Chapter 16 - What fight? We're in Agreement.

Words: ~1800

Updated: 04/2018

Published: 01/2017

~o0o~

The next few hours are a blur.

She is a sea of three in one, surfacing and sinking in turns. Personalities curled and clashed as control slipped through Riyo's fingers.

She did not try to stop Ryuko or the Other. She would not deny them.

[Stole epsilon.]

{Dared touch what is its.}

She remembers boarding another sea train in silence.

She remembers Chopper's cursory checkup.

She remembers holding a hand out to Nami for a hug.

She remembers curling herself into her Theta's body, as small as she could be in human form.

Cipher Pol stole ours. The World Government took our epsilon.

This retribution would be in their human shape. The government would watch Enies Lobby brought to rubble and scrap by a small human girl and a crew of pirates, shipwrights, and thieves.

Riyo would ensure it even if she had to spill the blood, break the mortar, and light the match herself.

~o0o~

Mother Nature is their first obstacle. The sea, her home, is raging against them.

Riyo is aware of the truce with the strangers around her. She is aware they all try and fail to stop the wave.

Everyone ignores her [avoids them] {fears it} until she steps between a blonde man with ropes and her Beta.

She walks calmly to the front of the train cart.

"No."

She stops. Turns her head to see Alpha behind her.

"Zoro and I will do it, Riyo. If we can't get there on our own power then we can never get Robin back."

She makes a sound, a rumbling chirp of pride for her Alpha.

She felt Beta's humor suddenly.

"You're also scaring the new guys."

Riyo turned around to look at the rest of the car. It was the first time she truly saw them.

They all stare back looking equal turns nervous and defensive.

Omega chose that moment to trot over and stand next to her.

She crouched down to get eye level with him. There is a collective shift, a group flinch at the movement.

Chopper picks up her hand with a concerned frown. He held it up in front of her own face.

"How bad are they fighting? Is there anything I can do to help?"

Their scales are bleeding through the skin of her hand and forearm, darker patterned patches beneath the pale expanse. Inch long ebony claws catch the dim light in the cart.

The scales were subtly tinted orange and red.

Beta and Luffy are heading out the door to deal with the wave, but Riyo knew they were listening.

She already knew her eyes had changed at the station. She realized now her teeth had lengthened as she paced and waited in the car.

She grinned at omega, unrepentant.

Someone gasped. There was more nervous shuffling.

Then Riyo inhaled slowly and sucked it all back in. Completely human once more but for her eyes.

"What fight, Chopper? We're all very much in agreement."

Chopper gulped before nodding slowly. He patted her hand, human fingers and nails and skin, between his hooves in a nervous gesture. She knew it was more for his own comfort.

Riyo went back to her place against the wall and watched out the rain-drenched window as her Alpha and Beta cut through the wave.

~o0o~

Robin chose to leave them again.

For their safety, Robin left them when she was. Right. There.

The pain made Riyo snarl, perched at the edge of the sea train's steaming engine as waves, wind, and rain beat against her skin. They sent a thrumming through her blood and had her hearts beating the ceaseless rhythm.

She wanted to leap into the sea after her epsilon. She wanted to rip the train from the tracks, rip apart the bodies and take epsilon home. She wanted to Change, to show the World Government what they dared to face.

"Not yet."

She held herself taught at the edge. She snarled at the sea. At Cipher Pol. At Luffy. At Robin.

"Not yet, Riyo."

Her Alpha's demand. Her Alpha's plea.

Taking epsilon would not be enough. Epsilon had to come herself or she would always need to leave.

They screamed, a lion's challenge to the world. The sound was swallowed by the raging waves.

She went back inside. Past Alpha. Past Beta. Past Theta and Omega.

It paced.

~o0o~

Chef and Chew Toy were back.

Chew Toy was still hiding. Omega really didn't know, but Alpha knew and fed the story. Alpha really was too good. Too good, too wise, too much.

They snarled at Chew Toy. Grinned machete sharp at his shriek.

Chew Toy was here.

That was worth something.

~o0o~

Chef was different. Changed.

He was talking to Beta, Alpha, and the truce humans. He was explaining what epsilon had done to protect them at the cost of herself.

Riyo could read what he had done to try to save her pit.

Riyo could not smell it, could not feel anything without a bond, but it was in his eyes and in his stance and in the sense of his aura.

There was much more to Chef than she had thought. Memories he repressed, truths he hid, and facts he wished to deny.

He had done more than many for epsilon.

Riyo's instincts were churning, testing him at his own merit as epsilon. They would watch him in this battle, consider him after he was blooded in defense of her pit. He already desired Beta as mate, and now he fought for her own.

Chef could have his secrets, for now.

