Crescendo (Fiery)

[Deleted]

Zato could hear the pattering of feet running towards him, another of the goons coming towards him. He got up as quickly as he could, the goon now right on top of him. So Zato did the only thing he could do, “Spinning Crescent Strike!” He shouted, for some reason he always found shouting out the names of his attacks to be exhilirating. His fingers unwrapped themselves from the pistol on his right hand, he’d begin to spin the revolver around with the trigger finger, then he’d bring it up and across the face of the goon, the butt of the gun catching him under his jaw and sending him reeling back. He’d feel a burning sensation across his back as another goon brought his sword across his back. Blood beinging to seep out from the wound. Zato would whirl around on his feet and bring the still spinning gun down on his head. Aiming for the spot where he heard the goon breathing. He second goon would yelp in pain and Zato would here him go down, so he’d add a “loving” kick to “brighten” the mans day.


Now he could hear the third goon coming after him, running and screaming at the top of his lings like it was coolest thing he could do. Zato merely pointed one of his pistols at him and said aloud, “Six Shot Straight.” Six bangs would be heard, and Zato heard three of them connect with the man, the sound of bullets hitting flesh different from hitting brick, rock or ground. He stood there motionless for a moment, waiting to hear if anymore goons were coming after him, and from his right he could hear two of them talking.

“No way… just no way..... how…”

“How can a blind man fight us off!? I’m getting out of here!”

“Ya, no kidding I’m coming with!”

Zato turned to the voices, and from that direction he could hear them scampering off, one of them tripping over some and yelling for the other to wait for him. Zato just snorted and began to reload the pistol he fired when he turned to hear Flutes words, followed by her foot steps. It seemed Cell had fought off his attacker, but he couldn’t hear the coward Base anywhere. The wound on his back was stinging and burning from the air but, well, he’d have to muscle though it. Right now he and Cell had to finish what they started. “Well, sounds like you got her to leave without harming her I’d wadger.” He’d give Zato a smile before continuing, “Let’s go find their leader, and give him what he deserves for all of this trouble he cause.” He could feel the blood trickling down his back and leg, he just hoped they’d finished this before he’d bleed out.

[Kurosaki]

It wasn't long before Cell met up with Zato, limping his way over, who seemed to have handled his end of the fighting rather well. Though he observed some fresh wounds in addition to those he had sustained down in the sewers from the grenade. There wasn't much of a chance that he would be able to keep fighting for very much longer. They had to end this and quickly. Though, would their leader really prove to be that difficult to bring down?

"Yeah... Also, I believe that he's has gone that way," Cell said, pointing with his good arm to a trail of small drops of blood that he had located on the ground. Most likely they were from Base having been wounded by the stray bullet. Remembering that Zato wouldn't be able to see either his pointing or the blood, Cell was quick to explain. "There's a trail of blood that leads straight ahead from our position and turns right."

Cell led the way and his limping would make more than enough noise for Zato to easily follow and the pace was also very slow. They didn't have to really try that hard though. Base was injured as well having been shot in the leg. He couldn't have gotten that far.

Sure enough, the spacing between the blood drops on the floor slowly became closer and closer together. Cell rounded a corner and saw the man himself leaning against a wall, breathing heavily as he bent over and attempted to tie the bandage around his leg he had made tighter.

He seemed to hear them coming, however, because he straightened up and pointed a pistol down the hallway. A shot rang out and Cell only had a moment to duck back around the corner, narrowly missing the shot.

"He's still got a gun..., Cell commented rather matter-of-fact sounding despite the fact that his eyes were as wide as saucers. "I'm not sure how we should handle this. If either of us round the corner, he has a clean shot..."

Suddenly an idea came to him. Yes, they would be a perfect target. If they came from where he expected them to come. He was injured, unsteady and probably was going to hold out there until he could take them both out because he couldn't make a fast retreat. Most likely he was already positioned with a shot ready.

Cell stooped low to the ground and whipped around it, shooting a rubber bullet at the man as he did so. A round went off from the pistol at nearly the same time, passing over the robot's head and embedding itself in the wall behind him. Cell shot another rubber bullet to be on the safe side. Both struck the man in the middle causing him to double over and slump to the floor but not let go of the gun.

