A/N: Oh, I am an evil, evil person. Reading all of your comments on the last chapter was glorious. Now please, entertain me more this time! MORE! VEEHIHIHIHIHI! Ohhhhh, it is so much fun being an author.

Despite being an author, I still don't own One Piece, although I do own a story called The Seichi Chronicles, which can be found on my account by the same username on Spacebattles. Please give it a read and leave some feedback! I'd love to hear what you guys think about it!

Chapter 22:
...Now I Don't

:: KING KONG ::

King Kong slammed heavily into the upper deck of the Sand Sled. The boat's boards creaked and groaned with his sudden weight. He stumbled forward a few feet, desperately windmilling his arms to keep his balance. It was a bit of a tough task to complete with the bulky wax-and-feather wings, but he was able to manage. Once he'd gained balance again, he carefully slid off the makeshift wings and laid them down on the boat.

"Hey!" someone shouted, and King turned around to see a large man with a goatee, blue hair, and blue eyes who was brandishing a very long sword. "You damn monkey! What are you doing on the ship of the Barbar Pirates, huh? What right do you have to intrude on our home, bastard!?"

["He does realize he's trying to talk to a monkey, right?"] King said to himself, rolling his eyes. He dropped into a fighting stance and carefully seized up his opponent. The fellow was very angry and smelled strongly of booze. He also had left himself absolutely full of openings. King humphed and bent his knees.

This wouldn't even be the slightest problem.

The blue-haired man swept clumsily at King with his huge sword. The Straw Hat jumped back lazily, flipping with ease and landing on his feet with his tail between his legs. His enemy stumbled forward. Drunk #1 clearly hadn't expected his attack to meet empty air, meaning his momentum carried his sword down to the floor, where it stuck into the wooden boards uselessly.

The big man gave it a couple tugs.

Nada.

King and the mook stared at each other without blinking.

The sand pirate opened his mouth. "INTRUDER! BOSS, WE'VE GOT AN-!"

He was quickly silenced by King leaping forward and delivering a swift, unforgiving uppercut to his chin. The monkey's powerful paw jerked the man's head back and lifted him off his feet. He crashed heavily to the upper deck.

King landed softly and cursed. It would've been a lot simpler if he'd been able to just sneak aboard, find Evan, and sneak out with his friend, but alas.

The sound of footsteps caught King's well-attuned ear, and he turned around to face the lower deck, where he saw about twenty or so pirates all wielding various swords, knives, cutlasses, and pistols.

King cracked his knuckles. ["ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO ME!"] he shouted.

It came out as a lot of angry growling and chatter. King sweatdropped. That would've been much cooler if he'd actually had the ability to speak…

One man stepped forward, an enormous lug of a man with an impressive beard and strange garments whose names King couldn't place. "I am Barbarossa, captain of the Barbar Pirates!" the man, Barbarossa, bellowed. King lifted an eyebrow. "Monkey, I don't know what you're doing here, but for attacking my ship and men, you shall taste my revenge!"

King glared furiously. Their revenge!? They could wait the fuck in line! If anyone hurt Evan, they were getting an ass-whupping, no questions asked.

Deciding that wasting more time would only likely mean more pain for Evan, King Kong growled, dashed forward, and took a leap off the edge of the upper deck, right into the middle of the pirates below.

Only God himself could stand in the way of the Straw Hats and their rightful vengeance, delivered by an extremely irate vervet monkey, now.

Pissed off, the enemy pirates who were unable to see him now twisted around to glare at him. "You bastard!" they howled, rushing forward in one large circle to attack with their weapons. They dived at him, piled together in one large mosh pit of mooks. King didn't give them a chance to grab him, though, and instead, took an enormous leap into the air. He performed several perfect back flips before landing right smack on the top of the pile.

Kicking off, King launched himself directly at another attacking mook. He twisted in midair in a motion that made his tail whip across the guy's face, jerking his head to the side. King planted his feet on the side of his cheeks and pushed off. The resulting momentum knocked the poor Stormtrooper-grade pirate back into a friend, while at the same time making King soar to the side in the path of another pirate. This guy swung wildly at King with a cutlass, but the vervet monkey paid it no mind and instead landed directly on the blade in mid-swing. In the same moment, he jumped off of it and kicked his attacker's head. His big opponent dropped like a wee little fly.

["And another one bites the dust,"] King quipped as he landed and swiftly turned to face the other pirates.

