Chapter 3

In a matter of minutes, the entire world came crashing down.

Quite literally, actually. The ship had a hole in the side of it. Most of the passengers hid down in the lower decks, but unfortunately Nell's curiosity had gotten the better of her. She ran out on deck at the first sound of cannons, narrowly missing the rain of wood chips and splinters from the now broken mast. Above, near the helm, the portly captain tried to keep the men in line, but it was clear that they were not doing well in this fight.

Nell glanced out, gripping the side of the ship until her knuckles turned white. Out beyond the turbulent waves, a ship sailed towards them with incredible speed. There were cannons on at least 4 levels, all charred black with gunpowder. The sides of the ship were painted over with tar, giving the overall appearance of a ship that brought death with it. Nell's heart raced, and she couldn't tell if she was terrified or exhilarated. She knew what that ship was; anybody would know. The men aboard had told stories of it at night, to scare the children aboard. It was the Jewel of Hades.

She lowered herself onto the wooden floor, her back the ship. Shock washed over her face as she saw the sailors either preparing the longboats to escape, or still scrambling to salvage what was left of the sails and attempt to sail away. Their efforts were all fruitless in Nell's eyes. There were nearly 250 people aboard, and the longboats only had enough space to fit the working crew. Passengers were going to be inevitably left behind. But for some odd reason, her feet would not move. She sat glued to the floor, unable to will herself to the rowboats that would keep her from dying.

"What are you doing?!" a woman shrieked. Nell put her attention toward the steps to her left to see another girl her age with silvery-grey eyes sprint towards her. The girl had a fierce look of determination. With a swift pull, the woman had pulled Nell to her feet and was rushing her to the boats. The sudden movement snapped Nell back into reality.

"It's pirates!" she shouted at her rescuer. The woman looked at Nell like she was daft.

"I can see that! In fact, I could see that two decks below from a gaping hole the side of the ship!"

Nell stopped running, letting her arm get pulled violently as the woman kept running and was forced to a stop. "So why aren't they firing anymore?" Nell was right. The pirates had fired off 7 shots, four of them missing the ship entirely, but three landing critical blows. The ship was damaged heavily just from those three, but the threat was there. A shadow was cast over the deck as the ship, whose top deck was as tall as the tallest mast on their charter. It was almost close enough to touch. What chaos was apparent before, had ceased entirely. A few men had dropped to their knees and began praying for mercy. They pulled the crosses in their shirts out and whispered into them frantically. Even more men scrambled below, either to hide or to get supplies to fight with. Nell was sure some were willing to jump out of the side of the ship into the dangerous waters below.

Ropes manifested from the towering ship, falling and pooling on their own deck. Several disgusting looking men, pirates, slid down the ropes and landing with a tremendous thud. At least 12 pirates came from above, sounding like thunder as they boarded. A menacing looking individual, with a fiery red beard and bald head snarled. "Present your captain!"

Nell's eyes flung to the helm, where the portly captain was nowhere to be seen. Instead the helmsman trembled, his hands gripping the wheel so tightly you could see the veins in his forearms from where she stood. Two pirates stomped up the stairs to where the unfortunate man stood, and gripped his shoulders, confining him.

The ginger bearded man spoke again, "Am I to expect that you all don't have a captain? That right?" He paced the length of the deck, staring everyone in the eye.

Nell followed his path with her gaze, and two of her ship's men spoke under their breath as he had his back turned.

In a heart wretching moment, the men stood and attacked the bearded man. That prompted several others to try and overtake these pirates on their ship. It seemed like good odds: twelve pirates against 30 crew men. Nell and the other woman shrieked and ran to the stairs, but were caught off guard by the thud of more boots in their way. More and more pirates flew down the ropes, and soon, over 50 of them stood on our deck. Everyone was shoulder to shoulder, and every british naval man had a sword pointed at their neck. Nell and her new companion had become cornered by two pirates, but luckily they did not advance on them. Everyone stood in tense silence for half a minute. A shrill whistle pierced the air, and every pirate mobilized. Each one barked out order creating a cacophony of low grumbles, raspy shouts, and various expletives. The reasoning was unclear but several pirates retreated below deck and ushered everyone up, a crowd of diverse weary travelers came out into the sunlight. Their eyes were wide with shock and worry. The systematic sorting of everyone began, every woman being pushed to the edge of the ship. It became clear though after a minute of this that the older women and children were not included, just those around her age. The crew were separated from the passengers as well. Nervous words were exchanged among everyone, whether they knew the person they stood next to or not. There was no such thing as social position among hostages.

