The Madman Part 9

The Madman Part 9

\____-o(X)o-____/​

Problem! Problem! Problem!

Leak! Leak! Miiissssed a leak! Shiiiiiiit.

I walked like the fucking stay-puff-marshmallow man back out of the water to the renewed laughter of the crew. The suit was heavy and awkward and was filling with water slowly.

I hit the beach and fell to the sand, grumbling beneath my helmet even as the Akira, Tom, and Wallace came over to help me.

While most of the crew had been working on gathering up and cleaning the birds, I'd been spared the task because of the damage I'd taken in the fight, same with Tom and Wallace, though Akira was here more to make sure nothing bad happened in this case and to manage the super basic crank pump set up on the shore.

Apparently, the crew had paused in their work to laugh at me, not that I could blame them, my legs were wobbling and… just fucking hell did I felt weak, which was absurd. I hadn't felt weak like this in… damn… years.

"Are you okay?" Tom asked as I was heaved back up onto the shore.

"Fucking hell." I grumbled, knowing my voice was coming out of the Den-Den Mushi atop the pump a dozen feet away, the companion snail being curled up in my helmet, "I'm fine. Just… Help me out of this thing."

"This is what you get for going against the will of the sea…" Wallace whispered with a fair bit of that silly superstition, making me frown.

"Fuck the will of the sea, I have my own will damnit." I said with more of a growl than intended before getting it under control, "I was doing fine until I got up to my chest, but I didn't seal it properly. Which is why we test. Now I know where the leak is and I'm gonna patch it up right the fuck now. I brought that tar, rubber, and cloth for a reason. Give it here and help me out of this thing."

"Can't you get yourself out?" Daniel asked

"My legs feel like fucking jello." I responded, even sitting down it was kind of hard. The suit had filled up to about the waist with water and holy shit did it suck. It honestly kind of scared me. Even from here I could see Casey grinning, opening his mouth, and I quickly raised a gauntleted finger, "You know what I mean!"

Casey's face fell, "Awww…"

I hadn't had the opportunity to do a whole lot of testing with submerging devil-fruit users yet, though now that we could, y'know, stay at the island for a length of time I was going to figure out what I could. We'd be at this little island for a day or two just due to the volume of material they had to clean up.

"Hng?" Akira asked as he helped unscrew my helmet.

"I'm fine…" I said in exasperation as I rolled my eyes. Then I smiled just a bit, "Mind you, holy shit this sucks, and I'll be happy when the water's out, but I'm fine."

The last of the screws was undone and the helmet was pulled off with a slight clanking sound and I let out a little sigh of relief.

"Ironhide!"

I looked up at the pink-haired captain as she leaned over the side of the Cake, some of the crew patching up the damage the McPuffins had done, "What?!"

"Are you done playing in the water?!"

"No! Barely got my footsies wet! The fuck do you want?!"

"Make me a pizza!"

"No!"

The crew practically froze around me.

"… what?!"

"No! Nein! Niet! Negatory! N to the O! Noooooo."

"… do you want me to kick you?"

"I'm busy, so either get someone else to do it or wait."

"I'm the Captain."

"Do you want seastone weaponry and plating or not?"

"… you're still making me that pizza."

"Sure. Just give me a bit to work at this."

-oOo-​

"Florida, how are things down there?"

"Pretty good honestly." I said as I walked along the silt of the seabed, "Can't see too much, but sort of expected that. But everything's holding together fine now."

Nodding to myself, I began to walk back towards shore, I wasn't too deep underwater honestly, still well within the range of my tether. But this was a proof of concept more than anything else, and I wanted to get back such that I was within easy dragging range if my other tests rendered me insensitate.

"Ah, that's good to hear," Tom's voice came over the Den Den Mushi by my ear, "Will you be needing any more help?"

"Maybe, I've got some tests using my powers to run real quick before I feel comfortable going any deeper for other things."

"What might you need?"

