X Marks the Spot

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Here's a fic with Isaac as the Pirate King and the Adepts being his merry crew. Of course, everyone is playing nicely. I can't see our favourite Adepts being bad pirates...

Camelot owns Golden Sun.

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"I still can't believe I am the King of Pirates. It feels great to be a King," Isaac declared, walking up and down the deck of the ship. Everyone was having a nice little vacation now that troublesome quest was over and Isaac had promptly decided they should be pirates. Nice pirates, that was. His merry crew of pirates weren't really complaining either.

"So, have you thought of who is going to be your Queen?" Mia asked innocently, looking at Isaac with wide, hopeful eyes. "May I also say that your crown is quite fetching?" She promptly smiled angelically.

"Oh, come on, Mia, it's not that great," Isaac protested sheepishly, reaching up to adjust it. He was actually wearing a cut out piece of cardboard painted gold. Nobody knew where in Weyard they could buy a proper crown after all and it would probably be ridiculously expensive. "Hmm, I haven't decided who is going to be my Queen yet."

"Your hair looks very nice too," Mia said, her smile growing even wider. She would get Isaac to make her his Queen, no matter what. "And I think that you are quite handsome."

"Hey, Isaac!" Jenna zoomed over, pushing Mia out of the way. The Imilian promptly let out a cry of shock as Jenna stepped very close to Isaac and quickly unstrapped her vest. "Oh, no. My vest just came undone," she said in mock dismay, looking down.

Isaac looked dryly at her shirt, wondering if she realised he'd noticed her undoing it herself. Before he could say anything, Mia promptly shoved Jenna aside.

"I really like your eyes as well," Mia said quickly before Jenna could retaliate. "They make me think of a beautiful, clear day. You are definitely the most..."

Jenna silently fumed and walked away. That Mia had quite a nerve to flirt so brazenly with Isaac like that. Well, she could pull one better over her. Jenna walked over to where Piers was sitting on a barrel and watching seagulls flying overhead.

"Piers?" Jenna looked at him pleadingly with wide puppy-dog eyes. "I was wondering if you could possibly do me a favour."

"Oh, sure. Anything for you," Piers said, turning to look at her. "What do you want me to do?"

"Soak my shirt," Jenna replied, pulling her vest away to expose her shirt. "Please?"

Piers stared at her, plainly appalled. He couldn't possibly begin to imagine why Jenna would ask him to do such a thing.

"Come on!" Jenna said impatiently, frowning at him. "If you don't, Isaac will make Mia his Queen and I won't even get to be one."

"I see," Piers said slowly, still staring at her in disbelief. He awkwardly raised a hand, using his Psynergy to douse Jenna's top with a generous amount of water. "You realise you'll have to change that shirt, don't you?"

"Yes," Jenna said curtly. She turned and hurried back to where Mia was still trying to charm Isaac. Isaac was simply listening to her, though he was beginning to get a little scared of Mia.

"Your scarf. I love your scarf, Isaac," Mia said, reaching out and touching the silky yellow material. "It really, really suits you. You should never take it off."

"Uh, thanks?" Isaac said uncertainly, frowning at her. What was she trying to do?

"Isaac!" Jenna walked up, pushing Mia away and walking up to him with a big grin. "You know, it's been ages since we had a long and meaningful chat. Why don't we have one now?"

"Uh, Jenna, do you know your top is wet?" Isaac asked, trying not to stare at a certain pair of very prominent nipples poking through her shirt. "Maybe you should... go and change?"

"I should be your Queen!" Mia cried out, moving in front of Jenna.

"No, I should!" Jenna protested, pushing her away in annoyance.

Isaac let out a loud groan and walked away, shaking his head. Maybe he shouldn't have said anything about deciding on a Queen after all.

"Oh dear. I think you upset him." Mia frowned at Jenna disapprovingly. "Now you ruined it."

"What? It was totally your fault as well!" Jenna argued.

"It was not! You went way too far with that," Mia protested, looking in disgust at Jenna's soaked shirt. "Flaunting your assets just to become Queen?"

"Well, I did it better than you," Jenna replied, putting her hands on her hips. "I mean, you were even complimenting his scarf. Do you even know how to flirt?"

