[center][h1][img]https://i.imgur.com/yNRxTGd.png[/img][/h1][hr][hr]

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cegdR0GiJl4]Enter the Ninja[/url][/center]

[quote]"Ah, a worthy challenge," the Mister who was dueling Z-Grip snarled out. "I’ve always wanted to kill me a Stationari. Let’s see if you’re made of stainless steel, indeed."[/quote]

Z-Grip made no attempt to reply, but simply offered the slightest of nods of her masked head. There was no need for words, not when blood, the purest of all ink, was being spilled.

Carefully watching her foe before moving to attack she saw all that she needed to see. The disinfectant worshiping pirates had misunderstood. They were wrong. A warrior was clean only through the purity of their soul and the bravery of their deeds. What use was perfect hygiene and starched white shirts that blazed with the fury of one thousand suns if one did not have honor? All the detergent in the world could not remove the stain of dishonor. There was only one thing that could cleanse the spirit of impurity. Only one all purpose cleaner that could eat through the thick grease of cowardice. Death. A clean death, an honorable death in battle was the only way to scrub upwards to the very heavens.

Focused on her chosen opponent, Z-Grip almost didn't see the trio of speckless scoundrels that had moved to flank her in time. She dodged, ducking low and shifting her weight in an unexpected fashion. Simple enough for a penja. Inhuman to a common criminal. She felt a rush of air as the plastic staff of a giant toilet brush chased after her. The bristles were still wet and she could smell the blood that stained them. Avoiding the follow-up swing of the prodigious pole arm, Z-Grip leapt to follow the motion of the toilet bowl ocean so to speak. Cutting inside the swing of the privy pirate, Z-Grip stepped inside the guard of the amateur warrior. Delivering a swift elbow to his bald face, Z-Grip grabbed hold of his neck, spinning the laboratory lush to face his cleaner comrades before she drove her sword neatly through his chest.

"You are without honor," Z-Grip said venomously as she used the dying washroom warrior as a shield to keep his raging ruffian allies at bay. The three remaining solvent scoundrels circled her like goldfish eyeing fish flakes in the water. Perfectly polished plastic crossbows pointed at her, following her as the pirates waited for the perfect opportunity to strike.

"We do not believe in your penshido nonsense. To wipe your ink stains in tribute to the Clean One will be our honor."

"Brushido," Z-Grip corrected as she narrowed her eyes. "I will consign your corrupted souls to the deepest pits of the abyss in remembrance of the great Sword Saint Keanu, the most excellent of warriors."

"Corrupted? If we are corrupted, then, you are a demon of filth to us. Let us see if you’ll allow us to whet our rust-proof teeth on you."

"A thousand paper cuts upon your houses," Z-Grip said as she tossed the limp form of the now dead pirate at the closet crossbowman. Using the momentum of his body, she dove forward into a roll. She heard the unmistakable thwack of string on hardened plastic as one of the cleaner pirates fired a bolt at her. She had been faster she knew, as the bolt sailed past her. Rising swiftly, the penja launched a sharpened pen at the other, further away, crossbow wielding detergent devil as he struggled to place his simple cross-hairs over her ever-shifting form. Z-Grip didn't have time to see if she had hit her mark. The stainless steel plunger that arced towards her head forced her to parry with her own blade lest she be smashed into smithereens. Dancing out of range of the cleaning agent criminal, Z-Grip took a moment to eye her handiwork. The pirate crossbowman she had hit with her throwing pen lay on the deck clutching his throat. Gurgling desperately as he drowned in his own blood.

The pirate with the plunger roared in maddening fury,"Don’t worry, I’ll only kill 99% of you.!"

Her dishonorable foe had responded as Z-Grip had hoped. He had foolishly let his anger overwhelm him. Z-Grip was rapidly losing interest. These were not the warriors she had hoped to encounter. They were not the foes she had hoped to kill. But no matter. She had a job to do. Mimicking the war dance of the fearsome Dire Ferret, Z-Grip dodged his blows through an increasingly frenzied series of sideways hops and backward flips. Closing in on an unexpected angle as she avoided she another masterful blow that should, should have smashed her shoulder into splinters, Z-Grip delivered an open handed strike to the nose of the bald braggart. Staggered, he swung wildly. Z-Grip did not need to expend much effort to avoid the blow. It was brutish and poor. It was panicked. Seizing the moment, the penja somersaulted forward, barreling through the plunger wielding pirate and lancing herself into the air. The clothed projectile that was penja smashed into the chest of the remaining cleaner crossbowman with both her feet, sending bald pirate and penja rolling across the deck. Z-Grip had expected this, in fact, she had intended it, while the cleaner crossbowman had not, and as such she had expertly controlled her roll while the pirate had tumbled heavily against the deck. Leaping to her feat, Z-Grip noted that one of his legs was now bent at an awkward angle. Delivering a swift kick to the temple of the struggling pirate, Z-Grip loomed over her downed foe, carefully watching the last pirate as he wiped his eyes and face clean of his own blood. His nose was broken and his shirt was now stained.

