Going through the Junk

The bartender had walked by Victor earlier to see if he wanted anything, but he passed, it seems everyone knew that "Black-Armored Evans" is here... except for one apparently, as he started to make his way towards Victor's table, having an arrogant look in his eyes as he sat down next to Victor. "Hey Evans! remember me?" Victor's mind instantly turned to a "Oh shit" moment after the man's sentence, but he remained calm as best as he could. "So... you're a lot taller then I remember, not carrying the heavy black plates either? and you dyed your hair white? I don't think you're really him... but if you're Evans, you're Evans."

"Get to the point." Victor said, the man didn't rat out Victor yet and if he didn't, he clearly wanted something from him. "I don't know what you're trying to pull, but if you're successful... I want a cut, plus a bit of front forward payment to keep my mouth shut." blackmail, wonderful. Victor should've really planned this beforehand, but it seems his improvisation has got him in a tough spot. Victor thought about just offing this man, but that might complicate the situation even further, and he's sure the guy might try to snitch before Victor kills him. He had to play ball for now, Victor went through his pocket of money and oddly felt something gone... there were still a few coins regardless and grabbed what he could, then grabbing a small bag and placing everything in there. He then placed it toward the man's side of the table. "Is this enough?"

The man quickly opened up the bag to see how much was there, lightly nodding he closed it up and stood up from the chair. "It'll do, good luck with whatever you're planning, "Evans". " Victor wasn't happy about it at all, but he couldn't really do anything about it at that point. The man then walked off, Victor suddenly felt like having a drink but any spending money he had left just went off to pay that guy. The rest is back on his frigate. "Fuckin' perfect..." he can already smell that this situation is just going to grow worse.

The same woman that Victor possibly wanted to hire earlier took a seat from the opposite side of where he's sitting, with a drink in her hand. Another person who believed that Victor is Evans, after her sentence it's hard to tell if she's some sort of kinky girl or if she wanted something else from him. He decided to bite. "Can I help you, miss?" he asked. He has time to waste until the "meeting" happened between the gangs of the island and the Black Hound Pirates, so he had time to kill with this woman.

Suddenly, heavy clinking of metals could be heard from outside the tavern, loud enough that it started to catch everyone's attention. As soon as the door opened, it seemed that everyone was expecting a mighty figure to walk through the door but when they looked down, saw a relatively short man in full, black plated armor. "Hohoho~ I made it! I was afraid I might get lost again, that would be rather unfortunate!" the man had a surprisingly cheery voice that was echoed through his helmet, his accent sounded rich and yet simple in a way, not what you would expect from such a dark armored fellow.

"I am Black-Armored Evans! I am glad to make all your acquaintances!" he then effortlessly did a bow, looking like the heavy plating wasn't affecting him at all. He then stood back up as everyone started to stare at the armored man, and back at Victor. "What's the matter, friends?" the real Evans had asked, having no clue that there's another man in the tavern claiming to be Black Armored Evans.

Black-Armored Evans(Real one):

Maka awaited his reply to which she did a little too long. A little confused at the man, she started thinking to herself that this guy must be dense, but for the sake of the client and business she had to play nice. As the man known as Black Armour Evans spoke up asking if he could help and referred to her as miss Maka pulled a face a little surprised that a pirate was so kind in his choice of wording. So much so she actually couldn't help but fall into laughter.

Chuckling to herself Maka replied.

"Urm yea. You and I have some business. I' the one you requested a meeting with. I believe you wanted something stolen."

Rolling her eyes Maka brought the drink to her lips and took a sip from it. Whatever the bar tender had poured into this drink it was kicking her little ass right now and she was loving every sip of it.

"Jogging your memory at all? I'll be honest I don't really have many clients this spaced out or out of it, but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt looking at you. I wouldn't be surprised if you'd been on the receiving end of having a few of those ole brains cells being skewered with the eye patch."

