"Kid? Jackie? Are you alright?"

"Huh? Wha? The fuck happened?"

Blinking rapidly, Jackie saw Barke crouching next to his chair. The badly painted grin on his mask somehow made Jackie a little bit more comfortable. "You spaced out. Sorry. That must've been a rather tough piece of news to take." He replied with genuine kindness and concern.

Jackie saw a glass of water in the small table in front of him, and took it quickly. He raised it to his dry lips and relieved his parched throat from the thirst.

After keeping the empty glass back on the table, Jackie apologized. "It's my fault. I just...remembered some things. That's all." Barke's eyes had a knowing look to them. But he said nothing, and walked over to his chair across from Jackie's.

As he relaxed in his seat, Barke's gaze remained on Jackie. "You want me to continue?" Jackie took a deep breath and slowly let it out with his eyes closed. "Okay. Go ahead."

Barke once again moved his eyes to the broken sword on the wall. "Myself and the 12 others on the ship were retaliating at a safe distance from Cariboa to prevent anybody suspecting anything. Your parents kept you safe, hid what we had stolen, and returned to The Howitzer. Thanks to my mist, they were able to get back without anybody from the Royal fleet noticing them."

"Since they had no idea of your existence or the fact that we had hidden the treasure on the same island where we hid you, there was no reason to suspect anything of Cariboa, though I know they checked out the island a bit after our defeat. We continued sailing to prevent any further danger to our hiding spot, so they had no proof whatsoever that what they were looking for was there."

Jackie shook his head and tugged at his hair, the overwhelming sadness washing over him like a tidal wave. He looked up at Barke with tears shimmering in his eyes. The final flashes of memory involving his parents kept replaying in his head. The scene danced in front of his eyeballs maddeningly, making him wish he was born blind. He loathed remembering or dreaming of those last few moments since the very day he had been left behind.

"But why? Why couldn't they have stayed with me at Cariboa? We could have just lived a normal life, like any family!"

Barke was merciless. "Because the Royal Guards had already seen them. If they were missing from the ship without any record of being killed, they'd immediately know something was afoot. We left you on the ship when we proceeded with the raid on the palace, which was the reason why they didn't see you."

Jackie slammed his fist into the arm of the chair in frustration. And then, suddenly, the room went cold. Barke's eyes widened to the size of coconuts in surprise at the sudden shift in Ley. It was as though Jackie was the source of a powerful gale, rendering the glowing fire in the fireplace completely useless.

"Barke. How did they die?"

His tone of voice was as icy and laced with spite as the air around them. Barke watched Jackie's eyes aim at him with an unnaturally controlled rage building up within them. "Tell me, Barke."

It infuriated Barke. He felt the boy's anger, but his own was far greater and more justified. Lexi and Harvey sacrificed themselves for this boy. They gave up their dreams and their lives for him. And yet, he's willing to throw it away. For what?

He narrowed his eyes and glared right back at Jackie. "We were eventually overcome when they got close enough to shoot down the mast of the ship. And from there on out, it was the handful of us against several hundred Royal Knights, all capable of using Ley. Needless to say, we were completely wiped out in a matter of minutes. But I somehow managed to survive in all the chaos. Took off the armour from the body of a dead Knight and stay low for a while before everyone died."

"Your mother was shot in the head twice. Your father fought on a bit longer, but he was stabbed by around seven Knights, all attacking at once. It was never possible for all of us to survive the chaos. I was lucky. Or maybe I wasn't, since I've got a mark on my head now."

"I had no choice but to watch your parents' bodies be tossed into the ocean. And not just them, but everyone else too. One of my closest friends, Rafael Rochás, was murdered right in front of me. The captain, your uncle, was the last one to die. He died with honour, after killing almost twenty Knights on his own."

He watched as Jackie gritted his teeth, with his face twisted in fury. "The Royal Knights did this? I'll.... I'll fucking kill all of them! I-"

SMACK.

He didn't know when Barke had stood up and slapped him across the face, but he did know one thing. The man standing in front of him right now was but a shadow of the patient, concerned man who had been relaxed and cool in the chair in front of him.

His eyes burned into Jackie as he stood in front of him with his right arm raised to his left shoulder. "You'll do what now?"

Even Jackie, who was seething with anger just a moment ago, was stunned into silence by Barke. He curled his outstretched hand into a fist, and let his arm fall to his side.

"Don't you understand what your parents wanted of you?" The firelight flashed across his masked face and lit up his eyes in an eerie orange glow. "Don't you understand that they wanted you to be free? To be happy? They would never want you to obsess over revenge for them."

"I-"

Barke raised a hand. "No. Don't speak. Do you know why Lexi and Harvey never told you they were going to die? Why you didn't know of their fate all this time? Because they didn't want to break your spirit! They wanted you to push on with everything you had! And not for the sake of finding them, but to find something else you've been far more obsessive over. Ever since you were four, they would read you stories about pirates. About great treasures. You became obsessed with a particular story about El Dorado. They encouraged it! They taught you everything about being a pirate!"

