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.


"BASTAAAARDS!!!" Rupert roared as the two who had so gravely injured him walked coolly away. "Decrepit old SOD! ARROGANT SON OF A BITCH!!!" Bard stopped in place and clenched his fists. Reginald looked and saw Bard's twisted, angry face.

"Bard" Reginald began. Too late. Bard had made up his mind and made a Soru rush backwards. He jumped up with the tap of his toes and spun around to deliver a huge punch to Rupert's upper stomach. The beastly man tensed his abdomen to absorb the impact but was still driven back with his feet driven against the ground. Bard had still left a deep indent where his blow landed and used it as a foothold to step up, then kicked another foothold to reach Rupert's face so he could continue his onslaught. Though his massive left arm was disabled Rupert was quick to swat the pesky boy away with his right.

"FOOLS!!!" Rupert roared. "Neither of you can stand up to me! Why, just look at yourselves! You look like files trying to bring down a mighty mountain boar! MOHOHOHOHOOO!!! I shall swat you away with every attempt you make!" Bard regained himself in the air and landed skidding on his feet. Once he stopped he began running straight forward again.

"RAAAAAGH!!!" Bard roared. He jumped up with both legs folded back and sailed for a few meters before making his attack. "Rankyakuu!! Double Edge!!" Bard kicked twice, the blades whizzing through the air and twisting into each other, forming a spiraling cross-shaped bullet of sharp energy. Rupert jerked his shoulders and let his limp left arm absorb and deflect the blow. Bard landed and used the energy of his continuous motion to hop up above the beast's shoulder to deliver another straight kick to his face.

"Take it back!" Bard demanded. "Let me hear it!"

"MOHOHO!" Rupert cackled, his face not even moved by Bard's planted foot. "Take what back, boy? That he is a broken old elder...or that your mother is a despicable animal!?" Yet another brash move by the cock-sure king. Bard was only further infuriated by the insult and lurched his shoulders forward, pressing his foot in.

"SORU STOMPING!!!" Bard bellowed. He brought both his feet into the king's face and began making short, straight stomps with his Soru movement. Reginald knew that his attack would only be in vain, another flaw in a series of failed sieges on that fortress-like body. Rupert's body whipped around and his huge right arm came swinging down. Bard leaped over it, stomped the air to fall back down and gave a powerful roundhouse in mid-air. Rupert's chin was jarred, if not wholly disconnected from his skull, and he began a drunken stumble backwards, towards the already tattered castle walls.

Bard landed, his hands flat and his arms both drawn back in his low leaning crouch, a martial-artist's serious pose with a determined fighter's serious face. "You" Bard began "don't deserve to call my mother names, you jackass! Now take what you said back!"

It's an expression Reginald thought with a face scrunched together with disbelief. His expression gave way to a more hopeful gaze, however, as the sun started peaking through the moving clouds. Still, his power is amazing. We could win this yet without any grand physical implications! Just as that hopeful prospect crossed Reginald's mind he saw Bard charge forward, sailing an inch over the ground, with an utter reckless abandon for his defensive posture. Both his arms were wound back to punch and offered him no guard for his exposed torso. Rupert, thought shocked and jostled out of his right mind from the solid blow to the chin, was able to defend himself at the last moment with a swift kick that sunk in to Bard's gut and threw him up into the air. Bard limply dangled in the air for a moment, unable to regather himself in time, and was swiftly smashed away by Rupert's recovered right fist.

"Bard!" Reginald shouted.

"Damn" Zan lowed, watching the fight from afar. "He needs help. Rokushiki or not, Bard isn't equipped enough to handle something like this!"

"He isn't?" Gretta asked, staying close to his side. Zan looked down at her, rather plainly and unassumingly, and began to explain.

"Bard's a strong guy" Zan admitted proudly "but he's still an amateur as far as pirating goes. Even if he's beaten a hundred guys before, I'm willing to bet he's never faced an opponent quite this bloodthirsty and crazed. He's still too innocent to know when lethal force is a good idea."

