I Once Caught a Fish Thiiis Big!: Mission #37/Plot

[valkyrie536]

Sumi kept the antidote at her skirt pocket, it would come in handy if she got poisoned at anytime soon. Eating it now would be simply useless, as there is no poison in the body for the pill to neutralise it. She saw Serge popping down the pill when received, and shook her head. This guy really was an idiot. After walking for a long time through the desert, they made it to the city and she saw Serge, again, running towards a large group of people that looked dangerous. They large group was actually people fighting fishmen. They were not the captain nor vice-captain, and the fishmen would probably be too lousy to be on par with her. However, civilians fought them, probably hearing about the challenge, and the fishmen might be making a fool out of themselves for calling the matches 'qualifying rounds.' But still, fishmen were fishmen, and they were still dangerous, stronger, faster than most normal humans. She turned around to stop Serge from going close, but it was too late. He had already disappeared in the midst of the crowd.

Since Sumi was also interested to see who might win, she went over to look at the fight, and saw Serge shooting off his mouth with fish facts. So he was actually clever! At least he knew something. But fish facts don't get you anywhere in life, unless its for cooking. She walked and stood beside him, and heard him say,"This is cool," as the fishmen beat up the villagers into a pulp. The fight really looked cool, with bones cracking and blood spraying, but it was pretty one-sided. After the defeated villagers fled the scene with injuries, one fishman shouted out,"Who wants to be the next challenger!" Sumi looked at Serge, saw the glint in his eyes, and she knew that he must be itching to kick the fishmen's asses. Taking the initiative, she flicked a coin into the Amur Pike fishman's head, and accepted the challenge. Sumi stood face to face with the fishman, and with a piercing stare to its eyes, daringly set the rules of the battle.

"Firstly, it'll be a free fight, we may use any weapons we have. I'll fight with my comrades, him," she pointed to Serge, "and him," this time to the doctor, who was still standing far away from them. "Secondly, the arena is," she drew a huge circle of a radius 10m long, "here. Including the two houses at the borders of this circle. Thirdly, no escaping or you'll be dead. And lastly, if we win, we get to see your captain. Deal?"

Everybody backed off at once, standing at the edge of the arena, wanting to watch this fight. They were also amazed at this small girl who dared to fight with the fishmen. Sumi stuck out her hand, waiting for the fishman to do the same. "This is going to be interesting."

[Farris (Kuro)]

"What's your name?" It was a question he had forgotten to address. "Ah yes, I did forget to mention that, didn't I? I am Doctor Victorson L. Faust. A traveling Scientist as well as Doctor of many fields." He introduced to not only Serge but Natsumi as well. If he was to be getting into a fight along with them then it would be more useful if they all knew one another's names at least. When he saw Serge take the pill with out a second thought he knew he was dealing with an idiot. He sighed and make a mental note to try and avoid using poison least he have to use another pill on the boy. Once they reached the city though, Serge was the first to spot the group of people fighting fishmen. The boy seemed to be able to identify all the types of fish that they were which made the Scientist wonder if there was hope for the boy yet.

Soon the fighting had passed and it seemed things might calm down. The Fishmen were merely members of the crew, not the captain, nor is firstmate. That's when a coin hit one of them in the head and Natsumi issued the challenge for them. The good doctor stayed his distance for a while making his own assessment of the situation as the girl drew up the rules for the fight. He mentally counted his opponents and the weapons he had on hand. He had his three ice rounds, and could support with his Oil rounds. his acid rounds would be too damaging to these potential specimens and he needed to avoid using the poison for the boy's sake. But the edge he would provide should be good enough for the other two to take them down with little problem. The doctor's mind was already planning his actions as he planned to head for the roof tops for better cover, after all it was within the "Arena" boundaries still and wound give him a good vantage point to fire from.

[Armani]

Well, it was good to know that Natsumi wasn't just forceful on just him. As he watched his new friend get the ball rolling for their upcoming fight, he couldn’t help but be impressed at this little girls bravado. She made things fun!

This would be interesting to say the least. Serge himself wasn't used to fighting with others save for few exception and despite how he acted and seemingly appeared to work without intelligent thought, he mentally made a note that he would have to watch out for Sumi and the good doctor and avoid going wild while they were still around. Of course, with the way he had watched the amazing fishmen go about with their previous fight, there really wasn't the feeling that he would have to work too hard to get past them.

