Disclaimer (Al Kahn): RLS does not own One Piece. I do though, and- (SMASH!) I mean, used to.
The Strawhat crew stared at the giant hole in the wall. The man who had ruined their franchise was gone... now what?
"ROOOAAAAAARRRR!!!!!!!!!"
First things first, the rampaging Chopper-zilla needed to be taken care of. Franky sighed, inflated both his arms, and delivered a "Coup de Vent" into the rampaging man-animal. The blast knocked the rampaging Chopper over the walls of the twentieth floor and straight into the sea.
"Can someone else get him this time?" Franky requested. "I've barely got enough cola to walk now!"
"On it," Zoro stated. The green-haired swordsman leapt over the wall to the ground twenty stories below. From above the walls, the Straw Hats could see him running through a massive crowd to the shore.
"Well..." Luffy started. "We've won!"
Instantly, the crew broke out in cheers. The man who had buried their franchise alive was dead and gone. Everybody was in a good mood... except Joker. The clown's head was tilted so that a shadow fell over his eyes, making him appear even more sinister.
==Meanwhile, with Zoro==
Zoro was walking back towards the main building, an unconscious Chopper (in Brain Point) slung over his shoulder. The green-haired swordsman ignored the many stares and whispers that came his way as he moved toward a knot of people crowded around something.
"Oi, move!" the swordsman requested. The crowd seemed to take no notice of him. Irritated, Zoro squeezed himself in and saw a body lying in the center, in a crater around ten feet wide. The armor was smoking, but Zoro could still see Kahn's face...
... except it wasn't Kahn's.
Most of the armor had shattered, revealing a plain gray business suit underneath. On the breast pocket name tag, Zoro made out the smudged words "HELLO, MY NAME IS ROGER SLIFER".
A very shaken swordsman dashed back to the main 4Kids building at top speed.
==Back with the Straw Hats==
"Come on, clown! Tell us how to get back to the party island!" laughed Luffy.
Ten seconds passed before Joker replied. "You won't be getting back there." And for the first time in hours, his mouth curved into a wide smile.
"Wha...?" Luffy scratched his head. Just then, a green blur streaked past the two of them, revealing...
"Zoro!" Luffy yelled in joy. "CHOPPER!!!!" the child-minded captain added in concern. Zoro got up from his crouching position and placed Chopper gently on the floor.
At the same time, "Joker's" hair began to shrink back into his skull. At the same time, his chin began to retract, and his overall height decreased rapidly.
The Straw Hats gasped and took a step back in shock. Even Luffy looked a bit unnerved.
"Joker" now looked a lot less like himself. He had a round, bald, egg-shaped head, and several silver whiskers on his chin. His purple clothes seemed one size too large for who was standing in them right now.
"KAHN?!" yelled Sanji.
"What the hell?" murmured Franky.
"Then who was that guy..." began Usopp.
"We just beat the shit out of?!" continued Nami.
Kahn laughed, produced a pair of glasses out of his pocket, and put them on. "Man, does it feel good to be me again!"
"If you were Clown-san all this time," said Robin. "Then you had a hundred chances to do us in the entire time. Why didn't you?"
"Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!! I never intended to kill you people! Don't you know? Your dub selves were cloned from your bodies! They wear out about every few weeks, so I have to keep you alive to get a good supply of DNA!"
"And the Rumble Balls?"
"Since you were having so much trouble with ol' Slifer, I decided to give you a little boost! That guy was always a pain in my side, anyhow..."
Robin still looked dissatisfied. "What about all those 4Kids employees you personally killed?"
Kahn laughed even harder. "I was planning to fire them all anyhow! I figured that since it's costing too much to bring on new VAs, I would have to cut some losses!"
"So you killed your own nakama?"
"What's a nakama? If you mean friends, sur"-SMASH!!!
Luffy's fist plowed into the side of Kahn's head. As Kahn went rolling across the floor, Luffy cracked his knuckles menacingly.
"YOU BURY OUR FRANCHISE ALIVE, MADE A MOCKERY OF MY NAKAMA, AND KILLED YOUR OWN NAKAMA?!"
