Disclaimer: One Piece is the property of Eiichiro Oda. Many of the characters in this story are property of me. Do not use this story or its characters without my permission. Thank you.
FIGHTING!!!
From out of nowhere, fighting commenced inside the castle! As Rez ran away he was stalked by not a single assassin but a fleet of crimson-garbed warriors who covered their armored bodies with a huge red mantle. Rez defended himself with his twin gunblades but found himself trapped in a spacious room with four adjoining hallways leading in different direction. Stuck at a great forked road ins his destiny, Rez made a stand!
CRAP! Rez thought. There's too many of them! I don't even have enough bullets for this many at once, and based on the rest of the island, I'll be pretty damn hard-pressed to find more ammo just lying around. Dammit!
"Looks grim, doesn't it?" one of the villains asked.
"We are invincible" another gloated "because we are so unpredictable! No one ever expects the Crimson Killers!"
"Oh?" Rez grunted. "Is that your name?"
"AHH!!!" the same guard shouted in dismay.
"Dammit" another growled, looking at the failure of a killer, "why did you tell him our name!? Now he knows what to call us!!!"
"I'm sorry" the guard apologized. "I was just excited."
"HEY!" a guard shouted, pointing at the fleeing boy. "He's getting away!"
"Son of a bitch!" a guard cursed. They all instantaneously relocated to the myriad of hidden passages in the walls and began stalking Rez again.
"I hope this leads somewhere" Rez said between his huffing breath. He was sprinting hard, pumping his arms and legs with great verve and strength. "Man, I need to keep myself aware as much as I can. Those guys can come from anywhere!" Just then, as he ran through the narrow hallway, he saw a shifting in the scenery. A painting on the wall, one of a beautiful woman seated amongst a host of angelic figures, started to slide along the wall.
He won't see this coming a red guard said with an evil sneer under his bronze mask. He prepared to stab his short spike of a rapier out in the instant that he saw the young man run by, but his ambush had taken an unexpected turn. He had been waiting an unnatural amount of time now. Where is he? The assassin wondered. He stuck his head out slightly and received a swift jowl-breaking kick to the mask. It rang and resonated against his face, transmitting the pain all over his skin, and then an explosive blast of gunfire knocked him out. Rez had stopped just in front of the painting, switched his magazine of rubber slugs to metal ones and waited for his own ambush opportunity.
"I only have six shots left" Rez said to himself. He started running again, stepping on the downed guard's face as he passed. He picked up speed as quickly as he dared and sheathed his gunblade again. An assassin was running behind him, he knew that already, but what was strange is that he could not hear it.
Where is he? Rez thought with an internal snarl. The assassin was indeed following up, up on the ceiling. Through the magic or skill of the assassin's art he was running as a red shadow that stayed close behind Rez form high above. Rez saw the hallway making a sharp turn, a wall approaching him with an open air coming from the left. Now I need to turn Rez said. He started sprinting and veering right to make a wide swing around the corner. Then an assassin popped out from around the corner with a nasty, serrated sword poised to slice Rez apart.
"Come on!" the guard shouted. "Come and meet your demise!" Rez stayed steadfast, his expression unchanging from its determines sternness. He continued running forward, then in an instant executed his plan of attack. He jumped up close to the wall on his right and planted a foot on it hard. He drew out both guns, one loaded with rubber and the other with heavy metal, and aimed ambidexterously. The rubber loaded gun in his left hand drifted up and guided his chest upwards as well. He fired at the assassin on the ceiling, almost instinctively, and then a flash of a moment later he fired into the mask of the guard that was now under him. Once his motions were done he crouched down to his knees on the wall and pounced with a flip to the floor, both of his targets down. The assassin hung from the ceiling by a harness, unconscious from the fright of getting hit between the eyes with a loud rubber shell.
"That was easy" Rez said as he sheathed his gunblades to keep running. Just as he picked up his pace he saw one promptly appear out of nowhere with a hand-scythe held at his side.
"This hall is too narrow" the guard taunted "for you to dodge! What now!?"
Damn Rez thought. I can quick draw him, but hell he's a lot more nimble than I am! I can't wast bullets in a situation like this. Can I block him? Maybe with both swords, but then I'll be stopped and one can appear from behind to kill me! Crap-dammit, what can I do...? Rez activated his Duelist Eyes and tried to plan a way around his coming killer, but based on his genius-level observations he had no way out. The reach of the weapon was too long for him to jump over and the space was too narrow for him to dive under and live. It all seemed like a literal dead-end for Rez...
