The Man from the Moon

by TheLandMaster

The train is coming with its shiny cars, with comfy seats and wheels of stars. So hush, my little ones, have no fear, the man from the moon is the engineer.

3. Chapter 3 - Part 1 of 2

Couple of things to cover before the chapter proper:

First, just as I did with Titanomachy, I decided to put out the first half of this chapter as is, and later reupload it with both halves together. This is so people have SOME content to enjoy, and because frankly, I've taken too long to post it.

Secondly, I have already started the rewrite of Discarded Blade, Renewed Purpose. Working title so far is Among the Stars, Drift with Purpose, though I'll probably make that the definitive title. That one will take a little while longer to publish, since I had to play through more of Duviri to find out a couple of things (who knew maxing Opportunity would yield such a FASCINATING little tidbit of lore?~ c: ), but I do intend to get it done, hopefully enough, until the end of may.

Finally, since COVID took away a LOT of my memory, a little reminder for readers and for myself: Ryoma arrived on the One Piece world 26 years before the start of canon, already at six years old.

This means that he, at the time of this chapter, is 17 years old, spent eleven years in Mary Geoise, and by the time canon starts and Luffy sets out, he'll be 32 years old, with the timeskip thus making him around the range of 34-35 years old, if we consider the pre-timeskip events to take one year total.

Ergo, we have 15 years to fuck around with canon. And believe me… canon's getting twisted around c:

For now… lessgo.

~O~

It was a silent awakening that echoed across the world. To almost all living beings, it could easily have been ignored, for the very simple reason that they couldn't have known about it. But to those who could and did feel it, it rocked them to their core.

An oni sitting inside his demonic palace stopped his guzzling of sake, and instead turned a curious eye out the window of the skull he had claimed as his home.

An old, punished elder momentarily halted in his steps, his sunken eyes shifting but unseen beneath the dark pits they had long receded into as old wounds flared to life.

Beneath the waves of the Calm Belt, creatures of fathomless strength and age stirred from their almost apathetic lives, not the least of which was the living landmass that had for so long grown placid to the world around her, and whose size dwarfed even the kings she could call children compared to her age.

And in a single movement unknowingly synchronized across the entire globe, every living reptile across the entire globe turned their heads towards the same direction, their unblinking gaze peering intently at what they knew had come to pass.

That, for the first time in thousands of years, the god of serpents had once more been reborn onto this world.

-O-

In a manor further away from the cataclysmic explosion caused by the newly made Zoan's transformation, a kneeling figure felt his cell shake, dust and a few stones coming loose from the ceiling and raining down upon his body, though no harm was inflicted upon him by this. Blearily, the figure opened his dull-red-colored eyes, and took in the sight of the guards frantically running past his cell door.

So, with a muted groan of strain, the figure rose to his feet, and lightly pulled on the chains binding his wrists in place. Just as another knight stopped to check on the inside of the cell, the figure's silhouette was lit up as electricity began coursing all over his body.

And before anyone could react, the soon-to-be-former-prisoner let the lightning erupt freely.

-O-

Being tossed around by a blast with enough impact force to shatter the walls of the mansion into sawdust and throw everyone around it like ragdolls, all without being unable to feel the impact itself or any of the immediate and aftereffects, was not an experience I ever saw myself going through in my life.

Then again, I had never expected to either be sent to the world where one of my favorite manga took place in, or that I'd end up with a front-row seat for the atrocities and barbarisms a human could sink to for over ten years, so my perspective was very much skewed.

Besides, if you were to ask me… I didn't remember much of those brief moments of chaos. As soon as the glow started, and my feet left the floor, all I could keep in mind was focusing on the flames on my back, keeping them alight and myself invulnerable as I tried to weather the storm. And to make extra sure I was one hundred percent focused on that, I even closed my eyes and let myself be taken by the wind, leaving me dead to the world until finally, I chanced opening my eyes to see if everything had finally ended.

But instead of the open world I expected from such a destruction, I was met with darkness kept at bay solely by the flames still burning on my back, and the sight of rough stone and wood piled atop me.

If I had the time to panic, I would have. But right now, I had people I needed to save, a hell to escape… and answers to get over whatever the hell was happening. Thankfully, even with the starvation diet the World Nobles ran us all through, my own biology kept me healthy enough that I had plenty of strength to spare, injured arm be damned, so with enough bracing I slowly managed to heave the stone and wood that kept me pinned down, allowing beams of blood-orange light to peek through the cracks bit by bit until finally, with one last heave, I managed to toss aside the last giant piece of concrete trapping me.

What awaited me… was hell. Not the metaphorical and emotional one I had gone through as a slave, however, but instead a quite literal one: ruins both large and small that dotted the landscape with bodies both living and dead scattered about, huge burning gouts of flame that seemed to rise all the way to the skies, and trenches wide and deep enough that they seemed as if the ground had been carved up by the devil himself with a gigantic finger… were it not for the actual culprit being in clear view, overtaking the horizon with their—with her body as a gigantic golden wall, glistening under the lights of the downright biblical destruction she was bringing to Mary Geoise, and dozens of serpentine heads that roared and shrieked as they continued to carve through the holy city and its land with abandon.

