The sky over the Shattered Coast was the color of a fresh bruise, purpling toward nightfall. To Ben, clinging to the rigging of his father's ship, the Sullen Harpy, it felt like the world was holding its breath. The air was thick with the smell of salt, rust, and boiled cabbage from the galley below—the familiar, suffocating perfume of home.
"Ben! Stop daydreaming and secure that mainsail! Or do you want to be lashed to the bowsprit when this squall hits?"
The voice of Mr. Rookiepasta, his father, cut through the wind's growing whine. It was a voice that could strip paint, a grating mix of sea-gravel and command that brooked no argument. Ben glanced down. His father stood on the quarterdeck, a broad-shouldered silhouette against the flickering glow of the ship's aether-lamps. He wasn't a large man, but he carried a density of presence, a gravity born of countless raids and a reputation that made even the hard-bitten pirates under his command snap to attention.
"Aye, Captain," Ben muttered, the title feeling foreign and bitter on his tongue. He hauled on the heavy, tarred rope, his muscles straining. At fifteen, he was all limbs and angles, not yet filled into the brute strength that defined the Rookiepasta line. His hands, already calloused from a lifetime of this work, burned with the friction.
The Sullen Harpy was a brute of a ship, a patchwork of dark iron, weathered wood, and stolen technology. Its paddle wheels, currently still, were driven by a clattering steam engine that smelled perpetually of scorched oil. It was a pirate vessel through and through, ugly, functional, and feared. It was also Ben's cage.
As he wrestled the canvas, his eyes strayed eastward, past the churning, white-capped waves, to where the first stars were pricking through the bruised heavens. Out there was the open ocean, the domain of the Guardians of the Sea. He imagined their ships—sleek, silver-grey vessels that cut through the water like blades, powered by clean, humming energies he couldn't even comprehend. He imagined Admiral Google, the enigmatic leader they said could read the currents of fate itself, standing on the bridge of a ship like the Torjan Blood, a vessel of legend that could outrun light.
"Adventurers," Ben whispered to the gathering storm. Not thugs. Not thieves. Adventurers.
A hand clapped him on the back, hard enough to make him stumble. It was Goyle, his father's first mate, a man whose face seemed to be made of cured leather and bad intentions. "Still got your head in the clouds, boy? Clouds won't save you from your da's temper when this blow hits."
"I'm working, Goyle," Ben said, avoiding the man's bloodshot eyes.
"Aye, you're working. But are you here?" Goyle leaned in, his breath a gust of stale rum. "This is your blood, boy. This ship, this life. This," he gestured at the crew scrambling to batten down hatches, their faces a gallery of scars and missing teeth, "is your inheritance. Best stop fighting it."
That was the constant refrain. His inheritance. The Rookiepasta name was synonymous with piracy across the Four Seas. His grandfather had supposedly stolen a frigate from the Royal Navy with nothing but a rowboat and a pocketful of black powder. His father, Mr. Rookiepasta, had turned that stolen frigate into a fleet, a scourge upon the trade lanes. Ben was expected to do the same. To embrace the brutality, to revel in the plunder.
He finished securing the sail and slid down a stay to the main deck, his boots landing softly on the wet planking. The first fat drops of rain began to fall, splattering like dark coins. The squall was arriving.
From the deck, the world narrowed to the immediate, violent struggle against the elements. The wind rose from a whine to a shriek, tearing at the rigging. The sea, once a rolling expanse, became a chaotic jumble of mountains and valleys. The Sullen Harpy groaned in protest, her timbers creaking as she climbed a thirty-foot wave, hung for a terrifying moment at the crest, then plunged down the other side into a trough so deep it felt like they were sinking.
Ben moved with the practiced ease of one born to the deck, his body compensating for the violent pitch and roll automatically. He helped secure a loose barrel, tied down a flapping line, his mind a strange paradox—fully focused on survival, yet detached, observing. He watched his father at the helm.
