"How much deep-fried alligator meat could that beast give us? Owner Zeff, you think we could mail order that stuff if there's anything left of it when the Straw Hats are done, and Sanji fillets it?" Carne asked.
"It would be a waste of good ingredients if we didn't try, though chances are that Straw Hat'll just eat it all like usual," Zeff replied, frowning. "Maybe I'll write up a request and hand it off to the News Coo when it shows up. But meanwhile—"
"Back to work, got it!" the chef yelped, busying himself with the meal tickets.
Meanwhile, on the screen, the Straw Hats were making no progress away from their pursuers. Considering that fact, the question on the minds of the patrons and chefs was why the strongest rookie pirate of their generation, the man who had smashed Don Krieg's armour like glass, wasn't fighting the beast at all.
Case in point, one steak-eating patron, who said, "The meat-loving monkey should be smashing that thing into the ground and eating its corpse." To emphasize the point, he drove his knife into his steak.
"Yeah, you're right," another nearby customer agreed. "So what's stopping him?"
With the foliage suddenly bursting open, the question was shelved, and everyone watched a familiar dugong drop onto a branch above Cross.
"ALRIGHT!" the amphibian bellowed, pounding his 'knuckles'. "Sorry for the delay, but I'm here now! Let's kick some tail and get moving!"
"Boss! Are we glad to see—!"
FWOOM!
The watchers' eyes twitched as Boss suddenly flew away again.
"…OK, that's just not fair," Lassoo huffed.
"Sonnuva—ah, damn it!" Cross cursed, both on account of his backup being blasted and the fact that there was an upcoming turn in the foliage. "Luffy, I'm heading right!"
"Eh? Ah, man, and I've gotta go left! Ah, well!" The captain laughed as he sped up to keep ahead of his reptilian pursuer. "I'll try to lose this guy! Good luck, Cross!"
"Same to you, Captain!"
And with that, the pirates split apart, with the Visual Snail's mount choosing once more to follow Cross through the canopy.
For a long minute, the chase remained as tense as ever, with Cross running and leaping from branch to branch, and the killer rabbit pulping a path through said branches.
Then, inevitably, Cross missed a step, his boot hitting a patch of moss instead of bark. He sprawled forward, luckily landing on a particularly overgrown branch but unluckily in an undignified heap.
Or would have, if he hadn't turned his landing into a roll, from which he popped into a kneeling position and took aim at the mega-lagomorph, prompting it to freeze up barely a meter away.
The air was electric, the entire restaurant holding its breath in anticipation of whatever was to come. Breathing slowed, sweat rolled…
And then a twig softly snapped in the distance, and the combatants moved.
The rabbit leapt forwards, Cross fired—
"Kero." THWAP!
And then something blurry shot out of the air, slamming into the rabbit and knocking it out of the screen, before retracting both itself and the rabbit up at the same blur-inducing speed.
As one, Baratie blinked in befuddlement.
Cross was right there with them, blinking in confusion as Lassoo's round exploded in the distance. Soundbite, however, did not join him. He was staring upward, shaking in terror beneath his shell.
"Cross…" he whispered miserably.
The terrified tone shook Cross out of his confusion, and scrunched his eyes shut as he slowly craned his head back. "This is gonna suck, this is gonna suck, this is gonna—Guh…" One could almost see Cross's stomach dropping out from him when he cracked his eyes open and actually go a look at the enemy. "…damn it."
The view slowly followed Cross's gaze, revealing that perched high above them was a frog. It was green with a black discoloration on its back, titanic in size, and menacing in appearance. Kicking rabbit legs hung outside of its lips, demonstrating quite clearly that Cross had only a few seconds before he had his place on the food chain reevaluated.
"Hey, Patty, whaddaya think you'd make of that one?" one of the cooks called out.
"Legs are obvious, check for eggs! Now hurry up and get over here! Table six's order is up!" the larger chef ordered.
Meanwhile, the time Cross had before his evolutionary re-evaluation shortened considerably as the frog gave the rabbit a final munch. It then swallowed the rabbit whole, its gaze staying on Cross as its chest distended with a sonorous "kero".
Cross's eye twitched furiously. "Ah, shi—!"
THWACK!
"—GAH!" the pirate grunted in exertion as he only just managed to leap away from the blur of a tongue that smashed into where he'd been moments before.
Unlike before, however, Cross's immediate response was to heft Lassoo and aim it at the frog. "I don't normally go for frog legs, but just this once! CANI-CANNON!"
B-B-BLAM!
The gun spat out a trio of cannonballs at the titan-amphibian, and they would have neatly roasted the beast.
"Orekekek."
If only they didn't suddenly detonate well away from the target.
Even worse, this was not the result of the frog's own actions. Instead, the restaurant was treated to the revelation that the dark discoloration on the amphibian's back… wasn't a discoloration after all.
As their customers recoiled in no small amount of terror and horror, one of the Baratie's chefs shot a questioning look at their comrades. "Hey, Carne, how do you think you'd—?"
"HIT IT WITH A STICK!" the shorter chef cried out from beneath the pot he was cowering under.
Cross was right there with him, gurgling in horror at the clicking, chitin-covered entity that was resting on the frog's back, claws snapping and tail waving. "I thought that it was supposed to be in the scorpion's nature to kill the frog!"
"Nature over nurture… or would it be THE OTHER WAY AROUND?" Soundbite wondered, right before his pupils suddenly dilated. "EITHER WAY, AM-SCRAY!"
"IGHT-RAY!" Cross belted out, spinning on his heel and dashing away before the frog's tongue could snap him up.
The frog responded with a ruthless, bone-rattling "KERO!", leaping up to grasp another branch and lashing its tongue out in pursuit.
What followed was essentially a remix of Cross's prior escape. Granted, due to its mass, the frog wasn't quite as fast or maneuverable as the rabbit had been, but its lightning-fast tongue more than made up for it. And while it served as a perfectly stationary target in between its tree-to-tree leaps, the scorpion it was illogically symbiotic with acted as the perfect shield by blocking any retaliation Cross attempted.
"Is this what the Straw Hats have been up to for the last week?" one of the patrons incredulously demanded. "How the heck are they still going strong in this mess?"
"Well, Luffy and the Dugong are monsters, obviously," Zeff blandly informed the customer as he set his dish down. "Also, your soup's ready."
"Ah, thank you!" The patron picked up his spoon before pausing as a thought hit him. "But, uh… that explains those two, but isn't Cross, well, normal?"
Zeff graced his patron with a flat look. "Sir, I can serve you your soup or I can serve you the knowledge of the universe. Which would you prefer?"
"Uhh…"
"Translation, he doesn't have a clue either!" Patty helpfully provided as he passed by.
"Listen, you—!"
"GAAAAAAAH!"
