Dozens of pirate boatfires reached into the nigrescent sky. They burned bright, fueled with the kindling of broken raider arrow shafts by the thousands. Around the fires, warriors mended their wounds with linens and oils of root and herb. They drank red wine and recounted with pride the heroics of the watery battlefield, which now showed more sailboats on the surface of the river than water.

"Our captain!" toasted the Wolfenboss. He roared in a fashion so primtivie that it shook the water and echoed off the canyon walls as other pirates sounded off. The pirates roared. "Our honoured dead!" The pirates roared again. Syrup said nothing. She just stared quietly towards the heavens along the far edges of the fire circle and beyond.

"Triumph," said Awabo to Anonster.

"Yes," he agreed, "the day is ours."

"And the night too," added in Shoot.

"True," nodded Awabo. "For now, they fear the night as well." Awabo moved with shadowed light in front of his brothers. "Now, as we rest, the Kamens are swimming back to Tatanga like whipped dogs!" The Wolfenboss nodded slowly and wiped the now cold blood from his hands with a captured turban.

"Every raider sees it," said Shoot.

"Whom will Tatanga dare to send next?" speculated Anonster.

"They will never measure as fine as this," declared the Wolfenboss. He lifted a red-hot iron rod from the fire's mouth and put it against a young pirate's side, burning, smouldering the skin, cauterizing the gaping hole without a sound or expression to fill the night air. "Who among his legions will dare to face us?" The Wolfenboss threw the rod back into the fire and again, a cheer from the pirates rang into the night.

Syrup turned and moved through her war party. "Friends… friends!" she said and her voice quieted their folly. "Those he picked up from alternate futures are in open revolt. They destroyed much of their future technology. Tatanga is slaughtering his own troops."

Syrup knew now, it was the Gold Coins that Wario held that allowed Tatanga to go into the past and future to gather his armies. When he visited the past, it was for fodder, easy to manipulate cavemen who would worship him. Yet he could only take those whose descendents would mean nothing to the future. When he visited the future, it was for technology to use to sell in the WarioWare stores to seduce the elite of nations. She shuddered to think, though, of what kind a future they were fighting to create, if the one that Tatanga visited produced such weak soldiers and weaponry that his army used. Was it destined to be so apocalyptic?

"There is nothing that can stop us now!" cried Shoot, breaking Syrup's attention. So, she raised her hand, holding an invisible force that commanded everyone else's attention.

"Dare we hope…," she started, "dare we hope for a more glorious death?" She lowered her hand and gazed over each of the men's faces, half-filled with firelight. "Such mad hope… but there it is." She pointed out into the darkness of the River Twygz. "Against Tatanga's endless hordes. Against all odds. We can do it! We can hold the River Twygz! We can win!" The pirates erupted into a chorus of voices.

On the shelf of a near cliff, staring down at the scene from the blackness and glow of the moon, Wormwould teared at the red cape that had hidden his deformed soul. "Rudy… I still breathe," he groaned. "Rudy, you are cruel." He ripped the cape and it settled near his feet. "Damn you." His crude shape leaned over, looking down towards the pirates' sailboats, down towards the distant warriors. "Damn you. Damn you, Rudy! Damn, you father… damn you, mother… damn you all to hell!" He lifted his father's bronze helment towards the faultless sky, inspecting the colour and its worn strength. "Pirates… pirates!" he threw the helmet to the ground. "The boldest of men! The finest warriors in all the world!" He grunted in disgust to himself. "Damn you…" He turned his broken form and began inot the night, none but himself hearing his voice. "Damn you all!"

The day after began just like the day before. With full light at their backs, barriers of man and beast pounded the ground of Sarasaland. Into the slaughter they raced. From a distance, their forms were silhouetted and in unison, the whips cracked across the backs of a fresh rotation. It was as if the River Twygz began to flood upwards across the slain and haunted bodies. The men pulled from their guts a low growling howl. Beings from a hundred dead timelines descended upon them. The armies of Tatanga's home planet. They were all funneled into this narrow corridor fighting over hundreds of rickety sailboats and the bodies of their own dead comrades that made the floor over the water. They clawed and dug into the water, barrelling towards the awaiting pirate line.

