Disclaimer: One Piece is the property of Eiichiro Oda. Many of the characters in this story are property of me. Do not use this story or its characters without my permission. Thank you.


"Captain Mars, sir!" a nervous Marine grunt reported. "How are those papers coming?" Mars sat slouched against his huge fist behind a desk overflowing with papers, signed and mostly unsigned regarding some event that he had long forgotten.

"Yeah, they are" Mars affirmed, picking his nose casually.

"Very good sir, because Commodore Lucas is here to retrieve them." This news made Mars look up in disgust at the marine. Commodore Lucas was his regional superior who took all of his reports to and fro between the island and Enies Lobby. He was a short man who never smiled and seemed to have some kind of rash on his face that crawled up from his neck. Accompanying him were members of the Cipher Pol, dressed in black suits and carrying guns through the base. Each marine they passed gave their hastiest salute.

"OH! You're here, Lucas!" Mars' voice called over the intercom. "Please wipe the dirt off your shoes before you come in, my men just finished sweeping!" Mars snickered over the base as Lucas scowled and made his way in, not wiping his shoes at all. The CP agents did, out of courtesy.

"Mars!" Lucas shouted, storming his way into the office. "Where are my reports!?" Mars didn't bother to salute or even straighten up, but rather slumped lower in his chair. "Do you know how nippy Brandnew is getting with me for the bounties?" Mars shrugged. Lucas slammed his hand down on the crowded desk, sending an avalanche of messy papers spreading over the floor. Mars just sat back and watched it happen. Lucas picked up a random one and held it up to Mars.

"Is this it?" Lucas asked officially. Mars sighed.

"Desertion and Treason within a lower-military position doesn't warrant any more than 5million, so yes." Mars explained. "As of now, Bard D. Samekawa is a Pirate worth 4million berrie. Along with him is the pirate Rez 'the Duelist' worth 30million."

"And what about the former Yonkou?" Lucas asked.

"A legend..." Mars assured, going back to his urgent nose-picking. Lucas snarled and left in a huff, taking the bounty picture and leaving the CP agents with Mars.

"We would like to ask your cooperation on a certain matter, if we may" one of the government agents said. Mars turned to them seriously.

"It has come to our attention that this island is home to an excavation site where various Blank Century items were found several months ago" the agent reported. Mars sat back up and listened. "All of the items were thereafter confiscated by the CP agents called here. However, there was a typo in the listings..." Mars made the motion to stand up, knowing what to expect next. "We wonder if that was just a typo, or if one of the items was indeed taken out of our jurisdiction..."

"Nope" Mars said assuringly. "I counted them all myself and re-checked with the papers, it was a typo." Mars' reassuring smile gave the agents a sense of duteous curiosity, but his honesty seemed to wipe away their doubts as they both bowed and started out. As they left and closed the door, Mars' smile left with them. He slumped back into his chair and sighed heavily.

"Oh, Bard" he lamented, rubbing his temples. "You're in more trouble than you know..."


"High-Ho!" Bard shouted. "Let's shove it and rup the sails, ye land-lubbers!!" His enthusiasm was wasted, as his crew just ignored him and kept moving about the ship carrying on. Most of them were slacking off, looking over the side of the ship and the group of cooks was fishing. Bard frowned and hopped across the expansive deck, feeling the warm air blow across the varnished deck. Then he stopped.

"Hey!" he shouted over to the main deck. "I think it's about to rain!" His crew paid more attention to him now, so they checked the skies and horizon, trying to catch a glimpse of storm clouds.

"Port side! Incoming Storm!" the lookout called down from the amplified horns of the crows nest. Everyone took a moment of uneasy pause, then rushed around to secure the ship for a heavy tossing of eaves. Bard just hopped back along into the aft-end of the ship where the main bedrooms were.

"How'd he know?" Rez questioned, taking firm grip of the steering wheel. In no less than a minute, the rain was pounding hard on the deck of the ship and pelting Rez's body full of dents. The rest of the crew was down below, operating the ship using remote controls. That was the apparent beauty of this ship, the levers and ropes that connected up above with the Grand sail and the subsequent sails that stuck out from the side of the ship, the Dampener sails, which helped to navigate the ship through the waters.

"Poor First-mate Rez" said one of the Busters, sitting on a padded chair and watching a cranking wheel to make sure it wouldn't spin.

"Where's Max?" someone asked. Up above, Max was leaning back in a chair that was sliding haphazardly across the deck , gargling the rain that caught in his mouth. Meanwhile, in the master bedrooms, Araly had manufactured a cure for her rampant seasickness.

