#i thought playing as mercy and brig might make it easier

[thegreencarousel]

To the enemy Hanzo shit talking us the entire game, I think it's very embarrassing you lost to someone who's internet is lagging so badly that it's going backwards. My shots aren't connecting half of the time even though I'm in front of the person because I am moving in reverse OTL

[wgsphoenix]

messy tldw on the current meta. this is just first thoughts and i havent reviewed vods yet so i cant go over the interactions in detail. 

the base comp is sigma/ball, echo/tracer/ashe/sometimes mccree, zen/brig/mercy. orisa/sigma is also sometimes played but is only viable in limited situations

this comp is not dive so much as it is spam. the backline is too tanky to make diving useful, so it usually comes down to breaking sigma shield and forcing his cooldowns

theoretically a rush comp could mess with them, but after losing one fight it would be pretty easy to play around it (+ rein sucks). double shield has its moments on certain maps but losing one fight w/ it makes it hard to ever set back up and makes it hard to get value out of the dps that r strong rn

more in depth stuff under the cut

why ball/sigma is played

ball is the foundation of this comp. his speed, shield, disruption, and area denial w/ mines means he can literally spin circles around the other main tanks. winston has less of a capacity to survive cc than him and rein just is bad bc shatter sucks, limited mobility, he cant do anything when shielding, etc. orisa IS sometimes viable as a counter bc of fortify and supercharger, but she has no mobility and running anything but sigma with her is ineffective. hog/zarya doesnt work either but ill get to that later

its sorta a chicken or egg type thing but to me the rest of this comp is focused around denying the enemy ball value/capitalizing on your ball’s value. for this reason, sigma is the other tank paired with ball. his rock is a useful bit of cc, his shield can block burst and piledrive damage and destroy mines, and his grasp helps defend his supports from burst damage. his ultimate is also very good at isolating targets for a kill and also gives him high ground

none of the other main tanks are able to do everything that sigma does. winston can’t protect the backline and can’t poke at enemy shields, rein is bad, and orisa could protect her backline but this comp also focuses around shield break a lot so it’s easy to force her cooldowns and kill her

zarya isn’t played because she’s basically a free kill once her bubbles are used, she doesn’t have as much survivability as sigma does and she’s unable to do damage as she can’t get close enough to the other team’s backline to be effective. her ult is just worse flux specifically bc it doesnt give her high ground and it takes eons to charge. hog has good survivability, but can’t protect his backline during a push. hooking anything vs this comp would be very hard. his ult is comparatively shitty area control and he’s pretty helpless during it so he does fast. dva gets chewed up pretty fast by the dps and again this comp is very tanky so she can’t get much value out of dives. in terms of defending the backline, she’s just worse sigma. she might be playable on certain maps with lots of high ground, but i wouldn’t risk it. 

the mobility + burst dmg of the dps mean that hog/zarya isn’t viable anymore bc they just get burst down so fast, and neither of their ults/abilities do much compared to ball/sigma bc the comp is so spread out. also neither of them are able to protect the supports at all

runaway tried zarya/sigma for like 2 minutes and it sucked because they dont really have a frontline in this case and neither can begin an engage vs a dive

why tracer/echo/ashe is played

what makes dps strong in this meta is their ability to counter and synergize with ball. dps have to be able to chase him down, deal enough damage to force him away, and have the mobility to quickly switch targets to the enemy backline as soon as the ball is forced back. they also can’t be dps that he can feasibly 1v1. in terms of synergy, ball’s disruption makes for quick picks on out of position heroes, which means you need a LOT of focused damage, speed, and (vertical) mobility. on those qualifiers, widow, reaper, hanzo, junkrat, and doom are out. sombra and reaper can’t easily get assassinations so theyre out as well. sym torb and mei output a lot of damage and counter ball, but have no mobility and generally don’t synergize well with ball. bastion is (imo) always debatably playable in some kinda weird bunker setup, but usually not worth the risk and only works on certain maps

out of the heroes we’re left with (ashe, echo, genji, mccree, pharah, s76, and tracer), echo ashe tracer and mccree emerge as just. better versions of the others. echo has great mobility and her beam is essential for dealing w/ ball and enemy shields. her ult also fucks. pharah is just a worse version of her and can’t get as much value. tracer has a lot of survivability and mobility, and her kit allows her to get quick picks by sheer spam and force ults. genji has mobility but can’t survive as well as tracer and you have to invest a lot more into making his ult get value. ashe outputs a lot of damage, charges her ult fast w/ dynamite, and also has vertical mobility with her coach gun. her ult is good for area control. mccree is more or less the same, but you trade mobility for cc and slightly more tankiness. s76 has none of those and just sucks

i’ve only seen the cree played in APAC a bit as a replacement for the tracer, i think to give more stability to the backline and to make it easier to handle the echo. that feels more like a playstyle thing than anything else. 

