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Chapter 11:

Confrontation

"Alright," Zoro sighed, studying the room around him. "Where the Hell am I now?"

Truthfully, the swordsman had no idea where he was or how he got here, nor did he understand how he had obtained a bubble protecting him from the water in the area. All eyes were on him, the one-eyed warrior attempting to assess the situation he had walked into. On one side were the ruggedly-dressed, pirates probably, and on the other were soldiers. Flaring his Observation, Zoro also picked up the familiar spirit of Grace hanging out somewhere above and to his right. His eye drifted there quickly, moving on when she ducked behind the wall where she was hiding. If she was here, then at least some of the others were here as well.

"What is a human doing here?" one of the pirates questioned, sauntering toward Zoro. He was a big guy with yellow-green skin and barbels -something like a pair of whiskers- on either side of his wide-set mouth. "Well, I'll put you out of your misery so Captain Hody don't need to bother with you!"

The fishman raised his sword, ready to cut open both Zoro and his bubble. Within a moment, the sword came down for the attack only for Zoro's arm to shoot out before the blade could make contact. The verdet caught the fishman's wrist as it descended, halting the weapon's momentum in an instant so sudden his bubble rippled from the generated current.

"What?" the pirate questioned, trying in vain to push forward and, when that failed, to retreat, but Zoro would not release his hold. "H-How the Hell is a mere human so strong?! Who are you?!"

"I'm really disappointed," Zoro said, pulling his captured enemy toward him. Unable to use his swords for fear of cutting his bubble, the green-haired man stuck his head into the water and headbutted the humanoid, an almost audible crack announcing the fishman's loss of consciousness. The catfish fishman crumpled slowly, the water resistance making him fall in almost slow motion as blood from a new wound on his head colored the nearby waters. The shark fishmen in the area, Hody included, felt their senses shift into overdrive as the smell of blood hit them. Zoro continued, unfazed. "I thought you all would be stronger than this, but I shouldn't be surprised. Arlong's crew was a disappointment."

"Roronoa Zoro," Hody Jones scowled, tossing aside the Ryugu soldier in his grip. He took a deep pull of the water around him, the scent of blood growing from both his own man and the soldiers he'd already killed. "Finally, one of the pirates I'm looking for has come to accept my challenge."

"What challenge?" Zoro blinked. "I'm just trying to get back to my crew. This has nothing to do with me."

"This has everything to do with you!" Hody barked, refusing to be ignored or denied. "You're one of the measly little humans that crushed the dreams of my idol! It was by the hands of you and your- LISTEN TO ME, DAMMIT!"

"Hm?" Zoro turned, one pinkie trying to clean out his ear. The man blinked slowly, unimpressed, as if having just been woken from a nap or very nice daydream by the squeaking of a mouse. "Sorry, I don't bother listening to weaklings rant."

"Weakling, eh?" Hody snarled, digging through his pocket. "I'll show you who the weak one is, Roronoa Zoro." He pulled out a handful of black-and-red pills before stuffing them in his mouth. Zoro watched passively as the captain of the New Fishman Pirates hunched over, his body pulsing and contorting as the drugs did their work. Each beat seemed to bulk up the fishman's muscles until he was more jacked than he had been. Another few inches now made him taller than Zoro and the sheer size of his shoulders made him nearly twice as wide. "It's time for you to see which of us is the superior species is, human."

"I've literally eaten things scarier than you for breakfast," the swordsman smirked.

"Godadammit, Zoro," Grace hissed, reaching for her snail only to pause. Calling the rest of the crew on the gondola would also make Zoro's snail ring, giving them away. Shifting plans, the young woman tapped a pocket on her side. Chemicals flowed from within, condensing into a dark pellet with a crystalline shell around it. Her other hand reached for a hollow, thin cylinder she shoved the pellet into. Most of her off-the-fly plan prepped, the thief climbed to the inside of the broken wall and prepared to push off. "Way to ruin all our plans, Swordbrain. Nothing really has changed from two years ago, has it? Alright, time to bail him out."