Five more desert pirates all rushed at him at the same time. One swiped down with a longsword at King, who easily sidestepped it only to fall into the path of another mook's kick. King grunted as he swiftly blocked the offending boot, then was forced to quickly dodge a flurry of punches that, while lacking in speed, were certainly making up for it in strength. The floorboards cracked with each punch, opening a hole down to the next floor of the ship. King raised his eyebrow, wrapped his tail around the man's arm as it slammed down again, and jumped high into the air. His speed brought the human's arm up with him. The guy's buddy's clearly didn't like this, because two leaped at him with a baton and golden knuckles; twin split kicks to the neck sent them tumbling easily enough.

This done, he turned back to the pirate with the longsword, who was once again swiping it in a wide, clumsy motion at the monkey. King sighed and rolled his eyes before darting between the man's legs, rolling, and delivering a swift kick to the man's balls as he did so. Absolute pain flashed briefly across the guy's face as he halted in motion, stiffened, paled, and finally slumped forward. Almost immediately, he was again forced to block another kick from the man who'd tried to kick him the first time, though this time he was ready. He grabbed it, yanked down, and at the same time, spun and swept out the tall pirate's other foot from beneath him. BOOM—the Sand Sled shook with his weight as he hit the deck.

The poor dude groaned painfully, but King gave him no time to recover. Instead, he grabbed him roughly by the hair, and using some rather impressive strength gained from training with Zoro since Loguetown, King leaped into the air and dragged his new "buddy" behind him.

["HAPLORHINI… TWISTER!"]

Then, in midair, he quickly began to twist and turn. A horde of men who'd been dashing up to help their fallen friends paused in shock and horror as King whirled the barely conscious criminal in his grip like a lasso. They blinked once, twice, and then all started shouting in chaotic panic when King heaved his catch at them with incredible force.

Ten of them fell over at once.

["Strike!"] King grinned and stuck a very nice three-point landing. ["I should take up bowling sometime."]

"You…" Furiously, an impressively small man dashed forward, twirling around a pair of nunchakus that reminded King of Evan's fighting style. "YOU DAMNED MONKEY! DIE, DAMN—!"

"Enough, Ubaid!" Barbarossa said suddenly, stepping forward with his expression shadowed by his hair. He gripped his longsword in his hands with the air of a professional. King lifted an eyebrow. This man might actually prove to be a bit of a challenge, though the Straw Hat Pirate wasn't looking for one at the moment. Really, that would just be a hinderance—he wanted to save Evan as soon as possible, and all this fighting was really not helping matters.

King cracked his knuckles and signed, "Okay, look dude, I don't know if you can read this or not, but I'm running a tight schedule today. Move it or lose it."

Barbarossa blinked. "A monkey who knows sign language… that's not something you see everyday," he said, shaking his head in surprise. "And you're quite skilled at martial arts as well… However, the Barbar Pirates have been given a task, and we will never fail to complete any requested by our dear patrons!" He stabbed his sword into his own ship's deck, which seemed rather stupid to King, but hey, he wasn't a ship expert. "Therefore, sadly, you must be eliminated! ...And while we're on the subject, lose what, exactly?"

King narrowed his eyes and smirked. "Your consciousness," he signed, then quickly ran to the mast and clambered up it. His eyes swept over the ship. A series of interwoven ropes stretched down from the yarn to the sides of the ship, likely to help keep the sails open. King grinned. Perfect!

"Hey, what are you…!" Barbarossa snapped angrily, pounding forward and following hot on the monkey's trail. "Get back here!"

King was a natural-born climber, adept at finding even the smallest hand- and footholds in a given wall or other vertical surface. Part of the perks of being a monkey was the fact that he had incredible balance, especially when climbing, and this gave him an almost unfair advantage in speed over Barbarossa when it came to scaling the mast. By the time Barbarossa was only one fourth of the way up, King had already reached the crow's nest and dispatched the mook who'd been waiting for him up there with a pistol at the ready. King then tossed the pistol clear off the ship; it was unsportsmanlike to not give someone a fair fight in a battle. Besides, he didn't need high-speed projectiles to win this fight.

King vaulted himself over the side of the crow's nest to the shrouds (the ropes he'd had his eye on earlier). This done, he paused to catch his breath a bit as Barbarossa huffed and puffed his way up the mast. A minute later, the large-bellied man pulled himself up into the crow's nest, wiping sweat from his brow.

