The General From the Future Land

Hody's army realizes the Kraken he had tamed has turned fully toward the Straw Hats. Luffy gives Surume a simple order: "Now listen, Surume!! I want you to stay here... and protect cry-Hoshi, got that?" Surume nods, and Shirahoshi greets him gently: "It is a pleasure to meet you... Surume-sama!" While enemies shout that the Kraken has thrown in with the Straw Hats, Franky's vehicle suddenly starts shaking. Chopper asks, "Hey, Commander Chopper... Is it just me, or is our vehicle shaking?" Franky answers by shouting "Cookie... Cutter!!!" and then drives straight ahead, thinking the enemy is evading them. He decides to use the chance to take out big-shots at full speed, only for the machine to drop into a pitfall trap.

Daruma reveals the trap from below. He laughs, "Kyak kyah!! Look at you!! Powerless in the face of my Daruma Drop!!!" and boasts that he opened a maze of holes in the ground with his razor-sharp fangs. Franky's `KuroSai FR-U #4` charges through the broken terrain while the enemy prepares to do the same to the "bike-riding moron" as well. Franky asks what is going on, Usopp shouts for Chopper, and then the rhino bike falls hard into the pit. The enemy realizes the truth too late: "Oh, no... It's a pitfall trap!!" Daruma cannot believe it either and cries, "Ehhhhhh?!! Is this guy a complete idiot?!!!"

Franky's crash is not the end of his plan. Nami and Usopp ask whether Franky and Chopper are all right, but Franky is already thinking about docking. He throws Chopper out of the command seat, saying, "Why, you...!! I'm not going to take this lying down!!" and Chopper protests, "What are you playing at, Franky?!!" Franky explains with no shame that the rhino bike only seats a single driver. "No offense, it's just that this baby only seats a single driver!!" he says, while Nami calls him a pervert. Then the transformation begins: `KuroSai FR-U #4` and `Brachio Tank #5` answer the command `Docking!!` The tank shifts to standby, its brachio head changes form, and the two machines start combining while enemies scream, "Whaaaat?! Docking?!!"

The machines lock together and the giant robot rises: "Iron Pirate!! General Franky!!" The battlefield stops to stare at the completed `Iron Pirate: General Franky`, marked with the Straw Hat emblem and the number 38. Franky calls out to Dr. Vegapunk, saying, "I hope you're watching!! The dream you once had is now a reality!!" He explains that by incorporating the memory alloy `Wapometal` into the design, he has completed Vegapunk's design. General Franky is not a toy or a normal vehicle anymore; it is the future-land technology Franky brought back from his two years away, standing in the middle of Fishman Island as a full combat robot.

Luffy sees the robot and screams with joy, "Aneeeeeeesome!!!" The enemy can only ask, "What is that?!!" Chopper and Usopp call it "a real live combining robot!!!" and a long, awed cry rises from them. Franky pulls out the weapon he calls "The Franken!!" and declares, "Fear my plunderer's blade... Stake." Then General Franky moves with a brutal practical attack: "General Look-Out-Below!!" The robot drops into a sweeping low strike that knocks enemies off their feet. Even the opponents admit the move is cheap but dangerous, while Franky uses the huge body to clear space in front of him.

The enemy thinks leaping into the air has put them in a perfect position, but Franky has already planned for it. General Franky opens its shoulders, and Luffy shouts, "Whaaaaat?! Cannons from the shoulders?!!" Franky announces `Franky Cannon!!` and fires, but the joke lands at once: the cannons are literally General Franky's shoulders, not weapons mounted on them. The blast and impact still scatter the enemy, and Usopp mutters, "What a tricky opponent!!" Robin watches with a flat "Stare!!!" as Franky remains proud of the absurd machine. Someone tells him, "But you're too cool, as well!!" and General Franky continues to dominate by confusion and brute mechanics.

Wadatsumi lumbers nearby under Vander Decken's former command, and Nami measures him without panic. He seems huge and heavy, but she says, "You don't look as tough as those monsters..." Then she turns his size against him with her new weapon. "Just because I'm scared, doesn't mean I'm weak!!" she declares. "Don't underestimate the power of undersea weatherian science!! Sorcery Clima-Tact!!" She releases the staff's weather power directly in front of Wadatsumi, setting up a controlled burst instead of meeting his body with raw strength.

