B5 — 17. When Luck Strangles You

AuthorSME

PoV:

1. Jack Ward (Our First Look At Our Chaotic Pirate Captain!)

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A low hum passed through Jack’s throat as he stood next to Cahira on her small, self-propelling boat with Bonnet’s crew of twenty behind them; the beastie gals were like titanic monsters of legend to their right, sending large waves that the Pirate Queen managed to navigate them over expertly.

His life since The Oscillation had been filled with ups and downs, betrayals and pacts forged, yet nothing could have prepared him for the chaotic thrill this crew brought.  It said a lot that Blackbeard didn’t plan an ambush against them straight after the port.

Bonnet was more than likely a spy for Teach, but that was to no one’s surprise; the man was all about fame, which was a fool’s game.

Renown or infamy came from the way one lived and the envy others placed on being in your shoes; Cahira’s dispersed crew of individuals came to mind when thinking along those lines—his lines—and Ward felt like he could get used to the pure freedom this crew promoted in its day-to-day dealings.

Rachel was more or less this group’s captain, yet it was more of a formality than anything else, so far as he could see; she offered a flag of freedom to live as one pleased—within reason, of course—which was something worth fighting for.

Ultimately, this crew fought for their own individual ideals under the same chaotic banner of personal desires fulfilled; a true crew worth their salt as pirates.

A short chuckle came from the fire-haired beauty beside him as Cahira grinned at the lovely mermaid circling under them, breaking waves and undead fish alike to provide a safe journey to the shore.

“Beastie crew through and through,” Jack mused, stroking his bound beard.  “What think you, love—a cursed island be a place ta find treasure, but we both be knowin’ the risks of such a horde, hmm?”

“Heh.  Right ya be, Jackie,” she flashed her pearly whites while directing him to the shore, just coming into view as they neared the black sands.  “Don’t be touchin’ a thing until the end; we’ll collect what we need on the way out, or, heh, it will be floatin’ on the waves when the island is carried away.”

Imagining the island growing fins and swimming away put laughter into his chest.  “Oh?  That would be a sight ta see!  I be of the same opinion.  I only be here for what’s ta be had at the end, but… I can’t say the same for our rag-tag groupies in tow.  Savvy?”

Cahira followed his wry smile to Bonnet’s scared-shitless crew; it seemed they didn’t quite understand the meaning of Island of the Dead by the looks on their pale faces in the three boats behind them.

“Meh.  If they die, then it will be their own fault—eh, but I doubt those that get a sword through their bellies in this place stay in the ground if ya catch mi drift.”

“Ah, love, yer a lass after mi own heart,” Jack laughed, throwing an arm around her shoulder as she looped her own around his waist before summoning a bottle of rum from his own stash.  “To adventure!”

Taking a swig before handing it to the woman beside him, he grinned as she finished it off and tossed it into the shallow waters—they struck sand.

Boots sinking into the gravely surface of the rising and falling water, he broke away from her to tip his hat to the bikini-wearing mermaid as she exited, feet returned.  “Much appreciated, mi sweet!”

“Humph.”  The note wasn’t only meant for him as the sonic wave fractured the bones of several swordfish that jumped after her to skewer the moss-haired woman, causing fragmented pieces of their bodies to bow around her.  “Seems Nemesis is having fun.  He’s not too far away.”

Cahira held her hands behind her back as if this was a casual stroll through a popular island resort and she was a tourist on vacation.  “What special treat will this place offer—eh?!”

They all flinched as a sharp wind pressed against their bodies, blowing much of the fog away as Selvaria and Melissa came to the shore, colossal figures parting the veil; it was something out of a kaiju movie—magnificent when the beasties were on your side.

Bonnet and his party were swift to jump out of the dangerous waters as bony noses stabbed their way through the hole, looking for victims, and Cahira returned her vessels to storage to prevent further damage.

“L-Lady Cahira, could we speak about the protocols revolving around this island?!”

A few of his men mumbled and nodded, drawing Mara, Cahira, and Jack’s dull gaze.

“What did ya expect, man?”  she huffed, following Mara as the woman promptly left to join her lion friend; no one waited to be outside of her protective, humming field of influence.