"Oh, come on, again!?" Zeff snapped his head around to stare at the screen, where Luffy had popped up running from the same direction that Cross was. And behind him was a literal fish out of water. Or, well, octopus. Giant octopus. That had somehow adapted to land. It was clearly only having so much trouble pasting Luffy with its flying tentacles because he was made of rubber.
"GO FALL OFF THE EDGE, LAND SQUID!"
"TAKOYAKI, NOT CALAMARI, MORON!"
"WHA—?! Oh, hey, Cross, what's chasing you?" Luffy asked pleasantly.
"Giant frog and scorpion," Cross casually answered, punctuating the point with another scorpion-blocked blast. "I see you're having much better luck with edible species. Try not to lose that one to something, would you? I'm in the mood for seafood once we get a reprieve!"
"You got it!" Luffy shouted back, literally twisting his head around to keep talking as the two crewmates passed one another. "I'll try and handle it real quick and find you again!"
"Same to you!" Cross waved back before hastily snapping his arm down before the Frog could manage to snap him up. He then glanced upward. "And Boss should be swinging by to be blasted away again in three, two—!"
SMASH! "RAAAAGH!"
Cross snapped his head around and blinked in surprise at the distant sound of impotent fury and trees being bowled over. "Or not. Huh, looks like he's decided to be proactive."
"Yeah, how's that. AND MEANWHILE, YOU SHOULD decide to duck!"
"Wha—GAH!" The pirate hastily fell into a baseball slide under a low-hanging branch before pushing himself to his feet. He then almost took a tumble when, instead of coming out on more branches, he stumbled onto an almost floor-like crossroads of several dozen vines.
Cross blinked at the turn of events, then barked out a relieved laugh and ran out to the center of the makeshift clearing. Turning around, he shot the frog-scorpion combo a taunting smirk. "Come and get me, rubber-belly!"
The frog narrowed its eyes and skidded to a halt before glancing over its shoulder at its passenger. "Keroro."
"Orekek," the scorpion clicked in response. The arachnid crawled down off the frog's back, its eight dexterous limbs affording it a much better hold on the vines than its counterpart. That alone throttled Cross's bravado quite effectively, but his growing anger transformed into incredulity when the frog then proceeded to bop down onto the scorpion's back, croaking without a care in the world.
"But… that's not fair," Cross whined plaintively.
From the screeching chitter and roaring croak, the pair let out before charging at him; they officially could not give a damn.
We need not repeat the stream of expletives that Cross belted out during his hasty retreat. What does bear saying, however, is that Cross ran across the 'clearing' of vines in an attempt to escape the scorpion, which kept up a swift barrage of tail-strikes and claw-snaps in an effort to catch up to the pirate.
"And I thought that Cross was just being melodramatic after that surfing fiasco, but no. Sanity is truly dead," Patty said, shaking his head wearily but still working at his station.
"It was dead before even I was born, Patty," Zeff scoffed, his eyes trained on the cook's hands with a satisfied look. "This may be on the stranger side, but it's still no big deal for the Grand Line. The only question is if the Straw Hats are crazy enough to make it through it, and that's something they've answered many times over."
"Case in point," deadpanned several chefs as Cross, cornered against a tree with tongue, tail, and claws poised to strike him, drew his elephant-sword and let loose a flurry of stabs at the beasts, fast enough for the sword to blur.
The beasts flinched at the attack, and then blinked in confusion as absolutely nothing happened to them.
The scorpion's demeanour shifted in just the right manner to suggest a sadistic grin in Cross' direction, and it was to everyone's surprise when Cross returned the expression with just as much bloody glee.
For its own part, the frog lacked its partner's enthusiasm and was glancing around in clear hesitation. Then its eyes shot wide in terror, prompting it to slap its webbed feet on the scorpion's shell. "Kero! Keroro!"
The scorpion ignored its partner in favour of crawling closer to Cross, chittering all the while furiously. "Orekekeke—!"
Crrr…
"Ore?" The scorpion paused in confusion at the sudden creaking sound. It glanced to and fro, trying to locate the source. It found it. And then it turned back to Cross and locked up in terror at the pirate's widening grin, and how he had his sword positioned blade-first over a single, innocent, perfectly innocuous vine.
Somehow, the scorpion's pitch-black chitin paled, while the frog slapped a foot to its face with a piteous "Kero…"
Cross, naturally, showed no care for the frog's plight and simply drove his sword through the vine.
CRA-CRASH!
This caused the vines under the creatures to give way, sending the symbiotic pair tumbling out of the canopy and down to the jungle floor with a crashing thump.
Cross laughed in relief at the sound, and he even leaned over the edge of the branch he was on to flash the pair a… specific gesture. "Two heads might be better than one, but it takes four to reign supreme, you pests!"
"COMING FROM HIM, that's saying something!"
Thankfully for the loudmouths, the pair appeared to be far more concerned with arguing with one another than exacting their vengeance on the pirate, croaking and chittering and motioning furiously at one another.
"Waiter!" one of the Baratie's customers called out in a cultured voice. "I have a quandary!"
"Well, it didn't come from our kitchen! We run a clean ship here!"
Zeff affixed his underlings with a flat look before picking up one of the customer's cleared dishes. "Let me get that for you, sir." He then flung the plate towards the kitchen.
THUNK! "OW!"
"Clean the stupid off it, halfwit!" Zeff roared before returning his attention to the customer. "You were saying?"
"Yes, well," the customer adjusted his coat primly. "Those two overgrown specimens of fauna are clearly communicating with one another, yes?"
"Obviously."
"And so too is the most infamous snail the world has ever known present with them, indeed?"
"Of course."
"Well then, my question is obvious!" The patron gestured inquisitively at the screen. "Wherefore can we not comprehend what these creatures are saying to one another?!"
Zeff opened his mouth to respond… and then slowly closed as he realized there was only one accurate response.
"That," he stated tersely. "Is a very good question."
-o-
"I remain conflicted about the process of rendering a sword sentient with a Devil Fruit… but I will not deny that I now want to duel against Cross and his elephant," Koshiro mused.
"But it wouldn't be much of a duel 'cause Cross isn't much of a swordsman, right, Master?" one of the old swordmaster's students asked curiously. "I mean, that's why Master Zoro is always training with Leo!"
"You say training, I say he's beating him up…" another student muttered under his breath.
"It is not simply a matter of being a superior swordsman. Any world-class swordsman has a close bond with his blade… or hers," he added, glancing in the direction of his daughter's gravestone. "But outright autonomy coupled with so close a bond, let alone carrying the extra strength of an elephant behind a common sabre, as well as the unorthodox actions of Jeremiah Cross himself…"
He trailed off, trusting that the visual would emphasize his point. Said visual being the symbiotic creatures continuing to snap and spit at one another, before finally relenting to glare viciously up at Cross, who was suddenly far less confident than he'd been a moment earlier.
