Chapter 26: Flint's Booby Trap
Silver walked towards the glittering treasure, leaving Jim, Rose, B.E.N., Morph, and Artemis behind.
Then, B.E.N. stammered as a memory started to come back to him, "This is all seeming very familiar. I…I can't remember why."
Jim glanced over to see a pirate ship with tattered red sails filled with gold. Then, the teenage boy looked forward watching Silver focusing his attention to the treasure.
"B.E.N., Rose, come on," Jim whispered, tapping the robot's shoulder. "We're getting out of here, and we're not leaving empty-handed."
"One moment," Rose said.
The girl removed her satchel bag and flipped open the cover. She went down on her knees and began to scoop up a handful of gold and gems. The coolness of the metals were rough against her palms. But she ignored the feeling and poured the treasure in the bag. She planned to give half of it to Lorraine, Hazel, and Willow to help with their finances. Once the bag was filled up, she threw the strap over her shoulder and nodded that she was ready. "Let's go."
"But… but, Jimmy! Jimmy!" B.E.N. said, nervously.
Silver landed on his knees and gazes at the treasure. "A lifetime of searching," he said, feeling he was about to get emotional with joy and scooped up the treasure. "And at long last..." the cyborg held the glittering gold and shiny gems in his metal and organic palms in greed. "I can touch it."
Jim, Rose, and B.E.N. made it to the ship. The boy cupped his hands, and motioned for Rose to climb on. The girl did as he ordered, and stepped on. Jim gave her a boost up to the ship, before climbing up the side himself.
"Do you know what's strange?" B.E.N. asked. "I can't tell you how frustrating this is, guys, 'cause there's something just…" The boy grabs the robot's hands and pulls him up. "It's nagging at the back of my mind." As B.E.N. gets over the railing, he notices something on the ship and screams landing on the deck. "Aah!"
Jim and Rose glanced over to see what startled B.E.N. and grew shocked. On a gold regal chair, was the skeleton of a pirate captain with ragged clothes, boots, and a pirate hat on the skull.
The teens immediately recognized who this dead body originally was.
"Captain Flint?" Jim breathed.
Rose grimaced in disgust at the skeleton.
"In the flesh!" B.E.N. exclaimed. "Well, s-sort of, except for skin, organs, or anything that… that… that resembles flesh...that's not there."
Jim and Rose both examined the skeleton. They looked down to see an object clutched in its' bony fist.
"And yet it's so odd, you know? I remember there was something horrible Flint didn't want anyone else to know but I-I just can't remember what it was," B.E.N. rambled.
As the robot was speaking, Jim placed his hands on the skeleton's hands, and ripped the piece off, breaking off a few bones.
"Oh, a mind is a terrible thing to lose!" B.E.N. groaned and sobbed.
Jim and Rose examined the piece and looked to the back of the robot's head.
"Could it be?" the girl mumbled to herself.
"B.E.N., I think I just found your mind," Jim smiled. He went towards B.E.N. and gripped his hand on the robot's head. "Hold still."
"Aah!" B.E.N. flinched, feeling the boy's fingers. "Jimmy, your hands are very, very cold." When Jim brought the memory circuit close, the wires shot out and latched onto the object, pulling it straight back to the robot's head.
B.E.N.'s head spun around once and began to reboot.
"Whoa!" His eyes went from green to blue. "Hello. You know, uh, Jimmy and Rose Budders, I was just thinking... I was just think…" Then he stopped and a new feeling came over him! "It's all flooding back! All my memories!"
Jim and Rose smiled in joy that B.E.N. began to remember.
"Right up until Flint pulled my memory circuits so I could never tell anybody about his booby trap!"
Rose's smiled vanished. "Wait, what?!" she exclaimed.
A sudden crash sounds from above them and a light flashed, making the trio look up.
"Speaking of which..."
Silver and the other pirates looked up to notice explosions appearing through the core.
"Flint wanted to make sure that nobody could ever steal his treasure, so he rigged this whole planet to blow higher than a Kalepsian kite!" B.E.N. exclaimed.
A spire grew loose from the explosion and fell towards the core, creating a ravine and made the gold coins fly high! The purple lasers moved from the holes and began to create more cracks, causing the treasure to fall down!
The pirates started to make a run for it.
"Run, Jimmy and Rose Budders! Run for your life!" B.E.N. yelled.
"You guys go back and help the captain and Doc!" Jim said, before going underneath the control panel to work on the wiring. "If I'm not there in five minutes, leave without me."
"I am not leaving my buddy Jimmy," B.E.N. yelled, pulling Jim by the legs, only to receive deep glare from him, as he held two sparking wires. "Unless he looks at me like that. Bye, Jim!"
With that, B.E.N. released Jim's legs and hurried off the ship to exit the portal.
Rose followed after B.E.N., but suddenly she stopped and looked back at Jim. As much as she wanted to go with B.E.N. to check up on Delbert and Amelia, and get back on the Legacy, she was worried about leaving Jim behind.
If she were to leave Jim, she might never see him again. She groaned, realizing what she was about to get herself into… to face her fears.
"I must be out of my mind!" she said to herself.
Rose sprinted back to the control panel to help Jim.
"Rose! What are you doing here?" Jim asked.
"Helping you!"
"No Rose! Go with B.E.N. and get out of here!"
"No Jim! I won't leave you! We'll stay and face danger together!"
Wanting to argue back at the girl, Jim realized that they didn't have a lot of time. So, he relented and gave Rose a task to help him.
A gigantic purple laser went across the surface, creating a ravine and more treasure began to fall in. Silver grew horrified at the sight. For all of these years, he didn't even think that the minute he discovered the treasure would end up getting destroyed.
"No! No! Oh, no! Oh, no! No!" Silver yelled. He tried to claw his hands against the treasure to save them, but most of them keep slipping away.
Turnbuckle and Pigors grabbed a treasure chest and attempted to escape the cascading falls of gold coins. But it was fruitless, and they ended up falling to their deaths in the lava, below.
Silver noticed Bird Brain Mary, Hedley, and Moron running away to the portal. "Come back here, ya blighters!" he shouted.
The cyborg then heard a rumbling, and the power up of an engine. He looked over to see Flint's ship getting powered up and the engines lighting up. Silver used his cyborg eye, and discovered Jim and Rose working together to get the ship to start. He closed his eye and smirked, coming up with an idea.
