The sound of flatulence rose from rubber soles with each step Dr. Indigo took towards the pool room. The not-so-good doctor intended to surreptitiously gather some data about the bird that he had left with the prisoner—er, recruit. After all, just because he couldn't take it away by his captain's orders didn't mean he couldn't still observe it. It wouldn't be a particularly productive observation, not when he was looking to build a better killing machine, and those women only saw a probably cute animal. Still, at least he would find out what the creature did when left to its own devices with constant human contact.
Upon entering the room, his grinning face scanned the room in search of the peaducken (name pending). Unfortunately, it was nowhere to be seen. Nor, as he took in the entirety of the room, was the former Straw Hat. Paling beneath his makeup, his eyes turned toward the pool—
"Horo horo horo horo horo horo horo…"
And then snapped upward at the familiar haunting laughter of the other 'prisoner'. His pallor intensified when he did not see a young tanning goth girl, but instead three large, orb-shaped spectres with childlike eyes and mouths. Well, except for the part where the mouths were grinning in blatant, naked malice.
"Thanks for being such wonderful hosts," came Perona's taunting voice from the spectres. "But we've overstayed our welcome, so we're heading out now. But here's a parting gift for you. TRIPLE SPECIAL HOLLOW!"
Indigo barely had time to even begin deploying his fumes for Chemical Juggling before the spectres completely swamped him. Only the sheer size of the palace kept anyone else from hearing the massive detonation that followed a moment later.
-o-
"Clowns and mad scientists like blowing up, right?" Perona snarked, fighting not to burst into laughter. She waited for someone else to do so in her place and sagged despondently when she realized that no one was around to do so.
"Maaan," she groused, spinning the spectral rendition of her parasol on her shoulder. "It really sucks not having an entourage around to laugh at my jokes anymore." The astral 'princess' cast a glare up and through the lake she was floating beside. "Where the heck are they? It's not that far from the drain to the castle; shouldn't they have been here by now?"
Sighing, Perona mentally gave it another minute and went back to taking in the landscape around her. She glanced at the coral coating the bed of the lake she was floating beside—a lake that defied gravity by essentially being a vertical wall—but she'd been examining that for most of the time she'd been waiting. She glanced down, towards the target island, with its caldera lake, green canopy, and the Thousand Sunny visible at the end of the scar in the jungle it had left, but it wasn't a very visually appealing island.
With little other choice, she turned back to the coral and the gap Nami was supposed to come out of. Thankfully, a few more seconds, the duck and the Straw Hat flew out of the hole, shooting straight for the edge of the lake. Perona flew up out of the way and heard a splash followed by the gasp of someone inhaling after a long time holding their breath. In seconds, she was beside Nami, flying down alongside the navigator, who was clinging to her plummeting mount's back.
"Enjoy the swim?" Perona shouted over the rushing wind.
"Shi—hugh!—Shiki's got almost a mile of plumbing under his monument to his own ego, and my mount took three wrong turns in a row!" Nami shouted back, coughing up a lungful of water halfway through. "If I weren't such a good swimmer, I'd have drowned twice over!"
"Yeah, well, you're in luck, because you can recover and dry off once we get back to the Sunny!" Perona said, beaming ecstatically as she pointed up. Or down, rather, seeing as she was floating downward headfirst. "Shiki must not be paying attention to where he lets the islands float, because we're falling straight towards your ship!"
"Really!?" Nami gasped happily. "Oh, man, that's great! Hey, duck!" She tapped the back of her mount's head. "Pull up! We're close to… my… uh, duck? Duck!" She rapped his head hard and paled when he failed to even twitch. "Ooooh crap."
Perona righted herself, sending Nami a concerned look. "What's wrong?"
The navigator cursed colourfully under her breath as she tried to shake her mount awake. "Damn, damn, damn! I'm a good swimmer, but Ducky here isn't! He must have conked out after the last turn!"
"Ooooh… yikes," the zombie princess winced sympathetically. "Well, look on the bright side: At least your landing won't be too hard."
"Huh?" Nami blinked at Perona in confusion. "What are you—?"
SPLASH!
"—BLURGH!?"
"That's what I'm talking about," Perona giggled to herself as she stopped just short of the water-filled caldera, while Nami and her ride slammed face-first into it. Once the giggling subsided, the ghost girl peered through the water. "Wow, I'm honestly surprised! Even after a fall that high, it looks like she's gonna be okay."
Perona's schadenfreude-enforced smirk faded fast, her pallid demeanour lightening even further as a group of very large beasts, partly shadowed by the water's surface, headed straight for Nami. "She'll… probably be okay?" she hesitantly corrected.
KRZZZZZZZT!
The sudden explosion of lightning and the accompanying flash of light prompted Perona to wince and shield her eyes. When she lowered her hand, the aquatic beasts surfaced, and Perona readied Negative Hollows almost reflexively before recognizing that that shock had done all that was needed; they were no longer among the living. She stared for a few moments at the corpses, and then the duck emerged from the water, perched on what remained of the least fortunate of the attackers, merely a skeleton, and squawked triumphantly.
"That was a shock," Perona most certainly did not say. What she did do was grin and pump her fists triumphantly. "But now Nami's definitely okay!"
The fresh bravado lasted long enough for both she and the duck to look around, and their jaws dropped in horror at the sight of her body floating nearby. Face-down. "Maybe, maybe okay," Perona choked out.
The duck, to his credit, reacted instantly. In a matter of seconds, he had flown over to Nami, taken her in his talons, and carried her to the shore, her limbs skimming the water as he flew.
Perona followed. By the time she caught up, the duck had placed Nami down on the rock and was pacing nervously, then gingerly poked her with his beak. She stirred slightly, and the duck let out a squawk of joy. Then, in a move that was an inadvisable but not unsound leap of logic, he began pecking her much more insistently and forcefully.
"CUT THAT OUT!" Nami roared, sending the duck flying almost to the other end of the crater with her punch.
"Okay, yeah, you're okay," Perona slumped with a relieved sigh.
"Almost—ugh…—wasn't…" Nami hacked miserably, massaging her throat. "What the heck happened?…and why do I smell toast, of all things?"
Slowly, Perona pointed her finger at the paradoxically sheepish duck. "Yellow bill boy here saved your bacon by frying the things coming up to munch on you. Your fault for not being naturally resistant to electricity."
The navigator snapped a paralyzing glare at the electro-fowl, freezing him in place. Tersely, "On the one hand, I really feel like knocking your bill into your brain for almost killing me twice in a row."
The duck flinched and began waving its wings about, quacking frantically. That quacking shifted into a squawk of surprise when Nami threw her arms around his neck and brought him into a hug.
"On the other hand, I am so freaking happy to be out of that hellhole, and it's all thanks to you!" Nami laughed in relief. "So thank you soooo much!"
The duck smiled widely and, with a pleased squawk, returned the affection and hug.
After a few minutes, Nami let go, and she turned her smile on Perona, only this time with more of an edge to the expression. "And now that we're out… You said that this is the island that Sunny is on?"
"More than that, this is the mountain your ship's on!" Perona replied with an equally vicious grin. "It's this way, on the slope! Come on, let's go! I want to get back in my body as soon as possible." And with that, the astral girl swooped off and over the lip of the caldera, with the duck carrying Nami close behind.
The second the duck crested the edge, and Nami laid eyes on the Thousand Sunny, her face lit up with joy and relief. Jumping off the duck's back, she took off down the mountain, though she slowed her careening run at the explosions that blossomed in the forest to her left. And she stopped completely, just in sight of the Sunny, when a handful of familiar figures came out of the forest, heading for the other side. They abruptly came to a halt as they saw the familiar form of their ship. One of them fell to his knees, his hands raised in triumph—
"Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Ha. Lay. Lou. Ya!"
With the loudest of them on his shoulder, providing a very loud but undeniably beautiful soundtrack.
"And here I thought that that snail didn't have any good taste at all," Perona muttered.
"I should care more about that, but honestly, I'm a little preoccupied with the fact that they're actually here! LUFFY! CROSS! BOSS!" Nami shouted in joy, waving her arms over her head.
