Alex woke up, but he was in no pain. That was better than he expected. He lay swinging back and forth in a dark room, and his eyes could barely make out the shadows around him. Several hammocks swung nearby, and a faint distant light on the far side of the room gave just enough light to see the door's shadows nearby.

He was alive. That was less of a surprise than it should have been. A part of him was just thankful for the pain being gone. If he had woken up with his chest still burning and the spasms of pain running through his chest, he likely would have just gone back to sleep.

"Second grade," he whispered, touching his chest and feeling the cool metal of the device beneath his fingers.

Lucien's curse, back on Glory Plateau, was a second-grade curse. In his first-grade curse, the man could summon creatures he had defeated and absorbed in battle to fight for him. When Lucien had revealed the next stage of his curse, that summoning ability had warped into a transformation of his own body. Now, Alex's own curse had changed.

"What will I become?" Alex whispered, pushing himself up from the hammock and swinging his legs to the ground.

His bare feet touched the cold metal, and he immediately searched for his boots and clothes. It didn't take him long to find them, left in a bundle on a nearby hammock. He quickly dressed himself and went through the door and up the stairs.

Erin was at the ship's helm up the stairs. She looked back at him and nodded as he came up, and Alex rubbed the back of his head. Erin had dark bags under her eyes, and Alex realized she and Sayed would have piloted the ship together for however long he was out.

"Hey," Alex said. "How long was I out."

"Two days," Erin said, pressing a button on the console and walking over to him. "How are you feeling?"

"Hungry," Alex said, realizing there was a faint pull on his stomach. "But I'm not hurting anymore."

"Jean said that would be the case." Erin nodded, and Alex tilted his head.

"Who's Jean?"

"Do you remember what the ship was carrying before we hijacked it?" Erin asked, biting her lip.

"It was doing a prisoner transport." Alex nodded.

"There was only one prisoner," Erin said, walking toward the cabin door. "Come on, I'll introduce you to him."

Alex followed her out through the door and onto the deck. The empty black vastness of the nightsea opened up in the sky around him, and islands shone brightly in the sky like bright white stars. Sayed sat on one side of the deck, polishing his blades with a smile. He looked up and nodded at Alex as they exited the door.

"Good to see you awake, brother."

Alex started to return the greeting when he noticed the man standing on the far end of the ship, looking out the back of the ship and into the night. He was almost as dark as the nightsea around him, but his blue robes still showed where he stood. The man turned to look back at them, a white toothy smile crossing his face, but the more important detail was his arms. They were just bones. They moved like hands and arms, but they were just the man's bones.

"What in the..." Alex whispered.

"That's Jean," Erin said. "Come on."

Together, they walked over to Jean, and the man began to chuckle softly as they approached. A weight dropped in Alex's stomach, but he couldn't place why. It reminded him of times he would be called into his father's study back home, not knowing if he was in trouble or not.

"Look at you," Jean said, stretching his bony arms wide as he started to walk a circle around them. "You've grown your curse to the next level, and it already shows. Have you tried it out? Have you opened your gate since you awoke?"

"Not yet," Alex admitted, following Jean with his eyes as he came around to his starting point.

"The best way to learn power is to experiment with it," Jean said. "Open up your gate. See what new power it brings!"

Erin noticeably hurried away from Alex as he debated on doing what the man asked. For one, he didn't know Jean. For two, he wasn't sure what his gate would do, and that scared him. Alex stood still, looking at Jean, and resolved himself to one action.

"I'll do it, but first, who are you?"

"Jean Baptiste 'the Reanimator,'" Jean said, spreading his arms and bowing. "At your service."

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Alex had seen his wanted posters before. The picture matched pretty well, though his skeletal hands weren't on the poster. Alex had to wonder how Jean could move his arms at all. Bones were moved by muscles and tendons tightening and relaxing back and forth. How could a man have no muscles but still move his arms?

Of course, the obvious answer was aether, but Alex didn't like it.

"You might want to step back, Jean," Alex said. "I'm not sure what this will do."

"Better we find out now than in the middle of a battle." Jean nodded, stepping away.

Alex closed his eyes, took in a deep breath, and opened his gate.

Electricity sparked out from his heart in pulsing waves. The electricity flowed like bolts of lightning from his chest, down his muscles, and to the very tips of his fingers. In his senses, all the metal in the world around him became visible, and he could feel the various magnetic fields in the world around him.

Alex instinctively knew this was just the first grade of his curse. He could open his gate more.

"Yes, now one step more," Jean whispered.

