Betaread and final touches done by The Patient One! He turned this mess into a readable chapter :D

Chapter 21. Payment in Blood

A punch to his gut snapped Arlong out of his daze. His breath left his body in an explosive, painful gasp, and he coughed blood. Before he could retaliate, another punch landed onto the side of his face, the force behind it knocking him right off his feet and hurling him directly into the Arlong Park building. Part of its wall collapsed as he crashed through it.

Luffy cracked his knuckles, ignoring the blood dripping through his fingers, still grinning in that half crazy, half amused manner. "And I'm gonna rip your heart out."

A silence that followed his words was deafening. Villagers were too shocked at a sudden appearance of unexpected saviors, and fishmen equality astonished by the easiness the said saviors dispatched their leader and officers.

"You bastard!" one of the fishmen yelled in fury, drawing out a sword. "How dare you hit Arlong-san!"

A few of his crewmates followed his lead and also launched themselves on the black-haired teen, their teeth bared and weapons shimmering under the sun.

The young captain didn't even spare them a glance, his eyes boring into the spot where Arlong laid, hidden under the debris.

"Luffy, watch out!" Usopp shouted in alarm while Zoro and Sanji cursed and got ready to move in.

The blade was only inches away from Luffy's bandana-covered neck when it happened. One second he was there, the next, he was gone. A gust of wind swept up a dust from the ground, scattering it harmfully around the attacking fishmen. And then, they were all blown into different direction, some crash-landing into the water, others smashing into the building or surrounding stone fence.

Usopp eeped when one of the bodies whizzed past him. He turned just in time to see it cleaning up a hostile pirate who tried to sneak up on him. "Whoaaaa…" he breathed out, wiping a sweat from his brow, his eyes still impossibly wide. "That was too close." He looked back to where his captain appeared in his previous spot as if nothing had happened at all.

Zoro smirked, dropping his katana from his mouth into his hand. He knew his chosen captain was strong, but his prowess still impressed him every time. And, damn. It seemed that he would finally see Luffy getting real serious in the fight. An excitement bubbled in his chest as he watched the boy raising a questioning eyebrow at the fishmen, taunting them wordlessly.

"Shitty captain…" Sanji mumbled under his breath. "I worry only about ladies!" he exclaimed more to himself than anyone else. He frowned at the still smoldering cigarette on the ground. His hand absentmindedly reached inside his suit and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, taking and lighting a new one. He blew out a cloud of smoke, observing some of the pirates actually taking a step back from his captain when the latter smiled darkly.

"You cheated, humans!" someone screamed.

"They didn't see you coming!"

"That's right!" another voice agreed. "They weren't prepared!"

"Just wait till they retaliate!"

"Despicable humans!"

Luffy chuckled. It was a quiet and soft laugh, but somehow it got carried through the whole Arlong Park, successfully shutting the enemy crew. "We're pirates, you idiots," the rubber boy said, his tone full of mirth. "We aren't compelled to play by the rules if we don't want to."

A splash of water perturbed the newly set silence when Kuroobi pulled himself out of the water, sneering hatefully at his blond assailant. Chew also staggered to his feet, his baleful gaze fixed on Usopp.

"Straw Hat…"

Luffy shot a glance over his shoulder at Hachi, just a brief turn of his head, before he was staring at the rubble again. "Johnny, Yosaku," he called out.

The bounty hunter duo flinched in surprise, still stunned by the young captain's show of power. "Y-Yes, Luffy-aniki?" they both said in unison.

"Take care of Hachi."

"Of course," Yosaku replied as they rushed forward, giving Chew a wide berth. With a united effort, they managed to lift the injured octopus fishman up and slowly dragged him towards villagers. The moment they passed Zoro, bounty hunters let out a relieved sigh, even though no one actually moved to intercept them.

The rubble of the broken wall moved, and Arlong sat up in the middle of it, glaring at Luffy. He licked his lips and then spat bloody saliva, wiping the hand across his mouth. "A pirate, you say," he said, his voice dangerously low. He smiled, revealing the rows of razor-sharp teeth. "What can an inferior being like you possibly do? Without a surprise attacks you all just lowly helpless humans! Shahahaha!"

