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Dear Guys-
This is the scene where Karnage and LaRoca meet. In actuality, I wrote this a LONG TIME AGO - somewhere in the middle of TFS. Originally it was part of TFS, but then I took it out to save for another fanfic. But it’s still pretty good. Personally, I think my writing has improved a lot since this, but that’s just me, and I can be a picky one.....
Njoy-
Karmacat

Their paths had crossed three years earlier when both their pirate bands just happened to descend upon the same plane. By then, LaRoca’s band only had three members to it’s name, but the planes! They were truly beautiful machines, and LaRoca’s made his plane look like a half-dead seagull. She had constructed it herself.
It had a shimmering obsidian fuselage with wings like rectangular arms, a singular turquoise line streaking down to the tail, which was decorated with a skull and crossbones. All he could see were dark pilot’s glasses and long black hair flying out behind like a flag as they raced toward the cargo ship that day so long ago.
He had picked up his radio. “Who in the fuming pile of heck are you?”
The leader didn’t answer him, but instead made a gesture to the two other pilots. They flew into an attack formation and gathered speed upon the cargo ship, and if Karnage wasn’t even there.
He radioed again. “Hello there? Do you know who you are not talking to? The infamous pirate Don Karnage? If you do not answer me, my bloodthirsty horde and I will have to fire!” He gave the order in a singsong voice.
He narrowed his eyes at the plane that appeared to be the leader. He didn’t know whether the pilot with a long black hair was a man or a woman, but whoever it was was raising their arm out of the cockpit....and giving him the finger.
Fury erupted in his stomach. “Oh, you are going to die like the farm-pig under the butcher knife man!” And he yelled to his pirates, “Attack!”
The leader’s ship fired upon the cargo plane while the other two turned back to keep Karnage’s pilot’s out of the way. The leader fired upon the cargo ship’s engines. The propeller’s sputtered and gave out, and down the ship went, the black plane following it. Somehow he managed to make his way through the crossfire and fast on the leader’s tail.
He radioed again, saying, “You are going down for this, my friend!”
The cargo plane managed to land in the water on its great red pontoons and the leader’s ship landed next to it, almost crashing into it. Karnage landed as well, so close that the tip of the wing of his plane screeched over the black plane’s wing.  He jumped out of his plane and ran over the wings to meet this trespasser face-to-face.
The pilot got out and threw off her goggles, staring him down, her sword drawn. He nearly fell off the wing and into the water. He had not expected this person to be a woman. And such a beautiful woman at that. The planes fired their machine guns far above their heads.
She sized him up without a trace of fear. Despite her beauty, she looked like she had been through hell. Her eyes were cold and hungry and wild, and he could tell just by looking at her that she was to be taken seriously. He had seen that burning look in starving animals. Her dark green tunic was ripped in places and her jet black hair was blown every which way from the wind. But that look on her face, that angry, starved look...she looked strikingly familiar, but he just couldn’t place her.
He later learned that she and the two others she flew with had been part of a larger pirate band that had broken apart rather violently. There was a mutiny, and she was the second in command at the time, so the second person they would go after was her. But she was smart, she told him, she had seen it coming. So she escaped with the seven pirates that she felt would be of most use to her, but she was too late. In the fight that took place, she lost five of her pirates and she herself was badly injured. She and what was left of her band had been flying for almost three days straight because
they were being chased by the mutinous pirates. But as of now, they still stood studying each other on the wings of their respective planes. They breathed silently, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Her body was tense, as if she was trying to decide whether to pounce on him or run for it.
Their eyes raked over each other.
Something clicked in Karnage’s head. Like two lions spying each other through tall
grasses, he thought to himself.
“What do you think you were doing?’ he asked, trying to sound threatening.
