The Fishwoman continued her casual jaunt until she arrived at the west side of town. Perhaps it was due to the greater concentration of people around, but the wannabe pursuers had broken off from the chase, deciding wisely that making a scene wouldn’t be to their benefit at the moment. It didn’t take long for her to find the popular Valiant Angler. The sign certainly was big, bearing a logo of an angler fish wearing a plumed knight’s armet and the establishment’s name painted in a bold red. The building itself was fairly large too, and was painted in a similar red to that which made up the sign’s letters. Samehana waved to Freyja as she also arrived outside of the Angler, apparently bereft of anything in the mood for something tasty as well.
”Glad you could join me on this little adventure, Frey~.” she chimed, smiling at the green-haired woman as she approached.
Upon entering the Angler, Samehana and Freyja were greeted by a sea of tables occupied by all manner of folk, many of whom turned their eyes to the doors as the two strangers walked in. As expected from the size of the building, the interior of the tavern was spacious. And more well-kept than many other taverns she’d been to on her travels. One might have even thought it to be a tad fancy, frankly. Before the two could even take another step, a young woman with shoulder-length dirty blonde hair (which formed a rather impressive ahoge) and bright blue eyes skipped over to meet the two.
”Welcome to the Valiant Angler~. I’m Tabitha and I’ll be your server today. Follow me and I’ll find you two a nice table!” she greeted, filled with the bubbly, sparkly energy of youth. Tabitha swiftly found the two travelers an empty table with chairs to spare. In fact, there were just enough for Sancho, Church and Spiril to join the two if they so chose. Parking herself down on a nicely-cushioned chair, Samehana received a menu as soon as she had placed her posterior in the seat, as Freyja would too.
”You two travel far to get here?” Tabitha inquired as Samehana searched for something to her liking. Judging from what she could tell of the town’s population and the looks that she got alone, it was pretty rare that they saw Fishfolk roam through these parts. And Freyja, for all her lethargy, gave off a sort of hardened, well-traveled vibe. Throw in cowboy Church, the noble-looking Sancho, and wide-eyed Spirillum and the Golden Fleece as a whole had obviously come together from all manner of places.
”Sure did. Figured we should stop by and fill up before we explore the rest of the town.” Samehana responded, noting the curiosity painted on the girl’s face. She couldn’t have been much more than seventeen years old.
”Hehe. I figured as much. You two look like you’ve seen some pretty cool stuff. I’ve lived in this town my whole life, but I wanna go out and make it big as a famous pirate hunter.” Tabitha explained, unsolicited by either of the two. Samehana smirked and cast her eyes towards Freyja for a moment before turning her attention back to Tabitha.
”Oh, is that so? My friend here used to be something of a pirate hunter some time ago.” the Fishwoman stated, nodding her head over at Freyja. Immediately, Tabitha’s eyes took on a sparkle as she turned to focus her attention on the green-haired woman.
”For real? Any tips you could give me? This town’s got a lot of wannabe bounty hunters, but they’re all small-fry.” Tabitha asked, practically forgetting the fact that she was supposed to be the two’s waitress. Meanwhile, Samehana hummed as she took her sweet time pouring over the menu.
”Ooh, smoked boar sounds pretty good right about now.”
Still in hot pursuit, Zepp noted that Xerxes had yet to slow down. It was clear that the target had an impressive reserve of stamina, but the Captain was far from a slouch himself, contrary to what many would say. Without much warning, the leafless trees around him splintered and fell in his path as Xerxes let off another shockwave in the wake of his increasing speed. Sighing, Zepp simply leapt over and through the destruction without losing much speed. However, his attention was caught by the sight of smoke billowing from a nearby town, which left Zepp a tad confused. Xerxes wouldn’t have had any time to create any real destruction in the town at the rate that the chase was going, so who could have done it? Thinking back to the mysterious individual that caused the current game of cat-and-mouse to be possible, Zepp shook his head as he considered the idea that there may have even been more than one person who had come to Drum Island to break the two former Sunny Massacre Pirates out of the Muron and create a disturbance in the town to act as a distraction of sorts. Zepp would trust that the members of the 99th Division he had brought with him would be able to handle any firefighting and/or evacuation efforts without him.
Zepp had almost lost sight of the explosive man for the moment he’d been lost in thought, but managed to catch up and hide at a distance from which he could watch Xerxes’ movements for a moment. If nothing else, it would have possibly allowed confirmation on how much his flight had exhausted him. The Captain raised an eyebrow as he watched Xerxes begin to interact with a tall, white-haired boy… who appeared somewhat famliar to Zepp for some reason. “I wouldn’t exactly bet on that, pal. But you can
save me a lot of trouble by coming with me to finish up your execution.” Zepp remarked as he appeared, practically out of nowhere, a few feet behind “Xerxes”. He was panting, as if he had become incredibly exhausted from the chase that had just about reached its conclusion. “I’m getting old, pal... *huff*.... You really made me chase….*huff*... You.” he complained, taking a fake deep breath. Zepp kept an eye on both of the young men, though Zepp was not nearly as wary of Dirk as he was of Xerxes. “Probably a good time to walk away, kiddo. Things could get a bit messy.” Zepp remarked, attempting to get the white-haired boy to leave the area in the event that Zepp’s apprehension of the criminal yielded a bit more environmental destruction than the Captain might have hoped.
