章節 235: Sock

"Are you sure you want to leave Vergo and Monet there for Doflamingo to find? He'll just bring them back and they'll bolster his forces, right? At the least you should have taken their hearts with you as insurance." Robin said to Law.

"No, Doflamingo wouldn't accept his subordinates being at my mercy and might just kill them himself to remove the risk of betrayal, however slim that chance may be. This also shows him that even his officers mean nothing to us and it projects our strength, thus increasing the pressure of the threat we pose." Law explained.

"We'll have to take your word for it, since you seem to know Doflamingo better than any of us do, by which I mean not at all." Franky remarked.

"I've interacted with him on a few occasions, but I must say he wears his mask of arrogance well enough that I could not gauge anything about him." Jinbe said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"Nevermind all that serious business!" Cherry said. "Who wants to eat this devil fruit?"

Cherry held aloft a dark blue-violet apple with swirl patterns on its surface. "It's a zoan fruit, specifically the Sala Sala Fruit, Model: Axolotl. They're aquatic animals, so even if you fall into the ocean you won't drown if you're transformed. Its most notable characteristic is its extreme regenerative ability which can regrow limbs, or repair spinal, organ, and even brain damage to an extent. Other than that, though, it isn't a particularly powerful fruit by Zoan standards."

Jinbe dismissed the idea of eating it immediately, which was understandable given his primary fighting technique was fishman karate. Rather, even if that wasn't the case he wouldn't give up swimming for any devil fruit.

That left only Zoro, Sanji, Usopp, and Nami remaining as the only non devil fruit users.

"We're already mostly devil fruit users already. If the shitty cook or I ate it, that'd be one less person to save any of your hammers from sinking, and we can't count on Usopp or Nami to do it with their weak muscles." Zoro commented reasonably.

""What did you say, you bastard?!"" Usopp and Sanji shouted at him in unison. Usopp to defend his physique and Sanji to defend Nami's honor from insult no matter how well founded the observation was.

Although she was tempted by the regenerative capability, Nami didn't really like the idea of becoming a slimy frog-lizard. Usopp on the other hand, thought back to the times he got his ass kicked and found the idea of healing more quickly very appealing. Although a devil fruit that aided his sniping would be the ideal if he was to take on the curse, how likely was it that he'd run into such a thing?

"You don't have to decide right this instant, Usopp." Cherry said, seeing his indecision. "And nobody has to eat it at all if none of us want it, since we could sell it for a pretty penny. Lot's a big, fat piggy banks would cough up a hell of a lot of cash for the chance to restore their bodies to their whole state."

Nami's eyes flashed with Beri Signs and she leapt towards the fruit in Cherry's hand, only for it to be moved away from her grasping greedy hands before they could snatch it.

"We need the money, Cherry, so give it over! There'll be other devil fruit in the future, but they won't all be worth a billion, no, TEN billion Beri!" Nami said, almost drooling just thinking about it.

"You can't buy happiness, Nami." Cherry said.

"I don't need to buy happiness! Money makes me happy just having it!" Nami countered, swinging for the fruit again.

Cherry put her other palm on Nami's forehead, leaving her looking like a child flailing her arms desperately. "Do we need to have an intervention? I think Nami might be an addict?"

Chopper looked genuinely concerned, which prompted Nami to snap out of her slightly maddened state and blushed in embarrassment. 'What am I doing?! I'm a thief, damn it, not a purse snatcher! I'll take it when she isn't paying attention!'

"Why don't you put it in your spear? Then we'll have a new friend!" Luffy suggested. Nami looked at him angrily like he had betrayed her.

Chopper, Cabernet, and Merry looked like they liked that idea, but Cherry shut it down immediately. "No, I neither want nor need another Zoan in my arsenal. Not to mention it wouldn't be nearly as smart as Cabernet or Merry are, as they had their own spirits to start with. I'd only consider it if I got my hands on a Mythical Zoan, like a dragon or something."

Cherry turned her gaze back to Nami. "By the way, I've got enough information to vastly improve your Clima-Tact. When I'm done with it, even the ordinary heat, cold, and static balls will be formidable weapons. Naturally this means you'll be able to create bigger, better weather effects, and much faster as well."

Nami's eyes lit up, completely forgetting about 'her' devil fruit. "How so? I've got it pretty fine tuned already, I'm not sure how you'll improve it further, let alone by a large extent."

"It'll be similar to being an artificial devil fruit, only I'll skip the medium of a fruit and just put the effect directly into the staff." Cherry explained briefly.

"Okay, but you need to make it adjustable if it's going to be much stronger. Control is more important than power." Nami said, already doing calculations for what she could accomplish with a stronger Clima-Tact.

