Chapter 306

306

"Any ideas where the fruits might be?" Hatchan asked. "We've been looking for quite a while now."

"Mooo!" the small sea king that sat on Hatchan's shoulder nodded. Momoo in his shrunken form, courtesy of Usopp. Momoo also wore his armor, making him look more like a cool action figure rather than a fierce sea king.

Coby sniffed the air, looking around for any weird smell. "Well, it might take hours before we find a devil fruit." He said, "Even with my ability, the island of Jaya is really big and there's always a chance that the fruit might not reappear here. Still, we should look."

After a user of the devil fruit was killed, it would reappear in the nearest fruit that matched it, normally.

Though that shouldn't be an issue. They had checked with the Devil Fruit encyclopedia beforehand. And the Yami Yami no Mi, looked like a rotten mango, while the Chemical Chemical fruit looked like a glowing watermelon.

The Sick-Sick Fruit was a yellow rotten apple. And the Mythical Zoan fruit that gave Blackbeard the ability to transform into the giant octopus, looked like a gray avocado.

Actually, Blackbeard had three fruits, or at least that's what Luffy suspected, but they didn't know what his last fruit was. As they couldn't figure out what it was.

Still, they are ahead in collecting fruits. As when killing Van Augur, Usopp had kept a fruit that matched it, so they had that fruit.

And Sparky had dragged Laffitte's dismembered body to the ship, and finished him off there. His fruit getting reincarnated to the nearest orange. That's why they were a bit lax.

As they already had two powerful fruits in their hands.

"Still, we need to find two logia fruits, a powerful Paramecia and a Mythical Zoan. Just getting one of them should be easy for our group." Coby added as they walked.

Most of the Straw Hats had separated into teams of two or more to find the fruits. And in Coby's case, he was with Hatchan and Momoo.

Both Coby and Hatchan walked through the destroyed area, picking up trees and rocks, trying to find anything that resembled a Devil Fruit. With Coby's enhanced sense of smell, their team was in a bit of a lead.

The Devil Fruits had a particular stink to them that reminded Coby of when he first ate the fruit. So they were basically looking for any stinky stuff in the destroyed forest.

And after hours of searching and venturing out very deep into the Jaya forest did Coby finally find something.

"Is that… no way!" Coby said, as he picked up a giant log from the ground clearing ground, a green watermelon was there, it was covered in mud but with it's swirly patterns, it was easy to figure out what it was.

"Woohoo! We found a logia!" Hatchan cheered, pumping his three fists up in the air. The smaller sea king copying that rested on his shoulder copied the gesture.

Suddenly Coby's ears perked up, as he looked around. He had heard something… but…

The pink-haired pirate couldn't even finish his thoughts as he was punched in the face, and the fruit got snatched from his hands. He was sent ragdolling through the ground and going through multiple trees.

Hatchan, who was nearby, also got attacked by the invisible force, making a crater in the ground before he could do anything.

The invisible force revealed itself to be a large man. A man of almost 23 feet (6.89 Meters) in height. He had a white hat and the dark blue fabric of his pants were covered in brown spots. His jacket contained a large white design reminiscent of a target crosshair with several white paw prints lining the bottom hem of his coat.

Coby, who had gotten up, recognized the figure. "What is Warlord Kuma doing here?" he asked, mostly to himself. "And where's the fruit?"

But he had no time to think as the giant man, removed his gloves, and from a hole in his palm, yellow energy charged. He aimed it downwards, as Hatchan was still pinned down beneath his feet.

Coby moved without thinking. Using Soru and Geppo in a way that would make his captain proud, bouncing through the air with a blitz of speed while tackling the giant man's leg.

Making the enemy fall and its yellow energy to fire off into the distance, creating a massive explosion that shook the area.

While the enemy was down, it threw Coby away as the smaller pirate spun in the air before landing. Pulling out his claws from his knuckles, he charged toward the presumed Warlord with his strongest attack.

His claws shone brightly for a moment as he appeared right in front of the enemy's face. Taking his captain's advice to always aim for the head, "Six Clawed Devastation!" With that, he slashed both of his arms across each other.

A large wound with three on three diagonally perpendicular gashes in the formation of an 'X' smashed into the enemy's face as his body lifted a bit up in the air before it fell to the ground. Though at the same time, the pink-haired pirate hissed as his bone claws broke down, crumbling to the ground.

He was astonished, this only happened the one time he fought with everything against Sanji. And when he tried to cut him, it was as if the enemy had a skin made of unbreakable metal.

And sure enough, rather than seeing blood, Coby saw metal parts and oil coming out of the face wound. Coby also spotted what looked like a prototype of an Invisibility Watch on the Pacifista's wrist, and while it was down, quickly fired off a small claw, destroying the invisibility device.

Robotic body, Laser Beams, and now an Invisibility Watch?

"Just… What are you?" Coby mumbled, as he cautiously approached the fallen enemy. The enemy was a Warlord, or that's what he thought, so it wouldn't be that easy right?

But he wanted to check if he had hid the fruit on his body or not. As the enemy was unconscious, he could grab it and leave.

Suddenly the enemy grabbed him by the legs, making him shocked before Coby saw his enemy open its mouth, and fire off a yellow energetic mouth beam towards him.

Coby, who was trapped, could only cross his arms while using Iron Body, thinking he could tank the attack. But he was very wrong, as he was sent back screaming due to the attack.

He yelled in pain, as his arms were burned off of his body along with a good portion of his face and chest, as he was thrown back, going through multiple trees.

"Coby!" Hatchan, who had recovered from the surprise attack, quickly took in a concentrated Water Pill, to buff himself up, before charging at the giant Warlord. "I will kill you!" the Fishman roared.

What they didn't know was that this was a Pacifista, not the Warlord himself. Human weapons were developed by the Marine's head scientist, Dr. Vegapunk. And cybernetic clones of the Warlord, Bartholomew Kuma, himself.

"Six Swords Style: Six Bladed Lotus!" He charged at the man, before jumping while his body started spinning at a rapid pace, creating a giant tornado of sharp water to smash into the Enemy's body.

The giant man was thrown to the side, with his shirt being ripped off, and his cybernetics showing due to the large wound on it's side. Hatchan didn't stop the attack as he had limited time using his boosted strength to blur in front of the Pacifista, and attacking with his swords.

The Pacifista was a bit overwhelmed, at first, but once the fight began to stretch out, it was able to study Hatchan's skills and come up with counters that pushed the Fishman back.

With a punch to the gut, Hatchan's body was sent up to the sky, while the Pacifista fired off a mouth beam toward the Fishman. Or at least tried to…