A/N: Thank you so much to meowbooks, lady angst, Starling Rising, and Manwathiel for your reviews. (Manwathiel- you're really sweet!!)
Thank you to jedipati, my wonderful, faithful beta!
Disclaimer: POTC belongs to Disney
A miserable Elizabeth was trudging past the steps to the main deck when the world suddenly bucked forward beneath her. Gasping in surprise, she grabbed the third step to keep from falling. Lips parted, she huddled there for a moment, wide eyes darting around. The Interceptor began to speak in a voice she'd never heard before, popping, creaking, above, below, on all sides.
Elizabeth nails dug into the gray wood as an overpowering sensation of tightening washed over her. Something was happening. For a moment she was frozen. And then she rushed up the steps, pushing her shoulder against the grated trapdoor.
Above it, people were shouting.
The trapdoor lifted. Sunlight poured down and she pulled herself into it, buffeted by wind. Gibbs was almost standing on top of her and completely unaware of it. His grayed hair blew across a grim expression, and her heart sank.
"Hands aloft to loose t'gallants!" he shouted. "With this wind dead astern, she'll carry every sail we've got!"
Feet thudded and sailors sprang monkey-like onto the ratlines. Elizabeth clambered out of the hold, leaving the grate open behind her. "What's happening?"
"The Black Pearl!" Ana María shouted from the helm. She clutched the knobs in white-knuckled hands, eyes wide. "She's gaining on us!"
No, no, no, no, no…Elizabeth rushed to the rail and leaned out.
Trailing mist, the Pearl hovered closer than the horizon like a great gray bird of prey. It was so near that she could see the tears in the sails, the keel slicing the waves like butter. And it was growing larger with every passing second.
Now she was going to die. And not only she, but also innocent–relatively speaking–pirates…and Will, too. She felt sick. The nightmare was back, the warmth of the midshipmen's mess a fluffy hallucination. Gathering up her skirts, she sprinted to the quarterdeck and joined Gibbs and Ana María. "This is the fastest ship in the Caribbean!"
"You can tell 'em that after they've caught us," Ana María snapped.
Elizabeth glanced about, mind racing back to the stories she'd read in her childhood. Inspiration struck. "We're shallower on the draft, right?"
"Aye." Ana María looked hopefully inquisitive.
"Well, then can't we lose them among those shoals?"
Gibbs and Ana María followed Elizabeth's pointing finger to a line of aqua-green water surrounding a tiny island.
"We don't have to outrun 'em for long," Gibbs exclaimed, "just long enough!"
"Lighten the ship," Ana María yelled, hauling on the helm, "stem to stern!"
Gibbs rushed to the rail above the lower deck and faced the crew. "Anything we can afford to loose, see that it's lost!"
The falcon that was the Interceptor-falcon wheeled starboard, making a desperate lunge for a haven out of the Pearl-eagle's reach.
The Pearl's brig was very dim and stuffy. It reeked worse than a London street. If Jack were running the ship, he'd have the decency to at least make someone swab it with something other than bilge water–
Oh.
Was that…sloshing?
It was. At least two inches of water rippled across the floor with the Pearl's motion. Inside, Jack's resentment soared beyond what he'd thought possible. Inside, he thought, Oh, Blackie, you've got water running through yer insides like a corpse lyin' in a stream.
Outside, he said dully, "Apparently there's a leak."
He got no response. The bosun shoved him into the cage-cell, locked door, and climbed back toward the sun. Jack crossed his cell and peered out a fist-sized hole. What a first-rate view he had of the shimmering water and clear sky. How capitol.
A barrel, then a crate, bobbed past.
Ah, mates, y'could hack the planking off the decks an'you'd still be done for.
The Pearl devoured the Interceptor's cargo, savagely crushing the items under her bow. Each impact set a slight jolt through her heaving frame and Barbossa savored every one. There was nothing in the world like the Black Pearl on a hunt. She stalked the Interceptor with the same relish that pounded through her captain's veins.
"Haul on the main brace!" he ordered. "Make ready the guns!" He smiled, tilted his head toward his ever-ready bosun. "And run out the sweeps."
The bosun grinned, exposing his full mouth of jostling teeth before fluidly lunging off.
The Jolly Roger rippled up the mainmast.
Will could not ignore the men who clattered past the midshipmen's mess with full arms. Something was incredibly wrong. He ran to the ladder and climbed onto the deck.
It was crawling with seamen tossing cannonballs, crates, and barrels over the rail. His hair blew in his face as he glanced at the rigging–every sail the Interceptor had was bloated with wind. He knew why, but fear would not let him believe until he saw. He grabbed a ratline, leaped onto the humming rail, and leaned out.
The Black Pearl was so close he could count the long sweeps extending like spider legs from her sides. For a moment he could only feel his heart rate escalate to a full-out sprint. Then the rail beneath his firmly planted feet thumped and he looked down to see a cannon about to be rolled off by a Marty's childish shape.
