Battle of Minion Island (Part 2)

"Kings are like stars -- they rise and set, they have the worship of the world, but no repose." -Percy Bysshe Shelly

Cling!

A sound of metal on metal sounds as Rex draws a dagger to block Diamante's whip sword. The sword wraps around the dagger, giving Rex the chance to yank back on it, dragging Diamante in towards him.

Slowly but surely, through a mixture of his training in Hasshoken and studying Diamante's use of the ability, Rex felt he was starting to touch on observation haki. Sometimes, he would just 'know' where Diamante would attack and then block accordingly.

Rex then grabs the pirate, who warps into his flag form, before Rocket thrusting into the city. By now, the low-level marines had evacuated Minion City, so Rex is able to blast in there blindly with no fear of collateral damage.

"What are you doing?" Diamante questions, wondering why Rex was fleeing from the battlefield. "Are you planning to run?"

Rex shakes his head, blasting into a grocer.

Diamante wriggles free of Rex's control, trying to attack him.

Rex takes a hard kick to the gut, coughing up a little blood, but shaking it off. He had to go back to support his crew, which meant he had to deal with Diamante.

Rex leaps in to punch Diamante again, grinning as he sees the cadre using his famous trick to turn himself into flag form. Only this time, Rex was ready.

Pulling the spear he had stolen from Sheila out of his pocket, Rex wraps Diamante up in it. The tip had been wrapped up so the sea stone didn't take effect, otherwise Rex wouldn't be able to store it in his pocket.

Diamante grins, knowing that he could easily unwrap himself only for Rex to throw vegetable starch all over his body.

"What!?" Diamante's eyes widen as he feels his fabric body start to harden up against his control. "What's going on!?"

"It's laundry, you bastard!" Rex grins, blowing a kiss to his past life's mother for teaching him the values of starching clothes. "Credit to Mama Vesta!"

Still, Rex doesn't want to rely on the starch, unwrapping the sea stone and pushing Diamante's hardened body up to it. He notices that Diamante's struggles dampen considerably as he does that.

"Escape that!" Rex said, before running back to the battlefield.

While Rex could try his hand at killing Diamante, he didn't want to risk that. Knowing Doflamingo, he would have a vivre card of Diamante on him, and if Rex killed him, Doflamingo might just go crazy and start slaughtering all the King pirates out of spite.

Still, in this situation, Diamante wasn't going anywhere.

Meanwhile, the situation on the battlefield is heated.

Kid has moved his fight with Lao G over to Killer so the two of them could fight their three opponents together with much difficulty. Bonney was holding off Foxy with ease, while Gem was trying his best not to get killed by Devon. Fortunately for Gem, Devon still didn't want to reveal her devil fruit, otherwise he would have already been dead.

Gion on the other hand is in the midst of an emotional battle with Hina.

"Why!?" Gion roars, sending a barrage of flower petals towards her former comrade. "Why did you betray the marines? Betray me?"

Hina seemed to be completely unphased and emotionless at this, as she kept fighting back savagely. While Hina alone was no match for Gion, she was being aided by the mysterious woman from Foxy's team, who was sprouting up arms and legs to attack her.

Gion cursed, trying for the umpteenth time to attack the girl only for Hina to block the strikes with her own body. Hina receives several long scratches, but a few iron bars that sprout from her body help to defend her.

Somehow, this action only serves to make Gion angrier. Hina betrayed the Marines, yet was clearly willing to die for this pirate.

However, what is irritating to Gion is downright bizarre to Rex, who had secretly returned to the battlefield. He had always thought it was Devon's devil fruit that caused Hina to be arrested, why was she helping the Devon pirates willingly. Unless…

Rex dashes into the fight blocking one of Gion's sword strikes against Hina.

"What are you…" Gion starts, but is dazed by Rex throwing out a jacket in her face.

Abusing the moment where Gion is momentarily blinded, Rex takes his hand and grabs Hina by the neck.

'Taser!' Rex thinks, blasting Hina with several thousand volts of electricity.

Hina spasms vigorously, her iron bars only serving to conduct the blast until eventually her eyes seem to change.

As expected, it was hypnosis. Hina must have been really worked over by Devon for it to get this serious. Jango's hypnosis was a joke against the Straw Hats.

Then, Rex feels an arm growing on his back, trying to snap his neck. A blast of electro and fuel burns it off, causing the masked woman to scream out in pain.

Rex widens his eyes. This woman…

There were way too many surprises in this battle.

"Vesta Rex, relinquish the traitorous Marine at once!" Gion shouts.

Rex blinks, realizing he still had Hina in a neck grab. He throws her body over to Gion.

"She was hypnotized. Serious stuff too, I must admit, Jango's work has gotten better."

