Emerald Fallen

The Emerald Fallen, the biggest, fastest, most incredible ship to ever take to Earth’s oceans. With eighty cannons and twelve mounted modified machine guns, her arsenal is something widely feared and entirely unbeatable. The crew is known for its strength and skill with numerous weapons as well as various martial arts. Like its sisters the Ruby Rising and the Opal Queen, the Emerald Fallen had the ability to fly. Unlike most ships, she has a main control board covered in an array of buttons and switches that truly and completely modernizes the ship. Yes, the Emerald Fallen is well known for its incredible wonders that almost make it seem like a fairy tale, but its most famous feature is the small city nestled in its depths.
Some believe that when the creator was building the ship, it was blessed by angels to give it the speed and power it is known for despite the heavy load it would forever be carrying. The city, jokingly named the Emerald City, is unlike any other city and not just because it is on a boat. Instead of endless skyscrapers and floating buildings, the Emerald City is designed to look like a medieval city, with straw roofs and cobblestone roads. This is simply because it is easier to transport around the world. Most people who live in the city are family of the crew. Though some people simply just want to live under the fantasy of being a pirate without the danger that comes with it.
The Emerald Fallen is a ship known for its power and speed. Known for its mystery and unnaturalness. Known to have never lost a fight and successfully capture every treasure it sets its sights on. And currently it was stuck in a fire fight against the Royal Aerial and Naval League Against Pirating.

~~~~~

I stood at the top of the main skysail staring down at two of the most fearsome ships in the royal navy. Below me my crew rushed about to return the fire aimed at us. With a dramatic sigh, I slid down the ropes to the deck where my first mate, Sexton, was waiting for me. I love Sexton, he is one of those people who is loyal and funny and honest and everything else good in the world. Some people would say that while mentally we were identical, physically we were exact opposites. Where Sexton’s skin is darker, mine is more of a sun kissed tan. Where I have hazel eyes, Sexton has blue with flecks of green. He is very tall while I am very short so where I come up to most people’s shoulders, I barely reach Sexton’s chest, which honestly, is my only complaint about him.
Sexton and I met three years ago and were immediately inseparable, to the point where he joined me and my father on our pirate adventure even though it meant that he was disowned by his family. When, one year later, my father died and I became captain, I knew that Sexton should be my first mate. He was always there for me and never complained about taking my bullshit. I don’t know what I would do without him.
Sexton smirked at the exasperation on my face, “What? Not having fun?”
I rolled my eyes, “What do you think?” I marched off to the control center, Sexton followed me. I started punching buttons angrily, “Why do they even bother? We are gonna chase ‘em off and then we have to repair everything that is necessary for movement, then we have to make sure that no one in the city is hurt, then we have to repair the houses… and you know, I’m just not feeling it today.”
I paused my ranting and turned to Sexton with a shrug. He smiled at me, “Well I’m just glad you have calmed down because I thought you were about to kill the ship.”
“I would never,” I gasped dramatically, “My baby.” I hugged the ship’s control board. Sexton laughed at my antics. “No…” I shook my head, “I’m just trying to get us into the air so we have the upper hand, but nothing’s responding and I know that means I will be stuck fixing this for forever and I love this ship but my god, it is a hassle to keep up with.”
Sexton snorted, “Your baby is needy.”
“Very.”
“Captain!” I turned my head to see a crew member running at me, “What are we supposed to do? If we don’t move, we will get destroyed!” I growled and banged my head against the wheel.
“Whatever we do it needs to be planned and organized. Doing something stupid and reckless could lead to death.” Clarity Sawyer was suddenly at my shoulder, causing me to jump.
Clarity Sawyer is one of the only people who has been on the Emerald Fallen from the very beginning. Her parents were close with my father and currently are residing in the Emerald City. She tried to help out wherever she could but right off the bat it was obvious she wasn’t meant to work with machines. Clarity ended up becoming a mother figure or a caregiver for me and my siblings, Mozart and Caesar, despite only being one year older than us. Three years later she still acts like a mom.
I flashed my trademark grin at Clarity, “I know just what to do.”
Clarity looked horrified. Sexton bounced around excitedly, “What’s the plan Holmes?”
I imitated the voice of an announcer, “Well young man, it’s stupid… it’s reckless… and if it goes wrong we may all die.”
“No,” Clarity deadpanned.
“Yes,” cheered Sexton at the same time.