Even if, in a small corner of my mind, I knew Hancock was doing little more than lash out in anger and revenge, all of it caused by her sudden Zoan transformation and the impact of all the trauma she had gone through coming out at once… I couldn't help but be frozen. Frozen in awe, shock… fear. A primal kind of fear, something that grew from the very bottom of my heart, filled every inch of my body, and threatened to extinguish these fires that I had grown so trusting of with nothing but a single, effortless breath.

I didn't know what Hancock had become, but deep down, even if I couldn't give words to describe it… I knew what she was capable of.

The fact she was a good three or four kilometers away (or, rather, that I had been blown away that distance) didn't diminish that dread at all.

Still, there was still one feeling that managed to anchor me to reality enough that I managed to, at last, get my legs moving once more: the fact that, right now, this was it. It might have been a year earlier than intended, but the slave breakout could… no, it would happen. One way or another, me and every other god-forsaken soul in this hellhole would escape.

But first, I had to find the others. Fisher Tiger, Aladine, Sonia, Mari, Tesoro, Stella, Koala, Hancock… I'd get them all out.

No one was getting left behind.

So, doing my best to ignore the titanic, multi-headed serpent raging on the horizon, I begun running all over the wrecked landscape, checking every body that I came across and shoving rubble out of the way. By some miracle, many of the slaves I found were still alive, though plenty of them had injuries, some worse than others… and just as many were unmoving.

Some weren't even intact…

I'd have time to mourn later, though.

I did notice that there were no guards around us, whether dead or living ones, but frankly that would only serve to our advantage. Even if, technically speaking, we did outnumber them easily, said numbers were composed mostly of starving and abused slaves. Sure, desperation and adrenaline could help bridge some of that gap, but that would mean more deaths, and these people deserved to make it out of here.

And speaking of said people, amidst my searching, I finally found two of my priority targets underneath a huge pile of boulders and debris: Tesoro and Stella, the former covering the latter with his body to keep the debris away from her body, though judging by the number of bruises and cuts covering his body, Tesoro wouldn't have lasted much longer.

"Easy, I got you," I called out to them just as I pushed the last piece of debris away, Tesoro collapsing in a heap the second the rock was no longer atop of him. "Can you move?"

"Y-Yes, I can…" gasped out Stella in return, the woman shakily lifting herself from the ground to sit on her legs, only to quickly begin to worry over her erstwhile lover. "Oh, Tesoro…"

The man, in turn, weakly rolled over and smiled tiredly at her, shakily reaching out to touch her cheek. "S-Stella… I'm… so glad you're safe…"

"How are your injuries, Tesoro?"

"N-Not… that bad… I'm just… exhausted…"

That wasn't true, even I could tell that much. Tesoro might have become a massive threat later with his Devil Fruit, but here and now, he was just a normal human. Granted, a human native to the Grand Line, but still baseline at best, and Stella had been a prisoner just as long. These two wouldn't be any help in a fight… and we had plenty of it to go through.

"Oi, you three!"

That's when, miracle of all miracles, another voice called out to us, and which a quick turn of my head showed me was the best person I could have asked for the situation at hand: Aladine, moving as fast as he could on land with his tail, holding a (most likely pilfered) knight spear in one hand, and a dangling ring of keys in the other. "How hurt are you?" asked the merman promptly, his eyes flitting between the three of us as he took in whatever injuries he could see, a grimace quickly making itself at home in his face as he eyed the still bleeding hole of where the harpoon had punched through my arm, but I made sure to turn the wound away from him.

"I'm fine, but he's hurt bad," I replied quickly, motioning to the prone Tesoro. In a flash, Aladine was by his side, moving keys as he searched for the correct one to remove the collar. "What about the others?"

"About as bad as I expected, though most are mobile…" With the right key found, Aladine quickly unlocked the collar around Tesoro's neck, and let the explosive hunk of metal drop uselessly to the floor, before passing me the key ring. "Here, undo yours and hers, I need to check up on him."

So, with ease I could believe was practiced and routine to him, Aladine checked over Tesoro's body, his hands gently prodding and moving Tesoro's limbs as far as the man could take it, which as it turned out wasn't much, but the fact they could be moved at all was a blessing. "Hmm, his wounds aren't light, but they're not life-threatening, at least… he won't be able to walk, however."

"Can you carry him?" I asked as I finally managed to remove Stella's collar, before handing her the keys to open mine. As I expected, though, Aladine shook his head, the merman's expression dead serious as he turned to stare at the growing mob of slaves, just as my collar came free from my neck and dropped uselessly to the ground.

"Not if I want to help in the frontlines. We'll need every fighter we can get to escape."

