Jack Sparrow's Sea Witch: The Fight for Calypso's Pendant (Part 1)

You stormed out of your cabin fully dressed and prepared for the fight in your best boots and pants. Your hair was tightly braided at the nap of your neck and decorated with beads and ribbons. You had removed your shirt wearing only your corset and chemise. Around your neck hung the bone necklace that Tia Dalma had fashioned for you. Several pistols were tucked in the plaid sash wrapped around your waist in your family’s colors of red and gold. In blue, you painted pagan symbols for bravery, strength, fire, and water on your arms and upper chest.

There is was. The Fortaleza Litoral was in your spyglass. Its dark, ominous sails were barely visible against the night sky. Just the site of the abomination made your hip pulse with pain. It was useless to keep a bandage on it this close to the enemy ship, the wound was now bleeding heavy enough that you could feel it run down your thigh and soak through your clothes.

Nearly twenty pirate ships awaited a signal from the Pearl to advance. The tension in the air was so thick you could almost taste it. Moving your eyes away from the spyglass, you turned to see your crew, like on all the other ships, were staring out to the enemy ship. You could tell by the expressions on their faces and body language that they feared this battle. They could not be judged for this fear. You could feel it inside yourself. There was so much at stake. The freedom of every pirate to continue their way of life on the open seas and the life of your only child still a captive of the Cat.

Jack’s words sounded inside your mind, ‘he may already be dead.’ A shiver shot down your spine and a pain filled your chest. You had to believe that Patrick was still alive and waiting for you to rescue him. If he was dead, you felt no reason to continue living.

You began to lower the spyglass when something beyond the Fortaleza Litoral caught your attention. A dozen ships now sailed to meet the Cat and aligned beside him. The ships flew flags of all different nations, but also a flag baring the crest of Count Pon Del Carrere.

"That son of a salty whore..." you mumbled to yourself as you watched. "He knows we’re here."

At that same moment, a commotion from the Black Pearl drew your focus. Apparently Jack had been watching the same scene you had and now remembered the tall, thin man with the scar across throat, a spy of the Count’s. You watched as the Pearl’s crew members threw the spy into the sea. He splashed and struggled in the water until disappearing underneath it.

Normally, twenty ships against thirteen were extremely favorable odds for those one the prominent side, but with the power of Calypso’s Pendant, the Cat had the strength of the entire ocean at his command. The ships that now sailed at his side were the least of worries.

Slapping the spyglass shut, you addressed Aedo. "Are the men ready?"

"Aye, ready as can be Madame Captain."

"That is not enough."

"Pardon, Captain?"

Taking a lantern, you climbed half way up the ratlines. Your crew and the crews from the other ships turned to you with curiosity. You held the light high so it shown over your face.

"Fellow pirates, buccaneers, corsairs, swashbucklers and scallywags, I feel honored and privileged to sail with you this day into battle to face a foe of likes we have never seen before. Many of you believe with holding the Pendant, the Cat is immortal. But his body rots. All the magic and all the power cannot support life without the body. We, gentlemen, we are the immortal ones. Though it is certain that not all with survive this battle. But even in death, we will be immortalized in the glory of standing together in resistance against the evil that threatens our way of life. So stand with me! Punish those who have allied with the enemy in mutiny against their piers. Stand with me! Let’s tear him apart piece by piece until he begs for death. Stand with me and turn his growl into a kitten’s frail purr. Stand with me and be remembered forever!" You drew your sword and smashed it into the lantern setting it ablaze and pointed it at the Cat’s ship.

Your ship erupted in cheers and excited shouting. Your flag, a black field with a red, burning skull, was hoisted. As the sun lit the sky, the surrounding pirate ships joined your ships boisterous yelling and hoisted their own colors.

As if shot from a gun, the Black Pearl was the first in the line of assault against the Cat and Carrere’s chartered privateers. Flanking the Pearl was your ship and the Powder Keg, captained by Black Mallard. The rest of the twenty were close behind sailing in a wide fan formation trying to box the enemy in.

The advance had not gone unnoticed. The sky grew ever darker as grey clouds formed and began to swirl and flash with lightning. From the clouds, large funnels spiked down to the sea and twisting like a serpents back swirled closer to the attacking ships. The sound that the water spouts made was deafening and the wind that circulated away from them cut into the sails causing them to rippled and thrash in all directions slowing the advancement. The ocean too was affected by the wind as small whirlpools churned and agitated the current.

The water spouts became closer when you heard the blast from a nearby cannon. The Grindstone, Kieran’s flagship, fired repeatedly at the funnel in his path. The swirling mass of water and wind would loose shape and vanish back into the clouds, only to be quickly replaced by another. The other pirate ships followed suit and filled the air with balls and powder. Not all were able to stop the spouts and were destroyed in an explosion of splintered wood and screaming men. A clipper in Kieran’s fleet had become hopelessly trapped in whirlpools and was being torn apart by the furious sea.

The ships that survived the water spouts and whirlpools now were in range of the Fortaleza Litoral’s guns. The man of war lead the barrage of cannon fire. You ordered your men to return fire. The Cat had yet to give up on the use of the magical pendant. From behind the line of pirates, an enormous wave crashed into the rear of the ships.

Between the water spouts, whirlpools, and now the wave, the unified pirate front attaching the Cat had been reduced to half. The remaining ships now entangled in battle with those under the Cat’s command. You sailed your ship broadside with the Fortaleza Litoral, the Black Pearl was on the opposite side, and threw lines across to the Cat’s ship to secure it in place. Men from the Fortaleza Litoral boarded the Jolie Rouge and the Black Pearl instantly.

The deck of your ship was now a crowded battlefield. The men from the Cat’s ship originated from all corners of the world and fought with weapons of their homelands. Englishmen with swords, Norsemen with axes, Arabs with large, curved sabers, Egyptians with sickles, Gauls with clubs, Chinese with grenades, and colonist with pistols attached your men in relentless waves.

"Take the wheel Mr. Munley!" you shouted to your deck hand as you gave a man a hard right cross and used the spokes of the wheel to break the arm of another.

"Aye Captain!" he hollered back before kicking a man down the quarter deck steps.

You drew both swords and fought your way to the side of your ship kicking and slicing through the slurry of men. As the cannons fire from below deck, the ship rocked violently nearly causing you to stumble. You tried to find a line to swing across to the Fortaleza Litoral, but every attempt was thwarted by one of the Cat’s men. There was not a moment you found to lower your swords. They just kept coming. Again your ship and others fire upon the Cat’s vessel. You had to get to that ship before it was blown apart or Patrick would be lost forever. You slit the throat of the man attacking you and in desperation ran with all your might. From the railing you leapt threw the air over to the hull of the Fortaleza Litoral stabbing your swords deep into the wood to keep from slipping into the water below.

At your right, a cannon was pushed the hatch of the Fortaleza Litoral. It fired. The heat that radiated off the cannon was amazing, you could feel it singe your clothing. The ball struck your ship sending shrouds of wood airborne into your back and pressed you against the Fortaleza Litoral’s hull. As the cannon was retracted to be reloaded, you forced your way through the hatch. The gunman on the other side where surprised to see the red-headed woman suddenly appear before them wheeling two large double barrel pistols.

" ‘Ello, Luvs." you said haughtily before pulling the triggers. The men where knocked backwards from the force of the shot. You loaded the cannon and spun it around so it faced the line of cannons firing upon your ship. The other men on the gun deck could only jump out of the way as you lit the fuse sending the ball down the line of cannons destroying them in one catastrophic eruption.