Dawn broke as the Don Karnage's crew ― and tolerated company ― departed Pirate Island, with the shiny Stormhawk effortlessly running ahead of the crowded Petral. The Stormhawk, you might recall, had its glass cockpit canopy shattered in Badda Bing, thus pirate and protege wore goggles, and didn't mind in the least the fresh wind whipping around their heads, that invigorating sky-on-fur feeling. Sure, it was cold, but better than being in the sardine can that flew behind them, anyway.
It couldn't be said that Karnage was much of a fortune teller, but he was right about the trade route. In a couple of hours, just as the Crescent Isles came into view in the far horizon, they spied a whale of a zeppelin, long and gray, umpteen propellers along its flanks pushing it along. On its belly, behind the gondola under its nose was a long cargo hold, and to judge by the languid movement of the airship it was laden with loot. One thing about not having the hardly inconspicuous Iron Vulture nearby was that their victims were never going to notice them coming. Both planes flew up right beside it; and that's where Karnage gave the nod to Ratchet, who flew the seaplane. From the latter, Flynn leapt out, with dark, transparent tendrils reaching from his hands to the gunmetal skin of the zeppelin; he landed on the airship, on its side, on all fours as if he were magnetized to it. The name of the vessel, painted in cursive lettering beside him, made him do a double-take: The Breaking Wind. Climbing down and under like a spider, he found a hatch and went inside.
From there, the sky pirates could of course not see what transpired within, though if you listened carefully you could hear a few terrified screams, the kind like someone's just seen a ghost. There was also haunted, diabolical laughter, and ghostly plumes breaking through windows. Flynn was definitely doing his thing, and enjoying it. It was over one of the islands that the airship slowed to a stop, descended, and several parachutes bloomed over a fishing village below. Also, the cargo ramp dropped from the back of the cargo deck, and the nose of the airship tilted up slightly; the result was dozens and dozens, adding up to hundreds, of crates slid out and plummeted to the ground. The airship gained noticeable buoyancy as its burdens were released. In a moment, a radio transmission came through; it was Flynn,
'Ahem, hello? Am I working this right? Eh, ahoy, mates. Crew's evacuating fast as they can. Conjured a few haunted tricks and seems they don't need much convincing. Their commander was kind enough to oblige lightening our load for me upon request. Well, a request made while I suspended him by his ankles above the floor and threatened to eat him for lunch, but alas, a very helpful chap! I wish him well in his endeavor to find clean underpants.'
Karnage picked up a mic. "What was in the cargo?"
'Well, let's see, manifest is right here, hold on…' A few seconds passed. 'Starts out with five thousand fishbowls. No one needed fishbowls, did they?'
'Not anymore,' Ratchet sighed loudly on the radio.
Karnage cringed at that. "Shut up and never mind!"
The now-vacant cargo deck running under the zeppelin had space to land the planes inside. Via the opening made by the dropped rear ramp, Karnage nimbly landed the Stormhawk first, the plane braking to a skidding halt. Karnage jumped out, sniffed the air and sneered. It was no Iron Vulture, that was for sure. None of that sweet gunpowder parfum, for starters. Not nearly as roomy, either, as the hold on this ship was much narrower than the hangar of the Vulture. No, it was no sky pirate ship, and there was no pretending it would ever be. He needed to get his own back.
The Petral landed next ― not anywhere nimble as light as the Stormhawk, and let's face it, Ratchet had never won any flying trophies for a reason ― Kit and Karnage dove for their lives out of its way. It skidded into the wall and bounced away hard on its wingtip, and somehow it managed to miss the Stormhawk as its tail spun around. A propeller buzzed the tip of Karnage's tail, and I tell you you've never heard a yip! like what came out of his mouth.
