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.
"What was that!?" the guards shouted. Ramone stood in the open street, stagnant swamp air radiating from him like unholy light. Rez and Zan decided to flank around, as they couldn't see any rampant and random destruction in the area that they could attribute to Bard.
"Is he dead!?" another yelled in reference to the fallen man. With one attack, and without moving from that one attack, Ramone downed a guard single handedly. Now he started walking forward in great, stomping strides. His crew started following far behind with Coleen at the front. Her cannon was ready to aim and fire again, although her skin still sizzled from where she gripped the metal.
"Captain..." she cooed almost silently.
"Hey!" Ramone shouted. "Any o' you carps wanna go!? I'm ready. I've been waitin' for this for a god-damn year!"
"Did he just call us carps?" a guard asked.
"Don't go out there" another warned. "That demon has horrific powers!" The guards who came out and witnessed his demonstration all retreated to the side of the street."
"You fools!" Shouted a gallant voice. "It is only one man! I see that I shall have to take him on myself!" And so that callous man stepped out into the open street and squared up against Ramone. He was ugly as sin, with a largely distended upper lip that looked like a beak, a button nose and squinting, rat-like eyes. His body wasn't very good either, as his hips exploded out in some odd ball to produce skinny, stick legs. His arms were as thick as his bones at the end, but his hands were surprisingly meaty.
"Damn" Ramone said. "They sure make you guys ugly!"
"Silence!" his surprisingly masculine voice boomed. He took up his spear and started twirling it effortlessly between his fingers. The muscular digits held the strength of biceps. The spear was longer than the man's strange body, making the feat all the more impressive. Ramone wasn't impressed. "I shall fell ye! Scandalous knave, prepare thyself for a torrent of lashing from my whipping spear, Spear Whip!" Ramone held up his arm and aimed with an open palm.
"You're boring" Ramone said. A loud buzzing came from around him, such buzzing that even Rez and Zan heard it behind one of the ruined houses.
"What's that?" Rez asked.
"His ability?" Zan assumed. With his hand stretched out, Ramone closed his eyes and started quietly chanting. The ugly soldier twirled his spear faster and faster until it bent from the circular force.
"Captain!" Coleen shouted. "Watch out!" However, Ramone did not heed her warning, and let the spear crash violently into his neck. He didn't budge, but shrapnel flew off from his neck. The guard stared fearfully at the cracked and gaping wound he made. It was such a hole in his body that the inside of his seemingly hollow back could be seen. From the edges of that hole came a thick, pale goo that seeped down and over the spear.
"What's this?" the guard asked, yanking with all his collective strength. His spear refused to dislodge. "What strangeness be this. Demon!?" The buzzing grew louder still, and started coming stronger near his arm. That's when Rez noticed the bugs crawling all over him. While the guard was distracted with his spear, insects of all kinds emerged from Ramone's body.
"You're kidding" Rez said. "He's a freaking human hive!?"
"Seems so" Zan said. "Anyway, let's keep going. He can handle this easily."
"You sure?" Rez shouted, now that the buzzing had gotten annoyingly loud. He looked back one more time, watched the ugly guard get absorbed by the bugs, then turned tail and ran.
"You're obnoxious" Ramone growled. With his hand he commanded the swarm of bugs to press inward, and with the twitch of his fingers he commanded them to bite. When the bugs eventually flew off and back through the hole in Ramone's neck, the guard was covered in a spectrum of colorful bug bites.
"Captain!" Coleen called as she ran up. "Those two Buster pirates have gone!"
"Good" Ramone said. "More for me. They can go kill 'emselves for all I care..."
"But they could get their captain to rally against us!" she warned. "We can't trust them so easily. One of them took me hostage!"
"Well, go follow them then" Ramone grunted. "Damn, woman, just do what you want already. I have my own thing to do here."
"Yes sir" she sounded off.
"You men!" Ramone shouted to his horde of crewmen behind. "Go into the houses and get the guards out here. I don't want to leave a single one unbitten!"
"Yes sir!" They all roared, although the thought passed through each of them that he could bite them all from where he stood.
"Ggggg...." Ramone growled. "It's gonna be a good day" he said with a scowl and clenched jaw.