The trio snapped their heads in her direction, and even from so far away, Nami still knew that they were all beaming with just as much exuberance. "Nami!" Cross's voice laughed in relief, the blond collapsing onto his ass as the energy seemed to drain out of him. "Oh maaan, you have no idea how stupidly relieved I am to see you again!"
As if on cue, the omnipresent sounds of roaring animals and snapping foliage suddenly intensified, and before anyone could react, three massive, bearded scorpions, with carapaces in blue-black, grey-black, and red-black, shoved aside some trees, claws clacking. Then, not ten feet from that group, a massive, scarred, rotund lion with short stubby legs and sharp, not-stubby-at-all fangs bowled over some more trees, flopping onto its feet and roaring. And on the other side, a massive toad with a grey, pebbly hide that just screamed durable came crashing out of the canopy, accompanied by a loud croak.
By contrast, the oversized komodo dragon that barreled in five seconds later was almost normal. Except there was a crazed look in its eyes that it shared with the other five animals, and the drool dripping from its mouth caused hissing smoke to rise where it landed on the forest floor.
Regardless, all six took one look at the humans in the clearing, intensified their respective noises, and then dipped their heads and charged.
Cross moaned and let his head hang. "…these bastards, not so much."
"Uuuurgh…" Boss groaned, falling onto his flippers. "Normally, I'd show off some more machismo and help you with dusting our lunch… but at this point, we're exhausted, and you look fresh, any chance you could fry them for us?"
The smirk Nami adopted would have sent any sane being diving off the edge of the island. Less painful that way. "Oh, you have no idea," she purred, assembling her Clima-Tact as fast as blinking and deploying a mass of iron cloud. That mass of strands quickly bunched up into a ball behind Nami. "You're going to want to get out of the way, because this one's brand new! Divine—!"
"GrrrrRRRRAGH! ENOUGH!"
Nami halted mid-attack at Luffy's incensed bellow. She wasn't the only one, either. The cavalcade of monstrosities, so eager two seconds before, all hit the brakes, some tumbling as their legs locked up, and the front runners shoved forward by the beasts behind running into them.
Having known the rubber man for as long as she had, Nami could tell the yell was more out of frustration boiling over than actual anger. Not unexpected, considering what they must have been going through over the last week, but why would he ask her to stop? One blast and they'd have some peace and—
"WE'VE BEEN CHASED ALL OVER THESE ISLANDS FOR DAYS!" Luffy roared, glaring hellfire at the oncoming beasts as he marched towards them with his fist strangling his pipe. "WE'VE FINALLY FOUND OUR FRIENDS, OUR HOME, AND WE BEAT ALL OF YOU! YOU LOST, WE WON! NOW GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEADS, AND LEAVE!"
Luffy took one more step toward the small horde, prompting them to frantically backpedal.
"US!"
Another step—no, a stomp, this one shattering the earth beneath the captain's feet.
"ALONE!"
Luffy's roar hit its peak on that final word, and the air rippled. A wave of force slammed clean into Nami, stealing the breath from her lungs and sending her stumbling back. It… It was like the few times Vivi had accidentally snared her while practicing her Sovereign's Will, but at the same time… at the same time it was so much more. If it weren't for her staff, she would have fallen to her knees or even collapsed outright as the hazy image of a gargantuan beast imposed itself—crushed itself—into her mind's eye.
After a minute, the pressure eased enough for her to stand upright and look around. What she saw sent a chill over her body; Perona was nowhere to be seen, the duck had collapsed out cold beside her with foam coming out of his slack beak, Cross was slumped over and barely supporting himself on Boss, Soundbite's shell foaming on his shoulder… and most importantly, the three giant scorpions and their entourage were collapsed on the ground, dead to the world with more foam practically flowing from their mouths.
It took a few seconds, but Nami's mind eventually rebooted and threw up a seemingly random memory. A memory of everyone sharing their tales of battle from Enies Lobby once they'd returned to Water Seven.
A memory of Cross sharing his knowledge of Kings and Conquerors.
That memory shook the last of the weakness out of her legs, and she sprinted down the slope to regroup with her friends as fast as possible. "Cross!" she gasped out when she arrived, swapping her gaze between the tactician and her captain. "Was that—!?"
"AH!" Luffy yelped, recoiling in shock at the sight of his crewmates' haggard expressions. "What the—!? Did I do that to you guys!? I'm so—!"
"Luffy!" Cross interrupted in a choked voice, visibly fighting to keep his head on straight and his gaze at least somewhat on target. "That feeling, w-whatever you felt just now, the anger, the rage, I-I-I don't know, I don't care, y-you, you need to… You need to remember it. Hold onto it. Th-Th-That feeling. Because what you just did…" Cross's dizzied expression slowly grew into a massive, mad grin. "That was a boot… clean through the door… of the Conqueror's throne room."
"Hail TO THE KING baby…" Soundbite gurgled through his own foam.
"Yeah, that was really cool and awesome and manly, and I really want to see you learn to get it under control…" Boss wheezed, shaking his head in an attempt to clear the fog from his mind. "Just, don't practice it too close to us, until you're a heck of a lot better at controlling your range, would you? Feels like someone reached through my shell to clock my skull."
Luffy flinched, visibly unsure how to respond. Nami was more than a little shaken herself, but she gathered herself together enough to fall back on what never failed to distract Luffy.
"Hey, Luffy? How do you think those things taste?"
The rubber man's face lit up, and he charged over to the nearest scorpion. Cross shot her a relieved smile, especially now that he could stand on solid legs, which she returned.
"It'll be nice to enjoy a meal without worrying about something charging at us partway through," Boss nodded in agreement, cracking his neck back and forth in an effort to unstiffen his too-worn muscles.
"Food later, rest now," Lassoo suddenly wheezed, shoving himself off of his wielder's back and flopping to the ground in a boneless heap, his tongue lolling out of his maw. "Cross, drop us off on the Sunny before you do anything else, would you? I've got a dire urge to whiz on a tree…"
Cross chuckled at the request, drew his sword and cast it aside. "I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you feel the same way."
The elephant-sword grew to its full size and then promptly tumbled onto its side, a relieved bray coming from its trunk. "Ohh, you have no idea. First, I'mma drink all the water I can handle. Then, eat as much untainted grass as I can stomach," Funkfreed said in tearful relief.
"Right up that way," Nami jabbed her thumb over her shoulder, up the mountainside. "There's a whole caldera up there filled with fresh water, you can gorge until you burst."
"Hallelujah!" Funkfreed cried, somehow finding the strength to right himself and charge up the mountain far faster than anything his size had the right to move.
"Ah, wait! Soundbite, if you could—?" Nami pointed after the elephant and was rewarded with a crackle of static. "Funkfreed, on your way back down, grab the knocked-out duck! He's a friend of mine, and if it weren't for him, Shiki'd still have me!"
She got a wordless trumpet and a wave of the pachyderm's trunk for acknowledgment.
Nami nodded gratefully, then began looking around. "Now, where did Perona go?"
A scream like a banshee, followed by a familiar astral form shooting from the crow's nest, answered that. "YOU!"
Nami shook her head as she made tracks for the Sunny, her mind filling in the details long before Perona's livid and graffiti-covered form floated down to meet her.
"Is it too much to ask that I might rightfully punish someone for violating my body while I was out of it?" she furiously demanded.
"Hey, you go right ahead and rip their psyche apart for all I care," Nami said placatingly, hands raised in surrender. "Just make sure they're breathing once you're finished."
"No promises," Perona snarled, shooting off in a blind and Hollow-shrouded rage.
Nami stared after her before slowly pinching the bridge of her nose. "Dare I even ask who stayed here and watched over her body?"
"That'd be this blubber-arsed moron right here, ma'am," Boss stated flatly as he Rip Tide'd to her side, holding a slack and soaking Raphey by her tail. "Found her cowering in the fishtank."
"Don't let her get me, I don't wanna be a sea cucumbe-e-er…" Raphey wept.
Boss rolled his eyes. Tiredly, "I am too hungry and too sober for this shit. Tell you what." The dugong stabbed his cigar towards the insensate beasts. "De-meat the two scorpions our captain isn't on in less than half an hour, and I won't toss your ass to your rightful comeuppance."
