~Z~X Present Day ~Z~X (Zeke- Age 20) (nearly 1 year after the events of Zeke meeting his father)
"You wanna do something about it, punk???" The large man smirked as he towered above the young man sitting down, 4 swords by his side, 5 piercings in his left ear, and sporting a blue mohawk. Zeke grinned at the man, "Do something? Heh, you re not even worth my time." He just blew off the man, he now angry as Zeke just sat there and took another sip of his drink.
Which was foolish to say the least.
*CRACK! WHAM*
Zeke was thrown out of the bar he was in through the weak wooden wall of the bar and crashed into the middle of the street. Zeke got up and dusted himself off, "Wow... You can toss someone threw a wall. I STILL say you're dead if you even THINK of stepping into the area of Age Islands. The Younko won't tolerate pussies." Zeke smirked, the man got even angrier, "You pathetic bastard punk. Do you know who I am." Zeke put on a face of pure naivety, "No... Why should I."
"You little shit! I am Patheras! I possess...." the man began to change his form slightly, his light skin turned dark jet black and grew fur. His blonde hair diapering, and his face taking that of a panther. "The Panther-Panther Devil fruit! I have a crew of a wanted 300,000 beli! Myself alone 83,900 beli!" He slammed his giant panther paw down to kill Zeke.
But of course... he missed. Zeke jumped out of the way, then landed on Patheras's arm as it just made a crater in the ground from the 'powerful' swipe of his paw. Zeke ran up his arm and flipped behind him, tugging at Patheras's ear as an insult to show how easy he could both dodge his attacks and then 'touch' him.
Zeke landed on his feet, Patheras in complete rage now. "YOU BASTARD!!! YOU DARE TOY WITH ME!?!?" Zeke continued to smirk.
"Quit toying with this loser and just finish him off Roronoa." Zeke flinched at the speaking of his last name, knowing who had called him. Zeke turned to see, a ways down the street, his feet propped on a table, casually leaning back in the chair, a friend and rivaled fellow swordsman.
The man wore black shoes with white lines at the bottom, then black pants, up higher he wore a black silk shirt. He had 3 VISIBLE tattoos, a long tree root that lead from the bottom of his left middle finger up to his neck near his jaw line, and the words RAGE and CARE on his left and right fingers respectfully. He had bright copper-like rusty short hair that mainly stood up. He also had a small beard shadow that covered his face but was thick by NO means. He then.... had piercings of silver rings on each end of his mouth and quarter size gages in both his ears.
Zeke grinned, "Tatum Air, thought you'd be at Iso by now. What, don't want that chain anymore?"
Tatum gave Zeke a dark look as he started to walk his way. "You think I WON'T get it?"
Zeke chuckled, "Look, I can't finish him off because my swords are inside." Tatum just chuckled back, "Never finishes anything can you?" he looked at the confused, and scared, Patheras, "I'll finish this then." He looked back at Zeke, "And we can continue or usual routine of meeting each other."
Zeke became very whiny, "Aww, again? You never can just talk? No 'Hey what's up man,' and go about you're fucking day? Douche."
Tatum ignored him and pulled out his 6 foot sword. Tatum himself was only 6'2"(ft), but he always seemed to sway it so smoothly, as if the length meant absolutely nothing. The sword was thin, one side had the black print of a rose with large thorns and the other a dragon with a largely spiked spine. "Tatum!" Tatum looked back at Zeke, who had a very serious look on his face, "DON'T kill him, there's no point in that."
Tatum rolled his eyes, "Fine, but he'll just want revenge."
"You think I care about people's petty antics of revenge or humility?"
Tatum smiled, "No, you don't. Always thought that impressive of you... Roronoa."
Zeke flinched again.
Patheras backed up in fear, mostly influenced by confusion, "Wai-Wiat!"
Too late.
Tatum launched himself at Patheras, with only 3 swings of his blade, and passing the idlely frozen Patheras, Tatum had slashed his opponent, but not with enough force to cut 'TOO' deep.
As some blood of the surface skin gushed out, Patheras fell to the ground and collapsed.
Zeke buried his face in his hand, "You HAD to make him bleed? That's so pointless man."
