Chapter 23: Wax and Paint

Mature Language ahead! You have been warned.

Chapter 23:

Wax and Paint

Recap: Coby accidentally ate a Devil Fruit, the Ancient Zoan: Model Triceratops, and Dorry was injured by an explosion from the alcohol he was drinking. The volcano erupted, indicating the start of a new duel. One Dorry was far too injured to win.

"Man this sucks," Gin complained, dragging the dinosaurs Zoro and Sanji had dumped on him. He was halfway back to the ship and painting from the exertion. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure that was leaning against a tree. "What the? Zoro? I thought you ran off with Sanji, though knowing your sense of direction..." He drew closer and immediately noticed something was wrong. "Oh shi-!"

BOOM!

"AHHH!" Usopp and Nami screamed in unison. They were being chased by a giant saber-toothed tiger through the jungle. They kept running, Usopp firing various pellets at the monstrous feline in a vain attempt to dissuade it. Nami tripped over a branch just as Usopp fired an Exploding Star. The ancient cat bounded over the fallen female toward its true aggregator. Usopp ran off, the tiger following. Her intuition telling her that Usopp would be fine, probably, Nami snuck away in case that cat decided to return. To her right, she spotted a familiar straw hat.

"Luffy!" she called happily, jogging over to the figure. "What are you doing over here? Where's Vivi?" There was no answer. "Luffy?"

"Kyahahaha!"

"AHHH!"

"Would you look at that?" Zoro muttered. "The Crap Cook went and got himself lost." He caught a glance of orange or of the corner of his eye and looked to his left. "Nami? What are you doing out here? Luffy'd be worried." She didn't move. "Nami?"

BOOM!

"Don't go, Old Giant Guy," Luffy insisted. Despite his protests, Dorry was forcing himself onto his feet.

"Please," Vivi begged. "You're in no condition to fight."

"Elbaf has made his decision," Dorry said sadly. "I did not have the protection of our god of war. Such will be the end of our duel, but I will die an honorable death. You cannot stop me." Just to be sure, Dorry lifted part of the hole-filled mountain behind him and dropped it on Luffy. The pirate had mentioned that he had a Devil Fruit power that meant he couldn't get crushed earlier, so Dorry was not worried about him dying. The giant ran off to fight what he believed to be his last duel. The two giants met on their battlefield while Luffy struggled to pull himself free. The giants fought wildly, but it was obvious who had the advantage.

"Luffy!" Usopp yelled, running into the campsite. "I have terrible news! I think Nami was eaten by a dinosaur!"

"What?!" Luffy demanded, his mind instantly taken off of the gargantuan fight taking place and onto his girlfriend's well-being. "What happened?!"

"We were running from a dinosaur and she was there one second and then I turned around and she was gone!"

"Now, now," Vivi tried to reason. "She may have just gotten lost. We aren't sure she was eaten. I think she might have been kidnapped, though."

"Kidnapped?" Usopp questioned.

"Yeah," Vivi answered. "That alcohol Broggy gave Dorry exploded in his stomach. We didn't do it and I don't think Broggy did it, so there must be someone else on the island. It's most likely Baroque Works after us." There was slow clapping. The three humans and one oversized duck turned to see the Mr. 5 pair walking out of the jungle, the male of the two doing the clapping.

"Very impressive, Ms. Wednesday," Mr. 5 complemented. "Too bad that just because you know how something happened doesn't mean you can do anything about it."

"You bastard!" Luffy raged. "Where's Nami?!"

"Don't worry," Ms. Valentine giggled. "Your little girlfriend is alive. For now anyway."

"You!" Vivi growled. She, Carue, and Usopp attacked, but the sniper was sorely lacking in information. He tried to attack Mr. 5 with an Exploding Star. Much like she had in Whisky Peak, Ms. Valentine rode the explosion into the air before falling on the long-nosed teen. Meanwhile, the princess and the duck attacked the male. Vivi had pulled out her unconventional weapons, but Mr. 5 seemed only slightly amused. "Peacock Slasher!"

