Bohemian Piracy: Chapter 1
If there was ever a man, who could rightly claim as being the unluckiest man in the world, it was Baldur Beo. The rounded gentleman sat on a chair, in the middle of an endless sea, that was only kept afloat by a few makeshift rotors, tied to each chair leg. He had only the clothes on his back and the suitcase that he kept with him at all times. Currently, it sat on his knees as the chair paddled aimlessly about in the water. It takes a lot for a man to get to this situation. But for Baldur, a lot had happened. He had left his previous destination with a fine, seaworthy ship, only to lose it in a storm. He had ended up at what seemed to be an abandoned town, where cannons were fired regularly, only for him to be jostled off by odd bod clown pirates. However, Baldur was never a man to give up and he stole a rowing boat before leaving and managed to make his way a restaurant ship. Only for said ship to be destroyed by more cursed, cockended pirates. He survived this ordeal by stealing a chair and, after the entire ship gave way, a few pieces of drift wood that, with a few small materials from his suitcase, fashioned the rotors that kept the chair afloat. This was a one, two, three punch of bad luck and most men would be discouraged, but Baldur was a Bohemian and that meant that he didn't stop for anything. Except for maybe food, Baldur thought, as his stomach started growling. He leaned back and breathed in deeply, before letting all of the air escape. Thankfully, in his hour of need, a large building loomed into being on the horizon. "I'm... saved." Baldur whispered. He leaned up, picked up his suitcase, and thrust his arms into the air. Belching out "I'm saved!" With a smile, he stared that building down until he could see the land around it. "Haha, let the world, and indeed, all of the four seas, know that I! Baldur Beo! Am the man who survive with the cursed fate of the unluckiest man in the world!" Baldur had called out victory to soon, however, as he suddenly noticed the black flag of pirates, sitting above large building. "Oh no!" Baldur cried out. "No, no, no! I am not doing this a fourth time!" In a mad panic, Baldur tried to turn the floating chair in another direction. But his blind desperation caused him to flip into the sea and be washed ashore.
Baldur awoke with a cough and was up within seconds. 'My hat! Where's my hat!" He thought to himself in a panic. Thankfully for Baldur, he was allowed some luck, as his black top hat washed up at his feet in mere seconds. Breathing a sigh of relief, Baldur put his top hat on and the water inside showered him. However, his suit couldn't get any wetter. So he shrugged off the minor hiccup. Patting himself down, he then sat and waited for the arrival of his suitcase and, after a few minutes, it joined him and Baldur felt ready to be on his way. Turning round, he saw the badly damaged village that the island belonged to. Pirates always left their mark and this case was no different. With a sigh, he breathed in his fat belly and made his way into the village.
Whoever the pirates were, they had torn up the village with reckless animosity. Buildings were caved in, wood groaned in pain and nothing seemed salvageable. "Hello!?" Baldur called out. "I believe that I may be able to provide assistance." There was no reply until the silence was broken by a clicking sound. Baldur turned around to see a scarred man, suited in a fine uniform, with a pinwheel atop of his hat. "You like to make a lot of noise." He said quietly.
"I just got here, is there anyway in which I can help?" The stranger thought about Baldur's question, then he said. "Keep quiet and follow me." Afterwards, he turned around, without waiting for Baldur to follow. But, without waiting, Baldur did chase after him.
The damaged buildings slowly phased out, as the two men headed further into the village, replaced with more colourful and better maintained buildings and houses. It was clear to Baldur that this was the small refuge away from whatever caused the wreckage he saw earlier. People soon appeared, but they kept their distance from Baldur and let the man with the pinwheel lead him through. Eventually, they stopped at a post and the pinwheel stranger sat down against it. "Now can you tell me what's going on here?" Baldur asked.
"Pirates." The man replied. "Fishmen pirates attacked and caused the damage you saw earlier. So, I suggest you take your suitcase and leave." Baldur understood the gravity of the situation, fishmen weren't to be trifled with and the name of a certain fishman pirate still caused fear to this very day. But, Baldur felt himself to honourable to back down now. "Be that as it may." He said. "I will not bow to pirates. They, regardless of strength, are all to be hanged and I will personally help you see to it."
