One Piece: Global improvement system

303: Orion Vs The Blackbeard Pirates!

May 28, 1504, Age of the Sea CircleOrion had sensed that there was something strange about the gloomy boy the system had identified as the Named Character Doc Q. He had decapitated him mercilessly almost two days ago, so his body should have already begun decomposing long ago, and yet there was not the slightest change in either its structure or appearance—aside from the obvious fact that it had been decapitated.

For that reason, Orion approached to examine Doc Q more closely, only to discover that he was still alive!

However, despite the fact that Doc Q was alive, he was not in any condition to pose a threat to either him or the people of Gourde, because the gloomy doctor boy had been forced to enter a state of induced biological cryogenesis in order to stay alive.

The moment Orion's sword had come into contact with his neck, severing it cleanly, Doc Q had unconsciously activated the powers of his Shiku Shiku no Mi, infecting himself with a powerful disease based on cancer, which sealed his wounds with a massive amount of tumors.

Moreover, since even that would not have been enough for him to survive, he had used his Devil Fruit powers to induce a state of suspended death, in which all of his vital functions were reduced to the absolute minimum possible, allowing him to cling to life for at least a little longer while waiting for a chance to recover.

Naturally, even in this state he could not last forever, but until the remaining energy within his body was completely consumed by his cells, he would be able to remain alive in this suspended state, waiting for an opportunity to revive.

It was impossible for Doc Q to "reassemble" himself through his own means, so now his life rested entirely in the hands of fate, and unfortunately for Orion, he understood very well just how much the timeline tended to correct itself in order to continue along its original course. Because of that, he could not afford the carelessness of leaving Doc Q alive once again.

Still, this alone would have been nothing more than a surprise to Orion and would not have provoked the overwhelming sense of imminent danger he was suddenly feeling, so he immediately realized there was another threat present in the area.

Without wasting a second, he unsheathed his sword and attacked the severed head of the zombie-like boy Doc Q, intending to slice it into a thousand pieces and eliminate any possibility of recovery.

Clang!

Unfortunately for Orion, his attack was intercepted by a cane coated in Armament Haki, wielded by a strange and sinister-looking man he had never seen before, though whose name he already knew because it had appeared on the system screen a second earlier: Laffitte.

"Oh, oh, just in time. If I'd arrived even a second later, you would've erased our potential nakama," Laffitte said with a carefree and friendly smile, which nevertheless looked deeply macabre in Orion's eyes. Then, grabbing Doc Q's head with one hand and his body with the other, he leapt backward, putting distance between himself and Orion.

"Zehahaha! What a strange place to run into a familiar face!" echoed the voice of one of the most infamous pirates of the era from the distance.

Orion, who had been staring tensely at Laffitte, shifted his gaze toward the coast, where a bizarre-looking group of pirates was slowly approaching, with Marshall D. Teach at the front.

"Blackbeard…" Orion muttered as he felt a strange pressure in the air, one that seemed to slowly wrap itself around his body like a serpent cutting off his escape routes.

Without a doubt, Blackbeard's presence here was the last thing he had wanted to encounter, especially after hearing the prophecy Shyarly had made about seeing him consumed by a massive mass of darkness.

That was precisely why Orion had intended to leave the North Blue immediately, because thanks to Shanks, he knew that Blackbeard and his crew were operating somewhere within this Blue.

However, because of the incident involving Doc Q and everything that had happened to Mitsu, he had had no choice but to delay his departure, which had inevitably led him into this dangerous situation.

Orion knew very well that at his current level, he could not compete against the pirate crew standing before him, especially when he was the only person present capable of fighting at even a moderately high level—since the rest of his companions this time were merely children, or lacked combat experience altogether, like Monet.

Perhaps if Orion had been accompanied by some of his more powerful subordinates, such as Lucky Roux, Gab, or even Galus and Olive, he might have attempted a surprise attack against his enemies.

But in the current situation, he was in a completely disadvantageous position. After all, the pirate crew before him had been capable of fighting against the Red-Haired Pirates for several days, even if they had ultimately been defeated and forced to flee in order to survive.

"What's wrong, boy? Cat got your tongue? Our captain's talking to you!" suddenly said one of Blackbeard's crew members, Catarina Devon.

Orion had heard directly from his wife Olive just how powerful the pirate woman was, and he knew she had even fought evenly against Whitey Bay, who had been one of Whitebeard's original crew members and possessed a respectable level of strength within the New World.

