Readers - my very best wishes to you this Christmas season. As the story nears its conclusion, for those of you who have stuck with it since the start, you have my gratitude, and I hope you've found it to be a hell of a ride. And hopefully not much motion sickness. Kit and Karnage are two amazing characters, and though the premise of this story obviously goes against the grain of the series, to me it's been an exciting and entertaining avenue to explore - and ya know, I kinda like it! :) I don't know if there will be more from me after this one (never say never!), but in the event there's not, I'm so happy to have had the opportunity to share these stories with you, and I hope some of them have brought a smile now and then. Thank you for reading, and merry Christmas. ^-^


Even gray skies looked pretty, at least he thought so. So what if it rained a little, he didn't want to go back inside. He was perfectly happy to lay on the lawn and watch for airplanes. It was more of a game, after all, when the clouds were out; sometimes you could hear the planes, but not see them, at least not right away. Then you'd have to look, start scanning every square inch of the sky in a hurry, hopefully catching a glimpse of it.

Wait… he wasn't supposed to be here anymore, right…? He had run away from this place, he was sure he did, some time ago…

He was dreaming, he realized, and as far as lucid dreams ever went for him, this was a whopper. He sat up. Some of his old friends were there, Jimmy, Dotty, and other orphans. They were frozen statuesque in the state of play, it looked like a game of tag. They faded in and out like mirages. There was that old tool shed, too, the one with the chipped red paint and that bronze padlock that got super hot in the summer afternoons and they used to dare each other to see who could touch it the longest. Rumors had it that if you didn't get adopted, you were thrown into the shed and never seen again.

And that chain-link fence. The fence he thought about climbing over every day. Because he wasn't going to get adopted. And he wasn't going to let them throw him in the shed. Everything looked so real. He was struck by how well the walnut trees along the town street came into detail, the shape and texture of their bark and thin leaves, many of which were strewn in the gutter, and how the roots of the trees pushed up the cement plates of the sidewalk. As he stared at them, though, the trees faded away. The entire town faded away. Beyond the chain-link was darkness. Even the gray sky was gone. Instead was a dark void, shattered worlds, a Presence.

And now he knew where he was. He had been here before. He and that little piece of the orphanage were upon a broken fragment, one among many, floating over the ashen remains of a consumed world.

'There are things you experience in the Dark,' so he remembered hearing, 'that depend on what you bring into it.'

The orphanage shimmered away. He would have rather been there again than here. Could he make it come back, like trying to fall asleep and getting back into an interrupted dream? He lay on his back, facing the endless void, demanding the grass appear again beneath him. Demanding the sky appear above. Imagining that sky ever so urgently ― that gray sky…


Kit sniffed; something foul was in the air, a moist, garbagey kind of scent. It made his lip curl. Not a great thing to wake up to. He opened his eyes, realizing he was on his back, looking upon a gray sky, with something very big looming in the gray.

Oh, and he was all wet.

His head pounded something fierce as he sat up. He remembered everything that happened as soon as he noticed Bloodfang lying next to him, the golden skull on its hilt grinning at him. He remembered everything, that is, except how he was able to break his fall. He was pretty sure he should've been a pancake, and boy was he glad he wasn't.

A crashed omnibus had caused an impassable traffic jam on the already narrow road, which ran between two long rows of brownstone buildings, both sides three-stories tall. All the motorists who had their cars stuck had already fled the area, some of them with the engines still running. Among the buildings ― apartments, pubs and other small shops ― there wasn't a door to be seen that wasn't shut, nor a window that wasn't shuttered. Terrified people, maybe some who were driving one of these cars a moment ago, could be heard screaming in the distance, running away from the terrors hunting them.

Kit noticed there were two distinct webs of cracks in the cobblestones; a light web directly underneath him, which was about his size, and a heavier, much more notable web under Bloodfang. The abandoned street was wet as if there was a recent rain, but items and debris were strewn around like there had been a flash flood; he saw his airfoil among such debris in a nearby gutter. And the giant thing looming overhead, he realized, was the zeppelin. It was damaged and coming down, a big hole punctured straight through the side of its helium-filled hull. Figures were evacuating the airship, scaling down from long rope ladders.

Don Karnage's boots hit the ground first, calling out, "Boy!" Others followed the captain likewise, while also looking up at the sinking zeppelin, which was about to bridge the street over the buildings. They didn't seem to know what exactly had hit it to put it down.

The street was apparently slippery, for as the captain tried to stop he skidded past the boy and fell flat on his piratical posterior, which happened to bullseye into a perfectly posterior-sized puddle. Kit was just dizzy enough to forget about all the recent horrors and burst out laughing. The grr in Karnage's glare brought him back to reality, so to speak, quickly.

"You are… sitting up," so said Karnage, in an inflection that seemed confused as to if it was meant as a question or observation. In either case, he was clearly having trouble believing what he was seeing.

"Uh, yeah, why?" blinked Kit.

