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.


In the wait for their king to arrive the crowd had again become restless. Ramone had retrieved his coat thanks to his crawling centipede comrade Mi-Go and had it draped over his shoulders like a cape with the heavy leather sleeves blowing in the mild breeze. Now that the end of all his suffering was in sight his impatience swelled. He didn't want to wait another second for what he had waited for one year and a day to do.

"Ggggg...." Ramone growled. "Why isn't he out here, getting killed by me, yet?"

"Be patient" Gretta called through an archaic but effective bullhorn. "My father is just nearly prepared. He is suiting himself up as a measure of protection against you're demonic abilities." Behind the high stone wall of the courtyard, King Rupert was fitting himself with shimmering golden plate armor. Large, bell-shaped pads over his already huge shoulders and a royal vest of shining metal draped with a deep-red tapestry. Over the deep-blue iron greaves he wore on his legs he had a draping cloth of royal purple. Finally, his helmet, was merely a skullcap of rusted-red color that his crown fit upon almost like two pieces of a puzzle that came together.

He had no weapons save for the hands which he kept bare of armor and the thick legs that could crush a stone with a good, hard stomp. His aged white hair from his manly beard rolled out over the upper hem of his regal vestments and his long mane came down over his deep-scarlet cape behind. He was ready, alright.

"He's got one minute" Ramone growled. "If I have to keep waiting, people are going to die."

"Fret not, good citizens!" the jolly old king shouted as he started for the front gates of his estate. Every head turned anxiously for the gate as the pearly bars swung wide open. The feeble people stood up on shaking, weak knees. Araly stayed seated out of her own protesting disrespect for the evils this king had done. Gretta didn't care and stayed seated as well. Ramone glared forward with an increasing amount of hatred as the mighty, shining, colorful visage of Rupert Lioncrest made long, powerful strode into the courtyard. He was met with a roaring thunder of applause and cheering from the stands. The young and old that had gathered from the village below were finally able to see their majestic champion step out to defend them from the plague of the Demon King one more!

"Mohohohohoho!" Rupert laughed mightily. "It has been long, Demon! One year ago I vanquished you into the swamps that border my fine kingdom. Now you have dared to show your face once more, and with the help of more denizens of the darkness below! I say, for threatening the peace of my kingdom, you are not permitted to leave this place alive! You will be sent to my dungeon to live out the rest of your detestful life!!!"

"HUZZAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!" cried the crowd. Emily stood straight and applauded, but the odd sternness of her face didn't exude the same cheerful charisma as her fellwo villagers. She was starting to see through things, it seemed, and the chaotic boredom that Gretta saw in the world had broken through into her eyes. Somehow the ture nature of her king was becoming obvious to her, and so she refused to cheer for him. Gretta didn't cheer, however, because she didn't care, and Araly continued to sit and pout in a dignified manor.

"Ah," Ramone growled "shut the hell up, you stupid old bag a' crap!" A collective gasp of disgust came from the crowd. "Who cares about your dumb...whatever. I'm gonna kill ya', that's the only truth here today. More true than the pain you force onto me in those damn swamps, you're gonna die...!" His quiet hiss of threatening speech started to become more than just words. He held out his right hand far from his body and it started to shake. His powers surfaced and his hand started to crack like hardened wax. Then a bulging bubble of fleshy growth came out and his upper arm and hand transformed into a huge, round hive that teemed with deadly bees!

"Insect Arsenal: Stinger Gatling HELL!!!" Ramone aimed the hive at Rupert and clutched what was still his arm in his other hand. He dug his feet in, one leg forward and the other back, and started shooting out living bullets that traveled at amazing speeds. Rupert blocked his face and knelt down to maximize his guard. Metal plates shot up from his arm braces that covered his exposed palms, giving Ramone no way of hitting him from the front. However, Ramone did not stop firing. "Gggg....you're a damn idiot..."

"How so?" Rupert smirked behind his guard. The bee bullets that didn't die upon impact with Rupert's armor did not fly into the wall. They circled around with stingers out and wings flapping madly to pierce into the king's back. Ramone guided the bees with the power of his mind, summoning the pheromones within the glands that grew in his hive-body to direct a new course of attack: the king's exposed hands.

