Adrift | DSMP AU

Prologue

{Prologue}

“It’s trying to sink the ship!” Captain Puffy hears a panicked shriek fill the air. This is one belonging to Tommy, the youngest crew member on their ship. Cracks filled his sentence and made it painfully obvious that the young boy was in the puberty stage of life. 

Puffy turns to where the young boy had been pointing to see when the slithery tail of the sea dragon rises in and out of the ocean. It appears and disappears in a consistent motion until it disappears under the ship and soon after the ship is rocked from underneath. 

All of the crew members make shocked noises as they attempt to steady themselves. Some fail to do so and they end up on the deck of the ship by their bums. 

It is hard to find balance. The cloudy sky is being filled with flashes of light at moments and booms are heard. The rain is falling consistently and makes small puddles on the deck of the ship. The ship is being rocked by both this weather and the sea creature they are supposed to be killing right now. But instead, it is toying with them; showing them that their lives are in its grasp. 

The noises that had been muffled only a moment before are once again loud and clear in Puffy’s head. She turns around and sees many panicking friends strewn across the deck. George is running around trying to supply everyone with weapons as he is the archer and cannot do much in this situation. Niki is running around and attempting to heal the people who are injured more gravely. When you look around you can see people filled with many different emotions, one that the fire mage Sapnap is filled with is clear anger. He keeps trying to summon his fire but the moment it releases from his fingertips the water hits it and diminishes it with a sizzling noise. 

“I fucking hate this rain!” Sapnap yells angrily, he feels useless. He cannot do much when his only defense is being taken down by the water. Puffy sees as Dream rushes over and places a hand on his shoulder. 

“I think you should head under with Ant, none of us blame you if you do Sapnap,” Dream tries to comfort his friend. Sapnap wants to say a sassy retort, but he decides to save them the trouble and just heads down to join the cat hybrid instead. 

Puffy is struggling. As captain, she should be the one to make the decision, but she doesn’t know what to do. She fears that if she retreats the King will be angry and put her crew behind bars. She must bring back a sea dragon scale if she wants to protect them. She rushes over to the other side of the ship where the sea dragon is now located in the ocean. As she makes her way there you can hear her boots slushing through the puddles. She feels a sudden sting pass her cheek and catches something that had scratched her. Upon closer inspection, she sees one of the diamonds that crew member Skeppy can create at will. She turns it over before looking up to where it was coming from just to see Skeppy give her an awkward smile.

“Sorry captain!” He yells an apology before continuing to fight. Bad is right by his side and keeps using his magic to surround some of Skeppy’s diamonds with a dark substance that Puffy can only assume is poison. An involuntary shudder makes its way down her spine as she realizes one of those could’ve been the one that hit her instead of the most harmless one in her hand. 

She shakes this thought from her head as she continues walking. In her struggle to move she ends up slipping in a puddle and almost lands on the deck, fortunately, she feels a hand catch her and she uses it to steady herself before looking up. 

“Careful Captain,” Foolish says as he helps her steady herself. Once she is good on her own he lets her go and rushes back into battle. 

Puffy finally makes it to the other side and when she looks over the deck the sea dragon gives her what she can only assume is a smirk. She wants to feel offended but it doesn’t last long. The sea dragon swims deeper under and Puffy can see flashes of green following it. When Puffy looks toward the middle of the deck she sees her crew member Hannah with her hands to the deck of the ship and her eyes closed. She is fighting the sea dragon using the plants that she has control over. 

Puffy realizes they might have a chance at winning and allows herself to feel the excitement coursing through her. She whips out her sword to prepare for the next time the sea dragon gets close enough to strike. She will help them win this as a good captain should. This excitement would’ve helped, if it had only lasted longer. 

“George!” Puffy hears Niki and Dream scream at the same time. Her head whips toward the sound and sees George is clutching his arm. It seems the sea dragon had resurfaced on the other side because one of the spikes running along its tail had scratched George. He seemed as if he would collapse any second now. The blood was leaving his arm.    

Niki starts running over in an attempt to help. She doesn’t make it far before she trips in one of the puddles and slides along the deck, she almost gets knocked off the ship but Hannah catches her with one of her plants just in time. 

Niki has a shocked expression on her face and she takes a second to regain herself before once again rushing over to George. She takes him by the hand and leads him under the deck where Sapnap and Antfrost were already there. 

“Captain!” Dream yells over at her and starts rushing there. Before he can get there a loud thump grabs their attention and they both turn to see that Hannah has collapsed from the exhaustion of having used her power to the limit. They see as black smoke surrounds itself around Hannah and she is carried underneath as well. Bad smiles at them reassuringly. 

“We have to retreat,” Bad says what Dream had been trying to say only a moment before. 

“Ugh I know, but if we don’t get the scale King Schlatt will be pissed at us,” Puffy runs a hand through her hair. Dream places a hand on her shoulder. 

“It’s better we all live and deal with him together, then some of us die here just to please him. We’ll get through this, we always do,” Dream smiles at her. Puffy feels a sudden surge of motivation and nods her head at him; a motion to show him that she understands what she must do. 

Puffy turns away from Dream and looks over at Tubbo and Tommy who were frantically trying to control the sails. 

“Turn the sails, we must retreat!” She orders them. Tommy seems to be wanting to complain but Tubbo gives him a glance telling him to just listen. Tommy rolls his eyes before clutching onto the ropes with a steadier grip. 

“Ay, ay captain!” Tommy yells and Puffy huffs at the childish manner that he has managed to keep despite the pressure they are all feeling with this situation. 

While Tommy and Tubbo struggle to turn the sails, the others are trying to defend the ship from the sea dragon that has only managed to grow stronger. Sam keeps jabbing at it with his sword anytime it gets near and Ponk is standing right beside him while using his good hand to stab at it too. Eret on the other hand is supplying everyone with potions that she had swiped from downstairs. They had a large supply and all they had to worry about was not dropping any. He kept trying to hand people the potions but they were all too busy to even notice his presence. 

Puffy started running over to where everyone was fighting. She too wanted to defend her ship. But by the time she made it there no one was fighting anymore. Everything seemed quiet… too quiet. The crew looked around with many different expressions etched onto their faces. 

“Did it leave?” Fundy’s voice cut through the silence and everyone turned to look at him. He was also one of the youngsters of the ship. 

“That’s unlikely, it wouldn’t just leave like that, right?” Wilbur placed a hand on his son’s shoulder to stop him from peering over the edge of the ship. The crew turned to look at Puffy for answers. She looked around to see what she could tell them. 

“I-” she started but was immediately cut off by a shriek that would manage to haunt her for years after. 

“Tommy!” Tubbo’s scream filled the air and the crew all turned to see as the sea dragon’s tail was curling back into the ocean. Tommy was midair and getting launched into the ocean. Everything seemed to go in slow motion. No one knew what to do. Puffy tried to run over as if to catch Tommy but he was way too high and they all heard the sound of him plummeting into the ocean. 

One by one they all ran over to see the same scene that had stopped the others from breathing; from thinking straight. The sea dragon was circling the area of the ocean that Tommy had fallen into, and blood was beginning to taint the water. 

Tommy was gone.