Karnage grabbed him by the hands and hoisted him up; to Kit's utter confusion he was spun around like he was in some sort of square dance, but that was the captain looking him over. He at last let go of Kit's hands to rub his own disbelieving eyeballs.

"Hey, what gives?" Kit wanted to know.

The other sky pirates had arrived at that point, muttering around him with incredulous tones, and eyes wide.

"Whoa," breathed Mad Dog. "H-he's… okay."

"Whaddaya mean, okay?" asked Kit.

"We saw you!" exclaimed Hacksaw, in his shrill, shaky voice. "You went…" He didn't have the words to describe, so he drew a long vertical line with his finger, drawing it from above his head to his belly button, while making a whistling sound as if imitating a bomb being dropped. At the bottom of the line, he added the explosion effect with air puffing through his teeth.

"We saw ya go… well, splat," winced Hal.

"Sp… splat?" sputtered Kit, gulping.

"Spuh-lat," confirmed Dumptruck, making a disgusted face, and gesturing, open palms facing down and sliding to the side, a description of the overall splatness of said splat. Apparently it was very splatty.

Kit looked down at the light web of cracks under his feet, with a frightful realization. He had put the cracks there. Then he got smacked upside the head, and that one really smarted! He even heard the hand that did it whoosh in the air the instant before impact.

"Ye-ow!" he yelped.

"STOP DYING!" Don Karnage roared over him, stamping his feet.

Kit rubbed behind his ear, where it stung, and gave the captain a dirty look. "How come every time you're glad I'm not dead, I get attacked?"

Two distinct roars pierced the air, and there were massive crashing noises from somewhere unseen, perhaps a block or so away from where they all stood. From out of nowhere, Flynn dropped down among them. He was uncharacteristically out of breath, and to the gruesome shock of one and all, he had a gash on his snout that was presently mending before their eyes. His clothes were ripped, evident of other wounds he had suffered.

"Lad! Mates! Ah, there 'tis at last!" He scooped up Bloodfang by its hilt. "Egads, no lie that it's heavy," he huffed. "Bless you, laddy. That was no small feat you did."

"Never mind his small feets," snarled Karnage, tugging Kit away from Flynn protectively. "What are those noises?"

"By the powers, that's Jack and Blackmane," said Flynn. "They've taken to their devilish forms and are flinging each other from here to all buggery. You couldn't have missed them, they're the ones that tore through your floating ship, claws and fangs!"

"Wait, Blackmane?" started Kit. "He's still alive?"

"He's as deep in the Dark as much as Jack, you can lay to it. Neither will go down so long as there's a scrap of fight left in them. Myself, I just had a lovely tango with Jack until he cut in, and he was welcome to it." Swiping his hand over his nose, to the ick-factor of those watching, he pinched the last of the gash shut, where it finally disappeared altogether. "Not a moment too soon, either, she was nigh to stuffing my own tail down my throat. Alas, they're both distracted and we have the sword! We're close, mates! Onward to Havenshore!"

Kit snatched his airfoil from the gutter, and with Flynn ahead of them, and Karnage a close second, the group ran together, although not exactly for the same intentions.

"Onward to my Vulture!" demanded Karnage. "I want my Vulture back, pronto!"

"Cripes, where is the Vulture?" asked Kit.

"It hit the river, smack-dab," answered Ratchet, panting and snorting as he ran. "Holy crap what a splash! The waves drenched half the town!" That would explain why everything was wet, thought Kit, and that polluted stink.

They weren't around any of the main town roads, and the streets they ran through became narrower and bent. It did not appear to be a route frequently walked, though the current undead pandemic may have had something to do with his lack of pedestrians. Flynn mostly seemed to have an idea of where he was headed, though an occasional street sign indicating the way to the river did not go amiss (the seagulls were no small hint, either). They ran with all haste, the viscous roars thundering in the air and clashes of explosive destruction waged between Blackmane and Sterling urged them on like invisible whips snapping at their tails. They were actually close to the water to begin with, and within minutes, entering one last long alleyway between the brick walls of neighboring factories, the riverbank was in sight.

"Augh! Lookout!" Hal shouted, bringing everyone's attention to a dark meteor streaking in the sky overhead. The meteor was not flying ballistically, but aiming at it arced down toward the alley. It adjusted its trajectory, suddenly slowed, and with great black wings alighted as gently as a sparrow on top of a tall industrial chimney, which billowed with thick smoke. A hellish creature with four legs and a dragon's head peered down at them, allowing itself to be bathed in the smoke. "THAT BELONGS TO ME, LUV," its hideous voice said.

Another streak bolted in the air, dark as midnight, giant claws, dark wings ― the creature on the chimney hardly had a chance to hiss at it before impact. The chimney shattered, and the two demonic forms flung in the sky together entwined in gruesome combat. Over the river they went, landing somewhere unseen beyond the opposite bank. The pirates, meanwhile, ran for their lives from the broken bricks being rained down on them.

