Chapter 73

~Two Days After the Sabaody Revolution~

Irrespective of the ongoing preparations, the war's announcement sent Marines the world over into a frenzy. What had been hurried now became frantic, particularly in Marineford. Troops and ships continued to flow into the island, but now some of them went out, bearing Vice Admirals with orders to make sure that the Seven Warlords—and apparently they were back to seven, or so the scuttlebutt said—were gathered together to battle. And with Boa Hancock's messenger bat already sent out, Vice Admiral Momonga and his ship were navigating through the Calm Belt to fetch her.

With his destination a day away, Momonga retired to his quarters and placed a call to Sengoku for confirmation of his orders, simple protocol.

For above all else that he was—a swordsman, a leader of men, even a mustache connoisseur—Momonga was, at heart, a soldier. His purpose and duty were to march forward without hesitation and fulfill his orders without question. Simple, easy, clean. Just the way he liked it.

So it really spoke volumes for the current situation Momonga was in for one such as him to actually question his orders.

"I… sirs, I apologize, but I fear I must have misunderstood," he grit out, his jaw clenched tight. "You want me to simply… wait for Boa Hancock to arrive? Nothing more?"

Moreover, it was one thing to question the orders of his superiors.

"No, Vice Admiral, you have understood perfectly," the Transponder Snail blandly replied, its face creased with the wrinkles of age, experience, and above all else, authority. "You are to hold your position, and await the Warlord Hancock's arrival. That is all."

Another thing entirely to question the de facto rulers of the world. And yet…

"But my Lord Elder Stars," Momonga tried, his pride as a soldier forcing the words out past his professionalism. "I feel I must protest. Boa Hancock may be a Warlord, but that is all she is: a pirate who serves at our pleasure, nothing more. It is her responsibility to answer to our orders in a timely manner, without delay! A responsibility that she has neglected! We must—!"

"What you must do, Vice Admiral," the Elder Star retorted, freezing the Marine in place. "Is as we command. And as such, our orders remain unchanged. You are to hold your position until Boa Hancock emerges, or until we say otherwise. That is all."

"But my Lord! To allow a pirate such leeway, in defiance of her agreement with the World Government, it's…!" Momonga ground his teeth, words failing him in the face of the unthinkable. "It's unconscionable! I—!"

"It is the order you have been given, Marine. That is all." KA-LICK!

"—must protest, if we allow this to—!"

It took a moment, but Momonga realized he was speaking to an unconnected snail. A snail currently cowering in the face of his incredulous, towering fury. A fury reaching for the heavens, getting closer and closer with every second he took to think about the current situation.

The venom Cross had spewed against the Navy had, all things considered, done very little to shake Momonga. He still had his sense of justice: strict, perhaps even harsh, but not, he believed, morally repugnant. He believed that the ends justified the means in the pursuit of his duty. He trusted that duty, even after almost a year of the pirate radio polluting the airwaves. Trusted that while the Navy wasn't and never would be perfect, those in command would always strive for that perfection, and so ever-improve the state of Justice in the world.

He had never nourished the seeds of doubt that had been planted into his mind by the SBS. Never until now, at any rate. Now, when Sengoku had been pushed aside in pursuit of a greater agenda, whose means and scope not even the upper echelons of the Marines knew more than the smallest extent of. Now, when intrinsic tenants were being countermanded, and even senior officers like himself were being treated like mushrooms by their erstwhile political masters.

Now, when he was being confronted straight to his face with what he had denied for so long.

And in this storm of doubt and treasonous wonderings, one question kept striking again and again.

'What in the name of Takemikazuchi is happening on Amazon Lily?!'

~Present~

"What in the World Serpent is taking so long!? Shouldn't we have found this thing already!?"

Thus spake a ginger-haired cobra-woman as she smashed her way through the island's thick undergrowth. Hot on her tail was her verdette anaconda-woman sister, and riding on their backs were, respectively a rubbery pirate-captain and a one-eyed Amazon warrior.

Unbelievable as it might sound, this was not the start to a joke. Good thing too, because no one was in a laughing mood. Case in point…

"You're asking me that?!" Sandersonia hissed at her sister's back. "You're the one in the lead here!"

Marigold glared right back over her shoulder, baring her fangs. "Hey, I'm heading where you're pointing! You're the one with the better Observation!"

