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Clown sighed as he walked by through the marketplace, noting that there were multiple stands, each holding the banner of one of the four factions and selling either miscellaneous items or something related to the faction. There seemed to be various stands under the Kestrel faction, which made sense since they are the faction of riches and wealth. He came across a stand called The Noisy Parrot and seemed to be related to news.
Feeling bored and needing something to do after an unsuccessful task of finding an available inn or stay for him and his crew, Clown picked up one of the newspapers and read it, wanting to know how much had changed since he set foot on the Isles.
He did not expect what was on the frontpage of the article.
He stared at the crude drawing of a woman with a pair of sabers, posed as if she was dancing around with the swords. The swords. The design was just too familiar for Clown, after all, he designed those sabers specifically for her…
Her…
No way…
Clown read through the article, not moving at all as people passed by and a pirate or two could be heard talking or chatting with someone. It was all silence for Clown.
“Ros of the Nightingales unexpectedly displays swordsmanship in front of her faction!”
“Ros of the Nightingales, one of the kindest souls in all of the Isles, shocks its people when she suddenly starts to sworddance (direct quote from Kuervo of the Kites and Water of the Herons) in front of her own faction, shocking them. Ros has been known to be a non-combative person and horrible fighter, so for her to suddenly start swinging swords like a swordsman is huge news!”
“Kuervo of the Kites: She looked like she had done that for years! I don’t know where all that shit came from, but damn! She looked cool as hell.”
“Water of the Herons: Personally, it was like she was a completely different person. She didn’t even look like the kind-hearted girl that’s Ros! Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but you get the point, right?”
“Bek of the Kites: What the fuck?! Why isn’t she with the Kites? Why is she with the Nightingales, what a waste of swordsmanship!"
“Shelby of the Kestrels: …Did she look hot?” -No further comments afterwards.
“Jojo of the Nightingales: It was so cool watching Ros swing her sabers like that! She looked like she was fighting people and– Wow! How come nobody knew this about her?”
“Because she didn’t want to,” Clown thrashed the newspaper into a paper ball and threw it to the ground. He didn’t care if someone shouted after him for littering, he needed to get the crew together and–
A pirate came out of nowhere and landed on an open barrel, head spinning with dizziness as the sounds of a fight broke through the air. Clown listened closely, it sounded like two people were fighting with one more downed and groaning on the ground. The exerted groans and gasps came from a male person while he didn’t hear anything from the second one.
Didn’t hear any– Ivory!
Clown immediately pulled out his scythe, hidden carefully as he rushed past the stuck pirate, who tried to get out of the barrel but couldn’t.
“Hey! Help me out!” Clown ignored the pirate as he passed down another one who was groaning on the ground.
Clown finally stopped to contemplate the disaster in front of him. Fighting against each other, was Ivory who was spinning with no stop her double-bladed scythe against the sword of…
Oh, what the fuck?
It was Kuervo Kolmillo. The Nayan Commander Assassin, the most wanted fugitive of all in Naya. What and why he was here, Clown would never know as he intercepted Ivory’s scythe before she could kill the pirate.
Ivory’s eyes widened when she spotted her captain interfering with her fight. Kuervo, down on the ground, had his eyes wide open as he was shocked to find Clown standing right in front of him. “Clown? What are you–”
“Stop,” Clown commanded sternly, not wanting things to escalate badly. “Right now.”
Ivory complied as she retreated, storing her scythe as Clown stored his. He then glanced down at Kuervo, who struggled to get up but managed as he had his sword at the ready.
“Clown Pierce,” Kuervo spat as he glared at the two of them. “What the hell are you two doing here?!”
“None of your business,” Clown said as he calmly pulled Ivory from the scene. Kuervo surprisingly didn’t follow them as he went and crouched next to the pirate who was on the floor.
“Clown, what’s wrong?” Ivory asked, able to tell that something had bothered Clown. “Did something happen?”
Clown and Ivory passed by The Noisy Parrot as night was getting ready to rise up. Clown took one of the newspapers again and checked that it had the same front page as the previous one. He then shoved it into Ivory’s arms, who looked shocked and confused as she read the front of the article, eyes widening with shock and realization. “Clown, this is–”
“Have you seen Kab, Maddy, Rae, or Magic?” Clown asked as Ivory shook her head. “Shit. Let’s head back to the Bounty and break the news to Blake and Pyro, okay?”
The two of them hurried down to the ports, where they found their two friends in charge of looking after the ship, talking with what seemed to be two faction pirates, wearing blue and green colored armbands. “Herons.” Clown muttered as they got closer to what seemed to be an argument between the two pirates and their two friends.
