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Since returning to the ship with their prize catch, the Kremling Krew only became ever more hectic in their preparations for the master plan of their king and captain. James, and admittedly the rest of the crew at his rank, became rather oblivious to specifics, only having two orders to follow. Be prepared to fight, and keep the ship in prime condition. Not that this was unusual for the crew would continue doing such regardless. A few days after the the marlin expedition, of which the spoils were still being feasted upon by the crew, a new event came from the higher ranks demanding that only some of the crew were allowed to approach, those of "particular combat skills" to be precise. James joined with quite a few crewmembers including Kruz who stood beside him, all of them with weapons at their side. They were armed at all times anyway, but today the raptor started to actually notice the many blades they had, from cutlasses to daggers, to short swords to maces. "As ye all know," began First Mate Krook as he stood upon the deck before them, "We must always be ready to fight for whatever enemies of ours may approach. Some enemies of ours, who I won't stain this ship by their very mention today, will be coming to us to do just that. I know all of ye are competent fighters, but I wanna see HOW competent ye are. Hopefully none of ye forgot how to swing a sword right?" "No sir!" cried out the crew. "Good...then how 'bout we have a li'l demonstration, from all our best fighters hmm? Now I want ye all to stand in rows, pick a partner an' we can begin. Short swords, that means daggers, knives, scramasaxes an' gladiuses, yer all up first." 30 or so crewmembers attending had such, either daggers or proper short swords such as the gladius, making James wistfully remember when he used to wield such, remembering also that he hadn't bothered to get a secondary weapon. His smaller holster at the small of his back had remained virtually empty since obtaining his baldric. Ignoring this for now, he watched the short-sword fighters begin their practice, who stood in two rows to face against one opponent each. Most of them were noticeably riggers or very low class at the same level as him. Krook and a few other elites watched with studious eyes, estimating the strengths and weaknesses of their fighters. Occasionally they would see one who misstepped, or swung a bit too hard, or was too easily parried.

Sometimes one dagger would thrust straight through the defensive parry, breaking the resistance and cutting very close to skin. Other times a short-sword would be expertly blocked with such a resistance that nothing got through it with such little weight. Yet the fighters took care in controlling themselves to not cut their opponents too badly. In fact for now, they were barely actually attacking but rather gauging each other's skills. James was rather surprised at two things. Not only was he witnessing a rather splendid mish-mash of fighters training themselves with their preferred weapon for the first time in such an official fashion. But he was also realising he could see mistakes that he had made himself in his training, such as a poor stance or an awkward strike that was too easy to defend against, unless you were an amateur. He smiled to himself at that. "Good!" said Krook with a clap of his claws. "Now, lessee which of ye's the best fighter after that nice li'l warm up hmm? Ye know the rules. Arms an' legs are fine to cut, but no stabbin' in the belly or anythin' fatal. That'll disqualify ye. All we wanna see is someone good enough with a blade to be able to weaken or disarm their opponent...fer now." With that, the short-sword fighters began to truly fight, organising themselves before they struck out at each other with more aggression, blocking and dodging quick slashes or thrusts, the fights truly picking up now. The first to fall only took perhaps 20 seconds, a grip too weak and a stance too unbalanced that easily made him lose his dagger and be forced to surrender. Another was soon the same way, but he managed to hold onto his sword before being knocked backwards hard to the deck. He tried to defend himself and quickly get back up, only to be unexpectedly grabbed into a chokehold with the blade to his throat. He tried to struggle out of it, but was eventually forced to surrender with the same sort of disappointment a child would have at being found in a game of hide and seek. James also noticed the same two fighters pat and kiss each other before the winner stayed on. The fights would soon all end the same way. If it wasn't being completely disarmed, it was being trapped into a chokehold forced to surrender. And if it wasn't that, then it was being pinned to the floor by an almost-naked kremling with a sword barely touching your eye, which admittedly made James think rather indecent thoughts at such a position. One kremling however went too far, and with a blazing fury of animosity, cut deep into the thigh of his foe, wounding his opponent badly. Both were disqualified, with punishment given later to the "winner".

