This story just kept squawking to be written, like a hungry hatchling. I couldn't stand the racket so I found time to write it.

The core of this story was written back in 2017, long before Seven Sirens or even the Pirate Queen's Quest were out. Any details from these were added in later. Originally planned to be a chapter of "Dance, Dance, Rumble" right before the Risky fight, the two lines converging at that point. I had all scenes planned in great detail but I had inspiration crash after the emotional high of writing most key parts in one go so my writing stalled and I postponed this for later.

Kicked myself into gear to complete and publish this at May 03, before Seven Sirens hit Steam at May 28. Having only seen youtube videos of the first part, I'm waiting with anticipation if the plot of the rest of that game would contradict or confirm my wild guesswork on the larger Shantae-verse. Will the Clockwork Moon finally make its debut? What is Risky's angle?

( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)

A customary WARNING: self-taught English. Not native. Prepare for grammar blunders ahead.

( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)

The End of the half-Genie Hero

( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)

Lazing about to the point of shirking her day patrols through the scarecrow-infested fields, failing to notice me in a paper-thin disguise across the street... I feel almost insulted this clueless brat is my closest thing to a proper nemesis.

The Pest is growing into a slob, not even practicing her dancing it seems. I am surprised she is not gaining weight yet, with that lifestyle.

That won't do, won't do at all. For my master plan I need her lean and mean, actively searching for evil and engaging targets I need incapacitated to plunder their objects of interest from their hoards.

I enter her Uncle's workshop and engage the old man in conversation. The naive fool is so glad to talk to a kindred tinker he spills his secrets. I study his plans for the so called "dynamo" committing them to my memory. Sending a tinkerbat to copy the blueprints in the middle of the night could have been enough, but I prefer to be thorough when it comes to important parts. Learning the design from the mouth of its inventor lets me avoid mistakes I can't afford here.

Leaving the workshop after an amicable conversation - you can learn new things even from such amateurs as this part-time relic hunter - I decide to just attack this sleepy fishermans town when my master plan is ready. Not a refined plan, I know, but nothing kick-starts heroic resolve like fighting through a burning town overran by invading pirates. Should bring extra barrels of pitch — not for actually burning the town down but for greater ambience. Pitch-black smoke blotting out the sky, flaming dust devils roaming the streets... That kind of classics.

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I survey my tinkerbats scurrying around swarming scaffolds, working heavy cranes that lift oversized parts into place. So far, everything goes according to plan, a few industrial accidents aside. This is my largest scaled construction so far, outdoing even the factory I had to create to build my Tinker Tank.

And unlike that factory, ninety percent of this machinery are heat engines.

Power source, the eternal woe of any tinker. There aren't many available: magic, atmospheric electricity harvested from the clouds like Ammo Baron does for his air fleet, wind, water, steam and geothermal.

Alas, my daring invention is going to be a horrible power hog. Magic is immediately out, not up to the task. A legendary sorceress I am not.

Atmospheric electricity and wind are out as well: I'd need ginormous fragile setups to gather enough. There are so many chances for something to go wrong it's not even funny. I would be safer going into a naval battle riding an oversized porcelain tea set. Just no.

Steam... Without cheats like the elemental stones, I'd need to cut down a whole forest. And then sit brooding on the resulting mountain of wood like a mother hen for months while it dries, protecting it from rain, monsters and idiots. Too boring and so not me. I hate sitting in one place. But even worse, my pile of highly flammable wood would inevitably attract The Pest who knows fire spells and isn't afraid of using them. I heard the ancients were using something called "coal" but so far I've only found places where they had mined it all out.

With water, it's the same story, only in this case I'd have to brood on a dam being built. Pass.

Hence, why I am building inside of a convenient volcano - again. These huge unwieldy things - heat engines are infamous for their atrocious power to weight ratio - will convert immense but diffused heat flow into rotational energy necessary to drive my dastardly device of devious diversion. And unlike, say, my Tinker Tank, these engines have no convenient weak points.

The Pest will come, as always, at the most inconvenient time - but she won't find any weaknesses to exploit here. I am also building it modular with high levels of redundancy. Of course the twit wouldn't know heat engine if it hit her in the head — and with so many moving pistons and counterweights the size of a small house it very well could!

Then a thought strikes me. It's ridiculous but... Yes, killing two birds with one stone. I can drill into the crater and flood this cavern with magma from the permanent lava lake there. That would make last-minute maintenance impossible, but it will increase power output and open some interesting possibilities. After all, this entire setup doesn't need to be running for more than a few minutes. So much effort for a basically one-shot device...

Also, there is an adventurous part of me that is nagging to try it and watch how ridiculously penetrating The Pest could be. Yesss. If I collapse the access tunnel only leaving the flooded caverns as means of entrance... Hmm... Been there, done that, actually. At the lair I used to unseal the lamp.

I survey the cavern with critical eye, imagining how would it work when flooded. The magma will rise to about... this level. Note to self: don't forget to re-calibrate the cargo lift, it would be a shame if such a critical piece of equipment takes a dip. How hot will it get, then, and how fast? I spend some undetermined time doing mental calculations. It's always so fun losing myself in the work... Almost as fun as plundering, ho-ho-ho.

When I am done, I feel hungry (was it hours?) and know the answer. After the initial surge, the heat engines would be steadily losing efficiency. Too quickly for my goals, in fact. What if... No. Steam flash explosions are bad for minions. And they can cause the magma exploding in turn. The stuff loves exploding in titanic proportions if you inject even a minuscule amount of gases into it. And everything ever remotely flammable or wet becomes lots of gases. It's like bringing a lit fuse to a powder keg.

No, I will remedy this problem of uneven power output by using a steam engine. I sigh. The amount of work... Now where could I plunder a differential gear sturdy enough to drive my dynamo simultaneously by the heat engine array and a steam engine...? I also have to build the latter from scratch. Because I'm not stripping my Steam-Powered Oceanic Tinker Tub Mk III. The new slug is sure fun to ride — it's so fast! You feel like flying! — but it has its share of problems. The tub is nice and quiet and unassuming right until it hops onto the shore and opens its maw.

