Chapter 75: Merry's Lament!

Chapter 81:

Merry's Lament! Her End as a Ship

"Ugh," Oimo groaned, the ever-blue sky swimming into his vision. His hearing came to a second later, but it was not pretty. Explosions, the like of which he had not heard in over 100 years, sent tremors through the ground he was lying on. With a grunt, Oimo pushed himself into a sitting position.

Nearly every building around him was broken or altogether gone, hinting at the destruction that must plague the rest of the island. Shaking his head, the giant spotted his Kashi next to him, a little burnt and tied up. Grabbing Kashi's sword, Oimo cut his fellow giant free before proceeding to smack him awake.

"Oi! Kashi! Get up!" Kashi rolled over, pushing himself onto all fours before coughing up was little remained of his dinner from that evening.

"My insides feel like we had a run in with that electric Sea King Jofur," Kashi coughed. "What happened?"

"Those pirates got past us and into Enies Lobby," Oimo admitted. "We've failed, Kashi. We won't get our captains back."

"Damn it!" Kashi growled, rolling back onto his back. "50 years for naught."

"Run away!" several smaller voices cried, growing louder by the second. "That idiot called a Buster Call! Enies Lobby is done for! Run!"

"Hmm?" the giants hummed, turning to see the Franky Family and the foremen of Galley-La running as fast as they could while still carrying the wounded Gammorah.

"Oh damn!" one of them yelled. "It's those giants!"

"Leave them!" Zanbai ordered. "We don't have time!"

"Nagagaga!" Granny Kokoro laughed, Chimney and Gonbe on her shoulders and a bottle of alcohol in her hand. "Keep runnin', boys! The marines is gonna destroy the island! Nagagaga!"

"Wait a second," Oimo muttered. "Did he say 'Buster Call'?" The two giants glanced at each other, sharing a silent, panicked conversation as the rest of the Franky Family ran between them. As one, the giants started running after them.

"Wait! Take us with you!"

"This'll do," Nami nodded, finishing her inspection of the ship the group had hijacked. Spandam and his men were either unconscious on the bridge or, more likely, in the water below, all of them having been no match for the Straw Hats. Five of the remaining eight battleships were still within eyesight, firing on Enies Lobby. The other three had sailed around toward the front of the island.

"This is a report from ship 2!" a man called over the loudspeakers. "All Marine personnel have been evacuated and identified or are presumed dead. Also, we have identified about 60 pirates and the two giants at the front of the island."

"Hey," Franky smirked. "That'll be Zanbai and the others."

"Galley-La, too," Gin put in.

"And Granny Kokoro," Nami added.

"We fired on them," the man continued. "All 60 are presumed dead. The Tower of Law, the courthouse, and bridge connecting them are no more. The only target left is the Bridge of Hesitation."

"No!" Franky wailed, falling to his knees. The pirates didn't blame him; all of his friends were in that group. "No!"

"How can they kill without a second thought?" Grace cried.

"We can mourn them later," Zoro stated, hardening his heart for the time being. "We can't afford to break down now. We need to be ready to leave when Luffy and the cook get here."

"How are we going to get to Sanji?" Coby asked, forcing his eyes to not release their tears. "He was still in the Tower of Law last we saw him."

"Don't forget about our baby den-dens," Amy reminded him. Raising her wrist, she woke her snail and hoped the chef would answer.

"Hello?" A relieved sigh passed through the group at the sound of Sanji's voice. He sounded beat up and his breathing was ragged, but he was alive.

"Sanji!" Amy yelled into the snail to be heard over the cannonfire. "Where are you?!"

"I'm outside the Tower of Law!" Sanji shouted. "The passageway is flooded!"

"Stay put!" Nami ordered. "We stole a Marine ship! We'll come get you when we take off!"

"Hurry! I'm not sure how long I can deflect these cannonballs until they spot me!" The snail clicked off.

"Then it's just Captain Luffy we're waiting for," Coby finalized. "We'll have to hold out here."

