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.
"Screw honor!" Rez shouted, drawing up his gunblades. "He needs help!" Zan equipped his knives and prepared to rush in as well.
"Wait!" Colleen called from the second story of a still intact building. "Don't do anything rash!"
"Or what!?" Rez shouted.
"What are you doing up there?" Zan asked.
"I went up to get a better view" Colleen shouted. "Bard's okay! He's just stuck!"
"Say what?" Rez uttered. He turned and saw, in the clearing dust, Bard down in the crater Darks' swing made. He caught the blade in his hands! However, Rez also noticed his twitching, injured leg. He couldn't stand on it for much longer, that was obvious.
"Eh?" Dark grunted. He raised up his polearm that Bard foolishly continued to grip and sneered down his smaller foe. "What's this? You caught it? No one's ever blocked my attacks! I should bite off that bad leg of your now!" Bard became openly shocked that Dark noticed his leg, which Dark took further advantage of. "Oh yes, that's a bad leg, I can tell. I'm not sure, but I have a feeling that you injured it hitting me at some point! Ah, the world's changed! Time was a fella would fight another guy and they'd remember the whole damn thing!"
"Eh?" Bard grunted. "Well, can't you remember it? I did hit you with my knee..."
"AHA!" Dark shouted. He picked the halberd up, reeled it over his head and lifted his forward leg off the ground. "I knew it! You sneaky bastard, you hit me! NO ONE ONE-UPS DARK D'LEON!!!" Dark made a powerful lunge forward and tossed the spear away, Bard of course still hanging to it, at the tree line. At the last second, Bard hopped off and rolled to a stop on his good, left leg.
"Dammit!" Bard cursed. "I've been found out!"
"How long have you been fightin' me at half-strength!?" Dark growled, already dashing and fast approaching the weak Bard. Bard tried his hardest to stand tall, but his weak knee made it hard, and he found himself dipping down often.
"Now's as good a time as any" Bard said. "I'll have to risk it all with this: my trump card!"
"Quit babbling and die!" Dark bellowed. He jumped up into the air and threw his arms out to his sides. "Killing Blow: Body Presser!"
"Rankyaku!" Bard shouted. He stomped down on his left leg, then as Dark descended intercepted the massive body with his right, pointing straight and true like a spear.
"Eh?" Rez grunted. The energy from Bard's blade-swinging kick finally shot through and the force of a battering ram piled into Dark's gut. Bard stayed in position, legs extended perfectly straight and his body curved up with his arms flexing and a grin glaring.
"Wha?" Dark groaned.
"Yeah," Bard happily droned, looking up through his eyelids at Dark looming above. "I was faking it the whole time!"
"EH!?!?" Rez roared.
"Knew it" Zan announced.
"Now, I think this fights over!" Bard declared. He hopped up with his left leg, planted it on Dark's gut and quickly made a powerful push to send Dark flying away. Bard's body straightened out like a washboard, and he quickly returned his flexibility to catch himself before his back hit the ground. As his palms touched dirt, he pushed up, got his legs squared, and raised his fists up to his head level. Dark landed finally, less elegantly on one fractured leg and one he thought was broken by the intense burning. Regardless, he stood on both.
"You're a whelp!" Dark shouted. "An insignificant flea on the back of the world's largest, hairy, cruel, rabid dog!"
"Eh?" Bard shouted across the distance.
"A single guy like you doesn't matter out there" Dark said, trying to bring Bard down. "You're nothing! In an instant, you'll be picked clean of your wealth and meat, left alone and dying for the circling vultures. It ain't fair, I tell ya! It just ain't FAIR! But that's life. You either get away with scavenging and making an honest life of crime for yourself or you get caught and die in the hot, hot sun. I should know! I used to like the sun until I nearly dried up in it! I was standing in it for so long, I thought I was immune! But I ain't! You get it!?"
"I really don't" Bard answered.
