-Storm King-
The parrot came out me with a rightwards sword slash. I simply dodge to the side around it, grabbed her wrist and then kicked her in the chest. She grunted and punched me in the face to get me to let go of her and back off. To her credit, she didn’t even lose grip of her sword at all in that exchange.
“I’ve heard that you know of gibbons and taking, the taking is something I understand.” Did she just make a slight at my appearance? “Though the resemblance to a gibbon isn’t too hard to see either…”
Oh she was so going down!
I liked that she was tough and had spunk though. She could have even been a nice pawn, one that would have taken a while to throw away as she seemed quite capable and competent. A combination I was lacking in the Storm Creatures.
I was always looking for new help because of that and my current guy ‘Strife’ wasn’t working out, but nobody makes a monkey of me!
She started for me and I was blinded by a lightning bolt that suddenly struck her. While I blinked the spots out of my eyes, she struck out at me slashing up a small unarmored portion of left my arm.
I grunted and backed away from her in complete surprise clutching my lightly bleeding arm. She gets struck by a lightning bolt and it doesn’t even phase her, what was this parrot exactly made of?!
-Jacky-
Once you’ve been struck by lightning fifteen or more times, you tend to acquire a taste for burnt ozone.
People say Lightning never strikes twice, they’d be correct when it can strike the same place three or more times in a few seconds. Story of my life and I’m glad ornithians like me had some weather resistance comparable to griffons and pegasi.
Getting struck by lightning was not pleasant. Neither was all the wind and rain soaking me through, but the thing keeping me going was that I wanted the Storm King go down to the locker in the depths!
Thinking of, the Storm King didn’t appear to have any weapons, but I don’t think he needed them as I had to be wary of his incredible physical strength. That kick might have just broken one of my lower floating ribs, hard to tell when it might have broken one of my non floating ones as well.
I cautiously darted forward and stabbed at him. He dodged around to the side and threw his right fist for the left side of my head. I threw my sword upwards to distract him, ducked under his swing and then went for a quick kidney punch as I swiftly stepped around him.
I caught my falling sword and then slashed for the back of his cloven toed left leg.
The under armor where his kidneys were wasn’t as protective. He still managed stagger away from my sword swing and I only nicked his leg. He looked quite mad now that I had managed to distract him so easily.
He lunged for me and I jetted to the side and then turned to burst forward at him. I rammed him shoulder first at decent speed, obviously he forgot that I can use this slightly heavy thing to maneuver.
I nearly knocked him clean over the side of the ship, but he had grabbed the railing and hauled himself back over it at me howling.
I tried to slash at his chest plate hoping to do some damage to his armor and he ducked under it, he swung at me and I jetted backwards using my flight pack. He back away from the flames and charge forward when my feet planted against the deck again.
In the lights focusing on us on the deck, I saw the Storm Creatures in the shadows silently watching us. I did not want my back open to them.
The Storm King lunged forward and swung, I evaded and prepared a counter when his tail swung around for my head. I quickly dodge and tried to slash at him only for him to charge me to assault me furiously.
I couldn’t overuse my flight pack in this situation, but I wasn’t going to let him back me into the corner he was pushing me towards as I tried to attacked him near the front of the ship.
We were both almost hitting nothing but air as he slung his claws around for swipes or tried to trip me up with his tail, I in turn was swinging my sword and occasionally tried to kick his crotch.
He was far faster and stronger than I had imagined, I could match him if I ditched the flight pack which was hampering my maneuverability and speed. Given the way he was eying it, he likely wanted it for himself and I would not be responsible for him using my pack as a weapon. Not after I had painstakingly put my heart into making this thing work.
He jumped for me I jetted upwards performing a twisting spin and when I landed while stowing my sword away, I immediately pulled my cannon on him and fired.
He was surprised by the cannon and barely had time to dodge the only shot my cannon was loaded with. I quickly put the cannon behind my back and though about how to deal with him now that that surprise was out of the way.
His face grew far more serious after I just took out the carved effigy of himself with said shot.
He must have really liked that thing in a highly narcissistic way, because what he did next was pull out a dark orb that was obviously magical in nature considering the shifting green crystal like mass glowing within it.
He threw it at me and I clumsily dodged to the side, looking behind me I saw that one of the Storm Creatures started to quickly turn to stone as the green gas released from the orb made contact with it. The other Storm Creatures were quickly getting well out of the way of that nasty gas.
I also saw something else, a harpoon striking the Ardent Survivor's balloon. They had been spotted and the ship was getting surrounded. Another harpoon was fired, they had my family and ship pinned.
Hold on a little longer guys…
I turned and quickly pulled the bow from behind my back as he tossed another orb at me. I spun the bow around and the orb hit the string, bent it slightly, then sent that stoning orb shooting back at him as he was in the midst of throwing another at the deck in front of me.
I jetted backwards as a cloud of quickly dissipating green tried to engulf me, when I landed I blinked looked down at my right foot.
“There’s no cure for this, these little obsidian orbs are quite darling bits of magic aren’t they… soon you’ll turn out to be just like the statue behind you.” The Storm King told me as he stepped forward, I had missed the return shot. “You should have taken my offer when you had the chance parrot. We could have even been friends! It’s far too late for you now, it’s already starting. It was nice meeting you... I’ll be taking that interesting device on your back.”
“We’ll see about that!” I stowed my bow and shot off for the Ardent Survivor as a third harpoon rammed its way into the ship’s balloon.
I could feel the crystals slowly eating away at my flesh, it was excruciatingly painful and might be mixing with my curse.
