Asus wasn't happy that he lost another two hornets, but the fact that even more pupae finished their metamorphosis and more importantly that his life was saved more than made up for it. Abigail and the explosion caused by Zypha took out the remainder of the Marines so for the moment he had no need for the remaining 28 hornets and ordered them back.

"Looks we have to split up again." Asus personally had no idea what was behind any of the three doors, despite the spies he had sent in. He decided to leave the choice up to his two crewmates and just go through the door neither of them picked. "Well, ladies first."

---

Total number of hornets in Asus' body is 90. Number of hornets used for combat 60, hornets currently in use 0/60, dead hornets 8/60

With the trapdoor blown open Zypha descended to the floor of the base and go to bare witness to the carnage caused by her crewmates and apparently her use of the cannon to get in. It was pretty much chaos but now there were three doors for them to choose from. It was really a rather disgusting thing, having to split up again after just getting back together but they needed to strike as hard and as fast as possible.

"This base is just so inviting to our kind." She joked as she looked at the three identical doors. It seemed like Abigail had chosen the middle door which was fine with her. It was annoying but it had to be done, "Well I'll go ahead and take the left door then. Let's finish this base off as quickly as possible then pilfer what we need. You guys better stay alive cause I'm not wasting my time burying either one of you, especially you." She directed that last bit toward Asus for his ladies first comment.

Zypha made her way to the left door and casually waved back at Abigail and Asus, "Meet ya in a few. Blow the rest of these morons away will ya?" She opened the door and stepped through to go deeper into the base.

As Zypha made her way into the left room, the door at the end of the room opened. A familiar, small figure appeared and entered the room. After that, the door behind Zypha and the one behind the figure slammed shut at the same time. Asus and Abigail would also have a similar experience in their own rooms as they entered, now facing off against their own opponent. "Ah...this should be fun." Lenny said, with a sadistic grin on his face as he looked at Zypha.

"You might be wondering what's going on. My captain decided that it would be a good idea to split you up and kill you off individually. He has a remote control device in his possession, which controls the three doors in the beginning of the rooms and the three at the end. Hence why your door and mine closed at the same time. He must have pushed the button. The doors in the two other rooms will also have closed. A little something that Sophia invented. Even if by some miracle, you manage to kill me, you'll never get out of here. The doors are made out of Sea stone, and so are the walls. There is no escape!" He said, unsheathing two daggers, holding one in each hand.

"Now...let's begin, shall we?" He said in a sinister tone.

Abigail would find herself in an identical situation to Zypha, now trapped in a room with her respective opponent, and the woman would find herself being stared down by a massive suit of armor bearing the Marine crest, and faint trails of steam coming from the joints. Whoever was inside was completely covered, so exactly who she was fighting wasn't obvious. Not that it mattered; once the door slammed behind Abigail, the figure cleared their throat, crossing the arms, a puff of steam coming from above the shoulders as the suit prepared itself.

"So, the pirates come along playing heroes against our little operation. I didn't think the lot of you would make it this far! For what you're trying to do, you should even feel a little proud. And while you're definitely going to come out of this a prisoner or a corpse, how about I show you some good grace. If you worship something, go ahead and pray. If you have any final questions or requests, go ahead and ask. Once you're done with all of that, then you can pick up that sword and fight me."

The pirate could almost feel the grin from beneath the helmet as the marine pointed at the door behind her with one hand, the other at the armor's breastplate. "Someone like you won't be able to run from me with that seastone door behind you. And I bet you won't even be able to crack my Aesir Armor! So when you fight, better do it well, 'cause it'll be your last!"

"Reh~Heh~ha~Heh!"

The door behind Asus slammed shut, trapping him in a large, completely sealed off room with the Marines' leader, Yami. There he stood, as cocky as he'd always been, with both hands on his hips and a sinister smile painted across his face. "Yer awfully persistent, even after loosin' your captain and one o' yer friends already! And now you're traipse'n on in on the head honcho. Lookin' for a serious beating eh? Well you've come to the right place!" Yami shouted, tapping his foot against the ground irritable. Looking around, Asus could notice that this room had no windows, or exits of any kind aside from the sealed door that he came through. There were two giant metal plates near the roof on both the right wall, and the left wall, but they didn't look like they'd be easy to pry open, especially with only hornets at his disposal. Yami stepped down from a small podium and approached Asus unarmed. What was this marine going to do without any weapons? Well, Asus would soon find out...