The frog hopped on the scorpion's back, and the scorpion started to skitter its way up the tree's trunk—
"SCREE!"
CRUNCH!
"OREK!"/"KERO!"
—And then, a mega-sized stag beetle slammed its mass into the pair and crushed them into the tree, entirely ignoring the way the duo struggled and flailed in the larger pest's grip.
Cross stared down at the ongoing skirmish with no small amount of wariness before casting a doubtful look at Soundbite. "This is not going to end well for us, isn't it?"
"Signs point to—!"
"SCREE!" The titan-stag interrupted the snail with another ear-grating screech, following which it drew back from the symbiotic pair, just enough so that it could swiftly, disproportionately and utterly crush the two between its equally titanic mandibles. It was only a single strike, but from the spray of bloody foam that jetted from the pair and how they twitched in the larger insect's grip, that one strike was sufficient.
The stag then swung its head to the side, throwing away its insensate prey. That done, Beetle cast a hateful glare up at Cross, its vicious intentions clear. The insect tested its legs on the bark of the tree, but the wood cracked and gave way beneath its weight, so it drew back and began chewing at the tree's trunk with its mandibles.
"…yeah, that," the snail finished lamely.
"It's just one thing after another…" Cross miserably moaned, dragging a hand down his face.
As if on cue, a revving noise roared from the mega-stag, and its mandibles tore into the tree's trunk, wood chips and sawdust flying everywhere.
"THAT WAS AN ADMISSION OF FACT, NOT A TAUNT AT MURPHY!" Cross roared skyward, accompanying the statement with a very violently shaken fist.
"YEAH WELL, po-tay-to—!"
"GWOOOAAAARGH!"
SLAM!
Out of the blue, an equally massive kabuto beetle rammed into the stag beetle from the side, nearly bowling the former over and very effectively diverting its attention from Cross. The stag staggered slightly, got its legs under it, and shot a murderous glare at the other insect. Roar was answered with roar, and the two beetles went after each other hammer and tongs.
"…GIANT INSECT INTERRUPT." The snail cocked its eyestalks at the duelling beetles that were circling below them. "And for the record, I'm getting ticked off at getting interrupted by the world."
"Better you than me," Cross scoffed, rolling his eyes. "And on that note!"
Cross leapt off his branch, sliding down the trunk before leaping off onto one of the beetle's back, vaulting off, and then booking it for dear life on the ground. The video feed turned away from him briefly to show that the two beetles were still busy locking their horns together, despite the brief interruption.
With that established, the eagle took off and followed after Cross, who soon came into view, slumped over slightly with his hands on his knees, panting.
"That… was so unpleasant… on a whole new level…" he bit out before glancing at his partner. "Soundbite, timer?"
"18, 19, 20… huh. I think we'll actually reach half a minute this time… 27, 28, 29, 30, 31—AND bogey at 9 o'clock."
"Your fault!" Cross snarled, swinging up Funkfreed at the foliage Soundbite had indicated, obviously prepared to stab on a moment's notice.
"Alright, guys! Betting time!" one of Koshiro's disciples piped up eagerly. "Ten for two on a bird, twenty for five on reptiles! Mammals are all busts, I repeat, mammals are—!"
THWACK! "YEOW!"
"No betting near my daughter, please," Koshiro warned his student, shinai tapping his palm.
"Yes, master…"
"Hey, look, here it comes!"
And indeed, something did come.
Admittedly, compared to the earlier monstrosities that had plagued Cross, a man-sized and relatively normal-looking raccoon wasn't exactly the most imposing of creatures. But considering how the thing was, to reiterate, big enough to bite a person's head off and snarling viciously at Cross, it still managed a palpable aura of menace.
Cross's lips parted into a furious scowl. "Alright, you scummy little fleabag, I have had a hell of a week, and I am getting sick and tired of getting chased by monsters I can't kill, so for the sake of my sanity and pride alike, do me a favour and just DIE!"
Cross lunged forward and stabbed with his sword, prompting the elephant-blade to shoot forward. To no one's surprise, most likely not even Cross's, the raccoon deftly slid aside and avoided the attack completely.
What, to everyone's surprise, was that the instant the overgrown vermin moved, the screens went pitch black. The connection was not severed, to be sure, as the snails were all projecting noise. After all…
"GAGH!"
How else would the world have heard Cross getting slashed and the indignant roar of pain he let out in response?
Koshiro adjusted his glasses in shock. "What on earth—?"
"Son of a——" Cross's voice bit out painfully. "My eyes! Damn it, what just happened!?"
"No clue!" Soundbite snapped. "The damn thing just moved AND THEN—! Its… FUR… FLASHED… UH-OH."
"Wha— seriously!?" Cross spat. "How does a raccoon get the ability to cause seizures!?"
"When a stripe-rat AND A STROBE LIGHT LOVE EACH OTHER VERY MUCH! NOW RUN FOR IT!"
The sound of someone running, followed by something much heavier, sounded out, heading away from the snail. The screen itself remained frustratingly blank for a full minute.
"…Well, the upgrade didn't last long," one of the students muttered.
"Well, it could have been worse," Koshiro mused, a worried frown marring his features. "If the snail had actually managed to keep its eyes open, people could have actually gotten seizures."
Fortunately, as the sounds grew louder again, the vision began to return. This time, it was a bit blurrier and tunnelled; probably the snail narrowing its eyes to avoid the raccoon's flashing fur. But it was clear enough to see the raccoon behind a veil of green a distance away pursuing Cross. The eagle took flight in search of another view where it would be less vulnerable to the raccoon, and as a result, got a good look at a sudden change in the scenery.
Specifically, the screen displayed a ragged, very large patch of brown-and-gray wasteland ahead in Cross and his pursuer's path, sticking out like the scar it was against the green of the jungle. Burned and scorched grass dotted the ground, trees of varying states of burned stuck out at odd angles, and ash covered everything. Cross broke through the treeline and ran across the ashes, a scowl visible on his features.
"More fire-spitters. Perfect. I thought we managed to ditch them three islands back!"
"WELL, THEY'RE NOT NEARBY, AT LEAST! KEEP GOING, maybe flash-mob will have to slow down!"
"He's not the only one," Cross spat as he charged forward. "I've been training to take hits and give hits, but freaking parkour is not in my repertoire!" Cross's expression then became slightly contemplative, and he took a shell out of his pocket and spoke into it. "Note to self, start learning parkour."
"LEARN FAST! UPCOMING LOG!"
Cross reacted fast to the news, leaping up onto the oncoming arboreal obstacle. He then took a nasty dive when his boot slipped on the ash on said log.
Thankfully, Cross turned that tumble into another roll, his hound-cannon ready on his shoulder, although some distraction came from the presence of another living thing there.
"…that place is weird," one of the students flatly stated.