"No," Zoro denied. "We'll fight on the bridge. That'll give us more room. The battleships are turning this way. Remember, Luffy lifted the ban on killing, so don't hold back." With a nod between them, Zoro, Coby, Gin, Franky, Amy, and a reluctant Usopp dashed up the steps. The remaining eight ships had converged on the bridge, a cannonball breaking the first half of the structure.

"The building where Straw Hat Luffy and Lob Lucci of CP9 are fighting has been separated from the rest of the Bridge of Hesitation!" the loudspeakers announced. "A total of ten pirates have been confirmed on the bridge including Pirate Hunter Zoro, Devil-Child Nico Robin, Man-Demon Gin, and Tri-Horn Coby! All marines of rank Captain and above, prepare to attack!"

"Hey, Gin!" Zoro called as the main fighter group reached the top of the stairs. "You wanna lighten the load?"

"With pleasure!" the Logia cackled as he let a little bit of his control over his rage slip, electricity building up between his tonfa. He turned toward the nearest ship and let loose. "500 Million Watt Lightning Shot!" A ball of pure electrical energy the same height of its creator shot out, slamming into the side of the battleship. The ship was engulfed in light before exploding, the sinking ship taking those unlucky enough to survive the explosion to a watery grave as it sank.

"Mmm," Amy hummed, licking her lips. "Now that was hot." Gin smirked back at her.

"There's more where that came from, Sweetheart!" Gin panted.

"Flirting now of all times?!" Coby yelled as the remaining 1,400 captains and commanders jumped off the battleships. He and his teacher moved so they were back-to-back.

"Three Sword Style..." Zoro began.

"Two Sword Style..." Coby followed.

"Dragon Twister!" They yelled together, their combined attack blowing more opponents out of the air than either one could do separately. With matching smirks, the two swordsmen split in opposite directions.

"Weapons Left!" Franky shouted, blasting a quartet of captains out of the air.

"Special Attack: Sunflower Star!" Usopp called from Franky's other side, his attack beating five enemies.

"Heavy Impact!" Amy cried from the air, throwing marines into the ocean with her momentum. It was apparent that these men were not able to use Moonwalk like CP9 could, so throwing them away was child's play. Once all of the marines were either in the ocean or on the bridge, the battlefield and her attacks changed. "10,000 kilogram Press!" The section of the bridge seemed to give way underneath her weight, crumbling into the water below and taking many marines with it.

"Spinning Death: Electrocution!" Gin shouted, zapping forward into the largest clump of marines. Thunder rolled out from wherever his tonfa made contact, his foes falling one after another with blackened faces and burnt clothing. Only a the strongest of them still had a beating heart.

A portion of the marines ran toward the steps, but Nami and Grace had it handled if the flashes of light and random laughter were of any indication. The pained screaming and sounds of bone snapping may have also indicated that Robin was doing her fair share as well, leaving Chopper and Kaku on the ship.

"You must be Roranoa Zoro," a man in Marine-themed, Arabic-like clothing stated as he calmly approached the man unarmed.

"What's it to you?" Zoro responded coldly, readying his weapons.

"I'm here to defeat you." Having had enough talk, Zoro launched forward, Yubashiri posed to cut the man in two. The weapon never did, the marine catching the weapon before it could. From the points of contact, rust covered the blade. With his eyes widening, Zoro pulled away from the man as his sword's blade fell apart.

"Yubashiri, no."

"I am a man that ate the Rust-Rust Fruit," the marine taunted. "No swordsman could hope to beat me!" The rust-man was right: it wasn't a swordsman that beat him.

"Firebird Star!" Usopp's surprise attack caught the Devil Fruit user in the side, blasting him away from the green-haired pirate and into the ocean. Off to the side, the tower where Luffy and Lucci had been fighting exploded.

