"Of course." She grinned, throwing me a thumbs up. "And we’ll find you a way to get to… uh, where did you want to go again?"
"Jahar’taw."
"Right." She turned to a man in the distance and called him over. "Yo, Kai, get over here. We need you to figure out how to get these two to Jahar-thingy after they help us. Think you can do that?"
The man— the one who shot me with the rifle— came at her behest and nodded. "That won’t be too difficult," he said, then he turned to face us. "They’re helping us deal with the Elise?"
"Yes." Ginah nodded, a savage grin spreading across her face. "They’ll help us bring them down."
I quickly clarified. "Only where it involves innocent people, and we won’t stick around beyond that."
"Right, right."
Chapter 27: Hidden Lair
The group of pirates Gennady and I had found ourselves working with were called Ginah’s Crew; they were notorious as some of the best, and most merciful, pirates prior to the arrival of the Elise in Luke. Lisa explained to me how they would often specifically target only large merchant vessels, choosing to spare the crew and guards— although it was difficult to keep the latter alive when they fought back.
Still, I was not wholly buying into the idea of this ‘noble’ pirate group. I thought the Dark Crusaders were good— and perhaps most of them like Gerritt and Karna were such— but the fact of the matter was that their leadership was content with allowing callous, evil individuals run amok as long as they were useful to them. Perhaps this situation was different: with a significantly smaller group, it was far easier to control each and every member of a pirate ship, unlike the massive organization that was the Dark Crusaders.
Yet, I still made sure to keep an eye out for any such signs that indicated if anyone in Ginah’s Crew was not who I thought they were. And this time, I was not the same affection-starved, traumatized, and manipulated girl I had been after I just met Victor, who was blinded by the fact that him saving my life must have meant he was any way redeemable.
I eyed the pirates warily, standing off in my own corner of the ship as we reached their hideout. It was a cave hidden behind a beach, with rocks protruding out of the water, making it difficult to navigate into the pirate lair.
Gennady had gone to bed early: apparently getting ambushed by both our own crew, then pirates, then three different ships was pretty exhausting. I stayed awake, simply because I wanted one of us to be up, keeping watch for each other, whenever possible. I was aware that doing that for however long we were stuck helping Ginah’s Crew was literally impossible, but we could at least maintain some level of caution when dealing with them.
Unfortunately, it seemed like these pirates did not feel the same way about us, as a man casually approached me.
"Yo, little Miss." He waved a hand, striding up to me and flashing a grin. "That was quite the tough fight you guys put up, huh? Your Dwarf friend nicked me in the shoulder. Could’ve killed me."
I took one look at him and recognized him as the first pirate who boarded our ship— the one that nimbly avoided my volley of spells. He wore a simple beige colored pants that was rolled up to his knees, but he was not wearing any shirt, showing off his chiseled abdominal muscles and broad chest for all to see. I glanced past the large scar on the right side of his chest, and met his gaze.
I shrugged. "You guys attacked us first. Your friend would’ve killed me if I didn’t have a fast enough reaction time."
"That’s true," he said, nodding sagely. Then he put out a hand and I eyed it. "But the misunderstanding has been resolved! So it’s good to meet you, Melas— the name’s Braz."
I scowled, remembering that Gennady revealed my real name to not only Lisa and Jack, but this crew of pirates we had just met as well. Nodding curtly, I slowly shook his hand.
"So," I started, not wasting any time with small talk, "what do you want?"
"What do I want?" he asked, blinking. "Well, I’m just here to chat with you. Get to know our new ally!"
"I’m not your ally," I said simply. "I’m helping you cripple the Elise’s supply of enuim, and that’s it. Then you guys will have to help bring me to Jahar’taw one way or another."
He winked at me. "Exactly what I said: allies."
I sighed, shaking my head.
"And this is your guys’ hideout?"
"It’s our secret base," he agreed, looking over at the cave as we slowly made our way to it past some dangerous looking rocks. "We’ve been here for a month now. Kai found it for us when we decided to come back to fight the Elise."
"And Kai is your quartermaster?"
"He is one of the damned best ones there is!"
"Right," I said, staring past Braz, at the man standing next to Ginah. He had a rifle slung around his shoulder, and unlike the regular mana guns I had seen which typically had a mana crystal and no ammunition, his rifle had had a magazine to insert bullets into. It was almost like Felix’s revolver, except I was pretty sure Kai’s rifle was less deadly but had a longer range.
It was a hunch— not confirmed. But seeing Felix fire shots that bore through concrete like it was nothing, I was pretty sure I would have still died even if I had three or four Force Barriers protecting me.
"What happens now?" I asked, as the ship finally circumvented the rocks in our path, and entered the dark overhang that was the entrance to
