And after my extended trip to the land of the rising sun, I return to present you all with the 29th installment of the Black Glove Pirates. Luckily, I've managed to write enough to fill two chapters. Enjoy.


Silence.

Dead silence.

Cassandra idly wondered who was more amazed with Raven's revelation: the pirates or the guards. She was astounded, for she had expected not to see the small woman again. Lyn's grin had returned wider than ever. Damien and Alexander had no response, though being barely conscious did excuse one from expressing emotions. The Imperial Guard were all staring at Raven, their eyes wide and their lips forming small O's.

"Raven!" Lyn gushed, leaping forward to hug the petite doctor. "I thought you left us!"

"I owe you," Raven droned. "And you seem to need a reliable fighter. I committed murder. I cannot return."

Cassandra quirked her lips. "So are you joining us until you consider your debt repaid or permanently?"

Raven remained quiet for a moment. "I will explain later."

"It doesn't matter any more," Cassandra said. "We need you right now. I'm ashamed to say I'm not that useful without my weapons…"

Raven's hand moved in a dark blur and something silver flashed through the air. Despite her injuries, Cassandra reflexively threw up her hand and grasped the object. She didn't flinch as the blood-covered knife halted a hairsbreadth from her eyes, flecks spattering across her face. Twisting the knife to see her own reflection, she gave a dark grin. "Let's go. Raven, if you would?"

The newly-acquired doctor nodded and turned back to the guards, who had just regained their composure enough to rush forwards. "Bhraf Thaukuob." She vanished completely, retreating into the shadows. The guards paused for a second, staring around in confusion. This moment of vulnerability was all that Raven needed. She flitted among them like smoke on the wind, her own two knives flashing in the moonlight. She reappeared next to Cassandra, staring at her work dispassionately.

"What ju-" a guard began, but was cut off as his throat exploded in a geyser of blood. Cassandra threw her hand to the side to shield Lyn's eyes from the splatter. In no time, a circle of blood misted the air around them, thick enough to prevent the moonlight from entering. Cassandra felt a slight chill as she stared at the effortless annihilation her friend had just committed. The fact that both Raven and Damien were willing to kill on a grand scale troubled her slightly. She had faith in her new doctor's ability to control herself, but she was never sure when Damien would snap and slaughter everything in his sight. If there was one reason she should accept Raven, it was that.

"Let's go back to the ship," Cassandra said wearily. "We can breathe more easily once we're out of this mess."

"Is your chest congested?" Raven asked, suddenly a hairsbreadth from Cassandra's face.

The pirate captain stared evenly at her. "That was a figure of speech. Now…" she turned to Damien. "How are we supposed to get him out of here?"

"He is not unconscious," Raven droned. "I merely restricted blood flow to his arms and legs. He will have difficulty moving them for some time."

Raising an eyebrow, Cassandra crouched down and poked him with the knife butt. "Are you awake?"

Damien gave a low grumble of acknowledgement, his muscles beginning to shift beneath his scarred skin. He slowly pushed himself up into a crawling position, then hoisted himself upright. Reaching down, he roughly grabbed Nikasen's collar and jerked the fighter to his feet. Nikasen looked like he was in pain, but bravely put up a strong face. "It feels… like I was struck by a locomotive. You weigh… more than I expected."

"I'da smacked ya one be'er if some dumb cunt 'adn' fucked me up," the navigator growled, casting a rage-laden glare in the doctor's direction through bleeding eyelids.

Raven stared coolly back at him, choosing to remain silent. Sighing internally, Cassandra turned around and motioned for her crew to follow her. Lyn, who had kept quiet since Raven had revealed her intentions of joining the pirates, threw Alexander over her shoulder and swiftly caught up with her captain. Damien slowly lumbered after them, with Raven bringing up the rear. "Where are you off to?" Cassandra asked without looking back.

"I will follow my own path," Nikasen replied. "I have a feeling we will meet again. Thank Alexander for me once more. When he wakes up."

"Will do," Cassandra replied. "Farewell, fighter."

