"'Join the Kingdom of Lunaria,' they said. 'Go on grand adventures, discover brave new worlds, explore lands no man has ever explored before!' Where even are we?" Vine grumbled as he looked around.
The city around him and his five companions wouldn't seem so abnormal if seen from afar, however the reality made itself far clearer once in the city where a wide variety of animals, all walking about on two legs like a human, regardless of whether or not they should have been, kept giving the five humans walking down their street confused looks. Clearly, for these creatures, humans were us odd a sight as the human-like animals were to the humans.
Usually, this world, one not only outside their Hyperdimension, but even outside their Universe 7, located instead in the Ultradimension of Universe 9, was one neither Vine, Nepgear, Mami Tomoe, nor Yang Xiao Long would have ever found themselves in. After all, Ultradimension was supposed to be under the protection of the alliance that had been formed for that expressed purpose by the Supreme Kai of Time.
That, however, sometimes proved easier said then done when the Time Patrol she led was also responsible for maintaining the proper flow of every dimension's proper timeline, and this time, they had turned to their Hyperdimension equivalents for help.
Fortunately, they hadn't left the matter entirely to the Hyperdimension crew. Two of Ultradimension's heroes were along for the trip, though in all honesty, neither demon Rin Okumura nor the busty kunoichi Asuka seemed any more certain then the out-of-dimension team, instead, looking occasionally at a device the Time Patrol had given them to help locate the problem.
"The reading's pretty strong here," Asuka admitted, "there's definitely a crack in the time stream here."
"Yeah, but I don't get it. Don't cracks in time usually come with ominous purple skies and freaky time shadows attacking. This place is weird, sure, but not 'displaced from time' weird," Rin objected.
"Maybe it isn't fully formed yet?" Yang suggested, shrugging her shoulders, "like, maybe for now it's just a tiny, building sized crack instead of a massive city consuming crack?"
"I… admittedly don't know enough about cracks in time to know if it works like that," Asuka admitted, shrugging her shoulders with a dejected expression on her face.
"Either way, we can't very well let it go," Mami sighed, "we'll just have to keep looking."
"Yeah, but in a city this size," Vine mused, biting down on the top of his thumb as he thought, "we're searching for a needle in a haystack, and if Yang's right, time might, quite literally, not be on our side here."
As the heroes conversed, they were unaware that one of the animals in the city had taken to eying them with more then curiosity.
Atop one of the nearby buildings, a large, brown gorilla, twice the size of an ordinary man, hung from the edge of the roof as he looked down at the heroes. A wicked smile spread over his face as his eyes came to rest on Asuka, and he let out several loud grunts before planting his feet against the side of the building and leaping away from it.
It happened so quickly, the heroes were caught completely unprepared.
The gorilla crashing hard to the ground behind Asuka struck with such force that it created a mini tremor that shook the heroes, nearly knocking them off of their feet.
Even more shockingly, what should have been turned into a stain by the force of such an impact instead grabbed the kunoichi with two powerful hands. Asuka had just enough time to let out a yelp before she was flung like a sack of potatoes over the gorilla's shoulder, which took off at an incredible rate of speed.
"What the hell was that!?" Yang finally managed to blurt out.
"Every time I think I've seen it all, something proves me wrong," Vine sighed as he reached into his cape, producing a capsule which he threw into the air. It popped open, releasing a drone that hovered above the heroes as a scouter dropped into Vine's hand which he quickly placed over his right eye.
"V1, track that thing!" he ordered as the drone flew off after the fleeing ape.
"Oh man, the Supreme Kai of Time is never going to let us hear the end of this!" Rin lamented, "how did we let an overgrown monkey get the drop on us!?"
"To be fair, that 'overgrown monkey' is probably still smarter then Luffy," Vine couldn't help but comment as he focused on a video feed in the bottom left corner of the scouter. Asuka wasn't going quietly, but she didn't seem to be able to do much to escape the gorilla's powerful grasp, instead, kicking and squirming futilely as she was carried away. Fortunately, her beastly captor didn't seem to have realized it had an airborne follower.
"Also, it literally got the drop on us. Not much we could have done about that!" Yang argued.
"Either way, this is the last thing we need at the moment, so let's deal with this quickly," Vine ordered, "the real problem could rear its head any moment, and we don't want to be focused on a kidnapping monkey when it does."
