The South Blue ocean passed beneath us as a sprawling, ink-black void, reflecting only the scattered silver light of the moon.
Inside our custom teardrop carriage, it was quiet.
The thick, reinforced glass blocked out the roar of the hurricane-force winds slicing past the Sky-Rift Roc’s metallic feathers.
A small, battery-powered lantern hung from the ceiling, casting a warm, orange glow over the leather interior.
Gammamon was sprawled out on his cushioned bench, his heavy travel cloak discarded on the floor.
For the last hour, the only sound had been the rhythmic crinkle of a snack bag as he lazily tossed dried fruit into his mouth.
Finally, the little dinosaur broke the silence.
“Victor?” Gammamon mumbled, sitting up and dusting sugar off his white scales.
“Where are we actually going next?”
I was sitting in one of the captain’s chairs, staring down at the crumpled wanted poster resting in my lap.
I traced the edge of the paper, my eyes lingering on the jagged scar running across the bridge of Jasmine’s nose in the photograph.
I let out a long, slow breath, dropping my head back against the leather headrest.
The sarcastic, untouchable bounty hunter persona I had worn for the last week melted away, leaving only an exhausted, deeply worried older brother.
“I just want to see her, Gammamon,” I admitted quietly to the dark ceiling.
“I want to find out where she is.
I want to know if she’s okay.
I want to know how the hell she got that scar on her face, and what she’s been through for the last year and a half.
And then…
I just want to hug her.”
Gammamon hopped off his bench and waddled over, resting his chin on my knee.
“She has a three-hundred-million Beri bounty,” Gammamon pointed out gently.
“And she has a giant boxing cactus.
I think she’s pretty tough.”
“I know she is,” I smiled weakly, looking down at him.
“But it doesn’t matter how powerful she is.
It doesn’t matter if she’s a commander, or a terror to the World Government, or a master of lightning.
She’s my little sister.
And I’m her big brother.
It’s my job to worry about her.
It’s my job to protect her.
And right now, I just want to put that worry to rest.”
Gammamon nodded solemnly, understanding the weight of the duty.
“Okay.
Then where are we going?”
“The Centaurea Kingdom,” I said, my voice firming with resolve.
“The Marines at the tavern said the Revolutionary Army is heavily backing the rebels there.
We find the Revolutionaries on that island, tap their network, and figure out exactly where in the world she is right now.”
I reached down to the side of my chair and pulled the mechanical lever the shipwright had installed.
The back of the captain’s chair smoothly reclined backward until it laid completely flat, transforming into a surprisingly comfortable bed.
Gammamon did the same to the opposite bench, curling up into a tight white ball.
“Get some sleep,” I told him, turning down the lantern.
“We have a kingdom to infiltrate tomorrow.”
(Koala POV)
Hundreds of miles away, the reality of the Centaurea Kingdom was written in ash and blood.
My boots left wet, muddy tracks on the stone floor as I walked through the damp corridors of our hidden forward operating base.
My face felt tight beneath a layer of dried soot, and my clothes reeked of acrid smoke and cheap gunpowder.
I had just returned from a grueling rescue operation deep inside Royalist territory.
We had managed to extract two dozen prisoners of war, mostly women and the families of suspected rebel sympathizers, but the horrific state we found them in was something I was actively trying to compartmentalize, forcing it deep down into a dark corner of my mind where it couldn’t paralyze me.
I didn’t head to my quarters to wash the battlefield off myself.
Instead, I walked directly to the heavily guarded Communications Hub.
Unlike the Marines, who could freely broadcast across the oceans using the massive, stolen infrastructure of the World Government, we had to move in the shadows.
To keep our signals from being intercepted or traced by Marine wiretaps, we relied on wild, untraceable white Den Den Mushis and strict, pre-scheduled communication windows.
I checked my pocket watch.
I had exactly thirty minutes.
Sitting at a rough wooden desk, I picked up the receiver of a large, armored snail.
It rang three times, its small eyes rolling back before a gruff, familiar voice cut through the static.
“Baltigo Command,” Hack’s gravelly voice came through the receiver.
“Koala, report.
Has Centaurea fallen?”
“Not yet,” I sighed, rubbing my tired, burning eyes.
“The Royalists are digging in, but we’re holding our ground.
What about Jasmine?
How is she?”
“Jasmine just wrapped up her campaign in the West Blue,” Hack replied.
“She’s currently in transit to the Grand Line, heading to another kingdom to back a massive uprising there.
But Koala, I didn’t schedule this call for a sitrep.
I need to talk to you about the intelligence ping from the South Blue.”
The line went silent for a moment, the snail mimicking Hack’s grim expression.
“The bounty hunter,” Hack said heavily.
“Victor D.
Costa.”