Mr. Rookiepasta was a artist of chaos. He spun the great wheel, his voice a constant, steady stream of orders that cut through the storm's roar. He wasn't fighting the sea; he was dancing with it, anticipating its every move, using its fury to his advantage. In these moments, Ben felt a flicker of something that wasn't quite pride, but a profound, reluctant respect. The man was a monster, but he was a masterful one.
"Breachers to starboard!" a lookout screamed, his voice barely audible.
Ben's blood ran cold. Breachers. Not just waves. Creatures.
He scrambled to the starboard rail, clinging to it as another wave swamped the deck. In the phosphorescent glow of the churning water, he saw them. Sinuous, metallic forms, longer than the ship itself, weaving through the waves. Their bodies were a nightmare of steampunk evolution—segmented armor plating like iron railway tracks, glowing orange vents along their sides, and heads that were mostly jagged, hydraulic jaws.
Sea-Serpent Class: Leviathan Worms. Scavengers of the deep, drawn to the turmoil of storms and the heat of ship engines.
"Ballistae! Fire at will!" Mr. Rookiepasta bellowed.
The Sullen Harpy's deck-mounted ballistae, massive crossbows loaded with harpoons tipped with explosive charges, coughed and thrummed. One harpoon found its mark, sinking into the lead worm's hide. There was a muffled crump, and a geyser of steaming ichor and metal fragments erupted. The worm thrashed, its tail slamming against the hull with a sound like a cathedral bell being struck.
But there were more. Three, four, five of them. One surged alongside the ship, its maw gaping. The jaws, a terrifying mechanism of pistons and razor-sharp teeth, snapped shut on a section of the gunwale, tearing away wood and iron like paper.
"They'll tear us apart!" Goyle yelled, firing a blunderbuss into the creature's eye. It flinched but held on.
In the chaos, Ben saw it happen. A young deckhand, a boy even younger than him named Pip, lost his footing as the ship lurched. He slid across the slick deck, straight toward the railing where the worm was biting through.
Nobody else saw. They were all fighting, shooting, screaming. It was just Ben, the boy, and the monster.
Time seemed to slow. Ben's fear vanished, replaced by a cold, sharp clarity. He didn't think. He acted.
He let go of the rail and pushed off, not with his legs, but with something else. A pressure built in his chest, a sudden, vertiginous sensation of weightlessness. The world blurred. He wasn't running; he was sliding across the deck, a ghost of momentum. He collided with Pip, grabbing the boy's tunic and hurling them both back toward the relative safety of the central mast.
They landed in a heap. Pip stared at him, wide-eyed with terror and confusion. "How… how did you do that?"
Ben had no answer. His heart hammered against his ribs. The sensation was already fading, leaving behind only a strange, hollow ache. He had moved faster than should have been possible. He had… flown, for a step. Or two.
His father's eyes met his from across the deck. Mr. Rookiepasta had seen. His expression was unreadable, a mask of rain and shadow, but for a fleeting instant, Ben saw something in his gaze—not surprise, but a dark, calculating recognition. Then it was gone, replaced by the familiar scowl.
"Get below decks, both of you!" he roared, turning back to the fight.
The battle with the worms lasted another hour. By the time it was over, the storm had begun to abate. One worm lay dead, its carcass sinking into the depths. The others had been driven off. The Sullen Harpy was battered, but afloat. The cost: two crewmen dead, three seriously wounded.
Later, in his father's cabin, the air was thick with the smell of rum and blood. Mr. Rookiepasta sat behind his desk, a chart of the Serpent's Teeth archipelago spread out before him. He didn't look up as Ben entered.
"You saved the boy," he said, his voice flat.
"He would have died," Ben replied, standing stiffly.
"Death is a cost of doing business." Finally, his father looked up. His eyes, the same shade of storm-grey as Ben's, were hard. "What you did out there. That… movement. Where did you learn it?"
Ben hesitated. "I don't know. It just… happened."
A long silence stretched between them, broken only by the creak of the ship. "It's a weakness," Mr. Rookiepasta said finally. "A fancy. The sea doesn't reward fancy. It rewards strength. Ruthlessness. You are a Rookiepasta. Your destiny is written in the plunder of a hundred ships. Not in… flights of fancy."
