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Webmistress' note:
Due to other obligations, wider horizons and the call of other projects, SHADE author Karmacat will be unable to finish writing the fic.  However, she kindly has supplied her readers with this wonderful detailed synopsis of the fic-that-was-to-be.  This is that synopsis.  Enjoy!
Katie Sullivan, a.k.a. Scarlet

SYNOPSIS OF “SHADE”

By Karmacat

(part one is http://lavender.fortunecity.com/elystan/416/shade.html)
 

PART 2

Well, I guess I’ll just start where I left off.

First of all, we never DO find out just what Gypsy Mother was doing to Vargas in the last scene of Part 1, because I don’t really know myself. It was SOMETHING bad, but he’s still “intact” and “completely functional” if you get my drift.

Anyway, that being cleared up, let’s get on with the story.

Esteban lives, thrives, and continues to grow into a young teenage man. However, his relationship with the rest of the children becomes worse and worse. Basically, they all hate him because he’s a smartass punk, and he constantly insults them, even though he gets his ass beaten for it. They are also imitating what they have seen Vargas do. All the children, well, the males, anyway, wish to emulate Vargas because they see him as the ultimate in pirate-ness. Esteban does as well, something that Gypsy Mother does not like at all, as you know. Vargas still finds ways to make Esteban’s life hell. In one scene, Vargas jumps at Esteban and the boy instinctually flinches to protect himself, and he is humiliated in front of everybody.

And then, all of a sudden, Esteban gets to that age. You know, THAT age. He becomes very very interested in women (I think I wrote this part, actually, like a page or so you guys haven’t read yet, do you want it?). The girls in the clan know this, and they have an odd reaction to it; I mean, he IS handsome, but he’s kind of a reject. Basically, all the girls sneak off and make out with him and then deny it ever happened. Oh yes, Esteban is quite the pimp. And the guys hate him even more because of this. This is the point where Maddog enters into the story, and through the girls is how Esteban earns Maddog’s admiration, despite the fact that Maddog is a good six or seven years older than Esteban.

There is another scene of Vargas-antagonization, when Esteban is finally old enough to go to a sort of pirate party thing, like a big fat drunken mating ritual. Basically, all the pirates, as pirates would do, all sit around a bonfire and dance and get drunk and run off into the bushes, or sometimes don’t even bother with the bushes. There’s some teenage girl whose all over Vargas, and then a little later into the party she decides that she’s going to be all over Esteban. Just as she’s about to drag him into the bushes, Vargas comes along and does the whole alpha-male bit, saying that the girl is HIS and she had better not go near Esteban, EVER.

That pisses Esteban off.

He gets over it. Anyway, a few weeks later, the pirates stop at the shores of some island, and Esteban and his friends decide to go into the island’s marketplace. The island has a strong aristocracy. That’s important. They’ve been ordered not to steal anything, as they are there to rest and not to make trouble, so they were just planning on going and looking cool. (I.E. if it were the nineteen fifties, they’d put on their leather jackets and sunglasses and just HANG.)

As they are hanging, Esteban, and the rest of the guys in his group, happen to notice this beautiful, snotty looking girl shopping. I think she was a white cat with blonde hair. They sit around and remark about her for a while, and somehow the subject of whether Esteban could “get” her comes up. And of course, it is Esteban, and Esteban can get anyone, so he goes up to her.

At first she is very polite to him, but after a while she becomes outright rude. She is one of the island’s strong aristocracy, and doesn’t want to be bothered by this commoner (she does not know he is a pirate. That’s important.) Anyway, she snaps at him a few times, and then pretends to back off. (I might add this here: Esteban is a “player” if you will, but he doesn’t want to make a woman do anything she wouldn’t willingly do. That’s also important. Well, actually it isn’t, but its just kind of cool.)

Somehow, these two get together. He follows her around and eventually charms her, but he finds himself falling for her as well. He finds out her name is Theresa. Theresa likes Esteban enough, but she really has her own agenda; she’s a spoiled brat who wants to piss her parents off, and a good way to do it is by dating a commoner. She’s especially gratified when she finds out that he’s a pirate. That’s gravy to her. Esteban has no problem with that, really, he just likes Theresa, and Theresa likes to pamper him as he feels he deserves to be pampered. Gypsy Mother never meets Theresa but probably wouldn’t like her.

There’s this whole cool scene where he sneaks into her bedroom one night and “it wasn’t long before he had her corset strings undone”. Way to go Esteban! Well, I thought it was cute.....