Ah, my work is cut out for me...

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My attack on Scuttle Town went well, even bringing fair amount of loot. I have no need for riches right now, so transporting all that stuff just tied valuable manpower up... Bah, a pirate gotta pillage. It's like professional pride.

The Pest proved to be horribly out of shape, coming out of the horde of my vicious minions victorious but black and blue all over. Well, at least our final battle at the wharf had been fun. Such tenacity and ingenuity, finding a way for the townsfolk to aid her without exposing themselves. After my Tinker Slug had been driven back — genuinely, the poor thing is allergic to explosions — I had `surrendered` handing her the fake blueprints.

Now it all hangs on the old man not noticing my modifications. I hope I've been subtle enough.

If me stealing the blueprints wasn't distracting enough, I'm sure the next phases will be. I've already hinted to those redneck maidens there's a half-Genie they could ask for help. I had also planted a letter for that Lingerbean apparition. My poor, now amnesiac, tinkerbat. His sacrifice won't be forgotten. Hopefully she would come infest Scuttle Town, that giant worm of hers is a real nuisance when I cannot fight it myself. I absolutely cannot afford losing any memories to jealous celebrity ghosts that just don't know when to quit.

Still, my work is cut out for me. Lots of Genie crystals to collect, lots of specialized tinkertech to steal before my cornerstone machines are operable.

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In the end, I had to scrape a lot and build a really big flywheel right below the Tinker Brain. That thing cost me lots of trouble. The variable gearbox that connects it to the heat engines, even more so. What a pain. Had to re-design it several times, getting inventive just not to waste the work already done. Building it around existing parts instead of engineering it properly from scratch, bleh.

Balancing the flywheel was meticulous, frustrating work. Even now, running at fraction of its designed speed, powered by geothermal only, it is generating powerful vibrations. At full power, it will tear itself apart in five minutes tops.

Deciding I need a break, I go test personally how good an obstacle course my machinery provides. Not good enough, it turns out. Beside several gaps I ignore as these are scheduled to be blocked by grates, it provides too many easy paths. Even obeying the marks "below this line is lava" I make it in less than a couple minutes grabbing at ledges, riding the moving pistons to give me a lift or riding my pirate cannon.

I stand on the cargo elevator platform - the designated finishing line - frowning in displeasure. The scurrying tinkerbats shuffle trying to keep out of my sight. To think of it, even the grates could be bypassed if she comes as a monkey. No, this won't do. Won't do at all.

"Men!" I command. "Prepare for an extra shift making spikes! I want every moving part covered in spikes, hear me? Oh, and the grates too."

Their reply is a collective groan. Good. Means I could punish slackers by posting them around here as additional obstacles.

My mood lifted, I return to my Tinker Brain, make it extend the dumping coils and continue fine-tuning their shielding. Sadly, these fragile vital parts cannot be covered with anything solid without defeating their purpose.

Knowing The Pest only exhibits three types of damage: fire, lightning and physical, I had designed the force field to protect from the fire first and foremost because that's what the coils are fatally vulnerable to. Lightning would go through, but the coils are excellent conductors of mundane electricity, grounded through resistant heatsinks. At the power levels The Pest consistently shows, her continuous effort would only make parts of my machine warm.

Physical, that's another story. You can't make a force field that protects from every application of it, that's as impossible as finding panacea, the universal cure. But my task is greatly simplified by what I know of the half-twit's ability to inflict damage: it is tied firmly to her magic. Either her hair, reinforced and made a magnitude heavier, or close-range projectiles from the spells she uses. The hair is easily taken care of by the same component that protects from fire: a double-layered counter-magic flow deflecting any incoming magic upward. The hair itself will get through the barrier fine, but won't do any damage as it will be just hair. The projectiles are always iron, I only had to give my force field magnetic properties. Anything with noticeable magnetic permeability will be reflected like it hit a rubber wall.

The elephant is a different story but the coils are small enough that the elephant rushing from the side would first hit the sturdy frame with her head and elephant smashing from above would only overpower the extending springs forcing the coil back into the base. As she could only be in one place at one time, four other coils would pick up the slack with no problem.

I watch the coils retract into the floor. At least this vital part is a hundred percent Pest-proof. There is no way she could inflict meaningful damage here.

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I catch my breath. Planting dozens of clues to hint at the apparent nature of my master plan was tedious at best. All for maybe two or three of them to be actually found. Was it worth it? The right answer: I want to leave as little to random chance as I could. Even if all that extra sneaking around made me tired and cranky.

The old man had finally completed his dynamo. Including all my sneaky tweaks, the fool.

It seems I have arrived just in time: I see the half-Genie brat coming and hurry to watch the grand debacle.

A zombie hamster...? Seriously...?

Hm, maybe not that stupid an idea. If I used common wild zombies in combination with an appropriately sized wheel...

I hold my breath... And my too-convoluted-to-work scheme goes off perfectly. The dynamo does what I designed it to do, with the help of a Genie crystal stuck into one of its key components last night. The invigorating surge of dark magic resonates with the half-Genie girl, striking her like black lightning.

You, who always rants about unforgivable evils of being evil, do you have what it takes to wrestle the darkness within into control?

With The Pest incapacitated and her so called friends distraught, it's too easy to abscond with the still running dynamo. On second thought, the zombie hamster as a power source is mightily convenient, saves me lot of trouble of re-starting and re-calibrating the already attuned device. Pity I can't stay and watch but taking care of my ill gained possession takes priority. This part is utterly vital for my plan.

Last thing I hear from the workshop is a hilariously hammy monologue about pathetic worms who should grovel or something like that. Huh, I did not get anything the like from the pure Genie half I ripped out of her that time. Must be her human half talking.

Case in point, it' always the nice ones.

