8/11

The mutated doe, which Indigo had altered at his captain's request a few weeks back to evolve more for speed than aggression, was running because Franky and Brook had specifically tried to capture it, because strapped to its chest in a well-secured harness was Cross's Snail Transceiver along with a vis-snail. And the moment that they had tried to seize it, the doe bounded off through a twisting labyrinth of earth, air, and water that only the Float-Float Fruit could have created. Shiki had chosen speed over bulk to ensure that the creature would be easier to control than his simian majordomo, but at the same time impossible to defeat, or at the very least, to catch.

Franky fell behind quickly as the chase continued, Brook maintaining pace for some time thanks to the unnatural lightness of his form, even allowing him to follow the doe across water. Ultimately, however, he met his match when the doe came across a lengthy chasm, blurred from view the moment she reached the edge, and reappeared on the other side a few moments later. Brook skidded to a halt, gritting his teeth as he observed the length of the gap, and the fact that it led right back to the blue sea. The doe faced him with a look that could only be the smuggest of satisfaction before bounding out of sight of the pirates.

"…Cross will not be pleased with this development, will he?" Brook mused uncertainly.

"This whole place will cave in on itself when Luffy beats Shiki, we'll get the transceiver back after that," Franky growled back, before turning around and trudging off towards the battle. "Come on; if we can't get the snail's box, we need to be out there helping the others against the rest of those monsters." A far more eager smirk flashed across the cyborg's mug. "And I've got just the plan for that."

-o-

The doe bounded on for another few minutes until it was sure that it had left the pirates in the dust, whereupon it slowed down to regain some stamina. She also took the opportunity to scan the surrounding landscape for a stream; Indigo's stamina enhancements were effective, but they sucked up water like nobody's business.

Finally locating the scent of fresh water off in the distance, the doe leisurely trotted in that direction, though she kept all her senses on high alert in case the pirates had found some way across the chasm. She only let down her guard when she reached the actual stream; the only signs of life were a flock of mundane seagulls sitting on the surrounding branches. The doe shuddered. Both Shiki and Indigo had had words about the fact that seagulls seemed blithely oblivious to the "rules" of Merveille. Very loud, very angry words.

Whatever. The doe bent down to drink. They were just seagulls, after all.

[Mine?]

The doe jerked her head up, ready to—oh. Just a seagull on the rocks next to her. Wearing a cute little hat, too. Bah, pointless. Back to drinking.

[Mine!]

This time, when the doe looked up, the seagull had produced… a french fry? Held in its wings. All her instincts blared at her that she was in danger, but it was a french fry.

[Mine.]

Slowly, and with great trepidation, the doe looked back up at the tree-bound gulls. Every single one of them had its eyes on that french fry. Her gaze whipped back to the seagull next to her, expression screaming 'Don't you dare'.

The gull tossed the fry right at her.

Immediately, the doe was swamped by what seemed like every seagull on the Grand Line, all pecking and flapping and trying to land on her. Despite the ensuing confusion, she did notice when the weight of the transceiver on her chest suddenly vanished. Snorting, the doe shook off the last few seagulls and tore after the speck of white she could see flying away as fast as it could manage into a patch of forest. Why a seagull wanted the thing The Alpha had given her to keep was beyond her, but given the consequences of failing that psychotic ape, she was not letting it get away with it.

Of course, there was one small problem with that idea: the gull could simply climb above the trees, while the doe had to slow down to avoid slamming into said trees. And yet, it simply didn't climb out of sight and fly away. The answer to this conundrum was obvious: it was taunting her. It had to be!

The gull glanced over its shoulder down at her, and then waggled its tail feathers in a way that was somehow smug. Oh yeah. It was taunting her.

Snorting angrily again, the doe picked up speed. Screw hitting a tree, this was officially personal, she would plow through them if she had to! And even better, the trees were thinning out! Once she was out of this stupid forest, she could bound off one of the trees, get some altitude, and take down that stupid seagull!

Bursting out of the trees, the doe prepared to execute her plan… only to hit a bit of a snag. A "pirate mosh pit" kind of snag. And she was currently sitting in midair.

