An Old Legend

I sent a conqueror's haki signal to Law and he brought the ship to this island of the archipelago.

This island in the archipelago was far more marshy than the other islands and did not have any other residents other than the family, so there was no other interference.

All of us dashed around the old man and jumped at him together

He just smirked and said "True tile sweep" and swept his trident horizontally 360 degrees.

There was no flying slash, but it was a flying wave. It was certainly different from any attacks I have seen. All of us got blown back by the wave and it hit us in the internal organs.

I realized this particular technique. It was fishman karate or some other form of fishman combat. Come to think of it, he is wearing fingerless gloves. I focused on it and sensed webbed hands under the gloves.

I could think of only one person from all the information in front of me. Almost everything matched between both of them other than the hair and the beard.

'This strength, this appearance, it has to be him. There is no other option'

A smile crept up to my face as I was ready to confirm it. What I was about to do would leave me in a tight spot, but I was willing to take the risk. The others did not yet recover completely yet from that attack.

I ran up to him, brought my katana down, and diagonally slashed up while saying

"Divine Departure"

He had an utter shock expression on his face, but none the less he blocked my attack

He said "How did you do this? Where did you learn this boy?"

I smirked and said, "I taught myself this attack, but why are you so shocked?"

I used my special lying ability to say the truth, but the truth is not the answer to the question.

He thought of something quickly and said

"As if that's true. This belonged to my old friend. The technique is perfectly replicated movement-wise, but if it comes to haki and strength, your one is a joke compared to the original"

We separated from our clash and others recovered and started attacking. Arjun took a far away spot and sniped.

Thor jumped and attacked him from above, while Hodur attacked with his spear from below.

That person simply stepped back to dodge Thor's attack and blocked Hodur's one.

Hodur used very minimum haki from his side on the spear, and the spear pulls out more making the overall haki of adequate amount.

He smiled and said "Oh, a cursed weapon. But you are not ready for this yet"

He again was about to use his fishman spearmanship, but figuring out the weakness, I shouted

"Bepo!!! Freeze everything now!!!"

Bepo quickly released his freezing aura wave in every direction extremely fast. Everyone resisted Bepo's aura attack. The water vapor in the air froze and turned into small ice crystals.

This time there were no waves sent from the old man. He said

"Tsk. You are lucky to have a devil fruit that counters my techniques. But how did you figure out this weakness?"

I smirked and said "It was nothing difficult to figure out your origin. I could sense your webbed hands under your gloves. And we did some studies on various martial arts. What you used is based on fishman karate, which works by manipulating water be it in the liquid or gaseous state. But not on solid-state that is ice"

He smiled and said "Nice, nice, indeed very nice. But if you think that you can defeat me because of this, you are very wrong. My fishman spearmanship is my strongest point, but I am not weak in other forms of combat"

I said, "Indeed you are a monster old man or should I say Sunbell, a former member of Roger pirates"

He was shocked but still said, "I just go by fisherman uncle Sun these days. But I would like to keep it a secret now"

We laughed and I said, "We will keep it a secret. We just want a spar, not your head or something like that"

Being good in observation haki he must have sensed the truth in our words. Even he began enjoying the fight completely.

Even if someone of his experience does not solely rely on observation haki to sense the truth or lie in words, everyone lying perfectly while bypassing the haki is not possible.

Sunbell infused more haki in his trident and got ready to fight. We continued the fight. Drake also used his hybrid mode and attacked him, but Sunbell simply clashed using his haki and physical strength.

Drake stood no chance and flew back. Sachi and Penguin attacked together but they met the same fate as Drake.

Hercules who has no haki attacked him, but he, unfortunately, got a gash in his torso and got thrown back. It was not fatal as long he does not lose too much blood.

Bepo used his fruit powers and sealed the wound.

Arjun kept attacking him all this time from far this entire time in what seemed to be the best moment, but Sunbell used his haki in the points of contact to block all the bullets.

I attacked him again, and I must say that his strength is truly monstrous. I got thrown back and shot many bullets at him while flying back, which he deflected with his trident.

Annoyed at Arjun, Sunbell just sent a flying slash in his direction. And soon after that, he sent another one.

Arjun saw the attack coming and dodged it, but soon he faced the second attack where he dodged.

Even if we could see what Sunbell was doing, we could do nothing since his attacks are too fast.

Arjun too got a gash on his right shoulder. But unlike his brother, he was still able to attack from far with his flintlock pistol.

The fight continued and we were miserably losing. We did have some increase in our haki and some increase in our fighting skills, but that was it. Sunbell unlike grandma did not hold back much on our injuries. He made sure not to kill us, but we were getting injured as hell.

Sunbell took some injuries but it was not even close to being called serious.

I jumped at him and used another named attack

"Divine retribution" and brought down my katana with all my strength and haki.

He was surprised this time too and blocked it

"How did you use his technique again?"

I was shocked. I did not expect there to be such a coincidence

"What the hell old man!!! I invented this attack."

Unlike last time, this time I did not need to act. From my emotions, he must have sensed the truth and he deflected my attack and stabbed me in my torso. I used haki and tekkai to block it, but it still hurt me.

Soon he sent a barrage of flying attacks on Drake. He tried to dodge it, but he decided against it and completely transformed into a full dinosaur to block it with his tekkai and haki

It was surprising for us but then once we used our haki, we sensed one girl and a boy behind Drake.

Sunbell shouted "Sunny, Bella, what are you doing here? Why did you not escape?"

