Summary: Who's that Pokem...err person punching a warlord?!

  Warning! Chapters 57-61 were all posted back-to-back! Make sure you didn't miss any!

  Chapter 60: Rough Landing and Impolite Greetings

  There were long moments of stunned silence as everyone aboard the Discovery tried to process the crash and recover. Luffy, linked to the ship as he'd been, was at least aware that the damage had been pretty minimal. Nami's braking maneuver, the impact with the mast farther slowing them down, and Luffy's st-second burst of armament Haki to reinforce the hull, all meant that the ship itself barely had a scratch. That didn't mean that the sheer impact force hadn't jarred all of them, and even Luffy needed a short minute to recover from the abrupt drain on his Haki.

  Thankfully, most of the fires were elsewhere, rather than right on top of the ship, and the only living presences Luffy had felt were radiating as much surprised confusion as his own crew was. One of those presences, a concerningly strong one, recovered even faster than Luffy did and began moving toward their ship, causing Luffy to rally his crew.

  "Look alive people! Potential hostile incoming!"

  Not all of his crew managed to gather themselves quickly at his barked order, but most of them did. Robin was already spreading her sensory network and he felt waves of Observation Haki spreading out from Kuina, Zoro, Kaya, and Nami. Nojiko had simply chosen to go airborne and start summoning crystals as ammunition, keeping her own Haki in close. She wasn't the best at using it when so many others around her were disrupting the natural spiritual fabric with their own Observation. It was Robin, of course, that first got eyes on the opposition, paling and calling out a face she recognized from bounty posters.

  "It's Dofmingo!"

  Luffy cursed and immediately stopped sandbagging, embracing one of his Hybrid forms for the first time outside very carefully hidden training. He hadn't properly repced his sword yet, still experimenting with new options, and this wasn't the time to be dicking around with an inferior spare, which he quickly tossed in his inventory. Massive wings of lightning burst from his shoulders, even as his body sprouted fur and shifted to take on characteristics of a tiger. His Stormtiger form, revealed openly for the first time, shot upward, and the approaching flyer gave off a feeling of utter surprise before screeching to a stop. Luffy didn't do anything of the sort in return. Instead, he summoned up the biggest burst of lightning he could form quickly and unched it at the Warlord, shouting an order as he did.

  "No quarter! Nami, power the Storm Canon!"

  He could feel his crew's shock at the order, feel their moment of hesitation before they started moving. But he didn't let it stop him from raining more lightning down on where his first bolt had already been outright blocked. Donquixote Dofmingo was not someone he was willing to fuck around with. He had only very limited knowledge of the man from his first life. Things he'd learned not from watching One Piece, but from hearing brief snippets from others after he'd already dropped the show. Just enough to know that he would, at some point, not only be a major threat…but also might be in possession of an Awakened Devil Fruit.

  That was scary enough, but Luffy might not have simply gone for the kill if that's all he'd known. Instead, much of what Luffy was acting on now had nothing to do with his past life and everything to do with being the Grandson of Garp. A grandfather he'd been much closer to than the original Luffy, since he hadn't been screaming his fool head off about wanting to be King of the Pirates every five minutes. That meant Garp had told him more than a little, over the years, about various threats out there. Dofmingo was one of the very few among those threats Garp had ever lost his bsé manner when speaking of. His grandfather had been grim when he'd described the man as a dangerous sociopath that he'd needed to be specifically ordered to leave alone.

  Something about the psycho sadist made the World Government leery of targeting him. Leery enough to use what little influence they had over Garp to firmly stand on his grandfather's throat when it came to the Warlord. Luffy had theories about what that was. But it was little more than rumors and secondhand information from his first life. He wasn't sure the series had even gotten to a proper expnation before he'd died. All he knew was that Garp wanted badly to kill the motherfucker, but couldn't. That was more than enough for Luffy to take the gloves off. Particurly when his girlfriend had…not been pleased when she'd pointed out that he hadn't used his Hybrid form against Enel. He'd risked defeat when there literally hadn't been anyone around that could report it.

  He'd reordered his priorities after what had been the closest thing he and Nami had so far had to an argument. Even so, if he'd had a reliable bde or more information on his enemy, he wouldn't have reached for the transformation so fast. Letting things py out to see if doing so was justifiable. As it was, cking both his primary fighting style and almost completely uncertain what he was facing for the first time since he'd ended up in this new life, he didn't hesitate. Something which saved his life over the next several seconds as a burst of Conqueror's Haki shed out at him. It only froze him for an instant before his own rose up and shed back. But that instant, the first time he'd experienced this side of the King's Disposition, was long enough for a razor-sharp string to attempt to cut him in half.