Tatum sheathed his sword, "Says you."
Patheras quaked in fear as he rolled over to breathe better. "Who... who are you guys?... What are you?"
Tatum and Zeke stood above him. Zeke smiling childishly and Tatum with a 'fuck you' expression, both pulled out pieces of paper... their wanted posters. "Zeke Roronoa, 176,000 beli! Hehehe." "Tatum Air, 183,000 beli."
Zeke looked up at him, "What!? You had 168,000 last time!"
Tatum smirked, knowing that his new bounty was pissing of his most formidable rival, "The Capital Pirates.... killed them." Zeke was so pissed Tatum's bounty was higher, "Killed them? Why!?"
"It was my fault, Zeke-kun." Zeke looked behind him.
Behind him, was the frail white haired beauty, Mie Vallennai. Tatum's friend since they were born, and lover since he could think about girls. Her bright red eyes seemed so sad, but her face showed a 'fake' sort of happiness as she saw Tatum seem happy. (The best way to imagine what Mei looks like is if you've ever seen Code Geass, she looks like C.C. (C2) with white hair.) Her average sized breasts may have been 'just' average sized, but they stuck out so attentively, the perkiness was just phenomenal (believe it or not this is important later).
Zeke smiled, happy to see a dear friend of his.... especially her, still alive. "Mie, no need to apologies. I'll just beat your buffoon of a lover later in the whole Bounty rating thing."
Tatum became very agitated, "You're such a childish fool. How did you ever gain such promising sword skill? I guess such a thing can just 'run in the family'."
This angered Zeke, "My dad has NOTHING to do with this. And you should have shut up about that when I beat you the FIRST time."
THIS angered Tatum, and he would have retorted, but he will do anything Mie asks him, "Tatum! That's enough." she came up to him and place her hands on his chest, "It doesn't matter, you two will fight, and it is about your skills. You know that. It DOES have nothing to do with his father. You of all people shouldn't talk like that." Her voice wasn't scolding at all, more explanational and soothing, like a mother's words.
"They won't fight unless I'm there to kick Air's ass if he kills Zeke. But that's a big if!" Rika had just arrived, Frank behind her with a lot of bags, most likely of clothes. Mie went up to her best 'girlfriend' and hugged her. Rika laughed warmly, "How have you been?" a smiled on her face, but concern in her voice. Mie smiled back warmly, "I'm fine." she looked back at Tatum, "He takes good care of me." This made Tatum uncomfortably blush, he tried to hide it but to no avail.
To change the subject and avoid embarrassment (in his opinion) he turned to Zeke. "Well Roronoa? Are we going to fight?" Zeke rolled his eyes, but then grinned wide, "Of course. Why would I say no?"
Z~X~ Z~X~ Z~X~ Z~X~
Outside of the village, in woods of the spring island, Zeke and Tatum stood facing each other, ready for their 10th fight since meeting. Rika 'refereed' "Ok boys, this is 'round' 10. 3 - Zeke. 2 - Tatum. 4 - Tie. Have FUN!"
Zeke and Tatum met on the grand line in Alabasta, just 3 months of Zeke leaving his home. They fought then, and have met many times since in these 3 years. It's mostly out of sportsmanship now that they have become friends.
Tatum began, as usual. "You better not have gotten SLOPPY RORONOA!"
*CLANK!*
Tatum's one-hand, one-sword style clashed repeatedly and repeatedly against Zeke's defending swords. After about 5 minutes of defending from the assault, Zeke swung around full turn, jerking his head as hard to the right as he could, generating a large 'force' strike emitting from his mouth-blade. Tatum jumped up to evade the attack. As the energy strike missed it cut a large number of trees in the forest. Tatum landed on a freshly cut tree stump. As he did, Zeke was continuing turning fully around hard and thus made a SECOND force strike that came at the unprepared Tatum.
Tatum braced his sword as the strike came to him. Using his other hand to back up his blade at the strike made impact with his sword. With excessive force, Tatum finally broke the strike and deflected it. In his confidence of victory, Tatum proceeded after the successful deflect to spin the tip of his sword on his middle finger as he simultaneously flipped Zeke off.
