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.
With the triumph of victory rushing through him, Bard decided to flaunt it a little. He leaned back and raised up his right arm with a shaking fist and a smile, then shot it down to point at Arthir across the way and whipped his head down so his eyes glared more than normal.
"Next?" Bard lowed. Arthir shivered for a second, then picked himself up and started walking over. Arthir was a much bigger man than his soldiers, a very large human even by Bard's standards. His hammer was the normal, two-handed weight and size of the rest of the Paladins, but he only needed one hand to use it.
"Thou shalt pay, pirate" Arthir snarled. He took a large stride at Bard and leaned down to come face-to-face with him. "I am justice! And you shall fall!"
"You're breath smells like cats" Bard said, squinting his eyes in disgust. Arthir went back up in surprise but shook off the insult.
"Have you no blade, outsider?" Arthir asked.
"Nope" Bard said. "Just my arms and legs."
"But they can cut like blades" Arthir said. "And your arms, they smash through metal like iron rods! You must have made a Devil's Deal to gain such powers."
"Devil...?" Bard repeated, confused. "No, I just train really hard every day and eat lots of meat! Protein is important for a martial artist!"
"Martial Artist?" Arthir repeated, equally confused as Bard seemed to be. "What man can transform the matrimonial ceremony and call it a piece of art? Are you some type of painter?"
"...eh!?" Bard grunted. "Listen, let's just fight. No offense, but we're just going to get lost if we keep talking."
"Agreed" Arthir said. "Prepare whatever powers thou have, knave, for my righteous hammer the Argent Fist, shall drive you into hell and back!"
"Then you should stay on guard" Bard said, "because my Rokushiki attacks will bury you in a mound of horse manure!"
"Have at thee!" Arthir roared. He charged with his hammer overhead and ready to strike viciously. Bard kept his ground until the hammer started swinging, then Soru'd out of the way. The strike made the ground crack, rumble, and at length erupt with spikes and spires of rock.
"Cool!" Bard said, observing from a safe distance. "His hammer can move the earth! All their hammers seem to have some weird ability. Also, they all have those glowing papers on them too..."
"RAAAGH!" Arthir growled. "You shan't escape me, knave!" Bard simply stood thinking with his fist balled on his chin, trying to make sense of these knights and their odd powers. Arthir continued charging anyway, ignoring his opponent's unreadiness, and when he was in range he made a sweeping swing.
"That's it!" Bard said, pounding his fist into his hand. He jumped over the hammer, grabbed onto Arthir's hand and balanced himself in the air. "The paper! You're using magic paper!" Arthir was taken aback entirely by the accusation. Bard took the opportunity to kick him in the chest, sending him skidding back on his feet. Arthir was able to regain his mind in time to stomp forward and keep himself from falling. He glared up at the boy who discovered his secret and turned his hammer around.
"How...?" Arthir muttered. "How could you deduce that?"
"Easily" Bard said, "because the paper glows! And if something glows, it has to be magical!" Surprisingly, Arthir was again taken aback by Bard's stupid and uneducated explanation.
"So my ruse is found out" Arthir lamented. He then went from dreadful and solemn to serious and vindicated. "I shall make sure you carry that secret to thy grave!" He came at Bard with his hammer up, and twisted at the hip to power his swing. Bard decided to take a more offensive defense by planting his left foot forward and swinging to his left with both arms. This sent his right foot flying up with the necessary speed to counter the hammer blow and deflect it to the side. Once the foot and hammer connected, Bard used his immense muscular power to swing his leg like a sword and sent a Rankyaku wave into the hammer.
"Now for the kill" Bard said. He let his left leg lift off the ground and drew it back, attempting a Rankyaku spear type move point-blank at Arthir's stomach. Arthir was smiling.
Young fool Arthir thought. I was anticipating your callous move. He took his hammer as it was thrown back, gripped it hard, and swung it back at Bard. The Rankyaku wave that hit the hammer was shot back out and into Bard, knocking the wind and some blood out of him before sending him flying away. Bard crashed into the wall of a soldier's cabin and came to rest in a chair inside. He coughed a few times and felt at the tear in his cloak and skin.
"He deflected my deflection?" Bard said with shock. "That paper must have some...reflective magic or something...huh?" Bard finally saw the end of the hammer he hit. The long, flat side of the diamond colored mace had no paper on it, just a bright and shining mirror side.
"This hammer is just as magical as the paper" Arthir growled. "It takes the properties of whatever hits it, fire, ice and even air, then reflects it back in the fashion it was absorbed. That was the Argent Mirror you just experienced. Did it hurt?" Bard started growling and gritting his teeth.
"Oh, good God, no!" a guard pleaded.
"It is the end" a village woman lamented.
"..." stared Coleen in shock from behind a house ahead. Ramone was walking through the single-street village with insects buzzing around and through him. They entered through his ear and left through his nose, in and out the unseen holes within his coat, all searching for the guards that were still hiding in the houses. Of course, the brave and zealous fools that wanted to take him on themselves still came out from time to time.
"Halt!" one of ten guards ordered. "You shall progress no further, demon!" Ramone stopped and glared at the small line in front of him.
"Don't kid yourselves" he warned. "You guys ain't worth messin' with. Just run away..."
"I think not" the guard growled. "We shall forgo the formalities of the gallows and spear you here and now!"