"… I'll do it, then."

To my shock, however, and before I could offer myself or try and find a solution, Stella stepped forward with an utterly resolute look on her face, even as her legs faintly trembled. "I-I'll carry him out of here."

And it seemed it wasn't just me and Aladine who were surprised. In a supreme show of effort, Tesoro pushed his torso up with his elbows, and gave his future lover a pole-axed look of shock, pushing through the pain and strain of keeping himself in that position. "S-Stella… what are you—"

But the blonde did not let him finish, instead cutting him off with a raised hand and a shake of her head. "Tesoro… all this time, you've fought to keep me safe. Even all those years ago, I know how hard you struggled to buy my freedom." And with a strained, but radiant smile, Stella crouched down and caressed Tesoro's cheek with one hand. "So please… just this once… let me be the one to carry your burdens. Let me be the one who'll save you."

And in the face of that, all Tesoro could bring himself to do… was cry. Cry, and smile weakly as tears of pure joy streamed down his face, before slowly raising one hand to cover Stella's own. "Oh, Stella…"

As the two lovers had their moment, I pulled Aladine aside, and gave the merman the most serious look I could, one hand resting on his shoulder. "We need to find Tiger. He can rally everyone and get an escape going."

The merman, in return, gave me a firm nod, his grip on his stolen spear growing tighter as he stared at the now-gathering slaves. "Agreed. Are you going to look for him?"

"No… I got someone else to take care of."

At first, Aladine was confused by my statement. But when he caught me staring at the gigantic serpent tearing the horizon apart, he instead went completely bug-eyed, shock quickly overtaking his emotions. "Are you out of your mind?!" he cried out, motioning to the devastation surrounding us. "Look at what she's done already! You wouldn't survive a second up close, especially wounded like that!"

"You're wrong," I replied curtly, and my cutoff was so abrupt, Aladine almost stumbled with his words. "I can survive. In fact, out of all of us, I'm the only one who can survive this." Just as I finished that sentence, a thought flashed in my head, of three young girls huddled close to one another and me inside a dark, dreary cell, and my hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. "And… there's still people I need to save back there."

Aladine, however, did not reply to my declaration. Instead, the merman merely stared with that same hardened gaze, until finally he huffed out a sigh, then gave a resolute nod, before moving over to help Stella place Tesoro on her back. Right as they did so, a string of explosions went off not far from us, around where I knew the guard house and armory for them was located, from all the times I had carried the Nobles around in their palanquins. "That has to be Tiger…" muttered Aladine with a grin, while Stella and Tesoro merely stared at the nascent plumes of smoke and flame. Seeing that his intended target had been found, the merman turned back one last time to me, before promptly taking off towards Tiger's likely location, Stella and the other slaves following close behind.

And thus, I was left alone once more, with nothing but the sounds of Hancock's rampage and the resulting destruction echoing all around to keep me company.

Another flash of my time with the Boa sisters came to mind, and that was enough to finally get my legs moving.

That didn't mean it was easy to get there, however. Five kilometers was still five kilometers, and though I couldn't suffer fatigue with this body, traversing the terrain while earthquakes constantly made everything constantly shake and tremble was still a struggle, one that once more made me curse the fact I still couldn't properly use my wings to fly up to Hancock. At least the wound on my arm wasn't keeping me down, and the bleeding had started to slow, probably because of my metabolism or something.

So, onwards I went, dodging obstacles and ignoring the dead bodies I came across as best as possible (though a sick sense of satisfaction went through my head when I started coming across the few World Noble corpses I could spot), readying myself for whatever could end up coming my way.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!

Which, admittedly, still did not mean much when I was blindsided by the massive electrical discharge that happened to my right, large and powerful enough that for a second, I actually wondered if Eneru was here, only to remember that was blatantly impossible.

And as much as I wanted to ignore it, if someone or something was causing a problem, it would be much better if I did something about it before I reached Hancock, regardless of how badly I wanted to go looking for her sisters. If the thing was an enemy, and I was caught with my back turned at the wrong moment, then we'd ALL pay the price for my negligence.

What I found waiting for me at ground zero, however, was most definitely not a potential enemy.

Instead, I saw a group of knights desperately trying to wrestle down a lone slave, flinging chains, ropes and hooks to try and bring him down to the ground, while the slave pulled and struggled against the bindings, flinging knights around like ragdolls while lightning coursed all over his body, and two huge ghostly gauntlets punched away with abandon at the surrounding enemies.

The slave had a… curious appearance. His hair was a massive mane of long, wild pale blue hair, and his arms were covered in an intricate pattern of tattoos that ran from his shoulders to his hands, something that contrasted heavily with the heavy but ragged shirt and pants he still wore. All in all, he looked like no one I remembered from One Piece, but right then, that didn't matter one bit. He was a slave like me, he needed help, and I was gonna give it.

Right as I made to move towards him, however, one more detail became apparent to me: there was a tiny figure curled up at the slave's feet, unconscious and covered in scrapes.

