Chapter 73: Bubble Trouble

Chapter 79:

Bubble Trouble

Gin and Nami

"This is a lot of pink," Gin observed as he and Nami stepped into Khalifa's room, a pool of bubbles at their feet.

"No kidding," Nami agreed. "There's no... reason..."

"Shit," Gin spat, he and the navigator dropping to their knees. "My strength is fading."

"Do you like it?" Khalifa asked, now clothed, stepping out from behind a pillar. Gin grit his teeth and forced himself to flash forward with the most transformation he could willingly do at the time, that being changing his limbs into lighting to carry his body forward. The agent's eyes widened as she threw up her hands, a shield shaped like a bar of soap shooting up for her to hide behind. Gin's electrified tonfa smashed through the barrier, but the soap gave his female foe the time she needed to escape and land next to a bubble-filled bathtub.

"I'd forgotten that we received word that you'd eaten the Rumble-Rumble Fruit," Khalifa stated, rubbing along her arms where bubbles formed and floated away. "Admiral Aokiji said you weren't forthcoming with where you got it, though."

"I killed God," Gin stated, his spinning tonfa building up power. The breeze they caused was slowly blowing away the bubbles near Nami's feet.

"I see. You don't want to tell us."

"What he means," Nami smirked, lifting herself up with the use of her Perfect Clima-Tact, "is that he defeated a man who called himself God in a place known as Heaven, Godsland Skypia. It was quite a trip."

"So Straw Hat's mistress is a liar as well." The navigator's eyes narrowed at the title. Khalifa continued. "Usually it's Kumadori that deals with our Logia targets since he discovered Armament Haki while developing his Life Return ability, but the rest of us can manage just fine. My new powers will make it easier for me to defeat you, after all."

"Let me guess," Nami yawned. "You ate a Bubble-Bubble Fruit or something."

"How did you know?!" Khalifa gaped defensively. "Ahem, well, it doesn't matter. Now watch in horror as I show you the true terror of bubbles! Bubble Master: Bubble Sheep!"

"That is the stupidest thing I think I've ever seen," Gin commented, eyeing the form Khalifa had created. "And that's saying something to anyone who has met our crew." He wasn't wrong about her form; Khalifa had covered herself in a layer of bubbles from the bathtub beside her, only her legs, face, and arms showing, the latter bent to mimic horns.

"How insulting!" Khalifa cried. "Take this! Calming Bubbles!" The woman's disguise broke apart, shooting toward the Logia in medium-sized clumps. Gin batted them away with a charge running over his iron weapons, choosing to not take any chances. Even so, several blobs still slipped through his guard, striking him and sticking. The Man-Demon felt his strength falling.

"My bubbles have the ability to cleanse anything they touch of nearly anything I please. Grime and dirt, of course, but also things like willpower, energy, and now electricity."

"Maybe so," Gin grunted, falling to one knee, "but I'm not fighting alone. Look up."

"Storm clouds?" the agent gasped.

"There's a storm warning for the entire Tower of Law," Nami smirked, her Clima-Tact still pumping out Heat Balls and Cool Balls to add to the cloud that covered the ceiling. "Storms are expected even indoors, so you should be careful not to be wet. Thunderbolt Tempo!" Nami finished her declaration by firing a Thunder Ball into the cloud. The storm sparked a little before releasing the static current it had downward, multiple blasts of lightning raining down on the floor and leaving scorch marks. One such blast struck Gin who had fallen to all fours, bursting the bubbles that remained on his form and filling him with new energy. Khalifa, however, was able to avoid the lightning with liberal use of her Shave technique and Soap Shield.

"What an interesting weapon you have there," she commented, eyeing the staff that had the power to summon storms and control lightning.

"Isn't it?" Nami gloated. "The perfect weapon for a navigator like me." Gin flashed to her side, a little ahead of the girl, before falling into a defensive stance.

"Thank you, Donna," Gin said, his eyes never leaving their opponent. "Without your help, she may have beaten me."

"Don't forget," Khalifa snarled. "We CP9 agents can move faster than lightning. Shave!" Suddenly, she was gone, only for Nami to shriek.

"Donna Nami!" Gin cried, spinning around.

"Golden Bubbles," Khalifa purred, her head on Nami's shoulder has the agent's lathered hands danced over the younger female's body. As Gin watched in shock, Nami's form slowly changed from that of her normal form to one like Sanji's and Amy's when they'd found them, her weapon falling out of her hands when they became too slippery to hold their grip on it. "Look at how beautiful your skin is now. I'll admit, it doesn't do much for your lesser curves, but your skin is flawless."

"Let her go!" Gin yelled, his tonfa passing through the space the woman's head had been in. Without Khalifa there holding her up, Nami's legs gave out and she crumpled to the floor. "Donna!"