"Hey, girls." Garet approached them. "What are you two fighting about?"

"Jenna sabotaged my chance to become Queen!" Mia exclaimed peevishly.

"I did not! She was the one who ruined it," Jenna said accusingly, turning to look at Garet while jabbing a finger at Mia. "I was doing better than her."

Garet had fallen silent and was now staring several inches south of Jenna's face. Jenna frowned and dropped her gaze, realising where exactly Garet was looking. Her face flooded bright crimson and she sharply slapped him. Garet winced, clutching his cheek. "Stop looking at my breasts, you pervert!"

"You let Isaac look," Mia pointed out as Jenna hurriedly retied her vest. "Why did you slap Garet?"

"I was just doing this to get a chance at becoming Queen," Jenna said. She saw that Garet now looked like a kicked puppy. Maybe she had gone too far there. "Sorry about that. Maybe if you become the next Mayor, I'll have a treat for you."

"Are you power hungry or something?" Mia exclaimed, shaking her head in disbelief and walking away. Jenna was definitely a strange and scary person. "What is up with that girl?" she muttered to herself.

"You were trying to get Isaac to make you his Queen?" Garet asked in confusion.

"Yeah, that's right. But Mia was trying too and we kind of screwed it up." Jenna sighed. "Anyway, I'd better go and get changed. I don't want to wear a wet shirt all day." She turned and walked to the cabin, pausing briefly to read the sign that had been pinned up next to the door.

"Rules for Isaac the Pirate King's Merry Crew," declared the piece of paper. "One. No Plundering, Looting, Stealing, Robbing or Thievery. Two. Kidnapping is against the rules, unless it has something to do with saving the world. Three. Please don't drink all the rum."

Jenna sighed in exasperation and walked into the cabin. Isaac wasn't terribly good with rules, and anyway, who was going to go around plundering? They were all being very nice pirates and hoping they didn't run into any evil pirates. Sadly, the giant flag with the skull and crossbones flapping from the mast would probably bring in droves of pirate ships looking to loot their ship.

She was about to head toward her room to get changed when she heard drunken giggles coming from the direction of the kitchen. Jenna frowned and hurried toward the kitchen, where she found Ivan and Sheba gulping down mugs that were most likely full of rum.

"Oh, hi!" Sheba giggled and looking guiltily at her mug. "I just thought I'd... see what rum was like. You won't tell, will you?"

"So this ish what being drunk is like," Ivan mumbled, his head hitting the table. Rum sloshed out the side of his mug. "I see why Isaac didn't want us drinking it. It'sh so good."

"Aren't you two a little young for this stuff?" Jenna asked.

"I think so..." Sheba swayed and then fell off her chair. "Oh dear. I fell off the chair."

"Heh. That's funny." Ivan grinned and burst out laughing.

"Ugh." Jenna didn't feel like spending any longer around the two, so she turned and walked out of the kitchen in annoyance. Isaac should have just forbidden the younger Adepts from drinking his precious rum. She walked to her bedroom, hoping that Sheba getting wasted would mean Isaac not even considering her for the position of Queen.

Meanwhile, back out on the deck, Isaac was sitting on the barrel next to Piers and attempting to strike up conversation with him. Piers was still quite confused about Jenna's odd request and very interested in what the seagulls were doing. Really, they weren't doing more than just flying around, but he quite liked seagulls.

"So, Piers, does this ship have a name?" Isaac inquired. "It isn't simply called Lemurian Ship, is it? That would be so boring."

"No, I'm afraid that it doesn't have a name," Piers replied, turning his gaze away from the seagulls to look at Isaac instead. "How long are you planning on having that flag up there anyway?" He gestured at the mast disapprovingly. "It is quite unsightly."

"We're pirates!" Isaac exclaimed, as if it should have been obvious. "We have to have a skull and crossbones flag on our ship. How else would people know that we were pirates? Anyway, have you ever thought of giving it a name?"

"Well, a long time ago when I was still called Picard, I considered calling the ship the Enterprise, but then some guy named Paramount threatened to sue, so I didn't." Piers shrugged. "There you go."