“So what are we doing?” the crew member from earlier asked in a weak voice.
“We,” I said, “Are going to charge right at…” I played a quick game of eenie meenie with the two ships in front of us, “that ship!” I gestured to the ship on the right.
The crew member looked pale. He’s probably new, I thought. “Why?” I turned back to Clarity.
“I just need to be close enough to get on board, so steer away at the last second. Then turn around and come back and I’ll get back on to this ship.”
“Again why?”
I smiled, “You’ll see.”
Sexton snorted and took the wheel, “Here we go I guess.”
As the ship made its sharp turn many of the crew were knocked over. When they regained their balance and realized what was going on a huge cheer erupted from the older crew members.
I looked at Sexton, “They don’t even know what’s happening,” I laughed.
“They trust you.”
“You’re gonna get them killed.”
“Shut up Clarity” Sexton and I chorused.
Now the Emerald Fallen was charging full speed at the vessel on the right. As we got closer I rushed to the side of the ship ready to jump across the gap between the two ships. Just before the two ships would have collided, Sexton jerked the wheel so the Emerald Fallen was as close as possible to the enemy ship without them hitting each other.
“Okay,” Sexton called, “This part’s all you Tesla, don’t die.”
I gave Sexton a conspiratorial wink before leaping across the gap.

~~~~

I watched as Tesla leapt onto the other ship’s rail, snorting to myself as she almost lost her balance and fell into the sea.
“Sexton, why do you encourage her,” I turned to Clarity grinning.
“It’s just so fun.”
Clarity sighed, “Come on, let’s turn around.”
I steered the Emerald Fallen until it was far enough away from the other ship to safely turn around. After completing the turn, I prepared to repeat the earlier maneuver to extract Tesla. We charged back towards the direction we came, the crew behind me singing and cheering.
I laughed and turned to Clarity, “See? That wasn’t so bad.”
Clarity rolled her eyes but I could see the relief shining in them. I grinned turning back to the enemy vessel, which we were close to at this point, and all my joy evaporated when I saw the name decorating the stern. Its trademark silver script shone in the sun taunting all who laid eyes on it.
“Is that…?” Clarity’s voice was barely a whisper. Behind us the crew’s singing had died down, the noise instead replaced by an eerie silence that all too often brought death. I swallowed heavily and nodded to answer Clarity’s question.
“Shit.”

~~~~

I danced through the soldiers on the ship, my sword glinting in the sun as I cut down my opponents, rarely killing but preventing them from continuing to fight. I spun around, meeting each sword, preventing any blows from landing and maybe I was smiling too much, but the rush of adrenaline that comes with a fight is a wonderful and overwhelming feeling. My goal at the moment was to cause enough damage for—
“Enough!”
That, I thought.
Everyone had frozen. I turned toward the sound of the voice where the crew was parting to allow their captain through. The young woman who was parting the crowd had light brown skin decorated in pale freckles and silvery blue eyes. Her thick, curly, dark purple hair was drawn up into a ponytail. On her right forearm there was a crest claiming her as part of the Royal Aerial and Naval League Against Pirating. She was wearing long sleeves so I couldn’t see it but I knew it was there, just like I knew exactly who this girl was.
“Are you shitting me?” I asked, laughter in my voice as I put away my sword. “This is not the ArchAngel is it?” I ran to the side of the ship and looked down, “You got a paint job. This used to be blue. It’s gold now!” I spun around to face the girl, “Today is a crazy day!”
The soldiers were all giving me funny looks, the girl just looked unimpressed. “No really,” I said walking towards the girl, “I woke up this morning after having the weirdest dream, let me tell you about it.”
“Please don’t,” The girl said.
“Oh, don’t worry, it won’t take long.” I stopped right in front of the girl, “So here’s what happened: basically I was flying, but I wasn’t on the ship, and then slowly it got harder and harder to fly and when I looked down I saw that my pockets were full of gold. Eventually I had too much gold and fell into the sea where I drowned because the gold was too heavy,” I began to circle around the girl, “What do you think that means?”
The girl turned her head to follow me with her eyes. “I think it means that your pirating habits will be the death of you,” The girl’s voice was harsh.
I hummed in consideration, by now I had fully walked around the girl and was starting for another loop, “There were also sharks,” I mused.
“Maybe your crew is planning to mutiny and throw you to the sharks, I mean they already left you here.” the girl’s voice had taken on a haughty tone.
