Arc 01_ Treasure Island, where everything began!

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"WE'RE GOING...!", shouted a black haired woman. She was very confident on her words and a big smile appeared on her face. Once she took a deep breath to shout one more time, she continued: "..TO SAIL THE SEA!" and laughed with an unusual laugh 'SHISHISHI'.

Thrinty was wearing a simple purple bikini top with a short jeans pants. She didn't wear any shoes, because she loved the feeling of a warm sand on the beach. She was standing on the cliff, staring into the sea-horizon and enjoying the cold breeze on her face.

The weather was nice, perfect indeed, she thought. The sun was shining. She barely saw any clouds and observed the seagulls fleeing to the sky.

But that big smile on her face disappeared later in a second.

Thrinty thought of her younger brother, Luffy and of her old crew.

...

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A couple of seagulls were flying overall in order to search for the food on the fine day. A young black haired girl was washing the clothes in front of a bar-house in the middle of the Foosha Village. She was rubbing the clothes furiously in the metal tub, which was filled with the water. It was clear, she was stressed and worrying about something or someone, but she was angry.

"Thrinty-nee-saaan!", cried a five-years-old black-haired boy running toward her, "...Ji-san left me in the jungle yesterday night! It was scary!" The young girl turned to his direction quickly and clenched her fist in anger.

"That Jiji! I can't believe him! And I was looking for you all night, I was so worried, Luffy!", and then she sighed. She was worried about her little brother's health because their Grandpa never handled them gently.

Garp D. Monkey was extremely hard to deal with, that's why Thrinty always tried to protect Luffy, but she herself was just an over-ten-years-old-child, she couldn't do much. Thrinty stroked Luffy's hair and hugged him gently to calm him: "Luffy. I know you can do it... I am sure of it."

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'Taichou!' Thrinty, as a grow up woman, heard a voice calling her, but she still was confusingly looking around. Because of all this chaos and loudness and sweat and fighting people, she didn't know where did that voice come from. When an enemy, a pirate, who held a sword rushed toward her, she quickly dodged his swing attack and punched right in his face. She kicked an another pirate who was ready to shot from behind her and dropped herself on the floor. Once again Thrinty heard a shouting calling 'Taichou!'. She banged from the floor and rushed to the direction in hurry, where she heard that calling.

"You were here!", relieved Thrinty while dodging pirates swinging with their swords, "Where is Hana?! And Ishio?! We need to retrea-!" and then she felt a sharp pain in her left shoulder near her heart. She felt a cold little foreign object in her warm body. Thrinty only remembered loudness, people fighting overall, hotness and sweat, stink of the corpses and that man's frightened face. After that, once she felt unconscious, her head hit hardly the wooden floor, which was filled with the warm blood. Her blood.

And once again, before she closed her eyes, she heard the last word echoing:

"TAICHOU!"

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...

"T...chou..."

...

"Taichou... TAICHOU", raised a man his deep voice to wake Thrinty up. Thrinty snapped out of her digging past memories and turned her head to that man. "N- Nico!", answered happily Thrinty and smiled, so half of her teeth were shown but Nico didn't seem to be smiling, instead his face showed, that he felt very troubled and then sighed. He continued: "What are you doing here? Anyway, I told you, we gotta move."

"Eh? aah right right! Shishishi!", laughed Thrinty. She didn't even seemed to be troubled about the fact, they were alone on the island. But Nico was extremely troubled, since they were stuck on this island. He left firstly and went forward to the forest. Once he noticed, Thrinty didn't follow him, he turned around and shouted: "Are you coming or not?!" Thrinty heard it loud and clear, but instead of an answer, he saw on her back shaking her shoulder. Thrinty was laughing.

Nico rolled his eyes, he was upset. Considering the fact they were stuck on an unknown island without any sign of human presence and without any ship or boat, he was angry on how did they get here in the first place. He crossed his arms and waited, as if he wanted to hear Thrinty's reply or anything coming out of her mouth.

...

Thrinty finally turned to Nico's direction but still looked at the ground. She seemed to be serious of what she was going to say: "Nico... I ..."

Nico listened, in this kind of moments, when Thrinty always had "this mature" face, it was worth to hear, what she had to say. Thrinty raised her head up. She saw Nico standing a couple of meters farther from her and behind him a big forest. Nico watched her closely when Thrinty opened her mouth to say: "... is this...?"

Nico frowned-

"FOOD!", shouted suddenly Thrinty running quickly to Nico's direction, passed him and entered the forest.

"YOU-?!.. YOU ARE UNBELIEVABLE!", yelled Nico furiously, while his eyes followed her running into the forest chasing a little but fat elephant, which was escaping. Nico followed her while talking to himself, "well... it's better than doing nothing...".

...

Night.

The air was still warm, but colder than this morning. It was no problem for both of them to hunt that elephant down and to make the dinner of it. They set a campfire in front of the forest on the beach, so they wouldn't burn the forest down and calling the help from the random ships, which might pass by. Once Thrinty was done with eating, she rested and watched the sky full of stars.

"You know...", started she, "it'd be perfect if we had sake." Nico chuckled: "You always have to start with the sake, don't you? I mean where the hell are we gonna get the sake anyway..."

"It's not 'I have to', it's just... I mean Look! That star looks like a dot! And if you combine with that star...", explained Thrinty pointing randomly to the sky at the stars, "see? you have a sake cup!"

Nico sighed smiling, he himself didn't know if he was upset or happy: "It's ... a serious situation. Both of us cannot swim, remember?"

"Hai hai, Shishishi!", laughed Thrinty. As for an answer he didn't get, he guessed what Thrinty was thinking about. She never took anything serious... unless... yes.

"Unless it was necessary"

The hot air from the fire made them feel sleepy.

Thrinty felt asleep right away and started to snore loudly. Nico felt responsible for Thrinty, since he was the Vice-Captain and his job was to protect his reckless Captain. He was always saying, he couldn't sleep because she always was snoring loudly. But that was just an excuse to let him awake to watch over her for the next couple of minutes.

Then, he also felt asleep.

...

"Taichou!" heard Thrinty. She felt once again that sweat, hotness and the smell of dead people. Suddenly she could hear the fighting people around her but their voices, screams, shouts were quiet. She heard her breathing and someone calling her name loud and clearly: "Taichou!".

"Where.. Where are you!?", clenched Thrinty her teeth and looked around. She couldn't find anyone, she knew. Everyone had a blurry face and an unclear quiet voice.

After a while, running in the darkness without ending, she ran out of breath. Still she wasn't giving up to find the person calling her. Each time she heard the calling her heart got warmer and it gave her strength to continue the searching. And out of nowhere when she decided to turn around for the last time, she saw a nostalgic old-well-designed wooden door.

Like always she opened the door and saw a room with the furniture and the old red carpet, she always hated.

"Thrinty!" a deep voice from an old man yelled. She was frightened but ignoring the voice, she looked on the right corner, where she noticed a stool with a gun on it.

She felt a sharp pain going through her body.

"Taichou! Wake up!"

"AH!", surprised Thrinty and rose her head up but hit Nico's head accidentally, "OUCH!" Thrinty rubbed her forehead and tried to open her eyes, but the sun was shining too brightly. Nico didn't make a sound, but he also rubbed his head because of the pain, Thrinty caused. He continued ignoring the pain: "Taichou, a ship's ahead..." Thrinty surprised, it was a good news indeed but after ten minutes they figured out it was a pirate ship.

Nico broke the silence: "Well, what are we gonna do?"

"Let's ask them for a ride!", rose Thrinty while smiling. Nico again couldn't believe at her simple ideas, regretting asking her, he decided to make a plan. Thrinty instead asked him what would he do, if he was on that ship and saw someone was stuck on a deserted island? Nico answered without hesitation: "Obviously I would check the island."

Thrinty nodded happily as she exactly expected this answer to hear: "Uhn! And if you heard about this island before?"

Short after this question Nico got the point, what Thrinty meant by that. Exactly like this, how they ended up being stuck here in the first place.

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The Pirate ship.

A blond haired strange man, who wore a black hat walked out from his cabin to check on the pirates working on the deck: "MOVE IT! Move it, you lazy bastrerds! Arrgh!"

"Lazy bastrerds arr! Lazy bastrerds arr!", repeated his parrot, which was sitting on his shoulder. The green parrot was as big as the Captain's head and was chained to the man's hand. The man wore a suit. He was dressed elegantly, as long as he kept his mouth shut he could be mistaken for a gentle and quiet man. But to keep the fear and moral of his underlings, he kept shouting and threating them like a trash.

"Captain Murlock! We got a situation here!", shouted in hurry another man with an eye patch, "a fire, on that Island!"

"FIRE?!", shouted back Murlock.

"Fire! Fire on board, arr!", repeated the parrot. Murlock went furious and grabbed the man's collar, who reported him about the fire and shouted furiously: "NO ONE IS GOING TO GET THAT TREASURE BESIDE ME, THE GREAT MURLOCK!", and threw him so far, he hit the barrels.

"Treasure! Treasure, arr!", repeated the parrot while flapping his green wings.

Suddenly a pink haired guy landed on the deck from above behind Murlock. The working pirates, who were nearby surprised and looked at him while sweating, but not Murlock. Murlock didn't even look at him, he just stood while looking at the island. When the pink haired tapped on Murlock's shoulder, Murlock reacted right away. He shove the sword from his walking stick to cut the man, who tapped him, but the man wasn't there.

"Aah~ Gomen, gomen Capt'n.", whispered the pink haired person. He was sitting one of the barrels, which Murlock threw the guy with one eye patch at. Murlock mumbled: "Still casual as ever, Brad.", and hid his sword. Brad laughed in a childish way, with open mouth and scratched his hair. Once he stopped laughing, he became serious and set his feet on the deck. While Brad walked to Murlock's direction, he said in a deep manly voice: "Two of them. I don't think they have a ship, they seemed to be there more than a week. What do you want to do? Cut them down?", and smirked.

"No, capture them alive. Since they were alone there, that means one thing...", answered Murlock in a calm voice. Brad whistled surprisingly, he didn't expect hearing that from his Captain. A random pirate-how Murlock used to call them, the 'Underling' gulped, when he neared his Captain. He was going to say something, and started with a short word 'excuse me, Sir', Murlock took a glance at his underling. He was skinny and dressed poorly looking. Murlock didn't even know his name, as well for others anyway. The poorly looking boy continued with a shaky voice: "T- the f- food is ready."

The proud Captain sighed. He couldn't stand looking at his poor looking underling, who couldn't even stop trembling. Murlock looked at him pitifully and yelled at him, so other pirates could hear him: "Annoying little piece of trash, GO WORKING IN THE GUN PORT AND DON'T SHOW YOUR FACE HERE!" The gun port was the worst working section for pirates. Because of the daily heat they sweated much more inside, than outside on the deck. Add to that they needed to clean the cannons and behave careful around the barrels with gun powder in it. For them it's a punishment to work there.

As soon as Murlock snaps his fingers and gestured a sign to Brad, to walk off, the skinny guy propped up against the mast. He couldn't stand his Captain's strict behavior toward all of them. Once the Captain and Brad was gone another long haired person walked to him saying: "Leave it, Hug... He doesn't have mercy on anyone." Hug clenched his fist in anger and furiously replied, still whispering so other couldn't hear anything: "I Don't want be here! I'm Going to kill him!"

The person, who tried to comfort Hug frowned sadly, though Hug couldn't notice it, because the person had a long bangs, which covered the face: "I'm with you", whispered and turned back.

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The sun was shining brightly, the day started long time ago. Once the ship arrived the island, the pirates threw an anchor deep into the water, still far away from the beach. Captain himself ordered Brad to go to the Island of Treasure. To his company he took six well skilled swordsmen with him. The men took a sit on the boat and Brad ordered them to paddle till they reach the beach. Brad murmured to himself: "That's strange... I can't hear a thing. Well they probably escaped out of fear." He was so confident on his deductions, that once they reached the beach he ordered them to go in separated ways and find them. It'd be much faster to find the people, whoever they were, he thought.

The swordsmen entered the forest firstly Brad entered the forest lastly. He took out his unusual weapon, a 30 centimeters steel, which he stretched the inner part and pulled out an almost 2 meters spear with two strange hooks on both sides. He waved it around to look badass and walked deeper. He waved his spear around to cut the leaves and strange plants. After a while suddenly someone screamed for help. It was a man's voice, and Brad recognized it. It was one of his swordsmen's voice. Brad rushed to the sound, he heard but suddenly stopped. He felt as if somebody watched him. He set a pose, bended his knees and waited for another sound, he might hear.

But nothing.

The leaves and trees rustled. The wind was blowing his face gently and his short soft hair tickled his cheeks but he stood in the same position. He glanced to the left side and saw behind the overgrown trees the sea in horizon. He took a glance to the right side and noticed the conspicuous red berries on the green-plants-Background. Brad frowned but ignored it. Once again he heard a painfully yell, though this time it was nearby and on his right side, where the berries were. And all of a sudden he felt lightly but deeply shaking ground. The sound was louder and louder, he had no idea what could it be until he saw birds fleeing to the sky above him. Once he watched the sky he opened his eyes widely and said to himself unbelievably: "You got to be kidding me..."

Four wild big cats, puma alike, but with two little horns ran toward him. Behind them trees started to fall over and more of their sized wild animals fled to Brad's direction. They didn't aimed to the standing person, but as soon as they passed him Brad saw a big maybe 10-meters-mammoth running furiously like hell forward. Brad immediately turned around and fled likewise the rest of animals forward without looking back: "YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!"

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An Hour Earlier

"You want, what to do!?", shouted nervously Nico. He couldn't believe what he just heard and the black haired woman just laughed. Both of them were standing in the middle of the deep forest on the island. The day just begun, after they spotted the ship they discussed on what were they going to do and Thrinty as ever never fails to come up with strange and reckless ideas - Nico called them 'abnormal ideas'. Then he continued his questions: "Why?! Why would you..?!", and before he finished his sentence, he frowned and massaged his forehead.

His captain cocked her head as she expected him to finish the sentence, he started, but Nico gestured with his hand he let it go. He said he trusted his captain, but he hoped she knew what she wanted to do. Thrinty smiled widely. Nico kept thinking this was a bad idea, but he already agreed to do this so they walked forward.

Once they started walking Nico made the way by cutting the leaves and plant stems with the machete, he took out from his "storage dimension". A little time later with the long walking, they finally managed to reach the waterfall, which lied deep in the forest, but the river was connecting this lake and the ocean.

They squatted on the edge of the cliff and watched the beautiful big mammoths bathing in the lake down under the waterfall. The mammoths had two big golden horns on their head, except for one, who had two golden horns and four golden tusks, which was obviously the leader.

