Interlude: Liquid Courage?
-Byron-
As far as diabolical plans for world domination went, this one was just plain pathetic. What had Ratchet been thinking? That the world was simply going to roll over and give up, because he had gained some tenuous control over a giant moving turtle? Admittedly it was a very large turtle with a city on its back and a lot more room for canon emplacements. If he were given enough time, he could even man those emplacements with his mechanical toys to turn Mecha Island into a heavily armed and mobile mechanical fortress.But that was all it was…a single floating fortress. Any competent marine vessel would be able to outmaneuver Ratchet and his two officers and force a landing, never mind what a squadron of marines could do.
No, this plan was doomed from the very beginning and Byron had the distinctive pleasure of being in a prime position to break the news to this arrogant manchild. Then again, why do it himself when he had two rookies who could do it in his stead?
Actually…
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Helena flinched, before wrapping her arms around herself in a protective gesture. "I don't like it. I don't like it at all."
…make that three.
Judy's opponent turned out to be General Maji, the officer in charge of the island's entire military, or at least he would have been if the island had a military in the first place. As it didn't, the man came marching out the castle with a troop of toy soldiers at his back.
"Do I really have to fight? I'm just a bartender."
"You are my bartender which makes you a pirate sailing on my ship." Byron growled at the lad, giving him no room to argue before pushing him forward. "Fight."
Still, the boy hesitated, glancing back and forth between Byron's finger and the general several times, before slowly trudging towards his target, though he did noticeably speed up when Marie cheered him on.
"I believe in you Judy!"
Judy did make one last attempt at diplomacy, trying to convince Maji to surrender before anyone got hurt, but like his master, General Maji did not have the ability to see when the odds were stacked against him.
The fight began with the crackling of rifle fire, the mechanical line infantry doing their best to riddle Judy with bullet holes. Unfortunately for them, for all their sophistication and wonderfully detailed uniforms, their movements were limited and their intentions clearly telegraphed. Judy simply had to do what Judy did best, which was run away faster than the soldiers could re-adjust their aim. And that's what he did. Oddly enough, that was also the only thing he did.
"Shura?"
"Yes, captain?"
"You did teach him how to throw a punch, right?"
"No captain, I thought you were going to."
"..."
"...do we interfere?"
"Not yet, let's give the lad the chance to figure things out first. Who knows? He may even surprise us."
As it happened, Judy did manage to surprise Byron. Once he had clonked onto the fact that he wouldn't be winning a fight if he didn't do something other than run circles around his opponents, Judy had elected to run even more circles…just after attaching a wire he had borrowed from Shura to one of the soldiers and his own belt. The result was the entire squadron being bound together like a bouquet with Maji stuck in the middle.
"That's a pretty good idea actually. Pity he isn't physically strong enough to pull it off properly." Shura mused, more to himself than to Byron. Byron however didn't reply to that, as he was distracted by something else he was just noticing.
"Is he…is he getting himself drunk?" Byron asked incredulously, causing Shura to do a spit take.
To give Judy the due credit he deserved, he wasn't getting drunk as that would require him to ingest more alcohol than his body could reasonably break down in a timely manner. What he was doing though, was chugging the contents of half a dozen vials which Byron knew to contain the lad's experimental cocktails. The next thing Byron knew, Judy suddenly found some hidden reserves of strength with which he heaved on the wire, quickly tightening the loose bonds he had prepared previously and crushing Maji with the weight of his own troops.
Later, when Byron grilled the lad on what substance he'd imbibed, the bartender turned pirate only had one thing to say.
"Uhm…liquid courage?"
Whereas General Maji had relied primarily on the strength of his toy soldiers, Colonel Honki had opted to go the exact opposite route, attempting to augment his personal power with some sort of mechanical battle armor. In all honesty, it reminded Byron more of a lumbering gorilla than anything else and it was probably about as dangerous. While its raw strength may have been respectable by the standards of the four Blues, Byron had witnessed the might of the Grand Line at Marineford. Especially when compared to Vegapunk's creations, Honki's battle suit was nothing more than a shabby toy.
Which was why Byron felt absolutely no remorse whatsoever when he shoved Helena forwards to earn her own keep. Helena may have been a East Blue pirate but she had survived long enough on the Grand Line that this shouldn't have posed a serious threat to her wellbeing.
The fight, if you could call it that, was incredibly one-sided. No sooner had Honki fired his shoulder cannons, did Helena liquify and proceed to engulf the man in a giant ball of her pink fluid. This in turn forced the colonel to make a choice. He could either wear the mask and suffer the enormous heat his suit generated or he could forgo the mask and risk drowning. Or…as it turned out, he could choose to do nothing and get hurt when Helena's liquid used the opening afforded by his inaction to infiltrate his suit and mess with some critical component, causing the whole contraption to destabilize and explode.