"A pirate's world isn't fair! It's disgraceful! People will mistreat you. Hate you. Pirates will die in far greater numbers than soldiers in a country. When you want to become a pirate, you have to understand that a person's fate is their own decision! Whether they die or live...a pirate is always aware of their own mortality! And so were your parents."

Barke pointed a finger at Jackie and continued, "That is your flaw. You take everything on yourself without a care in the world about how it would affect you. You want revenge? I've seen people get obsessed with avenging someone. You know what happens to them? They all die without fail. That is the flaw of man." He crouched down and placed his hand on Jackie's shoulders.

"You can be more than just a man, Jackie. You can be a king. I've watched you grow up. You've always been strong. So prove it to me, right here and right now. Prove to me that you're strong, boy! That you're worthy of being a damn pirate!"

Jackie had nothing to say to this. How would he know what he was like? That was something only the people outside could judge him on. His eyes met Barke's as he replied, "I'll do my best. But...if I were to encounter the people who killed mom and dad, I'm not sure I can restrain myself."

Barke nodded, and looked over at the sword on the wall. "That's alright. Someday, when you gain the strength needed to fight those monsters, you'll realize there's much more to a person than power." Although he couldn't see it through Barke's mask, Jackie could tell he was smiling from his eyes.

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"Yeah. I'll keep that in mind."

"Good. And you better!" Barke replied as he walked over to a small cupboard near the fireplace. He opened one of the three drawers in it, and picked up what looked like a big rolled up map, and several old, ripped up pages which looked a hundred years old.

The hell is he doing? Jackie wondered as he hobbled over near the chair and threw the curious items to the ground.

As he coughed and waved away the dust in the air caused by the removal of the papers, he motioned to Jackie with the enthusiasm of a small child. "Come on, kid. I've got to show you this before I can let you off. This might be one of the most important things you'll bear witness to in your life."

It was a tad bit difficult to say no to something when put that way.

He got off the chair and kneeled down on the ground beside Barke, who unrolled the paper and tried to unsuccessfully flatten it. Frustrated, he tugged the chair Jackie had been sitting on towards him and put the leg over the map.

Jackie didn't notice any of this, and stared in awe at the map in front of him.

The first thing he did notice was that it was old. As in, something from the 16th century at the very least. The paper was brownish, and parts of it had been chewed on by moths and perhaps rodents and other insects. Small pieces had been ripped off the edges, and there were signs of water damage.

But none of this was as noteworthy as the massive landmass displayed in the map. Jackie had so far found a couple of maps of what El Dorado could have looked like, and this looked absolutely nothing like any of them.

"What...what is this map? I've never seen anything like it." His voice shook from astonishment. Jackie was an avid reader and was very good indeed with maps and navigation, and the huge continent displayed in this particular map was unlike anything else he'd ever seen before.

The drawing on the map was clearly far beyond a mere island based on the scale of mountainous ranges drawn on it, and the smaller islands scattered around it. The landmass was wide at the center, and two narrow parts of it curved away from the main area from the northern and southern ends of the continent. It sort of looked like a giant "S", but much wider in the middle.

Barke took note of his speechlessness and laughed heartily. "Well well! Looks like you've finally seen what a real treasure looks like for the first time, eh boy?"

At the mention of treasure, Jackie tore his eyes from the map and looked at Barke. "What treasure?"

He pointed his finger at one of the dozens of untidy circles and crosses scribbled on the map, and saw the Spanish words, "El Dorado" written near it.

Jackie was caught completely off-guard by this, and started stuttering and stumbling over his own words. "Tha- what? Isn't this...hey, this is El Dorado, right? What the...but what the fuck is this continent? What-?"

"There's still much you don't know, kid. This is one of them, and a damn major thing for a pirate to not know. I can't blame you, since there aren't many pirates who know of the existence of this map to begin with."

"The existence of this map?" Jackie muttered to himself as he scanned the continent pictured in the paper, taking note of the mountainous regions and apparently cooler zones to the north marked in rough handwriting.

He shifted his gaze to Barke with curiosity and excitement. "If El Dorado is only a part of this continent...then what about the rest of it?"

Barke could only shrug. "It has been said there's many many mythical creatures, historic documents and great treasures unseen by mankind in El Dorado. This continent is called the Continent of Gold, or the Promised Land, by those who know of it's existence. Whatever is there is said to be even greater than what's said to be present in El Dorado."

Jackie narrowed his eyes, deep in thought. Something wasn't adding up. "If you know of this Promised Land, wouldn't my parents also have known? Why didn't they tell me?"

"They simply never got the chance to. Everything went south before they could. I talked to them about it myself, since you were so obsessed with finding El Dorado. Someone had to give you the facts. In the end, it had to be me." He replied with a light chuckle.

