Saul shielded his face as the intense winds from the force of Rocks' blow whipped against it, and he feared for the structural integrity of the city. Unfortunately, his attention was immediately drawn elsewhere, as a blade approached his torso with alarming speed. Barely dodging out of the way in time, the giant turned around as he saw the figure that had just attacked him.
With a tongue that slithered out of his mouth like a snake, Ochoku approached the former marine. His silk robes were stained with wine and god knows what else, though the katana he wielded seemed to be in pristine condition. His frame was towering to a human, though Saul still looked down on him considerably.
"So, you're Rocks' newest pet?" Ochoku joked with sarcastic cruelty.
"And it appears that you're the Government's," Saul retorted, receiving an annoyed frown from Whang Zhi.
"Watch your mouth!" The warlord snarled as he drew his blade from its sheathe.
The rain had begun to fall a bit more rapidly, and Saul put up his fists as the warlord began to approach him. A crackle of Haki erupted around his blade, and the burly man picked up his pace to a surprisingly quick speed as he leaped into the air and prepared to swing his blade across his body.
"Falling Feather: Severed Horizon!" He shouted as a trail of flowing vapor streaked off of the metal of his sword, impacting against Saul's rib cage with an explosive boom. Rocketing the giant off of his feet as if he were the size of a human child, Saul imagined that the Armament Haki that he had used at the last second was only reason that he still had any ribs left, though crashing through a pair of buildings and landing dizzy in a pile of rubble was not exactly the ideal outcome.
"Dereshi, Dereshi, just laugh off the pain," Saul grunted as he stood to his feet, though he immediately winced in pain as he grabbed his side.
The Haki that he had infused had been either broken through or bypassed somehow, because the ribs that the warlord had been aiming to break were indeed broken. A violent gust of wind blew apart the remnants of the house that Saul had been knocked into, and he shielded his eyes from the dust as Ochoku approached him with a disgusting smile.
"I think you're out of your depth here, big boy," he said as his tongue continued to hang like a panting dog. "A fresh captain like you isn't ready to fight anyone who's sailed through the New World, but especially not someone like me," he said with a devilish smile as he approached with the katana readied at his side.
Saul looked down at his opponent, the smaller frame compared to his doing nothing to quell his fear. As Ochoku had just said, a fight against any New World pirate was going to be a long shot. But even attempting to fight a Warlord for a second was a clearly lost cause. Looking down at the hand that held his broken rib, he sighed as he reached his free hand into his pocket.
The chaos that had occurred a few moments ago left little time for communication, but in the moment that Rocks and Bogart had captured everyone's attention, Zeff had tossed a small cloth sack to Saul before he fell off the bridge. Retrieving the sack from his pocket and untying the string, he pulled out what he had figured had been given to him at that moment.
As a (recently) former marine, Saul had kept tabs on the various members of the New Rocks Pirates as reports of them causing chaos throughout the Grand Line had been spread far and wide. They weren't known by that name and their captain had managed to keep his identity hidden until now, but the various crew members' photos were all captured by one journalist or another.
What had struck Saul as odd was that some of these established names, Red Leg Zeff or the Witch Doctor Kureha, seemed to have gained Devil Fruit Powers almost immediately upon joining the crew. It had been a long time since they had seen each other, but Saul knew from the rumors he had heard before the God Valley Incident that Rocks was a man with a plan. The fact that he seemed to be giving out devil fruits like candy was most likely no accident, though that did not prevent him from feeling nervous as he held one in his hand.
Upon seeing the look of recognition in his opponent's eyes, Saul decided that his best shot at survival was in the form of the orange and black pear shaped object that he was holding, and he took one of the most disgusting bites of food that he had ever consumed as the Warlord dashed towards him with a scream of fury. As he hesitantly swallowed the bitter flesh, he felt a massive pulse in his chest. His already massive frame began to grow even larger. His already hairy arms began to grow thick coats of fur, and he instinctively got down onto all fours as he released a fearsome trumpet with the turn that had suddenly manifested in place of his nose.
Jumping backwards as the shock of the transformation caused him to forgo his attack, Ochoku could only crane his neck up in fear at the towering mammoth-giant hybrid that now stood before him.