The creature was an abomination of metal and flesh—a four-legged weapon with gun barrels protruding from its spine and a muzzle where its mouth should be. Lassoo, they called it. And it was loading another explosive baseball into its throat with a sickening, mechanical click.
KA-CHOO!
The baseball shot out like a cannonball, trailing smoke.
"Move!" Usopp screamed, shoving Chopper aside.
The two pirates scrambled in opposite directions as the ball slammed into the ground where they'd stood. A half-second of silence—then the world erupted in fire and debris. Usopp's ears rang, his vision swimming.
"They're timed bombs!" Chopper yelled, helping the dazed sniper to his feet. "And they weigh as much as cannonballs!"
Across the courtyard, Mr. 4 hefted his massive bat, his expression blank as stone. He didn't speak. He just swung.
CRACK!
Another baseball bomb launched, this one aimed directly at Usopp's chest. Usopp dropped flat, feeling the heat of the explosion scorch his back. The shockwave lifted him off the ground and slammed him back down.
"Usopp!" Chopper cried.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," Usopp lied, tasting blood. Every bone ached. "Just… just catching my breath."
"You are not fine!"
Mr. 4 set his bat against the wall to stretch. The simple, careless motion drove the weapon straight through the stone like it was paper. The wall crumbled. The bat hit the ground with a thud that shook the earth.
Usopp stared, his bravado crumbling faster than the masonry. "What kind of monster…"
"You two are still alive?"
The shrill voice cut through the dust. Miss Merry Christmas emerged from a side alley, her face twisted in fury. "Mr. 4! I leave for five minutes and you're playing baseball instead of crushing skulls?"
Mr. 4 grunted, picking up his bat.
Usopp's courage finally snapped. "Chopper," he whispered, slumping dramatically against a broken pillar. "My injuries… they're too severe. I think… I think this is the end for me. You'll have to fight them alone."
Chopper's eyes widened with rage. "You coward! Get up!"
"But that thing!" Usopp pointed a trembling finger at Lassoo, who was sniffing the air, another baseball materializing in its throat. "It's a gun that sneezes bombs! How do you fight that? What even is it?"
Miss Merry Christmas grinned, a cruel, gap-toothed smile. "Curious? Lassoo is a masterpiece. A gun that ate the Inu Inu no Mi, Model: Dachshund."
Silence.
Usopp blinked. "Ate… a Devil Fruit?"
"Special Baroque Works technology," she bragged, puffing out her chest. "We can give power to objects. Lassoo is a living weapon. But don't worry about the details." Her smile vanished. "You won't live long enough to understand."
She cracked her knuckles. "This territory is Molehill 4th Street. My street."
Her hands began to change. Fingers thickened, nails lengthened into black claws. Her nose elongated.
"She's turning into a mole!" Chopper yelled, shifting into his Heavy Point.
"She looks like a grumpy penguin," Usopp muttered, already backpedaling.
With a final, grotesque shift, Miss Merry Christmas plunged her claws into the earth and dug. She disappeared beneath the surface in seconds, leaving only a churned-up trail of dirt.
This was his chance.
"Chopper, tactical retreat!" Usopp turned to run.
"USOPP, ABOVE YOU!"
He looked up. The ground at his feet erupted. Not Miss Merry Christmas—Lassoo had burrowed underground and surfaced right beneath him, jaws wide.
KA-CHOO!
The baseball bomb fired point-blank at his face.
Usopp screamed, flinging himself sideways. The ball grazed his hat, but instead of hitting the wall behind him, it curved in mid-air.
Mr. 4 was already there. With a lazy, powerful swing, he hit the bomb not at Usopp, but high into the sky.
"Ha!" Usopp spat blood, pushing himself up. "You missed! Even I could hit better than—"
The bomb reached its apex and began to fall. It landed thirty feet away, bouncing once, twice.
Then it started rolling.
Usopp's mocking smile died. The bomb was rolling uphill. Against gravity. Directly toward his back.
Miss Merry Christmas's voice echoed from beneath the earth, triumphant and venomous. "You think Mr. 4 missed? Fool. He's not a power hitter."
The bomb picked up speed, a relentless, ticking sphere of death.
"He's a pinch hitter."
Usopp turned, trapped between the rolling bomb behind him, the mole-woman tunneling below, the inhuman strongman ahead, and the living gun that was loading another shot.
Chopper was too far away. There was no cover.
The bomb was ten feet away. Five.
Usopp's hands fumbled for his slingshot, his mind blank with terror.
Miss Merry Christmas burst from the ground directly in front of him, claws aimed at his heart.
"Goodbye, little liar," she hissed.
And in that final second, as death closed in from all sides, Usopp saw it—a tiny, almost invisible seam on Lassoo's metal flank. A seam that looked like a scar.
A weak point.
The bomb touched his heel.
The world went white.
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