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Hina has been asked, many times by many people … why them? These people look at Hina’s crew, and they see her two fools, and she can watch the change in their eyes. The way their eyebrows knit, or one raises in a nonverbal question. The way some of them watch briefly, eyes narrowing as they compare the rumor to the reality. Others look away too quickly, as though seeing something shameful.
Hina has seen and heard it all, at this point. But every person who does this little dance, they ask as though they are the first person to arrive at this curiosity.
Why did you give those two a place on your crew?
Aren’t you worried, having a pirate on board? What if he’s a spy?
That lieutenant commander chose a pirate over the Marines once, what if he does it again?
They’re idiotic questions, and she rarely gives an answer to such people. Hina is no fool. For her, those questions were asked and answered before she ever allowed them into her crew. But people ask again and again, endlessly.
Because that’s the Marine way, after all. For anyone below the admiral level, asking is always, always better and easier than thinking. The leadership wants it that way.
And that, maybe, is one answer to why them?
True, they are not the greatest fighters in the seas. Jango’s special ability has as much chance of backfiring as it does of working. Fullbody is a competent Marine, but in the New World there are a thousand of him.
Why them?
The question returned to her mind as her crew rushed from the treeline out onto the beach, already too late to stop the pirate crew from murdering thee, five, eight of the island’s inhabitants but seeking to draw their attention before further civilian blood was shed.
This had been a festival before the pirates attacked. Those pirates had not expected the event to also attract the Marines -- they had no way of knowing Hina’s ship would be sent to check on some threats to the leaders who planned it. The threats turned out to be nothing -- empty words and poor decisions from a woman angry that the island’s leadership took the Flame Festival out of her hands. But they had been invited to celebrate with the islanders, and that meant the Marines needed little time to respond when the attack began.
Bonfires still dotted the wide beach, though some had been scattered and lay in glowing spreads of ember instead of full flames. The dancing flames, leaning inland because of the strong winds off the ocean, painted the entire battlefield into a surreal twisting light. Shadows and the shifting ground made a fairly mundane battle look hellish and supernatural.
Hina had been systematically binding pirates as she came across them, locking them single and in groups and letting them litter the beach behind her, when she finally saw the captain. He stood at least four times her height, not a giant but a very tall person. She recognized the face, even in the unsteady light. Captain Garlin of the Hammer Pirates. Known for pillaging the unprepared and delighting in grinding the weak under his boot, the man was wanted.
He wasn’t the sort of pirate she’d expected to make it in the New World.
Garlin himself stood near the largest of the bonfires, features cast in deep shadows as he grinned down at a group of children trapped between the flames and the hulking pirate. He hefted the massive sledgehammer weapon he used, gleeful at the idea of squishing such small people.
Everyone was shouting, and she was turning, trying to get there, but they were so far across the beach. She couldn’t reach them in time.
Hina must-
…
They came out of nowhere, two shadows against the firelight. She knew the figures even before they moved almost in unison, two fists slamming into the pirate captain’s jaw at the same time. The man staggered backward a few steps, though the swing of his hammer continued, unstoppable.
Weapon met forms, and a moment later Jango and Fullbody rolled to a stop in the sand, unmoving. Behind them, the children seized the opening and scampered for the treeline, where they could hide among the shadows.
Hina squared up, facing the other captain, and stalked across the sand. Members of the pirate crew ran at her, trying to cut her off, but she sent forth her iron, sweeping them out of the way and hemming them in, easy pickings for her crew.
She wasn’t about to waste time on those small fry. They had maybe underestimated this captain, and he needed to be put down now.
Garlin noticed for the first time that the space between himself and her lay open, easy pickings. Grinning, he turned to face her. He moved ponderously, a titanic shifting of the earth, as he squared up for another strike with his massive hammer. He was looking down on her, literally and figuratively.
To his left, Jango and Fullbody lay in a still, too-still, far-too-still heap.
