Moments before it hit the ground, a pointed deep purple coil, flat as paper, wrapped itself around the tip of the tallest tree in the area. Tightening, the coil broke the descent of the falling object, slowing it down at the expense of the tree, which bent to the point it nearly broke, but the purple implement let go and disappeared under the cover of the green, snapping the tree at break neck speeds to its original position, shaking leaves and twigs free all over the place.
At the base of the tree, Jeremy stood, having just stretching out of his bent position to break his drop. He instinctively reached for his aspirin when he realized a problem.
Oh God…I'm supposed to find a Gear in a middle of a forest, miles long? WITH NO ASPIRIN!? This is like a needle in a haystack with a time limit on it. Why the hell did that whore have to attack before I finished raiding the infirmary of the ship?
Jeremy, at this point, was forced with only one option. Pick a direction, and look in that direction. Since Jeremy didn't even see where Dizzy landed, all he could do was walk forward.
Suddenly his head began to hurt.
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Wind and wood stung Dizzy's face as she crashed through the tree branches. The needles of the evergreen first scratched her before she crashed into the branch in her path of falling. At her speed, the object crashing into her stomach came with enough force to release a mixture of blood and bile through her mouth, as she continued through the branch, eventually slowing down enough to simply bounce off one stem to another before the mess landed heavily on her side at the bottom.
She didn't move.
Get up child. The deep voice in Dizzy's mind commanded. The Gear shivered at the voice as she felt her body burn in pain.
"N-Necro…I can't…" Dizzy sobbed into the ground.
Get up child, and move. It is the only way you'll live.
"It hurts…"
A calmer woman's voice broke into Dizzy's thoughts. Dizzy, please. If the Musician knows where you landed, she could be heading here any moment. We can't protect you as well as we could in your condition. Please, you must try to walk.
At this Dizzy tried to lift her body off the ground, only to find her right arm unresponsive through its numbing pain. Using her remaining limb, she managed to get to her knees, but rising too fast her head pained and her balance ruined again, leaving her to helplessly flop to her side again.
"It just hurts too much…" she moaned.
Then be more careful next time.
And she was. Shutting one eye to keep out the blood running down her face, Dizzy managed to find a stumbling, limping, swaying gait through the forest, her left arm wrapped around her side as she hobbled away, leaving heavy gasps and blood behind her.
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Jeremy barely managed to throw his body onto the safety of the tree, instead of altogether missing and throwing himself onto the ground. Beads of cold sweat was running fresh down his head, while he sucked in breath so loudly just to make sure he could hear himself breathing. Heat pricks scattered across his body, and the pain was so brilliant across his mind it numbed nearly every other sense of life, except for thought
How long have I been walking down this path…? Hours? Weeks? Centuries? I can't really tell. Is time moving backwards or forwards? Is it still? The sun…is it moving backwards? Am I really walking? Am I floating? The shadows around me… what are they?
Passing through this existence, Jeremy saw shadows in the distance, some which looked like him walking in the other direction, others looking like Dizzy, others like a hundred of his Boss Commander, one like a skipping laughing May, and so on.
Jeremy, despite May's jeering cries at his pathetic form, grabbed the side of the bright white tree, and pried himself off it, continuing to move forward through the noir-colored mess, trance-like, dull eyes in a body that swayed around crazily like a corpse trying to walk.
Corpse trying to walk… isn't that just me? Aspirin… hides my true self…a pathetic shell…a cadaver that rots as it walks the earth…one that needs to be buried…
Another pain came through the back of his head like he was shot. His whole body jerked and dropped to the ground from the pain, as if her were shot in the back of his head. Half of his face in the dirt, he still thought.
Is that ambulances I hear? This pain…this… "headache"…I have to calm it somehow… I need anything to make this feel better…
Somehow, a sound managed to pierce the haze.
Water on rocks…running water…cool water… good water…to my left…must… get there…
Jeremy's eye swiveled to the featureless black May silhouette sitting under the shade of the tree, a pearly white smile taking up the face, as she pointed at him and laughed none stop like a machine. Jeremy growled.
But first…
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Dizzy twisted her head to the right suddenly as she heard a tree groan and fall to its side in the distance.
Destruction. The half-Gear's thoughts suddenly turned to the Red Musician, and whether she was nearby or not already.
