Chapter 22: The Approaching Darkness

"Blast it all."

Matt scurried about his office, pulling out an identical key card and fiddling with the picture as quick as he could. Good thing he'd made the extra, otherwise he'd never have been able to sneak out one of the cards. He looked out the window down towards the island, the large crater now staring back at him like an empty eye socket. Surrounding the island were several small white ships, spread out around the edge of the island. Matt cursed to himself before opening the back up and extracting the three Egyptian God cards. He laid them out on his desk and looked at them, trembling.

The three most powerful cards in the entire game. And they were all here before him.

But there was no time to wait around. He could just take them all right then and there, but he'd heard the rumors about the power of the cards. Rumors that spoke of those who would suffer at the hands of those who would dare to spite the gods. Rumors of men struck down for falsifying their presence. Rumors of men dying painfully.

Matt shook his head. "I should only take one," he whispered to himself, looking at the cards again.

If he could even take one.

The Gods all looked back at him. He looked over at Obelisk the Tormentor. Probably not the best option to go with, not because it was lackluster in any way - hard to really say the God Cards were lackluster - but he didn't like the idea of staring back into the almost skeletal face of a being whose hands were likely bigger than the entire floating base. No sense in tempting the Fist of Fate. He looked over at The Winged Dragon of Ra, the most powerful of the cards. He recalled watching the broadcast of the Battle City Finals, watching the power of the Winged Dragon fully unleashed. Not only would having so much power make him an even bigger target, he was pretty sure it would fry him to a crisp instantly. Better to just avoid that one entirely.

And then he turned to Slifer the Sky Dragon. Matt had always had an affinity towards dragon cards, and Slifer would likely be the most powerful dragon he'd ever held onto. Even more so than his shining dragon! But he couldn't use that card, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to use Slifer either. Then again, that argument could be said of any of the three Egyptian God cards. And frankly, he liked his chances of being struck down by lightning against getting crushed by a giant fist or burned alive by the power of the sun.

...really none of them were appealing.

"Beggars can't be choosers," he muttered to himself, and he slowly reached out to the card. Worst case, at least he wouldn't have to deal with Montalban. He gently reached down and picked up the Slifer the Sky Dragon, closing his eyes before pulling back his hand swiftly with the card in it.

KRACKATHOOM!

Matt waited for the inevitable bolt of lightning to pierce through the window and spear him through the chest, killing him in an instant. He waited...and waited...and waited...and...wait, was he still...?

He opened one eye to peer around. He was still in his office, still at his desk. He took a sniff - nothing smelled like it had been burned to a crisp. No discharge in the air. He looked outside the window; there were storm clouds gathering. He could see the rumblings of lightning in the midst of it all, followed by dull roars of thunder. With that, Matt breathed out a sigh of relief, looking down at the card.

"You must know better than anyone else, then," he said to Slifer. "You know the danger unfolding before us."

Matt then reached over to his deck and pulled out a copy of a small dragon card, putting it alongside the other God Cards before replacing them in the picture and setting it back up on the wall, a flawless extraction. He had to admit, he might have gotten a little too good at stealing things from Montalban to be able to put it back so neatly. But there was no more time to admire his handiwork - the Autopilot would land the island soon enough, and by the time it did, he'd need to be out of there.

"Guess it's time for that plan B I had," he muttered to himself, tucking Slifer away into his deck and turned to head out of the office. He stopped for a moment as he was about to head for the door. Then he cursed himself and headed back to the desk, hastily pulling out a piece of paper and a pen, scurrying to write a quick note. As soon as he was done, he pulled out another small piece of paper from within the desk, looking at it in his hands.

"'The secret lies with the Crimson Rose,'" he recited. Then he scoffed at it. "To think you'd lead to the bane of my existence after all this time."

He grabbed his note and the clue, stuffing them behind the remaining cards and back into the picture frame, stashing it all away before setting it down on the desk once more. Then he rushed out of the office and down the halls, maneuvering them flawlessly towards his new destination. Eventually Matt found himself right in front of a small hatch. He knew that this hatch would open up to a chute, and that the chute would land him in the exact area he needed to be...at least, that was the theory. He looked back up at the sign above the hatch that read "Trash" before looking down and opening it up. He stuck his head inside, peering down into the vast empty blackness of the chute below.

