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.
==Chapter V - Operation Malta==
I find it quite hard to believe that a target that we took down was immortal, while the true enemy is a mere mortal. I would've killed Carlos Clemente right then and there if their men didn't have Jolly Roger on their side. One force of nature could simply take us all down. Clemente always seemed to be one step ahead of us. My policy at that time was to simply take faster steps than he, so we began by breaching the security at a Spanish mansion in Malta. That mansion contained thousands, perhaps millions, of gold pounds and one of Carlos Clemente's most ruthless killers, Juan Moore.
Juan was a cold-blooded killer, and his father was an Englishman, who he killed. Carlos ordered Juan's father dead when realizing he was 100% British, and he forced Juan to execute him. Not only did Juan comply, but he also did it with enthusiasm. He was a heartless wrench, I thought. While my father was my soft spot, he had the will to kill his. I have met my match, but having the cold heart to kill someone is nothing if you aren't skillful and stealthful enough.
We began by turning off all the lights on board the Golden Dragon, as we sailed in what was a cold, calm, dark, foggy evening. In fact, so foggy that the guards on one of the mansion's prominent towers couldn't see one detail of the large vessel. It was just me heading in to do the dirty work while Molly and Foulbeard would command cannonfire. I told them to order a broadside into the mansion the second they hear a gunshot. I was on a small one man dingy armed with nothing but a sword, a set of throwing knives, and a belt of pistols.
When I entered the door of the mansion, I attempted to sneak up on a guard and shoot him in the back, triggering the cannonfire, but I was noticed by another man and I realized I was surrounded.
"Halt! State your bussiness here!" A guard commanded. I stayed completely silent and stared at who looked like the head guard coldy in the eyes, "KILL HIM!" He cried after I gave him that mean look. The four guards threw daggers straight at me as I ducked and each dagger hit the guard diagnol from the one who threw it.
"The old aggression to suicide trick, classic" I murmered to myself. As muskets began firing down at me from the windows, I screamed, "FIRE!!!", as explosive rounds ran into the building and caused it to completely collapse as I dashed towards my dingy, flipped it over, and used it as a shelter. Minutes later, I felt a blade slip through the wood, and as you know, the curse did its thing and I morphed into a ghost as the blade was thrusted into my stomach. I responded to the stab by pulling out two triple-barreled pistols and opening fire.
As I pulled the trigger, I heard a large splash in the shallow water the upside-down dingy was in. As I emerged from the shelter, there was a body of a Spanish man who looked of high rank. There was a bronze tag on his jacket that read "Commanding Officer Juan Moore".
Mission accomplished...
==Chapter VI - OUTLAWS==
After the amazing feat I pulled off, I felt the Golden Armada I commanded was drifting away from the guild I was affiliated with, INFERNO. Ned Yellowbeard and I began to have so many disagreements due to Ned's lack of the will to take action against Carlos Clemente and we always had arguments over whether god existed or not because of my atheist beliefs. You'd think I'd be executed for being atheist, but all of my leaders knew I was too much of a killing machine to be put down.
As I was saying, after a final argument with Yellowbeard, I resigned from INFERNO. Surprisingly, he did nothing to stop me, and I was on my way to OUTLAWS. I entered their stronghold with my trusty black cat to my side, Ronaldo. That cat would survive cannon fights, gun fights, sword fights, and even could swim. Anyway, I walked into the stronghold with a piece of eight from The Brethren Court in my hand.
"My application, Guildmaster Pillagebane," I said with half a smile as I flipped the coin their way.
"Captain Turner, it's about time you join our order, welcome," he responded enthusiastically. I noticed that I was just one of many who joined OUTLAWS after quitting INFERNO. Though INFERNO had more elite men, OUTLAWS had more power, were obviously smarter, and had a larger army. They also had control of the Netherlands and it wouldn't be long until they'd have control of the Barbary Coast. Jarod Pillagebane was the guildmaster, and though he was a short man, he could lead one of the largest pirate orders in the Caribbean. One of the largest became THE largest pirate order when Jarod was appointed pirate king of The Brethren Court.
Just like that, Outlaws was the chief guild in the Brethren Court. Notorious pirates led this order aside from Jarod and I which include Hector Pillagehawk, "Pencil Boy" Clubheart (the Co. GM), Black Jack, and many others. We also made England and the EITC our long-term allies to help hunt down King Carlos Clemente.
