The cold, damp air of the Agashima docks clung to Archibald Winn Lima-Sabin and Paula Cupcake Pope as they walked the broad, cobbled thoroughfare leading back to Metz-Oni's inner fortress. Behind them, the muffled sounds of the Moselle Moat lapped against heavy stone piers, and the silhouette of Grutte Pier Dorian's cutter was just a shadow dissolving into the iron-grey mist. The path was wide enough for three ogre-sized cargo carts to pass abreast, flanked by towering warehouses of dark timber and riveted iron.
Archibald ambled with a bounce in his step, his multi-colored silk vest a splash of carnival energy against the dour industrial backdrop. "So I told him, 'If your skill was a spice, it'd be flour,' and the man had the audacity to look confused! Can you believe it, Paula? Flour!"
Paula, a full head taller even at her companion's eight-foot height, took a long, slow drag from her thin pipe, the ember glowing like a watchful eye in the damp air. Smoke wreathed her fiery red hair and the tiny nubs of her horns. "Cupcake, the only thing more predictable than a Marine's skill is their barber. Same boring cut, same boring plans." Her voice was a low, smoky rasp, laced with the timeless, weary humor of a warrior who'd seen too much bureaucratic stupidity.
They had just seen the Sovereign off, the weight of his departure and the incoming Celestial Dragon delegation a silent understanding between them. The relative quiet of the dockyard was punctuated by the distant clang of the Grand Forge and the cry of gulls wheeling overhead.
It was shattered by a deep, blaring whoop-whoop-whoop that erupted from brass horns mounted on the fortress walls ahead. The sound wasn't frantic, but it was insistent, a rhythmic, pounding alarm that echoed off the stone walls.
Both commanders stopped mid-stride on the cobblestones.
A heartbeat later, a young Ogre guard careened around the corner of a slate-roofed shed, his iron-soled sabots screeching on the stone. He skidded to a halt before them, chest heaving, his face pale beneath his helmet. He snapped a trembling salute.
Archibald's expressive face cycled through mock surprise, theatrical annoyance, and finally, a kind of eager curiosity. He tucked his chalk behind a horn. "Well, out with it, man! What's all this ruckus about? You'd think someone misplaced the Grand Chrono-Anchor." His tone was light, but his dark eyes were already sharp, calculating.
The guard gulped air. "One of the prisoners—the new ones from Lugh-Grange—has escaped, sirs! And she… she appears to have taken Doctor Scatyl hostage!"
Paula's jaw ticked, a small muscle flexing near her blue war-paint. She removed the pipe from her lips. "Which one?" she grumbled, the words dropping like stones.
The guard swallowed hard, his throat clicking. "The, uh, the Dracu—"
"Hell's bells," Paula cursed, not letting him finish. The pipe stem clenched tight in her teeth. "I knew that one had 'problem' written all over her. Mihawk's get." She shot a look at Archibald, who was stroking his chin, the laugh-line scar making him look perpetually amused.
"How?" Archibald asked, head tilted. "Sea-stone cuffs, a fortified cell, and Scatyl's meant to be checking her vitals, not joining her book club."
"Does it matter?" Paula snapped, her voice cutting through the alarm's drone. "The Celestial Dragons are en route! If they get here and their precious 'assets' are playing hide-and-seek with a warlord's daughter, Pier will have our hides for wall decor. We need to find her. Now."
Archibald nodded, the playful glint in his eyes solidifying into a cold, strategic gleam. "Right. Okay. Well, where would she go? If I were a recently escaped, righteously annoyed young woman with a penchant for dramatics and a cursed sword…"
Paula's emerald eyes narrowed, scanning the empty corridor as if she could see the ghost of Marya's path. "If I were her," she said, her voice dropping into a commander's cadence, "I'd do one of three things. Get off the island, get to my crew, or get my weapon back." She counted them off on fingers calloused from bowstring and trident haft.
"A classic trilemma!" Archibald proclaimed, clapping his hands together with a puff of fine white chalk dust. "The exit, the heart, or the fang. She can't get off the island without her crew or her sword—not with the Moat on alert. The crew is already on a barge to Kamaten with Pier himself… a harder target. But the sword…" He grinned, a flash of white in the gloom. "The sword is a shiny object in a known location. Queen Ayana's vault."
"The vault," Paula agreed with a sharp nod. "You take that. I'll secure the other prisoners—the Lunarian and the Three-Eye. If she's clever, she might try to spring them first to cause a bigger diversion. Or," she added, a wicked smirk touching her lips, "she might be sentimental."
"Sentiment is a tactical vulnerability," Archibald chirped, but he was already turning, his crimson cloak flaring. "I'll turn the vault into a chalk-drawn comedy club she won't want to leave."
Paula turned to the panting guard, who was still standing stiffly, waiting for orders. Her voice, when it came, was a whip-crack of authority. "You. Send two squads to reinforce the royal vault. Heavy hitters, not rookies. Then send another to the high-value holding cells in the east tower. Double the guards. No one in or out without my or Archibald's direct seal."
The guard nodded so vigorously his helmet rattled. "Y-yes, ma'am! Right away!"
