The Arsenal Raiders

[viruswithshoes]

In the dank, cigarette smoke infested bars in the North Blue that would require significant reconstruction to be upgraded to 'dives' there was a obscure little folk tale of a wealth of Marine treasure. The Marine's own little One Piece tucked away in the North far away from the famous waters of the Grand Line and the most dangerous people who would use the treasure for sinister purposes. One of those dangerous people from the Grand Line had just won a sword-for-hire and a rowboat in a low-key Davy Back Fight in the form of a thumb wrestling competition. Quick digits and a glove made of stone all but put them into the pocket of a young woman with visions of military dominance over the World Government dancing in her head.
"Looks like we're boat buddies. Warning: I only know that one song about rowing boats so my singing may be repetitive."

Shade wasted no time in setting out. Her introduction to her new crewman took place on the way to the rowboat she had won in the same bet. Experience had taught the woman from The Crescent Moon Empire that it was best to leave a table when her luck was good, and for once the exuberant revolutionary took the lesson to heart, though it would not linger there long.

A brown, seemingly leather glove, was gently slipped into the pocket of her red coat producing a sound akin to a stone being hurled against the hull of a ship. That bare hand was then extended to her new mercenary.
"Shade Muramasa. Currently the only member of this cell of the Revolutionary Army. The others came down with some breathing difficulties on the way here...liked stopped breathing difficulties. But, hey, I feel good about your chances. You look like a fighter...at least I hope so. That guy didn't hire you as an accountant or something, right?"

[Ragnarok]

Ragnarok would've gladly offered to arm wrestle the woman, had her now former employer allowed her the chance to speak. Instead, the moment she stepped forward, she was shoved back into the group of his other lackeys by the man himself. No, she hadn't gotten pissed, but she was certainly disappointed when her captain lost to the woman, who definitely proved she was stronger. She would've loved to play too.

To her surprise, that was not her final chance. While Ragnarok had indeed been out on her own for a while now, she had never heard of a Davy Back, and consequently of its rules, so she was very pleased to find out that her employment had been transferred over to the other female. She positively beamed, and trailed after her newfound interest, excitement bubbling from within. She barely even glanced back at the man whose ship and crew she'd been with the past two weeks. They hadn't earned her loyalty after all, as grateful as she was for the decent lodging and meals they had provided her. Also, her seperation pay, she thought, contentedly patting at the pouch of Beri and small, valuable stones tucked tightly in her belt. At the same time, an uproar ensued from within the dingy old bar they were fortunately no longer close to, with men shouting something about missing cash and loot bashing the closest person they could get they're hands on.

She flashed a set of pearly whites at the woman."Oh, that's fine, I'm in a good mood. Say, how strong are ya'? Any tales to tell? You look like you've actually been to places. Are you a fighter? Can I arm wrestle you too?" a bombardment of questions left her lips, the mercenary resembling more of a gushing child rather than an eighteen-year-old fighter. While it wasn't her usual, laid back attitude, it wasn't uncommon either to see her behaving so warmly with someone, especially if they have caught her interest. It was a similar concept to how a child would react when presented with a new toy. Her eyes lingered briefly on the coat pocket containing the glove, and she guessed that was how the woman had won the arm wrestle so easily. It was cheating, but to each their own. Plus, if that was what made her powerful, then it would be much more satisfying (and entertaining, the child in her added) when they clashed.

When Shade held out her hand, a flicker of apprehension flashed through her amethyst gaze, before she took it firmly, gripping down hard to see if the woman would return it. "Ragnarok Blank, pleasure to beat- uh, meet, ya'."

[viruswithshoes]

Ragnarok's questions and bone splintering handshake provoked a toothy grin on Shade's face and caused to pull the younger woman toward her and kiss her on the forehead.
"Oh you beautiful, brutal beast, you'll see how strong I am," The energetic revolutionary said while slapping her new companion in the arm and freeing an aching hand from her grip.
I like your jib and the way it's cut, Blanky. I think we'll get along famously...or even obscurely. Actually...I hope we get along..." Shade stood while raising her hands in the air and shouting to the heavens which the loud woman assumed was glad didn't have ears: "INFAMOUSLY!"
A round of snort-filled laughter emerged which had spurred more than a few looks of concern and discomfort among those within it's range.

Shade plopped down next to her newfound friend, hired thug and rower of the first sailing vessel she could call her own. A heavy, metallic sleeve found it's way over Ragnarok's shoulder due to the affection of the armored red coat's wearer.
"Now, not to bum out our little womance here but this isn't going to be some puppy hugging theme park ride. There may be some death killing involved. If this place is half a cool as I heard they probably got a big name from Pirate's Dispatch. Since this is such a huge, big, massive deal making plans would be stupid so I thought we'd wing it. I mean, worse comes to worst we die or spend the rest of our lives in prison, right?"

