Sky Guards, Oven's Resolve and Spar

_________ POV Narration _________

Enel didn't spend a lot more time in the bathtub, he ended up turning into lighting and going to one of his homes in Skypea, where he got properly dressed.

He put on a pair of deep blue suit pants and a buttoned-up white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, over his shirt he put on his usual white furry coat, which was draped over his shoulders, held in place by a button near his chest area.

Enel then grabbed his staff and smiled a bit.

'This thing feels so light now... Almost as if I'm holding onto a feather.'

It felt nice... A product of all the effort he put into bettering himself.

His muscles were also a lot more toned, he looked a bit bulkier, but not by much, his shoulders were also a bit wider now, which made him look a lot more intimidating overall.

Not that he needed broad shoulders to look intimidating... He was already an Emperor, he wasn't going to get a lot more intimidating than that.

With a sigh, the Emperor left his home and went to check on the Sky Guards, who were still diligently training themselves on Upper Yard.

Upper Yard had actually developed a lot thanks to the presence of the revolutionaries. Their engineers had also gone ahead and repaired the remains of 'Protocol Wings'.

They had to redesign it almost completely since it was somewhat impractical for it to only be repairable with Enel's metallurgy.

The only thing they really kept was its way of gathering energy through wind power, the rest was completely overhauled.

Shiki claimed that it was useless since he was controlling the island to stay in the sky anyway, but Dragon always liked to have extra assurance when dealing with such things.

He was also not confident in being able to keep the island floating along with just the power of his Devil Fruit.

Enel had always been curious about what Dragon's fruit actually was, and his question was answered rather easily...

'It's just a Wind Logia...'

Dragon was extremely open about himself with his allies...

But his fruit worked perfectly to make sure that 'Protocol Wings' would never run out of power.

Other than wings, the island was also a lot more developed in terms of buildings... The Shandians had mostly been living in leather tents and cabins at first.

But the Revolutionaries helped them rebuild the golden city, cleaning it up of moss and rebuilding all the broken structures within it.

They didn't use gold, of course, since that was somewhat wasteful, but they rebuilt it with stone, making it sturdy enough to withstand any climate.

And so, the Shandians were back to living where their Ancestors had once lived... Inside Shandora, the City of Gold.

Then there were the homes of the Sky Guards...

They also started with Cabins, but now they essentially had a relatively big city with brick and wooden houses.

Their training grounds were also revamped, the area was levelled properly and they had a lot more space for their activities now...

And that's exactly where Enel found himself, in that open field, while the soldiers around him all trained diligently.

They did stop upon seeing him though, catching a glimpse of their leader was somewhat motivating for the Sky Guards.

They knew that Enel was the one to essentially establish their group. He was also the one to get Garp to teach them, which vastly improved their strength over time.

Then there was Momonga...

"Sir Enel! So good to see you!" He was still wearing the same clothes he did while in the Marines, he seemed to have gotten too used to them to make any drastic change.

But there was a change that Enel could feel...

'This guy... Just how much did he improve?'

The one-armed former Vice Admiral felt like a completely different person almost. He looked the same, but Enel could tell just from the way he moved that he was MUCH stronger than before.

"Momonga! It is always a pleasure speaking to you. It's certainly been a while, I'm glad to see you've kept up with your training..."

"Hoho... You praise me too much..." Momonga was still humble, despite the fact that Enel was quite sure he was now close to Admiral level.

The Sky Guards watched on as the Sky King spoke with their Drill Sergeant. They were glad to hear that Enel was appreciative of the hard work that their Instructor was putting in...

Despite having to teach them all in Garp's absence, Momonga was still putting a lot more effort into training himself than any of them could.

It was genuinely inspiring to watch, especially for Bellamy.

The Spring Human had certainly improved a lot, but he still felt like it wasn't enough...

He wanted to be able to proudly walk alongside people like Enel and Luffy in the future, he knew he still had a long way to go...

