Pirate Tanya of the End 001

Tanya

The ship rocked from side to side as a series of sixteen-pounders hit the side of the vessel, while some people engaged in swordfights somewhere on the deck, beyond eyesight, not paying attention to the fact that the ship was listing heavily to starboard.

And, of course, where was I in the midst of all this madness, and what was I doing? I was in a barrel doing what children should do in times of impending doom: hiding.

Why the heck am I on this doomed ship? Well, dear unbelievers, as luck would have it, once upon a time, I had made a bet with a seemingly omnipotent being whom I had dubbed Being X. He wanted a guinea pig for his experiments, and I was the best one he found. Long story short, the experiment of faith ended, and he kicked me to the curb.

The good news was that he would no longer interfere with my life. The bad news was he killed me first. Again. What else could I call the freakish amount of coincidences leading to my death? First, that idiot parodying a soldier managed to clip me with one of her insane optical spells, destabilizing my flight equipment, which in turn led to me flying straight into a moving armored train. Being X has a sick sense of humor.

And thus, I died for the second time. I did not expect to wake up again, but I did. In a new world as well, where hopes for my survival were even worse than fighting in the Great War.

At least the Great War took place in a semi-modern society, where women had a chance of climbing the ranks. Now, however, I had been reborn in the late 1600s or maybe early 1700s. I don't know exactly because I was born a peasant, and no one gives a peasant enough of an education to know more than the name of the country they were in.

Life was not good for me, to say the least. My mother had apparently died in childbirth, and my father had apparently died in war. And the Homeland was not exactly the most stable of countries. I believe the term was Voltaire's nightmare.

Based on my calculations, we were half a century removed from the Homeland being a smoldering crater of a massive religious war, so the first thing on my agenda was to get the hell out of Europe.

Oh, sure, Europe was quite advanced compared to the rest of the continents, but I was familiar enough with my history lessons to know that my prospects in Europe were not good, especially as a girl. The only thing I had going for me right now was the ability to cast spells that I still remembered from my last life. They were strained, but they worked. However, that was dangerous in this century's obsession with witch burnings.

That's why I had concocted a way to avoid that problem and get out of a potential issue.

The Americas were quite vast, and with actual magic at my beck and call, well, I'm sure I could quite successfully get myself a nice place. Even if they attempted to do a witch burning of me in the Americas, those witches didn't have actual magic powers. With how badly the record-keeping must be over there, with the chaos of new colonists every year, it would not be impossible for me to disappear and reappear somewhere else. I just have to keep a firm grip on my gold and silver and such so that I could set up a new home every place and start a new industry.

Of course, getting to North America, getting money, and getting started was going to be the problem. Being a poor peasant girl does not exactly allow me to do much in the way of improving my chances of getting out of Europe. However, there were paths if you were stealthy enough to figure a way out.

Dressing as a boy for one, and then getting on a ship. Being 10, it's kind of hard for people to even suspect you're anything but what you say you are. Thankfully, I do know quite a bit of languages, so using a little bit of German, a little bit of French, and finally English, I was able to get myself onto a ship heading for the Caribbean. It should be an okay final destination. I would have preferred to end up somewhere on the continent, but if I start there and make a little bit of wealth, then move on to the continent, I should still be okay with my overarching plan.

Well, I thought I would be okay. This is where the situation went sideways. Our ship was making good time and should be in the Caribbean by next month. And though the food was terrible and probably going to cause some issues later in life, I was strong and ready to do what was necessary.

Right up until the pirate attack. As that's what was going on right now, our ship was blasted from the side because the captain refused to surrender the vessel without at least attempting to defend himself from the brigands.

I, a poor cabin boy, had been sent below deck with the rest of the kids who were in training for later careers in seamanship. There were about four boys all clamoring to one side of me in this little room, playing with sticks, thinking that they were going to somehow defend themselves from full-grown men with swords.

Personally, I was trying to figure out a way to survive this. After all, being a female at sea when pirates came around sounded like a way to end up worse than dead. Most likely, I would continue my ruse of being a male and hope that they would put me down somewhere where I could sneak off. Though it's always a possibility that I would die in this bombardment, unlikely though it was, a low-level shield that shouldn't be noticed by anyone unless something hit me.

Really, I just had to hope that they didn't throw me overboard. And when the ship was taken, I could run and shield myself for all the livelong day. I hoped that if I did that, I would survive. But if I was thrown overboard, well, I was going to get tired swimming sooner or later. And when that happens, I guess I get to see if Davy Jones' locker is a real thing.

