Alvida, who'd been fighting off CP agents, let out a breath of relief.
"About time you showed up. What took you so long? Vivi and Nami are trapped in those wax statues—"
"Light them on fire. Candles burn, right?"
Alvida looked at the two wax sculptures skeptically. "You're not worried they'll melt along with the wax?"
Despite her complaint, her hands were already moving. She'd fought alongside Marcus long enough to trust his crazy plans, even when they sounded suicidal.
With the iron golems' help, the surrounding CP agents found themselves being lifted off their feet and tossed aside. The golems' fighting style was brutally simple, smash down, or swing upward.
Alvida reached into her cleavage and pulled out magnesium powder and carbon powder. She rubbed both substances onto her mace, and flames immediately sparked to life along the metal.
The moment the fire touched the wax candles, they exploded into flames.
Vivi and Nami, who'd been completely encased in hardened wax, suddenly burst back into motion as the material around them liquefied from the heat.
"Hot! Too hot!" Nami immediately dove out of the flames, frantically tearing off her burning clothes to extinguish the fire before it could spread.
Vivi did the same, both women sporting various degrees of burns but at least alive and mobile.
"I just heard Marcus' voice, where is he?" Nami immediately looked around, wanting to find water to cool her burns.
Marcus used the iron golem's body to wave awkwardly. "Right here."
"Huh?! Why didn't you come in person?" Nami stared at the golem for a second before her brain caught up. "Oh. You're possessing it?"
"I'm over at Sanji's location dealing with another situation. What about those ender pearls I gave you? Why didn't you use them to summon me?"
Nami's expression turned sour. "Of course I used it right away! But you didn't teleport here! Don't tell me those things have an expiration date or something?"
Marcus was confused for a moment, then realization.
He'd been trapped in the Nether, literally in a different dimension. The ender pearls couldn't pull him back from a completely separate plane of existence. That was apparently beyond their capabilities.
He checked his minimap interface, scanning for Luffy's marker. The rubber captain was still locked in combat with Crocodile, and the fight looked like it was intensifying.
Marcus couldn't shake the feeling that something was about to go very wrong.
"We'll figure that out later. I'm leaving these golems with you, they'll follow your commands now. Contact Usopp when you get a chance. He's got more ender pearls, and he can throw them at your location if you need an emergency extraction."
"Wait, Marcus—" Nami started to explain that their Den Den Mushi had been turned into wax sculptures along with everything else, but Marcus had already disconnected his consciousness from the iron golem.
Alvida hefted her mace, watching as the remaining iron golems grabbed every CP agent in sight and lifted them high into the air before slamming them back down to earth.
The agents who hit the ground didn't get back up. Their condition was... uncertain at best.
"Black of Betrayal."
The moment Marcus' consciousness left the golem he'd been controlling, a small figure darted forward and splashed pitch-black paint across its blocky body.
"What?!" Nami's face went pale with alarm.
She'd figured out how Mr. 3 and so many CP agents had infiltrated the rebel base so easily, it was all thanks to this unassuming girl and her special paints.
The pigments seemed to have some kind of hypnotic ability that made people unable to resist her suggestions. When she painted someone with yellow-green colors, even the most loyal rebel soldiers would quietly back away like they were old friends with the enemy.
That was how the base camp had fallen so easily, from the inside out.
But after several long seconds, the iron golem showed no signs of betrayal. It even tilted its head.
"Wha.. t's... wr... ong?" The voice was slow and halting, but still recognizably Marcus' tone.
"You didn't leave?"
"The... cre... a... tor... left..."
"And you can talk?!" Nami was even more stunned than Alvida.
Everyone aboard the crew knew this basic fact about Marcus' iron golems. From Syrup Village all the way to Drum Island, he'd created at least a hundred of them. And not a single one had ever been able to speak. They could follow simple commands, but conversation? That had never happened before.
Miss Goldenweek seemed to realize her paints weren't having any effect. She silently slung her small sketchbook onto her back and started edging away from the group, hoping nobody would notice her attempted escape.
An iron mace came down and rested on top of her head, stopping her in her tracks.
