How to Take the Kill Shot - Part Four by: Enemyoffun Jonas Oliver's life has been turned upside down. While on vacation his parents are murdered, he's stranded on a deserted island and all he can think about is revenge. The only tools he has are his intellect, his overwhelming sense of right and wrong and his skill with a bow.

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Author's Note: Today is only a one chapter post. It's Jonas Vs. The Pirates. Once again I have to say that Green Arrow is a trademark and copyright of DC Comics. I'd also like to thank djkauf for the fabulous editing job and Lynceus for the awesome "hero support".

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Chapter Six:

I crept along the hallway, keeping my bow raised the whole time. BB taught Roy and me how to hunt like his people. He took us both on a hunting trip when we were eight and showed us the finer point of deer hunting. He said his people had a knack for sneaking up on their target without being seen. It was all about the way you stepped and how you carried your weight. He demonstrated but not on a deer. Instead, he crept up on a bush and fired an arrow into it. Roy and I were a little skeptical because it was a bush after all. But BB said the principle was sound. He showed us another demonstration by sneaking up on a rabbit. He got pretty close before he fired his shot. But he didn’t kill it; he never killed anything.

I was creeping along now, padding down the hall in my bare feet, not making a sound. I was on the fifth deck of the ship now, moving my way up to the top. Apparently, I seemed to be the only person they didn’t have locked down. To me it felt like an inside job, it was the only explanation. They came in, emptied out all the rooms and took everyone somewhere else. They had to know the manifest and roster to know who was on the ship. Which meant either that they had a hacker or someone from the cruise line gave them the information. I knew that Queen Star Cruise, a subsidiary of Queen Industries, ran one of the best security mainframes in the world. Old man Queen---aka my Grandfather---would never have allowed a hacker into his system. He knew “everything about everyone”; my mother used to say it was “his business”.

My business was to find the bad guys and put a stop to them. I know it sounded corny but it was really the only way. I made an oath, a solemn vow that no one would be put in harm’s way when I was around. These people were in trouble and someone needed to help them. That sounded even cornier but I wasn’t going to let these bastards get away with this.

When I rounded the corner, I came upon my first pirate. I took a deep breath and slipped back around the corner. There was only one of them. He was a greasy looking guy, holding an AK47, standing between me and the only way up to the top deck. There were a couple ways I could do this: kill or wound. Well, actually only one way and it was the simplest for me. I took another deep breath and snapped around the corner, firing as I did so. My arrow whizzed through the air and found its target. I hit the son of a bitch in the left shoulder, putting the arrow right underneath the collarbone. He screamed out in pain and dropped his machine gun.

I slipped down the hall. He saw me coming and tried to stand up but the pain was too much. I smacked him as hard as I could with the limb of the bow. I heard a crack and for a second I thought it was the bow. Then I realized it was his jaw. He dropped face first onto the carpet, unconscious from my blow. Well, either that or the blood seeping from his shoulder. I checked him to make sure he was out cold. I tried to retrieve my arrow but he broke it when he fell. That’s got to be painful. Snapping an arrow when it was inside of you was never a good thing but then again pulling it out wasn’t very bright either.

I rifled through the pockets of his coat, looking for anything that might ID him. I found a wallet but there was no driver’s license in it. There was a lot of money though, way too much for a thug like him to have. I took it all, sticking it in the only place I could: my bikini top. Where the hell did he get all that money? I know it was wrong for a hero to take from the bad guy but it was over five hundred bucks. In fact, it felt a little uncomfortable pressed against my chest---I’m refusing to acknowledge them as boobs.

I stepped over him and went up the stairs. I was amazed at how big and open everything was. It was so clean too. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. I mean I’d seen the TV commercials and the brochures, but they didn’t do it justice. It was like a floating hotel. When I walked up those stairs, I didn’t even know I was on a ship. Everything looked as if it should. I was half expecting to see the cast from Love Boat walk by---yes, I know what it is, I watch a lot of TV Land. I’d like to describe what I was seeing but I didn’t even know where to begin. I could feel the breeze on my face and smell the salty sea air. For a moment I closed my eyes and felt like I was still on Starfish Island---cool name, huh, I thought it up just now.

