Jumping into the air, Sydra watches as the deck shatters beneath the incoming cannonball, "I guess these pirates are shoot first, question later," he says, landing on the shore of the island. By now the pirate ship has crashed into the remaining dock, with the pirates flying off the deck and onto the island.
Facing the pirates, Sydra peers through their soaking clothes, wrapped in seaweed, noticing that their bodies are devoid of everything but the bones of humanoid sea creatures. 'So that must be what the curse did to them, but doesn't this mean I have the perfect counter then?' Sydra thinks.
Crouching down, Sydra pulls out his dagger with one hand, while conjuring the bone flame in the other. Before Sydra can toss the flame through the air, a massive wave crashes onto the shore as a man with the skull of a great white shark walks out of the ocean. Towering above the other pirates, the man held two empty sword handles in his hands as he looked around the beach. Noticing Sydra standing there with a pale flame blazing above his hand, the man begins to laugh.
"Haha, do you think that puny flame could harm me, Corbel, captain of the Wither Ship?" Corbel asks, pointing one of the sword's handles towards Sydra. As it flashes light blue, the sword handle discharges a blade of water that slices through the bone flame, cutting Sydra's hand in the process.
Unable to react, Sydra slowly turns to look at his hand, watching as a thin line of blood appears across his hand. 'I didn't even see it approach, it just appeared,' Sydra thinks, his regeneration healing his hand.
Standing behind Sydra, Robert pulls out his war hammer and infuses it with his fire aura, "Prepare yourselves, this isn't going to be an easy fight," he says, watching as pirates swarm the beach.
Swinging his hammer down onto the sandy beach, Robert releases his flaming aura towards the rushing pirates. As flames sweep across the beach, the heat causes the sand to turn to the glass while the pirates jump to the side.
"I'll attack them from the sky!" Cidre says, flapping his wings as he notches three arrows onto his bow. Aiming the arrows, Cidre prepares to fire as the pirates scramble out of the way of Robert's flames.
"I don't think you'll have enough time to fire those arrows while you're dealing with me," a pirate says, wind stirring the sand beneath his feet as he pulls out a red sword. Propelling himself with the wind, the pirate approaches Cidre while sending blades of wind out of his sword. Spinning to the side, Cidre releases the three arrows towards the pirate.
"I have the power of wind, your arrows won't even be able to touch me," The pirate says, focusing his eyes
Before the pirate can dodge out of the way of the arrows, Cidre flashes through the air and appears behind the pirate, "You're watching the wrong thing," he says, grabbing the pirate's sword out of his hand and beheading the pirate with it.
Back on the ground, Erich is fending off several pirates with his mace as the skull of a manta ray falls to the sand beside him. Glancing towards the air, Erich watches as Cidre tosses the body of a skeleton into the ocean. "Seems I need to pick up my pace, or I'll get left behind,"
Taking several of the pirate's attacks, Erich absorbs the kinetic force before sending it into his mace. Swinging the mace, Erich slams it into the chest of the pirate nearest him, shattering the man's ribcage into pieces.
Staggering back, the pirate glares at Erich as pieces of his ribcage fall out of his clothes, "Argh, you'll pay for that," he yells.
Before the pirate can move, Erich lunges forward, smashing his mace into the pirate's face and releasing the kinetic force. The force created whips the pirate's head back, sending shards of bone flying in all directions, and the body falling into the sand below.
Stepping over the pirate's remains, Erich glances at the other two pirates standing in front of him, "So, I guess your next," he says, raising his mace towards them.
On the other side of the beach, Sydra is dodging beneath blades of wind, as the teeth grin on Corbel's face widens. "Although your friends have taken out some of my crew, you haven't managed to land a single attack on me," he says, sending out another blade of water in the process.
Diving below the blade of water, Sydra thinks back to the battle so far. Every time he tried to attack back, the pirate captain would be right there, attacking faster than Sydra could handle. Glancing down, Sydra sees that his bone armor is starting to crack, and his regeneration is running out.
'I need to do something to turn this battle around, but what?' Sydra wonders, his eyes darting back and forth. Summoning several bone spiders, Sydra throws them into the air in the hope of distracting Corbel, but they barely leave his hand before they all fall to the ground in pieces.
Laughing, Corbel puts one of their hands behind his back, "You're starting to look desperate, boy. How about I only use one hand from now on?" He taunts, flicking his hand in several different directions.
Long arcs of water slash through the air, putting Sydra on the defensive once more. Jumping into the air, two large wings sprout from Sydra's back, and he uses them to glide through the attacks. Landing back on the sand, Sydra throws several daggers towards Corbel, who knocks them away with the back of his hand.
"Please, you're going to have to do better than that," he says, disappointment covering his face. Sighing, Corbel bends down to pick up one of the daggers, but as his fingers make contact with it, a spider launches itself out of the sand. Startled, Corbel jumps back, giving Sydra just enough time to condense his lightning aura into the shape of two pronged spear.
"This should do it," Sydra says, the lightning spear whistling out of his hand towards Corbel, who is still in shock from the sudden appearance of the spider. Regaining his composure, Corbel looks up, only to find himself blinded as a lightning spear slams into his face.
'Crack' The sound of thunder rumbles across the battlefield as the lightning explodes against Corbel's face. Flying back, Corbel's body slams into the pirates standing behind him, killing several upon impact. Sliding through the sand, Corbel comes to a stop a hundred meters away from Sydra, his upper body half gone.
Seeing their captain laying there, the crew of the Wither Ship freeze, several of them in the process of an attack. Using their shock to his advantage, Robert spreads his fire aura through the sand around him and turning it into molten glass. The pirates standing near him soon find themselves sinking into the ground, but the molten sand is keeping most of them from escaping.
After sending arrows through the pirates that did manage to escape Robert's attack, Cidre lands on the ground next to Sydra, "Did that kill him?" He asks while aiming his bow behind him to finish off a pirate trying to run off into the woods.
Before he can answer, Sydra notices Corbel's hand twitch, before it slowly digs into the body of a dead pirate next to him. Grabbing onto the ribcage of the pirate, Corbel begins absorbing his bone marrow back into his own body, leaving behind only a shard. Standing up, Corbel places the remaining bone shard of the pirate into his pocket before moving onto the next pirate and repeating the process, his body slowly reforming as he moves.
Rooted in place, Sydra watches as Corbel walks around the beach and absorbs the bone marrow of each pirate he touches, pocketing a shard of their bodies before moving on. "No way... I used all of my power in that attack, and he is already walking around," Sydra says.
Rushing past Sydra, Erich lifts his mace into the air and leaps across the beach, "Attack! While he is still regaining his power!" He yells.
Erich's words ring through Sydra's ears, and he takes a step forwarded, followed slowly by another one. As his feet sink into the sand, Sydra's pace begin to pick up, and soon he is running right behind Erich, his hands holding tightly onto his daggers.
Noticing their approach, Corbel drops the pirate in his hands and turns to face them. Lifting up both his sword handles, he sends hundreds of water blades slicing through the air, cutting apart anything in their way. Weaving his way through the water blades, Sydra prepares to pierce his dagger through the chest of Corbel, but something from the corner of his eye stops him.
"Don't take another step, or I will kill her," A pirate says, the bone tentacles twitching around his mouth as he presses a dagger to the neck of a young girl in his arms. In her struggle to break free of the mans grasp, the girl's hair gets sweeped to the side, allowing Sydra to see to small goat horns on her forehead.
"Madeline...?" Sydra says, his dagger dropping out of his hand and sticking into the ground by his feet.