"Possible dragging. Again. If you hear me go gurgle gurgle gurgle it's probably a good idea to start dragging me back in." I said with a small grin.

"Fair enough," Tom said with a half chuckle.

With a smile, I came to a stop not too far underwater, my head nearly poking out of the slowly lapping waves. I held up my gauntleted hand before the thick glass porthole of my helmet and watched it. Now for the risky bit…

Any attempts at turning my coat to metal had to propagate from something in direct contact with myself or my Haki. If I was coating my coat in Armament Haki or something similar, I could transform it into metal. I couldn't turn other people into metal, or other things that were suffused with other people's haki such as their clothes… my theory was that my power only worked on things that were me enough to qualify as 'I' with the power 'I can turn into metal.' I couldn't turn portions of the Cake into metal, but my clothes were fair game. It's also why my blood was metallic, though I was still confused as to why sometimes I was injured I bled like that, it hadn't happened enough for me to make any sort of consistent theory about it. The only time I could remember was Katlego's punch… was it Haki? Ugh. No clue.

Regardless, the question was… would doing so cause me to suffer the effects of the water around me? If I turned this diving suit into metal… would that mean I was submerged? Because right now I was fine…

I flexed… my hand and part of my forearm beneath the gauntlet became metal… I flexed outward, and I felt my long sleeved shirt transform as well. There wasn't really an analogous sensation that I could think of really… flexing outside of your body… but it's the best way to convey what I was doing.

I breathed in… and with my exhale pushed my will outwards from my hand, creating the invisible barrier of Armament Haki that would allow for interaction with Logia's and such. Far from my best technique, I preferred to just use Armament Hardening on myself or a weapon for a surgical strike in those situations rather than trying to have some extended combat or grapple with someone who was otherwise immune to my attacks.

'Alright… no more waiting! Flex!'

There was a soft groaning sound as the gauntlet of my diving suit became the same nearly black color as I normally turned into… and hoo boy that…

The world bobbed just a bit before I got my feet back underneath me. I was fine, but no wonder Devil Fruit Users in the show and manga would be useless in water… as far as I could tell it was just the metal portion of my suit that was being affected and not the parts of it I was suffusing with my haki…

It was with some effort that I was able to convert that portion of my diving suit back, my power just outright didn't want to work. Not surprising since it was supposed to nullify my powers and mine wasn't the constant kind like Luffy's. It was weird, like… almost like being in contact with the water was like forms of painkillers or contact neurotoxins… hrm…

Tom's voice came over the Den Den Mushi again, "Ah, Florida…?"

"Mm? Yeah?" I asked as I watched my hand, slowly flexing it as my strength returned. It was like catching your breath after a quick bit of cardio, though it was full strength rather than only a partial amount.

"You made a noise." The First Mate of the Cake said.

"Ah, I'm alright. Just had a scare there for a moment. I'm about to try something else a bit worrying though, just a moment."

I held out my arm before me as the waves lapped at me, 'This… this is my arm–grrk-grrgle-!'

"Florida-! Pull him in!"

There was a tug on the chain attached to my backpack and I was pulled right off my feet and dragged along the shallow sand towards the shore, "I'm alright guys-"

"Heave!"

"-seriously, it was just a one time thing-"

"Ho!"

"… you're not listening are you."

"Heave!"

I sighed, giving a small shake of my head as I was dragged through the silt, the waves lapping at the window in my helmet now, 'Well… can't really complain, they jumped right on that honestly.'

-oOo-​

*Ping!*

"Less sucking more shooting!"

Casey grit his teeth, "Jello Six Shooter!"

With his hands in the classic finger-pistol shape, the jello-man snapped his wrists out rapidly as his fingers turned into blue gelatin and reformed from his central mass, the vaguely cylindrical blue masses hurtling through the air at a decent speed towards me, each snap accompanied by the reforming of his fingers from his mass before he repeated the process.

Dipping back and forth, I let the 'Jello Shots' shoot right past me as I advanced on Casey.