"Pretty much! And there's not a single thing you can do about it! Not... with these." Kahn held up three rectangular cards in his hand. Everyone sweatdropped.
"You're going to beat us with children's playing cards?" asked Usopp, barely keeping in his laughter.
"I was planning to use these to power that battlesuit you saw Slifer in, but I figured that this is one of the few things that should be enjoyed..." Kahn threw the cards down his mouth. "As it should have been".
Almost instantly, the ground began to rumble. Fissures began to split apart the island, and all the buildings started to crumble. Kahn's eyes turned into a deep shade of crimson as his teeth lengthened into needle-like fangs.
"OBELISK THE TORMENTOR!!!!"
Next, the sun was near-instantly hidden behind ominous-looking gray storm clouds. Bolts of lightning began to erput from the sky, and wild winds swept through the now-desolate 4Kids headquarters. Kahn's body was enveloped in light as his height began to rise until he towered over the Strawhats.
"SLIFER THE SKY DRAGON!!!!"
Finally, the aforementioned fissures began to spew molten lava and jets of white-hot fire. From the building, the Strawhats could see the ocean in the far distance, and it too, was bubbling and steaming as if it had turned into a pot of boiling water. Kahn was now rising into the sky, shining with blinding brilliance.
"THE WINGED DRAGON OF RA!!!!"
The light dissipated... but what the Strawhats saw made them wish it had stayed.
Kahn, now hovering twenty or thirty feet in the air, had become a colossus at least forty feet tall. The top half of said being was all muscle, with a demon-like face (complete with horns, red eyes, and sharp teeth), arms as thick as that of the zombie giant Oz, and skin a shiny blue hue to boot. The bottom half was that of a massive serpent, scales a bright scarlet and the underside jet-black. A row of spikes running down the tail alone seemed at least six feet long. Lastly, massive wings the color of molten gold spread out behind the monster, seeming wider than the beast itself. There was something vaguely bird-like about the wings, as if they were covered with feathers... glinting, sharp-looking feathers that could probably slice a man to ribbons, that is.
Meanwhile, on the rest of the island...
The rest of the partygoers were in pandemonium. A massive wave of people ran to the shore as fast as humanly possible, eager to board their boats and get the hell away from 4Kids Island. Even those who didn't want to go were swept up in the panic, with the threat of being crushed underfoot in they did not move with the rest of the herd.
Buggy, being one of the fastest from years of running from the navy, was one of the first at his/her ship. "Men, hoist the anchor!"
Mihawk, on the other hand, was dragging Shanks by the collar like an annoyed mother. Shanks was protesting that he would like to see what was creating all the hubbub, as he hadn't had any decent fights in a while, but Mihawk merely shook his head.
"This is the Straw Hat boy's fight, Akagami". (1)
"WWWWWWAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIITTT UUUUUUUUUUUPPPP!!!!!" Mr. 4 droned as he ran toward the ship that the former Baroque Works had, running as fast as possible... which wasn't saying much.
Back at the twentieth floor...
"But... but... didn't you say you weren't going to kill us?" whimpered Usopp.
"THAT WAS BEFORE I GOT WORD THAT THE ONES WHO REMAINED LOYAL TO ME MANAGED TO DEVELOP A STABILIZING FORMULA!!!!!" thundered Kahn. "I'VE ALREADY GOTTEN THE FINAL SAMPLES OF DNA FROM YOU PEOPLE, SO YOU CAN ALL GO TO HECK NOW!!!!"
"Heck?" muttered Zoro. "You might look bigger, but you've still got the same neutered vocabulary!"
EAT THIS!!!! FIST OF FURY!!!!" Kahn roared. The beast's fist glowed with a bright light as he brought it hurtling towards Zoro. Zoro reacted immediately, jumping off of the edge of the twentieth floor, just out of the punch's reach, but Kahn had a nasty surprise in store for him. The light that the fist was enveloped in shot out as a beam, scoring a direct hit on Zoro.
"ZORO!!!!" cried out Luffy.
