Whirlwind

As the battleship they had got this far on was dislodged from the ice and fell down into the bay, Luffy tore the piece of paper he had been given clean in half. The battle below was raging all over the place, ships clashing, a Sea King powering through the ice ahead of a trio of pirate vessels and a massive giant lying slumped over the middle of the bay. He had heard the alert announcing that Ace was going to be executed early, which meant he needed to get his brother safely away quickly. The favour Fox had given him was his best bet.

He looked up as Jinbe fished him out of the water. "Ace!" He bellowed happily. "I finally found you!" As Luffy stood with his current allies, a white ball of light bloomed in front of him and expanded into a kneeling figure with one hand flat on the ground and a fist held over its heart. Luffy's heart sped up as he recognised the mask.

"Ghost-guy?"

The rubberman was only vaguely aware of spreading panic as pirates and Marines alike noticed who, exactly, was kneeling in front of Straw-Hat Luffy. Luffy himself was trying to think quickly: this had to be Fox' favour. If so, it was a really big favour and he owed her masses. But first he had to give orders.

"Erm, Mr Phantom?" The white-garbed assassin rose smoothly to his feet and stepped sideways, turning to take in the panorama before facing Luffy once more. The rubberman cleared his throat. "Please don't kill any pirates," he said quickly, "and don't let anybody kill Ace!"

The masked assassin bowed and zipped away across the ice, headed toward the execution stand and leaving a trail of mutilated and screaming Marines in his wake.

"You didn't mention you had the bloody Phantom Fox on call!" Buggy screeched.

"It makes a person vonder vhy you raided Impel Down at all," Ivankov agreed. "Ze Phantom Fox is a legend!"

"How did you find him?" Crocodile asked.

Luffy shrugged. "It's a favour; he's only here for two hours," he said impatiently. "Now let's get going!" He had no idea that quite a lot of people had heard him and were wondering what kind of monster Monkey D. Luffy was to get a favour from the World's Greatest Assassin.

When wearing the mask Fox saw the world filtered through her Devil Fruit Ability and through haki. She also tapped heavily into the Logia aspects of the power at her disposal, making her very hard to hit but even harder to avoid. Her arrival on the battlefield in this guise had abruptly changed the focus of the fight: she, not Whitebeard, was now the primary target. The Phantom was the greater threat to the world order, having proved it could –and would– slaughter the nobility without hesitation.

The Phantom Fox danced through the chaos, leapt up onto the embankment using Little Oars Jr. as a step and landed lightly on the execution stand. Before Sengoku could react to the abrupt arrival however the assassin kicked him in the gut, transferring the momentum and channelling the Colour of Armament into a single well-placed boot. The Fleet Admiral went flying; Vice-Admiral Garp tried to retaliate but he had not been expecting to fight and the Phantom was in its element. Gloved fingers found and crushed a pressure point; Garp staggered and was launched away by another well-aimed boot. Ace turned and was firmly pushed back to the floor as a glittering foot tried to take the assassin's head off. The Phantom slipped sideways just far enough for the kick to miss its head and drew Zanchou, carving through muscle and scraping bone as the blade came down on the Admiral's leg. Kizaru gasped, abruptly robbed of his Devil Fruit Power by the Kairoseki sword and of his mobility by the wound. A flick of the wrist cleaned the blade before it came down again; the Admiral dodged, rolling off the execution platform and leaving a bloody smear behind.

The Phantom didn't have time to gloat over surprising an Admiral even if it had been the sort to indulge in that kind of thing: Aokiji had seen his colleague fall and was far more cautious and considerably more aggressive in his attack. The assassin ducked, dodged, turned and rammed a thin Kairoseki needle through the Ice Logia's elbow joint before counterattacking with Zanchou, the blade roaring like a great wave as it whizzed through the air and nearly decapitated Aokiji as the Admiral retreated, trying to pry the needle out of his arm. A quick kick put the handicapped Devil Fruit User off-balance but Aokiji threw himself backwards off the Execution Stand rather than try and parry the sword heading towards his centre of balance. As he fell he grasped the needle and pulled it out, regaining his powers if not dealing with the damage caused by the unexpected weapons brought against him. Aokiji attacked again, this time with an ice blade that was sliced clean through by Zanchou in spite of the Busoshoku Haki reinforcement; the Kairoseki blade's own Will was to cut and compounded with the Phantom's own ferocious resolve it took a truly exceptional mind to counter the combination. Kuzan was too disillusioned by his experiences to match the seamless force of Will he was facing and nearly lost an arm as he dodged again, the Phantom's sword shearing off his right epaulette and a layer of skin.

Aokiji's only advantage was that his opponent was focused on defending the fallen and still chained Portgas D. Ace rather than on obliterating his foes. It was a pitifully slim advantage when the Phantom had already demonstrated superior Busoshoku and Kenbunshoku Haki on top of a considerable advantage in both speed and agility and strength almost equal to Aokiji's own. Added to the incredible skill demonstrated in weaponry and stunning professionalism, the Phantom was by far the most dangerous enemy of the Marines present on the battlefield even when Whitebeard and the self-proclaimed Gol. D. Spitfire were considered.

