PRISON BREAK [MISSION #58] {Berk/Leonard}

[Blushing z0ro]

The sea was calm and the sky was blue, all seemed well and good in the lovely kingdom of Illusia, home of the Marine Base Number 4, or B-4 for short, headquarters of the World Government Naval Forces in the West Blue. It was in this base that the renown Pirate "Iron Lung" Indie was detained. Well renown was a big word really. Leonard had never heard of the man before some mysterious man with a hat, sunglasses and a trench-coat appeared out of nowhere on the young pirate's ship. The odd man presented himself as a "Shadow Broker" that dealt with various business deals between the darker elements of society. Or so he said anyway. What that broker explained to the "Young Lion" was that the man called "Iron Lung" had no desire to remain imprisoned or be executed, so breaking of was his only option. Sadly for him he was incapable of doing so himself nor was his crew in any position to help him, so using all the resources available to him from his jail cell he hired the Shadow Broker to get some help for him. The shadowy figured to sneak up to two people into the base to he Indie break out. While intrigued Leonard did ask what was in it for him, to which the broker replied that Indie had two large cache of treasures, one in the South one in the North, both up for the taking once he was rescued; so the Broker himself decided that to maximize the operation success chances it would be best to get the most capable pirate he could get to agree in both the North and South.

In the end it all seemed too amusing for Leonard to pass up, not only that but it would take a little while before the Shining Pirates were ready to finally moved on from port and towards the Grand Line, so he might as well take a trip by himself in the meanwhile. Not only that but this event would allow him to practice his "New Tricks" and who better to do it on that a whole base of Marines right?

Having arrived first on Illusia Leonard simply waited in a shady tavern as agreed with the Broker. Leonard was sitting towards the back alone at the predetermined table, his nodachi sheathed and lying against the wall next to him, wearing all black from boots to his sleeveless shirt to which a hood, which he was down on his face, had been added. The swordsman didn't know how they were supposed to be sneaking in the base nor how they will get out, but the biggest unknown would be his "partner's" identity. The Broker said it would be someone from the South Blue, not only that but it would have to be someone capable enough to help with possibly fighting off an entire Marine base, or at least sneak past it. Leo did take the time to look over the various bounty posters of South Blue criminals, in the end he came up with two possibilities. The first was the "Pirate Princess" Queen B. Melossa, she didn't look like much but her crew seemed to be gaining quite a lot of momentum in the South. The other option was the more wild but powerful one, "Tyrant Fist" Berk, captain of Sea-Tigers and all around beast. The black haired pirate knew which partner would step in would result in vastly different approaches to their "mission" one would likely require finesse while the other would be more... "fun". Normally the "Young Lion" would be all for finesse but deep down LeClerc has been itching to give new found abilities a good work out.

However for now he still just had to wait for whoever was going to walk through the door of the tavern and come sit across him at this fateful table. In the meantime there was nothing else for him to do but sit around surrounded by the musky smell, drunken mutterings of daydrinkers and very low lighting of the basement tavern, while waiting for whoever he was about to go break out "Iron Lung" Indie with.

[Djinn]

'Tyrant Fist' Berk was already drunk. He'd gotten this job from Captain Grieves of the 40 Thieves, a notorious outlaw in his own right and a senior member of the Pirate's Market Syndicate, the older pirate had said something about not having time for it. The tigershark-man was all to happy to do it when he heard there were Marines to fight. Now wasn't the time for fighting, it was the time for drinking! He'd tried to find the bar he was supposed to meet his contact in for several hours now, many a strong drink later, the gyojin was staggering through yet another bar. He handed over the scrap of paper Grieves had given him before he'd left South Blue to the fellow behind the bar. The squat human took the paper and read it quickly, he wiped his forehead quickly as he pointed to a staircase downward toward the other end of the bar.

"What, over there? You didn't say anything..." The fishman wasn't the quickest on the uptake when he was sober, at this point he'd drained a large jug of rum, so with a disappointed shrug the barkeep answered him; "Geez, didn't anyone ever teach you some subtlety? The other pirate is already down there. Been waiting on ya for a while..." The exasperated server then went back to work and tried to ignored the huge shark, Berk slapped some Beri onto the bar; "Fine, give me another rum." The bartender pulled out a cup and filled it up with some dark rum, then slid it over to the hulking pirate; "That'll be five beri." Berk looked down at the cup almost jokingly, the glass was a good size for a human, but it wouldn't even give the bounty-head a buzz; "I meant the whole bottle..." The bartender took the beri on the bar and slid the gyojin the rest of the bottle. After that final exchange, the human moved down to serve some other customers, he'd have to remember to ask the broker for more money next time if he'd have to deal with this kind of scum.

