Captain Pirate II

The Mephitis

3/12/2019 8:30pm

Ow! @choco loni--no throwing things on the bridge!

Especially at the Captain.

What's everybody staring at? Man your stations! Status report!

Set sail for Chichen Itza. I've always wanted to visit, and I hear it's beautiful this time of year.

The Mephitis

6/11/2019 10:14pm

"I don't always drink Kahlua in my coffee, but when I do, it's in the morning."

CUT! TAKE 42*

"Being an airship captain means both being alert AND inebriated at the oddest hours."

CUT! TAKE 54*

"Drunk and jittery? Welcome to my life!"

CUT! LET'S TAKE FIVE EVERYBODY!*

*translated from the Japanese

This sounded like some easy publicity, plus a bit of bounty on the side for the Captain. Oh, I would have thrown a party for the crew with most of it. Or a fair amount, anyway. But the point is, this has been a lot more work than it was presented.

Our commercial agent said "Hey CP! I know you're on the coffee & Kahlua run, heading north, and there's this Japanese creative agency that's looking to do a Kahula & Coffee campaign AND give Zephyr Air Transport a big plug in the process. All they ask is that you let them have run of the ship on your way north. You know it's milk run. Ha ha get it? That's my Cappy. What I mean is it's an easy trip, and your crew is going to have trouble keeping busy as it is. So you've got a few extra passengers, who are going to be taking a some shots, some footage, some b-roll, maybe have you read a few lines. It'll be fun! I hear your face will be all over the hot canned coffee and Kahlua machines in Tokyo. Plus, there's a little bit of a bonus for the star, if you know what I mean... All I need is to have you sign here..."

"Ah! Mr. Capitan Piratu! Gomen nasai. We are ready to begin once more. But this time, we wish you to fully show the spirit of the Hikōsen, yes? Here, in your eyes. And also in your heart. Gambate Gokurosan!!"

"Hai! So desu ne."

Hard work.

The Mephitis

9/9/2019 11:12pm

"そしてそれは何ですか？ コーヒーとミルクの色です!"

"What? That? Oh it's just some bit of dust, caught up by a whirlwind. Sometimes we see them this high."

We were on the larboard observation deck, the film crew taking some b-roll.

"しかし、顔があります！ そして、角！ 私たちを見ています。 そして私たちに従ってください!"

"Oh, that's just a common perception misperception of people who haven't been airborne for long periods of time before. Objects are closer than they appear, objects appear to have faces and horns, objects appear to the following you. All quite normal for the uninitiated."

Come to think of it, there might have been something about the look of that particular dust devil. I mean, I've seen plenty in my time, but this one seemed especially fresh in my memory. Kind of like the ones I'd see the Doctor working with in Chichen Itza...

"そして、それはこのように向かっています！ 走れ！ 早く!"

Ah, yes, Chichen Itza. It all seems like somebody else's vacation now...

The Mephitis

1/15/2020 10:29pm

サンダーデビル！

コーヒーについてこれについて考えましょう。

"Ah, again please Mr. Capitan Piratu!"*

サンダーデビル！

豊かに醸造され、素晴らしい味がします。

"Please, sir, Mr. Capitan Piratu! Can you please do it again but with more Hikōsen this time? Smolder with with it. Gambate Gokurosan!"

サンダーデビル！

くそファインコーヒー。

"CUT! Ok everybody let's take 15 minutes."*

The camera crew sets down their cameras and boom mikes. I set down the wunderbottle. This one's empty, but they'll stencil the new logo over it with CGI or something. Tell everybody it'll "put a wind in you" or something, coupled with the footage they took of us capturing the big critter.

In the wake of the little incident, the business guy in their team offered me a very tidy sum for the rights to the video they took of the Thunder Devil, and the name. They'll come out with our own brand under their distribution, and The Mephitis will retain royalties of 8% of net profit on all North American sales for 2 years, with an option to renegotiate at that time. I will admit I was still a little distracted getting the ship back shipshape and may not have negotiated the best deal that I could have.

The camera crew seems very satisfied with themselves for bagging such an unexpected windfall. But they're still not happy with my reading. I'm just having trouble understanding the motivations of @Captain Pirate, my former self and nemesis. Was I ever that person? I feel like an imposter, an actor doing an increasingly poor job of playing myself.

Anyway, next stop Bahía de los Ángeles, where we'll be dropping off the camera crew to meet their own company hydrofoil, and seeing what next adventure air commerce brings.

"We are ready again, Mr. Capitan Piratu! Please now, we want you to feel the strength of the airship within you, pulsing through your eyes. Show us the Thunder Devil!"

サンダーデビル！

The Mephitis

5/2/2020 12:45pm

Ah, the Calafia Coast. Such luxury, on account of the magical resonance emanating from the crystal formations that underly the region. You can smell it in the air. It fills all living things with a healthy glow, encouraging MPP (Maximum Potential Presence) for flora and fauna alike. Everyone is full of it, but they're not smug. They're happy to share, and you can't help but get filled up on the energizing rays yourself.

"Hot tub party!"

"See you at the beach!"

"Hey drop by for dinner sometime. Vegetarian all right?"

There's a chain of floating coffee roasters along the coast for several hundred miles, who rely on us not just for the beans and Kahlúa, but for supply chain logistics, as it's easy enough for us to deliver to each roaster on the way. You can practically just smell yourself to the next floating roasting platform, the smell working its way into the eucalyptus and sea air.

They do love their coffee in Calafia.

The Mephitis

9/1/2020 8:04pm

"Mt. Skell?"

"Yes captain," says @Doctor Argosa.

"Yes captain," says @choco loni.

"Well then let's go! What's the problem?"

