"Well, it's really impressive... but it won't work."
A voice echoed in the room.
Sitting on a large double bed, forming a triangle around a sheet of paper filled with scribbles, were Puss, Fiona, and Aurora.
But the one who spoke wasn't any of them — it was the tiny fairy standing on the brim of Puss's hat, hands on her hips, seriously analyzing the paper below.
Fiona and Aurora didn't understand anything about what was written there, so they stayed silent, simply listening to the two talk.
"Why?" Puss raised an eyebrow calmly, asking the question — though it seemed he already expected that answer.
Vivianne fluttered her wings and flew out of his hat, stopping right in front of his face, frowning.
"What do you mean 'why'? Isn't it obvious?" She rolled her eyes, flew down to the paper, landed on it, and pointed at the center of the magic circle drawn there. "Puss, we're living in an age of magical extinction! Powerful creatures are rare! The secondary materials aren't the problem — you can buy those — but the conditions for finding the core ingredient you designed are way too demanding! It's impossible to get such a thing!"
She spoke firmly, her gaze shifting to the lines Puss had written.
"The core of the ritual, where love chooses its form, must be the heart of a being once human, who, because of love, was wrought into a monstrous form."
She read aloud, visibly irritated by Puss's irrationality, then looked back at him.
"Where the hell do you expect to find something like that?! Fiona turns into an ogre, and Aurora into a dragon — those are apex creatures, especially Aurora! For your ritual to work, the creature has to have magical potential equal to or greater than both of them! I won't even mention the difficulty of killing such a creature to obtain its heart — but the real problem is that you can't even find such a being!"
She crossed her arms angrily under her chest, lifting her beautiful bust slightly — and Puss's eyes instinctively drifted there.
Vivianne clenched her teeth when she noticed him losing focus.
"Scoundrel cat, my eyes are up here!" she snapped, pointing upward toward her face
Puss, helpless, lifted his gaze to meet the fairy's angry eyes.
"Vivi, do you really think I'd bring this up if I wasn't sure?" he said, moving aside and resting his head on Aurora's lap, who began stroking his belly.
Vivianne rolled her eyes when she saw Puss holding Aurora's arm with all four paws and playfully nibbling at it like an ordinary cat.
Ignoring the scene — since she was used to his antics — she focused seriously on what he'd said.
"You really know such a creature?" she asked, her expression grave.
Hearing the question, Puss stopped playing and looked at her again.
A serious gleam crossed his eyes, and he nodded heavily.
"Sí. In the sea, there is a powerful being who was once human — but for love, he left mortality behind. Yet his love was betrayed, and because of love, he became a monster. Because of love, he tore from his own chest the heart he had once given away, locked it in a chest, and buried it with his own soul," he spoke in a dark tone, making the girls gasp in shock.
Vivianne was also stunned that such a creature existed, but for some reason, a bad premonition stirred in her heart.
"W-what... what's the name of this creature?" she asked nervously, swallowing hard.
Puss sat up and spoke.
"Davy Jones..."
His voice echoed through the room — and for some reason, upon hearing that name, the air seemed to grow darker, and a faint scent of death accompanied the cursed name.
"DAVY JONES!!!" two loud screams filled the room at once.
They were Fiona and Vivianne, both staring at him in horror.
Aurora, on the other hand, tilted her head in confusion, trying to remember if she had ever heard the name before — but it didn't seem familiar.
Vivianne immediately flew and landed on his nose, angry.
"Puss! You can't hunt him! Davy Jones is beyond what any mortal can handle! He's death itself incarnate!" Vivianne shouted in fear, her tiny voice trembling.
"Yes, Puss, forget this nonsense! Davy Jones is a legend — but a legend that no living or dead being wants to see!" Fiona said too, gripping his paw tightly and staring at him with her beautiful blue eyes full of worry. "Forget about it. You don't need to worry about me and Aurora; no harm will come to us. We're princesses — we have guards. And even if Aurora ends up with only her human form, it's still a very strong hybrid one. She'll rarely be in danger."
Trying to convince him, she quickly listed her reasons.
Aurora, who didn't understand who they were talking about, grew anxious upon seeing the panic on the two girls' faces.
"Puss… don't do it. Don't put yourself in danger. We don't want that…" she said softly, trying to persuade him gently.
But the orange cat, surrounded by his loving girlfriends, remained firm.
"You don't need to convince me. I've wanted to face him ever since I learned he was real. Such a battle will be part of my adventure — and of my legend. Besides, a friend of mine… is probably having trouble with him right now. I'd better help before things end badly," he revealed, his eyes firm and determined.
His words only made them more worried. But seeing how resolute he was, they knew he was too stubborn to change his goal. Thus, a tense silence fell over the room.
Finally, someone broke the impasse.
"Who is Davy Jones?" Aurora asked softly, her sweet voice filled with concern as she looked at Puss.
Vivianne looked at her helplessly, then sighed and explained.