the sigma pick is mostly a reaction to these dps. echo absolutely chews up tanks (minus sigma), and sigma can eat pulse and echo right click on top of having a shield + cc so hes kinda a must pick

tracer/echo is the most common duo, with tracer/ashe, ashe/echo, mccree/echo, and ashe/mccree being played on certain maps/by certain teams. NA/EU hasnt played anything with mccree so far. i dont have a complete handle on how they stack up yet but i think i like mccree/echo and tracer/echo best so far

you Could try to run a more divey dps duo i guess, but that’s more easily counterable than sticking with meta

why zen/brig/mercy is played

lucio and moira can’t be played because they have extremely limited range. dive is easily countered right now, so your backline isn’t going to have any easy escapes. zen is the most played support in this comp bc he does tons of damage to shields + discord is great for quick kills (havent made specific notes of it but itll be interesting to see where his harmony/discord usually go). trance is good for surviving flux + surviving spam in general. ana has more heals, but less value bc her nade is pretty easily blocked/eaten and bc nano is single target

brig + mercy are viable in different situations. brig is still sorta tanky + can defend against ball w/ cc and has rally as a backup while also doing pretty good heals. mercy is played on maps with good vertical mobility, usually alongside the ashe. balls have to play more carefully in that circumstance to not die. mercy also allows for echo to go hyper aggro, + valk is a good tempo ult. im not sure which i prefer, and id need to vod review to look at the interactions in detail

misc notes/interactions off the top of my head

echo and tracer end up chasing the ball off a lot and/or killing him, especially w/ beam. ball has to play REALLY careful in this comp and will still take a lot of damage regardless. ults charge fast

tracers duel each other sometimes, but i dont think ive seen many echo fights

echo beam also is good against sigma shield and uses her right click to force grasp so tracer can pulse (ive seen that like once but i think its happening more than that)

in this meta piledriving as ball into more than one target can be a death sentence. jihun did this a lot and was punished harshly for it, but his team also was always Right There when he did (kalios shielded right in front of him so he’d take less damage), but i think it just ended up burning more cooldowns than getting value

individual teams are centering different players, and running different dps/supports to do so. i don’t think there’s an optimal playstyle when it comes to revolving around different dps and that its based on player comfort. the one thing you absolutely should not do is make your ball the playmaker cough cough abang cough

if i have to see one more team pull out the genji i’m gonna scream

[poeticsandaliens]

A Pirate’s Life For Me Ch. 9

Pairing: Stella/Scully

Rating: M?

Summary: Aboard Spender’s ship, Stella makes a bargain for Mulder and Scully’s release.

Previous Chapters: 

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8

Full Story on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11405793/chapters/25547709

This chapter owned me for so long; I’m relieved to see it finished. We’re getting towards the end, and boy it’s a journey. Tagging @today-in-fic.

Stella’s eyes swept the ship dangerously, softening as they met Scully’s unbandaged one. She hopped from the ropes, landing with a thump between Spender and Scully. Scully felt half a dozen swords poke into her back as the pirates surrounded them.

Stella, I hope you know what you’re doing. The odds stood unquestionably against them. If Stella made a sudden move, Scully was certain a rapier would stick her through. Maybe Stella couldn’t be killed, but the rest of them certainly could.

Spender blew a puff of smoke in her face. “You must be the Dutchman’s illustrious captain,” he drawled, gazing at her lazily. He licked his lips, and his cheeks crinkled into a sneer. “I know a man who’d pay any price to see you dead.”

Stella lifted her sword point to the old man’s neck. The redcoats closed in, bayonets raised, but Spender calmly held up his hand. He dragged from his pipe.

“Fetch me Paul Spector,” she snarled, low and dangerous.

