chapter 117

"DAMN YOU!" Lokni shouted with an outraged roar as his attack dissipated while my own kept charging towards him without losing any momentum, causing him to brace himself for impact.

The miniature sun quickly reached the thunder cloud monster, and he reacted by trying to stop the attack with his hands, reaching and grabbing it with gigantic hands.

"No matter how great the sub is," Lokni said through gritted teeth as he received the attack with both of his hands. "A single rain cloud is all that's needed to block its light," he added, grunting as he began applying pressure on the miniature sun and trying to extinguish it with his clouds.

I watched with a grin as Lokni seemed to endure the attack despite his apparent struggle as the miniature sun kept getting smaller and smaller in his hands. "That may be so, but there will always be some light slipping through the cracks," I replied, my smirk becoming more pronounced as my attack suddenly stopped shrinking.

"Not that I really care about any of this nonsense," I added with casual disregard as the miniature sun began to expand rapidly, engulfing all of Lokni's gigantic body and promptly exploding.

To say that the resulting explosion was merely loud or big would be an understatement. The very ground shook with debris flying everywhere, tarnishing the surrounding building, reaching so far as to damage the god palace I went out of my way to stay clear off even more.

The loudness of the explosion was nothing to scoff at either, and as a person with enhanced hearing, I must say, that was not pleasant at all, but I digress.

The explosion quickly cleared after a dozen seconds or so, revealing a giant crater on the ground with a gigantic monster's form to where to be seen. Still, I could see the figure of good old Lokni lying in the center of the crater, what's left of his figure anyway.

"Haha..., haha," The scorched, disfigured Lokni, who had two of his limbs missing, tried to laugh through his burnt throat, producing a sound that was no more pleasing to my ears than the explosion.

"That goddamned magician," the pirate captain said with a smile that hid his anguish. "Magician?" I asked with a frown as I made my way toward him.

"A fortune teller," Lokni replied as he turned his head to look at the sky with a lot of difficulties. "He said that I'll amount to nothing as a pirate, and only death would be waiting for me if I continued on this path," the pirate captain explained, struggling to keep his eyes open.

"I guess he was right," Lokni said, his voice losing volume as he spoke and becoming whispers at the end of his sentence while his one remaining hand reached towards the sky. "HAHAHAHA," and with one last laugh, Lokni's hand fell to the ground, and he was no more after spending the last of his energy.

"Basil Hawkins, eh?" I murmured with a blank expression. "I never liked creepy bastard even in the anime, and it looks like he's even more of an asshole in real life," I remarked, shaking my head as I took out my whisky bottle.

"What are you talking about?" Wilson asked with a curious expression on his face as he made his way towards me. "Nothing, just thinking out loud," I replied with a smirk as I burned what remained of Lokni's body and turned him to ashes as the last sign of respect for the dead.

"Let's get going," I said in a sober tone. "We have a sky island to loot and a devil fruit to find," I added with a smirk as I turned my back to Lokni's ashes and left.

-0-

Third person's point of view:

Earlier.

"What the hell is that giant monster?" Elly asked with wide eyes as Urouge, the rest of Johnny's crew, and her exited the palace, promptly noticing the giant monster battling her captain.

"That should be Lokni," Urouge replied with a frown as his usual broad grin left his face for just a second, but it quickly returned.

"I've heard tales of former users of the cloud fruit being able to transform into giant monsters of thunderclouds," he explained after a second of silence the mad monk used to regain his composer.

"That thing is pretty dangerous. Is your captain going to be okay?" Urouge asked while watching the giant monster attack Johnny.

"Of course, he'll be okay," Laffite replied, having learned his lesson after watching his captain fight Don Chinjao back in Kano county. Still, the idea of believing so blindly in another was new to him, and he was worried on the inside but chose not to show it.

Elly nodded with a smile, not hesitating for a single second to showcase her approval of Laffite's statement as she had no problem in blindly believing in her captain.

Law, on the other hand, merely frowned with a concerned look on his face, but he didn't make transform his worries into words. He was satisfied with only preparing himself to act in case something went wrong.

"I see," Urouge said while nodding his head with a grin. "Your captain quite the lucky man," he added as he turned his attention back to the battle.

The battle intensified and quickly concluded with a giant fiery explosion that swallowed Lokni's thunder cloud form, leaving him as nothing but a charred body that was living on borrowed time.

"I didn't know you captain could do something like this," Urouge said with eyes wide in amazement after the explosion subsided, his smile faltering for the second time today. "He definitely didn't use that against me," he added in a light tone.

"Way to state the obvious," Law replied in a sarcastic tone as the tension finally left his body. "You wouldn't be standing here if he did," he added with a raised eyebrow, looking sideway at the mad monk.

"Still, I didn't know he could do something like this either," Law remarked after a second of silence as he turned to look at Laffite and Elly with a questioning look on his face.

Laffite merely shrugged his shoulders with a smile, indicating that he didn't know either, causing Law to turn his eyes to Elly.

"I didn't know about this ability, too," Elly said with a smile while waving her hand. "But that's what's so fun about following Johnny," she added in a happy, excited tone.

"You always learn something incredible about him every day," she concluded as she flew into the air, making her way towards Johnny.

"Well, don't just stand there with your mouth full of teeth. Let's get going too," Laffite said in a joking tone with his usual amiable smile as he followed behind Elly, jumping into the air.

"I have to learn how to do that," Law murmured with twitching eyes while watching Elly and Laffite basically fly their way towards Johnny. "You and me, brother," Urouge said jokingly from the side while shaking his head in exasperation.

"Don't act friendly with me, old man," Law said with a scowl, activating room and disappearing from the vicinity. "What a bunch of rowdy pirates," Urouge murmured to himself with a smile as he too made his way towards Johnny with a jog, feeling like a peasant for his inability to move in fancy ways.