Chapter 64
Cross-Brain AN: …And here is that very good reason.
~Five Days After Enies Lobby's Destruction~
With the many adamant supporters of Absolute Justice assigned to the New World, Sengoku could finally enjoy a semblance of the stress relief that the Marines' medics had ordered despite the continued fallout from Enies Lobby's destruction. But it was soon to be shaken; while many miles away Jeremiah Cross was formally re-founding Marine Integrity into the New World Masons, another conversation of earthshaking potential was going on in the highest of Marineford's pagodas.
With Akainu in pseudo-exile, Kizaru still recovering, and nobody else of their rank available, Aokiji alone was present as the Elder Stars spoke to Sengoku. Given that the Fleet Admiral was almost hyperventilating, the Logia was currently doing what he could to ease Sengoku's nerves. It helped only enough to ensure that he wouldn't be suffering another heart attack while he glowered at the snail.
"Why… in the world… would you suggest we wage war with one of the Four Emperors… when we've just been crippled from tangling with a group of rookies!?" Sengoku incredulously demanded. "We do not have the resources to attempt a full-scale war with Whitebeard, and if we tried mustering our forces now, I bet my life that half of them would resign instead, whether of their own volition or spurred on by that loud-mouthed brat!"
"Fleet Admiral—" the voice began again.
"I don't give a damn that he's Roger's son! Keeping him imprisoned or trying to execute him will cause more harm than he could produce if he were still at Whitebeard's side! You can't make me agree to—"
"Fleet Admiral Sengoku, stop insulting our intelligence. We know."
The Fleet Admiral fell silent, as much from surprise as the sharpening glare on the line.
"Under no circumstances are we going to allow Roger's son free now that we have him in prison where he belongs," the Elder Star stated without a hint of give, which drew an aggravated scowl from Sengoku. "But we are acutely aware of how much damage has been done, and that we cannot hope to win against Whitebeard as things stand now. We need more time to recover and build our resources."
Sengoku leaned back slowly, his temper cooling a scant few degrees. "Very well. What are your orders?"
"Keeping Whitebeard's followers in a comatose state will deceive Vivre Cards to the state of their health, and we will use a gaol ship to keep them at sea level; the depths of Impel Down would be too conspicuous. We will keep them hidden for however long it takes to build our forces back to the point where we can stand against Whitebeard. Then and only then will we announce the newest Warlord in our ranks, the imprisonment of the Spider and Witch, and the execution of Fire Fist. Until then, no Marine ranked lower than Admiral shall be informed of any of this."
Sengoku sighed, the tension bleeding out of him. "…I apologize for jumping to conclusions," he ground out, barely managing to keep his tone even mildly respectful.
"As you should. However, we will still require a contingency plan."
Sengoku's body tensed again, and he very deliberately limited his response to a simple "Yes?"
"We must be prepared to assemble our forces at a moment's notice. It will only be as a last resort, but should news of their capture somehow reach the ears of any of Whitebeard's allies, we run the risk of allowing Roger's son to slip through our grasp. Provided that you maintain secrecy, we should have nothing to fear."
Sengoku ever-so-slowly relaxed once more and closed his eyes. "…so be it. We'll focus resources on fixing the damage from the Straw Hats' assault. Scrutinize all communications surrounding the gaol ship. And I'll keep our strongest forces rotating near Marineford; in the face of Enies Lobby's destruction, it should raise no suspicion."
"See to it, Fleet Admiral. KA-LICK!" And with that, the connection closed.
Sengoku shook his head with a weary huff as he started mentally arranging formations. But first… "Aokiji," he ordered, barely glancing up at the Ice-Man. "Return to the containment of Fire Fist and his allies and maintain their state. Ensure that no harm comes to them and that operational security remains airtight. You have unrestricted authority; do whatever needs to be done."
Aokiji nodded in solemn acceptance and stood to leave. "Yes, sir." He ambled to the office's door, hand poised to let himself out… and paused there, standing silent for a small eternity, before slowly turning his head over his shoulder. "Sir… I feel compelled to ask a question."
Sengoku glanced up from his paperwork, an irritated expression on his face. "Of all the times for you to actually show some life… What?"
"Fleet Admiral, given the circumstances and potential consequences of our actions, I feel compelled to ask…" Aokiji set his jaw. "Should Fire Fist Ace… really die for the crimes of his father?"
Sengoku's fist slammed down onto his desk, his scowl intensifying and his expression contorted viciously. After a moment, he took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, before giving Aokiji, of all people, a thoroughly chilling stare. "Do not lose focus now, Admiral. It is not, nor has it ever been, a matter of whether or not he should die. But rather, Portgas D. Ace must die."
The Fleet Admiral refocused on his work, dismissing the Admiral with a wave. "That is the last I'll hear on the matter. You have your orders, now go."
A chill of frost briefly crept over the office's door-handle, but just as swiftly it passed. "Understood, sir," Aokiji nodded tersely. And with that, he departed, and the matter fell dormant in Marineford… though not in the Ice-Man's heart.
-o-
When the Transponder Snail disconnected, the Five Elder Stars exchanged glowering looks.
"It is sickening that we have been brought to this point. Enies Lobby's destruction on its own is nothing; a blow to our pride, a reduction in our resources, but nothing that would necessitate anything but an increase in their bounties. But this problem has become absurd," the youngest of the five sneered.
"It is impossible enough for a transceiver to have survived the purge. Vegapunk despised our orders, but he followed them to the last," the tallest mused as he stroked his beard. "Nothing survived, and the likes of the geniuses capable of designing such a device are few across the world. It would take recklessness to the point of insanity to entrust such a device to an erstwhile unknown like Jeremiah Cross."
"The boy is reckless to the point of insanity himself," the katana-wielder grumbled, patiently tapping a finger to his temple. "By broadcasting the invasion, he invited us to send our best forces against him to support CP9, knowing that he couldn't match them. Yet they escaped, and he along with that insufferable Spandam have done the unthinkable: they've scarred us. A no-name rookie pirate and one of our own men have torn the veil."
"Our choices are limited," the mustachioed member grumbled as he rubbed his hands in thought. "The talk of freedom will become more and more widespread the longer that he speaks, and this debacle has cost us the chance to eliminate them directly; another broadcast of this magnitude would push us to the point of no return, and martyring them would turn too much of the world against us at once. As satisfying as it would be, Sengoku made the right choice in stopping Admiral Akainu from burning down Water 7."
"The Straw Hats claim that they beat the world." The cane-wielder tapped his oaken staff on the tile. "The only thing that they've done is guarantee that we will fight again. And when we do, no amount of luck or skill will allow them to walk away. Orders will be sent to Akainu in the New World to recruit replenishing forces from every island that he visits, and we will monitor the Straw Hats' journey for anything that we can exploit. We will bide our time, build our resources…"
His demeanor and that of all the Elder Stars darkened significantly. "And when the time comes to put an end to Roger's line and to Edward Newgate, Absolute Justice will become the only justice. As for the whistleblower… for once, Garp's eccentric whim works in our favor. With him proudly accepting the blame, we can issue Jeremiah Cross the highest starting bounty in history. If we're lucky, some random ignoramus with more bullets than brains will make our lives all the easier for base recompense."
"You will forgive me if I find our recent track record in matters of chance to be… less than encouraging…" the blond grumbled despondently.
~Present~
"Remind me, which of us were speaking about fortune so long ago?" the blond Elder Star scoffed as he grimly watched corsairs trade blows with individuals who rated only slightly higher than the black-flags they were fighting.
"Not. Relevant at the moment," the mustachioed Star ground out impatiently.
"Indeed," the sword-bearer nodded sagely, his eyes closed and expression pinched in intense thought. "The question of the hour is how we intend to handle this situation. As it stands, the Straw Hats have a non-negligible chance of passing the blockade. We always knew this maneuver would be a stop-gap measure and that they would pass eventually, but we never predicted they would manage it on the first clash. So… the question stands: should we leave Komei's orders unchanged…"
The gi-clad man cracked an eye open and regarded the image of the Thousand Sunny and all upon it with the intensity of a Sea King considering its prey.
"Or should we cut our losses here and now, and order Komei to give Straw Hats an opening?"
A contemplative silence stretched out between the five for interminable minutes… until ultimately, three of them shook their heads in denial.
"The time is not right," the tallest stated firmly. "Our resources have recovered, and recent events have served to enhance our capabilities, but not to the extent that we need to be truly ready for the war. To attempt our stratagem now would be folly."
"And their reputation aside, this blockade was specifically designed to be capable of facing down the likes of the Supernovas," the mustache-wearer groused. "It would smack of suspicion, not to mention incompetence, if the Straw Hats came through."
"And there is also the matter that they would most likely assist 'Black Bart' Bartolomeo's crew to consider," the cane-wielder mused in an almost idle fashion. "As well as how we can only surmise what alliances have been formed between them in the meantime; open a crack, and they would not stop before they'd made it a chasm."
A silence fell.
"…And finally," the youngest started slowly, uncertain of the idea he was about to air. "I'm assuming it's because it's doubtful the blockade could actually stop them if we gave them express orders to?"
The still air of the chamber was shattered by the sound of a single splinter cracking out of an ancient cane. "We," the cane's owner ground out, livid fury tinging his every word. "Are not. Determining the Straw Hats' actions. To be a fait-accompli."
None of the other Elder Stars commented on their comrade's breach of decorum.
Nor on the tinge of uncertainty that had entered his words.
-o-
"AAAAND THEY'RE OFF!" Itomimizu declared as Chuchun banked after the fleet, flapping and banking furiously to try and compensate for the Knock-Up Stream's updraft. Putting up a pair of binoculars, he scanned over the ships. "All ships that didn't sink and managed to surf off the tsunami are off to a fantastic start, but currently, early lead goes to the Barto Club's Cannibal!"
"Heheh, yeah, well, temporarily having three times the sail-to-ship ratio of anyone else will do that," I quipped, eyeing the shimmering barrier Barto had erected on the bow of the Cannibal. It was effective, true, but if the way he was laughing while the rest of his crew scrambled to hang on for dear life and maneuver them properly, he'd be dropping it soon.
"But right on their heels is the Straw Hats' Thousand Sunny!" Itomimizu continued. "And a ways back but gaining is the Kid Pirates' Iron Tramp, belching all kinds of smoke! Looks like the paddle ships are proving themselves as the design of tomorrow!"
"Yeah, but they'll only chug AS FAR AS THEY'VE GOT FUEL AND WORKING PARTS! Good for a burst, NOT SO MUCH FOR LAYING DOWN PURE HURT. CHECK IT," Soundbite gestured his eyestalks downward, where the Tramp and Sunny were indeed stowing their paddles and decelerating. "They've got the leads they wanted, but now they're drawing it out for the long game. STILL NECK-AND-NECK FOR SECOND, BUT EVERYONE ELSE IS STILL IN IT TOO."
"As for everyone else…" Ito nudged Chuchun to swing about and start sweeping over the rest of the fleet as he squinted to get a better look at flags. "Well, looks like most of the frontrunners are made of the Supernovas, as well as a few others such as my very own Silver and Brass Foxes—"
"The former thankfully rechristened from the cringe-inducing name of 'Sexy Foxy,' though I dearly hope you didn't reverse the titles," I cut in, cringing at the name.
"I will have you know that I am now known the world over as Fiendish Foxy!" Foxy smugly cut in. "I may have lost to your monster of a captain, but I still pushed him to the brink! And there's not a thing you can say to me that will belittle—!"
I gave Soundbite a flat look as I chopped my hand across my throat in a request for a moment's peace. "You only got that name by begging the Divine, didn't you?"
I took way too much pleasure in the way Soundbite's facade crumbled. "It was going to be either that or Split-Head Foxy…" he whimpered in utter misery. Said whimpering is what met the viewers' ears as I unpaused the broadcast.
"Sorry for the cut there, everyone; what I said to bring him down was a little too caustic for a public broadcast," I gloated, smirking smugly.
"…as I was saying," Itomimizu continued, his teeth grinding together in a forced grin. "My crew's ships are part of a nice clump about a kilometer behind the Iron Tramp. Another two kilometers behind them is the main mass of pirates, jockeying for position!"
"And behind those scrubs are the wrecks," I cut in, grinning as I buffed my nails on my chest. "Pro tip of the day: combat power is nice and all, but seamanship is just as important! And keep those anchor cables maintained!"
"Right you are, Cross," Ito concurred, nodding sagely. "I'd say we've got about nine pirate crews permanently out of the race and pretty busy trying not to sink on top of the poor bastards caught in the whirlpool."
My grin widened a bit more; honestly, I'd expected more dismastings and collisions right at the start. I wasn't kidding when I referred to the tail-end Charlies as 'scrubs'; only a few had bounties above even thirty million. I guess Nami's briefing only got through most of the skulls present. Pity.
Still, I'd gotten a nice thrill of schadenfreude with what we did get, and as it stood, we still had more than enough warm bodies to ram into the blockade.
Meanwhile, Itomimizu was still going. "And with the race settled down for now, I'd like to invite my gracious co-host to explain our little starting booster!"
"Gladly," I replied, sweeping my arm out in a grandiose gesture. "Well, as my good viewers may have guessed, there are perks to knowing a weather witch and a wind Logia. It took a bit of practice, but they were able to combine their powers and whip up one hell of a wind. How are you holding up, ladi—ERGH!?" My commentary was cut off by an invisible force blindsiding Chuchun into a tailspin. "Hey, what was that for!?"
"To get a word in edgewise here," uttered Vivi. "Until you've experienced getting your arms wrenched out by the entire universe, go suck on a duck egg, Cross. I already have a migraine from this, and you're not making it any better!"
"Got you covered, Vivi," Chopper piped up. "Thanks for this, by the way. You're really helping my research."
"Yeah, no pro—wait, what do you mean reasea—?!"
"Vivi and Chopper everyone, doesn't my crew just say the darndest things?!" I chuckled as I hastily chopped my hand across my throat to cut the connection. Though I don't think we managed to cut the pink-laced mini-twister that blasted up from the Sunny's deck in time. "Aaaanyway, while Vivi and Nami are maintaining our momentum, we've got our friends in the Great Kung-Fu Fleet to thank for the initial starting turbo-booster! Everyone, give those loveable dugongs a hearty round of applause!"
"Belay that applause, Cross!" my co-commentator waved me down, suddenly intent on the horizon. "We've just run into our first obstacle!"
I followed his gaze and frowned, as indeed we had.
-o-
Crocus grimaced at the sight of the lone three-masted ship utterly dwarfed by the pirate fleet facing it. Behind him, Laboon let out a pained warble. Said ship wasn't turning and running; instead, it was charging in, bowchasers booming.
