A Story of Yang

To say Shaad was at a disadvantage with K'ron barreling towards him would be the textbook definition of an understatement. But, desperate times called for desperate measures. Shaad, though, much preferred the term 'inspired strategems'. Some strategies, though, could only kindly be described as utterly desperate. So it was as Shaad launched himself off the ship's railing.

Long past the end of his rope, Shaad was precious moments too slow in raising his swords. He hadn't adjusted for his own lagging movements, and that cost him dearly as he felt one of K'ron's heavy fist bury itself square into his chest, the force sending him hurtling back to the ship with K'ron close behind. Shaad sputtered. He could take a punch, but that was a good one. A really good one, he reluctantly admitted as some life again flared behind his heterochromatic eyes.

That little hint of life, though, was all it took to spur K'ron on with the more recent upstart driving his forearm into Shaad's throat, slamming the taller youth into the deck. "Now, this is why I became a pirate," he expressed with a wolfish grin, fist balled threateningly inches from Shaad's strained grimace. "But, you're out of your depth," K'ron warned.

Minutes later, Vega was restrained and being forced onto the ship with a bullet wound through one leg. Isaac watched both he and Shaad as Jin Sun followed close behind, restraining the masked man in a rear chokehold while Berret, taking no chances and visibly perturbed, trailed from an angle, his eagle eyes (and twin pistols) leveled on Vega.

"Now that we're all here," K'ron began, loosening the pressure on Shaad's neck but keeping him pinned, "you're gonna tell me what you want. I ain't got enough rep to be a target. . . yet."

Shaad hacked up a few rough, scratchy coughs, wishing he could massage his bruised throat, before answering. "Quick. . . Clean. . . Simple, right," Shaad explained wryly. "Now," Shaad snarled, fists balling tightly as he glared at the young man and let his sentence trail into silence.

Isaac burst through the tension as he returned abruptly from the ship's rear, sputtering something about an unconscious female running a high fever. As K'ron let up and Berret stepped off at what Isaac had said, Shaad struggled with all he had. But, it was for naught as, far from dislodging K'ron or the knee pressed into his ribs, Shaad only earned himself a resounding elbow across the temple that left him seeing double. . . and then nothing.

"Ngh," Shaad groaned groggily, shifting to a more upright position and immediately regretting it as it put an unnatural strain on his arms. Vega was next to him. The both of them in a kneeling position with backs to the deck railing and forearms bound together then further tied to ankles crossed around a wooden beam of the rail. The ship was moving, but Shaad could see no indication of the island they'd been on. "I'm rested. . . but still sore, asshole."

"No, I don't think I was raped," the captive captain snapped at Vega. "Oh; haha," he sounded dryly. "Since when did you develop a since of humor. . . It needs work. A lot."

"Aah, you're awake," a voice sounded, its owner approaching from around the corner. "Good. My friends discussed torturing your friend for the answers if you didn't wake up soon. . . Mostly in jest, I think. But -" he ended with an involuntary shudder. "Anyway, now you can help us help you."

"Or, I can put a bullet through your friend's head," Berret growled, fingering the grip of one of his pistols as he descended the stairs. His neck was bandaged and, craning to see more clearly, Shaad could just make out the gunman wincing slightly each time he spoke. "Maybe he'll actually make a sound then."

"Eh," Isaac cut in, placing on hand Berret's gun arm, "what my friend is trying to say is. . . we're on edge at the moment. You attacked us, tried to steal our ship, and then we find an unconscious girl with loose ropes around her wrists and ankles. We'd like some. . . answers."

Shaad reacted on emotion, primally, letting adrenaline flood his senses and dull the pain enough to snap the beam restraining him as well as tear the rope connecting his bound wrists to his bound ankles without so much as a wince. Berret was quick in reacting, though. Shaad could barely try to get off his knees before the cold steel barrel of a pistol was pressed to his knitted brow.

"That's answer enough for me," Berret remarked in a low, threatening snarl. "You're both dead."

"Where's Raine, bastard?" Shaad's voice carried raw, heated anger as he pressed forward as much as his awkward positioning and strained body would allow, uncaring of the gun pressed to his flesh.

"Enough, both of you," Isaac interjected, throwing Shaad back and holding the gunman at bay. "Berret, calm down. They're restrained; this is a chance for us to be the better people."

"I don't give a shit about your good cop, bad cop routine." Shaad's glare remained cold and hard as ice as if he thought he might be able to kill them with his eyes alone despite his pathetic positioning on his side, unable to lift himself even back up to a kneeling position. "Where the fuck is my navigator!?"

"Your what?" Isaac's tone held no small measure of confusion.

"My navigator, jackass," Shaad barked. "If you hurt my crew, not even Death will keep you safe from me."

"I think it's a little late for that," Berret scoffed, unconcerned of Shaad's snarled threat while his revolver, both a warning and a reminder, tapped against his thigh.

