Behind us, the crowds had started muttering and screaming in terror.
I blinked and raised an eyebrow. "Eh? They're afraid of something."
Then Arlong Park started shaking, water from the pool splashing onto the cement floor of the complex.
"Wha-Wha-What's going on?!" Usopp cried, totally freaking out.
A big wave started rising up past the coastline. The back of my neck was tingling with a familiar feeling, the one I'd gotten on our trip here so many times. The sea was being disturbed by something HUGE.
"Nyuhuhuhu!" laughed pinkie. "You guys can be his next meal!"
I grinned. "Not if it's who—or what—I think it is!"
"COME OUT, MOHMOO!"
Lucy perked up. "Mohmoo?"
"Hey, isn't Mohmoo that sea bull we met on the way here?" Sanji said, frowning.
A pillar of water erupted out of the sea and the back of my neck went crazy. I frowned, cursing whoever gave me this pointless sensitivity, and directed my thoughts to the ocean, commanding it mentally to calm the freakin' hell DOWN! Sea water streamed off of glistening scales to reveal none other than that dumb old bastard Mohmoo himself, the sea bull that sent our ship flying through the air. He looked a little worse for the wear, tears in his eyes and a nasty bump on his forehead.
"It's... It's a monster!" Usopp moaned. "The monster from the Grand Line that crushed Gosa Village!"
I blinked. "Mohmoo crushed a village? But he's harmless. Although he did send our ship flying and nearly sink us..."
"YOU CALL THAT HARMLESS!? And wait, you met him before?"
I nodded. "Uh-huh. On the way here."
Mohmoo gave a miserable groan.
"Eh..." Pinkie said.
I blinked and looked up at the sea bull.
"What's he say?" Lucy asked me eagerly.
"Cussing removed? 'I need an aspirin.' … He says."
My captain was reduced to frenzied giggles while Usopp regarded me in awe and confusion. "You can understand that thing?'
"Yup, comes with being a demigod. I can talk to all sea creatures, apparently."
"Cool..."
"So old Mohmoo was a nakama of the fishmen?" Sanji summed up.
The sea bull noticed us and started crying anime tears, probably remembering my savage attack on its snout. I winced, shrugged, and smiled apologetically. And as it turned and slunk away, I have to admit I felt kind of bad.
"Wait!" Pinkie called, "Mohmoo! Where do you think you're going?! Wait! Wait, I tell you, wait!"
Arlong spoke up. "Mohmoo... what are you doing?" The sea bull froze. "Well, if you wanna run away, I won't try and stop you, would I, Mohmoo?"
The feeling on the back of my neck changed. It grew... colder?
"It's coming!" Usopp cried.
Suddenly Mohmoo swung back around, roaring angrily. His eyes had rolled back in his head and his teeth looked like they could rip apart the cement foundations of Arlong Park like paper. I glared at Arlong. Something wasn't right here. Whatever he had said had made Mohmoo, one of the creatures under my dad's protection, go nuts. I clenched my hands into fists and stepped forward, ready to calm Mohmoo down even if I had to knock him out, but Lucy put a hand up to stop me.
"You gotta do it last time." Her face was stern. "It's my turn. Plus, I have a new move I want to try out."
I raised my eyebrow, but nodded and stepped back. Captain's orders.
Too bad I didn't remember the anime.
Around us, a lot of the other fishmen had followed Mohmoo's lead and were charging us with weapons and fists raised. I motioned to my nakama, and they nodded curtly. We swooped into the fray—well, all of us did except for Usopp, who cowered behind a pillar and shot random Sure-Kill Stars from there.
"Her arms stretched?!" I heard the geek in the pink yell in surprise.
Arlong piped in. "She possesses the power of the Devil's Fruit?"
"The Gum-Gum Fruit to be exact," said someone else, an unfamiliar voice I'd never heard before. I knocked out one of the bozos and glanced around, searching out the owner of the voice.
