James was taking a risk with his part of the plan. They were all taking a risk obviously but there was an extra, calculated risk that he was taking. His transformation power had reduced in cool-down time and upped in duration as it levelled up. He could always transform into whatever animals he wanted but more powerful animals would be handicapped to bronze rank power. His mental catalogue of animals from this new world was growing all the time and he had the freedom to choose Earth animals as well. By using it on the attack it meant that he wouldn’t be able to transform into a sea creature to defend them from the water.
He was in the second buggy with Lucy and Kyra. After much discussion about what to do about the Serenity and making sure it was going to be safe they set it in motion in a large orbit around the cargo ship with the B.E.A.R.S.S. in place. James would miss Koda but it was a compromise of having all four of them on deck to reduce risk to the team while keeping the cargo secure. He was in the passenger seat and ready to go, knowing what animal he was going to use for his part of the plan on board.
………
Kyra wasn’t mentally in the buggy, she was in the backseat on the way to the raid but she had her eyes pinned to the interface screen that showed Teddy. Kyra had a power in her Mirror essence; Line of Mirrors, which allowed her to see through the eyes of her allies and vice versa, since getting to bronze rank it also added audio. Also since achieving bronze rank their interface was combining their different powers. Like what Lucy could do with her vision power that allowed her to livestream Lechuza’s view, Kyra could add a livestream in the corner of her interface to allow her to see what Teddy was seeing and hear what he was saying. She groaned when he started handing out pamphlets, realising thats what he had been doing when he took himself off alone while they were all doing prep the night before.
………
Lucy had been manically busy the night before for the prep. None of them had slept very well recently and she was feeling a little burnt out. She had sequestered herself in the crafting room, which was in fact one of the two spare bedrooms, the other of which was taken up by the cargo crate. She had been using the new table she had received from the magic society. She had wanted to break into the field of study that it accessed a lot more gently but time was against her. What the table allowed her to do was to reverse engineer and add magical enchantments to items more easily and with greater precision. She had worked long hours to discover how to place the enchantment on the second buggy they now drove.
At the wheel Lucy was amazed at how serene the underwater landscape was. Only a few meters underwater and they could see the light graduations as it went deeper. The open sides of the buggy were unnerving as it seemed there was nothing between them and the outside. They were all very careful to keep their limbs inside the frame. She had been working on the idea for a while to imitate the sand blocking properties on the buggies she had got from Teddy’s amulet. Originally the thought was to keep out the rain but with a little more study she could adapt it so they effectively had a mini sub that could go to a shallow depth. When they had time she would have to add the same enchantment to the other and see about making it more powerful so the subs could go deeper.
………
The sub approached the ship through the gloom. Kyra could see around the edges of her screen that she was using to keep an eye on Teddy acting a fool. She minimised the window to only take up a small amount of space in her view but she could still keep an eye on her errant husband. As the hull of the first pirate boat came into view she grasped Lucy’s shoulder in front of her then stood on her seat in a crouch. When they were abeam it she kicked off the seat hard and dived out the side of the buggy, she dolphin kicked through the water, swimming more gracefully than she ever had back on Earth.
She couldn’t find an anchor or ladder from the water to the deck of the boat. She flung a shard of mirror from point blank range. It dug into the hull with a dull thud. She winced and listened hard to see if she had been discovered. When she was sure she was in the clear she tested it. The shards weren’t sharp to Kyra and were solid enough for her to use them as handholds, she would have to wait until the distraction started before she would risk thumping more in and climbing up and over. She crossed her arms underwater, her long blonde braid floating like a Disney mermaids behind her and she thought about how grateful she was she didn’t need to breathe anymore while she waited.
………
Lucy and James travelled the length of the ship to the other pirate boat, once they got there they came to a stop under the surface, they both got out underwater and Lucy collapsed the buggy and before she could store it in a rune portal a shape loomed out of the gloom. Lucy thought to herself that this would be really bad timing to meet another monster from the deep and braced herself. It was a friendly looking manatee that came up and flipped a fin at them. It then swallowed the buggy model in one gulp. As Lucy panicked she saw the grin on James’ face and realised it was his storage power as the manatee swum back down and out off view.
They swum up to the hull and James changed his forearms into the purple tentacles that were becoming a combat favourite, he attached the suckers to the hull and Lucy clung onto his back. He stealthily climbed the side and they dropped onto the deck.
Just as they were getting ready to put their plan into action a pirate walked around the corner of the central structure and saw them. Before he had the chance to shout Lucy lashed out a pair of spells.
“Forget.”
“While the left hand waves the right makes the move.”
