Phantasmal Confidence

“My ship is the grandest in all the seas! Pearly White does full barrage, broadside.”

A young boy called out his action, rolling dice in the tray.

“Snake-eyes! You miss.”

Called out another kid, grinning cheekily.

“The victory will be mine.”

Suddenly the ship toppled in the tall waves that were created by a powerful gust of wind as the door swung open.

“Suppp kids? Still playing your stoooopid games? What you got here huh?”

An older boy, teenager, approached the two kids who sat over a board game on the table and glared down.

“Looks stoopid, what’s this? Paper ships and dice?”

One of the kids with lighter hair sighed.

“Jaaaaack! Leave us aloneeeee, we’re not bothering you.”

The other kid remained silent while the 2 brothers bickered back and forth for a while, then Jack finally left them in peace to enjoy their game of Full Ahoy.

Jack walked down the stairs from the attic, stomping in an annoyed manner.

“Tsk kids…” pulling his phone out he checked for new releases of anime.

“Ohh the Not So Cool Hero Reborn For The 37th Time In The World Against His Will Isekai Supreme released, that’s awesome!”

An ad popped up on his screen that he couldn’t skip and was forced to watch, it was an ad of Ketchup. One might wonder – who advertises ketchup? But some companies do.

In the advert there was a Hollywood blockbuster scene of a gunfire. Special forces vs a local mob or something. One of the soldiers knelt beside his wounded comrade, holding bread over his wound.

“Hang in there brother, I almost have enough.”

He called out.

“What!?”

His comrade responded glancing down at his friend and smearing ketchup over his bread.

“Thanks brother!”

Jack laughed at the absurdity of the advertisement, then without looking away from his phone he opened the fridge and reached into it in search of ketchup. The advertisement zoomed out from the battle  scene to a bottle of ketchup. Red as a ruby.

“Ferula Red, the reddest ketchup of all. Use it for all your needs, on pasta or as a prop in your next blockbuster!”

Jack shook his head and glanced up at the bottle of ketchup he grabbed, it was the very same Ferula Red.

“Huh, guess the ads do wo…” he felt dizzy all of a sudden. His world shattered into pieces, as if pixels on a screen that all crumbled like a jenga tower. He gasped when the bottle of ketchup exploded. A limb flew past him, blood splattered the wooden deck.

“HOIST THE SAILS! LOAD CANNONS, STARBOAD SIDE STOP SLACKING!”

Shouted a captain, grabbing Jack who was covered in ketchup? He wasn’t sure, by the collar and lifting him up to his feet.

“Huh!?”

Jack managed to gasp.

“DON’T HUH ME BOY! HOIST THE SAILS!!! GET TO WORK WE’RE AT WAR HERE!”

“Huh!?”

Jack gasped again, glaring down at his ketchup covered body. He glanced to the right and the realization settled in. It was not ketchup that exploded, but a sailor.

“FULLEST AHOY! GIVE ‘EM HELL!”

The captain continued to shout, but his shouts fell on deaf ears. Jack leaned over the railing of the ship as it creaked and bowed to the side.

He was just grabbing ketchup from his fridge, and now he was in the middle of a battlefield on a, on what? He glanced around, a jolly roger flag caught his attention.

“PIRATE SHIP!?”

He froze in place, but not for long as another cannonball impacted on the railing right next to him, exploding it into a hail of splinters and sending him tumbling on the blood-stained deck.

He thought he fell asleep, he thought it was just a dream, but the painful impact of a boot to his rib brought senses back to his panic-mingled thoughts. It was no dream, it was the reality, and to survive he had to fight.

“Gahh.. aghh…” he groaned, getting up hesitantly.

“Hurts….”

“STOP SLACKING!”

The captain shouted at him again and pointed at a sail’s rope held by a handful of sailors in an attempt to lower the sails.

Jack jumped up,.

“Aye aye!”

For a moment he felt brave. For this moment, he felt like the main character of a fantasy novel. A hero to save the ship and his comrades, and in that moment his disoriented mind came to a conclusion – he WAS the protagonist. He concluded that the ketchup bottle somehow exploded, killing him in the process and reincarnating him isekai style in a new world. He was the hero of this world he thought.

“I CAN DO THIS!”

He shouted bravely and dashed for the rope.