  His momentary freeze had kept him from forming up Armament to block, but there hadn't been any Armament in the string either, and it met the reinforced flesh of his hybrid form and lost. Not without leaving a mark, a shallow cut on Luffy's left side that made him mentally curse that his lightning form wasn't automatic, like a Logia's would be. Then, there was no more time for thought as his own Conqueror's Haki cshed with Dofmingo and the entire world seemed to freeze and the very air cracked. He could feel half his crew barely clinging to consciousness, with Chopper only pulling through because Kaya did something with her own Haki that wrapped a shield around him.

  An instant ter, he could feel his own shock echoed from the Warlord as a third burst of Conqueror's Haki smmed into the mix from a completely different section of Thriller Bark. The world screamed and Dofmingo barely dodged out of the way of a massive bck covered arm that Luffy recognized. Impossibly recognized. His own shock, as much as that of Dofmingo's and the fact the newcomer didn't follow up on the attack, caused the battle to screech to a temporary pause.

  All three cshing domes of Haki continued to press against each other, nearly visibly to the naked eye. No longer actively cshing, but still fully out and exposed to the world. The very mist and fog of the Florian triangle burst apart from the csh of three wills, fleeing from Thriller Back, revealing the wrecked ruin of a ship that had clearly seen heavy combat between powerful forces. Parts were on fire, others were piles of rubble, and in still more pces it was clearly taking on water. Thriller Bark was sinking, but its sheer size was making that process slow.

  Luffy didn't have any attention to spare for that fact, and little enough to spare even for Dofmingo. Numbly, he took in the unexpected newcomer to the fight. The newcomer who had just used an equivalent to Gear 3, complete with Armament Haki. A technique that would have been developed by the original Monkey D. Luffy, if he hadn't been repced by…well…himself. The disorientation was real as Luffy processed that it was a fiercely grinning woman that had nded on a pile of rubble and pulled back that fist. A woman he recognized. Not from having watched the show, but from the sheer amount of Fan Art that had spread regarding her in his old world.

  Yamato.

  Daughter, or perhaps son, of Kaidou.

  She didn't quite match what he'd known of her. She was at least a foot shorter than he'd expected. But, if anything, even more 'stacked' up top than the art had made her out to be. Something shown off to a nearly obscene degree by the same sleeveless white top and red hakama bottom that she'd been so often drawn with. When, of course, she'd been drawn with anything on at all. The purple and white nio-dasuki rope was missing, repced with a more practical purple sash, and the giant club she was supposed to wield was absent. Despite knowing his brain was whirling at lightning speed, accelerated in his Hybrid Form by his element, it felt like he was swimming through mosses as the dots connected painfully slowly.

  This Butterfly knew Kung-Fu and had beat the ever-loving shit out of the timeline.

  Somehow, Yamato had escaped Wano. Even more improbably, she'd then somehow encountered and eaten the Gomu Gomu no Mi, which Luffy himself had chosen to pass up. Just as it would have altered original Luffy's physical form to a degree, it had done the same to Yamato. Yet, unlike Luffy, she'd likely have been a minimum of sixteen when she'd eaten the Fruit. Possibly older by several years. Meaning it had shifted her adult body. Compressing her total height and size somewhat, while enhancing the 'bouncy' parts of her body. That st thought was ridiculous, but this was also a Devil Fruit at work here. Ridiculous was par for the course.

  He only just managed to string that train of logic together before she spoke.

  "Oh, this looks fun. A new pyer joins the attempt to kill you, Joker!"

  Luffy blinked, not sure just who she was speaking too, though thankfully Dofmingo responded, his creepy-ass smile looking a little more strained than it had so far.

  "Yamato, isn't it a little much to follow me all the way to Paradise?"

  Yamato's grin, sharp until now, turned surprisingly joyful as her gaze snapped from the Warlord to Luffy.

  "You're just a bonus! I'm here for Luffy-dono!"

  Luffy was fully confused now, and wouldn't have minded admitting to it if he'd been able to get a word in edgewise. But Yamato quickly addressed him, seemingly half-ready to ignore Dofmingo, despite still having her Haki up and cshing with his. Wait, how had she even recognized…oh, a quick touch of his hand to his chest confirmed he'd lost his Hybrid transformation somewhere in the confusion. It still wasn't instinctive for him to maintain in when surprised, since he trained with it so infrequently. He was going to have to work on that. After figuring out what the fuck was going on.

