Pirate AU. Reyna is a hottie bugatti and would make a fab pirate, we all know it.

As captain of the Legion and most feared pirate of the seven seas, Reyna had no problem with sea legs. Only amateurs tripped over themselves aboard a ship. So when the Legion lurched to the side and she slammed against the wall of her cabin, she knew something was wrong.

"What was that?" yelped a cabin boy clambering to his feet, but she only raced past him, her boot heels pounding up the stairs to the main deck. She found her best crewmen trying to patch up a hole that had just been burned into her perfect foremast. She immediately leaned out over the edge, shouting to her first mate and pilot, Jason Grace (a former noble who, as it happened, made a marvelous pirate), to wheel them around. She would drop dead before she let an unprovoked attack go unpunished.

Strangely, though, she didn't see any ships nearby. At least not any that posed a threat. There was a moderately large sailing boat, with only one figure on deck, but it didn't look like it . . . wait. She squinted. The warped planks on the side of the littler boat- they weren't from mistreatment. They appeared in a regular pattern, the pattern not unlike that of her own cannons.

Some ingenious bastard had disguised a miniature warship as a fishing boat.

"Get me on that boat five minutes ago!" she shouted to her crewmen, pointing one finger straight at the fishing boat. "We are taking them for everything they're worth, now let's move!" No one shot at her ship and got away with it.

Moving as soon as she ordered it, her people were at the edge of the ship with swords and grappling hooks, knees bent and at the ready as soon as Jason got them near enough. Below deck, her cannons cranked out into place, aimed right at the enemy.

Jason swung them just close enough.

"Go!" Reyna shouted, swinging her arm toward the other ship, two fingers extended, and her crewmen went. Within moments they had overrun the fishing boat, overcoming the single sailor on deck and scouring the rest of the ship to ensure there was no one else aboard. After they dragged up a struggling girl and no others, Reyna tossed her own hook and swung gracefully over, landing with both feet on the other deck.

"Found?" she asked Frank, a young but trustworthy recruit.

Ever respectful, he dipped his head. (She liked him.) "Just the two of these on board, captain. There's a safe in a cabin below deck that Nico's cracking right now. Hazel said she felt jewels inside, the good stuff."

The Levesque girl was young too, even younger than Frank, but she had an impeccable sixth sense for treasure. "Good. We'll take that with us." Satisfied, she turned slowly on her heel and crouched down on eye level with the two enemy sailors, a Latino boy and a Native American girl, neither of whom seemed like seaworthy professionals. So why had they shot at her?

"Name," she said, drawing a knife out of her right boot and leveling the gold blade at the boy's throat. He was visibly more nervous than the girl- sweating and shaking- and he would be easier to crack.

The girl spoke, though. She spoke confidently and smoothly, probably an orator or some sort. Untrustworthy. "You're the bane of any respectable sailor, you can't order us-"

Reyna's gaze flicked toward her crewmen, and one stepped forward and slapped the girl across the face, effectively silencing her. "You will address the captain with respect," he ordered, his voice rough as gravel and deadly serious.

The girl clenched her jaw, but she went silent. Reyna returned her attention to the increasingly agitated boy, pressing the tip of the blade into his neck. "Name," she repeated.

"Leo Valdez, but it was an accident, I swear," he burst out. "I was just doing some checkups, and my cannon just went off-"

Maybe it was an accident, maybe it wasn't. She spoke over him. "Leo Valdez, I do not like being shot at. Do you know who I am?"

His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "Um . . . is there a wrong answer?"

"I'm simply curious," she said smoothly. Indeed there was no wrong answer, as that would imply that a right answer would change his fate.

"Uh, well, you have a really nice brigantine there," he stalled. "Plenty of weaponry installed, looks like. Lots of space. Good upkeep, but just plain enough to pass unnoticed if you had to."

Reyna raised one eyebrow.

"Based on that, and on the scariness of you and your crew, I'd guess you're a pirate," Leo finished. "They gives me the freaky-deakies, by the way."

"They are meant to. Now, which pirate am I?"

He looked her in the face for the first time, really looked, and suddenly he turned an alarming shade of red. "The prettiest one?" he offered, his face twisting up in a grin.

The girl kneeling beside him groaned audibly.

Reyna pursed her lips and instead turned to that girl. She kept her blade exactly where it was, though; she suspected this one would be more concerned for her friend than for herself. "Name," she asked, crisp and unassuming.

The girl scowled at her, the beads and feathers in her choppy hair swinging lightly in the breeze. "Piper."

"Piper what?"

A moment's hesitation: "Aphrodite."

Reyna pressed her blade into Leo's neck; he gasped, and scarlet stained the tip of her knife.

"It's McLean," Piper blurted, scooting forward and then being summarily yanked backward by a Legionnaire. "Piper McLean."

Of the McLeans. Well, then. This little adventure just became potentially profitable. "And do you know who I am, Piper McLean?"

Her scowl graduated into a glare. "The pirate queen. Reyna."

"Very good." She glanced back at Leo, who had suddenly blanched. An interesting color change. "Now, here is what's going to happen. Your ship is mine. You are both mine. I will let you live because, for now, I think you can both be of use to me alive. Give me any reason to think otherwise, and I promise to kill you."

Leo choked. Piper's eyes darted to him, on instinct it seemed, for a second before her gaze returned to Reyna and hardened.

The captain sheathed her knife and straightened to her full height. "Frank, Hazel, Gwen, and Nico can stay and follow in this boat. The rest of you, bring the prisoners and any valuables back onto the Legion. We're going to take a little detour."

As her strongest crewmates wrangled the two struggling sailors, Reyna swept back onto the main deck of her ship, where she met Jason at the wheel.

"What's going on?" he asked in an undertone, looking past her at the returning crew.

"Change our course from San Juan to Charleston," she instructed him. "One of our assailants is worth quite a bit of gold."

His eyebrows drew together. "You're bringing over two people, Reyna."

She held her chin high. "The girl's companion is going to double as her incentive to behave and, potentially, as my repair boy. Assuming I let him live that long."

Jason looked at her, and she met his gaze straight on. He was not comfortable with kidnapping, and she knew it, but she had seen the reward poster for returning the governor's daughter, and that many zeroes held her to her plan. He saw the resolve in her eyes (when was it ever gone?), and finally he dipped his head in respect. "Aye, aye, captain," he said.

Enjoying the feeling of the sea breeze on her face and the glint of gold in her mind, Reyna nodded back at him and stepped lithely down the stairs to see to the prisoners, each of whom had two pirates guarding them. She looked them over with her hands clasped behind her back and her legs apart, cocking her head.

"Put Miss McLean in the holding cell, with two female guards," she decided.

As Gwen and Clarisse forced Piper toward the stairs to go below deck, Reyna looked over the second new acquisition. He was only as tall as she and apparently had trouble maintaining his cannons, but she didn't fail to notice the strength in his shoulders and arms. She suspected he was a former blacksmith, and that implied certain skills.

"Mister Valdez," she considered, letting his name roll around in her mouth a bit. "You, I think, can start your work in my custody. Dakota, Beckendorf, bring him to my cabin."

Leo's face promptly went bright red again. "Well," he grinned, "I guess when they say you're looking for the booty—"

"I have a good compass that came into my possession broken," she said sharply. "If you can fix it, we will move on to bigger and better things. Rest assured I have no ulterior motives on you." Her nose wrinkled a little at the thought. To seduce someone who had fired on the Legion? Unthinkable. And he didn't have half the grace and good looks that her first mate did.

Yet, as she walked alongside him and his guards, she had to admit that it would be best to have him off the ship soon. Those arms would likely prove distracting.