I hurry transporting the still running dynamo back to my lair, prodding my tinkerbats mercilessly. There could be two outcomes: either the half-Genie brat snaps out of it and comes after me with vengeance... Or she succumbs to her dark desires. The latter case would be signaled by a giantic column of smoke where Scuttle Town once been.

But I hope against all reason she is stronger than that.

( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)

The machinery had begun its first - and last - run. Molten rock is slowly flooding the cavern giving great boost to my heat engines, their pistons and counterweights pumping at unsustainable accelerations. Some subsystems are already breaking apart, raining bent shafts and chipped cogwheels into the growing lava lake.

Doesn't matter, I had over-engineered all the crucial parts. Safety pins the size of my torso break with sharp reports as the main flywheel keeps going faster, propelled by surviving subsystems. The overall power is still growing.

Making sure all the valves that have to be open stay open, I go over the final check-list while the Little Wrecking Mermaid is demolishing the underwater obstacle course I set up for her. Tinker Brain is long calibrated, tested in three separate dry runs and ready to go.

As soon as the dark magic flow reaches designed density, it would be reversed and fed to the array of Genie crystals focusing this flow of faked light magic into a single point and punching a wormhole into the Genie Realm, bypassing all its defenses as only light magic attuned to a real half-Genie could. I will then ride the flow employing such a vulgar method as common warp.

I will enter the Genie Realm boldly and the power will be mine!

The heat engines slow losing efficiency. The jumbo gearbox that cost me oh so much toil and frustration switches to a higher gear with a suffering grinding nose, already living its last minute, sparks and metal chips flying.

There are sounds of my expendable minions shooting - the cave is guarded by select ones who have Failed Me - then exploding, perishing for pure amusement value. Meh, I can always summon more, even if I have to train them ship-broken from scratch. This way, at least, the long surviving ones know whom to never cross. The wily little buggers.

Finally, a blur explodes from between a spike-encrusted counterweight and the searing surface of magma, resolving into a scuffed harpy trailing smoke, her wingtips warped and melted.

Daring as they get, this one.

Flapping laboriously towards the cargo elevator, she poofs into her birth form before landing on the platform, looking around watchfully.

This is my cue.

We banter a bit. She accuses me of wrongdoing, I dance around the issue reinforcing her belief that I plan corrupting the Genie Realm. Surprisingly, she never tries bringing up the fact that it's the Genies who guard our human realm from the likes of my late master - or even worse things - so messing with them is a bad idea on so many levels... Huh, I guess she's less bright than I was giving her credit for.

She brags they found a way to reverse polarity undoing my curse. Is that why she is here, not because of her willpower overcoming the corruption but because of that bumbling old man's invention doing it...? Most disappointing.

We have fun anyway. Well, I have fun, she has a pitched battle against the dastardly master villain. The short nuisance is becoming good, I have to give her that. Her dodging is almost uncanny, her dancing very quick, always capitalizing on gaps in my offense, her transformations appropriate and powerful. Especially the elephant. How could something so modest-sized have so much stomp in it? Its effective weight must be five or six tons, multiplied by that thing jumping higher than my head!

`Never fight for the sake of fighting' is a good principle to follow, but I cannot deny that fighting is fun. Also, the legend I am has to stay sharp. To think of it, any other opponents I've had for a long time were much less flexible and inventive.

What is more important to me, right now, she never displays any damage type I've never seen before. Fire, lightning, copious amounts of physical, that's all. Unless I myself give her something to reflect back with her bubble, she is limited to things my Tinker Brain was made highly resistant against. She has no chance in the blazes of harming it in the time frame she'll have. There is no way for her to disrupt my real plan. Have I just jinxed it...? Naw. The Queen of Seven Seas is afraid of no Fate. I laugh at the silly sow as I always do.

It is time. The elevator grinds to a stop, level with my best invention to date. The half-Genie runt pauses in dread to stare at it as I introduce my Tinker Brain with appropriate evil monologuing full of vague foreshadowing. Always let them draw their own conclusions! Sometimes, heroes imagine such horrors that even I, the professional villain, am left stunned.

The sophisticated machine activates, opening its eyes and staring at the Pest. I use the distraction to sneak away. It's a prop in that regard: besides its main function, all it could do is staring at the closest moving object that resembles that girl's hairdo. Not even enough resolution to recognize faces nor colors. It has no offensive means as well. I only have a couple ejectors installed in the side walls to lob scraped cogwheels. Well, there is also that photonic flyback discharger installed too close, just to mock work safety principles. If she takes its action for the brain's attack, the more hilarity.

Nested in the machine's center is the old dynamo, the hamster still running. After the initial calibration, its function is comic relief. Would be hilarious if she thought it being the main power source!

Ignoring the spirited yells of the nitwit thinking she saves the world I hurry to the warp platform installed in the machine's base. All my calculations are perfect, and yet I shiver in apprehension. Here lies the best chance to be Hoist with my own petard: warping into places nominally non-existent relative to our physical reality is always... risky.

Here goes nothing.

The transition is as sharp as a kick in my metaphorical teeth. I reel hissing in pain. The immense expanse of light magic presses against me, all cloud-like puffs and misty wisps in soft glowy colors, unwelcoming. Ugh, so much goodness! If the part of me that is feeling that really had teeth, these would be crumbling from sweetness already.

Steeling myself I whip out the lamp and begin sucking the ambient energies in. Those fools in Scuttle Town were quite helpful burying the artifact of evil in a relatively shallow sea while knowing full well my minions do have diving gear.

I hold the bucking lamp firmly. It is already becoming whiter, sparkling, making the skin of my palms crawl. But I have just begun. Have to be careful now, it won't do to attract the inhabitants. With me performing the daring equivalent of stealing grass from their backyard, it's unlikely, but still.