No, it is not the Musician. I have been listening to the steps of that person while we walked. It's uneven, erratic. The person probably destroyed that tree out of insanity, not of desire. The Musician is firmer than that. Necro noted.
"Then… who is it?"
If my assumptions were correct…it would be Jeremy Colt.
"Jeremy!? But… he's just a normal human… he couldn't be able to follow me here!" Dizzy managed to eek out, though it took a lot of her energy.
Wrong. I knew there was some reason behind his headaches…I was able to smell his blood through all the other blood smells on him. His blood smelled fake, artificial. His headaches are not normal. HE is not normal. We need to get you out of this maze of wood as soon as possible.
"How?"
I sense water. There should be a stream nearby. If you follow that, it should connect to a river, which is the way out. Just try to avoid Jeremy.
"Okay..." was the only reply as hair covered her bowed head as she gasped and limped after the stream.
It was hours before the stream she followed cleared the forest away with more rounded rocks taking up the side of the waterway. True to Dizzy's white wing guardian, Undine, the stream connected to a giant green muddy flow of water that coursed through. The walking had nearly taken all semblance of life of her, only allowing her a twitch in the mouth that was supposed to be a smile. Fatigue was about to make her go unconscious.
Splash. The sound of something nearby trudging through water. Turning, Dizzy watched helplessly as a familiar face was walking knee deep in the rapids, but never falling over. Several times a wave hit his back; soaking him and everything he carried with him, but here merely bent over to comply with the water before continuing onwards, slowly and surely, but in an eerie manner, like he was missing a soul, hunched over and tired in his strides. Nothing at all like the louder incarnation back in the ship.
Jeremy stopped in front of his quarry, and turned his head to face Dizzy. The eyes were sick, brown voids, with no shine in them.
"Jeremy…"
"Found you…"
Jeremy fell down then. Dizzy, in her weakness, herself suddenly grew a desire to just give up and go unconscious for a little while.
Dizzy fell down after.
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In a certain bar in London during the deadest time of the night, Jeremy and Dizzy sat side by side in front of the counter. To compensate for the previous weeks of his horrible withdrawal, Jeremy was drinking down massive amounts of alcohol and medicines to alleviate the pains that had been plaguing him. Of course, even with this amount, it would neither make him intoxicated nor remove the pains altogether.
Dizzy wore a large boring trench coat to cover her features, but her face still bore patches of gauze, and bandaging that spanned her body, and completely covering her twisted right arm, which remained unused as she sipped her water with her left.
Jeremy drank the last of his current concoction before slamming the glass back on the wood surface with a content sigh.
"So then, Dizzy…"
The target of the comment turned her head, expectedly.
"…how's the arm?"
"Oh… that?" Dizzy tried to smile as best she could at Jeremy, considering their how their relationship stood at the moment. "It's getting better."
Jeremy hummed in acknowledgment. "Picked up a word on the streets that some of your buddies are docked here."
"Johnny's here?"
The bald bar tender snorted. "More gangsters! Bah, you're all alike, thinking it's cool to have midnight conferences, at the expense of my sleep. Some great caretaker of the city you are…"
Jeremy stared back un-amused. "Oh, shut up before I rape your daughter or something." The bartender snorted again, but remained silent after.
"Anyways Dizzy, from what I managed to pick up, your buddies are at a warehouse dock in the more industrial areas of London. So, being my job to save your ass for the moment, I suppose it's best if I get you back to your buddies. Even if it means weeks of effort…wasted…bah."
Silence.
"No comment, Dizzy?"
"No…" Dizzy in some odd way did feel sorry that Jeremy's effort was to waste, ever since he said those things the forest… not that he could remember them, though.
Jeremy shrugged threw several crumpled bills of world dollars onto the counter after. Getting off from his seat he picked up his replenished travel sack from the ground.
"Then time to go."
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True enough, the night covered body of the Mayship was at that certain industrial dock, rolling lazily in the water while lights glowed on the rain slicked cobble stone and give everything a distinct green tint. Across from the Mayship sat several warehouses, which sat unattended for the night, while more lamps attached along the corrugated tin walls gave more light to the area. Though night had fallen, a few portholes on the Mayship still glowed yellow with light.