Sandersonia bared her fangs right back, slamming her trunk into a tree's trunk with more force than necessary as she passed it. "And you're the one with the better sense of smell!" Sandersonia's lips curled into a vicious, merciless smirk. "A fact the consistent shortage of Sea King jerky in the kitchens attests to~."

That got Marigold wheeling around, expression thunderous and hair a match away from combusting. "I HAVE A GLANDULAR PROBLEM!"

"AS IF ANYONE BELIEVES THAT!"

On the nearby branch the two passengers had hopped onto for safety, Marguerite sighed and cradled her head in her hands. "These are the same women I all but worshipped as living goddesses a few months ago. Just when I thought my self-worth couldn't think any lower…" Her partner, a solemn look on his face, hissed and nodded in agreement.

"Mahhh, it's a sibling thing, don't worry about it," Luffy said, laughing. "Shishishi! You should've heard some of the fights my brothers got into!"

Marguerite almost got a chance to witness such a clash firsthand, as the serpentine sisters wound up to leap at each other—!

!

But instead reared up, their heads turning in the same direction, and Luffy and Marguerite were on guard once more.

"That way," the sisters declared in unison. The moment their passengers landed on their backs again, they blasted into the underbrush as fast as they could slither.

Which was very fast indeed. The jungle blurred around the demi-serpents, green and brown blasting past them in a smear of colors.

Faster and faster, closer and closer…

And then, in the middle of a clearing, they came to a sudden halt. All four of the party's heads were on a swivel, the serpents slowly circling one another to cover each other's blind spots. They searched, they scrutinized… and were left confused.

"It's here," the anaconda woman hissed, hackles drawn back as far as they could go. "It's right here, I can sense it, but I don't see a thing!"

The group scanned the jungle around them again. Nothing. Both Luffy and Marigold frowned, the latter letting her tongue flick out.

"You're not wrong, the smell of rotten blood is everywhere," Marigold hissed. "But where is it? I can't pinpoint the source."

"Then it can't be in the bushes," Luffy said with the confidence of someone who had spent their childhood hunting in a jungle. "And it's probably too big to be in the… trees…"

Luffy's eyes widened, a fraction of a second before the Amazons' did as well.

Later on, on recounting the events, none of the group would be able to say who shouted first. More likely, they all shouted the same thing at the same time.

"MOVE!"

Almost simultaneously, the group blurred out of the center of the clearing; Sandersonia slithered up and around a sturdy tree, Luffy leaped away and caught a branch with his stretchy arms, and Marigold wrapped up Marguerite in her coils and hastily backpedaled. And not a moment too soon. The rumbling, before only barely perceptible even to Sandersonia's sense of touch, escalated to earth-shaking—

KA-BOOM!

And then earth-shattering as something erupted from the ground where they'd once stood, throwing up an obscuring cloud of dirt.

"Shkrrrr…"

A massive something at that, emitting a bone-rattling growl that almost sounded—

"Alive?" Sandersonia barked out in shock. "That thing's an animal?!"

Marguerite didn't wait for the dirt to clear, shooting an arrow at the silhouette she could see and sense through the dust.

SKRANG!

Then she gasped when she heard her arrow bounce off her target, as much from the fact that it happened as from the sound it made.

"Metal!?" she yelped. "A machine?"

Luffy's eyes widened as his past experience reared its head. "No… it's not an animal or a robot!"

"Shkrr-shkrr-shkrr…"

Another rumbling growl rolled through the air, and an immense paw slammed its way out of the settling dust cloud.

A paw, coated and clawed with steel.

"It's both! A cyborg!"

And then all at once, the growl evolved into a metal-laced shriek!

"SHKREEEAAAAAARGH!"

With the shriek, the dust-cloud was blasted away, giving the pirates a clear, unobstructed view of their enemy.

It might have been a mongoose, once. Once being the operative word.

Now… well, it was still technically a mongoose. A mongoose the size of a sea train, mind, but the fur and body shape looked right at least. But much of the fur was gone now, replaced by articulated metal plates bolted onto and—if the dried blood around the rivets was anything to go by—into the body. It had gleaming metal blades for claws, and the joints of its limbs sported visible (and visibly armored) rotors. And those were the lesser of the visible modifications.

Grafted onto its shoulders where its head should have been was a massive and particularly vicious-looking conical drill bit. A drill bit that was laced with viciously-sharp grooves and edges, still caked with bits of dirt and outright chunks of crumbling rock.

This was the beast that the World Government had unleashed on Amazon Lily.

This… was the Snake-Eater.

