Wandering Sky

Chapter One: Prelude

Hi hi! This is my first fic on this site, just so ya know. The first chapter has no lemony stuff in it, but is fairly necessary to set up the plot (yeah, there is one, although it’ll be slow to show up, heheh). Anyway, enjoy, and please DO NOT FLAME. Sansaku is sensitive. -.-


Myung Su ran a hand through her long brown hair as she gazed out over the open sea. At 19, she was the youngest of the Korean Coastal Defense Force – a fact that both she and her parents were immensely proud of. However, her reasons for joining the force were not entirely altruistic – she had joined simply to be near her captain, Hwang Sung Kyung. Lord, how she loved him! Su knew he only had eyes for Mina, the daughter of Han Myong Seung (although he himself didn’t seem to realize it yet), but she didn’t care. It was enough just to be near him.

Hwang, however, HAD gone out on a limb for her ... women were strictly forbidden to join the Coastal Defense Force, and he’d vouched for her when she’d begun to masquerade as a man. He was the only one on the force who knew, and the only others in Korea besides him were her parents and Han Myong himself. She was quite good with a sword, and her strength kept people from realizing she was of the fairer sex, but she still had to wear baggy clothing and a hideously tight type of undergarment (quite similar to a corset, only for the opposite purpose) to mask her figure.

She caught sight of her captain from her perch at the bow of the ship and flashed him a smile. He returned it, and then went back to his work, checking all sailors at their posts. Su’s gaze returned to the open sea, but not for long, because there came a shout from behind her.

“PIRATES!” the lookout in the crow’s nest shouted.

Indeed, from the cliffs that lined the coast on the ship’s starboard side, there were white sails pulling away from a cavernous inlet. It was a beautiful old ship, and Su didn’t see how people could destroy anything of such grandeur.

“After them,” Hwang ordered.

“But wait!” one of the sailors cried. “They haven’t done anything. We aren’t even sure it’s not a merchant ship!”

“Merchant ships have blue sails, and this is obviously a Japanese ship! They’re either spies come to aid the invasion or pirates. Take your pick.”

“But captain,” Su protested, “wouldn’t a spy ship be much smaller? Or be disguised as a merchant ship?”

“Perhaps, Myung,” he replied coldly. “Then it’s certain they’re pirates. Attack them!”

Su knew it was wrong to attack those who were neither of tactical importance nor hadn’t done anything wrong, but would not trouble her beloved captain further. After all, he was risking his position to help her stay in the force. So she bit her lip and put a hand on her sword, a scimitar brought back from one of her father’s trips abroad. He had named it Sun Ce, after the Chinese general who’d died during the third century. Quite odd, really, naming a weapon used by the Turks for a Chinese warrior, but Su didn’t mind. It was a beautiful name for a beautiful weapon.

The cannons on the Defense Force’s ship fired at the lovely pirate ship, but did not connect. Su secretly hoped the ship would escape unscathed, for she hated to see something of such beauty be destroyed for no apparent reason. She was surprised when the enemy ship turned abruptly and headed toward another cavernous opening in the cliffs. It was far faster than they, and they lost sight of it quickly. “Go in after it,” Hwang commanded. “Get ready for a fight. We’ll board and overtake them!”

As the crew cried out in unison to demonstrate their readiness and enthusiasm, Su alone remained silent. As much as she loved Hwang, she wasn’t always able to understand his thoughts. And now was one of those times she couldn’t.

Hwang and his team steered their ship into the opening, and headed for the pirate ship. It was odd, how quiet it had become; they could see nary a soul aboard it now.

‘But they were only here for a second!’ Su thought. ‘How did they all disappear so quickly?’

The answer came when she heard a thud as one of her allies, Jin Honell ell to the deck, his throat slit. Pirates poured from the cliffs onto the ship, and overtook the Defense Force with obscene ease. One by one they were bested by their enemies, many not even having their weapons drawn. Su drew Sun Ce and leapt forward to protect her remaining teammates, but one of the pirates met her toe-to-toe and brought his own sword up; he leapt behind her and slashed her across the back. She felt her skin tear and blood trickle down the small of her back, but she paid no mind – when she spun around to face him again, he repeated the action, only targeting her chest. The blade, however, touched only cloth. It was that pirate who noticed that when her corset-like garment gave away, she had quite a different figure.

“A woman, eh?” he asked with a triumphant sneer. He reached out a hand to grab her, but Sun Ce met his flesh and cut his forearm deeply. Cursing and spitting, he raised his sword to deal her a finishing blow, and she readied her own weapon to run through his chest. Before either could move, however, a large hand gripped the pirate’s wrist and held it there.

