AN: Wow it's been waaaaaaaaaaay too long since I last updated this story, huh? I must use this time to apologize to all my readers for the long wait, but I hope it is worth it since this is over 3000 words in this chapter. I do apologize for taking such a long time to update, but between battling college classes as well as family issues and the dreaded Writers Block, so I am extremely sorry and I hope you accept my apology and continue to enjoy my story. Without further ado, and waaaaay too late, enjoy the latest installment of this story while I work on my other One Piece story as well.

Chapter 4: Sharpshooter Isle! Search for a Gunner!

The newly dubbed Black Ash Pirates are sailing through the West Blue in search of new crewmates. As we sail northeast, across the entire Blue sea from our original starting point at near the Southwest corner of the West Blue, heading diagonally across the West Blue towards the farther corner where the Calm Belt would take us into the North Blue. As we sail onwards, I finally put the finishing touches on the outfit that I would wear for the rest of our journey as pirates. While finishing up the outfit, the door to my captain's room flies open and Wendy shoots into the room,

"Ashley-nii! We found some more land!"

I nod in her direction, "Alright. Let me finish this up then we'll make landfall."

Wendy, ever curious, floats over to above my shoulder, observing what I was making,

"What's that, big sister?"

"This, Wendy?" I ask, with a smile curving my lip, "This is my Pirate outfit. I'm gonna need a blade too…" I mutter to myself as I shrug, finishing the final touch. "Aaand done!"

With that, I straighten up and put the finished outfit away, before turning to Wendy,

"Let's go see this new Island for ourselves."

As we head out onto the deck, I blink away the bright sunlight glinting off of the metal from what must be hundreds of small single passenger ships, around plenty of small islands, each one varying from a mere 200 feet across, to the central island. Blinking, I gaze across the island, noticing marine ships scattered around and were…guiding us into port?

I turn a questioning gaze to Gareth, wondering what the devil have we gotten into now?

Gareth shrugs, "Apparently the ship we stole comes here every year to participate in this tournament for the best shooters in all four blues. Since they're such big contenders, even as bounty hunters, the marines are here to help police the locals and guide the big contenders to their own docks."

I blink rapidly, "Interesting…so this ship we have has such a big reputation…maybe we should keep it for the rest of our Blues trip…Incidentally, how long until landfall?"

Ranzo speaks up for the first time, already decked out in his armor, "At this speed, a few hours, Captain."

I nod slowly as I gaze around me, "In that case, I'll get ready for landfall. You guys do so too."

With that, I head back into the captain's quarters.

-A few hours later-

As we pull into dock, we notice a bunch of marines standing at attention, along with a Marine Vice Admiral standing at the head. Looking at them, I clench my fists unconsciously in rage before calming as my rational mind recognizes the need for civility. As the ramp lowers, I lock gazes with the marine vice admiral, my gaze taking in his appearance. He is a rather tall and well-built man, about 7 feet tall, with tanned skin and white hair falling down the sides of his head slicked back wearing a white Marine Coat with blue epaulets over a gunmetal gray suit and gunmetal gray eyes. Strapped to his back is a strange cross between a musket and a sword. The Vice Admiral steps forward, "Greetings, Shadow Coalition. Welcome back to the annual Sniper Shooting Spectacular. I am Vice Admiral Magnarlos, the Marine in charge of the Marine's here this year."

I nod with a genial smile as I look over at him, having already come up with a nice story to get past without causing a fuss. "Nice to see you, Vice Admiral. Unfortunately we are not going to be participating this year. My big brother, Chase, is focusing on a rather unique hunt who utilizes traps and he took the entire coalition with him. I'm just here with my bodyguards to enjoy the show."

The old man nods with a chuckle, "I see. That does fit with what I've been told of him. Well, then I bid you enjoy the show this year!" With that, the large man leaves, taking the crowd of Marines with him. After they leave I turn to my crewmates, "It looks like they either haven't heard that we stole the ship or what we've done. I'd like to keep it that way. Gareth, you guard the ship. Ranzo, you're in charge of supplies. Get what we need and then get back here."

