(no subject)

[bringmethatnpc]

The deck of the Black Pearl is full of activity as the crew hastens about, making ready to set sail. Whether hauling lines or hoisting sails, securing the longboats or tying down nets, everyone has work to do and is busily seeing to it.

Everyone, that is, save Will Turner, who is still lying unconscious on the deck.

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[try_corsets]

Clutching the musket in one hand, Elizabeth races to the port rail and hands a crewman another. With a quick, authoritative bark, she indicates where he's needed with a jerk of her head and turns to check-

Whatever she meant to check becomes quickly irrelevant. She spies the longboat and Jack inside, her stomach sinking with the realization that he's deserted them all.

Staring, she grapples with a heavy sense of disappointment.

"You coward."

The ship rocks as if hit by something, and she lurches to the side with a gasp, trying to maintain her grip on the musket.

[bringmethatnpc]

Nearby, the crew stagger, clutching at the railing or whatever is closest to keep their balance. Marty hauls himself up to stare about him in worry as Cotton does likewise beside him.

"...Not good," he mutters.

[bringmethatnpc]

With a crash of displaces water, tentacles burst from the water to plunge through the gun ports of the Black Pearl in a crash of shattering wood, while yet more flail over the decks.

[turned_captain]

Inside the Black Pearl, chaos reigns. The hull splinters and cracks as tentacles break into, flailing angrily.

Above the screams of the crew, Will shouts orders to anyone who'll hear. The need to act overriding any possible fear he might have.

"Haul away!"

[bringmethatnpc]

"Heave! Heave like you’re being paid for it!" In the face of the chaos, Gibbs is still in command as ever. If only he had applied himself those long years ago, who knows what he might have become?

[bringmethatnpc]

And so they do, a number of crewmen heaving at the capstan, slowly winching the net up.

[turned_captain]

Will climbs onto the net as it rises up through the gundeck, glancing around at the devastation wrecked around him. He's fixed on the task at hand now, and hardly has eyes for the crewman that's being dragged screaming through his gunport.

The Pearl didn't deserve this. The crew didn't deserve this. But then, neither had the crew of the Edinburgh Trader.

[pirate_jack]

He's halfway between the Pearl and the distant island when the kraken's tentacles snake out of the ocean and wrap around his ship-- and those on it, as well.

(not all treasure is silver and gold)

Jack stops rowing.

He glances over his shoulder, then back at the Pearl for a long, agonized moment.

With a sudden decisive movement, Jack snatches the compass open and stares down at it.

[bringmethatnpc]

A grotesque tentacle rises form the depths and grabs one of th hapless crewmen bound for Davy Jones' hell. It coils around his waist, and pulls him towards the sea. Gibbs jumps forward to grab the man.

"Don’t let go!" His howl is one of unbridled fear and rising pain.

[bringmethatnpc]

"I won’t letcha go!" Gibbs tries to hold on with all his might. He's seen too many men lost to the sea. And will not let this beast add to the toll.

But his grip fails, and the man slides towards his end. He utters a plaintive cry of "save me" but all Gibbs can do is shot at the tentacle with the aging pistol he has carried since going pirate. It doesn't do a thing.

As one tentacle vanishes, another rises, and swings at Gibbs. He ducks it, and then runs away from the edge of the ship.

[try_corsets]

Gibbs darts in front of Elizabeth as she braces the rifle against her shoulder, eyes peeled for Will as the net begins to rise to the main deck. She's not wasting time thinking about who may or may not have deserved this; it simply is, and they'll do what they must to get out alive.

Right now, what she must do is steady her hand and shoot that rifle. She can't miss.

(Don't miss)

"Get clear!" she shouts at Will. It's both a reminder and an order, and she squeezes the barrel of the rifle, mouth set in a thin line.

[turned_captain]

No. Not yet. It needs to be higher. Regardless of his own safety, Will shakes his head tightly.

"Higher!"

[bringmethatnpc]

One of the kraken's longer tentacles slithers up and wraps around the mainmast, poised to snap it in half. Anxious eyes look up as it squeezes... only to fall back to the deck below, knocking aside several crew members manning the capstan and breaking the handles they had been using to haul up the net.

It's like the beast is toying with them.

