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 life of the pirate in the great Age of Pirates is one constantly filled with mystery and adventure. Exploring new, uncharted lands. Fighting epic battles against insanely powerful foes to further one's own footing in the adventurous world. Spanning the seas in search of the ultimate treasure. The great age of romance, the epic of every man's life, brings wonder and excitement to the hearts of all! However, some of those hearts are markedly unswayed by adventure, and are prone rather to fits of narcolepsy in the face of it.

Enter Araly, asleep during a storm so powerful that the Imperial Dragon itself shakes and rocks. The waves crash against the sides of the ship and smash like leaping monsters from up under the surf. Nature lays siege against the massive ship in a dark and cruel moment, then it all lulls and only the softly beating rain and winds remain of the surge of the ocean. Down below, on the Under Deck, the crew rushed to and fro in a panic.

"Up top!" Marco shouted. "Check it out!" A pirate broke away from his duty and ran to the door. He opened it and felt the wind and the rain swaying his hair in a forceful breeze.

"We've got headwind and rain" the pirate called. "The ship stopped shaking, though!"

"That's a little better" Marco said as the rest of the pirates sighed and cheered with relief. "Alright, where's the captain? We need his orders to proceed."

"Uh, he's taking the sails down" the pirate at the door said.

"EH!" Marco exclaimed. "Since when!" Ropes and gears started to wind and unfurl suddenly as Bard unraveled the Grand Sail from up top. He hung from a rope and swung down from the heights of the masts, bringing the grand black drape with the emblem of the golden dragon's skull emblazoned upon it. He jumped from the rope and landed with a loud thud onto the deck. His stance was proud and tall, a tall and proud young man as he was. He rested his fists onto his hips and flexed his arms out to his sides. He looked skyward with a grin as the rain slowly stopped and the wind continued to breeze. The clouds began to part, as if torn asunder by the bowsprit of the ship itself, carving forth a tunnel of light in the heavens through which a brilliant sun shone down and made the whole ship glisten.

"Heh" Bard said. "Not too bad. The sun's a bit late, though. If it had started shining the moment I landed, everything would have been a bit cooler..."

"Indeed" spoke Zan. Bard looked down and saw the man's face half-fused with the wet floor of the Main Deck. Zan phased his way up through the wood and stood fully before his captain with a brush of his sharp bangs. "Still, that was an impressive little burst of ego."

"Hehehe!" Bard triumphantly laughed. Zan took out a cigarette and lit it discreetly.

"I've discovered something strange down below, captain" Zan reported. "Apparently, it's gone without our notice for a while."

"Eh?" Bard said. "What is it?"

"We've got more room than we thought before" Zan said. He and Bard went down below immediately while the rest of the crew went to their places across the Main Deck to work and maintain the ship. While it was still wet, the pirates swabbed and polished everything to a powerful luster. The Grand Sail billowed up, full of wind and power, and the Wing Sails were extended out as well to catch the rest of the breeze and power the ship forward at full speed, always traveling straight to their next destination. Bard and Zan gathered Rez as they went, pulling him away from the Under Deck's steering rod, to aid in their investigation of their immense ship.

Zan approached a flat wall and phased his hand into it. Then, with a tug, he pulled open a hidden doorway and revealed a closet-sized room lined with stone and brick.

"What the hell?" Rez said. Zan phased his hand back and shook it off.

"There are rooms like this everywhere" Zan explained. "They seem to be isolation chambers of some kind. Perhaps some kind of wide-scattered brig."

"Well that's inefficient" Rez said. "Why make a prison on a ship be everywhere at once?"

"I think that was the exact reasoning for it" Zan said.

"Don't talk weird to me" Rez demanded. "And don't answer a question with the question itself! We get nowhere that way!"

"Think about it" Zan said. "If you capture a competent crew of pirates and throw them into the same, enclosed area, they'll be more likely to escape by working together. Even if you blindfold them and haul them off, they can figure out where they are all together by memorizing how many floors they've descended and how many turns they've taken. However, by this method, even a greatly intelligent crew would have trouble escaping. If one got out, he wouldn't be near any of his comrades, and with such a large ship he'd be so disoriented about where he is and how far he had been taken that he'd barely be able to find his way back. This ship is designed to have its size used to its advantage. No normally built sail would be able to catch the wind to move such a huge ship. That's why there are two masts and one enormous sail, as well as the side sails. Have you even noticed the aft of the ship? Where the keel runs up to the deck? It's concave, so the wind hits into it and presses it forward."

