Castle had been wandering the barren lands of Alabasta, floating from town to town absorbing information on the bountied pirates that had appeared in the news coo and adjusting his travel path based on that. Recently he had gotten word that Lina Askr, the 64 million beli bounty pirate girl was last seen heading in the direction of Alubarna, and given that information, Castle followed diligently towards the rumored location. It wasn't until the city was almost in sight that his trunk shot upwards, periscoping and rotating until it found a near-accurate direction of a powerful smell and forcing Castle to adjust his travel route south ever so slightly.
The smell was distinct, stinking of gunpowder and blood. If it were food or, god forbid, perfume, Castle could have ignored it, but the stench was powerful enough that it only signaled one thing - war. Following his impressive nose, the mink set off at a dead run towards the source. He was slow compared to others, but his long legs could traverse more than double the distance of the average man with each step, bringing him closer to his destination faster as well. It wasn't until he crossed a sandy ridge that the view of the Alubarna greeted him and, as expected, it wasn't a sight that Castle had hoped to find when he'd arrived.
Rather than the war that he predicted from the scent, what appeared before him was the manufacturing district of Alubarna being thrown into chaos by marines, the ones allegedly defending justice. Metal men mowed down droves of humans in front of them, indiscriminately killing men, women, and even children if they weren't already put at their robotic backs. Corpses of all kinds scattered the sandy streets, blood strewn across the walls and body parts flung from the mangled corpses. It was an aggravating sight, to summarize, and ignited a heated passion in Castle, forcing him forward at a speed greater than what he'd normally be able to manifest down into the blood-soaked streets.
Racing through the streets of the manufacturing district, Castle came up to the side of the carnage, barreling his way into one of the Pacifistas at maximum speed. While he wasn't exactly fast, a ten tonne elephant throwing its weight into something is still extremely destructive and it sent his target flailing through the sky. The Pacifista fell to the ground, sliding into another of its kind and tipping it over. Castle ignored the humans - a husband, his wife, and their daughter - that had just survived the barrel of the robot's rapid-fire gun and they watched the ten tonne behemoth lay its weight into the fallen Pacifistas, their metal joints creaking and cracking under his weight and leaving them incapacitated in all intents and purposes.
Castle didn't look back. He couldn't. He saved some people, but even within his sight now there were more being taken out one-by-one. Long strides didn't make him faster than gunfire, and all he could do was force himself into the fray and hope that he'd spare more lives than would be lost. But even if he was committed, the Pacifistas had taken note of what had gone on near them through the neural link of their downed comrades. As Castle closed in on them, their guns turned from the citizens and revolutionaries to the mink himself, forcing Castle to roll out of their way and behind a close building. As the wave of destruction continued forward, Castle ran around the building until he found a door that he could squeeze through.
Crawling through the building as fast as he could, the mink found a pair of garage doors that would lead back out directly to the Pacifistas. Peeking out the windows, Castle watched as the robots turned their rain of fire towards another pair of humans who simply had their backs turned and were running for their lives. A pit formed in his stomach, the feeling of not being fast enough to save them or strong enough to defeat the Pacifistas alone, took a heavy toll on his emotional morale, but it wasn't something that could halt his momentum. Taking a deep breath, Castle leaped through the garage door, tearing it down on top of two of the Pacifistas and sending them to the ground. The mink laid his massive hands over the faces of these monstrosities, focusing for a split second before sending a massive jolt of electricity through their bodies. He felt a small jolt of pain in his palms as the eye sockets of the robots exploded, sending small shards of glass into the minks thick skin. It was enough to cause a sharp pain, but no more than sand pelting a human's skin, and didn't injure him in any meaningful way.
The racket caused by the garage door got the attention of more of the Pacifistas, who turned their barrels towards Castle and immediately started firing upon him. The mink rolled over, grabbing the garage door with one hand and shielding himself quickly before taking cover behind another close building. The Pacifistas kept firing at the corner he had tucked himself behind, tearing bits of rubble from it over repeated damage until they stopped to let the dust settle. Castle himself, couldn't see the ones firing upon him, but could see the two Pacifistas he'd just laid electro into pulling themselves off the ground and turning their guns towards him. They might not have their own visual censors anymore, but they still had a neural link with the remaining ones, making them just as accurate.
Before the blinded Pacifistas could fire, their knees buckled and they fell to the. One, then the other, had their metal skulls blown open with the sound of a large crack, and as their bodies fully collapsed, revealed a man with a rifle in hand. The man's face streamed with tears and the fear was heavily contorting his face, but he came to the rescue of the mink that had just done the same for him and his family. Firing off an other couple of shots at the Pacifistas that were still standing, he ducked behind his own building, running off into the cover of the manufacturing district. If Castle squinted, he could see the man still firing off shots in between buildings, gathering the attention of the Pacifistas even momentarily.
Some of the citizens that had seen the mink and the man had their fighting spirit stocked. Taking up arms in the form of guns if they had them, or rocks and other debris, some of the citizens turned to fight. To Castle, it didn't seem like an unselfish decision, as he could see women and children turning down side streets as their husbands got the attention focused on them, and were justly mowed down by the marine weapons, but there were people that jumped of their own personal volition. Seeing a friend downed for not being a marine, or just in defense of those weaker than them, few people started standing up to counter-attack the Pacifistas and the marine infantry that followed them. The spark was small, but the numbers could grow.
Castle, however, had his attention wrenched away from the Pacifistas and revolutionaries when massive boulders lifted into the sky a decent distance from him. They cast a shadow over the district for a brief second before slamming into the ground out of sight, shaking the earth beneath their feet and calling attention to the center of this battle. With a destructive force powerful enough to throw that kind of ammunition at people, Castle had to be there and intervene. Seeing it, he started another mad dash in the direction of the boulders.
Before long, the mink came out into a small clearing, created by the boulders smashing into everything in their path. He was greeted with the sight of an old marine man and a small girl. Just as he took note of her size, a large tree came smashing down onto her location, and the mink lost sight of her for a moment. But in that brief moment, he knew her as Lina Askr. Just as the news coo had said, and just as the local rumors had teased, she was in Alubarna. Castle was glad he'd made the journey. She was assuredly at the epicenter of such an event and that meant that anyone near was absolutely involved with the executive decisions and punishable for the amount of lives lost.
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