"...I would be unstoppable. I would be able to rule this world without a single thought. No one would be able to stop my power..."

Standing at the edge of the ship, Victor smugly smiled to himself. Despite the fact he was standing out in the open, no one seemed to notice him. No weapons fired in his direction, nor did those strange floating swords come for his head. He was completely unseen.

It was all thanks to a broach on the lapel of his coat, which glimmered softly. He wasn't sure how it worked, but it was utterly perfect. A 'Requital' the voices had called it, loot gained from one of his first raids.

Despite the infamous captain fighting this irritating brute, this was his ship. These ghouls were all under his command and they were doing so well to feed him.

The sheep in this town were practically begging to be slaughtered. Why else would they just keep coming back and wandering around in blissful ignorance? Really, he was doing them a favour. The best part was, because of his connection to all of his servants, he could just steal the power they were absorbing from the sheep and channel it into himself.

Why would he want to go anywhere else, risking his life, when this trash was offering themselves up?

The strong ruled this new world, and it was their duty as the weak to give their lives to him. The weak deserved to be culled. He was simply taking out the trash, nothing more.

As for trash like this, the surprisingly powerful ones? Well, as he was giving his little speech on power and how unstoppable he would be, all while demonstrating it so elegantly to his useless 'captain', there was only one thought in Victor's mind.

'Oh, I couldn't agree more. To Victor, goes the spoils.'

Laughing maniacally to himself, he lifted his hand, which split in the middle before a chain launched from it. While it broke the stealth enchantment of the broach, which required you to stand still, but thankfully the brute wasn't facing him.

The ethereal chain didn't make so much as a whisper as it snaked through the air, moving straight towards the brutes neck. It was utterly inevitable that he would become his latest servant.

Victor couldn't help the smile spreading on his face. Oh, he was such a wickedly cunning genius. He was truly the one with the best ability in the world. He was the most powerful. He was-

"... So Gullible."

He snapped out of his self loving fantasies of ruling the world as the pirate king, and let out a soft whimper as his gaze met with the cold, calculating eyes of the masked brute. Victor frowned deeply in confusion, yanking his chain back.. or at least he tried.

He tugged with all his strength, trying to drag it back to him, but it was like he was trying to drag a mountain! The bastard just wouldn't move.

Scar watched the struggling chain slinger with an amused smirk behind his mask. The more frustrated the man became that he couldn't over power him, the more amusing it was. It was almost like he was watching a puppy barking and growling at its own tail, confused about why it was moving close to his treats.

The idiot probably thought he was being so sneaky, but failed to realise that whatever he was using to hide himself from sight didn't hide his aura. From the moment Scar had approached the ship, he could feel this man's aura.

He was, after all, the strongest thing on this ship, Scar just didn't know exactly where he was hiding. The only reason for him to hide in the first place was either cowardice, or because his ability worked better when he was not in the line of fire.

Scar himself had plenty of experience in that. After all, hiding in the shadows and letting someone bigger and scarier take up the lime light, that was his first tactic too.

All he had to do was put on a performance and see if it would lure him out. If his performance hadn't worked, then he would have just started carving up the ship and see if he popped up then.

Suppressing the urge to laugh at the idiotic toddler tugging helplessly at the chain, Scar instead turned his attention to the spectral chain itself.

"Chains, huh? Let me guess. You control things with them. Parade them around like puppets. Tell me if I'm close. It's either that or you are into some seriously kinky bondage, which only makes your buddies rope control even more worrisome.

"Puppets? As if, how pathetic would that be? Useless things dancing on strings. No, they just know who their master is. They understand that wearing these chains makes them naturally inferior to me, and that they belong as my servant.

Soon, you'll understand that too."

Victor smirked maliciously again, sending a mental command to Blackbeard through their connection, ordering him to attack while this idiots back was turned. He didn't care how he did it, so long as it made the brute let go of the chain.

