Mission #27: I Want to Break Free [Junzo/Mel]

[Junzo]

The ransom note had been for a King's Ransom, they said. An absolutely staggering amount of money that even a small kingdom would be unable to come up with. Nobody had that amount of money to spend on this unknown person that had been taken by the kidnappers, so naturally it fell to the Marines to get involved and mediate. And by mediate, they were going in fully armed to Death Island in a small team to try and infiltrate the kidnapper's camp, discover who it was they were holding hostage, and rescue them if possible.

Why Junzo was going with this team, he had no idea. He wasn't particularly liked by many of his superiors, so maybe they were giving him this difficult mission so that he could get off their hands for a little while. Or maybe it was because they trusted him after he had finished helping out with the rebellion in Ilusia Kingdom. Whatever the reason, the lowly Seaman Recruit was part of the twenty man team to Death Island where it was rumored there wasn't a single living human left there.

The young adult was sharpening his knives while sitting on the prow of the boat. He stared out over the fast expanse of water, just... thinking. He'd been through a lot lately, and he really had trained hard too to learn some new techniques. But would that really be enough? Would he be strong enough to help take down these kidnappers? Also, if they were demanding so high a ransom, who was it that they were holding hostage? It was all just so strange, the boy couldn't wrap his head around it all. But that was the greatest part about being a nobody in the Marines. He didn't have to think, he just had to obey orders and shut his big mouth.

And right now, his orders were just follow and assist as best he could.

Death Island approached in the distance and the crew began preparations to anchor. There wouldn't be any signs of civilization like a dock, and the kidnappers would probably be hidden in a cove or up a river, so the only option was to anchor off shore and row up to the island. A few rowboats were lowered into the water and the crew began to row as quietly as possible so as to not alert anyone to their arrival. Even on an island that supposedly was all dead, they weren't going to take any chances.

Taking their first step onto the sandy beach, wild animal noises could be heard all over the distant jungle... For a place named Death Island, it was sure full of life and vibrancy. Just not the human kind. Would the kidnappers have even survived on this forsaken island? Or were the Marines walking into a fresh graveyard... Only by searching long and hard would Junzo and the team begin to find out.

The first thing that Junzo noticed was the wind. It was constantly howling and tore right through the folds of his clothes and chilled him to the bone. Even though it was a Spring island, Death Island felt much colder due to the vicious wind. It would easily carry their scent far and wide too... An ominous and dangerous wind, it was. Hurrying away from the wind, the team made their way past the beach and the small tract of grass to shelter themselves in the jungle of tall trees.

How many would escape the jungle was yet to be seen...

SPOILER: Click to show

{Mission Details}
Mission 27
★★★★☆
You’ve become trapped within ancient ruins! A series of perilous traps await you, but will you have what it takes to overcome the trials?

[Blaka]

Uuuuurgh....

Queen B. Melosa's head still hurt. Whatever they had mixed into that syringe, it was still in her body and doing its job well. Barely, she mustered the energy to sit up straight. Just like the nights before, the pirate princess had had to sleep quite unconfortably on the mutty ground, hands tied behind her back. The side she had been lying on was covered in the brown mush, she could feel that without having to look.

"Good morning sunshines!" she croaked. Thanks to the past couple of days her voice was appropriately done for.
"Shut your face!", gnarled the all too familiar nasal voice of one of her kidnappers.
"Will you at least take my blindfold off today..."
"I'll cut your throat instead if you don't shut up!" That was the voice of the other one, high and clear.
"Doubt it. You need me alive, remember? Breakfast would be nice by the way. I might starve on you."

That one could have been a bit too cocky in hindsight. Sounds of blades getting drawn out of sheathes could be heard. Mel blamed the cockyness on her own lack of care. The battle with Sparkles Evershine had taken place too recently, the Queen Pirate was fairly uninterested in what was going to happen to her. At least less interested than usual.
"Sera don't" a third, deep voice thundered "We do need her."
"Thank you, sir!"
"Hrmpf. You're still not getting any food. It won't take your mother another day, she would never leave you to die alone here."

