Family, Friendship and Heat

__________ POV Narration __________

Enel didn't leave his awakened form, instead, he lowered altitude and approached Oven carefully. Still floating in mid-air as he controlled a string of sparkling clouds underneath his feet.

The Sweet Commander just stayed by his mother's side, crouched down and tending to her as he seemed to try and speak to her.

"Mother... Everything will be fine... Don't worry."

Oven knew that he was helpless to stop Enel if it came to an actual fight. He had no delusions of doing that, especially when seeing his mother's sorry state, compared to Enel's own uninjured and unbothered figure.

But he was not going to let Enel harm his mother any further. Thankfully he didn't need to try much.

The fight was over for a while in Enel's mind, ever since he had accidentally destroyed Napoleon.

The look of shock and fear on Big Mom's face told him everything he needed to know about how the rest of the fight would go.

The fact that he could melt her weapon, despite the fact that it was imbued with her haki and had a part of her soul put into its creation, meant that she truly stood no chance against him.

He hadn't wanted to kill her in the first place, the only reason he pelted her with that much lightning was because he knew she could handle it.

Although her condition looked serious, she was still an Emperor with stupidly great durability. She was likely going to be fine in a day or two if she ate some cake.

Oven likely also understood that, but neither he nor any of Big Mom's children were used to seeing her in such a state.

Usually, on the rare occasions that she clashed with other Emperors, she would not be injured so much in such a short span of time.

The fights among Emperors were never truly that one-sided.

Oven had already guessed that.

He knew how outrageous Enel's devil fruit was. He had already guessed that Enel was likely stronger than the Emperors, a level above them.

It was only natural, after all, Enel had plenty of Emperor Level Figures working underneath him.

People like, Garp, Sengoku, Francisco, Shiki, Dragon, hell all of the Admirals could stand up to Emperors as well.

Then there were people that were associated with Enel, like Whitebeard and Shanks...

Oven had gone through a lot of conflict internally hiding Shank's alliance with Enel from his mother.

In his mind, he justified it with the fact that Enel still considered his mother an ally of sorts, so he knew that he wouldn't do harm to her... But that clearly turned out to be wrong.

"Enel..." The Sweet Commander turned around and looked upwards, at the Sky King that was descending upon him.

"Oven! Glad to see you broke yourself out... I was going to release you anyway." Enel didn't hover above his head for too long, his feet finally touched the ground as he sighed and rolled his right shoulder a bit.

He did his best to hide his unease as he spoke out and acted leisurely.

The Emperor loathed the notion of losing a good friend like that.

"... Let's cut to the chase, Enel." At that moment, the air around the two men turned a bit hotter as Oven clenched his organic fist.

"... Alright. I wasn't expecting things to get to this point, obviously, I don't plan to kill your mother, so you can calm down." Enel sighed as he shook his head and took another look at Big Mom, who was still unconscious and smoking.

And just like that, Oven was able to heave a sigh of relief.

He still didn't like that his home had been damaged to that point, but he knew that Enel likely made sure his siblings weren't dead or anything.

The Lightning Emperor always had a habit of doing that. He seemed to avoid harming others if he perceived them as allies even slightly.

Well, some homies or chess soldiers might've died in the collapsed palace, but Oven didn't really care much about them either. They were only alive thanks to his mother's fruit anyway.

"In that case, thank you... You know, for sparing my mother." Oven looked back at his mother for a second, wincing slightly.

"I doubt she made it easy for you. But you managed to hold back enough. So thank you."

Enel nodded to him, before his ears twitched a bit, he looked to the side and his eyes narrowed slightly.

'They still haven't escaped?'

As he and Oven were speaking to each other, the Straw Hats and Bege had finally found Brulee.

Obviously, the next thing they did was rush and save the Vinsmoke Family.

With Zoro at the helm, Brook and Sanji trailing right behind him, they managed to cut a line through the encirclement that had been pestering the now-injured Germa.

To be more specific, only Sanji's siblings had actually gotten injured, though only slightly. Judge was still holding his own while fighting carefully, and it seemed that the Big Mom Pirates were planning to win the fight by tiring them out.

They didn't get the time to.

The assault of the Straw Hats was quick, brutal and decisive, Sanji started the fight by ambushing Perospero and almost breaking his neck with a kick, which ended up just sending him flying and knocking him out.

At around the same time, Zoro appeared in front of Smoothie, before drawing his sword and reappearing behind her and sheathing it again. The Lion's Song, or ShiShi SonSon, one of his signature moves.

And it proved very effective as blood splattered everywhere from a large wound across her chest, and she fell to the ground while her eyes rolled to the back of her head.

Cracker's soldiers quickly intercepted the two of them, their toughness proving annoying.

But Cracker himself was being hunted down by none other than Brook, who had observed the situation enough to find the Sweet Commander that had been hiding in between his biscuit soldiers.

With a laugh and a stagger, the musician dashed through the biscuits, bobbing and weaving until he finally landed on his chosen target.

The Biscuit Soldiers immediately moved, turning their spears towards him and preparing to stab at him... But they were too slow.

The Skeleton's cane sword ended up stabbing through the layer of haki-enforced biscuit and into the man's torso, making him momentarily halt all of his soldiers and giving the Vinsmokes enough time to make a run for it.

Although shocked, Germa didn't have enough time to think too deeply about why the Straw Hats were helping them and just decided to go along with it since they all had a common enemy now, and a common goal... To survive.

"GET HERE! QUICKLY!" In the distance, a large man in a suit shouted at them, his body seemed to be strangely built like a castle, and instead of legs he had tracks like those of a tank.

