(Sarquiss POV)
It had been a long month, filled with experiences he’d rather not repeat. This list had included the heart-stopping ride up the Knock Up Stream, the fight against Satori and Bellamy’s newest brainchild…ultra high altitude training.
Apparently, Bellamy had gotten it into his head that they all lacked basic endurance and decided to rectify this immediately via a month of repeated marathons, interspersed with ridiculous strength training to prevent muscle atrophy. As a result, Sarquiss was so exhausted on most nights that he couldn’t muster up the energy to do anything but collapse into his bunk and sleep.
How Eddy managed to follow along and additionally do his own personal training under Roronoa’s supervision was an inexplicable mystery to Sarquiss. The only one who was spared from this torture had been Muret and that was because she was too busy learning the local arts of healing from the sky people.
Another major aspect of their daily routine had been their continued instruction in dial warfare, just much more in-depth and gruelling than their first introductory session on the morning of the war. The Shandians ran them ragged. It didn’t stop at just individual training either. Once they were deemed as having passed the bar for ‘bare minimum adequacy’, Wyper added team matches to the schedule. Veteran Shandians could coordinate flawlessly to chain various dial effects together, but this required great timing and understanding of the dials in use. Most of the time, Sarquiss’ crew ended up giving Muret more work and test dummies to try out her new knowledge.
Mind you, it wasn't as if Sarquiss didn’t see the benefits. He felt stronger and the dials definitely added more versatility to his rather limited arsenal. But that didn't change the fact that he was glad to leave this place behind. Staying in a place where Lily had been hurt so badly was...unpleasant.
Sarquiss also wanted to be able to spend all the gold they’d stashed in their hold. These people didn’t use gold, making it effectively worthless to them. So, when they stripped down the…Ark Maxim he thought it was called...anyway, when they stripped down the Ark Maxim, all that gold was forcefully dumped into their lap by the grateful populace. The only gold they had wanted to keep had been their golden bell and its supporting pillars.
Even without the bell, the gold they had received had to be worth at least several hundred million belli, a sum that none of them had ever seen before in one place. Mani had gone delirious after counting the zeros, muttering about all the make-up and dresses she could buy with that amount of money, requiring Muret to intervene.
In addition to the gold, the Shandians provided them with a guide for their trip to the edge of the White Sea. Apparently, the locals had a strictly regulated exit point for safety reasons. One would think that sailing off the edge of the world at one point would be as dangerous as any other point, but everybody had insisted that they had to leave via ‘Cloud End’.
So here he was, sailing off into the sunset with a cargo hold full of gold, a buck load of dials and fruit. Bellamy had finally told them that it was fine to eat the fruit after that big battle, so maybe he brought it along to prevent scurvy? But then, why fresh fruit and not picked vegetables or something?
Anyway, he was not going to miss this place, Sarquiss reflected, but he couldn't deny that it had been an eye opener. And as he was never going to see this place again in any likelihood, Sarquiss decided to watch this strange world upon the clouds until it had disappeared from sight. Maybe he would tell Lily’s kids about this place sometime…
…wait, wasn't that Laki?
Why was Laki chasing after them?
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(Laki POV)
It hadn’t been obvious at first. Shandora was a large place and it was new, so it had become the new favorite pastime for the kids to explore the ancient city.
But then, Aisa hadn’t returned for dinner. At first Laki had tried to stay calm. Perhaps she’d met a new friend and gone to have a sleepover. The Skypieans had houses in a style Aisa would have never seen before and she had always been a curious child. However, asking around their city revealed no trace of her wayward adopted sibling. She even pressganged the white berets to aid her in the search, only to conclude that Aisa wasn’t in the Skypiean city.
Neither was she to be found in Shandora. One of her fellow warriors would have seen her and brought her back. Especially, as it was so new, warriors were stationed everywhere day and night to prevent precisely such mishaps.
Still, she made doubly sure by running up and down the ruined city, desperately calling out Aisa's name. It was only after she heard the great golden bell ringing that she remembered the one place she hadn’t searched yet…Bellamy’s ship.
So, she chased after them as fast as she could. Bellamy had spent a lot of time telling Aisa about the Blue Sea and Laki distinctly remembered the starry-eyed look in Aisa’s eyes. Just, she hadn’t thought that Aisa would ever consider leaving home, which was why she hadn’t taken the pirate ship into account. In hindsight, she should have.
"Stop the ship!" she yelled as soon as she was within earshot. With a mighty leap, she was over the railing and landing next to a gaping Sarquiss. Unfortunately, a quick look about the deck revealed no trace of Aisa.