"It's always funny watching you fight, Ms. Wednesday," the bomb-man chuckled, flicking a booger that brought Carue down. When the blunette was within range, he stepped to the side, causing his foot to blow up and throw her off balance. He caught the royal female by the neck. "Don't worry. We don't intend to kill you. Yet."

He would have said more, but a dinosaur wearing clothes charged out of the forest and trampled him. The dino, a triceratops, had tried to skewer his head with one of its horns, but the man had shifted out of the way just enough that the sharpened bone only destroyed his right ear before he could use his powers.

"Holy FUCK!" the agent swore, covering his mangled ear. "What the Hell was that?!" The dinosaur closed its eyes and began to shrink. Several second later it was revealed to be Coby. The boy stood over the princess protectively.

"That was so cool!" Luffy yelled from his trapped position. "I didn't know you had a Devil Fruit, Coby!"

"I didn't," the boy told his captain. "At least, not before coming to this island." In the distance, Dorry went down in a spray of red, his fight lost.

"You little fucker!" Mr. 5 yelled. "You destroyed my ear!"

"I know. I missed your ugly face." Mr. 5 threw caution to the wind and charged the young swordsman, using explosions from his feet to increase his speed. Coby waited until the last possible second before changing into Dino Mode. His horns grew out, causing Mr. 5 to explode against his plated face and retreat, the man's new fear of horns strong and Coby's glasses broken beyond repair by the force.

"Don't worry, Princess," Coby said while still a dinosaur, his eyesight better than in his human form. "I will protect you to the best of my abilities. He shrunk again, this time into his Hybrid Mode, and unsheathed his swords. "Now let's see what I can do with this."

Unfortunately, he wasn't able to test his abilities at that moment. A woman with a mass of 10,000 kilograms (and therefore a weight of 98,100 Newtons or 22054 lbs.) crashed on top of him, pinning him inside of a crater. With him out of the way, Mr. 5 ran in again and snatched the princess and Ms. Valentine (who now had a mass of only one kilogram and a weight of 9.81 Newtons (2.21 lbs.)) and dashed off.

"Dammit," Coby growled, pulling himself from the earth. The princess was gone, Carue and Usopp were unconscious, and Luffy was still stuck under the mountain. He decided that he would need to deal with his screaming captain before anything else. By shifting into Dino Mode, Coby wedged one horn under the mountain and pulled up just enough for Luffy's rubber body to wiggle out.

"Thanks, Coby," Luffy said. "Now let's go kick their asses!"

"Hold on, Captain Luffy," Coby suggested. "Let's wake up Usopp and Carue first."

"No need," Usopp moaned, clawing himself out of the crater Ms. Valentine had left him in. Blood was running down his face from some aberrations hidden by his hair and bruises covered his visible skin, but the sniper looked more angry than hurt. Carue quacked the signal that he was alive as well, burns littering his body from the explosion he'd been in.

"I think I can track them by scent," Coby announced, sniffing the ground. "Mr. 5 smells like fire and gunpowder."

"Wait?" Usopp questioned. "Coby? What happened to you?"

"Ate a Devil Fruit on accident."

"Oh... Congrats?"

"Alright!" Luffy cheered. "Now we're ready to go kick their asses!"

"How very kind off all of you for coming," Mr. 3 said to his, literally, captive audience. Vivi, Zoro, Gin, and Nami were all stuck on the wax man's Giant Candle Set like candles on a birthday cake, a large, pumpkin-like protrution at the top topped with candles of its own. Broggy was off to the side, held down by his own wax bindings. Behind the wax man stood the Mr. 5 pair (the male with his right ear patched) and his partner, Ms. Goldenweek.