"Yessir, Master Boss sir!" Raphey barked, saluting while still upside-down.
"Get to it," Boss nodded, tossing her away. But before she could Riptide, he snapped his fingers, prompting her to turn her head. "And Raphey."
"S-Sir?"
Boss took a long, slow drag before breathing out a cloud of smoke. "…well done. You did your squad proud. Keep it up."
Raphey immediately beamed. "Yes, sir!" And with that, she soared away to perform her task.
Nami let the green, brown, and pink blur leave her sight before side-eyeing the older amphibian. "…I assume you meant the guard duty and not the graffiti?" Nami deadpanned.
Boss smirked and tilted the brim of his hat down. "Said what I meant, meant what I said. Take it how you will."
For a long while, Nami remained in that deadpan, sidelong expression. And then, out of the blue, she collapsed to her knees and dragged the dugong into a tight hug, burying her face in his skullplate.
"I missed you crazy bastards so damn much…" Nami sobbed into his hat.
Boss, frozen in surprise, let himself relax and returned the hug. "There, there. Wasn't much fun without you either, ma'am," he replied, patting her shoulder comfortingly.
-o-
Hearing those words and seeing Nami so relieved felt like getting stabbed in the heart with a knife made out of solid guilt. I couldn't hide the grimace that came over my face; it was just lucky that Soundbite was the only one who noticed it, although the slightly scared look on his face told me all I needed to know about my expression.
"Later, once this mess is over," I said quietly, making every attempt to mask the reminder of what was yet to come with the current situation and the implications thereof: Nami back, and Shiki yet to pay. It helped that it wasn't long before Nami broke the hug with Boss and came over to grab me up instead.
Memories of the same situation on another sky island, ending with a tongue shoved down my throat, made me twitch involuntarily, but I dismissed the sentiment just as fast and returned the hug with gusto.
"I am going to plant my greave in whatever the Monsters leave intact," I swore quietly.
"And Chopper and I will be right there alongside you, backing you up," Nami chuckled back. "Monsters and Demons, I know, I know… but still…" Nami released me and stepped back, her expression deadly serious. "Cross, I have so much that I need to tell you."
I jabbed my thumb over at our future dinner, and my good mood suddenly turned sombre. "Lemme guess, Indigo is Shiki's quack, and this place is his bio-weapons lab?"
Our navigator blinked slowly, and the energy visibly drained out of her. "…not as much to tell you as I thought," she murmured lamely.
"We can compare notes later. For now, you go ahead, grab some new clothes and relax," I said, pointing her to the Sunny. Right as she turned away, though, a thought occurred to me, and I graced her with a flat look. "And no baring your midriff; I'm almost positive the bastard ripped a cape off of Little Garden to make this place, and I don't want to have to save your ginger ass a second time from whatever pathogens places like this can cough up."
Nami paused, turned around me, and matched my flat look with one of her own. "I really hope that Tashigi managed to recruit that Cleaner, because your memory clearly needs it. You got sick from Little Garden, Cross, not me."
"Uh-huh." I donned a smirk as I gestured at her stomach. "By the way, nice tick marks. Oh, wait!"
Nami raised her finger, opened her mouth to ask what the hell I was talking about… and snapped it shut with an aggravated hiss as the penny dropped. "You win this one, big mouth. You win this one."
"Pfheheheh," I chuckled, folding my arms behind my head. "What can I say, eh? I'm on a hot streak lately!"
"DAMN—Puru puru puru puru!—STRAIGHT! YO!" Soundbite agreed, while also starting in surprise.
"And let's keep that streak rolling!" I chuckled in relief. I popped Soundbite off my shoulder and held him before me. "Freaking finally, I've been waiting for them to call. At least they didn't do it when we were being watched."
"I hear that," Nami nodded sympathetically. "But still, let's hurry this up before Shiki decides to come snooping, right? Because I don't doubt—!"
"No!" I cut in, sticking my raised finger in her face.
"Wha—!? Cross!"
"No," I repeated firmly, jabbing my finger past her at the Sunny. "Clothes. Shower. Bed. Now. And if you don't take the time to rest and relax, so help me."
"Or what?" Nami scoffed incredulously. "You'll send me to bed without dessert?"
"Or else," I repeated back at her with a malevolent grin. "I enlist Robin and Vivi's help, and while you're asleep, they give you a haircut that would make Bellemere proud."
Nami blinked, then paled and snapped her hands to her scalp. "You wouldn't."
A venomous smile on my face, I leaned in as close as I could. "Try me."
The sight of Nami running with her tail between her legs felt so good, almost as good as seeing the Sunny again after… that week. "Winning. Streak," I repeated.
"…Interesting threat there, Cross."
My smirk twitched harshly. "Aaaand winning streak over. Damn you, snail."
"CUT ME A BREAK! DO YOU REALIZE how annoying that RINGING GETS after the first few seconds?!" Soundbite groused, rolling his eyes. "AND DON'T WORRY, I MADE DOUBLY SURE no feather-rats hauling my peeping cousins were anywhere nearby."
"He's got a point, you know. The ringing does get annoying," Tashigi oh so helpfully pointed out. "Anyway, Cross, to answer what I'm sure is your first question here, it took so long for me to call you because for some reason, the Navy is monitoring all Transponder Snails like they're a lab experiment that might blow up. Some of the officers think the brass is paranoid about how far Shiki's stretched his influence over the years. But hey, who knows? Maybe they're just concerned that with all the anarchy you've spread, you have some contacts inside the Navy itself. And they're not wrong, really." That last was said with a slight smile.
It didn't last. "Anyway, I had to wait until we reached Sagittarius to be safe; he's had a White Transponder Snail secretly on hand for years in case of an emergency. So I couldn't contact you safely until now."
I nodded in acceptance of the explanation and took over the conversation.
"Just as well that you didn't get a chance until now. We've been on the run for the last week, and we only just found where the Sunny landed. Shiki took us to his base, an archipelago held in the sky by his powers, filled with an army of hyper-mutated bioweapon animals that he and his crewmate, Dr. Indigo—think Caesar Clown, both in genius and in lack of conscience—have created. These things look like they've crawled out of the New World and Soundbite says they're only getting stronger every second, if he lets these things loose, it'll be a bloodbath."
"Yeah, well, whatever you're imagining, reality is going to be a million times worse."
I frowned in confusion. "Know something I don't?"
"Oh-hoh, trust me, you know it as well as I do," Tashigi grimaced. "Think about it, Cross, imagine it: the result of all those animals set loose at once, whipped into a frenzy at the same time, and then set loose on a location, most any location. What would be the result?"
I frowned in thought, turning the pieces over. And then I almost puked as my body tried to react in so many fucking ways at once. "So… what you're telling me is that not only did Shiki personally attack one of our crew, he's personally attacking our sea of origin as well?"
I heard teeth grinding as Tashigi slowly nodded in confirmation. "For what it's worth, while it is personal, Aquarius doesn't think it's personal with you specifically. According to her, Shiki got that wheel he has stuck in his head when he last clashed with Roger, with his entire fleet backing him to take on Roger's lone Oro Jackson. Shiki lost, utterly, and has hated Roger ever since for destroying his dreams of world domination. More specifically, he hated how he was beaten by a man—"
"—from the weakest, most worthless of all the Blues," I finished. "Which also explains why he came after us, the big-shot rookies from the East who are following almost exactly in Roger's footsteps. He wants to both stamp out the source of his hatred and get the victory he thinks was rightfully his twenty years ago. I hate to say it, but it makes sense. Sense through a twisted lens, but sense."
"Yeah? Well, that 'sense' is going to justify dropping killer rabbits on the East Blue, and unlike you, most civilians aren't quite so good at running."
"Hey, I wasn't trying to—!" That was as far as I got before what she'd said really hit me, and my eyes widened into an incredulous stare. "Tashigi… how the hell did you know that I almost got my head ripped off by a rabbit this morning?"
