Brook vs Lord Raptor (One Piece vs Darkstalkers)

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, life to everything.” - Plato

Brook, the Soul King.

Lord Raptor, the Rocker of Death.

You only have one life, but for these two musicians, they got a second chance to show the world what they’re truly capable of both on the stage and on the battlefield. They’ve faced all kinds of ghouls and ghosts, but when they encounter one another, who will make sure the other stays dead for good? Can Brook be the soul survivor, or will Lord Raptor rock this skeleton’s world? Let’s find out.

Before We Start…

Both Brook and Lord Raptor will be analyzed as they are seen in their main canon. For Brook, this will include the original manga, anime adaptation, databooks, novels and other canon sources. The movies are a bit of a different beast, as while a good majority of them aren’t canon, there are some that do contain canon elements, mainly Strong World, Film Z, Film Gold, Stampede and Film Red, all of which were overseen by series creator Eiichiro Oda, so we’ll be taking those into account as secondary material. And of course, given a series like One Piece, there will be spoilers for at least up until the Elbaph arc.

For Lord Raptor, nearly all Darkstalkers related material will be covered. The main series games and guidebooks will be our main source, but supplementary material such as the comics, manga and animated adaptations will be discussed as well for extra information. The comic portion will also include Street Fighter x Darkstalkers, but we’ll only be talking about the feats and scaling within that continuity specifically and not any funky cross scaling to other verses. In addition to that, stuff like Project X Zone and Marvel vs Capcom will not be included.

With all that out of the way, let’s rock n’ roll!

Sources Used

• Toxin’s Death Battle Corner’s Bakugo vs Eustass Kid
• G1's Organization Battle Royale Part 10: Verdict
• Cleverly_Clearly’s Respect “Soul King” Brook!
• Brendan’s Battlezone’s Morrigan vs Arcueid
• Hilda’s VS Blogs’ Hsien-Ko vs Squigly

Background

Brook

“What keeps me alive in this world is neither bodily organs, nor muscles. It's my soul!”

Long ago, the legendary Gol D. Roger forever changed the pirating landscape by challenging each and every one of them to find his long lost treasure, all kept in One Piece. From then, Roger’s name would live in infamy, being a foul criminal to the general public, but a legend among pirates who aspired to be just as great, if not greater than him. However, like all pirates, Roger had to start somewhere. Way back when, he was just a mere rookie, though only few in the world can actually remember a time when he was such. One of these includes the rockin’ skeleton himself, Brook.

Not a whole lot is known about Brook’s exact past, but he himself has given some clues, claiming that 90 years ago, he used to be the leader of a battle convoy in a "certain kingdom", and honed his swordsmanship. Brook would aspire to become a pirate, and eventually got the opportunity to achieve his dream upon meeting Yorki, who recruited Brook to join his crew, the Rumbar Pirates. While strong in their own right, the Rumbar Pirates were all skilled musicians, a profession that Brook would quickly pick up on and excel at. Along the way, the crew would befriend a baby whale that they would name Laboon, Brook in particular growing a close bond to it through the power of song. In the end however, they would need to leave Laboon behind to traverse into the Grand Line, promising the young whale that they would come back for them.

But unfortunately, that day would never come. Yorki would come down with a terrible sickness, dying alongside nearly half the Rumbar Pirates. Then later on, they were attacked by an enemy pirate crew that used poison, the rest of the crew now hopeless to stop their demise. With one last hurrah, Brook and his crew played one last song as they all slowly succumbed to the poison, the Rumbar Pirates now being no more.

…or at least, that’s what legends would have you think. Along the way, Brook had eaten a mysterious fruit that unknowingly gave him magical powers; the power to come back to life. And so, after his death, his soul persisted, though it took a while for it to find its original body. When it did, Brook was nothing more than a pile of bones, but reanimated upon reuniting, now a walking talking skeleton. For over 50 years, the revitalized Brook would drift on his ship alone, left to mourn his crewmates.

Eventually, after so many years of being alone, Brook’s ship just so happened to come across the Thousand Sunny, the ship of the up and coming Straw Hat Pirates. Amused by a talking skeleton, the captain, Monkey D. Luffy would practically beg Brook to join his crew, much to the confusion and terror of the rest of his crew. Brook initially declined, but upon traversing Thriller Bark and defeating the terrifying Warlord Gecko Moria, Brook would prove himself worthy enough to be the musician of the Straw Hat Pirates. Once the dust had settled, he and the crew would have a party in which everyone would sing along to the same song he played all those years ago; Binks’ Sake.

From there, Brook and the Straw Hats would continue to sail all across the Grand Line in search of the One Piece, doing everything in his power to assist Luffy in either physical or morale-related endeavors, offering his plentiful power, a helpful song or a quirky skeleton pun. While Brook may not often be the star of the show nowadays, he’ll still continue to support the future Pirate King’s dream in order to achieve his own dream of reuniting with Laboon, perhaps to play their favorite song once more.

Lord Raptor

“Let my shouts drive you crazy, baby!”

Monsters live within us all. Whether it be our own personal demons or a much more sinister, darker side that we repress. But in a more literal sense, the demon realm Makai houses real monsters; succubi, vampires, werewolves, and so much more haunt the mortal realm and terrorize the innocent, known as Darkstalkers. However, not every being who resides in Makai was born there, as some were mere humans who took a few wrong turns and became monsters themselves. One such case was the Aussie extraordinaire rockstar, Zabel Zarock, more commonly known as Lord Raptor.

Not much is known about Zabel’s true origins, but long before he would become a well-renowned rockstar sensation even compared to that of a young Ozzy Osborne, he was notably interested in all things occult. In his discoveries, he came into possession of a book titled A Chapter of Tolagido. It was in this book that detailed the realm of Makai, as well as a being known as Ozom, an apprentice for the ruler of Makai, Jedah Dohma, whom Ozom would overthrow. Zabel found himself fascinated by Ozom’s story, and began practicing the dark magic found within the book, incorporating its concepts into his music, which subtly manipulated those who listened to his songs. This was all to gain the favor of Ozom, with the hidden agenda to overthrow him and rule over Makai for himself. Thanks to his devilish music, Zabel would amass a literal cult following of fans. But his final performance would be the most hellish and wicked of them all.

Zabel performed a ritual live on stage in front of 100 of his adoring fans to summon forth Emperor Ozom, resulting in every audience member drowning in their own blood as well as Zabel being turned into nothing but a pile of bones. However, he wasn’t entirely gone, as he would eventually meet Ozom, who was thankful for the mass amount of innocent lives he had just provided him with.

