The Ocean’s Kindness (FNAF Fanfic)
Beginning + Ch. 8 + you are here + Ch. 10
Summary: You contemplate the likeliness of ever getting back home and things take a turn for the worst.
Note: Hey, look at that. Not my last chapter nice. Also, there’s blood and violence in this chapter.
Word Count: 7340 words
I’m inspired to write this story by @bamsara , @paper-lilypie, and Chex_Nyx on AO3.
Don’t like reading on Tumblr, neither do others. Here!
AO3
Fanfiction
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CHAPTER 9: HEART BROKEN
It took three weeks to get to the sight that Captain Sun said the sea glass will be. In that time, you had officially mastered being a crew member on the Crusty Waters.
You knew your knots by heart. You knew the basics of sword fighting and you were a good aim with your little gunpowder pistol. You were quick at doing your job and you don’t get knocked over by the ship’s rocking like you used to.
With your personal projects, you’ve gotten a lot better at pick pocketing with Bonnie as your competitor and you feel like you’ve improved in your personal gymnastics training. Even Happy Frog and Moon have been asking you to train them in gymnastics.
You wish your family could see you know. They’d be like, what happened to our little girl? You've gotten so much sun; you're covered in sun kisses. What happened to your hair? You looked amazing with long hair. You look so thin; have you not been eating enough? We missed you so much.
You miss them so much. As much as you’ve grown to love this world, you still want to go home. Heck, you wish you could show your new friends on the Crusty Waters what Earth is like. Show them sandy beaches, parks with trees, concrete buildings, and all the other things that they don’t have here.
You also wish you could introduce your parents to your friends. You’d love to see the stupefied looks on their faces meeting actual furries and dryads. Or well “stickmen” as they are preferred to be called. You especially want you parents to meet Sun and Moon. You’ve gotten quite fond of them, despite everything. However, you’re not any closer to getting back home than you were when your journey started.
You’ve gathered as much information about Zulon as you could but they’re just stories. All the things that they’ve done aren’t even consistent like facts. Whoever Zulon truly is, or was, was long lost and it seems to you that whatever Zulon is, or was, can only be truly known by those that they bring over from different dimensions. You can’t help but think that maybe you’ve lost your chance to connect with them or maybe you need to find a way to connect with this god somehow.
But how?
There was a rough slap to your back as the sudden shift made you hit the railing with your chest.
“What are you thinking so hard about,” Roxy asked as she leaned against the railing of the ship.
You rubbed the soreness out of your chest.
“I miss home.”
Roxy’s ears flattened to her head, “I see… Anything you miss in particular?”
You run your hand through your hair and fiddle with the sleeve of your oversized star-spangled jacket, “I miss my parents, the food, my succulent garden, and I really, really miss dirt. I never thought I could miss dirt so much.”
“We have plenty of dirt here.” Roxy said with a chuckle.
“No, no, no, no. That’s dust. I’m talking about actual dirt. Soil so brown it turns your hands black. It smells of dead leaves and cut grass and fresh rain. It makes my bones ache just thinking about being on solid ground again.”
“Wow,” Roxy said, “That does sound kind of nice,” she turned away from you to look out at the open ocean as it sparkled with the sunlight, “I wish I could have seen Zulon when it was full of trees and mountains.”
The two of you stand silently as you look over the ocean’s surface. The two of you saw a few fish sail through the sky. Probably trying to avoid a predator.
“So, any particular reason why you came over here?”
“Hmm? Oh, yah!” Roxy said as she snapped her finger-like paws, “Your boyfriend is looking for you.”
You snort out a laugh, “What boyfriend?”
“More like which,” Roxy teased.
“Oh, so I have more than one now, do I?”
“Three as far as I’ve been counting,” Roxy said as she toyed with her claws.
You cross your arms over your chest as you lean your shoulder against the railing, “Uh-hu. And These mysterious boyfriends are?”
“Monty and our two captains,” she said with a toothy smile, not looking at you as she continued to examine her claws.
You sputter, “Excuse you. I wouldn’t say that out loud around Chip. I’m pretty sure the bear has a crush on Monty. Second of all, Sun and Moon are happily together as far as I’m aware.”
Roxy side-eyes you, “How common is polygamy in your world? Do you know what it is?”
“Yes, I know what it is and the commonality of it depends. Earth’s a big world with a lot of people on it.”