“Take it back!” The female Heron shouted at Blake. “My alcohol is not as bad as you claim and you're dirtying my work!”
“Well, your work is shit!” Blake shouted back. Pyro was standing on the side, ready to separate the two and stop either of them from harming the other.
“Can we all please calm down?” The other Heron asked but was quickly shut down by their companion. “Ok, never mind.”
“Is something wrong?” Clown asked as he and Ivory joined the group. “I’m the captain of these two? Any problems with them and it's my problem.”
The Heron looked at Clown and Ivory with a critical eye before bursting out. “Well, you’re man here is bad mouthing my alcohol!” Clown noted that her skin was so close to the coloration of a zombie and wondered if she was recently cured from the virus. “So either I snap his neck or he apologizes for the insult!”
“It’s not an insult!” Blake said as he walked next to Clown. “Listen. Here beer tasted like peppers! It was terrible.” He whispered into his ear, though the Heron had a keen sense as she glared daggers even more at Blake.
“I heard you!”
“Okay, listen,” Clown said as he motioned for Ivory to show the newspaper article to Pyro and Blake, and she did while he discussed business with the Herons. “Let’s do some introductions first, shall we? I’m Clown. That’s Ivory, Pyro, and Blake.”
The Heron scoffed but replied. “I’m Cleo. This is Owen.” Owen sheepishly waved from behind, feeling like he was just caught in between a cross fire. “Your friend Blake seems to have a horrible taste for alcohol.”
“Can’t imagine that,” Clown said as he knew Blake rarely drank alcohol. “I apologize for his behavior. Any way to compensate?” Would the Herons accept a bribe? Was bribing them a good idea? Ivory already attacked three pirates today, was adding bribery to their new list of crimes on the Faction Isles really necessary?
“Yes,” Cleo said as she took a mug of beer and handed it to Clown. “Tell him to taste my beer again and come back to apologize.” Cleo then walked away with Owen following them, sending an apologetic look at Clown as the two Herons left the port. Clown gazed at the mug of beer and decided to take a sip for himself, wanting to know how good it was and if Blake was actually over reacting.
Blake didn’t over react. Well, kind of.
Clown almost spit the beer inside his mask, the taste of the beer that he drank being too familiar for some reason and that reason was simple as he came to realize. “What the fuck?” The beer had blaze powder in it! Who the hell puts blaze powder on a beer?! Well, apparently Cleo does as it somehow enhanced the taste of the beer to a whole new level but still! Clown walked towards Ivory, Blake, and Pyro as the woman was showing the two men the newspaper article. Pyro’s eyes were wide with shock while Blake was utterly confused until he spotted Clown joining them.
“So?” Blake eyed at his captain as he placed the mug of beer on the ground. “How was it?”
“I don’t know what that lady was thinking but the beer had blaze powder in it,” Clown explained as Ivory and Pyro looked at him, their shock still evident on their confused faces while Blake turned to Pyro with a smug look.
“See?! I wasn’t overreacting! Her beer tasted like–”
“Ok, enough about the beer,” Clown interrupted them as he took the news article from Ivory. “Now, what I want to focus on now is on this.” He pointed at the picture of Ros and the various comments about her.
“That’s Ros,” Pyro said in disbelief. “That’s Ros, right Clown? I’m not going crazy, right?”
“So that’s Ros?” Blake, being their newest member, only heard the others talk about their old member and never actually met her in person. “Huh, not how I expected she would look like.”
“What is Ros doing here?” Ivory questioned, her usually neutral and cold face breaking in shock and agitation. “I thought she wanted to live a normal life!”
“Looks like she ended up doing that here,” Clown said as he made a desperate choice. “Has anyone seen Kab, Maddy, Rae, or Magic?” Ivory shook her head once more. Pyro said that none of them ever returned back to the port. “At all?”
“I’m pretty sure I would have heard either Kab’s shouts or Magic’s cheerful screams if they were returning back,” Blake said as he watched as Clown was pulling out his emergency flare gun. “Eh, Clown. What are you doing?”
“Desperate calls require desperate actions,” Clown said as he aimed the flare gun up to the already night sky and pressed the trigger.
The shining green flare shot upwards as it reached a high altitude, higher than the Bounty’s mast and the buildings near the port. Once reaching the night sky, the flare exploded into tinier flares that shone above them. Clown and the others waited for the rest of their crew members to shoot the corresponding flare back to message them they would be returning. Minutes flew by as no flare was shot, with not a single person rushing towards them.
Well, some people did rush at them. The problem was that they were not their friends.
