Hunter walked away and flew to a nearby cliff. From there he could clearly see the ship where Luz, Willow, Gus, Vee and all their many friends it was too long to list were sailing away and heading in the direction he had indicated. He found himself grinning sadly: what a strange twist of fate, he had met the mother of that impertinent puppet and hadn't even noticed. Well, in his defense he had no idea what she looked like, much less that she was traveling alone across the sea looking for her daughter. Apparently everyone in that family was a little... reckless. By the way, now that he thought about it, how did a human woman produce a puppet? Well, there was probably some magical weirdness involved; after all, it wouldn't have been the strangest and most absurd thing he had seen in his life. Not even remotely the strangest or most absurd, to be honest.
In any case, that wasn't his problem now. After leaving his uncle he had traveled to the opposite side from where he had met the puppet, precisely because he hoped that by doing so he would not have met her. If there was one thing Hunter had learned in the sixteen years of his life it was to keep away from his uncle as much as possible, so every time he gave him a mission using the excuse of research he bought himself some time and a sort of 'vacation' somewhere in the world, delaying as much as possible the moment of the actual battle against the magical creature that he had sent him to capture. The longer he stayed away from this man, the less likely he was that he would meet the horrible end of all his many predecessors. It was a trick he had used on every mission: buying time by pretending to look for his prey even though he knew exactly where to find it. In this way he could enjoy life a little and go and capture his goal only when he knew that his uncle's patience was reaching its dangerous limit and therefore delaying any longer would be no different from handing himself over to him on a silver platter already topped with lettuce and oregano and with a sign reading 'You're welcome, the meal is ready'.
That had been exactly what he had planned to do with Luz too: he knew exactly where to find her, so he could pretend to look for her for a while and then only go and get her at the last moment. For this reason he had headed in the opposite direction of where he was supposed to go and had reached Bonesborough; he planned to spend a couple of days there amd enjoy some fun, and then he would have moved on to the next town, and then on and on, never staying too long in one place. Only after a few months, knowing that such time meant that his uncle was getting more and more irritated, he would have gone to take her and complete the mission. After all, Luz couldn't move too much from where she was, right? Even if she had the fastest legs in the world and ran day and night, she could never get very far... and she didn't seem intent on traveling much after all. She was still a puppet, not a cheetah; managing to escape from him was impossible for her. Even if she were no longer in the town where he had first found her, it would have taken Hunter less than a day to find her again. Capture her? It would have been even simpler, that puppet had practically zero skills in terms of fighting, and he would have just had to lurk and wait until she was alone to grab her and take her away with him. A perfect plan without the slightest margin of error.
Well, apparently he was completely wrong. In just a couple of weeks Luz had crossed an entire ocean and arrived in Bonesborough where she met him again. Hunter realized that his previous strategy could no longer work: if Luz had moved so much in the space of just two weeks, where would she end up in the space of a few months? Hunter risked never finding her again. While he was good at tracking, he was certainly not omniscient. Not to mention that she seemed to have a very great aptitude for attracting dangerous subjects and getting into risky situations: this time it had gone well and the pirates who had found her had been friendly, but what if she had instead been found by bad guys? What if she was killed or destroyed before he could find her? His uncle wouldn't have taken it well at all. Hunter knew this would be the last mistake of his life. He would end up like everyone else when they dared to fail one too many times, and the thought alone made him shudder.
Given the situation, it was best to let go of the option of wasting time: he had to take Luz to her uncle immediately, before losing her again. But... how to do it? The puppet was well protected by many friends; if he had tried to take her by force, they would surely have defended her. Hunter was superior to all of them in terms of strength, technique and experience, but they were numerous and, as Willow herself had pointed out, they could rely on teamwork to defeat him. Damn when he taught that cricket how to block motor functions… what was he thinking? He had been an idiot, he should have known it would backfire on him. Never reveal your secrets, it was one of the fundamental rules of his job, and like an idiot he had taught Willow how to paralyze the nerves. If he could go back he would have kicked his past self, but now the damage was done and there was no point in feeling sorry for himself. Besides, he was pretty sure that even Flapjack would refuse to help him in that case; maybe it would help him escape, but not capture Luz. If he used the full power of his staff after his uncle recharged it, he would have a good chance... but he would also risk disintegrating Luz in the process, so he couldn't choose that option. He had hoped he could get her away from them, but these guys had made it very clear that they didn't trust him. Therefore, he now had only two choices: he could wait for that ship to return, approach him as a friend, and hope that over the course of the long months he would earn their trust enough for them to leave him alone with Luz, or that he would find an opportunity...
