To that the guest reviewer who says Bismarck uses a polearm and not a sword, she does use swords in her Beacon of the Iron Blood Skin.

Chapter 5
All-Star


Bismarck, Graf Spee, Prinz Eugen, Gangut, Z23, and Alabama found themselves face to face with Jack the Drought of the Beast Pirates, led by Kaido, who thankfully wasn't present at the moment.

"Are we seriously going to take on him, Bismarck?" Z23 asked her commander. "If his captain is a powerful man, then he must be very powerful as well!"

"We can't just let these pirates do whatever they want! We'll hold our ground until the vice admiral comes!" replied Bismarck.

"You will be dead by the time he comes!" Jack said to them. "And when he comes, I'll kill him too!"

"Yeah! Nobody messes with the Beast Pirates and get away with it!" said one of the pirates.

The pirates got ready to close in on the ship girls, and Bismarck immediately ordered for everyone to open fire. The ship girls let loose projectiles from their riggings, blasting the ground in front of the pirates and also the pirates themselves.

Large explosions filled the place as the pirates were blown up by the shots. Jack himself also got shot, but unlike his men, he did not seem to be bothered too much by them and instead took steps back.

The ship girls continued firing for a few more seconds before stopping, and when the smoke dissipated, they could see that the area was wrecked badly by their firepower, and pirates were lying all over the place, unsure if they were dead or not, though they were at least badly injured.

Jack was still standing, and though he had charred spots on his body, he seems fine for the most part. "He's still standing?!" said Graf Spee in disbelief.

"That stung a bit, but is that seriously all you've got?" said Jack in a mocking tone. "I'll admit you took me by surprise, but it'll take more than that to me down!" He then charged at Bismarck, who unsheathed her sword, and clashed their weapons against each other.

As they were pushing against each other, Prinz Eugen moved forward and had the shark head-like parts of her rigging extend forward with their mouths wide open in an attempt to bite Jack, but with a swing of his sickle, he was able to repel them with ease. Bismarck open fired at him afterwards, blowing him back, but he was mostly unfazed by it.

Meanwhile, the other ship girls saw some of the other pirates getting back up. "These people are resilient…" commented Z23. "I've never heard of humans who got shot by cannon fire and can still get back up!"

One of the pirates, who with ram horns, said to her, "That hurt a lot, bitches! You'll pay for this!" Lowering his head, he charged in their direction. In response, Alabama dashed at him at a blinding speed with her scythe in hand. Dashing past him, she was able to leave behind a gash on his body and also cut off both his horns, and he cried in pain as he passed out.

More pirates were standing back up, and the ship girls got a better look at them this time to see that some of them had animal body parts, though not in the way that reminded them of Sakura Empire's ship girls.

There was a guy whose lower body was attached to the back of a wild boar, and his own legs were coming from underneath it, thus giving the boar a total of six legs. The bizarre-looking boar man charged at Gangut while firing from his gun.

Gangut positioned her rigging in front of herself for defense against the bullets, and then the shark-like mouth of one side opened and fired a light blue blast of energy. When the boar man was hit, he was encased in ice. The other pirates saw this and were shocked.

"What did she do just now?!" asked one of them.

"You want to be put on ice as well? Be my guest!" said Gangut with an excited and almost psychotic look as she turned her rigging towards them and began firing blasts of icy energy. The pirates ran for their lives, but many of them were blast and frozen in ice.

One pirate who looks like he was an eagle fused to his back leaped at her from behind with a sword in hand, ready to stab her in the back. However, he was shot in the side by a projectile fired by Z23 and blown away. Gangut thanked her after that.

Meanwhile, a female pirate with claws of an anteater was threatening Graf Spee, who looked unamused. "Just because you have larger claws doesn't mean you can use it as good as mines!" she said to the ship girl.

Without saying anything else, Graf Spee charged at her unexpectedly and, with a single swing of her claws, sent her flying.


Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were still fighting Jack, and they were both having a hard time against him. The larger pirate was able to move quite fast despite his size and swung his dual sickles with great power. Though the ship girls used their riggings for protection, and they were hard enough to withstand the blows, they were still hit so hard that they almost lost their balance at times.

They tried to keep their distance from Jack and fired from their riggings. At first, Jack seemed to be enduring their shots, but with each successful shot, he seemed to be showing more and more signs of pain. Even so, he continued to keep on fighting as if he was uninjured.

If anything, it was the ship girls who were slowly getting tired from fighting him.

At one point, after enduring some blasts from Prinz Eugen, he charged at her and slammed down his sickle into the center of her chest and knocked her back. He readied to bring down both his weapons onto her arms, but the dual heads of her riggings reached forward and bit his arms to stop them.

Bismarck dashed at him from the side and stabbed him in the side of the waist with her sword. Despite the injury caused, Jack only twitched a bit before turning to her to swing his weapon, knocking her away. Prinz Eugen jumped back on her feet, kicking him in the guts while doing so. She immediately fired at him after standing back up.

"Don't get so full of yourself!" he shouted angrily as he slammed down his sickles onto the ground, causing dual shockwaves that be launched forward. Prinz Eugen was struck by the shockwaves and blown back into the air.

