Reunion

[thewunderkind]

Why hadn't they done this before?

Last poddrop would have been much more tolerable parading around pretending to be pirates than just waiting for people to appear and guide them around the ship. Besides, there was a pretty good crew now, of course they wouldn't need a Wunderkind or and Overlord's help to do that all the time! They could introduce themselves in the coms later if they felt like it and leave all this free time that barely anyone used for the sensoriums. It wasn't like anyone they knew would wake up anyway...

As they had planned, they had spent the last hour with Pram outside to keep guard, not knowing what she'd been doing, engaged in a pirate battle. There was a huge ocean spanning as far as the eye could see, with two large pirate boats stuck in the middle, swaying around with each large wave. Both ships had taken damage, and Lash's deck had a few holes on it, but were still standing. Each one had sails with the colors of their occupant's; Lash's was a dark purple, her flag sporting Black Hole's symbol, with a metal figurehead of Flak as her bow. Zetta's sails were in dark red and black, a live buzzsaw as his figurehead, his pirate symbol (pirate and crossbones with flaming hair on top) flew as the highest flag on the ship . Rows of cannons waited below for her word as the Netherworld's hell-penguins struggled to keep up with her crazy demands of firing every few minutes. Sometimes she would violently take a Prinny and shove it into a new cannonball hole that had appeared to stop the water.

Dressed in what could never pass for proper pirate attire, Lash raised her cutlass, as she held on to the nearby rope, pointing her sword at the other ship before lowering it.

"Fire!"

Another row of cannonballs flew into the sky, accompanied with a prinny or two into the water to attack the ship below. Most of it was falling short of her target's ship, but causing large splashes of water to get sent to the other side. Lash was taunting him, really. The Wunderkind had never done a traditional ship battle, but her crew of Prinnies we getting ordered around like no one's business as she probably abused fake pirate words that would make Drake get angry with her.

"Arrr! Don't want t' give up yet? Next time I won't miss and you're ship will sinking into t' ocean! I'll be releasing my secret weapon!"

Terrible abuse.

Comments

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Arr!" Zetta shouted back, lazily slapping aside a cannonball that had been about to dent his incredibly fancy hat. "Ye speak brave words, Pirate Queen, but ye'll be singin' a different tune come my victory, yaaar!"

He paused expectantly, then jabbed the Prinny on his shoulder roughly in its gut. "Ow, dood!" it said.

"Say your damn line," Zetta growled.

"Aww, dood, do I have to? This is really humiliating!"

"You know what's more humilating? Being AMMO!"

The Prinny sighed. "Pieces of eight, dood."

"Hyaaaa ha ha ha ha!" Zetta said, and with a gesture caused the fuses of a dozen cannons to burst into flames. Grapeshot and debris burst out to hail into Lash's ship's rigging.

[thewunderkind]

Two of the cannonballs caught Prinnies on the bridge as they flew off the ship and into the distance. Lash ducked just in time before one hit the place she was standing on.

"I grew tired of this." Time for the big dramatic debut of...

"Release the Kraken!" Pause. "Arrr! Tee hee hee."

This was the result of Hit Girl had showing Lash some of the pirate movies after the little pirate escapate. Lash was going to steal everything from them, except her version was less action-packed movie and more like how someone like her imagined sea-creatures. Having a single body instead of tentacles was much more effective to move around in the water, anyway.

The large terrible eye-less monster reappeared near Zetta's ship and gave it a swat of its tail.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"DEPLOY THE BAIT!" Zetta bellowed into the rigging.

One of the crossbars of the mainsail shot outwards telescopically. The rope attached to it end looped around a Prinny and yanked it outwards to dangle temptingly over the water, an irresistible treat for any sea monster.

[thewunderkind]

Like a scene out of a dinosaur movie Lash had never watched, the Prinny moved around (or tried too anyway) as the creature below began to stick out, sniffing it. And then-

"Dooood!"

The Prinny was gone in a single gulp as the Kraken finished up the rope line like a single strand of spaghetti, descending again. It looked around (how it did that without eyes was anyone's guess), eagerly for more and realized there were some...on both ships.

"I swear I will cut your head off if you're thinking about doing what you're thinking!" Lash warned, forgoing the pirate lingo, branding her sword at it like she really would. Giving out a frightened squeak, the Kraken looked up at Zetta's ship again instead.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"That was the only tasty Prinny on the ship!" Zetta called back at it. "All the other ones over here taste like crap! And I mean that literally! Lash has all the delicious Prinnies on HER ship"

[thewunderkind]

So either between getting its head cut off by the person who called and created him, or eating crappy Prinnies...

