Zoro's having a shitty, shitty day.
First the bird carries him off, then it throws him into some fucking ruins, and then this Priest guy with a stupid form-changing sword is picking a fight.
The snake that ate Luffy emerges right then, quickly followed by Wyper and Anne, on the waver. Gan Fall appears too, enraged because of the state of god's Shrine.
And then in the middle of the battle, Zoro finds Chopper half-dead in the middle of the ruins, covered in wounds and his body shredded through. He'd never seen the reindeer covered in so many wounds before and that was just wrong.
"Anne, don't move," Zoro says, when she approaches and gasps at the sight. "There are traps around."
Anne nods, completely still.
When they scatter again, Holy the dog turns its full attention on Anne. Anne retrieves her brushes, and a few expert maneuvers allows her to paint a Yellow-Green Colours Trap on the dog's back.
"Be my friend, good boy," she says.
Holy does not.
Instead, he seems more irked than before, a lancing punch driving right through the ruins as Anne hurries to dodge.
"Then…" Anne changes tactics, going for Red to make the brown of Immobility. "Red-Green. Stay there until we're done fi--"She's interrupted by a swinging paw, socking her right in the gut and sending her flying, smashing hard and breaking right through solid stone pillars, one after another.
"Anne!" Zoro yells. "Shit--"
Zoro's moment of falter gives Ohm a chance to shred right through his shoulder with that Iron Cloud sword, and he hisses, feeling the wall behind him shred with his body.
Wyper launches his bazooka in Ohm's direction, but Ohm was always a master of the terrains he'd trapped. Dodging was almost too easy.
"What's going on, Wyper?" Braham emerges from the clouds, finally arriving with a handful of surviving Shandian warriors. Hot on their heels are the goat-looking fighters.
"You're late!" Wyper barks.
Ohm huffs at that, resting his sword against his shoulder.
"Five Shandian warriors," he counts. When Anne emerges with a grunt from the rubble, making a frustrated noise, he snorts. "Two Blue Sea dwellers. And then we've got four Holy Guards left. Then there's the giant snake, and Holy. Gan Fall and your pink bird, I guess I'll count you too. So thirteen fighters and three animals are still in the game."
"Game?" Zoro repeats.
("He just wants entertainment," Usopp had said.)
Ohm has Holy set up a wired cage battlefield, and they were officially trapped in. Wyper drives one of the Holy Guards against it, and Anne gets up, untying the coat around her waist and tossing it aside. She needed easy access to her tool belt right now.
"Well someone looks fired up," Zoro mutters, catching sight of her as she menacingly grips two brushes, glaring at the vicinity to locate her opponent.
"Can I kill it?" Anne asks.
Zoro doesn't answer for a moment. Then, "for the sake of continuity, I'm gonna say no."
Anne very loudly clicks her tongue in annoyance.
"I am taming that creature," she hisses, because apparently her paints not working on a dog is where she draws the line on her own limitations, "I am making it my friend or I will murder it and make Sanji cook it for me."
Zoro has no idea if he should encourage or discourage that.
"Uh," he draws his swords, turning back toward his opponent, "well, don't break any bones, Chopper's not around to fix that."
Anne huffs. "My bones are unbreakable. So that's fine."
Zoro turns to question her with a loud "can you not drop confusing information like that on me out of nowhere to just leave--?!" but Anne is gone, racing right along the path Holy went, just beside it, where there definitely wouldn't be any traps.
Anne leaps when Holy whirls back to throw a punch, and she follows her leaping momentum into the air-- and draws a Colours Trap, swirling out of the way to watch the paint fall, splashing into shape onto Hoy's fur, staining a big portion of it bright red.
"Motley of Confusion," she declares, tucking her brushes back into her belt.
She'll need her biggest brush to fight this thing. That blade is the only thing she has that can pierce this thing's coat and-- ah. Oh no. She left it in her bag and it's on the ship.
Braham emerges behind her, and she whirls around-- but realizing he was aiming his guns forward, Anne turns back around immediately, shielding her eyes. Holy lifts his head and is immediately blinded by the flash bang of Braham's guns before the bullets embed in a chest and through a shoulder.
"You need help here?" Braham asks. He's standing there now, his guns smoking.
"No," Anne says, looking over the now-injured dog. "But I don't have my usual staff. Lend me a weapon."
