One Pice: A Game Blue System.

"Easy." The Den-Den-Mushi smiled wide as Mori snickered. "Cheryl's pregnant."

I blinked. "..damn." I clicked my tongue in annoyance. "I think you got me." "Hah! And since I know you're good for it we'll expecting a nice baby shower gift in a few months."

"Yeah yeah pass along my congrats to the wife and all that..." I sat up to waist level and dropped a bit of the frivolity in my voice. "So. What you got for me?"

The snails expression turned stern. "You know where the Palper islands are?"

"Ohhh yes." I intoned with a sinister razor-like smile. "I'm familiar. Who's the target?"

Norvin de Graaf was by no means one of the strongest pirates in South Blue. He had no special powers nor incredible skill in combat. His crew was smaller than most and his ambitions relatively tame.

Yes. Certainly not the strongest in South Blue. Rather Norvin's accomplishment was one that was quite different. His achievement was being the corsair who had been around the longest. Most of the other so-called 'pirates' on this sea were idiots in his mind. All a bunch of shortsighted fools or rowdy cantankerous halfwits. Norvin was determined to be different. He knew you couldn't just roll up to any old village and conduct a raid without consequences. If you wanted to survive in this centuries long game of 'Pirates vs. Marines' then you needed to learn the rules.

Study the map. Pick your targets. Have an entry plan. Have an exit plan. Have a backup exit plan. Do not do more damage than necessary and paint a target on your back.

He learned the patrol routes Marine ships sailed through. He logged the response times for when different islands called for help. He flew colors of opposing pirate gangs so they'd be blamed for his actions and he believed 'playing dirty' should instead be spelled 'common sense'. He was careful who he recruited and even more careful who he pissed off.

He often cheated. He often bribed. He did whatever was necessary to award himself the best possible advantage so he could out-plan or out-maneuver anyone who dared tried to box him in.

Yes, Norvin de Graaf was a master of the game. He'd been playing it since the times of the Pirate King himself.

But the one thing he wasn't ready for was for someone to change the rules on him.

"Shoot him down! Shoot him down!" Another explosion rocked the Trillium causing Norvin to stumble and lose his footing. Three more cannonballs dropped from the sky and detonated across the ships port side. Great plumes of saltwater rose up and drenched the crew as the ship violently swayed side-to-side. "Captain!" Adeliz, his helmsman cried out. "Damage to our rudder sir! I've lost-" A sudden eruption of smoke and flame silenced the man forever when a fourth cannonball slammed down fourteen inches to his left.

Norvin growled in anger as he jumped to his feet. "Goddamn it! Can't anyone shoot this motherfucker!" He snatched a rifle out of his shipwrights hands and trained it straight up into the sky. The shadow of a giant bird zoomed past the sun and with it came another payload of black round death plummeting from the clouds.

The captain squinted an eye, squeezed his trigger, and watched as one of the falling bombs blew up harmlessly in midair. A chain-reaction took another of the explosives out alongside it and a third was nudged just enough to land well away from his ship. Norvin almost had time to hope this one tiny crisis was successfully avoided before the last landed dead center on the bow railing and reduced the front tip of his faithful Trillium to splinters.

"ARGH! Fire! Fire!" Norvin snarled. "Shoot that bastard! I want that bird on a spit roast for dinner!"

The cracking thunder of dozens of gunshots filled his eardrums as both rifles and pistols unloaded into the air. "You four!" Norvin commanded to the group nearest. "Load the cannons with canister shot and point 'em 80 degrees upward! If he tries to hide in one of those low-hanging clouds we're gonna blow him to shreds!"

"Sir! There!" His navigator Silas yelled with a pointed finger.

Norvin narrowed his eyes and immediately tracked onto the same blip in the sky his navigator had. "Got you now you son of a bitch..." Just as Norvin trained his sights on the target a second speck slid off the back of the first and started rocketing towards his ship at frightening speed. "What in the world…? No, it doesn't matter."

Norvin steadied his breathing, relaxed his hands and kept his rifle perfectly on target. Just as the flying blip could be discerned as human-shaped he pulled the trigger...and watched as the target turned paper thin to avoid it.

The pirate captain nearly dropped his gun as he staggered in shock. "...that's not possible."

With all the subtlety of a meteor crashing to earth the flying man slammed into the main deck of his ship sending air whipping past him like a wind cannon. Before Norvin could even lower the arm shielding his face, three of his deckhands were cut down with a blue scythe of energy and two others jumped into the sea to try their luck swimming back to land. "So you're Norvin de Graaf eh?" the figure spoke. "That's funny. You don't look like you're worth 17 million."

Norvin involuntarily stepped back as he swallowed the lump in his throat. "It's you isn't it… the one who took down Ingrid...McCarthy before her..."

"Oh, that's kind of impressive." The hunter complimented. "I'm surprised you know about the second one."

The pirate captain watched helplessly as his quartermaster rushed to grapple the man from behind and was effortlessly launched off the ship for his trouble. "I...I try to stay informed...so it's true then...you're him.."

The intruder spread his arms wide with palms upward. "I'm him."

"Jack Sparrow..." Norvin breathed. "Ye-Wait! NO! Who told you that was my name?" The man cried indignantly.

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