"Man, I do not envy the poor saps who have to do that everyday," the enemy captain grunted with a shake of his head. He once again unsheathed his longsword from the sheath on his belt (he'd had to stick it back in to climb up the mast) and said, "Alright, I've got you now, monkey! Running up here was not a smart thing to do!"

Then, with a sharp "HIYAH!" Barbarossa cut the shrouds, causing King to feel his stomach leap out of his chest. Not a pleasant sensation, but after the last day or so of trying to properly fly like a bird, the vervet monkey was used to the feeling of freefall.

Another perk of being a monkey (and especially being one in the world of One Piece): King's legs were able to absorb much more impact than the average human's could. In fact, it was a rather bullshit amount of impact, as proven when King landed on the deck over two hundred feet below with such grace and agility that it was rather like watching a piece of paper fall through the air. The shrouds, now let loose, were free to fall all over King. He cursed and ran out from underneath them as quickly as he could before any one of the few pirates left standing could get any ideas. Thankfully, however, the rest of the mooks seemed to be waiting for Barbarossa to finish him off.

Not that the big guy was going to, of course. King had a plan.

Alright, now come down here, you lug of a man, the vervet monkey thought, cracking his knuckles in anticipation.

He didn't have to wait long.

WHUMP CRASH CRASH! Wood splinters and all sorts of dust flew everywhere as the weight of a falling Barbarossa punched a hole clean through two floors of his ship. King gaped.

That crazy bastard… he actually jumped down after me! Well… That was unexpected. King blinked and peered over the edge of the newly opened holes, which were shaped rather significantly akin to the man's body. I may have won this without having to execute my plan in the first place.

Of course, the thought had come too soon.

"BOSS, ARE YOU ALIVE!?" the remaining pirates cried mournfully, biting their lips.

"LIKE I'M DEAD!" Barbarossa cried as he suddenly vaulted himself up and onto the deck.

King blinked rapidly, then shook his head and dashed toward the man. ["Well, guess things can't be that easy,"] he grumbled to himself a bit disappointedly.

"Alright, now for that monkey," Barbarossa growled as King rushed forward. He twisted his body and threw his weight into a downward stab, which Evan's partner hopped away from. As he ran, King reached down to the ground, spying various spots on the deck carefully.

Time and time again, King dodged, sidestepped, and ducked, avoiding Barbarossa's admittedly very quick and fluid attacks with a small amount of difficulty. King was, however, just a hair faster, though he didn't have much energy to waste on this. As the battle continued and King didn't make any attempts to even try to attack back, instead continuing to dart around the enemy captain's back and between his legs, Barbarossa grew noticeably angrier, his dark eyes hardening into more and more annoyed swipes.

That was good. More anger meant a higher vulnerability, and most importantly, a cloudier vision.

As Barbarossa steadied himself from another failed swipe of his longsword, King reached down again and fiddled with his fingers, before straightening up and running forward again.

"You little rascal!" growled the captain of the Barbar Pirates. He swung back and over his head for a devastating downwards blow, but King hopped to the right and swung his fist powerfully to the left. The heavy sword was knocked away harmlessly, although the monkey's paw now ached a little from having struck metal.

King stared Barbarossa in the eyes. "Did you know that one can manipulate where the knot in a rope will end up by placing it over itself in certain patterns?" he signed while the heavyset man paused.

"...What?"

"Oh, nothing," King signed, smirking. "I just thought I'd give you a bit of a warning, is all."

"A warning…" Barbarossa shook his head in confusion, then snarled and hefted his sword. "Whatever! Since you've finally decided to fight back, come at me with all that you've got! For striking down my men heartlessly, I will end your life by overpowering any attack you can send at me!"

Narrowing his eyes, King frowned. As if. Baring his teeth, dashing forward, King rolled under a ridiculously fast attack which even his animal eyes could hardly follow and between Barbarossa's legs. Next, he grabbed a split end of the shrouds which the swordsman had cut earlier.

The man of the hour turned and blinked. "What are you doing with tha…?" Realization suddenly hit and he looked down, his eyes widening. "EH!? The… the shroud! Its cross-sections have been untied!"

He was standing in the middle of a sort of icosagon constructed from rope, all one long strand despite the fact that the shrouds had been tied together to form many small squares. And the end of the rope… was being held in King's hand.

"While you were recklessly attacking me," King signed, grinning, "I used the time I was out of your line of sight to untie as many of the parts of the shroud as I could. Funny thing about monkey fingers—they can get into tighter places than humans' can. And now…" Yanking hard, King watched as the long strand of rope quickly pulled together and wrapped around Barbarossa's legs. The enemy pirate tried to get away, but it was no use. His legs locked together, and he only made himself fall forward heavily directly at King.

