Lara's POV;

The preparations were completed and Noa has, with the help of the old coater, finished the coating for the Raptor. From above the water it looked as if the whole ship was enclosed in some soapy clinging liquid. It was a bit sticky to the touch.

“Okay, the tree resin of the mangrove trees will pull the boat underwater if we leave the special atmosphere of the Sabaody Archipelago. This will then enclose the Raptor within a bubble of air. As long as we don't stir the ship above the water surface this bubble will keep the water at bay,” explained Noa the process to the rest of us.

We had already said our goodbyes to the old man and his granddaughter and were already on our way out of the mangroves of Sabaody Archipelago. “How do we navigate while being under water?” I asked. That's something I have always wondered about.

“We use the sails to capture the underwater current. Further use of oars will allow us to direct through these currents,” answered Nojiko, Nami was nodding from behind her. This dive will give Nami experience with her future dive when she will be with her crew.

“So basically we are getting pushed forward by the pressure of the current. Good, I can influence that.”

Nojiko nodded at Lia, “yes, but be careful, we don't really know how much pressure our bubble can hold. So no increases and only slow changes in the decrease and rising of both.”

“Then let's start this, since listening to Fisher Tiger did Lia and I want to see how the underwater world looks like,” I announced with a grin, while the water around us was looking as if it was rising.

While moving forward our ship was going downwards. Water was climbing up on invisible walls. It was blocking out the sky and soon we were fully underwater. And with a sudden realisation the phrase 'The water is crystal clear' could not get any truer.

The world got painted in a light blue tint and swarms of colourful fishes were swimming around us, as if birds in the sky. Light shone through the water surface, like pillars of the sun, it got reflected by their scales and made them shine in all types of colours. A few groups were occasionally disrupted by an attacking hunter. And while it got darker the deeper you looked downwards. On the back side of our ship, you could only see the rising roots of the mangroves. They were interwoven with each other and formed the ground for the people above to walk on.

“This is beautiful,” whispered Lia from my side. I hugged her into me and took a photo of her face with a photo-dial. I could see that the rest of the crew was in equal awe.

We descended steadily and soon the light blue turned darker until nothing could be seen. “Good that we bought a Log Pose from Sabaody with direction to Fish Man island, navigating underwater must be harder than above,” commented Fiara while looking at Nojiko's Log Pose from the top of her right shoulder.

“We also need to buy another one when we have reached the underwater island. The normal Pose will not help us once we reach the New World,” explained Nojiko.

“What's wrong with the normal one?” Asked Nami, she had hers left at Shakky's. She didn't want its course changed from her time with us.

“The magnetic fields of the New World Island are a lot stronger than those in Paradise, a single needle won't be enough to direct us correctly to a single island. We will need one with three needles. I will show you once we have bought one,” explained Nojiko to her sister, before she did a small course change.

“Say, Fiara, do we have lights to illuminate our surroundings?” I asked. With all the weapons on board, we should also have something like floodlights.

“Sure, but we won't be able to light up everything, they are more like spotlights,” confirmed Fiara. She pushed a button on her console and ten large spotlights powered up before they began to send out their light.

Ten cones of light lit the dark sea up and we could see nothing special, only more dark sea. “Direct the light more to our left, I can feel a presence there,” said Nojiko while pointing at where she wanted the light to have.

Fiara followed the order and instantly regretted it. The lighted up sea revealed a fish, a fish that has evolved to live without light. It was basically a massive maw with even larger teeth and two blind eyes.

Fiara screamed, Nami screamed, Noa screamed and Jo fired a bone bullet off. The projectile shot through the bubble without harming it, thankfully, and then pierced into the side of the fish. It wasn't dead but bleeding.

“I think that was wrong,” I muttered while all of us with Observation began to feel how numerous other life forms began to charge towards the bloody cloud.

Our spotlights gave us a clear front row view of the following feeding frenzy. Dozens of equally grotesque fish came rushing at the wounded monster. They buried their sharp teeth into its flesh and began to eat while the larger one was still alive.

It trashed and tried to bite its attackers, but there were too many of them and the trashing was ripping its wounds even wider. But the smaller fishes did not stop there, they were in a feeding frenzy and started to attack their nearby comrades, who fought back and within seconds the sea was filled with blood and the muted sound of ripping flesh. I generously enhanced it for everyone to listen to.

“I no longer find this beautiful, I want to go back up. Can't I train on my own? I think I'd like to wait two years before coming back,” pleaded Nami while clinging to her sister.

Lia shot her down with a casual wave of her hand. “Nah, we won't turn around and fear not, I can see light under us.”

I looked overboard and saw under us indeed a slight red glowing light. I had already an idea of what this light was, but seeing the faces of our crew would be so much more fun when they find out on their own.

“Is it just me or is it getting warmer?” Asked Yosaku with a worried look over the edge of our ship. He hastily pulled his head back and looked at Jonny.