Unimpressed with this guy Mana hoped she'd triggered something in his mind and that he didn't put two two together about her picking his pocket. But if he was as dumb as he was coming across right now he didn't stand a chance. That was the moment the doors burst open and in walked a man in thick dark armour with a cheery upbeat attitude about himself. Raising an eyebrow Maka looked at him then at the man before her.

Two men in black armour?

She was starting to put two and two together and things weren't adding up quite yet. The real clincher was the moment he spoke.

Black Armour Evans?! Then who is this?!

Maka's mind went racing and her hands slipped behind her reaching for her flintlock. Resting her hand over the handle she prepared herself in case this psycho before her lashed out. Whatever was going on right now things were getting fucked. Real fast too.

"Black Armour Evans eh?" she questioned looking at Victor.

Black-Armored Evans got the idea, his helmet's eye slots were pointed straight at Victor. "Ah... an impostor? I'm flattered." the small-looking armored pirate then brought out a giant greatsword from his back, bringing it to his front, effortlessly giving it a practice swing before pulling on a stance. Half the men in the club looked angry at what Victor tried to pull. It seems they aren't happy at all. "Not good..." Victor thought in his mind. "Why did you try to impersonate me? did you try to join the Black Hound Pirates and got rejected, so you're trying to pretend to be like me?" Victor then gave one line before he would attempt his escape. "You know what they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

He worried firstly about the bar, muttering under his breath. "Kage-Kage no Mi: Swarming Bats." instantly, his shadow had risen up from the ground and started to form into a group of bats, heading straight for everyone, each individual bat trying to annoy each member of the club, or to scare them. Evans wasted no time charging at Victor, though his speed was slightly slower then the average human run because of his black plated armor. Victor rushed towards the nearest window and dived right through it, glass collapsing onto him as landed on the street. He could feel a bit of glass piercing his right arm but he had enough tolerance to deal with the pain. 

He didn't know if Evans was far behind, but Victor wasn't interested in finding out. He started to leg it out of the streets before any of them would have a chance to give chase, he then recalled for his shadow bats and if they were still harassing around the bar members, they would simply fly out of the window and fly back towards where Victor is, materializing back into being his shadow. He'd start to try and leg it all the way back to his frigate, to get into the confines of his crew should any pursuers be tailing him.

Watching Victor as he spoke about flattery over impersonation, Maka raised an eyebrow wondering why he'd be so open and admit to it. Was this guy dense? As a series of small bats raised up from behind him and launched off into the bar Maka's eyes widened.

What the fuck?! she'd never seen anything like this and the second they started attacking herself and the patrons she fell backwards on her chair throwing her feet upwards kicking the table over as she removed her flintlock.

Pointing it towards Victor she ready to open fire. What she didn't realise was that Victor was well on the move. Opening fire her bullet sailed from the flintlock missing Victor instead sailing towards the man known as Black Armour Evans himself.

The sound of screams, shattering glass and the thud of hitting the ground were all sounds which hit her hard and by the time she felt the ground rush up to meet her she rolled out of her seat and started picking herself up.

Maka wasn't entirely certain just what was going on here, but it seemed this imposter had a way of escalating things as everything around her had gone absolutely crazy in a matter of moments.

Just what the hell was going on? Who was that man? Why did he impersonate Evans? Could he have been a marine?

Looking towards Evans Maka noticed that her shot from the flintlock had hit a target, but the wrong one. Her eyes widened a little and before she knew it she started hoping that no one knew the shot had been her.

Victor had arrived back to the dock, towards his frigate to which his men had saw that he is slightly injured, with the glass pierced in his right arm. As soon as he sat down, he asked for somebody with medical experience to pull out the glass and stitch up the wounds on his right arm, while that would be happening he'd explain what had happen just then to his crew.

Maka felt a sense of fear radiation throughout her body. With questions launched in the air she knew it was only a matter of time before the question of who shot Evans reared it's ugly head. Moving slowly towards the door to avoid drawing too much attention she suddenly heard ask the question she feared. Barely even near the exit she watched as the other patrons all questioned one another til one man pointed to her indicating she was responsible.

Shit!