I shrugged, “Not really,” I made my way back over to the side of the ship climbing on the railing, holding onto a rope to keep steady, “Come here I’ll show you.” The girl looked at me skeptically, “Come on,” I urged with dramatic arm movements. The girl slowly walked over to climb up next to me, “See?” I pointed to the back of the ship as she settled next to me.
The Emerald Fallen pulled up next to where we were standing, “And now,” I said cheerfully, “It’s time for us to say goodbye,” I grabbed the girl and threw her across the gap where she landed ungracefully on the deck of the Emerald Fallen. I waved to the ArchAngel’s stunned crew before imitating my earlier movements, leaping onto my ship just as clumsily as our prisoner.
I picked myself up and strolled up to the wheel where Sexton had his face buried in his arms, “Next time we go for the other ship,” he mumbled. I laughed.
“Technically this might work in our favor, the ArchAngel would never flee, but the other ship—”
“It’s the Death Bringer,”
I snorted, “Such a strong name for such a weak captain.” I could feel Sexton’s smile, “You wanna bring us around so we can break the news?”
Sexton lifted his head grinning, steering the ship around so it was on course to pull up on the opposite side of the Death Bringer as the ArchAngel. I skipped down to the deck where the girl was tied up, “Bring her here,” I gestured to two of the crew members guarding the prisoner to follow me. As the Emerald Fallen moved to a parallel position to the Death Bringer. I grabbed the bound girl’s arm,
“Hey Captain,” I called to the other vessel, Captain Ivan Greyson stared at me in shock, “Look what I got,” I taunted, “You might want to turn around to warn her daddy dearest that his little princess is at our mercy.”
“Don’t listen to her! Fire,” The violet haired girl screamed at her fellow captain. Captain Greyson looked between the girl and me a worried look in his eyes. Then he spun around and yelled something at his crew. I leaned in to whisper in my prisoner’s ear,
“What do you think he will do?”
The girl just jerked her shoulder in an attempt to free herself from my grasp, I released my hold on her arm raising mine in surrender. I turned my focus back to the two ships next to us snorting as the Death Bringer pulled away to retreat, the ArchAngel following in pursuit. The girl made an angry growling sound. My crew cheered around me. I gestured for silence,
“I know I know, I’m amazing.”
I bounced up to where Sexton and Clarity were standing. Clarity looked stern and annoyed but offered me a small smile when I joined them by the wheel, “I can’t believe that worked,” she stated in a voice that clearly meant that she had wanted for something to go wrong for the sole purpose of scolding me.
I grinned, “Never doubt my luck.”
Sexton and I laughed as Clarity rolled her eyes. She mumbled something that sounded like “rum glass”, which only made Sexton and I laugh harder.
“Tesla!” I turned my head to look at the direction the twin voices came from to see two twin people rushing towards me.
Artemis and Apollo, twin brother and sister as their names suggested only instead of Artemis being the girl, he was a boy just as Apollo was a girl. Both siblings sported curly white hair and porcelain skin. Their red eyes were wide and more often than not were full of laughter and mischief. Right now however, their eyes were full of annoyance.
Arte pushed his round glasses up his nose, “Honestly you could not come up with your genius plan sooner?”
Apollo put her hands on her hips, “Seriously, the boiler room is trashed, tones of the houses in the emerald city will need to be repaired, you’re lucky no one died, and the crew’s quarters are a mess, there are holes everywhere from their cannons.” Apollo huffed out of breath from her rant as well as running around the ship trying to minimize the damage.
I put my hand on her shoulder, “It's okay, I’ll help with repairs and don’t worry too much about the crew’s rooms, they could use more windows anyway.”
Apollo snorted, “Fine.” she raised her hands in surrender, “What did you do by the way, when we got up there the ships were retreating and I know I saw the ArchAngel on the back of one of them. That paint job was cool by the way.”
“It was,” I agreed, “I didn’t even recognize it until I got on board,”
“You did what?
“Yeah, I jumped from this ship to the ArchAngel, only I didn’t know it was the ArchAngel at the time, and I started taking out the crew in hopes of getting the captain’s attention, and again I did not know I was on the ArchAngel because if I did I totally would not have taken that approach, and then I did get the captain’s attention and I distracted her by telling her about my dream from last night, then I grabbed her and yeeted her over to the Emerald Fallen then I jumped back over and used her as a bargaining chip to make them go away. I’m pretty sure it only worked because the other captain was Greyson.”
