Sheriff's Dept vs Sky Pirates pt 4
Ashaki fighting a half metallic dragon, Violet outmaneuvering the large bull, and Minori over powering the pink gorilla. It felt like ages ago when Hinata saw these pirates trudge into the valley. Now she watched the fights from the rooftops.
Normally Hinata wouldn't try to get too close, but with the streets emptied of its citizens, and pirates too engrossed with the black cats in front of them, they never thought of another one nearby.
Hinata was never worried about her family laying eyes on her. Pulling back her arm sleeve, she revealed a bracelet with a little golden charm hanging from it. As long as she wore this, she would be able to hide from her family as long as she wanted.
It probably sounds strange to purposely go to the lengths of hiding from her family, but she needed to be sure. She needed to know that her sisters were serious about keeping their end of the pact. So far, all but one had arrived, and with only a couple of weeks left until the deadline, it seemed they'd cut it close.
Looking down at the street below her, she saw Tanya sprinting back to the square. Hinata often hung out on the roof, listening in on whatever conversations were happening near the window. Hinata knew she already liked Tanya, a real firecracker who didn't put up with anyone else's shit. In her personal opinion, Mao Mao should go ahead and ask her out already.
With everything getting ready to wrap up, Hinata stood up, stretching out her limbs. She won't have to continue hiding for much longer.
Sparks flew between Mao Mao and Orangusnake, their blades made a grating screech as they scratched against each other. Mao Mao was getting exhausted, Orangusnake when he and his crew were fed were actually a decent threat.
Orangusnake cackled, continuing his onslaught of attacks against Mao Mao. The Sheriff's hands began to buzz as they went numb from gripping his sword in an attempt to not let Geraldine fly from his hands. Mao Mao jumped back, trying to relieve himself of some pressure.
Orangusnake wasn't going to let him take a breather so easily. With a leap, Orangusnake closed the distance between them in a moment. With a large swing, he brought down the axe on Mao Mao. Mao Mao dodged the blade this time, side stepping Orangusnake's burly arms. The hard light weapon clanged off the cobblestones, the recoil from the strike gave Mao Mao enough of a chance to to strike back.
Orangusnake narrowly avoided the golden weapon. Ducking and rolling, Orangusnake took a turn at creating some space. The two stared each other down, panting from their series of swipes and strikes. The two stood in a virtual standstill, with no signs of breaking. Right now, Mao Mao's only hope of breaking this standstill was that his friends won their matches against the other pirates and came to his aid.
Meanwhile, Badgerclops was ducked back into a nearby alleyway, charging his robo arm. Boss Hosstrich was using a series of carefully calculated shots to disrupt him, be it his footing, focus, or any other aspect needed in combat. It was an effective way to make up for the gap between Badgerclops' laser blasts and Hosstrich's cannonballs.
Badgerclops jumped out from the alleyway, aiming for where Hosstrich was when ran into the alleyway. He wasn't there anymore, as to be expected. Badgerclops searched the street for any sight of the ostrich, the telltale sign of a fuse being lit alerting him to Hosstrich about to fire. Turning to the sound of the sound, Badgerclops was surprised to see Boss Hosstrich on the roof of the building he had been leaning against moments ago.
Badgerclops' shock took up most of his reaction time, the rest was allocated to Badgerclops dodging to the side as Boss Hosstrich fired. The ensuing explosion left a sizable crater where Badgerclops stood moments ago. Now that Hosstrich's chamber was empty, Badgerclops pointed his robo arm at the pirates and unleashed a wave of laser fire. Hosstrich hopped down from the roof, ducking and rolling to avoid the onslaught of deadly lights.
Badgerclops tried to keep the pressure on, but Hosstrich eventually found cover behind the cart of street vendor. In the time it would take for him to run to the cart and hold Hosstrich at arm point, the ostrich in question would have reloaded and lit the fuse with time to spare. Badegerclops instead opted to find his own cover. After ducking behind a mailbox that barely covered him, Badgerclops started weighing his options.
Rapid fire, although the best suited, hasn't yielded much fruit; his other firing options are having less luck. However, there was one he hasn't used yet: the zip zap blast. He had given Adorabat access to it a while back when she was gifted robo armor, but ended poorly when her armor was taken by the sky pirates. Badgerclops on the other hand, was well versed in how the zip zap blast functioned, he made it after all.
