Carnivals and Gunslingers: AMEKO SECOND RECRUIT

[SHADE SMASH]

"DONE!!!!" Cried Taffy as she suddenly stood up, stretching her arms for much needed rest before plopping back down on the small boat, having lost her balance thanks to her sudden movement on the small dingy. What had she finished? Finally she had fixed her new nakama's robotic limb to a seemingly perfect condition! It was no different than before, but thanks to this girls "IMAGINATION" (Spongebob making rainbow shape with hands) she saw it as so much more shiny and beautiful than before! It did not help any that she was the one to fix it.

"How does it feel now?" She questioned, shoving a screw driver and wrench back into her bag. Yea, she doesn't know where the two came from either! She was looking through her bag with a giddy smile, getting happy over just the thought of fixing Cell up, as she searched for candy and VOILA! She thanked the candy gods who she started calling 'Kame' at this point but the truth was the man who she had stolen the bag from happened to be a repair man. So the tools were bound to be in there, she just never looked before being too intent on her sugar bursting treasures.

Taffy nodded at whatever Cell replied with, feeling even happier with what he said despite what he said. She didn't care what, she though she did a pretty darn good job. Little did she know, a lone screw sat at the bottom of the boat having been forgotten between the long hours of focused work she did on the arm and the beating sun that hit her until persperation gathered like there was no tomorrow. She was still feeling the effects of the sun even now with her face flushed and her body sweating like a pig.

"Ah, Cell, I wonder where we are...?" She asked, suddenly feeling bored out of her mind as she slumped over the side of the dingy, exhaustion finally showing on her face as her hands wafted in the ocean.

(For now, only me and Kuro until we reach island. Unless Sei Sei has something she wants to write before then.)

[Kurosaki]

Despite the warmth of the sun beating down on their newly aquired boat, Cell didn't seem the least bit phased by the temperature. A small bar popped up in the side of his vision for a moment, reminding him of the temperature but that was the only way of knowing that he had.

99 degrees was what it read.

The bar disappeared and Cell looked upward at Taffy, a soft look of surprised on his face as she called out that she was done, stretching as she stood up, and then sitting back down. He looked at his newly repaired arm and smiled as he moved the mechanisms attached to it. His fingers responded and moved back and forth from being open palmed to closed fisted. He then bent his elbow up and down a few times and everything seemed to work perfectly.

"Thank you! All systems are functioning perfectly," Cell told her, which is how the Professors back at the lab would have said when he was doing fine. Of course, for a normal person believing him to be another person, just with some mechanical parts, this might have come off as sounding strange. But then again, his Captain was Taffy.

"Hm, I'm not sure where we are, I thought you knew?" Cell questioned Taffy before looking out at the water in perplexion. He really had no way of locating them. If they had a map maybe he could figure out where they were but otherwise...

"I think we're in Lost..." Cell replied finally, getting the saying wrong so that "being lost" ended up sounding like a place instead of a state of being.

[SHADE SMASH]

"Hm, I'm not sure where we are, I thought you knew?"

Taffy sighed with an angry pout on her face as she considered there troubling situation. Neither of them knew where they were and by the looks of it there was no island in sight. At least, there was none when she last looked. As the horizon wasn't kept in check, the bare resemblance of an island grew in the sunlight.

"I think we're in Lost..."

"We are in Lost?" Taffy questioned, getting up and looking at cell quizically. She knew what it meant to be lost, but this order of words was unfamiliar to her. Then she smiled as she realized the problem. She may be childish and sometimes ignorant but every good child knew it was their responsibility to correct someone else.

"No silly Cell. We ARE....oh HEY!!! Look an island!!! She announced, almost jumping up on the boat before remembering what had happened before when she had tried and almost flipping the small boat so settled instead for moving her body up and down in a giddy fashion. All the while pointing at the horizon. It was behind Cell and thats how she noticed it in the midst of her talking.

Minutes passed before they actually reached the island, and when they did, they could hear people laughing, smell delicious foods, see a sight not many have seen. It seemed that there was a carnival in town. All Taffy could do was stare in amazement at what was going on like a child, trying to figure out what to do next in the wonderment. All the while, the once strong sun seemed to be nearing the horizon preparing itself for a sunset.

"Hey Cell, whats that?" Taffy questioned Cell instead of bounding off the boat into the fray. She didn't want to lose sight of her recently acquired nakama just yet!

[Kurosaki]

When Taffy said that she thought Cell had known, the robot simply shrugged his shoulders and smiled. He guessed that they would just have to figure out something now, especially since they seemed to be far away from any sign of civilization. The good thing was that their stores of supplies seemed to be very good. Cell had checked out the ship already and documented all of its contents. With the amount of food that was on the vessel it could easily last Taffy twenty or so days since she would be the only one to need it.