They collided with such force into the bronze shields, it was a shudder that cycled into snapping. Fresh bones emerged from many bodies. Others pushed from behind but nothing was gained as the Wolfenboss plowed his pike through the chest of one, moving quickly at silencing another.

Armless alien giants ran over sailboats with wicker baskets on their backs. Within the baskets, alien midgets cut loose a volley of projectiles. Yet at the pirates' wall of bronze and crimson, there was no surrender, no retreat. There was only honour, duty, glory, combat and victory. The aliens fell by the hundreds. The pirates of Kitchen Island sent their severed bodies and fragile hearts back to Tatanga's feet.

Anonster rammed against the horde, cutting through thin tissue and capillaries. He lashed out, moving in pace with his brothers on the steep slope.

Shoot dropped his lance into an alien thigh and stroked upwards. It went through the groin and out the chest cavity.

When their muscle failed, the aliens turned to magic. Yet the pirates were relentless, unstoppable, they were free men. They were trained for this since birth. Foreign Magikoopas, those who had been kicked out of the Kerog's army for disobedience or illegal experimentation, lined up for their shot at bat. Lined in black velvet robes, they threw clay pots mixed with sulphur, bat dung and ash. It was a practical science; their magic only fueled its power. The noxious smoke rose from the water in a chemical reaction and soon began to obscure the fight.

Awabo nailed two charging infantrymen with the tip of his spear. He robbed them of their glory. He robbed them of any chance of tomorrow even as they took his eye.

In front of Wario's myriad of tents, a long line of Tatanga's generals waited. Tatanga was clearly displeased with his generals. Tatanga's eyes blazed. Veins bulged in his forehead and neck. He gritted his teeth. His rage was pitting from his teeth and so, he commanded an executioner, whose form was grotesquely muscled. Where the executioner's forearms should have been, his flesh and hands were removed. His very bones were sharpened into axes. Tatanga had the executioner's arms fall and with time practically suspended, one of his disappointing generals' head parted from his body.

Tatanga dispatched his monsters from worlds away and so the trumpeting, not of brass horns, but wild beasts were heard. Around the bend, close to Rogueport, whose citizens looked at the scene through their windows, was the cavalry of mammoshkas en masse. They were adorned with red spiked helmets and cleated shoes, stomping through their own men. Their trunks were fitted with hammers and bladed sickles. Yet their step was light, almost like feathers when they walked over sailboats. What cretures were these for Tatanga? They made for a clear path towards the pirates.

The mammoshka's marched up the constricted grey path, with Tatanga's men on the massive grey backs. There were archers, javelin throwers and young boys throwing rocks all at the pirates. Yet the mammoshka's were clumsy beasts and the piled dead on the sailboats, sometimes too slippery for them. Many mammoshka's lost footing, some toppled and others shifted in fear. A raider met his fate, skewered by a charging tusk and others were tossed like a desultory of tribesmen, off the beast, disappearing below the River Twygz forever forgotten.

"Brea… now!" roared the Wolfenboss and with the coming magnitude of raiders, the pirates opened their line briefly and swallowed them whole. Syrup was in perfect form, cutting the enemy down, each stroke and parry, a grace for others to emulate. The Wolfenboss' shield took a crushing blow from a futuristic battleaxe, but he countered and yawed forward, shooting his devolution gun into the face of a raider commander, blasting it cleanly off the body. "Watch them!"

In the front, Antenor and Shoot broke free, filled by youth. They cleaved swords into an open space of raider dead. Antenor buried his blade, raiders falling at his feet. "Are yous till here?" joked Shoot to Antenor.