And indeed, the man-sized, slimy-skinned lizard grinding a stick into a bundle of them and blinking at Cross in bemused surprise was a perfect example of the island's weirdness.
Before the two could react to one another, the raccoon—which was no longer moving fast enough for its fur to be an issue—leapt onto the log with a nigh-rabid snarl. In response, the lizard redoubled its stick-grinding with an almost panicked fervour.
Cross's response, meanwhile, was far more… 'appropriate', for lack of a better word. "CANI-BLAST!"
Lassoo fired a pillar of superheated air, the blast travelling notably faster than Funkfreed had. The raccoon was unable to dodge; it had enough time for a panicked look before the blast struck, reducing it to a charred husk. Still twitching, but not long for the world of the living. The only question was whether it would die from its new injuries or be burned alive by the embers that were steadily building into a greater fire.
The answer, as it turned out, was to be impaled on an elephant's bladed trunk and flung back a few meters.
Cross nodded firmly before turning back to the lizard, clear anticipation of a fight written on his face. Instead, he blinked in confusion because the lizard's attention was not on him. Instead, the reptile was staring at the raccoon's charred and still-warm corpse. It was kind of disturbing, really, how the thing was staring. Something that was like hunger but wasn't… obsession dancing in its eyes.
The confusion was cleared up when Soundbite—pale and shivering in terror—swallowed heavily and spoke up. "Cross, remember how I said the flamers weren't NEARBY EARLIER?" Message delivered, the snail ducked back into his shell. "ADDENDUM."
"…Oh, no, it's a salamander," said another of the students, wincing in anticipation.
Cross's face twisted up, initially into a scowl, but then into a grimace. "Don't. You. Fucking—!"
To nobody's surprise, the Voice of Anarchy fell on deaf ears. The salamander just smiled malevolently and pounced on the smouldering raccoon.
Suddenly, the eagle carrying the visual snail swooped up and away and out of the sight of the salamander. Still, the sudden FWOOSH of something igniting was a bit of a giveaway.
The viewpoint briefly soared through an unscorched section of the jungle, followed by the sound of crashing and searing, and seconds later, a familiar form sprinted out of the underbrush.
"I! HATE! THESE! ISLANDS!" Cross and Soundbite bellowed together, closely pursued by the salamander, who'd somehow surrounded its body with what appeared to be a secondary phantom composed wholly of flames that was easily five times its actual size.
"…So, master? Do we have to aspire to be swordsmen that could face that sort of stuff if we're going to train here?"
Koshiro could only groan and slap his hand to his forehead. "This. This is why I don't like you children listening to the more rambunctious broadcasts."
"But we're not listening, we're watching!"
Koshiro groaned further.
-o-
"Commander Jonathan, unless I'm mistaken, you seem to be enjoying Cross's torment despite this, meaning that our best allies are indisposed and out of the picture."
"Hardly indisposed, Henrick," Jonathan hummed, playfully flipping a black pawn between his fingers. "The Straw Hats may be scattered amidst the outskirts of their enemy's base, but they're still there. And I believe the Straw Hats have demonstrated more than once that challenging them on your turf and terms… is a very poor idea."
The Vice Admiral's smirk widened. "Though I will gladly admit that, given what happened when we learned that the hard way, seeing them run around like this is more than a little cathartic."
The Ensign took a moment to turn that over in his head. And then he smirked. "Permission to requisition popcorn from the kitchen?" he asked with a perfectly straight face.
"Ensign, I order you to bring up the whole car with all the fixings," Drake said, a massive smile on his face.
Henrick didn't need any more prompting, exiting the room as fast as his legs could carry him. Jonathan, meanwhile, turned his attention back to the flaming lizard pursuing Cross, his mind running through the options he had at his disposal.
Cross's gauntlets were powerful weapons, but they only worked in close combat, and that was hardly practical against an opponent covered in fire. Soundbite's abilities should work, theoretically, but since he hadn't already employed them, odds were that the creatures were either unaffected by the weaker attacks, the stronger attacks had too low a payoff for the energy they consumed, or some combination thereof. Lassoo's ammunition focused on fire, combustion, flammables, and a smokescreen, meaning that the dog could at best inconvenience the salamander and more likely simply make the problem worse.
That left Funkfreed; a near-sonic elephant should do wonders for shortening the salamander's lifespan, though the incendiary second skin and the ongoing pursuit made targeting the creature understandably difficult. But perhaps that Pachy-Riot he'd used could—?
"HEY, BACKUP LONG NOSE, YOU WANNA help out by giving this schmuck a good spritzing OR WHAT!? I THINK HE COULD USE A DRINK!" Soundbite demanded in a biting tone.
"Yeah, well, so could I!" Funkfreed shot back in a somewhat raspy voice. "We've been out here for a week straight, and it's been three days since the last non-swamp body of water! I'm parched!"
"And seeing as the only water I have on me is my drinking water, and it needs to last until we find another body of clean water, that's not happening!" Cross huffed.
Jonathan frowned, slotting that last bit of information into an increasingly distressing picture. Obviously, they were getting more than enough food, even if it was bush meat. But going that long with minimal water while constantly expending energy? And for that matter, going that long without rest? Something was missing…
On-screen, Cross had made it to another clearing, this one particularly massive, at which point he abruptly stopped running. The viewpoint swung around to reveal the source of his hesitation: a monstrous bear with black-and-white fur and a gargantuan, absolutely irate praying mantis brawling in the center. The bird flew back, showing that even the salamander had paused at the sight of this clash.
"Another brawl between Alphas," Lassoo snorted.
"Of all the times!" Cross groaned. The salamander regaining enough wits to roar at him was just salt in the wound.
"HALF-SHELL STYLE!"
"Not what I meant by something missing, but not unwelcome," Jonathan muttered.
At Boss's roar, the mega-salamander stopped and looked around in confusion, freezing up when a large shadow fell over it. Slowly, it inclined its gaze upward.
"BELUGA!" the dugong bellowed—
WHAM!
And smashed the incendiary amphibious creature flat with the large, scale-armoured creature he'd brought with him.
"PILEDRIVER!" Boss finished, landing with his arms raised in victory. "And THAT is how a MAN does it!"
"GO, BOSS, GO!" Soundbite, Lassoo, and Funkfreed cheered.
Cross was a lot more restrained with his thanks, being bent over sucking wind, but he still had enough energy to shoot his crewmate a grateful thumbs-up. "Thanks for the save, Boss… huh." The tactician examined the twitching scaled behemoth. "Is that thing what kept blowing you away? What is that, a… pangolin or something?"
Boss snorted and gave the scaled body another smack. "Hole in one. The stupid thing was using its tail like a pair of bellows and blasting me with air bullets. Annoying as heck, but I got it in the end."
"What kind of warped circumstances would lead a pangolin to develop that kind of ability?" Drake asked, only for his expression to fall flat. "Right, the kind where the Straw Hats are involved. My bad."