"I really should have thought this plan through," he muttered to himself again, catching a whiff of the stench from down below.

Before he could second-guess himself though, there was a sudden rumble across the ship and a jolt. Matt peered out from the hatch and around the halls - the base must have landed back on the island. There was no time. Without a moment's hesitation, Matt jumped up and slid head-first down the hatch...


The guards roamed the island, looking everywhere they could for the elusive Matt. Night had long since fallen, and the search parties were now working their way around the island itself. After they had escorted the rest of the tournament participants and admins away, they searched the entire floating base as best they could - nothing. Not a sign of Matt had shown up anywhere. So they concluded that he had to have mixed in with the habitat of the island itself, having confirmed that none of the people on the ships were him. It was tough, it was long, and it was thankless work, searching for a man who might as well have vanished like a ghost.

No one would have suspected that Matt had gone through the trouble of diving into the trash chute, now hastily working his way through all sorts of tossed aside garbage and various disposed bags filled with yet more garbage to get to one side. He reached out against one of the walls, feeling around and tapping on the various panels until he heard the hollow sound that clued him in to the false panel. Moving it aside, he opened up the panel, revealing another hidden passageway. He squeezed himself inside before closing the panel behind him, slinking down into the dark depths of the pipeline. Eventually he came out into a small cavern opened up to the ocean, and right along the shoreline was his small rowboat, though looking at it more thoroughly revealed some holes at the bottom of the hull.

"Figures," he muttered. "The landing must have broken it up a bit."

He looked around at some of the trash that had flowed by with him and picked up one of the bags. The odor was a bit abhorrent, but it would have to do. Matt did his best to maneuver around a few different bags of trash around the boat, and before long he had a rowboat made up of used bags. Now if only there was some way of securing it all together, otherwise this would be a much shorter voyage than he'd like.

A few more minutes of digging around for anything to keep his jerry-rigged boat afloat and in one piece, and finally Matt had something resembling a floating vessel. He pushed it out towards the edge of the enclosure and floated gently out into the sea, checking his surroundings to make sure things had gone his way. He was in luck - it didn't look like anyone had managed to find the small cavern that would serve as his escape route, but hopefully that meant no one was watching the entrance.

No one that he didn't want there, at least.


Resting on one side of the island in a secluded enclosure was an old ship, its wood creaking and yet finely polished. The ties that bound its ancient sails to the masts swayed in the ocean breeze as a lowly drunkard wandered the decks singing an old tune merrily. Despite any sort of attention he might have brought to himself, the drunk knew that there was no reason to be alarmed, at least in theory; according to his captain, the cavern he was escaping from was secluded, hard to find in the midst of the rest of the island, and it had the advantage of being close to a small covering of rocky spikes that their ship could maneuver around. Now all that mattered was waiting for the captain to make his return to the ship.

CLUNK

A dull knocking sound at the bottom of the ship caught the drunk's attention, and he quickly rushed to the side and held out his hand to assist the new arrival, only to be handed a very wet and very stinky oar of mashed together paper and old food pieces. "Not exactly according to plan, huh Matt?" the drunkard asked wearily, tossing the makeshift stick away as Matt climbed onto the deck of the ship.

"Complications arose, ensued, were overcome," Matt replied as he walked across the deck and out over to his quarters. Or at least that's where he would have gone had the crew not suddenly appeared to intercept his path.

"Captain, it would seem that the crew...meaning, me as well, were expecting something more substantial after the whole tournament," the drunk spoke up, bringing attention to a rather pressing matter on the crew's mind. "At this point, it would seem that there's a lot more to everything that's going to end up requiring something a little more...substantial than the promises of glory." Most of them were in Matt's employment for the duration of the Battle of the Titans tournament, but as they were forced to abandon the tournament grounds quickly to evade capture by Montalban, they remained unpaid by Matt. With the account on their services for the tournament - and in addition this well-kept secretive task - they were expecting something for what they had done.

