Serious; Chapter One: Dawn of a New Age; Closed

Genshi raised an eyebrow, his opponent was complementing him? He couldn't help but smile and feel flattered, but he immediately shook the emotions away and focused on the big picture. He coated his fists in clay, and began advancing towards the winged man, raising his fists to protect his face. The winged man moved quickly, it took him mere moments to close the distance, and that spear of his looked menacing enough to do quite a heap of damage. It took down a bear-man, and if he wasn't careful, he'd be next. Genshi raised his arms and bent his knees, and when the moment came, he clutched the weapon's shaft and used all of his force to stop it from coming down upon him. He pulled the weapon downwards, trying to bring Takao closer for some hand to hand combat attack. Genshi released the weapon and quickly clutched his wrist, aiming to strike the winged man with a heavy elbow strike.

Patch observed the fight. Both people were quite skilled in fighting. Something told Patch that this was going to be a long fight. letting out a yawn he fixed his glasses and rested both his arms behind his head.

(OOC: Sorry for the short post, nothing much to do at this point)

"Eh?" Takao's smile was frozen on his face as he was drawn in close and then struck before he could defend himself. He spun backwards with no hope of tanking the blow. His feet were already off the ground even before the impact and there was no way he could create enough friction to stay in place. So, instead of slowing down immediately, he spread his wings and slowed himself more gradually, coming to a stop several feet back.

"I suppose I should be taking this more seriously," Takao commented. He wiped away a small trickle of blood that appeared on the corner of his mouth. "I'm already in bad enough condition…and to do any less would dishonor you. My apologies."

Takao tucked in his wings and shot forward once more. This time he angled himself so that he reached the ground before getting to Genshi. He planted one foot on the earth and pushed off, shooting himself forward so quickly that for a moment, he became a blur.

"FANG RIP!"

Takao shot past Genshi, slicing at Genshi's chest with the blade of his spear as he went.

The attack hit, swelling Genshi with pride. But the quickness of the winged man's recovery told him that this opponent was made of tougher stuff. He simply nodded when Takao spoke of taking the battle more seriously, this fight would get more interesting in just a moment. His thought would prove true, as the opponent would momentarily dissapear, catching Genshi off guard.

"This guy is fast. How am I supposed to keep up?" he thought, moments before the winged man spear would slice at Genshi's chest, completely cutting through the clay armor he had underneath.

He fell to a knee, gripping his chest wound, he could feel the warm liquid dripping over his fingers. The pirate began to worry, the more wounds he'd get, the harder it would be too keep fighting, however he refused to give up, not yet. Genshi raised his arms into the air, padding them with a mountain of clay, intentionally creating two large arms of clay.

"I'll swat him down like a fly." He thought, swatting on of his clay arms down, palm down, hoping to get Takao, although prepared with a second arm in the case of his quick movement resulting in another dodge.

Takao was turning to see the result of his attack when he caught sight of the giant hands that Genshi was creating. With a yelp of shock, he continued turning so that he was he looking away from Genshi still. He ran, leaping and flapping his wings to pick up as much speed as he could. He managed to get beyond the first hand and spun around, looking back in Genshi's direction once more. He was surprised yet again, this time by the sight of the wound he had inflicted. Apparently his attack had done more damage than he had intended. Either the clay wasn't quite as tough as he first thought or Genshi still had room to improve. Takao hoped it was the latter, but he realized that it didn't matter. Either way, he still wanted Genshi on his crew.

Then it occurred to him. The perfect way (in his own mind) that he could get Genshi interested in joining up with him and Patch.

Takao flew forward, moving back into range of Genshi's second hand. He smirked and twirled his spear in one hand while beckoning Genshi, almost mockingly, with his other hand.

This first hand missed the target, not at all worrying the pirate, as he knew that his second hand would come down with just as much gusto and force. Luckily for Genshi, his opponent stood in perfect range for the second hand's impact. The winged man didn't seem too bothered about the giant arm that would surely squash him like a bug, and his confidence would certainly bring his downfall. Despite having one of his arms weighed down with the initial clay arm, Genshi managed to bring the second arm down, hoping to crush the confidence out of his adversary as if he were crushing the precious honey from a honeycomb.

Takao frowned in concentration, still twirling his spear. He was not totally confident in his ability to pull off the crazy stunt he had come up with, but he was going to give it his all. If it succeeded, he might very well impress Genshi into joining his crew. If it failed…well…at least he could try to make it look impressive, although he personally would look like a fool.

This is it, Takao told himself. All or nothing.

With one last spear twirl, Takao dropped to the ground, landed in a crouch, and exploded upwards, using both his leg muscles and beating wings to hurtle upwards. He grasped his spear in both of his hands and drew it back as he came closer to the clay hand.

"Horn…" Takao said, his voice low, but slowly growing in intensity. "…RAMPAGE!"