Part of the problem with this technique was that Casey only had so much mass to use, and I don't think there was a way for him to create more 'mass' the same way Luffy did with Gear Third. He had to recover the mass if he didn't want to get smaller. Though it was interesting that he seemed to be able to just get unilaterally bigger if he kept eating. After losing about an inch after the fight with the stitched pirates, he'd not only gained that back, but also gained a few inches and an appropriate amount of accompanying mass in the intervening months.

"Jello-!" his arm reared back, distorting as it stretched, turning a blue color, "Cannon!" It snapped back forward and his hand flew off in a mass of jiggling blue.

I sidestepped it and a single shuffle brought me within three feet of him, making him stumble backwards, "Shit-!"

"Dodge!" my palm, infused with will, straightened and slammed into his chest, it bent away from the blow before he was blown back. He curled up into a formless ball of blue as he hurtled through the air.

We'd gathered up the majority of the McPuffins, Bonney had kicked some into metaphorical diapers and those had been released back on the island.

… well, released in the sense of Bonney lined them up and punted them onto the other side of the island while returning their ages to something 'reasonable'. But still, released.

The blue mass deformed as it slammed into the wall, but instead of splattering against the wall of the hold, it bounced back.

With a grin, I shot it right back with another open palm strike, "Good! But that's not dodging!"

Again and again I knocked him around, playing pinball with the formless mass of blue in this corner of the cargo hold. I didn't want to accidentally knock him into the sea, so despite the heat we were here in the sweltering hold. The other members of the crew were still occasionally moving about or through the filled hold. "Collect yourself! Bounce those bits at my back! This will only protect you for so long, and if I was trying you'd be injured by it! Act! Not just react!"

He flew towards me, expanding out of the ball at the last moment in a jiggling mass attempting to envelop me. I grinned as my right arm went behind me, "Better!"

My hand flexed into metal before shooting out like a cannon, twisting even as it extended and imparting that spinning motion on the mass of blue jello. My spirit shot forward with my hand, slamming into Casey's own like a tidal wave and what should have been a semi-fluid mass that I merely punched a hole in was instead blasted back across the room. The blue mass of Casey spun as it hurtled across the short distance in the hold before it came to a dead stop and splattered all over the walls.

I stayed there, arm extended and humming like a tuning fork as the blue mess all over the walls jiggled as it settled. It quivered once before starting to pool towards a central point, letting out a little noise.

"… ow…"

"And that," I said more than a bit smugly, "Is why we–"

"Dodge-!"

My head turned as a boot slammed into it and I spun through the air, arms tucking in to my chest as I was knocked off my feet before my lashed out at my assailant, only to be blocked by a forearm–

Bonney and I hung in the air for an instant, her leg still extended into the space my cheek had been and her raised arm blocking my own leg. Her hat was tight on her head and her jacket flaring out, I'd ditched my own hat and jacket to avoid them getting splattered with gelatin. Her purple eyes were intense and her teeth grit as our momentum's tried to cancel–

But I grinned.

Mimicking a cat by twisting and extending my arms, I shifted my mass by turning parts of my body into metal and followed through with the mid-air kick.

"Shit-!" Bonney flew through the air, tumbling as she righted herself, her boots skidding across the floorboards before her back slammed into the wall, her fists raised in a boxers guard.

I drifted to the ground lightly, an impressed grin on my face as I slowly spun to a stop, "Nice!"

Casey's head, sticking out atop the reforming mass of blue gelatin darted between Bonney and me. "Um…?"

"I didn't expect you to pick up on that that quickly! I barely felt you coming!"

"It took me almost two months!" Bonney snapped as she straightened, satisfied that I wasn't about to return with a can of whoopass. I might later during training, but right now I was mostly just impressed as hell.

"It took me three and I'm good at Observation Haki!" I countered with a grin, "Seriously, this stuff is hard, you're good at it!"

