The next morning, the five Pogues found themselves sitting in the HMS Pogue, driving through the giant blue waters and towards their destination. John B held his girlfriend close as they chatted with Kiara and Pope while JJ stood inside at the steering wheel.

"Alright, JJ. Pin it here." John B eventually announces.

"Roger that! X marks the spot." JJ replies, doing as told.

John B leans down, grabbing the drone and hanging it over the edge of the boat, above the water.

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen." John B starts. "To going full Kook."

And with that, he drops the drone into the water, where him, Pope and Y/n watch through the camera as Kiara holds the tether that was attached to the drone, measuring how far down the drone goes.

"Alright, JJ, we're right over it. Ten seconds northwest." John B calls.

"Got it! Ten seconds northwest." JJ repeats.

"One hundred feet." Kie calls out.

Suddenly, a gasp leaves Pope's mouth as he staggers back slightly upon seeing a squid swimming in front of the screen of the drone before swimming away. Realizing what he did, he tries to play it cool and just continue to stare at the screen like nothing happened. John B, however, notices his actions and rushes over.

"What? What, what, what, what?" John B chants over and over.

"It's nothing." Pope replies, not wanting to dampen the boy's mood.

John B let's out a groan as he joins his girlfriend's side again, hearing Pope stammering an apology. Eventually, Kie announces the drone dropping to four hundred feet, tallying it with a piece of chalk on the boat. The sound of thunder is soon heard from the distance as the, from afar, the clouds were darker.

"The tide's turning." Kie states.

"Hey, JJ?" Y/n calls, receiving a hum in response. "Ten seconds easy. Southeast."

JJ nods. "Copy that!"

"JJ, twenty seconds mid-speed, alright? South." JJ instructs.

"Copy that! Aye, aye." JJ replies, once again doing as told. "Keep the tether out of the prop!"

"I'm trying!" Kie exclaims back.

"JJ, keep going!" John B demands.

"John B, Y/n, is that good?" JJ asks.

"We're good!" Y/n replies.

"Okay, seven hundred feet!" Kie informs.

A clap of thunder happens again, sounding closer than before. The four teenagers outside glance to their right, the wind picking up more and more as the water becomes more rough. Kiara and Y/n's hair continuously blow in their face due to the wind. The waves continue to become more violent as JJ looks out the window, seeing the clouds and lightening in front of them.

"JJ, hold it steady!" John B orders.

"Okay, nine hundred!" Kie calls out.

"JJ, we're gonna turtle in this storm, man." Pope informs, voice laced with worry.

"Nine-twenty!" Kie continues.

"Crank it north by northwest! Ten seconds!" Y/n instructs.

"Pope, how are we doing?" John B questions.

"Almost there." Pope replies.

"Guys, there's too much current! We're gonna lose it!" Kie exclaims, yanking on the tether.

"South, southwest, JJ! Hard!" John B instructs, shouting over the storm that was coming.

The blonde obeys, wanting nothing more than him, his sister and their friends to get through this storm. A wave hits the side of the boat, causing the boat to shake and the teenagers to stumble slightly. John B held a tight grip on his girlfriend so she wouldn't fall.

"Half speed. Steady at this bearing, JJ!" Y/n instructs again.

The Maybank boy does as told while the young couple look back down at the tablet in Y/n's hands, a beeping sound being heard from it. On the screen, it showed the red circle being directly under the figure of the boat.

"What do you got, Pope? Come on, man. What do you see?" John B quickly asks.

"Nothing. A whole lot of nothing." Pope replies in frustration.

"You should be right above it, brother." John B states.

"Kiara!" Pope calls.

"Nine-sixty." Kie calls back. "Nine-seventy! Nine-eighty!"

"I'm at the bottom! I'm at the bottom!" Pope announces, making sure he's heard.

"Okay, steady here, JJ! Steady here. Quarter speed, alright?" John B orders.