"Well, at least, that's most of us back together…" Cross nodded in weary gratefulness. "Now we just need to find Luffy, who is…?" He sent an inquisitive glance Soundbite's way.
The snail's response was to adopt a flat expression and jerk his eyes over Cross's shoulder.
"Hey, guys!"
And there was Luffy, sitting next to the carcass of the octopus that had been chasing him, smiling and waving without a care in the world. Boss and Cross could only stare, blinking.
"…well, that's convenient," Boss muttered before raising his voice. "Hey, Luffy! You alright?"
"Shishishi, yeah, I'm fine!" Luffy chuckled, sliding off the corpse and walking up to them. "And look, I didn't lose the octopus either, so we can eat once I deal with these guys!" The rubber man then tilted his head inquisitively. "What about you guys? You holding up?"
"GROOOAAAR!"
Luffy's smile slammed into a scowl as the large panda-esque creature finished off the mantis with an earth-shaking suplex, and loosed a bone-rattling howl towards the pirates. "Actually, give me a second, I need to deal with this guy really fast."
Boss grinned and slammed his flipper into his palm. "Right there with you, Captain!"
"You two… go ahead…" Cross waved them off, still trying to get his breath back. "I'm just… gonna stay here… start cutting up the octopus… have a heart attack… or ten…"
"Right! Come on, Boss!" Luffy roared, shooting off with the dugong hot on his tail.
"Go get him, captain!" Cross yelled after his captain, raising a shaky thumbs-up… and then his eyes rolled up in his head, and he collapsed to the ground with a pitiful moan.
"One of the highest bounties in history, everyone," remarked Cormac, shaking his head. "Honestly, for all his impossible knowledge, he's not a fighter like Boss and the Monster Trio. I still don't get why the Government isn't sending someone who can just stomp them all flat, at least to take Cross's head."
"Because they can't."
Drake and Cormac snapped their heads to their superior, who was leaning back in his chair with a frown.
"Baroque Works. Navarone. Enies Lobby. Thriller Bark," Jonathan listed, punctuating each name with a spin of the white king he was holding. "The Straw Hat Pirates have challenged armies of hundreds, even thousands, with mere dozens on their side. Sometimes not even that. And consistently, they've walked away victorious with nothing but a few new scars at worst. Including myself, they've personally crossed paths with three Vice Admirals and survived, including the legendary Garp. The Government can't send anyone who can 'stomp them all flat', because at this point I'm not sure they have anybody who can."
"And the reason they don't drop an Admiral on their collective skulls?" Drake inquired.
"Aside from the fact that Akainu is on the other side of the Red Line and the other two, while powerful, do whatever they damn well please?" Jonathan dryly replied. Leaning back again, he folded his arms before him. "Aside from that, either result ends badly for the Government: if they send an Admiral and he wins, then it looks excessive and smacks of weakness. And if by some remote chance the Admiral loses…"
"Then the Warlords turn on us, and they and the Emperors fall on us like a ton of bricks, right, right…" Cormac tugged nervously at his collar. "I… honestly don't know which is more likely to occur."
"The Straw Hats do not have the capability to defeat an Admiral in direct and fair combat, even if they have most likely incorporated sea prism stone into their arsenals by now," Jonathan stated. "But that's not to say the Straw Hats aren't skilled and dangerous. Besides the other two corners of the Big Three, I doubt anyone this side of the Red Line can match the Straw Hats."
THWACK! "GROOOAAAR!"
"…Addendum," the returning Henrick blandly as the giga-panda knocked Luffy and Boss away, the eagle flapping furiously to keep the viewpoint level with them.
"Give it a moment," Jonathan prompted.
And indeed, as the Vice Admiral had divined, the pirates managed to catch themselves on a bent palm tree rather than going flying through the jungle, with Luffy's arm stretching out to grab a nearby tree and keep them anchored in place.
"Okay, credit where it's due," Boss muttered, rubbing his jaw. "That thing is definitely the local boss for a reason."
"Yeah, well, we don't have time to deal with him!" Luffy snorted, his face a rictus of impatient fury. The Rubber-Man shifted his footing so that he was higher up on the palm tree's trunk. "I'll go high, you go low!"
"Right!" Boss confirmed the order with a nod and a pound of his 'knuckles'. "Pull!"
Luffy didn't so much 'pull' as 'release', letting his arm unwind and allowing the palm tree they were perched on to snap upright. As a result of their positions, Luffy was sent flying almost straight upwards, whereas Boss was shot directly at the charging bear.
The bear responded with another blood-curdling howl, extending its double-jointed arms in an effort to bat the dugong into its slavering jaws.
And it was without even a hint of hesitation that Boss literally swam through the air, pumping his tail to dodge around the bear's claws and get up close to the mega-mammal's torso.
"Full-Shell Style!" Boss huffed, grabbing hold of the bear's chest-fur. "Water Spout Throw!" And with a spin that by all rights had nowhere near enough leverage to work, Boss threw the bear skyward, right into Luffy and his ballistic path.
Luffy, who, at this moment, was rapidly unwinding his torso and limbs to let loose with his pipe. Rather than the ascending bear, Luffy snapped his furious attention to something past the beast. "CROSS! BATTER UP!"
The snail's-eye view panned downward to show Cross slicing into the octopus. Grumbling unprintable words, Cross turned away from the cephalopod, shook his hands clean and dropped into a kneeling position, catching his very eager cannon on his shoulder.
"—meat-huffing slave-driving idiot-savant son of a-CANI-CANNON!" he bellowed.
The hound-gun belted out one of its signature baseball bombs skyward, the projectile shooting past the enemy monster, and instead at Luffy…
"GUUUUM-GUUUUM!" Luffy roared, slamming his pipe into the ball with full force, sending it flying even faster in the direction of the bear. "GRAND SLAM!"
The baseball flew true, striking its target and sinking so deep into the bear's stomach that its back bulged out. The monster kept its position for a second… two seconds… and then it shot back down to the earth, smashing out a large crater in the clearing's stonework—
KABOOOOOM!
And meeting its end from a fiery explosion that detonated almost literally in its gut.
[…Ouch,] Terry winced. [Still, that was proper Bear Glove.]
He paused for a moment, waiting for the customary reaction. His west eye moved until he was looking at Isaiah's empty perch.
The sudden squawk he let out drew the officers' attention, and Jonathan blinked in surprise. "That's strange. Did any of you see Isaiah fly off?"
The officers shook their heads.
-o-
"Alright, guys, soup's on!" I called out over my shoulder. I then patted Lassoo's barrel, at which he cut off the stream of fire he'd been using to charbroil the land-borne octopus carcass. "Come and get it while it's—!"
POP!