Spender chuckled, clicking his tongue. “Now, Captain Gibson, you’re in no place to make demands of me. Even if I were to acquiesce, Captain Spector is on shore, digging up your heart. Davy Jones won’t dare chase her enemy onto dry land.”

He broke off into a hacking cough, doubling over, one withered hand on his knee, the other clutching his pipe. “Captain,” he rasped, his hunched body rising to meet her eyes. “What will you give me in exchange for your revenge? A heart, perhaps?”

“Only your own heart, still beating. I could kill you; I have nothing to lose.”

“Captain Gibson,” he clucked hoarsely, “let me tell you what I think. I think you’re bluffing, and in fact, you have everything to lose. I think that pretty little redhead came here on your ship, and I think you’ve come to care very much about her safety.” He nodded to a scruffy sailor beside Scully. “She’s already missing one eye. Even her out and take the other.”

Stella whirled like a viper, blocking the buccaneer’s strike. “Don’t you touch her.”

Scully writhed against her restraints. “He’s playing you,” she growled, shoving her captor with her shoulder. “He’s a coward.”

Mulder shifted uncomfortably. Careful, Scully. She knew he was thinking it, even if he dared not speak aloud.

“The captain knows I’ve played her, Miss Scully,” Spender said coldly. “Who would have guessed the Dutchman’s deadalive bastard could love something through those hollow ribs of hers?”

Stella returned her sword to Governor Spender’s throat. “Where is Paul Spector?” she snarled. “Tell me where he is and I’ll make you a bargain you can’t refuse.”

Spender cleared his throat. “Spector is ashore.”

“Liar. You would never send Spector to shore alone. He would put that knife through my heart without hesitation, and you want me alive. Spector, though…” she tilted her head, studying the enemy with an unnerving stoicism.

Slowly, Spender reached into the pocket hanging from his belt and procured a small, silver blade rusted at the tip and crooked from abuse. “You’re right. I would never send him ashore if he could kill you. But if Spector wants to stab your heart, he needs this knife to do so.” His lips curled into a distorted grin. “No hard feelings, Sea Devil.”

Stella lifted her chin. “Perhaps a bargain. Quid pro quo. You let Mulder and Scully free, and I take their place. You bring me Paul Spector and walk away the most powerful man alive.”

Spender eyed her, smoke curling about his withered cheeks. “You seem adamant that Captain Spector be at your mercy.” He studied her, then blew another puff of smoke. “Why?”

“He’s a murderer who will serve his punishment.”

“We are all murderers, Gibson,” Spender patronized, clicking his tongue.

“He raped and murdered a woman aboard the Ophelia, and as its former captain, it is my duty to serve him justice.”

Spender snorted. “There is no justice among thieves,” he drawled. “Allow me to clarify my meaning: why do you think I will hand over Paul Spector at the snap of your fingers? You have many demands, Gibson, and I’ve no reason to acquiesce to such an unfavorable bargain.”

“Oh, I think you do,” growled Stella. “Captain Spender, you wither before our eyes. You are old, marching toward the death that will take us all, and you never knew enough about pirate myths to find my heart on your own. You needed Spector; you needed his youth and physicality, and his pirate roots. Now, though, you need him out of the way. If he got his hands on that knife he would turn on you in a heartbeat, but you can’t let that happen.” She leered at him. Scully had never seen this Stella—the vengeful Stella, tracing circles about Spenders body with her sword. It discomfited her to witness the lawless, no-holds-barred pirate in Stella, even if it manifested to earn their freedom. Perhaps it was a flawless performance, but Scully suspected that while dramatic, this Stella was not altogether a fabrication. She could feel Mulder shiver, mirroring the tingles on her spine.

Stella turned on her heel, her gaze sweeping Spender and his crew. “You couldn’t command the Dutchman; you couldn’t live alone with yourself in exchange for immortality. No, you only want to hold me under threat and use the Dutchman as your pawn, to destroy any competition to your country and company’s trade under the guise of bloodthirsty pirates. You’re not a corsair; you’re a statesman.

“And for that reason, you would do anything to make Spector disappear. At the first opportunity he’ll make off with the heart and ship himself and leave you bleeding to death beneath his flag. You knew that when you recruited him. You don’t have the manpower to kill him and his crew, so until he’s gone he’s a wrench in your plan.”

