(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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[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.

[try_corsets]

Hand still on his boot, she stares up at Jack and thinks, he came back. No longer concerned about pushing his foot or pulling the musket, she wonders briefly at the look in his eyes and surges forward to wrap her arms around his legs -- possibly to steady him, more likely to steady herself.

It doesn't matter anymore that Will entrusted the shot to her, or that Jack had fled in a cowardly fashion as soon as trouble reared its ugly head. He came back.

It's his shot to take.

...Unless it looks like he's going to miss.

[pirate_jack]

In one single movement, he bends and snatches the musket, raising it to his shoulder and sighting along its length.

He doesn't react as Elizabeth clings to him-- all of his focus is past the end of the barrel as he tracks the swinging net, watching it move as Will Turner frantically tries to saw himself free--

--waiting--

--waiting--

[turned_captain]

Don't wait.

Will has no idea what's keeping Elizabeth so long to shoot, and relief mixes equally with frustration as he concentrates on hacking away at the net.

Shoot.

Shoot.

Shoot!

Tentacles start to tears at the net now, and As Wil finally cuts himself free and falls to the deck, he sees the barrels being ripped away from each other.

It's too late...

[pirate_jack]

Wait for the opportune moment.

As Will goes sprawling clear and the kraken twists itself around the net, Jack targets one single keg of powder as it tumbles through the air.

There.

His finger tightens on the trigger.




The explosion shatters the air with sound and flame and shakes the Black Pearl under them. Large pieces of the kraken's tentacles fall smoking to the deck as it flails wildly about, seeking escape.

Wounded and burning, the creature lets out an unearthly moan as it sinks back into the depths.