He stood up, leaning on the desk. "There is talk. A prize beyond any other. The Heart of the Ocean."
The name hung in the air, charged with legend. A gem, said to be the crystallized soul of the sea itself, that could grant its bearer invincibility. Most dismissed it as a myth, a story to tell greenhorns.
"Vallaha Vincinzo is hunting it," his father continued, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "And where Vincinzo goes, death follows. Not clean death in battle. Slaving raids. Whole towns burned, their people taken in chains. He seeks the Heart not for glory, but for absolute dominion."
Ben felt a chill that had nothing to do with the damp air. Vallaha Vincinzo was a name spoken with fear, even among pirates. A ruthless, ambitious monster.
"What does that have to do with me?" Ben asked.
"Everything," his father said. "Because we are going to find it first. This is not a child's adventure, Ben. This is a race for survival. If Vincinzo gets the Heart, every free ship on the ocean, pirate or guardian, will be crushed. This voyage will forge you. It will burn that nonsense about 'adventurers' out of you. You will become what you are meant to be."
He dismissed Ben with a wave of his hand. As Ben reached the door, his father spoke again, softer this time. "That trick of yours. Don't let the crew see it again. They fear what they don't understand. And fear makes men dangerous."
Ben stepped out onto the deck. The storm had passed, leaving a sky scoured clean, filled with a million cold, distant stars. The air was fresh and sharp. He walked to the bow, leaning over the figurehead—a leering harpy with chipped paint.
He replayed the moment in his mind—the impossible speed, the weightlessness. It hadn't felt like a weakness. It had felt like… freedom.
And then he thought of the Heart of the Ocean. A thing of legend. A thing that could make one invincible. What would the Guardians do with such power? Protect. What would someone like Vincinzo do? Enslave.
And what would his father do?
A shadow fell over him. He turned to see Goyle, holding a spyglass.
"Look," Goyle grunted, pointing astern.
Ben took the glass and focused. On the far horizon, silhouetted against the rising moon, was a ship. It was unlike any pirate vessel. It was long, graceful, almost organic in its lines, with three tall, slender masts that seemed to be made of polished bone or mother-of-pearl. Its sails caught the moonlight, glowing with a soft, internal luminescence.
A Guardian ship.
Even at this distance, it exuded an aura of calm authority, a silent, powerful contrast to the brutish existence of the Sullen Harpy. As Ben watched, a signal lamp on the Guardian ship blinked, a rapid series of flashes. A message in code. A message for someone.
A message, he felt with a sudden, unshakable certainty, that was meant for him.
He lowered the spyglass. The choice his father had given him—embrace your legacy or be broken by it—suddenly felt false. There was a third path, a path that began with a hidden aptitude and a legendary gem. A path that would lead him directly into the storm gathering between the pirates of his blood and the guardians of his dreams.
The wind picked up, carrying the scent of faraway lands and unimaginable adventures. Ben, the boy who dreamed of flying, smiled for the first time that day.
It was a small, quiet smile, but it held the seed of a revolution. The smile died on Ben's lips as quickly as it had come, replaced by the familiar weight of the world. The luminescent Guardian ship, a silent scar against the night, was a reminder of the chasm between his reality and his aspirations. Goyle's presence beside him was a heavier, more immediate anchor.
"Pretty, ain't it?" Goyle grunted, snatching the spyglass back. "All shiny and clean. They sail out there, polishing their decks while real men bleed on the waves." He spat a thick glob of phlegm over the rail, which was caught by the wind and vanished into the dark sea. "Don't be fooled by the lights, boy. That ain't a beacon of hope. It's a lure. Get too close, and you find teeth."
"Maybe they're just patrolling," Ben said, his voice quieter than he intended.
Goyle let out a harsh, barking laugh that sounded like wood splitting. "Patrolling? That's the Torrént Wèrck. Admiral Google's personal fist. They don't 'patrol' for fun. They're here for a reason. And with the whispers about the Heart getting louder…" He let the sentence hang, his meaning clear. The Guardian ship was a predator, and the Sullen Harpy was now in its hunting grounds.
