Post by Jade on Jan 11, 2018 0:32:42 GMT -5
“Tell me, lieutenant. What do you think of all of this?”
A young woman stepped closer to her commanding officer’s desk, picking up the file that had been pushed her way and opening it up to the first page. Her green eyes scanned the bold titles, widening as she continued through the first few pages at a furious pace - until she looked up at the captain, sitting behind his desk. “... Is… Is this a joke? Not even the Revolutionary Army would be stupid enough to mount this sort of attack… Right?”
The captain stood up from his seat, pulling his ball cap off to run his hands through his dark hair. “And yet we’ve gotten these details straight from those revolutionaries’ mouths. That Stark girl gave us the tip to question that ‘Mochi’ pirate that she had captured a while ago - and he has all but verified the details as well, after some rather unfortunate measures were taken.” He took a deep breath, as if he was about to continue, only to release it as a sigh. “It seems… Crazy, to be frank. But even independent of Stark, we’ve been hearing rumblings of some revolutionary leader’s ‘super weapon’ project for the past few months. Saffron… If you were in charge here, what would you do?”
The woman’s gaze flipped between the file and the captain a few times before she closed the file, placing it back on his desk. With her eyes closed, hands still on the file, measuring her every word, she replied, “As crazy as it seems, we cannot take this sort of threat lightly. To do so would be to endanger countless civilian lives, the structure of the Marines in the North Blue, and further the Revolutionary Army’s confidence and power. Even if it amounts to nothing, we need to be prepared. I would call back any ships that had left in the past few days, as well as any other ships in the nearby area, to reinforce the island, as well as set up patrols around the island’s waters.” Her eyes opened, darting back over to the captain as she stood at attention. “Is that what you would do?”
The captain fixed her with a mismatched stare - one eye green, one eye blue - and then a nod. “Yes. You’re as astute as ever, lieutenant. Now, could I interest you in sitting in on the officers’ meeting?”
It had been seven days since the Porcelain Lady had docked in the Business block of Jreum Island. Seven days since Bianca had delivered two Revolutionary Army Agents - Spare Rib and Brownie - and her own warning of the coming danger to the Marine base on the island. Seven days since she had begun her own preparations to bring together a group of people who would be able to put a stop to the threat that the man known as "Food Court” and the Revolutionary Army would bring to this island if his super weapon plan was allowed to get anywhere close to Jreum.
But she had been tired on that first day, and it was only on the sixth day since arriving on Jreum Island that Bianca had begun actively recruiting for her Tea Company.
The organization she had envisioned was still nowhere near ready to launch - there were too many factors yet to be set into motion. Land would need to be purchased, blueprints would need to be drawn up, and supplies purchased for the tea house franchise portion of the proposed Company; docks would need to be built, the tea itself would need to be grown, land and money to begin growing their own tea… At the end of the day, she needed money to get anywhere. A little problem, in the grand scheme of things, which could be solved if she could intercept the revolutionary’s ship and capture their leading agents and boss and turn them in for their bounties… But to do that, she would need a larger group than the ragtag team she had assembled thus far.
Yan... She wouldn't ask him to accompany her on this particular reckless mission. It seemed to her that it would be foolish to try to persuade him; she still wanted him to ultimately join her Company, after all. Thomas would follow her, even if he would complain the whole way, but he wasn't much of a fighter. Rounding out her current group of companions was the doctor from her home island, Dr. Yvonne Leblanc; another non-combatant whose valuable contributions would only come into play after the dust had settled. A more cautious individual would have looked at the hand that had been dealt to her and walked away - or at least allowed someone more capable to handle the situation, but Bianca was not a cautious woman. No, her ambition would not allow her to sit back and allow the Marines to handle the situation when she had so much to gain.
Yet it was proving to be a challenge to recruit for an organization that did not exist, and most everyone she got past that hurdle with was turned off by the impossible odds.
“Are you crazy?”“You’re out of your mind, kid!”“I need money up-front.”“I’m not dying for some girl’s ‘dream’!”
She had heard all of those, and many permutations besides, over the past week. The white-haired huntress sighed, folding her newspaper neatly in half with one hand as she took a sip of tea with the other. A glance out to the horizon revealed the waterfront of Jreum’s Resort block in all of its splendor - hotels, tourist trap-style stores, and restaurants standing in their colorful glory under the mid-morning sun, almost as far as the eye could see. Perhaps there was a tension in the air in the Business or Residential blocks, but here, people seemed oblivious to any coming threat as they went about their lives.“Hey, uh, Bi?”
Bianca turned her gaze from the outdoors to the doorway separating the balcony she was sitting on from the indoor section of the room she was staying in. There he stood - lanky, though his newly tailored suit helped him to cut a fairly impressive figure, and thankfully not sporting a cigarette hanging from his mouth. She wrinkled her nose; it was all too obvious that he had just discarded it a moment before. Thomas held a hand over his eyes, shielding them from the glare of the sun, as he took a seat at the small metal table across from Bianca. “Look… I know you’re, y’know, crazy, but- You’re not actually still going to go out to meet that guy, right? Like, even if we had gotten anybody on board. You weren’t actually-”
“I will still go out there and face them head-to-head, even if it is just me, alone, on my ship.”
“But, that, that’s lunacy!” The wannabe bounty hunter seemed honestly shook by her response, dragging his hands down his face. “Bi, you’re talking about going up against one of the officers of the Revolutionary Army. You know, one of those crazy strong people that anyone in their right mind is terrified of! Hell, I don’t know if you know this, but even the entire Marine force here seems shaken up by this. Bi, we should honestly just get off this island while we have the-”
Bianca cracked her newspaper against the metal surface of the table, using the sharp sound to startle Thomas into silence. “I have too much to gain, Thomas, to allow myself be scared into inaction. If you wish to leave the island, I will not stop you.”