Closing his eyes, Crocus clasped his hands together. "Lord of the seas, forgive them," he huffed wearily, saying it more for the sake of saying it than anything else. "For they know not what they do."
"Yeah, that's a privateer, alright," Itomimizu noted with barely-concealed venom. "Looks like it's going for the Supernova cluster, which I really don't get. This isn't normal privateer behavior. Every true-blood buccaneer hates their guts, but half of that is because the bastards have the survival instinct of a shark. They wouldn't be charging the strongest of a generation, they'd be going for the weakest parts of the pack instead."
"Well, from what I've heard, the Marines have decided to provide some… incentive for them to press the attack," Cross tsked, kneading one of his temples in irritation.
"Guns to their heads?"
"At the bare minimum."
"Hang on, THEY'RE ALMOST in gun range."
Indeed, as Crocus watched, the splashes from the privateer's bow chasers were now landing among the nearest edge of the Supernova cluster. The fire was also finally provoking a response: one ship, sporting castle crenulations, a castle Jolly Roger, and some of the biggest cannons Crocus had ever seen, was tacking from near the center of the ragged formation right to the edges.
More gunfire bloomed from the privateer—and this time one shot rang true, a cannonball smacking right onto the nose of the ship.
An impact that did absolutely nothing as the cannonball literally bounced off the stone-clad prow.
"…OK, I've seen fortified ships before, but I wouldn't expect that kind of no-sell unless it was thanks to Black Bart's barriers!" Itomimizu exclaimed.
"Well, it only makes sense that someone like Bege would know fortifications! A fact that goes both ways, as we're about to see!"
And indeed, the pirate ship's two bow chasers did a hell of a lot more than 'nothing' in return as they blasted out a simultaneous barrage. One cannonball missed, 'merely' tearing a large hole through the privateers' sails, but the other smacked into its opponent's bow and kept going in a stream of burst seams and flying plankage. The destruction ended about three-quarters down the length of the poor ship, leaving it wallowing in the sea, at which point the pirate ship turned to present its broadside and opened up. Four more cannonballs burst from their barrels, and of them two hit; one dismasting the ship and the other caving in the keel right where it ran up the bow.
The last broadside was just plain overkill; the hapless ship sagged in a great many important places, and a large chunk of the deck was suddenly blurred into obscurity.
"The heck…?" Crocus wondered.
"Aaaand first blood goes to the Firetank Pirates' Nostra Castello!" the Foxy's announcer pronounced. "I don't think those privateers are going to be trying anything anytime soon. I almost feel sorry for them. And yes, folks, that blurring is on Cross' order; trust me, I can see what's behind it and it is not for sensitive stomachs!"
"Yeah, well, no matter the gore or… let's go with 'thoroughness' involved, it looks like that's a pyrrhic victory for the Firetanks," Cross noted sagely. "They got the kill, but now they've fallen a bit behind the pack."
Indeed, despite some furious tacking and maneuvering, the Nostra Castello was visibly a few hundred meters behind the rest of the Supernovas when it returned to the current.
Crocus grinned and nodded with pride. "Yes, this is how a Dead End Race should be, more decisions like this. This is strategy." His grin twitched irritably as a memory niggled at the back of his skull. "Unlike a certain cannonball-happy cabin-boy's ideas I could name."
"Bwoooh…" Laboon warbled, sinking away from the evil aura his caretaker was giving off.
"Actually, Cross, chances are that this was a calculated move," Itomimizu shrewdly noted. "Since that was just a scout for the blockade and it had plenty of time to transmit its location, that means that the Firetank Pirates will have everyone else between them and the front line when the fighting starts. Risky long-term, but smart. We have some time, but get ready, viewers. Things are gonna pick…up…soon? What the—uh, Cross? What is that?"
Crocus blinked clean out of his bad mood as Gif's view swung around to display—"A bird?"
-o-
"Is that a crane or something?" Perona wondered.
"Yeah, yeah, I think that's a crane!" Xiao nodded, full of eager energy. "I remember seeing a bunch of them in a swampier bit of the Summer Zone! They were really really tall, with legs like tree trunks and their eyes were really glowy and when they saw something they'd zero in on it and then their necks and beaks were super-fast and strong and they managed to break through the shell of a turtle-gator in one hit and-it-was-so-scary—EEP!" The tyke's babbling sputtered out into a panicked gasp as she suddenly swayed on her feet, on the verge of passing out.
"Sooo… new crane mutation in the swamps, got it," Perona chuckled as she patted the child's head. "Granny, could you—?"
"Already recording it," Granny assured her, jotting the observation down in a logbook. "We've also got a particularly coordinated pack of cow-sized gophers in the eastern prairies of the Spring Zone, and something's been leaving carcasses riddled with iron needles in the more ruin-covered sections of the Fall Zone."
"Uuuuugh," Perona lamented, sagging into her overstuffed throne as she swept her arm over her eyes. "So much woooork… I thought it was Shiki making the local ecology go nuts! Shouldn't the evolution be calming down without his dosers around anymore?"
"Oh, it has!" Granny noted with a sunny grin. "Now we've only got half a dozen species popping up a week instead of a two dozen! But if you'd rather leave them all to go on a rampage instead and have us go on strike—?"
"I'll tame them, I'll tame them!" Perona yelped, waving her arms in panic. "J-Just let me spend a few more minutes relaxing watching the SBS, alright?!"
"Whatever you say, dear," the old woman simpered with an ill-hidden grin.
"Ooookay, someone wanna explain why two of my cousins ARE BEING TOTED AROUND BY A CRANE OF ALL THINGS at twelve o'clock?" Soundbite sourly queried.
The proof of Soundbite's words was now close enough to confirm: a snow-white crane with a harness akin to the one Shiki had equipped to his eagles, two snails within, was flying directly towards them. It perched gracefully on Chuchun's head, avian and gastropod eyes alike alighting on the Voices of Anarchy.
"Jeremiah Cross and Soundbite," an aged and sophisticated voice drawled from the snail next to the gastropod. "Your reputations precede you."
Cross blinked in surprise, and then his expression sharpened. "Vice Admiral Komei," the pirate returned in a respectful tone. "Yours as well. Although, I must say that I'm surprised you'd meet with us in so civil a manner. You do realize your superiors will have your head for not lambasting us before a global audience, right?"
The Marine-channeling snail eyes shifted in such a manner as to indicate the dismissive waving of a hand. "As it so happens, I'm at a point in my career where they, quite frankly, can't make me give a damn. I will show respect where it is due, and I refuse to let my superiors dictate what that might be."
A stunned silence stretched out for a minute, before a pair of dangerous grins spread across the Voices' faces. "Oh, I am definitely going to enjoy matching wits with you, Vice Admiral sir."
Perona's eyebrows shot up nervously. "This… just got dangerous, on so many levels."
"Sounds fun!" Xiao chirped.
"Depends on your definition of 'fun'…"
-o-
"Well, only if you're comfortable with that risk," the Marine responded, his tone and expression perfectly neutral. "After all, our orders are to prevent passage. We may be disinclined to attack if you move far enough out of cannon range. After all, your odds of success are, shall we say… less than positive? We outnumber you all by quite a bit, and any attempt to run this blockade will have casualties. Quite frankly, running back to whatever hole you might have come from would be preferable to being sunk or imprisoned, no?"
That message sunk in, clearly directed towards every member of the invasion force that it carried to if the way Gif turned around to behold the fleet again was any indication. After several seconds, some of the fleet began to break off from the main group.
"Of course," I cut in frigidly. "That also comes with the caveat that if this breakthrough attempt fails because of too many deserters, whoever survives the defeat is going to hunt them down and murder them in their beds."
At that, most of the ships resumed their heading with almost indecent speed. There were still a handful that branched off, allowed by both sides to depart from the group. Unspoken was that they were the ones too foolish or too cowardly to be of any help anyway.
"Using fear as a tool, Cross? I thought you to be a more sophisticated orator than that," Komei sniffed imperiously.
"First off, glass houses and stones, you weasel," I retorted, rolling my eyes. "Second, and more importantly, it's not exactly like I'm threatening saints here either. Lotta the crowd here's the scum of the seas that not even we acknowledge, and they all know it." Cross paused, glaring balefully at the fleeing pirates. "Or at least, they should know that by now. But hey! If they take offense to that… they can say it to our faces."
That refocused the majority of the yet-hesitant pirates in the pack, and anyone who'd abandoned their posts swiftly got back to work.
Komei let out a sigh that smacked of resignation before donning a more sincere grin. "Applying intimidation in an appropriate manner for proper benefit. Alright, Cross, I will admit: I am impressed. And I hope that you'll continue to show me the skills that have earned you the place of the Straw Hats' world-famous tactician. It will be the first true challenge I've enjoyed in a long while." A feral smirk came onto his pseudo-face. "A challenge I foresee myself overcoming."
I returned his smirk with a grin of my own. "Don't count your Sea Kings just yet, Vice Admiral. Plenty of people have tried to bring us down, and thus far none have succeeded."
"Why, what a coincidence!" Komei exclaimed in an overly grandiose tone. "The same could be said of my own track record when dealing with pirates. So in the end, I suppose there's really only one question left, isn't there?"
"Indeed there is…"
I leaned in to shove my smirk right in the snail's face, and we spoke as one.
"Whose prowess shall prove superior?"
The standoff lasted for about ten seconds before I leaned back with a cheeky grin. "Ten beri says you're gonna lose."
"I'll raise that to life in Impel Down, but best of luck nevertheless, Cross," Komei chuckled casually. "After all, I'd hate to only trounce you once."
And before I could say anything more to that, the crane spread its wings and took off, swooping away and soaring high to circle above us.
"…damn, he got the last word on you," Soundbite whistled in awe. "THAT NEVER HAPPENS."
"Well… may as well let him have that victory, at least," I smirked. "But it'll be his last."
"N-n-not without a fight, anyways…"
"Eh?" I blinked and looked over at Itomimizu in surprise, the pencil-neck quite literally shivering in his seat. "What makes you say that?"
All my co-commentator could muster up was to raise his wobbly finger and gesture at the horizon.
I followed the direction he indicated… and sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth.
"Oh. Right," I bit out tersely. "That… could be a problem."
-o-
The camera panned ahead of the great pirate armada to share in the commentators' vision, and displayed a horizon that had turned black and white with ships. Iceburg and Lulu's eyes widened.
Paulie and Zambai's reactions were… decidedly more operatic.
"HOLY SEA KING BARNACLES, THAT'S A LOT OF SHIPS!" the ex-bounty hunter belted out.
"But what kind?" Iceburg wondered out loud.
Thankfully, the camera view cooperated with his thoughts, zooming in on the approaching armada. From the slowness of said zoom and the continued good picture quality, this was accomplished by Cross and Itomimizu's bird-mount winging closer.
"… How many ships is that?" the latter weakly asked.
"Let's go with a metric shitton and call it a day," Cross replied in an equally wary tone.
"Wasn't this supposed to be a weak spot on the blockade!?"
"Yeah, well… credit to Kid: he's a raging jackass, but he is a Supernova for a damn good reason."
The gathered shipwrights listened with only half an ear; most were busy taking in the various ships gathered. While overall a decidedly heterogeneous mass, some patterns could be discerned.
"Lotta Aberdeen clippers," Paulie noted, intently gnawing on his cigar. "Rest seem to be a mish-mash from every damn shipyard on the planet. Tyne, Boustead, Severnaya, Split—"
"And Water 7," Iceburg noted with an exasperated huff.
Lulu squinted at the screen. "Hmm, now that the Mayor points it out, I'd say he's right. That's the Arniston there, I designed half of the metalwork on that tub myself."
"So, typical privateer ships. They've always preferred whatever merchant ships they happened to have and could stick cannons on," Paulie scoffed, waving his hand. "I don't see what the problem is. Even with how many of these guys there are, these are the Supernovas we're talking about here. They'll go through single-deckers like these like a woodchipper."
"Okay, Itomimizu, you're more familiar with privateers than me, how bad is this?" Cross inquired.
"Preeeetty bad," the wide-mouth grimaced nervously. "For starters, privateers carry oversized crews, so boarders are going to be a problem. And more importantly… where the hell are the vereens?"
"… I'm sorry, vereens?"
"Uh, Vereenigde convoy ships. Those are nasty suckers, and privateers love buying them second-hand," the commentator rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "They're not Marine battleships, but they're the closest you're going to find outside of the Navy and the larger national fleets. Something like this, the Marines would shanghai them in a heartbeat."
Paulie flinched back under the weight of the stares on him. "Okay, so I forgot about those guys! Sue me, I don't see any of them on screen!"
"And I take it that not knowing where those things are is a bad thing?"
"You have to ask? But hold that thought. We're about to get a clash!"
And indeed, the screen swung about to display the Cannibal racing into view from the bottom of the screen, Barto's barrier visible as a shimmering middle finger. In response, the line of privateers turned broadside and opened fire. Water spouted around the Cannibal, but any hits simply bounced off a barrier. And shots further afield at the Thousand Sunny and Iron Tramp were equally ineffective; any cannonballs against them were simply hurled back at their senders, where they did hit home.
Still, while all that was relatively straightforward, one question remained in the viewers' minds.
"What the heck is the plan here?" Zambai demanded. "The pirates are just gonna crash right through at this point!"
-o-
"Okay, I gotta ask: what is the guys' plan here?" Itomimizu wondered. "None of the Supernovas are firing! Not the Barto Club, not the Kid Pirates, and not even the Straw Hats. Are they going for a melee?"
I slowly turned a thoroughly flat expression on Itomimizu. "Remind me, I have put out how many SBS broadcasts on my crew by now?" I pointed out.
"…Fair point."
Still, I did get where Itomimizu was coming from. The Thousand Sunny, for all his virtues, did not have a big cannon battery, only ten on either side. There was… that, but we were saving that for a bigger target than these guys. The Cannibal and Iron Tramp, on the other hand, had batteries closer to the expected forty that you'd see on ships of that size, so they had fewer excuses. Still, as Capone had so helpfully demonstrated, turning broadside to get in a gunnery duel was an invitation to let everyone pass you; a head-on assault was the best idea.
But still, that didn't explain why they weren't using their bowchasers… unless…
I adopted a deadpan expression as I snapped my fingers and pointed at the Sunny. "Robin, you wouldn't have happened to overhear Luffy and a few of the other Supernovas getting into an argument over something or other before the race started, would you? Something about, oh, I don't know, body counts and bounties?"
"How ever did you guess, Cross?"
I kneaded the bridge of my nose as I waved the connection away. "Aaaand of course they're intentionally getting into a brawl. Because why would we expect sane behavior during a life-or-death bloodsport race, huh?"
"A failure to employ pattern recognition?"
