Chapter 10.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.


The moon hung low in the sky over the small Kikai Island. The Dragon Tongue pirates ship was neatly hidden in a rocky cove on the uninhabited side of the island bobbing slowly up and down with the current but the crew were nowhere to be seen.

"I'm bored! Why did we have to stop so far away." Vans whining echoed through the dense forest that separated their boat from the islands main town Seijou Village.

"This town is renowned for it's high marine presence because it kept getting raided by pirates. So leaving a pirate ship packed with treasure is just asking for trouble. " Haze was half asleep because she had to navigate them through the rocky shore which meant she had gotten no sleep.

"Why didn't we go to the Baratie?" Mik rose his head momentarily before going back to sleep on Van's shoulder.

"Because someone got us chased off the last island before we could cash in our treasure." Ayanne was walking in her armour as it gave her a much larger stride and therefore required less effort.

"Yeah but I got us a new chef."

"I'm not your chef. I'm staying on this island when you leave."

Van chose to ignore the reply and walked on happily, every so often one of the crew would take down a freakishly large and quite angry looking animal, which the island was also famous for. This time it was a squirrel which was bigger than a full grown man, it snarled through its long pointed teeth before lunging at them, it's red eyes glowing madly in the moonlight. Haze quickly unsheathed Aka-hana splitting the rodent down the middle.

She slowly put away her blade checking to make sure there were no more incoming 'predators' "What is it with this place. The giant evil turtle I could deal with, we would have died of old age before he got us. But these forest creatures are just to much."

"Mnm Vut 'ey taste bretty goot." Van was happily munching on a squirrel leg he had just flamed, he had taken it upon himself to try out everything they killed on the way. "The cow was better though." He flung the bone over his shoulder adding to the trail of bones behind them.

Ayanne dropped out of her armour as it turned to dust around her. "Finally."

There were only a few lights on in Seijou Village, the general populous would still be sound asleep, which gave the pirates an excellent chance to enter the village without attracting any unwanted attention. They slowly ambled through the streets looking for somewhere to stay until morning aswell as somewhere to trade their treasure for cash.

"This place is pretty big for a village isn't it?" Loca stared at the maze like system of streets and alleyways in amazement.

"Yeah and where is this high marine presence we walked miles to avoid?" Naye added looking round the empty streets.

The crew then headed into a nearby bar as it was one of the few places that had any lights on at that time in the morning the other options were questionable in both taste and morality.

"Man I hope they do food I'm starving." The rest of the crew stopped and stared at Van the question of how he could still be hungry was apparent on all their faces.

The building they entered was a bar and inn decorated traditionally with signs, beer barrels and wooden panels everywhere. The barman cowered behind the bar only the top of his head was visible, the glasses on the bar rattled from his fear invoked shaking.

"Wh-who is it? I-I don-t want any trouble apapa." His voice trembled as he spoke.

"We are just travellers looking for a place to stay." Haze said attempting to peer over the bar from where she was stood.

"And food." Van whispered.

"Oh and food." Haze added.

The barman leapt from his position behind the bar with a broad smile on his face. "Apapa why didn't you say so sooner."

"We only just got here." Loca commented.

"Five is it?" He continued ignoring her completely.

"Why were you hiding when we came in?" Naye asked inquisitively.

"Apapa you can't be to careful with pirates around." the crew shifted uncomfortably.

"Pirates?"

"Yeah those Dragon Tongues are in this area at the moment. You haven't seen them nearby have you?" He said starting to edge back behind his bar after scaring himself. "Apapapapapa *Gulp*"

"Well actually Oof!" Ayanne elbowed Naye in the ribs before he could continue.

"No, just us here Ossan. I don't think the Dragon Tongue Pirates would attack a place with so many marines." She interrupted.

"Yeah maybe you could let them know that, the have raided us five times already."

"What?"

"They have already attacked us five times. We are really suffering financially."

"It can't be the Dragon tongue pirates." Ayanne said matter of factly.

"Well that's what I heard apapapa."

"So what do we owe you?" Loca asked.

"Five hundred million beri."

"WHAT!?" Ayanne shouted her face instantly turning angry.

"Sorry I meant one thousand apapa."

"That's not even close!" The crew shouted in unison once again, even Naye joined in this time.

The crew sat at a table and ordered food and Naye followed the barman to the kitchen to watch and help with the cooking, twenty minutes later the two chefs appeared carrying a vast quantity of food.

"It's on the house your friend here gave me some excellent cooking tips. They more than cover the cost of the meal," He said smiling broadly, putting the plates of steaming food on the table. Naye sat down with the rest of them watching there reaction.

"WOW!" Van said firing bits of food across the table when he spoke forcing Haze and Loca to dodge the projectiles. "This is amazing." Naye casually hid his smile behind his hand then glared at Loca who had noticed him do it.

