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.
The crew of the mighty Imperial Dragon continued on their adventure across the Grand Line, guided by the pose gifted to them by the reformed Ghost Killer Pirates who they left behind as lethal rivals. Bard stood at the bowsprit of his mighty ship, his coat billowing as the wind swept past him. Behind him, at the helm of the ship steering it by its finely crafted wheel, was Rezland 'The Duelist', the second in command with a smug grin on his face. He let the hair blow through his short black hair and roll past his built, well defined frame. Behind him was the Main Deck where most of the crew moved about, checking ropes and having closed sparring matches in the shining Grand Line sun to keep their fighting sharp.
Down below that deck, immediately on the lower level, was the Under Deck, which had all the same functions of the Main Deck conveniently hidden from view. Sails could be raised or lowered and the ship could be steered as well, the perfect set up for a crew to sail on stealthily, as if their ship had been abandoned, by guiding it on from below. Under that deck was a buffer of thick wood paneling which insulated the barracks-like sleeping quarters from the noise of the Under Deck. On that same floor was the dry storage for all non-food items. Things found in travels like cloth or maps or any important treasure was stored in here, a sort of bank which only the captain and his immediate upper crewmen. Also on the deck, occupying the barracks when the crew was awake and sleeping in specially prepared, separate chambers when it was time for them to sleep, were Kurateka's specially trained nurses who kept the sleeping quarters as an infirmary at all times. They cured anything from food poisoning to a headache and were equipped to perform even the most necessary surgery.
Below that was another buffer, and then the Dining Deck. The Mess Hall, as the pirates appropriately called it and rewrote over the head of the doorway that led to it. The dining hall had since lost its regal charm and all the monetary ornaments and expensive decorations were taken down and stored in the Dry Storage for the next time the crew would have access to a civilization capable of trading their expensive items for pure, liquidated Beri. On the same floor was the kitchen, its appliances powered either by pure fire or, if the ship was moving, an intricate and complicated mess of machinery that took the churning of water from outside and converted it into power that stoked burners and boilers located just under the deck near the bilge. They were called 'Steam turbines' and the explanation of their functioning bored Bard straight to sleep.
All these decks were surrounded by a protective buffer of even more armor, most of it a light metallic compound capable of taking direct cannon fire without directly giving way. On the other sides of that protective buffer were the Ramparts. Each deck, including the soundproof buffers, was layered with a floor that held the cannons and port holes where the crew could attack from. Such a super-galleon as this would only do proper battle against a Marine battleship in pure nautical combat, but its enormous size and incredible thickness on all sides is what gave it such an immense advantage against the sea itself. Even if the tides churned enough to move a battleship off its course, this behemoth of a ship would require nothing short of a hole opening in the ocean beside it to move it completely off its destined path.
This was the ship that Bard captained, leading the crew and even its comatose former captain, and it sailed for parts unknown to even the most wizened traveler on the ship who made his way up to the helm through the wood like a phantom passing through solid matter. Rez cringed every time it happened. This man is Zan Edwards, Revolutionary Assassin turned pirate for Bard's crew. He held under his naked arm a rolled parchment and unrolled it as he walked forward.
"Bard" Zan called. Bard turned on his heel, his golden head of hair ruffling itself like a grain-field afire. His face was painted with a gleaming smile and an overall confident, almost obnoxiously so, look. He even held his fists against his hips as he walked and flexed his muscles exposed from the opening in his sleeveless, black coat. "Take a look at this with me" Zan said.
"Ah, sure" Bard said. He moved around and intently watched Zan unfold the parchment before both of them. It was a map, cryptically marked with nameless islands and a path from a familiar opening that started with a mountain. "It's a map! There's Reverse Mountain!" Bard exclaimed, pointing to the beginning of the map.
"Indeed" Zan said. "It seems to be a map of what the crew before us managed to catalog. They must have left it with this ship."
"And we're just finding it now!?" Rez shouted. "Did we never take an inventory of what we had!?"
"There's Paradiso Isola" Zan said, pointing to the first island in the row. "We were there when we got this ship, so it makes sense that their journey seems to start from here. Then they traveled to four other islands before reaching the apparent halfway mark of the Grand Line, turned around....somehow, went through two more islands and finally settled back in Paradiso Isola where we got the ship."
"Quit it with the 'we', punk" Rez called, keeping his tone away from any real hate. "You stowed away on this ship, right?"
"Well" Zan said, turning to Rez, "I was on it when it set out. Technically, that means I was a part of the 'we', right captain?"
