Noel was getting very frustrated. She had practiced plenty of times with her gun-kata, and this Johnny person was just some guy with a sword! How did he keep dodging her bullets? Noel tried smacking him with the barrel itself as well, but each time he simply parried it and hit her with the sheath of his blade, as if this was just some sort of game to him.

"C'mon, baby." Johnny shouted as he ducked under another bullet, "Don't be so angry like that, I didn't realize you were that sensitive under there."

"Shut up!" Noel continued firing her pistols, but Johnny inched closer.

"Drop the guns, maybe I'll let you join my crew."

"You're a criminal, why would I join you?" Noel fired three more times from her pistols, but Johnny continued dodging or parrying the bullets. It was impossible. No one should have that kind of skill in reality. Maybe he was somehow channeling seithr through the blade to make it stronger, or maybe his reflexes were just that good.

"Hey, I'm only a criminal against those who can afford to piss on the poor and hoard all the wealth." Johnny came within striking distance and smacked Noel right in the stomach with the blunt sheath before she could block with her pistols. "Perhaps you should consider the ones you work for, librarian." As Noel regained her footing, she prepared to raise her pistols again, but Johnny brought his sword out of its sheath and made a large cut that just barely missed her neck. "Cool off, little girl. You can't beat me, you're not cut out for this line of work. Go back to school."

"You…you…" Noel was shocked at first, the man had suddenly brought out a blade, nearly cutting off her neck, or so it seemed. The act encouraged her to stop playing defensively and start getting a little more aggressive. She dashed forward and leaped into the air, with Bolverk raining down bullets into Johnny's guard as she soared over his head. Even he seemed to have trouble stopping them all, as Johnny grunted with visible pain. The moment Noel landed next to Johnny, her chest suddenly felt a little chilly. Then she heard jeers and catcalls from various observers and workers around the Port. Even some of the NOL troopers who had finally arrived on site to assess the damage did the same, though most of them seemed simply entranced by the spectacle itself.

Then Noel looked down, and saw that someone had cut away the material covering her chest without her realizing it. Her face turned bright red and she screamed out of embarrassment.

"Ooooh," Johnny smirked. "Sorry about that. We could have done this the easy way, but you were the one who pulled the trigger, now you have to live with the consequences."

"I'm a soldier of the NOL!" Noel shouted, one hand covering up her small chest, the other holding a pistol, "I will not be humiliated by some big-mouthed criminal!"

"Just give it up, little girl!"

"Little?" Noel became even more embarrassed.

"You can't beat me!"

"That's it! I'm using my ultimate attack on you!" She gripped the one pistol tightly, the second disappeared into whatever place it came from as she was using her off-hand to cover her chest. "Don't blame me for what happens next!"

"Oh come on," Johnny snorted as he shifted his stance, one hand gripping his wooden sheath and the other hovering just above the sword's handle. "You're sounding like a cartoon character. Go home and play with your dolls, little girl."

Noel rushed forward and fired at Johnny again as she ran. Johnny hopped out of the path of the shots, but Noel hopped onto his head while he concentrated on the bullets and kicked off his wide black hat, firing a few shots of seithr-laced energy into his back before she hit the ground. Johnny winced from the pain and messed up on his ukemi, and lay flat on the ground from the attack. As he tried to spring up from his position, he felt a light explosion on the spot where he lay, lifting him up off the ground.

Suddenly, the barrel of a very large machinegun was thrust into his back. Johnny had no time to counter.

Noel yelled an incomprehensible war cry as several .50 caliber-shaped rounds of pure magical energy slammed into Johnny's back, lifting him up into the air higher than before. The magically-summoned weapon was big enough that most people would have trouble keeping it steady, yet somehow Noel didn't seem to be feeling much recoil at all as she grasped it with both hands. "You're under arrest, Johnny!" She shouted as the machinegun transformed into a crossbow, and a bolt of pure energy launched from the crossbow and pierced through Johnny's torso briefly before disappearing. Johnny coughed up a little bit of blood before he hit the ground with a thud.

The Jellyfish Pirates were shocked. They never expected their leader would lose like that. How could that have happened, let alone against this strange girl? May was not as much shocked as she was angry, and she picked up a large wooden crate with her inhuman strength and prepared to throw it at Noel in revenge. No one did that to her Johnny. No one.

Before she could do that, a pair of arms gripped her throat from behind and squeezed on the artery, restricting blood flow to the brain as she dropped the crate on her foot to yank the man's arms off of her throat. However, the man's grip was too strong, and she couldn't muster enough strength as the man lifted her small yet sturdy frame into the air. The pirates were shocked at the appearance of this new attacker, but even more shocked when they saw NOL troops nearby advancing on their position. April and June yelled at the crew to scatter throughout the city, and regroup later to save their comrades. The pirates did what they could to get out of the Port, and most escaped before the troops could seal off the area.

"Ah, Lieutenant Vermillion," the well-dressed man dropped an unconscious May into the arms of another NOL trooper as he called out to Noel, "I apologize for being late, but…I must say, that dress certainly isn't up to code for a female military officer."

"I-it was his fault!" Noel blushed, keeping one hand across her chest and pointing the other at Johnny. "He was a pirate, and he had a sword, and he…he…"

"Yes, yes. Calm yourself Lieutenant. Don't worry about them, those pirates will be taken into custody and questioned quite thoroughly." The man took a chance to look at the large ship with the burning hole in the side, and then back at Noel. "Oh, where are my manners? My name is Hazama, I am the chief of the Librarium's Intelligence Branch."

"You are my contact?"

"Yes I am." Hazama briefly scratched his head buried under the green hair under his fedora before continuing. "I asked for you to come to Kagutsuchi for a mission. Again, I apologize for my lateness, but the Intelligence Branch had to scramble around at the last minute. There are strange people around that seem to be messing up this particular spin on the wheel of fate, and we're still trying to find the cause of it."

"Excuse me?" Noel didn't quite understand the last sentence. Maybe it was just his way of speaking.

"I assume it's probably just some new rabble-rousers, but you shouldn't concern yourself with these things." Hazama turned back to Noel and patted her on the shoulder, "Come with me, I'll get you some new clothes and a nice hot shower, and then we can talk about your mission."

"Thanks." Noel blushed as she was led away. Now that the adrenaline of the battle was starting to wear off, she became even more aware of her own small chest being quite exposed to the elements and could not stop thinking about it despite her best efforts. The funny looks she got from of some NOL troops and dock-workers cleaning up the scene didn't quite help either. Hazama seemed strangely jovial about the affair, yet he didn't seem to care that a slightly-naked woman was holding on his arm. Noel wasn't sure how she felt about that fact, she just wanted to get out of public before more people saw her.