Rirry-Chan: I'm so sorry guys. Words cannot express how sorry I am about how late this chapter is coming out. And I'm sorry it's so short too, but I literally don't think I would be able to keep going if I didn't make myself post now. The next chapter might be about the same length, but then the chapters should go back to the normal length. I'm not making any promises now. Life just got a hold of me, but I've finally reserved to making myself write no matter what mood I may be in. I need to try and update regularly. So my new year's resolution was to update again before February (almost didn't make it), and then update AT LEAST once a month, preferably. Also, I know this is kinda late, but Happy Holidays and New Year and stuff. I would also like to thank CSpacian for helping out with Royce's attacks, and thanks to Master Caxe for helping me out with attack names for the other character's. You guys rock. Now I'm not gonna bore y'all any longer, I really hope y'all enjoy the chapter.
P.S.- At the end of the chapter there'll be another, shorter, less important author's note.
While Jack went after his opponent, Marissa the slut, Tobi and Royce headed to take care of their own objective. They were both admittedly worried for the safety of their captain. Both knew, however, that Satomi was probably more suited for the task of taking out Sid than either of them.
When it came to the Marketmen, one actually tried to get in Tobi's way as he made his way forward to deal with Fortis. Tobi quickly dispatched the grunt with what Royce had to admit was flawless technique. But while Royce would willingly admit the technique was good, he was still somewhat concerned about the extent of Tobi's combative skills. It's not like the marines trained their soldiers to have the skill to single handedly take over countries or anything like that, so that could leave the ex-marine at a disadvantage.
"Rotundus Calcitro!" Fortis shouted in a deep baritone, lashing his leg out and ramming it into Tobi the moment he and Royce had reached their opponent. Tobi took it straight to the gut, the air escaping from his lungs, causing him to bend over and leaving him unguarded. Luckily, Royce stepped in before any more damage could be done.
"Silver Knuckles: Updraft Upper!" Royce shouted, breaking through Fortis' guard and giving him a vertical punch from below. Through the pain, Tobi managed to feel a little awed when he saw that Fortis, their giant, muscled enemy was actually lifted up off of the ground a little. Fortis managed to come back with a simple counter jab, though Royce dodged while keeping his fists up.
"Stay on guard, Tobi," Royce said in a commanding tone, prompting Tobi to regain his posture to involve himself in the fight.
Fortis took a step back, trying to keep the two pirates in his line of sight. He wasn't about to be beaten by two no name pirates from some no name pirate crew. It just wasn't the way things worked.
"Hurricane Hook!" Royce shouted as he threw a curved punch at his opponent. Fortis managed to dodge, jumping to the side. He went to move around Royce, hoping to take out Tobi so that he would only have to deal with one opponent. Tobi saw his opponent coming, and in response he tightened his guard and prepared to make a fast move. After all, as much as Tobi wanted to be able to say he could take a hit from Fortis with no problem, the guy was pretty muscular, and Tobi wasn't about to consider himself the greatest fighter in history just yet. He knew he had limitations. He just wasn't sure where they reached.
Royce spun around as he watched Fortis maneuver behind him, eyes wide in surprise. He saw Fortis throw a punch at Tobi, who ducked down quickly, sending a quick jab at Fortis's suddenly unguarded midsection. The punch landed solidly, eliciting a grunt from the large man, so Tobi figured he might get lucky again. Tobi brought his leg up and around, aiming for Fortis's ribs.
Fortis saw the attack coming his way and decided that, for this one moment, a good offense would be his best defense. Fortis caught Tobi's leg, and then once he had a good solid hold on the pirate he began to spin, saying, "Turben Versatio!"
"Vestibulum!" Fortis shouted again after completing two full spins, the entirety of which Tobi's face turned very green. Then Fortis released his grasp on Tobi's legging, throwing him off in the direction of Satomi and Sid. Fortis then turned back to Royce, a grim expression on his face.
Royce stared with his jaw dropped for a second, having never seen someone get thrown quite like that. Royce was actually kind of impressed. For a moment Royce glanced in the direction of Jack and his fight with Marissa, but before he was able to observe anything he snapped his mind into gear, just in time to dodge a well aimed knifehand strike to the throat.