Gareth nods as he turns and heads back up onto the ship, where he lies on the deck. Ranzo, being unused to the crew mechanics, looks over at me, "But what about you and Wendy?"

Grinning a D worthy smile at him, "Wendy and I will be watching the competition. We do still need a gunner."

With that, I walk forward to follow the road between the stone buildings, Wendy floating invisibly behind me as I walk towards the center of town.

-Line Break-

We have arrived in the booth granted to the owners of the ship we stole, and Wendy and I are currently watching over the countless gun wielders spread across the massive field arena set up in the center of town. Over 10,000 feet of open field, with countless target rings scattered about. There are areas for sharpshooters, near the wall of the arena with a clear view of a few miles out as well as scattered windows for snipers cut into the walls allowing them to shoot out of them for their sniper competition. I raise my eyebrows, noticing that although the name of the competition is the Sniper Shooting Spectacular, the vast majority of the field on the inside is designed for much smaller ranges. There are scattered cannons all over a quarter of the field. Another quarter has massive wooden walls in the middle of the line, filled with holes in the walls and targets that disappear and appear periodically, set up for pistol and mid-range weapon precision. The third quarter has a massive amount of stone walls scattered around the area, as well as a massive amount of targets behind the last stone wall. Then the fourth quarter is filled with snipers and gunners checking their weapons, as the holes carved into the walls are for the sniper contest. Finally there is a stage built into the center, as well as a large man climbing the steps going up to the stage.

Wendy is staring around with wide eyes, her childish navy eyes sparkling as she looks around the buzzing arena, causing me to chuckle as I lean forward, noticing the man in the stage as he….rips open his shirt, revealing a type of speaker a lot like the massive speakers that were used in nightclubs back in my old world set into his chest, as well as dials that he expertly spins before his voice BELLOWS out from the speaker, much louder than the crowd, "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! WELCOME TO THE 32ND ANNUAL TRIPLE S CONTEST!"

The crowd roars as I raise my eyebrows at the obvious devil fruit power being showcased, "My guess is, he ate the speaker-speaker fruit and became a speaker man….how underwhelming…" I mutter, too low for Wendy to hear as the obnoxiously loud man, whose name is Loudred Drew, goes over the tournament schedule while ramping up the crowd. Apparently first is the Cannonade Crash, which is where contestants have to run between the cannons and the cannonballs stashes, pick up cannonballs, lug them to their cannon, then fire them and hit the targets to earn points. They have 15 minutes to earn as many points as they can, and they have to be smart enough to not use one of the rigged cannons that are designed to blow up upon usage, which would immediately eliminate the contestant from the Crash and erase all their accumulated points.

My eyes narrow as I stare at the field, "I see…" causing Wendy to look over at me, "what do you mean, Ashley-nee?" I turn over to look at Wendy before explaining, "Every gunner worth his salt on the sea knows how to recognize poorly maintained cannon, since using one on the sea would result in an explosion, which not only destroys the cannon, but also injures the ship and any crew near it. As such, the competition is designed to recognize those that have the skill to survive out on the sea and possess the knowledge needed to be a gunner on a ship. They are also required to know the fastest way to reload a cannon as well as be strong enough to carry heavy cannonballs all over the ship deck, aim and fire, which is where the moving targets come in."

I explain, causing Wendy to nod in understanding as I lean forward, "Coming to watch these events was a much better decision than I thought...if the other events are just like these, then we can just sit back and pick out a good choice for our crew's gunner from the winners."

Wendy nods with a bright smile as I lean back in the comfy chair set in the shadowed dark booth, obviously designed for Chase to lord over his fellow hunters as I settle down to watch, the corner of my lips curling up as the contest would begin shortly…..

