Translator: PapaSmurf0700
"Can't afford to offend?!"
Hody Jones's grin was a ghastly sight. He pressed his foot down harder, forcing a groan of pain from the captured Abraham. He then hoisted the man up by his collar, tracing the edge of his life-sustaining bubble with a sharp, wicked nail.
"How dare a lowly creature like you speak to me that way?" Hody sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. "You, who need a fragile bubble just to exist in our world, have no concept of the true power of us Fish-Men!"
He gripped Abraham's neck and turned to face his followers in Gyoncorde Plaza.
"In the water," he roared, his voice echoing through the massive square, "we Fish-Men are invincible!"
Ten thousand Fish-Man pirates roared back in approval, waving their weapons in a frenzy of violent glee.
BOOM!
A massive cannon blast ripped through the plaza, a deafening retort that seemed to mock their celebration. Every head turned slowly toward the source. A colossal submarine, bristling with cannons from every angle, had materialized before them.
It was the Sunshine Merry.
Franky had already launched himself from the ship, landing squarely in the center of the plaza. He struck his classic, triumphant pose.
"AWOOO! The Sunshine Merry, built by the one and only Franky, is... SUPER... invincible in the water!"
As if on cue, screams of terror erupted from the perimeter of the plaza. Hody Jones looked over to see his men fleeing in a panic, running toward the square. But behind them was not the grand army he expected. There were only a handful of figures.
"Hah-DAH!"
Chopper, his Kung Fu Point enhancing his every move, kicked several Fish-Men into the plaza before landing gracefully beside Franky.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Robin, using two gigantic, sprouted arms, tossed several more pirates aside before taking her place next to Chopper.
"Green Star: Devil!" Usopp cried out, ensnaring another Fish-Man in aggressive, thorny vines before sauntering forward, rubbing his nose.
"My, what a grand stage this is!" Brook announced with theatrical flair. "It makes my blood boil with excitement… though I have no blood to boil! Yohohoho!" He casually tossed the Fish-Man he'd been carrying on his back into a heap in the center of the square.
"Daruma!" Hody's pupils constricted. He recognized one of his own officers instantly.
Two more dull thuds followed as another pair of bodies were thrown down beside the first. Zeo and Ikaros, two more of Hody's top officers, lay defeated.
At the same time, Sanji and Zoro arrived, bickering as usual.
"You damn Moss-Head! If you hadn't gotten us lost, we wouldn't be so late!" Sanji snapped.
"Huh?" Zoro shot back, his brow furrowed in disdain. "Is that any way for an 880 million Beri man to speak to a 900 million Beri man?"
"You bastard! My bounty is 889 million! It's barely a ten million difference, don't make it sound like it's a hundred!" Sanji fumed. "And even if your bounty is a little higher, it doesn't mean you're better than me! I'll surpass you next time for sure!"
Just as Sanji's tirade reached its peak, both he and Zoro were smacked on the head simultaneously.
"Would you two please try to read the room?" Nami said, rolling her eyes as she stepped through an air-door. Beside her, Merry, the ship's spirit, casually tossed another of Hody's officers, Hyouzou, onto the growing pile.
"It's… it's all of them! The Straw Hat Pirates!" a Fish-Man cried out in disbelief.
"But how? They have no bubbles, no coating! How can they move freely down here?"
"Merry, Chopper, Usopp, Brook… It's everyone except for their Vice-Captain, the Priest, and their Captain, Straw Hat Luffy!"
"Those two must be dead!" another shouted.
CRASH!
As if destined by fate itself to slap the words out of his mouth, a final body plummeted from above, landing vertically in the plaza. It was the last of the New Fish-Man Pirates' officers, the hammerhead Shark-Man, Dosun.
"Look! It's Jinbe, Princess Shirahoshi, and… Straw Hat Luffy!" an onlooker shrieked.
Luffy leaped from the back of the giant shark, Megalo. He landed softly in the center of the plaza, his expression unreadable.
The Straw Hats exchanged relieved smiles. Now that their captain was here, the main event could begin. Jinbe and Shirahoshi joined them, and they began to chat casually, their work done.
"Straw Hat Luffy!"
Hody Jones stared at the small figure standing before him, his already bloodshot eyes glowing with a violent, murderous rage.
"Good. Very good!" he snarled. "I thought you would have drowned, but you came to me instead! Fine! You will die here!"
He threw Abraham aside. "Go, my boys! Kill this lowly human!"
Hody opened his arms in a gesture of supreme arrogance, yet he himself did not move. It wasn't that he was afraid. Having already consumed a massive dose of Energy Steroids, his mind was long past fear. He was merely buying time. He slipped back into the ranks of his men.
"Give me all of them," he commanded viciously. "All the Energy Steroids you have!"
"Boss Hody, if you take all of these, you'll… you'll die!" one of his subordinates stammered, holding out four large jars filled with the potent drugs.
"Die?" Hody snatched a handful of the pills and shoved them into his mouth, a terrifying grin spreading across his face. "Even if I die, I will drag these inferior humans down with me! The future of Fish-Man Island belongs to the New Fish-Man Pirates! My will shall live on, just like Arlong's!"
As Hody prepared for his final, desperate transformation, his army charged. The Fish-Man pirates, however, were the loudest shouters but the slowest runners. They knew, even if their leader did not, that the single man before them was an insurmountable wall.
But the hundreds of sea beasts under their command, with their low intelligence, felt no such fear. They surged forward, led by the most terrifying creature in Hody's arsenal: the Kraken.
The giant squid, several times larger than the Sunshine Merry and already hopped up on Energy Steroids, charged Luffy with a ferocious roar, its massive beak wide open, ready to bite him in half.
At that moment, Luffy finally stopped walking.
He adjusted his straw hat, tilting his head up slightly to gaze into the abyssal maw of the Kraken. He slowly, almost casually, extended his right hand.
"You're noisy," he said, his voice quiet but carrying an immense weight.
"Just… be quiet."
VMMM-BOOM!
In an instant, a wave of dark red and gold energy—Conqueror's Haki—swept over the entire plaza, silencing everything in its path.