Description: Mutiny beneath the waves! Sex and drugs! Violence! Eyepatches! Pat Benatar! Mermaids! Dead mermaids! Most of these in just a single pose! ARRRRRRR! PEEEEEEEEEE!
=A WEEK PRIOR=
A letter arrives in the mail at the Kusanagi homestead, bearing Saishu's name in flowing script, and is promptly opened by the divine angel Shizuka because her husband is wise and benevolent and highly-organized and bears absolutely no similarity to their useless layabout son in this regard. Or any other. Anyway!
Vowing to burn the letter that it might never be seen or discussed, the Kusanagi matriarch slips stealthily into the open living area of their highly-traditional home, only to run headlong into said husband. Saishu is shirtless and balancing on one leg, a small orange kitten perched precariously on one pulsating pectoral as he delivers a lecture to young Shingo Yabuki. He's grinning ear-to-ear as he does so.
This is clearly important, and not to be disturbed. UNLESS you are Shizuka Kusanagi.
"HA HA! What's that you've got there, my love?"
For her, Saishu has all the time in the world. His gimlet eyes light up, and the kitten flops onto the ground with a pathetic 'mew' as he crosses the room and - with an action about which there has assuredly already been Words - plucks the letter from her startled grasp. Shizuka narrows her eyes, and takes note, but says nothing for now.
A few moments later, the Kusanagi Flame burns bright within the breast of its greatest master, and Saishu Kusanagi straightens up with his fist clenched mightily over the hallowed parchment. Looking to the skies (which aren't visible because they're indoors) he calls majestically the words that start perhaps his greatest adventure yet:
"SHINGO-KUN! We have a very special booty to plunder! To the MAN-MOBILE!!"
Sighing testily, Shizuka throws Saishu the keys to his red Honda Life.
=THIS VERY DAY, OFF THE COAST OF BASS ISLAND=
"And that, ME HEARTIES, is why we should be OUT THERE, takin' over this island resort for our own nefarious purposes! Arrrrrr! HA HA! Do an 'arr', Shingo-kun!"
Honestly, stirring the crew of Bonne Jenet's fantabulous underwater contraption to anything even *approaching* a mutiny has been a long and incredibly backstoried process for which we have no time. It all began with the manufacturing of a very special coal, making full use of the Kusanagi Flame and/or a Zippo lighter and a can of Shingo's deodorant. With the vessel sputtering to a useless halt off the coast thanks to this act of smuggling and sabotage, the next step was to have been here at least several days before to make similar adjustments to the food and drink supplies onboard.
In short, possibly using a low-budget time machine or just because he's that incredible a martial artist - and rest assured, someday Shingo will learn to use this inimitable technique - Saishu has ensured the Lillien Knights have ingested a heady supply of questionable hallucinogens and highly illegal amphetamines. This toxic combination of altered reality, paranoia and extreme energy levels has whipped them to a frenzy.
A frenzy that can only be calmed with the promise of POWER and BOOTY.
With an opulent Island King lording his way off the adjacent coast, it's been left down to Shingo's incredible speech-making prowess and Saishu's radiant charisma to seal the deal. Right now, they're both stood on a table in the middle of the mess, surrounded by drugged-out Lillien Knights and the remnants of their meal; found in an over-turned cooler that looks suspiciously like the one 'liberated' from the SS Excellent.
(Yes, Saishu's even provided a scapegoat. Gosh, it's almost like he isn't an upstanding member of the community who should be loved and respected by all. How strange!)
Oh, and they're both wearing eyepatches. Saishu is wearing two, just to be sure.
ONE MAGICAL WEEK AGO!
Shingo didn't understand what was going on.
TEN MINUTES AGO!
The young teen still pretty much has zero clue how they got here or what they're supposed to be doing.
PRESENTLY!
He starts, his attention stolen away from a little black book by the booming voice of his mentor's father, who is now his mentor. I guess you could say that Shingo skipped somewhere in the chain of command and spoke to the only person willing to teach him how to SHOOT FLAME, but he still respects Kyo very much. That's how it worked out. Ordered to give a hearty 'arr', he adjusts his eyepatch - it's pink and was the only one left - and inhales deeply. His bulky form teeters, because Yabuki is dressed in so many pirate clothes that he might as well be three men all packed together under one admiral's coat. "A- arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Yah-harrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" he bellows loud enough that it startles parrots, fish, and drugged-out Lillien Knights, those poor bastards.
Then he kind of shuts up and looks sheepish.
They're staging a mutiny, which Shingo only so recently learned the definition of. Because Saishu covers the basics in the department of backstory and I think I might've said something that implies he tagged along but I don't care enough to edit my pose, the only pupil of the man's layabout son has done his level-best to aid and not hinder in the endeavor. Endeavour? Hors d'oeuvre? Someone told me once that hors d'oeuvre is supposed to have a hyphen in it, but I'm not so sure. Even Wikipedia isn't much help -- I mean, I checked and it's using both versions. Christ, I am hungry. I think I last ate around 5 PM yesterday and it was only a sandwich.
--... Right, he's helping. SHINGO IS HELPING! Getting back to that, he's been appointed to the position of official speech deliver..er, because really, it makes total sense that a shy and timid boy could convince a band of pirates to overthrow their sexy boss and revolt. Maybe it's because Shingo just looks like a kicked puppy whenever he says, 'Please?'
Maybe they're not interested in women?
Maybe they're higher than a Playboy bunny's latest *AHEM* lift.
"A... all right, mateys! Errr, I mean ARRRRR!" The boy stumbles along, rustling up the gumption to follow through on plundering and sacking Zack Island (which, by the way, goes against his morals and he couldn't sleep last night.) "This is it! This is the moment! Are we hungry?" Shingo tries to rouse the crowd out of their stupor, some just grunt in response. He deflates a little in his layers but presses on. Standing on the table next to the incorrigible Kusanagi, the kid is glad it's well-balanced and his overdressing hides his trembling knees. "A... are we pirates?" he wonders aloud.
"AYE!"
That does it, and the young man can't help but feel heartened, a beaming smile affixed to his face. "Then let's, uh... um." Line? What goes here?
Shingo twists his hands in his sleeves, "Let's..." The struggle is real. The teen pulls his foam cutlass from his belt and brandishes it toward the shore! "Drop yer sails and prepare t' be boarded!"
Laughter. YOU HAVE FAILED SHINGO, BRAIN!
=SEVENTEEN AND ONE HALF SECONDS AGO=
Bonne Jenet lies face down on one of those beach recliner things, wearing a purple bikini bottom with a white skull and crossbones on the butt, getting a bit of a tan in. Finally getting a chance to relax. Suddenly, the radio next to her crackles to life.
It seems that one of her scurvy pirate dogs has pressed down the reciever, and thus she caught a little of Shingo and Saishu's speechifying.
Almost literally: she has a pirate dog, and it's sitting down on the 'transmit' button right now. Perhaps it's a really smart pirate dog, perhaps it's all the very many drugs that it has been fed that is causing it to behave wierd.
And hears Saishu and Shingo pirating it up.
She slowly turns her head towards the radio, and opens up one angry eye, focusing it upon the radio as a volleyball flies by, and hits her in the face.
She straps her bra back on, then stands up, glaring. Some cheerful young lady runs up to her from a nearby volleyball net. The things are freaking everywhere on this island.
"Sorry!"
The girl looks her over with a worried expression as she glares back at her.
"...Do you want an eyepatch? Or maybe some white nail polish? I think it'd go good with your tan, so...."
=NOW=
Bonne Jenet, wearing an eyepatch with a hastily painted white skull and crossbones on it, jumps down through the open hole that was made by Walter throwing some energy orb... thing during Zack's quest for a mermaid, which, completely coincidentally, lands her on the table directly in front of Saishu and Shingo.
She's all wet now, and does not seem at all pleased about this fact. She holds onto her forehead with one hand, quietly steaming for a moment.
"I'm... not a good person, but I'm not the sort of person to Shanghai a crew, at least." She narrows her eyes. "Particularly a crew that already belongs to someone else." ...doesn't that kind of undermine her first point?
She raises a single finger to point at Shingo, who as the slightly more serious of the two(one eyepatch), is clearly the leader, and smirks.
"If anyone's going to lead the Lilien Knights on ill-advised invasions, it's going to be me!"
-A FEW WEEKS AGO-
-AT THE HOEDOWN DILLO AUDITIONS-
May is exiting the studio whistling a merry sea shantie. "Arr! That was a bloody jolly good time it was! Can't help but think that bloke with the beard looked awfully familiar. No lubber can spew flames like tha' broadside of me ship and not have some sea fairing renown!"