Taffy started to say something to him about what he had just said about their predicament, but ended up shouting about an Island. Cell opened his mouth slightly and then stood up and turned around. Sure enough there, across the blue ocean that sparkled from the rays of the sun, was an Island.

Even as a robot, Cell could find the beauty in the scene. He didn't even bother to record any of what Taffy or he did or said or even the horizon because the replay wouldn't be the same to him.

-----

Soon they reached the island. Only a few minutes had passed but they had hit favorable winds and currents. The sounds of laughter ringing out mingled with the hustle and bustle of some sort of event. The sun was dipping down now causing the colors of the sky to change from blue to a yellow, and orange mix.

Cell asked what it was but he wasn't sure. The noises alone weren't enough to go off of.

"I'm not sure, let's go take a look?" Cell suggested since they had properly docked the boat.

[Izananana!]

Arata was excited to be on a completely different island now. He hadn’t really been on his journey all that long but even if it was only his first island he still would have been excited. That was his life of being an island charter as well as a navigator. There was excitement in everything he did because if he wasn’t on an island then he was navigating and vice versa. Both were things that he loved to do no matter what.

He was currently on Pecos Town island and there seemed to be even more excitement in the air. He was greeted with what look like a small festival that was taking place in town. There were things there that he didn’t see at any normal festival though and so he asked a town’s person about it. It seemed that they had a traveling carnival visiting. This made him gasp in awe and he continued to look around with a smile on his face.

The black haired male wouldn’t let the carnival distract him from his work though; much. He was still kind of a kid so he would always be distracted by something so fun. He would stop every few minutes placing a serious look on his face and take down a few notes on his pad of paper before being filled with awe again. He probably looked really silly to anyone that passed by him as he did this. It didn’t seem to bother him one bit though.

Arata kept walking through the carnival and came upon something that caught his attention. He stopped in front of it when he was called out to by the carnie running it and stared at him. He was being drawn in by the idea of getting a prize for just simply shooting something over. That seemed easy enough as he was pretty handy with a gun, which was why he carried around two on him. One was in a case he had made for it on his left side and the other one was swung around his back but hanging by a black strap.

The carnie seemed to have missed this detail about the young blue eye teen though. It was obvious that the he was only luring him over so that he’d spend all his money on the game and not win. This thought didn’t cross the navigator’s mind though and he walked over to the game as he was invited. He placed his pad of paper and pencil back in his pocket and asked the carnie how much it would cost. Who knows if the price he was given was correct but he pulled out the wallet he kept his money in so he could pay the carnie.

The carnie gave a slight laugh as he told Arata to pick up the gun and to start whenever he felt comfortable. He gladly picked up the gun with a smile on his face as usual and stared at the items that he would have to shoot over. After taking note of just where they were, he aimed carefully and shot them down in one try. The carnie seemed to be offended though as he was able to do it without any problem and told him to try again. Once again he again, aimed and shot them down easily in one shot but the carnie couldn’t believe his eyes.

“NO!! That was pure luck on both tries! Do it again!” The carnie demanded from Arata but he wasn’t winning him over any more.

”Excuse me? But I already knocked them all over and I did it twice! Where is my prize!!!” Arata was not happy one bit and wanted the prize he had paid to win but his anger was starting to get the better of him.

[SHADE SMASH]

(Ok Guys, just wanted to tell you that I feel like I need to up Taffy a bit and start making longer posts with her. Kuro, feel free to do the same and hopefully this could be a funner experience without the kind of posting I have been doing so far.)

"I'm not sure, let's go take a look?"

Cell's reply was certainly reasonable to the young child at heart, so she in response nodded enthusiastically, already staring back at the carnival with too much awe to truly formulate any words. Once the boat had stilled enough, she carefully jumped out and waited for Cell to do the same before turning back to the boat with a sharp gaze.

"Stay!" She told the boat, pointing downwards as if it was but a puppy learning its way around commands. Her voice built with confidence to make sure he listened her her motioning strong and insistent so it understood what to do. Oddly enough, it somehow appeared to do just that as well as the waves stilled, giving the appearance that the boat was indeed staying.

"Good boy!!!" She said happily, before grabbing onto Cell's arm and skipping off into the fray. The carnival was magical to her. THe bright and colorful lights shining everywhere, screams could be heard from a horror house not to far away, and the smells of elephant ears was fresh. Something clearly fresh and new to the young girl and like any child she was already jumping up and down in excitement.

"So! SOO!!! What do you wanna take a look at first!!!" She exclaimed excitedly, holding onto Cell's hand with both of her own as she was now literally jumping up and down, looking around as if her head couldnt stay still. Then suddenly, a loud gasp can be heard out of her as she gazed at a nearby sign, letting go of Cell's hand in a heart beat. Within seconds she was running towards it and not long after that she was signing her name on a contract that she had no clue about.