Matt gave a weary eye over the crew before him before turning back to the drunkard. "Substantial, you say?" he asked.

"Aye, sir."

Matt looked back at the crew. "So that's what this is all about?" he asked. "The Captain Matt Zero has not yet satisfied your needs well enough?"

"We were promised some form of payment, and there is no way we sail into certain death without it!" shouted out one of the crew members. Others followed suit and cheered on their monetary neediness. Matt rolled his eyes for a moment.

"Gentlemen, please," he announced drawing their attention, "there will be more than each one's fair share of whatever fortune you want, but that will not come until we find the chest."

A hushed silenced fell over the crew as all eyes turned back towards Matt. He had them in his grasp now.

"What chest?"

"Did he say something about a chest?"

"Anybody got bread?"

"Aren't you paying attention?"

A series of murmurs spread throughout the crew as Matt reached into his pocket and pulled out a raggedy piece of parchment. He held it up in front of everyone so that they could see what was on it.

"It's a key!" someone shouted.

"No, it's much more than a key," Matt corrected. "It is a drawing of a key."

Indeed, the parchment held a drawing of an extremely unique key, one that was held together by a ring which held three blades. The center blade was of a tubular shape while the other two were each double-sided with their own unique set of teeth on each side. The murmurs in the crew picked up again, but they were cut off by Matt's remark. "Gentlemen," he asked, "what do keys do?"

A slight pause occurred before someone said, "Keys unlock things?"

"And whatever this key unlocks," the drunkard continued on, "inside there's something valuable, so we're going to find whatever it is this key unlocks!"

"No," Matt answered as he turned about-face towards the drunk. "We don't have the key, then we can't unlock whatever it is this key unlocks, so how can we unlock it with that key - which we don't have - unless we go find the key first?"

"So...we're going to look for this key!" the drunkard piped up.

"See now you've got the idea," Matt reiterated as he turned back to the crew. "Any more questions?"

"Do we have a heading?" someone asked.

"Ah! Yes, a heading!" Matt reached into his pocket and pulled out a curious medallion. It was engraved with such markings like those on a navigational compass, though instead of simply one rotating dial there were two such dials. He held it out in the palm of his hand and looked down at it.

"Let's sail in a..."

The crew waited anxiously for Matt's guidance as he raised a finger that twirled about. He continued to look down at the medallion as though it were going to tell him something. No one was sure of where Matt had procured such a curious antique or why he used it in all of his navigating. It appeared to do nothing more than lie there and act as a paperweight. However, this medallion was special to Matt, as he was the only one who saw the glowing of one of the dials as it spun around the medallion, trying to read it for the heading he wanted.

"That way, direction!" he announced at last, pointing off to the starboard side of the ship. The crew looked off the starboard side of the ship as if expecting to see something more.

"Captain?" the drunkard asked curiously.

"Come on, Willaby, hop to it!" Matt yelped out at the drunkard. "Let's get these people moving!"

"Uh, aye sir," the drunken Willaby responded. "Weigh anchor and sail off starboard side! Full canvas!"

"Full canvas!"

"Aye sir!"

A scuttling and scurrying of feet occurred as the crew sprung to life, running about the deck of the ship as Matt retired to his quarters at last. Willaby watched him enter the cabin, a bemused expression on his face as another crew member walked up to him.

"Is it just me," the crewman said, "or was Matt acting a bit strange there?"

"Setting course without knowing his own heading?" Willaby replied. "Something's wrong with whatever he's planning, and whatever goes wrong for Matt goes wrong for us all. Keep a wary eye on the horizon, make sure we don't run into anything we shouldn't."

"Aye sir," the crewman said as he ran off again. Willaby looked towards the cabin again and shook his head.

"It's going to be a long voyage..."


"I trust that the guards didn't handle the two of you too roughly then?"

