"Pirates," Sid said after flying up for a better look and landing back down again. "We're being invaded by pirates."

"That doesn't make any sense," Meg said. "We're nowhere near the ocean."

Sid shrugged. "That doesn't mean they didn't come from there."

William grit his teeth and flew up onto the wall. In rebuilding and expanding the Forest Village, the original wall had been completely torn down and rebuilt to be taller and contain more space for the whole village inside. Down below were a motley mob of tanned pirates dressed in red-and-white striped tops, blue pantaloons, and holding giant cutlasses.

"I'll keep them at bay. Get the citizens who are able to fight over here!" William shouted.

He leapt down and into the fray, Night's Edge swinging. The first few pirates in his path quickly fell, but several of the Pirate Corsairs with cutlasses all leapt at him at once. He was forced to swing out his Sunfury at them to knock them all back, which set them all ablaze. Yet even his powerful, Underworld-born weapon didn't deal too much damage to them – the pirates had between 600 and 900 life each. Way more than William's 400.

Fortunately a spray of bullets, explosives and fireballs started peppering them. He glanced up to see Meg and Sid on the wall, the Arms Dealer and Demolitionist by their sides. Zop'a the Witch Doctor and Merlyn the Wizard were also up there, the latter casting bouncing fireballs from his hands similar to the ones from Meg's Flower of Fire.

The pirates had plenty of firepower of their own, however. Flaming arrows and bullets flew up from the back of the crowd. William heard Durim cry out as a bullet struck him in the shoulder, while a few of the flaming arrows narrowly missed Meg. Some parrots began flying forward, their feathers an ocean blue and crests red. One tried to grab at Tony's hair with its talons while another tried to pull at Nissa the Dryad's vine-coverings with its beak.

"Hey, that's rude!" Sid shouted as he turned his Minishark against the bird, soon blasting it to feathers.

William sliced and parried, cutting a couple of cutlass-wielding corsairs to pieces, then felt the familiar rush of picking up an item. One of the pirates had dropped their Cutlass.

"58 melee damage," he muttered. He wondered how a random blade from a pirate could deal more damage than his Night's Edge, a mythical sword of darkness that had been forged from four other very powerful blades.

Still, he wasn't complaining. He found the Cutlass not only dealt more damage but also felt lighter and swung more easily and swiftly. But despite the weapon upgrade, the pirates were relentless. He instinctively reached for his Night's Edge and put it into his other hand, and before too long realised he was now wielding both swords at once – something he'd somehow never thought of trying before, but the heat of battle and all the adrenaline had pushed him into doing it.

He tore through pirate after pirate, making it to the back-line of gunners and crossbowers. He took a bullet to the stomach from a pirate with an eyepatch, which dealt 85 damage, but charged forward, swords swinging like a whirlwind, and vanquished the buccaneer.

That was when he laid eyes on the captain.

It was a pirate with a red beard (which William almost rolled his eyes at), a tricorner hat, and a fancy black outfit with gold trimming.

And holding a massive gun.

It didn't fire just one shot at a time like most other ranged enemies, it was shot after shot after shot! William could only sandstorm-jump upwards and fly backwards towards the wall to avoid the deluge, but ran out of juice in his Lightning Boots, causing him to fall short of the wall. The Pirate Captain raised his gun, revealing a literal cannon mounted underneath the barrel, and fired. William sandstorm-jumped again, and the cannonball exploded on the grass beneath his feet.

He landed on the wall next to Sid. "That Captain's dangerous. Focus all fire on it!"

Sid nodded and directed his Imps forward. Meg and Merlyn cast bouncing fireballs forward, Luigi covered the Captain in paint, and the Demolitionist threw a lit stick of dynamite that blasted a crater beneath the Captain. Yet he was unfazed, not being knocked back by any of the attacks. When he climbed out of the crater William could see why – he had a whopping 6000 health. Not nearly as much as the Wall of Flesh, but it was pretty clear to him that this Captain was the boss. If they defeated him, the pirates would be left leaderless and would hopefully retreat.

Despite the Captain's high health, he couldn't jump high enough to get over the wall, and his cannonball's explosions weren't powerful enough to leave even a dent in the wall. He was basically a sitting duck against the onslaught of attacks from William, Sid, Meg, and the citizens. It was not long before he fell backwards, and a final grenade from the Demolitionist blasted him apart.

