Natural Enemy 2-15

The ceiling fan in the Port Town Marine outpost was still doing its best to chug along.

With no help from the still busted air conditioner and the repairman taking his sweet time, the thing spun overhead with a slightly off-balance wobble, chopping through the stifling layer of heat and stale coffee air that settled over the room every afternoon. 

Behind the front desk, Lieutenant Junior Grade Kō Noritoshi leaned back in his chair, the mustached officer comfortable as ever. After all, why wouldn’t he be comfortable? He had a good extra million Beri sitting in his pocket after teaching some smartmouth Devil Freak a lesson, and had already kicked back another half million upstairs to his superior to let him keep this position. 

Really now, all he had to contemplate for the day was the difficult choice between a nap or a second lunch.

Recruit Mori’s fingers were hard at work, the clacking of the typewriter keys another distraction to add as the boy kept on with whatever paperwork the Liuetenant had given him. 

But despite all that, Port Town was as peaceful as you could expect for a town used as a hiding spot for minor criminals, downright boring even. It was the perfect picture of law and order being as lazy as it could be.

Then the noise started.

It wasn’t all that loud, or all that distracting.

But Kō had a limit to the amount of noises he could deal with in one afternoon, and anything that might make him have to leave the lobby and venture out into the heat was one too many.

The sound continued, getting closer and closer; a heavy, wet, grinding sound that could be heard through the door. Something like a very large and very wet sandbag being dragged over concrete.

The typing stopped as the recruit looked up. Lieutenant Noritoshi blinked, hand halfway to his mug of lukewarm coffee as a frown found its way onto his face; the sound getting closer and closer still.

A relentless, friction-heavy drag that hissed against the pavement outside.

Then the double doors exploded inward, kicked with enough force to bounce off the interior walls. Hinges screaming in protest, a rectangle of blinding white afternoon sun cut into the dim lobby as both recruit and commanding officer jumped up and reached for their weapons.

They weren’t alone for long, not as several other officers rushed in as soon as they heard the clatter. However, all of them stopped and stared as they saw what was in front of them.

A silhouette blocked the light from the outside, some of it at least; a silhouette that stunk like a coffin dragged up from the bottom of the ocean and opened up.

There was no coffin, though.

Just a boy.

A fat boy, who stood there swaying slightly on his feet.

He looked wrecked. He looked like he had been put through a meat grinder, taped back together, and then run over by a truck.

The black bucket hat Noritoshi remembered was nowhere to be seen, the boy’s messy hair plastered to his skull with a mixture of salt, sweat, and something too dark and crusted to be anything but blood. The boy’s white t-shirt was a suggestion more than a garment at this point, the thing shredded into rags that wouldn’t see much use even in cleaning a dirty floor. 

And his leather jacket? Well, the less said about what remained of it the better. 

His right arm was wrapped in a makeshift sling made from what looked like a piece of a sail, the limb hanging heavy against his chest as he took a step forward with squelching sandals. A puddle of water spread out from those same sandals, clothes dripping with seawater enough to stain the clean and freshly waxed white tiled floor. 

“You…” Recruit Mori squeaked, nearly tipping over his chair as he scrambled back, seemingly forgetting he held a flintlock at the ready.

The boy didn’t look at the recruit or even the other Marines who had frozen even with weapons in their hand, gaping like caught fish.

Eyes firmly ahead on the lieutenant, he leaned forward, putting his weight into the thick rope looped over his good shoulder, and pulled.

The scraping sound returned, louder this time, echoing off the tile walls as something massive slid through the doorway behind him.

It was a cargo net, that was easy enough to tell; the thick sort of heavy-duty mesh meant for hauling crates of cargo or barrels of rum.

But it wasn't holding rum.

No, it held a mountain, the package taking up nearly the entire width of the doorway.

“What in the Four Blues…?”

Noritoshi gaped at the sight of Wanted West Blue warlord Beula “Beluga” Billions, the Fishwoman jammed tight inside the net like the catch of the day. Chains — her own chains — were wrapped around the bundle for good measure, keeping the package tight. Her massive, eight-foot frame folded up like a pretzel, she was either unconscious or close enough to it that it didn’t matter. Her gray blubber bruised purple and blue, tire-track marks from the net digging deep into her flesh, the beast seemed to let out a low, bubbling groan with every bump in the floor. 

As the Devil Fruit boy dragged her over the threshold, her bulk caught on the frame for a moment, peeling away a strip of paint.

The boy didn't stop, though, not even bothering to see if she fit as he just leaned harder and forced the physics to work.

In a matter of seconds, he dragged the Whale Fishman into the lobby, the sheer weight of her leaving a wide, wet streak of slime and seawater on the floor that smelled no different than a tide pool tainted with copper.

The Lieutenant wasn’t sure if he was sitting or standing, only the realization that his knees were shaking providing the answer. His coffee mug was still in his hand, and so was his pistol, but only one had a stream of brown liquid dripping onto a set of pristine white trousers and polished black shoes.

He stared at the boy. He stared at the net. He stared back at the boy.

Mouth opening wide, Noritoshi was not surprised to find no sound coming out as he simply tried to process what he was seeing in an attempt to make sense of it. Kid. Net. Whale. Fishman. 

If he was this strong… It simply didn’t fit. Then… then… why did he not…

The boy kept walking, still stumbling with a damaged arm and a twitching eye. The stares didn’t seem to matter to him. He didn’t seem to hear the terrified whispers either, the dozen marines littering the lobby of the outposts seemingly not there at all to him.

The lieutenant couldn’t ignore them, though.

‘That’s the kid.’ 

‘The beans kid?’

‘Is that… is that a Fishman?’

‘Is she dead?’

The ‘kid’ dragged the load right up to the front desk, the scraping filling the room and damn-near drowning out the fan until he finally, thankfully, stopped.

The dark-skinned island boy stood there for a second, chest heaving beneath his white-shell necklace, allowing everyone to listen to the peaceful drip-drip-drip of water falling from his shorts onto the Lieutenant’s nice clean floor.

Noritoshi allowed his eyes to drop down to the net as Beula shifted, the Fishwoman letting out a wet snort as one of her massive, gray hands flopped out through a gap in the mesh. Even unconcsiou, it managed to slap against the wood of the desk with a heavy, meaty sound, moving it a good few inches with a squeal.

The Lieutenant jumped back, coffee cup falling from his already loose grip. The mug shattered on the floor, splashing lukewarm liquid everywhere.

“B-Billions?” Noritoshi couldn’t help the stammer as he asked the obvious. He also couldn’t helpt the fact that his voice was an octave higher than usual and refused to go down one bit. “Beula Billions?”

The boy didn’t answer as he reached up with his good hand and unhooked the leather strap from his shoulder and let it drop.

The rope hit the floor with a final thud as the room went silent with only the sound of the chugging fan and the breathing of a near-dead Fishman scourge.

The boy looked at the desk and reached out with his left hand, shaking fingers oddly stiff as he jabbed a thumb behind him

At the net; the twenty-four million Beri worth of bounty sleeping on the floor.

Then he looked up, Noritoshi nearly flinching as those fiery blue eyes locked onto his own. Like last time, the boy wasn’t wearing a smile, but he also clearly wasn’t trying to keep his calm either; a look of pure death staring the lieutenant in the face now.

Kai Douglas Wade held out his left hand, palm up, as he took a breath. “Money…” he rasped out loud, voice rougher than the concrete he’d just walked over. “Please.”




END OF ARC 2 - NATURAL ENEMY