I shivered in disgust at the pustule of blood and… who knows what else that swelled up and popped in the crevasse I'd carved into the beast's rubbery flesh.
"Still utterly revolting in every way," I concluded lamely. "Urgh, sonnuva… have I mentioned I miss Sanji yet?"
"Five times," Boss helpfully informed me as he stripped the bark off a large branch he'd retrieved.
Funkfreed nodded in agreement, rummaging through his trunk in the jungle so he could pick up some grub for himself. "I think the loudest was when that possum we ate gave you diarrhea."
I sent a questioning glance towards my sword. "Which one? The one with the ballistic needles or the one that swallowed Boss?"
"Needles," everyone else chorused flatly.
The memory popped up in my brain, in all its… let's say 'glory'. I grimaced. "Right…"
I had little choice but to start eating as soon as the others came within grabbing range; Luffy may have started cutting back recently, forgoing his typical mannerisms seeing as we didn't have time for it while we were in a place like this—which was ironic, since this place was a mirror of where he'd learned it—but the constant fighting and subsequent constant need to replenish his stamina meant that that was only so much help.
Lassoo and Boss, on the other hand, had no such restraint, which meant that it was either nix the revulsion or go hungry. And I wasn't stupid enough to listen to my tongue more than my stomach. At least Funkfreed was content to eat the foliage instead.
Still, I didn't have that much time to 'enjoy' my meal, due to the second mouth on my body scowling and glancing aside. "Hey guys, just a quick heads up, BUT TRY AND MAKE YOURSELVES LOOK NICE. WE'VE GOT AN AUDIENCE AGAIN."
I found myself grimacing for a reason besides how it felt like I was chewing on a burnt tire. Yay. "Ugh, don't tell me, the eagle's back?" A glance aside confirmed that, yes, our avian stalker and Soundbite's peeping-tom cousin were back and watching us.
"Yeee-pah," Soundbite popped the word sourly. "Even when we've lost our GATEWAY TO THE WORLD, WE'RE STILL the number one show IN THE BLUE SEAS!" He glanced aside and spat in disgust. "How comforting."
I narrowed my eyes at our antagonizer's cronies. "Yeah, well, apologies to our dear viewers, but surprisingly, quality takes a noticeable drop when you're watching a cheap knock-off. Observe." So, to say, I showed the eagle my own bird.
"Betcha I could bash that thing's brains out from here," Boss grumbled, a rock tossed between his flippers.
"Don't," Luffy ordered around his meat. "We don't need them calling for backup like last time."
"…feh." Grumbling under his breath, Boss tossed the rock into the underbrush, prompting something to run off with a panicked yelp.
We all froze up at the burst of motion, snapping panicked looks at Soundbite.
He scrunched up his face intently for a moment before sagging in relief. "SCAVENGER, not a scout. We're good."
We all joined him in relief, though said relief was tempered by our continued circumstances.
"Christ on a blazing pikestaff, this place is killing me…" I groaned. "When are we going to be able to stop?"
"When we find where the Sunny landed," Boss replied. "Once that's done, we'll find the others and find whichever island his base is on. And when we get there, we'll show him why… why no one… no one…" Boss trailed off, his expression unchanging, but the way his fists were clenching made it obvious what he was thinking about.
I shook my head with a sympathetic sigh. "I know, Boss, I know. That bastard already messed with us… but once we get everyone back together and find him?"
"I'll turn him inside out and punt him straight into Gramps' lap!" Luffy finished with a particularly bloodthirsty snarl.
"…that, yes," I nodded in agreement, not willing to remark on my captain's uncharacteristic viciousness. Instead, I went back to trying to choke down my current mouthful of 'meat'—an endeavour in and of itself—while warily eyeing the jungle around us. "Anyways… seeing as we've got a minute to breathe until the rest of the bastards catch up to us, might as well ask the stupid question: you guys still going strong?"
"Yeah… but it's weird that we are," Boss said with a frown. "I mean, sure, I've practiced harsh training on a regular basis for the past few decades, and Luffy's just a damn monster—!"
"Th'nks, Bssh!" Luffy mumbled, adding a thumbs-up.
"—but even after how strong I've gotten since joining up with you guys, it doesn't make sense. A solid week of guerilla tactics against beasts that I will freely admit match me in raw strength, never stopping to rest for more than an hour until they catch up to us, and only raw meat and whatever water we can find keeping us going…"
Boss's frown deepened, and he waved his meat at me. "I'm not complaining that I'm not getting tired; it's both useful and badass, but I know my limits, and I should have passed them days ago. And you and your boys should have too, for that matter."
Lassoo looked up from his meal with a thoughtful chuff. "Shellhead's got a point. I'm running low on fumes for my Cani-Blaze, sure, but apart from that? I've coughed up almost a hundred bombs non-stop over the past few days, and I still don't feel empty. That's… not normal."
"Hmm…" I looked at Luffy, who, from his expression, was thinking the same thing. Something was off all right, but what was it? Sighing, I forced down another mouthful of octopus to keep up my strength… and then I swallowed again when something occurred to me.
"Guys?" I mumbled. "Not to alarm you, but, uh… I think we've been drugged."
Of course, everyone else reacted with the utmost poise and oh who the hell am I kidding, everyone who wasn't Luffy spat out what they were chewing and belted out a panicked "WHAT?!"
Luffy was a lot calmer, taking the time to finish chewing and swallow before responding. "Whaddaya mean, Cross?"
"Well, I mean, think about it! This place." I swung my arms out, indicating our surroundings. "It's not natural, right? And I don't just mean the whole floating in the sky bit, I'm talking about the actual environment. The animals. I mean, look at the gauntlet we've run: all carnivores, all the time, omnivores at best, but no pure herbivores anywhere. This kind of trainwreck of a food chain doesn't come into being on its own, right?"
"Trainwreck nothing, these islands are an asylum!"
I looked at my shoulder in surprise. "Soundbite?"
The snail grimaced. "This place is insane…that's not a generalization, I'M BEING LITERAL! THIS WHOLE PLACE HAS LOST ITS MIND ON A PRIMAL LEVEL! Everything we've seen, everything we've experienced, it's all trumped by THE SHEER MADNESS OF THIS HELLHOLE! I MEAN… you know how I haven't been able to translate these things FROM DAY ONE?"
"It has contributed to diplomatic tensions, yes," Lassoo agreed, snickering.
THWAP!
"YIPE!"
That smirk was promptly wiped off his muzzle when Funkfreed smacked him with his trunk.
"Not like we have much room to talk either, Snoopy," the other Zoan-weapon groused. "None of us can make heads or tails of what that damn thing is saying."
"YEAH, WELL, THAT'S FOR A DAMN GOOD REASON!" Soundbite replied. "The reason we can't make heads or tails of these guys is that THEY'RE EVOLVING! NOT JUST INDIVIDUALLY, BUT AS A SPECIES! SOME OF THE THINGS WE'VE FOUGHT, THEY COULDN'T HAVE BEEN MORE THAN A MONTH OLD! Maybe less!"
