https://op-piratenation.rpg-board.net/t2281p75-halloween-event#15336

https://op-piratenation.rpg-board.net/t2281p90-halloween-event#15539

Enemies:

Axel was on the independent Karate Island, A place who's people are pretty adamant on the decision not to let the marines set up a base there. The marksman thought that it was because the martial artists didn't need the help of the government, deciding to show any enemies their own strength. Plus, the marines would try to take over the island and probably change a few things around that the civilians wouldn't really like.

Axel found himself on this island having rowed here from Baterilla to see the environment and explore a little. He got there in the morning, and after seeing the magnificent sites of the island on it's eastern side, he headed west, and would then go north. In order to get to the western city and the areas surrounding it however, the gunner had to pass a grassland field. It was filled with small animals like squirrels, chipmunks, birds, etc. There was a tree that popped up every now and then, so that if Axel got tired he could rest under one. It was now close to midnight as he walked passed this grassland, not really afraid of what could come out at night since this place seemed pretty calm.

It had been a long day on the island of Karate masters - far longer than Linedwell had anticipated it would be. He'd been sent on what first appeared to be a few menial tasks for Mr. Miyagi in order to further hone his skills, but these tasks soon proved to be anything but menial. In order to accomplish them it was required that he travel to a part of the island that he'd yet to even think about exploring. Apparently the other side of the island held a jungle in which few dared to travel - and of course, that would be the place that Mr. Miyagi would send him.

With his loot in tow, Linedwell was now making his way back to the mainland and his pace was a bit brisker than usual given that it was night. There were many possible routes in which Linedwell could have taken in order make his way back home, but the smartest route in this situation was the safest route. Karate Island's less traveled to areas still held many wild beasts, and the route that helped the most with avoiding ambushes would be the best. Thus, Linedwell decided to make his way through the grassland nearby. The area was perfect in this regard - given that the grass of the area seemed to naturally be trimmed short, coming up only about two or three inches out of the Earth. The lighting was also something that was a positive. The moonlight fell upon the grassland in a way that it illuminated the entire area (109x48 meters), giving anybody a great view of potential threats.

As Linedwell finally reached the middle of the area, he'd noticed what appeared to be another male to his immediate right, at a distance of about maybe eighteen meters, walking along the side of the grassland. Linedwell wasn't sure why someone else would be out at this time of night. Sure, the other person could have seen Linedwell and been just as suspicious of him as Linedwell was currently of him, but this didn't mean that Linedwell should be any less suspicious of this male just because he was currently in the same position as him. With his right hand placed on the hilt of O-Ren Ishii, Linedwell kept his eyes trained on the male. He wanted to watch this man and make sure this male meant no harm - after all, his entire reasoning for traveling through the grassland in the first place had been to perceive threats threats before they became more than that.

Axel paused as he saw a man a few meters on the left of him, staring him down with his hand grabbing some sort of object, which the marksman assumed to be a blade. Like wise, Axel turned to face him, gently and slowly putting his right hand on the revolver attached to his right hip while grabbing at his marine badge with his left hand, unclipping it from his belt and raising it in the cold air, so that the person looking at him could see it, clearly he hoped. If he did both actions too fast, the stranger would suspect an attempt at his life, and wouldn't hesitate to cut the threat down. The marine didn't know what this man could do yet, so he decided not to act so quickly. Besides, he felt that life was precious, so why shoot a man just for readying his defense position?

"Hello there. I am not sure if you live on this island, but I am merely just a man touring it on my short vacation from the marines, heading to the town located on the western end. I don't want to fight," Axel explained, hoping that he could get away from this situation without having to fight. He had no clue whether the man before him was a criminal, but it wasn't like he had a way to find out, so it was best that they just part ways, letting the civilians handle the potential threat, since they wanted to be so independent.

