Inside the fishman headquarters…
The main hall of the pagoda was a large, circular room the size of a gymnasium. The walls decorated in the same coral that made up most of the furniture, including enough tables and chairs to fill a small restaurant, a grand piano, and two large but currently empty thrones. All of that was pushed to the side for now to make room for the fishmens' current main entertainment. Brody Martin was suspended in the middle of the room, his arms chained to the ceiling, his legs chained to the floor, and his body stretched painfully between. The fishmen all stood around him, each one taking turns at beating the crap out of Brody. Bruised, bloodied, and broken, but never once did he cry out, scream, or beg for mercy. Except for the occasional grunt forced out of him when someone jabbed him in the stomach, Brody was silent, even as his blood pooled on the floor.
Xiphias stood in front of the spectators but never took any swings himself. Eventually, he raised a hand and the beatings ceased, at least for the moment. "That's enough. Anymore and he'll pass out," Xiphias walked over to Brody and looked him over, estimating his injuries and pain, "Well? Anything to say for yourself?" There was no response except for Brody's cold stare. "Your silence is your guilt. Do you at least feel any remorse? Can't you at least pretend to atone for your crimes?"
Brody rolled his eyes, but beneath the bruises it was hard to tell, "Okay, I'm reeeally sorry about torturing prisoners. Oh, wait… That wasn't me, was it?"
"Don't misinterpret this. This is not torture."
"Could've fooled me," Brody chuckled, an act which caused a considerable amount of pain with his ribs at the moment.
"Nor is it an interrogation, nor is it a punishment," Xiphias continued.
"Oh, so I'm getting my ribs tenderized for my health?"
Xiphias returned the cold stare this time, "Not everything is about you, Brody. You've offended a lot men here with your actions, Brody. Your pain is their compensation."
On cue, several fishmen resumed beating Brody, shouting insults as they did so. "You bastard!" "You betrayed us!" "Do you have no shame?" "You're a disgrace to your race!" "This is what you get for showing your ugly mug back here!" Only when Xiphias motioned did they relent.
Brody had to wait for his lungs to work again before responding, "Funny, we never used to beat up chained men for the hell of it when I was in charge."
"Maybe that weakness is why you are no longer in charge."
Suddenly, Brody's body instinctively lunged as far as it could while chained, his face filled with animalistic rage and stopping just inches short of Xiphias's face. It was only slight, but for a brief split second, Xiphias flinched. "Unlock these chains and I'll show you what 'weakness' is," Brody growled.
"You have no honor to reclaim, Brody. Your dealings with humans have left you soft and complacent. You do not even deserve a warrior's death," Xiphias said with disgust.
"Then how do I deserve to die?" Brody's bloodlust seemed to subside, but his rage still lingered.
"That will be decided later, along with the fates of those pathetic humans you brought to the island," Xiphias replied stoically.
"Just let 'em be," Brody pleaded, "They aint' starting anything. And I know you couldn't care less about them."
Xiphias shrugged, "True, I have nothing but apathy for the humans and whether or not they live or die. But they are a foreign element to our home. You know as well as I do that they can't leave Jaggerjaw, so one of two things is going to happen. Either we kill them and dump their bodies in the ocean, or we can let them live."
"Awfully generous of you, all things considered," Brody remarked with sarcasm.
"However," Xiphias continued, "If we let them live, we have to make sure they will fall into line with the rest of the populace. A rebellious element that could incite the other humans might be…"
"A threat?" Brody offered.
"An annoyance. We cannot afford to slaughter every mule in the village. But it's not like you have any influence in that matter, and I suppose you have more pressing concerns at the moment."
"It doesn't have to be like this, Xiphias. You don't want us around, I can take them and leave. Forever this time," Brody pleaded.
"A traitor deserves more than a slap on the wrist," Xiphias said with spite.
"I never betrayed anyone in my life and I never will!" Brody shouted with pride, his booming voice echoing throughout the chamber. This time, it was the rest of the fishmens' turn to flinch, backing away slightly from the chained but still intimidating Brody. Besides Xiphias, only one other fishman retained his composure.