"What about the other one?" the fishman leader asked. "The one who's controlling water?"
"Demigod." the unfamiliar voice supplied.
I blinked in surprise. One of Arlong's crew knew about demigods and immortals? I gave a quick uppercut to another underling and continued looking for the speaker, but I couldn't do too much searching because Zoro gave a sudden shout of surprise.
"Everyone get down! Lucy's being a idiot!"
No questions were asked. If Lucy was being an idiot, some shit that could get us hurt was gonna happen, and if I could avoid it in any way possible, then I would avoid it. We all hit the cement.
"Gum-Gum PINWHEEL!" Lucy shouted, and we felt something huge swoop above us, displacing the air. My neck tingles and I could tell that Mohmoo had left the ocean... but that didn't make any sense. I frowned, rolled over so I could see what was going on, and my jaw dropped. LUCY HAD LITERALLY GRABBED MOHMOO BY HIS FREAKIN' HORNS AND WAS SWINGING HIM THROUGH THE FREAKIN' AIR IN CIRCLES! No way was that possible, but here it was, happening right in front of me! The force of Mohmoo repeatedly being swung like that was creating a circular flow of air.
"She's so strong!" was all I could think of to say.
"THAT'S YOUR REACTION?!" Usopp admonished.
All the remaining pirates that we hadn't defeated yet were knocked out, flung to the side. As Lucy's spins got crazier and crazier, she let go, and Mohmoo flew through the air and out to sea, crying and groaning, and landed with a humongous SPLASH! I stared. That was pretty damn awesome! I looked around. Arlong Park had taken a heavy toll because of that attack. Some of the building's facade had been destroyed and was still crumbling now, and a few of the smaller lean-to's on the grounds had been decimated as well.
"I didn't come here to fight these guys!" Lucy informed everyone, panting. "The one I want to take down *pant* is YOU!" She pointed at Arlong.
"That's just perfect." said Arlong in the rubble of his fence. "I've been considering what the best way to kill you would be."
I scrambled to my feet and rapped Lucy on the head. "That was too dangerous, you idiot!"
"DID YOU WANT TO KILL US, TOO?!" Usopp demanded angrily.
Lucy tilted to the side, pouting. She tilted to the other side. She lifted her feet—or tried to, at least, but for some reason she couldn't. I looked down and saw what the problem was: She had smashed her feet into the cement foundations.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?" Usopp shrieked, becoming shark-like and looking eerily like a good-natured Arlong.
"Huh?" said Lucy, confused as to why she wasn't moving.
I sweatdropped at my captain's stupidity and naivety. She'd gotten herself stuck.
"Idiot," I reprimanded her. "Don't do stupid things like that if you don't have a backup plan."
"I didn't think I'd get stuck," she pouted.
"How dare you do that to our crew!" Pinkie cursed.
Gorilla Chest cracked his knuckles. "Guess we'll have to get our hands dirty now."
"I think we need to teach them the difference between our species, chu," a tall blue fishman agreed calmly. He had a long mouth that made him resemble Usopp in a strange way, and his cheeks looked permanently blushed.
A fourth one nodded. "I need to pound some sense into my kin as well," he said, motioning to me. He was the ugliest of the ugly, and fins on his arms, head, and back, which must have made it hard to wear shirts. His hair was orange and his skin was striped yellow and white, so he looked like a clown fish.
I shuddered. Clowns... not good. I hated clowns... but that's a story for another day.
Zoro smirked and put a hand on Wado Ichimonji. "Well, I guess the main forces have finally shown their faces."
"Arlong-san, please just stay right where you are," Gorilla Chest said.
Long Mouth stepped up. "If you fought out of range, Arlong Park would turn to dust, chu."
"We'll take care of them!" Pinkie promised.
"Yeah, do whatever you like." Arlong shrugged nonchalantly.
I grinned. "Four bad guys, five Straw Hats."
"I've got Arlong, you guys take them out." Lucy ordered.
