5/11

On cue, the remaining screen walls in the room fell, kicked down by the pirates on the other sides. It was quickly apparent that the Straw Hats were woefully outnumbered; hundreds of armed and sharp-dressed pirates filled the left and right side of both stories of the room. A small army, armed to the teeth and all focused on the one, single crew that stood opposed to them.

The Straw Hats' sole reaction was to give the soldiers the most cursory of glances before dismissing them.

"I figured only one of you would be naïve enough to believe that she could sacrifice herself to save her home. But now you're rushing in here, an entire suicide squad," Shiki drawled, puffing on his cigar. "Well, I suppose it's just for the best. If I can't toast my new alliance with sake, then I shall just have to baptize it in your blood."

"You're as dumb as you look," Luffy bit out, wiping the smile from Shiki's face. "Nami would never sacrifice herself, idiot. She joined your crew… so she could attack from the inside!"

As the captain raised his voice, the rest of the crew raised their weapons, cocking them and holding them at the ready. Rifles, blunderbusses, shotguns, cannons, all manner of high-power firearms, aimed in every direction around them.

"Now prepare yourself, Shiki the Golden Lion!" Luffy roared, taking a floor-shaking stomp in Shiki's direction. "We won't lose the same fight twice!"

Apparently, that was the cue for every Straw Hat with a ranged weapon—and at this moment, that meant every last one of them—to open up on everyone else in the room. Most of the pirates in the first ragged row had no time to react before they were enveloped in bullet hell. And those that did have time to react were either met with another weapon as they dodged or else had their cover demolished by the heavier artillery.

Ten seconds in, and already a quarter of the pirates in the room were down with bullet, shrapnel, or explosive wounds. And not only was the bullet hell not letting up, the complete and utter grim silence with which the Straw Hats were working just made things worse. It made some of the pirates long for them to say something. Anything.

"MWAHAHAHAHA! Entire crew is babies!"

"Go home to mommy! YOHOHOHOHOHO!"

On second thought, 'anything' did not include Merry and Brook cackling and taunting them. They could really do without that.

Witnessing the devastation and also seeing that the incensed rubber man out for his head was emptying his clip at an almost possessed pace, Shiki knew that there was only one smart option at the moment.

"Captain—!" one of the Golden Lion's lackies exclaimed, hastily running up to his captain.

"Right…" Shiki growled, turning to walk behind his throne.

WHOOSH! KRASH!

But he froze and snapped his attention back to the chaos when the utterly inconceivable occurred.

-o-

I could and most definitely would have continued my onslaught for as long as Lassoo would let me, but I cut myself off when everyone else started to click empty around me.

"Gngh, I'm out of ammo," Franky grunted, tossing the two bazookas he was using at Merry, who promptly shoved them into her jacket. The rest of the crew followed suit, the caravel-girl giggling ecstatically at the sheer amount of firepower she had housed within her hull.

"Never seems to be enough bullets to take 'em all down," Sanji quipped as he cast his gaze around the rest of the room, which was slowly starting to get its wits back together.

"Speak for yourself, hombre," Lassoo growled, morphing to his semi-form on my shoulder so he could shoot a smirk at our cook. "I've still got bombs for days."

"Ditto on that point, howlitzer," Merry giggled, knocking loose her steaming cannon's empty drum and just as swiftly fitting in a fresh replacement. "I've got a belly full of red hot lead and I intend to share."

"Sorry, Sanji, but they do have a point," Conis smiled at the Monster as she slotted in a fresh Flavor Dial. "We experienced gunners do tend to carry spares. Ah, by the way, Merry—?"

"Here ya go!" The ship-girl withdrew a large bundled object from her hold and tossed it to the angel.

"Aaaaand the dugong makes four!" Mikey snickered, earnestly spinning his pistols about his flippers. "Don't you feel foolish!"

"Oh, cram it," Sanji huffed out in a weary cloud of smoke.

"Enough," Luffy growled, cutting off the chatter. We all snapped to attention. "Cross?"

I nodded at my captain before scanning over our crewmates one by one. "Usopp, Chopper. You're our best trackers, find Nami and get her back in fighting condition."