With all that was going in his head, particularly the rush of excitement and adrenaline boiling up inside of him, Serge walked towards his spunky, little female savior. He noticed her hand held out from her, obvious with her intentions for it. It had been his own intention to stand next to her on the side he had already been on, yet with her hand out as it was, he made sure to cross over in front of her. As he passed to go stand on her other side, the youth rookie swung his hand around and slapped Sumi's outstretched hand with his own, giving her a great "five". Pleased with his smooth move, he beamed with a teasing grin, giving off the impression that he knew he had just butted into her attempt at a handshake with the fishmen with a little joke of his own. At least he thought he was funny…

But the grin didn't last long before it turned into an full excitable smile. The events that were about to turn out, gave Serge a series of chills that would run down his spine, making him shake them off before stretching some more. Just as he had stretched out his legs on the beach earlier, he began to pull his arms across his chest, limbering up muscles that he would hate to have pulled from not stretching properly.

Giving the good doctor, Victor (as Serge would permanently note him), a look back, it seemed he was preoccupied it thought. That's was okay though. Serge would just make sure that he would watch out for him until he was ready. Giving the man and Sumi each their own thumbs up in approval for things to get going, the captain without a crew (being the gentleman that he was) declared out loud, "I get the Skilfish!" Taking the biggest one for himself, he pointed to his victim which only resulted in a grin…or a snarl from it. It was a bit difficult to tell at the moment without accurate experience in reading fishman facial expression.

"Ready? GO!"

Giving his friends less than a second in a chance to respond to his inquiry and nothing of a second glance to make sure, he bolted towards his predetermined target. By no means was it the fastest he had ever moved, but he did push himself towards the giant Skilfish Fishman faster than he would have shown anybody watching him thus far. With Sumi being the way she was and the Doc Victor being still a bit of a ways away from the actual fighting, Serge had the utmost confidence that they were ready when he was and like him, couldn't wait to get this little contest moving! Reeling back his arm, his trained muscles would coil preparing to strike a reacting fishman straight in the blue splotched belly of his. With his opponents own arms coming down to block the attack with open palms, his fist struck dead center in the hands with enough force behind it to push the large fishman back several feet, and tripping backwards in surprise.

With his opponent on the ground in shock, Serge looked at him with a cock sure grin, "Do I win?" He asked mischievously. If there was one thing Serge knew more about than fishing or fish…well, he hadn't found it yet, BUT, he knew how to fight just as much. All of his training in the jungle forest would come down to this moment. Was he ready to face the world? As the fishman pulled himself up, grumbling and mumbling to himself about humiliation and killing, it as quite clear that this wouldn't be a one hit win for the brand new rookie.

And that wouldn't be the wasy Serge would want it either.

[valkyrie536]

"Ready? GO!"

Sumi stood beside them, and she was about to tell Serge and Faust about her tactics to defeat the fishmen. Before she could say anything, Serge threw the first blow at the enemy. Of course, it's Serge, he won't listen. With that strike, she knew that the fishmen had been angered, and it was going to be a ding-dong of a battle. The Skilfish fishman stood up, shaking away his injury, and the eyes were flaming red. Its comrades had been beside him all along, raging with fury when Serge had stuck down their self-appointed leader. 3 against 4. Humans against Fishmen. The time had come for her to take action.

Shooting out her sashes from her sleeve, she caught the two Giant Danio by surprise, and then struck the Amur Pike hard on its shoulder. The battle was heated up now, and spectators were crowding around, wary of the boundaries. In the chaos, Serge and the doctor were nowhere to be seen, and she was up against two enemies. She fought them into the house, destroying everything in the process. The Giant Danio were also strong opponents, one coordinating their attack with the other, and she had to dodge really fast. With her small size and strong skills, she wasn't an easy opponent for the fishmen, but the fight was still evenly matched. "Sash Style: Wave,"she spoke, spinning both the sashes which brought strong winds and knocked both fishmen on the ground. Before the fishmen could do anything, she used Cannon on one of them, and the force broke the house and sent the fishman flying, out of the arena, and badly injured. One down. One more to go.

At this instance, she felt a sharp stab of pain at her shoulder. The other Danio was infuriated, and it stabbed Sumi with a huge dagger. It crippled her left arm, and left her with only one arm to fight. With the dagger still stuck at her shoulder, she shook off the Danio, and struck the enemy with her other sash. As a last resort, she pulled out the blade, and stabbed the fishmen. She swung her sash, whacking the Danio out of the arena. Two down. After the battle with her two enemies, she suddenly felt dizzy and realised that blood was pouring furiously out of the wound. The stab wound was deep, and she was losing a lot of blood. She struggled to make her way out of the destroyed house.