"You realize I could just punt you off this damn bird to your screaming doom, right?"
"UUUUH…" Soundbite's eyes shot back and forth in a momentary panic before snapping to Ito. "SO, latest updates, FRIENDO?"
"Hey, I'm not done, you little—"!
"The Cannibal is still in the lead, the Thousand Sunny and Iron Tramp right behind her!" Itomimizu declared, bodily shoving his way in front of me and into Gif's eyeline. "The privateers are still firing and laying down a hail of lead that would be deadly for anyone else, but they're not stopping! Instead, the Supernovas are going for a melee, and damn the cannons!"
I gave Ito a sidelong glare for a second before leaning forwards eagerly. "Aaaaand… Impact!"
CRUNCH!
With an almighty cacophony that we could hear from our perch without Soundbite's help, the Cannibal—Barto's barrier reshaped into a pointed ram at the last second—smashed into a privateer ship, messily splitting it into two ragged halves. Credit where it was due, the privateers tried to leap onto the Cannibal as it passed, but the higher sides meant the attempts were doomed from the start. And throughout the carnage, Barto displayed his 'respect' for the privateers' efforts by planting his foot on the Cannibal's figurehead and throwing his head back and cackling like an absolute lunatic.
The Sunny joined the scrum bare seconds later, his bow-mounted axe dials doing an even better job splitting his ramming target like so much plywood. The privateers had no more luck boarding him, either. The Iron Tramp, on the other hand, was working solely with raw momentum. It smashed up the ship it crashed into, no problem, but the wreckage immediately got tangled up with the steamer and privateers immediately began swarming the ship.
Their reward for such enthusiasm was to face Killer in open combat. Poor bastards. Idly, I waved for Gif to censor that, too. Eurgh, just looking at the results was making me nauseous.
"And it looks like the Iron Tramp is stuck!" Itomimizu forged on, getting a closer look at the carnage with a spyglass. "Not that it's helping the privateers; what Killer's doing to them is illegal to show in 153 of the original 174 member nations of the World Government!"
SQUELCH! "MY SPLEEEEN!"
"Correction, make that 162!"
"Yeah, well, sucks to be them," I gagged, waving my hand uncomfortably. "Now, let's check on… the…" I stared at the hole the Sunny and Cannibal had busted open. Right in front of them was another line of ships, and the privateers in the line they'd just broken through were turning to close in on them from the flanks. "Well, Sea King balls. They got here fast."
Cannon fire erupted behind us, and with a thought, Chuchun whirled around. There, we saw two more fleets, smaller than the ones blocking us but with bigger ships, advancing on the Supernova cluster.
"I take it those are the vereens you mentioned?" I demanded, my mind racing. Where the hell had they come from!?
"Yuuup," Itomimizu replied, popping the P. "And can I just say that this is all bizarrely coordinated for a bunch of privateer scum?"
"Word to the wise from an adrenaline junkie, brother: Don't mess with Vice Admirals on any level, physical or otherwise," I groused as I crossed my arms. "They will find ways to fuck you up."
-o-
"Why, I do believe I might have left something of an impression on the poor boy," Jonathan mused, tapping a white queen against his knee.
"I can't begin to imagine what would give you that idea, sir," Drake responded through grit teeth.
"Hem-hem?"
Said gritting intensified at the feminine cough behind him, and he held up the tray in his arms with a terse jerk. "Also, would you care for some more tea, Captain Ain?" he ground out in a voice that promised murder.
"That would be lovely, Lieutenant-Commander, thank you," Ain simpered politely, profering her teacup to him.
Drake reached for the teapot, and completely by accident, knocked it against the table, cracking it.
"Oh, look. It's broken. So easy and fragile to do that to some things. Like some people's necks," the grim-faced Marine growled as he marched out the door. "Pardon me while I go and get more." And with that, he slammed the door shut behind him—
CRACK!
—with… excessive force.
"You'll need to get a new door, too!"
"GRARGH!"
Vice Admiral Jonathan turned his focus away from the screen by a few degrees so that he could address the smug Captain. "Just for the record, you do realize you're pushing my second-in-command ever closer to a mental breakdown with your treatment of him, yes?"
"Oh, of course I do, yes. But it's just too much fun to stop," Ain responded with a smirk. "You yourself should know that, Vice Admiral."
"Hmm… fair enough," Jonathan shrugged casually. "Just know that I'd advise you to change your fake cough a bit, please? It sounds like you have a fat toad stuck in your throat."
The captain's hand shot to her neck with an "Eep!" and a blush. "S-so noted sir," she coughed, for real this time.
Jonathan chuckled before turning his full attention back to the race, as well as the strategies being employed by his fellow—if he was being generous—masterminds.
The scene on the screen was undoubtedly a fine strategy on Komei's part: Tangle up the fastest ships—which, naturally, would bear the strongest pirates—and then slam them in the flanks with the largest privateer ships around. And knowing both Komei and what he himself would do, Jonathan was certain that this wasn't even close to the only gambit Komei had planned.
Just as he knew that there was no chance that Cross's own tried and true strategy of applying overwhelming amounts of force with pinpoint accuracy would be so easily overcome.
Honestly, he was torn between wanting his comrade-in-arms' war plan to succeed and wanting to see how his other comrades and their fellow pirates would get out of it.
"But where did they come from?" Itomimizu's demand snapped attention back to the screen's spectacle, where the commentators were watching the approaching rear line with dread. "They couldn't have approached us this fast without someone noticing! Soundbite?"
"Nobody expects attacks from above…" The snail's already present scowl deepened. "But in this case, THERE'S ANOTHER BLIND SIDE. I DON'T KNOW HOW, but they came up from underwater!"
"Tch, of course!"/"Coating, how could we have been so blind!"
Soundbite did a double-take and divided his eyestalks, somehow managing to look very indignant with one eye apiece. "EXCUSE ME!? YOU TWO KNEW ABOUT THIS!?"
"The Captain is not unfamiliar with Sabaody Archipelago, so yes…" Itomimizu groaned, rubbing one temple.
"But for the rest of the world who is, quick notes version: by coating a ship with a special soaplike residue found only in Sabaody, it is entirely possible for any manner of ship to become capable of traveling underwater," Cross lectured, intensely gnawing on his armored thumb. "It's for that entire practice that we pirates have no choice but to sail for Sabaody in the first place! Rrgh, but because we focused so intensely on the blockade line itself, we never considered how they'd exploit what lay behind it, damn it!"
"But we had submarine forces scouting out the blockade all over the past week, how could they have missed so many ships!?" Ito questioned incredulously.
"Because Komei's a genius and if there's one section of sea you survey to hell and back, it's the sections immediately surrounding your organization's Global HQ. He must have hidden ships in every aquatic nook and cranny he could find!" Cross snapped his head to the side with a sharp tsk. "I'd call it brilliant if it weren't in the process of biting us in the ass!"
"Yeeeah, if you say so… ah, but more importantly!" Ito snapped his hand out over the ongoing fighting. "We've got action up and down the line here! The privateers are closing in, and the Supernovas are slowing and bringing out their own cannons!"
Onscreen, the blob of the rest of the Supernova ships, joined by the Silver and Brass Foxies pulling up the rear, let loose with a furious cannonade that quickly blanketed the battlefield in smoke. Remarkably, the privateer ships remained silent, grimly pressing on.
Well. It might have been grim, if it weren't for one teensy, tiny, insignificant little detail.
"Aaaand… everyone but the Firetanks and Drake Pirates are sucking Sea King balls. C'mon, captain, I thought our gunnery crews were better than this! This is an embarrassment to the Foxy Pirates!"
"Heh, chalk one up for actually aiming! You go. Conis, line 'em up and knock 'em down proper when you get the chance!"
"If any gunners under my command got results this bad, I'd bust them down to seaman recruit, then let them work their ways back up to their old ranks just to bust 'em down again," Ain groused, running a hand down her face. "This is just painful to watch."
"You're a very kind person, Ain," Drake drawled as he walked back in, a renewed tea set held in his close-to-too-tight grip. "I'd just demote them and then assign them to potato peeling and shit cleaning between drills."
"Well, then I'd—"
"While I'd love to hear you two get into another argument over who's the bigger hardass," Jonathan cut in with an exaggerated put-upon sigh. "Why don't you take this chance to try and impress me by looking at the vereens and tell me what you see."
The two officers squinted at the privateers, in between broadsides.
"But, ah, still, for the record, I get where you're coming from. I mean, I live with 'Sniper King' Usopp, this pains me on a physical level. I can almost hear him cussing out all these incompetents for how badly they're doing. And no, that's not a request, Soundbite."
"DAMN, AND HE'S GETTING creative too."
Finally, the straddles the Drakes and Firetanks were achieving became hits, two vereens flying to pieces in a matter of seconds. And that finally jarred something loose from the junior officers' brains.
"Huh, did they offload the cannons on the lower gun deck?" Ain noted. "Why would they do that?"
"More speed and more men for boarding, probably," Drake answered, before wincing as another ship disintegrated.
"Still, three of these 'vereens' are so much matchwood, but they're still closing. I'm almost impressed, except for the fact they're planning to go to melee."
"Which doesn't make any sense!" Drake continued, louder. "Gunnery is their advantage, with how badly the pirates are shooting! Why close to melee range with this many high-bounty pirates?!"
"… Yeah, I got nothing," Ain admitted, however much it sounded like it hurt her to do so.
"Hold that thought, Cross, let's check in on the lead—OH NEPTUNE'S HAIRY BALLSACK!"
Further tirades were halted in favor of the camera-screen snapping away, forcibly swapping back to the fight at the head of the race. Ain and Drake's eyes widened: each of the three pirate ships now had two privateers crammed up against their sides, men swarming up the sides heedless of the havoc the pirates were wreaking on them.
Then again, the lightning bolts, sprays of metal, and ship-splitting barriers that frequently lashed out to smite ships to the rear were probably excellent incentive to vacate those general areas.
And, naturally, the two ships grappling the Iron Tramp were completely censored out. But there had been a brief glimpse as the camera view changed, and all the Marines present were thoroughly grateful for the censoring.
"Oh, so that's how you match the Straw Hats through sheer brutality…" Drake groaned, covering his mouth.
"You should try experiencing them up close and personal, the smell really pulls it all together," Ain deadpanned.
"That is sick and wrong and I really should not be surprised Kid did it. Please hold for withholding vomit…"
Silence for a moment. Then…
"Hookay, that's better… Anyway, the leaders are completely tangled up. Everyone's got a privateer ship or two grappled to them and the privateers are going deck to deck just to get at them! And man are they getting creamed for it!"
"Wait, they're just gonna leave it at that?!" Ain demanded.
"You mean you want to see more of Kid's carnage?!" the Lieutenant-Commander boggled at her.
"More like I want to see more of the Straw Hats fighting so that we can better model strategies focused on capturing them. I believe that that's a goal that we, as fellow Marines, can agree upon, yes?"
"…let me get back to you on that."
"Which seriously begs the question of just what the hell is the gun the Marines are holding and where can I get it?" Cross forged on, sounding increasingly befuddled at the ongoing brawl. "Because these guys are getting massacred!"
"…What is the leverage we have, by the way?" Drake wondered.
Jonathan just smirked for two seconds, at which point the smirk fell and he squinted at the Thousand Sunny. "Wait, what on earth—?"
"Hey, what the heck are those two doing?!" they heard Cross yelp.
The picture zoomed in, Ain and Drake eagerly leaning forward.
-o-
"I mean, it looks like they're jumping onto one of the privateers grappling the Sunny?" Itomimizu stated questioningly, tilting his head as he watched a pair of dots leap off the, well, sunny ship.
"I can see that!" I snapped. "I'm wondering why!"
-o-
Two minutes ago:
"Coup de… Vent!"
Compressed air blasted out of Franky's inflated forearms, flinging an entire line of privateers clean off the Sunny's sides. Naturally, more climbed up and naturally, Franky tried to charge up again so that he could blast them too, only to run into an increasingly familiar issue.
"This SUPER! Never ends!" Franky groused as his hair flopped in front of his face. "Oi! I need a cola recharge! And more cola storage, note to self, bug the little furry dude about helping me with that later… " he added under his breath.
Arms sprouted from the sides of the ship and started snapping bones, letting Franky step back and grab the bottles of cola that Merry tossed into his hands. As he installed them in his stomach fridge, he took the opportunity to size up the situation.
In short: it was hell. The air stank of gunpowder and piss and fear. Groaning bodies littered the Sunny's decks, and the ships grappling them were charnel houses. And despite that, these assholes just. Kept. Coming! Seriously, it was almost as bad as Enies Lobby had been. The melee fighters even had to rotate in and out of rail-defense duty to keep up their stamina, while Conis, Lassoo, and Usopp kept up suppressing fire and Nami soared over the ships on Billy, raining the wrath of God on the other privateer ships jockeying for position.
KRAK-THOOM!
In fact, there was one tree-sized lightning bolt frying another ship now.
"Oi, Merry!" Franky shouted up to the wheel. "You SUPER! Sure we can't just change directions and shake these guys off?"
"Answer hasn't changed since the last two times you asked it!" the ship-girl shouted back. "We lose distance and risk losing the current if we try tha—there they are!"
Every gear and joint in Franky's body ground to a halt, and he slowly flipped up his sunglasses to sideglare at her. "Are. You. Sure," he bit out.
"Unless Kid lied to us or was really badly mistaken or their ships are lying beneath them, then aye! Those be the bastards!" Merry punctuated her statement both through a snarl and by ramming half a dozen levers in place with a single swing of her arm. "Somebody man the helm, we be engaging in some boarding action against these bilge-suckers!"
"I'm on it!" Chopper shouted, clambering up onto the poop deck and slipping into Merry's place in front of the wheel. "Just don't give me any extra work, I'm already working on three different lists for Boss alone!"
"Say what?!" The named dugong paused in his repeated punching of a privateer he had trapped under his arm to give the human-reindeer an incredulous look. "Why the hell are you—?!"
"YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID!"
"Ah… aheh, as you say…"
"Don't worry, we're not the ones who'll need a doctor after this!" Franky shouted back, before joining Merry in jumping off the Sunny and onto the neighboring ship.
-o-
"They… could be trying to cut down on the flow of reinforcements," Itomimizu slowly suggested. "They're certainly doing a good job of it."
"Yeeeah…" I muttered as Merry busted out her rotary cannon and hosed down a good chunk of the deck of the ship she was on. "But knowing my crew, there's no way it's something so simple or logical as that."
-o-
Merry quickly stowed her new and newly beloved weapon after she ran through the first ammo belt. It was amazing firing it, as expected, but two things stayed her hand. First, Nami, naturally. She had a few choice comments about that she wanted to vocalize, but she withheld them for fear of a certain mollusk screwing her over.
