A/N: Whew… I haven't updated since last year… Okay, bad, rehashed one-too-many-times-joke. Well, I hope everyone had a fun Christmas (or whatever other holiday you celebrated, I hope it was awesome.) and had an awesome New Year's. I spent my New Year's in front of my computer as the weather was so terrible it was too much of a risk to drive in...Attend New Year's party plans cancelled. Well, there's always next year, right?
It's amazing that it's already 2014. Let's make it a good year! And of course, thank you all for your support, and I hope you enjoy this arc. It means a lot!
Chapter 14: Defying Gravity Part One: Retrieve the Sunny!
**Countdown: Two Months, 19 days left**
Before they split up, Kin'emon turned to Luffy and his team.
"Luffy-dono, would you please take Momonosuke with you? It will be safer on the Sunny, that it will."
"Alright!" Luffy answered with a grin.
"Hold on tight to me, Momo-chan." Nami instructed as she held Momonosuke close to her chest. The boy would have been more than happy to gloat in front of his father, the musician, and the chef, but he didn't get the chance to as everyone was busy getting ready to carry out their prospective plans.
Moving quickly, Franky took a stance and grabbed Luffy's arms, while Luffy ran in the opposite direction, and stretched his arms out as far as he could. Zoro, Nami, and Brook took hold of Luffy, rather nervously, and clung onto him for dear life. Franky then spun in a circle to build up momentum and threw Luffy and his passengers towards the flying galleon.
"I know I'm going to regret this idea…" Zoro muttered to himself.
"Yohohoho!" Brook let out his signature laugh, although he sounded quite terrified as he did so.
Nami closed her eyes tight and screamed as they flew across the sky.
"WHOO-HOOO!" Luffy called out in exuberance.
Aang followed close behind on his glider, and Franky came up from the rear using his Coup de Boo. Aang made a face of slight disgust at the display at first, but that slowly formed into a chuckle as he had to laugh thinking about someone actually flying with their own farts. Aang figured he would laugh later, as he focused his attention back onto the situation at hand.
The basis of the plan was for Franky and Nami to retrieve the Sunny and navigate it safely away from the galleon, and wait for the effects of Leyla's Devil Fruit to wear off. This could mean that there was a time limit to her Devil Fruit effects, or she had to be knocked out. Meanwhile, Luffy, Zoro, Aang, and Brook would keep the opposing ship's occupants busy. As they passed over the Sunny, Nami timed her landing just right, and successfully landed on her feet.
"Are you alright?" she questioned Momonosuke, who only nodded. "Alright, good."
She sighed, relieved that she and Momonosuke had survived unscathed. She looked around her and sighed again in disappointment that a few of the things that hadn't been nailed to the deck had been lost to the ocean's depths. Nami also thanked whatever instinct it was that made her put that stupid Spirit's bag of tampered-with Eternal Log Poses in the cabin. Otherwise, they would have been lost to the ocean. He hadn't said what would happen if the Log Poses were lost, but Nami figured it probably somehow involved stupid and complex loopholes. The table along with the hour glass was still there as well. Thank goodness Franky had thought to nail something like the table down.
Franky joined her a few minutes later, and they ran to make preparations, for they were sure that the others would make quick work of the other ship.
Franky admittedly had to admire the fact that the galleon had six engines, with three on each side to help keep it afloat. There were numerous thick pipes that were nearly ten feet tall that released a thick, black smoke into the air. At that moment, a part of him rather wished to be part of the team that had a hand in dismantling the ship as he was sure he could grab spare parts and scrap metal, and the others wouldn't think to grab such things. But for now, he had to steer the Sunny as soon as everyone else was ready.
As Aang, Luffy, Zoro and Brook made their landing; a rather large, fat man was sleeping on the deck, complete with a large snot bubble and drool. The pirates landed in a pile with a loud *whump* while Aang landed without even making a sound. The noise woke up the sleeping man, and he blinked at them with his beady eyes, trying to make out who they were in the bright sunlight.
"The hell?" he questioned, slowly sitting up. "You guys aren't…" a look of realization appeared on his face he jumped to his feet, which was considerably quick despite his large size.
"You're "Straw Hat" Luffy, "Pirate Hunter" Roronoa Zoro, and "Soul King" Brook," the man grinned, ignoring the strings of drool that continued to leak out of the corners of his mouth, and snot that hung out of his nose. Aang and Zoro were both in agreement with faces of disgust at the man's seeming lack of cleanliness. He suddenly started gagging and choking, and bent forward, opening his mouth wide. The pirates and Aang were met with the muzzle of a large cannon.