"Looks like he's taking shelter in a construction yard. Wouldn't be my first choice of hideout, but at least it'll be difficult for him to surprise us. Let's go."
/\/\/\/\/\/\
The construction site in question was still basically just the frame of a small building that the gorilla had scaled. Now, he sat on a steel support beam, looking in confusion at the hovering drone. The camera feed on Vine's scouter focused on Asuka.
She sat with her back to a support beam, ropes snaked over her body in an elaborate manner that completely immobilized the shinobi, pinning her completely to the beam. She was glaring angrily at the drone, presumably trying to yell something at her companions, but two things made that difficult. One was a thick, spongy object that had been shoved into her mouth and the other was a thin cloth wrapped around her head that prevented her from spitting out the sponge. Vine could only scratch his head at the effectiveness of the bondage.
"Huh, would not have expected an oversized monkey to be particularly competent at ropework," he joked, "still, this shouldn't be to tough. We just need to…" he cut off short when an impact sent the drone spinning!
"What the hell was that!?" Yang wondered aloud. She'd been watching the drone and had seen what had struck it. What looked to be a wooden barrel struck the ground in front of the team.
"The hell…" Vine cursed as the drone righted itself and focused on the ape. It was howling angrily as it stood beside a stack of dozens of stacked barrels! "Pretty sure those weren't there before," was the last observation he made before the ape grabbed and flung another barrel.
The feed died seconds before the drone's crumpled wreckage struck the ground in front of of the team who were pelted by a rain of wooden debris! "Damn it. Never gonna hear the end of this one," he sighed as he removed the scouter.
"Dr. Gunther's not going to be very happy we got her machine smashed," Nepgear observed.
"Understatement of the century," Yang admitted, chuckling.
"Welp," Vine commented as he transmuted a katana from the ground and held up to his face to inspect the sharpness, "I just developed the opinion that Castle Lunaria needs a new gorilla skin rug," he finished, an intense scowl developing on his face.
"You know, if I screwed up like that, you'd give me crap for not paying attention to my opponents," Yang heckled.
"Yeah, well, he has my attention now, and he'll wish he didn't."
/\/\/\/\/\/\
As the heroes entered the fenced in construction site, the ape let out an angry howl, issuing a clear challenge to those who had come to take its prize!
"How are we going to approach this," Mami asked as Vine began analyzing their surroundings.
"Well… he has the high ground advantage for now, so we need…"
"Oh come on, who needs some complicated plan of attack for this?" Yang asked, stepping forward as she punched her fists together, "I say best plan of attack here is to attack!"
"Right! Let's teach this monkey a lesson!" Okumura agreed as the two took off towards the gorilla.
There wasn't even a chance to caution against recklessness before a barrel swept Rin's legs out from under him, dropping him flat on his face. The next one struck Yang square in the forehead, knocking the huntress flat and sending her sliding back to Vine's feet.
"Not a word," she grumbled as she sat up, rubbing the point of impact.
"We need to gain higher ground," Mami suggested as a golden light covered her, transforming her to her Magical Girl form.
"Right!" Nepgear agreed as a violet light emitted from her, transforming her into her goddess form, Purple Sister.
Mami went left, a yellow ribbon shooting from her sleeve and wrapping around a higher construction beam, pulling her up towards it like a grapple, while Nepgear went right, taking flight to gain an advantage over their unusual adversary.
It seemed like a great plan, right up until Mami landed gracefully on the higher beam and was immediately slammed into by a barrel that knocked her right off and back down, Vine narrowly managing to slide under and catch the Magical Girl before she suffered a hard reunion with the ground. Nepgear was distracted by Mami's fate a moment to long and failed to notice a barrel coming her way until she turned her head back just in time to kiss it. Surprisingly, she wasn't knocked backwards, instead crashing straight through the barrel.
Unfortunately, the impact was far from without effect as a dazed Purple Sister hit the ground hard, her transformation breaking as she blacked out.
The fires of rage were burning in Yang Xiao Long's eyes as she regained her feet, however unsteadily.
"That is it!" she shouted angrily glaring up at the ape that so far had been effectively making them look like fools. Rather, she looked to where he should have been, her expression registering her shock when she realized he wasn't there. By the time she tracked her opponent, she'd already been slung over its shoulder along with the still unconscious Nepgear and still gagged Asuka!
"Hey! Let go you overgrown monkey!" she screamed, trying and failing to kick free of her new captor.