Bonney had been picking up Haki significantly faster than most of the others I'd been teaching. Jaime had been making decent progress with Armament Haki, but the others were still struggling with it. Bonney had taken a liking to Armament Haki as well, but she'd gotten very good, very quickly at muffling her presence to Observation Haki.

There was a light dusting of pink on her cheeks as she rolled her eyes and shoulder, the one attached to the arm she'd used to block my kick, "So you say."

"So we're done…?" Casey asked hopefully with a little grin.

"No." I said simply, giving my neck a quick crack as I rolled my shoulders, "Get back up, you still need to learn to either dodge or how to buffer yourself better. You were doing good not getting splattered as I bounced you around but you need to be more consistent with it."

"Oh come on," the larger man whined, "How many people know this haki stuff you're talking about? I'd only heard the term used once in decades of being a pirate in the South Blue. And nothing else can really hurt me!"

"If you want to go to the New World? Yeah, you do. Here? In Paradise or in the Blues? Yeah, it's not super common. Problem is, what if I lit you on fire? Or shocked you? Or hell, just used Fishman Karate? You'd be in trouble. There's a number of ways to get around even seemingly invincible Devil Fruit abilities, trust me."

Casey scowled as his body reformed, "… I know about Fishman Karate, but how would you use a torch in a fight like this?"

"Not a torch, like… heating up a body part to the point that it's hot enough to do damage. It's sort of like the firey equivalent to Fishman Karate or Electro."

Bonney raised a hand, "Okay, hold up, Electro?"

I blinked before remembering how little of this stuff got out of the Grand Line, "… right. So, Fishman Karate's about manipulating the moisture in the air and in ones opponent. It starts out by being easier to move through water and progresses up to using water as projectiles or creating shockwaves. Electro is basically a weaponized version of that little bit of static that you build up on the carpet and discharge when touching something metal. And the most common name I know for it is Molto, but that's built around getting enough friction going on to make an attack that burns."

One of the crew in the hold paused in their sorting, "That sounds silly."

"Seriously, the hardest part with Molto is not hurting yourself, which is a combination of durability, conditioning, and Haki."

"How?"

"Like, okay, watch." I clapped my hands together and began to rub them back and forth as if I were performing my Rankyakou Chisel technique, a high speed vibration with them pressed together, "Armament: Tempering."

A surge of dark blue went down my forearms only a few moments before the palms of my hands began to glow a soft straw color.

But I wasn't done, I pushed harder, and it went from straw to a brilliant blue, then to white, the other colors creeping back along my hands as they heated up and my biceps were starting to hurt.

"Madre de dios…" Jaime muttered.

Couldn't blame Jaime, my palms were burning white as I held them apart, actually sizzling slightly as steam rose from them from vaporized moisture in the air.

"Eh." Bonney muttered, "I think I've finally gotten used to this sort of shit from him."

I couldn't help the little grin, "That's a good plan, yes."

Casey leaned away from the heat that was radiating off of my glowing palms, "With a technique like that… you could burn a hole in someone!"

"Technically. Sure."

"Technically?" Jaime asked, having come closer.

"See, this hurts," I gave them a jazz hands with the sizzling digits, "I can stand it due to my Haki, but a master of it can do it far more easily and casually without actively using Haki the way I did, as well as do it far quicker than my, what, minute and a half for this?"

"Why not?" I looked at Casey, "Master it? The power…"

Bonney was the one who spoke up, "What does it do that Haki doesn't?"

I couldn't help the grin as I pointed at her, "Bingo."

Casey looked down in thought, rubbing his chin, "Huh…"

I elaborated, "Bypass defences? Haki does that faster and more universally. Increase damage?" I gave the glowing palms a waggle, "This is more powerful than my Haki, yes, but it doesn't last very long, and Haki doesn't hurt to use like this does, and I have to be careful about hitting myself."

"Electro's the same?" Bonney asked for confirmation.

"Sort of. It doesn't hurt to use when you do it right, but I can only really get one charge going after a minute of working at it. Too much time investment for a single, mediocre boost to my attack strength."

