Natural Enemy 3-5

"Man, you really know how to pick a second location.”

The walk to the back half of Scuttle Town didn't get any prettier, but at least the smell stopped surprising him. Rotted wood on the bottom, thick flowing harbor sludge in the middle, and the sharp tang of hot metal slicing right across the very top came together in a specific layered stink-mix that had Kai wrinkling his nose as Lucky led him deeper into town.

“...this ain’t even the worst part of Scuttle.” Lucky’s answer came flat as hammered iron, the other boy’s ponytailed locs swaying behind him. “Gets so much worse, lil bro.”

Hands tucked into the pockets of his cutoffs, Kai did his best to ignore the humid air sticking his white tee to his chest. He didn't bother trying to figure out where they were going, eyes on the back of Lucky's pristine red vest.

“Scuttle Town looks bad enough but…" Kai clicked his tongue, glancing around the backstreets that somehow managed to look even grimier than the rest of it. "Whole place looks like it caught a disease."

"It's a shipyard.” Lucky didn't look back as his voice floated over his shoulder, sentences just short enough to sound sharp. “Ships come here to die. You don't come to a graveyard expecting to find a garden, lil bro."

"...I don’t care if you’re older than me. I’m not calling you big bro." Kai pushed down the bucket hat lower over his eyes. 

He heard a snort from Lucky, the taller boy throwing his head back for a second. “Didn’t ask you too. Still lil, tho.”

Blue eyes narrowed, the curse of being barely over 5 ft thrown in his face.

…how do I make fun of somebody for being tall?

Before Kai could figure that out, the two of them rounded a corner made entirely of broken masts, each one stacked tall to the side of a massive structure they stopped in front of. He blinked up at what had to be a warehouse, or at least something that was meant to be a warehouse. The roof was rusted brown tin, the surface flaking at the edges, with a set of too-tall double doors thrown wide open to a cavernous interior that didn’t seem to know what lighting was.

Without a word or another second of hesitation, Lucky stepped inside. Kai stared at his back and followed right after, sandals squelching on the damp dirt floor.

Huh…

It was almost totally dead in here.

Kai blinked, eyes adjusting as the sun of the outside went to nothing; just dim light filtering through a few high grimy windows. A few workbenches were scattered around the place, and just like everything else, they were covered in a thin layer of sawdust and grease.

That was nothing surprising, though, but… where are the ships?

Kai couldn’t see a single one as his eyes roamed around. No half-built hulls or anything hanging from the too-big chains up above. 

Just empty space and echoes.

“Dagnabbit!”

Speaking of echoes…

Tools — oversized iron wrenches, a couple of winches, a bunch of bolts, and something that looked too much like a dentist's drill — hit the dirt floor with a clattering clash. Kai’s head snapped over to the sound to see a small figure on their hands and knees, dropped tools all around them.

Huh? The figure was muttering something, scrambling around near a pile of rusted plating. A pair of faded green overalls stained with thirty different shades stood out to Kai, but not as much as the long white beard trailing down past the old man’s chest like a dirty mop in need of a wringing-out. One of his eyes was huge, bulging out behind a thick eyepiece strapped to his head with a piece of leather.

"McBucket!" Lucky called out, voice echoing in the emptiness. “Old man!”

Said old man jerked his head up, his body going with him as he practically launched himself off his knees. Whoa. Kai blinked at the sudden twitchy agility that didn’t match the look of a man old enough to be a great-great-great-grandfather. Okay, grandpa got hops.

"Lil' Lucy!” The old man threw his hands out wide as he landed on his feet, mouth open in a smile that showed off teeth more yellow and brown than white. “How you been?”

Lucky winced at the name, a quick shift but one Kai didn’t miss as he looked between the two of them. The shorter boy mouthed the name silently to himself, a slow grin stretching across his face. Lucy? 

Lucky rolled his red eyes as a sigh, deep as it was heavy, forced itself free from his lips with a single name. "McBucket.” He walked up to the old man, Kai still right behind him and refusing to hide his smile. "This is Kai. My new… partner. Kai, Ol' Man McBucket. He’s the… most experienced shipwright in Scuttle."

Experienced, huh?

What Lucky didn’t say was almost as interesting as what he did, but if he felt like this old prospector-lookin’ guy could hook them up with a ship, Kai honestly wasn’t gonna fight him all that hard on it.

He raised a hand, two fingers up in a lazy salute. "'Sup."

McBucket didn't salute back as he scrambled closer, boots kicking up little clouds of dust as the old man whirled up to Kai. "Ye got a pup!" A sharp cough rattled in his chest as he laughed out loud. "A pup and a pretty boy walkin’ in my shop? Come to steal my wrenches? 'Cause I ain't got much else!"

"Market for a ship, old-timer." Lucky paced a few steps into the center of the expansive warehouse, not even pretending like he heard the insult aimed his way. "Money ain’t exactly flowing free…”

Red eyes slid over to Kai, a silent question in that look.

Kai rolled his and answered the only way he could that was just as silent; one palm held out and tilted side to side.

“But market price’ll do if you’ve got something worth it. Caravel, maybe, a small one if you got one of those. Or a big sloop, something with some actual legs on her."

McBucket stopped dead, bulging eye blinking twice as he stared right at Lucky.