"Oh great," Vine cursed as he helped Mami to her feet, "whatever I thought I was going to be up against today, I'll admit a great ape with a passion for kidnappings was not on the list! I'm not even sure 'expect the unexpected' accounts for something like this!"
"We can't let him get away!" Mami exclaimed prompting the pursuit to continue.
/\/\/\/\/\/\
Surprisingly, tracking the fleeing ape proved quite easy this time. Almost as if…
"He's letting us follow him," Vine hissed as he looked up at the factory the gorilla had taken shelter in.
"Why would he do that?" Rin asked, clearly confused as to why their foe wouldn't be trying to get away from them.
"Maybe he's having fun?" Mami questioned.
"Or maybe he wants to complete his collection," Vine growled, "whatever the case, don't let your guard down."
Vine entered first, peering cautiously in as he opened the door. No sooner had he stuck his head in when something soft and creamy struck him square in the face. Vine wiped cream away from his eyes and assessed what had happened, discovering the object that struck him to have been some kind of cream pie.
"Mmm, banana," Mami commented, using her finger to sample some of the pie still splattered on Vine's face, "can't claim he doesn't have good taste in pies," she chuckled as Vine glared darkly at his Magical companion.
The ape certainly seemed pleased with himself as he stood beside a table full of pies, howling triumphantly as he pounded on his chest. His distressed damsels were secured behind him. Nepgear and Asuka sat back to back, held together by a long piece of rope that had been coiled around their stomachs, pinning them back to back and trapping their arms behind them. Their ankles were also wrapped together with rope and they were kept from calling out by the same sponge stuff/cloth cleave gag combo Asuka had already been gagged with.
Mami and Vine both had figured Yang would give her captor far more trouble then Nepgear or, the already restrained, Asuka, and her condition, by comparison, suggested they'd been right. Yang's back was to a support pillar in the factory, tied to it by coils of rope that ran up and down her entire body. Her arms had been forced over her head, her hands wrapped in cloth tied on with rope, and secured to the pillar with more rope coiled around her, just above and below her breasts, around her stomach, hips, halfway down her thighs, just below her knees, and her ankles, all securing her to the pole while more rope around her ankles and above her knees kept her legs tied together. Meanwhile, in addition to a gag identical to Asuka and Nepgear's, a second cloth was tied over her eyes as a blindfold.
The anger that dripped from her muffled growls and the way the rope pulled tight against her skin and clothing made it clear the huntress was still struggling, but she'd been effectively immobilized. This gorilla had more then gotten the better of his firecracker of a captive.
"I…" Vine began to say as he wiped away the last of the pie on his face. A second pie caught him before he got out another word. "STOP IT!"
The gorilla did exactly the opposite. His arms moving so quickly Vine and Rin couldn't even follow them, the ape bombarded the two. There was no defense to be had as Darcsen and Devil alike disappeared under a mountain of cream and hundreds of pie tins. Mami could only watch, completely dumbstruck by the sheer absurdity of the assault.
"I was not ready for today," she admitted before she realized the pie bombardment had ceased. She heard deep, animalistic breathing behind her and turned to see the ape towering over her.
"Um… I don't suppose you'd just like some tea?"
/\/\/\/\/\/\
The first sign of life under the pile of banana cream and pie tins came when small amounts of blue fire began to emit from the pile. An explosion soon vaporized half the pile and Rin emerged, shrouded in blue fire with his features looking truly devilish.
"Anyone know if roast monkey is any good?" he growled.
The second pile beside him blew away. The visor of the Edelweiss V2 glowed red as Vine stepped out of the mess.
"Tonight, I dine on monkey soup," he hissed from inside the armor.
/\/\/\/\/\/\
It took some work, but as the sun began to set, Vine and Rin stood in front of the door to a large warehouse.
"They're in there alright," Vine declared as three power signatures he recognized as those of his companions flashed over the H.U.D. on his visor's built in scouter along with two others belonging to Asuka and the foe that had caused far more trouble then anyone could have prepared for.
"So, how're we approaching this?" Rin asked.
"Directly," Vine declared, walking to the doorway of the warehouse. The metal hinges ripped away like paper as he used the armor's strength to rip it off and toss it to the ground behind him. The shoulder mounted cannon of the Edelweiss V2 slid into firing position as he entered the warehouse, ready to open fire upon first contact with the enemy.
