Captain Morgan 7

The Adventures of Captain Morgan 7

Morgan Olsen

Janna and I watched from atop a nearby rooftop as our new teammates dealt with the voidlings. I’d opted to let her set the pace. Not only was she the senior Star Guardian, she didn’t have a reputation for corrupting the youth.

The two were a study in contrasts.

Jinx cackled like a lunatic, showing off a bit of that deranged love of flashy violence her Runeterra Prime counterpart was known for. She was all about wanton destruction, without a care for silly ideas like collateral damage. The cops learned quickly to usher the civvies out of sight whenever she took the field.

Meanwhile, my future leader was a far more balanced fighter, befitting her nature. Lux was a fundamentally kind person, a protector rather than a destroyer. Her light purged the voidlings, but also generated pink force fields around both Jinx and the civilians.

“What do you think?” Janna asked me. “Are they all that you’d foreseen?”

“You mean besides the constant upskirts?” I winked salaciously before taking a swig, Moscow mule this time.

She rolled her eyes in annoyance but didn’t react otherwise, long since desensitized to my prodding. “Can’t you be serious for a change? At least while we’re on the job?”

“Oh, very well. If I’m being honest… no. They’re rough. Jinx fights like a berserker, without a single thought for protecting herself. She’s got good aim, but she gets too easily caught up in the moment, too focused on whatever’s in her crosshairs.”

“You fight like a berserker, too,” she pointed out. Notably, she didn’t disagree with my assessment.

“I do,” I agreed, “but I’m a close-range specialist whose power revolves around luck and drunkenness. I have a kit that is best used to dominate the tempo of the battle, which I do. Jinx… She reminds me of me, back when I first started out. I’m not sure that that’s a good thing.”

“And Lux?”

“She’s better. She’s got a ton of spatial awareness. No one’s gotten hurt yet on her watch, even with Jinx being the chaos gremlin that she is. But I think she’s too passive. She should be using those tethers more to engage, not just keep the voidlings off her back.”

“Hmm… I see what you’re saying. But I also see potential. You were right; they’re incredible, especially for new Guardians.”

“I know. None of their faults are things that can’t be corrected.”

We watched for a little longer. The big voidling, a massive beetle this time, got taken out when Lux bound half of its legs together. That was different from the games I remembered. Nothing kept her from making more Light Bindings, but it seemed like she had to focus to keep them active.

An impressive amount of mana filled Jinx’s bazooka before a black and white poro flew out of it, no doubt a combination of her Star Conduits. It collided with the beetle, cracking through its shell like glass. The explosion had very little smoke, instead projecting a crimson silhouette of her two Conduits into the sky. 

Janna clapped softly. “Shall we go and introduce ourselves?”

“I’ll follow your lead, oh ancient one,” I replied with a gracious bow.

“One of these days, I will blow sand in your uncle’s distillers and I won’t tell you which so you’ll have to clean them all.”

“You know, you’re surprisingly devious.”

“Only when my partner is a crapulent clown.”

“Crapulent? What does that mean?”

“Prone to excessive eating or drinking. Namely, you.”

“Ah, how language evolves, eh? When did they say that? The previous millennium?”

“You’re impossible.”

Whatever I was about to say was cut off by a high-pitched squealing. It was so shrill that I was sure every dog in Valoran City just found a new worst enemy. A pink blur made its way towards us.

My power triggered, causing me to “slip” on the ledge of a building. Janna fell first, and that gave me just enough time to land behind her, out of sight and out of mind. Sometimes, being a tiny manlet had its perks.

“Eeee! Janna! Hi! Oh, my god! Wait, I’m so sorry if that was super rude! I mean, do we still say that? Is it like, ‘Oh, my First Star?’ Are there Star Guardian-approved swears? I feel like I should know this because I know so much about you already–” Lux babbled. It was coherent… barely…

Janna was too polite to turn around, but I felt the wind try to nudge me forward so that I too might partake of Lux’s verbal vomit. When I resisted, Zephyr did all the glaring to express her mistress’ displeasure.

“Holy fuck, Lux, chill out,” Jinx said, pulling her away. “You’re making yourself sound like a crazy stalker.”

“I’m not a stalker!” the pinkette cried. Her eyes widened in dismay as she looked at Janna, and finally caught sight of me as well. “Jinx! You’re making me sound like a crazy stalker in front of them!”

“I mean… aren’t you though? You spent three months trying to get the midget over there to sign your water bottle when we were twelve.”

“Don’t tell them that!”

“They probably don’t give a fuck. And if they do, then fuck ‘em. You’re a sparkle-thingie now, too.”

