The air tasted of gunpowder and desperation.
Usopp's world had narrowed to the whistle of incoming death. A baseball-sized bomb spiraled toward his frozen form, its fuse a tiny, sparking sun. He couldn't move. His legs were stone, his breath trapped in his throat. This is it, he thought, a pathetic end for a brave warrior of the sea—no, for a liar who ran out of lies.
"USOPP! MOVE!"
A blur of brown fur and raw terror slammed into him, knocking the air from his lungs and sending them both tumbling across the cracked earth. The world erupted in heat and sound where he'd just stood.
"Chopper!" Usopp gasped, dirt in his mouth.
The reindeer was already scrambling up, his small body trembling. "Are you okay? Talk to me!"
From the settling dust, a shrill, delighted laugh echoed. "Ooh-hoo! What's this? A little pet?" Miss Merry Christmas emerged, dusting dirt from her mole-like claws. Her beady eyes gleamed. "A Zoan! Like me! How darling."
"Lassoo! Fetch!" Mr. 4's dull voice commanded.
The gun-dog barked, its mouth gaping open to vomit another round of searing baseballs. Thwump. Thwump. Thwump.
"Run! Don't stop running!" Chopper yelled, shoving Usopp forward. They became frantic dancers in a hail of explosive fire, leaping and ducking as the ground behind them shattered into craters.
"We can't just dodge!" Chopper panted, his eyes locked on Mr. 4's lethargic form. An idea, desperate and wild, sparked. He snatched a still-smoking bomb-ball from the air, its heat searing his hoof. With a cry of effort, he hurled it back at the giant man. "Try your own medicine!"
"Foolish child," Miss Merry Christmas cackled. A clawed hand shot from the earth, snagging Chopper's ankle. He yelped, pulled off balance.
Mr. 4 swung his massive bat with a yawn. CLANG! The ball rocketed back, a comet aimed at Chopper's heart.
Time stretched. Chopper's mind raced. The Rumble Ball… too slow. They'll vanish before I transform!
Instinct took over. His body rippled, expanding in a flash of muscle and fur into his hybrid form. The bomb whistled over his newly heightened shoulders and detonated harmlessly behind him. With a roar that felt foreign in his throat, he lunged, hooves aimed at the two agents.
But they were already gone, melting into the maze of mole tunnels as if they were made of shadow.
"Cowards!" Chopper bellowed, spinning, his chest heaving. The silence was worse than the explosions. Where were they? Where was Usopp?
A scrape of dirt to his left. He whirled.
Nothing.
A chuckle to his right. Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Christmas oozed from the earth behind him, their smiles predatory. "Looking for someone, reindeer-man?" she sneered.
Chopper's blood ran cold. Usopp. Where is Usopp?
The ground at Mr. 4's feet erupted.
"HAVE AT THEE, FIENDS!"
Usopp exploded from the tunnel, not with a graceful leap, but with a frantic, screaming charge. In his hands was a weapon of monstrous, glorious proportion—a hammer of dark iron, its head the size of a barrel, its handle thick as a tree trunk. With a cry that was half-terror, half-triumph, he brought the "Five-Ton Hammer" down on Mr. 4's head with a hollow BONK.
Mr. 4 blinked slowly, a single, lazy tear rolling down his cheek from the impact. He tilted his head.
Miss Merry Christmas's jaw went slack. "How… how is a string bean like you wielding that?!"
Usopp planted a foot on Mr. 4's slumped shoulder, striking a pose that defied his trembling knees. "You dare ask?!" he boomed, voice echoing with fabricated grandeur. "I am he who sinks battleships with a single blow! The man whose very name brings tremors to the Grand Line! They call me… CAPTAIN USOPP! LORD OF DESTRUCTION!"
Chopper's eyes shimmered with stars. "WOW! Captain Usopp! So cool!"
Emboldened, Usopp swung the massive hammer at Miss Merry Christmas. She shrieked and dove into a hole. He chased her, the hammer whistling through the air as she popped up and down like a deranged, furry gopher. Whiff! Thud! Whiff!
"And this—huff—is nothing!" Usopp panted, pausing to catch his breath, the hammer's tip resting on the ground. "Why, I once defeated a sea king—puff—with my pinky finger! My bounty is in the hundreds of millions! They say my breath is like a hurricane!"
"Really?!" Chopper gasped, utterly enthralled.
Miss Merry Christmas erupted from a hole five feet away, her fur matted with rage. "I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS GAME!"
She moved faster than sight. One moment she was there, the next, her claws were raking across Usopp's face. Pain, white-hot and searing, exploded across his cheek. He cried out, stumbling back, the world spinning. The mighty "Five-Ton Hammer" slipped from his grip and hit the ground with a pathetic, lightweight thump.
It rolled, revealing a crumpled edge of painted papier-mâché.
Silence, colder than the grave, fell over the battlefield.
Miss Merry Christmas stared at the hammer. Then at Usopp's bleeding face. Her confusion melted into volcanic, insulted fury. "A… a FAKE?!"
"Lassoo," Mr. 4 grunted, rising to his feet, his voice a low rumble of finally comprehended offense. "All of it. Now."
The gun-dog's body distended, its jaw unhinging. Not one or two, but a stream of bomb-balls poured forth, a torrent of impending doom.
"Chopper, LOOK OUT!" Usopp screamed.
Mr. 4's bat became a blur of relentless, lazy power. THWACK! THWACK! THWACK-THWACK-THWACK! The air filled with the screams of incoming projectiles, a net of fire too wide to dodge.
The world dissolved into a continuous, deafening roar of explosions. Dirt, smoke, and fire swallowed Chopper whole.
"CHOOPPPERRRR!" Usopp's scream was ripped away by the blasts.
As the smoke began to clear, revealing a cratered hellscape, Miss Merry Christmas turned her furious eyes on Usopp. She began to dig, the earth parting before her like water. "You little liar," she hissed, her voice tunneling from beneath his feet. "You're not a captain. You're not a lord. You're just a snack."
Usopp scrambled back, his back hitting a rock. He had no hammer. No lies grand enough for this. He could hear her digging, coming for him, everywhere and nowhere.
From the settling dust in the crater, there was no movement. No sound.
Chopper was gone.
And a patch of earth three feet in front of Usopp began to churn. A single, sharp claw breached the surface, wiggling in a grotesque hello, before Miss Merry Christmas's grinning, dirt-caked face erupted from the ground, her hot breath fogging the air between them.
"Game over, Captain."
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