Holy whacks out a punch, but Anne sidesteps it, catching a primitive spear as Braham tosses it in her direction.
She frowns. But whatever.
"I'll provide support," Braham informs her.
"I'm usually the support, not the other way around," Anne corrects him. "Just don't hit me."
"Enel! Shit-- Laki what are you doing , run!"
Wyper's hands pierce through the iron barbs, but the blood and the pain does nothing to stop the god as a bolt of lightning engulfs the area-- and Laki falls.
Enel laughs."She pointed her weapon at me. You should know yourself, that means it's fair I take her out. Men or women, if they're an enemy, I will take them out."
Wyper bites his lip.
"It's her own weakness," he says.
Laki didn't want to fight. She was only here because of Aisa, and Wyper knew that. He should have told her to go back today but he knew she wouldn't, she knew Wyper wouldn't allow it and-- and Wyper knew that, and there she was on the verge of death or maybe dead because he couldn't even respect that from her.
Wyper feels the pierce of an Axe Dial on his back.
He doesn't honour him with a noise. He tenses, whirls back-- and grabs the Holy Guard by the face-- and smashes it right into the barbed iron cage.
"I'll take you down next, Enel," he hisses.
Enel laughs. "Looking forward to it," he taunts, before vanishing again.
Wyper looks around. One goat left, and then Shura, and then the dog and the snake. Braham's alive, along with one other Shandian. Great.
Gan Fall is in the air. He swings by on his bird, leading the goat soldier a ways-- before lifting ahead and diving down, taking him out with a lance through the torso. Huh. So it's worth something to have that guy on their side after all.
Three left.
"Three-hundred sixty Pound--"
He looks over just in time to see three blades of light, soaring through the air. He'd seen it happen when the swordsman fought the Master of the Sky-- but there it was again.
Is he slashing the air? Is that force a blade that flies? A momentum, a razor, a sonic boom? He wondered how it worked, not that it would be replicable.
"--Cannon!"
Two left.
Holy whines, bleeding from several bullet wounds and multiple shallow cuts. None of the wounds were lethal on their own-- but it was a horrible state, sheared down bit by bit.
"Sadness Blue," Anne declares. The spear is stained in blood, but her bare foot is covered in blue paint. In her fight, she'd smeared it across the ruins, over the ground, in the formation of one huge Colours Trap to surround Holy. "You've been a bad, bad dog."
Holy fails to retaliate to that.
For a loyal, obedient dog-- rather than force its friendship or betrayal against its owner-- it made more sense to express disappointment over its behavior. Because Holy would not bend to orders against its owners' wishes-- but a bad, bad dog wouldn't get treats, and that was the end of the world to him.
"Finally," she says, and with a murderous glint in her eyes she leaps , and raises the spear-- before smashing it right over the dog's head, shattering it right into two.
The dog wails , but immediately slumps over, knocked right out.
Braham sighs, lifting his head from the crater that Holy had smashed him across five buildings into. "Is it finally down?"
Anne groans. She'd been grabbed by the leg and thrown back and forth at some point so she was dizzy enough to stagger on her feet. "I don't know…"
The dog was unconscious.
"Concussion?" Braham asks.
"No," Anne says, and then she doubles over and throws up.
"That's a concussion, kid," Braham informs, still in the distance. "But same."
"Zorooo," Anne whines, "carry meeee."
"Just go to sleep!" Zoro responds sharply, "can't you see I'm covered in wounds too?"
And sure enough-- the swordsman was bleeding heavily on the side, from the shoulder, and he was yanking an iron barb out of his arm, cringing at himself.
Wyper grimaces at them. That meant their only enemy now was-- his eyes find Zoro's and they turn synchronously to the giant snake that roars, taking a scrape from Gan Fall's lance with hostility.
"One left," Wyper says.
Zoro grips his sword tightly and prepares his next attack. "Time to get Luffy."
But they're engulfed by a magnificent, glaring light, and the ground gives way under them, rupturing by the clouds and fissuring in the earth.
And among the roars of the rubble, Enel's voice calls, "SANGO."
The debris lands in the ruins of Shandora, and Wyper emerges first from the rubble, throwing off a huge slab of rock that he'd held over. Immediately, he inspects Laki's unconscious form beneath him.
He'd broken a bone or two in the fall, but that was a small price to pay.
