Hedley shoved the tip of his staff against a mermaid as she climbed into the crow's nest, a single blast blowing a hole the size of a cannonball through her torso and sending the corpse plummeting towards the deck below.
"Time to fly, kid," he announced.
Eli's first thought was Glimmer, but she was far too distant to hear his calls. His next thought was throwing a rope out of the crow's nest and sliding down it, but they had no ropes even close to long enough to reach the deck. The realization that he didn't have a plan for his current situation was sudden and unexpected, and he looked to Hedley with surprise and worry.
"Relax," Hedley said, tossing his staff to Eli, "sling this on your back, will you?"
Like Eli, Hedley kept a strap fastened to his staff for quickly slinging it over a shoulder, or across the back when extra security was needed. In this case, Eli hurriedly slung both staves over his head and across his back, where they would hopefully stay put for whatever was about to happen.
Hedley turned his back to Eli and lifted one of his bird-like feet onto the half-wall of the crow's nest, clutching the wood with his talons, "hop on."
"What?" Eli asked, perplexed.
"I can handle your weight, kid. Get on."
Eli shook away his shock at the peculiar instruction and stepped up behind Hedley. With trepidation and trust he felt was perhaps unearned, he wrapped his arms over Hedley's shoulders and gripped tight across his feathered chest like a child riding on his parents' back.
"This feels weir--" Eli bit off his words as Hedley lunged forward and kicked out of the crow's nest.
What followed, despite Eli's best efforts and familiarity with flight, was an unbridled scream of terror as he and Hedley launched outwards from the crow's nest before quickly entering a dive bomb towards the far below deck. Blasts of water from the mermaids they left behind barely registered in his periphery as he watched the ship’s deck rapidly approach.
Hedley spread his arms -- or rather, wings -- wide to either side. The wind caught his feathers and their descent curved out into an almost horizontal flight as they cut a tight circle around the ship.
"Quarterdeck looks clear!" Hedley shouted casually, "be ready to land."
"Ready how?" Eli shouted back.
Without a response, Hedley further banked their flight as they rounded the bow and brought them around towards the quarterdeck at intimidating speeds. He squawked loudly as they approached, apparently signaling the pirates on the quarterdeck to clear a landing space, as they looked his direction and stepped away from the middle of the quarterdeck.
The landing was fast -- and Eli wasn't sure how to brace himself. Hedley's outstretched legs absorbed much of the impact on first contact, though he still finished out his landing with several hurried steps that deposited him at the far side of the quarterdeck. He turned around to see Eli stumbling after him and tripping, falling face first into the deck.
Hedley's eyes shot towards the main deck, where he spotted an ongoing clash of mermaids and pirates about halfway to the bow. He saw Misty the swamp elf conjuring vines from the various planter barrels nearby to trip and bind an assault of mermaids spilling over the railing, while a very angry goblin man shouted obscenities and aggressively lashed out with a dagger.
"Staff!" He shouted to Eli without looking away from the skirmish.
Despite his headache and bewilderment, Eli dutifully responded to the order. He climbed to one knee, pulled Hedley's staff from his back and tossed it to him. Hedley caught the staff without looking, and a blast began charging within the wood the instant he touched it. He quickly shouldered the staff and took aim, blasting a streak of white magic through a mermaid that was preparing a trident strike behind Misty.
"Hedley," the first mate shouted from the helm, "what can you tell me about the titans?"
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
"Didn't have much chance to keep up with 'em, my eyes were mostly on mermaids," Hedley said, pausing to take another shot before continuing his answer, "they're getting rowdy, don't know who's winning."
______
Far below, on the bottom-most deck before the hydra's chamber, a group of pirates were gathered before the reinforced door to the control room of the chamber. The door held strong, but water spewed out from the cracks with surprising force.
Among the group was the boatswain, Nelson, who quickly sized up the problem, "that kind of pressure would only happen if the control room and the hull were both breached."
Victoria, who had drifted down through the upper decks and quietly joined the group, poked her ghostly head through the door before withdrawing a few seconds later.