Berk took the bottle, downed the rum he'd been poured, then turned to start making his way towards the stairs to the cellar. The other patrons were all staring at this huge brute, for many of them it was their first time ever seeing a Fishman in real life and frankly it was pretty frightening for your average townsfolk. As he made his move for the stairs, the South Blue native finally put some thought towards who the hell he'd be working with. He'd heard of a particularly cunning woman who'd gotten famous from breaking out of B-1, with any luck that was the sort of person he'd been matched up with. The stairs groaned under the intense weight of the anchor-wielder, at the bottom of the landing there was just the one closed door, so he opened it and hunched down to make his way through the squat doorframe. Looking around the room, it was a bit dark; the fellow sitting at the table wasn't a woman, and he didn't look to be anyone the Sea-Tiger Captain recognized. He walked up and put the bottle of rum on the table before sitting down cross-legged on the floor. Due to his huge height, Berk was still sitting at pretty much the same height as the human across from him; "Oi, the name's Berk. Who the hell are you?"

[Blushing z0ro]

Tyrant-Fist Berk it is. The Fishman was certainly a striking figure to behold, a massive hulk of muscle complete with a set of razor sharp teeth to scale with the rest of the body. Right, with someone with that kind of pure power fighting should not be a massive issue, but if subtlety or stealth is needed things might get more difficult. Not that Leonard was really aware of how the two were supposed to proceed into the base anyway. The Broker was supposed to have an actual plan for the pair but sadly the mysterious individual had not arrive.

The "Young Lion" pulled back his hood, revealing his face, one side of him appearing lighter than the other due to the shadow of the fishman covering the other half. Pulling his right arm over the back of the chair he rested on, Leo took on a more relaxed position. "Leonard LeClerc." The black haired swordsman said, revealing his identity for his partner in the coming endeavor. "I guess we'll be partnering on this job, "Tyrant-Fist" Berk." Having said that Leonard picked up his own glass of rum and lifted it up as a salute of sort, a common gesture throughout the world. "Cheers."

Still the other details of the job somewhat worried the Ash-man. There wasn't much information about "Iron Lung" to be found. Some pirate who's been scouring the Blues for quite a few years, did enough damage and plundering to get him a 50 Million beris bounty on his head, which was more than the "Young Lion" had to his name. It was odd to the swordsman though, apparently this Iron Lung traveled the various Blues but never even tried to sail the Grand Line, wasn't it a goal for every pirate? There was no real way to know at that time, if the question still bothered Leo later he would just have to ask the man himself.

After a little more time passed, with the two wanted pirates by themselves at the table in the back of the dimly lit tavern, another person walked in the establishment and made his way to the basement where the two men waited. Leonard did not recognize the man, but the way he hid himself under a trenchcoat, his face covered by sunglasses and a fedora, immediately got the black haired pirate to know him as their contact for the job. This "Shadow Broker" was definitely not the same one he had encountered in the North Blue. No, this one was much taller, maybe even as tall as Berk himself, only despite the trenchcoat covering his body, it was obvious the piece of clothing was much larger than the gaunt figure underneath. That Broker probably looked like a living skeleton without his coat, thought Leonard.

Reaching the table the pirates' contact sat down between the other two, still hiding his face behind the sunglasses and hat. How he could even see anything like that in such a dark place was a mystery to the swordsman. "Now, I trust the introductions are out of the way? The let's get started." The Broker said with an odd distorted yet raspy voice.

[Djinn]

The shadow broker cleared his throat and began laying out the plan; "Thank you both for coming, I realize that your respective journeys were long to bring you here to Ilusia. As you both may know, the goal for this venture is the liberation of a certain prisoner from the nearby Marine Base, B-4. The name of this man is 'Iron Lung' Indie, he's performed a number of jobs for our network in the past; so when he contacted us to speed up his release we were more than happy to oblige him." The broker pulled out a small folder and opened it to reveal the wanted poster for 'Iron Lung' and another man, the bounty-head they were interested in was a short man with a broad barrel chest. The man was dressed in a captain's coat and a tawdry powdered wig that looked like it had seen better days, dark patches of facial hair adorned his face which was cemented into a baleful scowl. "The second man is his first mate, 'Card Cheat' Skeiner, and he's also the reason Indie was apprehended in this country. 'Iron Lung's' plan was to break his comrade out of prison, but he was caught after breaking into the fortress."