Eventually the fights boiled down to two last opponents, both of them riggers, both of them orange, one in blue clothes and one in green. They were certainly both very skilled, as evidenced by how easily they guarded against each other's swift slashes, blades zipping in front of each other at the speed of wasps, and yet both still managed to keep guarding against them. Their eyes were tense and unwavering in their dedication to the art. James was amazed at such speed and efficiency from short-sword wielders, but eventually the fight was soon over around 4 minutes later, when a rather clever feint made the blue-clothed Kremling lose his chance, and he was disarmed swiftly, his blade skimming across the deck like a stone. "We have a winner!" proclaimed Krook. "I hereby announce our best short-sword fighter to be Kody!" Mass cheers came from the crowd of kremlings watching all around, sitting either on cannons, crates or the floor, as Kody helped his opponent up and they walked off complimenting each other's skills. "Now...all backswords including cutlasses, sabres an' basket-hilts, step up." "Looks like that's me," said Kruz with a pat to James' shoulder, as he got up to show his own skill with the sword. The raptor replied: "Good luck!" Not surprisingly for pirates, this was the most popular class of sword for them, and out of the whole crew that could be considered good enough with the backswords, there would be only 60 attending. After the standard warm-up to readjust themselves to their training, with sabres ringing out loud with resounding clangs like a poorly-composed symphony of tuneless bells, they would soon pair up into showing their skill. While the swings were slower then the short swords naturally, they could still slash just as fiercely with a longer range. James focused on Kruz, spotting him out easily by his left hook hand, brown scales and sunset red pants. For the most part, he was quite a skilled fighter with his blade, certainly well-trained in the art of parrying with a cutlass to make his opponent's blade slide off his own and cut swiftly, but not severely, across the arm. He aimed to slow his opponent down with each fresh new cut until there was no more strength to fight.

The rigger did relatively well with his blade, reaching up all the way to the last 10 fighters when there were only 5 left on each side. He even utilised his hook hand as a way to catch his opponents' grip, and either disarm them which happened quite frequently in his case, or be able to guard himself with the hook on the enemy's blade, holding it with his arm strength. Unfortunately he would soon be defeated, and ranked 10th best when his foe managed to expertly twist the hook hand in a failed disarm. The hook caught on the basket hilt as Kruz was pulled in for a strong counter-disarm, throwing him down to the floor and forcing him to surrender. Dejected, but appreciating the skilful battle, he took back his blade and sat back beside James. "Awwww congrats man." "Hehe, you kept yer eye on me huh?" "Dude you got to the top 10, that's pretty awesome!" "I was 8th last time, I guess I'm getting sloppy." "Eh, you just got unlucky, you'll kick their ass next time." The fights continued all the way to the last match, with overall only four disqualifications amongst the 60 swordsmen for intentionally wounding their foe. James would have expected they would be commended for it, but considering they needed to preserve the manpower, he supposed that it was unwise to have them killing each other to have only the best around. Finally, the highest-skilled swordsman was found, a portly green gunner kremling called Kirk who, like others of his size, had a yellow front chest, wore an army helmet and a belt with several pockets. "Alright next up," called out Krook, "all longswords from bastard-sword length and upwards, be they single or double-handed." "That's you man." Kruz nudged James who got up slowly. His scissors glinted with the other weapons, walking forwards to stand amongst 36 fellow longswordsmen before being split up into two rows, and facing off against his first opponent. Here, James realised, was the true test of his training with Glenn, bringing out his scissors and treating them like any good sword, two-handed and with proper stance. The training of course began, remembering his movements or rather allowing his muscles to remember them. He knew that one should never think TOO hard on something that becomes instinctive to you, or else the danger of losing your entire rhythm would come.

