(Beginning A/N)
This could probably use another proofread or two, but I'm tired and it's already a day behind my planned release.
Non-One Piecers: Marines are the military branch of the Government. And I'm pretty sure you could figure out on your own that Vonvarr's duty isn't canon.
Non-Overlorders: Though it would be totally awesome if Sanctuary could be expanded and used as an opponent-tosser, I don't think it's possible in-game.
Story + Readers = Good
Story + Readers + (Reader x Opinions) = Even Better, since I'd know what the readers think.
Story + Readers + (Reader x Opinions) + Cake = Same as Even Better; since the Cake is a lie, it counts as zero and does not change the equation.
(End beginning A/N)
"How do you want to go about this, sir?"
"Equip First Squad for Tactic FC, and leave Second Squad with command of the ship for ER."
"Yes sir, Captain Vonvarr, sir!" With a salute, the underling left with the orders. Looking over the weapons rack on his wall, the Marine Captain contemplated what he'd bring to fight a Ju-Ju user- over the years, many weapons were made useful, but almost all of them lacked field testing.
Eventually deciding on a combination, Vonvarr equipped himself for battle as the caravel sailed onward, staying true to the needle of the Eternal Pose in the hand of the man at the helm of the Bucket.
Unnoticed at he back of the group, a certain tall individual wearing bulky armor halted, and turned to face the distant horizon. The Detector of All Mannerisms of Magic and Interesting Things, reactivated during the stairway ascent, was giving off the faintest of indications that more magic was incoming.
Wishing he had a telescope, Steve squinted with eyes not yet fully recovered from the darkness. The only abnormal thing he could see was an oddly shaped rock on the very edge of the island, and that was as magical as most other rocks.
Shifting Robin more securely onto his pauldron, the Overlord ignored the miniscule pulse and continued after the rest of the group returning to the Sunny; since it only just appeared, it seemed safe to figure that the magic was headed for the island. It may not have been a pleasant thought, but Steve didn't have much choice.
Or... it may also be the bag interfering with the Detector... Stopping his pace, the Fattener of Slugs placed the bag on a nearby rock, followed by Robin. Moving a short distance away, he concentrated on the fainter readings from the DAMMIT.
The signal got stronger; it was definitely an incoming magic item. Still seeing nothing on the horizon, Steve tied the bag back onto its loop and re-hoisted Robin, continuing his trek towards the ship- but now, listening carefully for changes in the Detector's readings.
Confirming the status of the stew, a certain blond chef diligently prepared a dinner for his crew -though he only thought of two while he cooked- and the passenger; the entire group, except for Sanji, had been gone most of the day. Since their departure in late morning, many hours had passed and it would not be long until the sun sank from view.
While he was polishing two of the spoons laid out on the table, Sanji heard the footsteps of others boarding the ship. Jollified, he hurried out of the dining area, to see the two of the best things in his life...
... unconscious on the shoulders of others.
Utterly mortified, he completely failed to notice the other members of his crew who were also blacked out. His mortification did not slow him from leaping off the upper level and taking the navigator from his captain, though. If anything, it made him move faster.
"No! What has happened? Are they alright! Say something! NAMI~!"
While Sanji cradled the unconscious Nami, the rest of the the conscious individuals placed the unconscious individuals into their individual bunkings, except for the armored individual who had not quite reached the ship.
"Some sort of burst knocked them out, almost me with it." His headache aggravated by the cook's despair, Franky answered Sanji's question before heading inside for a nap (The swordsman beat him to it by falling asleep face-down on the grass-covered deck). The captain however, caught a delicious scent from the dining room door and drifted towards it.
It wasn't until he had boarded and put the archaeologist on her bed that something clicked within the mind of the Overlord. "Did... he say a 'burst' did it?"
"Wake, I beseech- yeah, I think he did." The reverberating voice of Steve was disruptive enough to distract Sanji from the woman in his arms, amazingly. "Come to think of it, I think I felt that burst a while ago. It kind of felt like-" This time, it was the mind of Sanji that had a realization.
Not noticing the stare of the chef, Steve untied the invisible bag from his waist and set it in a corner of the deck. No longer burdened, he walked back onto the rocky surface of the island.