Looks like something out of an oil painting or a post card. Jeremy decided while he sat against a pile of steel crates, and peeked over the top of one beside him. Dizzy was on the other side of Jeremy, sitting politely on her knees, but with a confused look.
Instead of merely walking up to the Mayship and saying 'hi, we're back', Jeremy opted to come in quietly along the dock side, so they'd approach the pirates' capital ship from the rear, but before they got any closer, Jeremy suddenly halted their advance, and placed them in their current situation.
"Jeremy…?"
"Shush!" Jeremy whispered back fiercely, throwing one hand back to stop Dizzy from talking, while he kept on watching, studying everything possible the street could possibly give away.
The quiet… something's wrong… what is it? It all looks okay… why do I want to not go further? Is it paranoia? Is this just me not wanting to let Dizzy go? Just… I can't let us walk right now…
"ATTACK!"
Immediately, droves of gangly, thin punks charged out from dark covers towards the ship. All of them were armed with swords, spears, and other weapons, and none of them looking rudimentary or homemade.
What…the…hell? "Dizzy, stay quiet." Jeremy watched annoyed as the noisy group ran past the ex-knight and half-Gear, while more lights and shadowy figures appeared around the hull of the Mayship. As the attacking group clambered onto the Mayship's wing that hung over the dock, the pirates in the dark, hastily assembled, already dropped down onto them. Jeremy could easily tell Johnny from the rest, with his flamboyant jumping and dashing from one punk to the next, with the black coat of his trailing behind him like another shadow floating above the others.
What the hell? Does he ever change clothes?
Out of the uniform group of ugly hooligans that poured in, one of them stood by and shouted orders.
"Take whatever you want! But keep the Gear alive! Boss wants it!"
Among the cheers and few remarks of keeping the girls for pets, Jeremy's face darkened with the words
This is getting too weird. Gah… now I have to save the pirates as well…
"Hey, what do we have here?" An obnoxious voice chanted from behind. Jeremy and Dizzy turned in tandem to the words, facing a sneering teenager with a thin sword in his hand, tapping the weapon against his shoulder in what he thought was a intimidating manner.
Before anyone could react, Jeremy was already glaring coldly at the punk.
"Drop dead."
The teenager immediately jerked like someone poked him from behind, and dropped his weapon to the ground. Trying to say something, the teen only had blood pour out, with traces of purple reflecting amongst the bloody mess.
Dizzy stared dumbfounded as the corpse fell to the ground before turning back to Jeremy, who was filling his mouth with more aspirin.
Before Dizzy could speak, Jeremy already interrupted again. "Dizzy, you know as well as I do, they're all going to die tonight. Don't question my methods. If it saves your ass, I'll do it. Now stay put, hopefully you can take care of yourself and my bag by now."
Dizzy again tried to say something, but held against it, bowing her head instead. Jeremy stepped out from the crates, seeing a small group of the gang staying on the docks, cheering for the men on the Mayship itself. Jeremy prepped his abilities, and kept them inside his hands and feet.
No use revealing how much of a freak he was if the pirates are here.
Luckily, the band of hooligans weren't completely senseless, as they heard the clack of Colt's shoes against the cobblestone. Immediately the party swirled around with all pointy weapons facing Jeremy.
"Who the fucking-" The first one started before Jeremy arced his fist over the sword and into the man's face. As the man fell away dead, his face bled uncontrollably, with a momentary tint of purple disappearing back into Jeremy's hand.
Jeremy immediately danced around the untrained swings, letting one foot crash into the stomach of one man, launching the man while more red sprayed from his wound, another in the neck with more blood spilling out from the punch, the next being slapped in the side, leaving more rivers of life spill with every blow Jeremy dealt on one man and the next, each screaming if they weren't given the mercy of being hit in the neck or above.
Stupidly, the punks on the Mayship itself saw the lone man slaughtering their friends on the dock, and jumped down to join the fight, thinning the ranks that fought the pirates themselves, which was the whole objective of the fight. But punks knew only how to fight, not who or where.
As Johnny noticed less people to fight, he finally was able to fight and notice where the screams were emanating from. Johnny, in shock at the sight, had to drop his shades, just to make sure he was seeing exactly what he was seeing.