Rez nodded in acknowledgment. He understood and accepted all of Zan's lecture. Bard, however, was asleep. His narcolepsy had kicked in from being exposed to too much dialogue. Rez elbowed him awake.

"You catch any of that?" Rez asked.

"Uh" Bard began "I'm just wondering why nobody noticed this before..." Rez started growling. "And besides, how do they open anyway?"

"Hidden latches" Zan said. He closed the door and turned around. He opened a small panel inside the wall, bending back one of the boards that made the wood-paneled hallway, and pulled on a lever. The wall behind him clicked and the door opened itself. "There's one for each door, but not all of them are as easily connected. This is one of the simple ones. There's at least one that opens a door on the clear other side of the ship."

"Confusing" Rez said. "Well, if we ever have to take hostages, we should make sure to utilize these rooms. Right Bard?" Again, Bard was asleep, leaning his head onto his shoulder with his arms crossed. Rez drew out a gunblade and aimed it with a seething, fanged scowl. Suddenly, a loud bell started clanging and shook Bard out of his sleepy daze.

"Ship inbound!" a pirate shouted, his voice amplified and echoing through the ship-wide Den Den Mushi announcement system. "Repeat: Ship inbound!" Bard darted his head upward. He could hear the panic up above already.

"Is it an enemy?" Bard asked.

"If it were" Rez said "we would have heard shots already."

"Why didn't we notice this earlier?" Bard wondered...


The three got to the Main Deck at once and peered over the railing. In the distance, plainly visible already, was a ship. It was long and flat and covered with uneven stacks of box-shaped objects. It had no sails and no visible crew. From what it seemed at the current distance, the hull was paneled with metal.

"What the hell....!" Rez exclaimed. "Is that some kind of weird warship?"

"Looks like a submarine, if anything" Zan said.

"Huh?" Bard and Rez both dumbly moaned.

"A ship that can go underwater" Zan explained. "It has a water-tight hull and is propelled via a rotor, which is a spinning device that churns water to push the ship forward. There aren't too many of them, but I've seen them before. Usually very high-end and extremely complicated machines owned and operated by their own engineers. The Marines, to my knowledge, don't have access to them yet."

"Well, then it's a pirate ship" Rez said "if it's anything."

"Don't be too forward-thinking about that" Zan said slyly. He took out his cigarette and snuffed it against the rail of the ship, then flicked it overboard. "Do they look like they want to engage us?" Rez stared ahead at the ship. He scanned over it with squinting eyes for any detail of action or motion, scanning from narrow bow to aft. Then, far at its aft end, he saw something risen and waving. A flag without color. A white flag of surrender.

"You're kidding" Rez said. "They're waving a white flag!"

"But we didn't do anything yet" Bard said, sounding somewhat dejected. Then he turned around and stomped, posing with his hand on his flexing bicep. "GRRR! We must have overwhelmed them with our sheer awesomeness!"

"OHHHH!" the burly crew roared in unison.

"Or" Marco said, looking on with a skeptical group of older pirates "they're just incapable of fighting...."

"No man is incapable of fighting" Bard exclaimed "so long as he exists as a man! All men can fight! It's the manly way of being a man!"

"Man, you're annoying!" Rez shouted. Bard stood up on the ship's railing and started rolling his shoulders and winding his arms.

"Be careful, captain" Zan said. "They be setting up a trap, after all. Some people are dishonorable in this world."

"Heh" Bard scoffed. "Have a little faith in me, Zan. I've got a body that can withstand cannon-fire. I think I can handle something as simple as a trap if I need to!" Bard made his usual arrogant rush, jumping from the deck in a blur and splashing onto the water a great distance away. He ran the rest of the way, madly pumping his legs and splashing huge plumes of water into the waves with each tremendous stride he made. He started to slow down and made a Geppou jump onto the deck of the opposite ship, landing on a great metal box and nearly losing his balance in surprise. "Wha? More metal?" Bard looked around and saw that the entirety of the ship was covered in boxes, all without any kind of insignia at all and haphazardly arranged. Then he looked to the aft and saw an elevated room where the flag was risen from. It had three long, narrow horizontal windows that stretched around its whole front. It was lit from within as well with a bright, yellow lighting. "What the hell...kind of ship is this?"