"You're a moron" Ramone growled. "Nothing about you has changed since back then...you're still just a god damn idiot!" The bees went straight in with nothing to impede them and pointed their barbed stingers at the flesh of Rupert's hand. The king smiled slyly and clutched his fists tightly. Metal came up from his wrists, sliding and sectioning itself around his fingers. The bees impacted on the metal and simply spun down in a death spiral to the ground. "...huh...!?"

"Mohohohoho!" Rupert laughed. He pumped his arms out, raising his huge armored triceps up to the air, and blasted the air away from his with a monstrous flex. The bees were sent into a chaotic dance in the air and then down to the ground. Ramone's attack had failed, he realized, so he lowered his beastly hive-arm and let the whole huge womb of insectoid death flake off in waxy shrapnel.

"Dammit" Ramone lowed. "Looks like I'll need to actually try." Ramone waited for his arm to return to normal, then raised up his other one and started glaring hard at his opponent.

"Foolish youth!" Rupert growled. "I won't allow you to make a signifigant move against me! Prepare to die!" Rupert made a mad dash in while Ramone summoned up some new amazing horror from within himself. A colony of tiny, dark-blue beetles sudddenly dug their way up from inside Ramone's arm and started moving about almost drunkenly to cover every exposed fleshy hole they made on their host.

"Insect Arsenal: Metal-Eating Beetles" Ramone hissed. "I'm gonna kill you from the inside out! GGGGGG!!!!!" With his growling roar he reeled his arm back far. When the time was perfect he made a huge punch into Rupert's armor. At the same time Rupert moved to kick Ramone away with his huge, powerful legs. The battle was on...


And now we rejoin Bard as he manages to hold his own against a Sea King far out at Sea. He is currently sprinting up its side with flaring nostrils, wide eyes and pursed, shouting lips.

"HUUOOOOAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!"

Bard had fought as much as he could, throwing Rankyakuu after sharp Rankyakuu at the monster form the water, but eventually the painful reality of his futility set in. He realized that he couldn't make a difference from so far down, so he was taking the fight all the way up to the beast's head.

"You stupid overgrown fish!" Bard taunted. "I blame all of this on you! YOU GET THAT!?!?"

"GRAUUUUUUH!!!" the beast shouted. Bard kept sprinting straight up until he hit a slight curve, then he saw the end of the spiny purple fins that ran along the creature's cerulean blue scales. Bard made a leap forward, wind blasting past him at the high altitude the monster reared its head at, and flipped over himself once as he sailed forward. With a manly roar, Bard extended his right leg out with his left kicking behind him so his mighty heel would come crashing down on the beast's skull.

"RANKYAKU!" Bard roared. The monster reeled its head forward at the last moment and Bard found himself spinning wildly through the air with a leg charged and ready to cut. "Guauauauauaua!!!!" Bard shouted dizzily. The rapid somersaulting he did through the air was making him dizzy as hell. He had forgotten about his initial plan of attack and was now just flipping wildly, hoping to stop. The sea monster reeled back and watched the curious, tiny man flipping end over end all the way to the water. As the waves from Bard's body rippled out the monster gave an amused chuckle, holding its finned tail up to its mouth. Bard resurfaced with a vengance and spat out some water.

"Oh, you're a big funny guy, huh!?" Bard growled. The monster was still chuckling to itself. Bard looked down with a glare and descended under the water. The monster, not forgetting its place as a creature much larger and much more powerful than the tiny man it was fighting, stopped laughing and ducked its head under the water. It saw a sudden flash of rippling water, then its eyes got cut by something long and sharp. With a shrill underwater scream the monster started thrashing about and tried desperately to swim away.