Noticing how much darkness Zabel’s soul had been drowned in due to his occult studies, he offered him a deal; in exchange for his eternal servitude and retrieving the souls of other Darkstalkers, Ozom would bring Zabel back to life as a zombie, with all new powers beyond his very imagination to combat these monsters. Raptor of course agreed, though he still very much kept his secret plan of taking over Makai for himself.

And so, rising from the grave once more, Lord Raptor was born again as a zombified rockstar with a wealth of new powers at his disposal. From then on, Raptor would wander the world in search of Darkstalkers to collect their souls all in service of Ozom along with a lower level demon Le Malta, whom Ozom had sent to accompany Raptor and relay information should he try to betray him. However, the two would form an unbreakable brotherly bond, the once spy now a helpful ally to Raptor and his goals. Ultimately, the Aussie rockstar icon more than proved himself a worthy challenger to any Darkstalker that comes across his path, all while furthering his goal of overthrowing Ozom. But before this could happen, Ozom's soul was taken by Jedah, his castle becoming a gate to a new dimension known as Majigen. With Le Malta by his side, Lord Raptor entered the newly created dimension, looking for new challenges and more hell to raise.

Experience & Skill

Brook

Even in a crew with godly imagination powers and ever-evolving swordsmanship mastery, Brook stands out due to his pure experience. He is the oldest member of the Straw Hats, having been born long before any of them, and has even fought longer than any of them. He was 38 years old before his initial death, and as stated previously, was the leader of a battle convoy before joining the Rumbar Pirates, albeit for an unknown amount of time, but still fairly impressive.

When it comes to combat, Brook’s main style of swordplay is a combination of fencing and iaido, the former being focused on quick and strong thrusts, and the latter emphasizing quickly drawing one’s sword in response to sudden attacks. Both of these styles compliment Brook’s fighting style quite well, his style focusing more on speed and precision as opposed to someone like Roronoa Zoro’s focus on raw power. Brook has honed his skills to an expert extent, to the point where he was able to have a fair fight with the reanimated swordsman Ryuma. While he admittedly wasn’t able to beat Ryuma, some part of that can be attributed to him overprioritizing protecting his afro, and the fact that he pushed Ryuma back as much as he did is still worth noting. Ryuma also noted that Brook had become stronger in between their encounters, highly implying that Brook does train his swordsmanship skills. Aside from Ryuma, Brook’s skill has also been complimented by the likes of Charlotte Katakuri and Kin’emon, and Usopp was even confident that he and Zoro could hold their own against CP0 agents Rob Lucci, Kaku and Stussy during the attack on Egghead.

Additionally, despite literally not having a brain, Brook can be quite intuitive when he wants to. He’ll often use his skeletal nature to play dead in order to get a free shot in on an opponent, and was even able to trick Jora into giving him back his weapon in order to save Nami and Chopper. Furthermore, during the two year-long timeskip, Brook had taken the time to further hone his Devil Fruit’s latent abilities, unlocking more of its potential and adding a variety of different moves to his arsenal.

Lord Raptor

Aside from being a musical genius, Lord Raptor has shown to be an extremely talented and experienced fighter in his own right in spite of his eccentricity. He is a skilled and intelligent manipulator, able to gain a massive following through his music and quickly became one of Australia’s fastest rising musical artists, all in a plot to gain Ozom’s favor. Additionally, during his fight with Mei-Ling in the manga, Raptor was intuitive enough to deduce that the talisman on her head was the source of her newfound boosted power. Having studied A Chapter of Tolagido, Raptor has extensive knowledge on several different languages and spells within the text, and once he became undead, he learned how to use his new physiology and come up with a variety of different deadly techniques.

However, actual combat experience is where things become a bit tricky. See, in the games, Raptor is able to keep up with pretty much any Darkstalker in gameplay, but in terms of actual fights that happened in game canon… he hasn’t actually fought anyone. That being said, there are other materials that allow us to gleam into Raptor’s ability. Being a B+ Class Darkstalker, a system that ranks characters into respective power levels, Raptor should be comparable to the likes of Jon Talbain, an expert in martial arts, and Hsien-Ko, a mystic who’s been fighting for centuries. While this doesn’t mean he’s exactly the same in those regards, it shows that he can keep up with people with that kind of resume. In the Street Fighter x Darkstalkers run, he is able to keep up with Chun-Li for a time, and in the manga, he’s able to directly keep up with the likes of Hsien-Ko and even Demitri, who had been fighting for over hundreds of years.

Equipment

Brook

Soul Solid

Brook’s choice of weapon is his patented Soul Solid sword. Based on a Shikomizue, a sword concealed in a walking stick, this blade has been used for over 50 years by Brook, though it was eventually resharpened by the Longarm tribe during his tour. While Brook is more than capable of slicing through foes normally with his patented graceful style, he’s also able to enhance its power by enveloping the blade with his Devil Fruit ability, giving it a freezing attribute.

Violin

What would a crew’s musician be without an instrument to play? One of Brook’s preferred instruments is a simple violin. While he typically only uses it for his crew’s entertainment, he’s also been shown capable of using it in battle, his songs having some unique effects.

Electric Guitar

An electric guitar that Brook primarily used during his World Tour, later incorporating it into combat. Similar to his violin, he’s able to use it in tandem with his abilities, acting as a sort of catalyst.

Skeleton with an electric guitar. Can it get cooler than that?

Lord Raptor

Guitar

Okay, zombie Australian with a guitar, also pretty cool.

Raptor’s preferred instrument, he can use it to not only rock out, but dish out some truly devilish abilities. He can emit sound waves that can knock opponents back and even protect against attacks from opponents. The guitar also somehow seems to be alive, seeing how it has teeth and can even grow a hand on the headstock to poke at Raptor if he loses a round.

Abilities

Brook

Yomi Yomi no Mi (Revive Revive Fruit)

The One Piece world contains mythical fruits known as Devil Fruits. Upon taking even a single bite of it, the consumer’s DNA is permanently altered, granting them one of dozens of different supernatural powers at their fingertips. Some are fairly standard powers like manipulating or even turning into various elements, and some even allow its user to turn into entirely different creatures.

Brook’s Devil Fruit is a bit more complex, however. The Yomi Yomi no Mi can do a variety of different things. As its translated name suggests, upon the consumer’s death, their soul will leave their body. Upon reuniting with its host, however, the user will be brought back to life. When Brook says that it’s not his muscles or organs that keep him alive, but his very soul, he’s not lying. The fruit essentially keeps Brook alive without the need for any vital organs and muscles, able to function just as well as a normal human even without skin, eyes, ears, etc. He can even still poop!

