Chapter 69: Meltdown
Sabaody Archipelago was not actually an archipelago, nor was it even technically an island. Nobody much considered this fact, or cared when they did. Simpler that way. The fact that the weather stabilized there as it never did out on the wide open sea only confirmed that attitude.
Thus, the gray clouds forming thunderheads way too quickly and flashing with lightning and rumbling with thunder were a most unpleasant surprise. Those who had lived their entire lives in the Grand Line quickly grasped that this was not the ocean's natural insanity. It wasn't much of a leap from there to the actual cause, and the scattered reports floating around the islands were enough to get anyone with a modicum of common sense to pick up the pace getting out of the open, into shelter, and away from the metaphorical storm the literal one in the sky represented.
"Uuuuugh. It's going to rain. For the love of the Sacred Twenty, could this day get any worse?"
Saint Charloss was not one of those people. As he dismounted his skeletal slave mount and sauntered into the Auction House, he remained blissfully unaware of the danger that was upon him.
…and just as unaware of the inevitable fate that awaited him.
-o-
"Don don don don!"
SMACK! "OW! I didn't say anything!"
"That is precisely the point. Don't say anything," Tsuru firmly ordered.
Helmeppo grumbled rebelliously as he moved his skewed visor back in place. "You're not serious. Okay, yeah, I was wrong before, but what could Cross do that would be worse than that? Who could he attack that would make a bigger impact?"
Tsuru's eyes narrowed almost to slits. "You listen to me, you brat, and listen well. You're not wrong that, in sheer magnitude, whatever Cross is doing now isn't going to outdo that… interview." Her already wrinkled face scrunched a bit more as she shook her head. "That does not mean that the impact he leaves from whatever he's doing now cannot be worse."
The blond subordinate snorted and crossed his arms. "You'll have to pardon my disrespect, Vice Admiral, but I find that very hard to believe."
With an expression as flat as paper, Coby unhooked the Transponder Snail in the room - and was promptly surprised by both it and its visual cousin woking up, the latter projecting an image onto the wall. The image that was being projected appeared to be a top-down view, displaying—
"…what's that, an auditorium?" Helmeppo broke out into a hopeful—read, somewhat desperate—grin. "Oh, please tell me that the Straw Hats have just gone to the theater now, we all need a nice break!"
Coby flipped his glasses down and squinted at the screen, scrutinizing the stage at thefront of the projected room, before reeling back with a look of shock and horror. "Helmeppo, trust me, that is not a performance you want to have any part of!"
"Huh? What are you—?"
"—And sold to the man in the baby Sea King leather cloak for 700,000, a fine purchase for a fine dresser!" the man on stage grandiosely proclaimed as a figure was led out to stand next to him. "Our next lot is number 27! Peterman here was one of our fine suppliers, but earlier today he made the mistake of trying to shortchange me for a catch of the day. Well, you've gotta make up that difference somehow!"
The fact that that 'joke' actually drew a smattering of laughter made most of the Marines' skin crawl.
"As you can see, we have fine musculature, decent skills with a bow—"
"You double-crossing snake, I didn't do jack, you piece of—!"
CRACK!
"GACKH!"
"Aaaand a broken jaw. The fresh ones are always so wordy, but I guess breaking them in is part of the fun. Still, we'll be starting this one off at a discount price of 450,000, do I have 450?"
Any trace of blood evacuated Helmeppo's face as the crowd shouted out their replies. "A slave-auction? What the hell is Cross playing at, I thought they'd already burned down literally every slave shop on the archipelago!"
"Every slave shop…" Coby croaked out, hands visibly trembling. "But not the Auction House. There's only one Auction House on Sabaody, and Cross said they were avoiding it…" He turned his pale face towards Tsuru, who was stiff as a board. "Because the Celestial Dragons frequent it."
Tsuru's neck went whipcord taut—
THWA-WHACK! "OW!" "OUCH!"
—before her cane lashed out and cracked both youngsters over their heads.
"Well, what are you two waiting for, a gold filigree invitation?!" she barked. "Raise the alarm and start preparing the troops, I want all quarters manned ten minutes ago, MOVE!"
"YES, VICE ADMIRAL!" the rookie soldiers yelped, saluting and Shaving out of the room.
Tsuru snorted, her heart rate slowing down from jackhammer to jackrabbit. Satisfied that she'd both fulfilled her 'duty' appropriately and given all Masons on base sufficient warning to batten all hatches, she turned her attention and ire back to the screen.
"For goodness' sake, Cross, I thought your plan was to avoid poking the dragon and Dragons," she bit out. "What could have changed!?"
Almost as if in response, the viewpoint suddenly swung down, hugging the wall and gliding to the floor before zipping through a small forest of legs, until finally stopping by an all-too-familiar pair of greaves. Gif then slowly raised herself up to rest at Cross's eye-level, thus giving her and all other viewers access to the conversation Cross was currently a part of. And the topic…
Her frown deepening, Tsuru grabbed for a pencil and notepad, writing down the names falling from the Straw Hats' mouths on one side and listing Sengoku's medications on the other. She suspected that she'd be needing a few doses herself before the day was through.
-o-
"General Ausdin from the Democratic Republic of Tasan, Duke Venomania of the Asmodean Oligarchy, Viscountess Conchita of Beelzenia…" Vivi suddenly cut herself off with a sharp gasp. "Oh, that bitch!"
Cross gave her a sharp look. "What?"
"Princess Riliane Lucifen d'Autriche!" the bluenette snarled, her face promising murder. "I always knew she bought her boyfriends, but I didn't think she literally bought them! And she had the gall to call me a sand rat!? To anyone from her household who's listening, anyone who can provide proof they set off a molotov cocktail in her room will find gainful employment in Alubarna, at twice your previous salary!" Her expression then grew contemplative. "…actually, no matter what she said about my behind, we are close to the same size, so if you could snatch some of her dresses on your way out—"
"Vivi," Cross interrupted with a gimlet glare.
"Tch, can't have nice things…"
"Less griping, MORE WHISTLE-BLOWING," Soundbite groused.
"Yes, yes. Now, let's see, where was I…" The princess sat back up in her seat and gazed down the auditorium. "Ah yes, I'd recognize that tacky hairpiece anywhere. That fellow a few rows down is Lord Octo of Elphegort. Always did think he was a little bit too chummy with Wapol. And sitting next to him—!"
"Huuuugh…"
"Feeling conflicted, Your Majesty?" Igaram asked gently, giving his king a sympathetic look out the corner of his eye.
"Extremely…" Cobra sighed, half-watching the spectacle through his fingers. "From the first time another noble invited me to that hellhole in an effort to 'loosen me up'—"
"Three broken ribs and a concussion, I remember," Igaram nodded sagely.
"Quite," Cobra nodded. "And I've always harbored a minor, if remote, fear of Vivi ending up in that building for one reason or another, and now I see that very fear being happening before my eyes." The sound of grinding teeth rang out. "And yet…"
"She's as safe as she can be in that sort of situation. I know the feeling," Toto grunted from where he was shuffling through a sheaf of papers. "I spent four years worrying constantly about Kohza. But despite everything that went wrong, he's still with us, a wiser man, though still hotheaded. And even in those four years, I wasn't really too worried about him."
Cobra blinked, then frowned, a suspicion niggling in his skull. He glanced over at the once-again hefty old man. "And why weren't you worried about him, while he was leading a rebellion?"
Toto scoffed and waved his hand dismissively. "Because he was leading a rebellion in Alabasta. Honestly, if you're going to do anything like that, this is the kingdom to do it in. Anywhere else in the world, he'd be a head shorter, but here? Indefinite community service! Ahhh..." He shook his head with a wry chuckle. "I really can't tell you how much I appreciate having someone like you on the throne, Cobra. On several levels!"
Cobra regarded Toto with a small frown; Toto pointing out part of his rule that he took pride in didn't bother him, but at the same time he did feel something of a prick in his pride at the jab.
He shook his head with a gruff huff. "Well, still leaves me with the headache of Vivi being in a position I wouldn't envy anyone being in, as well as the fact that the next Reverie is just guaranteed to be an utter nightmare." That comment drew several confused glances, and Cobra huffed. "If they allow the likes of Germa there, they'll have a devil of a time banning me."
"Sire, with all due respect… the Germa Kingdom may have a repulsive reputation, but they aren't overtly opposing the World Government," Igaram pointed out.
"The Germa also don't have a legitimate bloodline and the backing of everyone else who's decided to give the World Government the heave-to," Cobra countered, his scowl deepening. "Damned lizard-witted cowards, they've got the courage to burn a flag, but when it's time to look the Government in the eye, noooo, that's when they get twitchy." His ire lingered only briefly before collapsing into a relieved sigh. "Well, at least I know I'll have some allies standing at my side…"
Igaram nodded in agreement, then stiffened up at something on the screen. "Perhaps one less than you di—mah, mah, MAH!—think, your highness!"
Cobra gave the captain a questioning look—
"Wait… is that Margrave Lowance? What's he doing here!?"
—before snapping his attention to his daughter with an incredulous bellow of "WHAT!?" But no matter his disbelief he couldn't help but recognize the person sitting three rows ahead of his daughter.
Cross, undoubtedly ignorant of the emotions raging in both royals, shrugged indifferently. "Signs point to—"
"Cross, I know that man!" Vivi protested, only just keeping her voice below a harsh whisper. "He's a friend of my father's, he's one of his staunchest political allies, I've met him several times at the Reverie, he was always so kind, so pleasant! He even gave me these beautiful dresses that his—!" Vivi and Cobra simultaneously stiffened up, those moments of kindness now presented in a far different context. "That… he said his girls sewed, oh Ra help me—"
"Focus, please?"
"I AM WITHIN MY RIGHTS TO BE SHOCKED AND HORRIFIED, CROSS!" Vivi grit out, barely below a shriek.
"As am I," Cobra said, voice flat but quivering.
"YO, CALLER ON LINE CREWMATE."
"It's me, Vivi," came the familiar voice of Conis. "And I know this must look bad for you, but if he's earned your father's trust, maybe think it through a little more? We do know of other reasons to be here. I mean, you're in here."
"…right. You're right, he could just be here to liberate some people in the only legal way available," Vivi muttered. "I would be jumping to conclusions if I didn't consider that…" Her expression crumbled visibly. "Except that he's been divorced for the last ten years. And guess which parent his daughters chose?"
"…Soundbite, if you wouldn't mi—? KA-LICK!"
"That's what I thought. Daddy, I need you to burn some things for me."
Cobra sighed, cradling his head in one of his hands while the other waved at Igaram, prompting him to take out a Baby Snail and start speaking into it.
But with that issue was handled, a new one presented itself, and it tightened his jaw again: who could the Straw Hats be trying to buy to freedom, and why were they attempting to buy them in the first place?
-o-
"Cross, as satisfying and… tangentially scarring as this experience has been, remind me why—apart from the World Nobles at the front of the room—we didn't just bust in the back door?" Vivi grumbled mutinously into the drink she was using to try and soothe her stricken nerves.
"Because whatever jackass decided to throw down the gauntlet is guaranteed to have an explosive collar around her neck by now and their finger on the trigger," I answered.