"Just kill each other already," commented a certain voice nonchalantly. It was coming from behind Axel, but when he looked behind himself, there was nothing there. "Down here idiot," the voice spoke again. Axel looked down, and just about 3 meters away from him, there seemed to be a pale head sticking out of the ground. That head seemed to rapidly rise up from the ground though, the earth around it shifting to it's mental command it seemed, until it stood above the ground. This 'thing' had no skin whatsoever. It was pure bones, holding a sword in it's left hand and a sword in the right. Axel then heard three more of the voices, sprouting various rude comments before they rose from the ground, with a sword and shield equipped just like the first. Each one rose in a different direction, one behind Axel and one behind the stranger, and then one on their right and one on their left. They were surrounded.

"Sk, skeletons? What the hell is going on...." Axel said aloud as he clipped his badge back to his belt and took out both of his revolvers. This all happened too fast for Axel to even process it, but he didn't have time. He had to take these things down before they took him down.

Linedwell's eyes remained glued on the potential threat - his blade being drawn little by little until he was able to recognize the badge the male carried. Linedwell began to wonder if this had been a marine sent to escort him back to the ship, but he was sure that nobody else outside of Mr. Miyagi would have known of his whereabouts, and Mr. Miyagi wasn't exactly one to cooperate with the Navy. Yet, before Linedwell could say anything the male began to speak, explaining the situation it was obvious this man didn't know who he was at all. Linedwell decided he'd keep it that way.

"I see. I apologize for the hosti-"

While Linedwell attempted to give his apology to the man, he began to hear movement behind himself. Pivoting quickly on his left foot, he attempted to turn around and see what was happening behind himself, yet, nothing was there. Linedwell prepared to turn back around, but soon felt a strong grip on his right ankle, causing him to fall backwards onto the ground. As he fell, the full body belonging to the hand that gripped his ankle had now halfway exited the ground, showing its skeletal upper body. The sight in front of him was something Linedwell had never seen before, and one he'd hopefully never see again after this instance. Acting quickly, Linedwell unsheathed his blade and attempted to strike the skeletal attacker, only to have his strike parried by yet another skeleton. Linedwell knew he needed to put some more distance between himself and these skeletons, thus, with his left foot and kicked against the hand that gripped him - releasing him from its grip. With the grip released, Linedwell quickly rolled to his left before picking himself up off the ground. As he stood, Linedwell sheathed his blade once more. There was now a distance of about five meters between himself and the two skeletal opponents, and when Linedwell checked to his right to see what the other male was up to it seemed that two skeletal beings had surrounded him as well.

Linedwell still wasn't exactly sure what was going on, but he knew that these opponents needed to be dealt with as soon as possible. Too many weird occurrences were happening lately, and he began to wonder if all of these occurrences were merely coincidence now, or if they were somehow connected. First Linedwell had been turned back into a child-like state, and now skeletons were attacking. Was there something bigger in play? Shaking his head, Linedwell decided to put his full focus into his opponents instead of worrying about things he could form theories about after all of after this.

With his blade sheathed, Linedwell decided he needed to end this as quickly as humanly possible. He still wasn't sure what these enemies were, but he knew if things lasted too long more could potentially show up. He was still tired from his tasks earlier, and fighting all night wasn't exactly something that appealed to him. Closing his eyes, Linedwell soon tapped into Satori technique, giving him access to the speed he'd need to deal with these opponents as quickly as possible. Once he reached a distance of 4/5th's away from the skeletons, he unsheathed his blade before slashing horizontally. By making use of the added power created by the rapid unsheathing of the blade, he was able to create a one meter extension to his Tozume technique. Since these two enemies were all situated in front of Linedwell, and since this slash was one that had been horizontal, they were all within range of the slash. The opponents seemed able to read just how dangers this technique was, and decided to guard against it through use of their shields. Yet, while the two skeletons put up their shields in order to defend against this attack, Linedwell had already traveled a distance around his own horizontal technique - as to avoid hurting himself - and to moved around to their flank. The two opponents were now tasked with the decision of taking the attack in front of them head on in order to turn and Linedwell, or if they'd simply continue to block and hope Linedwell didn't attack....these would have been the choices they were given if Linedwell had given them enough time to react - but alas, they weren't given any type of notification. While they were concerned with the attack in front of them, Linedwell had been able to move around them and cut down one of the skeletons, shattering the bones of the opponent in the process of cutting through them.

