Post by viruswithshoes on Aug 19, 2016 3:54:27 GMT -5
Zenit Basqiat did not smoke yet in the inside pocket of his hooded gray coat sat a pack of Abel Brown brand cigarettes. He no idea why because the only conceivable reason he would have cigarettes on him was that he was trying to hide them from his mother. The problem with that is that she smoked a different brand and never branched out.
Since actually smoking them was out Zenit lit one with his cigarette lighter, which always came in handy even as a non-smoker, and placed it next to him on the building ledge where he sat for hours looking into the window of The Flintlock Filly. Unfortunately, the window was decorated with their logo of a topless woman covering her exposed breasts with flintlock pistols. It really made it hard for Zenit to concentrate. Some days just a drawing of a pretty women could stoked his fire down below.
Through the use of his devil fruit Zenit could zoom in on his target with no need of a scope and photograph him despite lacking a camera. He could see the bounty head in front of him like a walking pile of money. He looked over a foot taller than Zenit which put him at around six foot five. That checked out with the description on the bounty poster as did a tell-tale cybernetic hand.
With the smell of his cigarette incense still on him Zenit felt calm. The smell reminded him of his mother who taught him to shoot. Just having a similar smell cling to his gray coat was comforting. It was perhaps that comfort that gave Zenit the courage to walk into the bar where his bounty head drank instead of waiting for him to come outside.
Lemming Kilmister, perhaps the bravest and most fool-hardy of all rodents squeaked from Zenit's coat pocket. Typically, the rowdy rodent would squeak in excitement at a fight and try to get a bite or two in. Now, the former pet of a pirate crew, even wearing a black hat bearing a jolly roger did not feel like pushing this issue. Kilmister was meant to be the reckless one, the one Zenit warned others about. How many times had he played the good guy to the angry and insane lemur that would chew a man's nose clean off of his face? Now it seemed like it was Zenit's turn to be the tough guy.
The floorboards of The Flintlock Filly creaked a little which made Zenit feel self-conscious even though no one was looking at him.
"Uh...so...Mister Jenkem. I would very much like your eight million bounty. So, yeah, if you don't mind let's go down to the jail and get that taken care of, yeah?" Zenit pulled away a length of his coat and revealed his beloved steel revolver Gin Hime. Even a taller, stronger, more experienced man couldn't argue with a man with a gun
"Kid, you are seven layers of dumb. Here's a lesson," Said Jenkem, a man in his mid-twenties but in possession of a face of a man twice that age, with a confident smirk and stride. Confident enough to condescendingly pat Zenit on his bald head.
"Don't bring a gun to a Norman fight."
Zenit woke up in a fountain stripped to his underwear but not hurt. They even let him keep his weapons. His clothes were in a neat bundle next to a balding middle-aged man in thick glasses. When the pudgy man with the rapidly receding hairline got up he groaned and held his back before untying Zenit.
"Bounty hunting is dangerous. You know who pirates never kill? Bakers. Never knew a baker killed by a pirate. Whatever it is you do, son, just keep your head down. The nail that sticks up gets hammered down."
Once free Zenit extended his hand to the doughy, man who looked to be pushing fifty.
"Zenit Basqiat."
The other man smiled while he wrapped his sweaty hand around Zenit's. "Friends call me 'Norm'."
Zenit responded to meeting this easy-going and helpful man by using his devil fruit ability to travel short, straight distances fast by throwing a speeding punch at Norman's face.
When Zenit woke up he had dislocated two of his fingers and had apparently been dragged to a hospital.
The next day Zenit begrudgingly took a special pair black boots he had rigged with milky dials out of his traveling bag and put them on. Throughout his life on Pirate's Market Zenit had lost many pairs of shoes to mud holes and aggressive animals. He recalled his mother pulling him out of a mud hole while being chased by a big, poisonous lizard. They survived but the shoes didn't make it. From then on Zenit didn't believe in shoes. He still believed in weapons which put his new dial-powered, weaponized boots in a gray area.
