On a Summer Island in Paradise

By: CV12Hornet

The town - really a large farm - was long abandoned. Once the well had dried up, it was simply no longer viable. The dry desert air had done a good job of preserving the wooden buildings, but they would not offer much shelter to their current inhabitants. What they were trying to protect themselves from was far worse than any storm.

The seven pirates currently holed up in the farm were, at the moment, busily arguing over where to hide.

"Dammit, let me in!" shouted one of them, a tall, lanky young man who was scrabbling at the heavy wooden door.

"Nope, sorry, every man for himself!" grunted a shorter, stockier man sporting a layer of stubble as he tried to close the door.

Out in the streets, the rest of the much-depleted pirate crew scrambled for hiding places of their own, checking weapons in a futile but calming action. Most of their ammunition had already been expended against the thing stalking them. Only their sharpshooter had found himself a hiding spot when they heard the crunch of boots on soil.

All movement paused for a second as they all looked down the road, where their tormentor was walking down. She - for it was clearly a she - wore blue canvas cargo pants, with a double-breasted jacket on her torso, thick gloves on her hands, and sturdy combat boots on her feet. The utilitarian outfit only made her immaculately coifed blonde hair stand out even more, not to mention the antenna on her head. And yet, these details were passed over in favor of something much more immediately important: held in her hands was a compact but large-bore cannon, a flickering pilot light attesting to its current usage.

None of the pirates knew her name. It didn't matter. What mattered was that she was walking towards them, feet kicking aside spent shell casings and a shattered pair of glasses, her face a mask of careful neutrality. This was a job for her; they didn't even merit any passion.

The lanky pirate redoubled his attempts to get in. "L-Let me in! Please! Let me in!"

"Hell no!" the other man shot back, finally yanking the door closed.

Instead of going for the obvious target, though, their pursuer turned her flame cannon on another target: the buildings. Fire streamed out of the muzzle, enveloping all but one - and more importantly, flushing most of her opponents into the open. One was a mountain of a man who made the mistake of walking in front of her. Pulling out a large hammer, she leapt up and slammed the instrument into his skull, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. The lanky pirate gave a cry and rushed her, bare-handed; he got a flare to the face for his trouble.

The immediate threats neutralized, she resumed her slow, deliberate walk towards the barn, set apart from the rest of the buildings and thus not on fire yet. Clearly a problem that needed resolving, immediately. As she approached the building, she pulled out her hammer, and jammed the handle into the hooks on the door, just as a glasses-clad man in medical scrubs slammed into it.

"No... no!" he shouted, right as a stream of flame engulfed the building. "ARRRRRGH!"

By now the farm was in pandemonium. Everything was on fire, and the pirates still mobile were running around screaming like startled goats. Finally, the crew's sharpshooter made the hard choice and dove out of the window of his perch, landing in front of their assailant. Clearly, the smoke and heat had gotten to him, for he didn't recognize her as he clutched her boot and threw a pleading look upward. "HELP!"

Fire was the answer.

~o~

Jeremiah Cross winced as the screams of the sharpshooter of the Red Avalanche Pirates wafted up to the mesa he, Zoro, Robin, and Su had gathered on to watch the ongoing carnage.

"I'm not the only one who's incredibly disturbed by this, right?" he said.

"Nope," Zoro grunted.

"This isn't the worst example of cruelty I've seen," Robin stated calmly. "But it's very close to making the top ten." She winced as Conis ducked under the clumsy swing of the Red Avalanche's demolitions expert, and swung Lassoo into his knees with a sickening crack - and also knocking him back into some burning wreckage. "Correction: it is now in the top ten."

"I want to cheer her, but this is giving me flashbacks to Eneru," Su muttered.

AN: Dammit, this wouldn't go away, so now I have to exorcise it. Before you ask, no, this isn't canon. At all. Just an unusually persistent plot bunny.