Brook eventually figured out that this wasn’t the extent of his Devil Fruit, and that the Yomi Yomi no Mi doesn’t simply bring its user back to life, but gives them the ability to manipulate their very soul. Over the two year timeskip, Brook developed a number of different Devil Fruit-based abilities surrounding his soul.

Soul Projection

Brook can separate his soul from his body, retaining his consciousness at the cost of leaving his physical body static and vulnerable. Still, when Brook is in this state, he can essentially move like a ghost, able to pass through walls and even interact with physical objects.

Soul Manipulation

Brook isn’t just able to manipulate his own soul, but others as well. During his battle with the Chess Soldiers, he was able to eject their souls out of their bodies.

Body Control & Regeneration

The Yomi Yomi no Mi keeps Brook alive not just through bodily functions, but it also keeps his limbs intact. If they were to fall off or become severed, he can reconstitute them into their respective place so long as they are not shattered. Brook can also heal cracks on his bones by drinking milk thanks to the calcium, though he doesn’t often have milk on his person, so it’s not quite as useful in a combat scenario.

Chill of the Underworld

Through his soul, Brook is able to call upon the cold of the underworld, allowing him to utilize ice-based abilities and, as stated previously, make his sword freezing cold. The extent of his abilities isn’t just limited to making his sword cold, however, as he can freeze just about any object upon contact, like when he froze the barrels of several gunmen and froze several cannonballs midair, and can also freeze the ground with Eisbahn.

Cold Soul

By combining his spiritual projection with his ice creation, Brook flies out of his skeletal body in his soul form and passes through his target, freezing it with his soul's coldness. This was used to stop Wanyudo from generating flames for Black Maria's polearm.

Hanauta Sancho: Yahazu Giri

Moving on to some of Brook’s main swordplay moves, Yahazu Giri is a move in which Brook quickly slices his opponent at insanely high speeds, slowly resheathing his blade as the cuts quickly manifest and slice the opponent up.

Aubade Coup Droit

Picked up from other swordsmen, Brook thrusts his sword so hard that it creates a highly compressed blast of air.

Gavotte Bond en Avant

A thrusting technique in which Brook propels himself forward in order to strike an opponent. This move can be done even in mid-air, and it can be combined with his ice powers to freeze the target on contact.

Quinte Tierce Fantasia

While his targets are under the influence of his hypnotizing music, Brook uses a simple yet swift draw-and-sheathing technique, similar to Yahazu Giri.

Ekakiuta: Hitoyogiri

Another swift draw-and-sheathing technique, Brook slices the opponent's torso with three horizontal freezing cuts.

Kasuriuta: Fubuki Giri

Also known as Blizzard Slash, by combining Hanauta Sancho: Yahazu Giri and his cryomancy ability, Brook does the same thing Yahazu Giri, but he sheaths his sword from top to bottom, and the streak mark he creates with his "chilled" sword creates a large, freezing trail. The maneuver can even freeze the opponent's blood.

Soul Parade

A defensive maneuver, Brook holds Soul Solid backhand and blocks an attack, using his ice abilities to freeze anything his sword blocks on contact.

Swallow Banderole

Brook jumps at the opponent and performs a quick vertical slash that cuts and freezes them, even leaving a freezing effect on the ground.

Hanauta Sancho: Tyamasi no Yahazu Giri

By combining Yahazu Giri with his Devil Fruit power, Brook jumps into the air and uses a draw-and-sheathing technique to vertically slash his opponent, his soul-based abilities allowing him to cut through Zeus as if he were a physical entity. This is quite impressive considering not even Armament Haki can cut through non-physical entities like Prometheus.

Phrase d'armes: Orchestra

Brook creates a slash in the shape of a G-clef, which freezes the target on contact.

Nemuriuta Flanc

Moving onto Brook’s musical techniques, Nemuriuta Flanc allows Brook to swipe his sword over his violin to play a soothing melody, which makes those who hear it fall asleep.

Party Music

Through the power of music, Brook can hypnotize his opponents and even persuade their actions. He used this to convince members of the New Fish-Man Pirates that they were at a night festival instead of a battle, and once even inspired a group of village people to fight back against a band of thieves through the power of music.

Lord Raptor

Darkstalker Physiology

 

Upon being reborn by Ozom, Lord Raptor became classified as a Darkstalker; what does this mean, exactly? Well, it is stated that a strong mind and spirit is required to even be in the vicinity of them in order to not lose one’s sanity. Darkstalkers also naturally emit demonic energy from their darkened hearts, and can corrupt a normal person if they don’t possess a strong will.

Body Control/Elasticity/Limited Shapeshifting

You’d think that a zombie wouldn’t have such great control over their body, but Raptor’s body is frankly absurd. Thanks to Ozom’s magic, he’s able to manipulate it in many different ways, almost like a cartoon character. He can stretch his limbs farther than usual and even transform his bones into bladed weapons. Raptor’s wackiest ability, however, is his ability to shapeshift his body into different weapons. Aside from being able to switch between a human-looking form and his undead look, he can turn his lower half into a drill, his leg into a chainsaw, his entire body into a tornado like Taz, and his leg into… himself. Additionally, in the manga, he was shown capable of controlling his limbs even when they were severed when he stabbed Demitri in the leg with his own severed leg.

Regeneration

Thanks to his undead physiology, Lord Raptor is largely unaffected by injuries that would kill any normal man. Should any of his limbs be broken or outright dismembered, he can flex it back into place or put them right back where they were. Additionally, during his fight with Hsien-Ko in the manga, he had his entire lower body vaporized, yet was able to regrow it back in a relatively short amount of time.

Electrokinesis

Alongside his undead abilities, Ozom granted Lord Raptor the ability to fight with electricity. He can generate electricity to empower himself, and can create constructs and an electric aura.

Necromancy

One of Raptor’s other magical powers is his ability to raise the dead, capable of raising a small horde of zombies to do his bidding during his fight with Chun-Li and her group.

Soul Manipulation

Unsurprisingly, Lord Raptor has dabbled in the subject of stealing souls, seen when he was able to eject the souls of a large group of cultists.

Mind Manipulation

In Street Fighter x Darkstalkers, Lord Raptor was able to make Ken turn into Violent Ken, a form he took on after being brainwashed and controlled by M. Bison's Psycho Power in The Final Challengers. This implies that Raptor is able to essentially draw out negative emotions, warping one’s mind however he pleases.

Loudness Screw

A move in which Raptor jumps into the air and shapes his legs into a screw, rotating it like a drill and hitting the opponent as he descends.

Death Hurricane

A move in which Raptor charges at the opponent while spinning, making his arms sharp as he floats up slightly.

Skull Sting

A move in which Raptor jumps, turns his leg into a chainsaw and descends on his target.