He grasped the rope and took a deep breath. Confident in his new life and his new abilities that he had yet to discover, he pulled with all his might, but the rope slipped, friction burning his hands. He gritted his teeth, ‘a protagonist never cries’ he thought to himself, grasping even harder. One of the sailors in front of him slipped on the bloodied deck, the rope froze in tension for a moment and then slipped out of the hands of all others. One of the sailors got sent flying overboard.

Jack tumbled down onto his butt. The ship rocked as it unleashed a broadside. Twenty cannons firing almost in unison. The thunderous roar ignited a spark within Jack the protagonist. He leapt to his feet and roared like a beast, or more like a squeaky hamster since his voice hadn’t fully settled yet, and often broke from a somewhat manly to a typical teenage squeaker.

“SHUT YER TRAP!”

Shouted another sailor, slamming the butt of his musket into Jack’s ribs, knocking the air out of his lungs.

“Agghhh… Gah… I’m…” he fell to his knees, gasping for air.

“INCOMING!”

The sailors ducked but Jack didn’t need to duck, he was already ducked, and pain from the hit before wouldn’t let him move quickly anyways, he didn’t care. More shrapnel and splinters as the ship received heavy damage from the enemy fire.

“BLOODY BASTARDS! My Pearly White!”

The captain cried out angrily leaning on the railings.

“Full Ahoy, we won’t survive another salvo!”

The sailors all rushed to hoist the sails and disengage. The scene before him was like a movie set, Jack couldn’t believe his eyes at the coordination of the crew as each did what they had to survive and help the ship survive. He finally managed to pull himself up once more.

“Captain, I can do this.”

“THEN DO IT!”

The captain shouted, ignoring him while running up the stairs to the helmsman.

Jack put his foot up on the railing and held his hand out, forming a finger pistol and aiming it at the enemy ship.

“I AM THE BORN HERO!”

He glared angrily at the enemy ship that bore a flag of some unknown to him nation. Behind it was a silhouette of another ship, it was fast approaching.

“BE GONE!”

He shouted, shooting his finger pistol. Something rumbled in the distance, the sky lit ablaze, and from the heavens a fire ball emerged.

The flaming ball impacted the enemy ship right in the middle. A moment later the ship exploded into thousands of pieces. The captain of Pearly White stared at the scene with his jaw agape.

“Holy mother of Full Ahoy, the lad did it! He BLOODY DID IT. I don’t know what he did but he DID IT!”

The captain shouted.

“WE LIVE TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY! To the shores for repairs now, lads!”

Jack stared in awe at his newly discovered power.

“I… I AM A PROTAGONIST!”

“That’s not fair,” cried out a kid with lighter hair.

“Dice and chance don’t lie,” the other kid sneered.

“You lose this one, the ketchup shall be mine.”

“Mmmhhh… I’ll get you next time…” the kid whimpered, glancing down at the smoldering pile remains of his paper ship on the desk, with a match sticking out of it.

“Lad did great! What are you lad?”

The captain raised his mug but did not chug, not yet. Giving a chance to the new crew member to introduce himself and make a toast. Jack stood up, adjusted his newly issued piratey raggedy clothes and sneered.

“I am the hero you need. New aboard your ship but not new at this. I travel worlds and save them all, I am JACK THE… ALMIGHTY! No, just mighty, yes. I shall aid in your conquest of…?” he paused.

“The federation hired all the pirates to raise their naval might, they pay mighty good and all for the sake of… tomato islands.”

The captain groaned.

“Stupid fools wage war for a handful of tiny islands ashore which tomatoes grow, the only place world wide… Makes them quite PRICELESS!”

The captain sneered and the crew cheered.

“Well then, JACK THE JUST MIGHTY! WELCOME ABOARD! To many more battles to be won.”

They partied, they slept, they scrubbed the bloodied deck and patched the Pearly White up. Replaced the broken cannons and the exploded crew members with ones still intact. Good coin pays for good crew. Any coin pays for any crew, and these islands were filled with those desperate enough to sail to war for a good coin.

The sun set, and rose again.

“Ready?”

The light haired kid smirked, pulling out his pouch.

“Always am, I got a new hero-character token here.”

