Okay, so this is my first actual battle in the tournament. I challenged the last Contestant remaining with no battles recorded. I plan to continue hunting dormant characters, especially those belonging to authors with two surviving characters, so beware! Beware I say!
Uh, yeah. I think this one turned out a little sloppy, but it should be sufficient. And if not... I too have a pair of characters.
A Winner Is Two: Where There's Smoke…
First Battle
When it Rains, it Pours
The purple-haired youth sat on the roots of a tree and sullenly watched the water flow. He had been busy, it seemed, since arriving on the island; several pieces of wood, apparently from a fallen log, had been driven into the tree trunk above his head, and broad leaves had been thickly laid atop this and nailed down with smaller bits of sharpened wood. The result was a sort of curved awning that kept the spot dry; the spot itself being a natural cradle in the exposed roots that looked relatively comfortable and was a few inches off the ground. It was in this spot that his golden eyes scowled out into the forest, staring through the drizzling rain and into the monsoon-swollen stream mere yards in front of him. Next to him a large and ornate broadsword rested in an equally ornate indigo scabbard.
To be frank, Anwar – this guy matched the description Smoker had been given of Anwar – was about what the commodore had been expecting. A young, angry-eyed man with tan skin and clothing that would seem outlandishly bright in many worlds – that was almost a stereotypical description of one of the kinds of pirate Smoker often arrested. They were the type of pirate who weren't all bad, and Smoker didn't love arresting them, but they tended to cause disorder and unrest, so he didn't hate it either. Most of them, if they hadn't gotten a bounty yet, could even be persuaded to join the Marines after a few nights in jail and a few sharp blows to the head. Monkey D. Luffy had been this type of pirate, although he had already had thirty million Beris on his head when Smoker met him.
'Find Anwar and force him to take action, by any means necessary.' Those had been the orders Jade had relayed to Smoker. There was a lot of space for interpretation there, but Smoker guessed all the interpretations would involve Anwar drawing that sword, probably against him. No reason to get fancy here. He only has a sword. I shouldn't be able to lose this fight. Smoker dissipated and reformed on a low, thick tree limb, drawing his truncheon. "Desert Swordsman Anwar, I take it," Smoker said, trying to look imposing with the wet weather soaking his hair to his scalp and causing his pair of cigars to gutter.
The youth looked surprised to see him, if not happy. "You're the first of the ones here to know my name," he replied. "Go away; I'm only interested in fighting the men who took me here. They wear black jackets, shoes, pants, and ties, white shirts, and dark glasses. You seen them around here?"
Sounds like Solidus's goons… "You're looking for the people who run this tournament."
"Yeah." Anwar nodded curtly, still not drawing his weapon. "As soon as this rain lets up, I'm gonna go back to searching. Until then, I'm resting here, so if you don't mind…"
"Actually, I have a problem with that." Smoker leapt to the ground without dissipating, landing between Anwar and the rushing stream. "You see, the people who run this tournament hired me and a few others to make sure punks like you are fighting each other instead of them."
Now Anwar's hand clutched the hilt of his sword, but he still didn't draw it. "That's really too bad, because I want to fight them."
Despite the roar of the stream and the patter of the rain, Smoker's words carried clearly. "Bad idea. You can fight them, but you have to go through a few people first, starting with me."
Anwar drew his blade, got to a standing position, and charged forward all in the space of a second. "Fine by me!" he roared, bringing his blade down in a two-handed swing.
Unfortunately for him, Smoker had his weapon already out – and it was a jitte, designed with catching blades in mind. Smoker wrapped the two rods of his weapon around Anwar's blade and twisted, expecting to either break the weapon or pull it from Anwar's grip. Both the sword and the grip were unexpectedly strong, and Anwar's entire body was instead rotated around the spot where their weapons clashed, his boots sliding in the mud. Anwar was visibly almost as surprised at Smoker's strength as Smoker was at Anwar's, but the desert-dweller recovered first and backhanded Smoker with his nearer hand, repelling the marine.
