9 Taking Down a Warlord
"BARCHAN" - enraged Crocodile launched an attack directly trying to decapitate or at least maim Adriel.
"Astral Form - Widow-makers" - predicting the attack Adriel easily sidestepped the sand blade and summoned his knuckledusters which he decided to name 'widow-makers'.
Lowering his centre of mass, he dashed to Crocodile while preparing to dodge any upcoming attack from Croco-boy.
"PESADO" - summoning a mini tornado Crocodile threw it at Adriel in an attempt to create distance between them, still not understanding how he managed to touch him in his initial encounter. (A/N: Crocodile was so adept at his DF that he could automatically become intangible when attacked - even by surprise)
"Nah bitch." - understanding what Crocodile's aim was, Adriel took the chance to test out the effectiveness of his second ability.
"Blackout - Amaterasu" - crossing his fists Adriel covered his arms with the 'purple flame' before throwing a straight gab at the mini tornado.
Crocodile's attack looked like it was set on fire for a brief moment before the purple flame instantly covered it and completely 'devoured' it - removing it from existence.
'More effective than I thought.' - hiding his satisfied expression Adriel continued his advance, meanwhile, Crocodile was horrified.
'W-what just happened? He completely erased 'pesado'? How is that possible?" - never having experienced anything like this Crocodile started questioning reality.
"DEVIL BUSTER" *BAM*
Before Crocodile could understand how his attack got cancelled, Adriel seemingly appeared out of nowhere and delivered a devastating right hook connecting with Crocodile's temple - sending him flying through the wall, almost cracking his skull and making a loud crash when landing.
'Damn, I'm pretty sure I put 100% of my strength in that punch, but it didn't knock him out. Tough son of a bitch.' - indeed, Adriel was looking to put a quick end to the fight, not pulling his punches at all.
But it seemed, even though his [Blackout] could negate devil fruit abilities, it didn't seem to provide a boost to his attack power - unlike what haki is known to do.
'I see... so it's more of a support ability rather than an empowerment of my attacks.' - realizing some limits of his [Blackout], he continued to advance on Crocodile not giving him a chance to recover.
'Unlike what you did to Luffy, I'm not stupid enough to give you time to find my weaknesses' - in truth, Adriel could only effectively fight for 10-15 minutes while using his [Astral Form] and [Blackout].
Right now Crocodile undoubtedly had the stamina advantage, thus all Crocodile had to do was drag the fight on and shower him with ranged attacks keeping a safe distance and waiting for his astral reserves to drain.
Still, Crocodile didn't know that and Adriel wouldn't give him a chance to find out.
Right now in Crocodile's eyes, Adriel seemed like an 'invincible monster' that could 'eat' his attacks.
There was only one thing on his mind right now.
'He's predicting every move and my attacks aren't effective. I have to retreat - once Daz and the others return, we'll him attack together.' - putting his arm on the ground, he was preparing to use one of his strongest techniques.
"GROUND DEAT..."
"Not today." *POW*
Before he had the time to finish his casting Adriel came rushed over and delivered a straight kick to his face sending him crashing through another wall, and Adriel jumped right after.
What followed was a sickening beatdown, with Adriel using a ground and pound position on top of him, landing fist after fist on Crocodile's face and sending him on the verge of unconsciousness - before doing so, however, Adriel had a single question.
"If you become my underling I'll stop. How about it?" - seemingly ignorant of his current condition, he smiled at Crocodile and asked.
"K-keep d-drea...ming." - barely managing to make out Crocodile gave Adriel a hate-filled stare - if looks could kill... Adriel would long have been dead.
"Thought at much." - not surprised at the response, he gave Crocodile one final punch before knocking him out for good. He proceeded to bind him with a pair of sea-stone cuffs he had found in his office after he had sent him flying through the wall and carried him over his shoulder.
Not forgetting to stop by his office again where he managed to find a lot of documents with juicy incriminating evidence, as well as 2 gold bars behind his now destroyed desk.
He stored the gold bars using [Cosmic Prison] - which he later find out that the smaller the object the less AP it would use to store, regardless of how heavy or light the object, the smaller it was the less it would use - in this case storing the gold bars took about 30% of his AP combined.
Coming out of the damaged building, he reached Vivi and threw a battered and bruised at a now shocked Vivi - he gave her a smile before handing Crocodile and the documents he'd found in his office to her.
After doing so, he told her to call the others over and take Crocodile into custody.
"Wait. W-where are you going?" - grabbing the edge of his cloak she blushingly asked while giving him a charming look.
"Haha - my work here's done, and I have somewhere to be. But don't worry, I have a feeling we'll meet again." - smiling, he patted her head again, before saying farewell and starting to walk away.
"Can you tell me your name? You know mine, but never told me yours." - she quickly asked, curious of finding out the name of the person that managed to put an end to Crocodile.
"Right, forgot about that - haha. Moon D. Adriel - but you can call me Adriel, princess." - he gave her a wink and continued to walk without looking back.
"I'll hold you to that - Adriel." - she softly said while looking at him walking away trying her hardest to not tear up - though, only having mild success.
No doubt, she was soon going to find out the truth and realize he lied to her about the rebels launching an attack on Crocodile - she would however also realize that he wasn't lying about 'Operation Utopia' - making her feel endless gratitude and dread what would have happened, had he not shown up to take down Crocodile.
...
...
...
Arriving back at the abandoned house, where he'd previously stashed Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine after defeating them - he was surprised to see a conscious Miss Valentine staring fearfully back at him.
Thankfully it seemed she couldn't use her devil fruit while her mouth was gagged - for whatever reason.
Either way, not being a problem for the current Adriel as he still had a little over 40% of his astral reserves available - approaching, he booted her right in the forehead, instantly knocking her out cold.
'Thankfully most devil fruit users seem to be idiots. How are you not able to use your power without talking? Still, better that way otherwise it would have been more troublesome.' - he silently thought before moving onto the still unconscious Mr. 5 and thinking.
'His devil fruit has good potential, but he's an idiot I'd rather not have in my crew. Still maybe, just maybe... this could work.' - summoning out the 'green mist' from [Cosmic Prison] he touched Mr. 5 trying to feel any signature linked to his soul or devil fruit.
And to his surprise, he indeed managed to feel a presence within his body - although at this stage he couldn't even select different parts of an item to 'store' much less an 'unseen' type of entity.
Still, he was delighted to know that he could indeed sense what he theorized to be the 'entity' that gives a person their devil fruit abilities.
Smiling he proceeded to wait for his astral reserves to fill back up before using [Cosmic Prison] to 'store' Mr. 5 inside his gourd bottle - after which, he started heading towards the black market where he'd previously bought the dynamite from.
His goal was simple - either sell the gold bars he'd 'acquired' from Crocodile or exchange them for a ship - He'd never row on a boat again.
'After more than a month of expenses and buying the dynamite, I only have 872,000 berries left - with the gold from Croco-boy, I should have enough to buy a okay ship, some supplies and some navigation equipment. Using a map and and a compass isn't that hard, and I'm used to using them from my camping days back on earth.' - Adriel reflected while walking. (A/N: 5,000 for the inn, 2,000 for food and misc., 100,000 for the dynamite)
'I think its time to get a cook, I'm tired of eating bland food.' - he smiled, thinking of a person he's looking forward to meeting in a unique island.
(A/N: no it's not his first mate)