Being that this was the first time he would be truly using his scissors in a duel since finishing his training, he let it all flood back to him. The muscles feeling the grip he had upon the handles, gauging his opponent who wielded a standard claymore, the two of them showing the smallest parts of skill to each other, but not all. Never showing all your cards until within the heart of battle. Soon they began in earnest, and Kruz watched his friend with his unusual weapon. He was easily ahead of at least one-third of the class, and managed to rather swiftly disarm several of them, usually by utilising the scissors themselves, opening the blades and tugging the blade straight out of their grip. Some of them may have called it unfair, but James' philosophy had always been that there was no such thing as a clean fight. And that they should be happy that he wasn't allowed to kill. Some opponents however were too strong to disarm, thick brutish hands clasped around a handle with no way of letting go, and of a strength far superior to the raptor. Other tactics had to come with his unique blades, such as thrusting them open and towards his foe's neck, and clasping the throat between them in a tender hold. He remembered how the owner of this weapon had done the same to him. In way, he felt rather cathartic about doing this, having practiced the idea privately in the last days of his training, as well as on the ship when he was alone. Working up the ranks with continuous disarms or holds, he only had the advantage due to the fact that nobody was entirely sure how to defend themselves against the scissors. When they held too tightly to their blades, their swings were slower and gave him time to make them surrender with a scissorhold, as he called it, to the neck. When they kept their swings strong and fast, they had less of a grip and could therefore be easily disarmed. James only truly had trouble once or twice when some less noble opponents were more eager to wound the raptor, or put him out of commission somehow out of sheer arrogance to be the best. The first time this occurred, James wasn't fooled, and kept his composure knowing that if he did the same, he would be disqualified too. He forced himself to keep calm, as difficult as it was, and swung the strongly-held claymore of his foe to spin him out towards a cannon, making him hit cold iron and knocking him out.

The second foe to want to take him down was far more skilled at around 12th place, a massively muscular blue brute standing at 7 foot tall, with a mighty zweihander that extended to the length of James' own scissors. He would be in for a real fight. The beast swung his blade with such ferocity, as if he were swinging a sharpened log made of steel. But the raptor couldn't let himself be intimidated, even though he was unable to truly block any of the swings. The force of the swings were far too powerful for him, and he was quite certain that this one was aiming to kill, or at least seriously wound him. With no way of blocking, he did his best to parry, to slope the blade off from his and cut across the arms to slow him down. For the first few times it worked, the blue arms running little red rivulets all along to the sword hilt. But soon the beast wised up, and would feint his swings in order to throw James off, slamming his blade in a backhand swing to try and cut the scissors straight out of his hands. It was almost too late that James recognised this maneuver, and while he stepped into the swing in enough time to not feel the full force of it upon his scissors, his grip was nevertheless weakened by the clashing of blades. He faltered in his attack, but had enough time to cut across the leg and make his towering foe fall slightly. A grunt of pain was his reward, but it would soon be shaken off by another swing of the zweihander, the scissors falling from his grip and away from him.

Before he would be cut down defenceless, he dodged backwards, much against his training said, and grabbed his scissors once more, only to run forwards once more while his opponent was readying to charge. Smashing his blades hard against the zweihander to one side, he exposed his enemy's chest before shoulder-charging into it. His shoulder guard hit like a mace to the barrel chest, and stunned his foe good enough. But all it did after was bring a huge hand around the back of him, and crush him hard against the muscles, threatening to squeeze the life out of him. He dropped his scissors once again in a weakening grip, struggling to escape, staring up to the huge kremling who grinned wickedly at crushing the life out of his nimble foe. James squirmed and shook with all his strength, his arms pinned, unable to even scratch at him, the raptor whimpering and trying to scream out: "I SURRENDER! G-GAAH I SURRENDER PLEASE!" With a bass smug chuckle, the kremling dropped him hard to the floor as James took his scissors, slinking away with his dignity well-bruised. "That was a pretty fierce fight," said Kruz supportively. "Yeah whatever..." "Hey, first time with us, and you got to 13th place, that's pretty damn good!" "I guess." "And you gotta admit, you got one hell of an advantage with those...things. I mean, you can practically chokehold an' disarm anyone that ain't too strong or fast!" "Haha, well I uh...yeah...thanks. Sorry I just kinda-" "Yeah we all wanna be number one, doesn't mean we're not gonna see some action though, don't you worry about that." James could only nod and watch the rest of the longswordsmen whittle their numbers down to the winner, who thankfully was not the huge blue zweihander-wielding kremling he had lost to. Instead it was a less muscular, but still large and surprisingly nimble green kremling called Konff, who wielded a claymore with a ruby-pommel hilt. Krook nodded with approval at the progress of all this before saying: "Now, the last fighters fer today, the mace-wielders."

