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.


"Please listen" Gretta said to the gathered pirates, "as I hate to repeat myself." Her overall demeanor made Araly and Colleen uncomfortable, mainly because she held her bow with an arrow on the string, ready to pull back and fire in an instant. "My father is forcing me to change my rules, as he is paranoid about visitors in his castle. I am not. I know that you are all reasonable men and women with the possible exception of you, Mr. Cervantes." Ramone glanced over from his place in space and promptly went back to ignoring her. She blushed internally.

"Firstly" Gretta began "I have ruled that the newcomer and the apparent bystander must fight, as you are on the side of the other outsiders."

"I assume you mean us?" Araly said, pointing at Colleen as well.

"That's correct" Gretta affirmed.

"Well, will we get weapons?" Araly asked. "I know she has a...thing on her arm, but all I've got are cards and scarfs. I can't take down that freak over there with clothes!"

"Drakengard has been deemed unable to fight" Gretta said. Rez pumped his arms in victory and let out a happy grunt. "The ones who were responsible for defeating him, Sir Rezland and Sir Demon will be taken inside to observe the fight and get medical treatment. Especially Sir Demon."

"Demon?" Bard asked. "You mean Zan? He isn't a demon, he's an assassin."

"No talking" Gretta warned, aiming at Bard head. He gulped and kept quiet until Gretta lowered the bow. "Sir Demon was badly injured fighting Sir Drakengard. He will be taken to the infirmary and looked after by the nurses and priests inside. I will tell them that he isn't a demon so they won't kill him themselves."

"Okay" Rez began, standing up, "this is sounding less and less appealing by the sentence. I'm staying with Zan while he's in there. I don't trust a single thing that's going on here."

As well you shouldn't Araly thought. She was still the only one in the group, with the possible exceptions of Colleen and Ramone, that knew the secret behind the inhabitants of the island.

"Fine, I don't care" Gretta said. "Just don't you dare worsen his condition. Sir Zan is in terrible shape and you have only yourself to blame for not going first. I'm sure Sir Zan could have cleaned up the mess you tried to make without trying."

"Grr..." Rez growled. What's with the crazy bias this chick has? Zan gets treated like a prince and I'm just a dog? I hate her already...

The distrust didn't end there, either. Zan was barely conscious and twitched with disapproval using his metal-pierced eyebrow. Bard kept a fist thoughtfully propped below his chin and deliberated on the matter that Gretta was offering. Ramone was pissed and growled constantly.

"What kind of bitch" Ramone began suddenly "thinks she can just order people like me around?"

"C-calm down, Captain" Colleen whispered. Ramone kicked away and started to leave.

"I ain't taking this kind of crap, Colleen" Ramone said. "If we're fightin' for honor then hell with it. I don't give a damn about my honor, I'm a damn pirate, dammit! Ggggggg......"

"I understand your hatred" Gretta said. "I was hoping that allowing you to beat up my father as the final match would be proper vengeance." Ramone immediately stopped upon hearing that. "Didn't I mention? You and the blond-haired sir will fight my father in a more casual duel. The Ladies shall fight our finest personal, royal guard, Sir Edmund the White."

"We have to fight a knight!?" Araly said in shock. "Doesn't that seem a bit unfair? I mean, Rez and Zan just had to fight a prisoner-guy, right?"

"That guy was just barely human, Araly" Rez pointed out. "Trust me, you're getting the better end of the stick here. A knight might actually go easy enough on you for you to get an edge in."

"But I'm a pirate!" Araly said. "I want just as much of a fight as you guys do! I just want it to be proportionate to my actual strength!"

"Sewing?" Bard said. Araly squinted her eyes in distaste but technically he gave a right answer, so she couldn't chide him.

"I'm willing to fight the knight" Colleen said shyly, "but a two on one match with both of us might not be fair, right?"

"Perhaps" Gretta said. She tilted her head a bit to think and came up with an alternate solution. "My castle's head seamstress, Miss Morgan, can be quite capable in battle. Perhaps if we can arrange some proper equipment out here, you can fight with her?"

"I think that'd be a little better" Araly admitted. "Sorry Colleen, but can you handle a knight by yourself?" Colleen, to shy to speak to a girl she hadn't properly met before, just nodded and shied away behind Ramone's coat.

"They way you're talkin'" Ramone began, "I'd almost think you mean for me and the kid to fight together..." Gretta met his gaze under the shadow of his angry brow and fearlessly stared back. She met his heated stare with her already red, rosy eyes and forced the sparks back at him. Ramone started lowing to himself and clutched his fist, out of which many small squirmy bugs crawled. "You can't be serious....damn....little..."

"What's wrong with a tag-team battle?" Bard innocently asked. Gretta suddenly snapped back at him and started staring him down as well, but his childish eyes were too much for her to try and force anger into so she stopped.


"A declaration of truce has been passed!" A herald called dutifully to the sky. "By the twilight eve, a victorious side shall be announced to the island! All the peasants and villagers shall be hastily invited to watch this momentous battle. Our greatest knight, Sir Edmund the White, shall do righteous battle against the knaves from far away in an honorable duel! The Dark Demon of the last great siege and his wench shall also throw themselves into battle against our Great and Mighty King Rupert Lioncrest!"

"Maybe you should use a Den Den Mushi, dude" Bard called. The simple folk looked at him like he babbled in some totally foreign language.

"All villagers must report" the herald continued "if they wish to see these demons justly fall and the great fist of righteousness stomp out the flames of villainy from our fair land!"

"Remind them of the ball" Gretta said.

"Princess Gretta Lioncrest the Fair has also prepared a gorgeous ball for her people!" the Herald added. A few moments went by as a scribe beyond the castle gates quickly jotted down all those notes onto some parchment and sped off. He went to tell another herald, then another and another until he was down at the dock, having sprinted through all the wreckage and doom that Ramone cause earlier.

