Chapter 378: Thunder Dome

Chapter 378: Thunder Dome



"It may not be wise to wait here, Luffy," Jinbe advised.

"I'm staying right here until Sanji comes back!" Luffy insisted stubbornly, just as Jinbe expected he would.

"Very well then, captain," Jinbe agreed, sitting himself down next to Luffy.

"Don't give up so easily, Jinbe! We're bound to be found here by Big Mom's crew and the longer we wait here, the more preparations they can make to deal with us!" Nami panicked. "Then we will fight," Jinbe spoke as if it were that simple.

"You can't fight the whole of Big Mom's crew with just the two of you!" Nami reasoned.

"There's three of us," Luffy pointed out.

"You...! I...! Grrrrrr!!!" Nami growled and ruffled her own hair in frustration.

How could she deny it when he so earnestly included her as an equal?! Worse, while she was certainly not a match for these two, she did have some confidence in her capabilities.

"Damn it, you better not let them lay a single finger on me!" Nami drew her Clima-Tact and got to work.

Jinbe and Luffy watched her curiously.

They were already out in the open, so there was no need to try to hide their relative location. So instead she would hide their exact location.

A thick fog began to form around them, giving them a good 50 meters in each direction of sight, but blocking off all sight for a wide stretch beyond that. In only a few minutes, the fog covered nearly the entirety of the field in a great dome of obscurement.

"Now for the tricky part..." Nami huffed, already building up a sweat.

Jinbe and Luffy watched her in awe as the weather, at least inside of this field, was slowly wrested from Big Mom's control.

...

The fog dome was naturally spotted by the war party assembled by Big Mom's children to take revenge for Cracker's defeat.

"What are they up to?" Mont-d'Or wondered aloud.

"It doesn't matter. We just have to capture them," Amande spoke calmly.

Soon enough they were just outside the dense fog. It looked at though you may be able to cut it with a knife from how thick and still it was.

"Homies! Get in there, find Straw Hat, and report back here!" Mont-d'Or ordered. There was no need to test an unknown like this with their own bodies.

A few dozen chess guards gave war cries and charged into the fog. From the moment they did so to the moment they could no longer be seen, they became increasingly quiet until all sound from them stopped.

"We should spread out and try to disrupt it with a combined assault," Charlotte Opera said. He was a large man who seemed to be made of cream.

That seemed as good an idea as any when faced with this strange weather phenomenon. Pirates, no matter how powerful, knew to respect the dangers of the weather and treat it with

all due caution.

...

Nami listened to the Charlotte family talking outside of her fog storm, carrying their voices on the wind towards the center where she, Jinbe, and Luffy waited quietly. "Hmph, typical meat heads. I'm not sure if the brute force they can produce will be enough to break through, boys, so prepare yourselves." Nami warned, already shifting tacts.

Jinbe and Luffy grunted their understanding, getting ready for a proper fight.

As Nami twirled her Clima-Tact, there was a subtle shift in the air, the hair on the back of her neck standing up as the ambient electrical energy started to rise.

Rumblings could be heard on the inside of the dome, but the outside was as quiet as ever as the Charlotte family spread out a bit to be sure their attacks wouldn't affect each other. Nami kept a delicate balance within the dome, keeping it on the edge of a shift for precisely

the right moment.

"""NOW!!!""" Nami and the Charlotte family called out in unison.

Simultaneously, the Charlotte children used their most appropriate moves for breaking apart

the unseen wall of wind.

Nami allowed their attacks to flow inwards, driving the force of her own withdrawal of the dome at ground level. At the same time, she curled to wind up and over the head of the small

army.

The light colored fog darkened in but a moment to near black, revealing an ominous

thundercloud, lightning racing along its underside.

"""Huh?!"""The Charlotte siblings were surprised.

"Thunder Rain Tempo!" Nami cried out, dragging her Clima-Tact down against a surprising

amount of resistance.

The shadowy atmosphere created by the dark cloud was replaced with blinding light and

deafening thunder.

True to Nami's words, lightning fell like rain upon their heads.