"Okay, while that was fun to watch, I'm afraid I can't let you get away with that. It's just not right to throw people, especially my not my friends," Royce stated casually, dodging a punch sent his way. It seemed he really just needed to end the fight as soon as possible. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Aki, who was already freed, had shot an arrow which impaled itself into the chest of one of the unnamed grunt men. Royce had a feeling that that particular man would not be standing up anytime soon, if the pool of blood he was now laying in was any indication.
'Time to get serious,' Royce thought, bringing his focuses back to Fortis once again. He raised his fists back into a guard and got ready to dish out some pain.
"Listen, lady, I don't really wanna fight you, but it seems you've hurt my crewmate. That means I'll have to fix her up, meaning I'll have to use supplies that wouldn't be necessary if it weren't for you," Jack complained as he watched Marissa casually. Marissa studied him for a moment, before roughly throwing Aki to the grown, releasing her grip on Aki's arm.
"Bitch is useless anyways. Can't even put up a fight," Marissa snarled in the direction of the green haired girl, clearly displeased with Aki's existence. Then she turned back to Jack, showing off her pearly whites with an almost feral smile. "But you know what?"
"What?" Jack questioned skeptically as he brought his scythe up so that it was diagonally in front of him. He was not about to let some skank beat him in battle.
"You're kind of cute. Maybe you should ditch that silver bitch and come join us instead," Marissa suggested seductively. At this, Jack decided to take a leaf out of Satomi's book and roll his eyes.
"I'm so not falling for that. Royce's flirting with you is what got me and my captain caught up in this situation, I'm not about to follow his bad example, especially when-" Jack's voice caught in his throat as he thought of his past for a moment, and the ones he had left behind. For a moment, the memories were overwhelming as he thought of Marie. Then he reminded himself why he had come with Satomi in the first place, and strength surged through him again. 'I don't have time for self pity,' Jack thought to himself, and suddenly the cold of the silver cross around his neck and against his chest was more noticeable than usual, almost painfully so.
"Especially when what?" Marissa prodded, the smile on her face dissolving into a smirk. She wasn't sure how, but she was pretty sure she had just hit a nerve. He decided not to grace her with an answer, and instead provided her with an attack to make her defend herself against.
"How about we just get this over with?" Jack urged, preparing to take the offensive. A quick battle is a clean battle, as Jack's father used to say. Now, Jack was not necessarily positive his father had been right in saying something like that, but figured the man couldn't have been one hundred percent wrong. He had managed to pull off being totally evil and a great marine after all. He had to know something about fighting.
"Postmortem Puncture!" Jack cried out as he swung his scythe at Marissa's side, hoping so to catch her off guard. Marissa quickly drew the sword at her waist to block. Jack sighed, figuring the fight wouldn't go as quickly as hoped.
"Dancing Dragon!" Marissa voiced before proceeding to maneuver the sword in her left hand in many complex ways. Jack was forced into the offensive, gaining a couple of cuts, but nothing too major. Finally, he managed to stop her frightfully fast movements with the pole of his scythe. He would have attempted more if it weren't for three of the grunts trying to attack him at once. He used the first move that came to mind.
"Mortuus Turbo!" Jack shouted, rotating both his body and his scythe three hundred and sixty degrees a number of times just as the grunts reached him. He was pleased to see that even Marissa got caught up in the range of the attack, though she obtained less damage than the grunts.
Two of the grunts allowed their injuries to overcome them, but one remained standing. Before Jack could even think of dealing with the man, an arrow came flying from nowhere and impaled itself in his throat. Blood spewed everywhere, even splashing across the doctor's face, hindering his sight.
"Slicing Salamander!" Marissa shrieked, using the momentary distraction to her advantage. Jack was caught off guard, getting a nasty gash across his chest and some of his right arm. Jack hissed at the sting, instinctively moving back and leaving more of an opening. Marissa moved to slice at him, but Jack was not about to get another wound so quickly. As the slut lashed out her sword, Jack knocked it away with his scythe.