Had the punch been straightforward, Zoro's body would have been launched into the boiling sea. But, since Kahn was floating above Zoro, he punched downward, which meant that Zoro was plowed into the ground at 1000 MPH instead. A none-too-small cloud of dust marked the spot where he crashed into.
"Why you...!" Sanji growled. "I'm the only one who gets to do that to marimo!" The chef leapt into the air, his body level with Kahn's face, "Oeil Shoot!" (2)
Despite the fact that the demon Kahn's eye alone was bigger than Sanji's foot, it was still one of his more vulnerable spots. The blow temporarily blinded Kahn in the left eye, but with the eye that he could still see out of, he brought his long, whipping tail up to where Sanji was. Sanji was forced to perform a barrel roll in midair to dodge the initial strike, but despite the brunt of the attack missing, the six-foot long spikes still gave him a nasty cut or two.
Sanji groaned in pain and quickly launched himself towards the wall of the 4Kids headquarters, but Kahn was quicker. In an instant, he shot out a massive hand the size of a small mountain and grabbed the cook's leg, then retracted the arm, dangling the cook upside down and holding his primary means of combat between his thumb and forefinger.
"Oh shit."
Not even bothering to use a named attack this time, Kahn tossed Sanji in the air as easily as a child would toss a rag doll and brought one massive blue hand crashing down on his entire body in a karate chop. He then proceeded to push down on Sanji's body with the hand, until both he and the hand smashed into the ceiling-less twentieth floor. The Straw Hats on the roof, watching in awe the entire time, hastily moved aside as the massive blue hand sliced right through the floor... and another... and another...
Finally, there was nothing left to chop but the island itself; Kahn had karate chopped a skyscraper in two, and Sanji along with it.
"SANJI!!!!!!!!!" Luffy yelled for his cook. He turned to Kahn, eyes aflame with rage. "Damn you! Gomu Gomu no..." The rubberman began stretching his arm backwards.
"Luffy!" screamed Usopp. "This isn't the time! This entire building is falling apart!"
Indeed, Luffy might not have noticed in his rage, but the two halves of the skyscraper were already swaying to and fro, threatening to collapse any moment.
"We've got to get out of here!" yelled Franky. "Worry about him later!"
"Yosh! Gomu Gomu no Fuusen!" The inflated Luffy jumped from the roof; his crewmates followed suit.
"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?! BLAZE CANNON!!!!" roared Kahn. He opened his massive mouth and launched a stream of fire that dwarfed anything Franky could pull off. Luffy, seeing the attack coming just in time, outstretched his legs and wrapped them around Kahn's serpentine lower half.
At the same time with a cry of "Gomu Gomu no Ami!", he outstretched each of his fingers individually and quickly weaved a grid pattern with them, positioning them right below Usopp, Nami, Robin, Brook, and Franky (who was carrying the still-unconcious Chopper). Once they were all secure inside the makeshift net, Luffy quickly pulled it out of the fire blast's way, missing it by about a second.
Unfortunately, he had miscalculated one thing: where to dispose his crewmates. On instinct, he retracted his fingers, opening the net... and leaving his crewmates about forty feet above the ground with nothing supporting them but the air.
Luckily for the rest of Luffy's crew, the most damage-resistant Straw Has, Usopp, was at the bottom of the net. As a result, when they fell to the ground (right next to a lava-spewing fissure), he took the brunt of the fall, cushioning the rest of the Straw Hats.
As Nami, Robin, Brook, and Franky (carrying Chopper) stood up on slightly wobbly legs, Usopp (face planted firmly into the ground) could be heard letting out a stream of muffled curses that sounded something like "Dammit! Why the hell do I have to be the one who breaks all his freaking bones every time we have an adventure?!"
"Get over it," a voice grumbled.
"Zo-ZORO?!" Nami shrieked.
Indeed, the green-haired swordsman was rising from the spot where Kahn had punched him into and rubbing the back of his head (where a bruise had formed). "If you're going to sail on the Grand Line, what's the fun of not being pushed to your hardest? Besides, I go through worse every day on my way to the bathroom!"