The scenery was so pretty, that they didn't want to ruin it, but they had to, for the sake of their plan. Nico sighed and looked at his Captain, who was bending over his shoulder. The wind blew her spiky hair lightly over her face and the two long hair-tails flew backwards. Thrinty cocked her head to see down under the lake and focused on the mammoths. She tried to find their weak spot, so this is why she had this frown looking face. Nico felt astonished, she never looked so pretty before, because she always acted childish and not-lady-like. He watched her for a longer time also with expectation she'd say something.

"I GOT THIS!", and all of a sudden Thrinty jumped out from the cliff right into the place, where mammoths bathed. Nico's eyes widened, but he didn't turned around, he just stayed in the same position before Thrinty jumped. He couldn't believe his own eyes and he sweated while smiling sarcastically.

Slowly he turned his head to the lake and shocked. "...TAICHOU YOU CANNOT SWIM YOU MORON!", shouted he while his eyes followed her falling down to the lake. Right away he banged from the ground and jumped of the cliff to catch her. While he was in the air slowly falling down, he realized something: " ... ah- wait, I also cannot swim...". He made an not impressed face because he had it enough, "I'm a moron-", and fell immediately down straight to the lake.

"GYAAHAHAHAH", laughed hysterically Thrinty, "I never had so much fun since years!" She wasn't worried at all, she wasn't even scared of the water, of the fact she's a devil fruit user and might drown. Nico on other side was extremely worried and was thinking of all possibilities to survive this fall. First of all the cliff was very high, second they did not know whether the lake was deep or not, and third surely mammoths wouldn't welcome them happily, right? So what were the other options? How were they going to survive the fall? Where to hold? How much time? When? Why? ... Why?!

Nico's mind was filled with questions, chances, possibilities and ideas. His brain was working way much faster than he would normally think. It looked like he was talking with somebody in his mind. Not even a second passed but he still kept thinking. In this kind of situations, normally when he was panicking, he always had something in his sleeve. And finally he had it! Of course! Why hadn't he think of this?

"Taichou! grab my hand!", shouted Nico. Because of the wind, which was blowing against them, he had to shout very loudly. Thrinty heard it and likewise shouted while grabbing his hand: "Aah You have an idea?"

Once Nico felt Thrinty's hand, since it was hard to see anything he had to trust his sense of feel, he continued: "I'm going to throw you!" Thrinty didn't even understand a word, what he said, but she kept nodding grinningly. It was clearly she trusted his words, she didn't even have to understand them. Nico placed his foot on Thrinty's feet and with his all might he pushes her up to the sky. But as a consequence he was thrown faster to the ground. Instantly he snapped his fingers and grabbed a long but very sharp sword, which appeared. Once he grabbed it, with all his might he threw himself onto a wall made out of stone and stabbed it deeply with his sword. Slowly he stopped, but he was still falling. Once Nico was satisfied with the speed he banged from the wall higher and landed on the ground safely. On his way landing he kept turning his head worrying right and left, above and behind him in order to search for his Captain. "Did she make it?! Holy crap, there's no way she'd-", murmured he but once he noticed a familiar feet in a bush, he sighed. He might sound harsh and emotionless but he was truly relieved, she was alright. Nico took a look at his sword and after observing it, he threw it away, since it was stainless, and the sharpened edge was broken and kind of rusty.

Thrinty didn't even yelled at Nico, in opposite, she was laughing lying in the bush covered by all leaves. She still couldn't get back to her senses, because she enjoyed it, even too much if you asked Nico. Thrinty got up from the bush and shook herself to drop the leaves, which got stick to her. The brown haired muscular guy neared her and rose his hand above her head while talking: "You got some on your hair-" "Nico, was it fun?"

Nico didn't reply right away. He was considering his answer while throwing the leaves from her hair. Once he was done he looked at her from above. She was still looking at him expecting to hear the answer, but she had this innocent face. And by innocent face, I meant a 'sneaky-troublemaker'-innocent face. Nico seemed to be bothered with it, he wasn't sure whether to reply honestly, to scold her or to say the lie, what she hoped for. But he interrupted these thoughts with a question in his mind: "Wait, you asked if I had an idea- YOU JUMPED OUT FROM THE CLIFF JUST LIKE THAT?!" Thrinty stuck his mouth together and looked to the side with a slightly little question answer, which was obvious a lie: "...no..?" Nico truly couldn't believe, what lies in her mind: "What if I hadn't jump after you!? Do you realize, you might die!? Taichou, at least-"

Suddenly a big mammoth interrupted their conversation by his load roar. Immediately they turned their heads to the source of the roar. They saw other mammoth-elephants, little or big escaping to the waterfall cave, which was located behind the big and furious mammoth leader. Thrinty grinned so widely, her teeth were visible and Nico frowned hoping the mammoth leader wouldn't attack them. After the long silence Thrinty commented: "This is the leader after all!"

Nico turned his look to her, but he didn't turned his head and whispered in a shivering but angry voice of 'super-I-can't-believe-you' form: "... so you jumped to see, which one of them is the leader...!?" "Pretty much! Shishishi!", he heard the female sweet voice, which made him quite upset. But back to the mammoth-leader, Nico again was thinking of the possibilities how to catch it. He thought it was impossible and reckless. Once again, it was 'Taichou's abnormal ideas', so they 'had to catch the mammoth-leader'.

Thrinty rushed forward full of herself and likewise the mammoth-leader did. The mammoth set his sharp horns forward pointing at the enemy, but Thrinty kept running. Nico tried to stop her, once she rushed, but he managed to call half of her name, before he shut himself. The reason why he shut himself and widened his eyes was that he felt a very heavy aura coming from front. It was her Haki. It lasted only for a second, but it was way too heavy to not ignore it. He saw that his little and 'innocent' Captain jumping on mammoth's tusks and grabbing its trunk whispered something. The heavy aura, Haki made Thrinty more frightful, when she whispered to the mammoth, as if she wanted to murder it: "Run, you little rat."

The scared mammoth-leader started to run forward god knows where with his thick feet on the water out the lake. Nico once again couldn't believe, what she just did.

Once Thrinty jumped on its head, she sat on it while laughing and raising her hands up. Nico sweated and turned his head to the little frightened elephants. He murmured to himself with the last word singing: "Sorry about heeeer... We're borrowing your leader for a biiiit...", and followed the mammoth. True it was very fast, but there was no way, Nico could lose his sigh of the loud and furious mammoth, who's breaking the trees on its way. The path was clearly visible, because of the trampled ground.

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"YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!", shouted furiously Brad while running forward. He was running from the big and furious mammoth, which was not chasing him, but also randomly running forward. It was hard to see the details, since the big trees, leaves and plants covered it, and the shadow darkened all the details. Once they reached the beach, Brad jumped front and saw the docked ship, which belonged to his crew not so far away from the beach. Of course behind him the big mammoth wasn't even tired from all this running, it continued the race without slowing down. The smaller sized wild animals already managed to hide in the wild green forest. Brad landed on the soft sand, but he had difficulties with moving around, because the ground was very unstable. He took the opportunity and took a look to the mammoth while still running toward his boat. His eyes widened. He clearly saw now; a young and black haired female sitting on the mammoth's head and laughing- no, she was grinning. She wasn't 'sitting' on the mammoth's head, but set a pose, as if she was ready to jump. She was ridiculous.

"W- what is she-?!", Brad thought and suddenly realized, that her goal was the ship with a flag skull with feathers on it, because she was watching ahead. She wasn't even looking at Brad, which made him irritated. He clenched his teeth and snapped out of his shock. Now he was thinking straight, and thought of the possibilities, how was he going to stop the wild running animal. He slowed down a bit looking at the ground and thinking. The pink haired pirate stopped running and turned himself toward his opponent, but it was too late- the mammoth hit him with its tusks and Brad grabbed the tusks to not fall down. "AARGH GODDAMM-", cursed Brad but noticed and stared at the tusks unbelievably: " .. wha- ... Golden Tusks?!"

"GYAHAHAHA!" he heard a very happily laughing voice. It wasn't a laugh of a person, who laughed for the victory or was self-confident, it was a childish laugh, who simply enjoyed a fun. Brad's mind was filled with questions "WHY!?". He couldn't understand, the black haired woman's reason, but more, why in this way? There are better ideas, to sneak into the ship. But she had to choose the straight charge and add to that with a wild animal. Why?!

The person, who was holding on the golden tusk felt some water drops in his feet. Luckily the water in front of the beach till the docked ship wasn't so deep, it only reached the mammoth's knees and it continued running without slowing down.

"Captain Murlock! Captain Murlock!", several voices from different men reached Murlock's ear. Murlock was eating his lunch in his room. But he got annoyed with the shouts so he stood up hitting the desk with his fist madly and went to the door. When he was ready to grab the handle, the door already opened itself and Murlock saw the helmsman standing in front of him. The helmsman panicked, but not because Murlock was staring at him and frowning, but because of the wild running mammoth, he was pointing at. Murlock's eyes widened full of surprise. It was unbelievable, what he saw. On the deck the pirates were panicking and watching the nearing mammoth. Murlock didn't even bother to calm down his underlings, he yelled straight with a man's deep voice: "MOVE YOUR ASSES! No slacking off, what are you doing you useless trashes!? To the gun port! Set the cannons! Fire them, you airheads!" The pirates stopped panicking, because their boss gave a command. It was natural for them to react right away, when their captain commended. This is why even without asking they ran to the room with cannons and cannonballs under the deck. The cannons were set to the mammoth's direction and ready to fire. Murlock walked to the board side and faced the enemy. He drew the sword from his walking stick and pointed to the mammoth while shouting: "FIRE!"

Thrinty heard Murlock's words and held her mouth open, thinking 'it wasn't fair'. She grabbed mammoth's right ear and jumped off its head. When she was in the air, she pulled with all her might mammoth's ear to herself and swung forward to the ship's board. The poor animal in pain changed his direction to the right side, because of the ear pulling. The fired cannonballs missed it, although mammoth was so near the ship. The wild animal hit itself against the side of the ship and made a little hole in the gun port and fainted. Murlock was alright, because mammoth's horns and tusks didn't reach him, though his parrot screamed of shock, but Murlock's face showed disappointment. Not because the mammoth didn't reach him, but the fired cannon missed it. Some pirates looked behind the board, some were too scared to go outside and other still waited for their Captain's commands. Murlock hid his sword in his walking stick and all of a sudden he heard someone was moaning. But strangely he didn't hear it on the deck, but outside the ship. The Captain with the black hat took a look abroad and noticed a pink haired person hanging on the golden tusk. His eyes widened, he shouted to anyone, but still watched down: "Someone! Bring a ladder!", and threw the chain on the floor. With the chain the parrot flew down and took a sit on the fence repeating: "The ladder! Aarr! The ladder!"

"Strange Capta'n, there's no way you're throwing the ladder all the way for me here.", whispered Brad. He was in pain but luckily he didn't hit the ship's side, he relieved. When a random pirate threw the ladder outside the ship and tied to the fence, Murlock climbed the ladder down right away. Brad noticed that and he commented: "Ah, of course...", and then he frowned wondering, why did his Captain walked down. "Move it!", said Murlock in a selfish tone. Once Murlock reached the tusk, he set his right foot on it and then bended his left leg to look closer to the golden tusk.

Brad, who squatted on the tusk aside, asked wondering: "... and? What do you think? Is it the-?" "Legendary gold of this island... hahah...hah...", replied Murlock and then laughed very loudly, "The legendary gold, that no one could find! No one guessed, it was an animal, who was the treasure!"

Brad wasn't interested in the gold, he looked at it neutrally, while his Captain felt amusement, when he touched the golden tusk. The pink haired guy moved his left hand forward and backward, he slightly felt a pain, "Aaah~, I think I broke it~". For him it wasn't strange, that his Captain, wasn't interested in Brad's health condition, because his Captain never cared other's health condition or broken body parts, he always moved forward without even looking at it.

Suddenly Brad rose up and grabbed the ladder with his right hand to keep the balance. He set his foot on the mammoth's little tusk and when he pulled himself higher, he bounced from the little tusk and jumped above. He reached the mammoth's head and jumped one more time, this time he landed on the deck. He saw his crew members amusingly looking at him. Brad chuckled, he felt a little bit embarrassed, because everyone's eyes followed him, when he walked toward the nurse office.

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On the right side, of the office room was the captain's room and Thrinty watched through the window from this room. She was confused on all their reactions, she didn't understand why were the pirates panicking a while ago and now looking amused. Thrinty moved away from the little circled window and turned to the desk. She murmured to herself: "Oh, so pretty~!" and grabbed a treasure looking box. She noticed inside some jewels and high valuable coins. "Meh..", she turned the box upside down and threw the jewels and coins out of it on the desk, "This box is so pretty! I'm going to borrow it! Shishishi!"

When she heard a noise outside on the deck, she took a look out through the little window from far and saw some people taking many ropes and a boat, tied to the main mast. She decided to ignore it and continued looking for something, that might be useful. The room was full of stuffs, little and big stuffs. The owner of this room held books, a log pose, some papers, maps, something to write, boxes on his desk, but it wasn't, what Thrinty was interested in. She took a glance around; She saw many pictures on the wall, of a green parrot and a strange tall gentleman. On the right side, next to the door she saw another desk with a gun and bullets lying randomly all over. The room looked messy with all the stuffs here, but it was tidied. The floor was clean, but the room was dark. Because of the little windows, she counted 3 of them, there wasn't much light coming in.

All of a sudden her stomach growled. She surprised but sighed: "Aaaah, I'm so hungry~... What to d- Uh?!" and suddenly the door opened itself. Without hesitation Thrinty hid herself behind the desk, squatted and glanced over it to see the person coming in. The person's look reminded of a pirate, but his unusual apron was conspicuous. Thrinty knew right away he was working in the kitchen, but what did he want in his Captain's room? Thrinty watched at him suspiciously. The man with the apron walked to the desk with gun on other side, she was hiding, and took a gun from it. He checked if the gun had any bullets in it and nodded to himself. But because of the opened window, which allowed the wind to fly in, the man stopped and glanced to it. Thrinty hid her head under the desk and hear steps nearing her. Luckily the window was on the right side of the desk, which was set in the sea horizon direction. The apron-man walked to the window and closed it. Then he walked out of the room and closed the door behind him. Thrinty calmed down and walked slowly to the door. She opened the door just a little bit and looked if someone was in the hall. Thrinty heard nobody, the hall was quiet, she only heard voices coming from the deck. Thrinty shut the door behind her and she walked in the hall to the right side, the opposite direction of the deck.