Finally, elsewhere on the royal plateau, the Buster Pirates proper had finally gotten their rig set up. The first order of business: transport the supplies for a discrete base camp. The next step, which they were currently taking to task: transport interim-captain Araly and moral support Maxwell from the ship. The pulley Araly had designed and help construct was working perfectly, as smooth as an elevator. The platform was large enough for at least twenty people to ascend at once, but the strength of the ropes would only allow up to ten of the burly, spirited pirates. The whole rig worked on the pulling power of the stronger pirates, who tugged with the ropes over their backs through the wooded area.
"PULL!" the rig leader commanded.
"Maybe we can keep this" one of the puller suggested "as a training regimen!"
"What good will this do us!?" a less enthusiastic puller shouted. On the lift, Araly was content to observe the serene sea and the shifting swamp waters. She memorized the currents and tide that carried the waters around. After all, with no actual conversation, the trip straight up would take long enough for her to catalog anything she could see.
"It's an interesting island" Araly noted. "The ocean water mixes with the fresh water perfectly. The trees can still grow, but they're naturally dead looking. Despite that fact they're strong from the salt, like a huge barrier reef. The wildlife is huge too, for some reason. The minerals must mix with the sea salt to make some kind of steroid potion in the water. The people on this island must be huge too!"
"Porterhouse..." Maxwell muttered. His random dream-speech usually provided some odd insight to whatever situation was presented, but this case was an exception.
"We'll be arriving soon" Araly told herself. "I hope Bard hasn't gotten too impatient. He's got a short fuse when it comes to boredom. If there are any marines here, he's probably already started picking fights with them..."
"...Bink's sake..." Maxwell muttered in monotone.
"I never really noticed before" Araly said wistfully, "but the ocean really looks gorgeous. You must have seen the ocean a hundred times over, right? Where I'm from, the sun almost never shines. It's always storms and dark clouds looming overhead. It was a terrible place most of the time...but of course, we all had Bard to rely on. He'd make every day fun, even if he died trying..." As Maxwell snored and shook the rig, Araly started drifting off to the better days, when she had met Bard for the first time...
"Hey! You guys!" shouted a young, golden haired boy. "Watch me! Watch me! I'm gonna lift this cart!" He then pointed at a cart stacked with boxes and barrels.
"No you're not" one random man said. "We need at least two donkeys to pull that blasted thing."
"Just go back inside, Bard" a woman said exasperatedly. "No one wants to see you kill yourself today. Try tomorrow."
"No really!" Bard pleaded. "I lifted a rock that weighed as much as that cart, so I can definitely lift it!" No one listened and the villagers went about their business. Bard puffed up his cheeks in anger, then calmly blew it all out and smiled. Even at a mere ten years old, Bard was the image of total physical excessiveness. He had more muscles that any boy his age ever had, and he used them. So, the short boy ran over to the cart, disregarded not having an audience, and took a firm grip at the center.
"Basic martial arts can be applied to lifting" he told himself. "Just find the point where the weight is centered and balanced to lift everything at once. To overthrow an object, manipulate its center and move the weight around. I just have to worry about my technique..." So, securing a solid foot hold, Bard began by lifting with his strong and stout legs first.
"Araly!" called a woman, "come away from that window!" Araly, at age nine, was a petite young girl who just started styling her hair into a pony tail. She was watching eagerly from the window to the outside world, a place her parents forbid her from entering without her.
Now I know what I'm missing out there! Araly thought with the determination to stay in place and watch. Bard now began to lift with his whole body, and then with his arms. The cart was indeed off the ground, all four wheels, but no one was around to watch but Araly.
"Hey Ara" her brother now called. "Come on, mom's got dinner ready."
"Don, come look! Quick!" She called urgently. He walked over and peered out the window with her.
"What's up?" he asked, just now spying the young lad around his age lifting a heavy cart on his own. "Woah! That's amazing!"
"Right? You think he's a Devil Fruit user too?" Araly inquired.
"Children!" their mother harshly called. Don jumped in his skin and started running towards the kitchen.
"Coming!" he called back. "Ara, let's go! Quick!"