I was personally uninterested in the possibility of ending up dead again since I apparently was doomed to end up in other universes after my death, thanks to Being X, with my consciousness perfectly intact. At least, I think it was perfectly intact. I did not want to have to start over every 10 years when I died. I would like to be able to live at least a full 40 or 60 years and then maybe start over.

My thoughts were interrupted as the fighting between ships seemed to die down. No longer were cannons going off, though there were gunshots now, indicating that we were being boarded. The other kids looked up, half afraid and half excited, waiting for their chance to probably end up dead on some pirate's sword. Shaking my head, I moved towards the door, going to see if it was unlocked and hopefully move something in the way to lock it. It would be a lot easier to negotiate our surrender if we had the door closed. If they had swords directly to us, that was a bit more power they had.

Unfortunately, I didn't get three steps over to the door before it burst open and Captain Salvador Aragón came in, wild-eyed and terrified. He smashed the door closed behind him and spoke broken Spanish, something about the end having come.

Before looking around the room and seeing the closest child, he grabbed them and put them in front of him. Unfortunately, that was me.

"What are you doing?" I asked as his hand was resting firmly on my shoulders, positioning me between him and the door.

The answer to that came up real quick as a knife went to my neck, and I realized, for some reason, I was now a hostage. That was confusing. "Play along, kid. The End doesn't like kids getting hurt, so you have to do as I say."

"Who's the End?" another one of the kids asked, confused as much as me. But that question was quite answered as the door in front of us ceased to be a door, shattering itself into thousands of wooden splinters and collapsing into itself.

That was not a normal force. Doors do not collapse downward after turning into splinters. They burst towards you or towards the person who did it. My assumptions on there being something strange going on were proven true as a woman stepped into the room, with four floating purple swords to either side of her as she looked around.

"Captain Salvador, you're a hard man to find. Running the trade lanes between England and Cuba again, have you?" the woman said.

The woman standing in front of us wore tight pants that looked a little bit too professionally made, a half dress on one side, and a leather halter over a shirt that exposed enough chest that men would set sail to conquer nations for. Not to mention, besides having obvious magic going on right now, she had probably the longest and most ridiculous hairstyle I'd seen since coming to this life. Her hair seemed to both be able to frame her face and her chest at the same time. The golden locks bounced with life that probably should not exist unless they were very well maintained.

And, of course, she wore a tricorn hat with a lot of feathers coming out of the top and back in purple and dark blue. A small purple butterfly was emblazoned on the corner facing us. It must be her symbol, I thought, since most pirates I had heard of on the way over here had abandoned the standard skull and crossbones that had become preferred by the media in most worlds.

"Hello, Fine, long time no see. I thought... I thought you were dead. You're looking good for your age," Salvador said.

I wanted to slap myself in the face, but I was too worried about being stabbed with the man's knife to do so. What kind of idiot brings up a woman's age? I might have only been 18 years old before this life, but even I understood that by this point. The look of annoyance and anger that crossed Fine's face said that she was not happy with that remark.

"Thank you, Captain Salvador, for reminding me why I wanted to kill you in the first place. But perhaps I won't if you answer my question: Where is Jack Sparrow?"

"Jack who?" Salvador said, as if he didn't know who that was. Though perhaps he didn't. I didn't know who that was either.

"You know exactly who I'm talking about. Captain of the Black Pearl, fastest ship on the sea. He was supposed to help me with a job, but then he apparently stole some sort of map from another captain and now he's gone to find some ancient cursed treasure. Last I heard, that other captain was you, Captain Salvador."

"Fine, let's be calm here. Jack Sparrow is just a common pirate. You, a privateer, don't need to work with such a scam. Forget him."

"Are you basically telling me that you don't know where Jack is?"

I heard a cough from above me before Salvador said, "Yes."

"Hmm, so you are of no use to me."

"Hey, come on now. I'm in His Majesty's service, you're in His Majesty's service. If this gets out, you can kiss your privateer license goodbye. They'll come for you. They always come for pirates who were privateers first."

"The crown is the weakest government force in the entire sea out here, and you want me to be afraid of it when I can literally..." she pointed to the floating swords, animated objects, "...have them fight for me."

I stifled a chuckle, which got both Fine and Salvador to look at me.

"Shut up, kid. Stupid cabin boy."

"That's a cabin girl."

My chuckle died as I realized that somehow Fine could sense me from a distance away. Confused, I wanted to ask a question, but there was still a knife next to my neck.

