Chapter 11: Beer Battered

"Boo Ooo oom," Lazarus chanted out.

"Boo Ooo oom!" Galliard, Liza and Mikey all echoed after him, singing out as the four hooligans linked together with their arms around each other's shoulders.

"Boo ooO, Ooo oom," he continued.

"Boo ooO, Ooo oom!" the others repeated after Lazarus, marching along the main road West towards the docks.

"Boo Ooo, Ooo oom."

"Boo Ooo, Ooo oom!" the group sang through the night, only bothering the odd straggler around.

The tune was to an old lullaby sung on the main continent, a warning for young Kyberians. It told the story of an angel with blackened wings, lost to the gluttony of his own power.

The group, jolly and merry, soon found themselves arriving at the entrance of the dock. It was there that Mikey began to make out the silhouettes of five figures, all of them huddled around and kicking something - or someone.

The closer Mikey got, the more his song and dance died off. The groans and cries for help struck him like a guitar string.

"Please, 'm beggin' ya' ta' let me go na'!" an old drunk and croaky voice wallowed in pain, grunting with each hit received from the crowd.

Lazarus and the others seemed to think nothing of it, continuing their song, but Mikey could recognise Lumpy's manner of speech even if he'd been stuck in a coma.

Launching off towards the chef, the alcohol heightening his sense of self-serving justice, Mikey took off from the group.

His approach towards the assailants began with a stumbling attempt to stay on his feet, his fingers briefly scraping the sand for a moment on his way. But once on a steady line, Mikey threw all of his momentum into the back of one of the thugs.

Despite his height, Mikey's muscles had developed nicely through him and Liam's regular ventures across the streets of Zeal Mar Keistar.

The spare tackle easily winded the unsuspecting thug, sending him straight into the ground with a thump. As Mikey landed on top of him, with the assailant's belly to the ground, he sent a hook straight into the side of his head. The disorienting blow left the man grunting.

Mikey's brief victory however invited an unseen sucker punch from one of the other thugs. A kick to the stomach sent Mikey off of the first guy and into the dirt. The mugger was intent on mounting Mikey, attempting to beat him into the ground, when another spare tackle caught him before he could.

"You're not built like that!" Laz taunted as his shoulder planted into their side. Once they landed on the ground the man tried to put guard up, but blocked the flurry of hits quite pathetically.

Both Galliard and Liza entered the fray behind him, each of them entering their own drunken brawl with one of the thugs.

Galliard seemed to quite easily overpower one of them, intuitively striking hard and fast. It began with a jab to tenderise the nose, followed by a cross to break it. Forced on his back foot, the thug fell victim to a brutal lead uppercut to his chin which shattered his teeth against each other. Galliard mercilessly trailed the uppercut with one final cross, his knuckles crunching the bone behind his victim’s top lip. The hit was not only enough to knock him out, but left him flop onto his back with a mouth dribbling with blood.

Liza, who was smaller than her opponent, found herself bobbing and weaving attacks left and right. Despite her intoxication, Liza moved both swiftly and greatly with the adrenaline running through her. She was playing with her opponent, letting him tire himself out, even letting a chuckle slip from her mouth at the realisation of how clumsy he was.

Lazarus' earlier tackle allowed Mikey the chance to stand, but he was instantly confronted by the last member of their group. The man approached Mikey with a huge running hook, forcing Mikey to side step him.

Having been inebriated on the deck of the Blackjack at its moments of peak chaos, Mikey considered this thug to be more of a tortoise with heavy knuckles than a threat.

As the thug flew past Mikey, he then leapt onto the thugs' back with the intent of putting him in a chokehold, but the man gripped his arms to prevent him from doing so.

The pair of them blundered along the road and straight into the side of a warehouse. Mikey was repeatedly slammed against the wall as he tried desperately to hang on the man's neck. Elbows came flying back, hitting Mikey in the pelvis and weakening his lock around his opponent's neck.

