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.
Buggy is still clashing with Ley using his swordsmanship. He just uses basic skills and haki to improve his haki because Ley's armament haki is a bit stronger than him. But Buggy doesn't get any improvement at all so far.
'Is it because I use my swords and not using my hands directly?' ponders Buggy.
Buggy wants to try it, so he jumps back to make a distance. Then he sheath his swords on their scabbards and gets into a fist-fighting stance.
"What is this? Have you given up using your swords? Heh, do you think your hands are tougher than your swords?" asks Ley.
"I have my reason that you don't need to know," replies Buggy.
"You won't be able to stand on equal ground with me again now," says Ley while smirking.
Ley jumps forward to attack Buggy with a punch that he has prepared. Buggy also gets into a stance and punches Ley with all his might.
*BOOM* A booming sound is created from their clash. Ley smirks, but then it disappeared when Buggy doesn't move back at all.
"You can take my attack with bare hand? How?" asks Ley confusedly.
"Of course. Using swords or not, the power of my attacks comes from me. So there won't be any change. It's just that swords can cut things, unlike fists. You should know that much, idiot," says Buggy while smirking.
"Tch," Ley clicks his tongue.
Buggy smile like nothing happen, but he curses in his heart. 'Shit! My hand hurt. His haki is tougher and the Hasshoken make it stronger. I can even feel the vibration in my legs now.'
Buggy can feel the impact of Ley's haki punch and Hasshoken even better now. His hand feels hurt, but he needs to appear strong to make Ley lose his confidence a little.
However, Buggy still has sufficient power to nullify Ley's attack. He has strong punches that can nullify Hasshoken's power. The only problem is just his haki that isn't strong enough.
Buggy and Ley start to exchange a barrage of punches without moving back at all. Buggy keeps trying to toughen his haki so it can reach and even surpass Ley's haki's toughness.
They keep exchanging their punches with high speed and power. Booming sounds and vibration effects from Hasshoken keep appearing between Buggy & Ley.
Buggy grin excitedly because he never has this kind of fight. 'Maybe this is how a man's fight should be. Direct, no evasion, just pure strength to defeat the opponent. But,'
Buggy's grin fades a little and he cries in his heart. 'Damn, my hands hurt.'
Buggy can feel his hands start to get hurt after countering Ley's punches many times. Even his body started to get hurt after receiving many vibration attacks. So Buggy needs to cut the vibration from reaching his body.
Buggy cut his forearms in the middle of the fight. But he still moves his fists to counter Ley's punches. Ley gets surprised by this and becomes wary if Buggy will suddenly attack with his legs or head like before.
But Buggy doesn't do it and just keeps punching with his detached fists. He concentrates on controlling his flying fists. Then his fists start to move faster and have more power.
Buggy uses his detached parts levitation ability to add more speed & power to his punches. Ley starts to get pushed back a little now because of the speed and power.
Ley also failed to block some punches and gets hit. But his Zoan durability really helps him in this case. Still, he can't keep getting hit, so he covers his whole body with haki. Buggy & Ley keep fighting until they moved to the empty front deck.
*CREAK*. Suddenly Buggy & Ley hear a loud creaking sound from the main deck. They stop their fight and look at the source of that sound. They see the main mast break and fall to the side.
Ley fumed and shouts, "WHO DARE TO BREAK MY SHIP?"
Ley wants to go to the main deck, but Buggy punches him from the side and stops him.
Buggy grins and says, "Your opponent is me, Tigercat."
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