Offering yet another brief nod, Z-Grip stabbed her trusty Parker Duofold Prestige into the final crossbow cleaner as he attempted to groggily stand up on his shattered knee. There was no mercy for those who failed to fight with honor. She would not, no, she could not, allow them to spread their corruption. It was time to finish the false duel. She had amused herself enough.

Z-Grip took several steps towards the plunger pirate and in a supreme moment of arrogance, she wiped her cruel blade clean of blood and sheathed it across her back. Beneath her mask, the penja was smiling. She laughed at the coward that faced her. It would be justice to kill him. "I do not need a weapon to face the likes of you. A dishonorable coward reduced to piracy. A common criminal stained with the filth of his actions and reeking only of fear and his own dishonor."

Raising her hands in front of her, Z-Grip adopted a wide stance with her front foot turned slightly inward. The first stance of the Hidden Origami Dragon, it was an ideal posture for fighting on a ship that was rapidly falling apart. She would not slip and she would not stumble. She had wasted enough time with the bakagaijin, the cleaner pirate would die.

"Come, coward, and face a true origami warrior!" Z-Grip shouted, unmoved by the chaos unfolding around her.

The plunger pirate let out a final battle-cry as he charged,"He's so tough he cleans them all!"

It was over in an instant. Z-Grip shifted her weight as the steel plunger drove downwards towards her head. She guided the weapon gently to the side with the outside of her right arm, sliding her entire arm along the perfectly polished steel staff of the plunger as she flowed forward as if locked into a soft dance with the pirate. Turning her closed fist, Z-Grip smashed her thumb into the throat of the plunger pirate striking his windpipe. Dashing past his return blow, Z-Grip took several steps backwards, and then she waited. She waited as the plunger pirate tried to follow her. She watched as his face began to shift in color. She listened as he labored to brief. She saw as he dropped his plunger, stumbling wildly after her as he slowly suffocated. Wheezing the plunger pirate finally collapsed onto the deck, his perfectly polished forehead and meticulously shaved face having turned a deep purple.

The sound of wood splintering roused the penja from her post-duel thoughts and Z-Grip felt the doomed ship shuddered beneath her. She heard screaming. Pained whimpers and horrible screams as the acidic detergent of the deranged cleaners ate greedily at the flesh of the wounded, the dying, and the already dead.

Carnage surrounded the penja. The brave sailors of the S.S. Detergent were fighting a losing battle. They would not last much longer than their faithful ship. Z-Grip would have shed a single, profound tear at the beauty of it all. At the unbridled honor and bravery of the sadly incompetent sailors. But there was not time. She would mourn later. She would honor the proud warriors when she had claimed the heads of the befouled balding bastards that assailed her and her honorable companions.

The sail of the Detergent tore off its mast, riddled with burns, and cast itself upon the vessel like its shroud. The cleaners fell upon the dying like customers upon free samples, taking their quarry one body at a time. A sailor with half of his face melted off stared at the penja "Save yourself."

"A penja does not run from duty," Z-Grip replied handing the wounded sailor a spare blade that she carried. He would know what to do with it. She had offered him an honorable death, a way to end his suffering. 

Without waiting the penja turned towards what remained of the cargo hold. She had a mission. She had a task. She had no more time to waste. The cargo hold would not last much longer. She had to improvise. Cutting down another cleaner pirate that blocked her path, Z-Grip grabbed hold of a length of rope that had once been the rigging and swung over the handrail of the dying ship. Moving with only the grace that a true penja could muster, Z-grip began to leap from broken board to broken board. She'd had enough time to study the ship before boarding, the location of the hold was obvious. She would simply find an alternative way to get there.