A/N: Happy Halloween, All! I have a treat for you this All Hallow's, no trick. Tis an update (at long last)! This chapter went through a few re-writes. It was almost twice as long, but I cut out a bunch to improve flow. (Hence it took so long for me to update.) N'Joy!

Ch. 21 – When Foxes Fly

Helena rocked back a bit on the recoil as her shatter cannon ripped through the night. Her mortar flew straight toward the enemy ship and then…disappeared.

"What in Hades?" she cried. She narrowed her gaze through the scope, but saw nothing: no explosion lighting up her targeted ship, no giant splash as the mortar hit the water by mistake. Nothing. She tossed the shatter cannon aside in disgust. She'd used up her only shot.

"Get down!" Calypso cried as cannon fire rocked the port.

Helena dropped into a crouch and swore again as the houses behind her started to go up in flames. "We're in range now. They've gotten too close."

"Are you going to let them land, mon?" Calypso asked.

"Wait. I think we've got one more trick up our sleeve," Helena said, gazing intently into the harbor. A few minutes later several explosions in front of the encroaching army sent geysers of water and fire spraying into the night.

"Naval Mines," Calypso observed as more ships went down.

"Rigged to go off remotely. That's the Sea Prism miners' handiwork," Helena informed him. "Agamemnon's divers know the bay inside and out."

"This Agamemnon person. He seems to have a lot of power."

"He owns practically all of the mines, and most of Mycenae" Helena said offhandedly as she narrowed her eyes, trying to get a count for the number of ships remaining. "He lives in that big mansion."

"Or he used to…" Calypso pointed out, raising a brow over his shoulder at a large mansion that dominated Mycenae. One of its gabled roofs had been completely sliced off. Its facade sported three huge, burning, cannonball-inflicted holes.

Another burst of cannon fire rocked the harbor, knocking them both to their knees again.

"There are still too many of them," Helena growled, glaring at the ships as though doing so could make them turn back.

A loud roar drew her attention back over to Hector and Regent. The Vice Admiral had sunk the needle like teeth of two of his heads into one of Hector's long, sylvan necks. With an audible crack, he snapped through the twisting, sinuous bark and tossed the head aside.

That was his mistake. The neck vines that remained after their beheading quickly shot out at Regent's two heads, capturing them in a web of branches.

Hector held them fast as he turned his attention to the remaining, fire-breathing head. It was obvious he was doing his best not to tear off the hydra heads and make Regent more powerful. As Helena contemplated his strategy, her eyes widened with an epiphany.

Sheathing her sea prism dagger, she drew her remaining three swords, only she didn't hold any in her toes like she usually did. Placing Peleus in her jaw, she grinned wickedly around its hilt as she crossed the remaining two blades over her.

"Dark Inspiration: Sword of the Demon!"

She grounded herself with a more powerful stance than she usually had, then spun and slashed toward Regent. He apparently noticed her, but as she anticipated, he intentionally didn't blacken the scales on his necks; just his body. He didn't mind being beheaded after all. The slash severed each of the necks cleanly at the root.

Calypso didn't seem impressed. "You made up a move in his sword style," he observed flatly.

"Took a lot of training, too," Helena said, pulling the sword from her smirking mouth. "Throwing a slash with your teeth is no picnic." She turned her attention back to the two-headed tree dragon staring in confusion at his temporarily vanquished foe.

"General, NOW!" she cried, "Attack the ships before he can grow his heads back!"

"Aye, my Queen!"

Dragon-Hector tossed aside Regent's wriggling, headless, still haki-protected body. As he went, the General's tree form unbraided itself around him, turning into a roiling wooden wave. He struck first at one ship, melding with any wood he touched and making it sprout. From that ship he hit two more, and then four, and so on. In a matter of minutes he'd completely gridlocked the entire navy fleet.

"Sink them all!" Helena commanded.