Isaac stared blankly at him. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh... now that I think about it, that was just some odd dream." Piers chuckled nervously. "Sorry about that. No, I haven't thought of any names. Does the ship really need a name?"

"Of course it does!" Isaac cried out in shock. "Every ship should have a name. Hey, why don't you give it a pirate type name. Like... the Jolly Roger?"

"Who is Roger?" Piers asked, looking unimpressed. Who did Isaac think he was, trying to take control of his own ship?

"I don't know. It's just a name, okay?" Isaac exhaled deeply in exasperation. "What about the Black Pearl? Or the Interceptor?"

"I wonder how many types of seagulls there are..." Piers had turned back to stare at the seagulls, pointedly ignoring Isaac. He refused to let Isaac name his ship. That ugly flag was bad enough.

"Geez... whatever happened to that ship Babi gave me anyway?" Isaac muttered, getting up from the barrel. How strange, he hadn't wondered about it until now. Where had it got to? He approached the tiller, wondering if he should ask Garet, who was currently bothering Felix, about it.

"Your sister is insane," Garet complained to the brunet Venus Adept. "She practically flashed her breasts at Isaac to try and become the Queen and then I stared at them and she slapped me!"

"Why were you staring at her breasts?" Felix gave him a dangerous look that make him quake in his boots.

"No, no!" Garet exclaimed. "You've got it all wrong! She just made her shirt wet so that... you know. Jenna didn't take it off or anything." He stopped, noticing that Felix was still looking particularly mad. "Are you going to kill me now?"

"Hey, Garet." Isaac interrupted the conversation before Felix could give Garet an earful. "Do you remember what happened to the ship that Babi gave us?"

"Uh... no? Did you leave it on Atteka?" Garet asked. "That would kind of make sense, you know. That's we got off it..."

"Yeah. It couldn't have gone anywhere either because I still have the Black Orb." Isaac shrugged. "I guess I just forgot about it. Whoops." He turned and walked away, wondering if he would ever actually see the ship again. How careless was that, leaving their ship alone on a continent?

"So... uh..." Garet shifted uncomfortably, wondering how he could turn the topic away from Jenna's assets before Felix slaughtered him. "What are we actually doing anyway? Are we just sailing around and pretending to be pirates?"

"Apparently, we're looking for buried treasure." Felix rolled his eyes and pulled an old looking piece of parchment out of his pocket. Garet took the parchment, looking at it curiously. "Isaac found some old map with a cross on it so he wants us to go there."

"Huh?" Garet stared at the map. It depicted a continent, plus two landmarks labeled Izumo and Gaia Rock. A big, red X was marked between the two, with a note describing a place. Apparently, there was some cave hidden in the trees. "What does the X mean?"

"It's where there's buried treasure." Felix gave him a scornful look and took back the map. "X marks the spot. Haven't you ever seen a treasure map before?"

"No." Garet pouted, feeling offended. Did Felix have to make him feel like an idiot? "Where did Isaac find that anyway?"

"In one of the bookshelves on the ship," Felix said. "I wonder how a treasure map even got in there though. The Lemurians probably aren't particularly familiar with Izumo."

"Huh. That's weird." Garet decided he should make his escape now that Felix had forgotten about his accidental perviness and ran for it, letting out a sigh of relief when Felix didn't come after him.

Isaac had gone into the cabin and come back out with a mug full of rum. Ivan and Sheba had disappeared, so he wasn't aware of them being drunk. He walked over to Mia, who was leaning on the side of the ship and watching dolphins. "Hey, Mia. Do you think we're actually passing for pirates?"

"Honestly?" Mia looked around skeptically. "No. I don't think we are. But if you want a Pirate Queen, I'm willing to be."

"You know what? Deadbeard didn't have a spouse or significant, unless he had some kind of relationship with that Mimic I would rather not know about." Isaac took a long, slow sip of his rum. "So I don't think I need a Queen right now. Sorry about that."

"Oh, okay then." Mia let out a small sigh. The chance to become Queen had been so close. "But if you'd had to choose, would you have picked me or Jenna?"

