The Day Winchester Stood Still

[Tlilecuahtli]

The buildings stretched like an avenue of failure, destitution and recklessness.

The sick troddled the streets with death wishes and nothing to lose.

And the law was a sick puppy that had been beaten to death.

This was Winchester Island. And if your here. Well. Get out.

He had straddled himself in a rum Bottle shaped Bar, gaudy music that ran the same three notes on a broken Piano and booze spilt and tapered into every stretch of wooden planks. Here it was Aguila sat, a table of cards unfurled and rolled out as he ran his arm along, his right arm hidden in a metal carapace that clutched snatched the chips in droves as his slight of hand came in handy. Most of the people here were bottle fed and hungry, the Marines making pushes and setting up small Outposts. The Pirates and outlaws had started their own initiative, in the forest were rodents lived and bugs crawled, the Pirates and Outlaws had started their own counter-attack and Aguila was simply waiting for the light show to sneak in, take some treasure and runoff to go fund his meal for the week.

But, like any good story, where does it begin? Well, we can skip steps one and two of the Hero's Journey and get straight to step three. So, now we ask, where did the Challenge begin? Well. His sleight of hand may have fallen on deaf eyes at the table, but all around peered a dozen others, a bead of sweat rolling down his brow as he heard a uniform cock of the gun as at first, confused eyes rolled over the table, before catching a sneak peek at a card up his sleeve.

The hammers dropped in an explosion of cracks.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

Ratatat, Ratatat, Ratatat.

Poof, poof...

Poof. It was like that he and a group of other Outlaws and Pirates ran headfirst, a line of blazing gunfire and dark smoke pocketed their location in clouded outlines as all around Aguila those he was conscripted with fell like hard bricks, while those considered more 'valuable' followed behind the drive of meat, letting them take the bullets so their 'elite' can break through with barely a scratch or bruise. It seemed things were going well for Aguila at least, only taking a rupturing shot to the shoulder, his metal arm taking the brunt of the blow as he dived over the lines, tackling a marine to the ground as a puff of force ruptured from his shield, the mans face left groggy and drowned as he fell down flat. The first line faltered, now they just had to make it the rest of the way.

[viruswithshoes]

"Can I see the pretty lady again," a child to Toulon's left asked with a tone that the man carrying a deactivated spherical explosive in his hand could not refuse.

The tired man with the buzz cut and four arms dropped one of the cases from the cybernetic hand that held it. While the puppeteer walked the metal appendage that once carried the case began unclasping it while the rest of the body went about its' walk. After the arm deftly took out what looked to be a tall doll of beautiful porceline in the image of a traditional beauty one would think from an exotic land like Wano.

With strings attached do the cybernetic arm, the entrancing puppet woman danced and even smiled with her wooden face. Her bright red lips and cheeks stood out from the white paint that covered the rest of her face. Unlike the other boys who gravitated toward Toulon's pirate puppet, this child favored the dancing woman. The maker of the dancing puppet tried to hide his smile when he saw the boy blush as if trying to confess to a pretty girl.
"C-Can I see you again?" With a few tugs and twists of string the puppet master had the puppet smile and stroke the boy's cheek.
Toulon wondered if he had accidentally started that boy's puberty early.

It took the use of the puppeteer's other mechanical arm but Kuchisake, his puppet found her way back into her comfortable home once more until the next time she was to charm and entertain a crowd of children.

The puppet master pushed his rectangular, rimless glasses up the bride of his nose before sighing a the sight of an unlit sign of a local weapon manufacturer. He tossed the metal ball in his cybernetic hand up and down a few times and rolled it into the tiny weapon shop and smirked when he noticed several people running out in a panic. He assumed the proprietor was the first to flee.

In the previous weeks Toulon had already cemented his reputation as an eccentric man who entertained the local children with puppet shows that revolved around being safe around unexploded ordinance. For the older and more curious of childen there were instructions on disarming bombs, much to the chagrin of many parents. The deminer and cybernetics expert was hardly an experienced thief and assumed that merely getting the few people inside of a place was enough to rob the death merchant blind.

