On the 6th day they neared a village. It was time for May to work her magic. She let Cassy and Taiga as is since they hadn't been officially recognised as a pirate yet but Cliff needed a disguise. She took out her makeup kit and took Cliff out of sight of the other 2. 15 minutes later they return with Cliff looking like an adult male version of May with her accompanying him as a child of no more than 8.
"You look like the male version of May." Cassy commented very impressed by May's work. May beamed her a proud smile for this complement. Taiga stayed quite but was very much impressed as shown by his expression.
Cliff just grumbled something inaudible at that.
"I told you nobody ever even thinks that someone with a small girl would even begin to anything troublesome. It's the perfect cover." May told him sounding exasperated, as if she had to explain this to Cliff plenty of times over the last 20 minutes.
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Entering the village was no hassle. There were no guards here though the villagers did say that guards were found a few more villages in. They moved to good looking restaurant and ordered food and drinks. Later, they found an inn through local recommendations and settled in for the night. Or atleast, May and Cliff did. Cassy and Taiga went to the bars to gather some information. They left the very next day.
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5 villages had been covered by the crew. The guards in the last 2 villages gave them no trouble. Having moved directly north from the south coast and only turned east after passing through the first 3 villages. They now came upon Torino town.
Same as all other times. They entered in the town easily, had some food and found an inn. Cassy and Taiga left for the bars.
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"So, what have you found?" Cliff asked Cassy and Taiga after their latest expedition in the town's bars. "It's been 3 days since we stepped into the town. What have you gathered?"
"All we can gather in here is that the King is especially kind. I mean they sing praises of him. how he did this and he did that and all is getting better in the kingdom." Taiga started.
"This started as far back as the first village, but there is one ex-marine here that gave us something interesting." Cassy continued.
"You mean gave you something interesting. He wouldn't even talk to me." Taiga said.
Cliff entirely ignored Taiga's last comment and looked to Cassy, "And what did he give you?"
"She gave me the dirty laundry of the Commander and the Lieutenant Commander stationed here. They don't really have much to fan but enough. The Commander is pretty much on the payroll of a pirate group known as Feather Pirates. She lets them do what they want on the 2 islands just north and west of the mainland. The LC is the one who usually goes to collect the money." Cassy said.
"He was a she?" Taiga asked surprised.
"Just because she had a cloak on and you couldn't see her curves doesn't mean she was a he. Plus, I thought your devil fruit would have given you a better sense of smell. Couldn't you have sniffed her pheromones or something?" Cassy asked him.
Taiga could do nothing but laugh sheepishly at that.
"Anyway, from what our source knew, the Feather Pirates found a sunken ship loaded with gold and sold plenty of it to make beri's to hand over to the marines here."
Once she was finished, Cliff was silent for a moment before he started to laugh, "Rahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…"
Cassy, May and Taiga just looked at each other wondering about the reason for him to laugh.
It took a few moments to calm down enough that he was only chuckling now, "It's time for good old-fashioned piracy!" he exclaimed.
It took a few moments for this to sink in the mind of the other 3 but once it did, "Hehehehehehehe/Trararararararara/Hahahahehehehahaha…"
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All of them prepared to very quickly backtrack and move back to their ship. Once they had collected all their supplies, Cliff had taken a shower to remove all the makeup and were now in the forest proper.
"We need to get back to the ship and fast. Any ideas?" Taiga asked.
As one 3 heads turned to him, leaving him confused. He looked behind himself but there was no one behind him and then he looked back when an idea struck him.
"No…" "Yes…" 3 voices came.
"No…" "Yes…"
"No…please" "Yes…"
He tried denying them but he couldn't. in the end no amount of whining deterred the group.
He finally gave in and turned into a huge white tiger, standing at least 15 ft high from paws to shoulder.
"Is this as big as you can go?" Cliff asked awed.
"No" a gruff voice answered him. "I can alter my size based on necessity. I can go as large as 25 ft tall. I needed all 3 of you to sit comfortably, so made myself as big as needed."
"SO COOL!" Cliff and May said with stars in their eyes while Cassy sighed.
Due to Cassy's insistence, Cliff and May stopped dancing around the tiger and got on it. once he was sure that all 3 were seated and had a grip, he moved with great speed.
All 3 sitting up on his back felt the wind on their faces and let a smile blossom, while Cliff let out a laugh, "Rahahahahahahah… it reminds me of the freedom of sailing on the sea!" he bellowed it out.
What took them 3 weeks to journey, the tiger completed in a few hours and by sunset, they were on their ship.
"Get ready to move towards the larger of the 2 islands. It is the one to the west of the mainland, yes?" Cliff asked Cassy both standing on the bow near the figurehead of the ship.
"Yeah, the larger one they have less control over. The population there seems to have it out for them. A lot of the natives have been killed by the Feather Pirates to keep the uprising down on it." (Cassy)
"We'll reach the island by sundown tomorrow!" May's voice came from the helm.