Soundbite's expression flattened into a glower. "Zero for two, I thought you would have put the pieces together already, Cross. Shiki is using your transceiver to broadcast what's going on with your crew all over the world; he delivered Visual Transponder Snails to all across the Blues and the Grand Line; as of noon today, everyone is watching."
My jaw dropped in horror. "Sonnuva—that pompous old tyrant got more viewers than me!?"
"…Please tell me someone else is listening to you right now, Cross," Tashigi said with absolutely no emotion. "Because I need to hear someone punching you for getting your priorities out of line. I need to hear you in pain."
"Coping, woman, focus. Also, you saw what I was going through. Imagine that over an entire week, non-fucking-stop," I retorted acridly, massaging the bridge of my nose as I tried to consider the implication- oh fuck me. "Hold on a second!" I damn near shouted in my panic. "Does that mean that the world knows about Brook?"
"Cross, this is not the—"
"I AM SERIOUS, TASHIGI!" I roared. Soundbite recoiled in shock, but I plowed. "Tell me: does the world know that Brook's a skeleton or not!?"
"That he's a wha—!? Gah, how does this even… um, not quite? He was wearing a weird hat that looked like a jellyfish; we craned our necks, but the strips hanging down made it impossible to see who he was. The world knows his name, his voice, and that he's a swordsman, but they didn't get a glimpse of anything underneath."
I sighed in relief. "OK, that's workable… makes things harder, but workable." With the only potential pitfall of our crew being broadcast dealt with, I turned my attention back to the call. "Just let it be known that Brook's connection to us, or at least the fact that he's… 'living-impaired', so to speak, cannot become public knowledge, either now or anytime soon. Moving back to the matter at hand, I assume the Masons are working on this?"
Curiosity and other emotions I couldn't identify warred on Tashigi's face, and eventually, she let out a defeated sigh. "I'll save it for after this mess is done. And yes, but there's not much we can do beyond what we're already doing. The Divine is mobilizing against the threat along with the rest of the Navy, and the Damned are out of contact because, as I said, communications are under tight watch. The rest of the Masons will be getting White Snails of their own as soon as we can manage it. Actually, if you could contact Monkey once you get the transceiver back, that would make things easier."
"Alright, good enough for now," I growled tiredly, rubbing aching temples. "Alright, we'll stay the course, regroup with our crew. Luckily, Nami managed to break out of Shiki's hold; without her, this entire place is at the mercy of the Grand Line's storms, so that'll delay things. Once we're all back together, we'll do our best to kick Shiki's teeth in, and then you guys can pick up the pieces. And probably make sure these animals don't fall into the wrong hands, too."
"Heh, acting as the Straw Hats' cleanup crew. When have I heard that one before?" Tashigi chuckled, donning an actual grin. "Alright, we'll leave this up to you. And Cross?"
"Mm?"
"…I'm happy you haven't lost your head yet." KA-LICK.
I cocked my eyebrow at Soundbite as he blinked back to his usual self. "Well… call me crazy, but I think I'm growing on her!"
"You've always been crazy," Soundbite retorted. "If you'd prefer, I'LL CALL YOU mad or deranged or insane or unbalanced—"
"Alright, nix on the thesaurus," I waved him off. "And lay off the 'unbalanced', would you? Considering the footing… hits a bit close to home."
"YEAH, FINE," Soundbite nodded in agreement. He then cocked his eyestalks. "AAAAANYWAYS, I'M STARTING TO GET STARVED. LET'S SEE WHEN DINNER'S…whu-oh."
I snapped a nervous look down at my suddenly pale snail. "Whu-oh? What's whu-oh?"
"Well, see… the thing is? Those beasties may not be waking up yet—"
"GRRRR-RAAFF!"
"BUT OTHERS CAN STILL FIND US!"
Another monster stormed into the clearing just as Soundbite snapped back into the dubious safety of his shell, drooling like a waterfall as it looked around at the unconscious beasts, and then us.
"I thought Saint Bernards were supposed to be friendly!" Raphey yelped, darting away from the scorpion she'd been carving up.
"YEAH, AND THEY'RE ALSO SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE MOUNTAINS with a barrel of whiskey AROUND THEIR NECKS, bothering YODELING AUSTRIANS, SO TODAY'S JUST A DAY OF FIRSTS!"
"I've got this one!" Nami called, stepping to the edge of the deck, a fresh jacket on her shoulders. "It'll be easier for me to relax when I've blown off some stress," she added, looking in my direction. I opened my mouth to argue, but didn't get any further before help came from another source.
"Not before me," Perona cut in, swooping in front of Nami in a freshly cleaned astral form. "You'll still get your pound of flesh from Shiki, whereas I seem to have been robbed of mine, so I'm taking this consolation prize… even if it is such a cute doggy." That last degenerated into a crooning tone, and a thoughtful expression blooming on her face. "Actually… on second thought…"
Before any of us could question what she was on about, the ghost-princess flew past us all and came to hover in front of the Serial Bernard, smiling beatifically at the slavering, snarling beast. "Hello there, cutie!" she cooed in an endearing and cutesy voice. "You look like a really nice boy, and I'd love-love-love to keep you as a pet, but only if you pwomise to calm down, m'kay?"
"GROWF!" The giant dog wasn't exactly 'm'kay' with that, if the way it growled and tried to nom on her astral form was any indication.
Perona's expression fell pointedly blank, and she raised a hand. "Alright, let's try this again. Negative Hollow."
One of the said Hollows shot from her hand, zooming through the monstrous dog's head and out the back of its neck before returning to Perona. For a moment, it remained frozen mid-snarl, and then it fell to the ground. And at that moment, I found out the hard way that monstrous or not, you can't look in the eyes of a genuinely miserable, crying dog and not have it hurt on some level unless you're completely lacking a heart.
Apparently, that included Perona, because she just said, "Bad dog," and threw a heartless glare at the poor mutt. "Do you understand what happened there? You attacked me, and now you're sad. If you make me unhappy, then I make you sad again. Understand?" She shook her finger in the dog's face. "Don't attack me again."
The Bernard blinked a couple of times, shaking off the momentary existential despair before getting back on its feet. This time it was cautious and wary, but, inevitably, it raised its hackles and started snarling again—
"Negative Hollow."
And then a second dose of existential despair brought it back to whimpering.
"Don't. Attack. Me. Again," Perona reiterated in a truly dark tone, leaning in close to the dog to give it a scathing glare. "Or else you'll get three at once next time, and I promise you that you'll never feel as bad as that will make you. Choose: Be nice, or be miserable."
This time, the poor beast let out a positive-sounding whine through its whimpering, and when it regained its composure, its comportment shifted. Bernard didn't entirely back down, but he didn't attack or make any overt moves towards Perona, either.
And apparently, that was exactly what the hollow-girl wanted. Immediately upon receiving the reaction, Perona's demeanour lightened, and she smiled beatifically. "Good boy. Here you go!"
Another Hollow shot from Perona's hand and, before it could turn tail and run for the hills, through the dog in less than a second. I briefly considered lambasting her for animal abuse, because even on a monster like that, there was a limit, but then I actually got a look at the Hollow itself: Rather than smiling and laughing brainlessly, it was… sobbing.
Obviously, that meant something important, but I had no time to connect the dots before something else unprecedented snagged all my attention: the Saint Bernard reacting to the Hollow… with pure and unabated joy. All of a sudden, the large dog perked up and started barking eagerly, like it was a completely normal—if ridiculously overgrown—canine. It was panting and letting out happy "WOOF!"s and shaking its tail into a blur, and it was even jumping side to side like it couldn't wait to play!
Perona, meanwhile, took the shift in demeanour in stride and whistled sharply, catching the dog's attention. "That's it, that's a good boy! Come here, boy, come here!"
The Bernard immediately leaped to her and began acting friendly, attempting to show her affection by nuzzling and licking at Perona's astral form, and whining when the efforts proved futile. Perona smiled at the dog, and I noticed her flicking her hand behind her back. In response, the still-weeping Hollow that had been looping around above passed through the Bernard a few more times, and it ratcheted right back up to rapturous.
"Don't worry, boy, doooon't worry," Perona soothed. "I'll be right back, I promise."