'Pecos Gunslinging Competition' Was how the sign read and as far as the contract went, it stated stuff about if you were harmed and crap. Taffy didn't exactly read it. From what she heard from the lady, the competition was to start in half an hour and they would see who the best in Pecos town was. Taffy couldn't wait to prove her skills to a bunch of wannabes and rushed over to Cell to share the great news.

"CELL!!! Guess what I just signed up for!!" She called out loudly but instead of Cell, she only found a crowd of people. Looking confused, she raced in a seperate direction, then another, then another, all looking for cell. Waving her hands the whole way and disrupting whatever peace others had in this loud forsaken place. Stopping, she looked around her again, not finding any sign of him or the place she had signed up for a sniping competition.

Her face scrunching up, eyes swelling with tears, she almost cried if not for the insistent voice from behind her.

"You there!! Lady!! Come here, try to win a prize by shooting a target." Shooting? Sniffling, she walked over, finding another boy seeming annoyed by the mans abrupt change of conversation. "Yes, little young lady. Want to try your hand at this 'ere game? Just shoot down something and you get a prize! Just give me a dollar."

Taffy paused and looked at him then the plastic guns, then the things she was supposed to hit down. Her tears were fast disappearing and she looked at him again. "I don't need a dollar to hit them down." She said to him and the guy simply looked back at her as if she was stupid.

"Yea you do, those guns wont shoot if you dont."

"Yea they will!!" She muttered back angrily, thinking he was referring to her own prized possessions. How dumb was he?!?

"Fine, if you can then Ill give you any stuffed animal you want. But if I win you have to give 10 bucks!" He said, smiling, knowing he was going to win the bet.

Smiling as if nothing was wrong, the only clue to her previous suffering being her glossy eyes, she glanced at the things she was to be aiming at. In a second, she drew her gun and the man astonished by such a thing ducked under the counter as she shot. It was as perfect of a shot as the man beside her.

"So what toys you got!!!!" She asked smiling brightly.

[Kurosaki]

The robot seemed almost as excited as Taffy was. He didn't know what was going on in town, but the sounds of laughter was proof enough to him that something fun was taking place. His Captain's enthusiasm also seemed to fuel his own.

When they disembarked, Cell watched with wide and observing eyes as his Captain first gave instructions to their vessel. Was she also able to communicate with the boat? Cell wondered if there was another trapped soul like the one that had been in the gun on the previous Island. It seemed that witches and those with magic were up to some bad things recently.

Before he had a chance to ask about it, they were off headed toward the festivities. At first he was led by his now fixed arm. When they got inside the carnival, they were greeted by a variety of bright lights. The heat of some of the food stands was registered by Cell in his mind and smoke was drifting up from some. Popping noises came from nearby and Cell saw a popcorn stand. He wondered what that was even like to consume.

Jumping slightly at the sound of a scream, Cell turned quickly and stared at the house. He vaguely heard Taffy ask him what he wanted to do next and when he turned around she was gone.

Cell glanced back at her only to find an empty spot and his arm held out still as though they were still attached.

"T... Taffy? Hey, Taffy?" Cell questioned, turning this way and that. His eyes searched the crowds and picked through people, dismissing their faces as soon as he confirmed that they weren't Taffy. A quick search turned up no sign of her. Then a horrible thought struck Those screams from before. Maybe this whole carnival wasn't as fun as it really seemed to be? Why would people be screaming in fear or pain if it were really so?

Cell had to find Taffy before it was too late!

What were the screams caused by? Cell couldn't be sure. The only idea that popped into his head that he associated with fear was the giant robot that he had once come upon in his travels. It had set fire to an entire castle an pretty much destroyed it pursuing him.

His searching led him straight toward the haunted house where the major source of the screams was coming from (besides a few stray ones from a few people that were riding the small roller coaster nearby). The building looked fairly run down as though no one had taken much care of it. Only, if he had observed more closely he would have noticed that the cobwebs were all decorations and that the rust was all paint.

Cell almost reached the doors when a person in a strange outfit stepped out in front of him.

"I'm sorry, sir, but you have to get into the back of the line to come in."

Sure enough, looking back Cell discovered that there was a long line of people waiting to enter into the building. Why they were waiting when the screams seemed to only get louder and louder coming from within the depths of the house, Cell wasn't sure. Were they under some sort of strange influence like a program malfunction or override? Hurriedly he got into line, a serious look on his face as though he was about to take on something incredibly big for his Captain.

(Oh god, poor Cell has no clue that nothing in there is real. DX This could get ugly. Haha.)