Story: 'Back to the roots' or 'Taking a whole new path' (chapter 10)

Authors: Tukuyomi

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Chapter 10

Title: Chapter 10 - Off to Porre

Eve looked around the corner cautiously, checking for any soldiers. Even though it was only early evening, the corridor with Viper’s office was always closely guarded, especially since the break-in some time ago.

She had already passed one soldier right after the stairs, but he was out of sight already. Eve was glad that she didn’t need any special permission to see Viper, even though she was only a low-rank soldier. So the soldier earlier had merely greeted her and let her pass without questions. As far as she knew, there were two guards in the corridors close to the office, one of them was behind her at the stairs, and the other one was hopefully taken care of by Clair. She had promised she could distract him for at least ten minutes, and Eve believed her. Clair’s talking skills could be quite impressive sometimes. She had to make sure that the soldiers didn’t get the idea of walking too far into Eve’s direction.

With another quick glance to her right and left, she walked around the corner and towards the door of the office. She walked on tiptoes, careful not to make any noise. Leaning as close to the door as possible without touching it, she listened to the voice inside.

It seemed that Viper was alone, talking to someone over a communicator. He sounded quite excited. Eve carefully pressed her ears against the door.

“Yes, that’s right. Yes. Yes.” Eve could hear a sharp intake of breath. “No, tomorrow morning, as early as possible! I don’t care if some of the spare parts are missing! No, the co-navigator either! Just prepare it to leave before daybreak tomorrow!” Viper was shouting now, audibly stomping around his office.

Eve quickly took a few steps back as she heard Viper getting closer to the door. She held her breath, preparing her face for the moment Viper would open the door.

Her heart was beating fast. Of course, she could always come up with an excuse to speak to him, but Viper was already suspicious enough of her and would certainly find a way to seriously keep her out of things if he really wanted to.

She gulped as she heard him standing right in front of the door, and already opened her mouth to say something, but the steps grew quieter as Viper went back to his desk.

Eve exhaled deeply, thanking god for whatever had made him walk away from the door.

“Eve?”, a sudden voice asked.

Eve turned around with a gasp, looking at the soldier down the corridor. She walked over to him to prevent him to get any closer to the door. If Viper were to hear that she was outside, it would be over.

Quickly she scooted over to the soldier, basically blocking his way.

“Uh…hi, Randal.”, she started, unsure about what to do. Randal wasn’t the brightest of people, but he certainly wondered what she was doing here. “What are you doing here?” Eve thought she might as well ask this question first.

“I’m here to speak to Viper. He assigned me to the new Porre mission, so I wanted to ask him about the time we’ll be leaving.”

“Oh, the Porre mission…”, Eve mumbled, thinking hard. “I wouldn’t go there just now.”, she said and pointed to Viper’s office. “I just talked to him, and boy, he’s not in a very pleasant mood. Last thing he needs now are people asking him questions.” Eve put on a sympathetic face.

She wasn’t even lying, she could just imagine Viper going up the walls after five soldiers asking him when they would leave. But first and foremost she had to make sure Randal wouldn’t talk to Viper. The last thing she needed was him telling Viper about having seen her in the corridor.

Randal sighed. “Well, I better come again later then. Bye.” He turned around and started to leave.

Not good. If he came here later, he could tell Viper about her. Then everything she just said to him would be in vain.

“Wait!”, Eve called suddenly, a little too loud, and regretted it immediately. What would she tell him? Randal stopped and turned around to her, a curious look on his face.

“Eh…uh…if you only came here wanting to ask for the time, he said everyone should be there before dawn. Could you tell the others?” Nice one. Now he didn’t need to talk to Viper anymore. Eve smiled inwardly.

“Yeah sure, thanks. I’m sorry you had to go and ask this stuff when he’s so pissed.”, Randal genuinely apologized. It almost made her feel bad to see that he was so trusting.

“But how do you know about the times? I didn’t know you were on this mission too. Didn’t you just came back from one?”, Randal asked curiously.

