The daughter of Davy Jones watched her ship be bombarded with cannons.
She stood on the deck of the enemy vessel the one where the old man had killed himself, where the bodies of navy men lay scattered like broken dolls and watched as her own ship, her home, her only connection to the sea she loved, was torn apart. Cannonball after cannonball slammed into its hull, shattering its wood, splintering its mast, sending its sails up in flames.
She looked left to right.
Her eyes dark, furious, desperate scanned the deck around her. Bodies. Blood. Broken weapons. And there, near the cabin door, half-hidden beneath a fallen mast...
A barrel made of iron.
She grabbed it.
Her hands wrapped around the metal feeling its coldness, its smoothness, its weight and then, all of a sudden, the entire iron barrel disintegrated.
It crumbled.
Turned to dust.
Flowed into her skin.
Her hands her fingers, her palms, her wrists turned the same colour as iron. Dark. Gleaming. Unbreakable.
She stretched her hands out into the air.
Just at the direction of her ship.
And then her hands elongated.
Just like rubber.
They shot forward stretching across the water, crossing the distance between the vessels, reaching toward her burning home. The iron flesh gleamed in the firelight, pulsing with a power that should not exist, that could not exist, that did exist.
Her hands spread all around her ship.
They wrapped around it covering it, protecting it, encasing it. The iron flowed like water, shaped itself like clay, hardened like steel. In moments, her ship was no longer a ship.
It was a ball.
A sphere of dark, gleaming iron seamless, smooth, impenetrable.
The fleet of ships began to fire at the structure.
Cannonballs rained down dozens, hundreds, a storm of iron and fire slamming into the sphere, exploding against its surface, bouncing off its skin. But they only made dents.
Small dents.
Tiny dents.
The sphere held.
She shouted out.
Her voice was almost like that of a mother who called out her children that were playing out in the field warm, urgent, loving.
"Hold on to something in there, boys!"
She pulled.
"I'm taking you all out!"
Her hands retracted stretching back across the water, carrying the sphere with them, dragging it toward the vessel where she stood. The iron ball skimmed across the waves, cutting through the water like a blade, crashing against the side of the enemy ship.
She laid them safely on their ship.
The sphere opened the iron peeling back like the skin of a fruit, revealing the vessel within, revealing her crew.
Her hands returned to normal.
The iron faded from her skin draining away, leaving behind flesh that was dark, warm, human. She flexed her fingers, feeling the blood return to them, feeling the relief of being herself again.
She smiled.
"Is everyone okay?"
But her ship was completely gone.
The vessel that had carried her across the Infinite Sea, that had protected her from monsters and storms and enemies was nothing. The hull was shattered. The mast was splinters. The sails were ash.
And out of all her men, only six were alive.
The rest of their bodies were completely destroyed turned into something reminiscent of paste. Their blood mixed with the water on the deck, sloshing back and forth with the movement of the waves, staining everything they touched.
Her face twisted.
Fury rose in her chest hot, bright, consuming. Her hands clenched into fists. Her teeth ground together. Her eyes burned with a fire that had nothing to do with the flames around her.
"Okay." Her voice was low, dangerous, final. "Alright."
She looked at the fleet of ships at the British navy, at the men who had done this, at the enemies who had taken everything from her.
"Now I've made up my goal." She spat the words. "In this fucking sea territory."
She paused.
Her voice softened just slightly.
"I was just going to find my dad." She looked at the sky at the storm clouds, at the lightning, at the nothing that watched her. "I was just going to reunite with him. Just like father and daughter."
She touched her chest over her heart.
"I wanted to know why. From him."
Her voice cracked.
"Why he killed Mother. Why he abandoned us." She took a shuddering breath. "Why he left me alone."
She looked at her hands at the hands that had turned to iron, at the power that flowed through her veins, at the curse that was her inheritance.
"He chose the sea instead of his family." She laughed a short, bitter, broken sound. "Isn't it quite ironic?"
She looked at the burning ship at the ruin of everything she had built.
"I guess that's why he was called the King of the Sea... and beast."
She paused.
"Davy Jones."
She looked at the six surviving members of her crew at their terrified faces, at their trembling bodies, at the hope that still flickered in their eyes.
"You know..." Her voice was quiet, almost conversational. "Whenever you all call me his daughter..." She touched her chest again. "I get both saddened and immensely upset."
She paused.
"Do you know why?"
She broke into tears.
The sobs came suddenly violently, uncontrollably, endlessly. They tore from her throat like something alive, something that had been caged for too long, something that could no longer be contained.
"BECAUSE HE NEVER CALLED ME DAUGHTER!"
Her voice shattered.
"HE NEVER ONCE NOT ONCE CALLED ME HIS DAUGHTER!"
From far away, a man watched.
He was dressed in a blue cloak as blue as the sky, as blue as the sea, as blue as nothing. His face was hidden in shadow, but his eyes pale, gleaming, hungry were visible.
He smirked.
His teeth showed white, sharp, predatory.
"Wow." His voice was soft, almost dreamy. "She looks cute."
He tilted his head.
"I like my girls..." He paused. "...with daddy issues."
The sea princess wept.
And somewhere in the shadows, a man in blue watched.