Lord of All Pirates

Shadow Realm, land of the great shadow queen. The streets were bathed in the sun, but only for shadows to grow big. People on the street were afraid of each and every shadow, even their own. You could never know which shadow was under the control of the queen. Reira, the shadow queen, was so notorious that Maria decided to make plans before even stepping into the Shadow Realm. Even on paper, the mission was looking hard; freeing Hero's sister from the shadow prison sounded like a suicide mission.

Maria and Gabi decided to go in at night and left info gathering to Lofi and his men.

"If you could figure out where the cell is, or anything that would be useful to us, contact us immediately."

Lofi nodded and went on with his men. The warrior Leonardo asked Lofi if they were going to be paid for this.

Lofi's face had this evil grin on. "Yes, we are going to get paid for everything."

Maria opened the portal, and Gabi and Maria, after a few days of hiding in the Fire Realm and Light Realm, went to the Shadow Realm.

They stepped out in the market, which was beautiful and depressing at the same time. The fruit and vegetables were shining brightly. The smell of perfumes was like a drug. The sun was bathing the roofs and the bored faces of the sellers in the market. There were even some magic-selling stands; some looked legitimate, while others looked a little bit fishy to the experienced eye of Maria.

She and Gabi were browsing around like tourists, and then casually walked down to one of the stands where a pirate-like guy was selling some cheap magic licences and spell tutorials.

Maria was mesmerised by the look of this seller: his eye patch, his hair that was gravity-defying, his jawline sharp enough to cut the sea. He wore a red coat with black hearts, and underneath was just his chest carpet. Maria was showing Gabi some spells on the stand, and thinking about how to get into the head of this guy.

The pirate guy took Maria's hand, kissed the back of it, and introduced himself as Lov.

"What would be the names of my beautiful and gracious customers?"

"We are Raven and Lido," Gabi said with a small smile.

Maria was nodding, with her focus being somewhere else.

They both just stood there looking and closely following the shadows around them.

"Argghh, do you want to buy my pirate treasures? I can sell you a spell and licence for creating the best Earl Grey tea in all the realms."

"Gabi, that sounds interesting," Maria said.

"Who is Gabi?" Lov asked with a big smile.

"He is, and I am Maria. We came here on a secret mission that is very important for us. Would you have some pirate spell and information to break into the highly dangerous and well-guarded area?"

Gabi was just in shock and awe of Maria's bluntness and stupidity. He was thinking to himself how reckless she was.

Lov was rubbing his chin. "Hmm, what would a humble pirate lord such as myself get for such a service?"

"You can join our organization as my left hand."

Gabi was in even more shock now. "Ey, Maria, what are you thinking?"

Lov cast a spell and they were instantly translocated to another location.

They were on a big pirate ship. Black mist was everywhere; even the ship was floating in it. No one was around them.

Lov stopped smiling and put a fierce look on his face. "So, you can tell, can't you?"

"Tell what?" Maria asked with a cute smirk.

"You can tell that I am not an amateur in magic. But I don't think you are very smart if you are to trust me and ask me to be your partner so quickly."

"I can tell that you are one of the most powerful mages ever. You are maybe even stronger than Arthur."

"Who?"

"Never mind that, what is the plan now? Do you want to help or not?" Maria created two floating thorn projectiles above her palms.

Lov's laughter surrounded them. It was a crazy clown laugh just bouncing off the black mist. Gabi was starting to shake from fear now.

Maria glanced at him and nodded. "Don't be afraid, we got this."

Lov fired the first attack at Maria and Gabi; he was floating somewhere in the mist. And from all angles, the projectiles came flying in. The projectiles were shaped like a sword, but they had a shark head at the top.

Maria countered with her thorny projectiles, so now there was a war of projectiles between Maria and Lov. Lov was dishing out all kinds of projectiles, from rocks to different kinds of fish, even some starfish and salt-ball projectiles. Maria played defensively with some thorny projectiles and conjured snowballs. She was guarding Gabi, who froze from fear and lost the ability to fight.

"Gabiii, focus!" Maria yelled a few times.

She couldn't know what was in his head.

Lov was smiling more and more viciously, like a crazy person drunk on the adrenaline. He was starting to get the upper hand. Many odds were stacked against Maria: visibility, projectile creativity, and quantity.

She needed to change strategy, and she started to feel a heaviness inside her stomach. She started to feel tense, and it was not helping her visualise and conjure counters and defensive spells.

Lov took a break from smiling like crazy to give a heads-up to the two lost souls on his ship. "Above you!"

Maria looked up and saw the full-sized blue whale falling down upon them.

"Oh, absolutely not, what in the realm of hell!" Maria was stunned. She closed her eyes and started to float slightly, and bright white energy engulfed everything around them. The whale was about to hit them, and then, just before impact, they translocated. All three of them were now in the Zeppelin's cockpit, or you could call it a gondola.

"Impressive," Lov said while sipping on some Earl Grey tea. "Interesting spot to translocate us to. Is this the spot where you have the biggest advantage over everyone?"

"Not really, it is just something new I wanted to try. Because we named our organization Red Zeppelin, it was something I could visualise easily."

"Still, to translocate all three of us while being in such trouble, that is a hard thing to do. You had to break spell contracts that were already in place, cast by me. I have no idea how you managed to escape from my mist and ship. You didn't even know where I was. No one has ever managed to do this. You must have sacrificed something, or is it possible to do this without any sacrifice?"

"I will tell you if you join us."

"Deal."

"Well, that was easy," Maria said and smiled at Gabi, who was slowly regaining his colour, from pale like a ghost to slightly coloured now.

"So, tell me, how?" Lov was filled with excitement and fire in his eyes.

"You know you can sacrifice something to conjure a magic contract. Well, you probably also know you can do this in advance. You probably sacrificed something in the past to be able to translocate us to your ship surrounded by mist."

"Yes, yes, but no contract or sacrifice that I know could break so many spells and circumstances you were involved in. You were going to get crushed by a blue whale, for realm's sake."

Maria smiled. "Well, as you can see, some sacrifices are big enough to get you out of trouble like that."

"What? What possible sacrifice could you have contracted that is so big, to gain all this power?"

"I couldn't tell you. But yes, I have one of the best translocating magic contracts in all of the realms, and I am also great at visualisation, which makes it easier and more effective."

"You are a worthy rival, my lady," Lov said and bowed his head.

"You as well," Maria returned, "but please, from now on we are partners. You work for me, or else I will translocate you to the depths of the Hell Realm." She started to laugh maniacally.

"Ha ha, yea, yea, deal. I can go with you. I have nothing better to do anyway. But I warn you, I will do things in a fun way."

And so it was fun all the way through. That is what made us free Heroina from the dungeon of the Shadow Realm, but she now must stand with us in this battle against the queen and her whole army.

Reira's ability to control shadows was as insane as everyone feared. She had an army of mages and warriors, but also an army of shadows and shadow clones. She could make clones of her army's men with shadows. She could manipulate shadows in such a way as to create an image of an endless army.

Maria was in a pickle now. She was in front of the castle, in the vast field without much cover, surrounded by Reira's army. By her side was, of course, Gabi, Lov, and now a free Heroina.

The four of them stood with their backs against the wall. Gabi started blasting with millions of fire projectiles. The sky became a rain of hell. Shadows were being quickly destroyed and neutralised. But in the next moment, Gabi lost control of his body. Reira connected to his shadow and froze him on the spot. Gabi was now unable to move or do anything.

Lov's smile was enormous, and he asked Maria what she wanted to do now.