==Chapter VII - Battle of the Ages==
I was involved in countless wars against Spain, but this was perhaps the most memorable. It began with some men from OUTLAWS aboard the Outlaw King crossing the English channel alongside the British armada and other allies. All while my vessel was harbored and heavily guarded on docks overseas. We spotted a ship that looked to have been flying Spanish colours. Roughly two seconds after I noticed the Spanish galleon, I witness cannonfire tear through the hull of one of the British interceptors.
"READY THE BROADSIDES, BATTLE IS UPON US," I heard from a Russian frigate. What was before a route to Britain for a meeting, became a battle of vessels with each one containing royalty. In the distance, I could spot the Spanish dictator himself, Sir Carlos Clemente.
"Reduce the distance, I'm boarding that galleon!" I told Clubheart.
"Reduce distance? We'll just be caught in the rest of the Spanish vessels' line of fire!" He responded.
"Fair enough, allow me to operate a firearm," I said as I pulled out a heavy-duty musket. It seemed every shot I fired would leave another Spaniard dead. The tension of battle began building up when Spain was loading explosive rounds into their plentiful guns. This was until an idea popped up, "bingo," I quietly said to myself as I fired straight into a Spanish broadside cannon that immediatly exploded and destroyed a large portion of the ship. "Perfect! Mr. Pillagebane! Tell your men to fire their muskets into the cannon barrels!" said a crewmate of mine ho witnessed the monstrous explosion. This idea certainly was golden, as every Spanish galleon began to go down while every other ship copied the method I used. Despite that, it took quite a marksman to cause those explosions, luckily we had perfect marksmen operating our guns. In just a matter of time, every galleon went down while we didn't even have to sacrifice ONE ship.
Finally, one last Spanish vessel stood and a sinister figure commanded it, none other than Carlos Clemente. They refused to fire explosive, and not using my bright idea, many of our ships were destroyed. That was, until we managed to cripple the giant galleon and board it. Once I swinged onboard it, I slashed my way through enemies, but Clemente was no where to be found. Once every Spaniard in sight was dead or knocked out, I decided to loot out the vessel and explode any remains of it to ensure that the king was dead. After I stole any sample of gold in it, the men of OUTLAWS made a line of gun powder and it would lead to a pile of explosives causing the large vessel "to go boom". Once everyone was on board the remaining ships, the Spanish galleon was blown to bits, but then something caught my eye. I spotted a sloop sailing away with two men which looked to be a Spanish guard and King Clemente at the helm. In anger, I threw a knife nearly 300 yards and it hit the guard in the throat, but that was obviously not who I was aiming for.
"DAMMIT!!!" I hollered loud enough for Carlos to hear. The Outlaw King and the HMS Supreme attempted to intercept it, but even our cannons couldn't reach that far.
==Chapter IIX - Barbary Coast Conquest==
No more than 6 months before this chapter was written, I was fighting anarchists and Spaniards for the control of the Barbary Coast. The anarchists were easy to beat, for they... weren't the intelligent type. The spaniards were also at a small number, but certainly were quite an obstacle. My men and women in the golden armada could pretty much win every battle they fought, since no mortal could kill them. Most of the remaining anarchists finally gave in to me and Spain decided they had better things to do than lose half their military to our indestructable forces. I'm being as modest as I possibly can, but mortals could never kill us in any way. Anyway, my forces spread extremely far -nearly all of the northern coast of Africa-, but obviously we never claimed THAT much land.
After leading the newly formed nation for not a long time, former anarchists began to take a liking to my leadership skills, and I managed to get a group of nobles and very educated individuals to maintain the government, for I was never much of political person. My 250 nobles were highly paid using the "high salary" I've recieved from looting, plundering, killing for money (not a good job, kids), and even as a blacksmith I made a decent fortune. Hell, I could probably pay a high salary to every citizen in Barbary with the money I had. Though it seems far-fetched, I did indeed do something along the lines of that. I put thousands, almost millions of pounds into my militia which later became a military for weapons. I believed that the second highest priority -next to government- is military. This is because we'll have Spanish forces on our backs in no time.