Outside the alley there was a wet, muddy street that ran parallel with the river, and across from that were shacks and docks of various sizes lining the length of the banks, which still trickled with the receding flood. Crates big and small were strewn chaotically. Vacant boats that were tied to docks, along with abandoned boats left drifting aimlessly in the brownish water, rocked tumultuously in the waves the Iron Vulture had created upon splashdown. And as for the Iron Vulture itself, it floated just around the bend upstream, where it looked like it narrowly missed falling upon a landmark bridge. Aside from having its eye shattered, the airship looked relievingly normal.

Flynn pointed in that same upstream direction. "The bridge! You see it from here! That's Havenshore, by the powers!"

"And my ship!" yelled Don Karnage. He went running down the street with both arms reached out. "My Vulture, my Vulture, my Vulture!"

"HOLD!" cried Flynn, in an unnaturally powerful voice. It startled Karnage, and he did indeed stop. Flynn's eyes were black as he looked down the riverbank, scanning the cluster of maritime structures lining it, and jerking like someone had put an ice cube down the back of his collar.

"Wh-what?" Kit asked him nervously ― but he himself felt a creeping chill, and it sure wasn't a nice spring breeze.

Flynn spun around, scanned the other way, then back again with Bloodfang raised defensively. Let's just say this garnished some attention from the sky pirates. Emergency sirens still wailed in the distance, the cacophony of panicked cries from fleeing people had not abated, and the sky still thundered with roaring and sounds of destruction from Blackmane and Sterling, but there along this riverside portion the area was already well abandoned, except for a scurrying rat here and there and gulls flapping overhead. It did not take a supernatural sixth sense to start to think that perhaps this area was too quiet…

"Oh, bugger," Flynn muttered gravely. "She's sent them for us."

It started with the sound of old bones creaking from around the corner of a brick building, where a pair of fleshless feet shuffled onto the muddy street. A single ghoul, lupine skull, transparent darkness filling out an outline of a strikingly familiar figure, strikingly familiar garb ― and a patch over its left eye. The right eye socket glowed red.

Don Karnage backed away on stiff legs, drawing his cutlass. There was a rustling from under the tarp of a moored barge. Skeletal hands ripped the tarp open, the rest of the ghoul emerged, shadowy outline over its bones as thick and plump as the living person had once been. It wore a viking-inspired helmet, one the pirates recognized, as its clothes, too, were recognized. Hacksaw let out a frightened squeak, which spoke for more pirates than himself.

More came splashing out of the river, some crawling onto the bank, some clambering up from the edge of docks. Another rose from behind a trash bin, yet another dropped from a rooftop overhead. The flapped cap and goggles of a particularly large one, the peg leg of a shorter one, pilot scarfs, vests, boots from others ― all of them gruesomely familiar.

'Well well, here we are! Back together again,' hissed the ghoul with the eyepatch. The terrible voice was something not familiar. Somehow that made it scarier.

The living sky pirates backed into each other, grouping into a circle as they were surrounded. Karnage had his cutlass, Flynn Bloodfang, but weapons were scarce among the rest, as all their blades and guns had been stocked aboard the Iron Vulture.

Gibber, muttering hectic words, pulled a pistol from inside his coat, and pointed it at ghoul to ghoul with a shaky hand. Hacksaw, chattering fretfully, peeled off a stick of dynamite from his armband and went digging for a matchook under his waistband. Kit fanned out his airfoil and held it like a shield; and speaking of shields, Mad Dog wedged himself behind Dumptruck.

In unison, the ghouls' red eyes flared bright, and they let out a piercing wail. They charged their prey with great speed and ravenous abandon. Gibber fired his pistol, but in his fright was too unsteady to hit a mark.

Flynn leapt straight up at incredible height, and also taking Hal and Dumptruck with him in a lasso-like conjuration. The two of those hefty henchmen bound together at the end of a dark, magical tether― a makeshift wrecking ball. A screaming, totally involuntary wrecking ball, but a wrecking ball nonetheless. Before Flynn's feet touched the ground again, the wrecking ball whipped around in three powerful spins that sent ghoul bones shattering every which way. Once released, the two burly pirates fell on their backsides, dizzily cupping their head.

"Ahem. Sorry 'bout that, mateys," said Flynn. "Stand fast, all, mark my words they won't stay down!"

And that proved immediately to be true. The bones, bound together in shadow, flew back together joint-by-joint, and the ghouls were reformed. The larger ones, the only two of the former crew who had a size advantage over Dumptruck ― when they had flesh on their bones, anyway ― had their red eyes focused on Flynn now, jaws snapping. They attacked him together. Flynn frantically heaved an upward swing with Bloodfang to slash one from the hip to shoulder, and with a shrill wail the ghoul collapsed, this time not to rise again. Instantly after, however, the larger of the two collided into him with tremendous force, and both went over the docks and splashed into the river. Bloodfang fell on the muddy street, dropping on the rutted ground without a bounce or rattle. Its immaculate sheen did not suffer a drop of mud to be stuck to it.