“Do we know anything else?” I asked, my grip tightening around the receiver until my knuckles turned white.
“Is it really him?”
“We acquired the photograph he submitted for his bounty license,” Hack replied carefully.
“He has the same dark hair.
Similar facial structure.
The local Marines are terrified of him—he bagged two high-level captains in a single afternoon without drawing a weapon.
But Koala…
there are millions of people in the South Blue.
It could just be a coincidence.”
“But it might not be,” I whispered.
I stared blankly at the rough stone wall of the bunker, a heavy, suffocating knot forming in my chest.
I thought about Jasmine.
I thought about the fierce, unstoppable warrior she had become, swinging a hammer that could shatter mountains.
But I also remembered the broken girl who had first arrived eighteen months ago.
“Hack, I don’t know what to do,” I confessed, my voice thickening with emotion as the professionalism I usually wore like armor began to crack.
“You didn’t see her those first few months.
You didn’t hear it.
Every single night, Jasmine would wake up screaming.
She had these horrific night terrors about an ‘incident’ that ripped her away from her brother.
She was utterly convinced he was dead, or lost in some dark place because of her.”
I swallowed hard, the memory of those long nights washing over me.
I remembered sitting by her bedside for hours, holding her trembling hand while Palmon sang soft, digital lullabies just to calm her down enough to breathe.
“It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen a grown woman cry herself to sleep,” I continued softly, the faint, haunting ghost of my own traumatic childhood in Mary Geoise lingering in my words.
“But seeing Jasmine go through that…
it broke my heart.
When we first realized we were cousins, it felt so surreal.
I grew up thinking my family was either gone or full of strangers.
But it’s beyond that now, Hack.
I’ve finally accepted her as my actual sister.
I am so incredibly happy to have her as my family.
It took months of Palmon’s support and Jasmine throwing every ounce of her soul into training to finally heal those wounds.
If I tell her that Victor is alive and it turns out to be a cruel mistake…
the false hope will unmake her.”
Hack let out a long, heavy sigh that crackled sharply through the snail.
“I cannot keep a secret this massive from a Revolutionary Commander,” Hack stated, his tone stiffening, bound by his sense of duty.
“I will have to inform her.”
“I know,” I pleaded, leaning forward against the desk.
“But since she is in transit to the Grand Line, she won’t be checking the main intel feeds for a few days.
Give me that time, Hack.
Let me confirm his identity first.
If he’s the real deal, I swear I’ll bring him to her myself.”
The snail’s face softened slightly.
“Very well,” Hack agreed.
“You have a small window.
Proceed with caution, Koala.”
The snail clicked off, its eyes going blank.
I stood up, the exhaustion that had been dragging at my limbs completely forgotten, replaced by a sudden, electric surge of purpose.
I walked briskly out of the comms room and immediately flagged down a passing rebel lieutenant.
“Put an APB out to all our informants and lookouts in the port towns,” I ordered, my eyes sharpening as I looked at him.
“I am looking for a South Blue bounty hunter named Victor D.
Costa.
If he steps foot on this island, I want to know instantly.”
(Victor’s POV)
The coastal port town of Centaurea smelled like salt, rotting fish, and stale gunpowder.
We had landed the carriage in a dense, forested valley a few miles out, deciding to approach the periphery on foot.
Even here, miles away from the capital city where the main civil war was raging, the tension was palpable.
Armed guards patrolled the streets, and the locals kept their heads down, rushing between buildings.
Standing in a quiet alley, Gammamon and I were currently engaged in a fierce tactical debate.
“We should just go to the capital,” Gammamon argued, his arms crossed beneath his heavy cloak.
“The fighting is there.
If we go to the capital, we find the people with the cool weapons, punch the bad ones, and ask where Jasmine is.”
“That is a terrible plan,” I countered, rubbing the bridge of my nose.
“It’s an active warzone.
If we just stroll into the middle of a siege, the Royalists will shoot us for being rebels, and the Revolutionaries will shoot us for being Royalist spies.
We need to be subtle.
We stay in the port, act like we have money and secrets, and bait a rebel informant into coming to us.”
“That’s boring,” Gammamon huffed.
“My way is faster.”
“My way doesn’t involve catching cannonballs with our teeth.”
“Fine,” Gammamon grumbled, raising a stubby white paw.
“Rock, paper, scissors.
The winner decides.”
I grinned.
“You’re on.”
We pumped our fists three times.
On the final beat, I threw my hand out flat.
Paper.
Gammamon threw a clenched fist.
Rock.
“Ha!” I declared.
“Paper covers rock.
My plan wins.”
“You cheated!” Gammamon yelled indignantly, glaring at his own hand.
“I only have three claws!
I can’t physically make scissors!
It’s ergonomically impossible!”
“You should have thought of that before you challenged a primate,” I smirked, turning toward the street.
