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Chapter 21:
Of Fishmen and Pirates
The echoing roar of the Kraken ground the war in the Gyoncord Plaza to a halt. Civilians screamed with worry for themselves and their brave defenders as the giant invertebrate —who still managed to have a traditional mouth with teeth, somehow, despite teeth requiring some sort of skeletal structure— squirmed into the battle. Said mouth was bared in a snarl directed at every fighter below, its malice glimmering in its eyes.
"Look, Mommy!" The words of a child above the chaos carried the glee of their originator, free of the fear or understanding of the rest of the viewers. "It's Sarume! We found him! Hi, Sarume!"
A look of momentary panic swept across the octopi's face, clearing its anger like a raging flood, before it seemed to remember that it was not currently surrounded by any highly-conductive liquid and, as a result, was not as liable to be fried to a crisp as he had been upon first meeting with the child and his chosen family. Satisfied with this, the Kraken turned its glare on the bird holding the toddler and young mother.
"S-Sarume?" Ace stuttered, his childish mind trying to reason why the big big fish thingie he had decided was his friend didn't seem happy to see them. One tentacle came up, swiping through the air in a way that forced Billy to dodge. "That's mean, Sarume! Stop it!"
"Sweetie, Sarume isn't himself right now," Nami said, trying to spare the child his feelings whilst in the midst of battle. While they could handle him having a fit, it would only make the fight that much harder.
"Maybe he's hungry!" the boy suggested. "Some of the old wizard guys said people act different when they're hungry, right?"
"You're in for it now!" a group of Fishman Pirates laughed, their confidence in their odds ballooning with the addition of the largest ace-in-the-hole of their forces that they knew of. Compounded, even, by the aggressive action. The cephalopod didn't seem to appreciate their words, its eyes narrowing further as it whipped its nearest tentacle around to smack them. They screamed before hitting the wall, the Kraken barely looking their way as it growled at everyone involved.
The message was clear; it wasn't a fan of anyone here.
"Yes," Nami sighed, trying to keep the sarcasm from her tone. "I think he's hungry, Ace."
"Oi, Kraken!" a voice growled, said sea beast freezing at the sound of its title. The giant octopus froze, turning like a rusty door to stare at the leader of the New Fishman Pirates. "You better remember which side you're fighting for, or your brother might have an accident."
The Kraken's eyes carried several emotions, hate and fear being the two most prominent, but worry, self-loathing, and reluctance also simmered below the surface. He swung at the bird again, his tentacle stopping just short of a group of a flying mermen after Billy's avoidance, the sheer air pressure blasting them off into the crowd watching the battle from the top of the cliff.
"Holy cow," Nami hissed, the soft ringing of her snail dragging her focus away from that scene. "Billy, focus on evasion. I think we need to take this call."
"Wah!" the Gigafowl confirmed as the navigator answered.
"This is not good," Amy's voice announced over the snail. "The only blessing we have is the Kraken doesn't seem to care about collateral to their forces."
"But that's something they can afford," Coby grunted, the clang of his swords suggesting he was attempting to multitask just to be part of this conversation. "Pterodactyl Swarm! That's a massive ace they just pulled from their belt."
"Me?" the so-named boy blinked.
"That guy could eat us alive!" Usopp cried.
"It would be rather inconvenient," Robin agreed, ignoring the panicked screams from her background noise. "Based on his size and most likely genus, digestion could take anywhere between six to nine hours assuming he swallows us whole and does not grind us to giblets with those teeth he possesses , therefore—"
"Not helping!" Usopp, Grace, Franky, and Merry yelled.
"Tangentially connected," Robin pivoted quickly, "Coby is correct. The incapacitation of any individual within our faction is an astronomical loss in comparison to our adversaries' due to our altogether limited numbers. If I were to describe our situation currently, I would call it a pile of ƛɻɛɶ."
"You did not just create a Poneglyphic swear for the sole reason of having one and say all that just to use it," Nami bit out.
"You possess no proof for or against such an accusation. Ah, they've brought out human prisoners. I shall go deal with that."
"Robin!" Nami yelled.
"This ain't helpin' us right now!" Gin called, but Robin had already extricated herself from the conversation. He sighed but forged ahead. "We've got a big-aaaaaooooctopus that's 'bout ta wreck all of our… stuff. I got a good jump a second ago, but I'm too drained to pull off somethin' like th' Donna did on our way in."
Nami could hear the strain in his voice, but whether it was from having to censor himself on the fly or because he was on the battle's front lines, she couldn't totally tell.
"He's too big for any of my chemicals to affect him," Grace admitted. "I'm not strong enough to make so much at one time and I didn't really study more than human biology. I don't have any workable large-scale techniques that won't take me out of the fight, either."
"Daddy, punch the mean out of Sarume!" Ace recommended before he paused. "…Please?" he added as if pleasantries were merely an afterthought.
"Yohoho! He already sounds exactly like Luffy!" Brook laughed.
"I don't know if the cuteness outweighs the sheer terror I feel at the thought of another, smaller Luffy," Sanji commented. "Now if they had a girl that looked just like Nami-Swan…"
"I will skin you alive," said mother hissed into the snail.
"Daddy!" Ace yelled. "Punch!"
