Something dim, something dark, began to stained the sky. Daylight had broken. Still, the light held on. As the sun sank into the empty, purple sky, the air cooled. All the critters scampered to their holes. Waiting in the distance were castles. Buildings. Men of power, watching their world revolve. The West Blue was wide and vast. Faces of many kinds traveled the land. From the far stretches from the forgotten prowess of the Ilusia, to the marine bases hidden amid the country side, there was much to claim for these strong men.

Some couldn’t be sized up by eye.

Yes, they wore the finest garbs. Yes, these men were heavily guarded. Yet, often, they were small and fragile. Men with much to compensate, but alongside them was always the finest things: women. There were at least half the population, but it seemed the most beautiful were being harvest like stock in the nation’s capitol. Yet, also there was the poorest. On one end bustled the merchants. The ones of power, chuckling and laughing at market with their favorite diplomat, while on the other side of the city was something else. Beyond the walls of division was sandstone. Where the High City had glass work, grandiose designs, intricately constructed fortress, tall towers & palaces fit for their exotic inhabitants, the Low City had huts.

Division was the word. However, there were no separating restaurants. Everybody had to eat. Inside the Low City populous worked. The High City folks owned, and ate. And when the shops closed, and they left to their abode, they waved back to their respected side of towns without a blink. It was part of the culture. Low City men traveled back to their inner city. The others went to rest safely in the suburbs. It was the way of the world, and only journeymen, wafers, newcomers; explorers could truly note the difference.

Raja D. Ridgeback wasn’t familiar with the customs. He wasn’t familiar with the land. As soon as he walked pass the “Welcome” his eyes pierced, and his brows rose. All cities’s had their divide. Yet, it was so much more apparent in Ilusia. The village had walls to show the segregation. Of course, the separation wasn’t direct & deliberate, but it was obvious. Too obvious. In fact, it laid a perfect setting to entrap Rickjaw. The man had made an error, he'd wandered from his captain and other men, confining himself to one of the more rough, tattered inns to drink and be merry with only a few of his men to guard his back. He'd drank his fair share of beer that, and it would be his undoing.

One hand in his pocket, other on the string of the nap sack, Raja walked smoothly through the tables. His head went about, like he was at a zoo. He watched everything. Everything…

"Go in the back and get me some more booze."

"Please sir, we kindly as that you close out your bill. We wont have any left for other patrons!"

"Fuck that! Boys, go get my booze!"

The man rose, all five of them, pushed aside the innkeeper and found their way into the back, despite the sign that said "Employees Only".

They were making this too damn easy.

"Ahh! Here it is! The old man was holding out on us! Grab a box everybody!"

"I'm sorry but these one's are a tad preoccupied momentarily."

The three men nearest to the bottles all jumped in shock of such a foreign voice among them. They pivoted around, one of them stumbling backward and onto an empty box. The sight was too unreal for them. Their fellow crewmates were hoisted into air by an invisible force, gagged and incapacited by some orange gooey substance over their mouths. The look of fright on grown men's faces was one of life's little pleasures for Raja. That look of hopelessness, of uncertainly, of sheer panic and terror that eclipses all other body functions. The sensation of fear is so strong that you forget that there are methods to avoid such a fate if you simply act and think later. But alas, these poor souls were lost to their fear.

Simmers came and suddenly Raja was visible to them, though he suspected this vision might have been worse than that of an invisible specter suffocating their friends. Now, a nearly seven foot, 260 pound man stood before them, grinning like a Cheshire cat before defenseless mice. His teeth white and pearly, giving away his sheer enjoyment of the feeling the wiggling bodies of the two pirates. Finally, the fun subsided, the bodies went limp and he dropped them to the floor. And there it was, that moment of opportunity. First came to the widening of the eyes, the taking in over everything around you. Then the inhale, the intake, the sucking in of any and all air around you in order to breathe out some kind of hope for yourself. But before the third task could be completed, the exhale, the scream, the splitting of the volumeless silence, Raja moved first.

The already beast of a man turned a shade of green so sickly and pale that it looked as though her were about to vomit. His flesh spotted over and with different shades of scales all over his flesh. And suddenly a long, thick tail crept up from behind the man to the left, caressing itself against his cheek. In a flash, the tail wrapped itself around the one man, Raja's air gripped teh throat of the soldier about to scream and the finger of his other hand went surging into the throat of the third pirate to the right.

