"We're close, I can feel it." Alfred grins excitedly as he looks over the displays, watching the changing sonar graph for even the smallest object below.

"You say that about every dive."

Spinning on his swivel stool, Al blinks up at the man leaning up against the cabin wall. Yao Wang, the supervisor and project manager for this little excursion, frowns down at him.

"This time's different," Al insists, "it's definitely here, it's just gotta be."

"Humph, it better be, or this is coming out of your pay." Yao huffs.

This'll be their sixth dive of the area, and Yao is far from pleased with their lack of progress.

"Ah, lay off him." Sadık calls as he comes in, "He's got spirit, and out here that counts for more than you might think."

"Yeah!" Al proudly agrees, glad to have the backing of their lead historian.

"None of that will matter if we don't find anything." Yao counters.

"Just wait, you'll see." Al frowns, before the beep of the sonar grabs his attention.

He spins his seat around, eagerly looking back to the graph. But, as a diver, Al's no expert in reading the bright oranges and whites that form fuzzy shapes against the blue background, not that that stops him trying. Rather that job belongs to their navigator.

"Is it the ship?!" Al cries at the strange block shape on the graph.

Sitting at the other side of the console, Eduard leans over, only taking a second to scan the graph before deciding, "Could be a smaller wreck, but not the one we're after. It's far too small, and the depth is wrong."

Sagging at the false alarm, Al slumps a bit in his seat.

"Chin up kid," Sadık says, "if it's out there, we'll find it." Turning to Eduard, he adds, "how much farther to our search zone?"

"We should be entering it any minute now, right Mathias?"

At hearing his name, the energetic blond up front gives a thumbs up, steering the boat out to the deep waters. "We should be over the drop riiiiight abouuuuut… now!"

On cue, the sonar graph starts to change, showing the sudden increase in depth to the sea floor, and hopefully, the wreak they're all looking for.

"Look sharp boys, we'll be heading down soon!" Gilbert shouts from the bow, getting the his and Al's dive gear set up.

"Now all we gotta do is cross our fingers." Sadık grins, leaning over the controls to stare out at the open sea before them.

It all started with a rumour.

As a salvage diver, Alfred makes his living recovering all sorts of lost or destroyed wrecks, but his favourites have always been sunken ships. There's just something eerily beautiful about dropping down into waters so deep and dark, that only his flashlight can show him the way, to find the untouched remains of once grand seafarers. He's been on hundreds of dives, and helped bring up everything from lost WW2 planes, to sea mines, to cargo containers. But ship wrecks have always had a special place in his heart.

So when working on a dive in the Caribbean, and he over heard a rumour of a lost pirate ship, he just had to get in on it.

Getting a team together was the easy part, he's made more than a few crazy friends willing to go on a possible wild goose chase with him. Convincing Yao to dedicate the resources needed however, that was the hard part. He needed proof that this ship existed, and might still be out there. And who better to help him get it than his good friend Sadık?

"A lost pirate ship huh?" The man parroted, quirking a brow at Al over his desk.

"Yeah, you think it's the real deal?"

"Hmm, could be, plenty of pirates ran those parts in 15 to 1800's. Know who's it might be?"

"Not a clue." Al grins, "all I heard was it was an English ship, and apparently it had some sort of super important, stolen treasure on board when it sank."

Chuckling, Sadık shakes his head at the young man across from him, "Don't they all?" But before Al can say anything more, he nods, "Alright, I'll look into it."

And that was how Alfred and his rag tag team now find themselves searching the wide blue expanse far from the coast of the Caribbean. After several weeks of research, and a few rough guesses on location and time frame, Sadık came through, and with a bigger pitch to Yao than even Al could have hoped for.

"I think we might be looking for the Blood Rose." Sadık grins broadly, only to be met with blank stares from the rest of the group.

"And what's that?" Yao huffs.

"Only the single most prolific pirate ship of the early 1600's. Reported to have been responsible for sinking over 100 naval ships, both French and Spanish, committed upwards of 70 raids in more than 8 countries, and captained by one Arthur Ignatius Kirkland, a man arguably more blood thirsty than Red Beard himself."