"It's the airways, sir," says @Doctor Argosa.

"Paranormal Skyways," says @choco loni.

Dang it! They think of everything!

"Ok. Operation Ramen Throwdown. We continue on course, no change in speed."

"But my bullets sir," says @choco loni.

"My Thunderdevil!" says @Doctor Argosa.

"Cutting our loses." says I.

"Helm, steady as she goes. And whatever you do, don't cross over into Paranormal Skyways Authority country."

The Mephitis

1/13/2021 11:25pm

"That's funny. The damage doesn't look as bad from out here," I said, trying to cheer @choco loni up. She was still nursing one of her big bullets back to health, tools sprawled out across the deck.

But it was true. The Ice Zephyrs hadn't been gouging holes in the hull. They'd just been scraping it with their ice blade wings for purchase on the rivets and bands. Once they grappled on, they effectively gained control of the ship, and have been driving us straight for that snow capped volcano. Mt. Skell. There it was, looming massively before us.

"What? Oh, my spyglass. Excellent, uh, ensign, is it? What's your name?"

I forgot it immediately, of course. I'm terrible with names.

"Oooooo! Ow!!! Ice cream headache!!!!"

That eyepiece was mighty cold. I breathed on it a bit.

Mt. Skell. I'd seen images of it on a stereograph, but we always knew those images were doctored. How else would they have put in the little flying saucers, and hairy man bodies? So seeing it in person was really something. It was so... big... and white... and, well, I can't really tell what I'm looking at.

"Captain," said @choco loni.

"What?" I turned.

She pointed up ahead. WOW how did that get there? The spyglass was magnifying things so much, and I guess we were closer than I thought. There, nestled in a valley halfway up the mountain, was a city of magnificent spires. Towers like great white shards, carved from frost. The Ice Zephyrs threaded us through the enormous structures, to a landing field with a mooring post.

And next to the mooring post, a small group of people, bundled in great fur robes.

Guess it was time to meet the welcoming committee.

"Anybody interested in a bottle of iced khalua and cofee?" I called down.

No? No takers?

The Mephitis

5/21/2021 11:40pm

"I was thinking that ice suite was the coldest place I'd ever been," I said, my huffing out steam. "But no, this ice bridge is now the coldest place I've ever been."

@choco loni's Mind Bullet had certainly done a job, blasting out an entire wall of our ice room, then creating this huge arching ice bridge toward the top of Mr. Skell. Like an ice rainbow, leaping up into the snowy heights, blue sky all around, and cold.

"Ow!"

And slippery too.

"@Doctor Argosa, can you tell me we have a plan?"

The Doctor's even more steamy than me, but he isn't slipping as much. What kind of shoes is he wearing?

"My tuning fork astrolabe says my lost Thunder Devil is in this direction. That the Mind Bullet created the bridge in this direction can not be a coincidence."

"Well it's farther away than it looks. I'm sure they're sending 'ice guards' or something after us soon. How far do you think we'll get?"

"Apparently not very. Look, the bridge ends just up ahead!"

Good thing the Doctor was paying attention. It was hard to see where the translucent ice arch suddenly ended and empty air began. And it was a very long drop to the rocks and snow below.

And I couldn't stop sliding. Slowly, but continuously.

"Doctor? Uh, CL? A hand here?"

"Down captain! Spread out! Like this!"

"Uh, that's not really helping doctor... I'm still moving! Form a... a human chain or something!"

"We can't! We'll all go down!"

I look up at choco loni and the doctor.

"Really guys? Like this?"

I'm slipping closer and closer to the edge. Where did I get all this inertia?

Then, the most glorious, abrasive noise I've ever heard shatters the cold air.

HONNNNNNNK! HONNNNNNNNNNK!

It's the air horns on The Mephitis as it rises up to the edge of the bridge.

The Mephitis

10/1/2021 11:04pm

"So, it's mighty dark in here..."

Nobody on the crew says a word. We're only lit up by the lights in the control panels.

"I suppose we still can't turn around... @Doctor Argosa?"

The Doctor mumbles something about magnetic bean rays. Also that the large doors that opened to pull us inside the spaceship have just closed.

"Now it's EXTRA dark in here."

Nobody replies.

"Isn't there supposed to be a beam of light or something when you're abducted? Not some big dark garage."

And suddenly, there WAS light. From everywhere. The brightest most intense light I had ever seen.

"Ow! That's bright!"

The Mephitis

3/22/2022 10:52pm

"Hello again, me!" said @Captain Pirate.

"You! Not again!" I answered. "You were... reset. Reconstituted. You were breaking down -- memory errors."

"Oh come off it. It wasn't because I was broken. It was because I'd SEEN things."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Like them."

Captain Pirate -- my nemesis, my doppelgänger, a dysfunctional version of myself from a prior life -- pointed across the plain white expanse we found ourselves in, and there were @choco loni and @Doctor Argosa, surrounded by more choco lonis and more Doctor Argosas, I, II, III, IV... In fact, it was hard to tell the originals from the--

"There ARE no originals! Don't you see?" said Captain Pirate. "There's an infinite number, probably, of all the different us's out there. And an infinite number of permutations that might call for us."

"But I like my permutation," I said. "Things were just coming along. I was going to be a canned coffee celebrity in Japan!"

"Now that sounds more like it. Just the kind of lifestyle I'm looking for."

"You can't take it. It's mine. I made it. That's why I'm stable -- because in the process of creating that world I became part of it. You... you're nothing but a hijacker! But you don't know how to fly the plane!"

"You have a plane now?"

"Arrrrrrrrrrgh!!!!!!" I cried, and threw myself at Captain Pirate.