And with that, the ghost princess flew back up to the crow's nest to retrieve her body, and a minute later, she strolled up to the once-rabid beast in her physical form without a care in the world. And the dog continued to act happy, nuzzling and snuffling at her as if she were its lifelong owner, and she, in turn, showered it with petting and affection.
"…What… What just happened?" I asked weakly.
"Perona, what did you do!?" If Nami's tone was anything to go by, she was just as gobsmacked as I was.
The hollow-girl cast a smirk over her shoulder at us. "Oh, so Know-It-All Cross doesn't know all after all? Lo, how the tables have—!"
"So help me, woman," I growled, raising my knuckles.
"Alright, alright," Perona said airily. "Well, seeing as I'm such a benevolent princess, I guess I'll tell you: my powers work just the way that the name says." She spun her arm, and a few of her more normal-looking ghosts began spinning around her arm. "The ghosts I make are called Hollows because they're empty shells that are made to be filled."
One of her smiling goons popped up and wagged its tongue at me. "Negative Hollows are devoid of positive emotion, and when they pass through someone, they fill that hollow with the positivity of their prey, thus leaving the targets as utterly helpless wrecks." The smiling buffoon was joined by a sobbing counterpoint that rubbed at its eyes as it wept. "Positive Hollows, meanwhile, are the opposite: No negative emotion, so they drain all the sadness and misery someone has and leave them feeling like they're in heaven."
Perona smiled as she scratched the obliviously happy Bernard behind the ears. "And by combining those two elements at the same time, negativity to bad behaviour and positivity to good… well, I think you can see what I'm getting at."
"I GET THAT YOU'RE A BLOODY SOCIOPATH!" Lassoo howled from Sunny's deck, his expression one of purest panic. "USING THAT BASTARD PAVLOV'S METHODS ON ONE OF MY OWN KIND?! I SHOULD BURN YOU ALIVE, YOU CRUEL WITCH!"
"Cruel, but effective~!" Perona sang back, still scratching. "And don't worry your pretty little heads, this method only works on ani— on simple animals, the ones that aren't on par with human intelligence. Like this big old dummy right here!" she cooed as she intensified her scratching to the dog's delight. "Yes, you are, yes, you are, you're a big dummy, yes, you are!"
Boss's eye twitched as he watched the titan-dog come apart under Perona's fingers. "Yeah… those ghosts of yours ain't the only things that are 'hollow', lady."
Something clicked in my mind at those words, and I slowly pointed my finger at her as a metaphorical light bulb went off. "Hollow… your Special Hollows hollow out pockets in the air, voids, and then you collapse them… they're not explosives, they're im-plosives, aren't they!"
Perona paused in her scratching. Briefly, of course. "Of course, you knew already, it couldn't be more than the basic concept that you didn't know…" she sighed, rolling her eyes.
"No, I'm just that smart!" I informed her in a perfectly chipper tone of why the hell I was even born… "Somebody step on me, I need to get back to my place in the pecking order: lower than the dirt on the bottom of everyone's boots…" I mumbled into the earth with my pointless, useless breSWEET MOTHER OF MERCY! "GAH WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST SAY!?" I yelped, snapping up and onto my ass.
"PERONA!" Nami roared over the sound of the ghost-princess's cackling.
"HORO HORO HORO!" Perona cackled ecstatically at my existential misery. "HE WAS ASKING FOR IT, SUE ME! HORO HORO HORO!"
"YOU—!"
Not wanting to get another Negative Hollow to the face, I unfortunately had to settle for strangling the air instead of Perona's neck
"Tell me in complete honesty that you wouldn't do the same thing if our places were switched, and I'll apologize," she challenged with a taunting smirk.
I opened my mouth to rebut her, I tried, oh dear lord did I try to rebut her, but when my voice got tangled up in my throat the third time in a row, I gave up. "At least I don't need to torture people into being friends with me…" I attempted.
"Wow, what a comeback," Perona sneered, rolling her eyes. "Cutting, witty, sophisticated."
"GUYS, STOP PICKING ON CROSS! IT'S TIME TO EAT!"
My jaw dropped, and I sank to my knees as my captain 'helpfully' came to my rescue. "Saved in a battle of wits by my witless captain… how could I have fallen so low?"
"Should I start playing the world's smallest violin?" Soundbite asked snidely.
"I've been away from witty repartee and intelligent conversation for a week, let me have my melodramatics!" I snapped as I clambered back to my feet. "Ugh, anyway…" I sobered up real fast as I collected up all the bits of news I had heard over the past hour. "Guys, we need to talk while we eat. I've got news… and none of it's good."
Everyone else exchanged worried looks at my tone. It was Nami who responded first with an assured nod. "We'll eat, you can tell us your news while we eat, and then once the duck's back on his feet—!"
"Oh, you mean Billy?" Luffy asked.
Nami looked at him in surprise. "Bil—? Wait, he's awake?"
"Nah!" Luffy grinned. "I just think that's a good name for him!"
The navigator contemplated opening her mouth to respond, but then closed it and shook her head in defeat. "I… It's a decent name, I suppose."
"FOR SOME REASON IT FITS, but for the life of me I can't understand why…I mean, yeah, HE HAS A BILL, BUT MORE THAN THAT…" Soundbite trailed off, deep in thought.
"Anyway," Nami continued. "Once Billy gets up, we can get his help flying us around looking for our friends."
Everyone exchanged nods. And then we began dining on roughly prepared drugged predator meat for what I sincerely hoped was the last time. At this point, I'd give anything to sink my teeth into Sanji's cooking, even one. More. Time…
-o-
"NAMI-SWAN! PERONA-CHERIE!"
Alright, almost anything. Because seriously, what good was food in my stomach when I felt like tossing it.
To make a long story short, we'd eventually managed to find our way to the village. And Billy wasn't the only duck that arrived there when we did.
It'd been a hell of a reunion, everyone happy to see everyone else, stories were swapped, and even a few ideas and thoughts shared here or there.
But, as always, the good times eventually devolved into quiet sobriety, and it was with a solemn tone that I brought together all the disparate details everyone had gathered over the course of their ordeals, and I put together the pieces of the horrific tableau Shiki had concocted over the past two decades. It took some time to tell everything and make sure everyone understood properly, but eventually?
"That's about the long and short of it," I solemnly concluded, taking in everyone's reactions. Over the course of my explanation, some of our crew had relaxed and settled in a bit, such as Usopp tinkering away on a project Funkfreed and I had gone over with him, Chopper working meticulously on some sort of formula he was currently obsessing over, or Sanji exulting his two most recently returned beauties.
But nevertheless, the reactions were still there: disgust, horror, terror, and of course, complete, world-shaking rage.
Luffy slammed his fists together. "I'm going to kick Shiki's head in!" he declared.
"Soon enough, Luffy," Zoro growled, his thumb repetitively stroking the hilt of Kitetsu the Third. "But unless we want a repeat of what happened back on the Sunny—!"
"I told you, he caught me when I wasn't ready, and I was hungry!"
"—We need to get everyone back together first," Zoro looked over at Vivi. "How long do you think it'll take for the others to get here?"
"With Franky's… shall we say, improvised methods of transportation?" the blue-haired princess rolled her eyes. "I'd say an hour or two. But if you want me to get there in the shortest amount of time possible?" Vivi jabbed her thumb at Carue, who'd seated himself against a tree and was guzzling a freshly refilled water barrel. "Carue needs time to rest. He's been going nonstop all day, and it won't do us any good if he just up and collapses on me. On the plus side, he'll be good to go in about an hour."
"Mmph, acceptable…" Zoro grunted.
"Although…" Vivi winced as a thought struck her. "In retrospect, it might be a little longer coming here, seeing as we'll have to account for the likelihood that we'll be bringing back someone from Barto's crew too."
I frowned in confusion. "Yeah, that's… something I still don't get. Bartolomeo, he's… he's from Loguetown, the East Blue. Hell, I think most of his goons are too! Why would Shiki invite him, even considering how ruthless he was before I gave him a talking to?"
Slowly, Vivi turned a disbelieving look on me. "…Cross, Bartolomeo has green hair in a mohawk, teeth that suggest he has a fishman somewhere in his recent ancestry, and he's the fifth most wanted rookie on the seas. If I didn't know him and you'd asked me where he was from, I would have guessed any Blue except the East."
