Arlong Park was, if I wanted to be true to myself, actually pretty cool. The tower was like something straight from Japan, which considering this is an anime world, was probably not far off the mark. A rectangular pool of sea water was blocked from the ocean by two doors, though they were currently open. The surrounding area was all cement floor, and a large, thick fence-like thing wrapped around the base's contours. The things that ruined it were 1) the rubble and dust lying everywhere since Lucy smashed the doors down and 2) the fact that it was occupied by about three dozen of the world's ugliest. Creatures. Ever.
Seriously. They were the definition of ugly. If you looked up "ugly" in this world's dictionary, it'd probably have a picture of fishmen next to it. Not to be racist or anything, but I stared in horror at their bodies, which were all half-human and half-sea creatures. I saw some various weird additions, like gills on all of them, fins, sharp and pointed teeth, and webbed feet. Plus, they were every color of the rainbow imaginable, which just wasn't meant to be. Everything about them screamed NOT NATURAL!
As a Christian, I had trained myself to look past the outside of someone's appearance and see their true self, and maybe the fact that I knew these fishmen would kill for fun wasn't making me feel much guilt; but I could not make myself do that.
I gagged mentally at them instead.
"Arlong?" said a fishman with pale blue skin, curly black hair, and an ugly jagged nose. He wore a yellow shirt with some red design that I couldn't make out from this distance, as well as dark green shorts that did not go well with his skin. Not that I knew about fashion, but he needed a stylist. "That would be my name."
"My name is Lucy," Lucy stated calmly. She marched forward across the huge complex, hands clenched into tight fists. .
"Lucy?" mused Arlong. "And just what the hell are you?"
"A pirate."
A weird looking fishman with pink skin, tentacles, big suction-cup like pores, and gray spiky hair gasped suddenly and jabbed his finger at her. "That's her!" he announced. "She's here! The girl who likes to take walks!"
I was slightly confused on how he knew her, but I shrugged and returned to the heat of the moment.
"Not so fast there, you," a fatso with light green skin and a pink shirt snickered, clearly confident that Lucy was a weakling. "Where do you think you're going?"
A tall one with a striped shirt spoke up. "You have quite a bit of explaining to give us first, sister."
Lucy paid him no mind and simply kept on walking. The fatso from before and another bozo stepped in front of her, gripped her shoulders, and tried to threaten her, but she simply took them by the shoulders (which should have been impossible; they were at least half a human taller than her, but then again, she DID eat the Gum-Gum Fruit) and smashed their heads together with a sickening bong like a bell. "Out of the way!" she commanded.
They collapsed to the ground and in spite of myself, I winced. That was gonna hurt in the morning.
"And what does a pirate want with me?" Arlong asked, unperturbed, as though this was a common occurrence.
Lucy stopped short, bent her arm, gripped the bent arm's wrist, and leaned forward while throwing them back, all the while growling in anger. She let loose a terrible battle cry and her arm snapped forward, barreling into a collision course with Arlong's face. With a bone-shattering CRUNCH, Arlong was tossed unceremoniously through the air. He landed on the cement with enough force to shake it, bounced and rolled, and smashed to an abrupt halt against the fence, throwing a cloud of dust into the air.
Gasps of fear and panic from Arlong's crew. Gasps of awe and disbelief from the villagers.
Smirks from us Straw Hats. The bastard was finally getting his just desserts.
When the dust cloud cleared, there was the fishman pirate captain, stuffed into an Arlong-shaped hole in his fence. He regarded Lucy darkly and spat, "Who the hell are you?"
"DON'T YOU DARE MAKE MY NAVIGATOR CRY!" Lucy bellowed, her female voice breaking midway.
Several more fishmen leaped out of the rectangular pool, cursing, "Bitch! How dare you hit Arlong-san!"
Sanji and I leaped to action, him with his kicks and me with a few well-placed Aqua Fists, stealing sea water from the conveniently placed pool. "You damned weaklings stay out of this!" Sanji ordered as they flew back with pained shouts.
"Never call my captain a bitch in front of me!" I told them, seething.
We stepped into place beside Lucy once all those guys were taken care of. Sanji was on the left, and I was on the right.
"Honestly," Sanji muttered. "Those bastards, attacking a defenseless woman."
"She's not defenseless," I pointed out.
"It's not like I'm going to lose even though I don't have any weapons," Lucy agreed, slightly annoyed.
"Whatever," the love cook conceded, not willing to get in a fight with a lady, even a tomboy like Lucy. "I just don't want you to hog all the enemies."
Usopp stepped forward, shivering in fright. "Uh, I-I don't really m-mind... if you h-hog them all, that is..."
"That's some bravery you've got there, Usopp," said Zoro in mock-awe, rolling his eyes. Even though the swordsman was a bit of a jerk, when he was making fun of other people, he was funny.
The pink tentacle fishman gasped again and jabbed his finger at the local Marimo. "Ah! It's him! It's that guy! The unknown swordsman!"
A pale blue skinned fishman with gorilla muscles, who looked more human than his kin except for his strange hair and rather protruding elbows, supplied the answer. "Roronoa Zoro."
"As I thought, as I thought!" the geek in the pink mused. "He's the guy who tricked me! He rode me... I mean, I gave him a ride..."
"Look, that long-nose!" said a long-mouthed guy with purple skin.
Mr. Pink was mystified. "EH?! But Nami killed that guy!"
"He's alive," said someone behind them that I couldn't see. "Which means..."
Gorilla Chest narrowed his eyes. "Aha! I knew it! I was right all along! That woman's a traitor!"
I gave them all my most deadliest wolf glare. "THE ONLY TRAITORS ARE YOU DAMNED FISHMEN! YOU PROMISED NAMI HER VILLAGE'S FREEDOM IF SHE COULD RAISE 100,000,000 BELLI, BUT STOLE THE MONEY JUST BEFORE SHE COULD COLLECT ALL OF THE AMOUNT SO SHE WOULD BE FORCED TO CONTINUE WORKING FOR YOU! YOU BROKE YOUR PROMISE, WHICH MAKES YOU TRAITORS! " A breeze danced across Arlong Park, rippling our clothes and blowing Lucy's hair to the side.
Arlong laughed. "Us? Traitors? We never broke our promise. I will give Nami her village back if she can present to me 100,000,000 belli. Anyway... so you five are pirates, eh? I see. So that's the relationship between you guys. I thought you were just Nami's victims. But, JYAHAHAHA! What can five weaklings do against a superior being like me?"
"Do you think this is what Fisher Tiger would want you to do?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.
He glared at me. "Fisher Tiger was a hero to fishman! He saved us from the human slave traders, and then was killed by humans! I'm avenging his name!"
"He saved humans, too," I pointed out. "But what about Jinbei? I bet he'd flip if he knew what you were doing!"
"Jinbei was a bastard fool who wanted to make peace with humans," he cursed. "He will soon see the errors of his ways, mark my words."
"Nyuhuhuhu!" laughed the weird six-armed pinkie, walking up to us and coming to a stop between our group and the rectangular pool. "Calm down, Arlong-san. These guys are just idiots." He turned to us. "You think Arlong-san will waste his time with the likes of you? He will be enough for you!" He turned to the ocean and blew air out of his long, horn-like mouth. A blast like a trumpet emitted from it, and then for a second nothing happened.