Avatar: Well, here it is. I hope the result is worth the slight lateness.

I do not own Get Backers, One Piece, etc. or any of the characters mentioned.

A Winner Is Two: Where There's Smoke…

Second Battle

Uphill, Both Ways

Smoker awoke with a start. There was some sort of annoying blaring noise… damn, his head hurt. His eyes snapped open when he realized it was some sort of alarm, and he bolted his head up. Is the ship on fire? No, I'm not in a ship. Is the… room on fire? No, I'd detect any foreign smoke. Is there some sort of call to duty? A Buster Call? He rubbed his face with his bare forearm and forced himself up to a sitting position on his bed. He had fallen asleep in his uniform pants, gloves, and boots, with his jacket and jutte tossed carelessly on the floor… what had happened?

His question was answered the instant he stood. His boot came down on a brown glass bottle and crushed it, scattering bits of glass across the floor. He looked down, and noted several other bottles – mostly brown, a few clear. I was drinking. I hardly ever drink alone. Why? He looked back up to find the source of the alarm – it was coming from a bank of advanced screens and buttons. His current situation came rushing back. Fuck. The contract with BORED. Smoker crossed the room in four large steps, clutching his head in one hand as he swept up his jacket in the other. Three cigars were pulled from the jacket and lit with a BIC from his pants pocket – his favorite hangover cure.

As he pulled the jacket on, his eyes darted around, looking for the alarm source. There. A young man, definitely a contestant, unremarkable except for his spiky black hair and sunglasses – he was inside the outpost! Well, kind of. He was in the garage, inspecting Smoker's vehicle. The garage door was open – and even through his biting headache, Smoker remembered that he had locked it yesterday, so the padlock must have been picked or broken. Damn that fucking door; if they're going to use keycards, couldn't they at least be consistent about it? He blinked. Of course not. They can't even bring in personnel from just one or two sources. Alright, new problem. He finally found the button to shut the alarm off. Who's the kid?

His transponder snail rang. "Yeah?"

"Stray cat in your garage," Jade said brightly.

"You don't have to tell me." Smoker rubbed his head. "Actually, do you know who it is? I can't get a good look at his face from this camera angle."

"It's Midou Ban. He's known as the 'Man with the Evil Eye' as well as the 'Genius of Battles'. Watch your back, and try not to make eye contact."

"Yeah, yeah." Smoker grabbed his jutte, keycard, and a few spare cigars, and marched through the door separating the garage and the main room of the outpost. He was immediately tackled by several dozen naked women of all shapes, colors, and sizes.

---

Ban smirked. Too easy. He had guessed by the vehicle that the outpost was inhabited; ever since he had heard the clink of glass breaking over the alarm behind that door, he was sure of it. It was only a matter of laying in wait so that he'd be the first thing the person on the side of the door saw (he could guess from the make of the vehicle that it was only one person – it would be hard to take a passenger on that green ATV). It was some large-ish guy with white (grey? Green?) hair, a ripped physique that he showed off under some semi-military clothes, a huge jutte on his back, and a mouthful of cigars. No, really. Three. What the hell was up with that? As the man stared blankly off into space, Ban approached and grabbed one of the cigars. "You'll thank me when you get cancer just a tiny bit slower." He noticed more cigars tucked into the jacket, and took all of those. He also took the man's weapon, and searched his other pants pockets. "Ooh, what have we here?" he pulled out a blue, credit-card-like piece of equipment. It was marked with, in black, the word 'BORED', and a shiny gold star.

"Smoker. Are you there, Smoker?" A voice quietly jolted Ban out of his reverie. He looked down. It was coming from… a talking snail. A small snail sitting on a wristwatch. Ban looked at it, fascinated. "We lost Ban on the monitors. He's probably concealed himself somewhere in the garage…Smoker?"

Ban spotted a small button on the snail's shell and realized it was a two-way radio… he pressed the button, and the snail's eyes moved to look at him. Eerie. "You didn't lose me," he said in what he was fairly certain was a badass delivery. "You lost Smoker."