"Eugen!" Bismarck said in shock.

Jack turned to her and was going to go after her when Alabama got in between them and blocked his scythes with her larger one. After pushing against each other for a while, Alabama began swinging her weapon around at an incredibly fast speed in an attempt to slash him, but Jack displayed movements almost as fast as hers and was able to block each hit.

The other ship girl used this opportunity to shoot him from other directions, and in no time, the All-Star was covered in explosions and smoke. He backed away from the fiery mess with charred spots all over his body, yet he didn't seem fatigued at all.

"How is he still standing?!" said Z23 in disbelief.

"The Marines weren't kidding when they said that Yonko subordinates are powerful…!" said Graf Spee.

"You think you can beat me? That's not going to happen!" he angrily said to them. "Just because you've beaten my men doesn't mean you can beat me! I am much stronger than all of them combined!"

"Surrender yourself at once, pirate!" shouted someone. Everyone turned around to see that Vice Admiral Tsuru and the rest of the Marines had arrived at the place.

"They're finally here!" said Z23 happily.

When the pirates saw who it was that was leading the Marines, they were struck with fear. Knowing her reputation among the Marines, they suggested to Jack that they retreat for now, but the captain thought otherwise.

"Who do you take me for that I should run away from an old woman?!" he angrily replied. "This is the perfect opportunity to destroy her! I'm going to destroy every single one of them here and right now!"

After saying that, Jack's body began undergoing a transformation. The ship girls were surprised when they saw this, and they kept their eyes on him until the transformation was complete.

"He changed into an elephant!" said Alabama in surprise.

"Huh, I don't remember them being that hairy," commented Gangut.

"It's a mammoth, to be precise…" said Bismarck.

"That's the power of the Eleph Eleph Fruit, Model: Mammoth," explained Tsuru. "In this form, his power is increased greatly. The amount of damage he can cause while in this form is beyond comprehension, thus earning him the epithet Jack the Drought, as the destruction he leaves behind are like that of a land ravaged by the lack of water and food."

"Die! All of you!" said Jack loudly before raising his front legs and then slamming then onto the ground hard. A powerful earthquake occurred as a result, and the ground instantly cracked to a severe level, not to mention the fact a shockwave was released.

The ship girls and Marines were all blown back by the powerful force created by the stomping. Even Tsuru had to plant her feet firmly to avoid getting blown back. Not even Jack's men were safe from the attack; they were all blown away by the force of the attack as well.

Jack charged at Tsuru afterwards, only to be stopped by explosives fired at him from the side. He looked and saw that it was Bismarck, so he targeted her instead. Bismarck kept on firing until he was close, and then she attempted to swing her sword at his trunk, but though she was sure her blade came in contact with the trunk in a way that should've cut it, Jack ended up being the one to score a hit and knocked her away a great distance.

Bismarck crashed onto the ground hard, creating more cracks on the already badly cracked ground due to the hardness and weight of her rigging. She groaned in pain as she slowly got back up. Jack was running towards again, only to be stopped by ice-based projectiles being fired at him and freezing up portions of his body.

"Go back to the Ice Age!" Gangut shouted at him while firing nonstop from her rigging.

Using his strength alone, Jack broke free from the icy restraints and charged at her and struck her with his trunk as well to send her flying.

Alabama ran up to him and attacked with her scythe. Jack hardened his trunk with armament haki and struck back against her weapon, successfully blocking each blow with fast movements that seemed unnatural for the kind of animal he is.

After striking a few more times, Alabama fired from her rigging right into his face to block his vision with smokes and explosions. She then dashed to the side and slashed with her scythe.

Despite getting cut, Jack showed no signs of pain and turned to her to attack with his trunk, and he was successful in knocking her away. Graf Spee pounced at him right after that and sunk her claws into the other side of his body. Jack growled in frustration and slight pain as he tried to shake him off.

Graf Spee eventually jumped off by herself and shot him using her rigging while airborne.

Some of the Marines decided to lend a hand in taking down Jack as well. They were going to fire at him when suddenly the pirates attacked them, so they ended up fighting them instead.

One Marine was getting ganged on by two pirates, one a normal-looking person and the other one possessing scorpion pincers that are growing out of his shoulders. They knocked down the Marine and were going to jump onto him when suddenly Prinz Eugen intervened by having the monstrous heads on her rigging reach forward. Like aggressive serpents, the heads caught the two pirates while they were still in the air and gnashed them in between their metallic teeth violently before hurling them away. The Marine thanked her afterwards.

Z23 was also helping the Marines dealing with the pirates. Moving around at a swift speed, she fired from her riggings and managed to blow away the pirates. If it were normal bullets, the pirates might be able to deflect them with their swords with enough skill, but the firepower from the riggings were much more powerful than such things, so the pirates were not able to defend against them. Thanks to her, the Marines were able to fight back against the pirates with ease.

