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“Clown,” Ros groaned as she was guiding her former captain to the postal office of the Faction Isles. Clown spent the morning writing a letter to the other members of the crew that were left on land somewhere. Clown didn’t go into details because according to him, Branzy and Ash were doing a job which had “secret details” in it in which their contractor wished them not to tell anybody.
Ros knew that the crew’s reputation was highly recognized anywhere except the Faction Isles, though it still shocked her that they now did bounties and other illegal commissions. Though that wasn’t the reason why she was groaning. “Why?” She exasperatedly said.
“Mmm?” Clown looked at her, a smile certainly forming behind his tauntingly smiling mask. “What? Your friends asked and all I did was respond to them. I merely spoke the truth.”
“Well, I didn’t want them to know that!” Ros said as her cheeks were boiling red. When she woke up, she heard the loud laughs of multiple people. It turns out that somebody spilled the beans about Ros dating somebody once to Apo and Apo asked right away if that was true.
Kab and Rae enjoyed retelling the tale of how wasted Ros was at that time, and how she just flirted with the first girl she saw and invited her to a bed. Of course the crew laughed at the fond memory of Ros being so embarrassed when she finally got desintoxicated, finding some stranger sleeping with her in a bed, specially Kab, Rae, and Blake who never heard the tale. Apo of course laughed, Jojo and Michela chuckled a bit, Will and Acho managed to stifle some giggles, and Graecie was just getting closer and closer to realizing that she didn’t fully and truly knew Ros.
That part scared Ros the most.
With how Kab and Rae described their lives, Ros never imagined them coming from the Faction Isles. And the fact that Graecie kicked Rae out from joining the faction because her parents were rouges, that made Ros even more scared. She loved the Nightingales, they were like a second family to her! She can’t imagine Graecie kicking her out from the–
Ros feels something pull her as barrels suddenly come down from the sky and almost land on top of her and Clown, who pulled her just in time as they got out of the barrels’ way unharmed. Out of her stupor, Ros quickly pulled out her sabers while Clown pulled out his scythe. From the rooftops, Ros spotted Tubbo, Bek, Red, and Puffy coming down, weapons in hand as they all landed in very dramatic poses with the exception of Red, the ever so drunken Kite who has faceplanted himself into the ground.
“Red, you alright?” Puffy asks as she looks down at him. Red simply raises a thumbs-up before his arm goes down. “Yeah, he’s fine.”
“Oh, you two again?” Clown says in a tired tone, prompting Ros to believe he already had an encounter with the Kites and an unpleasant one. “What is it with you two? Can you leave me alone?”
“Not until you fight us!” Tubbo exclaims as he swings his sword menacingly. “Come on, fight us!” Bek was grinning some maniacally that it sent some goosebumps down Ros’ spine. She has seen worse than that, but it didn’t make it any different from the previous.
“Tubbo and Bek are telling me you guys fought them,” Puffy explained to Ros who was confused. “They say they want a rematch.”
“Dear gods,” Clown groaned. “Can I pay you to stop attacking me and my crew?”
“No!” Tubbo and Bek lunged straight towards Clown and Ros, the former two taking this as their chance to finally test Ros' skills once and for all.
🌊 🌊 🌊
“Well, that was anticlimactic," Ros said as she dusted herself off. “You think they’ll be fine.”
“We left that one… what was her name, Puffy?” Ros nodded in confirmation. “Yeah, Puffy. We left her untied and that red person behind, so I’m confident to say they’ll be fine.”
Ros honestly didn’t know what to expect. Tubbo and Bek were complete novices in terms of skills with Ros and Clown together. The two Kites completely went down easily with Puffy deciding that it wasn’t worth the problem fighting the two of them. With those two out of the way, Ros finally led Clown towards the postal office where he could send the letter to–
“YOU!”
Oh, come on! Ros mentally screamed as she spotted Martyn, Sausage, Kyle, and…
Oh, fuck.