"Oh, puhleeze!," Charlie casually stepped from the crowd rolling his eyes, "Just do us all the favor and spare us the 'holier than thou act.' Because I got news for you, 'ex-captain.' You ain't better than any of us anymore," Charlie mocked, "Once upon a time we followed you. We looked up to you. We trusted you even when you said we were going to live alongside humans. Hell, most fishmen here would have died in your name (myself not included). But then you had to go and ruin at all. I mean it's one thing to work with humans. We could wrap our heads around that because it was a good business arrangement despite the whole humans-being-involved aspect of the deal. It's another thing altogether to sleep with one. But not just any human. Oh, no. You couldn't just have a little saucy affair and give us a bad name," Charlie's speech was growing more heated, "You had to rub salt in the wound and kick dirt in our faces. You had to have THAT human," he shouted in Brody's face. Lowering his volume again, Charlie glanced over Brody with contempt and pity, "Now look at yourself. You've got nothing to show for it, no one by your side, and you're going to die alone and disgraced. Where are your little human friends now?"
Suddenly, the whole room started loudly clanging, catching all the fishmen off guard. Xiphias, annoyed, scanned the room, focusing on Charlie Sunkissed, "All right, who set off the false alarm?"
Charlie raised his arms in innocence, "Don't look at me. I was right here all along this time."
"It's not a false alarm," spoke a feminine disembodied voice.
Xiphias walked over to an open pipe on the wall used for communication throughout the pagoda and spoke into it, "What was that Natalie?"
"There are intruders on the ship. Humans," the voice replied through the pipe.
Xiphias turned to Brody, "Well, Brody, looks like your new human friends have chosen their fate. They will have the honor of being the first human trespassers to be killed on this, the warship of our ancestors," Xiphias motioned to the four muscular fishmen who were beating Brody earlier, "You four, come with me. The rest of you, fan out and search the ship."
"Perhaps I should guard Brody in the meanwhile," Natalie suggested.
"If you like, sure," Xiphias flipped a pair of switches on the wall and the chains holding Brody's legs to the floor released while the higher chain retracted, pulling Brody up through a hole in the ceiling to one of the upper floors. Xiphias exited the main hall, brute squad in tow, "Let's go. These humans will not be able to hide for…" Xiphias didn't have to search long, as on the other side of the hall just outside the door was an equally surprised Hammie. Xiphias and the sheepishly grinning human stared at each other until Hammie broke the silence.
"Well… This is awkward," Hammie scratched his head, and said with some uncertainty, "Um, surrender now, I guess, and I'll only hurt you a little bit?"
Xiphias twitched. "From a fishman, those words would be courageous at best. Coming from a human, they are foolish. Coming from something like you, those words are an insult. You will be banished from our sacred home," Xiphias turned to another of the ship's communication pipes, "Natalie! Do the ship's defense mechanisms still work?"
"Not sure since we've never used them before. Only one way to find out." The voice caused Hammie to look around for the source.
"Then do it," Xiphias ordered.
"Do what now?" Hammie asked. At that moment, the entire hallway started to shake and rumble.
"This ship has a much older history than merely our humble crew," Xiphias explained, "It was once a warship used against the humans during the great war, and it has a unique method of dealing with unwanted groundwalking trespassers."
Hammie glanced out a nearby porthole and noticed the ocean seemed to slowly rise. Or, as he soon realized, it was the other way around, "It's submerging… This is a submarine?"
"Correct, but unlike any submarine you're used to, this one doesn't just submerge the outside of the craft." The fishmen around Xiphias smirked and chuckled as Xiphias himself remained expressionless.
Hammie raised an eyebrow in confusion as a cool sensation swept over his feet. He looked down and saw he was now standing in about an inch of water that was slowly rising in unison with the outside ocean level. "You're sinking your own ship?"
"While technically true, this ship is perfectly functional even fully submerged, and once we drag you and your friends' drowned carcasses out, we can surface and drain the water. If you leave now, you and your friends might have a couple minutes to run away and maybe escape the ship before it sinks entirely. However, if any of your friends are on one of the upper levels, where there are no exits or windows large enough to fit through, then they will drown. You, on the other hand, have a much worse problem."