There was someone in the room with her. Not that Abigail was surprised. It was just there was a little bit of hope she'd walk into a room and there wouldn't be anyone waiting for her and all she had to do was trust in the strength of her friends. Really, was that so much to ask for?

"Me?" Abigail said pointing to herself. "I didn't cause any trouble. Personally I was always on the defense, well, except for the roof part, that was planned." There was a slam behind her and Abigail whirled on her heels, fingers charged with energy, but it was only the door closing. Which wasn't nothing, but it wasn't going to go on the attack, was it?

The redheaded pirate started to say something, but stopped to blink at the strange metal figure before her. "Operation? What operation? I thought this was just another military outpost. Do you mean to say there's actually something going on here that would make us the heroes?" There was a tremor of excitement in Abigail's voice. She would've tried to hide it if she was aware it was happening. "That's great!" A weight she hadn't been aware of slid off her shoulders. "Really. Now I don't feel so guilty with the damage I've caused."

"Worship?" It was a strange thing to hear from a marine but Abigail was too giddy with relief to judge. "No, I don't worship anything, but if your taking request how about you and your buddies surrender? Think about it. Nobody else gets hurt. Your operations get to stay safe. None of us will let word leak to the other marines we pass by, scout's honor. We get to be on our merry way. The list goes on and on like that ocean my crew and I will travel down and none of you guys will ever see us again."

Abigail turns back and looks at the door behind her. "Seastone door?" She scratches her chin and turns back to her opponent. "Maybe I'm not as familiar with seastone as I thought I was, but how is that going to stop me? I mean it messes with my power if I'm touching it right, so how's it going to stop me from just blasting it off from a few feet away?" She shook her head and narrowed her eyes at the opponent. "Sorry, I get carried away." The pirate's wait shifts so the hip with her sword angles to face the armored foe. Her hand moved to her side and she takes a hold of her blade's handle. "Let's just get started shall we?"

As innocent as the busty bukineer was, she learned a few things about the marines since her arrival at the island. The first of which was that there wasn't anything wrong with playing dirty. For example, as she touched her weapon's handle, electricity quickly gathered in her other hand. Without warning she thrust it up and yelled "Dendo-Dendo snake" right before a blast of red electricity sped towards the Aeisir armored enemy.

"H-Hey!" The surprise attack wasn't unexpected, but the unusual red lightning was, and Sophia grabbed the hammer at her hip in a quick movement, thrusting it towards the lightning. The hammer was still metal, but the conducted electricity didn't seem to damage the weapon much, or conduct its way through the handle into the hilt. Just a release of steam from the elbow joint and hammerhead.

There was no fancy-ass acting with her voice now, and while it was still muffled, it was obvious that Abigail was fighting someone quite young for a marine. "HEY! Don't you know anything about dramatic monologues?! You're supposed to let me finish before piping up with your little comments in between! I don't actually care about your stupid requests or opinions, I was just giving you a fair warning!" As she ranted, she entered a slight crouching position, and slid the hammer back onto her hip.

"Forget it, I'm just gonna turn you into scrap!!!"

With that, she kicked off of the ground, lunging at Abigail, fist poised to throw a punch as she closed the distance between them at an alarming rate.

Zypha looked at small marine with a bored expression, thought in reality she was sizing him up. She also remembered that he had been the marine that had dashed away on the trail to alert the base. He had been quite a quick little guy and the fact that he was wielding dual knives meant he was a fast and agile fighter.

Knives could be very annoying as they were easy to move around with, quick on the defense, and easily became throwing knives at any moment. Of course the downside of knives was they had little length and once thrown, unless one picked them up again could not be used again. Against a quick opponent the pistol was not going to be of much use so she left it along and instead gripped her twin scythe.

"Well if it isn't the brave one that ran to tell the others." Zypha let her right scythe drop a bit, her hand now on the the attached chain and kept lowering it until it was just above ground level. "Splitting us up isn't the worst idea your captain could come up with but he is fighting in one of the other rooms right?" She tilted her head to the right as she started to get her rights scythe in motion, starting to spin it around from her grip on the chain next to her.

