Reverse Mountain

Rex snarls, throwing his massive tiger body at Devon, claws swinging. Devon lashes out with her whip, snapping Rex back. Rex growls under his breath, irritated by Devon's annoying whip.

"So, you're one of those, huh?" Devon says with a sneer. "Those savage Zoan users that fight in beast form all the time."

Rex freezes up at this. Did Devon already have her devil fruit? If she did, Rex had no intention of fighting her, no sir. A mythic Zoan wasn't called 'mythic' for fun, they were all broken as hell. Every experienced mythic Zoan user was a top tier from Marco to Kaido. Even Orochi was pretty strong and he was a fat lazy servant.

"What do you care, big nose? I actually feel bad because that jacket of yours is quite chic, but your ugly nose makes it unbearable to see it on you."

Devon snarls, whipping out ferociously, but at this distance, Rex is easily able to dodge, and the whip only leaves a large hole in the bottom of her own ship.

Gion uses this as an opportunity to attack while Devon's weapon was out of order, slashing at the pirate's armed hand with her sword. Rex could swear a few pink flowers come out of the sword, but before he could get a good look, Devon kicks Gion in the stomach.

Rex and Gion then trade off baiting the whip and attacking, slowly pushing Devon back. Still, Rex is holding back slightly, worried that Devon wants them both to attack at once so she could reveal her devil fruit and kill them both.

Eventually, Rex decides that Devon either hasn't eaten her Devil Fruit yet, or has eaten it so recently that she cannot use it effectively. With that decision, Rex stops pulling punches.

Rex opens his mouth, poised to roar, but no sound comes out. Devon is about to sneer at him, but she suddenly feels an immense sensation of dread coming about her.

This was Silent Terror, Rex's favorite Tiger Print move. While hunting with Rouge on Torino island, Rex had learned that occasionally, to scare off the other animals who tried to steal her kills, Rouge would 'roar' at them but not make any noise. This was an odd technique, yet it seemed highly effective.

With Rex's Hasshoken, he discovered that it wasn't that Rouge wasn't making noise, it was that the noise she was making had too low of a frequency. It was infrasound, noise that couldn't be heard by humans.

However, just because humans couldn't 'hear' infrasound, doesn't mean they couldn't 'feel' it. When humans were exposed to infrasound, they would feel a sense of fear and dread, worried that something would attack them. It was one of few natural defense mechanisms humans had.

With Hasshoken, the ordinarily weak infrasound roar was much stronger causing Devon and even Gion who was next to Rex to shiver in fear. All of Devon's subordinates and the Marines trembled in terror as all eyes land on Rex.

"Was that…"

Rex just smacks Devon through a wall before she gets a chance to speak. Gion frowns at Rex's strange attack, but decides to continue fighting with him, chasing Devon through the broken wall.

Devon grimaces as she sees the sword coming at her diving out of the way. Blood dripped for her mouth as her chest ached from Rex's attack.

'What was that?' Devon puzzled, recalling the strange feeling that came over. 'It was almost like… No, he couldn't have it.'

Little did Devon know, her opponent, Gion, was also wondering the same thing and had come to the same conclusion. After all, even weak Conqueror's Haki would have knocked out some of the subordinates, right?

Gion wasn't sure.

Gion fights against Devon relentlessly, with Rex occasionally throwing in a few attacks. Gion notices Rex is holding back, at which she scowls. This cheap fool was trying to tire them both out so he could escape.

Still, at the moment, Devon was much more threatening than Rex was. While Rex may or may not have more potential, Gion felt that Devon was more of a threat to the government.

A slight tug on an iron collar on Rex's neck is all he needs to pull out.

"Thank you, beautiful ladies, for a most memorable experience! I relish the chance to do vigorous battle with you once more, my quarters next time?"

The two proud female powerhouses hiss at Rex's suggestive statement, surprised that the youngest among them would be so provocative. Still, neither Devon nor Gion stop fighting each other, watching as Rex fled the scene.