Tom had migrated down here at some point or another, "But Fishman Karate doesn't have those weaknesses."

"You're right! But the fancier techniques aren't that useful for me until you get really good at them, like the shockwaves. I know some techniques that I begged off of some fishmen, but most of those went into my swimming skills, and, well…" I shrugged, waving my hands about to try and cool them faster.

"Now you are a hammer." Jaime muttered, rubbing his mustache.

"Yup. Learned enough Fishman Karate to be useful underwater, get a Devil Fruit ability." I grinned before blowing on my hands, "Great plan."

"Water, Fire, Lightning…" Tom muttered, ticking them off on his fingers before grinning, "What, are there Air, Wood and Earth fighting styles?"

"Yes and no?"

Bonney rolled her eyes, "Useful."

"I know right?" I grinned, "But while I don't know about any 'wood' styles, Roukushiki basically is the Air fighting style."

While Bonney and Tom nodded after a moment's thought, Jaime and Casey both looked confused, "Wait, what?"

"Well, Geppo explodes the air to let you double jump. Rankyakou is an air blade. There's another technique that manipulates the air as well that's beyond me. It's the Air style."

"What about Earth?" Tom asked.

"There isn't really an 'Earth' Style to my knowledge, but there's something that sort of fits that niche. It's called Hasshoken. Well, the most useful variant of it is. It's built around the usage of vibrations to penetrate defenses."

Casey frowned, jiggling slightly as he settled in place some, "What's that got to do with dirt?"

"Well…" I held out my right hand and started up the vibrations again. My bicep was aching… so I flexed my arm into metal to make it easier, a resonant hum sounding in the air as I did.

"Okay… so…"

Then I grinned and planted the humming palm into the deck hard.

Problem is, what should have been a simple jerk from the resonance with the wood made the entire damn ship shake, the wood beneath my palm cracking and nearly shattering.

"Holy shit!"

"Fucking hell Ironhide! We're at sea!"

"That was more than I meant to do! By a fucking mile!"

"You're fixing that!"

"Devil Fruit User! I can't swim anymore!"

"Yes you can you dumbass! You just made a damn suit for this sort of shit!"

"Oh… right… I did." I blinked, "Fuck."

"Now get out there and fix my damn ship!"

-oOo-​

"Jaime, could you pass the meat?"

"Mmph," he grunted and pushed the bowl across the table before returning to the burrito in his hands.

I spooned out some meat onto the flour tortillas we'd thrown together for ourselves and Jaime pushed the cheese over without being asked. Sadly, while the others in the crew would eat burritos, Jaime and I were the only ones that really liked them. With a few practiced motions I folded the tortilla over and picked it up, turning back to my book as I took a bite.

Bonney walked into the mess with a yawn, scratching her stomach beneath her dark T-shirt. The past two days had gotten pretty stormy, and it seemed like we were entering the local equivalent to the monsoon season. While I, in my leather and roughspun cloth had been basically fine if damp, Bonney... let's just say that a thin white shirt suddenly getting very wet had been an unpleasant surprise… for her at least. With it raining a couple times a day, Bonney had taken to wearing a variety of dark T-shirts, more than I'd have thought she had really.

"What's made?"

"Burritos," I said simply, flipping through the notes I'd written. There was a certain amount of pattern to deposits of minerals on the sea floor. I didn't really have enough data on the world to make any coherent guesses about tectonics and such, but I knew that if I dropped a weighted scoop to the seafloor and the sand had traces of certain minerals, I was more or less likely to find certain other things. Like, if the sand became this red glass I knew I could find dials nearby and if it could burn this green color seastone was likely close by.

Bonney grunted and dropped into the seat beside me, grabbing a tortilla.

In a companionable silence, I pulled the pencil from behind my ear and marked out a location to check out. Just a spot to stop for a little bit in our next pass around the island. The three of us eating in the mess as the rest of the crew did their thing.