In his gigantic hands, he held a half-broken gigantic window. Most definitely one of the mirrors Big Mom herself had been using. Although broken, the half that was still together was big enough for an army to rush through.

And the Vinsmoke family wasn't stupid enough to ignore such an obvious escape route.

Sanji and Zoro also both retreated after blitzing their respective opponents.

They both turned around and ran behind the Vinsmokes, covering their retreat in case Cracker recovered enough to command his soldiers again.

Brook didn't dally on for much longer either, he slipped his blade out of Cracker's body and simply started skipping on the heads of the Biscuit Soldiers while laughing and leisurely heading for the big mirror.

The Vinsmokes immediately reached Bege, who was waiting for them with Brulee inside his castle/body while holding the largest escape they had.

He didn't speak further in such a stressful situation, he merely waited for everyone to get in.

The Vinsmokes managed to jump in first, Sanji and Zoro both stopped before entering, waiting for Brook to go ahead of them while also covering his retreat.

Brook laughed a bit as he thanked them and entered... And then it happened...

A surge of... Heat.

It was scalding, difficult to even breathe in. Zoro and Sanji felt it too, and they immediately started sweating.

Before they even realized it. The Mirror in Bege's hands melted, turning into steaming, smouldering mush.

Bege immediately grasped at empty air, before panicking and quickly returning to a smaller size to stand at the side of the two Strawhats present.

The heat forced all three of them to use a thin layer of armament Haki around their bodies, which allowed them to at least breathe a bit better.

Sanji and Zoro were dealing with it much better than Bege, but they were still sweating.

It simply felt as if they were in an... Oven...

It was at that realization that Bege's eyes widened and he truly became panicked.

And everyone present heard it.

"... All of you."

Amidst the sizzling heat, came a voice, one so mired in cold hatred and anger that it sounded calm.

With that voice, the heat ramped up. The rocks around them started quickly melting and turning into lava, turning the entire field all around them into a hellscape.

"Are going to die..."

A figure was standing tall on top of the ruins of the Whole Cake Chateau.

A man three times larger than any regular human. A burly scarred uncovered torso, two arms, one mechanical and gloved, the other fleshy and rippling with muscle, both as thick as tree trunks.

His legs were similar, one metallic, the other fleshy.

His hair was very oddly shaped, made to look like a 3 leaf clover.

His entire body was flushed red, and around it was a strange red glow, he was radiating heat... Visibly.

"This is bad..." Bege said as the cigar he had been trying to take out to calm himself burnt in his hand.

"Who the hell is this one?!" Zoro asked as he unsheathed all three of his blades, putting one of them in his mouth as he prepared for the worst.

"That's... Oven!" Sanji muttered as his legs both sprouted in orange flames, both of them turning dark as well.

"One of the Sweet Commanders. Between him and Katakuri, it's hard to say who's the strongest... He was supposed to be in jail, not interfering with our plans."

Bege muttered, taking advantage of the time that Oven was taking to still study the situation and think of a way to rescue his brothers and sisters.

"Well, he's here now!" Zoro grumbled as he resolved himself to fight the Heat-Radiating Sweet Commander.

'This guy is strong... And angry. I can't let him harm anyone in our crew!'

Sanji, by his side, had a similar mindset, his eyes narrowing as he clenched his fists.

'This is all my fault anyway... I'll fight him, I can't let him touch the others!'

Both of them had similar mindsets, meanwhile, Bege was slowly planning his escape, preparing to take out one of the other mirrors he stored within his body and escape with it in an instant.

But he was having second thoughts due when it came to leaving the Straw Hats behind, which was the only reason he hadn't already escaped.

He then looked up at the clouds, to see a figure just sitting idly, seemingly eating something, before a crooked smile appeared on his lips.

'That's right...'

At that moment, he immediately had one of his henchmen throw a miniaturized mirror into his hand.

He then quickly threw it, allowing it to become large in front of him and jumping through it right as it melted.

Sanji and Zoro didn't stop him, knowing he would likely just get in the way anyway.

Meanwhile, Cracker had already recovered, well, he regained control of his Biscuit Soldiers.

Right as they started burning up anyway.

He forced himself to use Armament Haki on some to stop them from burning to a crisp.

"Oven?!?" He asked as he looked out of his biscuit armour and towards his older brother that had just popped up.

"Cracker! Take everyone away from here. I'll deal with the intruders."

Oven's voice was authoritative, a far cry from the weakling he had been in the past.

Cracker only smiled, pitying the Straw Hats as he controlled his soldiers, taking his siblings and running away.

Meanwhile, in the skies, Enel was looking at the scene with Mild Interest, still in his awakened state.

'Hmm... Let's see how strong the Straw Hats have actually gotten.'

He crossed his arms, smiling as he wondered how the fight would look.

But deep inside, he also felt Oven's anger and the heat he radiated.

'... Fire, Magma, Heat... All of these devil fruits burn brighter with emotion, with hatred, anything to fuel them really.

In his current state... I don't think Katakuri could even match Oven.

No, it's safe to say Katakuri would stand no chance... His malleable dough would likely be cooked and burnt in seconds.'

The Emperor narrowed his eyes as he realized just how much stronger his friend had gotten. It was genuinely shocking.

'Let's see if he is something the Straw Hats can overcome...'

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Hope you liked the chapter! Took me a while. Had literally no inspiration during the weekend, I did write a bit but it was abysmal and I had to scrap a lot of it :)))

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