Once a toe trigger was pulled a small, solid cloud would form underneath the boots creating steps in the air. In theory Zenit could climb anywhere as long as he could keep his steps up with the disappearance of the clouds. After one week Zenit could get five feet in the air via his cloud steps. It wasn't much but it was surprising and Zenit knew he would need every advantage to get past Norman and attain the eight million for bringing in Jenkem.
People didn't often look for snipers and those that did rarely checked the sky above them with no buildings present. It wasn't as if a sniper could perch on a cloud. Zenit was not an exception to this rule but he could bend it. He created a small platform, stepped off and created another, stepped off and repeated the process until he reached his Zenit zenith of a little more than six feet in the air.
Once Norman and Jenkem had exited the bar Zenit ran towards them and then activated his boots to step at odd angles ready to make a shot no one could predict. Stepping above his prey Zenit pulled his pistol but stumbled when a cloud he meant to step upon dissipated and sent him tumbling down to the ground. He vowed that if he survived he would practice more.
Looking over him was Jenkem with his ugly, twirly mustache and mutton chops and Norman with his thin brown hair, potbelly and looks of pity. As tempting as it was to shoot at Norman Zenit aimed his gun at Jenkem and fired.
An oddly black hand had caught the non-lethal bullet and caused the bounty hunter to wonder if he would be left alive this time.
"Seriously, Zenit. Learn to type or something. There's a good trade school on this island. Stop doing this. Dying is no way to make a living."
Seeing Norman's face and waking up in the same clinic had become a pattern. Suddenly, the eight million bounty didn't seem so important. This Norman was a massive wall between Zenit and his goal of sailing the Grand Line. If he can't beat one middle-aged, out of shape bodyguard he certainly couldn't survive an encounter with Captain Buggy.
The next week Zenit focused on his physical training as well as using his new boots. His pet lemming would scurry into awkward places and force him to get there via milky cloud steps. Push-ups as well. Many, many, one-handed push-ups using only his left arm. The dislocated fingers on his right wouldn't do for what he had planned.
Now two weeks into this hunt Zenit was out for blood. He'd never killed a man before but Norman hardly seemed like a man. Killing Norman sounded like punching a typhoon or shooting a super nova.
His new half-a-league boots managed to get Zenit onto a nice perch made up of two entangled fire escapes jutting into a dark alley with an acceptable view of the door of The Flintlock Filly. A door Norman and what's-his-face whose bounty had now turned into a symbolic victory, would emerge as they did every day around three in the afternoon.
Zenit had to leave Kilmister the lemming at home. This was a match between men. He also didn't want to traumatize his pet by making Kimister see the death of his care-taker.
Perhaps it was the odd angle or the half-mile distance, but Zenit managed to hide enough from Norman to get a shot at Jenkem, whom he was guarding.
And then Zenit ran.
He'd heard that experienced warriors could feel another warrior's spririt. Zenit decided that was crap. He was not a seasoned warrior by any means and he could feel something coming from Norman. Some talked about feeling an intent to kill. Zenit felt more a sense of extreme annoyance as if seeing a man shot and chasing down the shooter was horribly inconvenient.
While catching his breath in a dead end alley filled with dead roaches Zenit almost laughed. He had that balding, thick glasses bastard with his stupid undershirts and career advice. He would break down this wall called Norman and move on to the Grand Line where adventure and photo opportunities awaited.
"Seriously, Zenit? That was my wife's nephew, you know? Man, am I going to get an earful tonight. I don't have a couch, for your information. I get kicked out of bed I'm sleeping on the floor. Not comfortable."
Unnoticed by Norman, Zenit had already fired off three shots which did no discernible damage to Norman's suddenly shiny black skin. Black skin that made a black fist which collided with Zenit but this time instead of ending up in the hospital again the photographer and second-time bounty hunter laughed.
