ic Do You Have To Be An Ocean Away?

[EternalPhoenix]

For Pacer, the world froze. This was her element. The near eternity between milliseconds. She took a few subjective minutes to grab the remaining flare without breaking fingers (it was harder than it looked!), and took off. This fast, gravity didn’t have enough time to take hold and so she simply ran down the side of the Brazos. Water was the same as solid ground, since her feet didn’t touch for a tenth of the time necessary to break surface tension. This was what Pacer lived for, and she exploited it to the fullest. They wouldn’t be able to see the flare if she was over the horizon, and the horizon at sea level was…about three miles. Easy. She zipped back and forth across the entire three mile (well, ish. She wasn’t a yardstick or a ruler), covering turf that had already been covered. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe her current comrades. She just liked to run. With that done, she went further south, out of flare range. Or…was it? How high did flares go, anyway? You might able to see them from further away than three miles.

 

With this justification, Pacer ran south until she hit land, and then crisscrossed the ocean inbetween. She was having a fantastic time.

 

**************

 

Mere seconds later, Pacer reappeared in the crow’s nest. “ManIlovedoingthatwhatarush!” She found a comfortable spot in the rigging and relaxed for a bit. If she’d found something, the flare would be visible shortly. If she hadn’t, well…there was nothing like a short break before searching the entire globe in…what? Less than a day? An hour? Pacer didn’t know, she’d never tried before. Yes, she supposed she technically knew whether she'd found something or not, but bah, thinking. She’d bother remembering in a minute.

 

Stalwart, as ever, knew what his sister was up to and looked south. If there was a flare, he’d see it first. “Look sharp, guys. Pacer’s done her thing. Let’s get ready to do ours.”

[Kolohehonu]

GM

 

Pacer did in fact find something. The first sign had been the sharks that circled around the two masted ships. The second had been the smell. She saw the carnage that had been done to this crew. A little farther south there was another ship that looked as though it had been hit by cannonballs. 

 

A few moments later the people aboard the Brazos Del Mar and the Black Flag saw a streak of red light racing up into the southern sky. 

[Supercape]

Flintlock

 

Flintlock rose from her hammock and reached for the Rum. 

 

"Just to clear me head!" she explained. Or lied. Or both. In any case, as beautiful as the azure glistening seas had been, rolling and leaning, it had been a fruitless task for her disembodied spirit. 

 

Lolloping to the head of the Black Flag she saw the barely-there streaks of quicklings racing across the sea. She shook her head. Rum could web the mind, but - also - it was strange seas and she had seen stranger. Who knew what was out there? And then the redlight...what was that? A mystical sunset? A bloody comet?

 

Not likely the Black Flag could catch it, anyways, swift as the vessel was. 

 

"By the Mad Arab's lamp!" she blurted, spitting out the Rum (as part of her would always lament). "What in Leng was that? Set course after it!" she signalled. 

 

"But Captain, its faster than a bolt of lightning!" complained Handsome Jack, stroking his grey rotting stubble sitting atop a grey jawbone. 

 

"Never mind its impossible! Let's do it anyway!" she insisted, grabbing the wheel of the Black Flag and turning the ship around...

Edited March 8, 2017 by Supercape

[Kolohehonu]

PC

 

Hyperactive and Black Sunset both arrived on the deck of the Black Flag. Hyperactive vibrated his body, he scattered water all around as he did so. 

 

"That be the flare Cap'n Flintlock." Black Sunset said behind his mask. The Brazos Del Mar began to turn about as well. "Pacer must've found a ship." 

 

"Your daughter, whose her mother?" Hyperactive asked Sunset. 

 

"She be a fellow privateer. Triple Threat. Emily Akala." Black Sunset said with what seemed to be a smile. "Marryin' her be the best decision I ever did make." 

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Arr! I must be more drunkererrrr than I thought!" replied Flintlock. She threw her bottle of Rum into the sea and only half regretted it. 

 

"Then we have a goodly chance of catching up with whatever it was! Huzzah!"

 

"Huzzah Huzzah!" yelled the Skeleton Crew. 

 

"Huzzah Huzzah!

Wide and far!

The sails of the ship do bellow!

The winds be right!

The prey in sight!

The Cannons smoke and bellow!"

 

They sang together. Whilst the rhyme was awful, the jocularity was infectious and the voices quite reasonable. For pirates, anyhow. 

 

"I never was one for marryin'" remarked Flintlock to Black Sunset. "Always seeming to get in the way of things. Or things getting in the way of Marryin'. Or maybe it was both. Still, I'd be guessin there's quite a tale of love, sunken treasures, and sabres in moonlight if you care to share?" she asked Black Sunset, inquisitively with a saucy wink. 