Kiara joins their side, stopping on the other side of Y/n as the four look at the screen in front of them. For the first couple seconds it's only the darkness of the bottom of the water below them before a familiar figure begins to show. JJ glances over his shoulder at the four with wide eyes, seeing the smiles growing on their faces.

"See anything?" JJ questions.

"It's the Royal Merchant." John B murmurs, glancing at his girlfriend.

***

"There's a moment in every kid's life when you feel like anything's possible. When you feel like you've got the total mojo. You could, I don't know, free-climb El Capitan, land on Mars, or, uh... get elected president."

The HMS Pogue still sat exactly above the Royal Merchant, JJ still standing by the steering wheel as the four other teenagers watched through the screen as the drone moved around the shipwreck in search of the five million gold.

"The whole world's there for the taking if you've got the sack to go for it. And then, when you least expect it, some Kook shows up and tells you there's no eternal mystery. And then all that talk about free-climbing and Mars and the president... bullshit. Magic get's cancer and dies."

As the drone turns to go inside the Royal Merchant, the smiles all fade from the four teenagers faces when they only see the fishes swimming around from inside and outside, as well as the rest of the ship.

John B sighs sadly under his breath. "It's not there. Look, just pull the drone up. Shit."

"Look, we can do another pass. Recharge the battery." Pope suggests, trying to give the boy hope. "We can go back down."

"We've been through it three times." JJ reminds. "There's nothing there."

"Shut up!" Y/n exclaims.

"What? It's true!" JJ fires back.

"The gold could be buried. We don't know." Kie argues.

"If it was there, it would've been found on the metal detector, okay?" John B intervenes. "Somebody beat us to it."

"Or it was never there." JJ murmurs.

Y/n shakes her head at her brother, looking to her boyfriend, seeing John B sitting by himself, hood over his head. Slowly, she walks over to him, resting her hand on his shoulder. John B looks up, a tight smile coming onto his face as he takes his girlfriend's hand, pulling her beside him as he wraps his arms around her.

***

Later that day, Y/n was reluctant to leave John B, but he reassured her he'd be fine, giving her a kiss as well. So now, she found herself sitting in her backyard with her brother, both Maybank siblings wearing earmuff over their ears as JJ pulled the trigger many times with the gun in his hand, the bullets hitting a teddy bear sitting on a log.

As that was happening, Pope suddenly walked into their backyard, continuously calling out for JJ. Y/n was the first to notice him, walking over, but not taking the earmuff's off, as JJ was still shooting.

"They know." Pope states.

Finally, the blonde notices him and takes off the earmuff's, Y/n doing the same as they both look at their friend, who held a panicked face, his whole body tense.

"What?" JJ asks.

"They know." Pope repeats more firmly.

"Alright, chill, bro. They don't know shit." JJ says calmly.

"Topper knows I sunk his boat." Pope states in panic.

"You what?" Y/n questions with wide eyes.

"They attacked me at the golf course. Him and Rafe." Pope informs.

"Holy shit." Y/n mumbles to herself.

"Alright, how do you know they know?" JJ questions.

"Because Rafe and Topper posted outside of Heyward's and mad dogged me." Pope replies, panicking even more.

"Will you calm down and get a grip, man? They don't know shit." JJ repeats.

"They have cameras. They could've seen me." Pope argues.

"There was no power, Pope. How could they have seen you?" JJ asks.

"It's Figure Eight. They got generators." Pope states, pacing back and forth. "They don't give scholarships to kids who vengefully sink boats. It's not a good look on my transcript."

"Enough with the regret, bro!" JJ exclaims, speaking over him. "The caved your face in. They hit us, we hit them. It's the law of the jungle. Now, if any Kooks come up to you and ask if you had anything to do with it, you walk up to them, look them right in the eye, and..."

"Deny the living shit out of it." Pope finishes.

"That's right. Deny, deny, deny." JJ agrees, nodding his head. "But just for safety, we don't go anywhere without protection. Right?"