The Atlantic Ocean - En Route to Nassau
The fading sunlight cast long, bleeding shadows across the rolling expanse of the Atlantic, painting the cresting waves in shades of bruised violet and liquid gold. The ocean was restless, the wind carrying the sharp, stinging scent of salt and impending violence.
CLANG.
A single, resonant strike of the ship's bronze bell echoed across the immaculate decks of The Wraithling.
It was not a frantic, panicked ringing. It was a singular, measured note that vibrated deep into the timber of the frigate. On a traditional pirate galleon or a British man-o'-war, such a sound would have immediately birthed a chaotic symphony of shouting boatswains, screaming sailors, and the frantic, disorganized scrambling of men desperate to prepare for battle.
But The Wraithling was not a normal ship, and her crew were not normal men.
There were no bloodcurdling war cries. There were no bellowed oaths to bolster their courage or instill terror in the enemy. Instead, the single clang served merely as a polite notification to those who were sleeping below deck that it was time to wake up and perform their duties.
The Vanguard operatives moved with a terrifying, synchronized silence. They casually retrieved their muskets and short swords, adjusting their leather bracers and stepping to their assigned stations with the calm, relaxed efficiency of butchers clocking in for a shift. They knew, with absolute, unwavering certainty, that they were going to win.
Standing high upon the quarterdeck, Edward James Kenway let out a slow, dramatic sigh.
He ran a calloused hand through his loose blonde hair, adjusting the heavy leather baldric across his chest before his hand settled comfortably upon the ornate hilt of his cutlass. A sharp, fiercely nostalgic smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.
"Well," Edward mused, rolling his broad shoulders as the adrenaline of his corsair days began to hum pleasantly in his veins. "It has certainly been a while since I was in a proper fight. I only hope I haven't gotten too rusty."
Reuben, leaning casually against the mahogany railing with his arms crossed over his tactical coat, didn't even look away from the horizon. He simply raised a dark, amused brow.
"You bear the Ashura's Crest inscribed on your back by Alaric himself, Edward," Reuben pointed out, his voice dripping with dry amusement. "Your physical parameters, cellular regeneration, and kinetic reflexes have been elevated to the realm of myth. It would be deeply, unforgivably embarrassing for you to be rusty."
Edward chuckled, a rich, hearty sound that carried over the snapping canvas of the sails. He stepped up beside the Shadow Raven, his sharp blue eyes locking onto the dark silhouettes rapidly breaking through the evening mist.
"Four pirate ships," Edward assessed, his experienced gaze instantly categorizing the enemy tonnage. "Three heavily modified schooners taking the vanguard, and a brig hanging back to provide covering fire. That is quite a sizable hunting pack, considering we are still sailing perilously close to the Spanish colonies."
Reuben merely hummed in agreement. He uncrossed his arms, turning his head slightly to address the stoic Vanguard operative manning the massive wooden wheel.
"Bring her starboard, ten degrees. Give us a clear broadside angle," Reuben commanded softly, before raising his voice just enough to carry to the gun deck below. "Gun crews, ready the port batteries."
He turned back to Edward, a wicked, anticipatory glint shining in his dark eyes. "The cannons and the munitions on this vessel aren't exactly standard foundry iron, Edward. They're... special. Forged and sealed by the boss himself."
Edward raised a thick blonde brow, his curiosity genuinely piqued. He opened his mouth to ask what exactly Alaric had done to the artillery, but the question died in his throat.
"FIRE!" Reuben roared.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The entire port side of The Wraithling erupted in a blinding, synchronized sequence of golden-orange flashes. The sheer concussive force of the broadside didn't just rattle the teeth in Edward's skull; it physically displaced the ocean around the hull, sending a massive shockwave of displaced air rippling outward.
The projectiles that tore across the water were not normal, arcing iron cannonballs. They shrieked through the air in a flat, hypersonic trajectory, trailing faint spirals of concentrated wind chakra.
The lead pirate schooner, advancing aggressively to intercept, didn't even possess the microscopic fraction of a second required to react.
The enchanted munitions slammed into the enemy vessel simultaneously. They didn't just punch holes in the oak; they detonated upon impact, violently transferring catastrophic kinetic energy directly into the ship's structural skeleton. The schooner simply disintegrated. The hull exploded into a million jagged splinters, the masts snapping like dry twigs, and within exactly three seconds, the ruined husk of the vessel vanished beneath the churning, boiling waves, leaving nothing behind but churning sea foam and pulverized timber.
