Nexus: Heroes Will Rise

by tmb1112

Universal borders have been erased and beings from thousands of universes now live on the same world: Nexus. In the first Saga of Nexus, Awul was saved, but the mysteries of Nexus remain. Now our heroes sail across the sea to Aebrith to search for lost loved ones and save the world. MCs from DBZ, KH, Soul Eater, FT, Blue Exorcist, Bleach, 7DS, OP, Ben 10, SAO, HxH, and many more!

64. Nexus HWR 10-6 The Royal Palace

Nexus HWR 10.6 The Royal Palace:

First Royal Battalion Military Base, Pyraxas

On the northern side of the Royal Palace of Pyraxas, just outside of the tallest walls surrounding the courtyard, resided one of the largest military bases in all of Pyraxas. The barracks on either side of the base were full of soldiers awaiting orders, but no orders were coming. Thousands of men and women were in armor, holding weapons, and receiving reports on damage going on throughout Pyraxas, but since their initial orders to mobilize, they had not received orders to move out.

Around the massive base were fences on all sides, twelve feet tall and with barbed-wire at the top to keep out intruders. In between the two long barracks that stretched two miles long from the southern fence all the way to the northern one, there was an airfield full of fighter jets and zeppelins. Pilots were rushing around the tarmac and vehicles were driving around fueling up the planes and getting them ready for liftoff. A light-skinned soldier in an urban-camo uniform of gray and white colors ran out from beneath a plane, a rifle on his back, a helmet on his head with goggles pulled up on the front of it. Over the long-sleeved uniform he wore he had a black vest covered in equipment: flares, knives, morphine, a med-kit, and various other tools he might need in battle.

He ran across the airfield but came to a short stop, turning his head left and watching as two fighter jets sped down the tarmac and flew up in the air after racing right past him. What's up with that? Didn't think we got any new orders. The man turned towards the command building closest to the northern fence between the two barracks, a taller building with satellite dishes on the top of it and a radio tower on the northeast side. The man started jogging towards the command building, his left hand shaking a little at his side, brushing against the pistol in the holster on his belt. He could feel the heavy rifle on his back and the extra magazines of ammo weighing him down, bouncing with every step he took, and he had sweat drops on the sides of his face that he blamed on the heavy equipment he was carrying.

The thirty-year-old man ran towards the entrance of the command building and right inside without hesitation. He jogged past some people without saying anything, making it look like he was in a hurry to report something to a higher up. "Corporal!" A gruff voice called from his right, and Corporal Dunn jolted to a stop and spun that way to see an older man in an empty room off the hallway looking his way. The dark-skinned figure had on the same gear that he had, but his assault rifle was already out in his hands, and Dunn figured that meant he should draw his own. The Corporal pulled his rifle out from over his back as he jogged towards the older man who had some wrinkles on his darker face.

"What's going on Sarge? I didn't hear any new orders-"

Sergeant Foley frowned and turned his head to look down a hallway on the other side of the room as where Dunn entered from. "Colonel Qiu has taken command," Foley said in a low voice. "I don't know what's going on anymore, but they found two of the Commanders dead in the High Command office."

Dunn lifted his eyebrows accusingly, but Foley shook his head no. "Ramirez?" Dunn questioned.

At that moment, another figure stepped in from behind Dunn, and the twenty-six year old said in a serious voice, "It wasn't me either." Corporal James Ramirez looked into the eyes of the two in front of him who turned his way, and he continued, "The charges are set."

Dunn nodded and wiped some sweat from his forehead before adding, "Yeah, mine too."

The two Corporals turned back to their Sergeant who nodded at them with an intense expression on his face. "Alright, on me. Hooah."

"Hooah," Dunn repeated, his voice quiet but still proud as he said it. Ramirez took out his rifle like the other two, and the Corporals followed after Foley as their Sergeant started jogging down the next hallway towards the commanding officers of the base.

Foley jogged past soldiers going the other way who he had been serving beside for months now. They're not bad men, but they rarely are. This is our mission. This has always been our mission. Never expected it to be thrust on us so fast though, we only got a few days' warning about this. Damn unorganized Resistance. The undercover Resistance soldiers ran through the base full of other soldiers with Fire Nation emblems on their uniforms just like the three had on the front of their vests.

"…Send out the Zeppelins to the southern Upper Residential Area. Aim turrets precisely as to avoid civilian casualties and property damage. Re-establish communication with Admiral Komei! Someone locate the missing Princess Azula. Notify Lord Thymilph that two invaders are nearing the southern gate to the Palace." The three soldiers making their way through the command base located the source of the yelling, and entered a room full of officers from around the barracks who had all shown up looking for orders to give their men standing idly by in the base. All of the officers, even the ones at a higher rank who did not like the young and lower ranked officer giving them commands, were glad that someone was taking charge of the situation.

"Go! Take your men and head to the southern side of the Palace. All of our enemies are to the south of us. Cross through the Palace courtyard to shorten the time to get there-"

"You cannot give that order Colonel Qiu," a veteran Fire Nation officer with white hair and a narrowed gaze snapped at the young officer. Ye Qiu turned his head, a young man in his mid-twenties, with jet black hair, wearing a suit of tight-fitting black armor with red highlights on his shoulders and in every joint of his armor. The older officer continued, "Special permission must be granted to allow access to the Palace. You cannot send five thousand men barging through the gates."

That would sure make my job easier, Foley thought, though he quickly re-focused on the task at hand.

"This is an emergency situation," Ye Qiu continued. He lifted up the spear in his hand and spun it around over his head, then slammed the butt of it down on the ground. "If you have a better plan of action, then give out the orders yourself, but we cannot afford to waste more time bickering amongst ourselves. Officers, return to your men and send them out into the city. There are only sixteen invaders, you now know each of their faces. Take them down…"

Officers looked like they were about to leave, the Colonel was reaching the end of his speech, and Corporals Dunn and Ramirez pulled out small black devices from their pockets. There were tiny red buttons on the tops of the detonators, and each of the men took a deep breath, before pressing down on the buttons. Dunn closed his eyes as he pressed his, Can't let any more aircraft take off. Sorry boys, he thought, apologizing to the pilots and men already inside the blimps and planes outside he had planet C-4 under.

Ramirez kept his mind clear as he pressed his button, then rose up his rifle fast as the entire base started to shake. The small attachment at the end of the barrel should have been a clear giveaway to anyone who saw it, but of course they would have had to be suspicious in the first place to even wonder why he would have a silencer on his assault rifle.

"What's going on?!"

"What was that?!"

"There was an explosion inside the base!"

Ye Qiu spotted three men in the back of the room raise the rifles in their hands and his eyes opened wide. There were more of them! He lifted back up the spear he had slammed into the ground-

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch… t-t-t-t-t-t-t Doof Crash "Ahh-"

Dunn, Ramirez, and Foley unloaded their entire extended mags into the room of Fire Nation officers in front of them. The sounds of the bullets leaving their silenced rifles were quieter than the sounds of the men hitting the ground and knocking over things as they fell. A few screams escaped the mouths of the officers, and Ye Qiu even managed to dodge and throw his spear forward, before he, like the others, was gunned down.

Finally, all that could be heard in the room were the clicking sounds of empty weapons. Ramirez and Foley looked inwards at Dunn who kept pulling the trigger several times after his gun was empty. He was panting heavily, and did not stop trying to shoot until Foley said, "Corporal, your arm." Dunn finally stopped firing, then lowered his gaze to his left arm. He stared at the rip in his sleeve, the blood around it, and the shaft of the spear right next to it. He turned his head and followed the shaft all the way to the spearhead that was lodged in the wall behind him so far he knew if it had been thrown a foot to the right, he would have been impaled through the heart.

Ramirez looked around the room at the dead soldiers scattered on the floor. He saw movement and dropped the magazine from his weapon, quickly putting in a new mag that he grabbed from his side, and replaced the empty one. He pointed the barrel of the rifle down, and put a bullet into the wounded officer's head, stopping his movement. Dunn was wrapping his arm in a bandage to stop the bleeding, but he turned his head at the sound of another silenced shot, and muttered, "Damn man, they didn't even put up a fight."

"That's what we were going for," Foley said. "Now get your ass moving upstairs. We're taking control of this building." He grabbed Dunn by the back and pushed him in the direction of the closest staircase, then turned to Ramirez who was still staring down at the man whose head he just put a bullet through. "Ramirez!" The soldier spun to his commanding officer, and Foley pointed his gun back into a doorway the direction they just came from. "Guard the entrance! If anyone comes in here, you know what to do."

Ramirez nodded, then jogged back down a hallway with his rifle risen. Foley heard shouts of panic down that hallway, then he spun and ran towards the staircase he sent Dunn towards. Ramirez might not have powers like many of the men I've fought with on this world, but he's the best soldier I've ever known. Gotta have faith he'll watch our backs here. Foley reloaded his weapon as he started up the stairs, but when he got to the top he was surprised to see Dunn had stopped running ahead. "What's wrong soldier?" Foley questioned, marching up to Dunn's back.

The Corporal was just out of the top of the stairwell, standing in a hallway and looking down it with eyes as wide as saucers. Foley stepped up to Dunn's side and turned right to see what had him so stupefied. Foley's bottom lip dropped and the Sergeant lifted up his rifle. Dunn snapped his back up too seeing what his commanding officer did, but the younger man whispered as he did, "This is weird man. I mean, what the Hell happened up here?" Dunn looked down to his right at a man slouched against the wall, a blood stain smeared down from a little higher up down to the back of his head, almost like the figure was thrown so hard his skull cracked on the steel wall. His armor was shattered around the left side of the chest, and half of his face was burnt off so his skull was visible beneath.

Dunn turned from the butchered figure and looked around the hallway at a half dozen other figures who looked the same or worse than him. "Whoever did this saved us the trouble," Foley said, and he started walking down the hallway towards their intended destination. He never put his rifle down as he walked, despite what he said aloud.

"Whoever did this," Dunn repeated slowly, "is Goddamn crazy."

"Quiet Corporal," Foley snapped, as they were about to reach the door at the end of the hall. There was a keypad next to the door that they had been carefully keeping track of what the password to it was over the last several months. That keypad was sparking and the door on its side was blasted right off its hinges, lying on the floor inside the next room in two pieces. Foley pressed his back against the wall on the side of the door closer to where the bigger half of the room on the other side was, so that anyone in there would not be able to see him even if he was right up in the doorway. Dunn stacked up behind him, and Foley could hear the heavy, nervous breathing of the Corporal behind him.

"…I repeat, all troops report to the North Gate of Pyraxas. An enemy battalion is coming around to flank us. In case an enemy taps our communication, command will use a clearance code for all further transmissions: Tango Epsilon Niner. I repeat, all troops report to the North Gate of the Lower Residential Area." The man leaning over the communication station stepped back, pulled back his right fist, and punched it forward at the machines in front of him. A fireball flew out of his fist and slammed into the machines, causing them to explode. Then, he spun around with his other fist pulled back and a dark expression on his face.

"Hold on there," Foley said, holding his assault rifle up from only a few meters away and pointing it straight at the young man's head. The man before them was wearing thick Fire Nation armor with parts on the shoulders that spiked out to the sides. He had a black bun over his head as was the style for many men in the Fire Nation, a handsome face with small eyes and a well-defined jaw, and blood all over his hands. Sergeant Foley narrowed his gaze at the man, and he spoke in a low, serious voice, "I just heard the report you made, are you Resistance too?"

Dunn kept his rifle steady as he faced the young man in front of them, as he was not planning on burning alive today. "Didn't know there were other spies in the city," Dunn muttered, and he gulped as the soldier before them turned his way.

"You're telling me the two of you are Resistance spies?" The soldier questioned. Neither of them had seen him before, but there were thousands of soldiers in the base who Foley and Dunn had never seen in their time in the Fire Nation's First Royal Battalion. The man kept his fist raised and he glared at the two discerningly, before questioning, "Was it you who set off those explosions then?" Neither of the two in front of him responded, but Foley gave a small nod after several seconds. The man in Fire Nation armor lowered his fist, and after a second, Foley nodded at Dunn before lowering his own rifle. Dunn took a second, but he followed his Sergeant's order and lowered his gun too.

"Who are you?" Foley questioned, keeping both hands on his gun, but holding it horizontally in front of his body now to be less threatening to a supposed ally. "Are you part of the Resistance?"

"No," he replied, and he looked Foley in the eyes before taking a deep breath. "My name," the man began, "is Lu Ten." The two in front of him did not show any recognition to the name, so the figure continued, "My father was Iroh, the firstborn son of Azulon." That name was one the other two had heard before, not only because of the bridge to the south that had its name.

"Azulon, as in the son of Sozin?" Dunn questioned in surprise.

"Yes," Lu Ten responded. "When I first discovered the Fire Nation had been reborn on this world, I came hoping to find my father. However, I discovered that my grandfather had killed my father, and ruled at the side of my great grandfather before his death in the Second War of the Gods. To get revenge for my father, I entered the army under a fake name. I had been biding my time to rise through the ranks and find an opening to kill the Fire Lord, but the events of today have led me to believe I can get my revenge right now."

"Kill the Fire Lord huh?" Foley asked, lowering his rifle more now and relaxing his muscles. "Then we've got the same mission. We've got an ally in the city who is impervious to fire, and he's the one we're putting our bets on." Lu Ten's eyes opened wide and the former Prince clenched his fists.

"You're welcome to go take him on yourself though," Dunn mentioned. "From the looks of things in here and in the hall, you're a pretty strong fire bender."

"I have practiced every day for over a year to get strong enough to defeat Sozin," Lu Ten said, "but I do not pretend to think I could ever face him in a one-on-one fight. Sozin's power grows every day. If you say there is an ally in the city who can defeat him, I will do everything I can to support that person."

"Well sending all the soldiers to the North Gate was a good start," Foley said, impressed already by the disguised soldier's actions. "It's going to be a long day though, can we count on your help?"

Lu Ten nodded his head. He turned towards a nearby window on the south side of the building that faced the Royal Palace walls, a determined expression on his face. "Today," he started, "Sozin will fall."

---

Royal Palace, Pyraxas

"Princess Azula," an old woman with white hair in a bun over her head bowed to the younger woman and then to the man who walked in behind her. "And Prince Yonji. What are you doing here?" She unbowed and faced the two with a look of hesitation on her face, though she hid it well.

"Caretaker, surely you have heard the explosions outside," Azula said, while walking forward and brushing right past the older woman. "I have come to see my kin to safety." Azula opened the door past the old woman on the other side of the large room full of bright colors and toys. She peered inside, but the bedroom was empty, she did not have to look far inside to see that. Azula turned back around and faced the woman behind her, "Where are they?"

The dangerous, malice-filled expression on the Princess's face made the old woman fear for her life, but also made her feel that she had made the right choice. "Princess, I must ask that you leave."

"What did you say?!" Azula screamed.

"I am under strict orders from your great grandfather, High Lord Sozin, to protect Azorai and Soren-"

"Protect them?" Yonji questioned, his voice smug as he took a step towards the old woman's back. She started turning to him, but he lashed out when she was only halfway turned and wrapped an arm around her neck. "What can a feeble old woman like you do to protect them?" He squeezed tightly and forced the woman to keep staring forward at the Princess whose eyes darkened as she walked forward.

"You will tell me where you hid them," Azula said, her smirk growing as she neared the frightened older woman. She rose up her hands and electricity started sparking on her fingers, "Those twins born bathing in that most powerful light will become the strongest fire benders who have ever lived. Their mother who died from constant exposure to that energy during her pregnancy would have wanted their blood to raise them."

"Their father-"

"Let me rot in a dark void for months!" Azula screamed, and the man behind the old woman holding her around the throat looked over her head and into his wife's eyes, to see a ravenous look on Azula's face. "The cold, empty, darkness that Xigbar put me in. It was torture! And my great-grandfather did nothing to punish him! He does not know how to treat family," she narrowed her eyes and brought her hands forward, zapping the old woman and making her scream. "But I do. Now tell me, caretaker, where have you hidden the boys?"

