Chapter 65: Iceberg's Shot? Enter Franky!

Chapter 71:

Iceberg's Shot? Enter Franky!

The sun rose on a beautiful day, the weather a stark contrast to the gloomy moods of the pirates docked on one of the capes. Having decided the previous night to replace their beloved ship, it was agreed that Luffy, Nami, Coby, and Usopp would go back to Galley-La with two of the yagaras to get a catalogue and choose a new ship while Sanji, Gin, Zoro, and Chopper volunteered to go looking for Robin with the other two. Amy and Grace had opted to stay on the Merry in case the Franky Family got any funny ideas.

The people of Water 7 were more active than the last day, nearly every person staring as a newspaper in their hands. Something big had happened last night, and it was shaking the city. The pirates, however, knew nothing of this, so they were surprised when they reached the gate of Galley-La to find a giant crowd calling out for Iceberg.

"What's going on here?" Usopp questioned.

"Excuse me," Nami asked, tapping a man on the shoulder. "What's going on? Why is there such a big crowd?"

"Are you not from around here?" the man responded to which Nami shook her head. "Somebody shot Mayor Iceberg last night."

"Ice-Pops was shot?!" Luffy demanded.

"Yeah," the man scowled. "I bet it was the Franky Family. Those bastards are always causing trouble, but now they've taken it too far."

"I doubt it was them," Coby thought aloud. "We really did a number on them last night. I doubt they'd be able to move until sometime today."

"You guys did what?" the man gasped.

"Nothing," Nami tried to wave off. "Anyway-" Nami was cut off as war drums began to thump around the area. On the top of a bridge, three silhouettes stood behind a tan screen. In a panic, people began to flee.

"Did I hear someone say my name?" a masculine voice asked through what sounded like a loudspeaker.

"No! Go away!"

"We don't want you here!"

"You're the one who shot Iceberg, aren't you?!"

Rather than respond, the screen was tossed away, revealing a tall man and two women. The women were obviously sisters as they looked similar save for their clothing and hair: the one on the left had curly hair in the shape of a square rather than straight hair in the shape of a square.

The man in the center wore nothing but an open, Hawaiian-style shirt to reveal his abs and a speedo. His forearms were much larger than the rest of his appendages in a way reminiscent of the old Popeye comics of the West Blue, but with a blue star tattooed on each forearm instead of an anchor. The man's metal nose sparkled in the sunlight and his light blue pompadour seemed to defy gravity and run down into two sideburns that framed his three-pronged chin.

"I'm Water 7's number one super guy!

The face of the underworld, and you know why!

The man with the plan, the power and fame!

That's why everybody knows my name!

Wow!"

Striking a pose with his forearms pressed together to form one star out of two halves, the man finished his intro.

"I'm Franky!" With his declaration, the crowd began to run, both on foot and by yagara. Lifting his sunglasses, Franky yelled, "Show yourself, Straw Hat! I know you're down there!" Realizing that the most feared man in Water 7 wasn't there for them seemed to freeze the populace in place, stopping to see what would come of this.

"I'm Straw Hat!" Luffy yelled, standing up on their yagara so the man could see. "You're the one in charge of the guys that beat up Usopp and stole our money!"

"And you're the one in charge of the guys who wrecked my house!" Franky retorted. "You shouldn't have done that!"

"Then you shouldn't have provoked us!"

"If this is about the money we stole, I spent it all! You aren't getting it back!"

"I don't care about the money!" Luffy shouted. "This is about your guys attacking my friends!"

"I don't care if we started it! You guys are pirates, so what are you going to do? Call the government for help?"

"I'm just gonna kick your ass!"

"I'd like to see you try!" Franky laughed. The man began sucking in air, causing his chest to expand. As if snapped back to the present, the crowd began to flee once more.

"Fresh Fire!" As the name implied, a giant fireball shot toward the Straw Hat's rented yagaras from the man's mouth, the yagaras quickly swimming away. The fire crashed into the water where the boat-toting fish had been just before.

"What the Hell?!" Nami and Usopp screamed, the water behind them steaming.

"Devil Fruit?" Coby theorized. As if in response, Franky dove off the bridge and into the water, disproving the rosette's theory. "Swim!" he ordered the bulls.