"Um... if I apologize now, is it too late?" The girl's eyes were welling up with tears.
Alvida smiled, but it wasn't a friendly expression. "What do you think?"
"I'm sorry... When you hit me, could you please not use too much force? I'm really scared of pain... Ah, I'm so sorry..."
Miss Goldenweek crouched down into a defensive position, covering her head with both arms and looking absolutely pitiful.
As for Galdino, he could hear Miss Goldenweek's miserable cries in the distance, but his body felt listless and drained. Like someone had pulled a plug and let all his energy drain away.
He wasn't dead, but he felt worse than dead.
The confusing part was that he hadn't actually taken that much damage. Before being launched across the battlefield, he'd hastily formed a wax armor around his body using his Devil Fruit ability. It had been rushed, but it should have absorbed most of the impact. That much he was certain of.
So why did he feel like dying despite having no serious injuries?
Now he finally understood why those CP agents had simply collapsed after being thrown by the iron golems. They weren't getting back up because they literally couldn't.
What the hell kind of ability was this?
---
High above the battlefield, Kira's wings beat against the howling winds.
"AHHHHH!" Usopp clung to her back desperately as the sandstorm buffeted them from every direction. "Kira, I'm gonna fall! I'm seriously gonna fall!"
"Hold on tight! I'm transforming again!"
Before he could respond, another pair of wings sprouted from Kira's bird-form back. The wings she already had grew larger as well, giving her more surface area to catch the wind, which meant she was getting tossed around even harder, but also meant she could cut through the air with more speed and power.
Usopp gripped the safety ropes as he realized they'd already climbed to nearly eight thousand meters altitude.
And Kira was still climbing higher, apparently trying to break past ten thousand meters to get above the worst of the sandstorm.
The massive sandstorm below was naturally caused by the battle raging beneath them.
Unlike in the original timeline, where he'd arrogantly given Luffy three minutes to land a hit, this Crocodile had no patience for games. He'd been betrayed, his plans had fallen apart, and now he was going for a single decisive strike to end everything.
But Luffy wasn't the same Luffy from the original story either.
Even though he hadn't lost a single fight since leaving the East Blue, he could sense Crocodile's overwhelming power. It was like trying to read an opponent's intentions through a thick fog, unclear and imprecise, but definitely there.
He'd also figured out the truth: his attacks couldn't touch a Logia-type user.
Give up? That wasn't his style. Not now, not ever.
"Gum-Gum... Clay Form!"
His body began twisting.
This was a special technique he'd developed after mastering Life Return, precise body control that let him twist and deform in completely irregular patterns. His movements became unpredictable.
If Marcus had been watching, he might have recognized similarities to Gear Fifth, though Luffy couldn't rubberize the environment around him yet. That would come later, if he survived this fight.
His fists swung forward in wobbling, unpredictable arcs, like balloons being blown around by the wind.
Crocodile didn't dodge. Instead, he tried to seize Luffy with his hook, planning to drain him dry with his dehydration powers.
But the wobbling fists slipped past his grasp. He couldn't catch them.
Thwack!
Luffy's arm snapped back.
For just a moment, his eyes widened as an image flashed through his mind, his arm shriveling into a mummified husk, all moisture drained away by Crocodile's touch.
That momentary vision had made him pull back just in time.
"I can't hit him..." he muttered.
The sandstorm continued expanding outward, growing larger and more violent with each passing second.
Luffy could feel it in his bones.
Since the battle started, he'd launched over a hundred attacks. Not only could he not land a solid hit, but Crocodile couldn't grab him either. It was a stalemate, but one that heavily favored the Warlord.
"You've got ten minutes left," Crocodile announced, sand swirling around his body. "If you don't defeat me in that time, this sandstorm will engulf all of Alubarna. Both the rebels and the royal army will be buried under it. And your friends flying around up there? They're running out of time too."
His eyes were serious. He hadn't underestimated the Straw Hat kid in front of him, that would be a fatal mistake.
The sand particles spinning at high speed around his body were sharp enough to cut through flesh. Any normal person touching that barrier would be shredded instantly.