Will's foot landed on the barrel. Marty froze and stared up at him angrily. Will didn't care. "We're gonna need that."
Elizabeth tightened her lips against tears as she stared at their hunter. The shoals were still far off. The Pearl had already diminished the distance between them by half. She had to face it: they would never make it.
Despair never hurt as much as it did when it carried a sword called hope.
Ana María's dark glance took in the Pearl. "It was a good plan," she said quietly. "Up till now."
"Gibbs!" Will exploded onto the quarterdeck. "We have to make a stand! We must fight! Load the guns!"
"With what?" Ana María's beautiful face was as hard as her snapped words.
"Anything. Everything! Anything we have left."
For an impossible moment, they all gazed helplessly at one another, and then Gibbs staggered toward the main deck. "Load the guns! Case shot and langrage!" He hurried down through the shocked crew urging, "Nails and crushed glass! With a will!"
Despite the situation, Elizabeth looked at Will, wishing he'd acknowledge her, even for an instant.
He did. Their eyes met. And then he was lunging down onto the main deck. In his gaze she'd seen his fear, his anger, and sense of betrayal, and they sank her more deeply into her own misery. She followed him, words pushing against her lips, but two steps down she could only halt and watch his retreating back.
She saw the Pearl looming in the corner of her eye, and felt foolish. She turned and marched back onto the quarterdeck, forcing herself to focus on her doom.
That was when she remembered the adventures of Captain Dreadful and His Ravening Crew, the Wildest Buccaneers to Sail the Seven Seas and a certain maneuver Dreadful had been particularly fond of.
An air of insane despair hung over the gun deck of the Interceptor. White-faced seamen shoved handfuls of tableware and cookware down the gullets of the cannons, avoiding eyes, saying nothing.
When Mr. Gibbs leaned on Marty's cannon and produced his little canteen, Marty snatched the canteen and stuffed it in with the rest. Gibb's grim face grew grimmer and he scrambled away, up to the main deck. He joined Will at the rail. A cold, wet wind rippled past. His eyes widened with alarm: the Pearl's sweeps were tilting down into the water.
"The Pearl's gonna luff up on our port quarter!" He scrambled onto the quarterdeck. Will followed. "She'll rake us without even presenting a target!"
Ana María flashed him a helpless look. They could cause the Pearl no damage without a full broadside, and slowing to come about would be the death of them.
Elizabeth turned with a strange expression on her face. "Lower the anchor on the right side."
They stared at her.
"On the starboard side!" she insisted.
"Certainly has the element of surprise," Will said.
"You're daft, lady," Ana María yapped, dark hair blowing across her neck. "You both are!"
Gibb's face lit up. "Daft like Jack!" He lunged to the rail and shouted to the main deck, "Lower the starboard anchor!"
Below, the seamen gaped at him.
"Do it, you dogs," he bellowed, "or it's you we'll load into the cannons!"
In seconds, the Interceptor's starboard anchor plunged beneath the waves. Its line shot like lighting through the chock and everyone aboard nervously braced him or her self as the Interceptor's bowsprit began to angle around.
Barbossa felt the sweeps dig deeply into the water, dragging back to the sound of men's groans. The Pearl leaped forward so fast it seemed she'd been crawling before. The eagle was going into a dive.
Stroking his monkey, he saw a flicker on his prey's starboard side, but he didn't believe what he thought it could be until the Interceptor began to buck forward, her rudder lifting from the water. Across the distance he could hear the chock exploding under the strain, but the Interceptor's great cry of protest quickly drowned the snapping. Groaning, she began to turn as if balanced on the for'ard section of her keel, masts swaying, lines buckling. He dropped his monkey as she came about with ferocious speed.
"They're clubhaulin'!" He turned to the helmsman. "Hard to port! Rack the starboard oars!"
The Black Pearl veered aside, folding half her spider's legs to her body as the Interceptor settled roughly into the water, one flank bared and dotted with cannon muzzles. In seconds the two vessels were sliding alongside each other.
"Keep us steady, man," Will told Gibbs. Armed now, enemies were beginning to catch glimpses of one another through cannon ports and over railings. Yells, curses, and insults rose. The air was clammy and hazy, tinged with danger, and yet the sun glared. The spars of the two ships reached toward one another, and the tension grew to snapping.
Barbossa unsheathed his sword.
"Now!" Will cried, his voice mingling with Elizabeth's and Mr. Gibbs'.
"Fire!" Barbossa yelled. The cannons were already spewing fire and shock waves. Both ships rocked, splinters blossoming from multiple impacts.
When their cannon port was hit Pintel and Ragetti ducked to avoid a cannonball that never came. The impact was deafening, yes, but it clinked and rang metallically.
Cautiously, Pintel looked at the beam beside him.
