Forcibly United

oOo

Comes the Hot-Blooded Dragon

Chapter 1

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Revy snap-fired her pistol at the lead man as he leaped from the boat alongside the Black Lagoon, grimacing as he twisted in mid-air to dodge the shot. He landed and blurred, more 9mm gunfire denting the boat's deck as she tracked him. Beyond him, several men watched from their boat.

He was too fucking fast! Just like the pigtailed bastard who'd arrived in Roanapur two months ago! It was fucking embarrassing that this bastard's men didn't even need to follow him onto the boat!

"Dutch! Rodeo!" Revy yelled, holstering her weapon and grabbing onto one of the railings. Dutch veered sharply at her word, tumbling the martial artist into one of the torpedo tubes and giving Revy her first clear look at the him.

He was a young Japanese man, no older than eighteen. Relatively short, wavy black hair was held back by a camouflage bandanna which matched the cargo pants he wore, topped by a light kevlar vest with a black sleeveless shirt. Revy pulled a gun from her holster and fired, denting the metal by the young man's face and making him let go of the tube. He twisted in mid-air, and Revy saw him land on the pursuing boat with a disturbing grace.

"Dutch, we've got a fucking problem," Revy growled into her headset, firing at the young punk several times. The first grazed his shoulder, prompting him to dive for cover as the boat closed the distance once more. "This little bastard leading these fuckers moves like Chang's two punks! Get Benny driving the boat and get your ass up here to help me drive them off!"

"On my way," Benny replied.

"Dutch, he's coming up starboard. Wrench the rudder to port when I yell. I'm going to see if we can drop the punk in the ocean next time he tries to board," Revy said, reloading her gun. Unfortunately, the men on the other boat had wisely taken cover, leaving the Chinese-American thug with no targets.

"What about Benny taking over?" Dutch demanded over the line.

"It can wait! If I time this right, maybe he doesn't have to take over after all!" Revy snarled, firing a trio of shots as men on the other boat peeked their heads over cover. Unfortunately, the shots missed. The boat pulled up to them and the leader leaped. "NOW!"

The Black Lagoon shifted throttle and immediately turned away from the pursuit vessel. Unfortunately, the young Japanese man merely smirked as he snatched the railing at the back corner of the deck, flipping himself on to the boat and taking cover as Revy opened up on him.

"Dutch, we've got company! Get your ass out here!" Revy snarled. She leaped over the top of the boat, hoping to catch the boarder by surprise. She was only mildly surprised when she did, raining gun fire down on the man. Surprised, he dove to the side faster than she could track, lashing out a hand from twenty feet away.

To Revy's immense surprise, the air around his fist bent for a second before a sharp pain lanced into her right arm. Numbness spread from her shoulder to her fingertips, and her custom Beretta 92F fell from her hand, bouncing once off the deck of the boat before plunging into the ocean with a small splash.

Focusing through the pain, she raised her other gun towards the young man's face. Another fist bent the air around her and everything went dark.

oOo

Rock stared apprehensively out the top hatch as the sky raced by, hearing several gunshots and then silence. Benny climbed up the ladder, allowing Dutch to relinquish steering and head for the top hatch. The large black man pulled his revolver from it's holster, hand on the ladder.

"Revy? I'm coming up!" Dutch yelled, raising his head out the hatch.

A solid fist collided with the man's face, shattering his sunglasses and dropping him limply to the floor of the cabin. A second later, a young Japanese man clad in a kevlar vest and military fatigues dropped in, feet spread over Dutch's unconscious body.

"Stop the boat," the young man commanded in rough English, glaring at the pair of noncombatants. Seeing his slight build and the fact he was unarmed, Rock tried to punch the young man. He effortlessly deflected the punch to the side, twisting the older Japanese man's arm behind him before kicking him in the back of his knees, dropping him next to Dutch. "Serious, blondie!"

"Alright, I'm stopping it! Just don't hurt anyone!" Benny pleaded, throttling the boat down to a minimum.