"So worried about her," Khalifa chuckled, causing the Logia to face her. "She's not even the most beautiful woman here."

"At least I have a boyfriend!" Nami retaliated, Khalifa's face twisting into one of shock and rage.

"Why you-!"

BUDUP-BUDUP-BUDUP... BUDUP-BUDUP-BUDUP...

Halting her own sentence, Khalifa pulled a transponder snail from her cleavage and woke it up.

"This is the snail I was looking for!" Spandam's voice cried from the snail.

"You idiot!" Robin's voice cried. "Do you even know what you've done?!"

"Of course I do!" Spandam replied with fake confidence. "I pressed the button on the golden transponder snail... I triggered a Buster Call!"

"Everybody run!" Robin cried. "If you stay here, you'll die! Run away!"

"Shut up, you bitch!" Spandam shouted followed by the sound of the man punching the woman. "Don't tell them things they don't need to know! So I pushed the button by accident. It doesn't matter!"

"Of course it does!" Robin yelled, her voice quieter due to her distance from the snail. "You weren't there on Ohara 20 years ago! You don't know what you've done! If you don't take it back, the Navy will completely destroy Enies Lobby and everyone on it until nothing is left! Cancel it!"

"I can't just cancel the Buster Call! That would make me the laughing stock of Marine Headquarters and my promotion's at stake here!"

"Thousands of people will die!"

"Who gives a shit?!" Spandam laughed. "If we need to kill 100 people for the greater good, CP9 will slaughter them without a second thought! Who cares if a couple thousand people die in the Buster Call as long as you are arrested and the pirates killed? Wahahaha!"

"The snail is still on," Robin observed.

"What?!" Spandam squeaked. "Uhh, this is Straw Hat Luffy!"

"Everybody run!" Robin shouted again.

"Shut up!" Spandam yelled before the snail suddenly shut off.

"That bastard," Gin growled, electric sparks flying off him.

"I'll admit that our boss is a clumsy idiot," Khalifa agreed, "but it doesn't matter at the moment because you two are going to die long before the Buster Call even gets here."

"Sorry, woman," Gin spat. "We aren't dying here. We've got a comrade to save and dreams to fulfill."

RAAAAWWR!

"What is that?!" Gin gasped, the whole room shaking. The outside wall began to crack until a giant hand smashed through, forcing the CP9 agent to jump away. The hand, which was covered in long brown fur except for the black fingers that were as long as Gin was tall, pulled back and ripped stone out of the wall to make the hole bigger. In doing to, the creature revealed its upper half.

It was massive, easily over 50 feet tall, with brown fur hanging from almost every part of its body. The head was vaguely reindeer-ish in structure with a blue nose. Atop its head was an oversized version of the hat Chopper always wore with giant antlers shooting out of two bases. Its eyes were a glowing blue, shadowed by the hat as they swept across the room. Without thinking, the beast tossed Kumadori, who had been bloody and unconscious in its right hand, over its shoulder.

"RAAAAWWR," it shouted, one hand moving forward to grab more stone from the walls.

"Chopper?!" Nami and Gin gasped at the same time, the navigator focused on the blue nose while Gin's eyes were on the hat.

"Kumadori," Khalifa hissed as her eyes followed the path of the unconscious man. "There goes one of our aces."

"RAAAAWWR!" Reaching in, the monster that had to be Chopper ripped the water-filled bathtub up out of the floor and threw it, forcing Gin to grab Nami and dive away before it took them with it on a fall through the center of the tower. The beast roared again and clambered through the hole, ignoring Khalifa and her attacks as it crawled to the center of the tower.

"Shit!" Gin cursed. "Sanji and Amy are down there!"

"Chopper!" Nami yelled, dragging the beast's attention to her and the lightning-man. There was no spark of recognition in the monster's eyes as it swung at them. Gin grabbed the orange-haired girl and dodged again. The monster seemed to lose interest as he crawled the rest of the way into the tower.

"Gin," Nami whispered so as to not alert their opponent who was still focused on the beast that was, most likely, their crewmate. "My leg is back to normal. Some water got on it when Chopper threw that bathtub. You need to get me to those busted pipes over there."

"Right," the Devil Fruit user nodded. Dashing toward the broken plumbing.

"Ah ah ah," Khalifa tsked, using Shave to intercept them. "I'll admit, you pirates are the oddest assortment of monsters I've ever met, but I'm not going to let you undo the gift I've given. That's just rude."

"1000 Watt Kick!" Gin yelled, his right leg sparking with electricity as he brought it up in a roundhouse kick. Khalifa brought her own leg up, covering it in a layer of soap just before impact. The coating, however, did little to counteract the electric shock that passed through her system. Shoving her away while she couldn't counter, Gin ran forward to reach the point where droplets from the busted plumbing fell on the navigator and began to wash away the effects of the woman's bubbles.

