"Captain, we’re approaching Jaya. Do you have any orders for the crew?"
Someone once said that there were five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally, acceptance. Mind you, I wasn’t experiencing grief per se. More like…confusion? Frustration? Perhaps befuddlement was a better word. Anyhow, my response to being slapped in the face by reality wasn’t exactly different from that of a person experiencing grief. Put yourself in my shoes and tell me you wouldn’t react as I did. I dare you.
“Someone get me a drink! I'm not drunk enough for this shit.”
And just in case it wasn’t blindingly obvious…I was in denial.
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Fast forward a little bit and I had come to accept certain aspects of my new reality.
One, I was on the island of Jaya populated for the most part by the scum of the earth. Two, I was hence by necessity in the world of One Piece and most likely fucked because I did not know how to fight. Three, I was doubly fucked because my crew would likely mutiny without continued looting, plundering and carnage unless I could find some way to keep them busy. And finally, I was royally fucked up the arse even if or probably especially if I avoided said looting, plundering and carnage, because the psychopath whose flag I was flying was going to come kill me for being boring. And if that last tidbit hadn't clued you in as to whose body I had inadvertently hijacked…
“W-what can I g-get you, Captain Bellamy Sirpleasedon’tkillmepleaseIhavechildren!”
Sigh.
“Just hand me an ale. A cold one.” I wasn't even sure why the bartender was so scared of me. It wasn't like I had killed anyone yet. In fact, I hadn't raised a single finger in violence since I got here. I even payed for my beer like the law abiding citizen I was...or at least, had been.
Lost in my thoughts, I barely noticed a bloody dagger sinking into the bar with a soft THUNK.
“I’ll have what the captain’s having. Quickly now.” a smooth voice demanded as its owner plopped down unto a stool next to me.
One thing you started to appreciate on jaya, was how much faster and better the service got the more scared people were of you. Case in point, mere seconds after the order was placed, my second-in-command was leaning back in contentment, drink in hand.
“Sarquiss.”
“Captain.”
“Make sure to clean up later. I don’t want bloodstains on my ship.” The man just grinned before knocking back his glass of ale. Upon reflection, Sarquiss and to a lesser extent, the rest of Bellamy’s crew may have been the reason everyone was so scared of me. In the last five days we had been on the island, they had started no less than ten bar fights, six riots in the streets, beaten up seven pirate crews for giving them “funny looks” and caused some thirty casualties…eight of them fatal. Oh, and commandeered the pub’s whole supply of alcohol on the third day. Heaven knew where the poor barkeep managed to get replacements.
You wouldn’t have guessed it from just the show, but Bellamy’s crew were fairly competent by paradise standards. Sure, only Sarquiss had a bounty worth mentioning but all of them would have had a fair shot at an Olympic medal in my old world. Unfortunately for them, this world was populated by monsters who could crush mountains with their fists and where even unnamed extras could toss a grown man around like a rag doll.
Anyway, thanks to my surprisingly tough crew, I had been left alone and unmolested, with plenty of time to brood on what to do next. Couldn’t leave because the log pose refused to reset. Couldn’t train without making the crew suspicious, not that I knew how. Couldn’t stay sober because I’d go mad. Thankfully, the crew had decided that my moodiness was a byproduct of absolute boredom and had pried no further.
I did experiment a little in the privacy of my room and discovered two things. First, basic control over Bellamy’s devil fruit came naturally to me just like the body remembers how to walk after amnesia. Second, I could compress my springs effortlessly, regardless of their size and toughness, which irritated the hell out of the physicist within me. Yes, I was a nerd, deal with it.
It did have a lot of potential though.
“By the way captain, a new crew arrived today.”
The force a spring could exert was directly proportional to how much it was compressed.
“Most of them are the usual garbage but their captain does have a fairly decent bounty.”
Thing was, in order to compress a spring, some manner of initial effort tended to be a mandatory requirement.
“Guy is worth 30 million. Of course, he isn’t at our level...I mean I’m worth more by a good margin.”
That put a soft cap on how powerful a spring could be while remaining useful. But if said requirement didn't apply to me?
“I don’t know…maybe he’ll be tough enough to offer some entertainment? He should be able to survive a punch or two.”
I could turn parts of my body into springs. Nobody said how big that spring had to be, or for that matter, what it needed to be made out of…
“Wanna go have a look? Lily took some of the boys to keep an eye on them.”
Chrome Vanadium maybe? That was the industry standard back home.
“Are you listening to me? Bellamy!”
“Huh, what?” I felt as if I should have been offended at the way he dramatically sighed, but that big knife scared me.
“Wanna check out the thirty million?”
The Straw Hats were here?
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These were not the Straw Hats. In fact, I had absolutely no clue who these guys were and I was pretty familiar with the One Piece canon. Which meant, the guy currently waving a pillar, which was doing its best to masquerade as a club, had to be some nameless, insignificant fodder.