Somehow he managed to bring the gun up one last time and take another aim at Cell...

[Deleted]

Zato grunted in acknowledgement of what Cell said, he didn’t have much to say at this point all he wanted to do right now was put an end to all this monkey business and get on with his night by getting medical attention for the new wound, bleeding out wasn’t his idea of a good time… granted neither was this whole situation he and his robot companion found themselves in. So he silently followed the footsteps of Cells, and as they got closer he could hear the ragged breathing of the boss, each breath pained and labored. Of course the next thing he heard was a the sound of pistol going off he quickly pushed himself up against the wall, his back exploding into a hard burning from his forcing the wound against the hard wall. He gritted his teeth and let out a muted grunt of pain.

“He’s still got a gun… I’m not sure how we should handle this. If either of us round the corner, he has a clean shot…”
Zato was about to comment on how they should handle it, an idea having quickly formed in his own head, but the from the next two shots sounding as though they were coming from his partner considering the proximity of the sound of his own guns going off. Of course the third shot rang out from around the corner. Instinctively Zato kicked Cell hard to throw him to the ground, the bullet missing his head directly, only grazing the side of it and ripping off the fake flesh and taking a piece of his right ear with it. Zato responded by stepping out from the corner and firing a shot of his own toward the boss, the round missing and planting itself in the wall behind him.

Then there was dead silence, it was the quietest it had been all night, the only thing he could hear now where the gears and servos in Cell as he stood up. He looked down at Cell, not knowing that he had been hit by the bullet, “Come on, lets get out of her before the Marines show up, I’m pretty sure with all the ruckus we made they’ll be here soon.” Cell made an acknowledgement and with that Cell took the lead and both began to make their escape from Trumpets and his friends base of operations. Unfortunately for Zato, as the two made their escape through the sewers, he felt his world of darkness begin to spin and then nothing as he felt himself slip into unconsciousness.

Three days later…

Zato woke up, the familiar darkness greeting him like an old friend. The only difference was he felt like he was lying on a bed, it was soft and he was warm from covers on him. He patted the area around him, finding his shirt was gone but there were bandages on his chest, the wound on his back still hurt but it felt like it had been closed, someone has obviously cleaned and stitched up the wound. He sat there awake for a moment, hearing the clatter of good china somewhere else in the house, along with the familiar voice of Cell in another room. Zato called out with a “Hello? Cell I can hear you, but I think you’re in another room…” He waited in scilence for a moment longer when two sets of footsteps entered the room. “Oh good! You’ve woken up! I was a might be surprised when your friend her wandered up to my door with you in his arms. Its been a long time since I had to stitch up a wound like that but I was up to the task!” She laughed as she moved closer to Zato placing a tray in his lap, “I was just making tea as you woke up, I made yours with cream and sugar just like last time.” Zato thanked her as he heard her move out of the room, when she was gone he spoke to Cell, “I thought we were going to leave her out of this? Either way the woundon my back feels better… still hurts but she seemed to do a good job of cleaning it up.” He picked up his tea cup, taking a sip from it as he waited for Cells reply.

[Kurosaki]

Something unbalanced Cell and he fell to the ground roughly. His computer screen-like view of the world alerted him to the fact that he had been injured. But where? How badly? His hand came up to his right side. It was hard because he couldn't see the extent of the damage and had no idea what it looked like. But he was still functioning so at least the bullet hadn't taken off anything important.

Base's eyes lifted as he saw Zato round the corner fully and bring hsi gun up. The shot went off and he squeezed his eyes shut, fully expecting that to end his life here on this Earth. Instead, he found himself still alive and with no pain. He slowly opened his eyes and found the bullet hole in the wall next to him before his consciousness slowly seemed to be swept away from him. He collapsed upon the ground and would be there, passed out, until the Marines showed up twenty minutes later to try to figure out what had happened here.

