Aid on the BattleField

"You ready?" asked Shane as the three of them rest against a series of tree, staring at the wall, which would be destroyed soon. Mikoto nodded and Bando was pacing, instead of sitting, so he thought his opinion on this matter spoke for itself. He was ready. He's been ready. He's been waiting for this moment for a time longer then the other two for sure. He had wanted it more and longer. His entire body was practically jumping with energy as he kept his eyes trained on the wall. Shane smiled and nodded, "good, so far things many seem like they are going our way, but we cannot let that make us lax. These are the Shichibukai we are talking about here."

"These are assholes we are talking about here," muttered back Bando, "they don't deserve no title like the Shichibukai. I never quite looked up to the Shichibukai, but I always did admire their strength. These guys? I can't even say I like that about them. I swear I will stop them at any cost!" Bando tightened his grip and stared at the wall, ignoring his two teammates.

"I think its about time you told us what has you all in a tight mess like this," muttered Shane as he reclined and relaxed for a little bit while longer. He wasn't expecting the teams to be in place yet. They probably still had some time before it happened. "I want you to start from the beginning and run through it all. Or maybe I'll just tell my men to back off," Shane smiling as he looked for a reaction within Bando.

"SHANE!" Mikoto snapped at him. Forcing someone to talk when they didn't want to wasn't a good thing, especially considering the fact that Mikoto was in no mood to back down. They already had their best chance to run away and flee, but to do it now would make them look like children! They couldn't do that. And besides Mikoto wasn't all too certain they stood a good chance against these guys without Shane's aid. His hair was still on end and his instincts were still telling him that there was a large congregation of incredibly powerful pirates on the inside. Shane shrugged and Mikoto whined a little, he admitted it wasn't very becoming of him, but what could he do. He doubted punching Shane would really make him see things his way.

"I'm fine with that," Bando stated as he looked back at Shane, "in all honesty, I already promised myself I wouldn't be turning away. Even if you did decide to run it wouldn't affest my determination nor my will power. I'm moving forward." Bando stepped forward and launch a quick punch against the wall, which didn't even budge. Shane couldn't say that he was surprised. The wall was probably built to last. The Fox Brothers would make sure of at least that. However, Bando didn't stop there. He launched another wicked punch into the wall, causing some chunks to fly off of it. Shane sat up, moving away from his reclining pose. He still didn't understand what was causing Bando to react like this. He wanted to know about what it was that gave him this much fuel. With all the crap Shichibukais got away with it wouldn't surprise Shane if at least some point of the day the Fox Brothers had stepped on Bando's foot some way or another, but still...being kept in the dark didn't sit well with him.

"I'm getting that information out of you one way or another," he growled as he stood up and stepped forward. "Even if I have to go every step along the way with you to get your petty revenge on these punks!" Shane brought his massive arm backwards, causing Mikoto to duck and take cover. Shane fired a tremendous punch into the wall and easily dented it with his strength and Devil Fruit powers backing him up. "I'm not your friend or nothing, believe you me, I don't care about the crummy Fox Brothers or your damn problems that you're not telling us about!" Shane slammed his fist into the wall again. "The only reason I'm here is that these Fox Bastards are supposedly strong in a fight, okay? So when I'm standing a top of their dead bodies, I want you to remember that's why I'm doing this, okay?" Shane slammed his fist into the wall once more denting it even deeper, "I don't give a damn about your petty revenge."

Bando stopped punching the wall and looked over at Shane and shook his head, "its not petty," he muttered as he stared at the floor between his feet. "I can tell you that much, okay. That my reason for this isn't something stupid like they called me a bad name...nor is it something sappy like they killed my long lost sister, you got me? I know that don't mean much to you if anything at all, but it means a lot to me if you just accept that answer, okay?" Mikoto twisted his mouth into a smile. He supposed whether it was stupid or sappy or even real it was probably better then the reason why he and Shane was here. Mikoto just nodded swiftly accepting the answer as that, however...