Smoker stumbled back only a step before recovering, and swung out with his jitte in a wide backhand. Anwar ducked and prepared to counterattack, but it was his turn to be surprised when Smoker's free hand came up and struck his chin with the force of what felt like a charging bull. The attack left Anwar flat on his back, and before he could even refocus his vision the muddy tread of a marine boot pressed down on his chest. Smoker stared down the swordsman and placed his other foot on his foe's sword hand. "I thought there'd be more to you than that, kid." One of Smoker's cigars finally went out completely, and he debated internally whether he could split his focus toward trying to relight it.
"Oh, there's much more," Anwar growled, grabbing the tip of Smoker's truncheon even as it was pointed menacingly at his face. Smoker scowled more deeply and tried to dig his boot heel into Anwar's chest, but found that no distribution of his weight seemed to cause any real discomfort. The boy was tough. Anwar successfully jerked Smoker's weapon forward and rolled with it, yanking his own sword free and bowling Smoker over with him in the process. The two rolled, and Anwar came up first, bringing the toe of his boot into Smoker's face as he was just starting to get up. Smoker lost his weapon (and worse, his cigars!) and rolled backwards into the stream; luckily for him, it was fresh water instead of the seawater he was used to, and he found himself able to move to enough of a degree to grab a loose branch conveniently sticking out over the water a few dozen feet down.
"Bastard!" Smoker coughed, hauling himself out. Anwar eyed Smoker cautiously, placing himself a good distance in front of Smoker's jitte with his sword at the ready. Smoker drew a new pair of cigars from his jacket, but found he was soaked to the core and they were impossible to light. Shouting in wordless fury, he stuck them back in his jacket and turned a squinty pair of eyes on Anwar. "Here's how it's going down!" he shouted. "I'm going to beat you up! I'm going to return the favor and dump you down this river!" to emphasize this point, he tore out the loose branch and hurled it off in a random direction – it would not be saving any more people. "And then I'm going back to my base to light up some dry cigars and stand in front of that fancy heater!" With that, he started stomping toward the younger fighter.
Anwar called something back, but it was drowned out as the rain suddenly tripled in intensity. Trails of white steam began to leak from Smoker's body as he approached. Initially he hadn't bothered to use his power, underestimating his foe. This time, there would be no holding back, no getting cocky, no playing fair. It was just World of Pain – Population: Anwar.
---
Anwar squinted into the distance as it really began to pour. The rain, with its new intensity, made it difficult to see or hear anything at all. Maybe it was obvious, with the moniker of Desert Swordsman, but Anwar really didn't like fighting in the rain. He could barely even see the strange warrior's silhouette at this point. Anwar gripped his blade tighter as the silhouette raised its arm as if to punch, but he wasn't too worried. Maybe the smoker would close the distance quickly, but he couldn't possibly strike from all the way over there… they were separated by a good ten meters still.
It took one second for Anwar to realize how wrong he was. That second contained what was unmistakably a fist crashing into his cheek, below his right eye, although the silhouette stayed far out of sword reach. Maybe this man was a wizard as well as a physical fighter? If this was true, he'd be in for a rough afternoon.
Anwar staggered back, but remained on his feet, and he felt the fist pull back as the silhouette made a motion to punch again. This time, he was ready, and the fist sailed right into the flat of his blade. On impact, it scattered into a plume of foul-smelling smoke – apparently it was just an illusion. Encouraged, he charged forward with all the speed he could muster, and the smoking man (who had recovered his weapon) came into view. This description had become accurate on several levels – now the man's whole body was framed in smoke. Nevertheless, Anwar ducked under the wide swing of the man's truncheon and slashed at him. The man disintegrated into smoke – apparently this had been an illusion as well. Where was he?
"Show yourself, illusionist!" Anwar shouted, glaring around. The pounding rain pushed his voice down and out of the air, and he got no answer except the splatter of rain on volcanic soil. Suddenly, he felt a hand close around the back of his neck, and before he could react he had been lifted from the ground and swung around like a toy on a string. Face-up in the air, he was unable to see the assailant who whipped him around and tossed him into a tree trunk – and when he was released, he was too short of breath to immediately get up.