Shelby was also there. And the expression of delight that she made when she spotted her with Clown just made Ros wanting the Earth to just swallow her whole.
The gods must have something against her because that didn’t happen.
“Oh, Ros! Ros!” Sausage called her over. “My queen! You’re here!”
“Hello~” Shelby said as she grinned at Ros, her eyes primarily focused on her. “You came to see me? Oh, you didn’t have to.” Ros’ cheeks were burning hot with embarrassment as she looked away from Shelby. “What, you’re ignoring me? I was just talking to the guys about you being a body builder!”
At that point, Ros’ neck could have snapped at how fast she turned to face Shelby.
“You did what?!”
“Oh yeah,” Sausage said giddily. “She was just telling us how you were very muscular!” The way Sausage looked just made Ros feel more and more embarrassed, in which was a wound which had salt applied to it in the form of Clown chuckling lowly at her.
“You certainly got a lot of attention now,” Clown said jokingly. It was the point of no return anyways, Clown thought, so why not tease Ros a bit? With how fast news were spreading–
Martyn shoved Sausage and Shelby out of his way, his nose bandaged and red, with his left eye now black. “YOU!” Martyn pointed an accusatory finger at Ros as his hand went to get his flintlock. “Your friend fucking punched me!” Martyn pulled out the flintlock at Ros, who was covered by Clown as he stood in between the maddened Kestrel and the threatened Nightingale. “Hey, out the way! This isn’t your business!”
“You’re threatening my friend,” Clown said coolly, dread coming down his voice. “So point that flintlock somewhere before I put you down.” Martyn didn’t budge, but Ros could see the fear inside of his eyes.
“Martyn, what are you talking about?” Ros asked, trying to defuse the argument before somebody got killed.
“Shelby told me about your little rogue friends,” Shelby gave an apologetic look at Ros as she genuinely looked like she felt guilty and bad about it. “And turns out, one of them, Kab, was the one who fucking punch me!”
“Oh, so that was you,” Clown said as he remembered Maddy’s words from last night. “But if I have to guess, you must have done something to Kab to anger her enough.” It was no excuse and Clown didn’t want to excuse Kab’s actions, especially the reckless ones. But if he knew one thing about Kab: is that family matters were the one thing that could tip her into life-threatening troubles.
“I didn’t do shit!” Martyn said as he jabbed the mouthpiece of the flintlock on Clown’s chest. “Now, step off or–”
Clown quickly grabbed the flintlock, pulled it out away from his chest as Martyn pressed the trigger and fired at the sudden movement, causing everybody to crouch down to not be hit by the bullet. Clown then twisted the flintlock in Martyn’s hand, forcing the Kestrel to let go of it as Clown threw it away from hand’s reach.
Martyn was baffled as he stared at his now empty hands before looking at Clown in disbelief. “You done?” Clown asked as Martyn was clearly pissed off.
“You know what. Fine,” Martyn said as he grumbled on his way to the postal office. “Just give me the damn letter so I can send it off on the bird.”
While Clown and Martyn were chatting (AKA Martyn yelling at Clown while Clown tried to restrain himself from killing Martyn), Shelby and Sausage decided to chat more with Ros, while Kyle was standing away from them.
“Ros, I’m really sorry for that!” Shelby apologized, with no charm coming from her voice. “I didn’t know Kab was the one who punched Martyn. I told him about her and the others before he told me who punched him!”
“Shelby, it’s fine,” Ros said as she took a deep breath. “Let’s just be glad that nobody died.” Nobody can survive against Clown, that’s what those who met their face knew before fighting him.
“I still can’t believe you’re friends with Kab and Rae,” Sausage added. “It’s insane that you already knew people from the Isles, especially Kyle’s sister.”
“Oh, right!” Ros felt bad that she kept forgetting Kab was biologically Kyle’s sister. The differences and similarities between the siblings made sense… in a way. “Oh, hi Kyle!”