"Of course he is" Araly said, watching intently from the top of the stands. "Bard's always been like that. That's just how he is. But sill...I agree. We need to help. At least I need to do something."

"I'm fine to fight" Zan said "so long as I don't have to move a lot."

"Then you're not fine to fight at all!" Araly argued. Zan smiled and looked away.

"CHARGE!!!" the pirates shouted form outside. The entire crew came rushing with swords and guns waving over head, a brilliant and spontaneous rush of pure bravery. "Help the captain!!!"

"You fools again!?" Rupert shouted. He brought his scarred right hand, fully functioning and healed, up to his broken and disgraced left arm and jammed it back into socket. Even though his wrist had been twisted fully around and the muscles had retained that same disgusting shape, his fingers all seemed to work just fine. Rupert then took his wrist and twisted it back around, only grinning and widening his eyes with excitement at the pain. This didn't shake the steadfast Buster Pirates, who continued their charge with the same incredible drive and intensity that their powerfully foolish captain fought with.

"No!" Reginald shouted. "They can't win! They won't even get close. I need to stop them!" Reginald, for all his philanthropic determination, was stopped by the thunderous clap of cannon fire. A moment later Rupert suffered from an explosion that bloomed out form his chest in a fiery plume of smoke and noise. He was thrown back and tumbled over himself straight into one of the walls of the castle. The entire structure began to shake ominously, a sign that made Reginald's heart float up with joy. Bard shook off his shock and stood up to cough in pain, then looked at the back ranks of his gathered crew.

"Good thing you guys brought me some ammo" Rez said as he reloaded his Hell Tiger cannon-sword. With the flick of his arm he snapped the barrel back and the explosive shell within was ready for fire again. With the sword rested on his shoulder and a sturdy fist at his hip, Rez entered the fight. "I thought my turn was over..." The shadow cast over his eyes by the bandana on his forehead gave him an excited, almost evil, look that hungered for more war. The face of a true Buster Pirate.


"All this reckless abandon" Gretta mused. She watched the fighting from her safe corner where all the bodies, unconscious or healing, had been gathered to keep them safe and away from the brawl. She watched on away from Araly but beside Zan on the bleachers, the new audience of the regal tournament gone so horrifically awry. "Why do they all fight so much? Was it because of me?"

"No" Zan answered. "In all honesty, Bard was going to fight if you'd asked him to or not. If you tried to make him stop he might have started fighting you." Gretta was appalled by his remark, though her expressionless face didn't quite show it.

"Ggggg...." Ramone growled. "He's a damn idiot. Who does crap like that on a daily basis...he's not gonna live long on tha Gran' Line...."

"Maybe" Zan said, knowing Ramone was still too weak to counter his opposition physically. Ramone just sneered up at him from his frozen state on the ground. His insects were still working hard to repair the hole in his chest, gathering up wax from the depositories inside his body and thickening the coat with a mixture of the hard rock and minerals in the ground of the garden around them. Gretta occasionally gazed down with her hands balled up in front of her mouth and her eyes wide to watch the demonic display of power that she had fawned after from afar for so long.

"...what?" Ramone shot, once catching her hot gaze. Gretta instantly shot her head back to seriously watch the unfolding fight.

"Bard's a fighter" Araly said, standing a the top of the bleachers with her silken scarf blowing in the breeze between her arms and around her back. "There's nothing he can't survive. He's got that idiotic strength that you can only get from being born under a certain star...at least that's what everyone back home said about him."

"Of course" Zan agreed, lighting up a cigarette. "He's got that certain thing about him...that destined glow. Plus, that D of his seems all too familiar to me..." As the gallery watched, some more anxious to fight than others, the pirates all moved to gather around their captain and help him up.

