Chapter 2

"Didn't your pap ever teach you to pick your fights a bit more carefully?"

Jim's eyes hardened and he looked away from the cyborg. Then he turned his entire body away and began swobbing the deck.

Silver looked at the boy carefully, eyes showing a bit of regret for bringing up the father. "Your father not the teaching sort?"

It took a moment for Jim to answer. "No. He was more the," he turned and breathed in for air, his heart shaking, "taking off and never coming back sort." His arms pulled in and out, feeling the sturdiness of the wet mop.

Silver looked on with sympathy and sighed, "Ah . . . ," and he lumbered over to the cabin boy. He put his arms on the edge of the deck, then looking over to Jim sympathetically. "Sorry lad."

"Hey, no big deal," Jim said nonchalantly, placing the mop down and leaning over the edge of the boat to look down at the space below. "I'm doing just fine."

The large cyborg held his chin for a moment, gazing at the boy before raising his head slightly, "Is that so?" He gave a half smirk and thought to himself, "This here cabin boy, he may not be so bad."

Then as he kept his eyes on the boy his amused smirk suddenly changed to horror as he saw the large figure of Scroop coming up over Jim's small figure.

"Jim!" he called out, a warning caught in his throat. But Scroop raised a claw and sliced it down Jim's back, blood gushing out. Jim let out a shout of pain and collapsed on to the deck. Silver ran to him and cradled the boy's head in his large hands. "Jim!" he yelled. "Jim!"

But Jim's eyes were distant as the light in them faded away and he choked out. "I hate you Silver. You betrayed me."

And he went limp.

Silver jerked awake, his eyes snapping open and his heart pounding like thunder. He looked around the wilderness he was now in, his thoughts spinning as he recalled his current situation.

He breathed out shakily. Yes. That's right. When he had come in to the galley . . .

"Jimbo?" Silver looked around, seeing if anyone else was around. He took in Jim's shocked expression, one that was usually bright and excited, ready to take on the tasks that Silver would have for him that day. But he saw . . . fear this morning. True and genuine fear, mixed with shock and confusion.

And in his eyes, hurt.

Silver turned back to Jim, "What was he doing in the galley? Could he have been eavesdropping and me and my crew?"

The risk was too much for Silver. He smiled at Jim and walked down the stairs, causing Jim to walk backwards. "Playing games?"

"Yeah. Yeah we're playing games," Jim said, backing in to the table, his eyes cold and hard.

"He knows," Silver thought dreadfully. But he kept up the facade and continued going on. He placed his hand on his chin, rubbing it back and forth. "Oh, I see. Never was much good at playing games." He held back his cyborg arm and turned on his gun. "I'm not really going to kill him, just knock him out so he won't cause any trouble. If he's passed out my crew won't worry about him. Sorry Jimbo. This is for your own good."

The image of the treasure flashed in Silver's mind's eye and he took a couple steps forward. Jim's eyes were hard. "A pirate! A dirty stinking pirate!" He mentally slapped himself for not being smart enough to realize it sooner. "Billy Bones, the warning about the cyborg. . . I was blinded by him, tricked by him, to be able to be a guide to help him get his stupid treasure!"

"Yeah, me too!" Jim grabbed a potato peeler from the table and flashed forward as quick as lightning, stabbing it in to the rubber joint on Silver's leg. He'd seen the maintenance on that leg before, and he knew that this would only hurt Silver, but it wouldn't kill him. However, it would be excruciatingly painful.

A steam of air wheezed quickly out of the joint and Silver let out a shout of frustration and pain. "Dang that boy! I'll never be able to walk now!" He gripped his leg painfully and pulled himself up the steps to the deck. There he looked left and right, searching for Jim with his cyborg eye and seeing him just as he got in to the Captain's cabin. "Oh, blast it!" he groaned. Then he stood up as best he could and let out a high whistle. All of his crew turned to the sound of their captain's call. "Change in plan lads!" He whipped out his sword. "We. Move. NOW!" swinging his sword up in the air.

The crew let out a joyous uproar and launched into immediate action. They ran to and fro, retrieving their weapons and getting at once on to the job of opening the door to the captain's quarters.

Back where Jim was helping the captain and Doppler making his escape he ran to the first boat and stood in it, looking at the door anxiously. "Come on come on we have to hurry!" the sound of the pursuing pirates setting him on edge.

Then he felt a stirring in his pocket and looked down then up to see a glob of pink bubble up, holding the map in his mouth. "Morph! No!" The morph floated off of the boat quickly and Jim jumped to the dock, diving on to the wood. "Morph! Morph!" His legs felt like they were made of jelly and like he would never run fast enough.

"Morph here Morph!" he spun, desperately trying to grab the pink gloop.

Silver spun around upon hearing Jim's cries for Morph. His eyes brightened as his eyes saw what his little pet had.

The map.

"Morph! Morph!" he said in his friendly tone. He crouched low. "Morphy bring it here." He whistled for him.

