A female pirate fought a bunch of navy men. She was dressed as a pirate her attire pink, her boots tall, her coat adorned with gold buttons that caught the light of the burning ships. Her skin tone was dark, like the depths of the sea at midnight. Around her neck, a necklace of shark teeth clattered with each movement.
She grabbed hold of a navy man's ear and bit it off.
CRUNCH.
Blood poured from the wound, painting her lips red, dripping down her chin. The man screamed a high, piercing sound that was cut short as she used her large saber to stab through his gut. The blade punched through flesh, through organs, through spine. She twisted it, pulled it out, and let the body fall.
Her smile was filled with despair.
Not the despair of defeat the despair of a woman who had seen too much, lost too much, killed too much, and found in the act of violence the only comfort she had left.
She shouted.
"You British dogs! Come to me now!"
She sprinted forward, her boots slapping against the blood-soaked deck, and broke into a cabin on the ship.
The cabin was loaded.
Guns pistols, muskets, rifles stacked in crates, leaned against walls, piled in corners. Explosives kegs of gunpowder, bundles of dynamite, shells of iron and fire were stored in the center of the room, marked with warnings that no one heeded.
She turned back to her men.
They were toying with the bodies of naval men kicking them, spitting on them, looting them of everything valuable. Their faces were cruel, hungry, mindless.
She shouted.
"Oi, you dumasses!"
Her voice cut through the chaos.
"This is the best time for a raid! How long are y'all idiots going to be looking?"
She pointed at the naval bodies.
"Loot them of all the weapons that they have! And come help me carry these guns!"
Her men were larger than the average man. Strong and bulky. It was as if they were almost mini giants their arms thick as tree trunks, their chests barreled, their faces scarred from a hundred battles.
Half of them ran toward her.
They lifted crates of guns each crate heavy enough to break a normal man's back and carried them toward the cabin door.
As they lifted, she spoke.
"Alright, boys." Her voice was calm, almost motherly. "Run."
They ran away from the cabin.
Their ship was in sight a vessel of black wood and red sails, its hull scarred by cannon fire, its decks crowded with pirates who watched and waited. A bridge stretched between the ships plank boards and rope, shaky, unstable, dangerous.
She stopped.
She waved her head a quick, jerky motion and shouted.
"Forward!"
"Forward!"
"Forward!"
The men ran.
"For every one of you that dies," she called after them, her voice sharp as a blade, "I'll push more torture on the other one!"
Her men ran faster.
One by one, they crossed the bridge the plank boards groaning under their weight, the rope creaking, the gap below churning with dark water and darker shadows.
Then she felt it.
An odd sensation.
A cold feeling at her back.
She turned.
An old man stood behind her.
He was not large. Not strong. Not imposing. His uniform was torn, his face weathered, his eyes clouded with age. But he was smiling.
A smile that held no warmth. No kindness. No fear.
She shouted.
"AHA!"
Her voice was sharp, startled, angry.
"Fucking disgusting!"
She pointed at him.
"A trash goblin!"
She fell face flat slipping on the blood-soaked deck, crashing to the wood with a thud that knocked the breath from her lungs.
"Should I have given these weapons to those fools?" She muttered into the planks. "They'd probably drop them in the sea."
The old man started drooling.
Saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth thick, yellow, wrong. His tongue lolled out, wetting his lips, moistening his chin.
"A goblin?" His voice was cracked, whispery, ancient. "That's not fair."
He took a step toward her.
"But you see..." His smile widened. "I'm what other people call me."
He rushed at her faster than a man his age should be able to move, faster than anyone would expect. His face was red. His eyes were wide. His hands were reaching.
She did not move.
She lay on the deck, her face pressed against the wood, her body still.
"You navy men," she said quietly, "are so easy to read, you know."
The old man's hands closed on empty air.
"What did you think?" She pushed herself up slowly, deliberately, calmly. "That I'd let you rob me blind?"
She opened her legs wide.
She tore her mini skirt.
A gun barrel black, gleaming, deadly was hidden within her body. Strapped to her thigh, concealed by fabric, ready for this exact moment.
It fired.
BOOM!
A single shot aimed at the old man's eyes.
SHLIK!
His left eye exploded.
Blood and jelly sprayed across his face, painting his smile red, dripping down his cheek. He stumbled back, his hand rising to the ruin of his socket, his mouth opening in a scream that did not come.
She got up.
She pulled the barrel out of her body unstrapping it from her thigh, holding it in her hand, feeling its warmth.
She licked it.
Her tongue traced the metal tasting the gunpowder, the blood, the fear of the men who had fired it before her.
She made a face.
A pervert's face.
"Oh my." Her voice was soft, almost dreamy. "It's been long since I've gotten... wet."
Darlington looked at her in pure disgust.
His face invisible, formless, but real twisted. His stomach churned. His mind recoiled from the sight of her, from the sound of her, from the everything of her.
I really want to kill her, he thought.
He said nothing.
Just watched.
She laughed.
The sound was high, sharp, unhinged. She turned and ran to the bridge her boots pounding against the wood, her pink coat flying behind her, her saber swinging at her side.
The old man started smiling.
His face half-ruined, half-blind, half-broken twisted into an expression that was almost peaceful.
"We, the British navy," he said, his voice steady despite the blood pouring down his cheek, "remain undefeated."
He straightened.
"We are the navy of the nation that the sun never sets on."
She heard him.
She stopped.
She turned.
"You fucker." Her voice was low, dangerous, cold. "You seem to not know who I am."
She raised her saber pointing it at his heart.
"I'm the Sea Princess." She smiled a smile that held no warmth, no kindness, no mercy. "The Mermaid Pirate."
She paused.
"The daughter of Davey Jones."
She turned back at her ship.
The waves were getting more intense than ever rising, falling, crashing against the hull of her vessel. She could hear them the roar of the water, the scream of the wind, the thunder of something approaching.
Something large.
Behold.
Many vessels began to approach her ship.
British legions of ships their white sails blazing in the storm-light, their cannons glinting, their decks crowded with men in uniform. They moved in formation disciplined, organized, inevitable.
A grand voice shouted from the lead vessel.
"LOAD THE CANNONS!"
The sound echoed across the water.
"FIRE!!!"
The great vessels opened fire.
Cannonballs rained down dozens, hundreds, a storm of iron and fire slamming into her ship, shattering its hull, tearing through its decks. Wood exploded. Sails burned. Men screamed.
They kept firing.
Endless.
Relentless.
Murderous.
She shouted out loud.
"STOP!"
Her voice was raw, desperate, broken.
"I SAID STOP!"
Tears came down her eyes hot, uncontrollable, shameful.
"STOP IT, DAMMIT!"
She bit down on her lips hard drawing blood, tasting iron, feeling the pain that kept her from falling apart.
She rushed back to the old man.
Her hand grabbed his arm twisting it, forcing it down, smashing it into the wooden floorboard. He fell to his knees, his body twisting, his face contorted.
She pressed her saber against his throat.
"Look at him!" She shouted at the ships. "If you don't stop, I'll kill him!"
The cannons did not stop.
The old man smiled.
"What are you onto?" His voice was calm, almost kind. "The navy is great. And one of our core tenets is to never show weakness."
He looked at her at the tears on her face, at the desperation in her eyes, at the fear she could not hide.
"I will not be weak."
He twisted his own neck.
CRACK.
The sound was sharp final, absolute, horrible. His body went limp. His eyes went empty. His smile remained frozen on his face.
He killed himself.
In shock, she could do nothing.
Her face remained cold and pale.
.
The cannons kept firing.
Her ship kept burning.
And the sea roared.