"I mean…" Luffy began. "I could probably take him out with a Giant Elephant Gun and Ace did say please."
"You don't need to do that, Luffy!" Chopper said, having to yell to be heard over the rumblings of the Brachio-Tank. His voice distanced itself from the snail, the doctor calling out coordinates for Franky, the exchange quickly followed by an explosion. "Anyway, I've got something that can take on Sarume so you guys can go get the leaders."
"Good idea, Chopper!" the captain nodded. "I'm starting to get hungry, so let's hurry up so we can get that victory banquet started!" Nami gave an exasperated sigh as the snail in her hand salivated, mimicking her husband as he dreamed of all the good food he was sure the kingdom would offer them when everything was said and done.
"Yay, food!" Ace agreed.
"Ace's future development will be an amazing study on the values and processes of the ongoing argument between Nature verses Nurture!" Chopper rambled. "For him to be raised separated from Luffy for the first part of his life yet retain so many similarities places a surprising amount of evidence toward the argument for Nature, but if such can be overridden through continued interaction with the rest of us—"
"Chopper, the Kraken?" Amy reminded him.
"Oh, yes. I'll save the scientific ramifications and case studies for later. Franky, drop me off here. It's time to Rumble."
The braying roar that Chopper released as his body grew reached both combatants and viewers. Merfolk and Fishfolk alike stared in awe and horror as the cute little doctor's mass multiplied exponentially, his height rising to rival even their beloved king or princess while thick brown hair sprouted over his new form. Antlers added another story to his building-like size, curling and twisting in a mess of calcium phosphate covered in dark velvet. Even the eyes of the Kraken widened as one of his targets grew to the point of being able to look him in the eye directly.
"Aaaahhh!" Usopp screamed as the familiar form of Chopper's Monster Point shifted its weight. "He's gonna go rogue again!"
"Wait, Usopp!" the massive pirate placated, holding up his palms. His voice almost echoed, as if several voices of various deep resonances were speaking at the same time. "I'm in control, see? This was one of the things I focused on while in the Birdie Kingdom. I can use this form for three minutes without any trouble at all."
"I think that's exactly what we needed," Franky grinned. "Oi, Devil-Bro! Watch my super Bracho-Tank 5 for a sec. I need to go get something. Sunny! Shift to Dock four, would ya?!"
"Rodger that, Maker!" A volley of cannonballs blew from Sunny's various cannons, blowing away the small hoard of fishman pirates that had been trying to attack her, before her hull rumbled. Adam Wood ground against the cobbles of the plaza as her insides rotated, until the number four appeared on her side. Franky grinned, his white teeth almost sparkling as he made his way to where the paneling rose much like a garage door.
"That's gonna be so cool," Chopper whispered to himself, 'whisper' now being a relative term since his echoing voice was loud enough for the enemies around him to hear at any volume. Shaking the thought away with the memory that he was now on a time crunch, the transformed reindeer turned his attention to the gargantuan cephalopod. "Alright, Sarume. I think it's time you fight someone your own size."
"Graahhh!" the Kraken responded, his gelatinous body undulating forward in a charge. Chopper met him halfway, shoulder checking the monsters in the area that could colloquially be called a chin but cannot be atomically because of the aforementioned irregularity of the creature's skeletal structure or lack thereof.
Even so, its teeth clacked painfully as its mouth was forced shut, the Kraken letting out a grunt of pain before moving its tentacles to retaliate. Slimy limbs wrapped themselves around Chopper's legs, threatening to pull his feet out from under him. He lowered his center of gravity as his hands shot out to either side, all but backhanding the limbs coming for his arms.
"You'll need to try harder than that if you want to beat me, Sarume!" Chopper grinned, "Rosario Carving Paw!"
"Graaah!" the Kraken cried, its flesh distending inward as his squishy body absorbed the impact of the giant hand.
"Now that's a battle of epic proportions," Merry grinned as she watched Chopper and Sarume trade blows. She turned to her companions, a panting Coby arriving at her side. "Alright, Captain Luffy's got Hody, but that still leaves the tall one, the shorty, the hammerhead, the purple one, and the human guy that followed us down. Who wants who?"
"I would rather not face the one with the hammer, yoho," Brook offered. "Perhaps I shall call dibs on the one with several arms."
"I'll take the guy with the hammer," Coby decided. "Nami and I fought him to get Ace back, so I've seen parts of his move set."
"The short guy really annoyed me," Grace commented. "He talked about eating me when I fought him last time."
"Let me handle him, then," Amy said. "You can have the purple one. With my Armament, there's no way the Bite-Happy over there can get through me."
"I think it'd be better for you to take the human," Merry told her. "I can handle the shorty, but Caribou is a mud Logia or something. Only you, Captain Luffy, or Gin could take him on right now. Where is Gin, by the way?"
"He's over with Sunny helping Franky with something," Grace answered. "Based on the excitement I can feel rolling off him, it's gonna be something big."
Their captain backflipped away from whatever skirmish he'd just finished, his rubber body landing amongst his crewmates. He stood, popping his neck, as the others turned their attentions on him.
"Oh, hey guys. What's up?"
"We were getting ready to charge the big guys," Coby explained, gesturing to the small group of the New Fishman Pirates' top brass. "Care to join us, Captain?"
