Chapter 169

Nico Robin frowned, holding her ear with a wincing expression as she deactivated her ability after getting caught by Johnny, who didn't was didn't waste the chance to pull a prank on her for eavesdropping. Not that's how she saw it as she frowned while holding her ear.

She hadn't been far away from Spiders Cafe since the start of the fight, merely intending to spectate the battle out of boredom more than anything else.

However, the unexpected result of the fight that ended in the overwhelming victory of the Silver Hand pirates had astonished her to no limits, her brain in overdrive as she began thinking of ways to make use of the situation to her advantage.

She gave the ruins of Spider Cafe one last look and halted for a second, hesitating whether to inform Crocodile about Johnny's plans to head for Rain Base, but she quickly shook her head and left, intending to take a wait and see attitude for now.

...

"Well, I'll be off to Rain Base," Johnny said, unmindful of his companion's quizzical look as they watched the strange dissipating ear. "Clean up here, and get back to Nanohana," he added, cracking his knuckles.

"And be ready to set sail for Jaya as soon as I come back," Johnny concluded with a smirk as he took off in Rain Base's direction, already looking forward to fighting Crocodile.

"Hogging up all the powerful opponents for himself... how selfish..." Wilson muttered under his breath in an annoyed tone, glaring at Johnny's shrinking back as he flew away.

"Laffite..." Bob said with a sigh as he turned to look at the navigator, giving a meaningful glance.

"No need to tell me twice," Laffite said with a smile, creating a small cloud as he climbed on top of it and flew behind Johnny, intending to watch his captain's back just in case.

"Wait... how are we supposed to get down again?" Doc Q, the only one there who hasn't learned Geppo yet, asked with a confused expression, his eyes widening as the cloud suddenly vanished, causing him to fall, a fed-up expression on his face as he did.

...

"Crocodile!" A loud, provoking shout reverberated throughout the streets near Rain Dinner, Rain Base's biggest and most famous casino, as it belonged to the Warlord Crocodile, Alabasta's one and only hero.

"Get your ass out here so I can kick it! Crocodile!" Another shout reverberated, accompanied by a fiery fist that hit the giant, golden crocodile face on top of the casino, destroying it in a booming explosion that sent pieces of it crashing into the moat surrounding the casino.

The passerbys and the casino's patrons were alarmed, quickly evacuating the area in a stampede as they turned to look at the source of the sound still, provoking calling out Crocodile only see a man floating in the air, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"I don't know what you're trying to do here..." coldly remarked a man wearing a bright orange, black-striped button-up vest over a long-sleeve peach shirt, a vein bulging on his forehead as he floated on a platform of wreathing sand to meet the man taunting him.

"But I'll make you pay for damaging my property, you worthless rookie," the man, Crcocdile, added, spitting away his cigar as he glared daggers at Johnny.

...

And there he is, Sir Crocodile, in all his glory. I couldn't help smirking at the man as he scowled at me, glaring at me with a look that could almost kill.

Honestly, I have no idea how an airhead like Luffy could take down someone like Crocodile, and in what world could something like that happen? Especially now that I'm standing, or floating in this case, in front of him and feeling the almost tangible aura of violence and brutality, he radiated by just standing there and looking as menacing as he did.

Despite how careless Crocodile had been during his fights with Luffy, along with the help the latter received from his own luck and Nico Robin, I always thought Oda didn't do the man justice by having him defeated by Luffy this early in the story.

In any case, my fanboying over one of my favorite one piece villains aside, I had a goal coming here, and I needed to get my head in the game.

I was under no illusion that the battle would go as smoothly as my previous fights went, nor was I 100% confident in my victory, but fighting Crocodile was one of those things I had to do, merely for the hell of it.

As stupid as that may sound, fighting Crocodile was on the top of my bucket list, and I'm only doing it because I wanted to with no grand scheme or plan in mind, which is why I had my crewmates stay behind so as not to involve them in my selfishness if things go south.

"Looks like you're already eager to go! Good!" I remarked with a wide smirk splitting my face as I quickly drew Trition, swinging it to release a flying sword slash towards Crocodile.

"Keep smiling while you can..." Crocodile icily said, blocking my sword slash with his hook. "I'll wipe that smirk off your face soon enough, brat..." he added, swinging his hook hand to the side, effortlessly deflecting my sword slash into the moat below.

"Desert la Spada," Crocodile exclaimed, gesturing with his hand to create several solid, sand blades with fan-shaped edges that immediately flew towards me at incredible speed.

"Impact Fist," I muttered, punching forward, releasing a shock wave in front of me as the sand blades reached me, making them dissipate and fall into the ground as sand particles after a second of struggle.

"It will be boring if we keep fighting here," I said, gesturing with my hand to the side as I remembered Crocodile needed to be near the ground to use most of his devil fruit powers.

"Let's take this to the ground," I added, charging towards Crocodile as I activated my devil fruit ability, phasing through the many sand slashes crocodile sent towards me.