She lowered her sword. “Let me propose this: you let Mulder and Scully free. The Dutchman brings them home, and I remain your prisoner. Then, I duel Paul Spector to the death. With him out of your way, you take my heart, and the ship of demons sails under your command.”

“Scully,” Mulder whispered sharply.

She craned her neck to hear him. “What?”

“I need to know—” his voice was urgent— “do you really trust her?”

For an agonizing moment, Scully hesitated. She had trusted Stella nearly the night she’d met her, but somewhere down the line she’d come to desire and even love Stella Gibson. Love was dangerous, volatile, would gamble her heart in the hands of strangers if it thought they would love her back. Stella, though—she trusted Stella before she loved her, not because of it.

She angled her lips to his ear. “Yes Mulder. I trust her.”

Governor Spender seemed to shrivel beneath Stella’s glare, his face sinking haggardly into itself. He pursed his lips, and his wrinkles folded into something bitter and unhinged. He teetered on the precipice of temptation—it was so much easier to give into her demands than to resist. It was so much more pragmatic, and Scully could see Stella had backed him into a corner. He sighed raggedly and dipped his head in ascent.

“All right, Sea Devil. You have yourself a deal.” He nodded to his men. “Free the prisoners, but not until the moment you have her in cuffs.”

Stella dropped her sword and held out her wrists, but as Spender’s men reached for her, she backed into the wall of the ship until she stood between Scully and the crew. Scully could smell the sea on her hair and the gunpowder on her skin, she was so close. She breathed in the comfort of Stella.

“I want their weapons down,” Stella ordered.

Scully could see Spender redden impatiently. “Very well,” he croaked, snapping his fingers.

Slowly, the redcoats dropped their swords and pistols on the deck. A young man stepped forward with cuffs, and Scully winced as they clicked around Stella’s arms.

Stella turned to face her, coat brushing coat, skin brushing skin, if only for a moment. “Pirate’s life,” Stella whispered hoarsely. “Don’t worry for me.”

Scully tilted her head, to catch a glimpse of Stella’s face through her unbroken eye. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I’m saving your life,” she murmured, tightening her lips, “and I’m avenging the Ophelia. We’ve both done what we came here to do, Scully. We can ask for nothing more.”

Scully felt her own cuffs come loose, and beside her, Mulder let out a relieved breath. A gruff pair of hands tugged Stella’s shoulder.

“Go home,” she said calmly, as Spender disappeared into the Captain’s cabin, and three of his men guided Stella below deck. They carried her rapier, her pistol, her hat, reaping her history like market goods.

Another man in a scarlet uniform pushed Scully toward the plank. She doubled over. “Stella—” but a rough shove cut her off.

“The Dutchman will come for you,” promised Stella’s rolling voice. And that was the last Scully saw of her before she vanished into the brig.

The Dutchman will come for us, she repeated as she and Mulder were hoisted onto boxes.

“Whatever happened to walking the plank?” she heard Mulder grumble. He stood to her left, but where her peripheral vision might have captured him, there was only a bloody bandage and an emptiness that consumed her if she focused for too long.

The Dutchman will come for us, as their captors pushed their shoulders over the wall, tossed their swords and pistols into the waves, piece by piece. As crystal water churned and lapped for them, straining against the ship. The Dutchman will always come. She didn’t give Spender’s men the satisfaction of seeing her flail when she leapt into the water.

The waves were comfortingly cool, but she struggled to stay afloat in drenched clothing. Her eyes squeezed shut, she dove to the bottom and felt around the sand for her possessions. A pistol brushed her palm almost instantly, and she recognized its engraved handle as her father’s. Otherwise, all she felt was silt and salt, engulfing her in clouds.

She rose again, sputtering. “Mulder!” she shouted, wiping the salt water from her eye. His blurry shape emerged further from the retreating ship, and she swam toward him frantically. “Mulder, are you all right?” She ran her hand over his soaked cheek and clung to him like a lifeline.

He coughed and shook out his hair. “Yes,” he croaked, “although it hardly matters.” He treaded against the Caribbean sea, exhaustion settling into his features. “We’re going to die here. Either we’ll be killed when we set foot on that island, or we’ll drown.”

“No. We will not die here. I came to save your life, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” She pulled him out to sea by his shirt, putting distance between them and the Claudius. Spender’s men stood like slender trees along the wall of the ship, watching them flounder at sea.