"AHHHH!"

---

Upper Residential Area, Pyraxas

Clank. Clank. The two huge steel double doors closed behind a small group of pirates who just entered the Upper Residential Area from the southeast gate. Nami turned her head to look behind her, then lifted her gaze to the top of the gateway and along the wall up there where soldiers were lining up on the edge and lifting their rifles. "I knew it was a trap," she muttered, "it's always a trap."

"Surprising so many of them are still back here waiting for us," Robin mentioned, as she looked around at the roofs of nearby elegant buildings and down the roads closest to them where soldiers were appearing out of nowhere. Men and women filed out of doorways and lined the roof of every building they could see. "I had thought more would have chased after Luffy and the others."

There were only five people in the group that just walked through the wall. Other than the two female pirates glancing around at their enemies, there was also a blond-haired pirate chef, and a shaky-legged pirate sniper holding up his Black Kabuto slingshot, though he kept moving it around as he could not pick a single target to focus on. There was also a young man wearing a yellow tank top with a black X on the front of it that's lines crossed from his shoulders down to his waist, and who had on a pair of black gloves that matched the dark pants he was wearing. Nami, Robin, Sanji, Usopp, and Riku stopped looking around at their enemies and all turned their attentions to the road in front of them where the Fire Nation soldiers on it moved to the sides.

A man behind the pack of soldiers started walking forward, with thirty men behind him marching in lines three wide and ten back. The uniforms on these soldiers, their red handkerchiefs, the hats that looked so similar if not for the red color and the word 'Sun' before the word 'Marines,' they all looked so similar to the five watching them march down the road. "What is going on?" Usopp whispered, his voice sounding so confused.

"Straw Hat Pirates!" The man walking towards them yelled out. "Even on a new world, you have not changed your evil ways! Once a pirate, always a pirate it seems." He fanned his face and then snapped his arm forward to point it at his enemies. "You have disturbed the peace of this great city, and now you will face the consequences! I, Admiral Komei, will defeat you!" As he shouted it, the men and women on the roofs pointed their rifles down at the road, the soldiers of the Fire Nation who rushed out of buildings to surround them rose up their swords, and Komei himself grinned as his plan fell into place.

"Wait!" Nami yelled at the man in front of her.

Komei had not yet given the order to fire, and the Admiral paused before he did. "Cat Burglar," he said in a condescending tone, "what could you possibly have to say?"

Nami gulped as it seemed like this man really was a Marine from their world who recognized her. She found her confidence though and called out, "The Marines aren't our enemies!" The soldiers behind Komei who all wore Marine uniforms only with red highlights instead of blue looked confused at what she shouted. "Aokiji is leading the Marines back on Awul, a smaller continent across the Great Ocean. We allied with him!"

A few of the men behind Komei glanced at each other, looking deterred a bit by what she shouted. Komei looked shocked at first when the younger woman mentioned Aokiji, but he narrowed his gaze and yelled, "Even if that were not nonsense, there are many Marines all over the world who have banded together to form their own Marines! We are the Sun Marines though, and our allegiance is to the Fire Lord whose capital you have invaded!" The Marines behind him steadied their weapons and started glaring at the pirates ahead of them again.

"Who's the Gensei of your Marines though?" Sanji questioned. "They can't have more authority than Aokiji, so you should still, be…" Sanji faded off as Komei started smirking when Sanji was speaking.

"Ha! The man in command of the Sun Marines does have more authority than Aokiji, in this world and the last! On our world Aokiji was no longer even a Marine, let alone an Admiral! The Gensei of the Sun Marines however, was the former Fleet Admiral, and Commander in Chief of our world's Marines, KONG!" Nico Robin's eyes opened huge at that as she had heard that name before. Komei frowned as he suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet shake, and heard an explosion in the distance. "Men!" Komei yelled, and he rose up his fan again. All his soldiers at the ready prepped their weapons for attack, while the enemies in front of them got ready. "Attack!"

"Thunderbolt Tempo!" Nami yelled. The woman who had been stalling for time with her argument, and had been twirling a part of her Clima Tact behind her back the entire time, connected all three pieces of her weapon and swung the blue climate-controlling weapon down in front of her. The Fire Nation soldiers and Sun Marines all over the roofs and gateway snapped their gazes up, right before the bolts of lightning dropped down on them.

Komei spun his head left and right and frowned deeply at the sight of dozens of his men collapsing. A few shots went off from men aiming at the group near the base of the gate, but Riku sped in front of them with a Keyblade in hand, slashing bullets apart at incredible speed. He then shot away from the group he was with, towards the closest and fastest soldiers charging them from the right of the street. Sanji saw what direction Riku went to and was about to head the other way to take on the majority of their remaining enemies, but he felt something coming fast from in front of him with his Observational Haki. "Diable Jambe!" He yelled, heating up his right leg fast and raising it, attempting to block the strike from Komei who suddenly rushed him.

Komei's fan extended before he slashed it at Sanji, extended and covered in a dark black coating of Haki. Sanji clenched his teeth in pain but pushed his leg back as hard as he could against the Marine Admiral. This guy's no joke! Sanji thought, as he felt his own bones creaking, and saw the wall of a building on the side of the road shatter from the force of the two of them colliding. Nami fell backwards from the wind pushing behind Sanji, and Usopp crossed his arms in front of his face to protect himself. Robin also crossed her arms, but she called out as she did, "Cien Fleur!" The Marines running after Komei yelped or screamed as arms appeared out of all their bodies and grabbed them by the heads and arms and legs. "Clutch!" Robin shouted, but an instant before her arms snapped the men backwards, she felt weak and dropped to her knees, unable to finish her attack.

Robin snapped her gaze up as she fell, looking towards the men she had grabbed, and she saw one of them on the left side of the group had up a pair of Sea Stone handcuffs, ones that he had put around one of her wrists with quick thinking to make all of her arms vanish and turn into flower petals. "They have Sea Stone?" Nami questioned, turning to Robin who dropped down in front of her. She took a step towards her friend to protect her while she was catching her breath- Bang! Nami snapped backwards, blood splashing from her chest close to her right shoulder.

"NAMI-SAN!" Sanji yelled in fear. Usopp spun right and looked in horror at the woman falling backwards with blood splashing out of her.

"CURAGA!" Riku was suddenly behind Nami, his left arm holding her up, his right wrapped around the hilt of his Keyblade that blasted a huge amount of green light around them.

Nami gasped, the pain filling her vanishing, though she was still terrified. Bang! Riku's eyes opened wide as he was still holding up Nami and would have to drop her to get in front, and the moment's hesitation he had made it so he would never reach around in time. The second bullet was more on target with Nami's heart, having missed by a few inches the first time. It made it halfway the distance, before a small black ball slammed into the bullet and created an explosion in midair.

A mile and a half away, inside a fifth story window of an expensive hotel, Kansho leaned back from the scope of his sniper rifle, sweat appearing all over his face as his shot was intercepted. He had seen the man who shot at his bullet too, and the sniper's face gave him chills at how angry it looked. He picked up his rifle and prepared to move, when a window on the floor below him shattered. Kansho snapped his head down as the floor shook, then started sprinting for the door as fast as he could. He was too late, as the floor beneath him cracked and collapsed, tree trunks breaking through the floor and growing rapidly around him. Kansho tried jumping towards the door, but the trunks twisted and turned and wrapped him up between branches that grew more every second.

"Midori Boshi: Forest Trap!" Usopp shouted as he lowered his slingshot.

Komei parried off of Sanji's leg, and he spun his head to look away over a mile to where he had had Kansho set himself up. The Admiral glared at the greenery surrounding the fourth, fifth, and sixth floor windows that continued to grow thicker for a few moments before coming to a stop. He spun back around and glared towards Usopp, then back at Sanji who kept his flaming leg up and was glaring at him hard with his swirly eyebrow narrowed down. Sanji's look was full of hate after Nami got shot, but Komei had a steady, determined look on his own face. "Black Leg, your Haki is impressive. However," Komei snapped his arms to the right, then swung them around over his head and a dark aura surrounded his entire body for a moment as his fan became even more focused with Haki. "My will is stronger than yours!"

Robin pulled herself back up to her feet, and Riku steadied Nami who gulped but stopped shaking after a second. She nodded at the man behind her who looked carefully at her before releasing her shoulders. "Thank you," she whispered in a hoarse voice, but Riku said nothing in response, only walking up on her side and glaring forward at Komei like the rest of Nami's friends. He rose up his left hand and a flash of white light surrounded it, before creating an all black Keyblade that gave many of the enemies in front of him the chills. Usopp pointed his slingshot forward, holding part of it back with a Pop Green already nocked. Nami reached down and picked up her Clima Tact that she had dropped when she was shot, and though still afraid from what just happened, she calmed herself down as they were stuck in the thick of it. You're a pirate! Get a grip. Remember whose crew you're on. You're on the crew, of the man who will become the Pirate King! Nami's eyebrows narrowed in and she glared forward at the soldiers who were shocked to see such a serious, unwavering look on a woman who almost just died. Her attitude unnerved them more than any of the stronger fighters around her.

Komei stopped swinging his arms, and he glared through a dark aura around his face at the enemies in front of him. "Prepare yourselves fiends," he began yelling, then leapt off the ground and pulled his weapon back, shouting as he shot towards them, "to face true justice!"

---

Royal Palace, Pyraxas

Inside the tallest walls of all of Pyraxas, the Royal Palace stood. The largest building in Pyraxas, it took up half of the space inside of the eight mile long wall that encircled it. The Palace itself was situated closer to the northern side of the highest section's walls that still only reached to the top of the building's first floor, while on the southern side of the Palace there was a huge, beautiful courtyard. There were two gardens with paths through it so the Royal Family could take walks in them, but between those gardens was normally a wide open area with a floor made of marble. In that area at the moment however, there were eight large steel robots, the largest of which was three times bigger than the others. Standing on top of that thirty meter tall white robot with blue spikes on its shoulders shooting up even higher than its head, was a gorilla beastman who had a huge hammer strapped to his back.

Thymilph stood atop his Ganmen, Byakou, glaring up at a man floating in front of his ship. "What do you want?" He snapped, not hiding his animosity towards this figure in the least.

The man in front of him had a muscular torso underneath the pink kimono and long-sleeved black undershirt he was wearing, at least, where his body was not made of metal. His face showed the fact that he was a cyborg thanks to the glowing red eyes protruding from his head and the round steel plating on the sides of temples. He had a single long braid of black hair, and his arms were crossed beneath the bottom of it behind his back. "Is that any way to speak to your superiors?" The man questioned, looking down his pointed nose and rising up a little so he could look down on the beastman better.

Thymilph snarled, then growled out, "What do you want, Ambassador Tao." He had to seethe the words through his teeth as he hated how saying the man's title. How could the Spiral King bow his head to the damn Androids? Our military might alone should make him a High Lord!

"The fighters on their way here are more than Sozin is prepared for. You will remain here and fight to your last breath," Tao said, smirking at the angered reaction he got out of the beastman.

"And where are you going?!" Thymilph roared. "If you think they're so strong, why don't you get off your high horse and go fight them? Or are they too much for even you, Ambassador?" Thymilph smirked as the man in front of him glowered down at him, his eyes glowing darker red. Suddenly, Tao was gone, and Thymilph's face covered in sweat as he felt cold steel against the side of his furry neck.

If I was not under strict orders… Tao thought, before the sharp blade extending from his right arm retracted back inside his body and a steel hand moved back into place. "Know your place, Lord Thymilph," Tao said. He then turned away from Thymilph's back, and flew off to the north, rising high up to fly over the top of the Fire Lord's Palace.

Thymilph glanced backwards at the former mercenary who was flying away. He wiped some sweat from his face and then started glaring at the top of the Palace once Tao was out of sight. The way Tao mocked his title as 'Lord' enraged him, especially after the Ambassador showed that he was clearly stronger with his display of speed. It was the reason Thymilph did not retort- well that, and he thought Tao might actually kill him if he did.

The beastman with light-blue fur and much darker blue armor growled under his breath, then turned back forward and dropped the far distance to the ground. He landed with a fist slammed into the floor, then stood back up and marched forward towards the other seven Ganmen lined up in front of him. He marched between the legs of the center one in the line and watched from a short distance as Zachary Miller shouted orders to the highly trained Royal Guards around him. Only a few of the soldiers here were wearing Fire Nation uniforms, as most of them had on black body armor, or no armor at all for a few of them who relied mainly on speed.

A few of the men in front of Miller noticed Thymilph behind them and they turned to the Lord. Half of them were beastmen, but a few were different species as well, though none were humans. They walked towards Thymilph who looked around at them, still glowering thanks to his brush in with Tao. "Get inside your Ganmen," he ordered, thinking about what the Ambassador told him. "The enemies will be here any minute," he added.

The men saluted him and they started for their Ganmen, but Thymilph roared, "Not you!" One of the figures in front of him spun in surprise as the shout was directed towards him. The figure had the muscular torso of a man, but his skin on his upper body and face was green, a slightly lighter shade than his long blackish-green hair. The lower half of his body extended backwards like that of a horse, only with white fur. And his face looked like neither that of a man's or a horse's, but of a serpent complete with narrow yellow eyes with red pupils, and a serpentine tongue sticking partially out of his mouth. The Chimera Ant turned to Thymilph questioningly, and Thymilph growled at him, "You are being replaced on the Ganmen squad, Yunju."

Yunju's eyes went wide, and then the Chimera Ant hissed with his tongue before growling, "What did you say?"

"Your loss in the south was unacceptable," Thymilph snapped. "Running away with your tail between your legs. You embarrass this squad, and your species."

"Watch yourself beastman, the King is a Chimera Ant like myself," Yunju hissed.

Thymilph did not think about that before he made his insult, and he regretted saying that now that he thought about it. He kept a pissed-off expression on his face, but at the same time did not want Yunju to go off repeating what he just said, so he improvised fast. "The Fire Lord demanded that I punish you," he lied. "But if you bring me the head of one of the invaders," Yunju's eyes narrowed, and the Chimera Ant's mouth curled into a dangerous smirk as Thymilph finished, "I'll reinstate you in my elite squad."

If the Fire Lord said so, there's nothing I can do. There are worse punishments Sozin could have given me than getting to kill one of these humans with my bare hands. "I'll bring you a head," Yunju said, then continued while licking his lips, "but you don't mind if I eat the brain before I do, right?"

The crazed, hungry look in the Ant's eyes gave Thymilph chills, and the gorilla beastman muttered, "Do what you will."

Yunju grinned and turned away from the Lord, galloping over to his Ganmen. Thymilph glared at him closely, wondering what the Chimera Ant was doing, then he snarled as Yunju leapt right up to the cockpit of his robot. He was about to shout at the hybrid monster to get out of it, when Yunju leapt out on his own, only with something in one of his hands. Yunju landed on the white marble ground and he put the belt around his body where his horse half merged with his human side. "I'll be right back," the Chimera Ant said, glancing one last time back towards Thymilph and the others in his former squad, a squad he planned on re-entering very soon.

Thymilph watched as the soldier ran off, then he looked around and saw most of the other soldiers, not just the ones in his group, staring his way. "What are you idiots looking at?! Get back to it!" His men rushed to their Ganmen and the other guards under the Captain of the Royal Palace's security force listened to Miller's commands then ran off themselves. After Miller finished giving his orders, he jogged towards the beastman Lord in the courtyard with him. "Lord Thymilph," he started, and the beastman turned to the man who bowed his head a little in respect. "Now that you have a Ganmen open, I will-"

"Not get it," Thymilph interrupted, and took a step towards the man who stepped back nervously at the angry look the beastman gave him. "No human will step foot in one of my Ganmen. Got it?" He glared into the visor in front of Miller's face and straight into his eyes.

