[Ajay’s POV]
The Calm Belt was never meant for the faint of heart, but today, a specific patch of its glass-still water had descended into a three-way vision of hell.
The air was thick with the acrid stench of black powder and the copper tang of blood.
In the center of the chaos, a pirate vessel and a Marine warship were locked in a lethal embrace.
Grappling hooks bit into timber, and sailors swung across the gap on ropes, screaming as they traded lead and steel.
But both factions were being dwarfed by a third party, a mid-sized Sea King, a serpentine monstrosity with skin like wet obsidian, which was currently weaving between the hulls and crushing anything that drifted into its path.
On the deck of the Marine ship, a young seaman scrambled toward the starboard rail.
“Keep firing!
Don’t let that thing breach the hull!” he screamed, but his voice was lost in the thunder of a cannon blast.
A shadow blurred over his head.
A woman wearing an orange polka-dot shirt, dark blue trousers, and a bucket hat emblazoned with the Marine logo plummeted from the rigging.
She landed with the grace of a predator, her Marine “Justice” coat fluttering behind her.
This was Rear Admiral Hototogisu, and the grim set of her jaw suggested her first mission since her promotion was going sideways at terminal velocity.
“Rear Admiral!
The ship is taking too much water!” a Captain shouted, stumbling toward her.
“If we don’t contain that beast and the pirates now, we’re all going to the locker!”
Hototogisu surveyed the carnage.
Only a few weeks ago, her orders had been simple: track down ‘Red Bull’ Rager Ron, a Grand Line pirate who had breached the South Blue.
Ron was a small-timer with big delusions, fueled by a rumor that the Usi Usi no Mi (Ox-Ox Fruit) had surfaced in the South Blue.
He wanted the fruit to match his moniker, and in his desperation, he had stolen a decommissioned Marine vessel to cross the Calm Belt.
The rumor had been a dud.
In a fit of “Red Bull” rage, Ron had begun glassing coastal villages, across the South Blue, only to be caught in a massive storm that pushed him back into the Calm Belt while he was being followed by Hototogisu.
She had followed him into the dead zone, and their skirmish had rung the dinner bell for the local Sea Kings.
“Rear Admiral, your orders?” the Captain pressed.
Hototogisu looked at her men, then at the pirates, then at the beast snapping its jaws mere feet away.
Staying meant a ‘heroic’ death.
Retreating meant saving her crew to fight another day.
“Recover as many men as possible from the boarding parties,” she barked, her voice cutting through the din.
“We’re retreating, Captain!
Let the pirates deal with the Sea King.
If they survive the beast, they won’t survive the sea.”
“You heard her!
Back to stations!
Prepare to break contact!”
The Marines scrambled, but as they began to pull away a few miles away from the fight, the water around the pirate ship didn’t just ripple, it vanished.
A shadow the size of a mountain rose from the depths.
Hototogisu froze.
A second Sea King, a true titan of the deep, emerged.
With a single, casual snap of its jaws, it swallowed Rager Ron’s ship, the first Sea King, and a hundred screaming men in one gulp.
The sheer mass of the creature cast a shadow that stretched for miles, darkening the Marine deck.
It turned a massive, golden eye toward Hototogisu.
For a heartbeat, the world went silent.
Then, the titan submerged.
It didn’t attack.
It simply went home.
But a creature that size moving through the water was a natural disaster.
A wall of water, hundreds of feet high, rose from the displacement.
“Inside!
Get inside and hold onto something!” Hototogisu shrieked, shoving her men through the hatchways.
The wave hit like the fist of a god.
The Marine vessel was tossed like a toy in a bathtub, swept away by a current of impossible power, hurtling toward a nameless island eight hundred miles from Amazon Lily.
(No Name Island, Calm Belt)
On the outer edges of the crater forest, a Cockatrice was hunting.
To a casual observer from Victor’s old world, it looked like a chicken.
But this was a chicken redesigned by a sadistic god.
