https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Uw57aztEdw&ab_channel=NightcoreZodiac

A breeze blew through her hair as she gazed back, watching the elderly and the young getting on rowboats as everyone else came to the back of the ship with weapons drawn.

Turning, she focused her eyes on the two ships chasing them, the third having broken away to the side to take long shots at them.

With sails up, they were slowing, and in turn all three were now closing upon them.

"On my command," Erika said, taking a cutlass out of a barrel nearby, she raised it towards the chasing ships. "Be ready on the ropes." She told the sailors, as she watched the ships closely.

The third having seen them slow down, had turned and was quickly gaining on them as well from the side, while the other two who had continued tailing them were now closer.

And closer.

And closer.

"Sails! Wheel!" Erika bellowed, the sails dropping to full and the central wheel whirling up to full speed, their ship once again beginning to gain. But it wasn't enough, as the enemy ships also went to full throttle. Miasma and smoke rising out of their centre, the hellish vessels could not be escaped.

"Anchor!" Erika ordered out once more, and the sailors began dropping the anchor, letting it fall off the front.

Moments passed, as all held their breath.

"Hold on tightly." Erika exclaimed, the elderly held on to the children and the ropes they were given to tie themselves to the rowboats as Erika instructed.

As the only sounds filling the air then were the wind and the whirring of mechanisms below.

Cutting through was the hellfire spewing out of the enemy vessel's chase cannons, getting closer and closer.

Sweat broke out, as each watching the balls of violet flame landing almost on their tail.

"Turn and get ready!" Erika told everyone, as she herself turned and fixed her posture, facing the front of the ship. All did the same, confused, all but Fang who chuckled vigourously.

"I sssure hope you know what you're doing princesss!" Fang said with a laugh, as suddenly all forward motion came to a stop.

Each of them felt the ground beneath them rising, as they felt the laws of motion continuing them forward.

The ship tilted, the front going under as the back rose like a catapult.

All held onto their ropes which tied them to the ship's fencing, as the rowboats at the front met seawater, they were dragged off the ship and ahead.

As right behind them, one of the hellish ships came bow to stern with them, quickly coming to face the large metallic wheel which lay beneath the ship's back.

With no time to slow down, no time to stop, the ships collided as theirs landed upon the front of the hellish vessel.

The wheel of iron bashing and shredding through the wood and brick, as well as flesh and bone.

Scrambling up, Erika cut off her rope and bellowed out. "Board them!" She shouted, as all of the warriors shouted with her, each also cutting themselves loose before leaping off the back of their ship and into the deck of the enemy vessel.

A flash of violet and red came to face them, as they poured down onto the fiends with vicious eagerness.

Erika landed on her knee amongst them, the blue light which engulfed half of her like a veil of shadow beginning to reach out and spread, touching her comrades and filling them with a surge of sudden strength.

Erika rose to her feet, clenching her blade she approached one large fiend, evading its downward swipe of a wicked-looking club she danced about its feet slicing at its tendons and forcing it to its knees before turning back and pushing her blade into the back of its neck.

Pulling her weapon out, immediately she continued onwards, letting the fiend's body fall dead to the floor. Erika slashed aside an Imp's spear before surging forth, her own weapon flashing through its arm taking it clean off before she spun her movement around, landing her blade across its neck, taking its head next. Yet not stopping, quickly and without pause she continued her motion as she side-stepped another's sabre, using her momentum to parry the second sabre with her own cutlass, the dual-wielding fiend was sent off his balance and Erika abused that.

Rushing under a sloppy follow-up with its left blade, Erika cut upwards, a clean slash across its chest before turning and parrying the second blade aside once more. Erika then leapt up, grasping one of the fiend's horns she used it as a foundation to lift her left knee up and bash it into the fiend's chin, disorienting the demon. Landing back on her feet, she met the creature's fiery gaze as it met her own while stumbling back.

Enraged, the fiend descended on her with both blades, over-stepping.

Erika evaded backwards, sliding out of its reach as it sliced both weapons down into the ground, she moved in right then. Using its left arm as a perch, she lept up and slashed her blade across the being's eyes blinding it before grabbing onto its other horn and pulling herself on its back.

The fiend bellowed out in pain and rage, letting go of its weapons and reaching out to its face.

As Erika wrapped her legs around its neck whilst still holding onto its horn, her right hand clenching her blade tightly as its tip touched the back of the fiend's head.

Suddenly and forcefully she drove it through its skull, digging it deep.

The fiend, went limp, its arms dropping first to its sides before it collapsed face down with a loud thud, Erika pulling herself to stand on its back as it did.

Reaching down, she attempted to pull her weapon back out, but no luck. The cutlass was stuck to the bone.

Glancing all around her, the ship's deck had quickly descended into a chaotic battlefield, but her awareness of the situation did not wane one bit. Seeing through the rush of bodies, she saw the energy she emitted engulfing her allies, emboldening them. Beyond the bodies, she watched the sea as the second ship went right past them, its gunports wide open.

"Everyone! On my word, drop to the floor!" Erika called out, her voice echoing over the clashes of steel and gunfire.

As from her left came a figure, rushing in with flintlocks drawn, the demon quickly was met with an arrow in its forehead.

