Task Name: Captain Windsor
Tier: Tier 2
NPC or PC: PC
Location: Baterilla Island, Marine Military Base
Crew, Team, or Personal: Personal
Description: Ensign Frost is to train with captain Windsor learning of the alternate methods people may use in combat. She is then to survive several rounds against the storied captain thus proving that she is healthy enough to begin active duty.
Enemy Details: 1, Captain Windsor
Boss: Yes


Boss Name: Captain Seyran Windsor
Tier: T3
Description: The old captain is a grizzled veteran and is not likely to give any quarter. He firmly believes that the only thing that can prepare his recruits for the real world is being as harsh to them as physically possible. Of course it helps that he knows his recruits better than anyone else.
Devil Fruit:mane mane no mi
Haki Aura:N/A
Equipment: Weathered Cutlass, dual flintlock pistols, weapon racks filled with training weapons scattered throughout the yard
Specs: Weapon Specialist 3, Marksmen 2, Devil Fruit 2

Warning: Somewhat graphic

Frost opened her eyes slowly, taking all the time in the world to simply enjoy the sensations. The water lapping at her waist, the soft sounds of waves crashing against a not so distant shore, the cawing of birds that she only now could see.

She couldn't recognize the shore, but at the moment she couldn't really care. It was peaceful here, serene in a way that words could only fail to describe. Feeling a bit childish again, she let herself fall back, laying in the water, laying on the water.

A smile pierced the usual poker face as she felt the water work its way into her hair and through her clothes. A rebellious thought; such things could be washed later, let her enjoy this moment she plead to no-one in particular.

It was not to be.

She raised a hand out of the water and brought it before her eyes, pupils dilating swiftly as she noticed the hand was not adorned with clear liquid. No, this tint was crimson. Panic spread across her unchecked like a wildfire as she thrashed in the water trying to get upright again, trying to escape this ocean.

The more she thrashed the more her head hammered in the realization that she was covered in this fluid, and this fluid was blood. She was screaming, trying to as blood threatened to choke out her voice entirely. There was a sensation and suddenly she was being pulled down into the blood being pulled under the surface and into the now reddened abyss. A voice seemed to crone to her in the darkness. "You belong here."

==

Frost jerked upright in a movement that should have caused whiplash as her eyes scanned this new vista. All around her the trappings of her life stared back at her, quiet and serene. The same old desk with the flaking paint, the same picture with the not so familiar face, the same lifeless walls; all these had not changed at all. Begrudgingly her heart rate began to slow as she pulled herself out of her bed and wandered towards the washroom.

It took about 10 minutes in deep worship of the porcelain throne before she was absolutely sure the contents of her stomach would no longer conspire to riot endlessly. Her eyes drifted towards the clock as she wandered out of the bathroom, the information it provided was.. less than ideal. A 6 and two 0's. Her eyebrow raised a tad as she pondered this new information. Had she ever been awake this early before?

Her sleeping in had been the stuff of legends, and if the captain hadn't showered her in a tidal wave of favoritism she would have never have made ensign. She glanced back at the bed for a moment. "Nope. Not going to risk that." Her mind made up, perhaps it was a good excuse to see who was awake on the old base at such a forsaken hour.

It took her no less than a full 30 minutes until she was sufficiently pleased with her appearance. It wasn't that she was vain in any way, it was that she had spent a considerable amount of time scrubbing away at 'red spots' she was absolutely sure she had saw.

Nightmares and hallucinations of red spots of blood on her hands, the incident just 3 months prior had left her with these two parting gifts. They were remarkably persistent little quirks that annoyed her endlessly. She knew that what she had done had to be done and could have been done no other way. The fact that she was still alive proved this. The problem is that knowing you are not guilty doesn't change a damn thing. The mind's logical workings continue to go ignored by the heart's emotional workings.

She shook her head, only now noticing that she had been lost in thought enough to wonder out of her home and onto the training field. A sound rang out into the foggy morning. Was there someone out here this early in the forsaken times of the day?
She listened keenly and now that she knew what she was listening for, she could hear it.

She began to slowly make her way through the mist, trying to pinpoint the sound. -A little to the left, oh, no to the right actually...- She stopped suddenly, her entire body going rigid at the strange and very unwelcome feeling upon her neck. -When had that gotten there?- She wondered as a familiar chuckling reverberated through the mist.

"Dead again Frost. Were you even trying to pay attention? By the way, where's the salute?"

The chuckling figure morphed out of the mist keeping his sword point exactly at the most uncomfortable spot she could think of.