But this kid's body wasn't just flexible, it was unnaturally tough. The sand that should be cutting him apart was only leaving minor scratches.
Through his Observation Haki, he could sense that even if his hook connected, it wouldn't deal real damage. Only his dehydration ability could actually hurt this rubber freak.
But somehow, whether through incredible reflexes or his own developing Haki, the kid kept dodging that touch at the last possible instant.
So he had changed strategies. Wide-area, indiscriminate devastation. Force his opponent into chaos and desperation.
After all, Observation Haki required calm to use effectively. And nobody stayed calm in a sandstorm that could bury an entire city.
The intensifying sandstorm was definitely getting to Luffy, weighing on his mind. But it wasn't the threat to Alubarna that bothered him. He trusted his crew to handle that side of things, they'd figure something out.
What really worried him was Kira and Usopp flying through that storm above. Those two were up there dodging wind blades and dealing with god-knows-what, all because of this fight.
"So I really do need that Haki thing he keeps talking about to beat you."
For days now, Marcus had been hammering the same point home: Logia users were basically untouchable without the right techniques.
Just like Luffy himself was immune to blunt attacks because of his rubber body. Just like Alvida's Slip-Slip powers made her immune to both blunt force and slashing attacks.
Logia-type Devil Fruit users took it even further, they could shrug off explosions like they were gentle breezes.
Crocodile raised an eyebrow. From the way the kid talked, he hadn't actually mastered Haki yet. So how the hell had he been dodging earlier with that Observation-Haki-like awareness? Was it really just insane reflexes?
When two Observation Haki users fought, they didn't interfere with each other's predictions. But when the predicted outcome didn't match reality, that meant your opponent was also using Observation Haki to change their actions. Dodging purely on reflexes without Haki was theoretically possible, but it required reaction speed several times faster than normal.
"You came from the North Blue?"
Luffy didn't see any reason to hide it. "East Blue."
"The East Blue? The weakest sea?" Crocodile looked confused.
If the kid had come from the North Blue, the most chaotic and violent of the four seas, it wouldn't have been surprising. But the East Blue? Most people there didn't even know Haki existed, let alone how to train it.
Luffy kept dodging the sand blades Crocodile sent his way, but his mind was elsewhere, trying to remember something important.
The problem was, he wasn't exactly the type to pay attention during lectures. When Marcus had explained Haki over the past few days, he'd sort of... half-listened. Caught the general idea, maybe.
After all, he hadn't really understood why this "Haki" thing was supposed to be so important. It was just another way to get stronger, right? And he already thought he was pretty damn strong.
But now, after running face-first into a Logia user's bullshit immunity, he finally got it.
Julius Caesar once said that experience is the teacher of all things.
Luffy was the textbook example of that philosophy.
Which, honestly, made him better suited to learning through combat and breakthrough moments rather than structured training.
If Rayleigh from two years later in the original timeline could see this, he'd probably be nodding along furiously. Ever since Kaido had beaten the basics into Luffy; first lesson: Armament Haki's Emission, second lesson: Advanced Conqueror Haki, third lesson: Devil Fruit Awakening... Rayleigh had earned himself the unfortunate title of "incompetent teacher."
After all, two years of training, and his student still hadn't mastered emission and needed Kaido to teach him fruit awakening. That was pretty embarrassing for a teacher.
Right now, Luffy was desperately trying to recall everything Marcus had said about Haki, but the constant interruptions weren't helping. Sand blades kept forcing him to dodge, and Crocodile kept trying to grab him with those dehydration powers.
That ominous feeling was getting stronger and harder to ignore. And now that the sandstorm had fully formed, things were even worse. The entire tornado of swirling sand was essentially part of Crocodile's body. Being trapped inside it was like being inside the Warlord himself.
Which meant Crocodile could attack from literally any angle at any time.
"Slippery little bastard, aren't you?" Crocodile muttered, watching Luffy sway and twist through the violent winds.
Large-scale attacks weren't working. The kid's body was way tougher than expected, rubber durability was no joke. Condensed attacks like Desert Spada could definitely hurt him, but that technique required time to charge up, and more importantly, it required actually hitting the target.