"So, if he still has the remote on hand then really whoever wins that fight has control over the base, a bit stupid he didn't leave it with some flunky in the back. As annoying as it is I guess our fight won't count for too much, ah well not like you'll be leaving with your head." Zypha brought the circling scythe above her head for two spins while she edged closer to her opponent the let the scythe fly forward in an arc, aimed at the marine's neck.

If the scythe hit or missed the target Zypha was about to reel it back into a spin on her right side. While it would be nice if the first attacked ended the fight it probably wouldn't so it would be up to Zypha to observe her opponent's reactions to come up with a plan of attack. If the opponent was quick like she thought, the best way would be to figure out how best to trap her opponent and limit his movements but she needed to see him in action first.

Asus wasn't happy about his choice of doors, as he recognized his opponent as the captain from earlier meaning he was probably facing the strongest Marine in the base. The first thing he did was try and open the door he came in through as he knew it was his only possible way out but unsurprisingly it was sealed shut. The fact that his enemy was unarmed only made it impossible to guess how he would fight. Hell Yami could even be another Devil Fruit user.

"I don't suppose we can just talk things out?" Trying to use the question as a distraction Asus released ten hornets attempting to settle things quickly with Bachi Bachi no Kamen. He didn't really think it would work but at the very least the captain's reaction might reveal something about his fighting style, plus he could get very lucky and settle things at the cost of a couple of hornets.

---

Total number of hornets in Asus' body is 100. Number of hornets used for combat 65, hornets currently in use 10/65, dead hornets 8/65

Things didn't go the way Abigail had planned. Yes the lightning worked and her aim wasn't off but instead of frying her opponent nothing seemed to happen. There was a hammer but it was metal so it shouldn't have made a difference. "Why?" She muttered and held up her blasting hand for a closer look. "Damn it, fruit! HOw do you work?" Something drew her attention back to her foe. "WAit. ARe you a kid?" She leaned closer but that didn't change anything. "Wouldn't you rather be home on your dad's knee, being read a story than out here in the middle of nowhere fighting complete strangers?"

Somethings just weren't fair. How quickly the heavy armored was on her was one of them. "Crap. Crap!" Abigail muttered trying to move out of the way and draw her blade for a quick desperate slash.

"Heh heh..There ain't no point in handing the remote to some low- level Marine. The Cap'n can't be beaten. Yer gunna share the same fate that your captain did...why would you even fight back? It's obvious, yer all gunna die here..." Lenny responded to Zypha's remarks. The small man smirked as Zypha's scythe made his way to him. He ducked under the incoming blade, and dashed forward with incredible speed.

The small man moved so fast that he was just a blur. He moved past the chain that Zypha had thrown as she was reeling it back, coming to a halt right in front of her. Not wanting to give Zypha any time to respond, he immediately took one step forward with his right foot and slashed vertically at her chest with his right hand.

"He's fast, said Zypha's inner monologue as the marine quickly closed the gap and stepped right in front of her just before the scythe could return to her grip. Being so close to her it was impossible to block the attack with her other scythe so her only option was to jump backward. The dagger to get a nice clean cut on her left side, slicing through her flesh but her movement made sure the blade only grazed her rib cage. While she wanted hold her now aching front this was a battle and useless movements would prove fatal.

Instead of catching the scythe she let the blade fly past her and caught part of the chain, spun it around behind her to catch her opponent from the other side, this time aiming at his legs, hoping to snare him with the chain. To increase the momentum she started to spin around herself, keeping her other blade close to her body to slash at her opponent while she became a whirlwind of spinning death. "Only one going to die is you and your buddies. I'll let you see some Spiral Lotus action."

Zypha took her momentum to make a swirling dance of death as she advanced on Lenny after her leap backward. The Spiral Lotus was a fast and furious technique designed to catch the opponent off guard. The blade out on the chain would either slash or simply add weight to the chain in order to catch her opponent, allowing the inner scythe to make quick work of whoever was caught in the outer spiral. Could be a decent defensive move as well but was better suited for attack simply because it was not like she could keep up a mini tornado of blades for long.

Lenny smirked as a few drips of blood fell from the tip of his knife. But then, the expression on his face turned to one of surprise for a small moment. Despite still hitting Zypha, it merely grazed her. It certainly wasn't often that a pirate was able keep up with his speed, as most were often critically injured from his first attack and were beaten almost instantly. He snapped out of it quickly however, as Zypha's scythe came from the other side this time. The small man jumped over the chain as it passed under him, landing on the ground. As Zypha turned into a whirlwind of death, the small man was too late to move and used both daggers to block.

