Cross-Brain AN: Yes, everyone, Part 1 only. We apologize profusely to those of you who voted that we publish this all at once; we hate going back on our word. But with the massive delay that the holiday season brought for us, which had a few people wondering about our well-being, we want to show you all that we're making progress.
…That, and if this installment is any indication, the full Strong World is going to be around 100k. Even we have to draw the line somewhere for absurdly long chapters.
Anyway, we have the entirety of Strong World planned out; it will not be too long before we publish the next part as long as real life cooperates with us. Once more, our apologies for keeping you waiting, and for keeping you waiting longer for what comes next. But Part 2 will not take as long as this.
With that said, time to get this show on the road! But first, a word from one of our members.
Hornet AN: One word for y'all: psych!
Cross-Brain AN: Have fun chewing on that until we publish Part 3!
On a normal day, the docks of Marineford would be buzzing with activity as battleships and other Marine vessels sailed in and out of the docks, directed with clockwork precision by the harbor masters. Countless throngs of the Marines' elite would be bustling about, their every action done in some way to maintain the Justice that protected the peaceful lives of civilians the world over.
As such, the days where Marineford fell utterly silent were both vanishingly rare and the kind of day that led every Marine to fear their headquarters falling so silent.
This burnt orange, twilight-hued day was very much one of those days.
"Well," Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp said through a grim smile, a muscle twitching in his jaw and his gaze directed skyward. "At least Senny can't blame this one on me."
Despite being veritably surrounded by other Marines, it was doubtful that very many heard what he said. Their attention was skyward, gaping astonishment and existential terror written on their faces.
The source of this reaction was the sight of one of Marineford's indomitable, insurmountable fleets of battleships, the very symbol of the Navy's strength, floating listlessly through the air as if the multi-kiloton galleons had the density of cloud vapor.
As swiftly as the spectacle and the awed silence had descended upon Marine Headquarters, a raid siren finally howling out over the island shattered it. Every last one of the gathered troops sprung to action, if only to scramble to find something to do about this inexplicable event taking place above them.
As the soldiers scurried around him like so many rats, Garp snorted derisively. "Tch. The new generation's reaction time is shit."
"Cut them a break, Garp."
The Vice Admiral didn't look, instead watching out the corner of his eye as his sole acknowledged superior stepped up alongside him, looking up into the sky just like him.
"This generation has seen wonders and horrors aplenty over their lifetimes," Sengoku grimly stated. "But none have ever seen madness such as this. None but us."
"Madness…" Garp muttered, before he tsked and lowered his head. "Yeah, that's really the only way to describe this. There's only one man powerful enough and mad enough to do such a thing—" A sharp inhalation cut Garp off, his gaze snapping back up but even higher than before.
"Tch…" Sengoku spat as he followed his friend's gaze.
Their reactions were due to a far bigger issue than a few floating battleships suddenly intruding onto the moment, freezing the entire island in its tracks again.
In fact, one could very reasonably call the new issue island-sized. And that was no metaphor; a titanic flying island that had somehow been retrofitted to serve as a ship that had just flown clean over the summit of Marineford, essentially buzzing the very office of the Fleet Admiral himself.
Sengoku could only glare in furious trepidation at the island-vessel soaring over the weightless battleships, its every motion a sneering taunt directed straight at him. "Damn it all… and so yet another threat comes crawling out of the woodwork. This one hailing from the age of Roger himself."
"Twenty years of silence, and he picks now of all times to show his face again?" Garp growled, ignorant of the way his old friend twitched at his words. "One of Roger's own rivals, and the only man to ever manage to escape from the depths of Impel Down…"
The fabled Hero of the Marines glared daggers at the island-ship. Glared at the golden-maned titan he knew was standing on the rear of the vessel, whose condescending smirk he could all but feel in the very depth of his being.
"You haven't missed a step, have you?" Garp shouted up at the island. "Shiki, the Golden Lion!"
"Jihahahahaaaaa!"
Both Fleet Admiral and Vice Admiral stiffened at the deep, heavily accented voice that suddenly echoed out over Marineford from the island-ship, freezing many a soldier in their tracks.
"The hell—?" Garp breathed.
"Myyyy myyyy…" gloated the voice, a voice that had last sounded in Marineford twenty-five years prior, bringing as much terror now as it had back then. "What's this now? I must say, Marineford, I'm quite disappointed! I step out for but a decade or two, and already you've forgotten my name? I come back and find that the fight that once made you all so fearsome has withered up into nothing, and that you're concentrating on worthless small fry? That just won't do, you know! After all… I haven't exactly been resting on my laurels for the last twenty years, see; I have big plans, and it's finally time to put them into action. Finally time for the world to remember the sheer power of the Golden Lion Pirates! Ah… but hey, don't just take my word for it…"
Garp and Sengoku tensed as the air suddenly felt greasy, with a hint of ozone. "Here it comes!" Garp bellowed out.
"How about I offer you a taste… OF WHAT'S TO COME!"
Two seconds passed following that announcement. Then, all at once, gravity reasserted itself upon the ten floating battleships. The vessels, sailors and all, plunged downward; some fell into Marineford's bay, the waves from the titanic impacts swamping the shores of the island and dragging countless more doomed soldiers beneath the surface. Others crashed on the land itself, crushing buildings or impacting on the edges of the island before crumpling into splinters.
One vessel careened headlong at the central pagoda of the island, but a swift backhand from the Marine Hero sent the impromptu projectile harmlessly tumbling away. Harmless for the island, mind, not the poor souls who had been trapped on the ship.
Garp spared a second to mourn for the waste of life before glaring at Shiki's retreating vessel, which had left the swath of devastation it had wrought far behind in favor of absconding to the heavens. "Damn it all… why couldn't the son of a bitch just keep quiet and remain a legend?" Garp growled. "What's he been up to? Has he been preparing all this time, just so that he could take his revenge?"
"JIIIHAHAHAHAHAHA…"
The laughter echoing over the harbor as the island-ship soared upward, already out of range and soon out of sight, answered Garp's rhetorical question very well.
Once the ship was well out of sight, Garp let out an aggravated sigh and reached up to scratch the back of his head. "Bastard… Well, no matter what he's up to, standing around isn't going to put out any fires. I'm gonna head down, start coordinating search and rescue, repairs, shit like that. At least get us into a half decent state of affairs before some pirate or whatever gets any bright ideas."
"When you're done with that, Garp, report to me immediately," Sengoku said around the hand massaging his forehead. "As soon as I get a double-dose of my stress medication, I want you to be exactly where I can see you at all times."
"Eh?" Garp blinked at his superior in surprise. "And why the hell's that?"
"Because he gloated."
Garp blinked again. "Uh… come again?"
"Shiki," Sengoku elaborated, his gaze still affixed on the horizon. "Just now, he didn't just attack us like he normally would have. He gloated first. In all our years of fighting him, not once has Shiki ever taken the time to grandstand like he did just now. So… what's changed? What, after twenty long years…" Sengoku's head slowly turned to glance over his shoulder. "Is different?"
Garp followed his old friend's gaze in confusion…
"SHIT!"/ "DAMN IT, GARP!"
And forced Sengoku to violently restrain him once he realized that Sengoku had been looking at a Transponder Snail.
"YOU CAN'T JUST GO BARRELING OFF, YOU TITANIC IDIOT!" Sengoku bellowed furiously, very pointedly not using his Devil Fruit abilities in wrestling Garp to the ground to keep him from bolting out the doors and most likely clean off the island.
"THE HELL I CAN'T, BASTARD!" Garp howled."THAT ARROGANT SON OF A BITCH CAN'T STAND THE IDEA OF SOMEONE ELSE IN THE SPOTLIGHT! HE'S STARTING A PISSING MATCH WITH THE STRAW HAT PIRATES! HE'S GOING AFTER MY GRANDSON!"
Several floors down from the ongoing madness, Vice Admiral Tsuru gazed mournfully out over the devastated landscape of Marineford. After a few seconds, her gaze shifted, casting a regretful glance at her snoozing Transponder Snail and silently lamenting that it would be many tense hours of lockdown before she'd be able to place a critical call without getting caught.
For the time being, she made a mental note to utilize Monkey's connections to ensure every Mason in both Zodiacs had a White Transponder Snail on hand as soon as possible. She then dialed the number of her surrogate sister, Vice Admiral Gion, to begin mustering as many forces as possible to salvage the drowning Marines; as a Devil Fruit user, there was only so much that the old woman could do herself.
Once that was done, and before she walked out to begin the long night's work, Tsuru cast a final glance out at the sun-baked horizon.
"This," she whispered to herself. "Is going to be an ordeal the likes of which the world has never before seen."
And so with those words did the ordeal begin. And with it… an odyssey.
The Cross-Brain Presents…
Based on the hit-series by Eiichiro Oda…
An adaptation of the blockbuster movie…
For your enjoyment…
STRONG WORLD
Flying… floating… drifting… looking… looking… looking… looking down… looking in…
"Gwegh!"
I woke up with a snort, shooting up in my bed in shock. Slowly, I looked left and right, blinking numbly as I got my bearings, before raising my hands before my eyes to give my fingers a quick test.
Once I was sure they worked, I shook my head blearily. "Frickin' weird double-O.B.E. dreams…" I groused before flopping back. I then blinked as I saw Merry's face looking down on me. With a wide grin that showed only teeth and malice.
"Time to wake up, Cross…" she crooned ever so gently, her tone of voice entirely discordant with her facial expression.
I blinked slowly before settling in with a sigh. "Still such weird dreams…"
"THE HELL IT IS!"
My eyes shot open at the sudden roar. "Wait, wha—?!"
THWACK!
"GAH!" I shot up with a howl of agony as a small but heavy mass cannonballed into my stomach. Moving fast, I grabbed her head and tugged her cheeks out with my thumbs. "You little brat!" I wheezed. "What the hell do you have to say for yourself!?"
"Yoah fingersh tashte like shyrup," Merry mumbled out, smiling unabashedly all the while. "You should weally avoid dwinking cola before going to shweep, messhesh your shleep schedule up shomeshing fierche."
"Duly noted," I snarled menacingly, leaning in close so that we were eye to eye. "Now, any last words before I drown you in the fishtank?"
"Actually, I have three that will change your mind."
"Eh?" I glanced to the side, boggling in confusion at the sight of Nami, Zoro and Vivi all standing in my room, with Soundbite snickering in Zoro's palm…
Puru puru puru puru!
And ringing.
"Call for you," Zoro deadpanned.
My stare held for a moment longer, and then I shot Merry a flat glare. "You got lucky, brat."
Her oh so mature response was to stick her tongue out with a cocky "Bleeeeeeh".
I snorted and let her go, before rummaging around for some clean… er, for some clothes that didn't smell too bad. "Pick it up, would ya?" I requested.
Vivi rolled her eyes with a weary sigh. "Ever the height of decorum, Cross."
"Piss off, it's not like there's video." Once Soundbite's expression morphed from cockiness to that of whoever'd called, however, I took on a cocky grin of my own. "Hello, you've reached Marine Base G-5's cafeteria; our specialty today is poultry carved in the likenesses of the Straw Hat Pirates. Would you like to purchase Going Merry's head or Roronoa Zoro's?"
The named laughed and flashed me the finger respectively.
"…I am… conflicted," Tashigi deadpanned.
"Save your morbid fantasies for later, Pisces," Hina said, her voice as hard as steel. "Members of the New World Masons, Divine and Damned alike…" The Marine's expression darkened noticeably. And it was pretty dark beforehand. "We have a situation."
My whole room tensed up instantly, and I hastily slipped on the closest clothes I could grab before planting my ass in my chair, everyone else settling in on the floor or against the wall.
"How bad?" I asked.
"Bad enough that everyone save Aquarius is present, and the only reason we're not waiting for her any longer is that we can't afford to," she answered. "I trust you've all been informed of the destruction of Picowana Island?"
I waited out the sounds of affirmation from everyone before speaking up myself. "Merry told us, yeah. Uninhabited island in the East Blue that got shredded down to the bedrock… and that I know nothing about." I grimaced in dread. "It's happened again, hasn't it?"
Hina nodded, her eyes closing in memory. "We've confirmed eight islands over the past month, with the five most recent destroyed within the past week," she said. "Tikoshi Island, the Isle of Peridox, the Bullion Atoll, Etonori Island, and Rendion Island. All levelled completely and utterly."
I could feel my teeth grinding at the revelation, but before I could say anything, I noticed our navigator had suddenly turned an ashen gray. "Nami? What's wrong?" I asked. "You know those islands or something?"
Nami nodded jerkily, slowly turning her horrified gaze towards us. "Etonori… and Rendion," she breathed. "Th-Those islands… they… they were inhabited."
We all stiffened at the news, the implication as obvious as a sledgehammer to the face.
Barto in particular hissed in a breath. "Capricorn, don't tell me—!"
Hina's eyes squeezed even tighter together, her jaw visibly clenching. "…no survivors. I personally combed every square inch of both the islands and any wreckage left, but…" She shook her head. "We were lucky to even find remains that were intact, when we found them at all. I… seriously doubt we missed anything alive in that carnage."
A grave silence hung over us all as we digested that information.
"…Damn…" Lola swallowed heavily. "That… t-that's just…"
"Inexcusable!" T-Bone barked, his fists audibly slamming on a surface. "Such a senseless, grievous waste of life… and there are no clues to who or what is committing these atrocities!?"
Hina shook her—and by extension, Soundbite's—head. "Unfortunately, no. There are no traces, no identifying signs, nothing to tie the attacks to anyone. Yet the attacks have two consistencies that show that they are a pattern rather than a simple calamity. The first is the exceptionally thorough destruction." There was a pause, and her jaw clenched even tighter.
"And the second is an exception in the devastation. On Etonori and Rendion, every trace of civilization was wiped away, except for the docks and the nearby warehouses. Those were left intact."
"And unless I miss my guess…" Foxy spoke up, an uncharacteristically grim glower on his face. "Those warehouses were empty, weren't they?"
While Soundbite nodded, Merry tilted her head in confusion. "Er… empty docks?" she asked. "What's so important about that?"
"Because under normal circumstances, that shouldn't be the case," Dorry rumbled. "Any town with any sort of ongoing trade should have something in the warehouses, or something sitting on the docks ready to be moved there."
"But for the warehouses to be completely empty and the docks untouched, even after such devastation…" Broggy trailed off, letting everyone come to the obvious conclusion.
"Pirates…" Vivi said, her hands clenched into trembling fists. "The warehouses were spared during the carnage and then looted after the fact."
"Same tactics my crew used back in the old days," Foxy confirmed. "Less destruction and more looting, obviously, but still the same basic premise."
"In summary," Jonathan said. "We have a group of pirates—a word I only use because it means seafaring criminal," he hastily added when every one of us buccaneers present scowled at the implication. "Who are scouring islands down to the bedrock, and who have recently escalated to attacking civilians and stealing everything of worth in the process, with no evidence of the attacks stopping any time soon. Worse, it appears that they're only beginning." Jonathan let out a weary sigh and shook his head. "I think it goes without saying that this is a threat we need to take very seriously."
For a long moment, the only sound was the creaking of the Sunny around us.
Finally, Vivi groaned and began to massage the bridge of her nose. "Anubis and Osiris below, I thought I'd left this kind of madness behind in Baroque Works…"
"Hell of a lot of trouble for a smash and grab, though, isn't it?" Zoro muttered to himself.
"Unfortunately, Capricorn must agree with Sidewinder," Hina stated. "But only on the first half of his statement. It was a lot of trouble… but Capricorn does not think the looting was the goal."
The mood darkened significantly as the statement sunk in.
"…what are you saying, Capricorn?" Tashigi breathed weakly.
"I think you know exactly what I mean. All of you," Hina explained, Soundbite's teeth grinding furiously on a cigarette he didn't have. "I will add that the ships in those ports escaped complete destruction by virtue of being underwater when the destruction began."
Silence, for all of a second, and then, there was thunder.
"They were aiming for the civilians," Nami growled, a dark malevolence in her eye, voice, and the pitch-black, streaked-with-lightning Eisen Cloud filling the room with the stench of ozone. "Their goal was to destroy the islands, and the looting was just a bonus."
"Like a few other islands I'm sure all of us could name," Smoker rumbled murderously.
As impossible as it seemed, the mood darkened even further at the reminder. "Bastards," Tashigi spat, her eyes gleaming venomously.
"Damn…" Apoo shook his head in disbelief. "I've clashed with some psychopaths before, but whoever's doing this has to be some seriously special brand of twisted."
SLAM! "ENOUGH!"
We—that is, we Straw Hats—all jumped at the impact that suddenly shook the room, and our attention was dragged over to Merry, her clenched fist planted against the wall and indignant rage wracking her small frame.
"Enough," she repeated, flames flickering in her eyes. Literally. "Enough talking about what these bastards did, enough speculating about what they're going to do. It's too late to save the dead, and the future doesn't matter because we are going to stop these bastards before they strike again. What matters here is the present: what's being done right now?"
Hina's response was to huff and glance aside. "At the moment, Capricorn and her men are analyzing the affected islands to see if we can turn up any more clues to a trail or culprits. Headquarters, meanwhile, has acknowledged the gravity of the threat, and made it the Navy's top priority; any available battleships on this side of the Red Line are making all speed for the East Blue as we speak. But…" The energy seemed to drain Hina, and her gaze became downcast. "Even with all these resources… Capricorn… Capricorn has her doubts."
Another bout of uncomfortable silence fell over the room, but this one was swiftly filled by a harsh clap, and going by the fangs Soundbite was sporting, it looked like it was Bartolomeo who'd delivered it.
"Well, at least we ain't going into this shitshow alone, right?" he proudly declared. "All for one, one for all!"
"Huh?" T-Bone blinked in surprise. "Rooster, what are you—?"
"It's obvious, ain't it?" Barto snorted. "C'mon, I might be a bloodthirsty, booze-swilling, ship-bumping pirate, but the East Blue's still my turf too, ya know! I've still got the rest of my boys there, family! I'm not just gonna leave 'em out 'ta dry! I'll call 'em, get them to put their ears to the ground. Anybody doesn't feel like sharing with you white hats, they'll share with us!"
"Same here!" Foxy nodded in agreement. "I've got feelers all up and down Paradise, I'll reach out and see if they can turn anything up!"
"And we'll shake some trees too!" Dorry chimed. "Not only is Water 7 a major trade hub even with the blockade up, but we've had giants streaming in to join the crew! Something like this isn't easy to set up, so if there've been any rumblings over the past few years, we'll find out!"
