Rouge XVI (Patreon)

Three things happened at once. One, the ball of lightning the pirate captain had been gathering hurtled toward Scar. Two, Rouge’s goddess-blessed weapon struck at the weakest point of the pirate’s ephemeral skull. Three, though she couldn’t see it, Vexxx sent a bolt of lightning into the cannon below. She knew the third happened because Vexxx poured such a large chunk of his massively overpowered mana pool into the strike that the entire side of the ship lit up like it was high noon on a hot summer day.

CRITICAL! You have dealt 1510 (302x5) points of Blessed damage to Pirate Captain.

The pirate howled, head thrown back as light poured from his eyes, nose, and mouth. He was engulfed in a corona of sparks, and Rouge had to squint against the strobing lights to see Scar crawl forward through the cascade to catch Jean’s arm and begin pulling her away. The pirate noticed, too, and Rouge hurled her Mambele at him. It swirled through his body, tearing loose chunks of electricity and leaving a trail of lightning behind it as it returned to her hand.

You have dealt 162 points of Blessed damage to Pirate Captain.

“Hey! Sparky!” she yelled, standing from the crouch she’d landed in after passing through his incorporeal body. She’d taken a good amount of damage from the ambient electrical charge, and a little more from the fall, but not enough to worry about. Yet. Twirling her Mambele in her hand, she crouched in the stance she’d learned from Nekthadt, the leader of the goblin justat who protected Queen Saravelle.

The pirate turned to face her, face twisted in a snarl of rage. If anything , he was shining even brighter now, and she wondered if she’d guessed wrong. Still, she’d never been one to second-guess a gut feeling, so instead she doubled down.

::Vexxx, do it again! Keep hitting that cannon with everything you’ve got, at the end of each cycle.::

He sounded dubious, but said, ::Okay. That was my max [Lightning Bolt], though. I can only do that, like, five or six times.::

She slid to the side, easily evading the blow the pirate captain sent her way. Small bolts struck her now and then, taking off a few dozen points here and there, but she was still above seventy percent health, while he had to be closer to twenty-five. Not that it would matter if he could just reappear each time the cannon was struck by lightning, and she had a bad feeling that was exactly what would happen as long as the thing was still intact.

::Do it again,:: she said, twisting and dodging as she tried to lead the pirate further from Jean and Scar. At his size, he should be slow, but the length of his sword and the fact that he was made of lightning seemed to make that moot, because he was fast. Not as fast as almost five hundred points of Dex made her, though, and she started to grin as she threw her Mambele again. This time he dodged it, finally seeming to realize that he needed to avoid the thing that could actually hurt him, and she let out a little growl of frustration.

The sky behind him lit up again, and he actually swelled up in response, growing even brighter than he had been before. She caught a glimpse of movement behind him - no, through him! - and realized that while he was larger, his red coat had faded, and his body appeared less cohesive than before.

::I think I see some cracks, Rouge!:: Silus said.

::Nah,:: Vexxx growled, even as the sky flared for the third time. His voice was excited as he corrected himself. ::No, she’s right! This might actually be doing something!::

The pirate’s sword was easily ten feet long by now, and Rouge had nowhere left to retreat. Scar, Jean, and Wally were hiding near Bonny, Horatio, and the redhead, and each swing of the sword crossed half to three-quarters of the deck. If Rouge tried to move around, the edge of the swing could easily catch one or more of them.

You take 64 points of damage from Lightning.

Rouge winced, watching her life bar edge down. Each strike of lightning now dealt more than twice as much damage as they had in the beginning, and she still hadn’t even been hit by the sword. Fortunately, she was able to pick at him by throwing her Mambele, but he was taking less damage, too. More damage to her plus less damage to him wasn’t an equation she liked.

::Four!:: Vexxx and Silus yelled together as the surface of the surrounding clouds reflected the light of Vexxx’s attack again. The pirate swelled, and though he was now easily fifteen feet tall, he was also nearly as diaphanous as the rest of his crew, and Rouge could clearly see the others through him as he strode toward her.

Rouge rolled under a sweeping sword blow, then popped to her feet with a kip-up and barely managed to jump over the blade as it twisted back toward her with impossible speed. She found herself perched on a crate near the mast, and the next time she jumped, she leaped to the railing of the quarterdeck. From here, she could see everything, and she knew from the way the ghostly crewmember behind the captain was hauling on his rope that she only had a few seconds left before the end of the cycle, when Vexxx would cast his last spell, and run out of mana. Then, either the cannon would break, or it wouldn’t, and if the pirate captain and the cannon were linked, he would either vanish or he wouldn’t.

There were too many variables. Was the captain the anchor, or was the cannon? Would breaking one destroy the other, or would leaving one behind allow the other to respawn? Or was she completely wrong, and she’d sent her allies away to attack the darkness for no reason? Though at least they were safe, and that was reason enough for her.