Stamina Remaining - 190/250:

Since the stranger was now on non-hostile terms with Axel, both of them only had to worry about getting attacked by the skeletons that surrounded them. One skeleton was able to grab at the other man while it rose from the ground, with another attempting to help his ally, but after several actions, it was the swordsman who had the upper hand, now having destroyed one of them and in the process of dealing with the other. During this time, Axel had one skeleton in front of him and the other behind, both being about 3 meters away from the marine.

"Alright, I don't know how or why you guys are coming out of the ground to kill us, but I am not just going to let you succeed. Come at me," Axel insisted of them, looking at both of them back and forth. A few seconds later, they complied with his suggestion, rushing towards him at a fast pace. The young man raised both of his arms so that the guns he were holding were aimed at the enemy's skulls, and fired a shot each, though they were already beginning to raise the shield in their left hand upwards, blocking the bullets that failed to penetrate the steel.

Immediately the marksman rolled forward to avoid getting slashed away at by the swords of the skeletons. Once the two of them saw this they were a few feet away from each other, so they were able to stop before crashing into each other, glanced at Axel, and then ran in this new direction. Not having the element of surprise on his side, the spiky white-haired marine knew that shooting at them with bullets fired out of his revolvers weren't going to do anything, since the monsters would just put their shields in front of any marked location of attack.

Once he got up from his roll, Axel put his two guns back into their holsters and got out the shotgun that has been chilling under his red coat, attached to his back for a while. One skeleton ran faster than the other, getting in front of them and going for the kill, slashing at Axel horizontally after only being a few feet in front of him. He already saw the attack coming, and was able to jump back two times to get some distance, aimed his shotgun at the skeleton's face, and pressed on the right trigger. A shell came out of the right barrel, spreading twelve bullets that were tightly packed together. Meeting the shield of the skeleton, the bullets knew that they were doomed to stop and not be able to rip right through it, but that didn't need to happen, for their force alone was enough to send the enemy off his feet, a few feet back. He landed somewhat safely with his feet skidding a few inches back, but he wasn't safe from Axel's onslaught. While the skeleton was in mid-air, the marine advanced aiming his shotgun at the skeleton's feet this time, pressing on the left trigger. The result was a skeleton without leg bones, with his face facing the cold floor. Axel ran backwards a few meters as the other skeleton caught up to him, getting his shotgun ready.

From the gunshots firing off to his left, it was obvious that the Marine he'd met only moments earlier had also been dragged into the fighting as well. Yet, Linedwell couldn't concern himself with someone elses affairs when he still had problems of his own to deal with. With his blade now sheathed, Linedwell's eyes remained glued on the enemy in front of him. One of his opponents had already been downed as a result of his two pronged attack, and now only one enemy skeleton stood in his way. As a result of blocking Linedwell's earlier attack the skeleton's shield had been rendered useless. Realizing this, the pearly white skeleton threw the shield down to the ground and then proceeded to wield its weapon with both of its bony hands before attempting to charge forward.

The skeleton's rickety movements would have been laughable had he not been able to move at a speed almost comparable to Linedwell's. Ducking forward, Linedwell was able to dodge the initial slash doled out by the Skeleton, yet, the skeleton soon followed up with a downward slash which would have sliced him in half if Linedwell didn't have the ability to dodge this as well. Rolling to his right, Linedwell was able to evade the slash before unsheathing his blade with as much speed as possible. Once the blade made impact against the skeleton, the disgusting screech of his sharp blade against the bones could be heard as if it were a shrill cry, yet, once the cry had ended there was a pile of bones on the ground. With both enemies defeated, Linedwell didn't exactly have any other reason to stick around. He was exhausted, and quite frankly he didn't know that other guy well enough to really care if he lived or not, but hopefully he lived.

