63. Improvement

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Buggy's crewmates now get more spirited after seeing Buggy's fight. Buggy is on equal ground with Ley who has transformed into his hybrid form. On the other hand, they get overwhelmed by their enemies.

'I can't stay weak like this. Our enemies will keep getting stronger,' thinks Cricket.

'If we don't get stronger, we will just become burdens for Captain,' thinks Mantis.

'I need to get stronger so that Captain will start to look at me differently,' thinks Jude.

Jude has a hidden motive, but her intention is the same as the others. They all need to get stronger and get closer to Buggy's level so that they can help Buggy.

After meeting Don Chinjao, they know that there are many people that Buggy can't defeat yet. They never saw their Captain trying to run away because his opponent is too strong.

They know that Buggy isn't afraid of Chinjao and will fight him if needed. The reason why Buggy chooses to run away is them. They are too weak and will just get killed if they fight with Don Chinjao.

Sooner or later, they will need to fight with people at Chinjao's level. If they don't get stronger, they will die. The sea is cruel and unforgiving.

Cricket, Mantis, & Jude get more spirited and fight more fiercely. They exert all their power and try to exert more, surpassing their limit.

Cricket takes Hanji's staff attack head-on while attacking back. He ignores the pain that he feels when he gets hit. He keeps trying to use armament to protect his body while blocking the staff attacks.

Cricket fight fiercely even with the injuries that he got. He fights like a madman and starts to push Hanji back. The power of desperation always pushes someone to surpass his limitation.

This surprises Hanji that suddenly feels the change in Cricket's eyes. 'What happened to this guy? How can he move like this with all those bruises?'

Mantis also starts to move more fiercely and swiftly. She starts to get bold on her attacks and her movements become more agile. She uses her bat to block while using her legs to attack.

Her moves become nimbler and more effective. She uses small attacks that always hit and doesn't use big attacks that will get evaded. She also starts to push her opponent, Yoko, back.

As for Jude, she is still trying to find a way to reach her opponent who stays on the crow nest. She still can't control her devil fruit to reach such height.

Her opponent, Lin also seems to have unlimited projectiles. Lin keeps shooting at Jude with exploding projectiles that make Jude's ash body scattered. So Jude can't even move because she needs to reform her body every time.

'Those projectiles explode upon contact. So if they touch something before reaching me, they should explode there, and the explosion won't reach me. I need to make a shield,' thinks Jude after analyzing the exploding projectiles.

Jude gets shot again and her ash body is scattered again. But now she doesn't reform her body immediately. She controls the ash to become a wide thin shield first before reforming her body.

Lin shoots again, but her projectile hits the ash shield. It explodes and destroys the shield, but Jude doesn't get hit at all. Jude gets elated and immediately reform her ash shield again.

"This can work," says Jude happily.

Buggy can see his crewmates are improving in their battle. He smiles because this is the reason why he chooses to fight Ley's group. He can destroy Ley's ship's mast like what he did to Chinjao's ship, but he wants his crewmates to grow.

Transcended as Lord Buggy-Part 1Where stories live. Discover now