"Stop underestimating Okama!" It seemed that absolutely nothing could drown out Mr. Two's strange voice. "A little fire like that is nothing to my tempered body!"
A tremendous crash immediately followed, and the ground was literally split apart, opening a broad passage through the flames. At that point, however, the numbered agents' teamwork suffered an unexpected malfunction. Mr. Two barely had time to celebrate his success before he immediately fell into a deep pit.
"YOU OLD HAG!!! WHY THE HELL DID YOU DIG YOUR STUPID TUNNELS EVERYWHERE?!!"
"You stu! You stu! You stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"
Surprisingly, Mr. Four was the only one who retained his original composure. The instant Bentham opened a path through the fire, several baseballs shot toward Johnny at once. The young man did not dodge them. By that point, anger and fury had flooded his mind—he desperately wanted to tear something apart, rip it to pieces, destroy it, crush it, burn it, ruin it. Much of that came from delayed fear that had seeped into his consciousness like a powerful poison. If he had been just a little less lucky and one of Miss Doublefinger's spikes had struck his heart... Johnny was not certain his Fruit could have handled such a wound. That would have meant actual death. Opponents he could slaughter without particular difficulty had almost managed to kill him. How was anyone supposed to remain calm after that? Especially when there was nobody else to blame for his own stupidity.
He could, however, vent his anger on somebody else.
"Kyaa!" Zala squealed in an utterly girlish voice when Johnny's clawed hand closed around her ankle like a steel vise.
The girl did not even have time to think of using her ability before she was yanked into the air, and in the next instant Zala's entire world went dark in a flash of monstrous pain. She did not even understand what had happened. The other numbered agents, however, witnessed Johnny use Miss Doublefinger's body as an improvised baseball bat. Gripping the girl by the ankle, he spun and swung Zala's body straight into the exploding baseballs. The explosions themselves drowned out the sound of the girl's bones breaking. She did not possess even one tenth of scale-covered Johnny's durability, so an attack that could only stun him briefly became nearly fatal for her. Miss Doublefinger hit the ground as a smoking, shapeless heap of bloody bones.
"Hrr... hrr... kh-kh!"
Trembling all over, she managed only a couple of shallow breaths before coughing up her own blood and immediately losing consciousness. From the outside, she looked completely dead. That was exactly what the other agents thought.
"Miss Doublefinger!" Mr. Two cried in shock.
He had no time to deal with his emotions. Unlike his opponents, badly shaken by such an abrupt reversal—victory had seemed practically theirs already!—Johnny acted without hesitation. In addition to the fire covering his body, he was literally blazing with rage. One could say he burned equally fiercely both outside and within. The saying about not waking a sleeping dragon suited the present situation perfectly. Where Johnny had initially shown less than half of what he could do, he now leapt immediately to the limit of his available strength. The numbered agents really had managed to 'wake the dragon'!
"Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!"
Losing concentration in battle could lead to serious consequences, including death. That was exactly what had nearly happened to Johnny himself, and it was now about to happen to Mr. Two. Shocked Bentham, eyes bulging to their limits, was still staring at Miss Doublefinger's 'broken' and bloodied body when Johnny's monstrous figure, entirely wrapped in flame, appeared directly beside him with a fist already drawn back to strike. After his recent humiliating experience, the young man intended to erase every trace of his 'disgrace' from the face of the earth. As the saying went, if there was a body, there was a case. The important part was getting rid of everyone who had witnessed how that body was made, after which he could swagger around freely and claim everything had been under control. In short, business as usual. Nothing new.
Now even Bentham's provocative appearance could not stop Johnny. Living up to his epithet, the 'Beheader' intended to take the transvestite's head off with one powerful blow. Mr. Two himself did not even have time to squeak as the lethal fist rushed toward his face... only to change trajectory sharply and smash directly into the ground before him. From the outside, it looked as though a battleship had fired its main cannon between dragonified—or demonized?—Johnny and Mr. Two. Chunks of earth and flame shot high into the air. At the same time, a powerful shockwave spread in every direction, throwing Bentham far aside, while an enormous fire-covered crater and the 'burning' Johnny remained at the point of impact.
