Character Roulette

The fascinating thing about the titans was how different their behavior could be from one another. Some of them chased after me like their life depended on them, with that creepy smile plastered all over their faces, while some just followed me like they were on a morning stroll, and I was a snack they were about to pick up from the nearest convent store.

The moment I flew out of the cave and trough the titan’s grasp, they began to chase me. One thing that may not need to be clarified, was that this body wasn’t really cut out for running. If I could see myself right now, I would probably have hard time keeping myself from laughing my ass off. For now though, I was running for my life.

There were two titans barely keeping up with my cartoonish run, and others falling not to far behind. There were several meters between us. I was actually slower then the two. The only reason I got ahead of them was from me taking advantage of the terrain and zigzagging between the trees. With their massive bodies, maneuvering around here slowed them down enough for me to create some much needed distance for the main show to happen. For the first step, I needed to single out one of them. Then kill it before other titans were upon me. Not an easy thing to do. But that was where Merry came into the plan.

“Are you ready, buddy?” I asked at the hovering Merry next to my shoulder. “Take care the left one for me.”

“You can thank me for my genius later.” Merry nodded back as he turned around, changing his course and flying towards the smaller titan. “I know it can be frightening sometimes!”

I laughed at how unserious he was about the situation, and kept going forward. Merry was going to distract the other titans while I took care of preparing the vessel.

Merry was about to collide with the titan, when he suddenly began growing in size. Merry was also the viable target for the Roulette, and since he was linked to me via nen, there was no reason to make the contact during the transformation.

He rapidly transformed into a tall, black-haired man with a goatee. it wasn’t only his body that went through the change, but also his attire. He wore a red coat over white t-shirt, black pants, and a golden necklace, along with a sword holstered around his hip. At the same time, Higuma’s mark vanished from my arm while my aura expenditure doubled.

With the speed he had picked up during the flight, a body of a fully grown adult man smashed into the leg of a titan. The titan’s lighter weight worked against it, and the force proved sufficient to trip over the creature, sending it smashing headfirst into the ground. Meanwhile, Merry was flung backwards, he too crashing against the terrain. But neither of the two sustained any injuries.

The titan stood up in seconds, but its attention was no longer on me, like the rest of its kin that had finally caught up with it. After making sure all eyes had shifted on him except the one closest to me, Merry made a run for it, and titans gave chase, leaving only one of them tracing my steps.

When there was sufficient distance between me and Merry, I planted my right leg into the ground to halt my speed and turned around, rushing at the titan running towards me.

The moment distance between us shortened to the point where only few meters separated us, I lunged at the titan's leg. The same scene repeated again, and the titan fell head-first to the ground. I activated the ability, marking titan as the vessel for the summoning.

Before it could stand, I retreated, charging towards the tall but a thin tree that I had spotted earlier. I left the mace behind as it would slow me down, but I didn’t really need it. A body slam and one punch was all it took for the tree as thick as my arm to tear off from its trunk. I quickly grabbed the bottom end of it, my muscles bulging from the effort, but I managed to raise the tree around a dozen meters horizontally above my right shoulder.

The titan roared, having just stood up and started to run towards me. I responded in kind, picking up pace. Before we clashed, I planted other end of the tree into the ground in an angle, tightened my hold around my end and leapt into an arc. Before I reached the highest point, I threw myself forward, using the tree as a leverage. The tree snapped, but I had already launched myself off of it, hurling towards the big guy’s face.

I had intended to grab its hair, use it to secure myself around its nape to break it. I miscalculated a little, flying off bit lower than intended. The titan roared in pain as my hands dug into its eye sockets, temporarily blinding the creature. Blood splattered outwards, and sensation I got from my hands was repulsing. I moved, shifting to my left and digging out my hands from the steaming flesh. Then, grabbing edge of the titan’s right eye socket with my right and keeping a tight hold, I jumped, swinging around its head until my left hand grabbed at the hair, barely dodging the giant hand from getting ahold of me.

With that, the hardest part was done. In the distance, I could see Merry drawing the titans back. Just in time.

When the vessel fell after I punched through its nape, Merry had almost reached my location. I stood up, trying steady my breath while drawing back from the corpse of the titan before finding the tallest tree around and climbing it. After reaching high enough, I dispelled the transformation and sat upon a branch. It was better to conserve my reserves, especially now that the Alvida’s form would not be of much use with dealing this situation. Plus, I had a plan.