"Oh? Now that I think about it, his face looks familiar too," said Avalo Pizarro, who had been recruited by Blackbeard after Laffitte rescued him from the Marines while he was being transported to Impel Down.

Orion had encountered Avalo Pizarro more than two years earlier, when he had helped Dragon and the Revolutionary Army overthrow him, since the man who was now a pirate had once been a corrupt king who exploited his own subjects.

Back then, Orion had not killed him despite having the chance to do so, because Dragon's plan involved a deal with the Marines that required handing over the former king Avalo Pizarro as a prisoner. Now that he saw Pizarro standing among Blackbeard's crew, Orion could not help but think that he truly should have taken advantage of that opportunity, though there was no way to change the past now.

"Hic, how can you recognize him when his face is so blurry? Hic," said Vasco Shot as he took a massive swig of sake from the bottle he carried with him.

Another familiar face had once again appeared before Orion, because years earlier he had clashed with Vasco Shot and had nearly met a tragic end due to the tricky Devil Fruit the pirate possessed—which he had used to intoxicate Orion without him noticing by releasing a cloud made of invisible alcohol particles.

Out of the five current members of Blackbeard's crew, Orion had crossed paths with nearly all of them before, with Laffitte being the only one he had never encountered in the past.

And beyond Blackbeard himself, with whom he had never had any direct conflict because they had met during his visit aboard Whitebeard's ship, Orion had, in one way or another, ended up in conflict with all the others.

It was almost as though fate itself were gathering together his most dangerous enemies, those he had failed to finish off, and bringing them into a single crew, a thought that made his blood run cold as he wondered whether this was mere coincidence, or some sort of defense mechanism from the timeline he kept altering through his actions.

"Let's see, first I make a cut here, then fit this part into this gap. How fun, it's just like assembling a puzzle," Laffitte said with a broad smile as he "fit" Doc Q's head back together with the rest of his body.

The body of the small zombie-like boy trembled faintly once it became whole again, and little by little his vital functions began returning, his breathing visibly resuming even though he still remained unconscious in Laffitte's arms. Most likely, Doc Q would not recover immediately after the grotesque biological modifications he had inflicted upon his own body in order to prolong his life a little longer, but given enough time, he would return to normal, escaping death's grasp completely.

"Your name was… Orion, right? You remember me, don't you? We met aboard old Whitebeard's ship. How've you been? Zehahaha!"

Blackbeard waved cheerfully at Orion in a friendly greeting, almost as though the threatening pressure radiating from both him and his entire crew were nothing more than an illusion. Orion, however, knew very well that such a thing was impossible, and he had no intention whatsoever of lowering his guard before such a dangerous pirate.

Orion kept his gaze fixed firmly on Blackbeard and his crew, though through his Observation Haki he also identified the positions of his allies nearby. Fortunately, only Drake and Monet had emerged from the Pocket Dimension before he closed the Space Doors, though unfortunately several of Gourde's citizens had also managed to get out and were now caught in the middle of the battlefield.

That was right—for Orion, this was already a battlefield, and in truth, the fight had begun the very moment Laffitte blocked his attack and Blackbeard opened his mouth to greet him.

Teach noticed that Orion was not responding to his words, and his eyes narrowed with a dangerous glint.

"You know, Orion, I'd rather there not be any trouble between us. After all, we're old acquaintances, aren't we?" Blackbeard said as he stepped a little closer toward him.

"Monet, get into the Space Gate!"

Suddenly, before Teach could take another step, Orion used Soru at the highest speed he could manage and, grabbing Drake by the arm—since he was standing right beside him—threw him into the Space Gate he had just opened, while simultaneously rushing toward Monet to do the same with her.

However, before he could reach her, a massive wall of darkness swallowed everything, and he failed to grab the green-haired girl's hand in time. Moreover, the wave of darkness Blackbeard had unleashed to cut off his escape routes crashed directly into the Space Gate, destroying it before Orion could do anything to stop it and causing a backlash effect.

Orion used Geppo to move through the air and evade several tendrils of darkness before finally stopping with his back pressed against the massive wall of darkness that had appeared behind him. Blood trickled from his mouth as he wiped it away, the result of the internal injuries caused by the backlash from his destroyed Space Gate.

"Young master…" Monet said as she struggled unsuccessfully against Blackbeard's grip.

"Fuck, I guess today just isn't my lucky day," Orion said in a weary voice.

He still had not mentally recovered from the strain of using his Room nonstop for an entire day, and now he had suffered additional damage from the destruction of his Space Gate while being forced to confront one of the most powerful pirate crews in the world.