The pirate stood dumbfounded for a moment, confused why he was standing still. He forgot what he was doing and shrugged and turned around going back the way he had come.
[What was the illusion?] James asked Lucy.
[Just an empty bulkhead, I’m very glad I confused you as much as I did him, if you had moved then it would have shattered the illusion.]
[Hey I know better than to interfere with your mojo.]
Lucy switched to the main team chat.
[Everyone in position?]
She received three thumbs up emojis and cast her Fog of War spell.
………
As soon as she cast her spell James could see the fog, it was completely see through to him as an ally but he could see the extent of it. He gave her a quick peck on the cheek and transformed. He chose an earth creature to see how it would do in this environment. He hit all fours as his body morphed into the sleek black panther. The difference was there had never been a panther on Earth like this. It was still sleek and stealthy, looking like liquid power but huge. It’s head was level with Lucy’s and even though she wasn’t the tallest lady that was still big, his head was slightly ducked and the shoulders were even higher. It had bulging muscles rippling all the way down its body and its paws were huge. The tail swished and was the thickness of one of Lucy’s legs. He extended and retracted the claws which easily slid into the deck, they were each the size of chefs knives. James looked into Lucy’s eyes and she could see above the huge fangs the bright green eyes of a predator. He bopped his head forward and gave her another peck on the cheek and she itched her face after.
“I prefer the kiss without the whiskers, now go, help Teddy.”
He bounded away. The body moved like a deadly slinky. The speed that he could manage was terrifying. He overtook the pirate that Lucy had confused once with her Kansas City Shuffle and then again with her Fog of War. He barely slowed, batting the man in the legs breaking both his knees and throwing him sideways into a pile of ropes.
He didn’t waste time hunting on the pirate boat, he knew that was Lucy’s job, he knew he had to get to Teddy who had sucked in as many of the crew as possible to create the diversion. He hit the main ship and dived amongst the containers that formed a maze on the deck of the ship. The captain on the previous cargo ship explained it was to create fall back positions for incase they had an airbourne monster attack but to James it meant a game, and cats loved hunting games.
………
Kyra climbed up the outside of the boat with her mirror shards, once she was on the top deck she found two pirates blundering around in the fog calling for each other. She sensed one was iron rank and the other maybe had one essence. She summoned her sword and shield then called down an earth boulder from nowhere to hit the iron ranker in the chest as he was the one who had a the best chance of survival. She then hit the normal ranker in the head with her shield knocking him out. Using her terraform power she moulded the earth from the boulder over the two men, locking them back to back and solidifying it. She cast Life Aura on the iron ranker and found that he was going to be ok. She hit him also in the head for good measure to ensure he would stay there and moved on.
She moved forward silently but like a spartan warrior, shield up with sword arm elbow up and sword resting on the shield. They had an idea of numbers and could track them around the ship but not the strength of each combatant. Now she was in the flow she had two screens up on the interface. She had got rid of the view from Teddy, focussing on her own fight, the screens she had up were the minimap that, curtesy of Teddy, showed the enemy combatants in red and her family in blue. The other screen was the live view from Lechuza circling high above, she didn’t pay much attention to it unless the bird circled near her.
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Her objective for the mission was to get to the crew of the ship and secure them against being used as hostages. She didn’t search the pirate ship but as she hopped across onto the main ship she cut the tether from the giant harpoon with her diamond sword. As the only thing holding the boat and ship together they now slowly drifted away.
………
Teddy blurred into action as soon as the fog dropped. He ran up to the first pirate who had a cudgel in his hand, he used his Wraiths Dash to get in close and used a judo throw to smash the man into his partner standing next to him, his Fly like an Arrow power recognised the unfortunate man as a projectile and sent them smashing through the assembled crowd. He had hold of the cudgel and set about him, the first man he went up to he only had to strike twice, he received two instances of the buff Rapid and a phantom cudgel appeared to strike at the man while Teddy moved on, the phantom weapon would strike five times before disappearing giving Teddy enough time to be on not just the next target but two targets along, leaving more phantom cudgels in his wake.
Teddy was a menace to the disorganised rabble, he blurred anytime his Wraiths Dash came off cooldown and he rift portalled high to drop down on victims. He used air step to come from unexpected angels or to add more thrust to a blow. He danced around avoiding the bronze rank Captain as the obvious threat. He had his Shadow Lanterns focus solely on the Captain, providing annoying stinging damage and he was blinded twice.