"No matter what might come, we won't back down until the job is done and it's done right!" Broggy concurred, a loud thump indicating he'd pounded his chest. "That's the Giant Warrior way!"
"You… you all…" Tashigi breathed, moisture building in her eyes.
"What, you're surprised? Didn't expect this of us? APAPAPA!" Apoo cackled. "Of course you didn't! And why's that? Because we're pirates! We don't play by the rules, so you never know what we'll do! Apapapa!"
While there was a general rumble of agreement and support, I was less focused on what was being said and more on my crewmates. Or rather, on my crewmates' faces. Merry, Nami, Zoro… they all looked somewhat mollified by the support everyone else was giving, but even I could see the tension hidden below the surface. The worry.
And seeing that… I knew there was only one thing I could do.
"Chin up, Marine," I said with the utmost seriousness. "We've got a job to do."
Everyone turned to me in surprise. "I actually meant to talk to you about cutting down on the taunting," Merry breathed, a tinge of awe coloring her voice. "And you're doing it already."
"Did someone replace Ophiuchus's brain when we weren't looking?" Smoker said without a hint of jest.
"Oh, come on!" I snapped. "I will admit, shamelessly, that I love messing with people as much as Soundbite does—"
"You wi~sh," Soundbite sang tauntingly.
"—but you all know that I'm completely capable of turning serious if the situation demands it." I shook my head. "And believe me, the less often that happens, the better. You wouldn't—" I cut myself off, but then grimaced and turned to glare at my slyly grinning snail; there really wasn't a better way to phrase it. "Alright, fine. Say it."
"You wouldn't like me when I'm angry," Soundbite intoned.
"Yeah, that," I nodded at him before adopting a vicious grin. "And whoever's pulling this shit? They'll like us all even less when Sunny comes roaring over the horizon."
If my words hadn't before, that sentence locked everyone's attention on me.
"Cross, what—!?" Vivi started to splutter.
Started, because my raised hand shut her up. "Look," I said placatingly. "I know I'm not the captain, I know I technically can't make that call, but the East Blue is the home of a quarter of our crew, it's our alma mater, and damn it all, this is the exact kind of shit the Straw Hat Pirates do not let fly!" I punctuated my statement by slamming my fist on my desk… an action I sorely regretted, considering I hadn't put my gauntlets on. Still, even as I resisted the urge to curl up in a ball in favor of cradling my hand, I continued on. "I bet anything that if we bring this up to Luffy, he'll be all for it. From there… it's just a matter of sailing north, hopping the Calm Belt, and raising ten different kinds of hell until we're finished."
My crewmates exchanged looks of uncertainty, thought, and most of all, hope.
Still…
"But… what about our journey, Cross?" Nami asked hesitantly. "You really think we can just… start over?"
…oh, like hell I was letting that pass by me.
"Hmm…" I made a show of humming to myself, clasping my hands and tapping my index fingers against my chin in thought. "Yessss, I suppose that would be an issue, wouldn't it? Now if only, if only we were veterans of Paradise, experienced enough in these waters that we could travel these seas in basically no time at all, with no trouble whatsoever! And what a boon it would be if we just so happened to know some people whose ships can magically cross the Calm Belt at their leisure, without so much as a spot of trouble!" I stuck my grinning face in Soundbite's, raising my hand in a conspiratorial manner. "Hint-hint!" I stage-whispered.
"Cross is back~!" the whole of the Zodiac of the Damned sang-laughed.
"Asshole," Nami sighed, shaking her head.
"Should have seen that coming," Vivi snickered in response, which got our navigator shooting a half-hearted half-glare at both her and our guffawing helmsgirl.
"Mrrrgh… well, at least I'm not entirely on the receiving end for once…" Tashigi grinned, though one corner of her mouth was periodically twitching.
"Cross," Jonathan sternly interjected. "I hope you have an idea for how to get there other than using the Marines' sea prism stone hulls. Every ship in Paradise is under tight watch and it would be a nightmare explaining a missing one, at least until after this crisis is resolved. I'm not saying you can't rely on us, we won't hesitate if it's the only option. But if you do, it's going to be a lot of potential trouble; in the worst case, one of us may even have to go public with our rebellion."
"I have a couple of alternatives lined up, don't worry," I assured everyone. "Rooster, fill… Cobra or Anaconda in on the situation, whoever's available. We may need their help."
"Oh, no need for that."
The sudden shift in Bartolomeo's tone made everyone else wince in anticipation.
"Gimme a second," a gruff voice suddenly grunted.
SLAM-SLAM-SLAM-SLAM! "GAH!"
Followed shortly by the sound of Bartolomeo getting a four-man round of 'concussive maintenance' performed on him.
"I DIDN'T EVEN GET STARTED YET, PISSWHISKEY!" Barto roared at his first mate.
"I've got a lot of bars I like back there, asshole, you're not starting ever until this is over and done with!" Gin growled right back.
"…Fine," Barto snorted. "Asshole. Anyway, Cross, our crew got friendly with the Calm Belt's Sea Kings during the sack of Enies—long story, don't ask, still hammering out details on the whole thing—and I'm sure we could get you through the Calm Belt and back. Where do we meet up?"
"Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves," I said. "We need to tell the rest of the crew first."
"And figure out where the hell we are, too," Nami interjected.
I winced. "And… that, yeah."
"Fair 'nuff. We'll wait for your call. So unless anyone else's got something to say…?" Barto glanced left and right.
"Just this," Smoker said, glaring at everyone on the call. "Everybody watch their backs. Something tells me that we're venturing into something this world has never seen before."
There was a general rumble of agreement as everyone checked out to attend to their assigned tasks.
"See you on the flipside, Straw Hats," Barto saluted before he too departed, leaving us alone.
My confidants and I exchanged looks before letting out a myriad of sighs and groans and slumps to the nearest hard surface.
"So, we're facing an ocean-threatening disaster by genocidal pirates, completely and utterly outside of Cross's foresight," Merry summarized. "On a scale of Whiskey Peak to Enies Lobby, how much of a problem does that make this?"
"My guess?" I said around my molars gnawing on my cheek. "Thriller 2, Rotting Boogaloo."
Vivi and Nami both groaned in concert. "Freaking. Perfect," they sighed in synch, hands clutching their scars.
"Let's just get this over with. At least there'll be a decent fight out of it," Zoro said as he climbed out, my other adjutants on his trail.
Before following him, I made a stop by my desk. "All hands on deck, emergency meeting," I said into my pipes. I was about to head out for real when a thought occurred to me and I moved back to the comms. "And when I say emergency, I mean worldwide emergency, not we're-out-of-prime-cuts emergency, so move your asses!" Then I headed out, the sound of doors opening echoing below the ladder I used to descend. Not ten seconds after I touched the deck, everyone was out with all eyes on me.
"Bad news from the rest of the world, Captain, and with your permission, we'd like to get the entire crew working on it," I said.
"Uh… how bad exactly?" Luffy queried.
"Bad," was all Zoro said.
That drew a surprised look from our captain, before he slapped on his dead-serious face and nodded at me.
Permission granted, I clapped my hands to get everyone's attention. "Alright, everyone, listen up! As of today, we've learned that the East Blue is officially in crisis mode. As we speak, islands are being levelled one by one." As I spoke, I began pacing back and forth. "Close to a dozen islands annihilated over the last month, all in the East Blue, and recently the islands have begun having people on them. Whoever's doing this—and I am confident that they are a who—they're only getting started."
The rest of the crew stared at me in horror.
"East Blue…" Usopp wheezed. "H-Have they hit—?"
"None of ours," Merry quickly assured him.
"Not yet," Nami pointed out.
Apparently, that did little to reassure our sniper. "Kaya…"
Sanji, meanwhile, glanced aside, no doubt thinking of his family at the Baratie. And going by the way Luffy tilted his hat down to shadow the newly born scowl on his face, he had some names in mind, too.
I gave everyone a moment to stew on that, and then raised a placating hand. "The Navy is looking into matters as we speak, giving the matter their full attention," I explained, before slowly looking at Luffy. "But the fact is, I seriously doubt anyone is satisfied with just that. Captain, I have a way of getting us through the Calm Belt and back, and as far as I'm aware we won't be missing anything truly critical if we were to take a detour. But… this is still a decision you, as the captain, need to make."
In an instant, the crew snapped into serious mode. All attention turned to our captain, and everybody waited in patient silence as he mulled matters over. Luffy didn't even need a minute before he looked straight up at us.
"Nami," he ordered firmly, steel glinting in his eyes. "Set a course. We're going back, to the East Blue!"
The mood shifted into bloodthirsty, edge-of-the-blade anticipation; I would have grinned if the cause was less grim, but at the moment all I could manage was to grit my teeth in determination. "Alright, first things first: Let's find out just where the… hell… we oh what the fuuuuuck…"
Why did I trail off like that? Well, the absolutely ludicrous sight above me that had everyone staring in wide-eyed confusion probably had something to do with it.
Somewhere in the back of my stunned mind, I reached a simple conclusion.
Apparently, Paradise had absolutely no intention of letting the New World top its madness without one hell of a fight.
-ONE WEEK LATER-
For all its insanity, the Grand Line was still a vast ocean; some areas made the worst parts of the Blues look tranquil, while others would have been right at home in said Blues, and could be even considered normal. One such island, Barcanallia Island, was equal parts forest and town, unremarkable in all aspects, with a simple economy based on the crops and game the inhabitants could bring in.
Islands such as this were truly ideal locations, whether to kick up your feet and relax in peace, or to get some time away from the prying eyes of either the public or one's superiors.
"Hmmmph…"
Case in point.
"How vexing…" exhaled the frowning frame of Captain T-Bone over the sound of a whetstone grinding the edge of his blade.
Seagirl Recruit Yoko winced, both in response to her superior's exhalation, and in response to the trio of ridiculously overpowered ex-assassins kicking her mega-sized insectoid best friend into the ground.
And all without using their Zoan forms, at that!
"Sorry, Captain, Boss still isn't used to fighting anyone close to his level, let alone three at once," Yoko apologized, glancing back at him from the fight that was going on and then blinking. "Oh, sorry, did you mean your sword?"
"No, neither the blade nor the brawl is what is troubling me, Yoko," the Captain sighed, continuing to grind at the whetstone. "What troubles me is the exact same issue that has been troubling you for the past week."
Yoko's mood visibly dropped at the reminder. "The Straw Hats."
"Indeed," T-Bone nodded solemnly. "Any period of silence from Jeremiah Cross is worrying in and of itself, but given the circumstances of the silence this time around…"
"I-I'm sure they're alright!" the young girl hastily stated, though her expression made it clear that she was as much trying to raise her own spirits as his. "I-I mean, I know that last SBS sounded pretty bad and… and sure, they got their asses kicked pretty hard, but—!…but… ah…" Yoko slowly lowered her head, a miserable grimace on her face. "I'll stop talking now, sir."
T-Bone sighed and shook his head, his focus back on his attempt to distract himself. The Straw Hats would bounce back… surely they would.
Yoko, for her part, returned her attention to Boss, which did a lot more to distract her than T-Bone's whetstone did him. She had learned of CP9's existence from Cross, but the full story of what was now Jormungandr only became known to her when she witnessed the most terrifying man she'd ever seen bring a report to T-Bone regarding CP4. Said man was among the three Zoans sparring with her close friend, whose scarred carapace was growing even more scarred from the barrages, his horns, feelers, and fire struggling to keep up with the limber assassins.
Yoko winced as a blade of wind put a particularly large dent into her friend's side. His next molting was going to be something to witness.
And once again, this was without using their Devil Fruit powers. She thanked her lucky stars three times a day that they were on her side… or at least that Lucci considered the hell T-Bone would give him more trouble than knocking her block off would be worth.
Yoko shivered and chased that particularly dismal thought away, and instead cast a despairing glance skyward. "To think, I'm actually starting to miss that damn suicidal idiot lightening the mood with his insanity," she groaned. Then she gained a thoughtful expression. "Damn it, Cross, where the hell are you?"
T-Bone let out another sigh before sheathing his newly sharpened sword and rising to his feet. "While I share your concerns, Seagirl, our duties yet remain. For the moment, we must concentrate on the task at hand. That being said, where is… ah, there's Knalf."
The Warrant Officer jogged up to his commanding officer and hastily skidded to a halt before giving him a salute and breathless report. "Captain T-Bone! Situation in the town square! You're going to want to see this immediately, sir!"
The two Marines exchanged a concerned look, and then Yoko blew out a sharp whistle. Immediately, the brawl ceased, Boss splitting off from his opponents to fly over to her… while his erstwhile opponents vanished into the shadows.
Yoko shuddered at the sight. "Said it before, saying it again: so creepy."
"You could learn to do it as well, you know," T-Bone remarked, a slight smirk tugging at his mouth.
The 180 was immediate. "Then in that case, so cool!" Yoko cheered. "But for now!" The girl clambered up onto Boss Kabuto's back and slapped at his shell. "I'll settle for the express! Let's go-go-go!"
The colossal beetle immediately zoomed off, leaving T-Bone to shake his head in amusement before jogging after them.
The source of Knalf's urgency was obvious once they reached the town's square. The locals had all congregated around a pair of rather unexpected sights in their town. The first was mundane enough: a large projection screen that had most definitely not been present a few minutes prior. The second, however, was far more unusual: a large, person-sized crate made of metal just randomly sitting in the town's square.
"Ooookay…" Yoko said as she walked around the crate, one hand scratching under her cap. "Thiiis isn't something you see every day…"
"Where did these items come from, Officer?" Captain T-Bone queried.
"Uh… I actually think they've been here for awhile now, sir. See this?" The Warrant Officer indicated several pieces of splintered, shattered wood scattered around the screen and crate. "If I remember right, there were some wooden crates here when we docked yesterday. We've asked around, and apparently they were first seen here all of three days ago. However, nobody can seem to recall who left them there, just that they were left lying around, and then they suddenly burst open a few minutes ago! That screen unfolded, and the other crate… well, exposed the other crate. The metal one, I mean."
"Hrm…" T-Bone scratched his chin, looking the box over. "And I take it you haven't had any luck opening it?"
"Can't even move it!" Knalf huffed in exasperation. "The damn thing's been bolted to the ground!"
"Oh, but we can look into it! There's an opening here, see?" Yoko piped up, pointing out the small opening, on the side facing the screen. Her report made, the girl stood on her tiptoes to try and peer into the slot. "Now, let's see just what's going on in this—GAH!" The second she got a look inside, Yoko jerked back and fell on her ass in shock.
"Seagirl Yoko! Are you alright?" one of the nearby soldiers asked, helping the shell-shocked girl sit up straight.
"Uh… kinda-sorta?" she said, fumbling to re-straighten her cap. "I, uh… you know that saying, about looking into the abyss and all that?"
"Yes…?" T-Bone tentatively said.
Yoko looked up at him, eyes wild. "Well, I don't know if it's the abyss in there, but something sure looked back at me!"
"You mean there's someone in there!?"
"Er, no, I don't think so!" Yoko clarified. "Like I said, some-thing. I'm pretty certain it wasn't human. Ah, hey, you!" She pointed at the soldier holding her up. "Help me up, would you? I need another look."
The Marine hastily complied, giving Yoko a literal hand up so that she could peer into the crate again.
"Yup, definitely something! A familiar something!" Yoko reported. "There's a Transponder Snail in here!"
"…you're serious," T-Bone deadpanned.
"I do my best to act professional and I've been staring at snails for a week, I'm both serious and certain!" was the answer, accompanied by an imperious sniff. That lasted all of two seconds before Yoko glanced away with a sheepish expression. "Thooough I'll admit, I had no idea they could get this big!"
T-Bone narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Wait, big—? Are you saying that it fills the entire crate?"
"Um…" Yoko looked back into the crate and nodded in confirmation. "Yup! He is a big sucker! And…" She took a tentative whiff of the air and promptly reeled back. "Whoo, he certainly smells like he's been in here for awhile! But why—?"
FLASH!
"GAH!" Yoko howled as she fell back again, clawing at her eyes. "AGAIN? SERIOUSLY!?"
"Compose yourself, Seagirl!"
"Grgh, s-sorry sir," Yoko grumbled, blinking her eyes in an effort to rid herself of the spots plaguing her vision. "Just got surprised, is all. What hit me?"
"That is a question we'd all like an answer to."
In lieu of questioning her superior, Yoko followed his gaze once her vision cleared up. The light was still coming from the box, and she turned around to find that the container—or rather the Transponder Snail within—was projecting an image onto the projector screen that had accompanied it.
The image displayed on the screen was unlike anything that most of those watching had ever seen or experienced. Visual Snails were rarely used to begin with, but for those that did use them, there was a certain expectation: if the snail sending the transmission wasn't stationary, then its movements were no faster than expected from an average human. And, of course, that meant that one could expect to see no significant and abrupt change in elevation.
This broadcast blew all of those expectations out of the water; the projector screen was showing a bird's eye view of a lush jungle, bobbing and weaving of the viewpoint enough to threaten the watchers with dizziness or loss of lunch. Then the view began closing in on the jungle, the point of view coming to rest in a branch of one of the treetops, before surveying the surrounding area.
Then, as the view peered down into a small pond beneath the tree, the audience received the answer to the first question on their minds. The reflection in the water showed a dark-colored bird of prey with what looked like a mane of gold around its neck—a golden eagle, as muttered by a local birdwatcher ("I keep telling you, it's 'Ornithologist'!" "Shut it, Jerry!") in the audience. The eagle wore a peculiar harness around its torso, which kept a Transponder Snail in a glass case attached to its chest.
While that answered one question, several still remained, but no more answers seemed to be forthcoming; from what the audience could see, it seemed to just be giving a good perspective on nature. The lush trees, the serene pool, the blossoming plants, the sounds of wildlife… though said sounds made it seem like there were rather ferocious animals out there. And they were growing louder, with crashing sounds coming across the connection.
Then, all at once, the foliage began shaking, which intensified for a few moments before it split apart, and out ran—
"RUUUUN!"
"LUFFY!" Yoko cried, jerking forward.
And indeed, it was the captain of the Straw Hat Pirates in all his glory. His tarnished, bedraggled and mud-caked glory, mind you. Sure, his outfit was a bit different than most knew, having swapped out his red vest for a blue one and donned an aviator's cap beneath his eponymous hat, but it was definitely him.
And yet, also, unlike his usual cheerful self, Luffy was wearing a somewhat panicked look as he shot out from the underbrush and ran across the clearing as though hell were on his ass.
"They're right behind us!" the world-famous pirate shouted over his shoulder.
