"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome one and all to the grand games in our Corrida Colosseum!" The announcer shouted excitedly as the crowd cheered. It was a truly grand event with plenty of people on all sides excited over what was to come as those from Group A started entering the ring.
In a corner up above, watching from his own advantage point, was none other than Marcus. The scientist was drinking a nice glass of wine, 60 years of age from the famous Banabara island in West Blue. It was a rather nice vintage.
"Thank you for treating me so well, Joker." Marcus said with a smile towards the man sitting beside him.
Doflamingo laughed a bit at that in his usual way and answered.
"No worries, this is the sort of treatment to be expected for an illustrious new guest and ally." Doflamingo said and Marcus smiled before putting the drink down and taking out a little package from his pocket and giving it to Doflamingo.
"Consider this a way of me to say 'thanks' for your, let's call it, donation." Marcus said as his free hand went straight to Scarlet's big butt, she was dressed in a floral dress but she had to try her best not to moan at the touch, the new drugs were still taking their tool as they transformed her body in a more 'ideal' form.
Doflamingo noticed Scarlet's reaction to the smallest of touches and laughed at that.
"Are these the drugs you used on the toy I gave you? If so, there is really no need. I prefer to treat my own toys in a more 'natural' way, drugs make things too easy and remove the anger and disgust from their eyes. It is those little things that make breaking in the toys so good, Fufufufu." Doflamingo said as he looked at Violet who was trying her very best to look impassive at the evil in front of her was discussing how she and her sister were being treated.
"Sorry, but no." Marcus said. "These drugs I used with my recent princess are a bit of an exclusive deal, I have no intention of sharing these drugs or giving them to anyone else. But, what I gave you should be a good enough compensation for what you provided me."
Doflamingo looked in interest as he opened the package and took out what was inside. There, in the package, was a little vial with a red liquid.
"I present you the first dose of the 'extremist' drug." Marcus says with a smile. "It is a new drug that I developed that can be consumed by just about anyone. It would let them regrow lost or damaged body parts in a question of moments, increase their body capacity to a few times higher, as well as let them increase their body heat to a few thousand degrees as well as being able to release heat that should not be much weaker than Akainu's magma."
Doflamingo looked at the flask and his hands trembled. Something like that was both a gigantic blessing for his crew that desperately needed another powerhouse, as well as a show of what the Beast Pirates would have in their hands soon enough.
The criminal mastermind could see that the Beast Pirates' rise in power was all but inevitable as long as Marcus was around and that the better Smile fruit was more a bonus instead of the ultimate game changer that Doflamingo expected.
No, in Doflamingo's eyes this was a sign that he had two options now. Either join the Beast Pirates in a much closer alliance or become an enemy of their here and now. But, Doflamingo knew already that he and his Family did not have the strength to face the Beast Pirates here and now and, even if he tried, he would only end up being crushed in the end anyway.
So, he could only smile as he held on to the vial and said.
"Thank you for the gift. I did not know that the Beast Pirates had such a great thing in their hands."
"They don't." Marcus said with a shrug. "I invented it while I was fixing the mess of a formula that Caesar created. This is my first draft and I decided to let you and your crew test it, I guarantee the results, but I am not yet sure how it would fit with devil fruits just yet. My tip would be to let you use it on someone without a fruit... or try your fortune with a fruit user. Either way, I get valuable data on how the formula went." Marcus said easily before chilling in his chair.
He was almost enticed in taking the formula himself, but decided against it for now as he could make the formula much greater with some time and more study, but if Doflamingo desired to use his crew as the lab rats for the experiment, who was Marcus to say no?
The warlord looks pensive even as he felt slightly annoyed that he was being made to serve as lab rat for the kid beside him.
"Interesting. I will test it out later. But, are you not worried that I could copy the formula to empower my crew without needing to worry about you?" Doflamingo questions to which Marcus laughs a bit, his hand on Scarlet's firm butt squeezed a bit harder, the princes released a reluctant moan at this.
"Honestly, considering the 'spectacular' results I saw in Caesar's research, and how sensitive the Extremist formula is, I would be more impressed if the clown could even get a tenth of my results. No, he has no chance of doing what I can. Besides, if you work well with us from Beast Pirates, I would have no issue with helping your crew grow as well."
"That is rather generous from your side." Doflamingo pointed out and Marcus shrugged.
