– Byron –
When the crew mate Foxy chose to join him turned out to be his fiancée, Judy had been inconsolable. He blamed himself for losing Marie, as he rightly should, and it was only Shura's promise that he'd get her back in the very next round that stopped the young man from causing a larger scene. That said, the absolute despair and subsequent rage the bartender was directing at Foxy was astonishing. So much so, that it had prompted the man to break out into a comically large amount of sweat and look away, clearly unable to meet his savior's eye. The one attempt Foxy made at mediation had been his offer to pick Judy next so the two lovers would be reunited, but the traumatized look Judy had sported on his face silenced the Silver Fox rather quickly.
Still, the situation was far from unsalvageable. Because as this was a three-coin game, there were another two events in which they could make up for Judy's poor decision making. Byron probably could have also gone up to his fellow captain and convinced the man to choose someone else. Mentioning Judy's history and his experiences on Sabaody would have no doubt garnered the young man enough sympathy points, that when combined with the life-debt Foxy owed him, would have more than likely resulted in Foxy rescinding his initial decision.
But Byron hadn't.
Judy needed to learn a lesson and personal loss (however temporary) was the most effective way of making it stick. Judy was a good lad, but his new way of life demanded more of him and would cost him dearly if he refused to change his ways. In a world where the only people one could rely upon were one's crew and their various allies, shallow morality was only going to be a liability. If he wanted to do good in the world, Judy had to realise that he needed to do it only on a scale where he could handle the consequences. After all, regardless of whether or not a good deed would have a large return on investment further down the line, the initial cost usually tended to be higher than electing not to do it in the first place.
Or to put it another way, Judy needed to learn where his limits were. Those who consistently ignored those limits and challenged fate, either ended up being very lucky or very dead very quickly. So far, Judy had been lucky. Who knew if he would continue to be in the future.
Looking at the steely look in the young man's eyes now, Byron was confident that the lesson had at least begun to sink in. He would turn Judy into a proper pirate yet. However, before he could do that, he needed to prevent him from giving up on life entirely and to achieve that, winning the second event was a must.
Which ended up being a game of modified dodgeball by the way, with an extensive set of rules numbering precisely nine hundred and ninety-nine, intended to cover all possible scenarios. The rules were enforced very strictly too, with any referee making calls, which were not perfectly in line with the plethora of regulations, being at risk of literally losing their head. As far as Davy Back Fights went, the event called Hit and Dead Ball was as fair as they came.
"What a great upset, folks! Who would have ever imagined such an outcome! I suppose the moral of the story is, don't get in between a man and his love! It won't end well for you! Oof, what a shot, right to the noggin! Unfortunately for our dear contestant, headshots don't count. Though, you'd think Judy would have learned the lesson after the first one hundred and fifty-seven times."
Still despite this, when one side drastically outnumbered the other 500 to 4, the entire game seemed like an incredibly unfair matchup. In truth, this also turned out to be the case, with one team absolutely demolishing the other in a very one-sided match. Not that it was all that surprising to be honest, because in the face of righteous fury, the Foxy Pirates simply hadn't stood a chance.
"How culd yu? And a-agter I was so nishe to you too, Roxy! Ah eben saved y-your life!" Judy slurred in between sobs. "How vould you take mai Marie away von me?"
As if to make up for his earlier mistakes, Judy had imbibed more of his experimental concoctions than he'd ever done before and consequently turned into an angry, sad drunk. Shaking and swaying with no discernible pattern, the bartender danced his way of the trajectory of every ball trying to touch him with deceptive ease.
"You will phay!" Judy roared out, glaring at his shamefaced opponents. "All ob u will – Hick – payy!"
Occasionally, he would also catch the ball before hurling it back at a particularly painful spot along with a slurred insult, his tongue having long since been freed from his brain's moral control. It was difficult to judge which of the two hurt the targeted Foxy Pirates more, though if Byron had to make a guess, he would wager that it wasn't the balls.
"I get that you're angry, but can you at least hit them somewhere that isn't Foxy's face?" Shura complained, snatching the ball out of the air before Judy could. "You're making me do all the work."
Supporting Judy's little rampage were the rest of Byron's remaining crew mates, who were bringing their various gifts to bear in this competition. For one, Shura's observation haki basically rendered Byron's first mate untouchable to his opponents. That this very same ability also made Shura's own aim unerringly accurate, resulted in Foxy's team being casually dismantled in front of their captain's swollen, disbelieving eyes.