The Navy sailors cried out in alarm as the ships beneath them started to groan and pull apart. Even the metal ships weren't safe as the branches around them bored into their hulls. Their ships were close enough now that Helena could see the fear in the posture of the men on board. That'd teach them to invade her country!

Then something happened that she didn't anticipate. Her own shatter cannon mortar suddenly rocketed toward them from Yoma's ship, aimed directly at Hector.

Hector had told her once that when he possessed wood, his consciousness spread throughout it as though it were a part of his own body. That meant that he could aim and attack all the ships out at sea while his actual (albeit currently wooden body) remained rooted like a tree to the shore. That also meant that while he was distracted by his destructive work, he didn't notice his own danger until it was too late.

"HECTOR!" Helena screamed in dismay.

But she wasn't close enough to him to help, nor did her voice of warning do any good. The explosive crashed into him with force, tearing easily through the bark of his rooted body. The sap leaking from his wounds soon dripped red as he changed back to normal and unwillingly fell away from the enormous wooden web he had created. He fell amid the cinders, crushed stone and other rubble of the harbor, and didn't move.

Helena ran the rest of the distance between them, rage coursing through her. She dropped to her knees beside him, turning the big man face up so she could check his vitals.

"He's still breathing," she told Calypso, who'd followed her. "Fortunately, it looks like the more serious damage of the mortar hit him while in tree form. His powers will be locked until we can get rid of all of the sea prism shrapnel, but he'll be fine."

"But you…"

"…won't be…"

"…for…"

"…long…"

"…your…."

"…Majessssty!"

Helena jumped to her feet as Regent's heads hissed at her. There were six of them now, and no Hector to keep them at bay.

"Your…"

"…sssilly…"

"…ssstrategy…"

"…sssolved a…."

"…major problem…"

"…for usss," Regent went on.

"I ssshould…"

"…thank…."

"…you…"

"…for…"

"… your…"

"…thoughtfulnessssss."

Helena's eyes darted between the six heads, her lips pursed as she tried to fathom what the monstrous creature was getting at.

"Uh, 'Elena?" Calypso said from beside her, tapping her shoulder.

"That's Queen 'Elena to…" she started, daring to glance over her shoulder. She forgot about correcting him when her eyes alighted on the encroaching navy. "Zeus' Thunderous Fanny!" she cursed.

"Well, I suppose that fixes that," Coby observed.

General Hector's winding wooden vines of doom turned out to be just what they needed. In catching the entire Navy in his thick, buoyant net, he'd docked them to the otherwise impassible harbor.

Helmeppo didn't respond. He was too busy pounding a fist to his heart as though to get it started again. He and the rest of the crew had been positive they were about to sink when a great, thick root corkscrewed its way around their entire vessel. It had stopped just before it could snap them into kindling.

Of course, if they had to retreat, the wooden gridlock would prove problematic; not that any of the men currently in charge seemed to be thinking more than one step ahead. And if General Hector got back on his feet again it could prove deadly for anyone dawdling on board the vessels.

"Disembark, men!" Coby commanded. "Charge the shore!"

Calypso watched Helena as she surveyed the men charging at them across the ocean. The situation kept going from bad to worse for her, he noticed unsympathetically. Anyway, the Queen had such a pretty, fierce little face; simultaneously cute and intimidating when she was concentrating like that.

"Can you stop them?" she asked, oblivious to his unwarranted scrutiny.

"I don't know, mon," he said, "We'd risk Yoma absorbing my attack."

"Didn't he already absorb your attack before? What does it matter if he gets it again?"

Calypso shook his head. "He can only hold on to one attack at a time, mon. Right now he's got the momentum he stole from your devil fruit mortar as his main weapon. We may want to keep it like that."

"Cut the roots closer to shore then," Helena advised.

"Are you sure?" Calypso started, "His power has a range…"

But Helena wasn't listening to him anymore. A certain six-headed dragon wasn't about to wait for her attention any longer, and she needed all of her swords and her concentration to keep from getting eaten alive. Or burnt to a crisp.