Second, and more importantly, while she and Franky wanted the deck clear, they also wanted the reinforcements to keep coming, so that their targets would actually chance getting within hand-to-hand range rather than cower behind cover. And, thankfully, they were actually climbing up onto the ship right now.
Her eyes narrowed as she glared at the pair of dingy bastards charging them. Charybdis help her, they even looked like the types to abuse their ships. One sallow and gaunt, with a hooked nose and an overall cruel demeanor, and the other big and beefy, with a ridiculous mustache and flowing blonde hair and a generous layer of fat over his admittedly impressive muscles. And both dressed in some of the most impractically fancy Navy-adjacent outfits she'd ever seen. So, frankly, either way, they'd be doing the world a significant favor.
"That them?" Franky asked, striding up next to her.
"Let's confirm," she growled, cupping her hands around her mouth. "OI! Were you two the jackasses who attacked Kid?"
"Who are you calling jackasses, jackasses?!" Mustache roared, charging at them with his fists cocked. Which, in Merry's mind, was close enough to a confession for her.
"Franky, do me a favor…" She raised her free hand and snapped her fingers with a flat expression. "And wreck these bastards."
"WITH PLEASURE!"
Franky proceeded to do just that with extreme gusto, landing a punishing uppercut on the charging bastard and knocking his ass skyward. Then, exchanging a thoroughly malevolent grin with his smaller comrade, he took Merry in one hand and flung her towards the other Marine. The unorthodox maneuver along with Merry's absurd strength took the poor sap aback, leaving him sprawled on the ground. The next moment found Merry heaving him into the air and jumping after him, even as Franky followed suit with a Strong Hammer uppercut.
-o-
"Okay, now what are they doing?!" I snapped, throwing up my hands.
It was an honest question: I had put together what beef they had against these guys, but honestly, a few good shots would have been enough to put them down for the count. But no, they were determined to put on a show, it seemed; they had both sent their opponents flying into the air, and now they were… were…
"Uhh… Ito?" I dragged out uncertainly. "You want to try taking this, buddy? Because I… I just really lack the words."
"Uh, well, it looks like Franky is flipping his guy upside down, while Merry is wrapping her arm around her opponent's neck and, and… uh…" Itomimizu slowly tilted his head. "IIII'm right there with you, Cross. Not a damn clue."
"Incredible!" said another voice beside me.
I whipped my gaze around to Boss, who was now sitting right next to me. If it hadn't been for the logical side of my mind reminding me that he could Moonwalk, I probably would have joined Ito and Chuchun in their yelp of, "WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK?!"
As is, I did still make my opinion of his unprompted appearance known: "WHAT IS ONE OF OUR CREW'S MONSTER QUARTET DOING THIS FAR AWAY FROM THE BATTLE!?"
"Cross, that isn't important," Boss waved me off way too casually, straightening and pointing down at the fight. "That is what's important! For the first time in a generation… no, two generations, the legendary finishing moves are being performed!"
"Since when in the blue hell are you a wrestling fan!?" I demanded… and then shook my head. "Forget I asked, of course you're a wrestling fan."
In search of a bit more sense, I looked back down to see how the fight below was going: Merry had now flipped the one guy upside-down and released his neck, grabbing his thighs instead and leaving his head resting on her shoulder while she held the rest of his body up. Franky, meanwhile, now had his legs wrapped around his opponent's torso, hands grasping the legs to drive the poor sap into the deck.
"Muscle Buster! Muscle Driver! Only the greatest of men can even attempt such techniques! To see both together—!" He froze, eyes widening. "No… could it be?"
Glancing back at Merry and Franky, I noted that they were still holding their opponents, just in mid-air and streaking towards the deck. Oh, and also lined up perfectly. Nice bit of coordination, there, if it weren't for the intense migraine it was causing me.
"It is!" Boss interrupted, still wide-eyed. "It's the legendary tag-team finishing technique!"
"This is going to hurt, isn't it?" Itomimizu whispered to me.
"It already is…" I growled, massaging my eyes.
"THE MUSCLE DOCKING!"
Down below, we watched Franky piledrive his opponent headfirst into the decking. And simultaneously, Merry landed on his shoulder, driving her opponent's neck straight into her shoulder with a snapping sound that we heard all the way up here. Both of us winced.
…but it really said something about how desensitized I had become that I was able to look away from the grievous injuries to the childishly grinning dugong next to me my full attention. A dugong I was starting to have a sneaking suspicion about.
"…how wasted are you?!"
Boss snickered shakily and held up a sake gourd that was still dripping. "Parting gift from Izo, straight from Wano. Why do you ask?"
I stared at him flatly for a second before holding my palm up to his. "…Sobering Attack: Impact."
I didn't even twitch as I blasted him clean off Chuchun.
"FOUL!" he yelled as he plummeted towards the ocean, only to get plucked out of the air by a passing Nami and Billy.
"Old man, I kindly request that you tell your sons not to share whatever booze you make in the New World with Paradise rookies anymore," I deadpanned, looking Gif straight in the eyes. Sighing and looking back at where Boss had fallen, I added, "And man am I going to catch complete hell for that later…but damn if it wasn't worth it."
CRASH!
I snapped my eyes back down, and the sight that met my eyes was that of a plume of dust rising from an enemy ship below.
…a ship that looked like someone had taken a bat to it so hard it had split in half.
"Monster," I said dismissively.
"How can you say that so casually?!" Itomimizu demanded before freezing as my words processed. "Ah, apologies for the interruption, viewers. Why don't we, ah, switch away from the madness for a bit and check in on the mid-line action?"
-o-
The shot glass shattered against the wall, dangerously close to the screen the assembled executives of Dressrosa were using to watch the broadcast. Panting, Senor Pink stomped out of the room, visibly steaming.
"Make sure he pays for that," Trebol noted, not taking his eyes off the broadcast. With the Young Master and a small team of his choosing taking care of business elsewhere, that left him in charge of Dressrosa.
"Er, what was that all about?" Sugar whispered to Pica next to her. The giant man could only shrug indifferently.
On the screen, the view shifted back to the cluster of Supernova ships, locked in a sprawling melee with the privateers engaging them. The Drakes and Firetanks had positioned themselves in the center, blasting away at the privateers and using their fellow pirates to soak up the boarders.
It was a job they were doing very well.
Bodies streamed off every ship and laid in heaps wherever there was space. Shattered hulks dotted the waters behind them. It was a slaughter, not a fight, and yet the privateers just pressed on.
"Huh. So, Cross, how much do you think this setup was deliberate on anyone's parts?"
"Well, I'm pretty sure Drake and Capone planned their positions. The rest… probably serendipity. Hang on, zoom in on the Silver Foxy."
The camera obliged, showing a charnel house and some very good infantry tactics. The Foxies appeared to have been organized into units, and as the Executives watched, one such unit surged onto the sides, letting another fall back to medics near the masts.
More importantly, the captain seemed to be locked in single combat with a sharp-dressed man everyone present recognized.
"Hey, that's Abel Tasman, the business-stealing rat bastard!" Jora squawked indignantly.
"Nihihihi! Maybe they'll knock him off for us!" Machvise chortled, slapping his stomach with glee.
"Huh, who's that?" Cross wondering, sending everyone present scrambling for a notebook to record another thing Jeremiah Cross didn't actually know.
"Abel Tasman, a freelance merchant admiral who runs the Vereenigde merchant convoys I mentioned a while back," Itomimizu elaborated, the casual tone undercut by an acidic scowl. "And by freelance, I mean 'works privateer when business is short', which is most of the time. The Marines tolerate it because Tasman has pretty much the largest private fleet in the Blues and he's no slouch in a fight himself."
"Well, Foxy's doing pretty well for himself and—whoop, there's Big Pan, flinging him into the air. Does he—No." Cross shook his head as he watched the ill-dressed 'admiral' flail in the air. "No Moonwalk. Glad to know that some things aren't getting picked up by every prick alive."
"A fact that Captain Foxy takes advantage of by nailing him with a Slow-Slow Beam!"
The executives all leaned forward, eyes wide and eager as the business-thief 'flew' through the air in slow motion.
"Big Pan's picking up Foxy and holding him up to Tasman! Foxy's laying down the Nine-Tails Rush from hell into him! And the Slow-Slow Beam has worn off, sending him blasting towards the Jewelry Margherita! Well, I'll be damned, it actually looks like he's going to stick the landing—!"
"Oh, shit, Bonney's right there!"
WHAM!
Experienced pirates all, the Executives did not wince at the fate that befell Tasman. It was a near-run thing, though; even for them, that was gruesome.
"And he slams right into Bonney's head! His back is in an inverted V… aaaaand Bonney hasn't budged! Oh, that's gotta hurt!"
"From the shape his spine is in, I'm not sure he's feeling much of anything!" Cross cackled ecstatically.
It helped that it was a disliked rival getting injured like that.
"That whippersnapper GOT what was coming to him!" Lao G bellowed… probably a bit louder than he intended.
"More than what that opportunistic prick deserved," Baby 5 sniffed petulantly. "Think there's any chance he actually bit it?"
"Looks like a snap between the T6 and T7, meaning…" Diamante analyzed as he squinted at the contorted admiral before scowling irritably. "Damn it, he's still alive!"
A resounding exclamation of "CRAP!" echoed around the room.
"Oh, hey," Cross' decidedly peeved voice interrupted. "Look who finally decided to join the party!"
-o-
"Ah, the rest of the rabble," Komei nodded sagely, casting an idle glance at a nearby clock. "And right on schedule, too. I do so enjoy it when my adversaries are punctual."
"Yes, folks, the stragglers and scrubs in the fleet have finally caught up, and they're laying into the privateers with a vengeance!" Ito explained, out of shot as Gif swung around to display the encroaching fleet. "I can't tell if they hate the privateers, want to one-up the Supernovas, or just really, really want that 8 billion!"
"Probably a combination of all three," Cross reasoned. "The unengaged vereens are using what broadsides they still have, but I don't think they're gonna stop them. At this rate, most of the pirate force is going to bust clean through the blockade. Ugh…"
"…okay, I'll bite, why do you sound disappointed?" Chuchun asked.
"I'm not disappointed!" the tactician swiftly clarified. "If anything, I'm anxious about what fresh hell is about to fall onto us. Because if I have any decent grasp on Komei's thought process—and I really hope I'm not overestimating my own intelligence when I say I do—this is the part where he abandons the current strategy and moves to Phase 2."
A smirk spread across Komei's face. Yes… Jeremiah Cross did know what he was talking about. Reaching over, the Vice Admiral picked up his Transponder Snail and dialed a number.
"Sir?"
"Execute phases two and three. Simultaneously."
An exhale carried over the line. "Oh, good, I would've suggested that myself, sir. There have been some complications, but if we're launching both phases, they're not critical."
Komei cocked a doubtful brow. "I see. Very well, if you think they're not critical, I won't worry."
"We won't disappoint you, Vice Admiral. KA-LICK!"
Komei chuckled as he raised his fan before his mouth. "Your move, Cross."
-o-
Beneath the surface, the Polar Tang's captain observed the battle, dividing his attention between the submarine's own periscope system and the Visual Snail channeling the SBS, eyes scanning for a weak spot with all the observational skills befitting a surgeon. His crew stood by at the ready for any commands… some closer than others.
"So, what's the deal with the captain?" Penguin whispered to his longtime buddy, Shachi. "He's been acting kinda weird ever since we left Skelter Bite."
Shachi nodded. "Yeah. Like, he's been even quieter than usual, hasn't gotten short with Bepo, and hasn't decapitated anyone in a week! Something's definitely up."
"Heck, he's even been humming over the last few days! I think it was that piece that the Straw Hats' snail was blaring for awhile…" Penguin paused, grimacing. "Though, to be fair, that one could be because it's still stuck in his head. Damn little bastard, who cares what color our sub is!?"
"Personally, I think he's thinking about things. And not the usual things. Secret things. Important things."
"Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So, when're ya gonna ask him?"
Penguin's eyes widened, and he leaned in a little closer. "Are ya crazy?! I'm not asking that! You ask if you're so curious!"
"Me, curious?!" Shachi shot back. "No way! You're the one who brought it up! I'd like to avoid having my liver and a kidney swapped again, thank you!"
A brief silence fell as they glared at each other. And after a few seconds of said silence, they noticed that it was indeed silent… because they could no longer hear Law humming. One tentative glance confirmed what they were afraid of: their captain was now standing directly beside them, visibly ticked off and his pet demon (read: his sword) tapping in his palm.
"Well?" he demanded in a voice that brooked no argument.
Gulping audibly, the two pirates shared a nervous glance, until Shachi mustered the courage to speak. "W-We were just wonderin' what was up with you, captain. You just… you've been off on your own lately, thinkin' about things."
"Did… you find a lead on…" Penguin glanced around, and leaned in closer. "Him?"
Law regarded the two for a long, impassive moment, then glanced outside the viewport of the submarine. "Damn," he sighed, slipping. "I was too late. Your yammering's already attracted the battleship."
Both pirates paled dramatically. "What battleship?!" Penguin all but demanded.
"The coated battleship we were trying to slip past until you morons started making noise." Despite his words, Law was sporting an eager smirk. "Ah well. This'll be fun, at least. Brace yourselves, boys, we're about to get hit."
And then the deck rose up and smacked Penguin and Sachi square in the nose.
And if anyone claimed that Law snickered at that particular moment, then they were nothing but a filthy liar.
-o-
X Drake's gaze glided over the battlefield, binoculars in claw and idly ducking and swaying side to side in order to dodge the odd musket-and/or-cannon ball. The battle looked to be going well: The privateers had been breaking on the rock of their fellow Supernovas for some time, and the arrival of the scum they'd gathered up was probably going to be the breaking point. He shifted his gaze east; naturally, the three crews ahead were rapidly chewing their way out, too.
CRA-KOOM!
Drake winced and ripped his binoculars from his face as he tried to blink away the spots in his vision. Yes. Very rapidly.
The battle was going well… and yet, he felt uneasy. And he knew why he felt this way too; the Marines hadn't shown up, despite the fact that the privateers had to be veritably screaming for help. And he knew, from personal experience no less, that no Marine worth their salt would miss out on a chance to shoot at privateers and pirates as massive as this. So the question was… where were they?
Putting his binoculars up again, he scanned the sea. Water, water, ship, water, ship, ship, water bulging, ship—
Wait a minute.
He moved back to that one spot: the water was rising, sloughing off of something. And he knew what that something was.