"Look out" Aang called, dodging to relative safety. But that turned out to be unnecessary as Aang realized that two of his pirate companions weren't the type to dodge cannonballs. Zoro successfully cut numerous cannonballs which harmlessly exploded behind them. Luffy stretched himself out and returned the cannonballs Zoro didn't cut from whence they came. Brook screamed and did a few strange and exaggerated dodging motions before commenting,
"I was so surprised my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, even though I don't have any eyes!"
The action was somewhat negated as the man swallowed the cannon and effortlessly gulped down the returned cannonballs that flew in his direction. Two cannonballs exploded into the cabin behind the man, while the rest harmlessly disappeared in the distance.
"I'm disappointed, Straw Hat." The man berated. "I honestly expected so much more—" He was cut off as Luffy's fist sank into his stomach, and he went flying backwards. At the same time, a man poked his head out of the cabin asking, "Stot-sama is everything okay?"
The man who was apparently Stot flew backwards towards the now wide-eyed subordinate. Stot flew into the cabin, breaking the wall and just about crushing the unfortunate people who were in his path. Stot crashed into the wall, and a mix of debris and cargo fell on him. He sat in the pile with a somewhat dazed expression on his face.
"Stot-sama!" a few of the men called. "Are you alright?"
"Humph. That was rude." Stot sat up from the wreckage, and glared at Luffy. "You pirates have no manners. Seriously, waking me up from a nice nap, and interrupting me while I was talking."
Stot stood to his feet once again, and said, "I'm Stot Avaler, and I ate the Swallow-Swallow Fruit. I can eat whatever I want, but I can't stand eating living things. They make me feel sick. I'm second in command of the Defying Gravity bounty hunters. I'm a Capricorn. I weigh over 300 pounds…"
He continued talking about himself even as Zoro shouted at him, "We don't care!"
Now that they had the attention of the rest of the ship's crew, they were pulling out swords and pistols, getting ready for the fight. Aang had to dodge as bullets were fired at him, and he responded with a rush of wind with his staff, sending about 20 men to the ocean far below. More men surrounded Aang, but this time, they were more careful not to get caught by any wind currents. One man who had a headband wrapped around his head yelled out, "Hyah!" and went to punch Aang. Aang dodged as the man shattered the floor where he had just been standing. One of his crew members from somewhere in the crowd scolded him for messing up the deck.
The man seemed to get quicker as he moved, and soon Aang found himself doing nothing but dodging and blocking. Having to fight back one way or another, Aang released a torrent of fire, which shocked his opponents. They stood dumbfounded and one finally managed to speak up. "How the… what the hell kind of Devil Fruit does this kid have?!"
Aang took the distraction to do another blast of air that would send the bounty hunters flying, and as he raised his staff, someone from behind him caught it.
"Oi, oi…" said a voice that made Aang's hair on the back of his neck stand on end. "What do you think you're doing to my precious subordinates?"
Aang turned to look over his shoulder at the man, who was extremely thin and extremely tall; to the point he almost matched Brook's height. He wore dark blue sunglasses that had a gold chain attached to them so that he could wear the sunglasses around his neck if he chose to do so. He also wore a blue suit that looked like some sort of military officer's uniform.
"Abol-sama!" the men lovingly cheered.
Aang tried to pull his staff away from Abol, but found that the man's grip was extremely strong, and he simply twisted himself and easily dodged any and all of Aang's attempts to attack him. When Abol finally released Aang's staff, a sort sticky substance secreted from Abol's hand, and he used the substance like a sort of rope, whipping Aang's staff out of his hands and away from him. He tossed the staff a few feet away, and Aang could feel the iciness in his glare even though his eyes were hidden.
"I'm "Sticky Fingers" Abol." He said to Aang in his unnerving voice. "You were holding back against my precious subordinates, and while admirable, that is quite foolish. You shouldn't fear killing other people, or at least mutilating them to the point that they can no longer be considered a threat. Your compassion will be the death of you, today."
Aang swiftly moved and used some Firebending to get away from Abol, and hopefully back to his staff. Abol panicked for a moment when his sleeve caught fire.
"I'm burning!" he stood in wide-eyed panic and waved the offending arm back and forth. "Put it out! Put it out!"