Al, Gil and Mathias's eyes all light up at the description, even Eduard seems intrigued, but Yao is a hard man to impress.

"And?" He taps his foot impatiently, staring Sadık down.

"Heh, always about the profit, right Yao?" Sadık smirks, "Well how's this take your fancy?"

Flipping open a rather old and tattered log book, he points to a page filled with writing. "This is a list of all the items stolen from a Spanish fleet transporting, among other things, silver and gold medallions from the New World back to Spain. And here we see it's listed as having been attacked by an English ship. The date coincides with the last known sighting of the Blood Rose, before she mysteriously vanished eight days out to sea."

As Yao reads over the cursive script, the others can slowly see him being won over.

"That's a lot of gold." He murmurs, blinking as he reads further down the page. He then frowns as something catches his eye.

"Escalas de sirena? Mermaid scales, really?" he asks, pointing to the strangely circled item.

Shrugging, Sadık gently closes the book. "All sailors believe at least some myths, why not Mermaids?"

Choosing to ignore the strange item, Yao finally makes his decision. "Well what are you all just sanding around here for? Go pack, we've got a wreak to salvage."

The beeping of the sonar brings Alfred out of his daydreaming to blink down at the screen. Lifting Al's arm out the way, Eduard looks over the screen, before smiling.

"Looks like we're got a hit."

"Is it our ship?" Al asks, suddenly back to being full of energy.

"Hmm, the size is right and it's in the right place." Eduard nods, adjusting the read out to get a better look, then turning to Al, "Only one way to find out."

"Sweet! Mathias, park us right here!" Al cries, jumping to his feet.

"Way ahead of you!" The man laughs back, idling the engines.

"Finally." Yao sighs, finishing off his tea.

Rushing to pull on his gear, Al hurries to join Gilbert on the stern. With oxygen tanks checked, wet suit snugly in place, and cameras at the ready, the pair waste no time in jumping in.

Once off the boat, Gilbert leads the way down, following Eduard's instructions to the suspected wrecks location. It's an easy routine for both divers, but they also know they still have to be careful, anything could go wrong, and at these depths, pressure is their biggest danger.

They continue on down, the dappled light from above quickly dying out as they encounter a shoal of fish being chased by dolphins. They both pause for a moment, Al turning his camera to the frenzy for a few shots of the rare sight, but time is against them here, so they carry on down, into the endless black below.

A light mounted to their caps and one on their chest light the way, until finally, after a near twenty minute dive, they reach the seabed. All manner of fish and crustaceans scuttle away at their presence, Al even spots an octopus swim past, but none of that is what their here to find.

Following the directions of the sonar, they swim onwards, keeping to the sea floor as they look for anything man-made to point them in the right direction.

"You should be coming up on the structure now." Eduard's grainy voice crackles in Al's ear, filling him with excitement as he hovers by Gil's side.

Then, finally, after weeks of searching, they find it.

A huge man-of-war styled frigate sitting on it's side, half resting upon a bed of rock and the centre of it's large hull caved in. But they can't be certain until they see the name.

Not wasting a second, Al powers forward, heading for the broadside, where he know's he'll find what's left of it's name. While Al gets to work, Gil turns his camera to the wreck, transmitting the images back to their boat.

"Holy shit." He smirks, "Even if this isn't our wreck, this is one hell of a find."

"It sure is." Sadık's voice crackles back in awe.

"Gil!" Al shouts needlessly into his mask, "It's her! It's the Blood Rose, we found her!"

Coming over to join Al, Gilbert dutifully films the uncovered name for the rest of the crew to see. In large fancy print, the mostly faded red letters spell out the ships name, even if it is half covered under coral and sea creatures.

Though the ship has clearly seen better days, now mostly rotten at the bottom of the sea, it's once grandeur is clear to imagine. But none of that interests Yao.

"What are you two just floating about for?" The man snaps, crackling in their ears, "Get to work! I want to know everything this wreck has to offer."