Immediately after loosening his grip, the hoodlum ripped Mikey off of his back and threw him out onto the road. As the thug approached Mikey, taking a few steps to kick him while he was down - a bottle suddenly came flying for his head. Shattering against his skull, the smell of whiskey saturated the floor in front of Mikey.

"Whaaaaat a waaaaaaste!" Mikey couldn't help but blurt out with his foe knocked unconscious.

Meanwhile, Liza's opponent had begun to tire out. With his heavy swings and staggered steps, Liza initiated her counter attack. It started with a weave under one of his jabs, before Liza leaned in for a quick, but disorienting hook to his jaw.

As his knees almost buckled due to the dizziness, Liza stepped into a thrust kick that connected with his abdomen. It had enough force to knock him a few steps back onto his rear.

Though he was about to get up, Liza feinted a dash towards him; with a flinch, he dragged himself back away from her - having lost his will to continue.

Lazarus on the other hand managed to pin his man against the ground, locking his arm behind his back with the threat of breaking his shoulder. Lazarus gave a warning blow with a ruinous elbow straight into the thugs shoulder blade.

“Why’re you harassing the fluffy man?” Lazarus asked the man aloud whilst Mikey trotted over to Lumpy. The old drunk was bruised and battered, but his face and head seemed mostly untouched.

“The fat fuck owes us money! He needs to pay up!" the thug spat out with half of his mouth buried in the road.

"Didn't I say to stay out of trouble, senile bastard?" Mikey shook his head in annoyance as he helped the hulk of a man up onto his feet. The adrenaline from the brief scuffle had slightly sobered Mikey up.

"Easy winnin' 'ey said. Trapped an' ba'ered me," Lumpy held his gut and whimpered, limping off towards the barrel of rum Galliard had dropped. "Need som' ta’ drink, it' fix 'im right up."

"How much are you owed?" Mikey asked, squatting in front of the thug. Lazarus harshly twisted his arm to inspire a bit more compliance.

“Ow ow ow! Shit! Twenty gold pieces! Twenty gold!” he squealed in pain.

Mikey scowled at him, pulling the coin pouch from his waist and pulling it inside out. A small trickle of coins fell to the ground in front of the thug’s eyes.

“Well I count: one, two, three, four, five, six. Six. I guess six will have to do, sounds good?” Mikey asked, flicking one of the coins into the man’s nose.

“Six?! What are you demente-” the man was cut off by an elbow into his shoulder, Lazarus pulling it back as far as the joint would cleanly allow. “Ah fuck! Fine, six works! Six works!”

After letting them go, the few that could walk dragged the others off with them. Their shame led them to a dark alley to vanish for the night.

"Well now we need more alcohol, someone's thrown the whiskey around and Lumpy over there just finished the barrel," Mikey said, sitting on the ground as he gestured irritatedly to the chef, drowning his pain in rum.

"We'd better head off too Mikey," Lazarus said, looking around at the empty streets. "Better that this little incident doesn't blow out of proportion."

"Think I agree, I need to go and wrap my knuckles anyway," Galliard commented, stretching out his fingers as deep gashes lined his fist.

"Well, I've got nothing at home. I'm going to go with Mikey," Liza said with an innocent smile, dropping her arm over Mikey's shoulder as she smiled back at the boys.

Galliard and Lazarus slowly turned to look at eachother.

"We should get something else to drink," Lazarus suggested.

"Why not pick out a selection, why don't we? We need to celebrate our first brawl with the newbie," Galliard continued on his suggestion, miming a toast aimed for Mikey.

"Lumpy! If you head back to the ship we'll pick you up some more rum!" Mikey chuckled, wrapping his arm around Liza's waist. "Well let's go then."

A soft slap on Mikey's forehead was the force that woke him up. It was creamy, slowly dribbling down the side of his face into his hair.

The calls and cries of seagulls circling above soon followed the light slap.

"Shit… where am- Holy fuck!" Mikey sat up with a jolt. In only his underwear, Mikey found himself sitting atop the Blackjack's crow's nest with sun almost at its apex.