The pirates, and Katie, burst out of the plane, breathing deep and holding their heads. Ratchet sheepishly stepped out, at the wrong end of many an angry glare, none the least from the captain, who had his tail in one hand and a locket of clipped fur in the other. Ratchet grinned toothily. "I'll just, uh, see if, ya know… anything needs fixin'." He bolted quickly, avoiding outstretched arms from the captain ready to strangle him. But those arms pulled Gibber aside instead.
"When you see that nincompirate again, give him a message from me. Memorized, word for word!" he ordered. Gibber nodded and cocked his ear earnestly. The captain cleared his throat for the importance of exact enunciation, and communicated thusly:
*smack!* One with the forehand, and *smack!* one with the backhand. Gibber did not need it repeated.
Then the captain pointed at Jock, "You, get to steering! But before we leave, you, lady-person..." This was aimed at Katie, obviously. "No more to say from your little book, no?"
She didn't really want to admit that just yet. "W-well, I'm not sure. I could give it another read, and ―"
"Tsk, no worries, is perfecto!" assured the captain, in a cheerful, welcoming tone. "Forget the book. Now you can move on to this most important job I have for you!"
"Um, okay?"
Cut to five minutes later, Don Karnage, standing over an opened side door, had both ears cupped to the view of the village below, and the parachute that eventually popped open.
Katie's very important job? To be sure to scream on the way down. And she was doing fantastical, if the captain did say so himself! Nice and loud and full of terror. What music!
"Ahhh," he sighed pleasantly. "Hee! I never get tired of that."
"Still a rotten thing to do, again," Kit grumbled beside him.
"Yes, yes!" beamed the captain. "But never mind the praises and flatul-ries."
By and large, the pirates had broken off to explore the cabins inside the airship. None of them were complaining about having some room to stretch their legs. Jock found the helm not terribly different from that of the Iron Vulture. The wheel was similar to an automobile in that it was right against the windshield and had a seat to it; seeing better outside and having something to sit on were both pluses. Though, he had to stifle some grumbles of irritation ― and watch out for a careless elbow swinging here and there ― when the captain came for a look out the front window or toy with the various buttons and switches.
A switch here: windshield wipers.
A button there: lights.
A lever capped with a red ball: nothing. Karnage found that irritating, because it looked somewhat important, and it should do something important. He pulled it up and down once more, ear cocked to listen for something to happen, nothing did. Now growling, he was really showing that lever who was boss, throwing it up and down over and over again and cursing at it, until,
"What did you just do?" asked Kit, coming up behind him.
"What? Nothing."
"So a great big floor hatch just dropped in the back for no reason whatsoever?"
Karnage glanced at the lever, then made sure it was squarely hidden behind his back. "Maybe. What's the big deal."
"Oh, nothing. But guess what the Petral happened parked on top of?"
Karnage's eyes narrowed at him. "What are you saying?"
"Let's see, in a word? Splash."
"Splash?"
Kit nodded. "Bi-ig splash."
"Bah! It was heavy and slowing us down anyway."
Kit rolled his eyes at him, and went to take a look out the front window, climbing atop of the control console while being careful not to step on any of the switches, and leaning his hands on the glass pane; the glass was slanted forward on the upper side, so if you put your face close to it you could even see straight down. A strand of volcanic islands sprouted in the sea before them, and a few hours were yet going to be spent before the Twin Spires would come into sight.
Don Karnage was trying to be inconspicuous about it, but he couldn't help watching the boy; that is, watching him still be alive. It almost made him feel that what happened in Badda Bing was a bad dream. If only it was. The horrendous images and memory of picking up that small, mangled body, to this. It did feel like there was a ghost in the room, and though by all obvious clues the kid looked the same as he ever did in all of his scruffy furry-ness, and sounded the same, talking the same like he was too big for the britches he didn't wear anyway ― was he the same? Apparently he wasn't the only one thinking such things, according to what he saw:
The kid was watching a large flock of white gulls, and as he did his eyes happened upon his own hands on the glass, and he was staring at them, switching glances from left to right. With his right hand he pinched the knuckles of his left, as if making sure his skin felt real. He took a deep, apprehensive breath and did the same to his forearm, then his shoulder. Suddenly self-conscious, he turned his head and found both Jock and the captain gawking at him. Karnage quickly looked away, but he was definitely caught red-handed. Or red-eyeballed, in this case. Deeply embarrassed, Kit leapt from the console and made a hasty retreat from their sight.