Damn, so he wasn’t that dumb after all. Why did he have to ask this? Eve tried hard to resist the urge to smack him. Instead, she looked to the side, thinking of a good reason.

“Well, you see…I messed up my last mission and even though Viper didn’t say it, he was quite displeased with me.”, she looked to the ground as if ashamed. “So I wanted to do this mission to make up for it. At first he was angry, but he agreed! Ha ha, I guess I’m just lucky.” She said and laughed, scratching her head sheepishly.

“That was nice of him. I guess he knows that you’re a good soldier, even though you messed up.”, Randal said and smiled gently. “Well, see you later then, I guess.”

“Yeah…I guess.”, Eve mumbled as Randal turned to leave.

Once Randal had gotten out of sight, Eve turned around and sneaked past the office and back down the stairs where she had come from.

She had gathered some information, which meant it had been a success. Now she knew that the ship would be departing the next day before dawn, and also, that she would be on board.

Walking back to her room, she wondered if she could do this. She hardly knew anything about this mission aside from the fact that the ship was heading for Porre. But she couldn’t turn back now. Randal would start asking questions if she wasn’t on board tomorrow. Damn, what had she gotten herself into? She didn’t even know what she was supposed to do on the ship and sooner or later, it would become obvious.

She wished she had squeezed more details out of Randal, but that would have made him suspicious. She still couldn’t believe that he had been so easy to deceive. Too easy.

With a sigh, Eve sat down on her bed. She had to do this or otherwise, she’ll never learn the truth. But at the same time, she asked herself if it would have been better if she hadn’t been so curious, so eager to find out about things which weren’t really her concern…

“Big score!”, Clair called happily as she entered their room, giving Eve the thumbs up.

She sat down beside Eve, grinning from ear to ear. “Boy, that soldier was like butter in my hands, are all newcomers like that?”, she asked and giggled, not really noticing the worried look on Eve’s face.

“Anyway, he was pretty talkative too. He told me his older brother, Jerry or something, would be on the ship tomorrow. He would be in charge of the dragon. Can you believe that? First they’re dragging that thing to Marbule and now even to Porre? What the hell are they up to?”, Clair asked thoughtfully.

“The dragon, huh? Does that mean…that both of the targets are still alive? Didn’t they say one of them died? Or maybe…they need it for something else…” Eve didn’t understand, but she was gradually getting used to not understanding anything anymore.

“God, this is making me mad. It seems like we’re the only ones not getting to know anything. They don’t tell us about the targets, the dragon, the ship to Porre, anything!” Clair said, walking back and forth in their room. “Geez. Anyway, what did you do?”

Eve sighed, lying down. “I got myself into a lot of trouble.”

Clair looked at her worriedly. “What, did you get caught?”

“No, it’s worse. I’ll be on the ship tomorrow.”, Eve explained while shaking her head.

“And…isn’t that good news? How did you manage anyway?”, Clair inquired.

“Randal surprised me. He wanted to talk to Viper, asking him when they would leave for Porre. But after seeing me, I couldn’t let him. I overheard Viper saying that the ship would depart tomorrow before dawn, so I told him. Of course he was curious why I knew these things and I couldn’t come up with a better lie than saying that I was on this mission too. And somehow he even believed me, just don’t ask me why.” Eve closed her eyes, worrying about all the ways this could go wrong. Maybe Viper had heard her after all, or maybe Randal was the one deceiving her the whole time…or maybe she was just being paranoid.

“But that’s great!”, Clair exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

Eve opened her eyes again and frowned at her friend. “You’re kidding, right? I know it sounds like a good plan, but honestly, I don’t know anything about this mission and if they find out about me they’ll throw me over board…or feed me to the dragon. I’ll be alone on this ship, I can’t do much. Even if I found out about whatever sinister plan they may be plotting, I’ll be stuck on this ship.”

Eve had grown even more worried as she said this. She hadn’t really thought about it before, but now it hit her like a lightning. She couldn’t do anything.