Strapped to Zenit's left hand was a normal looking, flat and circular shell. The, rarely seen in this island, impact dial had absorbed all of Norman's attack and Zenit intended to pay him back tenfold. A great shock wave was released from the dial when Zenit pressed it against the slightly taller man's face. The aftershock of using the dial was the most pain Zenit had every been in. He was sure that every bone in his left arm had shattered and would require amputation. He imagined it would be later used as a bone-flavored dog food for elderly dogs. Bone mush. He imagined that Norm's face would look like something out of a nightmare.
The nightmare ended up consisting of a minor bruise on his forehead and some scrapes on his left cheek.
By then Zenit assumed the authorities had collected Jenkem and that they would send his bounty money to his parents. He could see them once more reminding Zenit that his older brother Dagon was the strong and smart one over his grave.
Waking up for the third time in the clinic Zenit finally had company other than his lemming Kilmister. It was more of a shock seeing Norman there with Kilmister perched on his shoulder than noticing both his arms had been broken. Then he remembered the recoil of the impact dial and it all made sense.
Whatever medicine they had in the I.V. in Zenit's arm was it made him chatty.
"You in the dog house, Norm?"
Norman answered with a disgusted sigh.
Zenit lifted his head and tilted it towards his be-hatted lemur Kilmister to do one of the few tricks he had taught the rodent. "Cards." The mutton-chopped lemur in the black hat branding a jolly roger scurried to Zenit's coat and came back with three blank playing cards in his mouth. In retrospect, he should have asked Norman.
Normally, using his speedgraph ability to print any image he had mentally photographed did not use energy. It was a drain to use with two broken arms, though. During training when Norman became Zenit's prime target he did his research on the balding powerhouse. As a tabloid photographer Zenit knew how to make a person look good and bad. At the wrong angle even even Boa Hancock would look like Big Mom. Norman's wife, while no great beauty, only needed some nice sunset light, a little smile and some wind to look wonderful in one photo. It was just photographic filler in Zenit's head until then.
He handed one well-shot photo of Norman's wife looking off into the distance at sunset while smiling. "Maybe this will get us both out of the doghouse, Norman. Great photos are hard to come by."
When Norman the paunchy, balding man in thick glasses smiled Zenit breathed a painful sigh of relief. He never thought a photo would save his life. Maybe Norman was right and bounty hunting was not the career for Zenit. Appeasing men who possessed power that Zenit could feel with every molecule of his being, on the other hand, seemed worthwhile.
Two broken arms and a mild delirum from his pain medication did little to stop Zenit from trying something new that didn't involve battle. How hard could it be to romance a woman, especially one that was already married? One good photo and a pretty frame would demolish Norman's doghouse for until death did the married couple part.
Aside from his medical bills taking a sizeable chunk out of his bounty money Zenit felt a sense of optimism about having Norman at his side rather than at his throat. Jenkem's arrogant attitude suddenly made sense now that Zenit had a monster on his side. Zenit intended on keeping that monster for a while. Norman made Zenit feel like a badass while antiquing. Assuming Norman could level the little shop and create an explosions of tea kettles and old clocks with one punch put a little swagger into Zenit's stride while looking at napkin rings.
Zenit left the antique shop lighter in the beri department but heavy in protection department. Eighteen years of mediocre fighting skills taught the timid photographer the importance of strong friends...or at the very least allies who would hurt him less than they would hurt other people. Norman seemed like discovering One Piece while cleaning out an old attic.
Suddenly, the bald teen didn't need to get out of people's way when he walked down the street. Neither of his hands were functional but he had a voice that could call for Norman and Zenit bet that that was all he needed to get by. For the first time since striking out on his own without someone to protect him Zenit felt safe and celebrated his newfound safety by immediately testing it's limits via the first pirate that crossed his path. The cocky gunman swayed into the path of a pirate with half a shaved head and what looked to be a metal arm.
While not as well-traveled as he wanted, Zenit knew of cyborgs and the like through correspondence with his brother who worked for a gang of smugglers made up mostly of cyborgs. The lesson that he gleaned from his older brother Dagon was that in no way, shape or form should a cyborg be annoyed or otherwise vexed.
