The din of the jeering crowd rang as the huge marine vessel came docking on the harbor. A huge plank was let down, as ten men on each side of the ship came up and fired into the air and stood stone still. Spinning their rifles and clicking their leather boot heels.
"Attention!" Screamed the last and first soldiers on either side; the crowd screamed louder waving their hands and throwing their handkerchiefs. Today was a day of deliverance, today was a day of salvation. The freedom from fear was on the threshold.
The afternoon sun reflected the new hope, as the sea contributed by its ever calming sound. Even the seagulls seemed happy as they flew around in flocks above the crowded cobblestone plaza.
"Is it really gonna happen mommy?" Asked a little boy anxiously to his mother.
"Yes honey, that devils finally going to be gone, " the woman wiped a tear from her face, "your father's death will finally be avenged.
Among the frantic throng, little kids were running and squeezing themselves through to get a glimpse of the action, to get a glimpse of the glory, to get a glimpse of him.
"I hear they're gonna shoot him to death!" Screamed one boy.
"Nah they're just gonna hang him! Shooting him would probably be too messy!"
"Yeah plus you don't want this plaza to be cursed right? Can you imagine if his blood got on it! They'd have to disinfect like this whole area!" Said another little girl, as she wobbled her way through the towering legs.
"I don't know guys, my parents said he was very dangerous and strong! That's why I snuck out to see this! I'll eventually do stupid things anyway and get beatings, but this-this kinda stuff happens only once!"
Slowly the marine soldiers climbed up to the edge of the ship. In their custody was a tall man. His messy black hair glossed in the sunlight as it covered his eyes. His long curvy mustache extended like a grin on both sides. The man was in cuffs and wore a long British red coat with gold shoulder pads. He had a white cravat about his neck and long leather boots. His beige pants were soggy as if they just saved him from drowning, but the most peculiar of all was his constant eerie smile. A fierce grin he almost always wore, and his intense eyes. He also had thick black hair and a short thick neck. Beneath his coat, he wore a blue shirt and had a green sash around his waist.
He lifted his head up and smiled to the crowd as they booed him, piercing them with his wide eyes and tiny pupils.
"Die you devil!"
"Off with his head!"
"Make sure he suffers!" Cried the people.
Two soldiers that were waiting for his arrival at the dock took the responsibility of bringing him up to the scaffold. Other soldiers were also positioned as guards around the vicinity and in buildings to fend off any possible attackers or snipers.
"This is what you deserve!"
"Hey buddy! When they kill you make sure you scream so you can let us know how much it hurts!"
One person managed to throw a banana peel at the smiling prisoner, he was quickly subdued by a nearby soldier.
The tall man could see the hatred in their faces, the anger in their eyes. The tears of joy on mothers and the prancing of happy little children. 'So this is death,' he thought, ' My death, if it makes everyone really happy and brings joy to the world even if it's just for this moment, then I like it!'
The crowd was hard to get through as the soldiers tried to make their way through the excited throng.
"Hey mister!" Screamed a child behind the prisoner.
The man turned around behind him to see a small child staring back at him angrily, "I hate you, and I'm glad that you're finally gonna die!" With that the child spat at the man's shoes.
"Come on!" said the soldiers as they tugged the prisoner along.
The soldiers marched and marched amidst the screams, confetti and waving flags. It was as if a nation had finally obtained its long awaited independence or won a terrible war. Then after what seemed forever, they finally reached the scaffold as they tugged the prisoner up the tall wooden stairs. His boots and his ankle chains can be heard clanking together as he walked up to his doom. Two more soldiers were waiting at the scaffold with lances in their hands.
"Make sure he suffers!" Scream the ongoing crowd.
The soldiers with the lances took the man by the hands and set him on his knees. With that they attached his ankle chains onto another lock on the scaffold. They then slowly approached and lifted up their lances and positioned it on his neck.
"Hear ye! Hear ye!" Screamed one of the executioners, "This here is the execution of the Pirate King Gol D. Roger!"
"Gol D. Roger!" Yelled the other soldier," you've been condemned to die by a jury...sentence imposed by a judge in good standing in this government. Anything to say before your sentence is carried out?"
The pirate smiled as the gleaming blades shined upon his face. 'Let's see, people are only good as they present themselves to be,' he thought, '…with a couple of sentences I can haunt this world forever and shake its very foundations forever, and then we shall see who really here is living in integrity!'
