Drinking Spirits (Private)

[Blaka]

The smoke pellet hit its target and popped open. The Nebioso fog inside was something Tony had come up with during the time he had a family, back on Flat Farm Island. While a normal smokebomb would have affected an area merely 3 meters around the point of impact, Nebioso quickly filled up the room with thick dark fog, impenetrable by anyone's eyes. People started coughing and complaining about not being able to see anything, the barman was the loudest, furious at what was going on.

While this was happening the burly Marine's mind was racing. By now only shades were visible. To his right, he saw Felicite throwing some sort of flask in the middle of the room, roughly where Reaver was standing. What was she thinking? Because he had yet to fully understand his partner, Tony had tried to give himself as the stronger savior and take over the fight. Other people made mistakes that could severly damage his plans if they weren't fully up to speed. Mistakes like this one. "Don't!", he yelled, but it was too late.

Their enemy apparently realised his opportunity as well, the flask instantly came sliding back to the Marine side of the room. The Warrant Officer's head began to hurt as soon as the thing was at his feet. Poison. Instinctively, the chemist tried to block the gas from entering his lungs by pressing his left elbow against mouth and nose. Then he kicked it somewhere to the left, out of the way. He could only hope this wouldn't be lethal to the civilians in the room, having had no idea Felicite possesed such a weapon. Either way, now that this was in the air, there was no chance of prolonging the fight inside the building.

All of the sudden, his line of thought was interrupted by a dangerous growl. It was coming from where the pirate brute had been standing a second ago, Now his shade had changed, growing a good 25 centimeters larger. His hands also grew significantly in size, now likely able to crush Tony's entire head. On top of that, they looked more like claws than anything else. Jacob's whole body resembled more a giant bipedal wolf than anything else. And he was coming towards them.

There were only so much things this could mean, the likeliest being something Tony would rather have avoided: A Devil Fruit. A Devil Fruit that allowed the user to transform into a giant feral beastman. Stalling time was over, he could just as well think while running.

Without wasting any more time, the Warrant Officer grabbed the recruit that was with him by the arm and jumped backwards out of the door the moment Reaver raised another table off the ground. A dumb animalistic guy was easy to trick and Tony would have blown the whole bar up together with the beast in a couple of minutes. But the simple crime of being a pirate and starting some ruckus didn't justify killing dozens of civilians in the process of taking him down.

"RUN!", he yelled at Felicite. "Lure him away from the civilians, we can't have him destroy the whole town. Do not face him on your own. I need to think of something to do." Intentionally, he didn't mention the grave mistake the recruit had commited. Her moral needed to be high to complete her job.

As the table came flying through the door, Antonius Pensatore let go off the girl, dodged the flying furniture and started running off. With his left, he grabbed another Nebioso pellet to load his gun. Better safe than sorry.

[Deleted]

The plan did not go as planed. Felicite didn't expect any quick thinking from the pirate but he was able to use Felicite's attack against them. To make things worse the man really turned out to be a monster and on top of that he was angry. Felicite wanted to run away as soon as possible but he felt as if his feet were rooted on the ground, unable to scream or move he stood there staring with his eyes wide open as the pirate began to move closer. He kept telling himself to move but his body wouldn't obey, his legs were shaking and he could feel a chill on his spine. Only when the warrant officer grabbed him by the arm Felicite managed to regain control of his limbs.

He heard Tony ordering him to lure the monster-man out of the city. It was a wise choice since none of them could use their full potential without hurting civilians. He tried to reply to the captain but he figured it would be too much trouble and so he simply nodded at him. He then yelled at the pirate as loud as he could in order to draw his attention.

"Heh everyone knows that honor is meaningless in battles. Only losers and idiots use it anyway. Come show me just how far this honor of yours can get you."

After saying that Felicite began running hoping that the pirate wouldn't notice Tony and would follow him instead.

[Deleted]

The large man had come to the girl's rescue before. Jacob doubted very much he'd just abandon the little liar. His suspicions were confirmed too, a woman wouldn't wear anything that was that much of an assault on the senses. He'd run into a few similar cases at a few shanty towns in the North Blue. His heightened Amphicyon senses made his claim ring true. But he wasn't about to let on that the original accusation was an educated guess, he did have a reputation to uphold. He smashed through the wall of the tiny bar, the doorway being simply too small for his enlarged form. His powerful nose picked up the scent trail of the two marines. The younger lad threw an insult his way, he ignored it, focussing on simple, primal tactics. The smaller one was slower, lither, but was armed with toxins and a variety of poisons most likely. He could smell the lethal cocktails through the haze of the perfume. 

Crouching Jacob began to shift his form again, this time into his full Amphicyon form. The huge heavyset beast leaned back on its haunches, its eyes fixing on Felicite. Jacob's eyes narrowed
"You're mine" he growled before thundering off on Felicite's trail. coat billowing out behind him like a cape.

[Deleted]

The plan was a success. The pirate was now after Felicite instead of Tony. However this situation raised another bunch of problems. Unlike Tony Felicite didn't have a vast arsenal of bullets to keep the pirate of busy while he was running away. He could use his last Night's perfume to create another poison cloud but he doubted that this would help much. On the other hand he could use his toxin to directly attack the pirate from safe range but he wasn't sure if it would manage to do much damage while the captain was in this form meaning that his only certain way to harm the pirate was using his weapon fan which was stored in his bag. However could Felicite really hope to defeat such a warrior in direct combat? Unlike the pirate Felicite didn't have any enchanted senses. Therefore he decided that the best strategy he could follow was to keep running until Tony came up with something to stop this pirate's rampage.

However Felicite was no much for the man's speed. Meaning that if he kept running on a straight line he would get caught sooner or later. So a different plan came to his mind. As he was running past an old building, which looked like an old storehouse, he turned the last minute and jumped inside the building using the broken window as an entrance. It wasn't going to be enough to get the man of his trail but at least Felicite could try to hide from him.

The storehouse must have been really old since mold had already developed on it's walls, even the spider webs in it's corners were torn as if even the spiders have abandoned them in search for a better hunting ground. Felicite didn't have time to think over this. He picked his last Night's perfume from his garter and the he threw it on the floor making the glass flask torn to pieces releasing the pink gas which quickly filled the room. Felicite covered his his mouth and nose with his hand and rushed deeper inside the storehouse hoping that the perfume would cover his own odor from the pirate.

[Deleted]

Keeping pace was simple enough, the marine clearly wasn't very athletic . Felicite made an attempt of getting out of the way, diving into an abandoned storehouse. Had his Amphicyon form had the correct arrangement of muscles, he would have been smiling. This was going to be fun. Shifting to his hybrid form, Jacob leaped clean through the wall, sending wooden splinters flying through the air. He flitted back to his human form, whipping a pair of pistols from his belt and firing them off in the vague direction Felicte had been running before he'd temporarily lost sight of her... Him. Whichever. 

He fired off a few more shots, depleting his store of loaded guns by another four. Two flintlocks left. This was more fun than anything else. The pair of marines combined would probably have difficulty brining him down. If he could drag them along a little longer, and let off a little steam he could probably up his bounty considerably. 

"Come out you coward!" He growled. Now, bearing the face of a man again, he was unable to hide his grin. He holstered his still smoking guns before stalking forwards, hos body shifting again into his hybrid form. The scent trails provided a much more accurate picture of the room than his sight could. There were plenty of cargo crates and barrels to hide behind. Couldn't mask the lad's scent though, those chemicals may as well have been a fireworks display for all the good it was doing him now.