The mountain shook.
Not from Ryokugyu's roots or the distant cannon fire. This was something else. Something primal. Two prehistoric hearts beating war drums against the ancient stone of Mount Merlot.
Saar Thunder-Tusk Mogambo lowered his head, his fractal tusks crackling with trapped lightning. The Ngoubou's hybrid form stood fourteen feet of armored muscle and tribal scars, his shaved scalp gleaming where the single topknot danced in the static-charged air. The cracked elephant tusk strapped to his back clattered against his leather harness. His eyes glowed faintly blue, storms brewing behind his dark irises.
"You run fast, little bird," Saar rumbled, his voice carrying the weight of thunder. "But you cannot hide from the storm."
Across the clearing, Ataboy Shitomi Kusaba dropped into a crouch. His cassowary hybrid form rippled with blue-black feathers, his crest catching the fractured sun. The feather boa around his neck—dyed deep blue, made from his own shed plumage—fluttered in the wind. His orange-red eyes locked onto the CP enforcer with the focus of a predator who had forgotten how to lose.
"Hide?" Ataboy laughed, that warm infectious HE-HE-HE that seemed wrong coming from a creature built to kill. "Nah. I'm just getting comfortable."
He bounced on his digitigrade legs, the dagger claws on his inner toes scraping grooves into the bedrock.
Behind them, Marines scattered.
A squad of white-coated soldiers had been advancing up the slope, rifles raised, following Saar's massive form as backup. But the two Devil Fruit users had stopped paying attention to anything except each other. The ground between them had already been torn to rubble—boulders cracked, trees splintered, deep furrows carved by Cassowary talons and Ngoubou tusks.
"Get back!" a Marine sergeant shouted, waving his arm. "Fall back to the tree line!"
Too late.
Saar charged.
The Ngoubou's legs pounded the earth. Fractal lightning arced between his tusks, building into a plasma corona that vaporized loose stones in his path. The air smelled of burnt metal and wet soil. His trunk curled back, ready to lash.
"PLASMA HORN CHARGE!"
Ataboy didn't run.
He met the charge head-on.
The cassowary's crest glowed as he hummed—a low, guttural vibration that made the Marine soldiers behind him clutch their ears and stumble. He waited until the last possible second, then exploded sideways in a Blue Forest Flash.
Feathers scattered. The spot where he had stood became a crater of lightning-scorched rock.
Saar's tusks passed through empty air, and the plasma discharge tore into the slope behind Ataboy. A thirty-foot section of mountainside vaporized. Trees became ash. Rocks became sand. And three Marines who hadn't retreated fast enough simply ceased to exist.
"FALL BACK!" the sergeant screamed, his voice cracking.
The survivors ran.
Ataboy reappeared twenty feet to Saar's left, his chest heaving. He glanced at the smoking crater where the soldiers had stood. His jaw tightened.
"That's a shame," he said, his voice losing its usual cheer. "They didn't deserve that."
Saar straightened, his tusks crackling. "They were in my way. Weakness invites erasure."
Ataboy's orange-red eyes narrowed. "The Patriarch's Duty says different."
He charged.
The cassowary moved like a spring unleashed—low to the ground, his crest cutting the air. Saar brought his trunk around in a Trunk Volt-Lash, the appendage crackling with stored electricity. Ataboy ducked under it, the lightning passing close enough to singe his feathers, and drove his inner claw into Saar's flank.
The dagger talon scraped across the Ngoubou's armored hide. Sparks flew. The blow didn't penetrate, but it left a gouge deep enough to draw dark blood.
Saar roared.
He spun, one of his telescopic clubs—Gaja Muku, Elephant's Fury—swinging from his hip. The kinetic energy dials embedded in the weapon glowed as he brought it around in a horizontal arc.
Ataboy leaped.
The club passed under him, shattering a boulder the size of a carriage. Shrapnel flew in every direction. A chunk of stone caught a fleeing Marine in the back, sending him tumbling down the slope. His comrades dragged him behind a fallen tree.
"This is not a battlefield," one of them whimpered. "This is a slaughterhouse."
Ataboy landed on Saar's back.
The cassowary's talons dug into the Ngoubou's thick hide, and he drove his crest toward the base of Saar's skull. "Crest-Crush: Sub-Woofer!"
The low-frequency shockwave erupted from the bony helmet, rattling Saar's inner ear. The enforcer staggered, his equilibrium shot. His fractal tusks discharged wildly, lightning branching in every direction—jagged, unpredictable geometric patterns that struck trees, rocks, and one unfortunate Marine who had been hiding behind a boulder.
The soldier's body hit the ground. It did not move.
"Sorry!" Ataboy called out, though the man couldn't hear him. "Sorry, sorry, sorry—"
Saar grabbed him.
The trunk wrapped around Ataboy's waist and squeezed. Cassowary bones creaked. The enforcer's grip was like a steel cable, and the electricity stored in his tusks began to flow through the trunk, seeking a path to ground.
"Trunk Volt-Lash," Saar growled, his voice distorted by the shockwave's after-effects. "Let's see how loud you scream, little bird."
Ataboy didn't scream.
He laughed.
"HE-HE-HE! You think this is my first rodeo?"
He brought his head back and slammed it forward. The crest—hard as Seastone, coated in midnight-blue Haki—cracked against Saar's trunk. The enforcer's grip loosened. Ataboy twisted, drove both inner claws into the trunk's underside, and ripped.
Blood sprayed. Saar bellowed and released him.
Ataboy tumbled to the ground, rolled, and came up with his kris dagger Kuroi in his hand. The wavy blade glowed with Haki, the demonic figure on the hilt's eyes burned.
"You've got power," Ataboy said, circling. "But you're slow. And angry. And angry fighters make mistakes."
Saar flexed his wounded trunk, healing already beginning—the mythical zoan's regeneration kicking in. His fractal tusks crackled brighter.
"I am not angry," he said. "I am thunder. I am the storm that will wash you away."
He slammed his front feet into the ground.
"Dissonance Stomp!"
The shockwave traveled through the earth, scrambling Ataboy's inner ear. The world spun. His vision blurred. He stumbled, his legs betraying him, and Saar charged again.
This time, the tusks found their mark.
The plasma corona caught Ataboy across the chest, hurling him backward. He crashed through a pine tree, then another, then a third. Needles and splinters exploded around him. He hit the rocky slope and tumbled, feathers flying, until he came to rest against a moss-covered boulder.
His feather boa had been torn. Blood seeped from a gash across his ribs.
Saar stalked toward him, his shadow swallowing the clearing.
"Get up," the enforcer commanded. "I did not come all this way to watch a bird die lying down."
Ataboy pushed himself to his feet. His crest was cracked. His left arm hung at an awkward angle. But he was smiling.
"HE-HE-HE... you hit hard, I'll give you that."
He spat blood.
"But I've been hit harder. And I've always gotten back up."
He raised Kuroi, the kris dagger catching the fractured light. His orange-red eyes burned.
"This is my duty! You protect yours. I protect mine. And I'm not done protecting yet."
Saar's tusks flared brighter. The storm inside him was building toward something catastrophic.
"Then let us see who breaks first."
They charged.
The mountain shook.
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