The rowboat rocked a little which made Shade a little nervous, being not only unable to swim but carrying enough heavy clothes to ensure a watery grave even if she could. For the sake of ballast the heavily armed and clothed woman with the frizzy hair took a seat at the other end of the tiny boat which she just then remembered didn't have a name. Shade tried to recall if setting off without a name was bad luck for a vessel, good luck or if I didn't matter in the slightest. Those thoughts created a burdensome few seconds in the hyperactive woman's mind and thought would not do.
"So why did you choose mercenarying? No wait! Let me guess...never mind, I got nothing. What's your story, Ragamuffin?"
Patient listening was not one of the manic rebel's best or even tenth best skill, but managed to keep focused on Ragnarok despite an attention span that was at some times non-existent.

When searchlights began illuminating the waters around them in dangerous moving circles Shade unfolded a map she had traded for a pair of flintlock pistols she had transmuted into a pair of stylish black gloves. Given that the "map" was simply a vague island shape and five oddly positioned red circles Shade was glad she hadn't mentioned that her gloves would turn back into guns after prolonged exposure to strange, non-Shade sweat. She'd never stuck around to see what the effect of another person wearing her clothes but she imagined a gruesome fusion of the man's hand inside the transformed firearm, still it was a small price to pay for such deadly fashion. After entering a thick fog the rickety wooden boat nearly tipped over after skimming the side of a bright red buoy which had the coffee colored skin on Shade's arm prickling with excitement. Now the red circles made sense as did the log pose seemingly pointing to nowhere that had cost her nearly a month of work repairing that same man's barely salvageable caravel. Every nail hammered was now worth all the blood and sweat she had poured into attaining that map and log pose.

Though an anarchist in spirit and not one to be caught in or participate in power trips of various kinds, Shade instructed, then nicely asked Ragnarok to follow slightly behind one of the searchlights to remain unseen until they followed the log pose to another red buoy and another. Soon there were no lights and Shade's boat of creaking wood soon met the shore with less than stellar results for the boat she had named 'The Fluttering Ribbon.' It was a fine ship and it's short life as it had led the formerly lost revolutionary to the ultimate treasure of her enemies The World Government.
"Why don't you lead for a while? I don't being all orderly and all 'do this and do that' and stuff." She casually tossed the log pose in Ragnarok's direction, grateful to not be wearing the yoke of leadership.

[Ragnarok]

Ragnarok shrieked, jerking her upper torso away from the woman. "Whoa, ma'am, I appreciate the thought but keep your kisses to yourself please." she held her hands in front of her, unaccustomed to the affection she was suddenly given. Never mind about hygiene - she was more concerned with how awkward it felt. She was a very open-minded person, but there were even some things that the great and magnanimous Ragnarok was not so tolerant of. Affection, regardless of the intention or form of it, was one of them.

She regained her previous composure and snickered at Shade's eccentrics, barely even minding the concerned public around them. The woman was crazy cool - emphasis on the crazy - and she felt like they were relatable to a degree. They liked having a good time, and their version of fun probably came in the form of messing with people. Like Marines, for example.

The Taekwando practitioner lost her grip on the set of oars she'd picked up, and her hands cut through the water's surface to catch them in record timing. "Are you kidding me? That's, like, the best idea I've ever heard! It's like going to my dream amusement park! As for dying... eh, guess we can leave that for when we get to it." She grinned, dipping the oars into the water on either sides of the boat to stabilize it the moment she noticed Shade's discomfort. "Can't swim?" she guessed, although it was more like a rhetorical question considering she probably knew the answer to it. When Ragnarok was questioned about her career choice, she shrugged. There weren't much reasons for her choosing to be a mercenary, other than her being good at it. "Dunno. I considered joining the Marines like my Gramps wanted, but being ordered around didn't seem appealing. Freelance pays well and it's more flexible. I get paid to have fun and do what I'm best at, instead of kissing ass and swabbing decks. I guess that's all?"[/color] As she began rowing, she nodded in Shade's direction. "How about you?"

Later, when the sky had darkened and searchlights came on, Ragnarok steered the boat from one bobbing buoy to another, grateful that they had reached at last. A sheen of sweat covered her forehead, and she brushed her bangs backwards so that they didn't plaster themselves to her skin. Her arms ached mildly, but she was fortunate enough to have been who she was. Compared to her brutal training regimen back home, the time she spent rowing hardly amounted to much. She caught the log pose in her left hand, shaking the other to rid it of stiffness. "I'm probably the worst person to entrust leadership to, in case you'd like to know. Anyways, from what I saw back there, this place isn't as heavily guarded as I thought it would be. It's a little foggy, so sneaking in should be super easy. Then we lock the exits and play whack-a-mole! How's that sound?" she beamed, forgetting that by locking the place up it meant locking themselves in too, and that none of them had any floor plans so they wouldn't know how many exits there were.

