Chapter 286: Having Drinks with Whitebeard
The sea floor seemed to shift and writhe beneath the surface of the water. The beast's deep blue coloring made it impossible to determine what was part of the beast and what was merely open water.
The beast moved towards the Whitebeard fleet, the water rising up into a wave in its wake.
It moved with such speed that perhaps even the mermaids, known to be the fastest swimmers in the world, might not be a match for it.
That speed combined with its immense size and strength to create a genuine threat, even to the Whitebeard Pirates.
That wasn't to say that the division commanders were weaker than it, let alone Whitebeard himself. However, their ships were a completely different story; if they weren't fast enough, it might sink some of them!
The regular crewmen turned around to look at their glorious leaders in anticipation. How would these powerhouses go about intercepting the monster before it could damage their fleet?
"You brought out some really good stuff, old man." Cherry said, sipping from a sake bowl.
"Of course, there's no better reason to drink it than to celebrate the safe return of one of my sons." Whitebeard said, gulping from a bowl many times the size of Cherry's bowl.
"You don't want more than that? Are you a lightweight, perhaps?" Whitey Bay teased.
"Please, I could drink you all under the table," Cherry claimed. "In succession~"
"Bahaha! Then why don't you? We aren't stingy with our booze, you know? There's no need to hold back!" Marco asked.
"Robin will nag me if I come back to her drunk. It's for the best though; I tend to get into trouble when I'm drunk~" Cherry explained.
"You can't be more troublesome than Ace," Whitey Bay shook her head. "Before he joined up with us, he and his crew apparently wound up on Wano with no memory of how they got there. Ha!"
"Hey, I told you that in confidence!" Ace complained.
"And I tell everyone who'll listen. In confidence~" Whitey Bay snickered.
'What the hell are they doing at a time like this!' was the common thought that went through the ordinary crewmans' heads.
It wasn't at all uncommon for the powerhouses of the Whitebeard Pirates to not take sea monsters seriously, but the spectacle from before temporarily overwrote this understanding with fear.
The Moby Dick swayed to the side as a gargantuan octopus rose out of the water beside it. Its giant, baleful eyes gleamed with malicious intelligence aa it scanned the crew in the way one might scan a buffet.
Still the division commanders and the emperor made no moves. The crews' heads jerk back and forth between the nonchalant drinkers and the terrible beast of legend, the mighty Kraken!
Cherry was seemingly the first to notice the monster's presence, but the words that came out of her mouth were far from what they could have imagined. "Did you have fun, Takako~!"
*Burble~!*
The transformation was instantaneous. The fiendish entity of watery doom vanished and was replaced by an obedient pet who was delighted to see their master.
"I know, I know~ The big bad Whitebeard wasn't scared at all, ruining all your fun~" Cherry scritched the Kraken on her face.
"I won't get scared of such a cute little thing with no killing intent." Whitebeard spoke.
Takako seemed to blush from embarrassment and sunk beneath the waves once more.
The kraken didn't return to Cherry's body right away. Although she was content to float around in a sea of Cherry's vital energy and grow stronger passively, it couldn't beat swimming in the real ocean. She would savor it while she had the chance.
*poof poof poof*
The sound of someone kicking the air to propel themselves through it entered the ears of the impromptu drinking party.
Sadly, it wasn't Sanji coming along with some snacks to go with the alcohol.
No, it was a man that Cherry had never met before. Even many of Whitebeard's crew were unfamiliar with his face.
The muscular man had tanned skin revealed by an open, black coat in the style of an admiral. He had short, messy purple hair and a severe expression partially covered with a pair of angular sunglasses.
However, his most prominent feature was the hulking metallic right arm. The robotic hand clutched a glass cylinder filled with pink liquid, inside of which floated a strange stone.
"Zephyr." Whitebeard spoke in a chilling tone, standing to his full height and radiating an overwhelming presence.
These two old men had every reason in the world to absolutely despise one another.
On Zed's, or Zephyr's, side, his family was murdered by pirates whilst he was doing his duty as a marine admiral. He also lost a number of his students and his arm to other pirates. Whitebeard may not be directly responsible for that, but he is practically the personified symbol of pirates in the current era and the only pirate who could stand against the infamous Gol D. Roger in the last era.