"What's that?" Suddenly, the rumbling turned into a roar, and at the end of the hallway behind the fishmen Hammie could see a hallway-filling wave burst through the doors. "Oh…" Hammie immediately turned and bolted down the hallway. As the wave crashed into the fishmen from behind, Xiphias wasn't even budged from his spot while the other fishmen actually swam through the rushing water with ease, giving the surging water several sets of sharp teeth and muscled brutes, as if Hammie wouldn't have found the situation terrifying enough already. "Holycrapgottafindstairs. Holycrapgottafindstairs." Hammie burst through the door to find himself at the bottom of a spiral stairwell that ran throughout the entirety of the pagoda. Without any time to congratulate his luck, Hammie took his rope, this time with a weighted clasp firmly attached to the end, and hurled it up, catching one of the upper stair railings. He scurried up the rope faster than he ever had climbed before. The water surged through the door, filling the entire first story of the stairwell and continuing to rise. It blasted upward like a geyser, and Hammie could feel it splashing against his feet. The rising water finally slowed merely half a level beneath where Hammie was latched to the staircase, as he finally breathed a sigh of relief, "Well, that was close."
"Was it, now?" Hammie glanced over and saw Xiphias actually standing on the surface of the rising water as if it was solid ground. No, that wasn't quite right. The fishman was ankle-deep, but still had nothing to support him but the water. Not only that, but four large silhouettes beneath the water circled the staircase pillar where Hammie was trapped, only four dorsal fins showing of the predators beneath. "You are just trapping yourself further in this flooding labyrinth. Though honestly, even if you had escaped, we would have simply caught you before you could reach the shore. Either way, you forfeited your life the moment you entered Jaggerjaw bay…"
"So, what powers the light in here, anyway?" Hammie glanced around at the covered hall lights he sincerely doubted were candle-lit, "Steam-generated electricity I'm assuming?"
For the moment, Xiphias was dumbfounded. "What does that have to… What are you doing?"
Hammie seemed to ignore his plight for the moment as he was fiddling with his tools. First, he firmly clasped one end of the rope to himself, an act which to Xiphias seemed quite contradictory to the purpose of escaping the rising water and bloodthirsty fishmen, rendering him confused and curious to the human's actions. Next, Hammie donned a pair of black-tinted goggles and two thick rubber gloves. "Safety first," Hammie said with a cheerful smile.
Leaping from the protection of the stairwell, Hammie swung himself on the rope over the swirling water and frenzying fishmen below. The fishmen took some swings to try and catch him, but the closest any of them got was a boot to the face. Clinging to the wall on the other side, next to one of the sealed lights, Hammie drew his arm back and rammed it into the wall immediately next to the light, punching straight through. His arm drew back, holding a fistful of thick wires. "Now for the tricky part." Xiphias suddenly realized what the human was planning, but the fishmen still watched confused. Securing himself with his feet and the rope, Hammie pulled out a large utility knife and chopped through the wires in one strike. The exposed wires sparked and crackled loudly, and Hammie, taking great care not to shock himself, let them drop. Xiphias quickly leaped from the water and thrust his scabbard-covered nose into the stairwell wall to hold himself, watching as the electric wires hit the water. The lights in the stairwell flickered on and off as the water flared with electricity like a thunderstorm soup, and the four caught fishmen could only flail helplessly and scream until they lost consciousness. The lights flickered some more before the whole room grew dark, the only light coming in through a glass ceiling at the top of the stairwell.
"I hope that wasn't too much voltage. I'd feel real bad if one of them got permanent nerve damage or something," said Hammie, completely sincere and devoid of sarcasm, which only outraged Xiphias more.
"You! What sort of cowardly tactic is this?" From the angle he was currently stuck, Xiphias could barely see the human.
"Oh, and flooding the hallway is perfectly acceptable?" replied Hammie indignantly.
Xiphias was silent. Not only was he outwitted, but his dishonor exposed. "You are a fool for challenging us, but a cunning fool it seems."
"Just so you know, you can still surrender. I'll go easy on you," said Hammie with a smile until he noticed Xiphias performing strange motions with his hands, "Um, what's that?"
Xiphias spoke as a monk in meditation would, "The martial art where the ocean itself becomes an extension of our bodies. The fighting style which proves our evolutionary superiority. Without even touching the ocean, we can manipulate it to do our bidding…" As he spoke, the waves rocked back and forth in a somewhat unnatural pattern.