Byron did have to put Helena back in her place, when buoyed by her victory, she turned her gaze onto the Sommelier pirates in a less than innocent manner, obviously trying to judge whether or not she could forcibly subjugate the crew into doing her bidding. After all, she was a logia and hence invulnerable unless she did something silly, like allowing herself to be trapped in a bottle…right? Byron quickly disabused her of the notion by humming a lullaby and magnifying her drowsiness enough to instantly put her to sleep. When she woke again, he dangled a pair of seastone handcuffs in front of her face, which together with his humming, did a lot to convince the girl to behave from then on.
Now, with both officers taken down and out for the count, that left only the honorable Doctor Ratchet for Marie to take care of.
Ratchet was an intelligent young man. While Byron had already noted that his creations paled in comparison to Vegapunk's masterworks, the mere fact that he'd managed as much as he'd had with self-study and limited resources, deserved a certain amount of respect. Additionally, due to the invasion of Mecha Island by the Trump Pirates, the young lord had been able to gather plentiful data regarding the combat worthiness of his mechs. Or lack of combat worthiness, when one considers that the Trump Pirates had successfully ransacked the castle and made off with whatever valuables they could get their grubby hands on. Hence, it should be of no surprise to anyone that a motivated and talented tinker like Ratchet would take those lessons to heart when he went back to the drawing board.
The result was the Iron Man #33, a mech which had its functionality streamlined until it was utterly unsuited for anything other than combat. It was his greatest creation to date, incorporating the secrets of the King Cannon Mark 2 into its design, the remnants of which the Bear King had been forced to leave behind, and being armed with several gatling guns. Or so Ratchet claimed, when the lad had boastfully introduced his creation to Marie.
Marie remained thoroughly unimpressed, merely snapping her fingers and activating her devil fruit ability...the Neko Neko no Mi: Model Nekoshou.
Marie's fruit was an interesting one, in Byron's opinion. While he was aware that devil fruits, especially zoan fruits, tended to influence their user until their character was more aligned with the ability itself, Byron had never witnessed a case where this effect had been as drastic as with Marie. On most days, the girl was as sweet as they came, polite and demure to a fault, but whenever she entered a combat situation and especially if she used her devil fruit, it was as if she'd flipped a switch somewhere. In other words, the girl became a whole different person.
Vulgar where she'd once been polite, playful and mischievous where she'd been serious…and where she'd once been demure and reserved…well. Let's say that Judy's self-control was greatly challenged every time he saw his fiancee transform into her hybrid form.
Ratchet himself froze for a good thirty seconds as he took in the sight of her new outfit. And while Byron pondered the mystery of why her clothing changed with her, Marie wasted no time in pouncing her opponent. That the mech had its guns trained on her seemed to bother the girl not a whit, as Ratchet would have to identify the real her first. One Marie became two, then five, then ten, throwing her opponent into a wild panic as he was suddenly confronted by a small horde of grinning, yowling catgirls charging at him from all directions. Byron didn't blame the boy for failing to respond adequately, as he knew first hand how disorientating Marie's illusionary clones could be. And that was despite his ability to pick up the slight auditory inconsistencies between the illusions and the main body, though even those seemed to be lessening every day.
Belatedly, Ratchet tried to ward her off, his battle suit's arms flailing wildly, but his panicked defense availed him not, Marie sinuously dancing her way through the incoming hail of bullets. Another snap of her fingers and the ground beneath the Iron Man #33 turned into a swamp, the mud unable to support the ton-heavy weight and the mech sinking into the ground up to its chest as a result. And with that, the fight was essentially over, Marie only needing to deliver the finishing blow to an immobilized opponent, which she did with gusto. The last thing Ratchet saw before his facial structures were rearranged, would have probably been Marie's heel coming down in an axe-kick to smash through the mech's metal helmet.
Author's note:
And this is the last filler chapter for a while. Next time it's back to Bellamy.
I've also experimented a little bit this time with shorter combat scenes, so do let me know whether you prefer these or the longer ones.
As for why I gave Marie the fruit I did, I didn't really see a way to make a strong enough not to die within two years without a good fruit or a master trainer like Garp.
So yes, it's a mythical zoan and yes, it's powerful but no, Marie is not going to be fighting people like Dellinger on an even footing. She'll probably reach a level roughly around OG past-timeskip Bellamy or maybe a little bit above that. Strong enough to be relevant but not that much more.
Judy's ability is a branch-off of Byron's just with alcohol. Having seen Byron use music to do stuff music shouldn't be able to do, Judy got inspired to put his own skills as a bartender to work. The result is a bunch of cocktails which grant some limited buffs and will require a lot more work to help Judy be relevant front line fighter. The basic idea is, that in keeping with Byron's theme, his crew is based around support (Byron's music, Judy's cocktails, Marie's illusions and even Shura's strings to control the space).