Seconds later, he received a response in the form of a blur shooting out of the section of jungle he'd emerged from—
SLAM! "GAH!"
And slamming into a nearby tree, where the blur coalesced into a physical and… rather irritable form. "Yeah, like I hadn't noticed!"
[Boss D!] Boss Kabuto warbled in shock.
They were two-for-two on Straw Hat sightings, as the impromptu projectile indeed turned out to be the captain of the Straw Hat's Dugong-composed guard. The amphibious Boss had also undergone a fashion makeover, with a leather, fang-embossed fedora ("It's called an aussie—!" "No one wants to hear it, ya damn hat-lover!" "That's 'millinophile' to you!" "I SAID CRAM IT!") on his skull in place of his usual bandanna, which he'd tied around his neck to act as a camo neckerchief. He'd also put on a leathery vest and equipped a pair of crocodile-scaled leather bracers.
"Argh, damn bastards hit like Sea Kings!" Boss Dugong growled, shoving himself out of the tree trunk he'd been slammed into and rubbing his skullplate irritably.
"And they've got the attitude to match!"
"THEY'RE NOT LETTING UP!"
"Cross," T-Bone said with narrowed eyes, not particularly surprised at the third and final person that charged into the clearing and skidded to a halt; animals speaking was a tell-tale sign that the Voices of Anarchy weren't far away.
The third and apparently final member of the group was particularly disheveled, his eyes frantic and his head on a swivel. He'd tied his hoodie around his waist, turned his cap around so that it was facing backwards, and had donned a black tank top that featured the outline of a black horse rearing up in front of a pair of golden scales that had the words 'BLACK' and 'FAMINE' placed in its left and right dishes, respectively.
"Eesh, they look like they've gone through hell…" Yoko winced sympathetically.
"But the question is, just where the hell is that hell?!" another soldier wondered.
In addition to his harried look, Cross already had his cannon-dog armed and at the ready, and the second he slid into the clearing he fired off round after round into the jungle he'd come out of. "Cani-Cannon, cannon, cannon, BLAST!" Cross capped off his barrage of explosive ordinance with a pillar of superheated air that set a whole swathe of vegetation ablaze.
However, even with the wave of destruction he'd just caused, Cross's panic didn't abate an iota. Instead, it just seemed to mount further as he stumbled back from the scorching jungle. "Son of a bitch, they just keep coming!"
"THEN WE GOTTA KEEP RUNNING!" Luffy shouted over his shoulder, waving his arm for his crew to follow and jogging in place with obvious impatience.
"YEAH, THAT'S GONNA BE HARD, REAL HARD! WE'RE coming up on THE EDGE AGAIN!" Soundbite announced through a terrified grimace.
"Son of a bitch, again!?" Boss growled, dragging his flippers down his face. "At least tell me there's somewhere to land this time, I'm still feeling the burn from the last near miss!"
Yoko exchanged confused looks with T-Bone and mouthed the word 'land?', to which the Captain could only respond with a confused shake of his head.
Meanwhile, Soundbite glanced side to side frantically before nodding in confirmation. "We're good!"
"Then let's go!" Boss shouted out, charging after Luffy.
"After you, Captain!" Cross shouted, following after his crewmates as well.
Luffy, at this point, was already deep in the surrounding underbrush. "COME ON!" he roared
All of a sudden, the viewpoint lurched as the video-snail's mount took off from its perch and soared after the Straw Hats. The shift in perspective allowed the viewers to watch the Straw Hats charge straight towards a shockingly sudden cutoff in the landscape that lead clean into the void.
"Are they seriously going to jump off a cliff!?" one of the island's civilians demanded.
"This would not be anywhere even close to the craziest thing the Straw Hats have ever done," Yoko deadpanned in response.
"HERE WE GO!" Luffy roared as he jumped over the edge.
Boss punched the air as he jumped after his captain. "LET'S DO THIS!"
"THIS IS GONNA SUCK SO HARD!" Cross wailed from the rear.
Once the pirates leapt, the snail soared over the edge after them, and everyone watching was struck dumb.
"…I stand corrected," Yoko breathed, her eyes glued to the screen. "This? This takes the cake."
"No kidding… Freaking hell, no one told me that Devil Fruits were such great tools for real estate," another Marine muttered. T-Bone made a mental note to pursue that line of thought later.
But for now, he was a little too awestruck by the fact that the Straw Hats were jumping off of not only a cliff, but an island, and that they were falling towards neither the ocean, nor the clouds… but instead yet another island that they could see was floating in the heavens. One island amongst many, even! And it wasn't a group of sky islands composed of island-clouds, oh no; it was all dirt and stone and lots of lush jungle, simply levitating in the air.
And that was all that the watchers needed to see to understand exactly what was going on, and what had happened with the Straw Hats over the last week.
"They're… trapped in the sky…" a Marine breathed in disbelief.
"It's like there's a whole other world, just… floating up there!" a civilian concurred.
Captain T-Bone frowned in thought, orders to his men on his lips, when he stiffened in realization and hastily grabbed the hilt of his sword. "Sorry about this," he hissed apologetically before whipping his blade out—
CRACK! "Gwowowooooh…"
—and downing Boss Kabuto with a single smooth swing that struck the back of all the titan-beetle's legs at once.
"BOSS!" Yoko cried in panic, hastily running up to her friend and clutching his horn comfortingly. "Oh my—Captain, why on earth would you do that!?"
"For his own good, Seagirl," T-Bone sighed regretfully. "Look at your friend. What do you see?"
"I-I—! He's…" Yoko looked into her large friend's eyes, and audibly swallowed at the haunted look in them. "He… was about to bolt, wasn't he?"
"And most likely leave a trail of destruction in his wake, yes," T-Bone nodded. "I'm sorry, Seagirl, but I did what I had to do, for his sake as much as ours."
"Oh, no… I remember this…" Yoko breathed in terror. "Boss… h-he was like this back when I first met him, afraid, panicking… b-but why—?! Damn it, could this get any worse!?"
"Oh, holy shit!"
Yoko jumped at the sudden cry, and looked around. Most of the rest of the audience was doing the same, and soon zeroed in on the man scanning the sky with binoculars.
"What is wrong with you, Jerry? This isn't the time for—"
"Transponder Snails have a limited range, idiot! Adult-Audios might be able to go worldwide, but Visuals can only go so far! That means that that floating archipelago and the Straw Hats are somewhere close by!"
"No, it doesn't… there's another option."
A soft yet scared voice redirected everyone's attention once more.
"Yoko?" T-Bone asked his young subordinate, concern written on his features.
The young Marine tugged nervously at her collar at all the attention. "There's one way a Transponder Snail can hit way above its own weight class, remember?"
T-Bone's already gaunt expression paled as he put the remaining pieces together.
"And we know who has it," Yoko continued dully. "And he wouldn't use it to just broadcast this to one island. Unless I'm way off the mark…" The girl trailed off in favor of watching the the Straw Hats plummet towards the impossible canopy floating below them.
"That bastard is putting this show on for the world," T-Bone finished with a disgusted glower, turning on his heel and marching off. "Knalf, Yoko, gather the troops and return to the ship. Headquarters will be calling with our marching orders any second, and I have news to share with them…" He shot a grim look at his insectoid subordinate, who was still shuddering and warbling in terror.
"News with disturbing implications."
-o-
"Geez, this is nuts! Easily the craziest shit Luffy's ever gotten involved in, no question."
"What about the time him and the other two monsters fell down that rabbit hole and swore they found a land of fairy tales and wonder?"
"First, we proved they just got high off the shroom-spores they kicked up when they fell. And second—!"
WHAM!
"GAH!"
"SECOND, YOU BASTARDS HAD BETTER GET BACK TO WORK BEFORE I POUND YOUR SKULLS INTO YOUR CHESTS!"
"YES, DADAN!"
Dadan snorted furiously as two of her mooks employees canned the chattering and got back to serving the sudden rush of customers her newborn bar was experiencing.
"They are right, you know."
The bandit queen sighed and slapped a hand to her face. "Et tu, Makino?"
The kindly barkeeper gave her new friend a smile, though that didn't slow the stream of refreshments. "Well, in all fairness, this is pretty high on the scale of madness that Luffy has been involved in, no?"
"Mmph… yeah, that's for damn sure," Dadan grunted in acknowledgement. Her eyes drifted up to the impromptu screen she'd set up in her bar, Luffy and friends still freefalling. "Still, that's no excuse for those morons to squander good business!"
"Speaking of which…" Mayor Woop Slap turned in his chair to eye the metal crate from which the show was projecting. "Where did you get that Visual Snail, anyway? Odd enough that one showed up in our village, but I don't see how you could have gotten one!"
"Oh, it's not ours!" Dogra piped up while he swung by the bar to pick up another tray of drinks. "We, uh, found it in the main plaza of Goa Kingdom. It wasn't doing them any good, sooo—!"
"Say no more!" Woop Slap yelped almost desperately.
And luckily for him, Jeremiah Cross chose that moment to say something, effectively aborting any more incriminating comments.
"SOUNDBITE!" Cross shouted, so as to be heard over the wind rushing around him. "HOW'S IT LOOKING DOWN THERE?!"
"Uhhh…" The snail crossed its eyes as it stared down—up?— at the ground. "Good news, it sounds pretty calm, SO MAYBE WE CAN CATCH OUR—!"
"BWOOOOH! BWOOOOH!"
The bar-goers jumped in shock when… some kind of horn-like sound bellowed out.
"What on earth—?!" Makino wondered.
"NOT A-FREAKING-GAIN!" Soundbite wailed mournfully. "THEY JUST raised the alarm, WE'RE FALLING INTO A MEATGRINDER!"
"Tcheh! Well, at least things won't be boring!" Boss growled. One flipper slammed into the other, and he flipped into an upright position. "Alright, Cross, I'll help slow you down and—!"
FWOOM!
"—GAHAHAHAHAAAaaaaa!"
Abruptly and without any apparent catalyst, the Dugong was blasted away from his crewmates by a fat load of nothing. The watchers blinked dumbly, including the ones on the screen. Cross snapped out of it first.
"OH, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" Cross screamed, flailing his arms in terror at the fast-approaching foliage. "LUUUUFFYYYYY!"
"HANG ON!" The Rubber-Man angled himself so that he was positioned below the anarchist. "ALRIGHT, GUM-GUM!"
"They're going to crash!" Woop Slap exclaimed.
"We're talking about Luffy here, old man. You know, the rubber man?" Magra drawled.
"And the human being who isn't rubber?!"
Magra cocked an eyebrow at the mayor. "Aren't you the one always harping on about how the Straw Hats should just hurry up and bite the big one?!"
"…fair point. LET HIM SPLAT, LUFFY!"
"Mayor!" Makino exclaimed, scandalized. Thankfully, Luffy chose that moment to do what he did best and directly counteract the wishes of those who wished him and his ill.
"BALLOON!"
Mere meters from the unforgiving ground, Luffy's body distended to a massive size. When Cross slammed into him, rather than ending up flatter than a pancake, he simply sank into Luffy's inflated flesh.
…and then he kept sinking, deeper and deeper.
"Uh… didn't something like this happen with Ace?" Mogra questioned nervously.
Dadan's only response was to slap a hand to her face.
Apparently Cross had caught on by as well, as his flailing only intensified within the folds of his captain's body. "EXH'LE! EXH'LE! L'FFY, YU HAF TO—!"
BOING!
"—EAAAAARGH!"
"…That almost looks like fun," someone muttered.
The view followed Cross as he flew into the air. The onlookers watched as he flailed a hand in his belt, which once he managed to do so shot out a grappling hook that lodged in a nearby branch, and altered Cross's flightpath.
"…Where does he get those wonderful toys?"
"Prolly the long-nose sniper guy and the cyborg, remember?"
"Oh, right."
The new flight path took Cross up through the foliage, and when he hit the peak of his arc, he grabbed onto a nearby vine, detached his grapple and swung even further. Two more vines later, he finally let go and landed on a particularly thick tree branch.
Well… 'landed' was a bit of a misnomer. He still had a notable amount of velocity left over from his flight, and so when he touched down he was forced to keep running in an effort to bleed out his momentum, lest he wipe out entirely.
It was through no small feat of balance and quick reflexes that Cross managed to stay upright through his little run, jumping over several gaps between the branches. Eventually, however, Cross's luck ran out: the trail of branches suddenly broke off into a sharp drop, and Cross still had momentum to burn.
The world-infamous pirate tried his best to brake himself, and he almost managed it, too, arms cartwheeling as he desperately tried to balance at the edge of the precipice. However, it was not enough: the panic in Cross's eyes was obvious as he lost his balance, started to pitch forward—
CHOMP! "GRK!"
And suddenly, that fate ceased to be as Cross's cannon leapt off his back, assumed his hybrid-form, and sank his teeth into the seat of Cross's pants, holding his master just shy of the drop.
Soundbite—who'd been shivering in terror on his partner's shoulder— allowed himself to relax, his eyestalks drooping in relief. "Hooooly SHIT that was cl—MRPH!?"
"Shhhh!" Cross hushed furiously, one finger pressed to his lips while his other hand clamped Soundbite's mouth shut. In response to his snail's confused look, Cross slowly used his free finger to point downwards.
The snail looked in the direction his friend indicated and stiffened in terror.
The bar collectively blinked in surprise, minds a-whirl trying to figure out what could cause such a reaction.
"Well, looks like something's got Cross spooked," Magra stage-whispered.
"Yeah, but what?" Dogra replied.
As if on cue, the Visual Snail's view panned down to the jungle floor, revealing that the object of the pirates' terror was—!
Dadan blinked in disbelief. "That kid gives the Marines a verbal black eye every week with a grin…" she said slowly. "And yet he's absolutely terrified of a bunny rabbit?"
"In all fairness, it's, uh… a very big bunny?" Makino tried.
And indeed, it was quite the large rabbit, at least as large as a human being, but size aside the critter appeared to be your average, everyday rabbit, with its white fur flecked with brown spots that rippled as it hopped about the jungle floor.
"Hey, c'mon, rabbits are tough little things!" one of their Gray Terminal customers shouted. "Seriously, Dadan, you really don't remember that cat that got gutted by one a few years back?"
Dadan was about to respond, but before she could, the sound of trees cracking and the earth shattering belted out across the connection.
In short order, the wall of foliage suddenly split apart and disgorged something that looked like the unholy union of a bull elephant and a wild boar. The beast was moving at full speed, squealing in fury, trees flying with every swing of its tusks.
And yet, Cross was looking at it with an expression of horror, not terror. It was a subtle difference, but it was a difference. "That stupid hunk of pork," he miserably whimpered.
For one more blissful second, the bar was completely confused about Cross's anxiety.
And then the rabbit's head snapped up and all hell broke loose. It was as if they'd blinked, and then the rabbit's foot was carrying the boar down to the ground, head-first. The resulting impact made everyone wince, and the rabbit followed that up by repeatedly hopping up and down on the boar's head with great speed and force, which only made things worse.
While it was doing that, some poor soul with a somewhat weaker stomach glanced away, and instead saw a massive pawprint smashed into the bark of a nearby tree, and it all came together.
"He… He must have jumped and pushed off the tree!" the bandit gurgled. "And then…"
With a final crunch, the boar's head lost all cohesion and was reduced to the consistency of a thick gravy, oozing out from under the rabbit's hind paws and giving the brown spots on its coat a whole new level of uncomfortable context. Only then did the rabbit stop hopping, though it did throw in one last kick to the boar's unmoving carcass.
"Yeah, that."
In the wake of the boar's untimely and gruesome demise, the jungle was silent… up until a twig suddenly snapped and both the killer rabbit and Visual Snail whipped their heads up to stare at Cross, who'd frozen mid-retreat, one eye twitching furiously.
"Oh, come on…" Cross whispered in disbelief. "You cannot think I'm a better meal than pork purée down there!"
Apparently the rabbit disagreed, and quite strenuously, given how the monster-rodent's jaw suddenly unhinged to unveil a set of teeth worthy of a bear trap, accompanied by an air-shaking roar.
Soundbite's eyestalks hung mournfully. "Here we go again…"
"Less talking, more BOOK IT!" Lassoo howled in terror, leaping onto his partner-in-chief's back as Cross turned and did just that, just barely de-assing before the rabbit's feet utterly pulped the wood.
"I AM REALLY GETTING SICK AND TIRED OF GETTING ATTACKED BY KILLER RODENTS!" Cross wailed. Splinters flew around him, the rabbit hot on his heels and plowing through everything in its path.
"Technically speaking, IT'S ONLY EVER BEEN the one, hasn't it?"
"Four times by the otter," Cross snarled, throwing up four fingers, followed by his thumb two seconds later. "Once by the pigeon—which is essentially a rat with wings, so I'm counting it—"
-o-
Elsewhere in the Grand Line, Hattori was struck with a sudden urge to murder someone.
-o-
"—and now a rabbit!" The pirate jabbed a final finger skyward. "That's six! That means I can count it on two hands! It's too much, I tell you, too much!"
Makino could feel the sweatdrop hanging on the side of her head. "That boy has the most horrible luck with small animals, doesn't he?"
"Betcha he earned every one of those confrontations!" Mayor Woop Slap sniffed proudly.
"Now, Mayor—!"
"Achoo!" Cross sneezed mid-leap, precariously landing on the next branch in the canopy he'd been aiming for. "Guh, of all the times for someone to talk about me—WORGH!" The scream was accompanied by a hasty duck under the rabbit's teeth, which instead clamped onto the nearest trunk and tore out a chunk you could've carved a chair out of.
Woop Slap shot Makino a triumphant grin, to which the bartendress could only respond with a sigh and weary roll of her eyes.
"UWAAAAAH!"
At that familiar cry, any further argument was dropped in favor of going back to the screen. "Luffy!"
Cross snapped his gaze downward, past the rest of the canopy's branches to the jungle floor below. "Captain!"
To the onlookers' shock, Luffy ran up beneath the Voices of Anarchy, pursued by a crocodilian… entity. The massive reptile was particularly squat, looking as though it had been squashed flat, but it was still large enough to casually bite off the Lord of the Coast's head.
For the moment, however, the beast appeared to be content with nomming Luffy's head instead.
"CRAP-CRAP-CRAP-CRA—! Oh, hey, you guys are still alive!" Luffy's… swearing, for lack of a better word, cut off mid-word and he shot a careless smile up at his friends as he zipped past. "That's nice! How's it going, Cross?"
"That idiot…" Dadan groaned, the base of her palm grinding into her forehead.