Rolling like a gymnast on a balance beam, Rouge ducked a blow and leaped for the mast. The captain’s sword sizzled through it, leaving black marks on the wood, but it held, and she clambered up, counting down in her head.

Five.

As high as she could get in the time she had.

Four.

Trigger [Poof!!] so the pirate captain lost track of her.

Three.

[Stealth] in the swirling clouds, as she shifted, gathering her muscles into taut coils.

Two.

Jump! Push off the mast, throwing herself toward the captain, who had already turned away and was moving toward his original victims.

[Shadow Glide] to correct her angle.

[Backstab]!

One.

She struck, and the world turned white, the fog generated by [Poof!!] diffusing the flash of Vexxx’s final [Lightning Bolt] into an all-encompassing glare. Black words stood out against the white.

You have been Blinded for ten seconds.

CRITICAL! You have dealt 317 points of Blessed damage to Pirate Captain via [Backstab].

You have defeated Pirate Captain.

You have gained one level of [Backstab]. It is now level 17.

She grinned as she landed on the deck, one hand stretched down to brace herself. She felt the splintered wood beneath her fingers, though she still couldn’t see anything, and knew she had to be close to where Jean and the lightning pirate ghost captain had been battling, and Jean’s sword had gouged the deck as she swung it ineffectually through the apparition.

Unless, of course, the ship was just falling apart, thanks to everything that it had gone through recently. She blinked as dark shapes began to swim into focus, hoping that she wasn’t about to be plunged into a churning ocean miles from land as the vessel crumbled beneath her.

You are no longer Blinded.

She saw Jean and Scar, huddled on the deck, clutching each other. Beside them, Bonny, Horatio, and the redhead held onto one another as well, and Rouge wished she, too, had someone to cling to, as the deck fell out from beneath her.

Literally.

The Western Star had been lifted up through the decks of the much larger pirate vessel, and now, without whatever magic had kept them in place, the ship dropped back into the black water below. The vessel creaked and cracked alarmingly as water slapped against her hull, splashing up around them, threatening to wash anything not tied down off the deck. They swayed sickeningly until, slowly, the ship returned to the calm rise and fall of the placid ocean waves that had surrounded them until the magical storm swallowed them up.

Instinctively, Rouge had buried her Mambele in the wooden deck like a hook, using the curved tip to hold her in place as the ship decided whether or not it was going to shatter into splinters. Now, she cautiously pulled it out and returned it to her inventory as she counted heads.

All the crewmembers were there, though Bonny’s group had slid much closer to one of the railings, and Bonny herself clung to a rope tying down part of the cargo. A few of the ropes had snapped, and crates were tumbled around, but though some of them rested against the railing, the railing itself seemed to be intact.

She heard a groan, and Scar shouted, “Help! She’s being crushed!”

Whirling, Rouge saw that Scar and Jean hadn’t been as lucky as the others. Jean was badly injured, so it had probably been difficult to grab something secure or get out of the way of falling items when the ship dropped. A rope near the couple had snapped, allowing several large crates to slide around, and several of them had the captain pinned up against the railing.

Rouge was already on her feet, and she ran toward them before Bonny and the rest of the crew could react. Sliding her fingers beneath the crate lying against Jean’s legs, she heaved against the weight of it and the other five that were pressing on it as they all tried to slide overboard. Fortunately, she was quite a few levels higher than Scar, who had the lowest level of anyone aboard, including Horatio, and it wasn’t too difficult to raise the box high enough that Scar could pull his wife’s limp form to safety. Rouge dropped the crate, ignoring the protesting creak of the railing, and turned to Scar, pulling a Healing Potion from her inventory. She thrust it into his trembling hand, and he gave her a grateful look even as he pulled the cork with his teeth and pressed it to Jean’s lips.

At first, Rouge thought the woman was unconscious or too far gone, since the red fluid trickled down her fuzzy cheek, but then her throat spasmed, and she swallowed hard. Once. Twice. Three times, and then she went into a wracking cough, curling on her side while her relieved husband patted her back. As the captain moved, her torn pants shifted, revealing one softly furred leg, and one-

::Is that a flipper?:: Silus asked, fluttering down to snuggle into Rouge’s hair.

::What the heck is she?:: Vexxx asked, though for once he had the good sense to keep it in party chat instead of blurting it out for all to hear.

Rouge sat back on her butt, relieved more than she could say as she felt Silus’ weight come to rest in its usual place, and knew her friend was safe. Her cousin, too, she supposed.

A moment later, she heard a disconsolate squawk, and Codswallop settled down on the deck beside her, laying his head in her lap. His feathers were in disarray, but otherwise he seemed to be fine. She had a feeling his powerful talons had done a better job keeping him in place during the ship’s final drop than anything any of the humans had done.

Humans and… whatever Captain Jean was.