["Check…"] King said to himself, waiting as Barbarossa fell almost elegantly towards him. Then, at just the right moment, he drove a swift uppercut directly into the middle of the man's soft face. ["And mate."]

Blood spurted from Barbarossa's nose as he slumped, unconscious, to the floor.

"CAPTAIN!" shouted the remaining mooks in fear as they ran forward.

King glared at them. They all froze stiff. Good; they were smart enough to understand universal messages! At least today didn't suck that bad. Shaking his head, King dashed forward to the fo'c'sle door which led to the ship's innards; he'd seen that blue wave erupt from the back of the ship, and he knew that Evan was in whatever room that was. He lashed his foot out at the wooden door heavily, smashing through it with ease. It blasted off its hinges and bounced along the hallway once, twice, and three times, before finally sliding to a stop.

Nothing could get in his way now!

~o~
:: STUSSY ::

CP-1 Agent Stussy, soon to be CP-0 Agent Stussy, allowed herself a dark grin at the pitiful excuse for a man who lay trembling in a pool of blood on the floor below her. Blood oozed from his eyes in a terribly large amount, and he howled and choked in pain, his weakling cries sputtering as his own blood flowed into his mouth. He spat it out onto the floor. Stussy stretched and cracked her back; oh, she was good at her job. Surely this damned nuisance would tell her what he knew now.

The blonde secret agent reached down and grabbed Evan by the collar, shaking him roughly. His head rolled around, for the pirate had been unable to prepare and stiffen his neck. "Tell me the future now, or risk losing more of yourself!" Stussy demanded.

"You… bitch… I can't see…" Evan choked out, tears and blood both streaming from his eyes. "It h-hurts so bad…"

Darkness fell over Stussy's forehead, shadows from her hair and hat. "Alright, then a finger it is."

She lifted her leg, tensed her muscles. All of her concentration went to the years and years of work and training she'd put into learning Rokushiki. Just a small movement was all it would take to dislodge a finger… any one would do, really. It wasn't like Mr. 0—or, if you would prefer, Crocodile—would care whether his cargo remained intact as long as it was alive.

"Go to… hell…" Evan blathered.

"After you," Stussy shot back. Her foot started down—

CRASH!

And the Rankyaku was suddenly jerked to the side as an unexpected flying door slammed directly into her back, causing her to stumble forward and nearly bite her tongue.

"What!?" Evan twisted around trying to locate the source of the crash. His dark hair brushed against his peeling, pink skin as his head swiveled around to locate it. "What was that!? What happened!?"
Stussy picked herself up off the floor; the sudden door had knocked her down. Damn, Observation Haki always had been her very weakest of the three. "I would like to know that myself…" she growled, turning around and dusting off her now-dirty dress. Didn't Barbarossa clean the dirt off this damned ship? "Just had this cleaned, too…"

Her eyes peered through the billowing dust from the broken door to see… a monkey standing at the end of the hall, just before her doorway?

Stussy blinked. "A monkey?"

Evan perked up. "What!? King!? King, is that you!?"

That was interesting. So, this monkey standing in front of her, panting and white-furred, was an acquaintance of her captive? Judging by the intense glare the thing was giving her, and the way it was cracking its knuckles, she was judging yes. Stussy frowned. This complicated matters. Still, it was just a monkey. It wasn't like it could put up a fight; they were naturally weaker both in defense and offense than humans were. It was so much easier to gut an animal than a human.

"Soru," she said simply, and very quickly struck the ground ten times in a single instant with her feet. She flashed through the air at breakneck speeds, jumping around to the monkey, King's, back. King's ears twitched upon hearing her footfall, and he twisted around with surprising speed. Stussy raised her eyebrow at that. The blonde had to hand it to the monkey; he was at least a fast critter.

No matter. Its eyes were wide with surprise; it clearly hadn't expected her immense speed and mastery of the Rokushiki. Plus, it hadn't been able to see her move; it had only followed her footfalls. This would be a cinch. "Rankyaku."

Her leg blurred, and that familiar blue light shot down toward the monkey as the air itself was chased away, replaced with momentary vacuums. Stussy smirked as the blue light bit into…

Nothing except the ship's floor?