Apparently Cross was of the same opinion. "You dumb son of a—GRK!" Cross only narrowly threw himself forward and out of reach of his pursuer's snapping jaws. "Getting chased by a killer rabbit! You!?"
"Giant crocodile!" Luffy jerked his thumb over his shoulder, chuckling. "It looks really weird, too!"
"That's because aside from being flat, THAT THING'S A CAIMAN!" Soundbite blandly informed him.
"Huh, really?" Luffy sent a curious look over his shoulder before scratching his head with an apologetic chuckle. "Shishishi! Whoops, my bad!"
"Don't you morons think you're kind of missing the point here?!" Cross snapped.
"Hmph… Well, this is nostalgic, isn't it?" Dadan said calmly.
"Indeed. Brings me back to the days when those brats challenged all the beasts around here, and then almost losing their heads for it," Dogra responded with equal calmness.
"Mmm… But…" Makino chimed in, but unable to hide a clear tone of unnerve in her voice. "This seems… worse than Mt. Corvo, doesn't it? I mean…"
"You're right," Dadan grunted in agreement, swirling her bottle. "There's something wrong with that place. Something… off."
"GRAORGH!"
The caiman flung its head back and bellowed, stomping forward through the underbrush. It was joined by a loud skittering sound, a centipede the size of the Lord of the Coast and colored a lurid red bursting out of the trees in an attempt to shove aside the massive caiman still in pursuit.
'Attempt' being the key word.
Even as several bandits fainted, traumatic memories of normal-sized centipedes leaping to their minds, the pursuing caiman twisted its head and slammed its jaws down on the centipede's carapace, shattering the insect's shell in a single decisive blow. Then, without breaking its stride, the gator swung its head to the side in an almost dismissive manner, casting aside the broken insect.
At the sight of that, Dadan growled slammed her bottle on the bar. "And that's what's wrong. The rabbit didn't try and eat the boar, and the gator didn't try to eat the bug. These… These things, these monsters… they're not fighting to eat, like normal animals."
"They're fighting simply to fight, is what you're getting at," Mayor Woop Slap snarled, his knuckles white and trembling around the head of his cane.
With that lovely revelation, a grim silence fell over the bar as they watched the chase rage on.
-o-
"How much deep-fried alligator meat could that beast give us? Owner Zeff, you think we could mail order that stuff if there's anything left of it when the Straw Hats are done and Sanji fillets it?" Carne asked.
"It would be a waste of good ingredients if we didn't try, though chances are that Straw Hat'll just eat it all like usual," Zeff replied, frowning. "Maybe I'll write up a request and hand it off to the News Coo when it shows up. But meanwhile—"
"Back to work, got it!" the chef yelped, busying himself with the meal tickets.
Meanwhile, on the screen, the Straw Hats were making no progress away from their pursuers. Considering that fact, the question on the minds of the patrons and chefs was why the strongest rookie pirate of their generation, the man who had smashed Don Krieg's armor like glass, wasn't fighting the beast at all.
Case in point, one steak-eating patron, who said, "The meat-loving monkey should be smashing that thing into the ground and eating its corpse." To emphasize the point, he drove his knife into his steak.
"Yeah, you're right," another nearby customer agreed. "So what's stopping him?"
With the foliage suddenly bursting open, the question was shelved, and everyone watched a familiar dugong to drop onto a branch above Cross.
"ALRIGHT!" the amphibian bellowed, pounding his 'knuckles' "Sorry for the delay, but I'm here now! Let's kick some tail and get moving!"
"Boss! Are we glad to see—!"
FWOOM!
The watchers' eyes twitched as Boss suddenly flew away again.
"…OK, that's just not fair," Lassoo huffed.
"Sonnuva—ah, damn it!" Cross cursed, both on account of his backup being blasted and the fact that there was an upcoming turn in the foliage. "Luffy, I'm heading right!"
"Eh? Ah, man, and I've gotta go left! Ah, well!" The captain laughed as he sped up to keep ahead of his reptilian pursuer. "I'll try and lose this guy! Good luck, Cross!"
"Same to you, Captain!"
And with that the pirates split apart, with the Visual Snail's mount choosing once more to follow Cross through the canopy.
For a long minute, the chase remained as tense as ever, with Cross running and leaping from branch to branch, and the killer rabbit pulping a path through said branches.
Then, inevitably, Cross missed a step, his boot hitting a patch of moss instead of bark. He sprawled forward, luckily landing on a particularly overgrown branch but unluckily in an undignified heap.
Or would have, if he hadn't turned his landing into a roll, from which he popped into a kneeling position and took aim at the mega-lagomorph, prompting it to freeze up barely a meter away.
The air was electric, the entire restaurant holding its breath in anticipation for whatever was to come. Breathing slowed, sweat rolled…
And then a twig softly snapped in the distance and the combatants moved.
The rabbit leapt forwards, Cross fired—
"Kero." THWAP!
And then something blurry shot out of the air, slamming into the rabbit and knocking it out of the screen, before retracting both itself and the rabbit up at the same blur-inducing speed.
As one, Baratie blinked in befuddlement.
Cross was right there with them, blinking in confusion as Lassoo's round exploded in the distance. Soundbite, however, did not join him. He was staring upward, and shaking in terror under his shell.
"Croooooss…" he whispered miserably.
The terrified tone shook Cross out of his confusion, and scrunched his eyes shut as he slowly craned his head back. "This is gonna suck, this is gonna suck, this is gonna—Guh…" One could almost see Cross's stomach dropping out from him when he cracked his eyes open and actually go a look at the enemy. "…damn it."
The view slowly followed Cross' gaze, revealing that perched high above them was a frog. It was green with a black discoloration on its back, titanic in size, and menacing in appearance. Kicking rabbit legs hung outside of its lips, demonstrating quite clearly that Cross had only a few seconds before he had his place on the food chain reevaluated.
"Hey, Patty, whaddaya think you'd make of that one?" one of the cooks called out.
"Legs are obvious, check for eggs! Now hurry up and get over here! Table six's order is up!" the larger chef ordered.
Meanwhile, the time Cross had before his evolutionary re-evaluation shortened considerably as the frog gave the rabbit a final munch. It then swallowed the rabbit whole, its gaze staying on Cross as its chest distended with a sonorous "kero".
Cross's eye twitched furiously. "Ah, shi—!"
THWACK!
"—GAH!" the pirate grunted in exertion as he only just managed to leap away from the blur of a tongue that smashed into where he'd been moments before.
Unlike before, however, Cross's immediate response was to heft Lassoo and aim it at the frog. "I don't normally go for frog legs, but just this once! CANI-CANNON!"
B-B-BLAM!
The gun spat out a trio of cannonballs at the titan-amphibian, and they would have neatly roasted the beast.
"Orekekek."
If only they didn't suddenly detonate well away from the target.
Even worse, this was not the result of the frog's own actions. Instead, the restaurant was treated to the revelation that the dark discoloration on the amphibian's back… wasn't a discoloration after all.
As their customers recoiled in no small amount of terror and horror, one of the Baratie's chefs shot a questioning look at their comrades. "Hey, Carne, how do you think you'd—?"
"HIT IT WITH A STICK!" the shorter chef cried out from beneath the pot he was cowering under.
Cross was right there with him, gurgling in horror at the clicking, chitin-covered entity that was resting on the frog's back, claws snapping and tail waving. "I thought that it was supposed to be in the scorpion's nature to kill the frog!"
"Nature over nurture… or would it be THE OTHER WAY AROUND?" Soundbite wondered, right before his pupils suddenly dilated. "EITHER WAY, AM-SCRAY!"
"IGHT-RAY!" Cross belted out, spinning on his heel and dashing away before the frog's tongue could snap him up.
The frog responded with a ruthless, bone-rattling "KERO!", leaping up to grasp another branch and lashing its tongue out in pursuit.
What followed was essentially a remix on Cross's prior escape. Granted, due to its mass, the frog wasn't quite as fast or maneuverable as the rabbit had been, but its lightning-fast tongue more than made up for it. And while it served for a perfectly stationary target in between its tree-to-tree leaps, the scorpion it was illogically symbiotic with acted as the perfect shield by blocking any retaliation Cross attempted.
"Is this what the Straw Hats have been up to for the last week?" one of the patrons incredulously demanded. "How the heck are they still going strong in this mess?"
"Well, Luffy and the Dugong are monsters, obviously," Zeff blandly informed the customer as he set his dish down. "Also, your soup's ready."
"Ah, thank you!" The patron picked up his spoon before pausing as a thought hit him. "But, uh… that explains those two, but isn't Cross, well, normal?"
Zeff graced his patron with a flat look. "Sir, I can serve you your soup or I can serve you the knowledge of the universe. Which would you prefer?"
"Uhh…"
"Translation, he doesn't have a clue either!" Patty helpfully provided as he passed by.
"Listen, you—!"
"GAAAAAAAH!"
"Oh, come on, again!?" Zeff snapped his head around to stare at the screen, where Luffy had popped up running from the same direction that Cross was. And behind him was a literal fish out of water. Or, well, octopus. Giant octopus. That had somehow adapted to land. And was clearly only having so much trouble pasting Luffy with its flying tentacles because he was made of rubber.
"GO FALL OFF THE EDGE, LAND SQUID!"
"TAKOYAKI, NOT CALAMARI, MORON!"
"WHA—?! Oh, hey, Cross, what's chasing you?" Luffy asked pleasantly.
"Giant frog and scorpion," Cross casually answered, punctuating the point with another scorpion-blocked blast. "I see you're having much better luck with edible species. Try not to lose that one to something, would you? I'm in the mood for seafood once we get a reprieve!"
"You got it!" Luffy shouted back, literally twisted his head around to keep talking as the two crewmates passed one another. "I'll try and handle it real quick and find you again!"
"Same to you!" Cross waved back, before hastily snapping his arm down before the Frog could manage to snap him up. He then glanced upward. "And Boss should be swinging by to be blasted away again in three, two—!"
SMASH! "RAAAAGH!"
Cross snapped his head around and blinked in surprise at the distant sound of impotent fury and trees being bowled over. "Oooor not. Huh, looks like he's decided to be proactive."
"Yeah, how's that. AND MEANWHILE, YOU SHOULD decide to duck!"
"Wha—GAH!" The pirate hastily fell into a baseball slide under a low-hanging branch before pushing himself to his feet. He then almost took a tumble when instead of coming out on more branches, he instead stumbled onto an almost floor-like crossroads of several dozen vines.
Cross blinked at the turn of events, then barked out a relieved laugh and ran out to the center of the makeshift clearing. Turning around, he shot the frog-scorpion combo a taunting smirk. "Come and get me, rubber-belly!"
The frog narrowed its eyes and skidded to a halt, before glancing over its shoulder at its passenger. "Keroro."
"Orekek," the scorpion clicked in response. The arachnid crawled down off the frog's back, its eight dexterous limbs affording it a much better hold on the vines than its counterpart. That alone throttled Cross's bravado quite effectively, but his growing anger transformed into incredulity when the frog then proceeded to bop down onto the scorpion's back, croaking without a care in the world.
"But… that's not fair," Cross whined plaintively.
From the screeching chitter and roaring croak the pair let out before charging at him, they officially could not give a damn.
We need not repeat the stream of expletives that Cross belted out during his hasty retreat. What does bear saying, however, is that Cross ran across the 'clearing' of vines in an attempt to escape the scorpion, which kept up a swift barrage of tail-strikes and claw-snaps to in an effort to catch up the pirate.
"And I thought that Cross was just being melodramatic after that surfing fiasco, but no. Sanity is truly dead," Patty said, shaking his head wearily but still working at his station.
"It was dead before even I was born, Patty," Zeff scoffed, his eyes trained on the cook's hands with a satisfied look. "This may be on the stranger side, but it's still no big deal for the Grand Line. The only question is if the Straw Hats are crazy enough to make it through it, and that's something they've answered many times over."
"Case in point," deadpanned several chefs as Cross, cornered against a tree with tongue, tail, and claws poised to strike him, drew his elephant-sword and let loose a flurry of stabs at the beasts, fast enough for the sword to blur.
The beasts flinched at the attack, and then blinked in confusion as absolutely nothing happened to them.
The scorpion's demeanor shifted in just the right manner to suggest a sadistic grin in Cross' direction, and it was to everyone's surprise when Cross returned the expression with just as much bloody glee.
For its own part, the frog lacked its partner's enthusiasm and was glancing around in clear hesitation. Then its eyes shot wide in terror, prompting it to slap its webbed feet on the scorpion's shell. "Kero! Keroro!"
The scorpion ignored its partner in favor of crawling closer to Cross, chittering furiously all the while. "Orekekeke—!"
Crrr…
"Ore?" The scorpion paused in confusion at the sudden creaking sound. It glanced to and fro, try to locate the source. It found it. And then it turned back to Cross and locked up in terror at the pirate's widening grin, and how he had his sword positioned blade-first over a single, innocent, perfectly innocuous vine.
Somehow, the scorpion's pitch-black chitin paled, while the frog slapped a foot to its face with a piteous "Kero…"
Cross, naturally, showed no care for the frog's plight, and simply drove his sword through the vine.
CRA-CRASH!
This caused the vines under the creatures to give way, sending the symbiotic pair tumbling out of the canopy and down to the jungle floor with a crashing thump.
Cross laughed in relief at the sound, and he even leaned over the edge of the branch he was on to flash the pair a… specific gesture. "Two heads might be better than one, but it takes four to reign supreme, you pests!"
"COMING FROM HIM, that's saying something!"
Thankfully for the loudmouths, the pair appeared to be far more concerned with arguing with one another than exacting their vengeance on the pirate, croaking and chittering and motioning furiously at one another.
"Waiter!" one of the Baratie's customers called out in a cultured voice. "I have a quandary!"
"Well, it didn't come from our kitchen! We run a clean ship here!"
Zeff affixed his underlings with a flat look before picking up one of the customer's cleared dishes. "Let me get that for you, sir." He then proceeded to fling the plate towards the kitchen.
THUNK! "OW!"
"Clean the stupid off it, halfwit!" Zeff roared before returning his attention to the customer. "You were saying?"
"Yes, well," the customer adjusted his coat primly. "Those two overgrown specimens of fauna are clearly communicating with one another, yes?"
"Obviously."
"And so too is the most infamous snail the world has ever known present with them, indeed?"
"Of course."
"Well then, my question is obvious!" The patron gestured inquisitively at the screen. "Wherefore can we not comprehend what these creatures are saying to one another?!"
Zeff opened his mouth to respond… and then slowly closed as he realized there was only one accurate response.
"That," he stated tersely. "Is a very good question."
-o-
"I remain conflicted about the process of rendering a sword sentient with a Devil Fruit… but I will not deny that I now want to duel against Cross and his elephant," Koshiro mused.
"But it wouldn't be much of a duel 'cause Cross isn't much of a swordsman, right, Master?" one of the old swordmaster's students asked curiously. "I mean, that's why Master Zoro is always training with Leo!"
"You say training, I say he's beating him up…" another student muttered under his breath.
"It is not simply a matter of being a superior swordsman. Any world class swordsman has a close bond with his blade… or hers," he added, glancing in the direction of his daughter's gravestone. "But outright autonomy coupled with so close a bond, let alone carrying the extra strength of an elephant behind a common saber, as well as the unorthodox actions of Jeremiah Cross himself…"
He trailed off, trusting that the visual would emphasize his point. Said visual being the symbiotic creatures continuing to snap and spit at one another, before finally relenting to glare viciously up at Cross, who was suddenly far less confident than he'd been a moment earlier.
The frog hopped on the scorpion's back, the scorpion started to skitter its way up the tree's trunk—
"SCREE!"
CRUNCH!
"OREK!"/"KERO!"
—And then, a mega-sized stag beetle slammed its mass into the pair and crushed them into the tree, entirely ignoring the way the duo struggled and flailed in the larger pest's grip.
Cross stared down at the ongoing skirmish with no small amount of wariness before casting a doubtful look at Soundbite. "This is not going to end well for us, isn't it?"
"Signs point to—!"
"SCREE!" The titan-stag interrupted the snail with another ear-grating screech, following which it drew back from the symbiotic pair, just enough so that it could swiftly, disproportionately and utterly crush the two between its equally titanic mandibles. It was only a single strike, but from the spray of bloody foam that jetted from the pair and how they twitched in the larger insect's grip, that one strike was sufficient.
The stag then swung its head to the side, throwing away its insensate prey. That done, beetle cast a hateful glare up at Cross, its vicious intentions clear. The insect tested its legs on the bark of the tree, but the wood cracked and gave way under the insect's mass, so the thing drew back and started chewing at the tree's trunk with its mandibles.
"…yeah, that," the snail finished lamely.
"It's just one thing after another…" Cross miserably moaned, dragging a hand down his face.
As if on cue, a revving noise roared out from the mega-stag, and its mandibles started to tear into the tree's trunk, wood-chips and sawdust flying everywhere.
"THAT WAS AN ADMISSION OF FACT, NOT A TAUNT AT MURPHY!" Cross roared skyward, accompanying the statement with a very violently shaken fist.
"YEAH WELL, po-tay-to—!"
"GWOOOAAAARGH!"
SLAM!
Out of the blue, an equally massive kabuto beetle rammed into the stag beetle from the side, nearly bowling the former over and very effectively diverting its attention from Cross. The stag staggered slightly, got its legs under it, and shot a murderous glare on the other insect. Roar was answered with roar, and the two beetles went after each other hammer and tongs.
"…GIANT INSECT INTERRUPT." The snail cocked its eyestalks at the duelling beetles that were circling below them. "And for the record, I'm getting ticked off at getting interrupted by the world."
"Better you than me," Cross scoffed, rolling his eyes. "And on that note!"
Cross leapt off his branch, sliding down the trunk before leaping off onto one of the beetle's back, vaulting off, and then booking it for dear life on the ground. The video feed turned away from him briefly to show that the two beetles were still busy locking their horns together, despite the brief interruption.
With that established eagle took off and followed after Cross, who soon came into view slumped over slightly with his hands on his knees, panting.
"That… was so unpleasant… on a whole new level…" he bit out before glancing at his partner. "Soundbite, timer?"
"18, 19, 20… huh. I think we'll actually reach half a minute this time… 27, 28, 29, 30, 31—AAAND bogey at 9 o'clock."
"Your fault!" Cross snarled, swinging up Funkfreed at the foliage Soundbite had indicated, obviously prepared to stab on a moment's notice.
