Wealth, Adventure, and the Open Sea: A One Piece RP.(Arc 4: Porte Carlo.)

[tsatoma]

Alaena stayed silent as plans were made and orders were given to everyone. She was slightly drowsy from being woken up before she was ready, but it was her own fault for putting off resting until only a few hours before. A yawn escaped her before she told everyone in Peter's crew to be safe; wishing them luck before heading towards the clock tower.

That was to be her role in this battle. It was certainly her forte to hit enemies from far away, relatively safe at that distance. Alaena couldn't help but wonder if it was due to her injuries that she was placed in a position where she wouldn't have to worry much about moving around. 'Or maybe you're just thinking too much about things. You were simply ordered into a position that takes advantage of your strengths,' she told herself, ascending the stairs to the top of the tower.

Reaching the top of the stairs she pushed up on the overhead door, opening it and leaving the long staircase. The crisp air of morning could be felt around her as she locked door; taking a moment to enjoy the view before settling in. She placed her quiver down next to her once she got into position facing the south; putting her bow on her lap as she waited for the battle to commence.

 

[GoWithDAFro]

Here we go. Yoje hopped to the roof of the Marine Outpost. Peter reasoned that Roger would send a ton of his grunts out before he and his real crewmembers attacked themselves. Yoje's job was to help slow down the initial wave, while the others lured them into traps. Then he was supposed to try take out at least one of Roger's crewmembers one on one. Yoje felt no fear, only anticipation. He was rested and ready to show them what Rokushiki could do. Let's see if you live up to your reputation, Roger

 

[NeoAC]

The sleep had eventually come for Sammi, although it didn't stay for near long enough. The suns rays poked through heralding the end of the deadline. It was way too bright. She thought about fighting them off, but Peter's call convinced her that her naptime was up.

Sammi groaned and rolled out of bed, clothes already on since she had no reason to take them off. She fumbled around through her stuff, looking for her trusty axes before coming across them on the floor. Weapons in hand, she made her way downstairs and headed out to where she assumed the announcements were coming from.

Eventually, Sammi made it to the town square, finding Peter already there, controlling the forces. The Archer from yesterday was surely hiding out elsewhere in the town, waiting to shoot. She had no idea where everyone else was though. "Morning Cap'n!" she called out to him as she walked up, stretching her arms in the air. "Nice day for a resistance fight, huh?"

 

[CounterAttack]

Marielle had managed to catch a few hours' sleep, wanting to be awake for the inevitable battle for control of Lasklee. She had gotten up with the dawn, eaten as much as she could in order to stock up on the energy she would need to see the fighting through, and made her way to the center of town. The guy in charge, Peter, was already there, along with someone else she didn't recognise. Another woman, armed with twin axes... an interesting choice of weapon.

"Morning, all," she said, trying to speak in a light-hearted tone of voice. It didn't go so well: she ended up with a somewhat sombre tone. "Remind me again where I'm needed?" she asked, wanting to confirm her role in the resistance rather than running off somewhere without a reason to do so.

 

[NeoAC]

"Morning all. Remind me again where I'm needed?"

Sammi wasn't expecting to hear a request from orders from someone who sounded so young. She turned around to see a girl standing there, not looking anything like a resistance fighter. Although she appeared battle-tested, with all the scars on her exposed skin. She didn't know what to make of her, except that she had apparently already been let in on the plan of attack, so she had that on Sammi.

"Maybe I need to be informed of who you are first before you get an answer," Sammi told her, trying to assert her inherited role of second in command. "I don't remember seeing you around before. You're a fighter, are ya?"

 

[CounterAttack]

"Not exactly," Marielle answered, a little unnerved by the woman's response to her question. She instinctively backed up a step, not wanting to get on the stranger's bad side straight off the bat. Presumably she was with Peter, Yoje, Hal and that other woman... they were a motley bunch indeed, and the clothing worn by the assertive axe-wielder gave Marielle the impression of someone who had seen a lot of time on the seas. If Peter and his companions were pirates as she had guessed, this woman was probably allowed to ask who Marielle was and what right she had to be here.