For reasons Toulon could not surmise the locals were suspiscious of a stranger with a penchant for strange devices and children. Robbing a weapons dealer with one of their own deactivated weapons seemed a heroic action rife with poetic justice. The pirates that gathered around the shop to greet the bespectacled puppeteer didn't seem to appreciate the act.

"He makes explosives that look like balls. Do you know how insanely dangerous that is?"
"Makes them easy to roll. I say anyone stupid enough to pick one up deserves to die."
Toulon Kuroko, who had spent most of his life with victims of war, first as a child of them and then as an adult who made prosthetic limbs narrowed his eyes but did not look at the man who said those words. He was afraid that if he looked at the weapon maker's face that he'd surely kill him.

When another man came to join the crowd the buzz cut doctor in the dirty lab coat and black suit assumed he'd attained a temporary ally in his skirmish against pirates. Sure, he was an attempted thief but they were pirates, eye patches, bad teeth and everything. The not-wary-enough entertainer of children couldn't see the larger man rush up to him in order to prepare for the punch to the face that knocked him on his back. The aching doctor's last conscious thoughts at the time were that he was not cut out for thievery, he shouldn't trust strangers and that at the first opportunity he should reinforce his jaw.

He could not even maintain consciousness long enough to see the child he had entertained previously kick the assailant that knocked him out in the shin.

[Tlilecuahtli]

They advanced in a tirade of motion, weak stilts that propped towers were left crunched and cracked underneath the weight of swung tools, hammers and club met in unison on splintering wood before a final cavalcade of wood came tumbling down, the marine atop a wretching squeal as he was left to the vultures, bullied and beaten by brigands, bandits and ne'er-do-wells that propped themselves out from the line of trees that bent over, looking down on the camp as if to swallow whole what had been taken from them.

In the distance the thunderous sound of unison danced in idle step, approaching as the Bandits scored themselves up, some spreading into the cusps of trees, letting the bunt come so they can scavenge the pieces of war and remain fresh, some foolhardy came for glory or some renown, building terrible barricades from wooden planks. And that was well and good, it wouldn't hold and it looked like any man's foot could crack the barricade and swarm first.

But of course, there was always one who broke the natural order, who didn't' follow the hierarchy given. And there was the conscript, where others were beaten, bruised or dead Aguila had snuck off, pulling marines backwards out of the Bandit's line of sight and plundering what nick nacks these Marine's had been paid.

From the Hands of the law to the hands of a crook.

It seemed to be an up-coming saying on Winchester and right now he was embodying the ideal. Or at least, he would be. As he scurried his third body like some common fox burying food he was caught out by the poacher. A burling man toppled him over, a hand clenched around his throat as he was dragged, half kicking, another half retired to the fashion of this island, beaten and battered down seemed to be the regular around here. Or at least, his regular since he was caught cheating. The man bellowed and boomed, his voice a mixture of joviality and mindless wroth. "We can loot once the lard has been creamed." The man stated, it was as if he heard several idioms and a metaphor, tossed them into a blender and vomited the refuse at the bottom from the mind-numbing statement.

But he didn't have long to think as the towering man tossed him into the Barricade, the thing toppled in a beat as he was left under scattered wood and broken splinters as the sound of thrumming gunfire cracked the air, smoke and smog toppled the bandits that tried to hold the line before returning fire, a stream of wooden pegs with sharpened ends as he rolled over, a chunk of wood had lodged itself in his leg as he grabbed another broken wood, bite down into it and screamed into the whizz of noise and panic. The first real skirmish had begun, and Aguila was quickly being taken out of the fight.

[viruswithshoes]

Immediately upon waking up in a jail cell due to what he was sure was the worst attempt at theft ever the children's entertainer vowed to make a puppet show detailing the importance of not acting out of anger. Toulon was still angry at the weapon dealer, not only for dealing with explosives in general but also for making them easy to mistake as toys. The cyberneticist had made far too many childhood prosthesis to forgive such a thing. People who made money off of explosives were worse than pirates, revolutionaries or marines. They made his work a necessity when it should be a choice.
The young doctor longed for the day someone would come to him asking for a cybernetic limb and not have a horrific story attached.

