Chapter 15

Ace didn't really like the look of this place. It was poorly lit, though even broad daylight wouldn't have made its clientele any less shady. Of course, he'd seen worse, but it made him wonder what kind of person this "Takadox" was.

"Well, well, well," a voice behind him said. "What could Fire Fist Ace want with me? I don't recall doing anything to get your attention."

Remembering Mantax's words about hypnosis, Ace pulled his hat over his eyes before he spun around to meet him. This restricted his view to the merc's lower half, which was varying shades of blue with red spikes dotting his lower shins and the sides of his thighs. He also had three-toed feet and what looked a bit like an insect's abdomen.

"Looks like you're aware of my powers. How exactly did you find out?" the blue Barraki asked.

"One of your old friends told me about it," Ace answered. "He also said you might be able to help me find someone in the Revolutionaries."

Takadox chuckled. "The Revolutionaries? You're seeking out all the strangest people today, aren't you?"

"Can you help me or not?" the Whitebeard pirate asked.

"Hmm," Takadox paused. "It won't be easy, but I can try—for a price, of course."

Ace nodded. "I've got money, so lead the way."

As the mercenary turned around, Ace lifted his hat to get a full view of him. He had the same red spikes on his triceps, as well as the armor on his back. In his hands were a pair of odd-looking toothed knives. His head was elongated, with silver mandibles, a tooth-filled mouth, blood-red eyes. 'And I thought Mantax looked weird.'

Pridak, Ehlek, and Kalmah quickly proved their worth when they showed that they could tow our ship for us. As a result, we were making great time, at least until Nami had us stop.

Grabbing me by the shoulder, she shoved her Log Pose in my face. "Why is this pointing upward?"

"Because it's pointing to Sky Island," I answered casually.

"Sky Island?" everyone repeated.

"That's crazy talk," our navigator replied. "There's no such place."

"That's not crazy talk, this is crazy talk!" Luffy said before spouting gibberish. "Kablahblah blahblah! Blog bloh blah! Blelelel—"

BAM!

Nami shut him up by bringing her fist down on his head.

"If you'd seen half the islands in our home dimension, you would eat those words," Pridak retorted, getting us back on track.

"Really? What are your islands like?" Luffy asked, rubbing the top of his head.

Ehlek took over for the explanation. "Most of the islands in our universe are located inside a giant robot, except for one located on the robot's face."

Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper got starry-eyed at how cool they thought that sounded while everyone else sweatdropped.

"I gotta admit, that does sound more ridiculous than this," Sanji conceded, breaking the silence.

Getting back to the original subject, Nami said to me, "Just tell us how to get there."

"Well, first we—" I stopped as I ran through the series of events in my head, looking up. The very first step was missing. Nothing was descending on us from above.

"Are you expecting rain?" Robin asked.

"A ship's supposed to fall on us." Everyone else went wide-eyed and looked up as well.

"Uh, Declan? Where's the ship?" Luffy voiced on the crew's behalf.

Still looking up, I answered, "I don't know. It should have fallen by now." I went over our progress in my head for a second before realizing what it was. "I think we're ahead of schedule. The Barraki got us here too quickly."

"So now what do we do?" Zoro asked.

I shrugged. "I guess we just drop anchor and wait around."

"If we have time to kill, then you, Neon"—Pridak pointed at Zoro—"Spar with me. I want to see how good the one swordsman on this crew is."

Zoro grinned like he did when I first became his practice dummy. "Everyone, give us some space."

We all moved to the kitchen as the two began clashing blades. Even inside, we could hear how eager the two men were.

"So, what kind of dimensions did you guys pass through before you got here?" Fencer asked the remaining three Barraki.

Nami looked at her in annoyance. "Why do you care?"

"I'm just curious."

"Yeah, me too!" Luffy agreed. "I wanna know what kind of worlds they went to!"

"Me too!" Usopp and Chopper chimed in.

"Very well. I see no harm in telling you," Ehlek said. "In the first world I landed in, I encountered a talking sponge and starfish."

"What?" everyone asked, even me and the normally stoic Robin. I was shocked because I knew exactly which universe he'd ended up in, while Robin was probably just put off by the sheer absurdity of the statement.

Ehlek continued, "The sponge and star were so annoying that I tried to kill them, however, the starfish hit me in the head with a coconut."

"What?" we all asked again.

"Don't tell me that's all it took to deter you, Ehlek," Kalmah criticized.

