– Bellamy –
The first amongst us to respond was Law, who raced ahead while opening his room to start throwing giant piles of debris and trees in Mad Treasure's general direction to slow him down. Most of it didn't even reach the man, being shot out of the air by their sniper, Naomi, but the obstructed field of vision did cause our opponents to momentarily pause. Unwilling to let this brief window of opportunity go to waste, I rattled off orders like a machine gun.
"Lily, Muret, Robin, Mani! Protect the Myskinas!" Guard the home front.
"Aye, aye captain!"
"Eddy, Hewitt, Ross, Laki! Their swordsman, Psycho P! Bring him down!" Break their hidden blade.
"On it, captain!"
"Nero, Rivers, Sarquiss! Silence their sniper!" Tear down their support.
"Consider it done!"
"Aisa! On me!" And finally…
"Coming!"
"Let's go wild!" …cut off the snake's head.
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When one watched a lot of movies or read many comics, it became very obvious very quickly that very few characters, if anybody at all, entered a fight while giving it everything they had from the get go. On the rare occasions that someone did go full throttle from the start, it often meant that whoever did this was so ridiculously outmatched, that the attack they poured their entire being into could be used as a demonstration of their opponent's overwhelming might…usually by having the ultimate blow be stopped cold by a single finger.
Now, admittedly, there were valid tactical considerations for why one would choose to hold themselves back during the initial phases, not least amongst them the lack of actionable intelligence on the enemy's capabilities. Not only did that drastically increase the risk of one's own efforts failing to bear fruit, going all in necessitated leaving oneself open to a potential counter without any further aces to call upon. That and other concerns thus drove experienced combatants to use the initial stages of a battle to feel each other out, so to speak, throwing light jabs while waiting to see how their opponent would react. It was only when they found a weakness, an opening they could exploit, that they'd ramp up the pace.
However, despite this sort of pattern having established itself as conventional wisdom, there were select circumstances in which such things became a luxury. The most obvious of which being a situation, such as the one I found myself in. Or in other words, fighting someone who would severely outclass me if I held anything back.
Mad Treasure was one such individual. Despite having beaten fairly handily by Luffy in the movie, that had been after the events at Dressrosa. While I knew I'd reach that level someday, fact was that the treasure hunter was a New World veteran fighting three Paradise rookies. And it showed.
Chains filled my vision as Mad Treasure used his devil fruit to produce dozens of the things, all of them tipped with a variety of implements designed to cause grievous harm…spikes, claws and blades. Dodging the first wave didn't really buy me any time, for hidden behind the first wave was a second and a third and a fourth, with all of them seeking to surround me and limit the one advantage I enjoyed against the guy. My superior mobility.
Nimbly dancing around the latest attempt to clap me in irons, I grabbed the metal chain with both of my hands. Aisa needed no further encouragement and the electrical output of our Thunder Cloak surged, sending several million volts worth of power racing towards the enemy via this convenient conductor.
There was a fascinating fact one should know about electricity. While it may vary a bit depending on various factors such as the material composition or physical dimensions of the medium it traveled through, electricity could reach up to ninety percent of the speed of light. That Doflamingo managed to react in time at Marineford was more a testament to his ridiculous strength than a mark against Aisa's lightning. And while powerful in his own right, Mad Treasure was no Doflamingo.
Sadly, he also wasn't Gan Fall either. Even as his nerves were lighting up like a Christmas tree and his muscles were seizing up in protest, the man quickly decoupled the offending chain from his body to limit the damage. To his credit, it worked as intended in protecting him from Aisa and I, but with his whole attention focused solely on one danger, he opened himself up to another.
"Shambles." Swapping position with a rock at Mad Treasure's back, Law wasted no time in cutting the man in half at the waist by taking advantage of the hunter's brief moment of inattention.
Law's basic offensive technique, amputate, was a brilliant move if one wanted to bypass someone's outer defense, as it ignored most of it and cleanly severed the target into two pieces. The downside being, that despite being heavily debilitating, my ally's brand of bisection wasn't fatal. Quite on the contrary, it merely created a physical separation but maintained a metaphysical one, such that both parts remained alive and well…and fully capable of independent motion.
None knew this property of his own attacks better than Law himself, which was why after cutting Treasure down to size, he brought his blade down in a reverse grip to try and pin his heart to the ground. At the same time, my Spring Rifle aimed to shatter Treasure's hip into a hundred fragments.
Neither of us hit our marks.
Like some sort of eldritch monstrosity, chains sprouted from Treasure's separated halves to form a barrier and buying the man precious time. Time, during which other chains dragged him piecemeal to safety where he re-assembled himself, using those very same metal appendages to literally chain himself together.
