Chapter 103: I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free

Rick was ready.

He had bought through the system a really nice outfit and a new coat. Black this time.

Reiju had talked to her father about the marriage proposal Rick had made. Vinsmoke Judge was delighted at the news. He was marrying his useless son into one of the emperor’s family, building important ties, and he was marrying his one and only daughter to an outstanding human male modified by his old colleague Vegapunk. Nothing could ruin his good mood.

Reiju was wearing white knee socks with a very short pink dress, along the  mantle of the Vinsmoke family in a dark pink color.

“Oh my! What a view.” Rick said when he joined Reiju.
“Thank you.” the princess replied with a neutral face.

He presented his arm to her and she took it.

“Nervous?” he asked.
“No.”
“You really are a bad liar. But that’s alright.”
“...”
“...”
“No words of encouragement?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know… ‘Everything will be fine’ ?''
“Oh, everything will not be fine. Luffy is going to do what he wants, not following the plan, then we’ll be in deep shit and somewhat, somehow, we’ll prevail.”
“That seemed so chaotic.”
“You get used to it after a few times.”
“To think you planned on your captain not following the plan.”
“I’m the vice-captain, it’s my job to make sure that everyone is safe and sound at the end of the day. I have to think of every possibility.”
“That must be tiring.”
“You have no idea… But at the same time, it’s stimulating…”

They walked towards the garden where the ceremony would take place. The rest of Reiju's family was already there with Sanji being the exception.

“What is he doing here?” asked Niji not to be happy to see Rick after his humiliation the day before.
“Why? Escorting my fiance to her brother’s wedding of course.”
“WHAT?!”
“Did I hit you so hard yesterday that you have a hearing problem now?”

Turning to his father he asked a simple question.

“Father, why?!”
“Oh that’s easy. You and your brothers are the peak of science. Yet I’m far stronger than you while being an ordinary human. By marrying Reiju I’m bringing an exceptional and superior genetic material who will further push forward Germa’s strength and military prowess.” Rick replied bluntly, not giving Judge the opportunity to answer.

He didn’t stop walking and asked a member of the staff to show them their table. You could say anything about Big Mom’s subordinates but one thing you could not was to call them inefficient. Reiju had talked to her father only two hours ago and they already arranged the table to make a place for him. Arriving at their table, the first thing he did was to pull back his partner’s chair to let her sit down then push it back in place. Sitting down next to her closely he whispered some words.

“Soon, you’ll be your own master. Are you ready?”
“... I am.” she replied.
Putting his hand under the table he grabbed hers. Reiju did her very best to hold herself back. To not squeeze his hands, searching for some kind of comfort.

Soon enough everyone had arrived and were seated. It was no surprise that all the tables around were occupied by Big Mom’s children. Once the emperor’s plan started they would have no way out, supposedly.

The musicians began to play music, signaling the start of the ceremony. From the garden’s entrance Pudding walked in slowly, dressed in a beautiful white dress. Rick had to admit she was really pretty. Not his type though. Her hair was neither black, pink or red and she didn’t have enough assets but to be fair she was only 16. On the other hand, not many women had the same exceptional growth as Nami.

“I wonder how Robin developed over the years… We see her at eight then 28 and one drawing when she was around 16 or 18 but that’s it.”

Pudding walked down the aisle and joined her groom. The priest did his thing and as expected she pulled out a gun from under her dress and pointed it at Sanji who seemed… shocked?

“What is that idiot doing?!”

Then suddenly she crumbled on her knees crying. That’s when all hell broke loose. The priest tried to shoot Sanji himself but the latter dodged thanks to his observation Haki. That’s the moment Luffy chose to make his own entrance in a very fashioned way. On their side Rick, Reiju and the rest of the Vinsmoke family were held at gunpoint by Big Mom’s children. Judge was confused at first, not understanding what was happening.

“What’s the meaning of this?!” He asked the emperor.
“I’m just taking what I want and what I want is Germa’s technology. I don’t need you so you and your family have to go. Except for your daughter, I have plans for her.” Big mom replied and looked at Rick with a meaningful way to which he nodded as a silent reply.

