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After the chaos of the former day, the crew of the Imperial Dragon had fallen into the straights of Grand Line travel, all while ushering into their privileged midst their newest crew member, delicate princess Gretta Lioncrest, who was dressed spare clothes from the storage from far below deck while her assassin's garb was being washed. They were frilly and lacy enough to look like a girl's clothes with plenty of petal-pattern laces running down the outer seam of the tightly-hemmed pants and the shirt was robust and royal enough looks, all of which poised the question of just what kind of crew the Buster crew had inherited their ship from in the first place....
None of that rang important, especially not to Bard, who only cared for action, and was currently resting with his arms draped over the end of the long bowsprit. A cool sea wind breezed through his hair and he groaned.
"Bored?" Zan asked. Bard opened his eyes and saw Zan half-fused into the wood of the bow, crouching from his upside-down position to face Bard eye-to-eye. Bard brought up his arms and leaned up on them.
"Isn't that scary?" Bard asked. "If you fall you'll die, right?"
"Not if you're fast enough" Zan said. "Gretta seems to be adjusting well, if you wanted to know."
"That's great" Bard said. "I'm glad she had such a change of heart for no reason at all. It's good for me, though, so it doesn't really matter." Bard smiled. Zan saw his carefree nature shining out from his wide, childish grin, but he couldn't see past the obvious glaze of apathy that was still around him. Zan stood up, upside-down, and let his feet sink only ankle-deep into the wood.
"Hey Captain" Zan said. Bard looked down and saw Zan slowly drifting away. His feet were slowly drawing out of the wood of the bowsprit. Bard's carefree expression of boyish, hayday joy started fading to a swell of concern and shock. "Catch" Zan said. He parted from the ship and started free falling down, straight down. He smiled and let his bangs hide his eyes. Bard grabbed the tip of the bowsprit, flipped his way onto the underside of the wood, crouched his legs and made a powerful jump straight down. He caught Zan, threw him up onto the bowsprit and continued to fall. It was a good six or seven stories worth of air between the bowsprit jutting from the elevated helm to the water below which chopped loudly against the keel of the boat.
"Geppou!" Bard shouted. He bent his legs in and kicked with both feet at the air, blasting off with a kick off of literally nothing, up about twenty feet, which was just shy enough of the bowsprit to force his legs to pedal in the vainest hope of climbing up the extra few inches needed. Zan bent down and grinned down at Bard.
"Thanks, captain" Zan said as he walked down the bowsprit to the upper deck. Bard gave up and waved him away as he fell back down.
"Anytiiiiime!" Bard called. He fell into the water with a hard splash, but he was fine. He was a superior swimmer, thankfully, and so his dive was perfect and gave him no damage. He swam down under his ship and watched it speed through the dark sea waters. He stayed close to it, swimming against its own force, all along its impressive length until he reached the rudder. He made a sudden turn in the air and angled himself up just enough to swim up after his shim without ascending too fast. He managed to take a hold of the rudder and coasted with his ship's speed as he climbed up, one strong arm at a time.
"Bwah!" Bard surfaced and looked around. His ship's enormous aft end extended up with rear windows and cannon slots latched down to ward off pursuing ships evenly spotting the broad wall in a straight row and column pattern. Then he looked behind. The waves his ship stirred up in the sea were impressive, to say the least. They clashed with the natural waves of the arrogant ocean and smashed all to a neutral foam, bringing an odd peace in the ship's mighty wake. Schools of fish down below swam under the shadow of the ship, using it as protection against the mightier predators that saw the great beast's belly as a living, breathing monster. A Sea King coasting along with the wind and with the tides, traveling on a straight and distant course to a land far, far across the waves.
Bard began climbing the nearly sheer wall of his ship, gripping the sealed spaces between each thick, wide cut of lumber that made and under each window until his hand met the railing of the aft of the ship. He flipped himself up onto solid deck again and looked around. He first had to shrug off his heavy, soaking cloak and draped it over his shoulder. The wind picked up and blew his hair from behind. The Grand Sail of the ship was open and catching the breeze, pushing the great ship forward through the sea and over its waves. Bard shook his head and sprayed a light, salty mist around his shoulders. He looked to his right and saw Max in his chair, loudly slumbering. Bard grinned and picked the chair, with Max in it, up by a leg and started carrying it with a beaming smile.