The dark-haired man blinked once, twice, three times. “Y… You mean it? Oh thank god, because I already packed all of my-”
“But I will not allow you to step foot on my ship again, and that will be the end of journey together.”
He sighed dramatically, slowly lowering his head onto the table between them. “Of course you’d add that, wouldn’t you… Yeah, yeah, fine. I’m not going anywhere. Oh, by the way,” he picked his head up, looking up at the huntress across from him, “some new weirdo is on their way up to meet with you about this whole recruitment thing.”
She nodded, placing her teacup down and smoothing out the front of her white sundress. “You should have told me sooner. Go and bring them here, if you would, and prepare another pot of tea.”“Sir?”
The massive shape at the head of table shifted, the head of the corpulent figure lifting to fix the speaker with a steely glare. Between the two men, a massive buffet table that had been fixed with so many trays of food mere minutes ago was now picked entirely bare - not even a trace of the feast that had been laid out was left, except for a smidgen of some brown sauce on the corner of a plate larger than the regular man's torso.
The smaller man shifted uncomfortably under the glare, pointing his own gaze directly at his own two feet. “Sir, Sarsaparilla was wondering if you had finished with your meal and would be able to join her on the Research and Development deck.”
There was a moment of silence, broken as the massive man began to laugh. “Three of our best agents, taken out by the same little girl. Mochi, Spare Rib, Brownie... All delivered to the Marines on silver platters.” His laughter died as he began to rise, even further dwarfing the regular-sized man standing by the door, who seemed ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. He was no fool - he had heard the stories and seen the aftermath of his boss’s rages. “Go on. Tell her I’ll be down in a minute. And you go get Sorbet and Bratwurst too - I want them to be there for this.”
Bianca’s eyes drifted from the three recruits to the calendar hanging on the wall. Ten days, now, since they had landed on Jreum Island. Only nine days of searching for people to join her, but ten days since they had arrived. How much longer would it be before the calm broke and the storm began?
Only three of the dozens of people she had personally talked to had shown up for this second meeting. The only three, out of all of those people, who hadn’t dismissed her outright… She turned her head to the side, giving Thomas a nod, and he stepped up, handing her the thin files she had put together and brought.
“You three have my thanks, and my apologies for how humble this meeting spot is.” A simple café in the Resort block was all the room that they would need for this, truly, and the only place a meeting of any sort would have been able to be held on such short notice. Bianca quickly scanned over the papers in her hand - more for show than anything, truly, as she had already memorized the information on them in the past few days.
“Quincy, otherwise known as ‘Quivering’ Quincy. A bounty hunter from the South Blue; an unassuming young man who has become somewhat famous for his unusual style of archery.” The white-haired woman looked over at the mousy boy sitting at the other side of the table on her left. Quincy’s grey eyes kept darting about the establishment, and there was a definite shudder when he had heard his name. Even without knowing his method of fighting, the bow and quiver of arrows slung across his back would have given him away; but other than this, he seemed like a fairly ordinary, if perhaps exceedingly nervous, teenage boy. He gave her a nervous grin, shrinking a little as she stared at him and continued speaking. “Though not terribly impressive to look at, the record of bounties you’ve brought in is. Multiple 10 million and above bounties, and a single 21 million beri bounty.”
She turned her head slightly to look at the woman sitting directly across from her. “Rhea ‘the Tracker’. The list you gave us was most impressive indeed,” Bianca glanced at the paper and scanned down the numbered list of names. “304 different bounties, ranging in value from single digits up to a 32 million beri bounty. A decidedly brief, yet appropriate, resume.” The dark-dressed woman seemed to be glaring from beneath her leather hat across the table at the white-haired young woman, her expression inscrutable under the cloth she had pulled up to her nose. Her entire wardrobe was like this - a heavy leather coat that had obviously seen more than its fair share of use covered the majority of her body, with only the faintest hint of her black pants and heavy leather boots showing themselves beneath the coat. The young man who was working at the counter kept giving the entire table weird looks, to be sure, but the strangest looks were reserved for this woman - or, more specifically, the blunderbuss and the strange cleaver-like weapon she had calmly placed on the table when she sat down.
“And Harsha, the man who was once known as the ‘Crimson King’.” She slid her gaze to the right once more, fixing it upon the older man wearing the simple robes of a monk, who in turn gave her an easy, crooked grin as he tugged gently upon his neatly trimmed beard. “I must say, your case is decidedly... Strange. You were once a feared warlord in the West Blue who slaughtered thousands… And yet, your bounty simply vanished along with you one day, thirty years ago.” Bianca raised a brow as she looked down at the paper that had been provided. “You embarked on a pilgrimage, walking the Red Line in its entirety with naught but the clothes on your back and a staff, and found ‘enlightenment’. Truly, sir, this is a tale for the ages - but the most fascinating part is how you have provided it, in exquisite detail, yourself. You are not a bounty hunter, to the best of my knowledge, nor have you listed any bounties here aside from your own former bounty of 40 million beri.”
The old man adjusted the red beads around his neck as the boyish Quincy and the silent Rhea both turned their heads to stare at him in what could have only been utter disbelief and confusion. He was dressed in the simple style of a wandering monk, with an undyed shirt, pants, and a rope belt tied loosely around his waist. He wore no shoes and sat with one leg crossed under the other in his seat; a plain quarterstaff leaned against his edge of the table.
Bianca sighed as she let the three pieces of paper fall to the table, taking a moment to watch them settle into place before she began speaking once again. “I take it that the three of you are here, then, to accept the position that was offered, and that you understand what is being asked of you?”
Rhea was the first to respond - a quiet voice, in the way that voices that are seldom used are quiet. “We are to join you as you hunt the man known as ‘Food Court’.”
“And then we join your fledgling organization. The ‘Tea Company’, eh?” Harsha gave a low, wheezing laugh. “Put a lot of thought into that name, didn’t ya, girly?”