Zachary Miller nodded his head and replied, "Yeah, I got it." He bowed his head again, then turned and ran off to go coordinate the defense from inside. Crazy bastard. He'd rather leave one of our best weapons empty than let me use it. Heh, probably a smart move. If things go south here, I'd probably take it and get the fuck out of here. Probably still will, he thought, and smirked to himself knowing that Thymilph could not see his face. BANG! Miller stopped when he was still twenty feet away from the white steps leading to the front doors of the Palace. The Palace extended out on the sides of the entrance, jutting out before the gardens so that there were walls ten meters away on either of Miller's sides. BANG! He turned from the door in front of him, following the building's east wing with his gaze before hitting the east side's garden and the trimmed hedges in it, some of which had the visage of the Fire Lord on them. BANG! He continued turning and looked straight behind him, watching as Thymilph leapt up in the air to get in his Ganmen, as the others powered up and stood off the ground, raising their arms and pointing weapons towards the giant reinforced-steel gates on the south side of the Royal Palace's walls.

The Captain of the Royal Guard gulped, then turned and sprinted inside as fast as he could. The massive gates that could withstand a punch from Thymilph's strongest Ganmen, (he had seen the beast try it before), were denting inwards with every loud bang Miller heard. Inside the Palace doors that Miller slammed shut behind him, a few guards stared at their Captain with wide eyes at the nervous glance back he made to the doors behind him. "Zero," Miller said, refocusing ahead on the middle of the three men in front of him. At least she let one of them stay behind, Miller thought, as the mutant in front of him stepped forward, not looking disturbed in the least unlike the other three with him. The mutant man had narrowed eyes and a small mouth, and he said nothing as he whipped out two pistols from his sides and unloaded then loaded them in a matter of a single second. "Don't let anyone through these doors, got it?" Miller ordered.

Zero narrowed his eyes at the human in front of him, but after a second he nodded without making a sound. Miller started jogging away down the hall to the left to go inform others of what was going on, and Zero glared at his back as he left. Phoenix told me to stay here and listen to these bastards until she makes her move, but I doubt the bitch- FUCK! Lady Phoenix. Never fucking even THINK that about her. She could always be listening. Zero got some sweat on his forehead and the Asian man wiped it off, unnerving the other guards with him who thought he was getting nervous about their enemies outside. "Let's get outside. No point in guarding the doors from in here," Zero said, and he started marching forward to the front doors of the Palace. "Anyone gets behind you," he said as he grabbed the doors, speaking to the hesitant two men behind him, "I'll kill you myself."

The men dragging their feet picked it up and raced to the opening doors with weapons in hand. Zero pushed the doors open with his hands still holding a pistol each, and then the mutant dropped his jaw as he stared across the courtyard at the massive gateway covered in huge dents. "…GUM GRIZZLY MAGNUM!" Zero heard the end of a scream coming right from the other side of the gate, and then his eyes opened even wider as the massive door to the Palace courtyard fell inwards, breaking apart in the middle with two black hands bashing through it, each one a quarter the size of the door itself. The massive black hands Zero could tell were covered in Haki had their palms stuck out and all their fingers curled out like the claws of a bear.

The arms pulled back outside the gateway while the doors slammed into the ground and rose up some dust. Several of the Ganmen took steps back, but they all kept their cannons or swords risen as a shadow appeared in the dust. The figure marched forward and dust settled around him as he stopped moving directly in the middle of the gateway. Thymilph's eyes opened wide from inside the cockpit of his Byakou, at the sight of a man wearing a straw hat standing there, cracking his knuckles and glaring forward into the courtyard seriously. A second after all the enemies staring at Luffy felt unnerved by the man who took down Saix's appearance, they all lost much of their fear as Luffy's serious expression vanished and his eyes turned starry.

"Franky look!" Luffy shouted, pointing his hand forward while his eyes shone bright. Franky walked up behind his Captain, his left arm raised as he was ready to support him in whatever they were walking into, but Franky's arm dropped and his eyes grew wide at the sight in front of him. "Giant robots!" Luffy yelled in glee.

This things are huge! Franky Shogun took me a while to build, do a bunch of these High Lords have armies of mechs like these? Franky looked around at the robots that looked plenty powerful, and he told his Captain, "Luffy, this isn't going to be, easy!"

"Men! Attack!" The robot in the back charged forward right before Franky finished telling his Captain, and the cyborg shouted the end of it while throwing his arms back up in front of his body.

"Franky, RADICAL BEAM!" His arms trembled and out from the point between the hands he had held up, a beam of white light flew out and shot towards the tallest white robot shooting around the rest of the others. Thymilph reached an arm of his giant mech to the right as he took a step next to one of his men, and with a sharp tug he threw the smaller Ganmen in front of the white beam flying towards him. His sensors told him what type of attack it was, and the inside of his cockpit was blinking red telling him he needed to evade. His method he liked better though, and as Franky, Luffy, and most of Thymilph's men gawked at the sight of Thymilph sacrificing one of his men into a huge explosion, the leader of the Ganmen squad came flying out of that explosion, leaping up in the air with a huge sword straight up above his head.

"RAAA!" Thymilph roared, terrifying Franky who ran to the left and dove for cover. Luffy was pissed at this guy for sacrificing his own man like that, but the pirate could also see how strong this attack was and he pumped his legs fast, before shooting himself to the right to avoid the sword slash. Thymilph continued swiping down and he slammed into the empty gateway's floor beneath where Luffy was standing a second ago, and he cut straight through the floor, making both sides of the ground where he slashed smash up into the air. Huge rocks flew towards Franky and Luffy and sent them flying, even as the cyborg crossed his metal arms in front of his body and Luffy hardened his with Haki and did the same.

"What are you idiots waiting for?!" Thymilph yelled, his voice echoing in the cockpits of the five remaining squad members behind him. The Ganmen Thymilph threw in front of the beam attack came out of it and landed on the ground sparking, a few pieces broken off of it like its entire left arm, but the cockpit was still intact. Those men who were hesitant about following a leader who just sacrificed one of them looked down and watched as the sparking Ganmen's legs moved, and the cyborg who landed under a huge piece of marble pushed it off of himself, only to gawk in shock at the robot he attacked getting back up to its feet. The other five around it raced forward, but only one of them moved towards Franky while the others all shot after his Captain. This did not make Franky think he had it easy off though, as if one of the Ganmen could survive one of his strongest attacks, he did not want to have to face this one and the damaged one behind it that had an angry beastman inside screaming at him for attacking, deciding to focus his anger at Franky and not his own squad leader for sacrificing him.

"Fire everything!" the furious lion-like beastman yelled, slamming his hands down on his control panel as blood came down the left side of his face. There were blinking red lights inside his Ganmen, but he was pulling levers and pressing buttons and getting every piece of his machine that still functioned focusing on the sole task of killing Franky. The sole arm his robot suit still had opened up and a dozen missiles popped out of its sides, while the malfunctioning targeting program showed the crosshairs zipping back and forth on the glass in front of the beastman. He focused, focused, then slammed a fist down on a red button to fire the missiles when the crosshairs went right over Franky. There was half a second lag between when he hit the button and when the targeting system stopped moving around, but the crosshairs were close enough.

"Franky Fireball!" Franky yelled, puffing his chest forward. A huge ball of fire slammed into the Ganmen charging at him with a ten meter long sword pulled to the side. The flames surrounded the machine and since it was made of steel it heated up fast and the beastman leapt up in the air to escape his cockpit from getting too sweltering. Franky grinned and let out a deep breath after firing all those flames from inside him, then the cyborg dropped his jaw and his eyes bugged out as through his flames shot a dozen missiles all aiming straight for him.

"Franky!" Luffy shouted. In his mind he watched all those missiles slam down around his cyborg. Any direction Franky could run, he would still be stuck in the blast, an unlikely consequence of the lion beastman's targeting system sending the missiles in a wide range around him. The missiles were too close for Franky to raise his left arm and fire bullets into all of them, but the cyborg was going to try and shoot at least the one that would explode closest to him. The missiles were curving through the air, and Luffy tried shooting towards him already inside Gear Second, but although he made it between two of the five enemies around him, the Byakou appeared in front of him with its left palm pointed at him, a circular opening in its center that glowed bright blue.

The pirate too focused on his crewmate's safety did not see Thymilph coming until it was too late. His eyes clenched and he crossed his arms, only for the blue light to get brighter before firing straight into him, making the pirate scream as he was only able to cover part of his body in Haki in time. Franky would have been worried as he heard Luffy scream far to his right, but he was too focused on the missile dropping straight towards him while his arm was pointed the other way at one that turned off course suddenly to show him he did not even have to worry about it. "FU-" the cyborg started cursing, swinging his arm back around while constantly unloading machine gun fire up in the air. He would not have made it, but a second before the missile slammed into the ground, it exploded in the air. The blast was still close enough to Franky that his feet skid back across cracked marble and he had to raise his right arm over his face to protect from the heat melting off his prosthetic skin.

When Franky lowered his arm, all the other missiles around him were dropping down, only for all of them to suddenly explode like the one closest to him. Franky's eyes opened huge, then through the flames of those missiles dropped the Ganmen that leapt up in the air to avoid Franky's Fireball attack earlier. It had its sword lifted high over its head and Franky could not move his feet in time as he had dropped down to his knees after he skid back from the explosions. Like the rockets though, this attack never reached the pirate whose jaw dropped lower than it had all day, and whose eyes hurt because they were trying to widen more than the parameters he had built for his eye sockets would allow. The cyborg no longer had to wonder what stopped all those missiles, as a figure wearing all black flew straight over his head and into the center of the falling Ganmen, slamming his right hand forward as he did with a giant swirling ball of blue energy on the end of it, and yelling out, "MASSIVE RASENGAN!"

Luffy hit the grass inside a garden, bounced, flew through a hedge that looked like a person, before hitting the outer wall to the Royal Palace. Still, as he bounced away from his cyborg, the sound of that voice made his eyes snap open wide through the pain. "KI-" when he hit the wall he stopped yelling, as he hit face-first and was imbedded inside it for a second. Then, the pirate captain pushed his hands into the wall to pry his head out, which he spun a hundred-eighty degrees with his rubber powers and looked back through the garden and past all the Ganmen at the sight of the teenager floating in the air with pieces of Ganmen blasting away from him back towards the Palace. "KIRITO!" Luffy yelled towards the teenager, his voice full of shock.

"YOW! Where did you come from lil' bro?!" Franky yelled up in the air above him.

The teenager who already threw a dozen shuriken to intercept the missiles and save the pirate looked down and behind him at the cyborg on the floor who had some melted skin around his body but other than that looked mostly okay. What the Hell? Why are Franky and Luffy here? Kirito opened his mouth to call down to the cyborg, when he heard something coming with his Observational Haki and snapped back towards the direction he sent a robot smashing into pieces a second ago. The other Ganmen still furious at Franky was charging forward, with the arm that fired all the missiles transforming to become an automatic kind of mega-rifle. It pointed its gun forward while sprinting and Kirito could hear the creature inside yelling and it began to fire. Huge bursts of yellow light shot out of the arm rapid fire towards the teen in the air and the pirate still on the ground behind him.

Thymilph's wide eyes narrowed again and he took a deep breath. He was grateful that one of his soldiers managed to keep attacking, as the appearance of this fighter meant trouble for all of them and he was flustered by his arrival. Komei said we can't let the members from opposite groups meet up. I had no idea he meant that the two groups knew each other. Thymilph heard the other two shout this figure's name, and he grimaced even more as he had received new information about this particular fighter not long ago. The one who defeated Ra's. I shall defeat him and present his head to the Spiral King for a Lordship in our own territory! "Ganmen squad, focus all attacks on the one they call Kirito!" On the glass screens in front of the seats in the cockpits of every Ganmen, Kirito's face and a list of his feats and known powers appeared. The other Ganmen facing Luffy turned around, while the pirate captain himself snarled that he was being ignored.

Luffy started running back towards the center of the courtyard, when Thymilph yelled out, "Zero! Take him out!"

Bangbangbangbang Rapid fire shots rang out from the courtyard not far from Luffy, as the mutant running towards Luffy pulled the trigger several times per second. He left the other two who came outside with him near the door while he fired at the pirate trying to avoid him. He has Haki, Zero thought, and he started firing around Luffy in positions he would dodge to. The nimble mutant leapt up in the air thirty feet, flipping as he did and firing the entire time. When he was at the height of his arc, he dropped his mags, slammed his guns down at his waist where full ones were waiting, and continued firing at Luffy in just a second.

Luffy's Observational Haki overloaded as he heard bullets coming from all directions. He was out of Gear Second, and he could not get into it in time to dodge the bullets. The mutant landed behind Luffy's back and he smirked as the pirate was unable to dodge at least five of his bullets. Zero turned around to the thin man in a red shirt, blue pants, and a straw hat standing behind him with his head bowed. Luffy's head snapped up though and Zero took a step back, as Luffy grinned at him and shouted, "That won't work on me!" Zero stared in shock at Luffy's body, specifically his chest in between the sides of his opened shirt where two bullets had hit and were pushing his skin so far in they broke through the fabric on his back. Luffy's skin snapped back to shape though and the bullets whizzed by Zero's head as fast as they were originally shot out of his gun, "Because I'm rubber!" Luffy yelled.

A serious look appeared on the pirate's face while Zero took another step back. What the Hell am I going to do- Luffy appeared in front of him, not even Gear Second, just moving so fast that it looked the mutant could not even start to dodge. Zero's eyes were widening as he saw both of Luffy's fists still back in the position the pirate had been standing in, and Luffy yelled out, "Gum Gum Twin Bullet!" Both of his fists flew forward, hitting Zero on either of his pectorals and sending him flying back towards the Palace, straight into a window on the east wing where he vanished inside of. Luffy's eyes followed where he just sent the mutant flying, and the pirate snickered, "Shishishi."

Luffy threw his arms out in front of him while turning his head left. "Take care of these guys Kirito!" Luffy yelled. Kirito dared a glance away from all the Ganmen he was facing on his own, and he gawked at the sight of Luffy rocketing himself straight through an already-broken window into the Palace.

Thymilph would have capitalized on Kirito being distracted, but he was too enraged and flustered himself at the sight of Luffy entering the Palace. The Fire Lord will have my head! Thymilph thought. "You men!" Thymilph yelled while spinning back to the Palace front doors. He was going to yell at the two men near the door to go alert everyone to the pirate's infiltration, but sweat appeared all over his face, and he stared in shock at the sight of both armored guards lying unconscious on either side of the open doorway to the Palace. What the Hell?! Thymilph thought, then heard an explosion behind him and was forced to spin back and continue his assault on the flying ninja behind him.

Meanwhile, just inside the front doors and jogging at a calm pace down a hallway, a fourteen year old with spiky white hair chuckled at how easy it was to sneak in. As soon as that gunslinger headed after Luffy, and all the Ganmen were focused on Kirito, I could not have asked for a better opening. Killua saw a foot stepping out of a hallway connecting with this one.

"I heard they need help out in the courtyard!" The man in front of the group of five rushed underneath Killua who was flat against the ceiling with his arms spread out, his fingers digging into the flat surface to hold himself there. His finger strength alone could hold up his body, but the speed at which he had to react and jump up made a bead of sweat roll down his nose. He crossed his eyes and stared at the sweat drop angrily, yelling at it mentally to stay on his face.

"Captain Miller's sending everyone to the front, shouldn't we leave a few guys at the back door? We received word from Royal First Battalion Command that there is a mass of enemies flanking us from the north." Killua's ears perked up at the sound of what the man in the back of the group who just ran beneath him shouted. Only one of his hands was still stuck in the ceiling, as his other was clenched in a fist below his face, having caught the bead of sweat as it dripped off to prevent any of the men from feeling it fall on them. Killua flipped himself on the ceiling so his stomach was to it instead of his back, then he spider-crawled along it the direction he was going, turned right down the corridor those men just came from, and finally dropped to the floor.