He clapped a heavy hand on Ben's shoulder, not in camaraderie, but as a warden might grip a prisoner. "Your father wants you. Main cabin. Now." The grip tightened. "And boy? Wipe that starry-eyed look off your face. He's in no mood for dreams."
Ben shrugged off the hand and made his way aft, his mind racing. The Torrént Wèrck. The stories said its hull could withstand a direct hit from a fortress cannon, that its energy cannons could vaporize a ship like the Harpy in a single salvo. It was a symbol of an order he admired, yet its presence here, now, felt like a threat. It complicated everything.
He found his father not at his desk, but standing before a large, detailed chart nailed to the cabin wall. It was not a standard naval map. This was a darker, more secret thing, drawn on what looked like stitched-together pieces of human skin, the ink a faded brown that might have been blood. It depicted the Serpent's Teeth archipelago not as islands, but as the fangs of a colossal leviathan, its body forming the treacherous currents between them. In the center of the beast's skull, where its third eye would be, was a small, carefully drawn ruby-red symbol: a heart.
Mr. Rookiepasta didn't turn. "The Vincinzo fleet was sighted two days ago, cutting through the Milkweed Strait. They burned a Guardian supply outpost to the waterline. No survivors." He traced a route on the map with a thick, scarred finger. "They are heading here. To the Teeth."
Ben's throat went dry. The casual report of atrocity was a standard part of his father's briefings, but the destination struck a chord of terror. The Serpent's Teeth were a navigator's nightmare, a labyrinth of razor-sharp rocks, unpredictable maelstroms, and things that were said to whisper to sailors from the fog, luring them onto the reefs.
"Why would they go there?" Ben asked. "It's suicide."
"For most," his father agreed, finally turning. His eyes were alight with a fierce, hungry glow. The storm, the battle, the dead crewmen—it had all energized him. "But not for Vallaha Vincinzo. He has a map. A map he stole from the archives of the Monks of the Silent Tide, before he slit their throats and salted their earth." He gestured to the gruesome chart on the wall. "This is a copy. An expensive copy. It shows a path. A safe route through the Teeth, to the Calm at the center. That is where the Heart is said to rest."
Ben stared at the red heart on the map. It seemed to pulse in the flickering lamplight. "And we're just going to follow him? Into that? He has a fleet. We have one ship."
"We have something he doesn't," Mr. Rookiepasta said, a slow, cunning smile spreading across his face. "We have a Rookiepasta. And we have… opportunity." He stepped closer, his voice dropping. "Vincinzo is a bull. He will charge through the Teeth, trusting his map and his numbers. He will awaken the dangers. He will pay the price in blood and ships. And we," he tapped the side of his nose, "we will be the rats. We will slip through the holes he makes, follow the wreckage he leaves behind. Let him clear the path. We will take the prize."
The ruthlessness of the plan took Ben's breath away. It was brilliant in its vileness. Let others die for your gain. It was the most pure pirate logic he had ever heard.
"And the Guardians?" Ben nodded towards the hull, in the direction of the distant Torrént Wèrck. "They'll be following too."
"Of course they will. Google is no fool. This is a three-way race now. Pirates, monsters, and guardians." His father's smile widened. "It will be a glorious hunt."
"It will be a slaughter," Ben countered, a spark of defiance igniting within him. "People will die for a myth."
"Everything is a myth until it's in your hand, boy!" his father snapped, the smile vanishing. "The Heart is real. And it represents power. Absolute power. The kind of power that decides who does the slaughtering and who gets slaughtered. Do you want to be the butcher, or the cattle? That is the only choice this world offers."
The question hung in the air, suffocating. But Ben thought of Pip's terrified face, saved from the monster's jaws. He thought of the tales of Vincinzo's slaves. Butchery and cattle. Was there truly no other way?
"What I did on deck…" Ben began, changing the subject to the thing that gnawed at him. "What was it?"
