Blades Of Death

Chapter :1: Flight Do Us Take

The alarms were going off like crazy now, an indication to the complete loss of fuel. I, like the rest of the crew, reached desperately for the jet packs as the escape pod fell through the air. We were dropping like a stone, fast and hard. From this hight I close my eyes tightly, catching a brief glimpse of the rocky ground coming up to meet me. At the last minute pressing the escape hatch button, and praying that my life wouldn't end so soon. 

I'm sure by now your all wondering how I got into this situation, well I guess I should tell you what happened from the beginning. So for starters, the world that we know as earth got hit by a meteorite some hundred years ago, and with that the gravity balance on the planet got a little befuddled. Anyway, soon we had towns and city's all stationed in the sky, to keep, what we thought was radiation, from effecting us. Things continued to go on like this, and before we knew it, it had become the norm. 

Then, like anything good, there comes the drastic change. The towns had started to crumble and fall due to age and malfunction in the mechanics. As a last resort people were sent down to check the radiation levels on the ground, and by some lucky miracle, found the earth had somehow dispelled the radiation. So most of the people went back to live on the ground. However this brought about the questions on the law system and where it applies, then there was a question of who could live where. 

This all seemed important at the time, what with the city in the sky crumbling down and all. Still, it seemed not everyone should live on the ground, now that it was basically a heaven. So the law system rounded up the worst of the worst, those who would steal and murder, who plagued the lands. Criminals that were to bad for earth, so to speak, were banned to step foot on the ground and were sent to live in sky city. 

As time went on, the crimes became less and less on the ground as even a small crime like pick-pocketing was rewarded in being sent to the ground jails. If they were full, you were either on your way to sky city, or executed. 

Okay so now your pretty caught up with the history, here's my story; My names Crow Blackwing, and I, along with my fellow crew are sky pirates! We don't like to follow the rules, in fact we don't follow anything that isn't for the treasure. We're the outcasts, criminals and forgotten, travelling the skies that serve as the sea under our wings. 

For me who has lived his life as a pirate of the skies, its a great life. for those on the ground we sky pirates are only seen as low, underhanded criminals. Okay, yeah, we do steal, but that's what being a pirate means and we need to eat too you know. We're outcasts, thieves,unwanted. Captain Black-Heart brought us all together and we made our living in the skies. Living as a sky pirate was my dream, one I could never have imagined being brought out of.

 It started the day we raided a royal law sky ship. If I had known when I spotted the craft hiding behind the clouds how things would of changed, I'd have kept my big mouth shut. 

But I didn't.

"ROYAL AHEAD!" I shouted from my perch in the bird nest.

 Still shouting I swung myself down nearly falling on the sail rigging in my excitement to be the first to spot the law ship.The other crew members were making there way up on deck to see what the commotion was about.

 "This ones a big one guys!" I stated proudly, having been given the job of spotting easy ships to pick off. "Like the last one?" Fox and Kite snorted in a sarcastic manner. "It wasn't that small" I protested, my friends however just shook their heads not listening. "Besides we found Kite there right?" Kite was our newest member, we found him in the jail cells. The ship was a slave trading ship that we hijacked and although there were little amount of cash, we got ourselves a couple new crew members.

 Fox and I took an instant liking to Kite and we hung around him most days, to him I'm sure we were just a couple of kids, but he let us hang around him anyway. Fox was 13, I was a year younger. It was Captain Black-Heart who rescued Fox, he found Fox as a small child begging on one of the dirty streets in sky city.

"Well then, what's this I hear about some royal invading our territory?" A deep booming voice rang from the ships cabin entrance. 

"Captain!" we all jumped from our positions, jokes forgotten. The captain chuckled "Hmm so who was the lookout today? Step forward, step forward" I raised my head, puffing up my chest in pride "I was cap'n. Was keepin close eye on those skies yonder there."

 "They spot you boy?" 

"No sir, cap'n" 

Fox, Kite and the rest of the crew gave a doubtful look my way at this. "Hey stop with the looks of doubt." I snapped indignantly. 

The captain, sensing the rising tension gave a mighty clap "Well if its a royal the boy saw  what are we still doing here? Lets go raiding lads!" With a whoop and a hearty pirate cry we set off to hijack the law ship.

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We'd got ourselves a load of lute, jewels of all kinds. Going through it was considered a great treat, the beautiful white pearls that glistened when spilling over your fingers, the golden glint from the gold coins reflecting the sun.

 When I was young Captain Black-Heart would tell me stories about pirates that enslaved themselves to such glories and died because their greed drowned them in the coloured waters of jewels. Somehow after listening to such stories, I found myself less drawn to the beautiful sapphires and emeralds as the rest of the pirates did. For me watching the sparkle of the the gems and hearing the 'clink', 'clink' of gold seemed like home. 

"Right lock up time lads, ya'll see em again once we reach the nearest sky port." Captain called making sure no one tried to steal anything. He tried to be fair, but made it clear the haul we earned provided for us all and the ship. Not one man's luxury. Usually it was hard for the crew to look away and leave, all falling under the trance treasure cast. Not this time. A loud bang rocking the ship brought everyone to their senses and on red alert. 

Running on deck we found the cause of breakage. 

We were under attack by the royal military!

 "What should we do captain? There's to many to fight" Robin,captains second in command cried. "Kite, Bear, get Fox and Black-Crow to the escape pods!!. Lark and Robin, I want you in the control room pronto! We're pirates, not cowards. No one attacks US and gets away with it!" The captain was mad, hell all of us were. No one outright attacks a pirate ship, especially not the Blue Dragon!! 

Sorry I'll update soon, tired and my headache is starting to bug me >_< I hope your liking this so far, its a little childish I admit. My grammar and punctuation is terrible, I apologise. Anyway please tell me what you think about the story, its one I wrote via paper and pen a couple of years back and never got a chance to finish.