[I don't wanna be venisooooon!]

-o-

Flying high above, Coo smirked at a plan well executed. That deer wasn't going to be a problem anymore. Now, he just needed to get the transceiver to Cross, and—

Wait. What the heck was that whistling—?

Snapping his head up, Coo let out a squawk of panic at the eagle diving towards him talons-first, and immediately dove for the ground. That action probably saved his life; the eagle slamming into his neck from behind and driving him into the ground probably would've snapped his spine otherwise. Even then, both impacts served to knock Coo for a loop, and gave the bird of prey the time it needed to completely pin him to the ground with a single foot.

[A merry chase you led us on,] he heard the eagle gloat from on high. [But now, your flight is at an end.]

[Could you be any more clichéd?] Coo grumbled, only to grunt as the eagle ground his beak a little deeper into the dirt.

[Right, if that's how you're going to be, down to business, then,] the eagle sighed as it examined the talons on his free foot. [Hand over the transceiver, and I will ensure that you are dead before stripping the flesh from your bones.]

[Nice threat. But I'm afraid you've been outfoxed.]

Out the corner of his eye, Coo saw the eagle gain a hilariously surprised expression, whereupon he was knocked off the newsbird in a pained squawk and flurry of feathers. Sitting up, Coo watched the featherhole tumble for a bit in the dirt, before he was suddenly pummeled into the ground by a blur of white slamming into the eagle, again and again and again, until the pompous hat-topper was little more than a twitching pile of broken bones and feathers.

Her job done, Coo's savior strolled up to him with her head held high and her tail waving daintily behind her. Her swagger faltered as Coo cuffed her upside the head with his wing.

[I could've done without the awful one-liner,] he groused, brushing the dirt from his wings before glancing up at Su. [But thanks for the save. Though, how did you know to get here?]

[You're welcome,] Su rolled her eyes with a derisive snort, rubbing her ear. [And for your information, the slimeball directed me this way to get his box back; you actually saved me a lot of trouble on that front.]

The two animals fell silent for a moment, both of them processing the fact that they were speaking in their native tongues, and then looked up expectantly.

"Head for the throne room, BUT TAKE YOUR TIME," the Voice of Audio-God said grimly but distractedly. "CROSS AND I have never been THIS MAD BEFORE." And then he was gone.

Coo cocked his eyebrow. [Well, that makes sense…] He then glanced at Su out the corner of his eye. [And convenient for you, I expect?]

Su shot her own clench-eyed glare at the gull, before sighing and scratching at her ear. [Alright, I suppose that's… mostly fair, but!] She snapped her head up and jabbed her paw in Coo's breast. [Let's be clear here! I can be dickish, and I was dickish in how I asked you for help, I'll admit—!]

[But that doesn't mean you're actually a dick, of course,] Coo nodded without missing a beat. [Don't worry, I get it. You'd just gone through hell when last we first talked, you were impatient when you talked to Windy, it's fine. Besides, you saved my tailfeathers just now, so I'd say our tabs are about even right now, ya know?]

Su pawed despairingly at her muzzle. [Saved them while you were helping us out, so…]

[Let's, not get bogged down in that particular morass, alright?] Coo waved her off. [And… while I did decide to help you guys out while I was around, I flapped my way up here for another reason.]

The cloud fox's ear twitched slightly and she snapped as shocked a look as her pinched eyes allowed at the gull. [Wait, you mean—?]

[Eh…] the News Coo wavered his wing uncertainly. [We dug up something. Whether or not it's useful, or even all that actionable, well…]

[I'm a Straw Hat, remember? We've gone off of worse,] Su scoffed. [Gimme gimme, quickie!]

[Well, alright,] Coo sighed in defeat. [Just don't say I didn't warn you when you don't like it.]

And so Coo told her what he knew, and Su did indeed not like it.

-o-

"My, my, Shiki, you've been quite busy," Robin purred, thumbing through one of the many folders that she had found in the Golden Lion's library. "I do believe that Cross is going to be immensely pleased with these reports on the Blues' Marine bases. With any luck, some turnover of the chains of command will be… beneficial, to say the least."