Meanwhile, Zoro yells, "fucking hell, I could've died!" kicking off a building equivalent off of himself and Chopper.
"By all logic, you should have," Robin says, and Zoro is surprised to see her here.
"Huh? When did you get here?"
"You guys are the ones to come crashing down, actually."
Zoro cringes at the sight of the Giant Jack, much too far above. Then he takes in everything else around him and goes completely silent in awe.
"Where are we?" he asks.
"The Golden City, but..." Robin says-- and then, as if remembering something, she looks around, "Mister Quartermaster went to look for the gold. He hasn't returned."
"Gin?" Zoro questions. "That's strange. How long's he been gone?"
Robin's answer comes in a moment, "too long, I believe."
Zoro tuts.
A little further away, Anne is crouched, both her arms above her, bracing against a huge rock slab three times her side. Braham and Nami were under her, and upon recovering, Braham immediately gets up to help shove the rock aside, allowing her to slump right down in relief.
"Owwww," Anne whines, on her knees with her very shaky arms laid out in her lap.
Braham resisted the urge to retort, "those arms should be broken ," he hisses in disbelief. "Seriously, don't catch falling debris you're supposed to brace for or avoid them. Did no one ever teach you how to survive avalanches?"
"But it would've hurt if it hit us," Anne mutters, ignoring Braham's exasperated mutter of 'and catching it wouldn't?!' Then, seemingly no longer in pain, she crawls over to Nami, inspecting her state. "Good thing we saw her before we fell. Thanks, Mister."
"How long has she been up there? At least she was outside the cage," Braham says.
Anne combs through Nami's hair with her fingers, taking the strands out of the bigger gashes with a cringe. She calls for Zoro, and a moment later, Robin as well.
"What the-- why's she here!?" Zoro hisses, handing Chopper to Robin to carefully pick Nami up. He turns to Robin, "hey, got any place that's out of the way?"
"Me too?" Anne asks.
"You still wanna fight?" Zoro questions.
Anne tilts her head aside. "Does that matter?"
Zoro groans. "Look-- just, sit down, drink your tea, take care of these two. Okay?"
Anne nods.
Braham leaves Anne's side to find his fellow Shandian. "Hey Wyper! Is that Laki?"
"Yeah," Wyper affirms, hefting the woman in his hands and handing her right over, "you take her with the Blue Sea dwellers, I'll take care of Enel myself."
"Don't be ridiculous, I'm here, so I'll fight too."
"Not with that concussion you fucking aren't," he stands up-- and finally, finally takes a real gander at the scene around him. "Hey. You seeing this?"
Braham stops-- and he, too, realizes where they are.
"Shandora…?"
"I'll go with you!" Aisa yells, when Conis grabs her father's Waver, ready to run back to Angel Island. "We need to go to my village, too. They'll-- they'll believe me if I'm here with you, right? The Angel Island people too."
Conis face scrunches up, trying her hardest, hardest, not to cry.
Would it make sense to bring a Shandian girl to Angel Island? Yes it would. Because it would tell them, without words-- that the situation was so dire, a Shandian girl that hated them so much still saw fit to come warn them.
"Okay, come!" Conis reaches out a hand, and Aisa lets go of Kinoko, leaving Usopp's side-- to take that hand, and jump right into the Waver.
Conis straps the Bazooka behind her, and Aisa clings on.
"I'll leave things here to you, Usopp-san!" she calls, and Aisa yells similarly to him.
Usopp nods, vaguely.
Once they go, Usopp takes his walking stick, Kinoko depositing it right into his hand. He collapses it, hurrying forward, jumping onto the lower deck. Suu also scrambles, heading into the galley where Sanji was resting-- and the man was rousing.
"What the-- what happened-- what are you? Oh wait," Sanji hurries to sit up, "crap."
"Sanji!" Usopp calls, climbing back out just in time to toss Sanji some gloves and a new shirt. "Great, you're awake! We're moving out!"
"What's going on?" he asks, pulling the shirt over him and, noticing his very burned very chapped hands, decides the gloves are better worn,
"A lot! But--"
Usopp pauses, his haki finally spreading out again-- he takes a breath, two-- and the island is in his range once more.
"Five bells are down," he realizes. "Or at least-- they're not moving."
There was no reason any of them wouldn't be moving right now.
Sanji jerks to attention. "What?!"
That's more than half of them. That meant there were four people left. That meant, including the two here right now, only two were still fighting on the island.