Still thinking, Sanji carried the navigator to the women's quarters, setting her on her bed before returning to the main deck. With narrowed and suspicious eyes, he watched the armored man walk away.
Looking out to sea once more, the Overlord searched the ocean for what aggravated the DAMMIT. He stood upon the edge of the island that sat closest to the direction of the oncoming signal, which was detected as approaching closer and closer with each passing moment.
Seating himself upon a rock, the man-in-a-super-can tended to his blade to pass the time.
"Why are we not there yet?"
"Sir! The wind's slightly against us; we're making much poorer time than usual because of it, sir!"
Moving menacingly close to his lackey, Vonvarr did his utmost to be threatening. "I'm going to be very late to a very important meeting because of the JJD's reading. You had better make sure we at least get to the island in a timely fashion to check for the cause!"
His utmost was sufficient. "Y-yes sir! I-I'll try to acc-accelerate!"
After a quick glare at his wheelman, the captain trudged to the bow of the ship and pulled out his telescope. The destination was still a ways off but sure enough, the ship had begun to move with elevated alacrity.
More so than he had anticipated, even; as the dark blob expanded into rocky surface, Vonvarr considered giving his navigator a raise.
Though his mind was still a-flutter with suspicion, Sanji was still the only conscious member of the crew (he'd found Luffy engorged in the kitchen, snoring blissfully), and had taken it upon himself to tend to the two women who were in their quarters.
As he was about to check Nami's 'heartbeat', Sanji heard the archaeologist murmur something. Intrigued, he moved to the other bedside and leaned closer, listening to the words strewn between moments of silence.
"... ruin... Fortress..."
Arising from his rock, Steve placed his sword back on its loop as the ship slowed to a halt beside the island. Of its seemingly full crew, only a small portion disembarked; the rest steered the vessel back away from the island, where it stopped once more a short distance away.
At the front of the other group stood a fairly average-sized man, with what looked like a decorative full-length white coat over one shoulder. Other than the large bruise on one side of his face, there was nothing else terribly outstanding about the man.
The man in question, however, noticed a great many things about Steve. Firstly, the armor. Secondly, the slightly glowing sword. Thirdly, the slightly glowing man. Fourthly, the glowing eyes. Basically, Vonvarr noticed that the man glowed a lot.
"You there! Name and affiliation"
"Oh, me?"
"No, the rock you were sitting on!"
"Well, I named it 'Nht Vaery Khumphy', and it's from this island."
"Don't make me come over there."
"Who are you to ask my identity?"
The Marine really wasn't liking this guy. "I am Captain Vonvarr of the Marines, assigned to watch over this island. I received a signal indicating that something was amiss, so here I am. Now, who the bloody hell are you?"
"I've many titles. Would you like a basic one, all of them, my temporary name, or the official one?"
"Whatever, dammit!"
"I hail from a different reality. There I am known as the Overlord, who is the Leader of the Minion Army, among many other titles. Here, I am known as Steve. My official title," His eye twitched. "is 'Most Overconfident Master.'"
"I think I'll stick to 'Steve'. Did you say a different reality?"
"Correct. Gem of inter-reality transportation. Broke after first use."
"Leader of the Minion Army too, yes?"
"Indeed."
"Funny, because there's old documents that indicate an old foe was once called 'Leader of the Mins'; I can't help but notice a few similarities. That guy reportedly wore spiked armor and had a tendency to glow, not unlike you."
"Fancy that."
"Say, you wouldn't happen to know who I'm talking about, would you?"
"Oh, certainly. His corpse is nearby, in fact."
"You ...found it?"
"Well, yeah. It wasn't exactly hidden. Just out of curiosity, are the Marines a branch of the 'Government' that I've heard mentioned?"
"Yes, we are. What of it?"
"I've got a feeling," Steve released the Arcanium blade from its loop and held it loosely at his side. "you aren't going to let me just be on my way."
"Must we resort to violence? Though it's true I'm under standing orders to detain anybody displaying a potential use of JuJu, it doesn't say it must be through defeat in combat."
"Sorry. I haven't hit anything for several days, and my therapist says I must kill things quite often."Though Gnarl may not count as a therapist.
