The earthen titan on Ikki, its obsidian crown jagged against the fiery sky, let out a guttural, furious growl that was less a sound and more a seismic event. Its milky eyes, burning, fixed on the distant Moby Dick and the colossal figure of Whitebeard.
With a heave that tore another chasm in the already ravaged island, the earthen titan ripped a massive boulder from its own crumbling form. The rock glowed, superheated by the island's internal fires, becoming a meteor of molten lava. With a roar of pure, possessive rage, it hurled the incandescent projectile across the churning, ash-choked sea, aimed directly at Whitebeard.
Aboard the Moby Dick, Whitebeard braced himself. He saw the molten meteor arcing towards him. His attention was already split: the enraged, newly-birthed Titan-Ymir before him, its green eyes blazing with mindless fury, and now this aerial assault.
"Gurarara…" he rumbled, a grim determination settling on his features. He wouldn't fall here. Not when his son, however monstrous his current form, was still in danger. He clenched his free fist, ready to meet the molten rock with his own quake-infused power, ready to shatter it mid-air.
The meteor screamed closer, heat washing over the Moby Dick.
But before Whitebeard could strike, a colossal hand, wreathed in steaming ice and glowing magma, shot out.
Titan-Ymir, who had been fixated on Whitebeard with primal rage, moved with shocking, instinctive speed. Its massive, contradictory hand – half frozen, half molten – intercepted the lava meteor.
Sizzle-CRACK!
The molten rock met the icy side of Ymir's hand, exploding in a cloud of superheated steam and shattered obsidian. The fiery core of the meteor, however, was caught in the molten, rocky palm of the same hand, absorbed almost, the heat making that side of Ymir's arm glow even brighter. The impact was immense, and Ymir let out a pained, confused bellow, but it held. It had caught the attack meant for Whitebeard.
Then, the titan spoke. Or rather, a sound rumbled from its massive chest, a distorted, guttural echo of a child's voice, laced with pain, confusion, and that terrifying, bestial frenzy.
"Pa…pa…"
The sound was barely recognizable, like a broken record trying to play a cherished memory. It was Boy's voice, buried deep within the monstrous form, trying to surface.
"Papa… hurt… Papa…" Ymir's head, with its burning green eyes, swiveled. It was no longer looking at Whitebeard with pure aggression. The rage was still there, a wild, untamed inferno.Its gaze, still unfocused and mad, shifted from Whitebeard towards the source of the attack, towards the distant, roaring earthen titan on Ikki Island.
The molten rock still smoldered in its hybrid hand. Ymir seemed to be processing, its mind a filled with rage and agonizing pain.
But in that moment, something had clicked. An attack on "Papa." And its immense, monstrous body had reacted.
The Whitebeard pirates stared, mouths agape. The rampaging titan, the monster born from their youngest brother, had just… protected their captain.
Whitebeard himself was stunned into silence, his fist still clenched, the molten meteor's heat still a phantom sensation on his skin. He looked at the colossal being before him, at the steam rising from its ice-and-lava hand, at the confused, raging inferno in its eyes.
Ymir let out another roar, this one directed entirely at the earthen titan across the water. It was a challenge, a declaration. The molten rock in its hand began to glow brighter, hotter.
The Moby Dick groaned and pitched violently as Ymir launched itself. It didn't fly; it leapt across the churning, ash-filled sea with a single, colossal stride, landing on the burning shores of Ikki Island with an impact that sent tremors rippling through the already dying landmass. Lava sprayed, and the very ground cracked further under its immense weight.
The earthen titan, its obsidian crown spitting defiance, roared its own challenge. Its dozen bear-constructs, like grotesque purple hounds, surged forward to meet Ymir, their forms rippling with corrupted energy.
What followed was not a battle; it was a cataclysm.
Ymir, a being of ice and fire, met the onslaught head-on. Its movements were not graceful, but they were imbued with an unstoppable, frenzied power.
One of the bear-constructs lunged, claws of hardened earth extended. Ymir's icy arm lashed out, not with a punch, but a sweeping backhand. The impact shattered the bear into a thousand pieces of rock and corrupted soil, the intense cold flash-freezing then pulverizing its form.
"**Cryo-Clasm!**" seemed to rumble from Ymir's chest, though it was more an exhalation of raw power than a spoken word.
Another bear, wreathed in the Witch's sickly green energy, tried to bite at Ymir's molten leg. Ymir stomped. The ground erupted in a localized inferno as its magmatic foot slammed down, creating a shockwave of pure heat and concussive force. "**Magma Quake!**" The bear was instantly incinerated, its form dissolving into smoking ash.
The earthen titan itself now lumbered forward, its colossal stone fists raised. It slammed them down, aiming to crush Ymir. But Ymir, despite its rage, possessed a terrifying, instinctive combat prowess. It met the descending fists not by blocking, but by thrusting its own hybrid hands upwards.
Its icy fist met one stone gauntlet, flash-freezing it, making it brittle. Its molten fist met the other, superheating it, making it soft and malleable. Then, with a guttural roar, Ymir clenched. The frozen stone fist shattered, the molten one was crushed and reshaped. "**Polarity Crush!**"
"This is… insane, yoi!" Marco breathed from the Moby Dick, watching the titanic duel unfold from a 'safe' distance. The sheer destructive output was staggering.
Shanks, Mihawk, and the others still trapped on the rapidly disintegrating parts of Ikki could only watch, trying to avoid being collateral damage.
"They're going to sink what's left of this island!" Crocodile yelled, creating sand barriers against the shockwaves.
The earthen titan, its fists regenerating, roared in fury. It ripped chunks of obsidian and corrupted earth from its own body, hurling them like cannonballs. Ymir, in turn, unleashed torrents of its contradictory elements. From its icy side, it exhaled blizzards of razor-sharp ice shards – "**Glacier Breath!**" – that shredded the incoming projectiles and froze sections of the titan's body. From its molten side, it spewed geysers of superheated magma – "**Volcanic Torrent!**" – that melted the earth and turned the bears to slag.
The remaining bear-constructs, driven by the Witch's lingering will, swarmed Ymir, trying to overwhelm it with numbers. They clawed, bit, and slammed into its colossal form.
Ymir, however, seemed to be adapting, its frenzied rage channeling into even more terrifying displays of power. Its molten hand, still clutching the remnants of the original lava meteor, began to glow with an almost unbearable intensity. It then punched into the ground, plunging its arm deep into Ikki's fiery heart.
When it pulled its arm out, it was no longer just molten rock. It was a colossal gauntlet of pure, solidified lava, jagged and steaming, radiating an apocalyptic heat. "**Inferno Gauntlet!**"
With this new weapon, Ymir became a whirlwind of fiery destruction. Each punch sent bears flying, incinerated on impact. It grabbed one bear, and the creature simply melted in its grasp.
Then, Ymir did something that made even Doflamingo's manic grin falter.
It grabbed another struggling bear-construct with its icy hand, flash-freezing it solid. Then, with its other hand, the Inferno Gauntlet, it brought the frozen bear to its massive, fanged maw.
And it ate it.
The sound of cracking ice and grinding rock was sickening. Green energy flared within Ymir's chest as it consumed the corrupted essence of the bear.
"Zehahahaha!" Teach's voice, though distant on the Moby Dick, was filled with manic understanding.