(What the hell have they been doing all this while for it to get to that point?)
"No no, it's okay," Usopp repeats, leaning closer to the mast, "maybe I just can't find it. Maybe they're just too far away, two of us are here-- the other two are at the Giant Jack, I think."
Sanji immediately moves, patting Suu on the head twice. "Watch the ship, you two!" he's asking Kinoko too, "point me in the direction!"
Usopp barely notices when Sanji grabs him, first by the walking stick to get it out of the way-- and suddenly he's thrown over a shoulder and Sanji is jumping, off the ship, onto the grass, and right into the forest, following along the Cloud River.
Suu and Kinoko gives synchronous calls of affirmation, side by side on the ledge as Sanji assigns them their newest mission.
"What the-- hey!" Usopp yelps, but Sanji isn't answering any protests.
Usopp is backwards, hanging onto Sanji's back and his walking stick. He closes his eyes, and begins to listen.If they were running fast, Sanji was the only one for it. Waiting for Usopp to maneuver across roots and branches would take too long, after all.
"You're headed in the right direction for now. I hear voices around-- these defeated people are still alive, so be careful," Usopp says. "Ah, I think I sense a South Bird!"
"Without Kinoko around we're not going to be able to ask it for help. Forget it."
Sanji avoids stepping on the fallen Shandians as he goes, climbing trees when they hit rivers, and going the exact direction Usopp points, no matter if a tree or a trap was in the way.
Zoro, Wyper, Gan Fall, Robin-- and Enel.
A strike of lightning takes the Master of the Sky out, and with Aisa and Braham retiring from the battle, there were five left standing.
"There are two headed this way. Pesky brats, the lot of them," Enel sighs. "But they have retired once from the battle. I do not like cockroaches that refuse to die."
"Huh? Two…" Zoro's eyes blow wide when he remembers what group of two would be headed this way right now. "The guys at the ship."
"Now, there's this problem," Enel muses, undeterred, "I, as god, cannot be wrong. And I predicted just five would survive. I cannot let this battle continue with seven survivors."
Enel points a finger upward.
"You think you can stop god?"
Zoro launches forward, swords swinging forward-- but his attack phases right through the astral being, and a lance of lightning is shot into the sky.
"El Thor."
"Sanji," Usopp says, suddenly, quietly-- and very hollowly-- and Sanji freezes right where he stands. "Let me down right now."
Usopp knows this terrible, terrible sink in his gut.
"Huh?" Sanji question, hesitant, "we can't waste any--"
"Just hurry! NOW!"
Sanji lets go, and Usopp drops back-- and scoops Sanji right up, arms wrapped around his waist-- before stepping back, and then launching right off the ground.
Sanji yelps, but in a moment, he's distracted by Usopp kicking-- kicking a dozen times into the air, launching right from invisible platforms to keep going further up, and up. Were they flying? No, he was walking in the air.
(Holy shit.)
And then the command of great lightning shoots down like a laser, barely two inches from him-- and Sanji's breath holds.
(Holy SHIT.)
Usopp's balance is lost in the gale of the aftershock-- and they go flying, Sanji scrambling to gain a semblance of balance, turning around right in time to brace both of them against the tree trunk they crash into, slide down-- and close their eyes, waiting it out barely two meters from the impact.
They were that close.
"Oh," Sanji chokes out, once the light was dim enough to open his eyes and there's only a crater before them. He doesn't even have the composure to complain about how Usopp is sprawled over him. "Yeah. No second time for me."
Usopp scoffs. "When we get out, I'm making us a shirt."
"Oh? What's the occasion?"
"I survived being smited by god."
"Ah," Sanji needs a cigarette, like, right now. "Yeah, I'd want that on a shirt."
Enel reemerges behind Zoro.
Zoro stands, silent.
He doesn't listen to what comes next. Enel was spouting something-- something about his blasphemous godhood again, how he was looking for something more than this little island of Vearth. Fairy Vearth, as Birkan beliefs prophesied.
(He'll need Haki to even stand a chance against this guy.)
(But he said only five. That means Enel isn't counting Luffy-- but Gin's down, too. )
(Zoro and Robin are the only ones left?)
(...And Luffy is still inside the fucking snake?!)
"Ah, what a disappointment," Enel says, lifting his head, "neither of those two cockroaches died. That's strange, did I hold back too much, I wonder."
