The Beast of the Sea~Chapter 29

I heard a low groan that seemed to cause the entire sky to shake. While the wind was mostly calm up until now, I felt it pick up as if something was pulling the air itself away from us. The clouds began to spiral until it looked like I was standing in the eye of a hurricane. The Collector’s ship began to shake because of the strong winds and the upward pull of the sky, causing his cannon to go out of control and fire a stream of fire to spread across the beach. A seriously strong wind hit the flying ship from the side and it almost completely flipped over in the air. As the ship floated sideways in the air, I watched as a few things fell out of a broken window and I could hear some kind of alarm going off. The ship righted itself quickly, but I could hear the engines grown as they fought against the stress they must have been under. I watched as some kind of landing gear deployed from the hull of the ship and it shakily landed on the ground farther down on the beach.

“By the stars,” Blackbeard said as he looked up at the growing spiral of clouds. While I hadn’t noticed it until now, Blackbeard and the Collector had both stopped adding to the mass of Elemental energy growing between the three of us. I was too shocked to move myself as the world spiraled around me. The twisting elements around me seemed to be reacting to something as they tried to rip themselves from each other. Then, another earth shattering sound echoed through the air and it almost brought me to my knees at it rattled my ear drums.

“What is that?!” I yelled to no one in particular.

“It’s mine! That power will be mine to control!” Blackbeard shouted as he raised the water sphere upward toward the center of the spiraling sky. Large streams of water lifted from the sea into the sky and the tips seemed to take the shape of spears and tridents. They flew into the sky and Blackbeard smiled as they flew upward. However, I could tell that Blackbeard was no longer pushing the water up and the towers were now being pulled upward by an unseen force.

“You have to stop, it isn’t going to work!” I yelled at Blackbeard, but he didn’t listen and just kept laughing at the sky, hoping for something to happen; which after a moment something did. A large shockwave exploded from the spiral of clouds, blowing back everything from the clouds themselves, to the towers of water, to the flames scattered around the beach. Everything just stopped and I looked up to the dark sky filled with stars. If I wasn’t so terrified I would think the sky truly was beautiful.

“Balance must be restored,” came a slow voice that echoed across the sky. It was an ageless voice with no form and unlimited power. I watched as the stars rearranged themselves into the shape of a large hand. The hand seemed to reach itself down from the sky itself and grabbed the sphere of Elemental energy. It glowed brightly through the cracks of his hand around his fingers and palm, then it seemed to dissolve into nothingness and like that it was gone. The hand rose back up into the sky and the sky returned to brightness, as if nothing had happened at all.

“Come back and face me!” Blackbeard yelled up at the sky. “Coward! Come back and face the Beast of the Sea!”

As he yelled, his words reminded me of the prophecy the Oracle had told me. She warned me to beware this man, this beast, this pirate of the sea. I had originally thought the lines were about the water Elemental, but now I knew I was wrong. This man had destroyed Circe’s island and imprisoned her workers, he had been kidnapping demigods and their ships and turned them into mindless pirates for his crew, and he has been abusing a power that isn’t his to control. He really is a beast by every definition of the word and he needed to be stopped, but how? I was no match for his skills and he was obviously a better fighter than me. I punched my fist into the sand and I hit something hard in the sand. When I lifted me hand, I saw the sun shining off something metallic.

“What is this?” I asked myself as I picked a small figure out of the sand. At a closer look I saw it was a chess piece, a knight to be exact that must have fallen from the Collector’s ship when it almost flipped over. My Grandpa Don made me play a game of chess with him every time I visited him. He would call it a game for Civilized People. Every time we played I would always rush in and take his pieced one at a time, but by the end of the game he would make some move I didn’t see and I would be forced to move my King. He would make another move and I would have to move my King again, and again, and again, and before long there was nowhere left to run and it was checkmate.

“You go in too fast,” he would tell me. “''You keep forgetting that the goal is to trap the King, not to take the pieces. But you’re getting better, soon you might be able to beat me.''”

I never did manage to beat him, not even once in all the years we played together. His strategy was just too good for me, always drawing me in until I thought I had him, but in reality I was playing right into his hands. Looking at the Knight in my hand and Blackbeard’s completely offensive style of attacking; now was the time to try and come up with a new strategy. Blackbeard’s sword was still over by a small river and I was the only thing left standing between him and it. If that sword was my King that Blackbeard wanted to capture, then I needed to control his every move. This beach was my chess board and I needed to somehow use every square to my advantage.

“I guess if you’re too busy shouting at the sky, I think I’ll just take your sword for myself,” I shouted at Blackbeard, which was kind of stupid but it got his attention pretty fast. I took a few steps back toward his sword, but he moved like a lightning bolt toward me and I was thankful my reflexes were sharp enough to block his strike as he pulled another sword from his belt, the one he had been using before. He pushed hard and I allowed him to keep pushing me back toward the small river. As we got closer to his sword, the sandy beach started to shift into a landscape of small pebbles. The water from the river made the small stones wet and slippery. My light weight kept the stones from shifting, but Blackbeard towered above me and the stones began to move under his feet. I channeled the power of the Earth Elemental through my sword and the stones began to shift under his feet, making it harder for him to walk and keep his balance. Meanwhile, I was hopping around and keeping my distance, trying to get him to focus on me instead of his sword.

“Stay still you little runt!” Blackbeard yelled as he swung his sword at me. I deflected his strike once again and jumped back. Blackbeard lunged forward, but the stone under his foot slipped out from under him and he stumbled a bit. I used that moment and went in for a strike. Unfortunately, Blackbeard lifted his sword at just the right moment and instead of stabbing him right in the heart, it just barely grazed his shoulder. It was then that I felt a fist hit me right in the stomach and I went stumbling backward. It was like getting hit was a sledge hammer right in the gut. Blackbeard got back to his feet and rushed forward, hitting me with his shoulder out front and I went flying backward into a small pond next to the riverbed. I tried to let myself float to the surface, but I found myself wrapped up in seaweed.

I twisted my body around trying to break free, but I just tangled myself more until I felt myself hit the floor of the shallow water. I could barely move my arms by this point and my legs were just as bad. I thought I was going to drown as the last bit of air in my lungs was about to leave me, but a huge hand reached down and grabbed my shirt, pulling me back into the fresh air and sunshine. Unfortunately I was face to face with Blackbeard who was only smiling as I coughed, trying to get air in my lungs. I was disoriented and confused by this point, as Blackbeard’s shoulder had knocked most of the air out of me already. He seemed to be mocking me as I could see his lips moving, but I couldn’t hear anything except a high pitched ringing in my ear. I pulled at his hand and his jacket for a way to gain some leverage and maybe break his grip, but I was failing miserably.

Before I knew what was happening, Blackbeard knocked my sword from my hand and pulled me toward the shoreline, pulling his sword out of the ground and holding it in the air. He then tossed me on the ground in front of him, looking at me with a smirk on his face as he raised his sword above his head. This time, I had no energy to stop him and I closed my eyes waiting for that final strike.