-o-

The display before him brought a glare to Ratchet's eyes and a toothy smile to his face.

"Straw Hat," the madman veritably purred. "Oh, truly there could be no better baptism for my masterpiece."

"Hmm…"

Ratchet slowly looked over his shoulder; much as he wanted to enact his revenge now, he was well aware that the woman looming above him could make his life very unpleasant and very short very quickly if he acted without her approval. His jaw clenched in anticipation, but thankfully for him, Stussy merely waved a hand.

"Focus on heading for the village, Straw Hat'll chase it either way."

"Good enough for me," he growled, looking back at the display. "I'll swat them away as many times as they come at me, let's see that rubber-brained moron break through this armor! Now, Snake-Eater! Fulfill your purpose…"

He loosed a mad cackle as he rammed the joysticks as far forward as they would go.

"AND KILL THEM ALL!"

-o-

There was no time for even a disgusted "That's just not right" after that, not before the thing charged straight at Marigold, drill-head leading. Arrows flew from her coils, the Haki-empowered missiles biting into the armor but failing to penetrate.

"GEAR SECOND! GUM-GUM JET PISTOL!"

The punch Luffy thundered into its side did a lot better, crumpling the plate he hit and sending the Snake-Eater reeling. Marigold's naginata lashed out, but even off-balance the mecha-mongoose managed to dart out of the way with blurring speed—and right into Sandersonia's waiting coils. Seven serpents of hair lashed out, biting down on the armor plate while she attempted to wrap herself around the living weapon's barrel.

But one throw of its head flung her off the ground and into the nearest tree, nearly tearing her hair out at the roots as the faux-fangs were ripped out of what little dents they'd made in the armor. The air fled from Sonia's lungs and the monstrosity pounced at her before she could recover.

With no intention of letting the Snake-Eater live up to its name, Luffy blurred into position on its left flank, arms punching up to blurs, while Marguerite darted up and onto a branch on its right, a half-dozen arrows ready and drawn on Kaa's string.

"JET GATLING!"/"DIE, INTERLOPER!"

Punch after punch slammed into its armor, denting it in, while the chinks in its armor on its opposite flank sprouted a bouquet of feathered shafts. Growling and snarling in the same breath, the Snake-Eater backed off, only to find Marigold, now on fire, advancing on its rear.

The creature's instincts—what few that hadn't been surgically removed—warred between fleeing the burning thing nearing its tail and the steaming and stinging threat on its sides. The hesitation bought Sonia enough time to catch her breath, and she pounced back into the fray. She surged around the Snake-Eater's body, looping her long, long body around its form twice. Her hair reformed into snakes and sank their teeth into the armor again to help hold it—and more importantly, Sonia herself—in place as she did what she did best. Which is to say…

SCHK-KREEEEK!

Squeeze, and very effectively. Both armor and beast wailed and creaked under the pressure from the Zoan's coils.

"Finally got you, you stupid little weasel!" Sandersonia bit out, voice strained with exertion. "Now hurry up! And! BREAK!"

The Snake-Eater screeched under the pressure, a sound that was painfully metallic and biological in nature. But something was very wrong. Though the creature's outer plating was audibly buckling, the mecha-mongoose's actual internal structure had yet to budge.

Distressing, but at least it wasn't moving anymore.

-o-

"Your toy appears to be in a bit of a bind, four-eyes. She has it in her grasp."

Ratchet ignored the jab, snickering. "Ooooh, not as much as you'd think. Point of order… I have her!"

And so saying, he clicked a button on the right joystick and yanked it back.

-o-

Suddenly, with an impossibly flexible move that no skeleton should have allowed (something Sandersonia knew for a fact, she had the lingering crick in her neck to prove it), the mongoose-thing folded its 'head' backward, arcing it over its spine, as the drill-bit span to life with an ear-piercing shriek. Sandersonia tried to unwrap herself and did succeed in getting her hair loose, but even with the warning, she had no time to unwind her coils before the tip of the deadly cone dug into her midsection just below her chest.

Luckily, a layer of Armament combined with muscle mass, scales, and raw willpower kept the drill from running her through and liquifying her organs…

"YEARGH!"

But that didn't stop it from lacerating her scales and hurting the anaconda-woman like a bitch.

Sandersonia howled, beating the mongoose over the head—the joint of flesh and drill-metal, really—with her elbows to no effect. Much unlike the Snake-Eater's own efforts as it dug its drill-beak in deeper, eliciting another screech of pain from the Amazon.