The moment I saw Koala, my entire world went RED. I didn't even think, I just acted, immediately changing my sprint towards the two, the flames on my back flowing into me and towards my arm, and making it slowly begin to glow orange and white.

Here's the thing about my fire: as long as it's burning, I'm downright invincible, but almost all my feelings are cut off. I can still hear and see, but smell, touch and taste disappear. It's like existing in a sensory deprivation tank, walking through the world with no way to feel anything.

But when my fire was gone… the opposite was true.

All my senses worked in absolute overdrive, assaulted with information it didn't have to process before. Every inch of my skin could feel the air, dust and heat a hundred-fold, sounds blared dozens of times louder to my ears, smells became overpowering no matter how minute they were, I could see further and clearer than ever before… and pain became acute, flaring my nerves like they were struck with hot iron.

But chief of all, the entire world would slow down to a crawl, whereas my speed would skyrocket.

I found that out by accident, while I was sitting inside my cell trying to practice with manipulating my fire. One time, I accidentally melted a part of the wall off, and in my panic, I shot to my feet and stupidly made to run towards it to try and do something about it. Instead, I blitzed through the entire cell and through the half-wrecked wall in the blink of an eye, and only stopped when I went through the wall from the cell neighboring mine.

It was an unreal burst of speed, and I had yet to try and use it in a fight. But right now, consequences be damned, I would put it to use.

So, in a burst of speed that either matched or eclipsed a Shave, I leapt right up to one of the knights, my hand already reaching for his head as the heat's glow grew even brighter.

"Wha—"

"DIE!"

I didn't have an attack name. I didn't care for that. All I wanted was to hit these people, hurt them, make them pay for the eleven YEARS that I had suffered under them and the Nobles, that I had to watch people suffer and die for the amusement of self-important scum. My hand wrapped all around the knight's helmet, and before he could even blink, I let the flames in my arm flow free.

A stream of fire shot out from my hand and enveloped the knight's head, illuminating the small battlefield with its fiery glow as the man's helmet flash-melted from the sheer heat, and his body spasmed in his few remaining living moments, his weapon and the chain he had been holding falling uselessly to the floor, while his comrades stood and watched in shock, and the chitinous slave stared in surprise. I don't know how long I kept up the fire, but by the time I pulled my hand back, nothing remained of the knight's head but smoke and ash, his body collapsing forward in a heap as the smell of carbonized flesh wafted from the stump.

At first, no one managed to quite react to my entrance. But soon, the shock wore off, and the knights began to move once more to try and attack me and their previous target. But against two beyond-human opponents, and without the help of all the restraints they had on us until then? It was a losing battle from the start.

The long-haired slave wasted no time in stepping forward and slamming the hovering gauntlets against two knights who made the mistake of getting close. Their insensate bodies were left buried in craters on the ground, their armors cracked and fractured and blood shooting out of their mouths. Another knight, who seemed to have a few more brain cells, tried to shoot down the slave with his rifle, but to his utter shock, rather than striking flesh, the bullet instead ricocheted off a number of small translucent circles that appeared out of thin air, until it finally was bounced back towards the knight himself, who barely had time to start dodging before the projectile flew right between his helmet's view slit and pierced through his skull, dropping the knight with nary a scream of pain.

As the corpse fell, the slave crossed his arms in front of his torso, an action that made the gauntlets retreat close to his body once more and hover over his shoulders. Suddenly, lightning began coursing over the slave's arms, something that was mimicked by the ghostly limbs above, and a translucent dome covered both Koala and the slave…

"Grande! Relámpago Salvaje!"

Before a veritable storm of lightning erupted from the dome, shooting out indiscriminately and striking any knight unfortunate enough to be within its radius. The warriors spasmed and convulsed as their bodies were assaulted by hundreds of thousands of joules, the smell of cooked meat slowly wafting into the air, until finally the attack subsided, with both the lightning bolts and barrier disappearing, leaving the slave free to dash forward and once more begin to pummel the knights with both his own hands and the gigantic gauntlets flanking him.

As for me, I allowed my flames to remain away from my back and focused it instead to both my arms, leaving me free to dash amidst the knights at speeds they couldn't hope to match or perceive, leaving me free to strike them with impunity with my superheated fists. And with my senses overclocked, I felt every second of metal and bone crumpling under my blows, the smell of cooked flesh almost driving me crazy as their insanely loud shouts of pain rumbled against my ears.

But still, I didn't let that stop me, as I kept jumping from one knight to the other and I continued to wail on them as much as I could. There was no technique or finesse to my blows, I didn't have any training, nor did I have time to do any in captivity, even when I was forced into the gladiatorial fights. Instead, I simply punched and kicked like a madman, lashing out with blows that would definitely have been useless against any serious fighter, but that these knights could do nothing against but sit there and take them until they dropped, dead or dying. More than once, the control over my flames slipped, but rather than shoot out fire, my punches instead exploded against the knights' bodies, three of them even losing limbs when the impact struck a particularly vulnerable spot in their armors.