Standing on one knee with his fist pressed into the earth, the young man slowly rose and then, just as slowly, almost sluggishly, turned his head to the side. Terrifying fiery eyes with vertical pupils stared directly at Miss Goldenweek, who stood some distance away. A brush in one hand, a paint palette in the other—the answer to why Johnny's blow had struck the ground instead of Bentham's head. But beneath the young man's furious gaze, the girl literally froze with fear. One or two seconds later, when Johnny crossed the distance between them in a blur and closed his clawed hand around her head, the girl's fear became all-consuming.
Leaning slightly toward his victim, the young man asked:
"Do you want to live?"
Johnny's fanged maw and his entire appearance easily created the impression that if Marianne gave the wrong answer, he would immediately devour her alive. Her teeth chattering with terror—Luffy would have approved!—the girl, now an unhealthy pale-gray shade, could not force out a single word. She could only stand there trembling, staring with wide eyes at the towering figure of the fire demon above her. Yet despite the flames nearby, the girl felt nothing but savage cold, the kind that promised imminent death. Johnny needed only to wrap his hand in fire again or squeeze his fingers a little harder to send her instantly into the next world. Despite her terror—or perhaps because of it?—Marianne understood that simple truth perfectly. The corresponding reaction from her body did not take long: a small puddle quickly began forming beneath her feet.
"Interfere in the adults' business one more time and you're dead!" Johnny growled, straightening at the same time and removing his hand from Marianne's head.
Naturally, he had never intended to kill her in the first place. Despite all their claims of ruthlessness, it had somehow become customary that none of the Hats killed women. At least not deliberately or without a very good reason. Individually, Usopp simply did not kill anyone—under ordinary circumstances!—while Nami disliked killing in general and never killed women in particular. Zoro, because of his pride and memories of Kuina, completely ignored women during battles, while Sanji was the most hopeless case in the family despite all Luffy's efforts. Only Johnny, Yosaku, and Luffy, though not fundamentally opposed to killing women, still avoided fighting them whenever possible. In Marianne's specific case, she also looked like a little girl, and the Hats did not kill children. Period. It was not that they could not do it if necessary—except perhaps Nami—but the necessity would have to be ve-e-ery serious.
Johnny used the same tactic that had already proved effective on Coby: frightening Marianne so badly that she lost control of her bladder. On the other hand, Coby had not been a bad person to begin with, so the comparison did not fit very well. Or perhaps did not fit at all. Then again, Johnny was not the sort of person to worry about such 'minor details'. Especially now, when he cared much more about his other opponents—read: witnesses—and immediately threw terrified Marianne out of his mind. He had given his warning. It was not his problem if she turned out stupid enough not to believe him. Turning away from the girl, Johnny strode toward Miss Merry Christmas, who was staring at everything in fear from one of the burrows she had dug.
Seeing that she herself had become the 'unkillable monster's' next target, Drophy hiccupped loudly and dove back underground. Reasonably concluding that he certainly could not reach her beneath the earth, Miss Merry Christmas forgot about the battle and began fleeing for her life. A very sensible decision, but slightly late: Drophy should have run before Johnny noticed her, not after. Despite her digging speed, she managed to get only three or four meters underground before the entire world around her shook and the woman was simply flattened into bloody pulp. Miss Doublefinger and Miss Merry Christmas had been extraordinarily unlucky that Johnny had become their opponent. They gave him enough reasons, in his rage, to stop caring about their sex. Had Sanji been in his place, neither woman would even have been scratched.
"O... o... o..."
That was all Mr. Four could produce while staring at yet another deep impact crater where Miss Merry Christmas had been only seconds earlier. Even an idiot like Babe could guess his partner's fate if she had not managed to burrow deep enough. And he strongly suspected she had not. Although in his case, the word 'suspected' sounded far too intelligent, so instinct was probably more accurate. Idiot or not, he had survived on the Grand Line for quite some time, and that was the best indicator of all.
"Khah! Khah! Kheh!"
Before Johnny could turn his attention to dim-witted Mr. Four, another bout of bloody coughing overtook him. All that jumping, speed, and striking had not passed without consequences for the young man either. Whatever one might say, he had taken quite a beating before bringing the situation under control. Or at least that was how it appeared from the outside.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The brief delay was enough for Johnny to come under an entire bombardment of exploding baseballs. Although he swatted them aside with one hand like annoying gnats—these particular balls proved surprisingly weak—the real problem was that both Mr. Two and Mr. Four remained in Johnny's field of view the entire time, and neither of them had attacked him. Which raised the obvious question: who had launched the exploding balls? The young man saw nobody in the direction they had come from. An invisible man, perhaps?