"Bah! I'll probably never see tha' likes of 'im again anyways."
-RIGHT NOW!-
"IT'S YOU!!!" May stumbles out of a door in the sub. The likely reason why she hasn't been participating in any of the Lillien Knights' exploits lately. She must have gotten stuck in some door and it's not until that she has managed to get out. Just because she's insanely strong doesn't mean she still doesn't suffer from a lot of short people problems.
"Arrr!!" The pirate girl straightens up from the ground waving her massive anchor around that somehow was just outside the room where she was stuck. "Now I recognize ye scallywags with tha' flames! From tha' Kusanagi lot no doubt!." Having crossed paths with Kyo is not an experience she'll soon forget. But if Shingo and Saishu think that it'll somehow intimidate her, they'll be happily surprised that May is her usual totally reckless self. The pirate girl adjusts her eye patch.. that she inexplicably started wearing somehow.. and advances towards the duo trying do away with the Lillien Knights. "Trying to incite a mutiny in Cap'n Jenet's crew will yeh!!?"
"That's a keelhauling!!"
COMBATSYS: May has started a fight here on the right meter side.
COMBATSYS: Bonne Jenet has joined the fight here on the right meter side.
COMBATSYS: Shingo has joined the fight here on the left meter side.
COMBATSYS: Saishu has joined the fight here on the left meter side.
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Shingo 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Bonne Jenet
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Saishu 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 May
And so, the fated encounter begins!!
Bonne Jenet's incensed re-entry into her amazing purple submarine (with a hole in it!?) that looks nothing at all like a marital aid (with a hole in it?!) draws the immediate attention of her admiring and attentive crew, all of whom - let's face it - are only in this for the women in the first place. Or one woman, in particular. And Saishu Kusanagi, despite being the most happily and faithfully married man in the history of THE UNIVERSE, can immediately see why this mission has been entrusted to him; there was simply no other man for the job, nobody to compare, in ability and legendary status...
...to the sheer and utter beauty of the woman before him.
Not that he can tell, because he's wearing two eyepatches. Oh, you thought that was leading up to a clever joke? Or perhaps that he was wearing one as a makeshift thong? No, he is in fact dressed up just like the other Lillien Knights, but with a whopping great Kusanagi sun emblem done in the same pastel blue on his back, and tabi socks. Bar, that is, for the pair of patches - one over each eye. Did we mention he's facing the opposite way to Shingo Yabuki, actually making the youth look smarter than him?
"YAAAAARRRRRR!!"
That's not Saishu. It's the entirety of the crew, by some combination of Shingo's stammering proclamations and Jenet's arrival, joined in merry unison. Acid-spiked grog sloshes about the mess as they all knock mugs and drink, basically just down for anything that involves violence and breasts and massive, swollen chests of booty. Isn't that essentially the same thing? It's essentially the same *awesome* thing, that's for sure. As for Saishu, his shit-eating grin just grows shittier and eatinglier.
"HA HA! Yarr indeed, maties!" Half-bellows, half-grunts the Kusanagi patriarch, making the most effort-laden display of gigantic HAM seem like a lazy Sunday afternoon. Spreading his arms, and sloshing his own jugful of grog (wait...) in the process, he gestures grandly to the curved, pipe-clad portside of the mess, and declares:
"Guess we have a proper piratical throw-down on arr hands, eh?! Startin'... with..."
Suddenly he's a blur, exploding into a tight somersault off the table, and somehow ending up on the other side of the room where he indiscretely thrusts his jug of grog at his first victim--
May may be astonished to know that it's NOT her.
Because he can't see her, and has gone right past, smashing his jug against the door through which she's just emerged. It shatters with a pungent aroma, a split-second before the Kusanagi Flame *explodes* into being and ignites the foul stuff with a sub-rocking explosion that's as to nothing beneath Saishu's boisterous yell.
"GET 'EM, SHINGO-KUN!! You take the pretty one! HA HA!!!"
Several Lillien Knights fall over, clearly not just because they're -wasted-.
COMBATSYS: 'May' has joined the fight here on the right meter side.
COMBATSYS: Saishu knocks away 'May' with Homura Gasane.
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Shingo 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Saishu 0/-------/-----==|-------\-------\0 May
> //////////////////// ]
|=======\-------\0 'May'
Intimidating? Who's intimidating? Saishu?
Shingo?!
Seriously, anyone who is intimidated by the overdressed teen is probably frightened of the dark and insects.
Mind, insects are pretty gross. I was just about to look some to prove my point that they're not all bad and was assaulted in the eyes by so many horrifying things that I deleted my browser so they couldn't crawl out of my screen. I suppose Shingo might be more terrifying than what I had initially thought! "Keelhauling?" he says, aghast at the accusation that this isn't just a whatever it is, all fun and games or something. At least May doesn't peg him for the ringleader, but apparently Jenet does. "Er, no, really, I don't think that's what was going to happen..." Yabuki is trying to pacify a hot girl and failing miserably because he's allowed himself to be involved in shenanigans that are really quite beyond him.
Such is his life.
"Mr. Kusanagi-san, sir, you're facing the wron--" Well, an attempt to correct his mentor comes far too late. Who knows where he got the jug of grog (maybe God gave it to him) or where the Kusanagi patriarch is heading in his blind fumbling, blundering, stumbling, lumbering, bungling, explosive, corrosive, detonatingly, highly perpendicular collison course. The door just shatters and Shingo flinches so hard that he steps on his coat and bellyflops off the table, onto the deck.
My cat just walked across the keyboard, here is what he has to say: asdfrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkkkkkkkklp;l
sfdm n nm
I think that means 'Winter is coming.'
So yeah, as the teen scrambles (or maybe he sunnyside ups, I don't know) to his feet, he flings the coat from his body and a second. Third. Three striped shirts. One black vest. A scarf. A cravat. One suede pair of brown trousers. A pair of pajama pants that say, 'Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey!' ... Totally forgot what I was getting at...
Right, all that's left is a blue school uniform once he's done stripping, but Shingo keeps the eyepatch, just so he feels included and like he belongs. He rotates his arm, better to warm it up since he's going to be punching with it soon, and says, "Do I have to take the pretty one?" Take her where? Out for dinner? Actually, the only student of Kyo Kusanagi wouldn't mind doing that. Jenet is awfully pretty with her long hair of blonde and her bouncy, bountiful... ass...ets.
NO SHINGO YOU SLAP YOUR FACE AND FIGHT LIKE A MAN, THIS IS A MUTINY!
BUT WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOOOOOOOOOOR!
He pulls on a pair of gloves that bare, bear, ACTUAL BEARS, the emblem of the Kusanagi sun. Not yet able to produce flame, that won't stop him from feeling that he can. It burns in his chest, in his lunging step like a wrathful titan, spinning on the spot as Shingo leads with his elbow and a quick, "Sorry about this!" Should Jenet fail to remove herself, his powerful fist of fistness follows, aimed just so inappropriate at her chest?!
COMBATSYS: Bonne Jenet just-defends Shingo's 115 Shiki - Dokugami Mikansei!
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Shingo 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Saishu 0/-------/-----==|-------\-------\0 May
> //////////////////// ]
|=======\-------\0 'May'
Bonne Jenet's eyes widen as Saishu attacks her precious ship.
"You fool! If you break that, we'll all drown! Especially you, because I'll drag you down into the depths myself!"
However, listening to more of Saishu's and Shingo's interaction, the Pirate Queen can't help but feel like she got the leader ordership backwards. She turns over to look over at Saishu. "Perhaps I should be your opponent today. You seem like the-"
But then she can see Shingo out of the corner of her (single) eye, feel him focusing, his hand moving towards her.
If this was the first time a boy had grabbed at her chest, she might be surprised, but it's more common than you'd think. The upside of having big targets on your chest is that you know exactly where people will aim for. She grabs onto his wrist, stopping his fist before it can more than lightly graze her breast. But it is just touching her there, which might be quite distracting for a young boy.
"Keep the old man from blowing up the ship door, May, I have a score to settle with this one!"
Keeping a hold on Shingo's wrist, she raises her hand and aims a series of open-handed slaps at his face.
"Where-"
SLAP!
"Do-"
SLAP!
"You-"
She releases his wrist, and tries to knock him away a little with the last slap.
SLAP!
"-think you're grabbing at!?"