"For once, I agree with shit-for-brains," K'ron announced from the raised steering deck. "Unrealistic threats that you've already failed to enforce?" The battle-crazed brawler shook his head in faux disappointment. "I mean, could you be any more of a delusional villain stereotype."

While Berret glared at and argued with K'ron and Isaac distracted himself with his own thoughts, Shaad actually had a moment to stop, calm himself, and think. Surprisingly, it was Shaad himself that drew the attention of the distracted trio back to himself.

A growing laugh drew three very confused pairs of eyes to the prone captive. Shaad rolled to his back as he let a loud laughter loose from his breast. "I thought your good cop, bad cop routine was amateur hour," he managed to say as the rumbling laugh eventually stilled. "But, this. . . You're good; I admit that. Shooting Vega in the leg such that mobility is difficult for the time being but long-term damage isn't an issue and, with proper wrapping, his life isn't in danger from infection either. But, you think you hurt him? I've punched him harder than that and he didn't flinch. No, you haven't hurt my crew. You. Won't. Hurt. My. Crew," Shaad declared with a voice of steel as he snapped his legs free and kipped up. "We'll show you what hurt is. Isn't that right, Vega?"

In the split second it took to turn and see that Vega was no longer tied to the rail, Shaad had freed his hands and gone from his spot on the deck as well. Isaac and Berret both immediately looked up to glean if K'ron had seen anything from the perched position only to catch Shaad smashing a fist into their crewmate with bone crunching precision.

K'ron had barely seen the punch coming. But, reacting was a different story, only able to pull his head back to lessen the impact by the smallest of margins. Still, the force sent K'ron flying, knocking the locked steering column loose as his back slammed at an angle into it and breaking a piece of the wheel as he fell past it, stopping with a pained groan on his stomach.

"Shit," Berret muttered as the ship lurched violently to the side, threatening to capsize but a moment before he felt (not seeing) a fist crossing his jaw and sending him tumbling across the lower deck, reopening the wound on his neck.

Isaac rushed to stave off further assault by the masked Vega, leaving K'ron to defend himself against the newly driven Shaad. As fists pounded into him, K'ron struggled to adequately protect himself.

Shaad, in the back of his mind, had to credit the workmanship of the vessel. Even holding back enough to not purposefully hammer K'ron through the ship's keel, the impassioned fists were enough to bury a foe on the lower deck. Still, K'ron merely lay unresponsive on the cratered wood as the storm finally passed. "You wanted better? You couldn't handle my best," Shaad warned, voice slick with venom as he gripped a handful of loosened bandages from K'ron's chest and threw his opponent through the railing and to the eagerly lapping waves of the ocean below before turning to assist Vega without further delay. So hurried or distracted was he, in fact, that he failed to realize no sound such that a body crashing below the frothy surface might make was forthcoming.

Shaad's landing distracted Isaac enough for Vega - who'd been admirably and somewhat surprisingly holding his own fairly well against the 2-on-1 assault in that his defense rarely faltered even with the severely wounded leg - to land a fleeting, but impactful, blow that pushed the former Marine hopeful away. Before Isaac could recover, Shaad struck an elbow clean across his jaw. The rival captain then grabbed his collar, spinning and flinging him back into his crewmate.

That threw Berret enough that the gunman was pushed to the right (to avoid the brunt of Isaac's weight) and into a hooking body blow by Vega that slipped just below his defending arm and into the lower ribs before the best punch Vega could throw without planting the injured leg throttled into his jaw. Despite, maybe surprisingly, holding the advantage, Shaad knew neither he nor Vega could last much longer and their actions revealed an urgency usually reserved for the desperate.

Rushing forward to catch both Isaac and Berret while they recovered their footing, Shaad gripped the two combatants' throats in a vice-like grip. The captain, already pushing well beyond his limits, could feel his body fighting back as he pushed his arms, legs, and heart even further.

Isaac and Berret each struggled mightily but every scratch, punch, and flailing kick ultimately amounted to naught against Shaad's sheer determination as through the free flowing blood borne of a broken nose, his grip only tightened until both of those against him had been thrown overboard. Such was his singularly focused drive that it was only Vega that kept him from following into the watery depths below.

"Enough!" K'ron's booming voice resounded in a deafening roar. Shaad fell back, not into Vega's arms, but a heap on the ship's deck, head bouncing off the polished wood with a solid thunk while Vega was forced to a knee by the overwhelming pressure exuding from seemingly nowhere. As K'ron hopped down to their level, the crushing weight increased further, pressing Vega into a prone position, struggling arms unable to push up while a strained neck craned that the former cage fighter could presumably level a withering glare from behind his mask.

"How are they?"

"Their captain 's stable. She's getting worse, though; temperature hasn't dropped below 100F since yesterday and her skin is ghostly pale. The IV barely replenishes the nutrients her body needs before they're expelled again. The only positive (if you'll call it that) is that her fever has at least stabilized and she's been out since the other two rebelled."

