Red Haired: Gold Soul, A Prison Break Adventure

[Cryo Through the Looking Glass]

ZENITH RAUNER ____ TAG Cryo Through the Looking Glass WORDS NOTES short post is short

Escape was in sight, and although the base was crumbling around them, Zen could see Eden excited to see them. Then his facial expressions changed vastly, showing shock, horror, and then finally dismay as he choked out a; 'Why?' The Rauner gave a weak, rueful smile to his captain. 'Well... we got Alex back, and a arm is a small price to pay for your friends.' Then he chuckled at his own 'poeticness', the sound ringing in his ears. Then he noticed who Alex was calling to. Grem. The human portion of their crew could fit through the gap, though it was a completely different matter for the Wotan, who was almost 3 times their size. He watched him struggle to get through the gap, before crying out: 'Grem! Don't octopuses have no backbone? Can't you just squeeze through?' 

Zen thrust his only hand into the gaping maw of rubble that was growing smaller by the second, more rocks flowing from the above floors and planting themselves either on or around Grem. The fishman was being covered in rubble, and as Zen tugged on the butler futilely, more crashes came from behind him.

Were Ivan and the whitehaired marine still in there? The next few moments proved to tell the tale. A muffled cry of pain that sounded vaguely feminine reverberated through the small cracks in the wall of fallen stone, as a shiny black hand thrust through the rubble and out the other side. Zen had seen this phenomenon before, on Ivan's hand. It was another of the magic abilities the crime lord's Haki gave him. In any case, it was helping the Wotan get free, the rockfall subsiding and the cobble trapping him was being shattered away with reckless abandon by Ivan's fist.

The fishman was almost free, but the fist had stopped punching and a loud crack was heard and a yelp of pain. Masculine this time. The marine and Ivan were still fighting within the rubble. The Cainhurst Pirates needed one more push to get Grem out, but with only one arm, Zen couldn't do it. The job was up to Alex and Eden.

ISHY of THQ & ADOXOGRAPHY

[Traveller]

They were out, finally. Bruised and battered, bleeding and for Zen, bereft of limb, but out and alive. Dropping to her knees, she wordlessly handed Zen over to Eden, who appeared to be in shock at the sight of their short friends missing arm. Rolling her sword arm, she muttered a small curse at the dull pain stabbing at her shoulder and elbow. Well, she was going to be sore for a long while.

"Why is it, whenever we get in a fight, something is falling and trying to crush us?" she halfheartedly complained, though there was a slight note of laughter in her voice. And it was true, this was the second time since meeting the boys that she had been nearly buried alive. Alexandra made a mental note to keep tabs on how often that happened, there was no real reason to why she wanted to, she was just curious to see how many times she would nearly be buried alive during her journey with her crew.

The redhead, however, was brought out of her musings when she heard Zen call out for Grem, turning to look behind her, the budding swords master cursed when she saw that the tall man wasn't going to make it through the tiny hole in the wall. Well, it wasn't tiny to her but to a guy as tall as Grem it might as well have been a rabbit hole. Standing, she winced at the pain in her legs but plowed through it. How could she widen the exit without risking half the building falling on them? Was the structure sound enough? Or had the recent small war caused some form of fault in the buildings stability? 

Before she could choose either caution or throw it too the wind, a black fist started to decimate the wall. Was that Ivan? What was that thing doing helping them? He could have just gone through the hole in the wall and escaped, so why was he helping Grem?

'You know what? I don't care. As long as Grem gets out, I find myself not interested in the bastards motives' she decided, and moved to help widen the gaping hole and kick away stray rubble that might impeded their progress. Taking her sgian dubh, she jammed it between a large crack, the force causing a spiderweb of small fault lines to appear, taking a few steps back, she held her shield in front of her. Taking care to aim, the redhead ran forward and rammed her shield into her small blade and, thanks to Ivans handy work as well, the weakened wall crumbled and caved. Jumping away just as the debris began to fall and tumble along the ground, the redhead sighed. Done, it should be big enough for Grem to get through one way or another. 

A gunshot and a pained yelp made Alexandra leap into a defensive position near her friends, but it took a moment for her to realize that neither of them were the ones hit and Grem didn't appear to have gained any new injuries. So, she didn't care, really. She didn't have the energy to care about everyone right now, and she was too high strung to do more than grab her dagger from the rubble, make sure the three males were accounted for, and then turn away from the building.

"Can we go now?" she asked Eden quietly, she was tired and hurting, and all she wanted was to take her friends, her new tall friend, and leave. She honestly didn't know if she could handle any more emotional battering right now.