Barke continued, "That continent has seven main cities which are necessary in the hunt to find it's hiding spot. It is said that the name and location of the island will appear to whoever finds all seven of the former locations of the cities."

"Former location? So they don't actually belong there?" Jackie asked.

"Those former locations are called Rifts. According to legend, none of those cities belonged to that continent. It seems as though entire cities from around the world were stolen by a great power, leaving behind massive nearly empty gaps. Even the Ascendants tread lightly when it comes to this legend. Except one man, of course."

"Blackbeard?"

Barke burst out in laughter, holding his sides as his deep laugh rattled the room. He looked up at Jackie with tears in his eyes and exclaimed, "Blackbeard? So far, it seems he has found only one of the Rifts! I've been keeping up with occurrences around the world using some friends of mine, and none of them have any news of any major breakthroughs for him so far."

Jackie was quite surprised. Back when he had first seen Blackbeard, he had thought for sure that he was practically like a god. "But...but who could possibly have gotten their hands on something even Blackbeard couldn't obtain?"

Barke pressed his hand to the ground as he stood up, and paused for a moment as he stared into the dying fire. Small sparks and a few areas with an orange glow was all that was left of it.

"Devils. Captain Collin Devils. The strongest Ascendant in history. He found not one, not two, not three, but four...yes, four, of the former locations of the cities. It's truly incredible. Using nothing more than brief pieces of an incomplete map with difficult clues, he found four locations. Nobody had, or has, ever seen anything like it."

He adjusted his mask and flipped through the documents in his left hand. "When Devils was killed by the current Third Ascendant, Billy Kidd, rumor has it that his vice-captain took the notes regarding the four cities and hid them. Blackbeard has been quite focused on finding those notes, and has almost stopped his advance to find the seven Rifts entirely."

He motioned to Jackie to check out the papers he was holding, and Jackie complied, quickly leaping up to read what Barke was offering him.

The next moment, the dying embers in the fireplace abruptly fizzed out. Even the candles and oil lamps fixed to the walls were all rendered useless by a chilling wave of freezing air that blew through the mansion. Barke's eyes widened in shock as he turned in the direction of the kitchen, where the wave of cold had come from.

It was nothing like the coldness that had eminated from Jackie's anger. This was far more sinister. As Jackie staggered towards the kitchen with Barke on shaky legs, he noted that he could see his own breath cloud up in front of him. What the fuck is this? It feels as though we're in the Arctic!

As they approached the open entrance, they both saw a man sitting calmly on the dining table, which was covered in ice.

The first feature about him that set an impression immediately was the odd mask he wore underneath a wide-brimmed gray hat. There were no obvious eyeholes, just a simple white rubber mask tied to his face by a rope that went behind his head. At the center of the mask was a big red diamond, surrounded by blue markings that resembled flowing water.

He was covered from head to toe with armour, and wore a short blue cloak which he swung over his left shoulder. He had two gun holsters on his leather belt, with one of the guns withdrawn and loosely held in his right hand.

This time, Jackie knew exactly who the enemy was. He had seen a drawing of the same exact man with the shitty judge he had lived with at Cariboa. He was staring at the Guildmaster of the Hunters Guild, Frost. And he was extremely bad news.

"That's quite enough, Barke."

Without warning, Frost fired his long-barreled pistol at the precious manuscripts twice, tearing them apart. Barke dropped the ruined papers, and glared at him. "You've finally found me, it seems." He said, raising his arms to summon mist around him.

But Frost remained eerily calm. "I certainly have. And I never lose my prey once I find them...especially not if they happen to be a traitor like you."

Barke realised it even through the quiet silence in the kitchen. But before he could react, a man stepped out from the shadows behind them. He was tall, with long hair combed extravagantly, almost resembling a banana as it curved upwards into the air. His white shirt was tucked in neatly, and his polished shoes squeaked as he walked, making his soundless arrival all the more shocking.

The most alarming thing about him was the long iron bar that he swung forward in his hand. Jackie had already withdrawn his sword, but the rush of air as he swung the pole down from his shoulder made his legs quake.

It's a two against two situation, but it's definitely not that simple. If either me or Barke attack, we'll die for sure. Jackie thought as he nervously looked left and right, frantically trying to find any other way of escape. There was none. The only window in the kitchen was behind Frost, and the other entrance outside was across him. If they moved, they would never even make it close.

Frost clasped his hands together and kept his face in Barke's direction as he spoke. "Nobody betrays the Guild and gets away with it, old man. You're going to have to pay the price for it."

Barke stayed silent. His hand was still raised, as if he still thought of resisting. But he then glanced nervously at Jackie, and slowly lowered it to his side.

Even Barke, the guy who can use Elemental Ley, knows he's fucked. This is turning out to be one shitty day. He thought.

Now what?