"You don't know him because you were locked away in that tower for so many years — and his legend is fairly recent."
"More than a hundred years ago, a name began to turn into legend. A being of immense power, immortal before blades, with abilities beyond imagination."
"A ferryman, keeper of the fallen souls at sea — Davy Jones, his crew of the dead, and the terrible monster he commands — became symbols of invincibility on the seas. Anyone who dared to defy him would be dragged to the depths, never to be seen again..."
Her voice faded, and in the end, it was no more than a whisper, making the girls' hair stand on end with the sinister atmosphere that filled the room.
Fiona beside her nodded gravely, also familiar with the legend.
As for Puss, his mouth twitched.
"Why are you talking like that?" he asked helplessly, completely breaking the heavy mood in the room.
All the girls turned toward him in perfect sync with discontented looks, including Aurora, leaving him speechless.
"This guy really can't read the mood," Vivianne rolled her eyes at him, and the other two agreed.
"And you were the one who started talking like that, saying things like 'because of love, he became a monster. Because of love, he tore from his own chest the heart,'" Fiona pointed out helpfully, making Puss freeze.
"Okay, okay! My bad, don't argue," he admitted quickly.
One thing Puss had learned over the past few months was that if one girl was a headache, three girls were a triple headache. So he had wisely learned not to argue over small things.
Thus, they continued discussing Puss's upcoming departure in the next few days.
…
Out at sea, under the shadow of night, debris could be seen swaying with the dark waves.
Bodies floated around, and in the wreckage of the ship, which barely managed to stay afloat, the few men still alive and barely breathing suddenly felt chills crawl over their bodies.
Among them, a burly man with a fierce appearance and sickly skin, wearing a captain's hat, sat on the floor, powerless, covered in wounds and bleeding.
For that man, there was no redemption left — and he knew it as he felt his body weakening.
But at that moment, he didn't seem concerned about that. Nor about the pirates who had taken everything from him and left him in that state to die.
No, his gaze was fixed on a dark corner of the ship, a place where, until a moment ago, there had been nothing.
Yet he had seen it — there was a man there, a man who hadn't been there before. And all he knew at that moment was that it wasn't human.
His body began to tremble, and dread climbed into his heart, for the creature there, whose gaze had been unfocused, suddenly looked at him.
Its eyes were those of a dead, lifeless man — yet they were staring straight at him, unblinking.
Tears of fear began streaming down the once-brave captain's face as he watched, unable to move, the being start to smile wickedly at him, showing its jagged teeth.
Then he felt cold fingers wrap around his throat — and squeeze.
"HIIII…" he tried to scream in terror, but only a choked hiss escaped.
His body was lifted by the neck as easily as a child is lifted by an adult, his feet kicking weakly in the air.
Only then, as he was raised, did he see that all around his half-sunken ship, hundreds of creatures from the depths were crawling aboard, dragging anyone who still had a breath of life toward the deck.
He too was carried there, thrown to the floor beside the others, and forced to kneel, waiting for something.
The creatures looked at him and his dying crew and laughed cruelly, as if their fear was a fine show to watch… but that was only until he arrived.
Thoom... Thoom... Thoom...
The sound of something heavy striking the wet wood echoed, and with it, the creatures' laughter faded.
Those beings, no different from the devil in the minds of human sailors, felt a trace of fear upon hearing the sound.
The captain and his men were horrified at the sight, for in their minds there was no doubt who was coming — someone so dreadful that even hell itself would not dare to accept him.
"Davy Jones…" the trembling whisper of one of the crewmen escaped as a figure more octopus than man emerged before them, rising straight from the dark waters flooding the ship.
Thoom... Thoom... Thoom...
With his monstrous leg striking the floor, he advanced toward them until he stood before the ship's captain, whose eyes were wide and breath caught.
Davy Jones stopped. Then he slowly leaned forward, coming face to face with the trembling man who shrank into his own shoulders.
His tentacles writhed erratically as the stench of death and fish emanated from him.
The captain being stared down couldn't hold the gaze and quickly tried to lower his head, squeezing his eyes shut — but a cold crab claw clamped around his neck before he could react, forcing his eyes wide open to face the monster before him.
His breathing quickened, and he could neither move nor escape the terror flooding his chest.
"Do you fear death?" the monster's voice rang, invading his mind, and he could only nod frantically, even as his neck bled against the sharp edges of the claw gripping him.
Jones was about to speak again when, beside his head, a gray-and-white muzzle appeared.
"And you… Davy Jones? Do you also fear death?" the owner of the muzzle whispered eerily, with a trace of amusement.
Davy Jones's pupils dilated, and his claws clenched, slicing through the man's neck he held — severing his head from his body, sending blood spraying everywhere.
But he paid no mind to any of it and turned sharply, drawing his sword and facing the creature that had approached him at some point, without him or his men having noticed before he spoke.
A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, and in its brief light, the hooded figure was revealed — a feral snout and a pair of red eyes glimmering from beneath the black hood, watching him with amusement.