Speculation, Fight and Results

___________ POV Narration___________

Enel continued making his way towards the Sky Islands after finishing up in Alabasta.

It was true that he now had the first clue for his Awakening, but at the same time, he didn't want to rush things...

At the end of the day, he was still not that strong without his devil fruit.

He wanted to train himself properly before even thinking about an awakening. He also had to look into the aforementioned 'Island of Eternal Lightning' which he hadn't heard about in the past.

Upon consulting a map, he did find something rather interesting... Also glaringly related to the history of the three kings the Revolutionaries had found...

'There's literally an island named 'Raijin'...'

It was OBVIOUSLY meant to be the grave of that God... But a question still made its way to the Emperor's mind when looking at that island on the map...

'Why the hell is this island still here?'

The World Government had already proven, on numerous occasions, that they were more than capable of wiping islands from the face of the world.

So how the hell was an island with such significance to the Void Century allowed to continue existing?

'... Does IM's power have some type of restriction?'

Unfortunately, Enel didn't have enough knowledge about how that power worked. He could only speculate as to why some places weren't already erased by the world government...

In the end, he decided not to bother speculating randomly. He just turned his focus back on training while steering his ship back to the Sky Islands.

The rest of the journey took only around a week. With Enel focusing mostly on his armament and Conqueror's Haki.

Armament Haki he trained by repeatedly punching himself in the abdomen.

And Conqueror's Haki he trained by drive-by knocking out sea kings. It was surprisingly effective as well.

Still, he didn't make much progress, but he didn't really expect much from just a week anyway.

The first thing he did upon reaching the sky islands was to stop and stare...

'Two weeks... I was gone for just two weeks...'

On a secluded island in the distance was trembling. Shockwaves, wind and flying slashes were ravaging it and even some of the islands around it.

Enel could somewhat recognize the island... Well, what remained of it anyway.

'I'm pretty sure there used to be a mountain somewhere in there...'

Two people seemed to be fighting on that island. One was a burly man with short black hair and a beard, he was only wearing a pair of white shorts and black shoes.

His entire upper body was shining black as his punches devastated the island and created earthquakes.

It was none other than Garp, who was grinning while punching away at his opponent...

An equally shirtless man, wearing very similar clothes. He was less burly, his muscles still well-defined, and he had short blonde hair and a beard.

It was obviously Francisco... And he was wielding a strange cutlass, a blade that Enel hadn't ever seen on him before.

'Isn't that one of Shiki's blades?'

Yep, it was.

Shining black as Francisco endlessly clashed with Garp, batting away strikes and trying to penetrate the Marine Legend's Armament Haki, which was somehow even more monstrous than that of Kong.

With a good blade though, Francisco was still able to leave a few good wounds. Bleeding gashes on Garp's body were already numerous.

But Garp seemed to be able to stop the bleeding by simply flexing his muscles, tightening around the wounds and stopping all bleeding instantly... Certainly some type of application of Seimen Kikan.

Francisco however, was in a less favourable position...

Garp's fists were devastating.

The Legendary Pirate needed to either dodge or deflect most of Garp's hits, which was exceedingly difficult since the Marine Legend also had absolute mastery over the 6 powers, which granted him inhuman flexibility.

Sometimes his fists flew out at odd angles and trajectories. It made Enel sweat a little when seeing them bending around like snakes and striking at Francisco.

'I guess he really was going REALLY easy on me when I entered the marines...'

Francisco seemed to be able to take a few hits, but each one of Garp's strikes could injure him heavily, so he mostly dodged around and attacked whenever an opportunity arose.

Enel had never truly seen Garp fight like that before... But he had to admit it. It was astonishing, the level of strength that his body had.

'... How can a human without a devil fruit reach that level?!'

Still, seeing his two most trusted subordinates fighting such a brutal battle rose quite a few questions in the Emperor's mind... But why would he need to keep them in his mind?

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING!?"

The Emperor's voice thundered across the Sky Islands, the forests shivered and the animals fled at the sound of it.

His loud arrival seemed to make the two old men stop. They both looked towards Enel's white ship as it sailed towards them.

'Party's over, huh...' Francsico smiled a bit as he sheathed his(Shiki's) cutlass.

"You're lucky he got here in time, Blondy/Fister!" Both Garp and Francisco scowled at each other with exaggerated expressions as they spoke at the same time and gave each other the least impressive nicknames they could come up with.

Enel's ship landed near them, and the Emperor appeared right in front of them with a frustrated look.

"Captain! Glad to see you back so soon." Francisco smiled as he wiped some of the blood from the corner of his mouth, his blue eyes shined a bit when he greeted Enel.

Garp just crossed his burly arms and scoffed. "'Soon' You went off on your own for a few weeks without telling us anything again..."

Enel scratched the back of his head for a few seconds upon hearing that... He did forget to inform anyone that he would be coming back using his ship...

To the rest of the people on the islands. Enel just said he'd go meet with Vegapunk in the morning then return quickly... But he didn't return all that quickly...

"Sorry for worrying you all..." Enel smiled a bit as he continued scratching the back of his head.

"Bah. who'd be worried about you..." Garp muttered as he continued scowling.

"Garp was really close to just going after you..." Francisco smiled a bit as he looked at the old marine.

Garp gave him a disgruntled gaze before turning his head away and muttering a few curses.

