– Hewitt –?

  You'd think that naval combat between a single ship and an entire fleet of them would be incredibly one-sided. Under normal circumstances it might be even difficult to establish a battle in the first place. After all, calling it a battle would imply that the single ship was able to fight back instead of being sunk immediately by a barrage of cannon fire. As space was a limited commodity on board any vessel there was a hard cap to the number of guns one could realistically mount on a ship. By all conventional logic, the Bellamy Pirates should have been severely outgunned and outmatched in this engagement. Normally, that is. Fortunately for Hewitt, his captain didn't do normal.

  The durability of the Black Pearl wasn't even tested. There simply had been no need because none of the shots fired by the Happo Navy came close to touching the wood of the treasure tree composing the galleon's hull. Bellamy's Railgun had proven to be amazing at point defense, the thousands of incoming cannon balls shot out of the air by tiny spring-like projectiles. Hewitt would have loved to answer with some artillery fire of their own, but alas, they were here to recruit the Happo Navy and not send them down to Davy Jones' locker.

  And the only way they were going to accomplish that was by knocking some sense into Don Chinjao's head. Precisely which Hewitt's captain decided to do, shortly after the initial volley. By which Hewitt meant that Bellamy used geppou to board Don Chinjao's flagship on his lonesome. Aghast, Sarquiss sent Hewitt, Ross and Lily after him to provide support in a hurry because it didn't matter how strong their captain was or how certain they were of his victory. Watching from the sidelines while your captain fought an army all on his own, in the middle of enemy territory to boot, simply wasn't done. Unless there were extenuating circumstances of course, but this wasn't one of those times. It wasn't like they were needed to defend the ship either, because Rivers and Laki were more than happy to step into Bellamy's shoes.

  Of course, once they were shown the futility of their long-range aggression, the Happo Navy didn't do the smart thing and stand down. They did the stupid thing and sent in boarding crews instead, throwing away their biggest advantage…their vast numerical superiority. Again, there was only so much space on a ship, meaning only so many of them could engage the Bellamy Pirates at any one time. Considering who they were up against, the foot soldiers of the Happo Navy really didn't stand a chance of completing a successful boarding action.

  The revolutionary Chief of Staff was probably more than sufficient on his lonesome. Add on close combat specialists like Eddy and Nero as well as all-rounders like Sarquiss into the mix and what you got was a lot of green-clad bodies being thrown into the sea. Mani and Muret barely had to do anything apart from taking care of the occasional brave fool, who mistakenly mistook them as an easy target. Then again, most of them quickly decided otherwise once Funkfreed sat on a few of them.

  Not that Hewitt was paying much attention to what was happening back on his second home, because he was rather busy trying to stop the vice commander of the Happo Navy from turning his insides into pulp.

  "Hasshoken: Martial Leg Heel!"

  "Frying Pan Technique: Whack-a-Mole!"

  Foot met a cooking implement, the sound of ringing metal assaulting Hewitt's ears. It was as much a contest of skill as it was of strength, Sai's leg and Hewitt's arm straining against each other while the resulting shockwave rolled outwards, sending a cascade of dust and splinters in every direction. Then Hewitt's pan broke.

  "Oh, come on!" Well, maybe 'shattered' would be a more accurate description. "Do have any idea how much one of those things cost?"

  "No, and I don't care!"

  "You'd better care, because once this is over I'm going to make you pay for the damages!" Hewitt threatened, causing Sai to pause in the middle of swinging his glaive at the cook's head.

  "…pay, as in you're going to hurt me or pay as in actually make me pay money?" Sai asked, slowly and clearly enunciating each syllable to prevent any potential misunderstandings.

  "The latter of course." Hewitt answered, his arms crossed. "You'd think that would be obvious."

  "Why in the world would I pay you money? We're fighting! It's not my fault you use cheap crap that doesn't belong on the battlefield!" Sai protested, his jugular veins becoming ever more prominent the more outraged Sai became. "And who fights using cooking implements anyway? That's unhygienic."

  "Well, thank you for pointing out the obvious." The sarcasm dripping from those words could have drowned a whale. Sadly, while travelling the short distance from Hewitt's lips to Sai's ears, the message was somehow, inexplicably lost in translation.

  "Ah, there's no need to thank me."

  "Obviously I don't use the same tools for fighting and cooking." Hewitt tried to explain again to satisfy his own professional pride if nothing else, though his opponent really wasn't listening.

  "There's really no need to thank me." Sai muttered, twisting his body in embarrassment. Accordingly, his cheeks received a bit more of a reddish hue. A hue that kept intensifying with Sai's blush taking on an increasingly angry crimson tint.