It was not his first time in a cell. Many resented a man who wandered war zones attempting to heal wounded people no matter the side. He doubted that in his present situation he would be let go for the price of constructing a few cybernetic arms and legs.

He young man with the barely existent blonde hair but darker eyebrows threatening to grow together and take over his forehead stared longingly at what lied upon the bars before him. Two boxes containing his puppets and his only means of defense, which were not two separate things.

Almost as if there was a menace emanating from the boxes of wooden dolls and string one of the guards looked inside, shuddered and locked Toulon's puppets in another room. Adults tended to find his puppets creepy even though children liked them. He supposed it made sense, he'd never had to attack a child with one of his weaponized puppets.
"I don't suppose I can have my friends back to entertain myself?"
The guard looked at Kuroko as if he had asked to waltz with the monster that lurked beneath children's beds.
"No."
"Deck of cards then?"
The Marine guard shrugged and slid a damaged pack of 51 cards between the bars of his cell. The man experienced in both puppetry and surgery fanned the cards, shuffled them and generally manipulated them better than any man without prosthetic hands. The fully cybernetic arms beneath Toulon's mostly flesh ones remained cuffed to the door while the bored prisoner attempted several card tricks.

Despite being more comfortable around beings he carved himself and spoke with his own thrown voice, Toulon the puppet master was glad to see another human being tossed in the cell next to him.
"Hi," he said in a slightly shy manner before pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

[Tlilecuahtli]

The lines crumbled without a doubt as a sea of marines rushed over, the smart retreated, the dumb fought and the cowardly fell. Aguila was not any of those three, he was amongst the ranks of cripples, dragging his body underneath the refuse before his back was met with a harsh crack, the smell of gunpowder crinkling his nose as the freshly loaded scent of a Musket was pressed against his head. He couldn't make out his words in the clambering chaos he could only feel and he felt so much.

The last thing he recalled was the sharp metal coiling around his hands like an Anaconda's vice, a size too small and a metal that rubbed the wrong way against his Skyborne skin. But what was he to do as the clang of a musket's rifle braced his skull, his vision a blur as he watched an outpost fall as quickly as it was taken? What a shallow victory... He thought to himself, the big man that had dragged him into all this was one of the few left standing, he held a massive mace with a short chain at the end that he whipped around, coiling around Marine's and pulling them into him before smashing down with a crack of noise that sounded as if the thunder itself was envious. But he did not have a chance to gawk at the massive man that held his own in a sea of Marine, his vision finally gave in and his consciousness was stripped from him in an inglorious display of pathetic capacity.

Where he regained his consciousness, he had only a hunch as his legs dragged and kicked up dirt behind him, the metal carapace that guarded his arm stripped clean and his dials and weapons were gone from his back and belt. He was stripped clean all right, the Marine's a disinterested look about them as he overheard the converse about dolls and cards.

Thrilling.

That was all he could come up with in this dire strait, as the doors were pushed open, his body rolled and dragged as he was tossed into a cell half awake, rolling into the backdrop of the cell before slowly pulling himself up, the soft whisper in the cage aside him drawing in his attention, shaking his head with a hand clasped at his leg, the injury still festered, the wooden plank at least left in to prevent blood loss as Aguila resigned himself in the throws of pain, head knocked on the backdrop as he looked to his newfound neighbour. The first word popping up was, How long had he been in here? He looked him up and down, barely any muscle, elongated arms and the classic Marine Haircut. Buzzed.

He sighed, clear twitches of pain his voice as he spoke. "Yo..." He responded, looking around the room there wasn't much to do, his neighbour had a pack of cards and he wasn't sure if the bucket he had was there to collect water that dripped from the ceiling or to be his new potty. "So? How long have you been stuck in here?" It seemed like the best way to get a conversation started, how's the weather seemed almost insensitive to someone who looked like their life had been spent behind bars.