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"You won't believe, what happened, ahahah", chuckled Brad childish, once he closed the door behind him, walking into the nurse office. The guy with a long white 'lab coat' only nodded saying 'yeah' while checking some papers. He was sitting in front of his desk, which was standing in the middle of the nurse room, with full of papers, and some medicines on it. The blue haired man turned his head to Brad's direction, when he put the papers down on the desk: "So, what's this time? ... Hand?" The blue haired man noticed, Brad's hand was lightly bluish. Brad didn't notice it, before the person in lab coat sitting in front of him rose up and grabbed his hand. Brad flinched, frowned his face, closed one eye and the doc released him. He pointed to the bed next to the door on the right side and walked up to the shelf, which was standing behind him, with medicines and bandages. He grabbed a needle and a bottle of some fluid in it and said: "Sit down." When the man turned around and grabbed his chair, he noticed through the window-door a female with black hair running from right to left side. The blue haired person glanced on the floor to the opposite Brad's direction and frowned, because he wasn't sure, what did he see just right now. Ten seconds later staying in silence and looking at the floor, Brad asked: "Hey, doc... 'lright?" and the person holding the medicaments answered right away with a 'Yeah' ... but he whispered to himself, so Brad didn't hear it: "... I guess..." and ignoring it shook his head.

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Thrinty ran from door to door looking for the food. Her stomach growled and growled, that in the end she began to hold a conversation with her stomach: "Shuddduuuuuppp! I'm looking for the food, Okay?! Just wait for a second." When she finally arrived the kitchen door, she glanced over the window-door. But that didn't help her, since her stomach growled one more time, but this time very loudly. She stood paralyzed for a second and gestured her finger in front of her mouth to silence it: "SHHHHHH!" Unexpectedly the door opened itself and Thrinty shocked, so she rushed to the next corner of the hall and turned to the left side. She felt disappointment, she couldn't enter the kitchen, because someone was there, but in hope, she finally found some meat on a plate in front of her: "FOOOOOD!" Her eyes widened and like a hungry animal, as a surviving in the wild grabbed the meat and started to eat without worrying it might be poisoned or bad. She felt such a happiness, as if she ate a meat for the first time in her life. She started to laugh happily :"Shishishi! I hope nobody mind!", but she honestly didn't care, if someone even did mind it, she'd still eat the food. "OISHII!", shouted she, with a female high voice, trying to sing. She thought it was a good idea to sing a random song, so she started her first words: "RAAMEN~ RAMEN MEAT IS DELI-!", and out of the blue the door, which was connected to the main deck and this room opened hardly, so it hit the wall. Thrinty turned her head to the person coming through the door right away. The man wore a black hat and a suit. On his shoulder was the green parrot sitting and chained to the man's left hand. When Thrinty looked at him, she still had some food in her mouth, which made the Captain Murlock more angrier and irritated. Thrinty slowly chewed and once she finally swallowed the meat, Murlock left his walking stick leaning against the wall and walked slowly inside. Then on the other side of the room the blue haired doc came over and surprisingly commented: "Ah, you were after all...", later he noticed Murlock, who rose his eyebrow, and the doc didn't finish his sentence. But more surprisingly he noticed the black haired woman still didn't put the meat on the plate but stood in the same position glancing at him. In his perspective it looked very funny so in order to not burst out laughing, he covered his mouth with his finger and chuckled once: "What's your name?"

"AH! Shishishi! My name is Thrinty! You have delicious food, you know?", laughed Thrinty and took another bite of the delicious food. Murlock felt ignored, he couldn't forgive it and when he was ready to draw the sword inside of the walking stick and cut the woman in half, the doc interrupted him, with his explanation the situation to Thrinty: "You see, we're pirates and that's... our Captain. I recommend you to not ignore him. Otherwise you'll be killed." and smiled. Thrinty looked astonished and turned her head to Murlock while pointing at him with the meat: "Your food is delicious here! Shishish-" but suddenly the male Captain drew his sword so quickly and shoved it to Thrinty's direction. It happened so quick, even the doc wasn't sure, what happened. Then Thrinty shocked when she saw her half cut meat dropped on the floor: "AAH THE DELICIOUS MEAT! ... "

"Tch, I missed your head..", whispered Murlock, but so loud, even the blue haired guy heard it, "Draw your weapon! I'm going to kill you!". Thrinty didn't even seem to be bothered of Murlock's threat, but more she was sad of the meat lying on the floor. And then another voice appeared: "AAH YOU ARE FROM BEFORE!"

When both Murlock and Thrinty looked at the Brad panting, Brad continued: "Capta'n! She was riding that mammoth!"

"That, with golden tusks?! .. Oi, woman, who the hell are you?!", roared Murlock. The female Captain dropped the meat on the floor and grinned. Brad bended his legs, ready to jump at her and Murlock stared angrily, thinking she was going to attack them. Thrinty put her right foot on the table with empty plates and laughed proudly: "I'M THE ONE, WHO'S GOING TO BECOME THE PIRATE KING! SHISHISHI!"

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When the black haired woman with two hair-tails laughed hysterically, Murlock stood quiet and still. He wasn't sure how to react on all this, but what she said made him laugh too. He started to laugh much louder than Thrinty, that she stopped her laugh, but still grinned. She looked at the Captain with his green parrot and she noticed, that he wasn't laughing with her, but of her: "HAHAHA You are Pirate King?! You are a woman! A crazy woman!", then he also stopped his laugh.

He whispered to himself, but again the two standing person in front of him could hear him murmuring: "Don't make me laugh... You are nothing, but a little cockroach running around on my ship! Die!" and while drafting his sword he rushed toward her, this time aiming for her shoulder.

Thrinty snapped, but she didn't stop grinning. Her leg kicked the barrel, she was leaning at, but it barely hit Murlock, because he cut it in half. Though unexpectedly Murlock forgot there might be something in the barrel and the gunpowder, which was in the barrel spilled at him. Thrinty took the opportunity and rushed toward the door leading to the deck. Suddenly a unknown force kicked her knees, so she had to bend them and fell on the floor crying out: "OUCH!"

"Well well, acting tough, aren't ya?", commented Brad in a pitiful voice while crossing his arms. Thrinty didn't like that, she had to get up fast and ran away from this place because soon it'd become a shooting battle-!

She suddenly felt a sharp object on her shoulder, where the voice came from the person, who held the sword: "I'll ask you once again, who are you."

Thrinty turned her head, to see Murlock behind her shoulder saying while sweating a bit, but still her grin didn't leave her face: "I just told you, I'm the person who's going to become the pirate king."

"I see", replied Murlock while sighing, "I wanted to keep you alive but.. I'm going to get you this time."

Murlock rose his sword above Thrinty and she turned around toward Murlock still lying on the floor. She tried to avoid his swung but she knew Brad was going to attack her next, so she had no other choice but to use the haki and paralyze them. When out of the blue a red-orange with black strips cat jumped at Murlock's leg and bit it, Thrinty surprised. Instantly she cooled herself down and blocked her haki flow. Murlock flinched and rose his leg up and down. Thrinty felt astonished by seeing the brave little cat, which kept the Feather Pirate's Captain busy. Once she realized, the cat tried to help her, she bounced out from the floor and ran backwards toward the exit, then turned quickly around toward the deck and suddenly Brad appeared in front of her: "You're not going anywhere!" "Here! Catch!", Thrinty threw surprisingly the little treasure box, which she found in Captain's room. "W- What?!", stuttered Brad and watched the box flying above him in the air, worried Murlock might scold him, because he let the valuable coins and jewels scattered around on the floor. When he caught the box he noticed it was very light and when he checked what was inside, he felt raged, because it was empty. Once he looked around, the mysterious black haired woman disappeared, and by his predictions, he guessed she ran outside through the door to the main deck. But the following her stopped him, because his Captain began to speak:

"You Annoying Cat!", shrieked Murlock and tried to hit her, but once the cat saw, the black haired woman was gone, she let go of his leg.

"Akane!", shouted the doc, who couldn't believe, what she just did. For him it was the first time, Akane was defending a person, who was about to get killed by their captain. "YOU! dare to interrupt me-?!" "Forgive her, captain!" panicked the man, and took Akane in his hands, "I am also not sure, why did she do it but-"

"There won't be a next time, Sy. I'll throw her out of the ship.", Murlock glared at them, as in warning he swung his sword aside, but he put it into the walking stick, "Brad! Find her! I want her head."

"Yessir...", sang Brad, but still surprised and ran out of the room while looking back at Akane and Sy. Once Murlock walked out of the room, following Brad, Sy whispered to his cat, which was held by him: ".. Akane.. why did you do it?"

"Pfeh! I disliked it!", hissed Akane without any regrets. Sy sighed, but he had a strange feeling about her, it made him worried and confused, seeing Akane not acting herself: "Well... so what do you want to do now?"

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"SHE'S OVER THERE!", yelled a pirate pointing at the mast, where Thrinty was climbing up, at the top of the large pillar, when suddenly another voice reached her: "Catch her!".

"Uh oh! they're sure living!", murmured grinning Thrinty to herself, while reaching the top of the mast, she squatted on the topgallant and looked at the climbing pirates from above. She didn't had any weapon, but one thing was, she always could use: Murlock startled, when he heard a very loud roar from the woman. The scream wasn't deep and as a beast roar, but as an angry female scream, which sounded, as if they made a goddess so angry, that she sent a heaven punishment to them. Murlock had to cover his ears to not let his eardrums explode: "Wh- What is she?!" The climbing pirates released the net and fell down because of the sudden shock, and the roar also caused the ship lightly swaying on the sea right and left. It also made the water splash and move around, hitting the ship's side.

When the water calmed down, and Thrinty, who was sitting on the topgallant like an animal, she shouted to Murlock after a little chuckle: "What is, Captain? Didn't you say, you were going to get me this time? Shishishi!"

Although Murlock didn't understand what she said, because he felt, as if his eardrums exploded, her little laugh provoked him and Murlock took out a gun from his pocket. Thrinty recognized its design, it was the gun from his office, where the man with apron took it. She yelled, while she stood up, ready to jump off somewhere else: "It's not fair! You're cheating-!" "She's the Devil Fruit user! Throw her outside the ship!", interrupted Murlock, when he pointed with his gun at her, "You're not getting away this time..."

The gun started to throw out its bullets, aiming Thrinty, who dodged it, one by one. But it wasn't his concerning him, because the plan was different. It was necessary to distract her from:

"Ah!?", shrieked Thrinty, when a spear suddenly swung at her left side and wounded her neck. She barely jumped back, when she saw the pink haired man with a spear in his hand landing on the net: "Well, you were lucky to dodge this. But next time it won't be so easy~. " Thrinty laughed sweating, she had two people on her sight, plus the pirates walking around on the deck and looking at her from below, waiting her to fall down: "hehe..heh... I think I'm in trouble~. "

"But tell me, I really cannot understand, why... why did you charged at us. You are fighting against all of us. You are outnumbered and you think, you are gonna win this?", asked Brad in a serious voice. He truly couldn't guess why did she do it, so it brought out his curiosity. Thrinty bended her knees, as if she was ready to jump on the next pillar, and rose her arms aside, where her hands aimed at his spear. "Pff, are you serious? Do you seriously believe, you're gonna win this?"

"Didn't I say it already? I'm the person, who's gonna become the Pirate King!", replied Thrinty in a confident voice. Brad snapped, but that was exactly, what Thrinty wanted to do; by provoking him, he charged at her with his spear holding front. Thrinty also charged at Brad, but without any weapon in her hands, instead she grabbed the sail cloth on her left side and let her body slightly fall to the right side, then swung ahead in the air next to him. Brad didn't fall for this trick and cut the sail, where Thrinty was holding and let her to fall. Before she really could fall down, because of the short swung, she managed to reach the other mast next to the previous one, and grabbed it, which let her hanging. Thrinty could only to hold onto the topgallant, she couldn't hide or bounce, therefore Murlock had a clear sight now and once again he pointed at her with his gun. Sy, who came out of the room, saw the hanging woman above him. Akane struggled, but Sy couldn't let her go, because he knew she was going to help the stranger and he was afraid that Murlock could get her: "Akane, you can't! Did you forget we're under his command!" "I don't care, let me go!", shrieked quietly Akane, so Murlock and the rest couldn't hear her.

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All of sudden they all heard an explosion, to be clear, a cannon shooting explosion. This sound was slightly different than a normal cannon shot sounds, it was way much louder and gave a strong impact to the ship, when the big sized cannonball hit the sea. Everyone on the ship glanced to the source, where the Cannonball was shot from. Then the helmsman shouted loudly, that everyone heard, as he said: "It- It came from the Island! Captain, what are we going to do?! The c- cannonball is at least 2 meters big!?" "I can see that!", replied Murlock, in a sarcastic voice, where he meant it was obvious, what Helmsman said. He clenched his teeth while murmuring to himself: "What is it this time..."

When he looked at the Island, he saw a big cannon, apparently with a 5-10 meters size, where obviously the cannonball came from. But they started to wonder, how in Earth did it appear there? Not so long time ago, the beach was empty, and now out of nowhere the cannon appeared just like that. On other side Brad concentrated on the water, which wasn't deep, but strangely there was something floating on the sea. The round sized, short wood pillars were making a route from the island to the ship. Brad, with his quick predictions, he guessed the person already reached the ship and was waiting for the right time to show: "Captain! The person is here on th-"

"Yes yes, I already reached the ship.", appeared a new voice coming from the steering wheel port, "Well, good job on your predictions~."

"What?!"

When Murlock heard Brad's warning, he turned around to look for the intruder. Before the helmsman on the steering wheel port was knocked out, he shrieked: "Who the hell are yo-!?" "Ah gomen gomen~", the voice continued, "I've forgot to introduce myself, my name is Nico Sarakuji. I'm just a guy, who belongs to Haotic Cry Crew."

When Murlock walked on the stairs, reaching the steering wheel port, he said in the cold voice: "So, you're the one who makes a big fuss here, what the hell you want?"

Nico chuckled, it passed way too much time, since he enjoyed this situation, saving his Captain out of the problems, she was causing. He took a look at the hanging Thrinty and he remembered the annoyance, he always had to experience, when he was with her ages ago: "What are you doing there, playing around?"

"Shishishi! Nico! I think we can go back to the town!"

"Dakaraa..."

"I see, are you the captain of the Haotic Cry... then we'll defeat you and you're gonna join the rest, who were defeated by us! Hahahah Risha!", laughed proudly Murlock, who was so confident. Thrinty startled, and got annoyed, because Murlock called Nico a captain. Nico meanwhile smiled and sweated a little bit, when all of sudden Thrinty yelled: "HEY YOU! I'M THE CAPTAIN HERE!"

Brad surprised, that she was a captain, not the well looking man, who was standing calmly and leaning on the steering wheel. "Murlock-sama ... you called me? What is this now?", came across a tall woman, with long and black hair. "Risha...", whispered Brad. Thrinty quickly took a glance to Brad, who was watching the young lady walking upstairs.

"Ah Risha, since you're here. Capture him, I'm going to hunt the other-"

"Aren't you after the gold?", interrupted Nico. Once Risha reached the Murlock's side, both of them starred at Nico, thinking he might know more than they did.

