And when he died, the world broke.
I laughed.
I am in the One Piece world.
I laughed until I felt tears stream down my face.
I am Buggy the Clown.
I laughed with abdominals clenching painfully as I gasped for breath.
It's all a fucking Joke.
In Loguetown, the day of Roger's execution, I laughed until the redheaded man knocked me out.
JOKING AROUND I
Once more, I came to my senses with a splitting headache, if possible, even a more painful one than the one of my nightmare.
I blinked a couple of times in order to clean out my eyes from the gunk, taking a hand over my head in order to shade myself from the sun, and froze.
I was on a sailboat.
More accurately, I was on a sailboat currently sailing.
My hand dropped from shielding me against the harsh glare of the sun and I unsteadily rose to my feet, while my body instinctively adjusted itself to the oscillation of the small deck.
Oh shit it was real. Was the main thought in my head as I stumbled in order to avoid the suddenly moving triangular sail. "Fucking Hell." I grumbled half-heartedly as I needed to take a full step back and sit basically balance myself on the bow of the small ship.
"Buggy! You're awake!" a cheerful voice made me look away from the menace that was the wood structure keeping the sail able to swing around in order to take advantage of the wind as much as possible.
My eyes landed on a man that could have been aged anywhere from 16 to 23, red hair, a straw hat, and an unusually attentive gaze. Shanks, one that in the manga rose to the very top without need for either a Devil Fruit or an arm.
"Are you ok?" he asked without waiting for an answer, "I had to knock you out since you were laughing like a loon and the marines were starting to take notice."
My second thought since I had awakened on the ship was: If I feign to be Buggy, Shanks will find out and gut me like a fish.
Really, how would you react if someone you're close to suddenly is someone else? Worse still, how would you react if said person tried to trick you in believing that he was still the same? In a normal world, that would mean shouts and insults, a punch or two at the worst. In the One Piece world... well, there were people who could cut open mountains.
Well, there won't be a better occasion for this. I thought: Eventually, I couldn't really pretend to be the one he shared years on the sea with. And in the manga, he asked Buggy to join him didn't he? The clown managed on his own, but he was someone who already sailed the Grand Line, and I really have no idea about what to do in order to survive around here.
"Who are you again?" I asked with a heavy frown, causing him to sputter indignantly.
"*Pff!*... C'mon Buggy, that's just rude! Ahahahah!"
My confused (or what I hoped was a confused) expression, coupled with the lack of laughter, eventually brought him back to a more or less serious attitude. "You mean... you really don't... how did..." he muttered mostly to himself.
"And who am I?" I brought my left hand up and touched the side of my head where I had been hurting in a particularly annoying way on the day before, and found two separate lumps, the second reminding me that Shanks had knocked me out.
The redhead gaped at me like a fish for a couple of seconds, giving me time to check whatever possessions I held. Besides the few knives that I had stashed on my body by means of more or less simple leather harnesses (two on my waist and another two on each leg), I found a bundle of bills in the dirty sash that I had on my waist, and another one in a bundle o cloth that I had in one pocket.
"You..." the voice of my companion stammered out, losing his usual cheer: "You're Buggy."
I blinked a couple of times, having very little need to feign confusion despite my having figured out what the situation was: "Yeah, I kind of figured it out with you calling me that." I rolled my eyes: "Who are you? And I mean... who am I?"
"I'm your friend! Name's Shanks! We've sailed together for years on the Captain's ship!" he was quick to recover, and happy to be able to build an answer that was somewhat satisfactory.
"Uh..." I crossed my arms over my chest, once more looking around: there was very little to distract myself with. The ship was eight meters long, if that, made of a dark wood that had seen better days, the sail was triangular and dirty with days and days of travel, while I could guess that the bundles and the barrels around the pole that acted as a mast were our food reserves.
"So... we're a kind of merchant?" I shot in the dark, causing the will-be emperor to pale in distress and splutter once more.
I suppressed a bubble of laughter, seriously, that gag was proving itself surprisingly funny, and waited for an answer.
From a question to a stammered answer, I managed to get Shanks to give me a rundown of the world we were in. Not that there were many doubts regarding my situations, but making sure couldn't hurt, and I managed to figure out that there weren't any outstanding differences between what I knew and what actually was real.
After a while, we arrived to the part regarding Devil Fruits: "So... I ate this Berry Fruit."
"The Bara Bara no Mi." Shanks corrected me with a sigh, obviously tired from my relentless questioning, by that point, I was pretty sure he was still answering only because he hoped something would trigger my 'memories', but there was no need form me to tell him that it wasn't going to happen anytime soon.
"And I can... split myself?" I continued ignoring his exasperation.
"We've gone over this already, Buggy." he pinched his nose with another sigh.
"And we're pirates in the same crew." I scratched my chin in what I hoped was a befuddled attitude.
Shanks stiffened a bit then, before he relaxed again against the bulwark, his hand never leaving the steer of the ship: "We were on the Oro Jackson together yes."
