"Next, witness the moment of miracles!"
The giant airliner 'Boeing 747' rapidly approaching Alubarna suddenly began to split in the air, transforming into small white gliders that glided towards the capital of Alabasta, leaving the Baroque Works officers below, standing or sitting, looking at each other in confusion.
"This..."
Although they were all Devil Fruit users, they were all ground-bound fighters. Facing this...
"Mr. 4, shoot them down!"
The obese Mr. 4 hoisted the rocket launcher on his back and fired, launching a:
Baseball...
Boom!!
Although the projectile looked comical, its power was no joke! However, the gliders in the air had already scattered lightly in all directions, causing the explosion to miss. Faced with this situation:
"What should we do? Each of those things has two people on board..."
"It's simple, we pair up."
The bald and burly Mr. 1 stood up and calmly dusted off his pants.
"Chase them down and kill the people on board, that's it."
"Such simple thinking and work," his partner, the blue-haired Miss Doublefinger, calmly puffed on her cigarette.
"Has our work ever been complicated?"
With that, Mr. 1 headed towards one of the gliders. — The sharp aura on it was his target.
"Hurry up, Mr. 4, let's get to work!"
"Oh... oh..."
The impatient Miss Merry Christmas urged the sluggish Mr. 4 to leave.
"Then I'll take care of the two on my own—"
This was Mr. Bon Clay, dressed in a swan costume, spinning and leaping.
As the gliders in the air crossed paths, the opponents were already assigned.
——————
"Wow, what a sea of people~~"
Meanwhile, on the pure white 'J-20' speeding south away from the capital, Roman looked at the approaching sea of people with interest, stroking his chin.
Thinking back, there were only about a thousand people doing radio calisthenics at school in his previous life, and it felt like a dense crowd. But now, below the fighter jet, was an angry army of seven hundred thousand!
Each person could cause rivers to break and mountains to move with a single step.
"Get ready, Vivi!"
Roman turned to the blue-haired princess in the 'co-pilot' seat, reminding her.
"This is a 'speech' in front of seven hundred thousand people, don't get stage fright."
"Don't worry, Roman... Roman."
"I will do whatever it takes to stop this tragedy!"
Rumble—
Swords and spears bristled, banners covered the sky, hooves thundered, and killing intent soared! The army, stretching to the horizon, charged towards Alubarna, swearing to flatten the place that had taken away their lives, rain, and trust! Although their anger filled their chests, the strange 'big bird' in the sky still caught many people's attention.
"What is that?"
"Could it be the lackey of the royal army, the kingdom guard vice-captain known as 'Pell the Falcon'?"
The leaders at the front frowned. Even if 'Pell the Falcon' had the title of the king's strongest warrior, facing their hundreds of thousands—just one step from each of them could trample him into pulp!
"No, it doesn't look like a falcon," the rebel leader squinted.
With short, dark green hair, a scar above his left eye, a long red-brown coat, a dark green belt, orange gloves, and a super long sword on his back, the rebel leader named Koza signaled to the others.
"Be careful, it might be a new weapon of the royal army..."
Boom, boom, boom, boom—!
As if his words had power, the white giant bird suddenly dropped white bombs from above! Explosions roared, yellow sand flew, and huge craters appeared on the ground! But to the rebels:
Completely unharmed!
Yes, the white giant bird's bombs were not meant to attack the rebels but to create a long trench in front of them! Although it caused no harm, the intimidation was clear.
"All troops, slow down!"
Although the rebel army was large, most of them were using their own two feet for transportation, so while there was some chaos, the army gradually came to a halt.
After creating several craters and successfully slowing down the rebel army, the strange white 'giant bird' slowly descended, then disassembled and reformed into a square platform blocking the rebels. On top of it was:
"Vivi?!"
The rebel leader, Koza, was shocked. He and Vivi were childhood friends. When they played war games as kids, Koza was the leader of the 'Sand-Sand Group,' and Vivi was the deputy leader.
Incidentally, several of the former 'Sand-Sand Group' members were now leaders of the rebel army!
"Vivi, what are you doing here at this point?"
