476. Power of Friendship

Everyone is relieved seeing Buggy finally finished his preparation. They immediately move to save their defeated crewmates and retreat before anyone dies of injuries. Some of them are gravely injured, after all, so they need to be treated immediately.

Cricket and Enel are retreating too, but they don't look very good now. They aren't injured, but their complexions are very bad. It's like they have severe anemia or a deadly illness seeing how pale they are now. Their crewmates even need to help them move because they are very weak.

Dela also looks tired, but her condition is much better than Cricket and Enel's. She only looks like someone who has just exercised until she runs out of gas. They were just sitting next to each other, but the 3 become very tired while Buggy is full of energy now.

It really makes Imu wonders what have they done just now. That's why Imu doesn't even try to stop the retreating Clown Pirates because he is very focused on Buggy who feels very different now despite looking the same. It makes Imu very wary of him.

"You sure have been rampaging when I couldn't fight you. Man, you better hope that you didn't kill any of my friends or I'll really fuck you up."

"What did you do?"

"Hmm? You start talking again after this long? Heh, it seems you were very lonely because you haven't said anything since your talk before our fight. Does your mouth feel sour for staying silent all this time?"

"Just answer my question, vermin! What did you do just now? Why do I feel something different in your body?"

"Doesn't want to chitchat, huh? Well, that's fine by me. But don't expect me to answer your damn question. You will see it soon anyway, so there's no point in answering that. Just know that after you saw it, you won't have much time left."

Imu frowns displeasedly, but he doesn't say anything else and just gets ready to fight Buggy again. He has lived for hundreds of years, so he knows when things are about to get bad. He can feel something dangerous from the current Buggy who gives off a very different feeling than before.

If the previous Buggy was just a threat that was quite troublesome, then the current Buggy is a dangerous threat that even makes him wary. He wasn't worried when fighting the previous Buggy even if it's not easy to win. But he could feel his life will be in danger if he fights the current Buggy, that's what Imu feels.

"Time to settle this, old fossil. Let me show you Clown Pirates' trump card. The true Power of Friendship."

Buggy's body suddenly glows brightly as it gets bigger. Imu widens his eyes when he sees blue scales suddenly appear on Buggy's skin. Then a pair of long horns appear along with a big & long tail as Buggy's fingers turn into claws and his teeth turn into fangs.

Imu is really shocked to see Buggy transforms into an Azure half-dragon. It really doesn't make sense to him because this is Cricket's ability and he has seen Cricket use it himself. But Cricket is still alive now and only looks very sick, so his devil fruit shouldn't be taken.

Then, another surprise unfolds in front of Imu as Buggy's half-dragon body is covered by lightning currents. Imu looks at the pale Enel with wide eyes because this is Enel's lightning ability. Buggy suddenly uses others' devil fruit abilities and Imu doesn't know how.

"H-how is this possible? Are you taking their devil fruits?"

"Don't be silly, you bastard. There's no way I would take their devil fruits because it would kill them. Besides, I would die as well if I consume other devil fruits. I am not that freak Teach who has a strange body. They just lend me their power, that's all."

Imu still doesn't understand for a while, but then he suddenly looks at Dela with widened eyes. He has a guess after hearing what Buggy said, but he knows Buggy won't confirm it even if he asks. So he just stays silent because he still needs to defeat Buggy no matter what anyway.

Well, Imu's guess is correct, after all. It's Dela who made Buggy able to use Cricket's and Enel's abilities. Imu just doesn't know how she exactly did it except that it's her devil fruit ability. He doesn't know what devil fruit she used even with all his knowledge.

Dela's devil fruit was found on an uninhabited island in Calm Belt, after all. So it's understandable for the fruit to be unknown. Though even Buggy never expected that Imu who has lived for hundreds of years doesn't know it at all and the World Government also never knew it.

Her devil fruit is called Transfer Transfer Fruit by the Clown Pirates. They don't know its real name, so they named it after the ability it granted. The fruit allows Dela to transfer voice, thoughts, or even energy from others to her, her to others, or others to others.

At first, they simply used her ability to communicate with each other because she can basically use telepathy by transferring thoughts or voices. She also used her ability to help the tired crew members by transferring energy from the ones who weren't tired.

But then, she surprisingly awakened her devil fruit ability and found out another use. She can transfer others' devil fruit abilities to herself or others temporarily. It consumes a lot of energy, but she can make someone use more than 1 devil fruit ability for a period of time.

The only problem is it can't be used on anyone because one needs to be powerful enough to house those abilities in their body. Not everybody is Teach, after all. Their body structures aren't mysterious and strange like him, so even borrowing devil fruit abilities temporarily has its limit.

Even Buggy can't add more than 3 devil fruit abilities into his body. But he only adds 2 now because using 3 would shorten his time limit. It would be more difficult to control and he would need to use more energy if he uses 3 devil fruits anyway, so 2 is his best option now.

Besides, he thinks that his Chop Chop Fruit, Cricket's Fish Fish Fruit model Azure Dragon, and Enel's Rumble Rumble Fruit make the best combination. Paramecia, Zoan, and Logia. Those 3 fruits' abilities don't clash with each other and can be used at the same time, that's what Buggy wants.

"Let's settle this, ancient man!"

Buggy suddenly appears in front of Imu and sends a very fast punch at Imu's face. It startles Imu, but he manages to react by tilting his body backward to avoid the punch to his face. Then he flashes away while still being surprised by Buggy's unbelievable new speed.

Even in his normal form, Buggy is very fast already. Now he gets boosted by a Dragon's and Lighting's speed. The lightning is obviously very fast, but the Dragon is also fast. The combination of their power with Buggy is enough to grant him speed faster than even Enel.

Buggy attacks again by slashing his left claws at the retreating Imu from afar. There's no visible energy from that slash, but Imu still gets away quickly. The ground where he stood just now and the corner of his robe suddenly get cut without any sign.

'His invisible cutting attack has gotten much faster. Is it the effect of the lightning power?'

Buggy's invisible slash attack has gotten much faster than before that Imu almost fell prey to it if not for his monstrous senses and future sight of his advanced observation haki. The thought of getting hit by Buggy's attack doesn't make Imu scared though, he is getting angry instead.

'He actually made me feel nervous. A damn vermin is making me fall into panic and then felt relieved that I could avoid his attack?'

Imu's confused and worried expression suddenly transforms into a very furious expression. His surrounding suddenly shakes as the ground beneath him melts. Imu suddenly flies higher as a red violent flame covers his body.

"NO! I WOULD NEVER FEEL AFRAID! HOW DARE YOU, A WORTHLESS PEST MAKE ME QUESTION MYSELF?! I WILL MAKE YOU PAY! EVEN DEATH WON'T SAVE YOU FROM ME."

The violent red flame around Imu's body suddenly turns black and moves around like a snake. His giant demon form also suddenly transforms as the red skin changes into lava-like skin. Black flame comes out of his mouth, covering his hair, horns, tails, claws, and feet.

Then his gigantic body gets smaller until he is around Whitebeard size. But even if Imu is smaller now, Buggy can't help but become more serious because he can feel that this Imu is much stronger than before. The smaller Demon Imu is actually much more intimidating than the Giant Demon Imu.

"Is that his awakened form?! Motherfucker really uses his trump card after I used mine. Damn! You are making my high winning chance drops again."

Buggy is pissed by this development, but he isn't worried at all. This is still under his expectation because he knew that Imu should still have more cards. It's actually better this way because he can face Imu's true power from the beginning when he still has a lot of energy.

"Alright, come! Let's settle this quickly!"

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