Ehlek shook his head. "Of course not. The sponge also assaulted my mind with subliminal messages."

"Hey, how come you aren't showing us a flashback?" Luffy asked.

"We're not here to entertain you." The green Barraki glared at him.

"Aww," the kiddy trio whined.

Kalmah went next, "I ended up in a world full of thumb wrestlers."

"A dimension where everyone thumb wrestles?" Robin repeated.

"It's more literal than you think," Kalmah clarified. "It was an entire federation of disembodied hands who wore ridiculous wrestling masks on their thumbs."

"I'd love to see a flashback of that," Luffy moaned.

"Yeah, this is the kind of stuff you should show, not tell," Usopp followed up.

Ignoring their complaints, Mantax said his piece, "I landed on an island called Okoto."

That did it for me. "Show us some fucking flashbacks," I insisted.

"No," Ehlek refused.

"Show us. Show us. Show us," the kiddy trio chanted.

The three Barraki groaned just before one of Pridak's shoulder blades pierced through the kitchen door, effectively shutting everyone up. The blade retracted and I opened the door so we could see what the two swordsmen were doing.

Zoro charged at Pridak as he tried to free himself from the door. Before he could get close enough, the white Barraki swung his sword, yelling, "Monsoon!"

Unlike most razor winds, Pridak's attack was deep blue in color. Zoro broke through it with a single slash and the two engaged in a dual blade lock. Pridak attempted to bite, but Zoro blocked his mouth by sticking his sword in it like a corncob. Both fighters were digging their feet into the floorboard so hard the wood was starting to crack.

"That's enough," Sanji said. "Any more and you're gonna start breaking the ship!"

Pridak and Zoro held their lock for a moment longer before separating, nodding at each other with a grudging respect.

Luffy approached them. "Hey, Pridak, what kind of worlds did you visit before you got here?"

"I was dropped in the middle of an ocean," Pridak began. "After swimming for a day, I happened across a whaling ship."

The kiddy trio, Fencer, and I nodded as he went on.

"I knew the crew would mistake me for a monster if I got close, so I kept my distance from the ship. Not one person on the crew spoke concisely—it was very annoying—and as I watched them, they attempted to hunt a white whale. The whale killed them in the end, and then I killed the whale."

"Why bother killing the whale?" Zoro asked.

"By that point, I'd gotten hungry."

"You're not showing us a flashback either," Chopper pointed out.

Ehlek growled, "Fine! You want a flashback so much? Here's a flashback of us wreaking some havoc!"

To my surprise, this flashback came in the style of a montage, or perhaps an anime intro, rather than, well, a regular flashback.

(Instrumental intro)

We fade in on a decrepit-looking town. Civilians are fleeing from something. A flickering streetlamp reveals the Barrakis' shadows on a nearby wall.

(I see your face before my eyes. I'm falling into darkness.)

Two people walk along a street while a pair of red eyes watch them from the shadows. On another street, we see Pridak's silhouette standing on top of a building.

(Why must I fight to stay alive?)

The ground rumbles as numerous tanks arrive on the scene.

(Heroes falling.)

Attack helicopters dot the sky like stars and infantrymen march through the streets.

(Wake me, can't you hear me calling?)

A mob of civilians gather behind the quartet, wielding improvised weapons like pens or rocks.

(Out of darkness, they come calling.)

The Barraki look around and form a circle before charging in all directions.

(Here I am, I am lost in your land, and I hope you will be. Creeping in my soul.)

Ehlek fires lightning at the helicopters. The civilians charge at Mantax, but he kills them as they come with rapid thrusts from his pincers. Pridak runs through the infantry, slicing them up as he goes. Kalmah, seeing a tank about to fire on him, leaps onto another tank, tricking the first one into firing on it.

(Shadows fall, let me out. Hear my call, and I'll always believe. Creeping in my soul.)

Pridak is about to sink his mandibles into a wounded soldier. Another soldier tries to crawl away, only to be dragged back by the ankle by one of Kalmah's tentacles. Mantax slowly advances on a pair of cornered soldiers. Ehlek shoots lightning all around him just for the hell of it.

(Music fades out)

The final shot is of a flag with the word 'Ingsoc' on it, burning up.

"Wow," Luffy and Chopper said as we came back to reality.

"What exactly was all that about, anyway?" Usopp asked.