A simple question: where do Genies go when they are killed the in the mortal world? The right answer: they all end up here. They are spirits and this is their spirit realm, their sovereign domain. They may not have physical forms I could perceive right now, they may be busy with matters I could not comprehend with my keen but still mortal mind, but. They. Are. All. Here. Every Genie who ever lived, from wimps to unstoppable legendary warriors, they are all somewhere around. They all have a chance to notice this irregularity, this chunk of solid space-time I generate around myself by simply being here in the flesh.

The lamp is thrashing in my clenched hands shining like a small sun, burning my hands like salt in a raw wound. But still I press on.

By plundering their Genie magic I risk confrontation with someone like the brat's mother. Aided by her friends and allies. On her home turf.

Not a confrontation I could ever hope to win.

But for my dream, for that desire born one day when I was gazing at seagulls soaring in the blue expanse above...? Totally worth it.

I'm not risking my life and limb for something trivial, like unstoppable power or world falling into my hands or uncountable riches.

I'm taking this risk because nothing else is suitable for powering my dream machine, my Clockwork Moon I desire to build so much it's like an ache that never ceases completely.

Just a tiny bit more and I will have enough. I'm almost giddy with anticipation, plans and schematics fluttering and swirling in my mind like celebratory butterflies. I can practically see myself waging glorious air battles against Ammo Baron's puny airships, can almost hear myself laughing imperiously at the landlubbers from my unreachable fortress in the clouds, the crowds panicking and mighty heroes coming to chall—

A mighty crash rattles me sending me booty over teakettle, knocking the lamp out of my hands...

I jump onto my feet, slowly as this formless realm doesn't really have a firm concept of "up", whirling this way and that with my scimitar out, acutely aware I cannot read my surroundings, cannot recognize an attack in this uniform...

Wait.

My Tinker Brain is here, utterly wrecked, sparking and leaking dark magic like the world's biggest "Alarm! Invaders!" beacon. The Pest is standing on its circular base, gawking in wonder, utterly pleased with herself.

How?！

The conduits are all blown up, the retracted dumping coils in the base totally melted as if... Was this control failure, the system trying to dump excess magic without extending the coils?

But, more importantly, where's the lamp?

I search frantically. There! Spinning like a top, releasing all the magic I gathered in a stream of pretty rainbows and sparkles. I make for it, only for The Pest to reach forward... grabbing the lamp that was a good dozen fathoms behind her!

No!

This realm, it's really on her side, isn't it? The physical wreck of my machine aside, the space is merely suggestion here, responding to her whims without her ever realizing it.

Fine, two could play this game! I make one step onto the platform next to her crossing the seemingly sizable distance separating us.

"You won't stop me!" I growl grabbing for the lamp. "The power will be mine!" For the first time in a long, long time I really want to hurt her.

Her uncanny dodge - not as cute now when I am running out of time - prevents me from reclaiming my vital tool.

She begins looking around frantically, noticing for the first time the leaking dark magic polluting this disgustingly pristine bleh-land.

"Oh no!" she shouts in dread. "The corruption! It has begun!"

Right. Squirm, make wrong conclusions, get distracted - allowing me...

"I must save the Genie Realm!" the twit shouts pulling out a badly kludged together... Polarity reverser!

No.

My blood turns into ice even before I consciously realize what she is going to do. I lunge...

And she simply jumps over my awkward, overextended form as she activates the device.

The imbecile! The good-for-nothing brain-dead incompetent nincompoop!

The circumstantial doomsday device buzzs and sparks in her hands, burning out instantly. But the deed is done. The meager trickle of dark magic from my ruined invention turns light... And the cloying, oppressive, ever-present mass of ambient magic around us turns glorious, alluringly beautiful dark. Instead of cute candy cloud land we are now inside a terrific thundercloud.

It's like a refreshing hurricane after a humid and hot day, like an invigorating life-or-death struggle after endless boredom, like a gulp of icy poison a midst a parched, dry desert.

It's like the final nail in the coffin of my once-in-a-lifetime plan.

I don't know how far the corruption zone goes - not far, likely, considering the wimpiness of that scrap - and if it would spread to the entire realm like I let her believe my plan was. Innumerable evil Genies unbound by restrictions or morality - what would they do, who would they invade? Worst case, I could be witnessing the birth of a new Hell, with its hellmouth already in place by my hand.

What I know for certainty is that while my wrecked, leaking Tinker Brain was akin to scattering manure on someone's lawn - unpleasant but not necessarily a reason for immediate response - this escapade of hers stands out like a pile of feces the size of Mount Pointy!

My perfect plan, my only chance, my dream is done for!

And this... this... is just standing there, swaying, out of it, talking to some figment of her imagination or other, smiling.

"Is this just a game for you...! You...!" I roar as white-hot hatred erupts, resonating with the sea of dark magic around me, feeding on itself. I make one step forward, then another. I will end her. I will end her! My Rakshasi blood is boiling, canines growing in my snarling rictus, razor-sharp claws extending from my fingertips... It would be so easy while she is stumbling around in a blind daze, whipping at random puffs of dark magic, babbling incoherently and crying in such anguish like she is forced to kill kittens. My vision turns yellow, my clawed hand reaches forward singing in anticipation...

I exert Herculean effort of will as I make myself run for it. As opposed to, say, staying behind and ripping The Hateful Thing limb from limb. I'd tear that... that ARRRGH like wet tissue paper! I'd bathe in her innards! I'd...

I'd stay long enough for the Genies to arrive in force and crush me like a roach. They may even turn me into a being of light or erase me from existence off-hand while they reverse every bit of dark magic floating around.

Forcing the physical transformation down - I lived long enough without such petty boosts, I am perfectly capable in my fully human form - I dive into the twisting, destabilizing vortex of the warp channel.

The jarring arrival almost knocks me out - would be a certain doom while in the air, above the lava lake - but I manage. Using my pirate cannon I pull up and land on the edge of the escape exit.