"… uh... Caaapptaaaiiinnn?!"

The three of us paused and looked up and shared a glance before shrugging. Bonney picked up her half completed taco and stuffed it into her mouth as she got out of her chair and headed towards the doorway. Curious and a bit worried, I followed suit, though with at least a bit more delicacy to my actions.

We stepped outside to find the crew gathering on the deck and looking up and-… yeah, I could see why now.

"Huh… that's bigger than usual around here." I muttered as my head tracked the very large white and gray shark sailing through the air over the Cake.

And by 'very large' I mean 'about the size of the boat'.

"What the hell is that?" Bonney asked, still holding her taco as the shark plunged into the water on the other side of the boat, droplets of sea water raining down on us. Her tone was a mixture of surprise and wonder, and just a bit of concern as well.

"We're doomed! How can cannons even hurt that thing?!"

"A shark," I said simply before taking another bite of my own taco and heading to the railing.

"It's a monster among monsters! It's got too many teeth! Did you see those teeth?!"

Bonney rolled her eyes, stepping up beside me, also watching the iconic fin cleave through the water in a circle around the boat, "No shit it's a shark, I meant something more specific Ironhide."

"We've got to get away! We've got to run!"

"It's a Grand White, the bigger, meaner cousin of the Great White…" it turned hard and briefly, I tensed, ready to act, but then it launched itself out of the water, flying over us. Its top half was gray, its bottom half was white… and instead of normal dorsal fins, it had two sets of almost dragon-fly like fins… oh, and it had a black, wide brimmed hat, "Actually, a Flying Grand White, my bad," I corrected myself.

"It can fly?!" Wallace almost squeaked.

"So what do we do about it?" Bonney asked, one hand on her hip as her purple eyes stayed locked on the fin cutting through the water.

"Beat its face in if it tries to attack? I only read about them, never ran into them personally."

The enormous fish launched from the water and actually pirouetted through the air before diving back down into the water and leaping back out to make this little… familiar… rapid clacking sound…

To my surprise, Claude suddenly rushed to the railing of the ship, leaning over it. The rest of the crew watched him as he watched the shark leap out from the water again as it circled us and did that weird thing dolphins could do with their tail, going vertical with only the tip of its tail in the water and 'standing' on it briefly, doing that sound again…

Claude stiffened and leapt onto the railing, standing atop it. Bonney demanded, "Oi! Claude! What are you doin?!"

"It speaks to me Captain!" the heavily tattooed man shouted as he raised his arms, one across his chest as he cocked his hips out.

I leaned over to Bonney, "… should we be concerned…?"

Bonney shrugged, watching as Claude snapped his fingers rapidly in a little *Snapasnap~*

'Okay, I know that sound is familiar– and now he's doing the tango…'

We collectively watched as Claude began to dance on the railing… it was actually pretty emotional and dramatic… and the shark was half out of the water, watching as the reasonably attractive and shirtless man reached out grasping at the air and dragged his clasped hands to his chest before falling to his knees on the railing and extending his hands outwards. He held that pose for a moment before doing that little *Snapasnap~* thing.

"OI, Claude, the fuck?"

"The shark! It speaks in my native tongue!" Claude said, still holding the position, hands extended pleadingly out to the ocean, "Interpretive dance!"

I think Wallace spoke for all of us when he asked, "… the fuck?"

To my mild surprise, the shark leapt from the air and pirouetted once more before diving back down and doing a few more increasingly impressive moves, including a triple spinning axel backflip.

Beside me, Jaime elbowed mebriefly with a 'watch this' grin, "What'd he say amigo?"

"He says that he is the boss of the Dancing Sharks and has claimed this stretch of the ocean for their own." Claude said, standing on the railing again, "And he says that we are trespassing, and if we don't make reparations then he and his gang will eat us."

"… what gang?" Lucca asked.

I jerked my thumb out at the ring of sharks that had encircled the Cake, each of them only a bit smaller than the big boss, "Probably them?"

