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Chapter 48 - When the Cannons Fall Silent
🕑 Added 2025-05-18 23:52:55 +0000 UTCBarbossa stood at the stern of the Black Pearl, watching as the English navy ships began to burn.
His eyes gleamed with the light of the flames, and a satisfied smile lingered on his face.
Until...
FWOOOOOSH!
BOOM!
The heavy sound of a cannonball approaching was quickly followed by an impact that shook the entire ship, tearing off part of the bulwark and taking a few pirates who were in the way with it.
"Captain! We've been hit!" one of the pirates shouted in alarm.
Annoyed, Barbossa rolled his eyes.
"Oh, really? Are you sure?" he asked, seemingly polite.
"Yes, Captain, it just hit us!" The pirate nodded quickly, while a few other pirates slowly distanced themselves from the fool.
Barbossa grabbed a golden crossbow resting on the bulwark beside him, quickly aimed, and fired an arrow that hit the wide-eyed skeleton's head squarely, tearing it off before continuing its path across the deck and pinning the skull to the floor.
"And now, did you feel that hit?" Barbossa smiled at the skeleton, whose now headless body ran in circles in panic.
"I-I felt it... Oh, I get it!" the skull pinned to the floor, still startled by the events, replied timidly to the captain—but then something clicked, and he realized the captain was angry because he had stated the obvious.
Barbossa rolled his eyes again at his crew's stupidity.
FWOOOOOSH!
BOOM!
The ship shook again, and another hole appeared in the Pearl's hull.
Barbossa looked furiously at the idiots still standing there, staring at him and at the headless body that had now run over and was struggling to pull its skull, pinned by an arrow, from the floor.
"You pack of flea-bitten dog bones, how long are you going to stand there and let the Pearl take hits?!" he roared, snapping the dazed pirates out of their trance as they immediately ran to maneuver the ship.
Still seething, Barbossa strode to the helm and shoved aside the frightened skeleton steering the ship without the slightest care, taking control himself.
FWOOOOOSH!
SPLASH!
As he piloted and dodged cannon fire, Barbossa narrowed his eyes toward the coast.
"Why did those idiots let the coastal cannons fire again?" As he pondered, he saw the very idiots in question climbing back aboard from the sea.
"IDIOTS!" Barbossa shouted, startling the skeletons who had just climbed up, making them shrink under the force of his voice. "I told you to cause chaos on the shore—what are you doing here?" he asked, furious.
"C-Captain, there's a demon cat on the coast, we're no match for him!" one pleaded in terror.
"Yes, Captain, he broke most of us into pieces and threw parts of our bodies into the sea. I still haven't found my leg—he threw it really far," said another pirate, hopping on one leg, nodding quickly in fear.
"Cat?" Barbossa looked at them confused, but truly, most of his men were missing one or two pieces, and many hadn't returned at all. "And where are the others?"
"Looking for their heads, Captain. The cat aimed mostly for our heads. They're probably in the sea right now looking for them," another replied sheepishly, scratching his skull with the bones of his hand.
"Captain, the cat is really strong. We should retreat. I've never seen anything like it," one of the others said.
"Retreat? Retreat is not the problem. But if I don't have that coin in my hands, even if it's the Kraken itself, we're not leaving here today," Barbossa declared, eyes wide and fierce as he glared at his crew—then narrowed them, thinking hard.
He wasn't exactly in disbelief over a super-powerful demon cat—after all, he was talking to skeletons at that very moment. But without the coin, the path to breaking his curse, he wouldn't back down even if Davy Jones himself showed up.
Staring toward the shore with a heavy look, he seemed to spot something. He pulled out a spyglass and peered through it.
And what he saw made a smile stretch across his face. It seemed his plan wasn't going badly at all.
"Men, get ready—we're about to get the hell out of here," Barbossa lowered the spyglass, tucked it at his waist, and shouted with a wicked grin, one hand stroking the monkey on his shoulder and the other gripped the helm.
...
