[World Event] Bearing a Bear's Ways

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A savage bellow rocked the burning ruins of a port city.

"Calm down, Captain! The city won't be able to survive an all-out fight. We-gara have to leave!" The panther mink's reasoning barely respawned sense into the enraged Yonkou.

"She-gara betrayed me, Bagh!! She spit on all of those years together!" Roared Firebear'd. The ends of his beard were tied in many knots, each glowing with faint orange embers. And yet behind this show of fury were two shaky eyes warping behind tears formed like dew.

Countless mauled marines littered the earth around the wroth bear. He panted and growled as he spotted the hot pink uniform of Vice-Admiral Winters marching through a storm of dirt. The ground around her blackened, and buildings crumbled to dust.

"Come on, Captain! Wild will hold them off while we get on the ship. Let's go back home. You-gara need to think this over with a cooler head," insisted the panther commander. He parried a stray cannon shot with his bisento as if it were a lazily thrown pebble.

The minks surrounding them turned to the shore when Berengar finally relented. Prodence Kingdom would survive another day.


The frenzied hoots of a gorilla mink pierced the eardrums of many as he whipped a small silver-haired body into the pavement repeatedly as if it were a sack of meat. Tens of blades jutted out from the ape's limbs and torso. Likening him to a voodoo doll pierced by torturous pins would not have been a far-fetched comparison. But, his victim seemed to be swimming through far more dire straits than him.

Chatter Gorrey, known to many as "The Torment", was the intemperate head cook of the Feral Pirates. Many a folk had regretted earning his ire, and many more never survived to have such regrets. The shichibukai, Demon Blade, had become one more entry in that long list of the latter.

Cobalt Stelle's body was shattered and bloodied beyond recognition; but, that did not stop the psychotic gorilla from treating her corpse like a wet towel one might use to bully someone in a locker room.

"That's enough, Gorrey! She-gara is dead. Let it go." Panther Lily stared down his crewmate with the tip of his bisento pointed at him. Bagh wielded his polearm as if it were an extension of his body.

The commander's stern demand lifted the cook's indignance. The beast pulled each sword, spear, and axe plugging the crimson holes in his flesh one-by-one without so much as a twitch, for he was known to feel no pain.

An uneasy quiet had settled across their vicinity. The wreckage of Navy warships to their rear had nearly sunk to the ocean floor with nary a survivor in sight. The Marines defending the centre had retreated into the town, while their flanks remained unfazed against the pirate alliance's onslaught.

"Since we've broken through their centre, why don't we-gara pull everyone from the fringes and pour through here?" Grunted Gorrey. He unsheathed one last blade—an ornate rapier—from his bruted eye socket and thrust it back into the still breast of its silver-haired owner. The woman's body was twisted and misshapen like a thicket of thorny rose bushes. Bagh stole a solemn glimpse of the shichibukai's gory fate before scanning the abandoned streets leading into the heart of the island.

They could see several fortified towers scattered in and around the town from this distance. Bagh's pupils thinned as he spoke. "Something doesn't feel right. We-gara broke their line too easily. They say the Demon-in-Glasses is the Navy's best strategist. If there's any truth to that rumour, there has to be a catch."

He turned to the gorilla, who had now lit a cigar between his blue-grey lips. "We'll keep their flanks on the front line occupied. Let's press on with who we-gara we have here for now." Several minks and allied pirates had now gathered around them as they prepared to invade further.

Elsewhere, near the flanks where the dinosaur had rampaged not long ago, corpses and rubble cluttered the streets. The lines had shifted a safe distance away from where the shichibukai had left two supernovae in the dirt.

A mute woolly rhino waddled through the ruins at his own pace. The mink was four metres tall, but his hunched back made him seem shorter. One torpid step at a time, he collected the junk left behind by the dead under one of his burly arms. He tested each new find by striking it against the sturdy yellowing horn on his muzzle.

While scavenging, a unique treasure caught his eye. It was a long cane striped red and white. He shuffled to the oddity and stripped it from its former owner. This artifact—which happened to look and smell much like one of his favourite treats—tempted the rhino into snatching a small lick. A deep frown furrowed his bushy greying brows and wrinkled his leathery forehead. The candy cane was fake, for all he tasted was metal.

While mourning this disappointing find, the rhino happened to notice dust moving away from around the mouth of the white-haired fellow lying on the ground. The beefy scavenger stared for an eternity.

A distant warrior's cry ended his trance. He stuffed the candy cane with the heap of weapons in tow, and then looped his fat fingers around the dark-skinned "dead" pirate. With a voiceless movement of his mouth, he slung him over one of his broad (but droopy) shoulders.

Next, he stopped by the bloodied body of a three-eyed fellow. The rhino had observed these warriors' desperate struggle against the mighty dinosaur. His expression remained unmoved as he scooped up the second unconscious pirate's half-corpse and hung it over his free shoulder. He did not fail to retrieve the two valuable weapons which the man had been using earlier. Wiping his bloodied hands on a stained apron, he began his silent lumbering walk towards the Laguz.

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A violent storm prefaced the conflict promised under the umbrella of the Holy Land of Mary Geoise. Three notorious figures awaited the assault alongside their uneasy allies in white and blue.

