I don't own Black Lagoon.
Please let me know what you think.
From zero to Pirate.
"LISTEN UP, YOU BASTARDS! IF Y'DON'T STOP, I WON'T FIRE A BAZOOKA AT YA!" Revy's already impressive pair of lungs and vocal cords screamed through the megaphone, already amplifying the screams three times over while she balanced the aforementioned bazooka on her shoulders to prove to anyone on the large ship that the Lagoon was close by to she had it and she was serious. Rock hoped Revy used the bazooka; she had been lashing out at all of them ever since that fuck up of a mess with Roberta, he preferred her turning her attention to anyone who pissed her off.
For a reason that Rock just could not understand, nor work out, the crew on the ship carried on. Either they hadn't heard the threat or the captain was immeasurably desperate to get whatever it was on his ship to where it was going.
Rock took one look at Revy's face and saw the anger there. Oh great, now they'd set her off; at least they were her target, not him. "YOU DUMBASSES!" She shrieked into the megaphone. "OKAY, YOU ASKED FOR IT!"
"Enough of the damn dramatics, Revy, just get on with it for fuck sake's," Dutch's low and growling voice which was like a cement mixer mixing a load of gravel came over the headphone.
Already pissed off by the crew's stupidity, Dutch's voice was the catalyst and sparked Revy's already bad temper. "FINE, THEN! I'LL JUST SHOOT YOUR ASSES TO DEATH!"
Revy unslung the bazooka and fired a rocket. The projectile speeding towards them sent five men who'd clustered on deck rushing out of the way now they realised the pirates meant business. The rocket projectile clipped a chunk of the deck, blowing it up. Rock didn't react, didn't say a word; he had become long since used to Revy's literally explosive temper and way of doing things, but at the same time he knew he wasn't Mr Popular with her at the moment.
Rock had been keeping his distance from the woman he had fancied and even loved for a long time even if there were moments where he wished they'd never met. His idea was to let her calm down a little bit longer before he made his move; he had triggered bad explosive moments with Revy before where she was nothing more than a slumbering volcano. One of the most notable moment was after that mess with the Nazis and the U-Boat; Revy had been in a dark, surly mood for weeks until they'd worked it out between themselves, but what he had done with that mess with Roberta was much, much, much worse. Rock had made amends with Dutch and Benny, but Revy was harder to crack.
Dutch's voice broke him out of his thoughts, "Nice going, Revy. They've just come through over the radio. I'll come out in a moment and board the ship with you. Rock, I want you to come with us."
"What?" Revy's voice broke through so abruptly Rock was surprised.
"I need him to check the manifest, Revy, and it's my decision," Dutch's voice was level and unaffected by Revy's outrage. Either their boss was tired of the tension or he didn't care. Rock didn't know which.
Revy didn't say a word while they boarded the ship, and as they boarded the ship Dutch handed Rock a folder. It was full of pictures, and as the former Japanese businessman opened it, he whistled and his eyes popped open wide in shock. The pictures were full of jewels, rings and necklaces.
"Aw, man!" Rock breathed in awe. He had seen some consignments, but they were either drugs or weapons, it was rare for it all to be things like jewellery. "How much is here?"
"A lot. Ms Balalaika wants the consignment; she heard this ship was on an archaeological trip and among the discoveries made were a large amount of jewellery, much of it Chinese design. But there are other preserved Chinese style pottery that survived. Balalaika can find buyers in private auctions who can fence it for her, but it's really her problem, not ours. We're just the delivery guys," Dutch replied while Rock went through more of the photos, wondering how Balalaika got the pictures in the first place. She wondered if Hotel Moscow had someone behind the scenes giving them this intel because that would be how they worked but he truly didn't care. Dutch was right, they were just the delivery guys.
In the meantime, he got to the other pictures. "Wow, that looks like jade," he commented when he got to a large dragon-shaped sculpture in pure green.
"It likely is. The ships carrying the lot of it went down centuries ago, and it is valuable as a result. Balalaika wants it back as soon as possible."
"Tell me if it's none of my business, Dutch, but since when was archaeology part of Balalaika's game?" Rock asked.
Dutch turned his head so he was looking back at Rock. "Nah, it's okay. I was just as surprised. Hell, I asked her that myself. Apparently, she's opening up new businesses, but she wants to keep her current cash flow from touching them. What does that tell you, Rock?"
Rock might not have been a multimillionaire entrepreneur, but even he had enough knowledge of business to know what Dutch was implying. In any case, Rock had been brought in to go over the books for Hotel Moscow often enough to even make a little fiddle here and there if he so wanted, but he wasn't so brave. The Russians were brutal, savage when provoked and Rock had learnt very quickly not to get on the wrong side of them.
"She's worried what she's got in mind won't work out, so she wants to make sure if it doesn't her current businesses and deals aren't touched," Rock said.
"Yeah. Balalaika's good but she's always on the lookout for new businesses, but she does not like sacrificing too much without backup plans," Dutch said as they headed up with Revy already rushing ahead to make sure the crew didn't do anything stupid.