  "But they're what I'm most used to…why are you getting worked up all of a sudden?"

  "Don't thank me you bastard!" Sai bellowed, charging at Hewitt like an enraged bull.

  "I didn't thank you, you imbecile!" Hewitt met his charge head-on with a pair of cleavers. His chains likewise pulled out a veritable arsenal of knives, beautifully showcasing the magnificent variety of Hewitt's collection. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

  "HOW DARE YOU THANK ME!!!"

  Ever since getting his hands on the Chain Chain Fruit, Hewitt had focused most of his efforts on increasing his basic control. After all, what was the point in having new appendages when one couldn't wield them as naturally as the four he'd been born with? He did have to split his observation haki a bit between his chains and shift his priorities from an outward focus into an inward one, but Hewitt didn't have any regrets on that front. Not when the alternative was spending several extra hours battling on his own against the monster that was his Crew's insatiable appetites. This way, he at least had a whole team of sous-chef equivalents at his beck and call, who even functioned as his personal attack squadron in battle.

  Case in point, his chains were doing a wonderful job chipping away at Sai's defense from all directions. Unfortunately, just like Hewitt, his chains had never received any formal training in the martial arts. The consequence of which being Sai's, and more importantly his guard's, rather stubborn refusal to break. Instead, the vice commander of the Happo Navy was using his family's trademark Eight Impact Fist to destroy Hewitt's equipment or to knock them away with his vibration strikes when he couldn't.

  Meanwhile, the man's glaive was getting uncomfortably close to hitting something important. When combined with Bellamy's request that Sai be subdued mostly unharmed, Hewitt was having a rather rough time. Kinda made it hard to believe that he was apparently in the top one percent of the world's population when it came to combat prowess. At the time Hewitt had just been too pleased by Izou's assessment after the Payback War to question its veracity, but why did it seem like every opponent they'd faced afterwards was at least on the same level if not higher? Kuma, the Admiral and now this guy who was slowly but surely pushing Hewitt onto his backfoot.

  It was a very different picture from the massacre happening a dozen meters over yonder where Lily was fighting together with Sai's brother. Well, fighting together in so far as rusting his joints shut and wielding the vice commander like an oversized cudgel could be deemed to be such.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Anyway, the closely balanced act Hewitt was putting on with Sai was rudely interrupted by the appearance of a purple conflagration between them. One, originating from Ross's experimental new gauntlet, which was spewing out a stream of flaming gas in Sai's direction.

  – Bellamy –?

  In his prime Don Chinjao had been counted amongst the giants of his age. He was the 12th hereditary leader of the Happo Navy, one of the richest men alive and a rival to the Pirate King Gol D. Roger. His strength was so immense that the legendary Hero of the Marines, Vice Admiral Garp felt it necessary to flatten eight entire mountains with his bare fists to prepare for their historic duel. Even if Chinjao emerged from the battle defeated and diminished, it didn't change the fact that he'd stood shoulder to shoulder amongst titans.

  But for all the hype and the reputation the old man was supposed to have, his performance in the original source material had been…underwhelming. During the battle royale at the Corrida Colosseum, Luffy defeated him without really breaking a sweat or needing to showcase his new Gear Four. In the battle for Dressrosa, he was merely evenly matched with the most senile of Doflamingo's executives. That Lao G ended up taking the man out in a single hit – albeit when Chinjao's guard had been torn down by his grandfatherly pride at Sai's growth into a deserving successor – certainly hadn't helped his image.

  Thus, without his cone-shaped head to add further destructive power to his headbutts, with his broken heart weakening his haki and a chronic illness sapping much of his strength over the years… the Chinjao who had come out to fight me shouldn't have posed much of a threat in his present condition.

  The key word being shouldn't.

  As I was swept off my feet by a hundred-foot mast being swung at my midsection by an enraged retiree, a tiny voice in my head asked if I hadn't best reconsider that assessment. At least I finally understood how horrible my high school's baseballs must have felt like, as the giant, armament coated piece of timber smacked me off Chinjao's flagship and into the sky. Thankfully, I wasn't fated to fall into the ocean and drown, Nero's lessons and my devil fruit enabling me to use my spring's vibrations to essentially stand on thin air. Though, by the time I did so and regathered my bearings, the old man had hurled the mast, beams and all, at me like a bloody javelin.

  "Just cut it out already!" I roared, my voice drowning out the sound of exploding wood as my Spring Gatling ground the projectile down into sawdust. "What about me trying to help you feel like your old self don't you fucking understand?"

