Shells Town

It's been about a day and a half and it would take another before we reached Shells Town. Shu'd woken from his self induced mini coma a few hours ago and took over trying to navigate us as the two of us had fallen asleep at that point.

"So I have a question, if you have a crew then why were the two of you in a barrel?" Shu asked genuinely curious as to the strange circumstances of their meeting.

"Oh it happened when we were partying on that ship and as we passed that storm we ended up tumbling into that barrel you found us in. Although we come from the North Blue I wanted to start in the same waters as the former Pirate King, the man I want to surpass." Shu could see the conviction in the pirate's heart and admired it.

"Speaking of, Shu are you sure you wanna join the marines?" I'm not just asking because we're pirates, but because we've both seen just what kind of things their so called justice leads to. There's no clear definition of it, every marine has their own version of it, even their so called Absolute Justice. I won't blame you for whatever path you choose, just think about everything I've said."

We arrived at Shells Town to see it pretty much empty, The whole town was dead and we didn't see anyone at all. This was truly puzzling, it was the middle of the day and it should be busy. "Big bro, why is it so empty here?"

"Who knows maybe it's some kind of celebration or something." Shu said, although no one believed it for a second, himself included. Lance and Luna had an inkling as to why but didn't voice their suspicion just yet. Regardless of their ominous feeling they decided to continue the walk to the marine base.

As they got closer they bumped into a bowl cut blonde with a weird looking head. "Hey watch where you're going you bastard. Don't you know who my daddy is? He's the great marine captain who runs this town. If you lay a finger on me then he'll execute you, along with that stupid pink swordsman we captured earlier." Lance and Luna gasped silently as they knew exactly who he was referring to. Resisting the urge to strike the idiot down they let him keep digging his grave. "The fool thought he could help the village if we tie him up and starve him for half a month, but I'll kill him tomorrow." No longer feeling the need to hold back Lance punches him right in the face with enough strength to not kill him, but hurt him enough that he won't be getting up for awhile.

"Oh no Helmeppo!" One of his grunt guards says in a panicky tone.

"Captain Morgan's gonna kill us. Let's beat it." Pissing their pants they rush to grab the unconscious fool and run away.

"It's just as I thought. See Shu, this is exactly what we were talking about earlier. Time and time again marines will abuse their power and several innocent people who just want to live in peace get hurt. I thought this place felt weird, the marine captain here is basically holding this place hostage with his "justice". You wait in the bar we passed earlier Shu, we've got a crewmember to save."

Shu was about to voice his protest but he felt the now familiar ominous presence radiating from his body, meaning that he was pissed beyond belief.

"Daddy there's someone in town that I want you to kill for me. He dared to strike my face, not even you have ever hit me." Helmeppo, conscious but with a heavily swollen face, burst into his father's office at the navy base and begged for him to dish out some punishment.

The axe handed captain turned to face his son who was still in the doorway. Helmeppo smirked, thinking he was about to get his way and revenge on the strangely dressed bastard who hurt him earlier. But to his, and the watching marine's surprise he was struck again, but this time by his own father.

"Silence! Remember who it is that is the great one, me not you brat! The only reason I never hit you was because you're too much of a sissy brat to be worth the effort. Now piss off I'm sick of looking at you." Sniffling Helmeppo ran for the hills. Continuing to bask in his self proclaimed glory he turned to look at the sight of his massive statue he's forcing his men to put up. Suddenly a sharp blade of wind flew towards the ropes and it cut them all causing the marines to drop it, making it shatter into a million pieces as it fell to the ground below.

"What the hell!? Who messed with my glorious statue?"

"Captain Morgan, we've got intruders in the execution yard, they set the prisoner free."

"What the hell is going on today?" Needless to say he completely lost his shit.

A few minutes ago...

"Seriously Coby, I thought I taught you better than to let yourself be captured." Coby looked up from his exhausted state at the sound of a friendly voice. "Yo." Lance said with his usual lackluster attitude.

"Sorry captain." Coby said giving a short laugh. "Think you can get me out of this?" Giving a sigh he unsheathes his sword for a fraction of a second before resheathing it. A second later the ropes binding him fell to the ground.

"Do you know where they took your sword." Luna says as they wait a few minutes for him to get his strength back since he'd been bound and beaten like that for four days. Apparently he'd ended up in a similar circumstance as them but ended up here. Knowing Nami she'd hoped to find him before they found out that he was gone.

"I think I know where my sword is, think you can cause a distraction so I can get it?" Coby asks rhetorically knowing that distractions were his speciality.

Raising his leg he aims it in the direction where he saw the marines raising a statue earlier. "Tempest Kick." A sharp gust of wind sliced up part of the base before taking off part of the statue and slicing through the ropes.

The sound of a very large and enraged voice yelling at the top of his lungs was all the sign they needed to begin searching the base for his swords. While Lance and Luna drew the soldiers' attention by running around Coby eventually found his swords and headed back outside, quickly joined by his companions.

