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.
"Now it falls upon me" Lancelish prosed. He stepped forth with his radiant hammer as Bard shook off the last of his debilitating dizziness. Manowat was dragged from the battlefield as his partner stepped forth. Not as menacing as the former fighter, Lancelish carried himself with great honor and humility. He stood at Bard's height and mass, in addition to the armor and weapon he carried, making him a much more equal enemy for Bard to fight. "For give me, kind knave, but I must vanquish thee."
"Ah, no prob!" Bard happily said. "Lots of people seem to want to vanquish me lately. I'm used to it!"
"Verily" Lancelish said. "I shall introduce thee, to mine hammer, the Cloud-Splitter!" He held up his pearly hammer, upon which was plastered one of the emerald-green runes that crackled and glowed brilliantly.
"Nice name" Bard said. "What's it do?"
"Once our fight commences" Lancelish said, "I shall show thee."
"Sir Lancelish!" Arthir called. "Your king, the great Rupert, shall be the first to hear of thy failure should this rapscalious one do thee in! Do not disappoint thy great provider and king, do not lose!"
"I shan't!" Lancelish called back. "Tell me, captain, may I commence the fight now?"
"Do as you wish" Arthir said.
"Prepare thyself, sir Bard" Lancelish warned. He started raising his mighty hammer up high over his head with a kind and honest warrior's face. Bard did prepare, taking a step back so he could easily make a striking kick upwards.
I'll catch his hammer with my foot! Bard planned. If I use Rankyaku too, I might be able to deflect or break his hammer completely!
"Descending Angel Swing!" Lancelish called. The hammer started shining with some arcane power that emanated from the paper. Bard ignored it and spun around, taking a step forward and kicking straight up with great force.
"Rankyak-AKAKAKAKAKAKAKA!!!" Upon the impact of Bard's foot to the hammer, a stream of blazing electricity came crackling through Bard's whole body. He was stunned and continued stuttering in pain.
"This is my power!" Lancelish said. "To call forth the holy vengeful power of the very heavens!" Lancelish, instead of following through with his attack, raised his hammer up carefully and drew it back down to his side.
Bard went stumbling back a few steps, then fell down to his knees and coughed up smoke. "Holy hell!" Bard rasped. "My insides feel like they're on fire!" Lancelish came stomping forward, his hammer held in a thrust-like position. Bard stood up, ready to defend, and waited for his opponent to attack.
I'll jump over him! Bard planned.
"Charging Angel Thrust!" Lancelish called. He shot out his hammer, which Bard flipped over. Now in the air, Bard readied his leg to swing down with cutting force, heel first.
"Raaaan..." Bard began.
"Guardian Smash!" Lancelish interrupted. He used his massive muscles and leaned his whole body back while keeping his arms strong and steady. In place of his head and neck his hammer now lingered, which Bard again hit and exploded off of from the electric force. Bard went accidentally cartwheeling backwards until his body became limp again and he coughed up more smoke and blood on the ground. "I apologize for thy discomfort, but it is my righteous duty to end thy rampage before it doth begin."
"Grr..." Bard growled. "This is getting annoying. The only thing I can do now is dodge!" Lancelish, still cunningly kind and earnest looking, did not waste a moment. He rushed up to Bard, keeping his hammer up high and gripped hard with both hands. "Soru!" Bard shouted. With a puff of smoke, he disappeared. Lancelish stopped running and looked around with concern for his enemy.
"His magic is surely great" Lancelish praised, "but my divine mandated power shall triumph. His power only allows him to run away and exhausts him!"
"Lancelish!" Arthir shouted from the back ranks. "do not let down thy guard! His demon powers allow him to travel with great speed! He is not evading you at all!"
"Soru TACKLE!!!" Bard roared. With a Tekkai shoulder extended, he smashed into Lancelish's armored gut. The force of metal on metal-muscle was the equivalent of a hard punch to the knight, who staggered back and felt at his wound. The armor he wore was bent inwards and dug far enough to keep him from properly breathing. "Don't get to comfy" Bard said, now back in his vanishing act of Soru. "I'm still not done with you!"