"Wow! Your face...it's really something. Just kidding. It's nice that your parents found love in their hectic circus lives."
Not immediately becoming a red shower of blood and viscera put an arrogant smirk on Zenit's face. He had just stood up to a cyborg and lived to tell the tale. Metal arm parts littered the ground which Zenit stepped over to playfully punch Norman in the shoulder, even with his own wounded right hand. It hurt, but not as much as his death by pulverization would have been had Norman not stepped in.
The indestructible wall that preferred to be called 'Norm' grimaced and apologized to the unconscious pirate with the now shattered cybernetic limb.
While the shorter man with the shaved head walked with wider and more confident strides, the taller one with a little more hair and a lot more sense sighed once it became obvious the kind of person he was dealing with. Norman had sailed the Grand Line and the South Blue and knew an opportunist when he saw one. Those types of people he threw into the sea. The smug photographer, on the other hand, he merely threw to the end of the block.
Being thrown by Norman was a completely different experience than from being knocked out by him. Before Zenit had not had time to contemplate his awful life decisions while also looking death in the face. He could easily imagine his head being split open by a rock or a street light or breaking even more bones which would then puncture every organ he had leading to a truly horrible demise. Luckily for the young man prone to using stronger people for protection, his latest human shield knew how to throw a man without killing them. After hitting the ground he had to wonder what kind of horror Norman was when he reached a level of anger beyond tempered annoyance.
It took several trips to a hospital and multiple broken bones but Zenit had learned a valuable lesson about the level-headed pragmatism of giving up early. Had he quit after his first hospital trip there would be no serious pain or outrageous hospital bill. If he wanted to survive to see his twenties the bald young man knew that he should have given up earlier. The lesson of knowing when to cut his losses almost made the pain worth it. Some lessons needed to be written in the language of pain for Zenit Basqiat to comprehend them.
Even in his reflective mood the ineffective teen bounty hunter had not thought about his tendencies toward relying on others for protection and his attitude concerning those same people. Finding the right people to protect him seemed easier than getting stronger himself. Being tougher or stronger didn't seem to matter when dealing with a man of Norman's strength. No matter how strong Zenit would get the broken down photographer knew that there would always be someone stronger that would beat him.
He wondered how people got by in their lives without help. That moment in particular, having fallen out of bed and onto the cold, hard floor made him wish there was someone beside him strong enough to replace his body back onto his bed. Unfortunately, whatever chaotic fairy that was responsible for granting wishes did so via Norman, the same man who sent him there.
Rather than lift Zenit up, the balding man in the glasses pushed the sniper down and lightly placed a large hand on the scared teen's chest. Zenit felt an immense pressure from that hand that refused to let anything move more than a centimeter.
"Good to meet you," said a distinctly non-Norman voice from an area of the room invisible to Zenit due to his position on the floor. A woman in her late forties tilted her head over and Zenit saw a moderately pretty, if plain face. It took a few moments of awkward silence to remember that he had taken that woman's photograph before and why.
"Norman's wife? Um...Boudica, right? I'm, uh, sorry I got your nephew or cousin or whatever arrested."
The sound of Boudica's scoffing laughter could be felt in the fractures of Zenit's bones and seemed to make new ones.
"Forget about it. This guy..." she said tilting her head in her husband's direction. "Should have been a better bodyguard. No offense but you're no Eustass Kid, Mister Basqiat."
"No kidding."
The blonde woman who looked like she might have been a sight to behold in her younger years kissed Zenit on his bald head and left the room. Norman remained effortlessly pinning down the aching sniper with one hand.
"Stick to photography, Zenit. You don't have a talent for violence and the learning curve for it might kill you. Sell your photos, don't seek adventure and maybe stop relying on others so much. A normal life isn't so bad."
