The Past Ahead - an Empires SMP AU

Chapter 9 - Pressing charges

           Pirate Joe whistled as he fished at his docks. It was a good day for fishing. Sea breeze just the right temperature, sun hidden behind the clouds so it wasn't too bright, fish were biting every lure you sent their way. It couldn't have gotten any better. Except...

           "Hi, Joey!" He whirled around, his fishing rod falling from his hand into the water, where it thankfully floated. "Katherine!" He shouted joyfully. "My princess!" Except that it wasn't Princess Katherine. He stopped and looked at her again. She was wearing a white bare-shouldered blouse with a lavender skirt dotted with flowers as well as a purple crown. Oh, it's just the Katherine from a thousand years ago. Joe didn't even bother to hide his disappointment, and Katherine noticed. Hm, should I be more nice to the past life of my love? Ah well, what Katherine, my Katherine, doesn't know can't hurt her. 

           "I'm called Pirate Joe around these parts," He informed her, and she went red with embarrassment. "Uh, okay, sorry, Pirate Joe." Over her shoulder, she called, "Lizzie! I found Pirate Joe!" With the pitter-patter of cat paws, Lizzie ran over to the docks, looking angry. Following close behind her were Princess Gem and that weirdly dressed jungle man that was apparently his past life. He was trying to say stuff to Lizzie but she wasn't having any of it. 

           "Pirate Joe!" She shouted. "Have you seen my husband or the fish version of me anywhere?!" "No," He replied, leaning over into the water to fish out his fishing rod before it got swept out to sea. "You just missed them. Joel and the fish siblings left for Stratos to check out this temple he made for them." "What!" Lizzie shouted, and Katherine recoiled. Lizzie was about to say something more when her eyes fell on the barrel full of fish that Joey had just been fishing. As if on cue, her stomach grumbled. She looked at Joey with wide, glistening eyes, looking as cute as Puss in Boots whenever he wanted to charm something out of someone. 

           "Go ahead," Joe said, waving at the barrel. With a yowl of delight, Lizzie practically leapt into it and started chowing down the fish nearly two at a time. Katherine and Joey wrinkled their noses at the vulgar behavior, but Joe didn't mind. He'd seen worse at sea and on desert islands when provisions ran out. "Costs a diamond a fish," He added after Lizzie had consumed a dozen of them. She glared at him through a mouthful of fish but the lure of food was too much for her and she kept on eating. Joe wondered how long it had been since her last meal. 

           "You know, while you're too busy eating to argue with me, I'll present my foolproof argument." Joey started. "I am the emperor of the Lost Empire. I ruled over cat people. You're descended from those cat people. You rule an empire yourself. So, by logic, I rule you and your empire." Lizzie was angry enough to stop eating to shout back despite there being three more fish in the barrel. 

           "You don't rule over me!" She hissed, hackles rising. "Animals should lead themselves! They don't need silly humans!" "Humans aren't silly! It's you animals that don't know any better!" "Joey, don't be mean," Katherine glowered. "You're starting to sound like when you wore Xornoth's crown." "Who's Xornoth?" Gem asked, curious. Katherine and Joey looked at each other before responding. "He's a demon," Katherine said carefully. "He gave Joey a cursed crown that when he put it on his eyes turned red and he did lots of bad things like killing people and when we took it off of him he didn't remember anything." Gem stepped backward, some random emotion flashing through her eyes that Joe couldn't quite figure out with her sunglasses on. 

           "So uh, why are you looking for Joel and your past self?" Gem asked, and Joe had spent enough time with shady pirates to tell that she was changing the subject. "Joel doesn't seem to notice that I notice, but he's cheating on me!" Lizzie spat. Katherine and Gem looked surprised. "He spends so much time with that fish version of me, did he really think I wouldn't notice? The short Joel also noticed, and he wants his wife back too." "You could always divorce him," Joe suggested. 

           "No I can't divorce him! If I do that, then it's like saying, 'Oh Joel, I don't want to be your wife anymore, which means now you can go chase any lady you want!'" Lizzie ranted, then all of a sudden the tiniest lightning bolt Joe had ever seen zipped into the harbor and struck Lizzie. She yowled like an electrocuted cat, which she was, and her fur began fizzing in every which way. "JOEL!" She screeched, and then let fly a string of what Joe assumed to be the foulest of curses to ever exist, not that he could understand them, because the shock, pardon the pun, of being struck by lightning had caused the anthropomorphic cat to revert to her natural feline language. 

           Joey nodded approvingly at Lizzie's meowy rant. "Now my turn!" He said, and then added to the din of profanity. Lizzie stopped her rant, surprised as Joey continued on much longer than should be humanly possible, and Katherine winced. "Nice to see my subjects still speak the same language even after a thousand years. See? I told you I should be your ruler." Joe didn't see the logic but he wasn't about to complain, it just gave Lizzie an excuse to add to the entertaining drama unfolding. "I'm suing you!" She yelled. "Suing you for trying to take my leadership over the kingdom of Animalia!" "So I sue you!" Joey counted. "I'm gonna sue you for not accepting my leadership!" Lizzie growled at him, then she glared at the sky and shouted, "And I'm suing you too, Joel! For cheating on me!"

           Joe wasn't about to let anyone else have the last word on this conversation. He counted the fish Lizzie had eaten and then subtracted it from the amount of fish he had fished up. He was pretty sure that he did his math wrong, but who cared?

           "And I'm gonna sue you if you don't pay me one hundred seventy seventeen diamonds for the fish you ate!"