Chapter 99: The Captain Returns

Chapter 103:

The Captain's Return

While Zoro, Brook, and Sanji worked together to distract Oars and Moria, Nami and Grace worked their way down to the courtyard, something that turned out to be for the best when the titan tried to squish them with a stretchy Strong Right.

"Alright," Nami scowled as she and Grace finally reached Robin and Coby, having passed Chopper, Franky, and Usopp on the way. "What's the problem and where the Hell is Luffy?"

"Captain Luffy got shot into the forest somewhere when Moria appeared," Coby answered, "and Gin, Amy, Franky, Merry, and Usopp are out for the count while Chopper's trying to stabilize them. Right now, I think trying to stall Oars until Captain Luffy can get back is our best bet, but Moria is able to make him stretch like Captain Luffy by manipulating Oars' shadow."

"We have decided to try to disable Oars' arms," Robin offered, stepping forward as one of Zoro's flying slashes ripped apart the ground where she had been standing. The woman remained unharmed as well as nonchalant. "That would be the best way to cripple Franky's fighting style. Ah, excuse me a moment." robin crossed her arms. "Mil Fleur: Giganto Mano!"

A giant arm made of one million smaller arms bloomed into existence on the ground, backhanding a punch that Oars sent toward the group of four. Robin panted from the stunt as the arm, having served its purpose, dispersed into flower petals.

"You rats are turning into a real pain in my ass," Moria growled. "Quit screwing around, Oars!"

"I'm sorry, Master! I'll super try harder! Strong Right!" Zoro and Sanji jumped out of the way, Oars' fist burying itself in the ground due to the extra power he'd put behind it. "Ow! My fist is stuck!"

"Is that so?" Zoro smirked. "In that case... Demon Raven's Talons!" With a running head start, Zoro all but rolled up Oars' arm, his swords carving deep gashes in groups of three. Oars yelled in anger, ripping is arm out of the ground and backhanding the swordsman. Sanji attempted to take advantage of this, jumping toward the room in the giant's stomach with a burning right leg. Moria scowled, bringing his shadow up to wrap around the chef's leg and smothering the fire there.

Sanji wobbled as the corporeal shadow threw him off, causing the cook to slam into the giant's stomach to the right of the window and lose his cigarette in the process. Moria's doppleman grabbed Sanji before gravity could take hold, dragging him toward Moria so the Warlord could steal his shadow for a second time.

Brook tried to come to his rescue. Using his lighter weight to reach them, the skeleton slashed through the doppleman before thrusting his rapier at the probably-not-fully-human person controlling it, only to find that what he was stabbing was not flesh, but shadow.

"Kiishishishi!" Moria laughed from right next to the skeleton where he held the cook. "You stupid rats! I can switch place with my doppleman at will!" Grabbing both Brook and Sanji in one oversized hand, Moria forwent the use of his scissors and ripped one combined shadow from both of them. Both pirates instantly fainted, Sanji coughing up blood and Brook's skull cracking as the crude means of removing their shadows damaged their bodies. The two now out of the fight and useless to him, Moria tossed them out of Oars' stomach without so much as a glance and shoved their combined shadow in the back of the cockpit.

"108 Caliber Phoenix!" Moria barely had time to duck before a flying slash cut the air where his neck had been, said slash cleaving over a foot into Oars' stomach flesh and the back wall of the cockpit as well as slicing the Doppleman's head off.

"You super bastard!" Oars yelled. "Don't cut my parts! Strong Right!"

"One gorilla," Zoro muttered, his right bicep bulging. "Two gorilla. Two Gorilla Slash!" Zoro's swords met Oars' fist, pushing its momentum to the swordsman's left. Zoro panted from the force, but smirked around Wado Ichimonji until a shadow passed over him and another fist came down.

"Strong Left!"

"That isn't one of Franky's attacks!" Coby gasped as his teacher was sent flying, the green-haired man getting buried in a wall from the force of the giant fist.

"He's adapting," Robin realized as Oars turned his attention to them.

"Only four left," the titan rumbled. "Three girls and a guy."

"Cover me!" Nami ordered, whipping out her Clima-tact and releasing Heat and Cool Balls into the air. Robin, Grace, Coby nodded before jumping into action, Coby rushing forward in his Dino Mode with Grace on his back.

"Alright, Coby!" Grace yelled. "Let's go! Colorful Volcano!" The painter jumped as Coby rolled forward, the boy changing into his Hybrid Mode before his feet met Grace's. Both teens extended their legs. The resulting force sent Grace hurtling upward, her hat fluttering away in the wind. Oars snatched the girl out of the air before she could even reach his stomach, intending to crush her like a grape, but did a double take at the grey-green smoke that slowly curled up from his hand. Opening his fist in worry, Oars found a smirking redhead standing in his palm, his fingers and most of the skin around the girl bubbling from some chemical substance.

"What did you-?"

"I'd be careful if I were you," the girl taunted with a wiggle of her finger. "Too much force could easily make your hand fall apart."

"Why you!" Oars roared, swinging his left had down to punch the girl in his hand.

"72 Caliber Phoenix!" Coby yelled, his flying slash, while still not as strong as Zoro's, was still strong enough the push the giant's hand, making Oars punch his own wrist rather than Grace. The redhead stumbled and fell from the hand, Coby catching her in his Hybrid Mode.

"You punks!" the giant growled, punting Coby and Grace as they fell. The Zoan of the two took the brunt of both the kick and the subsequent landing, but the shock was enough to knock both him and girl out of commission.

"Two girls left," Oars muttered, searching for his prey only to find Moria standing amidst the rubble with an unconscious Robin at his feet. "Master!"

"Don't worry, Oars," Moria waved off. "While you were distracted, this one," he nudged the archeologist so she rolled onto her back, "tried to snap my neck." As soon as the Warlord finished speaking, he was launched backward by a guest of wind more powerful than any he had felt before, but he managed to land on his feet. Twisting around toward the origin of the wind, he found several distorted versions of the Straw Hats' navigator.

"You better watch yourself," the six dopplegangers chorused in six-part harmony. "There's a thunderstorm warning for the entire Florian Triangle. Monsters and bastards are advised to move inside to reduce the chance lightning strikes. Thunderbolt Tempo!"

"Master Moria!" Oars wailed, the lightning coming down before he could blink. The space where Moria had been standing was completely empty save for scorched rubble and just a hint of sizzling grass. "You bitch! You've killed Master Moria! I don't care if there are six of you or a hundred! I'll squish you flat! Strong Right!"

The mirages Nami had created split up, each one running in a different direction. Not knowing which one was real, Oars went for the one that looked like Nami's regular appearance. His fist shattered the ground when it made contact, crushing the mirage. Disappointed, Oars pulled his fist back, not realizing that Grace's acid paint was still eating away at his hand.

He targeted the short double next, punching that doppelganger as it tried to climb a piece of sharp debris. The corner stabbed Oars' knuckles as the double faded, leaving only four. The next target on Oars' list was the wide image. The double froze, staring at the fist as the other mirages dissipated.

"I got you now! Strong Right!"

The fist impacted, but it wasn't Nami. The navigator, having fallen back in fear as her illusion failed, stared up at the blue monster before her. The creature was over ten feet tall with spiky black hair. Muscles rippled under the much-too-small red vest it wore and a sword with a six-foot blade rested across its' back. One hand was held up, having stopped Oars' Strong Right cold.

"Don't you dare," the creature growled. The hand squeezing Oars' middle finger tightened, making audible cracks in the bone beneath. "You had the audacity to hurt my crew. I won't let you hurt my wife, too."

"Wait," Nami blinked. "Luffy?! What happened to you?"

"I'll explain later," the captain answered, glaring at the cockpit in Oars' stomach where Moria watched silently. "Just let me kick this bastard's ass real quick."

"Kiiishishishi!" Moria cackled from within Oars' stomach room once more, throwing his hands out. "So what if you're blue now? I've wiped out your crew with nothing but your shipwright's shadow! Imagine the damage I'll do when I replace it with yours, Straw Hat!"

"Not gonna happen," Luffy stated.

"Master! You're alive!"

"Not for long," Luffy muttered ominously, grabbing Oars' middle finger with both of his and pulling. The titan stumbled before Luffy jumped, flipping the undead over his head before throwing him and Moria away from the courtyard and into the remains of the graveyard. "Nami, stay here," he ordered. "Help is on the way." With that, the captain vanished.

Just as Luffy and Oars vanished over the rubble of the broken mansion, a large group of pirates flooded into the destroyed courtyard.

"Hurry up!" a large, pink-haired woman at the front of the group ordered. "Find any survivors while Straw Hat distracts Moria!" The obvious captain of this group stood on the taller end with pink hair down to her back and very large red lips. There was also a sword strapped to her back.