Skull Punish

A move in which Raptor grabs his opponent and performs a suplex, stabbing their back with sharp fingers before jumping back. Fitting.

Evil Scream

A move in which Raptor pierces the opponent with a sharp bone and drags them towards him, delivering an electric-powered slash.

Death Voltage

Raptor performs Death Hurricane, only now enhanced by electricity. He can even use it in the air.

Support

Lord Raptor

Le Malta

Le Malta is a lower level demon creature tasked with keeping tabs on Lord Raptor by Ozom to make sure he doesn't try to betray him. This never fell through however, and became Raptor’s best friend and occasional partner in combat. While not much of a fighter on his own, Le Malta can assist Lord Raptor in combat through a variety of different abilities. He can teleport Raptor around the battlefield by eating and spitting him back up in a different location, and if he does the same to an opponent, he can transform them into a ball form to perform Hell Dunk, a move in which Raptor slam dunks his opponent into a basket made by Le Malta. After the attack is over, the target is quickly turned back to their usual self. Despite being a D-Class demon, Le Malta has proved himself worthy of being Raptor’s ally, even being critical in Raptor’s victory over Demitri in the manga, where he sacrificed himself and bought Zabel enough time to gain a victory.

Forms

Lord Raptor

Ultimate Undead

Acting as his finisher, Lord Raptor calls upon his dark power to make himself stronger and faster, using Le Malta as an engine to boost the effectiveness of his chainsaw arm.

Feats

Brook

Overall

• Assisted the Straw Hats in defeating Oars and Gecko Moria on Thriller Bark
• Became a highly famous rockstar and went on a World Tour
• Stood up to Big Mom and managed to steal copies of her Ponelglyph
• Helped Robin defeat Black Maria of the Beast Pirates in Wano
• Assisted in helping save Robin from Saint Saturn at Egghead

Power

• Clashes with Big Mom’s chess soldiers
• Cut through a Vegapunk dragon with Kine’mon
• Left a noticeable wound on Prometheus
• Sliced through Zeus
• Sliced off one of Saint Saturn’s legs

Speed

• Can quite consistently run across water
• Reacts to gunfire at close range
• Froze the barrels of several men’s guns without them even noticing
• Freezes several cannonballs midair

Durability

• Survived being stepped on by Oars
• Was still conscious after Kuma’s Ursus Shock (266.33 gigatons)
• Survived, albeit heavily injured from, a Pacifista Laser
• Continued to stand up after being repeatedly beaten down by Big Mom
• Was decapitated by S-Shark

Resistances

• Electricity: Due to having no flesh to sear, electricity is ineffective against him.
• Extreme Temperatures: Similarly, because he has no flesh, he does not feel bothered by the hot & cold terrains in Punk Hazard, which even the other Straw Hats are affected by.
• Limited Madness/Mind/Soul Manipulation: Gecko Moria’s Kage Kage no Mi allows him to manipulate a person’s shadow as if it were a physical object. Shadows act as a copy of one’s soul that can be taken and inserted into beings like zombies, but if these shadows have enough willpower, they can become difficult for Moria to control, eventually being able to outright rebel against him. Additionally, pre-timeskip Luffy’s willpower was strong enough that he was able to resist losing his mind when he absorbed all the shadows to become Nightmare Luffy. Given Brook’s showings of high willpower and heightened control over his soul, he’d very likely be able to do the same thing.

Lord Raptor

Overall

• Became a successful rockstar sensation
• Successfully brainwashed his cult following with his music
• Gained the favor of Ozom and collected many souls for him
• Grew a close, brotherly bond with La Malta
• Defeated Hsien-Ko, Rikuo, Victor and Demitri in the manga
• Is top tier in Darkstalkers 3

Power

• Caused a dinosaur to explode with his soundwaves
• Knocks back Chun-Li, Jon, Felicia, Victor & Elena all at once
• Overpowered Aulbath/Rikuo with a single attack
• Literally dunks on Hsien-Ko
• Stabs Demitri in the chest (See Before the Verdict)

Speed

• Dodged multiple flamethrower shots
• Kept up with Hsien-Ko’s attacks
• Claimed he could move at the speed of light to save Hsien-Ko (likely hyperbole but still kinda funny)

Durability

• His head was still intact after tanking a large explosion
• Survived being scorched by several flamethrowers
• Had his arm broken by Chun-Li and only joked about being hurt
• Survived an attack from Hsien-Ko that blew off his lower half
• Survived multiple attacks from Demitri
• Alongside Victor and Anakaris, survived a Huitzel self-destructing

Resistances

• Extreme Pain: Was not seriously bothered by Chun-Li breaking his arm
• Extreme Heat: Got blasted by flamethrowers and did not suffer any serious burns
• Corruption and Madness Manipulation: Being a Darkstalker himself, he is able to be around others like him without losing his mind or becoming corrupted more than he already has
• Limited Soul Manipulation: It is stated that a Darkstalkers' soul will try and reform itself if it is forcibly removed.

Scaling

Brook

The Straw Hat Pirates

Brook joined the Straw Hats back in Thriller Bark after defeating Gecko Moria and regaining his shadow, and has been fighting alongside them ever since. While Brook isn’t quite at the level of the Monster Trio, let alone Luffy’s full power, he has still proven to be a valuable fighter on more than one occasion, fighting alongside the likes of Zoro, Sanji and Robin in defeating their share of formidable foes. As such, aside from the higher-level feats of Luffy and Zoro, he should be relatively within the other crew members’ range, and very likely upscales many feats from pre-timeskip due to having gotten significantly stronger since then.

Luffy:

• Dispersed Enel’s Raigo (129 gigatons - 1 teraton)
• Dodged Foxy’s Slow-Slow Beams (6.8% SoL)
• Effortlessly dodged Kuma’s lasers after the timeskip (38.6% SoL for manga, 88.4% SoL for anime)

Zoro:

• Sliced apart Fujitora’s meteor (6.7 teratons)
  • Said meteors, which Zoro can react to, can move this fast (41.96 - 213.69x FTL)
• Dodged multiple high-speed air blasts from Kuma
• Dodged a Pacifista laser (3.9x FTL)

Sanji:

• Dodges S-Shark’s laser (49.7% SoL)
• Dodges Queen’s laser (10.65x FTL)

Nami:

• Dodged Kalifa’s lightning
• Blocks Enel’s lightning, which moves at lightspeed
• With Zeus, blasted Big Mom with a large electric attack, temporarily knocking her out

Chopper:

• Dodged Queen’s Black Coffee Beam (3.3x FTL)

Jinbe:

• Redirects a large wave of water (56.5 gigatons – 18.5 petatons)

Other Pirates

It’s no surprise that on the quest to become the Pirate King, Luffy and his crew have come across some of the roughest and toughest pirates who either want that title for themselves, or have their own agenda in the New World. Brook has assisted the Straw Hats in fighting these foes time and time again, able to hold his own against members of Doflamingo’s crew, Big Mom’s crew, and even Kaido’s crew. Other Straw Hats similar in power to Brook like Chopper and Robin are even able to fight with some of the heavy hitters like Queen and Black Maria. Additionally, as stated previously, Brook should be at least comparable to most characters’ pre-timeskip feats.