“I-I think you may have mixed up the order of events, actually, ‘King’.” Quincy chimed in, leaning forward to look past Rhea at the old “monk”. “I b-believe we would be joining her group f-first, and then, uh, going after this F-Food Court guy.”
“Precisely.” Bianca smiled. “The three of you would be joining me as founding members of the Tea Company. None of us alone would live to tell the tale if we were to assault the Revolutionaries on our own - and so we will work together. A cut of the bounties will, of course, be paid as compensation for this job. In the future, we will be able to talk about more concrete salaries-”
The monk spat on the floor. “Bah! Save your talk of petty change. There’ll be plenty of time after this job is done to sort all that out.”
As the two men, one young and one old, fell to bickering about logistics, and the woman between them closed her eyes and crossed her arms, Bianca smiled softly. It was not quite the dignified start that she had imagined for her Tea Company, but it would do.
“Rear Admiral Leena!” A young man in the garb of a Seaman Recruit stood in the doorway, eyes wide, out of breath, and drenched in sweat from sprinting all the way here. The room of officers turned their heads, surprised by the sudden intrusion, but none said a word.
“Speak,” the silver-haired woman at the head spoke calmly, closing her eyes and adjusting her navy blue tie. She wore a plain grey suit under her officer’s jacket; each piece of her outfit had clearly been cleaned and pressed that morning, and not a crease was out of place. Her face was stern, with the lines of age just beginning to mark her face; though she was clearly older, Rear Admiral Leena’s every feature commanded the respect of even her peers.
“Three large vessels, flying the flag of the Revolutionary officer Food Court, have been spotted by the dawn patrol, heading our way from the east,” the man explained between breaths. He doubled over, planting his hands on his knees. “The ship that spotted them was under Captain Bentan… Our reports say he attempted to stop the Revolutionary forces himself. Another vessel in the area said that they heard an explosion, and then reported the same three vessels that Bentan’s crew reported before they attacked.”
The other officers in the room, whose eyes had been fixed on the Seaman Recruit, turned now to face the older woman. Leena sighed, standing from her seat. “You have our thanks, young man. Go, take a moment to compose yourself and then report to your station. It sounds as if-”
“Rear Admiral Leena, ma’am, a repo-” A second Seaman Recruit flew into the room, barreling into the first - sending both men to the ground. The second one, still untangling himself from his comrade, flew straight back into his report. “A civilian vessel has been spotted heading toward the last known location of the three ships that sunk Captain Bentan!”
The old woman’s eyes now opened wide. “I. What?”
“This is a-”
“Really bad idea, yes, as you have said thirty-four times since we disembarked.” Bianca smiled, reclining in a shaped bamboo chair that she had grown on the deck of the Porcelain Lady. From here, she could already see the outlines of a massive vessel flanked by two smaller ships, taking shape in the early morning fog. “You know, I should wake up this early more often. A cup of tea as one watches the sun rise… It truly is an indescribable experience.”
Thomas hadn’t shut his eyes since the shapes in front of them had come into view, and his white-knuckled grip on the ship’s wheel wasn’t letting up anytime soon. “Y’know, looking into the jaws of the wolf, most people would turn away, Bi.”
A quiet shuuu~sususu was his only reply.
The trio that Bianca had hired sat around the table behind Bianca, hands on their respective weapons. As they had set out, Quincy and Harsha had been bickering, but now, as Thomas quieted, the only thing that broke the silence was the sound of the Porcelain Lady’s own paddle wheel, dutifully delivering its passengers into what was certain danger with speed.“Agent Sorbet, that’s enough.”
The young woman with the multicolored hair pulled back into two short pigtails off the top of her head stopped her bat mid-swing, and then let it fall back to rest on her shoulder as she spun around on the heels of her rollerblades. She wore a pair of denim short-shorts, mismatched thigh high socks, and a rainbow-emblazoned graphic tee shirt, the latter of which was now marked with a few blood splatters. The body of a large man wearing a Marine officer’s jacket fell to the deck, battered and bloody.“That man is our honored guest!”
The shirtless Agent Bratwurst (a shirtless, muscular older man with a neat gray beard, trimmed to an impressive triangle, a massive two-handed sword impossibly hooked into place at his side) and an androgynous figure of average human height with medium-length brown hair, wearing the lab coat of a scientist and odd-looking goggles on her head, stood behind the absolutely massive figure, whose forward leaning posture cast his features in a dark shadow. As large as Bratwurst was, he looked positively small standing next to Food Court.
“Captain Bentan, you have my most sincere apologies. Are you terribly hurt?” Food Court’s face split into a too-wide grin. “Now, I know what you’re thinking. Right now, you’re thinking about how this physical pain is nothing compared to the lives you just threw away with that gambit of your’s. But this is no time to fall into a pit of self-loathing! You, my friend, have front row seats to the main attraction.”
As the lumbering Revolutionary lifted the Marine into the air with one hand, Bentan groaned, blood trickling from his mouth down into his neatly trimmed black beard. “You see, we’re going to blow that island to bits today, and I want you to be here to watch us do it. You can run back to whatever filthy Marine base you want afterward - I don’t care, but you’ll tell them all of the unstoppable power of the Revolutionary Army-”“Food Court, sir! Another ship is heading our way!”
Food Court sighed, tossing the Marine Captain to the floor, where he crumpled, unconscious. “More Marines? Have one of the other ships sink them, we don’t have time-”
The brunette scientist was now at the front of the ship, leaning over the side as she adjusted the lenses of the goggles she had pulled down over her eyes. “Actually, this looks to be more of a civilian ship, sir. No Marine logos to be seen, and it’s quite the wrong size and shape to be even a small transport vessel. Seems to me that there’s four… No, no, five people on deck, one of them steering.”