"Nope," replied Shane as he turned around and faced Bando. "Its nice to know and all that, but I don't like it. If you have a real reason to lay your life down on the line then as your comrade I have the right to hear it and choose whether or not to lay my life down on the line for it as well, okay? Unless you can convince me otherwise I'm going to keep on insisting that you tell me. So, you have one more chance, okay? Tell me what this bloody thing is! Why is it so damn important to you that you lay your life on the line to beat the crap out of these Fox Bastards?"

"It just is, okay?" shouted Bando back, gritting his teeth and staring Shane down, challenging him. Shane grunted and shook his head, heading back to his spot underneath the shade of the tree. He turned to face Mikoto.

"I don't suppose you're going to tell me about that twelfth member of your crew now, are you?"

"In all seriousness I have no idea what you are talking about still." Shane grunted and sulked into the shade of the tree, grumbling. Mikoto shrugged and headed to the wall, turning to face Bando for only an instant. "Your reason is good enough for me." Mikoto flashed Bando a toothy smile as he wound up and fired his own punch at the wall. True interms of strength, Mikoto's punch did about as much damage as Shane could've done with his pinky finger, but the feeling was there.

"Hey, guys you over there?" shouted Enma from the other side of the wall causing Mikoto's little band of misfit pirates to perk up and stare at the wall of them answering with a resounding yes. "Good, good, listen these walls are tough so it'll be awhile till we break through it well enough, so I guess I'll use this time to update you guys on our current situation. Ridley's group has been captured." As usual Enma spent 0 seconds sugarcoating it for them. Jumping right into the real problem like people should. None of the beating around the bush stuff.

"Was that a part of the plan?" asked Mikoto and Shane at the same time, indicating that neither one of them had listened to the plan either. Enma should've expected it coming from Mikoto, but he thought Shane was a little bit better then that. Then again he supposed Shane only really cared about the end and whether or not he could punch the Fox Brothers' lights out.

"NO!" shouted Enma through the wall.

(-with Ridley's group-)

"Let me out of this thing so I can kick your ass!" shouted Maria as she delivered a swift kick to her cell's bar. She was getting tired of being locked up. This was the third time it has happened to her! She blamed their captain and the idiotic 'strategies' they came up with. "Let me out and let me kick your ass!" There was a quiet snickering as a shadow slowly moved closer to her cell and loomed over it, filling her little 4 foot by 4 foot cell with complete darkness. He wore a mask with a hippo's face on it and a smile just beneath it.

"Hi hi hi!" he laughed as he breathed in her face, "you want a rematch do you? I beat you and your friends up with ease the last time or did I beat you so hard you forgot?" Maria growled loudly, clearly demonstrating that out of the two of them she was definitely the one more like an animal. The man stretched out and sighed, "oh, but don't worry I am a level 9 predator. So don't feel too bad that you lost to me. Aside from the Fox Brothers and one or two of the Level 10 Predators I am the strongest man on this island." Maria scoffed at that ideal.

"Well, I'm going to be the strongest one in the world," she bit back, which only seemed to cause another laughing fit from the Hippo as he threw his head back with an uproarious laughter. Maria stomped her foot, demanding to be taken seriously. She realized how childish it sounded, but there was nothing wrong with that. High goals and big dreams, that's how you get your name in the history book. You could ask anyone! The hippo shook his head and bellowed once more jabbing his finger through the door and with that finger alone he managed to shove Maria back a good foot or two.

"You? You lost to me and with Alistair's latest and greatest invention there is no way in hell you will be leaving this island alive? And you expect me to believe you are going to become the 'strongest'? You are out of your mind until the end!" The hippo bellowed a laugh once more before turning around and beginning to make his exit, when he hovered in the doorway, "though if you do escape I'll be waiting in Room 31B. Come and look me up, maybe you'll be able to grow at least ten times as strong before you escape! HI HI HI!"

