Chaotic Night

"......"

"Hey, I said it was ok."

"......."

"Everyone changes a little when they're drunk."

"....I'm so embarrassed I could die."

Said Hancock, who had her back turned to Luffy.

It was nighttime. After she sobered up, Hancock realized the magnitude of her actions and quickly secluded herself in one corner of the room.

She was too embarrassed to face Luffy.

"It wasn't a big deal."

"I forcibly stripped you and bit you all over, while chanting 'Liar, Cheater, Harem King'....What part of that wasn't a big deal?"

"......."

"......."

"It wasn't all that bad."

"Why the long pause?!"

Hancock curled up herself in a ball and refused to look at Luffy. By the way, she was dressed in her old clothing. She used her excellent sewing skills to fix her clothes. She was also able to move freely without feeling that much pain. It seems the heart-shaped fruits were more effective than she thought.

Of course, she wasn't fully healed but at least she can move around.

"I can't believe I wasted so much of the little time I have left getting drunk off honey! I can't tell my sisters about this!"

"Why? It would make a good party story."

Luffy said while laughing, but Hancock immediately shut him up with a glare.

She then quickly rushed over to him and grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Luffy, I want you to promise me! Promise me that you won't tell a soul about what happened here!"

"I-I promise!"

"I'm serious, Luffy! If word got out that the Pirate Empress and Queen of the terrifying Kuja Pirates got drunk from honey, forcibly stripped someone younger than her, and did various things to him, I won't be able to face anyone!"

"I get it!"

"If you don't keep your promise, you'll have to marry me to return my honor!"

"Eh?...Ah, I promise. If I break my promise, I'll marry you."

"Eh? Really? That easily?"

For an instant, Hancock started to think that it wouldn't be so bad if Luffy broke his promise. But immediately rejected the idea.

'No. When Luffy and I get married, I want to do it as a prideful woman. Not someone who people will laugh at behind her back. I want to become someone worthy of Luffy's love.'

Was what she argued in her mind.

"If I break my promise, I'll stop being a pirate."

"Eh?"

Hancock didn't expect him to say that and looked at him with widened eyes. She immediately saw that he was serious. It made her a little relieved and happy at the same time.

"No, marrying me is enough. I don't want to be responsible for ending your dream."

She insisted. Luffy replied with a simple nod and Hancock smiled.

"?!"

It was then that they felt an eerie presence. It wasn't moving toward them, but it was moving very fast.

"What was that? It's not that big, but it sends a chill down my spine the moment it passed."

"Let's go outside, Hancock!"

Saying so, Luffy ran towards the hive's exit, and Hancock quickly followed after.

"What the?!"

When the two reached outside, their eyes met with an unbelievable scene.

"T-The forests...It's on fire?!"

Everywhere Hancock looked around her, she saw trees burning. She could also see a lot of monsters trying to escape.

"Hancock, look up in the sky!"

At Luffy's instructions Hancock looked above her. There she saw a large flock of monstrous birds flying around.

They were more than a hundred of them. Some were spitting fire, others were flying down and swooping up the beasts that were trying to run away. They would toss them up in the air and rip them to shreds before they hit the ground.

Hancock could see slops of meat everywhere.

"What's going on, Luffy? Does this kind of thing happen all the time?"

"No. It isn't odd for monsters to fight each other, but not like this...Hancock lookout!"

Luffy desperately pushed Hancock to the ground, which surprised her.

"L-Luffy?! At a time like this?! Well, I admit that the dim light from the fire does create a romantic feeling...No, this isn't the time!"

"What are you blabbing about? Look at that."

When Hancock followed Luffy's finger, she saw several giant spikes lodged into the outside of the hive. She instantly realized that if Luffy hadn't pushed her out of the way, she would've been skewered.

"T-Thanks."

Luffy quickly stood and looked around the area. He then spotted a herd of giant porcupine-looking monsters below them. When he glared at them, they quickly turned around and started attacking every other race they came upon.

"They weren't targeting us specifically?"

Hancock mumbled.

"What the hell is going on?!"