Then he laughed.

Jesus. Kai almost snorted at the high cackle the old man let out; manic, stuttering and loud, it was like a rusty engine trying to turn over without any oil in it. Still losing it, the old man slapped his knee hard enough to send a puff of dust flying free from the green overalls.  

"Don't know why you’re here if you’re looking for that, ye dumb donkey!" A wheeze finally ended the laughter, McBucket pointing one wrinkly grease-covered finger around the glaringly empty room. "D'you see a sloop? D'you see a caravel? Hell, you’d be lucky to buy a dinghy off me these days, lil Lucy."

"So, like… you don’t have any? At all?” Kai looked around again, just to be sure he hadn't missed a massive wooden ship hiding behind a dust-covered workbench. “Man, we walked a long way for a whole lot of nothing."

"What’d I just say?” McBucket raised a bushy, oil-stained eyebrow, his raspy voice dropping a little of the manic energy. “Hell, I can barely get a customer in this ‘ol place anymore. Being honest..." The old man let out a sigh, all the energy seeming to deflate with the air. "I do got some hulls out back that could use a quick fix, but ol’ Jethro can’t afford to risk ‘em on a cheap sale just yet. Gotta hoard what ye have when the sea stops providing."

"What happened to this place?" Lucky blinked around the room just like Kai did, almost unbelieving as he kept staring. "Last I was through here, the place was loud. You had three refits running the same week, old man."

"Last you were here was almost half a year back, Lucy," McBucket spat a glob of something dark onto the dirt floor with a grunt. "World turns, tides shift, and the scum rises to the top here in ‘ol Scuttle."

"What happened since then?" Kai leaned forward, arms crossed tight over the leather of his vest. "Somebody break your tools?"

"Damned Bite Marks moved in, that’s what," McBucket growled each syllable, the words almost completely chewed up before they left the old man’s mouth. "Them and that prick Garris. Cocky bastards, they are."

Lucky’s red eyes widened, mouth open in a small silent ‘o’. 

“What?” Kai’s head snapped between the old man and the teenager. "The Bite Marks? Who're they? Sounds like a bad band name."

"Bite Mark Pirates are some of the worst.” Lucky thumbed his nose. “Not the biggest bounties on them, but big enough ‘cause they’ve made some enemies with what they do."

Kai blinked as Lucky stared off at nothing, the younger boy waiting for an explanation that was taking forever. “And what is it that they do?”

“Scavengers. The Bite Mark pirates are scavengers.” The answer came with Lucky sucking his teeth, eyes still looking up and off into the distance. “Ship thieves or raiders would be bad enough but they don’t even stop with that. They go for everything.”

“Everything?” What’s more everything than stealing a whole ship?

"Not gold or cargo. Every-damn-thing.” Lucky nodded slow. “Every single part of the ship down to the nails even. Wood, canvas, brass fittings, engine parts if it’s one of those. They strip everything from sloops to galleons clean and resell it all for scrap."

"Gawdamn parasite bastards is what they are. Eat up everything you got and y’can’t even steal the damn thing back." McBucket spat again, the ship repairman punctuating his words with a sharp click of the throat. "And with no parts floating free, I can’t do any damn repair work. Barely any wrecked ships coming in, 'cause those bastards grab 'em first, so I can’t fix any of those up with what I got either.” The old man shook a fist in the air, a wrench held tight in it  “We don’t get no shiny new shipments out here in Scuttle! It’s a damn ship graveyard for a reason, ye hear? I need ships to fucking die so I can live! If wood don't rot, worms don't eat! It's the cycle!"

Kai processed that for a second. Does that make you the…

He shook his head, deciding not to finish that thought. “So, like…”  Instead, he voiced another one as he uncrossed his arms. "If we make these Bite Marks go bye-bye… what you’re saying is, you’ll give us a ship.”

“Huh?” McBucket blinked. “Whaddya say, boy?”

Lucky finally lowered his head to look his way. “We?”

“You’ll give us a ship if we get rid of the Bite Marks for you.” Kai pointed a finger at the old mechanic, ignoring Lucky’s question. “Y’know, cause we cleared up your supply chain issue."

McBucket let the wrench and his hand drop to the side as he stared at Kai, that bushy eyebrow slowly climbing up his forehead as his monocoled eye refused to blink.

"For free?" Kai leaned in.

McBucket stared for another long second, and then he exploded.

He bent double, hacking and wheezing and slapping his thigh again as the laughter came hard and fast. "You got some nerve, pup! Free? Ha! Tell you what," McBucket straightened back up with a gasp, wiping a tear of grease from his eye. "You get rid of those Bitey bastards so the scraps start floating my way again… and I’ll fix you up the fastest ol’ ship I can. The best one ol’ Jethro McBucket can do you for. A real wave-cutter of a caravel, not some tub of rot."

“Bet bet.” Kai grinned and spun on his heel, already heading towards the open warehouse doors. "C’mon, L."

Lucky stood there as Kai walked away, still unmoving as Kai glanced back at him over his shoulder. “I said, c’mon.”

"C'mon, where?"

Kai didn't stop walking as he threw a hand up in a lazy wave, water humming a happy little tune under his skin. "We got some pirates to hunt, man. Try to keep up."