There I linger watching the ruins of my work crumbling, some machines still spinning meaninglessly, most jammed from overheating. I grip the raging beast inside me and leash it, bringing it to heel. Oh, I will have my revenge. But now is not the place nor the time. With the dark magic, either you ride it - or it rides you, there is no middle ground. And I have no intent to let the latter happen in any shape or form. Down, you, inner-me! My revenge will be a dish served ice-cold.

The remains of my Tinker Brain arrive in an unmistakable halo of goodness, carrying The Pest with them. Hooh, that was quick. Booting foreign substances out already...? It seems I fled their realm in the nick of time!

Mauled supports creak raining debris. Time to go.

"I hope you die in fire!" I shout my parting words, still too angry for proper banter. Tsk, I have to work on my weaknesses. As an one-liner, that was petty and undignified. Pathetic.

I still see her rushing to grab the hamster as I turn to leave. After a short scimitar dash I use my cannon to gain more attitude, then proceed speeding away from the mountainside on my trusty hat.

The mountain begins rumbling and I feel my chest tighten. Don't take me wrong, I love Stuff Blowing Up. But all that work and toil... The irreplaceable materials... Wasted! Just like that! I twist around to float facing backwards, to take the last look at my pirate lair. I hope most of my veteran tinkerbats managed to escape through that underwater passage. After the wrecking ball of a mermaid went through it? I doubt there are any traps or obstructions left.

The escape exit begins spewing clouds of fiery ejecta while a tiny purple-haired figure is hopping across the gaps in the remains of my old maintenance bridge, hurrying to outrun the devastation. That over-talented blonde riding her glorified parrot dives to pick her up. The urge to strangle someone rises again!

Something in the collapsing system gives. I feel a great rumble vibrating in my bones, even through the air, even at this distance. And then... A spectacular fountain of lava erupts from the mountainside where the escape tunnel had been, fanning out beautifully, fragmenting into to chunks of red-hot grapeshot. It's like a hellish umbrella snapping open over a large portion of the landscape. So overwhelmingly massive it almost gets me even here, stone grapeshot whistling through the air around me.

It descends with deceptive slowness as its glow dims to dark red. The jungle in that direction is simply gone. White smoke billows up obscuring the devastation.

Any minute now, a powder-blue harpy would explode out of it, or a war-bird carrying two passengers. The Pest is worse than roaches in that regard.

I had made so many attempts, in all seriousness, to end her miserable existence, all failing so spectacularly that I grew used to thinking of them more as a form of art, acts of pointless artistry. Should I have tried harder? I'm not sure that'd work. That anything would work. Ever.

The smoke is billowing higher, obscuring the land below. I drift away awaiting for The Pest to emerge and begin, I don't know, sassing at me...? I'm not sure I could hold myself from trying to strangle her - and falling all the way down as a result. That would be embarrassing.

Any minute now.

But I keep drifting, coming lower bit by bit, and nothing happens.

Then, finally, I see the bird soaring out of the smoke, climbing with a mournful cry. It makes a turn and I see it carrying only one. I stare in disbelief: has the half-Genie runt really bought it? It can't be!

The blond is rubbing at her face. What... Ah, she is wiping away tears. Uh-oh. Through shocked disbelief I barely remember to pull the hat down onto my head for expeditious descent into the smoke-choked jungle. Tangling with a war bird so high in the air while riding a hat that occupies both of your hands would be a spectacularly bad idea. Wrench may not be a hawk, but with energy equaling mass by velocity squared that wouldn't mean squat. He has a lot of mass. And a lot of velocity. And his handler wants someone to pay.

I quickly drop out of sight. Somehow I still can't believe she is gone. Just like that... I thought I'd feel satisfaction, with the amount of hate I am still feeling towards the late hero, but instead... The world feels diminished, somehow. Less vibrant.

Really, me? Am I going to lament the biggest thorn in my side even while there are still lots of strong rivals to fight, lots of towns to sack, a whole world laid open around me to adventure and plunder...?

Yes, I am. Sonofa biscuit.

The jungle is thick and dark around me, the mix of sulfuric ashes and thick white smoke from wood burnt wet is suffocating. Pulling out my scimitar, I begin the long, arduous trek home, to my ship, climbing over centuries-old piles of fallen trunks, cutting through thickets of lianes.

However hard my road, though, it doesn't distract me from thinking. From brooding.

To think of it, how many other heroes perished trying to take me down...? Ones not gifted with such ridiculous luck — and even that eventually ran out — ones not as unyielding and persistent.

Because while I never aim specifically to kill, I don't believe in pulling my punches either. When I construct a deathtrap, it is a death trap, not a half-baked obstacle serving to amuse heroes and raise their confidence.

Doesn't matter, in the end. After all is said and done, it's the survivors who tell their story, who triumph and go on. Confrontations like the one I had with her are destined to end violently and decisively.

And yet, I wallow in regret, unable to brush off a sense of loss as I make my way through dark and miserable thicket.

"Bloody barnacles, I wish it haven't ended like this!"

I clamp a hand over my mouth. That outburst was uncalled for: you must not shout in a forest, much less in a dense jungle. Critters can grow large in such dark corners. You cannot see what is coming.

But it is too late. Something took notice. I feel otherworldly presence hanging heavily in the suffocating air. Yuipes. They may be gone, but how many of the now-incorporeal do-gooders have I attracted with my daring stunt? In my magical senses I can feel the walls of reality creak from a great weight pressing against them. The same walls I poked a neat hole in, less than a mile away from here. I fail to suppress a shiver. It took just half a dozen surviving Genies, the last vestiges of their race, to make the dreaded Pirate Master eep and then just be gone. He got better, but still. With the whole lot of them, even at fraction of their power seeping through a crack...?

And I'd just made a wish, a terrifying realization hits.

The presence spikes, causality shuddering and twisting like a long balloon used to make figures. I misstep into a tree that wasn't. My foot finds no purchase where a log haven't been. I complete a swing cutting through lianes only to find my scimitar hanging on my belt. Vegetation around me flickers and shifts. The smoke oscillates between white and black, transparent and impossible to see through. Even my cuffs change their shape, disappearing at times. Even my memories of the machine I finished building just hours ago! The details of transmissions and connections flow and change, as does the piston arrangement. I could swear a couple times even my hair was platinum blonde from birth!