He thrust his spear upwards with all of his strength and it collided with the palm of Genshi's clay hand. His muscles bulging, Takao clenched his teeth and pushed with all of his might, giving his all as he attempted to push the hand up and back over Genshi. If he succeeded, the hand would fall behind Genshi instead of in front of him.

The strength that Takao held was incredible. Genshi's giant clay arm flew back, back over his head and landing behind him, opposite of the initial clay arm. Lifting the arms proved difficult, forcing Genshi to absorb the clay back into his body, however this would take a while to reduce the weight of his arms and allow him to throw punches again.

"Not bad winged man. I can see why you want to be the king of the pirates. Tell you what, I won't laugh at you for saying it." Genshi spoke, honestly impressed with the winged man's power, yet remained unintimidated.

Takao stayed where he was for a moment, panting from the exertion of what he had just done. Then, he took a deep breath and let it back out slowly. His breathing slowed and returned to normal. His head came up and he grinned, leaning his spear against his shoulder.

"Well, thank you, I suppose…" he said to Genshi. "I don't know about becoming the King of Pirates, but I sure would like to be famous one day." He laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his head, still smiling. "Not that there is much chance of that happening, but it's still a dream of mine." He looked down at his spear and his hand tightened on its shaft. "At least, no matter how weak I may be, I can still explore the world, meet new people, and go on adventures, right? So it's not like I can complain. I can still have fun." Takao stopped flapping his wings and allowed himself to float gently to the ground in front of Genshi. "Ya know, when I came here, it wasn't a fight that I was looking for. Not that I haven't enjoyed our duel and the chance to test your power, but what I really want…what I'm looking for…are people to travel with me. It would be boring to travel the world all alone. I know it isn't much of an offer, and you don't know me very well, but if you want, I would love to have you come along and experience my journey with me." Takao held out his free hand, offering it to Genshi. "So what do you say? Will you come with me to see what wonders this world has to offer us?"

Genshi put on a puzzled expression, was he being invited to join a pirate crew? Was the winged man serious? Sure they had helped one another in yesterdays fight against what's his name, but was he so impressed that he wanted Genshi to join him? It seemed so. Genshi realized that continuing to fight would waste his energy and render him weaker, making his goal just that much harder to reach along with making him an easier target in case any marines were to show up. As he absorbed the last of his clay and stared at Takao for a final moment, he took the winged man's hand and shook it, smiling.

"You're strong, but their's greater strength in numbers. Besides, I have nothing better to do. I'll join you, if you help me become famous throughout the world. Do we have a deal?" he asked, trying to sound cool before his new captain.

"Deal!" Takao agreed, grinning at Genshi. He just stood there for a moment, still smiling like an idiot. Then, yanking his hand back he began to bounce around the square, waving his spear in the air. "YES! I've got two crewmates now! THIS IS THE BEST!" Takao came to a stop and slipped his spear onto his back. He waved over at Patch and yelled, "Oi! Doctor guy! If you're not too hurt, would you mind taking a look at him?" Takao pointed over at Genshi. "I'm pretty sure he's bleeding."

Takao was injured as well, but he didn't count his wound as equal to that of one of his crewmates. Besides, the blow Takao had taken was not one that a doctor was needed for. It wasn't like he had to be bandaged up. All he needed was time so that the bruising could fade. And considering the ache in his chest, he figure that it might be a while yet before that happened.

In actuality, between Faustino's punch and Genshi's elbow strike, it was a wonder none of Takao's ribs had broken. He was moving around purely by his own stubbornness and the fact that he had no clue just how hurt he was.

A sudden thought had come to Takao as he finished speaking to Patch, and he turned to face Genshi saying, "By the way, if you have any stuff like a ship or special equipment or anything of that nature, it would probably be good if we could move it near to my ship. Or maybe I could move my ship near to your stuff." Takao shrugged. "Either way. Actually, Patch and I never got his stuff either. So we need to do all of that…ugh…screw it! We'll figure it all out soon enough." Takao's goofy, happy smile returned and he threw his hands behind his head and he leaned back and stared up at the sky. "We've got all the time in the world."

(OOC: To be blunt, I'm not interested in RPing us gathering our things. If you guys want to do it, we can, but otherwise, I'm going to pretty much close up the thread right here. Make any final remarks that you want and we'll be done with this thread.)

Patch smiled as Takao yelled out deal. It seemed another actor has joined the stage. Watching as Takao celebrated he began to wonder about the fight he had had earlier. It was pretty tough... and it was the first time he had gotten himself very injured. However his thoughts were cut when Takao called out to him.

"Doctor guy.... YOU DON'T REMEMBER MY NAME, DON'T YOU!?" Patch yelled out with a goofy yet angry expression.

Looking over at Genshi... he certainly looked injured.

"Oi, come here for a sec, show me your wounds..." Patch said to Genshi as he got to his feet.