The titan that I had chosen as a vessel began to transform after seconds of its death. Its body began to rapidly shrink until it became third of what it was.

The summoning was complete.

The captain Axe-hand Morgan was right in front of me, in the flesh. He was in his normal attire, with ornate overcoat and all his modifications; his axe hand and metallic jaw present.

His eyes shot open, observing the surroundings in puzzlement for a second.

Then he sensed it. The vibrations through the earth.

He quickly stood up and looked around. And froze. His eyes landed on the dozen or so titans running towards us. I’m pretty sure Merry had picked up few more along the way.

Morgan didn’t immediately run. He also spotted Merry running ahead of the titans. But before reaching Morgan, Merry transformed back, flying past him and up until hovering next to my shoulder. I raised my hand. We high fived

The titans changed their target, going after closest human in their vicinity; Morgan.

“That was perfect.” I said. “Let’s enjoy the show.”

“Haha, this is fun.” Merry laughed. Looking down bellow us to see what Morgan would do. “I wish I had some popcorn.”

“He has no plans of running away.” I noted. “He’s pride won’t let him back off.”

He could probably survive if he made run for it. There were animals roaming around the island. And since the titans showed no interest in anything not human, it wouldn’t take too long before coming across one. But the great captain Morgan knew no retreat. At least that was how the man viewed himself.

“Halt, Now!” Morgan called out with an authoritative tone. “What are giants doing here?”

There was no response, of course. The titans simply charged at him. The man probably thought them as the giants of Elbaf.

“You dare ignore my order?!” Morgan said with irritation, shifting into a defensive posture. “Disrespecting an authority, especially me, is a crime punishable by death! I will not give out another warning!”

With the first titan upon him that began bending down and bringing its giant hand upon the man, Morgan simply swung his axe, splitting the palm from the wrist up to the index finger. Two thirds of the titan’s hand slid of from the rest, burst of steam immediately coming out off the wound.

But the titan showed no reaction, its creepy smile unchanging. It tried to bring its hand forward again, but second titan crashed into it, making the both sending falling at Morgan.

The man simply jumped sideways, avoiding impact area altogether. He brought his axe down at the intervened titans, cutting the. bellow the waist. He then dealt with the next titan by cutting its leg off.

“He’s doing quite good.” I said. “How long do you think he’ll last?”

“He’s a One Piece character. I don’t think his stamina is going to run out any time soon.” Merry said. “Unless he realized they got a weak spot, I don’t see this ending today.”

“Fair point.” I nodded. “We might need to intervene sooner than we though.”

Morgan had easy time dealing with titans one on one, but now that more then dozen of them surrounded him forced him into a less aggressive fighting style. I could hear him cursing under his mouth.

He was caught off guards when the fallen titan than he had cut in half suddenly grabbed at him. With the hand coming from Behind, Morgan failed to react in time, resulting in the titan quickly snatching him up and throwing him into its mouth. Of course, that was far from enough to bring Morgan down. The titans lower jaw was sliced off, and Morgan threw himself out from the mouth. Morgan seemed unharmed from it, but the distraction allowed rest of the titans to gather around him.

With multiple of them going after him simultaneously, Morgan began to struggle. He found himself against endlessly regenerating enemies that paid no mind to any of their injuries. Every time he cut them up, they healed right back up. Even going for the head did not put an end to those things. They disregarded everything but the desire to eat him. At this point, being swarmed by the titans, escape seemed to be no longer an option.

Gradually, Morgan began to accumulate wounds. Continuous assault from the titans left him covered in bruises, and the few times that they managed to get their teeth on him didn’t leave him unscathed either. His axe was steaming from the evaporating blood. His clothes were in tethers, his jacket and shirt being ripped apart by the giant hands. There were numerous teeth marks on his body, threatening him of succumbing to the bleeding. Without knowing how to kill them, Morgan had no choice but keep slicing up the giants until they run out of steam.

The battle between a man and titans continued, until Morgan finally landed a lucky strike.

When one of the titans, forced to crawl up to him due to lack of lower body, got struck on its nape just in the right area by Morgan’s axe.

For a while, Morgan hadn’t realized what had happened, simply going after the next titan after accidentally landing a killing blow on the previous one. But he did notice. Rapidly burning up giant was hard not to.

“Guess that’s my cue.” I said, bringing up one of the character marks and activating it. Now that Morgan had figured out their weak spot, the fight wouldn’t continue for much longer. I need to make a move before then. “Let’s see if Morgan's bulletproof.”