"Yep, that whole room is completely flooded. There's mermaids inside messing with a hole in the floor."
"Beside a podium?" Nelson asked.
She poked her head back through for a second before returning and answering, "beside where a podium used to be, maybe? There's brackets still bolted down, and a lot of wood debris floating around."
"That's what's left of the lever then," Nelson said with concern, "it's just as we feared, they're trying to open the maw."
"Then let's stop them!" A pirate shouted, grabbing the hilt of his sword.
Nelson quickly shook his head, "we can't open the door when it's flooded, idiot. Ghost girl, anything you can do to stop them?"
"I'm not a ghost," Victoria said flatly, "but no, not really. I can distract them, maybe, but if they're stubborn then the best I can do is be a pest."
Nelson rubbed a hand across his face and sighed, "alright, we'll have to disable the mechanism from the mechanical deck. Let's move."
The door to the control room was inset into the floor at the bottom of a short set of stairs, which could be sealed with a large wooden panel kept nearby. Nelson ordered six of the pirates to stay behind and seal it, while the rest of them sprinted up the steep and narrow stairs to the mechanical deck. There, Nelson led them to the bow and began pulling planks out of the floor to reveal a complex system of chains and pulleys.
"Wish we had the wizard for this," he sighed, then looked up at Victoria, "guess you'll have to do." He used a wrench from his belt to reach beyond the top most chains and point at a pulley beneath them, "see that pulley? We need it inoperable, however you can. It's extremely important you don't disrupt any other machinery, if you can help it."
Victoria drifted down through the floor so that she was eye level with the pulley, her ghostly body overlapping with much of the machinery around her. It would be a tight squeeze, but she was able to figure out a way to contort herself so that she could shift back to her physical form without finding out what happens if something was intersecting her body while she did.
"Give me a moment," she said, as she worked out the final details of her plan.
______
The Shark Titan's deep, rumbling cackle sounded more like a roar as he stood atop the giant anglerfish while it launched out of the water. His hands clenched the stalk that extended from the anglerfish's head as he pulled it back and swung the dangling light at the end into his waiting jaws. With a decisive chomp, he severed the light from the stalk and swallowed it whole.
The anglerfish roared a raspy, pain stricken scream as it dove back beneath the waves. An instant later, a massive body collided with them both, slamming into the side of the anglerfish and sending the captain careening away. As he reoriented in the water, his gaze settled on the enormous creature circling around to barrel towards him once more.
It was long, almost serpentine save for its thick, rigid body. Its skull was shrouded with a thick, bone-like structure clearly designed for ramming and crushing. The structure covered the space where its eyes would have been, but a wide, closed mouth was still visible below it. Atop the creature's head, clinging to ridges in the boney structure, was the mermaid queen.
The now severely injured anglerfish was rapidly descending into the depths, and the captain presumed the Fish Wizard was finally out of this fight. With only the queen and her mount remaining, he decided on a plan.
First he conjured a wall of current between himself and his opponent, the water abruptly rushing towards the surface and erupting through the waves. The wall forced the creature to divert its charge. Next, he swam as fast as he could towards the surface, conjuring a jet of water beneath him to launch him high into the air and far above the waves.
Even through the dark, tumultuous waters his heightened predatory vision could see the giant creature circling just beneath the waves. Three more jets of water shot up around him, soaring even higher before curving around and angling back down towards him. He ended the jet beneath his feet and curled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs. When the downward jets hit his back, they exploded with force that fired him downwards like a cannonball.
The impact was immense. The choppy waters were instantly depressed into a massive crater on the surface of the lake that formed giant waves in a circle around him. A shockwave shot through the waters as if a massive bomb had detonated on the surface. The shockwave swept the mermaid queen from the back of her creature and flung her spiraling through the water.
The captain shot out of the bottom of the crater, swimming at full speed as the rebounding waves rushed in to fill the gap above. He swung around until he located the mermaid queen floating limply in the darkness. He caught her with one arm at full speed, punching through the lake towards the shore of the island.