Allegations piled up on top of one another till Evans was convinced and ready to turn his focus on to her. Watching as he unsheathed his sword Maka gulped.

Shit!Shit!Shit!

Evans spoke at length about their plan, how it was foiled and if she could offer him anything in exchange for her life.

This was perfect! Maka was pretty good at lying and figured she could use this to her advantage. Smiling she took a deep breath as her mind raced looking for an answer to exchange for her life.

"And here I was hoping to dismantle the Black Hounds. That guy's not my partner, well not any more at least. Guy's a freakin' coward. I said lets take the shot and he kept saying 'no what if they try to kill us' moron. It's like he doesn't understand what bein' a pirate's all about."

Realising she was taking too long and avoiding what Evans had asked for she continued cutting straight to the point this time.

"Anyway, I can take you to the guys ship if that helps. Burn it down where it stands. But you're going to have to bring a big squad. He's got a big crew."

Maka wasn't 100% if he even had a ship or crew, but she'd not seen him around recently and she figured he must've had some kind of ship. Either way these guys were going to get revenge as long as she wasn't part of the victim's team she really didn't care.

Although as much as she wanted the pay check from Evans for a job well done, she figured it wasn't quite time to mention about the job. He seemed steamed enough as it was.

"Good enough info? He's docked on the far end of this junker, which juts out a bit from the island."

Hoping this big bastard would buy the false info Maka awaited for his response.

After the crew member with medical experience bandaged up and patched up Victor's right arm as best as he could, they went onto business as to what they should do about Victor's confrontation with some of the gangs, as well as the first mate of the Black Hound Pirates. A black-skinned man had stepped up, lightly nodding to Victor before beginning his explanation. "If you let me explain, I'll offer all my information about Evans." he then rolled out a bounty poster from his satchel, holding the top as it started to unravel down.

Evans Bounty Poster:

"Two million above our beloved boss here, Evans is the first mate of the Black Hound Pirates. He's known to carry a greatsword and despite his laughable height, his strength is no joke when push comes to shove. What makes his appearance in the bar interesting is that the captain of Black Hound Pirates is "brothers" with Evans, as in they're usually inseparable when it comes to anything." Victor paid attention, but wondered at what he meant by the last part. "I mean, they usually don't go solo unless it's something really important... high chances are, the Captain isn't even on this island if Evans is all alone... you know what I'm suggesting?"

The men looked at each other, but Victor already got the message. He stood up from the crate he was sitting down on, and started to talk to the rest of the men. "He means to prepare for battle, I want Clay with me, along with 18 other members to come along. The remaining 20 will stay on the ship and guard it." They started to get it and about 18 of the men had started to scatter about, gathering and grabbing any weapons they can possible, from flintlocks, katanas, spears, swords and the like. The black-skinned man is actually a close friend of Victor's called Clay, who helped Victor back in his rise to being the crime lord of Illusia's underworld, he's Victor's "right-hand" man in other words, and while not officially the first mate, he's the closest thing to it when it comes to the Blackjaw Pirates.

"From what you described about the bar, I'm guessing they'll have about just the same squad size. If we manage to do this and kill Evans, it'll basically send a middle finger to the Black Hound Pirates, and people will start to take the Blackjaw Pirates seriously if word gets out about us killing the first mate of the Black Hounds." Victor had his hand on his forehead, trying to think on the situation. "Victor, you know there are no shortcuts to being "famous" on the seas, if we don't take this chance, we'll just be licking the boots of a crew higher then us, I'd rather us being the ones getting our boots licked." Victor lightly nodded to what he said. "Yeah, yeah... big risks, big rewards right? let's just get this over with."

Most of the men had prepared relatively quick, the squad size is 20 men, including Victor and Clay who are all armed and ready for battle, except for Victor since he's a brawler. They started to walk out onto the docks and Victor is headfirst at the front, leading the squad of men who's footsteps could be heard loudly among the streets as they started to make their way to the bar.