"Whatever government was running that dimension must've been trigger-happy, because the moment we arrived, they sent soldiers to kill us on sight," Kalmah explained.

Mantax continued, "We don't take threats kindly, so we retaliated."

Zoro interjected with an unrelated question for Pridak, "That technique you used in our fight. How does it work?"

"I slash with just the right amount of force, creating a sharp gust of wind," the white Barraki explained. When Zoro nodded, he continued, "As it travels, the attack collects moisture from the air, and the moisture is arranged like a blade, increasing the cutting power."

Getting back to the main topic, Robin asked, "Were there any other dimensions?"

"Actually, yes," Kalmah said. "One of the dimensions we landed in turned us into humans."

Mantax looked down at himself. "What is this?" He was wearing a black vest over a gray shirt. His muscles were lean, he had piercing, red eyes, and black hair with a couple of red streaks.

"I don't know, but I don't like it," Ehlek replied. His outfit consisted a whole lot of green. His hair was green as well. He pinched some of the skin on his wrist. "I feel…squishy."

"We all do," Kalmah agreed. Even in human form, he was a bit on the tall side, standing at 6' 2. His long black hair was done up in dreadlocks. Thankfully, his third eye was absent in human form. Unlike the rest of the group, who were Caucasian, his skin tone showed he was of Native American descent. He was wearing a dark red, long-sleeved shirt, black shorts, and red shoes.

Most surprising of all was Pridak. His outfit was a white long-sleeve jacket with no shirt underneath, showing off his abs. His pants were black and his shoes were white. Like most of his compatriots, he had blue eyes, in addition to shoulder-length white hair and—

Wow. He was handsome. Really handsome. Like, so handsome. Nami, Fencer, and even Robin were blushing at the sight of him.

"And of course, the last dimension we encountered before this one was populated solely by one really far away man who yelled compliments," Ehlek said.

The four Barraki stood in a blank white area, devoid of anything save for the silhouette of the really far away guy that Ehlek had mentioned.

"Your mandibles seem nice and sharp!" he yelled.

"I know, right?" Ehlek called out in response.

"It was like he knew just what to say," Pridak commented.

Sanji nodded. "Well, those were some interesting stories, but I think it's time I got started on dinner."

Everyone enjoyed their meal, including the Barraki. Contrary to their monstrous appearances and unfriendly personalities, they ate like gentlemen—as much as their builds allowed. The exception to this was Ehlek, who shoved his face into his plate, probably because his long, inflexible claws were useless for eating. One interesting thing I noted was how their mandibles pulled back to allow food to reach their mouths.

I left the kitchen before dinner was over since, you know, I couldn't eat anything. To pass the time, I summoned Skeleton Buddy and we started sparring. Every once in a while, we'd switch from sparring to practicing our katas, and then back to sparring again.

"Is this the clone Mantax was talking about?"

We turned to see Ehlek.

"That's me!" SB answered.

"I take it you're training because of those defeats that Mantax mentioned?" Ehlek asked.

This time Ianswered. "Yeah."

"Hmm, consider me curious," Ehlek said. "Show me a flashback of these fights you lost."

"Why do you care?" I asked. It didn't seem like him to get invested in someone else's business.

"I have nothing else to do," he answered.

I looked at him with more than a little suspicion. "Why not just go to bed?"

"I only sleep one hour each night," the green Barraki said.

"What?" my clone and I chorused. "Why?"

"So no one can kill me in my sleep," he replied.

"Oh, right. You're paranoid," I remembered.

Ehlek got us back on track, "Anyway, show me some flashbacks before I lose my patience."

Knowing that was likely a death threat, I quickly showed him our first meeting with Mantax, as well as my fight with Mr. -1.

Once he had seen enough, Ehlek nodded. "I think I see the problem."

"Which is?" I asked.

"You were fighting to win."

That threw me for a loop. "Why would that be a problem?"

Ehlek looked me straight in the eye sockets. "Because you should have been fighting to kill."

I opened my mouth to reply, but he cut me off. "Don't try to deny it. Why in the world would you need to hold back in any way?"

"I wasn't holding back," I insisted.

"Oh, really?" Ehlek asked. "Punch me in the face as hard as you can."

Figuring he was asking this to prove his point, I took a stance and hit him with a thrust punch. It only moved him one step back.

"I don't think that was your best," he said, looking bored. "Try again."

This time, I ignored technique in favor of raw strength. I took a step and thrust my fist toward him.