"Oh that's not good at all," Hammie said with concern as he braced himself.
"Fishman Karate: Crashing Wave!" As he finished the maneuver, the electrified water rocked back before lunging forward. Fortunately for Hammie, he was nowhere near where it hit, but all of the water in the stairwell destroyed the wall where it hit, blasting to the outside of the pagoda and draining outside. Finally, the stairwell was clear and what water that was left didn't pose a hazard to neither the human nor the fishman.
Hammie relaxed for a moment but remained hooked in place where he was, "Looks like the charge is gone. Good for you. But now it should take longer to flood the ship, right? Good for me. So let's call it a draw, okay?"
Xiphias landed on the ground and grasped the scabbard around his nose, grimacing. "I will give you the honor of dying by my hand, whether you are worthy of it or not."
"Now, now, let's not get ahead of ourselves, Xiphias," came a voice above the both of them.
Xiphias glanced up to see the annoying grin of the self-proclaimed fishman musician, Charlie Sunkissed, "Charlie, how long have you been there?"
Charlie just smiled as if he was just getting to the punch line. "Long enough. Listen, X, I'm going to do you a favor. I know how you don't like to get your hands dirty with the low-ranking schmucks like this shipwright here."
"Actually, I'm… er… captain," said Hammie sheepishly.
Charlie laughed loudly in response, "Ha! Good one! I like this guy, he has a sense of humor. Anyway, I figure I'd give you the chance to go find their real boss."
"You're just volunteering to kill this human?"
Charlie shrugged his shoulders. "Hey, I'm just not as picky about picking off small-fry as you are. You see a lack of a challenge, I see a fun little diversion."
Xiphias shook his head, "Fine. Do with him as you will, as long as he's dead at the end of it."
"No, really, I'm the captain. Actually I'm as shocked as you are about it," Hammie insisted despite being ignored.
"Hey, kid?" Charlie called out, "You like engineering stuff, right? You want to hear something cool?"
"Huh?" Hammie said, momentarily distracted.
"Something I just found out about this ship. Apparently, the submerging thingy pumps water from the ocean through a few central pipes to all the rooms at once. So, while you'd think the bottom floor would fill with water first before the second one and so on and so forth, it turns out that some rooms fill up faster than others, and that what floor they're on isn't as much of a factor as you'd think. For example…" Charlie elbowed the door behind him and it immediately started spurting small jets of water through the leaks. Charlie crouched down as if he were about to dive into the deep end. "Fishman Karate: Speeding Sea Bullet!" Suddenly, the doors behind him burst open as a wall of water rushed forward with Charlie riding it. As soon as he realized the situation, Hammie tried undoing the clasp on the rope, but it was too little too late. Charlie and the wave slammed into Hammie dead-on, the wave knocking them both through the wall, out the pagoda, and into the sea.
Xiphias sighed in annoyance, "Perhaps submerging the ship was premature, even if it is the procedure for dealing with human boarders." Walking back into the hallway, noticing the 'submerging' of the ship was barely a trickle now, Xiphias turned to the nearest communication pipe. "Natalie, status report."
The female voice replied, "Submerging is going slower than expected. I'm detecting some problems in the north stairwell."
"The humans are clever. There are exposed wires and several large holes in the wall."
There was a moment of silence, no doubt the voice on the other end was trying to comprehend how that kind of damage could have happened, "Understood. I'll need to seal off that level so we don't electrocute the whole ship. We will be fully submerged in about 20 minutes. Also, I've lost contact with the main room. Shall I send someone to investigate?"
"No. I'll look into it myself." Xiphias reasoned the communication pipes had been damaged at some point in the attack. After all, the majority of the crew were still in the main hall, and someone should have answered.
When Xiphias opened the door, however, he was frozen in shock. Lying all around the room were the prone bodies of a good portion of the crew. Many were quietly moaning in agony, or even completely unconscious. Xiphias couldn't find anyone who was clearly dead, just disabled. Sitting across one of the thrones with his feet on the second was the most vile sight Xiphias had seen in a long while: a nearly naked human in nothing but bikini briefs and a half-mask. The human leisurely munched an apple, turned to Xiphias and smiled proudly.
