LW: So, here we are, doing it right this time. Enjoy
Rubber King and Mirror Master – Straw Hats Vs Baroque Works, for real this time!
Aka Battle of Alabasta, Part 1
"Okay, so we have ducks, and they're actually faster than I expected, but what are we going to do once we get to Alubarna? I doubt the rebel leader is in a mood to talk" Nami asks as the crew ride on Carue's backup duck squad
"Finding somewhere to scout would be a good idea, we're still ahead of the rebels, if only because we can't hear the pitched battle you'd expect for something like this" Usopp suggests, getting nods from the others
Vivi points ahead of them "There's a rocky bluff just over there, we'll stop and try figure out where everything is when we get there, that good enough for everyone?"
"Yep"
"Good, the other option was flying blind, something we've been doing too much of on this journey" the princess grumbles to herself mostly, but Zoro being the closest did hear and snorts, they've been flying blind since they entered the Grand Line, maybe earlier if he was being honest with himself, though the concept wasn't exactly new do him given his poor sense of direction after all.
Outcrop
"Oh shit, it's the 1's and 4's" Vivi gasps, passing the binoculars back to Kaos
"The 1's could be a problem but the 4's should be no big deal, after all we beat Mr. 3" Usopp boasts
Quack, Quack, Quack
"She says WE didn't beat Mr. 3, Luffy did, plus we only beat him and saved the others because his partner betrayed him" Chopper translates, the long nose droops when the others nod along with her, Artemis most of all
"So any preferences?" Zoro asks, grinning at the chance of a fight
"Dibs on Miss All Sunday" Kaos declares, reminding the crew that even if they don't see her they'll have to deal with Crocodile's partner as well as him eventually.
"Oh no you don't! You harm one hair on her beautiful head I'll…" Sanji begins to rant but Kaos clearly isn't in the mood, so puts his hand on the back of the cook's head and slams him face first into the ground
"Shut up, we don't have time for your perverted chivalry, go find that ballerina when we get into the city" he orders, Sanji grumbles but nods, Kaos was acting captain until Luffy comes back after all, plus Mr. 2 did seem like the kind to have a fighting style involving his legs.
"Well Valentina, want to try get that promotion?" Victor jokes to his partner, who smirks evilly
"It's on! I'm going to beat that hag into the Red Line!" the kilo girl declares
Vivi sweat drops "That's nice, but we still need a way to get into the capital as well as get the 1s and 4s to split up"
Nami smirks as she looks from the former agents to the rest of the crew and back, Carue looking confused when she focuses on her "Don't worry Vivi, I have an idea"
A little later
"Hmm, seems the reports about any of the Straw hats having intelligence were exaggerating Mr. 1" the bluenette beside him comments "Charging right at us is beyond stupid"
Mr 1 frowns at his partner "Things are rarely as they appear Miss Doublefinger, you'd do well to remember that" he says flatly, the duck riding pirates getting closer, from what little could be seen it appeared Vivi was leading the charge.
" 'sNowhereToRu…urk" Miss Merry Christmas groans as Vivi hops off her duck, their long legs slam the round woman face first into the ground, followed by using her as a springboard to jump over the others, the remaining ducks trampling her fully into the ground.
"It's a trick!" Mr. 1 yells, slashing at the fake princess with his blades, tearing through the cloth
"Hey Lady Deathstrike!" he turns and looks up to see Kaos grinning as he dangles from the wall "You missed. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop" he cackles as he hops up and runs along the roofs
"Mirror Master Kaos" 1 mutters before turning to the other 3 agents "Split up, the princess has to have been mixed in with the other pirates" They nod and begin to move, only for an explosion to go off between the 1's and 4's.
"Mr. 4! Miss Merry Christmas! We're calling you lardasses out" Valentina yells, Victor beside her with a serious expression on his face.
"Don't just stand there, deal with them" Doublefinger hisses, waving her hands in a shooing motion, mostly to piss off Merry Christmas, because it was fun
In Alubarna
'Fuck, how does someone lose a princess?' Kaos thinks to himself, making his way through the streets, until he yelps and ducks a sword swing "Shit, not you again!"
Lucina growls "I don't know what part you play in this, but I'm taking you down"
"Kind of busy at the moment, any chance of a rain check?" he smiles weakly, then jumps out of the way of another swing 'I'll take that as a no' Kaos thinks
"I will eliminate you in the name of justice!" Lucina shrieks, Kaos narrowly avoiding getting his head lopped off
The reflect human was glad his reflexes were good enough to keep the blade at bay for as long as he had (though he'd never tell Garp that, didn't want the idiot to think his insane training regime was a good idea after all), but eventually Lucina got the upper hand and her sword stabbed through his shoulder, pinning him to the wall
"Fuck!" Kaos hissed, the wound burning like a hot iron had been stabbed into it, but there was also the draining feel underneath it like he had been dunked in seawater
Lucina wraps her hand around his neck, Kaos too out of it due to the seastone to stop her when…
"Shit, the marines are here too!"
