"There's naught stopping her now," said Flynn. Kit and Karnage had followed him to the helm, where there was a map of the hemisphere taped to the wall. "After two hundred fifty years on ice, don't think she's not itching to start the bloodbaths. I'd lay to it that she's already cut down the mutineers."
Don Karnage grimaced sourly at the thought of those back-stabbers. After all these years, they could so easily cast him aside? If he had been there at the time of the mutiny, so read his sneer, he would have torn them to pieces ― and they probably would have killed him, too. He had wiped more loyalty from the bottom of his shoe, and he wasn't going to lose any sleep over them. The only thing he was really concerned about was, "What about my Vulture? I want my Vulture back!"
Flynn went to put his finger on a place on the map, but ended up putting his whole hand on it to lean against the wall as a thought occurred to him that seemed to knock him for a loop. "Your flying ship… by thunder, I didn't even consider that. Did you ever wonder why she went to such lengths to seek you out?"
"No, that is simple. I am Don Karnage, if you did not notice. Who doesn't do the seeking-out to follow me?"
"At least half the crew, apparently," muttered Kit.
Karnage flinched at that, and the look he gave Kit was a warning. "Shut up, boy."
"You have a pirate crew," said Flynn, "and to that end, I wager her designs were like as mine originally ― a pirate seeking pirates to convince them one way or the other to assist in searching for the sword. But that flying ship itself, ah, the menacing look it has about it, perfectly frightful. And now that she has the sword… oh, were I her, I would not be wont to part with the ship. I wonder..."
Kit didn't even mean for his last remark to be a rap on the captain, it was spoken in more of an absent state of frazzleness as he inwardly reflected on the body count. Those that had turned on Karnage, he never had a fondness for them anyway ― a lot of them contributed to the reason he ran away from the pirates in the first place ― but he knew them. Now thinking, just like that, they were no more, it was jarring. Things were hitting close to home. "But, if everyone's gone," he mumbled softly, "she wouldn't know how to fly it by herself… uh, would she?"
His hand still leaning on the wall, Flynn bowed his head, pensively, closed his eyes, and his other hand, at his hip, balled into a fist. For all intents and purposes it looked like he had fallen asleep or went into a trance. But in a beat, his fist tightened, and as it did, a coldness emanated from him, and a shade dimmed over his garments and golden fur. His brows furrowed. Kit and Karnage stepped back ― even Jock got out of his chair and backed away, eyes wider than his glasses. Flynn jolted, as he had just seen a horrendous sight from behind his eyelids. His fist relaxed, and all at once he returned to a normal color as he opened his eyes, which were for just an instance completely black as coal, and the next instant clear. He was out of breath. "Aye, she's taken the ship with her," he said, with a bewildered, incredulous face. "Alas, I caught glimpse of it just now, through the Dark." He swallowed. "It has taken on a few… alterations."
"Taken it where?" demanded Karnage. Kit was about to say that maybe they should be more concerned about the 'alterations' being spoken of, but ended up not speaking.
Flynn ran his hand down his muzzle, and looked to the map. "I can't divine where she's headed for certain, but I have a very strong inkling, as it were."
"You better not have any inkles on my floor, you filthy fleabag," scowled the captain, appalled. Kit just facepalmed.
"In other words," groaned Flynn, "I have an idea where she's headed. The Twin Spires, where are they on this map?"
"There," so Kit pointed out for him.
Flynn put his finger upon the location, and drew a line across the ocean straight to Crownland. "I wager if there's one place she's most eager to lay to waste, it's here. Olde Victoria, the home she so hated. There's a silver lining there, mates, as that's the very place we need the sword to be in order to cast it back into oblivion. We must proceed carefully, let her bring it there herself. Get me close enough and hopefully I can spring on her before she's able to ― wait." His finger drew back, about halfway between the Spires and Crownland, where there was a blob-shaped green island. "What's this place?"
Kit squinted at it, and answered, "Port Wagoo."
"Port?!" Flynn started. "It's inhabited?"