Evans listened carefully to each word of what the woman said, he paused for a few moments to process and think about the situation until he came to a response. "Not needed, we can go by ourselves." he then signaled two men to come over with a spare hand of his, and then pointed towards her. Both men cocked their rifles and aimed their guns at her. "I'm keeping you here in-case your information is bullshit, I said I'd let you live but I never said anything about not keeping you captive, let's go boys." most of the men then started to cheer after what he said, bringing out their weapons as most of them started to walk out the front door, with some of them going through the window, as they started to make their way towards the docks.

One of the two men started to look a bit lustfully at the woman, still keeping his rifle loaded and aimed at her. "If this were any other situation, I'd already be having my way with her... but I can't piss off Evans." the other guy showed some form of disgust at what he said, saying "Come on man, keep it in your pants. I know the shit we do is dirty, but at least have some form of dignity." the lustful guy then striked a crossed look at the other guy, "Are you for real? this is exactly why you don't get any, if you weren't such a pussy half the time..." an argument started to heat up and form between the two soon enough.

Maka wasn't impressed with the trust coming from Evans and rolled her eyes. This was hardly the day she'd been planning for herself. Her would be employer for the day was now instead of paying her to do the job she could do was instead being held at gun point because she was apparently affiliated with some stranger who was clearly suffering from a case of forgotten identity. Geez what a freakin' day!

Now here she was stuck before two grunts one of which didn't have the tiniest bit of decency which would work just fine for her whilst the other guy seemed to have a little more respect, but this wouldn't work out too well. What she wanted was for the two to become so focused on either other that she wasn't a bother.

"Trust me if you'd try your luck with me you'd be a whole lot lighter down there buddy. I'd have bitten the little lad off by now."

Maka wasn't interested in having some low level grunt force himself on to her and more so if he'd dare try laying a single finger on her, well that was one of the reasons as to why she had a knife. She felt a little useless here as she wasn't exactly a combatant, but someone of use in terms of navigation and theft. Trying to figure out the best way to escape as their argument escalated Maka tried to figure out the best way to escape without killing either of the men. She wasn't a murderer, just a petty crook.

Maybe if I strip? Nah. These two aren't worth that. Maybe I could kick that bottle to distract them? But I'm a shit shot. I might have to just risk stabbing and shooting them hoping it puts them into dispose. Still really struggling to figure it out Maka allowed her eyes to fall on to the perfect escape route. A small grin appeared on her face as her fingers motioned towards her flintlock.

Taking a quick step backwards from the two Maka removed her flintlock from her belt and unleashed a single shot towards the chain holding the chandelier type light above help in place. She hoped that this one time her shot was true and it'd hit its mark as she wasn't exactly a marksman either. But as luck would have it. The shot wasn't a direct hit.

Shit!

Looking towards the grunts Maka gulped realising this could be her end. Or the start of something disgusting. However even though she hadn't hit the chain directly, she did weaken it and that shot was enough to allow the chain to snap sending the light fixture hurtling downwards to the two grunts.

YES!

As the chain rattled Maka looked up with a grin as she watched the fixture hurtle towards them hoping it would place the two of them in dispose. It wasn't everyday the non marksman in you made a fantastically lucky shot and got the desired result. Overjoyed she quickly started questioning what her next move was. She could rush out of the bar and try to find a ship to take her leave or she could go help the stranger who landed her in this position. Yea, she wasn't about to try that. She could get revenge on Evan, but from what she knew about the psycho that was a death sentence.

Steal a ship it was

Evans current squad had started to make their way to the docks from the bar, while Victor's squad is currently heading to the bar from the docks, their paths would obviously collide soon and result in an all-out fight between the two sides. It didn't take long however, as soon as Evans and Victor both saw each other at the front of each squad, both sides started to discharge their firearms towards each other, quickly heading into cover, currently it's a firefight between the two sides and the more melee fighters are stuck behind cover, waiting for the firefight to sort itself out. Clay headed over to Victor's current cover, doing his best to keep his head down while he went over and successfully ducked down next to Victor.