[cleverparasol.livejournal.com]

Pintel's grabbed the nearest weapon -- an axe -- and leads the way as he and Ragetti come charging up from belowdecks.

--Except there are tentacles.

Pintel passes the axe to Ragetti, waits, and charges forward again through a gap in the tentacles. Ragetti tries to follow, but his path is blocked by another crewman being pulled, screaming, across the deck.

[turned_captain]

The net drops abruptly, but stops short before hitting the deck, jerking Will sharply as he clings to it.

He draws his sword, waving it ineffectually at the tentacles.

"Come on! Come and get me, I’m over here! Come on!"

Thye only effect that has is to prompt a tentacle to snatch the net off its hook, to falil it about violently. That really throws him off balance and he loses his grip, falling down suddenly.

Luckily his ankle entangles between the netting and the barrels, stopping the fall. So he sets about swingin himself up to cut himself free with his father's knife.

[bringmethatnpc]

More tentacles lash across the ship, sending sailors screaming and fleeing. Pintel and Ragetti bolt as two crewmen behind them are snatched up. Waist-thick tentacles whip around the unfortunate sailors' bodies, huge suckers holding them fast; bodies alive and dead are smashed through railing or jerked high in the air before being slammed down into the ocean and the kracken's maw below.

[cleverparasol.livejournal.com]

The deck is not a good place to be right now.

Makes sense, then, that Pintel and Ragetti duck into the grand cabin, passing Elizabeth.

[try_corsets]

The net swings wildly. Elizabeth attempts to take aim, but all is utter chaos around her, and Will is still stuck.

Didn't she tell him to get clear?

A tentacle whips by her, the unfortunate man it holds screaming.

Refocusing, she mutters under her breath and attempts to get a clean shot, doing her best to ignore her damp palms and racing heart. And Will, still not free.

Elizabeth hesitates, worried about Will, but it goes beyond that. She isn't willing to shoot until she is sure she won't miss, well aware that if she misses, they are all dead.

[turned_captain]

No, Elizabeth. No. This isn't the time to be wondering about him.

He has to save her.

"Shoot!" Will yells, while still cutting at his bonds. "Elizabeth, shoot!"

[bringmethatnpc]

Before she gets a chance, a pair of tentacles come smashing through the windows of the cabin.

The windows that, despite the giant hole rendered by the canonball from the Dutchman were still intact.

Until now.

[try_corsets]

She can't shoot yet, not when --

What she can and cannot do at the moment ceases to matter. A tentacle flies through the cabin and wraps around her leg, pulling her toward the new hole in the wall. Elizabeth drops the musket and shrieks, clawing at the deck in an effort to grab onto something, anything.

[gotmy-eye.livejournal.com]

The tentacle pulls Elizabeth toward the grand cabin where Pintel and Ragetti had taken refuge - until the big tentacle had smashed through it.

Ragetti grabs an ax and smashes it down, severing the end curled around Elizabeth's ankle and sending the rest recoiling away.

Great, they've made it angry!

[bringmethatnpc]

A crewman has picked up the dropped musket, meanwhile, and is trying to do what Elizabeth had in mind... but one of the kraken's tentacles catches him before he can shoot the net, swinging him up into the air.

Fortunately, he drops the musket, which lands at the top of the stairs.

[try_corsets]

As soon as she is free, Elizabeth races back to the main deck. There will be time for gratitude later. Hopefully.

Perhaps not for the man currently being crushed by tentacle.

She gasps as the musket goes flying once more, and chases it up the quarterdeck stairs, grabbing for it on her hands and knees.

Before her hands close around the barrel, however, a boot descends and holds it in place.

Who is this idiot? The shot must be fired, and she is the one who must fire it.

Frustrated, she pulls at the musket, determined to pull it free -- until she looks up to discern the identity of the person keeping her from doing so.

She goes still.

[pirate_jack]

He keeps his foot planted firmly on the gun as he assesses it all in an instant. Nothing else exists for him in that moment; not the kraken, not the danger flying all around them, nothing but what he has to do.

Jack's as immobile as stone as he stands looking out across the Pearl's deck at the raging battle-- and the swinging net, and its contents.

It's only then that he glances down at Elizabeth.