"If only you fought as much as you ran your mouth," remarked Antenor as he pulled at his steel, stuck in the corpse he had just felled. Shoot laughed and swung through a string of raiders that streamed towards Antenor as he tried to free his blade.

"Not now," laughed Shoot, "I'm a little busy." Shoot was dynamic, effortless and brave as he took on three raiders. He cut and pulled at them, dropping the first just as Antenor freed his blade and joined the fight once more. Shoot dropped the second raider and turned to Antenor. So, they continued on, all of the pirates, beting on the promontory of the dead.

"Regroup!" they heard the Wolfenboss roar. The pirates pulled into one another, gathering force, streaming into the raiders like a wall of intimidation. Shoot raged on, killing raiders without pause. "Shoot!" roared the Wolfenboss and his son looked at him, the two locked eyes at that moment. "On center!" So, it would be that they shared a moment of praise in the tenebrous day. Yet from the middle of the fray, a raider horseman, clothed in inked letter and iron mail, galloped over the sailboats and through the melee. For all who saw it, time stood still. The horseman raised his arm and with one arc, the Wolfenboss could only watch as Shoot was beheaded only a few yards away. It was no more brutal than the rest, only that it was one of the pirates' own.

Shoot's head landed in the muck grime filled bloody river, another raider lifted the severed gift and tossed it up to the horseman. He held the head above his own and howled. It was a prize offering for Tatanga. The horseman rode back towards Rogueport, never offering to fight for the Wolfenboss' pain.

"They all die!" cried the Wolfenboss but the raiders had begun to retreat back with their treasure. The Wolfenboss' rage rose and he ran after the force, hacking into the backs of fleeing men. They weared on. The pirates lost a few, but each felled was a friend or dearest blood. Upon seeing the headless body of his own son, the Wolfenboss broke rank. He went wild, he was blood drunk.

Awabo and Anonster followed the Wolfenboss, allowing his frenzy to run its course until all the enemy life had been snuffed out. It went on until a group of pirates dragged the Wolfenboss from the field, his face twisted with grief and his tears etching lines in the mix of blood and sweat on his face. The Wolfenboss' cries of pain at the loss of his son were more frightening to the raiders than the deepest battle drums. It took three pirates to restrain the Wolfenboss and bring him back to their own. The day belonged to Syrup. No songs were sung. Wario's camps went deathly quiet.

On Kitchen Island, a wooden fire burned in the corner of a small house, illuminating the simple mason and beam ceilings. Deep within, away from Syrup's attendants and away from the rush of the rest of the island, Shokora and Doll Boy stood in conversation. "I am not here for small talk, Doll Boy," said Shokora, her face hard and knowing.

"I'm sure of that," he whispered. "You have never spared words with me." He walked to a rimmed table, a tanned cougar's hide covering its base. "A drink?" he asked her, picking up a pitcher of water.

"Is it poison?" she asked, but instead he held it high, it was inlaid of silver palmette rising from acanthus leaves.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," he sneered. "It's just water." He poured the water into two shallow bronze bowls, hammered with the images of a seated fox and hen. He handed it over to Shokora. "I am told you are going before the council."

"I am not seeking your advice," she said, "just your help in seeking winning votes to send our full force north to their captain." He turned to face Shokora in the dimly lit room.

"Perhaps I could help," he said. "The two of us standing togher, the politician, the warrior, our voices as one, but what does your willingness prove?" Shokora took a sip from the bowl and set it on the table.

"It proves I care for a captain who at this very moment fights for the water we drink," she told him and he nodded in agreement.

"True," he muttered, "but this is politics, not war." He set his water down and looked at Shokora as she paced around the room. "Syrup is an idealist."

"I know your kind too well," Shokora told him, "you send men to slaughter for your own gain."

"Syrup, our captain, has broken the laws," Doll Boy retorted. "She has left without the council's blessings, I am simply a realist."

"You are an opportunist," she pointed out, "and a bad one at that." He wheeled and closed the distance between himself and the girl.