There were a few screams from the crew, though the boarding party tended to greater bravery at least. Wallace let out a little yelp though.

"What reparations?" Bonney asked with a frown, shooting me a glance.

"He says that we must either give him some of our crew to eat or defeat him…" Bonney and I both started to lower our tacos, "In a dance battle!"

I blinked and raised my taco again, "… I do not find myself surprised by this. I've lived like this too long."

"… the fuck?" Bonney just kind of stared at him.

"Claude, you're crazy!"

There was a *Slapaslap~* sound from the shark boss and… another shark was beside him now, almost as big but a bit slimmer, both out of the water and 'standing' on their tails. The slimmer shark had a ruffled skirt on in a delightful shade of aqua, probably a girl, maybe an okama shark. I didn't know my sharks well enough to guess.

"Wallace!" Claude shouted dramatically, extending a hand to the bearded man, "We must dance!"

"What?! I'm no namby pamby dancer! I'm a warrior-!"

"He said that you're not manly enough to beat him in dance." Claude deadpanned.

"He what?!" Wallace bristled, and I had to resist the urge to facepalm as the larger man nearly stomped over towards Claude, "Let's dance!"

To my surprise, the MANLIEST OF MEN Wallace grabbed Claudes hand and went straight into an almost perfect waltz stance with the other man.

"You're crazy!" Another member of the crew shouted, "There's no way this will work!"

Casey shook his head, "This is weird…"

Another of the sharks, a portly one, 'stood' out of the water as well and did this little clapping thing before pointing first at our pair of dancers and then at the boss shark and his partner before burbling something out and making a chopping motion as if it was 'begin'.

Claude and Wallace did that little quick look away, Wallace's bushy beard brushing up against Claude's clean shaven face and the two began to waltz.

The crew made some confused noises as we watched the two of them dance quite well actually. I took a bite of my taco as I kept half an eye on the ring of Grand White Sharks slowly circling the Cake. Wallace and Claude were both nearly seven foot tall, but were otherwise quite the contrast. Wallace was rather pale and heavily scarred, he even had a scar that stretched diagonally across his cheek, he was honestly shaped more like a power lifter than a body builder. Claude though was the body builder, having the classic V shape to his body, his skin a dark tan with no scars that I knew of, but covered in tattooed names all across his skin. He preferred preferring to wear only a pair of pants and shoes, showing off his tattoos as much as he could, while Wallace was almost always in his kilt, shirt, sash and boots.

And they were both rather good at the waltz.

With a flourish, they finished and I obligingly golf clapped, as did some of the other crew members and a few of the sharks as well, lifting their front halves out of the water to slap their fins together. It was technically quite good, but it wasn't exciting to watch a waltz.

The portly 'ref' of a shark burbled something before gesturing at the shark boss.

'… oh, oh that could be bad.'

The boss threw the slimmer shark up out of the water and caught her and began to do the flamenco… on top of the water… while they were sharks.

"Oi, Ironhide," Bonney started, watching as the slimmer shark's skirt flared out as she(?) spun atop the water.

"Mm?"

"You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"If you're thinking that however nice a skirt that is it doesn't go with her skin then yes."

Bonney slugged me in the shoulder and I smirked just a bit, "If they 'win', we're not turning over the crew."

"I'll take the dozen on the left," she said with a grin.

"You haven't gotten Geppo down yet, don't risk going out over the water yet." I pointed out, "I'll punch a hole through the boss and see how they react after that."

Bonney grunted as the two sharks finished their impressive dance by backflipping out of the water and diving back in and slapping their tails to the sides to create dramatic splashes at the last moment. There were some whoops and some serious clapping from the sharks and I obligingly clapped as well as did a few of the crew. They had done good.

"Claude!" Wallace raised a fist, a determined gleam in his eyes, "We must dance harder!"

"Yes! We must!" Claude extended his hand towards the bearded man.

And so they did the jitterbug.