Despite succeeding in blocking the incoming blades, the small man ended up getting knocked back quite a bit as his feet skid across the ground, clumsily regaining his balance. "Shit.." Lenny muttered. "Yer reflexes are pretty sharp, I'll give ya that!" Lenny said. The small man then dashed away to the right of the room in a blur, avoiding the rest of Zypha's onslaught as he remained on a good distance. He moved past Zypha's right. He threw the knife in his left hand at Zypha's right knee as he speeded past, aiming below the two horizontal moving circles of spinning blades that were her scythes. After doing so, he reached for the belt around his waist, pulling out another dagger and holding it in his left hand.

Yami shook his head confidently, almost missing Asus' initiating attack as he smugly went over how he would crush this intruder without mercy in his head. But before the ten hornets could reach Yami, his face began to turn a pale shade of green, and his jaw curved inwards at a rapid pace. In mere moments, his entire head was covered in thick, green skin, and his mouth resembled that of a turtle's before snapping down hard on the approaching hornets, and trapping them within his new beak. His head morphed back to normal a few seconds later as Yami stood there in silence. Had the hornets been able to sting him from the inside out? No... Yami opened his mouth wide to reveal the deteriorated carcasses of Asus' bees, as they lay in pieces scattered across his tongue and teeth. How in the hell did he do that?! Yami spit out the hornet carcasses a moment later and grunted uncomfortably before picking a stinger out of his teeth.

"Reh~heh~ha! Good talk, kid!" He shouted, smiling ear-to ear. "But I aint convinced! Yer gunna become turtle food, now!" With that, Yami fell forward onto all fours, morphing as he did so, into a giant, thick-shelled turtle with rough skin and beady green eyes. His curved mouth snapped once, taunting Asus as he stood there on his round, three-toed feet.

It was time for Asus to face off against the Kame~Kame No mi.

As Yami transformed Asus quickly realized he was forced to fight a Zoan DF user, and not one based on just any animal but one with a natural shield as well insides tough enough to be protected from his hornets. Seeing as the Captain was no doubt top heavy his first instinct was to try and flip his opponent over. "No he'll simply change back again, but on the other hand as a human he won't have as much defense." The Hive human decided to make that plan B.

There were also those metal plates but not only were they probably impossible to unscrew using hornets, they were too high up to somehow trick Yami into ramming them. Still he shouldn't be just standing there thinking about what to do while he could be attacked. There was only one safe spot in the room that he could think of but getting there was dangerous.

Even though it had no effect the last time he did it Asus once again used Bachi Bachi no Kamen, this time ordering the hornets not to go inside his opponent's mouth. Hoping the Marine would get blinded Asus charged at him in an attempt to climb onto the only the safe spot he could see, Yami's own shell.

---

Total number of hornets in Asus' body is 100. Number of hornets used for combat 65, hornets currently in use 10/65, dead hornets 18/65

Sophia growled, although it wasn't very audible through the armor, as her punch barely missed Abigail during the girl's panic dodge. It seemed as though the armored suit wasn't very...suited for turning, as she stumbled forward another step before turning towards Abigail again, holding up one arm to block the incoming slash.

"Don't bother with that dinky sword; it's not gonna cut through my Aesir Armor any time soon. I designed this suit myself, I should know! And I don't know what was up with that lightning blast, but it's gonna take a better Devil Fruit than that to stop me!"

Whatever the case, the armor didn't look like it had any immediate weaknesses besides having trouble turning. It didn't even appear to have conducted any of the red electricity, or at least the hammer hadn't. It was even being powered by steam, which meant there was water in there somewhere. "And don't you dare call me a child again!" There wasn't going to be much of a chance to see it close up, as the Marine threw a heavy straight jab right at Abigail's gut.

The redheaded pirate called as the fist closed in on her cut. She moved but not quick enough to completely negate the thrown punch's impact. It winged her, barely touching her skin at all, but the force behind it was enough to make her swirl a half spin. Once she got her motion under control she jumped a few steps back, and checked the sword. It was definitely hers which ruled out the idea someone switched it while she wasn't looking. "Damn."