"Whither hath thou gone?" Lancelish asked. He reached for his hammer, gripped tight the handle and felt a punch connect on his arm, loosening his grip. Three more punches and kicks ran up his leg, forcing him off balance. A solid kick to the neck stopped his breathing and released his grip, then bard knew he was safe.
"UUUOOOOAAAHHHH!!!" Roared the fightaholic Bard. He stole the hammer from mid-air and swung it in a circle, right into Lancelish's dented gut. The surge of electricity blazed through Lancelish's body and smoke bellowed out from his open mouth. At last, the paper's magic was spent, and a last blast of power sent Lancelish flying into the line of his brethren behind him. The only one not to get hit by the flying knight's body was his captain, the mighty Arthir, who rolled cowardly out of the way at the last second.
"What terrible power!" Arthir shivered. Bard stood tall, ignoring the pain with the sun at his back and storm clouds rolling over his head. He smashed his fists together and summoned up thunder in the distance, his glowing eyes shining through the traveling darkness that now engulfed the land.
"Oh, gracious!" Emily exclaimed. "What has happened?"
"Never you mind, woman" the quartered guard snapped. "Bring us more bread!"
"I tell you, kind guard, we have no more bread" Emily apologized. The guards who had been injured during the mystery pirate's initial rampage quartered themselves in every house they could get to. Emily and Jed were taking care of their gracious guests as they took the bedrooms, sitting room and kitchen, demanding food and drink constantly.
"No bread!?" the guard bellowed. "What kind of whelp are ye? Go make some!"
"I cannot" Emily said. "The baker in town is the only one in the village who makes the bread. Even so, I cannot afford it."
"But surely you can find some other food, sister!" Jed said. "These good men must recover for our great king!"
"Oh, I shall look" Emily said, dashing off to the pantry and storage room and every place she could find where food would be stored. She found nothing but sacks of dried flour and a container of what used to be milk.
"I'm sure she shall find you something" Jed told the hungry guards.
"She had better" one guard said.
"Although" another started, "I wouldn't mind having her for dinner. Heh heh..." A disgusting lecherousness in his voice made Jed shiver with hate but forced and honest, equally lecherous chuckle out of the others.
"I don't know" another guard called from a joining room. "I think I prefer a girl with more meat on her bones. That girl looked a tad skinny to me."
"Aye" another agreed. "What do you feed that woman, flour?" Jed faced away from the guards, lest they see his glaring fangs and crazy eyes. He wished hard for Bard to return and teach these ungrateful mongrels a lesson, but kept his mouth tightly shut and retrieved some soaked towels wordlessly for the guards.
"Militia-men!" a random, scared voice form outside called to the streets. "The village is under attack from the bay! The demons have returned!!!" The desperate, frantic nature of the call gave a sharp ringing in the guards' ears.
"Demons?" Jed fearfully repeated. The guards started cowering with their weapons held close.
"Demons!?" another guard shouted. "Are you kidding me!? First that pirate attacks, now the demons are coming!? Why now!?!?"
"Pirate?" Jed repeated. He forgot his fear of demons as his raging hate of pirates overcame him. The visions of his loved ones dying from the pirates that invaded long ago came flooding into his mind. Suddenly, he didn't care about king and country. A pirate was in his town and he would destroy that vicious being with whatever force his body would muster. So he grabbed a kitchen knife and rushed out the back door as his sister came in through the basement storage door.
"I apologize" Emily said. "We have no more food at all. The basement is completely bare."
"That's good!" a guard called. "That means we can hide down there!" The rest shouted their agreement and rushed for the door.
The villagers all went running in a fervent panic, a scene of total chaos to the incoming eye. Enter Ramone from the forest where a villager spotted him as she washed her clothes in the stream. The clothes stayed in that stream when he passed by with the following, haggard warriors. Rez and Zan stayed up at the front flanks with the captain as his crew stood readily behind.