This would be Cherry's first attempt to create a finished product with Vital Energy Inscriptions. She'd been practicing with throw away pieces for a few months and she had a decent grasp on it now. In the case of the Clima-Tact, she'd be using what she learn from her very in depth study of the Rumble Rumble Fruit inside of Sakura Tengoku, as well as her understanding of heat and cold from Ace's Flame Flame Fruit, Akainu's Magma Magma Fruit, Aokiji's Ice Ice Fruit, and finally Monet's Snow Snow Fruit.

With this abundance of information as her disposal, the Clima-Tact was the perfect choice to create a unique and complex inscription with multiple effects. She would practice on some disposable items first, though, of course. Perhaps even make some ammunition for Usopp to launch at people?

Cherry came out of her thoughts and lightly slapped Nami's thieving hand that was reaching for the fruit. "By the way, I've been meaning to ask you something, Luffy."

"Hm? What do you want to ask?" Luffy asked, lying on the ground and picking his nose.

"Whose vivre card do you have in your hat? The one sewn into the red strap." Cherry asked.

Luffy took off his hat and found what she was referring to. He scratched his head in confusion and said "I don't know, but it feels like it's important for some reason?"

…

"Huff… Huff… Huff…" Rock'em Sock'em the sock monkey breathed heavily as he hid behind a barrel in an alley. In the street, a few of the Doflamingo pirates ran past the alley shouting in consternation for having lost their prey.

Rock'em Sock'em heaved a sigh of relief as their voices disappeared in the distance. He looked down at his hand that was soaked in dry blood. He didn't feel good about stabbing the green haired girl in the throat, but he was desperate and she wasn't as young as she appeared anyway.

"Psst." A whispered voice came from further in the alley. Rock'em Sock'em turned to see a tin soldier toy peeking around the corner at him.

"Come with me if you want to live." The tin soldier whispered to him and disappeared behind the corner.

Rock'em Sock'em didn't know if he could trust the tin soldier. The other toys were slaves to Doflamingo, but the tin soldier could have simply ratted him out. He'd take his chances and see what the tin soldier wanted. If he was an enemy, then he'd crush him like a tin can, or he'd try at least. He wasn't sure he could do much with these pitifully weak sock arms.

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章節 236: Law's Ultimatum

*CHK CHK*

One the two toys were inside an abandoned home on the outskirts of the city, the one legged toy soldier trained his rifle on Rock'em Sock'em. "I have some questions for you."

If Rock'em Sock'em could change his sock expression, he'd look amused and exasperated. The toy soldier seemed to understand regardless, as he lowered his toy gun shortly after.

"Go on then. I've got questions of my own, too." Rock'em Sock'em said.

"Why did they turn you into a toy?" The tin soldier asked.

"I came here to investigate and sabotage Doflamingo in any way that I could. In hindsight, I suppose I shouldn't have come alone, as that didn't go so well for me the last time I did that…" Rock'em Sock'em said regretfully.

"You came to Dressrosa on a ship?" The tin soldier asked.

"Yes-" Rock'em Sock'em started before he was interrupted by the tin soldier. "And can you sail that ship alone?"

"I, well… no…?" Rock'em Sock'em said in confusion.

"You didn't come alone. You just forgot, just like how everyone has forgotten you." The tin soldier said with sympathy.

Rock'em Sock'em was silent for a moment and studied the tin soldier, as if trying to read his expressionless, tin face. "Well, shit…"

"How did you escape?" The tin soldier asked, getting back to business.

"I had gotten a lead about a secret facility I could destroy to hurt Doflamingo, but it was a trap. Several of his officers were there waiting for me. I fended them off fairly well for a while, or I guess WE did, that makes more sense actually. Then that little girl slapped me and I went all weak. She told me my name was 'Rock'em Sock'em' just as I mustered enough strength to rush towards the window and break it. She grabbed my sock tail and I stabbed her with a bit of broken glass to the neck, then leapt out the window." Rock'em Sock'em narrated his daring escape. "I remember there being several other toys in the room, she must have been picking us off one by one with none of us being the wiser…"

"Don't blame yourself for leaving them behind. Even my own daughter has forgotten me." The tin soldier tried to reassure the sock monkey, but Rock'em Sock'em's clenched sock fists told him his words weren't much comfort.

"What about you then, tin man? What's your story?" Rock'em Sock'em changed the subject.

The tin soldier hesitated, but decided it was only fair. "My story begins many years ago, before that demon Doflamingo came to Dressrosa…"

The tin soldier regaled Rock'em Sock'em of his tale. The happy memories, the sad ones, and the horrors too. By the end, Rock'em Sock'em was sobbing, or at least he was trying to do so as best as he could without tear ducts.

