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62.37% One Piece: Dream of Immortality / Chapter 320: The Big Event

Chapter 320: The Big Event

Cherry managed to calm down the distraught Baccarat (but not too much) and got her to lead her to her V.I.P. booth. Baccarat was nervously chewing her manicured nails in the corner, her eyes darting around nervously as if in search of some invisible threat.

The various large screens showed Gild Tesoro capturing Luffy and Franky in the den den mushi central control room before getting dropped to what Cherry assumed to be the gold desert in the bowels of the ship.

At this time, the rest of the crew and Carina should be making their way to the "vault" with her key, which means the main event would be starting soon. People began to file into the seats of the stadium attached to the highest tower of the Gran Tesoro and sure enough, all the Straw Hats were soon broadcast live from wherever they happened to be.

Luffy looked over the opening of the large pipe, the only exit to the gold desert which was filled with oversized bats. Nothing he couldn't handle, which he quickly proved by jumping inside and kicking all the bats' asses despite the protests from the prisoners being kept on this level.

Franky followed swiftly after and the prisoners did as well with some hesitation. They'd rather not die by dehydration, so it was better to take a risk to follow the crazy pirate.

Soon they arrived before a massive fan coated in seastone alloy; one they needed to get through to escape.

"I'll break it!" Luffy declared confidently.

"Luffy, that's sea stone alloy on the blades! Not only are they as hard as diamonds with the flexibility of steel, but you'll be weakened if you touch them!" Franky explained.

"I'll try harder, then!" Luffy insisted, leaping to his potential doom.

He predictably bounced around like a pinball well on its way to get a highscore before Franky pulled him back up.

"Don't just jump before you hear me out, Luffy," Franky said to his dazed captain. "I've got my own idea."

This time Franky leapt down, but he wasn't intending to destroy the fan blades. With a well timed Coup de Boo, heis descent slowed just before he reached the fan and extended his hands to catch onto one of the blades.

Franky braced himself against the wall, then with a tremendous warcry he released the longest and most powerful Coup de Boo of his life. This was only possible thanks to borrowing Cherry's Fizzy Pop giving him the unlimited cola to fuel it.

The audience in the stadium outside was utterly silent as the most violent fart in the world ripped through the night air from the amplified den den mushi speakers. When it finally ended after Franky slowed down the fan enough for Luffy and the prisoners to pass through safely, there was only the sound of a single woman laughing hysterically to break the silence. Surprisingly, the audience was largely unimpressed by cyborg flatulence.

The larger group of Straw Hats impersonated some celestial dragons (which made the already lukewarm audience somewhat nervous), and made their way past the guards to the "vault door".

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Tesoro appeared with Tanaka on the main stage. Lights shone down upon them and Zoro who was imprisoned in gold. "Soon, the big reveal will be upon us! Are you ready to savor the despair of these rotten pirates?!"

The audience went wild; this was what they were here for. Just like the people of Dressrosa in the colosseum's audience, they wanted violence and blood!

"Hahaha! You sure do sound excited; I know that I am!" Tesoro egged them on, lavishing in their cheers. He'd never get used to this feeling of stomping on the dreams of loser pirates! "Let us welcome our 'honored' guests for tonight!"

The so-called vault door swung open and the unwitting maze rats spilled out in shock. The audience jeered at them and their foolishness for falling for such an obvious trap!

Tesoro greeted them delightedly, revealing that Carina hadn't betrayed him at all! She manufactured the entire heist so that others could mock them and gamble over how far they would get.

He directed their attention to the main screen where Luffy and Franky were working on getting a hold of sea water to wash themselves of the gold dust that Tesoro controlled on them. This was a trap too of course.

Zoro had been largely calm and quiet up until now, but at this moment his single eye opened with a ferocious glint. Nobody was paying him any attention when he placed a razor blade between his teeth.

An instant later, the sound of massive chunks of gold hitting the ground was heard and Zoro was already most of the way to Tesoro by the time anyone noticed he had moved.

"What?!" Tesoro raised his hands to constrict the gold on Zoro's body, but nothing happened to his immense surprise. 'How did he get rid of the gold dust?! He's been under constant watch, he can't have had access to sea water?!'

Dice interposed himself between the charging swordsman and his employer. Zoro didn't hesitate to cut him down with the swords he was fortunately sealed up with.

"S-" Dice muttered, before shouting, "So GOOOOD~!"

Zoro's swords had cleaved through his clothes easily enough, but Dice's haki was tougher to get through than expected. However, that was to be expected of the underworld's best pit fighter.

The others weren't to be upstaged and quickly came to Zoro's aid. At this point, Tesoro had already recovered from his momentary shock and the lake of gold around the stage erupted in countless tendrils that darted to the Straw Hats and eventually overwhelmed them.