Alex opened his gate wider, and the electricity that ran through his body no longer came in pulses. Now, his entire body was a live wire. Power ran back and forth continuously from his heart to every part of his body. His bubble of perception widened, and he could even sense the various metal bits on the bottom of the ship. Alex reached out one hand and formed the idea in his mind before he could fully understand what he was doing.

"Steel Disks."

Two static balls of electricity flashed above his head before two round pieces of steel materialized near him. They floated in the air in his magnetic field, and Alex smiled. They were each about the size of a medieval buckler shield. They were large enough to block or be thrown but small enough that he could manipulate them easily.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

"Manifestation of metal, very good," Jean said as he finished clapping his hands.

"Finding useful metal is the hardest part," Alex said, shrugging.

"An interesting choice," Jean said, holding up one finger. "What do you say to testing your new abilities with a sparring match?"

"Are you sure?" Alex raised an eyebrow. "I don't know everything about it yet."

"The best way to learn is experimentation," Jean repeated himself. "Spirit Swing."

Hahaha.

The air around them grew noticeably colder at the man's words, and a shadow spilled out from behind Jean. Alex watched as a purple glow lit up the floor beneath the man and a long twining tail wrapped around his body. From that purple light, a skeletal figure manifested, wrapping around Jean's neck like a shawl. Two skeletal arms rested around his shoulders in a hug from behind, and white hair fell out and down Jean's back from the creature's skull.

"Eliza, I would like to introduce you to my new friends," Jean said to the spirit. "Let us show them how we dance."

He reached up and grabbed hold of the spirit's hand. With a whirl, he sent her down the length of his arm and out onto the deck. For a moment, Alex was stunned at the sight. He had never seen a curse act like this before, and he had no idea what to make of Jean's ability.

He brought the disks close to his body as they came for him.

"Spirit Step!"

With a flash, the two dancers disappeared from Alex's sight. The hair on the back of his neck rose, and he moved one of his disks behind his head on instinct alone. That thought saved him from the kick that came for his skull.

Clang!

Alex turned and saw a leg manifesting from the spirit's form as it stood beside Jean. They stood with their arms stretched out from each other and their legs out in the air. Eliza's leg formed the kick while Jean's body acted as a counterbalance.

"Step."

Alex disappeared in a flurry of movement like he had taken a thousand steps in one instant, reappearing further away and down the deck. The disks came to him immediately afterward, flowing in wide arcs until they returned to his side.

"Steel Disks." Alex thrust out one hand and sent the two disks flying off toward Jean.

The two dancers brought themselves together, joining hands and thrusting forward with one another as they took three steps. Alex watched as they moved and couldn't help but be impressed. They moved together like two people who had lived side by side for their entire lives.

"Spirit Pirouette!" Jean said, extending out both of their arms as they went into a spin.

Wind formed an almost tornado around both fighters as they entered their spins. Faster and faster they went until they were both a blur. Alex's disks tried to follow their path, but they were deflected away when the disks hit that wind.

Ting. Clang.

The two disks fell to the deck below and shattered into shards of electricity. Alex raised his right hand and knew he needed to try something else. The disks were useful, but not for the situation. He focused his mind on his arm.

"Junk Arm."

Blue electric lights sparked down his arm as he said the words, and metal pieces formed across his hands and forearm. In moments, his entire arm was encased in metal of various sizes and pieces, all held together with magnetic lines. He had an arm made of various pieces of metal, slightly longer than his regular one. He flexed his metallic fingers closed as he brought the arm close to his body.

"Step."

Alex came within reach of Jean as the two still spun in the air. The air around the man was like being next to a cyclone, and bits of dust and dirt cut into Alex's face with stinging pain. Alex ignored that and pushed forward with his arm, throwing the strongest punch he could into the whirling storm.

"Steel Punch!"

His muscles swelled as he used 'might' along with his curse for his punch, and his fist clashed with the whirling energy of Jean's cyclone. Alex's arm shook under the weight of the strike, and the wind pushed back against him the entire way.

"Parter Switch!"

Alex barely heard the technique before the wind momentarily vanished, and his punch went through.

Crunch. Clang.

His metal fist collided with Eliza's skeletal body and slammed her away from him. Alex followed through with the punch all the way. His fist clattered against the deck as he was thrown off balance. He sensed the attack as it came at that moment. From behind him, Jean struck out with his hand, and Alex knew the fight was over.

Slap.

Instead of a hard punch to the back of his head, which might have ended him, only a light slap hit the back of Alex's head. Alex looked up in surprise as the metal around his arms disappeared, and he fell to the deck.

"Very good, but that may have killed me if I wasn't ready for it," Jean said as he stood over Alex with a smile. "The bones were right about you, Mister Ortega. You are a very interesting find for me indeed."

Alex had no idea what was happening but couldn't help but laugh.