The air in the VIP aquarium room was thick with ozone and dust. Nami's victory had been absolute, a thunderclap that signaled the shifting tides of the battle. Miss Doublefinger, the second strongest female agent of Baroque Works, was embedded in a stone pillar, smoking and unconscious.
But the battle wasn't over.
While Sanji was engaging in a whirlwind kick-boxing match with Bon Clay, and Luffy was throwing himself at Crocodile with reckless abandon, a quieter, stranger confrontation was taking place near the overturned banquet table.
Usopp stood facing Mr. 4 and his gun-dog, Lassou.
In any other timeline, Usopp's legs would be vibrating at a frequency capable of shattering glass. He would be sprinting for the nearest exit, calculating the trajectory of a smoke bomb, and preparing a lie about having a contagious disease that makes his skin poisonous.
And to be fair, inside his head, Usopp was doing exactly that.
Oh god, oh god, oh god, Usopp's inner monologue screamed. Look at him! He's huge! He's round! He looks like a sumo wrestler who ate another sumo wrestler! And the dog is a gun! Nature shouldn't allow that!
Mr. 4, a man of few words and slow processing speed, slowly lifted his massive, four-ton baseball bat. He breathed in deeply, his chest expanding like a bellows.
"Four..." Mr. 4 grunted, holding up four fingers. "...Ton..."
"Woof!" Lassou barked. The dog sneezed.
Ptooo!
A baseball shot out of the dog's mouth. It wasn't a normal ball. It was a ticking time bomb, hurtling toward Usopp at the speed of a pitcher's fastball.
Usopp's eyes widened. Ball! Bomb ball! Dodge!
His brain sent the signal to his legs.
Move.
In the past, this would have been a desperate scramble. A dive into the dirt.
But today, something was different. The Super Soldier Serum flowing through Usopp's veins reacted to the cortisol spike. His perception of time dilated.
To Usopp, the baseball seemed to be moving underwater. He could see the stitches on the leather. He could see the fuse burning down.
It's... slow, Usopp thought, confused.
He didn't dive. He simply leaned to the left.
The explosive ball whizzed past his ear, missing him by an inch, and detonated against the far wall.
BOOM!
Usopp blinked. He looked at his hands. "I... I didn't even fall down."
"Batter..." Mr. 4 rumbled. He stepped forward. The floor tiles cracked under his weight. He gripped the four-ton bat with both hands.
"Wait!" Usopp yelled, holding up a hand. "Let's talk about this! I have a condition! It's called 'Allergic-to-Giant-Metal-Bats-itis'! If you hit me, I might explode!"
Mr. 4 did not care about Usopp's medical history. He swung.
"FOUR... TON... BATTER!"
The swing was a force of nature. It generated wind pressure that tore the tablecloths off the nearby tables. It was a blow meant to crush tanks, shatter castle walls, and turn human beings into paste. It moved with terrifying speed for something so heavy.
Usopp saw it coming. His sniper instincts tracked the arc.
It's going to hit me, Usopp realized. I can't dodge this one. It's too wide.
Panic surged. He reached for his slingshot, but he realized he wouldn't have time to load a star.
Do something! Block it!
His body moved on autopilot. The instincts implanted by the serum took over the driver's seat. Usopp stepped into the swing. He planted his feet, his sandals gripping the stone floor. He raised his left hand—just his bare hand—palm open.
"USOPP... CATCH!" he screamed, closing his eyes.
WHAM.
The sound was like a car crashing into a bank vault. A deep, resonant thud that shook the entire room.
Dust billowed up from the impact point. The floor beneath Usopp's feet shattered, creating a spiderweb of cracks spanning five meters.
Silence fell over that corner of the battlefield.
Mr. 4 blinked. His eyes, usually small and dull, popped open wide.
The dust settled.
Usopp was standing there. He hadn't been turned into paste. He hadn't been launched into the stratosphere.
His left hand was raised, his fingers wrapped firmly around the barrel of the four-ton bat.
The bat had stopped dead.
Usopp opened one eye. Then the other. He looked at the bat in his hand. He looked at Mr. 4, who was sweating profusely, straining with all his might to push the bat forward. The bat didn't move a millimeter.
"EHHHHHH?!" Usopp shrieked, looking at his own arm. "I caught it?! I caught the four-ton thingy?!"
He squeezed. The metal of the bat groaned. Usopp's grip left deep indentations in the solid steel.
"It... it feels light," Usopp whispered, a grin slowly spreading across his face. A dangerous, arrogant grin.
"Impossible..." Mr. 4 grunted, veins popping in his neck as he tried to pull the bat back. He couldn't. Usopp's grip was like an iron vice.
"Is that all you got, Tubby?" Usopp laughed. It was a manic laugh, born of sudden, absolute power. "I thought you were strong! But you're just playing tee-ball!"
Usopp yanked the bat.
With a casual flick of his wrist, he ripped the four-ton weapon out of Mr. 4's hands.
He tossed the massive weapon aside over his shoulder. It crashed into the wall with a deafening clang, embedding itself in the stone.
Mr. 4 stood empty-handed, trembling. "My... bat..."
"You don't need the bat," Usopp said, clenching his right fist. He looked at his knuckles.
"I am the Great Captain Usopp!" he declared, striking a pose. "Warrior of the Sea! And I have been training!" (He had not been training, he drank a potion, but the details didn't matter).
"USOPP..."
Usopp wound up his arm. He didn't use a technique. He didn't use a weapon. He just threw a punch.
Mr. 4 tried to cross his arms to block.
It didn't matter.
"...HAMMER BUSTER!"
Usopp's fist connected with Mr. 4's crossed arms.
The impact created a visible shockwave.
CRACK.
Mr. 4's radius and ulna snapped like dry twigs. The fist continued through the block, burying itself into Mr. 4's gut.