Jack snickered, keeping close to the Mythickin while summoning a fine sword to his side and twirling it around his fingers.  “It isn’t that hard to understand, Bonnet!  Stay outta the way and follow orders.  Hehe.  Maybe a crewmate or two of yers will live out the night.  Eh?”

Mara smirked, her illuminated, amber irises flashing in the darkness as she glanced back at the shivering men.  “Haha!  If they’re not stupid, then they’ll survive.  So… I’d say a 30% survival rate is acceptable odds.”

“Reasonable,” Cahira nodded.  “It’d be a flat zero otherwise.  Consider yourselves lucky, boys!  You’ll be one of the few pirates to boast of taking part in a Legend’s Quest this hard.”

“Right…”  Bonnet mumbled, feverish eyes drifting to the giant monsters to his right.  “Huh?  What’s… she doing?”

They paused near the forest, still following Mara—who was still destroying the advancing skeletons with ease as they entered her musical dome—as she followed the sounds of her friend to meet up with the Beast King.

Jack lifted an eyebrow upon seeing the Leviathan breathing in a deep breath.  “A roar… a blast, maybe, Cahira?  Whatever it be, it’s sure to be a show—and my… isn’t Melissa a monstrous beaut’ ta see on the open sea.”

Mara grimaced and placed her hands over her ears, followed by Cahira and prompting Jack to do the same.  “Don’t run if you want to live, boys.”

A thunderous roar reverberated through his entire frame as a pulse of wind made him stumble to the side, causing the trees to bow, sand to whip their face, and fog to utterly disperse from the ferocious cry that split the veil.

Waves of fear followed—produced by the titan—begging his mind to turn and flee, despite being on the same side as the Leviathan, yet his Legendkin resistances stopped the impulse to run, fortunately.

Five men attempted to flee, yet a recovering Bonnet ordered those that hadn’t pissed themselves at the malevolent aura the Godzilla-like produced to tackle them.

Jack rolled his eyes at the sight of Mara leaving them, looking at the forced men as they regained their bearings to remain in the musical safety bubble.  “Steel yer balls, boys.”

Ignoring those who followed or failed to keep up, he listened to Mara and Cahira talk, the woman’s words shredding foliage and undead.  “There’s something… big… further in—Nemesis crushed one just a moment ago—I could feel the tremors of its fall…  I think Melissa just destroyed six more, as well.”

“How many undead are we dealing with?”

The woman ran her fingers through her hair.  “Heh.  How many aren’t we dealing with is more the question…  It’s as if this entire island is composed of corpses.  Hmm?”

She paused as a scream sounded behind her, and the jungle began to move around them, trees pulsing like living organisms.

Jack grimaced upon seeing the wriggling vines and trees that folded to smash into the crying men behind them; it was all centered on one individual near the back that stumbled and fell.  “Blood?”

“I can’t stop focused attacks like this,” Mara sighed as a trunk exploded from her vocal attack in its hammer-like acceleration toward the cut man, sending splinters into his skin while the others retreated to the opposite side of the field.

Cahira forced a smile and held her hand to the left, summoning three cannons from blue flames.  “Got anythin’ ta help, Jackie?”

“Right behind ya, love!”  he returned, green fire generating his own that sent magically laced projectiles to assault the trunks, devastating the immediate area of greenery.

Mara tore apart any smaller vine or fern that attempted to go after the crying man, who was tucked into a ball on the ground; the gashes across his skin soaked the black dirt, prompting more attacks, yet it didn’t take long for them to create a circle of fire.

The enchantress used her vocal prowess to spread Cahira’s sapphire and Jack’s emerald flames in a controlled way, keeping them from reaching beyond her sphere of influence in case it prompted further attacks.

After the smoke of their cannon fire lifted, only charred ground remained as Mara continued to destroy the continual waves of undead that sought to enter their circle or shoot projectiles at them.

“Huh,” Jack hummed, one foot on the butt of his cannon while observing the devastation.  “So, bleeding be a problem… eh…”

“H-Help!”  the trembling man screamed, causing the others to shrink back as Bonnet joined Mara’s side to glare at his crewman.  “It’s… it’s inside my skin—I can feel it!”