Despite never seeing either person again Zenit remembered Norman's words over time, usually while after doing the exact opposite. As far as Zenit was concerned the lesson he learned was that men with dark and elaborate epithets could be dealt with but men who simply went by their names as Norm did were to be avoided at all costs.
Since actually smoking them was out Zenit lit one with his cigarette lighter, which always came in handy even as a non-smoker, and placed it next to him on the building ledge where he sat for hours looking into the window of The Flintlock Filly. Unfortunately, the window was decorated with their logo of a topless woman covering her exposed breasts with flintlock pistols. It really made it hard for Zenit to concentrate. Some days just a drawing of a pretty women could stoked his fire down below.
Through the use of his devil fruit Zenit could zoom in on his target with no need of a scope and photograph him despite lacking a camera. He could see the bounty head in front of him like a walking pile of money. He looked over a foot taller than Zenit which put him at around six foot five. That checked out with the description on the bounty poster as did a tell-tale cybernetic hand.
With the smell of his cigarette incense still on him Zenit felt calm. The smell reminded him of his mother who taught him to shoot. Just having a similar smell cling to his gray coat was comforting. It was perhaps that comfort that gave Zenit the courage to walk into the bar where his bounty head drank instead of waiting for him to come outside.
Lemming Kilmister, perhaps the bravest and most fool-hardy of all rodents squeaked from Zenit's coat pocket. Typically, the rowdy rodent would squeak in excitement at a fight and try to get a bite or two in. Now, the former pet of a pirate crew, even wearing a black hat bearing a jolly roger did not feel like pushing this issue. Kilmister was meant to be the reckless one, the one Zenit warned others about. How many times had he played the good guy to the angry and insane lemur that would chew a man's nose clean off of his face? Now it seemed like it was Zenit's turn to be the tough guy.
The floorboards of The Flintlock Filly creaked a little which made Zenit feel self-conscious even though no one was looking at him.
"Uh...so...Mister Jenkem. I would very much like your eight million bounty. So, yeah, if you don't mind let's go down to the jail and get that taken care of, yeah?" Zenit pulled away a length of his coat and revealed his beloved steel revolver Gin Hime. Even a taller, stronger, more experienced man couldn't argue with a man with a gun
"Kid, you are seven layers of dumb. Here's a lesson," Said Jenkem, a man in his mid-twenties but in possession of a face of a man twice that age, with a confident smirk and stride. Confident enough to condescendingly pat Zenit on his bald head.
"Don't bring a gun to a Norman fight."
Zenit woke up in a fountain stripped to his underwear but not hurt. They even let him keep his weapons. His clothes were in a neat bundle next to a balding middle-aged man in thick glasses. When the pudgy man with the rapidly receding hairline got up he groaned and held his back before untying Zenit.
"Bounty hunting is dangerous. You know who pirates never kill? Bakers. Never knew a baker killed by a pirate. Whatever it is you do, son, just keep your head down. The nail that sticks up gets hammered down."
Once free Zenit extended his hand to the doughy, man who looked to be pushing fifty.
"Zenit Basqiat."
The other man smiled while he wrapped his sweaty hand around Zenit's. "Friends call me 'Norm'."
Zenit responded to meeting this easy-going and helpful man by using his devil fruit ability to travel short, straight distances fast by throwing a speeding punch at Norman's face.
When Zenit woke up he had dislocated two of his fingers and had apparently been dragged to a hospital.
The next day Zenit begrudgingly took a special pair black boots he had rigged with milky dials out of his traveling bag and put them on. Throughout his life on Pirate's Market Zenit had lost many pairs of shoes to mud holes and aggressive animals. He recalled his mother pulling him out of a mud hole while being chased by a big, poisonous lizard. They survived but the shoes didn't make it. From then on Zenit didn't believe in shoes. He still believed in weapons which put his new dial-powered, weaponized boots in a gray area.