"True, that's all she does. Not leaving me alone."

What the deep voiced guy just said was part of why the Queen Pirate was so cheeky with her kidnappers. The day before yesterday, while running some errands, these three had ambushed her in an alleyway. Ninjas, judging by their attite. Surely she would have been able to beat the attackers, one of them, the nasal voiced one, had received a couple of hundred bee stings all over his face. Yet, they had quickly managed to jam some sort of syringe into her shoulder. By virtue of this venom, these Shinobi had been able to bring their target to her knees easily, as she was getting dizzy first, then blacked out completely within a minute. Next thing she knew, the pink-haired pirate was sitting in this cold cave in a cave system under, as she was told, the mountains of the so called Death Island. Hands cuffed together and blindfolded by a big piece of cloth that covered her entire face. Where nobody would ever find them, so they said. Waiting for a sign that Queen B. Grasa, her mother, was willing to come out of hiding.

Now, the Queen Bee didn't know much about the land. It wasn't one she had read up on, as it didn't belong to the route she had planned to take her journey. After all, something with Death in the name sure couldn't be pleasant. For all she knew, there might have not even been a mountain here. But from what she could feel, the underground part was unlikely to be a lie. The cold, wet, mutty ground spoke for itself. Of course, nobody thought it appropriate to hand the prisoner a blanket or anything. Even these trained assassins knew, the oh so brutal Pirate Princess had to be exposed to all kinds of discomfort to keep her weak. Otherwise this whole ordeal could end pretty badly for them. Leaving her sitting here in the cold, in her sleaveless top and knee-high skirt, seemed the best possible option.

Of course, all of this was futile. Queen B. Grasa, better known as the mighty Abejorro, would not hesitate to get her precious girl to safety. Given what she had come to know about her mum recently, it was even pretty likely that instead of showing herself, the matron would rain hell on these poor little daggers for hire.

"She better not!", Sera clamoured in the meantime. "If I ever have to even see one of those spiders again I'm going to throw up."
"A little more professional please..."

[OOC: I'll add colour coding later]

[Junzo]

The horrors started when one fool got hungry and went to go grab a "safe looking" mushroom from an island freaking named Death Island.

The horrors started out fine as the Marine started to chuckle after just getting a whiff of the fungus. After that first bite though...

The horrors began to snowball into pure nightmares as the laughter couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop. Until they slowly died off and the man had no breath nor life left in him.

Then the snickering began. From the tree tops, red glowing eyes could be seen just watching the whole suffocation by laughing unfold. These pairs of eyes shook with mirth as they snickered and chuckled and laughed at the dead Marine who had been foolish enough to get close enough to the laughing shrooms. Using their long bladed tails, the monkeys in the tree tops began to descend on the squad, activating vicious traps that began to maim and torture the foolish intruders of their territory.

These monkeys were devious and crafty, having devised trip wires, pressure sensors, and other various triggers to their traps. Junzo watched in horror as a man stepped on the wrong patch of dirt that caused twin logs to swing from the trees and hit him in both ears. He didn't survive. The young Seaman Recruit barely escaped from a trip wire trap that caused a mushroom tipped stick to stab out at him. He only escaped because he tripped over the trip wire and was short enough that the stick flew well over his head.

Scrambling into the brush, Junzo was the only one of the squad, that he could see, that made it to a small clearing where it seemed to be safer. He could still hear their screams, though, and more than one man who couldn't stop laughing. Fighting to keep his composure, all the young man could do was pull himself together and keep moving forwards... But what could he do alone? The kidnappers could be many in number and he was just one man. Barely eighteen, even. Knowing that he couldn't rest or the primates would get him, he pushed forwards into the jungle, tears streaming down his face as he cried for those he left behind... He could only imagine how they'd haunt his dreams in the future.