In all, the "fight", if you could even call it that, lasted barely a minute or two. And by the end of it, me and the slave were left standing and panting for breath, while the knights laid scattered around us, broken, dead or dying, with their weapons uselessly lying next to them in various states of destruction. Only when I made sure that no more guards were trying to attack us did I let my flames return to my back, dulling my senses once more and leaving me free to focus solely on the two people still conscious amidst the carnage.

With confident strides, the other slave walked towards me, Koala now safely held in his arms, until he stood at arm's length from me. "Thanks for the help, fried," he said with a friendly smile, offering me a hand which, after a moment of hesitation, I took hold of and shook once.

"You're welcome," I replied, only to quickly turn my attention towards Koala, and feeling relief flood me when I saw her chest rising softly with every breath she took. I'd have to deal with that later, however. "Who are you?"

"Name's Adio, Adio Suerte. And you?"

"Ryoma."

"Glad to meet ya, then! Still, kind of strange you're running back in rather than away. Any reason you're doing that?"

I turned towards the snake still rampaging across the land, and Adio followed my line of sight, giving a quick hum of understanding as he took in the sight of the giant snake. "I see… is that someone you know?" asked the slave, and when I nodded, he gave another hum in return. "It may be dangerous, even for a Lunarian. You know that, no?"

"I don't have a choice," I replied, refocusing my attention on him. "It's not only her I need to save, there's other people waiting for me." Just then, I remembered why else I had come running in this direction, and I decided to take a blind shot. "Have you seen two slaves nearby? Two women, young, with green hair and orange hair, or snakes with that color?"

It was admittedly a non-sequitur, but thankfully Adio rolled with my question well enough, cupping his chin with one hand as he thought. Sadly, however, his response to my question was a shake of his head, even as he adjusted his grip on Koala. "Alright… do you know where the armory is?"

"Of course."

"The others are gathering there, take her with you and—"

"Tempest Kick."

A blade of wind bigger than either of us hit me full force on the back, toppling me before I even realized what was going on. A second blade passed over my prone body and slammed directly onto Adio, who barely had time to raise his free arm to summon a gauntlet into a makeshift guard to block the attack, pushing him a solid foot back away from me. The second I hit the ground, I pushed my body to the side and rolled…

BOOM!

Just in time to dodge the human missile that tried to slam against me, the attack kicking up a large dust cloud and cracking the ground even more. Quickly, I shot to my feet and took a sorry excuse of a ready position, hands raised to defend myself…

"It seems our information was correct."

Only to instead have my panic skyrocket as the dust cleared, and I caught sight of the figure clad in a pristine white suit staring at me through his mask, one hand buried thoroughly into the ground. "There indeed was a Lunarian amongst the slaves," continued the CP0 agent as he effortlessly pulled his jet-black hand free and rose to his full height. "And the Wanderer has escaped as well… No matter."

If I was aware of how absolutely shit out chances of winning were beforehand, it only became worse once five more agents landed next to the first one, all of them standing at the ready. It took all of my self-control to keep my flames wrestled and active, and even then I couldn't keep the tremor in my hands and legs away as I stared down the six deadliest people in this entire god-forsaken country, who were here seemingly just to bring me and Adio back in chains.

"Aegis 0… shouldn't you be safe keeping the World Nobles?" asked my erstwhile ally with a scowl, the apparent wanderer shifting his stance ever so slightly so that he was covering Koala's body with his own.

"Our mission does not concern you, slave. All you have to do is obey orders," answered another Cipher Pol, the man calmly withdrawing a pistol from within his coat. "And your orders are to surrender… and submit to punishment, as you deserve."

I barely had time to raise my arms before the gun was aimed at me and fired, the bullet smashing against my forearm with a loud CRACK. The dull grey seastone bullet fell to the floor, thankfully without leaving any wounds, but leaving me unable to react to the two Finger Pistols to my chest that two agents slid under my guard, the blows lifting off my feet and throwing me back with all the force of a cannonball, just in time for a third agent to Shave right over my flying form and launch a Tempest Kick that punched me into the ground. The remaining two agents, meanwhile, chose to move against Adio, their limbs blurring into indistinct masses as they threw attack after attack against the man, who only barely managed to block the attacks with his summoned gauntlet, though it was a stop-gap measure at best, considering all the nicks and gashes that the agents began to leave on his body.

I, however, did not have time to worry about that. The moment I was buried by the agent's attack, he flew down with a kick of Moonwalk, one hand once more outstretched in a Finger Pistol, this time aimed squarely at my eye. Before the attack hit, I jerked my head to the side, just in time for the digit to bury itself onto the soil instead of my eye, leaving the agent hanging in the air for the briefest of moments. In that split second, I reached up to try and grab his head or neck, only for him to instead kick off my body and disappear back to the surface, one last Tempest Kick being sent towards me and breaking against my torso as uselessly as the others. It still served its likely intended purpose, that being keeping me pinned down, but thankfully I still had strength in my limbs to pull myself free from the soil and jump up to the edge of the crater I'd been left in, grasping the edge with both hands before hoisting myself back to the surface.