Well, I was correct with the previous sentence. A Spanish invasion pushed into our strongest Fort and damaged it dramatically. They were confident that they'd conquer it in the next month, but that was before the Golden Armada had anything to say about it. Our infantry killed each Spanish on Barbary soil troop one by one until there were none left. Spanish galleons charged into our forts only to be blown to bits. It was rare to see such a beat-down cause by so-called under-dogs. From then on, I was the king of the Barbary Coast, and spanish forces had absolutely nothing to say about it.
==Chapter IX - The Fugitive==
The war involving England, Russia, the Barbary Coast, and many other nations fighting against Spain, Portugal, and northern Italy quickly came to a close with a sneak attack on Spanish soil. Our united armada swarmed Spain at approximately 2:00 AM and destroyed a majority of their forts with our many broadsides. They were forced to surrender when caught off guard, and the war offically ended. Barbary, Russian, and British forces occupied them for about a month before finally ending the occupation. One last question arose, where is (former) King Carlos Clemente?
After he was gone missing, a queen by the nickname of "Madster" began her reign in Spain and finally Carlos was spotted. Before his days as king, Carlos worked for the EITC, and he wished to redeem himself. By my surprise, King John Breasly (George Augustus) of England as well as director of the EITC, Samuel Harrington accepted his application. I was completely enraged, and not surprised when Carlos recruited a group that he promised would aid the Company, but later rebelled. He called it the Co. Templars. Luckily it took no time to make it fall.
Despite that, Clemente still remained a fugitive and still planned to steal the crown. He created a new union that he called "Casa Di Royale" which became almost as merciless as the Golden Armada. They claimed that guild is the true Spanish royal family, but in reality it's flooded with tyrants, liars, and theives. Unfortunately they were smart tyrants, liars, and theives. No lie, I actually always admired Carlos' intelligance. Too bad he was one of the poor hellhounds on my "list". That name was literally written in the blood of one of his colleagues on my assassination list. It mean't I mean business. I give mercy, hell if I were to knock one of my opponents down, I wouldn't kill them. I would hand them one of my swords and I second chance just to assure the first one wasn't a fluke. But that isn't the case with Carlos. When I strike him down, I will give NO mercy. He deserves what comes to him.
==Chapter X - The Plan==
Despite the obvious claim that former king, Carlos Clemente was always a step ahead of us, we believed that we should do whatever we could. While the current queen of Spain was doing a satisfactory job leading it, Clemente's team had a lower amount of men, but obviously better skill. Once we finally knew the former king's whereabouts, we decided to make our move. Carlos had a team of well-trained men, but King George Augustus chose an even better team. It was lead by the first sea lord of England, Sven Daggersteel, Lord Andrew Mallace was a part of it, a notorious Spanish helmsman who goes by "Spade", myself, Jarod Pillagebane, Jason "Pencil Boy" Clubheart, all the rest of the pirates in the The 7th Brethren Court, notorious assassins Jim Logan and Jason Shiprat, King of Bohemia Ned Daggerkidd, and finally Jeremiah Garland and Lord Matthew Blastshot would look over the mission. It wasn't only those twenty, their "right-hand" men and women would also support the mission using gunfire.
Protecting the counter-Spanish rebellion was a monstrous gold mine and the withdrawal of it was lead by Sir Carlos Clemente. Our plan was to somehow get into the mine and plant a covered up trail of gun powder to simply blow the place up, and from there we fight whoever survived. Unfortunately, I don't think it will be that easy. The good part is, we'll temporarily block off the exit, so ol' Carlos won't get away. Meaning any of us can die, just at the cost of Clemente's death.
The mine was located in a Caribbean island you all probably know, Padres Del Fuego. Fort Dundee, Beckett's Quarry, the Catacombs, all these areas are hostile to Sir Carlos and are located on the same island as the mine is. Their get-away is the fact that the mine is hundreds of feet below all those other locations. The temperature is hard to handle.
Our whole party planned out the attack knowing the Casa Di Royale guild would stay in that mine for months, possibly a year, if necessary. The planning of it was in England, and once we figured every detail out, we set off for Padres. Our vessel was the HMS Faye, commodeered by Lord Matthew Blastshot. There was at least fifty of us, and the speed of the ship managed to get us overseas in just weeks. The nights before our arrival, I took a look at my assassination list and I crossed out Clemente's name and murmured to myself,
"Consider him dead..."