"I am not one to exaggerate... You seem quite impressive even by my standards... I see everyone's been training diligently as well..." Enel then turned his head and looked towards the other soldiers, his gaze also settled on Bellamy for a second.

'Even the Heyena has gotten stronger huh? He should be enough to give Luffy a run for his money... Well, unless Luffy actually uses Gear 4th, but this is still pretty great progress.'

"Everyone here is working hard, of course... They are all fighting to protect what is dear to them... Or fighting to earn a place where they can fit in." Momonga also looked at the soldiers he had been training with a proud gaze.

Even those that weren't talented had put in a lot of work and improved by leaps and bounds.

"Well, whatever motivation they found, it's certainly showing in the gazes... Determination, diligence... Discipline. We have you and Garp to thank for this..." Enel smiled as his gaze settled back on Momonga.

The two of them continued talking for a while.

And as that was happening, Oven was not having such a great time...

Right after he finished his training, he decided to finally face the music and contact his mother after almost a year of radio silence.

Let's just say... The conversation didn't go quite well...

"... So that's what you've been doing all this time instead of properly reporting to me?! Training yourself?!"

His mother was certainly mad... Oven was genuinely glad that he wasn't reporting this to her in person, otherwise, he would've been fearing for his life.

Even if Linlin had somewhat mellowed out, it was still unlikely that she'd react in any positive way to his actions...

"I am sorry Mother... I am sorry to have disappointed you so..." Oven still apologized.

He knew he could've done more, he knew he could've tried to contact his mother sooner. But he had gotten so immersed in gaining strength that it had somewhat slipped his mind...

"Hrmmm..." A low growl was heard from the Transponder Snail that Oven was holding onto. Big Mom was certainly not pleased...

But her reaction was still a lot better than Oven had expected...

"From now on, I want you to contact me weekly... I want a proper report of Enel's forces and any powers he's making deals with... Have I made myself clear?"

Big Mom's voice didn't hold any compassion, it was cold, callous... Oven's heart skipped a beat when he heard it.

"We can talk about punishment later on... For now, you just do your job properly, and maybe I'll forgive and forget..."

Oven quickly nodded, his eyes wide open and almost in tears as he thanked his mother and continued apologizing.

It seemed that Linlin wasn't interested in hearing his voice anymore unless he had a report ready, so she just hung up on him.

Oven just sighed as his shoulders slumped...

He had gotten stronger, but at what cost?

While he was gone, his Mother had gone ahead and joined up with the likes of Kaido to form an alliance against Enel...

Sure Kaido was now considered dead, killed by Whitebeard's unrelenting strength...

'I should go talk to Enel... I wanted to spar with him at first, but I don't think I feel up to it anymore...'

The Sweet Commander slowly walked out of his cottage and wandered around for a bit, trying to think of where to find Enel.

Thankfully, he didn't have to wander for long. As it was Enel that found him in the end.

The Emperor just appeared in front of him and tapped his staff into the ground, cracking the earth underneath it and causing a small tremor in the ground.

Oven's eyes widened as he looked at the Emperor's smile.

"Oven! Let's see how much you've improved!" Enel took off his coat and threw it on a tree, before grabbing his staff again and twirling it around in his arms.

Oven was startled for a moment, he clenched his fists as his hands itched for a fight.

'I can put my worries at the back of my head for now...'

"ENEL!" Oven's massive frame moved with impressive speed, his fist striking down at Enel, falling like a thunderclap as he broke the sound barrier with ease.

Enel seemed to return his excitement, as he went ahead and clashed with Oven's fist, his staff turning black as the forest around the trembled.

The shockwave of their clash uprooted all of the trees in a 100-meter radius, sending them flying into the distance as the two of them looked at each other with crazed smiles.

"Maybe we should take this to the training island..." Oven said as he took a step back and cracked his knuckles, completely unaffected by their previous clash.

"Right, might be for the best if we don't go all out here..." Enel nodded and clapped his hands again.

His staff quickly turned into a large boat, Oven wasted no time by jumping on it right away.