His father's intense gaze softened by a fraction, replaced by something more complex—a mixture of wariness and something almost like… legacy. "It's an old talent. A dirty secret in our bloodline. Your grandmother… she had a touch of it. Called it 'the wind's favor.' A moment of unnatural speed, a step that defies gravity. It is not a gift for adventurers, Ben. It is a pirate's trick. A tool for survival. For getting to the prize a second faster than the other man. For escaping a blade. Use it for anything else, and it will get you killed." He turned back to the map, effectively ending the conversation. "Now get out. Rest. We make for the Serpent's Teeth at first light. You will take the morning watch."
Dismissed, Ben stumbled out onto the deck. The night was now clear and cold. The Guardian ship was gone, vanished into the darkness as if it had never been. Had it been a warning? A promise? Or just a trick of the storm-washed air?
He couldn't go below to the crowded, stinking berth. Not with his mind churning like this. He climbed instead to the crow's nest, relieving the tired lookout with a silent nod.
Alone, a hundred feet above the sleeping ship, the world expanded. The sea was a vast, black plain dusted with the reflected glitter of a billion stars. The wind here was clean, scoured of the stink of the ship, carrying only the immense, lonely scent of the open ocean. He leaned against the mast, the events of the day replaying in his mind.
The storm. The monsters. The impossible step. The Heart. Vincinzo's ruthlessness. His father's grim ambition. The silent Guardian ship.
Butcher or cattle.
The choice felt like a cage. His father's path was a descent into a darker, more brutal version of the life he already hated. But the path of the Guardians? Was it even open to him? He was a Rookiepasta. His name was a crime in their eyes. They would see him only as a pirate to be captured or killed.
As these thoughts swirled, a flicker of movement caught his eye. Not on the water, but in the sky. A dark shape, sleeker than a sea-bat, more purposeful than a cloud, crossed the face of the moon. It was gone in an instant, a silent shadow moving with impossible speed toward the northeast—directly toward the Serpent's Teeth.
It was not a bird. It was too large, too fast. It was a ship. But what kind of ship could fly?
A cold certainty settled in Ben's gut. The race was already underway. Players he couldn't even imagine were moving on the board. The legend of the Heart was drawing every power from the shadows.
And he, Ben, the boy who dreamed of flying, was stuck on a pirate ship, sailing into the jaws of a monster, caught between a father who wanted him to become a butcher and a world that saw him as cattle.
He looked down at the deck of the Sullen Harpy, a tiny island of violence and tradition in the immense, uncaring sea. Then he looked back at the stars, at the path the flying shadow had taken. The hollow ache in his chest returned, the echo of that weightless moment. It wasn't a pirate's trick. It was a key. He didn't know what lock it opened, but he knew, with every fiber of his being, that it was his. And perhaps it was the only thing that could carve a third path through the impossible choice that lay ahead. The first hint of dawn began to bleed into the eastern horizon, a thin line of fiery orange. The watch was ending. The hunt was beginning. The dawn did not so much break as it did infiltrate the sky, a slow seepage of grey light that diluted the stars and revealed the sea's utter emptiness. Ben climbed down from the crow's nest, his limbs stiff with cold and fatigue. The memory of the flying shadow—a ship that defied the sea itself—burned in his mind, a secret ember of possibility amidst the grim reality of the day to come.
The deck of the Sullen Harpy was already a hive of grim activity. The damage from the Leviathan Worms was being patched with rough planks and crude welds, the sounds of hammers and hissing steam cutting through the morning calm. Crewmen moved with a purposeful urgency, their faces set in grim masks. The word had been passed: they were sailing for the Serpent's Teeth.
Goyle was barking orders, directing the stowing of extra ammunition and the checking of every weapon. He saw Ben and jerked his head toward the quarterdeck. "Captain wants you on the helm with him. Says you need to learn the look of damned water."
Ben found his father at the great wheel, his hands resting lightly on the spokes, his eyes fixed on the horizon ahead. The chart of the Serpent's Teeth was now fixed to a stand beside him, its gruesome parchment fluttering in the wind.