Some time passed as the two ships traveled in tandem together. The Imperial Dragon was slowed to keep pace with the other ship as they awaited Bard's return. Rez took the helm, Zan watched diligently using a spyglass from within his own rib-cage, and the rest of the crew simply went about their business of delegating the ship's functions. At length, the lull and suspense finally reached the simpler minds, and the burly brawn-brained pirates began to berserk.

"GAAAAHHH!" one large man roared. "That's it! He's dead! Definitely dead! The most powerful man in the world must be on that ship!" He tore off his shirt and rushed for the railing, right beside Zan. "I've gotta do something! I'm going for it! I'm gonna swim across the waves and overtake that ship by force, just like captain Bard would want one of us to do!"

"Go for iiiiit!" one of his friends shouted.

"Deliver punishment!" one of the Palidins exclaimed.

"You" the man said, leering at Zan, "don't you try and stop me now!" Zan just kept staring ahead, watching for some sign of motion from the enemy ship, ignoring the man beside him currently quaking with fear. "Alright, here I go!" he said. He crouched down and held his arms forward, like he was going for a high dive. Then he started bending his legs to stretch them out, then started stretching his sides with his arms over his head. As he was doing squats and rhythmic breathing exercises, Zan suddenly spoke.

"You'll die." With that, the pirate gave up and sulked away.

"I'm so worthless...." he said as he sobbed. "Captain Bard, I was unable to avenge you."

"Get serious!" Marco called.

"Oh!" Zan exclaimed. He focused his spyglass and tried to zoom in. The white flag was slowly lowered, and in its place was a black heap of cloth with a golden emblem on it. Zan recognized it easily as Bard's own coat. "Well I'll be damned...."

"What's happening now?" Rez shouted. Zan collapsed his telescope and pushed it back into his body.

"Looks like we took the ship" Zan shouted. "Let's get a bit closer."

"If you say so" Rez said. Suddenly, the crew cheered and reveled in victory. Nothing had happened and they had already somehow acquired a ship! Zan turned back to the sea and lit up another cigarette. He felt something creeping up on him, and his razor assassin's senses prompted him to turn in an instant away from his lit match. Gretta was standing beside him and quickly looked away from him and at the ship that was slowly closing in.

"What's that?" she asked. Gretta was wearing a long overcoat, covering up whatever other clothes she had on underneath, and had a bow slung across her back with the string slacked around her torso to stay on. Zan smirked and lit his cigarette up, waving out the flame of the match and tossing it overboard.

"Looks like it's ours now" Zan said. Gretta glanced up at him again, then leaned against the rail and stared out to the ship. The distance between the Dragon and the metal ship floating freely in the ocean started to close until they were right next to each other, keeping an even pace. It was so low to the ocean compared to the tall and huge Imperial Dragon that the normal gangplanks couldn't easily reach it. They slid on the metal boxes or caught in corners that threatened to break them.

"We have ropes" Gretta said as she tied one end of a long cord to the ship's rail. She tossed the rest over the side and it hit on one of the boxes below. "Keep us steady" she said, disembarking before anyone else.

"Brave girl" one of the pirate's said. Zan jumped down and caught the rope as well, making his way down just behind Gretta. "Brave guy" the pirate said. "Well, I guess we should go as well, right?"

"Hold up!" Rez shouted from the helm. "If this is a trap, we can't leave the ship undefended. I'm staying here to keep us steady. Only ten of you can go, so figure it out on your own." The pirates turned to each other in an attempt to strategize, but words started to go over each other too rapidly and eventually a shouting match broke out. The shouting devolved into tussling, and then fighting, and then their pride as pirates sailing under the glorious golden dragon of Bard's namesake overtook them and an organized bracket tournament began between the two masts. Rez turned back and saw men on deck deciding the order of the next match by playing rock-paper-scissors while the two fighting wrestled each other into submission. The rest of the crew cheered at every move, nobody showing any preference except for the awesome spectacle of fighting. Rez sighed and looked forward.

"Damn them, relaxing at a time like this" he lowed. Down on the metal deck of the other ship, Gretta and Zan continued their departure by carefully scaling down the sheer side of the metal stack of boxes. Zan just walked down them, fazing through them with great ease, while Gretta demanded more adventurous actions of herself. Being the sheltered girl that she was, her hands and fingers weren't nearly strong enough to keep her supported for too long, and she started to fall. Before she could even start screaming, Zan was under her and caught her in his chest.

