"Bastard!" I growled. "Let go of my nakama!" Even if Zoro was a jerk, I didn't want him to die, despite what I said earlier! ...If Zoro reads this, shoot me.
"Done already?" Arlong complained. "So boring. By the way, what's with this huge bandage?" He reached up and even from behind, I saw him rip off the hastily put-on gauze that was covering the wound Zoro got from Mihawk. The unofficial first mate yelled in pain as his wound started bleeding again, now that it was free of the bandages. "Did you fall or something?"
I paled. That was a really bad wound. How the hell was he even able to walk with that? I'd seen people on the streets who couldn't move from less injury than that. Hell, forget walking, he shouldn't even be able to stand! In fact, it was a miracle he was alive at all with a deep cut like that!
Nami gasped and the bounty hunting duo cried, hugging themselves as though they could feel Zoro's pain.
Zoro glared down at the fishman leader defiantly.
Arlong pulled his arm back and released the blood-covered bandages, which fell to the ground.
"If you take it easy," said Zoro weakly, "the wounds won't open."
"That's all you have to say?" the fishman remarked. "You think you're funny, don't you?"
The near-dead Straw Hat smirked. "I don't mean myself. I was talking about the octopus guy."
"Squid," I corrected.
"Whatever. I told you myself—we've already won this game."
Suddenly, there was a triumphant shout and the back of my neck went crazy. Something was going on underwater... I looked up and noticed a flash of red and black, and a rubbery arm stretching down to us.
"Lucy!" I said, grinning.
"I'm BAAAAAAAACK!" yelled Lucy, flipping crazily through the air.
"Rubber girl!" the villagers called.
"Lucy-aneki!" Johnny cried happily.
Usopp gave an excited "WHOOP!" and fell backwards off the wall he'd been climbing over a second ago.
"Lucy!" Nami gasped.
"That rubber bitch..." Arlong grumbled. I clenched my fist but couldn't do much because I was burning with too much pain.
"You're late, idiot," murmured Zoro.
She grabbed Zoro's collar in midair and his face was suddenly frozen in a kind of stupefied, disbelieving horror. "Zoro!" she called. "Switch me places!" With a panicked yell, he was ripped from Arlong's grip and flung backwards through the air. Lucy let go and he went spinning beyond the doors of the rectangular pool.
I burst into laughter. "Ha! That was awesome! Good one, Luce!"
"Yo, Yuril!" she shouted.
"YOU MORON!" all the bystanders shouted.
As she descended to the cement, she shouted, "Gum-Gum BELL!" Her neck stretched back into the air and my eyes widened. Unwilling to be an accidental victim, I scrambled to my feet in a panic, ignoring the pain, and dashed over to the villagers.
Not a moment too soon.
BONG! Before Arlong had time to react, Lucy's head snapped forward and connected with his forehead, resulting in the comical sound of a bell ringing. He was thrown back and my captain landed smoothly. She swept her foot out, shouting, "Whip!" Her leg stretched out and threw him to the side in an elastic roundhouse kick that could make even Chuck Norris jealous.
She spun a 360 in midair and landed. Then Lucy immediately followed up by throwing her rubbery arm back as far as she could and pounding it into Arlong's chest. "Gum-Gum Pistol!" She threw more punches with increasing speed as he fell backwards, giving him no time to react. It seemed as though she had multiple arms. It was crazy! "Gum-Gum Gatling!"
The enemy captain's body shook with the force of the punches as I watched in awe. "Take that!" she yelled. "And that! And that! And that!" Finally the relentless barrage ended and he was thrown back into the wall of his home base, smashing it to pieces.
"Done!" Lucy announced as pieces of the complex fell around the bastard.
"Amazing..." I muttered. The villagers gave shocked gasps and personally, I was with them. After seeing Arlong's power firsthand and in real life, I had even more respect for Lucy than I had when I was watching her male counterpart in the anime. She was incredibly strong, so strong that if I hadn't seen it in person myself then I wouldn't have believed she could do it.
"Did you think that actually did anything?" said Arlong from under the rubble.
Johnny and Yosaku freaked out. "EH?! NOT EVEN A SINGLE SCRATCH?!"
Lucy cracked her knuckles with an indifferent look. "Nope. Just warming up." She bent over to the side and started stretching. Not the Gum-Gum kind, mind you, the light exercising kind.
The blue skinned fishman sat up, dusting himself off. "What's wrong with you, you pathetic scum?" he commented. "I think you would've been happier sleeping at the bottom of the ocean."
"No, actually, I'm pretty thankful to have been rescued," she corrected him, still stretching.
"Because then you wouldn't have gotten to see how angry I am!" Arlong continued, standing up. "To see my brethren killed by your lame nakama... Soon enough, you're gonna be wishing you had died earlier."
"Lucy-aneki is going to be alright, isn't she?" Yosaku said uncertainly. "All of her attacks did no damage!"
"More importantly, where did Zoro land?!" Johnny fretted.
"Oh, shut it, you two," I sighed. "Lucy'll fine. She just hasn't been properly pissed off yet."
"Go, Lucy!" Usopp shouted. "I've got your back covered!" He stuck his head through the hole and held up his green slingshot.
"I don't think that'll help much," Nami mused.
"Do you know what the difference is between me and you?" Arlong asked Lucy.
Lucy cracked her knuckles some more. "Noses?" she guessed. She got in a fighting stance. "Chins? Oh, I know! The webs." She pointed to the spaces between her fingers.
I sweatdropped and Yosaku wondered, "Is... Is Lucy-aneki trying to joke with Arlong?"
"No, I'm afraid she's quite serious," Johnny said, facepalming.
I nodded in defeat. "Yup, that's Lucy for ya."
"NO!" Arlong roared. "IT'S OUR VERY RACES!" He gnashed at Lucy with his teeth and almost bit her, making the villagers yell in worry and fear, but at the last second she leaped to the side, turned, and leaped backwards, dodging another bite. She managed to dodge five more, and then the fishman's hand shot out and grabbed her around her neck, smashing her into a piece of rubble. Not that the smashing itself did any damage to her; she was rubber.
Arlong opened his mouth wide and went to bite my captain's face off, but she grabbed her head and stretched her neck to the side. His teeth sunk into the cement pillar he'd held her against and lodged there.
"That idiot!" Usopp snickered. "He'll bite off his own tongue! His teeth must be..."
Arlong's jaw clenched and then snapped together. The cement pillar shattered and imploded into different-sized chunks of rock. My eyes nearly popped out of my head. What jaw power! How the hell was that even a possibility?!
"He bit the column to pieces!" Yosaku shouted in full-out panic mode.
I hit him over the head, shouting in his ear, "WE CAN SEE THAT, DUMB ASS!"
Lucy scrambled to the side, shouting, "Scary!"
"Behold, for this is the true power of the mermen!" Arlong chuckled, turning to Lucy as the resulting dust cloud cleared. He walked forward. "The Heavens have made a distinction between our two races. The Heavens only gave you humans enough strength to exist below us. You are inferior animals!" He stopped and laughed his ugly JYAHAHAHA laugh. "From the very moment we were created, everything was different. I'll show you just how different we really are!"
Lucy straightened up and grinned widely. "Sure," she challenged. "Show me!" She tilted her head down and said confidently, "But there's no way I'll lose to you mer-people! Because I'm the girl who'll be Queen of the Pirates!"