WHAM

Gils’ fist connected with the jaunty pirate’s jaw.

“FUCK”, Gils yelled, recoiling her fist away in pain.

The Platinum Steed was being boarded on both sides now. The pirates flowing into the merchant vessel like monsoon rain. Her blade was still in her quarters, a level beneath the deck.

“If this ship wasn’t staffed by sailors I wouldn’t trust in a pond, I’d still have a fighting chance”, Gils thought to herself.

Gils needed to get across the deck to where the doorway heading down was. The stairs heading down into the cabins below, were not yet swarmed by the pests. Bolts flew across the ships like lightning itself as they struck irredeemable souls, and brought them down. Gils just knocked down the first of the many who sought to take control of the ship. But this was a losing battle. Gils needed to think of her own survival now before it was too late.

She drew the Flying Hook, hidden just underneath her auburn cloak. An evolution of the crossbow she hadn’t used in over a decade. The Flying Hook was the Kirsh Navy’s final innovation in anti-Pirate combat. The two masts before her were perfect vantage for her to view the battle and, navigate across safely. It had been a decade since she last held it in her hand, her grip was shaky as she followed the bolt down the shaft of the crossbow. She rested her azure eyes for a moment. Like the seas, her mind thrashing like a wave, calmed itself as she got her emotions under her control, and the tremors ceased. She opened her eyes, focused and ready for battle once again.

THWIP

She pointed the hook towards the front-most mast and shot it. The bolt from the Flying Hook soared through the air and quickly pierced the sturdy wooden mast of the merchant vessel. Quicker still, it pulled itself towards the bolt as Gils held on. Gils lunged towards the mast at a dizzying pace, piercing the air. As the air surged past her, blowing her hair about wildly, she felt free. Almost free.

Underneath the crow’s nest, Gils stood above the battle. Safe, for now. Now at the mast, she grabbed on to the wooden climbing pegs that led upward, as she righted herself. She squeezed the hook’s trigger a second time, much harder than before. Like a boulder, it ripped through the mast and returned back to the Flying Hook, already reloaded for her next call. The bow of the ship was swaying faster and more aggressively like branches in a thunderstorm. Gils held her breath and steadied her arm as she aimed the hook on to the next mast before her.

THWIP

ZOOOM

SMACK

Gils crashed into the next mast holding on to the hook as she dangled above the ship. She hung for a moment, suspended in the air, dazed and hurt. Gils brought herself back into reality and grabbed on to the peg before her. She held on with a vivacious grip as wood began to chip into her shin. The swaying of the ship felt almost cataclysmic. She needed to get down to the deck fast. She reloaded the hook once again but this time, aimed it at one of the pirates.

THWIP

“AAAAAAAAGH”

ZOOOM

WHAM

In an instant, Gils shot the Flying Hook towards one of the pirates. The bolt pierced his shoulder, striking him down to one knee. Gils pulled herself towards him, and delivered a grand flying punch to knock him out for good. She reloaded her blood stained hook and made a mad dash towards the stairway. A bigger brute, with a dominating height, rushed to cut her off. The brute stood ahead of her, holding a barnacle infested anchor in his right hand with its chain wrapped around his left arm. On his left arm, the brute had a gnarly tattoo of the same anchor.

“How fitting”, Gils chuckled to herself.

With no blade she could trust with her life, Gils’ eyes darted around to find a path to escape but found none. She needed to reach her blade now. The brute dropped the anchor slightly, just past his hip. Chain in hand, he began to slowly spin the anchor beside him. Gils needed to wait and be patient, she couldn’t use brute force and clear a path for herself here. The spinning anchor looked almost like a cyclone in the hands of the brute. The brute glared at Gils, then he grunted and stepped forward preparing to dash towards her.

“Fuck, I need to move around him and knock him out”, Gils thought to herself.

She shifted her weight to her right. Gils needed to make sure the anchor never had a straight path towards her, the pirate brute wouldn’t be able to accurately hit while he was running.

The brute chuckled.

“A FEINT!”, Gils screamed at herself in her mind.

The brute had faked his posture, shifting his weight ahead of him as though he was going to close the distance between them. As Gils committed to her movement, she had been left out to dry. The bandit hurled the anchor towards her. Its gust struck first, flinging her black, unkempt hair wildly. Gils had nowhere to go, the anchor was closing the distance towards her as fast as an anvil launched from a trebuchet. Her instincts kicked into overdrive. Gils buckled her knees and dropped her body towards the deck. The anchor stormed over her body. She was too late to dodge it cleanly as it grazed her shoulder.

Gils felt the scar it would leave would last a lifetime.

Gils fell to the deck, Flying Hook in hand. She hit the floorboards like a deadweight. In an instant she saw that the brute had let his guard down. She raised the Flying Hook in his direction and fired. Unable to control her aim, she hoped Chekobiel would guide its path straight towards the brute’s heart.

“AARGHHH”

Before she realised, the Flying Hook was dragging her towards the brute. She had no time to process what was happening. She forced her eyes against the wind, and glanced at the brute.

“Fuck,” she thought to herself, “its pierced his shoulder.”

In a couple moments, she would crash into the brute and be forced into a contest of strength. A contest that she couldn’t win. Gils contorted her body in the air, spinning herself just enough to miss the brute directly.

If she failed here, she wouldn't get another chance at her life.

As she soared past the brute’s shoulder, she saw his stunned expression and sneered. The back of his head lay so delicately exposed that Gils would do it a disservice if she didn’t acknowledge it. She held down the Flying Hook’s trigger again, and was pulled back towards the brute in mid air. Gils swung her leg mightily, with a power she didn’t believe she still had. Her leg collided with the back of the brute’s head and knocked him out for good.

The path to the doorway leading below was now clear. Gils looked to her left and saw a deckhand get stabbed in his throat. She winced and closed her eyes and pressed on ahead.

THUD

Gils’ body hit the floor. Her vision blurred as she saw a tower of a woman loom over her.

“This one’s…”, she heard someone say, almost too far to feel real, before she passed out.