[grim]

Lifted from his stoop at the uplifting words Zen gave him, getting there friend back was worth an arm. It felt so much like something Eden would say, he could only smile while he pressed his forearm to his face wiping the salty liquids from his eyes and cheeks. Raising back to his feet as Alex motioned the boy towards him, Eden easily strapping him across his shoulder with very little hindrance. Pressing his sight towards the direction from which the three had came, making sure no other marines were tailing them. A slight jump in his form as the breaking rubble surprised him, turning lightly to now eye the arm that rose from the ground. Resting his dog like attention towards it once he saw that it was only Ivan, thought only to return his attention when a white-haired marine accompanied his appearance. At this point Alex had been done busting the hole into the wall, turning back towards him and questioning weather they could leave or not in his classic sarcastic way. Bringing a light smile to Eden's face and he nodded towards her, his hair covering his eyes to give him a much more morbid appearance. With his friend strung over his shoulder he began to walk from the rubble.  

Just as all of them began to step through the rubble, a wave of Ivan's man began to rush passed them. Eden paid them very little mind as he kept on his direct path to the ship. It'd been a long ominous walk, the silence caused Eden to long for the foot steps of Ivan's men once more, any sound other than the buzzing that came with silence would be appreciated. As he made it to the ship, his left arm morphed into his tree like visage, gripping the side of the ship and he pulled himself up. Tightening his hold on Zen as he climbed up the side of the ship. Walking almost instinctively towards Zen's room as he placed him into his bed, asking Alex to accompanied  them before-hand to hopefully get her to bandage his arm. Even though he hadn't been bleeding, It'd be best to bandage it up.

"What should we do?"

He asked Alex, peering up into her eyes with his own hopeful crimson irises gleaming gently.

[Long John]

Grem soon realized as he was running that all he was doing was making himself look ridiculous by leaning down, as he was still far too large for the entrance. He stopped in front of the still shrinking entrance, as rocks were still falling, hitting the ground around him with a crash. He couldn't just punch through, as while his '100 tile punch' would probably be able to break through, since his hand was already broken there was a good chance that the punch would cripple it for life. And while he would do so unhesitantly if he was doing it for the person he served, or was ordered to, doing it for himself would mean that he was making himself unable to serve ever again for himself, which was unthinkable.

He heard Zen's voice through the crashing rocks, though instead of anything constructive he instead tried to give him a lesson on his own anatomy. It was worrisome that the ship doctor didn't seem to be aware that he had a spine, but the fact that he was able to come so close on what species he was without him telling him was quite impressive. He felt a tugging on his suit, and looked down to see Zen pulling on him with his remaining arm, as if trying to pull him through the hole. Grem quickly knocked his hand away as rocks were still crashing, and just as he did so a rock landed right where Zen's last arm had happened to be. It seems sir, that I'm- "Move!" He heard a yell and turned to see Ivan coming at him. But instead of attacking he instead hit the wall with a black force surrounding his fist, managing to slowly break it apart.

Then he heard it, a yell. The urchin. He turned and saw her lying on the ground in a pool of blood, the marine holding her pistol, smoke coming from the barrel. Then she pointed it at Ivan, and fired. It hit him in the shoulder, and he too gave a yelp of pain, and stopped attacking the wall. He turned toward the marine, and attacked, his fist still black. But before Grem could do anything he heard a crash of the rock wall behind him, and turned to see Alex, whom had a look of relief. There was a hole now large enough for him, and he slowly started to exit. But before he did he turned back, looking at the urchin, who wasn't moving. His face was expressionless as he stared for a few seconds, before exiting the hole and joining the others to the ship, and Eden and Alex pondering. How would you like some tea, Master Zen?

[Traveller]

(Side note: Itty-bitty, teeny-weeny bit of control over Zens character permitted by Cryo in message thread.)

As it turned out, getting away was the easy part. With a small army covering them and keeping the Marines busy, they were able to slip away unnoticed and unmolested. With the battlefield long behind them, they made it to the Adventure and all settled in as best they could. It had been exhausting on many fronts, and all Alexandra wanted to do was drop onto the familiar wooden floor of the ship and pass out, but she couldn't do that just yet.

Following her captain into Zens room, she watched the short boy put the blond onto his bed. Grem, oddly enough, asking if Zen would like some tea. The redhead blinked in surprise at the tall man, before a smile graced her features and a small, genuine laugh escaped her. It was quiet, but it was there. Suddenly, she felt better, loads better, she was still exhausted and drained, but she felt lighter.

"Yes please..." a muttered voice broke through her internal thoughts, and found that Zen was actually awake. For a kid, he sure was a tough nut, but she can imagine that the shock was beginning to wear off and soon he would either be feeling a lot of pain or would pass out soon enough.

"Can you add something to help him sleep, please? He's going to need it" she added, sending a small look to Grem in hopes of him understanding her meaning. Because in all honesty, the next 48 hours are going to be critical for Zen. Infection, shock, blood loss, the surrounding skin and muscle could die and decay, and that's just what she knew. God knows what a doctor would be able to list as potential problems. Not to mention that the healing process alone will be exhausting, and for now it's best that Zen spend as much time as possible asleep if he was to recover, at least without suffering too much during the healing process. Which would be a long one, no doubt.