Luffy stared at him unimpressed. "I was wondering why Tooki never mentioned you when he told me stories about the Sun Pirates. Now I understand," he noted dryly. "He said that there were a few scumbags in the crew who weren't worth mentioning."

Arlong growled as he slowly climbed to his feet, his narrowed eyes glued to the teen who evenly met his predatory gaze. "Tooki was a traitor if he told a puny human about our crew!" he spat out scornfully.

In an instant, Luffy's face blanked out. "That is not very nice of you," he said, his voice emotionless. "Tooki was my friend. He saved my life in more ways than one. I won't allow you to speak of him like that."

It was feeding time.

Luffy could hear the increasing bustle coming from the direction of the front cells: the shuffling of feeders, their taunting words and bursts of cruel laughs, the desperate begging of the starving people and quiet sobs of those who were denied the food for an amusement of their tormentors.

Luffy tightened his arms around his legs. Such a brief movement strained his skin and muscles, and he winced as the pain like fire spread across his shoulder. Devastating dizziness instantly engulfed him, sapping the leftover strength with lightning speed. Luffy screwed up his eyes and rested his forehead on his knees, fighting bile inside his throat that suddenly threatened to choke him.

Feeders were finally in front of his cell, but the boy ignored them. "Hey, hey," the man who held a bag with bread in his hands elbowed the second one. When he got his co-workers attention, the feeder grinned and motioned towards Luffy. "This is the brat I told you about."

"The one who ran away and got caught a few days ago?"

"Yeah," the man chuckled. "Little fool thought that Marines would help him. Like they would ever help these animals."

Luffy tightened his hold on his legs again, this time deliberately triggering the pain so that his mind would have something else to occupy itself instead of focusing on mocking laughter. Tears stung his eyes, but the boy refused to let them fall. He cried enough already.

Ace and Sabo always said that he was a crybaby, and Ace even told him that he hated crybabies. If Luffy managed to change himself, to become stronger and stop crying, maybe, just maybe, his brothers would come to take him away from this awful place, rescue him from this never-ending torture like they did when he was captured and beaten by Porchemy.

"Hey, brat!" the feeder with the bag called. "Are you hungry?"

Fingers of the boy's bare feet curled under, the only indication that he heard the question.

Luffy knew this game. If he said that he was indeed hungry, feeders would laugh and deny him food simply for their own amusement. If he lied and said that he wasn't hungry, they would laugh and still leave him without food. As he learned so far, the best choice was to stay silent with his head down and pray that these men would take pity on him. But Luffy was exhausted and feverish, so he did the only thing that he could at the moment: he lifted his head just enough to peer at the bastards, his onyx black eyes ablaze with overwhelming hatred, seemingly containing enough heat to melt down the iron bars separating him and the two slavers.

The little boy's open defiance startled the feeders. They gawked in surprise before the first one suddenly spat at him through the bars. "No food for you today, slave!" he stated coldly and after a moment muttered in disdain, "Tch, what a freak… Almost two years here and he still can glare like that."

"I don't understand," the second feeder complained as they turned to continue their work. "Why doesn't Saint Kenjord just kill this slave? I thought all runaways ended up in The Red Room permanently."

"Because this slave is his favorite," his partner replied with a snort as he pulled out a loaf from the bag and chugged it into the cell next to Luffy's. "But he was punished. The boss even left a sea stone bullet in his shoulder. Do you know how painful it is for a Devil Fruit user? It's like an agonizingly slow lethal poison." The man grinned widely, shooting a glance at the boy, before shrugging. "The master always orders to pull it out before he dies, though."

"Is he any good in the arena?"

"Ha! You really are a newbie! He could break your bones just like that," the feeder said while snapping his fingers.

"Pff, right."

"I'm serious! You should see him in the arena. His devil fruit is so much fun to watch! Not like those Logias, Paramecias are all about getting close and personal. He's a monster, I tell you."

They moved further along the rows of cells as they talked and soon was out of hearing range. Luffy went back to his former position with his hot forehead resting on his knees. He stayed like that even when feeders returned after making their rounds. They strolled past all the caged people, chatting happily until exiting through the door. Silence consumed the slave pens again.

