The decision had been simmering in the back of Ragnar's mind ever since the final, earth-shattering battle with Enel.
He had watched the Shandian warrior, Wyper, fight with a ferocity that bordered on self-annihilation. The man was a pillar of raw, untamed will, a natural conduit for the kind of power Ragnar valued most.
Leaving such a weapon to rust as a mere guardian of a pacified sky island felt… wasteful. It was Zoro, however, who had cemented the choice.
For days, the swordsman had relentlessly sparred with Wyper in the ruins of the Upper Yard. Zoro, with his honed Observation Haki, could feel the latent potential screaming to be unleashed.
"Your spirit is strong," Zoro had grunted, blocking a furious blow from Wyper's Burn Blade, "but you're just swinging it around like a club. You need to forge it."
Under Zoro's brutal, unflinching tutelage, a regimen of relentless attacks that gave no quarter and demanded instantaneous adaptation, Wyper's innate talent had finally crystallized.
In a moment of desperate parry against a strike that would have shattered his ribs, a dark, shimmering energy had flared to life around Wyper's forearm, deflecting Zoro's sword with a resonant clang. Armament Haki.
Combined with the keen, hunter's instinct of his pre-existing Observation Haki, Wyper had become a true force to be reckoned with.
It was this final evolution that convinced Ragnar. A warrior of such caliber belonged at the forefront of his conquest, not left behind as a sentry.
Leaving the palace, Ragnar found Wyper where he knew he would be: standing at the edge of the ancient Shandian ruins, looking out over the cloud-sea with a restless intensity. The peace that had settled over Skypeia seemed to chafe at him like ill-fitting chains.
"Wyper," Ragnar's voice cut through the quiet.
"Ragnar-sama!" The warrior turned, his expression guarded but soon turned respectful after realizing who it was.
"The world below is vast," Ragnar began, not as a king to a subject, but as one warrior to another.
"It is filled with monsters, tyrants, and challenges that would make Enel seem like a petty thug. I am leaving this sky, and I am taking my strongest with me. Your place is not here, maintaining a peace you did not bleed for. Your place is at my side, testing your strength against the true powers of this world."
Wyper's eyes widened slightly, the restless fire in them igniting into a brilliant flame. He had sworn to follow the man who defeated Enel, but he had assumed his duty would be here, on the soil of his ancestors. This… this was something else entirely. This was a calling.
Without a word, Wyper gave a sharp, decisive nod.
When Ragnar returned to the grand hall of the palace with Wyper in tow, the crew understood immediately. Their ranks were being solidified.
They saw the new, hardened resolve in Wyper's stance, the faint, coppery scent of recently manifested Haki still clinging to him. They knew what his presence meant.
Ragnar led Wyper to the center of the hall. All conversation ceased. The air grew thick with anticipation. Ragnar raised his hand, and from the shimmering, intangible space of his Heaven's Dimension, he retrieved the prize of his victory over the false god.
It was a fruit, swirling with intricate, lightning-bolt-like patterns, pulsing with a faint, electric hum. The Goro Goro no Mi, the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, Logia-type, was once the source of Enel's divine tyranny.
A sharp intake of breath echoed through the hall. They all recognized it. This was the very heart of the power that had nearly destroyed all of his people.
Ragnar held the fruit out to Wyper. "This power," he said, his voice resonating with absolute certainty,
"was wasted on a coward who hid behind its invincibility. It belongs in the hands of a true warrior. You are the most suitable for this Devil Fruit, Wyper."
"With your familiarity with Enel's techniques, having fought against them, been burned by them, and survived them, you can master this power far more quickly and effectively than any other."
Wyper stared at the fruit, his mind reeling. This was the source of the lightning that had scarred his people, that had decimated his home, that had killed his comrades.
To take it into himself felt like a profound desecration… and yet, the ultimate victory. To wield the weapon of his oppressor, to turn its divine wrath into his own mortal fury.
His hand trembled slightly as he reached out and took the fruit. It was warm, vibrating with a terrifying, dormant energy.
He looked from the fruit to Ragnar's unwavering gaze, then dropped to one knee, his head bowed.
"I will not disappoint you, Captain." The words were a vow, etched in iron and blood.
"I know that," Ragnar said, a confident smile gracing his lips. "Now eat it."
There were no more hesitations. Wyper brought the fruit to his lips and took a massive bite. Instantly, his face contorted into a mask of pure, unadulterated revulsion.
His eyes watered, his cheeks bulged, and he looked as if he were trying to chew on a mixture of rotten eggs, sewer water, and bitter poison. It was a struggle of sheer will to force the mouthful down his throat, a gagging shudder wracking his entire body.
A wave of morbid curiosity swept through the crew.
"Is it really that bad?" Nami whispered, her nose wrinkling.
"Ragnar-sama's gifts must be truly profound to require such a trial of endurance!" Bartolomeo watched, fascinated.
Only Robin, standing slightly apart, allowed a small, knowing, and almost sympathetic smile to touch her lips.
She remembered the indescribable vileness of the Hana Hana no Mi, a memory of chalky, putrid despair that was seared into her childhood. She watched Wyper's suffering with a sense of shared, secret commiseration.
Wyper, driven by sheer stubbornness and the desire not to vomit in front of his new captain, forced himself to take two more gigantic, agonizing bites, swallowing the horrific remains of the fruit with a visible, painful gulp. He knelt there, panting, his face pale, waiting for something to happen.
For a moment, there was nothing. Then, a faint crackle, like static electricity. A single, blue-white arc of lightning jumped from Wyper's shoulder to the marble floor with a sharp ZZZT.
Then another, from his clenched fist. The air around him began to shimmer with heat, and the faint smell of ozone filled the hall.
Wyper looked at his hands, his eyes wide with a mixture of awe and burgeoning understanding. He could feel it, a boundless, roaring ocean of power coursing through his veins, replacing his blood with pure, elemental energy.
It was chaotic, overwhelming, a storm contained within his flesh. But unlike Enel, who had been used to this power and treated it as a divine right, Wyper approached it as a warrior approaches a new, temperamental weapon. He had spent his life fighting against this lightning; he knew its rhythms, its tricks, its tells.
He focused, his brow furrowed in concentration. The wild, sparking arcs coalesced, smoothing into a controlled, humming aura of electricity that wreathed his body.
He raised a hand, and a compact, perfectly formed ball of crackling plasma hovered above his palm, its light reflecting in his determined eyes. He didn't create a massive, showy display of power. He demonstrated control. Precise, lethal, disciplined control.
Ragnar watched, his satisfaction a palpable force in the room. This was exactly what he had foreseen. Enel had been a musician who only knew how to play one, deafeningly loud chord.
Wyper was a warrior who would learn every note, every subtle inflection, and compose symphonies of destruction. The raw, untamed will of the Shandian had been fused with one of the most powerful Logia fruits in existence.
He hadn't just gained a new crewmate; he had forged a living tempest, a god of lightning who knew what it meant to be mortal, to bleed, and to hate.
"The transition to the Tidereaver will be in one hour," Ragnar announced, his voice cutting through the electric hum. "Prepare to set sail for Water Seven."
As the crew dispersed to gather their belongings, a new energy buzzed among them. The stakes had been raised yet again. They were no longer just a crew of powerful individuals, they were becoming a pantheon.
A storm-wielder now stood among them, his loyalty as unshakeable as the mountains of his homeland, his power a promise of the thunderous retribution they would bring to the world below.
The Blue Sea would soon learn to fear not just the man who commanded the heavens, but the lightning that followed in his wake.
...
[By the way, did y'all see IMU leaks💀 and Usopp Rage baiting him into coming in person in Elbaph]