Once a toe trigger was pulled a small, solid cloud would form underneath the boots creating steps in the air. In theory Zenit could climb anywhere as long as he could keep his steps up with the disappearance of the clouds. After one week Zenit could get five feet in the air via his cloud steps. It wasn't much but it was surprising and Zenit knew he would need every advantage to get past Norman and attain the eight million for bringing in Jenkem.
People didn't often look for snipers and those that did rarely checked the sky above them with no buildings present. It wasn't as if a sniper could perch on a cloud. Zenit was not an exception to this rule but he could bend it. He created a small platform, stepped off and created another, stepped off and repeated the process until he reached his Zenit zenith of a little more than six feet in the air.
Once Norman and Jenkem had exited the bar Zenit ran towards them and then activated his boots to step at odd angles ready to make a shot no one could predict. Stepping above his prey Zenit pulled his pistol but stumbled when a cloud he meant to step upon dissipated and sent him tumbling down to the ground. He vowed that if he survived he would practice more.
Looking over him was Jenkem with his ugly, twirly mustache and mutton chops and Norman with his thin brown hair, potbelly and looks of pity. As tempting as it was to shoot at Norman Zenit aimed his gun at Jenkem and fired.
An oddly black hand had caught the non-lethal bullet and caused the bounty hunter to wonder if he would be left alive this time.
"Seriously, Zenit. Learn to type or something. There's a good trade school on this island. Stop doing this. Dying is no way to make a living."
Seeing Norman's face and waking up in the same clinic had become a pattern. Suddenly, the eight million bounty didn't seem so important. This Norman was a massive wall between Zenit and his goal of sailing the Grand Line. If he can't beat one middle-aged, out of shape bodyguard he certainly couldn't survive an encounter with Captain Buggy.
The next week Zenit focused on his physical training as well as using his new boots. His pet lemming would scurry into awkward places and force him to get there via milky cloud steps. Push-ups as well. Many, many, one-handed push-ups using only his left arm. The dislocated fingers on his right wouldn't do for what he had planned.
Now two weeks into this hunt Zenit was out for blood. He'd never killed a man before but Norman hardly seemed like a man. Killing Norman sounded like punching a typhoon or shooting a super nova.
His new half-a-league boots managed to get Zenit onto a nice perch made up of two entangled fire escapes jutting into a dark alley with an acceptable view of the door of The Flintlock Filly. A door Norman and what's-his-face whose bounty had now turned into a symbolic victory, would emerge as they did every day around three in the afternoon.
Zenit had to leave Kilmister the lemming at home. This was a match between men. He also didn't want to traumatize his pet by making Kimister see the death of his care-taker.
Perhaps it was the odd angle or the half-mile distance, but Zenit managed to hide enough from Norman to get a shot at Jenkem, whom he was guarding.
And then Zenit ran.
He'd heard that experienced warriors could feel another warrior's spririt. Zenit decided that was crap. He was not a seasoned warrior by any means and he could feel something coming from Norman. Some talked about feeling an intent to kill. Zenit felt more a sense of extreme annoyance as if seeing a man shot and chasing down the shooter was horribly inconvenient.
While catching his breath in a dead end alley filled with dead roaches Zenit almost laughed. He had that balding, thick glasses bastard with his stupid undershirts and career advice. He would break down this wall called Norman and move on to the Grand Line where adventure and photo opportunities awaited.
"Seriously, Zenit? That was my wife's nephew, you know? Man, am I going to get an earful tonight. I don't have a couch, for your information. I get kicked out of bed I'm sleeping on the floor. Not comfortable."
Unnoticed by Norman, Zenit had already fired off three shots which did no discernible damage to Norman's suddenly shiny black skin. Black skin that made a black fist which collided with Zenit but this time instead of ending up in the hospital again the photographer and second-time bounty hunter laughed.
Strapped to Zenit's left hand was a normal looking, flat and circular shell. The, rarely seen in this island, impact dial had absorbed all of Norman's attack and Zenit intended to pay him back tenfold. A great shock wave was released from the dial when Zenit pressed it against the slightly taller man's face. The aftershock of using the dial was the most pain Zenit had every been in. He was sure that every bone in his left arm had shattered and would require amputation. He imagined it would be later used as a bone-flavored dog food for elderly dogs. Bone mush. He imagined that Norm's face would look like something out of a nightmare.