Stella. She couldn’t help but look back at the foreboding vessel. Stella, Stella, Stella, her lover’s name crawled up her throat and into her ears, and all she could imagine when she glanced over her shoulder at the Claudius was Stella locked in its brig. Or perhaps seated across from Spender’s lecherous face, inhaling his pipe smoke. She thought of his wrinkled hands mishandling Stella’s beating heart while she wasted below deck, bent to his orders. Would Stella ever let Spender take the Dutchman from her? Or would she rather he let some hapless soldier stab her heart, and be bound to her ship for eternity? She would think of holding them off until the Dutchman returned Mulder and Scully to Port Washington.

No. They wouldn’t go to Port Washington. Not without Stella Gibson.

The water bubbled beneath her feet, as if something—or someone—moved beneath her. Mulder startled from her grip, limbs flailing. He probably thought it was the fucking kraken. He swam out of the way of rising water column, coming to rest a few meters away.

“Mulder, come back!” she rolled her eyes. It was a familiar current, rolling beneath her. She knew what the bubbling surface of the sea churned up, and she welcomed it.

“Scully, you may not believe in merfolk,” he called to her, “but we don’t know what unearthly creatures live in this lagoon.”

The curled bow of a rowboat broke the surface with zeal, creaking and spraying sea foam into the air. Scully felt it rock against her feet as it lifted her out of the water, and its bucket began to empty the ocean from its confines. She was relieved to see her possessions—sword and all—tucked safely at her feet and didn’t bother to question their presence. Scully shivered at the sudden touch of wind as the boat slapped waves and drifted steadily toward Mulder.

Mulder was motionless but for his treading legs. His jaw hung open as he took in the barnacle-laden rowboat, elaborately crafted, its oars rowing themselves forward. Scully reached over the side of the boat and offered her hand. Wordlessly, he took it, and together they hauled him into the boat. A shiver slid his spine, and he drew his knees to his chest. Again, Scully was struck by his lanky frame, the weight he had lost and the dramatic sharpness of his angles. Composed of dark circles and tough bones, he needed rest. He needed food.

“Scully,” he breathed, shaking the saltwater from his hair and face. “Scully, where the hell are we?” He gazed at her through earnest eyes, always questioning.

She took a long, slow breath and looked at him—really looked at him, right through his skull the way no one else could. “We’re going to the Flying Dutchman, Mulder.”

She wasn’t sure, after months without him, if Mulder’s silence signaled acceptance or disorientation. There was something unfathomably lonely about his features in this light, and she softened to his attitude. Instead of puzzling over him, she watched the cliffs pass them by as they arced around a rocky peninsula. Slowly, the cliffs gave way to open ocean. Slowly, the Dutchman’s bare masts and Jolly Rodger fell into view. Its greened boards, suffocated by barnacles and slick seaweed, its bundled sails, its proud stern reaching for gulls overhead.

The Dutchman will always come.

The rowboat tucked into the side of the ship, and she reached for the rope ladder to pull herself over the wall. Mulder followed her lead, still quiet, still stunned. As soon as they had boarded the ship, the sails dropped around them, and she heard the anchor rise. Wind billowed toward the island, beating their sails relentlessly, and the Dutchman braced against it.

Mulder craned his neck to the flag. Scully remembered the owl perched atop the crow’s nest, now nowhere to be seen. As she gathered her sword and coat from the rowboat, where it hung over the side of Stella’s ship, Mulder wandered aimlessly about the deck, soaking wet and utterly confused.

“Mulder,” she called and angled her head to the Captain’s cabin. “Come on.”

He followed her into the lush cabin. Stella’s clothing was still strewn to dry over the fireplace. Stella’s bandanna rested on a chair. The bedroom door hung open, revealing tousled sheets, the smell of candles and rum. She hung her coat by the fire and went into the bedroom to change.

When she came out, bearing clean clothes and bottle of rum, she found Mulder seated in a dining chair, resting his chin on his hand and focusing intensely on nothing in particular. She tossed him an oversized linen shirt, the same shirt of her brother’s that she had stolen the night she stowed away. It landed on the table in front of him. “It’s dry,” she explained nonchalantly. A pause. “Mulder?”

He shook himself from a stupor. “I’m sorry, I just… I’m not used to this.”

“Not used to what?”

“This place.” He sounded affronted that she’d even ask. “This ghost ship, this pirate life, this—” he gestured between them. “—thing of getting used to each other again. I don’t know what to make of it yet.”