Stowing his binoculars, he buried his claws in his ship's deck, steadying himself as his battleship swayed beneath his feet. Out the corner of his eye, he saw a Marine battleship breach the water like a colossal whale, incidentally also tossing a yellow submarine out of the water like it was a bathtub toy.
Drake relaxed as his ship stopped swaying, eyeing the other five battleships breaching around them. Surrounded, because of course. Scowling, he walked over to his Transponder Snail and dialed one of the more arrogant pirates surrounding him. Which is to say…
"Bege here."
"Given your track record and typical modus operandi, I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume the Nostra Castello isn't built to tangle with Marine battleships," Drake blandly stated.
"You'd assume right," Bege grunted, unhappy with both the slight and the accuracy of it. Both snail and Drake winced as a battleship opened fire, only for the projectiles to swap with several barrels on said battleship before exploding against the masts. "And while Trafalgar's efforts are appreciated—if self-serving—he can't be six places at once. I'm hoping you have an idea for a valid course of action."
Water bulged again, and before Drake's eyes, three more ships—an old galleon and two more battleships—burst out of the water around three of the battleships. These sported a thick coating of kelp and barnacles rather than the glimmering sheen of a Sabaody coating, and they immediately fell upon their Marine counterparts. And the last two… well, they were busy firing on the now-panicking scrub pirates. A savage grin spread across Drake's face.
"My answer depends on yours. If I were to ask you to provide covering fire while some of us charged that one battleship, would you be capable of it?"
The snail gave an equally savage grin back. "Well, I do have some cast iron cannonballs I can offer at a discount rate…"
Nodding, Drake waited for Bege to tack into position to support the south wing. Which meant he got an excellent view of the surviving vereens abruptly bursting into flames. Glancing behind him, he noted the north wing was also dealing with the sudden onslaught of fireships. He grinned and turned to his sailing master.
"I want a full spread of canvas up the current," he ordered. "This is our chance at the lead spot and I'm not giving it up."
"Aye, captain!"
"Drake, you rotten sewer lizard! You knew that was coming!" Bege roared over the snail, his fury punctuated by his ship's cannons firing at full-bore and trying to sink the blazing boats before they could do the same to him.
"Oh, did I forget to hang up? And to mention the rather obvious trap?" Drake innocently queried. "Anyway, I've got just one word to say to you, Bege. A word that, for the first time in my life, I say with pride." His grin widened as he directed it straight at the castle-ship. "Pi~ra~te."
"YOU SON OF A—!"
KA-LICK!
-o-
"And Drake takes the opportunity to zip ahead!" Itomimizu declared. "Sneaky git, ain't he?"
"Yeah, well, so long as he's not actually firing on our asses, you know what they say," I replied with a rapidly spreading grin. "All's fair in—WHACK!" I was forced to cut myself off mid-sentence on account of nearly being shoved off the side of my ride! And the only thing keeping me from plummeting to my doom was—
"Finish that sentence," Ito prodded, face-encompassing smile twitching as he kept a solid grip on my collar, showing far more upper body strength than I expected from someone like him. "By all means."
"HE SAY NOTHING, NOTHING AT ALL!" Soundbite swore vehemently from inside his shell.
"Listen to the snail, listen to the snail!" I nodded fearfully in agreement.
"Yeah, well—"
B-B-B-BOOM!
Thankfully, the blast of explosives—and my suddenly renewed death glare—prompted Ito to pull me back to safety, and we turned back around to face the ongoing battle.
Our eyes, and Gif's, were all drawn to the line of explosions that had erupted around the three leading ships. Most hit water or the shattered hulks of the privateers around them—and there were still a lot of the assholes trying to press in—but several bounced off of the Iron Tramp's plating, Barto's barriers, and some quick defensive work from my own crew.
It took even less time to find the source: four battleships that had surfaced behind the line of privateers, and seemed to be using them as meatshields while they bombarded from afar. And note that when I say battleships, I mean blue-and-white bonafide Marine battleships. I could see Nami and Billy fly in for an attempted attack run, only for them to hastily abort before someone in a Marine uniform evaded their lightning and nearly skewered them. I guess it couldn't be that easy.
Because behind them… nothing but pure blue sea. We weren't quite there yet… but I could feel the tipping point coming fast. I grinned; that was going to be fun. In the meantime…
"Looks like those weren't all the coated ships the Marines had! We've got four blasting away right at the head of the race! Quite ineffectively, I might add."
"Distance protects them, but it means their accuracy sucks," I agreed. Right as I said that, nearly a dozen privateer ships burst into flames and dove right at the three pirate ships to what I'm sure were apoplectic howls from Merry and Franky. "Yeah, that'll help them. Help them get their asses kicked even harder."
Proving my point, one of the fireships abruptly lurched and then began to sink into the waves, presumably the work of one of the dugongs. Speaking of which…
"Since things seem to be in a holding pattern here, shall we go back to where the real action is?"
"Gladly!" Itomimizu replied, turning the camera view back on the larger melee. And what we saw—
-o-
First Mate Dugong panted, blood dripping down his forehead. He could readily admit that their ongoing battle to clear the three battleships wasn't going terribly well. The fact of the matter was that there were three Marine Captains and only two members of the Great Kung Fu Fleet able to match them, with their Millennial Dragon allies currently being fended off by massed musket fire.
And in his case, "match" was the best he could do.
The dugong shifted his stance and the grip on his spear, mentally growling as the Captain in front of him matched the movement. It shouldn't have been this hard; the Captain was female, not heavily built, and armed with a scarf of all things. A scarf that was somehow deflecting the head of his spear without a scratch and which was smashing wood and flesh with equal devastation! He knew the Grand Line was nuts, but this was insane!
He was still wracking his brains for a solution to the stalemate when he spotted Foxy clamber onto the deck, lugging some sort of wooden contraption. Their eyes met; Foxy cupped his hands around his mouth.
"Get her into the air!"
Well. That was a hell of a lot more doable than beating her.
Planting his tail, First Mate Dugong kicked off into a very low frontal charge, speartip skimming a bare inch above the deck. In fact, he was moving so fast and so low that a hasty thrust from the scarf skimmed right over him, and once he was in range First Mate spun in mid-air, the action bringing his spear around in an upward smash.
Naturally, the scarf blocked it, but if First Mate Dugong was confident in one advantage he held over the Marine, it was his species' tendency towards pure, brute strength. Muscles bulged, cloth failed to stop the swing's movement—
"YOU WON'T BEAT ME, YOU BLUBBERY LITTLE—GWAH!"
—and the result was that the Marine stooge was launched clean off her feet and into the air.
First Mate wasn't done, either. Leaping off a convenient spar, he thrust his spear at her, and though that was blocked, too, without any anchorage she was sent flying down. She tried to wheel around to stick the landing, but she met a slight… issue on the way down.
"SLOW-SLOW BEAM!"
An 'issue' in the form of a concentrated ray of Slow-Slow particles.
Sticking his own landing perfectly, First Mate balefully eyed Foxy as he wheeled some sort of odd contraption into place, a wooden box shaped in an inverse V, sharply sloped and meeting at the top.
"And I did that why…?" First Mate trailed off curiously. Foxy chuckled in reply.
"Waaaait for it…"
The Slow-Slow Beam ended, the Marine fell the last few feet at her previous velocity, legs still spread to stick the landing… and spreading even wider as her legs split the wooden horse.
-o-
I cringed, my hands instinctively shooting downwards.
"Oh, that's cruel!" Itomimizu barked, flinging an arm across his eyes in despair. "It's painful no matter what your gender is! That's just too harsh for most any living being alive!"
That got a sidelong glance out of me. "Including her?"
My co-commentator sobered up almost instantly, sporting a cheeky grin. "Hey, I did say 'most'."
-o-
With his opponent on the deck writhing in agony, First Mate Dugong turned a flat stare on Foxy. "And why do you have something like that?"
Foxy slumped over, a cloud of depression hanging over him. "Trust me, that is a long and complicated tale that I don't want to tell and you don't want to know…"
-o-
"Er, what does he mean by 'no matter what your gender is'?" one of the Amazons gathered at Amazon Lily's battle arena wondered. And while that was only a single Amazon who happened to be seated in earshot of Hancock's throne, it was a sentiment that rippled throughout the arena.
"Yes, what did he mean?" Hancock speculated aloud. "He implies that not only do men feel excruciating pain in such situations, but they rarely stop to consider what women feel."
"Oh, let it go, the poor dears," Elder Nyon sighed. "I've talked to many men such afflicted over the years and I can only conclude that it is a very… unique pain."
"Mmph, as you say…" Hancock skeptically replied. The reason for her truly placid response was that she was too focused on scanning the screen, an endeavor Marigold was aiding her in.
Noting the distinct lack of acid being spat her way, Nyon glanced back at two of Amazon Lily's three rulers. It didn't take her long to spot their barely hidden concern, at which point she turned back to the show. "I wouldn't overly concern yourselves. Sandersonia is easily one of the most powerful individuals in those waters, and she's in the company of the Straw Hats besides. She'll be perfectly fine."
"Mmph, but if so, then where is she?" Marigold inquired, gnawing on her thumb. "I can't imagine that Sonia would stay out of a fight like this willingly, so…?"
"Maybe that's the exact reason she's not out there in the first place. Probably keeping her out of sight for her own good," Rindo huffed, more focused on trying to reignite her cigarette than the show. "Don't forget, if Lady Sandersonia were out there and not attacking pirates, that would raise a lot of uncomfortable questions, right?"
"Mmph, I suppose," Hancock sighed wearily as she massaged her brow. "Still, I wouldn't be averse to something distracting me from my concern."
"Moving on from that… horrific sight, we—"
SKREEONK!
The entire arena flinched back, on account of what sounded like the unholy union of a howler monkey and a sword breaking screaming out of the gathered Transponder Snails.
"You were saying?" Marigold groused, digging a finger through her ear.
"Quiet, Mari," Hancock grumbled, pointedly ignoring both the griping of her sister and the snickering of the reptilian seat that was her partner.
The camera dutifully zoomed in on the northern third of the battleships, and there was just enough time before the Millennial Dragons swooped in to tear into the reeling ships to see Scratchmen Apoo flash a victory sign before he leapt off to find more opponents.
"And Apoo clears the decks, leaving the ship wide open for the Millennial Dragons! Scratch one battleship!"
"Good work, Apoo! At this rate, just ten more ships and you'll almost be as good… as…"
Cross trailed off mid-insult, and the camera swiftly snapped around to show a sight that stunned viewers worldwide into silence: the two battleships that had gone after the scrubs were now sailing back into the fight… and they'd left a field of shattered wrecks in their wake.
"I can't say the sight of so much scum of the seas floating in pieces doesn't fill me with joy," Hancock said, not sounding joyful at all.
"Sister, you're contradicting yourself again," Marigold said tonelessly.
"Uh, whoops?"
The southern battleship, the one Law had been playing catch and return with, promptly exploded.
"Huh, powder magazine must've gone off," Itomimizu speculated. "And, y'know, the fire ships barely did anything. I think… I think we're actually gonna get through the blockade!"
As one, the assembled Amazons winced. "Did he seriously just say that?" Marigold muttered under her breath.
Cross, it seemed, was no happier about the blatant fate-tempting. "Okay, first, do you have to sound so doubtful about the success of one of my plans?! Especially one where your survival is on the line too! And second, Ito, did you sleep through my broadcast on tempting fate or something!?"
"Actually, yes. The Back Fight we had around the time you toppled Thriller Bark saw me take a baseball to the noggin, so I was sleeping it off. Doctor's orders," Ito shrugged indifferently. "But c'mon, look at the situation! The Marines here are only going to last maybe ten minutes longer. The Marines to the west are probably crumbling as we speak! What could possibly go wrong?"
Winces were no longer sufficient. Faces met palms in a thunderous roar.
"Idiot," Hancock spat between her fingers. "I don't know why Cross is putting up with him."
"'What could possibly go wrong'?" Cross repeated, a very sickly grin on his face. Overall, he looked fit to choke a Sea King with his bare hands. "Let's find out, shall we? Head back to the frontrunners, see how they're doing."
The camera swapped once again, and the situation had changed. Somewhat. The Kids, Straw Hats, and Barto Club had cleared out the remaining privateers; X Drake was hot on their heels; and the four battleships were closing in, firing as they went. And right on the prow of the lead ship—
"Hey look, on the battleship! It's an officer!" Ito exclaimed.
"It's a Vice Admiral!" Cross clarified furiously.
Salome let out a squawk of agony as Hancock's clenched fists crushed his coils. "No. That's Strawberry," she spat.
And indeed, it was outright impossible to mistake the long-bearded, long-hatted Vice Admiral as anyone else, both his swords out and brandished. And his identity was doubly reconfirmed by the cold, emotionless glare he was using to stare out over the assembled ships.
"Yeeesssss," Cross drawled, menacingly conversational. "A Vice Admiral on the front lines, and one of the notably worse ones in the ranks at that. 'NOTHING COULD GO WRONG' MY ASS!"
"Meep!"
"SHUT IT, MUPPET! Gugh, on the plus side, with Kid, Luffy, and Barto there we've actually got a halfway decent chance of beating hi—wait, what the hell?!"
As one, the inhabitants of Amazon Lily leaned forward in eager glee.
-o-
The Thousand Sunny rocked again, Koala shoving down the urge to go out on deck and fight for the umpteenth time. At least it wasn't Sandersonia trying to tear her way out of the chains they'd tied her up in down in the cargo hold. Again. That'd gotten old after the first five times, and even New World veterans could get seasick if you tried hard enough.
"Hard time?"
Koala directed a baleful glare at her bespectacled hold-mate. "Pardon me if this sounds harsh, but you're technically on their side, you have a reason not to be out there whipping tale. What do you know?"
"Enough, I think," Tashigi coolly replied as she adjusted her glasses. "How do you think I felt as Cross aired the dirty laundry of Ohara to anyone listening?"
"Kyuuun," Popora deadpanned, slowly starting to lift his hammer.
"Cram it, handbag-to-be!"
"Kyuuugh," the rabbit-wolf scoffed, storing his weapon away.
Koala sighed, relaxing just a tad. "Point taken. Sorry for getting snippy."
"Like I said, I do understand," Tashigi soothed, glancing up at the deck with a light snicker. "Honestly, back when that happened? I had to excuse myself halfway through the interview. If I'd stayed to listen, I'd probably have tried to chop Commodore Smoker's head off."
That got an honest chuckle out of Koala. "Because he's a Logia, right?
"And a safe target, exactly," Tashigi chuckled into her fist. "As it was, I had to settle for 'merely' gutting a Sea King! Tense situation, but certainly the best dinner I'd had in a long time."
The two women broke down in chuckles at that, and the good humor lasted until they were out of breath and wiping the tears from their eyes.