It didn't take long at all to make contact. The warehouse was wide and open, looking like the kind of building used for housing storage containers, though it was devoid of any kind of actual storage.
Instead, at the far end of the warehouse, the gorilla almost seemed like it was waiting for them. It stood below a platform upon which, four pillars stretched from the platform to a catwalk that hung a few feet below the ceiling.
Asuka stood with her back to the left most post. The ropes that held her had been removed, but in exchange metal shackles attached to chains and welded to the post were clamped over her wrists and ankles, trapping her arms fully extended above her head and preventing her legs from moving, and she was still gagged just as before. To her right, Nepgear's situation was identical to Asuka's.
On the far right of the platform, Mami had found herself dragged into whatever bizarre game the ape seemed to be playing with them, as she was in identical condition to Asuka and Nepgear, though to her left, Yang had apparently still been giving her captor a few headaches. Unfortunately, said captor had retaliated pretty harshly. In addition to the same bindings as the others, Yang's body was wrapped in chains that anchored her entirely to the post and her blindfold hadn't been removed. Her entire body was shaking with anger, even though the chains immobilized her, and her angry, muffled growls filled the warehouse.
Next to the Ape, as though he'd been expecting the two remaining interlopers to find him to take back his prizes, sat a stack of barrels identical to the ones he'd used to bludgeon the team back at the construction site. He looked like he was smiling as he faced his final two opponents.
"Cocky little…" Vine growled as he rose his hand and pointed it at the opponent. An alchemy blast fired from the armored gauntlet which the gorilla narrowly dodged. The gorilla let out an enraged shriek and began an assault on the two with thrown barrels!
"Not this time!" Rin shouted, stepping forward as he held his sheathed sword in front of him. As he drew the blade, blue fire began to surge around him, lashing out to meet the barrels and burning them to ash. One last barrel flew into the air, but was blown to pieces by Vine's shoulder cannon, exploding like a clay pigeon as it flew.
The ape's confident smirk seemed to melt into one of shock and fear as the two walked towards him.
"Playtime's over," Rin hissed.
Vine stopped when a strange ticking sound caught his attention. Looking to its source, he swore under his breath. "Oi, Okumura," he ordered, getting Rin's attention.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding!" Rin cursed as he saw what Vine had seen. Near the far wall of the warehouse, the air seemed to have cracked and purple light and fog were flowing out of the crack! The scouter built into Vine's visor began screaming a warning!
"Shit! We've got an A-level threat coming through!" he cursed.
"A-level!? What does that mean!?" Rin exclaimed, panicking as Vine pulled off his helmet and looked the devil square in the eye.
"It means whatever is coming through that time rift is tough. We're not dealing with a Goku level threat, thankfully, but it might still be out of our league," he revealed.
By now, everyone's attention was on the quickly growing rift. Two orbs of black fire leaked out of the rift and came to rest on the ground and Vine and Rin both held their breath. The nature of these time rifts meant their new foe could come from anywhere or any when in the multiverse, and the Edelweiss' warning showed the enemy to be far more dangerous then a mischievous monkey with a knack for kidnapping.
The orbs erupted into two black flame pillars that burned through the roof of the building. When it cleared, the crew got their first look at their two new opponents.
One looked like a normal sized human. That was all Vine could guess at due to the entity's bizarre attire. From head to toe, the figure was clad in a dark grey, flesh like cloak, complete with a menacing grey sickle-like weapon that served to complete the enemies off-putting appearance.
And yet, somehow, it's companion outdid it for off-putting appearance. This creature looked to be so obese as to appear bloated, it's obese frame covered in the same flesh-like gray material it's companion wore with another slab of the material hanging from its neck like an apron. Surprisingly, despite his girth, he wielded only a small, rapier like weapon that gave Vine cause for concern. He couldn't shake the feeling that this bulky foe was far more dangerous then his smaller counterpart.
"Definitely not likin' the feel of this," he cursed.
The room felt eerily still as the sides evaluated the scenario, the monkey business of mere minutes before forgotten with the arrival of a new, vastly more dangerous foe.
The smaller enemy made the first move, quickly encroaching on Vine and Rin!
"This one's mine!" Rin declared as he rushed forward, his sword clashing with the foe's sickle as the two began to exchange blows.
"I was afraid you'd say…" before Vine could finish his complaint, his new foe silenced him. The entity moved with a speed its size should have made impossible as it closed the distance, suddenly standing right in front of Vine, it's rapier held up to strike. Vine shifted his head just enough to let the blade glance off the armor, sparing him from being skewered through his head.