The giant man's eyes rolled back instantly. He folded around Usopp's fist.
Then, physics caught up.
Mr. 4 was launched. He flew backward as if he had been shot out of a cannon. He flew across the room, past the fighting Sanji, past the fighting Luffy, and slammed into the far wall next to Miss Doublefinger.
The wall exploded. Mr. 4 was buried ten feet deep in the rubble. He didn't move.
Usopp stood there, his fist extended, smoke rising from his knuckles.
Lassou, the gun-dog, looked at his master, then at Usopp. The dog whimpered, tucked its tail between its legs, and played dead.
Usopp blew on his knuckles.
"Hmph," he sniffed, adjusting his goggles. "I didn't even need my slingshot. I guess I'm just too strong for this island."
Inside, Usopp was screaming: HOLY CRAP I'M A MONSTER! I'M A LITERAL MONSTER! I PUNCHED THE FAT GUY INTO ORBIT! THANK YOU BEN! THANK YOU WIZARD JUICE!
---
While Usopp was discovering his newfound godhood, the center of the room was a chaotic mosh pit of "Millions"—the lower-ranked agents of Baroque Works. There were fifty of them, swarming like angry ants, brandishing swords, axes, and guns.
Standing calmly in the middle of the swarm was Ben.
He held his wand in his right hand, his movements fluid and lazy. He wasn't fighting; he was conducting an orchestra of pain.
"Get him!" a group of ten agents yelled, charging with scimitars.
Ben didn't look up from his watch. He flicked his wand in a horizontal slash.
"Depulso."
A invisible wall of kinetic force slammed into the group. The ten men were blasted backward, knocking over the twenty men behind them like bowling pins. They groaned, tangling in a heap of limbs.
"Shoot him!" another group shouted from the balcony, raising muskets.
Ben twirled his wand.
"Protego."
A translucent, shimmering shield materialized around him. The musket balls hit the barrier and flared out, dissolving into harmless sparks.
Ben pointed his wand at the balcony.
"Expelliarmus."
A red flash. Every rifle was yanked from the agents' hands by an unseen force, flying through the air and gathering in a pile at Ben's feet.
"Guns are dangerous," Ben chided. "You could hurt yourselves."
"Rictusempra."
A jet of silver light hit the lead agent. He collapsed to the floor, laughing uncontrollably, unable to breathe.
"Tarantallegra."
Another agent began tap-dancing furiously against his will, kicking his own allies in the shins.
It wasn't a battle. It was humiliation.
"DIE!!"
A screeching voice cut through the noise.
Miss Merry Christmas broke through the line of agents. She had transformed into her hybrid form—a human-sized mole with massive claws and thick glasses. She was fast, scurrying on all fours, darting in a zigzag pattern to avoid Ben's aim.
"You think you're funny, Wizard boy?!" she shrieked. "You think magic scares me?! I'm a digging human! I own the ground!"
She leaped into the air and dove nose-first toward the stone floor.
"Mole Banana: Diggy Diggy!"
Her claws shredded the stone like it was wet paper. She vanished underground in a spray of gravel, leaving a hole behind.
The floor began to rumble. A bulge in the stone moved rapidly toward Ben, circling him like a shark in water.
"I'm gonna get you from below!" her voice echoed from beneath the floorboards. "You can't shield your feet! I'll drag you down and suffocate you!"
Ben sighed. He looked down at the moving bump in the floor.
"Why do they always want to go underground?" Ben muttered. "It's so dirty down there."
He watched the trail. She was circling, building up speed for a surprise upward strike.
Ben raised his wand. He didn't aim at the mole. He aimed at the floor itself.
The bump in the floor was rushing straight toward Ben's feet. She was two meters away. One meter.
"DIE!" she screamed from below.
Ben tapped the floor.
"Duro Mutare: Ferrum Solidus."
A metallic sheen rippled out from Ben's wand tip, spreading across the floor faster than the eye could follow. The grey limestone turned a cold, gleaming silver.
In an instant, the entire floor of the aquarium room was transmuted into a single, solid sheet of high-grade industrial steel, three feet thick.
Miss Merry Christmas, currently tunneling at high speed through what she thought was soft rock, didn't realize the change until it was too late.
CLAAAAAAANG!
The sound was deafening. It was the sound of a high-speed car hitting a solid steel bunker. The entire room vibrated. The "bump" in the floor stopped instantly.
From beneath the steel, a muffled, pained groan echoed up.
"Ow..."
Ben tapped the steel floor with his heel.
"Solid," he noted. "Good quality."
He knelt down near the spot where she had hit the "ceiling" of the underground tunnel. He placed the tip of his wand against the steel.
"She's probably concussed," Ben mused. "But let's be sure."
"Bombarda."
He cast a localized blasting curse through the metal. The shockwave traveled through the steel and detonated in the small tunnel space directly onto the mole woman's head.
THUMP.
The ground shook one last time.
Then, silence from below.
"You... you monster..." a remaining Millions agent stammered, dropping his sword.
Ben stood up and looked at the remaining agents. There were maybe ten left standing. They looked at Miss Doublefinger (embedded in a wall), Mr. 4 (embedded in a wall), and the spot where Miss Merry Christmas was buried under solid steel.
Ben raised his wand.
"Sopor." (A sleeping fog charm).
A thick, purple mist erupted from his wand, rolling over the remaining agents. As soon as the mist touched them, they yawned, their eyes drooped, and they collapsed to the floor in a deep, magical slumber.
Ben dusted off his trench coat. He hadn't broken a sweat.
He looked over at Nami, who was looting Miss Doublefinger's unconscious body for cash.
He looked at Usopp, who was currently posing on top of Mr. 4's unconscious body.
"Clean sweep," Ben said.