The Madman Part 8

The Madman Part 8

\____-o(X)o-____/​

I did my best to stay out of the way as the Bonney Pirates practically danced about the Cake, guiding the ship with a casual ease.

Tom was at the helm as the Cake sailed slowly on the currents. We were actually going against the wind, and that was Daniel's best guess as to why no one from the island had found this before. The currents and winds apparently were against going to this little side island that was low to the water and just a little ways out of sight. We were going literally against both the current and wind, and the only reason we didn't have to take an enormously circuitious route is because the Bonney Pirates were fucking good sailors. It'd still be at least a day's sail though even with their collected skill. It wasn't far by the way the albatross flies, but it was a bitch and a half to actually get there.

Lucca's voice interrupted my thoughts, drawing my gaze up to the man sitting on a barrel nearby, working on the lever action rifle he'd built after I'd sketched out the mechanism for him, "So what happened in z'e tavern?"

"That's what's known as Conquerer's Haki. It's the third color of Haki." I was actually experimenting with my Ability. There was the Strength of Steel thing I could do, but… could I turn into other metals…? Was that what I'd done with the hippo spit? Ugh, I didn't know.

"I've seen it before…" Tom said.

I paused, looking up from the gradually metallic form of my hand at where he stood at the wheel, "You're shitting me, in the Blues…?"

The large man nodded, his cowboy-hat bobbing. He'd gone with a tank top with 'Get Some' on the front today, "Yes."

"Hot damn," my eyebrows went up, "That is fucking terrifying."

Tom nodded sagely even as Lucca asked again, "Still, what was it?"

"So, that's… actually a bit of a hard question in the actual, literal way." I admitted, "But to put it simply, while Observation Haki is the ability to perceive haki as well as the world through a greater breadth of senses, and Armament Haki is the crystallization of Haki into forms around the self or equipment. Conqueror's Haki is the assertion of one's Haki over the life forces of others."

Slowly, Wallace's hand went up.

"Yes?"

"… can we get it more simply?"

I sighed, facepalming, "Observation Haki lets you sense stuff, Armament Haki lets you hit stuff, Conqueror's Haki lets you knock people out."

"Ohhhhh."

"Why aren't you teaching us that one though?" Daniel asked, looking up from the map from where he stood near Tom, "Seems useful."

"Not everyone has it." I paused before grumbling, "Supposedly at least." Shaking my head, I continued, "I think it's more that very few people have the talent for it, but it's commonly assumed that only one in a million people can actually do it. And people that have it are inevitably a Big Deal."

Wallace's hand went up and I answered the question I knew was coming, "The people I know to have it include little old people like Gold Rodger, The Dark King Rayleigh, Doflamingo, Boa Hancock, and the Four Emperors. Y'know, no one important."

More than a few shivers went through the group at those names. Not that I could blame them. Even… no, especially now that I had the context of actually being superhuman, the effort required, and what it took to accomplish the visual scale of feats seen in the story? People like Doflamingo are fucking terrifying, not to mention the strongest man in the world, Fucking Whitebeard. I could punch down a wall, with my physicality enhancing ability I could probably break down a building with a good attack, but the likes of those could destroy entire cities or even islands.

"And Shaka has it…?"

"Yeah. Though he doesn't seem to have any control over it since he knocked out his own men just by getting angry." I held up both of my hands looking at them. I flexed one into the generic metal that I always seemed to turn into. It was a gunmetal gray, sorta blue-ish…

"Z'at is terrifying." Lucca admitted, a little smile on his face as he adjusted the sights of the rifle.

"Not as terrifying as I just made it out to be. But still worrisome, yes."

Casey dropped from where he'd been working on the rigging of the sails, jiggling and bouncing like a human shaped and colored mass of jello. Good on him for not splattering over the deck. "What are you doing?"

I glanced up at the larger man, "Trying to figure out if I can turn into different metals."

"Oh! You mean sorta like this?" Casey held up his hands and one turned into a blue, semitransparent jello as the other turned into the classically pink-ish stuff.

My mouth opened, then closed, "Yes. Exactly like that. How are you doing that?"

Casey leaned back, apparently I'd gotten up at some point, "Ah, you just have to do it differently…"

"How? I've just been flexing that weird pseudo-muscle to transform. How do you do that differently?"

"It's more like moving your arm, just… you're moving the other arm. Like, different things."