"Hey captain!" a pirate called. "We've got some time, how bout a tournament again?"
"Sure!" Bard called. "Let me just get this guy out of the sun!" Bard opened a random door, looked in the darkness where there was no sun shining, and placed Maxwell there.
"....raining is it? Not again...always raining...." he muttered unconsciously. Bard slammed the door and nodded.
"Better for him to be in there, I guess" Bard said. The wind picked up and he looked over his shoulder, past the great black shadow of his sail, to the sky which started to roll with thick, white clouds that built up to gray and a distant, menacing black. Bard whipped the water from his coat and threw it into the room with Maxwell, draping it over him and forcing him to breathe into it when he snored. "Rails the sail!" Bard ordered. "We've got rain incoming!"
"RAISE THE SAIL!!!" a pirate shouted. Ten men, five on port and five on starboard, manned the ropes and levers that held the heavy sail in place. They let them loose and watched the sail furl itself up and away like the dramatic drawing of a stage curtain, and the ship slowed. "Lower ballasts in all quarters" Bard called as he marched across deck. A man ran down to the underdeck to repeat the orders and weight the ship's pivotal points to lessen its stirring in the stormy seas. "Brace the furniture!" he ordered again. He marched all the way to the foredeck and jumped from lower to upper in a single bound, landing behind Rez who was sturdy at the helm. Bard placed a hand on Rez's shoulder, to which the duelist nodded and moved, giving Bard the helm.
"Don't screw up!" Rez shouted. "I'll be on the whip-staff below to keep you on course."
"Got it!" Bard called. Zan melded up through the deck and leaned on the wheel, sure it wouldn't move if it was in Bard's hands.
"Where am I going?" Zan asked.
"Where's Gretta?" Bard asked.
"Finding a decent room" Zan said. "Right now she's in yours."
"GAH!" Bard exclaimed with a mouth wide open. Zan smirked and started down again at an angle, descending as if scaling down stairs.
"I'll try and get her to move along" Zan said. "And I'll check on Araly for you."
"Thanks Zan!" Bard said. Zan melded through the floor and out of view, leaving Bard to do his heroic, captain's duty. Thunder crashed and lightning flashed. The winds were roaring and the ship was turning. Bard could feel Rez pulling the ship to the right and Bard did the same, turning hard to starboard with the wheel, adding extra force to the powerful rudder in the water to fight the stirring currents. The rain finally began. Bard was the only man above deck, determined to face nature and fight it out, determined to win.
"Come on!" Bard roared with his battle-ready face. "I'll show this whole world what this ship can do with the strongest at its helm!" He let go of the wheel, allowing it to spin itself to port and straighten the rudder out, then gripped it with an unflinching, powerful grip. "You've got nothing world! NOTHING!!!" And he continued roaring like that all through the storm...
Gretta had spread herself on the bed and selfishly wrapped the covers around her shoulders as she read one of the books Araly had tossed away in a fit she walked in on. Araly was still shamefully turned away in embarrassment and listened to the storm outside beating on the walls. Zan stepped down through the wall and stood on the carpet, dripping wet from the rain. Gretta turned away with her eyes already sparkling while Araly shielded herself from getting splashed.
"Either of you girls have a light?" Zan asked as he placed a wet ciargette in his mouth. Araly threw a book at his head and it phased through him and bounced off the floor, amazing Gretta even more.
"You're soaking wet!" Araly lowed with a demonic scowl. "Get off the carpet!"
"That tattoo isn't working too well anymore, is it?" he asked.
"It's working fine" Araly said. "I was so shocked at you suddenly appearing that all my surprise was converted into anger, so it's sort of boiling over....and now it's gone. What do you want?"
"Cold!" Zan said. "I just came in to check on how you two were doing." The ship tossed in the churning waves. Araly heard Bard howling at the wheel.
"The wind out here is amazing!" Gretta said at the whooing.
"That was Bard" Araly corrected. She sighed and slouched back into her loose, free-swinging hammock while Gretta, lost in her awe, was slowly slid off of the bed with a shout. Zan hopped over and knelt down to her.
"You okay, princess?" Zan asked.
"Am I still a princess" Gretta asked "with no castle or royal ties?"
"If you don't want to be a princess" Zan said "I'm willing to call you something else."
"....I don't mind it" she said. She moved herself into the shell of covers she took with her off the bed and tightened up in shyness. Zan rose up with a smirk and turned to Araly.