It did make sense that Shiki would ensure that there was no threat to his military might in those oceans; forewarned was forearmed, as Cross himself had demonstrated many a time now, and Robin had a vested interest in making sure that her foster brother was well-armed indeed. And the details in the folders she read promised to be quite useful to him and his.

"Now let's see…" Robin hummed to herself as she cast a thoughtful gaze around the ornate bed chamber her myriad hands were in the process of ransacking, flinging books left and right and ripping boards from the walls. "If I were a megalomaniacal self-zealot intent on world conquest…" She trailed off for a moment before smirking and thumbing the brim of her hat. "Correction: if I were Crocodile, where would I hide my log of information on—GAH!"

The archaeologist cut herself off with a pained yelp as she snapped her original hand to her left eye, which was clenched shut on account of the rivulets of blood streaming from the eyelid. "Now I remember why I stopped using Ojos Fleur in full scale theatres…" she groaned to herself, blooming another eye on her palm to see the damage. She frowned slightly; bloodshot and crimson, most likely a popped vessel, but she'd had worse and healed from it, even if this would take a bit of time.

With that done, she reordered her thoughts and focused on what had just happened. Robin took a swift inventory of her remote eyes, closing them as she went for her own peace of mind. In the end, all eyes were accounted for… except for…

"The one I had… on this room's outer wall…" Robin groaned, dragging her hand down her face. "Oh, this is going to hurt, isn't it?"

"OOK!" CRASH!

Robin was proven right—much to her chagrin—by a massive hairy palm crashing through one wall pancaking her against the wall opposite, leaving her with more than a dozen bones fractured and half as many outright broken. Chopper would not be pleased with her, and it said a lot about both her faith in her crew and their doctor's prowess (and temper) that that was the first worry that came to her mind.

Or maybe it was just the concussion jumbling up her priorities.

Either way, when her senses returned to her, she found herself gripped tightly in the giant fist of a gorilla clad in red clothing, holding her very high off the ground.

The first instinct of Robin's scrambled mind was to rip her captor apart with a multitude of arms. She barely managed to keep this instinct under control due to the height; she may have the means to slow her fall with her Wing technique, but that technique needed more focus and less risk of being ambushed while she recovered than she had at the moment.

As she ran through her other options, her eyes fell on the gorilla. And upon seeing the look in its eyes, she did the only thing she could at the moment:

"Someone… get this damn dirty ape… off of me!" she shouted, shoving as hard as she could against the iron grip she was in, with as many arms as she could comfortably muster.

"Grrrr," the gorilla growled menacingly, the other hand pulling back to do… something to her.

"Ahem."

Pirate and gorilla turned to witness a very specific aquatic mammal perched on the larger mammal's shoulder, nonchalantly smoking a cigar and giving the ape a flat look.

"You heard the lady. Let her go," Boss said calmly.

Predictably, the gorilla turned his ire on the dugong, instantly swatting his free hand down on the martial artist amphibian.

Less predictably, the gorilla's palm halted directly before the dugong, whose flipper had stopped the larger beast's hand in its path. Said Dugong now had a vein popping on his forehead.

"Let me clarify something for you, simian," the martial artist drawled. "What I just said? That wasn't a request. SQUALL PISTOL!"

In the space of a second, Boss pulled back his flipper and jabbed it forward again.

CRUNCH!

"OOGRAAAAAAAAH!" Scarlet howled, flinging his captive aside in favor of cradling his broken hand. Boss immediately dove down, catching Robin in his flippers and setting her back down into the room she had been looking over before.

"Thank you, Boss," Robin said.

"Don't thank me yet," Boss said as he glowered past his friend's shoulder. "Find whatever you were looking for and then get the hell out of dodge. This isn't going to be a one-stop shot; I don't know how much SIQ he's had, but it's gotta be a massive overdose."

The archaeologist blinked in confusion. "How can you be so sure?"

The dugong pointed his flipper without a twitch of his expression. "Because while we Grand Line animals are freakishly tough, that is not typical of any natural evolution I'm aware of."