By contrast, I was or at least the body I was inhabiting belonged to a named character, an existence much higher up on the food chain of disposable mooks… Lost in thought, I failed to even twitch as the club whizzed by mere millimeters from my nose. Of course, the crowd broke out into excited chatter over my nerves of steel and my keen eyes, which must have allowed me to judge the range of that club with pinpoint precision.
“Just because you have a higher bounty, you think you’re better than me? I’m Big Bat Barrick! Bully of Blackden Burgh!” Turning my attention back to my opponent, I really took in his appearance for the first time. My knee jerk reaction was that the guy looked absolutely ridiculous. Black leather jacket, slicked back hair like a counterfeit Elvis, black sunglasses with large black sideburns. Not too bad, right? But the pants! Oh, the pants!
“I’ll beat you into the ground and show the world I’m a greater pirate than you! After I kill you, the world will fear the very name of Big Bat Barrick!”
They were neon pink! With glitter! And to make bad matters worse, they were ballooning around the knees. And that was without even talking about the shirt.
“Look at how scared you are! Frozen in fear! This is the great Hyena? This?” Barris or Barrack or whatever was wearing a neon green shirt in the style of Elisabethan England. Maybe, just maybe if he had been as scary as Doflamingo, he might have been able to pull it off. Maybe. But with how…wide and corpulent he was, I was far more concerned for his cardiovascular system than I was for my own well-being. And considering that this was objectively more danger than I had ever been exposed to in my entire past life, that was saying something.
“Today will be the day you’ll all remember as the day…”
I knew it was my first fight and all, but I couldn't help it. The absolute travesty of fashion before me, required an appropriate response from any man of common sense, one which could not be stopped by any amount of human will.
“Do you require psychiatric aid?” One would have been able to hear a pin dropping in the resulting silence, which fell over the entire town square. Most of the crowd looked terrified, whereas my crew were smirking widely. Barrick? Barrick just looked confused. “I hear that prolonged exposure to stressful situations can result in irrational behavior and uncontrollable urges. You might want to get that checked out.”
“…wut?”
“I have a good doctor on my crew if you need it…which from the looks of it, certainly seems like you do. Hey Muret! What’s your professional opinion on this?”
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“Nothing quite as drastic, captain.” You could just hear the malicious glee oozing from her voice. Ladies and gentlemen, that was my doctor to whom I entrusted my physical and mental wellbeing. “He’s simply mentally underdeveloped. No one would dress this…ugly otherwise.”
My crew broke out in peals of laughter, Sarquiss visibly having trouble standing upright and consequently leaning on Lily for support. Lily on her part seemed to tolerate her boyfriend hanging off her shoulder like a limpet, all smiles for now. When the crowd nervously joined in, it proved to be too much for Barrick.
“I’ll beat you like a dog, Hyena!” he screamed, charging at me on his stubby legs, his club raised high above his head. The ground trembled with every step he took, deep footprints being left in his wake. His face was distorted in fury, spittle was flying everywhere and his expansive reservoirs of lard, which were flapping violently, did make for a horrifying sight to behold. But…he was just…so…slow.
Just a quick step to the side and a half turn left me facing his undefended back, a critical mistake on his part. This was something Barrick realized soon after, the man desperately rotating his great mass to compensate. But when Barrick did manage to turn around, it was just in time for my fist to knock his head back. And to my personal surprise, it felt surprisingly instinctive. One had to love that muscle memory.
“You broc me ‘ose! I kill you!” He wasn't down but I hadn’t really expected him to be. Regardless of his jarring fashion choices, he was still a pirate worth more than most East Blue pirates had to offer…discounting outliers like the Straw Hats of course. But he was not scary. Should I have been scared?
Jump, jump, duck, sidestep, slap. And eew, I was not doing that again. That felt gross.
“Please stop getting spit everywhere!” I called out to him but Barrick just howled in response to my polite request. How rude.
Leaning back to avoid a wild swing, I transformed my waist, placed my hands on the ground and…flipped. My foot collided with his jaw, resulting in a very satisfying crack and sending my opponent to the ground...defenceless. But I was a generous man, so I waited for him to get back onto his feet, which he did eventually if unsteadily.
To be honest with myself, I did have a reason for prolonging the fight and it wasn't just because I was a sadistic bastard. If I was going to be living as Bellamy from now on, I would need to learn how to fight eventually and that in a world with monsters like Luffy, Doflamingo or Dellinger, even if one discounted the marines. And nothing taught you how to fight better than good old experience. Logical conclusion? I should use this live punching bag to test out my new body.
One of the first things I decided to figure out, was something critical to my survival. How tough was I? The simple answer was, very.
