Chapter 92: The Verdant Abyss Strikes

The sky above Dressrosa had turned into a literal meat grinder.

The Birdcage was a terrifying feat unleashed by a Devil Fruit Awakening.

The razor-sharp strings hummed with high-tension Haki, slowly dragging inward, threatening to slice the entire kingdom, buildings, mountains, and people, into bloody ribbons within the hour.

Around me, the royal courtyard descended into absolute madness.

The random pirates and underworld brokers who had survived the auction room brawl realized Doflamingo wasn’t bluffing.

To save their own skins, they turned their weapons on the newly freed gladiators and citizens, desperate to claim the bounties the Joker had just broadcasted.

I pulled a small Den-Den Mushi from my coat pocket.

“Law.

Gwen.

Brook,” I spoke into the receiver, my voice completely cold over the sounds of the screaming courtyard.

“The stealth operation is officially over.

Joker is trying to wipe the board.”

“We heard the broadcast,” Law’s voice crackled back over the line, the sound of his Nodachi slicing through steel echoing in the background.

“Orders?”

“We didn’t spend the entirety of last month healing these people just to let them get slaughtered by desperate pirates,” I commanded.

“Drop the stealth.

Protect the citizens.

Engage the Donquixote Executives head-on and clear a path to the palace.

It’s time the New World sees what happens when they pick a fight with the Verdant Abyss.”

“Understood,” Law replied.

The line clicked off.

I looked at Robin.

“Help King Riku and the Tontattas secure the lower town.

I’m going up to the top of the palace.”

Robin offered a serene, lethal smile, crossing her arms to bloom dozens of limbs across the courtyard to snap the necks of advancing pirates.

“Leave the rabble to me, Captain.

Go clip the Joker’s wings.”

Down in the city streets, the revolution was hitting a massive, literal wall of stone.

Thousands of armed citizens and furious gladiators were charging the primary thoroughfare leading to the King’s Plateau, but the very earth beneath their feet began to violently warp and rise.

“You insolent trash!” a jarringly high-pitched, squeaky voice echoed from the cobblestones.

The street aggressively folded upward, assimilating the surrounding buildings, statues, and bedrock.

Within seconds, a colossal, towering stone golem stood blocking the path, casting a massive shadow over the terrified rebellion.

Pica, the Donquixote Family’s top executive, peered down at them from his assimilated stone face.

“I will crush you all for Doffy!” Pica squeaked.

The massive golem raised its arms, and the stone flowing around it sharpened into dozens of massive, building-sized spikes.

“Charlestone!”

The massive stone tentacles shot forward like spears, aiming to impale the entire front line of the citizens’ rebellion.

Before the spikes could connect, a blur of white and crimson shot through the air, landing heavily in the center of the street.

“Hey, rock-head!” Gammamon yelled, his little claws digging into the cobblestones as he breathed a massive wave of crimson fire to shatter the first incoming stone spear.

“Don’t pick on the nice people who gave me chocolate!”

Pica’s massive stone eyes shifted toward the small Digimon.

“A pet?!

Die!”

The golem shifted, completely ignoring the citizens.

Pica formed a massive, crude broadsword out of solid bedrock, easily the size of a Marine galleon.

He swung it down with terrifying speed, aiming to completely bisect the street and the little white triceratops with it.

Gammamon eyes glowed with intense digital energy, the symbol of the hazard warning flashing violently on his forehead.

“Gammamon Digivolve to…!”

A blinding pillar of green and white light erupted from the street, completely catching the descending stone sword.

The digital data aggressively expanded, taking on a massive, heavy, armor-plated silhouette.

“WezenGammamon!”

When the light shattered, the small white dinosaur was gone.

In his place stood a massive, heavily militarized, green dinosaur beast.

Twin, high-caliber artillery cannons were mounted squarely on his shoulders, his thick armor radiating immense, raw kinetic heat.

The colossal stone sword crashed down directly onto WezenGammamon’s thick, armored horns.

CRACK.

The blade didn’t cut him.

Instead violently shattered upon impact.

The sheer physical density of WezenGammamon’s heavy artillery form completely halted the millions of tons of pressure.

Pica shrieked in frustration.

The golem sank its hands into the earth, assimilating even more of the town.

Hundreds of jagged stone pillars erupted from the ground in every direction, enclosing WezenGammamon in a jagged, collapsing dome designed to grind him into dust.

“Sensors engaged,” WezenGammamon growled, his voice incredibly deep and mechanical.

The heavy cannons on his back whirred, glowing with blinding green and crimson energy.

But instead of firing a single massive blast, the panels on his armor slid open, revealing dozens of micro-missile silos.

“Sedna!”

WezenGammamon unleashed a relentless, deafening barrage of anti-armor homing rounds.

The sky lit up with explosions as the heavy artillery tracked and completely obliterated every single incoming stone pillar before they could even scratch his armor.

Pica realized sheer volume wasn’t going to work.

He decided to use brute force.

The massive golem pulled its right arm back.

Pica shifted his actual, physical body deep inside the stone arm, coating the massive fist in a dense, jet-black layer of Armament Haki.

He swung the Haki-infused mountain of stone directly at the Digimon.

WezenGammamon planted his four heavy feet.

His internal sensors tracked the dense Haki signature moving rapidly through the stone appendage.

He knew exactly where Pica’s real body was hidden.

“Target locked.”

“Albion!”

A dual, concentrated blast of pure, catastrophic heavy artillery fired at point-blank range.