"Of course," Luffy nodded. As one, the group took off into a run, each keeping up with Luffy in their own way. Merry and Coby needed Moonwalk and Shave while Brook just had the sheer speed needed. Grace used explosions to propel her forward and Amy lightened herself. The six pirates made for a rather fearsome image, one that caught the attention of the group they approached.
"Looks like we can't stand around anymore," Caribou chuckled, bits and pieces of himself sloughing off into globs of swamp. "Remember, they're worth more alive, so—"
"Shut up, human," Hody snarled. "You get what you get. Men, tear them to shreds. Show these humans the power of the Fishman Race."
"Yes, Captain!" the officers responded, as one swallowing several of the improved steroids Zeo had produced. They hunched for a moment before the chemicals finished their work, their eyes glowing a sinister red.
"I feel so powerful, dosun!" the Hammerhead of the group grinned. "Let them come! I'll smash them into paste, dosun!"
"This is it," Zeo grinned. "I can feel the effects of my work for myself, the strength flowing through my veins."
"Kyakya!" Daruma laughed. "Those humans' bones will feel brittle between my teeth, kya!"
"Let's make dried squid out of them, ch!" Ikaros agreed.
"Straw Hats!" Hachi cried, still on his side with his arms tied behind his back. "Don't worry about my safety! It's fine if I die as long as you save the island!"
"Listen up, guys," Luffy muttered, his pointed gaze locked with Hody's superior smirk. "I don't know what those pills have done to them, but don't let them catch you off guard. If you need to, don't hesitate to take them out. Got it?"
"Roger!" The group broke, each member launching themselves at their chosen opponent.
"Have at you!" Brook yelled, the point of his blade meeting the crossed shafts of Ikaros' spears with enough force to drive him backward.
"Let's go, shortstack!" Merry laughed, throwing her Rigging Arts at the shortest of the fishmen. Daruma jumped, attempting to avoid the attack, only for one of Merry's ropes to wrap around his ankle. Daruma let out a short scream before the Klabautermann threw him away, following shortly thereafter.
"Cretaceous Charge!" Coby roared, his Shave turning into a gallop as he took on his Dino Mode. Dosun swung his hammer down, trying to stop the rival pirate's stampede, but Coby expertly flicked his horns at the right time to knock the hammer off course. With that aside, there was nothing but air between the Zoan and the fishman, Coby barreling into the Hammerhead with the speed of a truck.
"Come to me!" Caribou grinned, his torso lengthening as he prepared to absorb the blonde flying toward him into his hammerspace. His eyes narrowed in a leer, though it lacked the emotion Amy would have expected from a sleazebag like him. Rather than lust, it was greed that shone in his dark eyes. Said eyes widened as, instead of trying to stop, Amy activated the Breath Dial in her parasol and rocketed into his gut, her Haki-covered foot digging into his stomach as if his Logia powers meant nothing. His eyes widened as they threatened to pop out of his head.
Zeo and Grace met on nearly equal terms, both lashing forward with their chosen weapons —a weighted chain for Zeo and a whip of condensed argon for Grace— with the other catching the end with their free hand.
"It seems we were fated to battle," Zeo began, both of his arms straining to maintain their short status quo. "I am the head scientist of the New Fishman Pirates and your wanted poster calls you an emotional terror of a chemist, Mood Painter."
"Talk about outdated information," Grace replied. "At least, it will be when the newest set of wanted posters comes out. Your steroids are a pretty good substitute and shortcut, I'll give you that, but the fact is you morons just weren't willing to put in the work like we were."
"What is that supposed to mean?" the Wobbegong questioned, his glowing eyes narrowing. Grace responded by jerking her arms, using the pair of mid-range weapons to lift Zeo off the earth before pulling him toward her. "Wai—!"
"Neon Argon, you hypocrite!"
The swirling ball of gas dug into Zeo's chest, the purple humanoid hacking up blood as the force ground against his enhanced body. The attack exploded a second later, blasting the fishman scientist away with Grace in hot pursuit.
"I'm a hypocrite, am I?" Zeo said, flipping onto his feet. He spun, his weighted chain whistling through it air as he swung it at the incoming chemist. Grace's favored katar formed in her hands, the pair of hard-air weapons bringing the chain to a loud stop. Zeo flicked his wrist, the end of the chain dancing at his command to wrap around Grace's wrist. She fought back, but the former agent was not the heaviest lifter of the crew, the fishman's strength outstripping her own. Wind whistled in her ears as Zeo arched her over his head, the girl slamming into the earth behind him.
"Ow," Grace complained, sending a rush of adrenaline through her mind to help counter the scrapes that now adorned her back from the rough landing. Another flick of the weapon brought her closer, the taller fighter holding her off the ground suspended by her wrist.
"Now then, human," Zeo began. "What was that about me being a hypocrite?"
"It's just that you're a moron, too," the woman smirked, her leg lashing out in a kick to his side. Zeo grunted, his grip on his chain loosening instinctively. Grace used this to her advantage, barely setting her feet on the ground before she was jumping, her lighter body swinging around Zeo with an Argon Whip materializing in her hands. His own came up, drawing the chemical from his windpipe, but there was nothing else he could do without the risk of asphyxiation. A foot kicked the back of his knee, Zeo dropping into a crouch without any choice in the matter.
