THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN TRAUMATIC – 481

“Upon answering a question each, I shall make you my Knights and you will be the subjects of and be protected in return by the Order of the Pirates’ Pandemonium Resolutions.”

“I’m the commander in charge, they answer my orders, leave them aside.”

“It’s as I say.  You’re trespassing on my ship.  You submit to my Command if you want me back with you on planet Earth at your estimated year time of 2578.”

Then Captain Sunblast bends on one knee in front of the Captain who raises his sword above the Captain’s helmet.

“Well, well,” the Captain says, “tell me, aside bringing me and my consorts back to Earth, what is your mission?”

“To make planet Earth great again: it is in grave danger.  You can help resetting its clock.”

Then the Captain asks Captains Starcrusher and Clusterflame the same question.

“To make this shuttle’s time speeding gear to be the greatest,” Captain Starcrusher answers.

“To make my country great again,” Clusterflame says.

Then the Captain, in silence, gently lowers his sword on Captain’s Sunblast’s right shoulder before laying it on his helmet.  Labaguette following the blade’s movement at a short distance, takes up each of the sword’s position, eager to be once again part of this long lost ritual.  As the tip of the blade touches the helmet a second time, the helmet cracks open and shatters onto the planks of the Insatiable Princess.

“Breathe!” Captain Traumatic orders as Captain Sunblast opens his eyes wide revealing some state of panic, anticipating his imminent death before uttering a smile, realising he won’t die just yet.

To be continued…

THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN TRAUMATIC – 480

“The Insatiable Mermaid is no more.  She earned her title of Princess through hard work and enduring loyalty.”

“She’s a ship.”

“Note that the Captain forgot his name eons ago,” the Fool remarks, beaming, “he forgot it but he is now forgetting it on purpose.  As to the Insatiable Princes we—”

“—Suppose I did.  Suppose I forgot my name.  What do you want from me?” Captain Traumatic asks.

“We’ve orders to bring you back to Earth.”

“I’m a pirate.  I am the proud owner of the most indomitable, rebellious and nomadic soul there is.”

“Is it Moi?” Labaguette asks.

“Shut up fuckwit!” the Captain says.”

“Captain, we must be getting back on the road.  Time is precious when you travel afar.  Time storms abound and these can distract our compasses.  We need to get back to the year we left, give or take a few seconds or a few weeks.”

“And what year was that?” the Fool asks.

“2578.”

“We were there before you,” the Captain remarks, “your time doesn’t suit us.  If you want to take us back to Earth, you take us back to 1602.”

“It could be done but only once we’ve gotten back to our year first.”

“Why?”

“We must take you there with a more appropriate shuttle, one which travels unambiguously backwards in time and one which could contain your ship.”

“Prove you are from Earth,” the Captain says.

“Make me your Knight and let us guide you back to Earth.”

“Well then, first, take your armour or this ludicrous hat off.”

“We wouldn’t be able to survive without this attire, Sir Anectodick.”

“I’ve no such attire and I live.”

“Couldn’t breathe without it.”

“You poor sod, must be a terrible disease.”

To be continued…

THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN TRAUMATIC – 479

Labaguette perches on Captain Sunblast’s shoulder and examines the printed note.

“This bird sitting on my Captain’s hat looks like me, a very close resemblance but….  You painted that?”

“It is you Labaguette.”

In the air around them, an invisible, powerful gasp of surprise is expressed and felt.  Captain Traumatic and Labaguette look at each other, confused for the first second, knowingly for the last two.

“What do you want from us?  Why are we your prisoners?” the Captain asks.

“We’ve come in peace.  We’ve been searching for you for many centuries.  We come from planet Earth, your planet, our planet, to save you.  You hold a key, that of timelessness.  You’ve achieved the impossible.  I repeat, we come in peace.  We will show you the way back to Earth and to where you came from exactly.”

“I am not who you say I am.  Release us and pass your way.”

“You are who you are whom you say you are not.  You’re the one, the one who fell from Earth, the only one.  You created flexibility out of a fixed and rigid mathematical rule.”

“I fell…” the Captain says, frowning, “Indeed I fell.  I fell with Labaguette and the Insatiable Princess but you are mistaken.  How could you possibly know about it?  You come disguised.  In truth, you’re pirates after my rum.”

“We travel through time.  We can look into past and in future by calculating the exact parallel upon which one was or will be travelling and find every information to retrace one such road or pathway or parallel.  What is more, the Insatiable Princess’ real name is the Insatiable Mermaid, why—”

To be continued…

THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN TRAUMATIC – 478

Imprinted on their suits, in bright shiny fluorescent colours, the letters and symbols of the Nasa Recovery Space Shuttle, CT Mission sparkle and dazzle for all to see, for all to notice.

“Howdy!” Labaguette says, saluting with one wing lifted.

The Fool runs around the cosmonauts, pulling faces, dancing, jingling his wand like a mad sorcerer in trance.

“Enough!” the Captain orders, walking towards them, his brain scanning for answers within: Why the armour? He wonders, Why the helmets?  Inside they look human but if they were to remove their protective gear, what would we find inside?  Are they who they pretend to be?  What do they want?”

But the three cosmonauts stop, stand still and straight, their right arm reaching for their forehead, an unexpected salute.

“This is suspicious,” the Captain thinks as he walks around them, “they don’t know me.  I’m a pirate.  A first rate pirate, a true blue pirate:  known beyond and above all other creatures across space for my…   my rum trade.”

“You’re looking for rum?”

“Are you the Captain of this ship?”

