Echoes - Chapter 3

“DON KRIEG!”

Echo turned just in time to see the third member of Krieg's crew with a bounty swinging a massive ball of iron right at him. He barely managed to activate his Tekkai to tank the blow in time. Between the strength of the blow and his barely there Tekkai, Echo is sent flying through the air to smash through the wall of the captains cabin.

Echo groaned as he lay beneath a pile of splintered wood muttering to himself, “That's what I get for not keeping my eyes open.”

He carefully checked himself over, the blow had slammed into his chest after he managed to turn to see Gin swinging at him. Thankfully nothing was broken, though he would have a pretty gnarly bruise. Despite using the skills of that petty officer he copied, his body was nowhere near as strong as that mans had been. Tanking blows from the mooks was nothing like tanking a blow from Gin the 'Man-Demon' and Combat Commander of Krieg's crew.

Echo pulled himself together and climbed to his feet to look through the hole his body had plowed through the cabin. Outside he could see Gin, a lanky, average-sized man with short, scruffy hair and slight stubble, kneeling over the collapsed Krieg and checking on his captain's injuries. Laying on the ground next to him is the weapon he'd used to attack Echo. They were kind of interesting looking as they were a pair of tonfa with massive balls of iron, similar to cannon balls, attached to the end. It was one of them that had nailed Echo and sent him flying.

The sound of Echo's boots shattering some wood as he stepped back through the hole his body made drew Gin's attention. Echo could clearly see the look of surprise on Gin's face as the man incredulously asked, “How are you not dead?!”

Chuckling lightly, Echo gave his answer, “You're weak. As simple as that.”

It wasn't one hundred percent true, the bruise already forming on Echo's chest was proof of that. Without Tekkai, Gin might've broken a few of his bones. It wouldn't have stopped him, but it definitely would have slowed him down and weakened him. To keep that from being a possibility he swapped back to Smoker's Devil Fruit.

Seeing the look of disbelief on Gin's face, Echo decided to mess with the man's head a bit more to put him off balance. Frankly, Gin seemed like more of an actual threat than Krieg. Looking directly at Gin, Echo speaks in a mocking tone, “Did you honestly think you were strong Gin? This is the East Blue, the weakest of the four blues! It's considered a rare miracle for anyone from this sea to even reach a twenty million Belly bounty!”

Echo gestured over the sides of the ship at the other ships surrounding the galleon, “For all of this, a dozen ships, thousands of men, and so many civilian casualties, Krieg still only has a bounty of seventeen million. All because the marines know just how weak you all really are. In any other Blue Ocean you all would just be considered as pests! You'd probably die before seeing your first island in the Grand Line.”

Echo might not know a ton about the Grand Line, but he knew enough to know how deadly that sea was to the unprepared. He doubted Krieg and his crew even knew what a Log Pose was, let alone that having one was required to move through the Grand Line!

Seeing Gin's eye's narrowing in anger, Echo waved his hand in Krieg's direction and continued, “I'm from the North Blue, fighting and capturing you all is just a vacation for me.” His waving hand moved to encompass the corpses littering the deck, “Taking them all out barely made me sweat. Honestly? You all simply don't stand a chance.”

Krieg, finally recovered from the shock and pain of having both of his knees destroyed, was filled with rage as he yelled, “GIN! Kill that bastard! I want to mount his head!”

Gin didn't even question Krieg's order. Rather he grabbed his modified tonfa and began spinning them. The huge iron balls at the end became a blur and could be heard as they displaced the air around them. As soon as he felt ready, Gin moved. The tonfa whipped through the air as he drove them toward Echo. One was aimed at his torso and coming from Echo's left while the other aimed for his head and came from the right. A simple pincer type attack with retreat really being the only option for most people.

Echo's head and torso exploded into clouds of white smoke when the tonfa struck him. His body soon followed as it too exploded into a thick cloud of white smoke that cut off Gin from seeing anything. Echo's face formed out of a section of the smoke, “It's over Man-Demon.”

Fists and feet reformed and were launched at Gin on pillars of smoke, copies of Smoker's White Blow technique. Gin managed to fight back for a bit, his tonfas smashing into the limbs and scattering them back into smoke. Only, those limbs just reformed somewhere else and launched once more. There was no real pattern to follow and the attacks came from all directions, ahead, behind, above, and below. It wasn't long before the first blow landed. From there more and more landed as the damage to Gin built up. Before long Gin collapsed to the ground covered in bruises with a couple broken bones and blood leaking from small wounds.

