The mighty French pirate, René Rottingham, gave his ship a little more sail--that young upstart's vessel was almost within reach. His ship cut through the water with deadly efficiency as he gained on the slower Sea Cucumber. Whoever was Captaining hadn't even bothered, whether through incompetence or ignorance, to try to outrun him. Rottingham's contempt edged up a notch--the fool needed to be taught a lesson in sailing.
His ship came alongside the other's--he made the difficult manuever of boarding a still-moving vessel with practiced ease and found the blond idiot yelling orders at his crew. Said crew was none other than those equally dense barber pirates, and they were engrossed in whale-watching, completely ignoring him. He had indeed come upon the ship of fools.
He drew his sword, not bothering to hide his contempt as he crossed the deck and faced off against that insolent boy who'd made himself a Captain. The boy was holding a cutlass as though he actually knew how to use it, but Rottingham doubted he'd be much of an opponent. "Rottingham..so it's you!" said the boy insolently, "What do you want, other than a good toupée?"
This brat needed a lesson in manners. "I've come for your map to the fabled Blood Island." He saw no need to hide his plans from this..Treeweed? Thriftdood? ..whatever his name was. "Then I'll find that diamond you mentioned. It will make a fine paperweight for my escritoire."
"Look, baldy, I'll never give you that map!" Triphood replied, as though he actually had the choice. "I need it to save Elaine."
"Then I'll have to take it from you by force." Why did he even have to say something so obvious? "You know, of course, in a swordfight a sharp wit is much more important than a sharp blade."
"Of course--everybody knows that, chrome-dome!" Pathetic..he was obviously matching wits with an unarmed man. "Let's get this over with."
"Every enemy I've met, I've annihilated," Rottingham began. He saw a twist of surprise in the young man's eyes--clearly he'd never heard this insult before.
"Oh yeah?" Rottingham waited patiently for him to come up with some answer. "Well...you fight like a cow!"
Oh, please. "No no no no. On the sea, we fight it a little differently," he explained. "On the sea, all of your insults and threats have to rhyme."
"What?!"
Who had let this kid hold a sword, if he didn't even know that? Teacher-like, he went on. "So when I say, 'every enemy I've met, I've annihilated,' you say.."
"..I once found some gold, but it was just electroplated?"
Thinking on his feet obviously wasn't one of the kid's skills. "No! You say "With your breath, I'm sure they all suffocated"." Rottingham decided to give him one more chance, then he was going to take what he came for.
"You're as repulsive as a monkey in a negligee."
"Err...."
"I'm waiting.."
"I..uh...I.."
This wasn't worth his time. He advanced and knocked the hilt out of the kid's hand while he was distracted with an easy flick of his wrist. The cutlass embedded itself in the Sea Cucumber's deck.
"It's just as I thought," Rottingham sighed in irritation. "You're an amateur with a sword." Cutlass held at throat level, Tweephood finally surrendered his map--or rather, draped the disgusting thing across the blade of his sword. It seemed to be made of..human skin? Eww. But no matter..as soon as he was through pirating the Gulf of Pollo, he would be on his way to this Blood Island and that diamond.
Still,
he reflected as he sailed away in his sleek vessel, it was a shame that
the upstart had had enough sense to yield--if not, there would have been
one less idiot pirate to deal with.
This was just great--now he had to go recover his map from a truly fearsome pirate before he could even sail to Blood Island. Guybrush angrily rounded on his crew. "Thanks a lot, guys. You were a world of help back there!"
"It was a rousing battle, Cap'n," agreed Cutthroat Bill, deaf to the sarcasm.
"Aye, and it reminds me of a song.." Haggis, Bill, and van Helgen all began to bounce up and down, in rhythm, as they sang a most unusual sea-chantey.
- "Come on, men, we've got to recover that map!" he urged.
- "That pirate will be done for when he falls into our trap!" responded Bill.
- He tried again. "Less singing, more sailing!"
- "When we defeat our wicked foe, his ship he will be bailing!" van Helgen sang.
- Did everything at sea rhyme? "Let's go defeat that evil pirate!"
- "We know he's sure to lose, 'cause we know just where to fire at."
- Everything did rhyme. "No time for song, we've got to move!"
- "The battle will be long, but our courage we will prove."
- "Oh, that was a good one!"' applauded Bill.
- "No, it wasn't!"
- Now they had him doing it. "Stop! Stop! Stop!" he pleaded.
- "The brass is what we'll polish and the deck is what we'll mop."
That threw a figurative wrench into the gears.
Guybrush felt just a touch guilty.