"Of course it is," said Kit. "Been there twice. They got this place that sells awesome pineapple fizzes ― wh-why, what's gonna happen?"
"She won't miss the chance to kill," frowned Flynn. "Anyone on that island is doomed."
Kit looked up to the captain with an expression that was obviously desperate for him to come up with a plan.
"What about the other one, Blackmane?" said Karnage. "Seems like he is eager to do the dirty work for us, no?"
"Yeah, if he stops her," said Kit, "no more end of the world, right?"
"Aye, when it comes down to it he's the lesser evil, though, that's not largely a better prospect, mateys. An immortal Blackmane will wage a reign of death and fear of the likes you can't fathom. Besides, even if he can wrangle the sword from Jack, we don't know if she's vulnerable to the blade like we are. Don't know if she has to play by the same rules, so to speak."
"Well we gotta do somethin' for Port Wagoo," insisted Kit. "Captain?"
"What do you think I can do for them, boy?"
Kit then turned to Flynn, who shrugged regretfully, saying, "I'm sorry, lad. I don't know either."
Kit bit on his knuckle fretfully; then he grabbed the radio mic.
Captain J. Tremblay, aboard and commanding the massive gunship SKS Stalker of Khan Enterprises, observed the lazy-going Port Wagoo from the bridge. Much too large for the docks, his ship was anchored just offshore, his crew receiving leave on the island for the weekend (per protocol, a skeleton crew always remained on board no matter what, in the event of emergencies). Palm trees bearing occupied hammocks fanned their leaves in the breeze, lined along the sandy beach, and beyond those was a small cluster of exotic trading posts, shade and relaxation.
"Captain, we're getting a strange distress transmission," said his communications officer while adjusting his headphones.
"Oh? Put it on speaker."
The officer complied, flipping a switch. The voice of a child was on the air:
'Hello? Is anyone around Port Wagoo picking up? Oh, man, someone pick up! Port Wagoo's in huge danger!'
The captain replied with his name and full title, and said, "Identify yourself, please."
'No time! Is your ship big enough to get everyone off the island? You gotta get everyone off! Everyone, understand?'
"Slow down, young man. Do you have an adult who can speak?"
'Oh, for cryin' out loud,' the kid grumbled. 'Here.' There was an audible scuffling sound of the mic getting passed around.
'Don't shove that radio at me, boy,' a new voice said. 'I don't want to talk to some Shere Khan cuckoo. Oh, fine! Er… allo, allo?'
"Hello? Whom am I speaking with?"
'What do you mean, who? Who else does it sound like, you ―' Another scuffle, and the voice was heard saying, 'Ow! You kicked my leg!'
'I'm gonna kick the other one too if you don't cut it out!' the kid said.
The adult voice grumbled something and said, 'So, I am being forced to warn you that, any minu-ette now, you are all going adios if you don't vamoose on the pronto.'
Tremblay's gray eyebrow rose. "Going adios," he repeated, deadpan.
'Croaking, you daft-headed dummy!'
"Is this your idea of a joke?"
Another scuffle on the speaker. 'Let me try,' said yet another voice. 'Ahoy, there! Mateys, this is serious, life and death! If you're hearing this and you're at Port Wagoo, you must evacuate now, by thunder! There's ― something ― headed your way, and it's going to massacre everyone.'
And another scuffle, someone else grabbing the mic; it was the kid again: 'Look, we know it doesn't make any sense, but there's a monster is comin' your way. Please believe us! You gotta save the people there!'
Captain Tremblay glanced at his officer, who was puzzled stiff. He internally debated for a moment on whether or not to dignify this conversation with a further reply, though he had to admit, their tones of urgency seemed genuine. "And what would this 'monster' look like?"
There was a brief silence on the other end. 'I believe, good sir, it will look something like… well… a vulture. But lay to this, once she appears, it will be too late.'
"She…?" muttered Tremblay.
"Captain!" alerted another officer, one watching the sky with binoculars. "In the sky! We have a large, uh, something inbound." He hastily wiped the front lenses of his binocular on the sleeve of his neatly pressed uniform, then took another look. "I… I think you should take a look at this."