"Thank you" Gretta said.

"No problem" Zan said. He started sliding down through the boxes and stopped himself to jump out and land unharmed onto the deck. He tapped his leathery boot against the surface and heard it clang loudly. "It's all metal...how is this thing staying afloat?" He let Gretta off, leaving her to stand secretly swooning while he made his way forward onto the unknown ship's greater expanse. Gretta snapped out of her daydream daze and caught up with him quickly. "It's not a sub, but perhaps it functions like one. The hull seems to thick to really stay afloat, though, but it could be hollow."

"If it's ours" Gretta began "then why don't you investigate? We should know everything we can about our new ship, after all."

"Fair enough" Zan said. "Head for the aft of the ship, where the biggest room seems to be. That's where Bard's coat is hoisted, so that must be where he is." Gretta nodded and ran off. Zan looked after her for a moment and saw that she had a small belt tied around her pantleg with a knife sheathed in it. He smirked at it and began fazing downward. She seems to be getting used to this life rather quickly he thought. He was gone from the surface and descended down into the lower reaches of the ship, encumbered by the confusing workings and arrangements of metal pipes, the hissing of steam and the coursing of sea water that was to him like an actual solid object. So it runs on water somehow....


Gretta made her way silently up a flight of purely metal steps. At first her feet fell and made an echo of noise no matter how she tried to ascend them, but by half-climbing on the rail she managed to minimize her presence to sheer silence again. Only her knives seemed to rustle within their sheathes that were held fast to her leg under her coat. She shimmied her way up to the top of the flight and pressed her body against the metal hull of the large command room.

This ship is hardly a normal one Gretta thought. Of all the diagrams and blueprints for ships I've read from Araly's collection, this ship simply seems to defy all the normal properties of what a ship is. No sail, all metal, no cannons even. And this huge room at the its upper-most deck, way at the aft; one would think this ship were some form of training ground mobile upon the sea with the generals stationed in this windowed box to observe the duties of the soldiers as they spar and spread across the deck....but my crew is simply one. Other crews have less time to waste than ours does. Maybe its a ship of working more than sparring. And those huge empty boxes.....in all honesty, I'm at a loss for description of this thing. In any case, no matter how I look at it, this room must have some high-ranked person hiding inside.

Araly opened her overcoat to draw a sword. She wore a plate of masculine armor over her clothes and had two leather slings equipped with sheathes for daggers, pistols and swords. She was a one-girl walking armory and the sword she held out was one more radiant and razor-sharp than any other she had equipped. It was the rapier of Vega Void, the one she had stolen from the previous encounter with the enemy pirate crew. The elegant silver blade matched her own gorgeous, royal aura. She was ready to fight, not that she may indeed need to. It was only after equipping herself for a proper battle that she realized she had no enemies to speak of.

Come to think of it Gretta began if there was any sign of a threat, Bard would have stopped them before Zan and I arrived. I mean, he's Bard. If there was an enemy, he'd be the first to fight them....but maybe he already did. Perhaps the hoisting of his jacket isn't a sign of capture, but of conquest! Perhaps Bard was actually overwhelmed! Gretta took that as the standard by which she would act to justify her being armed to the teeth. She reached over for the door handle, a metal bard that twisted and unlocked a latch inside the door. Somehow, it was unlocked, and Gretta went in like a breeze, shutting the door behind her.

"Hmm?" a man grunted. He looked up from a metal shelf that was built up from the floor and darted his head around. Gretta snuck up on him and held her sword to his throat. He let out a whimper of fear but Gretta forced him to hush.

"Where is your captain?" she whispered.

"Up top" he whispered, pointing up.

"And where is my captain" Gretta lowed "the man with golden hair?"