On Whitebeard's side, the Neo Marines were directly responsible for the deaths of some of his adoptees, his family. Unlike the marines who faced him head on, they were also incredibly sneaky in how they went about it.
Even without that reason, though, Whitebeard would still dislike Zed. In his view, Zed had abandoned his family in favor of his duty as a marine which resulted in their deaths at the hands of a pirate. To a family man like Edward Newgate, that was an intolerable sin. Ironically, Zed might just agree with him on that point.
"You should have died at Marineford, Newgate, and this damnable era should have died with you." Zed spoke, not cowed by Whitebeard's oppressive aura in the slightest.
"If that had happened, a new era would have risen to take its place. Youngsters are rowdy like that." Whitebeard said curtly.
Whitebeard would have attacked him immediately without bothering with words, but the fact that Zed came alone was bothering him. Even just one on one Zed wouldn't stand a chance in hell against Whitebeard, let alone with a handful of his best men by his side. His battle instinct and over half a century of experience told him that the container in Zed's robotic hand wasn't something simple.
*pat pat*
""???"" Both Whitebeard and Zed were confused at the sight of Cherry tapping Whitebeard's leg to get his attention.
Cherry motioned for him to lean over and he didn't see a reason not to, so he complied. She whispered something into his ear that no one else could hear, then Whitebeard nodded his head in understanding.
"I see. It was pleasant to see you again, but if you have business elsewhere, go on then." Whitebeard said.
Zed furrowed his brow. "No one is leaving here. The time for talk is over, now is time for action!"
Zed couldn't allow that woman to leave, especially not after what Akainu said about her before falling unconscious tacked on to what he already knew about her. He had to take this chance when all his enemies were in one place to destroy them all in one fell swoop.
*Crack!*
Zed squeezed the glass container holding the dyna stone with his robotic hand, crushing the glass and hurling it with all his might at the Moby Dick!
Chapter 287: Youth!
Zed's eyes widened in surprise when Cherry, who had been walking away only a moment before, shot like a cannonball through the air directly at the dyna stone container that he threw at the Moby Dick.
He knew something was wrong, but he wasn't fast enough to stop her. The advanced technique combining Soru and Geppo wasn't something he wasn't capable of, unlike Cherry. Since that was the case, he made to move as far away as he could before the detonation occurred as he originally planned.
The dyna stone began to radiate intense pink light as open air started to make contact with it through the broken glass and protective fluid.
Cherry slammed into the container, grasping it to herself in a bear hug. Counter to his common sense and expectations, Cherry made no moves to toss it away or throw it back at him. He got his hopes up that his initial instinct had been wrong and that Cherry was about to receive the full brunt of the dyna stone's detonation at point blank range.
A blinding flash of pink light came before the roaring explosion that annihilated the Whitebeard Pirates' ships.
At least, that's what was supposed to happen.
Instead the expanding ball of pink energy slowed to a stop after reaching about two meters in diameter, then began to shrink back down. Cherry's hands were resting just outside the sphere as it shrunk, in much the same fashion that Bartholomew Kuma did with his compressed air attack, Ursus Shock.
Unlike Ursus Shock, however, when Cherry finished compressing the dyna stone's energy and uncupped her hands, it didn't release it all back out in the direction of her choosing. Instead there lay a vibrant pink gemstone in her palm.
"Thanks for the meal~!" Cherry taunted, stuffing the gemstone into her clothes.
Zed was shocked to say the least. More than that, he was ashamed of himself for allowing the enemy to take such a powerful weapon for herself right out from under his nose. It didn't matter that he didn't know she could do it, that would just be an excuse in his mind.
Before he could attempt to retrieve the dyna gemstone from her, the sound of cannon fire drew his attention to his own ships. Great blue tentacles from the deep battered the Neo Marine fleet and were unaffected by the retaliation with their cannons.
His two most trusted subordinates, Ain and Binz were trying their best to fight off the beast, but it curiously slipped back beneath the waves whenever they came close to one of the hulking limbs.
