Disclaimer: One Piece is the property of Eiichiro Oda. Many of the character's in this story of property of me. Do not use this story or its characters without my permission. Thank you.
Captain Mars was stirred from his nap by a nervous Marine who had informed him of the situation occurring on the south shore. His response was a mixture of surprise and excitement. Mars really wanted to see what Bard was capable of, and this was a perfect chance. He jumped off of the ship he was napping on and raced towards the beach.
Meanwhile, the battle raged on.
Bard's initial strategy was to blindly rush forward and crush his opponent with one powerful blow after another. From his stance, he kicked back his forward leg and flew forward, then punched forward with the right arm at the right time. So far, he had succeeded in blowing away a good portion of the beach front into rubble and dust.
If he wouldn't move around so much, this would be easy. Damn, now I need a strategy.
Bard was never a thinking fighter, he just fought on instinct. Right now, his instincts were telling him that he couldn't hit a mountain at this rate. Bard attempted to reevaluate his situation, but was stopped dead by a horrible pain in his leg.
Rezland had apparently had enough of dodging for his life and shot Bard's leg out of rage while he had the chance. He was more shocked than anything else when he noticed that the bullet hadn't even phased Bard.
This guy's some kind monster! Doesn't he know how to feel pain!? I'm gonna hafta switch to the big guns. Rezland reached for the object strapped to his back, but was stopped when he heard a resounding statement from his enemy.
"WHO SHOT MY LEG!!!?"
This blunt question swept over the surrounding area like a wave of gravity, forcing every thinking man's face to the ground in an instant. The first to recover, Rezland, had ironically been closest to the source of the wave and resounded back with a comment of his own.
"WHAT THE HELL KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT!!!"
"Ah", Bard perked himself to his opponent's voice, "was it you?" His face got slightly more angry, but not menacingly so. He posed his charge-style pose.
"If it was you, then you better get ready! This is an attack that won't fail."
Rezland wasn't expecting him to be serious, so he had to gather himself as quickly as possible and prepare to dodge again. His attack wouldn't fail either.
A shot to the leg, he can ignore. But a shot to the head, even if he is a monster, he won't survive it!
Bard charged, but didn't miss. Instead of swinging his arm he grabbed Rezland's shoulders and lined his left foot up next to Rezland's right. He raised his right leg almost parallel to the ground and readied to kick. Rezland was stunned that he couldn't even see the motion until it was to late.
Mars arrived just in time to miss the fight, but not to late to gauge Bard's strength. Bard's last attack was an ultimate finisher if there ever was one. A lunging knee-thrust at point-blank to the opponent's stomach. But of course, this was Bard, and Bard never seemed to leave anything without a bit of personal flair on it. While he was working on the ship he was always showing off; carrying cannons under his arms, catching two nights worth of food by swimming and eating three during dinner, lowering the sails by jumping up and grabbing them from the top of the mast, etc. Mars wasn't as surprised as everyone else to see Bard just barely visible above him.
I may have overdone it…again.
Bard was safely floating over the island with his knee plunged in Rezland's stomach. Rezland was of course, unconscious, and completely unaware of just how badly his insides were beaten at this point. His pain was more obvious to the man whose blood he had spit up on.
The span of the island was visible in its entirety from this height. Bard looked down and saw that he had cleared the walk from the base to the beach and was currently sailing straight over the base. This peaked his interest, as he didn't know if the man whose stomach he was currently puncturing could swim. Then the bullet wound came back to him in the form of a wave of pain from the bullet dislodging itself.
Rezland awoke to a horrific sight, and a sharp pain on the spot where Bard had hammered him awake. Then a question came from Bard as he felt them both start to lose weight.
"Hey. Can you swim?" Bard said in all possible bluntness as he pointed down to clear, blue water. Rezland stared at the sea for a few seconds before blinking his eyes twice. Then he screamed a wide mouthed scream of terror as he death-gripped Bard for dear life. Surely, he must have been thinking, this guy can fly as well!
Bard wasn't exactly enthusiastic about a guy who was trying to kill him hugging him like this, so he kicked him. An interesting note about Bard is his flexibility, which is exactly how his boot met the back of Rezland's head like it did. After 'persuading' Rezland to loosen himself, Bard grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him back into awareness.
"Calm down, man! We'll be all right as long as we land in the water! If you can't swim just hold onto me!"
Rezland calmed down, but only because he was mad. Apparently, the concept of hitting the water from this high up at a decent enough speed that would shatter every bone they both had never crossed Bard's mind. This was probably true, as Bard always loved diving into the ocean from cliffs as a child and never once got hurt.
"Have you spotted them yet!?" Mars yelled at a lookout on top of the tower at the base.
"No, not…wait. I see them! They're together and falling!" the lookout responded with urgency.
Mars grabbed the Den Den Loudspeaker and started barking orders into it.
"Attention! We need a rescue vessel out half a' kilo to pick up Bard and the pirate! GET A MOVE ON!" With that he slammed the loudspeaker microphone into the receiver, sending a steady wave of crackling feedback throughout the base. This blast of noise woke Araly with a start. She had decided not to watch Bard fight because she knew she would be a distraction for him, and she was dead tired from staying up signing things for so long.
She didn't need to hear the announcement to know Bard had done something regrettable, however, mainly because Mars charged into his office to wake her and tell her exactly what happened. After a very, very brief explanation of "COME ON!", he grabbed her arm and rushed out in a blur.
Araly, like Bard, had triggered narcolepsy, although hers was a bit more extreme. She was more than used to being dragged around under arm or by the hand to see something amazing and incredible, and since it was usually very early in the morning, it developed itself quickly.
Mars was unaware of this problem, and quite shaken that she was asleep when they arrived at the top of the tower. He attempted to waken her gently, with a light tap on the head. When she opened her eyes, her vision became partially magnified due to Mars putting a telescope in front of her eyes. She closed one eye and looked through the telescope to see Bard and some unidentified man hurdling towards the water, with his arms tight around Bard and tears streaming from his eyes. Then she blinked.
Rezland refused to stop screaming until he was positive that he would live through the horrible circumstances placed before him. Bard wasn't at all concerned about hitting the water, because he would glide right through it, provided his 'diving partner' would straighten his body.
"HEY!" Bard finally yelled, "Straighten your body or you will die!"
Rezland stared and blinked at him.
"Trust me! I've been doing this since I was a kid! If your body's straight you won't get hurt going into the water." He pointed at himself with his thumb, flexing his arm for effect. "Just believe in me, and we can fight again!"
Rezland was a combination of inspired and stupefied, but his fear of death by bone-disintegration overwhelmed both feelings. He decided that Bard's word was worth trusting and straightened his body out like Bard. They both hit the water with a splash and went down a few meters, but other than the sudden lung pressure and loss of breath, they were okay.
Rezland had enough for the day and wanted an excuse to not fight that monster again, so he passed out and floated to the surface where Bard recovered him and started swimming towards the shore…maybe. From this distance it was hard to tell which direction the shore was in. All Bard could see at the moment was blue ocean and sky. Thinking it was better to keep his body temperature up in cooling waters, Bard just started swimming in the most appealing direction first.
The sad fact: shore was the other way.