“What?” Asked Jonny, but Yosaku only pointed over the edge for him to see for himself. Jonny did so and pulled his head even faster back than his friend. “Really?” He asked but did not expect a retort.

“Noa, do you think our ship can survive the effect of a volcano?” He then asked in a neutral tone.

Noa looked confused for a moment before he got white and rushed to take a look over the edge for himself. “I.. I don't think so,” he then muttered and stumbled a step or two back.

“What's going on?” Asked Nojiko, who has seen the three behave strangely. She herself walked up to the side of the ship and glanced down, only to then start a storm of curses.

I'm not sure if Fiara should have heard them and am even more unsure if I should allow Lia to explain the meaning of each curse, as she was doing right now. However, both problems were not important, as Nojiko has used a Soru to rush over to me. She then started to shake me as if I had done something wrong.

“There are fucking sea volcanos under us, do something or we will get cooked. If even one of those explodes we will be fried!”

I starred at her and waited for her to calm down, she did so after taking a couple of deep breaths. “And how? I haven't eaten the Fruit for volcano control, that's more Sakazuki's territory. And I don't recommend using Lia's pressure control. A change could very well force it to erupt. It's not as if they will explode with us right over them.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Nojiko's head sagged down and she was still for only a moment, but then the water around us began to shake violently and with it our ship as well. Nojiko's head snapped back up and she started to shake me again, only now she was also cursing. “Why Lara, why the fuck did we have to take the fucking scenery route? We could have flown over the Red Line, but no! You fucking had to bring us over an active volcano!”

“You should not have said that,” chuckled Lia. I nodded, knowing that I provoked it.

“Well, we should be able to sail a little faster and I might be able to deflect some of the energy caused by the eruption with my vibrations,” I finally said after a throughout shaking from Nojiko.

She rushed to the console and began to order changes in our course, while directing Lia to carefully speed up our ship, by lowering the water pressure on the front side of our ship and increasing it slightly on the backside.

Meanwhile, I have gone into my Mage Form and started to lay one light barrier after the other on the downside of our ship. It was by now glowing in bright golden light and must have looked like a shining beacon for everyone that looked at us.

Another rumble from down below signalled the first great eruption of the sea volcanos. A quick look over the railing revealed a beautiful, yet deadly, sight. Dozens of large glowing volcanos were resting beneath us, all of them were bubbling with lava and some were already spewing liquid rock upwards.

Great pillars of boiling steam began to shoot upwards. A sea king came to close and got flash boiled instantly. One such pillar shot right next to up and only Lia's timely warning allowed me to lower the molecule movements down quick enough to not get us boiled by simply staying close to this natural danger.

It still got noticeably warmer. “Lia, do you think you can bring the volcanos that are the farthest away to erupt?” I shouted over the loud rumbling of the surrounding sea.

“Nope, a single change might cause the whole plateau to explode,” answered Lia.

Contrary to her calm demeanour was our crew. Jonny and Yosaku were securing anything that could get thrown around. Nami was hiding behind her older sister. Fiara was on the console and looked worried. Jo has just lit up a joint, Noa was speaking sweet nothings to the ship and Inari was worriedly looking between me and the volcanos under us.

“Sharing is caring!” I shouted over to Jo.

He looked at me, then at his joint and then back to me. “I don't think a muddled mind will be good for you right now, doctors order.” And with that said he took a long drag and puffed the smoke slowly out.

“You're the doctor, shouldn't you be the one with a clear mind in case something happens?” Screeched Nami from behind Nojiko.

Jo gave her a shrug. “Lara can handle it and if not then we are dead anyway.” I still did want a drag but had no time to argue as another warning shout of Lia told me about a second steam geyser. I tried to lower the temperature around us down, but the steam was too quick and the ship too slow.

It nicked our side and light shield after light shield got destroyed from the heat and pressure of the steam. I felt how Lia was trying to lower the pressure, it gave the shields a few milliseconds more time. But over two dozen were left destroyed after a short hit of two seconds.

“I don't think we will survive a direct hit,” I laughed. The light shields were all strong enough to hold out a punch by Akainu. Having so many destroyed at once was scary. Nature sure was still way above the power of a Devil Fruit.

The grazing hit had pushed us upwards which gave us more time to evade, but also brought us out of the direct current and made us slower.

“You think we could use a Coup de Burst to escape from the plateau?” Asked Lia when it became clear that we would have to traverse through these deadly steam geysers for some more time. The volcanos down below were not showing any signs of stopping. It became even worse.

“It can either burst our bubble or catapult us out. Using Lia's pressure is safer,” answered Noa after thinking over it. “We had to envelop the whole ship, otherwise the pressure would have destroyed any part that was not covered. The energy of a Coup de Burst will first hit our bubble before it can escape and push us forward. Maybe with Lia's help, we can lower the pressure on our bubble, but that might also weaken the forward thrust.”