Marigold and Luffy were already moving. With a shout of "GUM-GUM JET STAMP!", Luffy planted his foot into the side of the monster's neck, jarring it from Sandersonia's gut, but not without tearing away a chunk of snake flesh and a spray of blood in the process. Marigold, meanwhile, aimed her spear at the torso. Fast as it was, Sandersonia's lingering grip meant that it was in no position to dodge.

For all the good it did, though. While the spear went clear through the gap in the plates Marigold had aimed for and plunged into naked flesh, her spear's blade skittered off something underneath the skin. Still, the effort wasn't a total loss: the deflection drove Marigold's naginata downward and—via sheer luck—planted its blade right into a gap in its left hind leg's armor.

Not one to leave such a shining opportunity uncapitalized, Marigold jerked her polearm—

SHINK! "SHKREEEAAAAAARGH!"

—and severed the limb mid-thigh, leaving the beast with a gushing stump.

Shrieking and flailing in agony, the Snake-Eater bucked off Sandersonia—by now too weakened to hold on properly and more concerned with the hole in her side—before hauling itself away from its assailants, its three remaining limbs scrabbling to push its mass.

Marigold took the reprieve for what it was, allowing herself a few seconds to get her breath back. Then, she straightened her back and gave her naginata a spin, both to remove the blood and viscera and out of a show of pride.

"One down," she drawled.

-o-

Stussy cocked her brow. "Well, so much for surpassing the Pacifista. It's already lost a limb."

"Now now, don't jump to conclusions. After all…" Ratchet chuckled darkly, pressing a few buttons. "It has extras."

-o-

The first sign that something was wrong was when the Snake-Eater abruptly went dead-still.

Then, with another metallic screech, the ex-mongoose hunched forwards and reared its back into the air, arcing its spine and knocking trees over with its bulk. Several lengths of armor on its torso slid back, revealing the naked flesh underneath. Flesh that, before the deeply horrified eyes of its opponents, started to writhe and squirm. Until with a sudden surge—

SQUORCH! "SHKREE-KEE-KEEEEEK!"

—what could only be described as articulated metallic ribs blasted out of the flesh in a shower of blood and gore. The wiry limbs ran the length of the thing's body; its original legs had twisted around so that they were perpendicular to the body, clearly vestigial. Meanwhile, the new limbs planted themselves in the ground and hoisted, supporting the beast with ease in a manner that was disturbingly insectoid.

"Oh, that's just neither right nor fair," Sandersonia hissed as she instinctively reared back from the monster.

At some unseen signal, the mongoose charged, even faster than before, but not at any of its opponents. Instead, it charged off into the jungle, smashing trees apart. Luffy and the Amazons wasted a moment blinking stupidly at it before realizing where it was going.

"It's heading for the village!" Marguerite cried out, loosing an arrow at the fleeing mongoose that fell well short before cursing and giving chase.

"I'll go slow it down!" Luffy declared, before blurring out of sight.

Marigold made to follow, but paused and glanced back at Sonia when she heard her sister choke down a gasp of pain. There she knelt in a spreading pool of her own blood, clutching the sucking wound in her side. With most other fighters, even most other Amazons, what Marigold asked would've never been a question.

"Sister, can you—?"

"Of course I can follow," Sandersonia hissed, eyes narrowed. She started to lever herself upright. "Who do you take me f-FUCK!"

Her display of bravado collapsed along with her tail, leaving her kneeling and huffing out a wheezed, breathy, and alarmingly wet groan of pain. This was followed by her instinctively shrinking down to her human form where her wound was less massive but no less gaping.

"Aaaaagh, shit-shit—yeah, no, no, that's not happening," Sandersonia deciding, biting her lip in pain. "Never mind, I don't think I should be moving…" She swept her arm out at Marigold, waving her away. "I-I'll be fine on my own, you need to—gaaaha—to keep going!"

"Sonia—!"

"Every second you're here, that thing gets farther away!" Sandersonia snapped back. "Stop arguing, and go!"

Marigold grimaced but nodded. Her sister certainly didn't look to be in any shape to fight. With that, she set off after the Snake-Eater, following the trail of smashed trees and the sounds of fighting.

It took an agonizingly long time for her to catch up, to find Luffy criss-crossed with shallow cuts and doing his best to slow their enemy's advance.

"HRRAAAAARGH!" CRASH!

Which, in this instance, appeared to involve using his positioning in the canopy to grab the mecha-mongoose's armor and flip it in a bastardized approximation of a suplex.