Alright! Here it comes! May cracks her neck and readies her stance when she senses that clear fighting intent from the flame wielding man. Having seen him in action before back when he tried out for the Hoedown Dillo spot, May can recognize when he's about to attack.
It also helps that she /has/ been the target of an attack like that in her fight against Kyo.
She's ready! The little buccaneer knows what's coming and can act accordingly! May starts to step to the sides rapidly--
Only to hold completely still when Saishu totally misses her and hits the door behind her.
The impact is still hard enough that it rocks the /entire/ sub, and May stumbles a few times before she manages to balance herself. "Whoa whoa!" The girl flails her arms about and ultimately puts her anchor down to.. well.. anchor herself.
"Aye aye, cap'n!" Says May when Jennet orders to attack Saishu.
Now after seeing an attack like that there are two thoughts going the pirate princess' head.
Sensible Logic: Saishu is totally blinded, but he's very likely related to Kyo, and if he's older than the Kusanagi boy, he's probably even stronger. Kyo was fighting her with a handicap back then and she still lost, so tactical reasoning states that May has no chance versus Saishu even if he keeps those eye patches on his eyes.
Pirate Logic: YAAAAARR!!!
It's pretty obvious which logic May is going to pick.
"YAAAARR!!" Cries the young pirate girl as she heaves her anchor up and launches herself at Saishu. "Ye land lubbers forget how ta fight this far out in the sea!!"
A chi made dolphin manifests itself from under her and May surfs her way towards the drunken, blinded Saishu to swing her anchor like a golf club at his head.
COMBATSYS: Saishu endures May's Mr. Dolphin Horizontal.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Shingo 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////// ]
Saishu 0/-------/---====|=------\-------\0 May
> //////////////////// ]
|=======\-------\0 'May'
Pirate Logic! What manner of shield could ward off a weapon so mighty? There is only one, shining and glistening jewel at the heart of the pantheon of martial arts, the forbidden technique practiced by few and taught to even fewer; with more imitators than originators, and only one true master. This magnificent and utterly unequalled technique, passed from father to... whatever the hell Shingo is, and I guess probably 'son' if that layabout Cody really deserves that name. And he's abandoned it!
Where were we? It's late and well past sake time! Oh, right.
That technique: Saishu Tactics.
Mr. Dolphin makes his approach with all the wild grace and beauty of his kind, the girl atop him burning with her own peculiar fighting spirit in a manner that - and let's be real here for a moment - does thoroughly draw the old man's attentions. Pausing to twist his lips and frown at the door so cleverly posing as May, he quickly diverts his no-eyed gaze toward the tiny buccannerr. And then... THEN...
He proceeds to do absolutely nothing at all.
The anchor crashes into his stupidly hard, slightly-stinky-but-we're-being-real-don't-be-a-hater body with what's more a dull *thunk* than the snap of brittle bone, emitting no particular cry of pain or grunt of alarm, but something far more forbidding:
"HA HA!"
Oh shit. Did that even hurt him?
"That's the spirit," growls the Master of Crimson Flames, undigging his heels from the floor of the submarine's mess to leave behind two perfectly-matching furrows. "The little boy from the audition, hrn?" He asks with a big ol' grin, staring at a random Lillien Knight who looks nothing like May. "You've got a good arm, kid!! Not as good as Shingo-kun's and not as good as MINE but-- good. Ha! Well. Let's see how you handle..."
Suddenly he whirls on his heels, coming right up into May's personal space, his jaw set in the grin and gimlet eyes probably gleaming beneath their twin eyepatches. His hand reaches out... and goes right past her, latching onto the doorframe and using it as a fulcrum to hop right over her head, releasing his grip only to whip a leg up and slam a kright into the offending bulkhead. "Hup-HA! You've got a body like STEEL, YARRRRHAHAHAHA!!"
Gripping on with both hands now, Saishu falls back in what's actually quite a masterful display of Jiu Jitsu grappling, hauling half the bulkhead with him as he falls back to the floor...
Yeah, no, really. Half the bulkhead. He just rips that fucker off, right up to the outer edge of the submarine, the rending of metal enough to give EVERYONE a headache and set the teeth to the most unpleasant grinding. Imagine God raking his fingers across a blackboard, except the blackboard is the entire universe. Oh yeah.
Saishu Kusanagi is that good.
Twisting himself about, he SLAMS the entire bulkhead down toward May, the door itself already ruined and spinning off into the crowd of drugged-up pirates - it's probably fine, they probably won't die or anything - to leave the frame...
...neatly placed around the dimunitive piratess.
Pushing himself to his feet, Saishu dusts off his hands and grins even more hugely.
"That's how you shiver their timbers, Shingo-kun! HA HA! Did you win yet??"
COMBATSYS: Saishu knocks away 'May' with Fierce Combo.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Shingo 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////// ]
Saishu 0/-------/--=====|=------\-------\0 May
> ////// ]
|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 'May'
COMBATSYS: Bonne Jenet successfully hit Shingo with Triple Slaps.
~~ Alluring Hit! ~~
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Shingo 0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////// ]
Saishu 0/-------/--=====|=------\-------\0 May
> ////// ]
|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 'May'
I wasn't paying attention, and I forgot it was my turn. Is the ship sinking? Or are they fighting in a submarine?
You know what, I don't even care!
But the flooding is bad, no matter where they're at. Doubly worse if this match is about to explode in a submarine. A death trap! None shall survive! It's like that time when Shingo felt like he was trapped in one of those terrifying nightmares, the one where you have to run, run till your lungs burst, but you can't make your body move fast enough... But this was no dream, and, unlike the nightmare, the teen wasn't running for his life; he was racing to save something more precious. His own life meant little to him today.
For Shingo Yabuki, there is one thing more important than life itself: Edward Cullen. But being in love with a vampire is even more dangerous than Shingo ever could have imagined. Edward has already rescued Shingo from the clutches of one evil vampire, but now, as their daring relationship threatens all that is near and dear to them, they realize their troubles may be just beginning...
...
Yeah, I just used the inside cover of Twilight to make my pose longer. Do something about it! >:/
Water starts pouring in or not, probably not and I'm just over-reacting. If it is, he's committed to socking Jenet in the jumblies (AN ACCIDENT, I SWEAR!) Shingo's focus on this task is paramount, such that he's not in a panic yet; he doesn't even notice that his trainers are wet. The blonde's hand wraps around his wrist, knuckles brushing the cleft of her breasts, an inch away from a teenage boy's heaven...
"Ohmygodi'msosorry!" he offers his apologies as a choked rush, his entire face so red and stem rising from his ears like a kettle that had been left on the stove for too long. Shingo tries to reclaim his offending limb, but Jenet has him anchored in place and her hand strikes him so hard that there's an ear-splitting yelp of surprise!
"Sorry!"
SLAP!
"I'm really sorry!"
SLAP!
"I'm so sorry, mistress!"
Wait, did he just call the pretty lady 'mistress'? Could it be that Yabuki has found love at last?
No, his brain's been addled by repeated beats to the cheek, finally stumbling back and cupping both hands to the left side of his face that burns hot with blush and bruise. "Yeow!" Shingo's big brown eyes brim with tears, but he is a man. He is the only student of Kyo Kusanagi, and now Saishu Kusanagi is his great mentor. If he lets a girl slap him until he dissolves into crying sissy, how will he ever earn the respect and acknowledgement that he so craves? There will be no learning to shoot flame, no life, no... pre-wrapped sausages. They pre-wrap sausages but they don't pre-wrap bacon, did you know that?
A breath drawn, his arms lower. "I have not won yet, Mr. Kusanagi-san! I... I will try harder!" But the kid doesn't want to be on the receiving end of another cheek-beating, so he winds back his leg in what should be the most magnificent shin-kick EVER, and it has NOTHING to do with boobs, only to bring it forward so gently that it'll tap Jenet lightly, "Shingo Kick." Yeah, take that.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!
Shingo's eyepatch pops RIGHT OFF and runs away. That noise was the worst thing, absolutely worst. Why are the stupidest people always so ridiculously strong? Blame yourself or God.
COMBATSYS: Bonne Jenet dodges Shingo's Weakened Shingo Kick.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Shingo 0/-------/-----==|==-----\-------\0 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////// ]
Saishu 0/-------/--=====|=------\-------\0 May
> ////// ]
|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 'May'
Bonne Jenet's eyes widen as Saishu starts to rip down that door, then she flinches at the terrible terrible sound of her precious ship being literally torn apart. Finally, her eyes narrow, her face flushing with rage(?) "You maniac! Stop ripping apart my ship!"
