(Eddy POV)
They were getting massacred. Half of them were down already and the other half was only standing due to Muret keeping them in the fight. And that had just reached it's limit.
From the beginning, Eddy had taken one look at Ohm and decided that he wasn't going to fight that. His captain may stand a chance, perhaps even Sarquiss if you squinted a lot, but Eddy for heck did not. So, why bother? Better to live and fight again another day. So he busied himself by following Muret around, taking care of anybody stupid enough to target her. Thankfully, Ohm wasn't interested in the doctor going around healing his victims, possibly because, considering how quickly and effortlessly he put them down again, he probably didn't think it mattered.
When he had some breathing room, Eddy just watches Ohm fight. It isn't traditional swordsmanship but it's beautiful in its own way. The amount of control required to wield that sword effectively is mind-boggling. But it's possible. Eddy may be seeing the culmination of years of effort but it's possible. So much so in fact, that Ohm is able to fend off both Wyper and Zoro, a man with a bounty higher than his captain.
Zoro's swordsmanship is very different from Ohm's but also very different from what Eddy is used to seeing. Watching the former pirate hunter pull off moves that Eddy couldn't even dream of attempting right now, forces a bitter smile onto his face. What had he been doing all these years?
But whatever his feelings on the matter, he isn't blind enough not to recognise the opportunity presented before him. Like his old teacher had said, "a picture is worth a thousand words." How often would a country bumpkin like him get to watch a fight like this? Not very often, that's for sure. So far, the best swordsman Eddy had known had been Sarquiss, but these two made the first mate seem like a bloody amateur.
Thus, Eddy does his best to burn the sight into his brain, every slash, every step, even how and when they breathe. Perhaps it is thanks to this single minded focus that Eddy sees Ohm's sword hand snap in an unusual way.
Then every alarm is blaring in Eddy's head, some sixth sense screaming at him to turn around. And Eddy listens, wildly swinging his sword at a glint in the periphery of his vision. The screech of metal on metal (well iron cloud) is deafening as Ohm's blade is diverted from its original trajectory. Thus, instead of Muret's head, it rips a chunk out of Eddy's side.
"Eddy!"
It hurts. It hurts worse than anything Eddy has ever felt before. Then it gets worse as Ohm flicks his sword for a second go, Eddy barely managing to interpose his own blade between himself and death. Thankfully, Ohm can't spare anymore time for Eddy, Zoro having used that brief window to close the gap.
Uncaring for her own modesty, Muret rips her shirt into strips before bandaging his wound. She smells nice, he notices.
"We need to get you to a proper sickbay." she says and Eddy nods in agreement. Proper treatment sounded very attractive at the moment. Plus, he'd be of no more use here. But Ohm was in no mood to let any of them get away, and it showed.
"Holy, get them!"
If it weren't for the last handful of Shandians bodily throwing themselves in it's way to buy Muret and him time to escape, they wouldn't have made it out of the ruins. As it is, they only just make it past the tree line, out of sight of the battle when Holy catches up to them.
This just wasn't fair.
"Stop! Don't come any closer!" Eddy calls out, holding out a hand even as he knows it's futile.
Fifty meters.
"Sod off you bloody piss pot excuse for a fleabag!" Anger.
A bound. Thirty meters.
"For the sake of all that's holy, stay away from us!" Frustration.
Another bound. Five meters.
"Stop! You mangy mutt! Please, I'm begging you. Stop!" Eddy cries, legs trembling, teeth chattering and yet somehow interposing himself between Muret and the beast. And much to Eddy's surprise, the dog simply…stops.
Eddy stares in disbelief. What just happened?
"Holy, roll over." Muret commands, stepping towards the beast. Eddy wants to tell her it's too dangerous but then the dog rolls over on its back.
"Sit."
"Beg."
"Crouch."
Muret ratters off several commands in short order and the dog obeys each and every one. Obviously, she has figured something out, though the blood loss is making it difficult to think. Especially once the adrenalin begins to run out.
She briefly closes her eyes in concentration before smiling confidently.
"Knock yourself out." She finally instructs. Holy does.