"Farewell, pirate." There was no disdain in that final word, as Cassandra had grown so used to hearing it with. When she had been called a pirate in the past, most people had treated it like an insult, like she should be ashamed of the path she had chosen. But she was proud that she was a pirate and proud that she was a captain, slowly amassing one of the more bizarre crews ever to grace the seas.

"Captain, what about our weapons?" Lyn piped up, struggling a bit under Alexander's weight. "I mean, you worked so hard to get your new rifle and everything."

"Point well taken," Cassandra commented. "The most likely place for confiscated weapons to be stored is the palace armory. It's not in the prison. Raven, do you know where it is?"

"It is in the castle itself," Raven droned.

"And I presume you know how to get there?" Cassandra asked.

"I do." Raven appeared in front of them and began striding down the hallway in a slightly different direction, leading them towards the back of the prison. Looking about, Cassandra noticed a suspicious lack of guards roaming the hallways. There was no way that Damien and Raven had taken out every Imperial Guard on Spring Isle, so they were obviously regrouping somewhere to launch a counterattack. The best places to do so would be the gates of the prison and the gates of the palace, where little cover was available and sniping spots abounded. But she didn't put it past them to fortify the armory as well.

They walked in relative silence for a while, the only sounds the echoes of their footsteps as they strolled down the corridors. Each pirate was immersed in their own thoughts or struggling to stay conscious. Cassandra felt the pain of her broken ribs slowly ebb, making walking easier. But weariness was gradually seeping into her body, and her movements were becoming sluggish.

"Stop."

Cassandra instinctively resisted the order, which resulted on her almost colliding with the woman in front of her. "Yes, Raven?"

"If we encounter any enemies in this state, our chances of survival are slim," Raven deadpanned. "I cannot use such an attack twice more, so you all will have to fight to some degree."

She turned around, gently poking at various points around Cassandra's body. When the captain made no indication of pain, Raven held her hand up to Cassandra's face. The pirate captain stared down at the small pill resting in doctor's palm. "And what precisely is this?"

"A combination of drugs which I believe will help restore your energy to some degree," Raven responded. "It will take around fifteen minutes for your body to fully absorb."

"Can these be detrimental to my system in any way?" Cassandra asked. Upon seeing her new crewmember shake her head, she threw her head back and swallowed it dry, using saliva to help it on its way. "And what will you do for the others?"

"Th' fuck… did you do… ta me?" Damien growled, slowly flexing his right fingers.

"I have merely inhibited the flow of blood to your limbs," Raven droned. "Your muscles will not obtain the usual amount of oxygen . For about an hour, your strength will be roughly a quarter of what it normally is. Any longer and the pressure buildup will cause your blood vessels to rupture and you will die. Only I can reestablish your normal flow of blood."

Damien stared at her furiously. "When ya free me, I'll fuckin' kill ya."

Ignoring this threat, the doctor looked over at Lyn. "Hold still."

Cassandra half-expected the woman to disappear to administer her treatment. Instead, Raven merely withdrew a roll of bandages from nowhere and stared at Lyn analytically. "I will need to remove your top if I am to stop the bleeding."

Lyn prodded the slash beneath her left breast. "Oh no; whatever will I do?"

Nodding, Raven cut away Lyn's bikini top and uncorked a vial she had materialized seemingly form thin air, tipping it onto her finger. The pale green liquid oozed out, slowly accumulating on her finger tip. Skillfully recorking and hiding the vial with one hand, the doctor smeared the substance over Lyn's slashes and bruises then began winding bandages around the first mate's body, taking care not to agitate any of her wounds. Lyn's face occasionally twitched as the cloth rubbed against her cuts, but she made no sound. "You are quite good at this," Cassandra observed quietly.

"As I have said in the past," Raven droned. "Curing and ailing are not so different from one another."

"What do you mean?" Lyn chirped.

Raven glanced up at her. "When one knows the human body as well as I do, healing it and destroying it are simple and not dissimilar options. For example, if I do this…" She poked Lyn's chest, then tapped various points around her body. "I can increase your heart rate and blood flow. You will feel more prepared for battle, but you have a higher risk of exsanguination. Luckily, my solution and bandages should increase your blood clotting rate and prevent you from bleeding out. If, however, I do this…" She turned to Damien, prodded his arms, legs, and neck, then slammed her palm into his chest. "I can kill a man."