“Star Guardians. We’re Star Guardians, Jinx,” Lux huffed exasperatedly.

“Yeah, ‘sparkle-thingie.’ That’s what I said,” the redhead said with a shit-eating smirk. She obviously knew how to get under Lux’s skin like only a best friend could.

Janna, ever the peacekeeper, floated forward. “Hello, it’s nice to meet someone so… enthusiastic.”

“Ehehe, sorry,” Lux said sheepishly. “I just… really like Star Guardians.”

“I can see that. How about we go somewhere private? Morgan and I can answer any questions you have.”

“R-Really? Yes! Jinx! Our first secret Star Guardian meeting!”

“Yeah, we’ll have blackjack and hookers,” Jinx drawled.

I snickered. “I like this one.”

“Scratch the hookers. We just need to find another midget for the manlet to wrestle with. It’ll be hilarious.”

Janna and Lux’s eyes met. They shared a look of shared suffering as they apologized nonverbally to one another.

“I’m sorry about him,” Janna began. “Morgan is a terrible influence.”

“N-No, it’s Jinx. She brings out the brat in everyone,” Lux replied, bowing her head.

X

That was how we ended up in Janna’s place. She lived in a small, one bedroom condo near the geographic center of the city that was furnished modestly. The living room had been converted into a big reading nook, with several cushions, a small coffee table, and bookshelves covering every wall.

We ordered takeout for ourselves and gathered around her coffee table. Lux fidgeted like a scolded child, never mind that she wasn’t in trouble. Jinx, though she tried to play it off, couldn’t hide her own nervousness. Maybe it was just starting to settle, that they were true Star Guardians now.

“Relax, Lux,” Janna soothed. “We just wanted to talk to our new teammates.”

“T-Teammates…” Lux mumbled in a daze.

“Yes, I felt that this would be a good time to make formal introductions and answer any questions you might have.”

“O-Oh, yeah, that sounds nice.”

Then, with a nod towards me, Janna powered down. Zephyr floated from a nearby bookshelf to settle in her lap. She offered them a calm smile. “Hello, my name is Janna. I believe I’m a year ahead of you.”

“Y-You have a class with us,” Lux gasped. “You were a Star Guardian all along!”

“Yes, perhaps for too long… Morgan?”

I sighed and did the same. Tipsy hopped out of my gourd to give them a wave. I took a sip and winked. “Yo, pinky, red.”

A Star Guardian’s glamor was powerful stuff. No one ever recognized us even though we never bothered with code names. Except, now that I’d powered down in front of them, the obvious similarities between my two forms hit them in the face like a bat.

It was a fascinating thing. Mental schemas that had been magically distinct connected in their minds, finally allowing the girls to put the full picture together.

“You’re Morgan Olsen,” Lux gasped. “You were a Star Guardian, too?”

“Yup. Nice to meet you, pinky. Care for some hard iced tea?” I offered, sliding my gourd over.

That did it. Shiro transformed into her minigun form as Jinx took aim. “You son of a bitch! That wasn’t fucking iced tea, was it?”

“Jinx! No!”

“Fuck! I’m gonna shoot him!”

Lux tackled her best friend to the floor. Janna’s condo didn’t have enough floor space for them to wrestle, but they made a valiant effort.

Janna stared at me with an exasperated sigh. “What did you do, Morgan?”

“I may have fed Jinx Everclear while gaslighting her into thinking she’s a lightweight,” I replied with an innocent shrug. At her disapproving frown, I protested, “Hey now, you said I should stop encouraging alcoholism in the youth. I tried to convince her that alcohol isn’t good.”

“Don’t you pin this on me, Morgan. Why would you do that?”

“She got curious and wanted some of my spiced rum. On an unrelated note, Lux likes hard iced tea. You know, the lemony kind.”

“You will not turn our new friends into alcoholics,” Janna asserted. “And you two, please get off my carpet. I haven’t had the time to vacuum it this week.”

Jinx stopped pulling Lux’s cheeks to look at Janna like she was an exotic animal. “Hold up, you vacuum once a week?”

“Yes? Doesn’t everyone?”

“God, you’re one of those neat freaks, huh? I could probably sleep on this carpet.”

“Please don’t. And please don’t shoot my partner, no matter how frustrating he is. Believe me, I understand the temptation.”

“Ugh, fine,” Jinx glowered at me. “But only because it’s your place.”

“Thank you.”

The two new Guardians powered down and took their seats. Lux looked at me, then Janna. “So… What now?”

“Think of this like an FAQ,” I told her. “You know, for being a Star Guardian.”

“You sure you want to say that? Because Lux has an entire binder full of shit she wants to ask you,” Jinx said.