Turning to her belt bag, she pulled out one of the last rolls of bandages she had. How many did she have left? Three, maybe four rolls? She sighed to herself as she moved to replace her bloody arm wraps with some proper bandages over Zens arm-stub, and apply the proper amounts of disinfectant. Removing the makeshift covering, Alexandra's shoulders slumped slightly with relief. The wound had clotted well, and there were no immediate signs on infection or decay, and she didn't smell anything that could signify such things either.

Cleaning the wound as best she could without causing more bleeding o damage, Alexandra set about managing and bandaging the horrible wound. Cleaned and covered, and properly supported, it would work well enough until... well, until they found a replacement, she supposed, if Zen's words about cybernetic prosthetic limbs were anything to go by. Pulling the blanket over his lower body, Alexandra sat on the edge of the bed and turned to face Eden.

"What should we do?" he asked. 

Oh thank God, he wasn't completely unaware of their situation. After all they had been through this one night, it seemed to have matured Eden, at least a little. Well, that was certainly a silver lining, wouldn't you say?

But he raised a good question. What should they do? With yet another weary sigh, Alexandra propped her elbows on her knees and rubbed at her face with one hand, trying to kick-start her brain into action. Her Captain was counting on her, and they couldn't just sit around and wait for the enemy to come to them. And they certainly couldn't hope that they would be forgotten.

"We can't just run..." she started eventually, looking up from the floor to stare at her dark skinned friend. "We don't have speed, their ships would overtake ours within a day and we could barely hold our own when we were fit and rested, as we are now..." she looked around the room. Zen with his missing arm, Grem with his broken hand that she needs to tend to, Eden obviously tired with various injuries covering his small frame, luckily none of them lethal or demanding her attention. And herself, exhausted and sore. It would be days before any of them were fit to fight, and longer for those with serious injuries to recover.

Standing, she paced the room, "Even if we went to a nearby island, we don't have the supplies. They're all at least a two weeks travels worth, even with the winds and tides on our side, we would run out of supplies within a week. Food, water... medical" she glanced at her Captain meaningfully at that, her implication clear. Zen would likely die without some form of medical aid, and they've already used up their weekly allotted number of miracles. Looking to Grem again, she cringed at his hand, and stepped towards him.

"Eden, make some splints for his hand, please" she said offhandedly as she gently reached for the damaged hand. "This needs to be properly set and immobilized, you won't be able to do much work for a week for two, but if it's not tended to now, you're hand may be crippled for the rest of your life" she said, pulling out yet another roll of bandages. It looked like all Eden and herself were going to get is a few band-aids and gauze patches. Though she was going to go for a bath as well, she sure as hell earned one by now. They all had.

Carefully, she went about setting his joints and bones properly. Wrapping his hand with the splints to keep his hand and fingers stable and in the correct position for healing.

"Our situation is terrible," she admitted, moving to lean against the wall when she finished with Grems hand. "But," she raised a finger, "We're not out yet. I know from previous maps that the more Northern region of this island has extensive rivers connecting the inland to the sea, it has forests and mountains and no doubt plenty of places to hide while we recover and get supplies. It's still dark out, if we douse the lights and use the light from the shore and moon to guide us, we can make it there without anyone seeing us. Once we've found a hiding spot, we can camouflage Adventure and wait out the hunting party, no doubt they'll think we've gone straight for the sea, being pirates and all." She grinned slyly at them.

"And" she all but purred, her violet eyes taking on a mischievous light. Alexandra pulled out a folded piece of paper, "We can go on a massive shopping spree, once we get our hands on a checkbook" And with a simple flick of her wrist, the paper unfolded to reveal a rather unimportant report, but the importance of it was that, right at the bottom, it held the signature of one Captain Nigel Montgomery. "And I know for a fact that they have more than enough to handle our expenditures. If nothing else, we can claim it's compensation" she laughed a little at that before tucking the paper back into her pocket. Forgery, while not her forte, was something she learned about early on in her years when she had been asked to help identify any fake antiques that were being sold during a rather high class auction in the East Blue. 

Add in her skill in penmanship and her love for all things written? Well, let's just say that the Marines are going to be very confused about a sudden depletion in their treasury funds.

"Well, Captain? Sound like a good plan to you?" she asked, turning to him for approval. This was the best she could think of right now, and currently it was their best shot to avoid capture and, more than likely, death. Alexandra had no doubts in her mind that, after tonight, they wouldn't try to capture them for a trial and possible execution. They would be killed on sight, for what they've done here.

'But it's all part of the pirates life, isn't it?' She thought with a toothy grin.