Chapter 2

Later that night, who was on watch at about midnight but Kilik and Yunsung. Yunsung stared out into the sea as Kilik slept soundly beside him.

"What's that good-for-nothing lazy bum doing on watch with me?" Yunsung whined to himself as he stared at miles and miles of endless sea in the moonless dark. "What's the point of even being out here? Nothing interesting ever happens!"

At that moment, a shadowy shape appeared out of the darkness. Yunsung frantically poked at Kilik's ribs. The shape came closer. "Wake up, you lazy, good-for-nothing--"

"What! I'm up!" He sat up and blinked. "Is that a…"

"I think it's a ship. Just wait…"

"Well, of course it's a ship! What do you think it'd be, a wagon? Sure, just floating along in the sea--"

"I get the point!" Yunsung screamed, then peered out into the dark. "Whatever it is, it's big."

"Yunsung, I promise, it's a ship."

"All right, all right!" A pause. "Let's just wait and see."

Kilik just shook his head.

Pretty soon, the vessel was upon them. After a few minutes, the alarmed watchboys realized that the other ship was about to attack.

"Pirates!" Kilik yelled, then ran down to alert the other passengers. The Red Wing was a small ship, but the other ship didn't look ready to ram, they looked ready to raid. The Wing's crew was made up of some of the most powerful and formidable fighters in the world, so they stood more than a fair chance at repelling normal pirates.

Before long, the passengers were all up on the deck, weapons in hand. Just after they all got up to the deck, the pirates threw their grappling hooks over and hauled themselves on board.

A great melee broke out, rending the silent night with shouting and clashing of metal. Though the pirates numbered almost three times more than the Wing's crew, they were soon all dead, victims of the skilled fighters. All but one.

Near the stern of the ship, a lone hooded pirate knelt with the captain's dagger against his neck. He was already wounded in the head, and barely conscious, but still defiant.

The ever-merciful Raphael spotted the captain threatening to cut the captive's throat, and yelled out, "Don't kill him!"

The captain looked up, disappointed, and sheathed his dagger reluctantly as he walked away, letting the wounded pirate slump to the floor.

"Are you all right?" Raphael said as he knelt beside the pirate. He soon saw that he was not as he had slipped into unconsciousness. He threw back the hood of the pirate to reveal that the pirate was not a man, but a woman, and obviously the leader of the pirates, judging by the starburst emblem on her clothing that matched the one on the flag of her ship. He picked her up gently and carried her below to the captain's quarters where her wound would be taken care of. The captain looked at Raphael in bewilderment, then frustration, but his respect for Raphael as a fighter caused him to resign himself to sleeping with the crew.

The other passengers briefly noticed, but didn't make much of a big deal of it, and continued gathering the bodies and tossing them in Davy Jones' locker.

The rest of the night passed with no interruption, and the next morning, everyone began asking Raphael questions about the pirate. Why had he spared her, what if she killed them all in the night, and other questions, none of which he had the answer to.

After lunch, Raphael walked down to the captain's quarters to see if she was awake and would talk to him. To his surprise, she was up and making the bed. She jumped when he came in.

"You shouldn't be up. Your head--"

"I'm fine. Shouldn't that frighten you? Your mercy will be your undoing one of these days." Then she swooned, since she had been hit hard in the head the previous night. Raphael quickly helped her back into bed and for the first time he took a good look at the girl.

She was small, about five foot four, and looked to be about seventeen with long chestnut hair that was tied in a knot over her shoulder. She had focused, piercing black eyes and a thoughtful demeanor. She was dressed in a black shirt and pants, with a red vest bearing the same starburst symbol that was on the flag of the ship. Her pack and cloak hung on nails that jutted out by the bed, and her black boots rested on the floor. Her twin scimitars and gold gauntlets, both engraved with the starburst, lay just under the bed.

Raphael noticed she was obviously waiting for an explanation, so he spoke. "I saw him about to kill you and I thought maybe you could be our prisoner. There are many ways holding a pirate captive could be useful."

"So why am I not your prisoner?"

"I changed my mind. There is no malice in your eyes. I'm a pretty good judge of character, you know."

"And foolish." She nodded. "You got lucky this time. Fortunately for you, I mean no harm--"

"Then why on earth did you attack our ship?"

She took a breath, then decided to tell him her whole story. She was on her way to kill the self-same entity they sought to kill: the demon Inferno. Two years ago, a monster killed her father. She knew the monster wielded a weapon that had to do with that of the Inferno, but she didn't know exactly what she was trying to do. She was just following her heart. She wanted revenge on the monster that killed her father, but that was all she knew. She somehow felt…guided.

"And what do the pirates have to do with this?" Raphael asked.

She looked down as if she were ashamed of something. "I hired them to take me to the ends of the earth. Pirates were the only ones that would make such a journey, and they wouldn't ask questions as long as I promised to pay them well. They insisted on having their own way as far as attacking ships for loot along the way. So I went along with it as long as they would bear me to my destination. But…" she paused. "I knew they would prove troublesome in the end, that they would want to know what I was doing and maybe come with me out of some ulterior motive. I couldn't have that, so…I planned to kill them."

He was relieved to hear the shame in her voice, for it proved that he hadn't made a deadly mistake and that her heart really was good. But he was wondering one thing. "Why did you tell me of your mission that would have been safer kept secret?"

She smiled slightly. "I heard some of your people talking of your own mission last night after I woke up. I knew you were doing the same thing I was doing, so I felt I could trust you."

"Then I suppose you want to join us?"

"I hadn't thought of it. Will you have me, and more importantly, will the rest of your people have me? It may make traveling easier, having a group with me that has the same end in mind."

"You are welcome to join us. And by the way…I don't think I know your name."

"Oh! I'm Athena." She grinned. "I'm seventeen, and I'm from Australia, if you wanted to know."

"I'm Raphael," he said, then shook her hand. "I suppose you'll meet the rest of us later. But for now, I'll leave you to rest."