"Nice try." Isaac quickly turned and left before Mia could question him any further.

Eventually, the ship reached Izumo and the crew of pirate Adepts quickly disembarked from the ship, eager to go searching for treasure. None of them noticed that Ivan and Sheba were missing, but when there was treasure to be found, who really cared if two of them had decided to stay back on the ship instead? The two Jupiter Adepts were currently passed out in one of the bedrooms. Someone was not going to be happy when they found their room smelling of vomit.

Despite the fact Isaac was supposed to be the King, he let Felix read the map and lead the party toward the mysterious cave hidden in the trees somewhere between Gaia Rock and Izumo. Felix suspected that Isaac was just being lazy, but he decided not to say it, since Isaac would probably use his "Kingly" powers to deal punishment. In Felix's opinion, Isaac had really let all this go to his head. They should never have told him about the pirates' chat they overheard in Alhafra.

Eventually, they found a thick covering of trees in the approximate location the map pointed out and wandered through the small wood, searching for the cave. Luckily, it wasn't so difficult to find and they now stood in front of a large cave, peering into the dark opening.

"Buried treasure awaits, huh?" Garet was starting to get excited. "I wonder what it is."

"Maybe it will be a chest filled with gold, oh, and jewelery!" Mia clapped her hands together, her eyes sparkling. "There will be lots of beautiful things for me to wear. Oh... I really hope it's true."

"Or how about a special weapon?" Piers suggested. "Perhaps a sword or something."

"Nah, it's got to be gold," Isaac said firmly. "What else would be hidden in a cave waiting for us? That's what pirates want, right? Gold, and lots of it."

"I still don't understand why a map pointing to this place would be on a Lemurian ship," Felix said, looking quite confused. "Wouldn't you expect it to be in Lemuria?"

"Maybe it's just a really, really old map. The Lemurians used to leave their city and travel in the Golden Age, right?" Jenna asked.

"That's right," Piers replied. "They did a lot of trading back then. It's not too hard to believe a Lemurian went to Izumo, buried treasure in this cave and left a map hidden in the ship for someone to find, is it?"

"It's still kind of weird." Felix sighed. "But, I guess you might be right, Piers. Let's go in and look for the treasure then."

The group proceeded into the dark and mysterious cave, wondering where the treasure was. It actually appeared to be a fairly small cave so it didn't look as if they would have to do a lot of searching. Their search took them all the way to the very back of the cave, before a mysterious voice stopped them in their tracks.

"Arrgh!"

"What was that?" Mia yelped, latching onto Isaac. Isaac patted her head reassuringly as she shuddered. Apparently, her nerves were highly strung inside dark caves.

"It came from right in front of us," Jenna said, as she and Garet summoned fireballs to light up the cave. They were surprised to see a person standing in front of them. "What the heck?"

"It's a ghost!" Garet cried out.

"Yee-arrgh! I am no ghost!" cried the figure, waving a cutlass over his head, upon which he wore an elaborate black pirate hat with a skull and crossbones pattern on it.

"Polly wants a cracker!" squawked the bright red parrot sitting above his shoulder.

The Adepts fell silent, staring in disbelief at the man with long, blue hair who stood before them. He looked almost the same as last time they had seen him, except he was wearing strange clothing, had a parrot with him and happened to have a wooden leg and an eye patch as well.

"Alex!" Jenna exclaimed in shock. "Why are you here?"

"Arr! I be a pirate now, mateys!" Alex chuckled. "But it is not enough just being a pirate, arr! I desire to be the King o' Pirates, yarr!"

"Someone please kill me," Felix said in a flat voice. "I can't take anymore of this already."

"You have got to be kidding me!" Garet shouted. "Did you read the Big Book of Pirate Cliches and try to use them all for the heck of it?"

"Arr, that I did. Ah woulda liked a hook for a hand, but I likes me hands." Alex shrugged. "So, I chopped off me leg! Arr, do yeh like me pirate accent?"

"It is a horrible accent," Piers said stonily. "Please just stop trying to speak with an accent. You are hurting our ears."

"Okay, okay, let's just try and make sense of this weird situation." Isaac stepped forward. "Alex, did you know about the treasure buried here? You tried to take it before us, right?"