"You're a good guy, tin man! You're a good father too, no matter how you claim otherwise!" Rock'em Sock'em almost shouted.

"Quiet down!" The tin soldier shushed. "You'll get us caught if you're so loud, I'm a fugitive toy as well. And just call me Thunder Soldier of Rage, that's what everyone else calls me."

"That's too long, I won't remember it." Rock'em Sock'em complained. "I'll just call you Thunder Thigh."

Thunder Soldier of Rage just gaped at the audacity of the sock monkey in front of him, before deciding to just let it go. He had suffered far more humiliation than a bad nickname over the past 10 years and he needed all the allies he could get.

"In any case, you should have guessed how lucky you were to escape from Sugar when you did. If she had given you any orders, you would have become a slave at the mercy of Doflamingo forever." Thunder Soldier of Rage explained. "The question is, will you resign yourself to waiting until someone else saves you, if that should ever come to pass, or will you fight to save yourself?"

"I ain't sitting around and waiting for someone to get me out of my own mess. Especially since anybody who might have come looking for me remembers me, right?" Rock'em Sock'em said resolutely.

"Perfect! First things first, we need to get you accustomed to your new body and see how much strength we can draw out of it. Don't expect much from it though, as even my tin body is pathetic, let alone your sock body."

…

A little ways offshore of Punk Hazard.

Doflamingo was soaring through the air at high speeds when he spotted a raft in the ocean. Dropping down to land on it, his mouth formed into a deep frown at the sight before his eyes.

Vergo and Monet's severed heads sat chained to a wooden board atop the raft. Monet looked thoroughly ashamed of herself toward Doflamingo whilst Vergo had a placid expression on his bloodied face. Both had the word LOSER scrawled on their foreheads.

They would have immediately explained the circumstances of their current state and of their failure if they didn't have ball gags in their mouths preventing them from doing so.

A timed explosive device was burning away at its long fuses before Doflamingo stamped them out.

"Look who dropped in for a visit. Did you come to pick up your subordinates from their play date?" Law said through the den den mushi.

"Law." Doflamingo said with barely disguised menace in his tone. "It's been a long time. I don't know whether to be surprised at this sudden attack on my people or not. Was that your girlfriend on the broadcast? I'd like to meet her sometime…"

"No, she isn't, but I do have your boyfriend here with me-" Law said before Caesar's voice came crashing through the den den mushi. "Joker, you have to save me-!"

"Where are Vergo and Monet's bodies?" Doflamingo asked with surprising patience.

"We'll get to that, for now… let's make a deal." Law suggested, though his tone made it clear this would be an ultimatum.

"What, you think because you got a fancy title from the World Government that you can come sit at the grown up table?" Doflamingo asked condescendingly.

"Why don't you ask Vergo how seriously you should take this offer?" Law said mysteriously.

Doflamingo unsnapped the buckle on the ball gag in Vergo's mouth, which somehow got stuck in his beard immediately. Vergo wasted no time to tell his young master what he wanted to know. "Harpin D. Cherry and the rest of the Straw Hats."

"Fuck." Doflamingo swore.

"That's right, you're fucked." Law said, clearly relishing the rare break in Doflamingo's calm facade. "But we won't need to lift a finger against you, since Kaido will do all the dirty work for us. He won't be happy if he finds out you can't make any more SMILEs for him."

Even the small ocean's waves seemed to fall silent enough to hear a pin drop in the moment that followed.

"What do you want, Law? What do I need to do to get Caesar back?" Doflamingo spat angrily.

"Resign from the Shichibukai and give up your throne. Throw away all that you've built in the last ten years and become an ordinary pirate again. I'll await your decision in the morning newspaper." *Click* Law hung up.

Doflamingo looked ready to explode in rage. Law didn't even allow a chance to negotiate, which made him all the more frustrated.

"I'm sorry, young master. It's my fault." Vergo spoke softly, whilst Monet groaned into her ball gag in an attempt to accept some of the responsibility for their failure as well.

Doflamingo walked over and released Monet's ball gag, but put a finger against her lips to prevent her from spewing apologies at him.

"Don't apologize. That beast on Straw Hat's crew alone would have been enough to thwart you. You did the best you could have." Doflamingo's voice was gentle, a rarity even when in private among his most trusted subordinates.

Monet started to cry because she knew it wasn't true. She should have contacted her young master the moment she realized the Straw Hats were on Punk Hazard, there had been more than enough time to do so. Even Vergo had a single, manly tear streak down his face, then get stuck in his beard.

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