"Maybe, but I see potential in your operation, and the stronger your organization becomes, the more you can help us in the Blues in several ways to get in our hands a few items we would need later on for my research. It is a mutually beneficial relationship, as long as you remember to not go against the objectives of the Beast Pirates I see no reason not to help a new and upcoming force in this New World. After all, imagine if you stay as you are and eventually are crushed by some rookie with excessive luck, now THAT would be wasted resources for our Beast Pirates." Marcus said as he continued drinking his wine.
Doflamingo could more or less see where he was coming from, even if the idea of some rookie defeating him sounded preposterous.
His eyes then traced in Marcus's direction and decided that he should try his best to keep this kid happy, maybe he could deliver some more interesting items for him later if he could keep it up. Joker had almost decided to give up on the slave trading business, but he should try and keep his ears to the ground to see if he could get some good ones out there.
Who knows, maybe a princess or two could be exchanged away for some other 'gifts' like the one he had on his hands. If it works, it works.
He would have thought more about it, but his thoughts were interrupted as Marcus groaned a bit, causing Doflamingo to turn in his direction in fright, not wanting anything to happen to Marcus in his territory.M
Marcus, however, looked a bit down as he saw what was going on in the arena. Namely, he was annoyed as he saw two people in combat down in the arena. Namely, if his memory was right, down there was the 15th division captain of the Whitebeard Pirates, Fossa, cigar in the mouth and sword in hand, and facing him was none other than Susanoo who Marcus had left to watch over Yamato.
As the Haki energy inside Marcus was taken by Susanoo to keep him in the fight Marcus could only grumble a bit as his energy was used by his sentient weapon. Oh well, at least this would be a nice test for Susanoo, and it is not like Fossa could truly defeat Susanoo.
Down in the arena, Susanoo was questioning why he let himself be taken into this sort of situation. He was not personally much interested in this competition and he hasn't even had the chance of asking his master if he could join, Yamato simply dragged him along to participate and signed him up.
But, here he was anyway, swinging his mace around as he faced one of the commanders of Whitebeard. Flaming Swords Fossa, captain of the 15th division, a bounty of 360 million bellies.
"You are not bad." Fossa said as he parried a strike from Susanoo, the weapons locked in a standstill as they tried to overpower one another. "How about joining our Whitebeard Pirates?"
"Not interested." Susanoo said as he disengaged his weapon from Fossa's weapon and instead kicked at the ground, launching some debris in Fossa's head making him need to dodge.
As the swordsman did so he had to quickly use his armament Haki to defend himself as Susanoo started getting faster, hitting him with his mace on the side, sending him flying.
Using his sword, Fossa barely managed to stop himself from being launched outside the arena from the stronger impact. A smirk appeared on his face as he saw Susanoo standing in the same place as before.
"Welll, too bad you refuse to join. Guess I will just have to beat you into joining us, like we end up doing most times." Fossa said with a chuckle, his sword igniting in flames as he touched it to his cigar.
Susanoo looked unimpressed and simply got back in position before launching himself, not at Fossa, but to the side as he saw that Yamato and Ulti were fighting and someone was about to interfere with their fight.
"Oh, come on." Fossa said in irritation as his 'prey' escaped just as things were getting good. "I did not yet make you join the crew, get back here!" Fossa shouted as he too darted in the same direction.
The chaos only grew stronger and stronger.
This was easily, and without a doubt, the most fun Yamato has ever had in all her life. Waving her mace around she kept battling with the morningstar of Ulti, the two's clashing weapons with sparks flying every which way.
"Is that all you got?" Yamato said, her haki flaring as she swung it at Ulti who barely blocked, but her weapon broke from the impact.
"Tch, this weapon is too weak." Ulti complained as she threw away the hunk of deformed steel.
"The weapon is too weak, or are YOU too weak?"
"You wanna die, bitch?" Ulti questioned as veins popped out of her forehead.
"Come and try it." Yamato said as Ulti used her half-dino form, growing larger and stronger.
The two kept clashing, fists and headbutts against the strikes from Yamato. The two were in a struggle for supremacy and neither wanted nor would give way.
Yamato was so focused on Ulti that she completely missed as a sword was shot at her from behind, piercing her shoulder.
"Guh." a moan of pain came out of her mouth as the sword was firmly planted there. Turning to look she saw it was a tall, bulky man with small, piercing eyes and a large nose. He wears a green cactus-looking mouth guard, and sports a large sombrero with a red and yellow pattern on the rim and a green cactus on top.
This was Jean Ango, also known as Jean the Bandit, a rather well-known bounty hunter. He was a 'sniper', in the sense that he was an expert at throwing weapons and was a great bounty hunter having before killed many pirates with bounties of 100 million or even more.
Yamato would have tried to fight him, but Ulti was not giving her the time as she launched a kick at Yamato's midsection, making her release some spit and blood from her mouth.
Ulti was also being targeted by Jean, but she was far more experienced than Yamato and her observation haki was well developed, avoiding those thrown weapons was rather easy for her. It was almost trivial for the Headliner to avoid those throw weapons, not that she had to worry about it for long as Jean was interrupted as Susanoo came along to stop him.
Ulti wanted to complain that she did not need the 'save', but was stopped as more gladiators came along and attacked her, only earning strikes from the beauty in return.
The fight was pure chaos, everyone was fighting everyone and more and more players were being thrown out of the ring. Soon, only a few were left inside, all rather tired or bruised except for Susanoo who seemed in perfect health and without even being winded.
Yamato was together with Ulti facing off against Fossa, the old man trying his best to survive the strikes from the two even as his stamina was starting to catch up, even if only ever so slightly.
He was not much stronger than either of them, but his stamina and battle experience were well beyond either as he has been sailing with Whitebeard for over 30 years now, the only reason he was even in this competition was to see if he could snatch this ancient zoan fruit, which would fit him well. He wanted some extra 'juice' to be able to show to all the newbies not to look down on this old man.
Susanoo was observing things like a hawk, just waiting to see who would win in the end. It took a while, but Fossa finally seemed to get the upper hand and press the two girls down thanks to his fighting technique.
Yamato was mesmerized by it, she has only ever seen a few swordsmen worth the title before and the samurais of Wano had a certain technique to them, what Fossa was doing was something completely different and she was enchanted as this showed her more and more of the world. This whole experience, this outing, was everything and more than she had ever dreamed of.
As for Ulti, she just wanted to win this shit. Simple as that, she had no real care about that fruit or anything, she just figures that Kaidou would like it... and she may have heard Marcus mentioning him needing some Ancient Zoan fruits, but that was definitely, 100%, just a coincidence and had nothing to do with her trying to win that fruit.
Ulti jumped back, opening space and leaving Yamato to handle the heat, quite literally seeing as the sword of Fossa was releasing extremely hot fire. She did so, however, for an important reason. Namely, Ulti jumps into the air and rears her head back before covering her forehead in Busoshoku Haki and using the fall acceleration as well as her knowledge of Rokushiki, she aimed to slam her forehead directly at Fossa with all due strength, even including her half transformed state.
"Won't take it easy on this old man it seems, that is fine by me as well!" Fossa said with a laugh as he used all his armament haki on his sword, the two colliding as soon as Fossa got some space from Yamato.
BOOM
The impact was as if a cannonball was hitting solid rock. They kept pressing one another until finally, one had to give space, the one doing so being Ulti who was shot out of the arena by the force of the old-time commander of the Whitebeard Pirates.
This, however, was not without effort and the man's arm was too tired for a moment there to defend himself and his haki quite exhausted as well since the impact between the two sides was simply far too strong.
In the end, this meant that it was the ideal chance for Susanoo to swoop in, his feet moving fast as he used his mace to attack the momentarily weaker Fossa, launching the man out of bounds just as he had done Ulti.
Now it was only Susanoo and Yamato facing one another. Susanoo looked impassive as he spoke.
"Give up, you can't beat me in this state." Susanoo said easily, and he wasn't wrong. Yamato was hurt on the shoulder from the thrown weapon, there were also several cuts and bruises on her body and even some burned places thanks to the sword of Fossa.
It was hard for Yamato to even stand there now, especially if you compare her state to Susanoo who had absolutely no injuries in his form and looked as well as ever. That wasn't to say he never got hurt during this competition, but he had Kairoseki in his body to make him tougher and, as a living Teigu, he could regenerate from any damage as long as he had the energy for it and his core was safe.
In the stands above, Marcus who was watching this nodded to himself, somewhat expecting this result. Susanoo spent more of his energy than he would have preferred, but he was still more than healthy enough and the Teigu had not used his trump card for this fight, not that Marcus would accept him using it here and now.
That thing is exhausting and could give Susanoo a temporary power boost to match an Admiral in combat strength, but it would cost far too much of Marcus's energy and life force to supply. Maybe when Marcus figures out a solution he could use that trump card, but that time was not today.
Yamato looked at Susanoo intensely before she released a tired sigh and said.
"You are probably right. You are quite strong, Su-san."
Susanoo did not answer, simply standing in position for a fight. Yamato, seeing this smiled and waved her mace.
"Even if you are strong, I will not back down. That is my way of doing things!" As she said this, despite her injuries, Yamato exuded an extremely strong fighting intent and subconsciously released Conqueror's Haki in a wilder way than she normally used, releasing it in all directions as if it was the first time she used that. As that Haki was released in all directions without control, it washed over everyone including Marcus whose mind was blanketed for a moment thanks to it.
That, normally, wouldn't be an issue as his will was strong enough to fight off an untrained wave of Conqueror's Haki like what Yamato had released, but his mind was distracted as he was no longer paying attention seeing as he fully believed that Susanoo would win at this point. That allowed for Yamato's unintentional conqueror's haki to have this effect on Marcus.
This temporary condition made it so that Susanoo's energy dropped significantly for a short time, just enough time for Yamato to notice his sudden weakness and not hesitate whatsoever, dashing at him and swinging her mace.
"THUNDER BAGUA!"
Susanoo ended up launched far away, Yamato's haki-infused weapon being too much when hitting him during a temporary moment of weakness.
As the dust settled and she was the last one standing in the arena, Yamato looked in all directions for a moment before raising her weapon and shouting to the heavens in excitement as she was declared the winner of Block A of the Corrida Colosseum. The crowd cheered loudly as that happened and Yamato nearly felt tears emerging from her eyes at finally feeling like she was free, even if only for a short while.
"Zehaha."
Marshall D Teach let out a small laugh as he watched one of the Competitors of Block C be ripped apart by one of the Battlefish. He had to admit, he truly liked the "improvements" which Doflamingo made to the Gladiator fights. They were far more amusing to watch than those boring Tournaments that happened back when that old Geezer King Riku was ruling the place, the whole kingdom was far more entertaining and prosperous, especially with the darker side to the place (Whitebeard had his connections with the underground forces and Teach of course used it to have some understanding of how things worked with Doflamingo before coming over, he was not some dumbass who just swaggers around without a thought after all).
But overall, aside from the occasional gory death, there really was not much interesting in this Tournament. Watching Block A and those Beast Pirates had been rather fun, especially with how they beat up that old fool Fossa. Seeing that idiot being thrown away by two youngsters really was a nice experience for Teach who, when young, had to listen to that idiot and be made to carry his stuff on the ship.
But Block B and C were rather disappointing so far. Block B had ended with the new Viceadmiral Vergo of G5 utterly dominating his Block. Nobody coming even close to giving the man a scratch. Teach supposed the man was at least somewhat impressive and a worthy replacement for the old Viceadmiral who had been killed by Charlotte Snack a few months ago. Still, at best the man was far from being a true monster at sea just yet, even if his Armament Haki was certainly very impressive.
Maybe if he gets a strong fruit he could join Blackbeard's crew when he strikes sole, he certainly seemed efficient and cruel enough if the fight he saw in the arena was anything to go by.
But, Block C? That one was far worse. The two strongest guys who were currently fighting were some new Supernova who did not even seem to know Haki and fucking Squardo.
Squardo, whose only quality was having a sharp sword and knowing not to stab himself with it, who had lived to this day through the seas only because he was lucky enough to not face Roger and hide behind Whitebeard since the time he was lucky enough to survive. The man had deteriorated in strength so much that Blackbeard even doubted he could use Armament Haki properly anymore.
Peace ruins pirates as certainly as any bullet through the head, living under the protection of Whitebeard made his entire crew lazy and weak as far as Blackbeard was concerned. None had any ambition except for himself, and he would make sure to ride the waves of change that were coming.
Oh, and there went that random Pirate Captain.
Getting bored Teach stood up and went to leave. If fucking Squardo could make it to the finals then the Tournament would end quite boring and only the finals would be worth watching next.
Still...
Teach threw a last glance at the VIP area of the Arena where Doflamingo was sitting next to the Beast Commander Jack, some nerdy looking brat and a bunch of hot women.
He wondered what was up with that. Was Doflamingo going to throw his lot in with Kaidou? That would be something to keep in mind. The best Underworld Broker and that warmonger who knew no such thing as restraint, wanting war and fighting more than anything else in this world. Such an Alliance, even if kept quiet, would shake the world quite a bit, and Blackbeard wondered if he could make some form of use of it.
Regardless, he had things to do and places to see, specifically, he wanted to go meet that Susanoo guy from earlier. His healing factor was quite interesting, if it was a devil fruit then he should watch out for it by the time he gets the Darkness Fruit.