Down below, Zoro was pinned down in a corner, Hody flinging water bullets in an unrelenting barrage. The human, unable to risk his air supply, had Wado Ichimonji outside his bubble blocking the bullets with the handle. His face wouldn't show it, but he knew he didn't have many options without a ready source of oxygen nearby. While he was certain he was stronger than this shark clown, his strength would not stop his need to breathe.

"Hahaha!" Hody Jones laughed, his arms blurring as he sped up his assault. "Watch! Soldiers and pirates alike, this is the limit of even the strongest humans! This is why Fishmen are superior in every way! This is why we don't need to rely on them! This is why peace with the surface dwellers is a ridiculous idea! Now, human, d-"

Hody's speech came to a screeching halt as something whizzed by his head. He didn't have time to turn to look at its origin before the thing, a tiny, black pellet, hit the floor between him and Zoro. The pellet exploded, an inky black oozing into the waters around, quickly obscuring the human from view.

"The Hell is this?" the leader of the New Fishman Pirates demanded as the cloud of dark started to roll over him as well. He grabbed the water with his webbed fingers, pulling away that which was contaminated, but this did nothing for his vision as the murk simply swirled back in on itself. Behind him, Hody could hear the sounds of his own men starting to panic as the cloud enveloped them as well. He raised his voice, yelling into the darkness around him. "What sort of trick is this, Neptune?!"

"I had nothing to do with this," the massive king grunted, just as confused but equally satisfied at Hody's displeasure. "I assumed one of your brigands inked himself because he couldn't take the pressure."

Hody growled at the information, certain there was more to this moment than the king knew.

"Someone do something about this Goda-dammed smokescreen!" the captain ordered. Almost instantly, a bubble began forming on the far side of the room, the film around the air pushing the ink-like compound to the edge of the room where it stuck to the wall. With the area now full if oxygen in a breathable form, the shark fishman rounded on where the human swordsman had been only moments ago, but Zoro was nowhere to be seen. "Where did he go?"

"Don't know, Captain!" a subordinate answered, his voice an octave higher based on fear of his leader's wrath. "With the air, he could be anywhere in the room."

"Then flood the room again!" Hody roared, sending the fishman scampering away. The dome of air began to collapse a moment later, water washing over Hody's ankles again. "Someone find that human or I swear-!"

"Well well," Caribou chuckled, pointing with his sleeve-covered hand toward the broken door, water pouring in from that direction. "It looks like we had more Straw Hats than just the first mate, Hody, but the cowards are trying to get away."

Following the line of the gesture, the shark fishman turned to see Grace struggling to pull Zoro through the water several feet beyond the broken door. She was trying to make some headway with what little swimming ability she still had, her bubble and Zoro's having combined into one, but the pull of the water flooding back into the throne room was keeping them still.

"I see," Hody muttered, taking in the image as the water rose to his hips. With the current flowing inside, both parties were at a standstill in the current situation, but that didn't mean they should be standing around. "Well, what are you morons waiting for? Get them!"

With a chorus of answers, pirates pushed off the floor, swimming after the fleeing humans. About half of them cried out in shock and pain as Neptune pushed off the floor himself, using his bulk to displace the water and try to crush some of the pirates. Though he succeeded in stopping some, the rest made it out the door and continued in their pursuit.

"Of all ways your bad timing could have affected us," Grace ranted, a dozen and a half different chemicals on her mind as she tried to come up with more of a plan for their getaway. Her limited swimming skills -possible only by the bubble she had- were only just enough to keep her and Zoro from being sucked back into the room. She'd expected her Black Cloud to last longer, but the fishmen's counter had not only nullified her distraction, but it also caused a current she had to fight against.

"I would have been fine," Zoro tried to shrug off, and action that only served to make it harder for Grace to keep swimming in that moment. "I could have stepped out of the bubble to fight."

"Not without drowning, moron," the artist shot back, gritting her teeth as she pumped her legs. "Honestly, at least I know who to blame for Coby's reckless ideas now. You infected him."