Usopp and Sanji are still in!
And in that very instant, Gan Fall and Zoro lunge at once, lance on one end and katana on the other, swiping right through Enel's visage once more.Enel phases to the side-- only to be caught in the loops of Wyper's feet, pinned down by the shells of seastone in his heel--
"If you're so obsessed about fucking numbers," he yells, "then how about you die to bring them down! REJECT!"
It didn't work.
Robin identifies the Devil Fruit, and Zoro curses.
As expected, it was a Logia. He'd managed to use Haki in Alabasta, but the fact that it was a Logia this time did nothing to help his visualization.
Enel restarts his own heart, like a fuckigng cheat-- and easily, he drills through Gan Fall, his bird, and right after, a severely weakened Wyper. When Robin refused to take his proposal of a journey to Fairy Vearth, she, too, was smited.
Zoro catches her, but his blades are calling for blood.
Blood he cannot help them sate.
"Why don't you understand? I am lightning-- I am indomitable, and I am omnipotent," Enel says, "your will is admirable, but it is vain-- nothing but stubborn foolishness."
"Shut up," Zoro growls out, laying Robin down, before turning his attention back to Enel.
He needed to focus, he needed to remember. How did it feel, to get into that state during Alabasta? How did he realize it? He had to remember how to sink in-- how to hear that breath of life.
Wyper was getting up.
"I know how to beat you," Zoro says. "I just need-- I just need to jog my memory for a second. But once I remember…"
("Once I remember, you're fucking dead.")
Zoro doesn't get to say it. Enel strikes, and he parries-- but the god's hands take his swords by the blade-- and Zoro is assaulted by a lethal surge of electricity, running right through his veins.
He falls to his knees, and Enel stomps on his face.
"Don't think you've won with just this, Enel," Wyper yells, standing right back up. A blast of the burn bazooka does nothing, but a swipe with a seastone-covered foot distracts him just enough to allow Zoro to escape. Enel shatters the seastone, but Zoro picks it back up.
The exchange continues.
The thunderbird descends, the thunder beast roars.
And god's judgement engulfs Wyper and Zoro at once.
"Zoro! Hey, Zoro!"
Usopp and Sanji finally arrive at the ancient city of Shandora, but no one else is here. They find Anne lying beside Nami, Laki, Chopper, and Braham. Anne and Braham seemed to be asleep rather than unconscious like the other three, so after checking their states, they moved on.
"Luffy!" Sanji calls, upon spotting him. Luffy is crouched over Zoro, looking around frantically-- fearful.
"How could things have gotten this bad when Zoro was here?!" he exclaims, completely in disbelief. And really, Usopp and Sanji sympathize.
They look terrible. Zoro didn't knock out easily-- so it must have been a bolt of lightning.
"Hey," Wyper groans, hefting himself up, struggling. Luffy hurries over to inspect him-- wincing at the injuries. His own arm looked like it had imploded on himself, barely held together by bandages that were soaked in red.
"Damn, he got you too?" Sanji grimaces, "how the hell are you conscious? Spite?"
Wyper doesn't answer it. "Do you… really think that you can beat Enel?"
Luffy grits his teeth. "Yes," he says. "He did this to everyone?"
Wyper scoffs. "All of us could do shit against him. You really think… you can even stand before him? You think you stand a chance? What a brat."
Luffy's fists tightens. "I don't think I can, I know I can!" he snaps, standing right up. "You stay right there! I'm gonna go beat him up and prove it to you."
Wyper closes his eyes with a sigh.
"Then do it," he says.
Luffy heard a challenge. But Usopp and Sanji heard something else. They hear, in those three words-- a single desire, a desperate bet for hope.
So when Luffy immediately turns to Usopp, he was already working on it.
"Usopp! Where's Enel?"
Usopp's already turning around, in the right direction. "I have him in my sight," he affirms, and Luffy huffs, satisfied. His haki is stretched out, full and taut and Enel is right there-- in his range.
"Bring me there!" He punches his fist. "Sanji, you're coming?" the cook nods, so Luffy turns to everyone else. "Ah-- Robin!" Luffy beams, "you're awake!"
Robin lifts herself up weakly, on her elbows.
Luffy simply grins. "Take care of everyone, I gotta go beat up that god guy for a bit!"
