King

King the Conflagration is an All-Star of the Beasts Pirates, as one of Kaido's three closest confidants called "Disasters". He is part of the nigh-extinct lunarian race from the Red Line, noted for its members' abiliy to create fire.

Due to his actions and role, he is a major antagonist in the Wano Country Arc.

Appearance
King is an extremely large man who towers over normal humans, though still standing a fair bit shorter than Kaido and fellow All-Star Jack, at a height similar to Queen's. While less widely built than the other two All-Stars, King is better-proportioned than either, being well-muscled and broad in the shoulders (but not overly top-heavy like Jack) with long limbs. Notably, a plume of fire ever rises from his back, befitting his epithet.

King's natural appearance is a mystery, seeing as he keeps himself clad in a dark uniform that bares no skin. Its bottom layer is a form-fitting, gimp-like bodysuit made of black/dark-blue leather, with lighter-blue, white-studded leather bands tied variously around. Visible of such garment are the head and neck areas, the latter having a zipper in the middle and two of said bands left and right. The head portion, a full-faced mask, leaves only two holes for King's narrow, reddish eyes (being fully black around the eyes, otherwise dark blue). Below the eyes is leather of flame-like shape flanking a central, triangular strip of light blue to mark off the nose, mouth, and chin section (also beset with studs). Topping the eyes are blue-lensed, gray-rimmed goggle pieces and on each side of the head, connected by a studded base, is a large, black, horn-like spike. Five more such spikes, only smaller, are located further on top upon a light-blue band that runs coronally into another one positioned like a headband, and crossing yet another that goes sagittally, with airholes around. King's dark-blue pants, possibly part of the suit, each have three studded leather bands wrap around their upper halves plus a ring of the same material on each knee, and go inside black, high-heeled boots (once again with studded straps), the high shafts of which end folded over, in studded jags. On top of the bodysuit is a dark-blue, double-breasted leather jacket, ten-buttoned in gold with notch lapels that have red, square skull patches (edged in gold) sewn on, and wherefrom white ruffles emerge. Running straight down each side of the waist are two columns of yet more studs, and flat, two-part shoulder pads (black and double-trimmed with studs) are present on each side, down the upper arms with three curved spikes atop either (the outer ones the biggest). The tight sleeves of the jacket (each with two additional, stud-covered bands topping thinner strips along with three very small, white spikes above the wrists) are cuffless, ending in black gloves.

Finally, King has a pair of large, black-feathered wings sprout from his back; whether or not they are natural is unconfirmed, but they disappear on King's full pteranodon form. When transformed, the aforementioned flames also engulf his back further.

20 years ago, King already wore a version of his current leather uniform, which in the anime is shown to have had a dark-red coloration as opposed to blue, as well as his black wings and fire burning at his back. King's spikes atop his head were shorter, more blunt, and he wore his jacket's collar upturned without white ruffles. The jacket's front had just one row of buttons, with two golden cross shapes right there that either served as oversized buttons or were simply patches.

Personality
King is a stern, usually taciturn man who tends to keep a cool head in most situations, rarely exhibiting strong emotion. Like Queen, he is often extremely rude toward and critical of crewmates, constantly deriding his fellow All-Stars, especially Jack, for their perceived failures. According to Queen, King is also a "torture-loving pervert" (though what this means exactly has yet to be specified).

Showing initiative and seeming good at making big decisions under pressure, King personally engaged Big Mom and her crew to keep them from entering Wano despite not being ordered to do so by Kaido. Later in Big Mom's presence, King showed himself to not be intimidated by her, despite his surprise at her survival, even bluntly refusing her offer to join her. King even took the initiative to summon the Tobiroppo after hearing Kaido was looking to address a problem with Yamato, and acted conniving by framing the summons as one from Kaido due to knowing the Tobiroppo would not answer to him.

While loyal to his crew, King has no qualms about betraying even long-standing allies who are outside of their direct organization, especially if it is pertinent to Kaido's plans, as he lent his sword to Kaido to decapitate their ally Orochi, whom they had been friendly with for over two decades. Likewise, King also shares Kaido's streak of cruelty and ruthlessness, showing himself to be not above executing a child like Momonosuke, even demanding Sanji to hand over the boy to kill him in accordance with Kaido's New Onigashima Project.

King believes that one should not limit themself to a single style of combat.

Kaido
As one of Kaido's three closest associates, Kaido has great trust in King and his powers. In turn, King is very loyal to Kaido, always ready to execute missions on his behalf. When Big Mom and her children arrived at Wano Country, King was swift to attack and knock her ship into the sea, seemingly on his own initiative rather than Kaido's orders. Kaido, though seeing King as one of his confidants, did not hesitate to give the lower-ranked Tobiroppo a chance to challenge any All-Star of their choice to take their position, as the crew's hierarchy is determined by an individual's power, something King, on the other hand, did not complain about.

