Facing Your Only Fear - The Story of Jonathan Turner Book One

Chapter I - Escaping

I was 17, practically a kid. Before the days of the infamous, but battle-smart Carlos Clemente, I was a Spanish privateer. We were looking for any French or British enemy we could see, but what we saw what much more hostile. A monster, -nay, a demon- of skeletal structure demolished our ship in only minimal cannonfire using his giant ship. Hell, this ship could easily out-size the largest British naval ship in their whole fleet, and sink it. This demon called himself Jolly Roger, and he stood at roughly 7 feet. Like Davy Jones, he was considered a myth for years, but he certainly showed his reality in my eyes.

In a flash, he killed my father before my own eyes, as well as the rest of the crew. I was on the ground wielding a sword that I inherited from my father recently. As Jolly Roger approached me, I began to frantically wave the sword towards him.

"A little fight in ye, boy." The creature remarked, "Welcome to the crew!" He held out his arm and strangled me. I began to lose feel of my body, but before he could "kill" me, I slashed his left wrist clean off with the blade and pulled out two pistols and opened fire at two of his skeleton crewmates who dropped dead (again). Once Jolly Roger got up, two of his crewmates were dead on the ground and I was 20 yards out of the water. While I was swimming quickly and frantically away, a lime green light shined on me. I rubbed my eyes, but once I opened them, all I saw was a glowing blue cannonshot heading straight for my head.

Chapter II - The Survivors

I was knocked out by the cannonfire just skimming off my head, and I woke after what felt like forever on the shore of a dark island.

"The boy is alive", said a short, bearded man with pale white skin, as he beckoned other pale-skinned people to come and see. The bearded man was named Edward Palmer, but his nickname was Foulbeard. He had a whole crew of what looked like vampires until I later found out I became one of those "vampires". "Welcome to the crew of the half-soullesses," he said, before he told me all about them. They're people who were captured by Jolly Roger, but managed to escape during the process of being cursed. They have pale skin and turn to ghosts when ever they're about to die, and the only one who can kill them is Jolly Roger, but the problem is, Jolly will always be hunting for them. "I saw ye fight Jolly, ye got a lot o' fight in ye," he remarked, "by the way, we be in search of a ship to defend ourselves from ol' Jolly Roger, and I heard yer a Spanish privateer. Their ships have a hell of a lot of power and speed."

"As a matter of fact, before my ship sinked, Garcia Avaricia had just finished building an extremely strong brig. It took him a year and a half to build the thing," I told him, "he told me if I could recruit more men, I could commodeer it myself," after a short while of more conversating, we picked up a few dingies, and sailed on Foulbeard's old, rusty ship to Avaricia's island. "Senior Avaricia, I have a long story to tell you, and there's no way to shorten it," I told Avaricia when I reached his island.

"Jonathan... what in the hell happened? You're as pale as snow!" He said, with a surprised look on his face.

"My father is dead, we ran into Jolly Roger, and I was cursed," I explained

"That... that thing is real!? Well, I'll be damned, I'm sorry you lost your father."

"It's alright, apparently I never cried, because the curse prevents me from feeling anything," After another conversation, I introduced him to Foulbeard and his crew, and he accepted to give me the ship he was building. Foulbeard, his crew, and I began our adventures of getting away from Jolly Roger and attempting his demise using the ship. We also served Spain and we were a deadly threat to every enemy in our path. That was all until everything changed...

Chapter III - Exile

King Carlos Clemente of Spain was a great king I thought at that time. I never portrayed him as an evil genius until I was forced to abandon Spain. My crew and I was at that time serving the pirate alliance of INFERNO, and I was a well known member of it. INFERNO was such a powerful guild with amazing potential, but it was rather peaceful, at least it's actions were peaceful. Their leader by the name of Ned "Yellowbeard" was one of the most hated, yet liked leaders in the world. In fact I would say he's the second most hated leader. It was undisputed that King Carlos of Spain was the most hated. My grudge with the King of Spain started with his relationship with Ned Yellowbeard.