"WHAT!?" Stussy gasped, quickly flash-stepping away as the monkey suddenly appeared out of nowhere right in front of her. And her eyes had, a split second before this King fellow had disappeared in the first place, noticed him rapidly striking the ground with his feet. Just like her! HOW!? It had been obvious that King had been completely unaware of her Rokushiki before, but now he was able to move just as fast as her and even use the Marines' closely guarded secrets!?

Stussy landed lightly on the floor of her quarters and shook her head. No, no, it wasn't like King could use Rokushiki. After all, if he was a friend of Evan's, that would mean that he must also be a pirate, and a monkey pirate at that. There was no way that a monkey pirate could learn Rokushiki.

King landed, turned and pointed at Stussy. His teeth barred, and as she watched with wide, shocked eyes, his foot blurred.

Blue light shot from his leg, arcing clear at her. Stussy quickly ducked, pale and unbelieving. The Sand Sled rocked as the vervet monkey's Ran… Ran… Rankyaku slammed into its back, left a deep cut in the wood, but faded before it could go away from the ship too far.

So, then, while he could use it with outstanding technique, he was physically only barely able to wield these powers. But still… STILL...

"Just who are you!?" she demanded, eyes widening, jaw slackening, and even a pearl of snot running down from her nose.

King took one look at her face… and burst into peals of laughter. "MACACACACA!"

Stussy swallowed, then shook her head and clenched her fists. It didn't matter if this monkey knew Rokushiki or not; she had a job to complete. She had to uncover Evan's secrets about the future, so that she could relay them to the Marines. And then if she knew the future, she would be able to finally get one step ahead of that thrice-damned Nico Robin, who always seemed to be protected by Crocodile at every turn. And capturing Nico Robin while she was under Crocodile's watch was, of course, a severe danger to her job…

"Monkey, I don't know who you are, but you're trying to interrupt the security of this world for generations to come." She glared across the room at it, tensed her legs, and paused. "Prepare to die. SORU!"

She blurred through the air again, appearing just atop King and twisting her body around to deliver a devastating Finger Pistol to the top of his head. If she could punch through to his brain, he'd be dead in an instant…! But again, he surprised her. He quickly looked up, saw her, and vanished before her eyes. Another Soru!

Stussy grunted and planted her feet on the floor, bending her knees to absorb the impact better. How annoying. Where was that bastard monkey now…? Her eyes fell further into the room, and she gaped. Oh, no! He was grabbing Evan's chains! If he got her goal…!

"RANKYAKU!" Stussy snapped, blasting the wave of blue light out at top speeds. She quickly followed it up with a truly terrifying amount of stabs in the air with her pointer finger. "Finger Pistol!"

The combined vacuums and Finger Pistols blasted through the air to create a force truly to be reckoned with, a maelstrom of danger and death. King's eyes widened, and he quickly Soru'd away with Evan in tow, but not quickly enough; blood suddenly splashed into the floor where he'd just been standing. It wasn't enough blood to be more than a glancing blow, but it was enough to tell Stussy that it he was weakening. He couldn't keep up the Rokushiki for very long without losing loads of energy.

Her fists clenched tighter, almost drawing blood.

She would catch him, and his human friend. No loose stones would be left in this case. Stussy turned around, eyes almost shaking with rage as she watched her target disappear out the hall and onto the deck of the ship, through another door which he'd smashed.

Stussy disappeared.

The room was empty.

But not for long.

~o~
:: EVAN ::

Pain, darkness, confusion.

After Stussy's Rankyaku (for surely, that could be the only thing that it could be) bit into my eyes, I knew nothing but pain, darkness, and confusion.

Pain: the pain of your entire face feeling like it was on fire, the pain of knowing something wasn't there that should be. The pain of the knowledge that I would never be able to see again. Everything hurt so bad; all the injuries I'd gathered from my time spent in captivity these past few day; the empty, lifeless sockets that had, until today, been my eyes. It was indescribable, the feeling of never being able to see again. It was the kind of thing that people didn't even consider, just took for granted; but the panic that set in when you would never be able to tell what was going on ever again was palpable.

Darkness: an eternal darkness like I'd never known before. When you close your eyes in the day, you still see red and tan and orange spots from the light burnt into your eyes, right? Hitting your eyelids? Even during the night, staring up at your ceiling, you still can see the slightest bit of light, no matter how many stars are in the sky or how thick the curtains covering your windows are. But after Stussy's Rankyaku, all of that just vanished. I was lost in a world completely void of any and all color or light, no matter how slight. Everything was just… gone. All of my other sense were put on hyper-alert, my pain receptors going through the roof; my hearing and smelling skyrocketed.