I unfortunately didn’t get much time to take in the sights.

Two guys came walking up, leisurely holding their guns. They didn’t see me, which was to my advantage. Merlyn always said an archer has two great weapons at his disposal: speed and accuracy. He demonstrated it by setting up four targets; each one had a balloon attached to it. He gave me a stopwatch and told me to time him. When I told him go it was so fast. He drew and fired all within a blink of an eye. One balloon popped then the other until they were all gone. I timed him at just less than twenty seconds. I’m not sure if that was good or not but he seemed impressed by it. My first speed trial didn’t go so well, I did it in about forty five seconds but he told me it was better than when he first started learning.

But I kept working at it. Two months before we left, shortly after learning about my condition, something changed…

>-------------------------------------------------->

“Ten seconds” said Roy as he hit the button, stopping the timer.

It many have been strange to fire so many arrows like that but I thought it was kind of awesome.

>-------------------------------------------------->

The two pirates were laughing and still didn’t notice me.

I clung to the wall, staying in the shadows. I was able to blend in with the green table umbrella right next to me. It was the best disguise. The two of them were talking about the passengers, laughing at how easy it was. They were pretty carefree about it too. It was hard to understand them because they were switching between Spanish and English, which was kind of strange. One of them was clearly American while the other was of Hispanic origin---I didn’t want to speculate because my mother always taught me that that was rude.

They started walking closer. “What the hell is the boss going to do with a cruise ship anyway?” asked the American.

‘I heard he wasn’t really after the ship. It was the guy who owned it. Someone paid him big money for this.” The guy who owned it? What the hell would a pirate want with my grandfather? Granted it was a multi-billionaire but he had nothing to do with pirates. Queen Industries had their hands all over the world, in just about everything. But they were legit, unlike some other corporations. There was no way my grandfather would have anything to do with pirates. As far as someone paying a pirate to capture one of my grandfather’s ships, a few people came to mind. It was all over the news; some big company was trying to buy out Queen Industries. The company’s name was left out but there was a lot of speculation as to who it might be. But were they stupid enough to pull this?

I let anger get the best of me.

I fired my first shot, hitting the American in the shoulder. Shoulder shots were the easiest way to subdue someone. But I couldn’t help but think there had to be another way without actually harming people. But it did the trick. The bastard fell to the ground. His companion was too slow. I dropped him with an arrow to the thigh. Both men hit the deck about the same time, withering in pain. I nocked another arrow and sidled over, keeping them in my sights. But neither was in any shape to fight back. Just to make sure though, I kicked their guns away.

“What the fuck?” snapped the American, trying to pull the arrow out of his shoulder?
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you”.

I made my voice as cold as possible. I wanted to sound threatening and not like the girl, I appeared to be. I don’t think it worked out all that well. They both laughed through their pain.

“It’s a chica,” said the Hispanic. “What the hell are you supposed to be?” I kicked him in the face. Ok I’m only fourteen years old---fifteen actually, because my birthday was in September--- me kicking a grown man in the face shouldn’t have caused much damage. So I was a bit surprised when I actually broke his nose. Maybe all that exercise actually paid off.

“I’m asking the questions around here.”

The American was no longer in any shape to answer anything. In fact, the pain from both his shoulder and his face caused him to pass out. I smirked, surprised that I’d actually done something so vicious. But I didn’t have time to be Mr. Courteous. There were people’s lives at stake here. “Looks like it’s just you and me.”

The Hispanic wasn’t in the best of shape either. The arrow in his leg must have hurt like a bitch. He was twitching and moaning, doing everything to stay conscious. He was feebly trying to pull it out but he was so weak that his fingers could barely grasp it.

‘You shot me in the leg,” he moaned.

I nodded. “If you don’t want a matching one in your throat then you’re going to tell me what I want to know?”

He nodded. So I asked the questions and he gave me the answers. I found out that there were twelve of them altogether, which mean I had about nine left. They came in two speedboats and took the ship by surprise. Most of the passengers were already in the dining hall eating lunch and watching some horrible magic act. The rest were at either the pool or doing some other stupid activity. When I asked them why they hit the cruise ship, he said he didn’t know because they usually went for yachts. The cruise ship was too big to sell and there were too many people onboard. But the boss was adamant about it, apparently he was being paid handsomely for it. I asked him if he knew who their mysterious employer was but he shook his head. He passed out shortly after my questions but I got what I needed to know.

