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Episode 196 (WJ #39, 2001)
1
A voice asks Chaka to stop, and the ClawKick Squad appears on the scene. Cobra tells them not to attack, but the troops under the gate cheer them on. The squad leader tells Cobra that they were there to protect the king with their lives and must attack. Especially now that one of the Seven Armed Seas is against them, the four of them had to settle the score. Crocodile tells them to go home, but they reply that they had reason to not go back... especially if Crocodile was the mastermind behind the revolution. Chaka recognizes the scars on the squad members' arms... Miss All-Sunday asks if she should take care of them, but Crocodile replies he will take care of them. Vivi asks Chaka why the squad was acting strangely; Chaka replies that the squad members drank Force Water, water that shaves away one's life to gain superior power... and that they only had minutes left to live. The squad apologizes for their rash behavior, but they explain that they had to show Crocodile the pain and anger that the country and their people felt... but it falls to deaf ears as Crocodile slides out of their reach, saying he didn't have to kill them if they only had minutes left to live. As Crocodile laughs at the falling squad members, Chaka cannot control his anger and bolts towards Crocodile. Cobra tells Chaka that he can't be sacrificed as well, but Chaka transforms into a jackal (the second DogDog Fruit was Model Jackal) and attacks... but no damage to sand. Meanwhile, Mr.1 asks Zoro if he's going to cut diamond next; Zoro replies that that's a waste of money. hearing the reply, Mr.1 falls, leaving Zoro as the winner... but he's lost quite a bit of blood. Zoro wonders about what happened to the others... Sanji and the camel/Usopp head towards the palace. Usopp is crying because he remembers Miss Merry-Christmas saying Luffy was dead; Sanji tells him that if Usopp doesn't believe it, the thing to do is to hurry to the palace and stop the runny nose until then. Nami, on the other hand, finally untangles the pigeons from Miss Doublefinger, and heads towards the palace despite the change in the current stance. With our protagonists heading to the palace, the imperial army at the palace are seeing a nightmare -- Crocodile before them, and the rebel army close approaching. As Vivi and Cobra cry for Chaka who fell to Crocodile's claw, someone arrives....
25 minutes until the palace courtyard is scheduled to blow up....
Episode 197 (WJ #40, 2001)
The Leaders
Kohza appears in front of Vivi, using an old passageway. However, he doesn't believe the sight before his eyes -- he came over to convince Cobra, yet he sees Chaka down, and Crocodile ("The kingdom's hero") attempting to kill the king. As Crocodile laughs, Miss All-Sunday makes the simple explanation: "Just imagine the worst-case scenario that you can currently imagine." Kohza demands Vivi to tell him who took away the rain from Alabasta; Crocodile replies that it was him, and that Kohza would have died happier if he hadn't known. Cobra tells Kohza to stop listening to Crocodile and save as many people as possible. Chaka gathers his strength to further inform Kohza that in less than half an hour, the palace courtyard will be blown up. Kohza tries to run off to the yard, but he is stopped by Vivi. He asks why, and she replies that if he told the people that the yard will be blown up, panic will ensue and nobody will be saved in the end. What he can do, on the other hand, is to stop the revolution -- and only he can do it. Crocodile sneers, asking the two if he would actually let them do such a thing. Chaka gets up and prevents Crocodile from striking -- saying that with what little strength he has, he can hold off Crocodile for a few minutes that Kohza and Vivi can use to stop the battle. Meanwhile, the rebel army has reached the northern block of Alubarna... Vivi demands that the imperial army surrender and raise a white flag; Kohza follows that by telling the imperial army that he no longer wishes for victory -- or even a battle. He promises to tell the rebels that the fighting was meaningless, so he needs their help by surrendering. The rebel army reaches the palace, but sees the white flag -- with the flag in the center, waving the highest of them all, held by Kohza. Kohza yells out to the rebels that the imperial army no longer wishes to fight, so all rebels should drop their weapons... but the few imperial army members who were agents of Baroque Works (remember them from quite a few eps back?) shoots Kohza, reigniting the flame of hatred among the rebels.
Episode 198 (WJ #41, 2001)
4:15p.m.
Kohza falls to a Baroque Works bullet. While Vivi stands in shock, a gust of wind starts a sandstorm. In the sandstorm, the BW agents (who infiltrated both the imperial and rebel armies) started shooting at each other to get the armies to shoot during the sandstorm. Vivi and Kohza realize what Crocodile is upto and tries to stop the shooting, but they fall to deaf ears and the imperial army attacks. Cobra, sensing the end of his kingdom, tells Vivi to run... but she refuses because if she can stop the cannon fire that will happen 15 minutes from now, she can prevent the worst-case scenario. Crocodile grabs Vivi in a chokehold, saying she needs to wake up from her idealism. Vivi falls into tears, saying she will not let go of her idealism. Crocodile notes that more rebels will arrive before the palace is destroyed. As he swings her over the side of the palace wall, Crocodile continues his speech: if she had chosen to tell the armies that they were blowing up the palace, tens of thousands of people might have been saved amidst the panic... she ended up killing all the people she wanted to protect... she nor her father could stop anything... she can't save Alabasta. Crocodile turns his hand to stone and drops Vivi.... but from high in the skies a shadow arrives. As Crocodile looks in disbelief, Vivi realizes that the shadow is Luffy riding atop Pell.