Confusion: the confusion of not being able to understand what's happening anywhere nearby you. I had absolutely no idea what was happening to me. I heard Stussy threaten to slice off my finger from somewhere in front of me, or at least, I thought it was in front of me. I simply had no idea where to look, because I couldn't look. And I heard the sounds of a battle, and Stussy mention a monkey. Futilely, I distracted myself from my agony by desperately turning my head to try and tell what direction King Kong—for surely if there was any monkey that would be here, attacking this room at this time, it would be my amazing partner—was. I couldn't, of course, and the realization of that just brought me full-circle back to pain.

My spirits broke.

How could I possibly be a pirate ever again if I couldn't see? I wouldn't be able to fight. Hell, I wouldn't even be able to write. My position as ship chronicler entirely depended on me being able to see where I was writing, what I was writing. I was useless. Just a rock, waiting to be tossed away.

Tears streamed out from my broken, sightless eyes.

I was nothing.

And then I felt the telltale soft fur of King's paw against the part of my arm that was free from chains, and a light body pressing against my own.

"King…" I whimpered in a soft, broken voice, crying pathetically. "King, it's over… Everything's over..."

I heard a sad, angry whine from my partner. And then I heard Stussy shout, "Rankyaku!"

And we moved.

I could tell because of the intense wind that was suddenly blasting every part of me, ripping the warm, red blood off my face. Clueless as to where we were moving to, or how, I could only sit tight and lean into King's grip as we blasted through space. I heard men shouting; Barbarossa's men from the accents. Whacky, how many details one picked up from sound when one was unseeing.

Hotness against the back of my neck, heat that made me flinch. The desert sun. We were outside? But how did we escape Stussy so quickly? And how quickly was she catching up to us?

My dad often said that the fear of not knowing is the greatest fear of the human race.

Now, my vision stolen from me and unable to know anything, I fully understood why.

I felt us jump up and over something, or at least, I thought I did. I heard King's foot land against wood, and my legs flopped against something. Pain streaked through my being, and I cursed. Thanks to my senses being on overdrive mode, my sensitivity was heightened. Great, just what I needed. More pain. I winced as I was dragged across what had to be floorboards.

The ruffle of feathers distracted me from my inner agony and I curiously listened. It seemed like King was fiddling about with something like feathers, by the way his arms and shoulders were moving. It was almost like he was putting something on. Then his arms stopped rolling back and forth. There was a loud CRSSSK like Stussy's Rankyaku, and suddenly the headache and ringing in my ears from the seastone went away completely. I could fully concentrate again. I felt him lay me carefully over his back, and I heard his feet dash across the floor.

What sounded like metal chains clanged against wood at the same time that my chains fell away from my body. How…?

At the same time, I also heard something that sounded like… air getting displaced by a lot of kicking?

"KING! RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN AWAY!" I shouted, desperation and sheer pain making my voice higher and louder. "STUSSY HAS ROKUSHIKI! I DON'T KNOW HOW, BUT SHE CAN USE THAT! YOU DON'T STAND A CHANCE!"

King growled something, I don't know what, and then... freefall.

No, wait, not freefall. Even though it felt like King had leaped off of the Sand Sled with me in tow, we were falling through the air, the desert rising up quickly to meet us…

Wait, what?

I… knew that. How?

I blinked, and realized that I could see.

Well, okay, not really see, see. Not in the technical sense of the term, anyway. It was more like I was aware of all of the different water in the air, and in our bodies. It was like having some weird kind of heat-tracking, except I could sense the water particles of the nearby world, if that made any sense. And I'd only been able to do it since King had somehow freed me from my seastone chains. I gasped. Of course! My water powers! I had no idea how, but they were allowing me to somehow "see!"

And what they were "seeing…" was kind of crazy.

A blind man and a monkey with wings jumped off of a desert boat, chased by an angry blonde criminal with superhuman martial arts.

Sounded like the start of some kind of joke, really, but that's exactly what I was sensing with my newfound addition to my powers. And even crazier, King was somehow flying. No joke, he was somehow flapping what appeared to be makeshift wings on his back and soaring through the air away from Stussy. I gasped. Stussy! Panicking, I threw out my senses, searching for her water signature. Where was she? Still back on the ship, but I knew she was striking the ground in preparation for Soru.

"King, Stussy's about to use Soru again!" I said hurriedly, shaking my flying partner. "I don't quite know how, but I can see the water all around us, including other people's water. And her water is currently shooting up at us and…" I paled. "Okay, that came out totally wrong, but anyway, she's gonna reach us!"