Bratwurst and Sorbet exchanged glances, and then looked to the man in charge. Food Court raised one thin eyebrow and gave his chin a stroke for good measure. “Our guest’s lackeys must have sent word back to the island before we sunk them, eh? Well, what are you all waiting for? Prepare to have those civilians board! The Revolutionary Army isn’t about to turn away a willing man!”
It took another five minutes before the civilian ship had drawn up alongside the much larger warship. Food Court, with the scientist Agent Sarsaparilla standing behind him, stood on the deck, a team of underlings beside him with a large ladder ready to be sent down to the other ship on their boss’s orders. “Welcome, welcome,” he bellowed, “I am the current leader of the Revolutionary Army forces here in the North Blue - surely, you must have heard of me already, the famous commander Food Court! We assure you, we will not harm you!” The figures on the boat below seemed to mill about, falling into place behind the one with the tied-back white hair. The corpulent commander raised a hand and motioned for the ladder to be sent down - but before any of his men could even make a move, a positively massive green column shot up from the ship below.
A massive, strange bamboo-like plant had seemingly just sprouted into existence, with odd shelf-like platforms at the top and jutting out from the sides - and, standing quite calmly at the top, was that white-haired woman. The revolutionary foot soldiers with the ladder dropped it, taking a few steps back and staring up in shock as Food Court and his agents stood, silently taking this development in. “My apologies, but I simply could not stand your shouting a moment longer,” she smiled, adjusting the sleeves of her plain black suit coat. “This is a meeting that has been a long time coming, is it not?”
Thomas and the three hunters stood, mouths agape - or, in Rhea’s case, eyes wide - in shock and horror, still standing on the deck of the Porcelain Lady. Bianca had suddenly shot up into the air, standing on the top of one of her Shelf Bamboos.
“I-is she always like this?!” Quincy stammered, a hand stopped mid-reach for an arrow from the quiver on his back.
The lanky man walked forward toward the bamboo, gripping the hilt of his sword as he strode forward. And as he got closer, he started leaning until he was standing with his face against the plant, his groan muffled partially by the green behemoth.
“You dumbass!” Sorbet’s bat came swinging through the air at Sarsaparilla’s head, stopping it just short of actually bringing it into the scientist’s skull. “I gave you my drawing of her, didn’t I?! How couldn’t you recognize her?”
Sarsaparilla laughed, pushing the bat to the side. “You were just lucky your drawing was identifiable as a human, darling.”
Sorbet turned to face her commander. “Boss, this is the girl who-”
“Took down Mochi, Spare Rib, and Brownie.” Food Court said softly, looking down with his eyes closed. “Mm. Mmmmmehehehe… Mahahahahaha!” His eyes shot open as he laughed loudly. “Imagine my luck, that such a juicy treat would be delivered to my doorstep! And here I was thinking you’d be a thorn in my side for so much longer.” The massive man turned his back to Bianca, motioning for his underlings and Sarsaparilla to follow him. “Well, no matter. Sorbet, Bratwurst, crush her and bring her to me when you’re done!”
He looked up now, staring Bianca in the eye. A positively gigantic man in every sense of the word, Food Court looked almost more like a small hut than a man. His girth could probably hold a small family, if only he were hollow - but his mouth certainly seemed wide enough for them to enter that way. He had beady black eyes under thin eyebrows, with a similarly small nose to go along with them, as if he had once possessed a smaller face and now his body was threatening to devour his facial features. Food Court was a clean-shaven man, and some may have even called him baby-faced - though certainly not to his face. He wore an obviously tailored green button-up shirt, with a far too small black suit coat hanging from his shoulders and black trousers to match.
As Food Court took a step to leave, Sorbet and Bratwurst fell into position and pointed their weapons at the bounty huntress, the eccentric rollerblader with her bat and the burly older man with his large two-handed blade. “I don’t know why I’m surprised, girl. The minute you came up with just yourself and that boy with the stick, I knew you were a reckless idiot…” Bratwurst said with a sigh, and then grinned. “But idiots like you are what makes it worth-”
“Spare me the chatter.” Bianca raised a hand, pointing toward Food Court’s back. “I am not here to play with you. Now stand aside, or be moved aside.” The two agents barring her way stepped up, brandishing their weapons of choice - only to be slammed by two large vines growing from the white-haired woman’s hands, pushed to the deck. Bianca smiled, stepping off of her platform into the air, keeping herself aloft with the vines keeping the struggling revolutionary agents down. As she alighted upon the deck herself, the vines detaching from her arms, Bianca immediately began walking toward Food Court, whose back, even now, was to her. “Food Court of the Revolutionary Army. If you know what is good for you, surrender now and come quietly.”
At the sound of a gun being cocked, Bianca’s eyes shifted - the brunette scientist with the odd goggles on her head had a strange double-pronged firearm trained on the bounty hunter, a grim expression on her face. Bianca made a point to keep her face expressionless as her eyes slid back over to the back of Food Court, though she did cease her forward momentum.
“... Sarsaparilla, put that gun down.” Food Court spoke after an agonizing moment of silence, still facing away from the invader of his vessel. “One girl, huh? One girl who thinks that she’s invincible - that if she just eats a special fruit and gets really strong, that nothing in the world can challenge her.” He turned his head slightly, glaring at the scientist whose strange gun was still pointing at Bianca. “I said to put the gun down. Look, girl, I think it’s time you learned a thing or two about this world.” His head turned further, fixing her with a deadly stare with his black eyes. “You only want to fight me, is it? Fine. I’ll pound you into dust!”
Thomas gulped, watching as the three Bianca had hired made their way up the massive bamboo staircase. He reached up for the first of the “stairs”, gripping the top tightly, arms shaking… And then dropped his hand and then, back to the plant, slid down and held his head in his hands. “There’s… No way. I’ll just, I’ll just stay on the ship, I’ll take it back into the harbor, maybe this will all-”“You know, I don’t know what it is that she sees in you.”
