Ocean's Rage

Log 3: The Ivory

It was huge.

The vessel rose above the sea like a white snow-capped mountain. Its four main sails flapped in the wind, each with a smaller one above it.

The sheer size of it would be enough to make pirates surrender. It had fifteen decks, rising like a massive tower above the waves. Jackie's old ship, the Cape High, would've been dwarfed by it.

He could just about make out a black flag being raised up on the flagpole of the ship by one of the men, the wind revealing the stamp of Whitebeard on it. It was one of the most famous stamps in the world, and the only one to mimick Blackbeard's stamp and still survive.

While Blackbeard's stamp was a skull and crossbones with a scar running across the right eye of the white skull, Whitebeard had the exact same stamp, apart from the scar, which was over the left eye. Oddly enough, Whitebeard had a scar over his left eye, while Blackbeard had a scar over his right.

Everyone had, at some point, heard of the Ivory. It was Whitebeard's legendary ship, serving as his command vessel for twenty years. As Jackie stumbled out of the boat, which had been pulled up to the main deck using a pulley system, he realized he was stepping foot on a royal craft.

The ship was magnificently built, with beautiful designs across the sideboards depicting the waves of the raging seas. The masts were not held up with wood or iron as most ships had, but with pure gold. The deck was full of soldiers, giving the Jackie pirates dark looks as they climbed on. There were men from all corners of the world here...tall, short, black, white, muscular, skinny, and men or women who didn't look like pirates at all.

And they all stared at them.

They walked onto the deck towards a man who looked in his mid twenties, with black shiny hair that fell over his slits for eyes. He was about Jackie's height, and wore a long black coat that went upto his knees over a gray shirt. He had his hands clasped behind his back, and stared at him with an apathetic expression on his face. Or what could be seen of it, since his mouth was mostly covered by the raised collar of his coat.

Before he could say anything, however, Jackie heard someone talking to Elma with a rather flirtatious voice. "Hey, missy. You look quite tired, how about we-"

He didn't even manage to finish his sentence before Elma slammed her foot into his mouth and kicked him to the floor.

The guy was lucky she was handcuffed. As she kicked him to a pulp, a tall, skinny man with long black hair tied back in a ponytail and tired eyes approached the first man in the long coat.

"Should we do something?" He whispered, and the first guy shook his head. "Let him have it. He's always having a go at women."

So they waited until Elma was finally done. By then, the man's triangular head was molded enough to look like a square. "Is it my fault I don't have anything to wear, huh? My shirt was ripped up!" She growled, and stomped back to join the other three.

With a sigh, the man with the ponytail took off his blue jacket and propped it over her shoulders. "I don't have a problem with women being pirates, but at least try to dress modestly, miss." His voice was scratchy and worn out, much like his appearance.

Elma looked a bit surprised at this, but said nothing.

Jackie turned back to the man with the long coat. "Well, now that that's over, I think introductions are in order. I'm captain Jackie of the Jackie Pirates. This is my crew...or what's left of it." The man noted this boy's leadership and charisma, introducing himself first despite clearly being the lesser one in the situation.

"My name is Leonardo. I'm Whitebeard's second in command." He motioned towards the second man with the ponytail. "This is my lieutenant, Jamie Borris."

Borris waved his hand at them. "We took some time to catch up. There were reports that you were fighting a ship from Blackbeard's fleet but we simply couldn't get there fast enough thanks to the...er...weather." Jackie remembered the storm shaking the ship back and forth that night and thought it was a miracle the Cape High stayed afloat in that storm at all, forget fight the Blackbeard Pirates.