(Somewhere in Paradise)
– Byron –
The pub was a drab and dreary place, a thick and permanent layer of smoke obscuring the low ceiling. It was the sort of place where the lost souls gathered, those who were all too often at the end of their ropes and had nowhere else to go. Scum and lowlife filled his sight as far as the eye could see. Which admittedly wasn't all that far as the pub was rather small and the walls quite close to Byron's table. Mentally, Byron revised his rating for the pub a few more notches in the downwards direction.
It was the sort of establishment that Byron had frequented prior to the start of his pirating career and had not entered again ever since for good reason. Plain and simple, it sucked. The drinks were disgusting, the service sickening and the furnishing absolutely frightful. If he had any other choice, Byron likely wouldn't have come back either. But sadly, desperate times required desperate measures and his current circumstances had forced his hand. And despite this, it didn't look like his final gamble had paid off. Glancing over at the cause of his current headaches, Byron tried to suppress the urge to sigh and failed miserably.
Sigh
Byron barely reacted to Shura reaching over and patting him comfortingly on the shoulder, a soft grunt being his only sign of acknowledgement. His new first mate wasn't put off, just nodding understandingly before going back to nursing his own drink. Even if he didn't have the energy to show it, Byron appreciated Shura putting on a brave front, despite the man being just as lost as Byron himself was. That sign of solidarity did help a bit for a burden shared was a burden...not quite halved, but at least reduced.
For her part, Marie looked distinctly apologetic as she stared down at the bottom of her own tankard. Every so often her eyes would dart to the bar then to Byron before wincing. Then she would return to her staring contest with her beverage before starting the same routine all over again. That was not to say that Byron blamed the girl. It simply wouldn't be fair as this wasn't her fault in the slightest, and there simply had been nothing she could have done, which had not been tried already.
Quite on the contrary, Byron really had no complaints about his medical officer at all. If anything, he was certain that he had found an uncut diamond in her. She was diligent, dedicated and had taken to the pirate life like a duck to water. He barely had had to nudge the girl, before her entire philosophy and outlook on life had adapted wonderfully. Even on the combat side of things, Byron had been positively surprised by Marie's progress. Oh, she was certainly inexperienced and currently about as dangerous as a newly born kitten – at least to a veteran like Byron – but the basic mindset and the ruthlessness was there. No, Byron had no complaints about her, unlike with her fiancé.
Sigh
Byron's original plans had been to blood his new recruits a little, just a smidgeon before heading over to Water Seven to get his ship checked out and possibly recruit a shipwright. Of course, he wasn't as foolhardy or as cruel to throw the lovebirds headfirst into the deep end without a lifeline. The plan had always meant for this be a gradual thing, a process designed to slowly get them used to the milieu in which they'd be moving in from now on. Otherwise, they were likely to simply freeze when confronted by the first bit of serious danger, of which they'd be facing plenty in the coming months. Visiting this shithole masquerading as a pub had been but the latest in a long series of attempts to do just that.
Sigh
Oh sure, the boy gave his all during combat training, regularly pushing himself to the point of utter exhaustion. In fact, his speed was even approaching the realms of no longer being an embarrassment, which was an impressive amount of progress he'd made in only a scant few weeks. But no. The problem lay elsewhere.
Sigh
Judy had proven remarkably tenacious in safeguarding his innocence. In short, he simply did not think and act like a pirate. To be fair, Byron himself wasn't the best example of the average pirate and neither was his first mate, because instead of being the bog-standard buccaneer, Byron had taken the concept of a gentleman pirate and made it his own. But at least Byron had limits and didn't deviate too much from the global criteria of what a pirate was supposed to be.
For one, he didn't decide that the random pub he'd entered, catering to the local lowlife, needed a proper sommelier to completely reorganise their drinks menu. Neither did Byron approach the bar with an order for drinks, take a look at the selection available and take over as the bartender to improve the service. Nor did he start a local cultural revolution by mixing the swill available into drinkable cocktails.
Sigh
As a result, the bar was currently swamped with patrons who had their tastebuds newly ruined for their usual fare, loudly clamouring for more of the magic swirly drink that Byron's cook was serving. Off to the side, the original bartender had been relegated to the role of dishwasher, the burly man wiping the cups clean as fast as he could while wearing a bewildered look on his face, clearly unable to understand just what was going on nor how he'd ended up in his current position in the first place.
All Byron had wanted was for Judy to be a pirate with a pirate's demeanor, not be this immaculately professional bartender with the instincts of a goody-two-shoes. Had that been too much to ask?
Sigh
Drowning in his own misery, Byron almost missed the change in the atmosphere, which rippled through the entire pub when the doors opened to reveal a newcomer. Blonde and beautiful, she was an anomaly which did not belong in a place like this, something she knew fully well if her skittish behaviour was anything to go by. Already, hungry gazes were following her every move, the Grand Line pirates having sensed weakness and beginning to test the waters. Only the presence (& threat) of their own peers were stopping them from making the first move. Marie had been exempted from similar treatment thanks to Byron and Shura. This lady had nobody.
Obviously, the woman wasn't blind and hence sought out the most harmless individual in the room to approach, much to Byron's personal dismay. Because, having already painted a giant target on her own back by virtue of being an attractive woman, in chatting up Judy she had just made Byron's crew a target too.
And when the lady excitedly struck up an avid conversation with Judy, even going as far as to hug the man for something he had said, Byron just slumped in his chair and stared up at the ceiling, hoping against hope that the smoke held some answers. Never mind being a target, they'd just been declared public enemy number one. Why, oh why did his cook have to be so innately…safe and cuddly?
