The sounds of shouts and curses reached a deafening crescendo. As Regan traversed the decrepit hallway, cells on either side of him, he found that his squalid cell was actually within the marine HQ itself. It should've been obvious, but the bloodied corpse of vice-admiral Strawberry had raked all sense in his enervated mind.
With Strawberry gone, however, there weren't many marines on the island that could contest with him. Save for Tina Lothbrook of course, but that convoluted woman was now aiding him for reasons that were not clear to him.
I've proven myself? Proven myself how?
The marines came pouring in again, some of them with hooked noses, deep scars, and hardened faces that were redolent of war. They gripped their rifles tightly and stared down the bloody figure who had slain their vice-admiral, or so Tina would have it.
Regan spared no effort in taking them out. It was a simple task, truthfully. He enveloped both hands in haki and brought forth his adopted knowledge of fishman karate and beat the meddlesome fools to death. Each blow crushed their skulls and made their eyeballs pop out of their heads to splatter across the walls. Quite the bloody game of ping-pong one would say.
The system blared merits inside of his skull, but Regan paid them no mind, instead focusing on the remaining marines who took to flight once they realised they stood no chance against their attacker, who was full-man and full-fish man in truth.
When mangled bodies littered the hallway, Regan grabbed the remaining man by his throat and raised him up into the air, his desperate pleads as he wrestled for air only adding to Regan's fury.
''Where are they?''
''W-who,'' the man gasped, gripping Regan's iron arm with his feeble hands. With every second that passed without so much as a hint as to his friends whereabouts, the grip on the mans neck grew tighter, and his fight for air became an arduous struggle.
''The prisoners you took in! A girl called Rose!''
''W-we didn't take in anyone by that name!'' The man croaked, his eyes bulging as Regan's nails tore into the meat of his neck. ''I-if,'' the marine paused, Regan's grip trapping the words in his throat. Upon realizing this, Regan allowed his anger to mitigate for a moment, and gave himself some time to listen to reason.
''if,'' the marine continued, taking in a deep breath. ''If we did have her, she would have been in one of these cells!''
That much was true, Regan thought. He tightened his hand around the marines throat and crushed his windpipe with his haki-coated hands, killing him and the remaining words in his throat. He threw his corpse aside and inspected each and every one of the cells carefully.
Some of the prisoners seemed to be nothing but petty thieves who had been thrown in the cells for some diminutive altercation that occurred near the markets. Many of them were teens or disgruntled old men with a dearth of hair on their heads, and crooked mouths that had every mind to spit out various curses at the fishman who accosted them.
One of them was close to the seastone bars, a squalid teenager with dirt caking his torn cloths. Regan nabbed him and pulled his body hard against the cold bars.
''Where is Rose!?'' Regan bellowed, his voice blowing away a group of men in the cell as if it was a gust of wind. The child trembled, his lips quivered, and his eyes darted to every space within the hall save for Regan's own eyes.
Regan pressed his finger and his thumb against both of his cheeks and squeezed hard, then he forced his head between the iron bars, making the boy cry out in pain as his skull began stretching out between the narrow space.
''I won't ask you again! Where is Rose!? Clam!? Where are they!?'' Regan demanded, releasing a modicum of force to allow for an answer that would save the boys life.
''I-I don't know! There was no Rose or a Clam! P-please, don--''
Regan pulled his head through the seastone bars, incensed and indifferent to the boys screams as the cold metal squished his skull, his brain turning to mush inside of it as evident by the blood that dripped from out of his eyes and from the dark halls of his mouth.
Dammit, dammit, dammit! Was that bitch lying? Did they really even taken them!?
Regan stormed through the hallway, kicking aside the fresh bodies whose souls he had eviscerated. There was a door at the end of the hallway made from iron and steel, and Regan simply made a fist and punched through it with his good hand, sending the door flying through another hallway.
He traversed the irritating maze for minutes, his breath ragged, passing a multitude of questions to every prisoner and marine that had the misfortune of crossing paths with him. Those who did not satisfy the answers he sought were swiftly killed in the most gruesome, grotesque ways.
After a while, with his breath caught in his chest and his anger boiling in his stomach, he concluded that Rose and Clam and the others were not at all under the HQ and it must've been some cruel plot that festered in Tina's mind and passed through her lips.