The nightmare ended up consisting of a minor bruise on his forehead and some scrapes on his left cheek.
By then Zenit assumed the authorities had collected Jenkem and that they would send his bounty money to his parents. He could see them once more reminding Zenit that his older brother Dagon was the strong and smart one over his grave.
Waking up for the third time in the clinic Zenit finally had company other than his lemming Kilmister. It was more of a shock seeing Norman there with Kilmister perched on his shoulder than noticing both his arms had been broken. Then he remembered the recoil of the impact dial and it all made sense.
Whatever medicine they had in the I.V. in Zenit's arm was it made him chatty.
"You in the dog house, Norm?"
Norman answered with a disgusted sigh.
Zenit lifted his head and tilted it towards his be-hatted lemur Kilmister to do one of the few tricks he had taught the rodent. "Cards." The mutton-chopped lemur in the black hat branding a jolly roger scurried to Zenit's coat and came back with three blank playing cards in his mouth. In retrospect, he should have asked Norman.
Normally, using his speedgraph ability to print any image he had mentally photographed did not use energy. It was a drain to use with two broken arms, though. During training when Norman became Zenit's prime target he did his research on the balding powerhouse. As a tabloid photographer Zenit knew how to make a person look good and bad. At the wrong angle even even Boa Hancock would look like Big Mom. Norman's wife, while no great beauty, only needed some nice sunset light, a little smile and some wind to look wonderful in one photo. It was just photographic filler in Zenit's head until then.
He handed one well-shot photo of Norman's wife looking off into the distance at sunset while smiling. "Maybe this will get us both out of the doghouse, Norman. Great photos are hard to come by."
When Norman the paunchy, balding man in thick glasses smiled Zenit breathed a painful sigh of relief. He never thought a photo would save his life. Maybe Norman was right and bounty hunting was not the career for Zenit. Appeasing men who possessed power that Zenit could feel with every molecule of his being, on the other hand, seemed worthwhile.
Two broken arms and a mild delirum from his pain medication did little to stop Zenit from trying something new that didn't involve battle. How hard could it be to romance a woman, especially one that was already married? One good photo and a pretty frame would demolish Norman's doghouse for until death did the married couple part.
Aside from his medical bills taking a sizeable chunk out of his bounty money Zenit felt a sense of optimism about having Norman at his side rather than at his throat. Jenkem's arrogant attitude suddenly made sense now that Zenit had a monster on his side. Zenit intended on keeping that monster for a while. Norman made Zenit feel like a badass while antiquing. Assuming Norman could level the little shop and create an explosions of tea kettles and old clocks with one punch put a little swagger into Zenit's stride while looking at napkin rings.
Zenit left the antique shop lighter in the beri department but heavy in protection department. Eighteen years of mediocre fighting skills taught the timid photographer the importance of strong friends...or at the very least allies who would hurt him less than they would hurt other people. Norman seemed like discovering One Piece while cleaning out an old attic.
Suddenly, the bald teen didn't need to get out of people's way when he walked down the street. Neither of his hands were functional but he had a voice that could call for Norman and Zenit bet that that was all he needed to get by. For the first time since striking out on his own without someone to protect him Zenit felt safe and celebrated his newfound safety by immediately testing it's limits via the first pirate that crossed his path. The cocky gunman swayed into the path of a pirate with half a shaved head and what looked to be a metal arm.
While not as well-traveled as he wanted, Zenit knew of cyborgs and the like through correspondence with his brother who worked for a gang of smugglers made up mostly of cyborgs. The lesson that he gleaned from his older brother Dagon was that in no way, shape or form should a cyborg be annoyed or otherwise vexed.
"Wow! Your face...it's really something. Just kidding. It's nice that your parents found love in their hectic circus lives."