It didn't do much damage, but it did delay the thing a few crucial seconds more as it tried to scramble upright.

SH-SH-SHINK! "SHKREEEE!"

At the least, long enough for Marguerite to perforate several more of its auxiliary legs with her arrows; she even managed to shear a few off when she hit their joints just right. Marigold took a second to appreciate the marksmanship involved… as well as take the implications of those limbs gushing blood when they were hit, and shove it in a box in the back of her brain to be screamed over later.

Because even down half a dozen legs, the beast still had over a dozen to spare. Once the initial shock of pain passed, it visibly shook off any lingering disorientation and turned back towards the village, as fast and fluid as ever.

For all of one second before Marigold threw herself on it, a whirlwind of metal, fire, and heavily layered Haki. And unlike her Observation-oriented sister, Marigold's Armament wasn't breaking anytime soon. The onslaught lasted until instinct reared its head again and forced the Snake-Eater to retreat in the face of her flames, allowing Luffy to disengage his Gear Second and catch his breath.

Unfortunately, this new momentum had the downside of driving the beast toward the village. But, at this point, Marigold would take whatever advantage she could produce.

So, she pressed it back a few more meters with sweeping swings of her flaming naginata. Just for a bit until Luffy, pumped up and steaming again, jumped back in and hammered another punch into the Snake-Eater's neck. A move that shifted its attention back to Luffy and led to it clawing and drilling at the tree the rubber-man was perched in.

With the mongoose distracted, Marigold managed to reposition herself between it and the village. Made herself an immovable, Haki-reinforced wall, with plenty of bite. And not a moment too soon, as Luffy soon ran out of steam and was forced to disengage again. This led to the Snake-Eater charging at her again, even faster than before. Marigold barely had the reflexes to catch the whirling drill on the shaft of her Armament-infused spear, and the impact still pushed her back, hulking serpent mass and all; her coils dug a furrow in the dirt as she strained to hold her ground.

Marguerite tried to help, more arrows lashing out, but the churning of the Serpent-Eater's limbs meant that even Haki-infused, her arrows kept hitting the rib-limbs wrong and bouncing off.

"What the hell else can this thing do?!" Marigold hissed as she tried and failed to stop herself from being pushed backward.

-o-

Looking at Ratchet and Stussy, they could have been mistaken for very close friends at that moment. Their looks of unmitigated sadism were damn near identical.

"Well, if you're so curious…" Ratchet sang.

A twitch of his finger, a click of a trigger, and the game changed.

-o-

Marigold blinked in confusion when the bio-weapon's drill stopped spinning. She then sucked in a panicked breath when a seam appeared in the conical head, dividing the drill into three equal thirds and ejecting a blast of steam. "Oh. Oh, no. Nonono, don't you dare—!"

If either the beast or the universe heard her, neither listened. The Snake-Eater dared. It so dared.

SCH-KLUNK!

Dared to snap its drill-head open like an obscene metal flower, and lunge at Marigold with the utterly demented and depraved maw that had replaced its head.

Marigold spat out more than a few unflattering comments about the monster's parentage as she narrowly managed to halt the beast from clamping its 'jaws' on her head. Her naginata ended up lodged between two of the three prongs of the 'mouth', the third grabbed in her hand. An unpleasant endeavor, since the insides of the jaw pieces were serrated like a thresher. Because of course they were.

Marigold snarled and growled with exertion, but did manage to crack a smile through the screaming of her muscles. "Okay… okay, this hurts like hell… but I can do this. I can do this, I can—!"

Ker-thunk.

Marigold blinked as a noise drew her attention. "—eh?" Against her better judgment, she searched for the source of the noise… which was inside the Snake-Eater.

At the vertex of the three jaws, through the veritable blender of spikes and blades, she saw what looked to be a set of spiked jaws. Spiked jaws that abruptly snapped open, and unveiled a pitch-black abyss.

Pitch-black… until a red light lit up within.

And then a second.

And then a dozen.

Marigold paled. "Oh shi—!"

"SHKREEEEE!"

And then the darkness lunged.

-o-

Stussy blinked in honest surprise. "Okay… I've waded through fresh mass graves, and even I'm a bit disgusted. Never thought I'd say this, to you or in general, but I… am impressed."

Ratchet shrugged. "Eh, can't take all the credit. That innovation is all Hogback's. The fat pig has a twisted definition of biology."

