The iconic skull-and-crossbones projectile screamed through the sky, a perfect, whistling arc of destruction.
On the ground, Captain Buggy was a picture of pure, malicious glee. His grin was a painted-on fissure, his body vibrating with anticipation.
"Gyagyagyagya!" he cackled, the sound sharp and metallic. "Fetch me a scope, you idiot!" he barked at a nearby subordinate. "I want to watch! I want to see the look on that fat hag Alvida's face when her flashy new ship turns into kindling!"
Just as the lackey scrambled to obey, another pirate—this one holding a singed, tattered newspaper—yelled, "Buggy-sama! There's big news! It mentions—"
"SHUT UP!" Buggy roared, his joy souring into annoyance. "Can't you see I'm in the middle of a masterpiece?"
"BOSS! LOOK!" The shriek came from the lookout post. It was a sound not of excitement, but of pure, throat-tearing panic. "IT'S COMING BACK!"
Buggy's entire reality tilted. The blood drained from his very-real nose. "What...?"
He snatched the scope from the first pirate's fumbling hands and jammed it against his socket, sweeping the sky. Empty... empty... then—there.
A black speck. Growing.
A familiar, grinning skull.
His skull.
He didn't speak. He didn't move. His painted mouth hung open in a perfect 'O' of comical, cartoonish disbelief. The world seemed to slow down. He could see the spinning fuse. He could hear the whistle.
He lowered the scope, his body trembling, and opened his mouth to scream.
It was too late.
The returned Buggy Ball struck the bar not with a simple crash, but with the force of an angry god.
KABOOOOOM!
The explosion was not just a sound; it was a concussion that swallowed all other senses. A shockwave of pulverized stone and superheated air blasted outward, tearing through the assembled Buggy Pirates like a scythe. The sound was an absolute, deafening, final DON! that shook the entire town.
More than half the crew was wiped out in an instant.
When the smoke—thick with the stench of gunpowder, fire, and something sickeningly coppery—began to clear, Buggy the Clown crawled out from under the wreckage. His gaudy coat was torn, and he was dragging two of his own unconscious subordinates, holding them like human shields.
"What the... What the hell just happened?" he sputtered, his voice trembling with a fury so profound it was almost infantile. "They... THEY SENT IT BACK! ON ME!"
Behind him, his First Mate, Mohji, and his Chief of Staff, Cabaji, emerged from the dust, brushing themselves off with an air of mild inconvenience.
"That... That was my strongroom!" Buggy shrieked, his infantile fury instantly eclipsed by a far more powerful, more primal emotion: sheer, greedy panic. "The map! My treasure! My Grand Line map!"
His eyes darted to the tattered scraps of newspaper fluttering on the ground. He dove for them, snatching them from the dust. Most of it was ash, but two fragments were horribly, infuriatingly legible: "...Iron Mace Alvida... captured..." and "...rookie... 15 Million Berries...".
Buggy crumpled the scraps, his mind whirling with a paranoid, furious logic. "Alvida... and a 15-million rookie? They're working together! They think they can rob me?!"
"Forget the treasure!" he roared, his vanity winning out over his greed in a spectacular internal coup. "They dared to attack me! The great Captain Buggy! They're at the docks! Mohji, Cabaji, get the survivors! Find anyone who can still walk! We're moving out! Bring another Buggy Cannon! I'm going to blow them to bits at point-blank range, and I'm going to do it flashily!"
_________
The Miss Love Duck docked at the quiet, abandoned harbor. The four of them stepped onto the shore, the silence of the creaking wood the only thing that greeted them. It was a dead, heavy silence, broken only by the wind whistling through the skeletal husks of ruined homes.
This wasn't a town. It was a graveyard.
"Pointless," Nami muttered, her voice thick with a familiar, sickening disgust. She pulled her arms around herself. "This is why I hate pirates. They break everything they touch."
Luffy, leading the group, remained silent. He walked through the ruins with a detachment that was almost as shocking as the destruction itself.
An inefficient use of resources, he thought, his gaze sweeping the wreckage. No profit in this. It's a waste.
He would, of course, do the same if the objective required it. But never for a reason as stupid as spectacle.