"Two years here and you're still fighting against them."

A deep, quiet voice on his left made Luffy look at the speaker. His tired eyes met curious, yellow ones, gazing at him as if assessing him. It was one of those strange humans with different colored skin and additional parts on their bodies. This one had green skin, a crooked fin on his back, and there were some teeth protruding from his thick blue lips.

Luffy sometimes saw this kind of humans in this place, but never spoke with them. Not many people in cells spoke with each other here. Everyone knew that they could be pitted against anyone here in the deathmatch, and no one was eager to kill their friend or be killed because of them. So nobody tried to make friends in this place. It was easier. The survival took a priority.

But Luffy was always prone to making new friends, and he had been starving for any kind of friendly socialization. That's why he actually responded to the strange man's words. "I won't be a crybaby anymore," the boy declared, his voice just above a whisper. "Then my brothers will come for me."

The man's expression softened. "I'm sure they would come for you right now if they could, kid."

Luffy didn't reply, lowering his head back on his knees. A silence settled between them, broken only by a quiet wailing somewhere in the front cells. After a few moments, a hushed "I won't die here," left the boy's mouth. "I won't die until I reached my dream," he repeated a bit louder.

The man raised his eyebrow. "And what's your dream?"

"Become the freest person in the world." Luffy glanced at him again. "Become the Pirate King."

The words were delivered with so much conviction behind them that it left the stranger stunned. "Pehehehehe!" he suddenly bellowed with laughter, and it sounded very unbefitting and out of place in this gloomy atmosphere. "You're a strange little human, aren't you? What's your name?"

"Luffy."

"I'm Tooki. Nice to meetcha, kid." He grinned brightly before sticking his hand through the bars that separated their cells and carefully throwing the loaf of bread to the spot in the boy's reach. "There, you can have it."

Luffy stared at the bread with wide eyes. "But… this is yours."

Tooki just waved his concern off. "You need it more than I do. I still have some fat on my bones," he joked as he patted his belly. When the boy still didn't move to take it, he gently insisted, "Just eat."

"Thank you," Luffy whispered as he delicately picked up the loaf with his uninjured arm, his motion full of reverence. He already learned that if he devoured the food like he was used to back home, it would make him sick. So, he started to slowly nibble at the corner. "You're a strange human, too," he said softly.

That comment elicited another bout of laughter from the green-skinned person. "That's because I'm not human."

Luffy blinked in confusion. "Not human?"

"I'm a fishman, kid. We're a species that inhabit the seas."

Luffy's eyes widened in wonder. "You live in the sea? Can you swim?"

Tooki chuckled. "Of course. With these," he pointed at gills between his shoulder and neck, "I can even breathe underwater."

The boy's mouth formed 'O' as he gawked at the fishman practically with stars shooting out of his eyes. "That's so cool!" he exclaimed joyfully and instantly winced as the intense pain burned his shoulder. Luffy closed his eyes and bit his lip, willing the agony away, but it took a couple of minutes for it to subside.

Tooki was observing him with a worried crease in his brow. "How are you feeling, kid?"

A tiny smile appeared on Luffy's lips. "I'm okay," he assured, and the fishman sighed. The boy nibbled at the bread as he gazed at his new friend's face intently. "You feel more human than those who keep us here," he deadpanned abruptly.

Tooki's head snapped to look at Luffy so fast that it made him dizzy. He scrutinized the kid for a while, trying to determine his intent, but the young face in front of him was open and sincere. "You remind me of Koala, the girl my pirate crew helped to bring back home."

Luffy's eyes grew wide as plates. "You're a pirate?!"

"I am. Want to hear some stories?"

"Yeah!"

"Alright." The sunny grin brightened the boy's features, and Tooki couldn't help but smile too. "I will tell you about my amazing friend and captain of the Sun Pirates, Fisher Tiger. Listen carefully, because this story is not known to many…"

Nami and Nojiko sneaked into the Arlong Park the same moment Johnny and Yosaku brought Hachi to a safe place. Cocoyashi's resident doctor offered to check his injuries because everyone felt grateful to the octopus fishman. Without him, Nami would have been hurt more than she was, she wouldn't have been able to run away and call for help.