"Oh, then I retract the compliment."

"Seriously?!"

-o-

"SERIOUSLY!? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! HOW IS THIS A THING!?" Marigold howled in panicked dismay, a harsh departure from her prior confidence.

An understandable departure, to be sure, considering how she was tail-wrestling with a centipede that was trying to eat her face. And worse than a mere murderous insect, it was a gleaming metal centipede that more than ever resembled a steel girder. Girders, though, didn't have disturbingly organic-looking eyes peeking out from every other gap in its plated metal. It took all of Marigold's warrior training to shove down the instinctual fear those rolling, staring eyes produced.

See, while she was still able to keep the thing from gnawing her face off with its circular foot-wide mandibles, even as she remained stuck between the horror's larger jaws, now the Snake Eater had taken a page from her sister's book and was attempting to wrap around and choke the life out of her. It was taking all of her concentration to simultaneously keep the massive jaw from crashing down on her, and to keep her tail clenched around its inner-mouth's neck so she could hold it off for as long as possible.

A feat that was becoming more complicated by the second, seeing as more and more of the centipede kept skittering out of what Marigold was coming to realize was likely nothing more than a glorified meat-suit!

In short?

"I COULD USE SOME HELP HERE!" Marigold hollered. "BECAUSE I'M HANGING ON BY A THREAD HERE, AND IF ONE THING SLIPS—!"

It was at that moment that the momentum of the metal jaws momentarily reversed. For a split-second, the jaws split wide-open. A split-second, but a second was long enough for the centipede's body to lash out and knock the naginata out of Marigold's unprepared hand.

The cobra-woman blinked slowly. She stared dumbly at her empty hands. "A-ah…?"

The centipede, however, left her no time to process the sudden lack. The cobra-woman found herself encircled by the jaws, a bare second away from snapping shut. "OH, HELL—!"

"NO WAY!"

KLANG!

Well, the jaws tried to snap shut on her, but sadly the works got a tad gummed up. Quite literally, as Luffy had landed on the Snake-Eater's back and wrapped his arms around the jaws' tips from behind, holding them open. It was a herculean feat of strength and endurance, and not just because of the beast's size. The spikes on the inside of the maw were tearing into Luffy's arms, and the rib-legs kept bending back to jab at him. But despite all of this, Luffy held strong.

"You!" he snarled out, his rubbery arms shaking with exertion. "Aren't! Hurting! Anyone! ELSE!" And with that final roar, he yanked backward, which resulted in a tortured shrieking from the metal of the jaws. And with an ear-splitting SCRANG!, the jaws' hinges gave out.

A feat that coincided quite neatly with Marguerite shooting out of the nearby underbrush and sliding beneath the Snake-Eater's bulk, firing a brace of arrows into the centipede-thing's eyes. At first glance, the assault didn't do much. The insect-thing just straight-up ignored the arrows jabbing out its eyes.

"DIE!" Marigold spat. As in, literally spat a mouthful of venom all over her insectoid assailant.

And while normally such an attack would have been ineffective at best, the bleeding wounds it was peppered with were far from normal. Hence the Snake-Eater—centipedal spine and bulky body and all—abruptly rearing up and away from her with a shriek of agony.

"GEAR THIRD!"

Marigold then looked up, up to see that Luffy was falling from the sky with his foot ballooned to titanic size. And in that instant, she suddenly understood why so many people, so many strong women, followed this… man.

"GIANT AXE!"

Because he… in all ways that mattered, was someone worth following.

CRASH!

The foot crashed down dead center on the mongoose, pushing it into the ground with another metallic screech, leaving it embedded in a hefty, foot-shaped crater.

Marigold, her breath coming in gulped heaves, slithered back for some more distance, warily eyeing the thing. Luffy landed next to her a second later, and she blinked at his shrunken form.

"I think that middle part's got some important stuff in it," the chipmunk-sized and voiced pirate squeaked. "It was a lot harder than the ends."

"Well…" Marigold panted. "Goals to work toward."

And that was all they could say before the Snake-Eater started making noise again, stirring and groaning as it pulled itself back onto its rib-limbs.

Something that Marigold was going to have absolutely none of. She lunged, first to the side to grab up her naginata again, and then at the monster.

Her naginata swung up, coated liberally in Armament Haki to the point where every inch of it from tip to butt was black as night, and neatly chopped off the centipede-spine's head.