"Ahh… that was nice. Thanks, Tashigi," Koala said, shooting a sly smile at her compatriot. "You know, you're not bad… for a fishy government dog, anyways."
Tashigi matched her with an overly-exaggerated salute. "Same to you, you black-hat rabble-rouser!"
More chuckles passed between them, then a companionable silence. A silence that was broken by Usopp scrambling down the ladder from the main deck.
"Guys, just wanted to let you know to buckle up tight!" he warned them hastily as he cracked open a wall and started working on the mechanisms hidden within. "Things are about to get—!"
KRA-KOOM!
All three of the mismatched individuals flinched as a ship-sized detonation suddenly rocked the Sunny.
"Hairy…" Usopp finished with a groan.
The two exchanged a glance. Hairy? After everything they had heard go on outside? Sure, it was Usopp saying it, but still…
"Define 'hairy'," Tashigi requested, trepidation coloring her voice.
"'Vice Admiral' hairy. The long beard and towering hat are pretty goofy, but it's still pretty hard to miss the—" Koala shot past the sniper, leaving Usopp standing frozen in place and staring dumbfounded after her. "Coat? What's gotten into her?"
Koala didn't hear the rest of the words; her brain was too full of memories and thoughts and counterstrategies and UNHOLY RAGE. One part of the Revolutionary was insisting, pleading on repeat that this was a bad idea, that she needed to stay incognito, that throwing in the Revolutionaries' collective lot with the Masons and Straw Hats on a simple whim of vengeance was stupidity of the highest order. The other half was… withholding judgment, to say the least.
She burst onto the deck, head on a swivel, passing over the ongoing battles before alighting on one of the battleships pressing forward.
There. The beard was longer, the uniform different, but that face. She knew that face. She'd known it for half of her life. It was only natural, really, that seeing that image in daily nightmares for years on end would do that to a person.
Idly, she became aware that around her, the fighting had stopped, or at least lulled. That only made it easier to stomp up to the helm, and the girl manning it.
"I need a fully grown snail," she demanded without preamble.
To her credit, the ship-girl just raised an eyebrow. "Third deck, a loaner's keeping Pinkie and Brain company. Follow the electric guitars," she said.
Nodding, Koala clambered belowdecks again, quickly finding the larger snail snoozing between the two Baby Transponder snails rocking out to a Tone Dial and dialing a number.
"Kilo Oscar Alpha Lima Alpha six two two," she said immediately. A pause.
"Well, this is a surprise," Monkey D. Dragon grunted. "I thought you were scoping out Skelter Bite?"
"As if you aren't following the SBS and know about the Dead End Race," Koala scoffed, only just managing to keep her tone on the right side of civil. "Or the Vice Admiral leading the charge."
A moment of silence, then a small smirk. "Fine, Koala. As long as you understand that you'll be explaining this to Karasu." His expression hardened. "And that if it comes to it, I will sign the burn notice myself."
"So long as it brings me his head, I'd burn the world itself…" Koala winced as she registered the sheer vitriol in what she'd just said—along with the prospect of a personal meeting with the Revolutionaries' head of discipline—and calmed herself by running her fingers through her hair. "Sorry. And… whatever else happens, thank you, Dragon."
"Just make sure it isn't half-baked, Koala. Make it a fight that he'll never be able to forget."
The grin Koala gave in response would've sent even Luffy running for the hills. "That's the plan, sir."
KA-LICK!
Hanging up the snail, Koala took the ladder back up to the deck two at a time, then sprinted down the Sunny past the gathered Straw Hats, up the figurehead, and then jumped off it. Instinctively, her body shifted into the forms of Fishman Karate, and Armament Haki flooded her veins, and as she passed by Nami she kicked off a strand of Eisen cloud for that last bit of speed.
"I have waited ten years for this, you bastard!" Koala screamed as she descended upon a very surprised Vice Admiral Strawberry. "Flaming Axe Kick!"
The Marine barely got his swords up and coated in Haki in time before Koala's kick crashed right into his guard. Both it and the blades held; the bowsprit underneath him, however, did not, and instead splintered into a million pieces. Puffs of Moonwalk kept Strawberry in mid-air, while Koala tucked in her limbs and dove for the ocean.
Any disappointment the SBS' viewers may have felt was short-lived, for bare seconds later Koala burst out of the water as if shot from a cannon. Strawberry, in a masterful display of the Six Powers, blurred from sight in an obvious combination of Moonwalk and Shave. The two met halfway, Koala's fist and Strawberry's sword clashing like angry mountains.
Yes, singular, because Koala's other fist and the pommel of Strawberry's other sword had crashed not into each other but their wielders' cheeks.
Momentum launched the two in different directions: Koala shot back down to the water, tucking her arms in and diving, while Strawberry arced over to one of the neighboring battleships.
He touched down, scanning over the deck and the frightened Marines there. "Clear the deck!" he ordered, sending the sailors scrambling to obey.
This led to a good-sized bubble around Strawberry devoid of Marines when Koala darted up from the water, murder in her eyes and water coating her hands. Her arms blurred, and water droplets rained down on the Vice Admiral with all the impact and velocity of iron hail. But despite impeccable aim, all the projectiles only punched through the deck around him rather than his flesh. In a masterful display of swordsmanship, the Marine weaved through the droplets, each caught on the flat of his blade and smoothly deflected with the barest flick of the wrist.
And then, once the deluge came to an end, Strawberry found Koala right in his guard, one hand cocked back and doubly-wreathed in water.
"Three Thousand Tile—" she intoned.
Strawberry's eyes widened. "Iron Body!" he hastily grit out.
"TRUE FIST!"
The punch slammed square into his gut, blowing clean through both the Iron Body and the Haki coating on top. Flesh rippled, and inside tissues and blood vessels ruptured in the wake of the blow. End result, Strawberry hacked up a massive glob of blood; behind him, the shockwave of the punch blew several dozen—"Hundred and thirteen at once, NEW RECORD!"—clean into the drink. Suffice to say, Koala's smirk was both well-earned and extremely satisfied.
And then Strawberry's head met hers with the sound of a ringing gong. Her guard crumbled instantly as her mind tried to reboot, an endeavor impeded by the force of the blow smashing her clean through the deck—and from the sound of things, through several more.
Spitting out a mix of blood and spit, Strawberry jumped in after her.
-o-
"Son of a…" I groaned. Coolest thing to happen in the race yet and the grudge match of the decade and we couldn't see it! "Chuchun, is there any way you can get a visual on—?"
"Belay that!" Ito interrupted. "Look at the ship!"
I looked at the ship. Though I don't know why, but—hang on, was the ship shaking?
Before my stunned eyes, I watched as part of the hull burst into splinters, then another further aft, then another, and another, until finally, Strawberry came careening up and out through the deck near the bow and into the foremast, toppling it in a single blow. Naturally, Koala was right on his heels, diving straight for the Vice Admiral and driving her fist towards his face.
I decided to abstain from telling Gif to zoom in; there was only so much gratuitous violence I could show at once!…well, I mean, I'd show all of it if I could, but still, moderation, right?
-o-
Koala was all ready to continue smashing Strawberry's face in when she landed. It didn't matter that he was lying suspiciously still. It didn't matter that her head was ringing like the Fire of Shandora, or that her ribs were rioting at the unjust treatment she'd subjected them to.
It did matter when her Observation screamed bloody murder at her though, and she skidded to a halt next to the toppled mast, right at the hairy edge of Strawberry's range.
"I'd just like to go on record and note," the Vice Admiral groaned as he worked his way to his feet, damaged but still annoyingly breathing. "That while I don't know who you are, young lady, I can certainly guess from where your anger towards me stems."
Koala froze in place, her pulse slowing down as she tried to process what she was hearing. "Oh?" she whispered frigidly. "And how's that?"
Strawberry took a moment to crack his head to the side, wincing at the sparks of pain that raced down his neck at the motion. "At a guess, I was responsible for some manner of misfortune that befell a friend, family member, or someone else who was close to you, and now you seek to reap your own justice upon me. Am I close?"
Koala grit her teeth as her blood froze over all the more, shame running down her spine at being read so easily. "You are… not wrong."
The Marine nodded solemnly. "Then you should also know that your quest is futile."
The freezing continued, her veins solidifying all throughout her body as doubt, damnable doubt of all things, touched her for the first time. Twenty years and this was when she had second thoughts!? Already her legs were stiff and unmoving, but it was to her immense shame that her mouth didn't freeze up either. "…I know," she ground out, hardly believing the words dragging out her mouth. "I know that hurting you won't bring him back, but—"
"You misunderstand."
The freezing intensified to newfound levels as Koala tried, tried to process what she'd just heard… but she just couldn't connect the pieces properly. "Ex-cuse me?" she breathed, her voice numb.
Strawberry scoffed and dusted off his jacket's epaulets. "Let me explain: you're looking to exact vengeance. Vengeance can only occur when one party has been wronged. That doesn't apply here, as I have done nothing wrong." The Vice Admiral drew himself up to his full height, positively towering over Koala's scrawny five-foot-and-change frame.
"Let me make this clear to you, girl," he intoned grimly. "No injustice has been wrought by my hands because I and every other Marine alive is Justice. Meaning that whatever I did to whoever it was that you want to avenge, there is no question or doubt to be had. It was what they deserved."
…aaand. That. Just about did it.
Koala's doubts, the ice in her veins that had kept her locked in place, that had been keeping her brain sluggish and unable to think… in an instant, it melted. Vaporized. Exploded into rage that raced to every corner of her body, burning and searing to her very core. And in that instant, something.
Just.
Snapped.
Unfortunately for Strawberry, however, this mental reversal was completely invisible, so he was unaware of how ill-advised his following action was about to be.
"Still," he grunted, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "I shall do you the favor of at least humoring your ill-founded vendetta. Tell me, what was the name of your 'wronged'—?"
CRACK!
That was all Strawberry managed to get out; the instant that his Haki alerted him to an oncoming kick to his torso, Koala's boot planted itself in the Vice Admiral's midsection, bending him around her foot for half a second before slamming him into the battleship's deckhouse like a cannonball. His brain had only just started working again when Koala blurred up to him and slammed his torso back into the wall by his collar.
"His name," she snarled savagely, her eyes acting as windows to a soul of purest hellfire. "Was FISHER TIGER."
Those last two words finally achieved that which the past few minutes hadn't: emotion slipped into Strawberry's eyes as the Vice Admiral was finally shaken, stricken by fear and recognition.
"Y-you're—GRGH!" he gargled out. Or at least, that was all he was able to gargle out before Koala slammed him into the wall again, this time wedging him in tight.
"And let me correct you on something, if you don't mind, because you seem to be laboring under a misconception." Koala seethed as she marched away from him. "You seem to think that what I'm about to do to you, it's exclusively for his sake. But see… that's not true."
Upon reaching the downed foremast, Koala turned around to face Strawberry again. And then, without even looking, she buried her arm in the titanic pillar of wood, clean up to her elbow. With little apparent effort, she dragged the mast across the battleship's deck until it was perfectly lined up with Strawberry's embedded body. A body whose struggling abruptly redoubled; he didn't need Observation to see what was coming next.
"Just so we're perfectly clear," Koala snarled, her blazing temper rapidly infiltrating her voice. "This is for what you did to Big Bro!"
And with that, she heaved her arms, twisted her torso, and in a display of downright herculean strength—
SMASH! "GAAARGH!"
—rammed the entire mass of the mast into Strawberry's midsection, wedging him even deeper into the deckhouse wall. A wall which, to the Vice Admiral's misfortune, was proving its Water 7 origins in its hellish sturdiness, merely bending instead of outright buckling.
"This, on the other hand," Koala continued, her tone rising as she hauled the mast back again. "Is not for Big Bro! This is for every sleepless night I stayed up sobbing, crying because I thought he'd died because of me!"
SMASH!
"This is for every life ruined by your actions! By your 'Justice'! By the hatred you caused! For every life lost that, for the longest time, I thought were on my head because I! Was too! WEAK!"
SMASH!
"This is for making me hate my parents—my own parents!—who I dreamed of seeing for years, all throughout that hell, because of you giving them that fucking choice! BECAUSE YOU MADE THEM COMPLICIT IN YOUR FUCKING BULLSHIT!"
SMASH!
Following that last impact, Koala was left panting and unmoving for a bit, her weapon lodged in place. And despite the ringing concussion he was suffering from, Strawberry held a faint hope that that was it. That his opponent had exhausted herself. That maybe, just maybe, it was over.
The mast shifted back again.
And then Koala started dragging her makeshift gavel back, up and up and up along the deck of the battleship, right to the very tip of the bow, where she kept its bloodied end unerringly trained on Strawberry's twitching body.
"But most important of all…" Koala droned, her voice dead and her head bowed. "This… This is for your absolute worst crime of all. What I am about to do to you, I do because of the single, darkest moment you put me through."
Koala raised her head and stared at Strawberry. Stared through the cascade of tears trailing down her face, over her rictus of hurt and rage. "This…" she whispered, to herself if no one else. "Is for that single, horrible instance… where I wore that smile again."
And just like that, all hurt fled her face in favor of volcanic fury, every muscle in her body wound up like a catapult's rope. "This is for making me think, for even an instant, that I would have been better off staying. For making me doubt!" And in a single, explosive burst of movement, every muscle in Koala's body snapped into action as she flung herself and her weapon clean across the deck at breakneck speeds. "MY RIGHT TO BE FREE!"
-o-
Much of the world was left frustrated; personal though the grudge clearly was, they weren't happy with the SBS censoring all of the sound that came from Koala's mouth from the moment she was about to say the name of her loved one, even going so far as to blur her lips to remove the possibility of reading them.
…But of course, they all still bore witness to Vice Admiral Strawberry's complete beatdown.
Namely, while Strawberry vanished out of sight from the impact, his path of flight was visibly obvious on account of the back half of deckhouse he was being hammered into bursting open by the man getting blasted clean through the entire structure, wood and metal contorting around the hole in some sick semblance of a sunflower. And while it would have been appropriate for the Vice Admiral to splash down into the waves and sink to Davy Jones' locker, he instead impacted the side of a nearby battleship.
Calling his landing 'lucky', however, would be a grave overstatement on account of the broadside of the battleship caved in like the fist of god had struck it, and left the ship listing at a visibly dangerous angle. As such, determining Vice Admiral Strawberry's final fate was proving to be something of a challenge.
"Iiiiis he still alive?" Itomimizu asked nervously.
"Couldn't tell you. I CAN'T TELL WHAT'S HEARTBEAT and what's rubble! CROSS, ANY IDE—YIPE!"
The good mood snuffed itself out when the camera turned on Cross. Women gasped. Men tensed. Children grabbed for the nearest warm body.
