บท 231: Vergo? More like Verstop
*Clamp Clamp*
A couple of G5 marines who were perhaps too brave for their own good stepped forward and placed a pair of sea stone cuffs on Cherry's outstretched wrists. They gave each other a high five and cheered for themselves, "We did it!"
Smoker snapped out of his dumbfounded state and immediately realized that something was off about Cherry. Even though he's certain that she is a devil fruit user, she didn't seem fazed by the sea stone cuffs at all. A strong willed devil fruit user could put on a brave face when wearing the weakest sea stone alloy cuffs, but the ones Cherry now wore were on the stronger side.
In the midst of Smoker's idiot subordinates' celebrations, he watched Cherry simply slip her hands out of the cuffs with the sounds of popping bones, all the while sinking into the floor with her friends. Smoker and Tashigi had both charged the pirates, but the distance was too great and the escape too quick.
Smoker, still in Tashigi's body, glared at the now silent G5 marines who were sweating nervously. After all, had they been paying attention they could have opened fire on the escaping pirates at least. One might have gotten off a lucky shot.
Smoker opened his mouth to chastise them when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Spinning around, Cherry was there by herself looking at him with the most infuriating smile he's ever seen in his life. And that was saying something since he's met Luffy.
"What the hell did you come back for?! Did you forget to steal my wallet, or something?!" Smoker shouted and pointed at her accusingly.
"What? No, I took that when Tashigi tried to cut me before. I came back to lead you to the children. That is what's most important to you, yes? You wouldn't leave a bunch of helpless children to be experimented on by a mad man just to chase a bunch of pirates would you?" Cherry asked.
Tashigi checked Smoker's body's pockets and blushed in embarrassment when she failed to find his wallet, meanwhile Smoker grit Tashigi's teeth with unwillingness and frustration.
"Don't worry, Tashigi-chan~! I took your wallet off of Smoker too, so he can't say anything~!" Cherry reassured her, but it didn't make her feel any better.
"Where are the kids?" Smoker forced out through Tashigi's clenched jaw.
"I knew you were a big softy, Smoker~! Let's go~!" Cherry cheered.
Smoker swatted Cherry's arm away from his shoulder and followed her lead, even as the G5 marines grumbled their objections to working with a pirate. Smoker himself wouldn't have accepted this momentary truce if not for the fact that they were in a heavily reinforced facility, in which Cherry's ability to make her own passages would likely be the key to his men's survival.
Sure enough, when they got to the other side of this section of the facility, the passageway to the next section was sealed off with the same giant steel bulkheads as the front entrance.
Cherry didn't stop walking and simply reached out to touch the bulkhead. It molded at her touch, shifting the material to form a tunnel straight through to the other side. Once they were all inside the passageway, she molded it all back in place.
The passageway wasn't abandoned as the first section had been, though. Unhurried footsteps echoed as they approached the group of marines and Cherry.
The identity of the person who made these footsteps was soon discovered as they caught sight of him. Smoker, Tashigi, and the G5 marines were shocked to see that it was none other than the head of the G5 division, Vergo. After they overcame the initial surprise, the G5 marines started to get excited about having the highly respected head of their division here with them.
"It's big bro Vergo! The evil Caesar is definitely going down today!" exclaimed a G5 marine.
"Oi, don't call him big bro, always be respectful like he taught us!" rebuked another G5 marine.
"I hope we get to see him in action!" a third was practically bouncing in anticipation.
"Smoker." Vergo greeted.
"Vergo." Smoker replied.
"That's Vice Admiral Vergo." Vergo said sternly.
Smoker didn't correct himself. It was way too suspicious that Vergo was here of all places. If he were here to apprehend Caesar, then he'd be off doing that instead of going towards the front entrance of the facility. There was also the fact that he didn't seem surprised at all that Smoker and Tashigi had swapped bodies.
"I see that you'd allied yourselves with pirates. How disgraceful, and I had had such high hopes for you Smoker." Vergo stated curtly. "However, traitors are traitors and therefore must be put down regardless of my own sentimentality."
The G5 marines tried to insist on their innocence, with even Tashigi trying to hastily explain the circumstances, but Smoker was already certain. The Vergo he knew wasn't a cruel man who wouldn't even ask for an explanation from his own subordinates in such sketchy circumstances, which can only mean the man before him was an imposter or has been pretending to be someone he is not.
When Vergo used Soru to appear before a marine in an instant and stab at him with his finger, that all but confirmed that this was the real Vergo.