The Captain of the Feather Pirates crossed his arms and glared at Nico with full of doubt: "And why would you want to talk about this, when your captain didn't want to..?"

"Ahahahah", chuckled Nico. He shook his head, thinking Thrinty would never talk about business, "Well you don't talk to her about this kind of stuffs, she never makes deals. You talk to me, since it's my job in this crew. I might be a Vice-Captain, but when it comes down to the business, I'm dealing with it, not her.", and smiled with a fake smile.

Everyone on the deck walked toward the steering wheel port and held the weapons in their hands, ready to attack. Murlock frowned and commented: "What a strange crew, I see... Captain over there", and looked at the hanging Thrinty, who struggled, but tried to get on the mast, ".. and the Vice-Captain, who's usually making deals? Why aren't you the Captain, you look stronger and more cautious..."

"Well I wonder about that too~ .. hahah...", laughed softly the brown haired man.

"Murlock-sama we have no time to listen to him. He's wasting our time.", commented Risha, who was behaving mature and didn't show any emotions.

"You want to know, where the real gold is, Murlock-sama?", and suddenly after Nico's last sarcastically word, Risha rushed forward with a dagger in her hand, letting her hat fall behind her. Before she swung widely at Nico, the Vice-Captain of Haotic Cry jumped back and snapped his fingers, where an about 25-30 cm long steeled dagger appeared out from nowhere. Once Nico grabbed it, he bounced from the floor and pressed his weapon against Risha's dagger while talking: "I really tried to avoid the fight against a woman, you know?"

Risha clenched her other fist and shouted right in his face: "You don't know...! Don't talk as if you know something about me!"

Murlock gestured to the other 10 pirates, who were surrounding Nico, to attack him: "Finish him quickly! I'm going to deal with the other one, who pissed me off.", and walked the stairs down holding a gun in his hand. The pirates on Murlock's command charged to Nico with their weapons up and Nico took shortly his eyes away from Risha, which made Risha quite upset and she took another dagger from her sleeve and aimed at Nico's face. Nico noticed it too late and before he dodged it, Risha managed to leave a short cut on his cheek. They pushed against themselves and, when they were meters apart, the other pirates started to attack him. The crowd threw itself at Nico, leaving no empty space to run away, leaving no other choice but to fight back with so many swinging weapons from all sides. Risha started to grin, she was sure, her opponent hadn't an chances to win this battle. But for Nico, the greatest strategist wasn't a problem, he was more concerned about his captain, who was hanging helplessly. But back to the fight, thought Nico, he couldn't possibly win by just standing around, could he? He chuckled and in a second he snapped his fingers one more time, and a steeled spear appeared behind him, where he grabbed it and swung around hitting the enemy. The pirates yelled in pain and fell down on the ground. "Well, since I have no choice but to fight with you...", smiled Nico with an unfinished sentence, but this time not in a friendly way, but with a serious face.

"Quit acting tough! You'll see, I'm going to get you!", charged Risha forward to Nico and disappeared in front of him, which made Nico surprised. But in the end he felt she was going to attack from behind him, so he prepared himself to strike her down. But before he could react, another different voice came from Sy, who walked upstairs and a little red cat reached the port: "Akane, don't do that! What's wrong with you now?" "Ah let me be! You! Behind you!"

Nico astonished, since he rarely see an animal talking, but even if that cat didn't say it, he still would expect Risha attacking him from behind: "You don't have to tell me that!" And as expected, Nico grabbed a hand, which appeared behind him. "Argh!?", shrieked Risha and since she landed in a wrong position, she twisted her ankle and lost control on her legs. Nico before letting her fall down captured her side back: "Ootto..!"

Risha blushed and her mature and calm face vanished in a second. For a moment she they stood still in, according to Risha weird position, where he held her back preventing her to falling down: "L- LET ME GO!" "Alright", and at the same time he released her, which caused her to fall on the floor. The woman, who blushed, covered her face with one arm, because she leaned on the other arm: "I- IT'S NOT LIKE I'M BLUSHING!"

Nico chuckled once, it made him laugh to see such a clumsy girl, but when he rose his head to Sy, who was nearing him, he asked him with a cold voice: "So, are you next..?" Sy surprised and waved his hands, because he saw the way Nico's fighting, he preferred to avoid the battle. When in front of him Akane began to speak, Sy sweated: "Ooh! You are quite a strong guy, meow! Ne, I think you can manage to save us all!"

Instead of answering the cat, Nico squatted in front of Akane and poked her cheek: "How is it, that you can talk?" "Nyah!", surprised the red cat likewise Sy gasped. Nico continued by questioning her: "And by saving you guys..", he looked at Risha and Sy, and then back to Akane, "What did you mean by that?"

"He's using us...", murmured Risha. When the girl leaned forward to Nico, she grabbed his sleeve and began to tear up: "Please take us with you! We'll gladly join your crew! Anywhere, but away from him!", and burst into tears. The man, on whom was Risha holding at, smiled gently at her and comforted her, because he felt uncomfortable with crying women: "We're here to steal the ship. But to sail into the sea, we need people, you know? ...", after his smile, he turned his head to Sy, "Murlock said, he defeated the other crews... are they held against their will here too?" Sy made a serious face and nodded. Everything made sense now, because Nico noticed the resistance of Risha and even Brad's, when he was fighting against Thrinty. "Alright, tell me everything you know."

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"Tell you everything...", whispered Risha to himself, "If we knew what's exactly going on, we'd already take care of it!.. Baka." Nico smiled with a slight disappointment so he explained: "I meant, what is going on with you guys. You are actually against your Captain, why don't you rebel against him? As far as I noticed, you guys are stronger than he is. That means you're chained to him, either he blackmailed you or you can't get away from him."

Nico glanced at Risha, who was easy to read. Her face showed sadness, when she avoided Nico's eyes, while sweating a little bit and scratching her hand. Before Nico or Risha could say anything Sy astonished: "Y- you're correct.. What's your name again?"

Nico stood up to show his manners, since he didn't find it okay to introduce himself while squatting: "My name is Nico Sarakuji, that's over there is Thrinty D. Monkey.", and pointed behind Sy.

"I'm Sy, that's Akane and she's-"

"Risha Makrovit... I can introduce myself, Sy.", growled Risha when she glared at the blue haired man, who smiled sweating, "Wait... Thrinty ? That D. Monkey? The worst generation, Luffy?" Once Nico heard Risha's question he chuckled, as if he expected it: "Yes, she's Luffy's older sister. Trust me, they're like two half of apples, their personalities are identical. Sometimes I wonder about their parents, were having hard time, I bet." When Risha and Sy watched Nico admiringly, Nico gasped and coughed, since he carried himself away: "Anyway, what's with Murlock? He doesn't seem to be a tough fighter, but he defeated so many pirates-"

"20 Million Beries", murmured Sy, while looking at the ground.

"... what?"

"His bounty is 20.000.000 Beries, Nico-san.", repeated Sy while taking Akane in his hands, "And not just for showing off, he defeated over 50 crews. Shouldn't we help Thrinty? I don't think she'll be okay after all-"

"She's fine, please show me the way."

"... Alright, please follow me."

Nico surprised, how could it be, that Captain, who didn't have any strong aura coming from him, was this strong? Over 50 crews? He had to have a trick behind all this, but why were they chained to him? With all the questions in his mind, Nico followed Sy downstairs, while Risha also followed them looking around to not be seen by anyone.

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"Shishishi! You are really good in fighting! Pink-Spearman!"

"W- What!? You dare to call me that!?"

"Ne! Do you want to join my crew? Ishishishi!"

"What!? You're ridiculous! I'm here for my justice!"

When Thrinty landed on the edge of the ship side board, reaching the opposite side of the ship, where the steering wheel port was, Brad twirled around in the air making a circle, causing a strong swing at her: "EAGLE SLASH!", and destroyed the ship's bowsprit. Brad stayed still, not moving even an inch, waiting for Thrinty to appear, since he knew, she didn't get the hit.

"You! Don't destroy the ship, how are we going to return, if you destroy it?!", yelled Thrinty, who was standing behind him pointing at him. Brad without hesitating turned himself, swinging his spear at her, but Thrinty noticed that and jumped backwards. In the second when she jumped, Brad smirked and threw his spear at her. Thrinty flinched: "Crap-!", slightly turned her body even more backwards, where the spear flew past next to her face.

Because it was unexpected for her, she needed to change her landing position, she turned her body full around and landed on the deck wobbling. Once she calmed down she shouted with clenched fist to Brad: "YOU! That was dangerous! You could've hurt me!"

"This is what I'm trying to do, Monkey-girl!", shouted back Brad and took another short cylinder-formed metal part.

"Monkey girl!?"

When Brad dashed toward confused Thrinty, he pressed a button on the short metal pipe and expanded full into the 3 meters spear pointing directly at her, like a bull: "This is your end!"

"Not so fast!", Thrinty yelled back grinningly.

When Thrinty stretched her hand, showing her palm to Brad and once the edge of the spear reached her, she slightly turned her hand to grab the spear, but she let her hand following along the spear lightly, not even touching it. Before Brad noticed it, he was too late to avoid her push, where she used her other hand to push him forward and twirled 180 degrees, while stepping backwards. Brad almost tripped, where he couldn't stop, but had to run few more steps front. When he finally stopped himself. he glared at her behind his shoulder, and saw Thrinty frowning, when she looked at the person standing in front of him.

"What's the matter Brad, can't you catch the flying Monkey?", reached the voice to Brad, who quickly turned his head back front.

"...Murlock..."

"Who are you calling a Monkey! You parrot-maniac!", shouted furiously Thrinty while clenching her fist in the air. Brad gasped and looked at Thrinty thinking, she was truly ridiculous, causing Murlock angry. Murlock's face twitched a couple times and responded: "Youuu, won't get away this time.. but, it doesn't matter, I think I should add you to my collection. A monkey, I never had it before~."

".. Add to your collection? Hey! What do you mean by that! What does make you think, you'll defeat me?!", shouted Thrinty with a slight confuse and furious emotion. She was curious, what he meant by that, so she stayed calm and waited for his explanation while glaring at Murlock, who smirked and said: "This is my true army, (...)" and snapped his fingers.

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"Where actually are we? This doesn't look a 'magazine room' at all.", asked Nico, while the two persons were leading him the way under deck port. The walls weren't out of wood, but made out of metal. The hall was dark with just some light candles on the walls, but strangely Nico noticed the light in front of them was pink-purple. That didn't augur well, thought Nico.

"Murlock-sam- ... He is always busy under the deck port, god knows what he's doing over there, but since he's busy with Thrinty, it's a good chance to take a look at it now.", said Risha with a worried voice. Sy continued: "He's known as a 'Madman Scientist' in his bounty Wanted Poster, this is why we think he has a labor here" Nico started the next conversation by asking them: "How long are you guys here?"

"3 months", answered Risha while scratching her arm.

"Uh~ It's not so long at all, what were you doing before?"

"We were pirates hunters", answered Sy and glanced at Nico behind his shoulder. Nico made a worried look, as well an awkward smile: "I-I see... I hope you won't hunt us down, haha-"

"We're also pirates now. Nico-san.", replied Risha with a slight disappointed face and letting her memories flow wildly in her head. Although they aimed the door in front of them, Nico looked right and left, to the side-doors. It had little windows, made out of a thick glass, but Nico couldn't see what was in there, since the rooms behind the metal-doors were dark. But that it didn't made any sound from it, it only made it more terrifyingly. Ignoring it, they finally reached the main door and tried to open it.

"No luck, eh? Too bad we don't have a thief here.", commented Nico, but Risha shoved Nico aside saying to move back. Nico and Sy stepped few steps backwards and waited for Risha to act. She twirled herself and kicked the door, causing a loud break sound behind. Although of the strong kick, the door stood still, as if nothing happened, but Risha didn't gave up. She twirled once more the opposite side as before: "Hammer Break!", and this time after her powerful kick the door flew back and left an open passage. Akane jumped from Sy's arms and walked into the room, when Sy gasped and followed her looking just at her walking on the tiled floor, he shouted in a quiet voice: "Akane! Don't wander off too far, wait!"

Risha and Nico entered the room, a labor, where the light reflected on the floor and walls in a purple color. Nico's eyes widened, once he saw the labor room:

The walls contained shelves with many binders lying on it, sheet of papers, binders, pens, some weird bottles, syringes, all scattered around on the messy desk in front of the door. But the most striking objects were big cylinder-formed glass with a purple water in it, where weird living 'form-animals' were sleeping in it. It was five, no six of them, where the sixth was much further and bigger, which followed along the side of the wall to the right side. Risha and Nico stood quietly, waiting for one of them to say anything. But the silence made them look shocked and all they did was staring at the mutated animals in the glassy vessels.

"Over here!", Nico and Risha turned their heads to Akane, who called them while sitting on the desk. Sy in meanwhile opened the wardrobe next to the desk on the left side and his eyes widened, once he saw what was inside.

Nico stepped front to Akane and Risha followed him. When Akane pointed at a sheet of document, Nico took a look at it and Risha glanced over his shoulder. The brown haired man shocked. He took the paper and read it while frowning and murmuring: "... Chimera..?!"

"What?!", gasped Risha and once she grabbed the document, where she looked closely to it and reading it out loudly, Nico smiled while sweating: "The next experiment was a failure.", she started, "As always can't combine the sea kings... Cause: Unknown..."

Sy couldn't believe it either, once Nico asked him what he thought about it, Sy quickly shut the wardrobe and turned himself to Nico and Risha, as if he was guarding the wardrobe: "Ah? What'd you said?", asked Sy while smiling awkwardly and a sweat drop fell of his shocked face. Risha, without even looking at Sy continued her reading: "One quarter Lion's ear, two Rhino's horns, three snakes... this is a recipe for making a chimera..?! What is his aim!? His cruelty is far beyond that!"

"What's in that wardrobe...Sy.", asked politely and calmly Nico, as Risha looked at curious Nico and then at Sy frowning, not knowing what was going on. Sy looked at the ground, to avoid Nico's and Risha's suspicious faces and murmured under his nose: " ..it..'s...h..an..."

The two standing persons in front of Sy, noticed him clenching his fist out of his anger. Risha took a look at his face once more and this time Sy's expression was far beyond angrier, than she ever saw. "What's wrong", asked Akane when she looked at him. Sy continued in his quiet and angry voice: "I won't forgive him,... this is much worse than we thought, he's not trying to make Animal-Chimeras..."

When Sy raised his head up and before he was going to finish his sentence, Nico thought it was not possible and Risha took a look one more time at her document she noticed the written word, she was feared of: "Human's body parts?!", she flinched.

