26 Vol 1. pt. 26 Patch 5.0: All Your Ship Are Belong To Us (1/2)

Cassiel may not have the personality to match her angelic looks, but her combat style is one of pure grace and form. Fenrir can only watch in awe as he gets his first proper look at her fighting.

She moves around evading the enemy guild leader's attacks as if she's weightless. Like a leaf on the wind, she soars around him and waits for an opportunity to attack. Her sword isn't sharp enough to cut through his armor if it's made as well as it looks, so she needs to find a weak spot.

Fortunately for the graceful fighter, her opponent is too fueled by rage and a desire for revenge to catch her.

Cassiel stands still. Her opponent is breathing heavily and panting from how much she's been leading him around. ”Finally tired, you bitch?!” he shouts at her, charging straight toward her.

”Dumbass,” Fenrir says under his breath.

Cassiel dodges to the guild leader's left, ducking underneath the enemy's blade, and stabs her sword right into where his left arm used to be!

The exposed flesh being stabbed results in him screaming out of pain again. He retaliates with a swift swing of his sword in her direction!

She doesn't have enough time to jump away, and he's swinging at a downward angle which will make ducking useless. Her only safe path is up. With her sword thrust deep into his torso, she jumps up onto it as his blade flies underneath her.

Her next move makes Fenrir whistle from just how impressive it is.

Cassiel takes the spear Fenrir made for her off of her back and uses her sword, still stuck in the enemy leader, as a springboard to propel herself upward! She has just enough time in the air to flip herself over, aim her spear downward, and thrust.

Her spear may only have a tip made of stone, and her enemy may have a morion protecting his head, but he makes the mistake of looking up to try and track her.

The stone-tipped spear meets his exposed face and digs right into him. Fenrir doesn't see much detail given that he has traumatic content disabled, but he does see her spear sink down into his body until it can't go any farther.

Cassiel swings around the shaft of the spear and jumps off, landing a couple of feet away.

Her opponent falls to his knees with his head stuck looking upward due to the spear impaling him.

To top it off, she flips her hair back over her shoulders and takes her sweet time turning back to look at her slain opponent.

Fenrir has a massive grin on his face. ”Cass! That was awesome! Holy shit, I had no idea you could fight like that. You would have kicked my ass even if it wasn't an ambush,” Fenrir praises her, making her smug expression even smugger.

”Of course I could have,” Cassiel says, hands on her hips in a triumphant pose. She walks over to her dead enemy and picks up the sword he was carrying. It's simple steel falchion. She looks disappointed with it, but she picks it up regardless before taking her own sword out from the side of his corpse.

Both Cassiel and Fenrir duck when they hear more eruptions coming from the ship. Another volley of cannonballs tear through what little is left of the village. Any members of Stinky Garlic left alive are now running for the fields.

”Care if I leave the spear? I don't feel like pulling it out of him,” she says.

”Not at all. I think it's already done way more than we could've asked of it,” Fenrir replies.

With a nod, Cassiel stands up and looks around the village. ”I don't think there's anything else we can do here. Your plan worked, Fenny.”

”Are we on a nickname basis now, Cassy?”

She points both of her swords at him. ”Don't make me kill you.”

Fenrir raises both of his hands in surrender. ”Fine, fine. Come on, let's get over to the ship before they blow our heads off. I think they're having too much fun with the cannons.”

He stops by the dead enemy leader. This is a game, after all, so looting his enemies is to be expected. Unfortunately, he finds the armor to be really tacky. It's not worth stripping off of him. The garlic-shaped shield, however, would make for a good trophy. He takes the severed arm out of the shield's straps and tosses it over to the rest of its body.

With the garlic-shaped shield in hand, the duo head for the ship. Fenrir makes sure to pat Rock's head on the way over. ”How're you doing, girl?”

Rock barks. He can feel her trying to wag her tail underneath his armor.

Oleander sees Fenrir and Cassiel running up the pier. He unties the rope keeping the ship held to the end of the pier but quickly replaces reties it when he sees Fenrir turn around for something. ”What are you doing?!” Oleander shouts. Cassiel turns around to look as well.

A single shack is left standing on the beach.

Fenrir runs over to it and looks inside. All Oleander, Cassiel, and Serra can see is his tail excitedly wagging from whatever he's found.

They are all disappointed in themselves for not expecting what they see next.

Fenrir comes running back up the pier with not only the enemy leader's shield, but two fishing rods hugged between his arms. That huge smile is back on his face.

”I just knew there were going to be rods in there!” he shouts to them.

Serra is the only one amused.

With Cassiel and Fenrir on the sloop, Oleander unties the ship and heads back to the ship's wheel. There is a small rise at the back of the ship where the wheel is situated. Before it is a small room with stairs leading down into the hull, and a single mast stands tall from the center of the deck. The front of the ship has a raised foredeck that the bowsprit protrudes from. There are six cannons in total, three for each side, but all six have been temporarily moved to the side facing the beach.

Reloading just three cannons would have taken too long and not allowed them to fire as frequently as they were. By having all six cannons on one side and loaded at once, they were able to fire one set and then the other before having to reload.

Everything went exactly as planned.

Fenrir hears somebody jump down behind him. Turning around, he sees Serra holding the Stinky Garlic's flag that she removed from the top of the mast. He looks up to the top of the mast and then back down at Serra. ”You got that already? Nice,” he praises her.

Serra looks satisfied. ”I like pirate movies,” she explains.

”How'd it feel to fire some cannons?”

She gives him a thumbs-up. ”I want to do it again.”

”I thought you didn't want to fight?”

”Firing cannons is different.”

”Alright, then you can be in charge of firing the cannons. Congrats on your promotion!”

Serra's smile grows even wider.

”First Mate Serra, set sails!” Oleander shouts from the back.

Serra drops the flag and unfurls the sails.

They sail south, but there is still one crewmember that needs picking up.