"A battle?" Emily said, having heard the message from her nearest herald. "Oh my goodness! That means that Sir Bard and his companions...Jedidiah, we must do something!" She knelt beside her brother in his bed, tending his wounds and praying for his well being. Jed couldn't help but stare with contempt at the ceiling.

"We can do nothing" Jed demurely said. Emily gasped at her brother's sudden shift to cynicism as he went on. "We were betrayed, you and I. I thought Sir Bard was a noble man, but he is truly a pirate with a heart of pure malice. He and that Demon are of the same fantastically evil breed, and I refuse to acknowledge him as any kind of good!"

"Brother..." Emily sadly said. She stood up and folded her hands in front of her waist. "I understand you pain-"

"You don't!" Jed shouted, startling Emily. He snarled at her as he finalized his terrible thoughts. "I wish them the worst luck! May they return to their hell and justly rot in it! Emily, if you go to watch them with hope I will abandon you as you will rightly deserve to be!" Emily was in shock over this darkness, and wordlessly ran outside. Jed was left alone, weak and frail, to cry at his own cowardice. He couldn't stop her, or anyone. He couldn't save his brother from his terrible fate, and now he very well couldn't save his new friend's honor...what could he do but cry?

Back up at the castle, two individuals were preparing for their upcoming trials. Sir Edmund, a man of average size and build, fitted upon his head the final piece of his lustrous white armor and grabbed his favorite claymore from the rack at his right. He was in the armory, surrounded by magnificently kept weapons from ages past. The walls had upon them armors of all kinds, even discrete armor to be worn under a woman's dress or a priest's robes. His flowing hair continued to billow out even when his helmet was tightly clamped to his shoulder pads and the back of his breastplate.

"This be the winter" he prosed "of thy discontent, heathens! No man, woman nor child in all the land of our kingdom can stand up to my righteous might, nor can my blade ever be bested in a fight! I shall show these knaves, these trespassers of our absolute law, these villains just what power lies behind this unlimitedly beautiful voice!" He then leaned back, standing on his metal-wrapped toes, and brought his hand up to his mouth with his wrist limp and laughed. "Ohohohoho!" he effeminately and haughtily chuckled.

Elsewhere, in the maids and servants dorms, a woman of wide and extremely manly build strapped a large wooden instrument to her back. It was a loom, one in which wool is spun into thread and thread is spun into weave, and it was ready to run with wires full of clothen wire.

"These brats" the woman lowed in an extremely manly voice "think they can upstart me, here? I'll show them! No one but God and the King hisself can mess around with my little angel Gretta!" This woman, with a chin more cleft and cut than Bard's or even the king's, was the head seamstress and clothier of the island kingdom and headed every royal suiting venture. She was known as Morgan the Gray, because her hair was slowly starting to turn at even the young age of 50. "I tell you, here, this better be good though! I don't just get up n' outta bed for anything these days!"

These two fierce warriors would be the opponents for the first round of Gretta's regal title fight. Edmund would fight Colleen in the courtyard where there would be nothing but open space, while Araly would fight in the garden adjacent but unconnected to the front courtyard. The girls were nervous, especially Colleen, but the tension-dampening tattoo on Araly's back allowed her to remain calm. She looked over at the shivering Collen who was eying over her mechanical weapon and decided to help with a reaffirming pat on the shoulder.

"AAH!" Colleen shouted. She turned around, expecting...something, and saw Araly smiling nervously at her. Then she laughed a bit.

"It's okay" Araly said cheerfully. "You're a lot tougher than I am, but I'm not too worried. You'll do fine!"

"Really?" Colleen said, standing back up. "Well, I hope you do fine too." Araly extended her open hand with a friendly smile to Colleen. Colleen, the shy and socially unacknowledged, looked at the hand for a bit before responding. It was Araly's right hand, which meant that Colleen's blistered and burnt right hand had to meet it. Still, Araly's warm smile and hearted gaze gave Colleen enough courage and want to reach out anyway. Once their hands connected, Araly's smile stretched and she showed her teeth. Colleen cracked a small smile, then stared giggling.

"We'll do our best" Araly promised "and I'm sure our captains will too!"

"Yeah" Colleen agreed. "Do your best, Araly!" The girls pumped their arms up and reconnected hands with their arms at ninety degree angles at the elbow. Such a manly arm-lock brought on by two young women, but it still looked just as manly as any other!


"What the hell?" Rez said. He had followed the medics far into the castle, to far to find his way out, and finally arrived at the designated infirmary. Oddly, it wasn't adorned with the same rustic gothic architecture as the rest of the castle, nor was it equipped with ancient and senseless equipment like Rez had assumed. It was perfectly modern, if not a bit unkempt, with green beds and heart-monitors and even IV bags. Zan was hastily hooked up to one by a fleet of nurses that came from nowhere, and before Rez could stutter out his curiosity, they dispersed.

"Seriously!" Rez shouted. "What the hell is wrong with this stupid island!?"

"Who knows?" Zan mumbled. Rez turned to him, seeing his mouth just barely open but eyes tightly shut. "Maybe...it's just a mystery?" Rez gawked at his friend's insinuation, then collapsed in a tired stress into a chair opposite Zan's bed.

"Why me?" Rez asked. "Why did I get stuck with the stupid captain? Why???" As Rez asked an impossible question the sun started brightly shining into the room. Rez looked out and saw, from high up, the courtyard of the castle and the garden side-by-side. "At least we've got good seats, eh Zan?" Zan just groaned at the joke, since Zan couldn't move, and Rez smirked in victory. The crowds were gathering at the gate, eager to see an epic fight between good and evil.