The kid let out a sigh of relief, then thought as he continued jogging, Coming from the north? Even if we did have allies helping us, they would be coming in from the sides. If they really wanted to catch the Fire Nation off guard though… no, it still wouldn't make sense strategically. The only thing I can see, is that we have an ally at Command who's causing their men to scatter where we aren't. Actually, the allies we have are probably allies of Kirito. If he's here, then they probably found the Resistance and got sent up to take out the Fire Lord. It makes sense with Natsu being with them. Killua frowned as he thought about the last day he and Natsu had been together, how the Fire Dragon Slayer had glared at him while asking which group he was going to go with. I, probably would have gone- It doesn't matter now. He thought, stopping himself from thinking about the hypotheticals.

Killua's face hardened and he picked up the pace of his jog through the building. He sped up when there was no one around him and took the stealth option at every opportunity. I managed to get this far without killing anyone, he thought with a grin as he sat inside a vent, holding the grate shut with one hand's fingers while being careful not to let the screws he had ripped straight out when he ducked inside fall out of his other hand. He watched the three guards run right by him, then waited five seconds, before popping out of the grate and leaving it and the screws on the floor as he ran off. By the time anyone sees those, the Fire Lord will be dead. Everyone else I can get away with letting live, but not him. Besides, if I take down one of the High Lords, whew! I'd be known as one of the strongest people on this continent. And who would ever want to get in a fight with me then? …Unless, the King gets mad if I do it…

The former assassin came to a short stop in the middle of a hallway, and the thought he just had echoed over and over in his mind. Even if he does, I have Goku and- Except, I haven't seen either him or Timmy for weeks. I can't survive against the King on my own. I won't be on my own though, but they can't stop him either! If I don't though, one of them will anyway, and if he's going to come after me, he'll still come after one of them, who I'll be with. So, then the risk is the same whether or not I do it, unless I leave, them. Killua's frown could not get deeper. No, the risk would still be there. The King saw me with them when Ben turned back time, he might hunt me down anyway just for being a part of the group. The main risk then, is against the Fire Lord, the short-term risk. And I can take on a High Lord. I'm the best suited to. Out of all of them, I have the least risk of dying if I face him!

Killua sprinted off, turning corners and opening every door he ran into. When he reached the third floor on the north side of the building though, he knew he was in the right place. The hallways were twice as tall on this floor, the windows were made of stained glass, with beautiful murals depicted in each of them. The colors of the windows were mainly yellow, orange, and red, and Killua saw a lot of religious imagery in regards to the Fire Nation symbol and the man he guessed was the Fire Lord himself who was always much taller and more radiant than all the others depicted in the glass. He ran down the hallway that's red walls were draped with long Fire Nation banners, and in between each banner were crossing spears or fancy armor that Killua had not seen a single soldier wearing.

Then he saw it. In the middle of the hallway, the doors stretched so high and were so ornate, they could only be to a single room. Unless it's his bedroom, Killua thought, trying to make a joke though he did not smile at it. He stayed as serious as could be, and he darted to the entrance and stood in front of the crack between the double doors. A few seconds went by as the boy caught his breath, collected his bearings, and prepared himself for what was beyond the door. "Come in," a deep voice bellowed on the other side of it, before Killua had a chance to reach for the doors himself. The kid's serious expression deepened even more, as the Zetsu he had started since entering the Palace was not effective against the man he assumed was the Fire Lord. I'd expect no less from a High Lord, Killua thought, while reaching up his hands and pressing them flat against either door.

Kil pushed open the doors and entered the largest room in the Royal Palace. He stared across the room and the figure sitting on his throne got up and stared all the way back at him. "The first challenger," Fire Lord Sozin boomed, orange flames rising all around the sides of his throne, the stairs below it, and the edges of the room.

The kid took some steps inside and came to a stop as the doors slammed shut behind him. Killua's eyes narrowed and a grin spread across his face, as he said in his most confident tone, "And your last."

---

Upper Residential Area, Pyraxas

"RAAA! Come face me like a man!" Natsu roared from atop a tall building in the western Upper Residential Area. Dozens of rooftops around him had craters and slices cut out of them, and Natsu was panting heavily as he glared around. I wish I knew that damn Haki! He always knows where I am, but I keep losing him all over the place. Sneaky bastard knows this city like, well like he lives here. The Fire Dragon Slayer growled to himself, then smirked as he had a good idea. "Screw it, I didn't even want to fight you anyway!"

Natsu had a shallow cut on his left arm, a dark blue bruise on his left cheek, but he decided to stop fighting the annoying Admiral who had been chasing him around the city for the past five minutes. He started sprinting over the roof and he leapt back towards the Palace gate he had reached earlier, before Komei had dropped behind him while he was trying to bash it down. In a single leap he made it almost halfway back, and the mage grinned as he saw it in his peripheral vision. "Fire Dragon's-" he began, raising his right hand that had a small bit of space between his palm and his curled fingers. Natsu leapt again, then spun around so he was flying towards the gate but with his back to it, so that his front was facing Admiral Komei who was pulling his long Haki-hardened fan back behind him at that moment.

Komei's eyes opened wide, and Natsu roared, "SPEAR!" The flames sparking in the gap in his hand suddenly burst bright and extended out to either side of his hand ten meters. Natsu threw his giant spear of flames back at Komei who had to slash his fan down in front of him. Cutting fire was easier said than done however, and although Komei split Natsu's spear straight in half, the flames that split on his fan still slammed into either side of him. He only prevented a head-on collision, so he yelled out in pain and fell backwards, while Natsu finished his spin and landed down on a building close to the wall.

The mage did not turn and go back to finish off the Admiral. A part of him wanted to, and he hesitated when he landed on that building not far from the Palace walls, but a voice echoed in his head. "You are the most important part of this plan! You have to be the one who faces Sozin!" Natsu ignored Komei who he knew was strong enough that his Fire Dragon's Spear would not take him down for good. Instead, he bent his knees extra far, then sprang up in the air towards the highest walls in Pyraxas. This time he did not head for the gates that he was finding so hard to break through before when Komei ambushed him, he just leapt straight up high enough that he landed on top of the walls surrounding the Royal Palace of the Fire Lord.

Natsu landed with his knees bent and his hands flat on the ground between his feet. He landed on the edge of the inner part of the wall, and when he looked down his eyes bugged at the sight inside the courtyard. Down there were over fifty teenagers in black cloaks who he recognized, slashing swords and using ninja skills against the elite guards who were pouring out of the Palace front doors and charging him. What was more crazy than the battles between all the humans though, was the fact that five giant robots were thrown into the mix, along with the craziest thing of all, a cyborg Natsu recognized very well. Franky?! What the Hell is he doing down there?! Natsu stood up and was about to shout down there, but three things caught his attention before he did.

The first thing Natsu noticed, was that there were guards up on the wall with him, and a few of them on either side had noticed his presence and were turning their rifles inwards towards him. The second thing he noticed, was that one of the Kiritos flying around through the air had seen him as well, and that Kirito gave him the harshest glare possible in that single second Natsu saw his eyes. He knew Kirito wanted him to go straight inside without joining in the fight out here, and Natsu had to remind himself why it was he stopped fighting Komei in the first place. The final thing Natsu noticed in the single second before he was going to jump down and shout questions at Franky, was that behind all the Kiritos, guards, and robots, there were a group of guards clustered at the front doors to the Palace. A few men lay unconscious next to the doors, and the men seemed to decide something, sending half of them back inside while the other half ran out to join the battle against Franky and the Kiritos. Someone's already inside, and if Franky's here… There's no way you're getting there first, Luffy!

Natsu ignored the men pointing rifles at him, and he just bent his knees again then leapt straight towards the Palace in an even higher leap than the one he made to get on the wall in the first place. The guards fired their rifles anyway since they thought they could get Natsu, but they were too slow and many of their beams crossed and crashed into each other.

Franky heard some yells above his head and he looked up to see three men falling off the wall above him, two of them yelling in pain with less blood splashing from them than the third guard. He quickly shifted his gaze from them though, to the pink-haired mage he had not seen in over a week who was soaring over his head. Franky's head snapped down as he heard a yell and saw one of the Ganmen ahead of him turning its huge mechanical head to follow Natsu's trajectory through the air. It rose up an arm and a massive barrel extended from its hand and pointed straight at Natsu. The Dragon Slayer's body surrounded in flames as he flew towards the west wing, while the Ganmen's barrel glowed bright red like something was about to be fired.

Clank! Franky slammed shut his opened chest compartment and his eyes glowed white for a second. He snapped his arms up in front of him, and both of them shook violently with a bright white light growing even brighter than the red one of the machine ten times as large as him. "SUPER FRANKY RADICAL BEAM!" He shouted, and all the Kiritos and other guards fighting near him spun around as a beam of light flew up in the air towards one of the Ganmen. The one who was aiming at Natsu saw a flash in the side of his vision and started turning his head, making the head of his Ganmen turn that way as well, and the beastman inside the machine did not even manage to let out a scream before the explosion rocked the courtyard.

The dome of white light kept expanding from the shoulder connecting the Ganmen's rifle arm and its body, all the way to the ground below that cracked and sent rocks flying in every direction. The wind was already enough to lift several guards and ninja clones off their feet, but the shrapnel from the blast took out twice as many. Thymilph snarled as he watched machine parts fall all over the floor, and he turned furiously towards Franky while thinking, I should have let Yunju stay. We need all the help we can get back here. The gorilla beastman covered in blue fur and armor plating grinned again though as he stared at the cyborg whose brightly colored arms dropped to his sides after the attack.

All of the new Cola bottles inside Franky's chest were empty, and the cyborg dropped his mechanical bottom jaw and let out a breath of steam. He started breathing more staggered breaths and although he knew he had to reach back into his pack and grab some more Cola to recharge on, he needed a moment to even be able to lift back up his arms. His eyes focused past the fading explosion as he caught his breath though, and Franky smirked between wheezes at the sight of a huge flaming hole in the wall of the second floor of the Palace. The cyborg glanced to the other side of the building at its east wing, where there was a similar looking hole on the same floor. He could not help but chuckle as he thought about the two who entered the Palace, Wish I could be there when they see each other, the cyborg thought, right before getting tackled away by a teenager who saw coming what Franky could not.

A huge explosion blew up the ground where Franky was standing a second later, and the Shadow Clone pushing him away yelled out in pain as it was caught in it. The clone exploded, then Franky roared in pain as the blast hit him next, though he managed to survive it thanks to the teenager fighting by his side. The real Kirito looked away from Thymilph whose Ganmen's torso he floated ten meters in front of. Kirito could hear laughter from inside the Byakou and he grimaced at the sight of Franky slouched against the wall all the way on the other side of the western courtyard, his head bowed so his chin was touching his chest and no movement at all coming from him.

Thymilph kept laughing as he saw a Ganmen and ten of the Palace guards rushing the injured cyborg, then the gorilla's deep laughter caught in his throat as three figures shot past all his men faster than any of them were moving. The Kiritos ninja-jumped right past their enemies, got to Franky, and spun around making a triangle around the cyborg to protect him. Thymilph turned back and glared at the teenager who snapped his head back as well towards the largest Ganmen, Byakou, with its better weapons and stronger white armor that Kirito was finding hard to put a dent in with his attacks. I can use my Devil Fruit powers, but the larger the object I try to Crack, the stronger it is too, the more it exhausts me. There are still too many enemies all around me, and I am one of the strongest of my friends. Even if Luffy's group is here in the city somehow, I can't let myself be taken down this easily. Not like Franky, he grimaced at the thought, but there was no helping it as he now had to portion off some of his clones to protect his injured ally. He deserves the protection though, he gave Natsu the chance to get inside. All I can hope for now, is that they can take down Sozin before I'm forced to use up too much strength here.

"Kirito," Thymilph growled at the figure in front of him who he could see was deep in thought. "I am Thymilph, One of the Four Supreme Generals of the Spiral King. Tell me, are you human?"

Kirito frowned deeply at the question, but his Haki already told him that the creature inside the Ganmen was not himself human. "Yes," Kirito responded, and he heard a guttural growl come from behind the red eyes on the front of the Ganmen's body that made the robot itself look alive. An idea formed in Kirito's head as he glared at those red eyes, They're glass. I might not be able to Crack his steel casing easily, but if I can make a hole in there large enough to throw a Kunai, I could take him out without ever disabling the Ganmen. "Thymilph, what may I ask, are you?"

"That's LORD Thymilph to you, human scum!" Thymilph roared, the anger of losing this battle to a human of all species more infuriating than anything. How? He thought as he swiped his arms up fast, and almost hit the flying teenager in front of him who was better at flying without wings than ever, but was still not back up to the agility he had when he had fairy wings. Thymilph slashed back and forth, then right as he was coming down with a swipe that looked on-target, a Rasengan hit him in the right knee of his Byakou and he got knocked backwards, just enough that the tip of his Ganmen's arm missed Kirito's body by a few feet. A beam fired from one of the elite guards hit the Kirito clone who was distracted saving his own real body, destroying that one, but Thymilph still thought in rage, HOW!? How can a human face half a dozen Ganmen without a mech of his own?! He is no Kryptonian, no Saiyan, no Android! How can my elite soldiers be falling one by one, to the likes of scum like him?!

"RAAA!" Thymilph roared, clenching his Ganmen's hands into fists and slamming them down on the ground beneath him. The ground shook like it did when Franky's final attack went off, and twenty men running around the courtyard got lifted off the ground by the tremor, messing them up whether they were on Thymilph's side or not. He glared up at the Kirito he had been facing who was saved by one of the others, This one is the real one! He rose his fists from the ground and his hands opened up in the middle of his palms, allowing tips of missiles three times as large as the ones Kirito destroyed before to reveal themselves pressing out from inside his arms. Kirito's eyes opened wide, while inside Byakou, a flashing red crosshair on Thymilph's monitor locked-on with a loud ding. "Targeted missiles!" He yelled, and both rockets fired out of his arms towards the teenager who looked up and started flying straight towards the blue sky above. "FIRE!"

Three Kirito clones on the ground looked up and saw the original flying off. They shot up to give chase after the missiles following him, each one four times as tall as any one of them. One of the three flying up tried swerving out of the way, but the Ganmen he had been facing was not letting him get away, and though missing the punch with its huge blue fist, it was already lifting its other hand and the giant pistol held in it that it fired point blank into the Shadow Clone.

The other two Shadow Clones who kept flying up surrounded themselves in white auras and tried picking up their paces. The rockets are too fast! Both of them realized at the same time, giving each other a nervous glance as without their wings they just could not put on the extra burst of speed they needed right now. The Kirito highest in the air and with the most at stake looked down, and he saw his two clones flying up after the missiles behind him. Like them though, he came to the realization that he was not as fast as the missiles that were quickly gaining on him, and if he was not fast enough to escape them, then the clones were not going to be fast enough to intercept them for him.

Go go go go! Kirito tried picking up speed and flew so far up that he broke through a thin cloud he did not see in the air when he started flying. He broke a hole in it, then three seconds later two more holes popped through it ten meters apart from each other. Kirito looked down and he saw the distance of the two holes, each one equidistant from the hole he himself made in the cirrus cloud. No it's crazy! He thought, yelling at himself for a thought he never even had that felt more like an instinct. Still, that idea he never thought coherently was the only idea he had, and the missiles were getting closer every second. Fuck it, don't die! The teenager flipped in midair so he was pointed straight down, and he flew as fast as he possibly could straight towards the planet.

The two clones below Kirito just popped out of the cloud themselves, and the two stared at him like he was an idiot as he dove at the two missiles. Kirito opened his mouth and yelled at the top of his lungs, "AAAAAAHHHHH!" The white aura around him flared and he doubled his speed, diving straight between the two missiles that were only three meters away from him on either side at the moment he passed between them. He kept screaming as the two missiles above him turned inwards to follow him down, and the two Shadow Clones realized it an instant before it happened, their jaws dropping right before the pointy tips of the two rockets dinked into each other. BOOOOOOOM!