A silver spoon jutted as if it were about to scoop out a bite of wood like cream. Knifes, forks, and a spatula flashed nearby. Incredulous, Pintel turned to Ragetti and gaped.
A fork had skewered Ragetti's crude wood eye. He squeaked it around, and Pintel, unable to bear it another minute, grasped the fork and pulled. The entire eye popped free with a sucking noise.
They turned baleful gazes toward the Interceptor, glaring through a cannon port glittering with general-issue navy utensils.
Jack, eye to hole, was faced with a familiar sight.
Feeling rather tired of it all, he threw himself away from the wall just in time to avoid being beheaded by a cannonball. Ears ringing, he rolled over and sat up in the ankle-deep water, fists clenched, eyes wild. "Stop blowin' 'oles in my ship!"
Nobody was listening. The Interceptor howled and let lose another broadside into the Pearl's ribs; the Pearl retaliated.
Hopeless, he slouched in the rising water, breathed the smoky air that wafted through his enlarged window, and pondered the immense problems humans presented to him, never mind that he was human, too. It was during this time of unreasonable fuming that he realized how large a grudge he held against the world.
He crossed his arms. He could not help it that the world was determined to trip him up every other day; any grudge it got, it deserved.
Then he spotted something of interest. A small canteen, quite familiar, floated on the scummy water across the cell. Rum! Jack snatched it up, pulled off the lid, and tilted it back over his mouth.
And got only saltwater.
Somebody up among the deities truly hated his weasly black guts and it wasn't fair–he glared past the useless canteen and changed his mind for, smoke was rising in a silk wisp from the lock of his cell door, which was strangely absent.
He stood. He went to the door. He carefully pushed on it.
With a profound creak he would never forget, it swung wide.
The combat was growing more and more intimate as the pirates, mortal and immortal, began to wield pistols and other small firearms, hoping to further their chances of victory.
For those on the Interceptor, intimate combat was almost all they had. The cannon crews had done their best and were decimated and the Interceptor was listing unsteadily, crippled, moaning intermittently.
Gibbs, Will, Elizabeth, and Ana María huddled behind the rail. Will and Gibbs took potshots, Elizabeth cleaned and loaded, and Ana María did both. It was a good system, very efficient. They had reason to be proud. The only problem was they were shooting creatures that couldn't die. Which meant they would loose in the end, no matter how many bullets they sent across.
"We could use a few more ideas, lass," Gibbs called Elizabeth.
"It's your turn!"
"We need us a devil's dowry," he announced hoarsely.
Ana María grabbed Elizabeth and pointed a pistol at her head. "We'll give 'em her!"
"She's not what they're after," Will said firmly. Ana María drew back and Elizabeth looked down. She clutched at the empty space above her dress. "The medallion!"
She got a glimpse of Will's huge eyes before he threw down his musket and scrambled away, bent in half. Oblivious to everything and oblivious to the fact that she was oblivious, Elizabeth held her breath and prayed until he reached a hatch, lifted it, and quickly dropped out of view. She grabbed his musket and reloaded it to keep from running after him.
Then she heard Barbossa's roar: "Strike your colors, you bloomin' cockroaches!" and forgot Will altogether.
Pintel drew back, covering his ears, and with a ghoul's grin, Ragetti lit the cannon.
It yelled and recoiled, wrenching at the chains restraining it. From its mouth hurled chain shot, two heavy balls tethered together by a chain. Like a ballerina it twirled, twirled, twirled, straight into the Interceptor's mainmast.
A terrific crack rang out, and fountain of wood soared high. The Interceptor staggered and her crew with her. All fighting stilled and everyone looked up as the few pirates perched on spars jumped off, shouting.
Then the proud Interceptor's crown began to topple, her deck buckling. Furled sails rippling, rigging snapping, the mainmast collapsed starboard, a tree falling toward the lumberjacks responsible for its death. The Pearl's crew scrambled away, all except for Barbossa, who strode forward to meet the descending monolith, monkey perched on his shoulder.
The Pearl's railing bowed under the mournful impact of the huge trunk; both ships lurched, slid, and tattered sails smothered the Pearl's deck. Barbossa, having avoided being squashed with a calm step to the left, breathed in the silence...and the victory that permeated it.
He took a deep breath. "Blast all to carcasses, men! Forward, clear to the powder magazine, and the rest of you, bring me that medallion!"
Yowling, the pirates threw grapnels to humiliated Interceptor, pulling their royal victim close before leaping in for the kill. The mortal pirates barely had time to ready themselves for a final defense before the Pearl monsters landed on their deck.
Elizabeth, now alone, pressed herself against the rail and with nothing else to do, lifted her musket and shot at the immortals, who scattered over the deck like ants; killing, disappearing into the hatches.
Captain Sparrow arrived on the Black Pearl's deck and surveyed the confusion with approval. Confusion was perfect if you had a secret agenda, and by the Palm Tree's Beard, did Jack have a secret agenda...
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