(Bellamy POV)
If there was one thing I knew about Vegapunk's creations, it was that you didn't wait around for it to hit you.
"Scatter!" Laki reacted near instantly, like the trained soldier she was, taking a confused Aisa with her. Sorry Aisa, that thing doesn't have a soul so it's a little more tricky to sense with haki. With Urouge and X-Drake jumping into action as well, we managed to create a small encirclement around the robot mere moments after it landed in our part of town.
Then we rushed in.
The pacifista defaulted to its base combat algorithm which consisted of charging up its three lasers and aiming them at the greatest threats, that is Drake, Urouge and I. By the time the shots were fired, we were only about two meters away, giving us only milliseconds to react.
With a single thought, I transformed my torso into a single extended coil, the beam of light passing harmlessly through the empty space provided as two more steps brought me within punching distance. From what I could see Urouge and Drake dealt with the beams in their own ways, Drake crouching to run underneath the laser while Urouge used his metal pillar as an improvised shield.
"Spring Death Knock!" On a normal human, that should have broken his neck. On a paradise veteran, that should still have broken his neck. The pacifista shifted three centimeters to the right. Well if it doesn't work once… "Double Death Knock!"
…it probably won't work a second time. What was the definition of insanity again? Trying the same thing over and over again while expecting a different outcome?
All I managed was bringing its full attention upon myself including all three of its lasers. Which was a good thing as it left the robot open to one gravity assisted downward smash by a metal pillar masquerading as a weapon. A pillar wielded by a newly grown and much larger Urouge. "Karmic Retribution!"
And the staggering pacifista provided a prime opening for Drake's attempt to behead it with his sword and four-bladed-axe. Not sure what he was thinking but my spring death knock didn't work. Why would his simple swing?
"We're going to need a little bit more oomph than that!"
"Shut up! Don't see you doing any better, Hyena!"
"Karmic Retribution!"
Sliding underneath the pacifista's relatively thin and spindly legs, I hooked both of my transformed arms around them and…retracted. Like I had previously found out, I could manipulate the state of my springs regardless of the actual force required. If I wanted them retracted, the were retracted. And I was braced while the pacifista wasn't, which resulted in it experiencing exactly what happens if one's legs are yanked out from underneath them.
And neither half-dinosaur Drake nor Urouge wasted any time in hammering the downed pacifista into the ground.
"Don't just stand there!" I shout at the surrounding crews. "If you have nothing useful to do, at least fucking sit on it!"
Soon, the pacifista was dogpiled by a dozen grown men, leaving only the head free, not that it helped much. Barely had the last man leaped on top of the pyramid of bodies, did the pacifista heave and send them all flying into the air.
"Ten million volt Vari!" The world lit up blue, wet grass instantly being turned to cinders by the mere vicinity of the electrical discharge. And for a moment, it was clear to everyone just why Aisa should be worth her bounty, depraved as the original reasoning may be. It was clearly written on their faces that they believed no flesh and blood being could survive that blast.
Except for a couple. The captains had never taken their eyes off of the pacifista and I knew it wouldn't be enough. Not only because I had seen people survive greater voltages but also because of Faraday's cage. Regardless of the voltage, Aisa's electricity would not penetrate deeper into the robot's shell.
Though it wasn't as if it did nothing. By the time the light had faded, our enemy could no longer be mistaken for anything other than what he was…a robot. The entire skin covering its body had been burned away and even some of the plating had been scorched.
And it was still fully functional, showcased by how it leaped at us, arm drawn back in an unmistakable gesture. Thankfully, this early model wasn't that fast, giving me enough time to draw out one of my aces.
The punch thrown with all the weight of a three ton mass of metal behind it, was stopped short with a soft "plink". The same with the subsequent three others.
Plink plink plink
"Reject!"
You ever see those anime shows where a portion of the floor is suddenly subjected to a giant increase in gravity? Imagine that but on the pacifista's torso if you want to know the result of an impact forty times as strong as one of its own punches affecting Vegapunk's creation. The mere fact that it didn't completely collapse was a testament to the incredible achievement of the world's greatest mind.
The work wasn't done but we had our opening. Something that Drake immediately capitalized upon by clamping his jaws around the weakened metal and squeezing. The metal screeched and tore, the connecting plants starting rip at the seams.
Urouge grabbed the other arm, fixing it in place while I wrapped my arms around its legs like several lengths of chains.
"Watch out!"