"AAAHHHHH-" Kirito kept screaming as he flew away from the explosion, but the blast was too fast and hit his feet as he shot out of the sky. The soles of his shoes burnt through fast and he tried pulling them down away from the flames, which resulted in his back getting hit next by the full brunt of the explosion. His cloak burst into flames and he let out a roar as his back bent against the force of the colossal blast.

The two Kiritos below the one getting thrown out of the air flew up, but before either one of them could catch him, the force of the blast hit them as well. The force was not very strong considering they were a good distance away from the explosion, but at the strength Kirito was at at that second, neither one of them could handle it, and they exploded in puffs of smoke with shocked looks on their faces.

Five remaining Kirito Shadow Clones in the courtyard suddenly saw in their heads what those two clones saw before they disappeared, and all of them snapped their gazes straight up in shock. Thymilph smirked as he was still looking up, but he could see in the bottom of the screen in front of his face the look on the face of a Kirito clone facing one of the other Ganmen with him. There were still fourteen elite guards outside, having earned their elite status for a reason and managing to keep up in part with Kiritos many Shadow Clones. Other than the Byakou, there were still four other Ganmen standing as well, though two of them were missing an arm each. All of the enemies saw where the remaining Kiritos were looking and shifted their gazes to the sky. And every single one of them smirked at the sight of a figure covered in smoke falling through a thin cloud that looked to be one of the only ones in the clear blue sky.

The last Kirito remaining in front of Franky's unconscious body snapped his head down before any of the five enemies or the Ganmen in front of him. He thought about attacking them while they were off guard, but only for an instant. His second thought, and the one he went with, was to turn around and slam a fist into the wall Franky was leaning against. The enemies nearest him turned around, and they gawked at the sight of a crack splitting the wall from the floor all the way to its top. The two guards who had been shooting down, and one of whom had actually managed to take out one of the three Kirito clones protecting Franky, were thrown to the side as the surface of the wall between the two of them exploded upwards.

The Kirito Shadow Clone took the shock his enemies felt about him completely cracking the wall to his advantage, running forward and grabbing Franky by the collar of his tattered Hawaiin shirt, and dragging the pirate shipwright through the thickest part of the gap he made in the wall that was right at the bottom. Franky was so broad at the shoulders, that after Kirito sprinted through the wall, he got jammed up by the robot he was pulling behind him back into the Upper Residential section. The wall was too thick from one side to the other to just yank harder and pull him through; Kirito himself was only halfway through the wall when Franky got stuck at the exit of the courtyard.

Kirito's enemies started laughing and one of them pointed a rifle towards the cyborg's still-bowed head. Right as his finger tightened on the trigger however, a fist slammed into the back of his head and sent him face-first into the floor, and then the teenager clone who was closest to the courtyard and flew there as fast as he could, slammed his other fist forward straight into Franky's gut so hard that the cyborg's eyes snapped open and he coughed up blood and spit all over that Kirito's face. "WAKE UP ALREADY!" That clone shouted while Franky was sent pushing through the wall and into the back of the Kirito who dragged him that way.

Franky smashed straight through the Kirito he did not even know was behind him, while the one who punched him landed on the courtyard side of the crack in the wall and spun to face the other enemies who all chose that moment to attack him. "Don't let the other one escape!" Franky heard a voice shout from through the crack in the wall as he landed on the other side, down on his right hand and his knees, while he had his left hand up to his gut and was rubbing it in pain from the punch Kirito just gave him.

"What kind, of way, is that, to wake, somebody, up?" Franky gasped out in pain and exhaustion. The cyborg dropped his left hand to the ground as he was too tired to even hold it up to his stomach and longer. "Cola," he mumbled, and he managed to lift up an arm and slide his huge pack off of his back. Franky frowned as his pack was nowhere near as thick as it was when he first filled it with over a hundred bottles of Cola a few weeks before, no matter how hard he had been trying to conserve and refill old bottles. Only three more full recharges in here, but even a full recharge at my current state, he coughed as he thought it and watched as some more blood hit the ground beneath his bowed head. An explosion went off through the crack in the wall ahead of him, and Franky growled as he reminded himself of what was going on inside. My human body makes up only a small percentage of this robot. I can SUPER take it! Franky popped open the bag he dropped in front of him, and with a loud clank, the steel plating in front of his aching gut opened outwards. But damn, Kirito sure packs a punch.

---

Upper Residential Area, Pyraxas.

"HeeheHEHEE! Found some!"

The two pirates jogging up a street, literally as the road they were on was clearly slanted up in elevation towards the Royal Palace which was why they were taking it in the first place, came to a stop together as a figure ran down the same road straight towards them. Sanji's eyes opened wide at the sight of the creature, while Nico Robin's eyebrows lifted up at the appearance. A hybrid of several creatures. Part horse, part man, and part snake from the looks of it. He is most likely a Chimera Ant.

Yunju galloped down the street faster than a car would, but his hooves skid to a stop when he was still twenty meters away from the pirates, a good enough distance to speak to them from. The figure had white fur all over his horse half, though the tail sticking out of his rump was a deep red. His skin on his face and torso was green and his hair was a much darker shade. Yunju shook his long hair around and he smirked wide, slithering his tongue at the two ahead of him. "Humans! Prepare to-"

"Veinte Fleur," Robin said calmly, and twenty arms appeared all over Yunju's four horse legs. The Chimera Ant had just started running again, but he snapped his head down with shock all over his face that anyone would have upon seeing five arms coming out of each one of your legs. The legs grabbed him around different parts of his legs, from right above his hooves to clenching his thighs, and then as Yunju looked back up into the woman who spoke's eyes, his own doubled in size at the evil grin she gave him before saying, "Twist."

"AHH!" Yunju screamed as his legs were not only pulled out from under him, but twisted in different directions as far as Robin's arms could pull them too. The Chimera Ant slammed down on his torso and face and skid down the street a few feet, while his legs flailed around kicking all the arms off of them and into flower petals.

Robin dropped her crossed arms, but she did lose her grin as the Twist did not work as it should. "His legs were too strong," she said, signaling to Sanji to stop praising her as he had been for several seconds, and to turn back to the enemy in front of them who kicked his hooves down and returned to his feet.

"RAA!" Yunju yelled at them, the reds in his eyes becoming more pronounced. A white aura surrounded the Chimera Ant, and Robin and Sanji felt a lot worse about the enemy than they already were. "You fuckers!" Yunju roared in a pissed-off tone. He eyed the woman carefully, then smirked in a crazy way and reached down to the bottom of his scratched-up muscular human torso. The pirates watched where he was reaching to, and both of them went even wider-eyed at the sight of the creature ripping six balls of red and white off of a belt he had separating his animal and human parts.

"Damn it," Sanji growled. He's going to make us fight his Pokemon? Bastard. Sanji's eyes rose over the Ant's head and towards the high walls of the Palace only a mile away from them. He saw a lot of smoke rising from the other side of those walls, and there were a few other areas around the Upper Residential Area itself that had explosions going off in them too. Everyone's too far dispersed. That Marine Admiral left for the Palace when the other Marine shouted something about an intruder nearing the western gate, and we were able to push through his men without him there, but when they regrouped behind us I thought it was smarter for me and Robin-chan to guard the other's backs. Thought we would have caught up to them by now, but I didn't expect this bastard to block me from getting back to Nami-swan.

"Are you so low that you will send out Pokemon to do your fighting for you?" Robin questioned, giving the Chimera Ant a condescending glare. The way the beast called them "Humans" earlier made her believe that it would be easy to antagonize the hybrid creature by acting better than it to damage its pride. She frowned though as the creature only smirked even more menacingly, proving to her that his distaste of humans went to a point that he truly believed them to be lower than him, and thus her insults would not impact him at all.

"Pokemon?" Yunju questioned, and Sanji and Robin both tensed up. Their eyes focused on the pokeballs, sweat forming on their faces as Yunju cackled madly, "Hehehe! Heeehehehe! No, not Pokemon," he tossed up all six pokeballs, and out from them flashed bright red lights. The lights formed a line on the street between the pirates and the Chimera Ant, and Sanji and Robin each took a step back in horror at the sight. Half a dozen people formed out of the red lights, terrified expressions on their faces, and steel anklets at the bottom of their legs. They had collars on and were all naked, the two humans, the shorter dwarf whose beard was shaved off, the blue-skinned troll with orange hair and scars all over its body like the others, the purple night elf whose eyes kept darting around while she trembled, and the Pandaren whose black and white fur looked hastily shaved off leaving him mostly pink. "I don't keep, Pokemon," Yunju said, before cackling louder than ever at the expressions on the pirates' faces.

"ATTACK!" Yunju screamed before the pirates had a chance to yell at him for this barbaric act of slavery. The pirates snapped their gazes to the figures in front of them, and despite them looking like they had been through Hell, each one of them appeared to be a warrior from the way they grabbed staves or swords from the straps on their torsos that were the only materials any of them were wearing.

"Please, help us!" The human woman yelled, even as she sprinted forward with a broadsword clenched in her hands. Tears flowed down her face, while the human man who appeared next to her rose up his staff so it glowed blue at the top, before firing a rapid-fire blast of magical energy down the street at the pirates. The troll slammed the butt of his bumpier staff than the human's down on the floor, and a red circle appeared beneath him, making every one of the others' weapons glow red as well.

The woman's scream echoed a hundred times in Sanji's head, and he roared as his entire body burst into flames. "HOW DARE YOU?!" He roared, ceasing Yunju's cackles in an instant. Sanji shot forward, ducking under the slash of the woman's sword, and kicking off the air beneath him to dodge the dwarf and Pandaren's attacks. Sanji flipped in the air and then came down with one leg extended out towards the Chimera Ant who he was infuriated at. Yunju's white aura was still around him though, and the Chimera Ant took two gallops forward before jumping up and leaning his upper body to the side as he punched forward right into Sanji's flaming aura. The muscular green arm came inches from colliding with Sanji's chest, when the chef tapped his foot that just missed the Ant's body, and pushed him into a front-flip over the beast's head. He pressed a hand flat down on top of Yunju's skull while his legs flipped over the top of his body, then slammed both of them down hard on the horse's back.

Yunju slammed down into the ground and each of his white legs bent down, but the street cracked before his legs did. The street cracking took off some of the pressure from the kicks, and Yunju twisted his upper body with an expression of pain on his face, slamming his other fist behind him at Sanji's legs still pressing on his back and igniting his white fur with his flames of rage. Sanji bent a little and pushed off the Ant's back, but even as Yunju's fist passed under his feet, the Ant smirked and Sanji saw that look on his face a second too late. The chef snapped his head up as he felt it finally with his Haki, but the magic had already locked onto him and he could not dodge the huge purple blast from the night elf woman that hit him in the face and created an explosion sending him backwards.

The female elf yelped and her eyes grew wide at the sight of the man falling out of her explosion with his head snapped backwards. He was falling to the floor, but Yunju wasn't going to wait for that to happen and he sprinted at Sanji and shoved the bottom of his front right hoof straight into the chef's face, before turning it down and slamming Sanji's head down into the ground at a force that cracked the road around him. Sanji's legs flew up, but the night elf woman looking on in horror was already pointing her staff his direction with another purple light glowing on the top of it. Right before another of her most powerful attacks was fired, two arms appeared out of each of her wrists and knocked the wooden staff from them. She was thankful for a second and darted her gaze behind her to the other pirate, only for her grateful look to vanish at the sight of three of her downed fellow slaves who had charged Robin, and the woman to be glaring furiously at her for what happened to Sanji.

Thirty more arms appeared out of the purple-skinned woman's body, while the four already sticking out of her wrists reached back and held onto her tight. The woman was about to scream, when he heard a voice yell, "DON'T!" Robin's eyes opened wide and she darted her gaze past the girl her arms were surrounding, to the figure lying on the floor with a hoof on top of his face. The hoof was so large that Sanji's eyes were not visible under them, but somehow the chef knew, and he screamed it through his bloody mouth again. "Don't do it Robin-chan!" Sanji lifted up both of his legs straight up, then slammed them each down as hard as he could on the ground below him while covering them in a deep black coating of Haki that Robin had never seen Sanji manifest so clearly before.

The ground beneath Sanji and Yunju had cracked when the Chimera Ant stomped him into the ground, but the cracks that Yunju made were pale in comparison to the epic shattering of an entire quarter mile of road to either side of Sanji. The houses on his sides broke at their foundations, cracks shooting up the walls and all of the windows shattering. Yunju stumbled as the street directly below him was the most unstable, and as he fell, the rest of Sanji's face became revealed and the Ant felt true terror at the look on the human's face. He scrambled backwards, and the pirate chef kicked his legs up again, then did a full three-sixty spin to slam a foot still coated in Haki straight into the right side of Yunju's jaw.

The Ant's jaw dislocated and teeth came flying out of it, cutting up his serpent tongue as they did. Blood splashed out of the Chimera Ant's mouth, then the foot that kicked him, and had stopped only a foot past the jaw it had kicked, changed directions and slammed backwards just as hard with the heel, only this time it was a little higher up on the Ant's face and hit him in the ear, then the temple, then made his yellow and red eyes bulge out as he was completely lifted off the floor and thrown at a hundred and fifty miles per hour into the ground up the street from where they were standing. He hit a large chunk of road that had been uplifted when Sanji smashed his legs down, and he broke straight through it before hitting the ground on the other side and bouncing, then doing over fifty cartwheels through the air before slamming into the thick southern walls surrounding the Fire Lord's Palace.

Anyone in the southern half of Pyraxas who looked towards the wall after hearing the loud crash from it dropped their jaws at the sight of a web of cracks shooting out in all directions from a single crater on the wall close to the southern gate. Yunju's head imbedded so far in the wall that his body could not even fall from it, so anyone looking towards the wall's crater just saw what looked like a white horse limply sticking out of the wall.

As tens of thousands wondered who would do such a thing to a horse, Sanji dropped down to his feet while at the same time taking out a cigarette. He put the cigarette in his mouth while lifting a lighter in front of his face, flipped the top up, and took in a single deep puff before the blood dripped from the end touching his bloody lips all the way to the lit side, putting it out before he could take a second drag. "Look out!" A voice yelled on his left, and Sanji turned to see the night elf woman had picked up her staff and was pointing it at him again.

Robin thought about attacking the woman, but Sanji's shout echoed in her mind and she shifted her gaze around fast. She smiled and crossed her arms, saying, "Doce Fleur-" Anyone still standing close to Robin looked around and spotted her twelve hands appearing all over the ground, all of them popping up in pairs. The six pairs of hands grabbed a pokeball each, then Robin said, "Snap," and each of the sets of hands pulled away from each other, ripping the pokeballs in half. The night elf pointing her staff at Sanji and urging her hand as hard as she could to unclench gasped as her fingers suddenly flew open, and the staff fell from her hand in what she thought was slow motion while her eyes focused on her fingers, and she watched as she herself controlled how they wiggled.

The other two slaves still standing dropped their weapons too, both the male human and the troll gasping over and over as they stared at their hands, wondering if their nightmare was truly over. Robin felt bad for these people, Just how long have they been that monster's slaves? What kind of things were they forced to do for him? It is too terrible to think about.

Dunk The sound of the night elf's staff hitting the floor at her feet snapped her out of the stupor she was in. The woman looked up towards the blond man whose face was so covered in blood, who was calling over to Robin that she was so smart for destroying the pokeballs. Sanji was still in the middle of praising her when he saw what was coming out of the corner of his eye and he turned in surprise. He watched the purple-skinned humanoid creature charge straight at him and for a second, both he and Robin thought that breaking the pokeballs did not actually work. Robin hesitated before stopping the woman though, and she sighed as the night elf threw her arms out and wrapped them around Sanji who was too shocked to speak, and then unable to speak anyway as his mouth was covered up by another's.