"Uh uh no way is he getting it!" Jim thought instantly. "Morph! Morph come here Morph! Morph come here!"

"Morphy come here Morphy come to your daddy Morph!"

"Morph! Morph!"

"Morph!"

Completely confused and lost for what to do, he dropped down in to a circle of ropes.

Both men ran to it, but Silver's leg collapsed and he fell to his knees, groaning in pain before looking up to see Jim reaching in lazer fast and grabbing the map. He looked up quickly and their eyes met for a moment before Jim took off, running in the other direction.

Immediately Silver took out his gun, aiming straight at the boy and getting a clear shot, but he felt his heart tug painfully and he remembered Jim's face as it flashed in his mind, and he lowered his gun.

"I can't do it," he thought. "I really have gone soft."

Silver sat up, feeling dead and not worth anything. The fire light flickered beside him and he looked over his sleeping crew, and his eyes didn't rest long on the sentry. Later at sunset he had tried to bargain with Jimbo, to try and convince him to leave his mates and come with him to get the treasure for themselves. "I was telling the truth too. I wouldn't mind having to stay with, with that pup. He's much better conversation than this lot that's for sure." He looked scathingly at the rest of his crew and stood up, still limping on his bad leg. "He's supposed to give me the map at dawn, but I've waited a whole lifetime for this. I'm going now."

"All right you sissies get up!" he said, kicking one of his men to jerk him awake. "Ge' up! Come on! We're going in!"

"Alrighty yes sir Captain!" most of them said instantly up on their feet. A few more were awkward and stumbled in to each other. Silver sighed and placed his hand over his face. "How did I ever get stuck with this bunch?"

He led his crew out to the fortress that Jim and his companions had claimed, and it was relatively easy to take over a defenseless doctor and an injured captain, both not worth his time. Jim wasn't here. Where was he then? What was going on?

Silver didn't get any information from the two captives and he sat against the rock, waiting. He placed his hat down over his eyes. "When Jimbo gets back here, we'll get him."

"That treasure is owed me by t'under!"

"Well try and get it without MY MAP by T'UNDER!" Jim had roared back angrily.

"Now to think of it we're both pretty immature," he thought as he ran through the miles and miles of underground machinery with his new robot friend, well, acquaintance, Ben.

"I tell ya Jimmy! This is the life! Just running around without a care in the world! We should do this more often . . ."

"Yeah without a care in the world my ass. We better hurry. It's going to be dawn soon." The memory of defeating Scroop was still fresh in his mid and he knew that it would haunt him for a while. I mean, it's not every day you kill a spider psycho. Guess he was able to pick his fights all right. Silver would be proud.

"Stop thinking about that lying pirate!" he scolded himself. "Just thinking about him more is just going to make you more . . . I don't know."

Jim got to the entrance and pulled himself up, entering the darkness. He grabbed the map and stood confidently for a moment before rushing over and bouncing it in his hand. "Doc! Doc! I got the map."

A gray metallic arm reached out and grabbed it from his fleshy hand. "Fine work Jimbo. Fine work indeed."

"No! No no no!"

Silver walked up to Jim, "Oh you're just like me Jimbo. You hates to lose," he leaned his head down in close to Jim's and stood back, his metal fingers trying to open the golden globe. Then he switched to more smaller fingers, searching for a way to open it, then he tried squeezing it open but it just vibrated uselessly. His eyes flickered to Jim, who had a knowing smirk on his face. He dropped his head down and shook it slowly back and forth.

"Da boy . . ." "Open it!" he demanded, pushing the globe in to his hands.

But instead of cooperating Jim just gazed up at Silver, his eyes unmoving, his brows furrowed and set.

"He's not just a cabin boy anymore. He's a man," Silver speculated quietly. This was a much different approach than the whiny cabin boy he had first been introduced to at the beginning of the voyage.

Silver hardened his eyes as well and cocked his gun. "I'd get busy."

Jim glanced down at the captain and Doppler. The captain shook her head while Doppler nodded quickly, then seeing the captain's shakes he began doing the same.

Silver cast a sidelong glance at Jim, who looked at Silver, rage radiating in him, then without looking at the sphere he opened the map, clearly showing off. There was a flash of green and up in front of everyone a holographic image of the planet they were on appeared. The crew gasped in awe and the planet dissolved, turning in to a thin green and flashing line, zipping out of the cave and speeding away to the destination of the treasure.

"Oh by the powers that be would you look?" Silver gasped. He ran over to the line and looked out to as far as it was. "Oh yeah. Da boy. We can leave him here and come back for him later once we've collected all of the loot." He gave a joyous laugh. "Haha! Tie him up, and leave him wit the others-ah!"

The green line suddenly disappeared and simmered back in to the globe. He looked in shock as Jim lifted his eyes and looked at Silver with cold determination in his eyes. "You're want the map? You're taking me too."

Silver frowned at first then looked over Jim, chuckling quietly to himself. "You're a smart lad Jimbo. You know how to make a deal." Then he opened his eyes and looked at Jim, addressing the crew, "We'll take em all."