"Really, I couldn't even tell. Alright. Fine, if you come at me, the kid dies."

Fine shook her head, her golden locks flying a bit a couple of times, before saying, "Salvador, I don't care about the kids. They signed up for the Royal Navy. They're probably idiots, and let's be honest here, are they witnesses?"

"Oh, hell," I said, as one of the animated blades charged directly at me, seemingly preparing to open my torso and end my little life.

Thankfully, the blade bounced off the shield as I brought it to full power, which also pushed away the knife that was next to my neck.

There was a pause as everyone looked at my now protected shield barrier. The kids looked stunned, Salvador looked confused, and Fine, well, she looked like a scientist who had just discovered a new molecule and needed to learn more about it.

"Oh, Salvador, you might have just saved yourself some trouble," Fine said, coming towards me as two of her blades began to pummel my shield, keeping me in place and unable to run away.

She leaned in to take a closer look, biting her lip as she studied the magic work as if it was familiar to her.

"Hmm, quite interesting, quite interesting indeed. Tell you what, Salvador, if you have a contract for this child, I assume, correct?"

"Ah, yes," Salvador said.

"Give me the contract, and I will let you live."

The prospect of him living was enough that he rushed over to the cupboards, immediately looking for a contract that I knew he didn't have. Now, I will admit, I was a bit annoyed. The situation was not exactly great, and the fact that I had been used as a hostage instead of being seen as a fellow person in trouble did not put Captain Salvador on my good graces.

"I snuck aboard his ship. There is no contract," I said.

I saw Salvador freeze from across the room, and I saw the smile on Fine's face.

"Thank you for telling me this," she clicked her fingers, and one of the blades ran Salvador through from behind. I knew I was somewhat responsible for his death, but, well, the man was willing to kill a kid if it meant saving his own life.

The body tumbled there for a moment before collapsing against the ship's wall, and then the blade pulled itself back out and flew across the room to hover next to Fine.

"Any chance you'll lower that shield, girl?"

"Not a damn one," I said, a little bit of my German accent slipping out.

"Hmm, German. Part of the Illuminati, perhaps, or are you just gifted? I don't see any alchemy tools for spellcraft, so probably gifted. I would think rare, very rare, which means you're using energy directly from your body. You probably don't have quite as much strength as you're letting on, then."

Fine continued to beat the hell out of my shield, draining it slowly over time and preventing me from leaving.

"Tell you what, drop the shield, and I'll let the four kids over here go free."

"Ha, I don't care," I said with a shrug of my shoulders. I continued, "I don't even know their names. I've been calling them Alex, and they tend to respond to that."

Fine raised an eyebrow before turning to the four kids. "Is this true?"

The tallest of them nodded before saying, "I'm Alex Johnson. This is Alex Aaron, Alex Votster, and Alex Archer. We kind of just all have the same first name."

Fine started to laugh quite profusely before one of her blades came down behind the kids and pushed them with the flat side towards the door. "Oh, you get to live. I'll drop you off at the nearest port. Come on, go, go! My blades will hurt you if you don't move faster." She said as the blades shoveled them out of the room. Then she turned back to me, now focusing all four hover blades against my shield.

It wasn't long before my shield broke, and as it broke, all my energy was expended, resulting in me collapsing to the ground, tired and wondering how I was going to die this time. With a chuckle, Fine came closer to me, reached down, and grabbed me by the scruff of my neck before putting me under her arm.

"Yoink, you're mine now," she said with a giggle, moving towards the door.

"What?" I asked.

"You're naturally gifted, child, with magic abilities. Do you know how rare that is?"

"No."

"Rare enough that it's worth kidnapping you for my crew. Consider yourself lucky."

I had the distinct feeling that I was not lucky, and that this was going to end badly. But there wasn't much I could do as I was carried through the ship and up into the open air. I took a good breath of the sea air and got to actually see the combat, and it was not looking good for the ship I was standing on. It was still leaning quite heavily to one side, and I thought I could hear water rushing in somewhere. We stepped across anyway onto her slightly larger and more well-maintained ship.

"Welcome aboard the Butterfly. We'll find you a room that you can sleep in, and then we'll talk about what you want in the world and what you can do for me to get it."

Kidnapping and extortion, yeah, this is going to end badly. I was now a pirate prisoner. The only good thing about this information was that I had to start making money somewhere. Perhaps I would find a way to get away from her in the future, far away from her, with any hope. And she carried me towards the back of the ship.