"Oh no," Robin said, rubbing her forehead with a hand in exasperation. "He has already lost too much blood," she said, before the night elf girl pulled herself away from Sanji in fear that she had hurt him because of all the blood coming out of his nose like a faucet. Sanji started stumbling around, mumbling incoherently and making the woman in front of him hold her hands together in front of her chest with wide eyes. "Do not worry," Robin said as she walked up to the two of them.

"What have I done?" The creature who looked very humanoid, and very attractive, questioned the woman whose calm expression actually put her at ease. "Is this normal for a human on your world?" The night elf questioned.

Robin smiled at her then turned to Sanji and said, "No, but then again, this is no average human." Sanji must have heard her voice through his delusional state, because Sanji's heart-shaped eyes turned back to normal and he yelled with glee at what Robin said. Then, when Sanji turned to the beautiful girl next to her, Robin continued in a serious voice, "Sanji-san, we must get to the Palace."

Sanji froze with his mouth open, and as much as he wanted to enjoy another kiss, another passionate, amazing kiss, with the woman he freed, he thought about what Robin said and calmed his heart down to a fourth of its skyrocketed beating rate. "Y-Yeah," he said, taking a few deep, heavy breaths to help calm him down and remind him of where he was. Aebrith, Pyraxas, we're fighting the Fire Lord and all of his armies. Sanji's mind was rattled even before the kiss, and he reached up a hand and grabbed his forehead as it flooded with pain from that stomp to the face he received.

"Are you okay?" the night elf questioned, while the human and troll who were holding their staves again were walking towards the three.

The troll saw Sanji grabbing his face and could already tell just from his appearance how badly he was injured. "Allow me," it spoke, its voice deep and with a strange accent the pirates had heard somewhere before laced in it. Sanji, Robin, the human, and the night elf turned and looked to the blue troll who was already taller than the rest of them by a foot without the spiky orange hair that added another foot on his height. He rose up his staff and the top of it glowed green, a color Robin and Sanji already associated with the magic he was about to use thanks to their Keyblade-wielding friends. The healing light that the troll shaman covered Sanji in felt just like a dose of good-ol' Cure magic from the pirates' friends, friends they were reminded of by that magic, one of whom they knew was facing danger at that very moment.

Sanji stole one last look at the beauties in front of him, then turned to the two men on his left. He nodded at the troll in a way that showed he appreciated what he did, and the men nodded back as the debt they owed was worth much more than a simple spell. "Look after the ladies," he ordered the two, and the night elf on his right opened her eyes in surprise, while the human woman was still unconscious on the ground nearby. Sanji then turned the rest of the way, knowing that if he looked at the women again his eyes would linger and he would waste more time. "Let's go Robin-chan," he said.

"I am with you Sanji-san," Robin replied, and the two of them started running up the street, following Yunju's path of destruction to the walls above.

The three still-conscious powerful slaves who Yunju captured during his time on Nexus watched their saviors run, then the human mage took a step forward. "I can not let them face the wrath of the Fire Nation on their own," he said, raising back up his staff and narrowing his gaze towards the walls in the distance where he knew powerful fighters awaited Sanji and Robin.

"I was about to say the same thing," the night elf said, her eyes still stuck on Sanji's back, her heart racing as she watched him run away.

The two were about to start running, when the troll spoke again in its Jamaican accent that reminded the pirates of the Grim Reaper, "Do not be so fast to leave your posts." The two others spun around and looked at the troll in a confused way, but the troll was walking down the street until he was past the feet of the Pandaren lying unconscious on the ground. He rose up his staff and slammed it on the floor beneath him, "Do you not recall what our saviors said? We are to protect the others," he knew it was not exactly how Sanji worded it, as did the other two, but all three of them could see the force of Sun Marines and Fire Nation soldiers running up the block from down below. As much as they wanted to go join the fight with their heroes, protecting their rears made each of them feel just as honorable.

The night elf snuck one final glance behind her to the form she could only barely see now in the distance. Goodbye, my prince.

---

Eastern Gate of the Royal Palace, Pyraxas.

Juvia and Kairi stood together with their backs to the giant gate behind them that Kairi had unlocked with her Keyblade but never managed to push open. They were backed up against the gateway's giant doors, because of the cloaked figure in front of them who floated upside-down with a big smirk on his face. "Oh ladies, what's with those dirty looks your giving me?" He turned right-side-up and continued to float in place with his twin arrowguns in hand. The weapons, called Sharpshooter, looked a little like crossbows thanks to the round section on top, but the weapon's design meant more than that, as the round piece on top had spikes on its sides that made it nearly identical to the symbol that all blank Nobodies had on their bodies. Underneath the top part of the arrowguns were sharp blades that wrapped around the triggers his hands were wrapped around, and on top of the weapon extending from the round part straight out was one long spike, out of which all the attacks flying at the two girls had been coming from.

"Kairi," Juvia whispered, as she glared at the figure in front of them who was looking at them with such a taunting expression. "Who is this man? He is wearing the same cloak-"

"Xigbar," Kairi said, and from the tone of her voice, Juvia could tell that this was someone Kairi had ran into before, and not in a good way. "What are you doing here?" Kairi called to the figure with long gray hair pulled into a ponytail behind his cloak. He had black gloves on around the hands he had on his Sharpshooter, and the scar-faced Nobody had an eyepatch over his right eye.

"I'm here for you little lady!" Xigbar called down, then pointed his arrowguns out to the sides and fired a few red laser arrows in random directions. After half a second of them shooting away from him, distortions in space opened up and the glowing arrows vanished inside them.

Juvia's eyes widened, then she felt a hand grab her by the arm and had no idea why Kairi was tugging her away from her current position. As she was yanked away though, the Rain Woman's eyes opened wide at the sight of a spacial rift opening up above where her head just was. Five red arrows dropped out of the hole in space where Juvia just was and slammed into the floor where they ripped through concrete like it was butter. "Xigbar has power over space," Kairi said, letting go of Juvia while raising up her hands and clenching them both tight around the hilt of her pink Keyblade. "We must be careful of him, he is Rank II of the Organization."

"Kairi Kairi Kairi," Xigbar said, leaning his head back and speaking down to her. "What have you got there? You finally get yourself a Keyblade? Well it's about damn time girl," Xigbar laughed and he slammed the arrowgun in his left hand on top of the one in his right. The two weapons merged into one, and Xigbar held up the extended Sharpshooter, before snapping it down so the point was aimed straight at Kairi. "But in your hands, that legendary weapon's nothing more than a toy to a guy like me!" Xigbar's weapon started shaking, and Kairi and Juvia's eyes both went wide.

"Move Kairi-san!" Juvia yelled, this time being the one who sprinted forward and grabbed her friend by the arm as she did. She sprinted only five feet when a huge blue blast of light shot from Xigbar's weapon towards where the girls were just standing. "I don't think so," he said as they looked like they escaped its range, and the two girls running away opened their eyes huge as the space around them distorted. Xigbar did not make his attack vanish and appear somewhere else to fly at them, the two girls ran straight into one of his rifts, and found themselves sprinting straight towards the incoming attack.

BSSHH! The huge arrow of blue light collided with the two girls and they both screamed and flew backwards. Their backs slammed into the gate to the Palace, and Xigbar laughed as they slid down it and hit the floor at each other's sides. "Oh man, I don't believe this," Xigbar taunted, putting a hand against his chest and leaning back laughing. "Geez, Sora from two years ago crushed me, but you, hahaha," Xigbar's yellow left eye gazed straight down into Kairi's as she opened them back up. "You're not even worth my efforts."

Kairi ground her teeth and she ignored the blood on her elbows, and the pain in her legs as she pulled herself up to her feet. "Out of all the Keybearers I've fought over the years, you have gotta be the weakest… by far." Xigbar added the last part just to throw salt in the wound, but although Kairi winced after he said it, the girl stood firm and re-clenched the hilt of her Keyblade with both hands.

"Cura," Kairi said. Xigbar opened his mouth to laugh, but the green light did not cover the Keybearer below. Instead, it covered the other woman who was a little older, who had pushed Kairi back a bit right before that last attack hit and Kairi knew was hurting worse than her. Green light surrounded Juvia, and the mage's half-closed eyes snapped open, her body feeling rejuvenated, and some.

Juvia's head snapped up right as Xigbar was going to make a snide remark about Kairi saving her power, and the Nobody floating there froze with his mouth open. "Grrr," Juvia growled, standing back up one foot at a time. Xigbar was not liking the look on that girl's face one bit. He pointed his arrowguns forward and fired them rapidly at the girls below. To get to Kairi, I'm gonna need to get past- Xigbar's eye opened huge and he slowly rose up his head as he lowered his weapons. Kairi lowered the Keyblade she was using to block glowing red arrows, and the teenage girl turned her head to find out why such a large shadow was cast over her. "Tidal Wave!" Juvia screamed, and the two arms she rose above her head, she slammed down towards Xigbar.

A sphere of space around Xigbar distorted and the man vanished. A second later, a huge wave crashed through the space he was just floating in before collapsing to the ground all at once. Juvia snapped her head up as she leapt off the top of the collapsing wave she rode when it pushed past her before reaching Xigbar. She leapt because the man who vanished had reappeared all the way above the crest of her wave to evade her attack. "RAA!" Juvia swung her right fist at the man who turned his body to the left then fired an arrow straight up, where it vanished in a hole in space, and appeared below Juvia flying up at the same speed so it hit her straight in the chest. The Rain Woman's body bent over the arrow, then the smirking man next to her got that smug expression wiped from his face as Juvia's hand shot out and punched him in the face.

Xigbar flipped backwards through the air, and he created a hole behind him that he flipped straight into. He reappeared twenty meters away in the air and closer to the wall, only for his yellow eye to bug out at the sight of the mage turning towards him and waving her arms in his direction. "Water Whip!" Juvia yelled. Two whips of water shout out from her palms and cracked across the air towards Xigbar. He ripped his Sharpshooter back in half and pointed an arrowgun at a whip each. The Nobody fired, but the whips twisted in midair while the woman who cracked them his direction had started to fall. Juvia paid close attention to make her whips snake around and dodge Xigbar's attacks, and one of them finally reached him. He tried pulling his leg back, but the whip wrapped around his ankle and Juvia yelled, "Got you!"

The blue-haired woman shot up through the air as her whip retracted, pulling its caster towards the man it had captured. "I don't think so," Xigbar said, and he vanished into another rip in space. He floated back in it and had a bead of sweat rolling down the left side of his face. "What's up with this girl? She got some sort of-" Xigbar's jaw dropped mid-sentence as he realized the whip was still connected to his ankle, and he only realized it because a girl came flying through his rift in space and tackled him.

Kairi's eyes popped open wide as Juvia shot straight into Xigbar's rip in space, and then she spun her head the other way and watched as half the height they were just at and fifty meters away, the two came flying out of nowhere, rolling over each other in midair. Juvia grabbed Xigbar by the cloak and flipped them so he was falling with his back to the ground, and Xigbar looked out his peripheral vision to see the roof of a building approaching fast. Before he slammed back-first into it, the air right above the building ripped apart and they fell into it, vanishing to the auburn haired girl desperately trying to watch the fight. A hole ripped directly above Kairi's head and she snapped her gaze up, to see Juvia pushing Xigbar hard like they were still falling straight down, only now they were moving sideways and both of them were upside-down. Xigbar knew which way they would come out of his next rift, and he spun them while they were flying over Kairi's head, reaching out with his hands as he did and grabbing Juvia by the shirt, and slamming the girl hard into the gateway that she did not see coming.

Juvia gasped and her hands released Xigbar's cloak. Her whip had already fallen from him, but now the Nobody saw his chance and he threw Juvia down at the ground. The Fairy Tail mage hit the floor on her knees, then snapped her eyes back up furiously at the man above her. Xigbar turned and righted himself as he glared down at the girls still in front of the gate that was now a crack open after the speed at which he slammed Juvia into it. "Heh, not bad," the Nobody snapped his fingers, and a strange sphere of distorted air surrounded him. An instant later, he was gone.

Kairi let out a breath of relief, then frowned as she stared down at the hilt she held up in her right hand. Am I the weakest? It's good to rely on my friends, but I need to be strong too, so they can rely on me sometimes. "Juvia, thanks," Kairi said and looked up towards her friend's back. Juvia got off her knees and was glaring towards the middle of the Palace gates where Xigbar just vanished. "I don't know what he wanted, but it sounds like Xigbar thinks-" Kairi stopped as she heard a low growling coming from in front of her.

"He thinks he can escape that easily?" Juvia growled, her voice scary to the girl behind her whose eyes widened more than they did when Xigbar first appeared. "He thinks he can escape from me?" Juvia snarled, and steam rose off of her fists that were clenched so hard she broke through the skin of her palms and drew blood.

Kairi was afraid. She was afraid that there was something very wrong with her friend. "Juv-" Kairi began, but Juvia sprinted towards the gate before Kairi had even finished calling her name. "Wait! Juvia!" The Rain Woman leapt at the crack in the gate, and as her body hit it, her entire form turned into water and pushed straight through with no resistance.

Juvia reformed on the other side of the door and she landed down on a knee and one foot, with her fist pressed firmly into the floor in front of her. The girl stood on the east side of the palace, on the outside of the east wing that had been broken into from the south, right in front of the side entrance that currently had no guards at the doors considering they were all called somewhere else. Juvia snapped her head up and roared, "Where are you?!" She then leaned forward on the foot she had pressed down, clenched the ground around where her fist opened on the floor, and lifted up the knee she had in the dirt, before shooting off like a rocket for the side doors and blasting straight through them without stopping, ripping them right off their hinges.

Meanwhile, on top of the Royal Palace, Xigbar appeared on the southern side overlooking the courtyard and the battle below. He appeared next to a smaller figure in a black cloak who was looking down into the courtyard at a burnt-up teenager who was all alone against so many enemies, but was somehow holding his own. Even with all of his clones and allies gone, Kirito was facing off against Thymilph in his Byakou, three other remaining Ganmen, and a dozen of the best fighters of the Royal Guard.

"You didn't get her?" The figure next to Xigbar asked.

The man standing there chuckled and he clapped a gloved hand down on the boy's left shoulder that was a foot below his own. "She's all warmed up for you," Xigbar said. The Nobody chuckled even darker as the shorter figure turned and started walking away. "Don't forget to take off your hood," Xigbar called to him. "It'll make it more entertaining!"

The figure whose face was shadowed by his hood stopped walking, and he turned his head a little to glare out of it towards Xigbar. "And why is that?" He questioned, his dark eyes narrowing under the hood.

"If you wanna know so bad, then take off the hood," Xigbar suggested. So the figure did just that, reaching up and grabbing the hood of his cloak, and pulling it off of his head. The shadow lifted as sunlight touched down on his lightly toned skin, and his black hair was freed from the constraints of being pressed down by the restricting hood. He glared back at Xigbar with his dark eyes, then turned and continued walking away from his fellow Nobody. Why would it be entertaining? Whatever, it doesn't matter. I have a mission, and I'm going to see it through. Kairi, you are mine.

---

Big Belly Burger, Pyraxas

"Everyone please stay calm," Sadao Maou announced to the people in the fast-food establishment he managed. He stood behind the counter, waving his arms in such a way as to soothe the people who had panicked and ducked off the streets when explosions started earlier. The intensity of the distant explosions determined how loud they were screaming at any certain time, and in the last two minutes the shaking had intensified more than ever.

Maou frowned as another tremor sent the restaurant into a frenzy. He turned and looked into the back for his staff, but all of his staff members were as terrified as everyone else. A part of him wanted to get them all in control of themselves and working together to calm down their customers, but instead he just stood there and watched as negative energy emitted from their bodies. The only member of Maou's staff who was not panicking looked over from the booth he was sitting at. Damien's eyes started to grow and one of the Princes of Hell stared at the manager of the Big Belly Burger as he walked out around the counter. "Stay in here, and calm down. You will be safe." Maou spoke in a booming voice that bounced off the walls, but as much as Damien was impressed and unnerved by the voice, all the humans inside the building quieted down. They closed their mouths and walked over to tables one by one, sitting down and calming themselves completely.