"You ruined my smokes," the man growled through the rain, and another extended fist shot out. This one missed Anwar and buried itself on the tree trunk just above him, and Anwar understood. It was a solid fist at the end of an arm made of white vapor. This man was not creating illusions from smoke – this man was smoke itself! This would be a challenge indeed to overcome! "White Snake!" the man suddenly yelled, and the arm retracted, only to return; this time, the hand had expanded into a much larger, smoky mitt. Anwar tried to dodge, but he was still winded, and had only made it halfway to his feet before the huge arm grabbed him.
"Let me go, you bastard!" Anwar yelled, struggling, but it was like being surrounded with foam-coated concrete: it seemed to give pretty far under pressure, but somewhere in the cloud was something solid and impervious. He found himself completely unable to struggle free as the arm dragged him toward the face of its owner. The grey-green-haired man regarded Anwar with an air of what seemed to be extreme annoyance, and then tossed Anwar into the air, his other arm expanding into a match for the one that had held the swordsman.
Anwar tumbled through the air, one hand still clutching his huge blade and trying to keep it between him and his opponent. He wasn't having much luck. One of the soldier's giant smoke arms smashed into his shoulder with the force of a cannonball, and he had to wildly slash through a branch to prevent him from impaling himself on it. Another blow struck him sideways, and Anwar was pressed into a tree trunk. He pushed himself clear before the next punch, but the other arm got him and the force of the punch wrapped him around a thick branch. Gasping, Anwar hung on for dear life and watched dully as the 'hand' wrapped around the branch and began to pull, forcing the branch down. It was already too late when the swordsman realized what was happening.
---
Got you now. Smoker let go of the branch, and Anwar sailed into the gray sky, headed down the mountain. He retracted his arms into a solid state and clapped his hands together to brush them off. Sighing, Smoker turned to return to the Blower Bike he'd hidden a couple of hundred feet away, when his Baby Den Den Mushi started to ring. Surprised, the commodore pressed a button on the small wristband-mounted mollusk, and Jade Curtiss's voice came out of the snail's lips crisp and clear.
"Smoker, I saw the fight. Good work out there, but we need you to go down there and finish the punk off."
"I don't kill," Smoker growled into the device. A wondrous thing, Baby Den Den Mushi; they were tremendously effective as the Marine's equivalent to walky-talkies. Smoker's world had developed long-range communication a bit differently than most worlds, choosing to go the path of bionically enhancing telepathic snails to act as their two-way radios, phones, fax machines, wiretaps, and even video cameras. "I beat that guy senseless, and now I'm going to go grab a smoke."
Jade said something that was drowned out by a peal of distant thunder, and Smoker had to make him repeat it. "I said 'fine, but at least go find him and confirm his status.' You really should listen carefully to mission parameters in the future."
"Alright, I'll go make sure I knocked him out." Smoker almost cut off the communication, but stopped. "I thought Tashigi and my ship had the only other Den Den Mushi on the island."
"I took a look at Officer Tashigi's, and I was able to jury-rig a communication spell for interacting with yours. It took a couple of hours, but it was an interesting challenge. Curtiss out." The Mushi went dormant as the communication cut off.
"Weirdo," Smoker grumbled as he stalked toward his bike. From him, that was a compliment.
---
Jade tapped in a long set of commands. This connection was to another device that was utterly incompatible with the computer's communication (every Enforcer seemed to insist on his own method), but instead of magic, Jade had simply called in a tech support guy for this one. Joruus's scowling, bearded face soon appeared on the screen, no doubt at the same time a miniature hologram of Jade himself appeared in Joruus's palm above the disc. "What is it?" Joruus asked, going wild-eyed for an instant before composing himself.
"Commodore Smoker is showing a surprising reluctance to kill his foe."
"I told you all he was too soft for this job!" (Joruus had, in fact, only made this claim about Mr. Incredible, and not to Jade.) "They should have listened to me and hired only the Force-sensitive for this task. He'll ruin everything!"
"Not if your battle meditation is applied judiciously," Jade said calmingly, wearing his eternal smile. "Smoker is strong-willed, and could prove a difficult case, but his foe is all but defeated. He won't have the willpower to resist."
"You're saying I should make things harder for that poison-inhaling fool?"
"I'm saying you should make it difficult for Commodore Smoker to spare Anwar."
Joruus nodded. "They had better be giving me a damn good spaceship…"
"One of the contestants crashed a spaceship in the forest. I think Ofdensen's planning on fixing that one up and giving it to you."