From Vivi's expression, that killed any further objections, but did little to calm the restlessness plaguing the entire crew. Myself included, because the only thing that I could do to kill time in a meaningful way was to save Byron—the would-be slave who bit off his tongue to avoid being sold—by assuring him that he'd be free within the hour. And naturally, I had long since finished convincing him.
It was only worse for the members that were waiting outside, which was most of them, because even if this audience was the proudest of the proud on this island, there were guaranteed to be at least a few with half-decent self-preservation instincts. So if they saw all twenty-four members of the Straw Hat Pirates entering the building, visibly furious?
Subtlety was the only way to play it for now. All of us were eager for things to get loud, but until the time came, we were standing by. Vivi, Soundbite, and I were, of course, sowing more chaos. Nami, Sanji, and Robin drifted on the edges of the room and Funkfreed and Lassoo skulked near the entrance, while Conis and Su had infiltrated the audience.
As had Donny and Leo. I cannot tell you how much I wanted to shoot down their idea to pull the 'two half-pints in a trenchcoat' gag, especially under these circumstances, but somehow I had consented to it. At least they were pulling it off.
Everyone else was waiting feverishly outside, be it on foot, flying fish, or in Luffy's case, electrokinetic bird wings, too high to jump down and wreck everything without ample warning for us to fend it off. Even that fail-safe wouldn't buy us a lot of time, but it would buy enough for us to try this the normal way. Probably wouldn't work, but we had little choice, so it was worth one last shot.
And of course, watching Disco actually boot one of his auction items in the solar plexus, he seemed to be in rare form today, which only reinforced both that decision and the hope that it wouldn't hold for much longer.
"…he's a lot more… reckless than I remember," I muttered, watching him pull the fallen man up by his neck. "The way I recall, he's the man whose strength comes from chains…"
"I imagine being the last man standing on this has emboldened him. I'd like to see the look on his face when he realizes that his patron isn't going to protect him." She eyed the smiling devils plastered on the wall before giving me a sharp look. "He isn't, right?"
"Shouldn't have any reason to, no," I confirmed. "This is just one source of income for the bastard, and we killed it right when he was getting bored with it. Hell, the spectacle alone is probably payment enough for him." I sent a pleading glance skyward. "Now we just need to hope he doesn't try to add in his own flavor of fun, because that usually involves a lot of bloody collateral damage."
"Glad to hear it. But… still…" Vivi muttered in a grim tone, a glance at Soundbite prompting him to muffle our conversation from the world. "There's one other piece of this plan I think has a flaw, Cross: us buying Keimi would be easy enough… if Charloss weren't explicitly looking to buy her too! The idea of us outbidding a Celestial Dragon… I'm sorry Cross, but that's an impossibility. Not difficult, impossible. No matter how much money we might have on hand—!"
"You'd have a point, if we were actually going wallet-to-wallet with the fat bastard," I whispered back.
Vivi's eyes widened slightly. "Explain?"
"Think about it: Charloss is a complete and utter waste of skin, fat and bones who hasn't worked a day in his life, even by World Noble standards. He has no political weight and doesn't even touch the actual governing of the World Government, so where, pray tell, does all his money come from?"
Three seconds to think, and Vivi's eyes lit up, her gaze snapping to the helmeted devil sitting next to Charloss. "His father, he's the one bankrolling Charloss' lifestyle!"
I nodded. "Roswald's as cruel as his son, but he's at least semi-mature, and he knows that Charloss is just looking to buy a mermaid on a stupid whim. ฿500 Million alone had him balking once, even if it was out of annoyance rather than actual outrage. But the fact that he was annoyed at all suggests a limit. Hence the plan: we're not betting against Charloss' wallet…"
"We're betting against Roswald's patience, I see, I see," Vivi nodded in understanding, though her frown remained. "That's definitely a good plan, Cross, though, I feel the need to point out that it hinges on a World Noble acting in a semi-sane and logical manner."
"Which is why everyone else is poised to enact Plan B, or in other words our usual Plan A, should things go sideways," I reminded her.
Vivi conceded my point with a sigh, waving for Soundbite to let the world in on things again. "Fair, fair. One more question though: us and all of our crewmates have had our faces plastered around the world, and I'm fairly certain we're all less than welcome in this… establishment, for lack of a better word. Sneaking in is one thing, but how are we going to bid without this place falling on us like a ton of rocks?"
"Simplest matter of all: it won't technically be 'us' bidding," I replied, pointing to the left of the stage, where a table was set up and a line of men and women were sitting in front of Transponder Snails, regularly calling out bids on different lots. "And on that note, seeing as we're getting close to the end of the auction… Soundbite, plug us in."
"Got one lining up… right… ABOUT… PURU PURU PURU!" And right on cue, one of the mobile bidding snails rang and was picked up.
"This is Line 5 of the Human Auction House," I watched the operator state from halfway across the hall. "Please identify yourself and your purpose for calling today."
I was about to do just that, but before I could, the transceiver's mic was suddenly yanked out of my hand. I snapped my head around and prepped myself to furiously, if quietly, demand what the hell Vivi thought she was doing, but an unnaturally persuasive "Shh!" forced me to hold my tongue.
As such, I could only watch as Vivi held up three fingers right below her chin, and then slowly lowered them to her collar. She then opened her mouth—"Hello."—and Soundbite and I could onl boggle in surprise when her voice came out a full three octaves lower than normal!
"I am Countess Marianna Baudwich of Calligis," Vivi stated in her altered voice, staring at Soundbite with a face of utter contempt. "I am calling your establishment for the purpose of bidding upon your product. I am assured that it is of the highest quality, and that all shall be conducted with the utmost discretion?"
"The Auction House prides itself on selling nothing but the best and providing nothing below top-of-the-line service, milady, I assure you," the operator replied, bowing his head—and as a result, Soundbite's as well—in deference. "If the Countess would simply be so kind as to provide a means through which we might verify her funds?"
My eyes shot wide open and I narrowly bit back a curse. A damn fund check, why the hell didn't I realize they'd pull that!? Of course they wouldn't sell to just anyone who got ahold of their number!
Vivi, however, nodded her acceptance without so much as a flinch. "I have funds exceeding one billion beri in the International Bank of Arianon," she baldly claimed. "You need merely contact them at 567-843-210, and ask for the status of account 37-84-26."
Then, out of the blue, Vivi switched her stare from Soundbite to Gif, staring intently into the Vis-Snail's eyes. "I repeat," she reiterated, keeping her voice low and intense. "That number is 567-843-210, and the account is thirty-seven, eighty-four, and twenty-six." The last three numbers were repeated with as much emphasis as possible.
The operator, meanwhile, didn't seem to notice the intensity and was instead more concerned with writing on the paper before him. "Understood, ma'am. Please hold while we verify your funds." And with that the line fell silent to dial Vivi's number into his snail.
I made to ask Vivi what the hell she was thinking, but she silenced me with a raised finger, her eyes on the operator. I was forced to do the same, the both of us watching as the man spoke with whoever was on the other end of the line for almost a minute. He hung back up and—
"Countess."
—called us back.
"I trust everything is in order?" Vivi sniffed haughtily.
Ohhh this was going to—
"It is indeed, milady."
—waitwhatthefuck?!
"The bank successfully verified your funds, and are prepared to transfer payment as required. You are fully eligible to bid upon our wares once the bidding commences. Should you require any aid, feel free to ask."
"As you say, then. Please stay on the line, and feel free to speak up when you hear a lot you would like to bid on. Good day."
And with that send off, Vivi all but rammed the mic back into its cradle and sank into her seat with a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank Isis that worked," she groaned.
"How the hell did you do that!?" Soundbite incredulously demanded.
"Answer the snail!" I prompted immediately.
Vivi took a few seconds longer to get her breath back, but once she did, she cracked her eye open and smiled as she stared at Gif. "For that particular feat of excellence, you can thank Princess Priscilla of Arianon for once again proving that for all that she is a smug bitch… she's not an utter cunt." The blue-haired princess nodded appreciatively. "Thanks, Pris. Stay safe, and give your father my best."
"Puru puru—KA-LICK! Yeah, same to you, goody-goody. Dad's been looking for an excuse to book anyway, and this seemed as good a time as any. Give them hell and get out safe; the genepool is shallow enough already, can't go losing the only other royal with two brain-cells to rub together at this point, or else we'd really be screwed. KA-LICK!"
Vivi chuckled slightly at the exchange before blushing at the looks Soundbite and I were giving her. "Pris and I have a… complicated relationship."
I nodded in agreement, only to freeze partway through as I double-checked what Soundbite was feeding me.
"Yeah, well life's just gotten even more complicated still. Why the hell are they bringing her out now? She was supposed to be at the end!" I hissed.
"Don't quote me, but I can guess: I heard Charloss starting to grumble about how he was getting bored. AND IF I WASN'T THE ONLY ONE WHO HEARD HIM—"
"Then they're likely moving up the timetable to keep him invested, got it," I groaned, sinking into the bench with my hand rubbing my eyes. "This day just gets better and better…"
And as further proof for just how utterly… improved my day was so far, Disco picked that exact moment to clear his throat.
"Ladies and noblemen, you've all been a fan-tastic audience so far, and thanks to you, I can safely say that today has been one of the most profitable days our fine establishment has had on record! Not that we keep records, of course, don't want any names leaking to any… loudmouthed individuals, of course—"
"Oh, I am going to enjoy breaking his face," I quietly swore.
"—but! I digress! Seeing how absolutely fantastic you've all been today, we here at the Human Auction House have decided that a little change in the line-up is in order! Presenting the rarest of rare commodities, the jewel of the seas, lot number 777…"
Barely had the last number been named than a masked attendant wheeled Keimi's tank onto the stage, shackled by her wrists and tail to the bottom of the bowl. Her face was a mask of fear that made me want to not just break Disco's face, but turn it into powder. The auctioneer opened his mouth to introduce her—
"A REAL MERMAID!"
But, well, probably couldn't give a better introduction to the product than Charloss' excited, jumping-out-of-his-chair shout. A motion that obviously got Keimi's attention, if the way her prior fear escalated to outright, throwing-herself-back panic was anything to go by.
Disco grimaced slightly at being interrupted, but nodded and slammed his fist against the glass of the tank, drawing a heavy flinch from Keimi. "The great and powerful lord from Mariejois has it right, folks! One purebreed mermaid, right here, right now! Tail unsplit and everything! As you can see, her species is—"
While Disco rambled on, Keimi was looking around the room in utter terror and—due to the thick glass—total silence, looking on the verge of breaking down into hysterics. But for better or worse, her terror morphed into outright desperation when her eyes suddenly locked onto Vivi and I in the stands. Before she could really make a scene though, I snapped a finger up to shush her, spinning another finger to indicate the room. The poor girl looked like she was on the verge of breaking down sobbing, but she bit down on her lip and nodded minutely, straightening her back and staring straight ahead. She was still miserable, obviously, but at least her state of mind wasn't deteriorating any further.
The same could not be said about the situation in general, however, as Disco wrapped up his grandstanding, much to the crowd's morbidly mounting excitement. "—so as you can see, my fine customers, this is truly some top-quality product you'll be purchasing here today! As such, we'll be starting the bidding off at no less than—!"
