The village of Portsmith was where they had decided to begin their investigation. They had chosen this place because it was small and neglected, and whoever had information would probably give it away for a bottle of cheap wine. It had taken them a week to get there, riding as fast as they could, so they now had enough time before the information about the attempted assassination caught up, probably. It was around midnight.

In this past week of traveling, they had all naturally bonded with each other. Even Arthur had been less of an asshole, or rather not at all. He still hadn’t apologized for bullying Vreil, but his intention to become friends had shined through. Coldly ignored at first, he persisted in a show of humility and eventually managed to be accepted by them. In fact, even the beginnings of a friendship had begun blooming among the young men.

After all, some childish bullying wasn’t something to remain stuck on.

“Okay, listen up”, Jiovanni gathered them around as they approached the village. “Milos and Nigel will ask the villagers and the sailors. Vreil and Arthur will handle the bars. I will take the bad neighborhoods. Arthur, is your arm fine?”

“Yes, sir. I haven’t had any problems since two days ago.”

“That’s good, because things may get rough. Now go. We’ll meet at the square, at dawn.” The lights were on in the village, as the sun had set a couple of hours ago. Nodding, they each formed their groups and disappeared in the alleys, leaving Jiovanni alone.

The first bar Vreil and Arthur entered was between two warehouses, a dark place in an alley was its entrance. The moment they opened the door, they were struck by a wave of stench that almost made them step back. Cigars, drinks, rat piss mixed with vomit at the corners, and a hideous smell coming from the bathroom, not to mention the sweat of the men that crowded this bar. They had wanted to start off at a small one, but they had obviously failed. This bar was pretty big in size and it was full of men who were drinking, gambling, or were already passed out. Its name was, quite suitably, “Wild Rat”.

With Arthur in front, they opened up a path to the barman. “What?” he barked. Vreil politely asked him if the Black Beard pirates were at the port and if they weren’t, when would they come?

“Why would I tell you?” he said.

“Because if you don’t, I will make you swallow anything anyone has vomited tonight”, Arthur replied. The barman took a good look at Arthur's big, bulky body, then his customers, and finally the corners of his bar. He then told them that the pirates they were looking for were, indeed, at the port.

“In fact,” he added, “there are some of them in here. They are over there, at that table. But please, don’t fight inside my bar. I have a family to feed, you know”.

“WHERE IS MY BEEEEER?” shouted a big, drunk man from across the bar and approached the barman.

“Let me get it, please,” he said, pale as a sheet of paper, but Arthur grabbed the barman’s shoulder.

“We are not done yet,” said Arthur. Here we go, thought Vreil.

A big punch suddenly headed towards Arthur’s face. He ducked to dodge it, but the man who had thrown it slipped and, accidentally, actually hit Arthur. The drunk man started laughing and everyone turned and looked at them. Anger management had never been Arthur’s forte, and he stood up ready cracking his fists.

“Arthur,” Vreil stopped him, “look behind me.”

Arthur looked behind Vreil. With all the commotion, the four Black Beard pirates who were in the bar had noticed them and the swords that were hanging from their belts, and were now leaving the bar.

Arthur spat on the floor. “I know”, he said. “Mission first. Beating drunk sailors comes second.”

The two of them ran towards the exit, but another man tried to stop them. “You don’t run from a fight, kid”, he said and tried to grab them. Arthur turned around and politely punched him, but his attack missed its target and landed on the man next to him. That man wasn’t looking, so he turned and punched whoever was close to him.

The other drunks found this fight thingy funny and started to hit each other while the barman was desperately trying to stop them. As Vreil and Arthur were stepping out of the bar, a big fight was already going on among those inside. The last thing they saw before they closed the door was the barman crying.

When they stepped outside, they saw the pirates turning a corner. “Stop!” shouted Vreil, and of course he was ignored. In the history of stopping, nobody had ever stopped when told to.

The two men ran after the pirates, thinking they had lost them. However, the pirates had an idea. A pretty bad one. They thought that since they were four, they shouldn’t be running away from two people, and so they hid behind the corner to ambush them. Moments later, all four of them were lying on the ground, and just one of them was conscious.

“You should have just run. Or, if you wanted to ambush us, you could at least have had your swords drawn”, commented Vreil. He had managed to save one of the pirates from Arthur’s buldozer-cosplaying fists.

“Gyou chit too chard”, said the conscious one. Vreil raised a brow; he thought he’d been very gentle.

“What should we do with them, Vreil?” asked Arthur.

“I guess we could ask him some things and then give them to the Blue House, as a present.”

“Cha! Dey lobe us” the pirate said, happy with himself. “Shut up”, commanded Arthur. “Ochay”, he replied.

“But you know, he has a point. If the Blue House wanted to arrest them, they could have already done so. Ashter once told me the Blue House is corrupted.”

“We can take them to the White House, then. Or we can kill them.”

“No, no, not de Guait Chouce”. “I told you to shut up”, shouted Arthur. “Ges, sir.”

“Let’s stick with the White House. Now, Mr. pirate, we have some things to ask you. You won’t try to fool us, will you?” asked Vreil, wearing a big smile.

“No no, abcholutely not”, the pirate answered, nodding so hard that Vreil was afraid his head would fall off.

After they got their questions answered to the best of the unfortunate pirate’s ability, they knocked him out and used their belts to tie all four of them to a building's foundation in a dark alley, so they could come and pick them up later.

“I guess we can’t expect trash like them to have such delicate information”, Vreil shook his head. “And now my pants are dropping. Great.”

“We could try their ship”, replied Arthur.

“Well…” Vreil hesitated, using one hand to scratch his head and the other to keep his pants where they belonged. “Taking out some thugs is one thing, but a whole ship is on a different league. If we decide to go for it, we should at least get Jiovanni to help us.”