“What was–,” Kuervo said as he was accompanied by his two pirates friends plus Cleo and Owen, who looked around in confusion, possibly seeing the flare being shot. Kuervo’s eyes widened when he spotted Clown, Ivory, Pyro, and Blake at the docks. “Oh, there they are!” Kuervo pointed his finger at them as he and the other pirates accompanying him rushed down to investigate the flare.
“You got to be–,” Clown muttered as he greeted the pirates. “Hi again. Don’t worry about the–”
“You!” The pirate with the bandana shouted as he pointed his sword at Ivory. “You threw me into a barrel!” Ivory glared back at him, which didn’t seem to intimate him at all.
“What?” Owen said in confusion, eying at Clown and his friends. “What’s happening?”
“Oh, we got into a fight with that one over there,” The bandaged pirate pointed at Ivory. “Turns out, she’s some assassin that worked with Kuervo and knows how to fight!”
“What?!” Cleo exclaimed in shock alongside Owen. “Kuervo, what’s wrong with you?!”
“What the fuck?” Kuervo glared at Cleo. “What the hell are you saying! How is this my fault!”
“I want a rematch!” The bandana pirate said as he kept jabbing at the air in Ivory’s direction, who was already pulling out her scythe and has a face that just screamed “I’m fucking done with you”. “Come on, fight me!”
“Tubbo, don’t!” Kuervo yanked him away as the pirate tried to protest. “Everybody, shut the hell up! I’m trying to think.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Blake asked as he was just confused. “What’s happening?”
“You’re friend attacked us!” The bandaged pirate shouted at them, more specifically at Ivory.
“You threw a knife at me,” Ivory responded coldly, glaring daggers at the three Kites, as Clown noticed their armbands. “I simply responded back.”
“Wait, now I’m confused,” Owen said as she rubbed the back of her neck. “You three attacked her, and she attacked you guys in response?”
“Yes!” Tubbo and Bek shouted in response. “Come on! I want my rematch!” Tubbo was swinging his sword like a child, which further prompted Clown if everybody on the Isles was insane or acted similarly to Ash.
“So what I’m hearing is that you Kites decided to commit murder,” Cleo deadpanned. “Which you guys keep forgetting is illegal, by the way.” Cleo’s sarcasm could probably rival Kab’s, in Clown’s opinion.
“Bah,” Tubbo dismissed. “It’s only illegal if it's inside town.”
“You are inside town!” Cleo snapped at him.
“Clown, what do we do?” Pyro whispered to him. “Not a single flare responded back and possibly more pirates will come down here.”
Clown took in the possibilities and knew there was only one thing left to do. He might also regret this, though.
Clown pulled out a flask with a teal-colored liquid inside of it from his hidden pockets and threw it to the floor. The liquid instantly sizzled before evaporating into a thick cloud of smoke that covered everybody’s vision, blinding them as people started to cough as the cloud started to grow bigger and bigger until it covered part of the docks.
Clown, Ivory, Pyro, and Blake came out from the cloud, running away as they saw other pirates arriving to investigate what was happening, but that wasn’t what they were focusing on. What they were focused on was to run away and find Kab and the others and regroup. After that, they would all discuss Ros’ exact whereabouts and her sighting at the Faction Isles. And afterwards, they would then focus on what they came here for, to repair the Bounty and resume their return back to the others.
“Won’t we look even more guiltier like this?” Blake asked as they kept running down the streets. “I mean, won’t they think we did something or–”
“Are you really thinking about that?!” Pyro questioned. “One of our dearest friends is residing here while half of our crew is missing!”
“Where are they even?” Ivory asked the main question at the moment. “Why haven’t they returned nor responded to the flare?”
Clown also wondered about that. Sure, Kab and Magic might have missed the flare but not Maddy or Rae, and they were all paired up in twos and accompanied by a somewhat responsible person. And that’s what worried Clown the most, if Rae and Maddy didn’t respond to the flare. Did something bad happen to them?
The situation made him remember what happened to Branzy and the god-awful dire situation their crew was in. It wasn’t like their run in with the leviathan that left them stranded on the Faction Isles, but the result of that hunt led to his friend losing an arm…
‘No!’ Clown mentally shouted at himself. ‘Do not think of that!’ He needed to find Kab and the others before–
Clown abruptly stopped in front of a sign, followed by the others. They were out of town and were in what appeared to be the jungle section of the Isles, completely dominated by jungle trees and no buildings on their surroundings. The sign pointed at the two directions in which the path split into, left and right, with one of the signs pointing at a location only known as:
“Nightingales”
“Clown,” Ivory said as Clown connected the dots. “That article called Ros a…”
“A Nightingale,” From what vague talking Kab and Rae allowed about their childhood on the Isles, the Nightingales was a faction that supposedly cherished camaraderie, friendship, and family, something that Kab called it BS since they refused to allow Rae to join them when the fact that her parents were rogues (Clown kindly asked them to formulate only for Kab to throw her mug at him) came into discussion.