Some indeterminable period later reality settles to its usual and boring normal, the otherworldly presence fading. I release a breath I didn't know I was holding. That was terrifying. And exhilarating! Genies may not have power over life and death, but in times of yore, when they were still around, even gods stood back and took notes when they pooled their effort like that.

Wherever you are now, Wherever my wish just sent you, I hope you find adventure on your fancy pants.

( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)

(one year later)

Of scrap and metal plating, of steel cables, broken cogwheels, braces and even pewter tableware, she is standing there, pointing at me accusingly. The semblance is uncanny, I could almost hear her indignant "Risky Boots! I knew it was you!"

Who would've thought I have a talent for sculpture...? You live and learn.

I am level with the thirty feet tall statue's semi-abstract eyes because I stand higher up the black, ragged slope of solidified lava. My silent opponent is pointing right at my former volcano lair. She is standing with her shoes om the slope, one foot forward and higher than the other. There is no need for a pedestal: long beams of stainless steel reaching fifty feet deep see to that.

I hear, then feel, mighty flapping of wings. The bird lands nearby before popping back into its hawk-sized form. The blonde woman is just standing there, speechless.

"Why?" she finally asks me.

"Why not?" I reply casually. "I have finally trashed Ammo Baron good, got lots of scrap."

That's not entirely true, I could have sold the stainless steel I-beams that went into the frame for a very hefty sum. Meh, I'm a pirate, it's not like I can run out of money. These beams are better off making sure the monument lasts for centuries. If the volcano doesn't say otherwise, of course.

Had there been a base to write on, I'd title it "My best enemy ever".

"You are missing her too," she says accusingly.

"I do," I admit. "She should have made it. I still can't understand, why."

"She... stumbled and fell of the bridge," the woman says after a pause. "She seemed distracted by something."

"We will never know," I lie with a sigh. "Everything went so pear-shaped that day."

It was probably because of whatever delusion made her cry, back in the Genie realm, I think morosely. The twit must have thought she was killing her own kin to grow distraught like that. How utterly stupid - you cannot kill a spirit permanently, especially on their home turf. And how utterly her.

No words are exchanged after that.

( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)

(four years later)

Mystery solved! I'm both relieved because it was gnawing at me, disappointed because I'm not as special as I thought and excited because of new horizons for personal growth opening suddenly.

The inner energy that all living things possess.

It was so simple! All these special abilities of me and the late torn in my side... Our out-world pockets, my commanding presence, the supernatural oomph of her hair - I was attributing these to dark and light magic respectively. Such a natural assumption - we are both magical creatures, after all - and so very wrong. Further complicating matters is the fact that in my - and probably hers - case this inner energy is mixing with our magic making it much harder to come to realization it's a separate thing.

It took me months to learn channeling this energy alone and not mixed with dark magic. Two more months to manage channeling it through a weapon. I used a simple piece of iron rebar, for purity of experiment. I'm just beginning, but even now it does more damage than my pirate scimitar, an artifact weapon in its own right.

I set up an experiment, recreating the force field I used to protect the dumping coils of my Tinker Brain. The good news: the barrier itself withstood physical blows from my rebar strikes. The bad news: my inner energy got through unimpeded, resonating inside and destabilizing the test setup to the point of cascade failure. So, that's how.

I wish I could go back and re-do it using my new knowledge. Alas. There are no more Genie crystals. There are no more half-Genies powerful enough to calibrate the starter.

That frustration aside, the prospects of learning to wield this inner energy are dizzying. I'm researching all kinds of myth and legend concerning the so called "human magic" as well as some "special" abilities of various magical creatures. Who knows if I could replicate them using willpower alone?

Combining them with my tinkertech would be a true challenge. But also a path to crafting my own full-fledged artifacts!

( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)

(ten years later)

I came here today, on this round date of remembrance. I don't feel sad about this anymore, just a faint, deeply rooted regret. I smile at the statue posturing dramatically, vines and tufts of green pockmarking the black slope under its feet. A whole decade had flew by in a blink of an eye. So much had happened — crazy adventures, daring assaults on worthy foes and secrets of the universe, me tinkering up awesome engines of terror...

Becoming a mother.

I pull my daughter out of the harness on my back to place her on the ground. Cooing happily, her cat ears and tail twitching in anticipation, she begins exploring around on her stubby legs, the statue's foot like a mountain to her. Tinkerbats designated as babysitters flock after my baby girl, casting apprehensive glances in my direction.

Magical creature genetics are thing of mystery, I reflect staring up at the statue of my former nemesis. Take me, a fully human-looking Rakshasi — there is no "half" in us, that was a common misconception I shared for awhile — add a... Let's say he was a fine specimen of human male, real pity staying attached would have clashed with my core principles — and what do you get as a result? A catgirl. Complete with ears, tail, claws and penchant of pouncing. Cuteness overwhelming, when combined with her innate toddler charm and her innate catgirl charm. I am already planning of teaching her to weaponize that, when she is a bit older.

She'd need that, and more: this cute toddler of mine would someday succeed me as the Pirate Queen.

I hear the sound of hooves clopping and voices raised. Someone is coming on horses, with kids arguing heatedly. I wonder who of the late half-Genie's friends is that.

Turns out, it's Sky. The hunched, ruffled up parrot on her shoulder isn't looking great, his pink and blue feathers faded, his eyes sleepy. But she herself! Yeech, talk about letting yourself go. Standing before me, holding the reins is a rotund middle-aged woman, only her face and blonde hair let me recognize her.

It doesn't matter, I guess, as two feisty boys, about seven years of age, disembark the second horse, falling silent when they notice me.

