A single eyeball peered through the cracks that illuminated a faint light through them. It moved around, pupil narrowing, a lid closing over it. His knuckles tapped against the wall with a hollow resonance. He lifted his head off the wall studying it closely once again albeit from a distance.
“You’ve convinced them the Heartless is real.” Zill chuckled to himself. “Maybe you aren’t so bad after all.”
She turned towards Grimm who was busy inspecting the wall as the pirates inched towards them. “Any ideas Grimm? And its real, I’ve seen it.”
“We can break through it.” Grimm finally declared.
“No. No!” Crimson blared. “That wall is worth more than your life boy!” Grimm and Zill both gave him an awkward look at the mention of boy, as they both were merely a few years younger than him and his half-arsed pirate accent.
Grimm shrugged, yanking his shoulders back and in one motion slamming himself into the wall. A giant block of it came tumbling down, before it rocketed the floor, causing it o crumble falling along side the bricks in the wall.
The ground let way into an open skies, as these islands hovered above the skies, below them was nothing but the oceans and land Masses that still remained tattered from the great year.
Laurena, Grimm and Zill fell into the air, their fall breaking ontop of unseen object. They crashed in a bundle, tumbling over bricks, each bruised, nicked and covered in a heavy coating of dust. Laurena opened one eye surveying the scene. They hadn’t fallen to their deaths but instead they settled ontop of an invisible object that was outlined by the dust, filling in its crevices and bricks settled at uneven levels.
Below them the ocean was still visible, though across from them lingered a pad hanging from an industrial sized set of stairs, laced in metal trim. The Pirates steps were echoing up the stairs as they rushed down to capture them.
“Not again…” Laurena said with a huff of her cheeks.
A sound of machinary churned under them, the sounds of a gear slowly turning, a surge of electricity shaping through the air following the mist of dust that had landed on the invisible haul. Slowly a deck appeared under them, the electric impulses fizzling out over the air revealing more of the ships haul, displaying a mid-size mast rising above a control panel.
Wooden panels glistened with metal bracings around their edges, they all creaked with a sign of weight that had long been absent. The wood arced to a pointy tip, generators set on the side like mild wings waiting for liftoff. And finally the rear of the ship was pressed against the staircase deck, which the pirates had begun to fill out, some surprised at the sight of the air ship caught in the loading bay.
Zill was the first to jump up, grabbing Laurena from around the waist, “Be careful.”
“What?” Laurena said surprise in her tone, more at his touch than his request.
Ignition had zero response the first, second, but it gargled on the third jerk. Grimm came around him. “Can it run?”
“Ignition is rusty, we finally found something Crimson didn’t keep in top shape.” Zill continued to tinker with it, kicking a panel that was under it revealing a few gears, tan in color, dyed in black dried oil. “Perfect.”
Laurena came pushing him aside. “Keep the pirates busy!”
Zill turns his head slowly away from the gears to see a pirate jumping on board, sword drawn charging at them. Zill’s agile moves lung him forward, the pirates blade barely skimming his outer garments, instead Zills weight knocks into the pirate shoulder first.
His hand tightens around the pirates wrist freeing the blade into his own hands, it tumbles in the air as a pass on from the pirates hand to Zills. The pirate stares eyes wide, as Zill knocks the gold hilt of the sword against the back of his head, sending him careening forward onto the shipdeck head first.
“Any idea?” Grimm moved up towards Laurena who just looked at the panel with a slight haze to her. She runs her tiny fingers along the panel, once again mimicking the motions Zill had done in attempts to get the airship moving.
She took in a deep breath. “Step back.”Laurena mumbles words under her lips, fingers elevating off the panel a bit, out of the corner of her eyes she sees Grimm move to help Zill, in specific tying the one fallen pirate with a length of rope he found huddled around the curtailed mast.
Laurena closed her eyes, alone for a moment of concentration. The gears begin to turn with a loud whir, the fusion of steam and electrical engines beginng to pick up at her beckoning. Slowly the mast releases, the sail doubling in height and thrice in width.
The deck spreads open, layering out from under itself, like wings it extends itself, layers set one atop another for convenient stowaway, the ship reminiscent of the days shortly after the world parted. Slowly it peeled away from the deck, in a steady motion. No hands touched the panels or moved the sails, for the ship just seemed to will itself.
Upon the rear of the ship Zill bends one leg forward resting on the edge of the ship, overlooking the other oncoming pirates.