Turning his head towards his daughter and her fiance, he asked the question he had.

“Why you, Reiju?”
“Because I asked Big Mom to spare her.” replied Rick then continued speaking after a sip of his wine.
“I like your daughter, she’s a good friend. I wasn’t about to let her be killed for your failure.”
“Failure?”
“Yes failure, of being a good king, of being a good husband and a good father. Look at your sons, they are not even scared of their imminent end. They don’t seem to even care.”

Judge looked at Ichiji, Niji and Yonji. The three of them were either eating or drinking without a care in the world.

“Among the emotions you took away from them was fear. You shouldn’t have done that. Reiju on the other hand she’s just suppressing hers, out of fear, to be treated the way you all treated Sanji. I’m sure that if you didn’t make it so she had to obey your every order she would have gone without leaving a single trace long ago.But she can’t, so instead she’s taking the only way out for her misery.”

Looking at his daughter, the Judge understood the situation.

“You knew?!”
“I did, father.”
“Why?! Why didn’t you tell me anything!”
“Because we deserved it. Germa is nothing but a plight on this world, bringing ruins and leaving nothing but ashes wherever we go. We’re monsters that need to be put down.” Reiju explained.

The head of the Vinsmoke began to cry as he realized everything he had worked for in his entire life had come to an end.

“Goddess that man is such a pathetic cuck. No wonder his wife cheated on him.”

That was Rick’s theory on the matter. From what he learned from Reiju while they were speaking last night, the Vinsmoke children’s mother had blond hair, the same blond that Sanji inherited. On the other hand the four other children had different colors, not matching any of their parents. While the son's hair color could have been changed because of the procedures they went through in their mother’s womb, Reiju’s pink was surprising. That was just a theory though, as, from Reiju’s words, their mother was a beautiful, kind and honest woman. Not really the type to commit adultery. But while it put her in a bad light it totally humiliated Judge so Rick chose to believe in that theory of his.

“I can save you, you know?”
“H-how?”
“Order Reiju to disregard every order you gave her then order her to never take any order from you anymore. Do that and I’m saving your family.”

That made Mama’s children surrounding them, twitched, but they didn’t do anything for the simple reason that Rick couldn’t do anything. He had the seastone bracelets on his wrists. With his abilities restricted he couldn’t take them all. Besides, the emperor had been very clear about him, they should not touch him unless she said otherwise. In the end they just kept on watching.

“The clock is ticking, Judge. 3, 2 ,1…”

Rick was putting pressure on Vinsmoke's head. Time was wasting and they had a lot of things to do. With the countdown, Judge finally took the deal he was offered.

“Okay! Okay! Reiju disregard every order I ever gave you and don’t ever take orders from me anymore.”

Rick turned to his friend and was surprised at her reaction. She had her eyes closed and was silently shedding tears. He squeezed her hands and for the first time she reacted and squeezed back.

Being a man of his word, the ex-marine used his gravity to push away his enemies surrounding him then broke the seastone bracelets. With phase 1 of his plan a success it was time for phase 2.

“Enjoy your freedom.” he told Reiju before joining the fight which had started.

He had spotted Nami, Chopper and Carrot on the other side of the garden and made his way towards them. It was not easy as many of Big Mom’s children were in the way. He didn’t have Ryusei with him, all weapons were left outside, that’s why he went with his fist. He tried to save up his stamina as much as he could as he knew that one way or another he would have to fight strong opponents. The problem with that is that it took more time than necessary to simply dodge and block hits. He wasn’t in time when Smoothie grabbed Nami in her hands. His reaction was immediate.

In a flash, Rick was on Smoothie and kicked her hard making her release his kitten who he grabbed in his arms.

“You’re all horny for me again. This time I’m witnessing it though.” replied Nami with a teasing smirk.

He couldn’t hear her, too busy ignoring the screams of destruction and death from the sea devil.