One of his men was able to put out the flames, and Abol was suddenly back to his serious self as if nothing ever happened.
"I detest fire." Abol said, standing erect with his hands behind his back. He then charged at Aang, hitting him in the stomach with what felt like an iron fist. Aang flew and hit the railing with his right side, knocking the wind out of him and when Aang moved, he jolted in pain. He had a broken a few ribs.
Abol walked slowly towards Aang, and he flexed his hand, which was covered in some sort of black, shiny substance. "You really need to learn to defend yourself properly," Abol said, almost as if he were scolding a child. "You're quite young, I can tell. Why are you here? Why did you join the Straw Hats? From what I've seen of your abilities, I'd be surprised if you could even survive Paradise. You aren't even at their level."
Aang at first didn't know what Abol was talking about, until he recalled that the first half of this place called "The Grand Line" was called "Paradise". He now felt he understood why, at least somewhat. There were monsters here, and it wasn't necessarily the animals or the unpredictable elements that people had to worry about. Right then in his mind, it was the Humans that were the true threat of this World.
Aang fought through his pain and began to use a combination of fire and wind attacks, wishing that he also had some earth to go along with it. A loud explosion combined with shouts and screams distracted Abol for a moment, and he turned to look for the source. Aang shot a stream of fire at Abol, who dodged wildly. He landed rather clumsily on his stomach, but jumped up to face Aang.
"Why do you keep using fire attacks? That's not fair!" Abol demanded of Aang. "Fight properly!"
The guy kept doing a 180 with his personality, and Aang would have laughed had the situation not been so serious.
Why does he seem to be so scared of fire? Aang thought, as he tried to think of some sort of strategy against Abol. Due to his broken ribs, Aang was hindered considerably. But he wanted to help his friends, and especially he wanted to help Katara. Abol was rushing at him again, and Aang saw that he had that sticky substance wrapped around his hands to act like gloves. Aang swiftly and painfully dodged an attack that splintered the railing behind him. Aang then Airbended to lightly leap around and when he would land, he would release fire onto the bounty hunters. A few of them did catch fire, but they immediately jumped overboard to put out the flames. Aang then noticed at a brief moment, one of Abol's gloves caught fire, and began to melt from his hand in a gooey mess.
That's why he can't stand fire! Aang thought to himself. Wondering just how he could work with that, Aang formed an air scooter that acted as a sort of bowling ball. Aang had quickly begun to realize that these were people that he could not hold back on. As desperate and convicted as he was not to kill anyone, these people were ready and willing to take his life if they had the chance. When he had fought the Fire Nation soldiers, they were pretty much trying to keep him alive; he had value. But that wasn't the case here. They would kill him without a second thought.
Focusing his attention back onto Abol, Aang pulled up a pillar of water, which he used to knock Abol overboard. He wasn't necessarily killing the man, as there were at least 20 other subordinates in the ocean below that could take care of him. Unbeknownst to Aang, Abol was able to shoot some of his webbing to catch himself on the bottom of the ship. He then pulled himself up and climbed across the hull to the opposite side from which he had fallen. Abol was going to make that boy pay with his life. After all, he was nobody; and there had been casualties where people had died in their raids against pirates. It wasn't like Leyla was going to miss one little no-name brat. As Abol jumped over the railing, Aang's shock and broken ribs didn't allow him to fully register and act in time. Just then, a large pipe came down on top of Abol, pinning him to the deck.
"What the…" Abol started, and he glared in Stot's direction momentarily. "You idiot! You tried to eat too much didn't you?!"
Aang's attention went elsewhere as he was dodging attacks from other hunters, and when Aang had turned just right so that he was facing in his direction, Abol shot Aang in the face with the webbing, blinding him. The stuff immediately hardened, making it hard for Aang to breathe, but a little firebending fixed that problem right away. But while Aang had been dealing with the webbing on his face, Abol managed to free himself from under the pipe and confronted Aang and ruthlessly punched Aang on the side that housed his broken ribs.
Aang gasped for air and nearly passed out from the pain. Abol patted Aang on the back. Aang couldn't move his arms or legs as Abol's webbing worked its way around his body and hardened. Aang couldn't focus. He was in so much pain. I… need… to firebend…
"There, there. It will be over soon."
"I must agree, Abol-san," said Brook, who walked by the pair slowly, casually swinging his sword cane.
"What do you mean corpse?" Abol asked, as he turned his attention from Aang to Brook.