Theresa teaches Esteban Uslandic, which would have made for a few really funny scenes, I think. She didn’t get to teach him a whole lot, he was only on the island for two months or so, but Maddog taught him the rest, which isn’t quite so romantic. Besides, most likely the first thing Esteban did after he learned Uslandic from Maddog was insult him with it.....

Theresa also informs Esteban about a little object called The Orb of the Bandar Log, some mythical object her father was searching for. In case some of you couldn’t tell, this is VERY IMPORTANT. Somehow they get on the subject of Bandar Log, and she say this thing contains a sort of mineral that would supposedly cure the defect that makes a Bandar-Log die. Of course, Esteban is very interested in this, and asks Theresa where it is. Theresa says she doesn’t know and then takes him back to bed, I guess.

Anyway, the pirates leave, and Esteban goes with them. It is only a moderately sad goodbye. Theresa is sort of cold and was kind of using Esteban, but she liked him. Actually, Esteban is more sad about it than she is. Esteban also has the Orb on his mind, of course, and he asks Gypsy Mother about it. She says she’s never heard of it, but says she’ll ask some if her friends in places if they have heard anything. She is, of course, filled with hope because of this discovery.

A new clan of pirates comes into the picture, this one smaller, but fiercer. Vargas’s clan and this clan fight for a while over plunder and territory, but eventually come to a tension-filled truce. The two clans stay this way, until Vargas makes a wee boo-boo and sleeps with the other pirates captain’s woman, or does some other offensive Vargas-type thing. The result of this is an all out clan war, and huge battle, in which everyone fights, including Esteban.

Tragedy strikes. The battle is horrible, and a good half of the clan is killed. Near the end of it, Vargas is fighting and someone has a rifle to his head. He jumps aside and the rifle fires; only he did not realize that Gypsy Mother, having run out into the open to save a child who was far too young to fight, had been standing behind him. She is shot through the shoulder and falls to the ground.

During all this, Esteban and Maddog have gotten lost somewhere in the jungle chasing enemy pirates. This is fairly important.

After the battle is done, the remains of Vargas’s clan stands around Gypsy Mother, who is quickly bleeding to death, and Vargas kneels down beside her. She inquires about Esteban and Vargas says that he does not know where he is, but that he will find her some medical aid and that she will be fine. But Gypsy Mother is wise and knows that she is going to die. Shaking, she smears her blood across Vargas’s forehead and makes him swear upon her quickly receding life that he will find the Orb of the Bandar Log for Esteban. He swears grudgingly, and Gypsy Mother dies.

Esteban comes running in from the jungle, relatively happy because he and Maddog has managed to down some enemy pirates, but he can sense that there is something wrong by the way everyone is just standing around. He walks through the crowd, and the crowd actually thins for him; everyone knows that he was Gypsy Mother’s favorite and does not know how he will react.

Upon seeing Gypsy Mother’s body, Esteban drops his sword and his eyes sort of glaze over. He is just too shocked for words, especially after seeing the bodies of many of his friends strewn around like meat. All except one word, muttered softly, “Gyma....”

Vargas comes up to Esteban angrily and says something like, “Of all of us, of every pirate in this clan, YOU had to live!”

Esteban looks up, sees the blood on Vargas’s forehead, and misinterprets it. Vargas winds up for a punch, but Esteban, acting almost as if on instinct, blocks it and punches Vargas across the face so hard that Vargas actually falls to the ground. Vargas leaps up and jumps on Esteban and they wrestle, and Esteban is almost winning until he remembers that he is afraid of Vargas. Vargas finally pins him, takes out his dagger, and shoves it through Esteban’s ear. And that is how he got the little slice you see in his ear now.

Phun Fakt: Scarlet sewed it up for him later. :)

This is where the story gets a little fuzzy. After Gypsy Mother’s death, Vargas’s attitude towards Esteban changes. As you know, despite the fact that Vargas is a son of a bitch, he still had feelings for Gypsy Mother, and he knows that Esteban was her favorite. Also, he knows that the clan is now in great danger of falling apart because she is dead and they have no positive support in their lives. He also knows that the other pirates would not stand to see Esteban singled out anymore because so many of them had died already. (Not that this mattered to Esteban. He is so used to thinking that he is singled out that he never stops thinking it. It’s called a persecution complex.)

Vargas cannot bring himself to like Esteban but he can bring himself to treat him somewhat civilly. Even though Vargas would hate to admit it, Esteban was smart, and he let him join Council and take part in strategic, er, plundering plans. Also, Vargas pushes whatever weird leftover emotion he had for Gypsy Mother on Esteban, so sometimes Vargas even goes so far as to be nice to him. He is most nice to Esteban when he’s drunk. However, instead of Esteban reveling in the approval he always sought from Vargas, the exact opposite happens: Esteban gets all freaked out by it and begins to hate Vargas even more.

