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.
A Regal Tournament is underway! The Buster boys stood in a neat line facing down the king at the opposite end of the court. For safety sake, the arena for the successive duels was moved right in front of the magnificent, old palace at the peak of the island's plateau. King Rupert and his daughter Gretta sat at the base of the palace steps with guards forming a wall all around the lavish courtyard. The pirates, including Colleen hiding behind Ramone's coat, stood at the gate of the palace yard, preparing and deciding on the fighting order.
"Who wants to fight first?" Rez asked. Bard quickly shot his hand up. Rez turned around and saw Ramone also had his hand up with his other arm crossed. "Well, that won't work."
"Why don't we leave it up to chance?" Zan offered.
"Alright" Bard agreed, hopping over. "Rez, get out your gun!"
"Not that kind of chance, moron!" Rez growled. "Let's do rock-paper-scissors."
"It may get tricky with five people" Zan said.
"She ain't fighting" Ramone said. "She already decided that."
"Then that'll be easier" Bard said. "Alright guy, come over here and play, or you go last!"
"That's fine" Ramone said. "I'd rather watch you guys get your asses handed to you than spoil the fun. I've waited well over a year to kill these bastards, a few more minutes won't kill me..."
"Okay then" Bard said. "Guys, hands in!" Rez, Zan and Bard huddled together and started their game to decide who would go first. The first time was a tie, somehow.
"What the hell!?" Rez complained.
"I see what happened" Zan remarked. "I picked scissors because I symbolize them with my weapons, Bard picked rock because he likes making fists, and you picked paper because...uh...you're flimsy in competition."
"Why don't you just go first, jackass?" Rez growled. "Go first and die so I don't have to listen to your ugly voice anymore..." Bard just laughed. Zan, however, took the invitation and pulled out a cigarette with his knives. He started forward, lit it, and tossed his lighter back which Bard instinctively caught.
"Don't break that, Captain" Zan called. "It's my only one." Bard looked at the lighter with a sense of curiosity, then a dignified grin crossed his face.
"You got it, pal" Bard said with a wink and a positive thumb up.
"Gimme a damn break" Rez lowed. Ramone quietly stood observing the pirates and making his judgments.
They're fools he told himself. Their captain seems a little rough. Maybe a dose of reality can toughen him up here today...
"Do your best, Mr. Zan" Colleen whispered. Ramone slowly motioned to turn at her, but the snapped his waist and head around at her.
"HEY!" he gruffed, "He can't hear you if you whisper! Shout it out already!" Colleen bit her lip and worked up the nerve at her captain's command, and finally took in a large breath of air.
"Do your best, Mr. Zan!!!" she shouted across the court. Zan nodded at her with the back of his head and prepared for his fight. His feet spread out past his shoulders, his knees were locked forward, and both his arms were up with blades facing point-out. As a safety measure, he made sure his foot-blades worked as well with a very quick and swift press at each heel. They worked fine.
"Release him" King Rupert said to one of his guards. The guard nodded and walked over to the snarling and smiling Drakengard under heavy chains. He undid one, and the prisoner took the hint to simply burst through them all and come out ready to fight.
"Kurururu..." Drakengard laughed. He was clad from the neck down in fantastic, ocean-green scale armor with yellowed spikes at his shoulders, elbows and knee plates. On his back was a cape of oceanic blue that had a gleaming shine even in the dampened sunlight. The storm clouds were breaking, as no rain had hit the island and only managed to stir up the seas. The land was now about to be stirred by this man. "You've been called out by the king" Drakengard declared. "Therefore, I shall kill you in his honor!"
"Same" Zan said calmly. "You called me out, so as an assassin with no want or care for honor, I'll kill you."
"The let us proceed" Drakengard said, grabbing and twirling a huge and serrated halberd "with this mutual contract of death!" He stopped spinning it and held it, like a broadsword, pointing at the sky above Zan's head. One last muffled roll of thunder was heard far, far away.
Araly went sprinting through the woods a few minutes earlier. She was adamant on finding and helping Bard and the boys in any way possible. She had enough explosive ink parchments and potions to start a small war somewhere and the pirate within her was intent on using them.
"How do I get out of here!?" Araly asked herself. She stopped to breathe for a short while and looked around for a sign of the civilization she looked for. Suddenly she heard the blaring of regal trumpets past the tree line. She ran toward the noise and soon saw the open sky and broken grounds that Bard fought on. She was relieved to see that he was fine, but worried about the marching line of guards that approached.