Standing up, Cell looked at Zato who said that they should get out of there now because the Marines would be coming. He couldn't agree more. In his state he would be easily caught and he knew that would mean him being dismantled. Also, he didn't want to see them arrest Zato for no other reason than the fact that he had been a part of the reason that this Island would find peace again finally.

The two of them quickly clambered back into the sewers and started to make their way outside. As they walked, Cell had to go a bit slower because of his leg. He was still not sure if it would even keep itself attached to his body and was very unstable. He was focusing on his steps when he noticed that Zato was wobbling.

"What's wrong? Zato? Ah! You've lost too much blood, haven't you?" Cell suddenly realized before he limped over and caught his friend as he lost consciousness.

The progression was slow for Cell after that. Going through the tunnels carrying his crime-fighting partner along with a partially ripped off leg. He heard some footsteps above him once that were moving fast and some shouts that were extremely muffled and so he kept going down the tunnels, making his way toward the only place he knew of where they would still be safe. It would mean involving someone but... At the very least their chance of being arrested would be lowered.

Coming up out of the tunnels, Cell carted Zato up to the old woman's house from before and rang the door bell right before his computer screen started to act funny. As the woman answered the door it fizzled and pixelated before he himself collapsed on top of Zato in shut-down mode.

-----

A few hours later, Cell's systems were rebooted. He sat up and pushed off a blanket that had been placed on top of him (the old woman probably having not noticed Cell was a robot because of her seeing problems).

"Oh, deary, you're awake! I found you and your friend outside right before you collapsed yourself! That must have been some party you two went to? Being rambunctious is alright, but in small doses! I went ahead and patched up your friend though. He should stay away from bar fights," laughed the older woman before she went to go make him some tea saying something about Zato being in a different room resting still. Cell sat on the couch and looked down at his mangled leg. There was a mirror across from him on a wall that was very ornately framed. In it, he could see that the bullet from before had ripped off some of the plastic coating on his face, revealing the structure beneath, and part of his right ear was missing.

Well... That was going to be hard to fix.

-----

The next few days passed slowly. Cell kept an ear out for what was going on with the Organization so that he could tell everything to Zato when he woke up and also so that he knew if any of the members had escaped punishment. It seemed like only Flute had gotten off and he wasn't worried about here. Hopefully she had moved on to better things than being hateful at the world. He also slowly worked on fixing himself up though he wasn't able to do much about the plastic coating that was missing yet. At least his leg was functioning normally now.

He was chatting with the older woman, who kept insisting he needed to eat something substantial, when he heard a call from the room where Zato was in. Cell smiled and stood up but somehow the older woman beat him to the room? Wow. She was like lightning when she was motivated.

Once she was finished giving Zato some tea, Cell slipped all the way into the room.

"I'm glad you're up; I didn't realize the extent of your injuries until you collapsed... Also, we ended up not having a choice but to involve her. I didn't want that but... The Marines were swarming the area and I barely was able to make it to her house before I shut down," Cell explained, shaking his head. "But, it seems it was for the better. The Marines were looking for injured people in the hospitals because they had heard about the Organization's fight with two guys matching our description. They already have arrested the entire group."

Cell allowed Zato some time for it to sink into him that he was wanted now by the Marines. Whether that was for questioning or for punishment for the fact that they had been playing vigilantes, Cell didn't know. He wondered what Zato's next step would be?

[Deleted]

Zato remained quiet, drinking the tea as Cell explained what happened, he smiled to himself proud of what the two accomplished, even if it did mean the Marines were now looking for him. He placed the cup back on the small saucer it had come on, he stared at the wall, thinking he was looking at Cell when he responded. “Well, that’s certainly sooner than I expected to have Marines looking for me, but considering the ruckus we caused I shouldn’t be surprised.” He paused for a moment moving the tray further down the bed before he attempted to get out of the bed. He stood up, wobbling and taking in a sharp breath of air as the wound stung from him moving around, but it at least it didn’t hurt like it did when the blade originally cut the wound. ”If anything, I’m just glad we stopped those idiots from causing anymore harm, at least there won’t be anymore explosions or robots going crazy.” There was another pause as he fished around for his clothes and guns, he didn’t like having them on him and thus he began to carefully amble around the room in search of his prized possesions. “And on the subject of our host, I don’t think anything bad has happened since we’ve been here, she hasn’t turned us into the marines so I think so long as we aren’t seen leaving her home when we do, she won’t be implicated and she’ll be fine… but now its just gonna be harder for me to find a crew that’ll take me aboard as a member.” The last bit was mostly a thought said aloud to himself, but he didn’t mind if Cell knew his plans. He trusted the robot with his life, and Cell had pulled through.