"...Also stop throwing giant chunks of my ship at my Knights!"
She has her priorities in order.
"Hit him in the face with your anchor until he stops moving, May! He has it coming!" Perhaps she's putting too much in the pirate princess's hands facing her off against this clearly insane old man, but right now she's too angry to really consider it.
Hearing Shingo say 'Mistress' is promising, however - clearly someone is beginning to learn his place!? It's a little calming. Things are once again as they should be! She smirks. Now she just needs to try to leverage this situation to her advantage.
She jumps up into the air over Shingo's weak kick as he announces it, her entire body passing before his eyes and then over his head, before she lands behind him.
She wraps her arms up under his, the front of her body pressed close against his back, and attempts to put her hands up against the back of his neck so she can manuever him into a full nelson.
Her lips barely graze his right ear.
"If you're really sorry, then help me beat up that lunatic old man, and I /might/... forgive you."
There's a lot of vague promise in those words.
"You want to be a good boy, don't you?"
Well, at least Saishu finally recognized... 'him'.
This is probably what happens when you hang out with Makoto too much.
May seems to not care as much as her other 'Cap'n' does when someone mistakes her for a boy (although seriously, how many 'Captains' does May have? It's like a reverse harem thing she has going on, and I do not mean gender wise). What does bother May is when someone is capable of shrugging off her attacks so easily!
"Bollocks!" Cries out the girl when she sees Saishu completely unharmed after taking that massive anchor to the face. May has never been the best of fighters due to her short stature and her outstandingly lack of experience, but she did pride herself in hitting tremendously hard. Although she hasn't wont many fights since she entered the professional circuits, she has taken some satisfaction knowing that no one that faces her leaves the ring without having to be carried out. Not even that giant bear she fought.
But this guy.. he just shrugged off one of her best attacks and laughed!
"Aye.. that's me." Says May right before ducking underneath Saishu when he goes to literally tear a piece of the sub with his bare hands. May doubts her capability to take down, or even slow down this man for about half a second.
Then she realizes Saishu really is tearing the sub to pieces which will make them sink!
Capable or not, May has to try to at least get him to stop destroying the ship.
"Oi, ye gobshite!! Stop wrecking tha' bloody ship!!" And if that doesn't get Saishu's attention, maybe the flying chi made dolphin May sends at his back will.
COMBATSYS: Saishu endures May's Go, Mr. Dolphin!.
-@- Dazing Hit! -@-
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Shingo 0/-------/-----==|==-----\-------\0 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////////// ]
Saishu 0/-------/-======|==-----\-------\0 May
> ////// ]
|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 'May'
Shingo is subjected to perhaps his greatest test yet at the hands and lips of the mighty Cap'n Jenet, and his master merely stands there with his hands on his hips and a massive grin splitting his wise (not very wise) old (not actually very old) face (it is technically a face, that's true) as May looses her own, far more fiery rage. If Bonne is the cool ocean depths, dark and dangerously seductive, then the tiniest buccanneer in the Zackish Main is a Caribbean wave, warm and feisty and pretty darn explosive!
He's impressed! But then he already was. Perhaps that's part of the reason he's here?!
The next hurtling dolphin is actually met properly, with something approaching a guard thrown up if promptly abandoned. Saishu turns about in the RIGHT direction, meeting it with a frown furrowing his brow. Concentrating deeply, he can feel the girl's energy - feel what she's done with it, sense the emanations that empower her techniques...
He can also feel something across the room, and boy is that distracting!
"WATCH OUT, SHINGO-KUN! SHE'S USING WILES!!"
His bark is barely out when he's sputtering and flopping across the room, landing at May's feet where he promptly kicks both legs in the air, lets out a gurgling scream and... falls absolutely still? Is he DEAD? May wins! Flawless victory!
Oh wait no, he just reached up and flicked up one of his eyepatches, a gimlet eye gleaming up at the little piratess to tip her a saucy wink. It might please her to note that he actually does look pretty dazed. He's actually seeing TWO Mays right now, and considering he already killed the second one, that's pretty impressive!
"Drink up me hearties," he enthuses, "Yo ho!"
And clicks the fingers of his left hand, the motion causing a small conflagration of crimson flame to spiral upward toward her cute button nose. That's... is that an attack? It doesn't seem like it could possibly hurt! Maybe burn a nosehair or two! Little girls have nosehairs, right? Saishu is pretty sure they do. Shizuka doesn't have the, but she's perfect and also not a little girl.
That done, Kusanagi slides his gaze sidelong...
...and sees Bonne Jenet for the first time.
"Sh-Shingo-kun..." For the first time, he doesn't have something stupid to say immediately, actually pausing to rub thoughtfully at his beard. Is... is the old man blushing? If he is, it's in the most *bawdy possible way*. "Let her use the wiles! Use the tactics I have taught you! AT ANY COST!! GO, SHINGO-KUN!"
COMBATSYS: Bonne Jenet successfully hit Shingo with Power Throw.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Shingo 0/-------/--=====|===----\-------\0 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////////// ]
Saishu 0/-------/-======|==-----\-------\0 May
> ////// ]
|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 'May'
Huh. Jenet leaps lightly over his kicking foot after shouting down his mentor about tearing apart her ship. He's not ENTIRELY disappointed. Folding his arms across his chest, Shingo nods in agreement, drawn in by her... presence. Her charisma. Don't kill them all, Saishu! Think of the... eyepatches! His own has disappeared into obscurity, probably to throw back a mug of grog with its buddies who aren't really true friends. What patch would actually befriend a pink one? That's like social suicide! No, they're just pretending, because the fuchsia one is paying.
Jerks.
His wily wiles-using opponent wastes not even a second; she loops her arms under the teen's, locking hands at the back of his neck. Shingo knows a thing or two about wrestling - he was pretty good at it before deciding that it was his mission in life to learn how to SHOOT FLAME - so as the pressure puts the worst kind of strain on his spine, he flails to dislodge her...
And I mean FLAILS. Like it's goddamn disco fever in here. Like he has ants in his pants! "Lemme go!" Noooooooooooo! "Leggo!" Shingo cries again, "Please?!"
Not happening.
"Guh!" This is getting ten kinds of awful and no kinds of excellent; his arms shoot up all PRAISE THE SUN! and Shingo slips free from his regulation school jacket, allowing Jenet to have it if that is her DEAREST WISH. It smells like musty old clothes, owing to how many layers he had on that now sit in a neglected, garish pile on the floor. I have no idea if I'm using any of these adjectives properly -- I am randomly picking words from a thesaurus because that's the way I roll.
Shingo adjusts his his t-shirt, hikes up his slacks and shakes out his legs. Time to get serious, because THERE'S WILES. What was he told about this? Thinking back to the full nelson and how soft, fleshy, bikini'd mounds were pressed up against his back, the woman's warm breath in his ear... His nose just spurts blood, instead.
The first and only student of Kyo Kusanagi claps his hand across his mouth, trying to stem the flow by pinching his nostrils shut awkwardly. "Grrrrrt mm ssrrrrrre." Translation: Urg, I'm sorry. "Mmr Fufufugi-ahn feeeee fi fo fum," I SMELL THE BLOOD OF AN ENGLISH MAN!
... I have the attention-span of an ADHD magpie. Whoops! :D
The point, he's not going to betray Mmr Fufufugi-ahn, because the boy is as loyal as man's best friend! No matter how nice and appealing the lady asking him is, with her luscious... hair, full lips and... Just generally being everything Shingo could love and fear in one body. AGH HIS NOSE IS BLEEDING EVEN MORE AS BROWN EYES COMPLETE A QUICK UP AND DOWN!
Orbs winching shut, the cheerful young man spins away to remove the lovely blonde from his sight and get this awful nosebleed under control. Unfortunately, a convenient banana peel thrown his way by a drugged up pirate causes him to slip like an oaf. He crashes down onto his face while his lower half soars up, possibly to deliver a three-hit kick combo in the most stupidest attack known to mankind, to Jenet's torso, maybe chin. NOT HER CHEST!
Yup, using exactly all the tactics Saishu had taught him to great results.
COMBATSYS: Bonne Jenet endures Shingo's Weakened 101 Shiki - Oboro Guruma Miknansei.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////// ]
Shingo 0/-------/--=====|=====--\-------\0 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////////// ]
Saishu 0/-------/-======|==-----\-------\0 May
> ////// ]
|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 'May'
Bonne Jenet smiles as she notices the old man focused on May instead of tearing the hull apart.
"Good work, May! Keep him distracted!"