Tone cold as the grave, Bonnet pulled out his gun, pointed it at the man, and shot him through the skull; black vines were beginning to worm their way out of his skin.  “It seems blood will trigger some kind of reaction from the jungle.”

Grimacing at the still wriggling man, Jack wasn’t so much disturbed by the merciful act and more that it hadn’t been for respect sake; he could respect a man that cared for his own skin—he was one of those men—yet when they had no respect for those that put their faith in them, it put a bitter taste in his mouth.

He turned to look at the fear in Bonnet’s crew’s eyes; of course, these men weren’t comrades—some, no doubt, were friends—yet there was no respect shared among them.

Jack was the practical type, and his code was fairly simple; in this world of lawlessness, one should live in a way by what they can do and what they can’t do.

One couldn’t survive alone in this harsh world, which meant he needed comrades that could live in a similar manner as them and whose decisions he could respect; Cahira was a shining example of that code.  She knew what she could and could not do and stuck to a group that could compensate for her shortcomings.

Bonnet was a man that couldn’t accept his own failings and inability to accomplish the dreams of grandeur he envisioned, and such a man was a bad omen to have by your side.

The slain crewman began to twitch and rise as a large man entered their circle—the Lion King had returned—causing mumbles from the nineteen remaining of Bonnet’s crew.

“Haha.  I’ve never seen so many enemies, Mara.  How’s your throat?”

Mara shot a side-long glance to the giant beast as he joined her, arms crossed under her bust.  “A tad parched; I haven’t used my voice for this long and to this extent before.  How was the big undead you killed?”

“Strong enough to take me a few hits,” he laughed.  “What’s up with the vine-zombie?”

“Incompetence,” Cahira grunted, sending a cannonball to destroy the corpse and set it ablaze on the burnt soil.  “How’s Selvaria and Melissa?”

“They seem to be having fun,” he shrugged.  “The tentacle girl stole all the big ones, so now I’m bored.  Where should we go from here?  All I’ve found are packs of the same weak undead.”

“An endurance trial,” Cahira muttered, producing vitamin water to hand to the siren, who accepted it to wet her throat.  “Can you hear them, Mara?”

“Mhm.  Let’s start heading toward the volcano; I’ll explain along the way.  I can feel the remains of a path ahead of us that seemed to have been forged long ago; there’s a road about a meter underground.”

Bonnet and his crew had grown far more comfortable after the lion rejoined them, radiating a golden wave of courage by his presence alone.

The unlucky pirate captain chuckled, putting away his pistol.  “You are quite versatile, my lady.”

“Humph…”

Jack scanned the night as they continued their path forward, with Nemesis handling the larger opponents to lessen the stress on Mara’s voice.

The mist began to grow thicker as the thunderous tremors the two titans made faded; it was their movements and actions that had provided Mara a clear image of the haunting island via her soundwave perception.

She and Cahira got into a pleasant conversation about how it compared to their Lunar Hare leader’s hearing prowess that he listened in on; the more he could learn about this motley crew, the better since he wished to deal more with them going forward.

Unlike Rachel, the songstress required a mass of powerful sound waves to compile where the Lunar Hare could just stealthily eavesdrop on just about anything within her massive perceptive radius.

Nemesis recounted a rather fascinating story involving a fight the two had in Cuba where the female scrapper had taken the win; it was this that pulled the lion under her banner, much like how Mara had come to follow Nemesis.

It was an interesting retelling of a curious crew dynamic; he’d enjoyed himself so much he’d lost track of time when Mara came to a stop upon arriving at a large, grassy field. 

Grinning, Jack wondered what hidden danger awaited them that had caused the woman to halt.

“What cursed dead waits for us in those reeds?”  Jack asked as the siren’s eyes narrowed, vision scanning the obscure, swirling mist that had enclosed them again; the silence was only broken by the rattling bones and gently swaying trees.

“Nothin’ good,” Cahira smirked.

The moss-haired woman got on her knees to place her hands against the ground.  “The ground’s moving… the island’s changing, and it’s deep… very deep.”

Bonnet cursed.  “How much longer are we going to wander through this jungle of death?”

