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TRY MY NEW(KIND OF) FANFIC: ONE PIECE: SOL RAGNAROK
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The God Valley had fractured. It was no longer a single war, but a dozen scattered skirmishes.
Xebec, his Haki burning with a corrosive aura, moved through the chaos, Eris at his side. He had scooped her up, while Aster held Teach in one arm and Crimson Abyss in the other, running just behind his father's footsteps.
The attack by Xebec earlier had cleared the central area, but the island was vast.
Their objective was the port, to get to the Sabre as soon as possible.
They burst through a curtain of burning jungle and into a wide, open plaza, one that had somehow survived the initial blast.
But just then Xebec paused.
"Well, well..."
Saint Garling Figarland stood in the center of the plaza, his pristine white uniform stained with soot. His face was full of hatred. He barely escaped the 'meteor' Xebec called an attack. He was followed by the remaining eight of his Holy Knights, who had their blades out.
"You didn't think it would be that easy, did you, filth?" Garling hissed, his voice thin and dripping with pain and rage. "You... you dare step into this holy land! I will have your children's heads for this!"
Eris slid from Xebec's grasp. The Sea Stone's effects were gone, and her strength was returning. "Xebec," she said, "Go. Take the boys. I can-"
"No," Xebec growled, stepping in front of her, his own saber. "You protect them. I will end this insect."
"WORORORO! Not so fast, Captain!"
A massive, drunken, reptilian shadow crashed through the trees. Kaidō, his kanabō on his shoulder, his eyes glowing with that faint, cold, red glint, stumbled into the plaza.
'Did he eat a devil fruit??'
Xebec's face twisted in pure rage. "KAIDŌ! I GAVE YOU AN ORDER! I TOLD YOU TO STAY AT THE SHIP! GET BACK! NOW!"
Kaidō just... grinned. It was a wide, arrogant, and terrifyingly empty smile.
"No... Captain. I don't think I will."
The Holy Knights tensed, their blades shifting, expecting a two-pronged pirate attack.
"My era," Kaidō announced, "starts today. You're just... in the way."
And he attacked.
He didn't aim for Garling. He didn't aim for the Knights.
"Thunder Bagua!"
He swung, not at the enemy, but at his Captain.
The Holy Knights froze, their minds unable to process what they were seeing.
Xebec's haki spiked. He brought his saber up, his own corrosive Haki flaring, and blocked the blow.
KRA-KOOM!
The sound was a thunderclap. The air pressure from the clash alone sent a shockwave that flattened the remaining jungle and sent Aster skidding back ten feet, his small body trying to shield his baby brother.
Xebec's face had changed. The shock was gone, replaced by a dark realization. He looked at Kaidō. "What are you doing, Kaidō?"
"Worororo! My ambition, Captain!" Kaidō roared, the red glint in his eyes hidden by his battle lust. "My future! I WILL HAVE YOUR HEAD, AND CLAIM THE TITLE OF THE STRONGEST!"
So, he thought, his heart turning to a cold, hard stone. It's just as I always knew. He was just waiting. They all are.
"I should have known," he muttered, his voice a low growl of pure, cynical disgust. "I should have known you were all just... pirates. Waiting to bite the hand."
"Eris...!" he started to roar, a new, desperate plan forming in his mind.
"HAHAHA! Looks like I'm not the only one who wants your head, Rocks!"
A new voice. Charging at Xebec at terrifying speed.
Gol D. Roger, his saber Ace drawn and crackling with Haki, burst from the trees at a speed that defied physics.
But he wasn't aiming at Xebec. He wasn't aiming at Kaidō.
He was aiming past them. He was aiming directly at Eris, at Aster, at the baby in his arms.
"NO!"
Xebec's roar was a sound of pure, primal terror. He moved. He unleashed his Awakened Haki, a short-range, corrosive pulse that sent Kaido flying into a mountain, his kanabō hissing as its surface corroded.
Then Xebec moved. He appeared between Roger's blade and his family.
"Divine Departure!"
"Collapse!"
The two blades met.
BOOOOOOOOMM!!!
The world shook.
Their Haki collided. The island screamed. A perfect, hemispherical dome of pure, destructive energy erupted from the point of impact, vaporizing everything in a five-hundred-meter radius.
"GET 'EM, BOYS!" Roger roared, locked in the struggle.
"MA-MA-MA-MA!" "GURARARA!" "JIHAHAHA!"
The battlefield descended into pure, undiluted madness. The Roger Pirates streamed in from one side. And from the other... the Rocks Pirates arrived.
They were not fighting the Roger Pirates. They were not fighting the Knights.
They were all... all of them... with their red-glinting eyes... attacking Xebec.
"Hahahaha!" Garling Figarland, his face full of pain-filled joy, threw his head back and laughed from a safe distance.
"FOOLS! FILTHY PIRATES! Tearing each other apart! How perfect! How utterly, beautifully perfect!"
The battle was a chaotic, three-way nightmare. Xebec and Eris were back-to-back, a tiny, two-person island in a sea of monsters. He was a storm of black, corrosive Haki; she was a whirlwind of silver, Haki-infused spear-work, her 'Silent' power creating small, split-second bubbles of "absence" that made attacks phase harmlessly through her.