• Crocodile destroyed a large area of Alabasta’s royal palace (271 kilotons)
• Law slices up a mountain (204.6 megatons)
• Gecko Moria cracked Thriller Bark with ONE PAWWWWNCH, a ship the size of an island (666.2 megatons - 7.22 gigatons)
• Don Chinjao could split an ice continent in half
• Igaram survives a giant boat explosion (90.8 gigatons)
• Charlotte Oven could make the ocean boil with his heat (266 gigatons)
• Oars could pull continents when he was alive (1.1 teratons)
• Ace and Yamato created a large fiery explosion during their fight (10.6 teratons - 34.8 exatons)
• Gecko Moria’s shadows quickly traveled to the West Blue from the Grand Line (Mach 544)
• Kuma can move faster than his own Pad Cannon (44.3x FTL)

Big Mom (Debatable, see Before the Verdicts)

One of the previous Emperors of the Sea, Big Mom was one of the most terrifying pirates in all the Grand Line and had one of the highest bounties of anyone in the New World. Brook has found himself face to face with Big Mom in the past, having encountered her while trying to steal her Poneglyph. Unfortunately, Brook wasn’t able to physically contend with Big Mom, constantly being beaten down and thrashed by her and her Homies. Still, the fact that he was able to survive her beatings and him being able to injure Prometheus lends some credence to Brook being able to downscale her. More on this will be discussed later.

• Clashed with Gear 4 Boundman Luffy
• Unleashed a powerful Fulgora (162 teratons - 53.1 exatons)
• Was stated to be one of the only people who could pose a threat to Blackbeard after he killed Whitebeard
  • Shortly after gaining Whitebeard’s Devil Fruit, Marshall, who admits that he didn’t have a great grasp on his new power, created an earthquake at Marineford powerful enough to send tsunamis towards Sabaody

Lord Raptor

Darkstalkers

I mean, duh.

Jokes aside, Lord Raptor is a B+ Class Darkstalker, so he should naturally be comparable to the standard B Classes, and has fought the likes of Rikuo, Hsien-Ko and Victor in the manga.

• Jon Talbain:
  • Stabbed Lilith in the stomach (See Before the Verdict)
  • Claims he’ll eventually achieve lightspeed and even says he'll surpass it in the JP version
• Q-Bee:
  • Lifted a large beehive larger than a castle
  • Stung Lilith with her bees (See Before the Verdict)
• Huitzel units:
  • Were supposedly responsible for planet-wide earthquakes (Inapplicable; see Before the Verdicts)
  • Can quickly fly into outer space (1% SoL)
• It is stated that a C Class Darkstalker could take on an entire army of elite class soldiers on their own
• Hsien-Ko could survive being in a building that got completely leveled by many Huitzel units
• Rikuo could create a large tidal wave
• Anakaris sinks Egypt (6.36 megatons - 316.15 megatons)

Street Fighter (Udon Comics)

Yes, the Street Fighter and Darkstalkers universes are connected… in the UDON continuity. The two have crossed over in, of course, their own crossover comic that sees the cast of both series coming together to stop Jedah’s plans. Lord Raptor himself played a fairly big role in the comic run, where he and his zombies fight the group of Chun-Li, Sagat, Jon Talbain and Felicia. Given how Raptor was able to momentarily contend with Chun-Li and even knock the group back with an attack, he should reasonably compare to various Street Fighter feats, again, in the UDON comics specifically.

• Cammy busted a hole through the roof of a train car
• Juri absorbed energy that was going to blow up a mountain (46.275 - 400 megatons)
• Chun-Li dodges machine gun fire

Pyron (Debatable, see Before the Verdicts)

One of the series’ biggest (heh) villains, Pyron has been shown to be quite a menace to the cast. He is the final boss of the arcade mode in the first Darkstalkers and has appeared in the comics and both animated adaptations. All characters including Raptor in Night Warriors can fight Pyron and achieve their own endings… in gameplay, and it’s ultimately dubious whether or not this is representative of their full power. More on this will be discussed in the BTVs, but we’ll still list some of Pyron’s feats just to show how powerful he is.

• Devoured his own home planet
• Grew big enough to wear multiple planets like rings around his fingers
• Has stated that he has crushed stars and could wipe out the galaxy at his full power
• Can travel through space at the speed of light

Weaknesses

Brook

While Brook is no doubt a valuable asset to the Straw Hats, he isn’t completely perfect. The Devil Fruits may be extraordinary, but they come with a huge caveat in that those who eat them will gain an innate weakness to seawater, being unable to swim and effectively immobilized if they come into contact with it, as well as nullifying the user’s abilities. As for Brook’s specific Devil Fruit weaknesses, the Yomi Yomi no Mi will only revive Brook upon his death if his soul has a physical body to return to, otherwise it will continue to wander endlessly with no body to host. Additionally, despite being a walking skeleton himself, Brook is terribly afraid of all sorts of monsters like ghosts, zombies and even skeletons like himself.

Lord Raptor

They still are. (Please let me be wrong Capcom)

Lord Raptor is a fearsome Darkstalker, but he has his own fair share of flaws. While he can more than hold his own against the likes of B-Classes, he’s often way too overconfident in his ability to take on stronger enemies, which led to him having a hard time against Demitri, getting beaten down quite easily in their fight. This also extends to his belief that he can overthrow Ozom, who overthrew Jedah Dohma, the same Jedah whose energy caused Raptor to explode in his arcade ending in 3. Additionally, Raptor’s regeneration is most surely of note, but it is also worth bringing up that it isn’t flawless, as after expending all of his energy in his fight with Demitri, he did end up actually dying, showing that it is possible to overtax it.

Before the Verdict

Can Brook scale to Emperors?

Like a lot of other shounen manga, One Piece’s characters do not all simply scale to one another by proxy; there exists a noticeable gap between characters like Whitebeard and Shanks and the likes of Usopp and Buggy. However, some are a bit more up in the air, one such case being Brook.