Robin followed Boss's flipper with her eyes, one of which started twitching when she saw the, to reiterate, very unnatural occurrence which Boss was speaking of. Namely, the fact that the gorilla's hand was pulsating before her eyes, the shattered bones within shifting and restructuring themselves back into their proper shape.

Robin nodded, shoving her hat down. "Right. You have fun with that."

"Ohohohoooooh, believe me…" Boss tilted his head just so, letting a vicious glint bounce off of the point of his glasses. "I intend to."

The gorilla, meanwhile, howled and pounded its chest before ignoring Robin entirely as she escaped to bring his palm down on the floor. As he had intended to bring it down on Boss' head, this prompted a slow, stupid blink of confusion.

"Nori Arts," Boss intoned, reaching for something behind his back.

Snarling, Scarlet brought his palms up again, and slammed them down repeatedly.

"Nori Arts, Nori Arts, Nori Arts."

And Boss merely swayed out of the way of each one of the room-shaking slaps. After the fourth, he flicked his flippers, sending something blurring towards his simian opponent.

That something was his blazing rope-dart, which slammed into Scarlet's gut with about as much force as a Diable Jambe. Between the heat and the impact, for a brief second all the gorilla could do was hunch over wheezing in pain.

It was a second Boss took full advantage of, looping the rope around Scarlet's neck and then jumping onto one of the roof beams.

"Rip Tide," the dugong intoned, blurring out of sight, but up. "Shell Body."

Reinforced dugong smashed through the roof like so much sugar glass, carrying Boss onto the roof and yanking Scarlet along by the neck. For a moment, the two hung in the air.

"TIDAL SWIM!"

Before Boss flipped in mid-air and kicked off with all his might. Once again, massive forces carried Scarlet along for the ride, neck first, and when Boss landed, another flick of his flippers unlooped the gorilla and sent him hurtling towards one of the towers… towering above the palace. And then into the tower.

"Hmm, that should be enough," Boss muttered, eyeing the impact point. The rubble there shuddered. "Or not. Sebek's Scale-Rotted Tail, that SIQ is—"

Boss' words died in his throat as the top-half of the tower shuddered, and then rose. And with the pink shirt Scarlet wore standing out in the blizzard-wrapped gloom, the cause was pretty damn obvious.

"You've gotta be kidding me…"

With a shout of "ORA!", Scarlet hurled the chunk of tower like a javelin at Boss, who knew immediately that he had no chance of blocking or deflecting it. And dodging would leave him open.

Time to think a little laterally.

"Typhoon Lash!" Boss roared, spinning on his flippers before unleashing the attack from his tail. It worked like a charm, neatly slicing the tower in two, at which point Boss hooked his rope dart around the top half and went along for the ride.

Whereupon Scarlet peeked over the side.

"Okay, so you're not a complete meathead…" Boss muttered. Tugging his rope dart again, he swung around, aiming his free flipper for the gorilla's unprotected back. "Squall Pistol!"

"Ook!"

WHAM!

The Squall Pistol landed, sending Scarlet staggering back clutching his face. The punch Boss took in return sent him reeling, a fifty-piece marching band practicing in his skull.

"Note to self…" he groaned, shaking his head. "Don't take hits unless you have Shell Body on. And maybe not even then…"

The last of the cobwebs cleared, and Boss turned back to Scarlet, who was also up and about—and gaping in panic?

The dugong looked behind just as the pillar slammed into the central dome of Shiki's palace. "SHELL BODY!" Boss squawked, and a good thing, too, as the sudden stop hurled him into the side of the building. Scarlet, too, actually, which gave Boss an excellent view of what a gorilla ass looked like.

Grumbling, Boss pulled himself out of the wall, and glanced up at his opponent. "Hmm, attack or reposition…" he mused. Below him, the pillar shifted. "Right, reposition it is!"

Spinning the head of his rope dart, he hurled it up, grasping one of the ledges, and then yanked himself up to land softly on the roof of the dome. No sooner had he landed than the dome shook.

"Whoa! Rip Tide!"