Karnage went for the dropped sword ― so did every remaining ghoul. He did not risk racing them, but rather backed away before he was turned into instant monster chow. In but a heartbeat they had the sword covered, piling over each other to guard it, clamoring in clacking bones and vicious hisses. Only one ghoul, the one with the patched eye, stayed to guard the sword, and the rest moved quickly, lining themselves side-by-side like a moving barrier. There wasn't a pirate there who didn't think now would be a good time to start making some fast tracks in the mud, but,

'Run, run!' the ghouls taunted them. Big and small, their fleshless bodies crouched down on all fours like feral beasts, beasts eager to leap out into the thrill of the hunt, the chase and the kill. 'Ruuuun!'

Kit tugged on Karnage's sleeve. "Captain! What're we gonna do?"

Karnage gave him a look that read, 'Oh, of course! Leave it to me!' He did have one thing on his mind, however ― that if they ran for it, he at least could run faster than most of the rest, and the fastest zebra in the herd wasn't the one going to be a lion's supper. The boy was even faster than he was, often to his chagrin, but for once not right now. Some of them would get away… and the others, well...

"J-jeez," stammered Ratchet, as the ghouls crawled forward in unison, "they're workin' t-together!"

Don Karnage grimaced, backstepping with his cohorts as the ghouls stalked them. He actually felt… mildly less than perfectly good… about that previous thought. In his pirate career, this gang had all proven themselves to be a bunch of self-serving bastards at one point or another, but they were his bunch of self-serving bastards, here now only because they found something to this sticking together thing the boy had talked them into. Life used to be a lot less complicated. But really, what fat chance was it that, if he even dared to stand his ground against these things, all the other nincompirates wouldn't just ditch him to save their own skin? Like he should be doing for himself right now? You know who didn't try to save their own skin? Morons, that's who. And yet...

It was by his own estimation perhaps the most moronic thing he ever did, but he stopped backstepping, and crouched with his cutlass ready to slash, snarling at their ghastly foes. Like a chain reaction, the other pirates stopped backing away as well. Even the ghouls paused, apparently surprised by this. Though he would conceal it ― as well as how badly his knees wanted to shake ― Karnage found it surprising, too. They were sticking together, sticking with him. Maybe he underestimated the value of being a moron.

They waited on him to make a command. In their fear and confusion they needed to be told what to do, he realized, and it was all on him. "Men!" he called out, raising his sword as if about to order the calvary to charge. But charging bare-handed was suicide; he had his cutlass, but the rest largely didn't have weapons on hand ― but it occurred to him, they only didn't have conventional weapons on hand. He looked left and right at their surroundings; the others started getting the idea. "Brrreak things!"

No one had even noticed that Hacksaw had lighted three sticks of TNT. The fuses were already burned down to the paper, and if he had held onto them for two more seconds they would have exploded in his hand. He threw them at the ghouls, and the instant they touched the ground, BOOM! Bones went flying everywhere, again.

The pirates had their chance, and the 'breaking things' commenced. Dumptruck ripped off a downspout from the nearby building, a fat piece of rusty pipe his own height. Hal ran to a crane on the docks, one that had a huge iron hook at the end of its rope. He spun a wheel that let the rope drop free, and Jock, who had taken a makeshift shield from a trashcan lid and also found a hatchet left on a barrel, chopped the rope free for him. Mad Dog tore away a stuffed swordfish that was mounted above a shack's door ― hey, it was something. Ratchet and Will found shovels, both with a smidgen of disappointment that they didn't need to break anything to acquire them. Not that they still didn't have things to break. As in, skulls and bones, which were dragging along the ground, reconnecting. Will and Ratchet looked at each other, gulped, cried out with courage and ran for the bones, and thus invented a new sport: shovel hockey. With bones instead of pucks. They were frantically slap-shotting skulls and slashing away femurs, just trying to keep them from rejoining.

The rest of the sky pirates charged in before other ghouls had a chance to completely form. Their mortally-challenged foes hissed and wailed, for every time even one of them got at least halfway reassembled, it was shattered again, getting broken in pieces by shovel heads, an airfoil, a cutlass, a huge pipe, a hatchet and trashcan lid combo, a hook swinging from a rope, even a stuffed swordfish. Watching on, the ghoul with the eyepatch howled ragefully ― you could clearly tell what team it was rooting for. Mad Dog shrieked when a disembodied hand clenched its skeletal fingers around his tail ― Gibber, helpfully(?), took a shaky aim and blasted the hand away with his pistol ― Mad Dog shrieked even louder at that. But it got the hand off. Some fur, too. Hacksaw's feet danced around nervously like the ground was a hot frying pan, while he held a lit match close to a dynamite fuse, searching for an opportunity to throw it in the fray. Blowing up the monster: good. Blowing up his fellow cohorts into pieces: well, the captain had given him a very stern warning about that ever happening again. When a skull came rolling by his feet, he squealed and kicked it into the river. And, while he screamed in the pitch of a small girl with every swing, his knuckles proved enough for the meantime.