"I dunno" Bard said with a rub of his neck. "I'm tempted to go with Rez on this one. You weren't really part of the crew until I offered you to join it, so I guess it was 'us' and 'you' just happened to be along with us in our first setting out."
"Fair's fair" Zan said with a shrug. "From the outline provided by Araly in her free time, I don't seem to see Ookumaiwa on here at all. They must not have sailed there after all."
"How?" Rez asked. "All paths on the Grand Line are set in...stone, technically. Actually in the magnetic minerals on each island. Most of the time a path one crew takes will be in the direct footsteps of a crew before them, and regardless each island has been visited at least once on the Grand Line. There aren't any islands that haven't been discovered or regularly visited over the years by pirates, not in this age."
"All paths eventually converge" Zan said "but it's hard to find two of the same between the successful crews in the New World. No one even knows the exact path that the former Pirate King took when he conquered the ocean, though most people can roughly speculate based on where he was and when. Then, of course, there are islands with no magnetic frequency which are still visited despite being on no log pose."
"Ah, yeah" Rez said. He sighed and gave up the fight. "So, despite us starting in the same place, roughly, you're saying we don't know where we're going."
"Precisely" Zan said.
"Whoo!" Bard whooped. He threw his thick, manly arms up in rejoice at the unknown destination of his ship. "What a mystery! Sailing out onto the open seas, with no way of knowing where we'll end up! Maybe some monsters will jump from under the currents of water, maybe an island will materialize out of the thin air! Who knows!" Bard stomped his foot onto the step of the bowsprit and pointed his finger forward. "Forward! Faster! I command it!!!"
"Whatever" Rez lowed. "We're going as fast as we can." Zan rolled up the parchment and began phasing into the wood. "Can't you walk normally!?" Rez shouted, saving himself from further witness to Zan's disturbing powers. Zan shrugged and walked normally across the deck and down to the Main Deck quarters at the fore of the ship where Araly stayed.
"Got a job for you" Zan said as he walked into the room. He saw Araly hanging in her hammock on her side, sleeping peacefully with a blanket over her body. Zan grinned and set the map on the bed, then phased down through the floor to the Under Deck. When he landed he glanced to the side and saw Gretta staring him down. The white-haired, white-skinned, red-eyed maiden from the island they just left, a princess to top it off, had an inexplicable attraction to the inhuman feats of Zan and awed after him whenever the chance arose. She was the only one capable of surprising the ever-vigilant assassin because, despite her appearance, she was difficult to keep track of even for sharp-eyed Edwards.
"......cigarette?" Zan asked, holding out his pack as an offer. Gretta looked at the box of flimsy sticks for a moment before Zan took one in his mouth and retrieved a lighter from his pocket. He struck a flame, lit the cigarette and took in a deep drag of smoke which he breathed out with a grin through his nostrils.
"....I think not" Gretta said, drawing her hand away. "I'm not yet at a strength where I could control such a fearsome power...."
"It's not magic, girl" Zan said. "If you don't want one, that's fine too. They're probably bad for you, so I'd suggest against using them at all."
"Then why do you?" Gretta asked. Zan took his cigarette from his mouth with careful fingers and blew out a puff of smoke.
"It calms me down" Zan said. "When you've lived a life like mine for long enough, any calming method will work to satisfy you. Hope that you never have to live that kind of life, alright?" Zan left her standing in the darkened hallway as he made his usual patrols around the ship, checking it for worthwhile items not yet scanned over or hidden rooms left unexplored for too long. Gretta sighed and leaned her body lazily into the wall.
That man she thought, that demon. He is so elegant. He is so charming and powerful. He is so gallant and amazing. His power is so unearthly, so above anything I have ever seen and so whimsical in its very nature. Never, never at all, not even in my most fantastic dreams have I ever imagined a man like him with his powers to exist in this world or to be so close to me.... Her feminine drive started to control her movements and she became lost in her thoughts as she walked in a half-stepping dance through the halls of the Under Deck, dodging the pirates who moved past her with arms full of work and things that needed to be carried. They ignored her, already used to her swooning ways and dreamy flights, and kept out of her way to keep her glare sedated by her pleasant, happy charm. She continued to dance her way all the way to the Main Deck and then up the stairway to the aft of the deck which was elevated over the Main Deck and held its own battle station in case of an emergency chase.