She could find out about the truth, maybe, but in the end, she still wouldn’t be able to do anything.

“Now you’re kidding right? You don’t honestly believe I’ll let you go alone?” A smile spread across Clair’s face as she said this. Sometimes she found it extremely cute when Eve tried to deal with every problem alone, never even thinking about involving her friends, but at other times it really bothered her to know that Eve might not trust her enough to depend on her at times like this.

“But Clair, you…” Eve couldn’t find the right words. “Look, we can’t just both go on board without anyone noticing that we don’t belong there, and also…I just dragged you into this, I don’t want to imagine what they’ll do to us once they find out…”

“So what? If we’re together, we’ll just kick their butts.”, Clair said and shrugged. Of course, she was worried as well, but she refused to make a fuss like Eve. They had started this, and they were going to finish it as well.

“You make it sound so easy. What will we do if we actually find out something? What will we do if we find out we’re on the wrong side?”, Eve asked, now freely expressing her worries.

“Then we’ll stop them. I don’t know how, yet. But we’ll definitely stop them.”, Clair answered without thinking. At first she had been the one having doubts and fears, but after all she had heard by now, she couldn’t turn her back on it anymore. She had to find out, and if it’d turn out that Viper wasn’t what he pretended to be, then she had been a soldier of his troops for the longest time.

“You really mean it, don’t you?”, Eve said, looking up at Clair.

“Absolutely.”


“Kidd! Ze wind! It’z trés…strong!”, Harle gulped and shouted, trying her best to keep the ship on course. Kidd had insisted on taking the shortest way to Guldove instead of playing safe by sailing along the coast. She wanted to get to Porre as soon as possible, to see what’s going on before Viper will be there. If he even planned to go there, which was very likely.

Of course, Harle was interested too, but she was a lot more afraid of what might be waiting for them in Porre. Part of her didn’t want to have anything to do with Viper anymore, she just wanted to be with Kidd, without having to fear for her life. But the other part…wanted to know about the dragons, wanted to know the truth. Since Kidd had been by her side, she didn’t hear them as often anymore. But she still knew they had to be watching them.

“What is it?”, Kidd asked sleepily, walking up from the small room below the deck to see what Harle was doing. She had been sleeping in the small room under the deck until now, so that they could take turns in sailing towards Guldove without a break, and eventually to Porre. Kidd wanted to stop at Guldove to get some food, the way to Porre would take quite some time with this ship.

It was almost midnight and she could hardly see anything aside from the tops of the raging waves glittering in the moonlight. The wind was indeed pretty strong, but Kidd was confident that the ship could manage this much. It was only about eight metres long and only had one sail, but Kidd had travelled with these kinds of small sailing ships quite often before, so she knew its limits. Or at least she liked to think so.

“Ze wavez!”, Harle shouted in dismay as another wave hit their small sailing ship, causing it to sway strongly. Harle had to hold tight to the steering wheel in order not to fall off.

“Careful.”, Kidd said as she slowly made her way towards Harle, trying to keep her balance. Standing behind her, she held her in place as she helped her holding the steering wheel straight.

Harle winced with every wave that hit the ship, hoping that this ferocious storm would be over soon.

“Ya can go inside, if ya want. I’ll take care of our course.”, Kidd said reassuringly but to her surprise, Harle shook her head.

“It’z okay…moi wouldn’t be able to sleep anywayz.”, Harle answered worriedly.

“Maybe you were right, we shouldn’t rush like this. What do ya think, we’ll lower the sail and drop anchor till the storm’s over?”, Kidd suggested even though she didn’t like the idea all that much. Sure, it was hard to sail through a storm like this, and dangerous too, but time was of the essence.

“No way.”, Harle said and gripped the steering wheel tighter. This was important. She shouldn’t whine like this, after all, Kidd was with her. And Kidd said everything was alright.

Until the storm would pass and the first rays of the morning sun reach her face, she would stand here, trying to force her way towards Guldove.