I left him and his friend. The passengers were being held in the dining hall while the crew was locked in the bridge. That’s where the boss was too. It was the ideal place to go but I wanted to secure the hostages first. According to my bleeding friend, four guys were left in charge of guard duty; he and his friend were sentries. The guy downstairs was in charge of rounding up any stragglers. This meant the boss had about four guys with him. Twelve guys altogether. I silently counted my arrows. I had twenty to begin with and was down by three, which left me plenty for the deed.

I made my way silently down the deck, passing several tables with giant umbrellas and deck chairs. The entrance to the dining room was on the other side of the pool. When I reached the pool, I sighed. I’d always wanted to swim in one of those pools. When my parents went on their cruise they couldn’t stop talking about the pool and other things. I felt a pang as I looked at the crystal clear water, knowing that I’d never be able to take the trip with them like they promised.

The dining room was huge. It was two floors; the top floor was visible through the large glass windows that surrounded it. I peered through one of those windows, seeing one guy on the top level while the other three were downstairs with a whole bunch of people. This isn’t going to be easy. As soon as I opened a door, that bastard was going to start shooting. I needed a distraction.

I found one in the form of a golf cart. Yes, there was an actual golf cart on the top deck. I think it went with the miniature golf course that was right nearby. I tried to force back my excitement because that was so fricking cool. Instead, I concentrated on the task. I ran over to the golf cart, shocked that the keys were still in the ignition. I’d actually driven one once before. My father was a golfer and liked to drag me to the course. I hated everything about the game, it was real boring---I liked mini-golf though---but he let me drive the cart. It was the coolest thing in the world.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t driving it now. I found a life jacket nearby and jammed the gas pedal with it. Then I turned the ignition. The cart purred to life and I let her go. I had t pointed at the glass door leading into the dining room. My wish was for it to crash into the door and cause enough of a bang to draw the guard out. It didn’t go quite like I planned.

The cart hit the door all right but instead of stopping it went right through the glass. The pirate turned and started firing. But he was shooting at nothing. I think he realized it about ten seconds before the cart barreled into him. It was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. The cart ran right over him and skidded to a halt inches from going over the side of the rail. It sputtered to a stop.

I ran over to check the man’s pulse to make sure I hadn’t killed him. He was lying flat on his back, groaning. So he wasn’t dead, which was a good thing.
The bad thing was my distraction worked a little better than I thought. It caused too much of a commotion and drew a guy from the bottom up the stairs. He came charging at me, machine gun at the ready. He fired; a burst of it hit the ground right in front of me. I stumbled back, tripping over my own two feet. I managed to get up and fell into a table. I went over the top of it, causing it to tip on its side and crash with me. Plates and silverware broke and scattered all over the place. The pirate advanced on me, firing another burst.

I used the table as cover. It wasn’t wood like most dining places. It was actually metal, which saved my life.

The pirate advanced. I pulled an arrow from my quiver but realized one very important thing. I lost my bow; I think I dropped it when he started shooting. Damn, some hero I turned out to be. He started shooting again. I was screwed. I needed to do something so I fumbled for a weapon. My hands came across something long and shiny. I didn’t bother to see what it was. I snapped up and let it fly. It flew with great speed and accuracy, which was fricking unbelievable. It hit the pirate right in the forehead.

He screamed and fired downwards, shooting his own feet. Which I think made him scream even more. Me, I was shocked as hell. I realized what I’d just thrown at him: it was a fork.

“Holy Hannah” I gasped.

I walked over to the golf cart guy and found my bow lying there. I picked it up and nocked an arrow. Fork head guy sat up and reached for his gun. I put an arrow in his shoulder and he screamed. I smacked him in the face with the limb of the bow, silencing his agony.