"I've never fought in combat before, but willing to try. My Devil Fruit power is intended for fighting, I think, though I haven't tried it in a fight," she explained. "The name's Marielle, Marielle Villeneuve. Been in Lasklee all my life; it's my home and I'm willing to stand up and defend it." Even if my parents aren't, she added silently despite the fact that she respected her parents' decision.

"If I may ask, who are you?" she returned the question.

 

[NeoAC]

Devil Fruit? Her? Sammi looked over Marielle for a second. What kind? She doesn't look like she could do anything like that. She just looks like she can get herself cut up and...pick out odd nail polish. What kind of power would that be?

"If I may ask, who are you?"

"Fair enough Marielle," she conceded. "My name is Sammi Makela. I'm Peter's second in command, and if you're a Devil Fruit user, I think maybe you should be sticking with me. I've got a Devil Fruit power of my own you see, so two of us, should be twice as good. Don't you think?"

It would be great if she turned out to be good. I haven't met any other Devil Fruit users who are female. Maybe she can actually use her powers, whatever they may be, responsibly, unlike some of the guys I've seen with it...

 

[Fragrance of Mtn Dew]

After dropping off the crates, Hal had decided to give his legs a rest and get some sleep. He was so tired that he slept like a baby despite his anxieties about the battle that awaited him the next day. As the morning sun streamed in through the window, he groaned and rolled over, managing to get in another hour or so. Suddenly, he snapped awake and realized that he couldn't afford to sleep in anymore.

After throwing on his suit and hat and grabbing his sword, Hal quickly ran towards the town square. He would've gotten there much sooner had he used Shave, but he needed to save his strength. Shave was pretty much his only battle asset and if he was too tired to use it, he was 100% screwed. As he arrived in the town square, he saw Peter getting things ready and Sammi and Marielle nearby. "Morning, Peter. Ladies." He greeted them, giving a tip of his hat to the girls.

 

[CounterAttack]

"Ah... yes, two of us working together sounds like a good plan," Marielle conceded. "I don't know how effective I'll be in a fight, so I'm going to have to do some improvising when Harligold and his men get here." Neither did she know how long she could sustain her power for: if she burned out in the middle of a battle, she was nigh useless since she had no weapons of her own.

Marielle nodded to Hal as he passed, but turned her attention back to Sammi. The older woman had a power of her own... it would be interesting to see how other Devil Fruit users fared in combat. Sammi probably had a lot of experience in that respect: that wasn't saying much, as even one fight was more than Marielle had been through in the three years that she remembered. "Okay, Sammi, lead the way," she said with a hint of a smile.

 

[NeoAC]

"All right, we're going to be heading up where the action is, so if you don't think you're going to be effective, just be careful and don't let yourself get caught out of position." Sammi pointed towards the pathway which led to the shoreline where Roger was supposed to make his landing. "Follow me, we're heading down this way."

As Sammi headed towards the walk to the beach, she nodded over at the merchant before giving a half salute to the Captain as she left. Taking her new charge with her, they left the square area.

"So," she started, twirling her axes as she strolled down to where the battle would be commencing, "what exactly is your Devil Fruit Power? I mean, are you one of those shifting ones? Are you one of the regular ones? What do you got? I don't know many of the other ones."

 

[CounterAttack]

"My power is... Hm. A little difficult to describe, is what it is," Marielle began, walking alongside Sammi. "Basically, it's... shockwaves, I guess you could call them. I can produce beams of energy from my hands or mouth." To demonstrate, she performed the same gesture she had used to demonstrate the power to Peter and the other woman whose name escaped her, once more pointing at the ground ahead of the two of them. Again, the blue of her fingernails began to glow, and a small blast jumped from her hand: Marielle didn't want to use her power too much in case she burned out later.

"I gave a similar demonstration to some of the others. It's good against things like wood and glass, but I haven't tried it against a living target," she added, reiterating what she had said earlier.

 

[NeoAC]

Sammi watched as Marielle showed what exactly she was able to do. Hmmmm, so she can go with ranged attacks...that's pretty sweet actually. Means she can hit some of those long range bastards that kept bugging me when I fought on the Thrasher...this can work.