"Ah, I have already cut you. Pastoral Song: Blizzard Slash." Brook calmly sheathed his sword and ice covered Abol's body. He collapsed to the deck, while his subordinates tearfully shouted, "Abol-sama!"
Aang stared, as he had never seen anything like it before. Aang then felt himself being lifted, and realized it was one of the bounty hunters. "Hey, wait! What are you doing?!" Aang protested, and with that, Aang was carried off by one of the bounty hunters into the ocean below.
Zoro was up against Stot, who was throwing up swords and various weapons to use against him. "If I, Stot, take you down, Roronoa, our reputation will go up in force!" Stot said, and he pulled out a sword that was around five feet long, and had a long, thick chain attached to the handle. Stot began swinging the sword by the chain over his head. He then threw the sword at Zoro, who quickly dodged the erratic movements of the sword. It tore up the deck as it traveled, leaving one of the men nearly caught by the sword to berate Stot for being so careless.
"Why are you speaking like that…?" Zoro mumbled. He dodged the sword again, and had to move quickly once again a mere few seconds later as a Gatling gun protruding from Stot's mouth was fired at him. Stot's ability was more annoying that it was challenging in Zoro's opinion. Zoro dodged another series of sword slashes and bullets, before he delivered a strike. "Purgatory Demon Slash."
"Gyahh!" Stot cried out. His sword broke into pieces and blood spurted from his body. He then began to whine, "Ah, I'm cut! I'm going to die! I'm still alive, but I'm dead!"
Zoro made a face. This man was getting on his nerves, and his thick layer of what was likely a combination of fat and muscle made for a very efficient armor. Stot stood to his feet once again, and this time threw up an oversized chain-sickle, which Stot began to expertly wield. Zoro focused on dodging, a grin evident on his face. Maybe this man wasn't so bad after all.
Stot managed to twist the chain-sickle around, and directed its trajectory so that it came at Zoro from behind. A loud explosion sounded a mere few feet away and knocked into them just as Zoro was dodging. The explosion unwittingly helped with Zoro's attempt at dodging and he was only slightly nicked on the arm by the chain-sickle. Stot stared at the deck where a cracked started to occur, but he didn't let that keep his attention for too long, as he twisted and spun the chain-sickle, and ran at Zoro. The man was a lot quicker than Zoro had originally thought. "You're quite fast for a big guy, aren't you?"
Stot cocked his head. "It makes people underestimate me. I wish people wouldn't think I'm slow just because I look like this. I do have feelings, you know."
Zoro knew he had to end this, and that there was no point in dragging this out. Stot was an annoyance, and needed to be dealt with. The Defying Gravity bounty hunters were ruthless, and they really didn't need Leyla and the rest of her team coming to join the fray. Zoro knew the others could easily deal with her. They were the Straw Hat pirates, after all.
Stot threw the chain-sickle at Zoro, and managed to catch his ankle. Grinning, Stot quickly tightened the chain around Zoro's ankle and yanked him into the air so that he could toss Zoro into the wall. As he did so, Stot ended up having to pull Zoro over his head. Seizing the opportunity, Zoro managed to grab a handful of Stot's hair and pull him down, successfully face-planting the large man into the floor and giving himself enough time to free his ankle.
Stot stood angrily, and began to furiously whip the chain-sickle around trying to grab Zoro or cut him up; whichever came first was fine with him. Zoro kept dodging, frustrating Stot even more. Stot managed to direct the chain-sickle just right so that it would wrap around Zoro, but instead the swordsman easily deflected the chain-sickle and when he did, the chain-sickle somehow ended up getting wrapped around one of the large exhaust pipes that was connected to one of the engines. Stot stared at the scene before him, his mind trying to work out the odd event. Zoro charged Stot, slicing him across the chest.
"Ack!" Stot fell back and as he did so, he kept a grip on his weapon. The chain-sickle ended up cutting the large pipe in half, and the pipe fell over threatening to crush Stot along with whoever and whatever was in its path. Stot quickly moved and opened his mouth wide, and he was able to swallow the first quarter of the pipe. He then began gagging, with tears in his eyes. He began to move sporadically, and had to cough up the pipe which landed on a few of his own team members. A voice from a man called out, "You idiot! You tried to eat too much didn't you?!"
"Sorry…" Stot just barely mumbled. His expression showed how sick he was feeling. Zoro was getting irritated with this fool, and he had to end this quickly. He had to take care of this idiot, and take care of the galleon so that the bounty hunters couldn't follow them.