"That took a long time," the voice on the other end replied smoothly. The snail's mouth had even twisted into a smirk when it began speaking. "You're the third contestant to take over an Enforcer's radio, you know, and the second to reply to me through it."

"Aww, I wanted to be first." Ban risked a glance up at the aptly-named Smoker – he was still locked in the illusion, but the pained expression and sweat on his brow told Ban he was fighting it. Shit, what if he's gay? I didn't account for that… but I guess that's just one more risk I had to take. He grabbed the snail-watch as well and ran, jumping onto the seat of Smoker's ATV. It looked to be in better repair than his, and he could just take the machine gun with him.

"I wouldn't get too excited," the snail continued. "At least, not if you haven't permanently dealt with Smoker."

"Why not?" Ban revved the engine – or at least tried to. Nothing happened. Shit.

"The other Contestant who contacted me had only locked the local Enforcer out of the building. Within five minutes, the building had been leveled and he was dead."

"YOU!" Ban turned around to see his sixty seconds were up. Smoker had snapped out of it, and already leapt into the air, leaving a trail of what appeared to be thick fog.

"Nice knowing you," the voice said again before the snail clicked in what had to be a terminated connection. Ban wasted no further time in scrambling over the front of Smoker's bike and toward the garage door. Smoker's leap changed trajectory in the air somehow to follow him, and he had to put on a burst of speed to dodge the man's fist. It instead impacted just behind him with enough strength to crack the concrete, prompting Ban to redouble his speed in leaping into his own ATV.

"Nice trick there with the girls, 'Evil Eye', but I'm not so easily distracted!" the white-haired man shouted, smoke from the two remaining cigars pouring from his mouth as he stood. Ban decided he didn't have enough distance to try the machine gun, and instead hopped right into the driver's seat and made a break for it, heading past Smoker's bunker and further up the hill. Or at least, he started to. He had hardly floored it when he felt a hand close on the back of his shirt, pulling him off his ride and into the air. He caught a quick view of his ATV plowing into a tree, and twisted to get a better view of Smoker, but was immediately flung away, headfirst back into the rear bumper of his ATV.

Three thoughts ran through his head. One was Ow, and it was set to repeat. The second was Bastard broke my sunglasses. The last was That sucked. Let's try fighting back. He got to his feet with remarkable speed for somebody who had just been thrown around headfirst, and eyed his opponent. He was walking out of his garage with an expression of extreme irritation, and was careful now not to lock eyes with Ban. He was abnormally far back considering where Ban had been grabbed and thrown. Telekinesis, maybe? No, it felt like a physical hand grabbing my shirt. Ban drew Smoker's jutte, and noted with extreme interest the quickly-hidden expression of alarm on Smoker's face. "So, uh, you're Smoker. I guess my reputation precedes me." A bit of blood trickled into Ban's eyes, and he hastily wiped it away.

"Only an idiot would take my job without checking out the Contestants," Smoker grumbled. "You have to the count of three to drop everything you took – Den Den Mushi, jutte, keycard, and definitely my cigars." Ban made a quick mental note – the credit card was a keycard, and the Den Den Mushi must have been the snail. "Do all that, and leave the ATV behind, and I'll let you off with a warning. One…" he was still approaching, which gave Ban an idea. He slipped off the snail and the cigars, and put them down, and pretended to search his pockets one-handed for the keycard. "Two…" Smoker was within ten feet of him now. Perfect.

Ban crouched as if to gently place the jutte on the ground, but instead rushed forward low and brought the weapon up in an uppercut. He was fast, but Smoker saw it coming and sidestepped the swing, curving smoothly into a spinning elbow that caught Ban in the back and staggered him. He felt himself grappled again, this time with fingers closing around his neck, and was hurled more or less straight up. He found himself staring at Smoker far below him, standing out in the clear area the bunker provided within the pine trees. His right arm also appeared to be giving off more smoke than his cigars by a factor of ten. "Wrong move," Smoker called. "I've got a moral crisis and a whiskey hangover to shrug off, and smacking punks into submission is my favorite workout!"