Several hours later the crew were bloated and the food was gone they sat laughing and drinking, pulling faces and generally having a good time. Within the next hour they were all in their rooms fast asleep exhausted from food excitement and alcohol. Even Haze who had originally refused alcohol was flushed in a drunken state by the end of the night. Loca was curled up on the floor a few yards from her bed as that was as far as she could make it. Ayanne had gone to bed fully armoured except the armour had been given a silly face with random words engraved into it. Van was asleep standing up just in the doorway to his room with Mik curled up on top of his head. Haze slept float a couple feet above her bed surrounded with a yellow glow. Naye was used to drinking large quantities so he was the least drunk of the lot and was able to make a bed of void next to the one in his room as it was far more comfortable.

The following morning Van was still in his vertical sleeping position, slowly swaying backward and forward with each breath until he eventually tilted too far backwards and tumbled over with a thud sending Mik rolling backward along the floor. Van rubbed his eyes and stood back up turning round to see Mik stood on his hind legs shaking one clawed fist at Van while rubbing his head with the other.

"Sorry buddy." Van offered the dragon a hand which was promptly scurried up so he could return to his usual sleeping position on Vans shoulder.

Van staggered unsteadily downstairs, the rest of the crew had long been awake and only Naye and Loca were still in the bar. Loca sat cradling a severe hang over while Naye happily sipped a cocktail of some sort from a coconut shell.

"About time you woke up. I've been here waiting for you. I have to go look for a job but Ayanne demanded I stay and wait for you to wake up to let you know her and Haze have gone to fetch the ship." Naye put his drink on the bar and stood up.

"Loca could have told me."

"Oh really? Loca what did Ayanne say to tell Van?"

"Stop talking! I think hammer wielding imps have invaded my brain." She mumbled before slouching over the bar with her hands over her head.

"You can't be hung over, your ~Poca Loca~." Van encouraged cheerily.

"~From the I-island o-o-of … please go away… Quietly!" Van looked surprised for a moment before turning to Naye.

"Well I have nothing better to do so I'll come help you find a job."

"Greeaaat…" Naye replied sarcastically walking out the front door with Van just behind him.

The two pirates ambled casually through the town, Naye stared at the jolly roger shaped patch on Vans back where Ayanne had made him remove the crews emblem from his jacket as it would cause to much trouble for them. 'Good job' He thought to himself 'these people seem awfully skittish about pirates.'

"What about there?" Van said pointing at a large store with a red and white spiralled pole outside.

"That's a hair stylists. Why would I get a job there? He replied shaking his head.

"There?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"It's a brothel."

"Oh. Well what about that place?"

"Pet groomers."

"Eeeerrrrm that place."

"Ah now we're talking. Looks like a nice restaurant. 'Chef Wanted.' Excellent." He happily pushed open the saloon style swinging doors and entered rubbing his hands together. Van joined him, maybe he would get some sort of complementary meal.

Naye walked over to the reception counter which was deserted, in fact the entire restaurant was empty. He rang the service bell a couple times and waited patiently. The sound of plates cluttering and shuffling came from the kitchen area, a very short man ran out carrying a three foot ladder hurriedly running over to the counter set up his ladder and climbed until he was at head height with Naye.

"…How may I help…You sir…Table for two?" The tiny man panted, he was a balding man with a single patch of hair which was styled into a curl on his head, on his top lip was a thin mustache which reached his rosy cheeks on either side of his face in a spiral.

"Hi… I erm saw your job offer in the window and I…"

"Oh my is that still there? I meant to take that down. I can't afford to take on any staff right now. Since the pirate raids started again we have had no business and they keep on looting all our stock. I have had to fire all my staff." The man said shifting nervously, taking out a cloth the mop the sweat from his forehead.

"Dammit I'll never be able to find a job! Why aren't the marines protecting you? I haven't seen a single marine or law bringer of any kind since I got here."

"The castle to the north. It belongs to some marine commodore he is our self appointed mayor. His first mayoral act was to restation all of the marines at his castle, they only come down to this place to collect his extortionate taxes and enlist anyone strong enough to protect us into his own bodyguard army. We are defenceless." He was still mopping his forehead with no noticeable success, if anything he was sweating more.

"What?!" Van suddenly paid attention to the conversation. "That's not fair. You people are helpless here. I'm gonna go kick his ass!" As Van spoke a loud bell rang drowning out most of his sentence.

"What's that?" Naye inquired as the restaurant owner quickly scuttled back down his stepladders, folded them up under his arm and ran toward the kitchen. He stopped just before he went through the door and turned back toward them.

"Pirates!"

(--)

"Do you think Naye will stay give Van the message?" Haze asked as she dashed through the forest with a yellow glow around her, jumping over fallen trees and general forestry rubble as the trees and other scenery flashed by in a blur.