"Alright, guys! Betting time!" one of Koshiro's disciples piped up eagerly. "Ten for two on a bird, twenty for five on reptiles! Mammals are all busts, I repeat, mammals are—!"
THWACK! "YEOW!"
"No betting near my daughter, please," Koshiro warned his student, shinai tapping his palm.
"Yes, master…"
"Hey, look, here it comes!"
And indeed, come something did.
Admittedly, compared to the earlier monstrosities that had plagued Cross, a man-sized and relatively normal-looking raccoon wasn't exactly the most imposing of creatures. But considering how the thing was, to reiterate, big enough to bite a person's head off and snarling viciously at Cross, it still managed a palpable aura of menace.
Cross's lips parted into a furious scowl. "Alright, you scummy little fleabag, I have had a hell of a week and I am getting sick and tired of getting chased by monsters I can't kill, so for the sake of my sanity and pride alike, do me a favor and just DIE!"
Cross lunged forward and stabbed with his sword, prompting the elephant-blade to shoot forward. To no one's surprise, most likely not even Cross's, the raccoon deftly slid aside and avoided the attack completely.
What was to everyone's surprise, however, was the fact that the instant the overgrown vermin moved, the screens suddenly went pitch black. The connection was not severed, to be sure, as the snails were all projecting noise. After all…
"GAGH!"
How else would the world have heard Cross getting slashed and the indignant roar of pain he let out in response?
Koshiro adjusted his glasses in shock. "What on earth—?"
"Sonnuva-—" Cross's voice bit out painfully. "My eyes! Damn it, what just happened!?"
"No clue!" Soundbite snapped. "The damn thing just moved AND THEN—! Its… FUR… FLASHED… UH-OH."
"Wha— seriously!?" Cross spat. "How does a raccoon get the ability to cause seizures!?"
"When a stripe-rat AND A STROBE LIGHT LOVE EACH OTHER VERY MUCH! NOW RUN FOR IT!"
The sound of someone running, followed by something much heavier, sounded out, heading away from the snail. The screen itself remained frustratingly blank for a full minute.
"…Well, the upgrade didn't last long," one of the students muttered.
"Well, it could have been worse," Koshiro mused, a worried frown marring his features. "If the snail had actually managed to keep its eyes open, people could have actually gotten seizures."
Fortunately, as the sounds began to grow louder again, the vision began to return. This time, it was a bit blurrier and tunneled; probably the snail narrowing its eyes to avoid the raccoon's flashing fur. But it was clear enough to see the raccoon behind a veil of green a distance away pursuing Cross. The eagle took flight in search of another view where it would be less vulnerable to the raccoon, and as a result, got a good look at a sudden change in the scenery.
Specifically, the screen displayed a ragged and very large patch of brown and gray wasteland ahead in Cross and his pursuer's path, sticking out like the scar it was among the green of the jungle. Burned and scorched grass dotted the ground, trees of varying states of burned stuck out at odd angles, and ash covering everything. Cross broke through the treeline and ran across the ashes, a scowl visible on his features.
"More fire-spitters. Perfect. I thought we managed to ditch them three islands back!"
"WELL THEY'RE NOT NEARBY, AT LEAST! KEEP GOING, maybe flash-mob will have to slow down!"
"He's not the only one," Cross spat as he charged forward. "I've been training to take hits and give hits, but freaking parkour is not in my repertoire!" Cross's expression then became slightly contemplative, and he took a shell out of his pocket and spoke into it. "Note to self, start learning parkour."
"LEARN FAST! UPCOMING LOG!"
Cross reacted fast to the news, leaping up onto the oncoming arboreal obstacle. He then took a nasty dive when his boot slipped on the ash on said log.
Thankfully, Cross turned that tumble into another roll, his hound-cannon ready on his shoulder, although some distraction came from the presence of another living thing there.
"…that place is weird," one of the students flatly stated.
And indeed, the man-sized, slimy-skinned lizard grinding a stick into a bundle of them and blinking at Cross in bemused surprise was a perfect example of the island's weirdness.
Before the two could react to one another, the raccoon—which was no longer moving fast enough for its fur to be an issue—leapt onto the log with a nigh-rabid snarl. In response, the lizard redoubled its stick-grinding with an almost panicked fervor.
Cross's response, meanwhile, was far more… 'appropriate', for lack of a better word. "CANI-BLAST!"
Lassoo fired a pillar of superheated air, the blast traveling notably faster than Funkfreed had. The raccoon was unable to dodge; it had enough time for a panicked look before the blast struck, reducing it to a charred husk. Still twitching, but not long for the world of the living. The only question was whether it would die from its new injuries or be burned alive by the embers that were steadily building into a greater fire.
The answer, as it turned out, was to be impaled on an elephant's bladed trunk and flung back a few meters.
Cross nodded firmly before turning back to the lizard, clear anticipation of a fight written on his face. Instead, he blinked in confusion, because the lizard's attention was not on him. Instead, the reptile was staring at the raccoon's charred and still-warm corpse. It was kind of disturbing really, how the thing was staring. Something that was like hunger but wasn't… obsession dancing in its eyes.
The confusion was cleared up when Soundbite—pale and shivering in terror—swallowed heavily and spoke up. "Croooooss, remember how I said the flamers weren't NEARBY EARLIER?" Message delivered, the snail ducked back into his shell. "ADDENDUM."
"…Oh, no, it's a salamander," said another of the students, wincing in anticipation.
Cross's face twisted up, initially into a scowl, but it then into a grimace. "Don't. You. Fucking—!"
To nobody's surprise, the Voice of Anarchy fell on deaf ears. The salamander just smiled malevolently and pounced for the smoldering raccoon.
Suddenly, the eagle carrying the visual snail swooped up and away and out of the sight of the salamander. Still, the sudden FWOOSH of something igniting was a bit of a giveaway.
The viewpoint briefly soared through an un-scorched section of the jungle, followed by the sound of crashing and searing, and seconds later a familiar form sprinted out of the underbrush.
"I! HATE! THESE! ISLANDS!" Cross and Soundbite bellowed together, closely pursued by the salamander, who'd somehow surrounded its body with what appeared to be a secondary phantom composed wholly of flames that was easily five times its actual size.
"…So, master? Do we have to aspire to be swordsmen that could face that sort of stuff if we're going to train here?"
Koshiro could only groan and slap his hand to his forehead. "This. This is why I don't like you children listening to the more rambunctious broadcasts."
"But we're not listening, we're watching!"
Koshiro groaned further.
-o-
"Commander Jonathan, unless I'm mistaken, you seem to be enjoying Cross's torment despite this meaning that our best allies are indisposed and out of the picture."
"Hardly indisposed, Henrick," Jonathan hummed, playfully flipping a black pawn between his fingers. "The Straw Hats may be scattered amidst the outskirts of their enemy's base, but they're still there. And I believe the Straw Hats have demonstrated more than once that challenging them on your turf and terms… is a very poor idea."
The Vice Admiral's smirk widened. "Though I will gladly admit that given what happened when we learned that the hard way, seeing them run around like this is more than a little cathartic."
The Ensign took a moment to turn that over in his head. And then he smirked. "Permission to requisition popcorn from the kitchen?" he asked with a perfectly straight face.
"Ensign, I order you to bring up the whole car with all the fixings," Drake said, a massive smile on his face.
Henrick didn't need any more prompting, exiting the room as fast as his legs could carry him. Jonathan, meanwhile, turned his attention back to the flaming lizard pursuing Cross, his mind running through the options he had at his disposal.
Cross's gauntlets were powerful weapons, but they only worked in close combat, and that was hardly practical against an opponent covered in fire. Soundbite's abilities should work, theoretically, but since he hadn't already employed them, odds were that the creatures were either unaffected by the weaker attacks, the stronger attacks had too low of a payoff for the energy they consumed, or some combination thereof. Lassoo's ammunition focused on fire, combustion, flammables, and a smokescreen, meaning that the dog could at best inconvenience the salamander and more likely simply make the problem worse.
That left Funkfreed; a near-sonic elephant should do wonders in terms of shortening the salamander's lifespan, though the incendiary second skin and the ongoing pursuit made targeting the creature understandably difficult. But perhaps that Pachy-Riot he'd used could—?
"HEY BACKUP LONG NOSE, YOU WANNA help out by giving this schmuck a good spritzing OR WHAT!? I THINK HE COULD USE A DRINK!" Soundbite demanded in a biting tone.
"Yeah, well, so could I!" Funkfreed shot back in a somewhat raspy voice. "We've been out here for a week straight, and it's been three days since the last non-swamp body of water! I'm parched!"
"And seeing as the only water I have on me is my drinking water and it needs to last until we find another body of clean water, that's not happening!" Cross huffed.
Jonathan frowned, slotting that last bit of information into an increasingly distressing picture. Obviously, they were getting more than enough food, even if it was bush meat. But going that long with minimal water while constantly expending energy? And for that matter, going that long without rest? Something was missing…
On-screen, Cross had made it to another clearing, this one particularly massive, at which point he abruptly stopped running. The viewpoint swung around to show the source of his hesitation, a monstrous bear with black and white fur and a gargantuan, absolutely irate praying mantis brawling in the center. The bird flew back, showing that even the salamander had paused at the sight of this clash.
"Another brawl between Alphas," Lassoo snorted.
"Of all the times!" Cross groaned. The salamander regaining enough wits to roar at him was just salt in the wound.
"HALF-SHELL STYLE!"
"Not what I meant by something missing, but not unwelcome," Jonathan muttered.
At Boss's roar, the mega-salamander stopped and looked around in confusion, freezing up when a large shadow fell over it. Slowly, it inclined its gaze upward.
"BELUGA!" the dugong bellowed—
WHAM!
And smashed the incendiary amphibian flat with the large, scale-armored creature he'd brought with him.
"PILEDRIVER!" Boss finished, landing with his arms raised in victory. "And THAT is how a MAN does it!"
"GO, BOSS, GO!" Soundbite, Lassoo, and Funkfreed cheered.
Cross was a lot more restrained with his thanks, being bent over sucking wind, but he still had enough energy to shoot his crewmate a grateful thumbs-up. "Thanks for the save, Boss… huh." The tactician examined the twitching scaled behemoth. "Is that thing what kept blowing you away? What is that, a… pangolin or something?"
Boss snorted and gave the scaled body another smack. "Hole in one. Stupid thing was using its tail like a pair of bellows and blasting me with air bullets. Annoying as heck, but I got it in the end."
"What kind of warped circumstances would lead a pangolin to develop that kind of ability?" Drake asked, only for his expression to fall flat. "Right, the kind where the Straw Hat are involved. My bad."
"Well, at least, that's most of us back together…" Cross nodded in weary gratefulness. "Now we just need to find Luffy, who is…?" He sent an inquisitive glance Soundbite's way.
The snail's response was to adopt a flat expression and jerk his eyes over Cross's shoulder.
"Hey, guys!"
And there was Luffy, sitting next to the carcass of the octopus that had been chasing him, smiling and waving without a care in the world. Boss and Cross could only stare, blinking.
"…well, that's convenient," Boss muttered before raising his voice. "Hey, Luffy! You alright?"
"Shishishi, yeah, I'm fine!" Luffy chuckled, sliding off of the corpse and walking up to them. "And look, I didn't lose the octopus either, so we can eat once I deal with these guys!" The rubber-man then tilted his head inquisitively. "What about you guys? You holding up?"
"GROOOAAAR!"
Luffy's smile slammed into a scowl as the large panda-esque creature finished off the mantis with an earth-shaking suplex, and loosed a bone-rattling howl towards the pirates. "Actually, give me a second, I need to deal with this guy really fast."
Boss grinned and slammed his flipper into his palm. "Right there with you, Captain!"
"You two… go ahead…" Cross waved them off, still trying to get his breath back. "I'm just… gonna stay here… start cutting up the octopus… have a heart attack… or ten…"
"Right! Come on, Boss!" Luffy roared, shooting off with the dugong hot on his tail.
"Go get him, captain!" Cross yelled after his captain, raising a shaky thumbs-up… and then his eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed to the ground with a pitiful moan.
"One of the highest bounties in history, everyone," remarked Cormac, shaking his head. "Honestly, for all his impossible knowledge, he's not a fighter like Boss and the Monster Trio. I still don't get why the Government isn't sending someone who can just stomp them all flat, at least to take Cross's head."
"Because they can't."
Drake and Cormac snapped their heads to their superior, who was leaning back in his chair with a frown.
"Baroque Works. Navarone. Enies Lobby. Thriller Bark," Jonathan listed, punctuating each name with a spin of the white king he was holding. "The Straw Hat Pirates have challenged armies of hundreds, even thousands, with mere dozens on their side. Sometimes not even that. And consistently, they've walked away victorious with nothing but a few new scars at worst. Including myself, they've personally crossed paths with three Vice Admirals and survived, including the legendary Garp. The Government can't send anyone who can 'stomp them all flat', because at this point I'm not sure they have anybody who can."
"And the reason they don't drop an Admiral on their collective skulls?" Drake inquired.
"Aside from the fact that Akainu is on the other side of the Red Line and the other two, while powerful, do whatever they damn well please?" Jonathan dryly replied. Leaning back again, he folded his arms before him. "Aside from that, either result ends badly for the Government: if they send an Admiral and he wins, then it looks excessive and smacks of weakness. And if by some remote chance the Admiral loses…"
"Then the Warlords turn on us and they and the Emperors fall on us like a ton of bricks, right, right…" Cormac tugged nervously at his collar. "I… honestly don't know which is more likely to occur."
"The Straw Hats do not have the capability to defeat an Admiral in direct and fair combat, even if they have most likely incorporated sea prism stone into their arsenals by now," Jonathan stated. "But that's not to say the Straw Hats aren't skilled and dangerous. Besides the other two corners of the Big Three, I doubt anyone this side of the Red Line can match the Straw Hats."
THWACK! "GROOOAAAR!"
"…Addendum," the returning Henrick blandly as the giga-panda knocked Luffy and Boss away, the eagle flapping furiously to keep the viewpoint level with them.
"Give it a moment," Jonathan prompted.
And indeed, as the Vice Admiral had divined, the pirates managed to catch themselves on a bent palm tree rather than going flying through the jungle, with Luffy's arm stretching out to grab a nearby tree and keep them anchored in place.
"Okay, credit where it's due," Boss muttered, rubbing his jaw. "That thing is definitely the local boss for a reason."
"Yeah, well, we don't have time to deal with him!" Luffy snorted, his face a rictus of impatient fury. The Rubber-Man shifted his footing so that he was higher up on the palm tree's trunk. "I'll go high, you go low!"
"Right!" Boss confirmed the order with a nod and a pound of his 'knuckles'. "Pull!"
Luffy didn't so much 'pull' as 'released', letting his arm unwind and allowing the palm tree they were perched on to snap upright. As a result of their positions, Luffy was sent flying almost straight upwards, whereas Boss was shot directly at the charging bear.
The bear responded with another blood-curdling howl, extending its double-jointed arms in an effort to bat the dugong into its slavering jaws.
And it was without even a hint of hesitation that Boss literally swam through the air, pumping his tail to dodge around the bear's claws and get up close to the mega-mammal's torso.
"Full-Shell Style!" Boss huffed, grabbing hold of the bear's chest-fur. "Water Spout Throw!" And with a spin that by all rights had nowhere near enough leverage to work, Boss threw the bear skyward, right into Luffy and his ballistic path.
Luffy, who, at this moment, was rapidly unwinding his torso and limbs to let loose with his pipe. Though rather than the ascending bear, Luffy snapped his furious attention to something past the beast. "CROSS! BATTER UP!"
The snail's view panned downward to show Cross working on slicing into the octopus. Grumbling unprintable words, Cross turned away from the cephalopod, shook his hands clean and dropped into a kneeling position, catching his very eager cannon on his shoulder.
"—meat-huffing slave-driving idiot-savant son of a-CANI-CANNON!" he bellowed.
The hound-gun belted out one of its signature baseball bombs skyward, the projectile shooting past the enemy monster, and instead at Luffy…
"GUUUUM-GUUUUM!" Luffy roared, slamming his pipe into the ball with full force, sending it flying even faster in the direction of the bear. "GRAND SLAM!"
The baseball flew true, striking its target and sinking so deep into the bear's stomach that its back bulged out. The monster kept its position for a second… two seconds… and then it shot back down to the earth, smashing out a large crater in the clearing's stonework—
KA-BOOOOOM!
And meeting its end from a fiery explosion that detonated almost literally in its gut.
[…Ouch,] Terry winced. [Still, that was proper Bear Glove.]
He paused for a moment, waiting for the customary reaction. His west-eye moved until he was looking at Isaiah…'s empty perch.
The sudden squawk he let out drew the officers' attention, and Jonathan blinked in surprise. "That's strange. Did any of you see Isaiah fly off?"
The officers shook their heads.
-o-
"Alright, guys, soup's on!" I called out over my shoulder. I then patted Lassoo's barrel, at which he cut off the stream of fire he'd been using to charbroil the land-borne octopus carcass. "Come and get it while it's—!"
POP!
I shivered in disgust at the pustule of blood and… who knows what else that swelled up and popped in the crevasse I'd carved into the beast's rubbery flesh.
"Still utterly revolting in every way," I concluded lamely. "Urgh, sonnuva… have I mentioned I miss Sanji yet?"
"Five times," Boss 'helpfully' informed me as he stripped the bark off a large branch he'd retrieved.
Funkfreed nodded in agreement, rummaging his trunk around in the jungle so he could pick up some grub for himself. "I think the loudest was when that possum we ate gave you diarrhea."
I sent a questioning glance towards my sword. "Which one? The one with the ballistic needles or the one that swallowed Boss?"
"Needles," everyone else chorused flatly.
The memory popped up in my brain, in all its… let's say 'glory'. I grimaced. "Riiiiiight…"
I had little choice but to start eating as soon as the others came within grabbing range; Luffy may have started cutting back recently, forgoing his typical mannerisms seeing as we didn't have time for it while we were in a place like this—which was ironic, since this place was a mirror of where he'd learned it—but the constant fighting and subsequent constant need to replenish his stamina meant that that was only so much help.
Lassoo and Boss, on the other hand, had no such restraint, which meant that it was either nix the revulsion or go hungry. And I wasn't stupid enough to listen to my tongue more than my stomach. At least Funkfreed was content to eat the foliage instead.
Still, I didn't have that much time to 'enjoy' my meal, due to the second mouth on my body scowling and glancing aside. "Hey guys, just a quick heads up, BUT TRY AND MAKE YOURSELVES LOOK NICE. WE'VE GOT AN AUDIENCE AGAIN."