Alex stared at Isaac for a few seconds, then burst out laughing.

"Buried treasure!" Polly squawked. "The buried treasure is in another castle!"

"We aren't in a castle," Felix protested. Then he realised he was correcting a parrot and sighed in disgust. This was just too ridiculous for words.

"There be no buried treasure, yarr!" Alex cackled, waving his cutlass around again. "I tricked yeh all!"

"I thought I just said to speak properly." Piers was about to lose his temper at this point. Where had Alex managed to pick up such an awful accent?

"After my defeat at Mt. Aleph by that scurvy Wise One, I decided to become a Pirate, arrgh!" Alex declared. "So I took to the seas, becoming a fine swashbuckler, and got myself Polly here. I even sacrificed me leg for a wooden one, arr."

"What about the eyepatch?" Mia asked. "Did you remove an eye too?"

"Nah." Alex pulled up the eyepatch, revealing his other eye which was very much intact. "I just wear it for show, arr."

"Ugh. I feel sick," Jenna complained. "You really are a moron, Alex."

"Alright, Alex. There's no buried treasure here?" Isaac asked. "But what about the map?"

"I sneaked onto yer ship and planted the map there," Alex explained. "Then I came all the way here and lay in wait, arr. Ah knew yeh would come for the treasure."

"He kind of sounds like Lord McCoy now," Garet whispered to Isaac, who just rolled his eyes despairingly. "Wait, so there's no treasure and you tricked us into coming here? What did you do that for?"

"To claim the title of King o' Pirates!" Alex pointed at Isaac. "You defeated the Pirate King himself, Deadbeard, and claimed the title for yourself. However, I now intend to defeat you in battle and take the title for myself. Uh... yarr." In the heat of the moment, he had forgotten to speak with an accent. This was quite difficult indeed.

"I see." Isaac frowned. Listening to Alex go on like this and seeing how ridiculous he looked was almost enough to make Isaac think twice on this King of Pirates nonsense, but he just had to remember that real pirates weren't this bad. Okay, so they were usually evil and thieves at that, but still they were kind of cool. "Well, I can't let you do that."

"Alex shall be the Pirate King!" Polly squawked. "Alex shall get the rest of the Golden Sun too!"

"Be quiet, Polly!" Alex snapped, as gasps rose up from the crowd of Adepts standing before him. "Aw, crap. That was the other part of my grand plan too. I was going to keep it quiet."

"Alex talks about Mia in his sleep!" Polly continued. The parrot then began imitating Alex. "Kiss me again, Mia. I want to hold you, Mia. Let's make lo-" It was promptly stifled as Alex stuffed a cracker into its beak.

"Sorry about that." Alex smiled fakely. "Isaac, you may not be aware of this, but you have part of the Golden Sun which I didn't get and I want it."

"You sure want a lot of things," Isaac said dryly. "Are you aware you completely stopped speaking like a pirate?"

"Hush!" Piers exclaimed. "Do you really want him to start that up again?"

"I shall claim the title and the Golden Sun, yarr!" Alex pointed his cutlass at Isaac in a threatening manner. "Let us duel. I will defeat you, scurvy cur!"

"Do you even know what those words mean?" Felix asked tiredly.

"Do I have to? I'm just speaking like a pirate, yarrgh!" Alex stepped toward Isaac, grinning. "What are yeh waiting for? Duel with me!"

"This is really hard to take seriously," Isaac said in a monotone as he drew the Sol Blade from its sheath. "If you just wanted the title, I would probably just have lobbed my crown at you and left. But if you want the rest of Alchemy, I guess we have to fight."

"Arr! Take me seriously, ye scurvy braggart! Yee-arrgh!" Alex rushed at Isaac, who quickly stepped aside. Everyone else quickly backed away to put distance between themselves and Alex. "Yeh are going down, arr!"

"You know, I thought that traitorous megalomaniac Alex was bad." Mia sighed and shook her head. "But pirate Alex is even worse."

"Polly wants more crackers!" Polly exclaimed shrilly. "Give Polly more crackers!" The parrot promptly started pecking at Alex's free eye. "Crackers for Polly!"