The door of the cargo ship opened and the pilot peeked out. The female wolf glanced toward Karnage, smiled, and abruptly turned and rushed the door of the cargo ship. She forced it open and held the pilot at bay with her sword. The pilot was a coward. He crunched up into a ball and begged her not to kill him. Karnage rushed into the ship after her, which was a foolish move; he should have known it was a foolish move when he saw her perfect ears turn back to listen to his
footsteps. But he was thinking other thoughts. He grabbed her shoulder, which was the second stupid thing he had done that day.
Turning her partway, he tried to say something, but he felt, with some alarm, her leg sliding underneath his. Before he could move she smacked him in the face with her forearm, knocking him down to the floor. His sword skittered across the tin of the cargo bay.
She ran after him, slamming her sword down next to his head, close enough to make another rip in his ear. He tried to slide away from the slashes, instinctively, since none of them actually touched him. He finally managed to grab hold of her ankle and trip her as well. She hit the floor and he tried to pin her down, but she still had the only sword.
After a few moments struggle, wherein which Karnage got the first inkling of the incredible firmness and litheness of her body, she managed to pin him. In a flash she was crouched over his chest, her knees in in the crooks of his elbows. She quickly extended one incredibly long leg and dragged his sword towards her with her foot.
And in a burst of gleaming metal, she held both swords in a cross at his neck. She could have easily killed him. But instead, she leaned her face close to his, the blades pressing against his throat, her black hair hanging down like a velvet curtain around his face, and her eyes shining, and said, “Don’t mess with me, my friend, or I’ll kill you where you lie.”
Karnage’s mind reeled, partly because of the incredible skill of this woman, and partly because she had his accent. It had been so long since he had heard that accent coming from anyone else besides Vargas.
Behind them, the pilot was trying to make a run for it. Without even looking, she took his sword and threw it, pinning the pilot to the wall by the back of his shirt. “You’re not going anywhere,” she said, half to the pilot and half to Karnage. She studied his face as if she were looking at a painting that had fallen to the floor. He thought he saw her smile...but only briefly. Only a flicker.
He swallowed. “Let me up and we make a deal. No need for bloodshedding.”
She considered it for a moment, and Karnage realized with some relief that there was compassion in those hungry eyes. She didn’t really want to kill him. “You promise no to try funny stuff?”
“My honor,” he purred in a way that made it sound like a come-on. “Mmmm,” she replied, as if she had just tasted something wonderful. She cautiously removed one knee from his elbow but held him to the ground, her sword still at his throat.
“Let me up,” he demanded.
“I hear you are the tricky one, Karnage. I think we make deal like this.”
“Let me up or no go.”
“I have sword, I make rules. Or I slit your pretty red throat.”
He considered his options for a moment and then realized that his arm was free. He knocked the sword out of her hands and grabbed her shoulders, the blood returning to his forearms. He flipped her over and slammed her against the floor and held the sword at her throat, lying fully on her back to hold her down.
“I like it like this. Yes, this is much better.” She had a delicious scent. He slid his cheek next to hers so that he could whisper in her ear. She unconsciously pressed her face against his. “I will be, perhaps, content to share this plunder with you. Eh? How does that sound?”
“What do you want?” she growled.
He thought for a moment. “You are hungry, yes no? You have not eaten soon. I can see it in your eyes. And your band flies well. Very well.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“And you are good with the sword.”
“As are you.”
He thought for a minute and rolled off of her, removing his sword from her neck. She jumped up and flipped herself over to face him. Her eyes burned. “What are you doing, Karnage?”
“I give you choice,” he replied. “Yes no? What is your name?”
She kept her distance. “LaRoca, and what choice?”
LaRoca. A beautiful, smooth name. “I like the way you fight. And you are smart. Such hard-to-find qualities in pirates these days, yes? So I ask you this. I will leave you here with this cargo, all for yourself, but I will take your lovely planes. OR, you can choose the better option.”
“Which is what?”
“Join me.”
She blinked at him. “What?”
“Join my pirate band. We could use someone like you.”
She raised her eyebrow. “You are leader?”
“Yes.”
“Then you certainly could,” she snickered. “You do not make wise request, Karnage. You do not even know who I am.”