As if by magic, Usopp suddenly sprang from the ground, with only the slightest of bruises (and a few missing teeth) and began yelling at Zoro about how 'Not everybody's a monster like you and Luffy!'
Meanwhile, fifty feet in the air, Luffy, legs still wrapped around Kahn's serpent body, prepared for his first strike against the demon. "Gomu Gomu no Gatling Gun!"
The barrage of punches hit Kahn hundreds of times, as his massive body made for an easy target. However, Kahn only kept hovering in midair, a bemused expression on his face as the punches made contact with him again and again and again. Luffy had obviously caught onto this, because he retracted both arms and unwrapped his legs. As he descended, he lashed an outstretched leg towards Kahn's shoulder with a yell of "Gomu Gomu no Muchi!"
This did no more good than his previous attack; it was as if his foot had lashed into a block of diamond. Kahn merely laughed contemptuously and let loose a second blast of fire at Luffy, which he barely managed to swerve out of the way of. The rubberman, unlike the rest of his crewmates, landed with both feet on the ground.
"What're we gonna do now, shit-captain?" came a voice about twenty feet to the east. For the second time that day, a Straw Hat struck down by Kahn rose once again. Sanji, however, was obviously in worse shape than Zoro, as he walked with a hunched back and a pronounced limp, both of which he was obviously trying to hide in front of his loves.
"I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting me some cola first! I ain't shit without it in this fight!" Franky exclaimed.
"But Franky, the Thousand Sunny's way out in the sea! There's no way Kahn's going to let you get that far!" Nami tried to reason.
"THAT'S QUITE ENOUGH CHATTER OVER HERE!" Kahn roared. The winged tyrant made a motion as if to sweep his massive tail at the Straw Hats, but somehow, the strike never came. The reason was found soon enough; two massive sets of hands were growing out of the ground, struggling to hold the tail in place. A closer look revealed that they were made up of dozens of individual hands.
"Robin!" Usopp exclaimed, relief written all over his face.
"Oi, Robin, how much longer can you hold him for?" Luffy asked.
"About a few seconds at the most," Robin replied.
"That's enough time," Luffy responded. The rubberman got into a squatting position, one hand curled into a fist plowing into the ground. "Go and get refueled, Franky! I'll cover you!"
The blue-haired cyborg suddenly burst into tears. "You're a noble man, (sniff) captain!"
"Just go already!" Zoro and Sanji yelled at the same time before Franky could whip out his guitar.
Franky nodded and took off toward the Thousand Sunny, carrying Chopper over his shoulder, without any further hesitation. Meanwhile, Luffy's skin had began to turn a pinkish tinge, and steam began to erupt from his body. The rubberman looked up at Kahn, a terrifying grin on his face.
"Gear... Second!"
==At the shore==
Even when he was half a mile away from the rest of the crew and Kahn, Franky could hear the tremors of the humongous battle raging behind him. Once in a while, a stray projectile or a shockwave would come hurtling towards him, and while he dodged most of them, one of Usopp's shuriken had found its way into the small of his back. Needless to say, it hurt like hell.
Well, he was finally at his pride and joy, the Thousand Sunny - the greatest ship he had built to date. The sea here was raging at a level comparable to Grand Line tempests, and the steam erupting from the waves told the shipwright that making contact with the water would probably boil him like a lobster. In fact, even the ground was beginning to scorch his feet, though that may have had something to do with the fact that he seldom wore shoes.
Aiming his fist at the bow figurehead, Franky gave a yell of "Strong Right!" and shot the fist out toward the lion, his hand grabbing firmly onto it. Once he was sure that the chain was secure, Franky retracted it, pulling himself onto the figurehead. Not wasting any more time, the cyborg dropped Chopper off inside the infirmary and made a dash right toward the storeroom...
... and found a figure, bound and gagged, lying among the bottles of cola. He was clearly unconscious, but even when ninety percent of his body was covered by rope, Franky could clearly tell that it was the white-skinned man who called himself Joker.
What the hell was going on around here, Franky decided that he would worry about later. None too carefully, Franky moved the man so that his body was slumped against the wall, opened his stomach fridge, and took out the three empty bottles. He then replaced them with three full bottles.