Nobody recognized the youths who were now confronting the Arlong Pirates. Even though their unexpected saviors turned out to be pirates themselves, the two sisters' insistence that they were here to help them was the only assurance they needed to accept them.

Nami was chewing nervously on her lower lip as she observed the conversation between Luffy and Arlong, waiting for a conclusion of it like everyone else. One of her hands was still gripping Luffy's straw hat, partially to hold it in place, partially to ground and assure herself. Luffy was strong, she repeated again and again in her mind, stomping on any feeling of doubt that reared its ugly head.

"That is not very nice of you. Tooki was my friend. He saved my life in more ways than one. I won't allow you to speak of him like that."

"Your friend?" Arlong asked, pulling his lips into a sneer. "Just how low Tooki had fallen to be friends with a maggot like you? Pathetic!"

Luffy's left eye twitched, the only reaction to the insults. He didn't move, didn't say anything for one long moment. "You took over this island, forced people into submission, marked a person like your property, pretending to be some kind of god…" he listed in a calm, measured voice.

Nami's heart skipped a beat at her captain's words and she blinked rapidly to clear her eyes from tears that started to gather anew.

"Just like those bastards." The last word was said with so much venom that even Arlong was taken aback. After a short pause, Luffy continued, "You're everything your captain fought against."

"You know nothing about my captain!" Arlong snarled in fury, his body trembling in animalistic, unrelenting, inhuman anger. "I AM the god to you, lowly human!"

"God, huh?"

The navigator involuntarily shuddered at the sound of Luffy's chuckle. It sounded wrong, warped somehow. Dark and hollow.

"Well, good thing I'm a D then," the boy informed as he allowed his lips stretch into a macabre parody of his usual grin.

Fear crept up into Nami like thousands of insects, crawling just under her skin. That was not Luffy he came to know and trust. She could think up only one word that described the vibe she was now getting from the normally warm and caring boy.

Insane.

Nami shrunk into herself, eyes screwed shut, panic spreading throughout her mind like wildfire. The second hand shot up, grabbing the straw hat, and she tugged it down, trying to hide from the scary image before her.

"Enough of your nonsense!" Arlong roared, propelling himself at the black-haired teen with his arm drawn back. "I'M GONNA ENJOY KILLING YOU!"

Luffy met his full-powered punch with a punch of his own. Time seemed to stop for a second before restarting with a devastating shockwave from where their fists collided. Both opponents were blown away by its force. Arlong crashed back into the rubble he just climbed out. Luffy flew through the air, but quickly righted himself and landed gracefully on his feet, skidding backward and stopping just barely at the edge of the pool.

Their clash functioned as the sign to start, and suddenly everyone lunged on their targets with adrenaline induced vigor. Kuroobi against Sanji, Chew against Usopp, and the rest of the crew against Zoro…

"Oi, are you serious?" Zoro complained in annoyance as he sidestepped the clumsy attack and stuck his feet to trip one of the goons. The latter flattened on the ground with a yelp, and the swordsman kicked him right in the teeth. "Why is it me who needs to deal with these weaklings?!"

"Waaaaah!"

Screaming his lungs out, Usopp zipped past Zoro and through the gates, the long-lipped fishman hot on his heels. The green-haired man flashed a grin at the opportunity and stepped forward, blocking the pursuer's way with a raised sword. "I'll play with you," he said as the fishman halted.

Chew scowled. "I don't really care who the first one to die is."

Zoro drew his katana and bit it, readying himself for a fight. Then a rotten egg splashed at the fishman's mug and both of them froze. The swordsman blinked in surprise.

"Mwahahah!" Usopp cackled, standing at the safe distance with his slingshot in his hand. "Welcome to the Crap Café! Today's special is fish with eggs!"

"That's my line, Usopp! How do you even—? Patty," Sanji realized with a grumble.

Chew glared at the sniper. "If you wanna die so badly, I'll kill you first!" he yelled furiously, dodging around Zoro and sprinting after Usopp.

"Gyaaaah!" the liar shrieked, turning to run away again. "Zorooooooo, save me!"