“Break their bones! Rip them apart!”
“Shut up.”
“KILL THEM ALL!”
“SHUT UP!”
“MAKE THEM SCREAM! DO IT!”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

He had screamed out loud and surprised Nami and his friends around with his outburst. While Chopper and Carrot didn’t understand what was happening, the redhead did. Taking his face in her hands she spoke up.

“You’re not horny anymore.” she said with a smile before frowning.
“You’re not horny anymore.” she repeated, making Rick roll his eyes.
“That’s not the time for jokes like that.”

Nami was about to give a retort when a piercing scream resonated. Turning around, the vice-captain saw Big Mom dazed on the ground. A rocket was fired at her, Rick didn’t know what it had in it but doubted it would work on her.

And just as expected the rocket failed to do any damage but succeeded in pissing Big Mom off. Nami called out to Rick.

“The plan failed! We need to go.”
“Where to?”
“Go to Bege!”
“Bege? As in Bege Capone? What is he doing here?”
“He was a member of Big Mom’s crew. He’s the one that planned the assassination attempt.”

Rick moved towards the mobster while he listened to Nami telling about the plan and Bege’s involvement. When he reached the man, they were shrunk and landed inside of him.

“The Shiro Shiro no mi is weird.”

After him entered Chopper and Carrot, then Sanji and, surprisingly, the Vinsmokes. Luffy and Jimbei were the last one to show up.

“The plan is a bust.” Said Bege who somehow appeared from the floor.

“Fucking wierd, indeed.”

“Then I just have to kick Big Mom’s ass!” exclaimed Luffy.
“Luffy, we came here for Sanji, not to fight an emperor. It’s time for us to go.” replied Rick.

The place started to shake violently and Bege fell to his knees bleeding.

“He’s right, we need to flee. I can’t hold any longer against her.”
“She won’t just let us go.” Nami said.
“Bege, if you turn back to your human form I could go out and make you fly. We could escape that way if not for every single enemy out there who’ll probably focus on me. I don’t think I could deal with them all.”
“We’ll take care of that.”

That was the voice of Vinsmoke Judge as he began to walk out of Bege, leaving Rick confused.

“Rick!” Reiju called out.

He turned around and grabbed what she had thrown at him.

“It was with our raid suits.”
“Thank you!”

Being reunited with Ryusei made him feel good and hung her up on his side.

“That’s his way of repaying you for saving his life.” Sanji said noting the lack of understanding from his Vice-Captain about his father’s actions.
“Except he already paid the price; I saved his life for Reiju’s freedom.”
“What?!” exclaimed the cook.
“Your big sis is not his slave anymore. She can do whatever she wants.” Rick stated with a smile.
“...Thank you. Reiju… Reiju was the only one who treated me with an ounce of kindness. She’s the one who helped me escape Germa.”
“No need for thanks. She’s my friend, I would’ve helped her, sister or not.”

As Rick made his way to the outside, Nami called out to him with an important question.
“What do we do if they can’t protect you?”
“If worst comes to worst… I’ve made preparations for such a scenario.” Rick said with a wicked grin.
“What kind of preparations?” she asked, knowing what this grin meant.
“The kind we better not have to use because we may all die, of course. ”

He exited Bege and made him float. Taking the air with his passenger he tried to leave when he saw Big Mom, using her living fire named Prometheus on the Vinsmoke family. Reiju was busy blocking it the best she could when Big Mom attacked again. In an instant, Luffy, Sanji and Rick, who had let Bege float alone, were countering the hit with their own attacks.

“Guys! You said we shouldn’t fight!” Luffy said.
““You shouldn’t fight!””

The situation wasn’t good. They were surrounded.

“Remember my worst come to worst scenario?” Rick asked.
“Yeah.”
“Yes, why?” asked Sanji
“Don’t die.”

He hoped he wouldn’t have to put his plan in motion but he didn’t have any other choice. During the night he had sprouted arms all over the castle and the mountain for his moment. Each of his sprouts used gravity and tore apart the walls. The damage was so extensive that the whole mountain made of candy leaned heavily on one side, making the castle fall.