Of course, Rex didn't leave empty handed, using the hole Devon made at the beginning of the fight to steal some treasure before leaping from ship to ship returning to his own. On his way, Rex runs into Bonney who had also gotten the call to return and she hops on his back.

By the time Rex has returned, Killer is also back, while an injured Galdino was running away using the buoyancy of wax to run on water.

"Captain, I'm sorry, he used the roar as a chance to…"

"Don't sweat it." Rex said with a grin. Galdino was of little concern to him.

Rex then returns to his own ship and waves goodbye to the pirates with a smile on his face. Life was go…

Boom!

A cannon flies off from the distance barely missing the King Gucci's hull.

"Stop, Pirate scum! In the name of Rear Admiral Onigumo!"

Rear Admiral?

Rex and the other pirates pale before simultaneously executing the same command.

"Sail through the mountain!"

Foxy and Devon push past their marine opponents, suffering injuries in order to launch attacks on their comrades. Devon punctures a hole into a marine ship, causing it to start sinking and Foxy launches slowed cannon accelerated by two more cannons into another.

Then, using the distraction, they sail right behind Rex for Reverse Mountain with Devon mournfully abandoning her other three ships. She had planned on entering the Grand Line a big shot with a small fleet, now she was a haggard nobody with a broken ship.

Onigumo quickly reaches the mountains mouth, sending thousands of lines of spider silk to pull the Marine soldiers off of the sinking ships and beckoning Gion and Hina to join him. Then, he too enters the mountain.

Four ships, back to back, rapidly scale reverse mountain. Of them, Foxy's is the most unstable being both the largest ship and the only ship without a conscious navigator.

Devon curses the fact that Foxy is in front of her before grabbing one of her own navigators and throwing them onto Foxy's ship.

Meanwhile, Onigumo turns to Hina and Gion.

"Brief me!"

Hina and Gion explain the situation. While Onigumo was technically a rear admiral of the South Blue, his job wasn't to guard the South Blue. Instead, Onigumo was tasked with guarding the segment of the calm belt that bordered the South Blue.

In the Marines' eyes, none of the four blues, barring the North needed a rear admiral to guard them. The few commodores they had were enough. Instead, Onigumo's job was to make sure no Sea Kings left the calm belt and wreaked havoc on the South Blue. He also occasionally caught pirates who were stupid enough to use the calm belt to enter or escape the Grand Line.

As such, Onigumo knew very little about what was happening in the South Blue. When he heard it, his fists were clenched in rage.

"We must capture these pirates this time! If they make it to the Grand Line, the reputation of the Marines in the South Blue will turn to dust."

Gion nods, looking at Devon's ship ahead of them. So close, but yet so far. With the ultrafast currents of reverse mountain, shooting a cannon or jumping to the ship was not an option, leaving Gion to only look at it mournfully.

In fact, if it weren't for the damage Devon incurred while fleeing, she would be shooting back at them.

Gion cannot help but curse Rex. Had he stayed and fought a bit more, she would have captured Devon and have been free to help Hina capture Foxy. Now all three of them had escaped.

Meanwhile, Rex is the tensest of them all. He knew very well that Onigumo followed absolute justice and would not let him escape alive and would kill him to ensure that he was stopped.

While Onigumo had saved those falling soldiers, it was not out of morality, it was only because he could do it easily. Rex considers using the rockets to speed up but Kid refused.

"At these speeds, the hull is already being pushed to its limits. We've already exceeded hull speed and any more speed will shred the boat with the hydrodynamic torsion."

Rex pauses, grinning broadly at Kid. "Good boat nerd, now what can we do?"

Kid growls but he still searches through his modifications to see if anything would help.

"Why don't we just shoot back, blow 'em all up one by one?" Gem asks.

Rex and Kid shake their heads, knowing Foxy's fruit would negate such a strategy.

"How about the nautical mines?" Killer offered.

But Kid shakes his head. "In this stream, they would be dragged up with us, they might even blow up our own ship from behind."

Kid keeps flipping through pages cursing.

Rex scratches his chin. "What if blowing up our own ship is exactly what we want?"