"Let me explain something to you, Mr. Fishman Pirate Scientist," Grace muttered into the approximate area where his ear would be, given the Wobbegong did not have any visible. "I ate the Chem-Chem Fruit, a Devil Fruit allowing me to manipulate and feel the atoms and compounds all around me. That booster you've got flowing through your veins has a trace in it. You used my work to make it."
"That's ridiculous," Zeo denied, struggling against the whip holding him. For a moment, he wished he'd exercised with his companions at least a couple more times considering how much that compounded multiplication would have helped here. "You've been silent for the past two years. You have no work to speak of."
"Compounds Thought Impossible and Other Such Nonsense," the woman said, the fishman stiffening in her binds at the title. "Robin tells me it's a page-turner, but the research that went into it was way more fun than putting it together."
"You… But… Th-That book was written by…" Realization dawned on him, but Zeo refused to admit to any failure on his part. "I-I mean of course I knew you were the Magpie! It was obvious! Obviously! I was lulling you into a false sense of security!"
"Sure you were," Grace chuckled. "I wasn't exactly trying to hide it with a pseudonym like Maggie G. Bird. I mean, I couldn't put Grace Marigold on the cover when that's what my wanted poster says, though the next copy should have both my epithets."
"How could you know my methods from seeing the final product in use? That's impossible."
"Every chemical reaction leaves traces behind and every compound that I originated in that book leaves behind a little carbon trioxide or hydrogen disulfate. Very hard to stabilize, you know, but every process leaves enough lingering atoms to bond. Based on the CO3 in your blood, I know you used the chapter on managing high-oxidizing combustibles. Don't want your insides to spontaneously combust from overdose?"
"So you know how the Improved Energy Steroids work." Zeo relaxed, taking in a deep breath of air. As he did, Grace felt the compounds in his system react with the increased oxygen, multiplying his strength for a short moment.
But a moment was all he needed, his arms ripping the Argon Whip apart. Grace did not have the time needed to react before his elbow planted itself into her gut, the fishman following through my throwing the human over his shoulder. For the second time, Grace landed on her back, but this time she had the fist of a fishman going berserk descending on her.
"Argon Wall!" Purple condensed, forming a triangular barrier above her head, the angle deflecting the force of Zeo's first punch to the side. It skidded along the opaque structure before hitting the ground beside it. Grace reevaluated his treat level as she watching his hand rise from the new hole it had made.
"You're a brilliant mind," Zeo admitted, his breathing deep and slow. He punched her wall again, this one producing a thin crack. "It's only a shame you were born a human." Another punch, this one causing spiderweb cracks across the entire triangular frame. "Maybe you should pray to whatever god you worship that you'll live your next life as a mermaid in the New Fishman Empire."
Zeo's final punch shattered the Argon Wall, the broken structure dissipating into whiffs of gas as the crystalline structure the atoms had been forced into was smashed. Grace had not been idle, however, her katar held vertically above her face and chest. It was the latter of these options that Zeo felt enter his hand between the center two knuckles, severing tendons, veins, and arteries with his own momentum.
"My hand!" the scientist cried, jumping away to inspect the damage. His right hand was now divided down the middle to the wrist, only his thumb operating anywhere close to regular function. "You human bitch, what have you done?!"
Grace did not respond, the young woman showing off her flexibility by hopping onto her feet before dashing toward the injured pirate officer. Zeo tried to counter, but with his dominant hand in shambles, there was little he could do against the nimbler human, her blades cutting superficial but painful lines over his arms.
Zeo jumped backward, his uninjured hand reaching for more Energy Steroids he had on him. Another boost should do the trick, even with his debilitation!
A flash of white and green was all Grace needed to see what he was trying to do. A wave of her hand created a thin, purple needle from gas in the air and another launched it forward.
"Gya!" Zeo cried, the pill he'd been holding lost to the ground. Red dripped from the new hole in his palm, the needle still all the way through his hand. A flex shattered the pointed item, but that satisfaction was short-lived and painfully underwhelming.
In the face of this latest development, he chose to listen to his brain and flee, the Wobbegong camouflaging himself as he attempted to crawl away over the ground. His plan proved to be a bust, the human pressing her boot into his back, pinning his bleeding mess of a hand between his bulk and ground.
"I can sense the chemicals in your blood, remember?" Grace mocked, kneeling down on the fishman. Her hand grabbed the back of his neck, liquids secreting themselves from her pores as she mentally sifted through the various Concepts that gave the pirate his cheats. "Now, let's see what we can do to counteract those steroids, hm?"
Zeo whimpered.
A flick of his head sent Dosun sprawling, Coby pawing the ground as he eyed the fishman getting to his knees. A rumbling growl rose from his throat, a vocalization of dislike without words felt on an instinctual level.
"That actually hurt, you bastard, dosun," the fishman grunted, turning to the dinosaur. He shook his shoulders, loosening his muscles for what was to come. "Wait, I recognize you, dosun. You're the one they call The Survivor, the one that survived execution by the World Government, dosun. And you were with the redhead when she took back the kid, dosun."
"Yeah, so?" Coby questioned. "None of that knowledge is going to help you win this fight. You should surrender now."