  "Ace sent me a message that you finally reached the Grand Line, and I just couldn't wait! Then he even said he met you twice, which means you had to be nearby, so I used his Virve Card to find you! I missed him, but I found you, so it was a success!"

  Blinking and pointing to himself, Luffy couldn't keep the confusion out of his voice as he asked.

  "You were looking for…me?"

  Nodding sharply and making a frankly adorable 'uhm!' noise, Yamato's smile only grew wider as she enlightened him.

  "Yes! Ace said you were going to be the strongest! The one that would reach all the way to Laugh Tale! Then Shanks said the same thing when I met him, so it must be true! You even have the hat still!"

  Luffy was almost thankful to be saved from his gaping confusion at this complete derail of expectations by Dofmingo getting annoyed at being ignored.

  "If he's important to you, you irritating little brat, then I'll just kill him!"

  There was a fsh of movement as Dofmingo twisted his fingers, glowing-red string whipping toward Luffy. Even if he was still off-bance from the situation, though, Luffy's momentary freeze from the earlier csh of Haki was long over. His hand shifted back to that of his Hybrid form, Armament coating the cws as he easily sliced through the string. Dofmingo clearly knew Haki, likely all three forms, but Luffy's Armament was better. So was his Observation as he easily ducked around the next two attacks, shifting fully back to his Stormtiger form even as Yamato unched herself forward toward Dofmingo.

  She was fast, using something that looked suspiciously like Gear 2, complete with red skin, and the Warlord was forced to parry rather than dodge. He lost that exchange, sent flying straight through a remaining wall of what looked like some sort of Castle. He was back in an instant, strings reaching out for Yamato, only for Luffy to nearly rip him apart as he closed the distance instantly with a lightning dash and raked the man across the chest. Only a st instant pull on his strings kept the resulting ssh shallow, blood bursting from it even as the man finally lost his smile entirely. His speed increased, enough so that Luffy only stayed ahead by shifting into lighting and darting around a flurry of Haki-infused attacks in the same way he'd fought Enel.

  Then Yamato was there again, her own skin a full-body bck sheen as she simply ignored a trio of attacks that hit her, attacks that drew a bit of blood but failed to penetrate enough to matter. Dofmingo grunted, managing to get a string on her and throw her through a wall, though she popped back up with no visible damage. The opening he left to pull it off was one Luffy wasn't going to pass up, darting in as lighting, only to shift to his hybrid form point bnk. Dofmingo blocked, but Luffy's Haki mastery was superior in this case, and another deep trio of ssh marks were opened on the Warlord's arm before Luffy pulled back to avoid the man's retaliatory sweep of more Haki-den strings.

  A calcuting gnce between Luffy and Yamato seemed to come up with numbers the man didn't like. Between one heartbeat and the next, he visibly decided this wasn't a pce he wanted to be and began trying to retreat. Opening space with a hail of slicing strings that was near enough to a wall that Yamato had to go up and Luffy had to drop out of lighting form to ssh through. In the bought seconds of time and space the Warlord grabbed a distant portion of Thriller Bark with his strings and pulled himself away at high speed.

  Despite Luffy's speed advantage, the man might have succeeded in disengaging fully, gaining distance from both Luffy and Yamato with that set of moves. Except that he passed too close to the Discovery as he did so. Kaya, looking unusually grim, appeared from nowhere, right in front of him. Even Luffy faltered, having felt her just appear already inside his Observation in a way that shouldn't be possible. She'd done something with her energy to cloak herself, and Dofmingo paid for her cleverness now as a pinpoint strike took him just below the heart. He faltered, his heart stopping for an instant, before he instinctively wrapped it in String to force it to pump again.

  Yet that instant had been too long.

  Yamato smmed him into the sinking deck of the Thriller Bark with a gigantic fist from up high.

  Then Nami fired the Storm Cannon.

  A spiraling, fshing arc of multi-color lightning reached out to touch the sky, and the clear day turned to the dark of a rolling thunderstorm in seconds. Luffy embraced his Ball Lightning form, becoming part of the storm as lightning began to rain down on Thriller Bark. Dofmingo had tched onto the clouds, trying to use them for flight, but all that earned him was a direct connection through his strings to the lightning Luffy had rapidly gathered to him. The man lit up from the inside out with a massive lightning strike, but even that wasn't enough to actually kill him. He shed out in rage, parts of Thriller Bark turning to String in proof he'd at least partially awoken his Devil Fruit already.

  But it wasn't enough.

