I think this one might be the shortest chapter yet... oh well. There should be some good pay off moments here, and Franky was fun to write, so I hope you enjoy it :)
~Enemies on the rise~
It took Franky from dawn to dusk to get to the other side of the island. He had been accompanied by Robin halfway as her destination was the volcano in the centre of the island, but it had now been five hour since their parting. As Franky reached the beach on the western side of the island, he watched as the sun went down behind the silhouette of a grand pirate ship. The ship was big enough to hold a crew exceeding a hundred men, it sails and flags were black as coal except for the symbol of a skull and crossbones, and it was completely silent. The Sunny was always a lively place, but this felt like a ghost ship in comparison. Franky didn't recognise the pirate flag. It was like a generic pirate symbol, except the eyes of the skull were shaped like tear drops. As he didn't want to start any unnecessary conflicts Franky took cover in the thick jungle and waited for the darkness of the night. As the last rays of the day shone across the shore three people exited the forest not far from where Franky was and headed for the ship. Franky wasn't close enough to hear what they were talking about, but the slurred murmurs of the newly arrived people was weirdly comforting.
Franky's job consisted of going under water to collect what Chopper had called a Moon Drop. It was a small blue sphere which formed under water, but were invisible in the light of the sun, meaning that to find them it had to be night. Legend had it that the spheres were made from tears of the crying moon, and that they shone brightly due to absorbing its light. Franky had a hard time imagining what he was looking for, but he supposed there wasn't much else to do than to get into the water and start looking. Keeping an eye on the pirates, Franky quickly slipped into the water and began his search. It wasn't exactly the easiest thing to find transparent balls under water in almost complete darkness, but Franky supposed that he had gotten lucky. Within ten minutes of searching Franky had found a small gathering of stones and underwater weeds, and right in its centre was something that glistened. He was sure that this was the Moon Drops, but as he reached for it he spotted something to his right, something that was headed towards him at a fast speed and Franky retreated just as a shark sped through the spot where he had been only seconds ago.
The thing about sharks is that they are really misunderstood creatures. They barely ever do any harm, unless you are a bleeding blood sack, in which case they'll just have a taste and then decide that human flesh wasn't really for them. So when the shark, which was hardly fully grown, came charging back for Franky, he got suspicious, because that wasn't natural shark behaviour. Franky was a fairly good swimmer, but against creatures of the sea, he hardly stood a chance... at least in terms of speed. He could easily blast the shark away with a coup de vent, but the problem lay in the pirate ship docked not even ten metres away from where he was. An attack like that would surely draw attention, so Franky had to do it the old way in hand to hand combat... or would it be hand to fin?
Either way the shark charged again, but this time Franky grabbed hold of it instead of dodging it and punched it straight between the eyes, and this was where the second problem occurred. Franky's physical power was significantly reduced under water. The shark was forced back, but not for long and charged again. Franky this time tried to punch it without stopping it first. He missed. By now Franky was beginning to feel dizzy and remembered that humans couldn't actually function without breathing every once in a while. However, Franky doubted that the shark would just let him swim to the surface and breathe, which meant that he had to finish the job fast. His blurred mind wasn't exactly helped along when the shark took a little bite of one of his butt cheeks, and he ended up letting the remaining air out of his lungs in shock. He then took the shark by its head once again, but this time forced it downwards, where he used it as a platform. He planted his feet on the shark and propelled himself upwards while the shark got forced down into the sand below. As he broke the surface he filled his lugs with some much needed air and dived back in to finish the damn shark off.
He still had not gotten the Moon Drops and for some reason the shark was hovering over them like they were its children. With new energy Franky charged downwards and hit the shark with all he had. And it somehow still wasn't enough. Franky was beginning to suspect that there was more to this situation than he had previously assumed, but right now he couldn't come up with even a speculation as his actions had only angered the shark even further. This time Franky let the shark take a bite of his metal arm and used that to sent out a small Coup de Vent, which hopefully didn't draw any attention from the pirates lurking above. He grabbed the Moon Drops, broke the water surface to breathe some more air and found himself much closer to the pirate ship than expected.