Smoker was surprised when someone else used Soru to intercept Vergo, however, given that she was a pirate with no reason to defend his men. Cherry knocked the original target backward as she intercepted Vergo's Shigan with her own, like a clash of spears.
"How do you know Rokushiki?" Vergo asked in an annoyed tone.
"You say that like it's a hard thing to learn. I've seen plenty of people using it, so I'd have to be an idiot not to figure it out by now." Cherry smirked.
Vergo's body shimmered and was quickly coated with a black sheen from head to toe.
*Whistle* "That looks like it took a lot of training. Too bad it's the dumbest shit I've ever seen." Cherry mocked.
Vergo frowned at the mockery of his hard work and swung at her. Cherry matched his fist with one of her own and felt her bones creak as they collided.
"Hm, hm, I see!" Cherry nodded. "Absolutely worthless, just as I thought."
Vergo launched a flurry of attacks and Cherry met each one with a matching attack of her own. Vergo seemed entirely unfazed, but Cherry wasn't being pushed back at all either.
"It's like watching two immovable mountains duke it out…" a G5 marine muttered. The other G5 marines had to agree.
Smoker elected not to intervene at all. If his enemies weakened each other, that would be the best for him. Although he did expect that Cherry would come out on top in the end, so if it looked like Vergo was getting the upper hand he would step in to distract him at least.
"That's enough, I think. You're truly a disappointment, a massive waste of talent." Cherry said after several dozen exchanges.
"What ARE you blathering about? You haven't so much as bruised me." Vergo said with some small amount of confusion as to why Cherry was badmouthing him. "I won't be riled up by a mad mouthed little girl."
"Actions speak louder than words, so let me show you!" Cherry said.
Cherry's hands clawed forward at speeds far faster than before. Vergo managed to fend off the first few, but soon one of them snuck past his defense. He used extreme mastery of Tekkai to increase his durability to unbelievable levels just in time for the palm to slam into his chest.
*WOOSH BOOM!!!*
Vergo slammed in the concrete wall leaving a hole in the shape of his body as he stumbled out of it. As he tilted forward, Vergo vomited a concerning amount of blood onto the floor.
Vergo's eyes shook with confusion and terror. Even now he could feel it, the shuddering vibrations lingering in his body. His white coat began to turn red at his chest, at first in the shape of a handprint before becoming a shapeless red splotch.
"I'll admit that covering your whole body with armament haki is impressive, but the problem with doing it in battle is that you've spread it too thin." Cherry explained. "If you had focused all that haki into the point where I just struck you, you would have been fine. But you couldn't do that could you? Your reaction speed isn't fast enough to keep up with the big leaguers, so you just cover up everything in the vain hope it'll protect you."
Vergo pushed himself to his feet unsteadily and glared at Cherry. She had casually seen through and pointed out the weakness of his that he had spent so many years trying to compensate for. And until now that had worked out just fine for him, since even his 'thinned out' haki was still thicker than the concentrated haki of most vice admirals.
"Oh, I see! This must be a fake, an imposter! The real Vergo wouldn't be so weak, and he certainly wouldn't attack us!" a G5 marines reasoned. The other G5 marines agreed wholeheartedly with his assessment.
Smoker and Tashigi, who knew that wasn't the case, decided not to argue with them. It would make things much simpler if their dull-witted subordinates believed that Vergo was an imposter for now.
Cherry vanished and appeared in front of the barely standing Vergo and knocked him backwards against the wall with a hard shove. Vergo couldn't muster the strength to resist and the arm he tried to place between them was ruthlessly dislocated, so he didn't dare to risk the other.
"Why are you working with Caesar anyway?" Cherry asked in a low voice the marines couldn't hear. "Money? Influence? Or perhaps you take orders from someone else?"
Vergo, to his credit, revealed nothing with his words nor his expressions. He merely huffed and puffed in deep breaths that hurt with every inhale. Perhaps if he felt he had the ultimate advantage he might reveal some truths like a storybook villain, but not when facing such a terrifying opponent.
"I see, you're a loyal one then? I doubt it's Caesar you're loyal to, so it must be someone he's working with closely. I'm sure that Law will tell me, since I gave him his heart back and all." Cherry said, smiling at the twitch in Vergo's brow at the mention of Law.
Cherry gave him a pat on the shoulder and turned her back on him, confident there was nothing he could surprise her with.
*Bang!*
Vergo shot Cherry in the back with a pistol, hitting her just over where her heart was located. The bullet landed, then simply fell to the floor with a soft *ting*. On the spot where it had hit her, a small black circle of haki the size of a bullet could be seen by Vergo.
Vergo dropped the gun and slumped to the floor in defeat.
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