Another sign of King's loyalty to his Governor-General was when King bluntly and immediately refused Big Mom's offer to join her crew, in spite of her stated willingness to forgive King's transgressions against her. King also immediately lent his sword to Kaido so he could decapitate Orochi with it as soon as the shogun protested about Kaido taking over the Flower Capital, despite having received no verbal instruction to do so, showing a great degree of trust and knowledge of another between the two.

Queen
King and his fellow All-Star, Queen, have a rivalry with one another, and they also share a mutual sense of disdain toward their fellow All-Star of seemingly lower status, Jack. After escorting Big Mom to Onigashima, Queen furiously blamed King for Big Mom's remaining presence in Wano, since King had been the one to prevent to the Big Mom Pirates from entering the country prior.

Jack
King views his fellow All-Star Jack as incompetent, as shown when he scolded him alongside Queen for the low amount of offerings from the Wano region Jack is in charge of, calling him "Foolish Jack" (ズッコケジャック).

Tobiroppo
King has a rather hostile relationship with the Tobiroppo Sasaki and Who's-Who, being aware of their ambition to become All-Stars and acknowledging that they would likely ignore any summons order they knew came from him. When they expressed their aforesaid ambition before him and Kaido, King disdainfully told them to know their place, and when Kaido asked him and Jack if they would object to the Tobiroppo being granted a chance to fight one of them for their All-Star post, King said that he had none, showing confidence in his superiority over them.

King views Ulti and Page One as brats, like some of their fellow Tobiroppo.

Big Mom Pirates
Since Big Mom is a rival of his Governor-General, King sees her as an enemy. King personally kept her and her children out of Wano by knocking their ship into the ocean as they tried climbing Wano's waterfall. He was later surprised to see that she survived once she was brought to Onigashima by Queen. Big Mom stated she would forgive his transgression on her if he joined her crew, since he is, as a lunarian, part of a unique and thought-to-be-extinct race that she wanted in Totto Land, but he bluntly refused.

Charlotte Perospero also expressed his intention to get his revenge on King for what he did to his mother and crew.

Overview
As an All-Star of the Beasts Pirates, King holds great authority in the crew, second only to Kaido's, and is one of Kaido's closest confidants alongside Queen and Jack.

In terms of combat, King is one of the Beasts Pirates' strongest three warriors next to Queen and Jack; like Queen's, King's bounty exceeds 1,000,000,000, illustrating his fearsome reputation. A veteran pirate, King has been part of the Beast Pirates for at least 23 years and was already considered among the strongest members back then.

Physical Abilities
Like his fellow All-Stars, King has a penchant for melee combat. His fighting style is a wild one eschewing proper form and technique in favor of a brutal yet pragmatic blend of hand-to-hand combat, like punches and kicks, and swordsmanship. He has been seen disarming his foe with his swordbreaker-like katana to leave them vulnerable to a follow-up, unarmed strike.

King is shown to have tremendous physical strength. He easily hurled Shinobu with significant force after grabbing her by the head, repressed a Raid Suit-donning Sanji by grabbing his neck one-handed, and blocked a powerful kick from the latter using his own leg. With a downward swipe of his sword, King easily sliced one of Marco's phoenix wings right off.

Additionally, King is extremely durable even without his Zoan transformation, taking a direct hit from Roronoa Zoro's Rengoku Oni Giri and being merely thrown to ground, without taking any discernible damage.

King also possesses incredible speed despite his large size, leaping across a great distance in a instant.

Fire Manipulation


Befitting his epithet, King possesses the natural ability to "ignite" (発火) his body, allowing him to create and control fire in both his humanoid and pteranodon forms. This ability stems from King's racial background as a lunarian.

Using the fire he conjures, King can boost the power of his melee attacks, like throwing a flaming punch, and even launch bullet-like flame projectiles from a distance, which he has been seen doing from his pteranodon wings.

Attacks

 * Andon: King conjures a fireball over his open palm, then forms a fist to execute a powerful, flame-clad punch. The attack was first seen when King tried to strike a then-disabled Zoro, but it was blocked by Marco. The attack's name comes from andon (行灯), a type of traditional Japanese lantern consisting of an oil lamp housed in a paper-covered, wooden stand. The Viz manga calls the technique Imperial Flame.

Devil Fruit


King ate the Ryu Ryu no Mi, Model: Pteranodon, an Ancient Zoan-type Devil Fruit that allows him to transform into a full pteranodon and a humanoid lunarian-pteranodon hybrid at will. When transformed, he is more clad in flames than usual and gains the ability to fly at high speeds.

