[FIN] Just keep swimming

[BlackFireKitsune]

The leader smirked when he saw his blow had landed perfectly, but when Zero latched onto his hand, he cursed loudly and his gun fell with a clatter to the ground. He started swinging his arm around wildly to try and get the Zorua off - more pointedly, he tried to swing and flail him in the vague direction of, 'over the railing and into the water with that one kid'. It was hard to stay balanced like that though, and he ended up staggering back several paces...

...and knocking over the second thug, who was half-standing after knocking Jerome over. He fell back down again, and before he could get up he found himself pinned by the ex-gangster. It would be difficult to fight in such an awkward position, but he tried to twist himself around to punch Jerome again.

-----

Inigo surfaced briefly with a few splashes, some coughing, sputtering, and gasping, before he disappeared under the waves again. The thugs had graciously tossed him as far away from any sort of object for him to hold onto as they possibly could. It would've been relatively easy for anyone who knew how to swim to just swim over to the support beam, but Inigo wasn't anyone, and Inigo couldn't swim.

The debilitating water phobia didn't really help much either.  

[Blood_Goddess]

Jerome was onto of the kid as quickly as he could, buckling as another hit pounded into his weakened body, The tattooed gangster hissed in pain, blood from his busted lip dripping down his chin, one arm wrapped around his chest to try and protect his ribs from anymore blows. his free hand however retaliated with a wild punch down at the man's face.
Slamming his knee onto one of the mans arms, and dropping all of his weight onto it, while the other stayed on the kid's torso.

Jerome raised his fist again, but it was here that he stopped.
How many times had he done this? He knew the drill, beat them until they're unconscious. Jerome, with the proper stamina could beat on this boy's face over and over and over until he was bloody and barely breathing.
But now the ex-gangster just hung there though his heaving breaths, hesitating.

Ink black eyes stared down at the boy thought the half head of draping dreadlocks, clenched fist still poised. He spoke fist.
"Last chance Y'little s**t. Y'get the ******** out a' here, don' let m'see yer mug again, or I paint th'wood with yer ugly a** face."

Jerome made a move as if to hit him again, but stopped "CLEAR ********!?"  

[Catzandbirdz]

The flailing didn't do much. If anything, the little Zorua just clenched his eyes shut tied and bit down harder. One final fling and Zero finally let go, hitting the ground with a yelp. He almost skidded over the edge into the water, but righted himself onto his belly at the last inch. Shaking his head, Zero smirked with a snicker at the leader toppling over.

Rouge's turn! If the leader thought he had recovered, Rouge was set to prove otherwise by tackling the man at the middle. Balance or no, you didn't need to be able to find your feet for long to go football tackle style into someone. Rouge would then kick up to lift the clown's body up and allow a pointy knee to scoot under and press against the top of the idiot's ribcage. If the move was successful, it would make breathing just that slightly more difficult for the man.

Zero grinned at his human's moves, even when disoriented. But then a splash from behind made his ears perk up. "Zor?" Oh, right! "Zor zor!" His little body wouldn't stand a chance at helping the flailing man below. Someone else needed to do it.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

The young man was effectively pinned, and he grunted and yelped in pain when Jerome struck him again. But then the gangster stopped, and the thug flung his free arm over his face to shield it - but he wasn't hit again, so he cautiously peered up at Jerome, but winced at his yell. "Crystal," he replied nervously. He looked scared - and he looked like he would more than likely bolt the instant Jerome let him up.

Rouge's tackle was successful, and the leader was definitely down, but not out quite yet. He rolled away from the knee and aimed a kick at it before he pushed himself up and looked ready for another round --

-- but his bro was pinned, and these two jokers were between him and his gun, so he pursed his lips and spat on the ground near Rouge. "You got lucky again, you crazy little s**t, but one of these days you won't have any friends to help you." That said, he turned and started running after the thug who'd run off a while ago.

That just left the one lone guy still pinned under Jerome. "H-hey!" He paled, realizing he'd been abandoned. "Hey!"

-----

The splashing and gasping had gradually slowed before it finally stopped - but this time it didn't start again.  

[Blood_Goddess]

When the kid backed down, Jerome unclenched his fist, reaching down to grab him by the collar. as the tattooed man stood, he dragged the kid to his feet, and shoved him forcefully in the direction his leader was fleeing as well. Looks like the stranger did a good job as well.

But, not once did the Rocket forget why they had gotten into the fight in the first place.
the moment the man was running in the oposite direction, Jerome was moving toward the railing, stopping next to Bro and looking down into the water. <******** finally got to reach down to his belt, pulling up a pokeball and tossing it down.
"Yo, girl, find the kid."

A roar bellowed up from the dark water, as an inky chitin covered beast was released into the water.
The Feraligatr let out a snort, gathering her bearings, and looking around with dark sunken eyes for the boy in question. dipping out of sight as she sank into the water.  

[Catzandbirdz]

Rouge started to raise a hand at the retreating leader, but then thought otherwise. The guy wasn't worth the effort of rude gestures. The fun part would come later when the real boss man found out what his latest recruits had been up to.

Getting up with only a slight wobble, Rouge walked over to stand next to Jerome. The clown pressed a hand to the side of its head with a short-lived grimace, before the expression settled to a fuming grimness. "Ya got this?" Rouge reeeeeeeaaaaaally wasn't wanting to take a dive into that murky darkness, but if the need called...  

[BlackFireKitsune]

When released, the man stumbled forward a few steps before he ran as fast as he could after the others.