But after a few seconds of waiting, the smirk slowly melted from his face and was replaced by a confused frown. This didn't make any sense... he shouldn't be able to disobey.

His master had given him a direct order! Why was he just standing there and not obeying?!

Scar chuckled drily, "You look confused. Poor boy, you probably thought you could use your little bearded friend over here to take me out, huh? Wondering why he isn't listening? It's simple, it's not his fault. I have him under my control."

"That's not possible! I am his mast-" Victor's shouts quickly turned into pained screams as Scar tightened his grip on the chains. Azure flames erupted from his fingertips, travelling the length of the chains and plunged into Victor's palm, following the chains to his soul.

He dropped to his knees, panting heavily as Scar quickly doused the flames before it could kill him.

"Be quiet. Your superior is talking, not you. Now... If you are in control of these men, I wonder what would happen if I did this."

"NO! STO-"

Victor cried out again, his protests quickly silenced by another burst of soul searing flames that left him writhing on the ground. Scar on the other hand, casually strolled over to the paralysed Blackbeard and wrapped his hand around the iron collar.

His hand passed easily through the black flames making up the beard, and they were surprisingly tingly. Not burning, just comfortably warm. It would almost be a shame to kill him, he could use this beard as a nice footwarmer... Oh well.

The slave collar formed of the strange spectral metal cracked and crumpled as Scar crushed it like it was made of paper, before tearing it clear off Blackbeards neck. The pirates eyes, once brimming with murderous rage, rolled into the back of his head.

The flaming beard that was tickling Scar's hand immediately extinguished, as did the ghastly aura surrounding him. His emerald colouration disappeared as the fearsome pirate before him was replaced by an average man in a suit and tie. He looked like he had just come from the office rather than sailing the high seas as a legendary pirate captain.

Scar was both confused, and a little disappointed, to find out that the ghostly Blackbeard wasn't real, but the surprises didn't end there. The body collapsed to the floor, utterly lifeless, before it started to melt on its own.

An entire years worth of rot and decay, along with whatever the putrid influence of these chains had done to the controlled body, all rushed into it at once. Flesh started to blacken and melt, bones crumbled to dust.

It wasn't a pretty sight, and by the end of it all there was not anything that could be called a body. All that was left was a ragged suit in a putrid puddle of blackened blood and very ripe flesh. The smell it gave off was... unholy, to say the least.

Scar stirred the spiritual energy around him, lifting himself into the air slightly so none of it got on his boots. At the same time, the ship beneath them shuddered for a few seconds, before settling when Angel whispered in his ear.

[Congratulations. You've earned a Requital.]

He raised an eyebrow, but ignored the new addition for now. Instead he turned back to face the man in control of all these enslaved souls, the one who had turned the regular people into murderous pirates and used them to slaughter an entire town over and over again, all so he could grow powerful.

Victor scrambled backwards, painting heavily as the cloaked figure slowly floated towards him. As soon as he got the thought of running, or attacking, Scar simply yanked the chain and sent Victor tumbling towards him, leaving him laying on his belly as he whimpered pathetically.

Scar dropped back down to the ground, his heel slamming into Victor's spine and shattering it like a toothpick. He leaned down, slowly and methodically wrapping Victor's own chain around his throat.

"Have you ever read a Christmas Carol?"

Scar yanked the chain, forcing him to arch his back and let out a choked gargle. Victor's eyes bulged as his hands clawed at his own chain, the object of his power, but was helpless in his attempts to pull it away.

"Me neither," Scar continued, his voice cold and emotionless, not caring in the slightest about what he was doing.

"I only watched the films, the Muppet version was always my favourite. It is said that in death, people wear chains forged link by link from their sins. I doubt that is true, but perhaps for you that's what this is. So, time to pay for your sins.

For the crimes of murder and piracy, the sentence has always been, Death."

Scar tugged the chain one last time as Victor let out a choked whimper, as well as a sickening crunch of his spine snapping, before Angel whispered in his ear once more.