"Whoa, so those were the babies?!" Luffy sat up in surprise. "But they were so tough!"
"No, Captain, what Cross is saying is that those things were the adults, it's just that they grow up really fast and have kids fast too!" Boss clarified. "Which… explains us not getting what they're saying. They're evolving so fast that their… er…" Boss spun his flipper, searching for the words. "Let's say 'communication skills', have grown way beyond what we recognize."
Soundbite nodded at the dugong. "BINGO. AND REALLY, THAT'S THE STICKY BIT. 'CAUSE AFTER ALL… we've seen this before, remember?"
Luffy's eyes widened in recognition. "Wait, you mean—?!"
"Shshsh!" I hissed, shooting a scathing glance at our ever-present watchers.
Thankfully, Luffy got the message, and he rethought what he was about to say. "You mean that the same guys who made… him who he was made these things too?"
"It fits what he said. An island in the sky that's not a sky island, animals more vicious than you can imagine…" I slowly looked at the islands listed through the sky above us with new eyes. "A 'realm ruled by power'. A world where the strong devour the weak without pity."
Boss tsked darkly, eyeing the carcasses of our downed opponents. "Strong World… yeah, that's a damn better name for this place than 'Merveille', that's for damn sure."
"Cross," Funkfreed interjected. "We're getting off topic: what did you mean that we've been drugged?"
"Remember the bastards who came to get him?" I asked the elephant. "They said that 'Indigo' was the one who gave them the experimental drugs that pushed their bodies above and beyond their limits." I pointed down at our meal. "Sound familiar?"
"So…" Luffy frowned and tilted his head almost a perfect 90 degrees to the side, the gears almost visibly turning in his head. "You think this Indigo guy is working for that bastard, and he's been using his mystery drugs to turn animals into the things we're fighting?"
"Precisely." I pointed at him. "Indigo doses the animals, and the animals become titanic murder-monsters. The poison that turns them into monsters remains in their bodies. We kill and eat them and get that stuff in our bodies, letting us keep fighting for a week straight without worrying about sleep." I looked down at my hand and clenched and unclenched my fist. "Thankfully, it looks like whatever Indigo's been giving these things is better than what he was giving the Amigos, so I don't… think we're gonna wind up like those guys. But just to be safe, let's not have any kids until Chopper's given us a once-over. Agreed?"
Almost everyone else nodded with no small amount of trepidation, but Luffy was still frowning in confusion.
"You still don't understand something, captain?" I asked.
Luffy made to answer, and then we all felt a spike of terror shoot through us when he snapped his attention to the side.
"So what you guys are saying is the reason we're all stronger is that we ate the animals that had that Indigo guy's mystery drugs in them, right?" Luffy said slowly, his eyes steadily scanning the treeline.
"Yeeeaaah," I slowly drew out my confirmation, glancing around to try and find whatever had Luffy so on edge. "It's probably how Funkfreed's been keeping up, too: blood from the animals seeping into the ground, and then the plants. "
"Alright…" Luffy nodded in understanding. "Then I've got another question." He glanced at us with dead seriousness. "If that worked for us, wouldn't it work for the animals too?"
Soundbite and I slowly exchanged questioning looks. "Uhhh… maaaybe?" I hedged.
"THAT… DOES MAKE SENSE," Soundbite confirmed with a jerky nod. "Kinda like a perversion of biomagnification, WITH THE TOXINS HELPING THE ANIMALS… for a given definition of 'help,' anyways."
"It'd definitely enforce the whole 'survival of the fittest' theme this place has going for it," Boss mused, cupping his chin in thought. "The strongest animals would eat the most, and thus become even stronger as they horde the toxins, making them the… undisputable… alphas…" The captain of our ship's guard slowly trailed off as he turned his gaze on the trio of beasties we'd just downed.
Lassoo and Funkfreed both broke into a cold sweat as they reached the same conclusion we were all achieving.
"Alphas," Funkfreed whispered quietly. "Like the ones we've been running into over the past week. That the other animals have been driving us into."
"And whose corpses we've had to leave mostly intact when the other animals chased us away?" Lassoo whimpered.
"They wanted us to take down the strongest animals around for them," Luffy stated as he slowly stood up, his hand tilting his hat down so that it shadowed his eyes. "So that they could get their jaws on the mystery drugs for themselves."
"And now," I picked up, slowly joining Luffy in standing up. Lassoo and Funkfreed hastily ran to my side and shifted so that I could hold them and brandish them at the jungle, which I was suddenly very wary of. "After a week of running around and killing alphas and who knows how many other beasts, they've gotten their fangs and mandibles on a motherlode of toxin all at once. They've all become significantly stronger. Strong enough to kill any alphas they want on their own." I swallowed heavily, clenching my weapons as tight as possible in an effort to keep myself from shaking. "Strong enough that they don't need us anymore."
"And because they've been trained to think that eating something gives you its strength…" Boss grunted, idly spinning his hook in his flipper. "There's no way in hell that they're going to let prime cuts like us walk away without tearing strips from our hides."
Soundbite slowly closed his eyes with a pitiful moan. "How'd you figure out they were RIGHT outside the edge of my hearing, CAP'N?"
"The jungle was too quiet," Luffy grimly answered. "They were pulling back to charge us all at once as soon as they were ready…"
"And they're ready," Soundbite sighed as the sound of snapping trees echoed from not far away. "This is gonna suck…"
-o-
"I actually feel sort of sorry for them at this point," a blue-haired swordswoman sighed as she practiced her slashes.
"Kyuu," chimed her on-looking companion.
"Soundbite?" Cross asked without looking at his partner.
"A dozen. TWO DOZEN. FIFTY, A HUNDRED, TWO HUNDRED…" The snail's naturally ashen complexion slowly became paler and paler. "Sonnuva RED DOG, I THINK THE WHOLE DAMN ISLAND WANTS TO TRY ITS LUCK!"
Monkey D. Luffy, meanwhile, squared his stance and shifted around so that he and his tactician were back to back. "Cross, do you have a plan?"
Cross licked his lips, nervously twirling his sword in his palm. "Well, Luffy, considering how we're surrounded on all sides, vastly outnumbered, and have no way out and no hope of backup or rescue… yeah, I think I have one."
Boss slowly sucked in a deep breath, calmly reducing what was left of his cigar to ashes before flicking away the remaining stub. "What is it?"
K-CHK!
"How does 'make a stand' sound to you?" Cross asked grimly.
"IT SOUNDS GREAT!" Luffy flung his arms out with a massive roar, eyes blazing with primal fury. "BRING IT ON!"
"Well, at least they've still got their 'never say die' attitude," Tashigi rolled her eyes, half wearily and half fondly.