He placed a token on the board and smirked. The other kid glanced over it. Hero tokens were rare and powerful, but this 1 seemed useless at best. ‘Jack. Trait.  the Overly Confident Fool. the Crew’s morale becomes unbreakable. Trait – Lionheart provides +20 to blind courage of all crew members.’.

“Where did you get that? Seems… not the best,” the light-haired kid asked.

“I uh, found it. I must’ve always had it but forgot about it. He’s great for my Pearly White crew, who lacks courage, especially with the heavy losses last fight.”

The kids aligned their figures on the table. Light-haired kid slid his fingers over the 3D text in the bottom right corner of the map ‘Full Ahoy.’.

Jack awoke at the tavern where the crew was celebrating, and a few other of his new crew members were there. For a moment, he hesitated but then his dumb confidence kicked into high gear again. He leapt up onto the table and pointed out the door.

“PEARLY WHITE CREW UP AND AT EM LADS! Follow me to the ship!”

He marched out the door confidently, and that’s where his confidence quickly ran out.

As him and his crew exited the tavern they were greeted by a squad of the Norvella Empire’s riflemen. Royal marines at that. Draped in ketchup-red uniforms, so that if they get wounded the enemy wouldn’t see them bleed. They loaded their rifles in unison. Front row knelt and the ones behind them raised their rifles to take aim. Well over 50 riflemen were ready to unload onto them.

Jack stared at them. A lump formed in his throat as he nervously tried to swallow. He was the hero! An isekaid protagonist who was meant to save this world. ‘Save? Am I actually on the wrong team?’ he pondered for a moment but then in his mind a cowboy theme played. It was an epic standoff and he was going to take them all out before they had a chance to fire. He placed his finger guns at his hips, prepared to make his move.

He heard an eagle screech off in the distance, except it was a seagull, slightly less epic but he didn’t let it bother him. That was his cue, he raised his hands up and in an instant a barrage of gunfire and cannon fire opened up all around him. The crew opened fire as if at his command, gunshots from the roof above them and cannons opened fire upon the enemy from the pier.

The Captain stared at the scene through his handheld telescope, smiling satisfied. Above Jack and his grunts, on the roof, a large portion of the crew laid, armed with muskets and rifles.

“Successful ambush! Great bait, second mate!”

“Thank you, captain. We had information that the empire was offloading marines and thought this was the best course of action.”

Jack finally pried his shut eyes open. His finger guns held out before him. He squinted around the battlefield, and then down at his body.

“YEEEHAAWW PARTNER! Did ya’ll see that? Great shooting mateys!”

The grunts with him cheered, thinking it was his doing. The crew on the roof cheered at their 2nd mate and captain’s successful plan. Jack cheered at his invisible super power that he wasn’t quite sure how to trigger but he was certain he could trigger it in the time of need.

They boarded, and the captain gave a briefing.

“Today’s battle won’t be like any other battle, but it’ll be like every other battle. Except NOT! We fight alongside other crews, an EPIC BATTLE! Legends will be told of it… Over night, twelve other crews have arrived on the island, and we’ll fight alongside them. Pearly White was voted the flagship of the pirate fleet. Coming in from the East will be…” the captain glanced around and then whisper,.

“The FEDERATION NAVY!”

The crew all stepped back, oh’ing and ah’ing, surprised and fascinated by the upcoming battle.

“We go against the Empire’s mightiest, the Ketchang Fleet. Twenty gunships strong they’ll fight to the last cannonball. The battle will take place around the Island Number 47 of the Archipelago. Stay alert for the reefs are ruthless! Wind FAVORS US TODAY!”

“THE WINDS DO NOT FAVOR US!”

The second mate shouted, pulling hard on the sail’s ropes as the entire crew battled fiercely not the Empire’s navy but the elements. It began to downpour, a storm came outta nowhere and messed their plans. A few of their ships ran aground, and another 1 got wrecked on the coral reefs. The battle did not start off good.

“ZHU-JAY! DO THE THING!” the captain shouted.

“My name is JACK!”

Jack replied furiously.

“Don’t care! Do your thing!”

Jack grinned.

“Thought you’d never ask, captain!” he sprinted up the bowsprit and roared furiously, or so he thought, in reality it was a more of a girl screaming cuz she dropped her ice cream. But then he pointed his finger up at the skies and cried out.