  Not already weakened by the disruptive burst of Haki Kaya had channeled into his spiritual pathways. Not pinned between Luffy and Yamato, unable to flee. Yamato hit him like a hammer, giant hands coated in Armament cpping him between them, crushing him, then releasing him to follow up with a giant foot that stamped him down into the sinking remains of the ship. The sea water that was now rapidly sweeping onto the ship's holed deck flowed over Dofmingo, weakening the Devil Fruit user for a farther critical moment.

  Unable to use his Devil Fruit, the Warlord was unable to move at all from a combination of pain, lightning overloaded muscles, and seawater, for just that single instant too long. Donquixote Dofmingo screamed in agony as a brutal pilr of bck and red lightning, gathered in massive amounts from the storm and infused with Luffy's Haki, carved straight through his heart, leaving nothing but ash behind. The Warlord died, Luffy confirming the feeling of a portion of his Devil Fruit's power being siphoned by his System. Somewhere, a Kung-Fu Butterfly cheered…and in the present a storm raged as Luffy and Yamato both made for the Discovery, the ship rising in the water as the Thriller Bark sank.

  Now, they just needed to not get sucked into the whirlpool that was bound to follow…or drowned by the storm they'd summoned up with the Storm Cannon.

  ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

  A/N 1: *Cackles* MWHWAHAHAHAHA!

  A/N 2: *cough* Um...so lots here! Yamato first, since I know she's going to be the one everyone goes 'WHAAAAAAATTTTTT?!' over. Yeah. So...I actually had this idea quite some time ago, after a bit of back and forth with a few people over how Yamato could get involved early. They really just pointed me at the meeting between Ace and Yamato, of course, and to the fact that this Ace might know enough Haki to deal with the handcuff bombs. Everything else was me sort of tying a bunch of loose ends together to make them all work out neatly. Hitting three sub points here...

  A) Yamato has been away from Wano for a couple of years at this point and has stabilized somewhat as a result. I've said this before, but I'll say it again here before accusations start flying. Yamato's thing with wanting to BE Kouzuki Oden? That's not...really a Trans thing to my mind. I know the Trans community likes to tch onto it but...honestly? It's actually got next to nothing to do with gender. Yamato may use male pronouns in canon, but she doesn't really bother correcting anyone over her gender. What she really has going on is an actively unhealthy dissociative identity disorder. Wanting to be someone else in the same way a desperate teenage girl wants to become a pop idol in order to be more popur...only quite a bit more extreme. It's a reasonable issue to develop based on her abusive background. But it's also unhealthy as fuck, and I've ruled in this story that both a couple of years less hell and those same years of time to find herself while traveling have altered her perspective to something healthier. She still GREATLY admires Kouzuki Oden, and we'll see that as the story goes on. But she's no longer obsessed with becoming him.

  B) On a less heavy point, the Gomu Gomu no Mi (or Nika Fruit, whatever)! We...still don't really know how important that bloody thing is! Which means leaving it out in the wild where I couldn't get at it if needed was...less than ideal. This means I always intended for a cast member to eat it, and Yamato very quickly rose to the top of the possibility list. I spent quite a bit of time going over all the bits of interaction I could find for her...and frankly she's the character who is most like canon Luffy basically anywhere in the story. She has all the hallmarks of his straightforward, irrepressible nature and I'd be utterly unsurprised to discover she was a D. Frankly, her personality, disregarding the Kouzuki Oden obsession, is VERY simir to Luffy's. A tiny bit more down to earth, but honestly eerily simir otherwise. She even somewhat physically matches Luffy's traits, having very sticklike arms and legs despite absurd strength. A few tweaks to account for her 'other proportions' and it all fits together pretty smoothly. Rewatching the relevant bits of Wano, it also seems to me like her own Devil Fruit was a quite recent thing in canon. It too, was also a Mythical Zoan, so it's a move sideways rather than an actual power up for her. All while providing the potential to awaken her as JoyGIRL if Oda makes that bit so central to the ending/plot that I can't get around it.

  C) Also, you all know you want to see Gomu Gomu no Boobie Barrage at some point. This is self-evident.

  A/N 3: Dofmingo is dead! Oh noes! This...actually doesn't change the plot all that much? Oh, it will, but it technically only shifts it a bit sideways. Frankly put, despite being a major antagonist for two arcs, he's sort of...unimportant in the grand scheme of things. His main thing was the production of SMILEs, but that is actually Ceaser Clown, not him. He was basically just Ceaser's protection/sponsor. All this really means is that Clown boy needs a new sugar daddy to protect/shield him. Which...well...dime a dozen in the New World to pick from, since he has something valuable to trade.