It was then a thought occurred to Zoro, and he knew that the others would be calling him crazy for it. He sheathed two of his swords, and Stot chuckled, now that he had recovered from the failed attempt at gorging himself.
"Hmm? Giving up? So soon?"
Zoro got into position, and charged at Stot.
"Great Dragon Shock." Zoro said, as he sliced Stot from the head down.
"Gyahh!" Stot collapsed as blood spurt from his body, and at the same time, the galleon slowly split in half causing it crew members to scramble around in an attempt not to fall from the ship. The stern half of the ship that Zoro and Brook were on slowly started to capsize.
"Zoro-san!" Brook was shouting in a panic. "Aang was taken overboard!"
Brook was holding onto Aang's staff as the skeleton musician ran up to Zoro.
"What do you mean, taken?" Zoro asked, as he sheathed his sword, ignoring the panicked crewmates of the galleon, along with leaning against the tilt of the ship.
"He was tied up or something and what I think was a Fishman grabbed him and jumped off!"
"Great. Just great." Another person to add to their "needs to be rescued" list.
Zoro looked over the railing, and could see no signs of Aang or the Fishman, but he felt a faint presence of Aang somewhere far away, and it was fading fast.
"Dammit, this isn't good." Zoro muttered.
Luffy grinned as he charged through the subordinates, throwing them left and right. The men cursed at Luffy for his actions and his carelessness. Luffy worked his way through the bounty hunters and slave traders, along with destroying their ship where he could. Luffy briefly used Conqueror's Haki, knocking out the weaker ones.
"So the stories about him are true!" a man shouted. He was punched in the face by Luffy.
Luffy ran through the inner workings of the ship and saw that the inside was covered in metal plating and pipes. Luffy recalled the time he had messed with some of Franky's contraptions and he had gotten upset and had warned Luffy it was dangerous to do such things. Maybe these pipes were important or something, and if he broke those, bad things would happen to the ship. Luffy began ripping the piping off of the walls as he went, releasing torrents of steam and starting small fires due to mini explosions and electricity. He came across what looked to be a control room with numerous machines pumping steam. One of the mechanics spotted him and pulled out a rifle and shot Luffy, although the bullets only harmlessly bounced off of their intended target and caused damage to the surrounding machinery.
"Is this place important?" Luffy questioned aloud to himself. He reasoned that if this place was being protected by a guy with a gun, then it was in fact important and had to be destroyed. Luffy started smashing the machinery and using the thick pipes as weapons to take down the protesting mechanics. Luffy grabbed one pipe and yelled out in surprise when it burned him. He blew on his hands and froze for a moment. He quickly dodged as he was attacked by a man wearing large steel gloves. He had a large scar that went from the left side of his forehead down to the right side of his jaw. He had a bald patch where the scar started on his forehead, and his dark hair was pulled back into a small ponytail. The man punched the machinery when he missed Luffy, smashing it beyond repair.
"Hold still," the man ordered.
"Eh? Why would I do that?" Luffy questioned in all sincerity.
"Because you're Gorn's enemy and Gorn is supposed to fight you. Gorn is also a bounty hunter and you're a wanted pirate. It's Gorn's proud duty in life to fight and take down people like you. It makes perfect sense if you think about it."
"You're right, it does!" Luffy agreed with a look of understanding on his face. "Who's Gorn by the way?"
The man looked angry, and jabbed a thumb at himself. "I'm Gorn! Also known as "Iron Head" Gorn! And Gorn is going to kick your pirate ass!"
Luffy easily dodged to the side as Gorn charged at him, and Gorn simply crashed into the machinery, causing even more irreparable damage.
One of the mechanics sat up, and pleaded, "Please don't fight in here! It's expensive to fix and replace this equipment!"
"Hey, I thought I knocked you out!" Luffy said, but he easily dodged another punch from Gorn, who was getting frustrated.
"Stop dodging!" Gorn shouted.
"But you're trying to hit me!" Luffy argued.
Luffy turned and grinned, delivering his own set of blows to Gorn. Gorn was obviously becoming frustrated with Luffy's dodging, childish remarks, and being hit when he couldn't even land a few hits himself. Luffy spotted a strange box and said,
"Hey, what's that?"
Gorn took advantage of the distraction and punched Luffy in the face with a Haki-imbued fist, and Luffy went flying.