I glared at my hands, one metal. How do I flex that differently…? I'd just been thinking of it as flexing a single muscle… like… that? No. Like that? No.

Plopping back down where I'd been before, I scowled at my hands.

Like that? No. How about this? No.

What would it be like?

"Here you go Jake."

"Thanks," I said genuinely though distractedly as I accepted a new thing of sweet tea from Claude. The tattoo'd man moved amongst the boarding party, passing out drinks, "OJ and vodka."

"Gyihihihihi! Thanks Claude."

It… okay, so what Casey had said made sense. The thing is, how did I do that?

"Ale for my delightful Wallace~"

The man moved through the people on deck, a large platter of drinks in his hand as he moved about. Really, only a fraction of the Bonney pirates really needed to be working on the actual sailing part of sailing while within the more stable weather patterns near an island. So the rest of us could usually relax at least a bit.

"Fuck you Claude."

"Ah, how I wish. Tequila for Jaime."

How about this? No. Or this? No.

"Gracias mi amigo. Whiskey for Lucca~"

"Z'ank you."

"Could you turn into gold?" Daniel asked from over the railing in front of the steering wheel.

"I… uh… don't know yet?"

"If you can… we could sell you." I twitched even as Tom smacked Daniel upside the head. The navigator in the red coat snarling, "What?! I didn't mean as a slave or anything! I meant he could pretend to be a gold statue and then break out!"

"Ohhhh…"

… oh, that'd… hrm, that'd be okay actually. Just bad instinctive response.

Anyways, how about like this? No. Like that? No.

Fucking hell, I will get this down.

-oOo-​

How the fuck do you do this shit?!

Just, ugh, fuck, I didn't know if it was because I couldn't do it, or because I was doing it wrong! Like, fucking hell, Casey had gotten it down apparently within a month or so after being told shit like that was possible. Me? Fuck if I could. Was it just me being stupid? I'd already tried… fuck, what had I already tried and what hadn't I? Fuck, where's a notebook, I need to start writing this shit down.

A new mug of cool sweet tea was set beside me, and it was picked up as I continued to focus on my hand, shifting between metal and flesh quickly, "Thanks."

"It's no problem, mon ami." A large hand settled on my shoulder, "It is getting late."

I blinked, looking up at… well fuck. It was night. "So it is."

Pushing myself up, my joints creaked and popped and various other unsavory things as I stretched out, "Ugh."

"Zat one sounded bad."

"It was. About as bad as your singing."

"So only about half as bad as yours?"

"Eyup. Enough for today, I'm going to put this off for a bit. Beating my head against the wall isn't helping."

Lucca grinned, "I don't know mon ami, with you it just might."

-oOo-​

"So... what's this thing supposed to be?"

A quick glance up confirmed that it was Casey in my laboratory. I'd had to move a few boxes and fold up one of the tables and store a bit of my analysis equipment in order to make room for the vat I was growing the artificial musculature and skin for Io's prosthetic in. But those were already working.

"A diving suit." I said as I continued to checking over the suit.

I'd based it off of the suits of Big Daddies from Bioshock, specifically the Alpha Series, the Rosie class, but mostly off of a concept art of a kind of Big Daddy I'd seen at some point or another. It was rubber between layers of canvas with some metal plating for defensive purposes.

Because, y'know, Sea Kings and shit.

Casey tilted his head to the side and scratched beneath his disproportionately small cowboy hat, "Why d'ya want one of those?"

I actually had to pause to process that one before continuing on, checking the tar-seals and rivets on the diving suit, "It's a suit meant to isolate me from the water, so I can do things down on the ocean floor." While I likely didn't have to worry so much about pressure now that I could turn all of the potentially affected things to metal, being isolated from the water was massively more important now. Before I could've gotten stuff near islands pretty comfortably, holding my breath for a good while, but now that was beyond me. Though I was going to be sure to test it in the shallows when we got to the sub-island the McPuffins were on first to make sure that there wasn't some bullshit of 'being underwater in a diving suit counts to being a hammer.'

Shouldn't since I remembered Luffy operating just fine inside an air bubble underwater, but still, not something I want to risk.

"Well, yeah, but why would you want to do that?" the gelatin-man asked, coming over to look at the diving suit curiously, easily more than two heads taller than my own five and a half foot.

"There are a lot of useful materials on the ocean floor, like seastone and Dials and such that you can't get on land." If I got lucky with some breath dials, I might be able to basically set up a diving suit without a tether or even with water propulsion.

