275 Chapter 275

275

Night fell in the kingdom of Alabasta,

The day had ended and for many people, it was time to return home and settle in for the night. But it wasn't the same for the Straw Hat Pirates.

Sparky, the six-armed monkey, looked at Masked Deuce. All around them, chunks of rocks, rubble, sand, and destroyed buildings floated mid-air. Sparky had a look of concentration on his face as he focused.

If one looked closely, not all of the rocks were staying still in the air. Some of them were falling but very slowly, while others didn't move at all.

They were in the destroyed Rainbase city. The city was in pretty bad shape after the fight with Crocodile, and so it made a good training ground. Mainly as in the city was already destroyed, so some of them could let loose.

Masked Deuce nodded, "You are doing very well…" he said, looking around, clearly impressed. "I needed a lot of time to make that trick up. I didn't think that would have worked."

Sparky just nodded. The rocks around them dropped, or at least half of them dropped, those that were controlled by Sparky. While Sparky's fruit was the Slow Slow Fruit, Masked Deuce's fruit was the Stop stop Fruit.

"Well, I already wanted to do something similar." Sparky admitted, "But couldn't figure out how… good thing our powers are a bit similar."

Masked Deuce just nodded. He then rubbed his chin, "You know, a question has been bugging me. It's about your aura… when we first met you, my Observation Haki didn't deem you as anything noteworthy and only now it's seeing you as a threat." he said, rubbing his chin. "Why is that? Don't take it the wrong way, people would very much underestimate you with that kind of aura. And you could take advantage of that."

Sparky just scratched the back of his head, "Well, you are right on that one… my theory is most Observation Haki users don't see my aura as anything other than that of an ordinary monkey's. I still don't know why it works… but it just works." he shrugged. "Heck, we were able to surprise Aramaki with this. Most Observation Haki users don't deem me as a threat until I become one."

Masked Deuce blinked, clearly surprised. "That's… wow, he's no easy bounty hunter. I'm impressed." he said, nodding. "I only know one other person that is able to hide from Observation Haki… but well, he's in a totally different league. Speaking of Haki… one thing that I forgot to mention about my powers… While it's not common, devil fruit powers can sometimes be negated by the use of Haki."

"Wait, so… some can break free from your stop ability by using haki?" Sparky asked. "I have used my powers on Luffy and others before and they weren't able to break free from it."

"Well, it's uncommon for a reason. And you have to have really strong Haki." Masked Deuce said. "We first discovered that when we visited Wano. Let's just say you need to be careful on that front. That's why, against stronger opponents, it's better to focus your ability on one single individual rather than spreading it around."

Sparky thought over his words for a moment before he nodded, "Let's go back to training…"

"Sure," Masked Deuce said as he snapped his fingers, his shadow moved as if it was alive. And stretched outwards, making arrow-shaped heads before stabbing into the destroyed chunks of buildings and rocks, and throwing them upwards.

Masked Deuce's Stop-Stop ability lets him stop anything for a limited time if it can be stabbed with his shadow arrows. The shadow can also be used like extra limbs to move and attack without the use of his ability.

The moment the rocks and debris started to fall, Sparky clapped all six of his hands together. A universal wave of slow beam came out of his body, that slowed down everything around them to a crawl. A look of concentration was showed on his face.

Masked Deuce had jumped back so that the wave of the slow beam didn't affect him.

Unlike the others, Sparky wasn't doing combat training, rather, he was trying to improve his devil fruit ability first. They were going to stay for a few more days so it would be better to improve his fruit abilities as physical training can be done anywhere.

A bit away from them, towards a clearing in the desert, one could see a battle taking place.

Large strikes created sonic booms, with white sparks of electricity that could be seen buzzing in that area.

"Is that the best you can do?" Gin asked in his half-zoan form, his weighted tonfas resting on his shoulders. They were a bit larger, matching the size of his half-zoan state. "I thought you were supposed to be some kind of wild beast." He said with a grin.

The only response he got was a loud roar before his opponent tackled him, the opponent was almost twice Gin's half-zoan size. But Gin held off against the tackle, even as the electricity burned off his scales. With a flip, Gin sent his opponent flying behind, crashing into the desert sand with a loud thud.

Gin looked at his own body as the white sparks of electricity went away, leaving behind a few burns. "You know, the first time it hurt quite a bit. Now it just tickles…" Gin said grinning, the passive recovery of an ancient zoan was no joke. "Come on. I know you ain't dead, doc!" he cackled.

The beast in question stood up from its place before it roared. The beast in question was around 26ft tall (around 8 meters) its white fur crackling with electricity. It took a step forward before it fell on its knees, its dark eyes finally regaining a red pupil for the third time of the night.

"I-I'm back!" Chopper panted in his Sulong form, as he could finally take back control over his own body.

Unlike other minks, he didn't need a full moon to transform, just being exposed to the moonlight was enough to make him transform. He didn't even need to see it. That's why his control over the form was very necessary.

So far, when he was in the Going Merry, he always used a raincoat to cover his body from the moonlight at night so that he didn't accidentally transform.

But that wasn't the solution, there had to be another way. That's why they were training to gain control over the form. At the same time, Chopper was doing research on his rumble balls, one of them so that he could keep his sanity while transforming. Another one so that he could take on his Sulong form in the day.

The first rumble ball had already been developed and now was in its testing phase. And it was working for only a few minutes or so before he returned back to his berserk state. Though it seemed beating him up made him gain back his sanity.

Gin was helping with that.

Chopper would have liked to write down his findings in his reports, but couldn't as he could only transform once a day. The transformation took a lot out of his stamina. That's why he was keeping his Sulong form while trying to increase the time where he could stay in control.

"Can you fight?" Gin asked, walking towards him in his half-transformed state.

Chopper nodded, "I need to get this under control." he said, a small smile on his face, "And now that I'm back in control, I really want to get back at you for the cheap shot."

Gin shrugged, "You weren't the one guarding." he said, grinning, spinning his large tonfas. "Come on then!"

With that, both of the Straw Hats threw themselves at each other.