The Kraken was confused! It hurt itself in confusion! The bit of the tail passed too close to the front of the ship and it was nearly sliced off, surprisingly not bleeding at all.

"...."

Okay better give it some commands or whatever.

"Come on! Arrrgh! Use ye head to attack the ship!" The creature obeyed and...did it on the front of the ship. Right where that giant spinning blade was.

"Well..that was pretty dumb thing."

[badassfreakingoverlord]

Zetta stared at the ex-Kraken for a baffled moment.

"You know, that saw was entirely for show. It had no practical use whatsoever."

Then he shrugged, and with a gesture ordered yet another broadside of grapeshot into her rigging. That's right, Lash; the Overlord intends to board you, not sink you!

[thewunderkind]

She dodged again as the grapeshot fired, sending a shotgun-like amount of cannonballs into her ship. Prinnys were pushed into the water. Was that music in the background?

"Yarr! Bring out the hooks!" she yelled, as the Prinnies on her side appeared, wielding large tools that looked ready to push off anything trying to boarding her ship. That done, she cut the rope she was holding and was pushed into the air, swinging backwards to the other side. "Penguins! At your battle stations! Keep the bilge dry!"

One of them took over the ship's steering wheel, while others, wearing terrible pirate attire and wooden peglegs (one had a pegbeak) took out their tiny little swords.

"She's getting close captian dood!" The prinny sitting in the crow’s nest yelled out.

"Get the gangplanks ready!" Yeah that's right, you could try boarding her ship, but she'd try to board yours first if you wanted to play that way.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Prepare to repel boarders!" Zetta bellowed. "Prepare to BE boarders! Ready our own stuff!"

The Prinnies scrambled into action, hosting ropes and gangplanks and one really long grabby arm. This, in fact, was the first thing to go -- the Prinny hurled it violently onto Lash's ship.

Literally, the entire thing.

"What the hell was that?!" Zetta demanded.

[thewunderkind]

Lash burst out laughing at the sheer absurdity (admits the sea of other absurdities), especially when the long arm hit one of the Prinnies in the face, sending him flying overboard.

There was clearly one one thing left to do.

"Throw it back right at them!" The prinnies looked confused, but obeyed, and the long grabby arm was flung...a few feet short of the ship.

"Dang, you guys have really bad aim!"

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"We're not exactly working with the cream of the Netherworld crop here, y'know," Zetta said, shrugging. Then again, that WAS half the fun of all of this.

"Okay! GRAPPLES AWAY!"

The Prinnies spun their grappling hooks overhead, then hurled them at Lash's ship. Through sheer volume, a number of them managed to make it onto the deck, where they caught various things -- railings, the mast, and one of them landed in Lash's hat and promptly yanked it off.

"Last chance to surrender, Pirate Queen! Surrender now and we'll only board your ship, pillage it, and take the spoils of war!" Meaning Lash herself, of course. The offer was purely perfunctory, though; he knew she'd never take it.

[thewunderkind]

"Hey!" She didn't have enough time to grab it back, as the piece of clothing fell off and right into the water, fancy royal purple, white lace and all. "Oh! Now I'm angry!"

As she took out an identical hat and adjusted to her head, (thank you, magic of the sensoriums,) Lash angrily pointed a finger at Zetta's own ship.

"Use the hooks and your swords to cut the ropes down! Don't let a single Prinny get on this vessel!" Her crew let out a well-timed "yar!" together as they got even more busy, but the Prinny with the wooden beak and eye-patch fell into the water as he ran forward. Poor depth perception can do that to you.

"Never give up, NEVER SURRENDER!" she declared at him. Of course Lash wasn't going to take it. "But I should say the same to you! Lower your arms and I might only send you...ye to the sharks today!"

On cue, the creatures flew outside of the water, one of them cutting the ropes of the boarding Prinnies. And look. They had laser beams on them.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

Excellent! His plan had worked (mostly). Zetta casually picked up the Prinny on his shoulder, then with consummate skill and experience hurled it quite accurately into the midst of Lash's Prinny crew.

After all, when one Prinny exploded, any Prinny caught by the blast also exploded... and so on, and so on, and so on.

[thewunderkind]

BOOM.

Piece of wood flew everywhere, as the Prinnies began to explode, the others moving out of the way. Lash used her sword to block a plank from being flung at her face, and it quite dramatically was cut in half and flew into the water on the other side.

Suddenly, all was quiet for a few seconds, as Lash looked at her team that had been cut by half.