"You have a devil fruit power, remember? they've seen your bats but I'm sure it'll still give them the shits once they see your power flying towards them." Victor sighed, quickly muttering the technique name once again and his shadow had started to materialize from the ground, turning into a group of shadow bats that started to fly towards the enemies. They really didn't do any damage, but they didn't need to know that. The enemy shooters started to run out of cover in an attempt to escape the bats but as soon as they did, Victor's shooters shot them down. A few were down by this method and his shadow bats started to return back to being his shadow.

Suddenly, Evans started charging straight through between two sides, as if he didn't care about the firefight still happening and headed straight for Victor, a few of Victor's men tried to fire at Evans but their bullets just bounced off his black plated armor. Victor then quickly tapped Clay's shoulder and said "I'll get Evans to chase after me, you and the men finish off his squad." before Clay could say anything however, Victor started to run off in the distance with Evans, carrying his greatsword on his shoulder, still charging at Victor.

They ended up going near the docks, but Victor didn't want to get his men at the ship involved and thought about trying to take on Evans, when Victor stopped, Evans started to slowly walk now and chuckled. "Realized now that it's pointless? I don't know who you really are, but your ploy against the Black Hound Pirates is officially over." Victor used his shadow bats again, and made them fly towards Evans. Evans started to swing away at the bats and even though he landed his hits on them, they just regenerated. He soon realized that the bats didn't hurt him at all. "A scare tactic, clever... if that's all you can do, I don't see the point of being a devil fruit user."

All Victor could do at this point is just outlast him, by dodging his greatsword as best as he can and to use his shadow abilities from a distance to keep Evans busy, hopefully Victor can tire out Evans and then finish him off. A direct assault or going directly one-on-one with him currently is suicide. It would be ideal if Clay wrapped up the fight currently happening between his squad and Evan's, and then come on down to help Victor but in this scenario, it's best he assumes that won't happen.

Heading from the Trash Panda bar into the streets Maka could hear the sounds of gunfire up ahead and the war cries of the many many men up ahead. Gulping she thought carefully about ways she could make it past the war that had broken out between who she assumed would be Evans & the stranger. Motioning closer and closer towards the fight she wasn't even very far from the bar when she spotted smoke rising into the sky.

Clearly something had been set alight during the fight and things had started escalating. Sliding into an alleyway Maka quickly looked up and started making plans. There were crates available and she was going to use them to the best of her ability. Taking a few steps to climb up them she gripped a window ledge and pulled herself up. High enough that she could now grip a pipe Maka started climbing it heading towards the top of the building which from appearances looked to be a hotel.

Reaching the roof Maka took a quick chance to breath as a few beads of sweat sunk down her face. Her hands were sore from the climb, it wasn't something she did often. but if it meant she might stand a chance to escape with her life and possibly a ship she'd be happy to do that. Peering over the edge and looking down she could feel how her legs suddenly turned to jelly.

She was high enough to warrant death, but she really didn't want to risk the drop. Moving towards the edge of the building and looking onwards toward the docks she could see the battle in full swing.

Christ! The hell is going on over there? she thought to herself looking at the large scale battle which was currently underway. Looking out for anywhere close by in which she could make her way too Maka takes a run up before she leaps off the edge of the hotel roof to another building slightly lower down and a short distance from the hotel.

As she leaps Maka manages to land it and rolls as she hits the ground. Feeling the pain of her body hitting the roof Maka grunted. But she knew she didn't have time to worry about that kind of thing. She continued to leap from the rooftops to near by buildings until she was able to reach another pipe which she was capable of climbing down.

Her body was aching and when it came to climbing down the pipe her fingers were aching so much she nearly lost grip a couple of times. But fortunately she was able to get her feet back on the ground which was a relief for her as the heights had been horrific.

Thank f**k

As more beads of sweat rushed down her cheek she raised her arm wiping them away before she turned around to see the docks just before her. The fight was still very much so underway, but she wasn't anywhere near it. Instead she was towards the far left end of the docks and it was time she got herself a boat.