Or he could call his uncle.
The ship was at sea now. His uncle was near and he would have had no problem reaching it and capturing all its passengers. This however would have meant not only handing Luz over to him, but also everyone else... even Willow...
But after all, it was certainly not the first time that Hunter had been forced to sacrifice someone.
He picked up his staff and looked at the red orb on it. He was about to touch it when Flapjack stepped between him and it. "What do you want?" Hunter asked him.
Flapjack let out a loud chirp. Hunter couldn't remember ever seeing him so anxious. "I don't have to do this? Are you kidding me?" he growled angrily. "Don't start moralizing like you usually do! You saw my uncle, and I told you what you didn't see about him! This isn't about morality, it's about survival! If you don't like what you I'll do it, spread your wings and go, I'm not holding you back! But stop interfering, it's hard enough for me without hearing your stupid scolding!"
But Flapjack didn't give up, and kept chirping. Hunter wasn't looking at him, looking instead out to sea; he knew that if he looked at him he would see a very stern and disappointed look. "The only friends I've ever had? This is what you think they are?". He let out a sad laugh. "So in your opinion, knowing someone for the beauty of two days, during which ninety percent of the time we did nothing but argue, yell at each other, insult each other, plan an attack, fight a monster and mourn the fallen for a whole night, does that mean becoming friends? They're not my friends, Flapjack. I won't deny that I enjoyed meeting them, but we don't have that kind of bond!"
Flapjack chirped even more vehemently. "That isn't an excuse to sentence them to death, and you can clearly understand that I don't like it!?" he exclaimed. At that point Hunter couldn't mantain his calm anymore: he grabbed the Palisman with his free hand and brought him in front of his face, and judging by Flapjack's frightened look his expression must have been very unreassuring. "Listen to me, you stupid wooden bird! I'm not making excuses or anything, I'm doing what needs to be done! Because that's how you survive when you have a life like mine! If that Bat Queen with which you lived before raised you on caviar and silverware, well, this is not my problem! I don't have a choice here! I do this or I risk losing that puppet again and therefore condemning myself to a fate worse than death! If you had lived, seen and suffered even a tenth of the things that I had to live, see and suffer, you wouldn't hesitate for a moment to do what I'm about to do right now! My uncle is the one who decides my life, put this in that dumb wooden brain of yours! If he tells me to jump, I jump. If he tells me to kill someone, I kill that someone. If he tells me to cut off my arm and offer it to him as a sacrifice, I tear my shirt and slash my shoulder with my own hands, and give him my arm while I am still dripping blood! Because this is how my life works, you miserable moralistic bird! So, if my uncle tells me to bring him that puppet, I bring her to him, even if I don't like it! Because when you are just a pawn in a player's hands, you can only choose whether to become a useless pawn that he will immediately discard, or a valid pawn that he will decide to keep as much as possible!". Finally he let Flapjack go. "Now you hide in my cloak and let me call my uncle! If you don't like it, leave! You only have these two options! But if you decide to stay, don't try to talk about things you clearly don't understand again, or I'll sell you to the first unscrupulous magic item dealer I find! Have I been clear!?"
Flapjack stood still, then very slowly reached for his cloak and hid beneath it. Hunter closed his eyes and gritted his teeth; Even though he didn't think he was wrong, he felt bad for having treated the Palisman that way. Finally, he took a deep breath and lifted his staff, then touched the red orb atop it. It shone with an evil light and then this light thickened, forming a vortex, within which images began to form as if it were a mirror. In a few moments, his uncle's face appeared before him; from what Hunter was seeing he was on the only port of the island, which like all the other constructions seemed to be composed of thousands of tentacles intertwined together, next to a huge ship that seemed to be made up of dozens of wrecks of other ships piled together and joined by beams and nails, with Kikimora behind him who was loading a large number of donkeys onto it. "Why are you bothering me?" he asked in his usual sour voice.
"I have found the puppet, my liege" Hunter replied deferentially.