"You're as foolish as Syrup if you believe men don't have a price in this world," he growled. "All men are not created equal. The Lockjaw Code reinforces this maxim you… silly little girl." Without hesitation, Shokora slapped Doll Boy clean across the face but he was unmoved by the blow. "I admire your passion, but don't think that you, a woman, can walk into the council chambers and sway the minds of men. Regardless of what your captain says, you have no power there. I own those chambers, as if they were built by these hands." He showed his hands to her, now soft after nine years of avoiding conflict and seized her by the throat. She struggled for a moment under his power but then her eyes darted across the house for something to aid her plight. "I could crush the life from you right now! You will speak to the council and your words will fall on deaf ears. You will receive nothing without me. Syrup will have no reinforcements and if by Rudy's grace he returns, she will be jailed or worse!" Shokora stared at him in disbelief. "Do you love Kitchen Island?" Her eyes locked with Doll Boy's as he allowed her to gasp for air.

"Yes," she panted and his grip tightened around her neck.

"And your captain?"

"I do."

Doll Boy smiled again as he watched Shokora squirm under his powerful grasp. "Your captain fights for her land, she has no love," he told her and released his grip on her neck. "What do you have to offer Kitchen Island?"

"What does a realist want with me?" she asked.

"I think you know," hs esaid and Shokora trembled, knowing the sacrifice from her that Doll Boy truly wanted. She lifted her hand and pulled at the soft lace that held up her dress at he rneck. "This will not be over quickly. You will enjoy this. I am not your captain." There were no tears. Shokora stood naked before Doll Boy as he began to ravage her. She made not a sound, not a move. She gave him everything and anything but not her heart in the faint firelight of the room.

A perimeter of tribes surrounded the sanctuary of their God, Wario. Foot soldiers sharpened their weapons under a stable of warhorses. Castaways and penniless slaves roamed the night for their masters, it was a makeshift world of chaos and it was a free show for all of Rogueport to see.

Within Wario's tents, there were faint cries, erotic wails and soft drumming. A goat-headed minstrel played a sitar in the background. Others smoked pipes of Puftoss skin and listened to reed instruments from the Dark Land. This was a different world, a world of fine silk walls, rugs from the Dark Land, soft pillows and towers of incensed candles. Incense burned and hung in tooled copper baskets. A procession of slave girls, all near naked, sheer gauze and jeweled bodies danced for Tatanga in the faint light. "Rudy was cruel to shape you so, Wormwould," he hummed. Under a canopy of soft light, Wormwould moved from the shadows. "But Wario is kind." Tatanga lay on his marble pedestal, adorned in rare diamonds and emeralds from planets far from where he now was. "Everything you could ever desire." Concubines of all shapes, colours and timelines were brought forth for Wormwould. "Every pleasure your fellow pirates and the false Rudy has denied you." The dancers writhed against Wormwould's frame. "I will grant you… for Wario is kind."

"Yes," said Wormwould as he wiped the drool from his mouth, the sheer temptation of the offer had overcome his lips.

"Embrace me as your king and Wario as your God," offered Tatanga.

"Yes."

"Lead my soldiers to the hidden path that empties behind the cursed pirates."

"Yes."

The dancers reached deeper into the heights of their tortured bodies.

"Your joys will be endless."

"Yes."

Tatanga opened his impressive arms, extending his jeweled hands to his guest.

"You will create your destiny."

"I want it all… land… wealth… women… and one more thing." Wormwould shuffled closer and opened his eyes wide for Tatanga to see. "I want a uniform." Tatanga folded his arms one over another and simply nodded.

"Done," said Tatanga. Wormwould took a deep breath, as if to breathe in his newfound wealth and treasures. "You will find… Wario is kind… unlike the cruel Syrup who demanded that you stand. I only require you to kneel." With those words, Wormwould lowered his warped body, head following his hands, crumpling his weight down to both knees and bowing before Tatanga without more celebration or thought. The seduction of Wormwould had gone flawlessly.