The yagaras took off toward the sidewalk just in time to avoid the man as he launched himself out of the water where the rented transportation had been. Knowing that it was him the man wanted, Luffy jumped upward to separate himself from his crewmembers.

"Strong Right!" Franky yelled, punching forward with his right arm. Much to the shock of the pirates, his fist and half of his forearm separated from the rest of his arm. The fist, connected by a chain, slammed into Luffy's gut and shoved him into Dock 1's gate. Retracting his arm, Franky left the pirate stuck in the doors for gravity to slowly pull him downward.

"What are you?" Usopp demanded, his slingshot trained on the self-proclaimed "face of the underworld".

"Me?" Franky questioned, pulling his arm off to show the chain. "I'm just a guy with a few extra parts. A cyborg, you might say." At that moment, Luffy fell, hitting the sidewalk with a thud. Nami ran to him, heedless of the robot-man she passed.

"Luffy!" she fretted, dropping next to him. Carefully, the captain removed his hat from his head and dropped it on Nami's: a sure sign that he thought the fight was going to get ugly. Standing up, Luffy gently pushed his lover back before punching the cyborg in the face. Despite the pain from hitting the man's metal nose, the rubber-man felt the satisfying crunch of his opponent's sunglasses breaking as the cyborg was launched back into the water.

"You're tougher than you look, Straw Hat," Franky conceded, wiping a drop of blood from the side of his mouth as surfaced, "but I'm tougher." Jumping out of the water, the cyborg threw his right fist forward again, this time hitting Luffy with enough force to shove him through Dock 1's doors. Luffy rolled head over heels before flipping onto his feet and skidding to a stop as Franky sauntered into the shipyard.

"Kiwi, Mozu," the bounty hunter grunted, not removing his eyes from his opponent. "Stay back. This is going to get messy."

"Guys," Luffy growled, cracking his knuckles. "This is my fight. Stay out of it."

"If nothing else, you've got pride," the cyborg admitted. "Pellets Left!" Shifting his left forearm up, Franky revealed four holes in his arm which began releasing a steady stream of exploding projectiles. Luffy jumped away, avoiding the explosions that happened where he'd been standing.

"Gum-Gum Whip!" Twisting around, the pirate sent his right foot out to catch the cyborg in the side. Though the partially-metal man caught the leg, it still had enough momentum to shove him into a pile of lumber. Retracting his leg, Luffy used the man's hold to his advantage to strike with a Gum-Gum Battle Ax.

"Weapons Left!" Just as Luffy struck the cyborg's head, Franky's opened left arm fired a small bazooka that blew up in the pirate's face, rocketing him backwards into the side of a half-finished boat.

"Big Bro!" the girls, Kiwi and Mozu, called.

"Luffy!" the other pirates yelled.

"If you weren't my enemy, I'd say that it's really cool that you're a cyborg," the pirate captain stated, climbing out of the wreckage, his face covered in soot.

"You're pretty strong yourself," Franky complemented. "No one has stood up to a direct hit from my Weapons Left before." The two combatants charged each other with fists raised, only for two ropes to interfere. The ropes, which knotted themselves around the fighters' wrists, were connected to the blond man the Straw Hats had seen running from money lenders the day before. With a flick, the man Iceberg had called Paulie threw both Luffy and Franky into the ground.

"What's the big idea!" the pirate and bounty hunter yelled at the same time. Paulie moved to throw them again, but Coby jumped in, cutting the rope wrapped around his captain so only Franky was thrown.

"Why are you interfering?" Coby demanded in his Hybrid Mode, staring down the five men that had appeared.

The first was Paulie with Kaku on his right. To Paulie's left was a man with curly black hair that fell to his back. This man wore black pants with suspenders and a plain white shirt. A stylized beard sat on his chin and a black top hat rested on his head. On his shoulder was a white pigeon with a tiny, red tie.

Lulu was on the far right, but to the far left was a man that stood head-and-shoulders above the rest. He was shirtless to show off his muscles and his short black hair did not seem to match his full grey beard. He wore only white pants with a belt and his skin was deeply-tanned.

"Coocoo!" the pigeon cooed. "The morons are wrecking our shipyard! We can't let them get away with it! Coo!"