"Damn," one guy muttered, standing next to Zoro's prone form buried in the stone wall. "This guy's seriously roughed up. I'm surprised he's alive."

"There's nothing but bones left of this guy!" another member called over Brook and Sanji.

"This woman doesn't seem harmed, but she's missing her shadow!"

"Two teens over here! They look like they got shot out of a cannon!"

"This dude has a pipe stabbed through him, but there's no blood!"

"We found a raccoon-dog caring for two more!"

"I'M A REINDEER, YOU JERK!"

"What the?" Nami blinked before stomping up into the rosette's face. "Who are you? What the Hell did you do to my husband?!"

"I'm sorry?" the newcomer questioned. "Husband? Who are you?"

"I'm Monkey D. Nami, the wife of that moron you turned into a massive, blue gorilla!" Realisation flashed in the woman's eyes, her large lips parting to show the navigator a smile with a missing tooth.

"You're his wife?! So he wasn't lying to me!" She shook her head and stretched out a hand. "I'm Lola, the captain of the Rolling Pirates, and your husband is the hope we've been waiting for for nearly two years since Moria took our shadows! We," she gestured to the group pulling the Straw Hats from the rubble, "are the Thriller Bark Survivors Association. As for what happened to Straw Hat, we gave him about one hundred shadows we'd managed to collect over the years, granting him the accumulation of all of their strength."

"You're telling me you stuffed shadows into him?"

"And it's working, too!" a male pirate agreed. A pair popped up from behind Lola, synchronized but very different. One, the one that had spoken, was rail thin with two buck teeth and curly orange hair. The other was on the larger side with a leather mask/helmet pulled down over his eyes and a warhammer strapped to his back. "Do you hear it? That's the sound of-"

"-Our tormentor getting the snot-"

"-Beaten out of him!"

"I don't know why he can hold all those shadows."

"I don't care, either!"

"Go, Straw Hat!" they cheered together.

Nami blinked at how familiar the two seemed, almost like she'd met them before, but that was absurd.

"Come on!" Lola insisted, grabbing Nami's arm and dragging her away. "We don't have much time."

Moria's head was ringing, and the near-constant abuse Oars' rocking was putting it and his body through wasn't helping matters. He scowled, clutching his face as his momentum swung him down into the bottom frame of the window in Oars' stomach. The Warlord opened his mouth, only for his body to be shoved into the wall as the giant he was inside of was yanked to the side.

Luffy, down on the ground, couldn't care less about the shadow-man's plight. The temporally-blue pirate in question was a little more occupied with keeping his balance while he swung the titanic zombie like a ragdoll from his hold on one of the fingers of the monster's right hand. Soon, the strain was too much for the dead, acid-covered flesh, the finger tearing and ripping at the knuckle before coming apart completely. Oars flew away, crushing several dozen trees in the forest and knocking over a hundred more.

"My finger!" the massive undead cried, staring at the empty spot his right middle finger had occupied. "You bastard!" Oars tried to stand, but Luffy was much faster than the titan could ever hope to be even before adding the speed of one hundred shadows.

"One Sword Style: Valley of Death," Luffy intoned as he unsheathed the giant sword the TBSA had given him with the shadows, not knowing where the attack name came from. He blurred out of focus as a massive gash opened on the fallen zombie's foot, cutting off two toes. More gashes appeared, working their way up the giant's body even as he tried to get on his feet; a cut opened just between the hip and Oars' right leg, half of the curtains floated to the floor, a long stitch in the giant's chest split down the middle. Finally, the all-but-invisible blur that was the pirate captain appeared on the gargantuan zombie's collarbone, his sword already slicing through the undead's neck.

Oars reached up with his right arm, trying to crush the blue pirate with the sword, only to realize that his hand had stopped halfway there. Slowly, ever so slowly, the zombie's larger forearm and elbow separated from his thinner upper arm. The now-useless appendage fell to the ground with an almighty crash.

"Oars!" Moria stood on the sideline, having swapped places with his doppleman at the earliest possible time he could, utterly perplexed and angry. His greatest weapon, the thing he had been creating for the purpose of facing down a Yonko, now laid before him defeated, felled by a rookie! Said rookie stood atop the beast he'd all but slain, his cold eyes turning to stare at the Warlord himself.