"I wish we could do this the easy way, Orion, but my gut tells me it's dangerous to leave you alive, and a real man always listens to his instincts! Zehahaha!" Blackbeard showed an aggressive expression as he stared at Orion like a dead man walking.

"Besides, you almost made us lose the chance to obtain a top-tier doctor like this adorable young man. You've got to pay the price for that," Laffitte said as he lifted Doc Q by the head without the slightest bit of care, causing the boy's freshly reattached neck to stretch as though it were about to split apart again.

"Captain, can I have that woman? It's been a long time since I screw such a pretty woman, hic," Vasco Shot said, staring at Monet with eyes overflowing with lust.

Beyond being a hopeless drunk—made even worse by his Devil Fruit—Vasco Shot was, above all else, a degenerate whose depravity was known by everyone. Over the years, he had accumulated countless victims, often using his powers to intoxicate women before violating them in front of their boyfriends or husbands.

"If you knew what true beauty was, you would've come begging for my attention, but I suppose it's impossible to expect too much from a man with tastes as vulgar as yours," Catarina Devon added indignantly from the side while striking a pose that she personally considered incredibly beautiful.

"Alright then, let it be a farewell show for my old acquaintance Orion. Zehahaha!"

Blackbeard tossed Monet toward Vasco Shot, and the pirate caught her with open arms, his hands roaming across the unfortunate girl's body while simultaneously using his Devil Fruit powers to rub concentrated alcohol particles into her skin, forcing her into an induced state of drunkenness.

"I can't wait! Hic, Ah—"

Vasco Shot placed his hands on Monet's clothes, preparing to strip and violate her right in front of Orion, but before he could do so, she activated the powers of her Snow Snow Fruit, freezing the pirate's body and slipping free from his grasp, though she was far too dizzy from the drunkenness to properly move away.

"Young master, I'm sorry for not being a good servant! I couldn't even protect Mitsu and Perona," the green-haired girl began to say.

For the past few days, she had been feeling terrible because she had failed to protect the two girls inside her snow dome, something that had nearly ended with the little clone's death, though Orion had ultimately managed to save her through tremendous effort.

Even so, Monet viewed her performance as a complete failure, and now that she was drunk, her feelings were spilling out uncontrollably.

"It made me so happy when you saved me that day at the slave market. It felt like the world itself was telling me that I deserved to live," Monet continued her monologue while Blackbeard and his crew watched with interest, as though enjoying some kind of performance.

"So please, at least let me do one last thing for you, young master."

Monet's body transformed into snow, and a massive wave of cold began spreading throughout the area, though Blackbeard and his companions still did not move at all, unable to believe Monet represented any real threat.

"Please, take care of Sugar for me."

Finally, Monet, in her snow form, showed a beautiful smile, and her body began producing an enormous amount of snow, creating a gigantic dome that trapped Blackbeard's entire crew inside.

"Zehahaha, is that all? Do you think Orion can escape just because you stall us for a moment? We're inside my domain of darkness!" the pirate exclaimed proudly.

"There's nothing more unpleasant than a man who's too full of himself," Monet said with a smile, causing Blackbeard's laughter to stop instantly, replaced by an expression of anger.

Despite being drunk, Monet had not lost the ability to think, and she knew Orion would be capable of escaping the barrier of darkness Teach had placed around them, because after all, he possessed spatial abilities!

Monet trusted that Orion could use the brief moment she had given him with her ice barriers to flee far away from this place and reach safety, but once again she misunderstood Orion's personality and way of acting, since she had still been by his side for only a short time.

Bang!

The enormous wall of snow was destroyed by a gigantic fist, which continued forward and crashed directly into Blackbeard and his crew, while Orion appeared at incredible speed beside Monet and pulled her tightly against his body, causing the already flushed girl to turn even redder.

"First Mitsu and now you—you all need to stop trying to sacrifice your lives! I refuse to leave you behind!" Orion said as he lightly karate-chopped her forehead the way he usually did.

"Don't worry, Monet, everything's going to be alright. I'm here to protect you," Orion said while staring directly into her eyes, before opening a door in the air and throwing her into the Pocket Dimension like a sack of potatoes.

"Alright then, now it's time for me to deal with these pirates," Orion said with an aggressive smile as he rested his cutlass over his shoulder in a combative stance.

"I see you're feeling pretty confident. Let's see how long that smile lasts!" Blackbeard said while gathering an enormous amount of darkness into both hands, prepared to drown his enemy within a sea of shadows.