"SHKREEEK-EEK-EEEEeeeeerrghkrgh…"

The Snake-Eater thrashed and flailed at the decapitation, its 'spine' spraying oily blood every which way and its limbs and body spasming. Finally, the entire beast just dropped as though its strings had been cut, absolutely still.

Huffing and puffing, Marguerite walked up to the centipede's twitching head and gave it a hard kick with her boots. "Or…" she slowly, warily said. "We could just do that."

And with that declaration everyone relaxed, Luffy losing his steam and Marigold all but collapsing into her human form, dropping onto her ass.

They all just laid there, piles of groaning, pained flesh. None wanted to do anything more than just wait for the pain to go away. Sadly, everyone was thinking the same thing, and it fell to Luffy to voice the one thought that none of them wanted to even consider.

"It's not dead yet, is it?"

-o-

Ratchet blinked. "Well, I'm surprised. Apparently Straw Hat does have a brain. After all…"

A savage grin split his face.

"Whenever did I give them the impression that its brain was in its head?"

One more trick like that from the prototype and Stussy thought that she might actually have to compliment the engineer again. Such a conundrum left her feeling… conflicted.

A feeling she dealt with as she always did: by picking on something weak and pathetic.

SNAP!

"AUGH, MY FINGER!"

"Oh, calm down, it's still attached and you still have nine left."

And just like that, all was right with the world.

-o-

"How could it not be, didn't we separate the brain from the body?" Marguerite demanded, a slight note of hysteria entering her voice.

There was a sound of thunder. Right in front of their eyes, the corpse rose up on its remaining legs, at which point it charged off, bleeding profusely.

"… I'm really starting to hate the World Government," Marguerite deadpanned, eliciting a groan of agreement from Luffy.

Marigold didn't say anything in favor of blasting after it. Her heart sank as she burst through the treeline onto the cliffs lining the village, as she heard it let loose a gut-churning roar. And then it soared again when she saw who was already sitting there on a scaly, red and white throne.

"Ah. Mari. So kind of you to join me."

Marigold winced at the dry tone but didn't say anything. Neither did Marguerite or Luffy when they caught up to her.

To all appearances, she was her usually haughty self. Only an exceptionally keen or experienced eye could have spotted the few signs of lingering weakness, and though everyone present qualified, nobody called her on it. Because even for Luffy, there was something else in her bearing that made him stand back to let her handle the mongoose.

Namely, the fact that the Pirate Empress Boa Hancock was radiating an aura of pure, seething rage.

"I have been asleep, neglecting my duties, for three days. I have been drugged and attacked in my own palace. There is apparently a man on my island, responsible for this atrocity," Hancock paused her tirade with a sharp tsk, glaring at the wary—nay, outright cowering—Snake-Eater. "And then there's you. Tearing up my trees. Attacking my sisters. Defiling the natural order by daring to stand in my presence. Unacceptable. Every bit of it, utterly unacceptable! I would tell you to cease at once…"

And then, there was a blast of pure presence, the glare of a serpent that encircled the world, whose eyes had replaced the sun and whose roaring wind of a hiss bellowed at the trembling machine.

"But," Hancock stated dryly, slowly rising from her partner's coils and striding forward. And even though she was 'merely' 6 feet tall, her every step shook the earth. "That is not your choice anymore. For I am in dire need of a target, and you have made yourself available."

At that moment, some minor credit was due to the World Government's engineering: when faced with fight or flight and a predator that outclassed it in every possible way, the Snake-Eater overcame its every instinct and chose to fight.

It charged at Hancock at a greater speed than it had ever shown, jaws spread as wide as they could, claws bared, ready to rend and tear her limb from limb—!

"Stop."

And in response, the Snake Princess simply narrowed her eyes and blasted it with a single, powerful word. And with that word, fight or flight was bypassed entirely, and long-suppressed prey instincts made the Snake-Eater skid to a halt, digging all its limbs into the ground and stopping dead in a spray of dirt. It came to a halt hunched over and simply… cowered.

"A good position for you," Hancock sneered, tilting her chin up. And before it could twitch a single muscle more, she leaped at the beast.

"No man, woman, or beast can withstand the power of my beauty! PERFUME FEMUR!"

Her foot struck against the headless neck, flesh and steel metamorphosing to stone that easily crumbled into gravel beneath her strength. And the force continued even as the neck crumbled, the beast rearing back in shock and pain and exposing its underbelly. As Hancock landed, she breathed out a heart that her fingers rapidly spun to be as large as her body.