"Aren't… we weak to seastone…?"

"Only if we come into direct contact, I could get it using this quite easily."

"… what's a Dial anyways?"

"It's a special kind of seashell. It's… weird. They vary quite a bit, but basically they take in stuff and then release it all at once."

"That… doesn't sound really useful…?"

I couldn't help but grin a bit at that, remembering the bullshit I'd built into the Eyepatch during our stay at Water 7, "It is. Trust me."

-oOo-​

"Does that even count as an island?"

It was tiny. It was barely the size of a football field. All rocks and the occasional nest.

I shrugged at the question, "Not by Grand Line standards at least. No magnetic charge."

Bonney and the boarding party were on the deck as we approached. We were at battle stations, these things had been talked up enough. That was for sure.

"Where are these damn things?! I want my McPuffin pizza!"

Problem is… where were they…?

"I just want to sell the damn things." Daniel muttered, getting multiple nods from most of the crew on deck.

It was at that point that the Cake lurched.

"The hell was that?!"

I facepalmed, "They're underwater. Of course."

Bonney stiffened, "What?!"

"Full sail!"

We glanced back at Tom even as the man handed off the wheel to another member of the crew.

"Tom, explain!"

"We're sitting ducks like this! If we don't get on land we can't fight back! They'll just sink us!"

The large man ripped off his hat as he ran to the railing, and I rushed over to him, "What are you doing?"

"Going down there to buy us some time!"

"Wait, what-?!"

"Ironhide! Take the anchor over to the island and help reel us in!" I shot a glance at the stocky man with his 'Get Some' shirt as he dove over the side of the Cake, even as the ship rocked again. "Don't worry! Tom knows Fishman Karate! Now get over there!"

Hot damn. That just might be enough to keep his ass safe then, "Right!"

I snatched the weighty anchor from its holder before kicking the release open and leaping from the edge of the ship, "Razor Walk!"

By combining the same concept of Iron Steps with those of Geppo and metallic soles to my feet, I could actually do something that resembled a combination of Geppo and Soru, each step sending me surging forward as the air exploded at the soles of my feet.

The chain of the anchor unspooled quickly as I surged across the distance towards the island–

"Fishman Karate: Hundred Tile Punch!" There was an explosion in the water, the black forms of what had to be the McPuffins going flying through the air.

I reached the island and plunged downwards, slamming the anchor into the stone before turning and grabbing the chain with both hands, "Strength of Steel." My muscles expanded massively with a metallic groan, straining against the fabric of my clothes as I planted my feet and started to pull.

Hand over hand, I tugged the Cake forward, the pink ship at full sail and rocking back and forth as it was attacked underwater.

I wasn't sure how much I was doing to help, I was straining my metallic muscles as I pulled at the chain hand over hand, musculature groaning. Damnit, I was stronger because of this but I wasn't strong enough to pull a ship this size through the water!

"Fishman Karate: Flaming Ax Kick!"

Another explosion in the water, this time accompanied by blood.

"Come on!"

And then one of those black and white forms leapt from the water and pierced the chain-?!

The chain connecting the anchor to the Cake was snapped, dropping to the water. "Shit-!"

Okay, what now? Bullets wouldn't go through the water, I couldn't swim anymore, I didn't know how to use Fishman Karate on a usable level, rankyakou wasn't accurate enough at this range, how do I help…

The chain clinked in my hands.

… well, I guess I could take a page out of Minako's book.

-o Bonney o-​

"We're taking on water!"

"Damn things punched a hole in the hull!"

"Fucking hell, how are we supposed to fight these damn things?!"

*splash!*

"… did… did Ironhide just smack some of the birds out of the water with the anchor?"

"I think so."

"I didn't think he was that strong…"

"He's metal?"

"… I fucking hate his Ability sometimes."

-oOo-​

"Tchehehehahahahah! I fucking love my Ability!"

Laughter bubbled in my throat as I gave the chain a hard twist, intent surging through the chain and the weight at the end. I was listening for the birds that I couldn't see beneath the water, ripping the birds out of the water and smashing them about as the Cake approached.

My body was metal on top of the strength of steel, and with this absurd strength I was able to use the anchor and chain like the weighted end of a kurusigama. The movements were simple, sweeping attacks, and the penguins were fucking fast, so I wasn't catching as many as I'd hoped, but I was doing something and helping keep them off of Tom.