"What were you looking at?" the captain snarled at Jock, with a swift smack that knocked off the helmsman's buret. Jock muttered apologies and excuses, neither of which Karnage intended to listen to. He left the bridge and went on to explore elsewhere on the airship.
In a side corridor with circular windows, he unintentionally crossed a path with Flynn ― he otherwise would have been certain to avoid it.
"A dandy of a flying boat, aye?" said the other, who stamped the wall with the bottom of his fist, like testing it for toughness. "If only I had something like this in my day."
"Hmph! Don't get any ideas," growled the captain. "It's mine now."
"I don't blame you for the grudge, Captain Karnage. Though I believe it's one useless to hold anymore, be it as we're on the same side."
Karnage stopped at one of the windows, several feet from Flynn, pretending to be interested at the view outside. "The boy is scared."
"And you're scared for him," said Flynn, looking out another window. Karnage grimace with irritation; that yellow mutt could have at least formed that into a question instead of an observation.
"So? Tell me real. How scared should he be."
Flynn shook his head. "Honestly, as far as I can tell from these last two and a half centuries, he's got nothing more to fear than what faces us all, this predicament of the end of all things. I've never felt any less of myself. Although… realizing that likewise something else has hold of me… aye, that can be a scary thought. It is a scary thing that hungers for us."
Don Karnage scowled into the bright, distant sky. "If this thing is so big and spooky, why doesn't it just show itself and be done with it?"
"Aye, indeed. I don't think it can, or else it would. I questioned the same atimes of my free will; does it allow me to have it, or is it that it cannot force me? I feel it's the second answer, and yet I know it's not the same for those who were slain by the sword, who are slaves to its will. But why not me? Why not the lad, for instance? Because we still draw breath? And if that's the reason, why should that stave off its control? Why can it not manifest itself here as it does in the Dark, yet I and my like can summon its power upon our will? Why does it ― nay, why must it rely on the likes of Bloodfang to feed its hunger and be invoked upon our world?"
"Is there anything you do know?"
"It has limitations, it must. Of course that only begs the questions of what, or who, sets these limitations, what they are and why. But limitations nonetheless. Rules it must abide by. That, captain, is to our gain."
Flynn suddenly drew a sharp breath; he shuddered like a chill had washed over him, one that Karnage did not feel. But a pirate like Karnage, with plenty of experience making people afraid, knew fear when he saw it in a person. This was the first time he'd seen it in Flynn, and this fear was a doozy of a dose.
"What is it?"
"Oh, no." Flynn put his face to the glass of the window, scanning desperately. There was nothing out of the ordinary to be seen, but that didn't keep his fur from standing on end. "Captain! Get word to your crew! Tell them, no matter what, to stand down! Do you hear me? They must stand down!"
"What are you talking about, you ―"
The airship quaked; Karnage and Flynn stumbled. Something had hit it, and hit it hard.
"What was that!" barked the captain.
"He's here," said Flynn. "He sniffed me out."
"He?! He ―" 'who?' Karnage was about to to ask, but he realized the answer. Whisps of dark clouds zipped by the round windows ― although they were not clouds. The bright skylight flooding in dimmed to twilight levels with no obvious explanation.
Flynn rushed away. "Let me do the talking!"
Karnage followed him, crying out and ducking along the way, for the corridor was beset upon by dark phantoms, red eyes glowing, swirling in the air and slithering on the walls and ceiling like shadow puppets. Then there were the hollers from his terrified crew. He drew his cutlass, prepared to cut through the phantoms if he had to, but they merely flew through him, cold as ice. Shrieking and shuddering, he had no small amount of terror himself as he ran against the direction the phantoms were flowing from, as was Flynn; they came to the source of the haunting at the cargo deck.