One second he was a normal human shape, the next he'd flatten himself like a pancake, or suddenly stretch tall, or slip through a slash using just the gap between his legs.
"Screw it! Marcus said Haki is like fighting spirit or aura or whatever. So I'll just try hitting him with that."
Luffy decided to stop overthinking techniques he'd never actually experienced and just work on instinct.
He looked at Crocodile, who had basically merged with the sandstorm by this point. In his perception, the entire area was filled with the Warlord's presence, like he was everywhere and nowhere at once.
It was confusing as hell, but he had never let confusion stop him before.
Without needing to pump blood through his limbs first, he could now activate Gear Second at will. The more he used the technique, the more natural it became, essentially an application of Life Return that he'd developed through pure instinct and repetition.
"Gum-Gum... Jet Pistol!"
Bang!
Crocodile's outer shell of sand shattered instantly.
But then came something unexpected, a muffled grunt of pain from the Warlord himself.
"It worked!" Luffy's eyes lit up.
Crocodile, meanwhile, felt alarm crawl up his spine. What the hell had this brat just done?
It wasn't Haki, he could tell that much. But it was some other type of attack that could bypass his elemental form.
"Feels a bit like Fish-Man Karate..."
Haki wasn't the only way to hit Logia users on the seas, after all. Fishman Karate, Hasshoken, or the specialized shockwave techniques mastered by experts in Life Return, all of them could affect ability users.
But just dabbling in those techniques wasn't enough to seriously hurt a Logia user. You needed real mastery, the same way a swordsman needed to reach the level of cutting steel before their attacks really mattered.
Catching him off guard like that had worked once. But now Crocodile was ready, and he had Observation Haki to help him dodge.
All he had to do was avoid getting hit again.
Or at least, that's what he thought, until he realized Luffy had vanished from his line of sight within the storm's eye.
Luffy was staring directly at the rapidly swirling sandstorm, at the walls of sand spinning around them.
Deep down, he knew something important: this sandstorm wasn't just Crocodile's attack.
The sandstorm was Crocodile.
"Gum-Gum... Jet Gatling!"
Countless fists broke the sound barrier, creating shockwaves that rippled through the air. He fired punches in every direction simultaneously, targeting the entire sandstorm at once.
Crocodile felt danger for the first time in this fight. He tried to fully elementalize to avoid the damage.
But Luffy's speed exceeded his expectations. And worse, when he dispersed into sand, his form became larger and less nimble compared to his condensed human body. In close combat like this, that size disadvantage was killing him.
After confirming that Luffy could actually hurt him, he quietly reformed his body in the heart of the sandstorm.
"So, Straw Hat... you've learned some kind of special technique?"
"I don't know what it's called," Luffy answered honestly. "Marcus mentioned something about how my attacks work, and I guess I figured out how to use it. But even though I can hit you now, I still can't beat you."
He had confidence in the technique he'd just discovered. But seeing Crocodile standing there seemingly fine after taking all those hits made him realize something important: he could wound the Warlord, but not finish him.
Still, remembering the sensation from those successful strikes, his eyes grew more firm. If hitting worked, then he just needed to refine the technique further. Deepen that feeling, and make it stronger.
His expression hardened, and the aura around him subtly shifted as something inside him began to click.
"..."
Crocodile could feel it, this kid was using him as a training dummy to sharpen his skills.
And the longer they fought, the more he could sense Luffy's terrifying rate of growth.
If this battle continued, it wasn't impossible that the boy would actually master enough power to defeat him. He grew stronger with every clash, from each technique he saw to every blow he managed to take and survive.
Just like that man... Douglas Bullet.
Back then, it had been the same thing. The more that madman fought, the stronger he became. Every battle pushed him to new heights, breaking through limits that should have been impossible to cross.
And at that time, Crocodile had chosen to retreat. He'd refused to fight Bullet to the bitter end, recognizing that continuing would only make his opponent more dangerous.
Would history repeat itself? Would he really have to be someone's whetstone again, even now, after everything he'd built in Arabasta?