"I wondered why you chose to do your nails up in blue," she admitted. "You haven't tried it against anyone yet? Hmmmm, have to see if we can fix that before we fight. Maybe we'll get lucky and some idiot will try to mug us. I'm sure they wouldn't mind contributing to some testing once they figure out the situation they're in."

 

[Mr. Omega]

Spoiler: OOC. 2 Things.

1: Sorry it took so long to post. Finals week and all that stuff. But that's all done with now ^_^
2: The villains sheet is completed! Go check it out on the previous page.

Peter stood at town hall, looking over the city. The north and south had the biggest streets, and there was a clear view of the docks. Once Harligold's ship arrived, they'd be able to see it. The east and west had more narrow streets, which would be easier to defend. The biggest issue was the various alleyways and side streets coming from every other direction. He had people stationed on the rooftops to pick off people coming from each direction. They were narrow enough that blocking them off would be easy, but he chose instead to barricade the east and west.

He could see the tallest building of the resort one way, and the sign of the casino the other way, but those two points were far out of the way, and had been emptied of resources. Most of the cannons were hidden nearby to protect the southern way. The crew were on the ground, along with a small band of people to defend the central plaza, and those who would operate the plaza.

Peter's plan was simple: try and force them to go through the southern way. It may have been the biggest, but it was where most of the defenses were set as well. The single biggest threat would be if Harligold had his men go around the perimeter of entire island to go through the north. He just hoped Harligold was an impatient man. Of course, there were still plenty of other issues, as well.

"Ok, folks. Everybody up for it? I asked the best fighters to stay on ground level. Anybody having any second thoughts?"

 

[Fragrance of Mtn Dew]

"Ready as I'll ever be I guess...." Hal said as he lit up a cigarette to help calm his nerves. He gripped his sword tightly and moved towards the docks. Fighting head on wasn't a very good idea for Hal, so his plan was to hide in the alleys near the southern way and ambush Rogers men as they approached. Pick off a few stragglers one by one, and being so close to the docks he would be able to see where any other men from Roger's ship were headed and act accordingly. It may not be the most helpful way to fight, but it was the best Hal would be able to do.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile out across the sea, the crew of the Great White waited anxiously for their captain to emerge from his cabin and give the order to move on Lasklee. At last, the door open and Roger stepped out on the deck, wearing his Seastone gauntlets that meant he was ready to battle. He gazed over his crew for a moment before addressing them. "Well boys, this is gonna be another big day. Normally I wouldn't expect much of a fight out of a bunch of civvies, but if the group that took out the gangs of Lasklee are sticking around to take us on... Well, we might just have one hell of a battle on our hands. And I wouldn't have it any other way." Roger said, a grin slowly spreading across his face. "This will be a great warm-up for when we take on the Marines in Porte Carlo who were too scared to try and fight us here. After this, they'll have nowhere left to run and West Blue will belong to US!!"

The crew let out a wild cheer at that as Roger made his way over to the side of the ship and begin pulling up the anchor, readying the ship to set sail. "We've given them 12 hours to put up a fight, now let's see what they can do! And show them all who the mightiest pirates to ever sail these seas are!!" Roger roared as he hoisted the anchor out of the sea with seemingly little effort and pointed it out across the ocean towards Lasklee. The loud cheers of the crew could be heard bellowing out across the sea for miles as the Great White made it's way towards Lasklee at last.

 

[Mr. Omega]

As Roger finished his speech, his men chanted throughout the ship "HARLIGOLD! HARLIGOLD! HARLIGOLD! HARLIGOLD!" The more powerful members of his crew stood in the back, Mottso up in the crow's nest, eyeing the defense from his scope. "Just a little closer and I can take the first shot..." Yedaj slinked his way up to the front. "Captain, what shall be the approach this time? They seem to have barricaded themselves up in the center of town."[hr]
Peter was looking towards the south through a telescope they managed to salvage, and saw a sail in the distance, seeing a large Jolly Roger across the sail. "IT'S THE GREAT WHITE!"