"Surrender?" Dosun echoed, trying to hold back a laugh at the mere mention of such a thing. "To a human? How stupid can you be, dosun? Dooohohoho! Listen here, human. I have chosen to dedicate my life to the founding of the New Fishman Empire under the control of Captain Hody, and he wants you all dead. I will give him that or die trying, dosun!"
"Then come get me!" The fighters charged each other, Coby shrinking into his Hybrid mode and drawing his swords. Dosun came in for an overhead swing, planning to smash the young man into a paste. Understandably, Coby didn't want that, the roset crossing his swords over his head to catch the downward momentum. The ground under his feet cracked and shattered under the force as hammer met swords, Coby gritting his teeth as he trusted his Zoan constitution and all the strength training he'd been through. Dosun didn't seem to think that was an acceptable outcome, rearing back for another attack.
"Dosun! Dosun! Dokan! Dokan! Bokan! Why! Won't! You! Die! Bokan?!"
Coby grit his teeth, his legs shaking from the repeated blows. Each strike had served to drive his feet into the earth like nails into wood, making Shave in impossibility, and with the speed and power granted to him from the Improved Energy Steroids, the time between each hit had shortened, giving Coby no time to escape. A crack echoed in Coby's ear.
Time seemed to slow as the swordsman's eyes darted, trying to locate the origin of such a sound. There was a crying presence in his Haki, a fierce yell of pain and dedication that he could not truly hear.
Bang!
There! His eyes located it, a tiny crack growing more and more with each strike of the hammer. Unfortunately, it was not Dosun's weapon that was at the breaking point. Coby's left sword had cracked.
The roset pulled his swords back, swinging them in time with Dosun's next attempt. The dual swords met the side of the hammer, redirecting it into the earth to the human's right where it pulverized the cobblestone.
"36-Caliber Phoenix!"
Dosun hopped away, blood leaking from his arm where he'd blocked the close-range flying slash. Coby took that time to escape the dirt, inspecting his weapons. The crack in his blade was diagonal, rising from by the hilt up into the center of the sword.
"So this is what Zoro-Sensei meant when he talked about hearing the voices of his swords in Alabasta," Coby mused, keeping his Observation focused on Dosun incase he tried anything new. "I'm sorry, old friend, but I don't think I can do this without you."
A feeling came from the blade, but Coby couldn't be sure if it was truly there or if some part of his mind was trying to rationalize an impossibility. Nodding, the young man looked up to see Dosun downing another pill. His hair grew, graying as it did. Dosun was panting now, puffs of steam forming with every breath.
"I'm gonna kill you, zugan," the Hammerhead hissed, rocketing forward with a twist as if he'd become a top. "Spinning Dosun!"
"Five Point Style: Meteor Swords!" Coby countered, meeting him halfway. Horns and blades scraped against spinning hammer, sparks flying from their points of impact as Coby's defense ate away at Dosun's momentum. The crack in his blade worsened. Finally, Coby let the remaining force send him backward, the loss of resistance sending Dosun off balance.
"Slasher Mode: Piercing Comet!"
Dosun hissed, holding back a cry of pain as Coby's long horn and two swords stabbed him in three places. He was lucky the steroids had increased the density of his muscles or that attack could have been a lot worse, but as it was, Coby was just too fast for him to hit with the following swing.
"Unseen Disaster!"
Coby vanished, a cut opening on Dosun's arm. He swung wildly, unable to catch more than a glimpse of his opponent as cut after cut, line after line carved themselves into his skin.
"Show yourself, zugan! Don't be a coward, bagon!"
The thing to be said about Observation Haki, a fact proven by the Monkey D. Luffy of a different timeline, is that attacks cannot be seen with it if even the attacker does not know where the attack will go. It was this phenomena that occurred, Dosun's hammer coming around in a backswing, clipping Coby in the side. The force knocked him off course, his Slasher Mode —a glass cannon at the best of times— rolling over the harsh stone.
"Ha!" Dosun laughed, sauntering over to where Coby was hacking on the ground, one hand pressed into his side where he'd been hit near the ribs. "I've finally got you, bagon! Time to die, bagon!"
The human scrambled for his swords, just managing to shift into his sturdier Armor Mode and get his Sabaku no Kiba between him and the coming hammer.
With a wail in his Observation Haki, Coby's cracked sword gave out, snapping along the break. The instant happened in slow motion to the roset as one of the weapons he'd trusted since Loguetown met its end. The broken piece pinged off his bone plating, the remaining sword and what remained on the other hilt struggling to hold the hammer at bay.
"Looks like this fight is mine, boy, bagon!" Dosun laughed. "You shouldn't have given me the chance to get that last steroid, bagon! Now die for the coming empire, bagon!"
Coby dropped his one-and-a-half swords, crossing his arms to catch the blow. His arms' plating creaked under the strain as Dosun's red-eyed smirk grew. He'd done it! He'd taken out a Straw Hat! The one the World Government couldn't even kill!
Dosun coughed blood, his glowing eyes widening and his smirk falling into a gasp as pain registered from his chest. He looked down slowly to see the remaining complete sword stabbed into and through his chest, the handle in the grip of the Zoan's prehensile spiked tail. He stepped back, the sword coming with him as Coby panted.