"Hey Bard," she asked from her hammock that swung freely above the floor. "Do you know what time it is?" Bard shrugged from his seat looking out the aft window and leaned back.

"How do you think Captain Mars is doing?" Bard asked. Araly looked up from her seat and over at Bard. He looked casual enough, but the question was prodding enough to force her to think.

"He's probably looking for us by now" she suggested. Bard stood up and walked over to a chest beside the huge master bed.

"Yeah, probably" he replied. He took something out of the chest, unseen by Araly, and slipped it inside his coat. "I hope we don't have to fight him..." Bard said sternly. Araly watched him leave back into the storm and grew concerned. She went back to lay down and relax when something caught her eye on the ceiling that made her nearly scream out...


The storm, as soon as Bard stepped out of his door, was over. Rez was soaked to the bone and muttered angrily. Bard spied Max with his feet up against the rail and his chair leaning back on two legs, and decided to leave him be.

"Yo, Rez!" Bard shouted, rushing over to the fore-deck where Rez was glaring intently from. "What's our bearing?" Rez checked his wrist for the eighth time this minute and found that the ship was sailing forward along the log-pose's line.

"We're dead on for the next island" Rez reported.

"Great! When will we get there?" Bard asked happily.

"If everything goes okay" Rez started with low expectations "it should be a few days. A week at most." Bard groaned loudly and impatiently.

"That's too long!" Bard complained. "Make the ship go faster!"

"We can't!" someone shouted from the main deck. "This ship's pretty huge on its own, so we can't be expected to make any kind of record pace, or anything..."

"Well I don't care about that!" Bard announced. "Let's just go faster!" He took an aspiring pose to his crew, who looked on judgmentally.

"He doesn't understand the basic laws of physics very well, does he?" one pirate asked another.

"Nope" the other responded shortly.

"Well, whatever" Bard said. "Everyone! While we're out in the middle of the ocean on a huge ship like this, I suggest we sharpen our skills, lest we all let our muscles wither away to ATROPHY!"

"YEAH!" Bard's biggest supporters shouted in unison.

"Everyone pair up randomly!" Bard commanded. "We'll stay on top of our game by sparring with each other!" The pirates scattered around, drawing out their swords and striking their fighting poses. Bard watched eagerly and turned to Rez, who was still dripping as he steered. Bard stealthily creapt over and poked him in the back of the head.

"No" Rez snapped.

"Come on! The ship can steer itself!" Bard persuaded. Rez thought back to the hideous thrashing he received the first time he met Bard, and shook his head furiously at him. The thought of such a battle even made the creaks in the ship's hull seem louder.

"IF we fight we'll just end up destroying the ship" Rez said. Bard stood still and thought about that for a minute.

"Yeah, you're right..." he said. Regardless, Bard intended for his crew to be as powerful as possible before they had to encounter any more adversaries out at sea. With everyone ready, Bard was about to shout out his signal to start, but something else caught his eye. From the aft end of the ship, the woodwork seemed to warp a little. Then it started to bulge out, first amorphously, then as a vaguley human shape. Finally, someone seemed to step out form the wall with his hands in his pockets and a lit cigarette in his mouth.

"Yo" Zan said across the deck. "Nice ship." The crew all turned their attention on the intruder for a moment. Bard didn't immediately recognize him, but Rez did.

"Zan!" Rez called out, having stepped away from the wheel for a moment. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, I couldn't get a ride anywhere else, so I thought you guys could give me a lift over to the next island for free..." Zan explained, approaching Bard with the crew eying him carefully. "I hope that's okay, Captain." Bard looked at him for a second, gave a goofy smile and affirmed.

"Yeah, why not?" he said. Zan smiled openly at his gracious host and turned to the sound of a door slamming open. Out of the aft deck stepped Araly, swaying sickly and leaning against the railing.

"Bard!" she shouted out, "don't let him near you!" Her serious demeanor was by a vomiting spell, which passed as she got back up from the railing and wiped her mouth. "That's Zan Edwards, the Revolution Army's assassin! He's going to kill us all!!" At her report, Zan stood and raised his brows, as every sword and gun turned on him in an instant. Even Rez was shocked to discover his friend's true identity, and he aimed down his dual-gunblade scopes. Bard darted his head to-and-fro, looking in confusion as his entire crew was glaring with murderous intent at this man that he didn't know.

"Wait, how'd you know Araly?" Bard asked. Araly raised her head back up from the railing to answer him quickly.

"Newspapers..." she said then went back to throwing up. Zan just stood still, blinked and smiled up at the Captain and his first mate.