He blocked my punch with the back of his hand. "First you're weak, now you're being sloppy? What next?"

Switching back to what I'd learned at my dojo, I threw some more refined punches. Ehlek only bothered dodging half of them, placidly letting the rest hit. Eventually, I saw an opening and pulled his head into my knee.

The green Barraki shook me off and looked at Skeleton Buddy, who'd been watching the spar. "Perhaps you'd be willing to explain what went wrong here?"

SB walked up to me. "Declan, maybe he's right about us."

Hearing it from my own clone, I couldn't help but consider Ehlek's words. "Okay, maybe I was holding back a bit. But can you blame me? I'd never been in a real fight before I got to this world, and when I spar at my dojo back home, I'm always holding back so I don't hurt my sparring partners."

Ehlek nodded. "So you've been conditioned to pull your punches? That's unfortunate. We'll need to do something about that." Without warning, he swung at me with his Tri-Talons. "Let our match continue!"

As I dodged his attack, SB joined in, bringing his fist down on Ehlek's shoulder. Before he could follow up with another attack, Ehlek fired a bolt of lightning at him, sending him sprawling.

The green Barraki returned his attention to me and lunged.

Morning had finally come. I made my way into the kitchen, passing by all my crewmates. They all stared at my injuries. While I had done my best to dodge his attacks, he still managed to slice through my forearm, cleanly cutting it into pieces. Same with the right half of my rib cage. Lastly were the burns all over me from repeated electric shocks. Ehlek hadn't held back in our little sparring match, which was fitting given the lesson he was trying to teach me.

"What the hell happened to you, dude?" Fencer asked.

"Next time, could you keep it down?" Usopp complained as he yawned. "You two kept me up for hours with all the fighting."

Ehlek ignored the questions. "You've started hitting a bit harder. Perhaps we can unlock your killer instinct sooner rather than later."

I might've responded to that, but I was too busy gritting my teeth through the pain. Rather than try to rejoin all the pieces of my forearm, I just poured milk on my arm stump and grew myself a new radius and ulna. SB then handed me the hand from my severed arm, which I attached to the wrist of my new arm. After doing the same with the rest of my bones, I was good as new.

"So, you can heal yourself?" Ehlek observed. "Excellent. We can resume your training after breakfast. Hillbilly, what's on today's menu?"

"Call me that again, and all you're getting is scraps," Sanji replied, his visible eye twitching.

I exited the kitchen and looked up at the sky, anxiously awaiting the ship that would be falling on us soon. In a few minutes, Ehlek came out as well, shaking leftovers from his face.

"Let's pick up where we left off," he said, taking a fighting stance.

Fencer finished her breakfast as quickly as she could and made her way up to the quarterdeck to watch the fight from above. That green guy had sliced up her partner pretty badly, so she wanted to keep an eye on him in case he got a little too into the fight. Fortunately, Declan seemed to be holding his own.

Several minutes later, she heard someone take a seat nearby. She turned around and saw that their newest human crewmember had made herself comfy.

Fencer narrowed her eyes. "Come here to watch the fight too?"

Robin simply opened up a book and began reading.

Annoyed at being brushed off, Fencer hopped up and made herself comfy on Robin's head.

Robin still said nothing and simply generated an extra arm to remove the ferret. It would've worked, but Fencer nipped at her hand.

"Nice try, but I think I like the view from up here," Fencer bragged.

"Don't you have another crew member to goof off with?" Robin asked without looking up from her book.

"I was here first!" Fencer replied. "Besides, this way I can keep tabs on you and Declan at once."

As the minutes ticked by, Kalmah joined them on the quarterdeck. "I never expected Ehlek to take up a pet project," he thought aloud, then turned to Robin. "Do you have any books to spare? I need something to pass the time."

Robin seemed surprised at the favor but obliged.

This fight had gone on for a while, and I was annoyed and a bit scared at the same time. Ehlek's attacks all involved his claws or lightning, so I had no way to block and could only dodge. That by itself was bad enough, but what was worse was that he had an answer for almost every offensive move I had.

I ducked under a slash and punched his knee in, but he just popped it back into place. I tried speeding around him to attack him from the side, but he fired electricity out both his sides. Getting in close again, I tried grabbing his shoulders to throw him, but pushed me away with a snap kick.

"What's wrong now?" Ehlek asked, annoyed. "It's like we're back to square one."

Getting up from the blast, I answered, "I don't know. I guess I'm just out of the zone."

