Chapter 54

AN: There is a bolded portion here that, originally, was red text. Since this site doesn't support that, had to make do.

There was a reason Grenzer preferred fighting to sitting back and running the battle.

"First and Second are holding their ground, but the rebels are pushing back hard!"

"Gods damn it, where the hell is our fire support? I need those mortars gone!"

"Fishmen have breached the ice near Fifth Company! They're taking heavy losses!"

"They've mined the approaches to the main factories. We're pulling back. We're not getting paid to die like rats."

"Has anyone heard where Fourth went?"

The noise.

A dozen men trying to handle communications from just as many transponder snails made for a racket that sent a headache ringing in his brain and made him grit his teeth in frustration.

He glared at the map and its markers.

The Rangers and Steel Shields, with some of the Ducal Guard backing them up, had pushed onto their island, Cherny Dym, but had gotten bogged down in a morass of traps and artillery fire. The Ducal forces, faced with what the few confused reports had indicated were the Poison Fangs and their captain, were retreating, and unless he ordered a withdrawal, the other pirate crews would be surrounded in short order.

Zelenyy, the other rebel island, was little better. The Gears had cracked the initial rebel defenses but the city streets had forced them to separate, and from what he could tell two of their groups had vanished outright. His own men were bleeding and dying as the enemy crews struck from the shadows- or, in the rebel's case, with human waves.

And his Fourth Company had outright vanished.

And there was still no sign of the Kriegers.

Another snail rang, and Grenzer bit back the age-old urge to glare at the damn thing, before picking it up.

The snail visibly cringed before shifting into the masked visage of that horrifying cannibal the Nightmares had. The second one, not the Butcher Bird.

God, he hated that he had to clarify that.

"What?"

"Well, we found your guys. And the Gear people," the creepy bastard said.

"And?" Grenzer growled.

"Well, they're asleep. I think. Mostly. Might be some are dead. Don't see your officer person, though."

There was a wet and extremely unpleasant sound.

"Oh! I found him. Is he supposed to be trying to kill us?"

Grenzer's eye twitched violently.

Then he took a deep breath. "Try not to kill him. If he's a traitor, I need him alive. If he is controlled by someone else, I would rather he not be dead for something not his fault."

The snail frowned. "Aw. I thought I could eat him. Okay, old guy, sure." There was another unpleasant noise. "Hey! Unfashionably dressed guy! I have to beat you unconscious! Come back here!"

The snail clicked and returned to normalcy.

Grenzer took a deep breath, and counted to ten.

Then he picked up another snail.

"Yeah?" the elder and shorter of the Doge's assassins drawled.

"Change of plans," Grenzer said shortly. "Move your soldiers to support the Steel Shields. They desperately need the backup."

"You sure your boys can handle things yourselves?"

"We'll hold without your help. They won't."

"Alrighty then. Amico! We're gonna go kill some people on the other island instead."

It took all of Grenzer's self-control not to bury his face in his hands. Instead, he shut the snail off, and glared at the various people in the room with him, before pointing at Gabriel. The excessively dangerous bureaucrat straightened. "Sir?"

"Make sure everything's set into place, and prepare to pull our people back across the bridges when I give the word," he said.

"Yes, sir. Where are you going?"

"Where do you think, pup? The front lines."

Grenzer strode out, cracking his knuckles as he went.

Fifth Company first. The fishmen were the largest threat for the moment.

"And what have we learned today?" I ask.

"Not to run ahead of the group," C responds, pulling a knife with a corkscrew-shaped blade out of his rib cage with a grunt.

"How the hell did he even get ahead of us? I took my eyes off him for two seconds!" Eka grumbles.

I shrug. "It's C. Last time he went somewhere he found a Warlord."

"I liked him. He seemed polite. Except for when he punched you into those buildings."

"Riiiight."

"Um...Boss? Shouldn't we be more concerned with all...this?" Eka asks, waving a hand at the street that is quite literally filled with slumbering bodies, both Gears and Tercio mercs.

I shrug. "C, did you try waking them up?"

"Well, I tried doing what Jack does when someone oversleeps on the ship."

"Screaming in their ears?"

"Yup. Didn't work. And then that rainbow guy came and tried to kill me. Then he ran away again."

I resist the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose- the mask would just get in the way. Instead I just crack my knuckles. "Right. Let's go find the bastard."

"Uh, Boss."

I look at where Eka's pointing, at the three figures outlined against the clear sky.

On the left, Foglio Clare in her armor. On the right, Maurice, still dressed as garishly as ever.

In the center...some asshole in black cloak with a tricorn of the same color clapped on his head, holding a flute.

"Hey!" I shout. "What fucking gives? We're on the same side, you pricks!"

The asshole in the middle actually giggles. "They can't hear you, you know," he says. "They'll only hear me."

Okay...creepy motherfucker. Probably controlling these guys. "And who the hell are you?" I ask.