On the other hand, this was something he wanted to do himself, for Elaine. Guybrush was no Wally, but he also felt sometimes that he wasn't living up to his pirate ideals. For all that they had gotten him into the particular situation, this task was his, not his crew's.
"I like a rousing sea battle as much as the next Captain," he told Haggis, who only nodded and replied "Challenging ship combat it is, then."
They overtook the first ship in very little time--Guybrush had the wheel, while the other three manned the cannons. He held the ship on a collision course for as long as he dared, then whipped violently north. His cannon on the starboard side of the ship fired, scoring two direct hits on the opponent's bow.
Guybrush continued the turn, bringing them around in a wide circle. Haggis gave the order to fire again--three more cannonballs shot forth. Then the enemy ship finally fired, sending one cannonball into the side of the Sea Cucumber, while the other two fell harmlessly into the ocean. She circled agilely around them and fired on the pirates again, then repeated the double-back maneuver so the reloaded port side cannons could fire. Then Guybrush sent the ship out of range of his opponent's little pop-gun cannons, giving his crew some time to reload. Twice more the other ship missed him completely as his little vessel easily dodged its flying cannonballs. Finally, irritated, the pirates made a bold run directly at him, but he was ready--three more cannonballs flew true and hit, tearing up the other's sides. It came to a full stop and raised the white flag.
But if the sea battle was remarkably easy, the duel with the enemy Captain was impossible.
To begin with, Guybrush had no idea how to board a ship--Haggis handed him a rope and told him to swing across. Swing he did, but he forgot to let go in time and wound up swaying helplessly back and forth across the water, trying not to drop his cutlass. Haggis hauled him in, hand over hand, then gave him a mighty shove. Taken by surprise, Guybrush let go--and dropped ten feet straight down onto the opponent's deck. The fall knocked the wind completely out of him--he curled up into a ball and stayed there until he got his breath back. Then he got up, retrieved his cutlass, and then faced the pirate Captain, who had been waiting patiently. Feeling a tremendous loss of dignity, he nonetheless looked the enemy in the eye.
"Who are ye?"
"I'm Guybrush Threepwod, a mighty pirate."
"You won't live to regret this."
The first move appeared to be his. "You're as repulsive as a monkey in a negligee."
"I look that much like your fiancée?" The other Captain attacked him and forced him back a few steps. "Killing you would be justifiable homicide."
Another insult he had no answer to. "Oh, yeah?" Again he gave ground.
"Every enemy I've met, I've annihilated."
At last..."With your breath, I'm sure they all suffocated." The other Captain was temporarily rattled--Guybrush lunged forward with a nasty overhead slash, followed that up with a backhanded cut, and pinned the pirate's blade down.
Only trouble was he'd run out of insults. "You're ugly."
"I'm insulted you'd even try to use that insult on me," sneered the Captain, disarming him. "Give me your treasure!"
"I don't have any treasure. Why do you think I was attacking you?" It was the simple truth--eventually the pirate was forced to let him pick up his cutlass and get off his ship.
Back on the Sea Cucumber, Guybrush pondered, I guess I need more practice. But at least I showed 'em at the high seas combat part. This was exactly how he remembered it on Mêlée Island, where he first learned fencing; he'd had to attack (and lose to) just about every pirate in the area, using their own insults against them, before he had all the counter-insults he needed. This was exactly the same thing, albeit more poetic...
Guybrush looked up. "Haggis, I want you to follow that ship," he said, in a tone that brooked no argument.
His first mate gave him a measuring look. "Aye, Cap'n," he said finally. "Bill! van Helgen! Raise the sails! The Cap'n wants another try!"
The second attempt also failed, but he gained two more insults. The third time, he won.
"You can't match my witty repartee!"
"I am rubber, you are glue.""Every enemy I've met, I've annihilated."
"I'm shaking, I'm shaking.""When your father first saw you, he must have been mortified."
"At least mine can be identified!"Whoops.
"Yer as repulsive as a monkey in a negligee.""I look that much like your fiancée?"
A flip of his blade knocked his opponent's sword into the air--it thunked into the deck, point-first. "Give me your treasure," ordered Guybrush, aiming the point of his blade at the pirate's midsection.
"The treasure is yers," growled the other Captain.
Loaded with booty, the Sea Cucumber nonetheless made swift tracks (figuratively) back to Puerto Pollo. Guybrush disembarked to look for some place that sold cannons--Haggis had mentioned that a son of a friend had recently gotten involved in gun sales. He hadn't mentioned that said son was Kenny Falmouth.