Tremblay did so, at first without aid from the binoculars, for what he saw immediately made him jolt. In an otherwise clear, blue sky, a black storm emerged from the horizon, stretching and growing triangularly as in the shape of a ship's wake behind ― a bird? He snatched the binoculars from his officers' hand. He saw something recognizable indeed in the one-eyed visage of the incoming vessel. "The Iron Vulture? Pirates?" He took several glances with and without the binoculars, absolutely disbelieving what he was seeing with his own eyes.
The Iron Vulture, enveloped from behind its face in a dark, visually impenetrable mist, had grown black, ghostly wings, and with them it soared like a great bird of prey. Its eye glowed fiercely, its beak moved as if it drew breath, and the black mist that emanate around it it gave it the shape of an vulture-like body; beneath it the mist churned like waves from the sea; a closer look would reveal the mist had countless red eyes glowing in it. A wispy tail, like its wings, took the shape of a bird's, fanned out long and triangularly, dragging with it a dark storm that filled out the sky behind it.
Above all, it was the glowing eye that made Captain Tremblay clutch his hand over his palpitating heart, for he was somehow certain it was gazing at him alone.
"All hands on board to combat stations!" he ordered. "Full alert! Bring the guns about!"
Klaxons blaring from the Stalker took the attention and alarm of the entire port town, let alone the sudden rotation of its massive turrets; the latter also brought to attention the sight it was aiming at, the incoming monstrosity. Mass confusion quickly spread to panic.
With one thrust of its giant wings, the Vulture swooped toward the island at incredible speed. Stalker fired, missing, but upon Captain Tremblay's orders, it kept firing, adjusting aim each time, each cannon blast pulsating shockwaves over island and sea. The shots at last struck true, but deflected against the enveloping dark mist in explosions of sparks and shrapnel. Nothing phased it.
"Comms, switch to priority channel!" ordered the captain. "Advise Headquarters we're under attack, immediate assistance required!"
Almost directly above the Stalker now, the Vulture slowed, head bent and its gaze fixated on the gunship. From wispy shadows that were its very form, fire swirled. Stalker's turrets kept firing, but to no avail, blast after blast after blast. The swirls of fire swelled; red, burning light glowed upon the iron skin of the gunship, through the bridge window, into Captain Tremblay's eyes. He thought of his wife, children, and grandchildren, and how much he loved them.
Suddenly a dark, winged creature darted from seemingly out of nowhere, letting out a roar that rivaled the decibel level of the cannon fire; it collided with the Vulture and sank somewhere into its shadowy body. The fire shrank away, and the Vulture writhed as if beset with a terrible pain.
The people ashore ran, screaming, for the airborne monstrosity above them began plummeting as if something were killing it. It swooped over the island, but cleared land ― and as it did, two winged, demonic figures burst out from somewhere inside it, engaged in fierce combat. The Vulture careened belly-first into the sea, just off the beach, forcing huge splashes and waves that rocked Stalker and sent all sundry inside of it flying off counters and shelves. In that commotion, and holding to a railing for his balance, Tremblay saw that what floated there in the water was the actual Iron Vulture, the rigid, very much not-breathing mechanical flying machine, not the winged monster it was but a moment ago. But it was an afterthought compared to the unimaginable battle being waged before his eyes.
Monstrous roaring thundered as the two dark creatures, tangled in a violent blur with a semblance of fighting dragons, plunged into the shore. Upon impact, the ethereal darkness around them disappeared like a cloud of smoke blown away, and two more normal figures, relatively speaking, emerged from a sandy crater, claws versus sword.
