** Only one thing can still prevent Neverland's downfall: In the dark times when a star's light perishes, a new one must be found! **
Neverland - a world in which simply everything was possible as long as you could dream it. But behind a shining lig...
Was it surprising that such an intelligent man could feel so much hatred all at once for nothing but.... fellows? The great contradiction between James Hook's cleverness and his anger, that unbridled rage. Two souls in the same breast, constantly wrestling and throwing at each other the straw for an even greater fire. Oh, how they stood there... Crow, with the tomahawk as if it were all a game, and he an Indian. Slightly, holding a saber he would never have known how to use if the pirates weren't so apt at showing it off. And this... Luke... on whose lanky figure still hung his red cloak. The older two jeered at the captain, as they always did when their eyes crossed on a battlefield. Still, Hook knew he had his effect on the child heads - in a way, even they could not escape his natural authority, no one could.
He was even angrier, therefore, when Slightly threw his saber at him and - as his little protégé had done before - created a way out of the predicament. Damn it! Why had he put the saber away? As the elongated object hurtled through the air toward him, James lunged to the side and just barely managed to dodge the sharp blade. In the process, his boot got tangled in a messily coiled rope (God help the man responsible!) and he stumbled. Immediately the shot cleared and Hook was already condemning the bullet for not hitting its target.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Slightly and the others dart behind a couple of nearby barrels and disappear as fast as rats in a pantry, behind the pile. James Hook's incensed curse rose above the commotion for perhaps a split second, but the chaos was already so great that enough other cries echoed through the night to mingle with his anger. Deftly intercepting himself at the railing, he slid the pistol back into its holster and was already ripping the saber from his belt... when his eyes fell on the lower deck. Chaos was no longer an expression for the sight. No, there was no sight at all.
Gritting his teeth, he had to admit to the little keel rats that they knew how they had done it. Separating the pirates and making the battlefield confusing was the only way to make up for their inferior numbers. Colorful smoke and thick swaths of smaller explosions covered the Jolly Roger like a spotted bridal veil. From his elevated position, however, Hook could see the fleeing shadows very clearly, silhouetted against torchlight and moonlight in the commotion, beginning to climb over the railing. Dismayed, the captain continued to note that his men were once again proving their own incompetence, barely attempting to stop any of the escapees.
"They're escaping, you damned vermin!" he yelled across the deck, but it was already too late. The comparison to rats seemed increasingly apt to him, as the boys rushed fervently into the blackness of the night, climbing down ropes and shouting their obvious satisfaction into the night with loud caws. That damn noise...! But they wouldn't get away that easily. Not this time!
"Not with my coat on!" he growled to himself, taking two steps at a time as he tumbled down the stairs, mentally already slicing every boy from sole to crown that was hanging around the beach. If he could hook even one of those cursed lost ones!
That the kids had stolen dinghies didn't surprise him, in fact, he gave the guard a resounding slap that threw the man's head back and sent him staggering backward a few steps."Why do we even post guards if they're going to sweeten the night with sleep?!" he snapped at Bill Jukes, who had been standing guard today. His broad jaw tightened after the captain's blow and you could see it sparkle in his brown eyes. A suppressed anger, maybe he even really regretted falling asleep? Hook didn't care relatively, they had to catch up with the fellows.
"They haven't crawled back into hiding yet, so what are you waiting for?" he ordered the surrounding men. Some were still clutching their sabers, rapiers, cutlasses, and pistols, ready to fight. Others had already set to work untying the lines of the dinghies and launching them into the water. It took... far too long for James' taste, but they still had a chance.
"We'll follow them into the forest, the boy with the red coat belongs to ME!" he clarified and climbed down the lowered ladder into the first dinghy. He was followed by Skylights, Horris, and Starkey. Three of his best and most experienced fighters - at least with them he was reasonably sure that they would not miss if a boy came under their noses.
Horris and Starkey rowed quietly, trying not to let the flat ends of their paddles slap the water unnecessarily loudly, and Skylights checked his weapons again. Hook, on the other hand, had one foot propped up on the bow of the boat and was peering grimly out into the night. Somewhere out there, between darkness and deceptively quiet plams, Luke was probably running for his little, worthless life right now. Silently, the captain clicked his tongue as the boat finally bumped against the wooden dock and was the first to jump off the boat.
"Tie up the barge and then follow me!" he ordered in a subdued tone, and without waiting for the bunch of fools, the captain ran off in the direction of the nearby tree line. On the way there he registered the stolen dinghies carelessly scattered on the beach, from there footprints in the white sand scattering towards the palm trees.
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