4 Chapter 4: Make Way!

( Disclaimer: I own nothing but what I made, bought or received. Harry Potter belongs to J.K Rowling who didn't deserve all that hate (before she went nut and tried to compensate.) and all the people I do not know. I'm only playing in her sandbox, like many before me.)

"Baldy"

…

"Baldy." I shook him lightly, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

…

"Baldy!" I shook him more roughly, starting to wonder if Boris gave him permanent brain damage.

…

Fuck the Geneva Conventions.

*Slap*

"Wai…Wait! what?!" He started shouting, I looked at Ector who just sighed and put the cloth back onto his mouth.

"Let's do this again." I said, offering the squirming Baldy a sincere smile. "I'm going to remove the gag, and you'll stay silent. Alright?"

After a moment of hesitation, Baldy nodded. Ector took it as his cue to ungag him, even if he didn't look that convinced.

Then again, he knew nothing of proper showmanship.

Predictably, as soon as he was freed he started shouting and saying particularly mean things about my mother. He was also very unimaginative, I knew countless twelves years old with much greater skills roaming the Call of Duty chats lobbies.

Of course, it availed him nothing but a dirty cloth being roughly shoved in his mouth.

"Now, now Baldy, that wasn't very nice." I shook my finger. "You don't seem willing to cooperate at all."

He tried answering with more expletives, but the gag being there, he only ended up tasting the shit stained tissue with more fervor. His face started turning greenish, as he struckled not to vomit.

"I say we stop talking and start punching." Ector intervened, giving a look of utter contempt to the prisoner "It's just the way it is, he won't talk until he's tasted enough of his own blood."

"Da." Boris nodded, and Baldy squirmed like a fish out of water when he saw him. Poor guy looked traumatized, we could use this.

"I don't know." I closed my eyes, nonchalantly summoning his arming sword. I'd given the falchion the Ector, with him being the best with sword out of the lot, except Boris, but the bear man was just as deadly without for the moment.

"It doesn't seem right to just go ahead and start abusing him, it would make us no different from scums like them would it." I said noncommittal, practicing the eight basic cuts Ector showed me earlier. "I'd rather try and convince him to talk it out, instead of shedding needless blood."

"Of course, he does seem intent on staying true to his so-called comrades. As if they'd do the same for him, they'd sell him for a penny if given the occasion…So we do not have much of a choice anyway." I smiled, pleased to hear the ding of my swordsmanship leveling up.

" I really have no clue about how torture works. I mean I think I could cut the tip of his fingers easily enough, but it might be better to just repeatedly crush them with the flat of the sword, it would make the pain last longer especially in such sensible areas." I mused, still practicing. "We could still cut off his ear and nose, of course, bit by bit. He wouldn't bleed out with that kind of wound, so we can keep the work going. Same with the tendons, seeing his crippled limbs would do a number to one's mind."

My eyes still closed, I immersed myself in the movements. Feeling the muscles tense, aligning the edge to keep the cut clear. I didn't know sword practice could be so enjoyable…

" What I'm conflicted about though are his testicles." I said out of the blue. "I mean, it's the natural step once we've broken enough bone, pulled all his nails and cut off all the fleshy bits."

"So, do you think we should cut them off? Crush them? Or do we like, pierce his sack and make him watch what happens? Anyway, I think we could do much if we make him eat it afterwards…guys?" I said, sensing a disturbance in their magic, weak as it is.

I looked at them to see the image of pure terror on human faces. All of them, including Boris, had ashen faces. Eyes wide, mouth opened with no words coming out. The women were horrified, aghast the violence that came out of my cute little mouth. The men's hands were firmly put in their groins, safeguarding their family's jewels from possible doom.

'Sometimes, looking like a child has its advantages.' I smirked, further creeping them up.

I didn't need to look at the meatbag, aka Baldy, who laid down in the piss and shite he might've participated in building up. I knew he was scared shitless, I knew he'd clutch his balls if he could.

I knew I had him exactly where I wanted.

He looked at me, at Ector and even Boris. His eyes begging for mercy, face contorted, he had started chewing on the bloody cloth in his haste to reveal everything he knew about the ship, its crew, their family members, his favorite song and his grandmother's secret recipe for apple pies.

Ector helped him out of his gag, and he spilled the beans.

He ratted, snitched and begged his ways into preserving his genitalia with a fervor we could only acknowledge, none of us wanted to ask himself what we'd do in his position.

