In his bedroom, Rans eyes suddenly jolted open. He quickly sat up, the thin blanket he covered himself with rolled off of him. He looked around in confusion before he noticed the circular window was still dark.
Seeing the dark of night outside, his eyes widened, "oh s**t!"
He flung the blanket off of him completely and he tried to get out of the bed, only to find his leg locked in place! When he looked at his leg, he found a person!
"Eh? Ann, what are you doing here?" He found that Ann was hugging his leg! The hell was she doing here?
"Hmm…" she grumbled a bit like she was complaining at Ran for waking her up so early in the night. She, however, did not let go of his leg.
"What? Oh nevermind, somethings happening!" He urged Ann to get off of him, but when she didn't, he just tried to shake her off.
But how did he know something was happening? Was he breaking the fourth wall? Of course not. It was quite simple really; to go to Pispatria, he has to be sleeping, and there are only a few reasons he would wake up in the middle of the night rather than in the morning when he woke up normally.
Either, it was because someone woke him up or he was in danger!
And, as if on time, his ship rocked heavily before swerving to the right. The heavy rocking caused Ran to lose his footing, making both him and Ann land on the floor head-first.
"Urgh…" the both of them held their heads at the same time as their brains rattled inside their head.
Ann, having released Rans leg, finally stood up and exclaimed, "something's happening!"
Hearing this, Ran rolled his eyes as he ignored the throbbing feeling coming from his left leg and ran outside. Though he only had his underwear on, he was in no mood to change; his baby was in danger!
The ship of course….
A few short seconds later, a bout of refreshing breeze caressed his face, causing his red hair to flow freely in the air.
However, for once, this was not a good thing… sorry Rans hair, you're still beautiful though.
When he arrived at the deck, he saw Bob handling the controls. His short, blond, hair was waving with the wind. His pale skin was paler than Queenies, and it seemed even whiter under the darkness of the night.
His hands moved quickly as he once again caused the ship to swerve; this would continue every few seconds.
His four ears constantly moved about, yet through all of it, his eyes remained closed.
"Take a look," Bob said without looking back. His right hand pointed to the right while the left continued controlling the ship. He tapped a button on the holographic screen and the ship took a sudden turn again.
After that, he retrieved his right hand and concentrated fully on what he was doing.
Ran, having received a clue to what was going on, walked up to the edge of the ship. He grabbed the metallic railings and leaned forward. Unfortunately, what he saw wasn't in line with what he thought.
When he leaned forward and tilted his head downwards, he saw a blood-red ocean!
Actually scratch that, it more closely resembled that of his ship bleeding.
Wait, his ship was bleeding!?
Tch, scratch that again; I'm not that crazy.
Upon closer inspection, it turned out that the area around his ship was covered by a crazed rampage of red-colored fishes!
And they weren't just any kind of fishies either! This was a mega shoal of Bloodthirsty Piranhas!
That's right, that's their name too; hey man, my naming sense ain't too great, you take what you can get.
Regardless of their name, their blood-red scales and the vampire-like weapon of a set of teeth they have are what makes them truly terrifying! Don't even mention their numbers, of which is certain to at least be in the several of hundreds, there was something even more horrifying than their appearance.
Like what, you may ask? Oh I don't know, how about the set of red teeth that floated in front of their physical ones!
"A skill!?" Indeed, Ran-boyo, that was a skill. And not just one of them had it either, it was all of them….
…
"Phew…" Ran exhaled as he looked back up, he could no longer look at them without getting dizzy.
However, now that he's seen them, how can it not be vice versa?
Immediately after taking his eyes off of them, a stench infiltrated his nose. His eyes lit up as the smell of blood alerted him of danger.
He quickly summoned his sword, twirled it in his hand a little, before he jumped and slashed in a circular motion.
The moment he attacked, a bloodthirsty piranha entered his vision. Unfortunately for it, before it could do anything, its rank-8 self was sliced in half. Its skill also dissipated.
Ran frowned; if he continued like this, it would take too long to finish them all. Luckily, it seemed Bob was really good at avoiding incoming attacks, so his ship wasn't really damaged. Well, that and most of them were of insufficient level to do anything to ship anyway.
But would he really have to use his swords special ability to finish this quicker? He was still a little bit sleepy and he didn't want to get bags under his eyes.
"Pssh, what am I thinking? Abilities were meant to be used, not reserved." Speaking of abilities, didn't he have one of his own?
Seeing all these little fishies using their cute skills, he just got an idea. "That'll do it…" he widened up with a smile.
Thereafter, a projection of his sigil appeared on his left hand and continued up his forearm, close to his elbow.
A pink and blue swirled, spherical, barrier appeared and covered over a hundred feet in all directions. Of course, the only one to notice and see this barrier was the summoner of it himself - also known as Ran.
For this to work, Ran has to focus. The reason for this is because he has to focus on one piranha and it wasn't gonna wait for him fin and fin.
