Cherry had been keeping her Life Sense active ever since they had dived below the surface. This was mainly to keep an eye out for sea kings that Takako may have trouble dealing with.
However, something else entered the periphery of her Life Sense's range. It was a smaller sea king followed closely behind by a number of humans. Likely the sea king was pulling a ship along, which incidentally meant they were gaining on the Thousand Sunny at a steady pace.
Most importantly, Cherry recognized one of the human's devil fruit as one of the other pirates that was present at the fake Straw Hats' gathering.
'Does he want revenge? No, why would he want revenge? I made him so sparkly, after all.' Cherry thought.
Cherry sent a command to Takako to take some distance with the Sunny so that she wouldn't be seen when the other ship was in visual range. Wouldn't want to scare them off before they had a chance to make their intentions known, would we?
Cherry returned her attention to the others where Franky had finished explaining why Hachi hadn't been there to guide them to Fishman Island as he had promised and that Bartholomew Kuma had actually saved them and helped to protect the Thousand Sunny during the last two years.
"Eh? Where's the octopus going?" Luffy noticed.
"She must have found something tasty to eat. She'll be back soon enough, she won't go far." Cherry lied.
Nami squinted her eyes in suspicion, so Cherry decided to shift the topic.
"Usopp, come over here." Cherry commanded, pulling a barrel over.
"Huh? What for?" Usopp asked, both curious and a little anxious.
"I'm going to see how diligent you've been with your exercise. Don't think I'll let you off the hook just because you lost all that weight." Cherry said, placing her arm in the position for an arm wrestling match.
"There's no way I can beat you, though…" Usopp lamented.
"Oh, I want in on this." Zoro said.
"If Mosshead is playing then so am I! Also I get to hold Cherry's hand, huhuhuhu…" Sanji said.
Thus began an arm wrestling tournament amongst the brawnier crew members.
"Aside from the normal rules, you also can't break the barrel. If you break the barrel, you get to do all the ship's cleaning for a month." Cherry added.
Cherry let Usopp push against her hand with all his might for half a minute before she was satisfied with his progress and ended his suffering instantly.
"I knew I couldn't win…" Usopp complained.
"How about you try against me then, Longnose-kun?" Robin squared up against him with a smile.
Usopp thought about it and accepted the challenge. He knew Robin was stronger than she looked, but he'd grown a lot since two years ago. Surely he stood a good chance against her!
*WHAM*
Usopp's hopes of a close match were shattered without mercy as Robin slammed his hand against the barrel with ease. He couldn't even make an excuse like he wasn't ready as they had a countdown and everything.
Usopp's tearful eyes landed on Nami and he thought 'Ah, at least I'm only the second weakest…'
*Whack!*
As if she'd sensed his rude thought, Nami bonked his head.
"Baaah!" Merry tried to cheer him up.
"Merry says that you could beat her at arm wrestling too." Chopper translated.
"Thanks, Merry…" Usopp scratched her chin.
"Oh! Because Merry would be disqualified for not having any arms, correct?" Brook accurately concluded.
The tournament got started in earnest. Luffy couldn't wait any longer and went up against Zoro.
Their arm strengths were rather similar, but soon it became apparent that the rule not to break the barrel was more complicated than it was at a glance. It started to creak before they could even start applying any real strength to the match.
After a bit of back and forth of pushing the limits of the barrel's wood, they figured out the trick to it. Applying armament haki to the barrel to reinforce it.
After a battle of epic proportions, contained solely atop a wooden barrel, it was Luffy who came out on top. As a brawler, he held an advantage over Zoro, a swordsman, in the area of grappling.
Next was Sanji and Franky. Franky wanted to test his bionics against organic muscles and Sanji just wanted to hold a woman's hand. Normally Sanji would never use his hands in combat, but this didn't really count as a fight and it was a small price to pay for the reward.
Franky beat Sanji hand over fist. Sanji didn't train his arms for strength, after all he fought with his kicks.
Sanji wasn't too upset about it, at least until Cherry said "I guess you're out now Sanji, I won't be joining the losers bracket so I guess we can't arm wrestle."
Sanji collapsed to the ground in depression.
Robin went up against Luffy and Cherry went up against Franky. Luffy and Cherry won those matches and were facing one another in the "finals" of their little contest.
"It's just you and me now, Captain." Cherry teased.
Luffy only gave her a wide smile, ready for the challenge.
Cherry placed her hand in his palm, the countdown started, then as it finished the ship suddenly shook.
"It's a pirate ship?!" Usopp shouted.
Sure enough it was as he said. A pirate ship with a moose figurehead and pulled by a sea king that looked like a cow had bashed against the Sunny at the side in such a way that the bubbles touched together.
They could hear the shouting of the pirates on the other side of the bubble as they prepared to board. Almost all of them were covered in glitter.
"Is that you, Momoo?!" Nami exclaimed, looking at the cow sea king.
The sea cow studied her, then turned its gaze to Sanji and Luffy. Suddenly, the poor beast had a panic attack and started pulling the pirate ship away.
"Follow me, men! We'll kill them all!" Shouted the one pirate that had no glitter as he jumped through the bubble barrier.
However, his ship was pulled away from the Sunny before any of the other pirates could board.
"Let it rip with the gatling guns, boys! Riddle 'em with holes!" He shouted.
"""...""" No one said anything as the man slowly realized he was alone
"I see, you must be a logia type." Cherry stroked her chin in thought. That would explain why the glitter didn't stick.
The others raised their guards hearing that he was a logia type devil fruit user. They were often tricky opponents, in the worst case he might even be able to sink them before they could stop him.
The enemy pirate, Caribou, was trying to think his way out of this pickle he got himself into. Originally he was going to try to say that he was just a normal member who was being threatened, but there was no way they'd believe a devil fruit user could be threatened like that. Least of all a logia type.
"Should we throw him overboard?" Franky suggested.
"Please, no! I'm sorry, I really mean it! I only became a pirate to pay my sick mother's medical bills! Have mercy!" Caribou begged, waving his sleeve arms about and prostrating himself towards them.
"Oh no! Your mother is sick?!" Chopper believed him without hesitation.
"Don't be stupid, Chopper! He's obviously lying!" Usopp said, having a great deal of experience in the realm of bad lies.
"Let me ask you, where did you find that sea cow you had pulling your ship?" Nami asked.
"Oh, hello there- GEH!" Caribou was interrupted by Sanji's foot kicking him in the face.
"Stop leering at our navigator and answer the question, you bastard!" Sanji demanded.
"We just found it swimming around the area. It's the mark of a pro undersea traveler to have a sea king pull your ship…" Caribou answered.
"Really?!" Luffy exclaimed. "Cherry, you should have Takako pull the ship!"
"No. Takako is a proud princess who would never stoop so low." Cherry stubbornly denied.
"Boo! Stingy!" Luffy childishly complained, before going around the ship in search of a sea king that would satisfy his standards to pull the future king of the pirates' ship.
…
"What the hell is wrong with you, you damned sea cow?! You left Big Bro back there all alone!" Caribou's younger brother, Caribou, shouted in panic.
Momoo the sea cow didn't hear anything he said though. He was too caught up in his own panicked state to listen to them.
*SWOOSH*
A colossal deep blue limb shot up from beneath and wrapped around Momoo. A second followed immediately after and wrapped around the ship.
They were brought over to the creature's face where its gigantic eye observed them with cold disregard, like a man might do to a group of ants.
The pirate crew shook in fear at the sheer immensity of the beast. Only one word could escape their quivering lips.
"""KRAKEN?!"""
The tentacle that was gripping the sea cow that was frozen in terror and the one holding the ship started to pull the two apart, until the ropes binding the sea cow to the ship's bow snapped.
The Kraken casually tossed the ship aside and swam away with the sea cow, which was presumably its next meal.
The pirate crew's collective heartbeat gradually calmed down and they thanked God for sparing their lives, the first and only time they have ever genuinely prayed.
Takako on the other hand, gleefully forgot all about them and started swimming back to Cherry with the sea cow she was asked to grab for her.