Both turn (well Kaos' eyes flick over to where the voices came from) and see a palace guard and rebel solider, standing at the entrance of the alley Lucina had funnelled him into. They turn to one another, nod and raise their rifles, chanting "For Baroque Works" as they fire
Kaos just manages to avoid biting through his tongue as Lucina reefs the sword from him in order to deflect the bullets away. The millions realise they'd fucked up when Lucina yells and tears them apart with Parallel Falchion, the blade slicing through their weapons as easily as their bodies
"I'll need to watch out for her in the future" Kaos thinks, using the distraction to put some well needed distance between himself and Captain Nylock, it was while slipping between streets he noticed something 'Well, this could be fun' he thinks with a wide grin, letting his fruit's power flow over his entire form 'I've only gotten to use this once since we started out, Luffy will be so pissed he missed this again'
Outside the city
"Damn it, we lost them already" Valentina huffs, kicking up the sand before sitting
"It's not that simple Val, they wouldn't be high ranked numbers if they were that weak. They're clearly up to something"
Thump Thump
"Guys! We have a problem" Chopper yells, the other seeing the sink holes opening up in the sand near him, then hearing Merry Christmas' voice coming from the holes
"I hope you didn't think we'd be beaten that easily. Time to show off our Number 4 batter" she cackles and from one of the larger hole Mr. 4 rises, swinging a baseball bat around as he does
"He doesn't look so tough" Alvida comments, her grip tightening on her mace reflectively
"True, but I get the feeling he's at least better with that thing than Mr. 9 was" Victor adds, still unsure what to make of these 2 agents.
"Do they have Devil fruits?" Usopp asks, getting shrugs from the defectors
"Christmas most likely does, how else could she make these holes, but 4? No clue whatsoever"
Bark
"Four!" the rotund man yells, smacking the incoming ball towards the pirates who jump out of the way just in time to avoid the explosion
"Holy shit, exploding baseballs!" Usopp yelps
"Yep, definitely more of a threat than 9 ever was" Valentina confirms, though is confused by Victor's smile "What now?"
The 4's forgot something important"
"Four!" another baseball
Boom. Puff.
"Being a bomb man, means I'm explosion proof" Victor grins and Mr. 4 has to sink below the sand rather quickly to avoid an exploding snot ball in response
"Well that means one of us is safe, but where's he getting those balls in the first place?" Chopper asks, then gets tapped on the arm by Usopp
"I'm going to go out on a limb and say that monstrosity over there" he suggests in a panicked tone, pointing to a dog/bazooka hybrid monster
"Does a Grenade-grenade fruit even exist?" Alvida wonders aloud, just before the dog-thing sneezes, shooting another ball which 4 redirects towards the crew "No thanks you can have it back!" the smooth woman retorts as she smacks it with her mace, though her aim is off and the explosion takes out some ruins instead "Damn it"
"Impressive" Alvida turns behind her to see Merry Christmas pop out of one of the holes "I've never seen anyone be able to redirect one of Mr.4 or Lasso' balls before, given they're time bombs and weight as much as a cannonball, but somehow a twig of a woman like you can do that. That makes no sense. ExplainWomanExplain!" she screams, then has to jump into one of her holes to dodge Alvida and Usopp's attacks, the Exploding Star missing by an inch, which was less than the mace which came nowhere close
"Shit, I just realised what this is" Valentina says with a groan "We're about to enter a fucked up version of whack a mole" the others stop for a moment to consider her words…. And the swearing begins
"Well that's one way to look at it, plus its delicious irony given I ate the Mole Mole fruit. Luckily thanks to all my holes we'll be just as hard to hit as the moles in that game, and we hit back"
Bark Bark Bark
"FOUR!" The rotund man drones, sending a trio of baseball bombs at the crew
"I got thi…"
Thump
The ground opens up at Victor's feet, causing him to fall into the hole, the balls flying unimpeded and clocking Usopp in the face, as well as Chopper in the chest.
"That was actually smart, who knew these dumbasses had 2 brain cells to rub together" Valentina muses as her 1 kg form floats onto Alvida's shoulder like she ate the parrot variant of the Bird Bird fruit "But they made one little miscalculation. Everyone get away from the holes!" she yells as loud as she could
"What?"
KABOOM!
