"There's no time to hesitate! Moment by moment more people and more towns burn!" Luffy scowled as he heard shouts throughout the city and island about being torn between wanting to live, wanting revenge, and wanting their king back. He turned to Zoro and Ace, wondering what they should do.

"Get me out of these cuffs!" Law said, sitting up and looking exhausted. It really seemed like seastone reacted to him how it did only. Law was completely weakened like this. Then Zoro's mini den den rang, Robin on the other end.

"Hey, didn't you see it? We're wanted here," Luffy said.

"I did see. Where are you both?"

"We're at the 'king's plateau'. Well, what it was. It's Luffy, Ace, Law and me. Well, King Riku is here, too. The palace and the people in it fled the scene completely. They're also pissed at Luffy cause he killed that flying guy from Punk Hazard."

Luffy didn't say it was an accident, that would look bad. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. "Luffy-senpai killed someone?! I hope I die like that someday!"

"Who the hell is that?" Zoro asked.

"Some guy obsessed with our crew. A complete fanboy."

"Hey! Barto! Yeah, he was one of the finalists and really wanted to meet Lu."

"Ace-senpai!"

"Yo, Barto. Don't be a burden to them, okay?" Ace called in a light voice.

"I won't be a burden! I'll protect Robin-senpai and Usopp-senpai to the death!" Bartolomeo swore with conviction.

"This is ridiculous," Law muttered bitterly. "Hey!" He interrupted. "MY plan was to leave Doflamingo alive to clash with Kaido. If you kill him now, then Kaido's rage for losing the SMILE factory will fall directly on us! We'll have to fight directly against one of the yonko!"

Luffy stared back at him. "Do you see this country? We'll talk about the plan later! It already didn't work! Doflamingo killed this place! He doesn't deserve to even be here anymore!"

"So you're going to kill him, too?" Law challenged. Luffy bristled. Luffy already failed at fighting him directly twice. Law, once. He was still ashamed of being turned into a toy. "You can't take him down alone! You already learned that- I already learned that!"

Robin on the other side said, "Isn't that why alliances are formed? Luffy has never taken anyone big down himself. He's always had others to support him. The same should go for you, Tra-guy-kun."

"We're on a time limit right now. The citizens of this country are dying and hunting us all. First, we should get Law out of those handcuffs. He's useless right now," Ace said. Luffy didn't know where the handcuff key was. "Doesn't seastone smell very strong to you?"

Luffy nodded. "But the palace should have the key, and we're far from it, I'd have to carry Tra-guy the whole way up," he added.

"You can tame animals, can't you?"

"Yeah, but what does that have to do with anything?" Luffy asked his boyfriend.

"Just find a huge animal and tame it. Or you could find animals and force them to go after the enemies. That worked out well for you in Impel Down, didn't it? Though the animals are probably all spread out," Ace mused. Law said the conversation was getting unnecessary. "It's called brainstorming. You haven't been very good with that so far." Law narrowed his eyes.

Luffy took the den den. "Are there any wild animals here that you know of?"

"There was a huge bull and white lion at the fighting stadium. But that place was destroyed, they could be anywhere, now. But I agree with Law on this, going out and finding animals to fight with you isn't the best strategy, and it wastes time that the people here don't have."

Robin admitted that was true. Without a time limit of a sort, it would have been a good strategy. "For now, just try to find Tra-guy's cuff's key."

"I could try and blow it apar-"

"No. We can't risk you destroying both of Law's arms," Ace said firmly. Luffy giggled. Luffy crouched and yanked Law's hands back so he could smell the cuff. It was seastone, hopefully he could find them. But having Law's help would be important. Luffy lost to Doflamingo's strings once before, and he only wanted to use gear fourth if it was needed. Last resort.

Luffy took in the scents all around him, and caught one direction. He'd do his best. He would rather go against Mingo on his own based on the time. But Ace told him it would be best to have Law's help, and it would work out for them to all work together. Ace was going to go try and find Franky since they hadn't heard from him in awhile.

"Good luck, lil bro!" Ace called as he jumped over the side of the king's plateau. Luffy went to the other end, following his nose, and jumped down as a balloon, Law over his left shoulder and Zoro under his right elbow. He had all his senses primed, and made sure they landed somewhere with few people. He hadn't personally met most of the enemy crew, so he didn't have most of their scents. Two that he knew about were already out of the count, Sugar and Trebol, who was severely burned by now, no doubt.

Luffy landed with an "oof!", and grabbed Law's seastone cuffs, his senses strengthened. Cheating wasn't so bad right now. He was now draggeding Law from his cuffs, the guy swearing at the discomfort. Zoro told him it was for his own good. Law looked up at Luffy, craning his neck, and saw the dark expression, eyes wide and creepy.