"You did this?" Xiphias's voice shook in rage.
"I take it this is where you entertain guests? Your friends didn't give me a very warm reception," sneered Jude as scornfully as possible.
Xiphias twitched. "And what, pray tell, are you supposed to be?"
"Me? Why, it's your lucky day!" Jude tossed the apple which bounced off the head of one of the groaning fishmen and grabbed a nearby rapier, giddily hopping up from the chairs, taking an elegant bow as he did so, "You and whomever is still conscious in this room are about to receive a truly astounding spectacle from the world's greatest entertainer, Jude Carson!" Jude resounded in his stage voice.
"You're a comedian then?" Xiphias spat in disgust.
"Comedian, tragedian, artist, thespian, actor, singer, dancer, writer, orator, poet, puppeteer, ventriloquist, mime, magician, storyteller, swordsman, and general masked man of mystery and admiration," Jude boasted.
"Swordsman?" The fishman, in his anger, was now intrigued, "Do you have any skill?"
"Simply put, I'm the best." Preparing for the inevitable, Jude readied his blade.
"I sincerely doubt that." Xiphias grasped the 3-foot scabbard around his nose. "But hopefully you're competent enough for at least a few minutes of distraction. I think I will take you up on your offer of entertainment." The swordfish fishman tossed away the scabbard, revealing a sharpened, 3-foot bone and cartilage blade. "En garde."
"And action!" Jude replied as both lunged from across the room to cross swords.
On the second floor of the pagoda, a lone human wandered the halls searching the rooms. He had felt the rumbling from earlier, but had no other reason to think anything of it.
"Damn, it's quiet. I thought I'd at least run into a guard or someone by now. This place doesn't look like it'd be that big from the outside." A medicine symbol was engraved on one of the doors, and Doc smiled, suddenly realizing exactly where he wanted to be. "Hm, maybe they're patching up the fishdude in between torture sessions. Well, I guess it's worth a look," Doc spoke to himself, completely alone in the hallway. Slowly he let himself into the infirmary. He glanced around the operating table, trays of various medical tools, and medicine cabinets. "Nope, no fishdude in sight. Oh well. While I'm here, I guess I better stock up on supplies," Doc immediately flung open the medicine cabinets and started to pocket whatever he could, only occasionally stopping to read the label, "Sea king tranquilizer, huh? I bet this'll go great in a martini." Suddenly, Doc collapsed, his leg searing with pain and no longer doing as it was told. "What the… My leg? Just like what happened to Michael…"
"You shouldn't have gotten greedy," stepping from a nearby office, the translucent, dreadlocked fishman from the bar. "I don't really care if someone's snooping around or not, but I can't have my med supplies bein' raided, mon."
The pain was spreading, and Doc instantly recognized the symptoms. "A neurotoxin?"
"That's right, mon." From his 'dreadlocks', the fishman extended several long, blue tendrils, "I'm Dr. Mambo, the jellyfishman doctor of the Tiburones Gemelos, and I can no longer let ya leave here alive."
On the top floor of the pagoda, Michael kicked open a steel door, casually strolling through, looking for trouble, "All right, top floor, there's gotta be some action up here!" Looking around the room, Michael found himself in a large room filled with gears, cogs, pipes, and other various mechanisms, intertwined with various coral decorations and large shells. Between all the machines and the steam they spat out, it was impossible to even see the ceiling or the other end of the room. Michael eyed the various machines with glee, "Well, this all looks like delicate machinery. It'd be a real shame if somethin' unfortunate were to malfunction due to unforeseen circumstances," His eyes finally locked on to the large, blue body of Brody, chained up and lying in the center of the room. Not seeing anyone else, Michael rolled his eyes and strolled forward, "Jus' my luck." He rolled Brody over on his back, looking over the fishman. As soon as Brody saw who Michael was, a look of panic washed over the fishman's face.
"Michael?" Brody shouted.
"Hey, I don't like ye either. Hell, if circumstances were different I might'a just shot ye where ye lie," Michael squatted down by Brody, the better to rant at him.
"Get out of here now while you still can!" Brody flailed about in his chains.