"Lieutenant Tashigi."
Said swordswoman looked back towards the grunt who owned the visual snail they were currently making use of—something about it helping with lookout duty—as he approached.
"Our destination is on the horizon; we'll be there in an hour or less."
"Thank you, Petty Officer," Tashigi said, and then turned to her newer recruit. "Popora, could you inform Commodore Smoker that we're nearly to Navarone? I need to alert Vice Admiral Jonathan to our arrival."
The hybrid creature snorted, but still scampered off into the ship.
-o-
The thriving town of St. Poplar was experiencing a massive shake-up to its normal routine. The pirate crew that had arrived a day before to resupply—regulars on the island, well-known for being good customers—had leapt at the opportunity that the sudden broadcast presented; in less than an hour, a full-scale festival had sprouted up around the screen.
And, as with all good festivals, everything had a somewhat overpriced price tag.
"Oh, sweet Christmas!" 'Silver Fox,' Foxy cackled, wringing his hands together. "Some of ze Straw Hats' strongest and most infamous members are getting in an all-out brawl with an army of mutant superanimals!? We're going to make a mint!"
"On top of the mint we've already made, you mean!" Porche agreed, poring over the laboriously organized cash box. "We haven't made this much since the Mock Island Massacre!"
A trail of drool slipped out of Foxy's mouth at the memory of that debacle. "Soooo many drunk idiots thinking they could outmuscle us! And every one of them is completely wrong! Oh, may the world never run short on suckers!"
"Hey, you!"
The shout snapped Foxy out of his daydream, and he shot a stink eye at the local thug who was pointing a gun at him and his aide. "Case in point… hey, lazy-eyes, you want our hard-earned money, which we earned through honest swindling?" The pirate stepped aside and gestured forward politely. "Then please, by all means."
The thug gave Foxy a confused look before leering and dashing forward. "Weak-ass piece of—!"
"Slow-Slow Beam," Foxy drawled, freezing the would-be robber in place. Porche followed up ten seconds later by tossing the now-empty money-box at the man's head, upon which Foxy froze the box as well.
"Have fun with that, dingus," the Silver Fox called over his shoulder with a wave and a chuckle. As he walked towards the screening area, he started wringing his hands again, fighting the urge to cackle. "Now, time to see the one-sided beat—!"
"Captain, we've got a problem!" Pickles shouted frantically as he jogged up to his shorter superior.
"Oh, come on, don't tell me the three stooges and change already beat them all!" Foxy snarled, shoving past his subordinate. "I know they're ludicrously powerful, but even for them, there's a limit!"
"Ah, no, the problem's not really with the fight itself…" Pickles grunted as he hustled after his boss. "But, well…"
"ARGH!"
Foxy could only gape in horror at the screen, which showed a soaring, rapidly moving view of the airborne archipelago with no Straw Hats.
"It's the fact… that the bird isn't sticking around… to watch it…" the tackle-master finished weakly.
"THE SECOND THAT SKINNY TWERP GETS HIS BOX BACK, I'M RIPPING HIM A NEW ONE FOR ALL THE WORLD TO HEAR!" Foxy roared.
"Hey, hey, hey, it's not his fault, that's not fair!" Pickles hastily defended their incognito superior.
"The betting on that blowout was going to fund our commission to Water 7 to build the Brass Fox," Foxy snarled in an almost rabid tone, teeth audibly grinding. "You know, the ship that Hamburg was going to be in charge of and that was going to have our own custom booby-trapped Groggy Ring on its deck?"
"I'LL DICE THEM INTO BITE-SIZED PIECES!" Pickles howled, ripping his sabres from their sheaths.
"Boss, Pickles, knock it off," Porche cut in. "Think about it for a minute. This broadcast is obviously meant to show off the Straw Hats struggling in the world. If it's leaving those three right as it's getting good, either it's going to show some of the other Straw Hats—"
"Or it's going to show the big man himself getting a status report," Foxy finished, his irritation ebbing away and his grin returning. "Either way, more of a show… and still something that can be bet on! Someone, hurry up and set those odds!"
"You ever think the Boss might be taking this a bit far?" Capote hissed to the crew's announcer.
"You haven't seen the treasure tax that our big boss's treasurer and second mate slapped him with…" Itomimizu sorrowfully replied.
"Oh, cherry blossoms!" Porche squealed in delight.
Attention returned to the screen, where the eagle was currently soaring over a lovely land filled with the cherry blossoms of springtime and where a different variety of monsters was swarming and raging. At the same time, a distant sound drifted across the connection. It took a moment to identify, but the more that the eagle flew, the more it sounded like Soundbite was nearby, given the sonorous music blaring out. And alongside it was screaming…
"NAMI-SWAN! ROBIN DEAR! PRINCESS VIVI! WHERE ARE YOU, MY LOVELIES?!"
"EVERYONE! WE'RE HERE! RIGHT HERE!"
"FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY, WILL YOU TWO MORONS STOP GIVING AWAY OUR LOCATION?!"
"ARF ARF ARF ARF!"
"WHY DID I HAVE TO BE STUCK WITH THE SUICIDAL IDIOTS!?"
The eagle finally came into view of the source: Sanji, his face mostly hidden by a large hat and… medical mask; Conis, Tone Dials in both hands blaring out music for all to hear; another one of the Dugongs, Mikey by the color of his bandana; and a very miserable-looking Usopp who was making just as much noise with his exasperated sobs.
"Perfect!" Foxy exclaimed in joy.
"MIKEY, YOU CANNOT TELL ME THAT AFTER ALL YOUR TRAINING WITH BOSS, YOU'RE STILL THIS STUPID!"
The Dugong paused his bellowing, glared at Usopp, and flailed his flippers in a somehow significant pattern before resuming his bellowing. The sniper blinked and pulled a book out of his bag, flipping through the pages and muttering. Several people in the audience, meanwhile, just looked confused, unable to follow the translation.
"I'm pretty sure that he just said, 'I don't care, this is fun.'"
Attention turned towards Foxy, who shrugged. "I don't know a lot of sign language, but I've seen that phrase more than enough times over the years."
Usopp's eyes twitched as he found the translation, clearly fighting the urge to throw the book at the dugong.
"FUN?!" he screamed.
And right on cue, the foliage at the edge of the clearing parted, and in charged… a green giraffe.
"…OK, seriously. Why would anyone ever try to make a giraffe into a killing machine? It was stupid enough the first time," Sanji shook his head.
-o-
Elsewhere in the Grand Line, Kaku was struck with a sudden urge to murder someone.
He then blinked in surprise when something poked him in the shoulder, and turned to find Hattori offering him a flask of… something or other.
"You too, huh?" the long-nosed assassin deadpanned, and then sighed in defeat when the pigeon nodded. "Alright, hit me."