Nothing But Trouble...
"Oi!" grunted Maria as she puffed her chest out as she lifted a collection of long logs off of the ground and up into the air. The amount of money the crew had was certainly a small, but with her bargaining skills she had managed to talk them down to a point where she got a workable amount of wood and nails...sadly, she wasn't able to talk them down to a point where she could a couple of cannons. No, the Infinity Pirates' ship would have to stay with the one cannon that she was able to buy.
"I still think this cannon was a waste of a purchase," muttered Enma as he dragged the cannon through the road. The cannon was attached to some chains that he pulled, the salesman was nice enough to let them have a cart to drag it with, but the weight was still pretty high, it took a lot of Enma's effort to drag the cannon across the road, "I mean come on! We don't even have any cannon balls!"
Maria stopped in here tracks for a second. She was so caught up in the thoughts of improving the ship that she had forgotten about one simple fact. Cannons need cannonballs. She didn't think about ever actually using the cannons, just the simple fact that the ship needed the cannons in order to be complete...cannon balls didn't complete a ship, "Hah!" shouted Maria, laughing nervously at her own mistake, "of course...of course I knew that...its just that we can make our own cannonballs...why waste the money?"
"Good point especially considering we don't have any left," muttered Zesiro as he came up besides the two carrying a large jar of nails for the ships refurbishing. Zesiro didn't feel all too great as he was just carrying a jar of nails and nothing more, but it was under Enma's strict care that he did so. The wounds could open up if he so much as took too long of a step...if it wasn't the bandages and the stitching he had now, he would've been died from blood loss. Most normal men would've died from the pain the instant Daimyo dug his swords into their skins.
"Yup," said Enma, "let's all just pray to Lucifer that he'll bless us with food for the next few days." Enma quickly dropped the chains attached to the cannon and clasped his hands together, "Please Lord Lucifer listen to me..."
"I don't think Lucifer really cares if we go hungry," mentioned Zesiro as he continued walking with the nails in his hands. He stopped when he heard the sounds of wheels turning. He turned around and noticed the cart, which currently held the cannon, was beginning to roll backwards. Zesiro looked down at his feet, he hadn't noticed it before, but the hill was kind of inclined. He looked upwards at Maria, who had left the two behind and continued on her path just focusing on moving the logs over the mountain and to the ship, "Uh...Enma," started Zesiro before he noticed the cart began to slide backwards faster, "ENMA!" Zesiro started to dash down for the cart, but the tugging of his bandages reminded him he shouldn't.
Enma turned around to see what Zesiro was trying to run to. His eyes bulged at the sight of the 1,000,000 belie cannon that just started to roll down the hill. "Oh, crap!" shouted Enma as he began to chase after the cannon, by running down hill after it. Enma's eyes widened once again as he saw some people standing in the way of the runaway cannon, "get out of the way!" Enma flinched as rather then doing what Enma said and 'getting out of the way', one of the people instead turned to face the cannon that was by now going pretty fast and accepting a full-on impact from the very blunt back of the cannon. "Oh crap...I should probably just leave...but we really need that cannon." Enma sighed and shrugged as he headed down the hill the rest of the way to get the cannon. Enma bent down and picked up the chains.
"Is this your cannon?" asked one of the men who dodged the cannon that rolled down the hill. Enma looked at him, there was nothing special about him, but Enma nodded, anyways. "Do you know what you just did? You just attacked our faithful captain! She is the one and only greatest female bounty hunter alive! As soon as you remove that cannon from her face she'll freakin' murder ya and collect your bounty."
"Okay," said Enma with a nod of his head, "I guess I know what to do here." Enma approached the cannon and put one of his feet against it. He started to stretch out his leg, pressing the cannon forwards even more into the crushed bounty hunter.
"What are you doing!" shouted the man as he grabbed a hold of Enma and tried to pull him away from the cannon. "I said to remove the cannon! Are you an idiot! Remove the can..." the man's body went limp as he fell to the ground. Enma stopped for a second and pulled an empty syringe out of the man's body, he flicked the top of the needle cleaning it of the medicine that was on it.
"When he wakes up tell him not to do any extraneous activity," instructed Enma as he pointed one of the other men following them, "that drug was in a high dosage. The drug is incredibly point and its probably going to be accompanied by mild cramps, high fever, and maybe even diarrhea when he wakes up...OH! And if you can bring by the cannon for us...we are the Infinity Pirates, we got a ship in the dock...thanks!" Enma quickly turned around and began to walk away from the problem, that he had caused.
"Sure that's a good idea," asked Zesiro as Enma met up with him on the hill, "I mean you just told a bunch of pissed-off bounty hunters who we are and where we are. We're not exactly low-ranked pirates, any more."
"What's a better way to spend our first night in the Grand Line then beating the crap out of some bounty hunters?" asked Enma as he glanced back at the cannon he was leaving behind. "Besides I'm sure Mikoto and Ridley are making trouble of their own. There will probably be a whole army of bounty hunters at our ship...I want some of them to be coming for me."
"You are either suicidal or just plain weird," pointed out Zesiro as he continued to go up the hill carrying his jar of nails.
"What makes you say that?" asked Enma as he lugged slowly behind Zesiro listening to him talk, "I'm suicidal because I ticked off some pathetic bounty hunters. Please...they'll come for me on the ship, when I'm with Hiro-Shu, Mikoto, and..."
"That's not why," stated Zesiro as he looked over his shoulder behind, "you are suicidal because you left our...well, Maria's cannon down there. She's not going to be too happy about the fact that we still don't have a cannon...or about the fact that you left our cannon..."
"Great lord Lucifer, please take pity on me..." said Enma as he began to pray to Lucifer in hopes that he will somehow protect him.