[Kolohehonu]

PC

 

"Aye well when she and me be drunk enough after we be savin' our daughter she and me be tellin' the whole story. Well when me daughter be asleep." Sunset chuckled humming along to the shanty. "If ye can be believin' her ol' man be a navy admiral. He be a good man if uptight."

 

"Felipe Prats?" Hyperactive asked incredulously. Black Sunset nodded. "Gingerbread Man?" Sunset nodded and chuckled. "On my world he's a supervillain."

 

"Aye and dependin' on who ye be askin' he be the same on this world." 

[EternalPhoenix]

The sight of the flare spurred Pacer into further reclining. She remembered now, and really didn’t want to. The one thing no person could run away from, no matter how fast they were, was their own mind and memories. So Pacer did something she didn’t do very often. She ramped her mind up to full velocity, but her body didn’t join it. A scant instant later, and she resynchronized mind and body. It’d been a looooong (subjective) time, and her memories of what she’d seen had aged and weathered to the point where they wouldn’t bother her anymore. Maybe it was cowardly, to use her powers that way, but she needed to sleep at night. And function during the day. The Brazos was headed in that direction anyway, so there was no point in rushing. Pacer relaxed, and purposefully didn’t think about sharks, torn limbs, or the smells of blood, pain, and death. No sense bringing up old traumas, after all. Not until it was time to make all wrongs done to those people right again.

 

*****************

 

Stalwart, having nothing to do, took a seat on a rope coil. Curiosity got the better of him and he spoke to the green haired captain. “Captain? I’d like to ask you something. When you met Pacer, the future version, did you meet me, too? Or did she say anything about me?” He intended to look out for her as long as he could, but speedsters had a reputation for time traveling, and not all of them aged normally. There could come a day where he just couldn’t be there for any number of reasons. That super fun thought occupied his mind as he waited for the Captain’s reply.

[Kolohehonu]

GM

 

"Nay laddie ye not be with yer sister. But ye not have been dead either, from me understandin'."  Druid said as he glanced at his arm. "She be sayin' that she could leave and go so swift ye would not e'en notice she had gone. O' course I seen the way me matey Sunset behaves, and I be knowin' for a fact that we do notice when he be leavin'. Perhaps she be needin' remindin' when that time comes." 

 

--------

 

The two ships raced on the wind back towards the carnage. Druid whispered something to his bird which flew over to Captain Flintlock. 

 

"This be the work of Ku'Mana." Druid said and the bird spoke in unison. "Me boys and I can search this ship, Cap'n Flintlock if ye and yer's can be searchin' the other. Any clue might be hastenin' our search."

[Supercape]

Flintlock

 

"Aye aye!" replied Captain Flintlock giving her drunken half-bow, half-courtesy, which was always flavoured as melodramatic flamboyance. 

 

"Right then lads!" she turned to address her undead crew. "Lads" in this case included three women who did not mind overmuch about the address. Everyone was a "lad" on the Black Flag. 

 

"Time to board and search. Well, if there be much to be boarding. Don't drown!" she japed with a slap of the knee. The skeleton crew might sink at worse, but drown was unlikely. 

 

"Pete, Rose, Lucy, Billy, Razor! you are with me! Don't forget your cutlass!" she said, lolling from side to side on a rigging rope and waving her hat. 

 

"Jack, keep the Black Flag at the ready. Jennie, keep the cannons ready. Spike, keep your eyes ready, Lash, keep the timber ready, and Gutboy....keep the Rum ready! Har har!"

 

Cheers arose as the Fat zombie cook, Gaston "Gutboy" raised a hand with a manky rotten haunch of lamb in it, waving his meaty flag around and around in celebration. Despite being zombies, the Skeleton crew loved food and drink. Arguably more of the latter. Gutboy knew how to cook. But he wasn't particularly good at it. 

 

Turning from her crew to the carnage ahead, Flintlock and half her crew prepared to searchin'...

Edited March 10, 2017 by Supercape

[Kolohehonu]

PC

 

"Captain Flintlock I'll come with you." Hyperactive said locking his mask in place. He readied himself as he looked over the ship. Well some things are the same on this world. The carnage looked similar to what the Ku'mana of his world would do. The mask blocked out some smell, but certainly not all of it. "Let's get this over with."

 

Hyperactive glanced at the rope one of the skeletons offered and shook his head. In a blur of motion he ran down the side of the ship, across the water and onto the other ship. The whole place was a mess. As much as he didn't think he'd find anything on the top deck, he lingered. A wary watcher would have seen fear in his posture. She isn't my daughter. I'll save her, but she isn't my daughter. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. He also didn't particularly care to be alone below decks with whatever awaited him for any amount of time.