"How have you been?" Zan asked.
"Bored" Araly said. "Isn't there anything else I can do here but read?"
"Didn't you get a parting gift from that witch woman?" Zan asked. "All that eel oil and ink could be used by a trainee alchemist like you to do some great things on this ship."
"If I could managed to get out of this stupid hammock long enough to do anything" Araly protested. She sighed and fell flat over. "What are dinners like?" Gretta rose up, still wrapped in her comforting blankets.
"They don't let you eat?" Gretta asked.
"Araly has debilitating sea-sickness" Zan explained. "She can't stand up for long without-"
"She knows that" Araly said. Gretta nodded.
"Ah" Zan said. "Well, don't I look foolish? Obviously she can't join the crew for mess, which it ususally becomes, so Bard just saves her a plate of food and brings it up to her."
"And mine's usually burnt" Araly complained "or undercooked or....something."
"You never get sick, though" Zan said. "Look at it from the crew's stand point. The less potentially dangerous food for them to eat, the more jobs can get done." Zan didn't see Araly's face, but by the tension he saw in her back and the force with which she curled up in her bedding he knew he had upset her and sighed.
"You can eat anything?" Gretta said in awe. "Even if it hasn't been prepared properly? What if it's poison?" Araly turned her head a little bit just to acknowledge her. "I though you were just a bookish whining girl who complained over being on a ship she had no place being on..." Zan was about to attempt to silence her and drag her away, but Gretta redeemed herself. "...but being unconquered even by poison; you have an amazing talent, Araly!" Araly blushed and grinned. She turned around, trying to hide her excitement with a blushed, bashful demeanor, and modestly sat up.
"Oh, it's nothing too fantastic" Araly said. "It's not like I can eat my enemies into submission, right?"
"But you're immune to such dreadful effects!" Gretta said. "I've been sick before. It was awful. I was forced to my bed while my servants told me how lucky I was to have survived my heated battle against the demonic sickness. They had to apply and reapply wet cloth to my head and make sure I ate just enough soup to not fill myself with but, also, to stay satiated with..."
"That's some ordeal" Zan said with a sarcastic raise of his brow. Araly shot him an glance in agreement.
"My castle had a royal taste-tester" Gretta went on "to make sure what I and my father were eating was not hazardous to our health. Though nothing unfortunate ever befell them, I always felt indebted to them somehow, even though they were simply doing their job for my father, the sham of a man that he was. You could do that, couldn't you? Offer yourself to greater, unanticipated dangers for the rest of the crew?"
"No" Araly said "because how would I know if something's poisoned or not? I can't taste if it's posioned."
"Can you taste at all?" Gretta asked.
"Sweet things" Araly said "and full flavors, like meats or really juicy fruits. Only strong flavors. Some foods just taste bland to me."
"It's still amazing" Gretta went on in praise. Zan backed away and waved farewell to Araly as he descended through the floor, leaving Gretta without a goodbye or a parting glance, as she continued awing at Araly's apparent skill. "You're much more than the girl I thought you were, Araly. What else can you do?" Araly felt a bit moved, even humbled, by Gretta's constant girlish fawning and boosting.
I guess she's never met many different people Araly thought. Most of her servants must have been brainwashed or ordered by her father to be uninteresting for some reason, maybe to keep her daughter bored and submissive. Now that she's meeting so many people and learning so much about the world, she sees things she's never seen and is excited about it all.
"Well" Araly went on, turning around and laying her body Gretta's way, "even though Bard likes to boast and flex his muscles, I can still give him a punch that doubles him over in pain for a long time."
"Really?" Gretta asked.
"Yeah" Araly said, palming her arm as she jokingly flexed it for her. "I guess I'm pretty strong in my own way, eh?"
"It's amazing" Gretta said with a sigh. She sat on the edge of the bed and couldn't hide her smiling, her sincere grinning and distant, loving gaze into space. She slowly brought her hand up to her chin and dipped her head, heavy with thoughts. "The world I've never known. It's a truly amazing place, isn't it?"
"It hasn't been all bad so far" Araly said, rolling over onto her back. "You should stay and see how much more amazing it gets from here."