Rouge’s eyes traced over the other woman as she sat up, pushing her black hair away from her face. Now that Rouge thought about it, Jean had stayed as far away from them as she possibly could, though not quite to the extent of the redhead, who Rouge had never seen before today. Now that Rouge was close, she could see that the captain’s skin was covered in fine, thick fur, and her eyes looked more like an animal’s than a humans; with huge, dark irises nearly obscuring the white around them. Her leg (or rather flipper) was strapped into the peg leg that Rouge had assumed was attached to the stump of a normal leg. Frankly, it looked incredibly uncomfortable. No wonder she was so cranky all the time.

Captain Jean looked over at Rouge and sighed, revealing the sharp teeth Rouge had noticed the first time they saw her. Tucking her hair behind an unusually small, round ear, she said, “Now what?” Reaching down, her hand splayed open over her flipper, fragile membranes stretching between her fingers.

Rouge met the dark, inhuman eyes, tilting her head in confusion. “Now what, what?”

Jean bared her teeth, then hid the threatening gesture behind her lips as she looked away. “You… saved us. And yourselves, conveniently, but it was trouble that followed us, not you. And now you know my secret, too. I can’t kill you, since we owe you our lives, but you can destroy us by telling others about-” She gestured meaningfully to her face and flipper.

Rouge frowned. “You mean because you’re not human? So?”

The crew exchanged looks, and Rouge reached up and tugged at her own pointed ear. “I mean, glass houses and all. I don’t care what race you are, other than that it’s really, really cool.” Her finger twitched in an urge to reach out and touch the silky-looking fur, but she resisted.

Bonny shook her head. “Y’don’t know,” she said, wonderingly.

Scar started to laugh, and everyone else looked at him like he was crazy. “I told you, Jean! I barely knew what a selkie was. Claiming you’d be killed on sight was just another of Shale’s lies.”

Again, Bonny shook her head. “You didn’t know anything,” she said, though a smile pulled at her mouth. “I was a sailor before I was a pirate, an’ they do fear the selkie, though perhaps not so much as Shale claimed. But these two aren’t sailors, or water-folk at all, an’ they don’t know.”

Rouge was wide-eyed by now. “Wait. Selkie? Like, uses a magic seal skin to turn into a seal, selkie? That’s so cool!”

Jean’s hand tightened into a fist atop her exposed flipper. “Supposed to, yes. My… Captain Shale found me and my skin when I was just a toddler. I had washed up ashore after a storm. He took me home and when I got old enough to ask, he told me my mother had been his wife, but she ran away when he returned her skin, and left me behind. He used me to spy on and infiltrate the ships he wanted to seize, and I went along with it for years, until-” Her eyes flicked to Scar.

He laughed, a flush darkening his cheekbones. “She met me. She snuck aboard my vessel, and altered our charts so we would sail into Shale’s trap, but in the process she-”

Bonny snorted. “Fell in love wi’ him at first sight, she did. Him being too pretty for his own good, an’ all. When Shale set on ‘em, she managed to save his life, though he was a little less pretty, after.”

Self-consciously, Scar reached up and touched the ridge of tissue that began at his eyebrow. “She came to visit me in my cell aboard Shale’s ship, and nursed me back to health.” He reached out and took her hand in his, holding it tenderly. “When she told her father she wanted to leave the ship and marry me, the truth came out. He told her she was his, since he owned her skin, and she’d stay as long as he wanted. And since she now had two weaknesses, rather than just one, he’d keep me here and alive, only so long as she continued to return when he ‘loaned’ her her skin so she could sneak onto another vessel.”

Nodding grimly, Bonny reached out and took Horatio and the redhead’s hands in her own. “I’d been Jean’s best friend since Horatio an’ I joined up, an’ she told me about it all. I joined when m’parents died, and it was a way to feed me an’ my brother. But it wasn’t so romantic, killin’ people and stealin’ from them, and I met Grace.” She glanced at the redhead, her eyes warm. “We took her ship, and when Shale gave his ‘join or die’ speech, she joined, but I knew it wasn’t what she wanted. So we all decided together that it was time t’ go, and,” she shrugged, “you saw th’ result.”

Rouge leaned back, staring up at the sky. High overhead, a puffy white cloud swirled into the shape of a heart, and she laughed. “True love wins in the end, huh?” Straightening, she looked into five pairs of expectant eyes. “If you want to know, ‘what now’, I guess we all head to Farewell Island. At least, if you think the ship will get us there.”

Jean and Bonny exchanged glances, and Jean nodded. “The Star is tougher than you’d think, and we have the protection of Zovina. We’ll make it.”

Vexxx, who had been uncharacteristically silent, broke in. “That’s good, because if Rouge and I don’t go soon, we’re not going to be able to make breakfast in the morning, and our Nana will skin us alive.”

An awkward silence fell as everyone looked at Jean, then at her flipper, then back at Vexxx. The mage flushed. “I mean, not literally, but-”

Laughter still felt good.