"The hell…?" he cursed, using the Edelweiss V2's thrusters to propel himself away from the foe, "he's fast!"
He leveled his shoulder cannon on the foe, firing off three shots that looked like they hit home, shrouding the enemy in smoke as a metal rod emerged from the back of Edelweiss V2's left wrist before spreading out to create a round shield.
The shield clicked into place not a moment to soon as a ball of black fire suddenly shot out of the smoke and straight for Vine who got the shield up just in time to have it disperse harmlessly against the reinforced metal. The three cannon blasts seemed to have done nothing as the enemy emerged from the smoke.
Rin's luck wasn't proving much better as he tried to find any opening in his opponents sickle onslaught! Managing to gain a bit of distance, he released a burst of his blue flame and watched in frustration as a wall of black fire erupted around the entity, blocking his attack.
"Oh come on!" he cursed.
The smaller entity seemed to stare down Rin for a moment before black fire surrounded its body. Rin was caught completely off guard when the entities torso stretched out and the creatures upper body suddenly floated right in front of Rin, despite the legs staying where they'd been! Rin ducked, rolling under the sickle attack that followed and struck for the seemingly vulnerable legs. They snapped back to the foes upper body with insane speed, causing Rin's slash to miss completely.
"V1, search the Time Patrol's data base! There has to be something in there we can use on these guys!" Vine ordered his armor's A.I.
"I have already been carrying out that task," the synthetic voice echoed in his head as data began popping up on his visor.
"God Skin Apostle and God Skin Noble?" Vine read from the data, identifying the smaller one as the Apostle and the larger one as the Noble, "that's it? The only information on them is their names!?"
"These entities seem to hail from a dimension with which the Time Patrol has only minimal familiarity. No further data is available."
"Not what I wanted to hear," Vine cursed, "analyze them! Find me a weakness. Meanwhile…" Vine swung his right arm to the side as a blade extended from the back of the wrist. "Let's dance!"
Vine rushed forward, trying to catch the Noble off guard, but to no avail. The brute once again showed off its absurd speed, deflecting every strike from Vine's blade.
The Noble stabbed for Vine's head, but thanks to some quick footwork of his own, Vine was able to slide under the strike and reach his foe's back!
"I'm ending this!" he hissed, stabbing for the exposed back. The tip of his blade was within millimeters of piercing the Noble when a surge of energy blew him back. His back slammed into the wall so hard, he felt a surge of pain shoot up his spine, even through the armor, and he was slow to regain his feet.
He shook off his disorientation and looked up, his eyes locking on Asuka, Nepgear, Yang, and Mami. The gorilla seemed to have fled at the first sign of danger, but the girls were still shackled to their respective poles! He couldn't believe he'd forgotten their predicament, but they could easily turn the tide of this fight!
Raising his hand, he took aim at the chain that connected Mami's shackles to the post. Her sudden scream was muffled and unintelligible, but the urgency apparent in it brought Vine's attention back to the Noble just in time to see it leap into the air and begin spinning! It landed and began rolling with incredible speed right at him!
"UMBRELLA SHIELD!" he shouted as his sword and shield retracted into the armor, replaced with large, metal half circles on each arm. Vine brought his arms together and heard the click of the large umbrella shield's two halves linking, mere moments before a tremendous force slammed into the front of the shield and kept pushing, causing Vine to begin sliding back into the wall.
"TERESA! WE NEED BACK-UP! NOW!" he barely got out his S.O.S. before his back hit the wall and he was left with nowhere else to go! Sparks began flying from the shield as the spinning Noble began to grind through the metal!
"Shield integrity has fallen below 50%!"
"You're not helping!" Vine cussed the A.I.
"Immediate action recommended!"
"I know!" Vine shouted as the armor's thrusters fired, launching him into the air. The umbrella shield tore away from the armor just as he cleared the spinning Noble, flying over and landing several feet behind it before it slammed into the wall.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the end as, in yet another display of ridiculous speed, the Noble reversed directions and came right back at Vine!
"You've got to be kidding," he groaned.
Dropping back, he fired a cannon shell that struck the ground directly in front of the rolling noble. What seemed like a miss proved masterfully placed as the explosion shifted the Nobles trajectory, causing it to roll past Vine and slam into the far wall.