"Keep yer gills on, I'll let ye go, if only because I hate these clown fish more," Michael continued without any sense of urgency, "But seriously, ye used to be cap'n of this bunch? And ye let 'em mutiny on ye? That's pretty pathetic even by me low standards. I mean, look at 'em. Didn't even bother to post a guard."
A loud clang got both of their attention, as the large steel door had swung shut. Ignoring Brody, Michael leaped up to the door and tugged as hard as he could, only to find a thick layer of slime covering the door making it impossible to budge. Even with both feet on the door and pulling, the door wouldn't move. Not only that, but the whatever the slime was kept Michael stuck as well.
"Bloody hell!"
"I tried to warn you," said an exasperated Brody.
"It ain't budgin'! What the bloody hell is this stuff? It's like someone ate a tub o' super glue and crapped it on the door!" Michael still pulled, hoping to at least get his limbs off the door,
"Pull as hard as you want. It won't come off," the female voice echoed throughout the room, but both Michael and Brody could still tell the source, and much to Michael's confusion it seemed to be a large, man-sized nautilus shell. He had assumed it to be part of the room's weird decorum.
"Why the bloody hell is the furniture talking?"
"That's Natalie," Brody replied.
Something started oozing out of the shell. What Michael first thought was an amorphous blob extended into a humanoid shape, and once fully out and once Michael's eyes adjusted, a woman in a skintight turtleneck gradually took shape. She had all the features and shape of an attractive woman, except for three very noticeable differences. Her body from the waist down seemed to be the shell itself instead of any actual legs, her eyes were actually on two stalks attached to where a human's eyes would be, and her entire body minus the shell was wreathed in a greenish-brown slime.
"That's right," the snail-woman said scowling, "I'm the nautilus sea snail fishwoman Natalie, engineer, cartographer, and quartermaster for the Tiburones Gemelos.
Michael stared at Natalie for a few seconds in silence, blinking his eyes and shaking his head as if that would somehow wake him from his predicament before shouting, "WHAT IN THE NINE BLOODY HELLS IS THAT THING?"
"No, Michael!" Brody warned.
Natalie crossed her arms, annoyed, "What's your problem?"
"It's hideous! It's grotesque! I won't be able to sleep for months lest this thing shows up in me nightmares!" ranted Michael.
"N-No, Natalie, don't listen to him," Brody said with as much flattery as possible, trying to get Natalie's attention so Michael would hopefully be ignored, "You're a beautiful gal. You're gonna have to beat off the boys with a stick."
"Aye, probably breaks their legs so they can't run while it devours 'em whole. Probably uses the ugly stick it's been flogged with for its entire life."
"Damnit, Michael, I'm serious! If you want to live through this, shut the hell up!" Brody shouted, but as he did, he could see Natalie's fists clench as her whole body started trembling, "Oh no, too late!"
Suddenly, Natalie erupted in anger, screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs, "I'M UGLY, AM I? WHEN I'M DONE WITH YOU, YOU'LL BE NOTHING BUT A BLOOD-SMEARED CRAP-STAIN ON THE WALL! THEN WE'LL SEE WHO'S UGLY!"
"Crap-stain on the wall?" Michael immediately replied, never missing a beat, "Is that yer favored brand o' perfume or is it makeup? Must be hard comin' upon some slime-proof lipstick. An' bloody hell forget the perfume. Ye need a fire hose, a pound o' bleach, an' a stack o' air fresheners."
"RAAAAAAGH!" Blinded by rage, the snail woman attacked.
On the coast of Jaggerjaw Bay, amongst the thick brush, Wendy paced in the quiet of the wilderness, glancing at the pagoda, but unable to tell what, if anything, was happening, "If only there was something I could do… Anything at all." She laid back in the dirt, looking at the afternoon sun overhead shining through the trees. "Damnit, Brody and Hammie and everyone are putting their lives on the line, and I can't even know if they're all right?" A low boom made a nearby flock of birds scattered. "What was that?" Wendy jolted up and peaked at the pagoda, seeing a small waterfall pour out the side before stopping. Before Wendy could figure out what had happened, a second boom sounded along with a second waterfall pouring out the same side. "That means we're winning, right?" She couldn't completely be convinced even by her own optimism. That's when she noticed the barge looked a little shorter than before. It took a moment for the wheels in her head to click, "It's sinking! Even if they won, if they don't get out soon with Brody, Hammie and the others will drown. Or worse, if they have to fight all the fishmen in the water, they'll never win." Wendy's mind quickly switched from fear to determination. "I know what I can do to help." She ran from her cover to the bay, ready to dive in.