Kyle tensed up before shaking it and walking towards the group. “Hi Ros. Sorry about Martyn. We kinda lied to him that he got knocked out by a coconut.” Kyle was looking away from Ros, and Ros had the nasty feeling of why.
“How was the relationship between you and Kab?” Ros wanted to know if it was really true that Kab’s own family devalued her. She just couldn’t picture Kyle as that kind of person despite his attitude towards those who weren’t Kestrels.
Kyle hissed but responded. “I… was not the brother Kab needed.” Sausage gritted his teeth, grimacing with hints of guilt and regret in his eyes. “After our father died… things started to fall apart between me and Kab. She… she wanted to join the Kites… and let’s just say…” Kyle stopped talking at that point, seemingly hesitant of continuing.
“And?” Ros glared daggers at him, a view that was as rare as an unicorn in the Isles. “And what? Both Kites and Kestrels tormented her?” Ros knew she just spat acid on Kyle, but she couldn’t exactly believe Kab’s own brother tormented her.
“We were kids,” Kyle said. “I know it’s too lazy and is an excuse, but…” Kyle cut himself off, knowing he was already losing the battle. “Look. Next time you see Kab, just please.” Kyle was begging Ros, a Nightingale, out in the open. “Please tell her that I’m sorry. And I mean it.” Ros’ eyes got watery a bit. She couldn’t exactly forgive Kyle yet, but seeing how the family was so torn it reminded her of how she also–
No.
No, that was not her anymore.
“Ok,” Ros said gently. “I doubt Kab will listen to it but I can–”
“Look out!” Sausage said as he threw himself on Shelby, pushing her out of the way of the rolling barrels headed their way. Kyle managed to walk back and away from the barrels while Ros jumped over the first row before hopping from barrel to barrel and landing on–
A whole cart hit Ros’ feet as she fell into it. The cart rolled down behind the barrels, down towards the edge of the–
SPLASH!!!
“Ros!” Shelby, Sausage, and Kyle exclaimed in alarm as Clown and Martyn came running out to see what happened. Clown was about to dive in until Ros’ upper body pop out from the water surface, spitting water as she was swimming to keep her body up.
“I’m okay!” Ros shouted back as she swam back to the edge where Clown and Sausage helped her get up. “Where did those barrels come from?”
“Barrels? More like where did the cart…,” Kyle cut himself off as he spotted something in the distance. “Are those Bek and Tubbo?” Kyle pointed out in the distance and just in time for the others to spot the two Kites who were just running away from the scene.
“Are you…,” Clown growled before stopping himself. “Forget it.” Clown looked around Ros to check for injuries. “Are you hurt?”
“Just wet,” Ros said as her clothes were dripping water. “I can’t believe Tubbo and Bek would do something like that!”
“You want me to get some spare clothes?” Shelby offered, noting that Ros’ clothes were too soaked and she could possibly get sick by exposure. “I have some with me.”
“No, no it’s fine,” Ros respectfully declined. “I’m fine.”
“No you’re not,” Clown said firmly. “Come on, let’s go.” Clown said as he took Ros’ hand and started to guide her to the docks. The Kestrels followed soon, with Martyn being dragged by both Kyle and Shelby.
“Oh, where are we going?” Sausage asked excitedly.
“To the docks,” Clown responded. “We still kept some of Ros’ old clothes with us. We didn’t dare get rid of them.”
“You guys kept my clothes?” Ros asked, puzzled.
“You didn’t take all of your belongings and we couldn’t think of getting rid of them,” Clown said. “Might as well start using them before they don’t fit you anymore.”
“I doubt they’ll fit me,” Ros said. “It’s been years since I wore anything in my time with you guys.”
While Ros and Clown were talking, Shelby started to picture how Ros looked back on her monster hunting time. She imagined Ros would look like something close to what the Kites wore, except more muscular looking. The thought made Shelby giggled absentmindedly, earning some confused stares from Martyn and Kyle.