"Thanks guys" Bard said as he got to his feet finally, standing over most of his more normal crewmen. Bard smiled as he saw all those happy faces, all so excited to see him alright, but one face was missing. Rez was aiming his next shot already, far away from the group of his fellow pirates. Bard, as the captain, didn't want to have any of that, and jumped over to Rez's position to greet him. "Nice shot, Rez!" Bard shouted. Rez's aim was thrown off not by the surprising sound of Bard's voice but by the shock that he made when he landed. His gun barrel was thrown and aimed accidentally at the bleachers. Throats swelled up in horror.

"Grrr!" Rez growled. He swung his blade back around and slammed Bard on the head with the wide, broad blunt of the broadsword. Bard was toppled straight over and his head was slammed through the weak cobblestone ground. Bard pushed himself back up and met the scowling, growling face of Rez half-way with his own humble, confused expression. "You jackass! I could have killed someone if I pull the trigger!"

"That hurt, man!" Bard whined. Then his eyes shot open. Rez recoiled, knowing some half-wit idea had formed in his head. "Hey!" Bard said in his regular, excited voice. "Give me your sword!"

"Screw you!" Rez quickly snapped. "This thing is a piece of art, a technological wonder of equipment. If I wanted to break it I'd just heave it into the sea, and even then I'd have to hope it sank into a Sea King's mouth!"

"I need it!" Bard said. "If I can't hurt him with my regular kicks and Rankyakuu, then an actual blade should work if I can get enough speed behind it!"

"Can you even use a sword?" Rez asked. Bard stayed silent, then straightened up and nervously smiled off in another direction.

"Using a sword" Bard began "and throwing a punch both operate on the same principals of kinetic rotation and...momentum...thingies."

"Just don't get in my way" Rez said as he drew his blade over his head for another helm-breaker cleaving cannon shot. "If a single part of my trajectory is off the whole shot will be wasted."

"Then let me hold him in place!" Bard said. "I can stun him long enough for you to get a shot in, no matter what distance!" Rez actually gave that a moment of thought. He looked at Bard under his folded bandana and lowered his sword to his front, a more defensive pose.

"Lead the way" Rez said. "The closer I am the easier the shot will be."

"Leave it to me!" Bard said, pounding his chest with a fist. He began running with Rez keeping up behind while the rest of the crew followed even further behind for support.

"Can we even fight with them?" one pirate asked.

"Of course we can!" a raucous, burly pirate shouted. "We're all part of the same crew! We should all fight together no matter what!"

"Still" Marco began, "against an enemy like that...I don't think we'll be much help." While all these parties moved into formation, as first observed by Bard, the battle had somehow moved indoors. The castle that seemed to sway to the soft tune of its own destruction in the wind was the new battlefield for these freedom-fighters inciting such an exciting anarchy. Meanwhile, back at the corner where so many fighers had been silenced and forced out of the combat, one got up to move. Dressed in her elegant short gown, Gretta took one of Zan's knives from the rear of his belt and cut herself a shorter skirt. Then she ascended the steps to take the bow and arrow she had brought with her to arm herself.

"You're going to fight?" Araly asked. "Against your own father!?" Gretta didn't indulge her with an answer. She returned Zan's knife, folding it into his hand and blushing, then started running off on her own. Araly had the angered nerve worked up to chase her but was stopped by Zan, who held her as she struggled to pursue. "Let go of me! I hate brats like her! Evil or not, monster or not, she shouldn't be so glad to watch her father die! It isn't right!"

"Relax, Araly" Zan, the assassin, said. "She's not a little girl. I can tell by her eyes. She knows what she has to do...trust her." Araly was still unsure but she ceased her struggle. Ramone stared up at the display of trust and then looked over to the still unconscious Colleen. He felt ashamed of himself and sighed.

Trust...eh...?

However, there was one, even in conditions like these, that went against that natural order of fear and marched uphill, hunched over himself and nearly fallen as he stood and walked step by step through the passing crowd. Emily was caught in the torrential rush against her will, carried back to the village in the feeble arms of those she lived near who cared for her.