==Chapter XI - Operation Grand Finale==
Our plan to get ourselves into the cave was a simple disquise trick. Spade, who looks like a Spaniard, and two other Spaniards that the queen sent, walked into the cave with conquistador hats and a large sack of gun powder.
"State your business here," a Royale guard commanded.
"If you must know, we're the demolition squad, a large chunk of rock is in the way of a surplus of gold," Spade responded.
"I never heard reports of the need of a demolition squad, but I never really hear anything these days, go ahead,"
As Spade and the other two Spaniards entered, the area was full of chunks of gold. The Casa Di Royale would be almost as rich as Spain with all the gold they have! Good thing there was a way to stop it. In the cave, there was a second path that also led to the end. This path was deserted and had absolutely no gold. Spade and his men used that cave until they got to the end where they could easily see Carlos Clemente.
"There he is, just one shot away..." Spade whispered as he pulled out his pistol.
"Are you crazy?! Continue with the plans, it's going on perfectly," his escort responded with. They did just that, and at the end of the line of gun powder, there were about ten rum, gin, and vodka barrels, and they were fairly far apart just to prevent anyone from getting suspicious. Lord Andrew Mallace was also in disquise while all of us were waiting with our muskets, cannons, rifles, pistols, daggers, and shotguns at the entrance of the cave behind him, and Mallace lit off the gun powder. As he did, on the other side of the cave, Spade and his men quickly, but unnoticably walked away to the entrance. After we heard a large boom, we were all at the entrance of the cave with our guns loaded. Right after all the people in Casa Di Royale ran away from a likely cave-in, we opened fire at them while they ran towards us. And so, the battle began.
==Chapter XII - Clemente's Last Stand==
Gun smoke fogged up the battle, bullets swerved past my face, but I still managed to run every single Royale I saw with my sword. I looked back and noticed we were highly out-numbered, but it seemed that we gained more and more people for every shot fired as the enemies' bodies hit the ground. Unfortunately, we couldn't relax our efforts yet, as more and more hostile reinforcments sprinted in. Our spirits were down until we looked back and saw hundreds of red coats marching into the cave. King George must have sent reinforcements!
The red coats shot through an uncountable amount of enemies. It was perfect timing. With their help, the tables turned and we ended up dominating Casa di Royale.
"Where in the bloody hell is that scoundrel Clemente?" Jarod Pillagebane inquired after all the Royales seemed to be killed.
"There was a cave-in, he likely is dead or dying," I responded.
"It's never that easy, Johnny boy. Trust me, I've known Carlos before you even considered him an enemy," King George spoke up, as he walked into the cave, knowing it was now safe to enter.
"Aye, it wouldn't hurt to look for him," Sven Daggersteel agreed. We decided to stay in our large group and find him in the small area that's left of the cave system. We looked under hundreds of rocks, but there was no sign of him, once we got to the end of the cave, there was still nothing. That was until he I felt something pierce my back. Knowing my crew and I were immune to any bullets coming from a mortal, we turned around and opened fire. Even King George himself shot his golden flintlock pistol at Carlos' direction, and they were bombarded by gun fire until the smoke cleared and there was only one more man standing, and by our luck, it was Clemente.
"King George, I dreampt of the day when I was royalty just like you," he hissed.
"Carlos, those days are over. Hell, I dreampt of the days when we were on the same side," he argued.
"Please, I was betrayed by my own people," he argued back.
"You ended the golden age of the East India Trading Company, and now by killing you, we shall begin it once again. Gentlemen, open fire!" Augustus finalized the conversation with a shot from his pistol and about a hundred others, as Clemente laid on the rock he was once standing on. We walked out of the cave, spitting on his dead body. After everyone had their go in it, we lit a grenades and placed them in Clemente's pockets, we then walked away with an explosion to our back. No burial for him.
Mission Accomplished
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PLEASE NOTE: NOT ALL OF THIS REFLECTS OFF THE REAL WORLD OF POTCO ROLE-PLAY; THIS IS NOT HOW PEARSON ACTUALLY DIED.
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