What is the Torture

Maria was lost in the prison. She was walking through the numerous trees; each one was close to forming a maze. She couldn't find her way around at all. She hadn't seen any of the other Infinity Pirates for awhile. It was almost as if they had disappeared. She could feel herself getting drowsier, but she powered through it, because that's what she does. She charged forward again and was immediately taken back by the sight. Someone else had appeared on the horizon, however, the Infinity Pirates weren't the only ones on this floor. Worst case scenario it could be the Warden or other high-ranking prison guard. She formed a fist and took a slow approach forward. She recognized the man immediately.

"Randolf," Maria growled. Forgetting about her slow approach she charged. She brought her fist stretching outwards at him. He was the man she had beaten in the URA when she was still a professional fighter…however, he exacted his revenge soon after that. He brought about twenty other men into her house late at night and attacked her. They charged and broke her arms and legs. They reduced her, one of the strongest fighters in the URA, to what she was now. Without her arms and legs she thought she was done for, a friend managed to give her these mechanical arms, but still she never thought that she'd meet the man responsible for this horrible news. "Randolf!" she shouted once more as she brought her fist snapping back over, aiming for his chin, aiming for a repeat of what happened last time. It was a clean hit, yet, Randolf didn't even seem fazed.

"Funny, girl," he said as he turned his head back to facing Maria. "Never thought of meeting me here! Well, I was a pirate, almost responsible for your own death. Of course, I'd wind up in a prison one of these days. I'm just thankful I get to see you again!" He brought his leg around and smashed it into Maria's side. Maria instantly felt an unbearable amount of pain in that second. Several of her ribs, must've been broken. She stumbled for a few seconds, but only for a few, almost immediately Randolf brought his fist around and snapped it into her chin. Maria spun around for a brief second, her eyes drifting to the ceiling for a second as she tried to remain standing, but she failed. She collapsed to the ground. Randolf chuckled to himself as he brought his foot down on top of Maria forcing air straight out of her lungs. "Come on," he said, "where is that cocky swagger you had during our first fight? Lost your will along with your arms?"

Maria's eyes flashed red with anger as she tried to stand up again. However, she couldn't. Randolf's leg remained on top of her stomach effectively pinning her to the ground. When did she become so weak? She couldn't even force the man on top of her off of her body. She lifted her head up and into the air as far as it could go and she froze as she looked at Randolf's leg…or what his leg was on top. It was proudly on top of her stomach, but her stomach wasn't there. Instead it was some kind of weird mechanical body. She screamed and finally managed to wrench her body out from underneath Randolf's leg. Randolf chuckled as he watched Maria, wriggle and crawl over to the small stream near them. Maria's eyes caught her own reflection in the water. It scared her.

Her face wasn't there anymore. Her chin had been replaced by some form of metal body part again. The metal was spreading, her cheekbone was a gear and her chin was just a jutting piece of steel. "What…what's going on?" she screamed as she threw her body back and away from the water. Doing so brought her body right up against Randolf's legs. Randolf smiled as he looked down at her from his position of clear authority. "What did you do?" Maria's voice quivered. For the first time since she joined the Infinity Pirates, there was a clear sensation of fear in her voice.

Randolf laughed at her, which only sparked Maria's anger. Maria stood up and threw a punch, slugging his chin with her full-power, but that didn't seem to do anything. Randolf's maddening laughter didn't stop. Maria's punches had no effect on him? She stepped in again and threw another punch, resulting in a similar amount of absolutely nothing. "You're not even human anymore," Randolf muttered as he drew closer to Maria's face. "You're a freak and then some."

(-With Zesiro-)

"I can't believe it!" shouted Zesiro as he moved through the forest, "she is usually such a strong person and here she is, the first to fall asleep!" On his back was Maria, being lugged around by the Fishman. She was murmuring under her breath and she was covered in a cold sweat, every so often a leg or an arm would twitch, signifying a dream, but Zesiro just kept on trucking, carrying her on his back. "This is already turning out to become a troublesome flo-" Zesiro's sentence was cut short as he let out a yawn, the drowsiness of the floor was starting to affect him as well, he shook his head, rubbed his eyes clear with a free hand and finished his sentence. "A troublesome floor."

His only companion that was still awake was Ridley. Ridley was busying himself playing along his guitar, trying to keep himself busy and awake. He would play a tune every now and again, but in the end he didn't play it all too much. He was also starting to nod off. Suddenly, Ridley's eyes jumped up to something moving ahead of them. It was a rotund monster. It was a beast that probably weighed 300 pounds; it was kind of fat though. It had four stumpy legs and a long almost elephant-like nose that was in the air and sniffing around. "What is that?" The bulky animal also apparently had locked onto Ridley and Zesiro.