Approximately one second later, a low humming sound was heard throughout the Thousand Sunny. Approximately one more second later, a yell of "SSSSUUUUUUUUUUUUUPPPEEEERRRR!!!!!" filled the air.
==Back to the Battle...==
"Gomu Gomu no Jet Pistol!"
"Hyaku-Hachi Pound Hou!"
"Diable Jambe - Premier Hache!"
The Straw Hats were definitely doing better against Kahn, if only in actually making it budge. In addition to Luffy, Sanji had also activated his "upgraded form", and from what it looked like, Kahn was more vulnerable to elemental attacks than pure physical ones.
"BLAZE CANNON!!!!" thundered Kahn, sending another massive fireball Zoro's way. The agile swordsman leaped out of the way as the attack hit the ground and exploded on contact.
"Hey, watch it!!!!" Nami shrieked.
"This isn't good... mused Robin,"
"Waddaya mean? Those three always pull through in a fight!' said Usopp.
"Indeed," agreed Robin. "But this island is much smaller than most of the ones that they had fought on before, and Kahn's transformation has already weakened it. If they do not wrap this up soon, the entire island may fall apart... and if that happens, we will surely boil to death in the sea."
"Can't we do anything to help them along?" Usopp asked, his entire body shivering now.
"Nothing I can do will hold it in place for long, as you have already witnessed; Your projectiles will probably be useless against it, as not even Luffy's punches can hurt it much, and Nami-san's attacks are much too unpredictable; if it hits Zoro or Sanji-kun, the results will not be pretty."
"What about Brook?"
"He's already up there," Robin said, pointing in a general direction. Usopp turned around and found the spot where Brook was standing a few minutes ago to be bare. Usopp squinted his eyes, and was barely able to make out a black blur dashing from Kahn's shoulders to his neck and back again, striking at every spot to look for a vulnerable area.
"THUNDER FORCE!!!!!" Kahn declared. The ominous purple clouds surrounding him, always having been brimming with white flashes but never producing anything, suddenly sent out a dozen or so enormous lightning bolts crashing to the ground that uncannily resembled Eneru's "Raigoh" technique.
Fortunately, it seemed that Kahn had little to no control over this technique. Either by some stroke of fate or dumb luck, no one was hit by the bolts. That, however, was not necessarily a good thing. The ground began rumbling again, much more powerfully than before.
"The... the entire island is falling apart!" shrieked Usopp.
"We've got to run for it!" Nami rationlized. "But... we can't leave those three here!"
"I have a feeling they'll be fine... after all, when have they ever let us down?" mused Robin.
Nami was about to give a retort consisting of a number of occasions when she had been let down by them, but decided against it. "Fine."
"Gomu Gomu no Jet Bazooka!" Luffy yelled, smashing down both palms on Kahn's left shoulder. Directly opposite him, Zoro was smashing down onto Kahn's right shoulder with a "Tora Gari". Between the two of them, Sanji had aimed a kick straight at Kahn's throat with his blazing leg.
Luffy and Zoro did no more than make Kahn madder, but Sanji had struck gold; Kahn gave roar louder than anything they had heard before and clasped his huge hands to the area where Sanji had left his glowing footprint. Growling, Kahn gave a brutal backhand that Sanji only partially dodged; it had not hit his torso or head, but had instead caught him in the leg. That, however, was enough to send the chef flying several miles toward the coast...
...straight into the Thousand Sunny.
Nami, Usopp, and Robin were treated to a big surprise when they found one very battered cook lying on the deck; evidently, he had been knocked into the mast, which bore a slight dent as proof of this, and slid down into his current position.
Brook, meanwhile, was still climbing along Kahn's enormous body like a mountaineer, occasionally jumping to avoid a swatting hand or fire blast. As Kahn let out yet another "Blaze Cannon", he saw his chance. Quick as a swallow, he dashed into Kahn's still open mouth before it could close, and with all his strength (which, as he noted to himself, he didn't really have much of as he lacked muscle), bravely plunged his blade into the roof of Kahn's mouth.
"AAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" The yell of pain was so loud that Brook was blown right out of Kahn's gullet by the sound waves. Temporarily stunned by the noise, he was a sitting duck as he fell from Kahn's mouth, and Kahn took advantage of that.
Bringing one massive hand close to the falling body, Kahn flicked the hapless swordsman with his index finger. That was to say, Brook had just gotten hit with the equivalent of an average "Gomu Gomu no Bazooka".
==Meanwhile, on the Thousand Sunny...==
Everybody who was conscious was holding on for dear life inside the kitchen/dining room; the sea had turned more turbulent than ever. Huge waves crashed against the side of the ship every few minutes, threatening to swallow it whole.
"For the love of God! Can't we set sail?!" wailed Usopp.
"And how do you propose Luffy gets back?!" snarled Nami.
"If we stay here any longer, we'll all die!" Usopp retorted. "Can't we at least unfurl the sails?!"
"In this weather?! We'd get struck down by lightning or blown overboard before we even got close to the ropes!"
SMASH!!!!!
"What was that?!" Nami shrieked.
"Sounded like splintering wood," Robin replied. "Perhaps the ship is falling apart?"
"How dare you?! Are you suggesting that MY Super creation would lose to some pansy storm like this?!" Franky roared. Sanji, who had been lying in the corner, unconscious all this time, suddenly sprang up one hundred percent fine, flames blazing in his eyes.
"STOP THREATENING ROBIN-CHWWAAAAN!!!!!!" the cook roared... before a loud cracking sound emerged from the small of his back. He slumped to the ground, and muttered in a defeated tone, "Not again..."
At that moment, the door to the dining area swung open, revealing one very battered-looking gentleman skeleton. His suit was ripped around the edges, his tie completely cut to shreds, and his face bore several cracks and burn marks.
"Yo... ho... ho..." Brook gasped out before crashing to the floor like a chopped-down tree.
"BROOK!!!!" screamed Usopp, before he noticed something else. "Hey... where's Franky?"
==Back to the Battle... Again==
Luffy and Zoro were both on the ground again, staring intently at the colossus that was Kahn. They had both noticed that the island was falling apart, but as men, they could not leave the battle unfinished. Besides, running would probably make them little more than targets for Kahn. Luffy's Gear Second was going to wear off in about a minute or two, and he was sure that he hardly had the strength to pull off a second one.
"FIST OF FATE!!!!" Kahn screamed again. The island was now in near-total darkness, what little illumination coming from the lava-spewing fissures and the flashes of lightning. Nevertheless, it was easy for Zoro to counter.
"Asura Makyuusen!!!"
Luffy had seen this technique once before, on the Shabondy Archipelago, but it was still amazing to see three torsos and heads growing out of one pair of legs. The three Zoros, each holding three swords, appeared for but a second, before suddenly vanishing from sight.
For one second, nothing happened. Then, Kahn let out a monstrous roar as nine huge gashes appeared on his massive hand, arranged like the blades of a pinwheel.
"WHY YOU...!!!!!!!"
Before Kahn could do anything, a series of explosions covered his huge head. Luffy strained his eyes, looking up to see none other than his speedo-wearing shipwright, Franky, standing on Kahn's shoulder. His left hand was bent open, revealing a hole that lead into his hollow arm.
"Am I too late, Strawhat-niichan?" Franky asked, grinning. Luffy gave a smile of his own in response and placed his thumb into his mouth.
"GEAR... THIRD!!!!"
Franky cocked an eyebrow as he jumped down from Kahn's shoulder and approached his captain. "What are you gonna do?"
"My thoughts exactly," Zoro stated from behind. Luffy swiveled his head around in surprise.
"I've got an idea. Push him towards me as much as possible, alright?"
"What?! Why?"
"Luffy grinned as he inflated both of his hands. "I'm gonna make that greedy bastard cough up everything he stole from us!"
"BLAZE CANNON!!!!!"
All three Strawhats pulled themselves out of the fireball's way. "Better do it fast!"