Sadly, Drake failed to wrench off a full part of the exoskeleton due to having two holes shot into his dinosaurian body by the one laser we had failed to account for…its mouth. With the balance not just shifting but disintegrating, it was all we could do to get Drake away from the pacifista before it could burn a hole through his head.
Of course, with its initial target no longer within reach, it started going absolutely batshit crazy, shooting lasers everywhere in a disco lightshow. We only survived due to three reasons.
One, it was pretty obvious where it was aiming, which made getting out of the line of fire relatively simple at sufficient distances. Two, the pacifista's 'light' wasn't actually travelling at light speed. Oh, it was fast but considering that real light circumvents the globe multiple times per second, comparing it to whatever the pacifista and hopefully Borsalino were totting about, was like comparing a formula one race car to a tortoise…and that's doing the tortoise a disfavor.
And lastly, because the light was easy to predict and slow enough to react to, Lily jumped into the way of one beam and captured it with a flash dial. It was stupid. It was reckless and it probably should have taken her arm out, but whether by luck or by skill, it worked. It jolly well worked.
"Eat this you piece of junk!"
"Twenty million volt vari!"
Two beams, one blue one yellow sent the pacifista reeling and off balance, which probably saved it, the cracked and torn armor plating no longer able to fully protect it.
Then Eddy & Ross dropped half a building on top of it.
Turns out that if you use the axe dials enough times or in Eddy's case, slice at the walls in desperation, you can cut through walls at just the right angle and have part of it slide off. The pacifista would still dig its way out eventually but right now, the robot had both his legs trapped beneath a dozen tons of rubble.
Unfortunately, only one arm. The other…
"Eddy!"
"Kek!"
"Urouge, the chest!" Grammatically incorrect or not, the big guy understood. Growing to his biggest size yet, the high priest of the Fallen Monk Pirates ripped out a fist size hole into the armor plating, the culmination of all our efforts until this point.
And into that hole I thrust my right arm and held out the other towards Aisa. And even as I transformed myself, I roared at the top of my lungs. "Aisa, charge me up!"
Millions of volts worth of current flowed through me and into the pacifista's interior. At first it did precious little, the dozens and dozens of redundancies and failsafes keeping its circuitry intact and functional. But what Vegapunk had not counted on was for the equivalent of a block sized EMP pulse to go off from within the pacifista's chest cavity.
Still, perhaps Vegapunk's creation would have been able to deal with one of them, but both occurring simultaneously?
The programming was wiped, the circuitry fried and the pacifista died.
Cleaning up the battlefield didn't take long. Despite literally being the toughest thing I had fought so far, due to its simplistic combat algorithms and our teamwork, our casualties were light. My crew in particular had come out of it mostly smelling like roses. The sole notable casualty had been Eddy who was being flown back to the ship by Rivers. Thank goodness he came looking for us when he did. And that went double for Fuza.
The residents of Sabaody had not been as lucky. There were a good dozen bodies scattered around the streets, most having been caught in the crossfire. And not all of them were everyday citizens either. One corpse still wore the remnants of the most extravagant collection of silks and frills I had ever laid my eyes upon.
And sitting calmly next to the body was someone wearing a slave collar.
"Why didn't you run?"
"Where to? My collar will explode if the connected beacon doesn't send regular signals…which it hasn't for a while now." Byron points out. "The robot melted the beacon along with my buyer's heart."
"And the key?"
"The man threw it away right after the purchase. Said he'd never take the collar off so why keep the key?" he shrugs throwing the corpse another glance. "Turns out he was right. He never did get to take the collar off me."
"Just to confirm, this thing works electronically?"
"As far as I could garner, yes. Has some sort of internal clock and antenna system linked to an explosive load." He calmly explains, seemingly at peace with his imminent demise.
Wait, this guy was a pirate captain, right?
"In that case, we may be able to help."
"…?"
We parted ways with both Urouge and Drake on good terms, even arranging to meet up with the former in a few days on some island. Urouge provided a pre-set log pose for that purpose.
The way back to our ship was practically peaceful and utterly relaxing in comparison to the ordeal we had just gone through. We breezed past the outnumbered and hopelessly outmatched marines who offered only a desperate but doomed opposition, barely breaking out stride.
Thankfully, Borsalino aka Admiral Kizaru was occupied elsewhere judging by the sounds of combat in the distance. Hopefully Rayleigh was keeping him busy. Whatever the reason, our party plus two reached our destination without any difficulty to find the Black Pearl ready to set sail.