"They are here. I sense only a part of their entire fleet. It appears the bait at Las Camp was at least a partial success." The woman stood still as a mountain. Her bewitching purple eyes opened slowly. She wore a silver dress with hundreds of swirling gold patterns sewn upon it. The fabric hugged her waist and hips tightly, highlighting the enticing curves of her frame.

A few feet behind her, a one-eyed young man fiddled with a black-metal anchor longer than his body as if it were a walking cane. He ran his fingers through his thick, silver hair and crowed. "Iris-chaaaan~ You're not giving the furries enough credit. It was a cheap trick to try and lure them to the blues. If only they'd listened to my--"

The Witch of the Waves was too impatient to allow him to finish. "Not that it concerns me, but, they do not listen to you because your plans only ever serve your own interests in the end. Besides, you are not half as clever as you think you are, Galinstan." She folded her arms, the wide cuffs of her sleeves hanging down to her waist.

"Even if I were a quarter as clever as I think I am, I'd still be cleverer than the rest of the world. Cheeheeheehee~" giggled the "Stainless" privateer. He walked over to a 70-pounder naval gun and straddled it as if he were mounting a horse. The marine manning the cannon could do little more than gawk while his designated weapon was violated.

"You forget the Navy's Vice Admiral Gordon, Jax-dono," the octopus-crab fishman in their company noted. He wore a long, brown coat which hid much of his scaly body. But, the former pirate could do nothing to hide the tens of slimy tentacles writhing from his jaws and cheeks to form a fishy beard.

"Hah! The Demon-in-Glasses is more overrated than the claim of fishmen being ten times stronger than humans." Jax slid forward on the cannon to tip its nose down—much to the cannoneer's dismay.

Iris hissed at her disagreeable colleague. "You should try a little humility some time. Perhaps you would not be so obnoxious if you did."

Jax glanced at the tentacled swordsman with a cheeky grin. "I don't wanna be boring like Brons-san here." The fishman did not react in the slightest to the gibe. Instead, he held down his tricorne hat with a crab's pincer for a hand when a gust blew over them.

Dark outlines of the dreadful armada of the Feral Pirates now peeked through the thick curtain of rain like a horde of sea kings.

Jax continued. "Anyways, my point is, if the Navy just listened to me, this could've been an easy win. And what's with them keeping Sterling away from the front line?"

"The Celestial Dragons personally requested him to defend them closely." Brons answered in a monotone which did not betray his opinion of said request.

"That is the most moronic idea they've had through this whole thing. You should keep a pet monster where it belongs - close to your enemy. If the Sky God were here, there would be no chance of the fire-crazy teddy bear breaking through."

The slightest of smirks malformed a corner of Iris' glossy lips. "Oh? Are you implying you are not good enough to handle the Feral Pirates?"

Jax raised his one good brow as he dismounted the violated cannon. He balanced himself on the edge of the stone wall, swinging up his anchor to rest on a shoulder. "Don't be silly, Missy Witchy. I never claimed to be the strongest man in the world; only the smartest. Being the smartest man doesn't mean much if I can't move the pieces how I want."


"You shouldn't have told him about Demon Blade, old man. He was useful, for once, on the right flank. Steps'll have to cover for him now." Gordon sighed.

Warp dug out a perfectly round booger with a pinkie and scrunched his nose. Flicking the booger at nothing in particular, he cackled. "Wahaha! The kid liked her a lot, even if he showed it in the most disturbing of ways. Keeping people in the dark is more your brand of justice."

Gordon shrugged and adjusted his neat tie-knot to sit closer to his neck.  After responding to a transmission update informing him of enemy movements, he addressed his senior's taunt. "At least I don't laze around like you until half of our precious soldiers are dead."

The elderly vice admiral's nostrils flared as he retorted. "Says the man who sacrificed half our fleet just to give the pirates a 'false sense of security'. And now you offered up our centre too. What if your trap doesn't work? Besides, you're the one who asked me not to go anywhere."

Gordon only smiled and spoke into a small transponder snail strapped to his wristwatch. "Code: All Blue."

The earth shook, and the sky seemed ready to fall when thousands of explosions broke the tranquillity preserved within the town of Las Camp. Black plumes now veiled each one of the umpteen towers surrounding downtown.

After the barrage of cannon fire ended, the wailing of the dead-to-be haunted the city streets. The sudden assault had levelled half the district.

Gordon answered a call from a frantic marine after a long pause. "The volley was successful, sir! At least six hundred pirates were caught in the attack and are confirmed dead. But, as you expected, Panther Lily survived. We also spotted The Torment, but he looked severely wounded. Our forces are still holding back pirates around the 33rd and 4th piers. Their flanks did not disengage to punch through the centre, sir."

Gordon tsked and pouted. "Would've been nice if they all fell for it. I'd bet my glasses Panther Lily smelled the trap." He huffed. "It doesn't matter. We paid them back three-fold. I'll handle Lily myself. Relay a message to all of our men operating the towers. Their next mission is to hunt down any survivors in the city and then reinforce the frontlines. Cycle out any casualties and treat the wounded as per your previous orders."

Warp shifted. "Going after the clever cat yourself, are you? When do I get to do anything fun?"

Gordon dismissed his complaints with a wave. "If I let you fight how you wanted, we wouldn't have an island left to defend."

Warp's guffaw was near as loud as the bombardment. "Wahahahaha! Don't be smart with me after you just blew up half a town."

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