Meant to have this up over the weekend, but I did a bit more planning for the arc and then finished up the Pokemon story I mentioned last week. So yeah, as usual I'm late. That aside, hope you guys enjoy.
New World Bound
Chapter 20: Wild Western Showdown
For The Children!
"Seriously guys, I didn't blow anything up…this time."
Ignoring their captain's idiotic remark, the crew quickly got on the move. As the smoke began to clear, several men on horseback began to stride out of the burning building. Their leader was a middle aged man in an all black cowboy outfit, a pistol at his side and a large brown sack tied to the back of his horse.
In fact, it seemed that all of the men with him seemed to be dressed in a similar fashion and were carrying large bags. Takato's eyes darted about the group, catching every little detail about them. "Kekeke, that was a great run. Where to next?" One of the men screamed excitedly while hugging the bag.
The leader of the group lit a cigar and placed it in his mouth before blowing several smoke rings into the air. "Anywhere we want men! This entire island is ours for the taking." The men all shouted in excitement and began to move out, however the leader did catch something out of the corner of his eyes. He led his horse away from their original path and approached a young girl hiding behind a barrel.
It wasn't the child that interested him however; the man's eyes were instead fixated on the shiny object tied around her neck, a pearl necklace. "Sir Collin?" One of the men addressed their leader as he raised a finger to his lips telling them to shush. Position his horse behind her hiding spot, he glanced down at the young blue haired girl in a white dress from atop his horse.
"Well, hey there little lady. That jewelry you have around your neck is mighty fine." He said with obviously fake compassion. The child wasn't buying it in the least as she continued to cower in the man's horrifying presence. "How about you just hand it over nice and easy like?"
The child turned to the man and shouted, "No! Never!" Before tossing a rock at his face.
Needless to say, Collin wasn't pleased with this in the least. "Now listen here you little brat." He swung an arm out and attempted to grab her by the hair, but due to the height difference the child easily ducked away and began to flee. "They always have to make things difficult." The man groaned while aiming his shot with his pistol, as he prepared to fire however an arrow whizzed through the air and sent the firearm flying from his hands.
"Good shot, Takato."
"Thank you, Lord Katsua."
Collin began to growl as he looked to the direction of this annoying interruption. From what he could see it was nothing but a group of teens, though the arrow had definitely come from the black haired one in robes. "Hm, they got some mighty fine stuff over there. I'm sure that bow and arrow set would sell nicely, as well as that sword over there."
Takato and Haze tightened the grips on their weapons as they were both sure of what was coming. "I don't care how much blood they spill, don't let these bastards live down attacking Captain Collin!" As he gave this command the other men quickly rushed forward on top of their horses.
Hideo glanced to Takato's direction who quickly responded. "There are about 11 of them including their captain. All of them are carrying guns and a few have bowie knives." Hideo nodded in response and began to walk away. "Where are you going, Lord Katsua?"
The captain raised an eyebrow at this and shrugged. "Well, I figured I'd let you guys handle this. I want to take care of that captain." As he said this, one of the men on horseback had rushed forward and attempted a swing towards Hideo's head, but his blade was quickly halted in place as the sound of steel clashing with steel rung through the area. Haze looked up to the surprised man and forced him backwards with a quick swing of the large sword.
Takato, true to his master's word began unleashing arrows on the pirates one by one and they were quickly dropping like flies as the marksman didn't even break a sweat. "You guys aren't saving any for me!" Ursa yelled as he put a bag of donuts back in his bag and jumped forward, morphing into his hybrid form while doing so.
"Bear Claw!" The zoan user growled in a beastly tone as his claws slashed into several men at once. By this point, only a few still remained and they rushed at who they figured to be the weakest of the group, Froggy. "This brat hasn't tried anything yet, he must be frozen with fear!"
The crew's doctor tapped the red frog on his shoulder on the head while holding out two vials. Noting the situation, the amphibian quickly spit out globs of black oil into each as he quickly closed each of them and tossed them into the air. Pulling the umbrella strapped to his back off he began, "Abura Ball…" He then slammed the umbrella into both of the vials and sent them flying at the men, a shell like covering shattering once the umbrella made contact.
The next shell shattered once the vials hit each pirate and exploded into oil. "Gama Fire!" A lit match was tossed on to both of the men causing the oil to suddenly burst into flames and sending the men into a painful frenzy along the ground.
With the lackeys taken care of, the crew looked over to see what had happened to Hideo. Standing on one side of the street was the gray haired sweets lover, on the other side was Captain Collin. This was an old school western shootout if the crew had ever seen one.
"Go Hideo!" Haze screamed from the sidelines as the Crimson Bomber kept his hands at his sides, Collin was doing the same.
"Er, what's he doing? As far out as this whole situation is, I hope he realizes he doesn't actually have a gun while that Collin guy still has a backup pistol." Froggy noted to the rest of the crew.
Ursa shrugged and continued gnawing away at a bag of chips. "Knowing our captain he either knows what he's doing…or… has no idea what he's doing." This didn't serve in lightening the mood as the tension continued to rise and a lone tumbleweed rolled by.
"DRAW!" Both of them shouted in unison as Hideo swung at his hip and only pulled out an unlit stick of dynamite. "Oh yeah, forgot that I don't use guns." He commented rather absentmindedly and jumped to the side taking cover behind a pillar to avoid being shot. "Regardless, this should be more than enough for you. Crimson Bomber!"
From behind the pillar, several crimson red explosives were unleashed that sent Collin rocketing backwards and through the wall of a nearby building. "Guess I win?" The Crimson Bomber noted as he regrouped with the rest of the crew. Some of the lesser pirates had gotten back up by this point with the men who were still knocked out on the back of their horses.