His full Beast Form is powerful enough to either violently push back or inflict significant damage upon whatever King flies into, be it people or even massive objects, such as an entire ship. Additionally, his long, pointy beak potentially yields immense piercing power.

Weapons


King carries a large, swordbreaker-style katana on his right hip, befitting his size. It sports a plain-round, golden tsuba, a matching gold kashira and kojiri, and tsuka-ito of dark-orange color forming traditional rhombus gaps to expose the lighter-orange hilt underlay. It is sheathed in a saya of the same orange as the ito, which has two red cords with hanging, tufted ends below its mouth, plus additional red bands around the lower parts of the saya. Due to its swordbreaker design, the sword's blade, along the edge, can become deeply notched to form angular teeth, letting King disarm enemies by catching their weapons, like swords, and keeping them lodged in-between said teeth before pulling them from the enemies' grasp with a pull.

Additionally, King's very suit seems designed to facilitate hand-to-hand combat, like having spikes that extend out of his gloves when King punches someone.

Past
King was born into the tribe of lunarians that comes from the Red Line, and which in the present day is widely believed to be extinct.

At some point after at least 33 years ago, King came to join the Beasts Pirates founded by the now-Emperor, Kaido. Twenty-three years ago, he partook in his crew's battle against the Gecko Pirates led by Gecko Moria, which resulted in Moria's crew suffering a crushing defeat in the Ringo province of Wano Country.

Twenty years ago, King was involved in the Beasts Pirates' total takeover of Wano through their final battle against Kozuki Oden, then-daimyo of Kuri. When Oden and his retainers, the Nine Red Scabbards, were on their way to Onigashima, a thousand members of the Beasts Pirates, including King and Queen, confronted them in the Udon region. In the ensuing battle that lasted five days, King fought against the Scabbards, including Raizo and Ashura Doji. King managed to stab Ashura in the back while the samurai was distracted by Kaido's attack on Oden.

In the end, Oden and his allies were overwhelmed and crushed. Later on, King, Queen, and Jack were present when Kaido set Oden Castle ablaze following Oden's execution, to kill the rest of the Kozuki Family.

Wano Country Arc
In the present on Onigashima, King was first seen alongside his fellow All-Stars. Along with Queen, he reprimanded Jack for how low the amount of offerings was from Kuri and then asked him if he knew where to go for their next trade deal now that they could no longer rely on Donquixote Doflamingo. While having this discussion, King pointed to Queen while noting how the latter was already incompetent, causing King and Queen to engage in an argument.



The following day, when the Big Mom Pirates attempted to enter Wano by ascending its waterfall on the Queen Mama Chanter, just as they had reached the top, their ship still midair, King as a pteranodon flew in and attacked, causing the ship to flip over and fall back down, while sending Big Mom into the gushing sea below.

Around two days later, Queen brought a chained-up Big Mom from Udon to Onigashima and scolded King for not having been thorough in eliminating her. Big Mom told King that she would forgive him for what he had done to her if he joined her crew, as she recognized him as one of the few races that were not part of Totto Land, but King refused her offer.

Prior to the latest Fire Festival commencing, King heard that the Numbers had returned to Wano, of which he informed Queen. Later, during the beginning stages of the festival, King appeared before Kaido to confirm that it was he who had summoned the Tobiroppo in Kaido's name, for the purpose of having them find the latter's "son", Yamato. Kaido then offered to let the Tobiroppo challenge the All-Stars for their positions should they succeed, to which both King and Jack had no objection.

Later, King appeared beside his fellow All-Stars as well as Kaido himself on the Live Floor of the Golden Kagura, behind shogun Orochi, as Kaido declared his intention to "liven up" the execution of Momonosuke with the announcement of the "New Onigashima Project". As Kaido gave the explanation of said project, King held out his sword for Kaido to use to unexpectedly decapitate Orochi. As Kaido thereupon prepared to execute Momonosuke, the All-Stars and Kaido were taken by surprise when the Nine Red Scabbards and Izou suddenly appeared from behind them and launched an all-out attack. Izou disarmed King by shooting his sword out of his hand, leaving him helpless to stop Kaido from being assailed.



Later, after Kaido and the Scabbards had taken their battle to the roof of Onigashima's Skull Dome, Shinobu attempted to sneakily free Momonosuke. King, noticing her, simply grabbed and hurled the kunoichi away. However, Sanji (invisible thanks to his Raid Suit) was successful in rescuing the boy right after. King then clashed with Sanji in midair, and once Sanji had thrown Momonosuke to safety, King (now in his pteranodon form) sent himself and Sanji crashing into a nearby tower, intent on splitting Sanji in half with his beak. Afterwards, a still-flying King guarded the way to the rooftop, a hole made by Kaido, together with Queen and a group of flying Gifters. Thereafter, King returned to the Performance Stage and contacted the Tobiroppo with a Den Den Mushi, ordering them to cease their search for Yamato and prevent the rebel alliance from reaching the dome's roof. He later received updates from Bao Huang and ordered all forces to kill Momonosuke, as bringing him down would deprive the samurais of their will to fight.