The girls in the corner all huddled together. Nell had counted 25 including herself. The pirates seemed most focused on them, which worried Nell about their intentions. She suddenly felt exposed and wrapped her arms around her waist. In addition to being sorted by the pirates, several pirates had been moving all the luggage up from storage. It was obvious they were going to steal it, which had some very well dressed women fidgeting with nerves and tittering amongst themselves.

One by one, the pirates looked into the sky expectantly. Most everyone else followed suit, and Nell witnessed a figure, concealed by a toppled sail. The shadow was all you could see of a someone crouching high up on the masts. It was clear that in the commotion, this figure had moved from the pirate ship to the charter, observing the chaos below. What Nell was curious about though, was the appearance of long hair beneath a hat. It wouldn't be surprising if a man had possessed long hair, but the frame was far too thin to belong to one. So, it didn't come as a shock to Nell when a woman's low voice came from above, the sound bouncing repeatedly between the side of the pirate ship and the sails that surrounded her. "Bring them up."

That prompted shouts of concern and fear to erupt from almost every passenger. There were young mothers among the huddle that reached out and cried for their children, who did exactly the same. The burly pirates formed a wall, pushing the remaining passengers against the wall. Several longboats were lowered from the pirate ship to the much lower deck we stood on. The women were forced inside, everyone now screaming in fear. In the chaos, the woman from earlier leaned over to Nell's ear. "Listen, this is very bad. We can't get on those lifeboats."

"Who are you?" Nell looked up to stare the girl in the eyes.

"My name's Cordayne. Look you don't have to listen if you don't want. I'm just saying that I'm going to try to sneak out of this." Nell gripped Cordayne's hand to protest. The chances of that working seemed slim, but Cordayne shook her hand off, as if to say it didn't matter.

She fell behind the shuffling women, walking at the back of the group. In one swift motion, she ducked under a guarding arm and slid behind some of the charter's sailors. None of them said a word, easily concealing her.

But it didn't seem to matter, because a moment later there was a tremendous thud. The figure from above had jumped, without the aid of a rope, in the middle of the deck. The woman had a mess of red hair flowing down her shoulders, and a dirty black cocked hat on top of it all. Her maroon coat was only slightly big for her, but it enhanced her appearance by adding an air of authority to her. Her back was to Nell, as she walked to the sailors, and reached between them to pluck Cordayne out.

Cordayne's snarl could turn milk sour, and she bored holes into the eyes of the pirate woman. The redhead grasped Cordayne by the wrist and threw her into the arms of another pirate, this one well over six feet tall and built like an ox. The pirate woman began to walk away, before stopping, and lowering her head. She cocked her head like she was listening to something. She looked away like she was searching, scanning the faces of the sailors confined in the corner. Several men looked straight on like they had no fear in their hearts, but some hid their faces, clearly trying to not stand out. With three long strides, she forced her way through the bunch of men, and picked out a scrawny sailor boy. For some odd reason, she threw the boy into the group of women.

Upon seeing the boys face, Nell suspected that he was in fact a girl, but he continued to pull his face to the floor, looking away from all the pirates.

All the women had been loaded up and dragged to the top deck of the pirate ship. Nell saw the vast number of pirates that truly worked aboard this ship, which made the number of them below seem insignificant. Every hand was sorting the women, forcing them to sit or kneel on the ground, systematically keeping track of them. In the meantime, various cases of luggage were being pulled up too. It seemed that every passenger was going to lose their belongings to the pirates.

Some women cried, others stared into the eyes of the pirate with fire in their hearts. Some women even had shackles over their hands, and that made Nell wonder what they could've done to warrant that.

"You all will wait 'ere for Moss to give 'er orders. If you say a word, I'll slit yer throats," he paused, smiling. "Welcome to The Jewel of Hades." The women had no choice but to wait patiently for her return, as they were surrounded by a circle of pirates watching their every move. Nell felt lucky that her adrenaline was still coursing through her veins, or she'd have to bite her tongue. Instead though, she had to hold back a grin. This is more like it, she thought, because of course she'd be apart of a pirate kidnapping. What could be more exciting than that?

Thanks for reading! Special thanks to Cookiedoodles168 and RedMoonRabbit for Nell and Cordayne. Also thank you to Millyna for Robin! I know her appearance was brief. Trust me, she has a lot more coming, but I wanted to squeeze in that interaction between her and Cordelia.

Sorry that I'm not introducing the girls as fast as I thought. I got carried away writing the kidnapping scene, but that format didn't allow for many faces to be seen. I'll be more conscious of that in the next chapter. Additionally, I'm rereading all the profiles at the moment and piecing together how I want everyone to be introduced. I just wanted to put what I had out there for the night. So if you have a specific way you want your character to be introduced, please PM me!

Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed this!