The old man visibly brightened. "Well, I'll have to go find it later."
---
It didn't take long to find Anwar, especially since the rain had lessened to the point where visibility was no longer an issue. He was crumpled against a tree trunk near the base of the mountain, surrounded by thin branches that had snapped when he fell through them. Cuts and bruises riddled his skin, and his clothes were slashed open all over, but he was alive and conscious, and still clutching his sword. Smoker was honestly impressed.
His head lolled over and his eyes fixed dazedly on Smoker, then they snapped open fully. "No way… no…" He rolled out of the pile of dislodged branches and, using his sword as a crutch, managed to pull himself to his feet. "I give… I give… I admit it… I have no idea how to fight a man made of smoke."
"Good." Smoker reached to grab his cigars between his fingers before realizing he didn't have them. Damn. "Now, I hope you realize, punk, that if you want to get off this island, you have to fight your competitors, and you have to damn well win. Because fighting the organization is a very scary alternative." He cracked a horrible expression that was probably an attempt at a smile. "I'm only the tip of the goddamn iceberg."
"I got it…" Anwar coughed and made it to his feet, leaning back against the tree. "It's just… there's this girl…" he gritted his teeth, visibly fighting back tears.
Smoker sighed, leaning on the handlebars of his bike. I really need my cigars…
"And BORED… you guys… you've kidnapped her…"
Shit, really? I knew these guys couldn't be trusted, but this is seriously pushing the envelope.
He stood up straight, stumbling a bit, and gripped his sword tighter. "You've kidnapped her… just like that… and now you expect me not to fight you?!"
Smoker's eyes widened. Something was wrong. I haven't felt a spike in haki like that in a very long time. His hand darted to his truncheon.
He very nearly wasn't fast enough. "I'll show you bastards what happens when you mess with me!" Anwar ran forward, carrying his weight on torn skin and muscles, and slashed downward. Even blocked, the force of his blow sent Smoker sprawling off the ATV.
"What the hell happened to 'I give?!'" Smoker kicked out, catching Anwar in the stomach, but the swordsman shrugged the blow off like just another raindrop. Leaping over the seat of the ATV, Anwar drove his sword point-down toward Smoker's heart. Smoker quickly rolled out of harm's way, and came up facing the wrong way. Turning the disadvantage into an opportunity, he extended his truncheon as he spun round, striking Anwar in the jaw hard enough to dislodge several teeth. This barely slowed Anwar down, and Smoker 'ghosted' several steps back, taking the chance to catch his breath.
The swordsman was completely unrecognizable, and not just because blood was trickling out of his mouth. He gripped his sword less like an experienced swordsman than like a lunatic with a sharp stick. His eyes danced with madness and rage. With a wordless, gurgling roar, he leapt forward. Smoker brought up his weapon to block, but he also tried to become intangible by dissolving into smoke.
It didn't work.
Smoker screamed as Anwar's broadsword pushed his truncheon down and out of the way, continuing on to cut into his left shoulder. Anwar screamed because… well, he was just screaming. Gathering his thoughts, Smoker balled his numbing left hand into a fist and drove it into Anwar's ribs, eliciting a loud crack. Anwar backed off just enough that Smoker was able to push the blade up and back with his truncheon. Anwar stumbled back, but immediately charged forward with another roar.
"White Trip!" Smoker growled, launching out his undamaged hand, and his weapon, on a plume of smoke. He launched it low and swung it laterally, and his jitte caught Anwar in the ankles, sweeping him onto his back. Anwar scrabbled around on the wet ground as Smoker pulled his arm back, and managed to slide backwards so his head and shoulders were a few short feet from Smoker. Yelling incoherently, he managed to swing his sword horizontally at Smoker's waist.
"You're mine!" This time, Smoker was able to catch the blow between the tines of his jitte, and flat on his back, Anwar had nothing to push against. The commodore twisted his forked weapon, and the blade flipped right out of Anwar's hand, flopping uselessly to the ground. It hadn't been so easy earlier - but then, Anwar hadn't been gripped in a berserker rage earlier. Anwar ignored the sword as he got up, moving instead to attack bare-handed. "What's wrong with you, kid?!" Smoker had been caught off-guard by being actually wounded for the first time in years, but he was still able to step around Anwar's flurry of clumsy blows the old fashioned way.