I found myself grimacing for a reason besides how it felt like I was chewing on a burnt tire. Yay. "Ugh, don't tell me, the eagle's back?" A glance aside confirmed that, yes, our avian stalker and Soundbite's peeping-tom cousin were back and watching us.
"Yeee-pah," Soundbite popped the word sourly. "Even when we've lost our GATEWAY TO THE WORLD, WE'RE STILL the number one show IN THE BLUE SEAS!" He glanced aside and spat in disgust. "How comforting."
I narrowed my eyes at our antagonizer's cronies. "Yeah, well, apologies to our dear viewers, but surprisingly, quality takes a noticeable drop when you're watching a cheap knock-off. Observe." So saying, I showed the eagle my own bird.
"Betcha I could bash that thing's brains out from here," Boss grumbled, a rock tossed between his flippers.
"Don't," Luffy ordered around his meat. "We don't need them calling for backup like last time."
"…feh." Grumbling under his breath, Boss tossed the rock into the underbrush, prompting something to run off with a panicked yelp.
We all froze up at the burst of motion, snapping panicked looks at Soundbite.
He scrunched up his face intently for a moment before sagging in relief. "SCAVENGER, not a scout. We're good."
We all joined him in relief, though said relief was tempered by our continued circumstances.
"Christ on a blazing pikestaff, this place is killing me…" I groaned. "When are we going to be able to stop?"
"When we find wherever the Sunny landed," Boss replied. "Once that's done, we'll find the others and find whichever island his base is on. And when we get there, we'll show him why… why no one… no one…" Boss trailed off, his expression unchanging, but the way his fists were clenching made it obvious what he was thinking about.
I shook my head with a sympathetic sigh. "I know, Boss, I know. That bastard already messed with us… but once we get everyone back together and find him?"
"I'll turn him inside out and punt him straight into Gramps' lap!" Luffy finished with a particularly bloodthirsty snarl.
"…that, yes," I nodded in agreement, not willing to remark on my captain's uncharacteristic viciousness. Instead, I went back to trying to choke down my current mouthful of 'meat'—an endeavor in and of itself—while warily eyeing the jungle around us. "Anyways… seeing as we've got a minute to breathe until the rest of the bastards catch up to us, might as well ask the stupid question: you guys still going strong?"
"Yeah… but it's weird that we are," Boss said with a frown. "I mean sure, I've practiced harsh training on a regular basis for the past few decades, and Luffy's just a damn monster—!"
"Th'nks, Bssh!" Luffy mumbled, adding a thumbs-up.
"—but even after how strong I've gotten since joining up with you guys, it doesn't make sense. A solid week of guerilla tactics against beasts that I will freely admit match me in raw strength, never stopping to rest for more than an hour until they catch up to us, and only raw meat and whatever water we can find keeping us going…"
Boss's frown deepened and he waved his meat at me. "I'm not complaining that I'm not getting tired, it's both useful and badass, but I know my limits, and I should have passed them days ago. And you and your boys should have too, for that matter."
Lassoo looked up from his meal with a thoughtful chuff. "Shellhead's got a point. I'm running low on fumes for my Cani-Blaze, sure, but apart from that? I've coughed up almost a hundred bombs non-stop over the past few days, and I still don't feel empty. That's… not normal."
"Hmm…" I looked at Luffy, who from his expression was thinking the same thing. Something was off all right, but what was it? Sighing, I forced down another mouthful of octopus to keep up my strength… and then I swallowed again when something occurred to me.
"Guys?" I mumbled. "Not to alarm you, but, uh… I think we've been drugged."
Of course, everyone else reacted with the utmost poise and oh who the hell am I kidding, everyone who wasn't Luffy spat out what they were chewing and belted out a panicked "WHAT?!"
Luffy was a lot calmer, taking the time to finish chewing and swallow before responding. "Whaddaya mean, Cross?"
"Well I mean, think about it! This place." I swung my arms out, indicating our surroundings. "It's not natural, right? And I don't just mean the whole floating in the sky bit, I'm talking about the actual environment. The animals. I mean, look at the gauntlet we've run: all carnivores, all the time, omnivores at best, but no pure herbivores anywhere. This kind of trainwreck of a food-chain doesn't come into being on its own, right?"
"Trainwreck nothing, these islands are an asylum!"
I looked at my shoulder in surprise. "Soundbite?"
The snail grimaced. "This place is insane…that's not a generalization, I'M BEING LITERAL! THIS WHOLE PLACE HAS LOST ITS MIND ON A PRIMAL LEVEL! Everything we've seen, everything we've experienced, it's all trumped by THE SHEER MADNESS OF THIS HELLHOLE! I MEAN… you know how I haven't been able to translate these things FROM DAY ONE?"
"It has contributed to diplomatic tensions, yes," Lassoo agreed, snickering.
THWAP!
"YIPE!"
Said smirk was promptly wiped off his muzzle when Funkfreed smacked him with his trunk.
"Not like we have much room to talk either, Snoopy," the other Zoan-weapon groused. "None of us can make heads or tails of what that damn thing is saying."
"YEAH, WELL, THAT'S FOR A DAMN GOOD REASON!" Soundbite replied. "The reason we can't make heads or tails of these guys is because THEY'RE EVOLVING! NOT JUST INDIVIDUALLY, BUT AS SPECIES! SOME OF THE THINGS WE'VE FOUGHT, THEY COULDN'T HAVE BEEN MORE THAN A MONTH OLD! Maybe less!"
"Woah, so those were the babies?!" Luffy sat up in surprise. "But they were so tough!"
"No, Captain, what Cross is saying is that those things were the adults, it's just that they grow up really fast and have kids fast too!" Boss clarified. "Which… explains us not getting what they're saying. They're evolving so fast that their… er…" Boss spun his flipper, searching for the words. "Let's say 'communication skills', have grown way beyond what we recognize."
Soundbite nodded at the dugong. "BINGO. AND REALLY, THAT'S THE STICKY BIT. 'CAUSE AFTER ALL… we've seen this before, remember?"
Luffy's eyes widened in recognition. "Wait, you mean—?!"
"Shshsh!" I hissed, shooting a scathing glance at our ever-present watchers.
Thankfully, Luffy got the message and he rethought what he was about to say. "You mean that the same guys who made… him who he was made these things too?"
"It fits what he said. An island in the sky that's not a sky island, animals more vicious than you can imagine…" I slowly looked at the islands listing through the sky above us with new eyes. "A 'realm ruled by power'. A world where the strong devour the weak without pity."
Boss tsked darkly, eyeing the carcasses of our downed opponents. "Strong World… yeah, that's a damn better name for this place than 'Merveille', that's for damn sure."
"Cross," Funkfreed interjected. "We're getting off topic: what did you mean that we've been drugged?"
"Remember the bastards who came to get him?" I asked the elephant. "They said that 'Indigo' was the one who gave them the experimental drugs that pushed their bodies above and beyond their limits." I pointed down at our meal. "Sound familiar?"
"So…" Luffy frowned and tilted his head almost a perfect 90 degrees to the side, the gears almost visibly turning in his head. "You think this Indigo guy is working for that bastard, and he's been using his mystery drugs to turn animals into the things we're fighting?"
"Precisely." I pointed at him. "Indigo doses the animals, the animals become titanic murder-monsters. The poison that makes them monsters stays in their bodies, we kill and eat them and get that stuff in our bodies, letting us keep fighting for a week straight without worrying about sleep." I looked down at my hand and clenched and unclenched my fist. "Thankfully, it looks like whatever Indigo's been giving these things is better than what he was giving the Amigos, so I don't… think we're gonna wind up like those guys. But just to be safe, let's not have any kids until Chopper's given us a once over. Agreed?"
Most everyone else nodded with no small amount of trepidation, but Luffy was still frowning in confusion.
"You still don't understand something, captain?" I asked.
Luffy made to answer, and then we all felt a spike of terror shoot through us when he snapped his attention to the side.
"So what you guys are saying is the reason we're all stronger is because we ate the animals that had that Indigo guy's mystery drugs in them, right?" Luffy said slowly, his eyes steadily scanning the treeline.
"Yeeeaaah," I slowly drew out my confirmation, glancing around to try and find whatever had Luffy so on edge. "It's probably how Funkfreed's been keeping up too: blood from the animals seeping into the ground, and then the plants. "
"Alright…" Luffy nodded in understanding. "Then I've got another question." He glanced at us with dead seriousness. "If that worked for us, wouldn't it work for the animals too?"
Soundbite and I slowly exchanged questioning looks. "Uhhh… maaaybe?" I hedged.
"THAT… DOES MAKE SENSE," Soundbite confirmed with a jerky nod. "Kinda like a perversion of biomagnification, WITH THE TOXINS HELPING THE ANIMALS… for a given definition of 'help,' anyways."
"It'd definitely enforce the whole 'survival of the fittest' theme this place has going for it," Boss mused, cupping his chin in thought. "The strongest animals would eat the most, and thus become even stronger as they horde the toxins, making them the… undisputable… alphas…" The captain of our ship's guard slowly trailed off as he turned his gaze on the trio of beasties we'd just downed.
Lassoo and Funkfreed both broke into cold sweat as they reached the same conclusion we were all achieving.
"Alphas," Funkfreed whispered quietly. "Like the ones we've been running into over the past week. That the other animals have been driving us into."
"And whose corpses we've had to leave mostly intact when the other animals chased us away?" Lassoo whimpered.
"They wanted us to take down the strongest animals around for them," Luffy stated as he slowly stood up, his hand tilting his hat down so that it shadowed his eyes. "So that they could get their jaws on the mystery drugs for themselves."
"And now," I picked up, slowly joining Luffy in standing up, Lassoo and Funkfreed hastily ran to my side and shifted so that I could hold them and brandish them at the jungle, which I was suddenly very wary of. "After a week of running around and killing alphas and who knows how many other beasts, they've gotten their fangs and mandibles on a motherlode of toxin all at once. They've all become significantly stronger. Strong enough to kill any alphas they want on their own." I swallowed heavily, clenching my weapons as tight as possible in an effort to keep myself from shaking. "Strong enough that they don't need us anymore."
"And because they've been trained to think that eating something gives you its strength…" Boss grunted, idly spinning his hook in his flipper. "There's no way in hell that they're going to let prime cuts like us walk away without tearing strips from our hides."
Soundbite slowly closed his eyes with a pitiful moan. "How'd you figure out they were RIGHT outside the edge of my hearing, CAP'N?"
"The jungle was too quiet," Luffy grimly answered. "They were pulling back to charge us all at once as soon as they were ready…"
"And they're ready," Soundbite sighed as the sound of snapping trees echoed from not far away. "This is gonna suck…"
-o-
"I actually feel sort of sorry for them at this point," a blue-haired swordswoman sighed as she practiced her slashes.
"Kyuu," chimed her on-looking companion.
"Soundbite?" Cross asked without looking at his partner.
"A dozen. TWO DOZEN. FIFTY, A HUNDRED, TWO HUNDRED…" The snail's naturally ashen complexion slowly became paler and paler. "Sonnuva RED DOG, I THINK THE WHOLE DAMN ISLAND WANTS TO TRY ITS LUCK!"
Monkey D. Luffy, meanwhile, squared his stance and shifted around so that he and his tactician were back to back. "Cross, do you have a plan?"
Cross licked his lips, nervously twirling his sword in his palm. "Well, Luffy, considering how we're surrounded on all sides, vastly outnumbered, and have no way out and no hope of backup or rescue… yeah, I think I have one."
Boss slowly sucked in a deep breath, calmly reducing what was left of his cigar to ashes before flicking away the remaining stub. "What is it?"
K-CHK!
"How does 'make a stand' sound to you?" Cross asked grimly.
"IT SOUNDS GREAT!" Luffy flung his arms out with a massive roar, eyes blazing with primal fury. "BRING IT ON!"
"Well, at least they've still got their 'never say die' attitude," Tashigi rolled her eyes, half wearily and half fondly.
"Lieutenant Tashigi."
Said swordswoman looked back towards the grunt who owned the visual snail they were currently making use of—something about it helping with lookout duty—as he approached.
"Our destination is on the horizon; we'll be there in an hour or less."
"Thank you, Petty Officer," Tashigi said, and then turned to her newer recruit. "Popora, could you inform Commodore Smoker that we're nearly to Navarone? I need to alert Vice Admiral Jonathan to our arrival."
The hybrid creature snorted, but still scampered off into the ship.
-o-
The thriving town of St. Poplar was enjoying a massive shake-up in their normal routine. The pirate crew that had arrived a day before to resupply—regulars on the island, well-known for being good customers—had leapt at the opportunity that the sudden broadcast presented; in less than an hour, a full-scale festival had sprouted up around the screen.
And like all good festivals, everything had a somewhat overlarge price tag.
"Oh, sweet Christmas!" 'Silver Fox' Foxy cackled, wringing his hands together. "Some of ze Straw Hats' strongest and most infamous members getting in an all-out brawl with an army of mutant superanimals!? We're going to make a mint!"
"On top of the mint we've already made, you mean!" Porche agreed, poring over the laboriously organized cash box. "We haven't made this much since the Mock Island Massacre!"
A trail of drool slipped out of Foxy's mouth at the memory of that debacle. "Soooo many drunk idiots thinking they could outmuscle us! And every one of them completely wrong! Oh, may the world never run short on suckers!"
"Hey, you!"
The shout snapped Foxy out of his daydream, and he shot a stink eye at the local thug who was pointing a gun at him and his aide. "Case in point… hey, lazy-eyes, you want our hard-earned money, which we earned through honest swindling?" The pirate stepped aside and gestured forwards politely. "Then please, by all means."
The thug gave Foxy a confused look before leering and starting to dash forwards. "Weak-ass piece of—!"
"Slow-Slow Beam," Foxy drawled, freezing the would-be robber in place. Porche followed up ten seconds later by tossing the now empty money-box at the man's head, upon which Foxy froze the box as well.
"Have fun with that, dingus," the Silver Fox called over his shoulder with a wave and a chuckle. As he walked towards the screening area, he started wringing his hands again, fighting the urge to cackle. "Now, time to see the one-sided beat—!"
"Captain, we've got a problem!" Pickles shouted frantically as he jogged up to his shorter superior.
"Oh, come on, don't tell me the three stooges and change already beat them all!" Foxy snarled, shoving past his subordinate. "I know they're ludicrously powerful, but even for them there's a limit!"
"Ah, no, the problem's not really with the fight itself…" Pickles grunted as he hustled after his boss. "But, well…"
"ARGH!"
Foxy could only gape in horror at the screen, which showed a soaring, rapidly moving view of the airborne archipelago with no Straw Hats.
"It's the fact… that the bird isn't sticking around… to watch it…" the tackle-master finished weakly.
"THE SECOND THAT SKINNY TWERP GETS HIS BOX BACK, I'M RIPPING HIM A NEW ONE FOR ALL THE WORLD TO HEAR!" Foxy roared.
"Hey hey hey, it's not his fault, that's not fair!" Pickles hastily defended their incognito superior.
"The betting on that blowout was going to fund our commission to Water 7 to build the Brass Fox," Foxy snarled in an almost rabid tone, teeth audibly grinding. "You know, the ship that Hamburg was going to be in charge of and that was going to have our own custom booby-trapped Groggy Ring on its deck?"
"I'LL DICE THEM INTO BITE-SIZED PIECES!" Pickles howled, ripping his sabers from their sheaths.
"Boss, Pickles, knock it off," Porche cut in. "Think about it for a minute. This broadcast is obviously meant to show off the Straw Hats struggling to the world. If it's leaving those three right as it's getting good, either it's going to show some of the other Straw Hats—"
"Or it's going to show the big man himself getting a status report," Foxy finished, his irritation ebbing away and his grin returning. "Either way, more of a show… and still something that can be bet on! Someone hurry up and set those odds!"
"You ever think the Boss might be taking this a bit far?" Capote hissed to the crew's announcer.
"You haven't seen the treasure tax that our big boss's treasurer and second mate slapped him with…" Itomimizu sorrowfully replied.
"Oh, cherry blossoms!" Porche squealed in delight.
Attention returned to the screen, where the eagle was currently soaring over a lovely land filled with the cherry blossoms of springtime and where a different variety of monsters was swarming and raging. At the same time, a distant sound drifted across the connection. It took a moment to identify, but the more that the eagle flew, the more it sounded like Soundbite was nearby given the sonorous music blaring out. And alongside it was screaming…
"NAAAMI-SWAAAN! ROBIN DEEEAR! PRINCEEEEESS VIVIIIII! WHERE ARE YOU, MY LOVELIES?!"
"EVERYOOOONE! WE'RE HEEEERE! RIGHT HEEEERE!"
"FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY, WILL YOU TWO MORONS STOP GIVING AWAY OUR LOCATION?!"
"ARF ARF A-ARF ARF!"
"WHY DID I HAVE TO BE STUCK WITH THE SUICIDAL IDIOTS!?"
The eagle finally came into view of the source: Sanji, his face mostly hidden by a large hat and… medical mask; Conis, Tone Dials in both hands blaring out music for all to hear; another one of the Dugongs, Mikey by the color of his bandana; and a very miserable-looking Usopp who was making just as much noise with his exasperated sobs.
"Perfect!" Foxy exclaimed in joy.
"MIKEY, YOU CANNOT TELL ME THAT AFTER ALL YOUR TRAINING WITH BOSS, YOU'RE STILL THIS STUPID!"
The Dugong paused his bellowing, glared at Usopp, and flailed his flippers in a somehow significant pattern before resuming his bellowing. The sniper blinked and pulled a book out of his bag, flipping through the pages and muttering. Several people in the audience, meanwhile, just looked confused, lacking a translation.
"I'm pretty sure that he just said 'I don't care, this is fun.'"
Attention turned towards Foxy, who shrugged. "I don't know a lot of sign language, but I've seen that phrase more than enough times over the years."
Usopp's eyes twitched as he found the translation, clearly fighting the urge to throw the book at the dugong.
"FUN?!" he screamed.
And right on cue, the foliage at the edge of the clearing parted, and in charged… a green giraffe.
"…OK, seriously. Why would anyone ever try to make a giraffe into a killing machine? It was stupid enough the first time," Sanji shook his head.
-o-
Elsewhere in the Grand Line, Kaku was struck with a sudden urge to murder someone.
He then blinked in surprise when something poked him in the shoulder, and turned to find Hattori offering him a flask of… something or other.
"You too, huh?" the long-nosed assassin deadpanned, and then sighed in defeat when the pigeon nodded. "Alright, hit me."