And also, she wasn’t alone.


“No! We have to turn back!”, Jack yelled through the rain, still looking back to where Guldove had been in sight several hours ago. He couldn’t take it, he just couldn’t. He had been so sure he would find her in Guldove…but now they were on their way to Porre. At first he had trusted the captain’s decision to go there, but with every passing day he worried more about her. He began to lose the hope of finding her there. The way she had just jumped off the ship…it had shown that she didn’t care about them, or the maps.

“Would ya stop it already?”, the captain asked irritated. This boy was starting to annoy him. He had been shouting ever since they had left Guldove in the afternoon. Now it was well after midnight and he still hadn’t stopped.

“But don’t you see! What are we going to do without her? We can’t leave her alone!”, he continued shouting.

“Stop bein’ so selfish ya bloody baby!”, the captain roared, fed up with Jack’s attitude. “Ya pretend ta be worried ‘bout Harle, but ya never thought ‘bout Kidd once, even though we haven’t heard a bloody word from her ever since!”, the captain made a movement as if attempting to slap the young man, but thought better of it turned his back to him.

“But she may be with her! If they weren’t in Guldove, we should have looked somewhere else! Arni Village, Termina, Marbule! They have to be somewhere!”, Jack said, unimpressed by the captains behaviour.

“Ya bloody idiot! We’re pirates, if ya don’t know that already. We can’t just snoop around El Nido without bein’ discovered by those bloody soldiers sooner or later! We’re goin’ ta Porre, and if ya can’t bear that, then get yer bloody arse off ma ship and swim yer way home!”, the captain yelled, trying to calm himself with little success.

“We’ll have ta go there ta find out what’s goin’ on with Viper. There must be somethin’ at the places he marked on the maps. We’ll just need ta see what.”, he explained after taking a deep breath. “Now get in or you’re gettin’ a cold. Last thing I need is a sick soldier when the big fight begins.”

Jack didn’t like the sound of that one bit. He wasn’t a very skilled fighter and he didn’t give a damn about the places on the maps. He just wanted to see her again, know that she was safe.

“You comin’ or what?”, the captain asked, looking at Jack. He almost felt pity for him, but he too was worried. The only difference was that he didn’t lose his mind and started wailing about their loss all the time.

There was still hope. Once they met Viper, they would know. And if it really turned out that Kidd and Harle were dead, then hewould haveall the more reason to crush him.


“Hey, wake up already!”, Clair said urgently and shook Eve’s shoulder.

Eve just grunted and turned around, mumbling incoherently.

“Now c’mon! If we don’t hurry, the others will be there before us!” ‘And it would be just like you to blame me for it.’, she added inwardly.

“Just a few minutes…”, Eve mumbled, tugging the blanket closer around her. How typical. Sometimes Clair wondered why Eve had chosen to be a soldier, when she was such a late sleeper.

With a smirk, Clair leaned down to her ear, whispering. “You don’t want me to…kiss you awake, do you?”

With a start, Eve sat up, looking at Clair in a mix of shock and disbelief. Clair just laughed at the sight.

“Hey, it worked.”, Clair said and chuckled, turning her back to Eve as she started packing her things.

“You and your jokes…”, Eve grunted as she stood up, rubbing her eyes.

“Yeah, yeah. Now hurry up or we’ll be late.”, Clair said, still smiling at how easy was to upset her roommate.

Eve quickly collected her clothes and went into the neighbouring room to change. Meanwhile, Clair chose a few elements she wanted to take with her, as well as her weapon of choice, a long rod. Of course, as a Viper soldier, her regular weapon was a sword, but whenever she wasn’t on duty, she took her rod with her. It was made of mahogany, not the kind of weapon anyone could just buy somewhere in El Nido. The middle was wrapped in white leather and the ends had golden caps on them. It had been a present for her sixth birthday. Of course it had been far too large and heavy for her back then, but she had trained everyday and now there was no weapon she could handle more precisely and effectively as this one.