"Well, there goes our surprise advantage." I grumbled as Treasure tried to immolate us with his glares alone. "If you were going to bisect him, couldn't you have done a more permanent job?"
"If you were going to electrocute him, couldn't you have done a more permanent job, Springtrap-ya?" Law snarked, throwing my words right back in my face. Not long after that, we were both forced to leap away when subterranean chains burst out of the ground and drove us apart. And unlike before, these were made from diamonds.
Harder than steel and significantly lighter, Treasure's new crystal appendages had another rather annoying property…they were electrical insulators. I hadn't known he could do this but considering that Nami & Robin's collars had been made from gold and studded with gems, it shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did to find out he was capable of material manipulation as well.
"Try and electrocute me now, you little runt!"
The following seconds were fierce but ultimately inconclusive, with me ducking underneath his wild haymakers as his chain-encased fists whistled harmlessly through my hair. Likewise, my answering elbow was stopped by Treasure expanding his Gigantea to completely cover himself from head to toe in diamond links, until what stood before me was a warrior clad in the most expensive suit of chain mail I had ever laid my eyes upon.
Then my haki was screaming at me and I barely got my arms in the way just in time for Treasure's fist to smash into them. And the only thing I could think of at the moment was: "Had he gotten faster?"
Hundreds of blows rained down upon me and I met each with one of my own, my fledgling armament clashing against his, flagging and flickering but holding on. This meant that the pace kept escalating as a result, until we were pushing the limits of my Thunder Cloak. Yet, throughout the entire exchange, I couldn't shake the feeling of oddness that rather than Treasure moving his chains, his chains seemed to be moving him.
"Move, Springtrap-ya! Tact!"
No sooner had I vacated the area, did Law telekinetically smash two giant logs together with Treasure squished in between them. Naturally, when it came to a contest of toughness between solid wood and human flesh, human flesh won decisively with the tree trunks cracking and splintering into thousands of tiny shards. Law responded by following up with a pair of boulders. Then more trees and rocks until it looked like he was trying to bury the man alive in a cascade of wood and stone.
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"I've just about HAD IT WITH YOU!" Treasure's furious scream echoed around the newly uprooted clearing, as he punched his way through the bombardment and towards Law. Maybe it was haki maybe it was not, but in that moment, I'd instinctually known what my partner wanted, and I gave him a small nod. No sooner had I done so, did the cheeky bugger switch positions with me, causing Treasure to come face to face with Aisa's Ten Million Volt Vari without any prior warning.
The ensuing scream had little to do with anger and far more to do with pain, for as good as an insulator diamonds were against electricity, they offered no resistance to heat. And as we were finding out, ten million volts were more than enough to turn his crystal armor into a thermal oven. Human reflex mandated that one cast a burning object as far away from oneself as one possibly could, and Treasure was no different. White-hot glowing links peppered my body, bouncing off my Coil Chassis and my Thunder Cloak, as I forced my way through Treasure's explosive disarmament to drive my Spring Gatling into his solar plexus.
My second one didn't make it; my fist stopped cold by a black hand catching my left wrist in an iron grip…a fate shared soon after by my right. Attempts to pull out and put some distance between us were foiled when Treasure stepped on my foot with his own, turning what would have been an easy escape into a yo-yo movement. While I was certain that the subsequent strike with my knee broke a few of his ribs, Treasure seemed very unwilling to let me go and engulfed me in bearhug instead, even chaining us together into a cocoon for good measure.
"Die!" he hissed into my ear, and I knew pain.
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– Eddy –
It had been a while since he'd fought a swordsman, at least in a manner that wasn't training. He got enough of the latter from Izou during their daily sessions. Yet, as incredibly helpful they were in sharpening his skills, those practice duels paled in comparison to the life and death situations he'd been in over the past year. The sensation of his blood pounding in his ears and his solitary lung being pushed to its limits…and the feeling of triumph that came after, all of that had been exhilarating. Especially, when Eddy could bear witness to his palpable growth in real time. Thus, when his captain had given the order to face Mad Treasure's swordsman, Eddy had been rather excited.
"Scatter Shot!" Laki's rifle shot, so seemingly unified at the muzzle, split into seven separate rays of white-hot plasma, cutting off all avenues of escape for the invisible swordsman and forcing him to raise his guard in a shower of sparks.
"Surprised you found me, that's no lie; Like a needle in the haystack, I caught your eye." Impressively enough, even when on the receiving end of a bombardment capable of leveling a city block, Psycho P somehow found the mental capacity to rap, grunting the words out through gritted teeth.