The walk to the base was hardly eventful, aside from Ragnarok nearly directing the pair off a cliff, and another time into a huge ditch in the ground. Oddly enough, no one was out on patrol. It was eerily quiet, save for the sound of the wind howling. It was only when they neared the building that she realised the howling was, in fact, a chorus of cheers and shouts from within the warehouse. She wasted no time in climbing up a makeshift ladder of pipes and ledges, to the metal-framed glass roof, trusting that Shade would be able to make her way up somehow. "What the hell?"

[viruswithshoes]

Since attaining her devil fruit Shade had learned to laugh off her inability to swim.
"Psh. Fish poop in there, you know? Give birth too. And it's not the sea gets flushed. When I was a kid if I was swimming and too far from the beach I'd just pee right there. What if I reached in there and touched my own pee? Gross right?"
Having the conversation turn back to her comforted Shade a bit.
"Me? I got lost on the way to a Marine recruitment center and joined The Revolutionary Army by accident. After a couple of years I thought 'meh, might as well go with it.'" A boat rocking laugh erupted and ended in Shade's typical snorting while trying to catch her breath. "Just messing with you. Grew up in the Grand Line under some dictator's thumb learning the sword from my mom. Things didn't get exciting until I left home and started traveling. Met my pal Ramiel and he kinda directed my energy and violence and violent energy towards the World Government. We had some good times. We got separated once we crossed into the north. Then I got robbed by a bunch of pie rats who stole my family sword, so I've got to totally murderize those shoe sniffers before I leave." Shade neglected to include that stealing the sword also meant beating her in a sword fight.

At their destination Shade refused to accept Ragnarok's lukewarm acceptance of taking the burden of leadership and placed her hands on the other woman's shoulders. "You can do this! See! You just made a great plan with a great mental picture. That's what leadership is about...great mental pictures. You create a great image and then make it come true. Easy as a really easy thing...I don't know how to make pie so I can't say it's as easy as that. It might be really hard for all I know. Wow, that's kinda disrespectful to pie makers, don't you think? I mean if someone said 'that's as easy as swordsmanship' I'd probably stab him. Lightly, though, I'm not some kind of madwoman."

The cumbersome weight of Shade's red coat made from chain mail, iron and leather as well as her weapons made for the type of revolutionary who could not perform the kind of maneuvers she had just seen Ragnarok pull off, not if it meant losing a weapon or an article of clothing, which for her was the same thing. Clothing ensembles were meant to be added to, not taken away from.

She could have sworn she heard the pipes groan when she climbed upon them and the ledge looked even less willing to accommodate a woman weighed down by weapons and armor. She knew she could do it without the weight of her coat but then she would be coat-less. It wasn't the best at blocking the shiver-inducing winds of the North Blue but it looked good and had stopped more than it's share of bullets and blades. Besides, given it's metal composition even after she had transformed the metal and leather concoction into a coat Shade was afraid that her skin would stick to it. Mostly, it was a style thing.

Typically, heavy coat and gloves meant a few extra ounces not twenty pounds as far as Shade could tell. Protection coupled with style came at a tremendous weight cost and made shimmying up pipes and ledges something of a chore. Once upon and roof, and extremely tired, Shade counted herself lucky no to be a fashion-conscious splatter on the ground.
Upon reaching Ragnarok Shade reiterated her partner's verbal expression of bemusement.
"What the hell, indeed! I think we walked in on a Marine pervert convention."
Well-toned men in small, tight, barely there swim trunks swam around a pool throwing a ball around and shouting. Normally, a gaggle (or whatever a congregation of men were called) of nearly naked men provoked feelings other than confusion but this went far beyond the realm of sexual allure to the strange lands of 'huh'.
"Huh? Is this a game or like a Marine mating ritual? Like something the elite guard do to promote brotherhood and loyalty? This place is definitely holding something. It's got weird, cult guards. I bet they have monsters too. We're going to kill monsters, Raggedy!"
A toothy smile and an upward thrust thumb indicated that the tired Revolutionary had recovered and was ready to slay any beasts that stand before Shade Muramasa and whatever super weapon the Marines had hidden within the depths of the building on which she stood.

The same brown leather glove made from a heavy rock made short work of the lock keeping them from inside the building of wet, glistening pervert guardsmen and the treasure within. For a weapon depository the security seemed rather lax and Shade imagined that legions of elite soldiers and oddities took care of any pirate or revolutionary foolish enough to trod upon their sacred ground.