Said rat was now peacefully sitting in the cell, minding his own business and content in the presence of his little brother. When everything is settled, I suspect he'll go find some nice plot of land and spend the rest of his life fishing and farming…Akuna Matata and all that stuff.

"Huuh, Arthur, sir. " Ector called out "You were bluffing earlier, right?"

Hearing this, I couldn't help but chuckle. It soon turned into a full blown laugh, I was joined by the old man then Boris and the rest of my men once they realized how ridiculous it all sounded.

"Maybe."

. . .

"Here's the situation." I said, meeting everyone's eyes for a moment. Our makeshift war council was reformed, with the only changes being Ector sitting on my right, with Boris occupying my left.

"The Fancy's carrying one hundred and thirty hostiles. However, thirty of them are non-combatants who don't pause any particular threat, and are likely to stay uninvolved if we do not engage first. We've also pacified two of them in the last three hours, which brings the total down to ninety eight men."

"We managed to get a fairly accurate layout of the ship from the prisoner, I'll skip over the unimportant details. All you need to know is that right above us…" I pointed up the stairs. "...is the berth deck, the sailors sleeping quarters."

Letting that sink in, I saw the nervous faces of the few who thought about rushing out of the ship as soon as they could in hope of jumping out into the sea. Even if they did manage, they would likely die, but they obviously aren't the sharpest swords around here.

"It's our only exit, and it happens to be right next to the dozens of men maintaining the decks and manning the canons. In other words, certain death." I said, as bluntly as I could.

"Then what do we do?" Ector asked. "We don't have an exit, unless we find a way to deal with better equipped, more numerous forces before they call for reinforcements. A night attack might raise our odds…"

"Yep, but we'd still die." I smiled.

"Then what do you suggest?"

"We don't have an exit, so let's make a new one."

. . .

Thirty men is a lot.

Sure, it might not seem like it when the enemy can call a hundred men. It looks even smaller when you're used to the insane demographics of the modern world, or when you enjoy studying ancient battles like I do.

But when you find yourself in the unlikely position of needing to organize a temporary fighting force capable of basic maneuvers within confined space, which is something I do not wish for you, you'll see that thirty able men is more than enough.

After discussing it with Ector, and getting an estimate of the average privateer's fighting prowess from him and Baldy who gave insider's advice, I managed to obtain a rough idea of how these men operate.

Privateers, a more polite way of saying pirates. The only difference being that these war-like, greedy men are actually sanctioned by a sovereign institution to fight and plunder.

They have little training but what they picked on the spot, no standard equipment and are only taught enough to be good sailors and passable warriors. The good ones are those who survived long enough to learn, the others are dead or will be.

No morals, little training and poor hygiene.

They serve anyone with gold, from Wizarding merchants' conglomerates seeking protection from pirates to the many Houses willing to buy swords and sails from these unsavory characters to gain an edge in their numerous and bloody feuds.

The House of Avery is one such patron, with the only notable detail being that they actually keep a host of such privateers in times of peace, instead of just buying them as they go. They frequently repurposed those ships in order not to go bankrupt, using them for exploration, renting them to other Houses unwilling to deal with No-maj directly or to make their own 'Business ventures' away from Magical Britain.

'But why could they possibly need slaves in that place.' I mused, while storing away nails in my inventory while the rest of my squad removed the planks as soundlessly as possible.

Behind us, two other five men squads headed by Ector and Boris stood vigil. All of them were ready to pounce at anyone who had the misfortune to interrupt our task, they had others to kill this time, the enemy must not be alerted.

Each second felt like eternity, as the risk of being discovered weighed us down, we eventually removed enough planks to make way for one person at a time. Boris and his troops retreated back into the cell to regroup with the bulk of my men, while Ector's squad joined mine through the whole.

"You're crazy." He said, a wide smile on his face. "You're bloody crazy."

"Why? I told you it would work, old man." I answered, warning the men not to celebrate here. We were sandwiched between the berth decks and the Kitchens after all, the risk of being caught was real.

But I could get where they're coming from, after so much time being stuck in a literal shithole, hungry and thirsty, this place wasn't paradise but it looked pretty damn close.

"Can't believe you got us in their Hold." Ector shook his head, eyeing the many crates and barrels with hungry eyes. He looked just about ready to rip one open and devour all the bland, dried up food inside.

I'd chide him for his lack of discipline, but I felt the same way.

"Correction." I emptied my inventory spaces, which still held a couple nails from earlier. "We go ourselves in their Hold."