"Th-this is an urgent report!" the marine on the loudspeakers shouted. "Just now, Rob Lucci of CP9 was seen lying face down in a pool of blood! He's been defeated by Straw Hat Luffy!"

"Yeah!" the pirates celebrated, Nami happily cradling Luffy's hat.

"Usopp," Zoro called. "Go make sure Luffy gets his ass back here!"

"Right!" Ducking around stunned marines, the sniper ended up with a clear view of the battlefield their captain had been fighting on. "Luffy! Come on!"

"I can't move!" Luffy gasped, his chest heaving with each breath. "I need you to pull me up!"

"I've got your back, Usopp!" Coby shouted, throwing away three men that had tried to sneak up on the man. "Get our captain!"

"Usopp Grappling Hook!" Swinging said hook over his head like a lasso, Usopp proved his worth by making a clean shot, the rope and hook wrapping around Luffy's torso. The sniper passed the line to Coby with the order to pull Luffy back up. Coby nodded and changed into his Dino Mode, taking the rope in his mouth to barrel through any marines who tried to stand in their way. Luffy seemed to skip across the water as the rope pulled at him. The sound of a struggle flowed over the loudspeakers.

"I gotcha, Luffy," Usopp finally stated as the rubber-man reached the top of the bridge.

"Straw Hat!" a familiar voice shouted over the speakers. "Big Bro! We're alive!"

"Shut up!" another recognizable voice chastised. "You'll tip off the Marines!"

"Who gives a damn?! Not the Franky Family!"

"They're alive!" Franky cried happily, wiping the tears out on his eyes from hearing Zanbai and the others over the loudspeaker before the communication was shut down. "I'm not crying!" he denied, his flailing left arm knocking a trio of marines off of the bridge. "You're crying!"

"Everyone get to the ship!" Nami shouted. Her order went unfulfilled, however, as their escape plan went up in flames. The Marines had fired on the ship. "No! Chopper!" Grabbing both Robin and Nami's arms, Grace all but dragged them back toward their friends and away from the now-burning ship.

Following the ship in destruction were the third and fourth bridge supports as they crumbled just after the trio of female pirates made it to the next pillar in the series, the Captains left behind falling into the ocean below with the debris. Only the second pillar was left to hold all of the Straw Hats on the bridge. Kaku landed next to them after using Moonwalk to escape the burning ship, Chopper in his arms.

"Now what?" Franky questioned, his open left arm aimed at a battleship. "That ship was our only way out!"

"All battleships, prepare to fire on support column two!"

"This doesn't look good," Coby growled.

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

"Sanji!" Gin yelled into the snail. "Please tell me you have a miracle!"

"I do!" Sanji responded. "Jump into the sea! Trust me!"

"You all heard him!" Gin shouted, too out-of-options to question the suicidal action. "Jump!" Taking a leap of faith, the pirates, Franky, and Kaku jumped off the side of the column just as several cannonballs crashed into it. Looking down, they were shocked to see a very familiar vessel, their chef waving at them with a little girl in a white raincoat with the hood pulled up. Though beaten up, the ship was undoubtedly the Going Merry.

"Get on!" the little girl called as they fell. "I'll get you out one more time!"

"Merry!" Usopp cried happily. The outlaws landed on the deck with a thump, Franky falling through the floorboards and into the men's quarters. Under her own command, the Going Merry lurched forward to avoid the falling debris of the last pieces of the Bridge of Hesitation. Zoro and Sanji set to work breaking up any chunks that threatened their escape while Gin moved to where he could see the most Marine ships off the bow.

"This'll do me in!" he yelled back toward his crew. "Again, 500 Million Watt Lightning Shot!" The attack destroyed the fronts of the two closest government vessels, the sinking war machines impeding some of the others from reaching the pirates. The war ships that could target them fired, but the Going Merry was too small and agile for the bulky battleships to catch. She sailed like a ship possessed.

