The Prince, the Pauper, and the Pirate

Prologue

A necessary evil

Moot Point was a cove on a tropic isle beyond the fringes of governed territories. It had no authorities, and it had no book of law. There, everyone was his or her own protection. There were no townships or raised flags, though the clustered settlement of shelters at the cove was far from uninhabited. Ships and seaplanes coming and going were as common and frequent as the waves washing upon the sandy beaches.

It was a haven of illicit trading, where the only question asked was how much. Shacks serving as trading posts were made of old hulls of ships and airplanes, then others were hewn logs and large fanning palm leaves gathered from the isle's heart.

A gunmetal cargo plane skimmed the shoreline and beached at the cove's mouth. A wolf skull on its fuselage, crudely painted white in thick brush strokes, made it widely recognizable. The side door opened, and emerging were the sky pirates Don Karnage, Gibber, Mad Dog, and Dumptruck, most of them armed, ready for a fight if need be, cutlasses, muskets and hatchets hanging or sheathed to their attire. Most of them.

Don Karnage only carried a towel to relax on, a cloth to fold over his eyes, and his attire was a pair of swimming trunks. A small pack of other pirates began carrying out barrels and crates. High above, partially eclipsing the sun, loomed the Iron Vulture.

There were countless things that Don Karnage loved about the pirate life. Trips like this were not among them. He loathed the notion of trading away any his rightfully stolen loot. Still, his guns could not shoot coin, his planes could not run on fine silks, and his crew could not eat silver platters, and on an unrelated note, all of the above were learned from experience at some point or another. Their kitchen stock was nearly bare. Sometimes, bartering with other crooks was a necessary evil of being a villain.

He drew the line at doing the bargaining himself, however. Hence, he spent his time doing things that were less likely to make him want to rip someone a new tail, such as sunbathing on the beach. Gibber did the haggling of their pillaged wares, inefficient as his ear-to-mouth method was, padding over the sandy shoals to Karnage to get his approval for a particular purchase or trade, then back again, then back again... then back again.

The prevalence of guns and blades kept the civility, though the eruption of bloody chaos was always just a squabble away. Such had always been the way of places like Moot Point, for it was hardly the first of its like, and once the cove was reduced to a giant red stained feast for sea gulls, another place just like it would turn up. For now, there was peace. Arguments were mild, a deal was made or it was not, and thievery was nonexistent. Thieves, smugglers, fences, privateers, pirates... and occasionally the honest trader... met here from all walks of life, their business and travels their own.

In the shade of an awning that used to be a plane's wing, a bearded tiger sea captain and his salty lot sold cured meats to a lanky leopard in a safari hat and stained khakis, who had a rifle longer than he was tall. At a straw hut, a neatly groomed Thembrian in a purple silk suit and diamond jewelry haggled over the price of furs with a posse of head-hunting pygmy crocodiles. One fence's shack had goods from can openers to wedding gowns. Its keeper, a bulldog in a coarse brown shirt, snored in front while slouched over the butt of a shotgun.

On the beach, Don Karnage stretched happily over his towel, letting his heels dig into the sand. The squawk of the sea gulls and the lapping waves made for a soothing midday lullaby. It was nice while it lasted.

"If it ain't the prince o' pirates," a woman's raspy voice said behind him. "Been waitin' here for ya, suga'." Karnage recognized that voice. He pulled the folded cloth from his eyes and dared a peek, frowning.

Roxy Post was a short fox in beat-up overalls and a navy blue post officer's cap snug over her ears, the bill of it hiding her eyes. Really, the way to tell if she was looking at you was if you could see up her nose. Her smile, as the one she approached Karnage with, was a gritting of small needle-like fangs and a soft pink tongue.

With her single-prop plane on two big pontoons, full of secret compartments, her instrument to play in the vast ne'er-do-well orchestra was smuggling and private correspondence, delivered and returned (often to those who did not exactly have a street address), secure from pesky law enforcement agents, to anyone, anywhere, for a price.

