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.


"LAND!" cried the lookout.

"How far?" shouted Rez.

"Still a kilometer or so" the lookout shouted. "We should stay outta sight until we can find a harbor somewhere to dock."

"Right" Rez shouted. "Someone inform the captain!" A crewman saluted and ran across the deck to the captains cabin, wherein Bard slept noisily on his bed.

"Captain!" the crewman shouted. Bard didn't move. "Captain!" he shouted again. He looked around and found a chair, which seemed to be dense enough to wake the captain up with. He took it up and slammed the chair on Bard's back. He still refused to budge. "Captain, wake up! We've found the next island!"

"REALLY!?" Bard shouted. He snapped instantly into a heroic position on his bed, hitting his head on the ceiling in the process. "Great news! Inform the crew!"

"We already know, sir" the crewman reported. "In fact, I believe you're the last to find out..."

"Oh" Bard said. "Ah well. Prepared to dock! OR...port. Whatever we do as Pirates!"

"We can't yet, sir."

"Why not!?" Bard vehemently asked.

"The island is flying a World Government flag" he reported. "If we run in guns blazing, the government could dispatch a fleet to take us out."

"Then we'll just take them out" Bard sternly reasoned.

What kind of logic is that? The crewman asked himself. "We'll circle the island until we find a safe port to dock at. So far we haven't even seen a real dock for normal ships. Chances are good that it's a kind of fort for the Marines."

"Meh" Bard huffed. "I still say we should go ahead. If they really don't want us there they'll tell us."

"Yeah" the crewman said "with cannons. Our ship's to big to dodge whatever offensive they decide to launch, we'd get torn up!"

"Then send a party on a dinghy!" Bard ordered. "We have plenty of them, after all."

"Aye aye, sir!" the crewman saluted. He ran off with the order, leaving Bard without an answer to his suggestion.

"Well" Bard stubbornly said, "I guess I'll just have to go myself..." He walked out onto the deck with an attitude and started towards the Grand Mast. He started hiking vertically up to the crows nest that other, normal pirates had to take an automatic pulley system to get to. "Yo!" he greeted, hopping into the spacious nest with the lookout. "How goes it, Birdman?" The lookout, who was nicknamed Birdman for his uncanny ability to differentiate between solid land and odd illusionary formations on the Grand Line, snapped around startled.

"C-captain!" he stuttered. "It, it goes well, sir! We're in sight for the next island on our log."

"Great!" Bard exclaimed. "Where is it?"

"Right over there" he said, pointing to a blurry speck on the horizon. Bard peered through the salty sea air and finally saw it. It looked like a huge rock sticking out of the waves. "It's a ways off, and I can't see and visible port to dock at, so we're staying a safe distance away for now. The last thing we want is an unnecessary intrusion on government grou-" and Bard was gone. He had been gone for a while since Birdman started talking, and could be seen flying away from the ship and towards the island.

"Alright!" Bard shouted. "Let's test this baby out!" Just before Bard hit the water he kicked his legs down,. Suddenly, his legs were gone, vanished in a blur similar to the dark of his pants. The water exploded in a blazing trail that followed him as he ran over the water towards the island. "SORU: WATER RUSH!"

"First mate Rez!" a crewman shouted to the navigator. "The captain's gone overboard!"

"Well, he can swim..." Rez said, shrugging his care off.

"He's sprinting to the island!" the crewman reported with dread.

"What...!?" Rez growled.


"Ha!" Bard shouted ."This is easy! Now that I'm used to Soru, I can use it without getting exhausted. If I just keep practicing with this and Rankyaku, I'll have them mastered in no time at all!" As Bard grinned so pleased with himself he neglected to measure just how fast he was going and how long it would take for him to travel a kilometer. He wasn't in a position to slow down at all and land was barreling at him rapidly.

Bard tripped into the dirt and zoomed a distance past some dead-looking trees before hitting the ground and tumbled into a rocky wall. "Hoo!" he shouted, "I thought I'd never stop. That was spooky! More importantly, where am I now?" He looked around and saw a depressing landscape of half-dead trees and fallen leaves. A black forest where he was the liveliest thing present. Bard noticed a cave just adjacent to his impact sight in the rock wall and peered in. It was warm and damp, almost dripping from the roof, and empty. "Huh. Maybe this cave leads somewhere?" Bard summoned up his inner adventurer and walked in. His tall stature made his exploration short, as he hit his head only a few steps in.

