Pamela, Green Garey and Purple Perry had just trudged through the shattered glass of the liquor storage railcar and were crossing the narrow divide between the next railcar.

“Look Purple Perry all aye’m sayeing is, the only knots ye should truly need to know to sarrgceed on the seventy skayes is the glove hitch and the pretsel!”

“Green Garey if ye arrrrgen’t using the figyarrr nayene knot aye don’t know what in the hen ye arrrr doing.”

“Can we please talk about literally anything else?” Pamela rolled her eyes.

SHHHHBP

The door to the railcar in front of them slid open and a burning passenger ran out and screamed hysterically.

“Don’t worry, we’re members of the Royal Gourd. We are here to protect you.”

The passenger screamed again and jumped off the narrow walkway to the boundless sky below.

SHHHHBP

The door to the railcar behind them slid open and two men ran past them, one large and wearing strong lipstick and the other quite small with an absurdly long cigarette holder.

“Excrete us! Coming through!” explained the lipstick man.

Also Pamela could’ve sworn for a second she saw some sort of an ostrich in there.

SHHHHBP

The door to the railway car in front of Pamela, Green Garey and Purple Perry slid shut again. It was now that Pamela realized they were still talking about knots. She was getting ready to scream, when—

“YAAAAAaaaarg!” growled a voice from above, and the skyacht captain fell on his back between the three Royal Gourdians.

“Well aye’ll be hamned,” Green Garey gaped.

Purple Perry gave a startled whistle of aggreance.

“Avast ye!” growled the captain, pulling himself to his feet. “Say…aye think aye’ve seen ye two befoarrr…”

“Tharrrt’s because ye harrve…Yellow Yancy!” It was all Green Garey could do to keep himself from gasping as the words left his lips.

“Yellow Yancy?” Pamela cocked her head to the side and began sketching imaginatively.

“Why Yellow Yancey aye nevarrr thought aye’d see ye arrgain!” Purple Perry sputtered.

“Aye too thought so. Aye too.”

“Um, Green Garey, I know this is a dramatic moment but can I ask you something?”

“Go fer it.”

“This guy isn’t you’re dad, is he?”

“Wharrt? We don’t look anything alike, Parrmela!”

Pamela looked at Green Garey and Yellow Yancey and noticed their peg legs, hook hands, beards, eye patches…

“Okay I guess you don’t.”

“He is me fatharrr’s brotharr!”

“You mean he’s you’re uncle?”

“Aye!”

“Tharrt aye am,” nodded Yellow Yancey with a smirk. “And ye know what else? If ye hadn’t figured it out yet?”

Everyone else looked at eachother, blinked and shrugged.

“Well?” Yellow Yancey nagged.

“We don’t know what else ye spineless cow parrttie!” growled Purple Perry.

“Yer fatharr didn’t just disappeaarrr in a puff of skysand, Green Garey.”

“Avast ye?!”

“I feel like I’m watching a soap opera,” Pamela snickered.

“He arrrgctually got a rarrrrg case of ass-whooping cough right befoarrr aye was to be convicted. Baye him. Foarr commiting the crayeme of skyracey!”

“So the rumors are true!! Ye are indeed a skyrate, Yellow Yancey?!”

“Aye matey. Aye am indeed. And ye know what that makes ye, Green Garey?”

“What? Dehydrated?”

“Naye, thought that very well could also be the case. It makes ye related to a skyrate! The one thing ye hate the most! ARRRGHAHAHAHAAARRRR!”

“Was any of this supposed to be news to anyone?” Pamela snorted.

“Aye don’t know arrbout all this, aye juarrst don’t know,” Purple Perry interjected, waving his hook in a mediative fashion, “Yellow Yancey, ye capn’ a skyacht, not a skyship. What in the hen kind of a skyrate does that make ye?”

“Aye never said aye wasn’t superficial. Aye even harrve a vestigial ship to marrke it look like aye am an honest, harrrd woarrking skyrate, hiding maye wealth and priveledge to those less cunnarrng, as ye surely know baye now.”

Green Garey and Purple Perry grumbled about how this was fair enough a reasonable assertion. Pamela began to magic that she was seeing the true swashbuckling of skyratry—arduous, nit-picky arguing about nothing in particular.

That is, until Yellow Yancey kicked Purple Perry in the balls and drew his cutlass.

“Enough with this debatery! Will ye slay me or be slain yerself, Green Garey?”

Green Garey took one look at Yellow Yancey and squinted. “Neitharrr.”

“Excrete me?”

Green Garey kicked Yellow Yancey’s cutlass out of his hand with his peg leg and drew his own blade. “Aye would like notharrng moarrr than to send ye to Danny Dervishes’ Timeshare, it be true, but aye will not stoop to yer level. Aye will be taking yer hook hand attachment, though, because it be quite cool.”

In one slice Green Garey severed Yellow Yancey’s entire arm from his body. Then, glowing with pride, he whiped his blade clean, sheathed it, and fiddled with the hook attachment.