Collin was slowly getting back to his feet as well as he emerged from the rubble, bleeding and barely standing. "Sir, we have to get out of here." The captain glared at the man fiercely. "No damnit! I'm not done here!"
"Sir, I don't think you understand. I didn't really notice until the gray haired guy said the name of those bombs." He pulled out four bounty poster and held them to Collin's face. The pirate captain's face suddenly flushed with white.
"Wait, these are those pirates that caused that commotion on Toroa and released all those prisoners?" The other men all nodded rather gravely. "Move out!" He commanded with sudden urgency, causing the men to flee on horseback towards the other side of town.
"Man, I always wanted to do that. Who would've thought I could try it out as soon as we got into town." Hideo said while taking his cowboy hat off and wiping the sweat from his brow.
"Get to do what, gero?" Froggy asked.
"An wild west shootout. I had to improvise a bit, but it was pretty cool in that East Clintwood movie I saw." He said rather excitedly. The captain then pulled out a chocolate bar and put it in his mouth wondering what they should do now.
"I got you now fiendish pirates!" Hideo turned around to see where this was coming from but was quickly met with a metal skillet slamming into his face and sending him to the ground, unconscious.
"Ugh, what hit me?" He said as he began to wake up. The captain wasn't quite sure where he was, but it seemed to be a home of some sort and he was lying on a bed.
"My dad did….I'm sorry." He glanced to his side and saw the blue haired girl they had saw in town earlier. She wore the same blue pearl necklace and white dress and everything. Rolling out of bed in a rather dizzy manner, the child lead him to the kitchen where his crew was sitting down and enjoying tea with the man who had hit him.
"Something's wrong with this picture." Hideo commented rather flatly. He sat down next to everyone else as they began to explain.
"Well, you've been out for about half an hour, but the whole thing was nothing more than a misunderstanding." Haze began, but stopped as the older male began to speak. He had gray, balding hair and seemed to be in his forties or so with a gray beard and glasses on.
"Allow me to apologize, my little Alana here said some pirates in town had threatened her and my heart just began to burn with anger. How could anyone attack the children of this land! Don't those hooligans know that children are the future of this world!" The father shouted while leaping on to the table. The crew could do little more than sweat drop at his overdramatic antics.
"Anyway, I rushed into town and found you guys standing around and looking suspicious right where she told me she had been attacked. 'm sure you know the rest from there." His head suddenly began to hang down low as he looked away from the group "Please forgive me! I was only doing what I thought was best for the children! As the savior of children like my precious Alana, you must surely understand!" The man's eyes soon became waterfalls of tears as he fell to his knees and latched on to Hideo's ankles.
It didn't seem possible, but the captain just began to sweat drop even more at this point. "Er, sure. You're forgiven. You just have to let go of me." With that said, the man leaped back to his feet and bowed respectfully to the Crimson Bomber.
"So what bring you young ones here anyway?" The tension in the room suddenly became thick as Ursa was the first to speak up. "We're looking for the Starfall Pirates. Heard they were stationed here."
The father soon looked to his side where Alana had been moments ago, but had now disappeared. There was the sound of a door on the far side of house slamming shut. Haze raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "Is there something wrong?"
The man remained silent for a bit and sat back down. "Yeah, those devils have been on our island for about a month or so, Even in that time though, this place has gone to hell in a hand basket. They gathered up local pirates and drove the marines out and have been using the old City Hall as a base since then. Gradually the town grew more and more dangerous as lawless bandits and pirates took the opportunities that were presented."
Froggy nodded and responded, "So what's wrong with Alana, gero?" The man looked down and began to wipe tears from his eyes. "It's hard for me to say this, but as a father, I failed one of my children! Her older brother, the one who gave her the pearl necklace she cherishes so much has stooped so low as to join those fiends!"
Meanwhile, in a grand building on the far side of town that looked somewhat like a courthouse there were men jumping about and thrashing the object inside. Numerous pirate flags hung about the walls as varying individuals simply had a good time in anyway that could drinking, partying, and general debauchery.
However, in a back room of the building, four individuals were sitting around a table in a dimly lit room. It was rather silent besides the quiet cackling of a creature in a white lab coat. Sitting to the right of him was another man in with purple hair and wearing a much darker lab coat. To the left of the creature in white was a female. She had long blonde hair and seemed to be wearing an eyepatch, though her other facial features were obscured in the darkness.
The door to the room suddenly swung open and closed just as quickly. The purple haired man spoke once the last guy had arrived and sat in the final seat at the table. This guy had the oddest appearance of them all. His hair was jet black on one side while also being snow white on the other. His eyes followed in suit with his clothing with his left eye having all white pupils and his right being all black. Lastly was his clothing, which consisted of a long sleeve top and pants, both being split into black and white with a long black scarf tied around his neck.
"I really wish they'd keep it down out there." The purple haired individual spoke up while the mismatched man began passing out playing cards to each of them. "Calm down Kurtz, let them have their fun out there, we'll have ours in here."
"Smekekeke, they're some rowdy ones alright, think we have enough?" The creature in the white lab coat cackled while glaring at his cards. The last guy simply nodded as the female quickly aimed a gun the fishman's way.
"Damnit Simian, if I've told you once I've told you a million times. No using your extra arms to cheat, nya."
"Smekeke! Guess you caught me as usual" As he said this the man had just finished passing out cards.
"Well, Van. What do you have in mind, cappy?" The teen, now identified as Van and captain of the Starfall pirates glanced over his playing and simply grinned in a horrifying fashion.
Well, hope you guys enjoyed that. I think this chapter ended up coming out better than I first planned it to. Anyway, you know the drill, read, review, and stick around for the next update!
Don't forget to check out my new Pokemon story as well, "The Distorted Trinity"! I also updated my profile page slightly, though it's nothing major, so look at that too if you want. Later guys, thanks for reading.