Creighton and Izzy, still in their uniforms from the tournament, simply glared back at a reclined Montalban in his lavishly furnished office as a decorator painted some minute details on the map that took up most of a single wall. The mahogany chairs and desk were all finely crafted, very delicate, and well polished; this gave them a certain glow in the room as Creighton and Izzy came into the room escorted by the guards.

"I assure you, these aren't necessary," Izzy said, indicating the handcuffs.

"I dunno, they might be," Creighton remarked, trying for the umpteenth time to struggle out of his own.

"Try not to injure yourself too much, young man," Montalban drawled. "After all, it will do neither you nor me any good if you are of no use to the errand I want you two to take up."

Montalban signaled one of the guards who walked up to the two and unlocked their handcuffs. Creighton and Izzy both checked their wrists as the cuffs were removed, and the guard bowed to Montalban before leaving the room with them.

"What errand would you be referring to?" Izzy asked curiously.

"It's nothing that the two of you would be incapable of performing, I assure you," Montalban responded. "There have been reports of a curious sailing vessel beached over at an island not far from here, relatively speaking. It's beyond the island where that tournament was held, but only by a few nautical miles."

The two looked at each other then back at Montalban. "You're referring to that uninhabited island just beyond Titan Island, yes?" Izzy asked.

"That would be the one," Montalban replied, scoffing for a moment when Izzy mentioned the name of the island. Titan Island was only named as such because of the Battle of the Titans tournament that had been held there a couple of weeks prior. A tournament, which for all intents and purposes, should never have happened, on an island that Montalban owned.

"The island in question," Montalban continued as he began pouring some brandy into a couple of glasses on the desk in front of him, "is supposed to be uninhabited, and it is because of the appearance of this vessel that I suspect Matt Zero has landed there."

He held out one of the glasses, but Creighton scrunched his face up in disgust while Izzy simply shook her head. Montalban shrugged and returned the brandy to the desk as Izzy asked, "And I assume that you will want us to venture to this island to find Matt for some ulterior purpose?"

Montalban smirked as he sipped some of the brandy before turning back to Izzy. "I would like for you to track Matt down and negotiate some terms with him," he continued. "It's of a great amount of importance to me."

"What, negotiate his arrest?" Creighton retorted.

"Bargain with him," Montalban snapped back. He took a breath and regained his more gentlemanly business attitude and addressed the two once more, "There is something of value that Matt has in his possession that I have much of my own desire for."

"And what would you have to bargain with?" Izzy asked.

"I'm just as aware as you are that Matt would have no interest in money alone," Montalban retorted, returning to his desk and opening one of the drawers. He pulled out a small manilla envelope, throwing it onto the desk for Creighton and Izzy to see it clearly marked: "Letters of Marque."

"Matt Zero is so caught up in his fantasies, he's forgotten the reality of the situation he's in," Montalban lectured on. "He thinks he has the ability to do whatever he wants, and I will not hesitate to make sure he doesn't. Of course, if he so chooses such gainful employment with me, he should know he's welcome to do as he pleases under my company title.

"Yeah, right, like Matt would ever consider working for you the same as being free," Creighton snapped back.

Montalban snorted. "Freedom..."

Montalban sipped some more of the brandy from his glass as the guard who took the cuffs out came back, albeit looking strangely different from before somehow. Montalban noted this but disregarded it, assuming that the guard had sent in another one of the employees in, the sort of thing that happened all the time in a company as large as his. He'll have to look up who the guard was that was there at the start and dock his pay later. He turned towards the large window balcony behind him and looked out of it.

"Freedom is a word people who don't understand the world cling to desperately," Montalban continued. "Matt is part of this delusion, preferring the openness of a world that has long since been closed off to him. He must make do with the way our world operates, work within its boundaries, or he will perish and fade into obscurity amidst the endless sands of time."

"And what, you think Matt's going to give up his ship? Just to clear his name and work for you?" Creighton asked. Montalban turned towards Creighton expectantly as he followed up, "The property he has that you want?"

"The Poseidon, hardly," Montalban replied. "The item in question is of a significantly smaller scale and a far more valuable piece: a medallion, shaped like a compass."

