The challenge from Ace, magnificent and arrogant, still hung in the air. Then, the very atmosphere on Elbaf curdled. It wasn't just quiet; it was a pressurized, painful silence, a vacuum that sucked the breath and bravery from every giant present.
A new presence rose from the earth, and it wasn't just power—it was a vortex of pure, suffocating malice. This was not the hot, ambitious rage of a pirate. This was the cold, patient, and ancient hatred of a tomb.
Prince Loki, the Shame of Elbaf, stood tall. His blindfold, a mockery of the chaos he could sense with terrifying clarity, did nothing to hide the cruel, ecstatic smile that split his features. He turned his head slowly, listening to the thousands of silent, terrified gasps from his own people, the sound of their blood running cold.
His smile widened.
"My, my," he whispered, his voice like dry leaves skittering over stone, yet it carried with unnatural clarity across the arena. "What a truly... magnificent party. You've even brought my replacement."
His head turned, and his blindfolded eyes seemed to lock impossibly onto Regent Jarl. The old giant, a man who had stood firm against Yonko, was frozen. His skin was a deathly pale beneath his white beard. His massive hands, hands that could crush battleships, were trembling.
"You have been keeping my throne warm, Jarl," Loki continued, his tone a venomous, mocking pity. "How kind of you. But I've come to take it back."
"Loki!" Jarl's roar was a lifetime of fury crammed into one word, but it cracked, undermined by a deep, buried fear that tasted like 40-year-old ash. "You... you! This is impossible! You are a traitor to your blood! A kinslayer! You... you are unfit!"
The word 'unfit' struck Loki like a physical blow. His smile vanished. The air temperature plummeted.
"Unfit?" Loki's voice dropped, the mocking tone gone, replaced by something hollow and terrifying. "I am destined to rule, you old fool. You, and my weak, sentimental, human-loving father... you poisoned this land with your tolerance! You let them chain me in the dark, in the filth, beneath the very stone you stand on!"
He took a single, deliberate step. The ground beneath his boot withered to black, sterile dust.
"Did you think I would forget?" he shrieked, his composure snapping like a dry twig. "Did you think I would forGIVE? I am the true blood of Elbaf! "
Beside him, Shiryu of the Rain, his part of the bargain complete, took a long, slow drag from his cigar. The red ember glowed in the sudden gloom. He let the smoke out in a lazy, insolent cloud. The package was delivered. With a faint smirk and a glint off his spectacles, his form wavered like a heat haze and vanished.
The stunned silence was shattered. But not by Loki.
"WORORORORORO!"
Kaido, who had been momentarily forgotten, slammed his kanabo into the ground. The impact sent a tremor through the island, but the sound that ripped from his throat wasn't anger. It was a wheezing, ecstatic laugh. He was drunk, but this... this was better than any sake. A land of giants. Two rival Emperors. A legendary swordsman. And now, an enraged, malice-filled prince with an army at his back.
This wasn't a party; it was a buffet of destruction, and he was starving.
"This is it!" he bellowed, his voice cracking the sky. "This is the war! This is the death I've been waiting for! GABAN! LOKI! ACE! COME AND KILL ME!"
He raised Hassaikai, ready to smash the entire island in half.
"WAIT, KAIDO! WAIT, YOU DRUNK EN FOOL! YOU HAVE NO PATIENCE! DON'T FORGET YOU OWE ME!!!!"
He paused, glaring at Big Mom with pure, animalistic annoyance. "Hah? What is it now, Linlin? Don't spoil my fun!"
"Fun?" she shrieked, pointing a massive, gnarled finger not at Gaban, but at the Moby Dick, anchored off the coast. "You call that 'fun'? Look! Look, you idiot! Newgate is on that ship! Helpless! He's a walking corpse ripe for the picking! And that girl... the pink-haired brat with the time power... she's with him! Maaa-mamama!And that nico robin girl she can read poneglyph"
Big Mom's eyes were wide with a gluttonous, strategic hunger. "Why waste time on this old fossil?" she cackled, gesturing dismissively at Gaban. "When we can kill a legend? His fruit... that girl's power and knowledge... think of the feast, Kaido!"
Kaido's bloodthirsty grin widened. The logic was undeniable. Why fight a relic like Gaban when he could take the head of the man who once defined an era? The only man to ever stand equal to Roger.
"Worororo! I see! Good thinking, old hag!" he roared. "His head is mine! I'll be the one to put Whitebeard in the ground!"
"You can have his head!" Big Mom cackled, her eyes zeroed in on Jewelry Bonney, a tiny, terrified pink speck on the deck. "I want both girls! Let's clear the trash first, Kaido!"
"FINE BY ME!"
Their bloodthirsty grins mirrored each other. No alliance was spoken. None was needed. In a single, terrifying agreement, the two Yonko moved. Not at Gaban. Not at each other. They charged, a twin-headed natural disaster, directly toward the Burning Crown fleet.
On the Wild Card, Deuce's blood ran cold. His hands were slick on the railing.
"Captain!" he choked out, his voice a full octave higher than usual. "They're... they're not looking at Gaban. They're looking at us. At the Moby!"
"Raise the sails!" "No time! They'll be on us in seconds!" "Fire the cannons!" "It won't do anything!" another crewman sobbed.
They were ants in the path of a tidal wave. But they were not undefended.
"My, my. Such unruly children." Scopper Gaban sighed, his voice calm as he appeared in their path as if from thin air, two simple, shining axes in his hands. "I told you to behave."