“Don’t tell me you’re taking that with you.”, Eve said as she re-entered the room, now dressed in her uniform.

“Of course, what did you think?”, Clair asked as she strapped the rod in question on her back.

“That’ll be too suspicious. You know Viper only allows us to fight with swords.”, Eve said, already imagining the consequences this could have.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take that too.”, Clair said and smirked, as she slid her sword into the sheath at her hip. “Honestly, why are you so worried? It’s not like somebody’s going to see it. Once were on, I’ll hide it in our room.”

“You’re probably right…”, Eve mumbled, starting to pack her own things. It wasn’t much, only the most essential of things. A few elements, a knife, a bottle of water, a few metres of rope. The basic stuff.

“You ready? We have to hurry, we only have three hours before dawn.” Clair called, already opening the door.

“Yeah, yeah…”, Eve said, walking over to her. After one last glance at their shared room, they closed the door and were on the way to Termina, where the Longinus One laid. They left the Manor by climbing over the wall, because by going through the main entrance, the would’ve had to answer all kinds of questions. They would have been able to get out, but if something were to happen, the others would know it was them.

The wall was no match for them, they had climbed over walls a thousand times in their training before. The more difficult part was to run all the way to Porre. They couldn’t risk being too late. Their plan would only work if they were the first ones on board.

“Come on, Clair. A little faster!”, Eve called breathlessly, running a few metres in front of Clair.

“Look…look who’s talking! You were the one not waking up!”, Clair shot back, gasping for breath. Now she started to regret taking her heavy rod with her. And if she wouldn’t be so damn sure that she’ll need it some time or another, she would just throw it away about now.

They both were extremely grateful as they dashed through the shortcut in the mountains. Taking the normal route to Termina would take at least four hours, so Viper had ordered to make a shortcut, so his soldiers could get to the ships faster in case of an emergency. However, with all the money he had spent on building that shortcut, Eve wondered why he hadn’t just built a harbour of his own.

‘Would’ve been so much easier.’, Eve thought grimly as she ran through the short cave.

Clair still had trouble keeping up, but pushed herself onward in order not to be a burden for her friend. She’d always known that she couldn’t keep up with Eve in terms of durability and strength, but it was times like this that it really showed. And hurt.

“We’re almost there!”, Eve shouted in front of her.

However, these words didn’t do anything to encourage her until she would have actually set foot in Termina about twenty minutes later.

Even though Termina had gone through big changes over the last years and had considerably grown bigger, it still lacked any form of nightlife as much as Arni Village did. Not that Eve or Clair minded. The less people walking around, the better.

“Good, the others aren’t here yet.”, Eve said with a considerable amount of relief as she stood at the top of the stairs. The docks were lower than the rest of the town, so they had a perfect overview from here.

“There are still guards, though. And also a few people loading stuff onto the ship.”, Clair pointed out, trying to make out the total of people down at the docks.

“Four, five…seven. Anyone I missed?”, Eve asked as she started to count anew, just to make sure.

“Don’t think so.”, Clair answered. “But what will we do about these two guys?” She pointed towards two guards which she recognized also belonged to Viper. Their job was to make sure no unclassified people got on board. Clair wished they could just knock them out, but that would make the following troops suspicious.

Eve regarded them for a while, trying to make out their routine. The one closer to the ship walked in small circles in front of the gangplank, which lead to the Longinus One. The other one walked from left to right about ten metres away, to scan a wider area. Every now and then he looked behind some corners, where his view was blocked by big wooden boxes ready to be transported on one of the ships at the docks.

“The first one will be easy to avoid, but the second…”, Eve said thoughtfully. “The wood is too loud, there’s no way we could sneak past him.”

“Maybe we’re lucky and he’s deaf?”, Clair asked after a few minutes.

“Clair, please…”, Eve groaned, not even looking at her. It didn’t look good for them. It was too quiet to just sneak past the guards. Now she secretly wished for more of nightlife in Termina after all.