As the fight went on, the pirates were getting winded quickly, while the ghouls were relentless and inexhaustible. The dead weren't slowing down a bit in their bid to reassemble and attack, but the same could not be said for the pirate crew's attempts to keep them scattered. For each skeleton battered, two more reformed closer to completion than they had gotten before. The fight was turning. Even the skull Hacksaw had just kicked came leaping out of the water like it was tethered on a reel to its other parts.

The eyepatched ghoul had evidently stood by long enough, and abandoned guarding the sword in favor of charging into the fray, perhaps to tip the battle once and for all. It went straight for Don Karnage. The captain saw this and in turn charged forward, cutlass swinging, but his feet were snagged by bony arms. A skull bit into his boot, making him shout. Plus, in awful, unlucky timing, a tired but heavy swing of Dumptruck's pipe knocked over the ghoul he was assailing, but in the follow through accidentally careened Jock and Gibber, who were teaming with him against a group. The mastiff was suddenly overwhelmed by skeletons, while they, in the very process of their scattered bones pulling back together, clambered onto him. No one had ever imagined he was capable of howling such siren-like falsetto, but was he! Nor was he alone on this; the pirates, especially with two down, were outnumbered and getting swarmed.

Grunting, Kit swung his airfoil and bashed away a ghoul that was trying to make easy work of fallen Jock. As if being up to his neck in a hurricane of thrashing bones wanting to tear him to pieces wasn't terrifying enough, he didn't know how anyone else was dealing with this fact but he knew these guys. Once, anyway. The smoldering shadows molded over their skulls kept the shape of their faces. The one he just hit had once recited to him a limerick that he didn't get but it sure made him blush anyway. Suddenly, his face was driven into the muddy street when he got pounced on from behind. He felt fingers piercing him through his sweater, pinning him down by the shoulders, and a ravenous hiss in his ear. He never saw the ghoul coming, but fortunately Hal did, and more fortunately the hefty feline was inclined to help him out. Hal, shuddering loudly, yanked the flailing thing up by its spine and threw it aside. Kit was so breathless he couldn't even utter a thanks, but there was hardly a split second before the same ghoul had charged back at them, hissing and snapping its jaws. Hal took a swing at it with his hook-on-a-rope, but the monster sprung on its bony legs with a high leap and onto his shoulders ― Kit could not spring away fast enough as Hal was knocked backwards. It was like being caught under a flabby tsunami, or more aptly as the pirate hit the ground, a steamroller.

As Hall rolled away, wrestling with the ghoul, Kit gasped for air; on top of everything else, he was pretty sure he now knew what a spent tube of toothpaste felt like. To say he was a feeling disoriented ― and perhaps oddly squishy ― would be putting it mildly. And then, he heard frantic Spanish cursing from across the street; Karnage had kicked a ghoul off his leg, but was being assailed by the eyepatched one, which had its fleshless hands gripped around the captain's cutlass blade. In a blink the ghoul had wrenched the sword away, and like a starving vampire lunged for Karnage's throat.

Kit got up to all fours and yelled out to him, but what was he going to do? The entire chaotic fray was between them, all the brawling and wrangling, shovels swung, knuckles crunched, bones cracked, pirates hollered ― a swordfish thwacked away ― jaws bit, fingers claws scratched, a clamor of fear and aggression. Karnage had fallen against a wall, with the eyepatched one on top of him; Kit saw the captain try to shield himself ― the ghoul sank its lupine teeth into his forearm. Kit had never, ever heard the captain howl so piercingly with agony.

Seeing something like that, hearing something like that ― it did something to him. Something he knew not what, but it started with a wrenching feeling in his core, and an intense shudder that made him quake. Time, the chaotic movement of everything around him, seemed to slow down to near standstill, but he was hardly even aware of it. Nor was he quite cognizant of how the sky dimmed to nothing, how darkness permeated the very air. He just saw the captain, in danger, in pain, losing the fight for his life ― but he really wasn't focused on the captain. He was focused on that hideous eyepatched creature, what it was doing, who it was hurting, and how very much he would like to tear that monster to pieces. He felt rage, and a loud, outrageous want to charge at that wretched thing and hurt it. Fight! Hurt! Attack!

He blinked ― or at least he thought he did, but how did everything around him change as quickly as a flip of a lightswitch? He was suddenly on the other side of the street, next to the captain, bones and an eyepatched skull rolling at his feet. His airfoil he held with both hands, and it was wrecked like it had been beaten against a boulder. As for the brawl, it had somehow been interrupted, both sides scattered and disoriented. Something had plowed right through it all. Something had carved a straight rut in the mud that crossed the street. Something had careened into the eyepatched ghoul and sent it to pieces. Something had Don Karange looking at him like he was a three-headed ogre. All Kit knew was that his insides were roaring with adrenaline.

Karnage, clutching the bleeding bite mark on his arm, was rendered uncharacteristically speechless, the words from his lips taking a lot of effort: "Wh-what… was… th-that."

Looking around, Kit saw that his cohorts, while gathering themselves, were giving him the same kind of look as the captain did. He realized that "something" was him. What they had seen was the kid's eyes turn completely dark, and the runt no longer a runt but rather a burst, a shadowy streak that shot across the street at the speed of a cannonball.