...but then the wall started to move. Rez observed it in his slowed world as first a bulge coming from the stone just a few steps away from his rushing assassin. He kept his eyes locked onto his target so as not to alert him and watched from the edge of his periphery vision. The stone morphed and distended from its wall until it resembled a lean, flat-haired human figure with a knife.
"HUH!" Zan grunted. He made a stab into the arm of assassin, stopping his motion and jarring his mind with shock. "I've been missing some fun, haven't I?" Rez made a lunging stab into the assassin's gut.
"You're just slow" Rez said. The motions all stopped for a moment, then both blades were withdrawn, sheathed and the two carried on with an unspoken bond of mutual defense.
And elsewhere more fighting continued with the erupting bout between the mysterious stranger in red with his two swords 'Agony' and 'Charlene' fighting against the reformed maniac Reginald Drakengard. Reginald had given up on his assault for now and was retreating from a greatly agile assassin. Ricky the Render closed the distance between he and his target, muttering under his breath constantly about merits.
"I will kill you" Ricky said "in a most gruesome fashion! Such a thing warrants high merit!"
"And I'll twist off your nut-sack!" Reginald threatened. He spun around in his dash, now facing his pursuing would-be killer, and lurched forward as he skid to a stop. He grabbed Ricky's face-mask and began rapidly pummeling his midriff area with his balled fist. The padding made it feel like he was punching cushions and Ricky could vouch that he felt nothing at all save the shock of being unable to move his head.
"I'll snap you in half" Ricky lowed. Reginald stopped punching and waited. Ricky's swords made metallic clacks just before they moved, and they moved with blinding swiftness to chop Reginald right through his own mid-section. He had jumped at the sound, keeping his hand firmly gripped into the angles of the mask. Then he kicked his legs back, flipping himself upside-down with both hands resting on the assassin's face.
"I'll chop off your arms" Ricky said. He brought the blunt edges of his swords up to his face with two very precise flicks of his wrists. They smashed into Reginald's hands, sandwiching them between two hard surfaces at once. Reginald grunted in pain and slipped his hands out of the pointed grip, suffering minor scratches on the backs of each hand. "My sword Agony is sharp enough to cleave through solid stone...I can even smash solid rocks with its unsharpened side. Why didn't your skin get cut, you must be wondering..."
"I don't give a flying-" Reginald began, but his insult was interupted as Ricky finished his hateful speech.
"...it's because" he said, slowly turning, "I didn't wand to chop off your arms at all. I lied."
"Huh?" Reginald grunted. Suddenly a debilitating shock of pain came over him. He roared with pain and fell to the ground groaning and gritting his teeth. The pain didn't come from his right hand where Agony had scratched but his left, where the sword Charlene had left a black scar along his skin. He looked at it strangely and discerned after a moment that his pain came from that exact spot.
"Charlene" Ricky began "is lubricated every hour with fresh 'Blazing Tempest' Jellyfish oil, which can instantly shock the skin cells into a state of frost-bitten pain. That scar will diminish over time, if blood flow is sufficient, but hitting a major artery will allow the oil to travel through your whole body, possibly killing you on pain alone. Charlene is my most powerful weapon." All this useful information and Reginald didn't care. He didn't even look up to acknowledge Ricky's speech. This action confused the strange assassin who moved in cautiously to make sure his enemy hadn't already gone mad with pain.
"Are you alright...?" Ricky asked. Reginald rolled forward from his fetal crouch of pain and pressed down onto the floor with both hands. Ricky started reeling up in surprise, stepping right into the perfect position for Reginald to deliver a tremendous two-legged kick to his reinforced chin. Reginald's Sea King boots cushioned the sharp blow of hitting the metal of his mask. Ricky could only give a sharp "KCHT!" as he absorbed the blow and went flying into the middle of a high wall. Reginald started rolling back, then pressed hard with his arms and kicked up with his feet, rebounding back to solid ground.
"Damn!" Reginald exclaimed, rubbing his blackened scar. "That hurts! You bastard, I need that hand to hit people with!!!" Ricky let out a sick, painful groan and fell down to the floor on his feet. I can't take a hit like that again Reginald thought. He's bound to be pissed right now because I got the drop on him. Now he's going to try and use both his swords to open me up stab his poisoned sword in whatever wound I get! I need to start focusing on my plan, to exploit the armor's weakest point!
"Demerit" Ricky said manically. He dropped his sword Agony and brought his free hand up to his face, fingers twitching with arthritic pain from apparently never letting his sword go. "Demerit..." he shivered, voice growing louder. He clutched his mask hard and disengaged the clasps keeping it on his face. Reginald started backing away.