We nodded and I changed my statement. "Four bad guys, four Straw Hats."
Suddenly pinkie took a huge breath and leaned backward, his stomach expanding. I got a chilled feeling in the back of my neck, as though new liquid was being created. I frowned, wondering what it could mean and what Pinkie was doing. While Zoro pointed out the octopus thing was up to something and Sanji started discussing how he would cook octopus, I drew water out of the rectangular pool and wrapped it around my arm in case I needed a quick defense.
"That ain't an octopus, he only has six tentacles," I pointed out.
Sanji shrugged. "Squid, then. It'd still be a good appetizer."
"Uh, hey guys, can you help me—-" Lucy began, but was cut off by Pinkie.
"Take this!" the squid fishman yelled. "Zero Visibility! Tako-Hachi-Black!"
'Zero Visibility?' That didn't sound good.
Suddenly the fishman tilted forward and opened his mouth widely. A jet stream of black liquid was expelled from his mouth and fired straight toward us. I didn't have much time to react, but I pulled more water from the ocean and hurriedly wrapped it around my whole body.
"Water Body!" I called, making up the name in about a second.
SPLASH! The black liquid fell all over us, but simply slid off me since I had a thin layer of water around me. Zoro and Sanji had managed to dive out of the way before it reached us, but Lucy, still stuck in the concrete, got a full blast of the stuff.
"You idiot!" Zoro cursed as he sat up and I sent the water away. "Why didn't you dodge it?!"
"Ahhhh!" Lucy screamed in a panic, putting her hands to her face. She was covered in the black stuff, which had stuck to her body like paint or... ink. "I can't see!"
"You guys didn't notice and I didn't have time to do anything about!" I spat. "She's—" But I was cut off.
"And to finish you off..." Pinkie said, grabbing a humongous chunk of rock that had previously been part of an overhang but was now lying on the cement foundation because of Lucy's stupidity.
"Hey, Lucy!" Usopp gasped, and I turned to see him cowering behind a pillar again. "Run away!"
"That's what we've been trying to say!" I gulped.
Lucy pouted and pointed at her feet, crunched so deep into the cement that she couldn't get out even though she was rubber. "I'm stuck! My feet won't come out!"
"Idiot!" Usopp reprimanded her. "Didn't you stick them in there in the first place!?"
Zoro facepalmed, a dark aura flowing out from him... or maybe it was just the shadow thrown over us from the piece of overhang. "Idiot... what was she thinking...?"
"Tako-Hachi-Black on the rocks!" Pinkie announced.
—SMASH!
The rock split cleanly in two just before it hit our heads. I gasped in awe and the squid-man let out an "eh?" of confusion. There, standing in front of Lucy protectively with his leg held high in the air, was none other than Sanji, who had apparently just delivered a kick powerful enough to break a piece of rock as wide as the roof of a small house in half.
"Amazing..." I murmured, effectively humbled by the cook's leg power.
Sanji glared at the octopus. " Never try to hurt a lady. That's just bad manners."
"Oh, Sanji!" Lucy cheered. "That was awesome! Nice one, nice one!"
The piece of rock on the right crashed to the cement next to me, just barely missing me. I gulped and scooted away from it. That thing had almost taken my head off!
"Whoa, he's awesome!" Usopp approved.
Sanji smirked and adjusted his cigarette. "Well, at least it's better than being with a lowlife crew that is willing to hurt ladies."
"Ladies?" Gorilla Chest mused, stepping forward. "Trying to win over that straw hat girl? Or did you people come all the way here for 'that kind' of woman? Ha! You guys make me laugh."
"'That kind' of woman?" Sanji repeated, eying the fishman. "Say that about Nami-san again and I'll cook you in a buttered frying pan. I'll make you into a Meuniere, fishman!"
I tilted my head, confused. "What's a Meuniere?"
They ignored me. "You look like you could fight... for a human. But a pirate who only fights with chivalry can only be mediocre."
