The Innkeeper

The sudden boost of speed by the ship allowed the crew to lose the crowd following them, which meant that as they followed Bob’s directions, they ended up being the first ones to find the ore, with no one in sight to compete with them. That was fortunate.

After using the licence to ensure they could dig in this area, the crew immediately got to work,drilling through the ground, reaching for the ore. They didn’t have much time. A massive wooden ship out in the middle of nowhere wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.

Jack kept lookout, just in case anything unexpected happened, or some competitor showed up. To his immense surprise, nothing happened. Within a few minutes they found the ore, though the entire deposit was about the size of a large fries from WacDonalds.

“Well, that was easy,” said Monk, the bear cub who had been silent recently.

As the universe had just been waiting for him to speak, the sky suddenly changed colors, attracting everyone’s attention. A large, magenta meteor shot through the air, its familiar aura raining down on the planet, as it attracted everyone’s attention.

“That’s not ore, that’s refined metal, ready to be used,” Ollie exclaimed in shock.

“Boys, it doesn’t count as mining as long as we catch it in the air,” Jack exclaimed, and jumped back onto his ship, immediately taking flight. He gave the first chunk of ore to Bob, after putting away the taxable amount, of course.

Like a rocket, they blasted off the surface of the planet and aimed for the shooting star. Jack, for a moment, couldn’t help but think back to that one shooting star that had started it all. Then he thought about how, back then, he too had said something careless. Now he couldn’t blame a random wish for everything that happened subsequently, but one could not ignore the similarity between his current situation, and what happened back then.

Could Monk’s words really have raised a flag? For a moment, Jack’s belief wavered. But then he shook his head. No, it was impossible. He didn’t believe in flags. It was pure happenstance.

“Captain, other ships have been detected targeting the shooting star,” Ollie said, reporting from the crows nest.

“Boys, I’m going to be honest, I’m not sure what the rules are about aerial combat here. There’s a chance we might end up in jail for this, but, no matter what, we have to get our hands on that shooting star!”

Instead of being intimidated by the threat of imprisonment, the crew seemed excited by the notion of fighting for treasure.

Jack also stopped worrying about the consequences. He was sure there was some leeway or diplomatic immunity that they were afforded. More importantly, no one stopped him or told him otherwise, so technically speaking the blame wasn’t on him.

Feeling a tinge of excitement about taking his new and improved Jolly Rancher into battle, Jack began flapping his wings, allowing his fairy dust to fall onto the ship, transforming it.

For a split second he was distracted. Even Jack felt a trace of pity for Z. The poor kid wanted cool transformations and multiple attack forms so bad, but even his ship already had multiple forms, while he was still struggling to create his own. Truly was a pity.

The sails of the Jolly Rancher transformed, turning into wings that mimicked Jacks, while a faint, glimmery sheen covered the ship, similar to his fairy dust. With a clap of thunder the Jolly Rancher seemed to teleport, ripping through the air and appearing right beside the shooting star.

Jack couldn’t leave the helm, so Longbeard used his beard like a lasso and grabbed the prize right out of the air.

That… that was definitely new. Did the beard grow longer when Longbeard flung it out?

Before Jack could figure out the answer, a number of ships – in the design or regular planes or spaceships, not like the Jolly Rancher – managed to reach, and surrounded them.

“Hand over the prize and I’ll leave you with a full corpse,” someone shouted from one of the ships, disdain dripping from the voices. He genuinely seemed to think that such a threat would work, for he then waited for Jack to hand over the item instead of attacking directly.

Yet upon hearing the threat, instead of cowering or feeling angry, Jack actually felt excited.

“He said the thing!” Jack exclaimed, before ramming the Jolly Rancher right into his ship like a battering ram.

“Courting death!” he roared when he saw Jack make a move. Unfortunately, what the unnamed scrub did not know was that he was the one courting death.

“Bob, let them know who this prize belongs to!” Jack said.

Bob, with a smirk, as if he knew this would happen, cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and then yelled.

“Ah – fools most fragrant with folly! Before you stands not a man, not a myth, but a fairy! A maelstrom in mortal flesh! Behold! Captain! Jack! Yes, that Captain jack! The one whose shadow frightens storms into silence, whose glare has shattered oaths and melted arrogance like wax beneath the noon sun!

“Dost thou, perchance, wish for death? You dare unsheathe defiance? Against him? Were the two Gravity Eels, turned to gold while still living, their writhing pain forever immortalized in their figures, that pull the ship, too warm a sight for you? Or perhaps you too wish to decorate his vessel with your mortal bodies turned to gold?

“Oh, how brave you are, oh how brilliantly doomed! For you stand before a legend draped in leather and-“

“Oh shut up!” roared a Beast as he quickly pulled his ship back. The Jolly Rancher had directly ripped through its first target without slowing in the slightest. What happened to those on the ship was anybody’s guess, for they were too busy pulling back from the ship to pay attention to that. Amidst the critical life and death moment, where they were now facing a foe much stronger than they anticipated, hearing an over the top speech was extremely grating.

Unfortunately for them, interrupting said speech would result in a far worse outcome than mere distraction, as they would soon come to learn.

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