"The monster's wounded! Shoot him! Shoot!"
What first comes to mind when someone sees a stranger coughing blood? Help them? Move farther away so you do not catch whatever they have? Call a doctor? Depending on upbringing, experience, and worldview, any of those reactions might be considered correct. Yet in every case, they all clearly suggest that the unknown person is seriously ill or perhaps even dying. That was why the ordinary Baroque Works members immediately took heart when they saw Johnny coughing blood. They got the impression that the Monster was badly wounded and only needed to be 'finished off'. They had all seen how much damage the Monster had taken at the beginning of the battle, and now, they believed, those accumulated injuries were finally making themselves known. How could the ordinary Baroque Works members know that Johnny had already regenerated most of his wounds, and that the bloody coughing was evidence of near-complete recovery rather than the opposite? His body was simply clearing accumulated blood from his lungs.
"Kh-kh! Kheh! Hrrr-ptoo! Ptoo! Damn it."
"Don't let him recover! Kill him while he's weakened!"
Obeying the shout, an entire storm of bullets crashed into Johnny while he coughed and spat blood. Pure stupidity. Exploding baseballs launched toward him by a four-ton bat barely hurt him even with direct hits, so what were ordinary bullets supposed to accomplish? Even half a year ago, the young man had treated such attacks like irritating mosquito bites. His eyes had been his only weak point, and now even the corneas of transformed Johnny strongly resembled bulletproof glass. And that was assuming a direct hit; in reality, his reaction speed was more than sufficient to prevent such a thing. In other words, if ordinary shooters fired ordinary weapons loaded with ordinary bullets at Johnny, they simply could not injure him. The rank-and-file Baroque Works members were competing so far outside their weight class today that comparing it to a small child fighting a professional boxer would be entirely appropriate. Spitting out several more bloody clots, Johnny did not even bother paying attention to the people shooting at him and headed straight toward Mr. Four. His completely genuine disregard caused the gunfire to die away rather quickly, leaving tons of fear and shock behind it.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
"What the—?!"
After barely ten steps, the young man came under fire from exploding baseballs yet again, only this time he finally managed to see what was launching them.
"Ah! La-s-so!"
Mr. Four's reaction, as always, came noticeably late. The idiot had not even finished speaking before the aforementioned Lassoo was already in the hands of a thoroughly confused Johnny.
"A dog that ate the Cannon Fruit?!"
Staring wide-eyed at the gray dog—one that was clearly suffering from a cold and looked as though it had swallowed a small cannon—Johnny, as usual, tried to produce a reasonable explanation on the spot. The most logical assumption was that the dog had eaten a Devil Fruit and become a cannon-dog. Though that still did not explain—or rather, did not explain at all—why it fired exploding baseballs instead of cannonballs, the real problem lay elsewhere. Johnny's experience told him Devil Fruit powers could not be that simple. A Paramecia-type Devil Fruit with the power of a cannon? Too straightforward. Or so it seemed to him. On the other hand, the alternative sounded completely idiotic. A cannon that had 'eaten' a Zoan-type Devil Fruit modeled after a dog? Not a cannon-dog, but a dog-cannon? After considering that possibility, the first option seemed unquestionably correct. What could one say? Johnny was still underestimating the madness of the Grand Line. And Vegapunk's genius. But he had yet to learn about that scientist.
"Cannon-dog? Dog-cannon? Ah, screw it!"
Lassoo was unlucky. Then again, so had many others before her. On any other day, Johnny would certainly have tried to figure out her origin, but today—and specifically right now—he was in no mood for mysteries or indulging his curiosity. Tossing Lassoo into the air with one hand, Johnny slashed the other several times in rapid succession, literally slicing the unknown creature into numerous pieces with his claws.
"La-s-so! Miss Merry Christmas! How could you! Babe angry! Very angry! Won't forgive!"
Astonishingly, Mr. Four had even begun speaking normally instead of sounding like a video being played in slow motion. His face had also gone bright red with rage. None of that made him look any less stupid.
"Don't worry. You'll be seeing them in a moment!"
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