"I will" Gretta said. "But, like you, I need to find a place where I can belong in this 'crew', you call it. I need my position, my place....I wonder if I could try out to be an archer?" As Gretta mused, to herself, Araly turned around and looked at her reachable mound of books on the table beside her risen hammock. The ship rocked again and Gretta gripped the edges of the bed while Araly hung neutral to the ship's motions in her free-swinging sling.
But where should I go? Araly wondered. Now she began thinking as well, trapped by a ground she couldn't stand to walk on and her desire to help and carry the burden that was her ship, her crew, and her Captain's quest....
All was well and the seas were calm. The ship stayed on course through the wearing weather. Rez checked and rechecked the position on the log pose to be straight along with the needle and grinned with building, excited laughter.
"He did it!" Rez exclaimed. "He's a...multi-talented guy, isn't he?" Rez let go of the whip-staff and saw the levers, ropes, gears and locks attaching it with the wheel up top stay perfectly calm and still. He ran up to the deck above to a shining sun and a bright, clean and brisk air. The rain was over, the deck was drenched and dripped over the sides of the ship. Rez inspected everything with a careful eye.
"Take it down!" a pirate shouted. Men were coming back out to bring the main sail back down again and steal the wind that blew up behind them. "We still on course, you figure, Rez?" a pirate shouted.
"Oh yeah" Rez said. He checked again and saw the needle leading down the bow of the ship. Though they were obviously still days away, they stayed on course. "Let's catch some wind!"
"ARRR!!!" the pirates shouted, stirred by Bard's own doctrines of pirateering. Rez chuckled and shook his head as he walked for the upper deck. Behind the wheel Bard's breath continued to fume out of his grit teeth and glaring grin. He was frozen in a fighter's mind, his eyes flashing a powerful force and his brow heavily furrowed. He was stayed on his focus on the horizon and his burning, endless desire to destroy it as a fighter. His want to fight tightened his grip to wring the expertly smoothed knobs of the wheel he gripped and they creaked under his pressure.
"Nice job up here, Captain" Rez said. "You want me to reclaim the wheel for you?"
"Look at it, Rez" Bard said, straightening his back, wielding the knobs of the wheel down close to his hips with his full height and extension of arms. "Look at this ocean." Rez turned to the horizon and crossed his arms with a nod.
"It's a big one, captain" Rez said. "It's a wild, unruly graveyard of fools and the victory ground of powerful men, some of them self-admitted fools as well. Do you think we're foolish enough to master it?"
"Haven't we mastered it already?" Bard asked, departing from the wheel. Rez leaned onto it to keep it in place and watched Bard circle around to the front of the helm. "This ocean commands the smallest ships with the biggest waves, but our ship is a natural on the water. Even the creatures of the sea recognize that and take shelter in our shadow under the rolling waters. This ship, this dragon that slides across the waves on its belly, is a vessel that contains more than a crew. It contains power! Unlimited power, raw and unwieldy! Its crew, an embodiment of that strength! The verses of its created strength!"
"Is 'unwieldy' really a choice word, Bard?" Rez asked, bringing Bard down from his detaching fighting mind and slowly back to the grace of his foolish ambition.
"Think of it, Rez" Bard said. "Any single man, with training, can become stronger. Any army can be strong if they're trained. Talent and born power and the unnatural abilities of superiority that some are blessed with are only as good as they are trained to be. Even me, a guy born with strength, is nothing without the strength of training." Rez saw where this was going and checked the ship's course for a final time. Bard chopped his hand to the hard wood of the wheel to draw Rez's eyes to his beaming, smiling, fight-ready face. "We need to train, Rez! This crew is the strongest on the entire Grand Line! I'll work them all to the bloody bones so that no matter who we face, no matter who our enemies are or where they hail from, we'll all take them down. Our fists will pound waves into the sea, and our legs will kicks storms out of the clouds! That is my aim, our destination! Can you see it?" Rez looked to the horizon.
He saw many things. He saw the path they took, winding and chaotic but eventually the same as any other, destined to be repeated by another man with the same desires as they had now. Rez saw a great wall of invisibility blocking his view over the rounded, rolling waves far, far away and a shining promise of future in the glow of the sun and the blue of the sky. He saw boundless possibilities with his fast eyes and with his mind he saw Bard's calculations finding a way to work those futures into reality. Rez could see it and it made him move. He walked past the wheel, past the helm and onto the bowsprit which was wide enough for him to walk to the end of and stand with one foot in front of the other. He saw it all, for the first time, all his obstacles and barriers smashed down by fists. Not Bard's fists, but his own, bloodied, toughened, strong fists.