King's head tilted back towards mine, and I could feel the questioning look on his face.

"You can use Soru in the air!"

He quickly snapped back around and… kicked the air rapidly, causing us to blast off even farther away from Stussy. What!? King could use Soru, too!? How… ohhhhhh. Goddammit, that was brilliant. He was able to mimic Stussy's Rokushiki!

"King, I could kiss you right now," I said with a wide grin, "but we need to get the hell outta Dodge. Stussy's right on our toes. I can feel her getting closer."

King didn't use Rokushiki again.

Goddammit, I really wish I could see him for real, because I needed to know why. Then again, I guess he couldn't really sign anything anyway, what with being forced to fly away.

"TEN-STEP RANKYAKU!" Stussy roared, and suddenly a very wide and large section of water was gone from the air behind us. I felt the section move closer and closer, and I knew it had to be a Rankyaku.

"King, dodge!" I yelled, and something inside me pulled. Water in the air coalesced, liquified, and swept over to my monkey friend. He was caught in it and pulled upward, coughing and sputtering indignantly. My suddenly amazing hearing picked up Stussy gasping.

My own eyes widened. What the hell? I'd never had the ability to take water vapor from the air and turn it into liquid water before. What was going on…? The water vision! I wanted to smack my head against something. Of course! Now that I could actually see the water in the air and concentrate on it, I could form it into something that I could use!

...Unfortunately, I had really misjudged where to send the water to. Although the Rankyaku sailed harmlessly inches below us, I was able to sense the water that was King's new wings shuddering and breaking apart from itself. It must've been composed of many different feathers glued together, somehow. Like Icarus and Daedalus? Fucking hell, some evil being somewhere was really having a fantastic time with my life, weren't they? As I cursed my existence, my belly was left behind, for we spiraled down through the air haphazardly.

Flew close to the sun, my ass. We flew too close to the water, and we were in the freaking desert! Hell, the only reason I wasn't calling complete bullshit on any of the events that had happened in the past hour was because this was One Piece we were talking about. Still, I doubt many citizens of this world could say that sentence many times. Or ever.

"Alright, I got us into this mess," I growled, clenching my hands tightly around King. "Time to get us out of it. Sorry about your wings, King."

I sensed the water in his arms flow in significant motions. "Don't worry about it," he signed stiffly as we fell through the air.

Blood streaming from my eyes, my bruised and sunburnt face twitched as I concentrated on the water particles in the air. There were so many of them that it was hard to focus on just a few, and doing so took a lot of energy out of me, but I was able to do so. I mentally grasped at what I could sense. Pulling them closer together, I formed a slide of water much like I had back at Loguetown when I'd failed at my attempt to save Luffy from the execution platform.

We hit the water and our descent slowed as it evened out.

This type of vision was weird. I could tell the general vicinity of where we were and what was around us by the way the water in the air bounced off of us and the ground. I wasn't able to see any colors, though, so I had the feeling that I was going to devolve into Unreliable Narrator status if something wasn't done.

...Why did I think that?

...I'm weird. Not that that's anything new, of course.

Where were we again?

OOMPH. Yuck! Sand! In my mouth! Grooooss! Yeah, that's right, falling from the sky on a slide made of water, and about to hit the sand dunes. I scrambled to my feet and wiped my tongue clean of the offending sand. Thanks for the unnecessary reminder, world.

A spot of water vapor just before me quite strangely congealed into the words, You're welcome.

"...Fuck you, ASA," I grumbled, flipping off the sky. "Very, very hard."

Language! admonished the water vapor.

"English," I replied, putting my hands in my leather jacket pockets and turning around to where I sensed Stussy was still Soru'ing through the air at us. It was hard to tell where she would be… but that didn't matter. I was going to freaking kill her.

Not literally. No, no, not literally. I'm a pirate, not a murderer. But I was definitely going to enjoy knocking her off of her high horse. Ohhhhh, yes, I would.

"Evan, why are you cackling?" King signed worriedly. He must've been concerned I was going crazy. Well, sorry to break it to ya, buddy, but I passed the point of 'crazy' looooong before I came to this fucked-up world. Cackling even louder, I readjusted my glasses, then remembered that I didn't have any glasses to readjust. Shit. Oh well.

