No reason for caution

[Scarlet]

Natasha's muscles bulged in her arms as she tried to keep the helm steady. The wind whipped around her face, causing her eyes to water, as rain made dark patches on her fur. " Skoreye, Tilk, get some crewbeasts and furl the sails! Quick now!" Natasha yelled at the top of her lungs to override the screeching wind. The storm had come up out of bloody nowhere, taking all crewbeasts and Natasha by surprise. Natasha had immediatly ran up from her cabin and pushed the steersbeast from the helm, therefore taking it over. She was a daring young Captain, strong for her age and excellent at steering the ship. Skoreye, Tilk, and a few other strong crewbeasts scurried up the masts to furl the sails. Natasha kept her eyes on the choppy waves in front of her, searching for any signs of a tidal wave coming up from the sea. She laughed cruelly at the sea, scornful of its deadly waves. She cared not for her safety as others cared for thier own. She was willing to travel to the most dangerous spots in the sea, but stuck to more traveled routes, for she searched for her true love.

[Mako]

Things have been different on board the Wavescar. Harsher some say. Since Fang's death, Theradin has been appointed captain. It was always said by Fang himself, that if he were to fall, Theradin were to take over. So it was said, so it was done.

The former bosun on the ship had appointed Zane as bosun, for a ship wouldn' run smoothly without a bosun. At least... Thats what Theradin thought. The rat fought to control his ship on the roaring seas, and fought to keep the wind out of his face, but that was something Theradin couldn't help. The former bosun laughed at the crew's misery, as some slipped, and some even flew overboard.

Something caught his eye. Sails.

"Take the wheel." He commanded to a ferret.

The rat ran the length of the ship to the bow, and as if to confirm his eyesight was right, the lookout shouted, "Ship! Dead ahead!" Theradin smirked. Now was his time to use some new installments.

"Run out the triple barrels! Get ready to ram 'em!"

