it count.

"Shit!" Drake grunted. "Sure would be a convenient moment for this wish-granting Grail of mine to pull off a neat trick!"

A beat passed. Nothing happened.

"Was worth a shot…"

"Captain Drake!" Bellamy called as he leapt off of the rigging where he'd been hanging. He landed with a wooden thump on the deck with us. "Captain! I-I have a solution! W-with your permission, Captain, I'd like to —"

"If it can get us up there after that asshole?" Drake said, cutting across him. "Permission fucking granted!"

Bellamy blinked for a moment, stunned, and then shook his head as though to clear it away. "R-right! Then, um, with your per — I-I mean, Captain, I need the wheel!"

Drake stepped away from the wheel immediately and gestured at it impatiently. "Get to it already! Just don't fucking break anything else, you hear? My poor ship has already been through enough today!"

Bellamy hesitated a moment longer, then stepped up and took hold of the wheel. "Right. O-of course. Don't break anything. Got it."

He took a deep breath, then let it out slow. His grip on the wheel tightened.

"Whydah Gally!"

And a golden glow lit up across the ship, seeping through the cracks in the wooden boards and filling in the holes and gouges that had been carved into it during the fighting. The Golden Hind groaned as glittering, ephemeral patterns etched themselves onto every surface, tracing a mimicry of wood grain and polish — no, I realized, as a second ship laid itself over the Hind like a shell, supporting what was still there and replacing the parts that were missing.

"What in the name of…" Drake whispered.

Like an extra armor plating, the Whydah continued to materialize. The sails on the mast shimmered and suddenly filled, like a strong wind had caught them, and an unfamiliar flag sprang to life at the top, fluttering in a nonexistent gust. Although I couldn't see it well from that angle, a figurehead described itself in gleaming lines on the front of the ship, and I imagined the words "WHYDAH GALLY" had probably formed on the back.

And then, at last, ghostly oars sprouted near the waterline, and with a splash and a lurch —

"Holy shit," said Rika. "We're actually flying!"

— the Golden Hind leapt from the water and into the air.

"Fuck me running!" Drake threw herself towards the side and leaned down over the railing, looking below us as the ocean dropped away. "We really are!"

Murmurs of amazement came from the crew, and not a few of them suddenly found something to hold onto, like they might be thrown off at any moment. Bellamy, ignoring all of this, turned the wheel, and as though it was on a pivot, the ship turned with it as it rose higher into the air. Ahead, the Revenge was higher still and further away, but we were quickly eating into its lead.

"This is what it means to be a pirate!" Bellamy shouted. "The will to seek out your fortune, no matter the cost, and the freedom to go wherever adventure leads you, whether that's land, sea —"

The oars rowed like the flapping of a bird's wings, and whenever they came down to push us forwards, they threw up a spray of golden sparks as though they were moving through an invisible ocean.

"— or sky!"

"That's what I'm talking about!" Drake hollered. "Kid, you may be an awkward little duckling with stars in your eyes, but goddamn if you ain't as true a pirate as I've ever laid eyes on!"

Her crew roared their agreement. Bellamy's grin was so broad and so bright that it threatened to split his face in two. As though bolstered by her praise, the ship put on an extra spurt of speed, trailing glittering dust in its wake.

The Revenge grew steadily larger in front of us as we gained on it, starting far ahead and above and slowly leveling off as we climbed higher. Like the reverse of the other day, when we watched it grow larger as it chased us, now we chased it down, following behind it as it fled. Where, I couldn't be sure, but unless I got the angle wrong, it might actually have been retreating towards the storm we'd used to escape them.

In some strange twist of irony, it looked like Blackbeard was going to try to use it to escape us.

Suddenly, in a motion so fast I almost couldn't see it at all, Arash pulled out his bow and loosed an arrow, and halfway to the Revenge, it burst apart and vanished as though it had hit some invisible barrier. No, I realized almost as soon as I thought it, as though it had collided midair with another projectile and they had each destroyed each other.