"That has nothing to do with-" Zoro's sentence ended prematurely, a trident whizzing through the water over their heads. The pair glanced back for just a moment, catching the image of fishmen swimming from the broken building like aquatic wasps from a disturbed nest. With the Fishmen's exit came the end of the loose bubbles leaving the broken room, granting both Grace and the fishmen the ability to swim unimpeded. This did not reassure Grace to any extent, even as her distance from the building increased.

"Now this," Grace began, "is FUBAR."

The scene sent a surge of unconscious, reactionary adrenaline through the Chem-woman's brain, slowing her perception of the world to a crawl. Zoro was in the midst of a turn, pulling Wado from its sheath in a motion so fluid and quick that it almost seemed to be at a regular speed. Half a dozen connections flashed through Grace's mind, carrying her thoughts from swords to swordsmen to how stupid they are to Coby to how the crew picked up Kaku and, ultimately, the abilities Kaku and his original ilk used against them so long ago.

"Duh," Grace berated herself, finally coming up with a plan to get herself and Zoro to the gondola. She pulled her feet up into the bubble protecting them as the slowed progression of time returned to normal, a pad of hydro-reactionary chemicals forming on her foot. "This is gonna hurt like a bitch. Underwater Moonwalk!"

"Did you say som-?"

Kicking downward, Grace launched the chemicals out of the bubble where they reacted with the water, exploding. The resulting force pushed them the opposite direction, just as the artist had intended. She repeated this possess again, securing her arm around Zoro's midsection so the wayward swordsman didn't get blown away, fall out, or plain get lost again.

The force of the explosions did what Grace knew they would, jetting them toward the gondola so fast that their bubble rippled, leaving the fishmen in the metaphorical dust. On the other side, however, the chemist had not planned on how to stop, nor did she know just how much the force would hurt, and she was realizing both of these follies the hard way.

"Fu-" The pair slammed into the gondola's protective bubble, tumbling to the floor in a heap. Their somewhat sudden appearance caused the others to jump, with the exception of Ace who continued to sleep in his parents' laps.

"Oh, you found Zoro," Luffy blinked. "That's great! That means Coby won the bet!"

"You all need to stop making bets when I'm not around," Grace muttered, accepting Coby's hand and assistance. Her legs wobbled, but more from the pain the explosions caused than any weak-in-the-knees feelings she would have had otherwise. "Also, there are pirates after us. We need to go."

"We can't leave now!" Pappagu cried, waving his arms. "We need to rescue King Neptune and Princess Shirahoshi and the Ministers and the army!"

"We can't fight effectively," Grace countered. "Not unless we can find a way to fill the throne room over there with air that the fishmen can't just get rid of."

"Well," Luffy began, turning all attention to him. "We need air, right? And this big eel thing has massive bubbles and that coral turns water into air or something. Let's just get over there and find a way to use those."

"You never cease to amaze, Captain," Robin grinned, cutting through the surprised silence of their fellow crew members. "This oarfish is quite large and can move rather quickly, so I'm sure it can be a useful mount in breaking through the fishmen coming toward us."

"They're coming here now?!" Usopp gaped, pressing his face against the bubble to clearly see the mass of shadows approaching them. "Godada-aaang it!"

"I guess stealth is out of the question," Amy muttered. "Five of us don't have Devil Fruits -six if you wanna count Billy- so that should be enough to cover us if we can establish at least a decent-sized bubble to fight in."

"I'll follow ya anywhere, Don," Gin stated.

"I don't like this plan!" Chopper yelled.

"This is not going to work the way we want it to!" Coby agreed.

"Come on, eel!" Luffy cheered, jumping up and driving his heel into the back of the giant fish like one might spur on a horse. "Into the castle!"

The gondola eel gave something of a worried, begrudging answer before beginning to swim forward. Its speed picked up quickly, with Luffy egging it on. Pirates in the water gaped as their human targets did the last thing they expected, those too caught up in their disbelief or too slow to act shoved out of the way as the giant eel slammed into them, sending them spinning away.

