Everyone has backed off from the center of the room where the three antagonists are sizing each other up.

"If you're lookin' fer some men to press, Cap'n," sneers the Whale, "There's a fine bunch to take with you!", as he motions with one flipper at a bunch of shanty singers cowering in one corner, trying to muster a little liquid courage from their tankards of Harpoon Tang (The aforementioned drink being a foul grog made by the spiking of a powdered drink they aquired a taste for back in their younger days, when they wanted to become astronauts, until they found out there weren't any songs or any bars that catered to that profession).

"Damn straight I'm real, me boys! Just what, if anything, would you or anyone else plan to do about it?", growls the whale, who's feeling neither pain nor fear at the moment.

"Micca! Hey, Micca!" the leviathan shouts, (for whatever all those other threads claim about his whereabouts, he's really HERE), sing that song I like!", and the band strikes up "Shantyman Who's Never Been To Sea", while at the same time, the Cap'n is whispering to a sailor to go back to the ship and come back with a press gang to annex the shantymen for real and eventually help call the whale's bluff, and the Squid and his eels stand at the ready, and the insulted shantymen hurridly search their Hugills for instructions.

And if there weren't enough challengers, a large white waterfowl is muttering to himself, "I don't see how any of these folks can handle this guy. This might be a job for MOBY DUCK!"......

The band has struck up "O, Whaley, Whaley"......