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.
Bard is injured! The effects of Arthir Blightsmiter's weapon, the Argent Fist, have overpowered him completely. He now shuffled into battle, clutching his shoulder with dripping blood from his mouth down his arm, and a beaten expression. But has he given up...?
This is harder than I expected Bard thought. His stupid hammer can deflect and absorb all my attacks! He isn't using as many attacks now, he's just defending, but I'm still rushing in like an idiot! I just have to calm down and plan this out... Despite his pain, Bard took a fighting stance, legs apart and chest perpendicular to his enemy, with his arms tightly drawn like he held a bow and arrow. Using his clenching index and middle fingers on his forward left hand, he aimed down Arthir's blind spot and prepared to blast it full force.
Just pay him no mind Rez told himself, staring down the man in front of him with drawn blades. Bard has a plan, just don't ruin it...
"What a righteous day!" Arthir praised to the skies. "A whole gaggle of ye sinners and heretics coming to mine doorstep. It is great fortune for me, but mighty ill for thou..." He took up his hammer and arched his back to his smaller opponents. Coleen trembled and tried to shuffle her way out of the battle, but Arthir spotted her. Zan, as a professional, read his movements and preemptively stopped an attack at Coleen while it was in process. "Die, wench!" Arthir screamed.
"Go to hell" Zan lowed. He kicked up, letting his metal boot knife pop out, and made a slice at Arthir's arm. The Paladin was able to change the course of his attack in time to avoid getting cut, but the offensive wasn't yet over. Rez was on the move as well, holding his left blade like a sword and the other in a reversed grip.
"Hoo-wah!" Rez shouted. First, he stabbed into Arthir's armor, and pulled the trigger. In his gun were compressed metal slugs, strong enough to blow through a ship's main mast and break anything. It hit the tempered armor with a dull but resonating 'DOH', sending Arthir a few steps back. Then, while he stumbled, Rez scaled his chest in a step and arrived at his neck, holding it down. Finally, he hoped Bard could see him, and he winked. Bard did see him and all his efforts, so he took his chance and attacked!
"Here I go!" Bard said. He Soru'd onto Arthir's back. His left leg was on Arthir's left shoulder, and his right leg was drawn far back in a sort of fierce kicking motion. Arthir only now noticed the dire state of his position. With the smaller one holding his neck in place, the cunning one with the bladed feet preventing any attack and the strong one about to make a neck-breaking kick, his options were few. However, he still had a plan. "Spiking KICK!" Bard roared. He dipped down at his knee and began shooting his right knee forward. Although a direct kick with his foot would have been fatal in the right place, it was still risky.
I'll sacrifice power for efficiency Bard thought. An open elbow is more powerful than a closed fist, although it has shorter range. With my knee, he'll be dizzied, and since Rez and Zan are fighting with me, we can easily drain him and get him on his knees! Arthir used his last move. First, he slammed his head forward and forced Rez out of his position, then as Bard's knee came to the back of his head, thinking it was in fact his foot, Arthir reeled his head back very quickly. Bard wouldn't be standing so firmly on his trapezoids if they weren't huge, of course.
Enjoy the broken foot, cur! Arthir mentally shouted. The force of Bard's knee combined with Arthir's reverse headbutt made a huge impact on both parts. The single point that Bard attacked instantly formed a bruise on Arthir's skull, but Bard's leg was shaken. He had to hop off and away to recover, while Arthir was forced to drop his hammer and stumble forward with twitching fingers around his bruised skull.
"Oh, you miscreant!" Arthir groaned. "Why did you not use a proper motion to kick me?"
"I'm a smart fighter" Bard said, taking his injured knee into his hands. "I know better than to use minimal force for rock-skulled dude like you! My knee's a hell of a lot more solid than my toes are!"
"The genius of our captain is impressive" Zan noted.
"Ah, shut up" Rez said, now getting up from the ground and adjusting his headband. "We distracted him. Bard would've failed if not for us."
"Indeed" Zan said. "Perhaps we should compete to be the first mate when we're done here."
"Screw you!" Rez shouted.
"While you animals converse of silly things" Arthir groaned with increasing menace, "my power continues unhindered." He grabbed at his hammer, spun around and stomped a step forward to Bard. "Sir Bard! Clearly, I have underestimated your capacity as a warrior. Therefore, I challenge you to a one-on-one honor duel!"
"Really?" Bard asked, still clenching his leg. "I'm okay with that. You guys, stay out of this, okay?"
"No way!" Rez called. "We're pirates, dammit! We don't have honor!"
"My skills as a fighter have been challenged" Bard said, standing up with a little shiver. "Right now, I'm a fighter, and only a fighter!" Bard, despite his obvious injuries, was able to cockily pound his fists together with a smile. "I accept your challenge!" Arthir grinned wide at Bard's response, but Rez was less enthusiastic. Zan looked back at Coleen and saw that she was totally mesmerized by the fluidity of the previous moment. She was still staring in awe at the open, darkening sky.