I turned that over in my head. "That… makes a lot of sense, yes," I admitted. With that settled, I clapped my hands, getting everyone's attention. "ALRIGHT! Any other points to bring up, any questions, anything like that?"
"I have one," Su said, raising a paw. "If this SIQ stuff is supposed to be so volatile for animals, then why hasn't it affected any of us as badly as it affects them? I mean, I'm not complaining that I can bench press your scrawny ass without breaking a sweat, even if that's not saying much—"
"If I were to make you into a scarf and wear you, would I become as clever as you imagine yourself to be?" I asked airily.
"—but I'd still like some sort of explanation if that's… not too much trouble?" Su shrugged helplessly. "I mean, this does affect a lot of us, after all."
"I can explain that," Chopper piped up, not taking his eyes from the chemistry set he was still tinkering with. "I kept and analyzed the few samples of the prototype BIQ that the Amigos didn't ingest long enough for me to form an antivenom. Not a perfect defence against its cousin, but the inoculations you all got seem to be doing their jobs."
The pause that followed that announcement was legendary. I'm pretty sure empires had died in that kind of pause. Some of them had probably committed suicide as a final desperate means of escape. Finally, Zoro voiced the question on all of our minds. "…What inoculations?"
Chopper blinked and looked up from his work, honest confusion written all over his face. "I don't understand the question," he said with the utmost sincerity.
"Never mind, you just answered it…" I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose.
"Changing the subject, I have a question too," Merry said, waving her hand frantically. "If we're all here and Robin, Franky, and Brook are at that banquet hall, who's guarding Big Bro?"
"Perona's literal guard dog and the rest of her new pets," Boss gruffly answered around the cigar he was chowing on. "Raphey and I would have stayed behind to do it, but between the captain's orders, her promising that they would guard the ship with their lives, and Sunny reassuring us himself that he'd be fine, we're better off here, planning for sending this place back to the blue—MMPH!"
It would have been amusing to see Boss getting dogpiled by his apprentices so they could slap their flippers over his muzzle, but there was nothing funny about the way Conis had started shivering at his words. After a moment, during which several hissed whispers and a slap upside the skullplate were exchanged, Boss shook off his fellow dugongs. "Sorry, Conis," he said.
"I-It's fine, just a bad memory," she said casually, the shudders now down to the occasional twitch. "It's not the same anyway; we're attacking a tyrant and sending this island where it truly belongs."
"Aye have a queshtion, too," Carue squawked from his resting place. "Who's the wowwywowt you fwew in on?" He nodded his head over at Billy, who'd spent our entire time here cowering behind Nami.
"Billy, as Luffy named him, is one of Indigo's new breakthroughs, but he's not hostile like the rest of the creatures on these islands," I provided. "He helped Nami get out of Shiki's base, and he seems loyal. And apparently, he makes up for his lack of any physical offensive skills with bioelectric shocks."
"Macro-bioelectric shocks," Perona corrected as she buffed the nails on one hand, the other holding Bearsy tight, having refused to leave the doll behind on the Sunny after being separated from him for so long. "He's got some ridiculously powerful voltage on him; he took down a half-dozen monsters in one full-powered blast without breaking a sweat. Even if they were immersed in water at the time, you can't deny that's impressive."
"Huh… weww, you'we gaht my wespect," the supersonic duck offered his wing to the electric one. "Aye'm Cawue, nice to meet you!"
Billy's response was to let out a panicked squawk and hide even further behind Nami, bumping against her Waver folded across her back, a piece of equipment she'd refused to leave behind when we left the Sunny.
Carue blinked in confusion and glanced at Soundbite. "Ahhh…?"
Soundbite huffed and shook his head. "HE'S CLAMMED UP EVER SINCE he woke up and we explained MY POWERS TO HIM. Scared totally quackless. I HAVEN'T EVEN BEEN ABLE TO CHOOSE A GOOD VOICE FOR HIM!"
"Eesh, poah guy…" Carue winced in sympathy
"Poor guy, we can deal with him later," I cut in. "Alright, anyone or anything else?"
Silence.
"Right then," I nodded. "Everyone rest up, recover your energy and get ready to rumble. And make sure you stay the hell out of the way of the POV of any mobile snails. Soundbite's warning them to stay out of our way, but that's no guarantee, so be careful. With any luck, we'll be back on the seas tomorrow, and Shiki's head'll be on a spit." I swung my arms out. "Dis-missed!"
With that, everyone broke ranks, meandering about to get to wherever it was they needed to go.
I myself was on my way to speak with Zoro and Nami, but before I could even take two steps their way, I was grabbed on the shoulder and dragged the other way, courtesy of—
"Vivi!?" I sputtered incredulously, stumbling to keep up with her. "The hell are you—?"
"We need to talk," she interrupted. And going by how little argument her tone brooked… Well, the only sensible thing to do was what I actually did, which was to right myself and follow her. "Lead the way."
-o-
Upon dismissal, Mikey, Donny, Raphey, Leo, and Boss had headed to the lakeside, where prying eyes were less likely to see. The four siblings exchanged glances, the same feelings in their hearts, but the same pride on their faces.
"So… hell of a week we've had, huh?" Leo asked casually.
Donny shrugged indifferently. "It was… meh, informative."
"Meh, it was no biggie!" Mikey scoffed, folding his flippers behind his head. "I could do it all again in my sleep."
"Pfheh, or you could just sleep outright for all I care," Raphey sneered his way. "I've spent a week doing nothing but sitting on my ass, I could use some action! Heck, bring on Shiki right now, I'm sure I could stuff that wheel of his right up his—!"
"Ahem."
All four of the TDWS fell silent and turned to Boss, who had raised a flipper. "Boys, it seems I've neglected to teach you a little lesson about reunions." A smirk spread on his face, but an unmistakably warm one. "Real men don't hold back their tears."
There was a second when the TDWS maintained their composure, kept up their stoic, uncaring facades…
And then the four fell into a group hug, sobbing and clasping each other tight.
"I thought I was gonna die a hundred times ove-e-eeer!" Leo cried in despair.
"I was so scared without you guys at my back!" Donny wailed.
"I missed all of you crazy bastards getting on my back about my jokes and giving me lumps for them!" Mikey whined through his snot. "Even Raphey, and she hits like a sledgehamme-e-er!"
"I was so bo-o-ooored!" Raphey whined. "All I could do was sit around and—! Wait, what did you say about my flippers!? Come here, you dingus!"
"ARGH! HELP ME! HELP MEEE!"
Boss snickered as he watched his students interact. It was truly a testament to just how much they'd missed one another that all Raphey was doing was grabbing up her brother in a headlock and noogie-ing the shine out of his shell. Normally, Mikey would be sporting several lumps and a veritable map of bruises for that sort of comment, and Donny and Leo would be right there sharing the pain, seeing as they would have been what she was clobbering him against. But instead, all of this was undergone with more tears, less venom… and unrelenting smiles.
"Heheh…" Boss chuckled proudly as he blew out a ring of smoke. "Moments like these… guess there really is hope for us smarter entities after all."
-o-
While the Straw Hats wandered off to prepare for the upcoming battle, and as the village around them ran through its daily activities, one person was conspicuous in her inactivity. As soon as Cross had told everyone to break, Perona had parked herself against one of the outer huts and began examining her nails. After all, she wasn't part of the Straw Hats; this wasn't her fight; she could leave anytime she wanted; and, more to the point, she had no interest in trying to tackle Shiki, not after the scene in Nami's old gilded jail cell.
Of course, there was one problem with this: boredom. There was only so much nail-examining Perona could do, because Raphey, not being familiar with nails at all, had left them alone in her graffiti-writing rampage. Aside from needing a trim after a week unattended, they were pretty much exactly as they were before this whole mess. So the ghost-girl looked up again in search of something to do, and found it in the form of a red-haired, frog-faced little girl, just… staring at her, right in the middle of the road without even trying to hide herself.