Echo reformed into his body and looked at Krieg. The Don stared back in an absolute rage, “You think you've won you little bastard!?”

Krieg covered his face with a gas mask then ripped one of the shoulder plates off of his armor, “Die you bastard! Gas attack! M! H! 5!”

As he shouted, Krieg pulled a switch causing the jolly roger emblem on the plate to pop open revealing a barrel. A small canister launched from the barrel and exploded in the air releasing a thick cloud of gas.

Echo had no idea what that gas would do exactly, but he assumed it was deadly. He swapped to the Petty Officer and used Soru to move to the nearest corpse. All of them had visible gas masks, now that he bothered to look. He quickly snatched on and slipped it over his face to protect himself. Unfortunately, that was all the time he had. Pearl and Gin, both unconscious, had no chance to protect themselves and were quickly poisoned by the gas.

Seeing Krieg callously poison his crew members royally pissed Echo off. This was a perfect example of why he hated pirates. Most of them were just sick fucks that needed to be put down for the good of all humanity. In that moment he decided Krieg didn't need any functional limbs. Echo vanished causing the poison gas to swirl around where he had been. The moment he appeared Krieg was letting out more blood curdling screams of agony.

Echo stared at Krieg without any emotion as the pirate don stared at the new damage to his body. Krieg's eyes were wide and uncomprehending as he stared at his arms, both of which were bent at the elbows, in the wrong direction. Echo ignored Krieg and his screams to approach Pearl. The giant man was clearly bleeding from his eyes, nose, and mouth. Echo didn't expect he would live much longer and didn't even bother wondering if their was a cure. Rather, he drew his sword and mercifully ended Pearls life with a single swing of his blade. He repeated the process with Gin and stored both heads in a bag. He'd lose thirty percent of their bounty now, that sucked.

With his prizes collected, he set the heads down next to Krieg and made his way around the ship collecting anything that looked like it might be of value, such as the pearls that Pearl had on his armor. He ignored weapons, but did explore the Captains Cabin and the interior of the ship to collect any treasure. He had zero issues with robbing pirates blind. Usually he'd send the money home, but doing so from the East Blue would be significantly harder. Only the Marines could easily travel to the Blue Oceans.

As expected, he only found any loot in Krieg's cabin, a small chest filled with Belly notes and some gold. Looked like the guy didn't have all that much in liquid assets. Shame.

With his loot collected, Echo made his way back to the deck to see that the poison had cleared. Krieg was where he'd been left and looked almost catatonic. He could also hear pirates shouting out from the smaller ships asking for an explanation. Seeing a chance to further break Krieg, Echo made his way over and grabbed Krieg by his hair. The pain of being dragged across the deck was enough to awaken Krieg and get him shouting profanity at Echo once more. Echo ignored it until they were at the edge of the deck and could see some of Krieg's fleet.

Echo dropped Krieg there, much to the horror of the crews on the nearest ships, “Krieg, let me show you just how weak and pathetic you really are.”

Krieg glared at Echo until Echo jumped into the air, where he proceeded to jump once again moving even further into the air. Krieg's jaw, and the jaws of all the closest pirates, dropped as they watched Echo essentially fly into the air. This was one of Echo's favorite skills from that awesome Petty Officer, Geppo. As someone with a Devil Fruit, the ocean presented a real threat to his life. Geppo gave him the ability to move through the air even without having to use his Raven form.

After a particularly strong jump, Echo's right leg lashed out with astounding force, “Rankyaku!”

As soon as he finished the kick, everyone could see a crescent shaped blade of wind flash through the air and slice cleanly through the sloop nearest to Krieg's galleon. Another hop, another leg kick, this time his left, and another blade of wind sliced another small ship in half. Panic was running rampant through the ships still floating while Echo carefully dropped back to the deck of the galleon. He turned to smirk at a truly terrified looking Krieg.

Seeing Krieg's fear made the throbbing pain he could now feel in both of his legs completely worth it. While he had the skill to use Geppo and Rankyaku, they were significantly harder on his legs than Soru. Though he wasn't immune to Soru building up strain on his legs. Between all the times he'd used Soru, then using Geppo and two Rankyaku's, it was taking all of Echo's willpower to remain standing without his legs trembling visibly. He could still move and fight, even he wasn't petty enough to weaken himself that much just to break the mind of a shitty pirate. It just wouldn't be a pleasant experience.