"You pirates are so aggravating," Khalifa scowled. Gin set Nami on the floor and dashed forward to engage the agent in a flurry of armed martial arts. Despite Khalifa being faster than Gin by a long shot, she was still unable to directly touch him due to an electric charge dancing along his skin, making any use of Iron Body or Finger Pistol a bad idea. He could also fire into the air, making Moonwalk nothing but a time waster. She jumped back, putting distance between them. "Tempest Kick!"

"Not gonna work," Gin taunted, the attack bisecting him only for his torso to fuse back together. "Spinning Death: 3000 Watt Slam!"

"Bubble Sheep: Calming Bubbles!" Despite the wave of dangerous bubbles, Gin continued the charge forward, the electricity on his skin popping any and all bubbles that made contact. Behind him, Nami had regained her form and was throwing Thunder Balls to back him up. Seeing that her first attack wasn't working, Khalifa launched a new one. "Bubble Tsunami!"

From behind her, Khalifa called forth a massive wave of Calming Bubbles that would most certainly engulf and subdue Gin if he was swept up. The man slowed, allowing Nami's Thunder Balls to pass him before reaching out with his power.

"Electric Net!" Using the charges in the Thunder Balls with just a little of his own, the lightning-man connected each of the Thunder Balls with several others, making a net, as the name implied. The combination attack collided with the bubble tsunami, causing an explosion of sorts. Gin rushed through, locking his tonfa behind the woman's head so it looked like he was hugging her.

"Got you," he smirked. The woman's eyes widened.

"Sexual harassment," she squeaked.

"Lightning Rod Tempo!" Nami yelled, calling forth another bolt of lightning. It struck her crewmate, passing through him and into the opponent who screamed in pain before passing out. Steam rose from Khalifa's open mouth as Gin dropped her.

Nami and Gin vs. Khalifa

Winners: Nami and Gin

Zoro, Usopp, Coby, and Grace

Earlier

"Tempest Kick: Sky Slicer!"

"Duck!" Zoro yelled, tackling Usopp as Coby pulled Grace down with him. Kaku's attack pulsed out as a circle of pure cutting power, slicing the Tower of Law in half diagonally. With a groan, the top half of the tower slid downward, revealing the sky over half of the room.

"What the Hell, you long-necked moron!" Jabra shouted, fading into view as he Shaved to Kaku's side. "You cut the entire tower in half!"

"I don't want to hear anything from a dog like you," Kaku responded coldly.

"Why, you!"

"Hey, bitch!" Coby's insult hit home, freezing the wolf-man instantly.

"...What did you just call me?" he growled, literally. Next to him, Kaku laughed, only for Zoro to pounce on him.

"I called you a bitch, dog-man!" Coby shouted, changing into his Hybrid Mode. "They should have you neutered!"

"Shave! Finger Pistol!" In an instant, the enraged agent was on top of the Ancient Zoan, his hands a blur as he tried to stab the teen with his claws. Said claws clashed with Coby's Sabaku no Kiba, ringing.

"Take this!" Grace shouted, popping up from behind Coby. "Colors Trap: Bullfight Red!"

"My eyes!" Jabra fell back from the surprise attack, rubbing the red paint out of his eye sockets. "You bitch! Shave! Finger Pistol!"

"Where'd he go?" Coby asked, looking for the wolf that had vanished.

"Damn it!" Even Zoro and Kaku stopped their fight, looking around to find the source of the angry shout. The source was Jabra in the corner, continuously hitting a red design. "What the Hell did you do to me?!"

"You idiot!" Kaku laughed. "What are you doing?!"

"Shut up and help me, you moron!"

"I don't think I will."

"You stupid, giraffe bastard!"

"Giraffes are awesome!"

"Colors Trap: Sadness Blue."

"Dear Goda, I suck," Jabra cried in the wake of Grace's latest attack. "I'm not the alpha of the pack. I'm weaker than a damn cat. I don't deserve to even eat dirt."

"Ha! That's the best thing I've seen all week!" Kaku laughed as Grace pulled Jabra's key out of the man's pocket. "If you all weren't pirates, I would thank every one of you."

"Special Attack!" Usopp yelled, finally coming out of hiding from behind the door. "Handcuff Surprise!" Usopp had relieved an open safe of its four Sea Prism Stone restraints, one of them now being used as a projectile fired toward Kaku. The Man-Beast agent jump-kicked them aside toward the pirate Zoan. Coby wasn't fast enough to avoid the cuffs and they smacked him in the face, catching on one of his horns for prolonged exposure.