"They're both on the observation deck" the man whimpered. Gretta drew away and went toward a ladder that led up. A straight row of metal bars protruding from the metal wall. Everything around her was unknown and frighteningly strange. Metal walls, metal hulls, metal floors and tables with slides and buttons and levers; this was a ship unheard of entirely. Gretta climbed up the ladder to the deck above but found no one around. She was in the middle deck, looking out the long window onto the deck. There were still many tables of metal and empty chairs. It seemed to be an identical workstation to the one below, but without even a single person occupying it. Gretta turned and saw the ladder leading up even further, into a hatch that was closed. Gretta ascended up to the top deck and slowly, silently opened the hatch up. She heard many men talking in a raucous, drunken way. Someone stomped on the metal hatch and pressed Gretta down with their weight. She shrunk away, able to keep her head from being hit thanks to her own quick reflexes, and waited to pop up again.

There seemed to be a lot of them Gretta thought but they're off guard. They sounded laggard and dreary. I can take them all at once.... Once the pressure was off of the hatch she threw it open and jumped up onto the observation deck. Metal tables were bolted to the floor with heavy looking square-tipped nails. Wooden chairs with wheels on the legs were positioned at each table. A box that a man was reaching inside held well-preserved food and drinks and let out a cool mist. The lighting overhead was electric and run through tube-like glass objects embedded into the metal ceiling and sealed behind thick panels of glass. Gretta held her sword up before her face and glared with her blood-red eyes. All the men, round and dumb-looking deckhands dressed in greasy, tattered clothes looked her way in confusion.

"Uh, hey there" a man said, drunkenly reaching for her. Gretta snapped to action. She jumped away from him and cut his hand. He shrank away and shouted in pain as his greasy palm started to bleed.

"Hey!" another man shouted from behind. He grabbed Gretta's overcoat and she released the knot that kept it tied to her. She spun around and gave him a cut across the shoulder. Now the room was moving hr way. With the sword tight in hand, Gretta relaxed her arm and started making wide sweeps, cutting through clothes and drawing blood all around her. The men that came her way either shrank back in cowardice or fell down in pain as she cut her way through them. An elegant, white-shaded shadow with flashing red eyes.

In no time at all Gretta had conquered the room with her sword. Alone, against all odds and a constant flow of villainous men, she stood proud and strong. She had made her way through her first real battle as a pirate. The first time she'd ever wielded a sword in any proper sense. She took her overcoat back from the greasy clutch of the man groaning on the floor and wiped her blade on it.

"You all need to train harder" she said. After that she sheathed her blade and looked around. Still, there was no sign of Bard, but there was an open door leading to an outer deck. She found, outside, a short staircase leading up and stealthily climbed up it. There she saw Bard, standing tall and arrogantly victorious as she always saw him, staring ahead as the bright ocean sky. Beside him was a man, very short by comparison, with a sheathed sword and pistol at his side. Gretta glided across the metal floor, silent and swift, and arrive next to the man to glare him down a moment before she drew a dagger. The man turned his head to her and jolted away, into Bard, when he saw the white-haired girl holding a weapon to him.

"Who-who are you!" the man said. Bard looked down and saw Gretta holding a weapon. He frowned and plucked the weapon from her hand. She reached up for it, but he held it away and broke the blade between his fingers.

"What was that for?" Bard asked. "Sneaking up on people and threatening them so quietly. That's Zan's job!"

"Captain" Gretta began, "I thought you were in trouble somehow!"

"Nah!" Bard said happily.

"Then, you really did manage to take the ship over on your own?" Gretta said.

"Huh?" Bard grunted. "Since when....did I plan on doing that?"

"Sir Samekawa" the man between them began, "is this one of your crew-men?"

"Yup" Bard answered. "That's Gretta. She's a princess, or was."

"So why is your jacket in place of their flag?" Gretta asked.

"UAH! CAPTAIN NEPALS!" a man cried. One of the men with a bleeding arm came up from the observation deck onto the top of the bridge platform holding his arm in pain. He sulked over with tears bulging in his eyes and pointed shakily to Gretta. "That-that little bitch just cut us all up!"

"What!" the man, addressed as Nepals, exclaimed. "Miss Gretta, why did you do that!"

"I though" Gretta flatly began "my captain was in trouble. You were all celebrating and his jacket is flying in place of what was once a white flag. If a trap had been sprung, even Bard may have fallen into it. That is why-"

"Oh that" Bard said, glancing up at his jacket. "It got wet and heavy from the salt water, so I hung it up there to dry." A brief silence passed. Gretta squinted and looked up at Bard, who was looking in turn skyward at his jacket. His stupidity was blinding.....

Oh, my captain.... Gretta thought. I should have known....you're never actually in danger at all, are you?