The week it took the shipyard to finish our custom carrier was arguably the most profitable seven days of my life.
With the sixty-five million Berries safely tucked away to pay for the flying gondola, Gammamon and I decided to split up and hit the neighboring islands to build a proper travel fund.
It was the perfect opportunity to test our capabilities independently.
I spent three days island-hopping on the back of HoHo, the jade Phoenix-Peacock, bagging mid-level pirates.
It was almost laughable.
I didn’t even have to throw a punch.
I’d just drop into a pirate camp, summon the Silken Widow-Maker to string up the entire crew in near invisible Haki-threads, and collect the bounties before they even knew they were under attack.
Gammamon, meanwhile, had taken a ferry to a nearby lawless port.
He came back two days later dragging three unconscious pirate captains by their ankles, humming a happy tune.
When I asked him how it went, he just grinned and said, “BetelGammamon likes punching things that don’t weigh ten tons.”
By the end of the week, we walked into the shipyard with an additional sixty million Berries and a whole lot of confidence.
The shipwright had absolutely outdone himself.
Resting in the center of the drydock was our new ride.
He had taken the reinforced oak hull of a luxury sloop, completely enclosed the top deck, and streamlined the entire structure into a sleek, aerodynamic teardrop shape.
Thick, reinforced glass windows lined the sides, offering panoramic views while protecting the interior from high-altitude winds and temperature drops.
The roof was fitted with four massive, heavy-duty iron rings bolted directly into the keel’s framework.
Inside, it was pure luxury.
Two plush leather captain’s chairs sat in the center, flanked by cushioned benches, a small table, and a dedicated storage chest for rations and water.
I had the Widow-Maker line the walls with a thin layer of insulated silk to trap the heat.
“It’s perfect,” I told the foreman, tossing him a heavy bag of bonus Berries.
I tapped the disk at my hip.
“Summon: Sky-Rift Roc.”
The massive, metallic bird materialized in a rush of emerald mist, scaled perfectly to match the size of the carriage.
It let out a sharp, metallic screech, hovering over the drydock.
With pinpoint precision, it lowered its massive talons, locking them securely through the four iron rings on the roof.
Gammamon and I stepped into the cabin, pulling the heavy oak door shut behind us.
I gave the mental command, and the Roc launched us into the sky.
The burly, grease-stained shipwright stood absolutely frozen, the heavy iron wrench slipping from his grip to clatter loudly against the drydock floor.
For a week, he had assumed the strange, quiet kid was just an eccentric noble building a reinforced observation box to be bolted to the deck of a standard galleon.
But as the thick emerald mist suddenly exploded from the boy’s hip, clearing to reveal a terrifying, metallic-feathered avian monstrosity materializing out of thin air, every ounce of the foreman’s maritime logic evaporated.
He took a slow, trembling step backward, his half-smoked cigar tumbling from his slack jaw, suddenly understanding exactly why the boy hadn’t asked for an engine or sails.
It was incredible.
Outside, the wind was howling at hurricane speeds, but inside the cabin, it was quiet, calm, and perfectly temperate.
We sat in the leather chairs, eating dried fruit and watching the South Blue ocean pass beneath us through the thick glass.
There was just one problem.
“Are we lost?” Gammamon asked, peering out the window.
“We’re not lost, we just…
don’t have the exact coordinates,” I muttered, looking at a stack of naval maps I had swiped from a bounty office.
Baterilla wasn’t a famous island.
After the World Government’s horrific purge twenty years ago, it had effectively been scrubbed from most standard navigational charts.
I knew the general direction, but finding a tiny, unmarked speck in the ocean from the sky was like finding a needle in a haystack.
“We need to ask for directions,” I said, pointing to a medium-sized, populated island coming up on the horizon.
“We’ll land there, grab a drink, and ask the locals.”
We touched down in a quiet clearing just outside the island’s port town.
I shrunk and dismissed the Roc, and we walked into the settlement.
It took us three hours of bouncing between taverns and docks.