"We haven't talked about how we're gonna make this work!" Usopp panicked.

"Baaahahaha!" Merry laughed. "Let's gooooo!"

"Luffy, you moron!" Nami raged. "You're putting Ace in danger!"

"Let us rescue a princess, yohoho!" Brook laughed, only for the eel below them to shake, threatening their balance.

"Oi, watch it!" Luffy warned, punching the back of the animal as close to the head as the bubble would allow. "Grace, where are we going?"

"You should have asked before we started!" Nami, Coby, Usopp, and Grace yelled, the artist of the group pushing her way to the front of the bubble. She pointed ahead toward the hole in castle.

"That's our target," the redhead explained. "Get the eel to dive in there and hopefully we can make a bubble big enough to fight in. How you're gonna get the eel to move that way is the question."

"That's easy!" the captain laughed, even as the stonework drew closer. "Merry can use her ropes like one of those horsey-things they put on horses."

"Why didn't I think of that?" Merry gasped, a mixture of disappointed in herself and elated at the idea. "Out of my way! Out of my way! I've got an eel to wrangle!"

"Merry!" Usopp cried, but the excitable Klabautermann ignored him as she Moonwalked her way to the front, rope trailing from her sleeves.

"Let's go Rigging Art: Bit by Bit!" Planting her feet in a way that could not have been comfortable for the eel, the fairy threw her ropes out of the bubble. Unfortunately, their mount was moving too fast for the ropes to keep up against the water resistance, said rope trailing behind loosely. Merry frowned, coiling her rope for another try. "Tch, looks like I'll need to be a little more hands-on. Well, it's not like I don't have enough practice dealing with the Franky Family's King Bulls. Underwater Moonwalk!"

Before Usopp could protest again (and really, they were going to have an intervention when this was all over about that), Merry was gone, kicking her way through the water toward the eel's head. Its eyes widened as the horned girl appeared in its vision, smiling at it whilst simply kicking the water behind her with flat feet. It was unlike any 'swimming' the eel had ever seen. Its confusion faded into worry, however, when a gleam entered the girl's eyes, her hands snapping a rope taught before her torso.

Within moments, a bridle of woven rope crisscrossed over the eel's head, Merry letting the water pull her back toward the bubble while trailing the last of the rope to control her return. Soon, she was literally at the reigns and able to breathe easy.

"Perfect execution," the Klabautermann grinned despite the fact that she was soaking wet. Kaku, Coby, and Gin gave a polite golf clap for a stunt well done. "And Paulie said I'd never need that maneuver. Ha! I sure showed him!"

"Less talking and more driving!" Amy warned, pointing toward the castle. "With our current direction, we're gonna crash!"

"I mean, we're gonna crash either way," Merry shrugged, completely unfazed at the inevitable outcome.

"We are?!" Camie, Pappagu, Chopper, and Usopp screamed, very fazed by the inevitable outcome. Merry ignored them, pulling on her rope reigns as hard as she could. The eel fought her for a moment before the fairy's strength won out, tilting their momentum up just a fraction. Not enough for a safe landing, Merry noted, though there was little that could be considered safe in this scenario.

"This is gonna hurt!" Merry warned as their ballistic ride neared its end, almost to the point that the pirates could make out figures inside the castle. "Brace for impact!"

The eel clipped the top of the broken wall as it passed, throwing debris into the surrounding water. The shock traveled through the eel to the passengers on its back, throwing them as well while also breaking the sap holding their bubble together. For the second time that day, the pirates felt water surge in on them as each grabbed the closest person they could before their chance to do so was lost.

Conscious of the one member who could neither run nor fight, Nami ran to Grace and Coby as the bubble started to flood, said art thief still holding the Bubble Coral. Grace wasted no time in kneeling down to use the device, a bubble growing around them as quickly as the water appeared at their feet. The image outside their bubble was not pretty, though, several of their number being tossed around like ragdolls by the force of the water. There was nothing they could do in the moment save hold on to each other and wait for things to settle.