The second I was out, I shot to my feet and scanned my surroundings for Adio. Just as I caught sight of the man, however, two CP0 agents blurred into existence right in front of me, their arms reared back and poised to strike.

And in that moment, out of pure desperation, I did the stupidest thing I could think of: I suppressed my flames.

The second I did so, the world once more slowed to a veritable crawl, only this time my opponents were still moving, and at something worryingly close to "normal" speeds, which only made me push even harder to dodge between them. Their legs came up to intercept, the air shimmering around the limbs as the Tempest Kicks begun forming, so instead I dove over them and clumsily flapped my wings as best as possible, giving myself just enough airtime to fly over the limbs and land behind them. The feeling of rock and dirt scraping against my skin felt like heated sandpaper, forcing me to grit my teeth and snarl in pain to keep myself under control as I made a mad dash for Adio.

Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.

Even with my speed and senses supercharged, the damned CP0 agents still kept up with me, flinging attacks that I was always just a sliver of a second early to dodge, probably because I only now realized they very likely had Observation Haki. Maybe not the future sight version of it, but the fact they could still anticipate my moves was bad enough, so instead of making good progress I was instead forced to zig-zag like crazy to avoid having my limbs lopped off.

And to make matters worse, if I brought back my flames to make myself invulnerable again, then I'd be too slow to avoid them, and we'd be stuck on the same song-and-dance of before. If I wanted to help Adio and Koala, I had to get to them now.

The sight of the building amount of blood coming from Adio's fresh wounds only made me push my speed harder still.

I couldn't afford to slip up…

"Flying Rapid Finger Pistol."

Until I did.

One of the agents attacking Adio twisted around midway through a kick aimed at the wanderer, and fired off four Flying Finger Pistols at me, right as I had pivoted away from an axe kick aimed at my head. Without any way to correct my fall, the strikes hit me right on my back, all four piercing through my skin and gushing blood into the air.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

And with my heightened sense of touch, the pain was EXCRUCIATING.

As I toppled to the ground in agony, reflex forced my flame to come alight again just so I could make the pain go away, and that was all the opening CP-0 needed. In a flash, three of the agents pinned my arms, legs and head down, forcing my face against the dirt and gravel and blocking any movement I wished to make. And every time I tried to make my fire explode to try and strike them, my instinct to keep the pain AWAY pushed right back, keeping the flames squarely on my back as I tried to wriggle against their grasp.

"It's over," intoned one of the agents atop me, his voice just as neutral as before, as he withdrew a pair of cuffs from his coat. "You lose."

And though I tried to struggle and trash against their hold… I couldn't do anything to stop them. All I could do was watch as, as if in slow motion, the two other CP0 agents finally broke through Adio's fragile guard, rending his arm with a large slash that makes the man hiss in pain, the ethereal gauntlet disappearing in a flash… and forcing him to drop Koala. My blood ran cold as I watched the little girl bounce off the ground like a ragdoll, and one of the agents turned minutely towards her, his hand already aimed at her fallen body and his finger reared back to put a hole clean through her head.

"S-Stop…"

And all I could do…

"Stop it!"

Was scream.

"STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!"

And that's when the world stopped moving.

I… I don't know if it was a metaphorical or a literal statement, but I still remember how acutely I felt when everything around me and everyone just seemed to freeze, and an almighty pressure fell on top of us like the heat of the sun itself. Even the Aegis 0 agents seemed to have felt it, if the way their hold on me slackened was any indication, but sadly I was too busy reeling from what felt like a full-scale mental assault to properly take advantage of that. Hell, even my focus on my flames waned completely under the strain, and even then, the sensory overload was left completely forgotten as, as slowly as I could, I craned my head up, and caught sight of everyone still awake all staring towards the same direction.

And when I pushed myself to follow their gaze, I felt my breath hitch in my chest as I took in the sight that had garnered everyone's undisputed attention. And really, who could blame them? Because when one is met with the sight of dozens of golden snakes, staring directly into your soul with those gigantic, pitiless emerald eyes that seemed to carry an entire world within themselves… what else can you do, but freeze up like a mouse?

None of us moved, not even twitched, as we stared up at the impossibly massive being… and then I blinked.

When I reopened my eyes, the space once occupied by the Aegis 0 agent who had been about to shackle me became devoid of his presence.

And faintly, on the horizon, I caught sight of one of the snake heads tossing a battered and bloodied white-clad body far off into the horizon, that soon disappeared amidst the choking smog.

The earth-shakingly loud cry from the remaining heads was all the warning I got before the rest of the agents scattered all around us with wordless Shaves, just as the snake heads went chasing after them, leaving me and Adio to watch as the battle unfolded above of us.