Koza rode forward, his gaze at his childhood friend filled with complexity. If it weren't for the three years of drought and everything that had happened, he and the girl opposite him might still be friends, instead of facing each other in battle.
"Everyone!!! And Koza!!!"
Facing the thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of angry and murderous eyes, Vivi spread her arms and stood in front of the rolling army.
"Please listen to me, we've all been deceived!"
"This war was orchestrated by someone else—"
"The daughter of the scumbag king!"
"Don't try to deceive us with lies!"
"Die!"
However, just as Vivi began to speak, scattered angry shouts erupted from the rebel army! Humans are social creatures, and with these shouts, the avengers who had lost everything due to the drought caused by the 'king' began to spread their frenzy through the army!
"Quiet! Listen to Vivi—"
As the leader of the rebels, even though Koza was extremely disappointed in the king, he still trusted Vivi, his childhood friend. Just as he waved his hand to calm the soldiers behind him.
Bang!
A gunshot interrupted his movement, and a bullet flew out from the chaotic army behind him, heading straight for Vivi's head at high speed! It was clearly an attempt to silence her.
"Dammit—"
Facing imminent death, the unprepared Vivi had no time to dodge and could only watch as the bullet rapidly enlarged in her pupils!
The Baroque Works officer hiding among the rebels smiled with satisfaction.
Got her—
Swish,
Ding!
A hand reached out from the side, blocking in front of Vivi. The high-speed rotating bullet spun, rubbed, and futilely expended all its energy in the palm of the hand before falling powerlessly onto the white platform.
Clang!
"Let me explain."
Roman, who had caught the bullet, looked at a figure retreating in the rebel army and reached out to grab him from a distance!
"Before that, you come out here."
Swish—
A figure was pulled out of the rebel army and suspended in mid-air, a white hand gripping his neck, preventing him from speaking. The smoking gun hanging from his waist clearly indicated that he was the assassin who had just attacked.
"Don't be in such a hurry, Baroque Works members."
Roman waved his hand, causing the poor guy to be suspended in mid-air by 'paper hands' and moved to the side. He then took a step forward to face the dense crowd of rebels.
"As the saying goes, 'seeing is believing'."
"Even if Vivi tells you that you've all been deceived, you would only believe what you see with your own eyes, right?"
Without waiting for a response, Roman covered his face with his hand.
"But what I want to say is, deceiving your eyes—"
With a downward pull of his hand, the desert erupted in a roar of astonishment!!
"That's impossible!!"
"What—"
"Scum king..."
"Nefertari Cobra..."
As Roman wiped his face, his clothes rapidly changed at the same time. A dark overcoat, a green robe, a belt around his waist, and most strikingly, his face: black wavy hair, a beard, and a stern middle-aged expression...
"Nefertari Cobra!!!"
"How are you here?!"
Facing the trembling Koza, who had vaguely guessed the truth, 'King Cobra'—or rather, Roman—shrugged.
"Deceiving your eyes is too easy."
"This is my Devil Fruit ability, I call this move 'Paper Dance - Skin'."
"Of course, I have no time to play the game of impersonating the king. But coincidentally, there's an organization called 'Baroque Works' that has a Devil Fruit user with the ability to 'imitate' others' appearances and voices."
Roman's words left the thousands of rebels in a daze! Anyone with basic judgment could understand the harsh truth:
They had all been deecived!
"Now you understand, the 'truth' you saw was just what others wanted you to see. Your so-called 'righteous revenge' was just a tool in someone else's hands. Even you yourselves—"
"Are just pawns."
—Dead silence!
The tens of thousands of rebels who understood the 'truth' turned into statues, while those in the back, who were clueless, fell into existential doubt after repeatedly questioning those in front. Only:
Thud,
The young man named Koza, leader of the rebels, stepped forward, gritting his teeth as he looked at Roman.
"Who is the mastermind?"
"Who is behind all this?!"
Who is controlling everything from the shadows!!
"Someone will tell you, but not me," having completed his show of force and revealed the 'truth', Roman stepped back, making way for Vivi.
"Your princess will tell you everything."
----
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