She doesn't realize that May has other captains behind her back(?), merely that she is a seemingly loyal and obsessively piratey girl, which are traits Bonne Jenet rather likes.
The Pirate Queen blinks as she realizes that she's lost the Shingo for the jacket, and realizes belatedly that's where the phrase 'to lose the Shingo but keep the jacket' comes from. She tosses the jacket aside, not noticing it falls over the face of an unfortunate young pirate, who is already having a bit of a bad trip, and judging from the screams, the smelly jacket obscuring her sight is not helping. "Avast! Davy Jones Locket it be!"
...Bonne Jenet would like May even better if the lingo wasn't starting to infect the rest of her younger and more impressionable crew.
And smiles at the blood spraying Shingo, as if she just finds his inability to nasally deal with such intense sitautions cute. "Too bad, little boy. Things could have been so much more /pleasant/ for you if you had just fell for my 'wiles'."
She doesn't flinch back from the kicks, wating until Shingo hits the ground entirely, and then stamping on him with her foot repeatedly with a series of fully committed kicks, then attempts to pounce on top of him, pin him, and slide her arm under his throat to get him into a chokehold, which she'll choke him with as brutally as possible.
When someone's messing with her ship and her crew, she takes it pretty serious.
"Seems I have to take you out so I can get rid of your maniac partner. You should've known better than to attack things that belong to me. Nothing personal, though~"
COMBATSYS: May endures Saishu's Weakened Yami Barai.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////// ]
Shingo 0/-------/--=====|=====--\-------\0 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////// ]
Saishu 1/-------/=======|======-\-------\0 May
> ////// ]
|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 'May'
May is not impressed... with herself!!
The pirate princess scowls fiercely when Saishu still manages to stand there grinning stupidly after taking one of her chi dolphins to the face. You'd think that her watery chi would be just the right thing to bring against this fiery foe, but Saishu seems to be even stronger than Kyo if she thought that might be possible.. possibly even tougher than Makoto! But we all know ain't nobody tougher than her so maybe just close.
Incidentally, May didn't think for a second that Saishu was down and out when he got smacked by the tiny pirate's signature move. She's inexperienced but not naive! And she is also not disappointed when she sees Saishu finally take one of the eyepatches off and attack her. Alright! She managed the man to stop attacking the sub, that's one thing she'd done right so far!
Now all she has to do is survive this small fireball and she'll be in the clear! Keep him distracted! She can do that! "Aye aye, Cap'n!"
Then May does what every pirate would do and bashes her forehead into the fireball!
"YAAARR!!" That didn't hurt nearly as much as when Kyo threw it at her. Old man Kusanagi must be holding back a lot, but that's kind of a given considering he started fighting her being completely blind.
And just like May told Kyo back then, no one disrespects a pirate like that without getting keelhauled.
"Oi! Quit looking at tha' Cap'n's treasure chest!!" Demands May, catching Saishu staring rather intently at Jenet just as she swings her massive anchor towards the man's temple.
COMBATSYS: Saishu Toughs Out May's Fierce Strike!
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////// ]
Shingo 0/-------/--=====|=====--\-------\0 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////// ]
Saishu 1/------=/=======|======-\-------\0 May
> ////// ]
|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 'May'
It's true. Nobody is tougher than Makoto, and nobody is a better student than Shingo 'Better Than Kyo' Yabuki. Saishu probably couldn't rightly say if he's ever crossed paths with the Rindoukan mistress, but he'd undoubtedly give her an A+ for effort and a solid S rank for being the kind of tough cookie that is only questionably female but absolutely, unrelentingly a master of Saishu Tactics. Why, if he hadn't married Shizuka, with the grace of a miko and the looks of a supermodel...
...but that alternate universe will have to wait. In the here and now, May very cruelly breaks off Saishu's day-dreaming about a far more womanly woman (than Makoto; nobody's more womanly or woman than Shizuka 'Da Bomb' Kusanagi) to introduce her substantial anchor to his craggy, scraggy-bearded face. Well, his temple, which doesn't have a beard to the eye but - in all fairness - has a beard in its soul. A soulbeard.
In fact, ALL of Saishu Kusanagi has a gigantic soulbeard, far more robust and impressive than the one he wears to fool the lay onlooker into believing he may not be the greatest man to ever walk the planet. Takuma Sakazaki? Scrub. Gen? Blowhard. Ryuuhaku Todoh? Pretty good! But no Saishu Kusanagi. He's got it all. He's got--
--the FIRE!!
"Ha!" A singular, grunting sort of bark greets May's anchor as the man just friggin' lies there, letting it impact his skull with a *CLONK* that's basically inhuman, and more than a little hollow-sounding. Is... is he a robot? No, Saishu is the master of an ancient technique known as Empty Mind. It's where you just don't bother thinking. At all. He just sits up slowly, forcing the impossibly-heavy anchor up and up with him as that shit-eating grin overcomes his features. All the way up he goes, until he's level with May - which is to say - he's still sitting on his ass. She is TINY.
"You know what, girl?" He grunts enquiringly, reaching to scratch at his belly underneath his now-rather-funky Lillien Knights jersey. The non-patched eye gleams, as the other-- holy shit, burns with a corona of fire. It's pretty awesome.
"I think I might have found EXACTLY what I came here looking for! HA HA!"
Grinning all the wider - how does he have a face left? - Saishu pushes the anchor away with his fucking skull and lets it go wide as he hops to his feet with a 'hup!' and takes a single step back, all boisterous and eager all of a sudden. His aura spikes, and the fire around his eye leaps into a spiralling helix, snatched from the air by an out-trailing arm and then swept around his body. His Lillien Knights' garb explodes into tiny pieces of burnt cloth, the flame retained as all else scorches away...
...and Saishu Kusanagi is stood there in a skull-and-crossbones emblazoned leather posing pouch, his unwashed body hair sticking out at all kinds of unsavoury angles around it.
"Shingo-kun! Stop playing games with that hussy-- that landlubber!! And watch THIS!"
His free hand clenches to a fist at his side, and he drops to a horse-stance, his actually-pretty-goddamn-impressive musculature bulging in disgustingly fascinating ways as sexy Saishu channels all the energy at his disposal... inward, barring the torch held aloft, a halo of ghostly fire surrounding his grounded heels as wisps of ash flicker through the air on a steaming hot wind. Whatever he's brewing...
...it's going to be big. Bigger than what's in that posing pouch.
"Mighty pirate queen," he rumbles, fixating May with that gimlet eye. "What's yer name, me heartie? Tell me, then show me yer absolute finest, most timber-shiverin' power! Fire all cannons portside! YARRRRRRRR!!!"
He's getting way, way too into that. The floor is also melting.
COMBATSYS: Saishu charges his next attack!
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////// ]
Shingo 0/-------/--=====|=====--\-------\0 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////// ]
Saishu 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|======-\-------\0 May
> ////// ]
|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 'May'
COMBATSYS: Shingo counters Fierce Combo from Bonne Jenet with Weakened Tsuki Hiji.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////// ]
Shingo 0/-------/---====|=======\-------\0 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////// ]
Saishu 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\===----\1 May
> ////// ]
|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 'May'
As much as the thought would amuse May of playing match maker for Makoto and Saishu.. she's not ready for another reboot!
Besides, Makoto belongs to her!! She saw her first and what not!
More important matters are stake right now that rivals in booty. Such as the fact that Saishu took a giant anchor swing to the head and looks like he felt absolutely nothing. Really, May should stop being surprised at this point, but she just can't help but incredibly frustrated that all her attacks are so easily being shrugged off. This really hasn't happened before!
"Grrr!! Ye blasted..." May pushes back as hard as she can against Saishu, attempting to pin him on the ground with her anchor, only to be thwarted by having her tiny frame pushed back by Saishu's epic beard.
Finally the buccaneer is pushed back completely and she jumps back, feet placed firmly on the sub's deck with practiced sea leg stability. Big brown eyes currently narrowed in defiant annoyence and childish lips puckered up in similar pouting fashion stare back at the ever so grinning face of Saishu.
"Name's May, mate."
No fancy titles, no last name. May hasn't earned yet.
But she aims to do so!!
"Have a taste of me broadside then, ye scurvy dog!!" Declares May, charging blue watery chi like power to her fist before swinging it out to Saishu.
* A FEW WEEKS AGO *
* AT THE HOEDOWN DILLO AUDTIONS *
"Aye! Hit 'im with a whole whale I did! Tha' greatest of 'em all! A Great White!" Says May as she sits next to a Saishu dressed in the tackiest Armadillo costume one could possibly ever imagine.