“Aisa! Where are you? Aisa!” she called out but nobody answered her. However, Bellamy did approach her, wearing the same quizzical expression on his face as most of his crew. But despite his obvious confusion, he addressed her in the friendly manner she had gotten used to over the last month.
“Laki, what is going on?”
“You need to stop this ship!” she demanded and Bellamy looked, justifiably, taken aback by her request.
“What do you mean? I’m glad that you came to say goodbye, but…” he started, but she cut him off.
“Aisa is missing!” She was well aware that this was terribly rude of her but by this point she was too desperate to give a damn.
“Aisa? Why would she be here?” the bewildered captain asked.
“I don’t know! I searched everywhere, but I couldn’t find her. This was the last place I could think of where she might be…”
A scream rend the air, high-pitched and shrill. A scream full of terror and fear. A scream that sounded suspiciously like Aisa.
And it was coming from below deck.
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(Bellamy POV)
I offered no resistance as Laki shoved me aside to run down the stairs. What in the seven hells? My crew was just as confused but after a moment, we were all rushing below deck after Laki.
“Spread out and find whoever’s screaming!” I ordered. By now, the screams had died down a little, but it hadn't stopped. Though at the moment that was a good thing because it made it easier to track the one responsible for the screaming down.
The screams and the later sobs led Laki and I to the storage rooms, specifically my personal storage room. And from within it I could hear a child crying.
“Make it stop! Please, just make it stop…so loud…”
I slammed the door open, nearly ripping it off its hinges, to reveal Aisa curled up around herself into a little ball, desperately covering her ears.
“Aisa!” Laki scooped up the little girl into a hug, but immediately winced slightly. Was that…had that been a spark?
Aisa kept crying and mumbling about making something stop, but she did calm down noticeably once Laki started whispering comfortingly into her ear. At the same time, I could also see that Laki was putting a lot of effort into not wincing whenever Aisa gave off another spark.
My suspicions were quickly confirmed by a quick glance around the room. There, beside Aisa, was a half-eaten pineapple…a purple pineapple with swirls on its skin.
And as I stood there pondering what to do next, the floor dropped out from beneath us. We had gone over the edge.
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It was sometime later that Laki reemerged from my storage room, and apart from a small bump on her forehead, she looked unhurt from our sudden acceleration and deceleration. I, on the other hand, had felt like I was going to lose ten years of my life when I realized we were freefalling from the sky.
If Eddy hadn’t returned to his post and blown that special whistle in time, we would likely all be dead right now instead of gently floating down via sky octopus express.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“How is Aisa doing?” I asked, handing Laki a handkerchief to wipe her sweaty brow.
“She’s calmed down now and is sleeping. Thank you for letting her use your room by the way.”
“It’s no problem. I'm just glad that she’s fine.”
The silence that followed was awkward. In a way, I had inadvertently kidnapped her adopted sibling and shanghaied Laki when she came to rescue said adopted sibling. In Laki’s case, her adopted sibling had just robbed me of a priceless treasure.
I kind of regretted not making a decision on that fruit earlier. At first I had been ecstatic to have one of the most powerful devil fruits in the world in my possession, but then the question arose of what to do with it? Or better yet, which of my crew to give it to.
And fundamentally, it came down to an issue of trust. My crew or better, Bellamy’s crew followed him because he was stronger than they were and they admired that. However, would they follow still, if they became significantly stronger than I was? There was also the decidedly non-zero chance that the new devil fruit user would just up and leave. So, because I couldn’t be sure, I had done the lazy thing and postponed the decision as being a future me problem. Then Aisa had happened.
“…what are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s too late to go back?” she asked, though I could tell that Laki didn't really believe that was possible either. Even if we did somehow manage to reach Jaya again, log pose willing, I did not think I could convince my crew to ride the Knock Up Stream again for the sole purpose of bringing these two home.
And I would seriously not recommend trying to find another ship to take them. In all likelihood, the two wouldn’t make it three days without finding themselves with collars around their necks. Women with wings tended to be rare down here and rare meant valuable.
My thoughts must have shown on my face because Laki turned away sighing. “We’re not going back, are we?”
“I’m afraid not anytime soon.”
“…”
“…” I actually kinda understood what she was going through, because I also had recently experienced what it was like for one to be ripped out of one’s life and thrust into a new and unknown situation. Thus, I waited and gave her time to process everything.
“If we wanted to leave, would you let us go?” she finally asked. And I had to ask myself: Would I?
“I would probably try and convince you to stay.” I answered her, trying to stay honest.
“But if we still decided to leave?”
“I’d be sad to see you go, but I would likely let you go.”