"That was a good attempt, I'll admit." Tesoro smugly spoke. "Unfortunately, nothing has changed for you. Your captain and shipwright were doomed even if you won your little last ditch effort, too! HA!"

Cherry landed on the stage then, prompting an outcry from Nami. "Cherry, help us!"

"Sorry, toots." Cherry winked with her best evil smirk. "I go where the money flows, and that's not with you broke losers." 

"HahahaHA!" Tesoro laughed. "A round of applause for the only intelligent, now former member of the Straw Hat crew!"

The audience obliged him. Here Tesoro was king, so even if they were a bit confused since they didn't know why he recruited one of the pirates, they'd follow his lead.

The others were "shocked" by her sudden betrayal. Except Zoro who was really just annoyed that he got caught again so quickly, but then he'd already gotten that particular reveal earlier so that wasn't suspicious at all.

On the screen, Luffy and Franky smashed open the sea water piping system and Tesoro signaled to have them sealed inside to await their watery grave.

Tesoro capped off the show by shouting for his fountains of gold to spray into the air "Gold SPLASH!"

*PSSSHHH!!!*

Despair could be seen on the Straw Hats' faces and delight plastered over the audience and Tesoro and his peoples' faces. Even Baccarat seemed to be in a vaguely better mood thanks to her sadistic personality.

"Boof-?!" Tesoro folded like a picnic table after a swift kick to the gonads.

Cherry stood over him looking pleased with herself.


next chapter

Chapter 321: Phantom Thief

To his credit, Gild Tesoro got control over himself very quickly. During his past as a slave in Mary Geoise, he had suffered much greater pain and humiliation under the celestial dragons than a simple kick to the groin, even if said kick was much stronger than those pigs could produce.

Overcome with rage, he grit his teeth so hard that his gums bled and twisted to look at his attacker. Seeing that it was Cherry, he was not shocked by her betrayal. He simply made a swift calculation not to kill her immediately in retribution.

Tesoro's hand stretched out and clenched. The gold dust scattered over Cherry's skin and clothes coalesced into a restrictive shell around her body.

"I bet you thought that was terribly clever! Unfortunately for you, I'm not a man who can be so easily defeated by cheap moves. You're going to regret crossing me." Tesoro shoved himself back to his feet, swatting away Dice's helping hand.

The audience was deathly quiet, afraid that the slightest peep from them would draw Tesoro's attention and ire.

*PSSSSHHHH*

The gold fountains all over the ship erupted as per Tesoro's earlier instruction. Tesoro clicked his tongue in annoyance, he had missed the timing for the execution. This was the worst show he'd ever put on.

*zap zap zap zap zap*

Tiny electrical sounds pervaded the quiet air of the stage. Everyone looked to the source and saw arcs of electricity racing around Cherry's body, pulling the gold shell along with it into a ball of gold in her hand.

"Neat." Cherry said, looking a bit surprised at how well that worked.

*Kerchah!*

The lights went out before anyone regained their wits from seeing that odd sight.

*PSSSSHHHH*

The fountains erupted again, but this time they shot out sea water instead of gold. The true plot was revealed by Nami and Carina as the sea water washed away the gold and Tesoro's influence over it for everyone on the island.

Jinbe took hold of some falling sea water and slung it like a cannon ball at Baccarat, who was hit in the head and knocked out instantly. Sanji bristled a bit at that, but his grumblings fell on deaf ears since Baccarat was arguably the most dangerous devil fruit user among their enemies this time.

Tesoro made a move to retake control over the lake of gold around the stage, but when he did a weight fell on his back and an arm squeezed around his neck like a vice. The rising tendrils of gold faltered and froze in place.

"Oh no you don't. You only get to watch as we tear your little slave empire down to the ground," Cherry whispered maliciously in his ear.

Dice and Tanaka tried to rush to Tesoro's rescue, but were quickly intercepted by the other Straw Hats. Without Tesoro's help, they were both outnumbered and outclassed.

Soon, both Franky and Luffy came blasting out of the central fountain and the tide was turned completely against the forces of the Gran Tesoro.

Dice's admittedly impressive toughness couldn't hold up under the combined assault and Tanaka got caught by Usopp's pop greens almost immediately.

"By the way, I can't resurrect the dead. That was a load of bullshit, but faking a death is pretty easy when you know a bit about the human body. Your dead girlfriend or whatever is going to stay dead, isn't that hilarious? BWAHAHAHAHAHA!" Cherry laughed maniacally. "How stupid can you be?! How does it feel? Does it feel like you've lost her all over again?"

Tesoro didn't feel despair then; disappointment, maybe, but not despair. Instead his vision went red and his body tensed to the point of shaking. It had been years since someone had treated him this way, and he wasn't about to accept it lying down.

