First Battle with a Major Power Pt. 1
After sending the prisoners to Impel down, Percy and his ship were tasked with being support for any of the admirals or Garp. Like all vice admirals, he was in a particular situation; being too powerful for paradise, but not strong enough to fight the truly strong pirates.
He was relaxing on his ship when he heard his den den mushi starting to ring.
*peroperopero peroperopero* it kept going. A marine went to hand over the receiver to Percy.
*katcha* "Hello." Percy said as he waited for whoever was on the other line.
"Percy, it's Sengoku. I need your assistance. Shiki is running lose right now and I need your near our location. You are to join me and vice admiral Calvish to try and finally arrest the damn pirate."
"Alright" Percy said as he peered at his navigator, after getting a response he told Sengoku,
"We'll meet you in one and a half days near Brind Island. Is that okay with you."
"Excellent," Sengoku commented as he started to hang up the phone. "Be prepared, Shiki is not like the others. He is cunning and tries to manipulate the marines into unfavorable positions throughout the battle."
"I'll let Orange and my crew know sir" as Percy got off the snail. He handed it back to the soldier and called Orange over. He relayed what Sengoku told him and had his helmsman set course for Brind Island.
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Sengoku, Percy, and Calvish met in the marine conference room on Brind island. They were surrounded by 5 other rear admirals and multiple other lower level officers.
"I would like to start," Sengoku said as everyone quieted down, "that this meeting we will be discussing possible strategies with capturing Golden Lion Shiki."
Everyone in the room had a solemn look on their face. Who here hasn't heard of Shiki, ex-member of the Rocks pirates and now captain of the ever growing pirate fleet.
"Shiki has amassed a fleet of 26 ships currently and is said to be looking for more." Sengoku went on, "we are here to stop him from accruing more, that or capturing him outright."
The officers, including Percy nodded as Sengoku started discussing overall strategy for the navy.
The plan was straight forward; Shiki had under him 5 officers each with at least 300 million belli bounties, and under them were the rest of the fleet. He had a potential sixth officer joining him in the next two days named Umen wielding the cloud-cloud logia fruit.
It was Percy's job to capture Umen while fending off two other officers. Calvish, with his men would take the last 3 core members leaving Sengoku to clash with Shiki himself. The rear admirals and below were to assist the vice admirals if needed, but were not to contact Umen seeing as he was a logia user.
"Since the hardest task will be given to you Percy," Sengoku started; "which 2 other crew members will you fight?"
Percy looked at the selections, there was
Dr. Indigo: bounty 466 million
Scarlett: bounty 315 million
Plaza: bounty 423 million
Cramer: bounty 367 million
and finally vice captain Hon: bounty 544 million
Percy looked at the line- up and frowned, there was no easy choice here. Each one had their own strength and weakness. Especially Hon, he ate the stone- stone fruit (the same fruit Pica ate).
[Hon will be difficult to defeat immediately if there is a lot of stones around us] thought Percy as he was deciding his opponents.
He looked at Calvish, "you have any particular choice you would like to fight?"
Calvish looked at the list and said "I can take on Indigo and Cramer. I know that you exceed at closer quarter combat."
Percy nodded, "while that is my specialty, I can attack from far away if need be."
"I know, it's just that might as well focus on one of our strengths rather than both of us suffer from our second best fighting styles."
Percy agreed with Calvish. "Let's do that then. I'll defeat Scarlett, Plaza, and Umen while you beat Indigo, Cramer, and Hon."
Calvish nodded. "I may need assistance with Hon since he is quite powerful and taking on the other two officers may be my limit."
"Hmmmm. Do you need Orange to go with you, she can help dealing with Indigo seeing as they both rarely fight hand to hand?"
"Nah, if need be I can get my second to assist me while the rear admirals occupy Hon before I finish."
Percy personally thought that was irresponsible of Calvish to sacrifice his men to the vice captain.
[He is the vice captain of a soon-to-be powerhouse after all. He may even qualify for an emperor when all is said and done.]
Unfortunately, he can't say much. Percy is still new to marine politics, plus Calvish has served in the navy for a couple of decades already. He has earned the right to move his soldiers around as he sees fit.
"It's settled then, we fight in 4 hours" Sengoku said as he stood up.
"Yes sir" Everyone said as they saluted the admiral.
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The island was bare of anyone but the Golden Lion pirates. They were waiting for their new compatriot. It was quiet as they were informed from their navy spies that Sengoku may be on the move.
"Have the 12th through 15th ships leave the island for one hour and come back after. They should be able to flank the marines. Hopefully Sengoku will not be counting ships because he is too preoccupied fighting against me." Shiki ordered as his officers were gathered around a map of the island.