Karnage sighed. Now people expected to find him here. He sat up and squinted at the envelope in her hand. "From who?" he asked.

"Why one Miss Hatter, I declare," said the fox. "It's whatcha call an inside scoop to some fabulous loot. Dig?" When Karnage reached for the envelope, it was jerked back. "Ah ah! It's all yours for a modest fee, o' course," she said. "For me an' my client. Just a lil' round number, is all."

When she told him the fee, Karnage laughed. There were a few round numbers in that round number. He laid back across is towel and tried to find again that wonderful stretch. "Tell her to go dig her own scoops," he said, waving her away.

"Wouldn't say that if ya knew what it was, cuz." She sauntered around him, fanning the envelope, and finally Karnage's ear cocked toward her, waiting. The fish had nibbled the hook. "How would the prince o' pirates like to be wearin' a crown?"

Chapter 1

A lousy day

Across the far corners of the globe, there was a ominous terror struck in the heart of every sky-faring adventurer. A predator lurked in cold, dark clouds, springing upon its prey with ruthless ferocity, swallowing whole entire planes in its maw. Cities took up arms at a mere glimpse of its silhouette in the far horizon. Doom approached in the gaze of its dead yellow eye. The Iron Vulture was a sky pirate's pride and joy, and the prize of its captain's arsenal, hunting uninhibitedly in the high winds, fearless, invincible. Sometimes.

"Does anything work on this scum-sucking bucket of busted bolts!" cried Don Karnage. The loss of hot water was the last straw. Storming out of his cabin in his bath robe and slippers, he kicked at the steel corridor wall as if to teach the ship a lesson. The only lesson to be had was it hurt him more than it did the ship. He seethed and cursed, and what made him angrier was having to watch his curses mock him by floating as a fog in front of his nose.

It was a lousy day to be a pirate. The Iron Vulture was stuck afloat in arctic water, and the pirates were going to freeze their loot sacks if they did not get it fixed.

A seasoned villain such as Don Karnage, known to frequent the warm tropical seas, did not just get lost and wind up in the middle of the frozen north by accident. Usually. There was a nice heist involved, as with most things that would coax him far from the comforts of Pirate Island (where there was the constant sulfuric stench, quakes and fear that the volcano could erupt one day and roast them all to charred piratey stick figures... but at least you didn't worry about freezing).

This heist involved a king's ransom, or at least a king's crown, and it would bolster a pirate's infamy for years to come.

The pirates had previously been skulking in the skies around the area of the city Pazooza. Karnage was there to confirm a lead, given to him by a certain informant. There, through mild publicity, it was known that King Klondike, of the tiny kingdom of Polaria, had just vacationed in Pazooza with Polaria's crown jewels on public display during his visit.

Karnage's informant said that the king was returning home in a steamship convoy, crown jewels aboard, escorted by armed Uslandian vessels, but the escorts would return after a certain latitude, leaving the king's convoy lightly guarded for a short time. There, the jewels would be ripe for the picking, and the Iron Vulture went hunting.

With enough time to catch up, a course was set to intercept the king's convoy, and the dread airship was driven northward to lie in wait. Don Karnage had an exact location in mind to spring the trap, also courtesy of the informant, where the steamship would be passing near a headland just miles from its kingdom home-close enough where it might radio for help, but far enough where, with the element of surprise, the help would come too late. There, at the right time, the Iron Vulture would appear from the high ridge, and the fun would begin.

In two days they had crossed over to the realm of icy, silver seas and gray skies, across the western fringes of Thembrian borders. There the pirates waited, combing the churning crests with flying scout patrols. Karnage was impatient, licking his chops at the impending notoriety, and later that afternoon the time of the steamship's arrival would be imminent.