Switching to the zip zap configuration, Badgerclops readied himself. When a Adorabat tried using the zip zap blast, she was thrown all over the place. But if she had been prepared to use it the energy beam would turn at sharp angles midair. It took Badgerclops' years to engineer and perfect the zip zap blast, this was easily one of his masterpieces.
Once the zip zap blast was charged, Badgerclops peaked around the corner of the mailbox, searching for any sign that the ostrich was still behind the cart. Unfortunately the angle was too awkward for him to see anything from here. A shadow moving across the ground caught Badgerclops' eye.
Looking up, he saw one of Boss Hosstrich's cannonballs arcing just overhead. Badgerclops scrambled, tripping over himself as he moved to get away from under the lead sphere. Badgerclops tumbled as he was hit with the shockwave of the ensuing explosion. As he was tumbling, Badgerclops saw a quick rotation of sky and ground before he slammed his cheek against the cobblestones.
Pulling himself up with his one hand, Badgerclops was searching for that blasted ostrich again. He spotted him further up the street, ducking into an alleyway. That was all he needed. Holding his robot arm up, aiming for the alleyway, Badgerclops fired off the zip zap blast. The bright beam of energy twisted and turned, bouncing all the way to the alleyway where Boss Hosstrich was crouched, loading his cannon chest. He never saw that energy beam coming as it turned the corner and blasted at his feet knocking him back into the dumpster.
Badgerclops smiled, releasing the breath he just realized he was holding. Badgerclops began chasing down the pirates, this time he had the advantage, and he wasn't going to let it slip by.
Adorabat flapped her little wings, flying around the two sky pirates. It was usually pretty easy to make them dance like fools trying to catch her, but with full stomachs, Adorabat would've been captured already if it hadn't been for her mystic arts training with Ashaki. Pulling chi into her wings, she's able give stronger wingbeats and leave their reach just in time before they grabbed her.
Right now, Adorabat was frustrated. She didn't have the ability to fight both of these pirates. She wanted to try charging them with her chi enhanced tackle, but Mao Mao was right, that wasn't a sound strategy. But she was still new to the mystic arts, she hadn't learned any of the advanced techniques.
Without any way of reliably striking back, she was stuck in this never ending standoff, where the deciding factor was stamina; this was something Adorabat was running low on. She had been training with Mao Mao on practical usage of her new mystic arts training, and as such didn't have full energy. If only someone could help her.
Like a knight in shining armor, her silent pleas were answered by none other than Tanya Keyes. Adorabat didn't see where she had come from, but what she had seen was Tanya performing a flying kick into Ramiraffe's sternum, laying her flat on her back.
Ratarang saw his friend get floored via blindside bounty hunter, and started backing away, hoping he'd be able to slip away unnoticed. His hopes were quickly dashed as Tanya immediately set her sights on the smaller pirates. Ratarang started scrambling to get away, but Tanya snatched him up by the scruff.
"You're supposed to turn into a boomerang if I remember correctly," Tanya smiled as she admired the small creature and his mechanical enhancements. Ratarang smiled meekly, letting out a few small laughs. "Well, let's see you come back from this!"
Tanya pulled her arm back, and flung Ratarang through the air. For a moment, he was a set of wild and waving limbs before he engaged his transformation, folding into a boomerang, catching the wind and spinning through the air. Ratarang initiated the boomerang transfiguration to save himself from crashing, but he'd soon regret this decision. Like all boomerangs he turned on the wind, returning to his place of origin, to Tanya.
As Ratarang spun back towards Tanya, the bounty hunter leaped into the air, spiking the pirates to the ground. Ratarang bounced across the cobblestone, turning back into his ratty self, lying on the ground just as unconscious as Ramaraffe.
Tanya let out a sigh, looking back at Adorabat. "Are you alright kid?" Adorabat flung herself at Tanya, screeching about how awesome she was. "Slow down, take a breath. We should help the others."
Mao Mao was the only one fighting a core member of the pirates. But he was unaware, as he was engrossed in the fight, parrying Orangusnake's attacks, countering when he saw an opening. Orangusnake's two heads were definitely not for show, anytime Mao Mao thought he had them, they just barely put a stop to his attacks. It was getting ridiculous, Mao Mao was running on steam, he and Orangusnake were evenly matched.