There were still several ships that needed to be sunk, he only planned to spare one of the small sloops that he could sail by himself. It was the only way he could keep his prizes and deliver them to some Marines. He swapped back to Smoker's abilities once more and used them to launch long range punches. Normally his regular punch would maybe crack the thick planks of wood that made up the sides of any decent ship. Adding in the power from using the Moku Moku no Mi to propell his punches let him blast right through the hulls of the ships from a rather nice range. Given the range he was using the move at he could only smile and rename it to something that matched a true mans romance, “Rocket Punch!”

Naturally the ships tried to scatter but Echo showed his mastery over his Devil Fruit in response. For any ship that got too far he would swap to the Raven Zoan. Using the hybrid form turned his arms into wings, his legs into birds feet with wicked talons, and gave him a large ravens head while leaving the rest of his torso human. He looked something like a twisted black feathered male harpy. Using the large wings his arms turned into, he would fly over to the furthest ships, which were usually small as the smaller ships were easier to move and generally faster, and land on them. From their he either just slaughtered the crew using the talons on his feet, or swapped to smokers Devil Fruit to blast a couple of holes into the ship before swapping back and flying to Krieg's galleon once again.

It took him a couple of hours, but he eventually sank all but two of Krieg's ships, the galleon he was using as a base, and one of the small sloops he planned to use himself. During that time some of the pirates had boarded the galleon in an attempt to kill him and save themselves, none survived. Echo stood next to the broken Krieg looking over the side of the galleon at the wrecks below them, “I imagine your end would have been even worse if you'd actually managed to make it to the grand line.”

Krieg said nothing in response. Echo had done a thorough job of decimating him both physically and mentally. Even Krieg's domineering and irrational personality couldn't rationalize away what he'd just seen. He was the last living member of his five thousand man army and only two of his ships still rested on top of the ocean. Below them he could see the wrecks of his fleet and the floating bodies of his men. They'd never stood a chance against a single opponent, a monster in human skin as far as he was concerned.

Echo left Krieg where he was and made his way below deck. Once below he started blowing holes in the side of the ship below the waterline. It would take a while for the gelleon to sink, but it would eventually be swallowed by the ocean. Echo calmly collected his loot from the ship, including everything Krieg had worn of worth, such as his diamond studded gauntlets. Echo couldn't wait to find out how much those were worth! The last piece of loot he collected was Krieg himself.

The boat Echo had chosen to spare and take for himself didn't look like much. In fact, it looked like it was the crappiest ship in Kriegs fleet, something the pirate had probably taken just because he could and because it would add another tick to his numbers. Anyone looking at the small sloop would laugh at how weakly armed it was and how slowly it moved despite being a style of ship known for decent speed and maneuverability.

True to Krieg's infamous reputation for being a liar and trickster, the exterior of the sloop was nothing more than a facade. Just stepping into the interior would reveal the trickery. The interior of the ship was heavily reinforced, had almost a dozen hidden canons, and went far deeper than one would expect. The interior had been expanded downward and inside of that space was a massive safe. The weight of the safe pulled the ship deeper into the ocean and made it look like it rode similar to other sloops, but the combined size and weight of the hull below the surface slowed the ship significantly since it's sails were appropriate for a sloop of its size. It didn't need to bethe fastest ship though, it just needed to keep pace with Krieg's slowest ship, the galleon, and no one would expect such a crappy looking ship to engage in combat. It was a rather simple way to hide the riches of Krieg's piracy in an unexpected fashion.

Echo used his hybrid Raven form to carry Krieg's crippled body over to the ship and made his way to the top deck where the wheel was. Checking a compass, he pointed the ship in the direction of Loguetown. He had only been flying for a few hours before he'd come across Krieg and his ships so it shouldn't take more than a day or two for him to sail there in the slow ship. Once he had his course set in he addressed Krieg, “I don't suppose you want to tell me the combination to the safe below?”

Krieg just lay where Echo had dropped him, his eyes staring out into the distance looking at nothing in particular. Echo watched him for a few moments before shrugging his shoulders and making his way below deck. The door to the safe was a good ten feet tall, had three tumblers for the combination, and two massive wheels to pull back the locking bars. He had no idea how thick the steel was, but expected it was pretty thick. He also couldn't tell exactly how big the safe was since it took up too much space for him to get around it. Square peg in an oblong hole. Though...

