Caged, Stars and Finishing Off

_________ POV Narration _________

IMU could only scowl in disappointment when feeling how big of a failure the Mother Flame was.

Sure, a weapon capable of destroying the world, but in front of the reality-bending powers of Nika it was nothing more than a toy, one to play with and break. 

'I had hoped everything would be destroyed before Nika got himself healed... That damned Vegapunk, I should have killed him a long time ago...' 

The Catcher that Vegapunk had created may not have fully functioned to contain the Mother Flame in its full unleashed glory, but it still managed to greatly delay the Mother Flame's advances. 

At the very least, it gave Luffy enough time to get healed by Bonney and jump down to intercept it. 

Such powerful technology was not something that could be seen in their world too often.

After all, Vegapunk was responsible for the creation of both great mechanisms. Though the Mother Flame was less of a mechanism and more of a living organism. 

Allowing technology to advance to such an extent was a mistake in IMU's eyes now. A weapon like the Mother Flame could be a great asset, but it still paled in comparison to the Ancient Weapons. 

It only added an extra risk... The Danger that such weapons could be used to destroy the balance that IMU had created. Alas, technology was the least of IMU's concerns right now.

Still trapped within that prison, he struggled to even touch the walls around him, his entire being compressed into a ball. 

Still, he drilled away against the magnetic pulse as best as he could.

The problem was that Enel wasn't even sweating, his entire body was glistening with lighting, evaporating any water nearby that IMU may have used to escape normally.

Still, Enel knew that it was nothing more than a half-measure. IMU was going to break out of there eventually. 

And after struggling for a minute, with his willpower resisting as much as possible, he realized that IMU breaking out was going to happen much sooner than expected... 

Enel's face twisted into a scowl as he watched the metallic parts of the prison slowly start to crack.

In an instant, he grabbed the prison and rushed upwards, his face showing a serious expression as the temperature around them got colder and colder...

Passing through the atmosphere was not that difficult thanks to the hole that Enel had poked into it, and reaching space was also easy for the Lightning Emperor.

As soon as he reached space, he threw the prison further out, his lungs somewhat burning for air, before he turned his body into lighting completely. 

IMU, as well as the prison he was still momentarily trapped in, immediately got turned to ice in the infinite vacuum of space.

Enel couldn't help but smile when seeing that. But in the end, the ice cracked, and IMU's figure formed right in front of the destroyed prison, this time made of ice instead of water.

After all, there couldn't be water in the vacuum of space. At least not under normal circumstances. There was also 0 water around for IMU to use. 

'That's to be expected at this point...' The Sky King was the furthest from surprised when seeing that. After all, it was clear to them that IMU could control water in any form by that point.

The powers of a god were never that simple. But that durability and endurance that IMU boasted... It wasn't like it didn't have any conditions. 

'The nearest water source... It's back on our beautiful planet! Let's see how long he can hold out here!' 

Enel showed a feral smile as he pointed his hand forward, immediately shooting a pillar of lightning towards the Sea God.

After all, lightning could easily move through space without any resistance, it was in fact much faster than normal. 

This certainly took IMU by surprise, but he managed to separate his body into different chunks of ice running around in space to avoid Enel's attacks. 

IMU seemed to be able to move faster in that zero-gravity environment as well, but nowhere near fast enough to completely avoid Enel with every piece of his body.

Some chunks of ice were evaporated, and some were only grazed and turned to steam, which IMU was able to reuse immediately as it turned to ice rather quickly in the vacuum of space.

Touching the Sky King was still nothing more than a pipe dream for IMU, so winning that fight by turning Enel's fruit off was not possible either. 

 For now, the two of them were stuck in a stalemate of sorts, with Enel slowly chipping away at IMU.

Meanwhile, Luffy was still on his way towards them. He saw Enel leave the atmosphere. The Lighting God had let off a very bright flash of light to alert him of that.

But he was not as fast as Enel, so it was going to take him a bit more to reach them... But not that long.

Meanwhile, down at the battlefield below, the Seraph were pretty much wrapped up. 