I ran to the railing and looked down. All the hostages were in the center of the dining room, there had to be at least two hundred people down there. They were murmuring and looking around. The noise was quite loud. The two guards were looking kind of nervous. I think they were debating whether or not to leave their posts or stand guard. One finally made up his mind and started running for the stairs. The other stayed below. I’m not sure if either saw me or not, but I wasn’t going to take that chance. I drew another arrow and fired. I hit one on the stairs in the right leg, just above the knee, exactly where I was aiming.
He took a stumble and fell down the stairs. When he hit the ground, he was out cold.

The last ran and took cover behind the bar. He raised his machine gun and started firing up at me blindly. I took him down with a well-placed shot to the shoulder. He didn’t get back up. This caused an even bigger commotion and people started looking around, gasping. I’m not sure how many of them looked up and saw me. I didn’t stay around long enough to find out. I’d rescued the hostages and now it was time to take on the Boss.

>-------------------------------------------------->

There were two guys standing on either side of the door. The other three, including the boss, must have been inside guarding the crew. These two didn’t have AK-47s, they were packing MP5s and they looked pretty nasty. There was something about these two that told me they weren’t the typical pirates. They were dressed in black and looked like soldiers. Maybe they were Mercs. I’d seen a lot of action movies in my day and these guys definitely looked like the baddies for hire that usually appeared in them. The only question was why did the pirates have mercs?

I took a deep breath and raised my bow.

I was about to fire when I felt something hard pressed against my head and heard a click. I realized what it was and how stupid I’d been. I lowered the bow as a hand reached around and took it from my hands.

“You didn’t honestly think you could do all that stuff and not be noticed” said a voice as my captor walked around the front of me.

He was another one of those black suited Merc types. He had an MP5 slung around his shoulder but the gun pointed at me was some kind of pistol. He kept it pointed at my face. He motioned me into the open and one of the guards at the door came down the hall, keeping his gun on me. My captor put away his pistol and examined my bow.

“This is pretty good,” he said, running his hands along one of the limbs. “Did you make this yourself?”

When I didn’t respond he sneered and broke it in half over his knee. I felt a pain in my gut when I heard it crack. It took me forever to make that thing. I put my tears, sweat and blood into it. It pissed me off to see him break it like that. I snapped. I’m not sure exactly what happened but it was like the world slowed down around me. I’d only felt like this once before, when I shot those balloons in ten seconds. It was an incredible and scary feeling.

I lashed out at the son of a bitch. I punched him in the face and kicked him in the balls. I’m not a fighter, so I had no idea what I was doing. Whatever it was, it only seemed to stun him for a second. He lashed out at me too. His fist went right for my head but instead of hitting me like a normal punch, it was like a slow motion punch. I saw it coming long before it reached me. I was able to dodge it easily. I dodged his other swing too, ducking under it. I blocked his kick and gave him one of my own. It was fricking incredible, I was moving like Jet Li or something. I was moving too fast for him to stop anything or maybe it was because everything was too slow.

I’m not sure. But whatever the reason, I finally laid the son of bitch out by punching him in the throat. He gasped and fell to the floor, clasping his nose. The world went back to normal speed and the other Merc was on me. I was a few feet away from him and grabbed my broken bow from the ground. I ran at him, laying into him as well. I used the two limbs like swords, slapping one down on his gun hand and hitting him in the kneecaps with the other. He dropped to the ground; I smacked him across the face and ran at the last Merc. My body went into slow motion again. I’m not sure how I was doing it and I didn’t care. I charged down the hall, the other Merc was raising his gun. He fired a burst at me but it too was moving real slow. I actually passed it in the hall as I ran. It flew by me like a slow moving swarm of bees.

I slammed into the guy, disarming him. I threw him over my shoulder, using my body and shoulder to overcome his weight and size. He landed behind me and I snapped back to normal speed. I was panting like crazy, not sure exactly what happened. I was panting heavily, looking at the three guys I had just torn through like they were tissue paper. I looked at my hands and they started to shake. Whatever I just did scared the hell out of me.

I almost threw up. Instead, I forced myself back and went to look for a weapon. I still had one more son of a bitch to take care of.

I found a knife on the guy I flipped over my shoulder. I pulled it out of its sheath, he was still conscious but I’d knocked the wind out of him. He was gasping for breath when I took his knife. He looked up at me with unbelieving eyes.