He doesn't wait for any answer from Robin, so he doesn't see her mildly surprised expression either. Usopp heads on first, followed immediately by Luffy, and Sanji gives the two awake fighters one affirming nod before going as well.
"Are you Enel?"
Usopp doesn't see the battle, doesn't join Luffy up there. Instead, he helps Sanji pick up Gin, and once Sanji has quietly left to do something else, Usopp hurries back to the ruins with an unconscious Gin on his back.
(He almost knocks into a few walls on the way, but Gin rouses just in time to yelp at him, and Usopp is saved from some embarrassment.)
"Holy shit," Gin hisses, gripping tightly to Usopp's back, unable to even muster the energy to resist the piggyback now. "Holy shit. Fucking ow. How am I alive."
"I find it very ironic that you and Sanji keep saying that," Usopp says, hurrying forward, only stopping when Gin tugs his shirt a little in the right direction. "Holy shit, I mean. Because, Holy and all. The god, and cursing about holy, get it?"
"What-- of course I-- don't overexplain the-- the joke's ruined when you do that--" Gin lets out a shaky breath, burying his face into a shoulder, "I don't have the energy to do this right now, you moron."
Usopp hums, and the low sound rumbles into Gin's chest.
"Stay awake," Usopp says. "The fight's only going to get messier from here."
Gin stares hollowly into the distance, only piping up to tell Usopp when to turn and where to stop before a wall. Usopp eventually makes it out of the ruins, running up the beanstalk, to a higher level of clouds where Robin had just transported the rest of the fallen fighters.
Wyper was seated beside his fellow Shandians, and when Gin and Usopp emerged, the two Berserkers met eyes with a scowl.
"You're alive?" Wyper mutters, irritated.
"I wanted to avoid seeing you in hell, but fuck, I'm already in it," Gin mutters right back.
"Angels go to heaven, that's common sense."
"Any heaven with you in it is hell either way."
"You picking a fight, Man-Demon?"
"Wanna go, Angel Bastard?"
Usopp immediately interrupts, "dude! Both of you, geez! Is this really the time to be picking fights with each other over absolutely nothing?!"
They were half-dead and still picking a fight. It's ridiculous. Reminds him of another duo.
"Ugh, you guys are noisy," Nami mutters. "So where are we now…" she looks around, taking in the surprised looks of everyone around her with confusion.
"Nami! You're awake!"
"So why were you here anyway? Where have you been?"
"Uhh, long story," Nami grimaces when she accidentally pulls at her own wounds. "Oh hey! Wyper, thanks, I loved the arm. What happened to yours?"
"Shut up."
She stands up, like her injuries didn't exist, taking in the sight of Chopper, Zoro, and Anne, all injured and somewhere between unconscious and asleep. Gan Fall and his bird were down too, so were Braham and Laki.
She takes a headcount.
"Sanji's with Luffy, huh?" she assumes. "Then Usopp, we should get ready. You got my waver with you or...?"
"Huh?"
Wyper lifts his head.
"I threw it somewhere over there… why?"
Luffy eventually emerges with a huge ball of gold on his arm, desperately running up Giant Jack. With a sigh, Nami volunteers to bring him up. The ark was rising, and dark clouds were spouting from its chimney, lightning striking down Angel Island and Upper Yard at once.
"Huh, where's Bazooka Guy?" Luffy asks. "And oh, hi Gin. Where's Usopp?"
Robin simply points upward. "Mister Bazooka Guy and Mister Sniper went on ahead."
"Ah, no fair!"
"You're saying this rubber thing is just completely untouchable to Enel," Wyper mutters. "Well I'm calling fucking bullshit."
Usopp sighs. Wyper has an arm looped around Usopp's as he Geppos further up the Giant Jack. He has one hand on the side of the Giant Jack, just to gauge his distance between it and avoid crashing headfirst.
Wyper peruses the raincoat in his hand. It's child-sized, but it's more than enough to, say, wrap around a hand and use as a glove.
"Luffy's made of it, and he seems to be doing fine," Usopp says, and Wyper whirls around in surprise. "Honestly, Enel's smart. He's doing everything in the book to not fight Luffy. Smartest enemy we've had so far."
"I don't know how to feel about that."
"I don't know how to feel about the fact that I'm lugging you, who should be dead if I should remind you, up here for round two of battle. But here I am."