"I… don't know," he replied. He looked at his hands and arms, examining them as if he expected to find some new muscles bulging. For what he felt inside of him he could not really describe, though if he were to take a stab at it, it was, in a word, power. "But it felt awesome!"

The interruption wasn't long to last ― the ghouls were quicker to spring back into action faster than the pirates were, and the brawl was on, the exhausted pirates now squarely on the defensive, fending for their lives. But Kit wasn't tired at all. And he was feeling fearless. And he was having an incredible, whack-a-mole inspired idea. With a running start, he leapt, planting both feet on the wall, and then sprang out, like he had never been capable of before, over one very surprised pirate captain's head. From there his feet went into pogo stick mode, over the breadth of the fight, stomping on skull after skull after skull ― though one of them, despite having a similar hollow clunk to it, wasn't a dead skull, for which he yelped an apology to Ratchet. When his feet landed on the street again, there were a lot of headless skeletons chasing their rolling heads around.

"Retreat!" called the captain. "Full speed out of here!"

No one had to hear it twice. The pirates broke away from the fight, huffing tiredly down the street ― all but Kit. He went the other way, going for the sword. Karnage saw this and skidded to a stop on his heels, with the realization that he should have ran for the sword himself. He recalled the ghoul Flynn slashed down with it never came back up; the sword could kill these things, for good. "Boy!"

It would seem the ghouls, then ― or whoever or whatever was controlling them ― realized their error in leaving Bloodfang unguarded. Heads ready or not, they collectively hissed loudly, with all their attention focused on the boy. Kit picked up the golden-skulled hilt with both hands, staring down the monsters with a come-and-get-some look; but "come and get some" quickly turned into "oh crap wait a minute" when even with straining he wasn't able to lift the unnaturally heavy blade all the way off the ground for more than a second or so. The ghouls went after him at once.

"Help him!" cried the captain. "Full speed back over there!"

That was when Hacksaw finally saw an opportunity, where the ghouls were grouped in one bunch now, clamoring in Kit's direction ― he threw a burning dynamite stick. The fuse hissed and smoked in twirling circles through the air. It hit a fleshless skull, bullseye ― but it bounced off and landed in the quickly closing gap between the monsters and Kit, who were all well in the blast radius.

"Oh cru―" BOOM.

Bones everywhere. The only thing that was left in place where the dynamite exploded was Bloodfang, ever glistening immaculate in the mud, not even scruffed by the explosion. No sign of Kit. Karnage ran over the bones and over the sword, calling out for the boy. Between two overturned bins, he saw an ambiguous, muddy clump showing portions of a green sweater. "No!"

In the flash of the explosion, Kit felt a lot of pain, practically everywhere. But when he hit the ground, the pain went numb, then cold. He was dazed and seeing double as the captain knelt over him, and the captain's face ― that is, faces ― looked horrified. Kit felt like there were hundreds of tiny, ice-cold needles knitting on his skin, a sensation so alarming that he brought his arm up to his face to see what was happening. The sleeve of his sweater was ripped ― and the ripped parts on him probably didn't end with his clothes, to judge by the captain's face, or the needling sensations he was feeling all over. The horror in the captain's face, however, shifting to something greatly astonished. He helped the boy sit up.

Kit looked over his body as the needling sensation abated; his sweater had seen better days, but no sign of any wounds. At least not anymore. He looked up at Karnage, gulping. "Was it… bad?"

"B-bad?!" The captain sputtered. "I ought to ― I said no dying! And when I say no dying, I mean no dying! I ought to kill you!"

"Aw, lay off," the kid winced. Then, blinking, "Wait, who's got the sword?"

Karnage had barely turned his head when he was suddenly hoisted off his feet, crying out "Yee-ie!" Kit screamed, too, for over him was a hulking ghoul, the one that had disappeared with Flynn into the river. It heaved the captain over its head, one large skeletal hand around his neck and the other around a thigh. It all happened in a heartbeat, but it was about to tear the captain apart. At the last instant of that heartbeat, a black blade slashed the ghoul through its spine. Karnage came yelping down in a rain of falling bones and a large skull wearing a flap-cap.

Flynn was still coughing up dingy water. His clothes were shredded, plastered soaking wet against his body, and he panted with rage. A rage he took without further ado against the rest of the ghouls, leaping upon them with Bloodfang slashing like a bladed monsoon. The pirates gave him plenty of room, watching as one after the other each ghoul met the sword's razor edge and hissed its last. When it was over, skeletons nearly whole to completely scattered littered the street. The shadow that enveloped them was gone. Flynn stood over the mess, scanning it, making sure nothing moved anymore.

"Bah," scoffed the captain. "I always say, no one likes a show-off… and what are you rolling your eyeballs at, boy?"