-----

Luckily for Hirss, she wouldn't have too hard a time finding Inigo. He wasn't (completely) unconscious yet (just mostly), but the low temperature of the water had sapped his energy and numbed his limbs, making the effort of surfacing eventually too much for him. He couldn't hold his breath anymore and looked on the verge of passing out, although he was still making vague attempts to get to the surface - or what he thought was the surface, but the cold and the darkness all around him was disorienting.  

[Blood_Goddess]

When the jester like person spoke, Jerome glanced over them, blinking once before giving them a short nod.
"Owe ya a solid." He said,
Before looking back down into the water when he heard Hirss let out a low rumble from her throat.

She nudged the boy a couple of times with her long head, half scooping him up onto her head, before announcing to Jerome that she had him.
The massive water type flicked her tail, allowing her to scoot over to one of the poles, that she then began to climb. hoping the human could at least hold on a little while she made her way up.  

[Catzandbirdz]

Rouge didn't know what a "solid" was, nor did Rouge really care, so the clown just stayed silent instead.

As Hirss climbed up--just what was this guy FEEDING her?!--Rouge jogged over to stand at the top of the piling. "Oy! Spanish!" the jester called as it approached, looking for any chance to help get the guy up onto dry land. "Ain't I ever tell you the ocean is a bad place for a bath? Gonna smell all salty Krabby now!"  

[BlackFireKitsune]

As Hirss surfaced, Inigo started coughing and sputtering again as he gasped for air, although the sounds were much weaker than before. He somehow managed to cling to Hirss for dear life despite his numbed limbs and fingers, but he didn't respond to anything Rouge said. He could probably tell that someone was talking, but he was too cold and half-drowned for the words to register in his head as actual words. All he knew were two things - he was no longer dying alone in the water, and he was really, really tired. So tired, he was probably still on the verge of passing out.  

[Blood_Goddess]

A shrill shrike erupted from the water type as her hulking body was dragged up over the railing, causing the wood to creak ominously and splinter under her claws. The scream was followed with a heavy hissing noise as she dropped heavily onto the platform, dumping Inigo onto the ground between her claws.

Hirss' eyes were on the human that she did not know, and that certainly didn't look like any human she had seen before. her growl continued, lips pulling away from the gleaming fangs underneath.

"Yo yo yo, S'cool." Jerome stepped in quickly, waving his arms at the large pokemon to draw her attention away from Rouge "This one's cool,"
This seemed to calm the beast down, at least enough to make her stop hissing. She still watched the clown ******** kid." Jerome knelt down next to Inigo, glad to see he was still breathing.
"What beef did those punks have with Inigo?" Jerome asked, glancing over at Rouge as he keep off his jacket to put it on Inigo.  

[Catzandbirdz]

Rouge slowly backed off from the hissing, making no sudden movements that might come across as posing a threat. Spanish was due a good and proper glomp, but that'd have to wait for the moment.

Rouge frowned at the question. And why was Darkie guy able to get close to check on Rouge's Spanish first? It could almost be said that the clown pouted at that. "Eh... knee-go...?" The clown seemed to debate the word for a moment before shrugging with dismissal. "Prob'ly more me than Spanish." The clown crossed its arms, tone dropping dangerously. "They'll know better soon." Ohhhhh, would they know.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

When Inigo was dumped unceremoniously onto the pier, he groaned softly before he started coughing again, although not nearly as much as before. Mostly he just laid there with his eyes closed, focusing on how absolutely unquestionably amazing it was to be able to breathe again. If the water had been warmer and if he hadn't almost passed out, he would've immediately made a break for the end of the pier where it met the pavement so he wouldn't even be above the water, but as it was he was too weak to even think about that right now.

Voices were starting to make some semblance of sense, and when he did finally speak it sounded groggy, slightly slurred and lived up to the name Rouge had given to him - he started mumbling in Spanish as he reached a hand up to rub at his face. In all probability it was a semi-coherent string of curses, likely directed at the three punks who tossed him over, as well as their mothers and possibly dead ancestors. Or maybe not.

He slowly rolled over with a soft grunt and tried to push himself up, but only managed to push his upper body up enough to lean on his elbows, and he was still trembling from the effort. He was more aware now, if looking a bit the worse for wear and his lips looked a bit more purple than usual, and the first person he saw was the gangster, who he frowned at a bit, confused. "..Jerome?" When did he get here?  

[Blood_Goddess]

After putting the coat down over the boy, Jerome shifted his crouching stance, looking back over at the clown.
He stared at them for a couple of seconds, with a hard to read expression, but there was no question that he was studying the other person.

Either content with when he had concluded in his own thoughts, or letting the mystery remain, Jerome then reached his hand up with Hirss' pokeball, giving the monster an affectionate pat before returning her into her pokeball.

"Y'know m'boy here yeah?" he asked, reaching down to touch Inigo's shoulder, keeping the boy laying down as he started to seem to come too a little more.
"Hey, Y'alright?" The gangster asked,
He sure didn't look okay, he was in that cold water for way too long.  

[Catzandbirdz]

"Yeah, I know Spanish." The way Rouge said it basically equated to the answer of, "Duh." There was a short lived pause. "Soooooo..." The clown rocked on the heels of high boots, now switching to a nasally voice. "Krabby smell aside... He okay?" The speaking was a good sign, so at least there was that. But Rouge was far from counting as someone with medical knowledge when it came to dealing with other people.