He sprouted hand on Luffy, Sanji, Reiju and the rest of the Vinsmoke and made them float during the fall. He landed himself and everyone else, including Bege at the foot of the mountain and everyone still inside the mobster got expelled.

“Are you insane?!” yelled Sanji.
“You should know by now.” replied Rick with a grin, while Luffy was laughing his ass off.

“Every man and woman for themselves!” Exclaimed Bege before transforming his body into its tank mode and drove away. The Vinsmoke did the same, with Reiju giving the ex-marine one last look.

“...He got the right idea, we should go now!” Rick said.
“Then what are you waiting for? Make us fly!” replied Nami.
“I just toppled an entire castle and half the mountain it was standing on, I'm a bit winded right now.”

Nami wasn’t happy about that so she jumped in Jimbei’s back unlike the others who ran across the plain where they fought the day before. They met again with the talking tree and used it as the vehicle.

“Prepare yourself, she’s catching up!” Rick said.

Indeed Big Mom was catching up on her cloud, and fast. In less than a minute she was on them and attacked. The tree dodged but not completely as a good third of his left side was now gone.

“We can’t take any more of those!” Sanji said.

Rick had a few minutes of rest on the tree’s head so he made everyone float and led them away. Not as fast as he could since he was still tired but fast enough to make some distance bit by bit. The distance created wasn’t sufficient  to make them out of reach for another strike.
Nami had an idea, she used her sorcerer-rod and sent dozens of small lightning balls towards the cloud Big Mom was riding on.

“Is he eating them?” Asked Carrot.
“Lightning loves lightning.” Nami answered.

As the emperor was ready to strike again her cloud changed direction to go after the lightning balls Nami kept sending.This resulted in Big Mom falling to the ground.

“Yeah!” screamed Luffy.

With Big Mom on the ground they had a few moments to get farther away. They didn’t expect for her cloud to reach out to them.

“Hey! I’m zeus. Um… Can I have more of these lightning clouds? They were really tasty!”

Nami seemed to have an idea. She promised Zeus to give him those lightning balls every day if he became his servant and he accepted. Apparently he didn’t care about his master, only what he was given to eat.

“Nami, do you think you could supercharge him?” asked Rick.

The red head looked at her vice-captain in shock, understanding immediately what he wanted to do. With a smile she gave a simple nod.

Raising her hands she started to make a dark cloud in the sky and speed up the process by sending her black balls in it. It grew so big that he covered more than the entire forest. From there she made it smaller and smaller until its size was small enough for Zeus to eat it. He was delighted, his color changing from white to black. He expanded exponentially.

“Nami, that’s too much!” Rick said.
“Just get us out of here.” she replied.
“What is she doing?” asked Luffy.

His question was ignored as Rick began to push forward everyone faster.

“Zeus... Breeeeeeze…Tempo.” yelled Nami swinging down her sorcerer rod.

Zeus was suddenly attracted to the ground and hit Big Mom head on. The electric discharge was so big that three quarters of the woods disappeared.
That left everyone with their jaws on the ground, Nami included.

“Holy crap!”
“That was awesome!”
“Yeah, Big Mom can’t do something like that. You’re definitely the weather queen.”

The praises made Nami blush but she played it out.

“Of course I’m the weather queen. Nobody knows and controls the weather like I do.”

Their respite didn’t last as they heard a familiar scream coming from under the debris.

“WEDDING CAKE!”
“She’s still alive?!” exclaimed Nami.

Big Mom was indeed alive and even more furious and delirious than ever. The debris began to move and a hand came through them. Rick didn’t waste another second and began to make everyone move towards Sunny’s location.
On their way Pudding showed up. She was accompanied by her elder sister Chiffon. From Nami's quick explanation, Chiffon was Lola’s twin sister. Who was Lola? The pirate leader back on Thriller Bark who helped Nami get away from the invisible guy. Chiffon was also Bege’s wife.