"Gggg...." Ramone sighed with a growl. He raised up his hands and stretched them out to his sides. From his coat sleeves, his hands extended and started growing in tumorous growths. The guards watched the hideous process until both his hands resembled huge wasp nests filled with holes. "Stinger Hell..." he commanded. At his word, an army of wasps with huge stingers and bladed legs came flying out of his hive-hands to attack the guards. "Those stingers can pierce through even steel armor at top speed. I'd keep them away from my face if I were you..." The guards were in full panic, spear-tipped stingers stabbing them from all directions.
"Ha!" another leader for another line laughed. "Those men always were weak and unlucky. Let's see how you fare with me, Lucky James the Gambler!" Ramone stared down this new, annoying looking man in the feather-plumed metal hat. His wasps were called back into his hives and his hands slowly formed back into hands.
"There's no such thing as luck moron" Ramone said. "People like you, who always chalk up success to luck or coincidence or destiny, you all make me sick..." Ramone raised up his left hand how, all fingers tight together with his thumb between the middle and ring finger. His hand now started morphing into a huge, thick, wriggling rod with uncountable twitching protrusions on the sides. "All there is to success is hard work. Even I, who escaped the Goal out of chance, believe that..."
"What an archaic thought" Lucky James said with a haughty laugh. The guards in the line with him laughed as well. "Hard work only gets you to the cola mines! Hard work only begets hard work! But once you start wining by chance and luck, nothing can stop you! The sooner you stop your hard work and rely on your own precious skills and luck alone, the sooner you can ascend to the top!"
"Shut the *** up" Ramone snarled. The guards all jumped at his voice now, as it was different. It had a very disturbing drone under it, like the insects within him were talking along with him. "I'm gonna rip your filthy brain out..." Finally, his left arm extended out three-fold the length of his whole body as a giant, fat, and wide-mawed millipede. "Mi-Go! Rip them apart..." With a screech, the millipede whipped about and detached from his arm at the shoulder, leaving yet another huge hole for the bugs to go from. The millipede sped along the ground, dodging all manners of spears and swords, chomping and biting at the legs of the guards.
"Come here, you..." Growled one guard. He caught the thing, but its slippery back and sharp hairs scraped at the guard's leather gloves, eventually ripping them off and cutting his hand up. "Ah! It can't be caught!" he yelled.
"We can't hit it!" another guard said.
"Leave it to me!" Lucky James called. He raised up his leg, waited for the millipede's head to move into place, then stomped down with full force. The force of his steel-cased foot meeting the rock-hard exoskeleton of the insect sent the slow shivering pain of a shattered shin bone up to his mind. "GAAAAAAAHH!!! HOW UNLUCKY!!!"
"Indeed" Ramone lowed, calling the soldier back into his arm. "How very unlucky for you...not." With yet another line of guards defeated and the most prolifically lucky man unable to walk, Ramone started forward again. His target was obvious, the castle and its king, but his path was still unevenly blocked. Lines of guards formed in front of him, all deathly loyal to their king. "...Ggggg....this is getting good..."
At the temporary Buster Pirates plateau camp, Araly was gathering herself an expedition party to find their way to the nearest source of human life.
"Will this do?" she asked, looking at her team of Marco and four of the strongest present pirates.
"It should" Marco said, scratching at his bandanna.
"Okay" Araly said. "using my mystical woman's intuition, I shall point us to the nearest living being that is not an animal or monster..." She started rubbing her temples and humming. She licked her finger and held it up to the air. She picked up a stick and set it on its end to see where it fell. Ignoring all these impulses and signs, she pointed randomly in front of her and started marching with cords of rope at her waist just in case.
"Woman's intuition?" Marco asked. Araly just giggled and continued onward. To the groups astounding luck, after only a short trip of a minute or so, they came upon a cave with writing on the walls.
"Never doubt the woman's intuition!" Araly chided. Marco chuckled and rubbed his neck.
"Who's there?" a grumpy voice called from within. The pirates jumped. "It better not be anotehr damn knight! I'm getting sick of you punks taking all my hard work without any compensation!!!"
"Umm..." Araly began, but found no words after that to say.
"That's it!" the haggard voice called. "I'm getting' my cane! You better be gone when I get out there!"
"Uh, Ma'am?" Marco called into the cave, assuming the voice was that of a woman. "We aren't knights. We're pirates, and we're trying to figure out where we are..."
"Oh" the woman said, now coming into view. She was a warty old hag with sweet eyes and a largely-humped back, making her look about as tall as Araly. Again, the muscular pirates jumped, some into each other's arms, at the sight of her.
"Is it really human?" one of the asked.
"I knew it!" the burliest one cried. "There's no such thing as a woman's intuition. Araly just made it up!"
"Shut the hell up!" Araly growled.
"Well" the witch woman said, "aren't you all a lively bunch. Heeheehee! My name is Harriet Potecceli, the island witch and alchemist. Won't you come in, dearys?"
"Oh" Araly said graciously. "Thank you very much, Ma'am."
"And don't 'Ma'am' me anymore" Harriet warned. "I'm not so old to get 'Ma'amed' by pirates, you know." Araly followed her inside, beckoning Marco and the rest after her. Marco went on ahead fearlessly, but the cowardly brawlers decided to stay at least ten steps behind their acting captain out of fear.
"Captain Araly" one of them whispered, "don't get into anything that looks like a cooking pot!"