Thomas raised his head, looking over at the form of the grey-haired doctor that had joined them in Lyneel - Dr. Yvonne Leblanc. Which was strange enough, since he had thought she had stayed behind; she must have snuck on board sometime before they disembarked. She was standing at the table Bianca had set up on the deck, holding the back of a chair in her hands and leaning over slightly, watching him. He slid a hand into the pocket of the vest Bianca had had tailored for him, pulling out his pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Yeah? Well that makes two of us, then,” he muttered, fumbling to get his a light in the damp morning air.
“But she sees something, doesn’t she?” Yvonne raised a hand, gesturing up at the behemoth of a ship above, at the massive plant growing from their own deck. “Thomas, I wouldn’t be that surprised if you turn tail right now and run for safety. In fact, I don’t think she would be, either.” She looked back down at the cowering man, who had since hung his head in shame and tossed his lighter to the grassy deck, and sighed. “But… Maybe you could live up to whatever potential she sees in you instead, and go up onto that ship, even if it’s a goddamn awful idea. Maybe there’s something up there that only you can do.”
Thomas raised his head, and suddenly he wasn’t in the shadow of a massive ship - he was in the shadow a young, white-haired woman, facing down men twice her size.
“How long can you continue like this, Thomas?”
He blinked and was back in the present, staring up at the behemoth of a plant above him, clutching his sheathed blade to his chest. Yvonne was in front of him now, squatting down in front of him with a look of concern. “Thomas, you don’t have to go. I’m going to take the ship out of here now, while I still can. I’m not going to be of any help to Bianca here or dead, and neither will this ship.”
Thomas took a long, deep breath, placing his blade down on the ground as he pushed himself up to his knees, scrounging around in the grass for his lighter. “No. You’re right. I’m going to go up there and help her however I can.” He stood up, finally getting his lighter to produce a flame and lighting his cigarette. “Give me a minute to get up there and then get out of here. I… I’ll see you later. You better be prepared to fix us up after this, alright, doc?”
Bianca had barely a moment to react as Food Court flung himself at her, his massive body seemingly being forced to follow the momentum set by his fist - and he kept going as he missed Bianca, planting his fist into and creating a crater in the wood of the deck. With effort, the Revolutionary commander lifted himself back up, eyes tracking the bounty huntress as she landed on her feet a few feet away. “Can’t even face a solid punch, can-”“Rize Ranseur.”
The name of the newly-minted technique cut Food Court off as a bright green vine stretched out from Bianca’s arm, growing to a massive size in what seemed like an instant - and then it curled slightly, forming a tip at its end, and launched itself at him. Food Court raised his arm to block the blow, taking a step toward the Devil Fruit user. But rather than just slamming into his arm, the tip of the curled vine pierced his skin, drawing blood and a grunt of surprise and pain from the man, who swung his arm away from the vine as it first entered instinctually, preventing the worst of the damage and sending the vine aside. The twirling structure of the vine retracted, returning to Bianca, where it curled up her arm, forming a strange, leafy gauntlet.
The Revolutionaries on the deck looked on in shock, none daring to utter even a word or draw a weapon. Bratwurst took a step forward, pulling his great zweihander up from the deck, but Sorbet’s extended bat stopped him from following through. The shirtless older man nodded in understanding, planting his weapon tip-down on the deck once more.
“I…” Food Court looked down at the puncture wound in his arm, and then clutched at it with his other massive hand. “I underestimated that ability of yours. That won’t happen again, girl. 200 Pound Cake!”
And this time, Bianca didn’t have the chance to move - the man moved faster than his mass would suggest was possible, fist landing square in her face with force enough to send her rocketing backward across the deck, slamming into and through the guardrail on the other side just as Rhea, Harsha, Quincy, and Thomas had made their way far enough up the Shelf Bamboo to watch these events unfold.
“Idiot ability users. Think they’re hot stuff just because they ate some fruit… Go take a swim and then show me how strong you are!” Food Court laughed at his own joke as he pulled himself upright again, just in time to watch as Bianca plummeted out of view. He turned away, motioning toward a few of his lackeys. “Get us back on schedule. I want to be in position before the Marines have time to get in formation.”
At their salute and departure, Food Court gripped his injured arm and looked over at his cheering crew, then back at his three agents. “Sorbet, go climb down that beanstalk, or whatever it is, and search her ship. When you’re done, I want you to… Want you… To… Is her ship moving?”
The three agents turned around to follow their commander’s gaze - and sure enough, the giant bamboo seemed to be moving further back at a startling pace. “Seems that way, sir.”
Thomas finished pushing the trio of weirdos Bianca had brought along back along the massive ship, putting the cabins between them and Food Court’s field of view. He raised a single finger to his mouth and looked behind him, breathing a sigh of relief when it seemed that they hadn’t been followed, and then whispered to the three, “Keep it down, ‘kay?”
Quincy was the first to speak. “W-Why did you move us b-back here? I c-can’t get a clear shot if I can’t see them.”
Rhea nodded as her answer - her weapons had already been drawn, her cleaver-like blade in her right hand and her loaded blunderbuss in the left - and Harsha only laughed. Thomas just gave the three a dumbfounded look, stammering as he attempted to process what he was hearing. “Be… Because if we ran out there, we’d be annihilated? Look, that guy just one-shot Bianca into the ocean, and I’m pretty sure she’s tougher than any of us-,” he stopped short as he felt Harsha glaring daggers at him, “w-which isn’t to say you guys aren’t strong! It’s just, she was our best bet at not dying outright here. We need to find some way to drag her out of the ocean and back up here, right? Until then, we need to stay out of-”“Hey, what are you four doing back there?”