He was so close that had he swam a little further towards the shore he would have crashed into it. To keep away from the shark that was still lurking about, Franky climbed the side of the ship, but stayed out of sight of any enemies the ship may harbour. The distance, or lack of it, allowed Franky to hear what was happening on the deck of the ship and the information he got ended up being more important than he had expected.
"What happened to the Vice-Captain?" Franky heard a woman say, "Why isn't he the one giving report?"
"I'm sorry, Miss," a man answered with a slight tremble in his voice, "The Vice-Captain is not conscious at the moment."
"What do you mean? What happened?!" The woman was getting more and more furious by the second and Franky heard a few terrified outbursts.
"When we came to the other side of the island there was another ship, Miss. There weren't many of them on board and they looked rather weak, so the Vice-Captain thought that we could steal whatever treasure they might have, and..."
"And?!"
"We were defeated, Miss. We underestimated them, I'm sor-"
"Who were they?!" As she yelled something broke. Franky suspected she might just have punched something.
"It was the strawhat pirates," the man cried, "It was the Pirate Hunter who defeated the Vice-Captain, Miss."
"The Pirate Hunter wouldn't have been able to defeat all of you!"
"No, Miss, there were others, but we didn't recognize them. There was a big furry monster and a blonde guy who used kicks. At first we thought that it was Black Leg, but he didn't resemble the wanted poster at all. There was also..." The guy trailed off and that seemed to anger the woman as Franky heard the sound of a gun being fired and something explode just before she yelled at him:
"And?!"
"We were shot down, Miss, but we couldn't find the shooter. When we looked for them there was no one there!"
"And you don't suppose they could have hidden in the forest that covers the entire island?" This time she wasn't yelling, but that somehow made her even more scary. She reminded Franky a bit of Nami when it came to the attitude.
"But, Miss!" The guy protested, "They weren't shooting bullets and with the wind and the distance between the ship and the forest, those shots would have been impossible to make. We were in close combat with one of the pirates, but he only hit us. That should not be possible!" It is for Usopp, Franky thought as he could easily make sense of what had happened. It had been the same on Enies Lobby after all.
"We have the advantage though," A new voice spoke, not frightened like the others, "They sent our ship off, thinking that we were going to leave the island, but thanks to the cabin boys who hadn't joined us in the fight, we just sailed to the base north of the island."
"Why not take the ship to us? The captain will not be happy with the situation" The woman asked.
"The cabin boys aren't exactly used to operate ships, so they only got it out of the strawhats reach to where they knew they would be safe."
"Okay then, we'll just have to hope that the captain doesn't kill them for being dumb and weak. We'll move first thing in the morning when the night beasts have calmed. Was there anything else?" There was a long silence until a voice coming from the island yelled:
"Miss!"
"What now?" The woman mumbled almost too quiet for Franky to hear from his position.
"The young master was injured and defeated in battle!"
"The young master was...?" The woman sounded like she was out of words, before: "What the hell?! What happened to him?!"
"We don't know! He says that he was attacked by some woman!"
"What woman?"
"She had orange hair and a tattoo!" The voice had gotten closer but he still had to yell to be heard.
"Wait..." There were some footsteps, a long silence and some more footsteps, "Is this the one?"
"Young master?" The man was no longer yelling, so he was probably on the ship now.
"Yes," a boy peeped up, "That was her..."
"That was the Cat Burglar! She is one of the strawhats!" Go Nami! "This is bad. The Captain will be furious when she hears of this. If those fools who got themselves defeated weren't enough to anger her, this definitely will. The strawhats will pay for this."
"Um, Miss... How did you know it was her?"
"Vice-Captain already fought the strawhats and lost... This doesn't really help our case. We need to find a way to calm her anger..." There was a long pause, "... and I think I know just the way."
