Nate and company crept down the dimly lit corridor, tension thick in the air as they moved toward the room where Fuzzball was held. Nate clenched his fists, feeling a fury he hadn’t known before as he heard the cries of pain from the room. Krypdyr moved ahead, his shadow aura blending him into the darkness, while Zeff kept his hands near his recently gifted wrench, ready to spring it into action.

Nate peered into the room. Fuzzball was bound to a metal chair in the center of a grim chamber, barely conscious. Blackwing paced before him, his dark aura radiating fear and bending the shadows. Occasionally, Blackwing would lean close, whispering something, and each time, Fuzzball’s body would shiver with uncontrollable terror. Two other chimeran pirates—a muscular, bull-headed man wielding dual axes and a sly fox-faced woman with daggers—stood guard nearby.

Nate shifted to look like Blackwing and took a steadying breath, signaling to the others. Time to move.

With a flash, Krypdyr lunged, pulling his shadow aura across the room and blanketing the chimerans in thick darkness. Blackwing’s wings snapped open as he spun and pushed the shadows back with his own shadowy sigil stone, looking for the source. Nate and Zeff charged in.

Surprise flashed across Blackwing's face at seeing himself wearing purple leathers and a similar tricorn hat.

“So, the lucky one can change,” Blackwing sneered, his red eyes flashing. “Didn’t expect you to join in the fun.”

Nate let his aura flare, matching Blackwing’s intensity. Blackwing’s momentary smirk faded, and he staggered back as Nate’s aura clashed with his own. The bull-headed chimeran swung his axes, but Krypdyr intercepted, his own shadow-coated dagger sliding through the gaps in the pirate’s defenses. Krypdyr hissed, dodging the bull’s wide swings with eerie precision, a blur of motion that had the pirate spinning in circles.

Meanwhile, Nate bolted to Fuzzball, slicing the ropes that bound him and removing the Suppression Cuff. Fuzzball blinked, fear still etched on his face. “Can you move?”

Fuzzball nodded weakly, but his eyes were already sharpening as his wounds began to slowly heal, anger replacing fear. Nate pulled Vinebow and summoned his arrows, firing them at the nearest foe, several shafts soon sticking out of the bull chimeran, which barely slowed him down in his fight against Krypdyr.

The fox-faced woman darted in, dodging arrows, daggers flashing toward Nate’s side, but Zeff intercepted as her luck faltered in a stumble, his wrench slamming into her gut. She dodged away from the second swing and struck, stabbing Zeff in his left side. He cried out and fell back, pressing a hand against the wound.

“Keep her distracted!” Nate called, pulling Fuzzball to his feet.

Zeff grimaced, “I’ll try.”

The fox pirate lunged again at Zeff, who moved his wrench to block. She twisted the dagger as it struck the wrench, deflecting it outward. He stepped into the movement, taking his hand from his wound to pluck a sparker out of a pocket. The spark was small, but Zeff grabbed it with his pyrokinesis and blasted fire outward, clipping her leg. She stumbled but kept coming, her eyes gleaming with a savage hunger.

Blackwing had not been idle, leaping forward, his wings buffeting the room, sending shadows spinning in all directions. With a single powerful beat, he crossed the space and drove a dark-clad fist toward Nate. Nate ducked, but the punch grazed his shoulder, and a shockwave of fear hit him like a tidal wave, freezing his movements and stopping him from catching himself as he rolled in midair to land hard upon the floor. Blackwing sneered as several of his feathers detached and darted at Nate.

Zeff activated his Stalwart shield and stepped between them. Blackwing’s feathers crashed into and dissolved against the magic shield, but there were too many and he was flung out into the hallway, pierced by several arrows.

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Krypdyr struck, stepping through the shadows to slash at Blackwing’s back. Blackwing snarled, turning just in time to catch the blade with his own arm guard, deflecting it, but Krypdyr’s move bought Nate a crucial moment to recover. Which was disrupted by the bull chimeran’s swinging axes.

