章 183: Hamster or Rooster
Bartolomeo was faced with a dilemma the likes of which no man has ever faced before in the history of the world, both known and unknown. At least it felt like that to him.
He was invited to join the greatest pirate crew in the world!
Only, his own crew who he had come all this way with were now in the hands of bounty hunters.
Could he abandon them to make his dream come true?
'What would Luffy-senpai do?' Bartolomeo asked himself.
That was a stupid question and he knew it. Luffy had declared war on the world government for a single member of his crew. He had charged into Impel Down, renowned as an inescapable prison, to rescue his brother. He then followed his brother in Marineford where he fought against the strongest powerhouses of the marines.
"I can't. I need to save my crew!" Bartolomeo choked out his refusal, feeling as if the words burned his mouth and throat as they came out.
Robin's smile widened as she won the second bet she made with Cherry.
Cherry grumbled under her breath. She had lost not just one, but two "Do anything I say" type favors from those two bets. With Robin, it was impossible to know whether she'd enjoy those favors or not.
Cherry noticed that Bartolomeo had tears streaming down his determined face.
"Ugh, stop crying. I was testing you, stupid. Congratulations on passing." Cherry said.
"Huh? You were testing me? And I passed?" Bartolomeo was shocked, then excited. "I see! If I abandoned my comrades I wouldn't deserve to be first mate of the Straw Hat pirates!"
"Oh, we're not inviting you to join for real. That's Luffy's prerogative. I guess if it ever comes up in the future I can put in a good word, though." Cherry said.
"Yes, of course! I was getting ahead of myself!" Bartolomeo accepted easily. "Um, can you take off these sea stone cuffs so that I can save my crew?"
They hadn't taken the sea stone cuffs off of him just in case he was dangerous. After seeing how tough his barriers were, Cherry was wary of him as she wasn't sure she could break them either.
She came to that conclusion from her experiments with Popeye's Punch Punch Fruit.
The devil fruit seemed to make his punching attacks into a pseudo unstoppable force. Even though the punches weren't that strong by Cherry's standards they just kept plowing straight through whatever they hit, including an all out attack.
From that she discerned that Bartolomeo's barriers were like an immovable object, and of superior quality to the Punch Punch Fruit's unstoppable force.
Cherry grasped the sea stone cuffs with her hands and wrenched them apart with some effort.
Bartolomeo squealed in delight at the sight of it. "Amazing! Leave it to Cheap Shot Cherry to refuse to follow the rules even with the devil fruit curse!"
"Now, do you want our help getting your crew back? Or would you rather show off what you can do all by yourself?" Cherry asked.
"I'll show off, of course! Watch closely, these country bumpkins don't stand a chance against me!" Bartolomeo proclaimed confidently.
No one mentioned the fact that those "country bumpkins" managed to pull one over on him.
Cherry led him to the entrance of the cave and pointed him in the direction of Sweethaven.
"My Nee-sans have high expectations of me! I need to go all out!" Bartolomeo spoke to himself as he charged towards the town with great determination.
Cabernet transformed into a ship and lifted off the ground. Cherry and Robin would watch Bartolomeo's rescue attempt from the safety of the air, while Perona went to take a nap having no interest in the annoying rooster man.
Bartolomeo formed a spherical barrier around himself, like a hamster ball, just in time for a rain of gunfire to come his way from Sweethaven as he approached.
The many bullets ricocheted around as they struck the barrier, some even hitting the townsfolk who were firing upon him.
Bartolomeo casually rolled his barrier ball through the streets in search of his crew, ignoring the enraged shout of the bounty hunter residents of Sweethaven.
At some point, the townsfolk noticed the flying ship floating above them and fired on it instead. It did little good though, as Cabernet was likely immune to cannonballs in her ship form at this point, let alone bullets.
Bluto and Popeye came out to confront Bartolomeo when he found the building where they were keeping his crew.
Popeye sent a punch at Bartolomeo, intending to send his barrier ball flying away as he knew that he likely couldn't break it.
Surprising him, though, Bartolomeo dropped the spherical barrier and instantly recreated it around Popeye instead.
Popeye thus sent himself flying away as his unstoppable punch pushed the barrier away from the inside.
Bluto tried to take advantage of Bartolomeo's now unprotected state, but alas he was too quick to reform the barrier as a wall between himself and Bluto.
Incidentally, Bartolomeo had the door to the building where his crew was held behind him, allowing him to stall Bluto as he hurried inside.
Cherry and Robin could no longer see what was happening, but they perceived with Life Sense that Bartolomeo knocked out several ordinary bounty hunters with ease and broke his crew out of a prison cell with the keys.
By this point, Bluto had gone around the barrier and broken directly through the wall, and Popeye was right behind him.
They found themselves being pushed back out the hole they came in from by Bartolomeo and his crew pushing against a barrier to drive them back.
"He's surprisingly quite smart with the way he uses his devil fruit. I had thought he might be an idiot from the way he used it in the boxing match." Cherry said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.
"I suppose Rooster-kun just wanted someone to crow at." Robin said.
"Rooster-kun? You've given him a nickname?" Cherry asked.
"Well he looks like one and crows like one." Robin defended.
"I guess so, but if you give him a nickname you might get attached. We've got plenty of idiots to put up with as it is." Cherry said.
Once outside the building, Bartolomeo formed another spherical barrier around himself and his crew. They rolled themselves quickly down the street towards the docks where their ship was.
They had already been on the island long enough to set their logpose, so they didn't need to wait any longer and could directly sail away.
The townsfolk realized what they were doing and tried to reach the docks first to stop them. They would have burned the ship, but they could reuse it for themselves as a fishing settlement. Plus the Barto Club could simply steal another ship so they didn't consider it a good idea to destroy it.
The townsfolk who reached the pirate ship before the pirates found themselves getting struck by lightning. Cherry didn't think it very sporting to steal someone's ship during a race.
Bartolomeo took it as a sign that his Cherry Nee-san approved of his performance and shouted at his crew to push faster.
Ultimately they managed to board their ship and set sail. Bartolomeo eagerly waved goodbye to the flying ship behind his barrier as it was struck by a hail of gunfire.
"I guess we should get going too. Perona's hollows already showed us where all the money and treasure in town were and we even got a log pose ready to go for the next island." Cherry said.
"I wonder if we'll see Rooster-kun again. Perhaps in the New World?" Robin wondered.
Robin found Bartolomeo was much more pleasing to the eye after he helped her win two unrestricted favors off of Cherry.
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