"The one with the captain executed the other day." I concluded, having the redhead nod tiredly, "Uh, ok... what now?"
Shanks scratched his jaw for a few seconds before answering, his eyes landing briefly on the empty flask that he started sipping hours before: "Now... I planned to ask you to join my crew, even if I didn't think you would have followed me, so... Would you?"
I blinked for a couple of seconds: "Would I... What, join you? Why do you want to be a pirate again?"
"To be free." he answered with a wide, open smile. And for a single instant, I could see how this could redhead with a straw hat could become as powerful as depicted in the manga, for an instant there was some kind of... honesty, some kind of integrity. A strength and a reassurance that I wasn't easy to find in the world I came from.
Do I even want to be a pirate? Sure, I'm in the body of one but... I frowned, remembering that Marines actively enabled slavery on the orders of the World Government (Shanks had not shied away from exposing the many reasons why there was no point in following the law), and I didn't actually know if the Revolutionaries were already running around. Besides, there is still the big ass problem relative to remaining alive.
I guess I could hide... But again, it would be some time before I managed to figure out all the kinks of living off the islands i met and what I managed to fight out of the sea. Oh yeah, if I fall in the water, I drown.
I had no idea regarding the geography, regarding how to skin and cook a fish, or even how much stuff tended to cost.
If I hadn't exhausted my capability for historical laughter back at the execution, I would have probably laughed my ass off by then.
"Yeah, why not." I shrugged and scratched my red, round and impossible nose.
He threw at me his empty flask, which I watched and tossed in the middle of the boat, out of his reach. "Show some enthusiasm!" he hollered at me.
"Hey! You hit me on the head and made me lose my memories! So you're better be the one grateful!"
That started a series of verbal barbs that eventually evolved in an actual brawl. I was more than happy to simply poke him with my wit, so I was pretty surprised when he rose from his seated position and punched me on the jaw.
As your average Joe with a regular job that very much never included fighting, I reacted far too late. His knuckles buried themselves in my jaw and I felt the impact ringing in my ears.
Fucking hell! I fell on the deck like a sack of potatoes, my hand clutching my quickly bruising jaw. Even if the pain was thudding and very much present in my mind, I knew that it had been a strong punch. One that had behind it all of Shank's weight, and yet... I blinked, quickly rising to my feet. I have the absurd durability of Buggy's body.
With narrowed eyes, I swung wildly with my left, spotting a grin on Shank's face as he batted away my attempt at retaliation and decked me again in the same point, following quickly with another punch on the side of my head. With a pained grunt, I kneed my opponent in the stomach, even if I dropped following the impact of his knuckles on my head. Again.
My breath started getting louder, and I felt my own face stretch in a smile that copied the one of the redhead: "I changed my mind! I'll let you join my crew instead!" I taunted him.
"What..?" My second punch caught him unaware, striking him cleanly on the chin, even if he took a step back in order to avoid it.
We both stopped: "Aaaaaargh!" I screamed bloody murder. My fucking hand was floating, closed in a fist, on Shank's chin: "I've lost my hand!"
"It's your devil fruit, you idiot!"
"Who are you calling idiot, asshole?!" I thundered back, one thing was knowing intellectually that you could fall literally apart, another was to actually witness it: "How the hell does this make any sense?"
Shanks sighed and rubbed his chin: "Something tells me this will be a longer trip than I imagined."
The following day, after a late-night spent basically finishing whatever reserves of food and ale we had no small ship, found me seated at the bow, alternatively looking around for something interesting to do and experimenting with my 'powers'.
"Barabara" a Japanese onomatopoeia meaning disconnected/disperse/in pieces/asunder. I couldn't help but think that Buggy had been an idiot of the worst kind. He basically was naturally immune to being chopped off. Ok, that was useful, no doubt.
Lulled by the calm waves broken by the ship, I had a knife in one hand and I was busy using it to cut off the fingers of my off-hand. *Chop* *Chop* *Chop*
It was a... honestly I didn't feel a thing. My fingers were simply there, separated from the rest of my hand by a small width of steel. I curled them up without issues, and pointing them in a direction, I found that they tended to go there, slowly and clumsily, but ...
"Hey Shanks! Look at what I can do!" I turned to show off my frankly batshit crazy power, my fingers wiggling a few inches over the blade.
The man laughed: "That's nothing Buggy! You should see what you could do a week ago!"
"Hey! it's your fault if I don't remember how to do it!" I retorted, turning sharply towards the sea. Jealous asshole.
"It's not!" He screamed back as I returned to chop my fingers, this time along their length, feeling no difference whatsoever in how they responded to my will.
"Is too!" I repeated distractedly, the slices of my fingers knotting together, slowly but surely, before I undid the knot. It appeared that as long as I could envision the movement, whatever I chopped off would remain so.
"Is not!" this time I chopped at the wrist, once more my body accommodating itself around the edge of the blade and letting it through without an issue.
"Is too!" I sing-sang back. What are exactly the limits here? How thin can I make the slices? Or the cubes that I cut myself into?