“Hwang!” Su cried out, knowing her captain had come to save her.

However, it was not her leader who’d spared her life; it was a man she did not know. He was tall and muscular, with dark hair and arched eyebrows. “You know the rules, Gen. We don’t harm women or children.”

Snarling, the pirate called Gen yanked his arm away and set out, probably to claim the lives of more of Su’s allies. In anger, she lifted her scimitar again and lunged for the man who’d quite possibly saved her life, but he was far too fast for her. He gripped her arm firmly and spun her around so her back was against his bare chest, and she found herself facing the business end of her own sword; somehow the bastard had managed to twist her arm enough to hold the blade of her own weapon against her throat. “Now, now, missy,” he said in her ear, “I said we don’t harm women or children. And it seems you’re a bit of both. So why don’t you just sit tight and behave yourself, hmm?”

“Bastard,” Su growled. “You’ve killed my friends and you ask me to ‘behave?’ What kind of idiot are you?”

“See here, missy,” he replied, tightening his grip as she struggled, “WE weren’t the ones who started all this. We’re merely defending ourselves from a threat. You should blame whatever fool decided to pursue us.”

Su was unable to thing of a suitable reply. True, Hwang HAD ordered them to attack the pirates, and it WAS because of his error in judgment that the Defense Force was being decimated, but she would not allow this fiend to speak of her captain in such a manner.

“My captain was only working to eliminate any threat to our country!” Su shouted angrily, struggling harder still. “You vultures of the sea qualify as one!” “‘V “‘Vultures of the sea,’ eh? I rather like that one,” he whispered in her ear. “Now, my lady, you’d best surrender, lest you meet the same fate as your comrades.”

“I thought you didn’t harm women or children.”

“I try to teach my crew common etiquette, but it’s hard to get them to remember. Especially Gen. Would you like me to re-introduce the two of you?”

“If you do, I’ll be more than happy to cut him from throat to navel,” Su hissed. “Now let me go!”

There was a loud explosion that rocked the ship, and Su toppled to the ground along with her captor. Sun Ce cut her collarbone deeply in the process, but she paid the injury no mind – getting away from the pirate was the only thing on her mind.

Her scimitar clattered to the ground and she snatched it up before she stood; when she did, the pirate was already on his feet, smiling at her. “You’d still fight me?” he teased, raising an eyebrow.

“Get out of my way,” she growled. “Leave this ship and just let us escape with our lives!”

“As I said before, we weren’t the aggressors.” He shook his head and shrugged, grinning all the while. “Now you have two choices: you can surrender, or you can drown when we sink this ship.”

Enraged, Su tightened her grip on Sun Ce. To think she’d wanted to spare the pirates! Now that she knew their true nature, she wanted nothing more than to kill every last one of them.

“Myung!” a familiar voice called, and Su looked to her left to see her beloved Hwang running toward her, sword drawn.

“Captain!” she cried out, elated that he still lived.

“You Japanese scum!” Hwang shouted, lunging toward the dark-haired pirate. “Get away from her, now!”

When Hwang brought his blade down to cut the offending pirate in two, there was a flash of movement and before Su knew it, Blue Thunder was caught in the tangle of a short chain connecting two wooden sticks. ‘Nunchaku?’ Su wondered. She’d heard of the strange weapons before, when she’d been learning about Japanese weaponry, but she’d never actually seen them in action. To her, they’d always seemed impractical, but now that she saw them, she was rethinking that conclusion.

The pirate wrenched the sword from Hwang’s hands and threw it to the ground, landing a punch in Su’s captain’s gut. Knocked backward, Hwang cursed and held his stomach, and the pirate smiled evilly. “Do you see now, my friend? We’re a force to be reckoned with,” he said, pointing his weapon at him.

“HWANG!” Su cried out, and she tried to make it to her captain’s side, but the pirate wrapped one of his sinewy arms around her waist and swept her off her feet (in a manner of speaking). Su’s sword fell from her hand to the ground again, and she tried her hardest to get out of his grip.

“Put her down!” Hwang commanded with such ferocity that Su quit struggling for a second.

“Oh? Is this your woman? Well, no matter – she’s MINE now.” The pirate grabbed Sun Ce and held it in one hand while holding Su with his other arm. “I’ll let you live, so that you can tell however many little brigades you have in reserve not to mess with us. You’d best hurry back home, though – we’ve blown a few holes in your ship, and it looks like it might not last very long.”

“Let me go!” Su snarled, fighting hard, but her strength was no match for his.

“Even for a woman, you’re quite the nuisance,” he said with a frown, and set her down just long enough to hit her in the stomach with force adequate to cause her to black out.