That immediately pricked a nerve, and Perona graced the girl with an annoyed glare. When that failed to stop the staring, Perona resorted to her fallback method: scathing commentary.
"What do you want, brat? Fair warning, if you just want to gawk at the creepy girl, you have ten seconds to leave before I—!"
"Huh? Of course not!" Xiao said, shaking her head frantically like it was the most ridiculous idea in the world. "I'm not looking at you 'cause you're creepy, I'm looking because you're cute!"
"…huh?" Perona said lamely. If there was anything she'd expected, it sure as heck wasn't that. "Uh… what… are you talking about? I mean, don't you keep fainting whenever you see something scary?" 'Scary' is somewhat loosely defined here, after seeing the girl go halfway comatose upon seeing Luffy's group arrive. And that was only because it meant meeting more than four new people at once.
"Uh… w-well yeah, of course, I just get really scared when I see something that's big and weird and couldeatmealiveohmygodI'mgonnadiiieeee-!" Hyperventilating, the girl swayed on her feet but managed to catch herself, calm down, and then shoot a sunny smile at Perona. "Ah! Ah, b-b-but you're not scary at all! You're really cute and pretty!"
Perona remained thoroughly poleaxed for a while longer before she finally managed to settle on a reaction, one that had protected her many a time before: disdain. And yet…
"…you don't know what you're talking about, kid," she muttered halfheartedly.
"Nuh-uh, it's true! Your makeup's all funny and nice like a panda—!" Perona's hand twitched, whether to summon a Negative Hollow or smack the insensitive little brat upside her head, not even she knew. "And your hair is really, really pretty! It's pink like the sakura trees up in the Spring Zone, and your ponytails look a lot like my big sister's, only there are two of them, so they're even better!"
Still, reflexive twitch aside, poor Perona found herself completely at a loss for words. Half of her, one that had allowed her to survive on her own for years, wanted to vehemently deny the compliment, tear down the brat, and move on with her life. But a new, louder half wanted to just take the damn compliments already. And maybe hug the girl and never let go.
"I—ah… t-that…" she stammered, eyes flicking back and forth to find some way out of this. Reflexively, her hand twitched to conjure a Negative Hollow…
"Eeee! Ohmigod what is that, is it a ghost, he's so cuuuute, can I hug him, I wanna hug him!"
Now she had a little girl practically leaping for one of her Negative Hollows. A little girl that she could admit, at least to herself, wasn't nearly annoying enough to deserve a Negative Hollow. So she hastily dissolved the ghost, Xiao passing through where it used to be before sprawling in the dirt.
"Aowww…" Xiao whined, pushing herself on her knees and whimpering as she rubbed the spot on her forehead she'd smacked on the ground.
Seeing this—seeing Xiao's gleeful enthusiasm 180 so quickly—stirred something in Perona. Kneeling down, she conjured up a Mini Hollow in one palm and used the other hand to poke the girl in the shoulder blade. "Hey, kid."
Xiao looked up, saw the hollow, and immediately lit up, eyes wide and shining with happy tears. Perona grinned. "Here, play with this one instead," she said.
For a second, Xiao didn't move. Then she took a deep breath…
"EEEE! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"
And simultaneously nearly blew out Perona's eardrums and nearly knocked the wind out of her with a head-tackle-hug, before carefully scooping up the Mini Hollow in her hands and running off a ways.
Perona, once she recovered, returned to leaning against the wall, but this time she had something to watch: a little girl, playing with one of her Hollows. And the smile hadn't left the ghost-girl's lips the entire time.
-o-
Brushing aside the curtain used as a door out of the way, I stepped into the house Vivi had ducked into, finding her staring out the window into nothing. "So, what's up?"
"Something… isn't right here, Cross," she said, turning around to show a deep frown on her face. "I've been trying to figure it out since I found out about this village from Barto, but nothing makes sense."
"We're on a fucked up remix of Moreau's Island, a few miles in the sky, nothing makes sense here," I shrugged. I then snapped my hands up in defence as Vivi glared hellfire at me. "Alright, alright, complete and utter seriousness. Can you blame me for wanting to lighten the mood after the week we've had?"
Vivi briefly maintained the glare, but then she sighed, shook her head, and started pacing. "I'm not talking about the typical Grand Line insanity, Cross, I'm talking about Shiki. I've tried putting myself in his shoes: say I've just escaped from Impel Down, I've created an immense biolaboratory in the sky so that I can create an army of living super-weapons and unleash them on the East Blue in the name of my vengeance…"
She stopped and spread her arms, indicating the house around us. "And then I steal all the adults in a nearby village and use them for slave labour? It doesn't make sense."
I blinked in confusion. "Well, why not? He's a raging bastard who sees people as tools. How does this not fit?"
"Well, what I'm wondering is why the village is even here in the first place."
Soundbite cocked an eyestalk. "What do you mean?"
The princess waved a hand at one of the landmasses floating by above us. "Shiki's already demonstrated to us that his control over his powers is immense. When he was scooping up islands for his top-secret world in the sky, why take an island with a village on it?"
"Beeeecause it had the IQ plants he needed?" I asked more than I said, almost positive that wasn't the right answer.
"Then why not just take the IQ plants and call it a day?" Vivi countered. "Why not just crush the village and everyone in it once he had what he needed? He obviously doesn't need their help tending for the IQ, seeing as he's doing it himself."
"Well…" I frowned as an inkling of doubt wormed its way into my head. "As you said, slave labour, right? Again, we know people are just tools to him."
"That's just it, Cross! He sees people as tools, and he already has his own crew gobbling his every word. Why not make them wait on him hand and foot? Why outsource? I doubt he'd go the extra mile for their sakes."
"Maybe…" I glanced aside and scratched my temple thoughtfully, the doubt building in my mind. "Maybe he has them doing dangerous jobs? Ones that could get them killed, and he wants his crew around for the East Blue's destruction?"
"But he could still use his own crew for that," she refuted. "As he's demonstrated, people are expendable to him. All he'd have to do is go down to the Blue Seas, flash his identity, and he'd have people tripping over themselves to join his crew."
"That's…" I hesitated, trying to find a proper answer. Mostly because I did not like where this was going.
"And even beyond that!" Vivi forged on, shifting into a lecturing tone as she went. "When you consider the purpose of this place, when you consider Shiki's ambition, slave labour is an unnecessary luxury. After all, keeping slaves is expensive; even when they're sorely mistreated, you need to provide food, shelter, and even administer medical care if you're intent on maintaining the ones you already have."
I gave the princess a funny look.
She rolled her eyes impatiently. "Paper for my economics teacher on how slavery is a drain on a nation."
"Ah, of course…" I 'ah'd in understanding before frowning in confusion. "But… I do see your point. It's… an anomaly."
"Save that Shiki is intelligent," Vivi rebutted. "He wouldn't allow for an anomaly like this…"
I frowned grimly. "Without some kind of justification, right. Alright, alright…" I started to pace in opposition to the princess. "Alright, let's take it from the top. I'm Shiki, megalomaniac extraordinaire. I've taken a village and am using the adults as slave labour… why exactly?"
"If you just wanted the slaves, it'd be easier to snatch them up from the sea, you know," Vivi pointed out. "Seeing as you've already shown how easy it is to do that."
"But instead I go to the trouble of taking an entire village, both those I want to enslave and those I leave behind… why leave them behind?" I splayed my hands in confusion. "Once I have the slaves, why not kill the rest?"
"Hostages, maybe?" Vivi glanced back and pointed a finger pistol at my head. "Do what I say, or I'll kill everyone you love."
I considered that, slowly raising a finger pistol of my own. "Or maybe the reverse: Do what I say, or I'll kill mommy and daddy."
Vivi frowned as she lowered her hand. "So the slaves are hostages in order to control the village?"
"He is monitoring the village intently," I reasoned. "More so than his own base, if what Nami told us is accurate."
Vivi hummed thoughtfully and started pacing again. "So it loops right back around to the start: somehow, the village is important to him. Important enough to keep it around…"
"Important enough to make sure it's kept in the same state, unaltered," I specified as I joined her, gnawing on my thumb's armour. "If he just wanted the people, he could have easily stuck them in a camp or compound he could watch, but he didn't. He doesn't want anyone leaving, he wants the whole of the village, all of the people, to stay here."