Her smile, when she turns to him, is radiant.
"Let's get you home, Eddy."
He can only nod. She's never looked as amazing as she did now.
(Mani POV)
30. Mani ran. She ignored those around her, ignored the brief looks of disbelief that she would abandon them. What did they matter? They were just fodder. Only fit to be meat shields to buy her time to run.
28. Rather than focus on her, they should focus on the two freaks coming after her. Those two weren't normal. Too fat, too ugly, too dangerous. When Braham got taken out, Mani had been the first one to react, but her throwing knives had been dodged effortlessly. And when she tugged at her wires to bring the knives bearing down upon the twins from behind? That had utterly failed too. They didn't even look at her knives.
25. Good reflexes they said. Only the priests had mantra, they said. The rest is small fry they said. These two were not small fry.
24. Bullets? Apparently not a problem. Her useless allies couldn't aim for shit if their lives depended on it. In fact, their lives did depend on it, but that's beside the point. These two were the size of a barn door, each! How did you not hit them?
20. Her knives she could understand. Her knives were slower than bullets. No one normal should be able to dodge bullets.
18. The Shandians were beginning to scatter. Their leader was down and they'd been reduced to near half their number already.
13. A larger blast takes out a bunch of the remainder. Mani keeps running, manic laughter ringing in her ears.
7. She runs before a toxic cloud of gas can envelop her. Others are not as fortunate, collapsing to their knees, gasping for air.
5. She runs out of the clearing and alongside the Milky Road, hoping that it'll lead her out of here. Just like what remains of the fodder.
4. Another scream, another down. Burned alive, she can feel the heat. Too close. Way too close.
3. An axe dial this time, cutting through a man not two meters to her left. Blood going everywhere.
2. The frontrunner collapses, an impact dial to his face. The escapees split up, hoping to avoid the duo. One going left, one running back. Mani goes right, hoping the hunters go after someone else.
0. They did. She could hear the screams, cut off mid-cry.
Then Mani is alone.
The two brothers hound her relentlessly, but don't catch her, always just nipping at her heels. This is a sport for them. A game and Mani is the prize. She can tell by how she's still alive while all the men are not.
It's by sheer luck that she runs into the Straw Hats, futilely trying to revive the charred corpse of their chef. Fools that they are, they don't recognize that no human can survive such burns. She would have run past the idiots and left them to their own devices. She really would have loved to do that, but the twins had apparently tired of the chase and blocked her escape routes.
Which left her no choice but to fight. Mani just hopes her captain or someone finds them before she dies.
"These are Enel's men, they have mantra and use several dials. Hotori uses axe and flame dials, Kotori uses impact and flavor dials. Don't underestimate them." Mani rapidly briefs her two new meat shields, hoping they last longer than her previous ones. "They took down thirty people between them in ten minutes."
Thankfully, Hotori & Kotori don't seem very inclined to attack right away, doing their song and dance again. The reason, becomes quite clear soon after.
"How dare you kill our brother Satori!" they laugh, doing a pirouette. "How dare you?"
"What? I don't know any brother of yours!" Nami retorts, backing away from the corpse. Soon she is backed against the railing, Usopp a step behind her, Mani right besider her.
"Don't play dumb! You guys killed our brother!"
"I told you, we don't know what you're talking about." Nami denies. Usopp just trembles in fear.
"Satori is one Enel's four priests. Apparently he was taken out yesterday." Mani enlightens her, trying to look for an opening. There was no point in running anymore. Even if she wasn't too tired to run anymore, they were faster than her and would just chase her down. It was better to fight with a high chance of death than to run where death was a certainty.
Then realisation dawns on Nami. "So the priest the guys took out was…"
"See, you do know!" the twins howl.
"Yes, apparently their older brother. From what I hear, they look similar enough. Fat and ugly." Mani answers before she can stop herself.
"That's rude!" "We're not fat! We're rounded!"
She and her big mouth.
"You must pay!"
Mani feels like a fool. Was this it? All that terror? Because of this?
In the first few moments, things had looked as if the earlier horror would repeat itself, the two continually on the offensive, easily dancing around their desperate counter attacks.