"That was fun."

Technique Used:

“Where the hell is ever—“

Rickjaw was cut short in his inquiry, having to push himself from the table, chair and all, to get away from the force of Raja’s punch which, unhindered, crashed into the adjacent wall on the side of Rickjaw’s table. The wood paneling crumbled under the force of the punch, and was immediately followed up by a swift roundhouse kick meant to connect with the man’s chest. Rickjaw proved just as swift, however, avoiding the second strike and flipping backward.

Were introductions even needed as this point? Once you send a roundhouse kick meant to break a person’s jaw, well, you could perhaps call yourselves intimately acquainted. The rubble from the defeated wall began to scramble and the other patrons, though not unused to a bar scuffle, knew that it was time to take their leave. Before Raja, back in human form, stood the indomitable Rickjaw James as he was known apparently. The burly man stood a nearly half a foot under Raja, pale and pasty, muscled but not excessively and trying desperately to hide the shock in his expression.

“I don’t know who the fuck you think you is, but you picked a fight wit da wrong one tonight, buddy. MEN! Get back out here now!”

Raja smiled.

I’m afraid it’s just gonna be us two dancing tonight.”

“You son of a ---“

Raja was on the move again, appearing behind the man and felling two balled fist down where the back of the man’s head should have been! Fortunately for him, it wasn’t anymore. His mad dash said that he had the capacity to keep up, but it was likely he hadn’t any experience with a student of Rokushiki. Martial artists could be, and usually were, just as fast as Rokushiki practitioners, only they had no concept of moving instantly at their top speed. Speed was something you built up, gained through momentum, it wasn’t taught to be used the way Raja could use it.

Still, the man tried. He dashed forward and launched his fists at the 6’7 man. Raja lowered his guard and allowed the impact to connect, feeling the force behind the man’s punch, but fortunately not its total effect.

“Tekkai.”

His muscles had already expanded and locked the force of the strike outside of the range that would have harmed him. He still felt the blow, but it wasn’t nearly what Rickjaw had hoped for. Before the man had lost all momentum, gave up and jumped away, Raja grabbed at his wrist, holding him in place and pointed his finger and struck the man’s chest, his large digit tunneling in and out of the man’s flesh, a spray of blood following its release.

“Shigan”

Techniques Used:

Perhaps it was because Raja was being a tad more arrogant than usual. While a majority of the foes he'd been sent to dispatch were out of their caliber when it came to him, Rickjaw James was in a whole other category of fighter. Sure, Raja was a tad overconfident in his own abilities, but aside from a huff here or a puff there, he was a trained Rokushiki fighter and a Devil Fruit eater. Some bravado was merited there, if you asked him. Such was unavoidable, then, that he should wind up in a situation such as the one he currently found himself in.

A blood, finger-sized hole leaking fluid, an obvious haze in his eyes from inebriation, and yet the man had managed to flip at such a speed, brining his right leg down onto Raja's shoulder with such force that he instantly smashed into the ground. One after another, kicks launched themselves at the fallen Cipher Pol member, his guard completely thwarted and his body and face taking the full breadth of the man's blows. One after another, plummeling him into the wooden floor, the beams snapping under his and the kick's weight like twigs.

As the man's assault ended and he flipped backward, he took a knee and clutched his chest. Despite his prowess in martial arts, he was still only human and he'd received a potentially fatal wound. His teeth bared as he stared at the whole in the floor that was Raja. He stood, fully expecting the bevy of his attacks to end their fight, and turned to limp away from the abandoned shophouse. And that was his flaw. As he drug his heavy body towards the door, he likely felt Raja's presence way before he had time to react to it. A tail wrapped itself around his neck, the shock of the scaly appendage clearly sliding around his throat likely evident. The tail pulled Rickjaw closer and Raja whispered in his ear, trickles of blood running down a now scaly, green face.

"You have been tried by the World Government. And I find you... guilty."

The tail wound itself tighter and tighter until the inevitable snap resonated through the building. Step two was done. He had but to sentence the captain and his mission would be complete.

Techniques Used: