[ Third Person POV ]
Pirate Festival
Ken and Pato grimly looked at the arena as the competition slowly began to gather for the second contest.
They were still bitter after the events that had happened last night. However, what happened earlier this morning made them feel even worse, especially for Ken.
"What are we gonna do?! Stussy is totally going to murder us when we get back on the ship!" Pato rambled as he remembered the look on Stussy's face.
"What are you going to do? What am I going to do?! Stussy is going to send me straight to hell for getting you involved in this! You realize that she actually started choking Festa the moment she saw you in the arena?!" Ken almost shouted back at Pato.
There was no doubt that Boris had instilled a healthy dose of fear in the members of the crew whenever he got angry. However, it was rare for him to be so upset, at most he'd be annoyed; or he would be angry at somebody else. Never directly at the crew, but Stussy was a completely different case.
Long before the Pato had joined the crew, they had stopped by an abandoned island because Boris wanted to take some time off to train. During this time, Stussy made it her mission to make sure that the crew was above average.
As a result, the first week that they were on that island was absolute hell. She made them run laps around the island at a damn-near impossible time frame, and anyone who failed to do so was beaten to near-death.
Ken created a healthy fear of Stussy since then, and could only comply when she came up to him and asked him to be Boris' right hand man.
Pato on the other hand, feared the possible outcomes of what was to happen when they got back to the ship. He had felt a bit of Stussy's killing intent earlier, Pato knew that he was not going to be in for a good time when he got back on the ship.
"The best we can do at the moment is to win this competition and get that Devil Fruit and present it to her as a form of appeasement. So we gotta do our best, you hear?!" Ken told Pato.
Pato nodded his head furiously as his eyes burned with determination.
On the other hand, the second competition immediately began.
It was a free-for-all where the last five individuals standing would advance to the final round.
Among the ten, was some notorious pirates from the Four Blues and Paradise, only a few were actually from the New World. Even fewer had some handle on using Haki.
Carla had been calmly observing her competition, seeing which ones to immediately knock out first and who to avoid the moment the competition started.
"ALRIGHT!!!!!!! LET THE SECOND COMPETITION.....BEGIN!!!!"
Festa's voice immediately set off all ten pirates to start attacking each other. Carla smoothly maneuvered around some of the competition that she had deemed hard to defeat.
Eventually, she found herself facing a average built man who had just finished pummeling another competitor.
"Ho? Another one, you wanna throw down? I'm not big on hitting women, but that won't stop me from doing so," the man remarked.
"Why don't you give it your best shot?" Carla taunted.
Just like that, the two immediately rushed at each other. Both of them were the only competitors who were strictly using hand to hand combat.
The man went for a straight jab, but Carla dodged it and sent a roundhouse kick right at the man's head. Instead of dodging the kick, the man caught her foot before throwing her away from him.
Carla immediately landed on her feet before kicking the ground and dashing at the man. She immediately blocked the roundhouse punch that he had sent her way and tried to retaliate with an uppercut, but the man moved his head back and dodged the punch before reeling his head forward and tried to headbutt her.
Carla immediately stepped to the side to avoid the hit, and aimed an elbow right at the man's ribs. The hit almost broke one of his ribs, and he was sent stumbling back a bit before he regained his stance.
However, that brief moment of disorientation was all that Carla needed to finish the battle. She immediately appeared on top of the man before descending her Achilles heel for a devastating axe kick.
The man didn't have much time to dodge the attack, so when he realized what was happening, he could only try to raise his arms to block the kick. However, it was too late.
The kick landed right on the crown of the man's head. He paused for a bit before blood slowly trickled down his nose, and almost immediately after, he fell to the ground. With the Whites of his eyes showing, it was more than obvious that the man had lost conciousness.
Part of the crowd that had been watching the fight immediately erupted in cheers. Prompting the rest of the arena to cheer as well, even though they didn't have a reason to.
Carla didn't let the cheers distract her though. She knew that the fight wasn't finished, she immediately ducked as a sword swiped where her neck used to be. Before rolling backwards and donkey kicking the man's abdomen, sending him back.
She turned to face him, and the assailant immediately dashed at her with his sword raised. She couldn't afford to be as loose as she was with the other man because of the weapon on his grasp. So she carefully dodged all the attacks before starting her counter attack.
Each counter attack, however, was met with the cold edge of the swordsman's blade. She had injured her shins quite a bit hitting the man's sword, but the blade eventually began to show signs of cracking.
"Dammit! My blade's almost cracking.."
The swordsman promptly looked at his blade with a worried look before turning his gaze at Carla. Only to find Carla had disappeared from where she had previously been standing.
He looked around before looking up, only to find a shadow of a boot quickly enlarging itself in front of his face, and then, the man saw darkness.
Carla quickly got up after knocking the swordsman out unconscious. She had just knocked out about two people within the competition. All that was left was for the other seven individuals to fight it out till the other four players were revealed.
One man in particular elegantly used his martial arts to knock his opponent out almost instantly. While another man finally managed to land a blow on his opponent with his axe.
One way or another, five people; Carla included, remained standing. Signifying the end of the second competition.
"CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR REMAINING FIVE COMPETITORS!! YOU ARE NOW QUALIFIED TO FIGHT OUR THREE COMPETITORS!!!!"
The competitors for the third round immediately went back to the gates of the arena that they had emerged from. Immediately going to their respective cubicles for recovery.
"Wow! That lady fought pretty well! How far do you think she's gonna go?" Pato asked curiously.
"It depends whether or not she has Haki. At least two of us use it, so if she doesn't know how to use it she's done for," Ken responded.
Pato slowly turned to look at Bubble Jack, who happened to be staring at the Balcony where Boris, Stussy and Buena Festa happened to be lounging on while watching the fight.
He recalled how he ended up getting dragged into this situation thanks to that man. With Bubble Jack defeating a majority of his clones and stopping him from summoning another thanks to his Conqueror's Haki.
It didn't knock Pato out immediately, but it did disorient Pato long enough for him to get knocked out by him.
He still recalled the victorious smirk that Bubble Jack had, it only slightly pissed him off. However, he knew that he couldn't do anything about it for the moment. After all, strength was what determined what was right and wrong.