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"What?! Human-Chimeras!?", shocked Thrinty after Murlock's explaining, when she saw dozen pirates nearing to her. Murlock grinned and his face showed full of pleasure, because he wanted to see her in a shocked state: "That's right, my genius project, Human-Chimeras. Hahahahah! How genius is that! And it's working! I should get a higher bounty prize, but... to not let my project revealed, I needed to stay away and the bounty didn't change.", he sighed, "I really can't wait to show the world my brilliantly!"

When Thrinty glanced at Brad, who was still squatting on the floor, she whispered, so Murlock couldn't hear it, but Brad could: "So this is your justice.. and I thought you were-...!"

Her eyes widened, when she saw Brad's shocked face. Aah, so Brad didn't know that, what if he was one of the defeated pirates? Thrinty thought. Brad was staring forward, not at Murlock, but he felt a rage in his heart.

"...why...", clenched Brad his teeth widely.

When the called pirates surrounded Thrinty and Brad, they stood still, waiting for Murlock's commands. Thrinty thought, this is why these pirates would listen to every Murlock's command, because he was controlling them, but how? How could she break the chains connecting the pirates to Murlock? She got worried: "This is bad, they're not even controlling themselves, but walking like zombies... very bad..."

"So~? It's time for a show!"

Once Murlock pointed at Thrinty and was ready to command his underlings to charge at her, Thrinty startled, and rushed to the spear, which was thrown by Brad, when they fought earlier. Brad's instinct told him to block his rushing opponent, but he was confused, which side should he choose. He knew it couldn't be like this, his Captain was doing the wrong thing, he knew that. But what about this woman? He just met her, he didn't know anything about her, so what did it make him to put his trust on her?

He decided shortly before Murlock's shout: "Oi! Here!", Brad thought, and threw his spear to Thrinty, while he grabbed another hidden spear and expanded it. When Thrinty saw the thrown spear, she smiled with her open mouth widely, so her teeth were shown and rose her hand up to catch it.

"CHAAARGE!", shouted Murlock and his parrot, which was sitting on his shoulder, gave a loud roar, similar to a beast roar.

In the second the pirates didn't rushed toward her, but let their body change into weird creatures. Their inner body parts ripped out of their body to the outside, causing the skin torn apart and leaving the transformed and mutated body behind. Each of them had a peculiarly transformed part, where each of their body part exchanged into an animal-chimera parts and where each of them looked differently from the others.

"What's this?!", flinched Thrinty, who couldn't even believe her eyes. The transformation of the victims from Murlock made them look terrifying, they struggled and screamed out in great pain, but instead of being disgusted, Thrinty pitied them, making a sad and tearful face, and clenched her teeth, making her want to rescue them. Brad shouted at her to snap out of her thoughts: "Oi! Monkey-girl! Wake up dammit!"

When Thrinty caught the spear at the last second, but in an amateur way, she left her mouth opened to say something. She held the spear tightly to her chest quickly shutting her mouth and looking at the ground, letting her bangs cover her face. While shivering and mumbling under her nose so quietly, that even the pink haired person, who was standing in a pose next to her, couldn't hear her words, Brad thought she looked hopeless.

"She's not good...I can't fight against all of them alone..!", flinched Brad, when the first mutated Chimera, which transformed itself way quicker than the rest, who were in the middle of transforming, rushed toward them. But Brad didn't stepped back, in opposite, he defended Thrinty, when the Chimera, which looked a little bit like a green-dark brown tiger-bear, shove its claws at her, Brad shove his spear at the Chimera and blocked its scratch.

"What's the matter, Brad, why are you defending her..", said Murlock in the cold voice, and noticed the day is shortly going to an end, he glanced at the sky, thinking the night's coming, "You know,", looked back at Brad, "you cannot live long enough without me."

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[ A few minutes earlier;]

Nico surprised and repeated Sy's words to be sure: " An antidote? To each of you?"

Sy continued his predictions on Murlock: "Yes, every second day. 10ml. Although he called it like this, it felt as a some kind drug. We had to take it, otherwise we'd feel dizzy and tired as hell. If you didn't take your portion for a while, it felt as if your lungs burned. But I never found such an illness in any of us, he must told us the lie, being us ill... damn, and I'm the doctor here.", and hit the wall out of anger.

"... Sy...", whispered Risha his name and looked sadly, while touching her arm, where most likely she got the injections. Nico noticed that, and to make her feel relieved he said: "But we're not sure, if it's from this lab. If we keep investigating, I'm sure we'll- "

"We'll what?! What's making you think it's not from here!? It's Obvious it's from here, and we're going to change into this.. Things!", raised unexpectedly Risha her voice so loud, the echo flew through the halls and the room for a couple of seconds. She shoved Nico against the wall, while grabbing his collar: "Don't think we're some kind of inexperienced kids! We're been through hard times, even more than you can imagine! Don't think it'll make me feel better! Kono Yaro!"

"Risha..!", Sy was ready to pull her back, but Nico grabbed her hands firstly, where she let go of his collar, and he explained his thoughts: "It'd be weird for Captain to waste your skills, and let transform into a reckless monster, who's following him blindly."

"... a waste? ... What is the meaning of this...", asked Sy, when he noticed Risha was listening closely, not even daring interrupt Nico. Nico let Risha and Sy think for a minute and then continued his explanation while looking into Risha's eyes: "You're one of these people, who can take care of yourself, even to judge the situation correctly, not waiting for Captain's orders. The pirates working on the deck, on other side, are nothing but vessels and to make them...well, 'stronger' Murlock decided to change them. You're strong enough exactly in this way, this is why for a Captain, it's a waste to change your strength."

The silence lasted for around ten minutes. In meanwhile Nico took a look at the mutated Chimeras swimming in the glassy vessels and thought: ".. but what about them.. are they failures? Murlock seemed to be busy when he left them here. Or they're the results of the success, that's not good, Taichou might have a problem, if the crew's already infected, she..."

Risha finally snapped out of her thoughts and noticed, Nico still holding her hands: "! Y- You can let my hands go now!", she stuttered. After Nico turned his head to Risha, who blushed, he let her hands right away and smiled awkwardly, where he let a sweat-drop fall down. Risha quickly stepped back from Nico, glaring at him, while scratching her arm.

Sy noticed her scratching her arm and quickly grabbed her hand and pulled to himself, what caused her feel a slight pain: "Ouch! What are you doing-?!"

When Sy shoved her arm sleeve up, to see her arm, he saw the red wounded spots and green-brown color scales covering her upper arm. Risha quickly shove Sy and hid back her arm with her sleeve.

When Sy frowned and looked at her hopelessly, Risha looked aside with a sad look on her face and Nico watched at her worriedly. "How.. how long", started Sy, "How long do you have..."

"A week...", answered Risha without letting Sy to finish his sentence.
"We still have the time, we won't let you transform in one of these creatures, Risha", comforted her Nico, although he knew it was pointless, because her face showed, she already gave up on looking for the cure.

Suddenly a wild and loud roar of a beast passed their ears and the echo lasted long enough to make them stare at each other. Later after a long silence, Akane gasped and shouted to them: "You! Behind!"

When Nico, Sy and Risha looked at the glassy vessel, they noticed the chimera, which was inside of it, was actually awake. "How creepy", thought Risha and stepped a few steps back, while taking a dagger from her sleeve. The awaked Chimera glanced over its collar-fur and moved his eyes left and right, like a lizard's eye. When it blinked a few times, it began to hit against the glass with its 'frog legs' and Sy cursed: "C- Crap, that's doesn't look well-"

"It's not the only one!", continued Akane while looking at the rest of the glassy vessels, which all contained the chimeras. "This is bad!", startled Nico, "They're going to break the glass! Why are they waking now?!"

After Nico's, he called it; 'stupid question', he realized himself: "The roar... Beast waking other beasts, eh?"

Short after the other chimeras started to hit against the glass, Sy rushed toward the exit and turned to the rest calling them out: "Come on! We don't have time for this!"

As soon as Risha followed Sy, she shrugged when she noticed the wardrobe opened by itself, letting the blood flow out of it. Once she saw what was inside, she covered her mouth and of the disgust her eyes widened far widely:

"an... a-a- arm -" Nico grabbed her other hand, which wasn't infected, to not cause her pain and pulled her to Sy, who grabbed her hand and dashed away from this room. When Nico noticed a peculiarly object on the desk next to Akane, he stopped and pointed at the object: "A- Akane! Take that!"

Akane, who was ready to jump of the desk, glanced where Nico pointed at and startled: "N- no way.. is that-"

"Just grab it, and come here!"

Akane nodded and took the object in her mouth and jumped quickly of the desk and dashed toward the exit. Sy and Risha already were in the middle of the hall, but Sy, who was worried about Akane stopped: "Go Risha! I'll wait for them!"

"They're going to be fine, Sy! Let's run!"

"... tch", clenched Sy his teeth, and ran along with Risha to the exit.

When Akane reached the hall, Nico rushed behind her looking behind, where the glass already scattered and half of water in the vessel flooded the room, letting the trapped living forms to escape.

Nico snatched Akane and dashed forward to the exit, noticing on the way the locked rooms, which were quiet before, made wild furious animal's noises.

The dashing brown haired man cursed and noticed ahead was a split way to left and right. No time for the decision he took the right turn, which was not the exit, Risha and Sy took.

Meanwhile upstairs, where Risha and Sy reached the kitchen, noticing no one was inside, both of them dashed toward the main deck. Seeing Thrinty and Brad was surrounded by the giant Chimeras, way much bigger than these in vessels under deck port, Risha shouted with all her might, after the chimeras jumped all together at once at Thrinty and Brad: "BRAAD!"

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The time was flowing longer, than usually. Risha and Sy watched the wild chimeras, who surrounded Thrinty and Brad, jumping on the two unguarded people. Right above their heads, Brad still resisted on giving up, he shove his spear at them, to protect himself, but the next to him standing female had a blank mind. She didn't say anything, she didn't even raise her head toward her opponent, who were the wild chimeras.

"... this isn't right...", Brad heard the woman's whispered words. He couldn't take a look at her, because he was busy with considering, how to get out of this situation. But then he noticed something, what all of a sudden made him feel shocked:

His eyes widened as he felt heavy and hard breathing atmosphere. He got goose bumps on his arms and on his cheeks. He wasn't sure, what exactly it was, but it felt, as if he was standing up against a really strong opponent, so strong he would want to flee. For the short time being, he was worried, Murlock had another, but this time a stronger Chimera. He thought, perhaps from there came this heavy and fearful aura.

But he was wrong.

He realized all chimeras, which were thrown in the air, fell down on the floor just like that. Without even attacking on two unprotected people, Brad and Thrinty survived their opponents charge and the atmosphere went back to its normal calm flow.

Was it a dream? Maybe he was dead and this was usually happening, when the person died?

Once again, he got it wrong. He knew it right away, once he took a glance at Thrinty's face, where he heard her heavy breath. He saw her eyes was widened and she looked as if she saw a ghost.

It was a mystery for him, what exactly did Thrinty felt. It wasn't the fear, nor disappointment, nor she did give up. It was something else, something, that Brad couldn't understand. Suddenly his thoughts interrupted by Murlock's loud whisper: "...Haki..."

"Haki?", repeated Brad, when he looked at Murlock and then back to Thrinty, as if he waited for an explanation.

Instead of an answer, Thrinty snapped out quickly, ignoring the lying unmoving chimeras on the floor, she charged at Murlock with her spear in her hand. And this time, she held it properly and tightly, not even daring to drop it.

"HAAAAAHH!", yelled Thrinty, when she rose the spear forward and threw it to Murlock's direction. The man with the hat and the parrot on his shoulder didn't even feel amused by her sudden attack. He just dodged the thrown spear at him, and waited calmly for Thrinty's first punch, while preparing a proper stance to attack her. She was already this near to him, she was going to punch right in his face, entrusting her all feelings, what she felt before, but it was so obvious and Murlock had plenty time to dodge it and even to stab her with his sword.

In the exact moment, when he shoved his sword just a little, Thrinty's fist reached at Murlock's surrounding. He saw that coming, so he moved a little to the left side to dodge her attack, while pulling out his sword.

The pink haired man observed the situation, but he couldn't see everything at all. He himself couldn't understand, how did it happen, that Thrinty actually managed to punch Murlock's face. Although her fist showed little unclearly visible blue air, whatever it was, the punch was strong enough to knock out Murlock. Thrinty aimed his landing to the floor, so he wouldn't fly aboard. The Captain of the Feather Pirates couldn't even shove his sword fully, and he hit his head against the wooden floor, which cracked into pieces.

Brad could see his ex-captain's teeth fell out of his mouth, his face was crushed and his eyeballs went blank-white. The Captain was defeated, he thought and finally said: "... Y- You... just what in the world..."

Thrinty couldn't stand Murlock's face, so she didn't even look at him. Her bangs covered her eyesight. She immediately turned around and clenched her fist, while looking at Brad. Ignoring the lying opponent deep in the floor, she walked to Brad, not avoiding his eyes, and said in a strong and confident voice, far from childish and cheerful one: "You... are you going to continue the fight with me? Or you'll open your eyes now?"

"I didn't even... in first place...", murmured Brad, where he was unsure of his protest. Before any of them said anything, another female voice reached their ears: "Brad! Brad! Are you alright? What just happened? We felt something weird and- ..."

When Brad turned his head to the woman, whispered her name 'Risha', Thrinty glanced at her startling. She didn't know how to react, if they found out, she took their captain down, worrying they might become her enemies: "Ah, are you guys... ", and started to laugh awkwardly, while preparing herself to battle with them. But instead of attacking at Thrinty, Risha greeted her with a smile. It was weird for Thrinty, a while ago she saw Risha talking highly and emotionlessly toward Nico. How was that, she changed her behavior so quickly? Ah, right... Thrinty didn't noticed the time passed so quickly, it was already evening. Thrinty glanced over to the ocean horizon, to not miss the beautiful sunset.

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She saw the dark purple clouds and the sky, which was yellowish red. It was her favorite time of the day, where she could watch the slowly changing colors on the sky. The ocean mirrored the sun, which hid slowly, minute after minute, behind the ocean. She almost wanted to raise her hand and reach the sun, but she knew, if she had stopped the sun, the stars on the sky wouldn't showed up. Suddenly she felt nostalgic, as if she already experienced this situation. "As always she would raise her head up, to the sky, watching the different glowed stars. She would enjoy the last moment of the warm breeze, which was coming from the sun, and watching once again slowly changing the colors on the sky. She would ask Nico to sit next to her and as always he would complain about her slacking off and not working properly. But in the end, he would knock lightly on her head and sit next to her. Then another mate, a purple haired woman would join them, while hugging Thrinty, she would say Thrinty was adorable, when she was watching the sunset. After her a brown dreadlock-haired boy who was a 13-years-old boy, and a short blue haired man, who was tall and muscular, also in Nico's age, would join them. Thrinty, as always, would laugh, and would find their compared height hilarious. Next the quiet twins would suddenly appear next to Thrinty, where one of them loved and would smile at her, and the other one didn't even take a look at Thrinty. And suddenly behind Thrinty, the whole crew would appear and call out her name.