Just as Teddy turned to face the Captain he finally summoned his dimension blade and clashed swords with the big man who had a honest-to-gods pirate cutlass. The big man smiled, pressing his advantage, obviously stronger than Teddy and pushing the deadly dimension blade onto the smaller man. He looked confused for a moment when Teddy smiled and a huge panther mouth clamped onto the captain’s free shoulder and chest from behind and flung him into a nearby container.
………
James had launched himself like a cruise missile across the ship, he could have travelled in a near enough straight line over the top of the containers but his animal form was begging to hunt. He zig-zagged through the maze, clear to him as walking along a pavement with the mini-map and the live feed from Lechuza. He played join the dots with the red tagged enemies on the map. Not stopping but crashing into them with a shoulder or hamstringing one with his claws.
He got one container away from the fight with Teddy and jumped up and held his position. He saw the incapacitated men all around. He used one that wasn’t out the fight to drop down on, landing silently but crumpling the pirate underneath him. His shoulder blades stood out high as the great cat stalked belly to the ground towards where the Captain was about to strike at Teddy.
Once they locked he saw his chance, he took a leap and clamped onto the shoulder of the man, the first time in this form he had sunk his teeth in and they easily penetrated the bronze rank skin. He twisted his head savagely, feeling the bones and tendons in the shoulder straining as he threw the surprised man against the container.
………
Lucy used her magic knuckledusters on the pirates on their boat. They were only iron rank but it was a little boost and most of the pirates were iron rank or lower anyway. She met one bronze rank pirate who had given her a moments pause, she locked him down with nightmares and illusions and beat him senseless.
She moved to the front of the ship and checked out the harpoon, marvelling at the design, magically launched it would track the intended target. She very carefully detached the harpoon from the main ship and went to the wheelhouse, she backed the boat off the ship and drove it down the length of it to the other pirate ship. She used the opposite side that Teddy had arrived which the pirates had been on, still trying to recover the Forth Stage Crystal dune buggy that Teddy had left floating as a distraction.
She met up with the other pirate boat that had floated slightly away from the main ship to find more incapacitated pirates left strewn around. She did a quick sweep then attached the two boats together and got around to tidying up all the pirates.
………
Kyra slid on her knees down the corridor, her sword held above her as the pirate came round the corner. He was holding his small round shield high and didn’t even see the woman below him until she had gone past him and savagely turned and cut behind both his knees, while he was falling backwards she used the flat of her blade to smash him on the forehead which also caused him to hit the back of his head on the deck knocking him out cold.
With the extra interface screens it was almost too easy, she had seen him coming and started her slide to meet him on the corner before she had even seen him. She had been surprised twice so far by pirates that must have been below deck the entire time they had eyes on and they hadn’t been red tagged. She thought herself lucky she was alone as at one point she had made a similar attack on an empty corridor, the red tag must have been above or below her and the map didn’t show three dimensions.
She could feel the heartbeats of the assembled crew through the decking using her Seismic Sense and knew she was close, she had figured out she was nearing the galley and that made sense that was where they were being held. She crept up to the next corner and held her mirror out around it. Two pirates were standing in a line guarding the doorway. She dismissed her sword and shield and summoned a long diamond spear, she whipped round the corner and flung the spear, it went clear through the two men through their hips. She gave a slight wince at the injury as that must have hurt. She rushed down the corridor after the spear and knocked both men out as they were incapacitated.
She felt through the door and felt the rapid heartbeats of the crew and no other auras, she broke the lock on the outside and opened the door. Inside, in front of the assembled crew was a pirate with a sword held up against a member of the crews throat in front of him.
“Don’t move! Or I’ll paint the deck with her neck blood!” The pirate said with quick panicky movements. He was in danger of killing her by accident as much as on purpose.
Kyra raised her hands. “Easy there cowboy, no one in this room needs to get hurt.” She desperately wished it was Teddy who was standing in her place now with his speed and she daren’t pull any of his powers now while he was fighting above, or Lucy with her illusions and nightmares. “Why don’t you calm down and lower the sword a little bit.”
“Calm down?! Calm down?! How many did you have to kill to get here you crazy bitch and you tell me to calm down?!”
“No ones died yet, we can still sort this out, just lower the blade, your going to hurt her.”
“Well maybe I mean to hurt her! Eh, how about that eh?!”
His hand jerked a little and that was too much for Kyra, she flashed her right hand and a slice of mirror flew from her hand. Time seemed to slow in front of her, she saw the blade of his sword bite into the girls neck as the pirate tried to duck. He moved almost directly into the slice of mirror that was going to hit him in the shoulder and it got him square in the eye.