[viruswithshoes]

Toulon leaned his head to the side to see the sun set. "Probably two or three hours. Only about twenty of them conscious. Robbed a bank."
The puppet master with the inhumanly dexterous hands fanned his collection of 51 cards with one hand, then shuffled them so that they shot into his opposite hand. Card tricks to impress children and entertain himself. He couldn't use many of his tricks because they required use of his extra arms, currently immobilized.

The bored surgeon with his left cybernetic hand deftly flicked two cards face down in Tlilecuahtli's direction. Unsuccessfully, obviously. What about you? Oh, and do you play blackjack? I don't know how long we're going to be here." He put on a awkward smile. "Maybe they'll let us gamble our sentences."


The buzz cut young man smirked at the idea of either of them sticking the other with their sentence. "Better yet why don't we bet our freedom?"
The Seaman Recruit ranked guard that sat on the opposite side of the bars grunted something with his face buried in a magazine with a busty model on the front. There was no other response, he merely rose from his seat and left.

He stretched out his fleshy arm and prosthetic metal hand out to his cell mate. "My name is Toulon. I'll bet you three minutes."
The cybernetic surgeon placed down an ace of spades and a king of diamonds, making an even 21. It was cheating that was both subtle and blatant.

He slid the incomplete deck over to his winged cellmate. "What are you in for? I hope it went better than my first foray into bank robbery." Toulon looked over to where his puppets were being held and how much cash was being held within the dangerous bodies of his wooden weapons. Any person that dared tamper with them would find the traps he put inside not lethal but best avoided.

[Tlilecuahtli]

He watched as cards were flipped through, the unnatural limbs flicking through with famed levels of dexterity. But two to three hours here and this much of an effect? Either this man was reminisced to see the sun or the food here was worse than he had heard. But that was a question for freedom, he had tossed two cards his way, sliding along the ground with deft precision as Aguila raised a brow, looking up than down at the two cards knocked at him. Flipping them between his hands he tried to match the deftness, passing not because of skill, but the fact he played with two cards as opposed to fifty-one.

As he flipped through he caught glimpses. With the dexterity of his opponent he naturally assumed a cheat, one doesn't get that dexterous and forgets to slip a card or two. And he wasn't going to forget to play the game too. He may have been caught as a cheat but that didn't mean cards weren't up his sleeve, his set of two became three then flipped back to two. "Yeah, I've got an inkling for the game." He responded with a warm smile, "But, as for why I'm here. That's a two-fold story." He responded, he would find the pieces of the puzzle he laid out quickly as he was sure.

He raised a brow at the offer of freedom and sentences. He gave a smile that wasn't quite sure if it would work and became certain when the seaman left the room mag in hand. "Ahh. Bathroom break." He continued, a wide smile as he continued the conversation, "I think... I'll bet four. Oh, and Aguila by the way. Just simpler that way." He said, so few could pronounce Tlilecuahtli without giving up and just giving him a nickname. Hell, he sometimes struggled. 

He unfurled his cards, and he matched them card for card. An Ace of Spades, and a King of Diamonds. An unlucky break on his part, but he gave a wry smile and asked the question. "I'll bet you three minutes if you can guess my first crime." He was here for who knew how long, this just seemed like an idle way of killing time.

[viruswithshoes]

Toulon was a better judge of wounds and mechanics than people but still, he took a few moments to study the skypien in the adjacent cell but couldn't get past the wings. Rather than focus on what they were the organic mechanic thought about what kind of cybernetic prosthesis he could use to replace them. Razor sharp feathers? Perhaps ones that could be used as projectiles. Maybe even flight, with some heavy body modification.

He had mentally replaced both of his new friend's wings and one eye in his mind before remembering to guess the first crime of the man he fantasized about experimenting on.
"You strike me as a bar fighter. I'm going for starting a fight."

