Everyday Life with the Straw Hats
Liminal Tournament arc: part 6: Fighting Fury
Author's notes: this chapter is one that I'm sure many have been waiting for. The fighting is finally going down this chapter. And on top of that, the release day of this chapter (12/01/2020) marks the official 5 year anniversary of when I first started this story! How time flies. I'm happy to be back in the swing of things and I'm grateful to anyone that has stuck around with this story over the years, even when I was on breaks. Now on to the action!
The gates to the battle arena swung open. Fighters of all different shapes and sizes rushed into combat with loud battle cries echoing throughout the stadium. Luffy rushed right into the fray, an Ogre swung a flaming club towards Luffy. Before Luffy could dodge
"Collier Strike!" Sanji blitzes into action and dives right into the Ogre's neck with a burning kick that had enough impact that a loud crack could be heard. Fracturing the opponent's Adams apple, as well as leaving a visible burn mark on the neck.
"Thanks Sanji" Luffy said to his comrade.
The Ogre stood right back up, coughing up some blood. "Why would they let insignificant humans like you compete in such a tournament?! There are less painful ways to commit suicide, if ya brats really wanted to die. Now feel the strength of an Elbaf dwarf Ogre, I am Kraiglor!"
"I'm surprised you can even speak, I figured I broke your wind pipe with my attack" Sanji replied casually. Before he grew a coy smile "It looks like this meat needs a bit more tenderizing. You fight someone else Luffy, I'll handle this guy."
Kraiglor and Sanji clashed with flaming sparks shooting outward, Sanji's legs were surprisingly durable enough to endure a direct attack from the flaming club. Albeit it did still hurt a lot.
"Oh my! Look at my dear Sir Sanji fighting gallantly down there, what type of fighting techniques are those? His legs are shining ever so bright!" Mero looked absolutely mesmerized by Sanji's skills. With his burning hot legs that glowed, he looked like nothing less than a shining angel in Mero's eyes, her angle. "How divine" Mero swooned.
"It's impressive, I guess. But I'm sure my Darling will be the coolest one! Ah, he's so dreamy." Miia too began too swoon for her lover. She watched in anticipation to see her Darling really cut loose and show her just how much of a man he is. "C'mon darling, show 'em who's boss!"
meanwhile on the battlefield.
"Hiya! Have at thee!" Cerea said boldly as she fended off a goblin, he was small, but fast. Attacking her with rapid succession from both sides.
"What's the matter, pony lady? You're too wide to protect yourself completely! Hehaha" the goblin man snickered.
"Such rude behavior!" Cerea exclaimed, taken aback from his remark. "I will not be bested by the likes of you!" Cerea swung her sword at the goblin, he was startled by her making such a direct attack all of a sudden. He was able to dodge it, but looses his balance. Cerea takes the opportunity to strike at his jaw. Her blade was not very sharp, since it was a replica blade. But if swung with enough force and precision, it could still do some serious damage if attacking the right places. "Merlin's silence!"
"GHAA!" the goblin shrieked. His jaw swung to the opposite side with a few teeth flying out. "You horse bitch! I'm gonna brand you when I'm through with you!" he screeched as he lunged at her with his short sword.
Cerea went to block his incoming attack. However he didn't try to strike. He quickly darted to the side around her to try and attack her from behind.
"You can't sword fight me now, Idiot!" he laughed. Unfortunately for him, its never a smart idea to try and attack a centaur from behind.
WHAM! Cerea's rear legs shot up in the air and bucked the ever living shit out of this crazy fellow. His face was fully indented, his teeth were shattered, broken nose. He was out cold.
"Well, it seems we have our first contestant defeated! Centorea has knocked out Greble the goblin. He is unable to fight!" the announcer declared over the loud speaker.
"Good job Centorea!" Nami and Chopper cheered from the sidelines. Robin gave a subtle hand clap. Miia and Mero were stunned by how strong she actually was.
"Wow, I knew Centorea was strong, but not that strong." said Miia.
"Quite, Centaurs do truly live up to their status as proud warriors, don't they?" Mero added.
"Impressive work, Cerea." said Zoro, who was close by blocking incoming attacks from various other combatants nearby.
"Thank you, Master.." receiving such praise from her master was too much, she wanted to clasp her hands on her face to hide her blush. But this was a battle, there was no time for things like that.
"That strike to the jaw, I've never seen an attack like that before" Zoro noted.
"Oh, yes, well. Its 'Merlin's silence'. it's not that difficult to do." Cerea responded modestly
"Merlin's silence?" Zoro questioned, he had a perplexed look on his face.
"Well, you see. I've noticed you had names for some of your attacks during training. I thought it might be nice to do the same as well." Cerea explained, she had a bit of an embarrassed look on her face.
Zoro grinned, "At least you know how to be a badass in style. Now lets keep this momentum going!"
"R-Right!"
after their talk, Zoro and Cerea were right back at it, kicking ass and taking names side by side.
Luffy was jumping from sparring partner to sparring partner, not really paying much mind to most of them, just a few punches and kicks here and there. Until he saw Lycan, Luffy charged right towards him, cocking back his rubber arm behind him. "Gomu Gomu no..."
Lycan noticed Luffy in the corner of his eyes, "You're not gonna have permission to land a hit on me this early in the tournament, Straw Hat. You should really be watching your surroundings" Lycan smirked.
"Red Haw-kyaah?" Luffy's sides were struck by some sort of appendage, but he didn't know from who. Luffy gets knocked into a wall but he quickly recovers.
"Darling! Are you alright?" Miia cried out from the sidelines.
Luffy turned to see where the attack came from. it was a reptilian fighter, vertical pupils, a long, green serpent tail for the lower half of their body, but what was most surprising was the physique of the upper half. He was a lean, muscular Lamia.
"W-W-What?! Male Lamia's don't exist!" Miia blurted out from the sidelines, this revelation shocked and confused her the most. "what? How? I don't...understand"
Luffy and Chopper both noticed the upper body, although it had the same shape and anatomical structure of a human, he didn't have human skin from the waist up, it was still completely scaly. Which was not the case for how lamias were, let alone most liminals. their upper halves were usually near-identical to that of humans in most species, with human-like skin. Luffy and Chopper both recognized what he actually was pretty quickly.
"So….what fruit did you eat?" Luffy asked coldly, not letting his guard down.
The male Lamia seemed impressed by Luffy's intuition. "So you can tell, impressive. Most people wouldn't be able to know the difference. I ate the snake-snake fruit: model Basilisk. Allowing me to take on a hybrid form like that of a snake and a man, many are always shocked to see me. Even among liminals, the idea of a male Lamia is quite the shocker."
"So that's what you are" spoke Luffy with a stern, aggravated tone. "A fraud"
The male Lamia got pissed at that remark. "I assure you, my strength and skills are the real deal! Speak your name, boy!" he uttered that last line quite vehemently.
"I'm Luffy, and I'm gonna kick your ass-er, tail? Both!...I'll kick both" declared the rubber captain.
The male Lamia chuckled in amusement, "You got guts, I'll give you that, but bravery without strength is the mark of a fool. Allow me, Hydranak, to show you what real strength is." He rushed towards Luffy and used his tail to launch himself forward like a spring. With his mouth wide open, his fangs coated in armament haki, ready to strike. Luffy quickly bit into himself to ready a counter attack.
Hydranak was closing distance fast and was moments away from landing his attack on Luffy, both of their incoming attacks collide with each other and cause a massive shock wave.
"Serpent King Crunch!"
"Gomu Gomu no…..Elephant Gun!"
to be continued: