Summary: Nico Robin isn't the only new crewmember when the strawhats sail away from Alubarna.
Pairing Xu Huang x Nico Robin (maybe x Nami)
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece or Dynasty Warriors
Usopp and Chopper are standing in front of the city of Alubarna, mole hills all around their beaten and exhausted forms.
"What are we going to do Chopper?" Usopp asks wearily.
"I don't know, but look. Something is coming." The reindeer replies, seeing a massive shadow approach at high speeds through the desert.
"Bring him to the palace." They hear a voice say while a white dressed, tall man steps ouz of the bananagator ride, which then takes off as fast as it came, leaving the tall man in his white robe and headband standing there, an enormous axe resting over his shoulder.
"Who are you guys?" He asks curtly.
"We are the strawhat pirates. And we don't care what rank you hold in this wretched baroque work. We're 10.000 men strong and will beat you." Usopp lies, laughing triumphantly.
"Baroque huh? Don't bother lying. I just met your captain and know you are fewer than 10 people. Which makes your courage even more impressive." Xu tells them, calmly walking over the sand in between the mole hills.
"Let's get him Mr.4 he's high up on our list." Miss Merry X-mas shouts, jumping out of a hole behind Xu with her big companion jumping out of the one next to her, his explosives sneezing Dog on his shoulder.
Xu quickly swings his axe around in a wide arc, catching the woman on its staff and hitting Mr.4 with the weapons blade. He swings them around on the axe an extra turn, making Chopper and Usopp have to dive to the floor to dodge it and then slams the two down in the sand, right atop their dog, where they lie in a pile for a moment before getting blasted away in different directions.
"Who... who are you?" Usopp asks, hid knees shaking while hr uprights himself.
"Xu Huang. Elite Guard of Alubarna." Xu tells them, walking past them to the city.
When he reaches the city Xu looks around saddened to see his home in such a state, fights raging in the streets, buildings on the verge of collapse because of their damage.
"Hearing a female scream over the fighting Xu looks in the direction of it and heads into the alleyways to his right, using his Musou to determine the woman's position. (AN: Musou is a kind of Haki, like Enel had the first Haki unknowingly)
"My my, Miss Doublefinger. I guess Is shouldn't be surprised to run into you here. At an event this big all of the Baroque bigshots would be involved." Xu says, seeing the woman pinning a redheaded girl, who's clutching a blue staff to her chest against a wall with her arms and breasts as spikes, impaled next to the girls head and arms.
"To think you'd run into me of all people. What bad luck we have." Miss Doublefinger says, releasing Nami, who hides behind a wall nearby to figure out which attack of her new clima tact staff she can use while Xu is confronting the blue haired baroque agent.
"Well one of us has bad luck. There is a reason we haven't met before you know. I wasn't in Alabasta until recently. Took a training trip on Chaka's orders." Xu says, stabbing his axe into the floor next to him.
"And now you think you're all that?" Miss double finger asks angered.
"I haven't decided yet. But I know that I can at least beat the likes of you." Xu tells her with Miss doublefinger rolling up into a Spikeball, jumping up and comes crashing down at the tall guard, whose fist gets covered by steel as he meets the womans attack with a powerful uppercut, sending her flying high up in the air, landing harshly on top of his axe which is sticking up in the sand.
Xu didn't get off scoff free however, having been hit by a few of the womans spikes on his arm and has a gash over his left cheek from another spike.
Just as he's dealt with Miss Doublefinger Nami dashes around the corner, her clima tact assembled like a T with her holding the bottom and two birds on wires shoot out from the T's edges, starting to wrap around Xu at high speeds, who she is aiming at.
"Tornado tempest." Nami shouts and struggles to hold onto the staff due to her injured leg, making her have a hard time standing.
"What's this?" Xu asks surprised, shocking Nami who didn't look directly at the person she attacked in her rush, having thought that Miss Doublefinger was the one standing in front of her.
The clima tact then shoots Xu away from Nami, sending him crashing into a wall far behind him at top speeds while he's spinning in circles.
"Oh no." Nami gasps shocked, when she sees the beaten form of Miss Doublefinger lying sprawled over the mans axe.
Nami quickly hobbles over to the wall he crashed through to look for him.
"Ugh, man that was a ride I don't want to repeat." Xu says, pulling himself out of some rubble, his face turning blue and he tries to refrain from vomiting from the violent spins.
"Are you with baroque works?" Nami asks on guard, holding another part of her staff.
"No. I'm part of the elite guard of Alubarna." Xu wheezes, slowly standing up, leaning against a wall next to him due to his head still spinning.
"Elite guard? I'm so sorry. I thought you were with her." Nami says, moving to help him, but her catches her instead when her leg gives in.
"Here. Before people get the wrong ideas." Xu says, draping his white cloak around her, covering her up, her clothes having been mostly destroyed in her fight against Miss Doublefinger, only her blue bra and half her skirt remaining.
"Are you with the strawhat pirates as well?" He asks, righting himself when his head stopped spinning.
"Yes. What do you mean as well?" Nami asks.
"I ran into some kind of Reindeer and a guy with a humongous nose." Xu says.
"Are they alright?" Nami asks worried.
"Yeah, they were fine last I saw of them." Xu says, stepping out of the rubble, carrying Nami in his arms, setting her down once they are in the streets again.
"What exactly is going on here? Where are the King and the Princess?" Xu asks Nami, collecting his axe, throwing Miss Doublefinger off the weapon.
"We don't know. They must be in the Palace and Sir Crocodile is trying to take over the country." Nami informs him.
"Can you walk?" Xu asks her, seeing Nami tie part of her skirt around her leg over where she was stabbed.
"I don't know. Not well at least." She says, limping towards him.
"Alright, come on let's go." He tells her, helping her on his back, where she puts her arms around his neck with him holding her up on his back with one arm under her legs, his other carrying his axe by his side.
"Thank you. I don't even know your name through. I'm Nami." She says, grateful for his help.
"My name's Xu Huang, nice to meet you." He replies, looking back at her, heading towards the palace.
Meanwhile at the palace
Pell catches Vivi who got thrown off the palace's wall and lands next to Luffy who also just arrived at the palaces wall, preparing to fight Crocodile.
One after another every member of the strawhat crew assembles around Vivi, Luffy and Pell.
"Princess! Pell!" Xu greets the two when he and Nami arrives, kneeling on one knee in front of the blue haired girl, with Nami already off his back, violently shaking the bandage covered Usopp because the party gadgets in his weapon almost cost her her life.
"Xu. You are too late I'm afraid. Crocodile is setting his plan in motion as we speak. He and Miss Bloody Sunday have my father." Vivi tells the guard.
"Where were you all this time?" Pell asks his colleague accusingly.
"I found someone who could train me. It was under Chaka's orders that I left." Xu informs him.
Luffy then takes off, launching himself to the top of the palace wall, shouting "I'm taking care of Crocodile."
"Vivi, what is the situation?" Nami asks the princess, finally releasing Usopp.
"It's not good. Like I said Crocodile has my father and in 10 minutes a bomb will go off that will everyone down here in front of the Palace." Vivi tells them.
"Are you serious that soon?" Usopp asks frightened.
"What are we going to do?" Chopper asks.
"We find the cannon." Zoro says.
"And then what?" Usopp asks.
"We stop it from shooting." Xu says, taking off his headband, spike black hair revealed underneath.
"But how do we find the cannon? If the cannon is that powerful then the shooter must be far away right?" Usopp asks.
"No, he's close. He's almost certainly near the palace square." Vivi says.
"Which means the shooter will die too. Go figure, it's Crocodile afterall." Nami says.
"We're wasting time talking here, let's go." Zoro says.
Pell and Sanji then see a shadow looming over Vivi from behind and take out the attacker, who is one of thw billions from the baroque works.
"Looks like we found you princess." A horde of billions says, appearing from the constant dust covering the palace square.
"Princess. Shall I go help your father and Luffy or assist in stopping the cannon?" Xu asks the girl.
"I believe in Luffy and we need every help we can get if we want to find that cannon in time." Vivi says.
"As you wish." Xu says, bowing to her once and heads in the direction of the billions.
"I'll look in this direction, the rest of you split up. Pell, you protect the princess." Xu tells the group, walking towards the hundreds of men targeting the princess.
"Wait. You can't." Vivi tries to stop him, fearing for his life. The group however are shocked when they see Xu swing his axe diagonally in a wide arc, with a bright blue blast firing off the weapon, leaving a deep carve in the pavement and scatters the surrounding areas with the billions, who are either dead or knocked out.
"Don't stand around there, we need to move." Xu tells them, starting to run off in his direction, with the other splitting up, everyone running off on their own. While this is going on down in the plaza, Luffy is fighting Crocodile, who relocates to the king's tomb, looking for Pluton, a weapon of mass destruction, which can be found through a porneglyph, stones with ancient writing which can only be read by Nico Robin, this being the only reason for Crocodile to keep her around.
When the black-haired beauty however doesn't tell him what's written on the stone, sprouting a lie about it being records of the countries history Crocodile stabs her with his hook, leaving her to die in the tomb.
Luffy catches up to the three and then continues his fight with the Sand user, getting poisoned by Crocodile during the fight.
Everyone on the square spends the next 8 minutes looking for the cannon, before they see the clock towers clock face opening, revealing a massive cannon inside of it while they have gathered below it, everyone except Xu and Pell, who got shot as he was flying past the tower.
"Oh no. That thing is massive." Usopp says fearfully.
"Where is Pell?" Vivi asks, trying to see the Hawk man in the sky, but doesn't find him anywhere.
"I don't know, but our time is running out here, how do we get up?" Nami asks.
"The stairs and the sky are the only way in. We just have to try the stairs." Vivi says desperately, only for the group to see two bodies get dropped out of the tower, falling down in front of the group, with Xu standing in the opened tower.
"How did you know?" Vivi shouts up happy that everyone is saved.
"I wanted to get to a good lookout point." Xu answers, before hearing something from within the cannon next to him, which is about one and a half times as tall as him and three times as wide.
"Hmm?" He murmurs, peering into the cannon, seeing a countdown on its explosive.
"Well, that's a problem." Xu sighs.
"Guys. We kind of have a problem." He shouts down to the others, standing at the towers opening.
"What?" Sanji shouts up.
"The cannon, it has a timer. In a minute it will go off." Xu says, causing Vivi to fall to her knees, crying in panic.
"What do we do now?" Chopper shouts up in a worried voice.
"You count." Xu tells them, seeing the fuse on the cannon.
"What?" They shout confused.
"Just count, alright? I have enough to deal with here." Xu grumbles back.
"35,34,33,32." He counts, with Nami continuing the count in the same tact, the others soon after joining in.
When they reach 20 seconds with Xu checking their timing he cuts off most of the fuse, only a short stubble remaining.
"Continue counting but get ready to run." He shouts down, grabbing onto the cannons bottom, walking in a circle so it's aimed towards the room.
Looking back behind himself he hears his comrades counting loudly from outside.
When they reach 10 he is standing in their view, his back towards them, dropping down his axe, which Zoro catches.
"9,8" they shout fearfully, seeing Xu struggle with something.
"7,6" they shout and see him jump down from the tower, ripping out a good chunk of it while dragging the massive canon out with him, aiming it straight up into the sky.
"5,4" they scream, with Chopper and Usopp running away from the building. And Xu's arm is suddenly enveloped in fire, grabbing onto the fuse, setting off the cannon when they just got to 3, causing a massive explosion, the gigantic bomb flying high up in the air, exploding soon after, sending a shockwave through the air, clearing the dust and showing Crocodile flying into the air, beaten and unconscious while the massive cannon crashes into the ground next to the strawhats.
"We did it. We did it!" Vivi shouts happily, hugging Nami.
"Has anyone seen where the guy went?" Sanji asks, looking around the area, where the massive canon impacted near them but sees no sign of Xu.
"Xu?!" Vivi shouts, also not having seen him. She shouts for him a couple of times with the group looking through nearby rubble but they don't find him anywhere.
"He couldn't have, could he?" Usopp asks shocked.
"I didn't see. The explosion was too bright." Nami says guiltily.
Meanwhile in the catacombs of the kings tomb the King is leaning against a wall tired and beaten with Nico Robin opposite of him, the whole place coming down around them.
"Give him this. It's the antidote. At least he should survive the place coming down on him." Nico Robin says, looking at an unconscious Luffy, who's lying on the floor next to them and rolls a vial over to him.
King Cobra gives Luffy the Antidote and both he and Robin are shocked when they see something crash through the catacombs roof, landing in the ground in between them hard, kicking up a cloud of dust.
*cough, cough, huff* the two hear, seeing someone's shadow sit up in the dust with some difficulty.
"Hah, where am I now?" Xu asks raspily, stepping out of the dust.
"Xu?" Both the King and Robin ask shocked.
"Huh? I thought Crocodile has you." Xu says confused, looking at the King, blood dripping down his head, its droplets landing on the floor below.
"What happened? How did you get here?" Cobra asks concerned since the place is coming down around them and while he's content with his life ending here, doubting he could make it out, Xu still has his whole life ahead of him.
"Whoa. The heck, let's get out of here first." Xu says, when a large stone crashes down next to him, having fallen from the ceiling.
"I'll do my best." The king says, accepting Xu's offered hand and leans against the wall once he's on his feet, slowly making his way towards the exit.
"Come on." Xu says, offering Nico Robin his hand.
"Just leave me here. I'm tired of everyone using me and betraying me. At least I got to read one more porneglyph." Robin says, closing her eyes to wait for her death, but instead finds herself in the arms of the tall guard in front of her.
"I will want to bury a friend of mine, so if you really need to die take a gentler way to die so I can mourn you properly." Xu tells her stoically, his blood dripping down onto her cheeks, mixing with tears which start to flow out of her eyes.
On the way outside he grabs Luffy by the back of his shirt, dragging him along behind himself, while carrying Robin in front of him in his other arm.
"This way." Cobra says, leading him to the exit.
"Good to see there's still some life left in you my King." Xu tells the older man.
"Well, you are to thank for that. I was fine with dying until I got to see your bloodied face down there." Cobra tells him.
"Well, at least I accomplished something then." Xu says with a smile, before falling over with the King trying to catch him, lying him down next to Luffy.
"Can you do me one favor and keep an eye on them while I get help?" Cobra asks Robin, who quietly nods, tears still falling out of her eyes as she's leaning over the now unconscious Xu.
When Cobra comes back with the help however, Nico Robin is gone.