The waves were pretty rough that day. The day I left on a one-man boat to the open sea. In retrospect, it was a bad idea. I was a terrible navigator, I had no compass, no map, and no basic idea of where I was going. But my faded self hadn't realized that, and left extremely unprepared.
Anyways, the sea would carry me wherever it felt I should go. Not that that was a problem, I just should have been more prepared.
I left maybe half an hour ago? I wouldn't know, I haven't been keeping track of the time. All I know is the sun is out, which means it must be daytime.
There's not much to do except either row or smoke, but I was too lazy for either of those so I took a nap.
[Short Timeskip: 2.5 hours]
The feeling of the boat getting pushed onto shore and stopping abrubtly woke me up. I attempted to stand up, stumbled a bit but caught my footing on the sand of the shore.
I examined my surroundings. Immediately in my area was just a beach, with some palm trees that reminded me of the beaches in Miami, but there was nobody on this beach. Whether that was because it was already sundown and it was starting to get windy or because nobody here likes beaches, I wouldn't stay long enough to know.
Behind the beach was a town, maybe a market town? Maybe it was just a regular town, I wouldn't know.
I made my way up the beach, trying to stop the wind from pushing sand into my eyes.
Once I got up the beach, I walked the short distance to the village, which up close was much larger than I expected. There was a crowd of people listening to some guy ramble on about how the world was supposedly ending in a few years, and it sounded eerily similar to what people were saying back in 2012, except this world is about 500 years away from 2012.
I walked off from the crowd, and looked for a place where I would maybe be able to find a new crewmember that would know their way around the sea.
I spotted a bar, and began heading in that direction, when out of the blue I was knocked to the ground by some woman running.
"Sorry," she mumbled, and quickly got up and ran off. I didn't get a good look at her, but she had fair skin and golden blonde hair, and I noticed her holding onto a black piece of leather, which resembled my wallet.
Actually, it was my wallet. 'That fucking woman!' I cursed myself for not noticing earlier and ran in the direction she was headed.
I felt the eyes of the townspeople staring at me as I ran by, but I didn't care that much, all I cared about was my wallet. I had brought it over from my past life, and it was special to me.
Following her led me to a forest, and then eventually to a clearing, where I thought I had lost her, but something caught my eye.
A wall caged in a building, which I could only see the top of. The only entrance seemed to be a gate, which was guarded by a small group of four people, each one armed with your average pirate cutlass and a pistol.
Then, that same golden-haired woman appeared by the gate, and she was let through without much persuasion. A pirate, maybe?
I snuck around behind the trees, rustling leaves as I moved, which might have alerted some of the guards.
"I'm gonna go check that out, whatever that was," a voice said, coming from the direction of the guards.
The guard started to head in my direction. Heart racing, I waited until he was close enough to attack.
Once he passed me, still oblivious to my presence, I put him in a headlock, causing him to let out a loud yelp, but I silenced him almost instantly.
"Fuck," I cursed under my breath.
"Hey, what was that? Are you ok?" another guard asked, now alert.
I didn't answer, and instead decided to attack. I picked up the unconscious body of the first guard, and used him to shield me as I ran over to the gate.
As I expected, they noticed instantly.
They pointed their pistols at me, but once they noticed I was carrying their friend, they put them down and rushed me with their cutlasses.
I threw the body in their direction, forcing them to move out of the way. I then proceeded to pull out my switchblade, flip the blade out and stab the first one in the hand he was carrying the sword with, making him drop it and clutch his hand in pain.
The other two guards came up behind me, but I anticipated their attack, just a simple slash aimed towards my neck and used the guard in agony to jump away from their attack, and then kicked him towards their attack.
They avoided slicing their friend's arm off, and continued to attack me. Using more caution, the one to my left attempted a slash at my neck, which I ducked from, picked him up from his legs and flipped him over me, knocking out the last guard.
Purupurupurupurupuru, a miniature transponder snail rang, with an angry expression and glasses covering his eyes.
"Hello?" I answered.
"Ah good, I heard some fighting by the gate, what happened?" The man on the other side of the line questioned.
"Um..." I thought of what to say. Quickly deciding on a story, I continued, "there was uhhh, an intruder at the gate, but we took care of him."
"Are you sure? You don't sound too sure of yourself," he said. As he said those words, I noticed one of the guards crawling over in my direction.
Eyeing him, I said, "lemme check," and kicked the man crawling in the chest. "Yea, he's out."
"Good," he praised. He said something else, but I didn't feel like talking to the man any longer, so I tossed the snail and used my vertical to latch onto the top of the concrete wall.
Peeking over, I spotted the man that I was talking to just a second ago, now having a conversation with the woman from earlier, pile of wallets laying by his side.
I decided that it would be stupid of me to go in right now, and just walked back into the town. I went back to that bar I was at the front of earlier, and walked in.
I walked over to the counter, looking at my surroundings, and the bartender noticed this, so he asked, "you lost kid?"
I normally don't like people talking down to me, and this wasn't a special case, so I decided to annoy him a little bit before asking about the people in the forest clearing.
"I need to speak to someone with authority," I told him, hoping to get on his nerves.
"You are," he scoffed.