"Good!" Cliff answered back. "What else do we know?"
"While you were getting that make up off, we went ahead with a final visit to the bars and paid for some more information. From what we were told, the Feather Pirates have a total of 200 men, and all are armed to the teeth not counting the Captain. He doesn't seem to have a devil fruit but he is still dangerous with a bounty of 15,000,000 beri." At this Cassy showed him the poster of the captain. The image seemed to have a black-haired man with a very large beard and moustache wielding a Flintlock pistol. She then showed him the poster of a bald man, cleanshaven, missing one eye, and was bloodied. "His first-mate on the other hand has a bounty of 10,000,000 beri. Both are known to use flintlocks and cutlasses. They themselves do not step on the west-point island, the island in question, and their men keep to northern fringes of the island."
"So, if we dock the ship on the north west side of the island, we can effectively come onshore without them knowing." Cliff said now having opened a map of south-blue stolen from his grandfather's ship. "We can then ambush the men stationed here, get information out of them, loot them and their ships dry. What do we do with their men?"
"Kill them." Taiga said. "These men, according to our sources are complete scum, they kidnap women, keep them- you know what they would do. They go around killing people in towns and villages. The only reason, they haven't been captured yet is because the Commander on Torino is on their payroll. She keeps their presence hidden, keeps their crimes on the downlow such that their relatively unknown, at least for the last year and a half."
"How long have they been active?" Cliff asked.
"10 years." (Cassy)
Cliff then turned to look back towards Taiga, having turned to look at the sea as he had started to explain. He now bore a determined face.
"Have either of you had your first kills?" He asked.
Taiga nodded while May shook her head. Cliff looked towards Taiga, "The villagers never accepted us into the village. Some of the youngsters seemed to the brief draught was our doing and came to kill us. They succeeded in killing mother, and I gave into the tigers' instincts then. Killed all 9 of them." Taiga explained with a frown.
Cliff nodded, "Those we capture, once we get all the information we can, we'll… kill them. Each of us will get our first kills. Then we'll plan further with the information we have by then." The determination in Cliff's voice shook the doubts that came forth in the mind of Cassy and May upon being ordered to kill. 3 nods followed his statement.
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"We're here. If we set anchor here, we can take a smaller boat to shore." May called out.
It had been a day since then. The sun was setting in the background as the crew got on shore.
"We'll move in the dead of the night. Taiga will point them out. we'll capture some, interrogate them for information, kill them and move for more captures. If you find any prisoners, leave them be for now. Make sure to take out their Den-den Mushi. There should be only one present but we never know."
The crew creeped through the forest following Taiga. Once they were near enough, they creeped into the camp. The fire had gone out a while ago. They chose tents and entered. 2 entering one tent as they grabbed one man each and pulled them towards the forest. There all of them interrogated the men, sometimes having to cut off a few fingers or small slashes with their swords, kanabo or a dagger.
All 4 came out with varying expressions.
Cliff had frown on his face, while Cassy seemed to be similar to Cliff just a more pronounced frown on her face. May was a bit greener. An understandable reaction, seeing as she was brought up in a fairly well-off town in Centaurea. She didn't grow up hearing stories of marines killing pirates or vice-versa like Cliff and Cassy, both of who were a little bit more comfortable with the act, nor had she already killed like Taiga.
They took a few moments to calm down, before Cassy said, "They don't know shit."
"They're grunts." Cliff said. "He specifically said, 'they don't tell us a lot of things. We just do what they tell us and reap the rewards' none of those here will know anything."
"What now?" May asked.
"We kill them all." Taiga said, already having changed to his hybrid form, Cliff nodded and unsheathed his cutlass and same for Cassy with her sword. May gulped and then, took hold of her dagger and nodded.
All 4 then jumped into the camp going from tent to tent killing the men sleeping there.
20 minutes is all it took for them to clear the camp. Once that was done, they met near the camp fire remains. May sat on a log in front of the fire as Cliff set the wood on fire once again. May seemed to be in a much sombre mood that the rest of them. Taiga just came up to her gave her a bottle of beer he found in the camp and went back with Cliff and Cassy to collect any information they could find in the camp.
An hour later they all sat on the logs surrounding the camp fire drinking beer found in the camp.
"They had a den-den mushi?" (Cliff)
"No" (Cassy)
"Any information?" (Cliff)
"Looking through these, they didn't expect anyone to attack them. They didn't leave any night guard. They're very relaxed. Probably because the world thinks they've disbanded." At this Taiga shows them a news report cut from the newspaper reporting the disappearance and possible disbandment of the Feather Pirates. "We killed 50 of their men, meaning a 150 await us in their hideout. The information does not give anything else. They're some valuables here and plenty of supplies we've loaded them to take them back to the ship. We'll leave as soon as you give the word."
Cliff took a moment to take it in, sighed before standing up, "Very well, get back to the ship, we'll set sail to tomorrow morning. We'll reach the island in the dead of the night allowing us to anchor at the port there before we attack them.
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