The puppet master slid the remainder of his cards over to Aguilla to change dealers.
"You don't have the pirate look about you. Not just the wings, either. You're darn sure not a marine and you don't seem like a regular person. Are a..." He bent in closer to Aguilla's cell and whispered the word "Revolutionary?" as low as he could while still being relatively quiet. Vocal control was important for someone who made part of his living with puppets.

"I don't have anything against any group. Pirates, marines, revolutionaries...all the same to me. They all hurt people and I do my best to keep the hurt people from dying. I just wish they wouldn't involve regular people in their macho pissing contests."

"You look like you can use a smile. Hold on." Toulon Kuroko moaned as he stretched his left leg out, placed his right boot over his left and after three attempts took off his left boot. He then pulled at the dirty white sock on his left foot with his right, as the chains forbade him from touching his feet with his hands. One his left foot was only clad in the white sock mottled with brown and gray dirt and sweat Toulon kicked it back to himself where the sock slipped over his left hand.

The smelly sock puppet looked around the room while Toulon kept his attention fully on his cellmate Aguilla and the reaction that would come.
"Hi, Mister Aguilla! I'm Stinky the talking sock and I've come to cheer you up." The voice of the puppet was several octaves higher and held a much more cheerful and pleasant tone than Kuroko whose face never even twitched. To the casual observer it must have looked like a talking sock.
"Look on the bright side, at least you're not stuck in this guy's boot all day. Thanks to him I smell like a slaughterhouse caught on fire." A series of ridiculous laughs came from the 'mouth' of the sock. "Nyak, nyak, nyak, nyak, nyak." Hey, what do you call a devil fruit user in the water? Not Bob, that's for sure." Another series of high pitched laughs escaped.
"Why don't you take off your shoes? We can make sock puppet pirate crew."
Toulon grunted as if interested and used his own voice to speak. "I suppose I'll be the doctor."
"No, you'll be the powder monkey." The sock then began making monkey noises at Toulon's grimacing face.

The puppet performance ended and Toulon struggled to get his sock back onto his bare foot. His boot, he knew to be a lost cause.
"How much was my performance worth?"

[Tlilecuahtli]

The man seemed... oblivious. When he was asked if you knew how Blackjack worked he imagined that his adjacent neighbour would've understood how decks of cards work. And as the cards were slipped, he pulled them up, one pair in each respective hand, two aces of Spades. Two King's of Diamonds. He put the cardsback into the deck, except his, he slipped them right up his sleeve.

He continued to shuffle, cards betwixt fingers as the man spoke, flipping between the only two real occupations on Winchester Island, moving in for the final occupation, Aguila naturally falling in closer to his neighbour to hear the hushed words, curiosity piqued. He had never heard the word to describe a group of people before, as far as he knew there were three types of people in this world. Pirates, Marines and their crappy overlord Bubble Heads, though he had heard people call them World Nobles, however, that seemed too grandiose. How assholes like them could maintain control over the world for any length of time was beyond him.

He explained his stance on Pirates, Marines and this new found Revolutionary group. He seemed to have a great misunderstanding of what a Pirate is all about. "You know the whole schtick of pirates is to hurt innocent people right? That is their primary source of income." It was a given as far as he knew, sure on Skypeia there was that one crew of guys that beat up Enel, but that didn't mean he assumed all were good, just a strange one-off crew as far as he was concerned.

Then came... a surprise? A... show? If he was fifteen years younger he would've been enamoured with the idea of a talking sock puppet. Thrilled even. But as an adult, it definitely made him crack a smile. He was, by and far impressed, he looked back and forth, the smile only elongating as he watched a great deal of skill dance before him with natural grace, lips never twitching, eyes focused and skilled. He clearly forced laughter at least for their ego, as they continued down a highway of malarky before asking for his own socks. he simply shook his head, eyes closed as his brows raised, he wasn't interested in adding to this show of madness.