"Stupid penguin, my body is a bomb, the only thing that would have stopped me blowing my way out of those tunnels would have been sea prism stone cuffs" Victor smirks as he pulls himself out of the now larger hole he'd fallen into, his full body detonation setting off a chain reaction throughout the entire molehill Merry Christmas had created "Go fuck yourselves and the cannon dog you rode in on" he grunts, spitting into the hole as one last attempt at clearing house, the explosion caused was much smaller as would be expected.
Elsewhere – Sanji
Due to the erratic way in which the Straw Hats split up, it's no wonder Vivi as well as each other's locations were lost rather quickly, Sanji only running into Vivi accidentally on his path to finding Bon Clay but he was glad to run into the okama when he did, intercepting an attack on the princess and a barely conscious Carue, pissing him off as while not human Vivi's companion/familiar was an honorary lady in his book, so seeing the poor duck that badly hurt sparked righteous fury in his heart.
"Vivi, don't you have a rebellion to stop? I'll deal with this creep, you head off and we'll let the ducks get Carue to safety" he says, straightening his suit as 2 of the supersonic ducks tried get her onto the larger one's back, to which Sanji smiles softly and lifts her "Get her out of here, it's a literal war zone and those injuries look serious. Now Go!" he gives the bird a light slap on the flank, emitting a small yelp before running off in a plump of dust "Now that's over, it's just you and me dumbass"
Bon Clay stands and smirks "Yes but not for long, nothing I've fought so far has been able to stand up to more than a handful of strikes of my okama kempo!" he boasts flamboyantly. That boast would have meant something had Sanji not been able to block his kick with one of his own almost lazily
"You only fight Usopp on this island, that kick was weak. My old man kicks harder than that and he's got a peg leg" Sanji taunts as he blocks another of Mr. 2's ballet kicks
Elsewhere – Zoro
Once he entered the capital, Zoro took off in a random direction to the other 4 to enter, partly as that had been the plan (to get the agents to split up and divide their forces) but it was also proof of how easily Zoro could get lost. So here he was, standing somewhere near the middle of town, with no idea where he was, or where everyone else was either, at least until…
"Roronoa Zoro!"
'Ah shit' Zoro groans internally, seeing Tashigi marching over to him, hand clenched around Shiguri's hilt "Listen, this isn't the best time…"
"Shut up!" she yells in his face "I've tried to do this politely, but if you refuse to surrender those swords to most deserving hands I'll take them by force"
"Yeah right, the only way you'd get these swords and more importantly be considered deserving of them is to beat me in a fight. Until then, go stick the hilt in your mouth and go annoy someone else" Zoro replies with a scoff, then as his well honed situational awareness kicked in the swordsman jumps at the marine sword-otaku. As Tashigi yelps Zoro knocks her to the ground, just barely avoiding a slash from Mr 1, deep gashes in the stone wall behind them fairly conclusive proof of that
"What the fuck was that for?" Tashigi screams at Zoro, her cheeks red and blotchy (Zoro's not much better) "Also get off me, you brute!"
"A thank you would be nice" Zoro grumbles as he stands, the marine finally noticing the damage done to the wall exactly where her head had been previously, the colour draining from her face. "So, no problem with collateral damage eh Mr.1?" he asks the stoic looking man in front of him.
"None. You're Zoro right? The Straw Hat's Swordsman?" Mr 1 answers and then asks, smiling ever so slightly when Zoro nods and reaches for his swords "I was hoping to get to fight you"
Vivi
As she ran through the streets, Vivi was running on fumes physiologically, seeing so many people being killed or maimed needlessly, under the orders of people she cared about, it was cutting her up inside worse than any blade.
'Luffy, Carue, and all the others, risking their very lives and for what?' she thinks as tears glisten in her clenched shut eyes, then her teeth clench, his hands curl into fists and the anger rises from the sea of depression and pity she was wallowing in 'No! I have to do this, they're counting on me! Everyone in Alabasta is counting on me! I won't let HIM WIN!' pushing herself to keep walking Vivi turns her attention to the palace, knowing Chakka would be much easier to find than Koza.
TBC
LW: Well, shit's happening and I hopefully delivered on my promise.
Merry Christmas: Eater of the Mole Mole fruit/ Mogu Mogu no mi
Lassoo: A gun that ate the Dog Dog fruit/Inu Inu no mi model Dachshund.
No that hasn't been explained as to how an inanimate object can 'eat' something, but it's happened a couple of times in the series, Lassoo was just the first.
Q: Can we mark standing in front of the stampede known as the rebel army count as Vivi's dumbest decision? Cause it has to be at least pretty high if it isn't
This is the last chapter of One Piece for 2018, so thanks to everyone who started reading or has continued to read my work this year and I hope you come back in 2019, chapter 37 will be out on the 5th of January providing I can keep my schedule going.
Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year!