"Out of the way, Gaban!" a new, gravelly voice roared. Douglas Bullet landed beside him in a ground-shaking tremor, his Haki flaring with pure contempt. Steel plates were already slithering up his arms, absorbing the ruined arena. "Only I get to kill Roger's son!"
"He's not your opponent, Bullet," Gaban said, not even glancing at his old rival. His eyes were fixed on the two advancing mountains. "They are."
Bullet's gaze shifted. Kaido and Big Mom. His rage didn't lessen; it simply found a new, bigger target. "Hmph. Fine," he growled, a predatory grin spreading. "I'll warm up with an Emperor. Or two. I'll show them what true power is."
"Try not to break the whole island," Gaban muttered, spinning his axes.
"Try to keep up, old man," Bullet retorted.
They didn't exchange another word. They just moved.
Gaban, a blur of impossible speed, vanished. He reappeared before Big Mom, his axes blackened, shining with a light-swallowing gloss that screamed of power. "Not one step further, Linlin!"
"Get out of my way, Scopper!" she shrieked, swinging Napoleon.
Gaban didn't block. He flowed. He ducked under the swing, the wind shearing the air where he'd been, and slammed both axes into her side in a "Copper Cross." The impact created a sonic boom, but it was like hitting a mountain of steel-infused mochi. She roared in annoyance, not pain, and countered with a fist full of Zeus's lightning.
Simultaneously, Bullet, now a walking fortress of rage and steel, met Kaido's charge head-on. "WORORORO!" "URAAAAAGH!"
Bullet slammed his colossal, Haki-infused fist, empowered by his own Devil Fruit, directly into Kaido's Hassaikai.
The resulting explosion wasn't a sound. It was an absence. The world dissolved in a blinding, multi-colored shockwave of clashing Conqueror's Haki that tore the coastline in two. The sea itself split to the bedrock, creating a temporary canyon in the ocean, and a wall of water hundreds of meters high blasted outward. Their battle was so immense it created its own separate, isolated war, their shockwaves so violent that no lesser being could even approach.
Ace's crew, thrown from their feet, let out a collective, shaky breath. "They're... gone?" one whispered. "Did they just save us?"
The air was still vibrating when a new sound cut through the relief. A laugh. Oily, grating, and full of a vile, patient hunger.
"ZEHAHAHAHAHA! ZEHAHAHAHAHA!"
Smashing through the chaotic waves, a fleet of crude, log-rafted ships, each flying a three-skulled Jolly Roger, appeared from the mist. At the prow of the colossal flagship, the Saber of Xebec, stood Marshall "Davy" D. Teach. He spread his arms wide, his darkness swirling, drinking the very light.
"What a spectacle!" he boomed. "And just in time! The main course, ripe for the picking!"
His surviving commanders, a collection of the world's most dangerous men, gathered around him. Jesus Burgess, the 'Champion', his laugh booming with arrogant power; Laffitte, the 'Demon Sheriff', tapping his cane with a quiet, unsettling smile; Van Augur, 'Supersonic', his eyes distant and cold; and Doc Q, the 'Grim Reaper', slouched on his horse, Stronger, coughing sickly. And deadliest of all, Shiryu of the Rain, a mere shimmer in the air, his invisible presence a promise of a blade in the back.
And with them, a new, monstrous figure. A hulking, simple-minded brute with pasty skin and a vacant look, drool dripping from his chin. Strapped to his back was Whitebeard's iconic bisento. Edward Weevil.
"Zehahaha! Go, Weevil-kun!" Blackbeard urged. "Go get what your 'Mommy' wants! It's right over there!"
Weevil's eyes fixed on the Moby Dick. "Mommy... said... I get... ship. I get... treasure. I am... SON!"
On the Moby's deck, Marco's face went white. His voice, usually so level, cracked. "ACE! ON THE SHIP! IT'S WEEVIL! HE'S COMING FOR POPS!"
Aboard the Moby Dick, in the infirmary, Jewelry Bonney watched in pure terror. Her stomach twisted. The monster, Weevil, was ignoring the war. His vacant eyes were locked right on this ship. On him.
He crouched and then bounded across the water, each step a miniature explosion, closing the distance in seconds.
She looked at the frail, sleeping, one-armed man... the legend in the bed. Ace's voice echoed in her head. 'Protect him for me.' His trust in her.
No... no, no, no... He's sleeping. He's helpless. Ace trusted me... He trusted me! I can't run! I WON'T!
"No!" she screamed, her voice thin before it hardened with furious, desperate resolve. "You can't have him! You can't!"
She slammed her small hands onto Whitebeard's chest, pouring every ounce of her life, her will, her desperate, childish hope into her power. She could feel her own life force draining, a dizzying, sickening rush as the years flowed from her into him. Her hair grayed at the temples. Her skin wrinkled.
But the man beneath her hands... changed.
"AGE-AGE… PRIME!"
A wave of brilliant, pink light exploded from the ship, a silent nova that washed over the entire battlefield.
On the Moby Dick, the broken, one-armed old man vanished. In his place, a man stood.
The oppressive, sickly aura of death and decay was gone, blasted away by a presence so vast it dwarfed even Kaido's. He was a mountain of muscle and power, his blond hair flowing, his iconic crescent-moon mustache sharp and proud. His body was unscarred. His one good arm crackled, not with sickness, but with the white, shimmering, world-breaking light of the Gura Gura no Mi.
Edward Newgate, in the absolute prime of his life, opened his eyes.
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