Roxy pushed herself off the railing with a short, high-pitched, “Huh,” then said, “Anyways, it’s Captain Sun that’s looking for you. Last I saw him he was below deck in the supply room. I think he needs your help with something.”
You wondered what the stickman could need help with, and you also, briefly, wondered why Roxy sounded so coy.
You jog away from Roxy with a wave and said, “Okay. See you around!”
You grab a lantern near the entrance of the staircase leading below deck, but you don’t light it until you’re at the supply room. A side effect of sleepless nights and wanting to walk around while bored, is that you’ve managed to memorize the entire enteral layout of the ship.
Just as you lit the little lantern you hear crates falling and a string of curses.
You run in to find Sun sprawled on the floor with a tipped over lantern by his head, and crates on him.
“What are you doing here,” Sun shouted in surprise at the sight of you.
“Don’t worry! I’m here,” you shout in a panic as you first pick up the turned over lantern and smooshed any stray embers that escaped it with your bare feet. Then you got to work on getting the crates off Sun.
“Sun, are you okay? Are you hurting anywhere? Do you need Mr. Hippo to look at you?”
You grunt and strain as you move the heavy crates off the solar themed stickman.
“Don’t worry. Most of the crates landed on my chest and stomach. I’m mostly wood there,” Sun said cheerily, “But seriously why are you down here?”
“Roxy said you asked for me,” you explained, a little confused by the question.
Sun mumbled something under his breath, but you were too focused on getting him out from under the pile of crates to pay attention.
You get the final box off him and you grab his out reaching hand, pulling him to his feet.
“Easy,” you say, worried that he’ll faint or something. It’s just occurred to you that you wouldn’t know how to care for your crewmates if they got hurt. You’ll need to fix that.
“I promise, I’m fine,” Sun said as he held and patted your hand, “I wouldn’t have been down here for long even if Roxy hadn’t sent you.”
“That doesn’t exactly stop me from worrying, Sun,” you didn’t catch his smile as it disappeared when you asked, “What happened? What are you looking for?”
Sun let’s go of you and clears his throat, “Oh, uh. I was uh, looking for some spare parts for theeeeeee… Rebreather!”
“I thought it was fixed?”
“It is! It is! It’s just, uh, I want to have extra parts close at hand for incase. We don’t want our diver to drown while they’re down there,” Sun stated.
“No, we don’t. Did you find the extra parts?”
“Not yet. They’re somewhere in one of these top crates.” Sun gestured to their surroundings. “I tried climbing them, but as you can see, it didn’t go well.”
“Yah, this place feels like an OSHA violation waiting to happen,” you state looking through the shadows at the strapped down but precariously stacked crates.
You go over to a stack and start climbing up it.
“OSHA? What’s OSHA?” Sun asked as he started going through the crates that fell on him.
You explain what the organization is about to the best of your abilities, but Sun got the general idea.
It takes a few crates, but you open the right one and get out the parts Sun said he wanted for the Rebreather. As you climb down with the goods, you see Sun hastily putting something into his inner jacket pockets before slamming the crate lid back onto the crate. Then he quickly turns to you, looking nervous.
You raise an eyebrow at the man. You think very highly of your Captains at this point. So, you don’t think that whatever secrets that Sun’s trying to keep from you is malicious in any way, and you don’t question him. You just give him a look that you hope reads as, you’re terrible at being sneaky.
Sun gives you a nervous smile in return as the flower petal-like sunrays around his head are pinned to his head, then he asked, “Got it all?”
“I sure do. Don’t forget our lanterns,” you reminded him.
“Of course,” Sun said as he grabbed them and followed you out, “Honestly, I’m sure we don’t need these, with a smile as bright as yours.”
You snort at that.
“What, don’t you believe me?”
You roll your eyes heavily since your back is to him, and you said, “No. No. I believe you. I just laugh when I get complements.”
“Well, you have a sweet sounding laugh and I could listen to you talk all day if you’d let me.”
“Uh-hu.”
“And your singing voice. It’s ethereal and lovely.”
You snort at that.
Sun kept laying on the complements, like a child covering a cake in three layers of frosting, as the two of you walked up to the deck.
You sneezed from the sun shining in your face and you said, “Okay. Okay, Captain. I’m drowning in complements and I’m not a good swimmer.”
You look over your shoulder at Sun’s silence.
The lanterns were put away and he has a hand on his round chin as a smile was slowly stretching over his face. A twinkle of mischief was shining in his sky-blue eyes.