“Do you have something to throw?”, Clair asked again, undisturbed by her friends behaviour.

“No, Clair. Distracting him with a stone won’t work. He’ll still hear us, even if he is a few metres away.”, Eve answered with a sigh. She had thought of this before, but with the gangplank creaking as much as they usually did, the guard would hear them for sure.

“I didn’t mean it just like that, silly. Now do you have something or not?”, Clair asked again, smirking.

Eve just shook her head, still watching the soldiers walking around the docks. “Great. These guys have communicators too. They’ll call for help immediately if something were to happen.”, she murmured disappointed, already seeing the ship departing without them.

“You mean these new things to contact people all around El Nido?”, Clair asked curiously. She had heard of them, but never actually seen one herself. Looking around, she spotted a small hammer lying near a few boxes close to a nearby house. Clair quickly walked towards it and took it before returning to Eve, who hadn’t noticed her.

“Yeah, exactly those. But at the moment mostly high ranking soldiers have these. Way too expensive for normal people.”, Eve answered absent-mindedly.

“Is that so?”, Clair said in an oddly cheery voice and grinned maliciously. “Then we’d better start before the others arrive.”

Eve turned around with a start. “What are you talking about? What can we do like this, we-“, she protested, but was silenced by Clair’s finger on her mouth.

“Just trust me, okay? For once?” Clair’s voice was pleading, and Eve saw that her eyes were full of determinedness and the will to prove something. It was surprising. “Just do as I say.”

For a moment Eve didn’t say anything, thinking. But then a smile lit up her face. “Yeah, okay. Let’s do it.”, Eve answered with genuine trust, much to Clair’s surprise. She had anticipated a “Let’s plan this carefully” or a “Just let me handle it”-kind of answer. She almost didn’t believe it.

“Just make sure you don’t mess up.”, Eve said and smirked, pointing her finger at her warningly. Clair just grinned in response. This was a lot more like her.

“Okay, just follow me. I’ll get us on the ship in no time.”, Clair whispered as they walked down the stairs in the shadows. They had to be as quiet as possible from now on.

As they reached the end of the stairs, they hid behind a stack of boxes the first soldier had just looked behind. Clair was sure he wouldn’t look behind them again the next time he came over here. They should hurry either way, though.

Eve was behind Clair, also ducking behind the boxes. She shuffled nervously, impatiently awaiting Clair’s orders. She hated to hide like that, only waiting to get caught.

“When I give you a sign, you dash up the gangplank as fast and quietly as possible. I’ll follow if I can.”, Clair whispered, her eyes following the soldier as he walked in circles in front of the gangplank.

This was ridiculous. It wouldn’t work. They would get caught for sure. But despite fearing that, Eve tried to keep her mouth shut. She wanted to trust Clair, wanted to believe that she had a good plan. But somewhere deep inside her, she just couldn’t. This was too important to just gamble it.

However, before she could say something to stop Clair, she was already gone, walking closely behind the soldier, exactly imitating his footsteps. She held her rod in her right hand, as if ready kill him with it.

Eve stared at them in disbelief as they walked farther and farther away, walking closely to the water. Yet the guard didn’t realize a thing until it was too late. With one swift movement, Clair snatched the communicator from him with her left hand. As the guard turned around in surprise, Clair quickly swiped him off his feet with her rod, causing him to fall into the water.

Now she spun around, indicating Eve to dash to the ship, which she immediately did, closely followed by Clair. Just as they leapt over the rail of the ship, they could hear the gasp of the guard below. Eve quickly covered Clair’s mouth with her hand, so the guard wouldn’t hear them from below.

“Hey! What happened?”, the other guard shouted, running up to him to help him out of the water.

“So…someone pushed me into the water…”, the guard sputtered and coughed. A quick glance to his waist confirmed his suspicions about the attack. “Stole the communicator too…”

“Damn! That’s why I’d told Viper to send more guards. There are just too many thugs around here!”, the other guard shouted, looking around furiously.