By the time the ship had arrived, everyone could see that the ship eclipsed most of the buildings, as if multiple ships had been stacked together, about 2.5 times the size of the ship Peter had arrived on, which was itself slightly bigger than most pirate ships. "Ok... numbers aren't everything... we have the terrain... and hopefully we have the better strategy..." A small hatch opened, revealing a large mob of pirates, and they began lowering gangplanks. Once they were there, they seemed to wait.

Peter yelled out "GET ALL THE CANNONS READY! AIM AT THE FRONT LINE! SLOW DOWN THE APPROACH AS MUCH AS YOU CAN!" He knew the smarter ones wouldn't rush right into the cannons, opting to try and find alternate alleyways, but having a straight shot at their main bulk would at least slow them down. Most of the side was dedicated to getting out his men, but he knew it was only a matter of time before they got out their own cannons. Once that happened, they'd have to retreat behind the buildings.

 

[Fragrance of Mtn Dew]

Roger didn't respond to Yedaj for a while as he stared out at the island. He knew the crew was itching to fight, but this plan was important since they couldn't afford to waste resources here. In Roger's mind, the real battle was the one at Porte Carlo after this. There were too many unanswered questions here. What kind of weapons were they able to pull together? How much of the Budero and Yarrakona families had remained intact enough to fight back? Had the group that defeated them stuck around to fight him? There was only one way to find out. "Alright, we'll let the grunts do their thing and charge in. We won't know their strength until we see it for ourselves." Roger finally said to Yedaj, turning to address his stronger crewman who hadn't rushed down to the hatch as well. "If one or two of you guys wants to head down there and charge in with them, go right ahead. But I'd like most of you to stay behind for a bit with about a third of our foot soldiers, just in case they've got some kind of trap down there. If the direct approach doesn't work, we'll have to go around and find another way in."

Roger then looked up at the crow's nest and called out to Mottso. "Hey, Mottso! I want you to stay up there for now and see if you can't pick some of them off. Try and hit the ones firing any cannons they may have, and if you can't do that just try to keep their heads down." After he finished giving his orders, Roger turned to gaze towards the town center once more. Once everyone was in place, Roger lifted his anchor and pointed it towards the island, bellowing out the order to charge. "ATTACK!!!"

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hal couldn't see the Great White approach from the alley he was in, but he certainly heard Roger and his crew. "Shit! It's started..." Hal quickly put out his cigarette as he heard Roger ordering the attack and the footsteps and yelling of the approaching pirates. He gripped his sword tightly as he waited for Peter to fire the cannons. While the pirates were being barraged from the front, Hal would pick off a few here and there from the side and be gone before they even knew what hit them.

 

[CounterAttack]

"Holy Mother..." Marielle breathed as she gawked upwards at the gargantuan ship. That vessel was insanely big: it was a wonder it had even gotten this close to the island. And it was probably full to bursting with pirates under Harligold's command. She looked to Sammi for instruction; the older woman might have at least some idea of what to do.

Then someone, presumably Harligold himself, gave the order - "ATTACK!!!" - and her heart sank. An unruly, apparently disorganised mob of pirates began to swarm onto the island. They were most likely spreading out and going in random directions, looking for something to kill. Soon enough a dozen of them found Marielle and Sammi. They paused for a moment, resulting in the classic standoff for a few seconds: the two defenders and twelve invaders standing a fair distance apart.

Marielle tried not to show it, but she was bordering on the verge of panic. She had no experience, she didn't know how to fight... but she was doing what she wanted to do. Defend her home. She took a deep breath, balling her hands into fists to prepare for the coming combat.

Then most of the pirate attackers rushed the two women. While a few of them went for Sammi, seeing as she was clearly the greater threat, only three moved to engage Marielle. She swept one of her hands up to point at the leading man, and opened her fist. Blue light surged forward, catching him straight in the face and chest...