I blinked, more surprised that Wallace knew it than anything else. It made sense that Claude was the one getting thrown around as the 'woman' since Wallace was a lot stronger, though it was amusing that Wallace didn't even think as he threw Claude between his legs.

One word: Kilt.

They finished and there was a round of applause and a few shouts from the crew as they posed, as well as clapping from the sharks.

The boss shark burbled at his partner who burbled back, raising a fin curled slightly in a motion reminiscent of what Wallace had just done. And then they busted a move. Another shark even came over to act as a thing for them to dance and lean against as they moved and danced about.

Bonney swallowed her bite of her taco, "… Jacob?"

"Yeah?" I asked, watching in surprise as the sharks did a synchronized leap from the water and 'kicked' their fins.

"Is… this normal for the Grand Line?"

"Actually? Yes. I'm more surprised we haven't run into something like this sooner." Almost five months into the Grand Line and this was the first truly 'weird' thing we'd run into as a crew.

"… seriously?"

"Ohhhh yeah. This is more the speed of the Grand Line… we've been getting lucky actually."

The two sharks splashed into the water, sending water flying high into the air.

I clapped, rather impressed-

"Woo!"

"Casey! They're our enemies!"

"… sorry."

The crew was rather impressed, and to my surprise, Claude looked a little out of his depth.

"Claude!" Wallace shouted, eyes blazing with determination.

"Yes!"

"We must use our secret weapon!" the bearded man roared.

"Right!" Claude shouted back, raising his fist as well before blinking and turning to look at his dance partner, " … wait, we have a secret weapon?"

Without shifting an inch, Wallace roared, "Breakdancing!"

"Right!" Claude shouted in return before pausing and looking at Wallace again in surprise, "… wait, you can breakda–OKAY NOW WE'RE DANCING!"

Wallace grabbed his partners hand and spun him about, subtly kicking and tapping Claude as they moved about, while not in synch, definitely paired and complimentary as their legs kicked and they hopped about. Then in a move that was more like a Jitterbug trick, Wallace spun Claude around at the waist before setting Claude into a headstand and setting him spinning like a top.

Claude seemed to be up to date on it though and began to spin about in the classic breakdancing move, spinning on his head with his legs high before bringing them together and spinning ramrod straight.

And then they impressed the hell out of me.

In a fancy spinning frontflip, Wallace landed on Claude's upright feet and began to spin in place… in the opposite direction Claude was spinning.

In spite of myself, I stared as the two of them spun like figure skaters, arms tight to their bodies, the soles of their feet in contact as Claude spun on his head and they went in opposite directions. Then, to my surprise Wallace stopped spinning even as Claude continued to, and while standing atop Claude's feet, Wallace began to moonwalk in place.

"Woo!"

"Hell yeah!"

"You two go!"

"Tchahahahah! Nice!"

Wallace put a hand to his forehead and extended his arm to point at the boss shark and his parter before he grinned and gave a quick spin. Both men coming to a stop while facing the boss shark and partner, legs at shoulder width and the soles of their shoes pressed together as Claude crossed his arms across his chest and Wallace went for the classic Michael Jackson crotch grab and thrust his other hand high into the air.

I slammed my metal palms together with a roaring boom. We didn't have pyrotechnics, but the boom and gust of wind that made Wallace's kilt and beard flutter was good enough.

The silence hung in the air briefly before a cheer went up from the crew as well as a roar of applause from the circling sharks. The boss shark bowed in graceful defeat, as did his partner.

Wallace pointed at the two of them "Hah! Now is that man enough for you?!"

With some fumbling, the two of them disenganged and stood. The boss shark went into another quick little dance with that little *Slapaslap* sound again that meant it was communication.

"So what's he saying now?" Bonney asked, smirking just a bit.

Claude leaned over the railing and watched, "He says that he is honored to have found such worthy opponents and to have met us on the dance floor. We are free to sail through the ocean as we wish."

"Sweet shit."

---

The Madman Part 9 End