"Jango?" Gion questions, before recalling the identity of the pirate on Devon's crew.

Gion had kept track of every new member of the Foxy and Devon pirates, blaming herself for their escapes. As such, she did recall a hypnotist named Jango on the crew, but still…

"How does that explain the many marine witnesses who all saw her commit the crimes? You can't just…"

ROAR!

Suddenly in the distance, Devon, who was sick and tired of playing cat and mouse with Gem, transformed into her Zoan form. Orange fur grows out of Devon's body as she swells up to a massive size. Then tails start sprouting out of her. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

"Nine…" Gion mutters under her breath. "Nine-tailed fox fruit…"

The fruit was actually decently famous as, over a hundred years ago, it had been used by a pirate who had impersonated a Vice Admiral, was promoted to admiral, then caused massive havoc in the seas. The fruit was a devious ability with a mixture of disguise and strength.

However, while Gion pieces things together, Rex moves.

First, he knocks out his suspected Robin, being able to do so with ease as she was still badly burned. Then, he rushes over to Bonney, sending a few shockwaves at Foxy while giving Bonney a thumbs down.

Bonney recognizes the symbol immediately, touching 'Robin' and emitting a pink flash. 'Robin' then disappears into thin air as Rex moves to his next target.

Dashing over to Kid and Killer's fight, Rex seemingly appears out of nowhere, attacking the weakest link. Machvise.

Even in his best condition, Machvise wouldn't be able to dodge Rex, not to mention his current condition. Rex face plants the fat oaf onto the ground, sending vibrations, fire and electricity into his head which bursts like a tomato in the microwave.

Rex doesn't even bat an eye, rushing to relieve Gem who was fighting Devon's massive form. Blasting off from the ground, Rex rushes straight at Devon.

Bang!

Devon and Rex clash, sending debris flying as the shockwaves ripple out.

"Go!" Rex calls out to Gem. "Help Rose, I've got Devon!"

Gem nods, blasting off towards Rose. While Rose was doing okay now, Rex had glimpsed her opponent, seeing that it was Vergo. He was holding back when Rex saw him, but he wanted Gem as insurance.

If Vergo decided that his cover was less important than the Donquixote pirates, all hell would break loose.

Meanwhile, the battlefield almost immediately goes into disorder with Rex's reappearance. Without Diamante to hold him back, Rex had turned Hina, taken out 'Robin', killed Machvise and now was holding back Devon. With that, the Donquixote pirates and allies were quickly falling to the losing side.

Hina had gotten back to her feet quickly, going around arresting as many pirates as she can. Gion had rushed over to Rear Admiral Strawberry, in order to help him take down Pica. She knew that if Pica went down, the marines would dominate this battlefield with Strawberry, herself and Vice Admiral Tsuru.

Pica cursed internally, the added pressure pushing him to his limits. Strawberry was already a difficult opponent but adding one more made it much harder, especially one on the level of Gion who was not far beneath him.

Doflamingo curses in the distance, seeing that everything was falling apart. He swore he would rip Rex limb from limb when he got out of here, but he needed to get out of here to do that.

Seeing no alternative, Doflamingo sighs and sends a signal to Vergo.

Ring!

One of Doflamingo's strings vibrate at a high frequency, momentarily dazing most of the low level fighters on the battlefield. While Tsuru quickly forces him to stop, Vergo receives the message.

Suddenly speeding up, Vergo bludgeons Rosinante's head, knocking him out as his skull begins to bleed. He knew he couldn't let Rosinante survive this.

Vergo goes in for another strike, but Gem comes in blasting him in the chest and forcing him to retreat.

Vergo then scans the battlefield, looking for a way to aid Doflamingo undetected. Eventually, Vergo sees it in Gladius, who had wandered near it.

Striking out towards Killer, Vergo is surprised to see the second officer of the King pirates dodge his attack. While he hadn't gone all out, someone on Gladius's level shouldn't have been able to dodge that.

Vergo shrugs it off, striking again, using pure power to throw Killer away. Then, he turns to Gladius.

The two engage in a grapple, where Vergo grabs Gladius's gun. Gladius is confused at first, but seeing Vergo push the gun such that it lined up with Rear Admiral Strawberry, Gladius got the picture.

Vergo surreptitiously coats Gladius's bullet with armament Haki giving him a nod. Then, Gladius fires on the Rear Admiral.

The bullet soars through the air, flying towards Strawberry. He widens his eyes, feeling that it was coming a lot faster than it should be, but Pica, who knew the meaning of Doflamingo's signal, holds Strawberry in place. Strawberry condenses his muscles hoping Tekkai would weather it out.

