Axel left the tavern, practically he was searching for his quartermaster in the busy market, hoping to see the woman with him. But he spotted no one but complete strangers, on the hot day of the island he felt the gusting winds that came from the sea's direction.
A bad omen he felt in those breeze.
" Have you seen her?"
Axel was bewildered upon the sudden appearance of his quartermaster. Sweats all over his face and body, looking frustrated and tired while he asked questions with no means of looking ahead at the person he sought for an answer.
"Calm down Elijah, I just got out of the tavern."
Axel brushed his hands off his garments, pushing the man aside as he could not believe how different he now acted for the stowaway.
"Well she is nowhere, anyone would have abducted her or better yet those scoundrels might have taken her. Calev wont like that fucking news now, Axel."
The quartermaster was babbling his thoughts amidst his now shown self-induced paranoia.
"I take my eyes off her for a fucking second, and now we got a problem." He angrily stated, still busy trying to spot her along the crowd and many stores.
Elijah's worries only got worse when Axel decided to finally open his mouth.
"Well, we better find her fast because I just spoke with a certain captain who claimed she is one of them."
He was nonchalant when he said that, making the older man pissed and practically scolded the pirate king in the middle of the street.
"Fuck what?" He cursed, glaring at his captain. Don't fucking tell me that you let them take her!"
He accused remembering that night when Axel had no problem handling her to them.
"Imbecile! Would I even suggest to find her faster if I fucking did."
Axel rolled his eyes, leaving the quartermaster on his own and proceeded on searching for her.
"And besides, she might be worth more if that captain would even dare to pay a handsome amount just to take back a traitor." He commented, finding no sense of it.
"Excuse the fuck out of this, but what?"
Even Elijah could not see the sense of buying a traitor back, when they could just simply let the traitor die in the hands of others.
"I'm saying, the story of her being a crew member who betrayed them is a bluff. Rather she is far more important."
Axel answered, they walked side by side. Their eyes searched every nook and corner of the open space, hoping to see a pale skin, black haired woman, but she was nowhere.
"She could be her."
Axel added, this time Elijah rolled his eyes at the dumb accusations.
"Imbecile!" Elijah replied with the same insult Axel used. "She is not her."
"And how can you be so sure?"
Axel retorted, facing his quartermaster. The argument they had earlier immediately re-commence.
"You, how can you be sure too. " Elijah retorted, using the same question to pissed the captain.
Axel contemplated how to respond. His biased opinions surely surfaced, although he tried to weigh it all down and think it all through. Axel couldn't just drop the suspicions he had for her, when everything that was pointing to the stowaways identity led to the notion of the woman he was looking for.
"What in bloody hell"
Axel was about to say something when Elijah words cut him off.
The quartermaster looked ahead of them, his eyes stern and angry, with the mixture of confusion and question along the line of his expressions. Axel followed Elijah's gaze, curious of what he might have witnessed that made him react like he was about to murder anyone.
In a few distance, on the outskirts of the entrance of the forest, a limping gun master with blood running on his left leg forced his whole body to run despite the injury. In his arms was the stowaway, looking unconscious.
"Fuck."
Both of them cursed, running towards the two.
Spectators in the market gasped and let out horrified screams as they witnessed the unfolding scene. It was clear from the furious expressions on the captain and quartermaster's faces that they were seething with anger. The onlookers quickly made way for the approaching pair, and a hushed silence fell over the crowd as Hakim eventually crumpled to the ground. Whispers and murmurs spread through the town as the townsfolk realized that the crew of the feared pirate king had been attacked, and fear gripped their hearts.
"What happened!"
Axel's voice rang through the place, the heaviness of his tone demands for murder. Hakim winced as the pain traveled through his whole body, almost dropping the woman.
"She was chased." Hakim managed to say between breaths. " I don't know what happened but she seems to be paralyzed."
"And who would fucking dare hurt my crew!" Axel bellowed, causing the onlookers to jump out of their skin, terrified of the wrath in the pirate king's face.
Elijah took her from Hakim's arms and examined her. She wasn't unconscious, in fact she had her eyes open. Wide and scared as she looked at him, yet her body refused to move nor her voice refused to come out. Like under a spell, she could not feel her whole body.
"Captain."
Tyke approached them when he saw them in the middle of the street. Behind him was the boatswain catching up towards their direction.
"Tyke, Draco, what the fuck happened!" He bombarded boatswain with demands of explanations, Tyke helped the gun master to stand without even waiting for an order.
"We got to leave, that fucker must be still around with his crew."
Draco fussed, helping the other boy in holding Hakim.
"Axel, she is not responding!" Elijah yelled with panic.
"Of course, she will not move." Someone answered from the crowd.
They all turned to look in the direction where they all stood. Another pirate crew, led by the dangerous captain, Alaric. His eyes lingered to her, the smile in his lips still fucking pissed Axel no matter what.
"I said I'm not handling her over." Axel sternly said, walking closer to the man.
Alaric's crew pulled all their weapons against the Axel. The whole crowd gasped, some decided to hide and avoid the conflict.
"And I forgot to mention, I'm going to take her no matter what the cost."
Alaric smirked before taking out his musket and pointing it to Axel.
Draco and Hakim immediately stood straight to aid their captain, all prepared to fight despite the pain that Hakim felt. They all realized the situation, outnumbered as what everyone could see and depicts. Yet, Axel remained confident and proud, like a real pirate king is.
"Are you ready to raise a war you will never win?" Axel smirked, walking far more closer to the man.
"You think I'm scared of you, pirate king?" He mused, laughing along with his mates before spitting on Axel's boots.
Hakim fumed in anger, he could not tolerate the disrespect that they had shown to his captain. He was ready to take means and attack but Tyke held him and pleaded for him to not move.
"Uncertain if you might not be scared of me, but I sure do know you will be scared of what I have." Axel brows raised challengingly, taunting the man to dare him..
"I heard you have history with my combatant--the demon on my ship?"
Axel grinned like a maniac when he saw the shift in Alaric's eyes and how his hold in his musket faltered on his shaking hands. "Want me to call him?"
Alaric visibly swallowed the lump on his throat, and the fear of having the demon on his tails for vengeance. He lowered his weapon upon a series of considerations, followed by his orders of lowering the weapons of his men.
"We shall not take the mad treasure's crew, yet. We have more important business to attend to." He made the right choice, making Axel grin as if he had won a great prize.
"What about her!"
Hardin asked loudly, standing in the middle of his crew with drenched clothes and shivering body. Draco looked at him questioningly, wondering how he survived such wrath from the ocean. He clearly saw him almost dying from the waves.
"We can take her anytime."
Alaric dismissed, pathetically leaving the market with his crew and an amused Axel laughing at how pitiful other pirates can be under his mercy. They watched them leave, the market finally back at its original state as if nothing just happened.
"That fucking crew is fucking weird!" Hakim suddenly groused, his was stressed not only by the situation and his wound but how fucking weird those bunch of lunatics to claim something but then immediately back down.
"This is already the second time, fucking weirdos."
"Draco, take Hakim and the stowaway to a nearby doctor on the island. Zeki is still not fit to take care of anyone, we have no one to tend to the injured." Axel commanded, which Draco followed right away.
"Elijah go with them. Tyke, gather the crew that are still on the island and tell them we are leaving." He added.
The two men carried two bodies with them as they left, leaving Axel and the young pirate.
"Aye!."
Tyke answered, taking the job seriously as if it was his greatest mission. He was about to leave when Axel stopped him.
"Err Captain?" He asked, he could not contain the scary eyes of Axel while he stared at him. He was nervous and not used to the attention from the captain.
"Report." The simple word of commandment reminded Tyke of his mission that was given to him that night--directly from the captain himself.
"Properly, this time." Axel eyed the brown haired man who was now shivering with fear.
Tyke swallowed the obvious nerve wrecking anxiety along his panic, prepared to tell what he had witnessed at the beach.
"The stowaway." He started.
"She was err chased by the man err who came in our ship. I saw him pour err something on her which made her paralyzed, err but I don't know what it is." He honestly said, recalling what he saw.
"Anything suspicious about her? Maybe she knows them and pretends she doesn't remember. Just anything."
"Err…No, captain. It seems like err she really has no idea who that man could be." Tyke replied, leaving no information behind.
"Err uh, there is one thing." He added when he saw the dissatisfaction in Axel's eyes.
"While she was at, uh the beach, it seemed err like there was an entity that tried to save her. While they were uh running, err the pirate man was attacked by err the ocean. As if the sea was uh working for her."
"I see."
Axel muttered, deep in his thoughts as his suspicions grew.
"T..the err ocean seemed very angry." Tyke finished.
...
Anger, it seemed that that word alone was not enough to tell how a certain captain felt after his little discussion and feud with the known pirate king.
Alaric was fucking furious more than anyone.
He hated that woman for getting himself in the position of making an enemy out of the mightiest pirate in the sea. He wished to kill that fucking woman the moment he gets his hands on her, but the time has not yet to come and he had many more things he wished to with her than death.
And Axel was getting on his way.
[ You just fucking wait, you bitch. ]
He wouldn't let his business get fucking blown out by a fucking pirate younger than him.
In the secluded part of the island, Alaric and his crew find the rest house that accommodates elite and luxurious individuals. Outside the perimeters, a huge number of uniformed men were guarding the place. Stern and strict as they prohibited Alaric's man to enter the place where their master resides. Alone and uncertain but with the anger that held, he tried to meet the man who ruled over these guards outside the building.
"Don't waste my time, pirate."
He glared at Alaric, seemingly judging the pirate with his hateful eyes.
Booze could be smelled around the room, the fire in the chimney somehow depicted the tension in the man's eyes and behavior. Anyone could clearly see the clarity of his madness, from the way he looked, the way he stride, from the way he bursted his anger in an uncontrollable way. the only means of unleashing such wrath, was by thrashing the room.
"You want the head of the pirate king?"
Alaric did not waste any time at all, but directly offered his service.
"You know where he is?"
He asked, and Erwin had to keep himself from insulting the man in front of him for being stupid enough not to realize that the pirate king was on the same island as he was right now.
"By what it looked like, it seems they are heading to Boney Island." He smirked, hinting on his plans.
"Erwin, don't fucking–"
"Shut your mouth, Freya!"
Erwin stared at him, both ignoring the woman beside him and contemplating whether to believe the words of a pirate.
This suspicious pirate he never heard of brought the intel of the same kind of person he was hunting. Yet he could not find himself to turn over the sly information. Desperate to kill the man who killed his father. In all the days he had traveled hoping to ran across the man he wanted dead
"And what can I give you for this piece of information?"
He asked, standing up to approach the defenseless pirate, surrounded by all his men.
"Alliance." He stated, leaving no room for suspense.
"He is a pirate Erwin, don't lis–" The woman was ignored once again.
"Did he kill your old man too?"
Erwin slurred as he gulped another ounce of his whiskey, the bottle in his right hands almost empty.
"He has what I want."
The eeriness of Alaric's voice lingered in the room. The way his eyes shifted to show all his anger that can match the latter feelings. The broken son in front of him contemplated for many times, not keen on taking the alliance that a pirate could offer. But what choice could he take when he alone had no idea how to catch a man who ruled the ocean.
To kill the pirate king, to avenge the death of his father. To justify the death of the mayor, he must take the risk.
"Very well." Erwin accepted.