Cloaked in a smoldering, ghostly darkness, black wings folded back, the lion stood next to the Stormhawk, looking upon it with a hint of curious study. Phantoms writhed around like swimming eels. Screaming pirates came crashing onto the deck, fleeing from the ghosts they saw ― then skidded on their heels in mute horror when they got there.
Flynn grabbed Karnage's wrist, who took the hint quickly and hastily sheathed his cutlass to his hip, just as Kit came running up beside them, panting. Flynn then held out his hand, an unspoken gesture for everyone to stand back and hold still. Be it that they were already frozen in terror, that wasn't much trouble.
Flynn took a cautious step forward. "Hello again, old friend."
The lion's visage flickered at him, and his dark, winged form dissipated, though the phantoms gained in their numbers, flying as a swarm of shadows, the unnatural dimness in the air hellishly illuminated by their red eyes.
'Old friend!' a phantom hissed mockingly, swirling over Flynn's head.
'Where do you go in haste, old friend?' hissed another.
'He knows! He knows where it is!'
'Where is Bloodfang, old friend?'
A ghostly frenzy tightened around Flynn, 'Bloodfang! Bloodfang!' He shielded his head under his arms, but it was a growl huffed through the lion's teeth that made them relent and fall back into the greater swarm.
"Speak, Captain Flynn," he said in his thick Saharan accent, fangs exposed in each syllable spoken, every world underlined with deep-toned thunder. "Share what you know."
Flynn hesitated but a second, glancing around at the sky pirate crew, then compiled, "Sterling is nigh upon the sword."
"Is dis where you sail?"
Another brief hesitation. "Aye."
"And you seek her out" ― a smirk appeared ever so slightly on the lion's face ― "with de living? You bring her lambs to de slaughter."
'Slaughter! Blood! Slaughter!' the phantoms hissed.
"No, I won't allow that to happen," said Flynn, his muscles visibly tense. "I take your meaning, though, my choice of mates. I did not seek you out in this plan because―" He paused nervously, drawing a breath, "respectfully, we don't see eye-to-eye on a means to an end."
"Yet you are nothing but another lamb," snarled the lion. "What will you do against her?"
Flynn lowered his eyes, his golden tail limp behind his legs, all confidence sapped from him.
"I will claim de sword," said the lion. "The hour of the de pirate will come." He stepped forward in front of Flynn, glowering down at him. "Do you still stand with me, Captain Flynn?"
Flynn had his bottom lip between his teeth, and he tensed up to keep from squirming in a terrified way that took aback the sky pirates, who remembered freshly the way he so fearlessly and powerfully assailed them in Winger City. "W-we're all pirates here, mate," he uneasily answered, at length.
The lion's eyes narrowed at him. A rumbling growl reverberated. "Where does she go? Where is de sword?"
Flynn took another deep inhale, and replied, "The Twin Spires, you know them. 'Tis where this flying ship is pointed―"
Suddenly, howling. Wailing. The dark phantoms surrounding them all thrashed in a frenzy, their cries piercing ― all but the lion covered their ears, though the way he looked up at them made it obvious he did not know the cause of the disturbance. The phantoms fled away at blurring speed ― no, they were pulled away ― gone in an instant, all in the same direction, the very direction the airship flew toward.
Toward the Twin Spires.
Flynn's lips stretched around his teeth shown his shock as he and the lion turned their heads at where the phantoms disappeared to; then, coming to a realization, he closed his eyes and sighed apprehensively. The lion's face twitched and contorted in accelerating rage as he too gained the realization. His stance shifted aggressively, his claws knifed from his fingers, eyes pooling black and focused, not at anyone or anything on the zeppelin, but on something far, far distant; and as a ghostly black cloak materialized over his body, he let out a deafening, bloodthirsty roar that quaked the entire airship; pirates lost their footing left and right.