"฿500 MILLION! I'LL PAY ฿500 MILLION!"
I felt a full-body shudder run through me as those words, those goddamn words I'd fought so hard to stop, but I at least took solace in the fact that unlike the first time around, I actually had a response to them. "Alright, here we go," I muttered to myself and Soundbite both, nodding my head at the mobile bidders. Soundbite promptly reconnected us and swapped my voice with 'the Countess'. "600 Million on lot 777."
I was momentarily worried when the operator boggled at his snail for a moment, visibly hesitating, but he ultimately did the job he was paid for. "We have ฿6—"
BLAM! "YOU DARE?!"
The room as a whole reeled as the lone gunshot rang out like a blast from a cannon in the once-quiet room, and the ensuing stillness gave me enough time to locate who the hell had fired that—oh you have got to be kidding me!
"That fish," Charloss snarled, still huffing with the disproportionate rage of the tantrum that had driven him to shoot at the damn operator (he'd only managed to wing the snail's shell, but still—!) "Belongs to me. Unless anyone else wants to defy me!?"
Considering how all the other nobles were all looking at one another nervously and the Transponder Snails were cowering in their shells...
Vivi let out a sharp tsk as she cracked her neck to the side. "Well, that's what we get for banking on the words 'sane' and 'World Noble' in the same sentence," she groused, her hair starting to ruffle in a personal breeze.
I let out a tortured groan, dragging my fingers down my face. "…yeah yeah, hindsight and twenty-twenty, can't blame me for trying. Alright, let's do this shit. Soundbite?"
"Thought you didn't WANT any more METAL GEAR references today," he muttered cheekily, right before two raspy words blasted through the air of the room:
"IT'S SHOWTIME."
At my side, Vivi announced our presence with a massive gust of wind straight up into the ceiling. It didn't blow the roof off, but it was nice and visible and the dust that rained down on the crowd made our point nicely. Conis announced her presence a moment later by standing up and firing a shot into the air, and then a moment after that was Nami at the edge of the crowd, Eisen Tempo black as coal except where arcs of electricity were sparking between clouds.
Several people got up to leave, or opened their mouths to scream. For every such person, two hands sprouted from their shoulders, and clamped down on necks or mouths, Robin tapping a finger to her lips in a "shh". Sanji wasn't visible from our position. He didn't need to be. The smell of smoke starting to fill the room—and not just tobacco smoke, either—was all the introduction he needed.
And as for Donny and Leo…
"Hey!" someone in the crowd shouted, pointing at the totem-pole dugongs. "That's not a person, that's two dugongs stacked in a trench coat!"
"Oh, no," Donny's voice deadpanned from about where the crotch would be on an actual person. "You found us out."
SCHWING!
Tatters of canvas fluttered to the ground around Donny, Leo giving the crowd a vicious smirk and his blades angled just right to glint menacingly.
"Whatever shall we do," Leo finished.
This was when Funkfreed burst through the door, trumpeting at the top of his lungs. Lassoo, standing on his back, coughed up a bomb that hit right above the stage and exploded, sending Disco tap-dancing out of the way of falling, burning plankage.
Hit by shock after shock, the crowd was on the verge of breaking. Wide eyes and dripping sweat and hyperventilation were the order of the day. Either the crowd would descend into a panicked riot… or someone would take control.
Stepping up onto the bench I'd been sitting on, I planted my foot on the top of the seatback. "Ladies, gentlemen, World Nobles," I announced, Soundbite sending my voice booming through every corner of the auditorium. "Yes, hello, it's us, Jeremiah Cross and Soundbite, rabble-rousers extraordinaire. Please, no need to be alarmed, stay nice and calm."
"Hell, point a gun at us if it relaxes you!" Soundbite cheerily piped in.
And they proceeded to do just that. That is to say, several dozen of the hundreds of individuals looking at us drew and aimed their firearms, blades and other such weapons in our direction.
Soundbite dropped his chipper expression into an outright scowl. "After all, you're only human."
There was quite the variety of reactions to the presence of my friends and I being in the building—apart from the small armory, of course—ranging from the terrified to the outraged to the indignant - and much to my everlasting disgust, the excited.
"Oh my, is this actually a hold-up? This should be a lot of—!"
"SHUT! HIM! UP!" I roared, stabbing my finger at Charloss' braindead face. "I can only take so much ear cancer in one day!" You can imagine my immense relief when Soundbite did just that and muted the bubble-headed walrus, a move which was doubly well-timed if the way his face screwed up and started turning red was anything to go by. "Thank you."'
"Thank yourself, I'm the one who still needs to listen to his GODFORSAKEN VOICE," Soundbite growled.
"I'll buy you the good lettuce after this," I nodded before re-addressing the room. "Now, as I was saying before the fat, blubbering neanderthal interrupted me… yes, you collection of most vile and depraved individuals, we the Straw Hat Pirates are currently in the process of robbing this…" I plastered an exaggerated grimace on my face as I waved my hand in front of my face. "Well, I'd say 'fine establishment', but the smell of blood and despair speaks for itself. The point is-" I glared malevolently at my impromptu audience and pointed directly at a very eager-looking Keimi. "You have our friend up there. And we are not leaving here without her, one way or another."
"So, to keep it nice and simple," I continued with a patient step forward, outwardly unbothered by a company's worth of firepower that followed my movement. "We're not here for you, or for your money." Turning around, I pinned Disco with the most blistering glare I could muster. If Saturday Night Fever over there turns over all the slaves in this place, everyone goes home safe, happy, and with a few therapy sessions to set up. Refuse, and we burn this place to the ground, most likely with you all still in it. So!" I spread my arms wide. "What's it gonna be?"
I saw the guns pointing at me begin to waver, the arms holding them quivering in uncertainty. The spears weren't wavering, though, so credit to the guards on that, but they also weren't doing anything. Frozen. Unmoving. Unable to make a decision. Huh. Y'know, if we actually manage to bluff our way out of here, I might consider taking back a few of the nasty things I'd said to BROB over our journey.
Alas…
"HA!" a derisive bark blasted out through the room.
It was not to be.
"You think you can play MC in my Auction House, Cross?!" Disco bellowed, his shit-eating grin somehow never wavering. "You still don't get who's pulling the strings here! Audience, you've got them outgunned and I know you came here for a show. GET RID OF THEM!"
The only thing more baffling than Disco being that bold was the fact that they actually listened to him. I'm not kidding, the bulk of the auction house patrons' bodyguards—and hell, even a few of the patrons themselves—were either shooting at us or pulling melee weapons and charging. I mean, seriously, what the fuck?
"Well… this isn't what I was expecting," I muttered casually as Vivi conjured up a wall of whirling wind to deflect the hail of bullets that came our way. Then I felt a grin grow on my face. "But far be it for me to complain about bleeding some of the excess blinding rage I'm feeling about now. LASSOO, FUNKFREED!"
As it turned out, the crowd's sense of self-preservation was merely severely atrophied rather than dead entirely, because most of them dove out of the way of Funkfreed's charge. Aside from a few bullets spanging off his hide, there was nothing to stop them from reaching me and switching to weapons forms for me to grab.
"Guards, cover the World Nobles. Don't attack them, but don't give them an opportunity to take a potshot at Keimi or any of us. And Vivi, cover me," I said, eyeing Disco, who looked… remarkably calm. Cocky even. Shouldn't he have been in the middle of a panic right about now? "Disco's got the detonator for the collar. He probably hasn't pressed it because he hasn't gotten paid for Keimi, but that's not going to last long."
"Got it," Vivi and the TDWS echoed, the former throwing up another wind wall while the latter encircled the Celestial Dragons, keeping them penned up where they stood in righteous indignation. With my back covered and the three living WMD's handled, I turned around to find a wall of armored bodies in my path pointing spears at me.
"Oy, seriously?" I groaned, almost casually flicking my arm their way. "Pachy-Charge."
Funkfreed crashed into the center of the ragged line, shattering armor and bodies alike. The remainder rushed in, but an explosive baseball left one half reeling, and I parried a spear on Funkfreed's tusks and then stepped in between his two fellows.
"Evening, gentlemen. Tonight's entertainment is brought to you by Cani-Blank Productions and Impact Entertainment." That bought me a second of confusion, which I used to press Lassoo into the belly of one guard and my Impact Gauntlet into the face of the other.
Despite his two fellows sailing away in pretty ballistic arcs, the last guard still tried to wrench his spear free so he could try and skewer me. I twisted Funkfreed, so that the guard would either drop his spear or get flipped onto his back. He chose the former—which just meant I placed Soundbite on his shoulder with a remark of "Go to town."
One Gastro-Blast later, I once again turned to head onto the stage, only to find that Disco had turned tail and was… running for the door to the backstage oh that son of a—!
I bit out a sharp snarl as I swung my arms forwards and flung Lassoo and Funkfreed up onto the stage. "SHRED HIM!"
My gun and sword morphed and gave chase with a howl and trumpet respectively the second they were on the stage. Thanks to his mass and abilities, it was Funkfreed who reached Disco first, thundering his bladed trunk forward and hitting—air?! I blinked in stupefaction at Disco, who'd managed to narrowly duck under the blade.
Lassoo tried to follow up for his tusked friend, lunging forwards with foam dripping off his hackles to take a chunk out of Disco's ass, only to fail due to Disco kerking just out of reach of his jaws, seriously!? And once would have been a fluke, but then he just kept running and Lassoo and Funkfreed just kept missing him by a hair and… what, did the bastard just not miss leg day or something!? Honestly, on any other day this would have been funny as hell, but seeing as he was holding my friends' life in his hands…
"Soundbite," I grit out.
"OKAY, COSTELLO, SHOW'S OVER!" Soundbite roared.
The tell-tale hum filled the air, and Disco stumbled just enough mid-step for Funkfreed and Lassoo to slam into him and send him CRASHing through the floor of the stage - which, as a result, sent the detonator into the crowd. Because of course.
"Fracking sonnuva—!" I cursed under my breath as I signalled to my recalcitrant weapons to get involved in busting heads. "Soundbite, make sure only the crew and our allies get this: Guys, heads up: the detonator got thrown into the crowd. I'm not sure where it is, but keep an eye out for it."
I got a chorus of affirmatives, and turned to try and follow the remote through the mosh, only for something to clamp down on my ankle. Glancing down, I found it was one of the guards Funkfreed had knocked over in his initial charge; a nasty gash in his armor was weeping blood, and his right arm more resembled shredded beef brisket than, well, an arm. And yet, here he was, trying to slow me down.
Rolling my eyes, I waved over at Funkfreed, who wrapped his trunk around the man's waist, ripped him off my ankle, and carelessly tossed him aside.
Now I could actually look for the remote. "Alright, where's the—"
There. Right square in the middle of the messiest and most violent part of the fight. Because of course. Nevertheless, I mentally rolled up my proverbial sleeves and dove in.
There was no time to actually fight, and it would draw unwanted attention anyway, so I settled for moving as quick and efficiently as I could manage. I just shoved my way through the crowd, supplementing my body with a few Impact Dial shots. I dodged bodies, bullets, spears, and on one memorable occasion, an armored guard Franky had hurled like a shot put. Hell, a few times I even dove and crawled under someone's legs, just to get there a little faster.