“That world is as vast as can be and yet seem so small…”

The two ladies took Sanji with them to help cook a wedding cake that would calm down Big Mom. They were barely out of sight that the emperor was almost done getting out of the hole she was in. Keeping up with their escape Rick began to laugh.

“This is hardly the time to laugh.” Jimbei said.
“It’s just… Of all the ladies Sanji was after, the one who got hooked on him is a huge tsundere. I mean he finally found his perfect girl from an arranged marriage he didn’t want. I find this hilarious.”

Jimbei wondered if Rick had gone mad, and Nami just rolled her eyes. Both Luffy and Carrot didn’t know what a tsundere was and were imagining weird things.

They finally reached Sunny, thinking they could finally get away from here; unfortunately the enemy was waiting for them. Perospero and Katakuri, the first and third son of Big Mom, had Brook,Pedro and Chopper as hostages, and were there with their men. Luffy used his conqueror Haki to deal with the small fry and took on Katakuri, while Rick dealt with Perospero.

Jimbei took the helm while Nami explained to him what the coup de burst was, which both Brook and Chopper, who broke free of Perospero candy, were preparing by putting in place the barrels of cola needed. The situation was more than dire as a fleet of the Big Mom’s pirates were coming their way and Big Mom herself had finally caught up.

Rick was done with Perospero, getting a gravity slash that sent him flying away and landed on Sunny with Luffy still battling Katakuri on the deck.

“How long before the coup de burst?!” He asked.
“15 seconds!”

This was not good at all. Big Mom was at the back of Sunny and began to tear it apart as if it was paper and not made of the hardest wood in the world. Rick concentrated his gravity in Ryusei and thrust her at the emperor. She didn’t take any damage but was pushed back, letting go of the ship. When he turned around to see what was happening between Luffy and Katakuri, they were gone.

“Where are they?!”
“Inside the mirror world!” replied Nami.
“Hold tight!” Jimbei yelled.

He pulled the lever and the coup de burst went off, propulsing Sunny into the air, leaving behind Big Mom and her fleet. Nami gave Jimbei where they needed to go and how to reach the place.  Rick sat down and began to rest. He knew that he needed to replenish his stamina, as they could be attacked at any moment now. Brook went to refuel the cola while Pedro and Carrot climbed up the nest to watch for enemies.

“Do you think Luffy will be okay?” Chopper asked, sitting beside him.
“Probably. I mean that guy is strong, it will be a difficult fight, but Luffy’s going to win.”

The traject on air didn’t last long and Sunny got back into the sea. Not long after the bunny mink saw something on the horizon.

“Six o'clock! It’s the fleet we left behind and… and..”
“Big mom! She’s walking on water!” Pedro yelled
“Seriously?!” Rick exclaimed his surprise.

He stood up and took a look. Indeed, she was walking on water, at least that’s what it seemed like, but Perospero was on her shoulder using his devil fruit abilities to make some kind of candy slug above the sea. That, was what his mother was walking on.

“Rick! Jimbei! Can you hear me?!” came Luffy’s voice from a shard of the broken mirror he used to get into the mirror world. Nami picked it up.
“Luffy! I’m here.”
“Nami! You need to break every mirror on board or they will use them to set the Sunny on fire!”
“Then how are you going to get back?!”
“I don’t know, I’ll find a way.”
“Oh shit!” screamed Pedro.
“Nami we got trouble!” Called out Carrot.

Turning around the navigator saw a huge tidal wave with Big Mom riding on top of him.
“Luffy… I don’t think we’ll be able to make it.” She said her voice was full of despair.
“Jimbei! You’re it!”
“What?!”

Rick jumped off the Sunny sending a powerful gravity slash right in the middle of the tidal wave to break it. Big Mom and Perospero fell down but the candy slug was still there stopping them from drowning into the sea.

“Two vs one is not really a fair fight, but again life is not fair.” Rick said with determination.

He had no choice, he needed to hold Big mom back, to let the others get to the wedding cake.

“I’m going to hurt so much tomorrow.”