He rubbed his forehead as a means to wake himself up, though his hands slid into the thick cream he soon realised to be bird poo.

"Ugh, yuck," he uttered, rolling over to look over the edge of the crow's nest. Below he managed to spot five figures all in a circle conversing.

"L- Lady?" Mikey whispered as he looked down to the figures below, summoning her forth on the railing beside him. She appeared in a sitting position, her legs slowly kicking over the edge.

"You called for me Captain?"

"Who's that down there? Those people," Mikey pointed, though he saw one of the figures look up at him.

"I believe they're named Adendé, Lazarus, Galliard and Liza. They were all adamant that you invited them aboard, Princess Gisla is making her introductions now," Lady had begun to explain.

"Invited them? Those three?" Mikey asked, trying to recall the final events of the previous night. "Wait, what do you mean princess?!"

"Gisla mentioned that was the title you assigned to her. I've heard you address her under that title also,"

"No, no, no, no, no. No. Sarcasm Lady Blackjack. You've got to burn that into whatever ectoplasmic brain you've got inside all that misty glow," Mikey commented before pushing himself to his feet. "Nothing like a good dip to wake you up."

Looking out over the water, Mikey dove over the edge of the ship and into the harbour water.

"You're telling me I invited you all onto the Blackjack? As crew members? Are you sure?!" Mikey asked, his hair still drenched with a towel Lady had retrieved wrapped around his naked waist.

"You really are a lightweight, huh?" Lazarus raised a brow, looking at the snow haired Gisla with surprise. "Is this your boyfriend?"

"Mikey? Don't be disgusting," Gisla stuck her tongue out, turning away from Mikey.

"Ah! Perfect!" Lazarus grinned, walking to Gisla and wrapping his arm around her shoulder. "Well, allow me to formally introduce myself…"

The two of them dawdled off down the deck, Mikey unsure of how to address it, though his attention turned to Galliard, Liza and Adendé again.

"Well I suppose I should welcome you to the crew then?" Mikey asked, scratching his head casually. "Uh, welcome to the crew."

Galliard and Liza chuckled, their belongings in the packs that hung over their shoulders.

"Great to be here!"

"We'll see how it goes captain, I hope you show us something a bit more impressive than your drunken brawlings," Galliard slyly smirked as the pair headed off.

Mikey sighed, rubbing his pelvis as an ache appeared at the mention of the brawl.

"The ghost on your ship is strange. Warn it that if it watches me I'll remove it," Adendé commented flatly before taking his leave towards the bow. He had his pack, but simply hurled it down the stairs as he passed by the hold's entrance.

"Well he's a bit scary, isn't he?" Mikey watched Adendé walk off, his outfit remaining the same as the previous day. "Lady Blackjack, you can dispose of our stowaways now."

At the beckoning of his order, a kraken of ropes emerged from the ship's sails and plunged through an opening hole in the deck. Stuffed into barrels were the old crew members of the Blackjack, their mouths gagged and hands stuck against the interior of the barrel. The rope lightly tossed them onto the dock, sending them bouncing off towards a few workers.

Roland Tornstar sent Mikey a vengeful glare, his eyes swollen enough to burst a blood vessel.

His eyes hadn't, however averted to Gisla who stood further down the deck and looked down at him with Lazarus at her side. She waited for him to notice her there, though he didn't seem to look in her direction.

Mikey spat into the water between the two of them, leering at Roland before he turned back towards the captain's quarters.

"Well, a few bruises but some new crew mates. Night could've gone worse I'm sure," Mikey commented, entering the room with an exhausted yawn. His eyes lazily traced the edges of the room, looking to see whether Gisla had kept it tidy in his time out. However, his eyes eventually spiraled into the center of the room. The once full chest of riches now held something vastly different.

Mikey rushed to the chest, dropping to his knees as his hands ran through the contents. The chest had been filled to the brim with small silver framed vials, each of them filled with the same burgundy red as another; Ale Clearers.

"Ah, fuck… Did I buy anything else last night?"