It was the size of a cow, covered in snowy white feathers with blood-red accents, and where a tail should have been, a long, muscular snake grew from its spine.
The bird-head pecked at the dirt, while the snake-head swayed rhythmically, its forked tongue tasting the air for the scent of fear or sweat.
It was a dominant predator of the island’s periphery, armed with super-strength and a paralyzing venom that could turn a man into a statue in seconds.
Suddenly, the forest went dead quiet.
The Cockatrice froze.
Both heads snapped to the left, sensing a disturbance, a twig snapping, perhaps?
“Breakclaw!”
The shout came from above.
A small white figure plummeted from the canopy, its right claw glowing with concentrated digital energy.
The Cockatrice’s snake-head lunged to strike, but suddenly, thick, black chains erupted from the undergrowth.
They coiled around the snake’s neck, pulling it towards the bushes away from the body.
With a panicked squawk, the Cockatrice tried to leap towards the bushes in order to get some leeway from the chains, but Gammamon’s initial strike had been a feint.
As the bird landed, Gammamon was already there, his horns glowing with a blinding white light.
“Horn Attack!”
The impact was surgical.
Gammamon’s horns shattered the bird’s skull at the same moment the jade chains tightened, crushing the life out of the snake-head.
The predator collapsed into the dirt, dead before it realized the hierarchy of the island had changed.
I stepped out from the dense foliage, the Jade Wings rattling softly as I retracted the chains.
“How was it?” Gammamon chirped, wiping a speck of dust from his blue scarf.
“This time I got it in two moves!”
I walked over, looking down at the carcass.
Two months of this.
Two months of “The Island of Hell.” My body was no longer just muscular; it was tempered.
I moved with a predatory grace that would have been unrecognizable to the man who edited corporate videos in Goa.
“It was better,” I said, my voice deeper, steadier.
“But you’re still winding up too long for that first lunge.
A faster opponent would have gutted you mid-air.
You’re getting scary good at chaining attacks, though.
A little more, and you won’t need me to set the trap.”
Gammamon did a few shadow boxing moves, his yellow eyes glowing.
“What can I say?
I like making an entrance!
If my opponent doesn’t know it was me who beat them, what’s the point?
I could just have you assassinate them while I nap.”
I stopped and looked at him, a dry smile on my face.
“You know, back home, my sister used to say I was a bad influence.
She said I corrupted people just by being in the same room.
Two months ago, you were an innocent wide-eyed Digimon with wonder in your eyes.
Now look at you, talking about hits and assassinations.”
Gammamon hopped onto a fallen log, tilting his head.
“Well, your sister was a smart lady, Victor.
Two months of ‘Victor’s Hell Training’ would change anyone.
I’m numb to things I didn’t even know existed.
I still miss my innocence sometimes.”
“Oh, get over it, you drama queen,” I laughed, reaching out to ruffle the scales on his head.
“You’re strong enough now to give a Grand Line captain a headache, and that’s without using your digivolution.
That’s more than most people in this world get in a lifetime.”
“I get the logic of using Marine ranks, for strength comparison” Gammamon said, puffing out his chest.
“But it still feels weird when you say it out loud.
Come on!
I’m hungry.
Training makes me want chocolate.”
“Everything makes you want chocolate,” I muttered.
I flicked my wrist, and the Jade Wings extended.
The black chains wrapped around the bird’s carcass, hoisting the heavy meat off the ground.
I made sure to keep it elevated, in this forest, leaving a trail of blood was like ringing a dinner bell for things much bigger than a Cockatrice.
As we hiked back toward our base camp, Gammamon skipped ahead, humming a little tune.
I followed him, my eyes constantly scanning the canopy.
We were becoming the apex predators of the outer rim, but I knew the lake at the center of the island held things that would make the Cockatrice look like a house pet.
If we ever wanted to reach that level of power then we had a long way to go.
Word Count: 1477
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