"Ah!" he screamed. "Pain! Why is there pain! Damn, I should have used Tekkai then, I'm an idiot. Although, I can't move with Tekkai..." Then a warm, moist air hit his back. Bard turned around and saw behind him a bear. A giant bear that only the Grand Line could provide a proper home to. Bard's first reaction was "AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" The bear roared and chased after Bard on all fours while he sprinted through the woods, dodging trees and other hazardous pitfalls on the forest floor.

"Wait a minute. Why am I running? It's just a bear." So Bard stopped. He dug his feet into the soil and leaves and, just as the bear was ready to maul, he whipped out his iron muscles! The bear slammed headfirst into Bard's flexed arm, the strength of his Tekkai enforcing his great power. Then Bard drew back his arm, made a fist and punched the bear into a tree. Then that tree fell onto the bear and just short of Bard's feet. "YEAH! Take that, Bear! DON'T MESS WITH THE BUSTER PIRATES!!!" As Bard posed and growled in victory, a young girl quivered fearfully in the clearing behind him. During one of his more unorthodox, one-legged poses, he spotted her and a short silence fell. She was a little girl of at least ten, with a plain dress and a basket of fruit on her arm. "...hi" Bard greeted.

"EEEEEEE!" she screamed. "The demons hath returned! Take to the houses for shelter!!!"

"Demons!?" Bard repeated. "I thought it was a bear!"

"I must haste!" the girl shouted. She started to run away, but Bard was quicker and ran out in front of her. He snapped around and looked down at her, the shadows of the trees making his head seem like that of a fire-headed monster and his eyes shone through the dark with a resonating light of brilliant optimism and awesome. The girl became stiff with fear.

"Where do you live!?" Bard urgently asked. "I'll get you home before more of those demons showed up!" The little girl was confused, and looked at him so.

"I need not thy help!" she insisted. "Get you away, demon! I'll not be caught consorting with such a cretinous thing as ye!"

"'Ye?'" Bard repeated. The terminology was confusing to Bard, more so than being called a demon. "Hey, wait!"

"NO!" the girl screamed. She ran off once again through the orange forest away from Bard. Bard decided that, for whatever reason she had, he should follow to find someone to talk to about docking on the island. The forest seemed to run right up to the ocean in most places and there weren't any waves crashing along the beaches either. It was a truly strange island. The sky even looked gloomy from the forest.

"This is getting creepy" Bard noted. "I should head back to the ship and tell them not to say that they're demons when they get here..." So Bard decided to head back to the ship. Of course, the problem with that was obvious. "Wait...where's the ship?"


"Where's the Captain!?" the crew desperately shouted. "We finally found a great place to deck, and now he's gone!"

"Calm down, everyone!" Zan shouted. "He probably went to the island already."

"WHAT!?" the crew collectively shouted.

"You all act like you didn't expect this to happen" Araly said from the aft deck. "Of course he would head over there the moment you take your eyes off him."

"Birdman!" Rez roared, more outraged than anyone that Bard beat him to land. "Bard was with you last, right? Why didn't you talk him out of it!?"

"I didn't even know he could do that..." Birdman feebly defended. Rez smacked his head in shame and clutched at his skull with anger.

"Need a smoke?" Zan asked.

"No time!" Rez growled. "We have to dock now and find Bard before he does something stupid!"

"It's too late for that" Marco figured. "Let's just dock and not worry ourselves over an impossible task."

"Here here" The crew unanimously shouted.

"Wow" Araly said, "you guys catch on to Bard's antics pretty quick."

"We just have to be quick in the future" Zan said "and make sure we tell Bard not to bother with going to an island before us."

"It won't work" Araly said. She reached out from her hammock for a drink that Max, with his deathly-cold skin, was holding for her. "Bard's too stubborn for you guys to deal with."

"Then, Mrs. Samekawa" one of the burly crewmen whined, "why didn't you try to stop him?"

"Because" Araly said, pausing to sip her drink with leisure, "even I can't control him that much..."

"GAH!" the crew gasped.

"Yes" Zan said, blowing some smoke as the ship creaked in its new course, "it was hopeless all along..." And so the Imperial Dragon sailed on to the sheltered bay at the rear of the island, out of sight from the World Government flag and whatever stronghold may be there. Bard was stranded on the island, on his own to find some way to survive, while his crew approached at the pace their giant ship allowed them. Soon enough, all the Buster Pirates would be gathered on the island of perpetual fall...