But ultimately, I did get to it, finding the remote wedged against the back of one of the benches; probably the only reason Keimi still had a head at this point. I grabbed it with unseemly haste, because frankly, I could have kissed the damn thing at that point. No time for that, though, as I immediately had to kick a suited guard in the face when he aimed a gun at me, then had to roll away from another and dammit I really should've waited and had Funkfreed just clear a path.
But after those two, I had a moment to catch my breath and shove the remote away in my jacket, thus allowing me to take in the bigger picture. From the looks of things, I'd ended up in the part of the fight where the fishmen were, Hachi and Kuroobi punching a path through the guards and nobles—and looking very happy about the latter—with Chew providing fire support.
Except out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the suited guard I'd rolled away from had picked a different target. And now the goon was out of lunging range, so as much as I wanted to, I couldn't just jump him. No time even to tell Soundbite anything, leaving only one option… and one regret.
Why, out of everyone in this hell-forsaken room, did I have to be saddled with saving his life!?
"Oh are you kidding me—MOVE!"
"Hey, what are you—!?"
BLAM!"
"GAH, RIGHT ON THE BORDER OF MY SCARS, AGAIN? SERIOUSLY?!" I shouted as I clutched at my blazing gunshot wound, a luxury I was afforded by Soundbite dropping the gunman with a Gastro-Phony, or more likely a Gastro-Nation going by how the bastard was clawing at his helmet in clear agony. Which just left me with the jagoff I'd saved.
"You… You just jumped in front of a gun… for me!? I thought you hated me, chew?"
I glared over my shoulder at Chew, the long-lipped bastard staring at me in shock and his demi-manta friend mirroring the expression behind him, then sighed wearily and dropped my ire because damn it, I was too fucking tired for this bullshit. "Okay, let's get this straight, jackass: I still hate you, the both of you, that has not and will not change, but I hate you two because you're ignorant bigots and because you hurt my friend, not because of what species you are," I answered. "And even then, that doesn't mean I think you deserve a bullet, that just means I think your ass deserves a good kicking. You'll know when I want someone dea—!"
BLAM! "NYUAAAGH!"
I spun around as Hachi screamed - and my blood ran cold.
It had happened.
After everything I'd done. After how hard I'd fought. After how much I'd changed, it still happened.
Charloss had shot Hachi.
But while the old nightmare rehashed itself once more, I realized that there were some differences.
For example, this time around, Hachi wasn't the target. He'd been shot, yes, there was no denying the sight of him collapsing, but he wasn't the target. Rather, the reason the octopus had been shot was that he'd blocked Charloss from hitting his true target. The inbred bastard had not only somehow managed to get past the Dugongs—who were laid out flat and rubbing their skull-plates for whatever reason!—but had also clearly lost the ill-conceived respect and admiration that he'd had for me if the way he was glaring at the fishman on the ground was any indication.
"Yooou stupid fish!" he snarled out. "That was supposed to hit that worm Cross in the back!"
That was also a major clue.
But no matter how shifted the circumstances, the results were the same: the room froze over as everyone processed that Hachi was down, bleeding from a bullet wound to the chest. Though considering he managed to get his arms under him this time, he seemed to be in somewhat better shape.
"What did you do that for, Hachi?" Kuroobi snapped. "That could have killed you, you could have died! Died for a—!" He cut himself before he could finish, but… well, enough was said.
I spared enough time to glare back at him, noting the hesitation on his face that meant that that outburst was probably reflexive but not getting any less angry for it. Nor did Hachi.
"WHY?" Hachi demanded, coughing up blood before shaking his head and continuing. "Because it's what he would have wanted! His last wishes… to do what he couldn't, to end the hatred… no matter how we feel about it."
Suddenly, one of his arms lashed out and grabbed Kuroobi's collar, dragging him so that they were face-to—well, face-to-trumpet-mouth, but given how Hachi was gritting his teeth and scowling, it still fit. "What I did… it's what he would have done for him, or for her," he asserted. And then… then his… everything just sort of… sort of softened, as a tone of grief entered his voice and expression. "It's… what I would have done for you once."
It was almost palpable, what happened to the other two fishmen at that moment. After all of the damage that had been done to their bigoted worldview over the past nine days, having even Hachi denounce them like that when he had done so much for them… I could almost hear their minds shatter.
"YOOOU! Stop ignoring me for that worthless fish!"
BLAM! Plink! "URGHhhhhhh…"
As Soundbite sank into a daze from the stamina it took to raise a remote Gastro-Barrier like that… well, to be frank, I tried my best to block him out.
And… I mean, I did try. I tried my damndest to ignore Charloss, I really did. Tried to focus on Hachi, to block out whatever the hell he had to say, tried to restrain myself because Hachi was alright, because this was bad but not that bad, because we didn't need to do this, didn't need to go down this road…
"Ungrateful braaat! You owe me everything and you turn out to just be another annoying human!"
But it didn't help. It didn't help, and with that one sentence I felt the world freeze.
Murder screamed through every inch of my body, but the frigid, razor-sharp clarity that had suddenly overcome me allowed me to slowly turn my head, and stare at the God standing above us.
"What," I breathed coldly, my limbs tingling with nervous energy. "Do you mean that I 'owe you'?" Because I didn't get it, what could he be talking about? I knew he was a legitimately insane psychopathic manchild, but he still had some sense. And whatever there was from him stopping CP-0 all those times, I had paid tenfold in enduring his interview for that whole freaking hour. And yet, for some reason, I could feel a cold weight starting to settle in my gut.
"Dumbass!" Charloss spat at me, wildly swinging his gun about. "Your bounty, your SBS, how famous you are, you owe it all to my family! To me!"
I was prepared to dismiss that as just a piece of nonsense, but somewhere in my mind was a persistent niggling feeling about what he just said. I tried to figure out what it was…
…and then it hit me with the force of Popora's hammer. Because in the end, there was one way that he could be telling the truth. Only one way that made sense. A horrible, sick, twisted sense… that fit all too well.
"…You did it," I whispered with the calm of an armed nuke. "You, your father, your sister, whoever it was… you were the ones who stuck Vivi with a bounty."
"Exactly! Shalria always kept saying she was a…"
He kept babbling after that, but I didn't catch a word of it. One second a red haze was swallowing my mind. The next… I was right back where I had been, save for a foot forward, and held in place by a hand on my shoulder like iron. I looked at the one responsible and froze. Terror at the monster, the beast in front of me briefly overwhelming me - before the moment passed, the wave of amateur Haki with it, and the rational part of my brain reminded me that I was looking at my captain. Whose anger was not directed at me.
"He stole Vivi's freedom," Luffy said. Not raged. Not snarled. Just… said. "He tortured you. And now he shot Hachi. And I've owed them for ten years; he's mine, Cross."
I could not move out of his way fast enough. But as I bumped into one of the seats, I did manage to remember something.
"Luffy."
Slowly, dangerously, he turned away from the source of his ire to look back at me. But in this instance, on this battleground, I managed to stand firm.
"You know the price of doing this," I whispered, firmly ignoring the part of my brain reminding me that he didn't, he really, really didn't. But nevertheless… "So just tell me how you want this done. I can either keep this silent as the grave for a little bit longer… or very. Very loud."
There was no change. No response. Just an even stare.
And that was response enough.
And so I nodded. "Alright, then…"
At the snap of my fingers, Soundbite and Gif locked every iota of their attention on Luffy and Charloss… and me. Me, as I raised my mic to my mouth… and prepared to help start what I couldn't help but define as the beginning of the end.
-o-
The Supernovas had stood by the Auction House before the action began, and they had continued standing by as the Straw Hats charged in. Their answers varied for why they were cooperating with the Straw Hats even now, from simple gratitude and interest to self-preservation.
They didn't fear the Straw Hats (or at least that's what most of them told themselves, and what a few even believed). But the fallout from one of their rampages of revenge did invite a bit of caution, the better not to be caught in it. Which, ultimately, begged the question being asked…
"Are we really just going to let this happen?"
X Drake's impatient demand reached the ears of all of his fellow Supernovas, who stood before a projector screen watching the action and waiting for a signal to move in, if any was going to be given. None of them, including Drake, looked away.
"He's going to do it," the 'ex'-Rear Admiral stated firmly, equal parts awe and horror in his voice. "He is actually going to do it. And when he does, he's going to bring an Admiral down on all of us, not just them. We're here, we've been working with them, we're accessories. And, in case it's escaped anyone's notice, we are close enough that we could stop this."
At that, heads started turning. Supernova looked at Supernova, doubts were exchanged. Even Bartolomeo shifted, his gaze turning downwards in solemn silence.
But before anyone could respond, be it Law, or even Apoo, one of them spoke up. The only one who hadn't moved an inch.
"If anyone wants to go, then go."
All attention snapped to the one man who hadn't twitched. The one man standing strong.
Snapped… to Kid.
"I mean, hey," he scoffed, shrugging. "World's about to change in the blink of an eye, but whatever, you do you. Don't force yourselves. If any of you need to run from this…" He cricked his neck to the side with a particularly sharp CRACK.
"Then go right on ahead. And run."
Another round of glances, another moment of contemplation, and doubt…
And then, they all looked at the screen.
Looked, and watched, and did not shift even an inch, as the world changed beneath their very feet.
"People of the world," Cross began quietly. Solemnly, even, as Luffy marched up the stairs. "Allow me to share with you… a piece of wisdom. Now, mind you…"
-o-
"This wisdom is pretty well-known already. In fact, it's common logic worldwide. But somehow… somehow, some people just seem to forget it, now and again. So allow me… allow us… to remind you all of this one, simple fact: Actions. Have. Consequences. It's… pfheheheh, it's so simple, is it not?"
"Why did they want to watch this one in private?" Marguerite wondered for the dozenth time, her attention torn between guarding the door to the throne room and the unfolding scene of sheer fury on the broadcast before them.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Kikyo answered, side-eyeing the door. "Better, actually, since the Snake Princess seems to have opened up more with the crew than the rest of us."
Marguerite shook her head. "Not really. I mean, the last two broadcasts showed far worse than this. This is a different presentation, but it's nowhere near as bad as before… maybe she's just hit her breaking point after all of this? I know I needed to catch my breath more than once over the last few several hours."
Kikyo nodded. "Perhaps. Even the strongest warriors need a reprieve." A smirk crawled onto her face as she looked at the menacing, advancing form of Luffy approaching the source of everything bad in the last broadcast. "Perhaps this will be the catharsis that she needs."
-o-
"It's soooo simple, such a simple truth, and yet… and yet people seem to forget. Seem to misunderstand the inevitability of it all. Some people… they think they're exempt from this law. They think they can do whateeeeever they want, and that there won't eeeeeever be any consequences. When in fact, that-that-that… well, see… that's just plain not true."
POP!
Shakky shook her head as the cork bounced off the ceiling. She had intended to save this particular vintage of champagne for her next anniversary, but some things just couldn't be helped.
The handful of patrons in the bar didn't even react to the sound of her opening and then pouring the bottle, especially Sandersonia and Koala.