"That's far enough." The tyrannical captain himself finally stepped out to party. "For your heinous actions in defiance of me you are all sentenced to death right here and now!" All the marines raised their rifles and aimed it at the trio as Morgan dragged Shu, whom they'd temporarily forgotten about, and threw him in front of them. "This brat will join the lot of you in hell. Fire!" Without any hesitance, knowing they'd die if they showed any, they fired on the quartet.

Before they even got more than a few feet Coby drew his sword, Kitetsu III and send out a compressed air blade which halted the bullets movement and cut them in half. "I've been itching to do that all week. Now that my boss is here I think it's time I return the generous courtesy you've shown me since my arrival."

"You idiots, use your swords and take down those weirdly dressed bastards." Morgan, determined not to be undermined barked out even more orders.

"My turn to take over this fight. It's been so long since I've had a chance to beat people up." Those who knew his personality sweat dropped as his definition of too long in this circumstance is ten seconds. They also backed up because they knew that in this current state he had no intention of holding back and was most likely going to transform with his Devil Fruit power.

"This will be exciting, it's always fun watching the boss fight." They watched as his body started to grow as fur white as snow spread all over his body and ears appeared on top of his head and five tail appeared behind his back.

The marines stood still in shock as they had no idea what it was they were looking at. Most people in the East Blue had never seen or used Devil Fruit powers, especially Zoans, so their first experience tends to have varying effects.

"What the hell is that?"

"It must be Devil Fruit powers." Morgan said, getting over his shock enough to start barking again.

"Correct. I ate a rare Zoan type Devil Fruit. The Mutt Mutt Fruit Model: Inari's Kitsune." The marines didn't know what to do as he turned his piercing grey eyes towards them as a way of challenge."Well come on, it's no fun if you don't all rush me at once." He says tauntingly.

"Don't let this filthy criminal frighten you. All you pansies are to kill this bastard right now or put your guns in your mouths and pull the trigger!" Morgan barked out in his usual manner." Deciding to be more scared of their tyrant leader they decide to grow a pair and go out fighting at least.

"How boring." Lance said with a yawn as he disappeared from his spot just before the sword wielding marines were about to strike and reappeared behind them. For a second it looked like nothing had happened and he'd only vanished temporarily until all the marines dropped to the ground, swords broken and unconscious. Although if you looked closely you could say that there was a few drops of blood on his claws. "Claw Revolver".

"Damn you. Die!" Morgan yelled at the upstart who was continuing to defy him and the weakness of his subordinates. "I the great Ax hand Morgan shall cut you down here and now." He went to cut him in half with his namesake ax when one of his tails, coated in Armament Haki struck him in the side of his head, twisting his body and causing it to go flying into the base, cracking it heavily.

Seeing that all the opponents, using the term lightly, he turns back into his human form.

"Now that's taken care of let's get some meat and supplies before we get chased off this island." Lance says casually, not paying attention to or caring about the celebrating marines behind him. Although he did pay attention to a loud thud and a familiar voice.

"Finally found you guys." If the marines weren't busy celebrating their newfound freedom they probably would've passed out in shock of a giant talking rabbit who was standing next to an unconscious and slightly sparking Helmeppo, who from the looks of it must've tried to use Shu as a hostage when Carrot swooped in.

"Carrot!" Coby, Luna, and Lance say in unison, glad to see their crewmate, meaning that the rest of them are most likely spread around the village gathering the supplies they need, or at the bar. Most likely the latter than the former. Grabbing Shu they leave the partying bunch to their own and head to the bar to wait for the others.

"We can't thank you enough for all you've done for us. Morgan has terrorized us for years and no one has been brave enough to opposes him. Please eat as much as you like for free." The owner of the restaurant, and also the mother of the child who'd helped Coby out while he was captive, said with gratefulness, even as she watched two people eat enough for an army.

Ten minutes later a contingent of marines showed up and told them that while they were grateful for their help they still had to leave since they were pirates all the same. Not really caring, and sensing that the crew was already on their ship they left without argument, but not before having a "fight" with Shu to convince the marines to let him join.

"About time captain." Nami said as they reached the port from her spot on the deck. "Five more minutes and we would've left without you."

"Oh shush Nami. Anyway we've spent enough time in the blues, one more stop and then we're heading to the Grand Line." The crew got excited at that as they knew it was only a matter of time now before they entered Paradise, the first half of the Grand Line.

As their ship set off Shu ran up to the port to give his own goodbye in the form of a shout and a salute. "Thank you for everything you've done for me Lance, I won't forget any of it!" Behind him were the other marines led by the now in charge Commander Ripper.

"Well I'll be, never thought the day would come when marines would actually salute pirates." The crew waved back briefly as their ship went out of sight to their last stop.

"Alright men, since we're breaking Navy code by saluting pirates, no one will get any food for three days straight." Barked Ripper to his men, to the sound of loud groaning but they complied anyway. Despite that Shu never lost his smile as he thought of what craziness awaited his new friends as they all followed their dreams.