... but Marielle's power didn't just stagger him backwards under the concussive impact. The pirate began to scream in agony and his two friends stopped their charge. Marielle kept her hand up until the pirate fell over backwards, convulsing and hacking. His ragged shirt bad been completely burned away, and his face, throat and chest was a mess of second and third-degree burns. It was almost as if Marielle had set him on fire... but her power wasn't fire-based. The wood she had tested it on hadn't been set alight, just smashed up as a result of the impact.

Regardless, the other pirates snarled and yelled for assistance. Three more of them rushed to the aid of the two that were still standing: Marielle now had five facing her all at once. Not wanting them to get close enough to land blows with their weapons, she kept them at bay with sweeps of her hands, using the shockwaves to ward them off. Whenever one of her foes got caught in the wave for a second or two, they hissed under the burning sensation they felt.

Marielle was exerting a good portion of her focus in the combat: she had lost track of Sammi, and had no time to look around for her.

 

[Mr. Omega]

Peter waited until they had formed a large mob in front of them "FIRE!" He shouted, and at that command and bunch of men went and fired half of the cannons at the approaching mob. A couple were firing every second, and each time it fired, those manning it moved it back a couple inches as they reloaded it. While many of Harligold's men continued to rush ahead, most near the back seemed to divert from them, heading to the alleyways to get away from the line of site from the cannons. "Wait for it..." He had set up various little blocks and obstacles in the nearest alleys with various broken crates and timber. He shot a flare into the sky, and once he had, a bunch of the citizens armed with rifles jumped up from hiding on the roofs and started taking shots at the pirates both in the main street and the alleys.

He turned to his crew. "Yoje! Grana! Sammi! Hal! Jacque! New girl! That's your cue! Get over there and deal with anyone who slips through! The guys on the roof can't stop them all! Just protect the guys at the cannons while they start moving backwards!" He turned to the barricades in the east and west, noticing a couple of Harligold's faster men were arriving, starting to try and break down the barricade. It was made of large, sturdy logs, huge chunks of iron and steel and a bunch of rubble, resembling a poorly made brick wall. The smarter ones decided to try and climb over it, one or two of them running to town hall. "Ok, they're starting to come through!" He turned and noticed a bunch ha already started trying to fight Marielle. "Shit..."[hr]

Mottso aimed for the nearest cannon, his sites set on the man reloading it. "Ok... you had your fun with the pawns, now we get our fun..." he pulled the trigger and a round ran through the man's chest. The others manning the cannon seemed to panic, backing up faster. "And reloading..."

 

[SkyeNeko]

Crassi was sitting on a crate against the side of the boat. Her tail was curled around her shoulder, the foot long blade sitting in her hands. She was wiping it with a green rag, coating it with several layers of a dilute stonefish poison. It was one of her favorite poisons: it caused intense pain, enough to immobilize it's victims. The only downside was that it was easy to cure. Hopefully they'll be long dead by then... she grinned, "I guess I'll stay here while the idiots get themselves killed. Cannon fodder." Getting paid to sit here and not die? I'm in.

The blade was glowing a sickly green by the time she heard the first shot from the Crow's nest. "Damn, you got some range on that Mottso." Crassi grinned, slowly standing up. She strapped on a few pieces of leather armor, ready to go. "It looks like they got a few good fighters. But that's what we're for. Time to end a few lives."

 

[tsatoma]

Picking off the pirates coming in through the alleys towards the center of town was easy for Alaena. She had kept herself from shooting arrows at the large group that had exited Harligold's pirate ship; instead waiting for them to have to start funneling through the narrow streets to save up on arrows. Even though she had made enough to fill up her quiver there was always the chance that she would run out, especially with the numbers of Harligold's men.

"And that's why we make sure each one counts, right Fletch?" she asked the falcon after he swooped down and landed on the railing of the tower, a silent stare being his response. Alaena just smiled at that, keeping her eye on a pirate that was trying to hide behind cover. An arrow was nocked and quickly released, hitting the pirate who slumped over. 'These guys are easy to take care of. Their only strength is their numbers. It's Harligold and his higher-ups that will be the real problem,' she thought, taking out another pirate that was trying to make his way to the center of town.