Episode 199 (WJ #42, 2001)
HOPE!!
Luffy aboard Pell and catches Vivi just in the nick of time. Vivi cries on Luffy's shoulder, saying that the courtyard will be blown up soon, and nobody could her her anymore. Luffy smiles, saying that he and his crew heard her voice. (Cut to Nami being piggybacked by Zoro as he runs towards the palace.) Luffy is dropped off at the palace, and claims that he won't lose now because he's eaten plenty of meat. Crocodile wonders how Luffy survived. Chopper, arriving at the scene with Usopp and Sanji, is surprised to see Luffy there. Shortly after, Nami and Zoro arrive. (Nami promptly decks Usopp for making a "magic trick" of a Clima-Tact ^^;) As the group falls into its usual chaos, Luffy explains that he's lost to Crocodile once but he won't lose again, and that he'll put an end to all of the goings-on... and springs up to the top of the palace. Crocodile smirks that Luffy won't be able to punch him, but Luffy is able to land a punch onto Crocodile's face... and even lands the GumGum Round-Saw (grab the enemy, roll around, and hit enemy with force of tumble). The key: a barrel of water (with a drinking straw) on his back - Crocodile can't turn into sand if he's wet. Luffy proclaims the fight has finally begun.
Episode 200 (WJ #43, 2001)
Water Luffy
Vivi asks the rest of the crew to find the one who will be detonating the deathblow to the courtyard, guessing that the detonator will be within the 2.5km blast radius (knowing how Crocodile thinks). Meanwhile, the Billions officers for Baroque Works has found the group; Zoro and Sanji proclaim they will all fall in 2 seconds and attacks as the rest of the group disperses to find the detonator. The time limit is 10 minutes... Back at the boss battle: Crocodile laughs at Luffy's idea of winning; Luffy counters that if Crocodile is one of the Seven Armed Seas, he can be the EIGHTH Armed Sea. (^^;) Crocodile grabs Luffy's arm during the next attack, and starts to suck the water out of the arm. Luffy kicks to break free, and drinks the water from the barrel on his back to re-inflate his arm. Luffy's punches all miss, as well as Crocodile's retaliation attacks. Luffy tries to douse Crocodile with the barrel of water, but Crocodile blows the barrel away from him (but Luffy does catch the barrel). Luffy then decides to.... drink the entire barrel of water (-.-;;) and turn into "water luffy"... which strangely resembles when he attacks with GumGum Balloon. Crocodile runs in to attack, but Luffy spits a huge bubble of water on Crocodile, and proceeds to land a GumGum Bazooka into the wet Crocodile.
Episode 201 (WJ #44, 2001)
Nico Robin
As Cobra stares in disbelief, Miss All-Sunday pulls out the stakes that were pinning him against the wall. She demands to be guided to where the Poneglyph is stored. Cobra asks what she was going to do with it, but Miss All-Sunday gives no reply and smiles to Luffy, saying he has no time left. Crocodile tells her - Nico Robin - to hurry up and go to the Poneglyph if she doesn't want to shrivel up (as he has gotten severly pissed off). Cobra is surprised to hear that name. With Crocodile's next attack, water is extracted from the ground and everything attached to it to crack the palace roof. Luffy counters by spitting out spheres of water, but all of them get sucked into Crocodile's right hand -- a hand that dries up anything and everything it touches. To demonstrate, Crocodile turns a stone statue into sand, and proceeds to dry up the ground into sand (and takes Luffy's sandal along with it). Meanwhile, outside the palace, Miss All-Sunday (nudging on Cobra) is greeted by Tashigi and the Marines. Miss All-Sunday demands for them to move out of the way, but Tashigi refuses. Cobra tells the Marines that the palace courtyard was going to be blown up at 4:30PM, and asks them to somehow stop the detonation. Tashigi looks at her watch -- 4:23PM -- and proclaims that she will save Cobra and stop the detonation. Before Cobra can warn the Marines, Miss All-Sunday attacks with 30 arms -- meaning 30 sleep-chokers on 30 Marines. One of the Marines recognizes Miss All-Sunday as Nico Robin, and we finally get the background we've been waiting for... Nico danced the headlines all over the world 20 years ago, at age 8, by sinking 6 Marine ships. The government back then considered her extremely dangerous, and the bounty on her head was 79 million Bellies -- but since the incident, she had completely disappeared into thin air. Tashigi realizes that the entire group still was no match, and commands the Marines to go to the courtyard and stop the detonation. She poises to fight, but Nico (as I will now call her, it's easier to type...) gags Tashigi with two limbs, and grabs the sword from her hands with two more -- and points the blade back at the girl's throat. The war continues, the Marines are desperately searching, and Tashigi's eyeglasses fall to the ground. And back at the palace, Luffy had jumped up to the palace roof to escape the front yard (which now was a desert) -- but Crocodile was up there as well, and chokes Luffy with his right hand. Luffy manages to shoot up three bubbles of water, but they all miss... and as Crocodile proclaims Luffy's loss, our rubberband boy quickly turns into something like a mummy......