When her cell of Revolutionaries consisted of more than one members her superior and mentor had named them The Invisibles because of their subtle, almost undetectable methods. In honor of the man, who might not have survived their jaunt into the North Blue, Shade subtly and with nuance kicked open the door to the wet pervert room and shouted.
"I'm Shade Muramasa and I get respect. Your lives and your weapons are what I expect!"

[Ragnarok]

"Well I grew up surrounded by men so..." she trailed off, seeing no need to further explain herself. The only reason she'd been so surprised in the first place was because this... whatever it was, had not been what she had imagined when Shade had shared her plans.

By the looks of it, there was some sort of tournament going on. A quick look around the interior of the building showed that the warehouse had various sections, some pertaining to water sports and others being courts and fields. If she hadn't known any better, she would've thought this was some sort of private training compound, and not a warehouse full of marines.

She barely managed to hold back her laughter at Shade's hilarious remarks, nodding her head in agreement. "Or maybe it's guy's night. I've seen my uncles ditch the kids for it before." she offered flippantly. At the back of her mind, she silently hoped that Shade was smarter than she let on, because Ragnarok was quite aware that as a leader, she was lacking incredibly in a lot of areas.

Ragnarok winced at the sound of contact made between Shade's gloved hand and the lock. Afterwards, when she speed a second to think about it, there was no way it was an ordinary pair of gloves. She made a mental note to enquire about them, and perhaps, if the woman was willing to let her, try it out.

Shade made the first move, which came as a surprise considering she was usually the one who leapt straight in with hardly a plan. It was a pleasant change, although it hardly made much of a difference considering Ragnarok herself followed almost immediately after. Slamming the door loudly, she gave a friendly wave to the perplexed heads that turned towards them. "Hello boys! Warm up's over, time to play!"

A ball came hurtling towards her seconds later in response, and successfully slammed into her face.

[viruswithshoes]

After the ball hit her partner in the face Shade couldn't help but make a comment about the one ball in play now being out of reach.
"Looks like you don't have any balls left."

Ten men. Ten glistening, nearly naked men clamored to get out the pool and attack but the wet floor, slick feet and utter surprise made three of them easy prey to Shade's wobbly flying slash, emanating from a floppy sword that had once been her belt.
"That's my supo-supo no mi. I'm a totally awesome, well-dressed-" Before Shade could accurately capture the wonders of her devil fruit abilities in spoken word, one of the barely clothed men had the nerve to charge the bushy-haired young woman. The broken finger and scraped knuckles from punching Shade's red overcoat made her wish the slippery Marine would learn a lesson about interrupting people when they are explaining their powers. She would have afforded him the same opportunity, had he gotten there first.

Unlike a typical, Shade-less katana the two that criss-crossed her hips as dual belts when not in use her swords tended to flop awkwardly, which she assumed made many men feel self-conscious a weird. The symbolism of her weapon's shift from rigidity to pliable as a piece of clothing was not lost on a bushy-haired revolutionary. As an added bonus, it did things such as wind around targets and slash enemies in the back such as her moist marine adversary.

While the man whose back she had slashed went down wondering how a sword could bend that way, another man in distracting swim briefs clumsily tried to punch at Shade and ended up slipping, which Shade found somewhat contagious as she did the same. She hit the ground with a much louder sound than her enemy did, thanks to the armored red coat she wore. She struck out with the sword in her right hand but to little effect. On the way down the clumsy sportsman seemed to grab onto anything to keep up, including the thread that hung from the pommel of Shade's transformed katana unraveling to into nothing but a pile if useless thread.
"Well...it looks like you've imbecilled your way into finding my fruit's weakness. Indeed the-"
Once more Shade was interrupted her monologue. It was one more reason she despised the Marines as an organization, they lacked drama and showmanship. It was humiliating to be kicked on the ground in such a drab and uncool manner. The attacks of the two men didn't even have names. Though mundane, a few of the kicks avoided her red coat of armor and caught her across the forehead and chin, leaving her in a slight daze and causing Shade to drop her remaining sword. She then wished she had fashioned some sort of armored mask to wear as well but had no idea if she could pull off the look.

The sound of swimming pool justice was broken by a loud bang from a flintlock pistol in the form of a brown glove enveloping Shade's left hand. What her flintlock gloves had in style and deception it lacked in accessibility and required far too much time to slip on and fire. She pointed her right hand at the remaining men as if it were a gun, which it was. She raised her left, already fired glove as well because while she knew that that particular glove was out of bullets her enemies did not. It seemed foolish to for them assume that her glove was not loaded.
"Look out, she's a devil fruit user."
It was a tactical mistake the shoot the man who pointed that out and waste her remaining bullet but it was annoying that he had blurted out the fact that she had just tried to explain.
"Sorry...but, you know..."

Lying prone on her back with no swords or glove guns Shade dig the dignified thing and politely asked for help. Screaming would have been deeply uncool.
"Ragny, help please."