…Or frozen to death! Apparently splitting Regent's middle head had been a bad idea. Now he had an ice blast to accompany his fire.

"Hurry!" Helena called to him, dodging a frigid purple beam in the nick of time. "We can't let them make landfall!"

Against his better judgement, Calypso left Helena to battle the beast alone. Without leaping he widened his stance against the stone street and grasped at his sheathed blades.

"Casanova Cut!" he proclaimed, yanking out the machetes in tandem.

They created a glowing crescent moon of sharp light; a horizontal slash this time. It sang out across the harbor, drowning out the alarmed cries of the enemy sailors and illuminating their tangled boats.

Before it struck, a winking dot of golden light snagged Calypso's attention. It was almost impossible to detect unless one was watching for it; like a gold coin half buried in a dirty gutter. Calypso tuned himself to the rhythm of the waves and the boats and the men out on the ocean, and used his new focus to watch as his slash inevitably disappeared into the golden speck.

Yoma had captured his attack.

"Uh, 'Elena my Love," Calypso called.

"A little busy!" she cried, caught in a maelstrom of snapping teeth. "And don't call me that!"

"I was just going to warn you to…DUCK!"

He and Helena hit the dirt just in time to avoid being decapitated. Regent wasn't so lucky. The returning Casanova Cut hit him with enough force to cut cleanly through all six of his serpentine necks, and then proceeded half a mile beyond him to smash into Ilium's sturdy walls.

Helena rolled away before she became buried in misshapen dragon heads. She came to a stop beside Calypso, who quickly put an arm around her, shielding her with his body as a slew of enormous, horizontal slashes crashed into whatever buildings were still standing in the small town behind them.

The onslaught seemed to on forever, and neither swordsman could move without taking a hit. Well, Calypso knew he had haki powerful enough to protect him, but he thought it a more pressing matter to snuggle with the Queen.

"Just great," Helena moaned when a pause finally came, "There won't be any of Mycenae left at this rate!"

"It gets better," Calypso pointed out. "Look up, mon."

Helena shook him off. Still keeping her head low in case of another attack, she looked up as prompted, then took in a sharp breath.

The Marines had made landfall.

Zoro had a stitch in his side; a sharp reminder of his tiny body's limitations. He could only run so far with Kuina astride him before Aldolpho's pack caught up with them. Even if they could get any sort of lead, Zoro didn't doubt that they would be able to sniff him out if he tried to hide.

To make matters worse, the wolves had started to howl. At first, Zoro figured they were just trying to intimidate him. But then a bunch of distant wolves howled back. They were communicating with their fellow wolf-soldiers! That couldn't be good…

His only hope was that Perona would take care of Circe soon. He doubted Kuina would be able to charm the entire Wolven Navy, after all. One thing was sure, though, he wasn't going down without a fight. In fact, he may as well take a stand before he burned up the rest of his energy.

He flipped around to face their pursuers with his teeth bared. As expected, the pack chasing them now extended beyond Aldolpho's group. There had to be at least a hundred of them.

What he didn't expect was for all of the wolves to stop short, clearly intimidated.

That's right, he thought with smug self-assurance.

"Ann!" Kuina cried, jumping off of his back.

Zoro glanced over his shoulder in time to see Kuina throw her arms around Andromache's leg. The pixyish nursemaid had her sword and teeth bared with daunting ferocity. And she wasn't alone.

So this must be the Nursemaid Unit Helena had mentioned. Including Andromache, there were five nursemaids in total, all but one of them carrying ridiculously oversized weapons. Along with her huge sword, Zoro saw a crossbow the size of a ballista, a spear twice as tall as its wielder, and a wrecking ball of a ball-and-chain.

Andromache was easily the smallest of the group, though the other women were average in height at best. The only male nursemaid was younger than the rest by at least a decade, and towered over them by several feet. Instead of a huge weapon, he carried a sea-stone, military grade dagger like Helena's; in his dishpan sized hand, it looked like little more than a pocket knife.