Berk looked at the second bounty poster, the man in the picture was a slim man with a tattered suit and an unruly patch of curly hair on his head. The grinning fool was missing some teeth, but before Berk could see more the broker closed the folder; "Right, so the two of you are charged with escaping the base accompanied by 'Iron Lung.' To this end, I can provide you with a useful piece of information: there exists beneath the prison wing of the base an underground passage that should be useful in your mission. The entrance to this tunnel is hidden in the alleyway behind this very bar! It should be possible for you two to infiltrate the base through this route, but there are two possible problems with this plan: one is that this was the same tunnel 'Iron Lung' used to get into B-4 so the Marines may be aware of it's existence, the second complication is that the tunnel was made by humans so someone of 'Tyrant Fist's' stature would have a hard time getting through it..." From behind dark glasses the broker regarded the hulking pirate, who was less than worried about this small detail. The gyojin drank deeply from the bottle of rum he'd purchased, swallowing loudly before speaking for himself; "That's not really a problem, I already had a plan for getting into the prison... I will need a favor from Leonard-kun if that's alright." He stood up, still having to stoop a bit in order to keep from hitting his head, then began unraveling the chain he had wrapped around his forearm; "When you go through the tunnel, bring this with you. If you give me some time I should already be inside by the time you get there." That said, he took his anchor out of it's harness and set it down on the wooden table (which groaned under the weight of the metal weapon) before downing the rest of the bottle of rum and turning to leave; "Alright, time to get things started! See you on the inside..." He gave a last thumbs up to 'Young Lion' before going up the stairs and out into the upstairs bar. Things were just a lively as when he'd arrived, so without saying a word to anyone he made his way towards the door. He stepped out of the bar and looked around, the streets of Ilusia were largely empty save for a rare passerby or two.

It was through these deserted streets that Berk made his way towards the fortress, it wasn't hard to find since besides the other big-ass castle it was the biggest structure on the island. The shark-man strolled pretty casually towards the base, keeping tabs on it through the skyline of small houses and mid-sized businesses. Eventually he came to a large plaza in front of the bases gates. There was a good distance to the actual walls of the base, but there was still a pair of armed guards standing at the gate with a pair of halberds. To be fair, these guys didn't seem like Marines, but this was definitely the place, so Berk approached the two guards. As he came closer the two soldiers noticed him and pointed their weapons towards him; "Halt in the name of King Lucas!" Berk didn't stop approaching, and the guard who had spoken repeated himself; "Stop where you stand or face the wrath of the king's knights!" Berk stopped, then held his empty hands outward; "My name is 'Tyrant Fist' Berk, I'm turning myself in..." The guards were flabbergasted; "What?!"

[Blushing z0ro]

Leonard found himself staring blankly at the huge piece of metal the Fishman left with him. How was a human supposed to carry that around? Apprehensively the "Young Lion" grabbed the anchor and with all his strength managed to lift it off the wooden, whose legs had been starting to bend and splinter under the weight of the heavy instrument.

It took a few minutes for the Ash-man to awkwardly place the cast iron anchor and chain over his shoulders along with his own sword. The Broker had been waiting for the swordsman and had been starting to look somewhat impatient in front of the latter's antics with the anchor and chain. Struggling with every step Leo walked towards the one that would guide him towards the tunnel entrance. Half talking, half groaning under the weight of his load the pirate managed to utter "Le-... lead the way..." his face already starting to get red and sweaty.

The Broker nodded and opened the back door of the tavern, leading Leonard into a back alley at the end of which a large grill covered a hole in the ground. The trenchcoat man turned around then spoke. "Follow that tunnel and you'll reach a ladder that will lead to the Marine base." he said pointing at the white stone castle atop a hill by the sea just on the outskirt of the city. It would be a long way there, and Leonard suspected the ladder that would greet him at the end of the tunnel would be a tall one.

It was with a sigh mixed with a grunt that the Ash-man acquiesced to the Broker's statement and jumped down the tunnel opening that his trenchcoat ally just opened. The fall wasn't very high but the "Young Lion" still used his powers to try and ease of the landing by turning his lower half into ash before impact. A plume of the greyish-black particles went up the shaft from which the pirate had just dropped. It would probably be a bad idea to just dash using the Hai Hai no Mi's power, the ash might escape through various gaps in the tunnel and Leonard had no intention of getting noticed that early. No choice but to do this the old fashion way and walk, with god only knows how much weight on his back.

Clang, clang, clang, with each heavy step the anchor and chain rattled and the sound resonated throughout the dimly lit tunnel. The Ash-man suspected that the sound could probably be faintly heard top-side by traveling through the narrow and very long shafts in the tunnel's ceiling which brought light and air to the passage. Leo wasn't exactly sure how long he walked in a straight line for but eventually he heard something that sounded like whispering and a greater light source could be discerned at what looks like the end of the tunnel.