"I'm not done yet…!" Tesoro's rage focused his oxygen deprived mind. His gold rings formed into spiked knuckle dusters and he hammered them into Cherry's head over his shoulder.

"Stop that. It's annoying." Cherry spoke in a warning tone.

Tesoro redoubled his struggles, believing he was making headway if she was telling him to stop. The gold inlays on the stage started to converge with increasing speed. They grabbed at Cherry, trying to pry her off of him.

Cherry's free hand grabbed one of Tesoro's fists and mercilessly crushed it in her grip as easily as one might crush a tomato.

"RAAAAAH!!! I'LL KILL YOU ALL!!!" Tesoro wasn't dissuaded by the pain.

"Did no one ever tell you it's a bad idea to enter the New World relying on your devil fruit alone? Your haki is pathetic." Cherry was quickly losing interest.

She had thought she could savor his humiliation, but it turned out that Tesoro was the time to become a rabid beast when he was pushed into a corner. Those types were no fun at all, so it was better to just get it over with.

"Check it out, Robin~!" Cherry called out sweetly, contrasting her previous cold blooded tone.

When Robin looked over, Cherry did her own rendition of Robin's special move. "CLUTCH!"

"Gah-?!" Tesoro felt every last one of his vertebrae pop painfully as Cherry twisted his body backwards much further than it ought to go and shatter them. She was careful to leave the spinal cord perfectly intact so he could feel every bit of it, as a special service.

Cherry allowed Tesoro to slump to the ground onto his belly. "A friendly, parting piece of advice, golden boy. Don't enslave children, or you might run into someone a lot meaner than me next time."

Cherry locked the devil fruit seal she'd been making while he was stuck in her grip and left him to suffer whatever life threw his way in the future.

Robin watched Cherry skip over to her, trying to keep the pride off of her face. Cherry said, "How was it? I didn't even paralyze him, isn't that neat?"

"You'll have to teach that to me," Robin couldn't help but say. She wouldn't admit it, but she had acquired a taste for spine crunching over the years and seeing such a flawless example made her a bit envious.

"Scary…" Usopp muttered under his breath as he inched himself away from the terrifying women.

"You sure know how to pick your friends, Nami…" Carina said, momentarily reconsidering some things.

"They are pretty great, aren't they?" Nami beamed, completely missing the sarcasm. Who could blame her? She was about to become a VERY wealthy woman, so she was a bit distracted. She was SO proud of them.

"Uhuh…" Carina decided to go along with it. "I suppose that we should get to divvying up the spoils then?"

Carina pressed a button on a hidden remote and the screens lit up suddenly, displaying a ten minute countdown.

"What's that?" Luffy asked.

"Damn it! Tesoro must have set the ship up to explode if he was ever beaten!" Carina convincingly shouted in dismay.

"What kind of monster puts a self-destruct function on a ship?!" Franky bemoaned.

"We have to get all the people off of this thing!" Chopper was quick to insist on helping others.

"What about the money?!" Nami cried.

"No time! Get moving!" Zoro said, before running off in the wrong direction. Jinbe scooped him up before he got too far.

What followed was a mad rush that made ten minutes feel more like ten seconds. Upon seeing a large fleet of marine ships waiting close by, the situation became even more dire.

"I'll stay and lead them away to buy you some time." Carina said suddenly.

"What?! No! You have to come with us!" Nami insisted.

"Those marines came here for the tribute, not for you. Not to mention we have no idea how bad this thing blowing up is going to be. We can't let it catch anyone else in the blast." Carina denied.

Carina turned to leave as Nami shouted for her to stop, and she did to her surprise. Carina rushed back, planted a chaste kiss on Nami's cheek before sprinting back through the streets towards the ship's helm.

Nami was momentarily stunned, so Franky had to grab her and bring her aboard the Sunny and hastily set off to escape the doomed vessel.

As Carina had predicted, most of the marine ships followed after the Gran Tesoro whilst only a few split off to chase them.

The last seconds ticked by and they all watched the Gran Tesoro in the distance with bated breaths.

"Wait, where's Cherry?" Luffy asked suddenly.

"""Huh?""" they all looked around and realized that she wasn't with them. """Oh no!!!"""

Hundreds of fireworks shot up into the air above the Gran Tesoro instead of the expected explosion. Usopp had his spyglass out and handed it to Nami, "Look at the front of the ship!"

Nami took the spyglass and saw Carina with a teasing smirk and a flag that said "Phantom Thief Carina strikes again!"

It was then that Cherry appeared behind Carina and said something to her that scared the life out of her, followed shortly by Carina stomping her foot in apparent frustration. Cherry skipped through the air towards the Thousand Sunny whilst casually dodging the flag that Carina threw at her.


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