"No matter how high you stand" Dark finished, "you're never in a position where you can't get burnt. Moron! I'm trying to save your life here! Out there there's nothing but fire, and everything burns! EVERYTHING BUUUURNS!" At this point, reaching the limit of his sanity, Dark picked up a large chunk of the ground. Bard anticipated his movement and Soru'd his way across the field. He stopped a good ten steps away, then began taking those ten steps by crossing his feet over with each mighty tread.
"Grapvine-Step..." Bard began announcing. His steps became larger and planted harder as he approached his target. Dark's legs couldn't support the extra weight of the rock he held and his muscles wouldn't respond. He was stuck and his bulging eyes told everyone. "Tekkai-Rankyaku Combo..." At the last dramatic step, just before Dark's own feet, Bard jumped up with his left foot stepping deep to his right. Then, spinning slightly in mid-air, Bard's right leg mad ea blinding swipe at Dark's face, and Iron strong blade kick that Bard finished off with the simple action noun of "KICK!!!" Dark was totally out of commision and he lost more than half his teeth.
"Excellent job, captain!" Zan praised.
"Not bad" Rez said humbly. "You may make an honest pirate out of yourself yet. I'm really impressed." Bard just stood, tongue out and hand behind head with a very modest look on his face.
"Nah, it wasn't that cool" Bard insisted.
"Okay quit that" Rez demanded, threatening Bard's neck with a sharp finger. "Take your credit like a man, dammit."
"Uh, okay" Bard stuttered. "Yeah, I sure am bad-ass, right...gents?"
"It's a start" Zan said, lighting a cigarette. He saw Colleen was out of the building and shyly observed the monolithic stature of Bard at a safe distance. Bard waved to her and, in a fit of shyness, she fled back into the building only to peer discretely out of the door on the second story a few moments later.
"Who's that?" Bard asked, motioning towards Colleen.
"Captain" Zan seriously started, "I suggest we regroup with the crew. A very dangerous man was recently set free onto the island and is undoubtedly causing a lot of trouble in the village."
"Crap" Bard muttered.
"It's not all that bad" Rez said. "Most of those guards probably have it coming."
"No, Jedidiah and Emily are down there'"Bard said. "They can't protect themselves in the village, they're all too weak!"
"I take it you met some of those villagers captain?" Zan said. "Well, Stopping this particular guy would definitely be against our best interests. He's pretty infamous for escaping Impel Down under even the World Government's radar."
"Eh?" Bard grunted. "Impale Down? What's that?"
"You clueless bastard!" Rez hissed. "The Undersea prison! The Great Gaol, Impel Down! It's an inescapable, impenetrable fortress of hell! If you go there you die there!"
"Then how'd this guy escape?" Bard questioned. Zan took out his cigarette and blew a smoky breath.
"I concur" Zan said. "Perhaps we'll have to interrogate him...or one of his confidants..." Zan then turned his attention to the second story window Colleen was hanging out of. The other two boys joined him in staring Colleen down with fake, friendly smiles from a distance, all of them unaware that Dark was stirring and trying to get up behind them.
"You pieces of" Dark began, then coughed up a solid lump of blood. "I'll throttle all of ya!" Suddenly, from the northern entrance of the Paladin barracks encampment, in the direction of the noble housing, came a feint blaring of royal brass. The pirates and Dark behind them watched and listened closely as the trumpets came closer and closer, blaring out a single, repeating procession tune. Two lines of similarly dressed men carrying very long bugles marched with a troupe of eight men carrying a single, mobile throne. Behind them was a smaller throne carried by six men, and behind them was a cage that rolled along the ground with a distantly human figure bound head to foot in chains being pulled by twenty guards armed with spears.
"What the heck?" Bard inquired. Colleen looked over with fright and quiet hatred. A single man stepped out of line and opened a scroll of parchment before his face.
"Presenting" the herald cried "the honorable, noble, regal, distinguished King of the land of Lioncrest, Sir Rupert the Great! And, in attendance, his daughter Gretta the White!" The trumpeters blew a few notes of royalty,then tucked their instruments underarm and applauded as if by script they had to. Rupert raised a hand that motioned them to stop, and immediately they stopped. Dark made his presence known again with a loud, guttural growl. Bard snapped around before his crew mates did and glowered with shock.