He finished his set with a query. "Oh, and here I thought I was going to get it for free?" He sighed, counting his fingers along as he thought about it. The jokes weren't good, but it was a good way to get his mind out from this crap hole. "Three minutes." He slipped his fingers through the deck, sliding out the respective cards, an Ace of Spades, and a King of Diamonds. He had the same as he swapped cards through his sleeve. They had to have guessed by now, or else they were blindly willing to believe in luck.

"Aw darn it I just realized." He groaned, showing the two cards in his hands, "you could've had six minutes if only you guessed my crime. But Bar Fight is close. It is related to bars." He said, flipping his cards over, a drawn-out smile as he tried to put every piece in front of him.

"Everyone deserves a second chance. So. What do you think the first crime was?"

[viruswithshoes]

"Three minutes? You sure are stingy with time. You do realize that this isn't real time we're dealing with?" Toulon took a moment to see the irony of taking a patronizing tone when he had just put on a socket puppet show.

The deft-handed puppeteer noticed that the Skypien across from him had drawn the same cards that minutes ago he had bottom dealt for himself. He bet the two of them could play cards all night in a constant stalemate of quick-handed cheating. The entertainer of children wasn't fond of cheating, in most cases, but saw that card tricks sometimes brought smiles to people's faces...some of which came with a pair of rolled eyes.

"I'm going to take a stab and say you cheated at cards. What is it about card tricks that turned us into criminals?"

The guard had been back long enough to catch part of Toulon's puppet show and the mysterious affinity for blackjack shown by the two prisoners. The marine grunted titled his head toward the winged man.
"What else can you do? Have the right skill and you may get to leave."
Toulon looked at the man like a dog that had been sitting through a medical lecture.
"Huh?"

[Tlilecuahtli]

Apparently, he was stingy with time, three minutes wasn't enough. Well, it was half of a game of Seven Minutes in heaven and you could die in the same given time, and three minutes to Bacteria and Maeflies was valuable.

And in three minutes, he was going to win his freedom back.

He let loose a chuckle, he turned and looked to the corner, a fuzzy little rodent had piped squeaked and ate some old rotted chowder. "Yeah, you caught me, a card up my sleeve, with the devil in my hand." He pressed a hand against his head, it seemed he was caught, but the second part of this crime was left to the past. The marine had returned, that mag still in hand and he was lucky, he didn't need to be the one to open the question, the Marines interest piqued for whatever reason.

He clasped his hands, finger interlocking as they were pressed out, a heavy series of cracks rolling along the lengths of each finger as he cracked his neck, rolling back and forth. This served no purpose other than to build anticipation and play very weak and annoying mind games with the man who could simply throw away his keys. "Well. How can one man just narrow it down to so few right?" He chuckled, running a finger along a splayed palm, counting each finger before coming down to his final answer.

"I have a devil fruit."

...

He lied, but he didn't play any games with it, his eyes were a dead stare, his wings flapped once than twice. Devil Fruits were rare in the Blues, and Skypeians even more so. Which is why he played off it, they were naturally tougher, swifter and they had cool wings to boot.

[viruswithshoes]

The marine guarding the two prisoners was moderately impressed by Kuroko throwing his voice but Aguila's claim to a devil fruit ability provoked an impressed whistle.
"You'll make things interesting. Your choices are to stay here and rot for your crime or join the davy back fight. It's a local tradition. Keeps things calm and beats killing each other. Marines become pirates, pirates become marines."
"And your superior officer allows this?"
"His idea. Easier and more fun than looking for people to draft if you win."
"Can I come?"
Now that the marine had a fruit user in his sight his mild interest in Toulon blew away into dust.
"Whatever."

The two extra arms Toulon had grafted onto his body turned into logistical problems for prisoner transfer. The marine trying to cuff him obviously had no experiences with cyborgs. If Toulon had his way the world would be full of his kind. It took handcuffs and shackles and a few chains with pad locks to put the man who had to move Toulon at ease. The cyborg did his part by not being a bother, though he was sure he could slip out of his chains rather easily. His cybernetic hands and arms detached easily for maintenance.