Later, King returned to his task of preventing enemies from getting up to the roof of the dome, as noticed by Roronoa Zoro. As Marco the Phoenix had joined the fray inside the dome and started flying Zoro up toward the roof, a pteranodon-transformed King and Queen stood in their way. Both All-Stars thus tried to stop Marco, but the latter restrained them at once with his phoenix wings before throwing Zoro to the roof.



After he was informed of the Scabbards' location in the castle's second-floor treasury and their badly wounded state, King noted how he was occupied, ordering someone else to go kill the Scabbards. He afterward entered his pteranodon form once again, then attacking Marco with a rain of what seemed to be bullet-like projectiles. Subsequently, as Marco in his phoenix form was flying at Queen, seemingly attempting to attack, King back in human form was quick to jump at him, cutting off Marco's left wing with his sword. Marco, however, was not fazed and simply used the remains of said wing to form a large fireball, which he sent straight at King in a blunt-force attack, sending the All-Star crashing violently into a building behind him. Before King had a chance to put up his guard, Marco made a follow-up attack, launching himself into King with a flying knee strike, causing an explosion, but King started getting back up shortly.

King was later seen looking on solemnly as the enemy alliance's will to fight was reinvigorated by Momonosuke's broadcasted announcement that Straw Hat Luffy, after having prior been declared defeated by Kaido and about to die, was actually alive and soon to return to the battle.

Later at the Live Floor, King and Queen began taking out the many renegade Beasts Pirates that had been converted to the enemy's side due to a certain Devil Fruit ability, with Marco temporarily out of action and Sanji overwhelmed by the combined presence of two All-Stars. King had managed to ascertain the enemy's plan to heal the heavily injured Zoro via some strange treatment and gave out the order to put a stop to it. King was then quick to personally find the bandaged-up Zoro, who was being carried away by samurai, and attempted to strike him with his flaming Andon punch, though Marco managed to fly in at the right time and block the attack. Marco commented how he had heard long ago about a certain race living on top of the Red Line that had the power to burst into flames, but King did not respond. Instead, he and Queen initiated attacks to take out Marco for good, but before they had a chance to do anything, a recuperated Zoro and Sanji jumped in to attack them with their respective attacks, with King being sliced by Zoro's Rengoku Oni Giri.

Though thrown to the ground by said attack, King was unhurt and, like Queen, promptly rose back up. As Sanji and Zoro were bickering, King took the chance to draw his sword and swing down at an unguarded Sanji, which was blocked by Zoro. When Queen mentioned how Sanji's flaming leg was an ability inexplicable for a normal human like him, as he could not be a "lunarian", King listened in silence. He then turned his attention to Zoro, who was already busy attacking him. King had his sword form angular notches along its edge and lodged Zoro's handheld swords in them. Pulling his own sword aside, King snatched Zoro's sword pair away from him, then proceeded to throw a powerful punch at Zoro's face that the latter stopped using his mouth-held sword. When Zoro remarked how King's manner of fighting was like a killing machine's, King responded that, to begin with, he never saw use for traditional forms and styles in a real battle. Zoro concurred, stating how King never claimed to be a proper swordsman anyway, but he too would take any measures necessary to win their fight. As their duel continued, King was seen launching a kick at Zoro in the air.

Major Battles

 * Beasts Pirates vs. Gecko Pirates
 * Beasts Pirates vs. Kozuki Oden, the Nine Red Scabbards, and Shinobu
 * King vs. Raizo
 * King vs. Ashura Doji
 * King vs. Sanji
 * King and Queen vs. Marco
 * King and Queen vs. Sanji and Roronoa Zoro

Filler Battles

 * King vs. Denjiro

Playable Appearances

 * One Piece Treasure Cruise

Trivia

 * Like his fellow All-Stars Queen and Jack, King is named after the playing card rank, fitting with the card-based naming scheme of the Beasts Pirates.
 * King, with his Devil Fruit and fire abilities, might be inspired by Rodan, a popular pteranodon kaiju that resides in a volcano, and of whom one specific incarnation is the "Fire Rodan".
 * King's physical design may also be inspired by the figure on the cover art of Angel of Retribution, the fifteenth studio album by English heavy metal band Judas Priest.
 * King's first anime appearance is in the opening OVER THE TOP. Originally in it, his wings were shown as white, but this was soon corrected to black.

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