"Owwww!" Luffy said, and he rubbed his cheek. Luffy now glared at Gorn, and shouted, "That hurt, you bastard!"
"Gear Second." Luffy shot from the place he had landed with a speed that Gorn hadn't even anticipated, and he heard, "Jet Pistol."
He froze in shock as Luffy suddenly appeared before him with a wide grin on his face.
"Your punch is nothing compared to the old man's."
Luffy covered his own fist in Armament Haki, and delivered a blow that sent him flying back into one of the larger machines in the control room.
"The port side power core!"
Whatever that meant didn't concern Luffy as he went back to inspect the strange box that had caught his interest earlier. It had a few lightning bolts on the door and a sign that read, Warning: High Voltage on it.
"Is this important?" Luffy questioned. Well, since the sign said that it was dangerous, maybe it was important. Luffy opened the door and saw numerous switches that had labels on them with numbers, letters, and symbols that meant nothing to him. "I wonder what this does."
Luffy punched the box, easily able to ignore the few thousand volts that would have easily killed a normal human. The ship slowly started to tilt the left, but Luffy paid it no mind. "This is boring…" Luffy loudly complained. Disappointed that the box didn't do whatever it was that he had expected it to do, he left to make his way elsewhere, wherever that may be.
He came upon a door that read Portside Turrets C and out of curiosity Luffy opened the door, and saw a few men setting up their turret cannons to fire.
"Excuse me, is this place important?" Luffy asked, distracting the men from the task at hand.
" "Straw Hat" Luffy!" one of them shouted, just then Luffy heard Franky shout, "Coup de Vent!" and a blast of wind shot out the entire room containing the men and the cannons.
"Wow! That was so cool Franky!" Luffy praised his shipwright as he stuck his head out to view the Sunny.
"Ow!" Franky shouted, and he posed. "That was super lucky I saw them before they could fire!"
Just then, Luffy sensed that he should dodge, and he narrowly missed getting cut in half by a flying slash. As the ship split in half, Luffy grinned in wide-eyed amusement.
"Wow… the ship split in half!"
Luffy stuck his head out of the hole again and stretched to grab onto the mast of his ship, pulling himself onto the Sunny. A few minutes later, Zoro and Brook joined them as well.
They looked on at the galleon which was now completely falling apart, and would no longer grace the ocean or the sky, for that matter. Now that a few of the engines that were helping keep the ship afloat were broken, the front of the galleon was teetering unevenly and causing even the most experienced sailors to get seasick. The back half of the ship continued its slow journey into capsizing, and was falling apart as it did so, while the crew was up in arms trying to figure out what they should do.
"Hey, where's Aang?" Nami asked, seeing that Brook was holding onto Aang's air glider. "A Fishman grabbed him and took him into the ocean. We're going to need the submarine." Zoro said. "I can still sense him, but it's quickly fading."
"We have to help him!" Luffy shouted, and impulsively ran to dive over the side to rescue his friend. "We already have four people to worry about, let's not make it five!" Nami shouted angrily, punching Luffy on the head.
Luffy looked at Nami, somewhat hurt. "But we have to help Aang!"
"I know that, but we also have to consider the others on the island. We'll have to pick them up right away, and not leave them stranded to deal with those bounty hunters."
"I could take the submarine down. I've equipped it with weapons, and I can super fight underwater if I have to."
"Alright, I think the Sunny can still sail. The wind currents up here seem to be strong enough. If we risk crashing into the island, I'll just do a Coup de Burst."
"I'll go get the submarine!" Franky said, but he stopped when Luffy called out, "Hey, there's something in the water!"
The others joined Luffy at the side of the boat and watched in curiosity as a small portion of the ocean bubbled rapidly.
"What's with that crazy energy?" Zoro questioned.
Slowly, a cyclone formed from the ocean, and a limp, man-shaped figure was tossed out and flew towards the island where the other bounty hunters were. The cyclone disappeared as quickly as it had come, and a sphere shot out of the water, and was surrounded by flames and water. The sphere only paused for a moment or two before shooting off toward the island at a high speed.
Nami stared in shock, "What was that?"
"That was Aang!" Luffy shouted, overjoyed with stars in his eyes. "He's amazing! I didn't know he could do something like that!"
"Let's hurry and get back to the island!" Nami said.
"Right!" the men shouted in unison.
Next time: Katara, Zuko, and Toph learn the fate that the slave traders have in store for them, and Sokka comes up with a very simple plan in rescuing their friends.