Though truthfully… calling it a fight would have been a misnomer. Oh, Aegis 0 didn't lie down and let themselves be taken out, obviously, I would expect nothing less from the strongest Cipher Pol unit, responsible for keeping the World Nobles safe, and their professionalism in attempting to fight back against the monstrous Zoan that outweighed and outsized them by uncountable orders of magnitude was begrudgingly commendable… but it could only take them so far.

Whatever Zoan Hancock had been fed, it was leagues beyond any other Zoan I had seen in the anime or manga, to an almost ludicrous degree: the golden snake heads became metallic blurs as they chased after the jumping agents, each missed attack releasing shockwaves on the air and carving great gouts off the ground, and even then these misses were so near that the CP0 agents were slowly starting to lose pieces of their clothing to close-call bites. In contrast, all the attacks they launched against Hancock simply harmlessly bounced off her scaled body, be they Tempest Kicks, Flying Finger Pistols or even Haki-enhanced punches and kicks, with not even the tiniest of scratches to show for their effort.

And to my utter shock, soon… they started falling.

I saw one agent be slammed against a passing head, the man having just enough time to raise his jet-black arms in front of him in a makeshift guard before another head came flying in and slammed against him, both heads grinding against one another and letting loose sparks… until suddenly, a splash of blood spurted from between both, leaving a large smear on the side of each head.

Another agent continuously Moonwalked all around, firing wild Flying Finger Pistols and Tempest Kicks at any inch of Hancock's body he could target, when suddenly he was forced to dodge a passing head, only to have his upper half bitten off by a second head, leaving his legs to shoot up uselessly into the sky.

Yet another agent tried to dodge the attacks instead by going downwards instead of up, moving away from the multitude of heads still attacking his fellows, only to have his escape route cut short when Hancock's tail blurred into existence right above him and slammed him the rest of the way down with enough force to cause an earthquake, launching stone fragments of insane sizes up like they were pebbles, and forming a crater large enough to swallow down even one of the World Noble's manors.

The last two agents remaining, however, seemed to realize that death was not an acceptable outcome, and instead chose to try and retreat from the battleground, both of them combining Shave and Moonwalk to try and leave the area as quickly as possible. As if to try and aid on their escape, both agents fired off a combined Tempest Kicks, the wind blades fusing with one another into one massive projectile aimed at—

… At us.

I scrambled to my feet, pushing as much strength to my arms and legs as I ran towards both Koala and Adio, my wings flaring outwards to try and shield them from the attack, while Adio himself used his good arm to summon his ghostly gauntlet once more to strike back against the incoming blade of compressed wind.

SKRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!

Only to be completely bowled over when, from out of nowhere, one of Hancock's heads passed right over us and slammed headfirst against the blade of wind, breaking it into miniscule wisps of air that dispersed uselessly around her, before pushing forward once more with enough speed to cause a shockwave over us, aiming straight at the two agents.

And before either of them could dodge, the giant snake head collided head-on with the two…

BOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!

And launched them far off into the distance, both agents turning into white streaks on the smoke-choked skies, before quickly disappearing over the horizon.

Slowly, I raised myself from the ground once more, and carefully eyed the perfectly-still multi-headed snake shadowing us from above. Once I noticed that Hancock did not seem keen to move just yet, I trudged over to where Adio and Koala had landed, and was met with the sight of the man tightly clutching the little girl against his chest, his slashed arm hanging limp at his side, and blood flowing down his face from a cut across his temple.

"Can you move?" I asked breathlessly as I propped his body up as best as I could against myself.

"Yeah… yeah, just about," grunted back the wanderer, a ragged cough punctuating his statement as he did his vested best to stand up. "Thanks for the help…"

"No problem."

Once I was sure Adio wasn't about to keel over, I glanced back up to Hancock, only to feel my blood freeze when I realized that she was now staring directly at us, the multiple heads hovering above us and turning the skies into an ever-shifting mass of golden scales and brilliant emerald eyes peering down at us. Even without a sense of touch, I somehow felt a chill travel down my back, my grip on Adio growing tighter as I heard him swallow dryly.

"This is the part you say you're very good friends with them, Ryoma…" muttered the wanderer with no small amount of nervousness, his grip on Koala tightening just a smidge more as he shifted his footing by the slightest amount. "For both our sakes…"

"I am," I replied sotto-voice in return, my attention never wavering from the gargantuan Zoan towering over us. "I just hope she remembers that…"

And so, we waited… and waited… until…

… Rrrrrruuummmmmbbbbllllleeeee…

Before our very eyes, the snake's enormous body began to move and shift in a sea of dizzying movements, the heads shifting around as, one by one, they began to just… vanish. Not in the usual Zoan way, either, they simply dissolved into so much gold dust, all the while the snake's main body encroached upon us with a bone-shakingly loud rumble. Just as the last head began to fade away, the body finally reached us just in time for it to begin dissolving into dust as well.

