One Howling Adventure! 1

Chapter 1: All Washed Up

Leaning back against the chair, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of the sea air. Two years without a break, I deserved this chance to relax. Sure, I had to teach some rich snot the basics because they pestered Daddy until he paid for an American pro fighter, but the benefits? Beautiful beaches, hot girls walking by in bikinis, and everything was so much cheaper here.

Not only was I basically on vacation in the Caribbean, I was getting paid to do so. Since I had the weekends off, I grabbed a short boat ride from “mainland” Haiti to a place I’d wanted to visit ever since two thousand three: Tortuga. Which is where I currently found myself, enjoying a fruit cocktail served in a coconut with a goofy paper umbrella.

Yes, some rest and relaxation was just what the doc ordered. Maybe I should revisit that whole retirement fund thing, I could see spending my twilight years here.

“Well, well, what’s dis?” a woman’s voice from my left asked. A glance over showed a dark skinned woman in cutoff denim jeans and a canary yellow bikini top looking at me with a contemplative look on her face.

Raising a hand, I waved but didn’t move to get up, “Just a tourist enjoying a chance to kick back and relax.”

“Dat so? And is dis relaxation what ya really want?”

I looked at her again, my brow furrowed as I tried to understand what it was I was hearing in her voice. It wasn’t flirting, I’d heard that enough times to recognize it. Nor was it the tone of someone looking down on me for choosing the career path I did. No, if I had to place it, the closest was when Felix approached me after I kicked the shit out of Jacobson back in middle school. A tone that was leading up to an offer.

“I’m guessing you have something in mind that you think I’d be interested in?” I asked, swinging my legs over to sit in the beach chair, but still not standing up.

“I heard a lot about ya, Logan ‘Fenrir’ Samson,” she said, walking up to me with a bit of a sway to her hips. I couldn’t help but be surprised, sure, I’d been recognized by fans, but UFC Fights weren’t exactly the most popular of sports.

“Such as?” I asked something about her putting me on guard.

“Ya been fightin’ ya whole life. It be in ya blood. But dere’s somedin’ else in ya blood dat’s been ignored. Somedin’ dat ya only just now realizin’. Have ya noticed it?”

I stared her in the eye, or tried to at least. Something about her face made my eyes want to slide away, to look somewhere else. A “brutish thug only good for thinking with his fists” I may be, but I’d been raised to alway look a woman in the eye. Like Hell I was going to forget that here!

As I finally managed to keep my gaze on her face, I blinked in surprise, my eyes drifting as my concentration broke, “Naomie Harris?”

The laughter and golf clap that greeted me was soon followed by her saying, “Not quite, but ya be close. I admit, I didn’t expect ya ta see my face so soon. Yes, ya be a splendid pick.”

“A splendid pick for what?” I asked, forcing myself to look her in the eye as I stood up, looming over her by nearly half a foot and what had to be well over a hundred pounds of muscle.

“Ta shake dings up of course. I was having a lovely chat wit’ Maoi, and he proposed a most entertainin’ game. I pick a man, ‘e picks a ship, and we set dem loose. ‘E already picked ‘is ship, my pick be all dat’s left.”

“Uh huh. If I say no?” I asked, having a very bad feeling about this.

Quick as a snake, her hand lashed out, grabbing me by my chin and pulling me down with strength that belied her frame, “Mortals don’ say no ta Calypso.”

My fist lashed out, fuck chivalry, I had to get away from this crazy lady. Instead of colliding with her diaphragm as I’d intended, her free hand snapped out and caught my fist, stopping it cold. I couldn’t move the fist in her grip, my chin was equally stuck, but I still had three available means of trying to get this woman off me.

“Relax, it be quick an’ painless,” she cooed before leaning in and planting a kiss on my lips.

I won’t lie, despite the situation, it was the best kiss I’d ever had. I can’t put it into words, the energy it sent through me as her lips locked with mine. It was as if the world around us disappeared in a rushing swirl of water.

Eventually, I don’t know how long we kissed, the kiss ended and her lips left mine. Slowly opening my eyes, I blinked in surprise at not seeing the expected face in front of me. Looking around, the entire island was different, the beach chair I’d been sitting on moments earlier nowhere to be seen. Instead of buildings in the island interior, there were broken boards and wooden boxes half embedded in the sand. And, scurrying into the surf, was a line of crabs. Very distinctive white crabs.

“I kissed a goddess from a Disney movie?” I asked incredulously.

I brought my hands up, pausing as I took in what I was now wearing. Instead of a pair of swim trunks and nothing else, I had some ragged brown pants and a tattered button-up shirt. The kind you’d see in an old pirate movie.

My inspections came to a halt as I heard a sound from further down the beach, by more of the garbage that had washed up on the shore. Jogging over, I couldn’t help but wince at the sight of several waterlogged bodies. But now that I could clearly hear the sound, I placed it as someone coughing.

Moving past some boxes, I couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief at finding someone alive. Her clothes weren’t in any better shape than my own, her blue tunic barely intact enough to preserve her modesty, but I carefully picked her up and carried her over to the tree line. Looking back at all the wreckage, I tried to piece together what had happened. If it weren’t for all of the wood I’d think it was a… right, Calypso talked about entertainment so this probably isn’t Earth. Or if it is, it isn’t 2021 anymore.

So, a shipwreck with at least one survivor. First step: see if there are any other survivors. Second: shelter. Then fresh water and food.

[hr][/hr]

After what felt like hours, I gave up on finding any other survivors. Just the girl. Heading back to where I’d left her in the shade, I stopped when I saw she was gone. I looked around, and just past the tree line I heard the sounds of someone throwing up.