"Tell me you're lying," was Guybrush's initial reaction.
"I never lie any more, Mister," replied the (apparently reformed) twerp. "You've shown me the light." Kenny now offered the full line from Bob's Big Bore Boomer Brand Cannon Inc.--the Buccaneer's Buddy, the OuchMaster, the Holemaker Deluxe, the Paingiver 200, Mr. Massacre, and finally, at the top of the line, René Rottingham's own model, the Destructomatic T-47.
But even with a hold full of booty, Guybrush could afford only the lowest model of cannon, and that even with the Sea Cucumber's original cannon as trade-ins. He could see that this was going to take a very long time.
Back out to sea they went, in search of the second-least-fearsome pirates. They attacked--another fight, more insults, more counters--but Guybrush was patient and willing to lose in a good cause. Another win, another upgrade. The cycle repeated itself over and over. And before too long, even though half the time he was fighting to lose, Guybrush began consistently winning his swordfights.
"Then perhaps you should switch to decaffeinated," suggested Guybrush coolly, disarming him. With one stroke, he dethroned the more fearsome pirate in those waters, second only to Rottingham, and seized all his treasure. He was, finally, a mighty pirate in right. One last time, he turned the ship back towards Puerto Pollo.
Guybrush bought the Destructomatics (with auto-loading and fax modem--whatever that was), then sold the extra booty and used the money to buy canvas, paint, and tools. He and the crew spent an extra day at the dock, repairing, restoring, and polishing. Bill agreed to be lowered down in a rope harness to repaint the ship's figurehead, while Guybrush climbed up into the crow's nest and gave Elaine a careful buffing. Haggis and van Helgen both proved to be wonders with canvas. By the end of the day, the Sea Cucumber sparkled--the only just reward for such a worthy lady as she had proved to be.
The next
morning, all of them were in high spirits as they set out to find and defeat
Rottingham at last.
René Rottingham, unfortunately, hadn't been listening to the marine grapevine over the past three weeks or so, or he would have known that a new pirate was working the ranks. And so he was greatly surprised when an unfamiliar ship pulled up, ran up the Jolly Roger, and began attacking him. Normally, he would have laughed at the threatthe strange ship was oddly agile, and her cannon seemed to have as much firepower as his. She battered him mercilessly, harrying him with a barrage of cannonballs. And in the end, she forced him to the ultimate indignity--she forced him to surrender.
But then her formidable Captain swung across, landing neatly just a swordlength away--and it was that blond upstart boy!
Rottingham drew himself up as tall as he could. "Back for another whipping?" he sneered patronizingly.
"I've come to settle the score," replied the other steadily.
"You are no match for me, you mischievous boy." He knew now that he had nothing to fear--he had a new string of insults that not even the locals could match, and this lad's weakness was that he could not think on his feet.
"You're a disgrace to your species--you're so undignified."
But Rottingham was wrong. Guybrush took this unfamiliar insult without batting an eye. "At least mine can be identified." Forward he went, forcing Rottingham to give ground. René's reach was long enough that he parried without much effort, but Guybrush sensed that he was unsettled at having to defend himself.
"You have the sex appeal of a Shar-Pei!"
"I look that much like your fiancée?" Guybrush came on.
Rottingham was truly worried now--he was running out of deck and hadn't faced anyone who was his equal in so long that he was out of practice. Still, he set himself for a blow that would surprise the kid and put the advantage squarely back on his side. "Never before have I faced someone so sissified!"
Guybrush was all wide-eyed innocence. "Is that your face? I thought it was your backside." And, while Rottingham stiffened in reaction to this insult, he stepped in, broke his too-tight grip on his sword with a sharp blow, and ended with a lunge that placed the wicked little point of his cutlass an inch away from Rottingham's stomach.
"I can't believe it! I have been defeated in battle!" gasped Rottingham in shock.
"So give me that map, take your ship, and skedaddle."
"You win! You win! You'll get your map back!" he exclaimed, desperate to stop the terrible assault of rhyming.
Guybrush was not about to be stopped. "You were doomed from the start, you kleptomaniac!"
"Mercy! I beg you, no more insults, please!"
But Guybrush's blood was thoroughly up. "Your smell and face remind me of moldy old cheese."
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!"
The three former barbers-former-pirates watching from their deck saw their Captain swing back across the water a few minutes later--even before he landed, they could see the pinkish-red blotch in his hand. "We've got the map back! Now we can sail for Blood Island."
The three spontaneously burst into song. Guybrush retreated to his cabin, wearing earplugs, and let them sing.