Smoker's fist was then launched towards him as if on a spring – except it was, instead, a plume of smoke retaining its shape. Ban belatedly realized this was what gave Smoker his insane grab range as the fist – definitely solid – drove itself into his stomach, carrying him even higher. Gritting his teeth, Ban grabbed the wrist with one hand and began pounding on the fingers with the jutte's handle. He got in one blow before the fist dissolved into smoke as well, leaving him about twenty meters in the air with no support. "Oh, crap," Ban moaned as he began to fall.

To his surprise, Smoker crouched down and leapt up to his level. "Hey, genius! Let's see you calculate how much more freely I can move in the air compared to you!" He tried to juggle Ban with a knee strike as he reached Ban's altitude, but the urchin-haired fighter blocked with the jutte. He was still launched back into the air a bit, giving him a good measure of Smoker's strength, but recovered quickly and jabbed the tip of the jutte into Smoker's chest, just under his collar bone. Smoker, surprisingly, stiffened and immediately began to fall. Ban quickly put two and two together and took one last swing at Smoker with the jutte, but there was already too much air between them.

Smoker recovered with a growl just before he hit the ground, and managed to twist and land on his forearm. Recovering quickly, he pounced toward Ban again. "Bring it!" Ban called, exhilarated by his new advantage. However, Smoker lashed out with both fists, curving them to strike Ban on each side. Ban lashed out to block Smoker's right with his jutte, and brought up a knee to block the left. However, the jutte didn't seem to have any effect this time, and Smoker in fact grabbed it by the middle with his right hand and pulled Ban toward him. Ban grimaced and shifted his jutte to his left hand, pulling back his right. Smoker likewise pulled his left hand back for what appeared to be a vicious haymaker. "Snake… Bite!" Ban attacked first when they clashed, despite Smoker's superior reach (even when his arms were solid), and slammed his open hand right into Smoker's exposed chest.

His fingers pierced only smoke – the Enforcer dissolved on contact, although the rest of him was still very clearly real. Ban grimaced and pushed off from the jutte with his free hand, hoping to get away in time. No such luck; Smoker's fist launched off his evaporating arm and drove itself into Ban's face before he could block. "My turn! White Meteor!"

---

Smoker grinned a bit as his fist kept going, driving Ban all the way to ground level. He impacted against a boulder with a satisfying thud, and Smoker reeled his fist in. "Outstanding." Shifting his jutte back into a proper grip, Smoker slowed his descent by dissolving his legs, then reformed them to land on his feet. He shook his head. "Hope you've had enough, punk, because I sure have." Brushing his hair back, Smoker began to turn around, before remembering he still needed his keycard back.

Just as he turned around again, Ban burst from his impact site with a shout, his face wild-eyed and covered in blood. He had a rock in each hand, and tossed them each. One hit Smoker's shoulder, and the other hit his head, but he had time to 'ghost' through both of them. By the time his eyes reformed, though, Ban was almost right on top of him. "Snake…" he shot his right hand forward, and Smoker phased through it again, but Ban grinned – a feint?. "KILL!" his left hand shot out again, and grabbed the jutte below the tip, trying to pull it away from Smoker. Thinking quickly, Smoker put his other hand on the point where the weapon's tines met and leapt backwards as hard as he could.

The air filled with the shriek of metal being torn, and Smoker found himself flat on his back. He rolled backwards to his feet, and noticed Ban beginning to charge forward again, the last ten inches of the jutte's main tine clenched in his left hand. The seastone tip glinted above his thumb. "White Drill!" Smoker launched his left hand at Ban, but added a rapid rotation to it. Ban tried to push the strike aside with his forearm and got a nasty friction burn for his effort before it clipped his ear and the back of his skull, sending him sprawling. "Give it up, kid, you know you can't fight what you can't touch." Smoker pulled his arm back.