"Very well." The Marine made a quick hand signal to his ship, which unfurled its sails and began to move. Handing his coat to a lackey, Vonvarr took a long box from a different subordinate.
The armored man tensed as the box was revealed; Vonvarr smiled to himself, assured that 'Steve' was indeed connected to the ancient Leader. "You mind if I monologue?"
"Could you keep it short?"
"This item, in short, was taken from a ship belonging to the Min Leader. It's been given to each Captain assigned to oversee this island." Withdrawing the pulsating sword from the box, Vonvarr turned back to his opponent. "It's purpose since the Government obtained it has been to defeat JuJu-"
-WHRANK-
-KARUNCH-
Blinking a few times, Vonvarr stared at where Steve was, then turned to look at where the armored man had landed, before returning his gaze to the blond man who had sent several hundred pounds of flesh and armor flying with but a single kick.
"Gah! What the hell, Sanji!" Bruised and quite possibly broken in a few places, Steve pried himself out of the rock that he'd impacted very quickly. And painfully. He was developing a distaste for solid surfaces due to incidents involving craters.
"Finally... found... you... bastard..." Though gasping for air heavily, Sanji still managed to squeeze off a few words.
"Pardon me, but who are you?"
"Cook... of... Straw-... Hat... crew..."
"Oh, Straw-Hats? Shame. If I wasn't already after the armored man, I'd be going for you and your group. But," Vonvarr took a seat on a nearby stone. "I'm currently in no rush, so please- go ahead and beat on him a bit. Makes my job so much more relaxing."
"Dammit, there goes another rib-" This time seeing the attack, Steve managed to raise Sanctuary before more important skeletal parts were broken. "Stop! Why are you attacking me?"
"For- what- you- did- to- her!"
Keeping Sanctuary active against the flurry of ridiculously powerful kicks, the Impenetrable One tried to figure out what the man was talking about. "Who?"
"Robin- you- jackass!"
"Rob- wait, are you attacking me because I car-"
"Shaddap!"
With an impressed whistle, Vonvarr watched the blond man send Steve flying once more despite the protective bubble that had been erected.
-Several minutes before-
"... ruin... Fortress..."
Confused, Sanji continued to listen to the murmurs of the unconscious woman. Some of the mumbles ended short of completion, but were still mildly distinguishable:
"... Vanquisher... Records... items... Over... totem... Grinder... Mins... Goldo... doorway... foe... Leader... Ravager... Damsel..."
Since his fury grew bigger with each mumble, Sanji's mind ceased standard interpretation. Because of this, he heard the last two as 'Ravager of Damsels'. Given the state of the person saying such things, he put two and two together to produce five.
His anger directed towards one man in particular, the chef ran out of the women's quarters and jumped onto the island in search of the target of his wrath.
"For future -rgh- reference, this is self-defense." His patience exhausted, his questions unanswered and his mana levels rapidly falling, Steve expanded Sanctuary with enough force to send the berserk chef over the edge of the island. After a few seconds, there was a satisfying splash.
"Was that necessary? I had two hundred fifty on him winning."
"I couldn't really hit him given certain circumstances. May we continue?"
Pulling his own magic blade from its sheath, Marine Captain Vonvarr smiled and rose from his rock.
Aboard the Thousand Sunny, none were awake. Those who had been conscious earlier were now sleeping or swimming, and those who had been unconscious remained so. Uninterrupted by an alert crew, a Marine silently severed the anchoring lines and climbed back aboard the Marine caravel which slowly towed the much larger brig-sloop away from land.
At the helm of the caravel Bucket stands the Sergeant of Second Squad, who is pulling off one of the most flawless instances of Tactic ER- Eliminate Reinforcements.
Flawless, that is, except for the difference in ship size; a caravel wasn't exactly built to haul a ship several times its own bulk. The extremely slow speed at which they were pulling the pirate ship was much less than the generally accepted minimum for Tactic ER.
But since there were no angry crewmen to hinder their progress, Second Squad tugged on, cables spread from their stern to the Sunny's prow.
"Have you gotten more images from the Master's armor?"
Grinning, Giblet nodded. "Yes! Yes! Many more images than last time! Time until next chat with Master not affected, because of mana burst!"