The lion was hulking compared to the fox, but the latter was equally aggressive. Lunges and swipes, snarls and growls, claws deflected blade, blade deflected claws. The lion's right hand suddenly transformed into a long, black talon amidst one powerful swing, striking the fox across the head. Tremblay shuddered loudly as the sight of the sliced-up wound it made of her face, and it had knocked her to the ground ― and killed her, so he surely thought. But she was down for but an instant; with a kick of her legs she kipped up, simultaneously planting the sword's blade into the sand, which she used to powerfully vault up and over the lion. She wound her hand back, where it instantly swelled into a black, shadowy boulder-like shape half her size, then threw the punch. It hammered the lion as no impact bound by the laws of physics could; he was cast through the air, arcing toward Stalker ― at the bridge! Tremblay, crying out, shielded himself as the lion's back careened into the front window, shattering it entirely; the lion did not fly through the window, but fell onto the outer deck with the broken shards. The fox, then, leapt into the air at the ship, taking the form of a winged shadow in mid-air, eyes burning red, a maw like a dragon, sword in one of its monstrous, clawed hands. She ― it?! ― went to pounce upon the lion, but somehow, and from the angle of his view Tremblay could not see how, he deflected her, and she projected like a ricocheted bullet into the glassless front window, striking the bridge's ceiling and, the next thing Captain Tremblay knew, she had knocked him down and was on top of him, face to face. Her dark form, which was painfully cold to his flesh, dissipated; and as she looked down at him with eyes shining like sparkling blue marbles behind a hideously wounded visage, ribbons of her snout and face hanging off loosely. Tremblay squealed in petrified horror with no embarrassment, especially when through that wrecked face she seemed to grin at him. And before his eyes, the sickening wounds mended, like an invisible hand molding clay. The blood soaking her white-furred face dissolved away clean.
"Let's hold this thought, luv," she whispered in his ear kindly. "I'll be back for ye in just a shake."
With that, she leapt from him and out the window. Tremblay clutched as his pounding heart, virtually paralyzed until one of the bridge officers, who had all taken fearful cover behind anything and everything, came to his side. The hellish sounds of the fight ensued and continued, rocking the ship as the creatures were now fighting upon the prow, crashing into the cannon turrets and all else.
"Sir, there tearing the Stalker apart!"
"Move out," Tremblay gasped. "Abandon ship!" With some assistance, he stood up, and as he did, he heard an incredibly loud, pained roar; upon his first glance at the window, he saw the striking sight of the lion suspended in mid-air over the deck, limbs stretched out as if they were being drawn by horses ― but what had hold of each arm and leg were writhing dark phantoms, twisting together like ropes, all seemingly upon the command of the fox as she pointed the sword at him.
"Oh, Rajjy," said the fox, shaking her head and smiling. "Why fight it, me luv? I woulda saved ye for very last, ye know." With a flick of her blade, the phantoms pulled harder, bending joints backwards; cartilage could be heard cracking, and the lion wailed. "Funny how they remembered ye, ain't it. Blackmane the terror. The most fearless, an' feared of them all ― ah, if they only knew the truth. Tell 'em, Rajjy. Tell 'em who ye were afraid of. Tell 'em what you thought the first time ye saw me do this." The fox held out her free hand, palm up as if lifting a heavy, invisible orb at arm's length. As she did, the sea around the gunship churned with a dark mist, a mist that spread along the surf, flowing along the coastline.
"Halt lifeboats!" an officer yelled from the deck. "Something's in the water!"
The mist blinked with countless red eyes, which dunked beneath the water. Sailors evacuating under Tremblay's orders, attempting to board lifeboats, halted their activity and gazed frightenedly over the taffrails; movement was seen under the water, countless individual objects that moved toward the shore as if alive. Fish…?
The objects began breaking the surface. Skulls. With every lurching step out of the surf, more of their skeletal bodies were revealed, with flesh made of shadow that filled out the tattered remains of their clothes, and bound together their bones. Eyes in their empty sockets swirled in ghoulish red, ravenous. They bore sabers, maces and axes, weapons of their time.
The lion writhed in great agony, unable to break his ethereal shackles, and an expression crossed his snarling visage that hinted of fear. It lasted for only an instant. His eyes clenched shut, and his chest expanded to capacity with an inhale that hissed between his teeth; he held it for one beat… two… three…
He unleashed an immense roar. Tremblay and his crew covered their ears, they were forced to, as the merciless and painful noise battered their equilibrium and rattled their brains. It ripped sonic waves through their flesh and bone, and the air seethed. The fox staggered back, her hold on the lion suddenly released. The latter swooped in at her, but she regained herself instantly, and cut a left cross with the sword ― it sliced the lion over the width of his chest. He fell, clenching over the deep cut with his arms.