At the doorstep, she finally gave up on moving forward. Seeing her two comrades heavily battling, she gave them a prayer, before succumbing to her injury, and she fainted in a pool of blood.

[Farris (Kuro)]

As their ever reckless youth engaged the first of the Fishmen, the good doctor moved into position on top of the roof of one of the two house. It helped that Sumi was holding of the duo and briefly the Amur Pike Fishman as well. Sumi seemed to lure the two Giant Danio into the other house were he could hear the sounds of chaos and the damages that were likely being done to the home of the unfortunate civilian that owned the dwelling. Life was funny like that, full of misfortunes as well as opportunities. Surge was also quite busy taking care of the Skilfish from what he could tell. That left Faust with the Amur Pike Fishman, or Esox reichertii sapien. A creature that was currently making it's way to him after spotting him. It was fortunate that Faust had taken the time to load his flintlock with his special ammunition. For this, He used one of his frozen glass balls and took aim. The large sea mongrel just needed to get a little closer to him... And there! "Chilling Shot!"

The shot fired with care and the utmost precision from the Doctor's gun, or at least as much as one could get form a flintlock pistol. The shot hit the Amur Pike Fishman dead center of his forehead and sent him flying and skidding along the ground on his back before he gripped his now bleeding forehead and screaming in pain. The glass having shattered on impacted became shrapnel that bit into the Fishman's skull. It would keep him down for long, but it would most certainly stun him for a while. Seeing that his attack was successful he first checked on the more fool hardy of their group lending aid by loading up a different round into his flintlock, with the words "Black Shot!" he fired a oil filled glass ball at the skilfish, aiming for the eyes before the corners of his eyes spotted Sumi. It was not the girl herself so much that caught his attention but rather her condition.

Natsumi was badly injured and passed out as Faust started to move down from his spot on the roof. Not the wises choice for combat but if he didn't tend to her soon she may not get back up. Victorson L. Faust was no sentimentalist, but treated his allies well as long as they were allies. So throwing caution to the side he ran towards Sumi, treating her injuries on the spot and gently lifting and moving her to a safer location. This way he could monitor her condition and still fight, the location in question was beside the house with Sumi behind him and the house protecting her and his back while he watched as the Amur pike again got up not at all pleased. It charged at Faust with it's club raised, a loud cry roaring from it's mouth, the white haired man cursed and loaded another ball into his flintlock aiming carefully the Fishman was nearly on him when Faust fired and cried out "Toxic Shot!", the Poison filled glass ball going right into the Fishman's mouth breaking not only cutting up his mouth with the glass but also causing it to swallow the poison from Faust's attack. Despite this the attack still came down and the club smacked the doctor down to the ground even as the Fishman started to fall and suffer from the attack.

SPOILER: Click to show

Name: Black Shot
Description: Faust fires an aimed shot with one of his oil glass ball rounds. This is a move usually followed up by trying to light the opponent on fire or simply to blind them for a moment.

Name: Toxic Shot
Description: This shot uses a dangerous poison specially made by Faust. It starts out with depression, weakness in the limbs and body and eventual loss of consciousness and death. the first symptoms are the depression and weakness with are almost immediate, the after a week the loss of consciousness and death usually occurs after 3 weeks, unless treated.

Name: Chilling Shot
Description: This is simply a frozen glass ball that is otherwise empty. These are usually kept in a small metal casing that keep them frozen and cold. The draw back is Faust can only carry three at anytime.

[Armani]

((OOC: Oh man, I'm sorry guys! I thought I had posted already in this thread and was waiting for someone else. Threw something up. Sorry again about the wait!))

"What!?! Who was that!" Serge's pride had suddenly flared up at the fact that someone had helped him out in his fight. With his own enemy distracted by his own problems, the youth's head shout around to the general direction that the shot had to have come from and found Victor moving himself from the rooftops to the ground. Upset that someone would have to help him, he pouted childishly in the middle of the battle arena. But his inaction was costly. As his eyes followed the trajectory set by the doctor, the body of a wounded and collapse Sumi caught his eye! Suddenly, his own opponent being attacked didn't matter at all, and the fact that his friend had been hurt shut out any sort of worry of what would come from the fishman. Sprinting hard, it was too late as the doctor made it to the scene, only seconds before he had to try and defend himself against the oncoming Amur Pike Fishman. Already bleeding, apparently from the doctor's good work with a pistol, Victor's defense apparently meant nothing as its raised club came swinging down anyway. Throwing the man to the hard ground.