Another projectile, like maybe a bullet.

I glanced at him sharply. "Was that…?"

"Anne," Arash confirmed. "She was aiming for Bellamy. I think it's safe to say they know we're following them."

"But…" Rika's nose scrunched up. "They have Euryale. Why wouldn't Blackbeard just blast us to smithereens with his cannons?"

A good question. Why wouldn't he just turn his Noble Phantasm on us and be done with it? It wasn't like he'd been shy about the idea the first time we ran into him, and that time, Euryale had still been on board the ship with us. He should be even less worried about it now that he had her in his grasp.

Arash loosed another arrow, destroying another bullet.

Unless he couldn't.

"Maybe he can't," said Ritsuka, like he was giving voice to my thoughts. "Even with the Grail, he's supporting four other Servants and using his ship to fly. There's got to be a limit on how much energy he can put out at once."

"So he can't do all of that and fire his cannons at the same time," I concluded, because that was what I'd been thinking.

"I-I can confirm that," said Bellamy. "Flying like this…takes a lot of energy. Sh-ships aren't meant to fly, you know?"

"Someone's never played a Final Fantasy game," Rika muttered.

"Can you do it, Sam?" Ritsuka asked.

Bellamy's smile grew tight. "H-ha! Just what are you even asking? I'm not about to let myself fall apart when Captain Drake needs me! You just focus on getting that friend of yours back, and I'll worry about keeping this ship in the air!"

Despite his bravado, however, the strain was obvious in his expression, his posture, in the bead of sweat that curled down the side of his face — he was a stray Servant with a limited supply of magical energy. He would not be able to keep this up indefinitely.

My lips drew tight. We hadn't really brought it up before, because things kept getting in the way and distracting us, distracting me, but there really wasn't any good reason why we shouldn't offer him a contract, was there? If only so that he had a little more support for stuff like this.

This might not be the best time, but it might be the only chance we'd get.

Before I could step forward, however, Drake was already taking the two short strides she needed to reach him, and without fanfare, she pulled her own Grail from her chest and offered it up to him.

"Here."

Bellamy blinked down at it, gobsmacked. "That's…the Holy Grail! And you're just gonna…hand it over?"

"You need it more than I do, don'tcha?" she said pointedly. She waggled the Grail impatiently. "Better you use it now to keep this tub afloat than me sitting on it while we drop out of the sky."

Bellamy looked ready to start crying, or maybe like he had just come down on Christmas morning to find everything he'd ever asked for sitting under the tree, including the puppy he'd spent years begging for. He extended one hand and set it down atop the one Drake was holding the Grail with.

"Aye, aye, Captain!" he said thickly.

There was a flash of light from the Grail, and Drake hissed, recoiling, but when it had passed, Bellamy stood there, strong and firm, somehow a little more solid, a little more real than he had been a moment ago, like his outline had grown sharper, crisper. The gold of his many pieces of jewelry even seemed to glint brighter than before.

Suddenly, the ship beneath our feet shifted. The glow that suffused the wooden boards and planks transformed, solidifying, and became traceries of golden embossing in the pattern of waves that snaked over nearly every surface. The holes and the gouges and the damage that the light had been patching filled in and became whole. The image of a red dragon stitched itself across the mainsail, set on a blue background. The oars twisted and merged, fusing together into a pair of skeletal wings that glittered with the same designs that coated the rest of the ship.

And Bellamy laughed, absolutely delighted, as he spun the wheel about and the ship put on another spurt of speed. The Revenge loomed ahead, almost within striking range.

"Well, hell, boys!" Bellamy crowed, standing taller than I'd yet seen him. If you'd told me he actually grew an inch or two, I might have believed it. "Looks like I'm officially one of you, now! Part of the crew and everything!"

He grinned, and there was a tinge of ferocity that hadn't been there before.

"Whaddya say we go and take back what was stolen from us?"