-o-
Predictably, the giraffe was only the vanguard of the mob of animals that the pirates' noisemaking attracted. From all around, a stream of beasts emerged: a gigantic caterpillar, a massive blue tiger with two tails and six legs, a swarm of small bulls that bore a resemblance to tikis, a giant and menacing squirrel, a king-sized boar with porcupine quills over its entire body…if anyone watching was disappointed about not witnessing a massive free-for-all, this was a good consolation prize.
Besides, they kinda were getting a massive free-for-all. Sanji, upon seeing the stampede, dove straight at the small bulls, sending the creatures flying alongside a musical accompaniment of sung beef recipes. That prompted the bulls to put aside their differences and gang up on the chef, though the steady flight of more of the bulls clearly indicated how well that strategy was working.
Conis and Mikey, meanwhile, pulled out weapons that were very much not what the viewers were used to. After all, nobody had heard of Conis using a piece of wood the size of a small cannon in a manner much akin to a staff, nor were nunchucks usually constructed out of bones.
The lack of special effects from Usopp, situated behind the above two plinking away at the quilled boar, merely emphasized the oddness.
"Where's the kaboom?" Pickles complained. "Come on, we know those two are bristling with explosive goodies! Why aren't they using them?"
"Do you know how fast ammo runs out in a sustained firefight?" Porche shot back. "I do. I do the accounting after every battle. You never have enough. Honestly, if they still had any ammo past day one I'll eat my makeup kit."
"Then why's Usopp still shooting?"
"Because he's shooting rocks, dingus," Foxy deadpanned. "You look closely, you can see them shattering on that porcupine boar thing. He doesn't need gunpowder, and you can just pick decent rocks for shooting off of the ground. That slingshot'll keep shooting until something breaks, and from what we know of his work that's a long ways off."
On screen, Mikey dodged out of the way of the caterpillar, before kicking off the air and landing on its head. To the surprise of everyone, he then swung his nunchucks down and around the insect's body, grunted happily after an experimental tug, and then used his tail to slap it into motion.
To the surprise of no one, that just pissed it off, and the caterpillar began thrashing about, trying to dislodge its impromptu mount.
The boar, meanwhile, seemed to have tired of getting shot at, as it shrugged off one last rock to the face before pawing the ground and charging straight at Usopp. One last rock failed to slow it down, and everyone expected Usopp to beat feet away.
So you can imagine the reaction to him planting Kabuto in the dirt and standing his ground.
"Is he crazy?!" Porsche yelped, bug-eyed.
"Has the fear finally snapped his mind like a twig?!" Foxy demanded.
Pickles shook his head. "Nah, he's gonna do something really cool! I know it!"
Usopp continued to stand his ground as the boar drew ever closer. In fact, he wasn't moving at all. The festival atmosphere evaporated in favor of tense silence as everyone in the square watched the feed, and mothers covered the eyes of their children. Were they about to see this broadcast turn into a snuff film? And why wasn't Usopp doing anything?!
The boar was about five feet from Usopp when the camera suddenly panned up. Protests died on the audience's tongues at the sight of Conis falling out of the sky, her log-like weapon grinding into the windpipe of the blue tiger, the creature trying and failing to dislodge her with its tails. With a grunt of exertion, the Skypiean flipped in mid-air, the tiger going along for the ride until it belly flopped right onto the charging boar.
There was a moment where the only sounds were the background battle noises, and then both creatures squealed in pain, a good octave or two higher than their initial voices. Given one had been squashed under two tons of tiger and the other had gotten a bellyful of porcupine quills, this was an entirely appropriate reaction. The tiger promptly clambered off the boar, and both beat a hasty retreat, leaving behind a still-frozen Usopp and a panting Conis.
"Oh, good…" she groaned. "I wasn't… sure that'd… work… ow… gonna need to ask Sanji for another massage tonight…" Straightening, she turned towards Usopp. "Usopp, the beasts are gone."
The Foxy trio exchanged confused glances, but shouting from the square drew them back to the show in time to see Usopp keel backwards, which showed exactly why he hadn't dodged: his eyes were wide, tearing, and bloodshot, and his entire expression radiated terror.
"Oh, I have I-Don't-Want-To-Be-On-This-Island-Anymore Disease again," he whimpered. "And this time it's fatal."
"You were saying something?" Foxy queried, one eyebrow raised as he looked sidelong at Pickles. A gaping, poleaxed Pickles.
Meanwhile, the camera panned back up to take in the entire battlefield. Mikey was still riding the caterpillar, and the clearing was now noticeably larger, shattered trees strewn about. Bulls were still flying from where Sanji was fighting. And Su… had just smugly strutted into the picture with the giant squirrel lying in an insensate, twitching heap behind her?! What?
As if sensing the patent disbelief of the distant audience, the cloud fox turned to the camera and stuck her tongue out at it.
"How…" Porche breathed.
"Guess that confirms Cross's hypothesis of the drugs being intended for animal consumption…" Foxy half-whimpered.
"You mean that now she's—?" Pickles began, only to flail his arms.
"Uh-huh…"
After another few seconds of open-mouthed gaping, by some unspoken agreement, the audience collectively decided to forget that had ever happened. At least, that happened with the Foxy trio. Besides, much more interesting things were going on elsewhere on the screen. Sanji, for instance, kicking an opening through the pile of bulls that had been around him, before delivering a "Party Manners Kick Course!" right to the center of the caterpillar as it bounded over him, still trying to dislodge the stubborn dugong on its back.
The massive insect promptly collapsed into a quivering heap, Mikey rolling off and pumping his flippers, at which point Sanji kicked him upside the head. Conis, dragging Usopp behind her, joined the two a few seconds later, and the audience promptly relaxed.
"Wait. Where'd the giraffe go?"
"BAROOOOO!"
The audience tensed right back up as the giraffe barged back in on the fight, bellowing and stomping.
"Huh, smart," Porche muttered. "Let them wear each other out and then ambush."
"Ssh!" Pickles hissed.
The Straw Hats onscreen tensed up, ready to fight… and then Usopp stood up and stepped in front of them, a confident smirk on his face.
"Great, now what's he doing?" Porche groaned.
"He has a plan, I just know it!" Pickles barked.
Foxy rolled his eyes. "Like the last time?"
Apparently, the Straw Hats agreed if Su's eye-rolling and Sanji's growled "What are you doing, shit-sniper?" were anything to go by.
Usopp, for his part, just told them, "Don't worry, guys, I got this."
The giraffe, for its part, demonstrated its utter contempt for Usopp's bravado by letting out a snort that managed to sound derisive before charging. In response, Usopp braced himself and cupped his hands at his side. Many a facepalm echoed out at that.
"He's not seriously gonna…" Foxy groaned between his hands.
"He's gonna do it! He's gonna do it!"
"Take this!" Usopp declared. "Super Mega Ultra Turtle Destruction Wave: Version Omega!"
To the shock of everyone, at those words a blue glow built up in Usopp's cupped hands. And 'everyone' included the giraffe. Its eyes widened, and it immediately hit the brakes and reversed course back into the underbrush.
Usopp held his pose and expression until the giraffe was not only out of sight but out of audible range before slumping in relief. He recovered a few seconds later, and grinned, bringing his hand forward and revealing what he had in it.
"A Lamp Dial," Conis said, her expression growing into a smile. "Impressive innovation, Usopp!"
"Well, what can I say?" the sniper said, smugly rubbing his finger beneath his nose. "I'm the greatest liar this side of the Grand Line! No man nor beast can outsmart me when push comes to shove!"
"And thus, the Straw Hats remind us that even in a realm of brute force, trickery is still a force to be reckoned with," Foxy crooned, scribbling down in a notebook.
Mikey suddenly either had a seizure or sign-languaged another sentence. "'Any chance you could teach me that sleight of hand later?' That's what he said," Sanji said, pointing to the dugong and dispelling the confusion.
"Once we're back with the others and out of this nightmare, sure," Usopp said.
"Oh, yes, the others," Conis said, fishing around in her outfit. Sanji's eye began to morph into a heart and Mikey grinned eagerly, and Usopp's grin fell away, eyes twinkling with pure malice.
"Oh, like hell are you three bringing this place down on us again!" he snapped.
Usopp grabbed something out of of his bag and vanished. The viewers blinked as a blur shot around the Straw Hats, blocking them from view. Seconds later, the view cleared, revealing Conis, Sanji, and Mikey fumbling with their faces, which were now covered from upper lip to neck in something gray and shiny; Usopp materialized beside the eagle, nodding in satisfaction as he dropped a pair of shells into his bag. He then turned directly towards the camera, holding up a roll of the same material that his crewmates were now struggling with.
"Duct tape, ladies and gentlemen. The all-purpose tool, and excellent for shutting up noisy crewmates when you're looking for a little peace and quiet."
"…Porche?" Foxy deadpanned.
"Already leaving, Boss," Porche responded, heading for the nearest hardware store just as the camera's view started to soar away from the Straw Hats again.
-o-
"Come on, come on…"
"Your highness, you're going to gnaw clean through your thumb at this rate," Igaram chided.
"My daughter and her friends are trapped in a bioweapons lab several miles in the sky that is being maintained by one of the most infamous members of the Old Guard to ever live," Cobra Nefertari grit out, teeth still working at his nail.. "If you think I'm going to calm down before I know she's perfectly safe, you're out of your mind."
"AAAAGH! SOMEONE HELP ME ALREADY!"
Chaka slapped a hand to his face with a groan at the familiar voice. "Uh-oh." In front of him, Cobra gripped the handles of his chair hard enough for them to creak.
As the eagle swooped down onto a moderately forested island with an autumn climate, the Alabastians couldn't help but feel tense. It was with no small amount of relief to the royals that the camera soon found a path torn through the brown-leaved trees, liberally decorated with fallen animals.
"Well, at least whoever she's stuck with is clearly strong enough to protect her, right?" Pell weakly pointed out.
"YOU LAZY BASTARDS! GET OFF YOUR ASSES AND MAKE THIS THING STOP!" Vivi yelled.
"'LAZY' MY THREE-POINTED CHIN, 'YOUR MAJESTY'! WE'VE GOT OUR HANDS FULL, AND THAT'S WITH ROBIN HELPING US!"
"You just had to say it…" Chaka groaned as the creaking resumed.
The eagle's view finally reached the Straw Hats. And naturally, the scene it showed was an odd one. Vivi had her lion cutters latched in the jowls of a massive blood-red bronco as a makeshift bridle. Her arm wound around one chain while the other arm moved her hair out of her eyes, letting her look back at her crewmates with a growing blush and sheepish expression. Suddenly, Carue materialized a short distance away and began charging towards the bronco, which promptly skipped out of the frame, at which point the camera turned away.
From where the duck had come was a gargantuan banana-yellow serpent. Arms blossomed and wilted all over its body, though Nico Robin herself was nowhere to be seen at first. As the eagle came above the serpent, they saw her struggling within the serpent's grasp, countless arms blooming from all over her body to keep the coils from constricting her. On the outside sprinted Franky, his hair draping down in front of his face; Donny, who had kunai in flipper and seemed to be carving nicks all over the serpent's body; and… another figure in a peculiar outfit.
He had legs clad in black with dress shoes and a sword in one hand. The rest was hidden beneath a fukaamigasa hat with strips of fabric hanging down and covering him from crown to waist. Even the hand wielding the sword that produced more nicks on the serpent wasn't visible.
"That's their musician, I would assume," Kohza said.
The view circled around the serpent for several moments, much to Cobra's ire. When it finally turned back towards his daughter, she wasn't having much better of a time, gritting her teeth while Carue darted among the bronco's legs, apparently looking for an opportunity.
"SORRY IF I'M BEING A BIT SNAPPY, BUT I'M ABOUT TEN SECONDS AWAY FROM GETTING MY NECK SNAPPED!" Vivi shrieked.
"Yeah, and we're trying not to get pumped full of the acid this thing is using as venom here!" Franky snapped back. "So excuse us if we're a little preoccupied right now!" The camera switched back to the snake in time to see Franky punch it and Donny carve another chunk out of its hide, drawing a pained hiss from the beast that seemed to come from everywhere. "Sonuva- where is this thing's head?!"
"Yohohohoho! I think that's what this entity's evolution was going for!" the apparent musician laughed as he zipped by. His voice was somewhat muffled by his headgear, but only enough to obfuscate his voice a little. Otherwise, he was perfectly audible. "Never fear, though! I have a plan! All I need is… aha, my flute!"
"Uh…" The three guards all exchanged confused looks, while Kohza looked thoughtful. Cobra was… less restrained.
"WHAT THE DEVIL IS A FLUTE GOING TO DO?!" he demanded of the screen.
"STOP SCREWING AROUND AND HELP, BROOK!" Franky and Vivi roared and screeched, respectively.
"I say! What hostility!"
"Brook," Nico Robin ground out through what sounded like gritted teeth. "I'm going to assume you have a good plan here. Implement it, now, before this thing breaks any more of my arms, or I shall strip the flesh from your bones piece by piece and use it to wallpaper my library."
"A creative threat… but I don't—GRK!" The musician was cut off by what they assumed was a hand sprouting on his body and grabbing his throat.
"I will find a way."
"R-Right…" Brook gurgled. "Plan now… joke later…"
A moment later, a low, haunting melody rang out, one that was almost familiar to the gathered Alabastans.
"I've heard that song before…" Cobra muttered, furrowing his brow in thought.
"So have I," Pell added. "But where…?"
On screen, the snake froze, before beginning to undulate. After about half a minute, something poked out of the mass of snake. Something scaly, and diamond-shaped, with a forked tongue poking out of it.
"Ah, now I remember!" Igaram exclaimed, plopping his fist in his palm. "It's similar to the snake-charming song the priests of Apophis play during their snake festival!"
Cobra raised an eyebrow. "You mean the deathly boring snake festival that ten generations of Nefertaris have begged out of going to?"
"Er…"
"I was thinking more of the street performers, myself," Kohza stated.
"Your Majesty, look!"
Onscreen, the head of the snake was now blatantly obvious, as was the somewhat glazed look in its eyes. But that's not what drew everyone's attention. No, that was reserved for Nico Robin, who had stepped into the visual snail's eyesight and had donned a scowl of… anger wasn't the right word. Aggravation? Regardless, the expression was vindictive as hell when she crossed her arms.
"Sesenta Fleur: Tie."
The gathered Alabastians collectively winced as the music cut off and arms sprouted all along the snake's long neck. Each arm reached down, grasped the snake, and then twisted just so. In no time at all, the head had been stuffed through several loops in the neck to make a neat bowline knot, tying the neck—and much of the body—of the snake into a loop.
The snake, now free of the song, attempted to untie itself, but the knot was too tight and it was entirely limited to yanking its head back. And Franky grabbing it right below the knot, well away from the head, didn't help.
"I am SUPER! done with all of this!" he declared, hefting the snake. "So just… ah, whatever. I'm out of one-liners!" And with that, he gave it an experimental twirl and then slung the loop—no, the lasso—towards the bucking bronco. It neatly settled around the horse's neck, prompting it to stop and stare at the impromptu rope.
That pause proved fatal. Vivi took the opportunity to unsling her Lion cutters and then whip the blade into its eye. The horse whinnied in pain, bucked, threw Franky off the snake… and threw the snake up for the blur that was Carue to grab it. A few seconds later, the horse was neatly hogtied on its side, unable to move.
The Alabastians all sagged in relief as the fighting concluded, a motion that the Straw Hats all imitated.
"Son… of a bitch…." Franky wheezed, bent over and puffing like a steam train. "That… totally… suuuucked…"
"Indeed…" Robin concurred, wincing as she rolled her shoulders. "Not to beat a dead horse—" Vivi dope-slapped her, the archaeologist barely flinching. "But I am very much coming to despise these islands. All in agreement?"
Donny moved his flippers in what almost seemed to be a pattern.
"Ah, yes, I suppose that you all have good reason to have long despised these islands. My apologies." Robin shook her head with a sigh. "Anyway… all in favor of a ten minute break before continuing our trek?"
"Aye!"/ "ARF!" was the unanimous reply.
"Glad to know I don't have to break anyone's shins with their own tibia." Robin sank to the ground with a gratified groan. The archaeologist then glanced at the musician. "Still, while we have a second… Brook, do you need any help removing that basket from your head?"
"Wait, basket? What bas—?" Chaka cut himself off mid-sentence, one eye twitching viciously. "You mean that that's not a hat?!"
"What else bould—ahem, mah, mah, MAH!" Igaram coughed. "What else would you expect of a Straw Hat?"
"Hm?" the named-again Brook asked, pointing at himself in confusion before snapping his fingers. "Oh! No, no need for that; I believe that I'll keep it for the time being. I quite like it! Snazzy, no?"
"Arf arf," Donny deadpanned, which Carue responded to with a snicker and a high-flipper/wing.
"Oh, yes, he is definitely a Straw Hat," Pell deadpanned.
"Indeed," Cobra sighed in relief before giving his retainers a firm nod. "Now, Chaka, I believe you were giving a report?"
"Wha—Your Highness?!" the jackal-man started in confusion. "But what about—?"
"Vivi is as safe as she can be in this situation," Cobra sighed wearily. "She has others of the crew alongside her and she can take care of herself. I am unhappy that she's in such danger, yes, but such is inevitable with any pirate crew, most of all the Straw Hats. The unknown factor is what worried me most; with her status confirmed, I need to return to our present business. Now, what news do you have, Chaka?"
The jackal-man was only a little slow in nodding withdrawing the papers he'd been reading from his jacket. "Alright, where was I… we've covered the blockade status, or lack thereof… no new reports from the Revolutionaries… ah, here we are. The Accinos have reported a strange trend in pirate movements over the last week."
"Rell—mah, mah, MAH!—really? I haven't heard about any pirate attacks recently," Igaram said.
"Exactly the Don's point," Chaka nodded at the captain. "While the blockade keeps out most of the pirate riff-raff, there's always a few who are foolish enough to run it and attack us. Except that recently, they haven't been doing that. In fact…" The general tapped the paper suspiciously. "According to the Accinos, there haven't been pirate attacks up a very large swathe of the Grand Line, period. For some reason, those who fly the black flag have been falling oddly silent recently. One or two is a coincidence, but this many at once…"
"Hm… a good point…" Cobra scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Chaka, do we know when these anomalies started?"
"Um… about a week ago, Your Majesty," Chaka informed him.
Cobra nodded at that, and then frowned. "Wait, that time frame… isn't that—?" he muttered darkly, glancing at the screen. He barely held back a curse when he saw that the viewpoint had moved on.