Then, that morning, with impeccable timing, it began... the worst, not the heist. They went blind in the weather, and map and compass became worthless. Heavy overcast had forced the Iron Vulture to lower altitudes, where Jock the helmsman could see where they were going. There were many, many rivers and fjords knifing through sheer cliffs en route to Polaria, and the landscape from above was a vast expanse of deep wrinkles, colors in patches of forest green and icy white. Tall evergreen pines powdered in snow reached out to tickle the airship's belly. The gnarled fingers of water they flew over were as gray as the sky, and twisted and turned with no end. Snowflakes clung to the ship's windows, and webs of frost slowly but steadily thickened on the glass.

At first, Don Karnage stared out from the bridge and laughed at the cold, though he did so with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

Then there erupted a terrible sputtering from the Vulture's rear propellers, and for a moment the entire ship shook. Every pirate - those navigating from the bridge, those tending the attack planes in the hangar, those looking for furniture to burn to warm the place up - paused where they stood, and looked fearfully about the walls and ceiling as if they were about to implode. They felt the floor slowly roll beneath their feet, and those who were near a window could see it better, that the airship was slowing down.

And slow it did, to nearly a dead stop in mid-air. There were two reasons why that would happen, either ether the king's convoy was right below them, or things were about to get uncomfortable. In the absence of orders being barked out to swoop down on their prey, a collective groan rose in chorus from every corridor.

The massive rear propellers had come to a stop, and without their push the pirates were stranded in a 50-ton airborne sailboat without sails. Karnage ordered the ship set down while Ratchet searched for the problem, and they landed in one of the fjords, tucked between tall snowy cliffs and frozen pines.

That had been hours ago. Since then, most of the electricity generators had shut down as well, and working light bulbs had become a luxury, as with what heating radiators had the ship.

Kit Cloudkicker made stomping sounds as he hurried down a dank steel corridor, footsteps that sounded as if from a grown bear five times his size. That was because he was wearing a pair of chewed-up rubber boots (and who knows who did the chewing), so big on him that the tops went all the way up his legs. The floors were getting cold, and the boots he found were a bright idea until he couldn't take three steps without tripping over himself.

There was a reason for his haste. He had overheard some of the bigger pirates conspiring to play a bit of runt bowling to pass the time... and they were looking for a runt. He was of course the runt-iest, and was still greener than his sweater where it came to most of this sky pirate business, but where it came to their sort of recreation, he had already once made the error of joining in for a cordial game of rag-tag stick-ball in the hangar, where he was selected to play first base. That is, he was the first base.

It was best to make himself scarce until the crew got busy again. After stumbling one last time, he kicked off the boots and padded around the corner, and came to the captain's cabin. The heavy iron door was ajar.

He peeked inside. The lights were off, but there was a circle of silver sunlight from the broadside window. He had not seen much more than clouds and ocean since they left Pazooza, and wanted a look at their new surroundings. Besides, here was one place where the charter members of the Runt Bowling League wouldn't think to find him. He shut the door behind him and tiptoed across the room, careful as if he might set off some sort of alarm. A shag rug in the middle of the room felt like shaggy heaven as he swept his feet over it. He had to push a chair to the window and stand on it.

Outside was a picture fit for a postcard. The cliffs of the fjord sparkled white, and the trees atop the ridge looked like rows of Christmas trees powdered in snow. Snow fluttered lightly in the wind, and sometimes the flakes fell upon the window pane, right in front of his eyes, where their tiny, intricate star-like designs could be seen.

It looked pretty. It felt cold. He sneezed and the whole glass pane went foggy.

From somewhere in the ship, there was a scream, a crashing noise, and a rise of cheers. The bowlers had found their runt, the poor sap.

Kit sighed and pushed the chair back in place. That was when he noticed that Karnage had a wood stove in the corner. Kit remembered seeing it before in a room where they had stashed miscellaneous junk. It was a rusted work of black iron that was no doubt salvaged from an earlier crime, and there was a small stack of chopped wood next to it.

He couldn't believe his luck, what with the rest of the ship freezing, and at the same time couldn't believe Karnage's stupidity. Why in the world wasn't the stove lit? If there was ever a good day for it, they were in it.