"Is that a talking pigeon?!" Luffy yelled. "That's so cool!"

"RAAA!" the large man shouted. "EVEN IF THAT WASN'T ENOUGH, WE HAVE TO CATCH YOU STRAW HATS FOR WHAT YOU DID TO ICEBERG!"

"What did we do to Iceberg?" Coby asked.

"I think we're the ones who deserve the explanation here," Paulie growled. "Someone snuck into Iceberg's house last night and shot him five times. This morning, he identified one of the figures as your archeologist Nico Robin."

"Iceberg was shot?" Franky gasped. "That's news to me. I can't believe he survived getting shot five times."

"It wasn't us!" Luffy denied. "We were busy last night taking out the Franky House before returning to our ship."

"Robin went missing yesterday," Coby muttered to himself. "Was it really her? Why?"

"I don't care for your excuses," Paulie growled, shooting a rope that Coby deflected with a swing of a sword. "You attacked my boss. And when you make an enemy of Iceberg, you make an enemy out of Galley-La and all of Water 7."

"Your wanted posters say dead or alive," Kaku said as he threw screwdrivers at the wanted members of the Straw Hat crew. Coby batted away the ones aimed for him while Luffy dove to the side.

"Hold on!" Coby tried to reason. "I'll admit that the shipyard wasn't the best place to fight, but we didn't have a choice when Franky attacked us! And if you knew Robin like we do, you'd know she wouldn't do something like that of her own free will! She's been missing since yesterday!"

"WE DON'T CARE!" the giant man yelled, punching Coby in the chest to catapult him into the wall Kaku had managed to pin Luffy to.

"Luffy!" Nami and Usopp yelled. Unfortunately, that ticked off the crowd who noticed them and quickly restrained them.

"You two are members of their crew, aren't you?" a man in the crowd demanded.

"They are!" a woman answered. "That girl is wearing his hat!"

"Get your hands off her!" Luffy ordered, tearing his shirt off as he pulled away from the wall. He was a second too late as Lulu blasted the wall with a hand cannon. The area around the wanted pirates was engulfed in smoke.

"Luffy!" Nami and Usopp yelled. "Coby!"

"As interesting as this is," Franky laughed, Kiwi and Mozu behind him as he snapped a pipe between his forearms, "I'm the one who challenged Straw Hat. You Galley-La guys are in my way." The pipe began sucking in air and compressing it, causing the cyborg's forearms to expand. "Coup de Vent!"

With a burst of air unlike anything any of the pirates had seen, the air cannon shot all five of the Dock 1 foremen into the remains of the ship-in-progress, destroying what was left. The backlash ricocheted, knocking citizens into the water.

Luffy made use of the distraction, running out of the lingering smoke and making a beeline toward his friends.

"Coby!" he called over his shoulder, the rosette in his Dino Mode tromping along behind him. "Grab Usopp and find a place to warn the others! Nami and I are going to talk to Iceberg!"

"Aye, Captain," the triceratops answered. The two split up. Luffy grabbed his girlfriend around the waist and told her to hold on before rocketing to the roofs of some warehouses. Coby, at the same time, scooped up Usopp and took a left as the angry mob returned to chase them. Even though Coby was faster, the mob continued to grow as more and more people learned of what was happening.

"Turn up here!" Usopp yelled over the crowd. Coby did so, entering a small alley. The sniper jumped off, opened the lid of a dumpster, and ordered the rosette inside. With no time to lose, the rosette jumped in and changed back to human form, Usopp following just as the crowd thundered past the entrance.

"Why did it have to be a dumpster?" Coby questioned unhappily, various foodstuffs in different stages of being eaten sticking to his clothes.

"The least likely place is in plain sight, but no one expects the trash," Usopp nodded sagely. The effect was ruined by the half-eaten cake stuck to his goggles. The Zoan gave the sniper an incredulous look, but did not respond. Instead, he turned away and opened the shell on his left wrist.

BUDUP-BUDUP-BUDUP... BUDUP-BUDUP-BUDUP... BUDUP-BUDUP-BU-

CA-LICK

"Hello?" Zoro and Sanji answered from two different snails.

"Guys," Coby greeted. "We've got a problem."

End of Chapter 71

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-SwordOfTheGods