And he begins to plot against him.

After a while Esteban realizes Vargas’s weakness, in fact, the old pirate is almost never sober. He is smart, he sees that the clan is falling apart and will need a new leader. And he contrives to become that new leader. He has gained a little bit of respect from those on the council, and he begins to spread feelings of dissension about the captain. This is where Esteban’s inner charisma comes in. He begins to charm the clan the same way he would charm a woman, never hesitating to wax poetic about his wonderful relationship with Gypsy Mother. Eventually he convinces about half the remaining clan to join him in a mutiny. They win, of course, and in Vargas’s scene of final defeat Esteban takes the old pirate’s sword from him, knocks him down to the ground, and gouges out his eye. :)

Of course, after all that, the new clan expects Esteban to lead them. (BTW, this new clan consists of oh, 12 people. The others either ditched, joined other clans, or died in battle.) Esteban’s insecurity sets in, and he begins to think that Esteban, as he is, cannot properly lead a clan. Secretly, Esteban was the weak little boy who got beaten up all the time, and that name is him is a sign of weakness. So he quickly goes about building himself a new identity.

He finds a history book somewhere and finds “the outfit”. In the book the color was red, but he had it made in blue, the same royal blue that Gypsy Mother always dressed him in. She always called him a Don, but he did not like the name “Don Esteban” at all, because it rhymed and sounded stupid. He thinks of the most threatening word he can come up with, and that word is “carnage”. So he slaps a “K” on there and he becomes the horrible, the infamous:

Don Karnage
 

PART 3
 
 

PHUN FAKTS that I need to put here: A little while later, most of the original 12 in his clan are killed off or eaten or leave or something. I know Don Karnage himself kills a disobedient one as an example, because he IS an asshole, after all. Anyway, they are replaced by Uslandic pirates, save Maddog, who is ever-faithful.

Regarding the Iron Vulture: Sheesh, I don’t know! Uh....they found it (?) I know that he DID invent the concept of air-pirates, however....clever guy, that Karnie.

Kit is mentioned in Karnage’s memory. He recalls taking on the homeless boy. He couldn’t help but be suspicious of him, and tended to treat him the only way he knew how to treat a male child - with disrespect and the occasional slap (he’s nowhere near as bad as Vargas). He remembers being very relieved when Kit was gone because he no longer wanted to relive his own childhood that way. He was also not very sorry about trying to kill him - to Karnage it was like trying to kill old, wussy Esteban; his weaker self.
 

Now we return to modern day 1935, and old Vargas has come back into Don Karnage’s life.

PHUN FAKT: Knowing this, if you re-read the first part of Part 1, it suddenly becomes very cool.

Regarding Esteban’s debt to Vargas that is mentioned in the beginning: Okay, that was kind of a ploy. I really didn’t have much of a plan for that. I figured that it was just a debt for Vargas agreeing to take Esteban in as a baby or something, I don’t know. It sounded good. Anyway, the debt is repaid when Don Karnage lets Vargas hang on the Iron Vulture.

Vargas tells Esteban that he has returned for one reason only, and that is to repay is blood oath to Gypsy Mother. He tell Esteban that he thinks he knows the location of the Orb of the Bandar Log, and that it is in Khan’s possession, being shipped somewhere on one of his planes. Don Karnage, not quite buying Vargas but desperate enough to go on this wild goose chase, goes out with his men and chases the plane.

In the middle of this plundering, three more pirate planes begin to attack the same plane, they are sleek and black and funky. Karnage radios for them to halt their pursuit, that this is HIS territory, and the leader of the three planes just extends a hand and gives Karnage the finger. A few bullets are fired and Khan’s plane goes down. Both Karnage and the other plane go after it, they both land on the water intending the break into the ship. Karnage is quite pissed off by then. but is very startled to see that the pilot of the black plane is a woman. And guess who that woman is!

Bacially, it’s LaRoca. Duh. Actually, I have written the scene where Karnage meets LaRoca in full detail, and I’ll shove that baby over the Scarlet as soon as I correct the retarded phonetic speech. It’s really cool. Karnage and LaRoca get into this swordfight and end up just duking it out on the floor. He is suprised to find that she has his accent and knows his native tongue.

After this, he asks LaRoca to join them. She is very skilled and they are outnumbered. He says that she can gladly refuse to join his clan, but he will take their planes and leave them there on Khan’s ship. So she agrees grudgingly, saying she is doing it for the good of the clan. In the other two planes are Arson and Senor with Cosette.