Paula took a final, deep drag from her pipe, the ember flaring like a miniature forge. She exhaled a stream of smoke into the alarmed air. "NOW!"
The guard jolted as if struck and scrambled away, his boots pounding a frantic retreat down the hall.
The two commanders shared a last look. The humor was gone, stripped away by the blaring horns and the specter of failure. In its place was the fierce, unspoken understanding of partners who had turned the tides of battles.
"Try not to have too much fun without me," Paula said, already striding in the opposite direction, her wolf-fur tunic swaying.
"My dear Paula," Archibald called after her, his voice echoing with a theatrical flourish as he broke into a run towards the inner keep, his chalkboard bouncing on his back. "Fun is my middle name! Well, one of them! The other is 'fresco'!"
As they parted, the fortress alive with rising panic around them, the chase was no longer a theoretical exercise. It was a race against a ghost in a leather jacket, and the clock ticking down to the arrival of dragons.
-----
The wind on the high fortress wall was a cold, biting river that tugged at Marya's jacket and whipped her long black hair across her face. Below, the sprawling, industrial heart of Metz-Oni churned. The air tasted of iron filings and distant woodsmoke, carrying up the rhythmic clang of massive hammers from the Grand Forge and the low, mournful groan of heavy barges on the Moselle Moat. The scale was for Ogres; even the crenellations they stood behind were as tall as a man.
Dr. Zip H. Scatyl was bent double, his pristine white coat flapping, one black-gloved hand clutching the rough stone while the other pressed against his chest. His breath came in short, ragged gasps that clouded in the frigid air. "Zi-hi-hi… That was… disorienting," he wheezed, his yellowish eyes wide with a mixture of terror and fascination.
Marya stood perfectly straight, boots planted firmly. The cold didn't seem to touch her. Her golden eyes, hawk-like and impatient, were already mapping routes across the labyrinth of gothic-industrial rooftops and massive, iron-braced bridges below. "Locations. Now," she stated, her voice cutting through the wind. It wasn't a request. "We don't have much time before that alarm organizes a search grid."
The doctor righted himself, adjusting his stethoscope with a trembling hand, his small forward-pointing horns catching the dull grey light. "Yes. Of course." He drew a steadying breath, his professional mask sliding back into place. "Your companions were separated. The two special assets—the Lunarian child and the Three-Eye tribeswoman—are being secured in the castle's high-value holding cells. The rest…" He gestured vaguely east, toward the mist-shrouded sea. "They are already being ferried to Kamaten Island with The Sovereign Grutte Pier Dorian."
Marya's arms crossed over the Heart Pirates insignia on her chest. "Why?"
Dr. Scatyl's lips stretched into a thin, knowing smile. "To work, of course. Manual labor on the Screw."
A faint, unfamiliar flicker of confusion passed behind Marya's stoic expression. "The screw?"
"The Grand Anchor," he clarified, his voice dropping to a reverent, creepy whisper. "The great spinal tap that keeps the Hitotsume 'Era' slumbering in its cradle. It requires constant turning. It eats time, you see. And it has a particular appetite for the vitality of the living." He said it with the casual air of a man discussing the weather.
Marya absorbed this, connecting it to the heavy, sorrowful atmosphere of the island. The Silent Saviors she'd glimpsed—young Ogres with old eyes. A deep, cold anger settled in her gut, not hot and raging, but solid and sharp, like a stone. It was an obstacle, a massive, cruel machine that had ensnared her crew. She waved a hand, cutting off any further morbid exposition. "Where is my sword?"
"Ah, the fascinating artifact. Nisshoku," Dr. Scatyl said, his eyes glinting. "It rests in Queen Ayana's royal vault. A trophy, I suspect, though she likely senses its… anomalous properties. I can show you the way."
Marya gave a single, sharp nod. Her priorities were clear: weapon, then crew. The vault first. She placed a hand on his slender shoulder. He flinched at the contact, his body rigid. "Stay alert," she said, her golden eyes meeting his wide, startled ones. "Keep your muttering to a minimum. This is going to be a short, fast trip."
Before he could offer another breathy comment, she turned, her gaze locking onto a path. It was a series of leaps: from their wall to a lower gable, across a broad rainwater gutter shaped like a stone serpent, then onto the tiled roof of a chapel-sized forge whose chimneys belched heat that warped the air. It was a route only someone with her Dracule agility and utter fearlessness would attempt.
"You cannot mean to—" Dr. Scatyl began.
"I do," Marya interrupted. "Try to keep up. Or don't. The deal was for a ride, not a carrying service."
With that, she gripped his collar and took off at a sprint along the narrow ledge, her combat boots sure and silent. After a heartbeat of stunned paralysis, Dr. Zip H. Scatyl scrambled after her, his own footsteps clumsy and panicked, a whispered stream of numbers and medical terminology hissing from his lips like a desperate prayer to a god of logic that had no place on the high, windswept walls of an Ogre fortress as they coalesced into mist. The hunt was no longer just an escape; it had become a heist, and her guide was a whispering, terrified ghost in a white coat.
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