“Ivan Greyson,” Apollo laughed, “Dude he is a wimp. I’m surprised he’s not dead yet.”
“Same,” I laughed.
“So did you return the stolen captain or…” Apollo trailed off curiosity lacing her voice.
“She’s over there,” I gestured to the deck, “Wanna go over there?”
“I’m more interested in this dream of yours and why it was so distracting,” Artemis piped up.
“Oh,” I said with a laugh, “There was no dream, I just made something up to get her all cocky because she already thought she had the upper hand why not make it seem like I’m distracted and questioning my life’s choices too.”
“Smart girl,” praised Arte clapping. I laughed and bowed.
“God, we are weird,” I snorted as I led the way down to the deck.
The crew had surrounded the girl, eyes full of curiosity yet none of them made to move any closer to the bound captive than five feet. Someone had adjusted her binds so they were around her wrists and ankles instead of their previous location where they practically mummified her torso. The girl’s hair had come undone and was now wildly fluffed around her in a way that was almost comical when compared to her normally composed look.
I turned to Sexton who looked like he would rather be swimming with hungry sharks than here, “You know no one will believe us when we say that we caught her, maybe we could get a picture.”
Sexton offered me a small smile before returning his gaze to the prisoner in front of us. As two sets of identical blue eyes met the girl began to struggle and curse with words vulgar enough to make even the most brash of my crew look on in shock. The girl continued to wriggle around until she fell on her side and even then she didn’t stop fussing.
“Woah,” Apollo gasped, “She and Sexton look so much alike.”
I turned to stare at her, “Are you shitting me?” She stared at me blankly, “Okay seriously does anybody know?” I looked around, everyone looked at me dumbly.
“Know what,” Arte asked.
“If you know you know,” I said.
“I know,” Clarity piped up, raising her hand.
“I know you know but does anybody else know?”
“I feel like this is something that should be obvious, but considering the differences in our professions no one really puts it together.” Sexton muttered.
“You look like you're going to throw up,” I stated.
“I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
I offered him a comforting smile, resting my hand on his arm supportively, “You’re okay,” I whispered, then more loudly, “Besides if you plan on throwing up you should do it on her.” I pointed to the writhing girl who had yet to shut up. This encouraged laughter from the tense crew.
“I gotta be honest,” I said, “I kinda want to get her a gag… but also not at the same time because this,” I pointed to the prisoner is question, “Is fucking hilarious.”
I knelt down next to the girl, “I mean really how often do these noble snots ever lose their shit this much. Seriously can someone film this please?”
The girl ignored me, glaring past me to favor her gaze on Sexton.
“You traitorous bastard,” she shrieked, “Ungrateful son of a bitch,”
“You should never talk about your mother that way,” I chided, “Sexy here only tells me great things about her.” I stood up and walked over to Sexton to pat his shoulder, “Gotta be honest I wish my mom was more like your mom, my mom sucks booty hole.”
“Tesla,” I looked back at Clarity, “Don’t be so vulgar,” she scolded. I held up my hand in surrender, my eyes wide and my cheeks puffed out, making the action comical.
“Tesla,” I relaxed turning my gaze to Apollo, “What is it that we all don’t know but you, Clarity, and Sexton know?”
I resumed my game show host voice from earlier, “I’m glad you asked, but first some trivia!” I pointed to the wriggling girl who had finally quieted down, “What is the name of the infamous captain of the deadly ArchAngel, the ship with the second highest pirate kill rate of all of RANLAP?”
I pointed to Apollo who had raised her hand, “MkCenzy, but what does that have to do with—”
“And does anyone know what is the full name of my dear first mate here?” I continued cutting off Apollo. This time no one raised their hand, the question and answer sinking in as everyone stood there. I took this time to address Captain McKenzy, “Again about that ‘Son of a bitch comment’ from earlier, if you were talking about your mom, shame on you but if you were talking about your father you are absolutely right he is a bitch.”
The girl growled at me. I turned back to my crew, “So no one knows Sexton’s full name? That’s sad.”
“It’s Sexton Mercury MkCenzy,” Said Arte in a small voice.
“Right you are,” I declared, “So for our formal introductions, everyone it is my honor to present to you, Sexton’s twin sister, Joiner Lupe MkCenzy!”