With the velocity of a fired cannonball, the lion's dark form crashed through the wall, into the open sky. Smoldering dragon-like wings flung open from his shoulders, and he flew as if carried by a hurricane wind.
Kit ran to the hole the lion had torn, ogling the swiftly departing demonic creature, while others managed, slowly, to get unstuck from their fear-driven paralysis. "The heck was that?!" cried Hal, a question which was frantically echoed (some in words more colorful than others) by the crew.
"You!" Karnage pointed in Flynn's face and snarled at him. "You pigeon-stooling blabber-breath, you told him everything!"
"Aye!" answered Flynn angrily, pointing a finger of his own back at the captain. "If I had attempted deception, he would have quartered us all with his bare hands! Now the lad and I would have survived... at least eventually, but the rest of you lot, t'was your lives I was afeared for, by the powers. Some appreciation on that account won't go amiss!"
"Guys, knock it off!" snapped Kit. "He's high-tailin' it ahead of us. Whatever just happened, it can't be good."
"No lad, nothing good, but perhaps inevitable," said Flynn, shaking his head. "Only one thing would draw the souls away like that. They've been called, and they must serve. The sword has been found, reclaimed by its master." He joined Kit by the hole torn in the wall, watching the demonic figure gain distance into the horizon. "I'm so jealous of those bedeviled wings."
The mutineers had divided themselves into two groups (not to be confused as teams), one to search the western spire, one to take its eastern counterpart, with the Iron Vulture anchored between them. Each group had a couple scoundrels manning the two small submarines they had.
Most of them agreed that Don Karnage had thrown the sword overboard just as the Vulture flew over one of the spires, though which spire that happened to be was up for debate. There was no telling if it stuck somewhere on either spire or went into the drink, hence the submarines. There was no lie in the needle in a haystack analogy, for the spires, from their base at sea level to their high vertical summits, encompassed tremendous square footage versus the size of a single sword, let alone if the blade was submerged. Grumbling abounded, for most of the mutineers who began the search with zeal had strongly underestimated the laborious task at hand, which included climbing the slopes like mountain goats at the risk of breaking their necks. In but a few hours there was serious talk about abandoning the search, a wave of one convincing the other that the sword wasn't worth all the work to find it. Here Patch had his first crisis of command, as he sweated profusely trying to keep them interested. He believed Sterling's promise of how the sword was enchanted, and he could not wait to see what power ― oh sweet power that he had deserved for years ― he could unleash. But as the sun dragged across the sky and the hostility of the tired, bored crew simmered hotter, he had a problem on his hands. It was pure fortune when someone cried out a discovery.
Bloodfang was found wedged in a vertical, rocky crevice on the western spire, concealed to the hilt, which itself was concealed under a patch of dry shrubs. Everyone, via submarine or rowboat, came back back into the Iron Vulture, where Patch brought the sword, displaying it with an air of victory. He had the crew meet him on the bridge, for some sake of ceremony.
"It's a heavy ol' bastard, ain't it," he huffed with a grin, attempting to hold it by the hilt; even with both hands, its unnatural weight made it greatly difficult for him to keep the blade from the ground. There was a lot of envious leering at its perfect, icy sheen and its gruesome golden skull-shaped hilt. It was a sword that looked like a treasure in of itself, to be handled by someone of great import, and frankly Patch in his shabby attire didn't do it justice.
"What'll we do with it, now?" one asked impatiently.
"Yeah, show us the big deal," another slobbered.
That's when Sterling, who had been part of the search on the eastern spire (tirelessly and without ever a sweat, some noted), boldly cut through the crowd. For an instant, she paused and beheld the sword with bated breath, her face stoic as bits of light reflected from the golden hilt into her blue eyes. Her tongue subtly slid over her front teeth.
She held out her hand to accept the weapon. "Allow me to show ye," she said kindly.