Lyn turned to Damien, who was swaying from side to side. "Did you actually kill him?"

"I unrestricted his blood flow, as it was a temporary and risky method of incapacitation, and hit him hard enough to kill a normal man," the doctor deadpanned. "However, his metal ribs distributed the shock evenly enough to keep him alive. He should have a much lower heart rate than usual, which will make him tired and move more slowly, but he should be fine."

Damien fell heavily forward, slamming onto his face.

"And maybe I overestimated him…" Raven stated, staring down at him.

"You… fuckin'… 'ore…" he grumbled.

"He's fine," Cassandra dismissed. "More importantly, why did you come here and what can you do for Alexander?"

"Alexander is a rather unfortunate case," Raven murmured. "He has suffered lacerations and contusions over most of his body, his left femur seems to be broken, and he is suffering from severe exhaustion, probably from using his abilities too much and coming into contact with seastone. There is not much I can do for him here, save for stop his bleeding and keep his heart operating. He may regain consciousness sometime from twenty minutes to an hour from now and he may regain enough strength to walk on his good leg, but he will need to be carried until that time."

"Damien can carry him," Cassandra said, ignoring the navigator's "Fuck no." Leaning against the wall and staring out of the window at the clouds beginning to cover the moon, she sighed and closed her eyes. "What about my first question? And don't give me any crap about your debt, because we both know Summer Isle rendered that null and void. Plus, we had an agreement."

"Incorrect. You made an agreement with the others. You and I never had an agreement."

Cassandra stared at her for a moment, then erupted in the heartiest laughter she had ever given. Even when she was coughing and wheezing with tears running down her cheeks, she continued to laugh. By the time she was finished, Lyn was looking at her with a worried expression. "Literally the funniest thing I've ever heard. Whoo, that's rich. Oh gods..." She laughed some more before finally settling down.

"You were a heiress," Raven began. "An-"

Here, Lyn couldn't resist chiming in. "Heiress like princess? You were a princess?!"

"No, I wasn't!" Cassandra snapped. "At least, not in the way you envision it."

"And yet you gave it all up because... what exactly?" Raven continued undeterred. "I have decided to follow you to see what will come of it."

"Let's get one thing straight," Cassandra hissed, a sudden feeling of rage in her gut. "What I gave it all up for was not trivial. You of all people should know that."

"And when we departed outside the walls, I followed you. When you entered the prison, I infiltrated as a deliverer of supplies, then switched to the garb of the Imperial Guard. And that is how I arrived here."

"Whoa whoa whoa," Lyn interrupted again. "Let's go back to what Captain gave up being a princess for. What are you talking about?"

"It's nothing, Lyn," Cassandra sighed. "I wasn't a princess. Raven is just blowing everything out of proportion."

Satisfied with the answer, Lyn nodded and turned back to Damien, who was making angry guttural noises despite being face-down on the floor. Raven appeared directly beside Cassandra, her mouth a hairsbreadth from the captain's ear. "Why are you so adverse to your crew finding out about your past?"

"It is not for my crew to bear my burden," Cassandra replied under her breath.

"You did nothing your crew would not forgive you for," Raven breathed.

"I very much doubt that," Cassandra whispered. "But enough of this. How are we supposed to escape with such injuries hindering us?"

Raven glanced up at her. "We simply walk out."

\\'/.\\'/.\\'/.\\'/.\\

Thirty minutes later, the pirates were making their way through the endless hallways once more. Cassandra felt considerably better, weariness no longer slowing her movements. Lyn acted as she usually did, the bandages around her torso, head, and right arm not hindering her in the slightest. Damien's entire body was swathed in cloth, including a few bandages across his eyes. Alexander was draped across the navigator's shoulders, his breathing more even and his pulse strong. Raven trailed behind them all, keeping constant watch over their surroundings.

"And after they found that all of the milk was blue, they freaked out and began running around like five year olds!" Lyn concluded, laughing loudly.

Cassandra shook her head in amusement. "It's a wonder you weren't cast out of the convent by the time I arrived."

