133. Strong Rookies
Mantis spins her body then swings her bo-staff at Tong from above. The bald monk blocks it by swinging his staff from below. They clash multiple times with Mantis being the one who attacks actively.
Tong gets pushed back slowly by her attacks and his hands start to become sore. Mantis' attacks are strong & heavy even though she is quite light-weighted. Her dance-like movements increase her attacks' power & weight.
She is having the advantage in her fight easily, unlike the other Clowns. As someone who joined the crew in the early days, Mantis has a lot of battle experiences. She was also able to fight even before joining The Clown Pirates.
Even more, Buggy & Cricket have trained her in battle since the beginning. The others also got trained, but she has more time because she joined early. That's why, now she is the 4th strongest member after Buggy, Cricket, & Palu even though she doesn't really like to fight.
"What's wrong, baldie? I thought you've gone to New World and a rookie like me isn't your opponent at all. Ah, that's right. You came back to Paradise because New World is too harsh for you guys, isn't it?" asks Mantis to mock the monk.
"Tsk, you don't know anything. That place is a nightmare for a small pirate crew like us. The terror of big pirate crews like Whitebeard & Big Mom is far above your expectation. Even Captain Nando & Muto who got more than 100 million bounties after entering New World couldn't do anything against them. They are the Sea Emperors," says Tong angrily.
"Heh, so that swordsman is your 2nd strongest. No wonder Palu has a hard time fighting him. It's a good thing that Enel doesn't fight him anymore," says Mantis.
"Hmph, no matter who fights him & Captain Nando from your side, they will win. After all, they're strong enough to defeat a Rear-Admiral each," says Tong.
"Rear-Admiral, huh? Maybe you just fought the weak ones before," says Mantis while smirking.
They stop their useless talk and start to raise their game. Tong suddenly coats his bo-staff with armament hardening. It makes his weapon harder and gives more damage to Mantis' bo-staff.
But he doesn't realize that Mantis has used colorless armament since the start of their battle. She always use colorless armament in her battle since she could use it. Buggy has taught her that is a way to increase her mastery faster.
Her sneaky move has made Tong's bo-staff has some thin cracks that he doesn't realize. He is underestimating Mantis too much before, just like his crewmates. They all think that The Clowns are just overconfident rookies like the others.
It also applies to the Iron Shovel Captain, Nando who fights Cricket. He underestimates Cricket since the beginning and now he pays the price. They've fought equally at first, but suddenly, Cricket used a big attack just now.
"Hasshoken: Drilling Fist!" says Cricket as he sends a punch at Nando.
Nando also sends his punch to counter it and says, "1 Ton Punch!"
*BAM*
Their punches clash and create a booming sound. Ripples come out of Cricket's fist, indicating the strong vibration that his punch made. The vibration moves through Nando's hand to his body and breaks his sleeve.
Nando gets fling behind and rolls on the floor before crashing to the wall. The other executives are surprised to see this because they know Nando's strength. His 1 Ton Punch is very strong that it can dent a thick iron block, but Cricket has overpowered it.
"1 Ton Punch? More like 1 Quintal Punch," says Cricket while grinning and rubbing his knuckle that has a little bruise.
The other Clowns sweatdrop at him who act very tough even with his bruised knuckle. But they know that injury is just superficial for Cricket and won't affect anything. It's just that his words & action don't match each other.
*CRASH*
A crashing sound is suddenly heard from Nando's location. He has come out of the broken wall without apparent injury except for his bruised right hand & destroyed sleeve. But now he looks very angry and has an iron shovel in his left hand.
"I never thought that a rookie will force me to use this thing. It must be admitted that you are strong, but it's still not enough to defeat me. With this bad guy in my hand, you have no chance anymore now," says Nando while walking slowly toward Cricket.
"Ooh, scary~. You look like a gravedigger with that shovel, so scary," says Cricket mockingly.
"Hmph, you won't talk like that again after this. Also, you guys, it's time to go all out. Show these rookies what we're made of," says Nando to his crewmates.
The Iron Shovel executives grin and they all activate their armament hardening. The ones who have activated it earlier cover more parts of their body with it. They will go all out and fight using all their strength now.
Even though they just fight with rookies, but they know they need to go all out now. There's no time for being too prideful because they'll get defeated if they do that. Now they look at The Clowns as equal opponents, not just rookies.
Their sudden change alert The Clowns because their battles will be more difficult now. But none of The Clowns are worried because they've prepared to have hard battles. This change won't affect anything that The Clowns will do.
"Clowns!" shouts Cricket to his crewmates.
The Clowns look at him and wait for his next words.
"No need to hide it again, just use everything you have," says Cricket.
The Clown grins and gets ready for their battles again. With Cricket's command, they won't hold back anything again. They were saving some of their cards before and will just use them when needed, now is the time.
Both sides start to clash again and now really go all out. Cricket & Nando who make this situation arise also start to fight again. Nando swings his armament-coated iron shovel from above and Cricket sends a punch at it.
Cricket suddenly covers his fist with armament hardening before hitting the shovel. Of course, it surprises Nando who never thought that a rookie like Cricket can use armament haki. Now he also realized that Cricket used Observation Haki before to fight him.
"Tch, no wonder you could dodge or counter all of my attacks perfectly. So you can use haki, huh? Where did you learn it?" asks Nando pissedly.
"That's a secret. But you will know how if you know who we are, especially who our Captain is. You will know the answer immediately after knowing Captain's identity," says Cricket.
Nando gets very curious about Buggy now, but he leaves it and focus on fighting Cricket. At this time, Buggy is coming out of the passenger ship's cabin with the freed slaves. Now he will face the slave traders together with the freed slaves.
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