Finally reaching the end of the passage, Leonard saw no ladders, but markings on the wall indicated that one had been there until recently. The marines must have wised up and removed it, not only that but from the voices the "Young Lion" could hear from above, they must have posted some guards at the top in case anyone still managed to get up. Seemed like the time for subtlety was well over now. Berk had likely been waiting in his cell for a long time at this point.

Leonard cleared his mind and breathed out, relaxing his body and letting it turn into the hot specks of matter, when most of him had gone insubstantial, the Ash-human propelled himself up the shaft while still carrying the anchor. It was with a loud crash and the shouts of shock of two guards that a massive cloud of burning volcanic ash burst out of tunnel an anchor and chain flying out with it and falling somewhere in the central courtyard, at this point Leonard figured Berk would be able to get to it himself, he'd have to be, because the Logia Swordsman was certainly not capable of fighting whoever will come at him in this base while carrying that kind of load. As the alarms began to ring and various marines began to head to the courtyard, the cloud of ash moved to the center of it and Leonard LeClerc began to reshape himself. His body fully formed back and Nodachi, still sheathed and held over both his shoulders with arms over it the Captain of the Shining Pirates smirked and whispered to himself. "Showtime.".

[Djinn]

Berk had never seen so many hallways, all interconnected and intermingled, he quickly lost track of the way he had come in. The corridors were just slightly taller than the fortress's human occupants, the fish-man still had to stoop to avoid hitting his head on some of the low hanging points of the ceiling. The guards brought him to a large room deep in the fortress, a windowless holding chamber lined with guards and filled with convicts sitting on long low benches. The scrawny wretches in striped pajamas were a pitiful lot, all dirty and roughed up in their chains, some were even openly crying in their seats. The guards brought the chained shark to the back of the chamber and tried to get him to sit down on the rear-most bench, which sat unencumbered. He looked at them skeptically and laid down on the floor and closed his eyes; "Wake me up in a couple hours. Looks like this will take a while." The two guards were aghast at the pirate's lax attitude towards all of this, one of them even had the gall to jab him in the side with the stock of his rifle. The prone bounty-head didn't suffer this insult well, pushing out his elbow and flooring the offending marine with a loud crash! This drew the immediate ire of the assembled marines, who leveled their weapons at the massive warrior and surrounded him. From the front of the chamber came a stern voice; "Bring that savage up here!"

At the front of the room, on a large wooden podium, a robust bearded man in typical noble Illusian fashion sat casting his gaze sternly at the assembled captives. He was Judge Hellas Paris, the king's high judge, his job was the administration of justice in accordance with Illusian law. He sneered as Berk was forced to his feet and marched out in front of the judge's stand; "You stand accused of a litany of crimes, the sentence is death. In light of the fact that you turned yourself in we won't keep you waiting around, the execution will be at dawn in accordance with the measures established with the king's anti-piracy laws. Take him to death row to await his fate." The words made Berk's stomach drop a bit, he wasn't planning on being around for the dawn. The sentence just drove home how deadly serious his war against the world government had gotten, they would end him if he let them, but he wouldn't make it easy for them. He still had to find 'Iron Lung' and link up with LeClerc to make good their escape.

The guards led him further down into the depths of the prison, brought him to a large cell with extremely thick bars and massive chains fixed to the wall. The guards linked these chains to the manacles Berk already wore and quickly exited the cell and closed the heavy gate behind them. The gyojin stood there while he listened to their footsteps fade into the distance. When he was alone, he quickly bit down through the thinner chains that were built into his manacles. This left him tethered to the wall only by the larger chains that had been locked onto the cuffs themselves. He took a deep breath and released the stores of latent strength hidden in his inhuman muscles; "Berk Up!" The rapid expanse of his musculature pushed the thin metal of the manacles past their breaking point and rent them in twain. His frame bulging with power and freed from it's mooring to the wall, he turned around to face the bars that held him captive. He cracked his knuckles before delivering a devastating strike to the steel bars; "STRONG TYRANT!" Superhuman fist struck steel, and in the end neither side gave in. The bars bowed outward and the stonework that held the steel in place gave out and the bars clattered to the stone floor of the cell block with a loud clanging ruckus.

Stepping out of his cell, the Sea-Tiger Captain rubbed his sore wrists, he looked up to see many of his fellow convicts staring at him; "Which one of you is 'Iron Lung'?" The plan was starting to unfold, but it was around this moment that Leonard made his grand entrance and the alarms across the base began to sound. Face-palming for a moment, the gyojin sighed and set about the complicated task of finding his man.