Using Smoker's power, he shifted into smoke and flowed along the edge of the safe and noted it was almost as long as the ship. Krieg had been smart about it and had the safe centered perfectly within the ship so it wouldn't lift the fore or aft sections or roll the ship. It would take a ton of effort to capsize the ship, if it was even possible. However, if there was ever a breach of the hull below the waterline, the ship would plunge into the depths at record speed. Hence the massive amount of internal reinforcement. The ship could take a hell of a beating before it could be breached like that.

Echo studied the safe for a few minutes. He honestly knew nothing about safe cracking and, unfortunately, he hadn't copied anyone who did have the skills. Copying someone didn't give him their full memories or anything, just let him know how to use all of their skills. For example, while Krieg didn't have anything really special skill wise, he was a decent tactician and Echo could now use that skill as well as knew all of tricks that could be pulled off with Krieg's equipment.

Still, he did have one idea. He placed his hands on the safe near the tumblers for the combination lock. His hands converted to smoke and slithered through the smallest gaps in the work to move into the internals. The dials began to spin as he controlled them from inside where he could feel the mechanisms working. Soon enough there were three clicks as he finished imputing the combination. Spinning both of the wheels retracted the bars and with a strong tug, he managed to fully open the safe.

The interior of the safe was rather impressive but, sadly, wasn't anywhere near full. There was a decent amount of loot, probably worth millions, in the form of golden gem encrusted jewelry, some bricks, and piles of cash. Some things did catch his attention though. In on corner, very clearly separated from the rest of the gold and such, was a pile of large dull silver ingots. They looked like they might be iron or steel. Possibly the same metal that Krieg's armor was made of, just not plated in gold yet.

The other item to draw his attention was a sword. It drew his attention because it was the only visible weapon in the vault. It seemed pretty weird since Krieg definitely was not a swordsman, in fact none of his people had been true swordsman. Even odder, while shaped like a katana, as many high quality swords were, this one was a fair bit longer than a katana would be. Echo was pretty certain swords that long were... nodachi? That seemed right to him. He walked over and picked up the sword to examine it, surprised to find it was half again as long as the rather plain and standard katana on his hip. The only reason he used a katana was because it was the same sword the retired swordmaster on his home island used. It was the one he was the most skilled with. Shockingly, the nodachi he just picked up actually felt lighter than the shorter sword on his hip.

Echo carefully drew the first few inches of the sword out of its sheath to get a good look at the blades craftsmanship. He was surprised by how good it looked to him. Though he was far from some expert that could instantly tell what grade a weapon was, he was at least knowledgeable enough to know that the sword was of excellent quality. The edge of the blade shone so brightly it looked white while the hamon looked like curling waves. Compared to the blade, the tsuba (crossguard) and tsuka (handle) along with the saya (sheath) were all rather plain looking.

If he had to guess the sword was either a low tier Meito, a Wazamono, either a nameless blade or named with no reputation, most likely. He'd be shocked if it was a Ryo Wazamono, one of the fifty skillful grade blades with a known name. He continued to pull the blade from the saya examining every inch of it. While doing so he considered if he wanted to try using the sword himself. The swordsman from his home trained with the katana at his side so it was by far the sword he was most familiar with. However, it was very obviously inferior to the sword he was currently drawing.

He went over the pros and cons to himself. He would definitely need to get a lot of practice with it and using it would lower his personal skill until he could adapt and overcome. On the flip side it was a much higher quality sword and had an increased range when fighting. He also wasn't opposed to developing his own style using the longer blade to further improve his personal skill so he relied less on his copied skill.

He nodded to himself and decided to wear both, for now. If he didn't have much to worry about he'd practice with the longer blade, in a life or death fight he'd swap to his trusty regular length sword for the extra power and skill he'd have with it. After sliding the blade back into the saya, he slipped the saya into his belt to hold it in place for future use. He left the vault door open and made his way back to the deck. Krieg hadn't moved an inch and he found the ship was still on course. Today had definitely been a good day!

-----Line Break-----

AN

Okay, I think I only got one more of these before it will leave me alone. My brain is demanding that Echo at least meet Zoro or Nami before it will leave me the hell alone.

To everyone who doesn't like this story, I am sorry that it is taking up all my brain power at the moment. Honestly I am. It just seriously wont leave me alone so I can work on my other stories. It's just... If you've never experienced this I'm not entirely sure how to explain it. I'm sure everyone has experienced writers block at some point. This is like having writers block only instead of drawing a complete blank, something else is sitting there demanding attention.

Sorry.