-Contest begins-

Sitting back, I watch as contestant after contestant enters the field and begin competing. Most of them lose due to the stress of competition driving them to pick a rigged cannon and ending up injured and removed from the Crash. My attention is suddenly grabbed by Loudred, who is announcing the next contestant, who won last year's Crash. A rather huge beluga whale fishman named Tagger, who stands at a massive 12 feet tall, the same size as Gareth in his hybrid form. He wears only a thick pair of pants, leaving his dark blue hair over his stark paper white skin which is blinding in the sunlight, in addition to a feeling of wrong that his appearance suggests, though not as much since his face looks more human like than most fishmen, with scars littering his thick white skin. I lean back, interested as the beluga whale expertly goes over his task, easily carrying four cannonballs at once, two in each palm and two rested on his forearms which are held close to his chest, as he carries them to the farthest cannon and unloads before returning to gather more ammunition. At the end, Tagger has an overwhelming lead on the rest of the competition, leading me to lean backwards, as Wendy glances at me, recognizing my pensive thinking mode and stays quiet.

My thoughts are interrupted as the announcer makes a surprising announcement, as the only female participating in all 4 contests is the last to compete in the Crash. Intrigued, I lean forward to get an impression of the woman, whose name is Chapman Marina. She is a taller than average female, with dark mocha colored skin and dark red hair. Her frame is thinner than my own, yet she sports a large chest common with most women, yet her arms and legs are considerably thicker than most. She's wearing a dark maroon shirt with a black armband on her left arm, along with a bandolier filled with ammo along with dark brown camo jeans and hunting boots. On her head she wears a unique headset, one eye piece looks like it zooms out like a telescope as the other one has a bright red glass eye piece in it, which I realize with a jolt that it was a crude infrared scope!

Watching closely now as Marina begins at the gunshot that starts each round, her strategy is as different from Taggers as possible. Where Tagger took his time and made sure to carry a lot at once to hit his shots, Marina trusted her aim and skills and simply filled the field with cannonballs. Never once loading a rigged cannon, she fired shot after shot, darting back to the cannonball stash to grab a new one before running with it to a cannon which she loaded and fired before repeating the process. As the points added up, Marina was obviously catching up to the fishman, who looked furious as she closed on him. She was a few points away from passing his score, as she had it set so that all she needed was the last shot. But as she fired and the buzzer rang, the target in the distance moved out of the way. Marina's eyes widened as the fishman roared in victory, having just been announced as the victor, while my eyes narrowed. Suddenly a gust of wind distracts me, as I look over at Wendy, who is rather adorably angry, floating in the air a foot off the ground with her face pinched angrily as she growls,

"They cheated!"

I nod with a dark glare, "Remember what Ranzo said? I bet that there was mafia involvement here….The fishman must be part of one of them…."

Returning my attention to the field, I notice that Marina, looks frustrated but unsurprised, before moving stoically over to the next event that is starting up, which is the Precision Popper, where the contestants here are allowed to use whatever ranged weapon that they want within the time limit. As I watch, I notice that Marina has moved to enter as one of the beginning contestants this time, as she steps forward, unslinging…a bow? I blink before smirking widely as she expertly unslings her bow, realizing that this must be her favorite weapon, yet the crowd doesn't approve, for a chorus of jeers and laughter fills the stadium.

As the gun goes off, the laughter abruptly stops, for Marina has shown why she is using the bow. Arrow after arrow lance out, without her even looking for some shots as she goes, amassing an incredibly high score that immediately discourages the vast majority of competitors.

I let out a joyous laugh as I watch the dark skinned girl show up the idiots in the crowd, as the rest of the competitors try but fail to get close to her score. As the PP nears completion, the last entrance immediately has my hackles up, for it is a very thin, lanky almost ratlike man named Mongoose. He has dirty blonde hair that covers his head and a mustache that looks like whiskers due to the strands of dark brown in the light blonde mustache. Upon the gunshot firing to signal the start of his round, Mongoose immediately pulls out a long barreled pistol and starts firing. My eyes narrow as I notice that his aim isn't the best, yet he somehow hits every single shot. As the time winds down and he notices that he is running low on time, the rat immediately starts firing rapidly, causing me to notice as targets are moving much faster in order to be in place to get hit by his bullets.