From below, Eve just stared at them in wonder. They hadn’t noticed a thing. It was unbelievable. But just when she wanted to turn to Clair she saw her reaching back with a small hammer in her hand. Within the split of a second the hammer flew high through the air, before coming harshly to the ground about fifteen meters away from them.

The guards’ heads turned abruptly as they heard the noise.

“Over there!”, they shouted in unison before rushing off into the direction the hammer had taken before.

Perfect. Simply perfect. Eve stared in awe into the face of her grinning friend.

“If they’re not deaf, we’ll just have to make them.”, Clair said proudly.

She was right. Of course. The gangplank was loud, but while underwater, the guard couldn’t hear a thing.

“You’re a genius.”, Eve said, still staring incredulously.

“Aw, c’mon. It was pretty simple.”, Clair giggled, waving it off. “We better get inside now, we still have to look for a place to hide.”

“Right.”


“Boy, finally here. That nasty storm troubled us long enough, eh?”, Kidd asked cheerily, leaping from their ship onto the small harbour of Guldove.

“Correctement.”, Harle answered sleepily, looking down to Kidd.

“Do ya mind stayin’ here while I’m gettin’ some food n’ stuff? Don’t wanna leave the ship alone…someone might steal it.”, Kidd laughed at the thought, but was still worried about that possibility. They needed this ship and couldn’t afford to lose it by any means.

“Fine wit’ moi.”, Harle just said, not really in the mood for jokes right now. The whole night without sleep was starting to take its toll on her and the bright morning light piercing into her sleepy eyes didn’t do much to improve things.

“Okay, just relax then. I’ll be back in no time!”, Kidd shouted and dashed off. She seemed in a terribly good mood considering how they had spent the night. Maybe things like that were fun for her. One could never know.

With a yawn, Harle settled on the wooden rail of the ship, dangling her feet as she let the soft morning breeze blow through her hair. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad day after all.

As she closed her eyes, her mind started to wander…imagining much nicer things than those that had happened lately. She wondered when she would be able to simply enjoy herself again. Lying in bed all day with Kidd, talking about everything and nothing at all. Meeting old friends again. Going shopping in Termina like she used to do every time they were near the city.

“Hey, miss.” A loud and barking voice shook her out of her reverie.

Harle opened her eyes to look down on three bulky men with disgusting grins on their faces. So much for her nice day.

“You seemed terribly lonely up there, so my bro here said to keep you company.”, the shortest one of the bunch said, nudging the tall man beside him with his elbow.

“Zat iz not necessary, merci beaucoup.”, Harle answered, her manners taking the best of her. Actually, she wanted to smash these rude men to bits just about now.

“Aw, c’mon! Aren’t you afraid, all by your lonesome?”, the tall man asked with a sickening voice. “We’d really like to spend some time with you.”

“Taisez-vous!”, Harle snapped, now irritated. “Moi iz not alone. Now leave, rapidement.” She eyed the three men with obvious anger and disgust. Why were these guys so intend on getting on her nerves? Or maybe they wanted to steal the ship just as Kidd had predicted?

“You’ve some nerve, talking to our bro like that!”, the shorter man yelled angrily, clenching his fists.

‘How pathetic.’, Harle thought. “You know…actually moi waz talking to all of you imbéciles.”, she said as she stood up, smiling wickedly. If they wanted to have some fun with her that badly, they could have it.

“And here I wanted to be nice.”, the “big bro” said with a chuckle. “But if you want it like that…”

The other two understood instantly and jumped onto the ship. Harle immediately dodged the first attack by leaping backwards, but all too soon did she reach the back of their small ship. Not that there was any more space to her sides, since the three men were rapidly closing in on her.

Harle quickly pulled her cards out of her pocket, placing five in each hand. It would still be tough though. She remembered teaching Jack how to hit two marks with one shot, but would she be able to do three? Unlikely.

“Now be nice and give up. I’d hate to hurt you.”