"Dammit, he's still conscious?" Bard shouted.
"Are you serious?" Rez bellowed. "I thought you beat him into the ground, Bard!"
"I did!" Bard argued. "You were there! You saw it!"
"We didn't exactly count on his resilience" Zan said, drawing out a single knife on his hand and aiming it to the criminal.
"Ahem!" boomed the regal and righteous voice of King Rupert. All four men immediately snapped back around an gave their attention to the man. "You have fought well, outlanders! To best the holiest of our knights is a great accomplishment indeed. Although I wish not to admit our criminals any praise, I must commend you for making it so far! Bravo!" And as their kings clapped, the guards and trumpeters clapped as well. Bard just smiled with all his modesty, then glanced over at the unimpressed Rez and passive, smoking Zan.
"Ah, he wasn't so tough!" Bard said, snapping a thumb up with a hint of arrogance.
"Nicely done" Zan commended. Rez snickered briefly.
"Kururururu..." Growled the manic figure behind the thrones.
"Ah yes" Rupert said. "I am unaware of your intentions, but unfortunately for the good of my people, I must stop you from progressing past here to the castle. Therefore, I shall order a temporary ceasefire whilst you prepare yourselves! You each shall hold his own against my strongest and most dangerous knight, sir Reginald Drakengard!"
"Whomever survives" Gretta added in an equally demanding and somewhat booming voice "may attend a royal ball in my honor as a truly strong champion and guest of the island."
"HUH!?" Rupert blared. "Gretta, my darling daughter, what are you saying!? I never agreed to that!"
"I'm just adding some extra incentive for them, father" Gretta said. "In case they are the types who prefer a material award over simply leaving with their lives..." Rupert was at first angry, but when Gretta threw at him her adorable, glistening red eyes of innocence, he could only feel joy.
"Very well!" Rupert announced. "So sayeth my daughter, so sayeth I! Let this be a contest!"
"An on-the-spot change of heart" Zan mused. He took a drag from his cigarette and blew it out smoothly. "This place is getting weirder and weirder, captain."
"You!" Dark growled. He was ignoring Bard and his gang and was now marching directly past them, glaring daggers down at Rupert in his high and heavy chair. "I remember you! You said we'd wake up just fine! You two, you damn, godless madmen have killed us all! I don't even know who I am anymore!"
"What brashness thou hast!" a guard said in utter shock. "What the devil possessed good sir Arthir?" Rupert just glared him down.
"I'll kill you!" Dark cried. "Dammit, I'll KILL YOU ALL!!!" Suddenly, a sharp crack was heard at Dark's head. The finishing blow was delivered from behind and Dark's body fell for the last time to the ground. Mouth foaming and eyes pure white, his mind was now in an equal state of chaos rather than a total imbalance of continuum.
"What the hell!?" Rez shouted.
"He's here..." Zan said with dread. Colleen looked over, behind Bard and his group, and smiled shyly.
"...Ggggggg..." growled some horrid entity. A nerve clicked in Bard's head, foretelling some imminent dread and danger. He looked back and saw a long, thick, wriggling thing extending from the sleeve of some mystery man who stood in front of a cloud of insects. "It's been a while, jackass." The huge creature that cracked Dark in the back of the head emitted a terrible screech, then retreated instantly into the stranger's sleeve.
"Captain!" Colleen blurted.
"It's him again..." Rez growled. Still walking a short distance, Ramone finally arrived and squared his body with the villainous king he so long sought revenge on. He clutches his hand, gripping each finger one at a time, and growled ever louder at the group of guards and worthless instrumentals.
"I've been waiting on this moment for a whole damn year" Ramone growled. "It's time the Demon got his dues...right?" Rupert's lip tensed up with anger and Gretta, in all her innocence, stared wide-mouthed at Ramone. Now the original Heretic was here, and the battle was truly about to begin.