Enel blinked a few times, deciding to ignore Garp's attempt at hiding his care, before finally remembering the reason he had landed on the island...

"So, anyone cares to explain why the two of you decided to ruin a nice mountain range?"

"..." Both old men were silent for a bit, looking at each other and away repeatedly, likely hoping that either would start explaining things first.

"... The silence doesn't give me a lot of assurance. You two realize you're still allies, right?" Enel sighed as he tilted his head slightly.

Francisco immediately perked up.

"Oh, nothing like that Captain! We weren't fighting to the death, this was just a spar..." The Old Pirate's smile trembled a bit as he decided to be the one to take the fall.

"Spar? You ruined a good piece of land for a spar?" Enel just scowled at the two of them.

It was true that they were in no shortage of space. But they weren't exactly at the point where they could go off and ruin a lush hunting ground.

Food was an important resource after all... Although they could always hunt more Sea Kings if things turned sour.

"Well... We wanted to see for sure... Who is stronger between the two of us." Francisco's voice sounded a bit less carefree and confident than usual.

Enel just sighed as he heard the answer he had expected most.

'So it was pride after all...'

It was just a matter of time now that Garp was also back in his prime.

The two old men had been butting heads for quite some time after all. They both likely felt that they had something to prove, and they saw each other as a rival, of sorts.

But their spar was certainly bloody...

"..." Enel just tilted his head and stared at the two of them, wondering how to go about telling them to never do such a thing again...

But could he really control the two old men? They weren't exactly children that listened blindly to his orders, especially Garp, who mostly did his own thing and scowled when he was asked to do something.

"So, what was the result?" Enel asked while looking around the island and at the two fighters.

Both had been injured, neither looked to be a victor in that fight.

"Well... When I was using a regular blade, it snapped after a while, and Garp won..." Francisco scratched the back of his head as he remembered being punched in the face by Garp.

"But with a proper blade... We are somewhat even. We've been going for 3 days already..."

Garp scowled when hearing that. "Even? You're dodging around constantly, if you weren't you'd be dead already..."

Francisco seemed a bit displeased with his retort as well... "That's just my fighting style! It's not my fault that you lacked the speed and skill to hit me consistently..."

Enel just sighed once more when hearing the two old men starting to bicker... It was something that he'd have to get used to, unfortunately.

The result was about what he had expected. The two of them specialized in different things, but they were both powerful fighters.

Prideful as can be as well. They had all the right to be, truly.

"Was this tie, which was the expected result, really worth destroying this much land?

Even if Shiki could always float up more islands, we don't exactly want to attract too much attention to ourselves..."

Garp seemed a bit annoyed at the situation, but he also couldn't exactly retort Enel...

What they had done was really hardly justifiable.

Thankfully, they weren't alone in their schemes.

"It was inevitable...They were at each other's throats ever since you left..." Another burly white man with white pants and black shoes walked in, having made his way to the island as soon as Enel had made his presence known.

He had a large black afro and a small moustache and a long braided beard.

It was none other than Sengoku, former Fleet Admiral turned... Revolutionary? Or, pirate? It was difficult to tell at that point. Whatever the government decided to brand him when Enel's army made its presence known to the world.

"But that's nothing new..." Enel nodded towards Sengoku in greeting as he spoke out, his tone still sounding disappointed.

"Shiki will fix up the island... He made sure none of the chunks that made up the mountain fell off into the lower seas, he controls the islands after all... Trees might take a while to grow back though..."

Francisco said as he looked around for Shiki, who was off drinking from what Enel could feel... But it seemed that Shiki had indeed made sure to catch all of the rocks from the destroyed mountain.

And for someone like the Golden Lion, rebuilding the mountain was going to be quite easy...

"Animals will also not be able to settle in quickly... But I guess it can't be helped at this point." In the end, Enel just sighed in resignation.

There was nothing he could do at the end of the day. The deed was already done. And he couldn't really think of any punishment for the two perpetrators... It also felt weird to even punish friends.

"Make sure to not do this type of thing again. You're both strong, we all know that, we don't need any more proof..." Enel shook his head and looked back at his ship.

Both Francisco and Garp nodded at that. They had both seen how they fared against the other already. There was really no need to continue.

"We'll make sure to ask him to rebuild the island..." Garp said as he finally unclenched his fists and loosened his muscles, which caused him to bleed.

Sengoku seemed to be prepared for that though, as he was already carrying a first aid kit...

Garp had no reason to be worried about ulterior motives now that he had just as many powerful marines on his side as Francisco had pirates.

Things were somewhat balanced now. Their fight was really just something they had started on a whim, and it had continued much more than it had any right to.

Sengoku and the others didn't bother stopping them either. In their opinion, it didn't matter as long as they weren't killing each other.

"I have some rather important cargo for Kuma, so I'll have to be on my way now... Make sure Shiki cleans up the sea of clouds when he's done getting shitfaced."

Enel then turned into a flash of light and went back to his ship, before starting it up and heading straight for Bonney, who seemed to already be expecting him...

'... Let's just hope Kuma doesn't have any issues taking his memories back in...'\

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Hope you liked the chapter!

Had a power outage yesterday btw, which was not all that pleasant tbh, since it stopped me from writing.

Could've written a bit earlier into the day, maybe, but I like writing at night, and procrastination, so yeah.

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