This is where, for the first time she could recall, Gretta saw someone sleeping on the job in the middle of the day. She was stirred out of her poetic flight and looked at this man with her stoic, apathetic, glowing stare as he snored in his chair leaned back on its hind legs with his feet on the railing. The wind failed to pick up his greasy, dirt-splotched dark hair as it billowed hers like a delicate cloud. She brushed her hair back with her fingers and let it blow behind her as a white, flowery mass. Then she approached the man and kicked his chair to try and jar him awake.
"Lazy fool" she said. "Wake up and do something productive. Write a book!" Gretta kicked again and the chair toppled. The shovel held in the man's sleeping hand was knocked loose and clattered onto the deck floor. Gretta looked at it and listened to the man's snores increase in volume. She instantly became frustrated and kicked the man's side lightly. "Wake up, I said! On whose authority can you just sleep all day?" The man didn't answer or stir in the slightest. Gretta was tempted to continue kicking him, but the futility of her actions was becoming apparent and she moved to set him back up. Instead of giving him his shovel back in his lap or in his hand, she balanced it on his nose as his head was hung over the back of his chair. Gretta stared at her work and the perfect balance it brought and was inspired to continue, so she went off to gather more things to put on the man's face.
That man was known as 'Graveshift' Maxwell to the crew, their former captain. He rested eternally in a coma that kept him on the border between life and death at the hands of a toxic venom still coursing in his veins from some unfortunate day a long time ago. Only briefly after so much rest could he ever wake and move freely, then back to sleep he would go. He was known to some, to a select and strong few, as 'The Chromatic' Maxwell from his days as the former one of the Yonkou, the strongest of the New World's Pirates! No one in the crew is clear as to who exactly that 'Chromatic' was, but the fear and respect the name all the same.
When Gretta returned she had some swords, a length of rope and a bucked, and she was determined to get it all balanced on Maxwell's unconscious face. No one bothered to check on either of them for a time, either, leaving her to perfect the art of balancing stuff on sleeping people's faces....
Meanwhile, Araly finally woke up and saw the parchment on the bed, rolling itself to a slight unfold as it rolled around. She was stretching out desperately to grab hold of it, still bound to her hammock bed due to her chronic sea sickness, but refused to give up. She reached for a length of cloth and tried to harness her skills with it lying down. She tried to use it to whip and latch onto the rolls that held the parchment together but only managed to hit the parchment together and further away.
"DAMN IT ALL!!!" she roared, tossing the scarf away ineffectually. It fluttered over the bed and fell too far away for her to even try to grab at. She sighed and slouched over the edge of her bed with defeat in her heart and hair cascading over her face. Her long, curly blue locks wouldn't leave her alone until she shook her head and curled them up into a puffy afro. "Nothing works right anymore" she said as she took tight finger presses of her hair at a time and straightened them out. "My hair's all greasy and feels salty and grimy.....I want a bath. I want a shower. Anything at all, I'll take it at once. I just wish I could walk on a boat like a normal person! I'm a pirate, aren't I? What kind of pirate has sea sickness!?"
Araly continued to complain to herself while the ship barreled ever onward to its destination, guided by the unseen hands of fate....
As the Buster Pirates sailed across the waving waters of the mighty Grand Line, an official man made his course to his own plotted destiny. Captain Mars, a man of great might and stature, standing tall and taking up more space with his arms than with his status, led his crew back to Headquarters on official business which he neglected to review entirely. All he knew was there was a mountain's worth of paperwork summoning him to the sacred Marine ground and he could do nothing to escape the call...
I doubt I'm getting a promotion Mars thought. They'd never put my name on a ballot for a higher office, those bastards. I'm most likely gonna get chewed out or barked at by one of the Vice-Admirals or a government dog of an official. All over one kid. What can I do about it? Bard's vanished from the radar and we have no idea where he's headed next...
"Captain Mars!" a Marine crewmen shouted as he ran up to the helm. Mars turned around and met the young Marine in mid-salute. "We just got a communication from HQ, sir. They want us to reroute our course!"
"Those ass-hats!" Mars bellowed. "I'm already en route to the base and they want me to diverge!? Did they say how? We've only got the one, damn pose!"
"They given us coordinates, sir" the Marine said. "We should be able to reach the port within two days if we turn around now."
"Where are they sending us?" Mars asked.
"It's a previously unknown island" the Marine said. "They're keeping most of the details under heavy confidentiality. HQ claims to have picked up a weakened signal from an island on the Grand Line and they want us to inspect it. It sounded like a call for help."
"Aren't we busy already?" Mars asked. "What about Bard? It's my responsibility to catch the kid and take him in."
"They've also said" the Marine continued "that the responsibility for Bard D. Samekawa is falling into the hands of a different captain and fleet."