"Must by my natural charm," Lyn said airily.

"I'm sure that's what it was," Cassandra muttered, a wide grin on her lips. "After all-"

"Where're all those cocksuckin' guards?" Damien butted in. "They need t' pay fer ruinin' me eyes."

"Your eyes are not ruined, merely disabled," Raven droned. "And I have been removing any guards in our path ever since we left the prison."

"We left the prison?" asked Lyn.

"There were guards?" asked Cassandra.

"Yeh removed 'em?" asked Damien.

Raven blinked. "We are now in the dungeons of the castle itself, there were guards, and there are no longer."

The group fell silent, pondering her answers to their questions. Cassandra, on her part, was slightly upset. She should have detected the guards as well, especially with her abnormal senses. Even without overloading her adrenal system, her nose, eyes and ears were all better than those of even above-average humans. No matter how tired she was, she should have known if somebody was watching them or tailing them.

"How can you move so quickly?" Lyn inquired. "And we're your nakama now. You don't have to hide anything from us."

Raven cast a look in Cassandra's direction, which the pirate captain pointedly ignored. "My ancestors created a deadly series of techniques."

"Jeez, nobody likes talking about anything around here," Lyn complained.

"First time Damien got drunk was when we were sixteen, before the Marines came," Alexander mumbled, alerting them of his return to consciousness. "We were at Maria's party and somebody spiked the drink."

"Don' 'member tha'," Damien yawned, scratching his bandaged eyes.

"You spent the entire night yelling at your parents about something or other," Alexander said with a light chuckle. "Every once in a while, you would get frustrated, storm off, wind up back in front of them, get mad at them for running ahead of you, and begin yelling again. The best part was how you would sometimes argue with thin air somewhere between the two of them. And you spent your morning hangover sleeping naked on the roof."

"And your parents didn't kick you out?" Cassandra wondered.

"Mom's a pirate, Dad's a doc," Damien grumbled. "They weren' strangers t' partyin' an' both knew 'ow t' deal wi' drunk fucks like me. An' wha' 'bout th' time yeh got drunk, Songbird?"

"Not supposed to bring that up," Alexander muttered.

Lyn's eyes fairly sparkled. "Ooh, I wanna hear this. Damien, turn left now."

Unlike the first time, when he had simply ignored the order and walked into a slab of bedrock, he followed the first mate's direction. Unfortunately, Lyn had had a moment of directional dyslexia, sending Damien into the wall anyway. Instead of immediately retreating, he remained in the imprint he had created, his voice muffled against the thick rock. "Yer a cuntin' cocksucker."

"Sorry," Lyn said unapologetically. "Anyway, where are we going?"

"Ahead, there are five guards waiting to test our defenses," Raven droned. "After that, we turn left, ascend the stairs, and we'll be at the armory."

"That sounds too easy," Alexander murmured. "Why is the armory so close to the prison?"

"What if, by some freak chance, some prisoners revolt and try to escape?" Cassandra asked sarcastically. "They have easy access to their weapons this way."

"So we can expect some heavy weapons going against us," Lyn stated.

Raven nodded. "From the armory, we can depart using the passage that connects it to the side entrance of the castle. If we go unnoticed, we can ambush the guards there and flee the castle grounds before they fortify it too much."

"Now, stay quiet," Cassandra ordered. "Let's not give away our position too much."

Her demand for silence was in vain, as it turned out. Lyn began humming lightly to herself and Damien seemed unable to prevent his footsteps from crashing against the stone floor. Sighing to herself, she reached out with her senses, trying to detect the guards Raven was speaking of. Sure enough, she smelled a cluster of people just beyond the doorway before them and she grinned in anticipation. "I'll handle this. I need to let out some steam."

"Captain, no!" Lyn whispered. "Remember how much trouble you had before?"

"I admittedly have confidence issues when I'm unarmed," Cassandra murmured back, grasping the handle of the silver knife. "But with an actual weapon…"

She stalked forward, mentally preparing herself. She truly believed in what she had told Lyn. Granted, she would have preferred at least a pistol, but an actual knife was good enough. "Voluntas Carnae! Fulmen Fulgorae!"