Not immediately becoming a red shower of blood and viscera put an arrogant smirk on Zenit's face. He had just stood up to a cyborg and lived to tell the tale. Metal arm parts littered the ground which Zenit stepped over to playfully punch Norman in the shoulder, even with his own wounded right hand. It hurt, but not as much as his death by pulverization would have been had Norman not stepped in.
The indestructible wall that preferred to be called 'Norm' grimaced and apologized to the unconscious pirate with the now shattered cybernetic limb.
While the shorter man with the shaved head walked with wider and more confident strides, the taller one with a little more hair and a lot more sense sighed once it became obvious the kind of person he was dealing with. Norman had sailed the Grand Line and the South Blue and knew an opportunist when he saw one. Those types of people he threw into the sea. The smug photographer, on the other hand, he merely threw to the end of the block.
Being thrown by Norman was a completely different experience than from being knocked out by him. Before Zenit had not had time to contemplate his awful life decisions while also looking death in the face. He could easily imagine his head being split open by a rock or a street light or breaking even more bones which would then puncture every organ he had leading to a truly horrible demise. Luckily for the young man prone to using stronger people for protection, his latest human shield knew how to throw a man without killing them. After hitting the ground he had to wonder what kind of horror Norman was when he reached a level of anger beyond tempered annoyance.
It took several trips to a hospital and multiple broken bones but Zenit had learned a valuable lesson about the level-headed pragmatism of giving up early. Had he quit after his first hospital trip there would be no serious pain or outrageous hospital bill. If he wanted to survive to see his twenties the bald young man knew that he should have given up earlier. The lesson of knowing when to cut his losses almost made the pain worth it. Some lessons needed to be written in the language of pain for Zenit Basqiat to comprehend them.
Even in his reflective mood the ineffective teen bounty hunter had not thought about his tendencies toward relying on others for protection and his attitude concerning those same people. Finding the right people to protect him seemed easier than getting stronger himself. Being tougher or stronger didn't seem to matter when dealing with a man of Norman's strength. No matter how strong Zenit would get the broken down photographer knew that there would always be someone stronger that would beat him.
He wondered how people got by in their lives without help. That moment in particular, having fallen out of bed and onto the cold, hard floor made him wish there was someone beside him strong enough to replace his body back onto his bed. Unfortunately, whatever chaotic fairy that was responsible for granting wishes did so via Norman, the same man who sent him there.
Rather than lift Zenit up, the balding man in the glasses pushed the sniper down and lightly placed a large hand on the scared teen's chest. Zenit felt an immense pressure from that hand that refused to let anything move more than a centimeter.
"Good to meet you," said a distinctly non-Norman voice from an area of the room invisible to Zenit due to his position on the floor. A woman in her late forties tilted her head over and Zenit saw a moderately pretty, if plain face. It took a few moments of awkward silence to remember that he had taken that woman's photograph before and why.
"Norman's wife? Um...Boudica, right? I'm, uh, sorry I got your nephew or cousin or whatever arrested."
The sound of Boudica's scoffing laughter could be felt in the fractures of Zenit's bones and seemed to make new ones.
"Forget about it. This guy..." she said tilting her head in her husband's direction. "Should have been a better bodyguard. No offense but you're no Eustass Kid, Mister Basqiat."
"No kidding."
The blonde woman who looked like she might have been a sight to behold in her younger years kissed Zenit on his bald head and left the room. Norman remained effortlessly pinning down the aching sniper with one hand.
"Stick to photography, Zenit. You don't have a talent for violence and the learning curve for it might kill you. Sell your photos, don't seek adventure and maybe stop relying on others so much. A normal life isn't so bad."
Despite never seeing either person again Zenit remembered Norman's words over time, usually while after doing the exact opposite. As far as Zenit was concerned the lesson he learned was that men with dark and elaborate epithets could be dealt with but men who simply went by their names as Norm did were to be avoided at all costs.