It was decided in a heartbeat. If the captain was going to yell at him for meddling with his room, he could yell in the glow of a warm cozy fire.

Kit set out across the ship to find Hacksaw for some matches. It was widely known that asking Hacksaw if he had a match was like asking the beach if it had sand. The same could be said of his fondness of dynamite, which he always kept a supply strapped to himself with armbands.

In fact, as Kit recalled, during his first stretch living on Pirate Island, Hacksaw had introduced him to the joyous world of blowing things to smithereens. Out they were about midway up the slope of the volcanic spire, just the two of them, and Hacksaw had lit a stick of dynamite. Carelessly he tossed it and watched it roll downward, and in a few seconds there was a fiery explosion. The surprise and force of the hot blast knocked Kit on his backside, his ears split and teeth rattling in his gums. Those little red sticks had a mean kick.

"Now! Watch this! Watch this!" Hacksaw had squealed, so giddily. While Kit rubbed his ringing ears, the giant yellow canine dug out a hole in the ground with his bare fingers, lit another stick of dynamite, dropped it in, then hurriedly kicked the dirt back in to fill the hole, giving it a few good stomps to pack it down.

He was very pleased with his work, but then his brow frowned in confusion. "Forgetting, uh, s-something," he muttered. He put a shaky forefinger up to his temple, pushing repeatedly it like a key on a register. "Something... something... Ah!" The register had finally registered; he laughed and he looked down at Kit with a fanged grin both bright and gruesome. "Run!"

There was no need to suggest it again. They bolted and stumbled, screaming, rolling and sliding toward the rocky shoreline until the slope eased enough to stop them. The next blast was just as loud, but jostled the earth and launched a big chunk of the mountain in the sky. A great dusty cloud came rolling toward them and blew past their feet, pelting them with small stones, and more fell on their heads as a deluge of dirt and rock.

All the while, Hacksaw laughed like he was being tickled. When the dust began to settle, Kit braved to uncurl himself from the ground, and looked up at the mountain; it had always been jagged and rough, but now it was even more so, with a new giant scar.

"Awesome," breathed Kit, blinking.

"Awwwwe-some!" agreed Hacksaw, making his own dust-devil as he twirled in circles. "Wanna do it again?"

"Can I light it this time?" asked Kit, with all the timidity of a puppy who was waiting for someone to throw a ball.

Alas, there was not a third blast, not before Don Karnage intervened, with his lunch all over his lap. As it happened, he took issue with them putting craters in what was the equivalent of their front yard, and voiced further concerns about the noise and wisdom in such tomfoolery. He offered to Hacksaw, with firm conviction, an alternate idea about where the next stick of dynamite would be buried, though it would make a sailor blush to repeat it.

Kit found Hacksaw in one of the berths, sitting on a cot and keeping to himself. He was gnawing on one of his dynamite sticks, much like how his feral counterpart might chew on a bone. Every now and then he snickered to himself, and muttered a jittery joke.

"Can I have one of your matchbooks?" asked Kit.

Hacksaw began to oblige, reaching into his pant waist, but stopped as he thought about it. "Wait!" With one eye, he leaned in and eyed Kit with every suspicion in the world. "What'd ya want it for? Huh?"

"I wanna play with fire," smiled Kit.

"Ahh! Okey-dokey then!" It was as easy as that.

Back in the captain's cabin, Kit loaded the stove with four pieces of firewood, threw in a lit match and closed the hatch. It took a moment, but soon the little flame inside was growing. Kit pulled up a chair next to the stove, and warmed his hands in the flickering glow. The warmth washed over him, inch by inch, melting away the chill through his fingers, up his arms, on his knees, and into his sweater.

He closed his eyes and sighed. He felt like he could sit there forever. This was bliss. This was... choking.

He coughed and gagged. When he opened his eyes, they stung. The fire had grown, and the room was filled with smoke. This didn't seem right, there wasn't supposed to be so much smoke, was there? It was billowing through the top of the stove, through a hole where the chimney should have been.