"Scatter Shot!" the dial mechanic repeated, pulling the trigger again. Considering that Laki's rifle packed more of a punch than a conventional artillery piece, this had the additional benefit of necessitating Psycho P to stand still while defending himself or risk being knocked off his feet.
Unfortunately, the greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment. Psycho P was fast. Psycho P was strong. Psycho P was also tricky to fight on account of his devil fruit ability, which allowed the rapper to spray himself with paint and go invisible. While his friends, who had unlocked their observation haki had little issue finding the guy, for someone like Eddy who had not, trying to pinpoint his location was no trivial task. All of the reasons listed above, made fighting Psycho P an annoyance.
"Jet Punch: Armament!" Ross' timing was impeccable, having closed into punching range just as Laki's attack was tapering off, swinging his fist from Psycho P's blind spot. Yet, haki was a skill one could not do without in the New World and the rapper proved to be no different, turning around at the last moment to interpose his blade between himself and a future hospital stay.
Unfortunately for Psycho P, in pivoting about to face the new threat Ross represented, he'd sacrificed some of the stability he'd brought to bear against Laki. As a result, he soon found himself launched off his feet with a sound akin to the ringing of a giant bell.
"Listen up, let me break it down, don't be mistaken; Rookies with haki, you've gotta be fakin'. That shit ain't right, you know it's true. Gotta flip the script, find a breakthrough."
"Oh, shut the fuck up! You're rapping is so irritating!" The bell rang a second time.
But in the end, that was all he was. An annoyance.
When it came to swordsmanship, the rapping idiot was mediocre at best, even by Eddy's relatively low standards. It wasn't as if he'd been comparing the rapping fool to the likes of Izou or Zoro, nevermind Mihawke. Though no doubt far weaker than Psycho P in absolute combat prowess, the drugged knight under Crack A. Barrel's sway would have trounced Eddy's current opponent in a contest of pure skill.
Unlike their sailmaker, Hewitt didn't require Laki's lightshow to sniff out his target, having unlocked observation haki in his own right. In addition to this and perhaps just as helpfully, he just so happened to be the only member on his crew, who had any experience beating an invisible opponent into the ground. Not to mention that Absalom had been light on his feet as well, unlike the clown flying towards him while rapping at the top of his lungs.
"Frying Pan technique #1: searing." Hewitt's skillet made a beautiful arc as it was swung by his right hand in an overhand strike towards Psycho P's face from above.
The footwork was atrocious. The parry, poor in its execution. Within the first minutes of the engagement, it had become abundantly clear to Eddy, that there were no insights he could gain from this battle, which could aid him in his quest to discover what lay beyond mere mastery of the blade. No, the display Psycho P was putting on, as he desperately fought to keep Ross and Hewitt at bay, could barely be called swordsmanship at all.
"Scorchin' sensation, can't deny the sting; Heat rising…" Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first pan was blocked, though obviously Hewitt had expected nothing else, because the second soon followed.
"Frying Pan technique #2: whack-a-mole." Using the momentum gained from Psycho P's parry to his own advantage, Hewitt allowed himself to be sent whirling around like a pinwheel, bringing his left pan smashing into the rapper's jaw and shutting the man up mid-rap.
"First of all, that is not a cooking technique. Even I know that much..." Ross deadpanned, his eyebrows twitching slightly. Hewitt just shrugged before gesturing for his friend to continue. "And two, how the hell is your pan sizzling right now?"
"Heat dials."
That this fool was wielding a sword at all, especially one as beautiful as this bejeweled masterwork, was an insult to the art. A treasure like this was not meant to be wielded by someone like Psycho P, and to Eddy's mind, there was no doubt that this was a travesty he needed to rectify…immediately.
Allowing everything to melt away into the subconscious void, Eddy sank into the little space he called the Zone. In that state of near total concentration, nothing else mattered. Not Treasure's subordinates being massacred by Lily, not the fight between the captains, not even the fact that Psycho P had reappeared amongst a squad of his subordinates while wearing Eddy's face. Nothing mattered except the path his sword would follow once it left its sheath.
No sooner had Eddy's katana been drawn, Laki's shot was breaking through the rapper's guard and knocking his sword away. Meanwhile, the small group of meat shields Psycho P had hoped to surround himself with were swept aside by a combined effort from Ross and Hewitt, clearing the path to Eddy's target.
Slowly exhaling in the controlled manner Izou had drilled into him over the past months, Eddy returned his blade to its home. Moments later and over a dozen meters away from Eddy's position, a severed head began dying the surrounding sands red while a row of jungle trees began toppling over in a straight line. But whereas his friends congratulated themselves on a near bloodless victory over a New World Pirate, Eddy found himself picking up the rapper's blade to stare at its emerald sheen in wonder.