"I'm sorry it had to be this way," Coby said, Dosun losing the strength in his legs as he fell to his knees. Coby stood, shrinking into his human form as he approached his run-through foe. Dosun's eyes reflected fear and hatred in equal measure as the young man drew closer. "I hope you can find peace wherever you end up."
"But Captain Hody… dosun…"
The fishman fell over, his eyes losing their glow as his light disappeared from Coby's Haki. With Dosun, another part of Coby died.
Caribou's eyes threatened to pop out of his skull as the pain of 1,500 kilos of human focused into the impact area of a women's size 7 shoe slammed into his stomach. His tongue, which usually lulled out of his mouth, was now straight as an arrow as the pain expressed itself in physical form along the rules and standards of the universe in which he existed. Because of the Haki coating the strike, the swamp-man could not separate himself to negate some of the damage, so it was his true body that shot away from the Weightless Woman —an epithet he realized was produced for the alliteration and not for the accuracy— before splattering against the far wall of the plaza.
"You know, I'm disappointed," Amy scowled, the blonde sauntering toward the rival pirate as he tried to reform through the aching pain. "Not only do I not get to fight the guy that threatened to eat my sister, not only do I not get to fight one of the fishmen, not only do I not get to crush their weapons in my own hands, but I have to fight a dirty little monster like you. You better not ruin my dress."
"Well, you won't need it where you're going," the Logia sneered, his upper torso now recongealed into a humanoid shape. "Your bounty isn't so high as some of the others on your crew. That means I can get more for you by selling you to the Celestial Dragons."
Amy's nose wrinkled at the suggestion, the back of her throat burning with nausea at the mere suggestion of what would await her at the end of such a fall. Caribou giggled, a shower of Beris dancing through his mind.
"Hard Rock Bullet!"
Caribou screamed, scrambling out of the way as a pebble with the mass of a boulder crashed into the wall before which he'd been standing. His eyes cut from the cracking vertical surface to the shadowed face of the woman he'd offended, said woman preparing to blow into another rock. His mind switched from capturing her to a new goal.
Current objective: survive.
Caribou was by no means a brave soul. The bravest thing he'd probably ever done was taking to the seas to try his own hand in the Great Pirate Era, but any confidence he'd had in his powers was dashed as he came face-to-face with the legendary ability he'd heard about that could cause a Logia lose the advantage they'd held in Paradise.
"S-Spare me!" he cried, prostrating himself before the terrifying woman. He reached for Amy's ankle, the woman stepping away from his covered hands. "Th-The fishmen, they forced me to do this! I-I didn't want to help them, b-but they attacked us as we approached the island! They've got my crew hostage!"
"Merry already told us about the fight you had with her, Sanji, and Chopper. We know that you were working with them and that Merry blew up your ship."
"Th-That's not right!" Caribou denied, scrambling for a believable lie. "Th-Those were… fakes! Yes, fakes. Humans also threatened by the New Fishman Pirates. Other captains trying to save their crews!" Amy shifted onto her back foot, her arms crossing as she gave the Logia a blank, half-lidded look.
"Go on," she said, waving one limp hand. Her voice came in the same tone as someone telling another 'keep digging your own grave.'
"Myyyyy brother!" Caribou started. "Yeah, my brother! Hody locked him inside their hidden underground base! They'll kill him if I don't—!"
"Big Bro! I'm back!" Caribou's head whipped around at the voice, 'Blood Splatter' Coribou waving at him from atop the cliff surrounding the Gyoncord Plaza. Balereon, his pet iguana, clung to the man's head like a lifeline. Coribou forged ahead, not noticing his older brother shaking his head and waving his hand before his throat in a 'stop talking' motion. "The waters around the island are really hard to swim through, but I finally found you, Big Bro! Now we can fight the Straw Hats together and collect their bounties like you planned!"
"So…" Caribou turned like a door with rusty hinges, Amy's single quirked eyebrow raised like the blade of a guillotine over his exposed neck. "You were saying?"
"...Mistaken identity?"
"Try the other one."
"Right, new plan. Coribou!"
"Yeah, bro?!" the younger brother answered from up above.
"None of this was worth it! Activate plan 'fuck this, we're leaving!'"
"I love that plan, bro!"
Caribou scrambled up the side of the cliff, spurred on by the occasional Hard Rock Bullet crashing somewhere just below him. Amy watched them leave with a tired sigh, her head hanging in one hand as he scurried over the edge and the pair vanished.
"Why do I get all the boring fights?"
Daruma grunted as he hit the earth, his claws grabbing the rope around his ankle so his fingernails could slice through it before the horned girl could throw him again. He rolled, just avoiding the ballistic Klabautermann as her Iron-Body-strengthened form cratered the ground where he'd been. Hopping to his feet, Daruma glared at the faux human.
"Kya! You all are so annoying! Why don't you just die or give in like all the others, kyakya!"
"You wanna talk about annoying, focus on your little verbal tick, shortass!" Merry rebuffed, jumping from the crater.
"I am not short, kya!" the Cookiecutter yelled. Launching himself toward the girl mouth-first. "We'll see who's taller when I've taken a few bites out of you, kya!"