Clown didn’t know anything about the Faction Isles, only knowing it existed and that was probably all about it. Clown turned to his friends, as they all looked at the sign pointing to the Nightingales’ supposed home or base. They all nodded towards Clown as he guided them down towards Ros, the light of his lantern guiding them through the darkness of the path as night finally took him.
Monsters apparently did exist here as zombies, skeletons, and creepers started to resurface from the ground, but they were all flies to the seasoned monster hunters as they eliminated them without breaking a sweat. They finally reached what seemed to be the Nightingales’ base, which was composed of what seemed to be the living quarters, a giant tree that sprouted high up into the sky, and what seemed to be a ship that has been repurposed into a tavern judging by the smell of alcohol and the laughter of the people inside.
Speaking of laughter, Kab’s loud laughs were coming out from the tavern, prompting Clown to sigh in relief. If Kab was relaxing, that meant the others were safe. As much as Kab was a hot headed person, she would always focus on her friends no matter what. “They’re okay.”
“Wow, look at this place!” Blake exclaimed in surprise and awe as he pulled out a night vision potion.
“You’re not going to waste a potion just for sight seeing, are you?” Ivory glared at Blake as he quickly put the potion back into his pockets.
“You think Ros is in there, Clown?” Pyro asked him, staring intently at the tavern. “You think Kab and the others already found her?”
Clown considered the possibility. “Probably.” It was already late and they couldn’t simply go back to town after the stunt he pulled back at the docks. Plus, he hasn’t seen nor heard from Ros and neither did his friends. “Let’s see how she has been without us.”
They proceeded to walk down towards the tavern, laughing, chatting, and shouting growing louder and louder, merrier and merrier. Once they reached the entrance of the tavern, Clown was greeted by a flying knife that almost made it to his face if it wasn’t because he got the reflexes to catch it with his fingers. Pyro, Ivory, and Blake jumped back in shock as Clown calmly settled the knife on a nearby table and stared at the people inside.
Magic, Rae, and Maddy were all horrified, with Kab looking so as well, crouched on the ground as if she dodged the knife herself. The others, who he assumed were either Nightingales or other pirates from different factions, stared at Clown in awe or shock or a mix of both. The bartender had a shocked expression as she was cleaning a mug, looking at Clown and his friends with mixed feelings (I mean, they are strangers who just suddenly showed up with their leader avoiding certain death).
Clown also spotted what appeared to be a purple jelly-like sea urchin with tiny legs and arms, but the creature seemed rather harmless and posed no threat whatsoever. The only person he was actually focusing on was Ros, who really changed her looks after leaving them. Ros was now wearing a purple long skirt, replacing her pants. She was wearing shoes now instead of boots. She had a purplish long sleeve shirt taking over her white shirt but still keeping her purple jacket.
Her purple hair was now longer than the shoulder length she used to have, with some braids adorning it and a white headband around her head. She was also wearing the necklace that the crew gifted to her on her day of her departure, having grown tired of being a monster hunter but still remembered them as she stared at Clown, Ivory, Pyro, and Blake with shock.
Clown chuckled as he should have known Ros was the one who threw the knife (accidentally) at him as she stood straight up, staring right at him. “Captain.” She then bowed at him like she sometimes did during their time together. “You’re here.”
Clown chuckled at the formality. “You don’t have to call me captain, Ros. You’re not part of the crew anymore.” Ros faltered at the last sentence before Clown corrected himself. “But I will gladly accept a hug from my friend.” Clown opened his arms, inviting Ros as she walked towards him and gave him a warm hug. “Nice to see you again, Ros.”
“Same,” Ros responded Pyro, Ivory, and Blake peeked past Clown’s shoulder to meet her face. “Sorry about the knife.”
“It’s fine,” It was a curse to be a captain sometimes. You were either thrown off the deck (Kab, Rae, Blake, Ash), accidentally used as target practice (Magic, Maddy, Ash), or got into a scuffle in between your own crew members (Ash, Ivory, Pyro, Kab, Rae), or in general, targeted as a prank victim (Kab, Magic, Ash). “I would like to know why you threw a knife, though.”
“Kab,” Ros responded drily as Kab stood up, dusting herself as she played innocent.
“I simply wanted to show Ros’ new friends how ripped she was,” Kab defended herself. “I only showed her abs, it's not like I completely undressed her!”
“... What?” Blake said as Clown mentally groaned at his crew’s mortally ill insanity and shenanigans. He just hoped that their stay on the Faction Isles wouldn’t make things worse.