"Gggg..." Ramone groaned. "These people're noisy. Coleen, make 'em shudup."
"Yes sir" Coleen replied. She advanced from the flank, took down her cowl hood and stared down the village outskirts. As she raised her arm, a violent amount of clicking came from under her robes. A metallic series of springs and gears kept clanking on as her tattered outer vestments were blown off and away. Her diseased, boiled arm held up a still self-assembling construct that wrapped and bound itself to her healthy, well defined arm.
"What's that?" Rez asked.
"Coleen's a smart girl" Ramone explained. "She's our ship's top mechanic...back when we had a ship. That's her automatic arm cannon. It fires compressed, heated air that can destroy a stone wall if it needs to. She calls it the 'Hellcat Special'."
"Hellcat!?" Rez said with outrage. "That's way too close to my sword's name!"
"Who cares...?" Ramone lowed. In front, Coleen's sleek, slender and trimmed physique was exposed beneath the fishnet stockings and tight racing-stripped shorts. Her leathery corset top and wheat-colored skin blended it with the spiraling mechanics that were entwined around her midsection, upper hip and completely formed around her right arm.
"Hellcat Special: Burning Bullet!" With a booming roar and explosive blast, a house was fallen to rubble. Next to that house ,the shrapnel of the first tore apart the nest. The pattern continued and many houses were destroyed from the single attack. However, strong though she seemed, Coleen was now winded and panted on her knees while she held the steaming mechanics of the cannon.
"Those aren't boils from disease" Zan pointed out as he watched her clutch the steaming-hot braces, "those are burns."
"It's her body" Ramone said as he steadily advanced. "She can do what she wants with it. 'S not my concern..." The coldness of Ramone seemed to topple the apparent coldness of assassin Zan. His utter disregard for his crew's well being, especially that of a girl so deeply loyal, made Zan a little sick.
"That bastard" Rez said. "How dare he treat his crew like that?" His outrage reflected Zan's internal thoughts almost exactly.
"Don't be a fool!" one of the sickly men behind them said. "Captain Cervantes is one of the most daring and powerful pirates alive! The reason he was sent to the Gaol, Impel Down, was because of us! If he hadn't sacrificed himself we never would have survived what happened to us!"
"Ah" Zan said. "That familiar swan-song, eh?"
"Please" Coleen pleaded, "don't mock the captain." She finally pulled her hand from the hot metal, and Rez and Zan watched the skin stick and snap apart from the searing metal it had clung to for support. "Even though he risked his life for us back then, we never thanked him for it. He always cared about us, but he came out a very changed man. We have to respect him now, because we never thought we'd see him alive again..."
"So you forgot about him" Zan assumed. "You all moved on without him, and when he came back, you felt guilty..." Coleen just hunger her head and stood back up. The crewman became equally shameful as well, looking away from the truth that Zan spout.
"What a rotten reason for loyalty" Rez said. "What'd he do with the ones that didn't follow him again?" More silence, only this time it was less dramatic and more projected towards him as an answer. Even Zan quietly shuffled away from Rez in response. "What!? He killed them? That's cruel!"
"Captain!" Coleen shouted suddenly. Rez and Zan looked over quickly, seeing a whole horde of quickly assembled, partially armored guards with spears that stood in a wide circle around Ramone.
"Come quietly to the gallows, you!" one guard shouted to him. Ramone didn't acknowledge any of them, only the dirt at his feet.
"Well demon?" another spat. "What say ye? Will you lay down thy weapons and come to die with honor, or shall we skewer you alive right he..." and that guard stopped talking. His crooked smile and bulbous nose were frozen in the cocky smile he had as he talked, but his eyes screeched with pain and terror. From the guard's stomach extended a greatly serrated, moving rod of some kind that came forth from Ramone's arm. The mystery thing retreated into Ramone's sleeve jacket and his hand came wiggling back out all the same. The guard dropped down to the ground where a pool of blood was building. Ramone raised up his arm, the other in his pocket, and lowed his groaning sigh.
"Gggg...weaklings..." The original Heretic begins his march!