Most of the younger sailors had never heard of Baterilla, or thought it was a myth.
It was during our second hour of searching that my Observation Haki picked them up.
It was subtle.
Three distinct, highly disciplined heartbeats that stayed exactly sixty paces behind us, no matter which street we turned down.
I didn’t need to look over my shoulder to know we were being followed.
They moved too cleanly to be street thugs or local bounty hunters.
Their footfalls were perfectly muffled.
Government, I thought, a cold knot forming in my chest.
They found us.
“Victor?” Gammamon whispered, his own senses picking up on the trailing presence.
“We got bugs.”
“I know,” I murmured, casually examining a fruit stall.
“Ignore them.
Don’t look back.
We aren’t doing anything illegal, and I don’t want to start a war in the middle of a crowded street.
Let them watch.”
Finally, at a weathered dockside pub, we found an old, grizzled fisherman missing half his teeth.
When I slipped a silver coin onto the bar and asked about Baterilla, his eyes darkened.
“The island of the weeping mothers,” the old man rasped.
“Ain’t nothing there but ghosts, boy.
The Marines turned that place upside down twenty years ago.
You don’t wanna go there.”
“I have family buried there,” I said softly.
He stared at me for a long moment, then sighed, giving me a precise compass heading.
“Three days sail east by southeast.
God speed.”
With the Roc carrying our gondola, a three-day sail took less than four hours.
Baterilla was beautiful, in a melancholic sort of way.
It was a lush, tropical island with gently rolling hills and vibrant, blooming hibiscus flowers.
But there was a heavy, lingering sadness in the air, a quietness that spoke of a deep, generational trauma.
We landed the carriage on a secluded beach.
I stepped out, the warm ocean breeze ruffling my hair.
“Stay close,” I told Gammamon.
We hiked up the coastal cliffs, following a narrow, overgrown path until it opened up into a wide, sprawling coastal cemetery.
It was a heartbreaking sight.
Hundreds of weathered, salt-stained headstones faced the ocean.
Most of them shared the same tragic date, the year of the great purge.
This wasn’t just a graveyard; it was a monument to the countless mothers and unborn children the World Government had slaughtered in their paranoid hunt for Roger’s bloodline.
I walked quietly through the rows of stone, reading the names, until I found the one I was looking for near the very edge of the cliff.
It was a simple, well-worn marker, partially consumed by creeping vines and pink tropical flowers.
Portgas D.
Rouge.
I walked forward slowly, dropping to my knees in the soft grass.
I reached out, gently pulling the thick vines away from the stone, clearing the dirt from the engraved letters.
Gammamon stood quietly beside me, unusually solemn, sensing the weight of the moment.
“Hi, Aunt Rouge,” I whispered, the words catching slightly in my throat.
It felt surreal.
I had never met this woman.
But here, breathing the salt air, feeling the rough stone beneath my fingers, the connection felt undeniably real.
Damine had anchored me to this lineage.
The “D” in my name wasn’t just a letter; it was a tie that bound me to the people in this world.
“I don’t know if you can hear me,” I continued, sitting back on my heels.
“But I know what you did.
I know the unimaginable sacrifice you made.
Twenty months.
You held him in the dark for twenty months while the whole world scoured the oceans to murder an innocent child.”
I picked up a pink hibiscus flower that had fallen into the dirt and placed it gently on top of the headstone.
“I came here to tell you that he’s not alone,” I said softly, staring at the carved letters.
“Your son has people looking out for him now.
He has me, and he has my stupid sister.
We’re family.
And we’re going to look after him.”
I took a deep breath, steeling my resolve.
“I promise you, Rouge.
We’ll make sure your son doesn’t come to visit you in the next world anytime soon.
We’ll make sure Ace lives.”
A warm, gentle breeze swept over the cliff, rustling the grass and carrying the scent of sea salt and flowers.
For a moment, a profound sense of peace settled over me.
I stayed there on my knees, silent, just mourning the woman who had given everything.
Several minutes passed in total silence.
Then, the sound of boots crushing the grass broke the quiet.