He had grabbed another marine and demand he show him how to leave the HQ, just right after killing all of his friends of course. The marine complied to an obsequious degree, chattering here and there in intervals to mitigate his fear and bring himself a modicum of comfort. But every piercing glance from Regan that called for his silence quickly washed away all of his efforts.
Upon leaving the HQ, Regan looked back and found the towering building glaring back at him. There was a flag attached to a pole, baring the navy sigil with pride even as it flapped and billowed in the wind.
Regan took his eyes off of the building and found a crowd of marines all surrounding him, their guns pointed. He found a couple of rear admirals among their ranks, but none of them were Tina Lothbrook and so Regan felt no fear in his palpating heart.
He slammed the marines head into the concrete floor, and lunged away just as a pool of blood began burgeoning under his broken skull. He could hear bullets raining down on him. Some of them flew right past him, others he opted to dodge just to add to his observation haki stat, while some he allowed to beat against his skin to procure some defense points.
Still, even with this dedication towards his stat, his mind was filled with thoughts of Rose and Clam. He recalled his way to the Premium Inn stand, and rushed past groups upon groups of frightened civilians and pursuing marines, though killing some here and there.
Regan cut a corner, plowed through a couple of streets, and tumbled into a market street where a couple of familiar stands were still standing. In the corner of his eye, he found the premium inn still standing, still selling booze. A handful of men and women had caught Regan in their gazes, and their troublesome mouths had garnered the attention of the rest of the populace.
He ignored them however, and quickened to the premium Inn where he found Rose pouring the drink into many cups as Izgrim handed out food, completley unbothered and untouched, replacing Tina's truth with a bunch of lies. They were not imprisoned, nor were the marines after them, and Strawberry wasn't even planning on executing them.
One big lie! Damn her!
Regan shoved aside a man who was about to grab a cup of booze. The shove was so harsh that it had sent him reeling back a couple of miles. Regan turned and found Rose's eyes, but he only found fear dancing within them instead of the recognition and love that he usually found whenever she was looking at him.
''Who are you!?'' She shrieked. ''Get away!''
Regan could feel his heart shattering. The holy grail had changed his appearance that much. He looked back at the fishman race window, his eyes darting to the cancel race option. He focused on it, and brought up a new window he had never seen before.
[Revert Back To Human?]
-Are you sure you wish to revert back to a human? This cannot be undone, and you will have to drink from another Holy Grail. Proceed?
''Proceed! Dammit!'' Regan roared.
[Reverting...]
The process to turning back into a human was less painful than the process that changed his race. The fin was gone, as were his razor-sharp teeth, and his skin returned to the same olive tone that a Dedmond Dantes was born with. ''It's me! Rose, look! It's me!''
''D-Dantes?'' She gasped, her hand pressed against her lips.
''Yes, its me! Look, we--''
''Where the hell have you been!?'' Izgrim cut in, setting aside a plate of food. ''The guys have been looking all over the island for you! You've been gone for hours and then...you randomly pop up, and...what the hell even happened to you!? You were just a fish--''
''It's long to explain, look! We've got to run!'' Regan grabbed Rose's arm and pulled her over the counter and began sprinting away. He could hear Izgrim shouting from behind him, but he returned no such volume, he merely looked back at him with eyes that he hoped Izgrim could read, eyes that beckoned him and demanded him to follow right after him.
There were marines hounding them down. Intrepid men they were, Regan thought, for surely they were made aware of all the deaths he had caused. Many of them were close comrades, so it only made sense that they may have been emboldened by hatred and a need for revenge.
Their revenge would come, to Regan's dismay. It came in the most cruelest of fashion, with the death of an innocent as was always the case in the path of vengeance. He could no longer hear Rose's breaths whipping against the air as she ran, nor could he hear her footsteps. Her weight suddenly dropped, and Regan whipped his head around and found that she had collapsed on the floor.
On her head, a gaping wound had been conceived by some accurate bullet. Her body shuddered to mark that she was alive, for a couple of seconds at least, but when that time was up her entire frame went limp as the grim reaper called for another soul.
She was dead, Regan trembled. Dead and gone like the men he had killed.