Z23 was then reminded about Tsuru and looked around for her, wondering what she was doing. She saw the vice admiral standing some feet away, and lying on some debris next to her were what appeared to be clothes, though upon closer inspection, they turn out to be pirates, having been turned into clothes and laid out on the debris as if being dried after going through the wash.

"What the…?" said Z23 with a confused expression.

"Do not worry about me, child," Tsuru told her. "I said before that I am capable of defending myself."

"That's good to know… And I'm not sure if I want to know what you just did to them…" said Z23, still looking creeped out at the "clothe-turned" pirates.


Bismarck, Graf Spee, Gangut, and Alabama were starting to wear out from their fight against Jack. Despite having the advantage in the form of highly durable bodies as a living battleship, they still found themselves with injuries all over their bodies. Leaking from their wounds were brownish-red liquids, a rather odd color for blood, assuming it is.

Holding his scythe in his trunk, Jack swung it against the air hard to fire a wind blade in Alabama's direction. The ship girl blocked it with her scythe, but though successful, the impact was so strong that she was blown back.

Gangut fired multiple shots on the ground in front of Jack, creating a large amount of mist and gradually building up an ice wall. She then charged into the ice wall and rammed it hard with the side of her rigging to make the whole thing fall onto Jack, but the mammoth ended up being fine, as the wall shattered when it hit him. Before Gangut could do anything else, she was sent flying from a swing of his trunk.

"He's tough!" said Graf Spee while breathing heavily.

"We're not going to go anywhere trying to fight him like this," said Bismarck. "We have to fight smart."

Jack turned to Tsuru and approached her. "This for you to hit the grave, old hag!" he said to her.

"Do you really want to do this?" Tsuru asked him with an undaunted look. "If you think an old woman like me will be an easy target, then you have another thing coming for you."

"Famous last words! This is where your legacy ends!" said Jack as he raised his trunk, which was wielding a scythe. He was suddenly shot in the side by explosive shots, so he turned to see Bismarck standing there with her rigging aimed at him.

"Someone like you is unfit to face the vice admiral! You'll be settling things with me instead!" she angrily said to him.

"If that's what you want, then I'll crush you!" Jack angrily said to her. He ran after her, so she turned to run as fast she could, her rigging not hindering her speed in any way.

Fortunately for her, they weren't too far away from the shore. In less than a minute, Bismarck could see the sea up ahead. Jack stomped the ground and caused spiky rocks to "grow" in her direction. Bismarck was struck from below and knocked high into the air, in the direction of the sea.

This ended up being a good thing for her. Her rigging glowed brightly and then broke down into a seemingly endless amount of cubes. The cubes gathered together above the water surface just behind Jack's ship, and in just a few seconds, a massive battleship was created.

Jack widened his eyes in shock. "What the heck is that?!"

"Fire!" Bismarck shouted loudly as she pointed her hand at Jack. All the turrets aboard the battleship turned by themselves to him and fired. The explosions created by the shots were larger than the ones fired from her rigging. Smoke and fire covered the shore from the shots, and Jack was actually blown off his feet and onto the sandy shore.

Despite his injuries, he stood back up and said in anger, "You bitch! You'll die for this!"

Changing back into his human form, Jack ran at a fast speed that defied his large build and even jumped a great height. After landing on his ship, he ran across to the back end and then jumped towards the battleship.

Bismarck smirked as Jack began falling towards the battleship. She jumped up, and then the battleship disintegrated and became her rigging just as Jack was about to land on the deck, much to his surprise. Now he has nowhere to land on but the sea, and for a Devil Fruit user like him…

"DAMN YOU!" he angrily shouted while turning to her.

Bismarck looked down at him and pointed her rigging at him. "Never underestimate Iron Blood!" she said before firing at him. The shots struck Jack and sent him shooting into the sea faster than usual.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!

Bismarck landed on the water surface and watched the spot Jack sank into, waiting for something to happen. Other than bubbles reaching the surface, nothing happened. "So it's true about Devil Fruit users not being to swim…" she thought.

Bismarck then heard someone calling out to her, so she turned to the shore to see her comrades standing there, Z23 being the person who called out to her and was also waving. Some other Marines, including Tsuru, were there as well. "Commander! Commander Bismarck! Are you all right?" Z23 asked her.

"I'm all right! I managed to defeat him!" she replied while waving.

The Marines were surprised to see hear this. "Wow! She actually defeated Jack, an All-Star of the Beast Pirates!" said one of them.

"I can't believe it!" said another one.

"Looks like these girls are more than meet the eyes," commented Tsuru, sounding glad.


TO BE CONTINUED

I have to admit that I was at a loss regarding how to end this fight. I didn't portray Tsuru fighting other than showing off her Devil Fruit because she was never seen fighting in official media of any kind, even though we know she is capable of fighting and is also one of the most powerful Marines. Even so, without knowing her fighting style, I didn't want to take too much creative liberties with her.

Either way, this won't be the case with the Big Mom Pirates, as I have already figured out how to end that fight. I hope you look forward to it!

I gave Gangut ice-based weaponry because the Northern Union ships all have partially frozen riggings, and given their winter motif, it makes sense for them to have such an elemental power.