"He will pass on the message. Van has an odd ability to make people stay with him, even if they claim to not want to." Ayanne replied in full carbon armour also running with tremendous speed. "Thanks for slowing down for me. I couldn't keep up with you at full speed."

"No problem." Haze smiled politely. "This is far more sustainable anyway, I need to conserve my energy for getting the ship ready.

A horde of incredibly angry giant forest animals stood ahead staring at the incoming food, but as Ayanne and Haze flashed past them with implausible speed two cuts shot through the crowd and the vicious predators collapsed in a heap.

Haze glanced over her shoulder as she sheathed Aka-hana. "That was easy."

"Yeah but they are still irritating." Ayanne growled returning her arm from a blade to a hand.

The girls arrived back at the ship in record time, it had taken them less than half the time than it had taken them all to get to the city. They clambered up the side of their vessel onto the deck and went through the routine of preparing the ship for cast off. Haze zipped round the boat in a yellow blur quickly getting the ship prepared while Ayanne did the heavy lifting duties like hoisting the sails and raising the anchor. Without Vans messing around the job took far less time and they were ready to set off.

"Ready miss navigator. I'll take care of the manoeuvring. You just guide me through these rocks."

"You will have to do exactly as I say." Haze said suddenly becoming far more confident and commanding as she always did when fulfilling her role as navigator.

The sails caught a breeze pulling the boat forward swiftly.

"Port. Starboard. Port. A little more Portside." Haze ordered.

"Yes ma'am." Ayanne yelled briefly taking one hand off the wheel to salute.

Through a combination of Ayanne's skilled steering and Hazes incredible navigation the boat was free of the jagged corals in no time and out onto the coast sailing round to the main town. Suddenly bells echoed from the town aswell as several screams and yells. The two girls looked worriedly at each other then back toward the town.

Haze walked toward the starboard railing and looked out toward the town. "I hope everything's okay."

(--)

Van and Naye stepped back out into the streets and into chaos. The townspeople were running madly through the streets and into their homes quickly locking up all the doors and windows to protect them from the pirate threat.

"They're in the town centre. Quick get to safety!" A passing woman screamed before jumping through her front door then slamming it behind her with the sound of several locking mechanisms quickly following.

"You heard the lady." Naye said pointing in the general direction of the town centre.

"Let's go." Van concurred cracking his knuckles as the walked.

The two boys eventually reached the source of the panic. In the middle of the town centre on the steps leading up to a statue of a marine officer of some description stood a thin but muscular man dressed in a red hooded jumper and black shorts stood with two odd looking contraptions attached to each wrist. He was a handsome man with blond blue, heavily styled hair and what appeared to be purple contact lenses.

He was obviously the captain as he was surrounded by laughing pirates who were causing havoc and assaulting any townsperson they could get their hands on.

The captain laughed maniacally to himself as he looked upon the panic that he and his men had caused.

"That's it, run insects!" He roared at the fleeing civilians, his laughter was cut short as two of his men hurtled into the solid base of the statue next to him. The rest of the pirates also fell silent as they glared irately at the two figures standing in the direction their comrades had been thrown from.

"Now you kids have done it. Don't you know? We're the dragon tongue pirates. The 156,000,000 beri rookie crew." The captain shouted signalling one of the pirates near the front of the crowd to charge at Van and Naye with his sword drawn they didn't even flinch.

"Is that so?" Van said knocking the attacker out in a single punch and sending him flying off to his left then he cracked his neck loudly before continuing. "Because I'm the Captain of the Dragon Tongue Pirates. And I don't recognise a single one of you bastards."

"W-What?" The captain looked scared for a moment then noticed the remaining civilians staring at the scene. He quickly smiled confidently. "I'm the captain of the Dragon Tongue pirates and we are going to teach you snot nosed kids a lesson." He pointed an open palm at Van and Naye throwing a stream of fire from the contraption attached to his wrist in their direction. The area they were in was quickly engulfed in flames but quickly died down into a tiny line of fire in front of them.

"Even your fire is pathetic." Him and Naye stepped calmly over the flames preparing for the fight that was to follow. "Attacking a town is one thing but pretending you're in my crew… Is why I'm going to beat down every single one of you bastards!"


A/N: Well unfortunately it has taken longer than I thought once again. I'm so sorry but I have had so much to do, all my deadlines have kept me busy. I have stayed up until 6:10 am to finish this so I hope that makes up for it. Please keep reviewing and submitting characters the response has been amazing and is really appreciated =) On a note parallel to last weeks I have done a full character rbreakdown for Van (warning contains spoilers so caution) on deviant aswell as a Haze poster. I was informed by several people it blocked my link last time so just search Van niko or Haze wanted poster if you want to see them. Again if there is any character you want me to attempt to illustrate just say in the reviews. This ends the longest authors note ever good night all.

ShX