His uncle's blue eyes shone like lapis lazuli. "Wonderful! Very good, Hunter! Finally you decided to be useful!" he exclaimed, giving him one of his rare smiles. "Where is she now?"
"Unfortunately, she is surrounded by too numerous and too skilled enemies. I cannot capture her immediately" Hunter answered. "I thought I'd wait for a chance, but an opportunity has come our way. She's going out to sea right now, off Bonesborough"
There was a moment of silence, and then the grin on his uncle's face widened until it seemed to almost touch his ears, and hideous green growths appeared on his face. "Out to sea? Heh heh... gorgeous! She's in my element now!" he laughed, and the laughter gave Hunter goosebumps. "Step aside. This time I'll take care of her... personally!" and with that the communication went dead.
Hunter had almost been holding his breath the entire time, and finally he was able to let out a deep sigh. Flapjack emerged from his cloak and looked at him with a mixture of reproach and concern. "Don't look at me like that... it had to be done" Hunter said, but despite the confidence in his voice he still had to lean on his staff to keep from falling to his knees.
Meanwhile, several hundred kilometers away, his uncle was still laughing maniacally. "Out to sea! What an opportunity! Ah ah ah! Silly talking puppet, you are so kind as to come personally into my hands! What a gift! Well... as they say... you can't refuse gifts! I'm coming to get you, ah ah ah!"
The entire landscape around him began to shake, but he didn't bat an eyelid; the port began to crumble in on itself while the tentacles of which it was composed untied their entanglement. Kikimora opened her eyes wide in terror and kicked the last donkeys onto the ship; on it there was a helmsman, a strange individual with a small horn on his forehead above his right eye, who seeing her behavior shouted at her: "What's happening!?", but she didn't even listen to him and ran towards the board the ship where she blew a long whistle. A large purple octopus emerged from the sea, grabbed the ship with its tentacles and then began swimming faster than any vessel, dragging it away.
Just in time! Under the frightened gaze of Kikimora, the helmsman and all the donkeys who were on board, the port sank under water, and after it the whole island disappeared into the sea; what looked like enormous fins the size of hills rose above the sea and then fell again, generating a wave higher than any tsunami, but Kikimora only had to give another whistle for a large sea dragon to also emerge from the water and grab the ship and took it tens of meters into the air, making it pass over the rogue wave, and then brought it back down as soon as the situation was safe again. "Phew! Saved by a whisker" she murmured, looking at the spot where an instant before there had been an island longer than a kilometer. "I'll never get used to this..."
She wasn't the only one who was scared: the donkeys on the ship had huddled together trembling, the helmsman had crouched down next to the rudder, and the octopus and the sea dragon who had just rescued them were clearly terrified like few times in their lives. Around them all the sea creatures started jumping out of the water, clearly scared to death of something; from the tiny sardines to the mighty orcas, from the hungry sharks to the majestic whales, from the big leviathans to the immense krakens, they all jumped out as if hoping that at any moment they would grow wings that allow them to escape into the sky. Even the deep-sea fish swam desperately towards the surface and their bodies were soon destroyed by the pressure difference, but nevertheless they didn't stop until they died. A large tuna even jumped onto the ship and refused to return to the water, uncaring of the fact that it couldn't breathe, and it suffocated to death shortly after; whatever had just entered the sea depths was enough to make it prefer that death to whatever awaited it down there.
The chapter is a little shorter than the others, but unfortunately I haven't found a way to make it longer; after all, its narrative effectiveness lies precisely in the speed with which the events it contains unfold. Normally I would have merged it with the next chapter, but for obvious reasons this wasn't possible. In any case, I hope you enjoyed it.
Also, I take this moment to make an important announcement: starting tomorrow (so the next chapter will still be published normally) the publication will change and will consist of only one chapter a day at 7:00 pm in Italy where I live (1:00 pm New York). This is not because I am having problems writing the story but because with my work and university schedules it is impossible for me to maintain the pre-existing publication pace, so even if I already have several chapters ready (at the moment I write these notes I am at 111) I prefer to slow down at least a little, furthermore it is becoming almost impossible for me to publish at those precise hours (9:00 am-9:00 pm Italian time) again due to my commitments. I hope you can understand. To make it up to you, I will try to post longer chapters