Thrinty would turn her head back to the sun and smile widely, as she can. So wide, even her cheeks start to hurt. "

Thrinty was daydreaming when out of blue Sy grabbed her shoulder, where she flinched, immediately opened her eyes and stepped a few steps back from him: "W- what are you-?", she stuttered, and wasn't sure what to think.

"Are you alright?"

When Thrinty heard his question, without answering him, she glanced at the floor, where she noticed some cracked, broken wood parts. It must been from the broken hole, where she punched Murlock. She preferred to not think about it, so she finally answered him cheered up: "Yes, of course I am! Shishishi!"

Sy was relieved to hear that, but he was concerned about Risha's health. He glanced at her, where Risha nodded, then at Brad, where he also nodded, and all of them walked toward the lying defeated enemy. Thrinty only watched them going. Her eyes followed them, when suddenly she remembered about Nico and started to look for him, turning her head right and left: "Uhm, where's Nico? You know, that guy with brown hair-"

Risha turned her head to Thrinty, but she was still walking: "He should be here in any minute. Don't worry, we're friends now.", and smiled.

"I know you're still breathing, Murlock. You know how to turn the chimeras back, right? ... Answer me!", shouted furiously Sy at the lying and unconscious person. Risha grabbed Sy's shoulder to hold his anger back and calmed him: "Sy, calm down!"

Sy was protective toward Risha and Brad, because he always was feeling responsible for their health. But this time, his medical skills have failed, he thought, he was useless.

"But it's over, right? She have defeated him, right?", asked Brad, not confident with his words. It made him feel upset, he couldn't even stand up against his captain, and here Thrinty came, out of nowhere. She managed to defeat the captain so quickly. It was ridiculous for him, but he knew there was a catch. It couldn't end up like this, right?

And this time, he was right.

When Risha and Sy glanced at the parrot, which was flailing his wings, and the chain suddenly dropped on the floor, the parrot flew on the rail and glared at them talking: "Aar! ...Don't think, it's the end of the true terror, little brats!"

"Little brats?!", snapped out Thrinty, who observed the whole situation from the beginning, "Who is a little brat, you green hen!" "Green hen?!", repeated Brad, "You seriously have to stop making up weird nicknames! And you seriously have a low temper! Monkey girl!"

Thrinty only crossed her arms and looking aside, feeling offended and wondering why was Brad on the parrot's side. But the parrot instead of getting angry, laughed as a hyena-like: "Agagaga! You are an interesting woman, Monkey girl. I can't wait to devour you!"

Risha flinched, once she suddenly realize something: "It was you! It wasn't Murlock, who controlled it?! It was you! And that roar, was it your command back then!?" When Sy got the point, what Risha tried to say, he couldn't stop to say it: "All this time it was a parrot the commander?! Who was Murlock then-?!"

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Under the main deck Nico, who held Akane in his hands, looked for the exit. Although Nico hated to admit it, they were lost in narrow halls, and Akane couldn't even guide him, because she was unconscious. Nico cursed, because it he blamed himself, Akane got hit by a chimera, which charged at them a while ago. Nico defeated chimera quickly, but for him it was a desperate situation, because he was lost. Luckily the other chimeras stopped following him and he was all alone, so he thought when suddenly he noticed a door opened by itself, as if someone held the door open for him. Nico rushed inside, but not unarmed. He snapped his fingers and a dagger, which was designed with different flowers, appeared from his dimension and he grabbed it. When he rushed toward the door and entered the room, the door suddenly shut. Nico startled, thinking he felt into an easily trap, he turned around toward the door, and noticed a poor looking boy. The boy was wearing a white shirt without sleeves. His shoulders were thin, as well as his arms, the bones in his arms were almost visible. "Y- you... are you one of these guys, who attacked us?", the boy asked.

Nico didn't know what to say, because he wasn't sure, whether the boy was his enemy or not. Nico stayed quiet, glaring at him, not seeing his eyes, because his bangs covered it. When the boy surprised, what Nico held in his arms, he startled and said in a calm, but frightened voice: "Is that.. that cat, which belongs to the doc..?"

Since Nico didn't feel any danger coming from the poor looking boy, he dropped his guard and sighed: "Yes, it's Sy's. ... what's your name?"

"H- Hug, sir..."

"Hug?", repeated Nico frowning, thinking he overheard him, "Hug as .. Hugo, you mean? I mean your real name not- ah forget it, it doesn't matter."

Hug gulped and felt embarrassed, but he replied anyway: "I don't remember my real name. As well the others.."

"Others? What others?"

"The rest of us... you know, defeated pirates by Murlock's hands?"

When Nico got it, what Hug was trying to say, he nodded as a thank, for the door. Hug scratched his cheek out of his embarrassment, but Nico wasn't looking at Hug, he was looking around, checking if the room was secured or not. It was the kitchen room. It seemed to be one. The walls were made of white tiles, designed with a black tile-strap in the middle and the kitchen cabinets shoved against it. Although it sounded as if the room was big enough, to put 10 people in it, it wasn't. The room was really narrow, the kitchen tools were hanging on the walls, and lying around on the tables and on the furniture. The storage wardrobe were close by, Nico couldn't really move, and on the ceiling the lamps were hanging, knocking Nico's head. When Nico shoved one of the lamps from him, Hug passed by Nico and went forward deeper in the room: "Ah, please this way to way out..!"

Nico immediately followed Hug, because he was desperate to save his captain.

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Suddenly the parrot's body cracked, which grow taller and slowly changing its form. Sy and Thrinty stepped back, because the height of the parrot was unbelievably high, which reached almost 10 meters.

The feathers also grew bigger, and the scales started to cover its chest, protecting it, as an armor. The ship started to swing wildly, front and back, left and right. The sky was suddenly filled with black clouds, when Thrinty noticed the stars were hidden behind the clouds she rose her head up and did a stance to be ready for anything.

All of them sensed, the mutated 'parrot' released a terrifying aura and they have to retreat for a while. Once the sun hid fully behind the ocean and the sky was truly dark, the mutated giant chimera grabbed the rails to lose the control of the balance. But it still had to step out of the ship, to not destroy it, and reached his bird-feet the ground in the shallow water.

When the green-brown scaled-feather beast released another roar, and this time way much stronger and louder than the previous one, the water of the ocean started to flow even more wildly and the flying animals from the island flew high into the sky, fleeing for their lives. The standing people on the deck had to cover their ears, to not let their ear drums explode. They never heard such an angry and furious roar before, except for Thrinty. She, who also covered her ears, had a challenging look in her eyes, and didn't even dare to take her eyes from the beast. Once the beast stopped it roar, the sound still echoed for a little while. The clouds gave a storm and lighting weather, which made the fearful beast look even more terrifying, and the beast watched them with its shiny, red eyes. Thrinty ran toward the beast, once she passed the three shocked people, Sy tried to grab her, but he couldn't even move, because of the sudden shock: "O- Oi you?!"

When Thrinty reached in front of the red eye beast, she inhaled with all her might, as soon as the air filled her lungs, which expanded widely, she released with her voice a different kind of roar. The long sound, she released, was higher than the beast's roar. It pierced the beast's ear drums, it felt as it got an invisible needle in his ear. The scream of the black haired female made the ship also swing, but less than the beast's roar, though it made the beast scream out in pain. It wasn't the time waiting for Thrinty's scream to calm down, because the beast started to stamping his legs on the water, covering its ear-holes while screaming in pain. When Thrinty observed the beast's movements and reaction of her scream, she sudden noticed, the beast's feet reached above her head. Thrinty flinched, but Brad grabbed her arm and pulled her to himself, to not get smashed by the feet.

Thrinty noticed Sy and Risha already waved at them, on the other side of the ship shouting: "Over here!" Thrinty and Brad ran toward them, and Brad shouted at her angrily: "What was that?! Did you try to kill us?! I told you to not make him angrier!" "But he challenged me..", protested Thrinty childishly. Brad facepalmed and had enough of her ideas, where he almost wanted to choke her. But before any actions were taken, Sy commented: "It's gonna be hard to defeat that bird. What are we going to do now?"

Risha and Brad only looked at each other and glanced on the floor, worrying the beast might calm down and attack them. "What do you mean, what are we going to do... Isn't it obvious?"

When the three childhood friends quickly moved their heads to Thrinty, who had a confident face and smiled, they kept quiet to let Thrinty continue: "We're going to beat that monster! He challenged us! Shishishi!"

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" 'Challenged us', Are you... serious-?"

"Of course I am!", answered Thrinty at Sy's question, "Isn't it obvious?"

Looking at her confident face, Brad joined her decision: "Let's take that beast down. Plus she did defeat Murlock easily, so our chances are higher than before, Sy!"

When Sy took a glance at grinning Thrinty, the ship tilted toward the beast's side. Right away the four wobbling persons grabbed the rail tightly to not slide down to the whining beast. The beast grabbed the rails, and pulled to itself. But it got ripped and without any other choice, the beast placed its foot at the deck. To reach its victims, it raised its muscular big arm at them and reached for Thrinty. But all of a sudden they heard a gunshot and the beast screamed out in pain once again. Not even thinking about the consequences, the beast returned to its place, putting its leg back into the water and the ship swung once again wildly on the deep shore.

"Ooh! Finally back! We're kinda in trouble, Nico!", shouted Thrinty happily to see him again. When Nico pulled a trigger aiming for the beast's eye while squatting, he grabbed a rail standing next to him right away and waited until the ship calmed down. Once the ship stood still Nico shouted, but also whispered to her, who hid behind the mast: "Taicho?! What did you do this time?!"

"Shishishi, it turned out, he was the real one! Our enemy.."

"What?!"

"Nico, we don't have time for this!"

"Risha! You're all safe, what are your guys planning to do now?!"

"Uhm I don't know, maybe kill the beast?!"

"Guys, don't be loud!"

"Shut up Brad! Everyone! We're going to free all the pirates!"

"All of them?"

"What, do you have a better idea, Sy?"

"N- no.. but half of them are chimeras.."

"Well we'll find a cure for all of them, then!"

"It's not that easy-"

"Actually it is..!"

When everyone looked at Hug, who was hiding behind Nico, he continued stuttering: "I- I was cleaning the halls as a punishment and... well I saw his doings."

Sy repeated his words as a question: "His doings?"

"W- well, Murlock's...", answered Hug with a poor confidence and continued, "He often was talking to himself..."

Suddenly Brad solved another case: "He was talking to his parrot, no rather the parrot was commanding him." Risha glanced at him curiously. "How do you know that?", asked Risha doubting and turned her head toward him, "I mean, how possibly could you know that?"

Before Brad could explain his predictions, Nico interrupted him quickly, gesturing to make them stay quiet.

All of them sit quietly on the wet and wooden floor, without even daring to say any word. Risha, Hug, Thrinty and Brad looked at Nico, while wondering what had Nico on his mind. Nico glanced to the other side of the ship, where the great beast was seen last time, but it was not there anymore.

It was gone.

"It's too quiet...", Sy finally broke the silence, while looking around, in case to spot the beast. Brad felt disturbed by the fact, they couldn't see the beast anymore and whispered: "That beast is like ten meters tall! How is that possible for it to disappear?!"

"Let's think of the plan-", suggested Nico, but Thrinty quickly interrupted him while making a confident face: "He challenged us, what is there to think about? We're going to defeat him!"

"W- Wait!"

Everyone took their look at Hug, who was still squatting behind Nico. Nico didn't turn his head to Hug, because he already knew, what was Hug going to say. This was why Nico said it instead of Hug, while sighing: "The victims are under this deck, Taichou. We cannot fight here-"

And once again an interruption, but this time Sy was the one, who interrupted Nico: "How about to fight the beast on the Island.."

"...Yeah, this is a good idea, but we have to lure it there.", nodded Nico, and looked at Brad, "Brad and I will lure the beast somehow, you and Risha take Hug with you and find the cure. I don't know how, but you already have the knowledge of medical stuffs, which I don't, Sy."

Sy couldn't decline it, it was true what Nico said, but he felt, his and Murlock's or beast's knowledge was different. But Sy wanted to find the cure badly:

This is why he stood up, thinking he was done with hiding and after him Risha and Brad. Their rising made the mood more confident, even Hug got his courage and stood up after them. Nico surprisingly glanced behind his shoulder at Hug and then smirked. He muttered something under his nose and also rose up, saying: "Then, this is our mission: Sy, Hug and Risha, rescue the pirates and find the cure. Brad and I lure the beast to the island."

"What about Thrinty?" When Hug asked about Thrinty, everyone glanced to the place, they saw her just a second ago, but she wasn't there. Nico started to search for her by looking around. She was nowhere to seen and he whispered to himself while sweating: ".. T- Taichou... "

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Suddenly a loud beast-roar appeared again, this time from the sky. When they turned their heads to the source of the roar, they watched Thrinty, who set her foot on the rail while shouting: "You! Already got chicken out? Shishishi! As I thought you're a green hen-!"

All of them felt a strong wind coming from above, so strong the ship swung again. Hug and Risha yelled instinctively and grabbed near standing rails to not fall down. Brad and Sy just watched the above flying beast, who was causing the strong wind in the first place. The beast flailed his wings back and front, staying in the air not moving from there. Nico surprised, but quickly got back to his senses and knocked on Brad's shoulder shouting: "Let's start our mission!"

The strong impact of the wind muted his words, but Brad understood Nico right away and followed him, who ran toward Thrinty's direction. On the way to Thrinty, Brad grabbed his spear, which was stuck deep in the wooden floor, from previous fight. He pulled it out and reached Thritny and Nico. Nico and Thrinty were holding the rails, and Nico started to yell clear and loud: "Taichou! We are going to lure the beast toward this island! And fight there!"

Thrinty was looking at him, trying to understand his words and behind her Brad was glancing over her shoulder and nodded. Thrinty closed her eyes for a second, to clear up her mind. After she opened back her eyes and stared at the island, where they were supposed to fight, she nodded.

But wondering, Brad asked Nico doubtfully: "But how are you going to across the water? Although it's narrow, it's deep enough to sink here!"

Nico turned his head to Brad, wondering if Brad already knew about it, but to spare the precious time, Brad told him right away: "I already know, you are devil fruit user! So there's no time for that!"