Mere seconds earlier, the two had been tensed and prepared to rush to Grove 1 at the drop of a hat if the Straw Hats needed it. And now they were gaping at the screen like they'd just witnessed the face of God. Not surprising, really, seeing as she suspected that they and every other ex-slave in the world with this view were watching it just as intently. Just as reverently.
In the back of her mind, Shakky's jubilation was sobered by cold hard knowledge: the knowledge that all of this was going to be a tremendous mess sat sour in her head - and was firmly countered by the equally valid knowledge that it was going to be spectacular.
"To the Straw Hat Pirates," she hummed to herself as she toasted her flute high. "If they get out of this alive, there's no chance they won't go all the way."
Her tone was deadpan, but as she tilted back the glass, her smile nearly split her face… even if it was a melancholy smile in the end.
-o-
"Actions have consequences. This is a fact. A law of this world, to which we are all, all beholden. So simple. So veeeeery simple… and yet, so often forgotten."
On your average day, the casino island-ship of Gran Tesoro was always raucous with the sounds of laughter, clinking gold, and just about every other breed of joy, jubilation and overall excess that one could imagine. An island home to a pure cacophony of noise, as it were.
But for close to a minute, all of those discordant noises had been utterly silenced, and replaced with a single sound that easily put all the others to shame. Specifically…
"GURORORORO! GURORORO!"
A single laugh.
And while the owner of the laugh would have been concerning enough on a good day, it was the side-effects of this sudden bout of jubilation that had the island-ship in something of a panic.
"Son of a—!" Baccarat snarled, the Lucky-woman narrowly catching herself on a 'conveniently' available pillar as the ground heaved beneath her feet, again. "What the hell is that crazy bastard's problem!?"
Hers was a question repeated across the island. With every bout of laughter from the island's owner, every surface of gold on the island shifted and roiled as though a tropical storm had found its way inside.
"I swear, I don't know what he's done or doing," Baccarat bit out as she got her footing back during a momentary calm. "But if I ever get my hands around Jeremiah Cross's neck, I'm going to—!"
"Have to wait and see if he survives the personal attention of an Admiral first," Tanaka groused as he poked his head up through a nearby section of floor. "Trust me, you don't even want to know what they're pulling this time."
"Alright, then I won't ask," the concierge snapped back as she started walking again, the pit boss' head gliding along behind her. "And what are you doing here anyways? We have literally a dozen different fires raging across the island, so unless this is important, beat it!"
"I didn't bring up Cross without reason," Tanaka replied. "We miscalculated the latest odds and as it stands, unless we act fast then we're set to lose billions in less than ten minutes."
"Shit!" Baccarat barked out, breaking into a run and bolting for the nearest staircase. "Alright, you go and stick the winners in solitary, I'll get security to start rounding up any witnesses and delete all the pertinent foot—!"
"GURORORORO!"
"—GYAH!" the concierge shrieked as the latest set of bucking nearly threw her clean down the staircase, her mouth spewing out a stream of instinctive profanity long before her brain caught up with it. "A gwine mash up dat mengkeh, mi jus drop near dung di stairs because him dead with lau—!?"
Baccarat clamped her free hand over her mouth as she became aware of her wide-faced coworker staring blankly at her.
"…you didn't see anything," she declared, firmly and clearly in her usual, un-accented voicer. "Because if you did then I will jinx you so bad that the Sea King that eats you will get eaten."
"See what? What are you lollygagging for, we have a bank-breaking to stop."
"Thought so."
And with that, they made tracks for their respective destinations, leaving the corridor completely abandoned. Save for a certain maid who was most definitely not supposed to be there, who peeked her head out to watch them in wide-eyed awe.
"Well, while that's not what I'd call useful, that's still some new intel…" she muttered to herself before glancing up towards the laughter with a wry grin. "On more than one front. Damn it all, Red, you make life as your rival just too damn hard. I'm almost not up to the challenge!"
She maintained her contemplative gaze for a bit before donning a cheshire grin. "…well, almost." She clapped her hands together with a nod of certainty. "Looks like there's no other choice! Scratch taking just the tribute; one way or another, this island is mine!"
-o-
"Gurararara… you hear that? Brings back memories, doesn't it?"
Two snails connected on numbers he retained out of necessity more than anything else glowered back at him.
"But hey!" The largest snail on the Moby Dick belted out from its perch on the middle of the deck, its face twisted into the unhinged offspring of a grin and a scowl. "Hey hey hey, it's fine, it's fiiiiine, it's. Fine. That's what this is aaaaall about. To remind you all. To… To ingrain it all in your minds, once. And for all. Now please, kindly engrave this truth in your minds… and never forget it."
The World's Strongest Man bared a grin that showed more teeth than humor. "Is this sinking in, you two? You should take it to heart."
KA-K-LICK!
The snails slumped slightly from the sheer force behind the disconnection before perking back into awareness.
Whitebeard gave the suddenly recalcitrant-looking snails a final glance before sighing in defeat. "Yeah, I knew that was a long shot…" He then allowed an honest smile to cross his face. "Ah well, with any luck I'll live long enough to see them swallow their pride and teeth both! And if not, I can still laugh at them and save them a seat in hell! GURARARARA!"
The captain's good cheer led to a round of chuckles and chortles from his kids, enhanced by the glorious justice they were all about to witness. And the next piece of news they heard? Well, that just made them start cheering.
"Hey, I think Ace is finally coming home! His Vivre Card is pointing down!"
-o-
"Every action has a consequence," I repeated, my voice hoarse as I stared unerringly at him with complete, deadly focus. "And we must take responsibility for those consequences, because no one, no one can escape them. This holds true for everything, and everyone, on this planet. From the smallest piece of plankton, to the lowliest of bugs… to the mightiest, and most powerful, of gods. ALLOW US TO DEMONSTRATE."
Charloss remained oblivious as Luffy ascended the last few steps to reach him. Even with what I had said, even with what we had done, he still clung to the belief that nobody would dare touch him. That nobody could touch him.
Still, he fired his gun three times at Luffy as he approached. The rubber man dodged them effortlessly.
Then, with a grimace and snarl of rage, he brought back his fist…
And buried it into the self-proclaimed god's face.
I concede that it was probably my imagination and refreshed memories, but I swear that the world faded to black and white for an instant. Whether I imagined that or not, though, what definitely happened was that Charloss's bubble helmet disintegrated and his nose and jaw crumpled from Luffy's punch, sending him flying the full length of the room. Crashes sounded out one after another, a dozen every second as his body broke through wood and fabric that may have been stronger than he himself was. Then finally, in a warped sense of mercy, he crashed headfirst into the solid stone of the auction house's inner wall. Without so much as a gurgle, he slumped to the floor, Luffy's fistprint implanted on the side of his face.
Would that scar? Oh, I seriously hoped it would scar.
The echoes of the rattling debris were the only sound in the room; the brawl had slowed as I spoke, and now it had frozen in response to the 'blasphemy' my captain had performed. Somehow, the bulk of the room's inhabitants were still flabbergasted.
Oh, who am I kidding? It doesn't make any difference how many people knew that Luffy was willing and able to do this, consequences be damned. No, this was an action that shook the world when it was just in a newspaper. And now… I didn't doubt that even two years from now, this would be looked back on as 'The Punch Heard Around The World.'
The grim mood slowly lifted for us as Luffy looked back up at us, his expression a bit more regretful than sheepish. "Sorry, guys. This means that they'll be sending an admiral after us, right?" He paused and then tilted his head. "Oh, yeah, sorry to all of the other Supernovas, too. And Foxy. And—"
"And I think that's enough of implicating our accomplices, Captain," Sanji said, shaking his head. "Besides, you haven't finished apologizing to us yet."
"Why did you have to go and hit him so hard, Luffy? Now I can't cut him," Zoro groused, slamming Kitetsu III and Shusui back in their sheaths.
"Maybe I can still castrate him… you know, assuming he has balls," Vivi mused, glaring at the crumpled form as a sheen of razor-sharp wind danced over her Lion Cutter.
"…Under normal circumstances, I'd protest that to hell and back… but in this case?" Franky clenched his fists. "You'd do the whole world a favor cutting off his bloodline."
"I second that emotion with gusto," I deadpanned, pacing down the stairs through the still-frozen brawl and heading for Keimi's cage. "But that aside, maybe start mopping things up, so to speak? We just put a time limit on getting out of here alive, after all."
"Hey, you really think we're just going to let you leave things at that!?"
I paused to shoot a scathing glare at the newly resensitized Soundbite as he piped in Kid's voice, the snail finding the decency to wince sheepishly. "HEY, THEY INSISTED."
"Damn right we insisted!" Kid barked, the bulging veins actually audible in his voice. "You sons of bitches kick the world in the crotch like that, and you think we're just going to let it go without another word?!"
"Think? No. But we hoped…" I muttered to myself.
"CRAM IT!" Bonney barked. "The point is that we've got a bone to pick with you!"
"What, you wanted us to not give that son of a bitch his divine retribution?" Vivi said.
"Psh, hell no," Apoo dimissively replied. "We could have stopped you if we wanted to, easy, we decided against it—"
"Wow, I physically felt my bounty bump up right there…" Drake deadpanned.
"—but that doesn't excuse the fact that you all cut the Sea King without us! You think you're the only guys who've wanted a swing at those raging monsters!?"
"It does feel somewhat unfair that you all have pulled ahead of us in such a manner…" Hawkins droned.
"We want our pounds of flesh, Straw Hat-ya. Literally, that putrid mass sells for millions at a time," Law capped off with a gruesome chuckle.
"Nobody's stopping you guys anymore, do whatever you want," Luffy nonchalantly retorted.
There was a moment of silence…
"DIBS ON FIRST KICKS!" Barto roared, before everything cut off into a mishmash of confusion and Soundbite cut the feed.
"Welp, I'd say that the BLOCKADE THE MARINES ARE TRYING TO SET UP IS GONNA LAST EVEN LESS TIME THAN THE LAST ONE!" he snickered impishly.
"Good," Luffy grunted, then turned towards me. "Cross, get Keimi, free the slaves, get our coater, and let's get out of here."
…welp. Captain's orders or not, I was stunned into staring at him for a couple of seconds.
"Luffy? Just so you know, the smarter you are? THE SCARIER YOU ARE," Soundbite said.
"Cross."
"Right, on it," I grunted, wheeling around and marching back toward the stage. And really, I couldn't blame him. Even knowing what was coming, way too fast for comfort (and I was really going to have to process that later), we still had an objective to complete. And frankly, I was getting more and more sick and tired of this hellhole by the—
Ka-click. "Not one step further, mongrel."
…yeah. Yeah, that would be how this day would turn out, wouldn't it?
I slowly raised a hand to pinch the bridge of my nose, refusing to so much as look at the Roswald in my path, or the gun he had leveled at me, lest it aggravate my migraine. "I am so far beyond done with this shit…" I muttered to myself before raising my voice. "Move your ass, grandpa, before you make me do something you'll regret."
"You dare," Roswald hissed through his teeth, his gun rattling with he was so furious. "You dare to address me?! You worm, you insignificant—!"