"Damn it!" Serge's footsteps were only a couple behind the action and the fishman that was now struggling with the poison ingested quickly found Serge's fist in the side of its unsuspecting fish-face, sending it reeling to fight the toxin a ways away. Its momentum taking it through a couple of vendor carts unfortunately caught in the makeshift arena.

"FIGHT YOUR OWN FIGHT VICTOR!"

Serge stood over his two comrades, injured while trying to fight there own battles. Angry at himself that he hadn't been paying attention to his friends and that he didn't make it in time to help protect them and angry at Doctor Victorson. Had he been paying attention to working on his own fight with the Amur Pike, he may have noticed that his enemy hadn't been finished off. His shout to the man wasn't necessarily meant for all future references, but had he been paying attention to his own problem, this might not have happened. But then again, as Serge's eye went back to a bleeding Sumi. With neither of the Danio around, he could only assume they were taken care of rather quickly by the abusive little girl, but not without a price on her end. It looked like she was losing a decent amount of blood. Sobering up at the sight of his injured friend, he reached out to help the doctor back up to his feet also asking, "Is she gonna-"

But his question was interrupted. Uncaring that his target wasn't paying attention to him; the Skilfish Fishman took a huge wind up from behind the pirate and swung his fist right into the unsuspecting side of the youth. Fortunately, it was before he had actually connected with the doctor, so the force from the strike only sent him reeling away and tumbling on the ground several times. Finally when momentum felt like it had taken him far enough, he managed to use his next small amount of air time to turn himself upright and skid along the ground for a second grabbing it with both hands to force himself to stop.

A jolly laugh, filled with plenty of bass escaped the Skilfish as he watched his victim grit his teeth and wince far away from his hurt friends. Pulling himself up to his feet, Serge could feel that much of his left side was quite a bit more sensitive now to movement than it had been before. His look of pain was only a brief expression though as gritted teeth and angry eyes quickly replaced it.

Looking down at the two before him, the Skilfish stared, disgusted, not only at the fact that they had beaten his comrades-in-arms, but also by their "human-ness". His Fishman pride was clear as he looked down to such little people and raised his arms in retribution to the pride that was suddenly spit on by these weak creatures. Clasping his hands together over his head, he thrust them downwards to crush them.

"PONPU PONPU NO NOROSHI!"

Whether it had been noticed or not, Serge had a large black hole appear in his chest cavity as the air around him was drawn into the gaping dark. As he felt the air build pressure and work its way through his body, he crouched and took a leap still to far away to do anything of significance. But with his shout, came the second half of his Devil Fruit and the air he had drawn in were instantly expelled from black holes that appeared at the soles of his shoes. The pressure that had been built up now propelled him like a rocket to his target. And just as he had planned to, his body slammed into the fishman before his hands even touched anything. Shoulder first and straight into his gut, he was returning the favor of his cowardly strike ten times over. The Skilfish practically folded into two by the force as he was driven by the power of the Ponpu Ponpu no Mi into the side of the newest building to suffer damages. Sliding on his feet, Serge halted before he shared the same fate as the Skilfish. He stared at the rubble intent on seeing if anything moved after that.

[valkyrie536]

(sorry guys for MIA-ing a long time, i just finished my exams. )
"Is she gonna-" she heard someone say, trying to bring her back from nothingness into the real world.

Sumi opened her eyes slightly, and the world to her seemed warped and fuzzy. There was an intense pain surging through her body, but her blood cells were beginning to work and was frantically repairing the huge stab wound at her shoulder, though it would need a really long time for her injury to heal. Her wound was already bandaged by Doctor Faust, but there was still blood flowing out, and the bandage was beginning to turn red.

First thing she saw when her vision was back to normal, was a fishman's fist thrusting downward towards her head. She waited for the impact to hit her, but it never came. Then she saw a blur, and a loud BAM! was heard. The fishman mysteriously disappeared, and what seemed like a human figure now stood in its place. She blinked her eyes and looked again. Serge. He had saved her, just like how she saved him a many hours ago. She pulled at Serge's pants and dragged herself up into a standing position. She still did not have enough energy to stand on her own, and she fumbled, knocking into Serge.

"Thank you guys, for saving me. I owe you one," she whispered, her vocal cords unable to produce a sound loud enough. She followed Serge's eyes to the building on the far end, which was now a pile of rubble. When the dust cleared, she saw the motionless body of the Skilfish, lying beneath the rubble in a pool of blood. She looked around, waiting for another battle, but it seemed that there were no one else left to fight. "So, we won..."

That very little energy that brought her back to consciousness was lost again, and she blacked out once more, now with a smile on her face.