Brad was right, Nico thought. When they felt the strong stormy wind stopped, all of them glanced to the sky and the beast charged at them from above. "Crap!", thought Nico, but he remembered, he made the passage of the wooden pillars before, so the idea of getting out of here already was set:

He pushed Brad and Thrinty out of the place, where the beast crashed his feet into. It damaged the floor and the rails and the beast quickly pulled his leg back to himself, not even daring to let them escape. It opened its beak to bite them. Brad remembered, he saw the wooden pillars outside the ship swimming on the water. Thrinty instead, followed their lead, where Nico charged forward and pointed at the swimming pillars. Brad jumped aboard, exactly where Nico pointed at, and Thrinty after him, not even knowing where she was jumping at. As soon as she was in the air, falling down, she quickly noticed the swimming pillars and landed with one feet at one of them. The beast growled once more and pulled the rails, which were leading around the side of the ship and where Nico placed his foot, to himself. It made Nico wobbling and once the rails were ripped Nico fell on the floor. The green scaled and muscular beast rushed right away to Nico.

"Nico!", flinched Brad and while looking from below he was ready to turn back and help Nico, but Thrinty grabbed his shoulder and shouted immediately: "Don't stop!"

"What!? Don't you care, what'll happen to him?!" When Thrinty heard his response, she grinned confidently so Brad surprised: "I trust him, besides, he'll be fine. He's stronger than you think, Brad.", and she dashed forward jumping on the pillars, trying to not fall into the water.

Brad stood for a second, but once he turned his head back up, hesitantly he followed Thrinty's steps.

"Up there, Little bug! I'm going to devour you! Gagagaga!", laughed hysterically the beast. Although the beast's accent was the same as his previous ones, before he transmuted, the voice was deeper and more hoarseness-alike. Nico noticed the beast was near to him, already reaching for him. Nico, who didn't even have time to get up, quickly rolled himself aboard and fell out from the ship. The beast crashed into the floor leaving a damaged hole. Nico had difficulties with landing, when he was falling. But he managed to bounce from the ship's hull and reached one of the wooden swimming pillar.

Quickly as he heard as the beast behind him, instinctively dashed forward, following Thrinty and Brad, who were meters away from him. The beast landed into the water, although the water wasn't so deep, it covered its whole legs. Although that, it had difficulties with moving around. So the green scaled Mutant decided to fly instead of walking past the ashore. It flailed his wings hard as he can and once it flapped his wings down, it caused big waves on the water, making Nico wobble more and slip. Luckily Nico was already halfway close to the shore, where Thrinty and Brad reached. Nico could stand up in the narrow shore, where it reached his ankle.

"Nico! Faster!", shouted Thrinty, when she saw the beast was flying halfway to them. It was way faster than Nico, but he reached the dry sand on the shore firstly and reached out for Thrinty's hand, running into the forest. Brad was going to follow them, when suddenly the beast flew past above their heads and landed between them and the forest, blocking their way.

"Tch, too late, eh?", cursed Nico under his nose.

The gust of wind caused the sand flew so wildly around, they had to cover their faces. The beast crouched and sat down dog-like waiting for the air to calm down. A few minutes passed, when the dust and sand in the air slowly reached the ground and stopped blocking the sight. No one dared to move and to make any noise. They waited for the beast speech and finally the beast spoke almighty: "It's futile to drag me all the way here, bugs-"

When Thrinty snapped, she clenched her teeth and stepped forward, pulling her hand off from Nico, and shouted loudly: "You! Stop calling us whatever you like! Also, I'll make you pay for what you've done to all of them! What 'successfully', what 'brilliantly'! You're just using their lives and experimenting selfishly!"

The echo of her words lasted for a while, but the beast started to chortle, barely coughing up his words: "So, you want to make me pay you~?" The beast places his head right in front of Thrinty. Once Nico realized the beast's beak is so close to his Captain, he snapped and placed his first step forward to stop them, but Thrinty said calmly: "You'll never do it ever again, no one will..."

As the giant bird opened his beak a little to show its teeth and hissed, Thrinty continued: "No one will ever inherit your knowledge, no one will ever find out about your work-!"

The beast hissed with his beak loudly, that made Thrinty wobbling and her hair flew backwards. But Thrinty stood with her stance hardly in sand, not even moving an inch. She glared angrily at the beast, wanting to avenge the pirates, who survived the experiments. The beast closed it beak and glared at her with its red eyes.

"Oi Monkey Girl!", shouted Brad, and surprisingly, as he didn't expect Thrinty to turn around, he continued hesitantly: "Y- you- ... aren't... alone, you know!"

As he saw her grinning and nodding, he blushed lightly, not knowing what was happening to him. The beast instead went furious and flapped his wings to the three standing people's direction and pulled back himself asking her the last time: "Then... what is your name, little human..."

Thrinty grinned and yelled: "My Name is, Thrinty D. Monkey! Remember it!"

"I remember it very well, D. Monkey... Garp.."

When all of them surprised, once they heard the word of Thrinty's Grandpa, Thrinty smirked again and shouted: "Not bad, for an old man, isn't he? Shishishi!"

The beast also grinned, but it was barely to be seen, because of its beak. It recalled all its memories about its and Garp's meeting as enemies. But the giant bird held a grudge to Garp, which made him more furious and flew into the sky, meters above them.

"Luckily it's night.. at a daytime we wouldn't see him because of the sun... Taichou!", and Nico turned his head to Thrinty, who also looked at him, "It's just another enemy."

"Shishishi! Right! Yooosh!", motivated Thrinty herself and clenched her fist, "We're going to defeat him!"

Brad felt awkwardly, having nothing to say, but Nico knocked his shoulder and motivated him: "You too, don't just stand here!"

It was a little thing, but it made Brad feel assured, they're with him. Although they just met, and barely know each other, Thrinty and Nico were good at making friends, but also at making enemies.

Brad whispered under his nose, to not let Nico hear his words: "So.. this is your justice.. hah..so let's it be!", and grinned.

When the beast shove with all its might wings at them, Thrinty and Nico dodged it. They were separated from each other, which was probably the beast's plan in the first place. Brad instead dashed toward the beast and placed its spear deep in the sand and jumped at his opponent. He took his last two weapons from his pocket and the spears sized to its original forms. When Brad landed on its wing he stabbed it deeply: "Stop flying wildly already!"

The beast released a scream, but no longer after that, since from its shoulder, the beast grow his another wing in a second.

Brad flinched: "High speed regeneration?!" and got hit by the third grew up wing.

"OI! Brad!", shouted instinctually Thrinty, when Brad was threw in the air backwards.

Nico sneaked under the beast's wing, thinking how could he win this battle against the big sized monster. Once he started to calculate in his head, thinking about his opponent's weaknesses, Thrinty shouted loudly while clenching her fists: "Oi! You Monster! You wanted to get me, right?! Come and get me!"

The beast turned its beak toward Thrinty and flailed around. On other side it was bad for Nico, he had to avoid the beast's wings to not get smashed. When their opponent swung with its all might backwards, it dashed without any hesitance to Thrinty. Thrinty felt surprised, she didn't know the beast can fly so quickly. She ran toward the forest with everything, she got: "CRAP! YOU'RE CHEATING!"

"Gagaga! I'll get you for sure!"

Nico worriedly stood, not sure what to think. He was already going to follow them, when suddenly Brad interrupted him: "Nico-san!..", coughed he, "Look at that! At that!", and pointed behind his shoulder.

Nico startled and again, he wasn't sure what to think about what he saw just right now.

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"You're not getting away! Gagaga!", laughed the beast and tossed the trees on its way. Thrinty climbed on one of the tree. She revealed herself in front of the beast: "I am not running away! I swear I'll avenge all of them!"

"All of them?! You don't even know them! Don't get so cocky, little brat!", the beast yelled and ripped the tree, where she was standing on. But shortly after that, she managed to jump on another tree, also standing on top of it and continued: "You seriously piss me off!"

That time Thrinty decided to reveal her true strength and her opponent noticed it:

Thrinty jumped from the tree on the ground, where there were no trees surrounding her. She was waiting for the big bird in an empty place. Was she ridiculous? And reckless? It was the last place, she could hid from him.

But she didn't mind it, in opposite, it was her plan to lure the beast into this empty place.

The beast of course followed her and tighten its shoulder, where more than one spikes grew up.

Thrinty on other side stood quietly, but so her stance was fastened to the ground.

She placed her hand in front of her, aiming for the beast's head. Suddenly the atmosphere got thick and heavy. This time a lot harder than the previous ones. The beast ignored it, flying toward her, to crash her in one attack. Its standing calmly opponent had her eyes closed, which made the beast more furious.

"Thinking full of yourself, aren't you? Gagaga, it's your end!", thought the beast.

After a while, Thrinty opened her eyes again and clenched the fist. A slightly invisible fire-like surrounded her fist. She was ready to counterattack and hit the ground with all her might. The ground cracked all the way to the beast, who flinched, but couldn't stop itself. When it continued its running, the empty place turned into a cracked hole and from deep inside the water started to splash to outside.

Thrinty had no idea about the water, which made her surprised, because that was the ocean water. She knew it made her feel more tired and dizzy. This is why she decided to stay calm and continue her battle.

The beast crashed against the trees on the ground before Thrinty dodged it by jumping high above. But unnoticeably, she didn't see the spikes on the beast's shoulders and back. She thought it was seriously bad and she had no chance to survive this time. She flailed around her arms to get a balance on her fall. Out of blue she noticed a big mammoth dashing to her direct from the forest. Once the mammoth entered their battle place, on Thrinty's face, a big smile appeared because she saw:

"NICOO! SHISHISHI!"

"T- Taichou!"

Nico and Brad were riding on the mammoth. Fortunately for them, it was the mammoth, Thrinty rode on before. The leader mammoth, which had its big two horns and 4 tusks roared happily, when it saw Thrinty.

But Brad was worried, how was she going to be rescued from her fall. Once Nico noticed, the beast was slowly getting up, he shouted to Thrinty: "Taichou! Watch out!"

The beast quickly turned itself toward Thrinty and caught her with its muscular and feathered arm. Thrinty startled and started to struggle but couldn't get free herself.

"Nnggh!", yelped Thrinty, who seriously felt being crushed in the beast's muscular tighten hands. While it clenched its fist more and more, it whispered: "You are seriously getting on my nerves!"

Nico couldn't just watch his Captain being crushed in pain. He snaps his fingers and caught a samurai sharp sword, which appeared from nowhere in front of him. Brad surprisingly observed Nico and barely coughed out his following words: "Y- you.. how did you..?!"

Nico smirked as if it was a secret, but he promised him to tell about his Devil Fruit ability later. Brad blushed slightly, when he saw Nico as his admirer. His admirer jumped out of mammoth's head, trying to reach the beast and to make the beast release Thrinty. But it was meters far away and it'd take time to run all the way, so the mammoth roared once.

Nico's full attention was set on the mammoth, trying to understand what the mammoth tried to say.

Although no one could understand it, the mammoth placed its trunk under Nico's feet gently. Brad felt astonished, how the mammoth was ready to help to save Thrinty, and it made Nico smile.

He understood, what did he have to do next:

The mammoth placed its trunk deeper, and threw Nico with its all might at Thrinty, where she was squeezed by the beast's claws. Nico, with his well-designed samurai sword, flew toward the beast's arm and placed his sword above its arm. It was too late for the beast to realize, Nico was cutting through its wrist. All what it saw, was a shiny reflection on Nico's weapon, and its hand fell off.

When the beast released a loud growl, Nico landed on the ground, leaving his sword falling down and waited for Thrinty's fall. Thrinty yelled loudly out of surprise and flailed up and down, not sure what happened. But in the end, when Thrinty fell onto Nico's arms.

"Actively, aren't we..?", said Nico without any impression on his face. Thrinty on other side, laughed and told him, he had a good timing: "Shishishi!"

"Oi you two! It's not over, watch out!"

The giant bird tried to grow up the missing body part. First a tiny hand grew from the cut off arm, and then slowly it got to its original size.

"What is he, invincible?!", flinched Brad, when the mammoth stopped meters away from the terrified beast.

"High speed regeneration... but... it's not doing well, I guess it didn't get used to it", smirked Nico, as if he found a weakness. Thrinty jumped out of Nico's arms, made a stance of a winner and shouted: "Hey you!"

The beast glanced with its red and tiny eyes at Thrinty: ".. Haa? ..."

When it noticed Nico and mammoth, which was on other side, it stood up and growled furiously: "You, little tiny brats are coming over and over! Getting on my nerves!"

Nico knew, Thrinty was making the beast angrier on purpose. Brad jumped out of the riding animal and stepped forward: "This is your end here!"

"That's right.. This knowledge is forbidden.. nobody should study it ever again..", whispered Nico to himself. He recalled about his old times, where he was digging in books and he read somewhere about the forbidden mutation, so called 'Mutatism'.

But Nico knew, once he observed the bird's regeneration. It wasn't complete at all, in fact the beast had problems with growing a single hand by now. The hand was still incomplete and tiny bone-like. It couldn't grow to its original size after all. With the bird's nervousness, Nico realized; it was panicking, because something went wrong.

"He's gonna flee...", murmured Nico, and this time Thrinty heard that. She glanced at him over her shoulder.

"Grgh... you... seriously...", coughed out the beast. Quickly it rose up on its feet and flailed around, which caused a little sandstorm at the tree heroes, and, at the mammoth, which was loyal toward Thrinty. The mammoth run toward Thrinty, roaring confidently and covered her from the dust, so she could see. She smiled thankfully, but soon her smile disappeared from her face, when she saw the giant bird was meters above them.

"AAAH! Fleeing!?"

Once the air returned to the normal and Thrinty watched hopelessly at the fleeing bird.

For the second time, Thrinty turned her head toward Nico and cocked her head, for asking, what did he want, Nico threw her a weapon.

Thrinty right away caught with, and on her face a big grin appeared once again. Brad finally reached them and asked huffing: "You! huff huff... What are we going to do!? The beast can fly anywhere!"

"Don't worry Brad..", replied Nico and Thrinty climbed up on the mammoth's head again.

"Don't worry?! You..! What are you going to- ..."

"Brad.. have some faith in us.", commented Nico at Brad's curiousness. Brad couldn't say anything, he just stood still and watched the climbing Thrinty.

Once Thrinty set her foot on mammoth's head, she fastened her feet on its fur whispering: "I hope it won't hurt you, big guy.." To her reply the mammoth roared happily with its trunk.

She took a look on the sky. The beast was already far away, but Thrinty didn't mind it. She wanted to end it once and for all. Thrinty gently pointed her gun at the flying bird, and closed her eyes, to recall:

The pirates, on Murlock's command mutated themselves into different kind of animals. Some grew up a tail, some a pair of wings others had spiky horns out of their skin...

In her eyes, they were calling for help, making their pain stop. When she saw in her memories the first mutated tiger-like attacking her, she saw his sadness in his eyes.