"Oh, you think so?" Ban pulled his arm up, grinning. "I figured out why your weapon only sometimes worked against you. It's the tip – it's made of something different. I get this weird tingle from it. Well, I've got the only important part."

"You're as good as they say," Smoker grunted. "So you've got the Seastone – you think that makes you hot shit? You're just another pirate."

Ban blinked. "What the fuck? Why would you say that? I'm not a pirate. I'm not any kind of criminal, unless being homeless is a crime these days."

Smoker almost dropped his cigars. "What?" he responded flatly.

"I'm the 'B' in 'GetBackers' – you lose something, we'll retrieve it, whatever it is."

"You're a delivery man."

"If you want to call it that, okay." Ban took the lull in the fighting to catch his breath and wipe more blood out of his face.

"God…DAMMIT!" Smoker smacked himself in the face. Another innocent. What the hell have I gotten myself into? "Shit… look, I need to talk to my superior officer about this. Just give me back my stuff and we'll call the whole thing off."

"Hell no!" Ban yelled. "You just pounded me halfway through the mountain! I finally figure out your weakness, and you want to call it a day? AND you still expect me to hand over the one thing that hurts you? What kind of idiot do you take me for?"

Before Smoker could try to explain further, Ban launched himself forward and drove the jutte tip into Smoker's gut, stunning him. He followed up with a knee to Smoker's wrist, disarming him of the rest of the weapon, and slugged Smoker with his right hand. The Commodore stumbled back, and Ban pressed his assault, striking Smoker with another series of left-right-left-right blows, finally sending him down on his knees. "You can't just move through my attacks at all when this stuff affects you, huh? He pressed the tip to the side of Smoker's head, and it was all Smoker could do not to fall flat on his face. "This is the end, Mr. Enforcer. Now, by my right hand, until the end of this cursed fate, I shall be the one to embody Asclepius as he descends from the high heavens. Now, I shall state my request: attack with-"

Finally, Smoker had had enough. With all his remaining strength, he whipped his right arm up and caught the Seastone tip of the weapon in the crook of his elbow. As he had hoped, his thick clothing somewhat muffled its effects. "Let's keep attack names to six words or less, bub!" He fell backwards, dodging Ban's Snake Bite and pulling the metal rod from his hand, and rolled clear of it.

Ban made a grab for the jutte tip, but Smoker was feeling better already, and he drove his heel into Ban's hip, knocking him over onto his back. Using his Moku Moku abilities to float up onto his feet, Smoker caught Ban with a low left hook as he made another grab for the Seastone. Ban got a hold of the weapon piece but stumbled, and Smoker quickly chained the hook into a series of vicious punches. "Your – luck's – run – out!" Smoker cried, emphasizing each word with a strike. The last hit was a rolling hammer blow that spun Ban around, and Smoker grabbed him by the right wrist from behind. He brought his left boot into Ban's shoulder and planted the smaller man face-first into the ground, kneeling down on him so as not to let go of his wrist. "White Cracker!" Smoker's elbow met Ban's forearm with bonecrushing force. The resulting snaps had a note of finality to them. "There…" Smoker got up, brushing himself off. "I don't want to kill you, but I can't let you keep the keycard."

He leaned down and pulled the keycard from Ban's pocket. As soon as he had it, Ban rolled over and slammed the tip of the jutte into Smoker's mouth, bypassing his teeth by way of the partially-open jaw Smoker always sported to hold onto his cigars, and crammed it halfway down his throat. "Choke on this!" As Smoker doubled over to choke on it as directed, Ban staggered off, clutching his right arm.

Smoker finally managed to cough it up, although both his remaining cigars wound up smeared with dirt in the process. "Hey! Get back here!" He chased Ban back toward his outpost, pocketing the keycard and leaving the discarded pieces of his weapon. "Where do you think you're going?" He pulled back to use his smoke powers to grab Ban, only for Ban to turn on his heel. Smoker was too fatigued from the fight to remember the golden rule for fighting Ban – no eye contact. The next thing he knew, he was being tackled by nearly a hundred naked men of all shapes, colors, and sizes. The whole experience made him regret fighting it so hard the first time.