"On it!" Usopp snapped into a salute as he finished shrugging off the heaviest pieces of his armor.

"And then Indigo?" Chopper questioned in a tight tone, thumbing his facemask over his nose.

"And then Indigo, right," I nodded before moving on to one of our larger and smaller crewmates respectively. "Merry, Carue. Work together, go nuts through this place, take anything that's shiny and isn't nailed down."

"WOOHOO! IMMA BE A LOOTER!" Merry cackled, leaping onto Carue's back as Vivi slid off, and almost flattening the poor duck on account of how she was still toting the one-ton cannon.

"Oh gaaaawd…" Carue wheezed, but despite his quaking knees, I could tell that he was still good for it.

"Robin," I glanced at our grim archaeologist. "Think you can—?"

"— Find whatever information Shiki's accumulated over the years and appropriate it for ourselves?" Robin smirked as she tilted her hat down over her eyes. "I think I can do something along those lines, yes."

"Fantastic," I nodded gratefully. And then I turned towards our most recent powerhouse, who was clenching and unclenching her hand. "Everyone else, fuck things up. And Vivi… think you're feeling up to bringing down the heavens?"

Vivi brought her hand up to stare at it before slowly looking up at me. "No…" she breathed. Then, before I could ask what she meant, her other hand combed through her hair and tugged out her hair tie, shaking her long blue mane free. Something crystallized in Vivi's eyes, and a miniature vortex spun into existence in the palm of her hand.

"I'd rather raise the roof."

And with that the Princess shoved her cyclone-bearing hand heavenward and clenched her fingers into a fist, crushing the vortex in her palm.

"RA'S WRATH!"

I whistled as our party was suddenly encircled by a roaring pillar of air that shot up, into and clean through the ceiling, blasting the roof apart with contemptuous ease. The glare Shiki shot Vivi's way through the clearing smoke was almost as impressive.

-o-

The throne room of Alubarna Palace was dead silent as the occupants all stared at the princess's display of might.

"She did it…" Cobra whispered, tears of so many emotions welling up in his eyes.

"My sincerest apologies, Shiki the Golden Lion," Vivi curtsied politely as the smoke dissipated, her gaze never once breaking with her enemy. "Did I forget to mention that I'm a Logia now?"

"She looks just like her mother," Pell breathed, pride in his voice.

"Right down to the 'repent or suffer' look," Chaka concurred.

"Heheheh, please," Accino chuckled with a wave of his cigars. "I was married once as well. You mean 'repent and suffer less'."

Cobra slowly allowed a vicious grin to come across his face. "The only difference," he stated proudly. "Is that Shiki has long since made his choice."

-o-

OK, now the way Shiki was glowering was impressive. If looks could kill, Vivi would have been a greasy smear on the floor, Logia or no Logia.

"SHIKI!"

Still, it didn't last long before Luffy made a beeline for Shiki and prompted the bastard to make a run for it. Gritting my teeth, I went after my captain, Zoro right beside me. And a good thing, too, because Scarlet and Indigo popped up out of nowhere right behind Luffy, the bandaged clown brandishing an oversized sabre and the gorilla sporting a pair of brass knuckles I just bet were laced with sea prism stone.

They turned to face us, and it wasn't hard to imagine them tearing into Luffy's unprotected back otherwise. I raised Funkfreed—

"OUT OF THE WAY, MORONS!"

—And then hurled myself out of the way when Soundbite blared a train horn in my ear and an annoyingly familiar voice shouted behind us. Zoro followed a split second later, but Indigo and Scarlet were slower on the uptake, which meant that Barto, a shimmering cow catcher projected a half foot in front of him, practically ran them over in his haste to… follow Luffy!?

I shook the dizziness of the dodge from my head before shooting a glare at Barto's retreating back. "Damn it all, Barty, what the hell do you think you're playing at!?" I grumbled to myself.

-o-

"WAIT UP, STRAW HAT!"

Luffy turned his furious gaze over his shoulder, prepared to slam his fist into whoever had dared to try attacking him while he was after Shiki. He aborted the attack, however, when his pursuer didn't make any aggressive moves. And… something else…

"Who—?" Luffy started to call back before jerking as his memory was jogged by the other pirate's bobbing mohawk. "Ah, you're that Barty guy, right? The one we met in Loguetown? What're you doing here?!"

