I love steampunk~ So I decided to make Iggy into an aero-ship pirate! :3
England: Oi, why am I in a top hat and overcoat.
'Cause it's steampunk scone-head. Okay, while we argue you guys know the drill: 'I don't own Hetalia, England, Sealand, Germany, Italy, potatoes, stop signs or the Mona Lisa. Though the last three aren't really mentioned in this story...
Dedicated to: All the awesome people out there who like steampunk!
And if you want to make the dog fight even more epic just go to youtube and look up Abney Park- Building Steam. It's (in my humble opinion) the best steampunk band I know of.
Smog. A common sight in 19th century England, but nonetheless cruel and unforgiving; having the ability to lose yourself in it's vast nothingness. It filled the English air. Drowning out the visibility completely. An empty grey canvas, waiting for someone to fill it.
The man turned a small tarnished golden knob fastened to the dashboard of the aeroplane. Then he pulled a lever. Steam burst out of a pipe as the engine hummed to life. The man sighed contentedly, surprised that the contraption still worked after the many years and dog-fights.
He popped open the wind shield to the cock-pit and swung his legs into the machine; settling himself into the uncomfortable wooden seat surrounded by metal trinkets of different sorts.
Cranking off the park shift the aeroplane whirred, the propeller swung lazily in the cold sharp air. He reached up and pulled the cockpit lid over him, only a few more minutes- then he would be free.
He flipped a switch: the propeller blade started to rotate faster and faster until it was a bronze blur. He placed his hands onto the wheel of the machine as it started to slowly inch forward- every second it gained speed.
The man's name was Arthur Kirkland, though he was less of a man and more of a boy still being in his early twenties. Most of the others respected him, knowing he was fully capable of destroying them in a dog-fight. Arthur was born in a small house to a poor family in London, England. Not being able to get a job in weapons design he took up aero-engineering. Sandy blonde hair, green eyes, and a sharp tongue were not uncommon in the area, but defiantly not normal.
He now had two jobs, one as a cartographer in the day. And a much more profitable job, as you, the reader shall soon find out, in the night night.
As the small machine soared through the smog Arthur glanced out into the atmosphere: Smog. How bloody interesting. He grimaced to himself, at least it would provide decent enough cover when he needed it. He glanced down at the hastily drawn map balanced onto the top part of a music stand he had 'borrowed' and welded to the inside of his ship. Guessing on where he was he banked to the left.
The closer he got to the earth the more the smog parted, soon he could seen the large aero-ship being loaded for take-off. It looked to him to be some sort of blimp, round, ugly, and about as boring as it could get. But he did take note on the gunners stationed at fifty-foot intervals around the deck. I wonder if they're doing that because they have heard of me.. Arthur mused to himself. He had gathered information that it would be shipping valuable goods from London all the way to the Savage Lands: the New World. He circled high enough above the ship that he couldn't be detected. He stifled a yawn- Why did all the maps have to been done so bloody quickly. And why so early, can't they understand he was busy with more important matters at night?
The plank was drawn in from the ship, and the sound of a loud horn jolted him out of his day-dreaming. Small red lights blinked on and off cutting through the pea-soup like smog to signal to other ships that this one, the: 'HMS Tortuga' was about to depart. Expertly banking to the left he dodged the slowly rising blimp; just missing one of the rotary blades that helped keep the massive ship afloat.
Skimming along a layer of smog he kept a good distance away from the vessel in case they would spot him. As the ship rose higher and higher. Arthur clucked his tongue in annoyance at the amount of artillery there was on board the ship, he ducked beneath some cloud cover- even though it was probably not necessary, the amount of smog and mist probably obscured him from any detectors.
He clicked the ammunition into place on the correct holster; with him just pressing down a pedal with his foot he could send a spray of bullets fast enough to put holes an inch think into a brick wall. He removed the small telegraph from his box, he doubted they would give up to his 'tiny, weak mess of a ship' as one captain had called him. Sadly the end of said captain was grim, to say the least.
On the ship a thin captain stood proudly surveying the passing smog from the deck on the underside of the blimp. His blue and gold suit showed hardly a crease as he sighed in delight at the money he would be rewarded. He ran his hand through his golden pampered locks of hair. He could smell the cooks preparing escargot, or one of his other favourite dishes. The French captain wet his lips with anticipation of his next meal. A knock brought him abruptly out of his thoughts:
"Mr. Bonnefoy! Someone has just threatened us that if we don't halt immediately they'll fire at us!" The ship mate said when he entered.
"Oh?" Francis Bonnefoy slowly turned on his heels to face the man standing in the doorway. "Who do they think they are."
Arthur leaned in close to the telegraph to pick up the small taps that were barely audible over the roar of the engine.
'S-C-R-E-W Y-O-U P-I-R-A-T-E-S, O-H-H-O-N-H-O-N-H-O-N-H-O-N~': Was what about he could decipherer. What the bloody hell was 'Oh-honhonhonhon~' supposed to mean? Those wankers would pay for the insult. As Arthur's blood boiled he banked sharply to the right, straight towards the the other aircraft. Training the gun on the hull of the blimp he slammed his foot down onto the pedal, a barrage of bullets whistled through the air braking the glass panels and putting holes in the metal.
"Mon Dieu! How many of them are there?" The captain screamed as he ran out of the small room and deeper into the large blimp. Pressing the intercom button he screamed into it: "Fire at will!"
Obeying the artillery men trained their guns onto the shadow of a small ship coming straight towards them. They fired.