Wyper had nothing to say to that, so he changes the subject to pretend his arm hasn't exploded and his wing is probably charred to bits. "Are you sure the bell is up here?"
Usopp huffs. "Of course it is! Just let me look around, I'll tell you when I see it."
"Alright," Wyper says. Then, a second later, "hold on, you fucker--"
They reach the highest point of Giant Jack easily, and Usopp loops his feet around the vines, laying slightly over the trunk to gain a semblance of a platform.
"How am I supposed to get on that ship now?"
The ark was slightly over their heads, but it seemed to be slowing down. A bolt of electricity and Usopp lifts his head, realizing what was happening.
Sanji is still on that ship. And hell, Usopp is absolutely positive that crazy bastard is engaging the enemy. It's not like Sanji can hide much on that ship with Enel having Haki. But that also meant Sanji had no way to hit Enel.
"HEY, YOU TWO!" Luffy yells. "GOMU GOMU NOO…"
"What the-- he's already here?" Wyper turns.
"Wyper, take two steps to the left," Usopp says.
"Huh?" Wyper squints. He takes one step, but only manages about a half more as he turns around to ask why. "What's this ab--"
His question is sharply interrupted by a loud yell of "...GRAPPLING HOOK!!!"
A giant golden ball crashes right into the crux of his wings, and his yell transforms into a curse and then a scream as he's shot into the hull of Enel's ark, the gold lodging right into the mechanism and getting stuck.
Luffy retracts himself by the arm, shooting himself right over with a loud war cry.
"Why did you--" Nami lands beside Usopp with her Waver, on the cloud, completely baffled by what just happened. Almost fearfully, she asks, "is Wyper still… you know, alive?"
Usopp hums, "I hope so. We need him on the ship as your technician."
The ark was collapsing. Enel fried the fucking pest that ruined it to begin with, but it bought time for Luffy to destroy an even bigger part of the ark and he was frustrated . Now that the ark was up and running, Raigou was ready to fire.
Lightning was raining down upon the skies, and Angel Island was erupting, shattering-- and dissipating.
"Sanji! You okay?"
"Huh, oh Luffy," Sanji groans, looking over from where he's sprawled over the deck, fried to bits. He takes a drag of his now-lit cigarette. "Yeah, doing great. Thinking of asking Usopp to revise my shirt design, I survived being smited by god twice."
"Is everyone on your ship an idiot?" Wyper asks.
Luffy pouts, "hey, Sanji's not an idiot! I think he's just hit his head or something."
Sanji makes no mention of the huge bump on Luffy's head. His dumb captain probably did something stupid again to deserve that bonk, he doesn't wanna know.
"So, you gonna ring the bell?" Sanji asks.
"Yeah!" Luffy says.
"No, it's a bell that is sacred and only to be rung by us Shandians! And me since I'm a direct descendant of Kalgara!" Wyper snaps, "Hell if I'll let you ring it!"
"Don't be stingy, I don't care about your Shandaranda thing!" Luffy whines, "I'm ringing it because I want to too, you know!"
"Disrespect the name of my homeland one more time and I'll blow your head off, punk!"
"Oh try me, I'm made of rubber so it doesn't hurt anyway!"
Sanji sighs, struggling to his feet and making his way to the edge of the ark, tired of everything He looks over the edge and gauges where the right spot to jump is. Meanwhile, the two behind him have devolved into a shouting match.
"I'm going to beat Enel too!" Luffy yells, "I started fighting first, don't interfere!"
"Interfere?" Wyper yells back, louder. " You're the one interfering! I've been fighting for five years!"
"Well I've been fighting for ten then!"
"That makes no sense!"
Sanji hums, stepping over the edge and looking down, waving at Nami so she'd know he was coming. Then he leans back over the edge and says, "I'm going now, you guys try to channel your anger toward Enel instead of each other, alright?"
"Ah okay," Luffy immediately says with zero heat in his tone. "See ya."
"Tell the longnose I'm punching him when I get back," Wyper adds.
Sanji waves a vague OK before jumping right off. Not even bothering to make sure if he's alright or not, Luffy and Wyper immediately resume their shouting match.
"Get out of my way, I'm beating Enel!"
"Hell no you aren't, your hand is still fucking stuck to the ship!"
"I-- uh," Luffy looks back, to where his hand was still stretching out and going toward the lower deck, dangling off the edge and lodged into the hull via the golden ball. He wrenches his face away from his own stupidity and insists, "I can fight without it!"