"But why keep a community functioning in the midst of the army you're building?" Vivi wondered, shaking her head.
I started to nod in agreement before pausing as something niggled in my head. "…wait… that's… not right."
Vivi looked at me with confusion etched on her face. "Huh?"
"You said it yourself," I pressed, swiftly building up a head of steam as my mind started to churn. "These things aren't an army; that's the pirates he's recruiting. These things are weapons, super-weapons."
"What difference does it make?"
"Makes a difference to me," I muttered, tapping my temple. "Something about those words… Super-weapon and… community? No, no, something else… society? Populace? Neighbour—town! Yes, that's it! Super-weapons and—!" I choked myself off in horror as realization hit me like a sledgehammer. "Towns… oh… oh, damn it…"
"What, what is it?" Vivi pressed.
"B-Back in my world," I rubbed my neck, sweat streaming down my neck as my mind dredged up the relevant memories. "My people developed super-weapons of our own, weapons of mass destruction, bombs powerful enough to wipe out everything for miles around them."
"Like what Shiki's doing here," the princess nodded slowly in agreement. "But why—?"
"We didn't deploy them straight away; we tested them first, proved their might." I rubbed my hand over my mouth, my horror with the situation rapidly mounting. "And the best way to demonstrate the power of a weapon of that scale, a weapon meant to destroy everything around it…" I slowly turned around, staring in the direction of the village, the very real, very populated village. "Was to construct mock-ups of towns… and blow them away."
Vivi's face turned ashen, her gaze slowly turning back the way we'd come. "A proof of concept…"
"He's going to sic his monsters on this village as an example of what they're capable of," I summarized grimly.
Vivi bolted for the treeline, grabbing me as she passed. "We need to evacuate everyone, now!"
"Little bit late for that…"
We both froze at Soundbite's grim announcement. "What? Why?!"
"Because there are people at the Daft Greens now."
Vivi and I started sprinting again before Soundbite finished speaking—
"WAIT! FALSE ALARM!"
—and then faceplanted as he said that.
"Sorry, I PANICKED at actually HEARING PEOPLE THERE," Soundbite quickly explained. "But it sounds like SOME OF THE OTHER NATIVES HAVE COME HOME."
For a moment, we felt good because we thought we had some time. But then that good feeling was brutally murdered by fridge logic kicking in.
"Because people fall farther when they're dropped FROM AS HIGH AS POSSIBLE," Soundbite whimpered, voicing our thought. "SHIKI wants to give them A SPARK OF HOPE BEFORE HE MURDERS THEM ALL."
"Alright, we don't have any time to waste," I barked, getting back to my feet. "Call ahead, get everyone working to evacuate the village, now!"
I don't think either of us ever ran faster in our entire lives than we did on that dark, darkening day.
-o-
A frantic, energy and desperation-filled quarter-hour later, Vivi and I met back up in the once-lively village's center, and even though I couldn't see them, I could hear the rest of the crew running through the village's streets, just as frantic as we were.
"Everybody's safe?" Vivi asked, her head on a constant swivel.
"WE STASHED EVERYONE WE COULD FIND in a bunker they had in case of stampedes!" Soundbite informed her, his eyestalks crossed and eyes clenched shut as he concentrated his hearing on the village. "It's built like a brick SO IT SHOULDN'T BREAK TO ANYTHING SHORT OF A MORTAR STRIKE, and no animal around here is ridiculous enough for that."
I fought my temper down to a growl, rather than the snarl I felt like uttering. "Is Carue rested up enough for the trip to the gathering hall?"
Vivi let loose the whistle to summon him. "In all honesty, I'd prefer to give him another hour, if I could work it, but given the circumstances? I think we can make it a half-hour coming and going if he really pushes it."
I nodded. "Good. Make sure they're prepped for war when they get here. The second we're back together, we bring a war to this golden-plated bastard's doorstep."
Vivi nodded, her face as stormy as the cyclone we'd dodged the accursed day we'd met our 'host'. "I'm looking forward to it. I swear, I am going to bury my Lion Cutters so deep down his—!" And then out of the blue, Vivi's tirade stopped dead, and she paled, staring past me… and up. And Soundbite had fallen silent as well.
In spite of how hard my heart was jackhammering in my chest, I slowly, deliberately took and released a deep breath, and then I gave Vivi a piercing look. "Get out of here now," I whispered solemnly. "Get everyone else, get back here as fast as you can. We'll be fine." I cut her protest off with a raised hand. "Just get on the duck and go."
Vivi's face twisted, agony and outrage playing merry hell on her features, but ultimately she settled for a sharp nod, and when Carue dashed by, she grabbed onto his reins and swung up onto his saddle, vanishing in a blur the second she was properly settled.
Once she was gone, I waited patiently for everyone else to come to the square, with Luffy leading the charge, his face utterly apoplectic.
"Cross—!" he growled.
I nodded sadly. "I know, Luffy, I know…" I turned around and stared upwards with subdued resignation.
Stared up at Shiki, who smirked down at us with all the pomp and pride he had to spare.
I also noted that there was a glass case hovering beside him that contained a snail watching us with a lazy sort of attentiveness, but I had a pretty damn good idea what that was about as well.
"HE JUST… HE JUST DROPPED OUT OF A CLOUD… from a mile up…" Soundbite whispered miserably. "I didn't… I-I JUST COULDN'T…"
"It's fine, it's fine," I soothed. "It wasn't your fault, you couldn't have known." I then looked back up at Shiki, suddenly feeling the full weight of the past week on my shoulders all at once. "Soundbite's been misdirecting the surveillance snails the whole time we were here. How did you know where we were?" I called up.
"Call it… an act of divine providence," Shiki replied with a voice that was just pure egotistical conceit. Said sneer then dropped into a scowl that had the balls to look insulted. "But, moving on to more pressing matters... Honestly, Straw Hats, you disappoint me! I thought you'd be better guests!"
I twitched as I felt something stir in my gut, and a ripple went through our crew.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Luffy growled out, his voice a downright murderous rumble.
"Isn't it obvious, Captain Luffy!?" Shiki spread his arms, indicating the whole of his dominion. "Think about what has happened! I graciously invite you into my home! I let you partake in vistas you could never have seen before in your miserable lives and entertained you to the best of my ability! I have shown you every possible courtesy that a host owes his honoured guests! And how do you repay my most gracious treatment!?"
The air around Shiki seemed to darken as he folded his arms and stared at us with contempt. "You steal. My. Property," he rumbled.
My gut lurched, and our crew shifted and stiffened further.
"What," Luffy spat, his entire body coiled like a spring and his pipe—uncapped and devoid of seastone—groaning in his grip.
Shiki slowly uncrossed one of his arms and pointed at our group. "My navigator."
Nami flinched back in disgust and horror, her Eisen Tempo falling around her and crackling and rumbling like a meteorological shroud.
Shiki's finger shifted to the side. "And my guinea pig."
Billy let out a panicked squawk and retreated back around the building he'd been cowering behind.
"Both my rightful property, both stolen by you," Shiki said pompously, jutting his chin out at us. "And both are very valuable. I think I'm due some compensation. So tell me…"
Shiki's face twisted into an arrogant, despicable, disgustingly mad grin.
"How do you plan on repaying me, hm?"
My gut roared, and I finally managed to place what I was feeling: Down and out, unadulterated, murderous rage.
And going by the chorus of weapons unsheathing that sang around me? I was far from the only one.
"BY BREAKING YOU IN HALF!" Luffy roared at the top of his lungs, slamming his fist into the ground and shattering it beneath his feet, but prudently refraining from boosting his blood flow just yet.
And Shiki? He just kept grinning, laughing, and looking down on us in every conceivable way.
"You… You actually think you can hurt me? Ji… JIHAHAHAHAHA!" Shiki threw his head back and roared with laughter, a deep, belly-shaking, utterly evil laugh. "Oh, this oughta be good for a laugh. Go right ahead…" He spread his arms, inviting us, begging us to do it. "Give me your best shot."
And that was just what we did.