Arthur grit his teeth, as he preformed the eighth barrel-roll in a row today. Dodging the annoyingly fast bullets spraying out of the blimp had tested his patients. He slammed his foot down into the pedal he took out a couple of the gunners. He dove straight down under the blimp out of shooting range and came back up on the other side of the ship in a corkscrew. Arthur was now over the ship as he sent another line of bullet holes into the fabric of the blimp. A pathetic deflating sound came from the blimp as it slowly lost altitude. Another spray of bullets flew towards him, he did yet another barrel-roll; one bullet struck the wing of his aero-plane, another hit the wind-shield causing a massive crack to spread across the entire thing. Unable to see he kicked it open and it blew off, now he had no protection on his torso up, the rest being covered in metal.
"This loot better be pretty bloody good for the price I'm paying.." Arthur growled as he now silently thanked himself for adding a seatbelt when he built the aeroplane. He shot back at the blimp taking out a few more gunners.
He swooped near the blimp and spotted a man waving a white flag out the window. Slowing down he flew up to the man; He was a short brunette with a cow-lick poking out next to his left ear.
"WE SURRENDER! WE SURRENDER! PLEASE DON'T KILL US MISTER! EEP!" The man waving the flag yelled at him in an Italian accent before squeaking in fright and hiding behind a tall blonde headed stoic man who glared at him in annoyance.
"Are you serious? You gave up this fast? I was expecting more of a fight." Arthur yawned as he parked his vehicle and he got out. They all stood on the top of the blimp and waited for the captain to come out.
"Ja. If it had been up to me you would have been dead by now. But orders are orders." The taller blonde German shrugged and put a protective arm around the Italian who was literally shaking in his boots. "So why are you targeting us?" He questioned raising a blonde eyebrow.
Arthur sighed as he heard the infamous 'click' of a gun and the cold metal being pushed against the back of his head. "Oh honhonhon~ Look who we have here. A pirate, non?" A think French accent purred behind him.
"'Ello Governor. now, about your surrendering; I'm guessing that was a lie." Arthur clicked his tongue in annoyance but still didn't face the captain.
"Oui, mon cher. But you surrendering to us; That. Is what will happen!" The captain announced poking him in the back of the head with the gun at every word to make his point.
"You think I'm giving up this easily?" A small smile crept onto the Brits face. Spinning into a crouch; His black, red fringed trench-coat flailing dramatically behind him he now faced the Frenchman, he spun and lashed out a foot tripping the captain, who fell off the platform and just barely saved himself from falling to his death by grabbing onto some of the ropes which hung from the aero-ship.
Arthur stood and brushed himself off, flicking off a speck of dust from his shoulder he turned his focus back onto the German and the Italian. "Go on. You were about to say something weren't you?" The Brit said calmly as if tripping Frenchmen off of blimps was an everyday activity.
The two stood and stared at him with opens mouths. The neat golden-headed German shook his head to clear it before raising a fist readying for a punch.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." England said wagging a finger. The German continued to glare at him. "Fine, I'll make you an exception; go ahead, try and hit me." Arthur shrugged.
The German looked at him in confusion. Unsure of weather to attack or not. He raised it again and threw it full force at the pirate. Who ducked and then grabbed his wrist. Unbending he now had the man's arm over his shoulder. He easily tossed the German across the platform to land dazed on the other side.
Arthur turned to the shaking Italian. "Are you going to try and hit me?"
The Italian broke down into tears: "Please don't hit me! I have relatives in Liverpool! I will do anything you want! Just don't bully me!" he wailed, Arthur almost took pity on the boy, he looked like he belonged in child's day-care centre, not up here in the bitter cold and unforgiving air.
"No. I won't hit you. Just show me where the goods are and I'll leave." He sighed, taking over this ship had been way to simple, something bad was bound to happen.
The Italian led him down into the ship where a couple of stacked crates lay, each about twelve inches by twelve inches. The short brunette pried off a lid and Arthur looked over his shoulder: they were full of indigo. I could make a killing selling this in a market. Arthur contemplated as he lifted a box.
"Well, thanks for your time lad. Couldn't have done it without you." He said as he carried the box out and set it down in his aeroplane and then got in. He placed the heavy leather flight goggles over his eyes and strapped himself in. He glanced over at the quaking brunette.
"If you could give this a shove lad, that would be dandy." He said to the Italian who obeyed him, still shivering.
The Italian placed both hands on the aerocraft and shoved it off the blimp. As he fell Arthur flipped a switch flicking the wings to life. Arthur had designed them to be like dragonfly wings, two overlapping pairs of thin, plyable, hollow metal. They beat faster than you could blink and made manuvering easy. The machine corkscrewed out of it's nosedive and Arthur was back in control. He flew off back into the mist.
It had been a few hours of flying before Arthur noticed the sound. It had started out faint and ordinary, perhaps a bird or a distant aeroplane. But it had grown into a shuffling that had to be an intruder. The Brit stalled the vehicle and turned to look into the back to see what the noise was-
"TAKE THAT YOU BLOODY JERK!" A high-pitched boys voice yelled before Arthur felt something hard hit his head. Arthur's forehead slammed against the dashboard of the aerocraft and his vision blurred; The last thing he saw was a boys face, the boy had blonde hair and bushy eyebrows and wore a white and blue outfit. And holding a wooden plank.
Then all went black.
Hello Sealand. XD
A/N: For all of you American's out there: No, I did not misspell air. Aero is just my prefered spelling, and I'm using English(UK) on my computer. So there are diffrent ways of spelling. Example: 'Spain is a pedophile (US). vs Spain is a paedophile (UK).' (or color(US) vs colour(UK))
I have kind of imagined the blimp to look like the Hindenburg. Or some other large air-vessel. And Iggy's 'aero-plane' to have the body of a bi-plane but with four long thin rotating wings. Like a dragon-fly and kind of a tarnished gold/copper kind of colour.
So you guys know what to do! Review to make me feel like I'm not sending stories out into nothingness... 'cause it sure seems like it sometimes...