Cramer nodded and went to leave to relay his captain's instructions.
"I want the 20th through 26th ships leave now as scouts and notify me when the marines are spotted. They are to escort the marine ships into a safe distance where all ship cannons can fire at the same time at them."
"Pulopulopulo, I'll go let them know now" as Plaza left the tent.
"If all goes according to plan, the escort ships will be parallel to the marines, the main fighting force will be in the front, and reinforcements will encircle them from behind. Jihahahahaha" Sengoku laughed as he stared at his battle strategy.
"Shiki-sama, you never know with Sengoku. They don't call him the great tactician for nothing." Hon said next to his boss.
"Shiki stopped laughing, "of course I realize that, you think I'm an idiot? I've been fighting him for over 15 years, that man is anything but stupid."
Hon closed his mouth, he had nothing to say to that.
"They should be here soon." Shiki said quietly staring at the ocean as if he could see the marine ships that were slowly approaching the island.
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Cannon fire rained in all directions as marines and pirates were firing at any ship in their radius. As Shiki predicted, the plan worked. They were surrounded, however, Sengoku noticed that they were being enclosed from all sides and sent Percy to destroy the right side of the encirclement.
Percy used geppo and traveled through the air and landed on a ship. He immediately swallowed it in darkness before absorbing it into the darkness in his body. After crushing most of the ship, Percy said in his mind
[Liberation]. The crushed pieces of debris started to fly directly to other ships and shatter wood, people, masts, and anything that it touched. In a matter of seconds, the right flank of the navy was clear leaving Sengoku and the marines a means of escape should the need arise.
Shiki stared at the destruction in horror,
[it appeared again, that damn, blasted fruit appeared again. And the marines have it?! This is a f*cking nightmare].
"Oh, you noticed it, haven't you Shiki?" Shiki heard as a giant golden man was staring at him. "Impressive, no?"
"You're insane! Why haven't you killed him and put that fruit away in a vault somewhere. You of all people know what that fruit is capable of!" Shiki roared at Sengoku as they fought one another.
"Not my call" Sengoku replied as he blasted a shockwave into Shiki's floating figure.
"Orders from on-up" Sengoku said as he raised his finger in the air. Shiki had a solemn look on his face,
"Those damn geezers don't know what they're messing with. Every day he's alive is another day closer to the end of the world."
As Sengoku and Shiki were fighting, Percy was battling Scarlett and Plaza on the island. He was using dark spears to try and pierce into their bodies at the same time. Their haki was blocking most of the damage leaving little impact.
Percy then started to suck in their bodies in the darkness like he always has, but Scarlett noticed this immediately and jumped up which he then punched Percy in the face. Percy peeled over in pain, but quickly absorbed the pain like he did in the past. Plaza took advantage of the situation to activate his devil fruit, the zoan bear- bear fruit model: grizzly and slashed Percy across his body.
Percy was not prepared to be hit and he was flung away and he needed time to once again reabsorb the damage taken from the two officers. He got up, activated haki and proceeded to combine haki and his darkness to crush everything around him, the beach, the forest, everything his haki could perceive.
Plaza and Scarlett were stuck and were being forced into the ground and their bodies were slowly being absorbed and crushed by the darkness before them. Percy looked at Plaza,
[kurouzu] and Plaza was forced to Percy's hand where the zoan user temporarily lost his ability. The vice admiral smiled and used shigan and haki pierce a hole in Plaza's stomach before slamming him into the ground. He then swallowed the pirate in darkness before trying to crush him with as much gravity as he could muster.
Before he could finish Plaza off, Scarlett hit the side of Percy's face with his gorilla back hand. Percy was prepared though, he finally learned to always have his observation haki activated when fighting in the new world. The gorilla fist hit Percy's haki covered head and he stumbled a step before he recovered immediately. Scarlett looked at the vice admiral as if he's seen a monster and then determination filled his eyes. He roared and started to chase after Percy when Percy shot out Plaza back out at the gorilla.
The gorilla stumbled before checking his crewmate, Plaza was barely breathing, the darkness was suffocating his oxygen and he was turning purple. When they were distracted, Percy appeared before them and pushed them into the darkness once again. He wanted to test a theory. He thought that if he could travel through darkness, surely those he wanted could also theoretically also travel if he so choose. So he tried to push them into where Orange and the rest of his soldiers were waiting.
[I'll apply gravity on those two as well just in case the whole dark travel thing doesn't work like I think it should] Percy thought as he looked at Shiki and Sengoku's fight. For now, he waited; knowing full well that he had to fight a logia user when Umen appears.