Chapter 125: The Legend and the Bell

[General POV]

The western sky was a ruin of floating stone and fire. The zero-gravity field established by Golden Lion Shiki turned the entire area into a chaotic, drifting asteroid field. Chunks of bedrock the size of galleons floated alongside shattered towers and molten glass.

In the center of this wreckage, a three-way battle raged.

Ace propelled himself through the debris using precise bursts of fire from his boots. His shirt was burned away, and his body was covered in bleeding cuts from Shiki’s earlier air slashes. Standing defensively in front of him was BetelGammamon. The bipedal red dragon was a towering figure of crimson scales, radiating intense heat, his tail lashing behind him as he watched both the legendary pirate and the biological nightmare.

Golden Lion Shiki floated effortlessly above them. His golden mane billowed, and his legendary sword-legs, Oto and Kogarashi, gleamed with a cold light. His face was a mask of unhinged fury.

“I will bury you all in the mud!” Shiki roared. He flicked his leg, performing a sweeping kick. The powerful Float-Float power gripped three massive slabs of bedrock, each the size of a castle, and hurled them down at Ace and the dragon with terrifying velocity.

Before the stones could connect, a deafening screech tore through the sky.

The Winged Chimera, the gargantuan Kaiju fueled by the superheated IQ pathogen, descended. The monster had no loyalty and acted purely on a primal rage to destroy. It ignored Ace and BetelGammamon completely, locking its glowing green eyes on Shiki.

The Chimera swung its massive right forearm. The jagged bone blades protruding from its limb sliced through the air, aimed directly at Shiki’s neck.

Shiki was forced to react. He quickly abandoned his attack on the rookies, shifting his center of gravity instantly to launch himself upward. He brought Kogarashi down in a heavy, Haki-laced slash that deflected the massive bone blade with a shower of sparks.

BetelGammamon roared, his voice deep and draconic.

He launched himself from a floating boulder, his powerful legs propelling him forward. He targeted the Kaiju. He pulled his massive, crimson fist back, his knuckles igniting with a compressed sphere of solar fire. He coated his fist in a layer of black, Intermediate Armament Haki.

“Solis Golpe!”

BetelGammamon slammed his blazing fist directly into the Chimera’s chest. The impact sounded like a cannon firing at point-blank range. The shockwave of the solar punch sent the Kaiju rocketing backward through the air, forcing it to drop Shiki from its jaws.

Ace saw the opening. He crossed his arms over his chest, drawing upon every ounce of plasma his fruit could generate. He focused the flames, turning them a piercing, blinding blue-white.

“Shinka: Shiranui!”

Ace thrust both arms forward, unleashing two long, crackling lances of high-pressurized plasma. He fired directly at Shiki while the legend was momentarily disoriented by the Kaiju being blasted out of the air.

Shiki sneered. Without looking, he flicked his left sword-leg, Oto, up to block. He warped the gravitational field in a micro-second in front of the blade, bending the trajectory of the plasma lances. The lances shot past his shoulder, incinerating a free-floating stone tower behind him, melting it into glowing slag.

“You are annoying pests!” Shiki snarled.

He flipped in mid-air and executed a brutal downward kick.

“Zanpa!”

A colossal, crescent-shaped blade of compressed air and black Haki shot toward Ace.

Ace crossed his arms, reinforcing them with his own Intermediate Armament Haki, the skin turning a glossy black as he prepared to take the hit.

BetelGammamon was faster. The red dragon used Geppo, kicking off the air, to vanish from his position and materialize directly in front of Ace. He crossed his massive, scaled forearms to act as a shield, coating them heavily in his own Armament Haki.

The black air blade slammed into BetelGammamon’s guard. The physical force pushed the Champion-level Digimon and Ace backward through the air, their boots skidding across floating bedrock until they slammed into a heavy iron gate that had been ripped from the fortress.

The Winged Chimera, furious at being blasted away, screeched again and dove at them, its mouth wide open, preparing to spew a wave of corrosive neon-green acid.

At the exact same moment, Shiki launched another ten-ton chunk of bedrock, aiming to crush them while they were pinned by the gate.

“Shit!” Ace spat, pushing himself off the gate and igniting his hands.

The fight remained absolute, terrifying chaos. For the next ten minutes, they fought in a frantic, three-way deathmatch. Shiki hurled mountains at the Kaiju, forcing the beast to use its massive bone blades to slice through the stone. Ace took advantage of the distraction to fire concentrated plasma bullets at Shiki’s blind spots, only to have the Kaiju pivot and swing its massive tail at him, forcing BetelGammamon to step in and block the strike with his draconic strength.