---

Ban grinned through the pain at the fate he had left that Enforcer too. He may have yet been able to salvage the battle, but it wasn't worth the risk. Reaching his ATV, he kicked it back away from the tree. It looked a bit banged up, but mostly alright. The keys were still in it, so he gunned it. He was still getting used to driving with only his left hand when he reached Smoker, still caught in the Jagan, and accidentally rammed him. Improbably, this worked, knocking Smoker straight over Ban, although it dented the front of the ATV further. "I really should have just hit him in the back of the head the first time I caught him," Ban groaned. Hearing an angry yell, Ban looked in the rearview mirror to see Smoker jumping to his feet in the distance – apparently, being hit with a small car wasn't enough to actually hurt him much.

Filled with a new determination, Ban pressed onward in his current direction – uphill. This seemed to be a good idea for two reasons: first, it was far from Smoker, and second, the trees were thinning out, which was important until his left-armed steering improved. His speedometer told him he was going at about 50 kmph, which wasn't bad considering it was uphill.

"Ban!" Hearing his name, the GetBacker turned back to the mirror and saw Smoker closing in from behind. He was on his green ATV, which was working much better than it did for Ban – in fact, he was gaining. Soon, the reason became apparent – Smoker's ATV ran off his ability. His feet had turned to that same white smoke, and so had the exhaust from the vehicle. Ban gritted his teeth and continued upward.

Soon the trees were entirely gone, and snow covered the ground. It was untouched by ATV tracks – at least, until Ban and Smoker crossed it. Visibility was getting poor as well, for Ban. The area seemed wreathed in smoke – not the Enforcer's white smoke, but a dark smoke with a foul, sulfurous odor. Ban pressed on, wondering how far the mountain continued. The air was thinning out a bit, and combined with the smoke it was enough to make breathing difficult. "What the hell is up here?!" he heard himself exclaim.

"Seriously, punk, turn back!" Smoker called, but Ban ignored him and plunged forward. The foul smoke got thicker, and the snow on the ground darkened, eventually reaching dark grey before it disappeared entirely. It had been growing colder for most of his desperate ride, but now it was growing hotter again.

Suddenly, the ground was gone. Ban gasped as the ATV fell away from him – the air all around was full of smoke, and he started to choke. Everything was grey-black, except for an evil red glow below him. Ban started to fall, and he thought he saw dark buildings looming up from the glow, and he was sure it was the beginning of a descent straight into Hell-

And then a now-familiar hand closed around his neck and jerked him up. Ban watched his ATV fall away into the choking vapors before he was pulled back up, and suddenly he was above solid ground again and his heart seemed to resume beating. He found himself held a few feet off the ground, next to Smoker. "You saved my life," Ban gasped.

"I'm just trying to break even," Smoker grunted. "White Lullaby!" his smoke suddenly formed an almost-solid mask over Ban's mouth, and Ban began to thrash and panic. However, the volcanic gasses and thin mountain air had already left him oxygen-starved, and it didn't take long for him to pass out.

---

Smoker heaved Ban roughly onto the back of the Smog Hog and made a slow 180. He'd deposit Ban somewhere safe at the bottom of the mountain – well, safe except for having a broken arm in a survival tournament. No doubt the Genius of Battle would overcome that challenge as well, but hopefully he'd wise up about challenging Enforcers. Even if he doesn't, he won't get another chance with me.

End of Chapter

Smoker's thick clothing helps against Seastone because that Seastone weapon hanging on his back is basically the only reason he wears thick clothes at all – as an insulator.

I don't interpret Smoker as being gay, but it was fun having Ban come to that conclusion because Smoker prioritizes catching perps over a sudden and suspicious harem. It would have worked on most guys, but not ones like Smoker.

Whoops, I just realized I spared Ban with similar injuries to how I spared Raidou. Oh well, with Ban the arm I chose matters more. And Ban will heal, eventually, because Smoker's more merciful.