“Now come on.
We have to act suspicious.”
For the next two days, we played our parts perfectly.
We moved between the seediest dockside taverns, flashing large amounts of Beri, asking pointed questions about the Royalist troop movements, and casually mentioning we had “high-value assets” to offload.
It didn’t take long.
By the afternoon of the second day, my Observation Haki picked up three distinct signatures tailing us from a tavern.
I deliberately led them away from the crowded docks, turning down a maze of narrow, shadowed alleys until we reached a dead end behind a fish-packing warehouse.
I stopped, turning around slowly.
Three men stepped into the mouth of the alley, blocking our exit.
They wore ragged civilian clothes, but the flintlock pistols and short-swords they drew were well-maintained.
“You’ve been asking a lot of questions, bounty hunter,” the lead man growled, his pistol aimed at my chest.
“The Royalists don’t pay mercenaries to snoop in the slums.
Drop the coin purse and get off our island before we leave you in the harbor.”
“I don’t work for the King,” I said, my voice calm, keeping my hands clearly visible.
“I’m looking for the people trying to dethrone him.”
The men exchanged a wary glance.
“We don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you don’t,” I smiled knowingly.
“Listen closely.
I’m going to comply with your demand and leave this alley.
But I want you to pass a message up your chain of command.
Tell your superior that Victor D.
Costa has highly valuable intelligence regarding the Revolutionary Army.
I will be sitting at the Rusty Anchor tavern, right on the edge of the docks, in exactly two days.
Tell them not to keep me waiting.”
The lead rebel scoffed, cocking his pistol.
“You’re not going anywhere, spy.”
“I already left,” I replied.
I tapped the disk beneath my coat.
Summon: Night-Terror Ferret.
Instantly, the shadows stretching across the brick walls of the alley seemed to come alive.
The darkness rippled, wrapping around Gammamon and me like a liquid shroud.
The rebels gasped, taking a step back as the shadows swallowed us whole.
In the blink of an eye, the darkness retracted, leaving the alley completely, entirely empty.
Not a footprint, not a sound.
We had simply ceased to exist.
The next two days were agonizing.
While Gammamon thoroughly enjoyed the local street food and happily engaged in two separate bar brawls with rowdy privateers, I was a bundle of nervous energy.
The Ferret’s shadow-skip had been a massive gamble.
I needed to prove I was a high-level asset worth a commander’s time, but I also risked spooking them into sending an assassination squad instead.
When the evening of the second day finally arrived, I sat in a booth at the back of the Rusty Anchor.
It was a quiet, dimly lit pub that smelled of sea salt and spilled rum.
Gammamon sat across from me, humming happily as he devoured a plate of roasted ribs, his cloak pulled low.
I watched the clock on the wall tick by.
The sun set.
The tavern slowly emptied out as the dockworkers went home for the night.
By the time the bartender started wiping down the tables, a heavy, suffocating disappointment settled in my chest.
They weren’t coming.
Either the grunts hadn’t passed the message, or the Revolutionary command thought it was a Marine trap and ignored it.
I let out a long, ragged sigh, resting my elbows on the table and burying my face in my hands.
The emotional toll of last week, the time anomaly, the bounty posters, the graveyard, the waiting, finally caught up to me.
“Hey,” a soft, gentle voice spoke up.
I didn’t lift my head.
I heard the scuff of a chair being pulled out, and someone sliding into the booth right next to me.
“Why do you look so sad?” the woman asked.
Her tone was casual, but there was a sharp, underlying intensity to it.
I kept my face buried in my hands, too exhausted to put my guard up.
“Because I just blew my only lead to reconnect with my sister,” I muttered bitterly.
“I tried to be clever.
I tried to bait the hook, and I just wasted my time.
But it’s fine.
I’ll bounce back.
I’ll tear this whole kingdom apart brick by brick if I have to.
I’m finding her, come heaven or hell.”
Gammamon paused mid-chew.
He looked up from his ribs, staring at the woman sitting next to me.
“Hi,” Gammamon chirped politely, wiping barbecue sauce off his white snout.
“I’m Gammamon.
What’s your name?”
“It’s very nice to meet you, Gammamon,” the woman replied, her voice trembling slightly.
“I’m Koala.”
My entire body went rigidly, electrically stiff.
My breath caught in my throat.
I slowly lowered my hands and snapped my head to the side.
Sitting mere inches from me was a young woman with short, light brown hair, wearing a dark newsboy cap and a pair of goggles resting around her neck.
Her large, bright eyes were locked onto my face, scanning every feature, every contour, shining with a desperate, overwhelming hope.
I stared at her, completely paralyzed in absolute shock.
The Revolutionary Army hadn’t ignored the message.
They had sent the one person who knew exactly who I was.
Word Count: 2668
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