"We got him!" Durim cheered.

Right as a cutlass-wielding ghost levitated up from the smoke and slashed at him.

"Aaigh!"

William leapt forward and locked his own Cutlass against the ghost's. The Pirate's Curse fought hard, but once its 1000 life was brought down it vanished in a similar way to a Wraith.

"That all of them?" he called.

He watched Sid gazing out over the battlefield. The few pirates that remained seemed to be turning tail and running.

"Looks like it. That was easier than I thought it would be," he said.

"Over there!" Meg cried.

William spun to the left, and gasped as a massive shape rose up from the valley below.

It was an honest-to-God pirate ship.

One that was flying.

The ship boasted three sets of sails, four cannons on both port and starboard, five sets of rowing oars from its hull, and a figurehead on its bow that resembled a giant skull with glowing red eyes. William could not see any pirates on board steering the ship, though when the Dutchman got close enough pirates began dropping out from beneath. Before too long it had sailed right over the wall, and before William had fully processed its arrival, there were pirates inside the village.

"The Flying Dutchman?" Sid gasped. "Aw, cactuses!"

"We've gotta sink that ship before they overrun us!" Meg shouted.

Sid turned his Minishark and Imps up to it, but the Flying Dutchman was sailing too high for most of the others to reliably hit it. It flew down low over the village, and unleashed a broadside of cannonballs from its starboard, sequentially blasting everyone off the wall.

William landed outside the wall in a daze, his ears ringing from the explosion and his head spinning from the fall, though in truth he hadn't taken any real damage. He could hear pirates hollering, citizens screaming, Sid trying and failing to control the situation. He haggardly got to his feet right as Meg grabbed his arm from behind.

"They're overwhelming us! They're taking the citizens hostage!"

William groaned right as Sid fell down, only with 27 life remaining.

"Sid, we need to get out of here!" Meg shouted.

"I can do this. The ship's only got 4000 health..."

"Each of its cannons have 4000 health! We cannot prevail against something that strong!"

"Are you saying we should surrender?" William asked.

"No, we need to run."

***

It was all William could do to not faint as he followed Meg's jungle-armoured form deep into the forest. Night began falling, which used to just mean zombies coming out to eat their brains. Although their weapons had long surpassed the strength of zombies, new enemies – like Possessed Armour, larger Demon Eyes named Wandering Eyes, and Wraiths, had started spawning in the night ever since the Guardian's defeat. Clearly it wasn't just the Crimson amplifying and the Hallow spawning that had changed in the world.

Meg led them into a hidden cave in the side of a hill, and set up a campfire. Sid sat close by it, his life slowly regenerating. He seemed to be visibly shaking, which William was unnerved by. Few things shook Sid, and the things that normally did were whenever they lost. They had lost against the Brain of Cthulhu once before, having escaped using Magic Mirrors.

But now pirates had taken over the Forest Village, their home base, leaving the three of them stranded in the wilderness with nothing but the armour on their backs and the weapons in their possession. Even then, that armour and weapons had all been made pre-Guardian's defeat. If the Cutlass that William had picked up told him anything, it was that crafting stronger weapons and armour was now more important than ever before. They'd started out with nothing but some basic swords. The world changing had basically put them back at that stage once again.

"Alright," Meg said. "Let's assess the situation. We're not strong enough to take on the pirates when they have their Flying Dutchman. We have our weapons, armour and potions, but most of our other resources are stored back home."

"You and Sid were working on mining the new ores, right?" William asked.

"Yes, but we were focussing on getting to Titanium," Meg said. "So we've just been crafting Mythril Pickaxes since only they are strong enough to mine it according to Jeff. I've got one, and Sid's got the Cobalt Pickaxe he made to mine the Mythril. We have some leftover Cobalt, but not enough to make a complete set of armour. All of the other Mythril we got was crafted into an anvil, since one was needed to make a pickaxe, but we left that back at base."

"Dang," Sid groaned.

"Then... well, I guess we should just start over then," William said.

"Say what?"

"Mine more Mythril, craft a new anvil. Then find some Titanium and craft armour for each of us."

Sid's eyes suddenly lit up.

"Oh yeah! That's right! I was going to get more Spider Fangs for some new summon weapons and armour!"

"We're basically on the run now," William said. "With no place to call home. The world's changed, taken our home from us. It's time to change with it."