Franky would never be able to tell anyone what happened in the next five seconds, but there was an explosion and he somehow ended on the deck of the enemy ship, where he found himself surrounded. They were all around him, leaving him nowhere to run, and with him in this circle of pirates stood a woman. She had short dark hair, and tanned skin to match. She wore a dark top which revealed her metal arm, and long baggy trousers with boots. She was muscular and if Luffy hadn't had a devil fruit, Franky would have guessed that she could beat him in pure physical strength... She might even still be able to do that even with his abilities.
"If we present the Captain with the head of one of the strawhats, I'm sure she'll be pleased," the woman said and licked her lips.
"I'm sorry, sis, but I don't plan on going down today," Franky smiled, "After all, I'm feeling SUPER!"
Unfortunately, Franky didn't get to strike his pose as a kick quickly approached and he was forced to dodge. The kick was then followed by a punch with her metal arm, which Franky blocked. He followed it up with a punch of his own, but she was quick to dodge. From below him she aimed a kick at his chin, which only just missed and he pushed her away from him. She instantly closed the distance he had created, but by that time Franky had loaded a coup de vent which caught her off guard and sent her flying into the railing of the ship. Had this been a one-on-one fight, Franky might have been able to finish the fight off right then and there, but it wasn't. The men surrounding him charged at full speed, and even though they weren't as strong as her, there were just a lot of them... but nothing Franky couldn't handle. He didn't want to waste any of his remaining cola on people he could take out with punches, so even though Franky could have finished them off he opted for punching them into oblivion.
The number of men surrounding him slowly decreased, but when he was down to the last five, the girl was back up. She jumped over the men standing between her and Franky, and charged from above. Franky was about to respond, but as soon as he switched his attention to the girl, one of the men attacked to his left and swung a sword at his back. Though Franky tried to dodge it he was still hit and he felt as blood trailed along his spine. His split second hesitation was also enough for the girl to perfectly land a hit at his jaw with her metal arm, and with one fell swoop Franky was forced to the ground.
But Franky was tough and got up before they could finish him off, and directed a last coup de vent at the girl and blasted her off the ship directly into the ocean where he knew the shark would be waiting for her. He then took out the remaining scrubs and jumped of the ship and into the low waters of the beach. There was an explosion coming from the behind the ship, but Franky paid no heed to it and took of in the direction of the volcano. The pirates had said something about night beasts, and right now Robin was alone in a place which, according to Luffy, had a high animal population. Franky could only hope that Robin hadn't encountered these beasts. It wasn't that Franky didn't think that Robin couldn't defend herself, far from, he knew how strong she was, but she had planned on camping by the volcano, and who could defend themselves in their sleep?
Franky didn't make it far when his path was suddenly cut off by a wolf. And Franky knew that if there was one wolf, more would soon follow. As it happened it wasn't a pack of wolf that followed next, but the girl with the metal arm. She was drenched from top to toe, which only made sense as Franky had thrown her into the ocean, and she looked extremely furious.
"I won't let you escape," she hissed at him, "I'll present your head to my captain."
"You're unusually determined to kill me," Franky teased, knowing how well anger could cloud ones judgement, "Even more so than your crew mates. Is there perhaps a hidden motive?"
"I just don't give up as easily," she snarled and positioned herself so that Franky was caught between her and the wolf.
"Is that so?" Franky exhaled and calculated his options. If he attacked the wolf, she would get him from behind, but if he attacked her, the wolf would most likely eat his ass for dinner. He could also try to escape, but outrunning a wolf was more wishful thinking than anything else, so he had to fight... somehow.