"Hark!" Emily shouted. "What unconscionable madness! Must we all run as so? Can we not control ourselves!?"

"F'ward!" a random man shouted in panic.

"We must make haste!" a woman called.

'Such animosity!' 'Such frightening circumstances!' 'What great plague hath befallen us!?' The crowd continued throwing their terror verbally into the air, praying someone could catch it and make sense of the puzzles they all made. Emily looked about the crowd in her startled state and saw the slowly moving man ascending the slant that led up to that gory war. She pushed her way through the crowd, attempting to make her way over to him, but was pushed ever further downward to the grove of tiny, humble homes.

Suddenly, Emily was tripped and felt the trampling feet of all her neighbors and friends as they ran in a panic over her. She covered her head and curled up as best she could to try and withstand that terrible current of pressure, all those heels and boots weakly stomping on her as they carried those frail bodies, but in the end only the life-long defeatism clouded her mind. The feelings she was raised with, the ones even her parents had found when they came to this terrible island, and Emily gave in to them, accepting her ultimate defeat at the hands and feet of those she knew...

But just as she had given up she was saved. She was picked up and then turned over to her back so she could breathe properly, then her savior turned and continued his ascent. Emily struggled to free herself from the paralytic pain, but shou could not. She was frozen there in the sun, waiting for a cloud to come over and cover her with the cool shade she wanted.

Please, dear God she prayed, please send me help. I wish not to retreat like the rest of them...I don't want to be safe anymore. Safety has been my whole life, always trying to protect myself from the evils of the world out there, but now I see that those who carry such strange burdens and names placed by only I and my fellow villagers that they are not as I had thought. They were pirates who killed my parents...but now it seems that pirates are those who shall save us. Please, send help, carry me somehow so that I may see Bard away in his own safety, so that I may see his victory!

"It's a bit hot out today" a kind and familiar male's voice said. "Emily...you shouldn't be out working so much on such a hot day..." Emily recognized it instantly, and her mind trailed back to that brief memory of her brother, standing in the doorway, watching her pull weeds from their meager front porch where she kept her terracotta pots of weak, limp spices.

"Oh, I know" Emily replied, "but it's ever such a gorgeous day...I can't help but want to work." Her brother came up and picked her up by the arm, making sure the guards didn't see from the corner of his eye. They stayed still and an arm's length until that patrol passed, unwatching as always.

"If they" he began "see even a hint of strength in you it will be just like Ms. Emilia from down the road. They will take you to the castle and put you to work. You must, I beg of you, restrain yourself when it comes to work."

"I am sorry brother" Emily said.

"Don't be" Jed replied. "You, we all, should be very proud of our hidden strength...but sadly...the King is not. He only wants the strong for his army...so they may die."

"It can't be that shallow" Emily argued.

"It is" Jed said. "We both know it...now, please, come inside before you catch a deadly dose of the sun. It's curiously bright out today." Jed went inside. After much pondering over the matter, so did she. Her spices would have to die prematurely again this year, both from the salty earth she planted them in and the lack of loving work they regularly received.

That was the same caring face that she woke up to now. Jed was carrying her in his weak arms as he carried himself up the hill to the castle grounds. He knew that's where he was, and he wasn't going to lie injured in bed and let him leave. His face was shrouded with the injured shadow of his brow, the old fatigue from his encounter with that demon still lingered about him. Emily gave him one last stare, a proud and loving one, as she faded from consciousness once more. The fighting continued in that castle on high, a tremor of power forming in the sky...


The stampede, the deluge, of villagers returning to their homes in a frightened panic continued to fill that narrow, body-bordered pathway down the plateau. The adrenaline from seeing their king, the man whose shadow they stayed in for decades with that soft feeling of perfect protection, was revealed to them in his true form at last. A monster driven by nothing but the ego and the drive for the infinite power he had always wanted. A beast that had no friends or foes but drove to be the only one left. So they ran. It's all they could do for now.