Darkest Hour: Part 1

[John Wildcutter]

Hey everyone, my name is John Wildcutter, or John for short. I was bored today and decided, heck, I should write a story on the pirates forums. So... enjoy it!
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Prologue

There was a place called the Caribbean. A place of trade, luxury, and better yet, pirates. Pirates roamed the Caribbean freely, plundering until they got tired or were going to sink. But something was happening to Caribbean. Enemies of the pirates tried to ruin their freedom, The British Navy and the British East India Trading Company were trying to bring order and law to Caribbean. But there was a story yet to be told.

In a small tavern, built underground a man was sitting at one of the poker tables. This man was none other than the infamous Jack Sparrow, so-called leader of the Pirates. He sat waiting, for his great friend Jolly Roger was yet to come to a poker game. Jolly opened the huge door with his two huge, muscular hands and walked into the tavern. Behind him was a smaller man, who had jewelry all over his face. He carried voodoo dolls in the pockets of his slightly torn vest. He carried a card deck with him, as he was the dealer of the game.

"Friend, you have finally arrived!" Jack Sparrow said excitedly, drinking two bottles of rum at once.

"Yes, I have been waiting for this match for so long." Jolly said, a big evil toothy grin coming to his face. He wanted to win something from Sparrow, but what?

Jolly sat down at the table across from Sparrow, and the other man, who happened to be a Voodoo Withdoctor, sat at another end of the table, shuffling the cards. The Withdoctor winked at Jolly, then began dealing the cards. Jolly looked at his cards, and frowned at the Witchdoctor. The Witchdoctor put his hand under the table and zapped the cards with his magic. Suddenly, the cards changed to become one King and one Ace.

Sparrow started the game by betting one thousand gold. Jolly raised it to seven thousand, and Sparrow raised it to a whooping twenty thousand. Sparrow was losing hand after hand as the game went on for another hour. Sparrow, running out of money, and surprised at Jolly's wins, put all his gold into the pot. Of course, Jolly won the hand. Sparrow was really nervous now, as his hopes for winning the game were lost.

After nearly two minutes of sweating, Sparrow bet his seat on the brethren court as Pirate Lord of the Caribbean. Jolly almost jumped for joy, as this is what he wanted all along! He was finally going to get what he wanted. Then it was time to show the cards. Jolly got a Full House, but Sparrow got a Flush. Sparrow had won the game!

In terrifying rage, Jolly stood up on his chair and pulled out his pistol. He shot at Sparrow, who barely dodged it. Sparrow got up his chair and began running like their was no tomorrow, and there probably wouldn't be. The Witchdoctor stood up to catch Sparrow, and Jolly shot his pistol again. Sparrow grabbed the Witchdoctor and used him as a shield. The bullet hit the Witchdoctor and blood game running out of his vest. Jolly dropped his pistol and ran over to the Witchdoctor as Sparrow slipped away.

In his dying breath, the Witchdoctor cursed Jolly. To walk the earth as neither living or dead, but as a horrifying skeleton. As soon as the Witchdoctor finished the curse, and went into the deep sleep of death, Jolly's body began to change. His left hand turned into a mixture of a gun, dagger, and sword. His flesh disappeared, and he was slowly but surely becoming a skeleton! After nearly three minutes, the transformation was complete.

"This isn't over Sparrow! I WILL GET YOU, AND THE CARIBBEAN WILL BE MINE!!!" Jolly yelled so loud the ground nearly rumbled.

[John Wildcutter]

Chapter 1: A Pirate

There lived a pirate who went by the name of John Wildcutter, or just John for short. He was raised in Padres del Fuego by his British parents, Larry Wildcutter and Marie Wildcutter as an only child. Throughout his teenage years, his father was persecuted several times by the Royal Navy yet they never found proof to arrest him. A week before his twentieth birthday the EITC stormed his house, attempting to arrest his parents for aiding pirates. He and his parents managed to escape the house and sneak away on his father's sloop. With he and his family on the run, they had no choice but to turn to piracy.

This story tells of twelve years after the event when John has found and become one of the Ravens crew, under the command of the notorious Raven Trueheart. They had battled the forces of the EITC, the Navy, and the Undead armies for very long. Now John is serving onboard Raven's ship.

"One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten. Ten gold coins will buy me nothing but a few drops of rum." John said, sitting on his hammock, flipping his share of the plunder.

"I got fifty gold coins. It's not that bad." said his friend Anne. Her name was so hard to pronounce, so everyone just called her Anne.

John went up to the deck to see the crew shuffling onboard, carrying chests and crates back and forth across the ship as they sailed around the northern Caribbean. The crew had just been plundering merchant ship after merchant ship, and the ship was loaded with goods.

"Attention! We shall be docking at Cuba tonight to empty the cargo!" The captain, Raven Trueheart said standing at the helm.

The crew rejoiced at finally docking after nearly a year at sea. An officer on board named Matthew Sailswine flipped a coin before directing pirates to send treasure chests down to the lower decks. The ship rocked back and forth as Cuba came into sight.

They docked at a small town on the south side of Cuba, unloaded the cargo, sold it, then the whole crew went to a tavern. Sitting at a poker table were John and his friends Matthew Sailswine, Anne, Shorty (Everyone just called her because she had a name hard to pronounce like Anne's) and Shadow Night (He refused to say his real name.)

"Hey you cheated!" Shadow Night said, pointing at Shorty.

"No I didn't, I..... Never mind, you win." Shorty said, hesitating and falling back in her chair, sound asleep.

The crew nearly fell asleep in the tavern as they had been working nearly all week with the cargo they had plundered from the merchants. John soon drifted to sleep as well, dropping his rum bottle on the ground, smashing it, and sending rum splattering across the floor.

He dreamed he was tied in chains, and skeletons were surrounding him. They got closer and closer. They unsheathed their swords as they got closer to him. In the distance he heard a terrifying laugh, and the skeletons lunged at him. Suddenly he woke up, yelling, and turned around to see Anne waking him up.

"Time to leave." Anne said, and he looked around to see that he was the only one inside the tavern, as the rest of the crew had already gotten on the ship. How embarassing, he thought. Quickly, get got up and ran to the docks, which took him a total of fifteen minutes. The sun was just coming up.

The crew laughed as he got on the ship last, and to his surprise, Anne was already on the ship. They sailed away from Cuba, which went out of sight very fast due to the thick fog. Today the crew had been given a resting day as they had worked very hard the day before. The ship would sail into safe waters until the next day. But yet again, there was a story to be told.


(Sorry guys, the next few chapters will be a bit longer.)

[John Wildcutter]

Chapter 2: Agression

John sat in a wooden chair on deck watching the horizon come up. They were searching for merchant or weak Navy ships to sink. The Undead ships, however, had surprisingly disappeared from the Northern Caribbean but were still seen throughout the Southern Caribbean. Pretty soon they saw a Navy frigate ahead, and by the looks of it, it was stuffed with goods.

"Take your positions!!" Raven yelled from the helm. The crew got the message across the ship, and everyone was running around the ship, manning the cannons and pushing supplies to the lower decks.

"Ready! Aim!" yelled Shadow, aiming his rifle.

"FIRE!!" yelled Raven, and for a split second all was silent as the cannon and musket balls flew toward the Navy ship. Then they hit. Navy men went flying everywhere and the masts cracked and landed on the ship, smashing the crew. However, the navy was still yet to fire.

John heard a 'FIRE' from the other ship and before he knew it, wood was splintered in several places across the deck. The crew once again returned fire, this time causing the Navy ship to begin burning and Navy men running around, wreathed in flame, falling overboard. Pretty soon the back side of the Navy frigate was sunk and the ship took no longer than ten minutes to be sent to Davy Jones' Locker. The navy frigate had made a small hole in the ship, where a little bit of ocean water was leaking through. John went down and nailed a plank of wood on it and returned to the deck.

"They have probably sent out a distress. More navy ships will be here and we must be ready. Seperate the cargo and the ammo. I want all the ammo on the cannon deck, and all the cargo on the lower decks!" Raven said, then dismissed the crew to do so.

Everyone worked very fast. It wasn't even an hour before Raven's orders were completed. Raven then sent out scout parties to collect all the loot thy could find from the ruins of the frigate. They didn't find much, as a lot of the treasure had been taken to Davy Jones' Locker as well. The only good plunder they found were copper bars imported from England. Then John turned around in his row boat and saw something moving in the water. John slightly tapped Shadow's shoulder and he looked around too. His eyes widened at what he saw. There was a shark swimming straight at the rowboat.

"Come on ye bilge rats, back to the ship now!" Shadow yelled, and the crew picked up their oars and moved as fast as they could back to the ship. The shark was faster, and got even closer. The shark then disappeared into the dark blue water and no one could see it. Everyone stopped rowing.

Then John's oar fell a tug. He desperately tried to pull the oar back to the rowboat, but when he did, half of it was missing, and there were huge teeth marks along it. The shark did the same with the other oars, until there was no way to move. The shark leaped up onto the rowboat, sending one of the crew members' flying into the sea.

"Swim to the ship!" Shadow told the crew, and everyone desperately tried to swim. The shark was closing in on them.

John heard a yell and turned around to see a crew member being pulled down to the depths. Everyone in the other rowboats were already on board the ship. Shadow and John were the only ones remaining from the rowboat they were in. Shorty threw two lines, which they quickly climbed up. The shark leaped out of the water and bit Matthew's line in half, barely missing his foot. Shadow slid onto the deck of the ship, and nearly fell unconscious. John got on deck shortly after Shadow, panting. But the shark wasn't done yet. It banged it's nose against the bottom of the ship, trying to breach it, rocking the ship.

John quickly grabbed a musket and looked overboard. He saw the shark with it's dorsal fin sticking out of the water. He fired the musket and... missed. The shark was still beating against the ship. While trying to load the musket, he heard a fire, then the ship stopped rocking. John looked into the sea to see that the shark was sinking, and blood was in the area where it was beating against the ship. The crew cheered and celebrated.

As they continued sailing south, they destroyed many small Navy vessels in their way who had come to answer the distress call. John felt that these small vessels were not the only Navy ships who had heard the distress. There will be more, and bigger ships, he thought. He worked all day, scrubbing the hull and pumping the bilge, his blue coat getting slightly ripped. They bypassed Tortuga and Devil's Anvil throughout the night, with half of the crew working and half of the crew sleeping. John sat in his wooden chair, drinking rum and staring ahead of the ship. The ship turned southwest into what pirates' thought were safer waters.

By two in the morning, most of the crew was sleeping, although some were still on deck, walking around or drinking rum. The man in the crow's nest who went by the name of Bartholomew was keeping a sharp eye out for incoming Navy or EITC ships, and just in case, Undead ships because they were heading into the Southern Caribbean. The fog had been very bad the last few days in the Caribbean so everyone was always on alert. Suddenly, the bell from the crow's nest rang very loudly.

"ENEMY SHIP! ENEMY!!" yelled Bartholomew down to the deck. The whole crew nearly fell out of their hammocks and they rushed up to the top deck. John was falling asleep at the moment but that woke him up. He hopped out of his chair like a tiger searching for it's prey. John turned around at looked from the bow. There, in the water a few leagues off was the Royal Navy fleet.



(Any feedback or criticism would be appreciated.)

[John Wildcutter]

New chapter will be posted after I get more feedback!