(-With Mikoto and Sage-)
"A Bounty Hunter?" asked Sage, slightly shocked. Despite the fact she just witnessed her knock down an entire group of pirates and maybe a couple of bandits, but its rather shocking that they'd meet a Bounty Hunter here. She was even more shocked at the fact that she seemed friendly to them, ordinarily Bounty Hunters and pirates are like cats and dogs they can't help but fight as soon as they meet, but she just casually sat down next to them.
"Yup," said Rosa as she smiled at her two table mates, "this entire island is infested with Bounty Hunters. A lot of pirates who made big names for themselves in the East Blue comes into the Grand Line and wind up on this island. So Bounty Hunters come here and take them out." Rosa looked back behind her at the large group of pirates all glaring at the table. "Most of the pirates are just a bunch of weaklings with big egos who get taken out on this island and hauled to the nearest Marine Base."
"True!" shouted Mikoto as he raised his glance of lemonade into the air, "a lot of these pirates probably are wimps! But not us! Not the Infinity Pirates!" Mikoto got up on the table and held his glance in the air, "to the INFINITY PIRATES!" Sage slunk deeper into her chair almost hiding beneath the table. Rosa let out a quiet chuckle.
"Here, here!" shouted Ridley from a couple of tables over, "but Mikoto, you don't make a toast with lemonade, you have got to use some kind of alcohol...hey, bartender!" Ridley turned around and faced the bartender, give me a four more shots of saké!" The bartender nodded and passed some glasses down to Ridley, "here we go! Now we can have a real toast!"
"Oh, wow!" shouted Rosa as she looked at Ridley, more specifically his guitar, "you're a musician! That's so cool! I don't mean to brag...but, um...I play a mean violin." Ridley smiled and was about to speak, but Sage interrupted him.
"How long have you been in the Grand Line" asked Sage steadily, in all honesty the entire crew knew next to nothing about the Grand Line, if she could get some information from Rosa she'd consider that an achievement for the day. "I mean I heard that there are some powerful pirates out there nowadays and its amazing that someone could handle things all alone like this."
"Hahaha," laughed Rosa as she leaned back in her chair, "The Grand Line is like a Bounty Hunting paradise! The pirates here are all interesting, not only that, but the World Government has been so busy lately that we, Bounty Hunters, have had basically our pick of all the pirates! Its been pretty fun!""
"The World Government has been busy?" asked Ridley, who was growing interested despite the fact that his rant was interrupted only moments ago, "I can't imagine that. I mean as far as firepower and manpower goes the World Government should be ahead of anyone by a long shot!"
"You are forgetting about the Revolutionaries," stated Rosa. The crew looked at her with dumb looks of disbelief. Sure the Revolutionaries were strong, but still not anywhere near the World Government and their Marines. "What? You don't know? Yeah, its easy to tell you guys are from the East Blue! The Revolutionaries have been causing so much trouble in the Grand Line. They have even taken over and conquered several islands putting them under their control! Combine this with the fact that they have stolen several Marine research plans. I mean not to mention that Void Furrow, one of their leading scientists, even left the Marines to join the Revolutionaries!"
"Void Furrow?" asked Sage, as she recalled what she had heard about him. She recalled several 'government conspiracy' papers that stated he was working on creating a human using Devil Fruits, but he was supposedly 'fired' right after the World Government found out about it. But Rosa said that he left to join the Revolutionaries...Sage gave up on trying to figure everything out and resigned herself to listening to Rosa about how the Revolutionaries were rapidly expanding and conquering islands, demanding large payments of wood, men, and other materials to create an offensive power that almost rivaled the World Government.
"Well!" shouted Ridley as he stood up from his seat at the table, "I've gotta go now...not that I don't mind staying here and watching Mikoto make a fool of himself, but I want to go now before this chat develops into girl talk about boys and clothing! Hey, bartender give me another bottle!" Ridley snatched a bottle from the bartender and quickly left the bar in a rush.
"HEY!" shouted the bartender turning around and yelling at Ridley, "get back here and pay for your drinks!" But it was too late Ridley was already well out of the bar and on his way far away from the bar.
Ridley chuckled as he downed another bottle of alcohol. He was surprised that his rash dine and dash plan worked. He had to get out of the bar. Enma had snapped him back to reality and the alcohol he had helped keep him there, but all of the sudden the feeling was back and it was stronger than before. Something insanely strong and bloodthirsty was definitely approaching this island.
(-out at sea-)
"Ke ke ke ke!" laughed Trevor loudly as he watched his blood-smeared fingers tremble with joy, "I wanna kill some more! Killing is fun! I cannot wait for the next island...for my next victims! I want to watch them die around me once again...just like before...just like before...ke ke ke ke!" Around Trevor laid massive Sea Kings. All of the had massive gashes in their body. These gashes were obviously not done by a blade or a gun, it was if some cruel and powerful beast had ripped through their bodies without a care.
The Blade of a Bounty Hunter!
A Nonstop Bounty Hunter Brawl!
Buh...buh...BUH! (cue ominious music!) Well, the crew certainly is making trouble for themselves, what with Mikoto knocking out one of the pirates on the island and Enma accidentally ramming his cannon into some bounty hunters. Trouble is definitely on the way! Also, I apologize about the change in title names, I accidentally wasted a whole half a chapter on Enma's slight 'accident' and I decided that what I had left wasn't enough for a 'Nonstop Bounty Hunter Brawl', so that's coming next time.
Also, the answer to Mikoto's riddle from last chapter is in fact 'Senses'. Congratulations to those of you who answered them...although I am slightly upset, it took me awhile to figure out the answer...