“What was that saying you’ve used before,” he thought for a moment, then he bent down so he was eye level with you, “Get good, scrub. Cause, I ain’t stoppin’.”
You snort so loud you sound like Orville when she sneezes. You’re wheezing, you’re laughing so hard. That phrase sounds so foreign coming out of him, you couldn’t help but cackle as you walk over to the diving team by the Rebreather.
Sun was walking to his cabin as he looked too smug for saying something so silly.
You were still laughing as you placed the extra parts by Happy Frog as he was giving the rebreather a once over.
“What’s got you all giggles and smiles,” Monty asked, “Not that I’m complaining.”
Through your laughter you see that Monty isn’t in the rebreather suit and you stop laughing to say, “You’re not going under?”
“Nope,” you hear Freddy say. You turn to follow his voice as he walked around the Rebreather and gets behind you, “I’ll be going down this time.”
You grimace at the thought. You don’t like seeing anyone going into the depths of the ocean, but you were at least used to the idea of Monty being down below. This was your mentor and one of your best friends. You really hate the idea of him being by himself on the ocean floor.
Freddy smiles at you and pats your head affectionately.
“Come on now. The process is perfectly safe,” the orange/brown bear reassured you.
“Mmmmmmm,” you grimace.
“Will it make you feel better if you hold onto my lifeline?”
“Not really, but it’ll be something,” you state as you stuff your hands into you coat pockets and smooth your fingers over the sandstone carving with your right hand.
You helped the diving team prep the crane and you watch Happy as he gave Freddy’s suite one last look over. One of the crewmembers that you don’t know the name of, a wolf, was on the elliptical bike that pumps air into the suits and was pedaling at a strong but steady pace.
Freddy got hooked up and then he hopped onto the stone tablet. Monty and Chip raised him and the tablet into the air and moved it over the side of the ship. You held onto the lifeline dutifully as you watched him sink below the waves.
Before Freddy fully disappeared below the waves, he gave you a short wave with the pickaxe in his left hand. You wiggled your right hand’s fingers at him in a nervous wave.
In an attempt to calm your nerves, you sang Abba’s Dancing Queen to yourself.
You had repeated the song four times before you felt Monty slap you on the back.
“Relax, Cher, he’s fine.”
“I won’t relax until the job’s done,” you state stubbornly.
You felt the rope in your hands being pulled and you tell Monty it’s time to bring up the load.
Chip and Monty huffed and puffed as they struggled against the weight of the sea glass and the resistance of the water on it. When it broke the water’s surface, your eyes sparkled at the sight. It was so shinny! They even had a rainbow-hologram like affect to them. The little magpie part of your brain wanted to steal and horde the rocks, but you resisted.
You watched Monty, Chip, and other crew members unload the platform and then take the supplies below deck. Then Monty and Chip got to work on lowering the platform back into the water.
Later, Bonnie came over to relieve the wolf of bike duty when the third load of sea glass was raised and then unloaded. You were looking out to ocean when you noticed a little dot in the distance.
“Hey, Happy?”
The light-green frog man walked over to you, “Yah, Tiny?”
You side eye the frog. He’s literally only once inch taller than you.
“Is that a ship I see?”
You point with your face as you don’t take your eyes off the dot.
Out of the corner of your eye, you see Happy pull out a spy glass from his pants.
“It is. And they’re waving flags for trade,” Happy said, then he yelled over his shoulder, “What do you think, Bonnie? We want to trade with anyone?”
“We could use more rope,” Bonnie stated as he huffed and puffed from the bike.
Happy grabbed the rope from your hands, “Will you go tell the Captains about this.”
You nod and run to the captain’s cabin. You knock on the closed door.
“Who is it?”
You say your name but before you could say anything else you get spooked by a loud bang and a string of curses.
You stand uncertainly outside their door until Moon opens it. He held the door close to him like he was hiding the inside of the cabin for some reason.
“What can we do for you Starlight?”
“We spotted a ship in the distance waving trade flags. Bonnie says we could use more rope, do we need to wave some flags too or what?”
“Oh! Mmm…What other flags were up?”
You shrug.
Moon walks out and closes the door behind him as you back up and start to follow him.
“Where did you see the ship?”
You tell him and lead him over to the diving team. Once the two of you were standing by the railing with Happy, Moon got out his personal spy glass and looked at the boat.
“Oh! It’s one of Eclipse’s boats! We’ve traded with her crews before. She’s also a stickman captain,” Moon added with a small smile.
