By Chester Seaton, News

11/12– The search for notorious pirate captain Roderick Beauchamp La Pierre ramped up this week, as reports of a clash between the disgraced former Crowndonian Admiral and the equally notorious pirate hunter Johanna McKilroy came in today.

The confrontation happened over the trading outpost of Majalagura, on Monteddor’s northern coast. Officials tell us that La Pierre’s ship, the Pernicious Platitude, was spotted in the area in the early morning hours of Mursday. Captain McKilroy was allegedly waiting for him.

The hunter engaged her prey almost immediately, say witnesses, who described the attack as overzealous.

“If she’d have waited for him to get closer in, she’d have had him,” said one local fisherman, who watched the attack from aboard his boat just off the coast. “As it is, she just winged his broadside. La Pierre spun that junker of his and sped off, over open waters.”

With McKilroy’s reputation for taking down pirates no matter the cost, some were thankful for La Pierre’s quick retreat.

“I don’t want to know what would’ve happened had he stayed to fight, or tried to go to ground in the town,” said one man. “Part of me thinks he knew it wouldn’t have done any good.”

The man’s friend disagreed. “You think La Pierre gives one whit what happens to us? He’s a coward. Doubly so, running from a fight with someone he knows.”

Further reports came later in the day, saying that the Platitude was spotted making its way toward Tear Track canyon. Authorities familiar with both the Platitude and McKilroy’s ship, the Dismissive Smile, claim that it would have been La Pierre’s only avenue of escape.

“Platitude’s much smaller than the Smile,” said Aranda Garaca, of the Monteddorian Port Authority. “It could make use of the canyon’s smaller tributaries near the ground to evade. The Smile likely would have trouble entering the canyon even at the upper levels.”

Neither ship has been seen since.

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