When he finally had found what he was looking for on the other end of the room he slowly checked all of them for damage and the like, and was surprised to find the jacket of his to have been fixed, no more long cut in the back. The same thing for his shirt as well. He carefully put everything back on making sure nothing was out of place. When he could find a proper place to lay low, he’d give his guns a more through look over to make sure they weren’t damaged, the cursory feel told him they didn’t seem damaged, but they certainly felt dirty. He turned towards the door thinking that was where Cell was, now asking him a question, “So, Cell, what are you going to do now that all of this is over?”

[Kurosaki]

Zato said that he shouldn't be surprised that the Marines were so fast on looking for them after the ruckus that they had caused. The robot nodded in reply as he watched the human push the tray down the bed before he struggled to stand up. At first he wobbled, making Cell act a tad nervous. He was thinking about coming over and helping Zato when the blind man caught his balance and began to walk around searching for his things. Though a bit wobbly, he didn't fall.
"Yeah, me too. Most of the robots that were damaged in the fighting have been rebooted after being repaired, as well," Cell included, a sense of relief seeming to be carried in his voice. The robot nodded when Zato told him taht he didn't think that she would be implicated as long as they left carefully and without being spotted leaving from her place.

"Yes, I was thinking tonight would be a good idea if you were feeling up to it. That way we can sneak out in the darkness," offered Cell, having already tried to formulate the probabilities of them being seen if they left her place. Their chances were lowest at times when visibility was low and less patrols were out and about; in other words when it was night.

An emotion of surprise was put into Cell's face by his programming as Zato mentioned something about not being accepted easily onto a crew as a member. What type of crew was he looking for, exactly? If he was still trying to avoid the Marines than that probably meant...

He wanted to be a pirate?

The next question seemed to leave Cell looking thoughtful. He had come around to stand closer to Zato as he searched for his things; not quite sure himself where the old lady had stashed it so he wasn't very useful about that. He seemed to be giving what he should do some consideration despite the fact that he had already been trying to process that for the three days he had been waiting for Zato to wake up.

"What am I going to do now..." he started to ponder out loud. "I'm honestly not sure. I don't have anywhere to go so, I guess anywhere would be fine as long as it was away from this Island for now."

"Our probability of escape is higher if we work together. Would you be adverse to me... Maybe tagging along?" Cell questioned, all of a sudden looking nervous and casting his eyes down. He didn't to put a burden on someone without them wanting to take it on. Cell also knew that he was a problem as well because the Marines had already been after him (at least to his knowledge). However, he truly wanted to be a part of something and not just uselessly wandering around the Islands. Maybe he could even be a help to someone like Zato...

Be their eyes, so to speak.

[Deleted]

“Nope, feel free to tag along as long as you like,” he would say as if it were the easiest decision to make and for Zato it was an easy decision. He liked Cell and the two of them seemed to work well together so why split up? Besides it was like he said, they would both have a better chance of escaping if they worked together, and hell they might actually find a crew that would pick up both of them up. “and I agree with you, its best that we leave tonight I think… don’t want to get our hostess in trouble by sticking around any longer than we already have.” He would say turning to look at Cell, giving him a thumbs up. Although in actuality, he would be staring at the window giving a thumbs up to a rather heavy set woman outside walking her dog as she passed by the window. He'd hold this pose for a minute before putting his hand down and putting it in the closest pocket of his.

((Didn’t have much to say at this point, I think we’ve had a good time in this thread and its time we moved on! So feel free to close us out!))