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"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?!?!" Shura roared in Judy's face, causing the young man to shrink back into himself. "Never mind, you obviously weren't thinking at all. Of course, you weren't. It's obviously too much for your empty noggin to handle!"
"I-I'm sorry?"
"You're sorry? You're sorry? Oh, that makes things all better, don't they?" Shura sneered, "For your info, no it doesn't!"
"But she needed our help!" Judy piped up, but his rebellion was quickly beaten down.
"And you're not the captain! It was not your right to offer it!" Shura harshly pointed out, crushing Judy's protest in its infancy. The cook/sommelier at least had the good grace to look chastised.
"I'm sorry…"
"You better be." Shura growled before turning towards Byron. "What do we do, Captain? Throw the girl overboard and be done with it?"
The girl flinched when she met Byron's steely gaze but wisely said nothing. Not that anything she could have said would have changed anything anyway. Which was also why his first mate could suggest such a thing, voluntarily accepting the role of the bad cop and leaving the task of playing the good cop to Byron.
"Oh, relax lady. We're not going to throw you overboard."
"You're not?" the girl asked hopefully.
"We're not?" Judy asked relievedly.
"We're not?" Marie asked despondently.
"No, we're not. One, because my mother raised a gentleman. And two, because a certain someone," Byron answered, giving Judy another glare. "publicly promised the lady, in front of a lot of witnesses no less, IN MY NAME, that we would help her find her missing brother. I wouldn't be surprised if half of paradise hasn't heard the news by now."
"Ahaha…ha…ha…" Judy's tried to chuckle, only to trail off into silence when Marie joined Shura in giving him the stink-eye.
"Which means, that if I don't want to ruin MY good name and be known as a captain who cannot keep his word, I have no choice but to see this through." Byron explained, throwing out his arms in a clear sign of frustration. "Never mind, that I have no clue where her brother might be nor do I have any skills which could help me find the bloody bastard. And to make matters worse, the girl is dead broke with no way of paying for our services."
"My brother will surely pay you back." The girl offered but Byron waved her off.
"Lady, I don't know you. I don't know your brother, so excuse me if I take what you say with a bucketload of salt. Anyway Judy, the only other way I have by which I may get out of this, maybe not smelling of roses but with minimal damage, is if I disavow you and throw you out. You can thank your lucky stars that I like Marie over there and I don't want to make her sad." Byron grumbled, plopping himself down on a ship barrel and gesturing towards his favorite crew member. "So, congratulations. Three weeks into your career, you have in effect staged a mutiny and subverted my authority as the captain of this vessel."
"I'M SORRY! I DIDN'T MEAN TO, I SWEAR!" Judy cried, throwing himself to the deck in a dogeza before anyone could stop him. Byron honestly had no idea where he'd picked up that wano tradition. Marie just looked embarrassed.
Byron could admit to himself that he took a sort of vindictive glee in seeing Judy's face lose all color, but he did decide to throw him a bone. The lad had a good heart and it wasn't as if Byron wanted to ruin it entirely. Judy simply needed to learn a lesson in not overstepping his bounds and it wasn't as if there wasn't a benefit to be gained from all this.
"I suppose, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt just this once. Judy, consider yourself chastised. And as for you lady, we need to talk. But first where are my manners? I haven't even properly introduced myself yet." Byron said, taking off his plumed hat with a stylistic flourish and dropping into a courtly bow, just like he had learned in his childhood all those years ago. "Captain Byron O'Brien at your service."
The girl answered with a flawless curtsy of her own. "The pleasure is all mine, captain. I'm Helena Desparta, the Honey Queen."
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Fakery Most Foul
Welcome to Marineford Daily News, your only source of accurate and unbiased truth.
Much confusion was created during the course of Whitebeard's unprovoked and cowardly surprise attack on Marineford when notorious pirate Buggy the Clown hijacked the official video transmission to broadcast an obviously faked video.
This video, which purportedly shows the events of the battle, was clearly a poorly made fabrication meant to sow mistrust in the ability our proud protectors to protect us. Some very obvious pieces of forgery are scenes displaying the near drowning of Admiral Kizaru who is seen being redirected into the ocean by a mirror. A mirror which only appears a split second prior to his landing on the ship of the dastardly pirate captain Bellamy the Hyena. Proof that this scene is fake is found much later, where the Admiral is seen hearty and hale, facing off against Benn Beckam, first mate of the Red Hair pirates.
Another prime example of the counterfeit nature of the transmission are the supposed last words of the criminal Whitebeard, who is seen moving and talking after taking dozens of bullet wounds to his chest. It seems obvious to all with a modicum of common sense, but just to be clear, people die when they are shot. That the video shows Whitebeard talking at length after suffering such wounds is a medical impossibility, as testified to us by a renowned doctor at the Sabaody Hospital. Hence, his final words have to be fake as there is no way Whitebeard could have uttered them.
It is even more damning evidence when one considers how similar they are to the final words of the former Pirate King Gold Roger, who sparked an age of chaos and destruction lasting twenty years, purely out of spite. That Buggy the Clown is a known associate of Red-haired Shanks and has been newly revealed to have been a member of the Pirate King's crew proves beyond any doubt, that Buggy is following in his late captain's footsteps. It is yet unknown whether this act of trickery was purely for the sake of sowing chaos in the world or part of a larger plan, but the Government has put out a statement calling on all citizens to stay calm and not panic.
The Marines have let it be known that they will be doing everything in their power to prevent a second Age of Piracy.
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This was Marineford Daily reporting.