You smile at Moon’s restrained excitement.
“Someone go tell Chika to fire the cannons to get their attention. I’ll go get the flags.”
“I’ll tell her,” you say as you dash away.
After telling Chick about the trade, you had time to hide. Your hiding spot in the captain’s cabin was a no go it seems for the time being, and it’s too hot to stake it out in the crow’s nest, so you go to the crew’s quarters and hide under Chika’s bed. Honestly one of the best places to hide inconspicuously. Who’s going to go around the ship looking under beds?
Thirty minutes later, after you’ve hidden yourself, you hear the bang, bang, bang of the cannons going off and you settle in to take a nap.
# # #
Sun got excited when Moon told him that one of Eclipse’s ships will be coming up for trade.
Sun hopes that this ship will have Eclipse on it and not one of her old first mates. If it’s Eclipse, Sun was tempted to convince Moon to introduce you to her. With your permission of course.
If not, then at the very least he’ll get some extra little shinnies to add to the necklace he and Moon are making for you.
As per protocol, Freddy was called up to stop mining for safety’s sake as the Dying Light got close enough to send out rowboats.
Sun used his personal spy glass to look out to the ship and the little rowboats. He saw a blue bunny was on one of the rowboats. Her ears were hidden by her captain’s hat. A black wolf and a brown fox rowed her over, as she waved at the crew of the Crusty Waters.
Sun sighed, “Awe, It’s Bon Abell.”
“Well, don’t look too disappointed,” Moon teased.
Sun put away his spy glass, “Wh-I’m not-Of course I’m happy to see Bon Abell,” then in a pouty voice Sun added, “It’s just we haven’t seen Eclipse in a while, and I wanted to tell her about Starlight.”
“I don’t think that’s wise,” Moon stated with a comforting pat on his partner’s shoulder.
Sun sighed, exasperated, “I know. I know.”
“Want me to start welcoming them aboard, Captains,” Freddy asked from his seat by the Rebreather.
“No, you relax,” Moon stated, “You need to recover from your time under water. Orville!”
She trumpeted from the other side of the deck; she was in the middle of mopping.
“Start the Welcome!”
“Right away, Captain Moon,” she said gleefully as she dropped her mop and started running to do the job.
Rope ladders were thrown overboard. More rope was used to tie the trade goods and to then be lifted on board. Then rowboats were tied into place against the ship.
The crew boarded from the rowboats, with their weapons at their hips. It’s not such a strange sight to see as the crew of the Crusty Waters were also armed, and the two crews started to converse and gossip.
The blue bunny, Bon Abell, was beaming at the sight of Moon and Sun, in very much the same fashion a parent who hasn’t seen their kids in a long time would do.
“Oh, look at you two,” she said with a soft gravelly voice, “You two haven’t changed a bit!”
She grabbed Moon and Sun’s hands.
Sun and Moon squeezed her furry paws.
“We age differently, Bon Abell,” Sun reminded her, playfully, “Is your memory going in your old age.”
“Oh, hush, you! Let an old bunny admire her old charges.”
“Even in your old age, you’re as beautiful as ever,” Moon stated.
“Oh, Moon, my silly boy. You always have such a way with words,” the blue bunny let go of their hands to cup Moon’s face. Moon bent down to allow her this. Sun watched on in amusement.
“How are you two doing? Are you staying healthy? How much trouble have you two been getting up too?”
Sun and Moon side eyed each other, then Sun said, “The normal amount of trouble.”
Bon Abell chuckled as she let go of Moon’s face then went to hug Sun, “That’s good to hear. Have either of you seen Eclipse lately?”
“No. It’s been a while,” Moon stated.
“I see, that’s too bad,” Bon Abell said as she patted Sun’s back to end the hug, “Let’s get to work then, shall we?”
Sun and Moon asked how the Dying Light 2 was doing and how she and her crew were fairing. They asked what she’s seen and what she’s been doing and what she’s learned. She answered their questions and asked the same of them as they went over what they wanted to trade.
The two captains got their extra rope, and dried fruit, and soap, in exchange for their extra dye, dried fish, and small shards of the sea glass they have mined so far. Moon and Sun even saw Bon Abell’s personal collection of seashells, and they paid using their quartzers for those. They wanted to add them to the necklace they were making for you.
Bon Abell and her crew were taking their time reloading everything back onto their rowboats, but Sun and Moon didn’t mind. This was their old friend and second closest thing to a mother figure they had, not counting Eclipse. Any time spent with Bon Abell is a good time.
