Topsy Turvey

[youhearthebells]

Who: Hazmats with special guest star Aokiji
Where: at sea, a Navy base in the west-southwest, then Turvey Top
When: seagoing Oct. 1-15 with a stop of about a day on the 9th to raid a Navy base, then Turvey Top from the 15th onward (tbd by October plots)
What: they need a new ship. They're going to steal one from the Navy and then take it to Turvey Top to get it refitted/hide out for a while. And deal with curses, plots, and witches. Also picking up a lost and lonely Kuzan at some point.
Warnings: not likely but let me know
Style: anything you want
Status: closed to whoever's under "Who"

The vacation was nice, but for a few days of Cynthia not remembering some of her friends, but it became clear by the end of it that Raphael wasn't coming back, at least not in the immediate future. They had to accept it and continue on, now without any of their turtle-pals who had brought them together as a crew in the first place.

Size of ship was not quite an issue, but the Hazardous Materials had gone through so many changes lately that there really was only one way for it. Gan Ning felt they needed a fresh start, and what better way than by procuring a new ship? They could christen it with a new name, though he didn't mind still being referred to as Hazmats in homage to the turtles who built the crew and were their friends. Besides, that was what the bounty posters called them, no sense in confusing that. A few casual inquiries around Aquatica Paradise uncovered the presence of Navy bases on small islands in this part of the world. But of course, what with that rumor of the frigate passing through on the current soon...

They set course for the base to do some real piracy. After that, though, they would have to see what island would come up on the escape heading. They could hide out there to refit the ship, make it their own. Little did they know they had found an island with a witch who was rumored to bless or curse even visitors...

Comments

[by_heart]

Cynthia. Geez, Roxas, if you keep thinking of her as "the girl I scared that one time"...

[He shakes his head. He's not in the mood for lectures this early in the morning.]

Yeah, you should talk to Cynthia about it. She's gotta know what the deal is.

[heartismyown]

[That's exactly how he remembers Cynthia. He nods a little bit though.]

I guess that makes sense, girls should know. But I'm still going to try and change back first.

[Being a girl is too weird for words.]

[by_heart]

Yeah, that's probably the best idea. Then you don't have to buy fancy underwear or anything.

[Being a girl seems pretty expensive, now that he thinks about it.]

[heartismyown]

[Roxas glomps onto Lea's abdomen again, nuzzling his chest.]

You got me up so early with this. You're not going to leave me here are you?

[by_heart]

Where would I go?

[Lea ruffles his hair. Okay, so he's a little distracting at the moment, but it's a good sort of distracting.]

Did you have plans or something?

[heartismyown]

I don't know, you're always doing things. I was planning on being asleep right now, but now I'm up so...I don't know. Teach me a game!

[He'd ask to spar, but the whole girl thing is too weird.]

[by_heart]

You have any playing cards?

[Roxas, don't indulge him.]

[heartismyown]

[He seems to think about it.]

I think so!

[He lets go of Lea to start digging through his things.]

[by_heart]

Strip poker it is.

[Roxas, why do you put up with him?]

Everybody needs to learn that one eventually.

[No they don't.]

[heartismyown]

[Admit it Lea, no one else would put up with you. The same goes both ways.]

Yeah okay, if you show me how to play!

[He pulls out a deck of cards finally. It should be noted however, Roxas isn't wearing very much and it's going to be one short game if he doesn't get dressed first.]

[by_heart]

[Lea is dressed for bed, too, so it's not like it will be much of a game, but that's kind of the point.]

No problem.

[He takes the cards and shuffles them, then takes a seat on the floor and deals out two hands face up, since he's going into Professor Lea mode.]

That one's yours, this one is mine. Usually you're not supposed to let me see them, but I kinda need to know what you have if I'm gonna teach you.

[heartismyown]

[Roxas sits across from him, trying to be attentive. He leans forward to look at the cards.]

Okay this one is mine.

[So far, so good.]

Then what happens?

[by_heart]

Okay, when you get your cards, you look at what you have and decide what you want to do next. We're playing strip poker, not betting, so I'm not going to bother with that. I'll teach you that some other time. Okay, so what do you have?

[Lea waits for Roxas to read them out. He wants to make sure he knows how to tell what each card is.]

[heartismyown]

[Roxas hasn't really played many card games so he's not really sure.]

Okay I have a four, a seven a ten, a 'Q' card and uh, an 'A' card.

[He has no idea if that's good or bad or what.]

[by_heart]

Okay, but you have to look at the little pictures, too. Here.

[He lays out his cards and points to each in turn.]

Two of hearts. See the little heart? Two of clubs. That's the clover thingy. Jack of clubs. That's the "J" one. King of diamonds. That's the "K" one. Four of hearts. No spades in either of our hands, but you know what those look like.

[He points at Roxas' cards.]

The "Q" one is a queen, the "A" is an ace. Ace is the highest card, then king, queen, jack and then ten down to two. Following it so far?

[heartismyown]

[Roxas looks like he's concentrating really hard. He nods slowly and points at his ace.]

The highest one, then um yours...

[He points at the king.]

Then...

[He pauses and holds up a finger to hush Lea. Then he points to his queen and finally Lea's jack.]

Then numbers.

[If Lea goes slow enough, he might get it.]

[by_heart]

Lea smiles and pats him on the shoulder.]

See? You're getting it. The next part is a little tricky, so I'm gonna give you the easy version, okay?

[Poker can get pretty complicated, so he figures it's best to get Roxas to understand the basics before he starts throwing all the little nitpicky rules at him.]

The way you win a round is to have the best set of cards. You want as many of your cards to be the same kind as possible. See how all of yours are different numbers and I have two that are the same? That means I'd win. Okay, so. Question: Which do you think is a better hand: Four twos and a queen or three twos and two queens?

[heartismyown]

[He seems to think about it. What did Lea just say? Right.]

You want it to be the same as much as possible...so the first one. With the four twos. Right?

[by_heart]

Bingo! [He points at him and grins.] Good job! You're getting the hang of this pretty fast. So four is better than three and two. Then would be three without the other two matching, and then two pairs after that. Wanna stick with that? There are two other ways, but I don't wanna dump too much on you at once.

[heartismyown]

[He nods after a moment's thought.]

Yeah. Match as many cards has possible. Got it.

[by_heart]

[Lea claps his hands and sits back.]

Okay, next step. Once you get your cards and look at them, you decide what you're gonna do about it. If you have crappy cards, I think we're gonna say you can trade, uh, up to three cards. So you pick three and put them down and draw three more to replace them. I'm gonna do that, since I have a pair and nothing else good.

[He pulls out the cards he doesn't want and draws three more. They're also crap, so whatever.]

Your turn.

[heartismyown]

I don't have any that match so...

[He takes the queen, ten and four and offer them to Lea.]

Here then.

[by_heart]

[Lea deals him three more cards from the deck.]

So what do you have now?

[heartismyown]

A two, a jack and a six. Wait. I know this...

[Lea said it mattered what it was, right?]

A two of spades, a jack of clover thing and a six of hearts.

[by_heart]

So that gives us both a pair of twos. Since we have basically the same hand, we decide which one is better by who has the highest card. You have an ace, so that means you win this round. Got it?