There was a quake from the other side of the river. And monstrous roars. Sterling and Blackmane had just demolished a brick building, sending clouds of dust into the air. It was a stark reminder to one and all that none of them were safe just because one particular pack of former sky pirates was dispatched. And if that wasn't a reminder enough…

Hissing and clattering. Those undead sounds they were getting all to familiar with, and there was a cacophony of it echoing in this evacuated area. "She's trying to stop us," muttered Flynn, as he and the others scanned their surroundings for the incoming source of the haunted noises. That source seemed to be ― anywhere and everywhere. "Even without the sword she still holds sway over them." He faced the riverbank upstream, where the mighty Ye Olde Bridge spanned the broad river. "We've got to hurry! They're coming for us, all of them!"

His feet took flight, kicking mud. The crew glanced at the captain for instructions; he collected his cutlass, threw up his arms and ran after Flynn. Instructions received.

As they ran, the dead came in droves after them, masses of shadows and bones, running out of alleys and scaling down buildings like spiders. They bore blades and attire of pirates from a bygone century ― the Pirates of Cabo Diablo. Kit had felt fearless not but a moment before, but looking over his shoulder to see the wave of horror chasing after them, an army of ravenous red eyes in a tide of darkness washing over the street ― and the fact that not dying didn't make being devoured alive any more fun ― he wasn't so fearless anymore.

Approaching the bridge, Don Karnage's first instinct was to jump in the water and swim to the Iron Vulture, a move he desperately wanted to do and which he expected his crew to follow; once in the airship they could get the engines kicking and an escape happening. But it occurred to him during all his huffing and puffing running all of that was going to take several minutes at the very least, several minutes to allow these things to catch up and overwhelm them. If there was a last resort needed, there was only one thing that could harm these foul creatures, and to that end he decided that he was going wherever Bloodfang went.

Flynn was the first to cut over between shacks onto the sloping riverbank, following a sunken path that he seemed to be aware of. As he did, a demonic creature flew over the river ― Sterling? Blackmane? Who could even tell anymore, but was coming for them. Beneath the bridge's abutment, the entry to what over two hundred years ago was the Havenshore warrens was now a brick wall that supported a small bait shop above. The wall was no match for Flynn's otherworldly strength; he shook his knuckles in pain right after, but the bricks were shattered with one punch. Beyond the wall, halfway hidden in a pile of black silt, was the old stone edifice and doorway, which still had rotten timbers boarded up. The creature in the air roared at them furiously.

"Get in here, all!" Flynn called out, cutting the timbers away effortlessly with the sword. A train of extremely winded sky pirates hurriedly followed him inside. The tunnel was pitch black, and they were at first tepid about going any further ― but what a roaring winged monster and an army of clamoring ghouls chasing you does for tepidity.

"Away from the door!" hollered Karnage.

In a moment they were all tripping over each other and who knows what else. "I know where we are, trust me," said Flynn. "I'll get you through but you'll have to… well, pardon my touch. Quickly now!" Those that were saved from drowning near Pirate Island the day before had already experienced this, and now they felt it again, dark, cold tendrils wrapping around them. Pulling them along, off their feet. They hollered in confusion, the captain particularly swearing exocitcally. Somewhere in the clamor Hacksaw found the frantic cognizance to light a match, revealing faintly that they were being transported through a corridor with rotted-out wooden stalls forming makeshift rooms. The air was heavy and reeked of mold. Flynn brought them all the way to a tiny room in the back, calling out, "In here! The way's through here!"

In Hacksaw's matchlight they saw the walls of the room were obsessively etched with strange runes, with chilling obsession, and at the other end of it Flynn had torn down a false wall with a swipe of the sword, revealing an arching entryway into another tunnel. They had little time to consider where this foreboding path was leading them as back at the warren's entrance, now from their perspective a distant rectangle of gray light, was the demonic creature landing. Its large, winged figure dissipated as soon as it touched ground. Sterling's silhouette was left, her eyes blazing, shining on them like spotlights. "Captain Flynn!" she called. "Not so fast, luv. We'll be takin' me sword back now, if ye don't mind." An incredible roar shook the tunnel ― perhaps the entire city for how loud, long and dreadful it was ― it made her turn her head back. Something was coming at her.

"Follow me and keep running!" shouted Flynn. You might recall, when Flynn had first discovered this tunnel, it was crumbled and difficult to squeeze through. It still was, but back then he did not know he was able to call upon the Dark to make himself an effective bulldozer. He went in first and smashed a path open for the rest. Though he made quick, urgent work of it all, in the time it yet took, the pirates saw a multitude of ghouls slip through the door around Sterling, charging. She ran with them. The rectangle of gray light became smothered in darkness instantly as the undead horde bottlenecked at the entryway ― at the same time, another creature bolted into the tunnel, careening through her and the ghouls.

"My sword!" the gargoyle-like creature thundered.

"Move! Move!" Kit urged the crew. It would seem that he perhaps had a notion to make sure everyone else got in the tunnel before he ran in, but Karnage was having none of it. He took the boy with him by the collar.