Nami's attack becomes a cutting wind. She calls `Gust Sword!!!` and the stream slices into Wadatsumi, sending the enormous fishman reeling. The enemy thinks they are finally in the open and tries to regain control, but Nami does not let up. A second technique follows: `Take-Javelin!!!` The staff fires a storm of thin, spear-like gusts that pins and drives back the attackers. Nami's fear never disappears, but the page makes the point clearly: she has learned to fight through it, using weather science to turn distance, air, and precision into weapons.

Usopp's turn comes with theatrical confidence. He calls, "Master Heraclesun!!! I'll never forget the two years I spent with you in the deadly swindling forest!!" and declares that his training prepared him for the second chapter in the great adventures of the mighty Usopp. The citizens watch the Straw Hats fighting with such vigor that it feels as if they have longed for this battle. Daruma keeps digging beneath the plaza, promising, "I'll fill this whole plaza full of pitfalls!!" and boasting that no robot or pirate can survive once he gets them underground. Then something else bursts through the earth, and the enemy shouts that Daruma has just come hurtling out of the ground.

Chopper emerges from underground in his new `Horn Point`, catching Daruma with his antler-like horns. Daruma shouts, "Who's there!!!" and Chopper answers, "It's me!!" Luffy mistakes the form and asks, "Chopper!! You can turn into a stag beetle now?!" Chopper snaps back, "I'm not a beetle!!!" His new horns are not coral either, and he tells Daruma, "You're not the only one who's good at digging!!" Chopper explains that he has spent the past two years improving all seven of his transformation points. For now, he only needs a Rumble Ball for one form.

Chopper says the other six forms are now available freely at any time. Daruma lunges anyway, calling Chopper an insolent coral creature and threatening to gnash him to pieces. Chopper corrects him: "These are horns, not coral!! And I'm not a 'creature'." Then he states what he is now willing to become for the crew: "I'm an insolent... monster!!!" The battlefield widens, and Hody asks how many Straw Hats have been killed. The answer comes back, "None, sir!!" Even amid the chaos, the officers cannot report a single casualty among the ten pirates.

Hody turns his anger back to Surume. He orders, "Kraken!!! Excellent work... You have succeeded in capturing Shirahoshi!! Now crush her into dust!!!" Shirahoshi realizes Surume is hurting her and cries, "Surume-sama?! ...Y... You're hurting me...!" Hody reminds the Kraken of the brothers living peacefully in the far north and says he knows where to find them. If Surume continues to defy him, Hody will kill them and sell their legendary corpses for a high price. Jinbe understands the method: Hody was controlling the Kraken by threatening the lives of its kin. Luffy listens silently, his expression hardening.

Luffy speaks to Surume as a friend, not as a weapon. He asks, "So you were doing as that guy says to protect your family, huh?" and then, without blaming him, asks whether Surume has little brothers or big brothers back home. Surume can only shake and stare. Luffy grins and says, "Shishishi!! Then let me help you keep them safe!" For Hody's men, this is intolerable. They shout, "Straw Hat is coming for us..." and order one another, "Destroy him!!!" "You idiots can't do a thing, Dogon!" and "Leave this to us-hhi!!!" The officers move to intercept Luffy before he can reach Hody.

The officers surround Luffy and announce, "You will not reach our captain!!!" Luffy walks straight into them without slowing down. Blades, spears, and hooked weapons descend from all sides, but the panel holds on Luffy's steady approach as he moves through the opening they think they have closed. The threat is meant to look overwhelming, yet Luffy's posture makes it clear that these guards are only a delay between him and Hody.

The officers' defense collapses immediately. Luffy uses Haki to avoid and slip through their attacks, and one of them gasps, "Huh?! He vanished!!" Hody watches and tells Luffy, "You truly mean ...to face me, Straw Hat?!!" Luffy answers with action. He appears at Hody's face and drives a punch into him, blood spraying from Hody's mouth. Luffy's anger is no longer abstract; after learning how Hody threatened Surume's family and forced him to hurt Shirahoshi, he strikes Hody directly and says, "Now I'm really mad!!!"

The battlefield is suddenly overshadowed by something even larger: the Noah, the Promised Ship. The people stare upward and cry, "What in the...?!! That's the promised ship... Noah!!!!" The enormous ancient vessel is moving over Fishman Island. Neptune realizes the danger at once. He says it is a very bad development and wonders who could be capable of moving it. Fukaboshi, worried, asks whether something is wrong with his father, and Neptune says that even if the ship is an ancient relic of little consequence in ordinary times, nothing can be allowed to happen to it. He insists there is no reason to overreact only outwardly, but inside he knows the rule: the ship must not be moved under any circumstances, not until the appointed day arrives.

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