The other man looked Baldur in the eye. "Look at yourself." He said, "you're unarmed and overweight. You go stirring up trouble and you'll put the rest of us in danger." Baldur straightened his suit jacket, he was getting nowhere with the man and this was beginning to seem like a lost cause, that he would have to fight alone. They couldn't stop him from doing that at least, so he tipped his top hat to the pinwheel stranger, who just stared at him silently, and made his way left; walking straight into a hulk of a blue-grey body. "That hurt." A voice growled out. Baldur looked up to see that he had walked straight into a monstrous merman in a yellow Hawaiian shirt, which looked down at him with a foul grin. "Might you be the pirates that attacked?" Baldur asked, not letting the size of the monster, or his freakish friends, scare him. But the merman dodged the question. "So what if I am, low-life humans like you should apologize to merman after such an incident." This angered Baldur, after all of his bad luck and now with this disgusting deviant pestering him, he was finally beginning to lose his temper. "If you are the pirates that have been harassing the people here, then I was you miscreants to leave at once!" He barked at them, giving them the chance of leaving quietly; which they didn't take up on. The fishmen howled with laughter. Baldur gripped tightly to his suitcase. The surrounding villagers retreated inside. With the strength of ten men, the leader of the fishmen picked Baldur up with one hand and held him in the air. Baldur reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a retractable metal cane that he used to hit the fishman in the solar plexus. Coughing and breathing heavily, the fishman dropped Baldur, who fell down and bounced back onto his feet. "I may be fat, but I'm still quite strong and agile. A lot of people have underestimated me and lost." Baldur said with a self-reassured smile. The other fishmen began to crowd round Baldur and he prepared himself for the fight of his life, possibly his last. He opened up his suitcase and dropped it on the floor. Inside were all sorts of contraptions that were hidden away from the pirates. Without warning, a red fishman charged at Baldur and he reacted by using his cane to strike the pirate in the middle of his forehead. Baldur reached into the suitcase with his cane and pulled out a piece of metal that had clung to his cane, he then swung the cane at the middle of three oncoming fishmen. The piece of metal split open and then clung to the head of the middle of the three. The other two, completely shocked, didn't even react to Baldur extending his cane even further and taking the three of them out in one fell swoop. He then retracted his cane and jumped backwards. A large fishman with a peculiar lip tried to grab Baldur from behind, but he pulled out a pair of handcuffs and ensnared the big-lipped pirate instead. Baldur turned to continue the fight, but the main, big fish picked him up with one hand and held Baldur high in the air.
"Enough with your trinkets!" He roared. The people inside the houses came out and huddled together in fear, behind the pinwheel man. "This is what happens to anyone, who rebels against the Arlong pirates!" The massive creature shook Baldur and tried to slam him against the ground. Yet, before this was achieved, a voice cried out and a huge explosion of dirt engulfed the monster, freeing Baldur from his grasp; as he bounced off of the ground and stumbled back onto his feet. All faces turned to see who the sniper was. "Someone's on the roof!" One of the pirates cried out. "Who the hell are you?" Cried another.
"I am the brave warrior of the sea. C-Captain Usopp!" The lanky sniper, with a visibly long nose, shook like a frightened animal. Whilst the sniper made a speech, Baldur picked up his suitcase, retrieved his lump of metal from the unconscious victim's face, and put everything back in, just like how it all was before. Before long, the head pirate, who seemed to react to cries of "Arlong!" wrenched the house that Usopp was standing on, right out of the ground, and threw it into another house. Baldur stood in awe at the monster's strength, amazed that he had fought such a creature and lived. Whoever the sniper was, he had amazing luck for being able to survive such a feat of destruction. In frenzied screams of panic, Usopp ran for his life. The majority of the smaller pirates followed, whilst the largest retreated. Baldur stood dumbfounded, despite having been the one to pick a fight, he had been completely forgotten. "Oh, come on! I'm the fat man with a top hat, I'm not exactly easy to forget!" Baldur yelled out in aversion. However, he was soon silenced by a bang over the head.