Sky introduces me — cue wary awe — then introduces her sons, named Veer and Swoop. Not trivial choices, looks like someone was studying the old world language in depth.

She then notices the changes to the statue.

"It... When did...?" she exclaims.

"Just as planned." I smirk. "I built it that way."

It took years to manifest, the metals being quite corrosion resistant, but the statue now has color. Not perfect, runny and blending in places, but it is there. Greenish tones of patina on the hair and eyes, brownish tarnish on the skin, ruddy rust on the outfit.

My deadly cute daughter then trudges from behind the statue, tinkerbats in tow, her tiny, dirty hands clutching a small broken cog — no doubt pried from the statue. Lookit, she's already developing her looting habits!

Takes an actual effort of will not to gush.

"Are you... in the habit of kidnapping, now?" Sky asks me warily, looking between me and my daughter.

They always assume, don't they?

"Why?" I ask innocently, "Can't believe I can have a kid of my own, huh?"

Three... Two... One...

Ah, there's that realization, that dawning horror, "oh gods, she spawned!" writ large on shocked faces. I feel my heart warm with pride as I put on my most ominous grin.

"Viper," I tell my kid, "Say Hi to the boys!"

Sky looks at me in consternation. I don't bother dissuading her. Your name is something you make. Not something conveniently handed to you. I wasn't born Risky Boots either — though no one remembers that this day, for their own good. I would have been a bad mother if I gave my daughter a name she would not despise. She has to make her own, or make "Viper" into something dreaded and respected all across the seven seas.

Life goes on, only the girl who was thorn in my past self's side stays ever unchanging in her righteous posturing.

( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)

(twenty years later)

I arrive on a palanquin carried by tinkerbats. Just for the sake of it. Also, to give Viper more time to ruminate on the error of her ways while she is trying to catch up, which is not easy with how bruised she is.

No daughter of mine would succeed me with assassination plot that lame! Period.

The execution was spirited, though. I rub absently at the stitches in my side. I should give her that.

I mean it's not like I'm in any hurry to meet my ancestors, but the legend must live on. True terror of the seas has to be a loner. You can form alliances that last for a while, but in the end there are only you and your tinkerbats. Everyone else is just betrayal waiting to happen. I taught her from very tender age to enjoy our time together because it has to come to a violent end. Only one shall remain. Call it madness, call it greater purpose, but I firmly believe there should always be a Pirate Queen. And the only way for the next one to be stronger, to be better is... Pirate succession.

But if she, ever again, does something that stupid, I will put my scimitar through her heart with my own hand. And start rearing a new daughter from scratch.

Rakshasi live very long lives, it turns out. I haven't aged at all since I last saw my arch-nemesis in the flesh.

Speaking of which. The statue is still there — I welded it to last, after all — just a bit more tarnished. The mother is not, however. It's only her two sons and their grim-looking war-hawks. What strapping lads they grew into, ho-ho-ho!

Viper begins drooling and I promptly increase the number of lumps on her head. She is too young for that!

"Wait until your body finishes forming, you twit! You are only twelve!"

The reunion goes sourly. The sons are not in the mood for banter, Viper can't help herself — she could be devastatingly cute when she puts her catgirl charms to use — and I... well, my mind keeps wandering to the sheer hilarity of the three-for-all turf war the aging Ammo Baron and his upstart offspring are currently engaged in.

Only the half-Genie girl is still full of energy, young forever, her righteous indignation frozen in slowly oxidizing scrap.

Oh-ho-ho... To think of it, my birthday isn't that far ahead. A quite round date, too. On a whim I decide to give myself a little present.

"Men!" I command my tinkerbats. "Dig!"

Guided by my will, wielding a golden magic pickaxe, they cut into mountainside like knife through butter. There is no sense cleaning the former entrance, the cave had completely filled with solidified lava. No, what I need is access to one specific spatial point.

The sons place their flowers at the statue's foot and fly away. After a while it begins to drizzle. I notice Viper grabbed the flowers to make a flower crown. I add some more lumps to her head and make her put them back. I mean, there are things you plunder and there are things you leave well alone.

The weather is dreary and dull when the tinkerbats finish. I walk to the end of the narrow tunnel. Both light and dark magic are long gone, there isn't a single echo of otherworldly energies. But I have good spatial memory.

"Hear me, ye astral good-for-nothings," I shout imperiously into a blank wall. "I wish to follow that twit, wherever you sent her those years ago...! Make no mistake, I won't hesitate to gut her like a fish if she stands in my way! I'm not some do-gooder like ya!"

Here. This should make that old, unhealthy obsession shut up for a long while. I turn around and calmly walk out of the tinkerbat-made crevice. Viper is clearly contemplating if I went off the deep end and if that would help her any. Must give her some more lumps to ward her from stupid thoughts. Youngsters these days!

( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)

Amidst a perpetual thunderstorm — enchanting the weather on that scale was a pain— in an unassailable crown-like fortress whose spiny towers protrude from the sheer cliffs of the Cove Island, in the cleverly hidden main hall, on a towering skull-encrusted throne I sit, checking the list of guests for my upcoming birthday party.

The creams of scum and villainy are listed here, mixed with many aspiring bootlickers and a couple disguised hero teams - unaware of each other - planning to organize my grand demise.

Note to self: check personally that all the ploys to make them clash work as intended. I have no desire of crushing both teams myself: too easy and unimaginative. Let everyone stay blissfully unaware of my true personal prowess.

Now, for the proper, non-heroic guests... I guess there would be a few more assassination attempts on their part. That would liven the celebration nicely. Other than that, it would go like any other pirate fest, with tons of roast, frothing mugs of root beer and shanties of questionable quality. I'm not one for sophisticated entertainment, the mood was always more important to me.

Now, if someone is dumb enough to ask for my exact age... Well they are plain too dumb to live, then. The trapdoor controls oiled and tested, check. The sharks not fed for a week, check. Also, note to myself: make sure my tinkerbats on the controls don't get carried away again.