Blurring away, he saw, through the haze of the technique, a massive gorilla fist punch through where he'd once been, followed shortly by the rest of the beast, still no worse for the wear. That called for a change in strategy.

"Let's see how you like ranged combat!" Boss barked as he came out of his Rip Tide. "Typhoon Lash!"

Super-sharp wind gusted out, Scarlet dodging by a slim margin. Another followed, that dodged as well, and Scarlet decided that he didn't like being shot at. Roaring, he charged Boss, who simply Rip Tided out of the way and repeated the process.

This dance repeated two more times until Scarlet dodged another Typhoon Lash. This time, he was met with a rope dart to the face. Repeatedly.

"Got your dodging pattern down, ape!" Boss crowed, repeatedly swinging his rope dart. "You're not escaping this!"

Suddenly, the dart stopped. And wouldn't budge no matter how much Boss tugged on it. That Scarlet was gripping the hook despite the flesh of his hand audibly sizzling probably had something to do with that.

"Uh-oh," Boss muttered, which was as far as he got before Scarlet gave the rope dart an almighty yank.

A hasty Typhoon Lash cut the rope—he could retrieve the hook when he didn't have a 500-lb gorilla trying to bash his face in—but by the time he was done, a massive fist was heading for his face. And he had neither the time for a Tidal Swim nor the leverage for a Nori Arts.

"This is going to hurt… Shell Body!"

The fist struck home, slamming Boss into the surface of the dome. Sensing blood, Scarlet didn't let up, slapping and punching the same spot repeatedly. Each shook the dome, and caused a spider-web of cracks to grow ever-larger.

Unfortunately, he didn't notice Boss simply roll out of the way of the blows. So the Squall Pistol that hit him in the chin came right out of nowhere.

Grimacing, Boss watched the gorilla go down again, simply waiting for it to get back up. Even with Shell Body, that had hurt, though nothing that would stop him from putting down this ape. Especially if…

Yes, it was taking longer for Scarlet to get up. Quite a bit longer.

"Like I thought, SIQ regeneration can be used up," Boss remarked. "And without that… well. You're strong. Stronger than me, even. But there's more to combat than just strength." Boss shifted his stance, drawing his arms together at his side. "And I'm superior in every other way."

Shaking his head, Scarlet narrowed his beady eyes at Boss before roaring and charging.

"Six Arts for Six Kings," Boss murmured. "Six Kings for Six Oceans."

Deep within Scarlet's simian brain, he recognized that his opponent wasn't dodging. A small part screamed that this was a trap. The rest just wanted to get this pest out of the way. So he kept charging.

"Full Shell Style: Six Oceans Gun!"

Wrapped up in all six styles, it was child's play for Boss to first weave between Scarlet's crashing fists, and then deliver the Six Oceans Gun straight to his chest.

Bones shattered and organs pulped under the force, the momentum sending Scarlet hurling through the air. SIQ-fueled regeneration went to work, patching up the damage, but it was overtaxed by the rest of the fight, and running out of raw materials to work with anyway. Then that whole point was rendered moot when Scarlet hit the remaining tower. That was a level of damage the weakened regeneration simply couldn't cope with.

Back on the dome, Boss eyed his handiwork, and when after a minute Scarlet didn't budge, let out a sigh of relief and sagged in pain, particularly his left flipper. Flexing tentatively, he winced as he felt his bones rub together just out of alignment. Annoying, but maybe he could subtly fix it while no one was—

CRACK!

"SON OF A BARNACLE-LATHERED BUOY!" Boss howled, clutching his shoulder in agony. "WHAT THE HELL—?!"

"Take better care of yourself, shitty blubberbutt," Sanji interrupted, idly tapping the boot he'd used to kick the dugong's shoulder back into place. "It'd be a damn shame if the only decent sparring partner I had on the ship was the mosshead."

Boss grit his teeth together before slowly looking at the nonchalant smoker and his gaunt companion behind him. His jowls slowly twisted into a wry smirk.

"…Will do, Sanji. So… how many idiots do we have left to smash into pieces?"

"Not enough to make it our main priority anymore," the gaunt man responded, fingering the heavy-looking tonfa he was carrying. "Guess now we turn to the loot, pillage, and plundering part."