"And that was your problem! I used to hit Kyo with whales all the time when we went to the beach! Then we'd have a cook out with 'em! HA HA!" Answered the Kusanagi patriarch to the bewildered tiny terror.
"But.. me whales are made of energy, mate!"
* NOW *
"GREAT YAMADA ATTACK!!"
May throws a glowing punch out to Saishu, and from behind her a massive blue beast emerges. A Great White entirely made of watery chi! It soars over the tiny pirate, flooding the submarine's chamber almost completely as it flies straight towards Saishu and his flames.
Who's an ass? I'm an ass!
Why am I an ass? Well, I kind of lost my momentum since we last heard from Shingo. It required me to go on a deep, soul-searching quest. I found myself in a jungle. The absence of water intensified my thirst. I kept a sharp eye out as I continued my trek upward, but with no luck. After about another mile, I could see an end to the tree line and assumed I was reaching the crest of a hill. "Maybe I'll have better luck on the other side. Find a spring or something."
But there was no other side. I knew this before I knew this.
-- Okay, I'm quoting bullshit from Catching Fire. Really, I lost my pose and was frustrated because it was epic, so I played some video games and took a break. Sorry!
There's so much blood pooling under his feature-meats that he might be dying, or maybe the teen has a supply -- like, he has a packet of Gushers in his nose and it is reserved just for moments like these, where his mind wanders and his eyes shyly spy soft curves and mmm and ooo and actually nah, Shingo is face-down in clothes. What a boring word, clothes. Thesaurus, give me a synonym so I can flex my Google prowess!
- garments, attire, garb, dress, wear, costume, gear, togs, duds, threads, getup, apparel, raiment, habiliments, vestments
Habiliments it is!
Shingo is face-down in pirate habiliments (I hope habiliments means underwear, wouldn't that be a gas?) They absorb the crimson trickle or geyser, whatever it decides to be from moment to moment. Uttering a low groan, he eventually, gradually, days later in real life time starts to push himself up by using his arms...
Only to be stomped back onto the deck, wriggling around like a demented earthworm that has been caught under a bicycle tire. Jenet heaps insult upon injury as she drives her heel repeatedly into Yabuki's spine. Shingo cries out because he is an unfortunate albeit adorable whipping boy deserving of punishment! This is very sadistic and going strange places! I could extrapolate, but I don't care.
"Maybe they would be!" (re: pleasant). He splutters, muffled, replying to the first remark and figuring that she's pouncing because he had kicked her in the chin. AHHHHHHH! His leg winds up so far that... The blonde woman is struck in the back of her skull impossibly, sending her toppling off of the boy before she can lock her hold. The brunette teen rolls over, clutching a stitch in his ribs and gasping at the fresh air... Or it would be fresh, were it not so fragrantly scented with the pungent stench of nasty pirates who are so huffed up on goofballs that they cheer at the slightest provocation! "I... augh... guwah..." Shingo cannot speak.
"Ugh, megghh, no, nothing personal... At all, fhhhhgggguh."
Ha ha, contradictory.
Of course, let us not forget about the antics of Saishu Tactics, his new mentor, the patriarch of his last mentor, ordering his excitable, clumsy student not to mess around and watch... What? Getting bitchslapped with an anchor? Shingo does nothing, saving his energy for now. The kid isn't able to sit up and watch, but he does indicate paying attention, at least! An arm raises, offering a hearty thumbs-up! "Give her what for, Mr. Kusanagi-san!" Be careful of her broadside, though!
Is... is that a shark?
I'm eating cookies.
COMBATSYS: Saishu endures May's Great Yamada Attack EX.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////// ]
Shingo 0/-------/---====|=======\-------\0 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////// ]
Saishu 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|-------\-------\0 May
> ////// ]
|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 'May'
Bonne Jenet screams out as she's struck in the back of her skull... somehow. What just happened there? She finds herself having half fallen off Shingo, and slowly stumbles back up onto her feet, leaning against a control panel, her eyes focusing on... Saishu?
Only to see Saishu channeling all sorts of firey energy... and also calling her a hussy, /and/ a landlubber in the same breath. And, insults of insults, calling /May/ a Pirate Queen in the same breath, when she doesn't even have her own ship yet. She glances down at Shingo, in much the matter one would look at a used turtle or a pile of deflated balloons. "I'll deal with you later."
Maybe Shingo will be more easy to subdue after his crazed teacher is taken down.
She reaches down over next to her, and pulls down a large metal toggle which kills the lights, and then switches her eyepatch to the other eye that she's been covering - the bruised one - so as to give her a momentary advantage in light adjustment. There's still a little light coming in from the round hole in the top of the submarine that Walter burnt there a bit ago, but it's much darker with the lights off.
TRUE FACTS ZONE: This is actually why pirates wore eyepatches - you could adjust to above-deck and below-deck lighting on the fly at the expense of depth vision. It's not like they had chronic eye-losing problems.
THE MORE YOU KNOW
-------=========?
She runs towards Saishu, who, even in the relative dark, is very noticeable with all that energy he's gathering. Particularly with that shiney firey glow in his eye. And also particularly if he's not going to shut up for a moment even when the lights go out.
She vaults over a large, semi-incoherent pirate who is babbling about ninja cheese or something, and leaps higher into the air on a draft of wind chi, the light breeze against his face probably a better tell then the visuals after the sudden light change - not that it neccessarily matters if he's been running around with /two/ eyepatchs on - then, as she falls, aims her heel towards his head, bringing a slice of wind energy down with it.
COMBATSYS: Saishu endures Bonne Jenet's Gulf Tomahawk.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////// ]
Shingo 0/-------/---====|=======\-------\1 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////// ]
Saishu 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|-------\-------\0 May
> ////// ]
|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 'May'
"MAY, is it?!"
Saishu's bark is an obscenely delighted one, the disclosure of the fair, tiny maiden's name long overdue even in his apparently-addled mind. He remembers their previous encounter, at least; he recalls singling her out for some tangential form of greatness before actively dismissing this thought from his brain in favour of pursuing other interests. The Kusanagi patriarch is like a smelly, bearded magpie, and the world of professional fighting is drowning in shiny things. Like Shingo Yabuki.
"Oi, Shingo-kun!" He's now barking across the submarine, the promise of May's broadside forced to wait on his latest whim. "Don't worry about this old man, I'm just planning your wedding day! What could be better than marrying MAY in JUNE? HA--"
Suddenly, whales.
On the coast of mainland Japan, a million small angry people with fishing spears all wave them in the air, their shafts rattling together in an apoplectic display aimed entirely at the yet-more-dimunitive pirate girl they have absolutely no way of seeing and have probably never met before. Or perhaps a few of them have. Saishu, if pushed, would be certain - even and especially in his approval - that May 'gets around'. Anyway, her detractors don't see this as a good thing, nor her apparent affinities.
Japan screams in unison: "FUCK YOOOOU, DORUPHIN! FUCK YOOOOOOOOOOU, WHARURU!!"
Saishu Kusanagi, his burning spark and mercifully-flacid manhood consumed in a torrent of oceanic-behemoth-styled water chi, screams in delayed response: "--HA!"
Well, okay, let's be real again. It sounds more like, 'HABLBLUHBRBL!"
With that mighty warcry, the Lord of Crimson Flame and also probably The Dance if he gets any say in the matter is thus consumed, and his legend dies at the hands of a small girl who is now obliged to marry his style's greatest successor and have a legion of tiny babies utterly incapable of either using the Kusanagi Flame OR water chi. Because anything Shingo Yabuki does is destined to be a glorious disappointment. It's a miracle his microscopic swimmers even get that far, even in this strange alternate universe now threatening to consume what would otherwise have been frankly the greatest pose in the long and storied history of Match of the Millennium 2: Champion's Road.
But it's okay, folks! Bonne goddamn Jenet saves the day, as she always does.
By turning out the lights and throwing herself at a man.
Nobody can see it any more, but May's unorthodox and incredibly inspiring (wait for it...) attack has done its work by the time the true blue Pirate Queen (sorry, May, you're incredible but she DOES technically have her own submarine and pirate crew, no matter how insensible they might be right now) makes her final approach. Her rage is palpable, her descent undeniable in ferocity or factual fortitude. She connects just as she plans; perhaps even better, as the previously-burning floor beneath Saishu gives way, the molten hull of the submarine not able to resist such titanic pressure!
And now, like indeed THE TITANIC, they're all completely fucked.
You see, Saishu Kusanagi has just fallen into the ocean moments after eating a giant whale made of water chi. He's not a living legend for no reason, though it sure as hell seems like it most of the time, but is in fact one of the finest and most-resourceful martial arts masters walking on, or belching at, the face of the Planet Earth. As soon as he's ejected into the ocean, all that summoned fire and flame suddenly condensed to a tiny nugget against the pressure of thousands of miles of ocean, he has a plan.
The greatest plan ever conceived: to pitch the ocean's greatest predator against the invasion of man, the most vile and terrible of all landbeasts.
With a defiant 'glubglubglub' and a shit-eating grin that sees him immediately drowning - like he gives a damn about something so TRIVIAL as mere DROWNING - Saishu Kusanagi flattens his palms upon the kindling flame that remains in his grasp, one of the world's most sacred treasures snuffed out-- only to immediately reblossom, resisting the very barrage of Mother Nature herself to break all laws of physics, spreading between Saishu's rip-cord arms to a fierce conflagration...
...that only grows further, spreading beyond the outflung width of his arms until it rivals the looming profile of Bonne Jenet's submarine down in the cramped and terrifying darkness of the ocean. His native chi is incredible, the nature of the Kusanagi Flame defying all else but also one WITH all else - and it's this last facet of its existence that Saishu calls upon, pleading with the ocean itself to inspire his newest and most glorious technique with the shape to end all shapes.
Yamada may be great. But Saishu motherfucking Kusanagi is greater still.
When he finally unleashes the totality of his fire and fury, it has not only grown but morphed and warped into a long, sleekly-curved torpedo with a vast sharklike tail and pointed, streamlined fin. But it's no shark, for you see-- the greatest predator is not Jaws, not the Great White as so many mere fools - and probably that dumbo Takuma - believe, but rather the free-est Willy of them all. Having nothing at all to do with the enviable contents of Saishu Kusanagi's posing pouch, what he summons forth and then slings at the purple hulk of the Lillien Knights' waterlogged home...
Is in the shape of a Killer Whale. This ain't yo' grandpa's Orochinagi.
This... is...!!
"BLB-Bl-BLUBGLUB!!!"
Er. CSys? A little help?
COMBATSYS: 'May' fails to interrupt Empowered Orcanagi+ from Saishu with Power Throw.
*KNOCKED AWAY*
COMBATSYS: 'May' can no longer fight.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////// ]
Shingo 0/-------/---====|=======\-------\1 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////// ]
Saishu 0/-------/--<<<<<|-------\-------\0 May
So divine, so perfect, even a submarine can't beat it. This is going to end well for everybody involved!
COMBATSYS: Saishu knocks away Shingo with Empowered Orcanagi+.
[ \\\\ < > ///////////////////// ]
Shingo 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\-------\1 Bonne Jenet
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////// ]
Saishu 0/-------/--<<<<<|-------\-------\0 May
COMBATSYS: Saishu knocks away May with Empowered Orcanagi+.
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Shingo 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\-------\1 Bonne Jenet
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Saishu 0/-------/--<<<<<|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 May
"Odsblood.."
In retrospect, it is possible that May could have learned an important lesson this day.
It's better not to jump on the first ship that comes sailing your way.
As the crazed bearded bastard that is Shingo Freaking Kusanagi overcomes her most powerful technique and obliterates the inside of the submarine, all May can really do is cringe in horror. Perhaps this is the day to turn her life around and give up her ways of piracy. Too dangerous, right? This is not place for a little girl to be! Maybe Gertrude, her very first contender in the Neo Leauge, was right. Only good girls that follow the rules and stay in school get to achieve great things.
That would made sense.
Had Saishu not blasted apart the inside of Jenet's sub which just drives May's pirate senses into overdrive.
"Gaah!! We're taking water!!" The girl exclaims even as the spiraling ball of killer whale shaped flame spirals towards her.. because priorities!
The girl is utterly consumed by the fire as it drives her back, only to have the hull of the ship start to break all around her which douses the flames and instantly starts going up to drown the girl.
Again.. a critical situation to be.. where May not more concerned about the ship being damaged!
"Ye blasted.. bilge rat!!" Says May as she raises her mighty anchor and with what's left of her strength sends it hurling at Saishu, hoping that it takes him down to the bottom of the sea. "I'll see ye in David Jones' Loc-BLGGLLRG!!" Huh.. even her bubbling sounds angry.
COMBATSYS: May can no longer fight.
COMBATSYS: Bonne Jenet blocks Saishu's Empowered Orcanagi+.
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Shingo 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\===----\1 Bonne Jenet
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Saishu 0/-------/--<<<<<|
Seeing the hole blasted in the bottom of her submarine by her kick, Bonne Jenet lets out a brief string of curses in various languages that will remain censored, partially for rating, but mostly because I'm lazy.
Because she is perhaps the angriest she's ever been. Partially at Saishu, but mostly at herself.
She runs back towards the control panel she was just at, and flips on the lights, only to see a ginormous Orca of flame rise up through it. Without a moment's hesitation, she grabs hold of Shingo, leaps between the exploding projectile and her pirates, and uses him - and to a lesser extent herself - to shield them from the blast. The two of them are tossed back, and she tosses him aside without a second look - dead or alive, she'll find out later. Right now her mind is focused on keeping him, among others, alive if she can. If he's dead, he's just a distraction anyways.
...What sort of creature would throw that exploding firey abomination into a ship he helped sink full of people he drugged?
Belay that previous statement about her being mostly mad at herself?
She's most mad at Saishu now!
But despite her callous use of Shingo's body, she's not focused on revenge. She has more urgent things to do then weigh Saishu down with an anchor and send him to Davey Jone's locker, even if doing such would be /intensely satisfying/ for her right now.
Yes, she wants to see Saishu /go down/.
She leaps over to the ship's helm, twists the steering around to aim the submarine for the island, pulls down the to engage the rotors, to make the closed cycle steam turbine engine blast at full power towards the land. This only takes a moment, and then...
She jumps into the breach, summoning a mighty orb of wind around her, and using it to slow the leak, her eye glaring down into the depths as the submarine powers up at hurl towards the land.
Bonne Jenet might end up losing this ship, but she's not going to be losing her unreliable drugged out orca-blasted crew of pirates too. Or May, who is only the 'orca-blasted pirate' bit of that.
She'll even save Shingo, if she can, despite her callous use of his body.
Because other than being a pirate, Bonne Jenet is basically a decentish...esque person.
COMBATSYS: Bonne Jenet takes no action.
COMBATSYS: Saishu negates Don't Miss It! from May with Thrown Object.
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Shingo 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\===----\1 Bonne Jenet
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Saishu 0/-------/--=====|
Hold up, before this scene goes any further! Let's take a minute or twenty to admire the greatest typo in the history of ever: 'crazy bearded bastard that is Shingo Freaking Kusanagi'.
/SHINGO/.
Freaking.
Kusanagi.
Or maybe, hey, it wasn't a typo at all?! Maybe Saishu reached out through all of time and space, and channeled the spirit of a beautiful beast from the future. A Shingo who can shoot flame, mad and beardy. He probably married Kyo in order to inherit the prestigious surname, because his mentor is the laziest of bitches. The Kusanagi scion needs a real man to... Something. I don't know. S'whole lot of water in this submarine all of a sudden.
Crap, Shingo - the real Slim Shady, who is beardless and 17, but no less crazy - is still laying supine on the floor.
Belting out a requiem to send off the sinking submarine to the briny depths of the ocean, four drugged-out pirates link arms and sing:
o/`
We are young.
Heartache to heartache, we stand.
No promises, no demands,
Love is a battlefield.
Whoooo-oh-oh...
We are strong!
No one can tell us we're wrong!
Searching our hearts for so long,
Both of us knowing,
Love is a battlefield.
o/`
He's drenched like a rat, from head to toe. This is one of those days where Shingo really wishes he had the gift of precognition, because if he did...
He would've gone commando.
You're welcome.
o/`
You're begging me to go,
Then making me stay,
Why do you hurt me so bad?
It would help me to know,
Do I stand in your way,
Or am I the best thing you've had?
Believe me,
Believe me,
I can't tell you why.
But I'm trapped by your love,
And I'm chained to your side...
o/`
Wobbling to his feet admist chaos and chaos, Shingo has been forgotten and deemed a distraction. This permits him a chance to grope at his backside to pick at the world's worst wedgie; he can't think of a time when his boxers were bunched so far up his-- AHEM! Sorry, that was inappropriate. I'll stop before I offend someone's delicate sensibilities... On a pirate submarine. Where debauchery and plundering are commonplace. The irony here by censoring my talk of wedgie relief is... Blah blah, English language. I got bored of this paragraph halfway through.
o/`
We are young!