Toulon's optimism rose once he was able to see the sun again without bars obstructing his view. He had heard of davy back fights in his travels and knew only that they could be fun or ruin a pirates life. He was hoping for fun and possibly freeing. Being pressed into service didn't bother Toulon too much as long as he got to ply to trade to those that needed his skills. Pirates and Marines both could use a man who could disarm explosives and create cybernetic limbs. He knew that it didn't hurt to be a puppeteer either. Everyone loved puppets, as far as Toulon was concerned.

"Hey, guys! Two more people to add! One's a fruit user."
Looking at the specimens of humanity on both sides that he had to deal with Toulon Kuroko became less optimistic. Each side had an air of violence around them, the kind of people the doctor wanted to avoid if possible. Patching up or augmenting pirates or marines who would probably cause more carnage was a fate the four-armed doctor was a would fight with every fiber of his being.
"We're a crew, the two of us. You can't split us up just like that. We're..." He muttered under his breath and tried to think of what a pirate crew would call itself. The only thing that came to mind was an organization of healing that he respected that he tried to pirate up a bit.
"We're The Black Cross. We're...uh, you know...new."

The very same man that accosted Toulon earlier, a Marine Captain, bald, save for a long black braid with a braided goatee to match, looked at Toulon as if he were something recently dug out from his ear.
"Uh-huh? Really? Where's your ship and jolly roger? You need something to bet with other than your worthless lives."

Rattling his chains a bit, Toulon pointed to the dock where his tiny ship could be found. He hoped that they might mistake it for something worth betting. The cyborg felt fortunate that his makeshift craft could get to Winchester Island in the first place.
No one seemed to want to expend the energy to see if the man truly had a boat to bet. Most assumed he was lying but it was assumed that his pathetic two man crew would be quickly absorbed into the the pirate crew of the marines.
"You'll need a flag."
Toulon froze. "Eh?"

[Tlilecuahtli]

He was a man of his word, three minutes was all it took. That Devil Fruit might play into being a problem later down the track, but for now, he had attained his shortlived probational freedom. "I think, I shall take, Freedom." He articulated, still pondering whether to throw a wrench. With a Davy Back FIght, everyone on the island would've been too distracted to stop one runaway criminal, but the good Gaunt Fellow seemed more interested in the fight and spectacle. maybe he was one of those glory types.

Aguila's cage was the last to open, a cluster of confusion and struggles pestered the Marine as he tried to figure out how best to handle a four-armed robot. People were always so much easier to cuff, especially in the blues. No Giants abounded, no Dwarves ran wild and best of all. So few Skypeians that one might mistake them for an Angel.

Of course, if they knew he was a Skypeian, they may not have bothered with the wings, instead, they were tied and wrapped in a sackcloth, hands cuffed and legs chaffed under the strain of metal balls, dragged long and fruitless. No one took risks with Devil Fruit users, and Seastone wasn't exactly a common commodity in the Blues. But hell, at least he had the harsh warmth of freedom beating down in beams through clouded skies, each descending light a wash of warmth against the dreary shades of coal like clouds.

He listened as someone declared his status. It seemed he was soon going to have to live up to a reputation, so he ran through his skills, realized none were applicable to Devil Fruits and started running through ones that were useless. He went through a fruit that gave one the capacity to be great in social circumstance, a Neanderthal Zoan fruit and a power that gave someone super taste. But in the end, he came to the idea of twenty-twenty Hindsight. This should go well.

Toulon, took a bold step, Aguila's eyes widened as a dead smile braced his lips, he shuffled over, apparently, they had become a crew. "Yo... what are you-" He was cut off by either zealous enthusiasm or muttering under his breath as he looked around. "Wh? When did... Look we are not the..." But it was too late. The captain had caught them out and Aguila's 'devil fruit' was already telling him that in hindsight. That was a bad idea.

