Wealth, Fame, Power…

Chapter 26: That's Gonna Leave A Mark

Don Kreig was in quite the predicament at the moment. He hated to admit it, but this kid was stronger than him. His only hope would have been to drown the damn brat, but that was gonna be pretty much impossible with how much room to fight the Dreadnaught Sabre provided.

What he really needed was a chance to assemble his mighty battle spear. The only problem with that though, was the fact that his enemy was approaching him fast. With the kid on his ass, there was no way in hell he would have enough time to put together his prized weapon. He had to think of a way to get the boy off of him for a little while. This was the only plan he had now that his gas mask was busted.

The only thing comforting Krieg right now, was the fact that he hadn't even used half of the weapons in his glorious suit of armor. There had to be something in here to help him, and as he racked his brain for all of its features, he thought of the perfect one for this situation.

With his new plan in motion the pirate admiral threw his head back against the stump of the mast, trying to appear in as much pain as possible. "Oh! The agony! I've never felt so much sheer torment in my life before!"

Luffy stopped his slow walk and looked at the purple haired man oddly. What the hell had gotten into him all of a sudden? "Uh, are you ok?"

Kreig was on the verge of blowing his entire act by almost smiling at this boy's stupidity. Gathering himself, he faked his pain even more. "Gah! It's horrible! Please kid, just let me go. It's not like I actually hurt anyone right?"

Luffy looked at the man skeptically, not even having to think about his answer. "C'mon, stop complaining, I'm not just gonna let you go. If you really are done, I can knock you out but-"

"We'll see who's complaining!" Krieg shouted out of nowhere, bringing up his right arm and revealing a tube above his wrist. "Let's see how well rubber handles a flamethrower!"

Luffy quickly jumped back in surprise as the man unleashed a strong line of flames right in his face. He would have liked to have thought that he jumped back far enough to avoid them, but this was not the case. What did end up happening was the scorching of both of his arms, and boy was it painful.

"Ahh!" Luffy screamed as he blew on his hands with as much breath as he could provide. Since his body was rubber, it was usually slower to take in change in temperatures, but that didn't apply when the change was this extreme.

As the poor boy continued to blow on his hands like there was no tomorrow, he didn't even notice the massive comeback his enemy had just made while he was distracted.

Looking up, Luffy saw the large man tower over him, and this time he wasn't empty handed. He was carrying a weapon that looked like a huge lollipop. It was made up of what the rubber man thought was his shoulder pads, and it had a spearhead at the top. Along with a long red handle that he was gripping it by.

"Heh, don't worry kid, that's not gonna burn for much longer. Because my mighty battle spear is about to put you at the bottom of the ocean."

Before the straw hat teen even had time to register what the man was saying, he had already loaded the weapon onto his shoulder, beginning to take a long swing.

In a last ditch attempt to dodge the attack Luffy tried to jump, but he wasn't fast enough. The powerful swing of the spear hit him right in the side, exploding on impact and sending him flying. Truly, the only good thing that came from the encounter was the fact that the speartip never actually touched him.

Other than that though, things were not looking so good, with Don Krieg even throwing in some showboating. "Aw yeah! A towering home run!"

As the rubber man sailed helplessly into the air, the entire world around him was spinning. He could hear faint cries of his name in the distance, but he couldn't distinguish any voices with the ringing in his ears.

Gathering his bearings and rapidly blinking the blurriness out of his eyes, Luffy took in his surroundings. Doing his best to find out where the hell he was. The first thing he laid eyes on was the large saber-toothed figurehead of Krieg's Pirate ship. This obviously wasn't a good sign, seeing as how he just zipped right by it and was now heading straight for the water.

Rather than flailing around in a panic though, the straw hat teen began acting on a clever idea that just popped into his head. If he managed to pull it off, it would definitely be devastating. But it was going to hurt… A lot.

Quickly taking action, Luffy sent out both of his burning arms towards the enemy ship. Stretching them as far as they could go until he could grab hold of the tiger figurehead.

Gritting through the pain of the burned skin on his hands being shredded off by the rough wood, the rubber man still managed a smile, this plan was so stupid that it might actually work. With a firm enough grip on the Dreadnaught Sabre, Luffy prepared himself for the next wave of pain that was about to come.