"It looks like a tapir," brought up Zesiro. He remembered reading certain books about it, but still it surprised him to be seeing one right now. "They were in old myths. It was said that they ate the dreams of the people around them." It was an old fairy tale and not one to worry about, but there was something troublesome about it. The Tapir was definitely staring at them as they walked closer to it. Almost like a guard dog. Suddenly the animal bucked, lifting its massive weight into the air and then bringing it back down, slamming its front feet into the ground. Suddenly it let out a billowing cry. Zesiro took a step back and out of reflex drew one of his swords, only problem was as soon as he unsheathed the blade Maria started to slip off of his back and to the ground, causing Zesiro to quickly wrap his arm back around to support her. "Crap. Let's go Ridley!" Zesiro pivoted around, he couldn't fight with this thing while holding Maria. However, as soon as he could see behind him, he saw another group of Tapirs standing around and looking at him. Suddenly they all let out a brazen war-cry and charged forward.

Ridley jumped in between them and Zesiro. He planted his feet and swung his guitar sideways aiming for the tapir's head. It created a deafening smack as the beast was tossed into the air due to the force. "Just put Maria down for a second!" shouted Ridley as he quickly ground his heels into the dirt and rotated around making another clean swing into a tapir's chin. He strummed a quick series of notes, just enough to make the tapirs stop their rush for second, but it didn't seem to bother them all too much as as soon as they recovered they began the assault all over again, leaping up into the air and then bringing their bulky bodies back down towards Ridley and Zesiro over and over again, trying to stomp them flat. Zesiro was managed to dodge all of them for the most part, but suddenly he decided that Ridley was right. He set Maria down for a second and drew his two swords.

"Shark Sword!" Zesiro rotated around and turned the speed of his rotation into a dazzling amount of momentum for a thrust. He brought the sword up and through one of the tapir's shoulders and threw it to the side almost instantly. The other tapirs barely seemed phased by the monstrous assaults and instead let out another billowing call and charged forward with more enthusiasm. "Whirlpool Razors!" Zesiro did a quick spin around, cutting all the air around him and forced several of the tapirs back. The tapirs slowly let loose a low cry of annoyance, but they still didn't retreat. They began jumping up and down once more with rage. Zesiro was starting to see just how long of a fight this was going to be. It seemed like regardless of his or Ridley's strength, they would just keep on coming. Zesiro was about to back orders over to Ridley, but instead he let out a yawn. Right he couldn't forget about that. Zesiro brought his sword around and back to his side. "We're going to need help here." He quickly bent back down and swept the unconscious Maria into his arms. "Let's not wait around here by ourselves let's try to regroup with the others before recklessly endangering ourselves."

Ridley muttered something quietly to himself as he looked back over to the incoming army of animals. He stepped in, swung at another one again, and seeing what little effect it had, quickly turned away and bolted. Zesiro was right, there was too many monsters and he definitely wasn't in the mood to be taken down by such funky looking creatures. He was the first-mate it wouldn't go well for the Infinity Pirates reputation.

(-With Rosa-)

"Annoying beasts!" shouted Rosa as she swung her sword back around. She managed to knock one of the many animals that were surrounding them. She quickly swerved in without wasting a moment. There were a lot of them, but that didn't cause her will to falter. Her goal was still with her. She needed to save Lily. With her goal once more pounding in her head, she lowered herself. Bringing her body down beneath the beast, she placed her left hand on the tip of the sword while gripping the hilt tightly with her right. Then she brought her entire body upwards. Her blade swinging upwards while he legs propelled her upwards, all of her muscles were being focused into one point, the very tip of her sword. The sword blast upwards and into one of the tapirs, the strength behind the sword was probably the greatest Rosa could muster, however, she still felt like it was lacking in comparison to the rest of the crew.

Mikoto suddenly came screeching back and into another one. His fist swinging upwards and then right back down into one of the tapirs, sending the entire monster down to the ground. The tapir slumped to the ground and laid there for a few seconds as Mikoto quickly went over to the next one. There were a lot of beasts clamoring around them, but they didn't bother Mikoto fully. He was streaming from one to the next. Mikoto's speed was greater than any of the beasts, it was possible that they were originally faster, but it seemed fairly obvious that they had gotten fat. They were still fairly strong, they had to have been as the prisoners on this floor probably weren't fairly easily handled. They had to have at least have decent strength to have become the guards of this floor. Another group of tapirs started to descend towards them. Mikoto looked around and immediately noticed how badly outnumbered they were.