Because you see… Cross' expression was eerily similar to the one he'd worn busting down Shiki's front door.
"Alright, that's it. Sorry, Komei; it's been fun, but I'd say that we've let you have your way for long enough. There's only so much I can take, and you having that particular asshat of a white hat involved in this buggery is a step too far. Captain, permission to direct the ship's path?"
"Do whatever you have to, Cross," Luffy responded. There was a single second of hesitation as Luffy's solemn tone echoed in everyone's ears, Cross's especially, but then it was gone, and Cross spoke again.
"Merry, Franky… it's time we stopped playing nice. Bust out the you-know-what."
"HELL YES," the helmsgirl and shipwright said in bloodthirsty eagerness.
"Word to the wise? I'd tell anyone in front of the Sunny right now to jump ship, ASAP. Because this… is going to get messy."
At Cross's tone, everyone watching felt a mix of dread and excitement. This only grew as the Thousand Sunny began maneuvering its way through the throng of clashing ships until it was positioned at the forefront of the mob. The lion-headed ship was positioned dead ahead, clean through the center of the privateer fleet, who were clustered together in a clear attempt to fend off whatever attack was coming. Gif's view slowly zoomed in on the Sunny, focusing on the figurehead.
"You guys are pulling out all the stops to try to keep us from getting our way, to bog us down until we're all headed down to Fishman Island via the express route. But really, Komei…" The pirate shook his head in mock-dismay. "I'm a bit disappointed. I mean, I'd think that you, of all people, would know better by now than to think it would be so easy. But hey! If you think that you've got the winning hand with this arrangement, so be it! No need to take our word on the matter… we'll just let our actions speak for themselves by showing off our trump card."
And with that, the jaw of the smiling lion dropped… revealing a cannon muzzle within.
-o-
"Oooh, so they're finally using that then, are they?" Iceburg chuckled, rubbing his hands together eagerly. "And for the first time too, it sounds like! Well, certainly no better stage they could have pulled it from, I suppose!"
"Any idea what he's talking about?" Zambai asked, his eyes wide and focused on the cannon.
"Not a clue," Paulie replied, shaking his head "Him, Franky, and Merry kept shooing us away from the bow while we were building that beast. Boss told us he wanted it to be a surprise… Franky told us we'd just get in the way and screw things up."
Zambai gave him a curious look, a member of the construction crew conspicuously unmentioned. "And Merry?"
Paulie's demeanor took on a haunted expression. "Same thing as Franky, just with more…" He shivered in despair. "Creative vocabulary. Seriously, those words should not come out of a kid's mouth…"
"Right, of course… pure curiosity here, but what, specifically—?"
"Will both of you shut it already!"
"Gah!"/"Hey, what the—?!"
Their protests were promptly cut short by Iceburg grabbing their heads and shoving them down so that their conversation they were forced to watch the screen.
Meaning that they were given front row seats to the more than a little unnerving sight of their beloved mayor and boss bouncing in his seat with a toothy grin reminiscent of a child on Christmas morning.
"What we are about to witness…" Iceburg whispered reverentially. "Is one of the greatest triumphs to come out of Water 7 in our generation!"
-o-
The cannon shifted slightly until it was presumably aimed to hit the most ships with… well, whatever it shot. Then… Then the cannon began to glow, killing what was now the forlorn but still alive hope that the Straw Hats were just going to be firing anything in the same ocean as an ordinary cannonball.
"Tremble before the Thousand Sunny's ultimate attack!" Cross proclaimed, eager energy revitalizing his voice as he swung his arm out. "It's time, at long last! Number 3 on my List Of Things I Want To Say At Least Once In The Right Context™!"
Cross swung his hand down and pointed his finger at the horizon, his face positively mad with glee.
"FIRE MAIN CANNON! And by main cannon, of course, I mean… THE GAON CANNON!"
The light in Sunny's maw shrank down to a singular pinprick…
FWOOOOM!
And then, what could only be possibly described as total. Devastation.
It was like everything in front of the Sunny at a fairly wide angle was outright bitch-slapped by the divine all-father of all storms. The larger battleships were either de-masted—no, stripped clean down to the main deck, 650-ton turrets included—or left as totally capsized wrecks. Smaller ships were blown apart into nothing but timbers. And the less said about those people caught directly in the path of the cannon's blast, the better.
Not even those ships on the fringes on the blast were safe, the luckiest of them listing hard and fighting to stay afloat.
The end result of this devastation? A hole, blown clean through the entire line of the blockade and an easy half-dozen ships wide.
The conference room 12B of Marineford remained totally silent for a minute until Chief Petty Officer Helmeppo slowly raised his finger. "Uhhh… Admiral Kizaru, sir? No offense, but… I think you've just been outdone."
The yellow-suited Admiral shrugged indifferently, not taking his eyes off the action. "None taken, that would take more energy than I usually have to use. No shame in being outdone by that."
"Except," Sengoku growled, his drumming fingers starting to cause cracks in the conference table. "When we're being outdone by pirates."
"Huh… yeah, I suppose that's true."
A resounding CRACK! indicated the point where the Admiral of the Fleet's fingers went from causing cracks to five neat holes.
-o-
I took a good half minute to bask in the aftershock of the destruction. Emphasis on shock, considering the looks on… pretty much every single Supernova's face.
Barto's starry-eyed cheering was expected; Bonney's, less so, but in hindsight, not that surprising. Drake looked to be trying to catch flies with his mouth, it was so wide open; Bege, from his drooling expression, was going to be hounding us to get a Gaon Cannon of his own. Urouge and Apoo were on the deck of their ships rolling around, laughing their asses off, and Kid-
"You're muting this, right?" I muttered to Soundbite.
"CAN'T TALK, TAKING NOTES…"
Anyway, where was I… right, Killer was unmoving and not doing anything, and Hawkins was-
"Pffhahahahaha! Oh, my transceiver for a Vision Dial!"
Basically pulling an Eneru. Or, well, his version of it anyways. Honestly, his expression was quite tame, but the fact that his demeanor had shifted at all was worthy of note.
…but the crowning jewel of the reactions had to be, had to be the fact that for one glorious instant that I was going to absolutely immortalize, Trafalgar Law was staring in dumbstruck awe at the display, complete with stars in the eyes! He forced his gaze away after a minute, but no, no, no, that was going to be framed right beside the pictures of Eneru's shock. And Foxy's fear. And Robin's spit take. Oh, and that nice selfie that I took with Merry back on Water 7…
Alas, however, practicality demanded that I proceed.
"Gif, make absolutely sure that you can duplicate all of those faces for photographs later," I hissed with a venomous grin.
"( ̄ε ̄〃)b" she affirmed.
"And Soundbite," I said in the same tone. "The following message is purely for the other Supernovas…"
"Ahem?"
I rolled my eyes at the sidelong look Ito was sending at me. "Yes, yes, and Foxy and the other Skelter Biters… I guess…"
"YOU'RE LIVE!"
I refocused at Soundbite's prompt, and I jabbed my finger forward with glee. "Attention all real racers! In case you missed it, the blockade's been blown wide open! BURN FOAM FOR SABAODY, GO GO GO!"
Almost as though Kid was actually listening to me, the Iron Tramp belched smoke again and started chugging for the gap. Lines darted up into the air and down into the sea from the Great Kung Fu Fleet, dragons and dugongs alike hauling the massive vessels of our compatriots the right way. Foam churned from the Polar Tang's propeller, the submarine darting forward with impressive speed. Everyone else was reduced to just piling on unsafe amounts of sail and achieving whatever passed for their ship's max speed plus one.
For the most part, though, that was enough. Though nothing the rest of the pirates had done matched the spectacular shock of the Gaon Cannon, sheer attrition had left the Marines, privateers, and scum-pirates still afloat in their area unable or unwilling to contest the sprinting true-pirates. The result was that, while no one could quite match the head start the Sunny had, the aforementioned ships were gaining and the rest of the racers were very clearly going to make it through the hole. It all came down to performance on the home stretch, and thus sheer seamanship. Truly, this could best be defined as being anyone's race!
Well. That's what they all thought, at least. I felt an evil grin try to worm itself onto my face… and you can damn well bet that I didn't stop it.
"What the—? Uuuuuh… Itomimizu?" Chuchun gulped heavily, staring over his wing at me with a rapidly multiplying cold sweat. "Cross has got that insidious look again! You know, the one he gets every time someone suffers?"
"Huh? What?" Ito blinked at his bird in confusion before blinking at me, and gurgling in utter dismay. "Oh… oh, no. Cross, I don't know what the hell you're thinking… but knock it off right the hell—!"
I grinned massively and interrupted him by planting a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Itomimizu, my dear, dear friend. I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank you for helping me compose the most wonderful phrase in all the seas, right up there with 'Pi~ra~te~'. Wanna know what that phrase is?"
Not waiting for an answer, I shoved my maniacal face in his panicked one and hissed like a man possessed a devastating series of words: "All's fair in love, war, and pirate games."
"Catch you on the flipside!" Soundbite crowed with a chorus of cackling.
Itomimizu was already grappling for my throat to throw me out of the air. Or at least he was until I jumped off of Chuchun.
"Wh-Wh-WHAT THE—!?" the pair of them cried out as I free-fell towards the Sunny, a sensation that reminded me unpleasantly of our Strong World safari. But it wasn't like I was unprepared this time; as I neared the Sunny, I pulled a cord at my chest, and the parachute Usopp had made for me—and that I was going to damn well wear everywhere from now on!—deployed, allowing me to glide through the air with all the grace of a feather—
SLAM! "OOF!"
—uuuntil I faceplanted into the mast like a drunken bird, but hey, at least I got back to the Sunny alive.
"Uggghhh… is a knack for dramatic entrances really too much to ask?" I groaned as I stumbled back to my feet, swaying about before shaking off my dizziness in favor of grinning at the Novas looming behind us, their ships looking distinctly… unhappy. "Oh, yeah, them. Better tell them what's up, huh?"
"YEAH, YOU BETTER!" Soundbite snickered. "You'll forgive me if I don't transmit their foul, foul words, but… ON THE PLUS SIDE MY ARSENAL IS RAPIDLY EXPANDING!"
"You mean your vocabulary?" Nami inquired flatly as she and Billy landed back on the Sunny, joined in short order by the TDWS, Boss, and Koala, thus bringing our ranks back to completion.
"TO-MAY-TO, TO-PROFANITY, all the same to me," the snail chirped with a grin. He turned his gaze downward briefly. "Franky, are we LOCKED AND LOADED?"
"Give me three more seconds to get this last barrel into place, and… YES! Start talking, Cross, I'm powering this thing up right away!"
"Gladly," I sneered before addressing the Supernovas with my arms swept out in a perfectly grandiose manner. "Ladies and gentlemen, fellow pirates, buccaneers and assorted ne'er-do-wells, allow me to inform you all exactly what has just happened: A path to Sabaody has been opened, the privateers' doom has been assured, a court-martial of some sort has been made likely for all white-hats involved… and you all? Have been bamboozled."
Now the rear of the Thousand Sunny began glowing again.
"Because, you see, while the Gaon Cannon may have been our trump card for offense, we've got one more for defense. Or more precisely…" I jerked my thumb in the direction of Sunny's aft. "Escaping? Seriously, no one ever questioned the effing hole on Sunny's rear?"
"WE'VE BEEN DOUBLE-CROSSED!"
"CROSS, YOU SON OF A—!"
"WHAT THE HELL!?"
As the enraged bellows erupted from the Novas and washed over us, I glanced curiously over at Soundbite. "I thought you weren't transmitting them?"
"I'M NOT, that's au natural! HEEHEEHEEHOOHOOHOO!"
"Ah, the wonderful schadenfreude of other people's outrage…" I sighed wistfully before redirecting my smirk at them. "And as for you all! How many times do I have to say it? Pi~ra~te! If you'll excuuuuse us, we're just going to go ahead and take all the money for ourselves! And now… HIT IT, MERRY!"
"WITH PLEASURE!" our helmsgirl cackled as she rammed her foot into the appropriate lever. "BEHOLD, YE SCURVY MAGGOTS! THE TRUE AWE OF THE THOUSAND SUNNY! COUP DE BURST!"
One second, the Thousand Sunny was relatively close to other ships. The next, they had a simply glorious view of our asses as we hightailed it out of dodge! Though I imagine said view was a wee bit distorted from how our escape knocked them all for a loop, but hey, what're you gonna do?
"PFFHAHAHAHAAAA!" I cackled, adrenaline racing both from the flight and from the plan that I just pulled off. Then a thought occurred to me, because there was only one way that Komei couldn't have seen that coming.
"Oh, and by the way, Sengoku?" I snickered. "This is how we got away from Garp at Water 7. If you didn't already know about this, then here's a consolation for us breaking the blockade: it's all Garp's fault, so feel free to beat the rice crackers out of him."
-o-
Captain, Commodore, and Vice Admiral stared blankly at the screen even as the latter offhandedly moved to dial his superior's number.
"Puru puru puru—KA-LICK! Uh, h-hello?"
"This is Vice Admiral Komei, I'm calling to give a status report to the Fleet Admiral."
"Uh, well… he's a bit…"
"GAAAAAAARP!"
"…Busy at the moment… I can take a message?"
"Ah… no, that's probably for the best. I'll try again later," Komei responded, wincing and hanging up the snail without another word. He let loose a long-suffering sigh and reached up to rub his forehead. "Well, since it seems I have time to formulate a response… what's the best way to phrase what happened here?"
"You mean the way that doesn't see us strung up in front of a court-martial and sent to serve as role models for the grunts at G-5?" Commodore Smoker clarified in his dispassionate deadpan.
"That's the one, yes."
"…Hina would like to suggest," Hina started slowly, taking the time to pick her words. "That we remind Marine Headquarters that we were told to expect an unruly mob of pirates… and that at the least, Hina heard nothing of a coordinated spear thrust."
"Also emphasize how many pirate crews we did bag and all the privateers we've cleared out of the sea lanes," Smoker added. "Between this and Shiki's little recruiting drive, Paradise is going to be practically pirate-free for months now. To say nothing of the sudden loss of spare military power in the South Blue."
"Mmph, yes, that will suffice," Komei nodded sagely as he stroked his beard. He then heaved another sigh. "Though I suppose that none of that will soothe the burn that this is all, once again, on account of the Straw Hats' actions, and the fact that Sabaody isn't stocked with troops is on account of my hubris…" He shook his head in surrender. "But, that is on me and I shall shoulder the blame as I must. For now, however…"
The genius Vice Admiral hid his smirk behind his fan as he regarded his erstwhile subordinates. "Why don't we take this moment to discuss your recent misdeeds as well, hm? Your, shall we call them… unsanctioned friends?"