Aaaand that was the last of my limit on bullshit today. Right, time to ruin this fuck's life.
"Okay, you know what?" I interrupted, finally willing myself to look at him dead-on and meet him glare to glare. "I could have just punched you out, given you some bruising and just been on my way, no harm no foul, but we're well past that. So I'm going to summarize this all very nice and neatly in a single word."
I raised my hand, and jerked my thumb to the side.
"Move."
For a few seconds, there was blessed silence, but of course all good things must come to an end.
"What?" Roswald spat, obviously not believing his own ears.
"I said move," I repeated, voice as dry as Alabasta. "Get. Out. Of my way."
Roswald twitched, pretty damn violently at that, but he kept his gun up, and more importantly, he didn't move from where he stood. "I am a god of this world," he hissed out, sounding on the verge of a stroke. "I am your ruler, your clear and undeniable superior. And you dare to order me? You dare?!"
I stared at him silently for a bit, my thoughts and words storming about my head. I took a slow, calm breath… and slowly, calmly let it out. And once my mind was calm and clear… I spoke.
"Back home, where I'm from?" I uttered, dispassionately staring at the man, the Noble, the God before me. "Well, a great man once said something about my country. He said that it was a nation that was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe in, no matter the odds or the consequences. What that means, is that when anyone, be it the mob, be it the press, be it even the World, tells you to move, to stand aside and let what you know, you know to be an injustice be committed... your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole World..."
I took a single, decisive step forwards, right up to Roswald. And I kept staring. Kept staring even as his expression shifted from furious to apoplectic. Even as the gun pressed flush against my heart, and I looked him right in the eye - and spoke these words
"No. You move." And with that, I slowly tilted my head to the side. "So yes, Saint Roswald, I dare. Now move; move, or else."
To whatever credit Roswald was due? His gun didn't waver. I mean, it trembled in impotent rage… but it didn't waver.
"I could kill you where you stand," he said, combining 'calm' and 'enraged' in the same sentence.
I, however, just snorted incredulously at the notion. "Do you really think I'd die if you shot me?"
"People tend to die when they are killed, yes!" Roswald barked as his nerve suddenly buckled.
"Oh, yeah?" Luffy spoke up behind me, sounding as unimpressed as I was. "How'd that work out for you the last time?"
There was another weighty pause, during which Roswald's expression tightened up as he turned that over. The only noise came from the unfrozen guards trying and failing to gain any ground against the pirates in the building; the other nobles still hadn't snapped out of their stupor.
"Only three ways this is going to end, Roswald," I stated, giving him the facts. "None of them are going to be good for you, but only one puts the second Darkest Day squarely on your shoulders. So tell me… what's it going to be?"
Saint Roswald was enraged from what we had just done to his son. Any normal man would be. Roswald was also possessed by an inhuman level of pride and cruelty. But unfortunately for him - and for the first time, it was unfortunate for him - pride wasn't enough to make him a complete fool. Or perhaps pride was what kept him from becoming a complete fool, being compared to the other man to bring about the World Government's humiliation.
Either way, in the end…
"…damn you."
A God lowered his gun, every inch of him trembling with fury, and stepped aside for a mortal.
Satisfied, and feeling reeeeally pleased with myself, I stepped right past Roswald, and then decided that while I'd given his pride such a gaping wound, I might as well toss in some salt for good measure. As such, I paused, turned to give him an ear-to-ear smile, reached up, and tipped the brim of my hat just so. "Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate your courtesy."
And… yeah, that pretty much did it. I almost literally heard the almighty SNAP! inside Roswald's head, and watched with dull disinterest as he whipped his gun up at my head, pulled the trigger—
SHINK!
—and was left clicking a useless half-gun, the barrel and cylinder clattering to the floor.
Zoro tsked dismissively at the apoplectic and… honestly still a little insensate World Noble as he tried to piece together what had just happened. "Fair warning; Cross might be trying to be clever by not touching you, but I'm one of our crew's idiots. Try that again and you'll lose the arm."
"You didn't need to do that," Nami deadpanned as she walked up next to him, rolling something over and over in her hand.
Zoro raised an eyebrow. "Their aim is bad, but not 'a drunk baby can do better' bad."
"Wrong reason why." Nami opened her hand and showed off a palmful of balls and powder. "I thought it was best the other two not get the chance."
Zoro gave her an impressed look. "Well, at least someone on this crew has half a brain."
"…hy…"
"Eh?" I inquired dryly, reluctantly looking back at the livid Noble.
A large part of my irritation melted into satisfaction at the look on his face. The look of someone who was trying desperately to find some semblance of sanity as his world crumbled to pieces around him. Over the course of the day's work, I had become very familiar with that look.
"Why are you doing all of this!?" Roswald demanded, annoyingly not losing the way he carried himself, but rather doubling down on his arrogant indignation. "Why have you ravaged our slave market? Why are you attacking us!?"
"My, my, you do have a brain, that you actually care to ask that. Why am I angry at you?" I looked him in the eyes with the same glare I'd given him hours before. "Because of a man you killed earlier today." A moment's confusion, and then I saw something light up behind his glasses. "Yeah, that's the one. You were right, I was right there. Just a few seconds after you shot him. I looked at you, and didn't see a shred of remorse, a hint of thought, nothing. You just killed that man and walked off… like he didn't even matter."
"Because he didn't matter!" Roswald outright roared, a large chunk whatever restraint and sanity he had left shattering away. "He was worthless! Pointless! Even among you mortals, he was a nobody! You don't even know his name!"
I slowly tilted my head as I stared straight at him. "You're right. You're absolutely right. He was a nobody man with a nobody life. Whose life you snuffed out like stepping on a bug. And quite frankly?"
I turned my back on the bastard and walked away. Dismissing him like the nobody he deserved to be.
"That's what pisses me off worst of all." Without a glance back, I shrugged and tacked on one more thing. "Though it may also be that in your son's last hours of delusion as one of my fans, he spent an hour telling me what kind of monsters you and all the rest of your compatriots really are. And the rest of the world, too, of course. So have fun with that when you get back to Mariejois. Toodles~!"
And as I marched towards the stage, leaving him finally breaking down into impotent ranting and raving and general gruesome death-threats, it was almost everything I could have hoped for.
"You idiot!"
Almost.
"Oh, now what?!" I heard Hachi snap at Kuroobi, and from what Soundbite was telling me, Chew was right next to the big-armed dumbass. "Even you can't make this into a problem!"
"Watch me!" the fishman snarled. "You think you've been fighting the world? This is going to make everything the World Government's done to try and catch you look like a children's game of tag. They will stop at nothing to get you, starting with the Admiral that World Noble is calling right now!"
"SHOULDN'T YOU BE BITING THEIR HEADS OFF ABOUT NOW?" Soundbite muttered as Kuroobi continued to rant.
"Meh," I shrugged indifferently, casually kicking the helmet of a downed knight whose twitching I didn't like the look of. "This isn't a conversation, they're just talking at us. Someone else will handle them."
"Excuse me."
When I heard Nami cut in, I perked up… maybe a bit too gleefully. Her voice was stormy, most likely with twenty thousand volts to sweeten the deal!
"But can I present a counterargument?" our navigator continued.
I could audibly hear Kuroobi's teeth grinding, followed by a disgruntled groan of surrender. "Yeah, sure."
It was at that point that I reached the stage and vaulted up onto it—
CLICK.
—and was struck by a raging sense of déjà-vu, as I noticed Shalria standing right in front of me, and the gun she was pointing at me. A gun she was… pointing at me from five feet away. I tilted my head and gave her a curious look. "Honest question, seeing as ruining daddy dearest's life helped work out a lot of my aggression, but can you even hit me at this distance? Because from what I've seen, apart from one or two flukes, you inbred bastards can't shoot for shit."
The sneer Shalria wore could go either way. "Please. If I had been my fool of a brother, you might have a point," she said. "I, however, actually put in some work. The better to shoot the more nimble slaves. Now, any last words?"
Her sneer was matched with my usual smirk, and I was gratified to see her lips twist in annoyance. "Yeah," I said. "To quote every action hero ever? 'They never look up'."
Shalria had time to blink and snap her head up - right before Vivi's foot planted itself in the middle of her bitch face, shattering her bubble and sending her smashing headfirst into Keimi's tank.
"Never has fulfilling such a short-lived grudge been so satisfying," the Corsair Princess snorted to herself as she forcefully wiped the bottom of her shoe off on a nearby guard.
Glancing aside, I saw Nami flick her Eisen Tempo dismissively, even as she examined her fingernails with total contempt. "Fuck the World Nobles," she said, succinctly completing earlier summation.
Kuroobi gaped, blinking owlishly before choking down a heavy gulp. "… Checks out," he finally said after a solid half minute.
"We used to push her around?" Soundbite relayed from Chew, muttering under his breath.
"Now, then, back to the point of this?" I groused, finally stepping up to Keimi's bowl and getting a good look at her expression. An expression that, between us being there to rescue her and the unparalleled acts of chaos we had just performed, positively screamed that she was… conflicted.
"Don't worry, we'll overshadow your presence in this completely!" I assured her. "Now, hang—well, just float there for a bit, alright?" I examined the top of the tank. "OK, let's see… so where's the seam on this thing so that we don't blow your head clean—eh?"
Then I felt something grab at me, and my side felt just a bit lighter as it came away. My… right side where I was keeping the detonator—! I snapped my head down to see Shalria leaning against the tank, very conscious and very angry, and clutching the detonator in one hand.
"Those who defy the gods must die," Shalria sneered, and before I could even move, she pressed the button.
…
…and then she pressed it again. And again. And then Vivi unfroze enough to slam the flat of her Lion Cutter against her right temple, knocking her out properly, while I scooped the detonator back up. Only now, where before I'd looked at it with relief, I could only feel fear and rapidly mounting terror.
Terror that hit a prime peak as I dug my fingers into the side of the little box's case and ripped it open, to reveal… nothing. Absolutely nothing. The detonator was… was empty?!
My mind running a mile a minute, I snapped my finger up at the tank. "ZORO, SLICE IT!"
"Didn't you explicitly tell me to not—?"
"HE SAID NOW, BUSHIDO!" Vivi backed me up forcefully.
"Sheesh," the swordsman groused, stepping up and swinging Wado almost dismissively. Water and mermaid spilled out as the tank split open, and I immediately knelt down and grabbed the collar around Keimi's neck while she was still dizzy from her sudden spill.
"Soundbite?!"
My snail narrowed his eyes at the collar suspiciously, before snapping them wide open in alarm. "…it's a dud."
"Your tone of voice says you don't think we're just that lucky," Vivi said with mounting terror.
"Because this thing isn't a 'dumb luck dud', it's a DUD-dud!" Soundbite yowled in straight-up panic. "We're not talking about crossed wires here, THIS THING'S AS STERILE AS I ASSUME CHARLOSS IS! THIS BOMB WAS NEVER A BOMB TO BEGIN WITH!"
My hands moving faster than my mind, I took hold of the collar, yanked—!
SKRANG!
—and could only stare in horror as the collar ripped apart in my hands like worthless tinfoil. I mean, it was still metal, but nothing that would stand up to the abuse a panicked slave could inflict on it.