That was a solid steel bat Barrick was swinging around, probably weighing a good two hundred kilograms and it did absolutely nothing when I blocked it with my forearm. In fact, it looked like it hurt him more than it did me, from which I could only conclude that one piece physiology was broken as hell. Barrick flailed at me for a good while, as I just stood there, blocking everything with a lazy nonchalance. It was quite easy, which seemed to piss him off even more.
Objectively, Barrick was likely faster with his bat than most major league athletes back home, but speed was almost always relative when it came to combat. And like I had mentioned already, he was just so much slower than me that he might as well have been standing still. He was weaker too, if the amount of damage or lack thereof was any indication. Bellamy, for all the ridicule he got for being taken out by Luffy in a single punch…had a tough body. Luffy was simply a monster so he really shouldn't count.
Before Barrick could blink, I was in front of him, jabbing him in the nose. And by the time his counter arrived, I was long gone, his left hook sailing through the space my head had just vacated. Without the expected resistance, Barick was flung around by his own momentum, revealing his unprotected flank to me. Something, which I eagerly took advantage of, burying my fist into his side with a quick two jumps. A desperate backswing was easily avoided by a little backwards hop, something which was surprisingly easy when you had springs for legs.
Jump in, jab, jump out, repeat. Faster now. Jump in, jab, jump out, repeat. Faster. Jumpin, jab, jumpout. Faster. Jumpinjabjumpout. Within a minute Barick's nose was doing a very good impression of a squashed raspberry.
Having proven beyond all doubt that I had the speed to keep dancing around him forever, the next thing I decided to test out was the OG Bellamy's “ultimate move”.
Sadly, I didn't really know the specifics of how he did it, not having managed to assimilate all of his memories into mine, but the show had given enough hints to get started. I needed to make some room, crouch, transform my legs…
“Spring hopper!” The tunnel vision was atrocious, the world turning into an elongated pipe. If this was what he had seen every time he did this, it was no wonder that Bellamy hadn't managed to hit Luffy even once in that fight. This was just like Kuro and his knock off soru but worse, as I was moving around in 3D at speeds far greater than that prick's, trying to adjust the angles of recoil on the fly. The more jumps I chained together like this, the faster I got, but also the more difficult it was to see where I was going. This was not going to be effective at all until I could get a better reaction time or haki, as I would be relying purely on luck to bring me to my target, but this didn't matter against an opponent like Barrick. If I jumped around long enough, statistically speaking, I had to hit him eventually. And speaking of the devil… IMPACT!!
All breath escaped Barrick’s lungs as his belly button was forcibly introduced to his spine by my boots, my momentum burying him deep into the ground. In my humble opinion, he was not getting out of that hole anytime soon. All in all, it was not a bad performance for my first fight. Not bad at all, which went a long way towards giving me hope that maybe I could survive this mess I found myself in after all.
“Whoo! Let’s go raid us a ship, boys! My darling needs some new jewelr…Ack!!” And there went Sarquiss, folded in half by Lily’s punch, who had seemingly taken offence at something. So while Lily lead the charge to the docks and Sarquiss lay groaning on the ground, I made my way back to my room.
I had plans to make.
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My part in the storyline would begin whenever the Straw Hats arrived on Jaya, which would have to be soon. Avoiding my canon defeat was simple. I simply had to refrain from picking a fight with them, not beat up Montblanc and not steal his gold.
But what did I do afterwards? I didn't know what to expect from the islands the Straw Hats hadn't visited and frankly, I was not ready to face off against the other Supernovas on my own just yet. Plus, the Straw Hats stumbled across all the opportunities in the world. One blatant example were the dials from Skypiea. True, they were only simple shells, but they had been enough to turn two lacklustre fighters like Usopp and Nami into viable threats within mere weeks. And the gold just lying around for someone to pick up had to be a nice bonus.
So leeching off the Strawhats for a while was an idea, one which would allow me to use my canon knowledge to my advantage. But…Enel. My Crew and I were not ready to face Enel. I might be okay if I turned myself into a human-spring-lighting rod but the rest? Plus, getting to Skypiea was dangerous in and of itself. What was it that Oda had said? When you rode the knock-up stream, you either all made it or none of you did.
The unknown potentially safer path or the known dangerous path? Decisions, decisions…
Knock knock
“Captain?”
“Yes Eddy? What is it?” I answered. My navigator seemed unsure, which was odd for him. Not that I’d known him for long but I did have Bellamy’s memories…scattered everywhere. And from what I’d seen, Eddy had a cocksure attitude most of the time, much like the rest of the crew. So seeing him like this was new.
“The log pose reset…kinda.”
“Kinda?”
“Thing is, it’s pointing up.”
Ah. It seemed like my choice had been made for me. Of course it fucking had.
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Author's note:
Hello and welcome aboard, really glad you popped by.
Hope you enjoy this tale as much as I do writing it.
P.S. if you have any suggestions on how I can make improvements, any at all, please don't hesitate to let me know.