"Ow," Coby moaned, the Sea Prism in the cuffs draining his energy as they sat on his face and turned him human. Grace sighed, walking over to remove the restrains from her comrade and lock them on the wolf-man's wrists. Jabra sunk deeper into his chemical-induced depression, losing his wolf transformation.

BUDUP-BUDUP-BUDUP... BUDUP-BUDUP-BUDUP...

Reaching into his pocket, Kaku removed a transponder snail with a black shell and hat. He clicked it on.

"This is the snail I was looking for!" Spandam's voice cried from the snail.

"You idiot!" Robin's voice cried. "Do you even know what you've done?!"

"Of course I do!" Spandam replied with fake confidence. "I pressed the button on the golden transponder snail... I triggered a Buster Call!"

"Everybody run!" Robin cried. "If you stay here, you'll die! Run away!"

"Shut up, you bitch!" Spandam shouted followed by the sound of the man punching the woman. "Don't tell them things they don't need to know! So I pushed the button by accident. It doesn't matter!"

"Of course it does!" Robin yelled, her voice quieter due to her distance from the snail. "You weren't there on Ohara 20 years ago! You don't know what you've done! If you don't take it back, the Navy will completely destroy Enies Lobby and everyone on it until nothing is left! Cancel it!"

"I can't just cancel the Buster Call! That would make me the laughing stock of Marine Headquarters and my promotion's at stake here!"

"Thousands of people will die!"

"Who gives a shit?!" Spandam laughed. "If we need to kill 100 people for the greater good, CP9 will slaughter them without a second thought! Who cares if a couple thousand people die in the Buster Call as long as you are arrested and the pirates killed? Wahahaha!"

"The snail is still on," Robin observed.

"What?!" Spandam squeaked. "Uhh, this is Straw Hat Luffy!"

"Everybody run!" Robin shouted again.

"Shut up!" Spandam yelled before the snail suddenly shut off.

"That moron!" Kaku groaned, trying to rub his face in irritation. He failed, his arms only reaching the middle of his neck. "Now let's look at the situation here." He sat down and undid his transformation, confusing the pirates he was supposed to be fighting.

"My fellow agent is incapacitated." -Jabra groaned something about cats from his corner.- "I'm in a four-on-one fight including a man that can match me in swordplay." -Zoro nodded, a smirk on his face.- "The Tower of Law where we are fighting is falling apart."

"A big part of that is your fault," Coby pointed out.

"And finally, my moronic 'commander' has triggered a Buster Call on Enies Lobby. Everything is stacked against me. How could this get any worse?"

Of course, as all of you lovely readers know, that question was and is cursed in every universe in which it has been uttered.

RAAAAWWR!

"What was that?" Usopp trembled, clutching onto the back of Zoro's clothing. The wall around the doors exploded inward, thrown away by a giant, furred hand. Heavy panting could be heard, great puffs of air rippling through the dust.

"What the Hell?" Zoro and Coby shouted in sync.

"Is that yours?" Grace screamed.

"No!" Kaku yelled back, just as scared as the pirates. "I thought is was yours!"

"Chopper!" Zoro realized, his eyes resting on the beast's hat. "What the Hell did he do?!"

"RAAAAWWR!" Apparently tired of the little maggots making noise, the giant Chopper stepped into the room and swung. Coby and Grace dove out of the way as the hand kept moving to smash into the outside wall. I huge hole developed, not helping the structural security of the building in any way. The monster took another couple of steps into the room and swung at Kaku who dodged with Shave. Jabra, however, couldn't have moved of he'd wanted to. He was hit dead on and launched out into the hallway. The force of the hit shattered the handcuffs on his wrists, leaving them behind in a terrible parody of "knocking someone's socks off" as the wolf-man disappeared.

"Everyone move!" Franky shouted, running into the room as he locked his T-bar in place between his arms.

"What are you doing?!" Coby demanded, running at the cyborg to stop him as he took aim at the out-of-control reindeer.

"Coup de Vent!" Coby didn't make it before the shipwright fired, the blast of air throwing Chopper's Monster Point out of the hole and down toward the ocean below.

"You bastard!" Usopp screamed.

"Stop it, guys!" Nami ordered, entering the room with Gin as Franky dove out of the hole. "We came up with this plan!"

"We'll talk later!" Zoro growled. "We still have a fight to finish!"

"No, you don't," Kaku sighed, his key landing in the grass in front of the green-haired man.

"You're surrendering?" Coby asked, his twin swords lowering.

"But I still have a new technique I wanted to test against you," Zoro muttered childishly.

"I'm outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, outplanned, and running out of time," Kaku responded. "I just have one request. Fulfill that, and I'll lead you all to the Gates of Justice and Nico Robin."

"And what is it you want?" Gin prodded. Kaku locked eyes with him.

"Help me like you are going to help Nico Robin. Take me away from here."

End of Chapter 79

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-SwordOfTheGods