“LET THERE BE LIGHT!”

“That…that’s a thing.”

Captain hesitated.

“FULL AHOY THE WEATHER’S ON OUR SIDE ONCE MORE!”

And it was. The winds blew into their sails, filling them with vigor and propelling the pirate fleet into the enemy ranks.

“Both sides open up, load cannons, ready fire!”

There was rustling and rumbling as the cannons were pushed into their positions and loaded up. The Pearly White was first in line, first to reach the enemy ships.

“Awhh man, it was going so well,” the dark-haired kid complained cheekily.

“Yeah, well now the weather’s on my side. All fair, we each get a weather re-roll for the first 2 turns,” the light-haired kid responded.

“Yeah, it’s fine, the weather’s done a number to your fleet.”

“Shut up!”

The ship creaked as it bobbed in the waves, inching ever closer to the flagship and her sister of the Ketchang fleet.

“STEADY!!! PREPARE!!!”

The captain shouted orders. Closing in.

“DO THE THING!” jack pointed 2 finger guns at the enemy ships and grinned.

“Cha-ching! Get rekt.”

But nothing happened.

“I said… Cha-ching!!”

Nothing. The ships lined up. The creaking stopped momentarily, before the thunderous roar of hundreds of cannons tore the silence to shreds.

Jack’s ears clogged up from the deafening roar of wood exploding and cannons roaring. Pearly White held up against the enemy fire the best she could. The twin ships were merciless, they caused a heavy damage to the pearly white, knocking more than half of her cannons out of commission. Hull integrity compromised, the hull was taking on damage, but she was not done yet.

“I SAID DO THE THING!”

The captain shouted. Jack could barely hear him.

“I DID THE THING IT DID NO-THING!”

Jack shouted back in a half-cry.

“RELOAD AND BRACE! HARD LEFT AND OPEN FIRE AT THE SISTER SHIPS!”

The crew obeyed, the port-side cannons reloaded and waiting, the starboard side opened fire at the enemy fleet while the ship turned.

The rest of the pirate vessels were not catching up. The flagship of the enemy fleet sailed right through the middle, wreaking havoc among the disorganized pirate fleet, resulting in plenty of accidental friendly fire. The battle raged on, and each broadside only tore the Pearly White apart further. Her main mast had fallen, and the second mate was nowhere to be found.

She leaned heavily to the side as the hull filled with water more and more, slowly sinking but not giving up yet. Jack trembled under the mast.

“But I am the protagonist, why doesn’t it work!?”

He whimpered in a trembling voice, sobbing, but the battle raged on and he was in the midst of it all. Pearly White creaked and bowed even more, soon to topple and sink. She unleashed the last barrage of her remaining cannons.

From the heavens above, rhythmic tunes reached his ears. A gentle, sad melody of a violin, playing slow and steady. Jack leapt up to his feet for the last time.

“NOT YET!”

He shouted and pointed both finger guns at the enemy flagship was sailing toward them Full Ahoy, ready to ram the sinking Pearly White. No reinforcements in sight, the Federation sacrificed the pirates.

Jack gritted his teeth and shouted at the top of his lungs as he pretend fired his guns. A cannonball responded to his scream, flying right toward his face. Something crashed downstairs. Jack fell on his butt on the kitchen floor, slipping on ketchup and falling over. The bottle of ketchup hit him on the face, burst open and covered him in delicious redness.

“What was that?”

A kid asked.

“Probably Jack being stupid…” the other kid complained,.

“Be right back, lemme check.”

“Jack? You alright there?”

The kid called out from the stairs, peering at his older brother, covered in ketchup, sitting on the kitchen floor with a frightened expression on his face.

“Ahhh! AGGHH! It… it hit me! I’m hit! Captain, I’m hit! I’m dying!”

Jack stuttered, staring at the open fridge.

“Uhmm…. You’re alright, just uh, clean up the mess,” the kid sneered and went back up the stairs. Jack remained seated, in disbelief he wiped the ketchup off his face.

“W…was it just a d… dream? Did I pass out?”

He contemplated, but then something stung at his hand. When he glanced down he saw a wooden splinter stuck in the palm of his hand, a splinter from the Pearly White. It was no dream. Jack shuddered, but since that day, he never made fun of his brother’s game ever again.