"Is not!" I put away the knife and returned to study my hand, which was without a single cut over it, perfectly working.
"Is too!" I answered as my eyes shot forward, attracted by a sudden flash landing on a mass of clouds that had previously escaped my attention.
"Is not!"
"Storm ahead!" I warned him, quickly putting away what I had in the empty barrels in the centre of the small boat, only then noticing that Shanks had been sprawled against the bulwark with his hat covering his eyes.
"Is not!" he echoed again, and I was about to shout some clever insult when I heard it: KRABOOOM
The thunder rattled my bones. A fucking storm was in full swing ahead.
"Yeah, we're not entering there, I don't care if you caused me to lose my memories, I'll still drown if we go in there!" I shouted at him while he started pulling on the steering bar, bringing the storm on our left. I nimbly ducked under the sail when it turned from one side of the boat to the other.
I tried to get a read of the winds ahead, but I wasn't Nami and as such, I wasn't gifted with a magic ability to read the weather (fuck you plot armour).
A tense half an hour later, despite our best effort, with the redhead steering and me forcing the sail to point in a certain direction with the bare strength of my arms, the winds pulled us in. "Hold on to something, Buggy!" he warned me, and I would have answered with a witty remark if not for the harsh winds that basically sprayed me with saltwater: I felt suddenly both nauseous and numb, my knees weakening and wobbling heavily.
I forced myself through the confusion and reached the mast of the ship, taking up a rope and using it to tie myself to the mast: "If that sinks us, I'll drown! Even if you killed my memories, try to not kill me too!"
I couldn't hear clearly over the howling wind and the occasional thunder, but without a doubt, I could do without his insults or unhinged laughter. I quickly fastened a rope around the mast and secured it around my waist, if nothing else, I would be tied to a piece of wood if the ship shattered because of the waves.
Once the storm was completely upon us, things started getting confusing: the seawater mixed with the rain and hailed on us on the back of the harsh winds, while the flashes of lightning temporarily blinded me and their bone-rattling thunders stopped me from communicating with Shanks.
At the end of the day, Devil Fruit and power granted to me by my metaknowledge, I was powerless and totally incapable of braving the seas by my lonesome, as I had suspected the day before. I didn't expect to be proved right immediately. I whined a bit in my head, my eyes rolling randomly in my eye sockets and my head feeling heavier and heavier.
Like I did when Roger had been executed, confirming my situation, my only reaction, beyond the crippling fear that was promising me only death in this wild world, I felt n historical laugh bubbling from my chest. What else I could do but laugh? To be reborn in a world of magic and impossible mysteries, of islands in the skyes and the possibility of sailing to the moon, only to drown in less than 48 hours.
It was hilarious, even if in a deprecating way, and what could I do but laugh? And that was what I did.
I howled, challenging the waters, the sky, the lightning. I was on the edge of consciousness, and still I forced my lungs to fill themselves with air in order to be able to laugh even more.
I was terrified.
There was no helping it, maybe my presence would kill Shanks too and Luffy would become a marine, so my existence would end up killing canon with extreme prejudice without even an input on my part.
I was alone, with the redhead scrambling in order to find a way to keep the boat afloat, I was powerless.
No miracle in sight, no sudden power well within me or graceful Sea King to carry us around.
There are few things more terrifying of being in the middle of a storm. I couldn't see, but I felt Shanks guiding the ship to climb up the mountains of water and free-fall after each cliff.
I couldn't see... so I closed my eyes, and I kept laughing. With my eyes closed, I could somewhat hear Shanks cursing as he pushed and pulled, steering the boat along the raging waters and sneaking out of the avalanches of sea foam that threatened to swallow us whole.
Time lost any meaning, as well as direction, there was only the need to laugh, to laugh louder than the thunders above us, because stopping would mean that I was dead.
The little boat I was tied to climbed out of a crashing wave, and when I felt a sudden lurch at the pit of my stomach, I knew that we were climbing high, higher than we ever did, faster than we had ever sailed.
I howled in laughter as Shanks cursed once more. I smiled maniacally and managed to open my eyes: it was titanic, gargantuan, vast, and steep. I had never been so close to the sky as when we reached the crest of the wave.
In a burst of energy, I dragged close to me the empty barrels that were tied to the bulwark, trying to secure them to myself with what little rope I had left. Sprays of seawater kept weakening me in a way that I couldn't fight off, and around the middle of our descent at breakneck speeds towards the churning waters far below, my eyes closed once more.
I opened my eyes in time to see the bow plunge into a wall of water *CRACK*
If possible, the sound was even louder than the churning waters and the bone-rattling thunders, if only because while the first two implied risk and battle, this signalled the end of the run, at least for me.
The small ship ruptured, the wood finally breaking apart under the pressure and the forces that tried to crumple it. The keel flexed with a heartbreaking keening sound before giving in, while the planks of wood did the same.
Then my face met the wall of water and I lost consciousness as I felt a spike of pain hit my legs.