But when longnose declared "I've got them figured out now.", the trio managed to fight the brothers to a stalemate. How did longnose learn how to use the dials so proficiently? Surely, they had arrived in the White Sea at the same time Mani's crew had done? That shouldn't have been nearly enough time.
The balance tipped decisively in their favor when Usopp's 'exploding star' hit Kotori's palm half-a-second before the gas was released. The resulting explosion staggered Kotori, giving Mani the opening she needed to pin his foot to the deck with a well-placed knife and taking him out of the fight.
Additionally, seeing his brother in danger seriously rattled Hotori so much, that he went berserk. However, his attempts to burn them alive in retribution only resulted in a sudden explosion of fog. Mani did hear Nami mumbling something about 'cold tempo' and 'fog tempo' but whatever it was obviously worked, allowing the girl to give Hotori a good smack across the face with her staff. But not before jumping him and wrapping her legs around his neck to wrestle him to the ground.
The final blow was dealt, surprisingly by the arrival of Rivers. The sight of him flying a giant purple bird agitated the two so much that they had a breakdown. One bullet and a knife later and the fight was over…permanently.
How…anti-climactic. It was almost as if the two had lost all their brain cells the moment they came within a ten-meter radius of the Straw Hat crew. What about their mantra? Their superhuman reflexes?
How did Kotori not see Usopp's attack coming? Why did Hotori allow himself to be hit? Nami wasn't that fast. Though, as far as things went, having your face buried between a girl's legs is probably not a bad way to go, even if said girl is only riding your face to smash your head in.
But what is most incomprehensible to Mani, is that Rivers, meek-but-pretend-he's-not Rivers was the one to break the twin terrors. Why were they so scared of him? And what's with the bird and it's cargo?
(Bellamy POV)
I wake up to the sound of thunder.
Everything bloody hurts. Bloody Enel. As I gather my bearings, the ground suddenly shifts beneath my feet, which means, if I'm not mistaken that Enel just gathered the survivors of his little survival game to the lost city of Shandora. At least that's what he did in the show. So, unless my presence here completely has derailed everything, that's where I need to be.
The view along the way isn't pretty. There are bodies strewn everywhere, many of them charred like overdone toast. On the ground, slung over half broken walls, hanging from the branches. I'm running through a field of carnage.
How many survived? Six like in the show? More? Less? What about my crew? Should I have left them at the Shandian camp? I barely took down one of the priests with a lot of help and luck. Who did my crew meet? Is my crew alright?
They're just anime characters, a voice tells me. Irrelevant side characters, who few if any even remember at all. But they're also real. Each has their own story to tell, their own personality, their own goals. And to top it off, they're my crew, my responsibility from the moment I called myself their captain.
But, if I baby them, how will we ever grow? Sooner or later, we'll be in a situation again, where everyone needs to stand on their own. If they're not ready, they'll be in even greater danger.
Like today…
No, my crew is fine. My crew. Is. Fine.
Just got to take out Enel. Focus on Enel.
Seastone. Wyper had seastone. Enel will underestimate me as he already took me out once. He'll think that he can do it again…easily, meaning that there was no need to be on guard against me. Take the seastone, take out Enel. Simple enough.
As I enter the ruins of Shandora, I can hear voices up ahead. Then a flash of lightning and the rumbling of thunder.
One final leap and I'm in the courtyard, taking it all in.
Robin apparently got fried, Laki is comforting Aisa. What is she even doing here? Zoro is staggering to his feet and missing a sword, while Nami is hiding behind a wall.
And slowly standing up is a bloody and trembling Wyper...
...with Enel lying at his feet.
Author's note:
Can't say that I'm too happy with how this chapter turned out. Especially trying to depict the panic Mani was in and making it sound semi-decent was difficult.
Anyway, that's the sub-boss fights done and only the big guy left.
The reason that Holy obeyed Eddy & Muret is because they were just far enough away from Ohm that Holy left the priest's influence, which is something that happened in Canon as well. Essentially, Eddy & Muret were very lucky.