She felt for a moment as though she’d taken his place. Mulder was the man of myths and archives, and here she was striding about the home of Davy Jones, loving a living legend. And here Mulder sat, mere hours out of captivity. There was the loneliness again, seeping into his hazel eyes, and it only then struck her how long they had both been away from home.

Mulder had been gone for months, and the Scully who found him was not the Scully he left. She’d seen monsters of which he could only dream. She knew the sea like he’d never had a chance to learn, and now, he was alone in the Caribbean, re-learning the woman he once knew best.

“Mulder,” she said softly, sitting down beside him and taking his hands into hers. “You don’t have to be accustomed to me yet. I’ve lived like a pirate for the last few moons. Hell, I’ve lived with an undead pirate. I can’t pretend to understand what you’ve been through, and you cannot understand what I went through to get you back, but I would do it all over again. Every day, every fucking day of it.”

 At that, he grinned, lopsided and child-like. “You’re crasser than the Scully I left behind.” Gingerly, he touched the bandage wound around her eye, and his lip trembled. “I’m sorry for what happened, Scully. I’m sorry for your eye, and… I’m sorry for Stella.”

The cadence of his voice gave her pause. He was apologizing, but also asking—how close was she to Stella Gibson? She faltered, unsure whether she was prepared to answer.

“It’s okay,” she promised. She leaned forward until her forehead balanced against his. “It’s okay. I’m going to get her back.”

Mulder lifted his head, just barely. He nodded and asked, still running his thumb comfortingly over her hand, still holding her like he had so many times, “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

She couldn’t swallow the sob that seized her. It squeezed her throat like a kraken’s arm. Tears welled in her eye, threatening to spill and pool into the sleepless bags above her cheeks. Her lip trembled, and she allowed herself to sink into Mulder’s arms as she wept. Not just for Stella, but for her bloody eye socket, for Mulder’s gaunt face, for the life they were walking into. She wept for her mother alone in the house on the hill, for the nameless woman who died at Spector’s hand, and for Dani and Tom on the Ophelia listening to their captain sing as she sliced out her own heart.

Maybe, maybe, Scully understood now, why Stella locked herself alone in that cabin. Why she hunched against a rocking cabinet and sang to drown out her own pain when she shoved Padgett’s knife into her sternum. Why she took the chest from her father’s nightstand, why she sequestered herself on a ship of ghosts.

“I don’t know,” she croaked. Maybe she loves her. Almost, if only with more time and less urgency.

“Oh, Scully.” Mulder engulfed her in a hug, settling her chin on his head and stroking her shorn hair. “She would only do that for someone she loves unequivocally, you know that.”

She whimpered, tried too hard not to. “I know.”

“What are you going to do?”

What Stella would do. “I’m going—” a painful hiccup— “I’m going to save her. We’re going to save her.”

Mulder released her with a warm smile. “That’s the Scully I know and love.”

Shakily, Scully got to her feet. Her eye was beginning to throb, like tiny bullets pulsing through her skull. She swallowed hard and ignored the sting of salt on blood. “The Dutchman was ordered to take us home,” she told Mulder, slowly regaining her staunch confidence. “We’re going to change its mind.”

She snatched Stella’s bandanna off the chair and with delicate fingers, pulled the soaked rag off her face. That was where the rum came in—it would clean the salt and dirt from her wound, at least temporarily, and prevent the worst infections until she could properly look after it. One hand covered her good eye; the other topped the bottle with her thumb and dribbled it messily into where she thought the bloody socket would be. She winced as it touched her skin and squeezed Mulder’s hand. If she was hurting him, he didn’t protest. Satisfied the booze had done its job, she tied Stella’s kerchief around her head. It seemed the bleeding had stopped, at least, because all she smelled in the new tourniquet was alcohol.

She inhaled through her nose and exhaled through tight lips. “Let’s go.”

Ropes flew about the deck, and sails twerked and flapped, lusting after a tailwind. Scully climbed the stairs to the wheel and grasped its spoke, just as she’d seen Stella do so many times, wrapping her fingers around the smooth wood and angling her body to the horizon. Today, though, she tore the Dutchman away from the dome of a setting sun. She tugged the wheel toward the Hall of the Moerae, but it resisted.