Down the hill still, in the upper altitude of the village that wasn't ruined by Coleen's cannon, Ramone walked on unchallenged. It seemed that the guards had finally caught on to the pattern of come-out-and-die that Ramone was repeating for them. Most of the guards were barely sustained by instant care from the house women and stronger men, but more than half of the force was already wiped out. Most of them were still hiding with shameless cowardice, and those that were neither begrudgingly planned their next attack.
"Gggg...." Ramone growled. "How uninteresting this has become..." he said finishing with a yawn. "I'm getting tired." Then he stopped, seemingly without warning or general purpose, and sat on the ground. He crossed his legs, rested his elbow on his leg, and placed his chin upon his fist. The guards observed his apparent nonchalant demeanor and became angry.
"He mocks us!" one lowed.
"How dare he!?" another scowled.
"We must show this demon what righteousness does to the unholy!" another preached. His speech warranted a soft cheering, but ultimately all the soldiers did was hide in the houses and leer at him. The villagers didn't bother to look at the unsightly demon who caused so much carnage already. Ramone just leaned into his fist, drowsily drifting from a cautious apathy of destruction to a bored tiredness.
"Unforgivable" a voice growled. Ramone peered through one eye to see the owner of the voice, a scrawny young man with a pitchfork, standing in front of him. Plain and uninteresting with a face that has seen suffering, Jedediah blacked his halted path. "Your kind are unforgivable..." He was glowering at Ramone, so much so that it was getting on Ramone's nerves. Emily watched her brother from a distance and prayed silently for his safety.
"Eh?" Ramone grunted. "I'm unforgivable?"
"You killed my family!" Jed shouted. "My sister and I are all that remains of thy foul attack. Such indecency, such heresy! You have killed those dear to me!!!"
"I'm a pirate" Ramone clarified. "Pirates usually kill people. In fact, in heated battles, it's hard not to kill people."
"Silence!" Jed screamed, pointing his feeble farming tool at Ramone's face from a distance. "I won't allow you to lie at me! You cannot deceive me!"
"I'm not trying to" Ramone said, slowly getting back up.
"That man" one guard said "has stepped into the afterlife already."
"Pray for a painless death" another guard offered and started.
"Listen" Ramone began to the stubborn man as he dusted off his pants, "I won't apologize if it won't make you feel better. My life was as in much danger as your brother's or father's or whoever's that day. You think I wasn't trying? You think I wanted to get exiled to the goddamn swamplands for a whole year!? None of what happened was initially intentional. We were all defending ourselves and, in the process, people died. Killing me or attacking me won't bring them back, and I'm sure it won't leave a good taste in your mouth later, either."
"..." Was Jed's first response. In a way, he wanted to back down, as he felt a touch of sympathy for this devil. But, as his zealous sense of justice overwhelmed his common sense, he abandoned his words and common sense in favor of a full charge. "To hell with you, Demon!" Ramone sighed and waited for the blow to come, perfectly aware of his ability to negate it. He was stabbed minorly and coughed a bit. Jed tried to dig the fork in further, but Ramone reacted to the pain and threw the weapon away.
"There was salt on that thing" Ramone said.
"It is thy weakness" Jed pointed out, retrieving a bag of salt and retreating a step back. "It is a well known fact. Demons of the sea cannot tolerate the purity in the waters known to thee as salt..." Jed retrieved a handful of said from the pouch and held it in the fashion that he would soon throw it as well. Ramone was now on edge, but unwilling to harm an innocent person. Therefore, he stepped forward and got pelted with weakening salt.
"I have worked hard to get where I am" Ramone testified. "I trained countless hours everyday at sea. Ever since my fateful and unrecorded escape from the Goal, every moment of my life was lived like the greatest battle of my life was shortly coming. You have no idea what kind of pain and anger I felt when I was stranded here. I was hurt. All my life felt wasted, like it wouldn't go anywhere. And now that an opportunity to escape has come up again, I don't think I can do it. I'm actually too unfaithful of myself to press onward now, and it's this island's fault!"
Ramone stopped just short of Jed when he ran out of salt and accepted his fate. Ramone stood over him with stern eyes fixed to the sky, covered entirely with salt but still standing and unmoved mentally by its effects.
"I cannot sympathize with you" Jed declared. "Strike me down now, but know that I will die with a righteous cause in my heart."
"Ggggg...." Ramone growled. "I won't kill you. You have a future." So, instead, Ramone just gave a powerful punch to Jed's diaphragm that lifted him from the ground and then let him fall back down onto his face. Emily screamed in fear, the guards looked on in horror, and Ramone just walked on with a newly found sense of urgency. "Now, my hope is renewed. Those kids are my damn ticket outta here. Those Buster Pirates...yeah..." And now, for the first time in what may have been over a year, he smiled. It was a smile that pulsated with absolute menace and vileness, a totally evil look for such a joyous feeling inside of him...