They rounded a corner. A small, pained yelp.
Yip!
The entire crew stopped.
In the rubble of what was once a pet food store, a small, white dog lay on its side. It was a nameless, worthless mutt, its fur matted with blood and dust. It tried to lift its head, whimpered again, and collapsed. Beside it, an old man with a sash lay half-conscious, his body a map of bruises.
Nami gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "Oh god... they're still alive! We have to help them!" She was already rushing forward, her disgust momentarily forgotten, replaced by a desperate, frantic empathy.
Zoro and Alvida watched, unmoving. But Nami's reaction wasn't the strangest thing in the street.
The strangest thing was Luffy.
The man who had walked through the ruins of an entire town without a flicker of emotion had stopped dead. His body went rigid. The destruction of homes, the implied deaths of dozens... none of it had registered.
But this dog...
In his past life, he'd loved dogs. A stray had saved his life once, taking a bullet that had been meant for him during a territory dispute. It was a debt he'd never been able to repay. This was the first dog he had seen in this new world. And it was dying.
His face, usually a mask of cold pragmatism or jarring amusement, was now something else entirely. It was still. A terrifying, profound stillness. An anger so cold it was absolute zero. He wasn't throwing a tantrum like Buggy. He was a deep well of sudden, focused hate.
He didn't move. He didn't speak. He just stared, watching as Nami frantically checked the old man.
"He's breathing! This house is... it's mostly intact! Help me get them inside!" Nami yelled.
Just as Zoro and Alvida moved to help, they heard it. The heavy, rhythmic tramping of boots.
TRAMP. TRAMP. TRAMP.
And the loud, obnoxious jeering of pirates.
"Gyagyagya! When I find 'em, I'm gonna split 'em in half!"
"Yeah! No one messes with Captain Buggy!"
A mob of Buggy Pirates, led by their captain and wheeling a new cannon, rounded the corner.
Mohji, perched on his lion, saw the Straw Hats first. His gaze flickered to the rubble where Nami was kneeling over the mayor and the dog.
Tch. Still alive? he thought, recognizing the pair he'd personally beaten and left for dead that morning. And now they've attracted pests.
He sneered, then pointed. "Captain! There they are!"
Buggy stomped forward. "Iron Mace Alvida!" he shrieked. "I read your crew got caught! But here you are, messing with the great pirate Captain Buggy!"
Alvida just snorted.
Before Buggy could continue his tirade, a new voice cut through the air. It was cold, flat, and vibrating with a lethal intensity.
"Buggy the Clown."
Luffy stepped forward, his straw hat casting a dark shadow over his eyes.
"Are you the one who attacked that dog?"
The question was so bizarre, so specific, that it stopped everyone. Buggy stared at him. "Which dog? Oh, that mutt? Who the hell are you, brat?"
Luffy didn't change his tone. "Monkey D. Luffy. Captain of the Straw Hat Pirates."
"Straw Hat Pirates?" Buggy scoffed. "Never heard of 'em. Wait..." His eyes narrowed. "Are you that new rookie? The one with the 15-million-berry bounty?"
Luffy's entire, deadly aura evaporated in an instant. His head tilted. He looked genuinely, surprisingly, interested. "Oh? You know about me? And I got a bounty?" A flicker of a grin. "Did you have my bounty poster?"
"Nah," Buggy said, tapping his cannon. "It got destroyed in the explosion."
Luffy's expression snapped back to serious. "Too bad," he said, his voice flat. "I wanted to see my photo."
Buggy was completely nonplussed by the jarring shift. "So, what are you doing here, brat? Are you after my head? Thinking you can defeat me and gain fame?" He grinned, his confidence returning. "Too bad, sucker! You messed with the wrong man!"
He laughed, a high-pitched, grating sound, and threw his arm out theatrically—not at Luffy, but at the pirates wheeling the Buggy Cannon.
"You fools think you're special just because you survived my first ball?" he cackled. "Time for a flashy, point-blank execution! LIGHT THE FUSE! BLOW THEM ALL TO HELL!"
The pirates with the cannon fumbled with a match, their hands shaking.