The wind blew as his wild black hair flapped around his grinning face. The air carried his scent that smelled of the ocean and the skies, the smell of freedom.
From afar on an adjacent building a cloaked figure was standing beside a small boy. The boy too wore a similar gray cloak. "Watch now," said the older gentleman, "watch now as our captain is going to turn this era upside down."
"B-but how isn't he going to die? " Cried the child.
"It will be like he has never left, do not underestimate the captain Shanks, you out of everyone besides me should know that." The older man placed his head on the boy's head. "Watch, watch as his own will will break free!"
The little boy wiped his tears from his eyes, "I'll never forget you captain… Long live the King." The child then grabbed on tight to his straw hat.
The Pirate King slowly lifted his head up and opened his mouth, "Hear me you simpletons!" The noise of the crowd immediately quieted down. The suspense laid there thick in the air as the people awaited for the secret they all wanted, the thought that was on everyone's mind.
"I Gold Roger the King of the Pirates am going to die today," the crowd burst in a sudden uproar.
"QUIIIIEEEET!" Screamed Roger, his voice carried out for miles and shivered down the spine of even the executioners and nearby soldiers. Wealth, fame, power, the man who had acquired everything in this world, the Pirate King, Gold Roger. Roger was also donned the "Pirate King" because his own fighting power was nearly unstoppable. There were only two people that have ever matched Roger in battle.
"As you know I have conquered all and have seen everything that is to be seen!" The atmosphere became really quiet, an eerie silence, "therefore there is nothing left for me to explore or discover! So I ask the question..."
Snipers on the roof cocked their rifles and aimed it at the Pirate King. Anything that was not suppose to be said would be quickly silenced by the government.
"Do you want my ultimate treasures? Hmm?" The Pirate King gazed intently at everyone, his piercing eyes somehow connected with everyone else, not one person on that plaza felt as if he was not personally talking to them, he then broke the silence with an astonishing revelation, almost unforeseen," Well then…It is possibllllle!" Screamed the Pirate King, The crowd started to murmur among themselves, quiet whispers could be heard sprouting among the throng. "I will give them to those who can find them. I have gathered everything in this world and already hidden them in "that" place!"
"RAAAAAAA!" The crowd went wild as the lances came upon the Pirate King's neck ending his glorious reign forever.
"Hey, I'm gonna find all that treasure!" Exclaimed the child that was egging on the death of the pirate king earlier.
"Cool, then I'll join ya." Said his friend.
"Guys!" Screamed the girl that was with them, "but then you'd be pirates too!"
"So what who said pirates were bad, we just didn't like Roger!" Smiled the boy.
A couple feet away conversations could be heard from among the crowd, talks of joining the ranks of piracy in order to obtain the ultimate prize.
"I guess being a pirate isn't such a bad idea after all, especially if it's gonna pay well!" Snickered a man.
"Hey guys, how bout it!" Screamed another man to his comrades.
"Girls, remember when we talked about adventure?" Asked a well groomed lady to her girlfriends, she was dressed as an aristocrat and was fanning herself while her friends were holding flower patterned umbrellas, twirling them in their soft supple hands, "well there has never been a calling greater than this!" She smiled.
"Rufus! Get back on that fishing boat! Roger is no more! But that thing it's still there, just as we thought!" The large man with a pipe hopped in the small boat as his friend ran wildly with oars in hand. "Coming Sir!"
"Hahaha! This is it! Rackalaeus where's the sail?" Asked a small man with a top hat and black long overcoat. He had grey striped trousers with black stripes. He lifted his golden tipped cane by his hand dressed in a velvet white glove.
"Over here Monsieur Zima." Replied a tall skinny man. He wore the same exact thing as the shorter man and had a left eyeglass piece with a silver tipped cane.
"Rackalaeus, if there were ever an hour of vengeance," cackled the stubby man," then we must not squander not even a second of its minute!"
"What say you monsieur? Shall we?" Asked Rackaleaeus as he extended his cane across the crazed crowd.
"Shall we not!" Screamed the short man Zima.
"Would it be inappropriate to ask you if your goatee is tingling to this revelation monsieur?"
"Oh yeah Rackalaeus, oh yes it is!" Replied Zima as he stroked his chin.