"Hey, I'm going to go ahead and leave. Good luck against these skeleton guys!"

With that Linedwell darted off back towards town with the intention of taking a long shower and getting some well deserved rest.

-Exit-

The last skeleton slashed at Axel horizontally , but the gunner ducked, rolling forward and getting behind the enemy. He jumped up and pulled the right trigger of his shotgun, firing at him, but the pile of bones turned quick enough to blocked the shot aimed at his upper body with a shield. Like the last skeleton however, he was pushed back by the force of the bullets, allowing Axel to shoot his legs with the last shell in the shotgun since he wasn't able to block his legs in time. Now that both of the monsters couldn't walk, the marine proceeded to kick their heads from their bodies, thus immobilizing them permanently.

During the fight with the last skeleton, the other man that Axel was fighting with left after he dealt with his share of the skeletons. He wished Axel luck, but the marksman felt that he was a little rude. Not that he needed help fighting off the last one, but it was your actions that counted, he always thought. What if he died due to misreading the enemy movements? It was then that Axel realized the man probably didn't care if he lived or died.

Not trying to let that get to him, the young man threw it out of his mind and kept moving west through the grasslands while reloading his shotgun. Once he was done doing that, Axel put the gun back underneath his coat on his back. After a few minutes, a few trees turned into dozens, and now he was surrounded in a mini forest.

OOC: Ok, now I need a staff member to NPC my rare encounter.

As Axel walked across the grasslands heading west, he had his shotgun open, refilling the ammo that was used in the last fight when he heard something from above. It sounded like it was coming down pretty hard, so he decided to speedwalk while looking back and up into the sky. by the time he did, the pumpkin that was coming straight towards him was only about 10 meters away. He ran as fast as he could while closing his refilled shotgun shut, and once he heard the pumpkin's impact and the explosion that followed, he jumped forward into a dodge-roll. The force of the explosion got to Axel just in time to catch the bottom of both of his feet as he rolled, so once he jumped up he started doing some random crazy dance to try and shake off the flames, while putting his shotgun back under his coat on his back. It took a few seconds for him to look back up into the sky and see a lady on a broom. Even though he was wearing shoes, his feet were badly burned, thus he was still putting up some hefty foot work.

"Hey, how the hell are you flying? Actually, a better question is why is paranormal activity happening to me? This island needs marine security, just like I thought," Axel commented with an angry yet painful expression on his face. He pulled out both of his revolvers while speaking to the lady. Maybe it was just a misunderstanding, so the marksman didn't want to start shooting immediately. This would probably be his downfall however. Why am I so nice, he thought to himself. Because life is precious, and I can't shoot everything I see, he also thought.

skeleton kills awarded

Hoshikita had gone to Karate Island in order to get a rematch with the old Kung Fu Master Mr. Miyagi, and try to clear his mind of all the frightening events with animated skeletons he'd recently experienced. The elderly man had refused Hoshikita's challenge though, and had instead told him to head out to the forest to train before returning again. The young marine was rather agitated at that, because he only had so much time on leave from the base with which to complete these trainings. Still, he had followed the old man's instruction and headed off to the forest of Karate Island. Hoshikita had almost reached the edge of the treeline when he saw something orange flying through the sky downward towards the grassy fields that surrounded the forest. He started to walk towards it to see what was going to land there, and was about twenty meters away from where the trajectory was headed. He was extremely shocked to see an explosion when the orange object reached the ground however, and flames quickly shot up. In the light, he saw that there was a man who had been caught in the flames and he quickly began to sprint over to try and help.

