Chapter 19: Your Island is in Another Ocean

Chapter 18

Max

I suppose I should back things up a bit and explain how the braided lady showed up.

Duke had stayed on watch, sitting on the crows nest to keep an eye out. Once I got to the crew quarters I heard a crash. I ran back up to find the crows nest broken into pieces and falling to the deck with Duke following only slightly slower, his hands already bleeding from grabbing ropes as he fell. I ran to try and help him as he slammed to the deck, when something that looked like a rope slammed into my chest and sent me flying into the railing. My hand shot out reflexively and grabbed a hold of the rail, and my body slammed against the ship my arm feeling like it was being pulled out of its socket.

As I hung there, my mind going blank from the pain, a rope slid over my hand as it held onto the railing, then down my arm, I didn’t really notice it until it had coiled itself around my torso. Then it pulled. I flew back over the railing and slammed into the deck, the air going out of my lungs as I hit the deck, and I spent the next few moments relearning to breath. Then I noticed that our attacker was a she, and she was talking

“So you....boys,” the way she said the word made it sound like she was eating sewage. “Are you the only ones aboard the ship? I would think not, a big ship like this needs a woman to drive it, boys,” again the word said with disgust,” cannot do anything without a woman's help.” I looked toward the source of the voice, but all I saw was a shadow under an umbrella and a long black braid, which must have been what was tossing me around like i weighed nothing. There came delicate snorting noises, and then she said, “ahh, a child of Poseidon. Of course, otherwise you wouldn’t have noticed my mothers activities.”

Now that we are caught up.

Duke pushed himself off the deck and tried to summon his axe, but then she began to sing, or hum, or whatever. I couldn’t tell you what it was, only what it did. Duke stopped in mid-summon, his eyes glazing over and he started to fall back to the deck. Whatever happened to him after that, I don’t know as my eyes lost focus, and all I knew was the song.

Next thing I knew Julie was smashing the braided lady with a torrent of water, which was being stopped by some sort of barrier. The barrier appeared to be focused on blocking the two torrents. Then Julie did something that focused the pressure of the water, and broke through the barrier and cut the woman’s hair.

To say that our mystery opponent was upset is like saying that the sun could burn you. A serious understatement.

The scream of her rage at the loss of her hair bent and broke the deck of our ship, which sent splinters and chunks of wood flying with Julie towards the pilots cabin, which she slammed into hard enough to crack the wood there, leaving the chunks of wood lodged in the cabin. As Julie sunk to the deck, Duke and I sprang into action.

I let loose a trio of electrical blasts towards her, and as soon as I finished that I brought out Watt and Joules. The first lightning bolt hit her square in the back, to which she spun left and faced me. This kept her from seeing Duke, who smacked her in the back of the head with the sharp end of the blade. This sent her forward crashing into the main mast of the ship, snapping it at the base. As it tilted to the side I used Joules to slap her into the path of the falling mast. Still reeling from Duke’s attack, she was caught by Joules and the falling beam.

“Enough playing around!” She yelled and threw the mast at Duke. He was so surprised by this dainty girl throwing the mast at him, that he almost didn’t move out of the way in time. I brought Joules up to bring down on her head when her eyes went wide and she disappeared. My blade bit into the wood of the deck, and Duke cursed.

“What the hell just happened?” Duke asked angrily.

“I don’t know,” Julie said pulling herself up with the help of the steering wheel. “But I think we just reached our destination...maybe.” We looked ahead of the boat to find a giant whirlpool happily spinning away. Then there was an explosion off the port bow.

Chapter 20