I get it now Rez suddenly realized. Revelation had struck him. Epiphany invaded his mind. Just as the salty air swept through his short black hair he felt a surge of life pulsate through him and he reached out to touch that horizon, to touch that future, and hold it firm. His goofy, stupid arrogance isn't just some dumbass drive forward blindly. He knows how things will be. He knows what strength can bring us if we listen and train. He knows what we can do. Bard knows what any man can be, and he wants all of us to exceed that not for him, but for us! He doesn't want anything. He just wants to hold strength in its true form....and so do I!
"Bard!" Rez shouted. "I want that! I want that strength!" He turned around and saw Bard behind him, gazing out over him at the expansive heavens. He jumped and nearly lost his balance but recovered as Bard grabbed his hand and pulled him up straight. Rez breathed hard and looked down at the inhuman length he'd have to survive falling if he lost his footing completely. He sighed and took Bard's strong, hard hand in both of his and shook it once he was standing firmly again. "Bard, we need to work toward that strength! That indomitable willpower! That undefeateable spirit! All of us...we need TRAINING!!!"
"HELL YES!!!" Bard shouted. He threw Rez to the helm where he landed and rolled back to his feet, still deep in his own exciting revelation. Bard rushed to the rear of the helm and leaned over the railing just in time to see his black sail and seething draconic symbol unfurl and catch the winds that blew behind, pushing the ship forward with all the force nature gave it. He grinned, took in a deep, long breath and then roared out "LINE UP FOR TOURNAMENT NOOOOWWWW!!!!" The pirates, as if unconsciously, secured their last knot and dropped their burdens where they stood. In practically no time everyone was gathered on the main deck, fists tensed, eyes set and attitudes all combined into one fierce and palpable feeling, a living a breathing urge to fight. Bard stood before them with his arms crossed and his eyes glaring fiercely.
"Ah" Bard said, "someone get my captain coat from that closet. Max is in there too." A pirate retrieved his coat and drug the chair holding the sleeping monster back out into the light. He mumbled, snorted and then went on snoring, prompting that pirate to gently push him back in and make sure he was braced on the sides by heavy rods in case the ship met hard conditions. Zan appeared leaning over the helm railing with a cigarette, dry, in his mouth.
"Mind if I sit this out so we stay on course, captain?" Zan asked. "With my abilities, it might not be too fair...."
"Nonsense!" Bard shouted. "Your abilities are good to practice against, aren't they? What if we encounter someone with a power like that on an island? How will we know our ability to adapt to uncertain and unusual battle conditions if we don't fight someone with the obvious advantage of a devil fruit beforehand?" Zan shrugged and jumped down beside Bard.
"Why don't you go first, then?" Zan asked. "See if you can demonstrate that ability of adaptation to everyone else?"
"No" Rez said, stepping out from the front row. "Zan, you're a pal. That's why I'm fighting you first." Zan nodded and smoked the rest of his cigarette away, tossing the dead stub off to the side. Bard moved away and into the wall of the room under the helm. He looked to the door at the far side and was struck with the realization of who was inside and still out of the action.
"Get ready!" Bard ordered. Rez and Zan both squared their legs and spread them out. Bard opened the door and called "Set!" Zan slid his left leg back and held his left hand in his pants pocket. His right hand moved back to his waist-level to palm the grip of one of his blades. He smirked. Rez stayed in the same position but brought his hands up near his gunblades and wrung each finger one at a time. Gretta came skipping out of the room and gathered with the pirates in her long, frilly shirt over-fitting her to watch the fight while Bard carried Araly in her hammock sling held in his hands over his head. He took his position and the pirate crowd spread out far and thin to watch, forming no single boundary, all ready to move if the fight came their way.
"FIGHT!" Araly called.
And so the battle carried. Rez drew his pistols and made a hurried shot for Zan's feet, snapping the blades hidden within his soft leather boots before he got the chance to plan with them. Zan smirked and backed away. The pirates dispersed as a fog of spectators to avoid any inevitable shots Rez would fire. Rez ran after Zan, who approached the edge of the ship, and aimed with incredible accuracy to fire a bullet that skipped and sparked with a bounce off of Zan's eyebrow piercing.