“I’ve plenty of it.  I will negotiate with you once you show us the way out of here.  It isn’t safe.  Are we your prisoners?”

Upon these last words, the middle and taller cosmonaut takes a steps forward:

“Ay, Ay Captain Errol Seth Anectodick, we salute you.”

“You’re mistaken.  I’m Captain Traumatic.”

“Not mistaken.  You are the long lost Captain Anectodick we have been searching for.  See?” the cosmonaut says holding a piece of paper with the face of Captain Traumatic printed on it.

“Who are you?”

“Captain Ford Sunblast, and this is Joe Starcrusher, second in command, and third is Bill Clusterflame.  At your service Captain Anectodick.”

To be continued…

THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN TRAUMATIC – 477

The Insatiable Princess’s wood screeches once more under the speed’s immense and close to unsustainable pressure it must bear along with the spin it has to extricate itself from.  Behind them, a small black hole forms, so black one would get sucked in just looking at it.  In a split second of eternity, the Insatiable Princess transports Captain Traumatic, Labaguette, Birdseye and a Fool out of the danger zone.

Exhausted by her heroic effort, the Insatiable’s Princess slows down as her sails unravel, fall flat against the masts and she comes to a stop.

“We must keep going!” Captain Traumatic urges.

“I need a rest,” Labaguette insists.

“Now is not the time,” the Captain says.

“Where to?” Birdseye asks.

“Even he who must know doesn’t know, doesn’t know, doesn’t know,” the Fool’s empty sneering words echo in the dark, in the empty space surrounding them.

“There are no stars,” Labaguette remarks, “nothing.  Any maps Captain?”

“Never mind where,” the Captains answers, “anywhere better than here.  The Insatiable Princess never does loops.”

“She has stalled, Captain,” Birdseye insists.

“This is entrapment.”

“Entrapment of a third kind,” the Fool suggests.

“Get back into King’s form, Fool,” the Captain commands, “you’re of no use.”

“This is the cloud, the veil that clouded all that I could not see before,” Birdseye remarks, “our path has been interfered with.  We are in a bubble.”

“Precisely.”

“The particles—”

And just like that, a thump is heard and felt by the side of the ship.  Soon, three cosmonauts, climb aboard, each presenting a ‘V’ sign with their index and middle fingers.

“What are they?” the Fool asks.

“They come in peace,” Birdseye confirms.

To be continued…

THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN TRAUMATIC – 476

“You believe in your ‘impossible’ now?” Labaguette asks.

“I adapt.  I learn from my mistakes,” Birdseye says, “even if extremely rare.”

“Say you’re sorry,” Labaguette urges.

“Not a real mistake.  Vision was clouded by—”

“—There’s no time,” the Captain insists, “the platform is going into a spin.  We must leave.”

This is exactly when a zooming giant Monkey with a flag and an egg in one arm and a King in the other, bursts past their eyes, all lit up and ululating, a bunch of smaller monkeys attached to his legs.  They merely pass by them and lift up fast before disappearing beyond the rolling universe.

“By Jove!” the Captain exclaims, “the Syck Monckey!”

“Clouded by what?” Labaguette asks Birdseye.

“By—”

“—there is no time, did you hear me?  BACK TO YOUR POSTS NOW!” Captain Traumatic thunders.

As the Insatiable Princess gains in distance and speed, an entire universe begins to topple onto itself with the platform starting a slow, relentless spin that attracts everything into its path.

“The egg’s weight disturbed the gravity of this universe,” Birdseye explains with Labaguette perched on his shoulder, “it wasn’t meant to be here.  It belongs to the Syck Monckey.”

“We’ll never know its secrets.”

“It is the original Egg Labaguette,” Birdseye affirms, “the One.  The Egg of creation.  Nothing would exist as we know it if this Egg didn’t exist.”

“Get to business!” King Krackskull yells, looking more like the Fool he has become, than a King, “get to business,” he says, his crown now a mere copper circle surrounding his head, one perennial, sagging flower sprouting from it, in need of care.

To be continued…

THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN TRAUMATIC – 475

And yet…

“I feel dizzy,” Labaguette says, passing one of his wings by his face, a diva in the making.

“You’re all fixed Labaguette,” the Captain says, “you can’t have one of your turns again, not now, now ever.  Don’t need your crap.”

Labaguette takes flight.

“It feels better in the air,” he says, “look!  Everything is sliding on the Insatiable Princess.  Do you believe me know?”

Captain Traumatic rushes to free the ship from the platform as the slanting increases.

Further adrift, the King-of-all-Things has swum to the edge of the platform.  He leans forward, using his mighty powers, or what is left of them, conjuring the egg to fly back to him.  Behind him, three monkeys are catching up, victorious in having retrieved a flag, yet all too eager to catch what fell and the fallen a second from now.

“The stars around us are tipping in the same direction as the platform,” Labaguette remarks.

“Impossible,” Birdseye says.

“But true,” the Captain adds.

“A BAAAABOOOOORD!” Labaguette urges once more.

“A Babord!” King Krackskull repeats, an odd smile parading at the tip of his lips.

The platform has now reached a 180 degrees angle, it is perpendicular to the Insatiable Princess.  Everything is sliding from the platform: a never ending supply of water, mountains and turtles unnoticed before, all are falling into the vast nothingness.  This is happening straight after the King-of-all-Things fell from it, still believing he could attract the Egg back, with three Monkeys riding a flag zooming past this King at an impossible speed, hoping to catch the Egg, hoping all the while their father isn’t far behind.

“This entire universe is falling onto itself,” the Captain murmurs.

“It is only the beginning,” Birdseye comments.

To be continued…