Mulder hurried up the stairs. She beckoned to the wheel, “Mulder, help me out,” and he grabbed onto another spoke, pulling with all his might. The wheel didn’t budge.

“The Dutchman wants to go to sea,” he said defeatedly, letting go of the wheel and resting his hands on his knees. “Stella told it to take us home, and it only listens to its captain.”

Scully narrowed her eye. She folded her arms over her chest, arched her eyebrow skeptically. If this ship would obey Stella, it could listen to her. “Not today.” She lifted her arms and swept the ship with a hardened visage and a challenging eye. “You hear that?” she shouted. “You will listen to me! All of you! Every ruined soul on this ship will stop what it’s doing and listen!” She unsheathed her sword—Stella’s father’s sword—with a smooth snick, and raised it to the sails, curling her fist around the railing and planting her feet on the stern.

“If you ever want to see a Heaven or an Underworld, you will obey my command. Davy Jones isn’t here! I am! The wind’s on my side, and the Dutchman will sail for me. Now I want a full canvas, and every cannon at the ready.” She approached the wheel and gave it an experimental thrust. It creaked and spun, humming like a cricket on its axle, and the ship groaned beneath her feet as it banked starboard.

Scully narrowed her eyes at the approaching cliffs. “Mulder!” she snapped. He looked at her with a combination of pride and awe. “Get up to the crow’s nest, now!”

He nodded and with neither pause nor question hurried down the stairs, hopping on to the foremast webbing. He climbed like a spider. Scully followed him, clambering up the stale ropes until she reached the glorified bucket where she could overlook the island. “Now,” she told the ship, “Sink, undetected, until the only thing above water is our heads.”

Mulder looked at her as if she’d gone insane, but he didn’t protest. Slowly, the sea approached them, the Dutchman disappearing undersea as if it had never been more than a mirage. The sea lapped at her chest, but she kept her feet planted firmly atop the mast. They drifted past the white cliffs, past hordes of screaming gulls and back into the lagoon. The Claudius hadn’t budged. Then, as she surveyed the shoreline, her breath caught in her throat.

Specks of men in rowboats, approaching the Claudius. In the front boat, a man stood stiff against the whitecaps, carrying what looked like a treasure chest under his arm. So, he had found Stella’s heart after all. She stiffened, and underwater Mulder clasped her hand. “They knew where to look,” he murmured gravely.

Scully clenched her jaw. “He won’t open it. Not before I blow him to smithereens.”

“What about Stella?”

The wan smile that passed Scully’s lips was chilling, and she allowed it to be. “Stella can’t die.”

They closed in on the unsuspecting redcoats, creeping up until they nearly paralleled the Claudius. “Hold on, Mulder,” she muttered, then to the ship, barely louder— “Cannons at the ready, rise for battle.”

She gripped the flagpole with both hands as the mast rumbled, and the water at her neck roiled violently. The ocean shook like its gods were rising from the sand, and all Hell was coming loose. The Dutchman erupted toward the sky, arching backwards and then hurling its weight toward the bow. Scully could hear Spender’s men shout and curse, and in her peripheral, she spotted some of them scrambling chaotically about the Claudius’s deck. Others stood stone-still, as if they hadn’t believed the Dutchman truly existed. A surge of electricity ran through Scully’s veins, towering as she was beside the Jolly Rodger. Her lip curled; the ragged, rum-soaked ends of her bandage flapped in the breeze; she faced head-on the men who took her captain and her eye, as she bellowed from deep in her chest, “Fire all!”

Cannons rattled. The Claudius didn’t even have time to open its gun ports before cannonballs ripped through its flank. Flames erupted from the ballast first, barrels of gunpowder shooting into the sky. The ship’s starboard flank shone like a foreboding dawn, before it burst into splinters and ash with a force that rocked the Dutchman. Soldiers and buccaneers alike leapt into the water; wreckage flew in all directions. The sky turned the color of rotting wood as the ship smoldered. The mizzenmast was the first to fall, toppling into the quarterdeck with a resounding crack. Then, the other two poles, the black flag flailing with them. The ship split in half; fire burst from its underbelly.

The Dutchman fired its last row of cannonballs and sailed out of its way. Scully watched the destruction, her mouth set in a grim line. If you want to live, you have to be able to live your own actions, Stella’s voice rang in her head. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of burning wood. She could live with this.