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In spite of the situation, Eponine felt distinctly relieved at Shane's shout. They were just pirates.

Of course, just pirates was a little too contradictary of a term.

But the combination of the comparison view and Estrelas' hilarious antics caused Eponine to burst out laughing. "What do we do now? Perhaps we should all just throw our crosses at the ship and hope they each claim a pirate with them." And with that, she took her own iron cross and flung it as hard as she could through the air at the skulled sails. Her jovial tone was a little too merry, given the fact that they were about to be taken by a ship full of pirates.

Wraith would have agreed with Shane, except there was no place for them to run. They were all teetering on a mass of rotten planks, and there was no way they would be able to outstrip the massive ship that was coming ever closer.

Eyes wild, Wraith saw Eponine fling a cross at the ship, which managed to hit a pirate hanging off the crow's nest square in the face. As the ship became populated with men dirtier than the one that was at his feet, Wraith groaned. Why did these things always happen to him?

As he heard Estrelas' "now what?", Wraith turned to the recruits.

"Anyone know anything about reasoning with pirates?"

Estrelas recalled back to her days with those pirates...

"Welll...." she muttered. "I don't know, in my time, most pirates revered women... Well... Some of them."

She thought a bit and sighed. "No, offer them shiny things in exchange for you lives and they'll assume you have more where THAT came from."

Ah, ever little miss sunshine, Estrelas? I wish I could do something else than put down others' ideas... she thought.

"We can..." She pointed to the filthy unconscious pirate. "Hold him... Hostage?"

Estrelas felt the urge to run screaming and hide behind one of the men (not because they were male, because Eponine was about her own height and did not offer much shelter), but resisted by reminding herself that she was supposed to be gutsy and brave...

That was hard to do when a quick, clean drowning was looking pretty darn good escape.

"I suppose we can try," lowering his voice, Wraith continued, "whatever you do though, do not, under any circumstance, identify yourselves as LOTUS recruits."

He walked over to the unconscious pirate, who seemed to groaning softly. Leaning down, Wraith quickly snatched the knife where it had fallen inches from the pirate's outstretched hand. Feeling around on the man's body with his boot, Wraith detected a pistol, two daggers and a small metal stick. Relieving the pirate of them all, he called to the recruits.

"Anyone in need of anything dangerous?" Poking the pirate softly with his boot to see if he was in danger of waking up, Wraith screwed up his face. He wanted to shower.

"Shane, would you help me out with him?"

The ship was so close now that Wraith could see the faces of the crew clearly. They were beginning to disembark.

Eponine nodded simultaneously with Estrelas: "Yes, sir." She supposed that they shouldn't entice capture and hostagity ((is that a word?)) any more than they were already liable to. LOTUS was probably a very rich organization.

Examining the array of weapons, Eponine reached toward a dagger. "I'll take one of these, if you don't mind," she said, casting a curious eye toward the metal stick. What was that for? The pistol she recognized as a very short version of those guns the revolutionists had used, in the barricade scene. Maybe the stick was used to hit people on the head? Or did it spout out some other magic?

Wraith stepped in front of the pirate on the ground as a large, dark-skinned man approached. He had a large gold ring in one ear and the sun's rays reflected off a brilliantly bald head.

"And who be ye?" The man chuckled softly as he drew a small, curved blade. These little people looked no threat to them. It seemed that Will had gotten himself into some trouble though, as he was lying on the ground behind the man in the black coat.

"Hello, sir," Eponine said, curtseying to the best of her ability. It was an awkward curtsey, considering the character Eponine wasn't prone to such polite gestures. Perfect curtsey skills were definitely not built into her program. But this, Eponine suspected, was not the time to antagonize anyone more than necessary. She adopted the high, courteous voice of a schoolgirl. "I am Eponine. And you?"

Maybe the innocent and sweet act was the way to go.

Okay, so maybe the foolish girl act wasn't working. But it was too late to change now.

Hoping that the story she was about to fabricate would make sense and that the others would go along with it, she began her ramble, adding in a rocking back and forth on her heels to give a more little girl feel. "Well, sir, me (excuse me, I) and Estrelas came over to spend one whole night on this wreckage-thing. We was (excuse me, are) going to get a whole ten dollars each for it! Isn't that amazing? Of course we accepted. So we all came here immediately. But then, Mr. - " Eponine cast wildly about for a name " - Thenardier and Mr. Shane caught us just as we were leaving. We ran away, of course, toward here, but they followed us and - "

She was beginning to babble, hopefully in the chattering effect that she was aiming for. The whole thing didn't seem quite as plausible as she had hoped for - actually, the whole story seemed completely ridiculous - but it was the best she could do on such short notice. Improv was definitely not this actress's forte.