"Wh-What do you think?!" Bartolomeo stammered, huffing as he tried to keep up with Luffy's insane pace. "I-I'm coming with you! I'm gonna help you k-kick Shiki's ass!"

Luffy's curiosity faded into annoyance, and he snorted and snapped his head forward. "I don't need your help! Go back and help the others!"

"Wh-What!?" Barto squawked, cold sweat breaking out over his brow. "Th-That's not—! Y-You can't—! Nnngh!" 'Black Bart' clawed his fingers down his face. "J-Just listen to—!"

"I don't need to!" Luffy barked impatiently, starting to increase his pace. "This bastard threatened our home and stole our crewmate! This is my fight! So stay out of—!"

"WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LISTEN TO ME, YOU DUMB BASTARD!?"

More out of surprise than actual fear, Luffy looked back at Bartolomeo, whose expression had morphed into a full-on scowl.

"I set out to sea because of you, Straw Hat!" the fang-toothed pirate bellowed proudly, his jaw set with ineffable determination. "I've followed your crew's journey every step of the way, even before the SBS! I know how you do things, I know that Shiki declared war on you the moment he hurt one of your crewmates, and I'm not going to stand in your way. BUT!"

Barto put on a burst of speed, actually managing to catch up to and run alongside Luffy, glaring dead ahead after Shiki. "The East Blue is my home too!" he declared. "I've got my boys there, my family! And I'm not just going to sit back on my ass when I can actually make a difference! I'm going to fight for them, tooth and nail, no matter what you or anyone else has to say about it! And if you don't like it… then you can get the fuck out of my way!"

Bartolomeo winced at insulting his idol like that, but it seemed to cement Luffy's attention on him. He was silent for a few moments, glaring at his fellow East Blue captain.

"How do you fight?"

Accurately interpreting the meaning of Luffy's question, Bartolomeo grinned as he locked eyes with him. "Good old fisticuffs crossed with my Barrier powers. I can hit anyone, but they can't hit me back."

Luffy nodded and refocused his attention ahead. "Alright. Let's go, Black Bart!"

Bart's leer stretched from ear to ear. "Right there with you, Straw Hat!"

-o-

I stared after Bartolomeo and Luffy, automatically climbing to my feet. I hadn't expected that, but with my annoyance ebbing I could admit that Barto was the best candidate to actually help Luffy against Shiki. This wasn't a bad thing, not at all, no matter how much the petty side of me wanted to say otherwise for getting a train horn blasted in my ear.

"What was that about?" Zoro grunted, massaging the spot on his thigh where Barto had clipped him.

"Barto's living his dream right now," I answered. "Don't worry about it, he'll either be a net help for Luffy or Luffy will knock him out before he makes too big a nuisance of himself. Either way, we should probably focus on our own situation."

Zoro snorted, slowly turning to look over his shoulder. "Yeah, speaking of which…"

As Zoro said, 'our situation' was, ah, not optimal, so to speak. I don't know how many pirates were in the room with us, but it was at least a few dozen, and these weren't the grunts that we'd mowed down earlier. No, these guys were all staring at us without any fear, without any hesitation, with total certainty in not only their own victories, but their having the strength to achieve said victories.

All that, coupled with the jackets they had slung over their shoulders, and I'm fairly certain that these were all captains, every last one of them.

"Soundbite, headcount?" I muttered out the corner of my mouth.

"FIFTY OF these guys out in the front," he answered. "AND, UH, DON'T PANIC, but we didn't get EVERY ONE OF THE GRUNTS. 'NOTHER FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY behind them."

I clicked my tongue in a sharp tsk. "So," I sighed out loud. "Final count, it's us two, a loud-mouthed third mate tactician with his partners and a first mate swordsman, against fifty of the strongest captains in Paradise, along with the top fighters in their crews. Close to five hundred pirates against two."

"I think we can take them," Zoro said as he retrieved and brandished his unsheathed Wado Ichimonji. "Do you think we can take them?"