The blue bunny was talking about her adventures and Moon and Sun were nodding along, happy to listen to her, until she brought up something they were hoping wouldn’t be brought up.
“Have you heard about the rumors of the new creature?”
“New creature,” Moon asked hesitantly as he and Sun shared a look.
“Aye. The legendary beings that, by Zulon’s “grace”, are brought to our world and destroys everything? I heard we have a new legend in our waters. Makes you wonder what kind of monsters we’ll have to face with this new creature huh?”
“Not all of Zulon’s creatures bring destruction,” Sun timidly added.
“Hmm. Could have fooled me. I swear, Zulon’s only out to end us all,” Bon Abell stated.
Sun saw Moon frown heavily at that.
“What’s changed your mind?”
Bon Abell turned to Moon, slightly confused, “Hmm?”
“You’re the one who made me think of Zulon as a lonely creature with your stories, why do you think our planet and god is out to get us?”
Bon Abell sighed sadly, “Oh, my silly boy… Life has a way of wearing you down, like winds on a sail. I don’t believe in Zulon’s innate kindness anymore.”
Sun and Moon looked at their old friend and Mother figure with a heart wrenching look.
Bon Abell patted Sun’s forearm, then said, “Don’t worry so much about me. I’m working on making things better.”
An unfamiliar voice shouted over the casual chatter of the two crews, and he said, “I found it!”
A brown fox was holding up your unconscious form for all to see.
Sun and Moon were frozen at the sight. Then all around them they heard the sound of pistoles being loaded and they looked to see that the Dying Light 2’s crew had their weapon’s drawn and pointed at them and their crew.
Sun and Moon turned to Bon Abell, and she had a pistol trained on each of them.
She met Moon and Sun’s shocked looks with a soft motherly smile.
“Now boys, I thought you were in only the “normal” amount of trouble.”
Sun looked to Moon as Moon asked, “Bon Abell. What’s going on? Why are you doing this?”
“Well, I’m going to give that thing to the Agony Cult, and then it’ll do its evil little thing, and hopefully I’ll be able to kill two fish in one barrel.”
“You’re in the Agony Cult,” Sun shouted in disbelief, “You hate the Agony Cult!”
“I’m not in the cult, and I promise I still do hate them, Sunny, but there are a few things that I happen to agree on, with them,” she sighed, “For now, if I pretend to work with them, they’ll destroy themselves from the inside out when I give them the creature.”
“You and Eclipse wanted nothing to do with them! What would Eclipse think,” Moon asked.
“I think that they have no say in the matter, since they’re dead.”
Sun was reeling from that. What does she mean Eclipse is dead?
“No she’s not,” Moon disagreed vehemently.
“Yes, she is. I killed her myself.”
“No!”
“I’m sorry, Sunny, but it’s true.”
“If it was true, then you wouldn’t have asked if we’ve seen her! You know she’s too stubborn to die,” Moon spat as he stomped closer to Bon Abell.
Bon Abell cocked the hammer to her pistol and aimed it at his soft chest. Moon halted in his angry stride.
“Don’t make me kill you two. You’re just as much family to me as Eclipse was. I honestly had hoped she would have joined me instead of fighting me on this.”
“Please don’t do this Bon Abell,” Sun pleaded, “We can talk this out. Don’t take them away from us.”
Sun watched Bon Abell’s aged face scrunch up in concern.
“Does the monster have you under its spell, Sunny?”
“They’re not a monster!” Moon growled.
“They’re our friend, and a valued part of our crew,” Sun stated.
Bon Abell shook her furry blue head at them in concern, then she yelled, “Brutus, bring it over here! And nobody make a move, or we will shoot!”
The brown fox walked through the crowd with your unconscious body dangling from his one arm. Sun didn’t know if they hurt you to make you unconscious or if they found your hiding spot and you were asleep. Neither prospect was good since you’re such a deep sleeper.
The brown fox stood before Bon Abell. She holstered one pistol and then she lifted your head by your hair. Your face was relaxed, and your mouth was slightly open. You were dusty, Sun could tell by the line your drool was making down the side of your cheek.
“This flabby, almost furless, creature is only using you two and your crew. It’s biding its time until it can unleash its horrors to our already ravished world…” she trails off as she lets your head drop as she touches the star-spangled jacket you’re wearing.