"Argh! Ow! My eye! My EYE! I can't see!" Alex flailed around in pain, apparently forgetting that he could simply remove the eyepatch if he wanted to see.

"Whoah. That is a psycho parrot." Jenna shuddered as she watched the parrot continue to angrily peck at Alex and demand crackers. "Is Alex not feeding it enough or something?"

"I bet it was Alex's horrible accent that drove the parrot psycho," Felix suggested.

"More than likely," Garet grumbled, watching as Isaac calmly walked up behind the screaming Alex and impaled him with the Sol Blade. "Wow. That wasn't much of a duel."

"Blame the parrot." Isaac drew back the sword and Alex collapsed in a pool of blood. "I just thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of Alex's weak moment, but I kind of would have liked a proper duel."

The indignant parrot let out a loud squawk and flew out of the cave, never to be seen again.

"Yeeeeee-arrrrrrrrgh!" Alex screamed before going limp.

"Never mind, Isaac. I'm sure plenty of pirates out there will be willing to try and take your title," Mia said encouragingly. "It sounds pretty exciting, doesn't it?"

"At least they will be proper pirates and not trying too hard like that dying idiot over there," Piers said hopefully, sounding quite disgusted after what he had witnessed.

"It's too bad we didn't get to find any treasure." Jenna sighed in disappointment. "It was all just a prank."

"Yeah. I was hoping we would find some really nice stuff." Mia glared at Alex.

"Don't worry, guys, I'm sure we'll find some real maps out there and we can go looking for buried treasure," Isaac said, looking determined. "There is nothing that Isaac the Pirate King cannot do."

"Yeah! Let's go landlubbering!" Garet said excitedly. "This pirate stuff doesn't really seem so bad, so long as we don't encounter morons like Alex."

"And, please, let's not get any parrots, okay?" Jenna was still feeling quite creeped out after having seen Polly attack Alex like that over crackers.

"So, does anyone notice that Ivan and Sheba aren't with us?" Felix asked. Everyone looked around in surprise, realising that he was right. "Eh, we probably left them back at the ship. Whatever are they doing?"

"Last I saw them, they were drinking rum," Jenna said. "I think they were heavily drunk too."

"What?" Isaac yelled in shock. "They were getting drunk off my rum?"

"Your rum?" Piers asked. "Since when?"

"That doesn't matter right now," Isaac said in frustration. "I swear, if all the rum's gone, they are going to pay for that. Let's hurry back to the ship now."

When everyone returned to the ship, Ivan and Sheba were still passed out in a random bedroom and had not consumed any more rum, much to Isaac's relief. He quite liked rum after all. Garet was not so impressed though.

"Aw, man!" Garet exclaimed as he saw the piles of vomit all over the floor. Ivan was lying down on his bed, snoozing loudly, and Sheba was draped over a chair, also sleeping soundly. "Why did they have to go and throw up in my room?"

"Ew." Jenna looked past Garet into the room. "I guess they really can't handle their drink after all. It's a good thing we didn't bring them with us to the cave. Can you imagine what might have happened?"

Outside, on the deck of the ship, Mia thought it would be a good idea to try again, so she walked up to Isaac and smiled. "You know, I thought you were really heroic, the way you so bravely defeated Alex."

Isaac stared at her. Stabbing Alex in the back while a parrot was pecking his eye had been brave and heroic? "Mia, are you trying to get me to take you as my Queen again?"

"Yes." Mia looked away glumly. What would it take for Isaac to accept her? This was getting annoying fast.

Piers sat down on a barrel and returned to calmly watching the seagulls. Seagulls didn't like crackers and randomly peck people's eyes out to try and get them, did they? Of course they didn't. But still, he couldn't help feeling slightly unnerved after seeing that psychotic parrot in action. Watching the seagulls was no longer calming anymore. Piers sighed and hung his head in disappointment. It had been one of his favourite activities too.

Felix quietly concentrated on sailing the ship away from Izumo, guiding it back toward Vale. They could now all go home and relax and hopefully forget about that horrifying thing they had all witnessed in the cave. He wasn't thinking of the parrot either.