She wouldn't forgive anyone, who'd do this again to anyone, this is why, it had to end:

Thrinty opened her eyes and while pointing at her fleeing opponent, the air around her started to flow wildly, as if it gathered around her weapon. Brad noticed slightly blue air-color, just like before in Murlock's battle, around her body. He felt astonished once again, when he felt, it was getting heavier to breath. Even the mammoth had to stay fastened to the ground, because the wind flew wildly around Thrinty, as if she was sucking the air.

When she was ready, she pulled the trigger and all the sucked air was released at once. It caused a strong impact, where her arm was thrown back. It looked like the bullet was shot as a rocket. All the gathered wind helped the bullet reach the final destination. The power of this bullet was so strong, that in a second a big blue-colored explosion appeared in the horizon. Brad couldn't believe his eyes, what and why in the world did the explosion came from.

He knew it was the gun, Thrinty used. But it was way too quickly to reach the bird's position. The big explosion still lasted for a minute like a nuclear bomb. Brad almost was certain, it was a sun. It was too bright for a bomb, what kind of weapon would do something like that? Confused pink haired man slowly glanced at Thrinty. But before he would say anything, Nico caught Thrinty, who fell from mammoth's head.

Finally when the vision was clear, they saw a falling slowly giant bird on the sky full of stars. It was the night again and the light disappeared. The giant pet panicked and flailed his trunk up and down. Brad noticed it was because of unconscious Thrinty. The person who caught her kept asking her, whether she was doing fine and that she shouldn't overdo with her haki.

"...T- Thrinty..? Is she alright?", worried Brad and walked over to them.

Thrinty not able to answer, only let her head spin around while mumbling: "S- so... di- dizzy...", and her eyes spin in circles. "What-?" "She is doing fine, it's ... her weapon.", dropped Nico the long explaining. He also added that they didn't have much time. Feeling a doubt Brad commented anyway: "But are we sure he's dead..?"

Nico only sighed and answered while letting the pet take Thrinty and place her on its head: "With this kind of explosion? Nope."

"How can you be so sure! Do you know what did he do-?!"

"I know exactly what did he... it do. Our mission isn't still over."

"What do you mean?"

"We have to save the victims, right?", stated Nico and moved forward.

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"Sy! Are you sure it's gonna work?"

Risha held a mutated beast, who was bound to a chair. For safety she insisted to bind the unconscious person. The person had his arms covered in green scales, long and sharp nails and abnormal muscles. Sy took out a syringe with a lila glowing liquid in it. After staring at it he answered surely: "Yes. Let's do it."

All of a sudden Hug shouted angrily: "But how can you be so sure this is it what we were looking for?!"

Risha was ready to punch the boy but didn't. She instead clenched her teeth and growled: "Hey! You! We're saving your lives, why don't you put some faith in us!"

After she finished her sentence, Hug sat on his knees and his hands were shaking. He didn't knew what kind future they will have. After drowning in depressive thoughts, Sy injected the fluid in the victim's arm, who screamed in pain. When he finished the treatment the beast suddenly calmed down and fainted. Risha didn't have to use her force anymore and lightly and slowly released the victim. "...Is it supposed to be like this?", Risha asked waiting for an honest reply from Sy.

"I don't know...

...

Ah... it's getting quiet."

Sy was right, since all they heard were the waves hitting the ship's board. The water reflected the star's light. Although the night just began, they still felt a warm breeze coming from the island. All of a sudden they noticed birds fleeing from the island. Later a giant shadow followed the birds and flew toward the horizon.

"Is that?!", Risha surprised. She was sure that the new heroes would defeat their eternal enemy. But as soon as she was about to give up on hope Sy patted her shoulder and pointed again at the island. She turned her head and noticed a blue fire shot, which hit the shadow. The high pitched sound pierced their ears and then exploded the giant beast, leaving nothing behind.

Hug stood up not daring to take his eyes off this scenery and whispered: "No way that.."

Risha not waiting looked at Sy and stated with a shaking voice: "It's dead.. right, we're saved!" There was no answer from Sy, but he showed his gently smile.

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After a half an hour later Nico returned with Brad on the ship. Luckily Risha and Hug managed to steer the ship to the shore close as possible. Later they dropped a hanging ladder off the board. When Brad and Nico, who carried Thrinty on his back stepped on the deck, Nico noticed a group of mutated people unconscious lying on the deck. Brad rushed toward Risha and asked her, how was going with the treating. Nico went over to Sy and watched him injecting the syringe in another person. The patient had a paw instead of hand and spikes on his spine. There was not enough space in the nurse room so they had to stay on the main deck. They all were covered in any kind of blanket, the friends could find. Nico took a red colored blanket, which wasn't used and put Thrinty on it.

"So, is it working?", asked Nico and Sy resting answered to him: "Yeah, this is my sixth one. Until now everyone of them are not in pain anymore. Let's check the first one. When they left the sixth patient who was panting heavily. Nico glanced at the person in pain out of the corner of his eye, while following Sy.

When they finally reached the first injected person they came across Hug. Hug was holding a girl on his lap. She was clearly in pain and breathing heavily. When Hug put a new wet bandage on her forehead he noticed Nico and Sy coming toward him. He followed his head on them and Sy felt relieved because the woman's face was back to normal: "Her body is back to normal."

Nico was astonished when he figured out, what Sy was saying. When Sy squated in front of the woman, he took a look at her arm. He rose up the blanket and examined her arm while commenting: "Her muscles are still tense. Either we have to wait or a little massage will help. But as far as I can see, she has no scales.. she should be fine."

Nico had no idea who the woman was, but he guessed she was very important to Hug. He asked for her name betting Hug knew it. "Her name is Mira..sir. And we grew up together." Hug was thinking about the time when they met for the first time. They always were together, until yesterday. He talked that they came from a little village in East Blue. And got invited by Murlock, believing he saved them. But that wasn't the case, as soon they entered the ship it got worse.

"I see...", sighed Nico.

"Nico-san.. come here for a bit."

When Nico got called by Sy he went to Sy and they walked upstairs toward steering deck. "What is?"

By the time they reached the bulwark Sy frowned, as he was in deep thoughts and finally asked Nico:" I got the antidotum from Akane's collar. She said it was you, who told her to take it. Of course before I gave an injection, I examined it... How did you know that was the antidotum?"

The brown haired man leaned on the bulwark and gathered his thoughts. When he looked at the water, which was reflecting the stars and himself, he smiled lightly: "I actually was reading.. this 'project'."

"Reading?", bursted Sy with an unsure smile on his face, "What do you mean by reading, that.. no one knew what he was planning.. Did you?!" "No of course not."

After a little break Nico tangled his fingers together and propped his chin on them. Sy didn't dare to take his look away from Nico and waited patiently for him. "It was forbidden to realize this idea. Why did they let him go..", and pressed his fingers harder as if he was feeling mad.

"They? What the hell are you talking about?"

"The thing is Murlock, was an assistant Marine scientist."

".. are you kidding- ... He!? A scientist-?!"

Nico nodded lightly several times and still staring blankly at the island he continued: "I told them to destroy his plans, before someone would dare to use them again."

The doctor frowned and Nico could see Sy's anger in his eyes. "These plans... this whole project is not over yet. We just destroyed its example."

"What do you mean... and how can you be so sure- ..."

Then it hit Sy, that Nico was in contact with 'them', with marine. But wouldn't that mean that Nico..?

"Nico!", both of the men turned their head immediately to the source of the voice. It was Risha who ran toward them. She was happy to see them all safe and smiled widely. It was a surprise for Sy, because it had been so long since he saw that smile. And Nico commented smiling, that that didn't match her personality. She lightly punched his shoulder and started to laugh while asking: "How did you do that! What was that blue thing! You guys.. you have no idea how much did you do for us! All of us!"

"I didn't do a thing though..", Nico whispered to himself. He turned around and leaned against the rail. Sy still was watching Nico suspiciously.

"What did he mean by 'they'? A project?! Who is he!?", Sy questioned himself.

The blue haired man watched Rishi and Nico talking. He didn't hear what were they talking about but he relieved when he saw Risha's smile again. He was the oldest from the three-friends-group- Risha and Brad. Although he was a caring type, always worrying about people getting hurt, he knew they were fine. "Fine by themselves."

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Three hours later everyone were healed and back to humans. All of them were resting covered in blankets. Some of them were still talking to each other. It was indeed a good sight for the heroes. Nico, Sy, Risha and Brad were standing on the steering deck and Nico in front of the steering wheel. By the time they managed to repair the broken parts of the ship. The seamen, who were completely healthy, worked hard together to make the ship sail again. And everyone noticed, that surprisingly Nico was not only good at steering and navigating but also at ordering and commanding. He acted like a Captain and he also commanded a respect in the crew.

"Pull the sail! Now!"

Two seamen pulled the rope, which was bounded to the main sail and unfurled it. The wind was rather strong and they had to act quickly. They were cooperating by exchanging information to each other. Shouting and rushing around- the crew was loud but at the same time confident and happy. They could finally feel the goosebumps and sweats, because of their efforts and being free as a sailmen.

As finally as they left the ashore of the cursed island of the treasure, Nico gave the steering wheel to Risha. She was surprised seeing that he invited her to take the wheel. "But you are doing so well..!"

"Well that's true.."

The brown haired man took a look at the hardworking and laughing men from above. He remembered something from his past when he closed his eyes. And as he opened them again, he glanced at Risha: "But they need a Captain, don't you think?"

The three of them already figured out what he tried to say. Although Risha didn't give up and resisted: "I am sure they want to have you, the hero as their captain, Nico!"

Nico once again whispered to himself while chuckling: "That's what I've been saying, I didn't do a thing."

"Risha!", Brad interrupted their conversation, "I think you'll be.. a good captain. Remember when you led us while Murlock was gone? Besides it is you who wanted to be a captain of your own crew! Don't you remember? That was your- our big dream!"

Sy agreed with Brad: "Indeed that was years ago when we decided to make you a captain."

The woman was standing blushing lightly. Their praises made her feel confident on being a captain and she nodded. She slowly went toward Nico and stared at the steering wheel. She knew that once she touched it, she would become a captain. She always had a great responsibility and feeling of the justice. She grabbed the wheel and Nico stepped back while congratulating her.

The long haired shouted as loud as she could to her new crew:

"Listen! You Basterds!", everyone took their shocking attention at her, "From now on I am your new Captain! So tonight, we're celebrating! Cook! Get some food for these hungry bastards!"

"Aye aye! Captain!"

Everyone were shouting out of happiness: "Aye Captain!".

"I guess.. they accepted you", sweated Brad, who was worried they might get mad. Risha replied that they were too strong to get offended so easily. "Besides I have to command their respect, right?", and smiled at Nico.

Nico chuckled instead: "That really doesn't match your personality."

"Shut up!"

"Nico, you always stay calm, don't you..?", Brad commented. Therefore Sy joined their conversation and asked Nico, expecting an answer: "But I still don't get one thing Nico-san.. why aren't you the Captain?"

The asked man smiled awkwardly thinking of the stupid reasons: "Aah, that's-"

Suddenly an unknown but nostalgic voice came from above them: "THAT GUY CANNOT BE THE CAPTAIN!"

"Whoa?!"

All of them looked up and saw Thrinty standing on the top of the gallant. She was grinning widely and laughed with her unusual voice: "Nii~Shishishi!"

"Monkey girl-!"

In the very moment Thrinty snapped and jumped on Brad while kicking him: "I am not a monkey giirl!"

Risha's mouth opened and she ran toward the unconscious man. When she squatted next to him and gently took him in her arms, he had his eyes blank white. "How could you do that!", Risha snapped and showed her clenched fist.

Thrinty just crossed her arms and pouted by pressing her lips together: "I dunt care-". Nico snapped his fingers and a pulled a Harisen in a milisecond. He then hit Thrinty's head without any resisting, as if he was doing this for years. Thrinty cried and held her head: "ITEH!" Risha and Sy watched this twisted situation. They had to think for a moment what they just saw.

"Ah... Nico-san snapped.."

Nico shouted with his anger: "He was treated just a second ago, because was heavily wounded! Taichou! You really didn't change a thing for these past years!" Thrinty was squatting in front of him with manners, while he was lecturing her.

This scene was a sudden surprise for Risha and Sy to watch. Their eyes were focused on them: "I guess.. we don't know anything about them yet, Sy... Sy?"

When Risha wondered why Sy didn't answer her, she took a glance at him. Her eyes widened when the usual gloomy-Sy was chuckling.

"Just.. how long didn't we laugh.."

xxxxxxxx

The night was still not over yet, but it was a good time to get some sleep. But Risha was still wide awake and continued to steer the ship thinking about the future. What did they want to do? What would she do with the 'Feather Pirates'?

With all these thoughts she couldn't sleep at all. The rest went to their rooms and even that just a second ago it was so loud out here, now it was very quiet. Nobody was to be seen here, except for Sy, who was standing next to her. The night was warm but the breeze was strong and cool. Just a perfect moment like this made them feel satisfied with their life. Although there were some ups and downs, they still managed to get away from all this.

Risha was still unsure what should she do with the crew. But before she could ask Sy for an advice he started: "I am sure, you guys will manage to do well."

That caught Risha by surprise and couldn't say a word for a second. Then she guessed what he tried to say: "No way..", she wanted to confirm her thoughts: "You want to leave us?! Sy!"

As soon as Sy looked at her he finally confessed his thoughts: "I've been thinking about it for a while. It is not sudden."

"What are you talking about?!"

"While I was working under Murlock.. or that project.. I never can forgive myself."

"You had no choice, he was threating us! Besides you had no idea he would use you for this-!"

"Risha.. this is haunting me."

The captain couldn't figure out what was the reason for all this. "Why... why!"

"This whole mess.. was created by Murlock.. or that parrot- whatever it was. Before it was human, he was working for the marine, as an assistant scientist. What if there are more of them and nobody can help them?! Murlock mentioned once before he had allies in Grand Line! There are more of them.", and Sy clenched his fist out of his anger. "And I have to help them."

Suddenly Sy saw her tears flowing down on her face. She was holding back but in the end she bursted out and sobbed quietly. It made Sy feel guilty. And overhelming sorrow, what everyone had to go through. "I should stay here after all-"

"Go Sy..."

He thought he overheard what she said and stayed quietly waiting for Risha to repeat herself.

"You cannot let it happen again- You can't let these people suffer like we did! And with Nico-san's help... and Thrinty's as well, you can save more people than being with us.", she smiled while being in pain.

Seeing her painful smile made Sy feel worse but she hit the spot.

"Yeah..", he murmured under his nose.

"But promise me one, Sy..."

"What is?"

"Please don't get yourself killed.", Risha sighed with her heavy feeling of sadness.

"Who do you think I am? I am the doctor here.", smiled Sy gently and Risha laughed while saying: "You're really a kind doctor. Even if no one notices it, I do."

"Mhm, now I tell you to go take a rest."

"Yeah, we still have to reach the Docking town.. I should get some strength!"

"Goodnight, Captain."