Izzy and Creighton both looked at each other, giving Montalban the hint he was looking for. "So you do know of it?" he asked them both, bringing their attention back to him as he walked back up to his desk and set the glass of brandy down.

"Bring me that medallion," he said, "or there'll be no guarantee for your freedoms either."

The two looked at each other again. It was clear that in order to save themselves, they would need to retrieve that compass medallion from Matt. Then suddenly another question came to mind.

"What about Shannon?" Izzy asked.

Montalban picked up the glass of brandy again and sipped the rest of it down. "Insurance," he said, setting the glass down again. He signaled towards the guard that had returned to the room to come over to him, which the guard did so quickly.

"Take these two down to the docks so that they may board one of my ships for their journey," he ordered, "and also tell the guard that sent you in here that he'll have to report to me as soon as he can."

"Aye sir," the guard said, and he led Creighton and Izzy out of the office. Montalban watched the three leave together, unsure of something. Was that one of his guards? The voice sounded oddly familiar...

Creighton and Izzy were led over to the elevators while the guard scribbled a note on a notepad he whipped out. As they arrived at the elevators, the guard pressed one of the buttons and walked over to one of the plants nearby, where Creighton and Izzy could see a handcuffed pair of bare feet sticking out. The guard leaned down and left the note on the body there, which said, "Please report to Montalban ASAP~"

The guard returned and looked up at Creighton and Izzy as the elevator doors opened. The three friends then entered the elevator together, and the guard took off his cap to reveal his identity as none other than Andrew. He pressed the button for the level with the docks, and the elevator doors closed as another guard was passing by the doors.

"Alright, so Shannon is in what cell?" Andrew asked.

"She's on the third basement floor, cell block E, cell number 23," Izzy replied.

"B3-E-23, how convenient," Andrew repeated, amused over the alliterate-like number. "What did Montalban ask of you guys?"

"Find Matt and get the compass medallion from him," Creighton answered. "Of course, Matt would never agree to any terms of Montalban's."

"As we all know," Andrew remarked with a roll of his eyes, all while he started writing something else down on the notepad. "Where are you guys headed towards?"

"We're headed to the uninhabited island beyond Titan Island," Izzy answered. "Apparently, Matt's ship has been beached there."

"That's going to be a problem if one of Montalban's ships are just off-shore," Andrew labored on, handing the note he had written down to Izzy. "Here, for the both of you, my contact so that you guys can keep in touch with me. I'll free Shannon and board another ship as soon as I can to follow. Tell me where Matt's going so I can meet up with you all as soon as possible."

"Understood," Izzy responded, pocketing the note as Andrew replaced the uniform cap on his head. The doors opened again, and Andrew escorted the two out onto the docking platform.

"Good luck, you guys," he whispered to them as they approached another guard. To this guard, Andrew spoke up in a gruffer voice, "Montalban's sending these two on a mission, escort them to one of the ships."

"Aye sir," the guard replied, and so Creighton and Izzy followed the guard down the docks as Andrew slunk back towards the elevators.


It had only been two days earlier that the Poseidon was out at sea one lonely night. Matt was in his quarters inspecting a large nautical map, using his compass tool to try and chart the course that would lead the ship to where it needed to go. He looked over at his compass medallion, the dial still lighting up sporadically, switching back and forth but remaining steadily towards one general direction. If he had at least that much, he could have the ship sail towards it and hope that the medallion would be a little clearer as they got closer.

And then the dial did it again! It changed to point in another direction that would completely undo all the work he put into mapping again. Matt tossed the compass tool with frustration and reached for an empty glass bottle. He went to drink from it when he realized the emptiness of its insides and inspected the bottle, as though he were expecting to find some liquid to drink from it rather than air.

Finding no such luck, he simply murmured, "No milk, no rum, no bloody way this is going well..."

He got up from his mapping table and clothed himself with his long coat and a tricorn hat. He looked down at the medallion on the table one more time. Ever since he found that medallion in the midst of the Crimson Rose, it had been nothing but trouble. All the archaic text suggested it could point him in the direction of what he wanted most, so it should have been able to get him to find the Trinity if nothing else. Maybe he could find a Spirit Dragon or two! But something had to be missing...or worse. Matt let the thought wander through his head as he lit a lantern with the use of a couple of matches and descended down into the hull of the ship.