In general, Brook is in a similar boat (heh) to the likes of Chopper and Franky, in that they have impressive showings against some of the Grand Line’s heaviest hitters, but the question becomes whether or not this is a true testament to their full capabilities. Focusing on Brook specifically, his repeated encounters with Big Mom are of note, being able to stand back up after being mercilessly beaten down by her. Still, he had a hard time actually damaging Big Mom herself and even agreed with her that he wasn’t on her level, so it’s hard to really say that he should scale to her directly. However, what he was able to damage was her Homies, able to leave a noticeable wound on Prometheus and slice Zeus in half. Why is this important, you may ask? Well, these Homies have some pretty impressive feats of their own, like Prometheus being able to damage Luffy, Law and Eustass Kid, and Zeus even being capable of temporarily stunning Big Mom herself with an electrical attack. The latter feat is even more impressive due to Big Mom being in her hungry, uncontrollable rampage state, and the fact that Brook himself does not possess Haki, which we know to be vital to surviving the Grand Line.

You may ultimately still be skeptical considering Brook’s own admission to not being as strong as Big Mom, but this just shows that there is a reasonable scaling chain to her through Zeus. At worst, we can interpret this as Brook’s absolute highest end, and as we’ll see later on, it doesn’t matter too much if you think Brook is casually at this level or not.

Can Raptor scale to Pyron?

Despite being a fighting game character, Lord Raptor isn’t exactly off the hook when it comes to the topic of whether or not he can compare to the series’ best showings. There exists the idea that everyone in Darkstalkers, regardless of class, can scale to the top tiers like Demitri and Pyron. But does this idea hold any merit? Let’s really look and see.

Arcade Endings

In Night Warriors, the final boss of the Arcade mode is Pyron himself. Every character is seemingly capable of fighting him and achieving their own respective ending. Seems fairly clear cut, right? Well, the canon of the games is weird, as the only real canon fight in the first game that the rest of the series acknowledges is Demitri vs Pyron, which Demitri wins. It also doesn’t help Raptor’s case in that all Darkstalkers are divided into their own separate classes, with Raptor being considered a B+ Class. Narratively, this means he should be weaker than A and S classes like Demitri and Morrigan. So while Raptor can fight and defeat Pyron in gameplay, it’s not something that is considered canon. Hell, in Raptor’s Darkstalkers 3 ending, he literally explodes after absorbing Jedah’s power, implying that that kind of power is just far beyond what he’s normally capable of.

OVA

In the OVA, we mainly see a short stint with Raptor and Felicia fighting off some cultists, he fights Anakaris in the intro and that’s it. However, what we do see is a short compilation of other B Class Darkstalkers fighting Pyron, all of whom Lord Raptor should be comparable to. Unfortunately, none of them really do any major damage to Pyron, any instance of them potentially pushing him back being simply shrugged off in the next moment (though Sasquatch gets some pretty good hits in hold on).

There’s also the instance of Jon Talbain fighting Morrigan, however not only did this fight not really last long and Jon didn’t really do any real damage to Morrigan, but it takes place in the OVA’s intro and they never actually fight one another in the show proper, so that’s another dead end.

Comics

Similar to the OVA, Lord Raptor isn’t really present in the main series run, so we can’t really gauge how powerful he is from there. However, he is a fairly big part of the Street Fighter x Darkstalkers storyline, where he manages to take over Ken’s mind to make him fight Chun-Li, Sagat, Jon Talbain and Felicia. But his zombies are pretty easily dispatched by the team and he only gets a few attacks off on Chun-Li, otherwise she kinda embarrasses him in a one-on-one fight. Being generous and saying Raptor is comparable to Chun-Li anyway, which is still fairly reasonable considering he was able to tank her attacks, the Street Fighter cast in this continuity doesn’t really have any great arguments for high tier scaling either. Chun-Li barely phases Morrigan in their first brief scuffle, and while she does do considerably better in their second encounter later, Morrigan had stated that she could kill Chun-Li any time she wanted, implying that she was holding back, which she tends to do quite a bit.

Manga

This is one that seems pretty blatant when you take it at face value. In the Darkstalkers manga, Raptor manages to fight with Demitri and significantly damage him. This is also supported by other B Class Darkstalkers like Jon managing to stab Lilith in the gut, Q-Bee being able to damage Lilith with her bees, and an even lower class Darkstalker like B.B Hood being able to stab Demitri. Seems all well and good, right?

Well, there’s two big problems with this. The first is that the Vampire Savior manga’s storyline is pretty different from the main game canon. Here, Morrigan and Lilith essentially swap roles, Morrigan being a servant for Jedah whose goal is to fuse with Lilith to become more powerful and become Jedah’s right hand woman, among other story changes. But even if we allowed it, the second issue is that the circumstances of Raptor vs Demitri and other lower tier characters fighting high tiers are a bit weird. Raptor is barely able to keep up with Demitri until he surprises him by stabbing him in the leg with one of his dismembered limbs, and even then Demitri simply shrugs it off. Additionally, Raptor stabbing Demitri in the heart is in reference to classic vampire weaknesses of driving a stake through their hearts, meaning that Raptor was more taking advantage of Demitri’s inherent weakness rather than physically comparing to him.

We also can’t really use Jon and Q-Bee getting hits off on Lilith to argue this either, as at the time, Lilith didn’t have a good grasp on her powers and even then still struggled against Morrigan in their later fight. B.B Hood and Jon also don’t really do so hot in their respective fights with Demitri; Hood only gets a sneak attack off on Demitri and has her biggest explosives shrugged off like they’re nothing, and Jon gets dogwalked, no pun intended, by Demitri, having his Beast Cannon get deflected with just one hand. That’s ruff, buddy.

It’s clear from the major story changes and clear showings of an in-series power gap that the manga just doesn’t have the right evidence for Raptor’s potential higher tier scaling.

Manhua

…imma be real with y’all. I could not find a single goddamn thing about the manhua outside of the scans in other blogs. It definitely exists, but as far as I know there’s no translation fan or official, and what little information I do have is that Demitri and Felicia end up having a son. I truly hope you don’t mind me not including material from it for Raptor’s scaling, and if you do mind, I apologize.

American cartoon

C’mon dawg.

Even if we included it for the memes, it has the same issues as the manga and manhua in that the story and characters are so different that it’s basically its own thing, but this time it’s even more blatant. Here, Morrigan, Demitri, Lord Raptor, Bishamon and Anakaris are all working for Pyron instead of working against him, Sasquatch has a cousin, and Raptor himself is portrayed as a failed musician rather than a rock and roll legend like in the games. Just not a super great source for super reliable facts.