But they were being separated. A slash from Gaban split the ground, forcing Xebec one way while Eris, who was closer to Aster, was forced another.
"ASTER!" Xebec roared, trying to get to his sons.
He saw Aster, holding his baby brother, as Gaban of Roger's crew and Wang Zhi of his own crew were about to get to them.
'This is it!'
"YOU WANT ME?! THEN COME GET ME!" Xebec roared, his rage finally detonating.
He was being swarmed. Roger. Kaidō. Linlin, on Zeus. Captain John, his pistols blazing. And Garling, who was directing his remaining six Knights in a series of precise, flanking attacks.
Xebec poured his will, his grief, his rage into his hand. He wasn't building a sphere. He was building a bomb.
"You... want me...?" he snarled, the black-red lightning converging, solidifying, corroding the very air, forming the dark sphere of his Awakened Haki. "YOU WANT MY FAMILY?!"
"THEN YOU HAVE TO GET PAST ME!!!!!!"
He hurled the black sphere, not at his crew, not at Roger. He still can't bring himself to harm them.
So he aimed at the pig.
He hurled it at Saint Garling Figarland.
"King's Corrosion!"
It was not an explosion. It was a silent, expanding wave of pure corrosion.
The six Knights, men with immense power, simply dissolved. Their armor, their weapons, their bodies were unmade, crumbling to nothing.
Garling tried to flee. But he was too late. The wave caught him from behind, washing over his arms as he ran.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
Garling cried. His arms, from the elbows down, were gone, turning into black ash.
"MY ARMS! MY ARMS!" he screamed, tears streaming down his face as he fell. The remaining Knights who were out of the blast's radius grabbed their shrieking, armless commander. "You'll pay! You filth! Imu-sama will... he will ERASE YOU!"
They began to drag him away, fleeing the battle.
Xebec panted, the drawbacks of his Awakened Haki starting to kick in.
'Ugh! Not now!!'
He turned to finish the job.
But there were still people after him.
A massive, Haki-infused naginata blade slammed down in front of him, blocking his path, the ground cracking with the force of the Gura Gura power.
Edward Newgate stood before him.
"That's far enough, Xebec."
"Newgate..." Xebec snarled, his heart, which had survived Herald's betrayal, finally breaking. "Not... not you, too."
"ERIS! TAKE THE KIDS! GO!" Xebec roared, parrying a Haki-infused slash from Roger. "GET TO THE SHIP! I'LL HOLD THEM!"
"Not so fast!" Shiki appeared from above, his eyes also glowing dead red.
He slammed both his hands on the ground between Eris and Aster.
"Lion's Threat: Earth Bind!"
The entire battlefield shifted. The ground beneath Eris and the ground beneath Aster separated. A massive, jagged chasm, a hundred feet wide and just as deep, ripped open between them.
"ASTER! TEACH!" Eris screamed, her hands outstretched, her son suddenly on the other side of an impassable, crumbling cliff.
Her mind shattered. This was it. They had lost. It was over. Xebec was trapped. She was trapped. Her children were alone, surrounded by monsters.
'NO!!!'
With a desperate effort, Eris pushed. She poured everything into her Observation Haki. She wasn't just feeling. She was looking.
Her 'Voice of All Things' exploded outward, and the world dissolved. It was no longer a battlefield. It was a sea of a million branching, shimmering, potential future paths.
Death.
Death.
Captured.
Death.
Enslavement by the Nobles.
Death.
Death.
Death.
Wait.
One.
A single, tiny, impossibly thin, heartbreaking path. A future where one of them... one... survived. A future so unlikely, so sad, it made her soul weep.
But it was there. The only way one of them survives.
It all happened in the span of a single second. She locked eyes with Xebec, who was currently clashing blades with both Roger and Newgate, a 1-v-2 battle against gods.
"XEBEC!"
Her voice was not a sound. It was a command, sent via the Voice of All Things, a direct, mental shout that pierced his Haki-fueled rage.
She pushed the vision, the entire, terrible, heartbreaking path, into his mind.
Xebec's eyes, in the middle of the clash, widened in horror. He saw it. He saw the cost. He saw the sacrifice. He saw everything.
He shoved Roger and Newgate back with a burst of his Awakened Haki.
"Is that... is that the ONLY way, Eris?!" he roared back, his mind to hers, his voice breaking.
Eris stood alone, tears streaming down her face as she blocked an attack from Captain John. She nodded. The mental confirmation was a stake through his heart.
Next move. The plan.
Xebec's face hardened with resolve.
"Do it," he commanded, his mind linked to hers. "Locate HIM, should be near the beach. He is the only person I truly trust. You know him. Locate him, Eris. Send him the vision; he will handle the rest."
Eris understood.
Her eyes, filled with a sadness as deep as the sea, became as hard as diamonds. This was the one chance. The only path.
They would bet their entire family, their entire future, on this one, impossible gamble.
---xxxx---
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