They hastily followed Flynn through the end of the tunnel, where upon him smashing away the last piece of obstructive debris, a chamber opened up, swirling with an iridescent blue and red glow. A ghostly maelstrom was on the floor, surrounded by skulls, before a mighty stone throne and the towering effigy of Skaal the Undying.

Flynn made no delay ― he did not have time. Nor did the pirates have a second to take in the chamber's look ― they scattered clear, for no sooner did the last of them get into the room did the hulking demon of Blackmane's conjuration burst inside, immediately followed by Sterling, and then countless ghouls, all of them gushing out of the doorway powerfully as water discharged from a dam.

Flynn threw the sword, with all of his might, at incredible velocity. Sterling, with pure desperation, leapt with such power that she overtook Blackmane's demonic form, stomping on him to use his own charging momentum like a springboard. Crying out, she flew across the room, both hands reaching as the sword circled end over end in its trajectory into the maelstrom.

The sword fell in. So did she. The maelstrom cracked with blue lightning, intensely, and from it blew a howling, dark wind. The ghouls, all of them, be they in the chamber or part of the horde clawing its way through the warrens, were stopped in their tracks by an invisible force, wailed in unison, ear-splittingly, and their red eyes expanded into a blinding bright flash. When the flash was over, their bones lay still on the floor, the shadowy force that clung to them gone. And among them, fallen on his knees, was the lion Blackmane, his face stricken with terror and agony as he gazed upon the flashing maelstrom ― the wounds he incurred from Bloodfang earlier, the deep gash across his chest, the broad stab through his abdomen, both bled profusely. A growl slithered through his fanged teeth, weak and fading into nothing. He clutched at his wounds and fell dead, rattling his last utterance.

Flynn fell to his knees as well, and Kit staggered. Both were suddenly struck with a powerful, tingling sensation of warmth. Powerful, but pleasant. Then, as the maelstrom howled and flashed… it began shrinking.

"It's working!" cried Flynn, panting. "By thunder, it's working!"

Wide-eyed, the pirates watched the spectacle of light, the swirling, flashing blues and reds. Honestly, if you neglected the thought of the cosmic horror behind it all, it could be construed as something pretty. The chamber grew dimmer in slow but steady increments as the maelstrom shrank. Around the room, the dead were finally dead. Blackmane and Sterling had met their demise. Bloodfang was out of their world, out of their lives. Karnage, taking in the finality of it all, that it was finally over, was perhaps more exhausted then he had ever been in his life; he slid down a wall and sat down on the ground, taking a deep breath. Kit sat down next to him, hugging onto the captain's arm. They did not speak, but Karnage reciprocated, in his own Karnage-ish way, in allowing him to hang on as such. In the flashing lights, Kit showed him a scrape on his hand that he seemed to be particularly proud of, in that it wasn't healing itself. Looking at it, the captain let out an exasperated ― perhaps even slightly insanity-induced for all they had been though ― laugh.

Flynn joined him, cross-legged, pointing out a scrape on his knee through his torn trousers that also was not disappearing. "Nothing like good old, dreadfully dull mortality. Eh, lad?"

Kit nodded at him. They watched the maelstrom further shrink. In a strange way, it was like watching a sunset, waiting for the last glimpse of shrinking light to fall away. As night falls upon day and ends it, so this ended their living nightmare. They just watched, just to see the light finally expire, to see it all the way to the end.

The howling wind settled. The maelstrom twisted tighter, smaller and smaller. You could practically count down to when it would expire ― five… four… three… two…

There was a groan, loud and low, cosmic in its depth. It seemed to be coming from what little was left of the maelstrom, which had suddenly stopped shrinking.

"What… what's happening?" Kit asked.

"I'm not sure," frowned Flynn. He stood up at once, as did the other two.

"Why is it not going smaller…" observed Karnage. His face flashed alarmed as something suddenly changed, "But instead is getting bigger now?!"

Now seething like it had not before, the maelstrom swelled. The wind returned, more powerful. Lightning cracked with such intensity that it threatened to break the chamber apart, let alone anyone alive standing in it. The pirates clamored for the exit. They did not make it.

There was an eruption, an immense geyser of darkness. It broke the chamber's ceiling ― it annihilated the chamber's ceiling ― and all earth above it, flooding in the cloudy light of day. As it rose to unlimited heights, gushing from the maelstrom in unlimited force, it struck the overcast clouds and broke a hole in them in the likes of a shockwave.

Looking up and terrified, through the hole in the clouds the pirates saw from the outpouring darkness, thousands of feet in the sky, miles into the sky, that a shape began to emerge, spreading, forming. It was massive, so massive it blot out the city in shadow. A creature. It grew multiple legs, arachnid-like, but each of them the shape of Bloodfang's blade, each of them taller than the height of the clouds, each of them causing a quake as they struck the earth, and they struck earth miles apart from each other, so immense was the creature they were attached to, a creature whose dark form went to skyward heights obscured by the overcast, but it towered to the stratosphere. For that was where its many red eyes shone hatefully, glowing like a cluster of rageful suns. It spoke,

"CAN'T DO ME AWAY SO EASILY, CAN YE."