Hewitt had used what little time he had to stock up the Black Pearl's larders as well as he could, sometimes clearing out the abandoned stalls and shops when he couldn't get adequate service. The anchor was hoisted, the sails were loosened, and we left Sabaody behind to return once the coast was clear.
It was only after we were a good ways away from the Sabaody Archipelago that I could start breathing easily once more. We were not ready to face an admiral just yet.
Our forced sabbatical did give me some breathing room to think about our three unexpected passengers…a pretty nurse, her wine merchant fiancé with a bullet wound and a former paradise pirate captain.
A captain who was currently sipping on Muret's tea in my cabin, his neck conspicuously free.
Turns out that when you have your lighting chibi focus on maximizing her fine control for a few months, she becomes rather good at it. And unlike the pacifista, the generic slave collars did not provide proper insulation for the electrical components within, so it was rather simple for Aisa to destroy the circuitry.
With the way the system was designed, the explosive load required an explicit signal from the circuit to detonate the explosives, which would usually be given after a timer ran out. If the timer was gone, no signal. No signal, no explosion.
Once there no longer was the risk of something blowing up in our faces, we could focus on picking the lock. Which, as it turned out, we were rather good at, being former street urchins and the occasional purloiner of property in our youth.
"So, let me get this straight. Your first mate drugged you and mutinied out of the blue…after five years of smooth sailing. But you have no idea why."
"That is correct."
"And you want my help in hunting them down and beating answers out of them."
"That is also correct."
"To top it all off, afterwards it is your intention to commandeer a ship, pick up a crew and go raid, pillage, plunder and otherwise pilfer your weaselly black gut out."
"Not quite how I would have put it, but essentially true. After all, I am a pirate captain." He states, as if that explained everything and in a way it did. And in some ways, it did.
"Tell me, why should I help you?" I ask, leaning back and interlacing my fingers together. I wasn't unwilling to help him, but it was the principle of the matter. Why should I risk the lives of my crew to help out someone who was not affiliated with us in any way?
"Because once I rebuild my crew, we will become your first affiliate crew." Well, that's interesting.
"What makes you think I want that?" My reply is met with a flat stare, one which a teacher might give a decidedly dull student.
"You fly Doflamingo's flag, but it is obvious you chafe underneath it. I wager it won't be long before you attempt to break free." Am I that transparent? Had Doffy noticed? Why was I still alive? "When you do, having someone around to handle the riff raff can only be useful, no?"
Unless I managed to jump on the Strawhat Revolution, I'd be facing the entirety of the Doflamingo Family with just my crew. Convenient wouldn't even begin to describe having someone around to buy us time to take out the executives.
"You would oppose a warlord?"
"I was a dead man. A warlord is not death's equal." An arrogant statement to be honest. Then again, he had been remarkably calm with a literal bomb around his neck. "Also, I wouldn't be facing Doflamingo himself, would I? You would."
Touché. Then again, it's not as if the challenge he would face is an easy one. A thousand mooks they may be but they were New World mooks and Byron was at best a middling paradise captain.
I would have preferred hijacking the members of the Strawhat Grand Fleet, but the odds of the massive chain of coincidences happening to me are so astronomically small that I wouldn't count on it.
Trustworthy captains don't grow on trees and with how we saved Byron's life, he owes me, which makes him about as reliable as can be reasonably expected of a pirate. Also, I can send one of my crew with him when the time comes.
"Do forgive me, but what makes you think you'll be an asset instead of a liability?" Then again, all this only has any merit if Byron matches a minimum standard of ability. And the show showed us exactly zero of what he was capable of. Zilch. Nadda.
All we know is that he was a captain and thus must have some basic leadership ability, can play a variety of instruments, and made good wines.
"You want a demonstration, yes?" he says, stepping over to the piano Iceburg had randomly installed into the captain's cabin. "Very well, I shall demonstrate. Prepare to be convinced."
I was convinced.
Author's note:
So yeah. Introducing Byron, captain of the first affiliate crew consisting of himself, Marie & her fiancé Judy (+ a surprise character further down the line).
We won't be spending a lot of time showing what they're up to, but they'll pop up occasionally (at least after Byron's revenge arc).
Others will join as the story progresses.
P.S. his power will be music based.
P.P.S. For some reason, Byron sounds like a Russian in my head.
P.P.P.S. as always comments and discussions make me happy.