Magic Whips, New Names, and Wandering Seas

Roy took the ship out to sea not long after leaving the triplet village, intent on a private weapons test so Serenity could get better at using the weapons. He had the entire ocean before him and a full arsenal waiting to be unleashed.

His eyes gleamed as he launched the sleek torpedoes. They whooshed into the calm water and detonated in the distance, sending up a large plume of water. Next came guided missiles shrieking skyward, blossoming into spectacular bursts against distant waves. Moving on, Roy grinned as the ship's Gatling guns whirred, spitting tracer rounds into the horizon. Then he switched to .50 cals, spraying rapid fire across empty sea; shell casings clattered on the deck until the barrels smoked.

Next on his list was the railgun, it fires a hypersonic projectile and had a range comparable to a small missile. But, next to the button to prime the railgun was the box with the nuclear launch button. A dial to its side controlled the yield. Roy turned it up to the max, 100 Megatons. He quickly went to fire but Serenity gave a faux cough.

"Are you sure, Captain?" Serenity asked with concern.

Roy hesitated, his finger hovering over the doomsday trigger. He briefly wondered about the magnitude of the explosion that would ensue, just a finger away from unleashing utter devastation, but a shiver ran down his spine, and he pulled his hand back. "Nah," he muttered to himself, "Let's not end the world today."

Scanning the coastline, the ship's advanced sensors picked up a crumbling castle, isolated, battered by time. "Perfect," he said, leaning over the console. "I'll test the main guns on that." 

He paused, wondering if anyone was inside, so he deployed small ground-walking drones and a couple of aerial recon units just in case. Their footage showed an abandoned keep with three long dead people, just skeletons now, and rusted weapons in crates—no signs of life.

"Okay! Blow that castle to hell!" Roy declared with a manic cackle.

The three giant forward guns thundered relentlessly alongside all other complimentary guns, pounding the ruin for a full ten minutes, stone and dust exploding in all directions. When the shelling finally stopped, the drones picked up faint screaming from within the rubble. Roy froze, guilt crashing over him. 

"What the...?" he whispered.

He scrambled his cargo helicopter with Base Model Presidroids for a rescue effort. They found only the scattered bones the drones had seen earlier, until one Presidroid lifted a skull.

The skull shrieked, "You FIENDS! My family's home is gone!" Roy's eyes widened as three sets of bones clattered together, forming a mother, father, and child. The father skeleton swung at the Presidroids, but each swing caused a hand or foot to pop off and then snap back into place.

 "You destroyed our home!" the father wailed.

Roy felt a knot in his stomach and went down to meet them personally. After a brief helicopter trip he was on land for only the second time. As he approached the father, he began feeling more nervous. The father demanded the castle be rebuilt. Roy laughed nervously.

"Unfortunately, I can't reverse time," Roy said with an awkward smile.

The skeleton lunged, furious. To Roy's amazement, the Presidroids didn't swoop in to save him. Roy panicked and blocked at the last second but his hand caught the father's ribs from below, sending him soaring ten feet into the air. As the father impacted the ground he let out a guttural cry.

 "Oh..." Roy muttered. "They're pretty light...makes sense, they're just bones."

Collecting himself, the father rose and clung to his wife and son. "At least...at least protect my son, O mighty Iron God, Destroyer of Homes."

Roy's eye twitched at the unwanted title. "Iron God? Destroyer of…? I'm really not…" He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

The skeleton mother's hollow eye sockets practically shimmered with desperation. "Please," she whispered, "my child could clean, carry things—whatever it takes just so we aren't left alone again."

Then the father skeleton, voice trembling, blurted out, "I'll—I'll even be your footrest if that's what it takes! Anything, just protect us! Protect my child!"

Roy pressed a hand to his forehead, exasperated. He rapidly turned his body to the left and eyed the forest in an attempt to clear his head. He noticed a cluster of elves lurking near the treeline, who trembled as his gaze met theirs. "He tamed the Immortal Family!? Spare us, Thunder Rider!" they cried. 

Roy sighed, murmuring, "Wait, I wasn't…Thunder Rider...? This day can't get worse."

He turned back to the skeletons. "Fine. You can come aboard. But on one condition, you pass a test." Roy pulled a combat knife from his belt and set it on a rock. "Pick this up and you may board."

The father skeleton tried first, awkwardly fumbling as the blade slipped between his finger-bones. The mother skeleton attempted next, earning nothing but the soft scrape of metal on stone. Finally, the child skeleton wiggled his tiny fingers, with no success.

"This was a trick test, they're harmless." He sighed. "Fine, you can come, but you'll be locked up. You just tried to punch me." The skeletons let out a cacophony of rattles—perhaps their version of cheering—and piled into the helicopter. Soon, they were all aboard the battleship. 

Roy brought them to the bridge for tracker tags. Wrappers and blankets littered the floor as he rummaged through drawers. The mother and father waited nervously, but the child skeleton wandered off, drawn to a neatly balanced stack of playing cards Roy had spent a day building into a house of cards. Roy noticed and knelt beside him. "You like that? Took me a whole day. It's called a house of cards."

"H-house...?" the skeleton boy repeated, before he slowly turned to Roy.

"Yup, pretty cool, huh?" Roy replied, 

The boy suddenly kicked the entire structure down. Cards fluttered everywhere. "...revenge," he managed, his bravery on full display.

Roy froze, staring at the scattered cards, then slowly broke into a grin. "...you little shit, a house for a house, eh?" he said, rubbed the skeleton kid's skull. "Well done, you avenged your parents."