“At this time, most of the pirates are probably out in bars or wherever. We can quietly take over their ship, ask some questions and then take out whoever comes, one by one. Besides, if we let Jiovanni do it, he will hog all the fun”, Arthur grinned.

“Still, our orders are to search the bars.”

“Don’t you think Jiovanni will be happy if we tell him that we arrested a whole ship along with the pirates on it?”

“Hmm”, Vreil cupped his chin. “I guess we could get attacked by the pirates near the port, and then chase them to their ship and take it over.”

“Now we’re talking”, smiled Arthur.

They went to the port but, unfortunately for them, there were many ships, and it was too dark to see the flags. “Now what?” asked Arthur.

“It’s ok,” Vreil winked, “just follow me.”

Arthur followed Vreil as he slowly walked in front of the ships, standing still and looking at one for a while when he was right in front of it. Nothing happened until the fourth ship.

“What are you looking at?” came a voice from the deck.

“Excuse me, what ship is this?” Vreil asked politely.

“This is a ship of the Blue House. Get lost, kid.”

“Alright, sorry for disturbing you.” That wasn’t the right one.

Five ships to the right, another voice sounded, saying the same things as the first one. Vreil asked what ship that was, and his answer was a barrage of curses, most of which Vreil had never heard before in his life. The meaning, however, at least what Vreil could understand, was that this was a ship of the Black Beard pirates and if they didn’t leave the port right now the pirates would come and make them into seafood.

“No worries sir, that won’t be needed,” Vreil replied jovially, “we are coming over ourselves.”

“What was that, punk? Didn’t you hear what I just said? We are THE Black Beard pirates!”

“I think we will take the risk”, laughed Vreil, he and Arthur jumping on board. The man who had been talking with such bravado was particularly small, and now he was shivering with all his might.

“Go back or I will-“ Arthur knocked him out in the blink of an eye. Some pirates appeared on the deck, coming from the captain’s cabin where they were obviously playing cards, since some of them were still holding their good cards.

“Who are you?” asked the captain, a big man with a suitably big hat and a not-so-suitable lack of missing body parts.

“That is not important”, said Vreil. “What is important is, have you ever heard of the name Sting?”

The captain seemed surprised for a second before unwillingly dropping the couple of aces he’d been holding. He then drew his sword. “Attack!"

He rushed forth, and the rest of his crew followed him immediately.

“Make sure the captain can talk after this, Arthur.”

“I know, Vreil. He has what we want.”

If someone observed the situation just before they clashed, he would surely conclude that this was a very unfavorable situation for the two of them. They were up against eight opponents, some of whom looked strong. They were fighting on a ship, which gave the pirates an advantage since they were used to it. On top of that, Vreil and Arthur had just come aboard and had not yet gotten used to the movements of the ship.

However, while the two of them were fighting back-to-back and their swords were dancing, the pirates began to collapse one by one. The first to fall were the ones that tried to block Arthur’s attacks instead of dodging. The ones on Vreil’s side soon began to get pushed back as Vreil was getting used to the rhythm of the battle. When the number of pirates had been cut in half, Vreil and Arthur lashed out and took out the remaining ones.

It was hard to put their strength into perspective when they were fighting each other or someone equally outrageous, but both Vreil and Arthur were extremely strong when compared to normal people.

Vreil made sure to hit the captain with the back of his blade. Surprisingly, nobody from the port or the surrounding ships seemed to react to the fight, despite the deafening clangs and screams.

“Was that all?” said Arthur when there were no pirates left, clearly disappointed. “The guys back at the mountain were stronger than this.”

“Most of the pirates have never had any actual training”, shrugged Vreil. “They are just given a sword and told to fight. Of course they would be extremely weak. Now, let’s hide the captain and the cowardly short guy.”

“You guys are dead”, said the captain from the floor, laughing as his teeth were tinted red from his own blood, “the Sword of the Sea will be back any moment now.”

“Who’s that? And how come you're still conscious? I thought I hit you hard enough.”

“Ha! The Sword of the Sea will not lose to the likes of you. He is one of the five Swords of the Black Beard pirates, the strongest of all of us, besides the Commander. Blame your luck for attacking us the one time he was on board”, the captain spat his words out miserly, nursing his defeat with a false sense of superiority.

“Strongest five, huh? I would like to test my might against him. Vreil, leave him to me”, said Arthur.

“Are you sure? I know you are strong, but the Black Beard pirates have a fleet of dozens of ships. He must be really strong. We should take him on together, or leave and wait for Jiovanni.”

As Vreil was speaking, a shadow jumped aboard from the port. “Hey now”, said Vreil, calmly drawing his sword, “there is a ramp you can u-“

The man understood the situation, drew his huge greatsword, and attacked Vreil, passing by Arthur as if he didn’t exist. He was a man of considerable mass and even though he blocked it using body strengthening magic, the attack still pushed Vreil back a couple of steps.

“Don’t ignore me, you asshole”, shouted Arthur and attacked from behind, but the Sword of the Sea blocked his attack without even turning around. Vreil tried to attack while the Sword was busy with Arthur, but the man rotated around himself and knocked them both back.

“You two are pretty good”, he said, speaking for the first time in front of them. The man was tall, almost as tall as Arthur was, and he sported shoulder-length dark hair. Scars crisscrossed his face, and an entire chunk of his nose seemed to be missing. “What are your names?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because whenever I slay a worthy opponent,” the man gave them a smug, crazy grin, “I carve their names onto my sword.”

The said sword was at least two meters long and, now that he was not trying to block it, Vreil could see that there were many strange carvings on it. Names. Enough of them to cover a two-meter long greatsword. Vreil gulped.

This was one hell of a psycho.