"Slave Arrow," she intoned darkly, pulling back the heart before releasing. The heart burst into dozens of heart-tipped arrows that impacted against the beast's center of mass. Even built to withstand arrows specifically, the mongoose monster's body was still petrified, its midsection cracked and crumbling. It stopped moving at this point, at which point gravity reasserted itself. The beast fell.

"In your final moments, redeem yourself by heeding my final order: DIE."

And with a single upwards lash of her heel, Boa Hancock eviscerated the Snake-Eater's middle and split it in half.

For a minute, Hancock simply stood there, allowing the petrified remains and lifeless halves to crumble down around her, perfectly satisfied in her final victory.

"Kr… krchr… kr…"

The sound drew out an ugly scowl from Hancock. Once again, her mandate was defied!

Lashing her leg out, Hancock sheared off the petrified flesh that was attached to what remained of the monster's lower-half, unveiling that which had the gall to continue moving: A collection of fleshy tendrils, all originating from a sphere of roughly hewn metal, still squirming and writhing like insects. Still alive, unable to break away from the mass that was now stone, and openly blaspheming, even in the face of an Empress, by daring to refuse to keel over and die as she had demanded.

As if such a thing could be allowed to stand.

One more swift kick in its middle dislodged the oozing sphere from where it was ensconced. It pulsed and squirmed on the ground, in and out like a depraved bastardization of a heart… for all of two seconds. Two seconds, before Boa Hancock brought her foot down one more time. The sphere liquefied under the force, spraying gore and viscera from its every orifice.

And with that, the Snake-Eater's life finally, mercifully came to an end.

-o-

"…well," Stussy blinked, eyeing the static-filled screen with distaste. "I thought that I had chosen a poison exotic enough that even Magellan would have been laid up for a week." her lips turned down in frustration. "…why do I have the overwhelming sensation that that foolish monkey has something to do with… hm?"

Stussy glanced aside at her suspiciously silent plaything, then huffed and rolled her eyes. The useful idiot was swaying in his seat, foam dribbling from his mouth.

"Of course, what else could I have expected…" she groaned in dismay. There were no options left for continuing the fight that didn't involve suicide in some way. The men upstairs would need to know about this…

One hand snatched up the control device and shut it—none too gently, but what did she care, the toy was already broken—while the other grabbed the scientist's ankle as she trudged back towards the ship, pointedly ignoring the open cage.

"Come on, Ratchet, let's go," she grumbled, if only for her own benefit. "We have some very powerful people to anger."

And though her official record would not reflect a failure due to the exception that they had for this situation, the Queen of Pleasure still felt the mark on her throat that would result in a scar on her body, one way or another.

As she boarded her ride off this stupid island, Stussy knew she would be feeling the results of this venture for a very, very long time.

-o-

Three exhausted warriors knelt before Boa Hancock, more out of fatigue than reverence, with the threat to the island finally passed, while a fourth just sort of… stood nearby.

"Thank you… Sister," Sandersonia, who'd stumbled out of the trees about a minute after the Snake-Eater was finally finished off, and Marigold huffed fervently.

"Snake Princess… are you well?" Marguerite managed.

Hancock winced at the question but nodded. "I have most certainly had better days, but my health is passable for the moment." She winced as a tremor passed through her arm. "I'll likely receive hell from the old bat when I get back, I doubt she appreciated me punting her out of the way, but such is life."

They all lapsed into silence at that, just letting themselves enjoy the moment of peace, calm and sere—

"Uhh…"

The looks the younger Boa sisters and Marguerite nailed Luffy with could have incinerated him, not that he paid them any mind.

"Ssso, you're Hancock, right? You're the one in charge here?" Luffy asked, scratching the back of his head. "Hey, I know we just met, but do you think I could ask you a favor?"

Hancock looked straight at Luffy, and smiled, ever so kindly. "Ah, yes, Straw Hat Luffy. I neglected to say this earlier, so allow me to say it now."

And with that, the Snake Princess fell into a curt but polite bow. "Welcome to Amazon Lily, the Isle of Women. I sincerely hope you enjoy your stay."

That casual response proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back for the overworked, stressed Amazons. Sonia and Mari flopped to the ground in exhaustion while Marguerite, who had been running on empty for hours, lost consciousness completely.

Hancock blinked and looked around in honest surprise. "Was it something I said?"

Luffy rubbed the back of his head even harder, coupling the action with an uneasy chuckle. "Eheheh… aaaaabout that…"