Chapter 17 Captain Ink

After Rak left West Polink, Ed got to work. First he killed the guards of the organ harvesting area to cover up what happened, and then he led the Gold Tooth Pirates all the way to Central Polink. Unlike Grip's crew who managed to slaughter away in the beginning, as soon as they attacked the first batch of Ink Pirates the entire crew knew what was up and a massive battle ensued.

"Why are we doing this Vice-Captain?" A pirate asked Ed, this was before they went to Central Polink. "Captain Gold Tooth's orders, anyone who participates get a million Belly." Ed replied, this was how he had roped all of the crew in to fight with him. Naturally these pirates would never pass up a million Belly so they fought again the Ink pirates with all their might.

The amount of chaos that happened that night was magnitudes higher than that which ensued when the Grip and Black Root pirates fought. Even some people who were uninvolved but had some grudges with one of the crews got involved, leading to a large battle royale.

Naturally Rak was spectating this from afar. 'This seems to be going well.' Rak mused as he watched the slaughter that was commencing. His life had changed dramatically after coming to the One Piece world, and at this moment Rak acknowledged something. 'I am not a good person anymore, I can barely be considered human.'

Rak sighed at this realisation, but he soon got over it. He wasn't some protagonist, nor was he extremely talented, sure he had the system but that didn't make him some hero. Because of this Rak had to do what he could to survive, even if it meant causing a war amongst some pirates.

'I should draw a line though, they're pirates and criminals, otherwise this isn't a valid tactic.' Rak promised himself before continuing to watch the fight. His plan was pretty simple and at this point it was almost foolproof.

By taking out Grip he put suspicion on Black Root, which led the other Captains to believe Black Root desired the entire Northern Territory. But now the Gold Tooth Pirates attacked Captain Ink? What could this possibly mean?

Well Rak hoped Captain Ink would come to one conclusion. Captain Po was tired of playing second fiddle, and desired to usurp Captain Ink and take over Polink for himself. After all, he was the only one who was thus far unscathed.

'Of course, that's based on the assumption Gold Tooth is still alive.' Rak smirked before taking out one of Gold Tooth's guns. Naturally if Gold Tooth didn't do anything in this battle it would be a bit odd, so Rak decided he'd add some fuel to the fire.

"BANG!"

"BANG!"

Immediately fear ensued amongst the Ink Pirates. 'Captain Gold Tooth.' They all thought simultaneously. In fact each of the bullets fired had managed to kill an Ink Pirate, meaning it could be no one else.

'Damn these are quite easy to aim.' Rak thought before firing off a few more shots. He didn't want to waste all of the ammo after all, as right now he only had about 10 bullets in each gun.

Now that Captain "Gold Tooth" appeared the Gold Tooth Pirates felt much better about their chances of victory, and began to overrun the Ink Pirates. 'They should have killed about 200 by now, but they aren't fairing much better either.'

With that Rak fired off one more shot before retreating further away, he didn't want someone to find his location due to the shots.

Around this time, both the Gold Tooth Pirates and Ink Pirates had been reduced to about 300 men strong. The difference would have been even worse if Ed had gotten involved but due to the poison he took a back seat during this fight.

Just as it seemed the Ink Pirates had lost all hope, a figure appeared. He was about 1.8 meters tall, with scraggily black hair and beard, who looked somewhat malnourished. Immediately the battle halted as everyone looked towards this figure. Only one thought was in everyone's minds at this moment. 'Ink.'

As the strongest man in Polink, Ink was naturally an untouchable figure within Polink, but today the Gold Tooth pirates had dared to go against him. "What gave Gold Tooth the balls to go after me?" Ink coughed out as he scanned through the Gold Tooth pirates.

Seeing this man, Rak decided to observe. 'There's 2 possibilities, either Gold Tooth was never interested in fighting Ink, or guns don't work on him. Before I shoot I'd like to confirm which is more likely.' Rak mused and as if answering his question, a black liquid was seeping out of Ink's body.

Immediately Rak was alarmed. "Captain Ink's using his devil powers!" Someone within the crowd squealed. "Why would he use those here? Does he want to be struck down by the heavens!?" Another questioned.

'Devil Fruit.' Rak immediately understood why Captain Ink was such a problem. The black liquid continued seeping out of Ink's body forming orbs in the air around him. And without another word, the orbs flew out in an instant piercing through about 10 pirates heads, killing them.

The Gold Tooth pirates were immediately shocked. Captain Ink then formed more orbs of black liquid, but this time he didn't fire them. He simply approached the crowd of the Gold Tooth pirates. "Where is he?" Ink questioned.

Hearing this the Gold Tooth pirates didn't know what to say. "Heh, Captain is currently hiding around the battlefield, you'll never find him!" One of the pirates mocked, before immediately getting his head pierced by an Ink orb.

This process continued for about 5 minutes, with 10 more Gold Tooth pirates ending up dead, until finally Ink acknowledged that they really didn't know. Then Ink looked further ahead, behind the Gold Tooth pirates who were leading the charge.

'Isn't that Ed, he should should know.' Ink thought before walking forward unimpeded towards Ed. Seeing the man approaching him Ed knew he was done for. "RUN!" Ed roared, the others didn't know, but Ed had seen Ink fight before and knew his power wasn't unlimited.

Hearing this the Gold Tooth pirates finally lost all will to stay and began to flee, but Captain Ink paid them no heed. "Ed, where's Gold Tooth." Ink questioned, standing a meter away from him. "I don't know." Ed replied.

Immediately an ink orb shot towards Ed, before stopping just as it was about to pierce his forehead. "Let me reiterate, where's Gold Tooth?" Ink asked once again. 'Either way I am going to die.... maybe if I tell Ink he'll help me get the antidote?' Ed thought to himself as he was about to tell Ink the truth.

"BANG!"

Before he could spill the beans to Ink, a bullet blasted through his head killing him. 'This fucker ruined all my plans.' Rak thought annoyedly as he rushed away from his previous location, he had no intention of fighting Ink.

Immediately Rak's previous location was bombarded with ink orbs leaving it completely destroyed. 'Seems Gold Tooth's dead.' Ink smirked. He was no expert, but from Ed's complexion and the fact that he wasn't fighting upfront he could tell he wasn't exactly in good health. Not to mention at the end there he looked like he was about to tell Ink everything. 'Ed would never betray Gold Tooth, unless Gold Tooth was already dead.' Ink concluded.

'Which leaves a few possibilities. Firstly Po got his hands on some poison, and is using it to kill and manipulate the other crews, secondly its another crew altogether with an expert in poison who's highly deceptive and even stronger than Black Root, or lastly the marines have grown tired of us and sent a killing machine.'

With that thought, Ink then killed a few of the retreating members of the Gold Tooth pirates before heading back to his base. The battle concluded with 230 dead from the Ink Pirates, and 270 dead from the Gold Tooth Pirates, leaving them at 270 and 130 members respectively.