Mr. 3 was a tall, thin man of about 30 years old with black hair stylized into a "3" shape. He was dressed in a blue and white striped button-up shirt with a red bow tie and khakis. A pair of glasses rested on his nose and the top of his hair burned like a candlewick. His partner was a short redhead with her hair in twin braids and big black eyes. She appeared to be around 13 in age and was dressed in a light, cloud-print jacket over a navy blue shirt. She also wore a red skirt hidden from the front by a painter's smock with the top half folded down, said smock covered in paint stains of all colors and sizes. A pink cowboy hat sat on her head and two blush-like ovals donned her cheeks. A painter's palette rested in her left hand, a paintbrush in her right. Completing her outfit were blue and white striped socks and pink tennis shoes. She was standing very close to Ms. Valentine.

"Big Sister," she muttered, grabbing the hem if Ms. Valentine's dress as her partner rambled on about turning the four pirates and one giant into statues, "he's doing it again."

"I know you don't like it," the blonde responded, placing a hand on the shorter girl's hat and showing a soft side none of the pirates had seen before, "but we have to bear with it. Where would we go if we left Baroque Works?"

"I still don't like it when he kills people."

"The plan is almost done," Ms. Valentine insisted. "Once we've created the perfect country, we won't have to kill anymore." Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you want to look at it, Vivi had good ears and had heard everything they'd just said.

"It's a lie!" she screamed, cutting off Mr. 3. "All those promises the boss made are lies! He doesn't want to make the ideal nation! He just wants to rule!"

"Silence!" Mr. 3 ordered. "Of course you would say that, trying to protect your kingdom and all, but we need it more than your corrupt society does. Now let the show begin!" The large wax pumpkin on top of the candle started spinning, slowly at first before gaining speed. Tiny flakes of wax drifted down like snow over the captives. In response, Zoro pulled out Wado Ichimonji and tried to cut the wax. When that didn't work, he struck a pose.

"What the Hell are you doing?!" Nami yelled at him.

"If I'm going to die and be turned into a statue, this is the pose I want to be in. You should get in one, too. Unless you want to die just standing up."

"I feel like Don Luffy is coming," Gin commented, "but I see your point." He got out his tonfa and fell into his fighting stance. "This will be my pose."

"You're both morons!" the girls shouted in sync. They bickered with the boys for a couple minutes, confusing the agents, before something happened. Luffy, riding a clothed triceratops, and Usopp, riding Carue the duck, charged out of the trees.

"They've got Zoro-sensei and Gin as well!" the dinosaur yelled in Coby's voice.

"Nami!" Luffy shouted. He rocketed off the three-horned creature, but Mr. 3 threw up a wall of wax that halted him. Luffy's arms snapped up and he flipped over the wall, both of his legs ready to come down on the wax man. In response, Mr. 3 turned himself into his element, leaving Luffy's legs to go through him and come out locked together in a candle.

Using his battle ingenuity, Luffy wrapped himself around one of the horns on Broggy's helmet before spinning free, gaining momentum. He hit Mr. 3 at one point when wax-man tried to halt the rubber-man, but Luffy was already moving too fast for him to stop and launched him into the forest. Luffy's trapped legs slammed into the pillar holding the wax pumpkin which snapped in half and fell with a cry of "Gum-Gum Mallet!". Thinking it was over, Luffy glanced at his companions before the wax-man could come back. Usopp and Carue had run off into the jungle with Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine hot on their heels and were circling through the clearing every few minutes, but Coby was having the weirdest fight of the four of them.

"Please don't make me hurt you," Coby begged. He was in his Hybrid Mode and facing down the female painter who had introduced herself as Ms. Goldenweek.

"Then don't," she responded nonchalantly. She laid out a blanket and started pouring tea. A bundle of rice crackers sat on the basket she put next to her, so she took one and started nibbling on it.

"You're not going to fight?" Coby asked, inching closer to the redhead.

"I can't let you all stop the wax," she hinted with a shrug, "but if one pirate is all I can handle..."

"Huh," Coby grunted. "Why aren't you fighting?"

"I never did like Mr. 3 turning people into statues. He makes me paint them so they're lifelike, but they freak me out." She shivered. "Plus work is boring. I'd rather paint than fight. Is that what you actually look like?"