After about ten meters into his sprint, he saw the man seemingly hold up a weapon, and though he couldn't make out the words he could tell he was calling out to someone. Suddenly, a giant orange flash of light appeared in the sky above the man, and Hoshikita could scarcely believe it when an enormous pumpkin made itself visible once the flash had worn off. Now about ten meters away from the man, and not thinking about the consequences, Hoshikita executed a Soru that would carry him that distance nearly instantaneously while unbeknownst to him, the witch seemed to be uttering the final incantation to allow her pumpkin to fall. Hoshikita grabbed the man by the wrist, and executed another Soru that would take him another ten meters towards the forest; starting to swing the man up into his arms during the movement. While the pumpkin was indeed massive, things always tend to fall at the same rate unless affected by wind resistance and from the height it was at it would take over a full second for the pumpkin to reach them. Soru was a technique that traveled almost instantly, and once they were at the edge of the pumpkin's radius, Hoshikita executed a third and final soru that put great strain on his legs and his body but shot them off into the forest and out of sight of whatever it was that was attacking this man. Because he had used soru to get under the pumpkin, and then directly into the forest, the woman on top of the pumpkin would likely think them crushed beneath it even if she had seen Hoshikita traveling there beforehand.

Once inside the treeline, Hoshikita wouldn't let up and would keep running, now carrying the man in a princess hold and realizing with slight embarrassment that it was his fellow marine Axel. "What's going on here?" Hoshikita asked in a confused and almost demanding tone uncharacteristic of his usual demeanor, constantly keeping an eye out behind him for any pursuers and readying himself to continue running for as long as necessary until they had escaped the danger. He wasn't sure what was out there, but he didn't want to mess with it. Hoshikita would find a place to hide as soon as possible, finding a particularly close grouping of pine trees to hide within, he hopped up into the lower but thicker branches that would be powerful enough to sustain them both with his powerful legs and prepared for what to do next.

Stamina: 245/300:

The rapid tapping Axel was doing to try and brush off the flames that tore up his shoes failed, causing the bottom of his feet to be inflicted with 3rd degree burns. Suddenly his it was unbearable for him to walk in suck a condition, so he dived onto the grass with his head facing the sky above. The flames dissipated, so the marksman didn't have to worry about anymore of his body being consumed in the flames, but he was open for more attacks of that caliber since he couldn't move. Axel's hope that this lady shot him with an explosive pumpkin on accident, but that didn't seem to be the case when she conjured up a larger pumpkin. One so large that she couldn't even be seen, as he was hiding directly behind it. It came fast, but not so fast that the gunner couldn't enjoy the memories of his life before his death. The love that his family and friends showed him would be with the young man forever, no matter how bad his body would be disintegrated by the pumpkin, should it explode.

Though Axel accepted death with a smile at that moment, death didn't seem to want to accept him at that very moment. From the corner of his eye, he saw a man suddenly appear next to him, grab him, and then he seemingly teleported the both of them out of the location. The first thing that Axel thought when him and the mysterious man stopped moving at high speed was the fact that the sound of the collision made it clear that the pumpkin wasn't an explosive one. Getting his mind off of such a pointless thought however, the marine looked up to see that it was Lieutenant Cross holding him like a prince would hold a damsel. The tall man would ask him what is exactly going on in an almost demanding manner, but Axel didn't mind since this situation was bizarre.

"Well, I was fighting some... bad guys when all of the sudden this crazy woman in the sky started attacking me with pumpkins. If you didn't come at the time you did, I would be dead. Thank you Hoshi," Axel replied as they ran deeper into the forest. In a few seconds the two would be sitting on a pine tree's branch, hidden by the other pine trees surrounding it, but it seemed that a man had followed them there, asking why that lady wanted Axel dead. He seemed trustworthy enough at this time, though he could also be the enemy disguised. After being able to create pumpkins out of nothing, the marine was sure that anything was possible at this point. He still had his revolvers in hand, so he would just shoot if this guy did anything out of the ordinary.

"To be honest, I have no idea. She attacked me randomly," Axel replied to the man in a pained facial expression. His feet were burned badly, causing him to groan as well.