"Ah… isn't this a good thing, though? We knew the whole time that they were using her to lure us in, so what's the problem?" Billy posed.
"The problem," Soundbite said, gulping audibly. "Is that this was supposed to be the POINT. This was the game whoever did this was playing, OUR FRIEND'S LIFE ON THE LINE, US FIGHTING AND STRUGGLING AND SUFFERING TO FREE HER. BUT IF KEIMI'S LIFE WASN'T ON THE LINE, THE GAME CHANGES. It means that we weren't the targets here… AND THAT MEANS WE SUDDENLY HAVE JACK-ALL IDEA OF WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!"
That killed whatever small, infinitesimal bit of good cheer we'd managed to salvage from what we'd thought was our victory. Even Roswald had the presence of mind to shut his hole, evidently brought up short by the fact that even we were at a loss for what was going on. And this stunned silence would have persisted for quite a bit…
CRASH! "ALRIGHT, WHO WANT'S THEIR SKULLS CAVED—!…eh?"
If it weren't for the dense atmosphere being shattered by… well, by the Supernovas abruptly shattering the front door, and most of the wall around it.
Barto had been leading the charge, a large Barrier-Fist raised and ready to break heads, only for both it and him to deflate as he saw us all standing around, no enemies left on their feet.
"Hey, what the fuck gives?" Bartolomeo demanded, walking down the stairs as he looked around in confusion. "I thought this was an all-you-could-smash fest, not a wake! Seriously, who died?! Heh, well, I mean," he snickered as he kicked the nearest body to him. "Apart from these chumps."
And it was there, right there, that shit hit the fan.
The body Barto had kicked, the body he and everyone else present had been certain was down for the count, suddenly shoved off the ground and surged to its feet, wrapping its arms around a stunned Barto in a bear hug before he could react. Metal struck flesh, shortly before the two crashed to the floor again in a heap, and then more blows rang out, joined by grunts of pain.
Now, normally, we'd have all gone to help him, except the scene was repeated all across the Auction House. Insensate bodies rising and fluidly attacking whoever was closest, all at the same goddamn time.
"THE ACTUAL FUCK!?" Kid raged, snapping up a large and rapidly growing hand of metal as fast as his powers could form it. To mine and Kid's astonishment, though, the people attacking him all smoothly rolled or dashed out of the way, and then pressed the attack from two directions at once. Kid, at worst the second-strongest of the Supernovas, was quickly sent backpedalling from a bunch of mooks. Or sub-mooks, in the case of the two nobles joining in.
And then the ones closest to my little knot got in melee range, and I had no time to pay attention to the rest of the battle.
Between Zoro and Vivi, that shouldn't have happened. Those two, before this whole impossible situation, probably could've taken on the entire room and come out unscathed. But now Zoro was on the defensive under a hail of fisticuffs, and Vivi was frantically—and futilely—trying to hit somebody, anybody, with her gusts of wind.
And let's not forget Soundbite, either.
"CROSS, big trouble! I'M GASTRO-PHONYING these guys HARD ENOUGH THEY SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO HEAR THEMSELVES THINK!!"
"Little busy at the moment!" I grunted, quickly wrapping Funkfreed around me to get some damn breathing room. "Lassoo, they try climbing, blast 'em!"
"Don't need to tell me twice!" Lassoo barked, planting his front legs over my left shoulder. "And there's one! EAT IT!"
Satisfied I had at least a little time, I indicated Soundbite to connect with as many people as possible. "Alright, people, details! What are we dealing with here?"
"Impossible skill and a bit of a speed boost, but these suckers don't hit any harder than they used to," Boss grunted over the sound of flesh striking flesh. "Tank and counter, that would be my suggested strategy."
"Boss, not all of us punch rocks with their flippers every day!" Usopp snapped back. "Agh, stay still, dammit!"
"I don't understand your point."
Cutting across my throat, the conversation went silent. I felt a little relieved at that; if the crew was bantering, things weren't hopeless.
In that next moment, I was struck by how silent everything was. Well, as silent as a battlefield could be, anyway. I could still hear all the sounds of battle, of the crew and our Supernova allies shouting and grunting and cursing, but one sound was conspicuous in its absence:
Our opponents.
Frankly, it was creepy as all hell. Whatever it was that made them get up—drugs, or something more exotic and much more dangerous—it didn't give them any reason to speak. No, not just speak. There weren't even grunts and pants of exertion. That was just plain unnatural.
And from the chatter I was hearing from Soundbite, I wasn't the only one.
"Hmm, this is very strange," Law mused. "Usually people scream when I do this sort of thing. Or at least panic and start yelling."
"Somebody get me blood samples! Or else prepare me an impromptu vivisec—ow! Thank you, Bepo."
"No problem!"
"Uh, Cross? You might wanna see this."
Funkfreed uncurled slightly, giving me a small window that Vivi cleared with a burst of air pressure. Through it, I could see Roswald getting held up in the air by the throat and repeatedly punched. Which in literally any other circumstance, I would be gleefully recording.
Except the people doing the punching were two of his own guards. Guards that had been knocked unconscious several minutes prior. One of whom had a leg that more resembled a corkscrew than a limb and the other sporting a neck lolling at a ninety-degree angle.
My mind span as I tried to piece things together, tried to figure out how the hell useless bodies could be moving against all reality, against their very wi—!
…no.
No… no, no, nononono—!
A dry heave surged up my gullet, then another. "No…. It can't be—!" I hissed. My already-racing mind sped up, scrambling for anything to disprove my hypothesis. I tapped Soundbite's shell. "Um… this might be an odd question, but are any of these guys injured? Like, cripplingly so?"
A brief pause, while everyone digested that. Then…
"Yeah, I see one guy to the back with a broken face."
"Three broken arms, a gushing head wound, and four twisted ankles. Two at 180 degrees."
"Spines aren't supposed to bend that direction, right? RIGHT?!"
Fuck. Slowly, agonizingly, I raised my left palm. I didn't want to do this. Didn't want to confirm my thoughts. My terrifying, pants-darkening thoughts. This wasn't the worst-case scenario. This laughed at the worst-case scenario and chopped it to pieces.
But not confirming it would be worse. For all of us. Reluctantly, and not unshakingly, my palm facing the ceiling, I flexed, triggering the Flash Dial in my gauntlet.
The illuminated ceiling bore exactly what I feared that I would see: a web.
A massive web, crisscrossing the ceiling and reaching down to the fighters—the bodies, hundreds of them, thousands all at once. A massive, swaying and twitching bundle of—of—!
"Hey, Croooo~ooooss~"
With the same agonizing slowness, I turned around. The face that met my eyes was framed by a mess of long gray hair beneath a flowery top hat. On his face was a pair of star-shaped spectacles and a grin that was almost too wide to fit it. Ever-so-casually, he tapped the tip of his cane on the wall behind him… right on the Jolly Roger emblazoned there.
The smiling Jolly Roger.
Doflamingo's.
"You…" I breathed numbly, before I felt a fire rage in me, and I snarled as I started to march for the pompous bastard. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU—!?"
Disco opened his mouth—
"How cute."
—And then I was a puppet dancing on a String.
That's all I was: a wooden marionette, no face, no name, no nothing. Just a puppet. A toy.
I was moving and dancing, twirling about on a stage for all to see, but only because of my String.
The String was everything. The String was how I stood. How I moved. How I lived.
I lived and died according to the string… and the smiling devil who held it, so far, far above me.
And then… scissors. Right there, right against the string, against my life.
Slowly, so slowly, the scissors closed.
The String frayed. My lifeline, my only reason to live, going, going—!
A final snip—
And then the world lurched, and for a brief second I was kneeling at a black throne, set at the foot of a crumbling yet still-regal monument—
And then, with a violent gasp, I was back. Back in the Grand Line. Sabaody. The Human Auction House. I… I was Jeremiah Cross, that was me, that's who I was, not… not…
"Hey, kid, you alright?"
I looked up. Tried to look at the speaker who'd put his hand on my shoulder. It was… hard, I had to blink a bit, get my eyes working properly, but once I did… white hair, glasses—
"…Rayleigh…"
The Dark King pulled me up to my feet, steadying my swaying with a hand on my shoulder, right next to my shivering and foaming snail. "Ah, damn it, this is not what I wanted…" he muttered, speaking to himself as much as to me. "I only wanted to play around, I didn't think I'd need to check… and now look where that's gotten us. I've felt some messed up shit in my life, but that kid… he's definitely up there. I'm sorry I let things get this far… get this far at all, damn it…"
I barely parsed what he was saying. I was just too focused on what I had seen. The vision forced on my eyes by… by…
I didn't want to think it. I didn't want to acknowledge it. I didn't want to make it real, but… but I couldn't deny the reality.
The reality shown… by a Conqueror's Haki.
I was only half-aware of jerking myself out of Raleigh's grip. I barely registered him shouting for me to wait, wasn't even halfway in control of my legs as they pumped and carried me down the hallway where Disco was no longer anywhere to be seen.
I knew that what I was doing was suicide. I know it now and I knew it then, but I had to… I-I had to… I don't know, damn it, I just had to do something!
And it was that desire, that drive, that need to move and actually act that carried me through the guts of that hellhole. That pushed me to the final, deepest door at the very back of the Auction House.
It was all that which pushed me to shoulder the door open… and there it all fled me, leaving me tired, empty… and alone with the horror before me.
I stared. And stared. And kept staring. Every second that ticked by, I absorbed more of the ramifications of exactly what I was looking at. And as Soundbite woke up, first with a snort and then a choked gurgle, it didn't take long for him to join me.
I had experienced not just fear, but honest-to-God pants-darkening terror only a handful of times since I'd arrived in the One Piece world. When I was first dropped into it. When I woke up from my cholera coma and learned I'd spilled the beans. Whenever I faced a Logia, when Merry almost died, when Moria awakened, when I first saw the Florian Obelisks, and when I had to face Jinbe.
But not one of those instances came close to the sheer mortal terror I felt now. This moment made me understand how fear can be so extreme that you lose control of your bowels, the kind of fear that comes from facing a monster completely out of your league or control and knowing that the only possible way you can survive is by their whim.
That is what I felt as I stared at the only other person in the room. The person who ran this auction house. The person I had seen mere minutes ago grandstanding on stage, putting on a show for everyone, indulging in the most despicable act imaginable.
…The person that was hanging from the ceiling by a length of piano wire. His eyes bulging, tongue sticking out, flesh an unhealthy shade of white, aside from the ruddy purple foot exposed by a fallen shoe, limbs stiff in unnatural positions, and bowels emptied onto the floor. The bloody scratch marks on his neck around the wire almost didn't register.
Almost.
"He… but he… he was just… wasn't he…?" Soundbite babbled quietly, staring up at Disco with wide eyes.
I shook my head in numb despair. "No… that wasn't him. It was never him. Hell, this isn't even recent. From the minute, the second we set foot on this island, this…" I waved at the body weakly. "Was a foregone conclusion. All of this… was just a game. And we've been played."
With that chipper and cheery thought, I moved to close the door, and then I did a double take and paced over to the desk as something caught my eye. Pieces of paper… with my signature on them? But when had I—?