"If you co-operate, nobody is harmed further," the young man promised, leaning down. He switched to Japanese as he lifted Rock to his feet unsteadily. "You're Japanese, right? Like I said, if you and your crew offer no more resistance, we'll allow you to go on your way once we take your cargo off your hands."

"You do know that we're working for Hotel Moscow, right?" Rock bluffed, getting a blank look in return. "I've heard about you from a few people in Roanapur. You've just started working these waters. You do realize that you're pissing off pretty much everyone for a few hundred miles, right?"

"It's a consequence of my chosen profession," the young man returned, letting go of the other Japanese man's shirt. He opened the side-hatch of the torpedo boat, waving once to his men. "The cargo would be in the front hold on a ship like this, right?"

"That's right," Rock ground out, following the young man onto the deck. He glanced towards the back, noting that several of the young man's subordinates were surrounding Revy's unconscious form.

When one of them reached down to sling her over his shoulder, Rock tensed himself to move... and probably, to die. He didn't need to. The strange young pirate who'd captured his vessel was there first.

"I told you before! No captives!" The young man snarled, punching the man viciously in the ribs and catching the Chinese-American woman before she tumbled once more to the ground. He carried her to Rock, dumping Revy in his arms. "Take her below deck and fix up her arm. I'm sorry, but she was good enough that I couldn't hold back. She might have killed me, otherwise."

"If you're sorry, why are you a fucking pirate in the first place?" Rock demanded, wondering at the senseless violence.

"I was crippled once: I'm still not back to where I once was. Until I've regained the level of skill I once sealed away, I've got to train myself in the harshest environment I can," the youth explained, gently shoving Rock's arm. He flashed him a sad grin. "It's not like I'm going after the innocent in these waters anyway."

oOo

Dutch returned to consciousness slowly, his first act being to groan and reach up to adjust his ever-present sunglasses. He started awake as his fingers instead brushed his eyelids. He remembered Revy yelling for backup, grabbing the ladder, and then-

"Dutch, you're awake," Benny commented from the doorway. The man heaved himself up, noting Revy's unconscious form.

"Did you and Rock somehow fight off the boarders?" Dutch wondered, eyeing the young American critically. Benny merely shook his head in reply. "I thought not. So... Why aren't we dead?"

"Good question," Benny grunted, moving a couple steps into the room. "Right now we're dead in the water. The guy who got Revy dismantled our rudder and let it sink to the bottom of the ocean... but he was speaking Japanese to Rock, so I don't really know why we're alive any more than you do."

"How's Revy?" Dutch wondered, casting a critical eye over the young woman. Benny shrugged.

"Not good. Rock's pretty sure that the Japanese kid who boarded us broke her right arm somewhere. A hairline fracture, he thinks. Even unconscious, she was moaning whenever he touched it," Benny grunted. He raised an eyebrow at Dutch. "So, you want me to grab you some water?"

"A beer would be better," Dutch groaned, rubbing his eyes.

"Sorry, they took it. Along with my computer equipment, most of the armory, and the cargo we were carrying for Jackpot. Thankfully it was just a few crates of porn. We can cover the cost of replacing them easily enough," Benny said sourly.

"The big problem is the armoury. They probably made off with a few hundred grand in weapons, if I remember the last check correctly," Dutch noted. He groaned as he got up. "Did they at least leave the integrated radio, or did they gut my console, too?"

"No, they left that alone. Ditto our food and water supplies. They didn't want to kill us or starve us, just take our goods," the blond American teenager noted.

"Fuck, I thought these waters were relatively safe," Dutch admitted. "It's my fault for letting my guard down. Now we're fucked for the next few weeks. It's not like we can do much with Revy down and out. Especially not against pirates like these."

"Actually, I was thinking about that," Rock said from the doorway.

"Go on," the black captain urged.

"What are the chances that a Japanese guy the same age as Ranma and Ryouyga has never encountered either of them, given how all three of them are at fighting hand to hand?" Rock wondered idly. Dutch nodded. "I say once we get back to port we contact Ranma and Ryouga and see what they have to say about this guy."