Zoro ran along with them, and Luffy resisted turning into gear second or Zoro couldn't keep up. He found the key easily like this. It seemed it was dropped and he shot a hand out and dug it into the dirt and pulled the key out. He dropped Law on his stomach, and undid the cuffs. Zoro took the cuffs from Luffy's hand, and Luffy sighed.

"You might wanna go drink some blood from somebody. You look like shit," Zoro said to Law, who turned white. "You think I didn't notice? I've been with Luffy from the start." They avoided the crowds of murderous citizens all over. Zoro brought Luffy into an abandoned house, and Luffy took a mouthful of blood.

Law was gone, but came back a few moments later. Smelling of blood and healed. "Time to go to Mingo!" Luffy said. The three looked up at the mountain in their way. They ran towards it before Law grabbed both Straw Hats by the scruff of their shirts, yanking them back.

He said they shouldn't go that way. The other family members were in that direction. So he was finally using his senses to his advantage? Maybe because Zoro and Luffy both knew and didn't care much. They went around the area, quietly. Then they ran off towards the mountain with the palace on top. It was time to end the misery of the country.

Luffy turned around suddenly and shot out another blast, surprising Law and Zroo with how sudden it had been. He was doing well here to not let the blasts throw him off. That was very useful. Luffy heard animals fleeing from the burst around, and he turned into gear second to go to the source. A huge bull was there.

The teen moved in front of it, spreading his arms wide, and forced it into submission. Luffy walked forward and pet its head. "Why don't we go seek revenge on those that have hurt you?" he asked. It was tamed, and Luffy got on its back, and directed it where to go. "Good bull! You seem really strong, huh?" Luffy said, patting its head.

He arrived in front of his lover and ally. "Let's get going," Luffy said with a grin. The other two got on, Zoro right behind Luffy with no real reaction of surprise. Law looked surprised himself. The bull ran fast, before something -somebody- landed right in front of them.

"I won't let you pass," the marine man said. The admiral who had been tossing meteors around. Luffy scowled.

"You marines are all the same," Luffy said sourly. "You don't care about anyone but yourself! You didn't care that all the people here are suffering, that they were forced into being toys! Get outta our way!" Luffy shouted angrily. Zoro looked unbothered, unsurprised.

The admiral frowned, but did not move. Until they were all shocked by a rumbling coming from the ground beneath them, trembling until it warped like the room before! The one where Doflamingo was beheaded but not killed. Luffy still wondered why nobody attempted to catch and torure him after he killed Buffalo.

They were supposed to care about one another, but the others hadn't reacted in rage, just shock. Besides the girl, Baby 5. The stone turned into a massive giant, houses and broken buildings along the body like things sticking out of skin. "What is that?!" Luffy heard people throughout the city scream in shock.

It was that guy again, made out of stone, but looking how it did before. "Now! I will kill anyone who tried to harm the family!" Meaning Luffy. His voice was squeaky, so high you'd think it was coming from a mouse, not a buff giant.

"Ahahahahahahaha!" Luffy laughed loudly. "That voice doesn't fit at all! Hahahaha!" The men around them told him to be quiet. Pica said his name, and Luffy laughed louder. He could see Zoro trying his best not to laugh. It was so high pitched! Law just looked tired and shook his head. The bull had frozen in the sight of it.

"Bull, run away and then come back for us!" Luffy called through his laughter.

"Why'd you do that?! We could have escaped on it!"

"There was no time," Zoro said as Luffy still laughed. Pica was furious, and brought his huge fist up. "Look what you did now!" Zoro said as the three booked it to get out of range. They wouldn't make it. Law told them he was going to kill them if they got him killed doing something stupid.

The fist finally collided, and Luffy grabbed both around the neck and made himself into a balloon and deflated immediately to throw them out of range. They all hit the stone ground hard with various sounds from the impact. Luffy's ears were ringing from the sound of the impact, but his left ear did not bleed like it had been doing before.

Luffy stood up, completely undamaged by a hard fall. Pica lost sight of them it seemed, as they'd flown quite a ways. Luffy didn't know where the bull was until he came running to them. "Good bull!" Luffy praised.

"Where are we?"

"Far from where we were before," Zoro said. "I wish we knew how to defeat him."

"You guys are crazy."

"He got a lot bigger than I thought he could. How will they repair this place?" Luffy wondered, patting the bull's head and making sure his own hat was on. "Should we get going?" Luffy asked. He looked up at the huge stone man, who didn't know where they were at all. The three got on the bull, and Ace appeared, covered in mud and looking angry.

"Ace! Where's Franky? What happened to you?"

"I was somewhere that stone guy was, and it knocked me into a bunch of fuckin' mud!" Ace complained. "Franky didn't want my help."