"What do you want me to do, Dutch?" Rock asked.
"Simple; me and Revy'll keep an eye on the crew and make them pack everything on the Lagoon. You're gonna be checking the inventory. It's there with the file," Dutch replied.
Rock found the inventory quickly and scanned it with expert eyes. It looked straightforward enough to him. It looked like there were seven piles of jewellery, old fashioned Chinese coins, but there were emeralds, topazes, pieces of gold and silver. There were diamonds, rubies in an old fashioned Chinese box. There were sculptures and even old and ornately crafted weapons. Aside from the treasure, there were urns and pots, even pieces of porcelain that were incredibly well preserved on the bottom of the ocean for centuries. It was quite an extensive list but it was manageable.
"Okay, I'll need to look over it all, make sure none of the crew has skimmed any of it off," Rock commented.
Dutch grunted, knowing it was possible for someone to get greedy and sneak off something like a jewel or a coin, but nothing too bigger than that. "Okay, I'll have Revy watch over yer. Don't worry, I'll talk to her," he added before he paused and took a good look at him, "How're things between you two?"
"I'm keeping my distance. I'm hoping to catch her when she's in a good mood."
"Rock, its been over a month since-.'
"I know, Dutch. But I don't want her washing out at me," Rock replied. "Shall we get started?"
X
Rock was going over the inventory in the ships' hold. The good news was the archaeologist team had stored the whole lot and labelled their finds, making it simple for the former Japanese businessman to find them and he mentally counted as much as he could but to be honest, the archaeologists hadn't bothered to count their finds, but he made some effort to make sure the majority of the collection was there. Luckily it was. Clearly, the archaeologists had the common sense to keep watch over the lot of their finds. Personally, he was glad to be down here, in the hold - the diving bell and the mini-sub on the upper deck along with the SCUBA equipment, flippers, breathers, masks and tanks reminded him too much of that uncomfortable dive down to the U-Boat. The only consolations Rock had was there was no diving for him, no U-Boat, no walking over the dead composed, skeletal bodies of the crew, no Nazis here. No. He was on board a boat manned by crew and archaeologists.
"Rock, you almost fuckin' ready? Dutch wants to get it on board by now," Revy called, her voice the same clipped, terse tone she'd used when she'd come back from the U-Boat. Rock sighed.
"Yeah, almost," he replied, and he was indeed virtually ready. One of the bonus points of being a former businessman was being good with numbers. It wasn't hard for Rock to quickly tick everything off mentally.
"Good. C'mon then, we can get the crew to move it," Revy turned away from the treasure trove around them which was more precious than some fucked up piece of Nazi art.
Rock was opening his mouth, hoping to clear the air with Revy, but he closed his mouth shut; he knew if he said the wrong thing, Revy was liable to get her guns out and blast the place to bits, and that was not something any of them wanted to report to Balalaika, especially Revy. The infamous 'Two Hands' wasn't insane enough to want to piss that lot off. But anything was possible when you were pissed off.
"Okay Revy," Rock replied and he followed her out.
There was a little bit of trouble getting the crew to cooperate, but a few threats with her guns and Revy got the archaeologists and the crew cooperating, although one of the leading senior members of the team made the mistake of getting in Revy's way.
"No, I won't let you do this! These are historical artefacts-!" He screamed in Revy's face, but only Dutch and Rock both knew what it meant when Revy's face tightened.
"Revy-!" Rock called.
"Don't even think about it, Revy!"
But it was too late.
Revy had fired a single shot in the stunned archaeologist's shoulder. The blast sent the unfortunate victim flying backwards and made him lay sprawled on the deck of the boat.
"Don't get in my fucking face!" Revy said after walking over to the wounded man and kicking him savagely in his shoulder, making him scream again like a wounded wolf howling in the wind.
"Revy-," Dutch's voice was low now.
"Dutch, I'll handle Revy, you just get everyone working," Rock whispered urgently to the big ex-soldier. He didn't want to get on Revy's bad side, he was already there, but he could distract Revy easily enough.
"Y'sure 'bout that, Rock?" Dutch turned to him.
"I hope so. But we need to get this over and done with quickly, or else we'll never get back on time. Give me a chance," Rock said.
Dutch smiled at Rock. "You always think logically, Rock. That's one of the things I like about you. Okay, I'll do it, but please don't let me come back here and find your body on the deck."
Rock swallowed nervously.
As Dutch supervised the unloading of the treasure onto the Lagoon, while a couple of the crew who were trained in first aid were tending to the archaeologist wounded by Revy's bullet, Rock stood next to Revy, smoking cigarettes.
"If you're gonna talk to me Rock, don't waste your breath. You've got nothing to say that I wanna hear," Revy ground out.
Rock sighed, knowing this was going to be harder than he'd expected. "Too bad. Revy, I wanted to change Roanapur for you during that mess with Roberta, but it got out of hand-."
"Oh, it did."
"Revy-."