"Why don't you see for yourself whether my chivalry is mediocre or not? I was raised by an unbeatable pirate."
Gorilla Chest cracked his knuckles and said something else, but I was distracted from their conversation when the orange-and-white striped fishman stepped up, his blue shirt with green flowers fluttering in the wind. He looked at my shirt, then looked at me pointedly. "Oi, Pac Man."
I blinked. "You know what Pac Man is?"
"Sure do. I'm a demigod like you. I've been told about other universes by my friends in the immortal underworld."
I narrowed my eyes. Another demigod, a fishman, who joined Arlong's crew? This could get a bit dicey. "Why did you join Arlong?" I asked. "He's evil and only cares about killing humans and making money."
"That about sums it up," the fishman demigod agreed. "But he's powerful and has fair reasons."
"No reason makes killing okay."
He shrugged indifferently. "Perhaps, perhaps not. Depends on how you were raised." Then he smirked and cracked his own knuckles. "I was raised to hate Aes, and I can smell him in your blood! I shall make our father pay!"
Wait... our father? "So are you a child of Aes, too?" I gasped. Then blinked. It made sense. He was a fishman, after all. But, hold the phones! Did that make this enemy my half brother?
"You got it in one," said the fishman, sounding vaguely pleased. "You are following our father's wishes. That means you must die."
I gulped. Water versus water. Our powers would cancel each other out, and no one would win. Who knows? We could fight so long we might even kill one another. Then I thought of something, and my hand strayed to the object strapped to my side. Actually, I did have something my 'half brother' did not...
Usopp attempted to pull Lucy out by wrapping his arms around her awkwardly and walking backwards, but she said, "Still ain't coming free." She picked her nose, and I blanched in disgust.
"Eh? Can't you pull them out yet?" he complained, his long nose twitching in annoyance.
"Not yet. I don't think I can get out just by stretching."
"ARE YOU EVEN TRYING?!"
"Try retracting your legs," I offered.
"PAY ATTENTION TO PEOPLE WHEN THEY'RE TALKING TO YOU!" the fishman demigod yelled angrily. He picked up a smaller piece of overhang and tossed it at me, but I smashed it to pieces with a quick and well-placed Aqua Fist. A bead of sweat trickled down my cheek. I was really hot, but for some reason that wasn't making me more tired... In fact, if anything, I felt like I had more energy than ever.
Pinkie picked up a piece of overhang, too, and prepared to toss it at Usopp and Lucy, but was halted by Zoro, who offered to be his opponent.
So Gorilla Chest was going after Sanji, Pinkie the Squid was paired with Zoro, and the other demigod was gunning for me. That left Usopp and the sky blue, long-mouthed dude. Just as I was thinking this, Usopp accidentally let go of Lucy, who retracted to her feet, continued to the other side because of the force, and smacked into Long Mouth, who fell back and rolled a couple of feet. He got up, muttering curses at Usopp.
"What an idiot..." I muttered to myself, my eye twitching.
"I'm back to where I started from," Lucy noted.
Usopp cried anime tears and ran away, out of Arlong Park, and the blue fishman scrambled to his feet and chased after them. I raised an eyebrow. Actually, that was a smart thing to do. With all these battles going on, it was going to be a tight fit in here. I nodded and turned back to the new addition to Arlong's crew.
"Whaddya say we take this battle outside, too?" I offered. "It's a bit cramped in here."
He sneered evilly. "Sure thing, sis ."
We nodded in unison and headed out of Arlong Park, leaving Sanji and Zoro to tend to Lucy's little problem. As we ran out of the complex, Long Mouth was thrown over our heads in a cocoon of flames, cursing Usopp's heart out. The liar was a little ways down the path, announcing that he was the dude's opponent.
I grinned at Usopp, giving him the 'peace out' sign. Then my fishman brother and I headed off for the marshes of Conomi Islands.