Oven had torn off the head of the one he was fighting before the straw hats even reached him to provide assistance. 

Wyper had also managed to pierce its skull eventually. The Seraph was impaled on his spear when Brook made his way there. 

It was pretty gruesome, but the minimal number of injuries on Wyper was rather impressive.

Oven was very much the same. His prosthetics had also held up in the end, so he was virtually uninjured.

After all, Oven was much more resilient to heat than the Seraphims themselves. 

Momonga was the only one to receive help from the Strawhats in the end.

Franky and Robin had managed to hold down the Seraphim as the 'Noble Killer' took off its last wing, turning off its annoying endurance by putting out the flame on it's back before cutting its head off for good. 

"Hmm... Seems like it's mostly over on our side." 

The Golden Lion sighed as he floated in the air. 

In front of him was the twisted and broken figure of one of the Seraphims.

The other Seraphim was currently standing still, it had stopped moving at some point, and Shiki just focused on the other one, taking it down in less than a minute. 

'They had developed some semblance of teamwork during the fight... But one stopped moving and it broke whatever resistance they could've put up...' 

Shiki shook his head before landing on the ground, his bladed legs slightly digging into it as he stood in front of the unmoving Seraphim.

"Hmm? I guess Francisco didn't really kill you for good after all. I mean, how could he? He never really could bring himself to harm you." 

The Golden Lion had realized it during the fight, but the wayward soul of Xebec possessed the child-like clone. 

 It still couldn't act. No matter how much it trembled and its muscles twitched, it couldn't move at all.

It was the invention of Vegapunk after all... Perfect mindless soldiers with 0 will of their own. 

But they weren't that perfectly brainless. They were capable of executing strategies, judging situations, and acting accordingly. 

'This could be considered a flaw... But it may also be the only reason why Xebec is able to stop this temporary body of his from moving. Same for the last one that Francisco killed.' 

Shiki already knew about it, but now the only way to actually kill Xebec was to break the Soul Phylactery that he had made. 

And that Phylactery was something that was stored within one of Shiki's islands.

"I'll put you out of your misery properly... I was always the one doing the dirty work in the crew anyway." Shiki shook his head before he manipulated the island with the Philactery to tilt slightly.

That tilt was all that was needed to drop the Philactery from the table it was on, and on the ground. 

With the Jar grounding Xebec's soul into that world gone, the old captain was finally able to pass on. Regrets or not, it was all too late for anything like that.

'No point in giving that bastard the pleasure of seeing the downfall of the World Government...' 

After all, Shiki had plenty of resentment towards Xebec as well. Despite having grown to admire the man's strength, he always despised his guts.

"I guess it just never was his fate to see or fight in this great war..." 

Shiki smiled, the clone in front of him seemed to fall backwards for a moment after losing its connection to Xebec's soul.

But before it could return to being a resisting Seraphim, the blackened maw of a lion rose from the ground and completely swallowed up most of his body. 

The head rolled off to the side before Shiki shook his head and turned towards the nearest battlefield to him.

 'That bastard was the Forest God, huh? Better see it with my own two eyes before he keels over to the marines.' 

Shiki then flew off towards them, his face looking rather bored as he did so. 

 And he wasn't the only one heading that way... 

Aramaki was going to have to face just about everyone on that side of the battlefield. The Strawhats, Oven, Wyper, Momonga... That was besides the opponents that he was currently still struggling to fight against. 

Needless to say, he was less likely to survive the encounter with just Shiki added to the mix, let alone the others.

But as many more were focusing on that side of the battlefield, Francsico and the others had finally been pushed back a bit. 

"What... The hell is that?" Sabo asked as he sweated a bit, looking at the amalgamation of flesh in front of him.

He was immediately tackled to the side by Francisco, as a fleshy tentacle came crashing down in his previous position as the thing in front of them let out a beastly roar.

"The Elders... Have fused."

_____________________________________________

Hope you liked the chapter!

Last struggle of the elders is here! 

Yep, the fight's been not going in their favor for a while now tbh

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