"I am Pied Yugendo, second mate of the Black Beard Pirates. It is quite fortuitous we have met here, cannibals." He smiles. "It will be interesting to watch your own crew be forced to tear you apart."

Nope! Not dealing with that. "Riiiiight. You die now."

I start to run forwards, tails bursting free. Yugendo simply raises his flute to his lips, and starts to play. Does he think it'll help...him…

God, I'm tired…

Heh, C and the others seem to be, too…

Could just, lie down, right here…there's a nice lullaby in…

What the hell am I thinking? I'm in combat!

I slam a hand into the cobblestones, the spike of pain driving away the clouds filling my head, and push myself up onto my knees, glaring at Yugendo, who is still playing the damn lullaby. I can practically feel the music, trying to worm into my ears.

"Surprised?" Yugendo asks, somehow still playing at the same time. "Ah, well. You can't resist forever."

I grin, and slide my trench spike out of its sheath, getting to my feet and staggering forwards. I feel drunk, my limbs not responding properly, weighed down and too light at the same time.

"Do you really think you can reach me before you fall asleep? You can't inflict enough pain on yourself to keep out my song."

"It's not for you," I grit out, raising the spike, point downward.

This is gonna suck…

"What are you-"

Any other injury, I'd ignore it. Pain is easy to push away, after all.

But now I need pain, to use it as an anchor. And so the white-hot agony where I stab into my body with my own weapon nearly drives the breath out of my lungs.

I stand, and cough, spattering blood on the ground, before baring my teeth at Yugendo and his puppets.

Six tails streak across the battlefield, finding the Oni where they slumber and flicking the toggles on their masks.

The shouts of maddened rage make my smile widen as Yugendo visibly pales, stopping his lullaby. The man takes a step back as I take one forwards, before raising the flute to his lips again and playing a single, sharp note. His puppets- not friends, not allies, can't think of them as such, can't afford to be soft- blur into motion.

It was different, this time.

The last time they'd fought under the influence of the drug, from what little Eka could remember, it had been a barely-coherent mess of rage and violence. He'd forgotten everything, turned into an animal, the only thing keeping him from turning on the crew the bare traces of the Boss's scent that they had.

This time...this time, it was almost as though he was outside of his body, watching the thing fight.

Six of them, moving as one, a pack that seemed to share a single mind. They moved so quickly the world seemed to proceed in slow motion, and their footsteps broke the cobblestones underneath their feet.

And yet they were still losing.

Maurice had never taken part in the training spars that the Boss and the Captain had set up between the crews. They'd had no idea what he was capable of, only the fact that he was worth forty-one million berries. Apparently, what the second-highest Tercio bounty was capable of was becoming a whirling dervish of knives that would have killed or incapacitated all of them in the first few seconds if it hadn't been for their regeneration. Not a Devil Fruit power, but just an endless number of maiming blades produced from under the riot of colorful clothing the man wore.

Why did he keep ending up fighting those sorts of people? First Kan-edgy, and now their own puppeted ally.

Eka's body leapt forward, dao cleaving downwards, while Chandos launched himself towards the merc from the other side, his own longsword swinging. Maurice twisted, the latest of his knives deflecting Eka's dao almost contemptuously to the side as he dodged Chandos's attack at the same time, popping up on one leg to spin and send his heel into the man's nose with a sickening crack. Chandos went flying back, and Maurice turned to Eka, a second knife joining the rain of blows he hammered down on his guard. It was only the intervention of Tina, coming in low with her longaxe from Eka's right, that forced the Company Commander back and let Eka take a moment to breath and let the few cuts he hadn't been able to block heal. In those few precious seconds, he looked over the wider battlefield. Chandos was pulling himself out of what had probably been a storefront six hurtling Oni impacts ago, mustache bristling above his mask and his breath steaming redly in the air. Pamca had replaced Tina, who was falling back with what looked like a slashed tendon. Percy was helping him, the prizefighter worming his way in close as best he could while Pamca attacked wildly. Dui was pulling himself up from his own landing spot (where he'd been left after Maurice had cut up his belly) and looked angry. Eka didn't even need to nod to him- the moment Pamca staggered back, fingers holding a spurting artery closed, he leapt back into the fight.

C was still asleep. Someone had shoved him into a corner at some point- probably Percy, honestly, the guy could be incredibly soft-hearted for a pirate- and he was safe for now. And the Boss…

"FOR FUCK'S SAKE COME AND FIGHT ME YOU UGLY BOATRAG!"

The Boss was rapidly becoming annoyed as the Gear's first mate proved to be oddly effective at imitating him, the six clockwork limbs springing from her back proving just as fast and lethal as the Boss's own, leaving the two of them in a stalemate as he tried to knock her out without killing her and she tried to turn him into a modern art project.

No time to help him. Percy was flat on his back, clutching at the knife in his chest, and Eka needed to hit Maurice hard before he did something permanent to his buddy.