Zeke simply smiled at this. This deep in their rivalry, it was more about showing off than who was better, cause it was hopeless by now to truly test such a thing.
Zeke charged and jumped into the air. The wind blew hard, Zeke formed his two hand swords over his head in the form of an X.
*WHOOM!!*
He came crashing down on Tatum with a large X now embedded into the ground. Trees bellowing and falling down from the impact. Although most of the attack missed him, Tatum's right arm was grazed and was now slightly bleeding from the 'scratches'.
This made him smile, "It's just not a good fight until you're bleeding." Zeke sadly had to agree, "Scars are proof of a real war."
"Couldn't have said it BETTER. MYSELF!" He swung at Zeke, missing barely, again and again, the clashes continued back and forth. The movement's of Tatum's long sword were flawless. No trouble in control or movement even though so large. Zeke this time went on the offensive, returning swings blow for blow. Zeke started to build up speed, and despite his immense skill, Tatum had a hard time keeping up with receiving twice as many blows as he could give.
Soon that caught up with him. Zeke now caught an opening and went for it, he used a fencing jab of his right sword to puncture Tatum s stomach, but Tatum saw enough of it in time. He side stepped some and blocked more with his sword, however it was still only enough for Zeke to get a shallow but progressive cut into his ribcage. As he continued to push Zeke's sword away with his own, this now gave Tatum an opportunistic blow. The flung his sword upwards, aiming for Zeke's arm. Zeke jumped backwards, but not enough as his bicep was nicked by the tip of Tatum's sword.
However Tatum did not let Zeke get away with this, he pursued him with intent to kill. Swinging and hacking away, hoping to catch Zeke in his blade's 'teeth'. Quickly he caught up with him and finally swung a force strike of his own. Zeke was unprepared for this as he had just caught himself from Tatum's crazed attempt of hack-n-slash. The strike was big too, bigger than Zeke's. As Zeke fumbled to block it Tatum dashed behind him and swung again. Zeke spun to catch the attack, but failed.
As he took most of the blade in the chest, Zeke at least managed to keep it from being a deep slash. He fell hard to the ground but not out cold.
Tatum stopped his quick movements and stood in front of Zeke. He then cut down another tree nearby that was still intact and it fell... on top of Zeke. After he got use to the immense pain, he looked up with a quirky smile and said what Tatum wanted him to hear, "... Ok, you win this time." Tatum smiled triumphantly. "NOW GET THIS FUCKING TREE OF ME YOU DICK!!! WAS THAT REALLY NECISSARY!?!??" Zeke flailed at the weight. Tatum squatted down to look at him, "You wouldn't have given up if you weren t pinned down by something like a tree." Zeke nodded, "You right, NOW GET THIS OFF ME!!"
Tatum smirked and walked over to Mie, he gave her a kiss and lightly tugged her to come with him as he walked away, "You're boy Frank can take care of it, have fun."
Zeke couldn't believe this, "What?!!? You be a persistent for a fight and then you leave so damn quick!?!?"
"Yup! Look at the score! We're at 3 and 3, I won and now even, till next time Roronoa! I'm going to celebrate!"
Frank now had picked up the fallen tree, "Are you ok Zeke-sama?"
"I can breathe fine, I'll live, TATUM YOU PUNK!!!"
He was gone and Zeke decided it was very pointless to after him.
They returned to the village to eat, Tatum and Mie did not seem to be there, and Zeke and his closest companions continued their journey of self discovery.
Z~X~ Z~X~ Z~X~ Z~X~
On that island where Zeke and Tatum had their 2nd fight, about 3 years ago, they were both called in and then chase by the marines. And since then one Major had been personally hunting them.
He answered his den-den mushi as Zeke and Tatum's 10th fight came to a close. "Hello?"
"Commodore Jagger Mathias?"
"Yes..."
"We have just be given reports of both Roronoa Zeke and Air Tatum on Gagre Island. Are you within the vis-"
"Yes... I'll be there soon."
The Commodore hung up his den-den mushi and stood up for his crew to hear him, "MEN! We have the location of Air Tatum and Roronoa Zeke! And we will capture them and bring them to JUSTICE!!!"
To Be Continued....
Hope you all enjoyed this chapter and is looking forward to the development.