“They’re not like that,” Sun defended you, “You don’t even know them.”
“And do you know them? Truly,” Bon Abell asked, a stern look on her face.
“Better than you do,” Moon stated.
“I made that jacket for you,” the blue bunny changed the subject, “I can’t believe how much it has you two around its little fingers.”
“Please. Bon Abell, please. Just talk to them. They’re a good person,” Sun pleaded, not wanting to fight her but also not wanting to lose you.
“These things never bring anything good!”
She roughly grabbed you by your round ears to lift your head. You spasmed in the brown fox’s grip and your eyes flew open.
Bon Abell jumped back at your awareness.
You threw your legs up and over the brown fox’s shoulder and hooked your ankles around his neck. Then using your body like a spring, you slipped out of the brown fox’s hold around your waist and front flipped to your feet. Toppling the fox overboard in the process.
You then flung yourself at the bunny as you wrestled to get the other pistol out of her grip. A shot rang out in the air as the two of you fought on the ground. Seconds later, the whole ship was fighting. Shots were being fired, and swords were clashing as people yelled battle cries over each other.
Sun and Moon moved to help you, but they were immediately distracted by a chicken and a wolf coming at them with swords. The two captains immediately drew their own swords and defended themselves.
# # #
You had no idea what was going on but the danger you felt was real and instinct kicked in. The blue bunny holding a gun out at Sun and Moon was a threat you had to end. Granted, not your smartest move, but suddenly being awake doesn’t make the brain work all that well.
You’re on top of the blue bunny. In your panic you can only assume that they were here for you, and you had to get them off your ship. Your first step being, getting rid of their weapon.
The bunny is stronger than you and she manages to knock you off her by headbutting you in the nose.
You see stars as you fall on your ass.
You look up to see she’s getting back on her feet and is about to train her pistol at you, but you’re close enough that you can kick her legs out from under her feet.
She falls heavily on her stomach, her head bouncing off the railing before hitting the deck.
The pistol falls out of her grip, and you grab it and throw it overboard.
You could have kept that… Damn it, bad instincts.
You look back down at the blue bunny and she’s pulling out another pistol.
Panicked again, you hop onto her back and grab her pistol holding hand with both of yours, trying to slam it out of her hands to get rid of it.
The blue bunny’s other hand was reaching around for you, clawing at your leg, stomach, back, and thighs as she tried to get you off her.
She scrambled to her feet, and you wrapped your legs tightly around her waist as you held on to her pistol holding arm, working on forcing her fingers off the weapon one finger at a time.
With a hop, the blue bunny fell hard on her back, on to you, crushing the air out of your body, but you still held on tight even if your attempts to grab her pistol had slowed.
As she was getting back up onto her feet again, still clawing at you and twisting to get you off her, you continued to hold on tightly with your legs and hands.
She fell on her back once more. Then she ran backwards until she slammed you against one of the masts. Still, you persisted. Never letting go. You know what it feels like to be in pain and to have the breath knocked out of you. You’ll get your breath back, just focus on the task at hand.
The blue bunny was doing more damage to you the longer you were on her. So instead of forcing the gun out of her hand, you changed tactics.
Making sure the gun was aimed for the air, you wrapped your finger around her furry finger, and the trigger, and pulled it seven times. You spin the barrel after each pull of the trigger, and you made sure that it was empty.
The blue bunny pinned you against the mast as she started elbowing you in the ribs.
You let go of her arm to then grip her ears and you pulled. A pained scream filled your ears as she hit you harder in the ribs.
With her chin up you wrap your arms around her neck and squeeze with all your might, and for extra measure you squeeze your legs around her waist just as hard.
Her claws dug into your forearms as she scrambled to get you off her.
You could feel her trying to force her chin under your grip to try and bite you, her buck teeth grazing dangerously close to your skin, as she ripped at the flesh of your arms with her claws.
You don’t let go.
She falls backwards and lands heavily on you again.
You don’t let go.
She manages to get your left forearm into her mouth, her bucked teeth pierce through your flesh, but you shove your arm farther into her mouth and you tighten your right arm’s grip around her neck.
You don’t let go.
You feel her starting to slow down.
Still, you don’t let go.
Then you’re seeing stars. You feel the weight of your opponent leave you and you scramble back to get away. Your head aching and ears ringing with the sound of fighting around you, you look back to see a black wolf with a sword in hand, helping up the blue bunny. She was red with your blood, making her dyed blue fur look almost purple.