Johnny saw Jeremy dodge a charging man with a spear, and shoving him away with open palms, only to see the spearman back away with his arms clutching his chest as he dropped to ground, writhing and screaming as he died with the rest.
Eventually, all that was left was a shaky defense of scared teenagers backing away with swords held out in both their quivering hands, and any semblance of leadership bleeding to death on the ground around them. Jeremy snickered a bit as he toyed with them, seeing the fear in their eyes as they jumped away as he mockingly feinted a motion this way and that, as if every step he took meant it could be their last.
Still too many, if I let them leave now, there'd be enough substantial eyewitness evidence that a freak of nature exists. Without a second thought, Jeremy dove back into the screaming crowd as he pummeled his way through whatever flesh he saw. Finishing off one, Jeremy saw three more running away.
Still too many. They gotta leave afraid. With their every step, I own their lives.
With his smooth trained motion, Jeremy easily pried his Magnum from behind him and fired a single shot that had the closest escaping boy's head explode in a shower of gray and red.
Jeremy jokingly blew away the smoke that trailed out of the exposed barrel of the gun.
"Jeremy." A voice stated from behind.
"Hmm?" Jeremy hummed as he turned around. Johnny straight face clearly showed one of borderline murderous intent. "Oh, it's you."
"What are you doing here?"
Jeremy shrugged. "Decided I had enough of babysitting your little Gear pet, and decided to drop her back with you. Got any coffee stocked on your ship? Staying up so late really doesn't help my headaches."
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There was coffee, albeit not very good coffee. Wasn't tangy enough. While Dizzy was in the infirmary, Jeremy found himself back in the Real Captain's Room, drinking the coffee along with Johnny with his own liquor.
"I thought you wanted Dizzy's bounty." Johnny spoke up.
"I measure danger by money, but it's usually not the money that I'm really after when I bounty hunt."
"Then what is it you look for?"
"Dangerous people."
"Then why did you bring Dizzy back?"
"She may be dangerous, but that's sort of negated when you find her bleeding, broken, and suffering minor concussions."
"What is it exactly you want Dizzy for? You take care of her, because you want her to be dangerous?"
"That…is none of your concern, since you won't be seeing me for a while, what with this whole issue of that Guitar Whore recently, and those punks. Who are those losers I slaughtered anyways?"
Slaughter. Very good choice of words, buddy… but how did you kill them? "They've been giving me trouble recently. They're flunkies from the Corisione Family. Some Italian group. They had a real beef with us, and seem to be really picking up the heat on us recently. Nearly every public port we've landed in or passed by seems to have some of them there."
"Persistent."
"Annoying."
"Well, persistent and annoying like gnats. And killed with as much respect."
"You didn't have to kill them, you know."
"What, you think you can knock them ALL unconscious?" replied Jeremy with sarcastic incredulous
"You killed them while they ran. They gave up already. They gave up even before they ran. They're just teenagers!"
"Well, don't expect the life expectancy rate to rise any faster after a ware than during it."
The door opened then, revealing a tired looking May, one so tired she seemed not in the mood to notice Jeremy's existence.
"Captain?"
"Yes, May?"
"Dizzy's fine now. She's asleep at the moment. We should be taking off soon."
"I'll be at the bridge shortly." Johnny looked back at Jeremy. "You know I can't have you stay here. You're too dangerous to everybody."
Jeremy shrugged again. "It's alright. I've done what's needed to be done."
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Jeremy snorted as he watched the mass of lights rise off the water in the distance and take off into the sky.
And there goes the nicest girl I'm going to kill yet, leaving on a jet plane… don't know when she'll be back again. I can't believe I still know that song.
As Colt swallowed more medicine, he inspected the blood stained scenery around him.
This Corisione Family is weird. These punks probably don't know how to handle a weapon outside a led pipe and a wood plank. Where'd all these fancy swords and crap come from?
"Take whatever you want! But keep the Gear alive! Boss wants it!"
"Nearly every public port we've landed in or passed by seems to have some of them there."
They want Dizzy…that's weird. Even if they had men in every port, it'd take several days for the group to attack, if their information networks were spread out so wide. How do they keep track of Dizzy?
I ought to pay a visit to this Don Corisione. Perhaps he can spare a trick or two on how to keep an eye in the sky…