"Oh my gosh," he squeaked, the room darkening by the second. He jumped out the chair and a frantic dance to and from either side of the stove, looking for some sort of switch or lever. "How do you turn it off?" With lungs bursting to capacity, he blew at the fire through the hatch, but that only made the fire jump all the larger. He tried to open the hatch to see if he could pull some of the firewood back out, but pulled back singed fingers before he realized that was a bad idea.

He clasped his cheeks and stamped around, thinking thinking thinking... Karnage had his own shower and sink in an adjacent room, so Kit went there. He turned the sink faucet up all the way, but the water was not coming, only foreboding grinding noises from the plumbing. At last a trickle came, and Kit's feet were running in place, impatiently, as he waited for the water to fill his cupped hands.

Finally, he raced back to the stove, dripping along the way, and by the time he made it to the stove he had just a sprinkle left to throw into the fire. In response, the flames waved at him as if to thank him for his effort.

Opening the door to vent the smoke would have brought too much attention. He went to open the window, which had no way to open. So, he took the chair, swung it high over his head and smashed it into the glass. The only thing that shattered was the chair.

Officially, it was time to panic.

Elsewhere, Don Karnage had stormed to the far reaches of the Iron Vulture's aft, through the cramped, lesser traveled passages that led to the two great turbine engines.

"Ratchet!" shouted the wolf. The loud and clear reverberation of his own voice took him aback. The usually smokey and deafening space of wall-to-wall mechanical chaos was still. The churning things were not churning. The spinning things were not spinning. The things that rattled and hissed and roared were observing a long moment of silence. At least, however, the smelly things still smelled. To point, there was that heady gasoline odor, which Karnage followed to the far end of the room.

There he found Ratchet, on his stomach, at a grate removed from the floor. He was reaching shoulder deep into a pipe socket that was just about the girth of his arm. A long section of pipe that he had removed from the socket lay at his side, and both his overalls and the floor was slick and messy with engine fuel. Ratchet was practically swimming in it.

Karnage stood at the heels of his one mechanically-inclined lackey, and glared at them as if expecting them to speak. "Well?"

"Something's... stuck!" grunted Ratchet. "The line's clogged, choked the engines out... it's right... grr..." Several grumbled curses later, he shut his mouth tight, in deep concentration. His fingers had snagged something.

Finally, and with more than a little satisfaction, Ratchet pulled himself from the pipework and produced the offending item, and the source of all their present misery was at hand. "It's trash!" And so it was, a discarded ball of crumpled paper. "Some dumb slob tossed it the tank! Choked everything!"

"All this... for that?" Fists clenched and eyes bulging, all the captain could see was red. "What mutton-headed moron did this?"

Ratchet unfurled the goopy paper wad, and identified very faint but unmistakable print. "What the... it's a newspaper! What knucklehead had a newspaper around here?"

Karnage blinked. He may have recalled standing near the opened hatch to the fuel tanks while the Iron Vulture was being refueled at their "last port"; that is, they hijacked a tanker ship at sea and shuffled through the shipmen's belongings at their leisure until the gas tank was full. He may have recalled standing on the Vulture's flight deck, next to the fuel hatch, where a big hose was sucking fuel from one vessel to the other. He may have recalled having the newspaper in his hand at the time, turned to the funny pages. It was also quite possible that he may have recalled laughing the Donald Duck strip, crumbling the entire paper into a ball, and, being in a sporty mood, tossing the wadded ball through the hatch for two points.

"Who the heck can read on this boat?" asked Ratchet, the mystery heavy on his thoughts as he tried to think of each pirate in turn as a suspect. "Only time I see a paper is if you-!"

Karnage interrupted him by slapping the evidence out of his hand. "Who are you, Sherlock House? Figure out this mystery: why is my flying ship doing everything but flying?"

While Ratchet got yelled at, Second Mate Will was in the hangar inspecting CT-37 attack planes and came across several that had little or no ammunition loaded. "All these planes are outta bullets, ya air-heads," he yelled, to any of his aviating counterparts within earshot. "How come nobody said nothin'?"