Then, the bullet lands, bursting into fragments as it does. Strawberry goes flying into the City, with horrendous wounds in his back, Tekkai doing little against the hardened bullet.

Pica then sends Gion flying backwards as he barrels towards Doflamingo. As Pica runs the buildings around him collapse, merging into his stone body.

Soon, Pica passes the building where Diamante had fought Rex and, upon collapsing it, Diamante was freed from his starched state.

Pica frowns as he looks down at Diamante, disappointed at his defeat, but he knows he needed to look past that.

Diamante leaps up on Pica's back, rushing with him to face Tsuru.

When they arrive, Doflamingo lowers the Bird Cage to let them in before rushing back to the battlefield to turn back the tides. While Tsuru was far stronger than Pica and Diamante, Pica's durability and Diamante's evasion would be sufficient to last a short while against her.

That's all Doflamingo needed to turn the tides of this battle.

Stretching a string between two large building, Doflamingo stretches it to an arc before launching himself with his makeshift bow, flying across the island to his target. Rex.

Trebol follows, mucus hooking himself from building to building.

Few people notice this, as Doflamingo was moving in silence and the battle was already extremely chaotic.

However, one person notices this and is in a position to do something about it.

It was Gem.

Seeing that Rex was fully engaged in his fight against Devon, Gem realized that he wouldn't even see Doflamingo coming. Even if he did, to face off against Trebol, Doflamingo and Devon at the same time… Three of Rex would struggle at that, let alone one.

Gem finds himself making sniper calculations. Using Doflamingo's speed, he calculates an intercept point and fires.

Only Gem wasn't firing a bullet, no, he knew Doflamingo could avoid that. Instead, he fires himself.

BOOM!

Gem flies through the air rushing towards Doflamingo and Trebol. Trebol doesn't notice the human rocket flying towards him, but Doflamingo senses Gem with his observation Haki.

"Eh, so the pawn wants to sacrifice himself for the king?" Doflamingo says. "Too bad I can just take you both."

Doflamingo then whips out at Gem in midair, ready to bisect him if he blocked his path.

Time seems to slow down for Gem. If he blasted in front of him, he could retreat, and Doflamingo's attack would miss. But if he did that, Doflamingo would fly straight at Rex, killing him in an instant.

No. Gem would not allow that to happen.

Staying the course, Gem accelerated himself, landing right in the middle of Doflamingo's path.

"GOKUSHIKITO!" Doflamingo roars, sending the five colored strings slashing at Gem.

Gem closes his eyes, blasting straight at Trebol who was just under Doflamingo. A wide grin forming under his face.

Doflamingo frowns, but his strings still fly towards Gem.

"Art is…"

Shink!

Gem is slashed in two from the waist as Doflamingo's attack rips through him. The upper half of his body keeps flying forward, propelled by his moment as he lands with a splat in of Trebol's mucus body.

"…AN EXPLOSION!"

There is a brief moment of silence before the explosion hits. BOOM! A massive white flash, sending debris flying everywhere.

Doflamingo, Trebol and Gem are sent flying in different directions. Doflamingo in particular is thrown right back towards Tsuru, losing the opportunity to kill off any King pirates.

Rex, who was a decent distance away, seems to feel it a moment before, placing Devon between himself and the blast. Rose, who had seen Gem jump, was prepared well in advance, taking Rosinante's body and hiding. Kid grabs Killer close to him and forms a condensed metal ball.

Then, the battlefield goes into chaos.

From Pica, Diamante and Tsuru's fights to the battles on the edge of the city to Rex's battle with Devon in the mountain, all of them are rained down on by burning mucus.

Some avoid the pellets, but most are hit by them, crying out in pain as they catch fire. The forest is lit ablaze as true chaos rains down on the battlefield.

Even some of the cadres are among the injured, with Lao G and Devon suffering rather damaging burns.

Then, in the midst of the chaos, a single, scorched mass thuds in front of Rex. It was a body.

Rex looks at it absentmindedly, before feeling a strange heaviness in his heart.

'No.' Rex thought shaking his head vigorously. 'It can't be.'

Still, Rex's ears seem to ring with the words he had heard called out from the sky. It was so far away, and he had been so focused on Devon, but he could've sworn the words were…

No, he would never say those words. He swore he would never say them. It must be a coincidence. Or maybe some Jacket D. Hoodie fan had screamed them out.

As for the body. It had to be Trebol.

Yes, it was Trebol. That explained the mucus.

Still, Rex feels all of his logic failing him as he walks over to the scorched lump of flesh, tears spilling out of his eyes.

'Why am I crying?' Rex thought. 'Trebol was a bad person. This body is Trebol. Trebol was a bad person. This body is Trebol…"

Rex repeats the phrase in his head like a mantra.

Then, he turns the body over.