"No you can't!"
"Yes I can!"
(Enel comes out after a moment and he just wonders if it's ethical to fry them out of utter disrespect for his presence. He's a god, so he can, right?)
Enel had to stare, completely baffled, when Wyper managed to actually land a solid punch to his face, sending him flying.
Wyper pumps a raincoat-covered fist. "Five fucking years and I finally get to punch you!" he hasn't sounded this ecstatic in years, "I feel so liberated."
"What is with all of you suddenly gaining the ability to punch me?!" Enel yells, frustrated. "I am lightning! I'm impermeable!"
"Shut up about that already, you god-complex weirdo!" Wyper and Luffy yell at the same time, and Luffy continues, "we established ages ago that I can hit you, stop whining about it! If I continued whining about things I don't understand, I'd still be eating soap!"
Wyper stares at that, not so sure if he wants the story behind that.
Enel glares-- and the raincoat around Wyper's fist makes his eyes blow wide.
He'd seen that when he went to the ship and took down Usopp. Aisa had been wearing it, and Enel, seeing that she wasn't a threat, had blatantly ignored her and that strange article of clothing.
(It was rubber. It was something that threatened him.)
(And Enel had ignored it-- like a wind of ignorant irony.)
Meanwhile, Luffy had finally managed to dislodge his arm, breaking it right through the deck to come up somewhere easier to swing.
The next Raigou, ten times the size of the previous one-- hung drearily overhead.
Luffy lifts his head to the sight, and huffed.
"Okay, fine, you can have Enel," Luffy finally relents, and Wyper actually does a double take. "But I'm ringing the bell."
"Wha--?!" Wyper reacts, but Luffy is reaching for the ark-- mast? Lightning rod? And stretching out, evidently aiming himself toward the dark ball of death abovehead. "What are you planning, you idiot?"
"You're headed straight for it? You're ridiculous. Even if you're immune to electricity, there is nothing you can do to it," Enel says, raising his staff, "if you're going to be a menace--"
And then, it sinks in.
That golden ball in his arm was a conductor.
With a loud roar, Luffy launches himself right out, into the Raigou. Enel yells, "no you don't!" launching his staff of gold forward like one would a lance.
But the staff is instantly flicked right out of the air, gyrating far across the winds in its imbalance and crashing into the side of the deck, before rolling off the edge.
Eyes turned immediately to the tip of the Giant Jack, one figure among the three had a slingshot stretched forward. It was little, so minuscule-- he could barely make out the silhouette. Enel hadn't been focusing on something so far away-- he didn't even see the shot coming. He barely even remembered anyone was at the peak of the Giant Jack.
And yet-- Usopp had hit the staff, a second after it was launched.
("Hey. Don't get in the way of the captain," Usopp whispers. And Enel can hear it, because of his lightning, bringing the volumes over on an electric wavelength. And Enel knows that Usopp is staring him right down with those sightless eyes of his, daring him, daring him, to try once more.)
(And Enel realized, perhaps, out of dread, that his next attempt to interfere with Luffy, no matter if it was a weapon or an element-- it would not reach. It would never reach, as long as the sniper was watching.)
"You're kidding," Enel says, disbelieving. "Not only am I higher, but a slingshot reached me? And I was caught off guard?"
Enel barely looks down in time to see Wyper, who had run forward. His discomposure had made his Haki completely miss the Shandian's approach, too.
A raincoat-wrapped dial, two hands braced forward.
"Thank you, Strawhat," Wyper says.
Enel barely felt the pierce of a seastone shard, lodging into his stomach-- before he was blown away by miles of sheer exploding agony, bursting through his entirety.
"REJECT!"
Luffy bursts right through the Raigou, clearing the skies.
"Gomu-Gomu no…"
Whirling the gold bullet far behind him, whirling it back in a large, powerful blow. Enel's unconscious form blows right into the shell of the golden bell-- but he wasn't conscious enough to compose a proper attack. The seastone Wyper had lodged into him preventing him from phasing through the elements. He couldn't even regain his own balance.
He could only watch as Luffy's arm grew closer, the golden armament he had ironically bestowed upon this weak rubber boy-- being his own downfall.
(Right, his own downfall, from the very beginning…)
(...had been his own arrogance.)
"GOLDEN RIFLE!"