Heartache to heartache, we stand!
No promises, no demands,
Love is a battlefield.
We are strong!
No one can tell us we're wrong!
Searching our hearts for so looooo-oooo-ooooong!
Both of us knowing,
Love is a battlefield.
o/`
A literal battlefield. Saishu Kusanagi just tried to marry off Shingo Yabuki to oversized anchor-wielding May, who he's supposed to be fighting and not wooing. "Wha... What?!" The teen... trusts the Kusanagi patriarch, but not so much to allow him to choose his wife. I mean, especially when the player is talking trash about his procreative abilities. Why should he? What's next? If first comes love, then comes marriage, when Shingo's pushing around a baby carriage, would his new mentor lean over and ask, 'On a scale from one to ten, how autistic is your son?'
Good thing Saishu is drowning.
Except not.
Drowning, I mean.
Please accept my apologies, I only skimmed your poses. I'm sure they were great. From what I gathered, his double-eyepatch wearing sensei is hit by a sharknado and he plummets through the, uh, bottom of the submarine. Whoops! That would explain why Shingo is up to his knees in water, staring at the eddy which is not even close to an eddy because it is the opposite, flooding the entire ship...marine. Things are getting dangerous, and the vessel is rocked by a fire orca that shouldn't exist because science. Why do you hate science, Saishu?!
Pointing, a member of the musical quartet exclaims, "BLOODY 'ELL, 'IS WILLY IS ON FIRE!" right in the middle of the song.
"Arthur! Stop talking about another bloke's willy!!"
Somehow, they manage carry on, forging ahead with all of the grace of a drunken buffalo:
o/`
When I'm losing control,
Will you turn me away,
Or touch me deep inside?
And when all this gets old,
Will it still feel the same,
There's no way this will die...
But if we get much closer,
I could lose control.
And if your heart surrenders,
You'll need me to... hold...
o/`
Saishu's greatest technique, the Orcanagi, rends the submarine in half like Iceberg Bob did to the Titanic. I'm possibly exaggerating out of sheer ignorance. The kid is sent scrambling for the bridge-helm-front with most of the crew, then... He's promptly used as a human shield against his will by the blonde bombshell and discarded like Amy's old lovers, not even promised a phone call the next day. The brown haired teen splashes into the rising water with an, "ORK?!" and he is sucked out by the undercurrent to the chorus of:
o/`
We are young!
Heartache to heartache, we stand!
No promises, no demands,
Love is a battlefield.
We are strong!
No one can tell us we're wrooooo-hooooo-hoooong!
Searching our hearts for so looooo-oooo-ooooong!
Both of us knowing,
Love is a battlefield.
o/`
The quartet cease and salute, prepared to go down with the submarine EVEN IF IT KILLS THEM HA HA HA. Meanwhile, Shingo has been thrown to the mercy of cruel ocean waters that can still burn, defying all natural laws of the universe.
"GLUBGLUBGLUBGLUB!"
It may have been Jenet's intention to save him, but she's preoccupied with doing wicked stuff, mainly rescuing her useless subordinates like a classy Pirate Queen. I suppose May needs help, too. Shingo finds his own saviour; he is dragged by a ginger mermaid who grunts and strains and pulls his heavy body back to shore, dumping the young man on the beach and waiting until unfocused brown eyes flutter open to peer at her, "Part of your wooooorld~" She sings. He coughs up water into her pretty face.
Her harrowing shriek of disgust nearly bursts both of his waterlogged eardrums; the ladyfish flops like an eel until she throws herself back into the ocean. Shingo splutters once more, unable to apologize. The Little Mermaid glares at him from over her shoulder, but she is struck in a dead-on collision with the vessel that is more concerned with the lives of the people aboard and not some stupid Disney character. Ariel dies horribly.
Shingo sits on the sand, drawing up his knees and wrapping his arms around them, mourning the loss of his regulation jacket. His mom isn't gonna be happy about replacing that. Mutiny isn't too cool, either. Hope nobody is seriously hurt (except Ariel, WHATEVER!)
But hey, on the bright side, the pink eyepatch returned, and as Shingo's hand ghosts over the heavy satin covering, without a shadow of a doubt in his big, dopey, super genki heart, for just a second... He's a Pirate...
Dananana, dananana, dananana, danaNANA!
Dananana, dananana, dananana, danaNA!
DanaNANA, danaNANA, danaNANA, dana DANA!
DANANA DA DANA, DANANADANANA!
DANANANA, DANANANA, DANANANA, DANA/NANA/!
DANANANA, DANANANA, DANANANA, DANA/NA/!
DANANANA, DANANANA, DANANANA, DANA /DANA/!
DANANANA DA DANA, DANANADANANANANA...
DA...
DANANA!
NA...!
DANANA...
(DANA NANA NA)
NANANADANA!
NANANADANA!
NANANADANA!
DANANANAAAAAAAAA!
Quick, Saishu, roll credits before I kill myself sounding this out.
Saishu 'Motherfucking' Kusanagi is technically drowning.
It feels like he's been trapped below the ocean currents for WEEKS, as though more time has passed than the mere moments it takes for the awesome power of his ultimate technique, the Orcanagi, to devastate the Lillien Knights' tasteful purple submarine and the valiant threesome within. Or two of them. Shingo, apparently incapable of scoring with a woman even when he's in the presence of two nubile young pirate maidens (well, one, and Bonne 'Sure Bet' Jenet) is washed away. There's a tender moment where Saishu tries to bark his obnoxious laugh in greeting to the boy...
..and then one where he grins ear-to-ear seeing his plan finally come to fruition. Yes, thinks the Elder Statesman of Crimson Flame, Shingo Yabuki will be a fittingly dashing prince for the aggressive(ly) ginger mermaid.
Proving her mettle once more, Cap'n Jenet steers the leaking submarine away, leaving Saishu to stare with wide gimlet eyes at the final retort of her plucky subordinate. Both piratical women have impressed him today, one withstanding the plain might of the Orcanagi and the other just hitting hilariously hard and never, ever saying die. He should so something nice for them. Maybe a bouquet? "Blub."
That was supposed to be 'hrn'. He scratches his beard. He's still technically drowning.
At the last instant before he's finally sunk by the weighty anchor, Saishu stops daydreaming about flowers and thinks manfully fast, repaying the eternal efforts of his scenemates in waiting literally a million years for this scene to be finished by whipping off his fashionable skull-and-crossbones posing pouch.
The world no longer needs to wonder about the size and shape of Saishu Kusanagi's manhood, because it's captured by Zack's scuba-diving ninja camera crew, lil' Saishu flopping about in the ocean current as his lord and master ropes that posing pouch around one spike of May's anchor and spins around. That's right.
Saishu Kusanagi just combo'd Orcanagi into Meatspin.
This, folks, is what legends are made of.
When his spin is complete, Saishu has removed most of the momentum from the bulky anchor, and slings it up over his shoulders with a, "BLUBBLUB!" and a shit-eating grin, only to immediately sink to the ocean floor. Because the anchor is friggin' heavy. So it is that, naked and majestic, the Kusanagi patriarch begins his long walk to shore.
Meanwhile, in the far distance, the shockwave from his ultimate technique comes to full culmination and destroys the Lost City of Atlantis. This doesn't matter too much to Princess Ariel, who's brief engagement to the ocean's greatest catch (Shingo, obviously) is abruptly ended before she can kiss him and turn him into a merman who drinks Bailey's from a shoe. His canonization into the mer-pantheon shall have to wait for another day. But what becomes of Saishu, when he reaches the shore?
Well...!
The credits roll.
Really fucking quickly, because I'll do anything for Shingo.
Really, anything.
Except that.
~Bad End~
Weeks later (i.e. now, because it is weeks later Shingo Yabuki you useless manchild) the valiant May receives a ginormous package, courtesy of Saishu Kusanagi. Inside of his package - which, truly, might be the biggest she's ever seen - is her beloved anchor, still bearing that grinning posing pouch upon one curve. A note has been slipped inside of it, reading as follows:
'Little girl,
You're not bad! Keep it up, just like your hero,
Saishu Kusanagi
P.S. Have you ever thought about flying? Just a thought!
P.P.S. HA HA!
Log created on 17:56:37 02/10/2015 by Saishu, and last modified on 23:15:57 02/27/2015.