Behind Krook, within the darkness of a doorway hidden from the light, the captain gazed through. In all the fighting and training that had occurred upon his deck, nobody saw the gleam in his eye, of something beyond joy or pride. He gazed at the fighters, weaknesses screaming at him from their postures and swings, to the point of making him clench his claws and grind his teeth with an insufferable urge of perfection. None of them could be counted upon to be trustworthy in a fight. Look at them, he thought, sloppy and uncoordinated, losing to such childish errors as if they were playing with wooden swords! They sicken me, so pathetic, nothing but cannon fodder, scouts to send out for traps and bait. But then he saw the skilful ones, the true warriors, the masters of the art who stood firm in their stance and slashed with such perfect precision that nothing could touch them. A little TOO perfect it seemed. Perhaps too perfect for their own captain, should they realise and choose to rise against him. Who could he trust more, the sloppy amateurs who could never be able to protect him, or the experienced swordsmen who could become quite the challenge against his own blade should they decide to turn? Then he cast his eye over to James, the raptor's large scissors clear to see within the crowd at all times, sorely sticking out of his entire crew more by the weapons than by his scales. Now there was a promising young lad. He was different, but scaled all the same. There was enough experience to fight his foes, his stance firm and his strikes true, but there was an occasional little flaw he would see, a step just out of place or a swing just a tad too hard for such a weapon to be used well. Skilled enough to handle his enemies, but surely not skilled enough to defeat his captain if he ever decided to. Loyal if need be, easy to defeat. "Yes...you'll do."

The next day, the Kremling elites became more frantic in their planning and relaying of information, their target apparently homing in on them and as such they were getting rather worried. James could hear little of what they said, but he heard from one crew member who was sneakier than most that "the factory had just been breached" and that "it won't be long before he gets here". He could only assume it was the Kongs, and as such he mentally prepared himself moreso than the others. But then came an argument within the captain's cabin, a rather furiously strong debate that bellowed out from the windows. The crew were gathered around by some of their friends and more curious superiors to listen, only to see the cabin door burst open. There K. Rool stood, resplendent in nothing but a cape and a shining tall crown that glinted in the sunlight, as regal as he could be. Behind him, came a bloated brown Kremling wearing a bandolier of grenades and a meshed army helmet, walking past his king who turned towards him. He was serious but kindly, his royal hands clasped together. "Now...would you care to explain yourself, in front of my loyal subjects?" "Cap'n-" He was cut short by a flash of psychotic muscle twitching around the royal snout, which shook slightly, yet with his benevolent gaze unchanging. "...Your HIGHNESS. I just wanna say that this idea of yours...I can no longer be a part of it anymore, it's crazy!" "Oh?" "Your plan, your entire plan is insane! I tried to follow you because I believed in you. But now that I realise everything, I can't! Even when we try to offer alternatives or better-working ideas, you cast them away with your arrogance in believing only YOUR stupid plan works!" "And what do you wish to say, truly, in front of us all?" "...I'm resignin' from your crew." "Crew?!" "Whatever the hell you wanna call it, I'm not part of it anymore! You won't move me from my decision, your highness! I can't agree with you anymore, you're nothing but insane! And all I can give to you now is my resignation."

The crew were amazed at the balls this guy had, to even call their leader insane in front of the entire crew, moreso to publicly diss his reputation. When the accuser realised this, he even went further as K. Rool replied with a strangely calm: "Hmm. That is a pity Kross, I considered you quite highly amongst my elites." "I know, but unlike everyone else here, I see things a lot more clearly, I've been privy to your inner secrets. And I have my limits, and all this crew will soon know their limits when they either join you to their death or realise how insane you REALLY are and leave like I will! What plans you have with that island are way too far for me...and they only seem to be YOUR plans, ever." They all carefully examined K. Rool's face for any sign of insult or rage. There was nothing. He didn't even smile. He merely kept his hands clasped together softly and gazed upon Kross. The most disturbing thing that James noticed, was that the king's blood-shot eye did not even twitch. Deathly still. "Then I see no further business to discuss. You may resign." Kross was rather surprised by this. He expected to be flogged, killed, or thrown into the sea at least, instead of being so politely given a chance to willingly resign from his own king and captain. All he could do was nod softly, somewhat thrown off-balance. "Well...uh...th-thank you...your highness." "I will allow you to resign, in the way that all Kremlings should wish to leave before me. Would you mind kneeling before me?" "Uhh...w-well I uh...yes, your highness. Thank you for understanding." Despite wanting to leave, he played politely to his former boss as an act of dignity and took his helmet off before kneeling, allowing one last service to the crocodilian's ego. A rather humble-looking gesture from such a strong-hearted desire to no longer be part of the Kremlings. The rest of them looked onwards, a few even terrified now. And rightfully so. None of them could even react when K. Rool took off his crown, turned it upside down, and plunged the sharp circle of points straight into Kross' skull like a dagger. All with the most Zen-like smile.

