Difficulties on the Sea

It's been a few weeks since the Roaring Tiger Pirates celebrated their new members' bounties, and now they were sailing towards Ballywood Kingdom.

The Roaring Tigress was idly drifting in the vast ocean on account of today being a windless day. Cliff, Taiga, May, James and Joshua were sitting on the deck, near the figurehead, playing Rummy while drinking some rum. Every now and then some kind of shout would echo out resulting in one from the group celebrating before a new game began.

Nearby, Cassy and Mio were engaged in a spar. Mio was helping Cassy try out the stances she learned from the books they looted from the marine base in Ilussia Kingdom. She had spent the first week completely engrossed in the books detailing sword stances and attacking and defensive techniques. She then spent a lot of time practicing the stances, only satisfied when she started flowing from one stance to another seamlessly.

She had had quite a few spars with her crewmates while trying to integrate these sword techniques into her swordsmanship and fighting style.

All of them were so engrossed in their activities that none of them noticed that they were not in safe waters before danger arose.

Within moments a huge sea king rose beside them by the portside, rocking their ship. It looked like a moray eel just scaled up in size by about 200 times. Of course, it also had visible sharp teeth which are not so easily seen in a normal sized moray eel.

It took the crew no more than mere moments to regain their composure from all the rocking, but they were still awe-struck at the size of the sea king they faced.

They only snapped out of this state when they saw the sea king look down towards them, and snap its jaws once.

The crew all looked at the majestic creature before them, not knowing what to do. They had fought sea beasts before but those were not even one fifth the size of their present company and were certainly not sea kings.

The sea king too stared at them, deciding between destroying the measly wood that floated alongside it or the let it be. In the end it chose the former and quickly descended on to the ship.

Seeing this Taiga immediately jumped high swinging his kanabo to hit the sea king right in the jaws. The jaws snapped shut as the sea king reeled from the impact.

It now looked back on to the tiny floating piece of wood with narrowed eyes and realized that there were even smaller creatures (in relation to itself) on it. it recognised that one of them must have hit him, and took it as a challenge and roared back to show his acceptance for the challenge.

Its roar was so loud that the entire crew had to cover their ears.

"SHIT! It wants to fight us!" May exclaimed.

"That thing is huge!" Cliff too exclaimed.

Behind him, both James and Joshua had gotten their rifles in position, ready to shoot when commanded.

"James get behind a damn cannon fast!" Cassy yelled.

Mio was fast to move and moments later had brought some cannon balls to shoot up to the deck just as James got behind a cannon and helped loading it up.

"FIRE!!!" Cliff roared out once James was done loading the cannon.

BOOOOOMMMM

The cannon roar rang through before the cannon ball hit the sea king right in the snout, which made it recoil a bit and thrash a little displacing large amount of water creating huge waves. That point on the snout rapidly reddened becoming a bruise.

The sea king then swung its tail at them from the opposite side of the ship. Cassy jumped into the swing using her sword to block the attack.

At the same time both Taiga and Cliff jumped up onto the sea king swinging their weapons. Their weapons left behind no trace on its skin. As they both got back onto the ship, the sea king's tail managed to get past Cassy and damage the deck. At the same time the sea king shot forward with its jaws wide open towards the ship.

Both Taiga and Cliff used their weapons to block the teeth. They were in such a position that they kept the sea kings' mouth open. Joshua started shooting into the mouth as soon as he saw this as did James. Mio too shot forward and attacked the inside of the mouth with her claws.

Just as Cassy was about reach there and attack, Taiga started to slip. He tried to put as much force as he could to keep the jaws apart but it proved unsuccessful.

Just as the jaws were about to shut, Taiga roared and transformed into his Hybrid form. As he grew bigger, his strength increased allowing him to stop slipping. Then he started to push once again, and managed just a few steps before excruciating pain tortured his body. On the other side, Cliff too had started to slip but had barely managed to hold on. Just as he heard Taiga roar, excruciating pain went through his body, locking it up.

The others saw the sea king's teeth suddenly emit enormous amounts of electricity, and before they could do anything, they heard both Cliff and Taiga cry out in pain.

Then the jaws snapped shut taking both Cliff and Taiga with them. Then the sea king began to rise back up.

The twins and Mio had jumped back as soon as Taiga started to slip, but Cassy had not and she looked at the sea king in anger as she held her blade with hands.