The New Fishman Pirates would have capitalized on the Straw Hats' disarray had it not brought a threat on them as well. The Ryugu soldiers, king, and princess could only stare as the gondola eel blew out the arch where the door had been before careening to the floor. Bubbles and loose air exploded outward, funneling upward in a wall of white that obscured the moment of impact. Said force, however, shook the room like a quake as the eel's remaining momentum carried it toward the captain of the rebellious group.

Hody, for his part, could only stare at the sheer sudden stupidity of the human crew charging his force with a giant oarfish. Unable to move in time, the face of the eel crashed into the shark fishman, slamming him into the wall. Cracks grew in the stone at the point, further comprising the integrity of the building.

All stilled after the moment of chaos, each being trying to collect their bearings.

"What are you morons waiting for, dosun?!" Hody's hammerhead commander yelled. "Get them while they can't breathe, dosun!"

The pirates charged with a battle cry, unimpeded by the water. Only a few Straw Hats were able to respond, the rest left incapacitated by the sea waters around them.

Zoro had not let the crash disorient him. He tumbled through the water even as he drew his katana. His Observation Haki flared, locating Robin and Gin behind him. He had little time to act, a wave of fishmen already swimming toward him.

"You might as well give up!" one of the rival pirates sneered. "You humans are so weak, you can't even breathe underwater. Just go down quietly."

Zoro, of course, would accept none of that. Falling into one of his familiar stances, Zoro swung. His swords left ripples in the water as they passed. The water then distorted and twisted, swirling into a vicious whirlpool under the effect of the swordsman's Dragon Twister.

Nodding to himself, Zoro sheathed the swords in his hands and swam to his crewmates. Knowing he could handle it, Zoro tossed Gin over his shoulder without much care while cradling Robin's more delicate frame. Glancing back with his one good eye, Zoro mapped a route to the nearest bubble and kicked off the wall.

On the other side of the room, Usopp let out a muffled gasp as pirates closed in around him, his body moving on instinct as he fired one of his Pop Greens. A wall of vines grew from the point of impact, snaring the fishmen who came for him. The attack bought the sniper the time he needed to start swimming, grabbing Brook and Chopper nearby. On a time crunch of his own, the long-nosed man's eyes darted around the room, desperate for an escape. His gaze landed on two bubbles still intact.

One was out of the question, containing three enemy pirates next to Princess Shirahoshi. The other was next to the downed eel, containing Grace, Coby, Nami, and Ace. Sights set and knowing that his Pop Green wouldn't last much longer under the sharp edges of the pirates' swords, Usopp kicked, pushing his swimming skills to the limit.

"Look at this, boys!" a fishman laughed, pointing to a large fowl and a woman in a pink dress, both unmoving. "We lucked out and got the easy ones! Who's hungry for drumsticks?"

The insult seemed to click to the bird, the Gigafowl's eyes snapping open to glare at the pirate. He stepped back at the intelligent rage in the bird's eye. Billy took advantage of this kicking off the floor and flapping his wings as he lunged toward the attacking group. His eyes darted about, taking stock of distances and locations before he reached his goal.

And then he did, his copper-covered talon grabbing the lead fishman by the chest. Billy let out a squawk muffled by the water before a flash lit up the humanoid's skeleton. Smoke would have risen from the man had they not been underwater, but no such thing occurred as the pirate fell limp and sunk to the floor.

Seemingly not satisfied with that, Billy spun, flinging a half-dozen of the orange feathers of his peacock-like tail at the remaining forces nearby. They flew through the water like needles, stabbing into flesh with the feather side sticking out. Like a battery, they each discharged a shock upon arrival, causing muscle spasms in all those hit.

Now satisfied that those who stood in his way were dealt with, Billy scooped Blond-Female-Smells-Sweet onto his saddle and swam toward the bubble containing Lizard-Is-Person, Red-Female-Makes-Colors, Alpha-Female-Calls-Shock, and Small-Alpha-Child.