Each of them took heavy damage. A stray air slash from Shiki cut a deep gash across BetelGammamon’s shoulder. The Kaiju managed to tackle Shiki out of the air, sinking its teeth into his left arm before Shiki violently repelled the beast. Ace was caught in the shockwave of one of Shiki’s gravitational crushes, coughing up blood as he was slammed into a molten stone pillar.

The Winged Chimera began to lose control. The pathogen surging through its veins was superheated and accelerated by the divine lightning from the earlier blast. It made the beast faster and stronger, but also completely unstable.

The Kaiju thrashed wildly, its bone blades swinging randomly, nearly cleaving Shiki’s head off before turning to spit acid at BetelGammamon.

“It has to go!” Ace yelled, clutching his bleeding side.

Shiki, floating above the monster, snarled in agreement.

A silent, momentary truce formed.

Shiki lifted his left leg, pointing Oto down at the monster. He began to gather immense power at the tip of the blade. Ace and BetelGammamon, standing together on a floating slab, prepared their own attacks.

Ace crossed his arms, building up a massive sphere of plasma that burned with a piercing white heat. BetelGammamon pulled his massive, crimson fist back, concentrating solar energy at his knuckles. Both coated their fists in visible black Armament Haki.

Shiki executed a massive downward kick. “Zanpa!” He unleashed a colossal, crescent-shaped blade of black Haki and compressed air.

Ace thrust his arms forward. “Hiken!” He unleashed a massive, swirling pillar of white-hot plasma.

BetelGammamon launched himself forward with explosive speed. “Solis Golpe!” He delivered a devastating, solar-charged, Haki-laced punch.

The three catastrophic attacks slammed into the Winged Chimera at the exact same moment. The beast screeched in agony as the combined force tore through its armor and flesh, dealing critical damage.

Before the monster could even begin to process the wounds, the sky beneath them turned blindingly white.

A colossal, solid beam of pure white lightning erupted from the clouds below, tearing upward from the jungle of Upper Yard. The massive beam of destruction, fired by the ground team’s combined magic, shot diagonally into the western sky.

The beam hit the critically injured Chimera dead-on. The sheer, overwhelming power of the attack instantly melted away the monster’s lower half.

The white beam continued upward, passing the fighters completely. It slammed directly into Shiki’s main floating fortress.

Shiki froze in mid-air. He watched in absolute horror as the stone plazas, the castles, and all his surrounding smaller landmasses were instantly swallowed by the brilliant white light. The islands melted away into nothingness in a single second. The beam kept flying upward, punching a clear hole through the clouds before fading away into the upper atmosphere.

His twenty-year dream was completely erased from the sky.

Below them, the severely damaged Kaiju reacted to the deathly injuries caused by the trio’s attack and the ground team’s beam. Its powerful survival instinct telling it to do something or it will die. The IQ pathogen went into complete overdrive, pushing the cellular regeneration past its safe physical limit to repair the massive missing sections of its body. Millions of cells multiplied simultaneously. But something went wrong.

The monster’s body could not contain the mass. The Kaiju swelled rapidly. Its skin stretched and tore. The green bioluminescence in its veins became a blinding neon light.

The Kaiju exploded.

The resulting blast resulted in massive devastation. The beast’s entire form violently burst outward, releasing a catastrophic shockwave and tens of thousands of gallons of burning, corrosive biological fluid that filled the entire airspace.

Ace, BetelGammamon, and Shiki were all caught in the direct radius of the blast.

The force launched Ace and BetelGammamon backward through the zero-gravity debris, crashing through three separate stone structures before they were buried under a mountain of rubble.

Shiki was thrown backward with the force of a hurricane. The corrosive fluid managed to find a nick in his golden coat, sizzling against his skin. He was violently slammed into a remaining chunk of bedrock, cratering into the stone.

The zero-gravity field flickered and stabilized. Thick, green, corrosive fog rolled over the floating bedrock.

Slowly, heavily, a piece of stone rubble pushed off.

Ace rolled out of the crater, clutching his chest. His entire body was a mess of deep cuts, severe burns from the corrosive fluid, and massive, dark purple contusions. His left arm hung limply at his side. He was coughing up blood.

Beside him, BetelGammamon pushed off a steel beam. The red digimon was in equally terrible shape. His crimson scales were cracked, and he was panting heavily, clear fluid leaking from a deep cut on his shoulder.

“Gamma…” Ace grunted, looking at his friend.

Ace reached into his pocket and pulled out the Breath of the Archangel card, the same time Betelgammamon reached for his card. They activated it immediately.