The green-white beam of kinetic energy slammed directly into the Haki-coated fist.

The sheer force of the shot completely vaporized the arm, traveling straight up the golem’s limb and detonating directly where Pica’s real body was hidden.

The massive stone giant crumbled, violently detonating into a shower of harmless gravel and dust.

Pica was thrown from the rubble, his Haki shattered and his body completely unconscious, leaving the path to the plateau wide open for the cheering rebellion.

A few blocks to the east, the situation was far more delicate.

A squad of Dressrosa’s royal guards was pinned down in an alleyway.

Blocking their escape was a woman in a maid outfit, casually smoking a cigarette.

Her arms had completely transformed into a pair of spinning, high-caliber Gatling guns.

“Nothing personal, boys,” Baby 5 sighed, taking a drag of her cigarette.

“But Doffy needs me to wipe out the trash, and I’m a very useful girl.”

She spun the barrels, preparing to shred the alleyway.

Suddenly, a chilling, spectral breeze swept through the street.

“Soul Solid: Humming Swordsmanship.”

A tall, skeletal figure in a sharp suit and top hat blurred past the royal guards, his cane-sword drawn.

Brook moved with absolute, weightless grace, elegantly deflecting the first volley of bullets with rapid, freezing strikes of his blade that encased the hot lead and the Gatling barrels in solid, unbreakable ice.

He landed softly between the guards and Baby 5, sheathing his sword with a sharp click.

“Yohohoho,” Brook laughed politely, tipping his hat.

“Excuse me, miss.

But I must ask, could you please stop fighting for just a moment?”

Baby 5’s Gatling guns instantly ceased spinning.

She completely froze.

Her cigarette dropped from her lips.

“You…

you’re asking me to stop?” Baby 5 whispered, her eyes widening, a heavy blush rapidly spreading across her cheeks.

“You…

you need me to stop?!

You need me?!”

Brook stood perfectly still.

He had lived for ninety years, sailed the darkest seas, and witnessed the absolute depths of human tragedy.

It only took him exactly four seconds to deduce the severe, crippling psychological trauma fueling the woman standing in front of him.

She wasn’t malicious, she was fundamentally, tragically broken by a desperate need to feel useful.

Brook’s grip on his cane relaxed.

He stood up straight, his posture reflecting the utmost chivalry of a bygone era.

“Ah.

I see,” Brook said softly, all trace of humor leaving his voice.

“My dear, it seems your heart has been carrying a terribly heavy anchor.

I could not possibly exploit such a delicate disposition.

You are a free woman, miss.

Your life is your own.”

Brook tipped his hat again.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must assist my crew.

Good day to you!”

Not wanting to further trigger her psychological dependency, Brook turned on his heel and began to rapidly speed-walk away down the street, desperately trying to politely escape the awkward situation.

Behind him, Baby 5 dropped to her knees on the cobblestones.

The blush vanished, replaced by an expression of utter, soul-crushing devastation.

“He’s walking away…” Baby 5 whispered, her voice trembling.

“He doesn’t need me.

Nobody needs me!

Even the walking skeleton thinks I’m useless trash!”

She buried her face in her hands, completely breaking down into loud, ugly sobs.

“I’m completely worthless!

I should just point a cannon at my own head and do the world a favor!

Waaaaah!”

Brook froze mid-stride.

He gripped his cane tightly.

A gentleman of his era could not, under any circumstances, ignore the weeping of a lady in distress, especially when he was the cause.

Brook sighed, his non-existent heart aching with genuine sympathy.

He quickly jogged back to her, waving his skeletal hands in a panic.

“Ah!

Miss, please!

Don’t cry!

I implore you!” Brook stammered, kneeling beside her.

“I did not mean to imply you were useless!

Not at all!

In fact, the battle ahead is quite treacherous for my old bones.

If…

if it would please, perhaps you could do me the profound honor of watching my back?”

Baby 5 instantly stopped crying.

She looked up, her eyes sparkling with tears but her face beaming with absolute, radiant joy.

“I knew it!

You do need me!”

She leapt to her feet, wiping her eyes.

The depression vanished entirely, replaced by a hyper-protective lethality.

Her leg transformed into a massive cannon, and without looking, she blasted a Donquixote pirate who was attempting to sneak up on them from an adjacent roof.

“Nobody touches my gentleman!” Baby 5 declared fiercely, sticking close to Brook’s side.

Brook sighed, a fond, somewhat exhausted smile crossing his skull.

It seemed the Verdant Abyss Pirates had just acquired a new, incredibly devoted, and heavily armed duckling.

While the crew systematically dismantled the executives and protected the rebellion, I was moving.

I utilized Geppo and the Nega-Rings, blinking rapidly up the side of the massive stone plateau that held the royal palace.

Doflamingo was waiting at the summit, orchestrating the cage from his twisted throne.

As I landed on the final garden terrace leading to the palace doors, the stone beneath my boots suddenly liquefied.

A man wearing a baby bonnet, a pacifier, and a diaper swam smoothly out of the solid marble floor.

He stood up, wiping a bit of dust from his ridiculous outfit, and cracked his knuckles.

“Sorry, Warlord,” Senor Pink said, his voice incredibly deep, gruff, and completely contrasting his attire.

“But the young master is off-limits today.

You’ll have to go through me.”

I stopped and looked at Senor Pink, sizing up the executive who stood between me and Doflamingo.

The final clash was about to begin.

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