Suddenly, a boulder moved in front of her and she ran straight into it. Wendy fell backward onto the sand, not seriously hurt but rubbing her nose in pain. "Owie…"
"And where do we think we are going, mon cherie?" the boulder said gleefully. Wendy looked up. What felt like solid rock against her face was instead the shelled armor of the crab fishman, Torteau, with the same long, thin smile he always wore, "You know, I have not been with this crew very long, and I must say it is not pleasant being the new chef amongst a group of such comraderie. No one really understands me or shares my interests."
"Wow, sounds like a real bummer," Wendy sympathized as she tried edging away.
"It is a disappointment, oui," Torteau casually mirrored Wendy's movements, pursuing her if she backed away and blocking her if she tried to get past, even as he continued speaking, "But you know what I miss the most? I used to prepare the most delectable cuisines every day. But when you have to cook for a couple dozen palate-less philistines you find yourself making the same peasant dishes day after day after day. Try to suggest something new, something exciting, and you get nothing but rejection."
"Uh-huh. Um, say, could I just get by…?" Wendy tried, but to no avail as the crab fishman continued his story.
"So, I'm stuck in this culinary gutter when suddenly, I get a fantastic idea. I don't have to share my talents with the crew. I can get my own ingredients, prepare my own dishes, and the crew can just have their usual bland, boring stew. I don't have to try to appeal to the mongrels of society, and I can dine elegantly every night."
"Good for you. Oh my gosh, according to my wrist I'm running late so I'll just…" Wendy tried bolting, but Torteau cut her off, his face getting very uncomfortably close to hers as he started whispering.
"You know what the best dish I've ever had is? Hm?"
Wendy smiled weakly, "I'm partial to blueberry pie myself."
Torteau shook his head and somehow his smile grew, "Non non non. The most difficult meat to prepare, but by far the most rewarding, comes from human flesh," Wendy stared in horror and shock, as Torteau's face contorted madly with excitement, "You see, for a long while I had the opportunity to learn all the various techniques for preparing all sorts of meat cut from that most elusive creature. It was all I ate for weeks. And I discovered the best human veal you can get comes from young, healthy, virginal women." Wendy's flight response finally kicked in and she bolted as fast as she could, only for her arm to be caught in Torteau's giant pincer. "Now, now, no running away now. I no longer have any taste for fast food." Torteau started dragging Wendy, even as Wendy struggled and started hitting Torteau with her free hand to no avail, "Do not worry, I will not kill you. Not for a while at least. If I killed you, the meat would spoil too quickly. And we would not want to waste any, now would we?" Torteau's other pincer grabbed Wendy's free arm, "No struggling now, I do not want to bruise the meat unless I have to, but…" Torteau's eyes started to glaze over in animalistic bloodlust, "It has been so long… Perhaps just a taste…" Wendy screamed in horror.
Suddenly, a flash of light wedged itself between Wendy's arms and Torteau's claws. An intense pain seared the inside of Torteau's claws, and a great pressure threw the two apart. Before either could process what had happened, a lone man stood perfectly still between the two, katana unsheathed and his long braid just now settling from the movement of the attack, glaring at Torteau.
"T-Takashi?" Wendy stammered in disbelief.
Takashi's focus remained on the crab fishman, "Your opponent will be me."
Torteau rubbed his claws together in pain, but slowly his annoyed scowl morphed into an anticipating smile. "On the other hand, a human who works in the kitchen must have a truly unique flavor," Torteau menacingly clapped his pincers together, "I think you will be the appetizer."
To be continued…
Author's Notes: Holy crap! A chapter done in less than two months? Surely this nothing short of a miracle! [/sarcasm] Big chapter too. But I had a lot of fun writing it.
Based on everyone's opinions, I've obviously decided to go with the whole attack-naming thing, cheesy though it may be (but hey, that's why we love One Piece, right?)
Enjoy!