-o-
[Well, at least now we know why the hell we couldn't find that island no matter how hard we looked,] First Mate Dugong muttered darkly as he scrutinized the ocean visible between the floating islands. [We were looking in the wrong damn place. Captain, want us to hit the surf again?]
[Don't bother,] Captain Dugong snorted dismissively. [The bastard's taken advantage of one of the greatest blind spots in all life: nobody ever bothers to look up. We'd just be getting a fat lot of nothing.]
[Meaning…] First Mate groaned and kneaded his snout. [That we can only do the same thing we ever do in these situations: suck it up and wait for the Straw Hats to kick ass and take names. Right?]
[Trust me, I enjoy sitting on the sidelines as much as you, but if I can suck it up, so can you. Now shush!] Captain snapped his flipper up to silence any retorts from his second. [The bird's starting to circle again.]
The landscape the bird was circling this time was a land of whites, greys, and muted greens; of snow blanketing the landscape, broken only by the occasional boulder and the taller of the conifers that dominated the visible flora. And dead center in the camera view was a short line of people, a line that included a sight that caused a deep, yawning pit to open up in Captain Dugong's stomach.
See, the group consisted of Zoro, Merry, Chopper in his reindeer form, and Leo all but swimming through the loose powder. And Zoro was leading.
[Oh, don't tell me…] the Kung Fu dugong chieftain groaned.
"This is getting ridiculous…" Merry grit out over the howling wind, furiously rubbing at her arms under the furskin cloak she was wearing. "How the hell can a blizzard last a week straight!? I'm freezing my pitch, here!"
"It's not that odd," Chopper pointed out. The reindeer was unchanged in appearance, seemingly impervious to the cold and blinding snowfall. "Sometimes, we'd have month-long blizzards on Drum Island. You learn to stock up enough food and fuel."
[Personally, I'm more concerned with the reason why we're still stuck in this hellhole in the first place!] Leo snarled through chattering teeth.
"The dugong's got a point! Remind me why we let Zoro lead the way!?" Merry snapped.
[The ship-girl can speak dugong now?] First Mate remarked.
[She had Boss, the brats, the reindeer, and the snail on her for months! Makes sense that she'd pick up second language or two, don't it?] another member of the crew barked up.
[Fair,] Captain conceded.
"We already tried letting you three lead, remember?" Zoro said with a roll of his eyes. "But if any of you want to give it another try, go right ahead. I'm sure it'll work out great for you."
[Gladly!] Leo declared, leaping ahead of the swordsman and jabbing his blade into the wall of snow. [Now! Onwards! To home and to—!…I just stabbed something in the side, didn't I?]
The Great Kung Fu Fleet, as one, slapped their flippers to their faces.
Leo had, indeed, stabbed something in the side. The snow rumbled and then fell off in chunks, revealing a massive brown yak with horns the size of trees. And from the expression on its face, it was pissed, a conclusion only reinforced by the angry bellow it let out. Leo hastily removed his sword. The yak proceeded to batted him aside with a single contemptuous flick of his head.
[WHYYYYyyyy—!?] FWUMP!
"…Right. That's why." Merry sighed and slapped a hand to her face. "Aaaand he just landed in a nest of those ice-raven things, didn't he?"
The sound of tinkling and windy caws rang out, alongside a miserable [A-HA-HA-AAAAAGH!]
[This place just gets better and better…] First Mate muttered sarcastically.
"Chopper, go save the shellhead. Merry, help me kill dinner," Zoro matter-of-factly ordered. "And once that's done, you can all stop your bellyaching. I'm positive I know the way out of here."
The doctor and helmsgirl stared at their erstwhile superior for a few seconds before exchanging flat looks.
"Chopper?"
"Yes, Merry?"
"Are we going to die here?"
"Ignoring that I'm built for this kind of weather, we have a 72% chance of freezing, 22% of starving, aaand 6% of actually getting out. So, barring a serious amount of good luck… yes, Merry. Yes, we are."
A sigh. "That's what I thought."
"ALRIGHT, LISTEN YOU TWO—!"
The eagle chose that moment to fly away. Or maybe it just didn't want to stick around in the blizzard any longer than it had to.
[…And now I remember the reason why we don't often mind sucking it up and waiting on the Straw Hats,] First Mate remarked.
-o-
"Well, at least Chopper's doing alright, right? …right?"
Dr. Kureha wasn't scowling, but nor was she smirking, and that made Dalton want to jump out of his fur. He had enough composure to hide the fear, particularly after his extended exposure to the doctor. Though the non-zero percent chance the physician could smell fear played a part as well.
"He's doing all right, certainly," she said at last, prompting Dalton to relax a smidgen. "But that's not particularly comforting at the moment. Honestly, Dalton, they've been struggling for their lives against mutated animals in a floating archipelago for the past week. Try to be a little less insensitive, would you?"
Dalton would have responded to that, were it not for a large paw clamping down over his mouth. The president of the Sakura Kingdom shot the doctor's assistant a grateful look for the save, which the lapahn responded to with a soft grunt of acknowledgement. The bison-man turned back to the screen, which was heading back towards a jungle climate. All present wondered if they were heading back to the first group to start the pattern over.
Instead, the eagle soared over to a volcano with a lake in its crater, and not far from it, a large trench that ended within the forest. And at the end of that…
"So, that's the Thousand Sunny," Kureha said, sounding genuinely impressed. "And it's in the same area as the loudmouths and the captain. Well, looks like fortune is still smiling on them. But why's the bird heading there now?"
[BEAT IT, YOU FEATHERY BASTARD! I'LL USE YOUR WINGS TO DUST THE DAMN PANTRY!]
"There we go," Dalton nodded sagely as the bird hastily banked away from the angry barking. "The Straw Hats are as lucky as ever: one of the dugongs managed to stay behind. The… girl, I believe? Raphey?"
"Yeah, that's the one," Kureha nodded in confirmation.
And indeed it was. The pink-bandanna'd dugong was standing on the ship's railing, shaking an oversized shuriken at the bird, the bird quite disinclined to press the matter. It circled around, not coming any closer, leaving the dugong to snort before turning her attention back… to…
"What," Kureha and Dalton deadpanned.
To a pink-haired gothic lolita with a slight tan sprawled out on a lounge chair, apparently out cold, whose face Raphey was in the process of rubbing clean with a wet cloth.
"…They mentioned this on Thriller Bark…" said Kureha, slowly. "Perona. She stuck around with the Straw Hats after the fact?"
"Well, they kept Nico Robin on," Dalton reasoned. "And at least it looks like they're friends or close to it, right?"
On-screen Raphey finished her work, and nodded firmly. She then uncapped a marker and went to work on the recently cleaned face, grumbling audibly. As Dalton kneaded the bridge of his nose, Kureha looked to her assistant, who began signing out the dugong's growling:
{I want to go out and get some action in, but I'm the last guard on the ship,} she muttered. {And of course, Boss will hand me my shell on a platter if I shirk my duty. So, here I am, reduced to experimenting with graffiti on our unconscious 'guest' until someone else shows up… next lion I see is going to get carved in half.}
She paused in her grumbling as a subtle growl came across the connection, and coughed awkwardly. {No offense meant, Sunny.}
Apparently that was enough for the bird, as it chose to wheel up and away from the ship and start flapping away, towards the largest island that lorded over all the archipelago.
"That was all of the Straw Hats, wasn't it?" Dalton asked his surgeon general, while absently counting down on his fingers.
"No, we're still missing two people," Kureha answered, scowling. "Their navigator… and the raging bastard who separated them all in the first place."
-o-
"Nami's alone in that floating purgatory?!" Genzo raged, his sword rattling in his sheath from how hard he was gripping it.
"In all fairness, she isn't the same sneak-thief who left us so long ago…" Nojiko tried, though the real measure of her faith was the teeth gnawing at her knuckles.
"Well, I mean, the bird's probably heading her way now, right?" Chabo posed with more confidence.
Said confidence faltered when the eagle broke through a cloudbank to behold a massively ornate complex perched upon the summit of the archipelago.
Nojiko's teeth broke her skin. "Alright, my little sister is being held alone in the main base of one of the most infamous pirates in history. This officially cannot get any worse," she growled around her knuckle.
Before the village's tense, watchful eyes, the eagle swung through the snow-bound ramparts of the compound, displaying a number of ornate lions and far too many well-armed soldiers for comfort.
Finally, the visual-snail's gaze fell upon what appeared to be a greenhouse built into the side of one of the buildings, and the eagle soared towards it. The avian alighted on a specific panel, which swung inward and allowed it to land in the rafters. Which, judging from the large nests, scattered feathers, and handful of other eagles present, was the aviary. The eagle pecked at its chest, and the view suddenly changed to a rapidly shifting array of colors as the harness spiraled down. Nojiko and Genzo barely managed to keep their eyes open through it while the rest of the village had to look away. When it finally subsided, the snail seemed to have settled on a lawn chair next to a swimming pool… where a very familiar figure was emerging, clad in a dripping-wet string bikini.
"…I am so conflicted," Genzo groaned, grinding his palm into his forehead. "She's safe, that's good. She's not in chains, that's even better. But she's half-naked for the whole damn world to see, which almost makes me wish she was in critical condition!"
Despite herself, Nojiko couldn't help but laugh, though it was mostly due to the dual relief of her sister being alright, and the fact that Nami had a trio of metal batons in a holster strapped to her thigh. Wherever Nami was, she might have been alone, but she wasn't defenseless.
Said laughter redoubled when Nami paused in toweling herself off and shot an acrid glare at the snail. Reaching down, she threw her towel over the gastropod's carrying case. "You wanna see something, look at that. Bastards."
"Thank goodness, she's safe and still fighting," Nojiko sighed in relief.
"'Course she is, you two are Bellemere's girls," Doctor Nako snorted. "No way either of you could ever be anything less than hard as nails."
Nojiko smiled at the compliment, but before she could respond-
"Awww, no, let the assholes have their show. These creeps haven't seen a real woman in who knows how long, remember?"
A shockingly familiar voice left a stunned Nojiko and Genzo gaping in shock at each other.
"Was that—?" Nojiko began.
The answer was given when the visual snail knocked itself against the side of its case, dislodging the towel and showing the world that Perona was floating upside down and over Nami, her arms folded behind her head.
"How the hell—!?" Genzo started to demand.
"Cross… did say she had some kind of ghost Devil Fruit, right?" Nojiko offered. "Though why she's with Nami…"
"Perona." Nami casually looked up at Perona. "Any luck?"
The ghost-girl scowled, huffed, and flipped herself into a sitting position. "Same as yesterday: none. They've got this place locked down tight and all corridors watched. That little pest-" Here Perona pointed at the world's viewpoint. "Has a lot of family backing it up. Sorry."
"Mmph, not your fault…" Nami began to pick up her clothes, but stopped with a shirt held halfway up. She then shot a doubtful look up at the ghost girl. "Perona… I know I've said this before, but I've got to say it again: you don't have to stay here. This isn't your fight."
"Wow, she's being generous?" Chabo said in surprise. "I'd say when pigs fly, but we've already seen that happe—OWOWOW!"
"Got anything else you want to say about my sister, you little brat!?" Nojiko asked as she ground her knuckles into the sides of the boy's skull.
The astral girl huffed out a breath. "And I've already told you—!"
PA-DA-DA-DAAAA!
Everyone jumped and both Perona and Nami grimaced at the blast of brass music that suddenly came out of nowhere.
"Oh, God, not again…" the spectre growled, clawing her fingers down her face.
Nami, meanwhile, just sighed, shook her head, and finished drying her hair before slipping the shirt on.
Once the clothing was on, the two turned toward the other side of the room, where three silhouettes were visible behind a screen. As the initial fanfare died down and an upbeat song began, the screen flopped down, and three figures were revealed: a gorilla—yes, gorilla—clad in red and pink; a clown-like man in a lab coat with blue hair; and a grinning man with a mane of golden hair, part of a steering wheel protruding from his skull, and swords serving as his legs from the knees down.
And they were all dancing.
"And there is how it could get worse. They're the moronic sort of pirates," Genzo snarled.
The routine lasted for a solid half minute, ending with a dramatic pose towards Nami. The navigator gave the trio a scathing look before looking away. "The clown missed a step three seconds in and was off-sync for the rest of it."
"He wha—DR. INDIGO, YOU MORON!" the sword-legged man roared, naked terror flashing across the clown's face as the larger man lunged for his throat. "WE'VE PRACTICED THAT ROUTINE A HUNDRED TIMES, HOW IS IT THAT SOMEONE WHO NEVER DID IT BEFORE DID IT BETTER… than…" The wheel-head shot an acrid glare over his shoulder at an unrepentant Nami. "You're just screwing with me, aren't you?"
"Br-r-r-r-illiant deduction, genius," Perona drawled.
Glowering, the man released the clown, who began gasping for breath.
"…Sorry," the wheel-head muttered.
"N-No problem, Captain," Indigo choked out, forcing a grin. "F-Far be it for me to take offense over a good joke."
Nodding, the identified captain turned back to Nami, schooling his expression into a grin that was clearly meant to be warm but only came across as sleazy.
"Come now, baby girl," he crooned, stalking towards her. He barely got a foot before a rumble of thunder made him visibly reconsider the move, the storminess of Nami's Eisen cloud mirrored in her face.
Genzo blinked in surprise. "Wow, didn't even see her draw."
"Touch me, and I will turn your wrinkly hide into charcoal," Nami acridly stated.
The captain backed off with a semi-impressed snort. The gorilla, on the other hand, outright roared at her, inches away from pouncing into a very electric situation.
"Scarlet, control yourself!" Indigo chided with a hard chop on the ape's neck. The harlequin didn't flinch when the gorilla turned on him, and instead calmly proffered it a banana. "Here, eat this instead. You get angry when you're hungry."
"OOK!" Scarlet grunted happily and grabbed the banana before messily chowing down on the fruit.
"I thought monkeys were supposed to eat meat," said one of the child villagers.
"Not actually a monkey. And that place ain't exactly what I'd call a bastion of natural evolution anyway," Doctor Nako pointed out.
"Upped Scarlet's dosage again, Doctor?" the wheel-headed man grunted inquisitively.
"Indeed, and with most spectacular results!" Indigo gave his boss a thumbs-up and a smile that had far too many teeth. "Ever since I started injecting the serum into bananas and feeding him with as many as I could, Scarlet's aggression has tripled! Ah, yes, on a related matter, Captain, I require some men to come to my lab and help me dispose of… ah… er…"
"A body?" Nami dryly provided.
The clown tilted his head thoughtfully. "…I suppose that bodies do indeed compose a significant fraction of the mass, yes… Let me put it to you this way: they will require mops."
"And there go my last reservations about Nami having a bounty that large," Genzo muttered. "Thank the heavens that she's grown so strong."
Meanwhile, the captain shook his head indulgently and refocused on Nami, who met his gaze with a frigid glare. "Aaaaanyway… the reason I'm here is the same as always, babygirl: to give you yet another chance to do the right thing and join my crew. You know…" The man's grin widened around his cigar. "A crew that can properly make use of your talents?"
Nojiko flushed with rage, Arlong's evil grin flashing in her mind's eye.
Apparently Nami had the same feeling, her demeanor becoming positively glacial as she scowled at the lion-like man. "Word to the wise, the last bastard who used that wording got buried in his own castle. And my answer's the same one I've been giving all last week: piss off." And with that, she wheeled around and marched off, Perona floating alongside her and flipping the wheel-man off as she went.
The captain wasn't deterred in the least, however, as shown when he puffed out his chest. "Awww, don't be like that, baby girl! Here, lemme sweeten the deal for you with a little insider info: whenever anyone joins my crew? I give them one wish I accomplish without fail…" His grin widened menacingly. "And I never go back on my word."
"There's no way she'll believe that again," said several people in the village.
Apparently that was a sentiment Perona shared, as she sneered viciously at the large man. "What part of 'go choke on your own ego' don't you get, you putrid—!?"
"You mean it?"
Perona twitched in place and shot a disbelieving look back at Nami, who'd stopped dead. "Nami, what—!?"
"If I join," Nami said slowly, still looking away from the man. "You'll fulfill my wish, no matter what it is?"
"But of course," the man sneered.
"Don't do it, sis," Nojiko hissed.
"…Fulfill my wish first and then I'll join," Nami tersely said. "And don't worry, it's an easy one."
"Deal!" the lion-man barked proudly. "What is it?"
The orange-haired navigator turned and displayed an utterly innocent smile that froze the blood of everyone watching.
"Oh, crap," Nojiko, Genzo, and Perona uttered in synch for an entirely different reason than before.
"Kill yourself," Nami politely requested.
For a good four seconds, the only sound was the quiet lapping of the swimming pool. And then...
"JIIIHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" the captain laughed hysterically. That lasted for exactly eight seconds. Then he literally flew forward, his right hand closing around her neck.
"NAMI!" Nojiko cried. Genzo would have been right there with her, if not for Nako tackling him and ramming a needle into his neck, putting him out like a light.
"Alright, listen here, baby—!" the captain started to growl before cutting himself off when he saw Nami's eyes. Saw the way the she was glaring defiantly at him, even as she struggled in his grip. "…You really aren't afraid of me, are you?"
"I… grew up… with evil… and I've… faced death… with a smile," Nami wheezed out in a biting tone. "You're… nothing… new…"
The captain frowned at that, and then he released her, letting her drop to the ground and get her breath back.
"I underestimated you," he admitted, a note of respect in his voice. But it was gone when he spoke again. "But you'll change your tune sooner or later… Miss Navigator. You'll change it soon enough. After all…" He sneered and lifted his chin. "Nobody denies Golden Lion Shiki. Nobody."
Unaware that her entire village was experiencing a substantial increase of respect for her, something none of them had thought possible, Nami maintained her glare until the legendary pirate and his lackeys turned their attention away from her.
Perona immediately took advantage of the diverted attention, swooping down to Nami's side with a concerned look on her face. "You alright?"
"I'll be better once this place has burned to the ground," Nami coughed, wincing and rubbing her throat. Her expression then turned melancholy as she turned to the frost-encrusted windows. "And… once I see my friends again…"
"Nami…" Genzo wheezed out through his drug-induced haze.
"This is even worse than her being in chains…" Nojiko shook her head mournfully. "This can't be happening… the Straw Hats have had bad luck before, but they've never gone a whole week without the situation improving!"
-ONE WEEK AGO-
… Sorry, loyal readers. That's where we leave off for now. We'll have the next installment as soon as we can.