Bella, the girl said "We were worried about you father and planned to sneak attack one of them"

Sunny, the boy said "Yes father, let's take care of them fast. Together we will not have a difficult time at all"

He was so wrong. They were strong no doubt. If they ventured into the seas I am assuming even in North Blue they won't have any trouble. But, it did not even look like they have haki. Anyone on my crew can solo both of them.

The last lady ran from behind and said "Both of you get back now. You will only hold back your father. And dear, finish them off fast with that technique you showed me once"

Sunbell sighed and said "They are here just for a spar, and if that dinosaur brat did not willingly block my attack, both of the children would be heavily injured. They did not seem to be after my bounty, so let us be for now"

Sunbell's family did not know what to say. They were under the assumption that we were some evil people, but now, they were saved by one of us.

The lady walked up to Drake and started shouting

"Then why the hell did you injure them so badly? And you boys, why do you look for fights like this? What if you guys died?"

Sweat formed on our forehead. What the hell was going on with this lady?

Thor being the blockhead in these situations, simply stated

"You see old lady, there is a thing called haki, which increases in life and death fights..."

*smack*

Before he could finish his sentence the lady simply hit his head with her slipper.

"Who is an old lady you snot-nosed brat? Huhuhu...it seems I need to teach everyone some manners"

She had already gone into Nami mode and knowing this world's logic, every one of us knew there was no saving us.

The fight ended with all of us running away from the lady.

______________________________________________________________________

<12 hours later>

We were having some talks and Law had treated all of us. He did not participate in the fight and was the only one who escaped the lady's rage.

The lady's name is Bian and Sunbell's wife. She was a normal human. She and Sunbell's children were fishman and human hybrids.

Sunny is an eel half-fishman. His mouth is like Katakuri without the stitches and he is around 12 feet tall. His skin color is brown like human skin.

Bella is an octopus half mermaid. Her lower half is made up of tentacles, which she joins together like legs and replicated to walk like a normal human. She wears a long skirt to cover her legs and she also wore shoes to hide her feet.

I used [observe] on both of them and I must say their combat talent is on Sachi and Penguin level. They also had very good talent in martial arts. What shocked me was their helmsman and shipwright talents.

They too looked at Mare Miraculum with shiny eyes. They had taken fancy to the ship.

I knew they wanted to join the crew but were hesitating to ask. I wanted to ask them to join our crew, but Sunbell said

"They wanted to leave for the seas always, but I put on a condition that they must defeat me to go out to the sea. The condition also applies to any crew that wants to recruit them."

Sachi: "Don't you think it is a bit unfair to them? They will never be able to improve their haki on this island. So it is like they can never leave the island"

Sunbell laughed and said, "Do you think that slavers, marines, and other pirates will back down if they are stronger than my children, just because it is unfair to bully the weak?"

Sachi got his answer.

I said while releasing my conqueror's haki "So if we defeat you, you will let them join us on our journey?

He laughed and said "Yes. It seems you will not give up until you defeat me. All the best then"

Bian: "Ahem ahem. My dear, you will not go easy on them will you?"

Sunbell nervously said "No no. I will give it my all. The test will be meaningless if I let them win"

I must say that it is easier said than done. He was damn strong. He is old, but he is very strong.

I had a way to defeat him in near future, that is draw out the fight long enough to exhaust him since he is old.

But that is only good on paper. Practically, right now he has the power to defeat all of us before his exhaustion kicks in.

The family already liked us by now. Sunbell also told us his backstory

He was caught as a slave once and Roger freed him. He joined their crew. After the crew disbanded, he moved to South Blue and found Bian who was originally from here. They fell in love and got married.

Once their children were old enough, they moved to Mecong Island and stayed there working as a fisherman.

He grew his hair and beard with some hair growth tonic and the family hid their fishman lineage. No one could figure out that he was on Roger's ship after his hair and beard grew. It was surprising to know that nobody figured it out, but then again in some other universe, a certain red underwear superhero's disguise was only his glasses.

Moreover, many people in Sabaody did not recognize Rayleigh.

To be fair, I could not have figured it out if I did not use my haki to sense his fishman body beneath his gloves, and with the info of the series. He looked quite different than his bounty poster.

He too asked about our Rokushiki and we just said that our grandma taught it to us. Upon knowing their names, he came to a realization and felt somewhat nostalgic

Arjun was somewhat flirty with girls like Sanji, but unlike Sanji, he had a decent success rate with ladies. He approached Bella and started flirting with her.

Bella did not mind, but Sunny got angry and started brawling with Arjun. He is the overprotective big brother type.

Spending 12 hours and knowing our personalities, especially after seeing Drake's actions, the family had some trust in us. Not to mention Sunbell, with his haki could not sense any malice from us the entire time.

We too liked the family and I used [observe] to check their personalities.

I asked both of them "Will you join my crew if we defeat your father?"

Sunny and Bella: "Yes!!!"

I said. "Then let me give you guys some training techniques. It will help you grow stronger. Also, do you know haki?"

Sunny said "We are training to unlock it, but it will take some time to unlock"

Jai: "What is your progress on fishman karate and jujutsu?"

Bella: "We know both of them, but not on the level of our father. It is very weak"

I wrote down the training methods for Rokushiki and breath of all things for them.

Jai: "Here take it. Follow these training methods. We will keep visiting this island frequently to help you progress faster. As for haki, I might have a way to speed things up, but we need to do some preparations for that."

I also got the manual for fishman karate from them. It will take some time to master it, but no worries.

Bidding farewell, we left the island.

___________________________________________________________________

A.N.

Hi guys, sorry I am busy with personal life work so could not upload like before.

Also, I came up with 2 new names for the pirate crew. The previous ones are not discarded, but these are new additions to the suggestion list.

1. Lionheart pirates

2. Sea Ruler pirates