"No, I mean someone in charge. Your boss, maybe,"I smirked.
He sucked his teeth. I was getting under his skin.
"Alright, I'm done," I said once I was satisfied with his reaction. "Who lives behind that wall in the forest?" I demanded.
"That's where the Aldin pirates live. They have this island under control, and they'll kill you if you even walk by. Their captain is the great Aldin-sama, and I suggest you leave if you enjoy life."
"Jeez, how can you even speak with Aldin's dick so far down your throat?" I rhetorically asked. "It's not like these East Blue pirates are strong or anything. Just a bunch of small fry."
Clearly, some of the pirates in the bar didn't like those words.
A barrel-chested man got up from his chair, earning looks from some of the other people in the bar, and causing some of the other people enjoying drinks to leave the bar, scared like dogs when they hear fireworks.
Murmurs of "ooohh, he's gonna get it," and "he's done for" were scattered around the bar. Everyone was staring at me now.
That same barrel-chested pirate walked over to where I sat, and swiftly slammed his sword into the bar counter.
"What did you say about us East Blue pirates?" He asked in a threatening manner.
"Are you deaf or something? Did your lackeys cum too much in your ears that your hearing was affected or something?"
The man, standing about 6'5" was overwhelmed with rage. "Do you know who I am?" He yelled, just about ready to blow a gasket.
"No, am I supposed to?" I questioned, digging deeper and deeper under his skin. "If I had one berry for every wannabe pirate I've seen today, I'd have..." My voice trailed and I started pointing at every pirate in the bar, silently mouthing the numbers.
This pissed off the entire bar, and before long, they were all getting up and charged at me. It soon erupted into a full blown bar fight, and they were all so outraged that they didn't notice me now sitting at the corner of the bar, enjoying a nice meal, paid for by some wannabe pirates.
Suddenly, the bar doors flew off their hinges, pausing the entire fight, and three tall and built men walked in.
They slowly walked towards the bar counter, and all the pirates made way for them.
They then turned around to stare at everyone, making them cower in fear, and the man in the middle started, "we're looking for a man. A man that attacked our guards. If any of you have seen a man wearing a white t-shirt with a golden chain, please step forward."
Nobody said a word, and I just looked straight at the three. He cracked his knuckles, which caused everybody, minus myself and the bartender, and obviously his companions to sweat bullets.
"Otherwise," he spoke loudly, yet clearly. "We'll force it out of you."
I finished the last plate of food left on that table, and let out a loud burp.
"Man, I sure was starving," I nearly yelled, earning everyone's attention.
Everybody in the bar at that point made note of my clothing, and surely, it matched the description he was looking for.
The three guys that had made everybody part ways and stop their fight walked over in my direction, and then the one to my left spoke. "If you would just come along with us, our boss would like to have a word with you."
"Your boss? Does he have a name?" I asked, being a smartass as usual.
They scoffed, and the rest of the pirates in the bar whispered amongst each other, saying things like "he's got balls," and "this punk took out their guards? He's done for."
None of which even bothered me. I sat in my chair, alert and ready to fight if I needed to.
"Do you see the mark on my back?" The first man asked, taking off his shirt to reveal a jolly roger with crossed swords behind the skull and a pair of sunglasses covering the eyes of the skull.
"Where'd ya get the corny tattoo? The discount market?" I smirked, knowing I would get under his skin too.
The man to his left, or my right pulled out a sword, and said, "I'll take care of this runt, brother."
I sat with my legs on top of the table, relaxed, yet still ready for anything to happen.
He walked over to me, gripped his sword tightly and went for a hard slash that would've amputated my legs, but didn't, only because I moved my legs at the last second and jumped over my chair, then grabbed my chair by a leg and smashed it over his neck, splintering him badly, yet not enough to take him out.
He grabbed a handful of splinters out of the back of his neck, and grinded his teeth and said, "you'll regret that."
He charged at me sword first but I used his head to flip over him and then gave him a nice, good taste of my elbow in his face, knocking out a couple of his teeth and making him spit blood.
"Wow. That was... even worse than I expected. Anyone else want a shot?" I seriously asked, eyeing the crowd.
This time, the last two brothers both charged at me, so I pulled out the gun from under my waistband, and decided I wanted some rest.
I let them attack first, and as expected of any pirate I would encounter this early in my journey, they wasted their chance to kill me with a simple punch and a slash from both of them. Dodging their attacks, I cocked the slide on my pistol, turned around, and pulled the trigger, looking away to avoid seeing the sin I was about to commit.
It was messier than I expected. I observed the damage I had caused to his poor, undeserving skull. The bullet made a small entry hole, but when it came through the other side, now a crushed piece of lead, his skull had been blown apart, making blood splash everywhere, including my shirt.
"Aw fuck, you got my shirt all dirty," I said, taking off my shirt and tossing it to reveal my build.
The other brother was in shock at what had just happened. "Brother!" He cried out. Tears flowed from his eyes, and I felt kind of bad for him, so I decided to let him take me to his boss.
"I'll go see what your boss wants, if it'll make you feel better about your brothers brain splattered all over the-"
"Shut up! The only reason I haven't killed you yet is because of my bosses orders."
"That, and you literally cannot do anything to me."
"Shut up."