Kyra launched forward, catching the girl before she hit the floor and hitting her with a Life Bolt to heal her neck, she was still covered with her own blood but at least now she was screaming with an intact voice while scrabbling at a perfectly healed neck. An older woman grabbed her and pulled her back holding her. Kyra turned as fast as she could once the girl was ok and out of danger, she hit the pirate with a life bolt to the chest and another to the eye when she pulled the mirror shard out. There was no noticeable effect from either. She hit him with a Life Charge, releasing Lucky to assist with the healing. The pirate flopped in her arms. Lucky nudge her with his nose. Forcing her arms away from the dead body and around his neck to lead her away.
………
“NO!” Teddy yelled unexpectedly after the pirate Captain had been flung. He had been watching Kyra’s feed and saw the moment she had pinned the pirate in the eye and knew it was fatal. He turned to the pirate captain and raised an arm.
“From beyond our reality let beasts become…”
Before he could finish the spell the body of the panther smashed into him sideways and he found himself on the floor with the creatures chest on top of him sideways. James then transformed back to himself.
“No Teddy, that would be too much. Go to her, I’ve got this.” As he spoke his face was the last thing to come back to normal and there was still an element of the cats face and fangs.
Without hesitation Teddy sprinting off to find his wife. James turned to the pirate captain who was getting to his feet and flinched when he saw the giant man with a cats face in front of him.
James put his hands together and twirled his Staff of the Everglades as it materialised in front of him. The pirate Captain sneered and launched at James.
James was also heartbroken by the fact Kyra had killed the man. Of all of them she appeared the most bloodthirsty and violent sometimes but it came from an understanding that with her powers she could fix the most mortal injuries. But she couldn’t fix death and that would weigh on her soul.
The Captain came straight at James, looking to get in close and take his measure in a duel. James smashed downwards, his Scurry power hadn’t activated until he changed back to his human form and he had increased speed and agility, he had his Standing Kodak bonus to his strength and his unarmed attack bonus; his Staff of the Everglades counted as an extension of himself. His staff smashed into the raised sword of the man and drove it back, the back of the blade although it was blunt penetrated into the mans clavicle, crushing it and driving into him. He dug deep into his mana and used the bronze rank effect of his Bare Arms power, his strength was boosted eight times, if he hadn’t pulled his blows he would easily have killed the pirate, as it was he left him a bloody mess on the ground after a combination attack.
He pulled a healing potion from his belt pouch and dismissively poured it over the crumpled, broken man. It was much less effective than drinking but would stop the man dying of his wounds.
………
The four Mitchells stood with the Captain of the cargo ship. Her name was Lembrush and she was the woman who had grabbed the bloody girl in the galley. They were supervising the loading of the pirates into a container that was designed to ship dangerous animals, it would be more than sufficient to hold them, even the bronze rankers until they got to the next port authorities. Three bodies lay inside another container covered by sheets, one separate to the others which were the cargo ship crewmembers that had tried to fight back when they were attacked.
“So it was all for naught, we’re running empty which I’ll admit is rare, there’s normally always some kind of cargo on board but there was nothing from the last port to our next destination. The ship itself is invaluable of course but there was nothing for a quick grab for the pirates.” She said to Teddy.
“That makes sense. They were obviously incompetent, the highest rank was bronze and only one per boat probably to keep the others in line.” Lucy replied.
“Even if they were incompetent what you did here was impressive. We can’t thank you enough! I have nothing to give you but rest assured from both myself and the company we will get a suitable reward to your holdings in Greenstone.”
“Please there’s no need.” James said. “There was no way we could have sailed past and not done anything.”
“Oh please, the months of mistreatment you saved us before they payed at least a kings ransom for the ship alone and then worked out what each of us were worth for ransom is not worth thinking about. When I file a report for this it will go straight to the top, from there I have no doubt it will go to the top of the adventure society then across and come back down to your branch. There’s no avoiding a reward.”
“Well thankyou. Are you sure you no longer need protection.” Teddy asked with concern.
“No no no, we’re changing course, we’re going to head directly to the next port which is much closer than the next nearest pirates could be, we won’t leave until we have a contingent of adventurers on contract.”
“Very well, we need to depart then, we are also in a hurry and delayed more than we should’ve.”
They made their way to the rear of the ship. They had recovered the Serenity and it was being towed behind the large cargo ship. Also being towed were the two pirate boats, carefully picked over by Lucy with the permission of Lembrush for anything that took her fancy; the two harpoon guns on the front conspicuous in their absence. The Mitchells shook hands with the Captain and jumped down to the Serenity one after another, all showing off a little as they each borrowed an air step in turn from Teddy.