...then she took the nearest Prinny and did the exact same thing right back at Zetta's team.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

Zetta crossed his arms, laughing, as the Prinny flew towards him. He had prepared for this, and spaced his Prinnies out far enough that she could only catch three at best!

His smirking was interrupted by a tugging on his coat. He looked down to see that his replacement parrot-Prinny, the one he had ordered to race forward and take his predecessor's place as soon as that Prinny was lost, had done just as ordered.

"Oh, sh-"

The Prinny detonated right next to it, sending a chain reaction racing halfway down both sides of the deck.

[thewunderkind]

It was almost too beautiful for words. Or maybe just a few.

"Tee hee hee!" Because she had all planned this, you see. Nothing was a result of chance at all! But regardless, with the Overlord stuck in a sea of explosions, it was time to turn all of this around. Still holding on to the robe, Lash made a motion for a few Prinnies to do the same as they moved backwards a bit before taking a running start to fling themselves to the other boat.

A few Prinnies didn't make it. The sharks didn't mind.

She branded her sword and took out her gun at the nearby pirate Prinnies. "Pathetic Land Lovers! Throw yourselves overboard if you know what's good for you!" A few, looking at her sword (it was glowing purple, she could totally do that in the sensoriums okay) and gun, simply shrugged, and did exactly what was told of then. Better to face the sharks than a determined Wunderkind, they figured.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Damn it, you idiots! Why the hell would you be more afraid of her than me!"

Absently, still yelling at the Prinnies, he kicked away the boarding plank to their vessel. "By the way, it's 'landlubbers', matey," he said to Lash.

[thewunderkind]

"Because unlike you, I make this look good." Which was lie. Lash just wanted to use that line. "Okay okay. landlubbers." She looked at some of the remaining penguins. "Well? Are you going to throw yourselves down or do I have to push you?"

They gave Zetta a look. Then Lash. Then Zetta. One of them jumped off. Lash punted the next one. Only a few left.

They decided scattering around the ship was probably going to keep them 'alive' for a bit longer.

"Tee hee hee! Your ship in chaos! Surrender now, or prepare to fight!" She paused, shaking her head as the motto of Team Neutro™ came up in her mind again.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"You know what the difference between you and me is, Lash?"

Zetta casually reached into his magnificent pirate coat thing and produced a match. He snapped his fingers next to it, the force enough to make it burst into flame. Then he casually flicked it over a shoulder.

"My ship may be in chaos..."

The match fell on the fuse of a cannon, causing it to flare to life.

"...but I still have a ship."

The cannon roared, and a moment later a massive mixture of splash and crash reached their ears as the cannonball quite accurately drove a hole into the hull of Lash's ship a few inches below the waterline.

Zetta grinned. "Yo-ho-ho, matey."

[thewunderkind]

With a look that could have killed most men (and one of 'damn I got played there'), Lash slowly turned to survey the damage and watched as the water began to fill the hull.

"JUST DON'T STAND THERE!" She yelled out at her remaining Prinnies. "Go get the planks and PATCH THE HOLE UP!" She pointed to another group, as her CO training just took over. "And you twerps! GET BUCKETS AND GET DOWN THERE RIGHT NOW! If this ship sinks you're all SINKING WITH IT!"

A small pause and a tiny grin.

"AND I WANT SOMEONE TO FIRE THE CANNON BACK! RETALIATE INSTEAD OF JUST STANDING THERE, YOU DUMB IDIOTS!" Hey so who was speaking pirate again? Not Lash. That got them moving pretty fast, but made the wunderkind rather distracted barking orders.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

Zetta drew his sword and in one smooth motion knocked her (replacement) hat off.

Score: 2-1, Zetta leading.

[thewunderkind]

She saw it fall into the sea.

Slowly she turned around and fired two shots with her gun. (How a gun from that century could fire two shots was anyone's guess but probably involved bending the rules a little). At first it looked like nothing had happened but as the wind picked up, the Overlord's cape fell off from his shoulders and moved away into the sea air.

"Now we're even."

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Even my ass, that was your second hat," Zetta said, his sword still lifted in a casual guard. He didn't resummon the cape because... well, that would just be giving her a chance to catch up.

[thewunderkind]

In retaliation, Lash fired a last shot which made a hole in his fancy hat, blowing away the smoke that came out before putting it away in its holster.

"As I was saying...now we're even."

She stood back lightly, also in a guard position, waiting to see who would strike first.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

That would be Zetta, who darted forward with a flick of the wrist at speeds much more in keeping with human norms than he normally exhibited. He slashed for her shirt, aiming to lop off a good patch of it over her midriff.

Seriously, he was playing fair for her. If anyone saw this he would never live it down.