Tanya

10 years later

Tortuga

Finally free, I had been a prisoner of Fine in one form or another for the last ten years. Granted, as prisons go, it was a gilded cage, and I had learned quite a bit under her tutelage of the magic of this world. But that didn't change the fact that it had been under duress and with the constant fear of being turned into something unnatural.

From what I had been able to learn over the last decade, Fine was a complex woman, to say the least, and surprisingly enough, a kind of reincarnate.

While my reincarnation came from Being leaving my soul to flounder in the wind and end up wherever it ended, Fine apparently was an ancient priestess who had devised a way to reincarnate herself in her own descendants. One of the reasons she had grabbed onto me was her assumption that I must be one of her descendants because of my powers. She was hoping to have the next body ready and trained the next time she died.

That was terrifying. The idea that the next time she died, her soul would appear in my mind and take over was not exactly pleasant. But she did make it clear to me that the chances of it actually being me were about 1 in 100 or less, and that she just tended to train her descendants to make sure that some of them would keep up the ability to use the magic abilities that her DNA had blessed humanity with.

She claimed that she could only awake in someone who already had awakened their powers or was playing with powers beyond their control. So if I used my powers after she died around someone who was the next in line to be Fine, they would awaken Fine. Even if I was not the next Fine, the potential for me to awaken the next Fine was well worth the risk for her.

But those were problems that I no longer needed to worry about. As soon as I found a ship off this island, I would probably never see her again.

At least, I hoped I didn't. She might try to track me down, but considering she had spent the last decade trying to track down some pirate named Jack Sparrow and never managed to find him, well, I think I could say with some certainty that it was possible to outrun the End.

Sighing, I accepted the alcohol I was given. It was terribly relaxing, but terrible. Oh sure, it was probably safer than drinking the water around here, but it was still terrible.

I was on this island because Fine wanted to leave a resource here to keep an eye out for possible sightings of Jack, a man whom she complained about too often. Actually, to be fair, I suspected there might have been something more going on, perhaps a fling. Though considering her statements about her love for some prehistoric god that she claimed existed way back in history and how he had cursed the world with many languages, I must assume that if there was a fling, it probably belonged to the previous owner of the body. Which gave me hope that something of the host of Fine survived.

Oh, that did cause a shiver down my spine, thinking about what would happen if reincarnations ran into each other in the same body. Would we merge irreparably, or would I just become another vessel for Fine?

That got a laugh out of me as I realized how hilarious that situation would be. Not because it would be good or anything, but because my hatred for Being X would probably be as great as Fine's love for that ancient god that apparently cursed the world with many languages.

I would probably end up as a new being, a yandere for the ancient god. It's hilarious, so I would hope that if that ever happened, I could separate myself from the situation upon death without taking on any more permanent opinions or items from such a relationship.

Shaking my head, I tried to push those thoughts away. I was free, and I needed to get a ship out of here. I didn't need to think about how I might be doomed no matter what I do. I needed to keep my wits about myself. This whole city was a nightmare for economies. Oh yes, there seemed to be quite a lot of drinking, fighting, and other things going on here, but the economic engine that may have existed was simply scavengers. Loot was sold and resold. They didn't produce anything; they just stole. Sooner or later, a real official governmental body would take note of the city and invade it, putting a stable government in place.

This was a terrible place to be in, but how was I going to get out of here? I didn't have enough money to get on one of the ships coming in and out. Of course, I could join a pirate crew, but I wasn't exactly a fan of that. I wasn't keen on being involved in murdering innocent civilians. Though I guess if I slipped out during one of their expeditions when they weren't looking, I would be in a different city, possibly more civilized.

Hmm, it was worth considering. After all, these were pirates, criminals of the lowest order. I shouldn't need to honor any contracts with them. Though, knowing my luck, if I randomly joined one of these pirates, I'd probably end up taking a wrong turn and having my ship shot out from underneath me by Fine, and end up exactly where I started, having to explain why I had left my position.

Letting out a sigh, I leaned into the counter, looking down at the old wood, wondering how old it was and how much alcohol had soaked into it over the years. It would probably go up in a single light, something I could do with a click of my fingers, thanks to my training under Fine.

Zoning out, I listened to the conversations around me, trying to do the job I was supposed to do. Maybe I would hear something about why someone just mentioned Jack Sparrow.

In a low voice, I heard it from somewhere in the room. Someone was definitely talking about Jack Sparrow. Leaning back, I leaned around, trying to get a better look and listening in as I heard someone talking.