Conclusion

Ultimately, while there are instances within the Darkstalkers verse of the lower level characters being able to contend with the high tiers, all examples have huge asterisk points beside them and fall quite flat when you really try and wrap your head around it. To be clear, this is not me trying to debunk any of the series’ biggest feats; stuff like Pyron crushing stars and Jedah threatening to merge dimensions with the Fetus of God are all well and good for the high tiers to scale to, though the absolute peak of the verse is up to interpretation. Thankfully, we don’t have to get into all of that, as the B Classes and below just aren’t up to snuff with the series’ highest showings.

Huitzels and Earthquakes

A somewhat lesser-talked about feat when it comes to Darkstalkers but one that I still felt was worth bringing up was an interesting statement in Huitzel’s character description. Here, it details their initial arrival on Earth over 65 million years ago in which they brought an end to the age of dinosaurs. Afterwards, it was stated that a large-scale earthquake occurred, shaking the planet to its core and trapping everything underneath the Earth’s layers. Calculations for this feat have gotten up to 110 gigatons assuming an entire 650 unit battalion, and upwards of 24 teratons assuming only 3 units did it.

While this wouldn’t be terribly inconsistent given Anakaris’ Egypt sinking feat, this particular feat is pretty weird when you think about it; the text doesn’t really say or even imply that the Huitzels were responsible for this earthquake, only that they killed all the lifeforms on the planet at the time. You could argue that the Huitzels were able to survive this impact given how the text also states that a single unit survived millions of years later, but again, we don’t really have any implication that it tanked that kind of power or even whether it was in the vicinity of the impact. The feat overall, while interesting, is just too vague to solidly apply to the lower cast.

Verdict

Alright, to figure out who would win this fiendish fight, let’s divide the categories up into four: experience, abilities, speed and strength.

Experience

Being from battle-oriented media, both Brook and Lord Raptor have extensively seen their fair share of battles, and have proven to be quite clever when they really put their minds to it, able to pinpoint weaknesses midfight. However, looking at their respective histories, it’s clear that Brook more than outclasses that of Raptor. We only really know that Zabel spent most of his time prior to becoming undead living the rockstar lifestyle, while Brook’s older days involved fighting as the leader of a battle convoy which, while we don’t know exactly how long he had been fighting in said convoy, does still imply he had to have fought for quite a while and well enough to become the leader. This is even more apparent through his encounters with Ryuma, who had noted Brook had gotten better over time even in lieu of his repeated losses, showing that Brook has never gotten rusty in his combat ability. Brook’s also been complimented in swordplay by the likes of Kin’emon, a samurai from Wano considered a masterful swordsman by his peers. While Lord Raptor has taken on the likes of Hsien-Ko, who had been fighting for over 200 years, he was more able to take her on thanks to his superior strength and not so much outskilling her. Still, being able to take her and another seasoned Darkstalker like Rikuo does show that he can take on highly experienced and skilled characters. But in general, Brook’s more well-renowned skill and lengthier personal experience should give him the edge in this category.

But hey, stuff like that isn’t always the pure determinant of who wins, especially with these two’s ghoulish abilities, so let’s see if one or the other can take the edge.

Abilities

Both Brook and Raptor have plenty of abilities at their disposal in a fight in addition to their great strength. They can enhance their attacks with ice and electricity respectively, dish out a variety of different moves that they’ve developed over time, and can even reconstitute themselves from most means of traditional damage. But what unique abilities do these two have and how does it affect their opponent?

Brook’s Devil Fruit powers are far more than meets the eye, able to control his soul to a near-perfect extent, and can even revive him should he fall in combat by having his soul reunite with his body. In addition to this, Brook can eject souls out of the Chess Soldiers, and with Chill of the Underworld, Brook can leave icy trails, create ice walls and even freeze his target’s blood. So how does Raptor bounce off of this? Well, it is important to note that the Chess Soldiers were only alive to begin with because Big Mom used her Devil Fruit powers to put souls into the soldiers, all being inanimate to begin with, and Brook even figured out that these souls were “slapped on”, implying that he can only do it on souls that were not originally theirs to begin with, as well as those with souls comparable to or stronger than Brook’s own. Even if we were to give Brook the benefit of the doubt here and say he can eject any soul regardless of ownership status, Lord Raptor’s Darkstalker physiology would allow his soul to reform itself should it be separated from his body, albeit we don’t know exactly how long it would take to do so.

Additionally, seeing as how Raptor can easily heal from grievous injuries and even survive losing a ton of blood, freezing Raptor’s blood likely wouldn’t affect him very much. Similarly, Raptor could likely hold off the effects of Brook’s Party Music, which makes those who hear it see things that aren’t there, given how Raptor can be within the presence of other Darkstalkers without losing his mind, as well as resisting the effects of his own songs, which brainwashed those who heard them.

Speaking of, let’s talk about Lord Raptor for a moment. Being a resident of Makai, he should have the same abilities as other Darkstalkers in that even just being around him causes those with weak wills to go insane and become corrupted. He can also purge souls from their bodies, raise the dead, manipulate minds, and stretch and contort his body like a cartoon character, making him generally much more varied and unpredictable than Brook. The first important thing we need to figure out, however, is whether or not Brook could deal with just being near Raptor to begin with. During the Thriller Bark arc, Luffy had absorbed a large portion of shadows to become Nightmare Luffy to combat Gecko Moria. During this, he was repeatedly asked if his mind was still intact, in which he confirmed. This ultimately proves that those with a strong will can resist the Kage Kage no Mi’s madness-inducing effects, and Brook has shown on more than one occasion to have a strong will, given how he continued to get back up after being relentlessly beaten down by Big Mom. Thus, it would stand to reason Brook would additionally be able to resist Raptor’s presence thanks to his sheer willpower. This in turn would allow Brook to resist the brainwashing effects of Raptor’s songs should he try to play them, further supported by the fact that Brook isn’t affected by his own sleep/illusion-inducing music.

Brook also directly counters Raptor’s electric attacks given how he has stated that electricity does not phase him, and was even able to resist Zeus’ lightning. Additionally, Raptor’s soul ejection, while useful against most other opponents, likely wouldn’t work the same against Brook, given how he can control his soul and reconstitute it with his body. Lord Raptor’s backup support with his zombies certainly have their use, but they’ve been easily dispatched in the past, and Brook has direct experience taking down large groups of zombies, so they would more so act as a mere annoyance than a real threat. Lastly, Le Malta would certainly help Raptor’s chances with his teleporting and his transmutation, but given how he’s pretty well-implied to be kind of fodder, Brook could just very easily take him out of the equation.

