The Rookie Pirates (Parts 1-6)

23. Operation Save Miss Piggy

It was late in the evening, and the sacrifice was about to commence in an hour's time when the full moon would shine directly above the temple and would apparently shine red.

At that moment, as Alex stood within the buzzing crowd on the street outside the temple, he looked up at the moon. It still looked to be a dirty white with a yellow glow to it. Not a single spec of red to be found.

He clicked his tongue. He didn't believe in any sort of god, whether it was the ancient gods or the sea witch Morgana. He found it a waste of time. He had better things to be getting on with than worshipping some false deity.

He watched some people offering alcohol to the priests. His heart felt like it had been stabbed with a thousand knives when they started to pour the precious liquor around the stone statue of their Harvest God.

What a waste of alcohol, Alex thought.

He had no problems with people having faith, he just didn't understand how people could believe in mystical deities without proof. Nothing but superstitious crap.

The priests looked over in his direction, and he pulled down on the hooded robe he was wearing, similar to what the priests had. It was the perfect disguise, but one look at his face and the other priests would know he wasn't one of them.

As soon as the crew came up with an average plan to save Miss Piggy, they immediately made their way to the temple. The temple was situated in the centre of the island and would normally take a half days' walk to get there.

However, the crew had managed it in six hours by hitching a ride on a merchants trailer.

Upon reaching the centre of the island, Tommy had taken note of the unusual brick towers that surrounded the temples. The structures seemed too modern compared to the ancient-looking temples.

Eventually, the crew had finally caught up with the carnival and went their separate ways as planned.

Mirella had disguised herself as a dancer and blended in with the festival, keeping a lookout for any unsuspecting eyes. Penny was on the rooftops watching Levi's back and would take out any guards with her arrows that would try and interfere with their plan.

Oberon was with Levi. Their job was to cause a distraction, while Alex would sneak into the temple and try and find Miss Piggy before she was taken out to be slaughtered in front of the crowd on the stone altar.

Tommy had disappeared off somewhere like he usually did during a critical moment and had taken Baden with him. Alex suspected he was up to something. He usually was when he disappeared.

Which left Vulcan. The engineer had stayed on the ship in case the priests tried anything funny and destroyed the ship. He didn't want to leave the Leo unattended.

Now all Alex had to do was wait until Levi started his distraction, which shouldn't be too hard for his captain. Levi loved to cause a commotion, whether it was intentional or not.

A loud crash followed by screams indicated that Levi had made his move.

Through the chaos of the screaming crowd, Alex made his. With his hood pulled down fully to cover his face, he wove in and out of the crowd and made his way to the temple, following the line of priests that were walking up the stone steps towards the entrance.

From the corner of his eye, Alex could see that Levi and Oberon were fighting with the temple guards on the street below. Levi was screaming out for the mayor and asking what he had done with Jessica.

Of course, Alex couldn't forget about Jessica. At first, he initially thought the letter she had written had been real, but since their encounter with the mayor and the high priest on the Leo, Alex was starting to believe that Levi was right, that the letter was a fake and the mayor had done something to her to make her change her mind.

The line of priests walked past the stone altar table at the top of the steps. The altar had a small groove running around the edge of it. Alex felt sick when he saw that the grooves made their way down the side of the altar and towards an aqueduct that ran down to the streets. If he didn't find Miss Piggy soon, those grooves and the aqueduct would be filled with her blood.

The line of priests finally made it inside the temple, chanting away in some sort of prayer as they approached another Harvest God statue. Alex quickly ducked to the side before he was caught and hid behind a stone column. He saw a passageway to his right leading down to some stone steps. He couldn't see any other entrance, and so he made his way down.

As soon as he was out of sight, he ripped off the hooded cloak he was wearing, revealing his red sword and white dagger beneath it. He gently rested his left arm on the hilts, feeling more comfortable and at ease.

However, it wasn't long before he found himself lost and stressed out. The temple was an endless maze of stone brick passageways covered in the same drawings and paintings of their deity and the story behind their religion.

Alex scoffed at it all, still believing that there was no such thing as a god.

He finally found himself in what looked like a dungeon and immediately caught sight of the pink animal he had been looking for.

His heart leapt, and a smile formed on his lips as he approached the barred cage. The pig looked sorry for itself sat in the corner, sulking away, but perked up slightly when she saw Alex and slowly approached him.

"Hey, Miss Piggy." Alex reached out to stroke her.

However, Miss Piggy gave Alex a hurt-filled look of betrayal and turned away from him with an upturned snout of disgust.

"Don't look at me like that."

The pig grunted and shuffled some more away from him. Alex felt guilty, understanding why she was acting the way she was.

"Okay, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let them take you away, but they were killing my friends. I'm here now, and I'm going to get you out."

The pig's mood lightened when she saw him and she came trotting over, enjoying his affectionate touch. Alex smiled at the pig, relieved that all was forgiven, and searched around the dark, gloomy dungeon for the key but found nothing.

Instead, he pulled out Akatenshi, who was sharp enough to cut through steel, provided there was enough strength on his behalf.

"I promise I'm going to get you out of here. Now, stand back."

He prepared himself to slice through the bars when he suddenly gasped for breath. His sword clattered to the ground as he reached up to his neck, attempting to free himself from whatever was depriving him of air.

There was nothing there that could possibly stop him from breathing, but it felt like someone had tied a noose around his neck.

It had to be the tattoo man. Who else could it possibly be?

He started to choke, his face gradually turning an off purple and eventually, he collapsed to the ground. The last thing he saw was Miss Piggy squealing in horror as the mayor and the high priest approached him. The mayor knelt down and sniggered, an evil gleam in his narrowed eyes.

"You shouldn't make promises you can't keep."

The mayor kicked him in the face, and Alex immediately blacked out.