257. Team Match

"Brook, duck!" shouts Jude from behind Brook.

He does as she says and then a sharp arc blade of ash passes above him. The sharp ash blade flies toward a woman who wears a full set of gold armor and wields a pair of gold lances. It almost hits her but someone suddenly appears and blocks it.

The one who blocks it is a big & tall man with a full set of silver armor that has the same design as the gold armor. He wields a big silver shield and sword in his left & right hand. He can swing them around easily despite their size, so he is strong.

"Tch, why did a pair of knights appear in the battle of pirates?" asks Jude pissedly.

"Jude-san, Deon-san has told us about them. They are Beasts Pirates' executives, the Twin Knights. So they are pirates despite being knights like that," says Brook.

"I know, it just doesn't feel right because they don't feel like pirates. Usually, pirates don't like to spend money on armor like this, after all," says Jude.

"Well, we still need to defeat them nonetheless. This battle will also be a good experience for when we fight armored opponents," says Brook.

"Yeah, it sure sounds good when you say it like that," says Jude before they start attacking.

Brook attacks the big man who holds a shield, who is the tanker on the enemy's side. He attacks the man using his sword but the man keeps defending using the large shield. The man is also agile & fast at moving his shield despite its size & weight.

"Double Ash Fangs!" says Jude so suddenly.

While Brook keeps the man occupied, Jude attacks using her ash. She makes 2 sharp ash spikes that move past beside Brook on both sides. Her target is the woman in gold behind and now the man can't do anything because Brook keeps attacking him.

But it's not like he needs to help the woman which is his older sister. She is not a weak woman that needs protection, she is strong, after all. She can protect herself and doesn't really need her brother's protection.

The woman sees Jude's ash spikes come and she ducks down to evade them. But then Jude controls the sharp tip to move back toward the woman. It surprises the woman but she still can react to it and jumps away.

Jude's double ash fangs still chase her like snakes with sharp pointy heads. Now the woman knows she can't keep evading so she holds her lances tightly before thrusting them toward the spikes.

The woman strikes the ash spikes consecutively and Jude also does the same. Both of them can exchange many blows just in a few seconds. But nothing lasts forever and so is their exchange of attacks.

Jude's ash spikes get destroyed but the woman also gets pushed back. The same thing happens to Brook & the man who push each other back. But the man's shield is now frozen because of Brook's ability to summon cold.

"Sis, this is not good. We can't keep fighting like this. They have more power & stamina than us. I know your hands are hurt now after defending that attack. But they are still in good condition even now," says the silver man, Billy.

"I know that Billy, you don't need to tell me every single thing. It's time to use our ability," says Millie, the gold woman.

Billy grins and says, "Finally."

After saying that, Billy's body suddenly gets even bigger & taller than he already is. His armor's parts get separated by his sudden growth and brown fur appears in the gaps of his armor parts. He has transformed into his hybrid brown bear form.

The same thing also happens to Millie, but she doesn't get bigger. She just gets a little taller and grows a long yellow tail with black dots. The fur on the armor gaps is also yellow with black dots. 2 black lines on her face shows that she transforms into her hybrid cheetah form.

"Bear Bear Fruit, model: Brown Bear, and Cat Cat fruit, model: Cheetah. Heh, interesting, I thought you have Ancient Zoan like the other executives," says Jude.

"Do you think Ancient Zoan fruits are easy to find? They are very rare and very expensive. Besides, having Ancient Zoan doesn't guarantee our strength. In the end, devil fruits are just weapons. How to use them is up to the users," says Millie.

Jude grins and says, "Exactly. You will be good members of our crew with such thinking because everyone in our crew also thinks like that. Too bad that we are enemies now."

They stop their chat and start to fight again. Brook & Billy rush toward each other and Jude makes a big ash snake to attack Millie who hasn't moved behind. But suddenly, Billy jumps and hits the ash snake with his big shield.

As he blocks the ash snake, Millie suddenly runs very fast. Her cheetah power makes her can run at a very high speed. Jude & Brook can't even follow her running speed.

They only realize her when Brook's body gets split in half. Millie attacked the backbones on his stomach with her lance and they got separated in a joint. Then she immediately rushes at Jude who is still surprised by what happened.

Millie thrust her lances at Jude's body and successfully hits Jude. She moves past her and grins before her grin stiffens. She has just realized that she doesn't feel like she has just stabbed a human's body.

"Ash?" asks Millie as she looks at the ash that scatters on the floor.

Suddenly, the scattered ash shot at her like bullets. She reacts in an instant and runs away from her position. Just some seconds late and she will get pierced by those ash bullets.

Millie then looks at Jude's initial position and she can only see a big lump of ash there. The ash then moves and forms a human figure. It finally shaped into Jude who doesn't have any injury on her body.

Jude transformed her whole body into ash when she saw Millie running toward her after splitting Brook. Her O-Haki isn't as good as Buggy so she couldn't just transform some parts of her body and risk being hit.

"Brook, how long will you stay like that? We are still fighting right now," says Jude.

Millie frown as she asks, "Huh? What are you-?" before her eyes widen.

"Yohohoho, I know that very well, Jude-san. I just wanted to lay down a bit," says Brook as his upper body gets attached to his lower body again.

Millie & Billy widen their eyes seeing Brook recovers. But they immediately calm down again when they think of devil fruit. Everything is possible with devil fruit, after all. It's the most mysterious power in the world.

Both sides resume their battle again and get more cautious with each other. This is a team battle so they work together with their teammate. The 2 teams aren't using their full power now, they try to assess their opponents' power first. The twins' transformations have changed many factors in this battle, after all.

On the twins' side, their teamwork is superb and their roles are clear. Billy is a defender that will attack sometime and Millie is their main attacker. They fight really well with clear roles and they understand each other very well so they never make mistakes in their cooperation.

Jude & Brook also have good teamwork but their roles aren't very clear. Both of them can defend and attack although they are more used to attacking. They often switch roles as the defender and attacker without any clear pattern.

So their battle is like a strong & solid team vs an unpredictable team. They all are using their devil fruit abilities but they still hide many things. The abilities that they've shown are just the tips of the icebergs.

Then after fighting like that for some minutes, it's finally the time to get more serious. They know their opponents are hiding their power but they still get the gist of each other's power. Now is the time to get serious and finish this.

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