After about three seconds of thinking, Franky concluded that the best course of action would be to attack the girl first. Even if she was using the wolf to lure him in that did not mean that the wolf was on her side and there was a chance that the animal might just go for both of them rather than just one. So Franky charged after her and she responded well. For a few moments they exchanged punches without the wolf doing much, but a howl made both of them shift their attention, and their eyes widened at the sight. The pack had arrived. At that moment they both knew that they were screwed. The wolves were slowly making their way around and soon they were completely surrounded. It didn't take a genius to figure out that they needed to cooperate to make it out of this one, so they held off their fight for now and stood back to back as the wolves closed the space between them.
The fight was chaotic and Franky didn't know what was going on half the time. All he knew was that all wolves coming towards him got sent flying with a punch and the wolves approaching from behind were dealt with by the girl. The beasts were persistent to say the least. Franky was by no means weak and his punches had true strength behind them, yet each and everyone of those monsters kept getting up after taking a direct hit. Franky could hear as the girl's breaths got more rapid as the struggle went on, and he honestly didn't know how much longer he himself could last. And there was still Robin to think about. Franky had faith though, even if he couldn't help her, she could take care of herself... probably.
"Fire..." The girl suddenly panted, and Franky's attention turned to her for a split second before another wolf lunged out for him.
"What?!" Franky yelled to be heard over the loud howling.
"If we could start a fire..." She explained almost out of breath, and Franky understood. Animals were very commonly afraid of fire, and luckily, Franky could produce fire.
"When I give the signal, you duck, princess," Franky instructed and stopped punching the wolves to wait for them to get closer.
"What do you plan-"
"Duck!" Franky roared and she quickly got down as he spat fire in a circle around them. For a moment Franky thought that it hadn't worked as the wolves all stayed where they were, but he was relieved when they slowly backed down and headed back into the deep jungle where they had come from.
As the last wolf could no longer be seen or heard the two relaxed and silently agreed that continuing their fight would be pointless. Awkward silence followed.
"Well... I better go find my crew mate. Take care," Franky said after deciding that staying would do no good and began to head for the volcano.
"Next time I'll get you!" The girl shouted after him, and he just waved at her.
"Sure, sure, good luck." With that they went their separate ways.
Franky would have run to Robin's presumed location, but to avoid any more encounters with unwanted creatures or people, he opted for a quiet power walk. That meant that it took Franky much longer to get to the volcano than he had originally anticipated, but he was there now and currently standing on the edge of the volcano's mouth looking down at the crater before him. And it was absolute chaos.
Just as Luffy had said, in the centre of the volcano was a big blue flower. It hadn't bloomed yet, but according to Chopper it would the next night, but it wasn't the flower which had Franky speechless and frozen in place. It was the animals. No matter where Franky looked there were fights. Closest to him was a fight between the giant turtles Luffy had ridden the day they had arrived and a herd of deer. Franky also spotted a different pack of wolves, as well as some foxes, badgers, eagles and enormous snakes. It was like watching a battle royal where only the strongest species would survive. Thankfully Robin was nowhere to be found, but then again, where was she? There was no way she would have gotten safely away if she had been caught in the middle of this insanity.
Franky didn't have much time to worry about Robin though. It seemed that the turtles had noticed his presence, and as they were winning the fight against the deer pack, two of them began closing in on Franky. After battling a shark in the ocean, a band of pirates, a strong girl and a pack of wolves, Franky was pretty beat and the only option he had was going all in from the beginning, and he prepared for a coup de vent. Franky waited until the turtles were close enough for him to get both of them in one go and then blast them away, but as he pressed to fire the attack Franky was reminded of the horrific truth. He was out of cola. As this was the case, the attack never fired and the turtles were now dangerously close, and just as Franky found himself out of options, something grabbed him from behind.
Ending on a cliffhanger! Franky's action scenes were very fun to write :D Did you like the girl though? I'll try not to focus too much on characters that aren't strawhats, but I need them for various things, and I want them to have personality, so please let me know what you think of my OCs so far.
As always, if you enjoyed reading then fave, follow for more and leave a review with your thoughts. All the support is much appreciated :D