Mad Dog was sitting on the floor, wrenching the lug-nuts tight on the landing gear on one of the planes. "That's your job," he said, snively.

"We ain't shot nothin' for two days," griped Will. "Where the hell the bullets go? Nobody ever tells me nothin' that goes on!" Over his shoulder, there was a lot of clanking and clunking. Will turned to see Kit dragging a large brass fire extinguisher twice his size from the galley and up the catwalk stairs, with emergency haste. Will groaned and walked the other direction. "I don't wanna know."

With huffs and puffs, Kit finally landed the extinguisher at Karnage's cabin door, where the smoke was seeping out, thicker than ever. When he pushed the door open, the smoke escaped in big black clouds, rushed down both ways through the corridor, and forced him to duck down the floor. So much for keeping this discreet, at any moment the entire ship would smell a fire.

Somewhere amidst the sting in his eyes, the suffocating stench in the air, and over all panic, he gripped the extinguisher fiercely and charged inside, but he would be left unclear as to what exactly happened next. It would have seemed that the nozzle hose of the extinguisher snapped loose from the tank, and there was unleashed big, foamy frenzy. The rodeo that ensued had the tank as the bucking bull and Kit the cowboy.

The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back, on top of the shag rug. There was an awful chemical taste in his mouth, bitter and disgusting. Blurry sight came into focus, the ringing in his head quelled, and he noticed that the ceiling was a different color than before. It was also dripping.

He sat up. A different kind of blizzard had torn through the room, with the white of the extinguisher foam, gobs of it, everywhere. He glanced at his legs, his arms and his sweater, all of which looked like he was a porcelain statue.

Fingers of smoke still rose from the stove, but the fire was out. What a hollow victory. The furniture, the bed, the rug, the walls and ceiling, by smoke and foam there was nothing spared. The thick stench was painful to breathe and he coughed and coughed again.

He stood up and looked around at the mess surrounding him, and his lip quivered, when he thought about the real mess surrounding him, being when Don Karnage found out. He truly did not know what the captain would do to someone for something like this. He truly did not want to find out.

"I'm toast," he mumbled in between coughs. Swimming to Thembria to hide forever wasn't out of the question. He feared what promise he had wished for in this brief time as aboard the Iron Vulture was already turned to dust and gone. In the face of this loss, there flashed before him the standard stages of grief:

Denial: This... this isn't so bad! I can clean this up before he notices... yeah!

Anger: It's not my fault! Who leaves a stupid stove standing around that doesn't work!

Bargaining: I'll never do it again! I'll be good! No, I mean bad! Whatever a pirate's supposed to be!

Depression: What's the point of trying to fix it. Nobody cares what happens to me.

And, at last, acceptance: How do I apply to the Foreign Legion?

Kit stumbled into the corridor and pulled the door shut tight behind him, locking it with a turn of the hand wheel. From head to toe, he was as white as his own snowman effigy. He leaned on his knees and coughed more, gasping for sweet fresh air. His thoughts were rampant in panic. His pounding heart rattled in his chest when he heard Karnage's shouting down the hall, and it was getting closer.

Run, run, run! screamed a voice inside Kit's head. No, buy time! Stall him! it then told him. He doesn't know it was you! it said again. But he'll find out! If you don't tell him now, it's only going to get worse!

"Aaauugghh!" replied Kit.

He sped down the corridor and slid to a halt in Karnage's path. "Captain! Hi! Where you going?"

"What's it to you?" replied Karnage, sour as curdled milk. "And what-?" He eyed Kit up and down, the white mess, glassy eyes and nervous grin. Karnage was about to ask, but it turned out, exhausted as he was after a day like it had been, he didn't care what the boy had been up to.

"Never mind," groaned Karnage, and shoved Kit out of his way, stomping onward to throw himself on his bed and pull the pillow over his head, at least until the ship reached warmer latitudes. He sniffed at the air. "What is that smell?"