So, to start off with, he tried a weak rank-8 bloodthirsty piranha first. his eyes narrowed as the gentle light in his eyes was overwhelmed by a cold sheen.
Suddenly, within the ocean, a tiny gleam of pink and blue appeared. "Hmm, not enough. It needs more sparkle."
Then, from within the red, the tiny gleam of color began spreading quickly! Within a couple seconds, a small portion of the red had completely changed color!
Rans eyes were sparkling as well, "that went better than expected. Though, they did do all the work for me." Ran smiled for a moment before waving his arm in a dramatic manner.
Within the red, the sudden introduction of pink and blue had spooked the surrounding piranhas. But they had it better off, those who were directly carrying this change color were terrified! After all, the skills which they were so proud of were directly taken away from them - from inside their own bodies!
How disrespectful! Didn't your mother teach you to ask for permission first before entering someone's body and attempting to kill them!?
However, before any one of them could complain, a series of popping sounds was covered by the rushing waves. The small portion of red, being about a hundred individual piranhas, then started growing as it was left behind.
Only their numbers weren't growing, rather, their red scales as well as their blood is what caused this illusion of growth. They were all dead! All one hundred of them! Their hearts had popped like a balloon. He had self-destructed their own skills and the result was clear - death.
"Phew, there's still quite a bit of them…" Ran exhaled as he looked at the red waters behind the ship trail after it. Luckily, with Bob's superb control over his ship, he was going slow enough to not pass the speed limit, but also was able to avoid their constant attacks with such slow speed.
And so, for the next minute or so, he completely demolished about half of the shoal. The half, of course, being rank-8. The rest are a combination of rank-7 and rank-6.
Next, he moved on to the rank-7 portion. It wasn't instant like the previous rank, but a second or two was about all he needed to infiltrate and conquer their skills. All resistance was futile.
This situation was the same as the one with the rank-8 portion. For about three minutes, the shoal was being massacred by some mysterious pink and blue juice.
They were horrified when they saw their comrades be taken down in droves, but they were even more furious. Although they were young, the prototypical characteristics of piranhas demanded that they had a temper! And they did, they all did! With even more fervor, they continued in hot pursuit!
Bob had to adjust the speed and even deployed the cutters shield to avoid damaging the ship. The ship rocked side-to-side and some furniture flipped over.
At this moment, however, a noise was heard. It was the creak of a door opening followed by the toppling of something heavy.
"Urgh, just had to move the ship at the last second…" Ann muttered under her breath as she rubbed her glutes. She had just opened the door to exit Rans room when Bob had swerved the ship, causing her to slip. But it was just a fall, and with what she's packin', no damage was sustained.
Bob didn't really care for this, though, and just continued manually steering the ship.
As she walked past him, she gave him a little stink eye, but resumed walking towards Ran at the side.
Seeing Ran waving his hand dramatically and seemingly enjoying himself, she tapped his shoulder, "what's going on?"
She was going to lean forward to see for herself, but Ran turned around and attracted her more.
"You finally finished dressing?" Ran looked at her while nodding with the same smile. Ann was previously naked in bed and obviously could not just waltz outside; how would Bob feel? Pretty good I'd imagine… cough, forget i said that.
"As if you're one to talk…" Ann snickered while keenly observing Rans body. Ran was, indeed, mostly naked; his heart-print boxers being the only thing covering… anything. But Ran paid no attention to her as he kept nodding in satisfaction.
Ann was currently fully dressed however. Unlike Ran, who just wore white, Ann also wore white… but black as well. However, there was one predicament.
Well, it isn't really an issue, but rather, it was just a little… weird.
Ah, I'm just stalling. Alright, I'll out with it.
Phew, what she wore was… a maid outfit! There I said it!
S**t, if this isn't character development, I don't know what is! One covers himself up entirely; only his hands being seen occasionally and his crystal eyes also sometimes pierce through the darkened mist in his hood, gleaming like a lighthouse at night.
The other seemed to be obsessed with her profession and wholly accepted work uniform.
But you have to give her credit; she's rockin' that outfit.
If you have the chips, you gotta have the sauce too!
She has her cake and by god if she isn't gonna eat it too!
And it didn't even look that generic either. The frills were much more pronounced and only certain parts were black to accentuate certain body parts; the majority was a milky white.
Then the metallic necklace Ran gave her also brought attention to her beautiful brown face and her shoulder-length black hair. Though, the crystal embedded within the necklace appeared a lot duller than before; it looked tired or fizzled out to put it in better terms. The previous aquamarine crystal was now a dull grey with a little blue luster mixed in.
After seeing her "totally normal" appearance, Ran nodded one more time before turning back to the ocean.
"Ann, I think I want a midnight snack."
"Oh?" Ann took in his words casually before leaning forward. She looked down at all the flopping fishes and smelled the scent of blood… her face became crooked with a smile.
"Coming right up!"