"WHAT!?" Mars roared with his eyes whited out in rage. "Since when did they get the power to remove responsibility off a man's waiting shoulders!?"
"Uh....since always?" the Marine nervously said.
"Who's responsible for it now!?" Mars demanded.
"Confidential information, sir" the Marine said. "We're only on instruction to turn around and head to the island using the Den Den Mushi as a tracker....that's all I can say." Mars growled and turned around, stomping his foot onto the railing which buckled under his great force and nearly split apart.
"Fine" Mars said. "Change course immediately. The more time we waste the more words they'll be saving up to belch at us when we finally do our job right." The Marine saluted and ran off.
"Change course!" the Marine ordered. "Follow the Den Den Mushi signal!" Mars groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose under the pressure of his oppression.
Nothing seems to be going right anymore Mars thought. It's all been a downward spiral since Bard and his girlfriend Araly left....but I'm sure they're going through their own trials and hardships. I'd be crazy not to want to see them again, if not just to see that they're on the right path anymore. Bard's a tough kid, but dim. That Araly's a bright girl, very astute, but she's unsure of herself. I trust them both, especially Bard, to make the decisions that are right for themselves from here on out. Still, I wish I could be there helping them. Those kids are still too young to be on this dangerous sea...
"Captain Mars!" a Marine called. Mars turned with his teeth visibly grit and his eyes half-drawn under their lids.
"Huuuuuuh!?" Mars groaned.
"A Pirate ship has been spotted!" the Marine declared. "It's closing on us from the port side, four knots, with the sails down!" Mars jumped around and pounded his fists together.
"That's what I like to hear!" he shouted. "Change course! We're taking them down!"
"Yes sir!" the Marine said. He rushed back to the deck and gave the orders. The ship was promptly turned in its straight course to meet the incoming pirate ship. Through the crow's nest lookout the ship was easily spotted and visibly populated by pirates who ran around in a rush to load cannons and prepare for battle. Mars stole his lookout's telescope and saw the frantic rush the pirates were in.
"Ah, this'll be easy!" Mars shook off his coat and ran along the edge of the sail mast and jumped from the ship with his huge, barreled chest aimed toward the water. He dove into the sea with a tremendous splash and swam under the waves straight for the pirate ship. The pirates who prepared themselves for a battle watched the Marines from a distance just as they were being watched and the lookout at the helm of the deck saw Mars diving and rushed back to his captain to warn him.
"Captain Stalt!" the called. "Captain Stalt! One of the Marine dogs just dove off his ship and into the water! What should we do?"
"It's obvious, ain't it?" the battle-clad, black-garbed aged captain said. "We need to attack him from a distance before he attacks us from below! Find him in the water and shoot him out of it like a fish!"
"Aye!" the pirate called. "Helm cannons, aim at the swimmer and fire on sight!" The men arming the cannons at the helm of the ship turned their sights around and scanned the waves between them and the Marine ship that turned toward them. The waves were moving as usual in the Grand Line and beneath them swam the shadows of many fish that breached the surface just long enough to be seen, but out of all the sights the men couldn't see a trace of what a man would look like swimming through the waves. The ship shook at odd intervals and dull thuds echoed up from under the water.
"What was that?" a pirate wondered.
"It's obvious, ain't it?" Stalt called to his men, keeping his cheeks wrinkled with an arrogant smile. "We're just hitting a bunch of rocks right now. Forget that Marine, fire at the ship!"
"Aye!" the pirates called. They aimed high and fired, but their shots all sank unexpectedly low and splashed into the water. The Marines fought back and fired the cannons from their deck, landing explosions on the surface of the pirate's sizable ship.
"What the hell!?" the cannoniers shouted. "Why couldn't we hit them!?"
"It's obvious, ain't it?" Stalt called as he turned around with the whipping billow of his long coat following him. "Magic."
"You're obviously wrong!" his crew shouted. Then, through the smoke of one of the blasts, a stomping of feet was heard and a body appeared, twice as strong looking as any man the pirates had ever seen. With a single swing of his arm he smashed the breath from a man's chest and sent that man darting across the deck, carrying two others with him as he flew off the side of the deck. Mars paced his way up to the helm when he was suddenly surrounded by armed pirates.
"You dog!" a pirate shouted. "We'll kill you, Marine!" Mars let them attack. They all leaped at him with their swords held high and their axes swung back, and Mars let them. He simply ducked down and slid his feet. Then, with a grunting growl, he rocketed back up following his fist and the pirates around him were thrown away and off the ship by his explosive force.