Some of the crowd gasped in horror, including Kruz and James who had never seen such an act carried out with such cold precision. The others clearly did, only widening their eyes in surprise as the portly gunner tried to gaze upwards in his last moments of thought with the smallest of horrified chokes. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he fell limp to the ground. The king was not yet done when he tore the crown from the skull, his face twisting into a fit of secondary rage to stab downwards once more. Then a third time as if smashing a stone unto a large rock, piercing deep into the brain with a bestial grunt until all of its points were halfway into the very brain itself. He made sure that Kross was dead, before wrenching it free and wiping his symbol of monarchy with his cape, his expression now composed of slight irritation as if he found a fly in the sink. "Your resignation has been accepted Kross. As I said before, it is a pity. Now..." He gazed towards his subjects, most of whom were clearly frightened. "Should any of you wish to resign, you are free to approach me and leave my command. And to those who shall stay, I will only say this once. I will NOT tolerate insubordination or apathy from any of my subjects in the slightest. When you swore your allegiance to me upon joining my cause, you swore also to be dilligent in nothing else but that. The heavens bless hard work, my dear subjects." He spread his arms wide, smiling in such a disturbingly messianic fashion before his executed subject, which made everyone's spine shiver. "How else will we be able to obtain what we desire, if we are not willing to earn it with the cold-blooded determination that true reptiles are legendary for!? Now go, and attend to your duties. Krook...show our former brother the way out." "Yes, yer highness." As the Kremlings departed from the public execution, Krook removed the bandolier off Kross' corpse, and heftily dragged it overboard as if it were troublesome flotsam to the tune of a resounding splash as the body sunk beneath the waves. All James could do was walk away with Kruz, rather shaken by what he had witnessed. When they were a good distance away on the other end of the ship, they began to talk. "Di-did you see that!?" "Yeah...that was pretty brutal." "He didn't even blink, I mean...f-fucking christ, I'm not a clean guy myself but nobody kills with a hand that cold." "Unless yer King K. Rool." "Or Kaptain K. Rool." "Both of them are just as cold as the other, you gotta be if you wanna run a crew like this." "Wh-what!? How can you even say that, that was some cold-blooded serial killer shit right there, how can you trust a guy who doesn't even have any emotion when he's killing one of his own people!?" "He's probably used to it. I seen it happen...only once before." "...and how the fuck does nobody see it coming?" "New recruits, nobody tells 'em. I dunno what they tell ya in the officers' rank." "Well now I think I'll pass at any chance of promotion, thank you...oh god...I let him fuck me." "Look, all you gotta do is play by his rules and don't fuck around, this is a tight ship, I mean we HAVE to be a good crew, or else yanno...if you're not working with us, you're against us." "...is...is it really like that?" "Oh yeah." "But...what was the plan that guy was talking about?" "To take over the Kong island of course!" "Well yeah I guessed that but...don't you find it odd he would object to...just wanting to take over an island? I mean what's wrong with that?" "Maybe he got the jungle fever, became a monkey-lover or something." "I dunno...there's something weird about this now." "Yer just shaken Rex, come on, we gotta clear the mizzenmast a li'l." "O-okay." He tenderly climbed up towards the rigging once again, starting to wonder truly about his king and captain's motives. Was it really just a simple island takeover? Or was there something more? He would try and find more ways to learn more, whenever he felt braver.