The two of them sailed through the clouds and headed straight for the bare island. The mountain was still damaged by Enel's last punch, but the two of them were sure that it wouldn't matter...

'There won't be much of a mountain left after we're done here...'

And so, the two of them stood in an open, barren field...

Enel smiled as he picked up a rock form the ground and tossed it in the air.

The rock seemed to fall almost in slow motion, and the very second it hit the ground, the two fighters met in the middle of the field.

Oven's punch crushed the ground around them, while Enel's staff caused tremors through the entire island.

"Unrelenting as ever!" Oven shouted as his hand turned completely red.

The Sweet Commander started using his devil fruit, and Enel immediately noticed some differences.

Oven's punches seemed to be melting his staff, which made Enel take a step back for a second.

The Sweet Commander knew to take advantage of that as well, his mechanical arm sprouting a blade which immediately turned black and sliced at the Emperor's chest.

Enel just smiled as he tracked the blade with his eyes, in an instant, he turned into lighting and let the blade pass through his separated body.

Oven's smile seemed to widen as he realised something...

'For the first time ever... I've forced him to use his Devil Fruit!'

Most of the time, Enel never used the 'Elementalization' ability of his Devil Fruit during spars, he only really used metallurgy.

Even so, Enel was able to defeat him in the past.

The fact that he had now progressed enough to make Enel get slightly more serious was in itself a great achievement.

At the end of the day, Enel had the power to end Oven's life with one flick of the wrist. He was the same man that had gone against the entirety of the Navy on multiple occasions and had come out unscathed.

And that was WHILE he was already holding back and not trying to kill any of them.

To Oven, Enel's devil fruit power was completely absurd.

And unfortunately for him, the spar was not going to last much longer...

Enel now understood that taking it easy on Oven was actually not possible anymore. So he immediately kicked into high gear.

He appeared behind Oven with enhanced speed, his staff already swinging for the Sweet Commanders' side.

Before Oven even managed to react, he was already flying into the mountain, crashing into it at high speeds.

He had protected his body with haki almost on instinct, but he was still unable to block most of the damage, his insides were a mess as his back broke more and more stone before...

He arrived on the other side of the mountain range...

'Did I just get punted across the entire island?!' Oven could barely even wrap his head around what had happened.

Enel appeared in front of him once more, standing tall a few meters away from the collapsed Sweet Commander.

Behind Enel, the entire mountain range was collapsing rapidly, cracks were spreading from the place that Oven had crashed into.

"You're a lot more resilient now! I am actually impressed..." Enel's friendly smile didn't recede at all, although it looked a lot scarier to Oven now...

"... I HAVEN'T LOST YET!" The Sweet Commander lashed out as his entire body turned red.

Heat radiated off of him as the stone around him seemed to melt into magma almost instantly.

"Hoho~?" Enel raised an eyebrow as he realised that Oven's devil fruit ability had also gotten much stronger.

He was more than impressed now.

'At this point, I think Aokiji can't even win against him...'

It was staggering progress... However...

"Heat won't work against me..."

Enel's slowly melting staff turned into a pair of gauntlets as the Emperor appeared at Oven's side once more.

His fist crashed into Oven's cheek like a freight train into an unsuspecting truck, the shockwave pushed all of the magma and rocks around them further away.

Oven himself was knocked out immediately and sent flying further away, his eyes rolled over backwards.

Enel just shook his head and rushed to catch Oven, grabbing him in mid-air and slowing him down slowly so as to not further injure him.

"Good fight..." The Emperor muttered as he looked at the mountain range around them. It was mostly ruined...

'Good thing we didn't fight in Upper Yard...'

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Hope you liked the chapter and the spar!

Sorry for the late upload, kind of a slump lately, honestly.

This story is close to over btw, well, it's still got plenty of arcs in it, but the mc's awakening already happened in the advance Chapters on Patre-on.

Anyhow, I'mm off to sleep or smth

If u want to support me look up VeganMaster(Vegan Cult) on Patre_on, you'd also get 15 chapters in advance (or 10/5 depending on tier)