"Wait, what about the crown jewels?" asked Kit, pulling at the captain's coattails as if trying to stop a horse by the reins. "What are you doing up here? There's... there's... plunder waiting!"

Don Karnage only stopped long enough to swat Kit's hands off of him. "Stop that! And don't you ever talk about those cursed crown jewels!"

That must have meant the heist was nixed. No wonder Karnage was seething. Seething already. Kit felt his stomach turn to mush, and the strength in his knees was failing fast.

"Something is burning, go find out what," ordered Karnage.

Kit stammered. "But... but...!"

"Now!" snarled the wolf.

Kit stepped back, biting his lower lip. Found it, he thought.

Karnage was at the homestretch to his cabin. Run! cried that inner voice again, but it wasn't as if his brain had been giving him great advice lately. Instead, he ran after Karnage and lunged at his legs, grabbing onto the left.

"Captain, wait!" he pleaded. It was unabashed and blatant desperation, and it was all he had left.

"Where did your mind lose its marble bag, boy? Let go!" Shake him off as he tried, Kit was latched to his ankle, and was being dragged along the floor like a wet towel. A long white streak was being left in their tracks.

"We should talk!" cried Kit. "Get to know each other!"

"There is nothing to talk about!" Karnage had reached the cabin, Kit in tow, and threw open the door with one mighty, frustrated push. The sudden stink made him flinch and yelp.

From there, Kit just shut his eyes and lay his forehead against the cold steel floor. He went ahead and let go of Karnage's foot, too. He heard the wolf whimper, then the grinding of teeth, and for a moment, there was nothing. It was a short moment. Then, the ear... Karnage had grabbed himself a fistful of Kit's.

"Ow! Ow ow!" yelped Kit and he was being brought ever so not-gently to his feet, then higher yet when Karnage wrapped his clawed fingers around his ribs and slid him up the wall to meet him face-to-face.

"Perhaps now there is something to talk about!"

Kit's eyes were like saucers, though it was hard to tell in his present color. "Wh-what makes you think I did it?" The wolf's grasp squeezed into him, with a growl that was more chilling than the weather. The confession gushed forth like water from an overturned pail: "I'm sorry! It was an accident! I'll clean it up, I swear! I'm really sorry!"

Karnage dropped him like a sack of cement mix. He staggered into the room, his scowl twisting from fury to confusion and back again. "An accident- how - you -!"

Kit gulped. He tried to explain, but his tongue was tied solid. Karnage was rarely at a loss for words, and watching him stammer around the room was frightening. It was like watching a volcano about to blow its top, and the blast was going to be far too severe to run from. He shielded himself with his arms, bracing himself.

A glob of foam dripped from the ceiling onto Karnage's snout. That did it. The Iron Vulture was flooded by the roar of his fury.

The world had echoed it back at him. There was a great rumbling felt, and a sharp and mightily blow from above that made the entire airship bob deeper in the the water. The noise was loud and terrible, and terrifying. It seemed to be assaulting the ship from all sides; there was rolling, tumbling, scratching, like the Iron Vulture was being scourged by the earth itself, and outside the lone window of Karnage's cabin could be seen falling debris, snow and dirt and frozen foliage, sliding down in growing consistency, until the window was covered in solid gray.

Don Karnage stared at the window, his anger replaced wholly with dread. He tapped on the glass with his fingers, and once more a bit harder, as if hoping the snow would fall away. Then he pounded on it with his fist, hoping the same. It was a fool's hope.

Second Mate Will had galloped in from the bridge to find the captain, and by the time he arrived he was out of breath. "Boss! We can't see nothin' nowhere!"

Kit said nothing. He clasped his hands over his muzzle, fearful even his breathing would send down another avalanche.

Karnage's mouth bent down in a deep grimace. It was such an utter disaster that some small part of him wanted to laugh. He had almost forgotten about the cold, but now it seeped again into his thoughts and bones alike.