The two smokers immediately froze up, exchanging looks of pure shock as they processed the implications they held. And then, as one, they slumped in despair.
"Not again…" they moaned.
-o-
I rode the adrenaline high as long as I could, and that went on for a damn long while… but unfortunately, the sobering sight of Sabaody Archipelago's mangroves looming on the horizon, and I found myself falling into a more serious state. Only my confidants knew the main reason.
But quite frankly… the other reasons were enough on their own.
"Soundbite, can you deaden your hearing?" I asked quietly.
"Huh? Why d'ya assssSSSSS—!"
I winced and gave my partner a wary look when he suddenly trailed off into static. "Too late?"
Soundbite half-withdrawing into his shell and his eyestalks drooping were signs pointing towards 'yes'. "O-O-OH… so, THAT'S what pure despair sounds like… WELL, this is going to haunt my nightmares FOREVER…"
"Let me give you some perspective there: your nightmare, their reality. Be grateful for what little you have to suffer with," Nami said, joining me beside the railing, her eyes closed.
Yeah, that just about killed the mood. The rest of the journey to the giant mangroves was composed in grim silence. So grim, in fact, that I began casting about for a way to lighten things up a little. Have someone start speaking in farts and chicken clucks? Nah, I'd done that twice this month already. Try another comedy sketch? Eh, that needed setup; can't just pull that out of a hat. C'mon, c'mon, there had to be something that—oooof course.
"Hey, Nami?"
"What?"
"Where should we be going to meet Hachi?"
"Oh, right, we need to—PICK UP MY TREASURE! EEEE, WE'RE FILTHY RIIIIICH!"
Everyone onboard jumped at the supersonic squee that suddenly bitch-slapped them without warning. But when they recovered, most of them got stars in their eyes as well, and exclamations filled the air about what all they could and would be buying.
"A statue, a big bronze statue of me!" Luffy cheered, running around like a kid in a toy store.
"Ammo stores," Merry crooned, hunching over her cannon and petting it a wee bit possessively. "Ammo stores for days! MWAHAHAHAAAA!"
"Hmm… saaay, I am technically part of your crew right now, correct?" Tashigi asked, a light growing in her eyes. "Any chance I could take a few million with me and trawl the weapon shops? If Roronoa can have the luck of the devil, then so can I! Hell, I'll drag him along with me if that's what it takes!"
"Some new weights would be nice…" Zoro scratched his chin thoughtfully, completely oblivious to the threat to his autonomy.
"And maybe enough for us to share, to boot!" Boss nodded in sage agreement. "For truly, the image of shirtless monuments of muscle and machismo pumping iron in the grueling hot sun, is that not the essence of a—!"
SLAM! "GWAH!"
Our pet dugong's daily ranting was cut off when the door to the deck below opened right into him. Sandersonia came out, rubbing sections of her arms and legs where the chains had rubbed against her. "Hmph… I concede that there was no way I could feasibly get involved with that beatdown… but damn was that situation one bad lurch away from landing me in some unpleasant flashbacks. I need some skin-on-scale contact; where's Orchid?"
"PORT SIDE, and trust me, she's been having about as much fun HANGING ONTO SUNNY'S KEEL," Soundbite informed her, pre-empting the adolescent Yuda that had surfaced next to Sunny.
Sandersonia pressed her forehead to the Yuda's with a relieved sigh. "Ahhh, that drives the blood pressure back down from panic. And helps me ignore being back here again of all places…" She then paused in realization, and she looked around the deck in confusion. "Hey, I thought I heard Boss on the way up here, but I don't see him anywhere. Did he leave or something?"
"Um…" Koala hummed uncertainly, poking at the door the Zoan had slammed open. "Not… quite." She pulled the door open, revealing the older dugong to have been pancaked into the wall.
Boss let out a wheeze as he coughed up a not-inconsiderate amount of ash and tobacco. "Medic…" he rasped.
"LET'S GO, BOSS, LET'S GO!" the TDWS crowed as they carried their teacher off, foisted above the four of them.
"Aheheeeh… whoops?" Sandersonia chuckled and scratched her head sheepishly. "Sorry about that?"
"He'll shake it off, don't worry," Zoro waved her off.
"I'll check anyway…" Chopper offered uncertainly, before his gaze suddenly darkened and turned on Koala. "And as for you… don't think I wasn't cataloging all the hits you took fighting Strawberry. You're not going anywhere until I run you through the concussion protocol—our crew's custom protocol, mind you—and patch up the rest."
Sweating profusely, Koala's eyes darted around for an escape, an action that might have been more convincing were her legs not visibly quivering with the effort of holding herself up.
"Fine, fine," she sighed after a couple of minutes, holding up her hands in surrender. "But you're bringing that spare Transponder Snail you've got into the sickbay!"
"If that's what it'll take, then so be it. NOW MARCH."
"Yeah yeah, go make sure she doesn't bite it or something," Nami distractedly said as she leaned over the edge of Sunny's railing and scanning the waters. "Now, where's Takoyaki 8? Where's! My! Mon—!?"
SPLASH!
"YOU GUYS WERE SO INCREDIBLE!"
"GWAGH!?"
Nami's impending moneygasm was promptly matched and overwhelmed by a spray of seawater and mermaid limbs colliding with her and taking her straight down to the deck in a tangled heap.
"Why are we even surprised at this point?" Lassoo yawned from where he'd curled up for a nap.
The tangle was quickly undone, but that still left Keimi flopping on top of Nami, her tail slapping the deck with unrestrained glee. "Straw Hats! I'm so happy to see you're safe!" the kissing gourami mermaid squeed, her arms tightening their grip on our weather witch. "You all were like, pow! Wha-bam! And that Muscle Docking thing! So cool! And the way Koala beat up that Vice Admiral, and then and then and then, when the ship went all whoosh!" Keimi threw out her hands, smile wider than ever. "Oh, it was so awesome I thought I was gonna die!"
"She was right at the edge of the blast radius, so she almost really did die," Pappug chimed in as he hauled himself up the side.
The mermaid froze for a moment before slumping over, finally releasing Nami as her adrenaline flatlined. "Spin cycle suuuucks…" she groaned.
"Eaaasy there, Keimi," Vivi soothed, hefting the mermaid up and leaning her against the railing. "Chopper's got his hands full right now, but I've got a few nausea pills left."
"Ah, n-no, I'm fine, really" Keimi chuckled, still grinning as she waved the princess off. "It's just that that was all just! So! AMAZING!"
"It really was," Pappug chuckled before side-eyeing his master/apprentice/whatever. "But, ah, Keimi? It seems to me that you're forgetting that we're not here just to fawn over the Straw Hats, remember?"
"Oh, right! Oopsy!" the verdette mermaid giggled, slapping her hand to her forehead. "I'll go get the stuff, be right back!"
Before any of us could ask what she was talking about, Keimi flipped back over the edge into the sea. And then, before any of us could properly worry about her, she was back on deck, only this time hauling a… frankly rather large crate behind her like it was nothing. Man, credit to mermaids: fighters they might not be, but that sure didn't mean they weren't strong as heck!
After shaking off her fresh coat of water, Keimi gave us all a beaming smile. "We're here with a special delivery for you." She did a double-take when her eyes passed over Nami's beri-signs, but it was only a short pause. "Hachin still has the prize money, and we'll show you to where he is soon enough. But before that, Pappug has something else that he wants to give you first."
That got shocked looks out of all of us, and almost as one we turned to boggle at the smug, sunglasses-wearing starfish.
"You have something you want to give us?" I repeated.
The invertebrate sniffed as he adjusted his shades. "I'd say don't sound so surprised, but I do understand where you're coming from. Still, doesn't change facts…" Pappug bowed his head—well, face—solemnly. "But a few days ago, I heard tell that your crew had something planned for this island… from Sonia and Koala."
I spared a moment to shoot a growling scowl at the visible, suddenly innocently whistling one of the pair of outlaws.
"And the reason that's important is that if even a fraction of what I suspect is true… well." Pappug jerked his shades in such a way to unleash a sharp gleam. "Let's just say that my suspicions were enough to justify me putting in a call to my main branch down on Fishman Island, and the delivery arrived at Skelter Bite just as we were shipping off."
His appendages opened the latches on the box, and after a not-so-subtle double-shove from me and Zoro, Nami came over and peered inside. And our unflappable navigator only needed one look to immediately jerk back and stare at Pappug in awe.
"Holy cow, is this… the Sharktooth line?!" she gaped breathlessly. "The Criminal Brand's brand spanking new, 'so exclusive not even royalty can reserve it' Sharktooth line?! I-I thought this wasn't due to release until two months from now!"
"Ohhh it's not," Keimi answered, both beaming and brimming with pride. "Pappug was coordinating with his designers back home all week to rush out this lot, just for you!"
Nami stepped back, immediately reaching for her wallet. "H-How much—?"
"It's on the house."
The deck froze as Pappug leapt onto the chest, back turned to us and head bowed in a… cliché but nevertheless cool gesture.
"And also, you should know: it's not Sharktooth anymore, I've scrapped that name." Pappug gazed at the approaching mangroves of Sabaody, a look of wistful longing clearly written on his face. "This line… is now called 'Though A Bird Can't Fly'. Because if you're going to do what I think you are… then the publicity that will arise from you wearing my brand while doing it will be more than repayment enough! And besides…" He spun around and raised his… the chin-part of his face high. "I can say with confidence that it is an honor, to me and to the Criminal brand, to have pirates… no, to have humans such as yourselves wearing these clothes!"
What could we say to that? What could we do? Well, stare. Staring seemed to be a pretty good bet.
And then said starfish smirked and tapped his foot on the chest. "Well? What are you waiting for, an invitation? FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED, PIRATES!"
That broke the ice like a sledgehammer, and it was a not so small mob that… well, mobbed the crate of loot.
"Oooh, that looks cool! Gimme gimme!" "No way, I had it fi—!" "I SAID GIMME!" THWACK! "OW! YOU LITTLE TWERP!"
"Hey, this looks nice! Say, does it come in green?" "Sorry, no substitutions!"
"Hell yeah, now this is what I call metal!" "Psh, you think that's metal, sniper-bro? Just you wait, gimme a few minutes to slap together some armor and then you'll all really look metal!" "You're making armor? Then I'll take some too!"
"And I hope you guys realize that this isn't just for the humans on the crew; I special ordered a few things for your crew's better half, too, from snails to elephants." "Really? Let me at it, then I need to update my regalia!" "Got anything in a 'husky'? I know I look like a 'beagle', but I promise you I'm a 'husky'." "Translation: 'saint bernard'." "SAY THAT TO MY MAW, FLUFFBALL!"
"Hey, this looks neat! Shishishi!" "That's… just a different colored vest, Luffy." "So?" "…I don't have a good response to that."
As the mob proceeded in earnest and knees and elbows were flung about without a care in the world, I stood a few meters back and watched the exchanges with a fond smile. Ah, to see the crew all together like this… man, I just wish it could last forever.
THUNK.
But alas, it couldn't. The end—however short, however fleeting—was fast approaching, and it was heralded by Sunny casually drifting into the mangroves and knocking against one of the roots.
I stared up and out at the scenery before me. Man… how many more times can I say it? One more will do, I suppose: awe-inspiring.
Surprisingly enough, it was actually the anime that got it right, for once: an entire world, encompassed by the mangroves. A horizon, tinted green by flora stretching as far as the eye could see; a sky enclosed by a roof of greenery; the very air itself filled to the bursting with bubbles aplenty. Even the air itself was tinged with the chemical-natural smell of soap.
And then there were the mangroves themselves. Just… pillars of pure wood, in every which direction, connecting earth and sky both seamlessly and effortlessly. Even a single one of the trees would qualify as a skyscraper… and there were dozens of them, easy.
It was… it was…
"A prison."
I glanced to the side, raising my eyebrow at Pappug as he gazed out at the archipelago, his shades completely masking his emotions. After a moment's silence, I gestured for him to continue.
"I've been where you stand, Cross. Every truly adventurous inhabitant of Fishman Island has," the starfish carried on in that flat tone. "Sabaody Archipelago looks so wonderful, so beautiful. It draws you in, promises you wonderment and excitement…" He bowed his face, still utterly stoic. "And then you just can't leave. The trees, the roots, the leaves… all parts of a titanic, territory-wide cage. Entry is universal, departure is infeasible."
Pappug's expression remained unreadable as he turned to face me. "You think you know what you're up against? You think you know this monster? Then tell me this: how many children a year disappear into Sabaody Archipelago, seeking to experience the delights that Sabaody Park has to offer? How many parents suffer the same fate in search of those same children? And how many others are lured in based on all other manners of false promises and delusions? Well, Jeremiah Cross?" Pappug gave me an intense, searching look over the top of his shades. "Can you answer me that?"
I stared at the starfish with just as much intensity, until, eventually, I bowed my head and lowered the brim of my hat over my eyes. "I don't know those numbers, Pappug. Not a one."
Pappug nodded in sad acceptance and started to look away…
"And really, I don't need to."
Before snapping back to me in shock.
"Because at the end of the day? The numbers don't matter. What matters here is words. And there's only three words I do know for this place. Only three that I need to know."
And with that, I leaped over the edge of the Thousand Sunny…
SQUISH.
And set foot on the Sabaody Archipelago.
As the resin of the soaked ground coated my greaves, I felt the reality come to mind once more. This was the last day that we had together. Our last adventure as the people who we were today.
I couldn't change that fact. Wouldn't, honestly, even if I could.
But just because I couldn't change that, didn't mean I wouldn't change one little thing. And that one little thing… was oh so simple. Mark my words, world…
"The only words I need to know," I growled with utter venom, glaring dead ahead into the heart of evil. "Are not. One. More."
The Straw Hats would begin their years-long hiatus alright… not with a whimper, but a BANG.
Patient AN: I wanted to wait until we could post the chapter after this at the same time. But would that be too much? Well… it clearly was, for my co-writers.
Hornet AN: Look, I wanted to do the Triple-Tap again, but it's been four months, come on.
Patient AN: No, it's been three. So, mistake ID count thus far: Patient: 3, Hornet: 0.
Xomniac AN: At least they're picking on each other instead of me XD
Patient AN: Oh, yeah. And the fact is that most of the delays were because of Xomniac. So, direct all of your blame… at the educational system.
Xomniac AN: I always knew not to trust that damn thing!
Cross-Brain AN: But a fair warning, viewers. We acknowledge that Skelter Bite dragged out a bit. But we said in the first part of Road to Sabaody that the rest of the story until the skip would be a roller coaster of emotions.
Rest assured… the next chapter is going to be the last one resembling a breather for a good long while…
