ALEXANDER

"Well, what are we supposed to do?" Timmy asked.

Oman pressed a button on his console. "We gotta lose em', obviously."

Our ship began gaining speed as we navigated through a series of jagged rocks, gut-churning twists, and spontaneous bursts of acceleration aplenty. Blackbeard's ship also began getting faster, matching our ship's pace and continuing to trail us.

Kai turned towards me. "Hey Alexander, what do you think about jumping on their ship Pirates of the Caribbean-style?"

I nodded enthusiastically. "Totally, dude."

Amethyst shook her head. "I wouldn't do that. They'll gang up on you and anyways, for you to be able to jump on the ship at the speed we're going? That would basically be impossible."

"You're the worst," Kai and I muttered.

"Thanks," Amethyst said, almost cracking a smile.

Why was she responding like that? We freaking meant it.

Just kidding.

Or am I?

I don't know anymore.

We continued through the maze of rocks, narrowly dodging each one of them. Unfortunately, Blackbeard was having no trouble with the rocks, getting closer by the second. Oman was a pretty good captain and ship driver, but nothing close to Blackbeard in experience or sheer knowledge. If the pirates hadn't jammed the flying system, we would've had a major advantage. Hell, we wouldn't even have to fight against them. We'd have to be wary of cannon balls and the pirate's other weapons, but we could theoretically just fly away.

"For someone who's essentially drunk every hour or so, he really knows how to navigate through mazes of rocks," Timmy observed.

"Shut up, Andrea," I said, chuckling between words.

God, that guy could do stand-up with how funny he was. Or maybe it was just funny saying shut up to him. Either way, talking with Timmy almost always made me laugh.

Then things took a pretty bad turn.

Literally.

We had come across a humongous rock. It had a sharp point, and was probably the tallest and thickest rock we had seen so far. This description sucks, but I think you can catch my drift.

Or can you? What even is a drift, and can it be caught?

Hm.

Thankfully, our ship was already on course to move past the rock as it was west of our ship.

"Geez," Kai said. "That is the second bulkiest rock I have ever seen." He turned to me and whispered, "Dwayne Johnson takes the number one spot."

Then, a cannon ball hit the tall rock from the side, toppling it downwards and in front of us.

Oman made a halting turn, throwing us all off our feet. We were able to move out of the way in time, but our ship instantly crashed into another pointy rock. Oman was able to turn the ship back in the right direction, but it was too late.

Blackbeard's ship was now directly in front of us, blocking our way out of the rocky area.

"Har har! I got ye now, ye fools!" Blackbeard shouted. "Men, loot the ship!"

Their ship advanced to the side of us and they threw a plank onto our ship, linking us together. The pirates began running across the plank, carrying their weapons high in the air.

The pirates then split themselves into groups and targeted each one of us individually.

Five pirates ganged up on me, each carrying a curved sword. The first one rushed at me recklessly, swinging their sword wildly. I easily blocked their attack with one of my shields and knocked them off the ship with my other.

I then morphed one of my shields into a large hammer and swung it at one of the pirates, hitting one right in the jaw as they crumpled to the floor. I turned towards the other three and swept them off their feet with one strike of my hammer.

I heard a loud bellow behind me, indicating that some drunk, stupid pirate was running at me. I quickly turned around, morphed my hammer into a sword, and then blocked their strike to the side. I delivered a right hook to their face, punching them off the ship and into the cold water.

Across the field, Kai, Geneva, and Rose were facing off against a large group of pirates while Amethyst stood from a distance and fired shots at the pirates. Timmy was facing Blackbeard, and was barely dodging his strikes.

I ran over to help Timmy, but in the time it had taken me to arrive at Timmy's location, he had been pinned down by my weird half-brother.

Just as Blackbeard was about to deliver the finishing blow to a helpless Timmy, I deflected his strike with my sword.

"Leave my funny friend alone!" I yelled.

"Thanks?" Timmy said.

I then morphed my sword into two shields and dashed at Blackbeard, thrusting my shields into his gut.

Blackbeard stumbled back and snarled. "I thought ye were good enough t' become a pirate. I shall prove here that I am the stronger son of Ares!"

He went on the offensive and launched a flurry of attacks on me, swinging his sword at an unbelievably fast rate.

I blocked all his attacks and countered, morphing one of my shields into a sword. I swung it under his feet but Blackbeard jumped and struck overhead. I raised my shield to block his attack, but he swiftly kicked me in the chest, forcing me to roll backwards.

Just as I was getting up, Blackbeard went for the kill and delivered a final blow. Before the sword connected to my body, a blast of fire sent Blackbeard off the ship.

I turned around, Kai standing behind me with a grin on his face. "Careful there buddy. You were about to be totally Koehler-ed."

He helped me up as I said, "Thanks."

"Now what say we sink their ship? That thing is just begging for it and I seriously believe in ending its misery," Kai asked.

I smiled. Kai shot a stream of flames at the pirate's ship, the wood floors and masts burning down.

Oman made his way to the wheel and blasted the ship forward as we removed the last of the pirates off our ship, Kai and I using the plank they had left on board to poetically push the remaining pirates into the sea.

"Man," Timmy said. "And to think you almost did that to me."

Amethyst glared at him. "I'm still seriously considering it."

"What? I helped you guys," Timmy said, trying to make a shocked expression.

"You might be hilarious, but you're a really bad liar," I replied.

Timmy looked at me strangely. Kai and Geneva grabbed his arms and began leading him down to the bottom deck. I made sure to remind the two about Timmy's potion selection as they threw him in his cell and walked back up the deck.

I really did see some good in Timmy. It was hard to remember that he even was a GHOST with how much of a help he had been to us with the pirates. And all jokes aside, he seemed like a pretty nice person, just someone who needed to break out of their rough exterior.

"Well, that was certainly an interesting little journey we had," Rose said.

Kai snorted. "It was actually super fun. Amethyst thought I died." He then started cracking up hysterically, like he'd just passed gas and no one had noticed.

"Fun?" Oman yelled from the front. "You call the damage to my ship fun?"

"Damage? There's no dam-"

Rose grabbed Kai's shoulder and showed him the damaged ship.

Kai bit his lip. "I mean... It's not that ba-"

"No, it is that bad," Oman interceded. "With the damage they did to the ship, y'all won't be able to cross the Atlantic Ocean."

"That's not good," I muttered.

Everyone stared at me as if I was missing the top-half of my torso.

Wait, was I?

I looked down and thank the gods, the top half of my torso was still there. So why were they looking at me weird?

"We're goin' to have to find a place for repairs," Oman decided.

Normally, I would've laughed. Oman really loved his vehicles. But this was pretty bad. We were stranded in the Atlantic, with pirates, monsters, and probably dangerous crabs singing 'shiny' at the top of their voices, and our ship was super damaged.

Then Amethyst's face lit up. "I heard from a Hephaestus kid that Hephaestus has a forge in the Sea of Monsters."

"Was it Jake?" Kai asked, suppressing a laugh.

"Why does that matter?" Amethyst asked, her face becoming red. "It shouldn't really matter any-"

I grinned. "So it was Jake, right?"

"Yes, it was Jake," Amethyst conceded. "Happy now?"

"Ay, get off er' case, y'all" Oman said. "Where is this forge of Hephaestus'?"

"Based on what Jake told me, it's near the pirate's city," Amethyst responded. "We should actually be pretty close to there."

Rose nodded. "Then we're going. Oman, set the course."