With the momentum of the battle spear's attack shooting him away from the ship, and his grip pulling him towards it, there was now an enormous amount of tension on the boy's arms. It wasn't long after this that he began to slow down his flight. But to Luffy, it felt like forever.

With his red hands doing their best to hold onto the painful texture of the figurehead, and his burned arms being stretched to the absolute limit, it was no surprise that the teen cried out like he never had before. "AHHH! GUM GUM!"

As the tension on his arms reached its peak, some of the rubber on Luffy's two stretched limbs was finally beginning to tear, causing even more pain for the poor boy. Luckily for him though, all of the force pushing him away from the ship was now neutralized, changing his direction at last and sending him flying back towards his opponent. "ROCKET!"

It wasn't an understatement in saying that every single person on the Baratie had their jaws on the floor right now. It was incredible how fast the boy was flying back at the enemy. Even Usopp, who had the best eyesight around, could barely see his friend at the speed he was going. To sum it up, if some kind of human flight speed record existed, Luffy definitely just broke it.

The only one who was completely oblivious to the situation going on, was the main target of this attack, Don Krieg. The purple haired man seemed to be off in his own little world. His back turned to the incoming pirate, thinking the battle was already over.

The pirate admiral's attention was eventually caught by a constant ear piercing scream sounding off behind him. And lo and behold, the timing couldn't have been more perfect for the man to turn around. Because he was immediately met with the most powerful shoulder charge known to man.

"What the hell is all tha-"

Ramming into his opponent at full velocity, Luffy's counterattack did more than he expected it to. In his head, where the laws of physics didn't apply, he thought he was just gonna crash into the man and bounce right off. He never would have guessed he was flying so fast that he would take his enemy with him.

Together, Don Krieg with Luffy buried in his chest, went flying down the length of the ship. Only coming to a stop when they smashed brutally into the reinforced wall of the ship's main cabin. It was almost comical how perfectly shaped the indent in the wall was to fit the pirate admiral's form.

After a few seconds of hearing his enemy hyperventilate, Luffy dislodged his shoulder from the man's armor. Just now noticing that it was completely shattered in the front. It was just as he thought, nothing was unbreakable when he was motivated.

As the boy stepped back to examine his enemy further, pain of his own started setting in quickly, making him slump his posture a bit. The rubber man's body was truly the definition of mangled at the moment. His arms were bright red with burns, as well as being totally torn up from stretching too far. His right fist had deep gashes in the knuckles, and the palms of both his hands were so red that you couldn't even see the natural patterns on them anymore. On top of all of that, he had more holes on his body than a golf course from all those sharp bullets that hit him earlier. He was gonna have to remind himself next time to never take attacks on purpose again, no matter how manly it was.

The crazy thing though, was that he couldn't remember ever being this beat up before. The closest thing he could compare the pain to was the night he was tortured over Ace and Sabo's treasure, back when he was a kid.

Despite all of these things befalling him though, Luffy found the resolve to stand tall and look his opponent in the eyes. And on the topic of the purple haired man, it was a miracle that Krieg was even conscious right now to begin with. That armor sure was impressive. key word, was. The tired straw hat teen watched as Krieg groaned loudly, shifting from his position on the wall.

Taking a battle stance again, albeit a rather sloppy one, Luffy threw up his guard. Ready for his opponent to make any sort of threatening move.

But in the end, the move the pirate admiral did make, was not in retaliation. It turned out that after he shifted a bit in his place on the wall, he no longer had any energy left to fight. Promptly falling forward onto the deck, face first.

Finally relaxing his guard, Luffy's ears were met by the loud cheers of the chefs on the sea restaurant.

"Hell yeah, straw hat!"

"He really did it, what a legend!"

"Admiral Krieg is down!"

However, one individual in the crowd of cooks was more excited than any of them at the outcome of the battle. "YES! THANK YOU LUFFY! THE DEBT IS GONE!" Usopp fell to his knees in elation, very close to tears.

At the sharpshooter's bold statement, all of the Baratie's employees looked over to their boss to see if this was true.