This time, Luffy's crew didn't flinch.
Nami, standing behind Zoro, just stared, her expression a mix of terror and utter confusion. "Is he... Is he stupid? He's using a cannon on him? Again?"
Zoro didn't even draw his sword. He just sighed, a long-suffering sound. "What a waste of time."
Alvida actually snorted. "He really is a one-trick clown."
Luffy himself just sighed. It was a small, impatient, deeply put-upon sound. He stepped in front of his crew.
"You didn't learn from the last time, did you?" he asked, his voice flat.
Buggy's eyes went wide. "Last time...? Wait... It was YOU?!"
The fuse sizzled. The cannon boomed.
KABOOM!
The Buggy Ball shot forward, a spinning skull of death, crossing the 30 feet between them in less than a second.
Luffy took a deep, impossible breath.
FWOOMP!
His torso swelled, his red vest straining as he became a perfect, rubbery sphere.
"Gum-Gum..."
THUD!
The cannonball slammed into his inflated stomach, its momentum completely, utterly absorbed. The force of the impact kicked up a cloud of dust, but Luffy hadn't moved an inch.
Buggy's jaw hit the dirt. His eyes, now comically wide, looked like they were going to pop out of his skull. "HE ATE IT?! NO... HE'S... RUBBER?!"
"...BALLOON!" Luffy grunted, his body contracting with a violent, percussive P-TOOO!
The Buggy Ball shot back at its senders.
For a split second, Buggy and his entire remaining crew stared at their own impending, flashy death.
Then, Buggy did something. He didn't try to block it. He detonated.
"BARA BARA..." he shrieked, his voice cracking in pure panic. "KINKYUU DASSHUTSU!" (Emergency Escape!)
His body—head, hands, torso—instantly separated and flew apart in a dozen different directions, scattering wildly to avoid the blast. His feet, anchored to the ground, just stood there, trembling. SPLIT!
His disembodied parts scattered to safety, hovering in the air.
His crew, however, was not so lucky. They didn't have a Devil Fruit. All they had were their own terrified crewmates to hide behind.
The Buggy Ball slammed directly into the new cannon and the mob of pirates clustered behind it.
A secondary, catastrophic explosion ripped the street apart.
KABOOOOOOOM!
The blast was deafening, a wave of fire and shrapnel that vaporized the cannon. When the smoke cleared, the street was a crater. The mob of thirty was now... five.
One pirate, completely untouched by some miracle, stood up, dusted himself off, and looked around in a daze. The other four staggered to their feet, groaning, clutching broken arms, and limping heavily, but still... standing.
Only Mohji and Cabaji, who had dived for cover like professionals, got up without a scratch.
Luffy's crew stared, not at the explosion, but at Buggy.
"What... what the hell...?" Nami stammered, her eyes locked on the pieces. "His... his head is floating! He split apart!"
Alvida's face was a mask of shock and dawning realization. "A Devil Fruit... I knew he ate one, but that... That's the Bara Bara no Mi!"
Zoro just clicked his tongue. "Tch. Annoying."
In the center of the crater, the smoke swirled. Buggy's feet, which had presumably scrambled to safety on the ground, stood there alone in the dirt.
A second later, the rest of his pieces... his torso, his hands, and finally his head... flew in from all directions, snapping back into place on top of them with an audible click.
His face was no longer comical. It was a mask of pure, homicidal, clown-painted rage.
"YOU..." he hissed, his voice a low, dangerous whisper. "YOU... YOU... YOU!"
Buggy roared, his voice cracking. "I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL SLICE YOU INTO A THOUSAND PIECES! I'LL... I'LL... CHARGE!"
This time, Mohji, Cabaji, and the five remaining, battle-damaged lackeys answered the call.
_________
Gum-Gum-BALLOON!
__________
Author here :
Hello people, hope you are doing fine!
I hope you have enjoyed my story so far. If you are financially able and would like to support me, I've opened a new account on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/unpaid13
Regarding this new release schedule, honestly, I myself am not liking it. So, please wait a little while I pile up some chapters. Maybe by next week, I will be back to releasing daily.
Your support makes a lot of difference and it motivates me!