"What in the...!" Edward gasped, his eyes widening to comical proportions as he gripped the railing to steady himself. He stared at the empty patch of ocean where a fully manned warship had existed just a breath prior.
"That was my exact first reaction as well," Reuben smirked, his dark eyes reflecting the lingering smoke as he looked at the sinking wreckage. "Alaric created an absolute beast of a ship, and he gifted her to me. Her hull is reinforced with what he called his Wood Release, and her guns fire chakra-dense munitions. The Wraithling can effortlessly sink multiple Man-o'-Wars and Spanish galleons entirely on her own if we simply ask her to."
Edward was completely, utterly lost for words.
As a man who had dedicated his life to the mastery of naval combat, who had bled and starved to capture prizes on the high seas, the sheer, apocalyptic efficiency of the barrage shattered his entire understanding of naval warfare. It was basically impossible. But then again... his mind settled on the golden-haired architect of this floating fortress. Since it was Alaric, the concept of 'impossible' was merely a suggestion to be casually ignored over breakfast. Nothing ever made logical sense when it came to that man.
"Oh, it's started!"
The heavy oak doors leading to the captain's quarters swung open, and Caroline stepped out onto the quarterdeck. She had discarded her elegant traveling cloak, her hands resting confidently on the polished railing as the sea breeze whipped her dark hair around her face. She looked out at the three remaining pirate ships, a fierce, adrenaline-fueled grin spreading across her beautiful features.
"Reuben," Caroline demanded, her eyes sparkling with the thrill of the hunt. "Board one of those ships!"
Reuben raised a skeptical brow. Tactically speaking, it would have been infinitely faster and vastly safer to simply reload the port batteries and vaporize the remaining hostile vessels from a comfortable distance. It wasn't as if they were going to acquire any meaningful plunder or vital intelligence from a ragged pack of desperate corsairs.
However, he glanced at the eager, warrior-like stance of his friend's wife. This was a perfect, contained opportunity to witness firsthand exactly how much monstrous strength Alaric had said Caroline had.
"Aye, why not," Reuben nodded his head, a predatory smile returning to his face. "Helmsman, bring us in close!"
Out on the water, the pirate armada was reeling in sheer, unadulterated panic. The instantaneous, horrific vaporization of their lead schooner had shattered their morale. The remaining two schooners, positioned slightly ahead of the heavier brig, frantically attempted to break their formation to scatter, but desperation forced their hands.
Realizing they could not outrun the black-sailed leviathan bearing down upon them, the two schooners hastily aligned their broadsides.
The enemy cannons flared in the twilight.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Dozens of heavy, twelve-pound iron balls arced through the smoky air, raining down toward The Wraithling.
Edward instinctively tensed, preparing to throw Caroline to the deck to shield her from the incoming shrapnel, but Reuben simply rolled his neck, cracking his knuckles.
The Shadow Raven stepped smoothly toward the port railing, entirely unbothered by the iron death screaming toward him. As a stray cannonball plummeted directly toward the helm, Reuben casually shifted his weight, pulling his right fist back.
With a motion so fast it blurred, Reuben punched the incoming, solid iron sphere.
CLANG.
The twelve-pound cannonball hit his knuckles and immediately ricocheted violently upward, soaring harmlessly over the masts. Without pausing, Reuben spun on his heel, intercepting a second projectile with a devastating roundhouse kick. The iron ball shrieked as it was violently redirected mid-air, crashing catastrophically into a third incoming cannonball, shattering both into harmless, raining fragments over the sea.
Edward's jaw practically unhinged. He stared at Reuben, his pirate brain failing to process the sheer, physics-defying absurdity of a man literally punching artillery fire away with his bare hands. From Edward's seasoned perspective, Reuben's movements were impossibly fast and ruthlessly efficient.
But the surreal nightmare was only just beginning.
Edward whipped his head downward, looking over the railing to see how the crew on the main deck was faring against the barrage. He couldn't help but widen his eyes to their absolute limits.
The Vanguard crew of The Wraithling were not diving for cover. They were actively engaged in a game of lethal baseball.
Utilizing their Ashura's Crest enhanced physical parameters, the sailors were casually swatting, kicking, and redirecting the falling iron cannonballs. They caught them on the flats of their short swords or simply slapped them aside with the backs of their hands, allowing the lethal projectiles to splash harmlessly into the ocean or pass cleanly through the rigging without touching the masts.
The few cannonballs that managed to slip past the crew's absurd defense slammed heavily against the hull of The Wraithling.