*Boom!*

They suddenly heard a loud explosion coming from behind them. The flock of birds in the sky was ripped into pieces by something that looked like a long stream of water. When Hancock searched for the source of the water, she saw 4 giant frogs spitting water into the sky.

The monstrous birds began falling by the dozens, only to rip apart by various monsters when they hit the ground.

"I-It's like a war."

War. No matter how Hancock looked at it, that was the only way she could make sense of the chaotic scene in front of her eyes.

The monsters weren't just killing each other randomly. They moved systemically. They never attack their own race, but that didn't mean they attacked everything else. There were some races that were obviously working together to kill certain races. It was like they were in an alliance of some sort. That's why she couldn't look at this as mindless slaughter among the island's residents.

She could only see this as a war.

War for what? She didn't know. But she knew one thing, the island was currently in a state where there was no kind of order.

"Luffy, what should we do?"

"....Where's King?"

"King? Now that you mention it, I don't see him. But, he doesn't seem like the type to care about other monsters."

"No, he doesn't care. He's lazy and loves to sleep a lot. He's like a dragon version of Zoro."

Zoro would've probably been mad if he heard that.

"But just like Zoro, he loves to fight. He wouldn't pass up something like this, not when there are hundreds of beasts looking for a fight."

".....If you put it that way, I guess it's odd that he's nowhere to be seen...Could it be that he caused this?"

The same time Hancock said that she saw something being thrown up into the air.

"....Is that a giant snake?"

A headless serpentine body that measured more than 10 meters landed in front of them.

"T-This is the mountain snake! It's pretty strong! Who killed it?!"

As if to answer Luffy's question, he sensed that something was rushing towards him and turned around to block it. What he stopped was the arm of a humanoid creature that looked like a mixture of several different animals.

Luffy pushed the creature back and leaped back.

"W-Who the hell are you?!"

He shouted.

The creature ignored him and rushed towards Hancock.

"Know your place!"

But before it could reach her, she already cut the distance and kicked it in the side of its head.

The monster was sent flying.

"What type of beast was that, Luffy?"

"I don't know. It's the first time I've seen it."

"First? Didn't you say that you've fought all the beasts on the island at least once? Did it just migrate here?....No, that's impossible. This is the Calm Belt, the sea is crawling with Sea Kings. There's no way it could just migrate here. Which means that it must've been hiding."

Hancock started to wonder about the mysterious creature but stopped after thinking that, it's already been defeated.

That was a mistake.

"Hancock!"

After hearing Luffy's warning, Hancock turned around and saw that the beast was standing behind her. She was too late to react. The monster used it scorpion tail and stabbed at Hancock.

Luckily for her, Luffy stretch his arm and pulled her out of the way. The monster's stinger stabbed the hive. Moments later the entire hive started to melt.

Even though only a small part was stabbed by the stinger, the entire thing melted in a flash.

Seeing that, a chill ran down Hancock's spine.

"Hancock, it's too dangerous here! We're leaving!"

Saying that, Luffy entered gear 2nd and sped off carry Hancock.

"That was a good idea, Luffy. It's better to not fight something like that when we don't know its abilities."

"I couldn't care less about that!"

"Eh?"

Hancock thought Luffy was being cautious because he was unfamiliar with the monster, but that wasn't the case.

"I sensed him. King."

"Really?!"

"Yeah, he and 3 other strong guys were watching everything from afar. If it was King alone, I would've stayed and fought that gorilla. But, too many monsters were coming towards us. So, we had to run."

Luffy checked to see if anyone was trailing him, there wasn't.

"...Hancock, I don't what's going right now, but it seems like King is calling the shots. If we want to survive we'll have to take him down."

"I know. But not tonight. Let's watch the situation for now. We might have Haki, but that doesn't mean we don't have a major disadvantage fighting in the dark. If we fight them now, it's the same as suicide."

Luffy nodded at Hancock's analysis.

"I don't want to fight King in the night either. I want to fight him fair and square with nothing holding us back. If I can't do that, then my training was meaningless!"

Luffy declared strongly.

He and Hancock came to the decision of finding somewhere to hide until sunrise.

They knew that tomorrow is when everything truly begins.

It was also the day before Hancock had to leave the island.