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Cᴀᴘᴛ Hᴏᴏᴋ.: Tʜᴇ Aᴅᴠᴇɴᴛᴜʀᴇs ᴏғ ᴀ Nᴏᴛᴏʀɪᴏᴜs Yᴏᴜᴛʜ
ʙʏ ᴊᴠ ʜᴀʀᴛ

James Matthew Bastard, as his schoolmates so affectionately called him, was born and raised in England without a mother, and without much of a father. In fact, he was raised by his Aunt Emily, the only person in the world he held any sort of affection towards. Boisterous and strange, he was a trouble maker likely from the beginning. Even before attending Eton he took to dressing and looking an entirely different way from any other boy his age. In fact, before James (or Jas. as he titled himself, likening it to how King Charles II shortened his signature to Chas.) nearly let slip his last name, a face to the Lord B's bastard child had never quite been placed. James could count on one hand easily the number of times his father had graced him with his presence, and as such had a very tense, almost spiteful relationship with the man. Therefore, when his father pulled some strings to get him into Eton, he was extremely nonchalant about it, and when offered an unmarked letter filled with notes to be his allowance, he tore it up and handed it back to his Aunt, declaring that he would acknowledge his father's kindness the day his father acknowledged him as a son. This declaration was how he met Roger Peter Davies, who became his one and only friend, and the one to dub him 'King Jas'.

His rise to fame in Eton was like a slap in the face. If his peculiar appearance wasn't enough to draw attention, his defiance and insolence certainly helped. He made a quick enemy of one Arthur Darling, the Captain of the Collegers, or Upper Classmen, in the school. Jas was meant to be his attendee, but of course he would have none of it, and Arthur sentenced him to a whipping as was customary punishment at the school. It was the beginning of the end in many ways, as even with the brutal whipping Jas didn't utter a squeak of agony, having devised a way to steel his resolve that gave him an extremely high threshold for pain. This unsettled the Collegers and the Whips, but what terrified them most was the strange yellow colour he bled, and the maniacal, superior laugh he let loose at their terror as they fled the room.

Due to his strange blood colour, it was demanded that he be ushered off to the school physician. Everything turned out fine, aside from a high number of mutated yellow cells in his bloodstream, that allowed him to heal quicker than most people. Arthur Darling took to calling him a mutant, but the love from the Oppidans (or Lower Classmen) and the admiration and fear from the professors, kept this possibly blemishing nickname little more a tease among school children. Mutant or not, Jas became a king to the Oppidans of the school, and his classmates took to loyally following him about. It was during this time he began having visions of a place he dubbed Neverland, an island he dreamed of after reading up on wild islands in the South. Believing it to be a real place, he became obsessed with it, but kept the knowledge of it's existence private between himself and 'Jolly' Roger Davies.

His popularity didn't end with the whipping, as when the Oppidans and the Collegers faced each other in Eton's Wall Game, King Jas. lead them into their first victory in the last hundred years. It was during this Wall Game that he first set eyes on a visiting Sultana, Ananova Ariandne, and it was love at first sight. Once again, Jas. became obsessed, and took to devising plans with Jolly so that he might find a way to meet the foreign princess. One dinghy ride later, and a witnessed stolen kiss, Jas found himself the crux of what nearly became an international incident. Furious, the Queen ordered for the capture of the the unnamed boy who had been seen cavorting with her noble guest, and while everyone knew it had been Jas, nobody gave him up. Not even Arthur Darling, as he and Jas were scheduled to engage in a duel (a forbidden practice at the school), and the Darling boy wouldn't give up his chance of having one at his nemesis. Of course, Jas was smarter than that, and set Arthur up to be caught by the school officials while he fled onto the ship the Sultana would be departing on with the decree of her angered father.

Both he and Jolly slipped onto the boat, and would have succeeded in their plan if the two men they had scared into handing over their clothes hadn't been found. Alas, they were discovered, and a grand fight ensued on the barge, ending with Ananova and James on the back of the Sultana's prized Arabian leaping off the side of the ship into the River Thames. Jolly leaped into the water after them, despite the fact he couldn't swim, but they luckily fished him out of the water. Directly after this, they attempted to steal Jolly's father's ship (as the man didn't fancy James one bit, and Jolly's loyalty was to his King above all others), but they were apprehended. Both he and Jolly were expelled, and Ananova was spirited away back to her homeland without interference.

All the ruckus was enough to bring James' father down to the school, to hand deliver a letter to his son, declaring he would be sentenced to life before the mast in the hopes it might straighten him out. Jas was delighted by the prospect. He would learn to sail a ship, and would be one step closer to his Neverland, where he would truly reign as King. But before he could leave, he put the last steps into a plan he had been devising for a long time. With the help of a very large spider he had adopted as a pet from the laboratory, he managed to deliver a message to Arthur Darling, escape his Etonian room, and move a guillotine he had been furnishing for god-only-knew-how-long in the bowels of the school to a back courtyard. It was there he finally gave Arthur the fencing duel he so longed for- but the fight was short lived. Not only was Jas the superior swordsman, but he managed to scare Arthur into locking his head in the guillotine, where he gleefully left the boy holding the very rope that held the blade what could sever his head off. His plan went wonderfully, as he even managed to slip away to his father's vessel before the chemical combination he had organized previously burst into flames, setting Eton's records on fire and erasing his name from the school's history.

The Sea Witch, his father's boat, was the beginning of his biggest adventure. Not only because he was one step closer to his Neverland, but also because his best friend Jolly had somehow managed to escape his home and stowaway on the very same ship. The rugged crew and it's insane captain didn't seem to question the presence of an extra boy, and the lot of them set sail for Africa. Jas and Jolly quickly learned the ins and outs of sailing, but of course, Jas couldn't keep well enough to himself, and was both impressing and antagonizing the crewmen the entire journey. When he wasn't professing that one day he would fly like a bird, he was learning the ways of the powdermonkey with Jolly, or palling about with First Mate Smee, or learning seafaring tales from the other sailors. Despite his oddities, he quickly became one of the most favored amoung the crewmates.

But the almost whimsical journey became all too real when they reached Africa. Once there, the religiously zealous captain and his quarter master, Billy Blood, showed the crew what was really going on: they were trading the gold on the ship for African slaves. James was outraged, and he marched right across the deck with cutlass drawn to tell the men exactly what was on his mind, and that the transaction must be halted. Laughing, they told him that yes, his father supported the whole operation. Scandalized, Jas attacked, and though he held his own briefly against Blood, Jas was knocked unconscious by another man and thrown into the brig with all of the chained slaves. Down there, for god only knew how many hours, Jas. befriended the captives, vowing he would get them out, and working with Jolly- his only outside link for the fear the captain held over his crew- they managed to get the key and start a mutiny on the ship. The crewmen only needed direction, after all, as Jas wasn't the only one with hard feelings towards Blood and the Captain now that they knew what was going on.

With the whole of the crew on his side, and anyone who hadn't been thrown overboard, Jas crossed blades with Blood, backing him into a corner and pausing just before killing him. The rest of the crew, and namely Jolly, encouraged him to finish the beast of a man with the rigging hook the former Etonian had wrested from Blood, but it wasn't until Blood pulled his pistol on him that Jas gave into impulse and revenge and turned the hook on the man, gutting him, and effectively murdering him. It was only after that they found the Captain, too, had died, though from the bite of Jas' pet spider that had stowed away in Jolly's luggage. The ship became one of celebration, and with his impromptu election to Captain, and his discarding of his father's name, the now Jas Hook and his new crew set sail for Africa to return the slaves- their new friends- back to their homes.

NOVEL.