"Perhaps you need a little more motivation." He zapped me again before headbutting me, knocking me over. Planting a foot on my chest, he leaned over and whispered, "If you don't pull your act together, I'll kill and eat your little pet when no one is looking."

His attempt to motivate me worked. I detached my lower half and had it get up and kick him in the ass, knocking him off me. Picking myself up, I charged in, grabbed him by the mandible, and repeatedly brought my fist down on his head.

Ehlek drew back his right talon, but before he could thrust it toward me, a shadow loomed over the ship. It was finally happening.

The two of us broke apart as the giant ship fell from the sky, stirring up the sea and rocking our ship for a good few minutes.

I gestured to the crew. "Okay, everybody! If we hurry, we can speed this along."

"What are you talking about?" Sanji asked.

"Without spoiling too much, there's treasure on that ship," I explained. "If we don't get it now, someone else will."

As soon as I said that, we heard several splashes and realized the Barraki were gone.

"That was fast," I muttered.

"Yeah, I thought Nami would beat them to it," Zoro cracked.

Our navigator laid a mighty whack on him for that.

A few minutes later, the Barraki returned with relics by the armful.

"When you said treasure, I thought you meant gold, jewels, and other valuables. Not this garbage!" Pridak said, dumping it out on the deck. Nami's eyes widened, and she joined the Barraki as they got in my face, saying, "Care to explain?"

"Uh, this is one of those parts in the comic that I didn't pay that much attention to," I admitted.

SMACK!

"Ow, the back of my head!"

POW!

"Ow, the front of my pelvis!"

"If there was nothing good on the ship, how do we get to Sky Island?" Luffy wondered aloud.

"We go to Jaya and ask around," I replied, a collective groan rising from the crew.

"And how are we supposed to get to Jaya?" Nami asked.

"Uhh, let me think." I massaged my temples. Having only skimmed through the Sky Island saga, I was struggling to recall what we were supposed to do next. Fortunately, the sound of chanting in the distance distracted everyone. I'd seen enough to know who it was.

"We can ask that guy!"

Once Masira's ship got close, Masira himself called out, "Hey, are you trying to steal my treasure?!"

"I'll handle this," I told the crew before addressing Masira. "Not anymore!"

Masira growled, "Not anymore? What's that supposed to mean?"

"We searched the ship, but we didn't like what we found. You can have it if you want," I offered.

"Please, you expect me to believe you'd just hand it over?" Masira scoffed.

Nami put a hand on my shoulder. "What exactly is your plan here?"

"Give them our junk, and they tell us where Jaya is?" I got out. I turned back to face Masira. "Seriously, the stuff we grabbed is all right here. We could give it to you now."

"Captain, I can see the treasure on their deck. I think he might be serious," one of Masira's underlings said.

The apish man thought this over for a moment. "Alright, here's the deal: we're gonna take the treasure you stole from that sunken ship, and then you're gonna get out of these waters. Understand?"

"Yeah, we do." I said, then whispered to the crew, "Trust me, I can still make this work."

"You sure?" asked Zoro. "Because it looks like you're just giving him what he wants."

Masira and several of his men boarded our ship to get the treasure. Right before they left, I stopped Masira by putting a hand on his shoulder. "Before you go—"

"Let me guess: you want salvaging lessons," Masira cut me off. "Well, too bad. I don't give 'em."

"I was actually gonna ask if you knew how to get to Jaya," I clarified.

Masira let out a barking laugh. "And here I thought you'd try and ask for something valuable."

After giving us directions, Masira took his treasure and left.

As Nami set our course, I had something to ask Fencer. "Did I see you sitting on Robin's head earlier?"

"Relax, I was just messing with her," my ferret said. She chuckled and followed it up with, "I'd never cheat on you."

That made me chuckle in turn as I picked her up. "I know you wouldn't."

Once she was back on my shoulder, she whispered to me, "What are we gonna find at Jaya?"

"Info on the Knock Up Stream."

Before I could elaborate, Ehlek interrupted, "Declan, it seems we have some free time. Now get over here. This time, we're not stopping until you embrace the intent to kill."

I sighed and removed Fencer from my shoulder, trying not to notice her concern. It was going to be a long journey.

However, just before I could resume my "training," the sky darkened, and a pack of tall shadowy figures appeared.

The song in the Barraki montage is Creeping in my Soul. It belongs to Cryoshell.