Brogy’s Bounty at 100,000,000 Berries

Two men, two files, one number. The notices issued on Brogy and on Dorry carry precisely the same amount, which is unlikely to be the product of careful analysis. The outside world saw two giants from Elbaf who co-captained the same crew and did not consider it worth separating them.

The detail turns cruel the moment it is set beside their own history. These two spent an entire century establishing which of them was the greater. They fought every day on the same island, wounded each other, healed, saluted, and began again the next morning, and never obtained an answer. The only external authority that ever ruled on the question had delivered its verdict before the duel even started, and the verdict was a perfect tie.

When Baroque Works eventually landed to collect, the agents sent found two opponents who had been fighting there since before their own grandparents were born, and had to resort to trickery rather than force. The whole operation turned on interfering with a duel neither giant was willing to abandon.

The trick, when it came, worked on the duel rather than on the duellists. By tampering with the signal that opened each bout and slipping a rigged barrel to one of the two, the agents produced what a century of fighting had not, which was a winner, by the least honourable means available.

Neither of them ever learned that they were valued at the same figure down to the berry. It is worth wondering which of the two would have taken it worse.