“Avast ye! This shit is tricky.”

“Ye’ll figyarr it out,” Yellow Yancey assured Green Garey as he went limp and passed out from blood loss.

***

Ronaldo bulldozed the cowering crowds of the three passenger railcars leading Pripkin and Werthers through the havoc while whistling a cheery tune.

“Bwow the man, chuppief, bwow the man,” Pripkin sang along softly.

Closer and closer they got to the front of the skytrain, fires sparking, glass smashing and rails buckling under them all the while. Finally they were at the crossing to the conductor’s room. Pripkin stopped and pulled everyone in for a huddle.

“Awight, thif if it. We take cawe of thif ffit, and we’we af hood af gowd. Wemembew how pwoud I am of awl thwee of uf and how hawd we’fe awl wowked fow thif. I know it hafn’t awwayf been eafy, and fat fometimef it’f been neaw downwight impoffibwuh to nawt wofe howpe, but we hafe weawy come togefuw fowuh thuh fyndicate and the fyndicate if gonna take weal hood cawe of uf, I juft know it. Now, let’f go in thewe and cluff fome ffit up!”

Werthers for a moment felt his fart lurch as he wondered what in the hen they were supposed to be about to go do, but he swallowed his fear and followed after Ronaldo and Pripkin as they slid open the final door and stepped into the warm, musty mire of the conductor’s chambers.

“Well well well,” grumbled the conductor, taking their eyes off the instantly constructing skytracks ahead of them as they stood up and turned around, “Look who we have here.”

It was officer seargeant Seargeant Officer Jarmish.

“I see you’ve defected, Werthenwilshire.”

Werthers suddenly realized that officer seargeant Seargeant Officer Jarmish wasn’t just an officer seargeant.

“Lyle, how could you?” Werthers’ voice warbled. Everyone gasped.

“Oh, Werthinkilter. Lyle was never my name.”

Pripkin and Ronaldo looked at Werthers as if he had suddenly became an actual ostrich.

“That being said I must admit that those conducting courses we took together did empart a particular desire in my fart. Or at the very least helped me realize I desire I’d never known I had. And, of course, I always wanted more.” He stepped away from his conducting seat dramatically.

“What in the cluff if wong wif thif guy?” whispered Pripkin.

“And when the agency gave me the news, the news of course that your very first conducting gig was scheduled to be raided, well, what else could I do but bring you onboard to make sure nothing fell through the cracks?”

“The agency!” Ronaldo wiped off his lipstick in disgust, turning to Werthers. “Worms…is he saying you’re twerking for the agency?!”

“Twerking for the agency? Hah! Werthenthenthin might as well be the agency with all he’s accomplished! His blood runs thick with agency. What I’m surprised is that the syndicate could possibly be so dense as to not notice it.”

Werthers, vibrating with rage, snagged Pripkin’s cigarette holder, ran over to officer seargeant Seargeant Officer Jarmish and stabbed him in the neck over and over again with the sharp end. It did not break skin.

“Hey man what the cluff?!” whined Pripkin.

“How playful. You can drop the act, Werthenmilker, they know where you stand now.”

“Cluck y-you all!” Werthers threw the cigarette holder at Pripkin, rushed to the conducting cockpit and yanked on the break.

SHEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT

As the front of the skytrain jolted to a halt, the railcars attached to it buckled and wiggled and shot into the air in a pinwheeling clockwise motion, ripping off most of the warping skytrack with them as they twirled higher and higher into the sky. A skytrain engineer would say it was the chicken stuck in the back railcar that messed everything up.

“What in the cluff if he doing?!” Pripkin cradled his cigarette holder protectively.

Werthers grabbed a lever and pulled it backward.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

As the skytrain beeped it began reversing slowly at first and then quickly through the sky.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

“What a fiasco,” officer seargeant Seargeant Officer Jarmish blithered. “Werthiekins this is hardly necessary.”

“C-cluck you!” Werthers screamed, gnashing more levers to speed up the reversing process exponentially.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP

“Um. So,” officer seargeant Seargeant Officer Jarmish started cautiously, “I am concerned that, if we continue in this way, we may soon run out of fuel, as our fuel supply railcars have detached themselves from us and we could at any minute find ourselves plummeting—”

“C-c-cluck off!” Werthers pulled more levers.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEEEE

Officer seargeant Seargeant Officer Jarmish sighed as the skytrain jerked to a halt once again “Motherclucker.”

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

It plummeted quickly, spinning over itself and catching even more fire than it already had.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

PPSKPKB PBKPSKBPBKPSKBPFKBP KPFKGPKFDPBKP KPFBKPFKBPFDKBPDFGKPBKDFPBKPBKFPBKKKKKKKKKKKK

It had landed on the now only lightly flaming pile of three crashed skyships from earlier, which had not fallen all the way to the ground due to their natural skybouyancy.