Making my way over, I saw the girl hunched over, a hand on the tree next to her. Carefully lifting her braided hair up just in time to avoid another upwelling of the technicolor rainbow, I gently rubbed her back with my free hand and whispered soothing sounds. As her puking turned into dry heaves, I looked around, hoping it was something she ate instead of the flu or something more serious.

There was what looked like a pear with a bite taken out of it, but the… I sincerely hope that’s not what I think it is, otherwise that crab bitch sent me to one of the most batshit insane franchises out there. As the girl took several breaths without heaving, I bent down and picked up the fruit. Sure enough, a crapton of swirls and bright colors on it. Fuck.

“Thanks,” the girl said with a raspy voice.

“No problem,” I answered, before introducing myself, “Name’s Logan. What’s yours?”

“I’m Katara. I don’t recognize you from the ship, were you part of the night crew?”

“No, no I wasn’t,” I tried to think of a lie, but I was distracted by the fact that her tunic was so torn up I could see areolae.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I started to unbutton my shirt. It wasn’t great or fashionable, but it was in better shape than hers.

“NO!” Katara yelled, bringing her hands up, moments before a solid wave of water slammed into my back, knocking me to the ground.

“Not that!” I said, frantically, as she stared at her hands in surprise. “I’m offering you my shirt, I can see damn near everything through yours!”

There was a moment of quiet, before she let out an embarrassed squeak and there was the rustling of leaves. Risking looking up, I saw the bright red face of Katara peeking out from behind a bush. Doing my best to not laugh, I stood up and finished unbuttoning my shirt. Slowly I walked over to the bush with my shirt held out in front of me.

“Thank you,” she muttered as she took the shirt from my hands.

“I’m heading back down to the beach, see if I can find anything we can use to make shelter,” I told her, mentally trying to figure out how to address the number of bodies there were as well. In the end, I couldn’t think of anything, so I didn’t bring it up.

Once I got down to the beach, I took a deep breath to keep from freaking out. I was with a girl from a cartoon series, and she just ate a fruit that gave powers at the cost of having all the buoyancy of a rock. After being kissed by a pagan goddess from a movie series, based off of a theme park ride. Either someone slipped me one Hell of a mickey, or my life just took a turn for the bashit insane.

Shaking my head, I dismissed the thought and started hauling wood, boxes, and barrels up towards the treeline. As I did, I made sure to separate everything into piles based on what they were: boards and other bits like it went into one pile, barrels filled with what looked like hard tack went into another, so on and so forth. After about five minutes, Katara came out and joined me, my shirt looking more like a short dress, the bottom so tattered I was afraid I’d see more than I should.

We worked in silence, her helping with the lighter stuff and pushing back the tide so I could get some of the stuff that hadn’t made it to the shore. I don’t know what was going through her head, but the way she steadfastly refused to look at any of the bodies made me worry.

In the end, I think I found the reason she wasn’t looking at any of the bodies. The distinctive haircut and matching skin tone meant this could only be her brother. I couldn’t tell from his face, as the exit wound from the bullet hole in the back of his head had completely blown off his face. A part of me was morbidly fascinated by the fact that despite missing the front of his skull, his head was still intact enough that pretty much everything from his ears back was untouched.

I didn’t want Katara to see this, but… how could it be avoided? Throw it into the sea and hope it doesn’t wash back up? A lot easier said than done, there was a reason the phrase “dead weight” was a thing. Glancing up the beach towards where Katara was, I hummed as I tried to think of something.

In the end, I used his shirt to tie some boards together to make a shitty raft. Some canvas I did my best to soak in booze without Katara noticing went around and over his body before I placed it on the raft. Some flint and steel I took from the washed up supplies got the soaked fabric burning and I sent the raft out to sea. Making my way back to shore, I paused as I saw Katara staring at the raft drifting out to sea, unshed tears in her eyes.

“I… I’m sorry,” was all I could say, moments before she threw herself into my chest and started crying.

[hr][/hr]

Eventually, after Katara cried herself to sleep, I went a short way into the interior. We still needed a source of freshwater and long term shelter, since I didn’t want to rely on Katara picking up desalination before we died of dehydration.

Course, that was my plan going in, up until something dropped out of the trees onto my head. Looking at whatever it was, I was treated to the sight of a stem of peppers and what looked like a mix between a snail shell and a certain brown emoji. The peppers, I might add, had the distinct swirls and patterns of a devil fruit.

The familiar cackling on the wind told me exactly who was responsible, so with a sigh, I picked one of the peppers off the stem and took a bite out of it. The bouquet of flavors that graced my tongue were far too foul to put into words, but they started at spoiled milk and just got worse from there. Whatever god or devil made this can go sit on a rusty spike and spin on it.

Still, I managed to swallow that bite down. Chucking the rest of the pepper as far as I could, I instead turned to the poop-shell. Picking it up, I turned it over, taking time to inspect the entire surface. Seeing what looked like buttons, I shrugged and pushed one.

From down below, an enemy spotted.

So hurry up, rearm and refuel.

But through the bomber’s damaged airframe,

See wounded men, scared to their bone.

Pushing the button again, I stared at the shell that was somehow playing No Bullets Fly just a moment ago. Sure, why not. It’s not like anything else that had happened to me since I was kicking back on the Tortuga beach made any sense. Setting that aside to deal with later, I continued my search.

After about half an hour in total, I managed to find a small pool fed by a waterfall. Behind said waterfall, there was a surprisingly dry cave. We’d get wet entering and leaving, but it’s not like the island was big enough for us to find a better spot. So I followed the creek from the pool to the beach before looping around to where the shipwreck was. I’d get Katara’s opinion on it if she’d woken up.