"Damn hippo brat," Maria swore, realizing that it sounded a lot more like an insult then she had intended. She doubted there was a way to call someone a hippo and not make it sound like an insult. Still whether she had insulted him or not, the man was definitely strong. Ungodly strong. His punches shook the ground and made hers look like child's play. "Hey, Mohawk, you awake yet?" She asked pounding on the wall, she was fairly certain that was where they had thrown Ridley. Then again with at least two of Shane's crew being thrown in here as well, it was hard to know for sure.

"I'm awake," muttered Ridley, "just dealing with a hangover." Maria was about to tell him that it wasn't a hangover and that he just got his butt handed to him, but decided he'd probably put it together soon enough anyways, "what'd I miss?" Maria took that back. Maybe he really did pass out drunk before the fight. She didn't remember him doing all too much during it anyways.

"Your crappy plan failed!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Your crappy plan failed!" she repeated herself, this time her voice even louder and angrier, "or did you not notice where we are?" She waited a few seconds to hear Ridley scream as he realized exactly where they were and exactly how screwed they were. However, it didn't come. Instead strangely enough she was met with Ridley's laughter. "Oi, are you still drunk? Or do you really not realize that we are in prison cell?"

"I realize it," Ridley said as he leaned his head back against the stone wall of his bunk and smiled, "I realized it back when the Fox Brothers quit the Shichibukai. I realized that this is going to be a lot harder then I thought, however, I also realized something else." She Ridley move about in the cell next to hers, but she didn't understand what he was doing. Did he get up? "I realized that this would also be a lot funner then I was planning. Maria's eyes widened, she had never expected Ridley to say that one of his plans failing and them getting caught would be fun! Was he really drunk? "Just wait for it," Ridley said calmly, cutting into her thoughts. "We still got our second wind waiting for us."

Maria shook her head, was he really planning on getting out of here some how like some miracle was waiting for them at the end of the rainbow? She wanted to slap him and get him to see the jail cell. They were trapped. Now they were just damsels waiting to be rescued...and there was nothing that sounded more demeaning to her. She wasn't some damn princess. Maria stepped forward and moved to the cell door and just as she was about to punch the cell door with all of her might, hopefully breaking it down Ridley shouted.

"STOP!" Maria brought her arm down and turned around. "I want you to consider all of the possibilities right now, okay? There are a lot of them, aren't there? Especially once you throw all of the notes into it. Fox Brothers, Bando, Shane's crew, our own. Not to mention all of the other pirate crews out there. Trust me, its not our swan song, yet. We are still getting our encore." Maria grumbled as she rested a little bit further into the cell. She'd wait...for now. However, the moment there was a hint of trouble then she'd leap into action.

Meanwhile Ridley let out a sigh of relief. He was like Maria, he hated the feeling of waiting, but the problem was...they were in a good place. To be honest they were never quite hinging their bets on him, Maria, and the other two members of Shane's crew that got captured with them. It was all about Mikoto and Shane. And with where Ridley and Maria were right now they could finally start to gather real information.

Ridley moved back and produced a small stick of chalk and began writing on the wall. First off, they knew very little about them, but for whatever reason this Alistair guy seemed to be the most popular amongst the people on this island. They talked about him often and called him Master, which made Ridley believe that he spent the majority of his time on this island. He probably had the most influence over these crazy animal freaks. He wondered why. As a genius it seemed like Alistair would be more prone to go out and search the world rather then stay here on one island. There must be some reason why he did.

There was also the problem with the layout of the fort. Ridley had tried to map out the corridors and hallways in his mind and he was recalling them right now, scribbling them out on the wall trying to make heads or tail of it as he worked. However, there was just too much for him to remember. He knew they were in the basement as was evident by the lack of windows and the fact that he remembered going down some stairs. He had heard people talk about the cafeteria and the soldier's barracks, so he made two quick marks for those. However, this really didn't tell him what he wanted to know. Where was the 'Master's' bedroom. Where was Alistair, Alan, and Albert? They had to be hiding out in this base. They had to be somewhere, laying low and keeping their cover a secret of some sort. But the question was...where?

A Slight Fissure

Another chapter. Another day. Let's keep them rolling. Can't think of a good joke right now...