Thomas froze mid-sentence, as if whatever unknown threat behind him would be dissuaded if he just did his best pillar impression. The three hunters leaned to the sides to look around him, as he turned his head slowly, a look of absolute terror stealing over him. There stood the brunette scientist, the one Food Court had been addressing as Agent Sarsaparilla, staring at them all with a curious expression. She slowly started walking toward them, a hand reaching into the lab coat she had over her clothes. “You four… You just came up from that boat, didn’t you?”
Before any of them could respond, the lumbering form of Food Court was there, standing behind Sarsaparilla. “Oh? What do we have here? More guests from that girl’s crew? Sadly, we only need the one-”
“No, sir. Those people were total cowards and definitely just abandoned her the first opportunity they got.” Sarsaparilla’s voice cut through what her commander was about to say, and her raised hand had put a stop to the raising of Rhea’s gun. “You remember that increased budget I asked for last month, to get some better help? Well, here they are! I thought hiring some people with some actual combat training would be helpful, especially given the, ahem, sensitive nature of my work.”
Food Court considered this for a moment, eyeing over the four people standing in front of him. “I… See. Well, they’re certainly an eccentric bunch, aren’t they?” He fixed his eyes on Thomas, causing the wannabe bounty hunter to perform a wonderful impression of a marble column. “You there. Don’t you know the first rule of this ship? Honestly, Sarsaparilla, you’re paying this kid good money, and he won’t even respect the most ironclad of my rules?”
Sarsaparilla stepped forward, staring at Thomas - it seemed to him like she was trying to convey some message with her wide eyes, but it was beyond him to figure out what it could be. “My apologies, sir. I thought I had made it clear that this activity was not tolerated on your ship, but it appears the lesson didn’t stick.” She reached out, plucking the still-burning cigarette from Thomas’s mouth and flicking it off the deck. “No smoking, remember?”
The behemoth of a man nodded his approval. “Very well. Head back down to your lab and finish making your preparations, will you? And stop by the kitchens when you do. I haven’t eaten since sunrise, and I could use my dawn breakfast after that mess. Oh! And let them know that I will want a full war buffet laid out for when we unveil that weapon of your’s.” He turned away, still talking despite facing away from all of them. “The absolute terror of the Marines… I’d bet the world that it’ll be an excellent addition to my meal.”
As he walked away, barking an order to Sorbet to ignore the retreating ship for now, Thomas finally fell to his knees, clutching at his head as he hit the deck. Sarsaparilla ignored him and his mumblings of various swear words, facing the other three. “Sorry about that. He can be pretty intense.” She stared at Rhea’s weapons for a moment. “... Wow, you’re just ready to go, aren’t you? Look, if you guys help me, I promise I can help you, but you’re going to have to at least put your weapons away for right now.”
Bianca forced her eyes open in time to see the water flying up to get her. Oh. No. It is not rising - I am falling. She fumbled for a moment, searching for something on her body. If I fall in the water, that will be the end. And I cannot end here…
Her body hit the water as she found the seed. She could already start to feel her energy being sapped away - but her ability worked quick, and the water lily bloomed into existence in a moment. With the last bit of her energy, Bianca clutched at the wall-like structure that surrounded the giant plant-raft, straining to pull herself up and in.
It took a moment that felt like an eternity, but she finally managed the feat - thankfully, only a small portion of her body had been submerged. The exertion had left her breathless, panting at the bottom of the massive plant - a Raft Lily, something she had developed specifically for this purpose. Bianca laughed softly, berating herself; if she had been even a second later to react, she would’ve sunk. And that would’ve been the end of all of this…
She looked up, staring at the massive ship from which she had just been launched. There was a familiar sound in the air now, but in her current state, she couldn’t quite place it, and she certainly couldn’t figure out why the broken guard rail was getting further away. Perhaps the water had been rising up to swallow her up, that horrible user of an accursed devil’s own ability, or…
“Oh. That ship is moving,” Bianca stated to no one, merely content to watch for the time being. But her energy was returning fast, and as it did, the unplaceable noise suddenly became obvious - it was so much like the sound of her own vessel’s paddle wheel, though much louder and much slower. As that realization hit, the white-haired woman got to her feet, standing and searching her person for more seeds. It took her a moment, but the vines grew from her arms once again, reaching out for something solid that they could grasp.
Already, the waves created from the once again moving ship were beginning to buffet her little raft, and it was all she could do to keep herself upright. It made controlling her vines more difficult, but they found their purchase. The Blooming Crawler vines sunk their thorns into the hull of the vessel and began to curl in on themselves, pulling Bianca closer to the ship.
“You better start talking, missy.” Harsha kept calling out as the scientist led them through the ship’s halls, going ever further downward. But Sarsaparilla never answered the old monk, and they continued on further and further.
Thomas had his hand on the blade fastened to his side, as if he would actually use it if he found himself in a situation where he had to. The whole situation was so anxiety-inducing - he could only imagine that this scientist was just going to lead them to some dungeon or some such, that they were being led to their dooms despite the fact that she had seemingly saved them from that behemoth of a man earlier.
The frankly bizarre group came to a stop in front of a large set of double doors, at which Sarsaparilla held up a hand and then disappeared within - and in the brief moment the door was open, Thomas and the bounty hunter trio were practically battered to the floor by an oppressive warmth and the delicious smells of a thousand unplaceable dishes being prepared. But as soon as their guide was gone, she returned, the smells and warmth vanished behind their door once again, and they continued on, deeper into the ship.
And finally, they were shepherded through a door and brought into a giant room, sterile in feel with its white tiles and paint. A giant desk stood in the back of the room, littered with blueprints; a massive object, covered by an off-white sheet, occupied the center of the room. As they all entered the room, Sarsaparilla slammed the door shut, hands flying over the door as she set thirteen different latches to the locked position.
“There we go.” She sighed, resting her head against the door. “I’m… Look, thank you for your patience. I said I’d help you, right? That’s because we have the same goal.” She turned her head slightly, looking over at the four who had their hands on their respective weapons. “You guys want to save the people of Jreum, right?”