Zane looked baffled, "Ram 'em? In this weather? What are ye? Cra--" Theradin stopped him short. "Yes, as a matter of fact. I am!" The rat released the ferret and walked to the gun deck and manned a triple barrel. "Load 'em with bombs." He said to a fox next to him. "Bombs, sir?" The fox asked. "Did I stutter?" Theradin snapped.

~~~

Zane pushed the steersman out of the way and took the helm himself. The daring young seabeast appointed himself steersbeast; something h would be punished for later. "Full speed ahead!" Zane roared.

The wind was against the Wavescar, so he commanded the crew to start tacking. "Speed it up! Start tacking!"

The crew was sluggish, but when they heard Zane's whip cracking up at the helm, and saw his form up there, and a devil-ish look on his face, none hesitated, for they did not want to get whipped.

[Firestripe]

*Zeph had been one of the crewbeasts that was working on furling the sails. Not exactly an easy task to accomplish in their current situation. Even so, his strong lithe body helped immensely so much so that he really wasn't having too much problem. He was in the middle of his current task when he just barely saw what looked to be the outline of a ship in the distance. Upon looking more closely, he saw that there was indeed a ship heading straight towards them. This realization also caused a lapse in attentiveness to what he was doing and a sudden, unexpected wave smashing into the side of the ship and thus causing it to rock violently made his wet paws lose purchase up in the riggings of the ship and made him go flying. Lucky for him, he landed on the ship and not in the sea for then he would've been a gonner. Even so, falling that far did hurt quite a bit and knocked the breath out of him. That's when he noticed that he had landed almost right beside the Captain at the helm of the ship. Despite the wind being knocked out of him, he knew that he had to relay his findings quite soon for it could prove to be very important.* "Captain, we got a ship off starboard headin' straight for us!" *He yelled as loudly as he could in his current state, which would likely be just loud enough for Natasha to hear. He hadn't even gotten up off the deck, he realized, and struggled to do so with his aching body and breathless lungs.*

[Scarlet]

Natasha glanced over as Zeph's body landed with a thump on the deck, then flicked her eyes back to the black sea before her. From what she saw, Zeph was okay, despite the long ways down from the masts. At least, she thought he wasn't hurt, though it was dark and she could be very, very wrong. She was relieved when she heard Zeph's voice through the storm. Natasha couldn't risk losing any crewbeasts at the moment. Few enough want to travel the seas with a heart-broken, half-crazed weasel captain.
At Zeph's words, she scanned the open sea, and as a flash of lightening lit up the ocean waves, she saw the ship. In that same flash of light, she also saw the huge skull and crossbones on the largest sail of the ship. This could only mean trouble, even though she and her crew were pirates themselves. She yelled at Zeph " GET ALL THE CREW YOU CAN AND MAN THE CANNONS!!! JUST FIRE AT'EM!!!!" Her throat was itchy and sore from yelling and screeching at everyone, but that was the least of her problems now. She had to deal with the upcoming battle with a strange ship she had never even seen before. If she had, she knew she would have recognized the giant skull and crossbones on the sail.
She screeched once again as the steersbeast scurried to take Zeph's place up on the masts. " GET OVER HERE AND TAKE OVER!!!" She ordered, and the crewbeast nearly ran right into her as he hurried over. After Natasha was sure the beast had a firm grip on the helm, she let go and grabbed one of the lines of ropes to guide her with. Half walking, half dragging herself on the ropes she made below deck, where some crewbeasts were loading the cannons with the deadliest of thier cannonballs, bombs and whatnot.

[Firestripe]

By this time Zeph had already made his way below decks, which is why the crew were already getting the cannons out and loaded. He had forced himself to his footpaws after recieving his order from Natasha and had dashed down below decks, disregarding the guide rope for he needed no such thing after being on ships for a while, though he did almost get knocked off his footpaws once or twice. Once getting down below he had immidiatly gotten everybeast to arms, though some of them looked loath to be taking orders from one so small. Even so, they knew what a fighter he was and didn't dare disobey, lucky for Zeph. He looked out a porthole where one of the cannons was going soon and noticed that the other ship was still going on a straight shot for them. Upon Natasha appearing below deck, he called to her.* "Captain, if I didn't know no better I'd say they're gonna try and ram us!"

[Scarlet]

Despite the dire situation, Natasha managed to squeeze in a rather long rolling of her eyes. " What did you think, that they were here for a tea party?" Her voice was not really cold or vile, but rather just annoyed. She shoved a rather large rat out of the way of one of the cannons. " Let me take this, you go help that guy over there!" She pointed to a dwarf weasel, who, despite his buffness, was having trouble lifting a large and spikey cannon ball into the cannon above his head. The rat scurried over and proceeded to grab the spikey ball from the dwarf weasel and shove it into the cannon. The dwarf weasel, named Stipick, gave Natasha a hateful glare from his one eye; The other eye was covered with a faded red eye patch. He obviously wasn't appreciative of Natasha's sending him help. He was a proud little creature, and Natasha just smiled charmingly at him. He faltered in his glare for a moment at Natasha's beauty. Natasha silently laughed at this, finding it rather amusing. This had transpired within about 3 seconds, so nobeast noticed that Natasha had stalled in firing the cannon. She sighted, her paws shaking a bit because of the booming of cannons from the rest of the crew. The sounds echoed in her eardrums, and she shook her head. Glancing down the cannon again to make sure it hadn't moved far from its target, she fired. The cannon ball ripped through the empty air, heading straight for the enemy ship.

[Firestripe]

*Natasha just had to use sarcasm with Zeph. If she had known him just a tiny bit better than she would have realized that doing so was just lighting the fuse to a bomb and watching it blow. "Listen girly, just because you're captain doesn't mean you're good at it. As any captain should know, it ain't normal for a ship to ram another ship. Tends to make both of 'em sink, if ya catch my drift. Besides, what are you doing down here? Shouldn't the captain be steering so that we don't get rammed? Or did you think that that tea you mentioned was down here and your prissy little self wanted some?" *After his little tirade, Zeph angrily fired off a cannon at the other ship that was getting ever closer. He didn't care that he'd basically just challenged the captain right in front of everybeast down below, he didn't handle sarcasm towards himself very well.*

OOC: Scarlet, is this a bit too much? If Zeph is being way to much out of line for your preferences than just let me know and I'll change things up a bit. He is quite aggressive, if you hadn't realized!

[Scarlet]

OOC: Nah, I think Natasha can handle it! ^^

Natasha glared at Zeph, but didn't say anything. She wasn't the kind of creature to burst into a tirade as Zeph had just done. She would rather wait until he was alone in her cabin, then unleash on him all kinds of 'grammerful' words and phrases until he blew up in an angry burst of damaged pride. That was how Natasha dealt with creatures as Zeph, who dared to challenge her in front off all her crew, to say the least. She made her opponent feel dumbed down and just plain stupid in front of her. She is matched only when her opponent is just as informed as she is, and only slightly knocked back on her heels by someone with more knowledge than she.

[Mako]

"I dont think they like us, sir!" Zane called from the top deck down to Theradin. "Aye" Theradin responded quickly. He ordered a nearby passing crewbeast to man his cannon, and quickly ran up to the deck. Upon closer look, he saw that this ship wasn't the one he was hunting down. No. It wasn't the Nightpearl. ()

He ran the length of the ship and threw himself flat, barely dodging the cannonball that Zeph shot off. He stood up and saw that only a part of the railing was missing. Sighing deeply he ran again up to the helm, grabbed Zane's neck, dragging him from the wheel, growled at him, and threw him to the ground, "Dont test my anger, ferret. Now make yourself useful and go get the white flags!" ane gulped visibly then ran off the the underdeck, and came up a minute later with two white flags. He stood at the bow of the ship and waved them back and forth, a sign of peace.

Theradin slammed right on the wheel and starting spinning it against the wind, so the side of his ship was now facing Natasha's. Even though he probably couldn't be heard over the storm, he shouted aloud, "Hold! Don't fire! I want to make negotiations!"

By now, Zane was done waving the flags, handed them to some random crewbeast and ran up to Theradin, "Sir?" He asked. Theradin figured he was trying to challenge his rule or authority, or simply questioning his command, but Zane actually wanted to know what he should do next. When Zane saw Theradin's hand balling into a fist, he waved his hands, showing he didn';t mean it the way Theradin thought he did.

Theradin nodded, "Load the cannons, just in case they fire on us. If and when you see the light of the flash, fire." Zane nodded and ran to the gun deck, sliding across the main deck an almost falling.

[Scarlet]

Natasha's quick eyes spotted the white flags waving wildly in the storm before anyone else. She held a paw up and yelled as loud as she could(which was, in fact, very loud.) " CEASE FIRE!!!!" A few crewbeasts looked at her questioningly, but stopped loading cannons. Natasha ran up on deck just as a rather large wave struck the side of the ship. She slipped and slided to the side, landing with a thud against the railing. The lower half of her body slipped between the railing and the deck and she held onto the top rail for dear life. Her footpaws dangled above the dark stormy sea, as she yelled " Pull me up, for God's sake, PULL ME UP!!!!!" She dug her claws frantically into the railing, wincing as one of her claws split in half from the effort. The blood from her claw trickled down her arm and Natasha's nostrils were assailed by the rusty smell of it for a second or two, before it was washed away by the rain. Natasha gasped as one of her claws slipped, and only two claws on her right paw were still gripping the wood.