"I… will… KILL YOU!" Anwar swung around, trying to get at Smoker with little success. Smoker grabbed Anwar's wrist, and while the youth struggled, the naval officer spun him back around and slipped his arms under his foe's armpits. From there, it was a simple manner of hoisting him a few inches into the air and holding an end of the truncheon in each hand, pressing it against Anwar's windpipe. Cut off from air, Anwar's struggles would slow and finally cease altogether, and Smoker could find him a nice, dark cell.
In theory, anyway. "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" Anwar screamed.
"Stop struggling, punk, I'm not in your head!" Smoker screamed back. Screaming until the veins in one's neck bulged was a language Smoker was fairly fluent in.
"Not you…" Anwar moaned, his body writhing like a can of worms in Smoker's iron grip.
"Who, then?! Stop struggling, you'll just hurt yourself more!"
"Some crazy old greybeard! AAHH! IT HURTS!" Anwar thrashed more and more wildly.
"Stop it!" Smoker roared, but it was too late.
Snap. Anwar went limp. Very limp. Too limp.
Smoker carefully relaxed his grip, and the sack of potatoes that had been his opponent dropped to the ground. Shaking, he leaned down and checked for a pulse. There was none. Anwar's neck was bent at a sick angle – he had broken his own neck on Smoker's truncheon with all his wild movement.
Smoker became aware of how badly he was shaking, and tried to stop, but to no avail. He fell back, dully aware of the wet mud seeping into his pants.
Despite his rough nature, Smoker came from a different place. A place where you can rise to the rank of Commodore and become a Marine war hero for accomplishments in pitched combat without killing anybody. He had made lots of arrests, yes, and knowingly sent men off to life imprisonment or execution, but he had never ever killed before. Subduing the foe had always been enough.
Now Smoker had blood on his hands, and he was having a harder and harder time believing it was the blood of a criminal. BORED had just forced some poor swordsman to fight by kidnapping his girlfriend. And then when he tried to say 'uncle', they forced him to fight in the most literal way. Smoker only knew one crazy old greybeard on the island – the wild-eyed old man who had confronted him and Travis in the hangar. He was an Enforcer, and he was manipulating the minds of contestants to make them fight.
And Smoker was working willingly for these same men who employed the old manipulator. He had signed a contract to do whatever they wanted, and all for a stupid promotion. In a military whose top brass he had, not a year ago, told to "eat shit." That seemed so long ago now. "What am I doing?" he asked himself hoarsely.
---
Well, mused Jade, that could have gone more cleanly.
Not killing Anwar itself. That had been pretty bloodless, as a matter of fact. No, the problem was how much he had said before he died, and the effect it was having on Smoker. Even now the Marine Commodore sat in the mud and the rain and alternated between clutching his head and staring at his hands, not sure what to do with them.
Sloppy. Very sloppy.
End of Chapter
Q: Why was Anwar able to stop Smoker from going intangible near the end?
A: Anwar was using Haki, a term that's been in more recent One Piece. Basically, powerful enough fighting spirit lets you, among other things, strike people as if they didn't have the defensive effects of their Devil's Fruit.
Q: But I thought only a few people had Haki of that power level… and Anwar couldn't use it before.
A: Well, now Joruus is amplifying Anwar's aggression. Since he's using Battle Meditation on only one person right now, it's far more powerful than usual, and effectively charging Anwar up with excess Force energy. This amplifies what I'm assuming is already a fairly strong level of fighting spirit. Thrown into a berserker rage, he's unconsciously throwing around a crude but powerful Haki. No, it doesn't entirely make sense, but I'm trying to make a bunch of different canons fit together, so to an extent, Force = Magic = Haki = Jutsu. To an extent.
Q: Why'd you call his vehicle the Blower Bike, when you've been calling it the Smog Hog?
A: Up until now, I didn't know that was the more literal translation. I just went with the dub name. Now it's got its own page on the One Piece Wiki, so I go with what it's called there.
Next Chapter: Even I don't know, but I'll have a behind-the-scenes chapter up soonish.