Rhea spoke before the others had a chance, with her sparsely-used, quiet voice. “We came for Food Court’s head.”
Sarsaparilla’s eyes asked a hundred questions her mouth didn’t before she stood up straight and sighed. “Same thing, really. Let me explain myself - you see, I’m all for fighting the Marines and going against the World Government… But the way Food Court is going to use my research, he’s going to destroy that entire island and probably kill everyone on it.”
“And what, exactly, is your ‘research’?” Thomas asked, while trying to slowly, quietly draw his sword from its sheath. He got it out about an inch before it made a loud sound and he panicked, slamming it back into the sheath and getting an odd look from Quincy for his troubles.
“I’m glad you asked!” She reached into her lab coat again, pulling out…
“... A tuning fork?”
She spun the tuning fork in her hands, grinning, while the four people in front of her just stared at her like she was a crazy person. “Yeah. See, I’m actually originally a musician by trade, but I joined up with the Revolutionary Army to help people. But then I got stuck with that fat bastard and, well, he got interested in my research. I know music, right? The science of sound and pitches and whatnot was always really interesting to me, and, well, I’m really good at figuring out pitches and whatnot, but I’m not a great fighter, so…” She rushed over to her desk and produced a brick. “See this?”
The three bounty hunters and the one wannabe bounty hunter watched as she ran across the room, pulling out a bizarre-looking gun - it looked like a child’s plastic water gun, only she jammed her tuning fork into the slot in the front, twisting it until it gave her a satisfying click! She lifted it, looking down the little sight on the front, aiming at the brick - and then she fired, and an instant later, the tuning fork was embedded in the brick.
The quartet stood in dumbfounded silence for a moment. “I-Is… Is that it?” Quincy questioned, and then Sarsaparilla smacked the back of the gun with her hand. A sound filled the room as the vibration traveled down the taut metal wire connecting the gun to the tuning fork, a sound that continued to build in volume until it reached a shrill nearly-shriek - and then the brick exploded. A chunk of it flew out and smacked Thomas in the head, knocking him onto his back.
“Oh shi- Sorry about that! I usually give my assistants face shields in case something like that happens…” Sarsaparilla dropped her tuning fork gun and rushed to check Thomas’s head. “Since I’m not much of a fighter, and I don’t want to actually kill any civilians or anything, I figured out how to destroy solid matter, like this! In theory, on a certain scale, we could use this to destroy entire Marine bases, or at least their walls. But Food Court dreamed a little bigger than that, you see.” As she helped Thomas back to his feet, she gestured over to the massive thing under the off-white sheet that dominated the room.“He dreamed of destroying entire islands.”
Rear Admiral Leena stood still on the roof of the Marine base, leaning on her cane as she waited for one of the recruits to bring her her stool. Three other officers stood at a table nearby, waiting to issue her orders across the island through the various Den Den Mushi that awaited them.
“How are the evacuations coming?” She kept her eyes fixed on the shapes of the ships moving toward the island all the while, never taking them off.
The squattest of the officers spoke up in his shrill voice. “Slowly, ma’am! The Residential block is earlier to rise, and there, evacuations are progressing somewhat smoothly, but the Resort block has been slow to move. We should have enough vessels to get everybody to safety as soon as they can board.”
“Good.” Leena remained silent for another few minutes, keeping her unblinking gaze fixed on the sea. “Give the order to begin entering buildings - I will take full responsibility for this. I don’t care how much fire we come under; I will not have any civilians killed just because this happened in the early morning.”
The squat officer nodded and set to relaying this message through his Den Den Mushi, repeating the same message multiple times to squads situated throughout the island.
“Ma’am, your stool.” The recruit stood at attention for a second before rushing forward, handing the stool over to the Rear Admiral.
She broke her concentration on the ever-nearing ships for a moment, blinking and rubbing her eyes. “You have my thanks.” She took the stool with a forced smile, placing it in the spot she had been standing and took her seat, her cane resting on her lap. “Those ships are moving far too fast to be going with the wind. They must have some other form of propulsion… How close are we to launching our ships?”
The tallest of the officers by the Den Den Mushi, a woman with short-cropped hair, relayed the question. After a minute of communication, she ended the call and responded. “At the earliest, we can have a ship out in twenty minutes, ma’am. But it’ll take longer than that before we can have more than one.”
“And what of the other ships that were on patrol?”
“Rallying into three-ship formations on the northern and southern tips of the islands, as per your orders.”
Leena nodded slowly and then trained her eyes on the approaching ships once more. “Good. Coordinate them with the launching of the other ships; we’ll surround them and sink them before they have the opportunity to attack.”
It had taken quite a bit longer than she would’ve liked, but Bianca had finally managed to pull her raft up to the Revolutionary warship - now there was only the question of scaling it. A feat that would’ve been difficult for a regular human, to be sure, but for her it was merely a matter of time now.
Yet there was something changing that stopped her from beginning her ascent. The bounty huntress cocked her head to the side, taking a moment to listen as the waves caused her to rise and fall. It took a moment, but the realization came - the smaller ship behind her was beginning to move further away, and there was the distinct sounds of some machinery whirring to life. But from her current angle, it was impossible to say what could be producing such a noise, other than that it was coming from the ship that was moving away from her.
With that piece of curiosity sated, Bianca turned again to the massive warship. The vines she had used to tow herself here now unfurled, coiling around themselves to form a sort of platform, thick enough to easily support her weight. With a more seeds added to her arms, eight new vines sprouted, four on each side, latching themselves to the ship’s hull with nasty-looking thorns. The Garden Human stepped up and off of her lily pad raft, testing the strength of her strange plant “machine” - and with a nod, she stepped up and took a seat. As she did, the eight vines kicked into motion, moving her green platform like a strange plant octopus in a strange, slow sliding motion.
