Starbord Crusaders

*Starbord Crusaders* is a story arc featured in *Fandom Wars 9,* starring Zachary and his two friends Olivia and Kherrack in a globe-spanning adventure to save Zach's mother from an incurable disease and ultimately stop Salvation One.

## Starbord Crusaders

### Performers

Zachary HigginsOlivia

Kherrack Kro'gonan

Josuke Higashikata

Gilpetperdon/The Runner

Salvation One

Yoshikage Kira

Hol Horse

Rubber Soul

Vanilla Ice

Emperor Han

### Location

Venice, ItalyShanghai, China

Great Wall of China

Tokyo, Japan

## Characters

### Protagonists

Zachary Higgins - Main protagonist

Olivia - Deuteragonist

Kherrack Kro'gonan - Tritagonist

Josuke Higashikata - Secondary protagonist

Gilpetperdon - Secondary protagonist

### Antagonists

Salvation One - Main antagonist

Yoshikage Kira - Secondary antagonist

Vanilla Ice - Tertiary antagonist

Hol Horse - Tertiary antagonist

Rubber Soul - Tertiary antagonist

Han - Secondary antagonist

Unnamed Mandalorian - Tertiary antagonist

## Plot

The arc begins with Zachary arriving home, only to find his mother having fallen ill with a mysterious ailment: thorns with a metallic texture and yellow sores growing all over them digging into and sprouting from her back simultaneously. Kherrack recognizes this as being a disease known as the Suhtakka's Kiss of Death, whereas any attempt to cure or treat it only worsens the disease. He then points out that the only way to catch the Suhtakka's Kiss of Death is if somebody targets the victim's soul, at the cost of their own soul being bound to them. The team of three then set off in their ship, the STARBORD.

As they travel across the exosphere of the planet of Earth, their ship comes into contact with Gilpetperdon the Runner, who crashes into the vessel, severly damaging it. Before they can be sent plummeting down to Earth in a great ball of fire, the Runner rescues them and brings them down to Venice.

Once arrived to Venice, they are attacked by the first of the assassins sent by Salvation One, an unnamed Mandalorian bounty hunter sent to kill Zach for the promise of ludicrous amounts of money. He is dispatched with after a short skirmish, the bounty hunter loses. He tells Zach about the person who hired him living in Japan, but before he can finish, he spontaneously explodes. Zach is able to catch a glimpse of the culprit for this explosion, but only for a split second: he is able to see Killer Queen, Kira's Stand.

With the STARBORD out of commission for the time being, the STARBORD Crusaders are forced to take an air shuttle to Japan, the same flight to Japan that Yoshikage Kira had followed them onto. He took little time in attacking the group with Killer Queen and Sheer Heart Attack. By sheer luck another Stand User had boarded the plane at that time: Josuke Higashikata, thanks to Soft and Wet, was able to fend off Kira and his Stand, but not before Kira can manage to blow up the ship in its entirety, killing everybody inside. Zach and company are able to escape, and fall to the ground safely thanks to Soft and Wet stealing the gravity from a wayward piece of shrapnel.

After landing in Shanghai, the team soon got embroiled in a conflict between The Fellowship and The Dominion. The STARBORD Crusaders were able to do some sort of significant damage to the Dominion's forces while protecting the citizens, and thanks to their success found themselves roped into a race to prevent a powerful army known as the Terracotta Army from falling into the hands of the evil warmongering Chinese Emperor Han, by travelling to the alternate dimension of Shangri-la and making their way through an ancient ruin to find the resin that controls the army, only to be too late, and to watch Han drink the resin right before their eyes, gaining control of the world's most powerful army.

This all came to a head in the Battle of the Great Wall of China, where The Fellowship and the STARBORD Crusaders team up to stop the Terracotta Army and take down Han, resulting in an epic final battle between Kherrack and Han, now in his true draconic form.

With Han dispatched, the STARBORD Crusaders escaped from China using an airplane, still under the control of the Dominion despite the recent attacks.

Arriving in Japan, they were soon attacked by two other of Salvation One's assassins named Hol Horse and Rubber Soul, who had also teamed up with a little girl named Anne. After defeating them, Zach learned from Anne the true identity of his mysterious assailant, concerning him greatly.

They were attacked once again in the Shibuya Tobu Hotel by a vampire named Vanilla Ice, another assassin with the Stand Cream, a Stand with the destructive power of a black hole. By imitating his former master and subsequently pouring a highly corrosive acid on him to counteract his regenerative power, the STARBORD Crusaders were able to defeat him. Before he died, he was able to tell the group where Salvation One was hiding, and that night they set off.

Finally meeting up with Salvation One, the robot revealed to them the Time Stone in her possession, absorbing its power and becoming Salvation Two, a being with the capability to control time completely. She wreaked havoc over the rooftops of Tokyo, almost completely beating the entire team of STARBORD Crusaders, had it not been for Zach developing a Stand and being able to counteract the violations of proper time flow that Salvation Two was committing, using that power to defeat her once and for all, saving his mother.

After the defeat of Salvation Two, the team said their sorrowful goodbyes: Josuke departed to pursue the mysteries of his past, and the Runner departed into space to continue his run. The three children returned home with the mangled robotic corpse of their enemy in tow.