“Want to venture underground already, Bonnet?”  Cahira snickered, yet her smile fell as Mara started giving instructions.

“Take out the fodder while I concentrate, Nemesis—Jack, two steps to the left.”

“Yes, ma’am…  Oh, tricky bastard, this island!”

A hole opened up in the ground, attempting to swallow him.

“Cahira, three steps ahead…  I’m not going to fall,” she muttered as a fissure opened up to follow the siren, only for her to hover over the gap.

Nemesis laughed, dodging the attempts to carry him below the surface while destroying the ghosts, ghouls, and skeletons that tried to kill their protective songbird.

Jack danced left and right while defending the right side with Cahira, flaming sword cleaving through bone and ethereal vestige; the potholes grew more rapid by the second, and two men failed to follow the woman’s explicit instructions, yet Nemesis managed to get to them in time to grab the screaming fools and toss them out of the closing earth.

After a full minute of the island’s new tactic, it ceased, causing Cahira and him to end back to back beside the green-haired woman as she sighed.

“Have another water, Cahira?”

“Always got some kind of liquid,” she winked, recalling her weapon to produce a bottle of wine and vitamin water.  “Poisonous fun or the healthy route?”

“Hehe.  I’ll save the celebration for the end,” Mara mused, taking the vitamin water.

“Suit yourself,” the Pirate Queen snickered, popping the cork to take a swig before tossing it to Jack.

“Aye, never too early for the devil’s drink!”

Bonnet was sweating bricks as he adjusted his jacket.  “I am NOT amused by the constant danger we have been under.  How much further until the—”

A sly smirk lit Jack’s brown eyes and lips as his inner demon surfaced.  “Aye, loves… is it just me, or is there a buzzing little insect in yer ears?  That constant whirring and whining, I might just… slap it!”  his hands came together beside Bonnet’s head, making him jump.

“Heh.  Not wrong, Jack—shut up, Bonnet,” Mara hissed, glaring into the fog as Nemesis strode out in front of her.  “The island’s moving again… this time, something’s coming to the surface.”

Silence came across their group as Nemesis led them forward, and Mara continued to inform them about what she’d discovered.

“There’s a sort of maze below us, but… the core can’t change locations—it’s in the center of the volcano—and it isn’t actually a volcano.  Interesting…”

“Ah!”  Cahira slapped her fist.  “It’s like the first Legend’s Quest then!  It kept changing in this endless maze that had these kinds of secret symbol language to manipulate them.”

“Interesting,” Jack nodded, looking left and right as they left the jungle to enter the endless field of reeds, surrounded by walls of fog.  “Love, what’s the end plot for this venture—fight some big bad boss?”

Cahira shrugged.  “If it be like the last one, the island is the boss, and everythin’ else is bonus points.  Reach the core and destroy it…”

Mara held up her hand for them to halt again as an obsidian-boned tribal man came into view.

“That thing’s next?”  Nemesis mumbled, not impressed by its jittering bones as it danced around, cutting the reeds by waving a black staff.

Mara’s eyes widened as she looked at the ground.  “Nemesis—the whole field!”

“What?”

Jack’s stomach went into his throat when the earth beneath their feet folded inward, like a curtain pulling back, leaving a fathomless abyss below as the dancing bones continued his strange rattling.

Vibrations quivered through his bones as Mara generated a shaky, sonic floor for them to stand on, and a horde of ghostly hands rose out, specifically targeting the siren.

“I can’t hold this forever, Nemesis,” she rasped, clutching her throat as the lion promptly lifted her up, and the pirates panicked at seeing the chasm below them.  “Stop his dance or…  Nemesis!”

Twenty giant skeletal hands reached out of the depths to enclose them, and a sudden weight struck Jack’s chest as Mara shouted, directed at a precise angle to escape the ghostly appendages.

“Return to the coast and defend against the packs until we destroy the core!”

“No—love!”  Jack cried out as Cahira grinned and summoned a rope to toss back at Nemesis, wrapping around his arm to attempt to tug him back with her momentum, yet a hand closed around her waist, making her grimace.

“Sorry, Jackie, but I’m in it for adventure!  Mind babysitting?”