LaRoca is seductive and dangerous, but very hard-nosed and tough. Basically, she makes it known really fast that no one is to screw with her or her daughter. And Karnage’s pirates know, with an unspoken knowledge, that she is reserved for the captain. No one even hits on her. Of course, they try to hit on Arson, and she threatens to kill them and they stop.

LaRoca stays on the pirate ship for a few weeks. Karnage notices that she avoids Vargas yet seems to respect him. She and Karnage have a very funky relationship. Karnage thinks that she is incredibly sexy and never hesitates to show it. However, his emotion for her runs deeper than that - she looks like a young Gypsy Mother, and he loves seeing her with Cosette. Karnage likes moms. He hears her singing a lullaby to Cosette that Gyma used to sing to him and it just crushes him.

He hits on her a lot, and she tolerates it as stupid male behavior; but one time he goes too far and she actually slaps him. LaRoca does not like Karnage at all, even though she finds herself extremely attracted to him. She thinks that he is pigheaded and full of himself, and she is right. Though sometimes, just sometimes, he does something charming....but most of the time he flirts and she resists. They get into huge emotional arguments, capitulating on the extreme amount of sexual tension between them.

She is very protective of Cosette and rarely lets the girl out of her sight, and she is paranoid that one of the pirates in Karnage’s clan might try to abuse the girl. There are hints that this is the reason she left her other clan; she felt that the leader was making dangerous advances toward her daughter. She was second-in-command of her former clan and she incited mutiny; unfortuntatly, Arson, Senor and Cosette were the only ones who got out of it alive. Her clan was particularly nasty.....compared to them, Karnage’s pirates are Vicorian-era women.

Arson is insanely devoted to LaRoca. Actually, it turns out that she’s in love with her (yeah, like you couldn’t pick THAT up about Arson) which would have been revealed in a future fanfic when Arson tries to take over Karnage’s clan. Arson really REALLY does not like Karnage at all, mostly because she can sense LaRoca’s attraction to him. She’s jealous.

LaRoca begins to like Karnage when Cosette begins to like Karnage. He likes Cosette a lot - she is a very focused, quiet child, emotional and thoughtful, very clever. He sees a lot of himself in her. She likes him because he is a mystery, also kind (to her, anyway) and fatherly. After a plundering trip Karnage presents Cosette with a solid gold rose, and LaRoca, finally admits to herself that Karnage had been nothing but kind to her (giving her food and a place to live and stuff) and that he was, after all, very attractive, she finally gives in to his advances. After she stops resisting him their relationship is peachy. It’s the kind of relationship where they are always laughing and have all these in-jokes that no one else is in on....when they want to have privacy they speak in their native language. The only others who can speak this language are Cosette, Arson a little, Maddog, Senor, and Vargas.

Speaking of Vargas, hmmm, what’s up with him? The whole time he has been acting weird about LaRoca - he seems to be frustrated with her presence aboard the Vulture. Karnage has picked up on the tension between the two and wonders about it, but they are too busy searching for the Orb that he doesn’t think about it a whole lot. (BTW the Orb wasn’t on Khan’s ship). Also, LaRoca refuses to tell Karnage what she wants with the Orb, and he refuses to tell her the same. Karnage and LaRoca have a night of, er, fun, after which he asks her again what she wants with the Orb. She looks down, ashamed, and says that her daughter, Cosette, is a Bandar-Log. This indicates, of course, that LaRoca was a prostitute and Cosette is a trick baby. But Karnage understands, of course, and gently informs LaRoca that he has the same problem.

Karnage becomes more and more ill and begins, secretly, to make preparations to die. He tells LaRoca that if the worst should happen, he wants her to take over. He warns her about Vargas, saying that he would probably try to topple her rule - and if he should try, she should kill him. She says that she would take over but she would not kill Vargas. He asks her why, and she quietly admits that Vargas is her father. “But I am nothing special to him,” she says. “I was his twenty ninth child by his thirteenth woman, and a girl.”

Anyway, Vargas has been mad chillin’ during all this, and he says that he again thinks that he knows where the Orb is (by this time Karnage has been wishing that he just go away and let him die in peace). He thinks it’s on some island somewhere, in a treasure cove.

Enter Kit, Louie, and Baloo. They are just ripe for a treasure hunt, and they are happy to go on this one. They hear about it through, well, some guy in Louie’s or something.