Episode 202 (WJ #45, 2001)
Tombs of the Royal Family
Crocodile tells Luffy to take his time and celebrate the detonation that will happen in 6 minutes' time, and drops him to the ground as he floats away in the wind towards the mausoleum (where Cobra and Nico headed). The three spheres of water shot up at the end of last episode (conveniently, or predictably?) fall on Luffy to pop him back up. He glares up at the direction that Crocodile headed, swearing he won't let the syndicate boss escape. At the mausoleum, located due west of the main palace, Cobra opens a hidden staircase that leads to the Poneglyph. As Nico heads down the stairs, Cobra realizes that she can read the Poneglyph; Nico replies that Crocodile teamed up with her (and can't quite kill her off yet) for exactly that reason. She summizes that Alabasta's Poneglyph has the whereabouts of Pluton inscribed on it; Cobra replies that he has no idea, and that the royal family was told only to protect the Poneglyph from harm. They reach the main chamber (a rather ornate "hidden room") and through the far door they go.... Back in the town, with less than 5 minutes left, Usopp pretends to be Crocodile to attempt figuring out the mastermind's train of thought (and promptly gets decked by Zoro), Nami asks Chopper to sniff out a guy that smells like he's aiming his artillery towards the center of the courtyard (to which Chopper asks what that smells like), and Sanji muses that for something that blows up a 5km blast diameter it probably will have a short firing range -- and kicks the building wall for a "shortcut" to head back towards the courtyard. Pell sees nobody atop the roofs near the courtyard; he and Vivi decide to look inside the buildings as well. Luffy, chasing after Crocodile, finds the injured Tashigi, and asks where Crocodile is. Tashigi at first points her sword at Luffy. Remembering how the bones in her leg were broken by Nico and how Crocodile laughed at her (asking if Smoker had ran away, and that losers couldn't talk about justice), Tashigi drops her weapon and points Luffy towards the mausoleum. As he runs off, she questions what justice is, and what the Marine Headquarters really is.... As for Luffy: as he runs towards the mausoleum, the wound on his abdomen repoens, and he trips. He wonders why he can't move around well despite the fact that he ate meat. As he wonders if he's just a "little" bit tired, he dcollapses on the ground -- right in front of the mausoleum. The war continues to rage on. Nico reads the Poneglyph, and Cobra asks if what she wanted was written on it. Crocodile smiles at the hidden staircase. Tashigi hobbles through town... Zoro, Usopp, and Vivi look for the assailant, and Luffy seems to be unconscious. The time - 4:26PM... 4 minutes until the courtyard in front of the palace is blown up.
Episode 203 (WJ #46, 2001)
Croc-ish
Luffy is still passed out on the mausoleum lawn. Crocodile heads down the stairs, but Nico can't believe what she's reading. She asks Cobra if the Poneglyph in front of her was all that Alabasta had to offer. Cobra replies that he has fulfilled his promise. Just then, Crocodile enters, and asks Nico if she has finished reading the Poneglyph. Nico answers yes, and starts reading... the history of Alabasta. Crocodile yells at her to tell him the whereabouts of Alabasta's military power (i.e. Pluton), but Nico replies that the Poneglyph only mentions history - that the word Pluton never showed up anywhere on it. Crocodile, after a moment of silence, decides to kill Nico off as well, explaining that the partnership between them was that he guide her to the Poneglyph and she tells him the whereabouts of Pluton. While he commends her for her work as part of the Baroque Works, now that she has broken her vow (by not providing the location of Pluton), he was going to kill her. Nico fights back by tossing a test-tube of water, catching it with an arm she grew on Crocodile's shoulder, and aiming for the test-tube with her knife... but Crocodile evades and manages to stab her in the chest from behind with his hook, laughing that he has never ever trusted anyone from the get-go. As Nico falls, Crocodile decides to find Pluton on his own, now that he was sure of its existence from Cobra's reaction to the word. In the meanwhile, Cobra has set off the switch for destruction of the mausoleum (he notes that pulling out one little pillar causes the entire support to go off balance and come crumbling down) because he, as the 12th king of Alabasta, can't give the country over to Crocodile. Crocodile laughs back, saying that he can turn all of the falling stone to sand and escape - and with less than 3 minutes left to the courtyard destruction and the destruction of the mausoleum, everyone who stood in his way would begone and he would be able to rule over Alabasta.... At 4:28:30, Vivi trips and falls as Usopp almost gets hit by a stray bullet. While thinking of a place big enough to hide a cannon, she remembers a time when Kohza hid in a place that was hard to find... somewhere out of people's sight, and a relatively big place at that. As Usopp fights one of the Imperial Army forces, Vivi calls him over to signal everyone to gather back together. Usopp sends a Red Snake Star (i.e. red[?] smoke signal), and all the others - Nami, Chopper, Sanji, Pell, and Zoro - see it. As for Luffy... he was just SLEEPING (--;;;), and wakes up at this time. He muses that he suddenly couldn't move, and decided to take a nap... and now that he was better, he was gonna kick some croc ass! As he runs into the mausoleum, he finds the hidden stairway... and thinks that the stairs look "Croc-ish".