"You should have stayed and helped him destroy the factory!" Law shouted. Ace lightly commented about how he got the cuffs off. Nothing was going to plan at all and Law was just clearly not used to working with anyone who wasn't completely competent. "Oh, hey, bull." Ace waved, and the bull backed up.

"Don't worry, he's not gonna hurt you. He's my big brother!" The bull relaxed. "I'll name you Moocy." Luffy and Law both heard more people coming over, and Ace recognized them. Luffy remembered some of their faces briefly from the toy house. But who were they?

Ace said they were fighters in the contest for the quake quake fruit. They all lost. Luffy assumed they were then turned into toys. Many had burns, showing they went after Ace and he fought back just as hard. "Best to get outta here," Ace said. The four climbed onto the bull, who was more than strong enough to handle four people.

As they ran, Luffy smelled Law and snatched up his hat from the ground, giving it to him without a word. "What's the plan?"

"We're going to the palace to take care of Doflamingo," Zoro said. He asked what Ace's plan was.

"I was burning the strings off of those people's necks. Those seem to be what the problem was with everyone attacking them. They turned back to normal afterwards. Been awhile since I did shit like helping people I don't know," he said casually. Luffy could hear the guys behind them arguing about fighting Doflamingo to repay him and Usopp for saving them.

People saw the group of targets, and shouted at Pica about it. There were four of them, but Luffy felt a blast coming, and told Ace to put fire in front of his hands. Luffy shot out a blast from his palms, Ace supplying fire into the force and shooting a flaming shock wave into the arm, cracking it apart.

"Nice," Zoro said coolly. With more guys coming after them, Luffy turned to see the fighters beating the shit out of them. They might be useful. Luffy wouldn't let them get Doflamingo, though. Luffy suddenly felt a panic attack come, and started to breathe quickly, eyes wide. He wanted off, he wanted back to the Sunny, but Sunny was gone. He didn't want to be here anymore.

Zoro rubbed circles on his chest from behind. "You're okay, you have me and Ace." Luffy took deep breaths to calm down, and nodded. He was okay. "No need to apologize," Zoro said. Luffy nodded again, and Ace and Law said nothing of it. Pica used the other arm he had and slammed it down, all of them dodging. The bull got out of the way on time.

In the dust and debris from the hit, Luffy had the bull run along the huge stone arm. "Woo, this is pretty reckless," Ace said lightly. They looked up and saw the other arm reform. It was so strange, like it was made of clay as it turned back into an arm. Luffy jumped off the bull, and blew up both hands, coating them in haki and shooting behind him. A gomu gomu bazooka, but with haki covered and hueg hands.

"Gomu gomu no grizzly magnum!" he shouted, slamming the fists into the stone face, crumbling it and spraying dust and dirt everywhere. He remembered when Rayleigh asked why he named that his attack. Grizzly sounded tough, and he'd heard magnum one time as a weapon. His mentor just found that amusing.

Luffy jumped back onto the bull. "Damn, Lu!" Ace praised.

"Neehee!"

"Take this seriously!"

"What, I can't praise my brother?" Ace asked. Zoro snickered. Law definitely didn't fit in with this group.

The stone was no longer alive, the head not actually doing any damage to the man himself, only the stone. Where did he go, then? Was he part of the rock or was the rock part of him? But he wasn't in the rock anymore, and instead stood in front of them in his human form. He had a huge sword with him, like a blade stick, and swung it at them.

The bull was frozen in fear as the hit was about to slice it to death. Luffy got under him and put the animal and two of the passengers on his shoulder, jumping over the blade. "I'll be going on ahead!" Luffy called.

"Right! Leave it to me!" Zoro called, blocking Pica's attack with a wicked grin in his voice. This was going to be Zoro's fight. Pica said he had beef with Luffy, not Zoro. "My captain got no business with a chunk of rock like you. You've got me, deal with it, soprano bastard."

Luffy snickered and set the bull back down, who was so relieved to get away from Pica. Ace watched from behind, legs crossed and just looking interested in everything.

Luffy said he sure didn't worry as much now. "About you, yeah. You got strong, even before your two years of training. I don't worry so much anymore, as long as you don't push yourself like you did before."

"Neehee! I still push myself, but I won't destroy my body again," Luffy promised. Law asked if Ace could be useful somewhere else. He shrugged.

"I'm not gonna be any help taking down Doflamingo, it's your alliance mainly. Not gonna interfere with my brother's mission."

"So, what, you're just along for the ride?" Law asked.

"Pretty much. If we run into trouble on the way, which we will, I'll just get off and take care of that shit," Ace answered honestly. Luffy was happy he didn't think he was weak anymore. And he was happy he was letting Luffy be a captain and not a baby brother right now. It was a fun change of pace, and Luffy was enjoying it.

He'd miss Ace when he left after the ally stuff was done, but he was just enjoying it now.