Grab Dem Fish Boy!!!! (Mission)

Age : 34 Posts : 591

Ezekiel’s door thudded with the tell-tale knock of someone trying to give him a mission as he rolled about in the sheets of his bed and yawned. Tugging on a dirty t-shirt to match his boxers before half falling slash half crawling out of bed and across the floor towards his door, he glanced around at his apartment and frowned a tad. It seems that in his burst of brilliance he had somehow forgotten to go to bed and had fallen asleep in mid project. Puppet parts, oil stains, the smell of grease mixed with wood and sweat and filled the apartment with an aroma of… a puppet shop. Though some would find it increasingly annoying to live with their job, Ezekiel could not think of a better way to live. That frown was not from a dirty apartment or the oil stains on the desk or the floor but rather from a project still unfinished that lay on the desk itself. A clawed arm with razors for fingers that looked ready to reap flesh and soul alike with the gleam on their edge. Another booming knock on the door forced him to rub his eyes clean of the sleep that had tried to seal them shut once more and finish his crawl to the door and stand up.
”I’m coming, I’m coming, hold your pants on for two seconds…” the mumbles more a cry for mercy as his head throbbed from the sudden awakening that was forced upon him. A deep breath escaped him as a sigh before fingertips turned the brass handle on the door and gently tugged it open to reveal two shinobi in Konoha regalia looking ready to hand out the summons and get on with their life.

”This is a mission summons and assignment for Ezekiel Arcana, you are requested at the nearest port as soon as possible. Failure to report will be met with reprimand.”

Ezekiel silently waved them off and took the scroll before closing the door in their faces. It was rude but pretty standard for the awkward wild child that Zeke was. He had a reputation of being a tad rude to people he did not know and even ruder to people he sometimes considered friends. Right now he was too busy being annoyed by the fact that he was awake rather than sleeping away the day in bed to care about the feelings of some courier who had woken him up. His fingers worked the band around the scroll free and unrolled it so that he might understand just what he had been signed up for.

Quote :: To Ezekiel Arcana, Genin;
We have been requested by a group of fishermen to re-capture non-native fish to the land which have escaped into the waterways. Though we have had success in limiting their spread to a few rivers by temporarily damming them, we have requested your presence in assisting with the live capture of all sixteen fish. These fish are known to be mildly carnivorous and have been wreaking havoc on salmon nests within these rivers. These are orders to be followed immediately: Report to any dock where a fisherman will assist you in scanning these rivers for the fish so that you might capture them and return them to the shopkeep who had them lost in the first place. Your help is appreciated.

The scroll was sealed with the Kage’s emblem and was even on official parchment. No denying that the request was a legitimate one and could not be ignored but that did not make for the upcoming task to be any more enjoyable than Clockwork Zeke had imagined they would be when he crawled out from his sheets. Oh well, sleepy time was over and now was the time to start getting some work done. Maybe if he did a good job he could finally get that break he wanted so he could work on his newest puppet. Taking one last longing look at the clawed hand he had built last night, he walked into the bathroom to get himself ready for the day.

A quick bath, a quick change of boxers and the adorning of his tactical uniform and large coat; in only fifteen minutes was Ezekiel ready for action, grabbing his belt hanging from a peg on the wall and running it around his waist like a gunslinger before deciding that he was ready. Of course, instead of a bandolier of bullets, his belt held the scrolls for his puppets that were normally sealed away for storage. Sitting by the door helplessly was Carrion, a design of puppet that many academy students would consider their first. For the moment it was the favorite puppet of Zeke and as such it stayed unsealed and experienced the world with the genin. Grabbing the puppet by its faux hair, Ezekiel dragged it along behind him as he started off down the hall and towards the stairs that would take him out into the streets of Konohagakure no Sato.

”Come on Carrion, it’s time to get down to the docks and earn our food for the week. And maybe we will earn some time to build you a brother, yeah?”

Age : 34 Posts : 591

No rain, a good sign. No clouds, also a good sign. Crystal blue waters drifting beneath the hull of the boat was not such a good sign, it meant that Ezekiel was out on the water travelling down the river towards the last place the fish were seen feeding on their defenseless natural prey. The fish were foreign to these waters and were quickly upsetting the balance in the river’s ecosystem by acting as an additional predator for some of the fish that resided in the Konoha rivers and lakes to provide food for the people that lived here. And with his current mission that was assigned to him, it was up the genin Clockwork Zeke to assure that a food source in the village remained viable and stable.

Splashes in the water up ahead caught his attention, fish swimming near the surface and splashing about was far from normal in these gentle waters. Tugging a scroll from his belt, it was unrolled and unsealed with a cloud of smoke poofing into appearance as the massive puppet KameKame was brought out to play this morning. Almost immediately the invisible tethers of the puppetry technique stretched out to grab hold of the turtle, who’s head blinked and moved as Ezekiel tested his control over the beastly thing. Draping Carrion over his shoulder before leaping from the boat, Clockwork Zeke began walking along the bank of the river with shuffling of KameKame keeping up on the opposite side of the river.

KameKame was the perfect tool for this assignment, with his capture compartment and retractable net there were few things he could not catch and the fish would be absolutely helpless. Finally seeing the thrashing going on in the river with his eyes instead of just his ears, a single twitch of finger and wrist compelled KameKame to disrobe from his cloak and open his shell wide to launch the net into the churning waters with a splash.

Fish are so stupid… thought the genin with a grin, retracting the net from the waters full of fish fighting to get back into the water as well as their next meal trapped in the net with them. This was the first time he glanced at the fish terrorizing the new waters they had been introduced to and immediately recognized why they were such a problem. Their jagged teeth protruded from their jaws and were tipped in points that would make a cobra jealous. They were highly carnivorous and even in the face of death out of the water were chomping at their fellow fish trapped in the net with them. However after a moment of observation it became clear that they were not cannibalistic as they focused more on the group of salmon that had been dredged up with them.

“I am only counting seven there lad, did the notice not say a dozen and a half?”

“Yeah, the notice said sixteen. Don’t worry about it, we will clear this batch from the net Skrinkle-Dee, and then we will simply travel further up stream and hopefully find the rest of them. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and finish this in an hour.”

The wrong words to say on a job half finished. The next three hours trudged forward with mind numbing boredom and a lack of any fish whatsoever. Be they docile or the hostile little bastards with the big teeth, none could be found as they traversed the rivers and streams that the predatory newcomers supposedly preferred. Finally, only after those hours of searching, did KameKame require summoning once again for his precious capture trap. As the turbulence in the water was captured in the net once more, fishermen rejoiced as the count of the big toothed fish began.

“Well, I do believe that is sixteen! Well done lad, you cleaned them all out for us and we can undam the rivers before we start flooding the farm lands!”

“Well that’s good Skrink, nobody wants a soggy dinner!”

The joke was lame, but the fisherman laughed anyways out of the joy they felt after saving the fishing waters. Had those fish escaped into the lakes there would have been breeding and it would have caused a real problem for the village’s fish resource. Ezekiel thought about that with a smile, content that he was able to prevent it and guarantee his future fish dinners as well as anyone else’s in the village. Watching the water, now peaceful without the panicked swimming of salmon of the hunting of the toothy fish, he had an idea as he watched the light glitter on the top of the water. A party with water and the ocean as a theme, now that would get the people going for sure! Putting KameKame back into his storage scroll, Ezekiel bid farewell to the fisherman who had leant their boats to his assistance and walked towards the village proper. A party was being planned, one that would be remembered for ages. Skrinkle-Dee indeed.