The pirates get to the island and look for the treasure which would contain the Orb, as do Baloo, Kit, and Louie. They search during the night and the two groups run into each other when they both finally find the treasure, a fight ensues, naturally.This scene is meant to read as very frustrating, seeing Karnage’s POV in a scene involving Baloo. I was planning on portraying the three as a major annoyance, however well-meaning - they’re keeping the main character from getting something that he really really needs. It’s just like GOD, will you go AWAY!

Anyway, they somehow incapacitate the three (not hurt them, maybe lock them up or something), and they have found the Orb. LaRoca and Karnage take it somewhere private and open it. Inside are a few vials of purple liquid. Karnage drinks one and gags, pitching forward in pain. His eyes water. He looks as if he is in such horrid agony that he will surely die - but as soon as it began, it stops. After a minute he feels revitalized. All better.

They return to where everyone else is, and they’re both pretty happy. However, Vargas, out of nowhere, comes at Karnage with a sword. Another fight ensues and Karnage is a little stunned because he hadn’t been expecting it. LaRoca joins in the fight, but when she isn’t look Vargas overpowers her and stabs her in the stomach. She crumples to the ground, and, for a moment, Karnage is shocked. He looks down at her and mumbles, “Gyma....”

He turns to Vargas, stunned and angry. “You...you killed your own daughter!”

“What the hell does she matter, I got twenty eight more of ‘em!”

A BIG FAT fight ensues. The other pirates clear away from this one, and during it Baloo, Louie and Kit escape. After a long swordfight, Karnage finally pins Vargas. He holds his sword to his throat.

“Why do you try to kill me, after all this?” he seethes.

“I wanted you to find the Orb. I wanted you to find it and know that you could live, so your death would be that much more painful! Your death by my hands! I promised I would have my debt repaid, one life for another Esteban, one life for another! My life was ruined because of you, you little bastard!”

Karnage narrows his eyes, and the years of horrid abuse he and Gypsy Mother underwent at Vargas’s hands flash before his eyes. “And now,” he says, “your life will end because of me.” And, as the tide washes in, Karnage gouges out Vargas’s other eye, and then cuts of his head with a single swipe. :)

Meanwhile, we’ve got an ailing LaRoca on our hands. No, she’s not dead, but she’s got one hell of a nasty gash and is bleeding a lot. Arson informs him, with a great deal of masked emotion threatening to break through her tough exterior, that at that rate she’ll due in a few hours. He looks at her and keeps seeing Gypsy Mother. After a moment Karnage picks her up and loads her into his plane, announcing that he is taking her into Cape Suzette to a hospital.

“Who is with me?”

None of them are, of course.

“But - but boss, you’ll be arrested....”

He grimaces. “I know.”

He gives the vial of Bandar-Log medicine to Arson and tells her to give it to Cosette.

So he takes LaRoca into Cape Suzette. When the cliff guns fire at him he says that he has a woman in need of medical aid, and they let him in. They have policemen waiting at the dock for him, and they take LaRoca to a hospital. In vain he tries to fight off the policemen, but there are too many, and they slam his face down into the dock and cuff him.

So Karnage is in jail, and LaRoca is in the hospital.

Karnage has been in jail for about a week, and one night Arson taps on his window. She motions for him to back up, and all of a sudden the wall explodes. She extends a hand to him, and says, “Hey cutie pie, I know I may not like ya’, but I figured I might as well come get ya. Make LaRo happy, you bastard.”

As it turns out, LaRoca escaped the hospital and radioed Arson, who snuck into the Cape and got her. LaRoca insisted that she use her knowledge of explosives to break Karnage out of the prison. They sneak out of Cape Suzette and back to the Vulture, where everyone is happily reunited. And that’s just about it. The end.

Notes - LaRoca and Karnage never get married. It’s just not their style.....

A future fanfic that would be very important to this “family” that doesn’t tie in with the Khans - this would have been a short little doodle, kind of.

Karnage and LaRoca are having a conversation about their past, and Karnge idly asks who Cosette’s father is. LaRoca blushes and says she’s not quite sure, but she thinks it was a fox, and very handsome. She used to be a sleazy lounge singer who would do just about anything for money.

Karnage mentions a lounge singer he, er, had relations with once, a wolfess who was just so beautiful he could not help himself (he had always made it a point not to go for it with foxettes or wolfesses at the risk of a Bandar-Log baby for them. Considerate, huh?. He said that she was very beautiful but looked nothing like LaRoca, because she had short red hair.

LaRoca goes pale. “Did you say short...short red hair?”

“Yes...why?”

“If...that...it was a wig, the hair....I wore a wig then....”

:)

Yep...he’s Cosette’s father. Isn’t it ironic? Dont’cha think? So that makes lil’ Cozy only one-third Bandar-Log......
 

THE END