"Okumura, please tell me you're almost done!" Vine called to his ally as he turned, unwilling to take his eye off of the deceptively quick Noble for even a moment.
"Depends on what you mean by done!" Rin responded, dancing backwards as the Apostle's snake like body stretched in pursuit, its sickle spinning like the rotors of a helicopter trying to dice Rin to pieces.
"Damn it. V1, tell me our S.O.S. got through!"
"Unknown," the synthetic voice replied as Vine dove aside, rolling away just as the Nobel hit the ground where he'd been standing.
"Damn it, need to find an opening. If I can just get a chance to blast Mami or Nepgear's chain…"
"Incoming!" V1's warning came just as Vine realized the Noble was again on the roll. His umbrella shield gone, Vine once again expanded his left arm shield and bent low.
"That shield will not hold for more then a few seconds!" a warning shrilled in his ear.
"Divert all the power we can spare to the legs!"
The rolling Noble slammed into the shield, driving Vine's feet into the ground, but as it did, the armored alchemist lifted, causing the Noble's momentum to throw it up and over him!
"Shield integrity reduced to 25%. It will not survive another attempt at that!" V1's warning voice declared as Vine placed his hand on the ground.
"With any luck, it won't have to," Vine said as alchemical energies flowed through his arm and into the ground. Snakes of stone seemed to slither from the floor, entrapping the Noble. It wouldn't buy a lot of time, but a lot of time wasn't needed.
"Checkmate!" Vine declared as he held out his hand and fired an alchemy blast. Mami's arms dropped as soon as the blast shattered the chain connecting her shackles to the pillar. One pulled the gag from her mouth as she ran and lept from the platform, summoning magic ribbons before her feet even left the ground.
The Noble broke through its bindings with minimal effort, but as it regained its feet, it found itself staring down dozens of Mami's magical rifles.
"This will end it!" Mami shouted as Vine leveled his cannon on the Noble, "TIRO VOLLEY!" she shouted as all of her rifles opened fire, pelting the Noble with gunfire that drove it back into the wall.
"Full power to the cannon," Vine ordered as ribbon's emerged from Mami's sleeves, forming into a massive flintlock rifle.
"S.O.S. has been acknowledged," V1 reported.
"Seriously?" Vine replied seconds before the remaining door to the warehouse exploded from its hinges.
The Godskin Apostle rose its sickle as its body extended towards Rin, ready for an attack!
"GUM GUM JET BAZOOKA!"
Rin could barely follow what happened next. One second, the Godskin Apostle was closing on him, the next, Luffy stood in its place while the Apostle went flying, crashing into the Noble!
"Made it just in time!" Luffy said proudly as armament haki covered his arm, which he bit and began blowing into, causing it to inflate!
"FOURTH GEAR!"
"You're through!" Vine roared, firing a full powered burst from his cannon.
"TIRO FINALE!" Mami shouted, firing her own max power shot.
The two shots struck simultaneously, creating en explosion that slammed the Godskin Duo hard into the wall.
"KING KONG GUN!" Luffy roared as his massive, Haki enhanced fist fired like a missile at the downed Godskin Duo. The moment it made impact, the fight was done.
/\/\/\/\/\/\
Vine dropped to his seat in exhaustion as soon as the Edelweiss V2 returned safely to its capsule.
"Damn it," Rin gasped as he did the same, "I had no idea something that dangerous could come out of a crack in time!
"Didn't seem so tough to me," Luffy declared, his goofy smile conveying an awful lot of pride for someone who missed everything but the ending. Vine shot him with a blast, but it did nothing, as expected.
"Let's just get the others free and go home. As much as I'd love to pay back that gorilla for making this more difficult then it ever needed to be, I'm done," Vine groaned, turning his attention to the platform where the still shackled damsels should have been awaiting rescue, only to discover they were gone.
"Don't tell me…" he nearly cried before Mami let out a yelp.
Luffy, Rin, and Vine looked up to see the gorilla from before, standing in a warehouse window, two distressed damsels over each shoulder. Somehow, Mami had even been regagged in the literal moments between the gorilla grabbing her and the others spotting it.
With a howl of challenge, it leapt from the window to continue the chase.
"Are you freaking kidding me!?" Rin and Vine called in tandem as they both collapsed flat on their back.
"Was that a monkey?" Luffy asked, "awesome!"
"SHUT UP!"
