"Waaaaaah! What the hell are these things?!"
Inside one of the slave-hunting team bases in the Sabaody Archipelago, a group of slave traders were being chased all over the place by a pack of tall, oddly shaped mechanical constructs.
Each construct had three arms and three legs, and every arm held a weapon.
It was as if they had just raided an entire armory—their weapons were diverse:
longswords, axes, spears, guns, shields... and they wielded them quite skillfully.
Combined with their solid metal bodies, the slavers quickly realized after a brief clash—
They couldn't win!
Worse yet, they couldn't even run away!
The Guardians moved extremely fast. Their three legs could extend and retract freely, and the claws at the end of each limb allowed them to climb with ease.
For now, their only real weakness was their overly rigid behavior patterns. When the slavers scattered, the Guardians didn't know to split up and chase individually.
Instead, several of them would chase after the same target, which left others free to strike back.
"Hahahahaha! So these things are idiots! The ones being chased, circle them around! The rest of you—take them down!"
Having found the Guardian weakness, the slavers quickly turned the situation around.
Apart from a few unlucky ones who got shot, the rest soon managed to destroy the clumsy machines.
"Damn it! What the hell are these things anyway?"
After knocking the Guardians down, the not-so-badly-hurt slavers gathered around, kicking the remains and cursing furiously.
They had no idea that Sherwin and the Felynes were hiding atop a nearby mangrove tree, quietly observing.
"Hmm… their flaws are a bit too obvious," Purah Meow shook her head in disappointment at the Guardian performance.
But she quickly perked up again. "Looks like I'll need to make some improvements, meow!"
Then, she pulled out a remote control from her pouch—it had only one button, colored bright pink.
"Those scraps aren't worth salvaging anyway, so… what was that line Klee Meow always says? Oh, right!"
After a moment thought, Purah Meow pressed the button and shouted, "Art is an explosion, meow! Check-it!"
"Boom! Boom! Boom—!!!"
The remains of the Guardians below exploded in an instant, sending the slave traders who had surrounded them straight to the afterlife.
After spending a bit of time taking down the first slave-trading base, the following assaults went far more smoothly and swiftly.
Whether it was Shermie, who commanded thunder and lightning, Jinx, whose guns roared endlessly, or Klee Meow, who could alter the landscape by accident—none of the slavers stood a chance.
Not to mention, Sherwin and the other Felynes occasionally joined the fight as well.
So before word of "someone attacking the slave groups" even spread, every single slave-trading base on the Sabaody Archipelago had already been wiped out by Sherwin and his team.
Of course, there were probably some slavers who weren't at their bases and managed to escape, but neither Sherwin nor the Felynes had any interest in hunting them down one by one.
In fact, several of the Felynes weren't even interested in continuing their tour of the Archipelago—they just wanted to get back to the ship as soon as possible.
Purah Meow wanted to further improve her Guardian designs Haibara Meow wanted to study the red mangroves and the bubbles they produced.
As for Seijuro Meow and Link Meow, both of those battle-loving types had gained a lot from their earlier fight with Rayleigh.
Even Hua Mei Meow had gained new insights into the use of Conqueror Haki.
Sherwin: "..."
His Felyne talents were so overwhelming that it was both a source of pride and mild frustration.
After unlocking all the map areas, Sherwin himself had also lost interest in sightseeing around the Sabaody Archipelago.
What he really wanted was to take time to study Crimson End, the one technique capable of standing against the power of Haki infusion.
But then…
"Sherwin big brother, Klee hasn't played enough yet, meow~" The little ragdoll rubbed her cheek pitifully against his face.
"I haven't played enough either! Can we go back to that amusement park again, meow?!" Jinx was just as energetic as Klee Meow.
"I'm kinda curious about how that coating thing works… Sherwin dear, can you take me to see it, meow?" Shermie leaned on the other side of his face, her tone sweet and playful.
And as if that weren't enough, Sanji Meow was bouncing in front of Sherwin,
saying, "Didn't they say there are a bunch of restaurants in Area 60? I wanna check them out—and maybe stock up on ingredients, meow!"
Yeah… if his eyes hadn't been darting constantly toward Shermie on Sherwin shoulder, Sherwin might've believed him.
Robin, too, didn't seem eager to return to the ship just yet.
"I want to study this island history a bit more… meow." Robin explained to Sherwin.
There was no helping it—Sherwin and the others had to split into two groups.
Fortunately, the distribution of strength between them was fairly balanced, so he didn't have to worry about the Felynes who returned to the ship first.
Luckily, perhaps because their earlier battle with Rayleigh had caused such a commotion, the Celestial Dragons on the island seemed to have already left.
As a result, during their continued tour of the Sabaody Archipelago, Sherwin and his group didn't sense any of those troublesome figures again.
Without needing to suddenly change course, they quickly finished exploring the remaining areas.
Sherwin even took the Felynes for another round at Sabaody Park. It wasn't until dusk began to fall that they finally returned to the Dodo Advance.
As soon as they stepped back onto the ship, the Felynes who had returned earlier all rushed up to meet them.
"Admiral! Something strange happened, meow!"
Purah Meow leapt into Sherwin arms, rubbing her head under his chin as she spoke.
"Oh? What happened?"
Sherwin gently scratched Purah Meow chin while asking curiously.
Judging from how calm the Felynes seemed, it didn't look like anything too serious.
"My Guardians that were left on the ship got damaged… and then someone repaired them, meow!" Purah Meow said, sounding both excited and uneasy. "But Sherwin, look at this—"
Dodo Advance carefully took out the "repaired" Guardian and showed it to him.
"Pfft…"
Sherwin couldn't hold it in and burst out laughing.
On his shoulder, Klee Meow tilted her little head in confusion and asked, "But isn't it really cute, meow? Why is Purah Meow angry, meow?"
Sherwin could tell that the Guardian before them had once had its arm broken, and there were several cracks on its head and body. Now, its arm had been reattached, and the damaged areas had been filled in.
However, the result was…
The broken arm had been tied back together with colorful ribbons, neatly fastened into a lovely bow, while the cracks on its head and body had been patched with iron plates shaped like cat paws.
It was obviously impossible for the Guardian to keep fighting in this condition, but just as Klee Meow said…
It was undeniably cute.
Although he had a rough idea of what had happened, Sherwin still asked, "Didn't you set up a recording Den-Den Mushi on the ship? Didn't it capture who did the repairs?"
"It didn't record that, meow…" Purah Meow replied in frustration.
"The recording Den-Den Mushi only caught footage of the Guardian fighting those pirates who boarded our ship, but after that, someone must've turned it off, meow."
"And what really strange," Haibara Meow added from the side,
"is that neither Purah Meow Guardian nor Klee Meow flame puppet attacked that mysterious person.
They even helped us clean up all traces of the intruders, meow."
Of course, the Guardian and the flame puppet wouldn't have reacted—after all, that was the ship spirit…
After taking a moment to reflect, Sherwin said to the Felynes, "Since she doesn't want to show herself for now, we don't need to force it."
"Eh? Sherwin, do you know who it is, meow?" The little cloth doll who greatly admired that person sense of style immediately grabbed his ear and gave it a playful shake.
"Tell Klee, tell Klee! Klee wants to be friends with her, meow!"
(=`=)
The other Felynes also looked at Sherwin with curious eyes.
But Sherwin only ran his hand along the rail of the Dodo Advance, then shook his head with a light laugh and teased,
"When the time comes, you'll all naturally find out who she is."
In the end, he added mischievously, "Mm, it someone everyone knows."