“Hell no!”  he returned, throwing his own tether to her for a ghostly hand to knock it aside as the skeletal fingers closed around Nemesis and Mara; the lion held the woman protectively with a small frown yet didn’t seem too concerned as the bones encircled and pulled them into the abyss.  “Shit!”

The pulse the siren created threw the twenty of them back to the edge of the field, and it was then he realized that the peeling background showed a pattern cut into the reeds.

Nine of Bonnet’s men didn’t make it to solid ground, the ghostly fingers gripping the screaming men and dragging them below.

In the flash of a second, the siren made the snap decision that they hadn’t been in the position to escape the trap; whatever was below, she probably concluded it would be too dangerous to try and protect them from.

The whole event lasted less than fifteen seconds, and the ground unraveled to act as if nothing had happened, yet a clear-cut line was between them and the now still, obsidian tribal skeleton, resting on one foot.

Struggling up, Jack summoned his flaming sword to twirl it around and loosen his neck.  “Well… a good a day to die as any, I—eh, Bonnet—the hell, man?!”

Bonnet tackled him, fear in his eyes with his other men dogpiling on him.  “You’re the only one that matters in this quest!  Dammit!  Blackbeard warned me…”

“What are ya sayin’, man?  Get off—”

“We offer Jack Ward as a sacrifice!”

Jack froze at the declaration, soon followed by the others in his crew.

“Come again?!  Have ya gone mad?  Can a man have a last meal—a dash of rum even—before ya put a knife in his belly?!”

Disarming him and hoisting him up, two of Bonnet’s largest men latched onto his arms to hold him still as the ghosts and skeletons stopped in their tracks.

“Eh?”  Head darting left and right, Jack couldn’t see a soul move—literally—no ghost or bones twitched; a stillness came around them with the now silent night of the dead closing in on them.  “It worked?”

“Of course it worked, idiot,” Bonnet forced a grin.  “Their freedom comes from your death…  That incompetent ‘Pirate Goddess’ is to blame for this fiasco…  W-What do you want?”

Jack hummed, mind working frantically now that the tables had turned.

He could try to escape and fight his way out, but… there were things he could do, and there were things he couldn’t… fighting his way out of a cursed island of the dead alone?  Not one of the things he could do.

A big, toothy grin slit his lips as the shaky, obsidian tribal skelly jumped toward them, colorful mask tilting left and right.  “Well… eh, pleasure ta meet—ack… dammit!”

Bonnet smacked him across the face, making him roll around his mouth with a sudden frown.  “Shut your trap, pirate—ah, I assume you wish to have this man, to…  What is this for?”

Jack lifted an eyebrow as the only mobile undead pulled out a knife from the black soil to hand to him—he expected the bony finger to point to him—instead, it went to each of the crewmates before pointing at its own neck and making a line gesture.

“Uh… mate, I think it wants ya ta, heh, off yerselves—excellent plan, Bonny—uh, lads, if ya could kindly release a man, I don’t be thinkin’ ya can use that while holdin’ me.  Savvy?”

“Shut up—shut up…”  Bonnet growled, teeth grinding together, and Ward figured the poor, helpless sap was thinking Blackbeard never told him about this part of the deal.

The chieftain made a more frantic gesture for him to take the knife, making Bonnet reluctantly step forward to grab the knife.  “Okay!  Eh… what do you want us to do?”

“Bonnet,” one of the men hissed.  “I’m not going to cut my own—”

Jack could swear he could feel the chills that ran down the crew’s spine when a scimitar cut through the air from behind the man to sever the man’s neck.

“Eehk…”  Jack winced.  “Poor sap.  Look, chaps, I’ll help ya get ta the coast if ya join me.  Aye?  Good plan?  Better than follow Bonnet’s crazy ass—ol’ Jackie will get ya home…  Oof!”

One of the men holding him punched his gut.  “Bonnet said to shut up!”

“Eck… hehe, suit yerself…  Happy deathday—I suggest a clean cut at the jugular.”

Bonnet wouldn’t take his eyes off the wicked, ceremonial dagger in his hand before turning and handing it off to one of the men.  “Chris, it looks like we’ll need to become a part of this skeletal crew to… survive this.”