Take this! Bard shouted silently .His body was spinning wildly and with every revolution it made he threw out a Rankyakuu kick aimed in the monster's generally direction. Razor Whirlpool!!! Common knowledge, you stupid monster! Energy can travel much faster through water because the molecules are closer together! All I'm doing is letting the cutting energy from my kicks travel through the water where they act like torpedoes instead of missiles! While his logic was partially flawed, his attack was technically working. The Rankyakuu blades traveled swiftly, but they were visible. The Sea King had swam away with a flurry of blades chasing it and recovered itself.

"HA!" Bard laughed, letting the air escape from his mouth. He clutched his lips together, foolishly forgetting just where he was, and slowly made for the surface. He broke the surface of the water, somehow climbed on top of it with his hands and planted his feet firmly on solid...liquid. Using a combination of Soru and Geppou techniques he was able to stay afloat through a madly rapid vibration of his legs. He was effectively dancing on the water, but it looked exactly like standing.

"Well that was fun" Bard said. "Now, where the hell am I?" Suddenly, with an explosive watery crash, the Sea King resurfaced and roared into the sky, wiggling its forked tongue high into the darkening sky. Its rows of gnashing teeth were fully exposed to the greatly dim sunlight. It rolled its shining, red eye downward to see its tiny prey...but it was gone. "Dammit..." Bard growled. The monster looked back up to its own eye-level and saw, oddly, its black-clad prey floating in the air with one leg reeled back and arms in an odd position.

"...You're starting to piss me off!" Bard shouted. He whipped his shoulders around, bringing his arms with them as an increase in power, carried all that motion to his hips and leg his leg kick out naturally. The Rankyakuu blade he manifested was huge and nearly point-blank. The monster visibly panicked just a moment before impact and felt the air first blast into and then cut through its tough skin. "STAY DOWN!" Bard demanded. With its red eyes now white, the monster became limp and started to fall. Bard made a Geppou jump over, grabbed it by the fishy tendrils on its sharp chin, and made a motion as if he would throw the beast away. He merely shifted the giant's weight and heaved its chin down so its jaw would hit the water first. It worked, and the giant awoke with a startled roar as it felt its teeth crack and shatter inside its own gums. Blood poured into the sea where Bard regained his footing.

"That takes care of that" Bard said, clapping his hands together. He set his fists on his hips and looked around with his chest puffed out victoriously. "Now, thanks to that stupid Sea King I'm even more lost! Dammit! If only I were a bit stronger I could ave taken it out sooner and gotten back to the-" And then Bard remembered just why he was rushing so badly. "CRAP! That jerk Ramone must already be fighting that other guy! What's his name...um...Robert! Ive gotta haul ass!"

Suddenly, though not very surprisingly, the water started to shake again. The beast, whose head was floating just above the surface with an elevated nose breathing in big huffs of air, started stirring again. It snaked its way up, forcing Bard's eyes to lose their color and his jaw to drop very far down.

"OH COME ON!!!" Bard roared. The beast's eyes suddenly widened in fear and it reeled back slightly. Bard had won the battle indefinitely now. The beast was in a retreating mode, the beat-down Bard gave it registered and made it learn not to mess with tall, golden-headed men in black. When Bard saw the telltale signs of fear in the monster's eyes he lowered his guard and tried to be approachable.

"Say...can you do me a favor?" he asked. The beast didn't respond with movement. It was eying a way to escape this wild, powerful man. Bard saw its eyes scanning the water, so he decided to take a slightly less dignitary approach to his tactic. He lowered his head, casting a shadow upon his face, and cracked his knuckles loudly.

"Let me just say it plainly, then..." he started in a low voice with a grin. The monster tried to retreat, but Bard's Soru and Geppou combo blasted him straight up to the monster's face where he planted his feet on its snout and grabbed at the fearful furrow in its scaly brow, threatening it with a punch to the eyeball. "Can you take me to the nearest island? I'm a bit lost." The smile on Bard's face only made him seem meaner as the grip was creasing the monster's taught skin. Bard's power, both physically and spiritually, had won this fight and the fearful loyalty of this mighty beast.

But even with its help, can Bard make it back in time to save his crew from the misguided wrath of the accused demon Ramone 'The Ghost-Killer' Cervantes?