Chapter 11: Rubber and Blood

  Luffy's leg stretched across the parade ground like a rubber whip, catching a half dozen Marines in the chest. They flew backward into their comrades, bodies tumbling in a heap of tangled limbs and dropped weapons. The ones still standing hesitated, eyes wide.

  Morgan watched his soldiers fall, face twisting with rage. "Cowards! Incompetents! Shoot yourselves for your failure!"

  The Marines stared at him.

  "NOW!"

  Hands trembling, several of them raised their pistols to their own heads.

  Luffy didn't give them time to follow through. He unched himself forward, feet pounding against the stone. Morgan's massive form filled his vision, axe hand already rising.

  "YOU INSECT!"

  The axe came down.

  Luffy dodged left, felt the wind of it slice past his face. He grabbed Morgan's extended arm and used it as a pivot, swinging his body around and driving both feet into Morgan's jaw. The captain's head snapped sideways, spit flying.

  But he didn't fall.

  Morgan swung again, faster this time. Luffy ducked under it, came up inside the man's guard, and drove his fist into Morgan's stomach. The impact should have doubled him over. Instead, Morgan's free hand grabbed Luffy by the shirt and hurled him across the parade ground.

  Luffy hit the wall, cracked it, dropped to his knees.

  "Luffy!" Koby screamed from somewhere behind him.

  Zoro stood ready, swords drawn, watching. Waiting to see what his new captain could do.

  Luffy stood up slowly. Rolled his shoulders. Smiled.

  "Okay. You're strong."

  Morgan advanced, axe hand gleaming. "I am Captain Morgan! I am justice! I am the w! I defeated Kuro of a thousand pns! And you are nothing!"

  Luffy stretched both arms back, farther than any human should be able to reach. They extended like rubber bands, his hands gripping the stone walls on either side of the parade ground.

  Morgan kept coming.

  Luffy pulled.

  He shot forward faster than Morgan could track, both fists leading. They connected with Morgan's chest at the same moment, a double impact that lifted the massive man off his feet. He flew backward, crashing through a wooden supply cart and sliding to a stop in the dirt.

  Luffy nded on top of him and didn't stop.

  His fist came down.

  Once.

  Morgan's head snapped left.

  Twice.

  Blood sprayed from his nose.

  Three times.

  A tooth flew free.

  Four times.

  Five.

  Six.

  Luffy rained blows on Morgan's face, each punch nding with the sound of wet meat hitting a counter. Morgan's arms came up to block, but Luffy's fists found gaps, slipped through, kept pounding. The axe hand swung wildly, uselessly. Luffy caught it, twisted, and drove his knee into Morgan's elbow. The joint bent wrong, and Morgan roared.

  "Shut up."

  Luffy punched him again.

  Morgan's face was becoming unrecognizable. One eye swollen shut. Lips split in three pces. Blood pouring from his nose and mouth both. His massive chest heaved, struggling for air.

  Luffy raised his fist for another strike.

  "STOP!"

  Helmeppo's voice cut through the chaos.

  Luffy looked up.

  Helmeppo stood twenty feet away, one arm wrapped around Koby's throat, the other pressing a pistol to the boy's temple. Koby's face was pale, his wounded shoulder still bleeding, but his eyes weren't closed in terror. They were open. Watching. Steady.

  "Move and I blow his brains out!" Helmeppo screamed. His hand shook. Sweat poured down his face. "You hear me? I'll kill him! I'll fucking kill him!"

  Koby looked at Luffy.

  And didn't flinch.

  Not a tremor. Not a blink. Just a kid who had spent his whole life scared, finally finding something worth being unafraid for.

  Luffy grinned.

  "Thanks, Koby."

  He pulled his arm back.

  Helmeppo's eyes widened. "Wait, I have a gun! I'll shoot! I'll really-"

  "Gum Gum..."

  Luffy's fist shot forward.

  It stretched across the distance in an instant, traveling twenty feet like it was nothing. It connected with Helmeppo's face dead center, crushed his nose ft, and sent him flying backward into a stack of barrels. The pistol fired into the air, harmless.

  Koby dropped to his knees, gasping.

  Behind Luffy, Morgan rose.

  He came up silent, axe hand raised high, blood still dripping from his ruined face. His one good eye burned with murder. The bde aimed at the back of Luffy's skull.

  "LUFFY!" Zoro's voice.

  But Luffy was already turning.

  He didn't need to.

  Zoro moved.

  Three swords fshed in the moonlight. Wado Ichimonji, and the two lesser bdes whose names where unknown. They crossed Morgan's chest in a single perfect arc.

  Morgan stopped.

  His axe hand fell first, thudding to the ground. Then his body followed, a massive heap of flesh and metal and blood spreading beneath him.

  Zoro nded in a crouch, bdes dripping, and slowly straightened.

  "That's for pointing a gun at my captain's back," he said quietly.

  Silence.

  The surviving Marines stared at the scene. Morgan on the ground, unconscious or dead, they couldn't tell. Helmeppo buried under barrels, face a ruin. The pirate hunter with three swords. The rubber boy with the straw hat.

  One Marine dropped his rifle.

  Another followed.

  Then someone cheered.

  It started small, a single voice from somewhere in the back. Then another. Then a dozen. Within seconds, the parade ground erupted. Marines were ughing, crying, throwing their hats in the air. They hugged each other. They spped each other's backs. They danced.

  Morgan was gone.

  The tyrant had fallen.

  Luffy stood in the middle of it all, breathing hard, blood spattered across his chest and arms. Not his own. All Morgan's.

  He looked down at his hands.

  The fists that had just turned a man's face to pulp. The arms that had stretched and snapped back like they were born to do it. The body that moved without thought, without calcution, like it had been waiting its whole life for him to take the wheel.

  'I moved faster than I thought. Hit harder. Reacted quicker.' He flexed his fingers. 'This body... I can use it better than I expected. More efficiently. Luffy fought on instinct. But I have instinct AND strategy.'

  He looked at the celebrating Marines. At Koby, being helped to his feet by a soldier who handed him a cloth for his wound. At Zoro, cleaning his bdes with careful, deliberate movements.

  'I adapted. In the middle of a fight. That shouldn't be this easy.'

  But it was.

  And he wasn't compining.

  Zoro walked over, sheathing his swords. "Not bad, Captain."

  Luffy looked at him, still catching his breath.

  Then he smiled. Wide. Real.

  "Neither were you."

  Zoro almost smiled back. Almost.

  Around them, Shells Town kept celebrating. But for one moment, in the middle of the chaos, two men who would change the world stood together and understood exactly what they'd found in each other.