The staircase went down into the crew's quarters, where most of the crew slept in hammocks. The Poseidon was incredibly old-fashioned in this regard, but there was good reason for it. Matt didn't want to be picked up by any modern technology, so he avoided having the most advanced ship with the latest gadgets and decided to take a more time-tested approach. He figured that without all the gadgetry, Montalban's forces wouldn't be able to track him down so easily. For a while, at least, this seemed to be true.

As Matt passed by the sleeping crew members, he muttered, "As you were, gents," to them, as though to acknowledge their sleeping presence before he descended further into the ship. He came upon the storage area where all the racks were that held all the bottles on the ship which in turn held all the rum.

Or at least it should have, but it appeared that most of the rum was gone. Matt looked around the rack for such a bottle but stumbled upon nothing more than empty cubbyholes and the few barnacles living inside them. He was going to have to get someone to clean that out, the ship hadn't been cleaned in a while. He looked down and finally saw what he was looking for: a lonely bottleneck sticking out from the holes. He smiled and reached for it to pull it out, but as he did a large amount of sand emptied out from the bottle instead.

"Your time's run out, Matt."

A crash later, and the bottle was scattered into shards across the floor as Matt looked over startled at the presence of someone that wasn't sleeping, someone that was creeping instead. He couldn't make them out in the dark of the ship and slowly approached them with the lantern to bring more light on them.

"...Bonesman?" Matt asked.

The face of his former crewman looked up at him with a sorrowful smile, his face discolored into a sickly green. Part of the flesh of it appeared burned off, as though by some malady or flame, revealing the skull beneath it. Matt stood there with his mouth agape, completely taken aback by Bonesman's presence as well as his new appearance.

"You look good, Matt," Bonesman spoke first, a fair bit of ash pouring out from his mouth. Matt simply stared back in awe, wonder, disgust, or some combination of them all. He cocked his head to the side as Bonesman stared back at him as well.

Matt stood up straighter and asked, "Is this a dream?"

Bonesman looked around curiously. "I don't think so," he replied.

"I thought not," Matt remarked, setting the lantern down. "If it were, there'd be rum."

Matt heard a crackle of bones popping as Bonesman handed him a bottle with a rather skeletal arm. Matt hesitantly grabbed the bottle and forcibly yanked it out of Bonesman's tight grasp. He dusted off the bottle as Bonesman looked around the ship again.

"The Poseidon looks like it's seen better days," Bonesman grumbled somberly.

"It certainly has," Matt acknowledged, blowing off some dust from the bottle. "But then again, I'd say you've seen better days too."

Bonesman chuckled. "I'll admit, I've been better. Didn't take too well to being dead."

"So to what do I owe the pleasure of your...sudden appearance?"

Bonesman looked up at Matt, a solemn sadness melting the smile from his face. "He sent me," he answered simply. Matt waited for a moment before Bonesman continued, "Adolf Rommel."

A pause as Matt took this in. "Great. So it really is you then," he finally remarked, taking a drink from the bottle. After drinking his fill, he looked back at Bonesman and asked, "And I take it he gave you the choice to join his crew?"

"Naturally," Bonesman replied. "You ought to remember the circumstances of my untimely death, way back when we were escaping from Montalban's grasp while the remains of El Dorado burned to the ground."

"Aye...I remember that well," Matt recalled with a solemn nod, handing the bottle back to Bonesman.

"Caught in the tower and forced down into the depths of the sea below," Bonesman recounted as he took a swig of the bottle. "Nothing I could do but burn and drown all at once. I thought if there was any chance I could escape...I'd take it. And that's when he showed up."

Matt nodded his head. He knew the powers of Rommel. "He tends to do that," he winced while he stood up. "Well, I appreciate you warning me, but-"

"You won't be able to talk your way out of this one, Matt."