"You always think we can take them," I groused, though that didn't stop an eager grin. It was this grin that I turned on the captains surrounding us. "So? What are you guys waiting for? An engraved invitation?"

That did it. One graybeard stood, drew his sword, and pointed it at us. "Get those little pests!" he barked. "Kill them all!"

Immediately, the crowd surged towards us, the larger part breaking for Zoro and a smaller but still significant chunk going for me. I grinned and hefted my partners. After the last week… I needed this.

Hefting Lassoo, I pulled the trigger as fast as I could, baseball bombs soaring over the heads of the frontline to thin out the crowd to the rear. Adding to the carnage was Soundbite pitching in with the Bass Cannon every time a bomb went off, creating veritable walls of sound that turned anything in their path to jelly. Gunfire rang out, but a swift swing of Funkfreed had him wrapped around me, the bullets pinging off his steel hide prompting the pirates to mostly abandon their guns.

Still, about twenty bombs later, the leading two captains were almost on me with the rest of the horde only reeling. One was a full-bearded fellow with a brown coat trimmed in fur and a painful-looking x-shaped scar on his forehead carrying a massive iron club, while the other was an aged woman, her black hair done up in a long pigtail and her Chinese-style dress torn at the waist to expose an armored breastplate, brandishing cutlass and dagger.

Both were also in the danger zone of Lassoo's baseball bombs. And neither of them were concerned as they charged toward me, the looks on their faces clearly expecting me to go down in a matter of seconds so that they could move along. If I were a little less incensed, I'd probably be grateful that the misconception that my voice was the only dangerous part about me had lasted this long.

I dedicated myself to disabusing them of that notion with an almost savage glee.

I snapped my arms—and weapons—out to my sides. "Pachy-Cryo," I uttered.

Funkfreed withdrew to his blade form, which made the captains pick up speed, but they were given pause by water spraying down the length of his blade from his hilt, courtesy of his old Water Dial. A moment later, his new Cool Dial flash-froze the water into a secondary blade of pure ice.

"Cani-Pyro!"

Lassoo followed suit, reverting into his cannon mode. He then coughed out a measured stream of gas that he swiftly ignited. Said flames coalesced into a controlled pillar of blue flames, easily as long and as thick as Lassoo was.

Preparations complete, I hefted up my partners and greeted the captains with a savage smirk.

"Beast Blitz," I chuckled grimly. "Bring it."

They were only too happy to comply.

The woman's blades not only froze over almost immediately upon slamming into my own, but the ice glued her hands to her own weapons and Funkfreed's edge, while Lassoo's blowtorch went through scarface's club like it was made of butter. The looks on their faces were priceless.

"GASTRO-nation."

And then Soundbite rang their skulls like church bells and put them right out of the fight. Good timing, too, because the rest of the crowd had arrived. This was no time for subtlety or fancy tactics. Instead, I simply waded into the fight, swinging Lassoo and Funkfreed around equal parts calculated intent and reckless abandon. With the temperature effects they were running, that was still enough to clear large swathes of pirates.

It was incredibly satisfying.

But it just. Wasn't. Enough.

Gritting my teeth, I tossed aside Funkfreed and Lassoo—who promptly swapped to their hybrid forms and took up the charge on their own—and punched one of the non-captains in a pinstriped suit square in the nose. That he crumpled like a sack of flour was so much more satisfying than using my partners.

And while Zoro and I were tearing through these guys, no one could ever accuse them of being stupid. Weak and as coordinated as drunken monkeys on a waxed floor, but not stupid. The nearest captain, one wearing a blue shirt and sporting fish-like fins behind his ears, charged me, clearly intent on grappling me, shouting, "Everyone, dogpile him! It's just that dumbass bigmouth Cross!"

I waited until he came close, then grabbed his hands as he made to strangle me. His eyes widened slightly when I didn't crumple immediately. And then I squeezed, his wrists crumpling beneath my fingers like empty soda cans.

-o-

"Brutal," Kid sneered appreciatively, his fingers twitching with potential violence just itching to be released as he observed the beatdown.

"Oh, God help me…" Killer dragged his fingers down his mask, groaning miserably as he contemplated the inevitable meeting of the two pirates and the fallout that would come of it.