Robin calmly walked to the back of the ship to stand next to that unconscious form of Gin, making eye contact with Spandam as he glared at her from one of the whole battleships. She silently raised her arms and used her powers to snap the man's spine in two without batting an eye. His cry was music to the pirates' ears.

The Going Merry and the Straw Hat Pirates had escaped the Marines and survived the Buster Call.

"We did it," Luffy smiled from his captain's seat a couple hours later, his hat returned to him by his girlfriend. Water 7 was visible on the horizon and they had received word that Galley-La and the Franky Family had hijacked the Puffing Tom to get away from the island. "We actually did it." Luffy pulled himself up into a sitting position, despite his protesting muscles, to gaze on the scene of the deck. Oddly enough, Coby and their "prisoner" were standing next to each other, an arm around each other's shoulders. Why that was, Luffy hadn't a clue, but he didn't care either.

The crew plus two were gathered around the little girl in the white raincoat, Sanji having introduced her as the spirit of the Going Merry, but she refused to lower her hood. Apparently, she had sailed the ship, herself, all the way to Enies Lobby through Aqua Laguna to rescue them. Her plan had been to try to keep herself hidden with the assumption that all of the crew would be together when she picked them up, but when she'd had to get Sanji beforehand, then there was no point in hiding anymore. Of the crew, it was Usopp's smile that shone the brightest.

The sounds of people yelling pulled at Luffy's attention, alerting him to the galleon full of people that had come to meet them. Among these people were the Franky Family, the Galley-La shipwrights, and Iceberg himself.

"Ice-Pops!" Luffy shouted, alerting the other people to their visitors. Merry faded away, releasing her physical form. "Hey! We're back!"

"So I can see!" Iceberg yelled back.

"I'm sorry," Merry whispered before the wood groaned. "I can't go any farther." The Going Merry split down the middle, her figurehead moving to look like she was bowing to the other ship.

"Merry!" the crew cried, those nearer the front scrambling to find something to hold onto. "What's wrong?!"

"She's done," Iceberg announced. "She can't go on any more. You have to let her rest."

"No!" Luffy shouted, stretching to hold the figurehead in one hand and the mast in the other. "Merry's alive! We aren't going to just abandon her!"

"She's a ship!" Iceberg shouted back. "You can't sail her. She's already falling apart!"

"Tow us in!" Luffy ordered. "Tow us in!"

"There's nothing I can do to repair your ship!"

"We don't need her as a ship!" Everyone froze at Luffy's words, Iceberg included. "We need you to help us bring her back as a person! Franky called her a Wood Fairy! Can you do something with that?!"

"Captain," Merry's voice whispered. "You don't have to-"

"I said that you were going to come with us to the end of our adventure!" Luffy interrupted, speaking directly toward the deck and the crack therein below him. "I said that in Skypia! If you aren't going to come with us as a ship, then you'll come with us as a crewmate!"

And as the shipwrights of Galley-La watched, the breaking ship defied the laws of physics. Tears fell from her wooden eyes and the bow of the ship began to pull itself back up, ropes from the rigging shooting down to wrap around the railing and pull taught. Slowly, ever so slowly, the gap in the deck closed.

"I only have to make it to the shore," Merry panted, loud enough that the people on the other ship could hear. The jaws of every shipwright hit the deck in shock. "Isn't that right, Captain?"

Luffy smiled, his hand falling to rest on Merry's figurehead. "That's right, Merry. Just a little longer."

"Well," Iceberg blinked in the face of the irrefutable proof that the ship was alive. "Fine. I'll see what I can do." With that said, the two ships, the bigger helping the smaller along, sailed toward Water 7.

End of Chapter 81

I'm not very satisfied with this chapter. I feel like it could have come out so much better, but rereading it, I didn't know how. Well, I did, but I didn't know how I would get it to that level. I'm not a story like This Bites where each chapter can put a long one-shot to shame and that's the kind of detail that a lot of fight scenes like this deserve... Oh well. Tell me what you all think!

Read and Review!

-SwordOfTheGods