Kid frowns at Rex like he's crazy.

"Your mines, are they made from Gem's blood?"

Kid nods, with Gem shivering in the corner. Kid had basically tied Gem up and used him as a blood bank for every day of the past three months. He still had nightmares.

"That's perfect! When we get launched to the top of the mountain, release the mines and Gem could detonate them!"

"You're not seriously suggesting…" Bonney started.

"It could work!" Kid says with a grin, grabbing a pen and circling a large portion of the ship. "If we could time it so that the mine blasts the ship from exactly behind the ship, while also being beneath it, I could reinforce the hull. Then, I could make a pair of gliding wings from the scrap metal and we could glide right into the north blue, way ahead of the rest of those idiots!"

"I knew I kept you around for something!" Rex grins, slapping Kid's back. "Now get started! Gem load the mine, Kid, make the wings, Killer, Bonney, take the crew below deck and brace for impact! It's time for ships to fly!"

The movement on Rex's ship are quickly seen by the others which alarms them. Only Rex could attack the ships behind him. Foxy and Devon's ships were damaged and the Marines were in the back, making attacks meaningless.

The rear of the King Gucci opens up as a single, massive nautical mine slowly rolls out, attached to a rope.

"Do I cut it?" A crew man asks, sword in hand.

"Wait for it!"

The ships below look at the large ball quizzically. Was that a bomb? If so, why wasn't Rex dropping it?

Meanwhile, Rex stares at the stream before him, he was almost at the top.

Gion widens her eyes, knowing exactly what Rex was planning.

"Rear Admiral Onigumo! He's going to…"

Boom!

Just as Rex's ship jumps over the mountains the mine is released, exploding shortly after. The ships are all sent in different directions with Rex shooting forward towards the North, Foxy banking Westward and Devon and the Marines flying to the East.

Of them, Rex could be considered by far the most fortunate. He was sent in the direction he desired, Kid had reinforced the hull bringing damage to a minimum and the wings would let him land in the middle of the North Blue making it difficult for the Marines to find him.

The next most fortunate was Foxy by far. He had been able to slow the portion of the explosion coming at his ship, causing the damage caused by it to be a minimum. What's more, he escaped the Marines and slipped into another blue.

As for Devon, she was slumped in depression. Hands cuffed and crew in shackles, Devon's luck was by far the worst. Not only did she take most of the explosion, but her ship was also reduced to slag, she had landed with the Marines and what was worse was there was another marine ship already on the East Blue side of the mountain.

"You! Fools! Caused! Me! To! Drop! My! Donuts!" Garp yells angrily, each word punctuated with a punch to Onigumo or Devon's heads.

Then when he was finally satiated, Garp's expression turned serious.

"Tell me what happened."

Hina, Gion and Onigumo then brief Garp, his face remaining stoic the whole time.

"…then, he detonated some sort of high-yield explosive and launched himself on the mountain. I don't even know which direction he went."

Garp nodded, confirming the story. This was a very serious matter.

"Bwahahaha! I like this kid, he's got moxie, just like this old man did back in the day! Blowing up his own ship to escape the Marines! I better go to the Grand Line to meet him!" Garp said, tears of laughter coming out of his eyes as he imagined Sengoku's face when he heard about him. "You three keep Devon in the jail over at Loguetown for now. I'll have Sengoku send you a prisoner transport ship to haul her and the other fools I caught on my vacation. Just find this brat.

And don't worry about the North Blue, Tsuru's there if he tries anything. Just deal with the West and South Blue. As for the Grand Line, if he's there, Grandaddy Garp will teach him what happens when you mess with donuts, ahem, justice!"

The three Marines nod, behaving like children in front of the marine legend. Garp then frowns, as he recalls the physical description of the boy. He couldn't be that same boy he had met back in Baterilla, could he?

(AN: We're finally done with the South Blue Arc. Now comes the North Blue Arc, where the MC will tussle with the baddest of the bad, the smartest of the smart, the most dapper wearer of flamingo print jackets in all the seas...)