Riyo may claim them all in the end.

~o0o~

Sunlight.

Gates.

The metal surface ship never stopped.

They held Omega and Theta through the crash, shielded them in human arms armored in inhuman scales through the landing.

Then they stepped from the metal, Omega and Theta safe, Alpha and Beta already free. They watched Alpha go.

They grinned at Theta's worried face.

Watched the worry melt to confidence.

"Give 'em hell, guys."

They followed Alpha into the streets with bloodlust in their veins.

~o0o~

Cocky prey. Confident. Trained. Alert.

Shouts and shots and sprays of hot blood.

Screaming, dying prey. Frightened bodies. Animal fear. Single focused escape.

~o0o~

Pain.

It sliced across the bond. Shattered open their ribs. Blew out their heart and lungs and splayed them on the street without a wound to show for it.

Aching body, shattered pride, broken spirit.

Epsilon.

The beast roared. It was a New World hurricane given form, an earthquake of sound from a petite, apoplectic epicenter. Its aura blew out behind the sound, freezing the white-blue prey like frightened fish.

Bricks shook. Windows shattered. Walls cracked. Bodies fell screaming blocks around it as eardrums ruptured and bled.

It stared at the tower. It focused its will on epsilon through the bricks and walls stopping it. It threw its absolute certainty through the bond that whoever had harmed epsilon would die.

Slowly.

Painfully.

Permanently.

~o0o~

Epsilon. Pain, anguish, fear. Another shot to the chest.

Canine teeth bit and slid, bullets bounced, swords and knives and maces and fists broke and ended against the human skin that would not break or bleed.

A human shell housing the beast's fury, the Other's rage, and scale not even seastone could cut.

Epsilon. Afraid and alone. Tortured. Another knife to twist between the broken ribs and pulsing viscera.

A human guise for the monster's play. Impenetrable armor as it gave into the frenzy to reclaim what was taken.

Its body was whole as it shattered under the pain of their stolen epsilon.

~o0o~

"Sir, we can't stop her-"

"Spandam, sir, they're not human! Strawhat and the girl, we can't-"

"Strawhat's taken out squadrons 8, 10, 2 to 7, 12-"

"She's destroyed all of the barrack buildings! Sir, she's ripping them apart with her bare hands!"

"Strawhat just leveled sectors 1 to 13! We need reinforcements, sir!"

"The girl, she-she just ripped down Watchtower 3 and 10. She tore through the supports, steel supports! She dropped the building on her head and walked out without a scratch! What the hell is she?!"

"Strawhat took out the wolf riders! Strawhat-gomu gomu-krck."

"She's a monster! She laughed when the blood...she's covered in...the blood. Oh god, oh god, please-Please, no!-krck."

"We can't stop them! Regroup! They've taken the city! REGROUP!"

"RUN!"

~o0o~

3 humans with large ball maces. 3 humans pretending to be one large human.

They nod to Alpha to go ahead. Sandals slap on tile as he runs. One of the ball mace humans swings at Alpha.

They shave. Catch the ball in one hand. No haki to protect the weapon from scale.

The metal slowly cracks from the impact with their palm before falling to pieces and shattering the tile floor.

Alpha is up the stairs.

They grin. They can taste the blood that has dripped down their face and dried tacky on their skin.

"Come hither, hither, pretty fly. Your robes are dressed in color; there's a crest upon your head; Your eyes shine sharp and frightened, but mine are dull as lead." [1]

They laugh, the sound as wild as the Aqua Laguna waves, the effort of it twisting the dull knife of Epsilon's pain in their lungs.

Forward, forward, upward.

Epsilon.

The first fist swings.

Oh, how they love when their prey takes wing.

~o0o~

"Spandam, sir, there have been over 3000 casualties, over 2300 of them from Strawhat and the girl alone!"

"What? No, impossible! Some rookie and little girl cannot cause-"

"Sir, they're not human! I've never seen anything-grggghhhhh..."

"Soldier! Report, dammit! I command you to-"

"Die. [Dying, dead, rolling, rotting heads.] Commanding the dead will not save your skin. {Save your air; scream it when it flays the skin from head to toes instead.} Especially not once we find you. Krck."

~o0o~

They caught up to Alpha on the roof. Watched him fight the human who stank of devil fruit and Cipher Pol and who crafted doors from air.

They watched new Alpha training. Stronger. Faster. Fighting Cipher Pol and winning.

Winning back epsilon.

The human enemy fell to Alpha.

They set their gaze on the tower.

~o0o~

[1] The Spider and the Fly, Mary Howitt. With a tweak or two of my own. ;)

Well, the mobile game is coming along well, but apparently I cannot stop writing. My brain refuses. So have some updates!