Episode 204 (WJ #47, 2001)
RED
Luffy runs inside the mausoleum as it starts to self-destruct. Meanwhile, Vivi assures Usopp that her hunch is correct (=that there is nowhere else the cannon could be hidden), and Vivi runs ahead to confirm her hunch while Usopp raises a signal flare for the others. While Luffy's crew heads over to aid Vivi, so do the remaining Baroque Works members -- who are all thwarted from attacking Vivi by Usopp's lovely music of fingernails across a chalkboard (^^;;;)... and the odd pair finds their moment to run while the BW members are writing from the harsh noise. Back in the mausoleum, Luffy arrives to a surprised and irate Crocodile, who asks our hero how many times does he need to be killed to be satisfied. Luffy replies that he hasn't gotten back what Crocodile stole -- not money, not glory, not trust, not life, not rain, but the country. Crocodile laughs that he hasn't taken the country yet; but Luffy replies that Vivi's country no longer existed here when their entourage first arrived in Alabasta -- and that if this really was her country, she would be smiling more than she was now. Luffy strikes for a kick; Crocodile laughs that since he has no water left he has not way to hit -- but Luffy's kick lands on Crocodile's cheek. Luffy's barrage of attacks all hit Crocodile -- because blood can harden sand just like water can. Crocodile replies to Luffy's determination by fighting him "as a pirate" -- he pulls off the cover from his hook to reveal a poisonous needle-hook... and their final showdown is about to begin. Meanwhile, in the race for the clock, Zoro runs into Marines -- who tell him he's an idiot and actually give him directions. And, behind Vivi and Usopp stands Tashigi, who declares that she and her men will cover for them, and that she wants them to stop the explosion.
Episode 205 (WJ #48, 2001)
Secret Base of the SandSand Clan
Usopp and Vivi continue to run through the chaos of battle. A minute and a half left - Vivi looks over at those fighting; Usopp tells her that praying alone will not stop the explosion. At the base of the clock-tower, they are greeted by Nami and Chopper... and Vivi explains that the only place left that she can think of is inside the clock tower. Meanwhile, Pell arrives near the tower guided by Usopp's flare, but he can't find the exact location due to the sandstorm below... when he is suddenly shot down by someone. The sniper laughs that she shot Pell down with a RibbitRibbit (gerogero) Gun... The war rages on, and only 72 seconds left. Meanwhile, back at Luffy vs. Crocodile - they are barely managing to avoid each other's attacks using their abilities to the fullest while trying to land that decisive blow inside the crumbling mausoleum. Cobra watches on, wondering who in the world Luffy is (and how he manages to fight Crocodile so well). Crocodile smirks that Luffy can't possibly live through his poison; Luffy replies that Crocodile really doesn't know anything. Back at the clock tower, the foursome have to go up the tower themselves without sign of Pell... but then, Sanji is standing at the windowsill of the third floor and is waving to them! While Usopp wonders how he got there, Sanji explains that since it said "clock tower" on the signal flare, he was going to climb upstairs. The group tells Sanji to go all the way up -- when Zoro peeks down from the roof of the outer tower. Zoro says that he is where hs is because the Marines told him to go "north" (of course, Usopp counters that "north" and "up" are completely different monstrocities).... but Vivi notes that neither of them can get to the top of the tower, because the only way to climb all the way up is to use the back staircase located on the first floor. Can Zoro destroy the tower wall? Yes, but the cannon might explode in that case... Just then, Nami comes up with a good idea... but the clock face opens up to reveal the cannon... as well as Mr.7 and Miss Fathers-Day!?
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