-o-

"Wh-What?!" the captain gasped in shock and pain, staring numbly at his destroyed hands. Then I yanked his arms down and rammed my knee into his chin, dropping him to the ground.

"… 'just Cross'?" I chuckled with deceptive, icy calm as I made a show of dusting my hands off. "Ohhh nonono… let me explain something to you lot."

Several pirates, non-captains, tried to bum-rush me. A punch here, an elbow there, a dodge to let one fellow sprawl painfully against a wooden support beam. I helped him along to dreamland by planting my boot against the back of his head, and I was sorely tempted to give him a half dozen more for good measure.

"Now… this might come as a bit of a shock to some people, but the truth is?" I gestured at myself with a smile. "I… am an angry person. It's true, I am, I am a very angry person. Bit new to me too, seeing as it only really started up since I came to the Grand Line, but, well…" I shrugged as I shattered the jaw of someone trying to sneak up on me with a backhand. "There it is.

"Normally, this doesn't really show because I channel my anger constructively, I let it out through my words as I slowly but surely tear the World Government down, piece by piece. But see, for the past week?" I ducked as another pirate swung a bulky arm at my head. I then snagged said limb in a crushing grip and wrenched the limb around my assailant's back. "I haven't been able to do that."

I ratcheted up the pressure on my captive's arm as I spoke. "I haven't been able to do that, because for the past week, my crew and I have been trapped in a primordial hellhole, fighting for our lives against monsters that outweighed us fifty to one apiece, courtesy of an arrogant bastard who decided to ignore my every warning, my every repeated message concerning the sanctity of our crew, and made the fan-fucking-tastic life choice of fucking with me and mine in a most glorious manner. As such?"

SNAP!

My captive howled in agony and I let him drop to the ground as he lost all resistance in his shoulder.

"I am," I smiled politely, holding my fingertips less than an inch apart. "Just the slightest, tiniest bit, somewhat pent up."

Another captain joined into the fray, resplendent in a white uniform trimmed in gold with an impressively tall hat. He also had gray skin, black pits for eyes, sharp claws and teeth… oh, and also had a good three feet on me, height-wise. That's probably why he thought it would be a good idea to jump at me from the second floor like some panther on the hunt or something.

"Now, I'm no fool." I tugged down my hat and grinned, even as the rabid pirate descended on me. "I know for a fact that I can't even lay so much as a scratch upon Shiki, no matter how much I want to. I can't even touch him." I then snapped a glare up at the pirate. "But you."

Before dead-eyes could react, I snapped my metal-clad fists out and snagged the captain by the lapels of his oh so nice jacket, snatching him clean out of the air and holding him nice and high off the ground where all he could do was scrabble and squirm at and in my literal steel grip.

"You all who decided to join him, to stay allied with his flag, even after he, at the risk of repeating myself, fucked with me and mine, in a very public, impossible to ignore manner," I hissed venomously, grinning up at my victim-to-be. "You, I can touch. You… I can break. But still, just in case, just in case this all sailed clean over your dumb little heads… let me make this as easy for you as I can possibly make it…"

Spinning around, I shifted my grip and then slammed the captain into the floor, turning it into splinters and shaking the whole room.

I then, very slowly, very deliberately, turned at my heel and regarded the pirates who had all frozen in place like the disgusting scum they were, scowling with pure malice as I slowly cracked my knuckles, one by one, ensuring that they could all hear it.

"Daddy needs to express some rage," I rumbled grimly.

Ahhhhhh. That's the stuff. And the fact that the rest of the crowd around me—and it was a pretty sizeable crowd, still—was taking a fearful step back, terror written on every square millimeter of their faces, was the gourmet icing on this delicious cake. Then I blinked.

"Huh. This must be what Shiki feels like all the time. Explains a lot, really." I turned back to the crowd, who all took another step back. "Now, who wants some?" Not waiting for an answer, I pointed at a pirate at random. "You. You want some."

"Oh, God—GRK!"

That choking noise? That would be me holding him up by his throat, Funkfreed covering me while I made my point. "Don't bother," I chortled, sheer madness gleaming in my eyes. "My captain already punted him off his throne. Wanna guess who spat in his face first?!"

-o-