Throwing herself through the doorway, she twisted through the air, letting the enemies' blades cut harmlessly through her outer shirt. She lashed out with her knife, scoring a deep hit in one of the guard's arms. She dug the knife in and used it to pull herself forward, once again dodging the weapons swung in her direction. As she sped through the cluster, she caught sight of another sheath and threw her right hand out, barely grabbing hold of the leather-bound handle. Righting herself in midair, she skidded along the floor and looked up, taking stock of her enemies for the first time.

Contrary to Raven's words, there were only four guards hiding behind the doorway. A quick sniff revealed that there was nobody behind or above her, so she was certain there was no sneak attack waiting for her. The guards before her were all slightly nervous; the injured one looked doubly so. Standing up straight, she cocked her head to the side, spinning her newly-acquired knives around. "Bring it on."

Instead of rushing at her all at once, the group sent a single guard forwards. He held his axe in front of him with shaky hands, obviously not relishing the concept of fighting the pirate captain. He evidently got over his fear, bringing his axe above his head and lunged forward. Cassandra took a single step back, letting the blade bounce off the floor. The Imperial Guard used the rebound to make a jab in her direction, but the pirate was ready for it. She crossed her knives in front of her, stopping the weapon completely. Ordinarily, she would have been pushed backwards, but the reverberations from hitting the floor had loosened his grip and weakened his blow.

Taking advantage of his surprise, Cassandra lashed out with her knives, gouging deep grooves in the shaft, just below the axehead. As the Imperial Guard recovered and threw back his axe for another strike, the blade broke off, sending him horribly off balance. The pirate captain darted forward once more, knives at the ready. "Manus Lavernae!"

She slashed at his neck, scoring a deep hit right below his jawbone and sending blood flying through the air. Following through with her movement, she lashed out with her other hand, letting a second guard to dance back out of her reach. She ignored the shallow scrape the guard made as he counterattacked and threw her knife with deadly accuracy, impaling the man through the eye. The guard screamed out in pain, releasing his sword and bringing his hands to his wounded face. She leapt forward to finish him off, but was forced to lean back as the third guard swung his own broadsword, nearly decapitating her.

Growling with irritation, she sprung back onto her free hand, then gave her wrist a mighty twist, sending her spinning about like a top and using her arm as support. Her flying boots knocked the legs out from under the only uninjured guard and her arm swiftly followed, aiming to slash at his unprotected side. However, the man was quicker than she expected and executed a similar maneuver, his own feet slamming into her back and sending her rolling across the floor. She pushed herself to her feet, her chest heaving with exertion. Using her free hand to push errant strands of hair out of her eyes, she brought her knife to her face and smiled. "Manus Lavernae!"

She dashed forward, dodging behind the guard with her knife in his eye and avoiding the Imperial Guard's broadsword. Viciously yanking out her weapon with one hand and stabbing him in the base of his skull with the other, she dealt his back a sharp front kick. Though she wasn't strong enough to break his spine, she did send him careening forward, disrupting her opponent's attack. She bounded after the falling guard, using him like a springboard to propel herself at the last two guards. Deflecting the sword with her gloved fist and disregarding the tip cutting into her cheek, she flicked her other hand in his direction. Just as she expected, the guard closed his eyes in anticipation for the knife penetrating his skin. She used this brief window of opportunity to duck under his sword and drive both knives into his gut, twisting them for greater effect.

"Ferramentum Putae!" Throwing her arms out wide and ripping his stomach open, she knocked his legs out from under him and turned to the last guard, the one she had initially stabbed in the arm. "It's just you and me now."

"Agreed," the guard replied, a smirk of his own growing on his face. "Now that those whelps are out of the way, I don't have to hold back any- urrghk!"

Cassandra straightened up and frowned, staring at the black spike protruding from his throat. The spike vanished back into his body amid a spurt of blood and the Imperial Guard fell, dead as a doornail. Raven casually stepped over the body, her eyes focused on Cassandra's. "We need to leave. Now."


This just goes to show that while Cassandra is primarily a gunfighter, she dabbles in other areas of combat as well.