"No, Rock. You've changed. You've changed from that guy I met a year ago."
If he was going to be blamed when he was going to make sure she would shoulder some of it herself. "What did you expect? You wanted to ransom as far as I recall," Rock snapped, unwilling to take that.
Revy flinched at the unexpected bite in Rock's voice despite her best efforts, but Rock wasn't finished yet. He sighed and kept on talking, hoping Revy would be quiet enough for him to get a word into her brain.
"I thought I was sanitised from it all after seeing the way gangs shoot themselves to bits, from Nazis stumbling into a sunken U-Boat, and after sending the boat up the hull of that ship and firing those torpedoes at that cowboy's helicopter, to say nothing of having that bitch Sawyer come at me with that fucking chainsaw and being taken prisoner by those guys who wanted those documents that you had tucked away in her shirt," he trailed off, blushing a little as he recalled the really nice fantasies he'd gotten after a night of being thrown about by that stoned Irish dickhead in that car when he saw where Revy kept those documents and it made him wonder what it would be like if he got a titty fuck from her, but he put that aside to focus on the conversation, "but then I watched as a girl who was only a kid kill herself after suffering from a pointless rape."
Revy sighed as she remembered the visit to Japan and the incident in question. "I told you not to look but you didn't listen."
"Wanna know why? I watched because I wanted to watch as someone I cared about and tried to help but wanted to kill us both died. I'd had enough. I'd had enough of Roanapur. I'd had enough of the gangs. I'd had enough of Chang, Balalaika and people like them, and I thought I had the chance to change it. But of course, it didn't work, did it?'
Revy turned to him, starting to pity him but she said nothing.
"And…and I wanted to make a better world for you, Revy. I didn't want you to keep on fighting," Revy looked into his face, seeing the brutal honesty there. "But I made a mistake-."
"Damn right you did, Rock! Surely its occurred to you by now that Roanapur is beyond saving; the only way to save it is to nuke the place and just build something new there. Guys like Balalaika and Chang, they're not gonna let anybody try to change anything, and it's about time you realise that" Revy sighed. "You're not the only one who'd like it if the city changes, Rock. But I can't see it happening. Roanapur has been a shit hole for a long time."
Rock sighed and looked down, knowing in his arrogance, his hubris he had believed that he could single-handedly change the shithole that was Roanapur. "I know, but when I saw Yukio's death, I'd had enough. You know how that feels better than most."
"What do you mean?" Rock lifted his head and saw Revy staring at him curiously and not angrily as she normally did whenever he pushed something she felt touchy about. That encouraged him.
"I know how you feel about Roanapur, Revy, just like everyone else. I wanted to change it for you, for all of you, but I screwed up," Rock looked away. That might have been a mistake considering who he'd turned his back on since Revy was dangerous, but he didn't think she would hurt him.
He heard her sigh, and he was surprised when he felt a hand being laid tenderly on his shoulder, and he half turned.
"We all make mistakes, Rock. And I was wondering when you were gonna get back to me about this," Revy almost smirked when she caught Rock's expression.
"You-hold on, you've been in a bad mood with me because I didn't say anything about this?" Rock sometimes didn't know what ran through Revy's mind.
"I was pissed off with you, so I got drinking with Eda. She told me you'd gone into Chang's plans with good intentions but it got out of hand, and she's been watching you, seeing the way you look at me sadly," Revy smiled sadly herself.
"But why didn't you say anything?"
"I don't know how Rock. Remember when I told you bits about my childhood? I was raped as a child and not only by my bastard dad but by cops as well, people who are meant to uphold the law but are as corrupt as the rest of the world. So how could I have told ya when I don't even know how? You haven't accepted this reality, Rock, so I'll tell ya; you were bullied and mocked at work, so you received a softly-softly approach to it, but the entire world is full of corruption with everyone willing to rip off or kill whoever gets in the way. In places like Roanapur, those people are everywhere and they aren't gonna let anybody else like you interfere," Revy explained.
Rock looked down again, but Revy gently caressed his chin making him look into her eyes. For some reason, the lethal but beautiful woman was looking at him shyly with a bit of mischief in her expression. "Eda also told me you wouldn't have done what you'd done if I wasn't a factor in your plans. And she was right."
Rock licked his lips, not sure if he understood that.
"Thank you, now come on, we need to help Dutch. We're both pirates, right? And if you stick with us, you'll be as good, just as good as Blackbeard," Revy walked back to where Dutch was supervising the unloading of the finds from the archaeologist's boat onto the Lagoon.
"I always fancied Henry Morgan myself," Rock said, "but I always viewed you as the reincarnation of Anne Bonny."
"That's one of the female pirates, right?"
"Yeah," Rock replied as he went back with her. It still amazed Rock that a few years ago, back when he was making ends meet in that dead-end job in the world of Japanese business, he would become a pirate. But he knew one thing, it was far more exciting than being mocked all day. Okay granted, sometimes he was still mocked, but at least something got the blood pumping, right?
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