None of the others in the restaurant were looking at him anymore, so only Damien could see as the dark energy continued to flood into Maou. It was not coming from their establishment anymore, but through every window and door and even the roof of the Big Belly Burger, negative energy was pouring into the demon who managed the fast-food joint. Maou's eyes lost their light orange color and glowed brighter and brighter red every second. His uniform could not handle the strain as his arms, legs, and torso all bulked up, his muscles bulging all over his body and his skin turning gray as they did. The room was cast into even deeper darkness and Maou's mouth lifted up into a smirk from ear to ear, and his mouth was glowing red like his eyes while horns protruded from the sides of his head and pointed up through his pitch black hair.

"I was wondering when you were going to let it in, but geez," Damien said, getting quieter at the end of the sentence. "I haven't seen you get this powerful since… since ever," the kid said, and even the son of his world's Satan gulped as Maou looked down at him now.

"I am in a city of millions," Maou said, his voice echoing around him as his muscles bulged even more, to an extent that any farther and his tearing white undershirt would fall apart and even the crotch area of his pants would not be able to stretch wider. "Millions of terrified voices echoing in my head, all their fear, their pain… it's all my power!" Maou turned towards the exit and started walking towards it, the light vanishing wherever he stepped. "Damien, stay here and watch the shop." There was no room in his voice for argument, and Damien just frowned and nodded.

Maou stepped through the automatic doors of the Big Belly Burger, out onto the street, and then the doors closed behind him. As they were closing though, they slowed, slowed, and came to a stop. Maou stuck his arms out to his sides and hunched over. As he bent down, the rest of his white undershirt tore to shreds, as what originally appeared to be black shadows all over his back finally merged together to form wings that ripped through the material. "Ahh, it has been a while," the devil growled, then he bent his knees a bit and jumped a hundred meters into the sky with one single effort.

"To think," he muttered as he stood up straight in the air above southern Pyraxas. "I would get enough power in Pyraxas to create a pocket dimension. Now, what's going on in this…" Maou faded off and he turned his head to the west. He glared that direction towards a massive white creature he could see over the walls surrounding the lower city. He could feel enormous demonic presences in that direction already, but that was not why he turned to look that way. He turned because one of those demonic presences was flying straight towards him, turning the sky dark purple around him as he did. Inside my own pocket dimension, it could only be one. Maou crossed his arms over his bare chest and he kept a deep scowl on his face as the purple-haired figure arrived in an all-white suit with a cape, top hat, and even held a cane to finish the outfit. "Samael," Maou greeted, his voice neutral in tone.

"Satan Jacob! I had no idea you were here in Pyraxas!" Mephisto greeted back in a much more enthusiastic way. He was being his usual outgoing self, yet Mephisto was surrounded in a dark aura and he looked sinister as he broke through this other demon's time magic. "I would have searched you out after my introduction with the Fire Lord!"

"What are you doing in my city?" Maou asked, getting straight to the point.

Mephisto chuckled a few times, then his eyebrows narrowed down towards his nose and he spoke in a dark tone, "Your city? Do you not recall the War of the Satans? Or do you just need a reminder, of who rules this world?" Mephisto's dark aura grew larger, but Maou's grew as well and pressed back against his. The two leaned forward, and then Mephisto rose up his cane and pointed it at Maou. Maou vanished and appeared directly on Mephisto's left, facing the distant north with his arms still crossed over his chest.

"You may have won the war," Maou said in a deep growl. He appeared on Mephisto's other side, only this time he was facing Mephisto and his arms were no longer crossed. His right arm was held out to the side and a wide red magic circle appeared around his hand, "But whatever you're doing in my city is filling me with power right now!" Out of thin air, a twelve meter long sword formed in Maou's grip in a flash of white light.

Mephiso glared out the corners of his eyes towards the muscular gray demon. He snapped his fingers and an explosion went off in front of Maou, but when the smoke fell, there was a forcefield separating Maou from any damage that explosion may have caused. "Final chance, Samael," Maou began. "Before either of us start to get serious," he finished, and snapped the sword in front of him so the point was splitting the distance between them.

Mephisto turned towards Maou so they were looking eye to eye, then he lowered down his cane to his side and lifted his smile a bit. "I do not recall you being this strong the last time I saw you. My apologies," Mephisto did a polite bow and took off his hat to say it was a good show. He stood back up fully in midair and put his hat back on, then continued, "As to your question, I'm afraid to inform you that I myself have nothing to do with the series of events you see going on around you."

"That's your brother isn't it?" Mao growled, nodding his head out towards the western side of the city. "I knew Astaroth was in the city, but he's brought one ugly beast here with him." Mephisto opened his mouth up to respond, but Maou cut him off by saying, "When I mentioned your brother, you had a flicker in your eye that you would not have had with Astaroth." Mephisto's expression turned darker than it ever had during their brief skirmish, and Maou continued in a serious, but also threatening tone as he saw the shift in Mephisto's mood, "Who is that teenage boy with the demonic sword?"

Mephisto's eyes opened huge. "How do you know him?" The Demon King of Time asked, truly intrigued.

"He just ate burgers in the restaurant I manage," Maou replied, and once again Mephisto was left at a loss for words, something that rarely happened for him, yet he always tended to enjoy it. "Who is he?" Maou repeated.

This demon manages a burger restaurant? I suppose leaving him alone in this city is not very harmful for anyone. As for telling him about Rin-kun… "That boy is none of your concern," Mephisto said, and he said it as a threat, making sure the point got across. "I would be happy to tell you about the others who ate with him, or the other interesting things currently going on around this city, but that boy, is to be left alone." Mephisto seethed the last part through his teeth and the entire atmosphere around him darkened.

"You dare threaten me in my own city, my own realm?!" Maou roared, and the time space around them quaked and descended deeper into darkness than ever. Flames rose in the sky around both of the demons, then Maou pulled back his giant sword and shot through the air. At the same time, Mephisto twirled his cane around like a shortsword, then pressed a button on the top of it that made the cane transform into just that. The Demon King of Time shot through the sky at his opponent, and the two clashed swords, beginning a fight that would start and end within the same moment, an entire epic battle that would take place between single punches being thrown in other fights around the city.

---

Royal Palace, Pyraxas

Inside the throne room of the Fire Lord's Palace, Killua Zoldyck walked forward at a slow pace. The room was the largest of the Palace, and he had what he estimated as an eighth of a mile to walk from the giant double doors to the base of the steps beneath Fire Lord Sozin's throne. Godspeed now and kill him. No, test the waters. Figure out his speed. If he's slow it'll work, if not it'll just be showing him my top speed too early. If he's too fast I'll need to lure him into a false sense of security with my normal speed, then Godspeed when he gets cocky. Killua's eyes darted to either side of him. There were giant pillars on either of his sides from the floor all the way to the ceiling of the third and top floor of the Palace. Those pillars went from twenty feet from the doors to the rest of the building, all the way to twenty feet from the base of the throne steps, with twenty feet in between each of the five foot diameter white columns that had grooves in them for the extra bit of aesthetic appeal.

In the symmetric spacing between each pillar, flames rose from cracks Killua spotted in the floor below them, and he wondered for a second if there was oil in those cracks that was being lit to give the room a more fiery ambiance. There were high flames rising from behind Sozin's throne as well as down the sides of the stairs in a way that widened so the flames were close together on either side of Sozin's throne, but spread farther apart every step away from the throne the Fire Lord got. Sozin started walking down his steps, and with every step he took, the flames getting farther from his sides would get higher and higher each time while burning brighter as well. Killua was standing on a red carpet that went from the doors he had entered, all the way up the stairs to the floor at the foot of the throne-seat where Sozin could put his feet down on it. The carpet is probably flame retardant, or else it would have caught on fire before, unless it does often and they just replace it. If not though, then as long as I'm on the carpet, he can't rise flames from beneath me. There could be, and probably are, tricky parts to this room that only he knows about though.

"Killua Zoldyck," Sozin said, from the base of the steps that he reached before speaking. Killua came to a stop fifty meters from the man. He stared the distance that he was going to keep as long as the Fire Lord decided to talk to him. "When I saw the name on the I.D. I was provided for those who obtained theirs at the same time as Straw Hat Luffy, I thought I recognized your last name." Killua kept his face steady though his ears perked up and his mind started racing. "So I thought back, and recalled the name of an assassin I once hired to help take care of one of my competitors, back before I was a High Lord."

Sozin stared across the room and the Fire Lord's eyes narrowed. He had a black beard wrapping around his chin with three distinct spikes coming off of it straight down and diagonally down to either side, his mustache was thin and curled down on either side of his mouth into his beard, and he had a bun over his head that held his black hair together using a golden hairpiece in the shape of a flame. He wore a long red robe that fell past his feet on the floor, and over his shoulders was a thicker, darker red part of his cloak that was held together by a golden clasp near his right shoulder. Sozin reached up and grabbed the clasp with his right hand, then yelled as he yanked to the side with one hard tug, tearing off his cloak as he did, "When Zeno Zoldyck returned wounded from his kill, I eliminated the old man myself!"

Sozin's cloak flew to the side of the room, through the flames on his side without igniting as none of the clothes he owned would ignite that easily, if at all. Sozin stood with his arm outstretched, his torso revealed now with only a red muscle shirt covering it, which did little to hide the jacked form that the cloak had been hiding. He wore a pair of baggy black pants beneath the long-sleeved red shirt, and he had no shoes on to speak of, standing on his carpet bare-footed. Sozin stomped his right foot forward, held his right hand out as a fist, and pointed his left open palm out towards Killua as he stood sideways facing the boy.

Killua's eyes widened when Sozin finished shouting, and it took a few seconds for the kid's eyes to return to their normal size. He opened his mouth to shout a taunt something along the lines of, 'You want me to believe you took our my grandpa?' Or, 'There's no way a weakling like you could defeat him!' But Killua closed his mouth and his eyes narrowed, and a white aura surrounded the kid whose teeth clenched and ground against each other. He could hear the grinding in his ears and the muscles in his hands tensed, his nails extending and getting sharper as his rage bubbled. His knees bent and he glared into Sozin's eyes with ones full of hate, before starting his sprint to the Fire Lord.

It took a second for Kil to reach him. The kid with spiky white hair ran up on Sozin's left side, but sidestepped to the right an instant before his attack. He pushed off of his left foot to lift in the air while swinging his right foot around, but Sozin's arm snapped up to his side with an open palm facing out where Killua's leg was approaching. Kil's eyes snapped open wide at the man's speed to catch his right leg, but before his leg was even blocked, flames ignited in front of Sozin's palm. The Fire Lord clenched down, and he expelled out so much fire from his hand that Killua's pants shredded and his skin began to beneath. Killua ripped as hard as he could backwards while spinning around, bringing his other leg that lifted off the floor around to slam his heel into Sozin's chest. Sozin leapt backwards while darting a look at his hand that had clenched into a fist when Killua's ankle ripped from its grasp.

The Fire Lord landed on one foot, then spun his other leg around before bringing its heel straight down into the floor. Killua landed on his hands after making Sozin back off, then he flipped himself backwards and landed on his feet twenty yards away from the Fire Lord. He winced and darted a glance at his right leg to see the pant leg from his knee down was gone, and his skin all over his lower shin was bright red. The kid darted his eyes back up as Sozin's heel hit the floor, and a line of fire shot out of the older man's foot quickly moving in a path towards the fourteen year old. Kil hopped to his right, then did a cartwheel in midair, twisting his entire body to dodge the fireball Sozin punched towards him after his previous attack. Killua landed as the fireball passed only a foot behind him, and he started sprinting even faster than before towards Sozin.

Sozin's feet glowed bright though, and Killua noticed that the man was standing on the carpet he himself was sprinting over. The carpet's not burning. It's not fireproof though, Killua realized as the entire red carpet started to glow bright like Sozin's glowing feet. Kil took three more steps before leaping up, because the carpet material conducted the heat throughout and had melted through the soles of his shoes. He was close enough to Sozin when he leapt though that he moved like a missile with his legs extended towards the man. Sozin reached forward with his left hand that was opening from a fist, but before he grabbed Killua's left foot that was now exposed, the kid snapped his upper body up and brought his hands up to his feet. Sozin leaned back to avoid the sharp fingernails, but Killua had a backup plan and he flattened out his hands that were initially pointed out to impale the Fire Lord.

Sozin's eyes widened as he saw the sparking electricity on Kil's fingertips. He brought up the hand he was reaching for Killua's foot while bringing his other around at the same time in an open style, dragging a whip of flames with it. The first hand he used to grab the wrist of Killua's left hand with and twisted it to the side, but then Killua grabbed the hand grabbing him's wrist with his other hand, and he filled Sozin with electric shock. The kid smirked, then Sozin's other hand coming around as a slap kept moving and he saw it out the corner of his eye the moment before it would have smacked him straight in the face. He leaned away from the palm, but the whip of fire following after Sozin's other hand slammed into his face. Kil closed his eyes, but that was all he could do to protect himself without letting go of the other hand he was grabbing Sozin's wrist with. He pushed his head forward through the flames so the rest of the whip kept going behind him, and on the left side of his face Sozin's slapping hand kept moving from its momentum, while Killua pushed down with his right hand to pull Sozin off balance thanks to the other hand he had grabbed.

Killua let go with the hand on the man's wrist, but as he started bringing it up, he felt all the pressure on his left wrist vanish as Sozin let go of him as well. He did it at the same exact time! He knew when I would release! Killua's hand he was bringing up for Sozin's throat was grabbed around the wrist by the hand it was just restraining. Killua's other hand flew up since it was no longer restrained, but Sozin's left hand that slapped flames into Killua's now-burnt face a moment ago flew back in time as there was no longer as much momentum pushing it away. He slapped away Killua's left hand, then rose his knee and slammed the kid in the gut before Killua's right foot that he was bringing up himself could connect. Kil gasped and spit came out of his mouth at how hard that knee hurt his stomach, I have a thin coating of Nen around me! That hurt too much! Kil's eyes darted down and widened at the sight of black all around Sozin's knee, and it was a darker shade that the man's baggy pants.

As Killua was lifting up from the knee, Sozin yanked the wrist he was grabbing up with the momentum, adding more to it and swinging Killua around fast over his head and down into the floor. He smashed the kid into the carpet that was still glowing bright red, and the back of Killua's shirt burnt straight through. The instant he hit the ground, his eyes snapped open and his pupils were tiny. Turn the switch on. A dark aura surrounded the boy who turned on his Assassin Mode, and suddenly all the emotion left his face and Sozin could see nothing but killing intent. The man planning on ripping Killua back up into the air to slam on his other side, felt no urge to do so anymore and instead released the boy's wrist and sped backwards faster than Killua had seen him move the entire fight. Killua's free hand had shot up in the air in that same moment and he drew blood on his own right wrist as he had tried tearing apart Sozin's fingers that were grasped on him. The boy kicked his legs up in the air and landed on his two feet, but he did not have any pain on his face as he landed on the scalding hot carpet.

Ren surrounded the boy over a foot on all sides of him. The flaring white aura allowed for him to feel any attack that entered it, and it turned on automatically as he started sprinting forward again. He rose up both his hands as he went for Sozin's vital points, The Snake Awakens. His hands became like blurs that whizzed around all over the front of his body, his fingernails still protruding from his hands like claws thanks to the complete control Killua had over his body. Sozin's eyes were darting back and forth and up and down at the boy running towards him, and then he yelled out, "Raaa!" A wall of fire appeared in front of him and blasted out at Killua who had to leap up high to avoid the twenty foot tall flames. He glared down through the fire even as it passed beneath him, but the kid's eyes opened wide as the figure he was staring at through the flames disappeared, his body turning into flames and fading away to nothing. His head snapped left, then straight down into the top of the wall passing beneath him, where a six foot tall figure emerged with a fist covered in orange aura was flying up towards him.