Only the PX-Z pacifistas could both hit and damage the tentacles. Unfortunately, the damage they could cause to the beast, while not superficial, healed just as quickly as it was dealt. Zed cringed when one of them was caught by a tentacle and dragged underwater, followed by a boom and flash as it was presumably crushed.
If Akainu were awake, the beast would be easily dealt with, but he was still recovering from his previous fight.
"Are you going to leave them to die, Zephyr?" an infuriating voice asked him from below.
Whitebeard wore a smile on his face that didn't reach his eyes. He was genuinely curious to see if Zed would choose to abandon his comrades. If so, he wouldn't mind putting Zed out of his misery right here and now.
Zed didn't bother to respond to the provocation. He immediately raced back to his ships to save them from the vicious beast.
"Well, it was nice seeing you again, old man. If you want, there's likely to be a big party soon enough on the island to celebrate Doflamingo's fall. Otherwise, I guess I'll see you later, as I'm sure it is inevitable on these seas," Cherry said.
Cherry followed after Zed to cause more chaos with the Neo Marines. She didn't want them to come spoil the festivities after all, or to hurt her beloved Takako.
Zed wasn't ignorant of that fact, but as far as he was concerned that was a good thing. Without Whitebeard to back her up, he and his Neo Marines could take her down.
As the two of them got closer, the Kraken seemed to sense Zed's encroaching presence and slipped beneath the water in its entirety. It was horrifying how easily it could escape notice despite its colossal size and the relatively clear water.
*CRACKLE*
Thin prongs of lightning zipped past Zed, landing amongst the Neo Marines. A few shouts of pain cried out as some were struck by the stray attack. This was infuriating to Zed, because he knew that these attacks hadn't merely gone astray. They were too weak to have been meant for him, so must have been meant for the ones they hit from the start.
Zed spun around and swung his mighty arm, black as night at Cherry's head. Cherry flowed beneath it with another Rokushiki technique and shot past him towards the Neo Marine ships. Zed followed in pursuit with a growl of frustration in his throat.
What followed was a whacky chase to the tune of Yakety Sax in which Cherry beat the ever living daylights out of a bunch of edgy wanna-be marines whilst being chased by a former admiral who couldn't pin her down for the life of him.
One of the devil fruit users Cherry had taken notice of happened to be a beautiful young woman, so Cherry went over to greet her with a smile. "Hello, gorgeous. Do you come here often?"
Ain didn't miss a beat and swung her two daggers at her, which were disarmed without much effort with her monstrous strength and skill.
"Binz! I'll grab her, so hit her with your special move!" Ain shouted as she lunged at Cherry.
"Right!" Binz shouted back, starting to do a funny dance that made the potted plants on the deck start to wiggle along with him.
Now, Cherry considered that there were two paths to take here. Be embraced by a beautiful woman who likely wouldn't do so willingly under any other circumstances and take an attack that almost certainly wouldn't hurt her. Or do the boring thing and dodge.
Ain grabbed Cherry successfully, surprising even her that it was so easy.
Ain's devil fruit activated. There was pink light, then there was weakness that Cherry hadn't felt for years.
"Ah, shit." said a 13 year old Cherry.
"Ahhhh!" Ain screamed as a sword was plunged through her chest.
"Sorry darling, but I can't have this." Cherry spoke darkly with emotionless, murderous eyes.
Ain retreated quickly clutching the bleeding wound that barely missed her heart.
Cherry thankfully still had her vast Vital Energy reserves, but all the physical enhancements to her body that came with her cultivation were gone.
*ROOOAAOOAOAOOOR*
A great roar sounded out as the kraken made another appearance. Its previous rampage now seemed playful as it lifted whole ships out of the water and shook them violently before smashing them into the surface of the ocean or ripping them apart.
The Neo Marines gulped as they came to the realization that the beats and Cherry had both been toying with them.
"End her now, Ain!" Zed shouted as he now had to prevent the kraken from destroying the entire fleet.
Ain rushed forward and Binz launched his plants at Cherry. Other Neo Marines also charged forward to support them. Cherry no longer had the physical conditioning necessary for Rokushiki and could only rely on her raw weakened strength to fight.
"No more messing around." Cherry said softly without an ounce of amusement. "Prepare yourselves; don't blame me if you die."
Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
189 Power
stone 
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