"Thanks, Berret" Isaac spoke sincerely. "To think, if she hadn't been able to just speak those few words, we might've killed them."

"Problem?" Jin Sun's voice was soft but clear while Berret showed an expression that said he agreed with the dissident sentiment.

"Listen, we're pirates. That doesn't mean we have to be killers." Isaac's voice was impassioned as he looked from Berret to Sun and back. "Yes, those two attacked us and attempted to steal our ship, but they were desperate to save their crewmate. If either of you wouldn't do the same for K'ron or I. . . we're probably not gonna make it too far, honestly."

"I know I'd do what needed to be done," K'ron offered his take as he descended below deck, joining the others. "I wouldn't have failed, though," he added with a confident smirk. "More importantly, I wanna go against dude again. Straight up, I bet he'd be fun."

"And, speaking of unhealthy obsessions," Isaac began, a pointed expression directed at K'ron slowly trailing to Berret. "Any word from their third member?"

"Not a peep. Hadn't moved a muscle as a matter of fact," Berret exclaimed with arms thrown wide to further express his own disbelief. "We sure he's actually human?"

Whether taking the question as rhetorical or merely ignoring the hyperbolic flourish, K'ron voiced his thoughts on the matter. "We got three unknowns on the ship, and none of 'em are talking. Where's that leave us?"

"Same place we were," Isaac said in answer. "We're headed to Sihar, a prosperous kingdom said to have a robust and advanced economy. It'll have the hospitals and doctors they need and we can continue on our journey once the Pose sets."

"Assuming they're pirates we'd be better off dumping them somewhere and docking at a whole other port. . . You said it yourself; they already tried to still the ship once, and we know for a fact, they don't have anything beyond a few chests we found in the shallow waters. They will try to steal from us again and we've got a Devil Fruit on board."

"Okay, even if they did attempt to steal from us, they'd still have to wait for a Log to set, maybe longer given recovery time for each of them. As for the Devil's Fruit. . ." A Cheshire cat grin split Isaac's face as he showed the strange, feathery looking fruit with a fresh bite mark, the eyes of his crewmates going wide at the morphing sight before them. As for the rest, you three really should start reading the papers."

[1 Week Earlier - Marine HQ]

Marine officers congregated around a long, rectangular table in a spacious hall, chatting away in several separate conversations until a pair of large, wooden double doors at one end opened up with an audible clatter against the stone walls. Voices immediately died down as the various officials found the way to their seats, watching a tall, but rather nondescript, tan skinned man of slight build march to a whiteboard.

"By now, each of you has heard about the visitor our Fleet Admiral received some weeks ago sent by this man," the Marine's regal baritone commanded attention, all eyes drawn to the bounty poster of one 'Baron Samedi' being tacked onto the board. "New information indicates that the upstart that razed a Marine base out in the West Blue, the previously identified 'Little Hellion', is actually his son, Cornelious Rashaad." The announcement was paired with the old bounty poster as well as a clearer photo joining his father on the board. "Now, he hasn't earned a familial moniker as of yet, but given the rather infamous parentage, he's being talked up by some as the Nephalem Prince. He was recognized by Admiral Fenrir aboard the Suny Family's Reverie Voyage Cruise and given some whispers leading to their boarding location, we can confidently deduce that 'Little Hellion' and Cornelious Rashaad are one and the same and that, much like his father, he hasn't been particularly quiet."

"Fenrir bringin' him in," a younger voice piped up from the back of the room

"Do we believe him culpable in the Celestial Dragon's death," another added from elsewhere.

"At this time, the Tenryuubito's death is being treated as a tragedy of natural origin. But Rashaad was responsible for the death of a notoriously embattled noble and is reported to have threatened the Celestial Dragon's son. Additionally, upon his identity being discovered by the ship officials, Rashaad and his cohorts staged a large scale disturbance to obfuscate their escape. Too many occupying forces and civilian presences allowed for the outlaws' current location to be lost. For now, though, they're not a threat and bounties have been issued for the 'Prince' and his retinue." The officer's voice, consistently professional, nevertheless tinged with underlying mockery as he threw the three posters onto the table. "Information is still forthcoming regarding the pair that caused a scene almost simultaneous with the plotted escape of Rashaad and crew. They're not believed to be related to this-" a slap on the whiteboard marking the previously posted pictures of Shaad and Samedi. "but they were recognized by Vice Admiral Lykos. He said they were a suicidal pair of brats worth looking at if they didn't kill themselves too quickly. Everything you need to know, including additional information concerning Rashaad's crew, can be found in the files in front of you. Any questions?"

"What are we calling these guys?"

"Suicide Pirates; Lykos' idea. As for Threat Level Yellow, he actually hasn't announced himself to the world yet, but Yin-Yang Pirates seems to fit his motif."

"Yin-Yang Pirates, huh?"