"I should think the forward movement of the salute would cost me dear, Sir. I was also not exactly searching for enemies on the grounds of the marine base."

Sass wasn't her go to method, but when you had be declared dead over 900 times during training, one more had little effect and the sword point was getting tiring. The man tended to spend so much time training others with sword in hand that he needed to be reminded of it from time to time.

"Oh, whoops. Though you probably should be looking for enemies, not everyone made Ensign you know, and I have a feeling they wouldn't mind a go at you to soothe their crushed prides."

He had the good nature to look embarrassed at least as he removed the sword from her neck, prompting the salute he wanted. Some captains would get you to hold the salute until they specified otherwise, Windsor wasn't that kind of captain. He wore the white coat, but it was nowhere near pristine as the dirt had long ago found a permanent home in it. This was a man who had spent every day sweating and rolling in the dirt so that other people wouldn't die.

She considered his words. Good advice as always, but she wondered how many of the recruits would even be up at this ungodly hour. Or perhaps it was just her that tended to sleep in at ever available chance. Still, since the captain was here she might as well ask him what she wanted to.

"Sir, I would like to request to be put back on active duty."

She had been suspicious that he was the reason she was still not on active duty and after asking the nurses about it, she knew it had been true. What had was his motivation, why wouldn't he let her go back out there. She wasn't sure how useful she could be, but at least she could do something. Anything was better than waiting for the nightmares every night.

He seemed to consider the words for a moment before his typical roguish smile conquered his face just like a good idea.

"Maybe yes, maybe no. Prove it. Show me what you've learned, show me your strength."

It wasn't the answer she had been expecting, it was far better. Yet as he fell into a combat stance with that infuriating grin upon his face, she couldn't help but feel like she was walking into a trap. She drew her sword and readied herself as well. Some of the recruits, had they been in her position might have objected to brandishing a bladed weapon against their captain. She knew better, she had been killed 900 times after all. It was nothing short of arrogance to think she could actually hit the captain. -And now I'm going to try it anyway- She thought ruefully as she prepared.

With a further deepening of his grin, he seemed to cross the distance between the two in milliseconds brandishing his weapon in a flurry of slashes and stabs. Frost was immediately pushed on the defensive, ducking, dodging and outright diving out of the way from the man's attacks. She knew his style, after all she had spent every ounce of her efforts trying to emulate it. That didn't make it any easier to avoid the rain of blows the man was attempting to bring down upon her hasty guards. To make matters worse her mind didn't seem to want to co-operate. She was still so tired, and her focus was barely able to keep up with the attacks.

This was unlike her, and this sloppiness was going to get her killed. A nick here, a cut there, he was beginning to draw blood and her mistakes were multiplying. -This isn't working, I can't win like this- The thought kept ringing in her mind, demoralizing her ever further as it repeated. His attacks were getting far more daring, and while she should have been able to punish them, he was getting away without reprisal. With a flick he knocked her sword up, bringing his hand back and through her guard he slapped her hard. She recoiled from the hit and backed away from him for a moment her left hand feeling the cheek that had suffered the wrath of his right hand. It barely stung, the pain was nothing. No, the look of absolute disappointment in his eyes however was the most painful thing she had ever endured.

"You want me to send you out like this? I had best bring a shovel when I do."

She could feel anger, not directed at him no, it's sole object of affection was herself. Her own pathetic weakness. To fail so spectacularly was beyond shameful. Why, why couldn't she focus, why couldn't she move forward. Was she afraid of his sword? No, she had felt much worse pain than that, she wasn't afraid of dying, no that wasn't it. What was it? Her gaze fell upon her sword hand, noticing a few red spots of blood on it. Her logical mind already knew that they didn't exist and began to try and tell her that, but for once she tuned it out. There was a more useful epiphany at work here. She didn't want to kill anyone. She was afraid of killing someone else.

"I'm afraid of killing more people."

She hadn't intended to say it, yet it slipped out regardless and the man took a moment to consider it.

"So you'll die then? When someone comes at you with the intent to kill you? What is the first rule I taught everyone?"

She pulled the memory out of her mind with substantial ease, it had been engraved there by him every single day.

"The first rule is always to make it home alive."

He allowed himself a small smile.

"Exactly. We don't fight fair, we don't play nice, we come home alive to the people who care about us. We OWE it to them to come home alive. I've killed 32 people so far in my life, and I am not arrogant enough to think that I won't kill a single person more. But I will tell you this. Each and every time I have killed someone, I have been angry, I have been hurt. I wanted to save them all. You can't just do that though, not without dying. So you kill them, and you run home and you train harder than you ever have before. Because the only way to save them is to make sure you're strong enough to apprehend them without killing them. So clear your head, and hit me."

