Insistent Assistant 18 (Patreon)

Insistent Assistant

Chapter 18

-VB-

Once I had people who wanted to join me in my fight against piracy on the high seas and had two ships to back me up, things started to look great. Once I began turning in one pirate ship, two pirate heads, and even more run-of-the-mill pirates, it really began to snowball.

At each port, would-be pirate hunters and doe-eyed naive sailors signed up to join me. When we were out at sea, I broke them down with my training. Not many left despite the harsh training, mainly because they saw and knew I didn’t do it out of malice but a necessity.

And as the number of fighters among my crew grew, so did our efficiency in pirate takedowns and our reputation. I wasn’t just hunting pirates that came to me anymore, unaware of who or how strong I was. No, we now took the fight to the pirates.

And today, on this sunny, slightly cloudy day, I bore down upon a pirate port home to a dozen pirate crews. It took me goddamn two months to find its location and not get found out in return! I wasn’t letting anyone escape if I could help it.

“Raise the flags!” I shouted and my crew hastily took to the task and ready the ship for combat.

The Ilisian flags fluttered in the winds from my two ships, One Man’s Sail and Grey Pearl, showing off their red four-pointed star on a blue diagonal cross on a white background, and the pirates on the docks of a shantytown began to scurry to their boats to try to defend themselves and their ships. There was less than a kilometer between us and the port, which was not a lot of space, really.

Unfortunately for them, I wasn’t a special snowflake like the Straw Hat Pirates. I was a methodical and perhaps by the book captain.

Instead of a crew of insanely powerful friends, I had two ships whose sides were lined with cannons.

“Turn to starboard and ready the cannons!” I roared. I wanted these ships blown to smithereens and burning in small splinters and planks!

When one of the pirates (had to be a Devil Fruit user) jumped off from the docks and toward us, I did what Thorkell would have done.

Call it dinner and spear it down.

I grabbed one of the whaling spears, aimed, and then hurled it.

The spear sailed across the air with a shrieking hiss and then thunked on the helplessly airborne pirate. With a grin, I grabbed the rope attached the thrown spear and gave it a roaring pull.

The blood-coughing pirate with a spear through his chest ragdolled as he got pulled toward me.

Then he crashlanded on the deck of my ship, One Man’s Sail, and bounced twice before coming to a rolling stop.

“A good pirate,” I drawled as I walked over and then stomped his skull into a flat strawberry jam-packed pancake. “Is a dead pirate.” Cliche, I know, but my crew liked it.

Laughter broke out among the crew even as they loaded the starboard cannons with incendiary shots, a little invention of my own.

The two ships finally got into position just as the first pirate ship began their slow pull out of the docks. My ships, however, already had their right side cannons facing them.

I took a deep breath in and then -.

“FIRE!”

Forty cannons thundered with enough strength to deafen most people and gunpowder smoke blinded us all for a moment before the harsh winds of West Blue pulled it away just in time for us to see our shots land and light the pirate ships and port on fire.

“Starboard, reload! I want grapeshots! Jack, take us closer!”

“Aye, captain!” Jack Sparrow laughed as he swung the steering wheel. The ship listed to the side slightly and I held firm where I stood in the center of the deck, ready to jump toward any cannon that might slide away from their position. Right next to me was Jacobe, who’d taken my spear throwing and then pirate-reeling with stoic calm (“Boss, I saw you break a mast. What’s a person compared to that?”).

“Turn to port!”

“Aye!”

And the ship turned to show its left side cannons.

“FIRE!”

For the rest of the morning, I had my ships turning from its starboard to port and back, alternating between grapeshots and solid shots after the initial barrages of incendiary. The pirate port Killy Port burned down with all of the pirates and their ships, and what wasn’t burned down was shot down with grapeshots and hull-breaking solid shots.

Once I saw that most of the pirates were dead, I told my crew to stop reloading and get ready to land.

We slowly drifted next to the solid stone piers and walked down the plank into the burnt town.

That’s when the surviving pirates attacked.

And died.

They did not expect for me to throw spears at them. Far more accurate than the blunderbuss and pistols most sailors and pirates used, my spears shrieked before nailing my targets to the ground or whatever wall they were next to.

“I want them all dead!” I shouted. “Go go go!”

My eager and bloodthirsty crew shouted and roared as they rushed into the bombarded town, and began killing the survivors.

It made me look like a pirate when I was the one bombing them to kingdom come, but all of the people here were pirates or their support network. There was not a single reason for me to show mercy.

Not to these parasites living off of the work of good, honest folks.

“Captain, I found their hoard!” someone waved their sword in the air from deeper into the town.

I grinned.

Well, I supposed that there was a side benefit to it all. As a privateer, I had the right to whatever goods and money the pirates had commandeered unless they were specifically marked. Slaves not included, of course.

“Any slaves?”

I did only bombard the front of the town and the ships. Warehouses and any slave pens should still be intact (I didn’t see any in our initial reconnaissance that took place last night before today’s assault).

“Found a slave pen, skipper,” Jacobe grunted as he returned with a struggling fat pirate dragging behind him. “The fat fuck knows where they are.”

“... Get the information out of him. I want the slaves rescued before the fire spreads.”

“Aye, skipper.” Then he turned to the other crew who had stayed behind, those who didn’t wish to bloody their swords. “Men, I need my castration scissors!”