One of the tenants of the Crimson Killers, he knew, was that no living man could ever see their faces. It was a tradition that a member of their corps could commit no murder or act of violence without first being covered and indistinguishable from the others. Their group even had a height limit so all the assassins would be interchangeable in a line-up with regular criminals. By taking off his mask, Ricky was delivering the ultimate threat, that he would kill Reginald with every ounce of his strength.
"DEMERIIIIIIIITTTTTT!!!!!!" Ricky shouted, ripping off his mask. His blotched and wrinkled skin was exposed now, eyes wide and white with rage. His teeth were sharpened and edged into two solid rows of fangs and his nose was creepily bent down from the ages of being pressed against a mask that was too small for him. He looked old, at least as old as Reginald if not a bit older. He wasn't a man who should be fighting, not at all, but neither was Reginald and so far he was kicking ass.
"Get over yourself!" Reginald ordered.
"GRYAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!" Ricky shouted in a voice higher and harsher than he had ever used before. "You bastard, you BASTARD! I'll kill you, I'll flood you with pain! You've cost me too many points already!!!"
"You can't touch me" Reginald calmly mocked. Ricky scooped up Agony and started sprinting forward, moving his shoulders but keeping his arms steadily to the side. Reginald prepared himself to move, keeping his black-scarred left hand under his armpit to warm it and increase the blood flow. He scowled at his coming fiendish enemy, and at the last moment he jumped high into the air. While floating for a brief moment he saw Ricky preparing his own leap to chase his target down. Reginald smiled, it was all going according to plan. He would land first, right where he needed to be: next to a dented and fallen candelabra.
"I'LL REND YOU TO PIECES!!!" Ricky the Render shouted at the top of his cracking voice. Reginald gave him a glancing smile as he descended and rolled when he landed. With his good right hand he reached for the candelabra on the ground, then kicked himself into another roll, stopped on his feet after one full roll, and twisted fully around with the weapon tilted straight at Ricky's torso.
"The weakest point of that armor" Reginald said quietly "is at the seams on the side. It's stitched together from one solid piece, which leaves tiny openings and a very delicate tension with the thin threads that hold it together. One stab will separate those threads, splitting the armor fully in half, and another stab would pierce your skin..." Ricky could not hear him. He was focused on the kill. It led him, unfortunately, to another mind-clouding demerit. Reginald clutched the improvised spear tightly in hand and hooked it under his elbow. He stabbed it into the side of the armor and slashed down, splitting the seams totally apart. Then he abandoned his weapon and made a professional combat-roll backwards, dodging the twin diving slice of Agony and 'Charlene'.
"GAAAAHHHHH!!!!" Ricky roared. "Demerit, DEMERIT! I still didn't think you'd dodge me! AAAAHHH! I only have TWO POINTS LEFT!!!"
"And then what?" Reginald asked, waiting for his opponent to get frustrated again, "you'll just kill yourself? No merit means no will to live!?"
"NO!" Ricky shouted. "I WILL LIVE!!!" With his growling announcement he made a charge. Reginald stood in front of a pillar, resting upon which high above was a pointed torch holder to illuminate the huge room from above with a dim light in the night. Reginald jumped back, grabbed the pillar with both hands, ignored the pain in his black scar, and flipped over his own shoulders to appear on the wide pillar in an upside-down bear-grip. Ricky stabbed into the pillar with agony, then stabbed higher with Charlene and started climbing. Reginald acrobatically released his arm grip and raised his whole body up using his waist and lower back to pull his back into the pillar. Then he gripped hard with both hands and flipped again. He ascended in this way until he had nearly reached the spiked iron candle-holder while Ricky just stabbed and stabbed with total disregard for safety.
"I disagree" Reginald calmly said, right-side-up with legs pressing into the pillar as his only means of grip. "I think you'll die right here, no merits and no life." Ricky's eyes shot wide open. Only now did he realize the plan Reginald had. His armor was split, his entire left side was exposed to the elements. A row of huge, metal spikes was staring him down just above Reginald's face. The strong arms of Reginald grabbed the metal and pulled it down, reeling his body forward as he went. Ricky slipped off of Agony as a last ditch to save his life and started falling.
Reginald smiled his mad, powerful smile.
"RAAAAAAAAAWWWWGGHH!!!!" he roared, pitching the entire metal fencing structure downward. It fell so fast, so fiercely, that Ricky barely felt it as it impaled him in several different places. He died before he hit the ground, pinned down against the cold, emotionless metal with 'Charlene' slipping from his eternal grip...