Kahn let loose a double punch this time, despite the gashes on his left hand. This proved to backfire, however, as Zoro and Franky each dashed up one of this outstretched arms, and, from his shoulders, propelled themselves into the air.
Kahn was about to attack the two, but a "HEY, SNAKE-ASS!!!!" yell from Luffy changed his mind. Kahn swung his massive tail at Luffy, who simply jumped up and dodged it entirely. The same, however, could not be said for the island, which finally fell apart from the weight of the massive tail smashing into it. Behind Kahn's massive form, Luffy could just barely see Zoro and Franky descending, Franky with both of his beefy arms inflated and pointing at Kahn, and Zoro with two of his three swords held above his head.
"I'LL SILENCE YOU ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!!!!" Kahn roared, completely oblivious to the fact that Zoro and Franky were preparing his own attacks.
"Coup de..."
"Hyaku-Hachi..."
With his roar, Kahn let out a final burst of fire. This one, however, was unlike all the rest, as while it headed towards Luffy, it shaped itself into a phoenix, not unlike Usopp's "Firebird Star". As the bird-shaped blast of fire hurled towards Luffy, it opened its "mouth" and let out a blood-curdling screech. Undeterred, Luffy flipped his body out of the way, passing just beneath the phoenix and extending his massive hands behind him as much as possible.
"VENT!!!!"
"POUND HOU!!!!"
Kahn was shocked, to say the least, when he felt two currents of wind smash into his back, propelling him towards Luffy. Luffy, his eyes squeezed shut from the pressure he was exerting on his body, stopped outstretching his massive hands and said, "Gomu Gomu no..."
Kahn hurtled at Luffy at a speed none too slow, but the rubberman still waited, until the moment it seemed certain that the behemoth would crash into him.
"GIGANTIC JET BAZOOKA!!!!!!!!!!"
For an instant, Luffy's arms vanished. Then, they reappeared into Kahn's stomach with a sonic boom that ruptured the entire sea for a mile. Time seemed to stand still from the sheer force of the attack, as even the crashing waves and lightning strikes seemed to silence. The only sound was the sound of Kahn gagging, his mouth stretched wide.
And then, three tiny rectangles fell out of Kahn's mouth and into the boiling, churning sea. Horror registered in Kahn's eyes before he was enveloped in a flash of blinding light. This flash was much shorter than the one that occurred when he swallowed the cards, and when it was gone, an ordinary, overweight, bespectacled old man was falling toward the sea.
As the exhausted Luffy, Zoro, and Franky descended, none of them noticed that the phoenix suddenly curved around in a sharp turn and headed for Luffy again. It was only when the blast of fire was inches away from the rubberman that he managed to pull himself out of the way. This, unfortunately, meant that Kahn was now the only thing in its way.
Wait, did I say unfortunately? I meant fortunately.
Unfortunately (and this time, I mean it), the shock of the battle had completely torn 4Kids Island apart, and the chunks of earth were crumbling apart even further in the sea. Luffy, too exhausted to even notice, plunged towards it like a stone.
Luckily, his two crewmates were nowhere near their limit. Positioning their bodies so that they would hit the water before their hammer of a captain, Zoro and Franky landed in the sea with a none-too-small splash, held out their hands, and caught the semi-conscious Luffy.
The two men were just about to swim back to the Thousand Sunny (itself anchored not far away; they were thankful for their crewmates' faith in them) when something else plunged into the water nearby.
It was Kahn, his burnt and charred body nearly unrecognizable.
"Waddaya reckon?" Franky asked "Definitely the real one?"
Zoro gave a small nod. "Let's head back. I'm tired as hell!"
End of Chapter 10
(1) Means "red hair".
(2) Means "eye (singular) shoot" in French.
Lo and behold, I'm still alive! I've gotten my first constructive review in my brief career, and I've been dwelling on it. I have improved my writing style over the past months, but I don't think I'll be showing it in this fic. Why? Because I think that the change in writing styles would be too polarizing. Besides, I've managed to work up a reason for the one-dimensional writing in this fic.
Also, to the guy who gave me the constructive review: I'm sorry, but Blackbeard will have to stay a voice cameo. You'll find out why at the end.