[Armani]

The tug on his pants didn’t go unnoticed by the Pump Pump Man, but as steady breathing helped him control the unnatural air flow that happened when he used his fruit, he had to focus on the pile of rubble for a few seconds to see if there was any more fight left in the Fishman. And until he was satisfied, he would let Sumi go ignored. While he watched, Serge’s mind danced around with the thought of how his friends had gotten injured in the fight. It wasn’t enjoyable contemplation, but they were alive at least. From passed experiences, being hurt made one stronger if they had the determination to push through it. Sumi had been cut pretty good and even though she showed impressive endurance for being able to stand (even though it was not on her own, just yet), she had the strength to pull herself up which made the youth appreciate her just a little bit more than he already did. She had hit him, thrown him and even yelled at him, but despite that, he’d let her lean on his body if she had to.

It was a good feeling to be able to help someone up, even if they were merely using him as a prop. Even while he had spent most of his life in a village with plenty of people, Serge had mostly kept to himself, isolated in his exercises and training in El Nido. For a while, he just didn’t want to deal with people in general. They slowed him down in his training and training was the escape he needed to keep from thinking about how alone he felt without her. Eventually it seemed that most people took the hint and had decided to just let him be. It wasn’t until near the very end of the day he had promised to leave that he had begun feeling like he had wanted the company of others again, and though most of the villagers had been gracious to him, the ties were severed quite deeply and his relationships weren’t the same. It made it easier to leave the island that way. Yet Serge couldn’t quite leave behind a sense of regret about the way things had turned out because of his own selfishness.

As stern eyes finally moved from the pile where the Fishman was laying, they traveled over to Doctor Victor who had taken a pretty bad hit with a club, though just like Sumi, he seemed to show a higher than normal tolerance for abuse. Just from a glance over, Serge had the feeling he would be okay as he finally acknowledged the presence of his female abuser. He beamed a full toothed smile and gave a defined nod of the head in affirmation to her statement. It seemed to be enough for her as she smiled back, but much to his dismay passed out once again!

”AGHH!”

Caught by surprise, Serge caught the girl throwing his arms underneath hers to prop her up and hold her little body against his before she could fall to the ground, afraid of what would happen if she would hit her head or bend some way and negatively affect her wound.

”Sumi.”

A whiney voice escaped the youth as he held her limp body up. Without much knowledge on what to do next, he spun around in hopes that a suitable solution would present itself. This was an inconvenience, to say the least. He couldn’t even celebrate winning with these people! A frown seemed to appear on his face as he wracked his brain in search of what to do next. How exactly was he supposed to treat something like this? He couldn’t just let her drop! …could he?

”Bah! You’re weak!” He scolded the Sumi as she hung there, propped up by his arms. Whether it would work or not, he had hoped that such a statement might make her wake up to contradict him, but before he could do anything else, the sound of feet walking towards him caught his attention.

Quickly spinning around with girl in hand, to see what the noise was, Serge was surprised to see a fairly tall Fishman walking his way. With a series of other fishmen behind him, the youth pirate’s eyes widened in untamed excitement as the thrill of having an assortment of fish walking towards him flooded him and washed over any other emotion. There were so many that Serge couldn’t seem to focus any one of them in particular long enough to identify them properly. That is, save for the one seeming to lead the group. He had to be a shark fishman! That much was clear to him as he noticed a couple of dorsal fins on his back. White spots coated his back and the fishman’s face came to a sharp point that Serge could only assume was the nose, with long ears that hung loosely on the side of his head like a dogs and its nose looking like a canine’s snout, Serge’s voice shouted out loud and clear.

“Hey! You’re a Dog Shark!”

Smiling like an idiot bemused at the sight before him, he watched excitedly as a scowl formed. Lost in amusement, the pirate captain without a crew watched as a droplet of water, the size of a tennis ball, dripped from the lead Fishman’s hand and was slung directly at him.

“Mizudosun.”

His rough, deep voice spoke out in a low manner. So low it was difficult to make out what he had said. But he was completely star struck at the amount of fish in front of him. So Serge didn’t notice that the water was an attack on him until the last second. Unable to do anything for Sumi, aside from unceremoniously letting her go and dropping her in order to keep her safe from the water ball speeding towards them, he did just that. He didn’t have time to dodge nor would he have the ability to effectively do so with a person in his hands as the ball of water struck him. As the feeling of a large hammer being swung into his upper right breast, he was thrown backwards several yards before he even hit the ground. Landing roughly on his back, he skidded a couple extra feet before he finally stopped thanks to friction.

”GRAAA!” The Pump Man’s voice yelled out the pain he felt.