The trees were thin, pruned and manicured decorations more than extensions of nature. They provided some cover all the same, and combined with the darkness, Robin was fairly sure he had not been spotted. The lack of alarms and gunfire helped his confidence, as well.

Just before he reached the last clump of bushes before the tended scrub and sand that led to the dock area, Robin gave Opal one last mental check. She was still molting, and her presence still had that same hard-to-place aspect to it, like she was still in the tree and didn’t exist at the same time.

Without breaking his stride, Robin ran past the bushes and straight towards the docks. He could see several people standing in the dark, near the end of the pier. One of them was fishing, the other leaning on a dock support pole. The other one was going through a wallet, throwing items one at a time into the water after inspecting them. Both had cigarettes lit, the pinpoint-glow shining like a flare to Robin’s enhanced nightvision. They both had long automatic rifles slung on their backs, as well. The man that had been fishing was adjusting his hook. It looked like he was adding a worm to it, but Robin couldn’t be sure.

Just before his feet hit the stone of the dock, the fisherman finished his task and stood up, whipping the pole behind him to cast. It was only for a moment, but Robin was able to see the bait that the man had put on his hook. He felt his uncertainty about whether these people were really pirates vanish as his foot hit the stone dock.

The man cast the pole, and before the cast had hit the water, Robin was several meters down the dock, his arm blades raised.

The man who had been watching the fisherman turned around a moment before Robin reached him, and had time to let out a strangled Hurk! before the triangular blade punched into the side of his throat. The fisherman was disemboweled with Robin’s other arm blade as he turned, startled.

He died holding his fishing pole, sliding off the dock and into the water in his desperate final movements. Robin shook the other man off of his left blade, letting the corpse slide slowly into the water. It slid into the water with a small splash, bubbles the only marker of his passing.

That was way too easy. This feels a little ...wrong. Am I a super-bully?

Robin heard a whirring noise and looked down, startled. The fishing pole was still on the deck, and it had not been reeled in… and it looked like something had taken the bait. He stared at it, watching the reel spin wildly, until it finally ran out of line, the last of the clear string slipping through the hoops of the rod and vanishing into the water.

No. They deserve this.

Robin looked out at the pirate vessel floating silently in the bay. It was three hundred or so meters away, give or take ten meters, by his estimation. It had ropes, chains, and nets dangling from the sides, as well as an assortment of small cranes and pulleys.

That should be easy enough to climb up. Not that I would have much trouble anyway, thanks to the wonders of mutation. Okay, go do this. Now!

Robin did not move.

It is even more urgent than we thought, after the ...ear, so go now! Go!

Robin finally worked up the willpower to dive into the water. Right before he hit the gently lapping surface of the bay, he had one final thought before the physical shock of being immersed in liquid drove it from his brain.

You are going to go kill people. You are not better than they are.

He slid into the water with barely a splash, his arms stretched out in front of him. He was initially concerned about the Shell of the Blue Entomage weighing him down, but he found that the impact on his swimming ability was negligible, if any; he had never felt this free in the water.

Robin was able to reach the ship in moments, moving through the water like a torpedo.

I know I should not be happy, given what I am about to have to do, but this is amazing!

Robin dove to the bottom of the bay as he neared the ship, and then swam upward as fast as he could. This is a dumb idea this is a dumb idea thisisadumbidea!

Robin shot out of the water, easily launching himself clear of the top of the ship. He scrambled madly for a moment before landing a few feet past the railing of the ship with a loud thunk.

He froze for a moment, looking around him for anyone who had noticed. He did not see anyone, and in the absence of incipient pirate-wrath, Robin moved towards the back of the ship where he had seen a couple of guards.

The ship was eerie to traverse at night, the badly maintained metal creaking and flexing in the motion of the bay. He reached the aft of the ship without seeing anyone else.

These guards were smoking cigarettes as well, though one, at least, had the discipline to keep his hands on his rifle. They were about five meters apart, looking in the same direction. They were speaking in a language Robin could not quite place. It sounded a little bit like Korean and Afrikaans mixed together, but… He was no linguist. Besides, the less I know about their personal lives, the better. No need to humanize the psycho-pirates.

Robin was less than three meters away from the disciplined pirate when a massive orange fireball lit the night, erupting from the roof of the research building on the shore. The pirates both whipped around, shouting in alarm, and spotted him at the same instant. Their cries of alarm became cries of fear, and one leveled his rifle to fire while the other fumbled for the rifle slung on his back.

Robin was already moving by the time the first rifle was pointed in his direction, moving in a z-shaped pattern at the gunman pirate. The pirate attempted to keep the rifle aimed at the blurring form in front of him, but Robin snapped an arm blade up against the tip of the rifle barrel, pressing it out of the way for a stab to the chest with his other blade.

The pirate pulled the trigger anyway, the gunfire echoing weirdly through the metal confines of the ship. The noise seemed to snap the other pirate out of his physical confusion, and he managed to level his rifle at Robin, screaming something that sounded like “Pee-saw-sue!”

Robin willed Delay Reaction to activate on the rifle, leaping forward in the same instant and punching upwards with his left arm. The pirate pulled the trigger repeatedly, screaming “Peesawsue!” as his weapon failed to function. The unfortunate pirate was still trying to pull the trigger as Robin yanked his blade from the man’s chest.

He could hear yelling coming from below, and there were flashes of what had to be gunfire coming from the shore. The sound rolled in a moment later, confirming it, and Robin took the reminder to check the ammunition in the Δ-Revenant.

Full up on that…

Robin heard the hammer cock back before he heard the person, and dodged instinctively, jumping to the side as hard as he could.

Something massive flew by him with a deep whoom, barely missing his unarmored head as he leapt to the side. He slammed into a rusted cargo container, landing roughly on his side and rolling to his feet. He heard a tiny pew with some part of his shocked perception, though he was unable to identify it immediately.

“Well, well, well! We have some sort of boarder! You there, power ranger! Does your family not expect you to come home alive?”

The speaker was a handsome Asian man wearing a vest that looked like it was made out of some kind of blue scaled creature, and suspiciously clean black pants. His most striking feature, though, was the faint golden aura that seemed to radiate outwards from him, almost like there was an invisible fire that only emitted light.

The man continued speaking in the absence of a response from Robin.

“If they do, you have made a mistake, power ranger! You should never have tempted the wrath of Tao, the Lion of the Sea!”

The man, apparently named Tao, posed triumphantly, clearing expecting Robin to recognize him.

In return, Robin hefted the Δ-Revenant he had just been checking and fired a shot, the small blue explosion obliterating the neck of the rifle-bearing man to the left and behind of Tao.

The man darted to the side immediately, pointing an absolutely tiny pistol at Robin.

Is that a ...derringer? Something is not right here. The diminutive pistol let out a flash and an almost-cute pew, but Robin was already moving.

Robin rolled around the contained he had smashed into just in time to avoid the impact of the bullet. He expected to hear a ricochet, maybe even two.

What he did not expect was for the metal to bow outwards, the shot having pierced the first corner of the cargo container and continuing on to the next, just barely failing to pierce the second wall. The warped section was the size of a very large grapefruit, and Robin stared at it for a moment, his mind reeling.

His reverie only lasted a moment, as another pew rang out. The ground at Robin’s feet cratered suddenly as the shot impacted, and as he was dodging backwards, he got a good look at the deformation.

That… that is a cannonball!