"You idiot!" the swordsman cursed. "Johnny! Yosaku!"

The bounty hunters sprung to their feet without a second thought. "Aniki?"

"Protect Nami and these people!" Zoro ordered as he threw the duo's swords back to them, then dashed after the target he had his sight on. "Usopp, stop running or I'm gonna kill you myself!"

"Get back here, you long-nose!"

Usopp's speed doubled. "I'm doooooomed! They're gonna kill meeee! Waaaaaah!"

The villagers stared dumbly after the three figures until they disappeared over the horizon.

"What was that?"

"Dunno."

"Are these kids really pirates?"

"Now is not the time to gawk uselessly!" Genzo reprimanded them sternly. "We need to protect ourselves and keep the pirates away from the injured ones!"

"Yeah!" the crowd cried out, gripping their makeshift weapons more tightly and facing the Arlong pirates with determination plastered on each of their faces.

"I'm…" Hachi staggered to his feet. "I'm gonna help too."

"Whoa, Octopus-aniki, you're hurt!" Johnny yelled in alarm.

Yosaku eyed the approaching fishmen forces with a concerned scowl. There was so many of them! Suddenly, he noticed Nami standing all alone with the straw hat over her eyes, not paying attention to her surroundings. A pirate strode towards her. "Nami-aneki! Watch out!" the hunter screamed.

The navigator lifted her head and met the malicious eyes of the fishman. She didn't even have time to react to his presence; grinning evilly, the pirate winded his arm to hit her.

"Nami-san!" Sanji exclaimed but before he could move to help, the punch in his gut flung him across the Arlong Park and through its fence where he skidded on the ground, stopping sprawled in the dust.

Nami gasped, slamming her eyes shut, waiting for a pain to come. It never did.

She peeked over the hat's brim and her eyes widened as all she saw was a red shirt and black disheveled mop, standing protectively in front of her. Nami's attacker was nowhere to be seen.

"Shahahaha!" Arlong laughed. "Allowing yourself to get injured just to save another human! How useless!"

Nami's gaze snapped back to Luffy and she immediately understood what Arlong meant.

The young captain yanked the set of shark's teeth from his shoulder and tossed it aside. The blood splattered from the rows of deep puncture wounds, flowing along his arm and dripping down from his fingers on the ground. Luffy didn't seem to be bothered by it as he glared at Arlong with the stony face.

"Luffy…" Nami whispered.

The boy looked at her and a gentle smile curled on his lips. It took her breath away. That was Luffy she knew. The same person who was shining brightly like a sun in the endless darkness with its alluring light attracting everyone into its gravity field. And Nami wholeheartedly wanted to stay there, to be one of the stars that circled that sun, basking in its brilliant warmth and protective ferocity.

The navigator couldn't even recall why she got scared of her captain. It didn't matter that he was scary sometimes, didn't matter that he was able to kill, didn't matter that he had more demons haunting him than all of them added together. Nami was absolutely certain that Luffy would never hurt her or any of his nakama, that his insane rage was always pointed at the enemy who deserved it and never at innocent people.

"You're nakama, Nami," he said firmly. And that was that. Luffy always delivered such words with finality that only he could pull.

There was a lump in her throat and the navigator simply nodded, unable to speak.

Satisfied, Luffy returned his attention on Arlong.

"Did you finish say your goodbyes?" the fishman captain asked with a mocking smile. "Because you all will die today, but I won't kill Nami. No, she still needs to draw my maps."

Without wasting time for a retort, Luffy raced forward with his arm stretching behind him. In a red blur, he was instantly in front of his opponent, too fast for him to react. The punch hit unprepared Arlong's stomach and sent the fishman flying into the building once again. Luffy smirked.

Meanwhile, his first crewmate reappeared at the entrance of Arlong Park.

"The heck? Why I am back here?" Zoro muttered angrily. "Damn! Usopp just had to go and get lost."

"Zoro-anikiiii!" Johnny and Yosaku wailed as they tried to push several fishmen away from the injured villagers. "Help!"

Zoro growled. In seconds, he was in front of his friends, snarling at their pursuers.