“A touching display of mourning.”
The voice was cold, sharp, and dripping with professional condescension.
I didn’t flinch.
I just let out a slow, tired sigh and pushed myself up to my feet, turning around.
Standing ten yards away were four men.
They wore crisp, perfectly tailored black suits and bowler hats.
Their posture was rigid, their eyes dead and focused.
The tails from the middle island.
They had arrived too late to hear my speech, but they had seen exactly where I was kneeling.
“Victor D.
Costa,” the lead agent said, stepping forward.
He had a thin, cruel mustache and a silver cane.
“Your sudden registration tripped a rather high-level flag in our intelligence network.
You share a surname with the Revolutionary terrorist known as the Thunder Maiden.
We didn’t know your exact relation to her, or if it was just a coincidence.”
The agent looked past me, his eyes landing on the headstone.
He sneered.
“But we followed you here.
To the island of the purge.
To the grave of the Pirate King’s lover.
A rather strange pilgrimage for a South Blue bounty hunter, wouldn’t you say?
Whatever your bloodline is, this confirms it.
You’re a traitor to the World Government.”
“You guys have a real knack for ruining a moment,” I said, dusting off my knees.
“You’re coming with us to Enies Lobby, boy,” the agent snapped, drawing his cane like a rapier.
“You’re going to tell us everything you know about the Thunder Maiden’s location, and then you’re going to face justice for your treason.”
I looked at the four government assassins.
I thought about the fifty-foot Deviljho.
I thought about the ten-times gravity of the Obsidian Ape.
I thought about the absolute-zero fire of the Sovereign, and the crushing, godlike presence of the Rainbow Dragon.
I looked at these four guys in their little black suits, and I just felt…
profoundly disappointed.
“Gammamon,” I said, not taking my eyes off them.
“Let me handle them.”
“You arrogant brat!” the leader snarled.
“Soru!”
He vanished, moving at superhuman speeds, kicking off the ground ten times in the blink of an eye.
He reappeared instantly behind my right shoulder, the tip of his cane thrusting directly toward my kidney.
To him, he was moving like lightning.
To my Observation Haki, forged by dodging invisible, supersonic spider-threads, he was moving in slow motion.
I casually leaned to the left.
The cane thrust through empty air.
Before the agent could register his miss, I grabbed the back of his collar, pivoted, and hurled him over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
He slammed into the dirt face-first, the breath exploding from his lungs.
“Rankyaku!” one of the other agents shouted.
He snapped his leg forward, launching a compressed, crescent-shaped blade of air directly at my neck.
I didn’t dodge.
I raised my right hand, letting the black, metallic sheen of Advanced Armament Haki coat my fingers and palm.
I caught the air blade barehanded.
The kinetic force bit into my palm for a fraction of a second before I simply crushed my fingers inward, shattering the air blade into a harmless gust of wind.
The agents froze, their eyes widening in absolute shock.
“Shigan!” the third agent roared, lunging forward in a desperate panic.
He aimed his hardened, bullet-like index finger straight at the center of my chest.
I stood my ground, coating my pectoral muscle in Armament Haki beneath my shirt.
The agent’s finger struck my chest.
SNAP.
The sickening sound of breaking bone echoed across the graveyard.
The agent screamed, falling to his knees and clutching his mangled, completely shattered index finger.
The fourth agent drew a flintlock pistol, but before he could pull the trigger, Gammamon was there.
The little dinosaur spun, his thick tail whipping around and slamming into the agent’s shins.
The impact swept the man off his feet, launching him into a nearby tree trunk with a heavy thud.
He slumped to the ground, out cold.
It was over in less than ten seconds.
“You call yourselves assassins?” I muttered, walking over to the leader, who was groaning and trying to push himself up from the dirt.
I slammed my boot down on the middle of his back, pinning him to the ground.
“What…
what are you?!” the leader wheezed, spitting blood.
“That Haki…
you’re a monster!”
“I’m just a guy trying to visit his aunt,” I said coldly.