And from within the disappearing body appeared three people whom the sight of almost made me tear up in utter relief: Hancock, Sandersonia and Marigold, all huddled together. The latter two were as beaten and battered as I expected, even if they were surprisingly still awake, but Hancock… she was completely unscathed. There was not a scratch or bruise upon her body, even if the young woman looked dead on her feet out of sheer exhaustion, her rags looked ready to disintegrate under the slightest breeze… and her eyes, rather than the normal black, were shining just as emerald as the colossal serpent's had been moments before.

Wearily, the three Kuja stumbled towards us, their legs shaking the entire way through, until finally, they stopped just a few steps away from me and Adio, all five of us just… staring at one another, at an utter loss of words…

"… Ryoma…"

That is, until Hancock finally spoke up, her tone soft and weak, almost a whisper… but doing nothing to diminish the utterly relieved smile that graced her face, even as tears slowly welled up on the corner of her eyes.

"You… came back…"

Sonia and Mari, in turn, remained stoically beside their sister, even as their arms began to shake, and their own tears began to fall freely to the ground.

In the end, it was just... too much, even for me. So, as soon as I felt Adio push himself away from me with a grunt of effort, I took one step closer to the three Kujas.

It was all I had time to do before the sisters threw themselves forward with what little strength they still had on their bodies, leaving me just enough time to kneel and pulled the three into as gentle a hug as I could manage, while they in turn did their best to wrap their arms around my larger body, and my wings folded forward to envelop us all in a black, feathery blanket.

And in that moment, against every instinct that had been drilled into me by my life so far… I willed my flames away. I let my senses come back, flood me with all the pain and fatigue that I had accumulated until now in my desperate fight brawl only minutes ago, a rolling tide of sensations that would have thrown me into shock at any other moment.

I felt all that, and then pushed it all away, letting myself be focused instead on the warmth of the three young women who I had come to save, on the wetness their tears left on my skin… and that my own tears, falling free and falling plentiful, left across my face, as I pressed my head against theirs.

"… Thank you…" whispered Sonia, just loud enough for me to hear, but that seemed to give her just enough strength to give me one last squeeze.

"You're welcome…" I answered back, somehow keeping my voice level even as I dug a hand through her hair, feeling the grimy, rough locks slide past my fingers. "I'd never leave you behind, never…"

That comment drew a sob from Marigold, who pulled back just enough to raise her head and look me in the eyes, her eyes teary and puffy from the crying. "We know…"

Sadly, as much as I wished for the moment to last forever, it was quickly interrupted when, off in the distance, a positively titanic explosion sounded, at the same time a large cloud of fire and smoke rose high above. As one, we all turned our heads toward it, though Hancock almost toppled to the ground with that simple movement, thankfully kept from doing so by the tight grip of her sisters and me. The damage, however, was done, and the moment I pulled Hancock back to her feet, the young Kuja had already gone unconscious, her breathing thankfully still even and controlled.

"That came from the docks… the slaves must be headed there," said Adio aloud, the man shifting himself until he stood completely upright, all traces of weariness pushed aside in lieu of blazing and firm determination. "There's tons of pleasure ships there, we can steal one and escape."

With a nod, I pulled myself away from the sisters' embrace, and reignited my flames, finally allowing the returning pain to vanish into nothingness. Then, with utmost care, I shifted my grip on Hancock until I had her on a bridal carry, before I turned to the sisters and gave them a slow nod. "Let's go."

Sonia and Mari, in return, gave me shaky but determined nods, before slowly closing their eyes. A moment later, their bodies morphed and shrunk until both had once more become the green anaconda and orange king cobra that they had previously turned into, and who promptly slid over my body until they had wrapped around my torso and arm, respectively.

With that done, I turned back to Adio, and watched as he placed Koala on the ground, took off the remains of his ragged shirt, and then tore that into two large pieces of cloth, one of which he wrapped around his bleeding arm with only a minor wince of pain, and the other of which he tied into a crude but large sling that was tied around his torso, the larger side of the cloth upon his back. With that done, he then turned towards Koala, and stretched out his good arm towards her.

"Médio."

Once again, an ethereal gauntlet appeared out of the air, this one smaller than the ones he had been using to fight, and floated over to gently grab Koala, before carefully placing her between the cloth and his back. With that done, Adio dispelled the gauntlet, and gave the makeshift sling one final tug to make sure the girl on his back was secured, before carefully leaning down and picking up a weapon that had most likely been discarded by one of our earlier opponents: a metallic pistol with six chamber-shaped barrels, which Adio briefly looked over before twirling it on his hands and giving me a nod. "All set."

"Let's go, then."

And so, we took off towards the docks, running as fast as our legs could take us, leaving behind a bloodied and grim battlefield… in search of one most likely even bloodier, but that with any luck, promised our freedom.

~O~