"The first rule of the Teeth," Mr. Rookiepasta began without preamble, "is that the sea lies. What looks deep is shallow. What looks calm is a whirlpool. The rocks are not just rock; they're teeth. And they bite." He pointed a thick finger at the map. "Vincinzo will take the most direct route, here, through the Jaw. It's the widest channel, but it's lined with saw-toothed reefs. He'll rely on his numbers to absorb the losses."
Ben studied the map. The "Jaw" was a gauntlet of jagged islands and submerged peaks. "And we?"
"We take the Laughing Throat." His father traced a narrower, more convoluted path that wound between two massive islands. "It's a tighter squeeze, and the currents are treacherous, but it cuts a day off the journey. And more importantly, it's downwind of the Jaw. We'll hear Vincinzo's fleet being chewed apart long before we see them."
The strategy was cold, calculating. Let Vincinzo bear the brunt of the danger. It was the pirate way, but it settled in Ben's stomach like a stone.
As the day wore on, the sea began to change. The water turned a murky, greenish hue, and the air grew thick and heavy, carrying a faint, metallic tang. Strange, phosphorescent fungi began to appear on the waves, clinging to drifting debris. In the distance, a low, persistent fog bank awaited, hiding the entrance to the archipelago.
It was then that the lookout's cry came again. "Sail! To the north-east!"
All hands rushed to the rails. Emerging from the fog was a ship unlike any Ben had ever seen. It was a massive, brutal construct of dark, weathered wood and jagged iron plates, shaped like a great, bearded axe. Its sails were made of what appeared to be stiffened animal hides, painted with terrifying, runic symbols. Ice clung to its rigging, and even from a distance, a deep, rhythmic drumming could be heard, like the heartbeat of some primordial beast.
"Goyo Eminex," Mr. Rookiepasta muttered, his lip curling. "The Iceberg Viking. So, the scavengers are gathering."
Goyo Eminex was a legend of the northern wastes, a pirate who raided from a fortress of ice, his crew a horde of brutal warriors from a bygone era. His presence confirmed the magnitude of the prize. The Heart of the Ocean was drawing every major player from the shadows.
The two pirate ships sailed on parallel courses, a mile apart, neither acknowledging the other directly. It was an uneasy truce born of mutual suspicion and the greater danger ahead. Ben watched the Frost-Reaver, Eminex's ship, with a mix of fear and fascination. He saw hulking figures on deck, clad in furs and metal, their bearded faces turned toward the Harpy. They were like ghosts from another age, a reminder that the world of piracy was vast and ancient.
Suddenly, from the south, a new shape cut through the water. This one was sleek and deadly, moving with a silent, predatory grace. It was a Guardian cutter, smaller than the Torrént Wèrck but no less imposing. Its hull was a smooth, polished silver, and its sails were a stark, clean white. At its prow, a figure stood tall, clad in the blue and gold of the Guardians. Even at this distance, Ben could see the precision of her posture, the authority in her stance.
"Cleoda's ship," a crewman spat. "The Sea Dart. That's Yūe Cleoda herself. Google's favorite little hound."
Yūe Cleoda. The name hit Ben with a jolt. From the family of Google. The main female lead. She was here, in the flesh. She represented everything he thought he admired: order, justice, a purpose beyond plunder. But seeing her ship, so clean and sharp against the dirty reality of the pirate vessels, he felt a sudden, unexpected surge of resentment. She sailed with the certainty of rightness, a certainty he could never possess.
As if feeling his gaze, Yūe Cleoda turned. She raised a spyglass, and for a long moment, Ben felt himself being studied. He stood straighter, unconsciously, under that invisible scrutiny. What did she see? A boy? A pirate? An enemy? She lowered the glass and turned away, issuing orders to her crew. The Sea Dart changed course, positioning itself between the two pirate ships, a clear message of intervention.
"They're herding us," Mr. Rookiepasta growled. "Trying to control the approach. Google thinks he can dictate the flow of this hunt." He smiled, a thin, cruel expression. "But the Teeth have a way of disrupting the best-laid plans."