Matt turned back to Bonesman as the latter stood up and walked up to him. "I'm not the only one he's done favors for, and you know Rommel's not someone who expects nothing in return for his service. Like how you bartered the resurrection of the Poseidon from the depths and the map to El Dorado hidden within it."

"I know what he's expecting, but you know I can't give it to him-"

"Don't think he's unaware of that." Bonesman took another step forward. "You know the price to pay for refusing to bring back what he wanted from the temple..."

Matt swallowed a lump in his throat as Bonesman went on, "The medallion is all that matters to him now. His offer stands, just as it always has - the compass medallion you owe, else ye serve 100 years aboard the Gladius Divinum. Or you can let him hunt you down with his mighty beast, the most foul and evil of all creatures of the sea, ready to drag those who cross his path down into the depths of the oceans and into the realm of the Beyond, never to be seen or heard from again."

There was a brief pause as Bonesman made clear the circumstances. "...any idea when Rommel will send it after me?" Matt asked.

Bonesman shook his head. "I already told you, Matt," he spoke gravely. "Your time's up."

He grasped Matt's hand and held it for a moment before releasing it and walking away. "He comes now, his beast drawn with hunger to he who bears His Mark."

Matt looked down at his hand, and sure enough there was a series of four lines crossing over each other, a blackened skull right in the center of the design in the palm of his hand. He looked for Bonesman, but he was already gone from the hull of the ship. Matt looked back down at the mark before turning around, snatching the lantern, and dashing madly up the stairs.

"Crap..." he cursed, before turning around, snatching the lantern, and dashing madly up the stairs.

"WAKE UP, YOU SCOUNDRELS, AND MAKE WAY!" he shouted out as he passed the crewmen sleeping soundly, promptly causing them all to wake up and scurry about onto the deck of the ship. "COME ON, NOW, MOVE IT!"

The quiet air was replaced with Matt's shouted commands, the hustle of crewmen across the ship, and the relaying shouts of them all as they worked furiously to ready the ship for whatever it was that Matt had wanted them. Willaby ran up to Matt and asked, "Where are we to go?"

Matt turned to him and demanded, "Make for land and don't stop till we get there!"

"What port?" Willaby asked insistently.

"Any port! Just go to land!" Matt replied. "Whatever you do, do it now! Run!"

With that sentiment, he dashed back into his cabin. The other crewmen, panicked now by their captain's behavior, moved hastily as Willaby looked towards the door Matt had vanished through. He turned to look at the crew members, all frantically making do to get the ship going, before he turned back and walked into the captain's quarters. It didn't take much to search for Matt, who now was hunched over his map, scanning it for some type of land.

"For the love of all that is holy, Matt," Willaby asked, "what's coming after us?!"

Matt looked at him and gazed sternly at him. "Death itself."


AUTHOR'S NOTES

...what? You were going to make a comment about this plot being extremely similar to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest?

...alright, guilty pleasure then: this is the part of the storyline that is based heavily off of this movie. Granted, I've worked on it quite a bit to differentiate it as much as possible from the source and make it more "original", but...well, it's the thought that counts!

Anywho, the origin of the Ancient Heroes starts off years ago, right with the entrance of the Elemental Heroes and the Destiny Heroes. Yes, once I heard about the latter, I knew I wanted to make a set of Heroes myself. But what could I do? Elemental Heroes seemed to be based on elements (although in actuality they're based on American superheroes), Destiny Heroes based on London or something...oh, I know! How about I base a group off of ancient times? And thus were the first breed of Ancient Heroes born in some sense. Over the years, the originals have mostly been lost (save for one, I'll mention it when he shows up), and this second batch of Ancient Heroes were made in their stead. I don't remember much of the originals, I think I was going to base one off of Goliath, again from the Bible (Christian backgrounds, what you do to my Yugioh). But other than that one Hero that has truly surpassed the test of time, I don't remember the first breed at all. Maybe they weren't as memorable? Or maybe I've grown attached to the newer, more balanced, and greater Ancient Heroes.

Next time: the man that would be Montalban