"King, how do you feel about giving this bitch a few more bruises?" I said at last, grinning like the villain of every horror movie I'd ever seen. Which, well, honestly was hardly any. I'd never seen the point of purposefully scaring yourself. Like, did you like having nightmares in the night or something?

Heh, seen.

King's watery head turned to Stussy, and I felt his equally sadistic grin from here. "I'm listening," he signed, chortling under his breath. "MACACACACA!"

"VEEHIHIHI!" I cackled. I rolled my neck back and forth. Oh, the wonderful feeling of cracking stiff bones. Really, it was taken for granted way too much. It felt heavenly. The first thing I was doing when I got back to my crew was getting a back massage from Nojiko. Dear lord, were her hands magic. "Stussy!" I shouted, pointing at the kind-of-flying woman. Was Soru considered flying? Screw it, I'm considering Soru to be flying. Sue me. "Your next line is… How the hell can you look at me when you're blind!?"

"HOW THE HELL CAN YOU LOOK AT ME WHEN YOU'RE BLIND!?" Stussy roared, then blinked. And then paled. "EH!?"
"See, Stussy, the funny thing about trying to attack someone who knows the future… They know the future!"

And with that, I concentrated on the water in her body, raised my arm, and clenched my fist.

Stussy froze mid-Soru, hanging in the air.

Remember how I said, way back on the Conomi Islands, that I would refuse to control somebody using the water in their bodies? Yeah, well, I had had it up to here with Stussy. This bitch was going down, down, DOWN, and there was nothing that I was going to hold back to keep that from happening.

"And your next line," I said, grinning evilly, "is, Why can't I move, cretin!?"

"Why can't I move, cretin!?" demanded Stussy, before stiffening up.

"Oh, sad, sad, sad," I clucked, shaking my head as I walked forward casually. "Didn't your buddy 3 tell you? My power is to controlwater, Stussy. And a funny thing? Blood is mostly water. I came up with this idea almost as soon as I ate my Devil Fruit, but I never thought I'd actually use it… but then you did this to me." I paused. "Do you feel that?" I tilted my head just slightly down, so that my still-rapidly bleeding eyes would be shadowed. With the red liquid dripping down my entire pink face, the deadly scowl, and the shadows over my eyes, I must've looked like a demon straight from Hell. "That's the feeling of being completely and utterly helpless. So why don't you give me one good reason why I shouldn't make you strangle yourself to death?"

To reiterate, I was bluffing. I wasn't going to actually kill her. But as the saying goes, turnabout is fair play, and darn if it didn't feel good to tip the scales so that I was the one with all the power against her. And having so much power over her, I wanted to at least make her feel a tad of the pain, confusion, and suffering that I'd been forced to endure these past… two weeks now.

Because screw. Baroque. Works.

Stussy choked. "This… this is the deepest… you'll ever be in a woman."

Ouch. Kirito was right, that hurt. "Alright, that's it, bitch. King, it's all you."

"Oh, I have waited so long to do this," King signed gleefully. He growled, and although I couldn't understand it, he'd said, ["Haplorhini Rankyaku!"]

With a howl, Boss Bitch bit the dust. Or, sand, as it were.

Sighing in relief at last, I stepped across the empty desert to her and tilted my head down cautiously at her. "You didn't kill her, did you, King?" I asked worriedly, placing two fingers on her neck. I felt a pulse and sighed. "Okay, no you didn't. Good. She'll definitely feel that one in the morning."

"She clawed your eyes out!" King signed indignantly. "Why shouldn't I kill her? Didn't you even mention something about someone making this mistake in another story?"

Cracking my back, I stood up and frowned at him. "King Kong. As long as we're Straw Hats, I don't want anyone to die if I can help it. That includes people who attack us. There's only one or two people in this world I can think of who truly deserve to be sent straight to Hell, and one is way too powerful for any of us to even think about facing in a fight. The other is a stuck-up bastard who will definitely get what's coming to him. And although Stussy may have done all of this, killing is just wrong."

King grimaced heavily, looking at the unconscious form of my torturer. Finally, he snorted. "Fine. But if she ever comes after us again, she won't live to regret it."

"Fair enough," I said, shrugging. "But for now? Just leave her be. I mean, anyway, isn't it the Straw Hat way to not kill your opponents?"

"Yeah, I guess so," he signed dejectedly.

He paused, then looked at where my fishy-senses were telling me his tattered and broken wings laid on the ground.

"So, uh, how are we going to get out of the desert now?" King signed, glancing back at me.

I stared with my lifeless, bleeding eyes.

Stared some more.

"…Fuck."