Camie, with Pappagu clinging to her shoulder, was one of the first to recover, unhindered by the water in any way. The crash had, however, left her dizzy and knocked her for a loop. She sat up slowly, swirls in her eyes as she tried to comprehend the world around her.

"Well, well," a voice sneered nearby, Camie turning to see a pink-skinned fishman. "Looks like we've got a race-traitor on our hands. You friendly with the humans, girlie?"

Camie could not respond, her voice refusing to work as she comprehended the sword at her throat. The pirate frowned, his eyes narrowing, as his short patience ran out.

"Guess it's gonna be like that then. Die, traitor!"

The mermaid let out a scream as the sword descended, the girl grabbing the closest thing she could reach as a shield. What she grabbed was heavy and rather unwieldy, but both fishmen and merpersons are naturally ten times stronger than humans. The impromptu shield gurgled as she sword bounced off it with a ringing clang.

"What?!" the pirate gasped as the force staggered him. The shield Camie had chosen was a long-nosed human in a suit, said suit's tie having deflected the sword as if the cloth were made of metal. The surprise left him open, Pappagu jumping from Camie's shoulder and punching the pirate square in the nose. Pappagu gasped as the punch cracked the man's cartilage while sending a shock down his own arm.

"Swim, Camie!" the starfish yelled. "Swim!"

Keeping hold of Kaku under one arm and grabbing Pappagu with the other, the mermaid pushed off the floor and swam in a random direction, eyes looking for somewhere safe. While nowhere seemed truly without assault, she did locate where the Straw Hats were, for the most part, gathering, and adjusted her course accordingly.

Finally, Merry tumbled through the water as the eel crashed, her rope lost in favor of grabbing her captain's shirt. The two spun before impacting the wall moments before the eel did. Merry had the breath knocked out of her, the bubbles floating away, but she refused to surrender to the fuzzy unconsciousness that would not require her to breathe. Her fingers stayed clenched around the cloth of Luffy's cardigan.

Shaking the fog from her mind, Merry forced her eyes open. Luffy was limp beside her, unable to do anything on account of his and all Devil Fruit users' Achilles heel. She adjusted her grip, getting her arm around his waist for a more effective pull than dragging him behind. Her cargo secure, the Klabautermann kicked off the wall.

Blurring in and out of view with liberal use of Shave and Moonwalk, Merry penetrated the bubble Grace had created. She dropped her cargo, taking a deep breath as others entered the bubble themselves.

"Luffy!" Nami yelled, passing Ace off to Coby before falling to her knees beside her husband. She checked him over, finding his chest refusing to rise. Shoving her ear against his sternum revealed his heartbeat, so there was only one thing to do.

She punched him, her fist compressing his ribs with all the adrenal force she could muster. Luffy coughed, water spewing from his mouth and nose as the compression forced it from his lungs. He rolled over, spitting up the last of the water.

"Don't you ever scare me like that again," Nami muttered, though she couldn't hide her relief, her arms wrapping around his neck as he sat up. "What a stupid idea, charging in head first. What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't," Luffy answered, neither lying nor worried about the ramifications of such. It wasn't like they expected him to think anything through, was it?

"We've got bigger issues!" Coby warned with Ace tucked against his side and a sword in the other hand. Camie tossed Kaku into the bubble, she and Pappagu hovering just outside of it, affording them more maneuverability that way. "Fishmen incoming!"

With most of the power users down for a moment, the others felt the need to step up. Their responses, however, were varied. Merry, Billy, and Nami stepped forward, ready to defend their crewmates while they recovered. It was, however, the more cowardly of them that had the greatest impact.

Usopp screamed as the dangers facing them appeared, his body moving on instinct as he fired Pop Green after Pop Green into the crowd of pirates moving to attack them. Sure, Nami and Billy's lighting attacks and Merry's short jaunts outside the bubble to throw Tempest Kicks at the group took down plenty of the cannon fodder, but neither had the sheer area of effect that the sniper's varied plants did.