"Splendid! Don't dawdle, start the show!"
As Giblet tinkered, images captured from the alternate dimension slid into view onto the puddle. First, one of the locals holding up three fingers (1 of 5 on the Eviluative Glare scale).
"What in the blazes? Last time, there was chaos! Rocks flying about! Now we have some local holding up fingers? Bah, go to the next!"
The second image wasn't any more promising; it was just more darkness, though slightly illuminated by something out of view. Even so, it was just a mess of pillars with crude carvings that might have been scratched in by a complete ret-
Hang on a second... Squinting at one set of markings, Gnarl tried to remember where he'd seen that symbol before. It's... almost Minion, yet...
Giblet tried to help, with the comment: "That pillar look old..."
Old... Ancient... Ancient Minion? "Can you make that carving there bigger?" The image blurred slightly, and the carvings were enlarged slightly. That's... 'Leader'! Over there, that is... no way...
'Black Fortress'
"Next image! Now!"
The picture changed, to more darkness- but none of the pillars were clear enough, or were too worn to read. Barking commands, Gnarl flipped through several images- only one or two images after the first, and it got too dark to read the carvings. Obedient to the frustrated orders, Giblet continued through the selection until Gnarl called a stop.
"A wall... let's see here: 'Channeling... juju... into a sheep'? No, no, that can't be right. Ah, that makes more sense! 'Juju... throughout... thy... unicorn'? No, 'core'. Next image!"
Next was a torch-lit room; a dilapidated bed frame off to one side, and a large stone container at the other, but nothing else of interest.
"Next!"
This image was that of a plaque; "'Here lies... Leader'... this couldn't be... 'born', 'died', 'yoolahjee', yada yada... the heck is that symbol with a circle around it...? Next!"
His jaw fell wide when Gnarl beheld the next image: a suit of old armor, battered beyond use but still imposing, and a pile of items glowing with magical energy... "N-next image!"
Excitement dimmed as he saw the next image: a book. The pages were being flipped through, so he couldn't see enough of a single page to read it. "Next!" This time he could read some of it, it said something about fish and gigantic sharks. "Next!"
The book was now gone, replaced with the image of the entire room; as though the Master had backed to a far corner. To Gnarl, this did not mean much in particular, though he did notice that one of the women from the crew was crumpled in a far corner (Potential 3.5 of 5 Evility).
"Keep going, Giblet," Shimmering yet again, the pool changed back to the large dark room that was filled with pillars; though because of said dark, Gnarl couldn't see if there even were any carvings along the supports. Yet again, the elderly Minion had to watch as several images of blackness flowed across the water, until light finally returned.
"That there, in the corner- Giblet, does that look like a woman's rear to you?"
"Giblet think... it could be?"
"I like where this could be headed, then! Next image!"
Much to Gnarl's disappointment, the next image was of another man- though he couldn't see much more than that, because it was a close-up of his eyes, with bands of shadow above and below. Behind the face, though, Gnarl could see a round weed captured in mid-roll.
"Eh, did you put in the strips of darkness?"
"Giblet not Shop images. These all raw."
"'Shop'? Never mind, next!"
"This next is last of current set,"
The final image displayed across the water made Gnarl slightly happier- the eyes from before now had a body, and it looked like one of Good; the suit he wore just oozed 'Arrogant Good Guy'. But what particularly caught the elderly Minion's eye was what the man held- a sword, glowing with an aura only present on the absolute strongest magic items ever crafted.
For Gnarl, this meant that the Master would either die a painful death or return to the Dark Tower with a legendary haul in tow.
For Giblet, this meant "Sword sparkly..."
(Begin end A/N)
Because of the impending ending, I've been considering various scenarios to finish this story with. I haven't really decided on one, so it'd be nice to know what the readers think of the story as I update it.
I don't mean to suggest endings, but it helps if the readers do reviews; if I know what the readers' opinions are of the story, I may be able to adjust the ending to be more favorable to the tastes of those who read it. No guarantees, though; I don't think my current 'Most Likely Scenario' ending will go over too well, but it's still the... well, 'Most Likely Scenario'.
As a conclusion to this Author's Note: I have the irking feeling that Sanji going berserk might be out of character.
(End end A/N)