With a crash, the Cake beached itself, pushing itself up onto the craggy beach of the little island. There was the terrible grinding noise of the wood on the rock as it went somewhere it wasn't supposed to, on land.

"Boarding Party, disembark!" Bonney called out, leaping from the ship.

Tom early exploded out of the water, rolling to his feet, bleeding from several puncture wounds and small strips of flesh gouged out of his arms.

"Tom, how are you-"

"WAAAARRRRRK!!!"

My borrowed saber was out and man that thing is small in my Strength of Steel sized hand, but… huh. The McPuffins had set up a line along the coast of the little island.

I stared at the lineup of penguins, each with a vibrantly colored punk hairstyle of feathers, ranging from spiked mohawks to asymmetrical dreads and more, with colors going from neon to 'oh god my eyes' in every color under the sun. Their beaks were more like a toucans than what penguins normally had, enormous, foot long, vibrantly colored pointed monstrosities that took up most of their heads.

Pretty normal for the Grand Line actually. The thing that was throwing me off were the piercings and delicate chains linking rings and studs all over their beaks and faces. Flippers did not have the manual dexterity to make those things or put them in so… how'd they put them in?

The boss McPuffin was pretty obvious, he had chiseled abs and pecs and stood about twice as tall as the others.

"HmmHMM!"

At which point HummingBoss surged out from my jacket, followed by a line of the other littering jewels, lining up like West Side Gangs across from the McPuffins.

"Wark! Wark wark wark wark Waaaaggghhhrk!"

"MM! HmmHmmmhm! MhmmmHHmm!"

Bonney looked at me, "Ironhide?"

"I have no idea." I admitted with a shrug, watching the leaders of the two groups go back and forth 'verbally', "I don't speak Avian, let alone the Aquatic Avian dialect. I'm just as lost as y'all."

"Wark wark WAAARRRRK!" The McPuffin took on a fighting stance, the rest of his gang mirroring it exactly.

"They seem pretty intelligent."

"Yeah. You'd be surprised how intelligent many of the animals in the Grand Line are. Theories abound as to why, though the most prelevant I know of deals with the IQ Plant. Haven't found one of those to study though so I'm just going off of what I've read."

I trailed off at the resounding silence, turning to find most of the Bonney Pirates looking at me, "… what?"

"You aren't going to whine about killing and eating them?"

"The fuck? No."

"But they're pretty intelligent."

"Oh come on, if you hesitate to eat things of questionable sapience in the Grand Line you'd have to be a fucking vegan, and even then you'd have to be pretty careful."

"Wait, there's things like sentient plants?"

"Sentient? Certainly. Sapient? Not sure."

"HmHMM!!!"

At which point the two avians decided they had enough and launched themselves at each oth– the boss is coming at me!

My body's solid metal before the impact, but I don't have time to harden it with Tekkai, and I'd been distracted, Observation Haki couldn't help in that case, it was terrifyingly fast–

Pain.

It was dulled by my metallic form, but the beak nearly the size of my calf carved out a gouge in my side as the McPuffin boss glanced off of me with a screech and shower of sparks.

"Back to the Cake! Guard it!"

And then everything descended into chaos.

I forced myself to regain enough calm to listen to the world around me again, to make use of my skill with Observation Haki to actually dodge the dozen or so fucking flying missiles called penguins.

Seriously, holy fuck these things were surprisingly fast. They were launching themselves off of the ground like missiles, and while I could dodge, I wasn't fast enough on the draw to do more than glance their feathers with the saber, and more than once I hit them with the blunt back end on accident. Too used to a double-edged blade.

The weight of my metal form was slowing me down, which I'd expected, but without dropping it and risking getting fucking holes punched in me.

Hahano.

Apparently something the hummingbird had done had pissed them off, because there was nowhere for me to go! Observation Haki let me know when and where attacks were coming, the problem is that it didn't magically enable me to phase through the bodies of the twenty four? Twenty five high speed aquatic avian missiles that apparently had decided I was the perfect target! The press of bodies and beaks was just enough to prevent me from getting anywhere, and even enough to let some hits get in.

Sparks flew as another one of the damn things glanced off of my body.

Guh.

I was losing metal with every hit and it hurt, fucking hell. I hadn't been hurting like this since before my ability, though Katlego and Bonney had both hurt me briefly.

