Quest to Nowhere: Black Hat

Chapter 4: Pit Stop

Amate reclined in his deck chair with his hat over his face. The salty ocean wind wafted over him, as his body was warmed by the sun on this cloudless day.

“Captain,” said Robin's voice from behind him.

Amate moaned a little and acted as if he were asleep. Robin sighed before kicking over his chair causing him to fall onto the deck.

“What the hell?!” he said as he rolled onto his back and looked up at her.

“We have a problem that needs your attention immediately,” she told him.

“Come on, its my first day.”

“Get your ass up and get over here,” she said as she leaned down and took his hat.

He eventually got up and followed her down below deck and into the hold of the ship. She opened up to the store room, and lit some of the lights on the inside. The inside of the room was filled with a few barrels and one or two crates, but mostly it was empty.

“As you can see we are running dangerously low on supplies, and the closest port is at least three or four days away,” she said to him very matter of fact.

“Can't I have my hat back now?” he said, Robin sighed and tossed him his hat. Which he quickly put back on.

“Why the heck did you bring me down here? Couldn't you have just told me on the deck?” Amate asked.

“Well knowing you, I figured something would actually get done if I showed you how bad it is.”

“And that's why your my first mate!” he said with a smile. “Look up the closest Sibak Training Island on the map. They all have emergency provisions in case of just this situation.”

“What about the navy? Don't they usually use the islands?”

“Nah, they are mostly deserted. No one uses them in the fall, so we should be fine. Plus its the last place they'd expect us to go,” he said as he turned and exited the room.

“I think the last place expect us to go it to a moon...” she said under her breath before putting out the lights and leaving the storage room.

Captain Amate went up to the navigator and had the ship's course altered to the closest Training Island, Training Island #5. It was about two days away, which left them with maybe another two days worth of supplies once they landed on the southeast shore of the island.

After landing Captain Amate took a landing party of himself, Robin, and Allanah into the jungles of the island, while the rest of the crew was left behind to search the beaches and other parts of the jungle of food and supplies. This was done in case the supplies that Amate had talked about weren't there, then they might be able to at least have enough supplies to get to the next island.

Amate walked in front as they group of three headed down a path they had found into the center of the island. The path was old, and apparently not used much if at all do to pants having overgrown into it.

“Are you sure there is a base here? I haven't seen anything that would remotely imply anyone being here,” Allanah said following behind Amate.

“That's because you ran down to the beach as fast as you could,” Robin said as she trailed behind her. “Had you waited a minute you would have seen the flags that were above the tree line.”

“I wanted to get on the beach and feel the fresh sand before the crew got down there and messed it all up,” Allanah gave as her excuse.

“We should be near the clearing where the small base is located,” Amate said breaking up their conversation.

A minute later they reached the clearing, Amate put up a hand to block the light as it blinded them as they entered the clearing. Once in the clearing they could see the base which was about 200 ft from them, and between them and it were sailors scurrying about working, on what seemed to be increased fortifications.

They stood there rather surprised by the scene, none of the sailors seemed to notice them until a voice yelled out to Amate's party, “Hey! What are you doing here?!” This caused all the sailors to look over at them and stop their work.

Amate quickly threw up his hands saying, “Help! I'm Admiral Smithstone! I was captured by these pirates!”

The sailors didn't hesitate to pull out their swords and move towards them. Then two sailors stepped out from the group, each was dressed similarly to the rest of them, but their uniforms were adorned with more medals and strips. Amate could tell they were Commander rank.

“You should know better then to think that would work on us,” said one Commander.

“Word came down that you are a traitor and the pirate Amate Black,” the other Commander continued.

Amate put his hands and cracked a bit of a nervous smile, and turned his head to say to Allanah and Robin, “I was sure that was going to work to.”

Allanah stepped forward and walked past Amate. “I'll take care of this,” she said.

“Hey, I'll...” Amate started to say before Robin grabbed his shoulder. He looked at her and she shook her head.

“She can handle it,” she said and Amate turned back to watch.

Allanah stood about ten feet in front of Amate and unsheathed her two rapier swords. The sailors had formed a semicircle around them at about a hundred feet away. The two Commanders sunk back into the group, and moved towards the back. Some of the sailors seemed to mumble among themselves a little.

“Hey... isn't one of the six great pirate swordsman a blond girl with two swords?” one asked quietly to another sailor.

“You mean the 'Black Hatted Banshee?'” one asked back.

“Yeah,” he replied.

“Well she's blond and has two swords, but she's not wearing a black hat,” another pointed out.

“Yeah.... but he is,” he said motioning to Amate.

The group of sailors suddenly seemed to come to a realization and started to cower away .

Allanah raised up her swords and pointed them and the zenith of the semicircle. Starting from there and moving out, and away, towards the ends she seemed to pantomime cuts, as if she were marking out where she was planning to cut eat sailor.

When her swords reached the last sailors on each end she bowed her head slightly before saying, “Carace Two Sword Style....”

Her arms quickly cut the air horizontally her arms crossing until her swords pointed in the opposite direction saying, “...Phantom Slash.”

As she finished saying the technique the pantomimed cuts she made on the men became real, causing all of the sailors clothes to become cut and fall off them. Leaving them in nothing but their underwear and holding swords. Shocked by this happening they dropped their weapons and ran, leaving only the two Commanders behind who she hadn't included in the attack.

“Wow,” Amate said.

Allanah spun around with a big smile and blushing a little. She gave a little giggle as she posed in a cute victory pose. The two Commanders looked at each other in shock, not entirely sure what had just happened.

“It would have been far more badass without the cute victory pose at the end Al,” Amate said, causing Allanah to stick her tongue out at him before walking back to stand next to Robin.

Robin high fived Allanah as she walked back.

“Now if you don't mind, we'd appreciate you guys leaving so we can get what we need,” Amate said commandingly to the two Commanders.

The two Commanders looked pretty spooked and didn't really say anything, just looked back and forth at each other and at the three pirates. There was suddenly a huge gust of wind which seemed to cause them to calm down a bit. The strength of the wind caused the three pirates to avert their eyes or close them. Amate grabbed onto his hat to make sure it stayed on.

“You don't have the right to order my men around anymore Gaiyu!” said a voice from the wind.

When the three looked up a figure was standing in front of the two Commanders. She was a little shorter then the two Commanders, and not much taller then Allanah. She wore a loose white tunic style top, with a V neck and some white capri style pants. A long white jacket hung on her shoulders, it blew in the wind with shoulder length dirty blond hair.

As the wind subsided her jacket and hair settled into their normal positions. She shrugged the jacket off her shoulders and tossed it to one of the Commanders without taking her eyes off Amate. Without her jacket they were able to see that on each side of her hips on her belt was a book. The one on the left side seemed old and worn, while the one on her right hip was newer, and seemed to have a pen in it acting as a bookmark. With the wind gone and the jacket off they could also make out more clearly that she was of about middle age, but surprisingly had a rather youthful strong athletic build to her, her arms looking especially toned.

“That's Amate Black, Vice Admiral. In case you hadn't heard,” Amate said to her, “you can call me Amate if you want. Captain Black is good too.”

She grimaced and glared at him, looking none too happy, but not about the comment from Amate.

“Do you know her?” Allanah quietly tried to ask Amate.

“Of course,” Amate said before turning his head to Allanah with a smile on his face. “Thanks to Vice Admiral Voyevoda I was able to infiltrate the navy.”