Tremblay heard nothing but a powerful ringing in his own ears, deaf to the increasingly panicked cries of his sailors and the screams of those on the island. From the bridge he watched transfixed as the fox casually sauntered to the lion, dragging the tip of her sword over the iron deck, swaying it intentionally in a way that made it leave a wave-shaped engraving behind her.
"Arms issued and ready," he commanded, an order intended to have the officers to unlock the gun cabinets and arm the crew. No one heard him. Out on deck, the fox stood over the lion, a deep furrowed expression of sarcastic sympathy on her face, and though he could not hear what she said, by reading her lips he was certain she was gloating with cruelty. As to what she was actually saying,
"Oh, ouch. That's as like not to mend, is it? Pity, that. More's the pity that I don't find meself in a mood to end yer sufferin' quick. I might hafta play with ye a bit, ye understand. Or, better yet… they will."
Though his ears still rang, Tremblay somehow heard echoes of a clattering that made his spine seize stiff. The noise was climbing from around him, up the gunship's hull. The fox meanwhile leaned lazily on her sword, like it was a cane. Then the source of the clattering revealed itself, first as several skeletal hands grasping over the taffrail, and their animated bones climbing up and over. Some of this batch had clothing more modern than those that were marching onto the beach; some had things like goggles and pilot scarves. One ghoul that had a wolf's skull had a patch over its left eye. Tremblay, again, shouted for the crew to arm themselves, in decibels of desperation unlike he had ever used.
The ghouls made for the lion, their bony maws snapping. In a moment they surrounded him, piling on. The lion wailed thunderously ― but at the height of that roar, the ghouls were thrown back in a dark, shadowy explosion; the fox, too, was staggered backward. The lion sprang upright, the deep slash over his chest opening and closing like a mouth as he breathed, and countless other marks and gashes from teeth and claws on him. He gasped for breath as if his life was leaving him, and threw himself overboard.
"Well that was rude!" cried the fox. "Leavin' the table 'fore the dinner's done." She laughed merrily. "Maybe I'll save 'im for last, yet. Ah, but eat up, me hearties." She looked up, at the broken window of the bridge, at Tremblay's trembling face. Her blue eyes turned black, then glowed red. "STILL PLENTY LEFT." She leapt up at an impossible velocity, at once enveloped in shadow and transforming into the winged creature she was before. Soaring in a long arc, she plummeted into the Iron Vulture. Heavy, black mist emanated from the airship immediately.
Captain Tremblay was shaken by the shoulder; one of his officers handed him a pistol from the gun cabinet. He took it, miserably knowing that now, when his crew needed him the most, he could not keep his hands from trembling. As the ringing in his ears had finally begun to clear, the screams from the island struck him with yet another layer of terror. Many of those screams were his own men and women. The ghouls on the deck ― they weren't at the prow anymore. They were on the move.
"Abort abandon ship!" he ordered. "All hands inside, lock down!"
"Aye sir, we've already fallen back!"
"Stand ready to defend yourselves!" cried the captain. "Courage! Courage!"
"Sir! Through the window!"
They clattered into the bridge, climbing like spiders, through the broken front window. Guns fired against the incoming wave of jaw-snapping corpses. Fleshless skulls shattered and exploded, but the shadow that embalmed them pulled the broken pieces back in place. In but a few seconds the gunfire was not enough to stave off the undead onslaught. Tremblay ordered a retreat out of the room. His pistol clicked with a spent chamber. He tried to flee, but was struck in the back by he knew not what, and he was cast to the floor. He heard screams all around him of agony and terror, the sound of bony feet stamping against the floor ― and sounds of ripping, tearing...
He rolled onto his side. The last thing Captain J. Tremblay of the SKS Stalker saw in his corporeal form was the thrust of a rusted saber sinking into his chest, and the flash of teeth in his face. Then there was Nothing.