Zoro recognized him both by the last time he'd been in Ilium, and by the kid's unmistakable resemblance to his father. Broad chest, square jaw, massive shoulders; it was unmistakably Astyanax du Hector et Andromache.

"Ax!" Kuina said as he scooped her up in one big, burly arm.

"There you are, kiddo. You had us all worried," he said, ruffling her messy hair. He shifted her to the side, and held his dagger out in front of them. The other nursemaids likewise had their enormous weapons at the ready. Despite their lack of numbers, it was clear why the wolves had stopped in their tracks.

"It's about damn time," Zoro yipped at Andromache.

Then he realized he'd made a terrible mistake in drawing attention to himself.

"First a goose, now a pack of dogs led by a diseased, green fox, eh?" Andromache said. "You're going to pay for trying to make off with the Princess."

She wound up her enormous scimitar like a baseball player at bat. And Zoro was the ball! What were his options? Run away? –yeah, right into a crowd of none-too-friendly wolves. A lot of good that would do him.

So he did the only thing he could think to do, and made a mad dash toward his one ally. When she saw him, Kuina clapped and held her arms out toward him from her perch in Astyanax's arms. That didn't stop her chief nursemaid from swinging wide her mighty blade.

Zoro knew it was coming, and made to dodge it. If he could just reach Kuina, he'd be safe. Unfortunately he timed a jump just a little too slow. The sword connected with his ribcage, knocking him skyward with enough velocity that soon the wolves and nursemaids had turned into tiny dots in the distance.

"Heh. Look at that, he cleared the wall," Andromache chuckled as her home run flew out of sight. She lifted her blade out in front of her, eyeing it warily. "That should have cut him in half, though. What is wrong with this sword?"

"Did you forget to take off the child-proofing again, Mom?" Astayanax asked, rolling his eyes

"Aw, Thunder-Farts," Andromache cursed, pulling a foam edge off of her sword.

"PAPA!" Kuina screamed, "WAAAAH! …ahhh…ah…zzzzzzzz…"

"Poor thing's exhausted," Astyanax observed. He ruffled the sleeping Princess' hair. "Time to go to bed, sleepy head. Let's get you home, but first," he, his mother, and the rest of the nurses turned to the wolf pack. "Who wants some?"

"We've got to retreat," Helena called to Calypso, who guarded her back as she kept her focus on Regent.

The hydra had grown too many heads to count by now. Yoma's horizontal slashing barrage had made sure of that. To top it off, the middle bundle of heads could shoot fire, ice, poison and goodness knew what else by now. His power had become overwhelming.

Meanwhile, more and more marines flooded what remained of the docks. Thankfully her people had already taken cover behind the walls.

"Retreat?" Calypso asked incredulously.

"The two of us can't take on this entire fleet! Not without Hector."

"I beg to differ, mon," Calypso insisted. "You could knock out half the navy right now if you just used your conqueror's haki again."

Helena jumped to dodge one head, driving both her foot swords into its skull while she ducked to avoid more gaping jaws.

"My what?" she asked, thrusting Peleus upward to stab another head through the gullet. The two dead heads quickly became a meal for the rest, and Regent sprouted four more to replace them. Helena gritted her teeth. She was getting nowhere.

"Look," she started tetchily, "Unless some kind of miracle falls from the sky…"

She stopped with mouth agape mid-word as a little green blur came careening over the wall and straight toward her. Instinctively her swords went up to protect her face, but then she made eye-contact with the projectile.

It was a moment frozen in time; a warrioress with her swords half lifted and a mint-green fox floating mid-air. She and the little creature stared at one another with their expressions dreadfully contorted in bewilderment.

And then he barreled into her face, so fast and hard that her head snapped back. She stumbled away from Regent, off of the stonework of the docks, and they disappeared into the wine-dark sea.