In my confusion, I flipped the papers over and saw… pictures of—! "Ah!" I uttered in shock, flipping them all over to see that yes, they weren't just pictures of me, they were all the pictures that I had taken earlier with those fans! And this close to his work… he… he couldn't have…
Had he… he… he…he…
And then… something clicked inside my brain. Pieces just… fit together. Context.
My horror multiplied as I looked over the pictures again… and put them in the context of him.
A flamboyant half-fishman hybrid… with an afro big enough to hide a giant pair of horns to match the pointed teeth…
An ill-tempered punk who kept his face covered at all times… who knew more about me than he should have, and was cracking… popping his bones every other second…
A flamboyant scientist… with a pair of coke-bottle glasses combined with a cheeky, flirting, handsy demeanor…
"…all along," I managed in a staggering whisper.
Then I went as still as a statue as I felt something touch me. Something on the edge of my nose… something very small… cold, wet… that nipped at my nose THAT RAGING BITCH—!
"All ALONG!"
-o-
"Kyahahaha!" Dellinger chortled, gleefully tossing a handful of popcorn into his thresher of a maw as he watched Jeremiah Cross enter a rage worthy of a Fighting Fish. The Visual Snail peering in the direction of the Archipelago through a telescope was earning its keep.
"Well, safe to say that he knows your fruit, Big Sis Monet! 'Cause he recognized that, and he is not happy!"
"Urgh… glad to know somebody appreciates the finer touch I put into things…" Monet grooaned, an icepack pressed to her forehead. "Honestly, seeing him jump out of his skin like that was completely worth it, but keeping control over a single flake from miles off? I'm going to have a migraine for a week…"
"More information for us, that gives your suffering value," Gladius grunted, punctuating his statement with a slurp from the straw he'd poked through his facemask. "That it helped make that pompous worm squirm? Worth it all the more."
His sentiment was met with chuckles from his two crewmates, but the mood immediately turned tense when the only noise from their leader—their lord, their master—was a grunt of acknowledgement.
"Young Master?" Gladius posed hesitantly, sweat cascading down his brow. "Is… Is everything alright?"
"Mm… yeah. Just thinking about how… funny fate is, you know?"
The demon in pink feathers leaned forward, bringing his typical grin out of the shadows for his underlings to see, and both relaxing them and setting them more on edge.
"I've been toying with killing those Straw Hats here and now for a while," Donquixote Doflamingo explained ever so casually, as though he were discussing merely reducing a village to slurry, or kicking a child's head off their neck. "Tearing a D. to shreds would have been wonderful, and that brat's transceiver would have let me come out into the open as Joker. I could blow the Nobles' precious secret sky high on a moment's notice and there's nothing that they could do to stop me. Just… set the world on fire."
A hand cradled his face as he chuckled, scratching beneath the leering lenses of his glasses, even as a couple of veins throbbed on his forehead.
"But they're just too good. Too good at keeping this world interesting and too good at even keeping me guessing how they'll top themselves next. The fact that they attacked those Nobles is no big surprise… but I never could have dreamed that one of them would be stupid enough to give Cross that much more firepower. Now I actually know how it feels to be laughing so hard that you can't breathe," he snickered, staring not at the spectacle of Cross being driven into a rampage, but at something only he could perceive.
"So you decided against sending us in to fight them?" Monet queried, forcing herself to follow lockstep with her Master's train of thought even through the migraine of the feat she'd had to put all of her concentration into, but which he had managed with total ease.
"Something like that," he grunted before correcting her. "I decided not to go there myself. To only be there via that Knight instead. They got lucky that I didn't give the order to attack; maybe, by some miracle, by the skin of their teeth, they may have been able to beat you three—"
Said three shivered as the implications of what the consequences for such a sin against their dark god would have been.
"—But they wouldn't walk out of here alive with an Admiral on their tail. Hell, they still probably won't. They've been lucky so far, though… let's see how far that takes them."
With that Doflamingo, turned his back on the display, and strolled over to a porthole, through which he could gaze at the fateful Archipelago that sat on the horizon. "But for now… fuffuffuffu…" The room echoed and shook with the laugh of pure evil. "I'm going to have to thank Cross for what he's done here today. I was about ready to replace my investments from trading slaves into SMILEs… but no. Now we're going to take advantage of how things have changed… and set up an export system."
"Kyahahaha!" Dellinger laughed, clapping his hands gleefully. "Hope that Sugar can handle it!" But as his admiration at his lord's brilliance passed, a single, untangled thread remained to be addressed. "Oh, but Young Master… what did you mean by how funny fate is, and by luck?"
Doflamingo turned his head back, and raised a hand, a fist into view, before flicking a thumb upward, sending a coin spinning into the air, before catching it and flipping it again, over and over. "Don't you know, Dellinger? There's an old, old saying, tossed around the oceans. The most important thing needed to sail the ocean? It's luck. The luck to have a strong body, the luck to be smart, the luck to be rich. The luck to escape from death, the luck to live a good life. The only reason anyone ever comes as far as they have is because their luck brought them there."
Doflamingo gave the coin a final, resounding flip, and watched as it soared into the air. "Luck is as much a factor of making it on these seas as skill and power. And so… I decided to test the Straw Hats' right when I was giving you your orders."
A moment passed for that to sink in, and then three pairs of eyes cemented on the coin in the air, as though it were the most valuable thing in the world.
"If it had landed on heads, I would have ordered the attack. But instead…"
The Heavenly Yaksha caught the coin between his fingers, and flashed his suddenly frozen executives the numbers emblazoned on the metal disc.
"They got tails. So they get a chance to live."
Doflamingo turned away from the window… and in the shadows, all that his underlings could see were those lenses… and that Smile.
"And I think that I'd like to see how far that little spark of hope can take them from here."
And with that, Donquixote Doflamingo walked past his frozen underlings and disappeared into the bowels of the ship, to await whatever news might come. The three crewmates he left behind watched after him for a single moment before going about their duties.
But in that moment, the image of the coin turning over and over in the air, the idea, the concept of such a simple act dictating the passage of fate for the world itself, replayed in their minds. And in that moment, the crewmates watching him had the same thought as they looked after the man who had done it. The same realization occurred to each of them in the darkest corners of their minds, unknown even to their consciousness but indelible nonetheless.
On this day, Donquixote Doflamingo cemented the slightest shred of doubt in three of his most loyal crewmates, in the form of six simple words buried in their subconscious:
'He really is a World Noble.'
-o-
I must have blacked out at some point, because the next thing I knew I was staring at the door to the room, which was now shut once more.
"You back with the land of the living?" Soundbite asked, all sarcasm and snark gone in favor of shell-deep weariness.
I slowly leaned forward, resting my forehead on the unyielding wood of the door… in total defeat. "Every step," I croaked. "Every step we took… every inch we gained… was by the whim of the devil. We lived because he willed it. We 'won' because he allowed it. Everything that we did today…" I weakly knocked my fist against the wood. "And it all amounts… to nothing…"
Soundbite was silent for a long, long minute before he released a chorus of moans and groans. "You're… You're wrong, and I know that academically for several reasons… but I don't have the will or energy to get into this right now. Let's… Let's just get out of here. CAN WE JUST DO THAT PLEASE?"
I stayed stuck there for just a few seconds more, just a few… and then I nodded and peeled myself away from the door, dragging myself back down the hall.
As I walked back into the main room, all of the events that had happened played back in my mind: someone who was willing to provoke the Straw Hats, the auction house, "Disco's" confidence, the way that those guards kept fighting back, the fact that they ever attacked us at all when they had no reason to… hell, tripping on a wire and falling right into Charloss's line of sight.
Every memory, every obvious thread dangling right in front of my nose… every one, a millstone dragging my neck lower and lower.
And the moment that I re-emerged onto the stage, the moment I raised my eyes to try and speak… I saw something else.
One thing. Just one last… parting gift that made my knees give out from beneath me.
Everyone's eyes snapped to me, but unfortunately, not everyone could read the mood.
"The hell was that, smartass?!" I heard Kid demand. "That thing you flashed, controlling everyone… what, some sort of Thread Fruit or something?! Who the hell would have the balls—!?"
"Not threads, Kid," I heard Law say, intense hate coloring his every word. "Strings. That was the String-String Fruit. And this was the least of its applications. We're only walking away because he wanted us to."
"Oh yeah?!" Barto scoffed, the smack of his fist striking his palm ringing out. "Well, trust me, that fuck will be regretting it when I get my hands on him!"
"Something tells me that that is, quite literally, the least of Doflamingo's concerns," Rayleigh intoned gravely.
Everyone present reacted to that, of course. Wide eyes were abundant on everyone but Law, and Kid, Bege, and Bartolomeo cursing up a blue streak. Drake, Apoo, Urouge, and Bonney locked eyes with me, opening their mouths to ask - and then closing them as they saw that, quite clearly, I was in no state to give answers anymore.
"Pff… pffhehehehehe…pffhahahahahaha…"
The pressure was just too much. I was vaguely aware of the rest of the crew coming up to me as I felt hysterical laughter bubble out of my throat, tears streaming down my face.
"Cross. What is it?" Luffy asked.
"It doesn't matter…"
"W-What—?" Conis asked, gently placing a hand on my shoulder.
"Nothing we did… nothing we've done… nothing we could do… none of it matters…"
"Cross, what do you mean? What the hell is wrong?!" Zoro demanded.
Still chuckling, tears trailing down my face, I raised my shaking left finger and pointed upward. Everyone's gaze, among my crew and the Supernovas, followed… and they saw what I did. The same words, carved a thousand times over the walls in string-thin letters:
DON'T LEAVE ME HANGING.
Patient AN: Never in my entire life, not once, have I laughed as hard and for as long as I did the day that we posted Chapter 65, when discussing the three fans who so very graciously helped us create a perfect expy of Miror B. And you wanna know when they found out it was really Dellinger in disguise?
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…well, aside from the one who joined our translation team, they found out at the same time that you did.
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Cross-Brain A.N.: Psh, come on, have you met us? Did you really think we'd let them get off that easy?
"Alright!" I barked as I barreled out the front doors like my life depended on it (which you can damn well bet it and my sanity both did). "We can process all of this shit later, but right now we need to get the hell out of here before—!"
THUD! "GAH!"
I fell back as I ran into what felt like a tree but what I realized very quickly was more likely a powerful human. I looked up, an apology ready on my lips - and then my heart stopped.
"Before what, Jeremiah Cross?" Admiral Kizaru asked casually.
"…before exactly this happens," I wheezed, my neurons firing and flailing miserably as I tried and failed to process that this was happening. "Before I break down in panic, why are you already here, I was expecting you in half an hour."
"You're thinking of Aokiji," the Light-monkey flippantly replied.
"…Riiight, you're the unpredictable one," I groaned, before breaking off into a gurgle when he lunged down and pinned my fucking throat to the ground.
"'Voice of Anarchy' Jeremiah Cross," Admiral 'Kizaru' Borsalino gravely intoned, his spotlight-like glasses glinting so heavily they became the only things I could see through the spots in my vision. "For crimes against the World Government and by the authority vested in me by the Justice of the Navy… I hereby place you under arrest."