“You are LaRoca and you fight ME to a standstill. Is all I need to know.”
She looked him over again, raising a suspicious eyebrow. “You play trick on me. Or you are stupid like the dumb milk cow.”
He got to his feet, shrugging. “We have food and shelter. You have nothing.”
“We will find something. There is plenty to plunder.”
He whipped about to face her. “How long do you think you will survive against me? You may be talented,” he purred, pointing out to the three black ships floating in the water, “but you are outnumbered. And I would hate to kill you. Such a waste. What do you think would be best? The choice is yours.”
 
 

For the health of her band, she said, she made the right choice. But Karnage could tell it was something else as well, just in the way she looked at him. The only thing she requested was protection for her daughter.  “You have a daughter?”
“Yes. Her name is Cosette. She is six.” Her voice lowered and her eyes took on a ferocious gleam. “And I warn you, if any of your dirty bastard pirates lay a finger on her, if they touch a single hair on her head, I will kill each and every last one of them, starting with you. Is that clear?”
He held up his hands. “But of course.”
Cosette was in the plane with a rather fierce-looking bulldog. He growled at anyone who came near her, and Karnage’s pirates, having no orders to kill and out of common humane respect for the young girl, kept their distance. She was a wolf as well, her fur black as night. At first glance he had mistaken her to be a panther. Her face lit up and she ran over plane wings to her mother, and she had only a glimmer of LaRoca’s starved look. Karnage realized that she must have given Cosette whatever food they had.
The girl stopped and studied Karnage, and he studied the girl right back. There was innate intelligence in her face, and her paper-straight obsidian hair flapped in the wind. She tugged at her mother’s tunic and whispered, “Maman, who is that man?” But then she smiled at him.
“Cute kid,” he said.
“Just keep thinking that way and we will get along fine, Karnage,” LaRoca replied, stroking Cosette’s hair.
Because she was such an amazing fighter, the rest of the pirates had seemingly accepted LaRoca as a second-in-command after a time, seeing as they knew she could easily kill any of them if she so wished. But it wasn’t common practice for a pirate leader to kill his or her band. Her other two pirates were Senor, a rather hefty Spanish bulldog, and Arson. Arson was, well....she was Arson. She made Karnage nervous.
Her fuse was shorter than anything he had ever before seen in a person, she struck him as somewhat psychotic, and it had been no less than three days upon the Iron Vulture until the pirates knew to stay far out of her way. She carried about five hundred match books with her, which she lit one after another, and she also carried a machine gun and a bullwhip. She often sat alone in her quarters, smoking a fragrant herb and sharpening her knives. Despite this, the pirates seemed to have an appreciative eye for her body. But then again, so did all the pirates, seeing as they didn’t dare to go after LaRoca. They knew from the beginning that LaRoca was strictly off limits.
He loved the fact that she was from his island, it gave them something to talk about. And when they didn’t want anyone else to understand their conversation, they would speak in their native language. It showed the pirates who was boss.
It was indeterminate when he and LaRoca officially fell in love. But that didn’t matter so much. Within a month of her joining his band, she was already spending her nights in his quarters. But that didn’t make him think any less of her. Considering the thick-as-butter animal attraction between them, it was bound to happen. And Cosette was special as well. In the past three years he had become as good a father as any to her. She was now nine and a strikingly smart little girl, sly as, well, a fox. She could pickpocket someone who didn’t even have pockets. Cosette liked to
read. And since two thirds of the pirates didn’t even know how to, she would sometimes read her books aloud to them while they sat about and listened, half of them drunk, but enjoying themselves. Cosette was the pride of not just her mother and Karnage, but the entire band. They looked upon her as their last connection to whatever innocence they once possessed, though, given the environment in which she lived, Cosette’s innocence was running out.
But she was never hurt. Everyone aboard the Iron Vulture had made an unspoken pact to that. And so had Karnage, despite the fact that Cosette was not his daughter. But she did make him happy.

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