“Look out!”
You look towards who was shouting at you and you manage to dodge a swing from a sword as a toad has started to try to impale you.
“The cult never said you had to be alive,” she croaked.
You trip and dodge away from the sword slashing toad.
There was a blood thirstiness in the toad’s horizontal pupils as she chased you across the deck as you two dodged other fighters. It was like the idea of you dying by her sword excited her.
You trip over a pile of rope as she swings down her sword at you.
You lean into the fall, and you do a backwards somersault, and you grab some rope as you get back onto your feet. For a few merciful seconds, the toad’s sword is stuck in the wood of the deck.
With the rope in hand, you charge forward and wrap the rope around their feet. Making them fall to their stomach and on their face.
Now you’ve only seen this in movies, but you hog tied the toad to the best of your abilities, using the bowline knot you learned from Freddy. Then you left them squirming on the deck as you wrenched their sword out of the deck. You gripped the handle of the sword between your teeth, and you climbed up the nearest jacob’s ladder.
Once you were on one of the lowest booms, you looked out across the deck.
You saw Chika and Roxy, back-to-back near the entrance to the lower levels of the ship. Chika had a pistol in each hand shooting down people from halfway across the deck and Roxy had a dagger in each hand with blood on them and on her jaws as she attacked anyone that got too close.
At the stern of ship, you saw Pigpatch and Monty, hold out in a shootout, with a white bunny and a gray elephant. The two of them seemed to be holding their ground as they hid behind the barrels of left-over beer from the slumber party. They looked like they were having fun.
You saw Foxy fighting with a yellow chicken in a very heated sword fight. You thought Freddy was good with a sword but watching Foxy move was like watching a ballet recital. Him and the chicken were extremely focused on each other, and no one bothered to try and interrupt them by taking a shot at either party. Probably an unspoken politeness rule or something.
At the beak head of the ship, you saw Sun was fighting with Freddy. Sun was using his pistol and Freddy was using his sword. Sun would shoot the targets that were farther away, and Freddy was push back and stab anyone else that got close.
In the middle of the deck was Chip, Bonnie, Mr. Hippo, Happy Frog, Orville Elephant, and everyone else as they were fighting the main bulk of the invaders.
You noticed that someone was missing. You look desperately across the crowd. Then over at the bow spirit, the pointer of the ship, you see that five invaders have cornered Captain Moon and they were slowly pushing him up the bow spirit. They were fighting him and trying to trip him up, so he’ll fall into the water.
You scramble to the highest, and closest point on the mast. Then you find a nice, long, sturdy rope and you cut it. You make sure the other end of it is secure and you take a moment to steel your nerves.
Breathing through your nose with the sword still in your mouth, you talk out loud.
“I don’t know if you can hear me, Zulon, but if you can, or I’m just going crazy, let me help my friends. Some kind of divine intervention would be great cause I don’t know what I’m doing!”
With that you do a running start, and you fling yourself off the highest point of the boom on the mast. You’re free falling, then the rope snaps with tension as you slide a bit down the rope, giving your hands rope burn. You swing at an ark and you’re heading towards the crowd that has Moon cornered.
“Head’s up!”
The five intruders and Moon turned to you.
You reach out a hand towards Moon.
He grabs onto you and falls with the swing of the rope as the two of you make your temporary escape away from the onslaught.
You laugh manically through the sword in your mouth.
“I can’t believe that worked!”
“Pay attention!”
The two of you make a rough landing on the roof of the captain’s cabin.
You spit the sword out of your mouth, and you immediately start rambling, “Captain! I’m so sorry this happened! I should have found a better hiding spot! How do we know we’ve won or when the battle has ended? I’ve never had to do this before!”
“You’re bleeding,” he said as he made to tear off his shirt sleeve.
You put your bloody hand on his hand, “Not now! Moon! Please! What do we got to do?”
Moon looked solemnly to the ground as he tried to speak, lost his words for a second, then said, “We’ve got to kill the captain.”
“Okay, well, is there another option? I’d rather not kill anyone.”
“They’re killing our people or at the very least they’re trying to. We have to kill her. She’s giving us no other option.”
Shots rang out and you feel a searing heat in your right side. You grip yourself and look down to find that you’re now bleeding through your star-spangled jacket in your kidney area. God, you hope you’re not actually shot in your kidneys, going pee will suck in the future if that’s the case.