Nate pushed energy into his luck power desperately, and the fox woman moved to attack him from the other direction. The axe swing was too hard and forward, its momentum overextending the balance. The axe buried deep into the woman’s head, splattering Nate and Fuzzball with viscera as they sprinted to the door, Zeff following closely. They burst out into the corridor, where Nate promptly vomited onto the floor. Krypdyr appeared through one of the shadows in the corridor and they ran.

As they reached the stairwell leading up, a group of chimeran reinforcements appeared, armed and ready. Nate grimaced but nocked an arrow, whispered a command, and released it. The arrow sprouted vines as it flew, binding several of the pirates in place.

“Go, we’ll cover the stairs!” Zeff shouted, summoning the turret and angling it up the narrow corridor. Nate nodded, pulling Fuzzball up the stairs as Zeff held the line. Krypdyr stayed near the turret, ready to trade off once Zeff expended his mana pool. “Let’s finish this.”

They emerged onto the upper deck, the open air whipping around them, Fuzzball finally feeling well enough to move on his own. The sound of the turret spraying out and shouting from below echoed up, signaling Zeff’s struggle to keep the pirates at bay.

Blackwing stepped through the shadow behind the turret. He shot out his feathers at them, his wings flared and face twisted with rage. The wings focused first on the turret, breaking it several places. “This ends NOW!” he spat, descending toward them like a shadow-clad hawk.

Krypdyr met him mid-air, his aura flaring as he slashed upward. The two collided in a whirl of shadows and sparks, their auras intertwining in a deadly dance. But Blackwing was stronger, slamming Krypdyr down with a brutal strike.

Fuzzball roared as Verdant Aegis vines and water wrapped around his body. He reached out and vines whipped around Blackwing’s right wing and pulled him up to the deck.

Blackwing snarled, struggling, his strength tearing through the vines. “You’re dead!”

Nate grinned. “Not today.” He nocked one final arrow, channeling all his energy into it. The vines on the arrow seemed to pulse with life, glowing with an eerie green.

He let it fly. The arrow struck Blackwing’s chest, the vines wrapping tight around him and slamming him back onto the deck. Fuzzball kept his vines wrapping over and over around Blackwing. With a final, furious scream, Blackwing’s body was bound tight, his struggles weakening until he lay still, panting in defeat. Krypdyr put his blades away and focused his strength, raining down punches until Blackwing fell away into unconsciousness.

Nate looked around as the other chimeran pirates pursued Zeff up onto the deck. Weapons were brandished, though many of the pirates limped from cauterized turret wounds.

The doors to the captain’s quarters burst open and Spring Jack stepped out, clapping slowly, followed closely by Ellie, who ran to check on Zeff’s wounds which had already begun healing under Fuzzball’s healing aura.

“Most impressive, Luckomancer. Most impressive indeed.” He held up both hands as he approached. “Stand down, you fools. How many died?”

Nate winced, the image of the fox pirate’s demise bringing bile again to his throat. Adrenaline was still coursing through his veins, and he didn’t dare release the tension.

“Just Tara, sir,” one of Spring Jack’s crew said.

“One?” Nods of agreement. “Really? Just one.”

“It wasn’t on purpose,” Nate whispered. Panic threatened to overtake him.

“Would it make you feel better to know that she killed innocent people? That she, like most of us, are murderers and thieves.” Murmurs rippled through the pirates, though none called out to counter his statement.

“Not really,” Nate said honestly.

“Conceptual chats aside, I must say I have had just the most entertaining day. I left the magic barrier off on the cells for you, as I’m sure you noticed. And Liam, bless him, isn’t the sharpest blade in the scabbard. I just knew he wouldn’t resist telling you the things you needed to get here. And here you are indeed! The rest of you who are able, get Blackwing boarded onto the escape vessel and go. I’ll join you again when I feel like it. Shoo shoo.”

Krypdyr smacked Blackwing hard in the face with his tail as the pirates moved up to take the bloodied chimeran away. One of the others moved to strike out at him, but the air rippled around him and the crewman tripped over the railing.

Nate ran to look over the rail, and a portal appeared above the deck, the crewman landing with a scream that became a pained grunt.

“No more killing.”

“The first one’s the hardest.” Spring Jack’s amused look annoyed Nate.