Walls of vines, giant traps with grasping mouths, massive flowers that released debilitating chemicals, all these and some others plagued the New Fishman Pirates as they tried to get close. The abundance of water seemed to make the plants grow larger than their already large size, leaving the riff raff of the fishmen out for the count.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Caribou was having a good laugh at all the destruction around him.

"Hahaha! Now this is what I call fun!" the tanned man yelled, his arms raised as if gesturing to the chaos. His clothing and face continued to drip, bits and pieces of his body falling into the swamp that continued to writhe under his feet. "Pirates fighting in a life-and-death struggle, collateral damage without a care, hostages watching with fear and awe, and only the strongest will come out on top! Coribou, are you seeing this?"

"No, bro!" the younger, larger sibling answered, staring toward the princess with a blank look, clearly not sure why he couldn't see the fighting. "Sorry, bro!"

Shirahoshi, uncomfortable with all the fighting and the gaze of the human holding her chains, couldn't help the tears that started to leak from her eyes.

"Stop staring at my Shirahoshi!" Vander Decken yelled, stomping over to the pale human and poking him in the chest with one of his webbed fingers. "You are making her sad when normally she would be ecstatic at our reunion! She is my bride, not some whore you'd look for on shore, human!"

Coribou barely turned, only moving enough to see Decken out of most of his periphery. He blinked, a stupid grin growing. "That rhymed. Ha!"

"You have nothing to worry about on that front, Vander Decken," Caribou stated, turning away from the destruction to look at the Devil-Fruit-using fishman. "My brother here is too stupid to have thoughts about such things. Trust me, I've tried to get him to experiment with more things than fighting, but none of it worked. That's why I'm the brains. All he's good for is strong muscle."

"...Bro thinks I'm strong!" Coribou grinned, apparently missing everything else Caribou had said. Wherever the conversation was going, it was stopped suddenly by the sound of something wet falling to the floor. The three turned to see a figure in green pushing himself into a sitting position, holding a woman in a dress against his chest while another man in a soaked brown robe was left on the floor. They were just outside the edge of Caribou's swamp; ne'er a thought could expand it and suck them into its murky depths.

Well, that would be if Caribou wasn't having so much fun at the moment. Ending a fight like that at a time like this? Impossible!

"Alright, come on," the man grunted. "Wake up, Robin. Luffy got us into another mess apparently, so we need to deal with it."

"Ohoho," the swamp-man grinned, recognizing the two men from when he'd last seen them just days ago when Luffy crashed the rally put on by the fake Straw Hats and Zoro, Sanji, and Gin had jumped into the resulting calamity. "If it isn't the famous Pirate Hunter and Electric Devil! And that beauty must be the Devil Child, too. Not so much a child anymore, I'd say."

"Ah?" Zoro grunted, surprised to hear the voice. The swordsman turned on the man, rage smoldering in his dark eyes as they narrowed. "The Hell did you just say about my crewmate, you melting mud freak?"

"Oh dear, I didn't think you'd get so offended!" Caribou smirked, brushing off the insult like water off a duck's back. "Well, it doesn't matter. I'm going to claim all your heads for myself anyway. After all, I'm the one that's going to be the next King of the Pirates."

"You've got guts," Zoro stated, setting Robin aside so she could catch her breath and recover while he pulled out his swords. He leveled Kitetsu III at the man. "I can't wait to see what they look like all over the floor."

The room rumbled before Caribou could reply to the threat, the floor shaking. A growl, slowly growing into a yell of exertion, echoed through the room. The gondola eel, which had remained motionless after the dust settled, started to move unnaturally. Its head was pushed away from the wall, causing its body to press in on itself. Once there was some space, the fishman who had caused the disturbance tossed the eel's head to the side.

"Hahaha!" Hody laughed, brushing debris off himself. "You almost got me there, Straw Hat. You know, this might actually be fun. Men!" Hody's army froze, hanging on to every word their captain said. His mere presence, after having survived being crushed by the gondola eel, was a boost to their moral. "Kill them."

End of Chapter 11

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-SwordOfTheGods