The two of you turn to see the blue bunny that you were tangled with before, aiming her gun directly at you. Your blood still staining her front. She’s not shooting more at you or at Moon even though she could. In fact, she’s looking directly at Moon, like she expects him to do something about it.
“Okay, you’re right. She’s not giving us a choice,” you said through gritted teeth as you staggered to stay on your feet.
You feel Moon’s strong grip on your shoulder.
“Stay here.”
“What about—”
“That’s an order,” he said as he took your sword from you.
Now with a sword in each hand, you watched him run off after the blue bunny as she stood her ground against Moon and as she drew her own sword.
You can tell by Moon’s stance that he doesn’t want to do this. You feel like there’s a history here that your missing, but it’s too chaotic to do anything about it.
You crouch at the edge of the captain’s cabin’s roof as you press your left hand to your bleeding side. You stay ready to jump, just in case you find an opportunity to help.
The blue bunny had her sword pointed straight at Moon’s chest as Moon had one sword pointed to the ground and the other pointed at the bunny woman’s chest. The two swords’ men started circling each other on the deck.
“See what happens when other worldly creatures come to our world. They always make a mess.”
“You don’t get to blame Starlight for this, Bon Abell.”
The blue bunny scoffed, “You’ve given it a Stickmen name? I thought I taught you better than to give names to pets that you can’t take care of!”
The two of them clashed. If it was nighttime, you’re sure you would see sparks.
As you watched them fight, you got the sneaking suspicion that they’ve fought before, but never like this. You kept your eyes glued to the sight before you, hoping that your crewmates had your back if they saw anyone trying to take aim at you.
As you watched them twirl and slash at each other, in the beginning, you thought that with Moon having two swords, he’d be at an advantage, but the longer you watched, the more you realized that Moon needed the two swords to be on even ground with the bunny woman.
The blue bunny moved with a calm swiftness that contrasted against Moon’s more nervous and slightly sloppy movement. Moon kept attacking her, as neither gave up ground, but it was obvious that the blue bunny was playing with Moon.
“Oh, my silly boy, have you not been practicing your sword fighting like you should,” the blue bunny asked like a disappointed mother.
It made your skin crawl hearing her talk like that to Moon, or maybe you were becoming cold from blood loss.
“Shut up!”
Moon slashed at her. She parried with ease and counter attacked. She looked like she was putting more force into her swings, pushing Moon backwards.
You nervously shoved your free hand into your jacket pocket, and you felt the sandstone carving in your pocket. You smoothed your fingers over the carving of the Zulon’s heart nervously.
A realization struck you as you look down at yourself and you pulled out the stone carving. You could throw this at her as a distraction.
You hear a clang.
You look back up. In that short amount of time when you weren’t looking, the blue bunny had managed to get Moon sprawled on his back with her sword to his chest.
Moon still had a sword in his hand, but all the bunny woman had to do, to kill your captain, was push forward in one swift motion.
Well, not on your watch.
# # #
Tears pricked at the corners of Moon’s eyes as he looked up at his old mentor and mother figure. Him and Sun never thought this could happen, that someone that they thought was family would turn around and hurt them.
“I’m sorry things had to turn out like this,” Bon Abell said, a genuine look of hurt on her face, “I’ll make this quick. Thank you for one last game.”
There was a sickening smack of stone hitting bone. A round disk fell next to Moon’s shoulder and broke. Disorienting the bunny woman.
Moon took his chance.
The lunar being smacked aside Bon Abell’s sword than he pushed his own up and into her heart.
Moon held onto her. Embracing her for one last time, pretending for just a moment that this was a warm and welcoming moment.
Everything was still as he slowly lowered her to the ground, pulling the sword from her chest.
Moon looked up and around as he saw everyone looking at the two of them.
Moon looked back down at his old mentor and closed her empty eyes.
Standing back up he said, “Get off my ship. And take your dead captain with you.”
A black wolf walks up and lifts Bon Abell’s corpse. Then one person after the other, the crew of the Dying Light 2 boarded their rowboats and went back to their ship.
The crew of the Crusty Waters opened their sails and moved away from the Dying Light 2. Moon watched as Bon Abell’s ship got smaller in the horizon until it disappeared. Moon jumped a little when he felt Sun’s grip on his shoulder. The lunar themed stickman let his gaze linger a bit longer on the horizon before allowing his partner to turn him.
Sun was already crying.
The sight made Moon’s floodgates open.
The two stickmen embrace each other as they mourn their loss.
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