The Crown of Atlantis

Ariel knocked on the door of the lower deck. "You idiots can all come out now," Ariel said. The pirates of the Jolly Roger, along with the pirates of the other ships, came out of their hiding places hastily. The captains of the other ships were trying to look like they hadn't been wetting their pants in fear of death. They weren't doing such a great job of it, though.

Hook, on the other hand, truly looked like he had never been afraid, kind of like he had known all along Ariel had the power to drive away an entire mermaid army.

"What happened, love?" he asked her, staring at the deep wound in her arm. Ariel shook her head, trying to ignore the stinging pains that erupted from the cut. "Magic can't heal it," Ariel muttered. "Dark magic is used to harm, not to heal."

So, one of the pirates began dressing her wound, Ariel waved her hand in the air, and the body of Ariel's unconscious sister dropped onto the deck of the Jolly Roger.

Ten minutes later, all the pirate captains were gathered on the Jolly Roger. Some were staring at Ariel, others were looking down at Attina's body.

"And how is it that a witch and a pirate met?" one of the pirate captains asked. It wasn't meant to be rude, and Ariel could tell, but it still stung. Witch. The one thing in the world Ariel hated most of all. She wasn't a witch. She was about to yell that into the captain's face, when she realized- she was one.

Witches were defined as magical people who weren't quite human. People who wielded magic by sucking it out of other life forms that did. And that was what Ariel was doing, wasn't it? She was using Hook's dark artifacts to wield dark magic. Artifacts he had gotten from magical people and creatures.

Ariel shook her head. She wasn't going to dwell on that now, not when her eldest sister was passed out on deck, surrounded by a bunch of pirates. Ariel had mad at her sisters for not bothering to look for her, for turning their backs on her when she had needed them most. But she didn't hate them. Certainly not enough to want to kill them.

"What do we do with this thing, then?" a captain asked. "Kill it?" another suggested. "No," Ariel said firmly. The other captains looked at her. Ariel sighed. "First of all, I saves all of your sorry arses from the entire mermaid army, so I get to decide what we do with her. And second, she's the mermaid queen, and if you kill her-"

Ariel suddenly stopped talking. Her eyes widened. The mermaid queen. Attina was the mermaid queen. But then where. . .

"Who took it?" Ariel said in a quiet yet deadly voice. The captains stared at her confused. "Who took it?" Ariel yelled again. The captains stumbled away from her with a yelp. Even Hook took a few steps away from her, and Ariel realized from a glance at the reflection of herself on the puddle of seawater that her eyes were smoking up with black flames.

Ariel shut her eyes, and calmed down. Her eyes returned to normal, but her emotions did not. Ariel had purposely kept Attina up in the sky so that she could take it, but it wasn't there.

"What are you talking about, love?" Hook asked her. "The- the crown," Ariel said, shutting her eyes in case the black fire thing started up again. "The crown of Atlantis. It holds enough magic to not only level the entire underwater queendom itself, but its light magic, combined with my dark magic, will give us enough power to raze any kingdom we choose, including Ursula's," Ariel replied. The other captains started whispering. Talk of such a weapon had obviously captured the captains' attentions.

"She must had given it to one of her soldiers when she fell into the ocean," Ariel said, glaring at the wound on her arm. "Can't you go any faster?" she snapped at the person who was bandaging her up. The medic or whoever he was left immediately.

"How is it that you hold so much knowledge of the mermaids?" said one of the women captains. Ariel chose not to answer that question.

"That crown is what the Dark Lady had been talking about, I'm sure of it," Ariel said to Hook, after all the other pirates had left. "If we take the crown, then not only will Atlantis be powerless against us, but Ursula will be no problem, too."