Instead of the sickening crunch of splintering oak and screaming men, the dark, chakra-infused wood of the frigate simply absorbed the kinetic impact with a dull, hollow thud, leaving not a single dent or scratch on the pristine exterior. The ship tanked the broadside as effortlessly as a boulder shedding raindrops.
"Damn... what the hell," Edward chuckled heavily, a breathless, helpless laugh escaping his lips. He ran a hand over his face, completely unable to believe the sheer, overwhelming superiority of the ship and the monsters crewing it.
So this was the reason why Reuben had confidently claimed they could casually take on multiple Spanish galleons alone. The ship was invincible, and the crew were demigods.
"I want a ship of my own now," Edward muttered, shaking his head in absolute, envious awe.
"Heh," Reuben chuckled from the rail, dusting a smudge of rust from his knuckles. He turned his dark eyes back to the ocean, his voice projecting clearly to the gun deck. "FIRE! Sink those schooners!"
The Vanguard gunners didn't even need to adjust their elevation.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The golden-orange flashes illuminated the dusk once more. The chakra-dense munitions tore across the narrow gap between the vessels.
With a chorus of deafening, catastrophic explosions, the two remaining schooners were instantly annihilated. Their hulls shattered outward, their powder magazines cooking off in brilliant, secondary fireballs that lit up the darkening sky. Within seconds, the schooners were gone, leaving only the ragged, terrified screams of the surviving pirates who could only swim desperately through the burning wreckage for their survival.
Seeing its entire vanguard erased from existence in less than a minute, the heavier pirate brig far behind the carnage realized the fatal error of their ambition. The enemy captain frantically ordered his men to cut the rigging and bring the ship about, desperately attempting to catch the wind and escape into the gathering night.
"They're running," Edward noted, his eyes tracking the fleeing brig.
Reuben leaned over the railing, his voice sharp and commanding. "Gun crews, stand down! Deckhands, fire the grappling hooks!"
Edward frowned, genuinely puzzled by the order. He looked from Reuben to the fleeing brig. "Grappling hooks? Reuben, what are you playing at? That brig is easily two hundred yards away. It's still completely out of range for any boarding lines."
Reuben merely grinned, a feral, highly amused expression, and pointed a finger toward the main deck. "Watch."
Without waiting for further commands, two dozen Vanguard operatives stepped up to the port railing. They hefted massive, four-pronged iron grappling hooks, each attached to coils of hawser rope as thick as a man's wrist.
The sailors didn't load the hooks into cannons or swivel guns. They simply leaned back, their enhanced muscles bunching and coiling beneath their uniforms.
With a synchronized, primal grunt of exertion, the Vanguard crew hurled the heavy iron hooks over the ocean.
Edward could only throw his head back and laugh helplessly as the massive grappling hooks soared through the air like fired artillery shells, effortlessly clearing the vast, impossible distance of two hundred yards. The heavy iron claws crashed violently onto the deck of the fleeing brig, biting deep into her wooden railings, wrapping around her mainmasts, and securely locking themselves into every structural hardpoint on the enemy ship's body.
"Damn..." Edward whispered, wiping a tear of sheer disbelief from his eye as the ropes pulled taut against the brig's desperate momentum.
"PULL!" Reuben roared, his voice echoing across the water.
The Vanguard crew dug their boots into the pristine deck of The Wraithling. They grabbed the thick ropes and, utilizing the terrifying, monstrous physical strength granted by Alaric's seals, they hauled backward.
This was the very first time in his long, storied career on the ocean that Edward Kenway had ever witnessed a three-hundred-ton warship being physically reeled in like a struggling trout.
The pirate brig was violently dragged backward against the current, its bow dipping dangerously into the waves as the sheer, overwhelming physical force of the Vanguard crew overpowered the wind in its sails. The distance closed in seconds.
With a deafening, violent crash of splintering timber, the side of the pirate brig slammed heavily against the dark, impenetrable hull of The Wraithling.
Before the terrified pirates could even draw their swords, the Vanguard crew moved with blinding speed, hauling the heavy ropes tight and securing them firmly to the iron cleats, ensuring the enemy vessel was permanently, inescapably locked to their side.
"So?" Reuben turned away from the railing, his dark eyes shifting between Edward and the eagerly waiting Caroline. The Shadow Raven drew his short sword, the steel singing softly in the twilight. "We've successfully boarded the brig, Caroline... now, let's have some fun!"
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