“You’re just a little girl,” he gasped.

I smirked. “Tell that to them.”

I punched him in the face and that did the trick. But boy, did it hurt like hell. I shook my hand off afterwards. The guy was out cold like his buddies though. I took my knife and went to the bridge door. I wonder what kind of bastards were waiting behind it for me. If my calculations were correct, there were only two left now, the boss and one of his goons. I couldn’t help but wonder what this was all about in the first place. There was something more going on than just grabbing a cruise ship. I mean they appeared to be pirates but what was up with the damn Mercs.

I grabbed the handle and took a deep breath. I knew it wasn’t wise to walk right into the room but there was no other way inside. I suppose I could of jumped through a window or something but that was crazy. They would be expecting that. They wouldn’t be expecting me to just walk right into the room. So that’s what I did. I turned the knob and opened the door.

When the door was fully open, I saw them. There were several people in white lying on the ground, their hands behind their heads. Standing over them were two guys dressed in black, like the Mercs. One of them had an MP5 and was pointing it at the crew. The other was standing nonchalantly off to the side, holding a pistol. He smiled when I walked into the room. He was a vicious looking bastard, bald and black. He had a jagged scar running down the side of his face and sat on the console when he saw me.

“I wasn’t expecting a little girl,” he laughed, causing the other to smile. “I was half expecting Steven Segal.”

That got another laugh.

“You’re not pirates,” I said, trying to keep my cool.

He sighed. “No, we’re not” he pointed to himself and the man next to him. “Neither were the three in the hall. But the seven you stuck full of holes were.”

There was something about him, something that made me think that he’d never dirty himself with the likes of pirates.

“What the hell is this all about, then?”

He shrugged. “I don’t really know. I just do what I’m told. My employer told me to get a bunch of lowlifes and convince them I was one of them. Then he told me to create some pirating scares. After a few of those, I got a call to take out this cruise ship. No one second guesses anything he tells you to do; it’s very bad for your health.”

‘Who is he?”

The man smiled. “Why would I tell you that?”

The other man laughed. I looked around the room, trying to see if I could turn this situation to my advantage. But I couldn’t and now I was screwed. Playing superhero was a dumb idea. I wasn’t the girl in the paper, she had super powers. I was just some dumb kid, who was half boy and half girl. I was good with a bow, which I didn’t even have anymore. These guys were professionals and they were going to kill me. I wanted to cry but I couldn’t let them see me do that.

So I bit my lip and stood up straight.

“Now then” said the Boss, waving the gun in the air. “Why don’t you drop your knife, take off your silly cape and get down on your knees.”

I nodded, tears streaming down my face. I dropped the knife with a clang. Then I lowered my hood, allowing them to see my face for the first time. The both of them laughed.

The boss smirked. “You really are a little girl, aren’t you?”

He was laughing when he pointed his gun at me. He was about to pull the trigger when he stopped. His laugh was caught in the middle as a black arrow whizzed through the window behind him and stuck in the back of his head. Blood spit from his mouth, he fired at the floor and fell forward dead. He almost hit me on the way down but I jumped out of the way. His goon snapped around and took an arrow in the face. He dropped too just as quickly. I was scared but ran to the window to see who saved my life.

There was a black clad figure standing on the bow of the boat. He was holding a bow but a hood shrouded his face. He lowered the bow, nodded curtly at me and then disappeared over the side of the boat. I stood there flabbergasted. What the hell just happened? Who the hell was he? I was only stunned for a few seconds though. I recovered quickly.

As the crew was starting to get up, I threw my hood back on and took off. I didn’t want anyone to see me. I ran through the ship as quickly as possible. I snatched up my broken bow along the way. I ran hard and quick. When I got to my floor, I pulled off my tarp. When I got to my room, I stuffed everything back into my mother’s suitcase. I threw the wetsuit off the balcony and watched as it drifted to the water below. I ran over to my bed after that and waited.
It didn’t take long for someone to knock on the door and Dr. Carlson to enter. I pretended to walk up from sleeping. She sighed, relieved, putting her hand to her chest. I feigned rubbing my eyes and yawned.

“Sweetie have you been asleep this whole time?”

I nodded. “Did something happen?”