"MARS ROCKET!!!" His uppercut finished and he landed, swinging his fist to the side like a saber and shook off the sweat. He paced up to the upper deck and stood facing the helm and all the worried pirates that were on it. "Which one of you is the damn captain!?" he demanded. Stalt laughed confidently and walked forward with his hands in his pockets.
"It's obvious, ain't it?" he said. "It's me you want, Captain Stalt of the Stalt Pirates!" He hadn't calculated Mars' wrath into his introduction and was punched so hard in the face that all his wrinkles converged into the fisted crater and his skin became inexplicably taught around his ears and the sides of his face. When the fist left his skin rippled back out and he was thrown with force clear off the ship. Mars had barely moved to execute the tremendous punch and when he heard the splash and settling of water from the pirate landing he brought his fist to his grinning mouth and blew on it.
"You bastard!" a pirate shouted. A stocky but strong man, the pirate picked the cannon he armed up and held it over his shoulder. The fuse was already lit. "I'll show you that we're not to be messed with!" The cannon fired and a thick trail of smoke followed up to Mars' body. The pirate dropped the cannon and then dropped to his knees. No smoke came forth from a blast because there was none. Mars caught the cannon ball and stopped it dead in the air. He let it drop down and hit the floor with a heavy smash of wood, then he walked to the cowering pirates and crossed his heavy, muscular arms in a chiding down-cast gaze.
"You picked the wrong ocean to sail" he said. The pirates prostrated themselves and begged forgiveness, but got no mercy from fight-starved Mars. When his ship was in range he punted each pirate onto its deck from their ship as the entire pirate vessel sunk from the holes he'd punched into its underside. Mars then jumped from ship to ship as his ship's course was already corrected to sail to the island they had been ordered to find.
"Take these men into custody" Mars commanded "but don't be too rough on them. If they want, they can join us later."
"Yes sir" the Marines said.
"Do your worst, damn you!" the stout and defiant pirate growled. He stood up tall and refused to budge his arms, even to the force of two men trying to bind each one. "I'll never become a dog like you."
"Hmph" Mars huffed. "You're a bit off, kid. I'm no dog. I'm a damn war-hound!"
Elsewhere on the churning waves of the mighty ocean, a Marine ship sat in the port of a gallant and bustling island city of perpetual spring. The crew of that ship took up quarter in the city's hotel under a military decree and held their own with free food and dining and total tenure of action. The grateful town mayor had given the crew a semi-hero status for what they aimed to do when the time was right: to capture a devious and dangerous traitor to the Marines and to the World Government.
The captain of this crew regularly called upon some kind of personal service from the staff of the hotel where he stayed, whether it be for some unnecessary food or miscellaneous luxury that required a bit of shamelessness on the part of the maids and cooks that met his requests. One such maid hurried up to his room with a change of clothes over her shoulder and a covered dish in her hands. She balanced the plate carefully on her fingertips and knocked at the door. It was opened by another maid from within dressed in a bunny-girl outfit.
"Please change in the bathroom" the girl said as she took the plate "and go to the master bedroom. He's waiting in there for you...."
"Must I?" the girl asked. The bunny-girl stared at her with a vacant, deathly expression that hurried her along further. When the maid got out her change of clothes and sized them up against her body, she found something markedly odd about the apparel, namely in that it had no back and was essentially a short-cut maid's outfit that was totally open in the back. Coupled with the embarrassing suit was a lacy style of lingerie underwear and stockings and a garter belt. She gulped loudly and changed.
When she appeared another girl wearing an outfit similar to hers sighed and sped off in dismissal.
"Good luck" the retreating girl said. The girl who replaced her was worried for a moment and opened the bedroom door to peek inside. The wall was lined up with girls in sexy uniforms and suits, all there to cater to whatever fancifully twisted whims this Marine captain would call upon them.
"A new girl, eh?" the captains said. He sat in the shadows of the canopy over his bed with a glass of wine lightly swilling in his hand. He took a sip from it and spun it with gentle movements of his wrist. She could see his mouth through the shade and what seemed to be the body of a child speaking to her. "I have just the place for you, my dear" he said, his voice that of a boy.
This is the captain assigned to finding and capturing Bard, moved ahead of the young pirate boy by some unknown steps to impede his passage past the point he chose to guard. This was a marvelous Marine captain whose high standards for good taste always seemed to take precedence over his job to dispense justice. This captain was Ponce 'Boyish' Charm, Captain of the Marines....