The other members gave each other grim looks, and Chris took the knife, surprisingly calm as he ran his finger along the side of the weapon.

“You’ve always been free with money, Bonnet… and the money’s good… but dying isn’t something I’m good with—who’s with me?!”

Chris lurched to the side to stab the blade into the man’s throat that held Jack, making him grin.

“That’s mi man—eh, heh, why are ya holdin’ a blade to mi throat?”

Grabbing the back of his coat to drag him near as the large man fell to the ground, choking on his own blood, Chris held him close and placed the edge against his neck.  “If you move, I’ll kill him…  You need him alive—I heard your speech, Bonnet!”

“Don’t do this, Chris!”  Bonnet roared, taking out his sword.  “Don’t be a fool—Jeff, Peter!”

Several others joined Bonnet, leaving only ten that took their captain’s side as the others unsheathed their weapons, squaring off back-to-back against them as Jack forced a chuckle.

“Ah—ah!  Good plan, lads!  Don’t move!  He’ll kill me, and then you’ll be trapped here for all…”

The chief’s head and mask tilted at a sharp angle as he held his staff, symbols illuminating across its surface; bone lances—attacks Mara had no doubt defended them from before—erupted from the soil to pass through their heads.

“Well…”  Jack puffed out a long stream of air as the knife loosened around his neck, and the man hung limply on the rod behind him, blood spurting out of the back of the fissure.  “That ended as well as I expected…”

Putting his hands on his hips, he stepped forward to look left and right at the army of undead.  Yup… impossible.

He grinned at the apparent ruler or chief of this dead island, who had come out himself after the motley crew of monsters had run amok on his land unchecked—of course, there may be a bigger bad than him—and held up his wrists.  “Parlay?”

An uncomfortable ritual of blood and chanting came with the fire dance of skeletons and ghosts that Bonnet was forced to go through with those that remained, turning the lot into intelligent undead that only revealed their truth in the view of moonlight.

Bound head and foot on a pole like a hog for slaughter, Jack was hoisted up on the men’s shoulder and carted off through the jungle, following the dancing skeleton; to add insult to injury, one of Bonnet’s men had the nerve to take his hat!

A curious skeletal monkey found them on the bouncy journey, following their path and screeching for food—Jack was sure it was for food—the poor animal probably hadn’t had anything to fill his empty stomach—if he had a stomach—for ages.

Exiting the brush, Jack duly accepted his current fate—ya won some, and ya lost some—yet, lady luck was once again on his side; the confused, lifted eyebrows of the monster girls caused utter silence and stillness to cross his captors.  Angels come to save the day!

Like a bolt of lightning, the plated valkyrie of the seas—that monotone Leviathan of justice—cast judgment on the obsidian-boned chief, sending his skull spinning into the void with a single punch.

Freed from his bindings as the chief ran after his lost head—which he had to admit was fairly durable, considering who’d just batted the item out of the park.  Adjusting his clothes, retrieving his hat, and offering the two bemused girls a showy bow, Jack grinned.

“If it isn’t the beastie crew; ya be a sight fer sore eyes!”

“Jack…”  Bonnet snarled through a strained smile; the coward actually wanted him to cover for him!  Still, it was a tempting thing to hold over the man’s prideful head; well, not that he was a man anymore.

“Aye!  Aye, Bonnet!  We be gettin’ ta ya in a moment, but it be such a fine night.  Hehe.  Fog, the undead, and backstabbin’ mates—I thought we were on closer relations, man.”

The Leviathan turned to the tentacle lass who was on one of her massive wolves to ask her opinion—the beasts had grown since he’d last seen them—she now wore a rather fitting outfit for dames that feared nothing, including the circling dead; black pants and a double sweater.

“I think this is becoming ridiculous.  Well, I suppose we should hear the story…”

Rolling around his neck, Jack pointed his thumb to where the chief ran.  “Ya may wish ta take care of the chief before he opens up another chasm ta swallow us whole—”

“Hmm…”  Melissa’s gaze drifted to the side as one of her tentacles shot out of the back of her shirt in a blurred rush as her dragons snapped their jaws above the trembling skeletal crew of Bonnet.  “Will this work?”