A warm, radiant, golden light exploded from the cardboard. The golden energy washed over Ace and the crimson digimon. The magic soaked into their skin. Deep cuts sealed up seamlessly. The fractured bone in Ace’s arm snapped back into place. Bruises faded away. Their lungs filled with fresh air as their stamina returned in a sudden, powerful rush.

They were instantly brought back to a state of perfect health.

Across the debris field, Golden Lion Shiki pushed himself up from the ruined stone. The legendary pirate was in terrible shape. His golden coat was torn to shreds, and blood streamed down his face. The acid burn on his arm sizzled. Shiki panted heavily, leaning on his sword-legs for support.

Shiki looked up. His advanced Observation Haki told him that his opponents had somehow healed themselves.

Shiki’s face went pale. His arrogance and fury vanished, replaced by a cold wave of terror.

“This is impossible!” Shiki shrieked, his voice trembling.

Ace planted his boots into the molten glass beneath them. He ignited both fists. The flames hummed with a quiet, terrifying, and blindingly white-hot heat that was far hotter than standard plasma.

BetelGammamon stood beside him, taking a low, powerful stance, coiling his muscles like massive springs.

“Shiki!,” Ace gritted his teeth, a fierce grin spreading across his face. “I’m taking the final round.”

Ace and BetelGammamon launched themselves forward simultaneously with explosive speed.

Ace threw his arms outward, channeling all the white plasma he could muster into a colossal, spiraling vortex of white-hot fire. “Dai Enkai: Entei!” He molded the flames into a massive, concentrated sun-like sphere of plasma.

BetelGammamon dove directly into the plasma sphere. The red digimon cloaked his entire crimson body in Ace’s blinding white fire. He focused all his draconic power, physical strength, and Intermediate Haki into a final, flaming meteor punch.

The combined attack slammed directly into Shiki.

The Golden Lion attempted a final, desperate Haki-coated slash with his twin swords, but the physical force and extreme temperature of the white fire effortlessly shattered his defenses and broke his sword-legs.

The massive, flaming digimon slammed directly into Shiki’s chest.

The sheer physical and thermal force sent a shockwave through the entire debris field, shattering the remaining chunks of bedrock. Golden Lion Shiki was launched horizontally like a meteor, rocketing through the air at supersonic speed. He sailed off the western edge of the sky island, plummeting silently toward the open cloud sea below.

At the exact moment the attack made final contact with Golden Lion Shiki, a sound echoed across the heavens.

It was a beautiful, clear, and massive bell chime.

DONG…

The sound was immense. The chime cleared the air. The green pathogen fog from the Kaiju explosion dispersed instantly. The stormy thunderclouds above the Giant Jack parted, revealing a single, massive pillar of pure sunlight that shone down on the center of the island.

DONG… DONG…

The bell continued to ring, its beautiful, triumphant song spreading across the entire sky. It resonated through the massive wooden roots of the Giant Jack. The Skypiean and Shandian refugees behind the barricades froze, their eyes widening as the music of their ancestors filled the air for the first time in four hundred years.

High above the jungle, at the very pinnacle of the ancient beanstalk, the sky was a clear blue.

Brook stood in the center of the ancient, ruined belfry. The massive Golden Bell, The Light of Shandora, hung above him, its polished surface catching the pure sunlight.

Beside him, Palmon and Baby 5 were furiously pressing buttons on three different cloned Mr. Meeseeks Boxes.

Poof. Poof. Poof.

Three Mr. Meeseeks popped into existence, wearing wide, cheerful smiles.

“I’m Mr. Meeseeks, look at me!”

“Help Mr. Musician pull that rope!” Palmon chirped, pointing at the massive, heavy wooden striking beam suspended next to the bell.

“Ooh, can do!” the blue creatures chirped together.

The three Mr. Meeseeks ran over to the heavy beam, grabbing onto the thick rope. Brook stood beside them, gripping the heavy wood with his own skeleton hands.

“Yohohoho! This is a moment worthy of a song!” Brook laughed. “One… two… three… PULL!”

With their combined strength, they pulled the heavy beam backward. Brook locked his knees.

“RELEASE!”

They let the heavy wood fly forward. The striking beam crashed into the side of The Light of Shandora.

The massive Golden Bell let out a deafening, magnificent chime.

DONG…

Brook looked out over the edge of the beanstalk, seeing the clouds far below him parting, seeing the entire world laid out like a map. The three Mr. Meeseeks cheered, and Palmon started making three more to pull the beam back again.

DONG… DONG…

The bell continued to ring. Below them, in the heavens above Skypiea, a legend had been defeated, and a nation had found its voice again.