"Yeah, watch her hold it," someone snickered. Sterling ignored the remark, and also others of utter juvenile quality made regarding holding swords.
Patch must have had some internal debate, now that it came to it; he was reluctant to hand the sword over. "Why don't ya just explain it," he bargained.
Sterling did not withdraw her hand. She smirked coolly. "Oh, what futile games ye play," she sighed. "Answer me this, luvs, who among ye wants to live forever?" They didn't take the question seriously, but all cheered to the affirmative.
"Then all ye have to do is one trifle of a thing," she said. "One simple act to seal the deal. And that one thing I need ye to do, is…"
Her extended hand grabbed Patch by his right wrist, the one attached to the hand that struggled to hold the sword. He bristled at such audacity, he was the captain now after all ― she cracked his wrist like a twig. Bloodfang was dropped, and in his absolute shock Patch couldn't even muster a scream until Sterling finally let go to reveal that his wrist now looked like a plastic straw that someone had chewed on for a few hours; and, what a scream it was.
While Patch dropped to his knees and shrieked, the others jumped back in alarm. Sterling, with a fluid bow, scooped the sword by the hilt and effortlessly raised it straight upward over her head. She beheld the sight of it in her own hand with awe and gravity, then lowered the hilt to her face, where she caressed the golden skull against her cheek like rekindling with an old flame. Then at last she finished her sentence, that one thing she needed them to do; the voice that spoke was thunderous:
"...DIE."
With one crossways swipe of the sword she relieved Patch of his head. Continuing with the momentum of the swing, she pirouetted fully around and slashed at Patch again, this time cleaving him clean through the torso before the body even had time to fall. It was a bloody mess splattered against the captain's chair, but only for an instant, for Patch's flesh and blood became like smoke, crimson colored, which sizzled from his bones, or wherever it had splattered, and drew to the black blade of the sword as if sucked into it. The red stone at the base of the sword's hilt flashed fiery, and the runes of the blade burned bright red. At Sterling's feet was now a scattered skeleton, partially dressed in shabby clothes. Dark phantoms roiled from the floor, walls, and ceiling, a black inferno that erupted everywhere in the room.
The others sucked in their breath hard, their eyes wild in ghastly fear. She was not finished. Smirking, waving the tip of the sword over Patch's remains in a superfluous abra-cadabra fashion, Patch's bones moved. A translucent shade enveloped them, pulling those that were scattered back into place like magnets. As the bones clacked together the skeleton stood up, and the shade took the outline of his missing flesh, even the contours of his lupine face over his skull. His right eye glowed from its empty socket.
The others ran, oh how they fled from her. "Patch" went clattering after them ―
"I shall raise the dead to devour life," Sterling chanted softly.
― they clambered through the corridors, tripping over each other ―
"Turn earth to ash in fire storm."
― every man for himself, they cried. Out this way, no that way ―
"I shall bring the Dark to end this strife."
― and how to get out, they panicked. Trapped! The ghosts were everywhere ―
"And rest in Nothing, when Nothing takes form."
Before the front window, the eye of the Vulture, she plunged the blade into the floor and knelt with it, driving it halfway to the hilt; it cut into the iron easy as wet cement. From that iron wound, great dark veins grew in the metal itself, pulsating, stretching ever onward, growing into an intricate web that soon covered the entire room, and beyond. The surfaces of the ceiling, walls, and floor softened into something pale, pink and flesh-like, and writhed with flexibility. The window, the eye Sterling looked out into the world from ― blinked. The Vulture rose from the water. Its engines were off.
Layers of screams echoed on top of each other, as if a game were being played of who could prove himself the most terrified. Sterling drew the blade from the floor, took a moment to hold it up once more for adoration, then went to hunt the screamers, every last one. And so was revealed the reason she was inclined to seek out this group of pirates in the first place, to have them present when the sword was at last found: Bloodfang was starving.