A quick series of observations got me a level up, and a nice and clear estimation of the amount of supplies we were about to steal…I meant, requisition.

"There must be enough clean water for two good months of sailing in there, and the food would last them twice as much." I smiled, feeling giddy. "The same quantity would keep us well fed and watered for half a year, hell there are even some fruits in there."

"And booze." Someone called out, hand on a large barrel of rum.

"Look at this, there is a whole barrel of cherries in there. And they kept giving us that disgusting mush…"

"Enough." I interrupted them, "We aren't done here."

I put four large barrels of water inside my inventory and carried a few bowls and cups as well as the cleanest blanket I could find before getting back out of the hole into our cell. I didn't bother looking at their curious faces when I laid the blanket in the cleanest corner in the room. Nor did I register the awe when I summoned the barrels back in, putting the cups and bowls there for them to drink.

Behind me, I could see the others forming a chain from the Hold into our base. Passing each other the supplies quickly and efficiently, just as we'd planned.

Ector came back to bring order to the men, keeping them from crushing each other to get food and water. There was clearly more than enough for everyone, but again, humans are messed up creatures. Meanwhile, I went back out to get the heaviest items into my inventory.

With this set up, we managed to empty the entire Hold in a few minutes. All the food, water, blankets and other supplies were ours to enjoy. We even took the planks and extra wood to make an improvised barricade with the tools we got. Ben the carpenter, one of our garrison's men, took care of this project.

Unfortunately, we couldn't just lay down and rest. With nothing but a few large sips of water each, and a couple cherries, we went back out into the hole. Covering it up with stray planches, we used the previous formation within the Hold, our objective clear.

Right behind the wall, between the Hold and the Captain's quarters was yet another key part of the ship. It was well guarded too, not nearly as much as the Booty or the Wizards magically isolated room, whose only contact with the rest of the ship was the food deliveries made by their personal servants. But being stuck right next to the commanding officer's quarters was as secure as it could get.

When the enemy's coming from outside that is.

Who would even think of someone not only infiltrating the ship, but also managing to silently tear the walls to pieces?

They didn't, and it cost them.

In a few minutes, we broke through the armory.

I didn't think much when I traded my poorly maintained broadsword for a brand new one of similar length but higher quality. I only mechanically repeated the previous operation, observing, grinding the skills, storing and taking what I could. I was moderately surprised to see that I couldn't transport weapon crates, but had no trouble storing away arrows, cannonballs, powder or arquebuse bullets.

'I'll have to look into that.' I thought, rushing back into the base for our final trip. In my inventory were crates I filled with planches, Ben could do with more material to build our defenses.

Arriving back onto the base, I was greeted by the sight of my people cleaning and counting the spoils. Some people had set up makeshift cabinets with blankets and wood for privacy to change onto better clothes or use actual chamber pots. Others had set up oil lamps in key areas, lighting up the dark and damp place to reflect our mood.

It did much for our morale to see our former prison changed in such a way, while our enemies slaved away above oblivious to our freedom, our victory and their oncoming starvation and thirst.

I waved at Ben and his men, who were happy to receive more raw material. Martha passed me a bowl of cherries, we had much of it and it would be a waste to let it rot in this humidity.

She didn't know I had a full barrel in my inventory, and if everything works out smoothly she never will.

Baldy was tied, shackled and put in some corner of the room. The cells were a large portion of the area and we didn't feel like squandering away all that territory, so we made use of it. A bit of cleaning, and ample use of incense made it at least somewhat bearable.

On the left side of the base was Ector, Boris and our burglar squads toasting and laughing, sitting around a table we'd found and of course requisitioned.

"If you can take it, why not take it?" was his argument, a worthy one.

We were safe, clothed, relatively clean, fed and watered.

All was good.

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Author Note:

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Hello there! Here's another chapter!

Arthur and the gang were in a bit of a pinch, the only way out of their base led to the enemy's sleeping quarters and canons which are manned as hell. So they had no other choice but to make way, into was (fortunately for them, not so much for the Avery) The Fancy's Hold (That's the storage room in a ship basically.) By pushing this strategy, they managed to get weapons for their forces.

All thanks to Baldy's participation.

Information is really a weapon isn't it.

Will Arthur's men achieve more victories? Will the privateers notice they are getting fucked? Will Arthur's men stay obedient...i meant loyal? Will the Wizards stop being isolationist nerds?

You'll see all this and more in the next chapter, stay tuned!

Goodbye!