Boss exhaled in what was almost a snort, but nodded. "Fine by me; I'm satisfied after that fight."

"Except that I'm not," Sanji snorted out a cloud of smoke, glaring daggers at the downed ape. "You did a pretty good job, but that damn thing dared to lay a hand on a woman! You should have beaten the gorilla way worse."

"Oh, yeah?" Boss cocked his brow at the cook. "Well, he's certainly not going anywhere. Go ahead, finish what I started."

"I'll do just that," Sanji huffed, eyeing the downed Ape still embedded in the remaining tower. Once he had calculated the appropriate amount of punishment to dole out, he hauled his leg back… and kicked a rock that tapped off of Scarlet's skull.

"Now he's had it," the cook declared with a satisfied nod. "Now come on, let's help our helmsgirl steal everything that's not nailed down!" And with that, Sanji ran off.

Boss blinked after his crewmate before slowly looking up at Gin. "Just confirming, seeing as there was a big chunk of time before I met the band of mental patients I decided to shack up with…" He pointed at Sanji's retreating back. "Was he always this crazy?"

"You'll need to be more specific," Gin deadpanned. "About women, or in general?"

"Both."

"Well, in that case… no. When I first met Sanji…" A smirk slowly spread across Gin's face. "Honestly? I think it was just bubbling below the surface back then."

Boss donned a smirk of his own. "Good."

"Good?"

"Good," Boss started to waddle off with a contented nod. "Means he's finally being honest with himself."

-o-

Though there were far more than 88 nutcases who had attacked the roaring, rampaging sword-wielders that had come after the highest authority in the palace, the fallen bodies, the many homeless limbs, and the streaks and puddles of blood dying the room red would have given even a certain Black Mamba a run for her money. Were Soundbite less incensed, he may have even pointed it out.

Unfortunately, that furious rage was still there. And so were the enemies who somehow thought that they would succeed where hundreds before had failed to take down the two Straw Hats tearing them to shreds. Adding to the misfortune was the not unsound logic that led them to keep trying: no matter how powerful they were, they could only handle so many bodies, both at once and over time.

And while that was unsound logic against most of the Straw Hats, despite rumor to the contrary the crew was still mostly composed of humans. As such, Cross's stamina was wearing thin, and Zoro…

"GRK!"

Zoro grunted in pain as another tremor wracked his body, creating a split-second opening that a particularly persistent spearman shoved his weapon into. Thankfully, it was with the butt of the weapon, which allowed Zoro to dive right back in instead of fall to his knees clutching the new hole in his gut, but the slip-up was blatantly obvious.

"KEEPING A STRONG FACE AND ACTING LIKE nothing's wrong is fine when the carnage is done. NOT WHEN WE'RE STILL CREATING GROUND ZERO!"

"BITE ME!" Zoro shot back. Calling up the aura of Asura, he waded into the crowd, the flickering illusion carving through everyone in his path.

"AND AS FOR my personal armchair…"

"Kiss!" Cross snarled, braining and burning an overeager mook with Lassoo's smoking muzzle. "My!" He then caught another enforcer's blade with Funkfreed's tusks and used the lock to drag the enemy into a bone-fracturing headbutt. "Ass!" The final word was punctuated by Cross flinging Funkfreed and Lassoo at his opponents. The two weapon animals transitioned in midair into a rime-tusked elephant and a flame-spitting hound, respectively, smashing into the Golden Lions' frontlines and smashing them quite thoroughly, giving Cross the space and time he needed to catch his breath.

Time he took to shoot an offended, if slightly dizzy look at Soundbite. "I'll have you know that I am in peak physical condition, and that we are doing perfectly fine at breaking these bastards all on our—!"

BOOOM!

Cross's boasting died quickly when perhaps the worst possible scenario introduced itself into the fight. See, while Vivi blowing the roof off the palace did achieve the desired effect of intimidation by expressed fury, that left the fighters within vulnerable to attacks from above. And in this case, said attack took the form of one of Shiki's more fortuitous recruits.