…

Cassy while angry was also very concerned. It was a sea king they were up against and not just some sea beast. She was injured from being flung back onto the ship when the sea kings' tail broke her block and now both Cliff and Taiga are in the sea kings' jaws.

'Dammit… Dammit… what do I-… I'll have to use it. I'm not confident it'll work but I have no other choice! It'll have to work!'

Suddenly she held the sword to her right and spoke, "Black Clash!" and then she swung her sword diagonally.

'Please work! Please work!! PLEASE WORK!!!' Cassy prayed before blacking out.

A huge sword slash came out of her sword and flew towards the sea king. It hit it right near the mouth.

…

Taiga and Cliff both had been swallowed. Both had barely managed to recover from the pain that was inflicted upon them when something hit the mouth that caused the sea king to roar.

Both took this opportunity to jump out of the mouth and land on the ship.

They saw Mio taking care of a fainted Cassy while Joshua stood guard with his rifle pointed at the sea king. James was back onto the Cannon loading it up before BOOOOOMMMMMM!!!

At that point Taiga, still in his hybrid form just jumped towards the sea king and attacked.

He swung his kanabo vertically downwards and struck the snout with a THWACK!

As the sea king recoiled, a huge cut could be seen on its snout and Taiga's kanabo seemed to be enveloped with fast flowing winds.

It looked back onto the rest as well as the falling Taiga and let electricity envelop its teeth.

At that point as both sides got ready to attack;

…

Suddenly the sea king flinched and whimpered before thrashing around. The crew looked on as it thrashed, loosing its concentration to keep up the electricity. At that moment a woman's scream made it to them and they all knew it instantly.

It was May.

Cliff looked as May fell from the sea kings' neck towards the sea. A splash announced her meeting with the sea. Cliff, still dealing with the after effects of so much electricity, was slow and by the time he reached the railing James had jumped down into the water, swimming towards May.

Cliff looked back up to see the sea king looking back at them before turning and leaving.

As the sea king left, the crew saw its whole body. It was even longer than what they thought it to be…

'Got to be atleast 300 meters…'

As James got May onto the deck, she started coughing up sea water.

Taiga returned to his human form and fell onto his butt.

"That sea king was strong!" He spoke.

"Too strong." Cliff spoke.

"Eh?" (Taiga)

"It was too strong for us. That one had to be from the Grand-line."

Just as Taiga was about to respond, May stopped coughing and flopped onto the deck.

That brought both Cliff and Taiga out from their conversation.

"What were you doing up there May?" Cliff asked crouched beside the heaving May.

"I just used my…hah… devil fruit to change my skin like our ship to…hah… hide. Then when you and Taiga…hah… kept its jaws open, I jumped onto…hah… it, climbed down all the way to the gills using its…hah… wrinkled skin and started stabbing it there. Then he started to thrash and…hah" May replied between heaving breaths.

"Got it. Rest now." Cliff said.

Cliff then got to where Mio stood around Cassy.

"What happened?" He asked.

"When you two got trapped inside the jaws, she just swung her sword really hard while yelling the words 'Black Clash'. Then there was a huge sword slash going straight towards the sea king and then she just fainted." Mio answered.

"She learned it?!?" Cliff asked.

"Looks like it. What did you do to your kanabo, Taiga?" James asked.

"Dunno." Taiga said.

"You said it was a Mythical Zoan didn't you?" a voice came that caught all of them by surprise and caused them to jump, "AIIEEIIIA!!!"

"You're awake?!?!" Mio asked having been the first to regain composure while the others tried their best to regain composure and make it look like they hadn't screamed like a little girl.

"Yeah." Cassy said, clearly amused. "Anyway, your devil fruit is a mythical zoan. There's bound to be differences between it and a normal zoan. A mythical zoan is based on creatures of myth, whether they themselves exist or not, and more often than not these creatures have a power set."

Taiga looked at her for a second, "You mean to say, my mother was not lying when she said my grandfather could control the very winds?!?!?!"

"Very much possible." Spoke May. "Not much about the mythical zoan has been documented or known."

The crew then looked towards Taiga waiting for a reaction,

"Time for us to move! The ship is damaged and we need to get out of here in case the sea king comes back!" Cassy roared and instantly everyone was moving.

…

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