"Piss off!" he snapped. The fishmen recoiled from the pure wrath, oozing out of the green-haired man. Before they could consider attacking him instead, a flurry of Zoro's attacks pushed them all away as though they were mere dolls.

With a beastly gleam in his eyes, Zoro glanced left, then right. "Shit!" he cursed, punching the closest fishman out of pure irritation. Arlong was Luffy's, the cook was engaged the guy with strange elbows, and Usopp had to go and get lost with the last decent fighter from this crew. Well, he wasn't worried about the long-nosed liar; Usopp could take care of himself. But now he didn't have anyone worthy to fight.

Zoro glared at all the small fries, causing them to shrink away.

Ah, he was so frustrated. And the best way to let his pent-up frustration was to kick someone's ass. So, that's what Zoro did. There were lots of asses around just waiting to be kicked.

One minute later, the swordsman was gazing at all the sprawled bodies around him, his posture screaming boredom.

Nami tentatively sidled to him. "Thanks, Zoro, for your help protecting the villagers."

Zoro looked at her, and she forced herself to show a strained, small smile. Her eyes were red and puffy, the bruise on the side of her face already fully formed, and she seemed thoroughly exhausted, one hand holding onto Luffy's straw hat like a lifeline. "No problem," the swordsman replied. "We're pirates, but not the kind that they are."

Nami's smile became more genuine. "Yeah."

Zoro grinned ruggedly back. Then they both gave their attention to the ongoing battle.

It seemed that Luffy was entertaining himself by throwing Arlong to his own home again and again. Walls of the ground floor were riddled with gaping holes, covered by rubble and debris, the left side of it lay completely in ruins. It was a miracle that building itself still stood.

Luffy stared at one of the newest holes, a wide, sly grin plastered on his face. He paid no mind to the ray fishman who appeared behind him with his arm drawn back for a punch.

"Luffy-aniki, behind you!" Yosaku yelled.

The rubber captain didn't even twitch at the warning, because his cook was suddenly there, his leg burying itself into the side of Kuroobi and hurling him across the yard and into the fence.

Sanji lit a new cigarette and took a deep drag, slowly puffing out the smoke. Then he pointed at the fishman who crawled out of the rubble. "Just returning the favor, fish-sticks."

"I like that name!" Luffy chirped cheerfully.

"I like it too!"

Everyone turned to look at the new voice. Usopp was standing at the hole in the fence made by Sanji with his thumb up.

"Usopp!" Nami called happily.

"Did you finish that fishman?" Zoro asked.

The sniper beamed, puffing his chest. "Of course, I did! Too easy, too easy!"

"You bastards… You're just inferior animals," Arlong growled out in the darkness of the building. "You should be groveling at our feet, thankful that we allow you to exist beneath us."

Any cheerfulness that Luffy possessed vanished, being replaced by that half-crazy, half-amused expression as he cracked his knuckles. "Come on, fish-sticks," he taunted.

Sanji sniggered and launched himself on his own opponent.

"I'LL KILL YOU ALL!" Arlong roared, bursting out from the building with a gigantic, multiple-bladed sword. His eyes were strange, slit pupils burning with overwhelming fury.

"Kiribachi!" Nami gasped in horror.

Arlong swung the sword in dramatically wide swing with a loud battle cry. The heavy blade descended down and crashed into the spot where Luffy had been standing, rocks crumbling away from the force of the impact.

The shark fishman was already moving, roaring again, swinging the sword sideways at his target.

The boy leaned backward, letting the blades glide just an inch above him. He put his hands on the ground and flipped his body out of another Kiribachi's attack, instantly landing on his feet and putting some distance between him and Arlong. "It's destructive, yes, but you're too slow, too wide, too predictable," he noted flippantly. "I can see your strikes coming from a mile away."

Arlong howled in outrage, preparing another unnecessarily big swing with his sword, making himself wide open.

Luffy breathed in and closed his eyes, concentrating on that warm, pleasant, vibrant force, buried deep in his gut. It uncurled by his will, and the pirate diverted its flow into his fists. As he felt the tingling under his skin reach his fingertips, his eyes snapped open. "Gomu Gomu no…"

A punch hit Arlong straight into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

"…Gatling Gun!"