Zeff noticed all of the eyes on him and sighed begrudgingly. "That's fine with me, long nose. I'm no heartless bastard after all."

After that, all of the chefs broke out into a fit of laughter. Finding it funny how easily their boss gave in on the deal. With the mood of the atmosphere clearing up fast and changing for the better, one person was all it took to stop the completion of that change.

"No! Don!" Gin yelled from under Sanji's foot. Squirming as much as possible in order to escape his captor's control. It was hopeless though. Not only could he barely see out of his one functioning eye, but his tonfa were probably at the bottom of the ocean already. It was a situation that he never thought his crew would ever face, utter defeat.

And you better believe that the mentioned crew was feeling the heat as well. With their boss down for the count, all of the Krieg Pirates in the water had no idea what to do. This was literally their worst case scenario. Their captain was down, and if that wasn't enough, so were the two top commanders! This was a nightmare becoming reality!

Back on the platform, Sanji had finally managed to hold down Gin from all of his sporadic movements. With his foot now on the pirates back with even more strength, the blonde turned back to Luffy's bloody figure on the large galleon. Even with all those injuries, and all the numbing pain he must be in, the boy looked like he still had some fight in him. It was totally unexplainable by any sort of logic.

The old geezer's words kept on reverberating in his head, and they were starting to make a little bit more sense. As much as he hated to admit it, Zeff was absolutely spot on with his brief judgement of the straw hat teen. Sanji couldn't decide what was more amazing, the fact that such a goofy kid like Luffy was as dangerous as he was, or the fact that Zeff picked up on it almost immediately.

Right as things were finally turning peaceful and everyone could breathe again, the whole area went silent. It wasn't bad by any means, but Sanji found it weird how no one was moving. It was as if they were all sensing something in the air that was off.

The well dressed man could feel it, something was off. The only sounds that could be heard were the crashing of waves in the ocean, other than that, it was dead silent.

After another few seconds, two of the men on the Baratie's platform bulged their eyes out. As if they knew what was off about the atmosphere. Without warning, one of those two men began squirming aggressively. Trying again to break out from under his confines. "No… NO!" Gin screeched, grabbing his head as painful memories flooded his mind.

The other astonished man cried out at this moment as well. Not only because he knew what was going on, but also because if he didnt, his captain was toast. "Luffy! Behind you!" Zoro warned of the incoming danger approaching the boy.

Hearing his crewmate's warning, Luffy turned around curiously, not really knowing what was happening. Needless to say, a huge green ray of light was the last thing he expected.

Not having time to be baffled, the rubber man instantly took action. Making a leap for the ship's secondary mast, wrapping both his arms and both his legs around it for security.

Not knowing what that giant beam was, Luffy turned around to look at the spot that he had just been standing at. Doing so just in time to see everything unfold. As the green ray reached the side of the ship, it was revealed that it wasn't just a light show, because it began cutting through the vessel like it was made of butter.

When it reached the middle of the ship, Luffy was hoping that Don Krieg was farther off on one side so he wouldn't get cut in half. This turned out to more or less be the case. But rather than getting sliced at the center and being killed instantly, the pirate admiral was instead cut down to size a bit. The meaning of that being his legs getting chopped off at the knees.

"AHHH!" Krieg shrieked in horror, looking down at his legless body and writhing in agony.

Even Luffy had to wince at that one, and he'd watched a man's arm get ripped off up close before.

In the blink of an eye, the once mighty and powerful Dreadnaught Sabre was reduced to two large pieces. The bow and the stern separating right down the middle. And almost more impressively than how easily it sliced up the ship, was how the green slash dissipated right before it reached the Baratie.

What was even weirder though, was the fact that none of the chefs aboard the sea restaurant were panicking in the slightest. In fact, a lot of them were happy, like they knew what was coming now.

Usopp seemed to be the only one trying to find a hiding spot at the moment. While Zoro stood as frozen as a statue, his eyes locked on the small eerie boat approaching from the distance. I can't believe it, It's him!

Zooming in on the little boat out on the horizon, a man could be seen standing up on it, a large black sword being held over his shoulder. "If anyone has so much as touched my favorite eatery, then they shall perish by the tip of my blade!"