The sun had fully risen by the time that Food Court stepped out of his private quarters, dressed now in his absolute best - a nearly man-sized black tie over his white button-up shirt, black pants and dress shoes. Yet still, across his shoulders he had draped a far-too-small dress coat, as if a poor emulation of the Justice coats the Marine officers wore.
The titanic man lumbered forth toward the table that had been laid out on his ship’s upper deck - a feast already all laid out and awaiting his arrival. The incredibly long table was clearly having a hard time supporting the weight of all of the food; it was beginning to sag a little toward the middle. Around the sides of the table, sitting so they could look out toward the front of the ship, sat four people - his three remaining agents and the Marine Captain, Bentan.
Sorbet and Bratwurst had their respective weapons leaning against the backs of their chairs, and looked as if they had at least put some effort into their looks. They still wore the same clothes that they had earlier that morning - although Sorbet had changed her shirt out for a less bloodstained version of the same one. Bratwurst had clearly freshly greased his hair back and trimmed his beard into a more perfect triangle; now it was only his lack of shirt and bulging muscles that made him stand out at this nicely-set table.
The Marine had been cleaned up and given a clean uniform, though a fresh trickle of blood from his nose would indicate that he had put up a fight before they could secure him into his chair. Food Court frowned as he pulled his seat out. “I give you the seat at my right hand, and you repay me by needing to be cuffed?” He laughed loudly as he took his seat in the middle of the table, glancing down at the utterly defeated man. “Ha! It won’t matter soon enough.”
As he got comfortable in his oversized seat, the Revolutionary Army officer glanced to his left - at Agent Sarsaparilla, who had already gotten her plate of salad and was gently pushing it around with her fork. Food Court raised an eyebrow and leaned over toward her slightly, faking a whisper. “Come now, why so glum? You’re the one who has made all of this possible! Chin up, darling.” He laughed to himself, elbowing the brunette scientist a few times in an ultimately futile attempt to lift her spirits. “... Mm. Well, that’s fine.”
The people gathered around at the edges of the table stepped up now - the head chef first and foremost. As the overworked cook explained the meal to the commander, Food Court’s eyes glazed over and drool began to drip from his ever-widening mouth. Sorbet and Bratwurst shifted uncomfortably all the while, hands resting on their respective weapons, which leaned against the table.
It was fifteen minutes before the head chef finally took a deep breath and an even deeper bow - and as he did, the ship began to noticeably slow. Food Court wiped away the last bits of drool and tore his eyes from the meal in front of him to stare out at the island. He looked down at Sarsaparilla once again, and then raised his hand - another man practically pushed the exhausted head chef to the side as he scrambled to Food Court’s side.
“Sir, we are now in position to fire the weapon!”
The commander gave a nod of understanding. “Excellent. Then bring the weapon up to the deck, and begin final preparations!”
The overly eager subordinate grinned and practically ran off the upper deck, sprinting to give the order. Another few seconds passed, and then the deep mechanical rumbling began as part of the ship’s lower deck split apart, revealing a deep metal chute into the ship’s depths. Members of the ship’s crew began to cheer as the platform supporting the weapon began to rise - a colossal cannon with four figures standing on top of it, with a back like a drum, ready to be beat upon by four mechanical arms wielding metal hammers. As his forces cheered, the table was silent - or, at least, it would have been, if it weren’t for Food Court tearing into the flesh of some giant roast bird.
It was in all of this commotion that the vines appeared, slamming into the guardrail and wrapping around it, moving unnaturally to raise whatever it was that they were carrying. It took a minute before the closest revolutionaries noticed the rising platform - and by then, it was too late, as the vines slammed them into the deck and unconsciousness. It was only their allies closest to them that began to spread the panic before they, too, were knocked aside.
Bianca stepped onto the deck once again, the platform she had weaved pulling itself apart to add additional tentacle-like vines to her sweeping and slamming blows. She blew a strand of loose hair aside and began taking in the situation - grunt forces swarmed the deck, fleeing from what they took to be some sort of horrible plant-controlling sea witch, while some sort of mechanical contraption was rising up from belowdecks.
And above… Bianca’s eyes narrowed as she turned herself to better face the upper deck, at the table laid out and the ones sitting at it. That girl with the eccentric hair colors and the shirtless man had already reacted to her presence, standing and staring down at her in disbelief. The white-haired woman’s eyes found the stairs, and her feet followed, carrying her toward them. A group of men who had found their guts stood there, waiting to stop her with guns drawn - but the cold stare of the bounty huntress stopped them from pulling the trigger, and by the time their resolve was found again, it was too late. Vines had swept them off their feet, sending them plunging to the sea below.
Bratwurst stood at the top, drawing his two-handed great sword - but his downward swing was stopped by her plants, which took his momentum and suplexed him, sent him sprawling on the lower deck. The thick mass of plantlife hanging from her arms formed a maddeningly twisting wall behind her as she continued to ascend the stairs, barring the path of anyone who would attempt to follow her.
A voice called out to her, but it was lost to Bianca in her current state.
“BIANCA?!” Thomas cried out in utter confusion from his spot on the tuning cannon, prompting the three bounty hunters to start in their spots as well. “I… She’s… Well, that’s certainly a relief, to be sure, but… What..?!”
By the time Bianca had made it to the table, Sorbet was gone as well - leaving just the unknown brunette who had pulled a gun on her earlier, the Marine, and the man of the hour himself, who was now gorging himself on a sandwich that was wider than his own fat face. With a minute movement of her fingers, the vines surged forward, gripping the back of Food Court’s chair - and then pulled back, pulling him backwards in his chair suddenly so that he was forced to look up at her. His beady eyes were opened wide as he noticed the intruder on his ship for the first time, mouth full of spaghetti noodles that were still hanging out from between his lips.“I don’t believe I was finished with you.”