Hina charged.
Her arms and Garlin’s both moved at the same time, his slow and hers quick. The hammer came down, the arc slow as everything else but the power of the weapon sufficient to ruin everything within thirty feet, at least. And Hina, unwavering, was running right into the impact zone. She could hear her crew shouting out her name, shouting inarticulate sounds of rage as they too turned and charged the monster at the heart of this attack.
Hina didn’t stop.
The hammed slammed into a lattice of iron bars. The metal bucked and bent under the force, but not entirely. Not enough. Hina ducked around the woprst of it, building more of the iron tunnel as she approached.
Above, she could see Garlin’s startled expression, the bulk of him leaning away as he tried to get a read on where she was, where she was headed.
He’s big, but he’s not a giant. This should be simple.
She emerged from the tunnel she’d made so far, more iron bars erupting from her hands. They reached out, wrapping around Garlin’s ankles before weaving with one another, locking his feet close together.
‘Stupid Marine!” he thundered, trying to orient for another strike with his hammer. “Your death will spell the beginning of the legacy of Garlin the Gluttonous!”
“You talk too much,” Hina snapped, skidding to a stop near his feet.
Shouting an inarticulate war cry, the man put all his weight into another swing. The hammer actually made an ominous sound as it smashed through the air and down, cashing its shadow over Hina. Then the hammer landed, rupturing the ground around the impact in a miniature pressure wave.
Garlin laughed as he grinned down at the slight crater he’d put in the sand. But then, that grin faded a little. His eyes narrowed. His knuckles went white, then the hammer began to tremble. He started to lean forward.
Not fast enough.
The hammer suddenly flew up, forcing the man’s arms up with it. Hina stood in the crater, one eye fixed on her opponent over her crossed, haki-enhanced arms.
“Weak,” she said crisply.
The one work enraged the pirate. He took another swing, but Hina easily dodged this time. While his arm was low, she locked it and connected that to the binding around his ankles.
Garlin dropped his hammer to try to free himself … until he looked up and saw Hina staring at him in cold fury.
“Stand down,” she ordered him.
The pirate tensed, and the whole battlefield quieted down some, waiting to see what would happen. Hina locked eyes with the pirate, attempting to convey without words all the terrible things that were coming for him if he chose to continue this idiocy.
And she could see the moment when the fear finally flooded into his eyes -- when he realized just how outclassed he was, and furthermore that something he’d done here today, she saw as unforgivable.
His danger senses flooded his mind and he said, “I give! We give! Please, just don’t kill us.”
Hina answered with a savage kick, knocking him unconscious.
The festival no longer felt festive, but in the wake of the fight, the islanders and her crew alike were using the tables as makeshift beds to give first aid. Much of the food for the feast lay in a mess in the sand, but the pirates had missed enough that folks were chowing down, trying to get their anxiety back under control.
A search group, half Marines and half islanders, was scouring the beach in both directions for any sign of any of the pirates who’d fled, but she had a feeling they’d all gotten on their ship or drowned trying to get to it. The pirate ship had been seen to the south, just at the edge of vision for the naked eye. Her men had called its heading in. Another ship would be meeting it soon enough, and the crew could be reunited.
None of her men were dead (the islanders were unfortunately not so lucky), but many of them were injured. So she stood here at the border between the medical area and the beach, watching without watching and waiting for news.
“Hiiiiinaaaa!”
Hina crossed her arms, looking pointedly away from the two noisy men who probably should still be in their sickbeds. The doctor wouldn’t be pleased, but she couldn’t help but be. “If you have this much energy, it seems Hina does not need to be worried,” she said.
“She was worried about us!” she heard the pair exclaim, heedless as school children. She hid her smile as she started to walk away.
Why them?
Because they have their own minds. Because she can trust them with her back. And most of all because they are hers, and however foolish she may find their antics, no on-
-No one-
else is allowed to touch them.