But, he had to get into the action, he had given him time, a sock puppet show, and at the end of the day, the Captain was right. What was there to lose other than their worthless lives. So, when questioned as to the flag, even in shackles and bars, his fingers coiled on his shirt, a patch torn as their Jolly Roger, small as it may be was shown, an ancient picture of a Bird emblazoned, didn't match the Black Cross Motif, but he was sure that this was a temporary solution. He squeezed back in, his display made as he whispered into Toulon's ear, this time sure to make himself heard, "So... I don't have any tools or even weapons at my disposal. And they could very well keep us chained up." It was a fair statement, and was hoping the new captain fo teh Black Cross would have some semblance of an idea.

[viruswithshoes]

The funny thing is, if we were connected by our blood vessles or strapped to the same bomb, this wouldn't be a problem." Toulon sighed, rubbed what little hair there was on his head and grinned in an embarrassed fashion. "I can break myself out but I'm not cyborg enough to shrug off bullets and blades. Right now I'm just glad we have a tiny speck of an infinitesimal chance to go free. We just have to win everything, right?"

"Captains! Form up!" Toulon began to nudge his winged companion to go until he remembered that he had been made Captain of his two man crew the vessel of which was a rickety rowboat.

The wary criminal looked around confused for a moment and found two men who strode to the front where a man was yelling for them. Toulon followed.

The announcer was a tall woman in marine garb that gave the shorter puppeteer an uncomfortable eye-level look at her unavoidable cleavage. She impressively held out five gold coins between her spread out fingers.
"Those of you new here, this is for you. Our Davy Back Fights operate differently than the ones you are used to. Five events drawn. Gamble with as many people as you have. No complaining, no take-backs. Ships, weapons, and other resources may be gambled. At the end of the five events you keep what you have and stay in your new position. I was a pirate but now I'm a marine because my Captain thought nothing could beat a four of a kind."
There was moderate laughter. It seems she told that joke every fight. She tied the coins into a small leather bag before a trained seagull snatched it away to drop into the sea. The dread of the worldwide draft now had a way out and a bit of fun added.

One of the pirates who had been wearing a large, silk top hat whipped it off of his head by jerking his neck and caught it with one hand. He then handed the hat to the Mistress of Ceremonies who gave the rules.

"And the first fight of the day is..."

[Tlilecuahtli]

He wasn't sure what the Cybernetic Puppeteer was on about when it came to blood vessels or bombs and why that would alleviate the problem at hand. But at least knowing he could break out of his restraints was a boon, at least one of them could do something productive. But hey, what less would he expect from the Captain of the Black Cross, the least renowned crew in all the four blues. Though maybe slightly more renowned in the Grand Line, he had heard an ethnic shop had opened under the same name before he departed Sky Island.

The well-endowed woman explained the rules, how her life of a pirate had been stripped from her and the marines apparently accepted that. Seemed like a good way to get out of a life sentence, lose a Davy Back Fight and join the Marines. Good thing to keep in mind for future events.

Five gold coins were pouched up, snatched and taken away, Toulon joining the ranks of the Captains. It was great to see, one grand Marine Captain, one Grand Bandit Captain and one... Person filling in for a captain. At least, that were the rumours Aguila caught in the ranks of the common rabble, arms still bound, hands still tied and feet still weighed down.

He missed the theatrics of some fellow with a large silken hat, the Master of Ceremonies withdrawing the ticket with a sigh as she called out the first event. "Three Legged race!" She declared, it was lucky Toulon wasn't by himself else this whole three-legged race deal might not work out too well. But Aguila, well he had two good legs as the crowd fumbled about, rolling around and forming their cliques of their crew, Captains discussing, choosing who goes where as Aguila approached his solemn teammate. "So, Captain, who are you going to take for the Three-Legged race?" He sarcastically inquired as he was pulled into the crowd, their movements guiding him and Toulon towards the track in question.

The race looked a little beaten up, misused even. The track was a long stretch of dirt, less a race course as it was a stretch of land they never developed and the stadium was just a long stretch of wood raised with some indents for feet to stick in so one didn't roll down.