"Not now" Araly said, waving her hand at his to go away. "I wanna watch! Maybe he'll throw it!" Utterly captivated by Bard's ridiculous display of power, Araly made a swift move for the door. As for Bard, he was faring worse with each second.
Woah! Bard said in his mind as his teeth were clenched hard enough so the air in his mouth couldn't escape. This is making my head hurt! But I can't give up! Now that I've got this in the air, I'm gonna lift it over my HEAD!!! With this new conviction, he dug his feet deep into the rocky road on which he stood and started pushing the cart further up. From its exact center, Bard was lifting the whole weight of the cart. Once it was over his head, his admiring public came out at last.
"Holy Hell!" one man shouted.
"Bard, be careful!" a woman yelled with great concern.
"Great job!" Araly called from her doorway. "You can do it! Throw it into the sky!" Bard glanced over with his greatly strained face and saw the expression on the girl's face. She was smiling, brimming with joy, just by watching him do what he does. The rush of having a fan felt great, like a warm wind at his back, and Bard winked out a smile. He bent his knees down, like he was seriously preparing to throw the cart, and pumped his muscles as fast as he mentally could.
"UUUUUUUUREEAAAAAHHHH!!!!" Bard roared, shooting his whole body upward. The cart was airborne overhead! The moment of triumph lasted all of one half-second until the cart came crashing down on top of Bard, but the feeling he got and the impression Araly felt was a rush he never knew before.
"Oh my GOD!" one villager shouted.
"Mrs. Samekawa's gonna throw a fit!" someone else fearfully shouted.
"Worse yet, she'll kill us!" another figured. Araly was now standing with her arms down, her grin faded, and her eyes apathetic.
"I knew it" she told herself. "I knew that would happen. I thought he'd catch it, but he didn't, so now he's dead."
"Hey!" a feeble voice called out in her direction. Out from the undercarriage of the busted cart crawled Bard, perfectly fine if a bit shaken. "I'm a pretty strong guy, huh?" Araly turned, now interested again, but stayed on her apathetic tone.
"I guess." She said. Bard chuckled happily.
"I'm Bard" he said. "What's your name?"
"Araly" she responded.
"Hey, you wanna see me wrestle a mountain grizzly?" Bard offered. "i know where they hang out and I'll let you tag along tomorrow if you want!"
"Umm..." Araly hummed. She didn't have an answer in particular, but she knew what she'd say. So, forming a smile she-
"ARALY!!!" Her mother growled, grabbing her arm, "when I say come, you better move you butt and GET TO THE KITCHEN!!!" She was then dragged away without acknowledging Bard again.
"Alright" Bard called to the house. "I'll be by tomorrow! I promise, you won't be disappointed!" That was their first meeting, the beginning of their strange friendship, and one of Araly's fondest memories. For that night, as she was alone and confined to her room, the images of foolish, muscle-headed Bard ran through her mind and forced her to laugh herself to sleep...
"Welcome!" shouted a strong and burly voice. Araly snapped out of her daydream and looked around. She was not only at the top, but had been for some time as she was still sitting in the same position on the grass with Maxwell right beside her, only now a new load of pirates and supplies was being lifted up and unloaded.
"Here's the last of the food" Marco said. "Now we can start setting up camp!"
"Phew!" exclaimed one of the strong pullers. "That took forever, didn't it?"
"Not really" another said. "Just a couple minutes after Captain Araly and Max were unloaded."
"EH!?" Araly shouted. "Wait, why did our trip take the longest?"
"Because" Marco said, "These guys can pull really fast, but the ride gets really bumpy and you can't stand or stay on well. You just wanted to get up with no trouble and we didn't want to drop Maxwell down the cliff."
"That's cruel!" Araly said. "I'm as much of a crewman as any of you! I want a fast ride too!"
"No you don't" groaned one of the pirates. He and several others were leaning over the cliff and retching. "It's...not for the weak willed." Araly groaned and sank back into the ground she sat on. The supplies were all up and the pirate crew was almost fully assembled. Once Zan, Rez and Bard were rounded up, the Buster Pirates could rest peacefully until their ship was dislodged and their pose was set...
...however, the wretched isle had other plans for the three fighters and even an unwanted surprise waiting in the shadows for the crew and Araly. What could be lurking in those dark, damp woods?