Ned was a kind fellow, but King Carlos Clemente threatened him like he was a misbehaving dog, and Ned never fought back, he just remianed neutral in every war he witnessed. Meanwhile, I began to take a liking to England, the birthplace of my father. He always told me that one day, they could put Spain behind us and become double agents, mostly because my father never really liked the Spaniards he served, but he served them for my mother's sake. Avaricia, my "new father" was later killed in one of Clemente's "genocides". King Carlos was a smart person, but he would kill anyone he was suspicious about, and he believed Avaricia was not serving the Caribbean branch of Spain very well. Knowing Garcia Avaricia, King Clemente knew he would rebel, so he had to kill him. I knew my path now, it was time to serve England.

I knew my plan, I decided to stop at nothing to kill everyone standing in my path from killing Clemente. My parents are both dead, Avaricia is dead, and the only thing I had left was my crew. My ship and crew later became a group of rouges. We called ourselves the Golden Armada, a fleet of ships that could demolish anything in our paths. I lead it, along with Captain Foulbeard and a few others. We knocked words out of anyone who worked for Carlos Clemente, and by not speaking, we would maroon them, but if they talked we would welcome them to our crew. That may not seem very harsh, but remember everyone in the armada can only be killed by Jolly Roger, so when we fight, we don't need tactics to survive. The mortals in the crew are pushed into combat as if they were like everyone else.

We were reckless, and more cruel than any Ned Yellowbeard or other notorious pirate you could think of. We weren't just pirates, we were cold blooded killers.

Chapter IV - Marriage

I spent years serving the Golden Armada, and in a way I still do. It wasn't long until I found the love of my life who happened to escape from Jolly Roger about 3 years after I did. I met her aboard my ship just about 5 years ago. Though she was an extremely beautiful woman, I was never impressed by beauty. Once I saw her skills using a sword and pistol, I was in love. She was almost better than me, but hell, no one is better than me. Her name was Molly de la Hoya, and she had as deep of Spanish roots as I did. Before Jolly Roger nearly killed her, she was simply a pirate. Not a privateer, but simply a pirate who just-so-happened to be from Spain. She was well known for having many nicknames including "Scarlett", "Scither", and now "Sharkette" or simply "Shark".

For two years we were in an illegitimate relationship, until we were married on the bow of the Golden Dragon. We've already had a child who is currently 2 years old and is being raised in the inland part of the Barbary Coast. Even today my wife and I fight alongside, and after I met her, I appointed her first mate of the Dragon. She was later appointed captain when I was coronated as king of the Barbary Coast.

While I was with her, we slayed deadly enemies, even those who actually have the ability to kill us like a few of Jolly Roger's right hand men (he doesn't really have a right hand, but you get the point). We put 12 fatal shots into General Dark hart, as well as an explosive cannon round to finish him off. We also went on a duo mission to take down the leader of the Spanish undead army, General Blanco, who rebelled against Carlos Clemente by allowing Jolly Roger to curse him. We began the mission by storming into the Cutthroat Isle cave and killing every undead enemy in sight using nothing but quick reaction time, about 8 pistols strapped on our vests, and a couple o' blades.

"Ye killed about 20 drones in my army, ya think I'm impressed? Think again ye scoundrels," General Blanco said as he appeared.

"And you think we actually tried?" Replied Molly, who is rather cocky, but knows when to shut up, and obviously this wasn't the time. She striked with throwing knives which Blanco avoided while I pulled out a rifle and shot a hole in his chest.

"I ain't no human, yer gonna have to try better than that," he responded after the bullet hit his chest. He quickly fought back wielding duel blade cutlasses and began dueling me. Molly turned around, pulled out a golden Spanish flintlock pistol, and opened fire. The shot hit the top of the back of his neck.

"Ah, the cerebellum," I said, after Blanco hit the ground and instantly died, "a silver bullet there will prove a guarentee one shot kill,"

"Oh please, I knew that," she replied.

Molly (left), and my quartermaster (right).