The fog bank loomed now, a wall of swirling grey that swallowed the light and sound. The temperature dropped sharply. The drumming from Eminex's ship fell silent, swallowed by the mist. The Guardian cutter became a ghostly silhouette.
"Ready the aether-lamps!" Mr. Rookiepasta commanded. "And someone tie a line to Ben. I won't have him washed overboard before he's earned his keep."
A heavy rope was secured around Ben's waist, the other end tied fast to the mainmast. The world narrowed to the few yards of deck visible in the thick fog. The only sounds were the groan of the ship, the lap of water against the hull, and the distant, mournful cry of some unseen creature.
They were in the Serpent's Teeth.
For hours, they navigated by sound and instinct alone. Mr. Rookiepasta was a demon of concentration, his eyes glued to the compass and the feeling of the currents through the wheel. He ordered adjustments based on the echo of waves against rocks, the subtle pull of the water. It was a terrifying, mesmerizing display of skill.
Then, from the port side, came the sounds they had been waiting for: the faint, echoing boom of cannon fire, followed by screams and the splintering of wood. Vincinzo's fleet had found the Jaw.
"Right on schedule," Mr. Rookiepasta said with grim satisfaction. "The feast begins."
But his satisfaction was short-lived. A sudden, violent impact shook the Sullen Harpy, throwing men to the deck. It wasn't a rock. It was something else. Something that had hit them with purpose.
From the starboard side, a shape surged out of the fog. It was a long, low-slung pirate sloop, its sails black and tattered. At its helm stood a figure that made Ben's blood run cold. He was tall and gaunt, with a face that seemed stretched too tight over his skull. His eyes were wild, animalistic, and his mouth was fixed in a rictus of a smile that showed too many teeth. He moved with a twitchy, unpredictable energy, like a wolf pacing a cage.
"WolfLozi," Goyle hissed, drawing his cutlass. "The mad dog! He's not waiting for the Heart; he's hunting us!"
WolfLozi's ship, the Ravenous, slammed into the Harpy again, grappling hooks flying through the air, biting into the wood. WolfLozi himself leaped the gap between the ships, landing on the deck with a feral grace. He held no sword; instead, he had long, curved blades strapped to his wrists, like the claws of a beast.
"Rookiepasta!" WolfLozi shrieked, his voice a nails-on-glass screech. "I'll take your map! I'll take your son's heart instead of the Ocean's!"
The deck erupted into chaos. WolfLozi's crew, a band of wiry, fever-eyed madmen, swarmed over the rails. They fought not with discipline, but with a frenzied, suicidal abandon. Ben found himself backed against the mast, the rope around his waist now a tether preventing escape.
WolfLozi carved a path through the defenders, his wrist-blades a blur. He was heading straight for Ben. His eyes locked onto Ben's, and in them, Ben saw no reason, only a brilliant, calculating madness—a mind that saw all the angles of killing and nothing else.
Ben's father was fighting off two attackers, unable to reach him. Goyle was down, clutching a bleeding wound. This was it. Butcher or cattle.
The hollow ache in Ben's chest returned. The world slowed. The screams, the clashing steel, the fog—it all melted into a dull roar. He saw WolfLozi's lunge, the glittering arc of the blade aimed at his throat.
Ben didn't think. He pushed.
Not with his muscles, but with that same unknown force. He sidestepped with a speed that was more than speed. It was a flicker, a displacement. WolfLozi's blade passed through empty air, so close it whispered against Ben's ear.
The mad pirate stumbled, off-balance, his brilliant eyes wide with shock and instant, insatiable curiosity. "What? What is this trick?"
Ben stood panting, the energy drain leaving him dizzy. He had done it again. He had used the wind's favor. And this time, it had saved his life.
But he had also revealed it. To a madman who would now covet it as fiercely as any gem.
WolfLozi let out a delighted, unhinged laugh. "Oh, little pirate! You are more interesting than the map!"
The battle was interrupted by a tremendous roar from the depths of the fog—a sound of primal rage that dwarfed the cannons and the screams. It was the sound of the Serpent's Teeth waking up. And it was close.