The primary problem was that with the assassin occupying the Execution Stand the execution could not go ahead, early or otherwise. Kizaru was momentarily out of commission, Garp couldn't move his right arm at all and Sengoku was trying to coordinate their forces in the face of considerable difficulty. Gol D. Spitfire was truly a master of psychological warfare to have struck when and how she did; even now she was fighting Admiral Akainu and matching him blow for blow in-between striking down any other Marine that entered her range. The Pirate King's daughter favoured an acrobatic style that broke heads and used her enemies as impromptu projectiles and seemed wholly inappropriate for one so large, yet worked frighteningly well. Akainu's lava attacks were batted away or dodged, the massive woman laughing all the while. Her green-coated associates were busily maiming and moving on, spreading through the Marines like shrapnel bombs and leaving screams in their wake. It was a brutal and highly effective tactic against massed forces and showed far more professionalism than most pirates ever contemplated. Another sign that this Spitfire woman was a force to be feared.

Then the Pacifistas stepped into view; perhaps now the forces of Justice would regain the initiative.

As the Kuma look-alikes walked out onto the ice and started attacking the pirate ships Spitfire used her broad blade like a bat, launching Akainu away from her. Then she dashed over to the edge of the bay, stuck bloody fingers in her mouth and whistled piercingly.

"Up and at 'em, my lovelies!" She roared over the sounds of battle. "Take out the big guys with the targets on their shirts!"

There was a pause, then with a creaking and a shattering like a thousand cannonballs the ice ruptured in three places and three massive heads emerged, throwing good-sized icebergs around like chaff. Ripper and Snapper looked down crocodilian muzzles at their prey as a laser bounced off Snapper's scales; Trudi shook off the ice like loose feathers, opened her beak and trilled like a bass bell before lunging forwards, tiny wing-like fins steering her over the rough surface like a pinball and leaving a trail of smoking acid in her wake.

Laughing happily, Spitfire turned her attention to one of the giants. Her babies would be just fine defending the rear. Whitebeard obviously agreed, as he ordered his forces to focus on attacking towards the Stand where Fox was defending Ace from all comers in all her deadly masked glory. Spitfire cut her enemies' feet from under him and lopped off his head on the backstroke, carving forwards through the Marines, half of whom were desperately trying to stay away from her. She battled onwards, occasionally knocking out convicts who couldn't let go of a grudge in between throwing Marines every which way.

She was elbow deep in intestine when Whitebeard was stabbed by one of his sons –raising Sea Kings completely destroys any and all squeamishness a person might have– and didn't pay much attention until the aging pirate shattered the ice keeping the ships close, dumping Trudi into the water and making Ripper and Snapper bellow at the pain.

"Oi!" she roared furiously up at the white-moustachioed man, waving her bloody cutlass in one hand and a fistful of guts in the other. "Mind out for my babies when you do that! They've been breaking up the ice and taking out the robots that were attacking your fleet so you could be a bit more careful!"

Whitebeard chuckled. "I apologise, Spitfire! I did not intend to harm your pets."

"You'd better not have!" she shouted back, in no way mollified. "You don't see me cutting down your kids when they get under foot, do you?!" She ignored the whimpering caused by the Haoshoku haki she was radiating in her anger; she hated it when people targeted her loved ones, animal or otherwise. "Do you want me to start?!"

"Easy, Spitfire," came the voice of reason from beside her as a hand caught her elbow and orange curls entered her vision. Tempest smiled gently, shaking a trio of bodies off the end of her bisento. "Everyone makes mistakes; we're all fighting towards the same goal, yes?"

Spitfire growled, shaking off the restraining hand, but did not attack Whitebeard or his crew of 'kids'. Tempest was right; they were here to rescue Ace. With that in mind she turned and waded back into the fray, taking her temper out on the hapless Marines and the island's infrastructure. What did they need all those pretentious towers for anyway?

Then down by the ice steel walls rose up out of the sea, blocking the pirates off from the island and Akainu started throwing lava balls at the Moby Dick. Spitfire didn't like the crotchety old man much, but that didn't mean she was just going to stand by and let them burn his boat.

"Jaws! Up and at em!"

For a moment nothing happened, then from beneath the bay a new head surfaced, throwing half-melted rock and ice floes every which way. The immense head of Jaws, part Gulper Eel, part porcupine, hovered over the bay, almost large enough to swallow the island whole.

Spitfire pointed at the Moby Dick, which was starting to burn. "Catch and keep!" she ordered briskly. Jaws obeyed, swallowing the ship whole and vanishing back under the waves in a rush that set all the pirates on the ice tumbling. Spitfire turned towards Whitebeard.

"I'll give it back later, you old bastard! Don't worry about leaving: I'll give you a lift when the time comes!"

Whitebeard laughed. "Gurararara! I'll hold you to that!"

Battle rages on.