Harle bit her lip. They underestimated her, treated her like a little girl. But the truth was, she couldn’t do much in this situation. As much as she would love to simply launch her Lunairetic attack, she couldn’t. It would destroy the whole ship. She just hoped these guys had realized that too and wouldn’t start using elements.

“Gotcha!”, one of them shouted, reaching for Harle’s arm. However, she made a roll to the side, launching half of her cards at the man, who screamed in pain as one of them struck him directly in the face, causing a thick red line of blood to emanate from it.

“You bitch!”, an other one said, running towards her. At first she wanted to throw cards at him as well, but as she saw the third one getting closer from the corner of her eye, she thought better of it.

Instead, she leapt high into the air, much to the guys’ surprise. She threw her cards at the one to her side and used her free hands to hit the man directly under her. The attacker beneath her went down with an ugly crack, and Harle wondered if she had hit the neck a little too hard.

As she got up from her knees and looked around, a satisfied smile spread on her lips. She walked over to the “boss” of the gang, cautiously turning him around with her foot. Two cards had struck him into the right arm, the other ones in the legs. If he didn’t get any treatment soon, he wouldn’t be able to use his arm in quite a while.

“Serves you right.”, Harle spat. But before she could turn around to see how the others were doing, she was grabbed by an arm around her neck so fiercely it took her breath away.

“Now it’s over!”, the man shouted and laughed triumphantly.

“Vraiment.”, Harle whispered and chuckled. With a start, she grabbed his choking arm with both hands and pushed herself off the ground with all her strength. The man just looked at her dumbfounded as he saw Harle directly above him, before he found himself lying on the floor. Before he could stand up again, Harle made sure he’ll lose consciousness by striking her foot across his head.

After she looked around to make sure that everybody was down, for good, she allowed herself to take a few deep breaths.

“Complètement ridicule…”, she muttered as she heaved the men up one after another to shove them over board. She didn’t want to have trash like that on the ship.

“Oi…that looks like…morning exercises?”, Kidd shouted in surprise as she noticed the bodies in front of their ship. Carefully she made her way around them, balancing two boxes on her shoulders.

“Let moi help.”, Harle said gently as she took one box off Kidd. It was only now that she realized Kidd’s new clothes. They weren’t really different than the ones she had before, though. The red of the vest was slightly deeper and the top underneath whiter…but that was probably due to it being clean.

“Trés chouette.”, Harle said approvingly and smiled.

“Yeah, it’s kinda nice not ta look like some bloody beggar anymore.”, Kidd answered and laughed, planting a kiss on Harle’s cheek as she passed by.

“Anyway…”, she started setting the box down in a corner. “Do I even wanna know what happened?”

Harle just laughed and shook her head. “As you said, juzt a little…morning practize.”

“Some poor guys…”, Kidd joked as she loosened the rope which had held their ship in place. “And off we go.”

Harle smiled as she saw Guldove slowly disappearing on the horizon. These annoying guys…she wondered what they had been after…was it really the ship, or rather something, or someone else?

Back in Guldove, it took the three men quite some time to be able to stand up again.

“Damn, some bitch…”, the tallest of them mumbled, gritting his teeth. That girl was far better than he had expected.

“No kidding.”, the other one said, hissing as he tried to stand up. With a frown he took out his communicator, angrily punching in a few numbers.

“Hello? Yeah, it’s me. We spotted her here in Guldove. What? No…we didn’t get her. What…? Damn, you should’ve told us she was this dangerous. Should’ve seen her face…yeah, she had quite some fun beating us up. Huh? Yeah, I saw them heading north-west. Hey, don’t hang up yet! You better pay us the double amount, you didn’t say we’d have to fear for our lives when meeting her. Yeah, right. You’d better do so.” As he hung up, he had an angry look on his face.

“So, what did he say?”, the others asked curiously.

“Nothing much. He’ll send someone over here to pay us. Tsk. I swear, no more business with Viper, that’s for sure.”

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