The True Endgame 99 Vol 2. pt. 36 Patch 6.0: The Second Round

One Razorfang eel jumps up from the water, but when it sees Bonekraka staring back down at it, it decides not to bite onto his arm. Fortunately for the orc, one more eel jumps up from the water with his arm as its target!

"Grab it!" Fenrir shouts.

Bonekraka remains completely still as the eel latches onto his arm, sinking its long and viciously sharp fangs into his flesh, and then he grabs it right underneath its head with his free hand.

The eel tries to trash around, but its deadliest part is its fangs. There is nothing remarkable about the rest of the body, so having its wet and slippery tail smacking against Bonekraka does little to annoy him.

"Caught it," Bonekraka says, turning to face the rest of the crew while blood seeps onto the deck from where the eel's mouth is attached to his arm.

"You – you were just supposed to catch it, not let it actually bite you," Fenrir explains.

"You try grabbing slippery eel with bare hands. Tell me how works for you," Bonekraka answers.

Cassiel walks up to Bonekraka and starts healing him to make up for the damage that the eel is doing by gnawing on his arm.

"Well, that's one way to catch them I guess. Just go toss it in a barrel and let's get back. Seems like we're the first to catch one, so let's be the first back," Fenrir says.

Rock looks at the eel and barks.

"It's fine. He's letting it bite him," Fenrir tells Rock.

She whines and growls but backs off.

"Yeah, we need to get out of here," Oleander says while pointing to their rear.

The longship is closing in. The Steel Tiger is close behind the longship as well.

Fenrir and Oleander look at one another and nod.

While Bonekraka yanks the eel off of his arm, letting it take some of his flesh with it, Oleander heads back to the ship's wheel and starts the engine up once more while unfurling the sails.

He has done plenty of sailing and steering of old ships in games before, but Tabitha's system makes it far easier than it was in all of his past experiences.

The longship comes within range of one of the other ships stopped to fish for eels. Those who are rowing on the longship give their ship a short burst of speed to help it plow directly into the side of the stopped ship, tearing through its hull and allowing them to board it.

The Shoebill escapes while it can.

"Why are we going the long way around the isle? Should we not just go back the way we came?" Corwin asks Fenrir.

"I'd rather us not get any closer to those pricks than we have to, and there's no way that we'll have any competition other than Ull's bastards and Alexander. Even going the long way, we should still have a lead on them with our speed," Fenrir explains.

Fenrir's prediction turns out to be correct. The Shoebill goes around the isle and is already on a straight shot back to the city when its crew sees the only two ships left from the fishing spot on their way back: the longship and The Steel Tiger.

"Look, we're in the lead. Let's cut back on the engine now, alright?" Tabitha proposes.

"Alright. Don't want to blow it," Fenrir agrees and gives Oleander the order.

Oleander reduces the engine's power to only half of its full potential, but a small explosion rocks the ship forward and sends everybody on board stumbling.

"What happened?!" Fenrir shouts.

Tabitha rushes below deck and Fenrir follows.

Where once was an engine is now a decently sized hole in the back of The Shoebill's hull. Water is pouring in through the hole, and all that is left of Tabitha's engine are metal fragments that have been shot throughout the hull. Some of them have pierced the hull on their own and created smaller holes that water is now seeping in through.

"Tabs—" Fenrir starts talking, but the determined engineer is already getting to work.

"Everybody but the deer down here, now!" Tabitha shouts while lifting up a large enough plank to cover the hole left by the engine.

Fenrir rushes up to her and uses his body to keep it held against the hole while Tabitha starts hammering nails into it.

"What happened?" Corwin asks.

"Less questions, more fixin'! Patch up every single hole ya see!" Tabitha orders.

When Fenrir looks at Tabitha's face to try and determine what she's thinking, what he sees are flushed cheeks and teary eyes. She only looks into his eyes for a moment just long enough for him to see how she's feeling. Rather than learn if she's confident about the ship staying afloat and being able to repair all of this damage, he sees a girl who is embarrassed, frustrated, and just sad.

Tabitha moves onto the next nail that she needs to hammer into the plank.

She remembers every single other time something like this has happened.

"You bitch! You lied to us!"

"The fuck happened?! You've screwed us!"

"This is why you never let some little girl do an adult's job. Look at her, did you expect anything different?"

"I know you tried your best, but you're done. Leave. You've done nothing but bring us trouble ever since we took you on, and we're done with dealing with it – I'm done with dealing with you."

"If you're not going to take this seriously and do your job right then I have no use for you."

Those memories and more flash through Tabitha's mind as she recalls the countless times of disappointing other ships and crews. As much as she tries to be the cheery, excitable, and fiery girl that she likes to be, failure after failure after failure grows tiresome even for somebody as positive and energetic as herself.

And now she has failed again.

She can't believe that she actually let herself think that anything would be different this time.
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"The Shoebill's engineer is too badass to have that sort of expression on her face, so don't let our girl here see you look like this," Fenrir says, placing a single hand on her shoulder. "You did great getting us this far, Tabs. You helped us save Morven, helped us get the lead here, and have been a great crew member. So, keep it up. Collect yourself and prove to everybody who doubts you how great you are," Fenrir says quietly enough for only her to hear. "I bet the next model will be even better."

Yet, while her engine may have failed just like all of its previous iterations, something is different. Rather than be scolded, hit, or outright killed, Tabitha finds herself being comforted and trusted.

"The hell ya think you're doin', ya dog?" Tabitha asks Fenrir, feeling her cheeks grow wet but not by seawater.

"Making sure The Shoebill's engineer knows how awesome she is. That's all," Fenrir explains. "We'll win enough money from this tournament to fund the development of the best engine yet."

She looks behind herself once she's done securing the plank.

Everybody else is listening to her and working at patching the ship's hull. Nobody is shouting at her, nobody is glaring at her, nobody is shouting that she deserves to die nor that she's worthless – when she does see somebody—Cassiel—look at her, she sees concerned eyes that are checking on her.

Tabitha takes a deep breath and looks at Fenrir. "I've got an idea," she says.

"You don't even need to ask," Fenrir answers.

"It's not going to make us faster, and I was hopin' to save it for later, but we'll survive and probably not start a war."

"Go for it."

Tabitha nods and heads for her backpack.

Fenrir goes back above deck to check on their pursuers. Both the longship and The Steel Tiger are getting closer, and with as much water in the hull that there is and not-very-useful winds, The Shoebill won't be able to outrun them.

Serra comes above deck holding what looks like a fantasy laser pointer. Only, rather than feature an actual laser, it has a carved, red gem set in the front of it.

"What's that?" Fenrir asks.

"Aiming device," Serra says. "Tabs told me to point it at the target."

"You don't mean—" Fenrir stops when Serra nods.

He looks back at the cliffside they are approaching.

Those massive, clifftop batteries are within sight, and one of them is currently under control of a petite girl with a fantasy laser pointer.

"Alright," Fenrir says. "Fire when you're ready."

Serra holds out the aiming device and points it at their pursuers.

"Zero-two-one-three-nine," Serra says. The device's crystal lights up and shines a bright, red beam at the longship.

Fenrir looks at the clifftop and sees one of the cannons being aimed directly at where the device is aiming.

Serra says one more word, "Fire."

Chapter end