"Kid" Abigail grinned as she rushed forwards to take another slash at the armor, hoping to see something different from the total lack of progress the first attack had done. This time there was a bit of a spark but that was the end of it. Not even a scratch. "Don't waste your time bragging and I'll think about calling you something else, but until then your staying a kid, munchkin, child, little one, baby, adolescent, our future, whipper-snapper, and/ or youngster. You could give me your name too, but again. Your more likely to make some advancement in that direction by showing me how much of an adult you can be."

Without waiting for a reply the pirate took a few quick jump backs so she could get some distance while her mind raced for another way to go about doing damage.

It was unfortunate when she started her Death Lotus that Lenny was just far enough away that when the small marine managed to block her attack she was unable to snag him in the chains. Lenny managed to get out of range, keeping his distance he started to go around her. What happened next was quite predictable.

Even during her spin Zypha was very careful to keep her attention fixed on her opponent, keeping watch of the slightest of movements. Sure enough she managed to see his hand move, indicating a dagger about to be thrown. The dagger flew out of his hand while he drew out a new one, the blade moving quickly toward her right knee. She lowered her inner scythe to match her knee height, the scythe itself missed the dagger and it seemed like it might reach its target, but the chain attached to the handle followed along, the dagger tip got caught in one of the links and was redirected away from her knee.

Danger averted Zypha stopped her spinning and came to a halt, watching as the small marine continued to run. It took her only a split second to regain her balance. "Ya know this is fun and all but this is gonna be boring if you're not gonna come to me again." Zypha started to mess with the handles of her scythe where the chain was attached. "So I think I'm just gonna have to get rid of some excess weight here so you can't get away again." With a few interesting twists to the bottom of her custom made handles, the long chain detached from the ends and clinked to the ground. It really was quite a long chain, a good 3 meters or so in length, which when not in combat could be found mostly tied around her waist and body, now the metal snake was sprawled on the ground, lifeless.

"Carrying around something like that is good exercise you know," Zypha continued, waving around her unburdened scythes in both hands, "you don't looks like you train all that much." Zypha lowered her body to the ground, her toned, muscular body allowing her to take even a seemingly unbalanced stance with no sign of stress. She smirked and then taunted the marine, "Ready?" before rocketing herself forward, body still low to the ground to reduce herself as a knife target as she sped after him.

She made sure to never directly charge at her target, always a bit to the side so she could easily slash at her target whenever she came close. Without the weight of the chains she was definitely faster than before and she intended to use her extra speed to finish the fight. Her first pass would be on Lenny's left so she prepared to lash out with her scythe, careful to keep one ready for defense if she needed to knock another dagger out of the way. Her first slash would be at his legs, if she missed she was prepared to bounce herself off a nearest wall and go for another pass to finish the job.

Lenny took note of Zypha's increase in speed as he rushed at him. It was indeed true, she was certainly a good deal faster. But now, she no longer had her chain to keep Lenny at a distance. This was both good and bad for him. He would have an easier time to strike at her, but at the same time, her current speed would be more difficult for him to deal with. As the woman rushed at his left side and swung her scythe at him, the small man quickly readied his left dagger and lowered it beside his legs on the left side, deflecting the scythe away from his body. It was clear that he had some more trouble to do so with Zypha's increased speed as he staggered back for a few seconds. "Heh...not bad. But yer awfully confident if ya believe you can beat me like that." Lenny taunted.

With the first scythe out of his way, the small man lunged forward quickly, slashing diagonally at Zypha's chest with his right dagger. Then, he dashed around Zypha past her left side to follow up on his first attack, looking like a blur once more. Despite Zypha's new speed, Lenny still seemed capable of outspeeding her. However, she certainly had more muscle then him. As he reached her back, the small man stabbed at the back of her left knee with his left dagger.

Yami exhaled and glared at Asus in his approach, sucking in air as he reeled his neck back as the ten hornets approached him yet again. Just as they were about 20 feet away from his face, he spat a large spray of liquid at them, and at Asus, from his mouth. The bees fell prey to its acid properties before getting near his face. Of course, Asus would've dodged this as he jumped on Yami's back, but the turtle-man wasn't very concerned with this at all. He readied himself on all four legs, crouching down for a moment, before propelling himself off the ground at a surprising speed to shake Asus off in one quick motion.