章節 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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