Then another punch slammed into the side of his face, one more into his shoulder, hip, face, stomach, until there was no spot on his body that wasn't bruised. His nose was broken, his ribs were shattered, and he had a hard time breathing, choking on his own blood.

Arlong's mind scrambled to find a reason why there was so much power behind every strike. The kid wasn't that strong just a mere moment ago! Did it mean that he was toyed with up till now? That the brat wasn't even using his full strength in their fight until this moment?

Not letting that strange force flitter away, Luffy stopped his flurry of punches, sending his both arms far behind him as he himself moved forward. "Gomu Gomu no…" In a blink of an eye, he was inside his opponent's personal space. "…Bazooka!" His palms hit the fishman's abdomen with a force of a small meteor. Kiribachi slipped from Arlong's suddenly lax fingers before his body was launched backward and into the building again.

This time Luffy followed him in a leisure stroll. The small pebbles crunched under his sandals as he made his way inside.

Arlong flinched at that sound, terror that he had never had felt before coursing through his veins. He struggled to heave himself from the ground. One of his arms was twisted at an odd angle and didn't budge. He managed to push the other arm under him, lifting his broken body just enough so that he could flip himself and look up pleadingly at the young pirate. "No…" he wheezed out, his previously strong and mocking voice only a pathetic whisper now. "No, please, have mercy."

Luffy gazed coldly down at him. "Mercy?" he echoed. "You called yourself a god in front of me, played pretend to be one of those Celestial bastards, and forced my nakama into such despair that she begged me to help her." Luffy clenched his teeth at the last statement. "I see no reason to show you mercy."

"If… If you think that you can use that woman better than I did, you can have her. Just let–" The rest of Arlong's offer died at the back of his throat and a scream of pain ripped out of it instead when fingers suddenly dug into the flesh of his chest.

Luffy seethed with absolute, terrifying fury. He pushed his hand deeper, fingers wiggling between the fishman's ribs, and snarled, "You monsters may have put your mark on our bodies, but you've never truly owned us!"

Zoro saw the body flying towards him only a split second before it would have collided with him. He made some bizarre move back and to the side to avoid it, and Kuroobi whirred past him, crashed through the fence and disappeared into the cloud of dust.

Zoro heaved a heavy sigh of relief not to be flung out with him. "Watch where you throw them, cook!" he rounded on Sanji.

"Tch," the blond man clicked his tongue. "I missed."

"You–!"

"Aaaah! Nami-swaaaan!" the cook exclaimed, all but dancing towards the confused navigator. "I'm so happy you're alright!"

"Yeah, but…" Nami looked at the house in front of them. "Luffy still in there with Arlong."

Sanji hummed in assent, turning around to watch and wait with the rest of the restless crowd. A deathly silence enveloped them like a heavy blanket.

They heard light footsteps a moment before Luffy emerged. His eyebrows were drawn together into a frown, his dark eyes focused on the sea in front of him. A fresh blood dripped from some small object in his hand, leaving a trail of red droplets behind.

Luffy stopped at the edge of the pool, pulled his right arm back, stepped forward with his opposite leg, and suddenly threw it as far as he could into the horizon.

Usopp squinted. "What was that?"

"A heart," Zoro grunted.

"A heart?"

"Pretty sure it was Arlong's," Sanji said.

Before that had any real chance to sink in, Luffy whipped his outstretched leg around, swiping it throughout the ground floor of Arlong Park's building. It gave a moan-like creak and finally gave in: cracks run across all outer walls, the roof caved in, and the earth under it shook.

The villagers scrambled to get away, dragging the ones who couldn't move after them.

"YOU IDIOT!" Luffy's crew cried out together, helping the people to escape before the building crashed down on their heads.

As the dust settled, there was only a huge pile of rubble instead of Arlong Park.

"It had fallen…" someone whispered and another added, "Arlong's gone."

Villagers looked at each other, grins that threatened to split their faces in two blooming left and right, before they exploded in a chorus of cheers.

"WE WON!"

"ARLONG PARK HAS FALLEN!"

Next Chapter: Let the Sea Set You Free