In the waters, swimming swiftly toward the Black Pearl, was Puss, a serious look in his eyes. His soaked fur clung to his body, his hat held out of the water by his tail as he paddled quickly through the sea.
He was slightly behind the skeletons, despite swimming faster. Along the way, a few of them—taking advantage of not needing to breathe—had tried to ambush and drown him. He dealt with them easily, but it cost him time.
But suddenly, he saw that the Pearl had changed direction, heading closer to the coast—a worse position, as it made it easier to be targeted by the cannons the nearer they were.
"What are they planning — no!!" Puss was confused, but when he saw something on the shore, his eyes widened.
Surrounded by skeletons were an unconscious Will, a Jack with his hands in the air, and an Elizabeth with a serious, heavy expression on her face.
But worst of all was the black horse, snorting angrily at the pirates who surrounded them with swords.
"How did those idiotas get caught?! Can't they do anything?!" Annoyed, Puss gritted his teeth in worry and swam even faster, more desperately.
'Looks like some pirates reached the city before I even got out of prison—or slipped in more quietly than I realized while I was busy dealing with those skeletons harassing the soldiers manning the coastal cannons,' Puss pondered, upset, not slowing his swimming pace.
Not that he hadn't prepared for pirates slipping through his guard—but he never thought they would manage to capture the very idiots who shouldn't be captured.
While Puss swam rapidly toward them, a scene was unfolding on the beach.
"STOP FIRING!" a filthy, short, and chubby pirate shouted at the top of his lungs—before a malicious grin spread across his face.
Upon hearing the shout, the soldiers instinctively looked over and were shocked.
There, beside the fat pirate who had shouted, stood another dirty pirate—tall and skinny, with a foolish expression and a glass eye—holding a knife to the long, beautiful neck of the governor's daughter, who remained fearless even in such a situation, anger clear on her face.
The soldiers hesitated, recognizing the girl taken hostage.
"STOP FIRING, OR THIS POPPET HERE WILL LEARN TO BREATHE THROUGH HER NECK!" the hateful fat man, Pintel, shouted again.
"He-he, breathe through her neck..." Ragetti, the skinny one with the glass eye holding the knife, giggled idiotically, but cruelly. And that was what he was—a cruel fool. Both of them were.
The guards truly didn't know what to do. Trading the life of a woman for that of their comrades still fighting aboard the ships was not a good deal. But the major problem was the woman's identity.
"STOP! STOP! DON'T SHOOT!!" a frantic cry rang out, and Governor Swann, escorted by guards, came running with a face full of worry and horror. "Elizabeth!" he cried, seeing his daughter with a knife to her neck and surrounded by skeletons.
The soldiers, seeing the governor, hesitated even more—but in the end, they stopped, and everyone began staring at each other. Consequently, the sounds of cannon fire on the coast also fell silent.
The Pearl moved closer to the dock, and its cannons also ceased.
Finally, aboard the Dauntless and the Interceptor, after the cannon fire stopped and the coast fell quiet as well, it became clear that something was wrong.
On the Dauntless, after decapitating a skeleton, Norrington—bleeding, disheveled, and exhausted—looked toward the shore.
The battle between the pirates and English marines on both ships slowly came to a halt as the sound of cannon fire vanished.
Everyone noticed that something was wrong, and they split into two groups on each ship—with allies regrouping together, the 'dead' on one side and the living on the other.
A sinister silence settled in, broken only by the crackling of flames on the battered decks and the groaning of the wooden hulls, riddled with holes.
Lieutenant Gillette pulled out a spyglass and looked toward the coast, trying to identify why the cannons had stopped—and was startled, shouting at what he saw.
"Sir, they've captured Miss Swann!"
Commodore James Norrington widened his eyes at those words, ran over and took the spyglass from the lieutenant's hands, and looked through it—where he saw the woman he loved, surrounded by pirates and held hostage.
"Elizabeth," he murmured anxiously, lowering the spyglass with a dark and worried expression on his face.