"Cannonball Barrage!" Merry countered, numerous tiny cannonballs launching from her hands toward the fishman like bullets. Daruma's eyes narrowed, the diminutive shark angling himself to catch the first ball between his jaws. The projectile creaked for only a moment before shattering under the strength of the fishman's teeth. Without any time to come to terms with that, Merry's other small cannonballs met similar fates. "Shit!"
The girl jumped, Daruma hitting the earth like a drill where she'd been standing, nothing left of his presence than the hole he'd disappeared into.
"I need to be careful," Merry muttered to herself, hopping away as soon as she landed. Daruma popped out of that spot a moment later, quickly vanishing back into the ground like some deadly game of whack-a-mole. Merry only landed once more, Daruma again bursting through the ground, before she decided to use Moonwalk. If he wanted to hide in the ground where she couldn't see him, then she'd hang out in the air where he couldn't sense her. "Let's see. I doubt my ropes will do much and he's already gotten rid of my pellets. Looks like it's time to bring out my hammers."
Reaching for her belt, Merry drew her stone-headed hammers. Each was the length of her forearm topped with a rectangular slab of corundum at the end. It had taken several months for the folks at Galley-La to find material that would stand up to Merry's insane Luffy-and-Zoro-given strength and another two before their order arrived (the first having been stolen by pirates), but Merry had grown to rely on the sturdy tools for everything between hammering nails into wood to hammering talking points into particularly thick skulls.
She landed, hopping back a moment later. Sure enough, Daruma popped out where her feet had been, his sight filling with a pair of stone mauls. He dove away from the hole, the air currents from the double strike ruffling his hair.
But agility and movement were core pillars for Daruma's fighting style. He recovered more quickly than Merry could, the nimble fishman throwing himself at the Klabautermann. She gasped as his jaws clamped down on her arm, the pain shooting up from where his teeth had found purchase. Her free hand brought a hammer down toward him, forcing Daruma to ditch his teeth and jump away, leaving a full set of dentures in Merry's forearm.
"You taste like wood!" Daruma taunted, his teeth growing back in a literal second. Merry destabilized her arm, letting the dentures there fall to the ground while healing the damage that had been. "I'll chew you up to splinters, kya!"
"I'd like to see you try!" Merry's ropes rose, launching toward the smaller fighter. As indicative of his frog-like appearance, Daruma hopped through the sudden maze of hempen weaving, his clawed hands and sharp teeth ripping through wherever he needed to in his quest to reach the spirit.
"I've got you now, kya!" Daruma yelled as he cut through the last net trying to keep him from the spectral body of the ship-girl. Merry's smirk registered to him too late, one of her hammers filling his mouth. His eyes widened as the top of the tool put pressure on his uvula, the man trying to swallow without success. The hammer's pair came up in an arch, clocking the Cookiecutter in the cheek. He cried out in pain, his teeth shattering on impact.
"Yeah, you really got me," Merry taunted, watching the fishman writhe on the ground as he wrestled with the pain of his broken teeth.
"You bitch!" Daruma swore, his words slightly slurred as he tried to remove shards of his own bone from his gums. "Just you wait until I get my teeth around your Heart, kyakya!"
"Oh, that's right. Fore said something about you all knowing about Klabautermanns. More than the average person, anyway. Too bad for you, you don't know where my Heart is."
"It's around your neck, kya." Merry recoiled at the instant response, a hand coming up to rest against the choker she wore that carried her lifeline to the mortal world. Sure, it was heart-shaped, but she didn't think it was that obvious. "We aren't morons, contrary to what you humans think—"
"I'm surprised you know the word 'contrary'."
"—and there have been plenty of pirates who have seen you over the last couple years that were willing to give up some Klabautermann secrets with enough… persuasion, kya. Now then." He reached into his shirt, pulling another pill from within before swallowing it. "Let me devour that Heart of yours, kya!"
"That's no way to get a lady's favor," Merry rebuffed, bending backwards to avoid the flying shark whose aim was her throat. "Besides, having been created on a ship of mostly guys means you don't quite have what I'm looking for."
"Like I care, kya!" His hand hit the earth where Merry had been standing, his newfound strength carving a trench where before had been solid cobblestone. Merry's mind flashed back to a dozen times when she'd needed to fight foes who were physically stronger than her and one tactic that worked for many came to the forefront.
"Well, this shirt's ruined anyway," she muttered, readying another jump to escape Daruma's relentless attack. She stumbled, however, her foot catching on the edge of one of his holes from before. His red eyes narrowed in the equivalence of a smirk as he lunged, his teeth ready to rip the girl apart. Her own eyes widened as her brain shut down.
Just before he made contact, Merry destabilized. Daruma's fangs ripped through the collar of her shirt, swallowing her Heart whole. The Cookiecutter Fishman only seemed to realize the problem once it was too late, the girl reforming inside him. To think, after a life of eating that which he hated, it would be something he ate that would spell his end.
He exploded, and where he had been knelt Merry, the Klabautermann wide-eyed with her default white raincoat covered in gore. She covered herself with her hands as best she could while she came to terms with what she'd just done. A sentient's blood was not only on her hands, but literally everywhere else, too.
"I-It's a good thing Chopper mentioned mandatory psych evals," she chuckled, doing her best to avoid a breakdown. "I-I think gonna need it."