The click of Badgerclops' robo arm as it was aimed at Orangusnake broke the two fighters out of their entrancement. Tanya stood opposite of Badgerclops, to Orangusnake's right, cracking her knuckles.
Orangusnake was baffled, they defeated his team, his friends? There was no way he could take all of them. But his other teammates were sure to wrap up their own kittens and come save him and the others, like knights in shining armor.
This hope would be quickly dashed as a crash of metal rang on the cobblestones behind him. Looking back over his shoulder, Orangusnake's mouth fell agape at the crumpled sight of Steelwing as he struggled to his feet, his robotic limbs lacking the power to move themselves as they were limp at his sides.
Ashaki lowered herself next to her brother, her face as stone cold as usual, with her squinted glare.
Violet entered the square next, with Beefmaster suspended on a gurney, his body covered in minor burns and scratches. As she came up on Mao Mao's other side, she pushed the gurney to the opposite side of the square, letting momentum carry this wounded pirates back to his team.
Finally, Minori arrived on the scene, with a battered and bruised Thunderfist hanging off her back. It was a ludicrous sight, seeing that small martial artist carry a massive gorilla that was five times bigger than her, at least! If that wasn't crazy enough, she then tossed him over to the pirates side of the square, as easy as if it were a sack of potatoes.
How could this happen? They had the advantage, they outmatched the sheriff's department. No, Orangusnake shouldn't be focusing on shoulder haves and could haves. Now he needed to get his team out of here, and back to the ship to rest and heal.
"You might've won today," Orangusnake hissed. "But tomorrow is a story yet to be told!"
Before Orangusnake had the chance to gather his crew and skedaddle, his crew had already risen to their feet. They all had a look in their eyes, especially the new three, a look that said "this isn't over yet".
"Not just yet, boss," Beefmaster gasped. "We still have fight left in us." Beefmaster pulled out one of his cleavers. The other pirates also got themselves ready. Ramiraffe adjusted her helmet, Ratarang flipped into a boomerang wielded by Boss Hosstrich, who in turn flipped his torso into its cannon configuration, then Thunderfist gripped his electro knuckles, while Steelwing breathed a plume of smoke.
This was crazy, in their current state, there was no way they could win, but they knew that. Their courage was an awe inspiring sight, one that brought a tear to Orangusnake's eye. Who was he to deny them their moment? "Very well then," Orangusnake said. "CHARGE!"
The group of pirates let out a bellowing roar, Beefmaster lifted one of his cleavers high above his head. Before the pirates could even take three steps, the clang of metal against cobblestone directly behind them. They turned to see what the heck could've caused that sound. Lying on the ground was Beefmaster's cleaver, more specifically, the blade.
Seeing the flat of metal on the ground, Beefmaster realized his cleaver was lighter than it should be. Looking at the grip in his hand, he saw that the blade had broken off a couple inches from his hand. But the break was too smooth, too linear for it to have been naturally broken. It looked more like it was cut. But who cut it?
The answer to this question was soon answered when a tall muscular figure stepped through the town gates, a large golden spear extended in their hand. Clad in shiny armor, and a blue cape hung from her broad shoulders.
Orangusnake was baffled yet again. Another Mao sibling? How many siblings does Mao Mao have? And what are the holidays like?
This was Orangusnake's first sighting of Brunhilde, but as for the three newer pirates, they knew the description of this warrior, the legends surrounding that spear. One thrust, and they'd be skewered from a hundred paces.
They didn't have a snowball's chance of defeating the legendary Brunhilde. All at once, the three newer pirates started running, towards the forest beyond the village gates. Brunhilde merely let them pass by her, the fear and desperation in their faces told her they already lost the will to fight further.
Orangusnake was, there wasn't a word to accurately describe his shock at the cowardice the three pirates just demonstrated. He humored the thought of fighting the armored cat himself, but another look at her at the thought disappeared. The way she held herself, the fact that despite everything, she hasn't broken her stride. They didn't stand much of a chance.
"I believe now's a good time for a strategic retreat," Orangusnake told his remaining teammates. Slowly they edged around Brunhilde, making their way to the village gate, dashing back to their ship.
Brunhilde continued to walk, only stopping before her family and friends. Brunhilde towered over all of them, making Badgerclops feel short after all his time of being the tallest.
Brunhilde asked, "Did I interrupt something?"