  "I have sworn to carry my grudge against Garp also against his children and his grandchildren! Quit jumping about like an insect and let me hit you! That'll help me feel better!"

  Fist met headbutt as I tried to fix his broken head with the aid of gravity, while he did his best to break my hand. Neither of us succeeded.

  "In that case, isn't extending your grudge to me going a little far?" I asked, landing on a flagpole. Chinjao did the same on another. "I've got no relation to the man."

  "Shut up and die, friend of Garp's grandson!"

  Another jump, another clash, another flurry of blows exchanged between us. Hands and feet a blur, the air between us filled with the clamour of armament striking armament. Continuing all the way down past sea level without letting up for a single moment, the water being pushed away by the unending flood of shockwaves as we slowly moved further downwards.

  Chinjao seemed unconcerned that we were at risk of being swallowed by several metric tons of H2O. I was a bit more wary, because my body being positioned lower than the ocean's surface usually didn't bode well for devil fruit users like me. Even if our cooperation kept us safe and dry, it wasn't the most stable situation to find myself in.

  Especially if that cooperation could be easily and more importantly, unilaterally broken by an unscrupulous pirate like me. Enough said, I disengaged and tried to move to safety. Chinjao wasn't of a mind to let me go so easily, but a double deathknock slowed him down enough that he disappeared beneath the waves. And by the law of conservation of momentum, I managed to speed off in the opposite direction, escaping the cocoon of space we'd created before the weight of the ocean could collapse it.

  Most of the battlefield froze for a moment, a thousand eyes staring at me in disbelief and horror. I purposefully ignored them and moved further away. I also pointedly did not ask if I'd done it or if my opponent was defeated. That way usually lay disaster. Not that it really helped all that much in the end. I'd scarcely moved more than a dozen meters when Chinjao emerged from the depths in an award-winning imitation of a flying fish.

  "You shan't escape me, friend of Garp's grandson!" More importantly for my immediate health, he was speeding in my direction head-first. "Hasshoken Ogi."

  "Oh, gosh darn it!"

  And because the water's higher density hadn't slowed him down like it should have by all rights (at least according to the physics of movement), I didn't have enough time to properly move out of the way.

  "Drill-less Dragon Drill-less Nail"

  "Spring Shield!"

  The result being his shiny black head ramming into my defensive shell with all the force of a freight train. I counted myself lucky that his family's specialty didn't work on me. Because if the millions of springs composing my Coil Chassis hadn't absorbed and neutralized his vibrations, I'd have ended up in a lot more pain than merely being launched into the next ship over with a bruised forearm. As it was, I still didn't really have an answer to his Conqueror's Haki.

  "Give up, friend of Garp's grandson!" my opponent suggested, leaping through the air towards my position. The rational person might have. After all, most forum users agreed that there was no counter to a conqueror than another conqueror. I wasn't one nor did I have a workable counter yet. Hence, logically I wasn't ready to fight one. Not yet.

  But as I lay there in the debris of what had once been the ship's galley, with the weight of Chinjao's will pressing down on me, the following thought slipped into my mind.

  I was fucking tired of this shit.

  I hadn't been ready for Doffy during the Summit War.

  I hadn't been ready for Lafitte during the Payback War.

  I hadn't been ready for Kizaru during Kuma's rescue.

  I had let my opponent get the better of me thrice and that was thrice too many. I was tired of getting kicked around. It didn't matter if it was because of superior experience or a hidden ace up someone's sleeve or a power I did not have or one of a myriad of other reasons.

  I certainly couldn't claim to be making much progress towards my goal of being the strongest man alive if I kept losing, now could I? In a way it was time to take a book out of Zoro's playbook.

  I got up and took a deep breath.

  "I'M NOT LOSING EVER AGAIN! NOT TO YOU AND NOT TO ANYONE ELSE!" I declared loud enough that the seas answering my call shifted the surroundings ships away. "I WILL TO BE THE STRONGEST MAN ALIVE!!!"

  If my declaration of intent impressed the old veteran, he didn't show it. Neither did I care if I'd impressed him, for that statement had not been meant for anyone other than myself.

  "Big dreams, squirt! BUTO!!"

  "RAIKEN!"

  For it was an articulation of fact, an assertion of my will and the proclamation of the reality I was going to create.

  Sorry for the delay, but I was in the hospital for the last couple of days. Nothing serious and I'm fine but that's my excuse.

  As always, if you've enjoyed do leave a like and a comment. The more of them I see, the more motivated I am to write.