"Speaking of which, how long 'til we can make it back to port?" Dutch wondered.

"Not too long. We've got someone bringing us the parts we need to repair the boat. We should be back in before nightfall," Benny said.

"Good," Dutch growled. He stood. "Benny, schedule a meeting with Chang's two boys for the minute we get back to port. Someone fucked us hard today, and if there's any chance we can figure out who it was I'm all for it."

oOo

The Black Lagoon limped back to port more or less running with jury-rigged parts. Revy still hadn't woken up when they arrived, prompting Rock to call a doctor. The ambulence, really a station-wagon with a slide-out bed, took the Chinese-American woman to a clinic three blocks east of the Lagoon Company's offices.

The doctor, Johnny Cessna, agreed with Rock's assessment that Revy's arm was broken. He told them he'd put it in a cast and call them when she woke up. Rock assured Cessna that he'd be there before then. After all, he only needed to confirm a few facts with Roanapur's resident martial arts gurus.

In the two months since Ranma and Ryouga had arrived, they'd quickly made a name for themselves. People were calling them the Twin Hurricanes, based on the two facts: They absolutely refused to work solo jobs and they typically caused massive amounts of property destruction whenever a fight broke out in their vicinity. They were hired for guard work or convoys, as they refused assassinations and intimidation jobs.

Chang had admitted to Rock that both boys were pretty depressed following their job with the Lagoon Company delivering Balalaika's cargo, neither happy about having to respond with the force they did.

Later, when he had the chance to talk to them Rock pointed out that they'd tried their best.

"I've got a set of techniques... Maybe I could have used 'em to end the fight a little quicker. Maybe I could have crippled the Hind without killing the pilot. I sealed 'em, though. I promised myself that I wouldn't use 'em," Ranma had replied, scrubbing his face with both hands. He'd flashed Rock a dead look as he chuckled mirthlessly. "I didn't want blood on my hands."

Rock had wisely chosen not to press the issue further.

Since that fight with the Hind, neither boy had actually taken a life. The furthest they would typically go was breaking bones and destroying equipment. At first, the underworld of Roanapur had assumed that it was because the boys were weak, easy prey. It had only taken a week for Ranma and Ryouga to disabuse the city's gangsters of that notion when one punk too many had picked a fight with Ryouga at the Yellow Flag.

Doctor Cessna was pretty sure the guy would be back eating solid foods in just a few weeks. Ryouga had been quite irritated that the guy had walked up to him and dumped a pitcher of beer on his head.

Rock's meandering thoughts were interrupted as Ranma and Ryouga strode into the storeroom above the dock, waving jauntily as they sat down on the couch. Ryouga had long since abandoned his old clothing, opting instead to garb himself in a variety of dark silk button-up shirts, usually over top of loose white or light grey slacks, his feet shod in combat boots picked up from an army surplus store. In direct contrast to his partner, Ranma had viciously clung to his chosen fashion sense, preferring to wear Chinese tangs with plain black slacks and slippers... though unlike the one he'd worn when he first arrived, his shirt today was green.

"Rock, I'm pretty sure I know who hit you guys. Question is, do you just want what I know?" The pigtailed boy asked with a cocky grin, folding his arms. "Or, do you want me to kick Ryu Kumon's ass for breaking the tomboy's arm and robbing you guys?"

oOo

Author's Notes:

Ack. Meant to have this up hours ago. Then I realized it was a friend's birthday and I kinda had someplace I had to be. For future reference? Playing soccer in the rain for three hours while wind is blowing the 5 degree weather at 20 kilometers an hour is an interesting experience. Not necessarily fun, but interesting.

Also, the concept of drinking brandy to warm oneself is a vicious lie.

Twenty points to anyone who recognized the martial artist at the beginning of the chapter despite the costume variation! Also, a bit of bad news: I think I'm beginning to burn out a bit on this story. Not surprising, given that I've doubled the word count for it in the last week. I'm probably going to set it aside for a week or so to work on other stories.

I know, I know. It's a tease to take a break at the beginning of an arc. Mea culpa, people.