"Hey, I'm helping too!" Helena protested, briefly taking up her human form to shake a fist in Shura's direction. "I'm helping a lot!"
"Yes, yes you are. Now get me that ball!" However, as could have been expected, Shura's dismissive tone only resulted in the pass going to Judy. "Oh, come on! Not the face again!"
If Judy and Shura constituted the Infield half of the Harmony Team, the Outfield portion was being covered entirely by Helena. Literally in some cases as she took full advantage of the fact that the use of devil fruit powers was not against the rules. The Honey Queen had leveraged her logia powers in order to erect a liquid barrier around their opponent's half of the field. Considering that the outfield's mission could fairly accurately be summarized as delivering the out-of-bounds ball back to the infield team, Helena's control over her fluid form ensured that her teammates didn't have to go without something to throw for long.
When combined with an abundance of friendly fire from the Foxy pirates themselves, especially at the hands of their half-fishman-half-giant member, their side of the field had emptied itself out very quickly, until only their captain remained in play after only a few short minutes.
Not that Byron had any right to criticize Foxy, as he'd been kicked off the field near immediately because he'd run afoul of rule #683. Sadly, hoping that nobody else had thought of humming a lullaby to put the opposing team to sleep, had apparently been too much to ask for. Just so you didn't misunderstand, you were allowed to sing or otherwise generate noises which could be understood as being musical in nature.
Unfortunately for Byron, the sole exception to this rule had been lullabies, because another pirate had attempted a similar tactic some 177 years ago. Subsequently, the incensed losers had successfully campaigned for an expansion of the rulebook. As a consequence of which, Byron had been forced to watch from the sidelines as his team won the second event without him being able to contribute at all. While their victory did pave the way for Marie to be rescued, Byron couldn't shake the feeling that he was going to be the butt of many jokes for being the first and only player of the Harmony Team to be eliminated…
Foxy didn't last all that much longer either, having been mentally and physically exhausted by being forced to rapidly oscillate between one extreme of the emotional spectrum and the other. The catalyst had been the severe dejection and shame which had set in whenever Foxy met Judy's accusing glare. It had usually ended up driving the man to his knees, which had resulted in Porche doing her best to keep her captain in the game by cheering him up. But whenever she would manage to restore him to a triumphant mood, Foxy would meet Judy's gaze again starting the whole comedy routine anew. This vicious cycle of involuntary squats finally ended when Shura put the panting man out of his misery with a well-placed shot to the abdomen.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
On the bright side, with Marie back on their team, the Harmony Pirates could now have two people participating in the final event instead of Byron being forced to compete all on his own.
Dodge Touch Mr. Daruma was the pirate version of the popular children's game Red Light, Green Light, in which the players had to approach and touch the referee without the referee seeing them move. Essentially, they were supposed to manage this feat by freezing in place whenever the referee was looking in their direction and taking advantage of the moments in which the ref's gaze was turned away to close the distance. Of course, having appropriated the game for the purposes of a Davy Back Fight, their swashbuckling ancestors had put their own spin on it. By which Byron meant, they'd decided that an "everything goes" approach was acceptable when trying to hinder the competition.
As the Foxy pirates weren't idiots, they had quickly clued in on to the fact that Byron was behind the recent string of narcoleptic incidents plaguing their crew. Naturally, they had plugged their ears with whatever wax they could get their hands upon. Though, like his traitorous and deceased former first mate, the Foxy pirates had been unaware that Byron's ability to influence people with his music wasn't limited to others. If anything, the buffs he could apply to himself were far greater than those Byron could impart to others, purely because he himself was the audience Byron understood the best. As a result, he could tailor his performance to achieve the greatest resonance.
It would have taken a small miracle for a small band of fruit-less, haki-less, generic paradise pirates to beat him in a fair fight. Limited as he was by the rules of the game, trying to prevent them from ignoring him and rushing headlong towards the referee was slightly harder. Especially since Byron had his back turned to the referee by necessity of his chosen role. Fortunately for him, Byron had recently unlocked his observation haki, meaning that he was able to tie Porche, Hamburg and friends down quite effectively. Much to their growing frustration.
It was also thanks to his burgeoning haki, that Byron knew Marie was being proactive and not standing still at the starting line like his eyes were telling him. Unbeknownst to the Foxy Pirates, who were mistakenly reassured by the spectral clone she'd left behind; Marie had been making steady progress up the mountain under the cover of her illusionary camouflage. Porche and co may even have started to feel a bit better about their chances, when despite Byron's halfhearted efforts, the Foxy Pirates managed to make some headway while Marie seemed perfectly happy to do nothing at all.