And if anyone, by some incredible stroke of bad luck, manages to figure out what sort of jubilee I'm celebrating - my exact age, that is - their demise would come swiftly on the wings of "he knew too much". Hmm... Oh, right. Let Viper hone her skills on them. It is time for her to learn subtlety, so severe lashing if anyone notices it was her, keeping any loot to herself if she does it cleanly. Yeah, that'd do. Parenting is responsibility even I cannot shirk completely.

The list checked, I sit back and relax. The atmosphere is perfect as always: dark stony halls lit by a large fireplace and occasional torch, narrow barred windows flashing with lightning from time to time casting brief shapes onto the walls lined with suits of armor - some are mechanical traps, some have tinkerbats sitting inside, but most are props for ambience.

Most pirates could only dream of such a lair - and yet I feel restless like a chained beast.

Cabin fever, I heard they call it.

I love my fortress and hate it. Love because it allows me keeping my projects and building magnificent machines of terror I'd be unable to if I was on the run. I hate it because it ties me down. It feels like an iron ball chained to my foot! I still adventure, going on lengthy expeditions... I mean, raids, half across the world. But I can't leave for too long and I can't abandon this place, it had became a part of the Pirate Queen legend.

I have forged my chains myself, what a sour thought.

I sit brooding, lamenting the missed chance to build the sky fortress that would have had all the upsides of this base still leaving me free to travel as I please.

Alas, there is no power source for levitation magic on that scale. The method Techno Baron uses to keep his factory afloat only works at a specific crossing of ley lines. Besides, it works by sucking up ambient heat: I heard the Frostbite Island was quite a tropical paradise before he started building his factories there. I don't want to be nicknamed Ice Queen and my movement be accompanied by a telltale roaming winter.

Only the Genie magic would do, now denied to me forever. In the first decade after, I kept trying. I had gathered all the Genie crystals in existence, both of them. I glance at these trophies gathering dust on my fireplace. Right. I had tried all sorts of hackarounds to circumvent the necessity of having minimum three for a stable focusing array. I had hunted the remaining half-Genies causing them mental breakdowns and lingering pirate phobia. Nothing worked. The focusing problem is fundamental. The half-Genies aren't... I don't know, furiously bright enough? None of them could even be pushed over onto the dark side.

If only, if only...

Is that how old age feels? Is it catching up with me despite my body not aging?

Enough brooding. I have a freakshow of a birthday to run and it will be glorious!

I jump onto my feet making nearby tinkerbats freak out. Right, I made them learn cooking the main feast. Judging by the convoluted but mostly burnt smells wafting from the factory floor turned kitchen, they are still in the trial and error phase. Well, I could have kidnapped professional cooks but abusing my minions this way feels better. I start toward the kitchen with deliberate slowness causing more panicked scurrying.

( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)

(a few days later, the day)

I wake up to acute sense of wrongness. It takes long seconds of frozen tension to realize I am curled up on a tarp on my vessel's poop deck, not in the hidden room of my fortress. The weather is surely hot, and the wind is nice, but why am I still alive? Tempting my intrepid daughter like this could not end well. Or has she inherited my love for theatrics?

I cautiously crack one eye open. No one is nearby, the sea is calm, my Tinker Tub is rocking gently, anchored near some tiny island. It's dawn, the horizon is glowing with oncoming sunrise. I sit up and look around. Still no idea why I am here and where this "here" is.

A single tinkerbat scuttles by.

"Hey you," I command him and he stops in his tracks. "Why am I here and where is Viper?"

He seems very confused, scratching his head, looking this way and that.

"Where. Is. My. Daughter." I order flatly.

Now he is looking utterly lost, his yellow eyes expressing a silent "wut?"

Figures.

Finally he reluctantly points somewhere behind the island.

I climb up the mainmast and sail to nearby shore on my hat. Then climb the sheer cliff to peek out and see... Scuttle Town. Eh...?

I make to jump off the rock, but a nagging suspicion stops me. I turn back to look at the town closely, paying attention to the details. Have they had a fit of historical reconstruction? There are too many old-style buildings and I can't see any water towers nor power lines.

But, most importantly, where in the blazes are the cannon forts that should be framing the bay?

The suspicion is gnawing at me now. I look back at my Tinker Tub dreading the answer. I really look at it.

It's all red highlights and natural wood. The Mk III was never red. Through years it had been purple. It had been black. It had been black and purple and white in a vooodo ghost style. It had been black and green in splotches of zombie-style. But I never, ever painted any of it red.

This is no Mk III. It's either Mk. I or II.

Slowly, carefully like in a bad dream, I turn around to look at where the stocky forward cannon fort should sit, built in place of that girl's...

The lighthouse is there, its red tiled roof almost glowing in the pinkish pre-dawn light. The same lighthouse they had demolished more than a decade ago.

A brief flash of violet light envelops the diminutive tower, then everything is quiet again.

I glide back to my ship. It seems I... I got my birthday present, all right. With a heap and a cherry on top.

I botch my landing and twist my ankle. I laugh like madwoman with realization that folks back home would never believe I wasn't offed by Viper. I howl in abject terror as I realize that the dreaded Pirate Master is back in his grave, planning escape. I cry in relief because I know me and The Pest will clash again. And it will be glorious!

This is the first time I admire do-gooders for their deviousness. I wished to follow her where she went. But in hindsight it's so obvious! If you can twist causality into a pretzel, why send her somewhere unfamiliar if you can simply send her back in time?

It takes me a long time to reign my emotions into a semblance of order. Grinning like a loon, I begin racking my memory for the sequence of events and my plans for the day. I may have good memory, but it's been two decades choke-full of daring adventures!

It won't do to botch my first new old impression, though. I must concentrate, I must remember and improve. This reunion deserves to be special.

( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)

A Hero's work is never done.
- The1upBlock

( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)

A.N. Now go and read my Shantae/Ranma one Half crossover, "Dance, Dance, Rumble", this fic is a prequel of.