As he finished his piece he fell back into a ready stance. She on the other hand took a moment, digesting each and every word, letting them fill her memory. This hesitation had been a problem, and he had just provided the method of solving it. She allowed a cursory glance to her hand, noticing the blood spots had gone away. She moved into a ready stance, her mind closing the world down to just her in a moment as the needless things drifted away. A smile began to form on her face. She gripped her blade tightly and charged.

She crossed the gap in milliseconds and was upon him, slashing and stabbing with calculated efficiency. He was being pushed back, he the captain pushed back by an Ensign, this was his very own style and taken to it's logical conclusions. She kept pressuring him, adding new attacks to the already overwhelming barrage of strikes and counter strikes as she knocked away his guards and threatened to close upon his flesh.

The man kicked back, stabbing his sword into the ground and drawing both of his pistols from the back holsters he kept them in. With merciless desire to kill he fired them at her, filling the air with lead as he loaded them again and again with a practiced motion. She darted and weaved, like a blur too fast to hit back and forth, serpentine like he had taught her. Despite the hail of bullets she was getting ever closer.

A smile crossed his face. Time to kick this up a notch.

"I wonder how well you do against yourself."

She stopped dead. This wasn't happening. She was looking at herself. Well, herself if she happened to be wearing a captain's uniform. Her brain had simply stopped functioning as she contemplated this new development. There before her was an exact copy of her. Now it was stretching; was that the face she made when stretching?

Windsor smiled, it had lost some of it's roguish charm and instead gained a sort disarming friendliness but the smile was still just as genuine and just as mischievous. The carpal tunnel in his hands was gone, the gout in his left leg was gone he sincerely wondered if she had ever broke a bone. He tightened his new and much more flexible fingers around the blade. And taunted her with a voice she would find uncomfortably familiar.

"Never seen a devil fruit user before I take it? Gives one all sorts of odd abilities."

He crossed the distance in half the previous time, jarring Frost out of her confusion with a torrential collection of perfect blows. Each attack from both sides was perfectly measured, perfectly executed and yet he was still pushing her back. He was the original after all, and he was back in his prime with absolutely no reason to hold back. Slashes met counter slashes, guarded and dodged with only a hair's width. He had begun to mix in new moves, the kinds of things his aged body could not have pulled off, pushing far past what she had been willing to try. This was the style he had invented, evolved beyond any conclusion; this was a fight she could not win.

To give up though, to accept that this was the limit of her strength, to stop fighting when she was literally watching herself performing moves she had never practiced was difficult though. She couldn't say that it was impossible, she was viewing it before her very eyes. Perhaps there was.. another way to work this though.

"What's the weakness?"

She probed with her question at the same time as her sword probed with a stab. A stab that nearly hit home she noticed as he deflected it while trying to compose an answer to her question. Sure, the man was a master, but he was also a teacher and one that delighted in teaching them everything he knew. He would not turn down a straight forward request for information, and he was not used to answering questions while fighting. He seemed to stand on his tip toes to look past her and then replied.

"Water is the weakness of any devil fruit user. But as you can clearly see, there isn't any in the middle of the fort."

His reply was interesting and she shelved it away for later study, it simply couldn't be used like this. The weapons rack she was being slowly steered towards however could probably help considerably. She loosened up a bit, allowing him to gain more ground with his strikes as she didn't fight so dearly over every inch. Normally, the captain would set out the weapons racks every morning, always in the same spots, he would then try his best to not push his students into the racks when he pressed them. This would manifest however in his continual looking up over his student to make sure they were not approaching the weapon rack. Unfortunately, they were now the same height, and if he wanted to steer her into the rack he would have to keep getting on his tip toes to see over her. She would wait for it, and then she would counter strike for the last time.

She gave more ground and the man closed ever quicker stopping just short to make one last check. Seeing his look of confidence she moved to a one handed grip and swept her hand back behind her. The faintest touch of wooden grips met her hand. Windsor pushed in harder now than ever before closing the distance rapidly as she swiftly hopped back to form a small gap. Her hand found it's objective and with a swift pull she brought the practice weapon out of the holder just as he closed in on her. The new weapon did the job of blocking the captain's overhead swing as her sword closed in to prick the man's throat ever so gently.

They exchanged a grin that for all intensive purposes was exactly the same.

"So, I guess I'll be going then."

A smile.

"I guess so."

[End]