I saw an old man, compared to me probably in his mid-40s or so, maybe 50s. He had definitely been aged heavily by his time on the scene. He didn't look like any other drunkard but seemed more driven than I would have expected.

As I listened, I quickly gathered what he was talking about. It seemed Jack Sparrow had come to town and was looking to put together a crew. Well, that was interesting and completely unexpected. I was half convinced that Jack was probably dead, but I guess not.

Now, what should I do about this? If I were to follow Fine's orders, I was supposed to immediately go back home, find the butterfly pendant she left behind, and break it. That would signal to her that I had found Jack Sparrow. How exactly that worked, she hadn't clarified. Supposedly, she would be immediately called to my location, bringing her unhappy personality along.

Of course, I didn't want anything to do with her, but there was an opportunity here.

From the sounds of it, they were going on some sort of treasure hunting expedition, not the raping and pillaging kind. That meant if I sneaked aboard his ship, and we came to a safe port where I could disembark, I wouldn't have to deal with the fact that the port I was left at was currently a disaster zone.

And considering Fine hadn't found him in ten years, that seemed to make a good point for why I should jump aboard Jack Sparrow's ship. If Fine couldn't find him, she definitely couldn't find me while I was aboard his ship.

Focusing my hearing on the conversation, I quickly picked up that there was a ship waiting in the port, and everyone would be gathering for an inspection tomorrow before setting sail. The exact time and location were revealed to me and anyone else who was listening closely enough. It meant I had plenty of ways to sneak aboard and join the crew. Nodding to myself, I got up and placed a few gold coins on the counter. I picked up my tricorn hat and placed it on my head before leaving through the door. I needed to put a few things together before I joined this crew tomorrow.

Tanya

I shook my head ever so slightly as the sound of a slap was heard across the dockyards. I sighed as Jack apparently had a conversation with a former lover turned crewman, or something like that. Either way, they were not on good terms and were not exactly happy to see each other. Apparently, he stole her boat, but I didn't really know the details. All that mattered was that this whole show was keeping their eyes off the end of the line where I was, out of the sight of the captain. It meant he probably wouldn't notice that there was another female crew member in the line.

Granted, I had been at sea for nearly 10 years now, so the idea that bringing a woman aboard a ship was a bad omen or cursed was laughable, especially considering I'd served under a female captain. But I'd rather not draw more attention to myself. It was better to think of me as just some random person at the end of the line than someone who might be somewhat important.

The conversation went pretty poorly. Apparently, Jack had to promise to hand over the vessel that we would be using to her after this expedition. It wasn't really my concern, though. I would hopefully be off that vessel before it became an issue. And if I wasn't, well, I probably had more things to worry about than having a female captain above me again.

At least this one wouldn't be an ancient Babylonian priestess with reincarnation abilities.

I let out a sigh when they finally gave the order to start loading up the vessel, coming to the conclusion that the crew they had gathered, which was a terrible misfit bunch, would be good enough. I started to move past Jack's second-in-command and the old geezer, keeping my head down. It was best to pull my weight so that they wouldn't look twice as I boarded their vessel, or even care, because I was actually doing a job.

However, I didn't get far before Jack said, "You there," causing me to stop and tilt my head just enough to look past the brim of my hat.

Jack stepped closer to me and said, "Mr. Gibbs, for someone who was just complaining about letting a woman onto the crew, how did you manage to get a pair of them?"

Gibbs looked at me for a moment before shaking his head and saying, "I have no idea who this is. I didn't invite them."

"Hmm," Jack turned to me and said, "Well then, that would make you a bit of a stowaway. Well, I guess we haven't left the port yet. We can always kick you off."

"Oh, I wouldn't do that," I said with a smile.

"And why would I not do that, young miss?"

"Degurechaff," I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the purple butterfly pendant, holding it up for him to see. He immediately stepped back as I continued, "Deny my access to the ship, and I'll break this."

Jack looked me over before saying, "Another runaway from Fine."

"Does it happen often?" I asked, raising my own eyebrow. "When the rest of the crew boarded her ship, they never mentioned something like that."

"Feels like every 10 years or so," he said, before adding, "Fine, you may come aboard." He then walked past me, seeming bored with the subject. I slipped the pendant back into my pocket as Gibbs gave me a weary look, the young man who did not look like a pirate, and we made our way towards the boats that were being loaded up.

Well, step one – get a ship and get off the island – was underway. Step two, deal with this expedition. Getting some money was next on my list. Step three, find a way to make my way to the Americas proper and not just the Caribbean. It took 10 years, but finally, I'm underway.