"Can't phase through that attack, can you?" Rez exclaimed. He wielded his gunblades as swords and made a leap in. Zan recovered with his hand blades both armed and deflected Rez's attack straight to the floor. Rez rolled with his blades and avoided a metal spike to his back. He recovered to Zan's attacks. Zan punched with his bladed fists and Rez blocked with steady wrists and firm fists clenching hilts.
"The trouble with fighting me" Zan said "is that my ability treats nearly everything against it as a Logia user would treat physical objects. The difference is that I can extend that effect to how I treat solid objects. I can treat floors like water, walls like pudding, and walk through bullets like they weren't even there. You have to fight beyond the physical to harm me."
"Alright" Rez said. He broke the blade-drawn and stomped forward. "How bout a mental blow!?" Rez gave Zan a hard head-butt. Zan was unable to avoid or phase through it and took it full to the nose. He stumbled back and held his face while Rez rushed back in with a growl. He swung and slashed a cut in Zan's side. Zan activated his ability and let the sword swing through his body, leaving only a skin-deep cut to bleed at his side.
"Why no armor?" Rez asked. He wound his arm back and swung down hard, right onto Zan's block.
"Gets in the way of my ability" Zan said. "Ideally I should be naked."
"Please no" Rez said. "You're creepy enough as it is!" Rez kicked Zan away and got his boot half-way stuck in Zan's gut. Rez pulled his foot from his boot and swung as his foot fell back to the deck. Zan flipped back and rushed promptly back in with his blades swinging and stabbing. Rez blocked and backed away. They fought up the steps to the helm where Bard followed with a jump to the rear railing. He held Araly over his head, slung in her hammock, and they watched the standoff between blades continue before the rest of the crew managed to reach the upper deck.
"Why doesn't he just escape?" Araly asked. Bard laughed.
"Zan wants to get stronger, of course!" Bard said. "That's what this ship is for! It's an incubator for great power! Everyone will get stronger! It just takes time!" Araly looked down at him when he said that. She looked up at the fighting, at the distant rolling clouds and the purple sky, at herself, down her slender arm and to her hand, stretched out fingers and flat palm. She gripped her fist and brought it up to her eyes, beaming a smile at it, a smile for her future.
Then I'll get stronger too she decided. No matter what, I'll become strong along with everyone else. Rez and Zan fought for a length of time and never let up. The rivalry rich in Rez's eyes was reflected back by the raw force and skillful power of Zan in his steel-strong eyes. They were the only ones that fought that day and managed to fight to a draw, ending when the sun had set and darkness filled the sky, and they shared cigarettes while sitting off the bow of the boat.
"So what's your dream?" Zan asked. Rez stared hard out to the sea and took a drag from his stick, blowing smoke out of his nose.
"There's a man on this ocean" Rez admitted "that I have to defeat if I'm ever to have any solace in my life...."
"Ah" Zan said. "One of those cases, eh?"
"It's not vengeance or anything" Rez said, stirring Zan's interest again. Rez stared ahead with a fire-hot intensity to the rising moon on the horizon. "It's something that has to be done."
"Gotcha" Zan said. "At least you're out here for a good reason. I was forced onto the sea by a man I don't understand. No mission, no target. I'm just riding the winds of fate across the sea and seeing where I get to go."
"Lucky" Rez said. "I wish I was a free man like that."
"It ain't half bad" Zan said with a chuckle. He sparked some humor up in Rez, got a single huff of a laugh out of him, and watched him toss a spinning band of smoke over the side of the ship. He stood up and offered Zan a hand up as well.
"It's a big world, you know" Zan said. "You think you'll find it?"
"What?" Rez asked.
"Your treasure" Zan said. "The thing you're searching for. 'That man', or whatever. I envy guys who have something to find. All I do is travel to end men who search for things with all their life as a resource to end their journey. As long as I exist I'll kill men. There's few ways around that. For a guy like you, who chases after his dreams, regardless what they are, I'm happy to tag along."
"You're not following me, you know" Rez said. "We're both following the same man, all the way to the end of the world, if possible." Rez walked back to the helm, checked his course, and grabbed the wheel to correct the slight in his calculations. Zan walked across the upper deck and sank down into it as he walked, bidding a farewell wave to Rez as he left. Zan left Rez with a disgusted and frightened look on his face.
That's still creepy as hell... Rez thought...