Hence, imagine the surprise the Foxy Pirates must have felt, when Marie reappeared at the mountain peak with her hand firmly grasping the referee's shoulder and thus securing the Harmony Pirates their final win.
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As a whole, the Foxy Pirates had a rather inflated sense of importance about themselves, even if this was somewhat understandable when one considered their history. Despite being hilariously weak individually in the grand scheme of things, practically every member had once occupied a critical role on their original crew. These included positions such as the doctor, navigator or even the captain, which had also made them attractive prospects of recruitment for Foxy's style of headhunting. In short, they had never known a life in which they hadn't been desirable in one form or another.
This being the case, a crew composed of nothing but desirable, skilled and important individuals had to be strong by definition, no? Their very favorable win-loss ratio over the course of nearly a thousand Davy Back Fights had only reinforced this self-image further. When combined with Foxy's impressive ability to find loot and treasure so that he could keep his large crew properly funded, it meant that his ship was an attractive place to be for the average paradise pirate. All of which ultimately culminated in the piece of comedy playing out before Byron's eyes.
With five hundred men and women doing their best to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible, the once orderly line quickly devolved into a chaotic blob, with its members seeking to muscle their way to the back of the crowd to hide from Byron's sight. A few of them even backed so far away, that they were in danger of falling off the shore and into ocean below. The accompanying murmurs only added to the ridiculousness, especially when Byron didn't even want any of them on his crew. One, admittedly well-meaning, idiot was already more than enough, thank you very much.
"He's going to choose me; I just know it."
"What do I do? I don't want to leave this crew."
"When he chooses me, I'm going to go with a smile. I want my former friends to remember me fondly."
"I better not meet his eyes. If he notices me, he's going to pick me for sure."
Byron could have simply taken their very ugly flag as his spoils of war and hence banned them from flying their colors ever again. He might even have been doing them a favor, as he couldn't fathom that they were voluntarily sailing with an amateurish misrepresentation of a fox proudly displayed on their main sail. While he didn't know what sort of sadistic individual had forced such a cruel fate upon the Foxy Pirates in the past, Byron was certain that they must have been someone with a very callous nature.
image [https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/One-Piece-Sales-Luffy.jpg]The Callous Individual In Question
Though in the end, when it came down to a choice between saving the Foxy Pirates from the abomination that was their flag and doing something that would benefit his crew, Byron was always going to pick the latter.
"Captain Foxy. It wasn't easy but I've made my decision."
"You have?" Foxy asked, before noticing the finger pointed in his direction. "Me?"
"Yes. Welcome aboard."
"I knew it! There was no way that you wouldn't want someone as amazing as myself on your crew!" Foxy exclaimed, his nose pointing tall and proud into the sky. He looked so pleased with himself that Byron didn't have the heart to burst his bubble. Especially when behind that proud look, the now-former captain seemed to be on the verge of tears at the prospect of leaving his old crew mates behind. "Guys, I'll miss you!"
"We'll miss you too, captain Foxy!" Porche called back, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. Those words opened the floodgates holding the watery reservoirs at bay and soon the field was flooded with the sounds of sobbing and teary goodbyes. It was a very touching sight, showcasing the deep bonds of friendship between Foxy and his former crew. It was also somewhat premature in Byron's opinion.
"Crewman Foxy! I have a mission for you, which you are to embark upon immediately."
"Aye, captain Byron?" Foxy saluted, in response to which Byron's smirk got just a little wider. "How may the amazing Foxy be of service?"
"You are to commandeer one of these ships, pick up a crew; raid, pillage, plunder, and otherwise pilfer your weaselly black guts out as you've been doing until now."
"…eh?"
"With the caveat of being the newest affiliate crew of the Bellamy pirates, so our allies and civilians are off limits. Any questions?" Immediately following Byron's question, Foxy raised a hand. "Yes?"
"B-but…but where am I supposed to find a ship and a crew? I'm broke." Foxy stammered out, having gone rather pale. Unmoved by the pitiable sight, Byron just pointed to the small crowd of leaderless pirates behind him, who had gone suspiciously silent and were watching the proceedings with a large degree of interest.
"You may want to begin with those guys over there. Something tells me that they just lost their captain and could use a new one."