Rumble Ball

"Kid, I haven't seen you around before. Where are you from?"

The fair-skinned East District boss swaggered toward Lucas and Baccarat, carrying a massive bloodstained wrench, his face splattered with grime and blood.

His gaze stuck to Baccarat as he brazenly swept it over her waist and face.

Baccarat frowned and shrank back behind Lucas, her face full of disgust.

Lucas stepped forward, completely blocking the man's view. He waved a hand as though shooing away a fly.

"Who I am has nothing to do with you. Don't look at things you shouldn't. While I'm still in a decent mood, get lost."

As one of the bosses who ruled the four major districts, the young man had just won a battle. There was no way he would swallow such an insult.

Especially with an extraordinary woman unlike any he had ever seen standing right before him. If he simply let them go, how could he keep making a name for himself?

He sneered, suddenly lifted his coat, and drew the flintlock pistol at his waist. The dark barrel aimed at Lucas's forehead, his finger resting on the trigger.

"Do you know who the hell I am? I call the shots on this street! If you know what's good for you, leave the woman behind you here, or I'll blow your brains out!"

Baccarat was so furious she was about to strike, but Lucas reached out and pressed a hand onto her shoulder.

"Kid, once you draw a gun, you need to be prepared to stake your life on it. This isn't a toy."

Bang!

The delinquent youth, unable to endure it any longer, pulled the trigger. Smoke burst from the muzzle as a scorching lead bullet whistled straight toward Lucas's brow.

The bullet abruptly stopped when it was still a meter from his forehead. It was as if an invisible hand had tightly seized it, leaving it suspended in midair without moving an inch.

The feral grin on the youth's face froze. Under his horrified gaze, the bullet reversed direction and screamed back at several times the speed at which it had been fired.

"Pfft."

A tiny spray of blood splashed out. A small bloody hole appeared in the center of the youth's forehead, and his eyes instantly lost focus.

The wrench in his hand clanged onto the ground as he fell stiffly backward.

After leaving Kutsk Island, the two followed the map and compass to dock at a nearby island rich in supplies, where they rested and resupplied.

Lucas also bought a batch of medicinal ingredients for making Rumble Balls.

He had never been particularly satisfied with his current Beast Form transformation. The Vampire-Vampire Fruit's Beast Form was the form he had revealed while dealing with pirates in Toransu Town.

A Zoan Fruit's Beast Form was complete beastification. However, vampires were originally humanoid mythical creatures born of imagination. The deeper he developed the Beast Form, the closer it instead came to a perfect human shape.

His ideal transformation was like Stussy's in the original timeline: only fangs and bat wings appeared, while everything else remained no different from an ordinary person.

The Rumble Ball Lucas intended to develop was naturally not Chopper's berserk version. With the Lineage Factor theory Kureha had left behind as a foundation, he wanted to precisely regulate the transformation wavelengths and erase excessive beast-like traits without affecting the boost to his strength.

On the street, Baccarat wore a fitted black dress, thin leather gloves, and slender high heels. She affectionately held Lucas's arm as they headed toward the inn.

Suddenly, Lucas paused. Without drawing attention to it, he pulled his arm from the soft contact, leaned down beside Baccarat's ear, and quickly gave her several instructions in a low voice.

Baccarat bit her lip. She did not ask any questions, merely nodded, then turned and hurried off in another direction.

At the same time, on another street in town, a man nearly three meters tall bent over in front of a fruit stall, asking the vendor about something.

His hair was a mess, and he wore loose casual clothes. He gave off an air of sleepy laziness that made him especially conspicuous among the crowd.

Kuzan had been able to locate the targets so quickly not because the Marines possessed any remarkable tracking technology.

It was simply because Lucas and Baccarat had made no effort to conceal their appearance when they asked for the location of the Marine bases a few days ago.

One moment, someone had specifically asked where the bases were. The next, all four bases had suffered a disaster. Anyone with half a brain could connect the two.

"Hey, could I ask if you've seen a couple? The man has silver hair, and the woman has red hair."

The vendor scratched his sparse hair as he tried hard to remember. Then, from the corner of his eye, he suddenly spotted a figure at the end of the street and immediately pointed.

"Hey! It's him, it's him, that's him! The silver-haired one!"

Kuzan turned in the indicated direction. The instant he turned around, an afterimage streaked across his vision.

The next second, Lucas was already standing before him.

"Ara ara, kid, you're pretty quick."

"But wouldn't it be better to use those skills for something proper? Breaking into Marine bases and injuring so many soldiers... that's a little low, isn't it?"

"I merely chose the most efficient method. No other place has nautical charts as complete as the Marine archives."

Lucas had no intention of denying it. If he truly wanted to hide, he would have disguised himself when gathering information in the first place.

Before acting, he had already expected the Marines to send someone to investigate. Even an idiot understood the principle of striking back after being hit.

He had originally thought that, at most, a Vice Admiral from Headquarters would come. He had not expected a Vice Admiral to indeed arrive, except this one carried far more weight than an ordinary Vice Admiral.

Still, once he remembered that the man was Garp's disciple, he understood. Garp regularly showed up in his hometown, the East Blue, so it was only reasonable for his disciple to show up in his own home region, the South Blue.

"I quite admire your honesty."

"However, rules are rules. Trespassing into a military base and deliberately injuring Marine personnel are serious crimes. Come with me."

Kuzan's lazy expression faded, and his face turned serious.

"What if I refuse?"

A hazy cloud of blood mist appeared around Lucas's body as he fearlessly met Kuzan's gaze.

"Then don't blame me for getting a little rough."

Strands of white frost leaked from between Kuzan's fingers. The surrounding temperature suddenly plummeted, and the moisture in the air instantly condensed into fine shards of ice that fell to the ground with faint crackling sounds.

The fruit vendor shuddered from the cold and immediately turned to run, not even caring about the fruit spread across his stall.

The pedestrians on the street instinctively scattered as well. Before long, the entire street was empty.

Seeking advantage and avoiding danger was human instinct. Unless someone was a lunatic with something wrong in their head, nobody would stay in a place where disaster was clearly about to strike and wait to die.

TO BE CONTINUED