Selvaria chuckled softly and held up a thumb as the appendage returned with the chief’s skull stuck to the tentacle; the obsidian man’s body ran back to jump up and down, trying to get back his head.  “Nice.”

Back in business!  Jack internally laughed, pointing at the monkey nearby.  “Follow me, Monkey!  Trust in ol’ Jack, and I’ll get ya a banana; on mi life!”

“Ooh-ooh…”

The undead creature ran over and jumped on his back, making him grin; he’d always wanted a monkey pet, and it didn’t hurt to ask the seemingly intelligent animal.

Jack pointed to the cave.  “Aye, a nice night fer a stroll.  Let’s be movin’, Bonnet.  Hehe.  We need ta be findin’ what happened to mi drinkin’ buddy, the siren, and her lion knight!”

Selvaria’s lips pulled together, showing a distrustful glare.  “What happened to Mara, Cahira, and Nemesis?”

“I’ll tell ya along the way, mi sweet; we be needin’ ta get ta the core ta stop this madness.  Savvy?”

“I’m in favor of ending this nightmare,” Melissa sighed, raising her hand.  “I could go for something greasy when we get back.”

Selvaria nodded.  “Yeah.  Mara and Nemesis can take care of themselves.  Cahira’s resourceful, too… a resourceful pervert.  Okay.  Where to?”

“The center!”  Jack grinned, pointing at the volcano.  “Mara said it isn’t a lava horde at all!  It be a fake!”

The Leviathan pursed her lips and leered at the cave.  “We could go through there… or…”

A grin spread across Ward’s face.  “Or?”

Melissa sighed and shook her head.  “You’re going to blast your way inside.  Huh?”

“Keep that guy busy for a bit, Lieutenant!  I’ll be right back,” Selvaria grinned, directing her transformed seal to hold onto the skull and continue taunting the frantic chief who seemed powerless without his symbol-carved head.

Bonnet moved closer to whisper in his ear as Selvaria stomped off to transform.  He kept a watchful eye on Melissa; the young woman seemed to have changed dramatically since first coming aboard Cahira’s vessel, and it showed in her confident, lying posture on her wolf as the beasts destroyed the undead attempting to help their master.

“Let’s make a deal, Ward…”

The cowardly pirate captain backed away as the monkey hissed in his face, but Jack leaned in to put his arm around the man’s zombified shoulder, pulling him in.  “Hehe.  I gather ya found a sour taste for adventure after this venture, mate.  No?  How about I try ta get you and yer backstabbin’ mates breathin’ fresh air again?”

His tattered face creased with a grimace.  “What will it cost me?”

“Hehe.  What’s yer life worth, man?”  Jack asked with a savage grin.  “We can work out the details later, eh?  Who knows, maybe ya will end up in our gal’s jaws—a chew toy—if ya step outta line.  Got anythin’ good on ya… hmm?”

“Haaa…  I should have never followed Cahira.”

“Don’t be blamin’ others for yer own choices, Bonnet; we all dig our own graves, eh… hehe, some more literally than others.”

He pulled away to look up at the monstrous titan that caused a wave of wind that sent a chilling thrill through him.  “Hehe.  I think I’m in love with my demons.  Ya don’t feel life in safety, Bonnet…  Let’s follow this path ta the depths of the sea!”

“You’re mad,” Bonnet muttered as the colossal sea monster drew in a deep breath and sent a drilling beam of concentrated force that sent a chilling thrill through Jack’s spine as Selvaria created a frozen slide right to the core of the volcano.

“Ya wouldn’t understand, mate…  When lady luck has her fingers around your throat, you never want to wake up…  To hell and back.  Hehe.  Nothing else matters but the joy of a blank map and the sword a hair’s breadth away from your throat.  Nothing beats a night on the gallows, eh?  Haha!”

Striking forward to meet the Leviathan with Melissa and the rest of the terrified, undead backstabbers, Ward had to laugh at the absurdity of the dead having more fear than the living, and he slapped the frantic obsidian chief’s headless, bony back.

“Sometimes ya get got, and sometimes ya do the gettin’, mate; you’ll need more luck than that to pull mi ol’ lover off mi neck!  Hehe.  Savvy?”

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