"What's the plan, captain?" questioned Hiro-Shu as he managed to throw another one of them. They were coming en masse now, but that didn't seem to bother the iron golem. The animals were easily hefted around by him. Honestly, even without his armor he could probably beat these guys. However, he was slowly feeling like he was tiring. They were too many of them for this to go on forever. Even worse, he was starting to feel as if he was being lulled to sleep. The giant trees were completely doing what they were supposed to do. Hiro-Shu bent back and let loose a large flaming ball, trying to scare them away. "Captain?" asked Hiro-Shu once more looking over his shoulder, only to see their faithful coyote captain laying on the ground, snoozing. "Mikoto!" Hiro-Shu pivoted around and was about to race over to help him, when another tapir jumped in their way. Hiro-Shu paused for a second, mostly out of surprise. The tapir nudged its head beneath Mikoto's body and with a quick turn of its head looked over at Hiro-Shu. It bellowed a weird nose and then quickly sped away from the fighting ground.

"Mikoto!" shouted Hiro-Shu as he turned around and began to give chase. Even if the tapirs weren't in the best shape of their lives, they were still faster than him. Hiro-Shu didn't have that great of speed. "Rosa, go get Mikoto back!" shouted Hiro-Shu as he turned around to rally their latest ally. Almost immediately he was disheartened by what he saw. Rosa was trying her best, but the tapirs were still managing to slow her down. They threw their impressive bulk at her with almost sheer recklessness. Rosa pivoted and danced through the nest, but in the end she couldn't quite break free quick enough. By the time she had enough space to dash out, Mikoto was already gone across the horizon.

"Uh…that's not good," muttered Hiro-Shu.

(-With Enma-)

Enma and Sage were having a slightly more productive time on the floor than the rest of them. He had taken Sage with him and as a result he completely reorganized the groups for better handling this situation. He needed Sage if he was going to come up with a formula on how to overcome the Sleeping Nightlocke. Her advanced intelligence in botany was certainly proving useful as she practically assaulted him with facts, however, not a single one of these facts were actually helpful. But he appreciated the effort she was making. He continually experimented with the extract he obtained a few trees ago trying to come up with a proper antidote. Luckily for him there were plenty of guinea pi-, er, he meant prisoners to test it out on. "Apparently another failure," he said as he looked down at one of the still sleeping prisoners. If he was at home at his own lab, he probably could've fixed it up by now, but sadly the ship and his lab was several hundred miles below them. "What's another possible causation for-," Enma let out a terrifyingly long yawn, "for its effect?"

Sage was trying to be helpful, but she didn't know why the plants did what they did. There were several problems with the Sleeping Nightlocke and one of them was the fact that it put people to sleep, another one was its horrible use in cooking, it lacked nutritional value along with taste, it also had poor value in the medical field. As a result very little interest had been taken into researching it. Who would risk falling asleep for several months at the worst just to figure out how it made you fall asleep. She felt useless to her crew once more. She was too busy feeling sorry for herself on the last island, but now! Now here she was in her element…still useless to the crew. She shook her head and bent down. She promised herself. She would figure out how these flowers worked one way or another.

Enma noticed on the horizon the same tapirs that were messing with the rest of the crew. They were a fewer amount here for some reason, but Enma ignored them for the most part. He had studied books about them. The ancient myths stating that they ate people's dreams, however, they were truly just herbivores. Their interest in people's dreams, and just because it made him feel better, their meat was minimum. More than likely they were just here to examine the newcomers and see what they were up to.

Enma had forgotten the basics. He was busy trying to find out the truth behind the flowers and their pollen, but as a basic rule all myths come from somewhere. There were real-life effects that caused people to think of such myths. These tapirs were the reason behind those myths. While most tapirs were innocent involving people's dreams these tapirs were a unique and nearly extinct species. The prison guards had dubbed them the 'Nightmare Tapir'. The animals apparently had weird electromagnetic pulses that ruined people's dreams. They could essentially cause the most vicious and the most horrifying nightmares. The tapirs were the true enforcers to this prison's hell and unbeknownst to Enma, Sage, or even Zesiro's group. These monstrous creatures had captured one of their own.

The Trap Has Been Set

You know how the day before school starts you are all like...relax...its not so bad...you are just worrying yourself over nothing. Nothing can be as bad as it was last year...and then one hour into the new school year you finally realize...its worse than you remember. Yeah, that's the kind of day I'm having. Seriously...bad day...only one hour in. Oh, well, enough about my horrible day since I highly doubt any of you care about my well-being as long as there is a chapter up, right? So, yeah...not in the mood to do anything, but complain about my first class...so I'll just shut up now...