Elsewhere among the mad crowd was a rounder boy who wore a tank top too small for him. He had round frameless sunglasses and a scruffy blue trouser. He wore a pair of dark brown sea boots and had a short dirty blonde hair that complimented his greased stained face.
"Hehe, this is it, the end of an era boys and the beginning of a new one!"
"Yeah, just look at the madness, it's like someone released a cannon fire here." Said the boy next to him.
"It's his vengeance, "smiled the rounder boy, "it's touching everyone like a disease…it's his mark that is scarring even the strongest of wills…it has transcended the walls of the grave and has come to haunt us all. Even at his death he possesses all of us still…all hail the King."
Another child stood atop of a balcony surveying the lunacy below. He casually leaned on the stone railing and pushed back his long jet black hair. He smiled as some of the crowd was pushed into his tiny street. The scene looked like that of a bull that was released and on a bloody rampage.
"One, two, three, four, five…" counted the kid as more and more people were pushed into the small alleyway. "Hey you two!" Screamed the child,"you might as well not even try and get it! It's useless, your disposition will not allow you to survive out there."
"Hey you talking to us!" Screamed the two men among the crowd.
"No, I'm talking to the wall." Replied the boy sarcastically.
"Why you—" before they could finish their taunts the boy leaped down from the balcony and hopped off the wall and a crate to lighten the fall.
The boy stood ahead of them as the crowd continued to push more and more into the corridor, "I was talking to the two of you!" Screamed the kid, as his veins started to come up on his neck. He tightly clenched his white knuckled fist.
The small crowd that were being pushed into the corridor turned around to look at him. "It's about time I've got your attention." Said the boy.
"Who do you think you're screaming at?" "Yeah, who you yelling at!" Yelled the two men as they squeezed through the crowd, eagerly trying to get their hands on him.
"The two of you! The WEAK WILLED AND THE TOUGH GUYS YOU WILL NOT GET THE ONE PIECE!"
Everyone near the corridor came to a silence. They all stared at the boy as if he had some sort of an answer.
"Two kinds of guys will not make it through this, the weak and the tough guys." The little boy stared at the frozen crowd, "THE TOUGH THINK THEY CAN HANDLE THIS ON THEIR OWN AND THE WEAK ARE JUST THOSE WHO ARE SOLELY LOOKING TO IMPROVE THEIR LOT IN LIFE!" His voice echoed through the stone walls of the corridor.
"And I've counted eighty three of you, who fit into the two." He extended his hand as he put out his two fingers, as if a schoolteacher teaching kids how to count.
"Wise guy eh?"
"Aaarrgh!" The fifty from the crowd charged in towards the boy. The kid just sat down and tied his hair into a ponytail. He laid his arms over his knees as he sat, and slowly looked up as they came closer.
The crowd moved with anticipation and excitement, the intense wave of greed could be felt through the air as soldiers tried to calm the civilians down and establish order. "To the ships! Hahah!"
"We're gonna fight for it men and change history!"
Masses were pouring out to sea as the marines tried to regain control, and so the people headed towards the famed treasure, the One Piece. The treasure that is suppose to bestow upon the fortunate individual wealth, power, fame and true knowledge. Yes, the one who obtains will be the next Pirate King!
"You see Shanks, just I've said…the flame never gets put out, the will never dies. Along with Roger, the Will of D still burns." Smiled the older man as he put his arms around the little boy with the straw hat.
"Yes, I understand Rayleigh," sobbed the little redhead, "as long as I'm alive… I will make sure that the Will of D will always burn."
"Atta boy." The old man Rayleigh gripped the boy's shoulder and smiled through his round glasses.
"Well boy better late than never!" Rayleigh lifted the boy up off the roof.
"W-w-ait Rayleigh! What are you doing? Master Rayleigh please!"
The old man chucked the boy downwards towards the mass and laughed, "Start it boy! Make a ruckus and overturn the world! Because no time is better than now, the Golden Age of Piracy! You'll thank me later!"
"Raayyleeighhh!" Screamed Shanks as he plunged into the ensuing crowd.
"Listen to this world…THE WILL OF D IS STILL ALIVE! AHAHAHAHAHA!" Laughed the old man as he threw his hood back and let out a bellowing laughter, "according to plan Roger...according to plan."