It entered Killua's Ren too fast for the boy to escape. He was not on the ground and did not have a great base to start dodging. He knew where the attack was coming from though, and moved his body just enough that Sozin's fist slammed into his left shoulder. Whirlwind. An ability Killua had kicked in as soon as Sozin's fist touched him. Beneath Killua's aura, there was a thinner veil of aura made of electricity covering his entire body and giving him a faint blue glow. By turning that aura into pure electrical currents, the moment he was touched his aura transmitted impulses straight from his brain to the part of his body he needed to move, completely bypassing his central nervous system and saving him the time he did not have. Sozin's fist hit Killua's body and the boy was instantly able to determine how much power was in the blow, and he pulled away and moved a different part of his body while he did, making it so that even though Sozin hit him, he did not fly off of the fist away from the older man. Instead, a loud crack echoed through the room as Killua's left shoulder was ripped from its socket, but since Sozin punched him so far on one side, Killua's other half was pushed towards him at incredible speeds, and Killua's sharpened right hand shot straight into Sozin's side.

Killua's nails broke through Sozin's skin on the left side of his chest, then pushed through muscle as well, then came to a short and sudden stop. Killua's eyes focused on where the tops of his fingers had entered Sozin's body, and the boy's eyes opened wide at what he saw. All of Sozin's skin around the left side of his chest was black, but the muscles beneath the Armament Haki coated skin, were vibrating and squeezing together right on Killua's fingers. The kid's eyes darted away from where his hand was jammed, because Sozin's fist that he did not use to dislocate the kid's shoulder was coming towards his face, and Killua could not block with one hand out of commission and the other one trapped. He ripped his right hand free from Sozin's chest while placing his left foot against the man's stomach, then as he pushed off, he tensed the muscles in his feet too and extended the nails that were exposed thanks to Sozin melting off his shoes. As he pushed off, he dragged the claws of his left foot down Sozin's stomach and blood splashed out of the man.

The fist Sozin punched at Killua stopped short of hitting the kid in the face as he was already propelling himself down towards the ground, but the massive fireball that appeared out of thin air moved faster than Killua was and engulfed the boy before he slammed into one of the giant pillars in the room, creating an explosion of flames and rubble around the kid in the middle. Zeno ji-chan, this guy, he's holding back isn't he? Killua opened his blue eyes from under the rubble and he pushed up with his right hand, moving all the stone debris off of him. He got up to his feet and climbed on top of the largest piece of stone near him so that when he looked across the room at Sozin, he would be looking down at him. Sozin was falling to the ground himself, but when he saw where Killua stood, the man stopped falling all of a sudden. Killua grimaced as the Fire Lord hovered in midair, but the kid regained a semi-confident expression at the sight of the blood on Sozin's left side and the more shallow scratches on his stomach.

Kil cracked his neck to the side, and then his left arm popped up into its socket with a crack even louder than when Sozin knocked it out. The kid stood back up straight while shrugging both his shoulders a few times, then he said while looking up into Sozin's eyes, "Huh, I never would have guessed you would be able to control your own muscles like that." Sozin wiped a hand on his left side and Killua could see that the bleeding from what he had originally thought was a deep wound had already stopped.

"Young man," Sozin said, his voice less menacing and more calm than before after that exchange. "The one before you is a High Lord of the King's Cooperative." Sozin's body surrounded in an aura of flames that Killua did not change his expression towards, though in his mind he cursed wondering how he would land another hit without burning himself. Already Killua had burn marks on his legs, wrists, back, and over his eyelids and the rest of his face. Sozin continued down to the fighter before him, "Did you not think, that in the last two and a half years, I would not use that title to my advantage?" Sozin chuckled darkly and then started lowering to the ground in the center of his hall, glaring farther towards the back and the left side where Killua stood atop a pile of rubble that had been one of his throne room's pillars.

"What do you mean?" Killua asked. I need to use farther ranged attacks. He still has not let down his guard, and if I were to use Godspeed now, he would start going all out on me. If he did not mention Ji-chan, I might have changed strategies already. Killua's fingers started sparking electricity and small bolts of lightning connected from the tip of each finger to the floor at his feet, giving him a dangerous appearance that he hoped would keep the Fire Lord from floating any closer.

Sozin did stop, and he narrowed his thin black eyebrows at the boy ahead of him. "Haki, Nen, magic, ki, I have had many teachers since becoming a High Lord. The best teachers Aebrith had to offer. They taught me the basics, and I was able to learn much more through my own training. But before I became a High Lord, I knew none of those things. Does it not interest you? Does it not intrigue a member of the Zoldyck family enough to question 'how?' How did I, with only the ability to bend fire, become one of the most powerful men on this continent?"

Killua did not want to know the answer actually. In fact, he hated every word that came out of Sozin's mouth. It made no sense. If what he had witnessed from other fire benders really was the average amount of power for someone in the Fire Nation, he thought the Fire Lord himself must have been just a stronger version of one of them. He had already guessed then, that Sozin would have learned other skills and techniques to make himself a force to be reckoned with. But without any of those abilities, with just the power of fire bending, could he really take control of a huge part of the world? This world?!

"Doctor Octavius," the Fire Lord said, and Killua snapped his head to the left. The kid glared past Sozin and past all the pillars behind the floating Fire Lord, back towards his throne and the darkness close to it where loud clanking sounds started echoing around the room. Doctor Otto Octavius stepped out from behind a giant pillar, his huge steel legs lifting his body high enough that the flames between pillars did not reach him. The scientist wearing a lab cloak and a pair of goggles over his eyes smirked in Killua's direction, then turned towards the steps in front of the Fire Lord's throne. "The good 'Doctor Octopus,' or 'Doc Ock,' has been of invaluable help to me and my regime," Sozin explained to the boy staring across the room and getting increasingly nervous.

"You honor me, my Lord," Doc Ock replied, while lifting up a device in his hands that he was pressing buttons on and twisting dials. "All I have done, is complete my life's work!" The scientist rose a finger and pressed down on a button at the bottom of the device he was holding. Loud clanking noises echoed through the room, and Killua stared at the bottom step at the base of the stairs right in front of the mad scientist. One by one, the steps leading up to Sozin's throne were opening up in the middles and sliding out to the sides. Half of the bottom steps opened, then all the clanking noises stopped, but Killua's eyes stayed glued to the opening in the stairs. A bright yellow light was coming from that hole, and Doc Ock spoke as the light grew brighter and rose higher up, "Thanks to the Fire Lord's vast resources, he was able to find me enough precious tritium that I was able to build it. I was able to build a fusion reactor, capable of sustaining fusion, in perpetuity."

Killua's eyes grew the size of saucers as the top of what the mad scientist described rose from beneath the floor. Immediately the room was bathed with its light, but as blinding as it was, Killua could not look away. Doc Ock backed up himself, but the look on his face was of pure ecstasy. "This, sun!" Otto began yelling, turning his head to look across the room at Killua as he did. "Is sustained by the fusion stabilizers beneath the floor all over this room. Under the floor are hundreds of wires that take the energy produced by the fusion reaction, and distributes that energy all over the Fire Nation, as well as to many of its neighbors, though most of them have no idea where their energy is coming from. Tens of millions use the energy from my experiment every day: to power their homes, charge their phones, anything electronic for thousands of miles around comes from this power source right here, but that is not even the most impressive feature of the reaction!"

The boy listening to that explanation was impressed, but as the doctor said it, he wondered why they would be showing it to him at all if it was just a power source. After a moment more of staring at it, he realized. His eyes shifted from the glowing sun, to the orange haze that surrounded it, and to the air above the middle of the room where the thickest part of that haze was moving towards. "On my world," Sozin spoke, from inside the haze that surrounded him and cast him in a dark, deadly orange glow. "A Great Comet came close to the planet, a comet I learned was later named after myself for my utilization of its powers. You see, when it broke my world's atmosphere, fire benders became a hundred times stronger and we were able to conquer entire nations in a day! That, was the power of a celestial object a hundred miles above my head at its closest. Can you imagine if it was only a few meters from me? When the good doctor came to me with his idea to create sustainable power for the city I was in control of at the time, I knew at once the possibilities that I would attain with the completion of stable fusion reaction. And now, for over a year," Sozin began yelling, while throwing his arms out to the side and making the orange haze around his body grow thicker so that Killua could barely stand to be in the presence of it. The Fire Lord continued in a booming voice, "I have bathed daily in the light of this sun which I have deemed, the Supernova! Just by being in close proximity to it, I am stronger, faster, my flames burn hotter, than any other fire bender alive. This sun that burns brightly beneath my throne, makes me more powerful by the day!"

Sozin's fists that were extended out to the sides opened up, and a light flashed that cracked all of the stainless glass windows in the hall. Killua stared at this terrifying man and could hear the laughter of the scientist below him, standing in between that small glowing sun and the pile of rubble he stood on. Can I beat someone like this? He brought that Supernova up to the surface because he must think he needs it in his presence to defeat me, right? Then, if I can find a way to shut it off… What am I thinking? There is no "turning off" a sun. And if I destroy the stabilizers that keeps it from growing out of control, I'll be killing everyone in this city, maybe in the entire country. If I can't turn it off though, I have to get him out of its light. How can I change our fighting location? There's no way he'll leave on his own, and I'm the one attacking! Do I run? If I run will he chase me? Even if he doesn't… should I still run anyway? I, can't beat him now. He was messing with me that entire time, not using a fraction of his possible strength. Haki, Nen, he's clearly a trained martial artist, he can fly, and he's the most powerful fire bender in the world. He killed Zeno Ji-chan! How could I even think of fighting someone who could beat my grandpa?

Killua took a step backwards, and then in front of his eyes appeared an image of a face. If I leave, they'll still be right behind me. They'll still come to fight him, even if I go tell them what Sozin can do. If I leave, they'll come, and they'll die. More faces appeared in front of Killua, and the foot he was stepping backwards slammed down on the back of the rock he was on hard. The rubble crumbled beneath his foot and he fell, then tapped his feet below him and hopped inwards to the carper in the center of the room that was now at a dull red color that showed it was warm but not going to burn his feet just by standing on it. Killua stared straight up into Sozin's eyes, eyes that glowed bright white as he absorbed the rays of the Supernova behind him. A flash surrounded Killua, all of his white hair spiked up straight over his head, and lightning bolts sparked out all over his body. "Godspeed," Killua said, before vanishing to the mad scientist still laughing to himself from in front of the Supernova. Doc Ock's eyes opened wide, and then Sozin vanished from above him as well, and he was left staring into an empty room for a second, before two fists collided in midair ten feet in front of him, and he was thrown off his feet by the force of the collision.

"WhoaaAAHH-" Doc Ock's scream of panic from getting lifted off the ground became one of sheer agony. Sozin's eyes darted to the side and grew double their usual size at the sight of the scientist's metal arms reaching forward, before dropping limp and getting sucked backwards into the Supernova where the rest of Doc Ock already vanished into. Sozin heard something coming so fast towards him that he was only able to surround himself with a layer of Haki as his eyes darted back to the boy whose fist he met in midair. Killua's left hand was coming up from the boy's waist towards Sozin's chest, and Kil slammed his open palm straight into the center of Sozin's muscular torso.

"Ahhh!" Sozin yelled out in pain as he was electrocuted, and he pushed off the punch to increase his distance from the boy who dropped to the ground below him. The Fire Lord's mouth twisted into a furious snarl as he glared down at the child, but Killua glared right back with as much ferocity in his eyes and more. A flare ripped off of the fusion reaction and whipped up towards Sozin who stood there and allowed the sun's energy to enter his body, making bright white light expel from every hole on his body. He opened his mouth and roared while his mouth worked like a powerful beam of light shining down at Killua. His eyes glowed bright white too, but when the light expelled from them and shot towards Kil, the kid felt that something was different and he shot backwards fifty feet in an instant. His eyes focused on the floor where he was just standing, and he saw two holes burnt straight through the carpet that until then had taken the heat just fine. "My flames burn hotter," he wasn't bluffing. I won't get away with light burns next time I make a wrong move. If I misstep again, it's lights out.

The pressure was on. Both fighters were done playing around, stepping it up to the next level of their fight. There was no turning back.

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A/N Hope you enjoyed! Another giant chapter, and there're still three more of them left before the end of the chapter. Some other allies in Pyraxas have shown themselves, the manager of the Big Belly Burger gets in a battle outside of time with Mephisto, Kirito takes on Thymilph, Xigbar is after Kairi but Juvia gets enraged and is now the one hunting him, all the Straw Hats get in battles around the city, and Killua faces off alone against the Fire Lord! A lot happening all over the city, what's going to happen next?! If anyone hasn't seen Spider Man 2 (2004), it's a pretty good movie with a cool concept around Doc Ock and the fusion reaction he tries to create, which I thought would work really well with the Fire Lord and making him into a much more serious villain for our heroes. Let me know what you think of the chapter and predictions for the next ones in a review below!

Call of Duty (COD) Modern Warfare 2 (MW2): Dunn, Ramirez, Foley

Avatar the Last Airbender: Lu Ten, Iroh, Azulon, Sozin, Sozin's Comet, Azula

One Piece: Yonji, Kansho, Komei, Sanji, Nami, Robin, Luffy, Usopp, Franky

The King's Avatar: Ye Qiu

X-Men: Zero, Phoenix

Gurren Lagann: Thymilph, Byakou, Ganmen, Spiral King

DBZ: Mercenary Tao

Spider Man 2: Doc Ock, tritium

Hunter x Hunter: Yunju, Killua, Meruem, Zeno Zoldyck

Pokemon: pokeballs

World of Warcraft: night elf, Pandaren, troll, etc. (those slaves stuck in Yunju's pokeballs)

Red vs Blue: Zachary Miller

Kingdom Hearts: Xigbar, Kairi, Riku, Saix, Sora

DC Comics: Ra's al Ghul

SAO: Kirito

Fairy Tail: Natsu, Gray, Juvia

Devil as a Part Timer: Sadao Maou (Satan Jacob)

South Park: Damien

Blue Exorcist: Mephisto Pheles (Samael), Astaroth, Rin, Satan

Guest chapter 63 . Aug 31

great chapter, the 2 groups are going to be together again yay, I also wonder what azula's crazy plan guess I will wait to see, and when I heared one of the groups say they both had the some strange nightmares I was thinking freddy Krueger but it was astaroth and the impure king, besides I didn't they can do that, I never watch blue exorcist, but still it was a good chapter, I hope they can survive, and rin showed up what a surprise for them.

Thanks! Kirito shocks Luffy and Franky by his arrival in the Royal Palace courtyard, and Natsu is stunned as well to see Franky there when he arrives. Many of the characters still don't know their other comrades have entered the city though, so more of that next time! We see Azula again this time for a moment, where she shows off again how ruthless and crazy she is. Freddy Krueger would have been cool to add and maybe I will later on, as for Astaroth being able to give people nightmares, we haven't really seen him much in the Blue Exorcist manga or in the anime, but being one of the most powerful demons I've gotta make him a force to be reckoned with. We'll see more of that fight next time, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Darugus chapter 63 . Sep 2

Nice chapter
Looks like the fight has started with rin and the demon king of rot as well as the impure king this may result in his cover being blown as son of satan
Also looks like you added ground that resent filler marine he was pretty weak so its no surprise we was taken out with that ease
And now both groups are trying to get to the fire lord who seems to have significantly gotten stringer since he reached nexus
Looking forward to the next chapter

Thanks! Rin and Astaroth get at it, though they both have some help in their battle. Originally I planned on giving Grount more face-time in a fight like the filler one where Luffy crushes him and shows him he could get stronger... but then I figured it could just as easily be shown how quick it took to take him down by having another character mention it. Everyone's converging on the Fire Lord, and though he has his first challenger, we'll see how long it is before another shows up to join the fray! Glad you liked it and hope you enjoyed the latest chapter! Thanks again to everyone who reviewed, faved, followed, or just reads this story! 'Till next time!