“I don’t!” Lux protested. Then, more quietly, “I have three…”

The redhead rolled her eyes. “Fuck it, fine. I’ll start. Janna, you live here.”

“I do,” the wind mage nodded. “I traveled the universe for many years before coming to the Valoran Cluster.”

“How?” Jinx asked with intense focus.

“I’m not sure I follow. How did I travel? Or how did I know to come to Valoran City?”

“How do you just have a condo? How do you have a legal ID at all? Is there a Star Guardian support group or something? Do we have a shared bank account we pull from? Shit, do we get paid? Wait, oh fuck! Does this mean we have to pay taxes?”

Janna looked a little overwhelmed at that but answered. “W-Well, I… umm… may have hypnotized the landowner to not ask too many questions…”

“You stole a house?” Lux gasped. She looked so confused and betrayed. It was as if someone told her the ground was made of pizza, and she’d just chipped a tooth trying to bite it.

“Hahahahaha!” Cackling, I fell from my chair. “She’s not wrong, you know. This is called a rental fraud, Janna.”

No one had any expectations of me. I was “Captain” Morgan, the Star Pirate. I was the drunkest man in Valoran City, the patron saint of booze and bad decisions. Everyone knew that I wasn’t a bastion of moral virtue. Hell, I was the cause of at least three new regulations about underage drinking and false IDs being proposed in the city council right now.

Janna though? Janna was perfect.

Okay, maybe not perfect, but she damn sure looked it when compared with me. She was a gorgeous, stunning woman who saved lives, caused very little collateral damage, and always had a soft smile to spare for everyone. She was gentle and kind, with the aura of a big sister you could count on.

Maybe that was why Lux looked so heartbroken by the revelation. She was having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that her idol might not be as morally pure as she’d first thought.

Most people didn’t know, but Janna was old. She was old when Valoran City was young. She was a veteran of countless battles when the very first laws of this land were set in stone. She was a traveler who’d seen more than most, who’d witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations all across the universe.

How could she possibly care about the laws of Valoran City? If anything, it’d be weird if she did care.

“I didn’t steal anything,” Janna huffed. On her lap, Zephyr bristled at the insinuation. “Lux, just because I didn’t obey every local regulation does not mean that I didn’t compensate the previous owner adequately.”

“O-Oh… I’m sorry,” Lux mumbled. “So… How did you…?”

“I learned several enchantment spells throughout my travels. I am no master, but I know enough to get by.”

“So you hypnotized the previous owner into selling the place to you?” Jinx asked.

“Yes. Zephyr, all of our Star Conduits, are capable of enacting several spells that keep people from asking too many questions. But if you know a few spells of your own, you can supplement their activities for a cleaner civilian identity. This isn’t important for any of you now, but one day, when… when you remain young while everyone around you grows old… you may need such a spell.”

“Hold up, I thought the midget was just being a dick when he kept calling you an old lady in school. How old are you, really?”

“I am… I have seen much,” Janna said with a tired smile.

Then, just when things were starting to get awkward, the pizza arrived. I served us food and began answering some of Jinx’s questions.

“Getting back to what you were asking, red,” I said between mouthfuls of pizza. “No, we don’t have a shared bank account. No, we don’t get paid, at least not regularly. If you have an idea to make money as a Star Guardian, that’s up to you though. And no, we don’t pay taxes.”

“Huh, nice. So… If I set up a streaming channel of the cool shit I do, then… Our magic will keep people from tracking us down?”

“Yes,” Janna added. “Our glamor is a powerful tool. I also know of another Star Guardian who sings as an idol in the Piltover Cluster. She receives sponsorships, which she mostly donates to various charities, I believe.”

“Huh… I’ll have to think about that… Maybe visit a gun range or something…”

“Now that you mention it though, we should save our numbers,” I told them, sliding my phone over. “We’ll want to keep in contact.”

“Okay!” Lux chirped. She looked adorable, with half a slice stuffed between her cheeks like a chipmunk. “C-Can we ask you questions later?”

“Sure, pinky. Janna knows more about different schools of magic, types of voidlings, the nature of the rifts, and all that other stuff. I know more about booze. Ask away.”

“One of those is not like the others,” my partner replied dryly. “Choose wisely.”

Author’s Note

You know what? Let’s do a PHO chapter next. That’d be fun.

Animal Fact: Farmers will trim or remove the tusks of domestic pigs. One of the reasons for this is because pigs have evolved to eat damn near anything that is even remotely edible. That includes other pigs.

If a pig gets jostled in the pen and starts bleeding, that blood can drive nearby pigs insane. Outright cannibalism is rare, but not unheard of so tusks are trimmed for their safety.