I let out a snarl as my fists clench on the chair, as the rat, with his friends helping him out, manages to squeak out a few points over Marina.

"Cheating mafia again….these guys must really want to win."

"But how do they get away with it?" Wendy asks, confused as she looks around at the cheering crowd. "Wouldn't somebody notice?"

I shake my head as I look over at her, "The mafia specialize in the shadows. These in particular are probably very skilled at manipulating public events. I wouldn't be surprised if every winner of the tournament is a member of one of the five mafia families."

Wendy blinks before shaking her head, her blue hair swishing as tears collect in the corners of her eyes, "But that isn't fair…."

I look at her then shake my head, before taking a closer look at Marina, noticing that she looks frustrated, but not surprised. It's almost as if…

"She knows. She knows the mafia is rigging the competition."

Wendy whips around to look at me, "What do you mean?!"

I gesture over to the dark skinned gunner, "She isn't surprised. Angry, frustrated, but she isn't surprised." Wendy looks over at Marina as I lean back in Chase's chair, my gaze contemplating the frustrated gunner as she goes over to the third quarter of the field, getting ready for Fusillade Frenzy, which is the competition for the heavy guns. The vast majority of the competitors are guys the size of Gareth and Tagger, many of them fishmen holding massive assault guns or rocket launchers that look waaaay too heavy for an ordinary human to lug around without devil fruit help.

Loudred announces the start of the Frenzy, which starts off with a man about 10 feet tall, with green skin, a very ugly looking face that only a mother could love, (and even then, probably not that likely), and a massive 4-barreled machine gun, which is apparently nicknamed Maximus, obviously an affectionate nickname given to an inanimate object, just like how a young child nicknames their favorite toys. The ugly troll like man, named Blaster Ogre, is apparently the favorite to win this year, for last year's winner apparently blew himself up with his own bombs. Now the goal is the same as the other events, hit the targets to earn points. The Frenzy, though, has no openings between the solid stone wall, one for each competitor, that stand between the targets and the gunner, which is why this is the heavy weapons stage, as the point is to show off a weapon's penetrating power and the skill and the strength to utilize it.

Recognizing the similar name theme to the other winners, I narrow my eyes as the ugly man, who looks nothing like a human or fishman, revs up his massive gun and opens fire upon the start of the round. His massive gun, Maximus, is not just for show, as it is shredding the walls with remarkable ease, easily passing the stone barricade and tearing apart the entire target line almost too fast for them to be replaced, although the speed with which they are is definitely well practiced. I frown as he doesn't stop firing for the entire 15 minutes, and even just under a minute after the cutoff point and those points still counting towards his score.

With such a massive score and hardware, it is obvious that the Ogre is gonna win, and even Marina has realized it, for she simply shakes her head and when her turn starts, she unslings her bow and lets fly an arrow with a bottle on top of the flat arrowhead tip. Upon contact with the wall, the arrow explodes, destroying enough of the wall for her to start firing off arrows. When she reaches time, she is firmly in second place, and I nod decisively before standing up. Wendy gets up too upon seeing me get up and head towards the door,

"Ashley-nee, where are you going?"

With a simple gesture out the window, I point towards the horizon, which is a fiery red color. "The main event, the sniper showcase, is tomorrow. I've seen enough too. By this time tomorrow, Chapman Marina will be joining our crew as our gunner, and we will probably have to….ensure…that the mafia here on this island don't get in her way."

With that, I head out the door, my pitch black hair flowing in the wind and my black eyes gleaming with a red gleam in the dark shadows of the room as I head out into the city and back to the ship, to consult with Gareth and Ranzo before making contact with Marina…

End of Chapter 4