"Woops, sorry about that, Doc! Didn't think you'd get all bloody for that!" Aki's voice shouted from somewhere behind him. He could hear her giggling, and when he glanced to where Marissa had originally thrown the kid, he realized she had disappeared. Well, now he knew where she was. At least she was attempting to make herself useful. In fact, Jack noticed that there was now only one Marketman left, and he was about to attack Satomi from behind. Too bad Aki saw him too. Jack decided he needed to turn back to Marissa, who only had a few cuts and scratches across her attractive body. She had moved about seven or eight feet away from him, and suddenly he knew what move he would need to end this fight.
At this point, a crowd was beginning to form around the docks so that people could watch the fight. Some people were cheering while others booed. It seemed the people of Fallston had very mixed feelings about Sid and his Marketmen. Royce couldn't blame the people cheering for Sid's downfall. The guy could be a total ass sometimes.
"Listen, I don't know why you think you're gonna beat me, but this is a complete waste of your time. You should just give up and walk away," Royce stated arrogantly, spreading his hands out and pulling off a pretty confident pose. Fortis just raised his eyebrows at the shorter man, as if to say 'Are you stupid?' In some ways, maybe Royce was a little dumb, but altogether, despite his goofiness, Royce was actually pretty intelligent. That's how he knew he was about to win.
Since Tobi's mysterious disappearance into the distance (Royce would definitely be talking to Satomi about getting Tobi past the usual Marine basics later), Royce and Fortis had exchanged plenty of blows, in only a matter of minutes. Fortis was now sporting a painful looking black eye, and Royce's nose was bleeding like no tomorrow. They were both breathing heavily, and Royce's silver knuckles had actually managed to leave a cut on Fortis's cheek. Royce was especially proud of that.
Now, Royce was pretty sure one or two more moves was all that he would need to accomplish his had one move in particular that he wanted to use, but he would only be able to do it if he could make it fast, and break through Fortis's guard.
Fortis aimed a punch straight for Royce's face, but Royce reacted quickly while shouting, "Returning Gale!"
"Frog Prince...!"Royce began to say, having decided to use this opportunity for his finishing blow. He dropped to crouch low to the ground, bending his knees as much as he could. Then, he jumped forward, putting as much force as he could possibly muster into the blow, "Uppercut!"
Fortis flew from the ground, lifted off the ground and then was thrown backwards. He landed with a loud thud, no longer moving. Royce stared for a moment, ignoring the combination of cheers and complaints from the crowd as he moved to check out his opponent. He nudged Fortis cautiously with his foot and while Fortis did not react, Royce could at least still see his chest lifting up and down.
Royce sighed in relief with the knowledge that he had managed to defeat Fortis, before checking his surroundings. First, he checked the crowds. Nothing really seemed to catch his eye, but for a moment he thought caught a flash or something pretty vibrant red in color. He brushed it off when it seemed to disappear, however. Then he looked to see how Jack was doing with his opponent, Marissa. They seemed to be locked in an intense battle, and Royce wasn't sure he could pull his eyes away when he saw Marissa bury her sword into Jack's gut.
Okay, so here's the second author's note I mentioned earlier. Here are the translations for some of the attack names, which probably aren't going to be exact, but whatever.
Rotundus Calcitro- Round Kick
Turben Versatio- Tornado Rotation
Vestubulum- Release
Mortuus Turbo- Dead Whirlwind
So yeah. Once again, thanks to everyone I mentioned earlier. Next chapter we'll check out Jack's fight, discover whatever happened to Tobi, and then we'll also deal with Satomi and Sid. And some other things... But yeah. Sorry again about the length, I just really needed to update. And I'm seriously sorry about the wait. Anyways, read and review, hope y'all liked the chapter. I'll try and update again within the next two weeks. Also, I think the chapter may be a little confusing with the times and stuff, but everyone's fights started at the same, Royce just finished first. When I go back to finally write Satomi's fight, it'll sort of jump back like the other two have finished there fights. It might still be confusing, but I felt like I needed to clarify that.