I reached into the agent’s suit jacket and pulled out a small, specialized, black-shelled Den Den Mushi.
A government-issue, encrypted snail.
I crouched down next to the leader’s ear, letting my haki bleed out just enough to make the air around us feel suffocatingly heavy.
“Listen to me very carefully,” I whispered, my voice devoid of any warmth.
“I just want to be a bounty hunter.
I don’t care about the World Government.
I don’t care about the Marines.
I just want to make some money and sail the seas in peace.
But if you flag me again…
if you put a bounty on my head and disturb my life…
I’m going to start talking.”
The agent laughed weakly, coughing.
“You have nothing.
You’re nobody.”
“Am I?” I leaned in closer.
“Tell your superiors that if they put a bounty on Victor D.
Costa, I will contact ‘Big News’ Morgans.
I will tell him exactly what CP9 is doing right now.
I will give him the names: Rob Lucci, Kaku, Kalifa, Blueno.
I’ll tell him they are deep undercover as shipwrights in Water 7, desperately trying to steal the blueprints for the Ancient Weapon Pluton from Iceburg.”
The agent’s body went completely, rigidly stiff beneath my boot.
His breathing stopped.
It was as if I had just electrocuted him.
“How…” he choked out, genuine, unadulterated terror flooding his voice.
“That is a Class-A State Secret!
How do you know that?!”
“I know everything,” I bluffed flawlessly.
“If you hunt me, that mission burns.
Lucci gets exposed, the blueprints are lost, and Spandam looks like a clown.
Do we have an understanding?”
The agent nodded frantically, his face pale and sweating profusely.
“Good,” I said, standing up and pocketing the Den Den Mushi.
“I’m keeping this.
Consider it a souvenir.
Tie them to the trees, Gammamon.”
We left them bound to the thick trunks of the palm trees at the edge of the graveyard.
I gave Rouge’s headstone one last nod before we headed back down to the beach and boarded the carrier.
Two hours later, dangling helplessly from a palm tree, the Cipher Pol leader finally managed to wriggle a backup, emergency transponder snail from his sleeve.
With trembling fingers, he dialed a highly classified routing number.
The snail clicked, its eyes shifting to match a furious, arrogant scowl.
“This is Chief Spandam,” the voice snapped over the receiver.
“Who is this?
Why are you calling on an emergency line?”
“Chief,” the agent swallowed hard, his voice shaking.
“We intercepted the target, Victor D.
Costa, in the South Blue.
We…
we engaged, and we were routed.
He possesses high-level Haki.
But sir…
that’s not the worst of it.”
“Spit it out!” Spandam yelled.
“He knows, sir.
He knows about Water 7.
He named Lucci, Kaku, Kalifa, and Blueno.
He knows about the Pluton blueprints.
He threatened to leak the entire undercover operation to the World Economic Journal if we issue a bounty or pursue him.”
The line went completely dead silent for almost a full minute.
“Chief?” the agent asked nervously.
When Spandam finally spoke, his voice was a panicked, furious hiss.
“Erase the encounter,” Spandam ordered, the terror evident in his tone.
“Scrub his name from the flagged registry.
Do not engage him.
Do not issue a bounty.
Do absolutely nothing that could provoke him!”
“But sir, the Revolutionaries…..”
“I don’t care if he’s Dragon’s secret lover!” Spandam screamed.
“The Water 7 operation has been running for three years!
If it fails because you idiots picked a fight with a South Blue bounty hunter, the Five Elders will have my head!
Let him be!
Once Lucci secures the blueprints, we can send CP9 to slaughter him.
But until then, Victor D.
Costa does not exist to us.
Am I understood?!”
“Yes, sir,” the agent whispered, staring out at the empty ocean.
The snail clicked off.
Far above the clouds, flying safely inside our custom cabin, I kicked my feet up onto the opposite bench and opened a bag of dried fruit.
The World Government was officially off my back.
Now, it was time to find my sister.
Word Count: 2934
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Greylocke33, Jordan D’souza