There was a screech as another beak glanced across my shoulder, but my saber flashed out and removed the head of a different McPuffin.

Because I didn't need to dodge everything, I could tank some strikes, I was fucking metal, but if I could accept one strike, I could give myself an opening to attack another that I couldn't get by trying to dodge everything.

Another glancing blow spun me around, and I used the impact to cleave through another of the flying penguin missiles.

It went against my urges and training and instincts, but god damn it was effective.

But where were the Bonney Pirates damnit?! Shouldn't I have some backup-?!

With a screech, the boss of the McPuffins slammed into me, and my blade dashed out to draw a deep cut in its wing, but it only skimmed the damn thing.

"Ironhide! Go metal!" Wait, what? "Open fire!"

TEKKAI!

Bullets rained down on the area, a downpour of lead and the roaring thunder of gunfire, the pained sounds from the birds as the dull thuds of the drops of lead like the patter of rain in a harsh wind against my skin.

I shielded myself as the bullets occasionally pinged and tinged against my skin and coat. If I hadn't been metal, this would have seriously sucked.

For a few more moments, the penguins darted about, bullets occasionally ricocheting off of my form for several long moments before trailing off.

Silence hung on the little island, my arms and blade up to defend my head as I slowly let my tekkai ease up, my body moving with a quiet groan.

There was a twitch beside me before there was another shot.

Bonney's voice cried out in the reverb of the gunshot, "You okay Jake?!"

I looked up, most of the Bonney Pirates crew had come out onto the deck of the Cake, and the Boarding Party had backed up against the beached hull of the ship. And while there was a trail of dead McPuffins leading from where I was to the ship, but the majority of the oversized penguins were scattered around me.

"Little fucking pissed that you didn't give me any warning!" I snapped, my voice almost robotic sounding in my metallic state as my free hand went to the gouge in my side.

"Tried to with your little shit-asses!"

"MmHmm!"

I blinked, looking at the sound that'd come from my collar, finding the boss hummingbird had hidden there and was nodding.

"Seriously?" I took a long moment to think about that. Kinda irritated that I hadn't picked up on that now that I think about it… Then something clicked and I scowled at the little glittering hummingbird in my coat, "And that was crazy dangerous for you! What if one of the bullets had hit you? I'm bulletproof, but you're not!"

The hummingbird proceeded to argue with me. Bobbing and darting about as it hummed and chirped indignantly at me.

"Oi, Ironhide." I looked up at Bonney as she approached, her eyes skimming across the dead birds as she stepped over them, blood splattered across her arms and legs, "Any of these things playing dead sti– shit!"

I stiffened, blade coming up, "What-?!"

"You're bleeding, fucking hell."

I glanced down at… well fuck me, I was bleeding silver again. A slow stream of brilliantly silver liquid oozing out of several of the gouges that had gotten through my metallic coat.

Bonney's hand appeared in the corner of my vision and my blade snapped up, intercepting her and tapping the flat of the blade against her fingers.

"The fuck-?!" Her hand retreated for just an instant before she bristled, snarling at me, "What are you doing, you dumbass? I'm going to fix it!"

"Yeah but it could be mercury, don't touch it. Let me change back first." Slowly I let myself shift back into flesh and hoooo boy that sucked. It hurt a lot, and the blood… didn't shift back…? Hrm. I stared at the gash and the mix of red and silver that was now leaking from my side. "… that wasn't right."

"I thought you wanted turn it back."

"Gimme…" I grunted, "Gimme a sec."

It took a few moments of effort before I went full Kami-E, relaxing everything to the point that I nearly fell over and there we go, it shifted back into red… and… hoo boy… that's… nastier than I thought.

"Now can I?" the pinkette nearly ground out with an eyeroll.

"Yes please. And sorry for giving a shit whether you get mercury poisoning or not." The pain faded quickly as her power started to work. Then something clicked, "What about everyone else?"

"Already fixed them up. Your stupid birds seemed to have pissed them off and roped you into it, most of them were after you. We got hurt some, but I already patched them up before we opened fire." She scowled, her hands pressing against another of the bleeding cuts on my chest, a sour look like she'd sucked on a lemon, "Didn't fucking realize you were actually getting hurt, thought you were like a Logia."

"Don't fuckin' ask me." I muttered as the wounds sealed up, "I'm just as confused as you."

---

The Madman Part 8 End