Moria felt no fear, not an ounce of it. No, the only emotion his trembling form radiated was pure anger. Complete and utter rage at this stupid, straw-hat-wearing buffoon that now stood on and over his greatest pawn. It never occurred to the angered shadow-man that the reason Luffy was able to defeat Oars so quickly was due to, in large part, his crew causing so much damage to the beast before he got back.

"STRAW HAT!" Moria roared. "I HOPE YOU'RE READY TO DIE!"

"Not today, Moria!" Luffy blurred toward the Warlord, two dark shapes left behind where he had been standing before floating away. Unaware of the loss of two shadows, Luffy Shaved forward, punching Moria in the stomach before the Warlord could react. The Shadow-man flew backwards for a few feet before the shadows around him congealed into a net, slowing and stopping his momentum.

A shadow loomed over Luffy, the pirate looking up to see Oars' remaining hand ready to crush him. Luffy's gaze hardened in response, his borrowed sword swinging up to sever the hand from the arm. Grabbing the hand before it could fall, the blue pirate stretched his arms and swung, bitch-slapping an unprepared Moria with the giant hand. Even as that happened, however, another shadow flew away without Luffy's knowledge. The East Blue native raced toward Moria, the Warlord growling at him as his shadow rose into his hands to form a warhammer of pure darkness.

"Take this!" Moria ordered as Luffy approached. "Dark Miölnir!" Luffy twisted, the instincts of nearly twenty swordsman allowing him to catch the shadow hammer with his borrowed sword. Even so, the hammer's momentum still slammed him into the ground back-first at Moria's feet. "You're a fool, Monkey D. Luffy!" Moria declared as tendrils of shadow sprouted from his weapon, holding the younger pirate down. "You aren't ready for the New World, but with your shadow in Oars, I would be!"

"Bastard," Luffy hissed, struggling from his grounded position. Try as he might, though, he could not break the bindings. Moria raised his hammer again, ready to knock the other captain unconscious, but something larger overshadowed them. Retreating quickly, Moria managed to replace himself with his Doppleman.

"Super Crush!" An Oars without both hands or his right arm body slammed Luffy, pressing him into the ground. Moria stared into the grinning face of his prized pawn with surprise. "Got you, Straw Hat! I'm super resilient!"

"Good work, Oars!" Moria laughed. "Now all that's left is to-!"

"Herk," Oars groaned, acting as if he were about to throw up. "What is-? Huh!" Oars' body started to rise without the zombie's say so. The sound of faint screaming erupted from the crack between the titan's stomach and the ground, growing louder as Oars got higher until, finally, the undead was launched into the air.

Standing where he had been before, a slightly-less-blue Luffy still had one hand raised from when he had been giving Oars a Gum-Gum Gatling to remember. Luffy bent down, never looking at Moria, before Shaving away and reappearing above the airborne zombie and twisting himself.

"Guuuuum-Guuuuum... Stoooorm!"

A veritable hailstorm of fists and feet rained down on the goliath speeding up his already-increasing downward momentum. Oars hit the ground where Moria was standing with an earth-shattering crash, a wave of compressed air destroying every tree in the vicinity. Luffy drew his sword before, as a last hurrah, separating both of the zombie's legs with a single flying slash. That deed done, the teen fell to the ground, the last of the shadows within him leaving to find their true owners and the sword he had so expertly wielded stabbing into the ground next to his face.

"That's it," Luffy grunted through heavy breaths. "We won."

...

Unfortunately, it seemed that Luffy spoke too soon, a sharp pillar of shadow stabbing through Oars' stomach before opening like some grotesque flower to reveal a bloody but very-much-alive and pissed off Warlord.

"STRAAAAAAW HAAAAAAAT!"

Not having the energy to jerk in surprise, Luffy slowly turned a wide eye toward the steaming Warlord. "But..." he stammered. "But I..."

"You couldn't crush me that easy!" Moria yelled, the shadows around him growing into a mass of dark tentacles that wiggled around him, visualizing his anger. "You've ruined everything! Forget taking your shadow! Forget using your body! When I'm done with you, your body will be so far gone that the Marines won't be able to confirm it's you! Come forth, Loki's Wrath!" The shadow tentacles surged forward, their deadly points ready to pierce the worn-out teen...

End of Chapter 103

Dun Dun Duuuuunnnn!

Gotcha! Don't you just love a good cliffhanger? There's nothing like the sweet smell of anger and suspense to drown out the stress sweat of finals... Wait, what do you mean they smell the same? No they don't! Right? Riiight?!

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-SwordOfTheGods