"Yohoho!" Brook laughed, hopping away from Ikaros' retaliatory strike. The two now stood apart from anyone else, the Giant Squid Fishman staring down even the abnormally-tall skeleton. "I must say, you paint a scary visage with all those arms of yours."
"Like you're one to talk, ch," Ikaros shot back. "How the Hell and I supposed to turn you into dried squid if you're already dried up, ch?"
"Now that's not a very nice thing to say. My make-up artists always told me I had a flawless complexion."
"We'll see how good your complexion is after I'm done with you, ch!" The sextuple-armed fishman charged, his right side's three squid spears thrusting toward the former-human. Brook parried to the side, shifting his body weight (what little of it remained) to the left to assist in his avoidance. His blade whipped through the air like a metal fan, blurring with speed, only for two of Ikaros' spears to intercept it. "Don't underestimate the power of Fishmen, you freak, ch! Squid Surplus!"
He struck, all six of his spears descending on the swordsman. Brook twisted between them, parrying where necessary, but each attack that did not land was simply repeated, Ikaros' arms slowly blurring until his weapons were little more than afterimages.
'I can't keep up!' Brook thought, a gasp escaping past his teeth as the spears all found purchase through his clothing. Two of them had slipped between the gaps in his ribs while the others stood between his ribs and pelvis. His skull rolled, jaw agape, and his tongue would have rolled if he'd had one.
"Now you're done, human!" Ikaros laughed, hefting Brook over his head like some trophy of battle. "I'll show your dead body to your friends and… and…" He blinked. "This doesn't feel right, ch. This guy is really light and I can't feel my Squid Spears draining any water from him, ch."
"Yohoho!" the skeleton laughed, Ikaros stiffening in fear. His head slowly turned upward to see a green, gaseous image somewhat shaped like a skull coming from Brook's mouth. "I must apologize, but I'm afraid I'm already bone dry! Yohohoho!"
"Wh-What the Hell are you, ch?!" the fishman demanded, throwing Brook's body away. The spirit looked at him in what could only be described as annoyance as his bones ragdolled over the cobblestones. With ne'er a whoosh, the spectral gas was sucked back into the skinless cadaver, Brook hopping back to his feet.
"I am an undead, you see," Brook explained, Ikaros backpedaling slightly as his mind tried to solve how to kill an opponent that is a) already dead and b) already dry. Brook walked forward, keeping the distance between them constant. "I came to terms with that during my crew's separation, and in doing to, the winds of Hell gifted me with knowledge of the underworld."
"S-Stay back, ch! I-I'm warning you, ch!"
"Don't you worry," Brook muttered, his words causing the exact opposite to happen. "Soul Solid is a sharp blade. You won't even feel it when I cut you."
"No! I refuse!" Since his spears seemed to be no help at all, the fishman threw them away, balling his hands into fists. He couldn't stab a skeleton, so he'd need to settle for blunt force and hope that the loss of his body would keep the freak down. "Let's see how you like this, ch!"
Making use of his new strength granted by the steroids, Ikaros jammed his hands into the stonework below, scooping out six rocks each roughly shaped like a scoop of ice cream. Unlike the dairy product, these hunks of earth would probably neither taste good nor give someone a good feeling.
Ikaros threw the rocks. Between his six arms and an infinite source of earth to reload from, the original volley quickly turned into a steady stream of fist-sized rocks, each moving at speeds to rival Ikaros' earlier attack.
Understandably not wanting to be hit by such a thing, Brook ran to the right, curving around his foe. The fishman turned in time with him, the cloud of dust that the skeleton's passing created only compounded by the impacts of the rocky projectiles. Within two rotations, however, Ikaros noticed a problem with this plan.
Their section of the battlefield was now covered in a cloud of dust, the ground littered with the debris and detritus of the latest failed attack. The lingering dust hung in the air like fog, leaving the surroundings as nothing but various shades of brown and gray. Most notably, the skeleton was nowhere to be seen.
"Where are you, ch?!" the fishman yelled, his eyes darting back and forth as he search for some hint of his foe.
"Yohoho!"
Ikaros whipped around, launching another rock at the direction where the laugh had come from, but the projectile only displaced the dust in the air, the cloud swirling in on itself from the generated winds. The world seemed to darken, Ikaros shivering at a sudden chill in the surroundings.
"This battle is over." Ikaros jolted at the voice, the Giant Squid Fishman turning to find Brook with his back to him. The skeleton had his sword out but was in the process of sheathing it. "My sword Soul Solid carries with it the chilling winds of the underworld, and they have already cut you. Pastoral Song: Blizzard Slash."
His blade clicked into place, the timing in conjunction with a line of ice that sprouted over Ikaros' front and back. He was lucky to have all the epigenetic processes to survive the cold, but Ikaros still felt his teeth chatter as his body gave into the cut it had received but could not feel.
"I've turned into… freeze-dried squid… ch…"
End of Chapter 21
So that was a big one! Dosun and Daruma are gone for good. I hadn't really planned on that, but that's sort of how these things go with the new match ups. I wonder, what will Caribou get up to away from the fight? What has become of Vander Decken in this time? What is Franky preparing? I'd like to hear your ideas, even if I'm the only one who really knows! And, as always,
Read and Review!
-SwordOfTheGods