What's going on now? Araly asked herself. She was, at first, very tempted to ump out and announce herself, but upon seeing the maniacal figure caged behind the throne of the most royal figure present, she withdrew her notions of heroism to continue hiding. What can I do now? There's no way I'll be able to take on all those guards with just some cloth and ink. I should...wait. Yeah. I'm a pirate, but that doesn't mean I should be rambunctious like those guys are. There's nothing wrong with biding my time.
And so Araly found herself stalking through the more regal and noble alleys of the upper-class town just before the castle, following the marching procession of soldiers with the pirates in tow. She watched from behind the houses and decorative bushes in people's yards, wondering all the while why she hadn't been spotted yet.
"Does anyone even live in these houses?" Araly asked herself. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she finally crawled over and looked into a window. There was nothing inside, not even furniture, The houses were just large, empty shells. "This must be part of that...experiment. These are dummy houses to confuse the prisoners and other brainwashed people...wow, that sounds pretty stupid now that I'm really saying it." Regardless, she took what opportunity she could. She continued following Bard and the pirates until they passed through a large gate that led to a fenced in area in front of the castle. She looked for the nearest abandoned house that would be tall enough to observe from and climbed it from the back. From the top of the blue-roofed house she could see the battles to come.
"Oh please" Araly prayed, "don't let anything stupid happen! I'm exhausted!" From on her roof she saw Zan walking forward to fight a horrible man with a spiteful-looking halberd. She took out a piece of paper with two holes cut in it and shiny blue ink around them. "Ink-powered binoculars. These'll help." She observed the fight, keeping Zan in focus most of the time.
As the combat started, Zan chose not to use his powers unless desperate. Therefore, he focused on his timing and footwork to avoid the swings of Drakengard's halberd. Thankfully, the berserk and crazy man only chose to swing down in huge, powerful strokes like a sword. Zan jumped to and fro, approaching with his hands at his sides.
"You're pretty brutal with that" Zan said. Drakengard ignored him and continued shouting with each swing. Zan eventually got close enough to attack and crouched down low. Then, with both hands, he punched his blades into his enemy's armored stomach. Drakengard ignored it and kicked him away with the spike of his scaled boot. Zan managed to land on his feet but got the wind knocked out of him. Drakengard quickly approached and gave a roar as he swung down hard. Zan evaded again and started forward. He jumped up, spun in the air and kicked with his bladed foot at Drakengard's unguarded neck. In an act of inhuman speed, Drakengard snapped his neck around and caught Zan's foot knife in his teeth. "What!?" Zan grunted. Drakengard then gnashed Zan around a bit and broke the knife.
"Kururu!" Drakengard growled, spitting the knife straight into the solid stone ground. "What fight is this?"
"Not a comfortable one" Zan said. He landed on his feet and one hand, then started dashing forward.
"Indeed!" Drakengard growled. He took his halberd up with his hands facing inward and started stabbing. Zan had to work more now to dodge, as the pull back from each stab was just as dangerous as the stab itself.
He's just keeping me away Zan said. However, I doubt he anticipates my moves. He's just blocking with his armor and hoping to catch my attacks. Time to work my angle properly... "LOOK!" Zan shouted, pointing to the sky. His ploy worked on the maniac and he looked up to the sky with his brows raised. Zan speedily circled around to his back. Drakengard noticed the trick and came out of his curious daze, swinging his halberd to try and catch Zan. "Useless" Zan said from behind. He got a foothold in the crease between Drakengard's back and hip in the armor and climbed up to stab him in the back of the neck.
"It's never useless" Drakengard growled. He attempted to snap his head around the whole way, but realized that he couldn't. Zan wound up with his hand raised high overhead and the King gripped the edges of his chair in dread. Drakengard gave one last effort to shoo away his enemy by swatting him with the blunt edge of his halberd, but Zan was prepared. He activated his power and phased through it, which resulted in Drakengard smashing the back of his head and getting dizzy while Zan stepped up on his head and kicked him back a step.
"EH!?" Rupert shouted in disbelief. The other guards were quite perplexed by the happening as well. Zan landed and turned his head rather than his body with both arms stretched out at Drakengard.
"Unbelievable!" a guard exclaimed. "Who would have thought so many demons would congregate upon our peaceful land!?" Gretta, the king's daughter, was amazed. He eyes stopped watching the fight and started focusing admiringly on Zan.
"Kurururu..." Drakengard chuckled menacingly, "I'll carve you into bullion chunklets for my soup, maggot!"
"Ew" Zan replied. "You eat chunky soup?"
"Of course!" Drakengard announced. "It be the only soup worth eating!!!"
"..." Ramone observed, eyebrow twitching in anger.