"Well, no," Coby responded. "I ate an Ancient Zoan Devil Fruit and this is my Hybrid Mode."

"What do you really look like?" Coby closed his eyes and changed back, his height shortening that extra two inches and his eyesight going blurry. He sat down on the blanket and squinted to see the rice crackers. He reached out hesitantly, but it took him a few tries to grab one.

"Your eyes suck, don't they?"

"Yeah. I had some glasses, but they got blown up by that bomb guy."

"I've heard that some Zoan types are able to only change parts of their bodies at a time. Maybe you could do the same with just your eyes."

"Maybe I could," he agreed before frowning. "Why would you give me that suggestion?"

"Colors Trap!" Ms. Goldenweek suddenly declared, whipping her pallet out and mixing two colors. "Befriending Yellowish-Green!" She painted a weird symbol on Coby's shirt that caused him to instantly relax. The sounds of fighting erupted behind Coby as Mr. 3 returned to prevent Luffy from saving their friends. The wax-man would have yelled at Ms. Goldenweek to help him, but when he saw the green on the boy's clothing, he knew she would be unable to help.

"What was that for?" Coby asked in a pleasant tone. "I liked this shirt."

"Sorry about that," the girl apologized, sitting back down. "I really don't want to fight your captain since I honestly want him to stop the Giant Candle Set, so I used my paint on you. Mr. 3 thinks I can only manipulate one person at a time."

"This is some good tea," Coby complemented, drinking from a cup Ms. Goldenweek had poured for him. "How do you manipulate people?"

"Painting has run in my Daddy's side of the family since paint was invented. Through the generations, my ancestors developed the ability to alter emotions through paint and a certain symbol. That's what I did to you. I make all of my own paint and mix in certain chemicals that react in your body to cause different reactions. That's why I use the symbol, it keeps the amounts of chemicals consistent."

"Neat. So is there a reaction for all of the colors?"

"Yeah, but Daddy wasn't able to teach me all of them before he and Mommy died."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up sad memories."

"It was a while ago, but that's why Big Sister and I joined Baroque Works."

"You have a sister?" Coby asked, taking another cracker despite realizing that he should try to help his crewmates escape. "What's going on behind me?"

"Your captain just broke through one of Mr. 3's Wax Walls. I think your friends will be saved soon. Mr. 3 seems pretty dizzy." Just as she spoke, Luffy ran forward and brought his feet down in a double Gum-Gum Battle Ax. One foot hit between Vivi and Zoro while the other landed between Gin and Nami. The wax cracked, but not enough for the partially-petrified pirates to escape. It was a start, though.

"You know," Ms. Goldenweek said. "I've been thinking about leaving Baroque Works for a while now. I mean, yeah, they took us in when Big Sister and I needed a place to go, but... I'm not sure I like what they're fighting for. Is what Ms. Wednesday said about the boss's promise being a lie true?"

"I'm afraid so," Coby answered honestly. Ms. Goldenweek knew he believed what he said since no one could lie while under the influence of her yellowish-green paint. "Princess Vivi explained it to us on the way here. Your boss wants to take over Alabasta so he can rule it himself. He actually started the civil war going on there right now."

"That's not nice," Ms. Goldenweek responded. "Guess I'm going rouge. What to save your friends?"

"Please." Ms. Goldenweek painted a red line through the symbol on Coby's shirt, negating its effects. Coby stood, transforming into his Dino Mode as he did. He charged the gargantuan candle which was still cracked from when Luffy had hit it. The boy rammed the Giant Candle Set with all the speed he could, the force enough to the cause the cracks to widen and the area holding the four captives to crumble. The four, who were about three-fourths covered in wax, tumbled to the ground. Their waxy coverings mostly shattered upon landing.

Vivi, Zoro, Gin, and Nami were free, but the battle was not over yet.

End of Chapter 23

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-SwordOfTheGods