“Try it, we were lucky until now. I don't want to risk a real direct hit,” I ordered before the whole ship shook again. Luckily it was not steam that hit us now, but hardened magma from the volcanos. They still had enough power to rattle the ship, but only a couple of the light shields got broken.

“Coup de Burst in ten seconds!” Warned Fiara while the two pontoons on the back side of our ship began to power up and glow. “Firing in three, two, one, Fire!”

The ship made a lurch forward and its speed increased by a few times. Under us, the eruptions were starting to get more violent and more and more steam geysers shot upwards.

“Power the Coup down, we have a problem!” Shouted Noa over the roaring engines of the ship. Fiara still heard him and stopped the energy supply.

“Why did we stop? We're almost out of the volcanos range,” asked Jonny. He had kept a close eye on the sea ground.

Noa pointed upwards at a significantly lowered bubble ceiling. “Look up, the Coup uses air pressure to generate a forward thrust. Normally that isn't a problem, but here we only have a limited supply of air. We'll have to use wind dials to refill our bubble or else we might lose it.”

Inari and Yosaku quickly run into the ship to fetch a few of our wind dials. But we won't be able to use another Coup de Burst while inside the volcanos. “We should really run now,” spoked Lia suddenly with a slightly worried grin.

“Aren't we already running?” Asked Fiara.

Lia nodded, but then pointed behind us at the glowing seabed. “Yeah, but the whole plateau will explode within the next few minutes. The pressure under the rock is enormous.”

“Then keep an eye on it and force it to explode as far away from us as possible, but wait until the last moment,” I ordered and looked at Nojiko. “How long until we are out of this things range?”

She looked a bit unsure and had to think for a long moment before she answered. “Maybe five minutes. Quicker if we hit a strong current. But the steam has jumbled the normal current up and around. It will be hard to find one that is useable.”

“Then get to it, remember Mrs Chicken Wing's lectures. Focus on the world, feel it and try to find one that can help us. The local animals will also flee towards any current out of this dead zone,” I ordered while using my own Devil Fruit to make our ship faster.

I'm lowering the temperature of the sea in front of us and increased it on our backside. The warmer water on our backside pushed us upwards, while the colder water pulled us down. Used at the right angle and it produced a push and pull effect.

It was slow at first, but soon we started to pick up on speed. Still, Lia had to shout more and more warnings and one or two steam geysers came dangerously close. “I got one. Most fishes are trying to flee towards a single location. From there they quickly move away, as if something was pulling them along,” shouted Nojiko suddenly.

Fiara steered the ship towards her coordinates and we soon were surrounded by all kinds of fish. Sea kings, as large as islands, smaller fish only a bit larger than a head and even a whale or two were trying to flee.

Had we not been in danger it would have been an interesting sight to see hunters swimming next to the usually hunted. All trying to flee from a common enemy, nature itself. We were part of them and a few of the smaller fishes were even trying to swim in our wake.

The whole plateau will get sky high!” Warned Lia just before we hit the now visible current. A second later we got inside the current and our ship got picked up and pulled away. The crew cheered loudly, but with a sudden buck the current stopped and we got thrown out of it.

I looked around and saw that we were farther away from the plateau but not so far away to not see what has happened. Lia was right, sky high.

A literal wall of red magma was to our back. The molten rock was so hot that the nearby water was not able to cool it down fast enough and the pressure from down below was pushing it higher and higher.

“Guys, I still think we should put a bit more distance between us and this thing,” worried Noa right after closing his mouth from the awe-inspiring sight. It was not every day that you could see a mountain-sized fountain of magma.

“Right,” muttered Nojiko, before she saw the quickly closer coming wall of boiling water and whirled up sand. “Right!” She repeated with more panic when it became clear that the wall of death was showing no signs of slowing down.

“We're back,” announced Yosaku. He and Inari had a bunch of dials in their arms and both were activating them one after another. Inari even had a hairdryer dial with her. The bubble started to fill back up and would soon be larger than before.

Noa saw the problem almost instantly and began to give orders. “Be careful, more air means a weaker bubble. Fiara, give us another Coup de Burst.”

The glow on our stern jumped back into life and with a second roar, the Raptor flew forward, faster than the rolling cloud of hot dust and out of the exploding plateau.

The dials kept the air consumption from destroying our bubble and we were able to power out of the danger zone.

Once Nojiko gave the all clear signal Fiara stopped the Coup and the wind dials were deactivated. With a tired sigh, all of us sat down and tried to calm down. I sighted Jo sitting on our bench between the tangerine trees. Joint still in hand and calm as a cucumber.

“Gimme a drag,” I asked tiredly and sat down next to him. He obliged and handed the joint over, while rolling another one. Soon the rest of us has spotted us and came over.

I would have never thought that I would sit with a bunch of strange people, whom I call friends, inside a garden, while being on a ship that was thousands of kilometre under water. And on top of that I had my Lia in my lap and the calm mind slowing haze of weed started to muddle my mind.

I think this will be one of these moments we will remember for the rest of our lives.