"There's something I've wanted to try for a long time," Orion said as he pulled out a gigantic container filled with fruits, the tool he used to steal Devil Fruits from his enemies.

"One, two, three, four. You really do have quite a few Devil Fruit users, huh?" Orion said with a smile that caused Blackbeard to feel uneasy for the very first time since arriving at Gourde.

"Let's see what you think of this."

Orion pulled a bag out of his inventory, and reaching inside, he grabbed a large number of marbles stored within it that appeared completely harmless at first glance. Then, he hurled them at incredible speed toward Blackbeard and his crew, and just before they struck them, he undid the effects of his Art Coating, returning them to their original state.

The marbles immediately began expanding in size until they transformed into gigantic water tanks, each filled to the brim with seawater that Orion had prepared in advance specifically to deal with Devil Fruit users.

Finally, Orion pulled out one of the Dyna Stone arrows he had obtained after completing the mission on Jewel Island, and using Shesha as a bow through Armament Haki, he fired the projectile toward the pirates and the descending water tanks above them.

Blackbeard's face was illuminated by the light of the massive explosion caused by the Dyna Stone embedded in the arrow, while an enormous torrent of water came crashing down upon them like a waterfall. In a panic, the powerful pirate unleashed the full power of his Yami Yami no Mi, desperately trying to contain Orion's combined assault, though unfortunately for him, the sheer volume of water pouring from the sky was simply too much to suppress.

Even so, Orion's attack was not over yet, because he knew that would not be enough to deal with the pirates, nor even enough to escape the massive barrier of darkness surrounding him. What he was truly trying to gain was only a little bit of time—and he had succeeded.

"Cough, cough, fuck! That damned bastard really got us this time," Blackbeard said while struggling to stand, weakened by the effects of the seawater on his body.

"Watch out!" Laffitte suddenly shouted as he threw himself toward Blackbeard to shield him from the attack Orion had prepared with great difficulty.

"Door Collapse."

Orion's palm, carrying thousands of collapsing spatial planes within it, descended upon the pirate, who scrambled away pathetically on all fours in an attempt to escape.

However, just as the attack was about to connect with Blackbeard's body, Laffitte appeared to shield his captain—not with his own body, but with that of the small zombie-like boy Doc Q, who still had not recovered and remained unconscious.

Orion's attack struck Doc Q head-on, obliterating his body into thousands of pieces at terrifying speed, while Laffitte took advantage of the moment to grab his captain and flee into the distance.

Booom!

A massive explosion erupted inside the giant barrier of darkness Teach had raised to prevent Orion from escaping, and the darkness itself began spiraling around the explosion created by the spatial collapse generated through Door Collapse, producing an image eerily similar to that of a black hole.

The darkness barriers could not withstand such overwhelming destructive power and collapsed completely, allowing Orion to seize the opportunity and escape the area.

He knew perfectly well that the previous outcome had only been possible because he had caught Blackbeard and his crew by surprise, while the final attack had failed—though he had never truly expected it to work in the first place, because Blackbeard, much like Shanks, was someone "blessed by luck," or perhaps by the timeline itself.

From the very beginning, Orion's only goal had been to escape safely from the pirates, and he had successfully achieved that objective.

"See you around, Teach," Orion said as he threw himself into the sea and swam at full speed toward the depths.

If he remained on the surface, there was no way he could escape the pirate, so his only option was to dive beneath the sea, where Devil Fruit users could not pursue him.

At that moment, Orion felt grateful that Blackbeard did not share Shanks' philosophy of refusing to consume Devil Fruits, because in that case escaping would have been far more difficult—or perhaps outright impossible.

Feeling immense mental exhaustion from forcing himself to use his most powerful technique while already drained from overusing the Ope Ope no Mi, Orion fought against the fatigue threatening to make him lose consciousness, swimming deeper and deeper beneath the sea before opening a door on the ocean floor and stepping into his Pocket Dimension.

Then, using the last of his strength, he summoned Nibble, and climbing onto the soft fur of its back—which felt like a gigantic bed—he prepared to finally sleep after successfully escaping one of the most powerful pirate crews in the world.

Nibble followed its master's orders and began digging an enormous underwater tunnel using its spatial abilities, rapidly distancing itself from Gourde Island and Blackbeard's pirates.

It was the first time Orion had come into conflict with this troublesome pirate, but it certainly would not be the last.

...

Thank you for reading! If you'd like access to extra chapters and want to support my work, you can visit my .

P@treon/CrotoWN

Your support helps me keep writing and sharing more chapters!