Feeling the gaze of Drun over her shoulder, Erika saw him salute down at her from where he remained up on the back of their ship, Teijil also standing beside him loosing arrow after arrow down on the battlefield.

Returning to focus on the enemy ship, Erika waited, as all around herself her allies came to cover her. Dust slashed aside two imps with his great axe alone, looming behind her as his blood rushed throughout his body with a berzerkers fervour. With him stood Fang, claws baring down on any that dared come close.

With their backing, Erika watched.

As suddenly the guns on the enemy vessel lit aflame, "Drop! Zen!" She called out.

On her order, they all dropped to the floor, all but Zen as he leapt off the ship's side and onto the turbulent ocean surface. Standing upon the water, the Mer motioned with his arms and the sea followed.

Rising, the water rose into walls all around the hellish vessel, barely reaching the top deck.

As not a moment later a barrage of fiery cannonballs met the ocean water, shattering and dissipating in it.

Except the projectiles that were fired high, as they soared right over, breaking into the ship's mast, and the demons who remained standing.

"Raise!" Erika said, and Zen raised the water to cover the ship entirely now. Rising to her feet herself, she glanced around at the massacre of demons that now lay at their feet, the few that survived quickly being dispatched. Looking back, she saw where Drun and Teijil had dropped to, having also abandoned the pirate vessel as it now lay in shambles from the cannonfire they had avoided, but it hadn't.

Fang looked back at his flagship, a grimace across his expression as he watched it lurch off their vessel and to its side, before beginning to quickly sink. Taking his hat off, the pirate captain placed it upon his chest. "Sssleep well in davy jonesss' locker my gal." Before turning to his men, "Down sshe goesss! But thisss here vesssel is now oursss!" He bellowed out, and his men cried out in response. "Take the reinss ye basstardss, below! Get them cannonss ready!"

As sailors and pirates rushed below, cutting their way through the surviving demons that swarmed the lower decks, Erika watched as the third ship now approached for its own barrage. All the while, the other was turning to start heading towards them.

But she had expected this, as the second ship turn after seeing their barrage had been deflected...A form moved beneath the water-surface, large enough that the demons noticed it when it reached within a few feet, but by then it was far too late.

Wytar emerged from the water like a massive furred hippo, pushing through the lava that surrounded the vessel with little more than a singe, his jaws clenching around the vessel's rudder before taking the entire thing off.

Leaving the second ship with very little turning power as the demons aboard scrambled to assault the Draem, Wytar immediately sunk beneath, gone from their sights.

Turning and raising their hellish gazes, they set sights on the boarded vessel as their course sent them front-first towards its firing line.

Even as the realization came to them, there was no escape.

Within the ship, Erika and the rest scrambled to the decks beneath, finding a line of strange cannons manned by fiendish creatures seemingly chained to them. Large beasts with rocky maws, held open with icy metal mechanisms and bared over a tub of fiery metal that made up half the cannon.

Within a few of the tubs, spheres of molten violet hummed with energy.

"Ssshit, they're abnormal." Fang swore, glancing about in confusion with the rest of his men.

"We do not have time to figure out how they work." Erika mused, looking between the cannons, she saw several pronged and sharp instruments. "Move the fillings all onto one side!" She said, but at her words the crew paused.

Some approaching the creatures, they did not react, but the spheres of violet before them was...no normal cannon ball.

"Terrifying isn't it? Facing the unknown?" She snapped at them as she stepped to a cannon, bent down, and took hold of a pair of large tongs. "Good, fear will keep you alive." She mused, "Now push through it and grab the bloody ammunition!" Then bellowing out in command.

As she took hold of the sphere, ripples of viscous violet travelled across its surface like water, and the humming turned into a constant lingering buzz, "Or we're all dead."

Swallowing their fear, many did the same, filling the deck with the dreadful sound of a thousand swarms of insects.

Quickly they ferried the spheres to one side, arming almost half the cannons.

Briefly, Erika glanced through a porthole to see the third ship trying to use its sails to turn out of their firing line. "It's time." She said, as everyone else moved to scan the cannons over, looking for how to activate the strange mechanisms.

When the sound of three clicks filled their ears, and then a resounding boom.

Two sailors fell back on their asses as Grey stood over one cannon, his hand grasping a lever he had pulled back. "F-Found it, fuck that was loud." He chuckled anxiously as the sound of a sizzling splash of water then reached them, the shot having been fired far too early and out of range.

Erika grinned as she took a step back and faced everyone, "Man your stations, prepare to fire!" she snapped at them, the crew glancing at Fang for direction.

"Do asss ssshe sssaysss!" He hissed and they followed, lining the cannons and taking aim, the message was sent down to the lower decks and the cannoneers there did the same.

"Hold." Fang mused, looking through one of the port holes, he gazed at the approaching ship. "Twenty pieces to the bow, four over the horizon!" He ordered, and his crew passed it along, the words carrying across the ship.

"Twelve till in range!" Fang shouted, gazing at where Grey's shot had landed and the still bubbling water.

"Ten!"

"Nine!"

He counted down, as tensions rose, knowing another ship was also turning to intercept them.

"Three!"

"Two!"

"Send them back to hell!" Erika exclaimed, and each crewmate pulled back their lever in a cascade.