Raptor does notably have a solid advantage over Brook; his regeneration. Now Brook’s ability to reconstitute his limbs, live without a body and bring himself back to life via his soul are all well and good, but Raptor’s ability to reconstitute himself from having most of his body vaporized is slightly superior, allowing him to keep fighting for an extended period of time. That being said, both do have their limits in that if their bodies are completely destroyed, they won’t be able to come back so easily; neither have any showings that prove contrary to this, so it is entirely possible to overtax their healing factors.

Overall, both Brook and Lord Raptor have clear advantages and disadvantages over one another, both being able to resist a good majority of each other’s kit, but also having similar fallacies in terms of their regeneration, ensuring that a proper finish is possible. Because of this, we think it’s fair to call this a tie.

So if neither could win through any specific ability, we now have to see just how much these two stack up in pure stats.

Speed

Frankly, these last two categories are probably the easiest to talk about since things are pretty clear once you look at the bigger picture. In general, Darkstalkers is fairly lacking in feats above lightspeed. The feat of Huitzels supposedly flying across space has been addressed multiple times in the past, but in short, Pyron is already well-within Earth’s range during the events of the game and the comic, so the Huitzels weren’t actually flying to another planet and only outside Earth’s atmosphere to fight Pyron. Still, Jon Talbain does claim he can move at lightspeed in one of his win quotes, and the original Japanese translation even states that he can surpass it, though this could just be Jon overestimating his own ability. Still, let’s be generous and say that he can achieve this level of speed, given how the aforementioned Huitzel feat does reach some degree of lightspeed.

However, even with these accommodations, Brook either easily matches that or surpasses that level of speed. In the past, Brook has been able to keep up with other Straw Hats in fights, move faster than most trained soldiers can react, and freeze cannonballs midair. While he may not be moving as fast as the peak of characters like Luffy, Zoro and Sanji, we can still relatively gauge Brook’s speed through feats performed prior to the series’ two year timeskip. Even as far back as Skypiea, the Straw Hats were dodging and reacting to Enel’s lightning-based Devil Fruit attacks which, despite being lightning, is stated in the SBS to move at lightspeed. This is further backed up by Luffy and Zoro being able to dodge Pacifista beams, Zoro later being able to cut up Fujitora’s meteors that can move at over 40 times lightspeed, and even someone like Chopper dodging Queen’s beams at 3 times the speed of light.

So even giving Raptor lightspeed scaling, Brook should still be at least around 3 times faster than that, and likely much faster thanks to having gotten stronger and faster during the timeskip. No matter how you slice it, Brook is taking speed here.

Strength

And lastly, let’s talk raw power. Now as talked about earlier, both Brook and Lord Raptor have arguments to scale to incredibly high feats within their respective worlds through the likes of Big Mom and Pyron respectively. However, they are highly dubious methods, and as such they will not be heavily relied upon. Still, these two do reach relatively impressive levels without it.

Starting off with Raptor, some of his best feats and scaling involve being able to fight with other B-Class Darkstalkers like Hsien-Ko and Rikuo. Hsien-Ko was able to survive a building explosion and Rikuo could summon a massive tidal wave. However, the most impressive non-A Class and above feat that Raptor can scale to comes from another character in the same class as Raptor, Anakaris, who was able to sink the entirety of Egypt, which would require him to exert anywhere from 6 to 316 megatons, putting Raptor in the range of Small City and Mountain.

Brook, meanwhile, has feats that should surpass that of pre-timeskip feats. Even without scaling to Big Mom through Zeus, Zeus himself was still able to damage Ulti, one of Kaido’s top crew members, who in turn was able to clash with a post-Udon Prison Luffy. What this all means is that Brook should be stronger than when Luffy fought Enel and dispersed his Raigo; it’s abundantly clear that Luffy has gotten way stronger since the Skypeia arc, and him doing this feat would at minimum require 129 gigatons of TNT, far stronger than the maximum value of the Anakaris feat. And frankly, this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg as to impressive feats Brook can scale to. Ingram surviving a massive boat explosion at 90 gigatons of TNT, Oars pulling continents at 1 teraton of TNT, hell, average pirates in Thriller Bark, including Brook himself, survived Kuma’s Ursus Shock attack, meaning he’d need to be tanking 266 gigatons of TNT. These feats alone would put Brook far above Lord Raptor in power, no Emperor scaling required. Additionally, Brook is currently fighting a character named Gunko in the Elbaph arc, meaning that potentially in the future, Brook could just solidly scale to Big Mom retroactively, further widening this gap.

But again, without the ludicrous high ends for both, Brook would just be way too powerful for Raptor to the point where he can stonewall anything he dishes out physical-wise and reliably one-shot Raptor with ease. Power handily goes to Brook.

Conclusion

Brook

"Laboon... if you've been waiting there for me for fifty years now... just one or two more years... will you endure that for me?"

Advantages:

• Very reliably stronger even without Emperor scaling
• Much faster
• More experienced and skilled than Raptor
• Can resist and counter most, if not all of Raptor’s abilities
• ALWAYS has that shit on

Disadvantages:

• Raptor’s better regeneration would be difficult for Brook to overcome at first
• Likely wouldn’t be able to manipulate Raptor’s soul or control him with music
• Generally less variety of abilities
• Doesn’t shower (why do you think his aura is green?)

Lord Raptor

"That old fool, no one rules Lord Raptor! Soon the world will know of my power. And I swear, even you "master" will bend low before me!"

Advantages:

• More unpredictable and varied abilities
• Better regenerative properties would keep him in the fight for longer
• Could resist Brook’s soul manipulation and music-based techniques
• The second best famous Australian

Disadvantages:

• Far weaker than Brook’s low ends
• Slower even with generous lightspeed scaling
• Nowhere near as personally experienced or skilled
• Many of his best abilities are either resisted or countered
• Knows who Tung Tung Sahur is

As shocking as it may seem to some, Brook’s path to victory here was far more straightforward and realizable than Lord Raptor’s. While Brook, or any Straw Hat for that matter, would not be able to handle the peak of the Darkstalker series’ showings, neither could Raptor, so he could only rely on power that even the pre-timeskip Straw Hats easily outclass. Raptor’s regenerative abilities, unique physiology and resistances to Brook’s more dangerous abilities would keep him in the fight for a bit longer, but Brook’s intuitiveness and superior skill and experience would allow him to cut through any of Zabel’s tricks, as well as overwhelm him with the likes of his ice-based abilities and masterful swordsman maneuvers.

At the end of the day, Lord Raptor was a cunning and ghoulish foe to be sure, but Brook’s greater power, experience and endurance meant he could pull through and banish the Rocker of Death back into the darkness. Raptor put on the performance of a lifetime, but Brook proved he was much more bad to the bone.

The winner is the Soul King, Brook.

Next Time…