-Ardent Survivor, Flotsam-
I looked up at the three harpoons puncturing our balloon and the ships pulling closer to us. I then saw Jacky as she came in for a landing and things didn’t look good when her flight pack sputtered out and she came down rolling across the deck and then miraculously ended up in a standing position on her left leg.
She was bleeding from several claw wounds and her right leg was turning into an odd colored stone that was quickly increasing how much it covered her with time.
“Captain on deck and she’s not looking too good!” I shouted even as I fired the cannon into the oncoming ships and the ones that have us tethered to them, the tethered ones were protected by other ships that were closing in on us and the Storm Creatures abandoned the ship I just blew away. “Jacky are you okay!”
As I moved over to the next cannon, after my next shot I wouldn’t have time to reload anymore and they’d be right on top of us, I saw Jacky’s strange condition quickly worsening by the second.
The Storm Creatures were prepping to board us and I didn’t think we could take on nearly that many. This was a worst case scenario and we willingly came into this knowing this might happen.
“I lost the fight, nobody is to touch me until after I’m done fully turning to stone as this magic might be contagious!” She looked up at the balloon and frowned, at this point her hip and tail were starting to become encased in the dark colored stone and her beak was clenching hard. She looked to be in a serious amount of pain as she began limping her way for the door inside, all while slowly turning to stone. Still, our captain delivered her orders quickly and firmly on her way forward as her tail changed. “Flotsam, blow the balloon, the situation is a lost cause already and we don’t want to be boarded! I then want you to get inside. Nefer head inside and get the animating album out, you’ll know exactly what to do in another minute or so, Belfry you go inside too! Gene start sealing off everything, then pull the ‘destruction’ lever when you are done! They are not taking us alive and they will not be getting a single thing from our ship!”
My heart stopped, I think Nefer, Belfry and Gene likely felt the same thing in that moment. She did realize that we didn’t have another balloon and in this weather… I closed my eyes and then pulled down on the back of the cannon to aim it upwards. Out of the corner of my eyes I could see our captain struggle her way inside as the black stone started taking her other leg.
I took in a shuddering breath of air in the chilling rain, the wind was blowing my fins around wildly and lightning was randomly striking various other ships in the air that had lightning rods.
Amidst all this and the various spotlights on our ship from the remaining forces still in the air that were getting closer, I simply closed my eyes.
With a completely sound mind, I followed my captain’s orders… I exhaled and fired the cannon.
One of the harpoons was blasted loose and the other were ripped out as our balloon went up and we started falling, the entire ship around me started to catch fire and I quickly retreated inside before the ship started falling out from under me.
We could have tried to limp away, but we wouldn’t have made it very far and my captain’s orders were absolute in this case. The Storm King wouldn’t get us this day... and he would never be able to.
My only regrets, if we died here, were that I never found a boyfriend and that I never got a chance to make our family bigger. I started to quickly help a worried Gene with sealing the ship, I had left the cannons where they sat and we’d write them entirely off if they were destroyed.
The last thing I had to do is hug my little brother Nefer tightly before the world goes black.
Hopefully Savannah could carry on without us.
-Ocean-
A burning ship crashed into the turbulent waves, and a mass of wood and debris surrounded the back end of the ship sinking beneath the waves.
Lightning flashed, a bit of the word of ‘survivor’ could barely be seen written along the ships back end as it sunk into the sea in the middle of a terrible storm.
-Ruins of Palicoast, four days later, Savannah-
“Aun-vanwa… wan mama.” The little white furred and feathered griffon in my clutches whined as I stood there among the ruins of a once beautiful town.
This was a place that I used to call home.
I didn’t cry as I stood there staring out to sea blankly.
The little griffon looked at me with his bright purple eyes ringed with black down, not understanding the destroyed surroundings as well as I did. He was quite scared and confused, I tried to keep him calm with a comforting paw petting his head.
“Don’t worry Gavin… auntie Savannah will take care of you sweetie. Mama and Dada… just… had to go away for a little while.” I was trying to hold it together for the little one, it’s fairly obvious what happened to Jacky and the rest of the crew. I continued to caress his little head and started walking back towards the hidden shelters. “We’re eventually going to go live with your grandma, how does that sound?”
It would be a while before I could book an airship to Equestria, Abyssinia was wrecked by the Storm King as there wasn’t much of a military to speak of and the Storm Creatures could apparently easily overpower us. I wouldn’t know, I never actually saw one and spent the last several nights in the shelters only to come out on this particular day to find piles of burnt out husks where many homes used to be.
After all the crap we’ve been through together, this is finally what got brave captain Jacky? I found it hard to believe, but the proof surrounded me.
Palicoast had been burned to the ground and the subsequent rain turned the ashes muddy, the Storm King didn’t leave any visible building in Palicoast untouched or standing. They had thankfully missed the bunkers and the people were okay thanks to the Blackcap Pirates delaying them.
They, at the very least, could rebuild their lives.
“Wa Ganma?” The tiny griffon cub shivered and clutched at my form, forcing his beak and face against the warm body when a cold wind blew through the area. The air was a lot chillier now that this place was a ruined husk.
I held the griffon closer to me with both arms to keep him warm.
“The person who is the mama of your mama.” I had a babysitting job to do and I made a promise to Jacky and Gene that nothing would happen to their son. The griffon cub tilted his head at me, I reassuringly rubbed his back. “You’ll understand someday Gavin, I’ll see to it that you become a bright and wonderful griffon.”
My captain had ordered me to stay behind and this poor little guy had no clue as to what was going on as I sat there with him in my lap several days back. I remember calmly eating breakfast as Jacky informed me that I was being left here, I was the only one they could trust with their son on such short notice.
Dead pirates tell no tales, but the ones that live long enough get to write them.