Both divers roll their eyes at their boss's demand, but they do as told anyway.

This time it's Al who takes the lead, carefully surveying the opening in the hull, before going in. Gilbert hovers close by, acting as Al's early warning in case of danger. Who knows what's made it's home in here, sharks especially they have to watch out for.

It takes some time, as they manoeuvre their way around broken beams and rotten floors, down to reach the cargo hold. It's not like in the moves, where gold glints and shines back at them the second they're in, rather they have to go looking if they want to find anything of value. In a wreck like this, the goods might not even be in the ship anymore, possibly having been lost in the sinking, now scattered across the seabed. If that's the case, they'll be lucky to find a single coin or two.

Not to mention, Alfred's least favourite part, all the skeletons.

"Wah!" He jumps, flailing around as he comes face to face with a skull sitting beneath a beam.

Laughing Gil swims past him, picking at the few remaining bits of cloth still covering the bones.

"Kesesesese, never gets old."

"Oh shut up." Al huffs, moving on.

Seems they've found the crew, no doubt having been trying to save the ship from going down. But them all being in cargo hold is unusual.

"Hey Gil, you see what I see?"

"Hmm?"

Looking over, Gil frowns at the sight before them.

"If the ship had this much damage to it, why'd all the crew head here?"

Dozens of skeletons clutter the very back of the hold, not where the damage is, but where a number of crates sit piled together.

"If I had to guess," Gil smirks, "I'd say they were trying to save whatever's in those boxes."

Both divers know a jackpot when they see one, and, as much as Al hates skeletons, that doesn't stop him from getting to work moving them out of the way. But unseen by the pair, a shadow watches from within the black, eyes trained on their every move.

Tossing the bones to the side, they quickly uncover one of the crates, but it's seized shut with years of rust and rot, making it impossible for the pair to open. Down here any way. Instead, testing the weight, and deeming it able to be moved, they make their decision.

"Oxygen is getting low," Gil sighs, "Mathias get ready for pick up, we're coming back."

"And we got a present to boot!" Al laughs as the pair begin the long swim to the surface, crate carefully carried between them.

"Good," Yao crackles, "hurry back now."

"Will do."

Though they say that, surfacing is just as precarious as the rest of the dive, and both of them know they can't rush it, not if they don't want to get the bends.

As they leave, the shadow trails after them from a safe distance, but it does not depart the ship, head tilting as it watches them take the box away, until both are nearly out of sight. Once gone, the shadow worms it's way back through the ship, to bones scattered with little care. A strange whine escapes it at the sight, before gently reaching, it picks up a skull, holding it close in a strange hug as it moves to set it back atop one of the crates.

By the time Al and Gil surface a short distance from the boat, both Sadık and Mathias are eagerly waiting at the stern for them. They swim over, lifting the box up to hand over first, before climbing on board.

"Ahh…" Al sighs, flopping back across the floor the second he removes his tank. But he doesn't lie about long, as Yao is quick to order everyone around.

"Jones get up, you're leaving a puddle. Beilschmidt I want you ready to dive again as soon as possible. And Adnan, I-"

"Want the crate open, yeah, yeah." Sadık waves Yao off, doing his own inspection of the box first. "Aha!" He cries, "Look, there's still a partial print of the Spanish navy on here. We've definitely found something stolen from them."

While he gushes over the discovery, photographing the symbol for his records, Mathias returns from the cabin, looking a bit too happy to be wielding a crowbar.

"Give me that." Sadık laughs, "can't have you destroying artefacts now."

Together the group gather around, all holding their breath as Sadık slips the bar in, and counts, "1, 2, 3!"

Cracking the lid open, he hurriedly slides it back to reveal…

Author's notes: More event one-shots! I might actually finish this weeks for a change.

But yes, have this, my weird take on a modern day pirate and mermaids thing, cause why not? If I ever go back to this, you can bet our boys are going to be in for a weird encounter.

R & R people.

Until next time, stay awesome!