“And Aisa?” Despite the limitations of the English language, Laki caught on to the hidden but.
“I would not.” This was a bit of a gamble for me. There were probably better ways to approach this, but no one had ever accused me of being diplomatic.
“Why not? Is it because she now has Enel’s power?” Despite the aggressive tone, there was no heat in it. I liked to think that the modicum of trust I had gained, while we were still in Skypiea, was now paying dividends.
“Because you wouldn’t be able to protect her.” I straight up told her.
“And you would?” she retorted.
“Better than you.” I stated, causing her to turn thoughtful instead of angry. And this was also what I had been gambling on. Regardless of anything else, in this situation Laki was always going to prioritise Aisa. Thus, if I wanted to convince her, I needed to make her understand that staying with me was the better option for her charge. “Even if we disregard the fact that you are very unfamiliar with the peoples and customs of the Blue Sea, both of you share a very distinctive characteristic which is going to make it very difficult for you to blend in.”
“Our wings.” she concluded and I nodded.
“I know it's distasteful but you two would be a rare…delicacy for the rich and powerful down there. You would have every bounty hunter and slaver under the sun coming after you within days of being sighted. Tell me honestly, would you be able to protect Aisa on your own?”
She could not and Laki recognized this, visibly deflating. “Then what are we supposed to do?”
“I don’t think it’s my position to tell you what to do, but I will help if I can. It’s the least I can do.”
There was an obvious solution I was angling for and Laki knew it, but it was also realistically the best bet they had of surviving this mess. However, because it was their best bet, I didn't want to be the one suggesting it. It might have been very manipulative of me but in allowing Laki to make the decision by herself, I ensured that she would have fewer reasons to regret it in the future. And in the end, Laki made the smart decision.
“Do you have space on your crew for a Shandian warrior, captain Bellamy?”
So, it was the fresh recruit approach she was going for? I could play along.
“Why should I allow you to join up?”
“I’m a good shot and am an expert dial mechanic.”
“Don’t think we have a dial mechanic on the crew yet. Eh, why not? Welcome aboard.”
“Thank you captain. Glad to be here.” The last part might not have been strictly true but we both burst out laughing. This wasn’t how I had envisioned things to go, but this wasn't bad. I had needed someone who knew their way around dials to make them into useful tools and if trained properly, Aisa could be the best sensor one could ask for. With a bit more mastery, nobody would ever be able to match her in terms of sheer range.
Speaking of the little stowaway.
“What was Aisa doing on my ship anyway? In my cargo hold no less?”
Laki let out a deep sigh, part disbelief and part frustrated fondness. “She was playing hide and seek with some of her friends but fell asleep in there. By the time she woke up you were already underway, and she was hungry.”
Seriously?
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(Lily POV)
The crew had gotten bigger.
Not that that was a bad thing, mind you. One of the newbies was someone she knew, Laki. They’d fought together against a shitstain before and Lily knew how strong the woman was. At the very least, she wouldn’t be a burden.
Then there was the pipsqueak. The pipsqueak was an odd case, acting all cute and innocent with a massive curiosity for food. Hewitt had immediately begun feeding her, much to the pipsqueak's delight. The cost of the extra supplies was coming out of his pay check, Lily would make sure of that.
But inside that childish exterior lay a fucking beast. Or least the potential for one. Mantra on its own was already ridiculously powerful, one just needed to look at how they struggled against the four priests, but then she had to have the devil’s own luck to eat Enel’s devil fruit.
Enel’s fucking devil fruit. What kind of fucking luck was that? Considering how many people it took to bring down the divine dipshit himself, and that had been by coincidence too if you believed the captain, then the little pipsqueak was going to become the most powerful member on this crew if given enough time.
This didn’t sit well with some of the dickheads on this crew, Sarquiss being the one most upset about it. Once the captain had told them what all the fruit had been for and that it had fucking worked, all of them had been drooling at the chance to get new powers. Who wouldn’t, especially after getting thrashed like they had? Lily had even briefly daydreamed about chasing Satori down while shooting lighting bolts at him.
Unfortunately, that dream was dashed into pieces near immediately by the announcement that the fruit had already been eaten…by the pipsqueak.
As it had worked once already, naturally the question arose, why not a second time? But the captain nipped this one in the bud.
First of all, the pipsqueak was now part of the crew. That meant trying to ‘harvest’ her fruit would mean attempting to inflict malicious harm upon a fellow member of the crew, an offence punishable by death on this ship.
Second, and this was what convinced Sarquiss, that the fruit had reincarnated in their cargo hold was a pure coincidence with no guarantee of repetition. Should they try regardless, the fruit was likely to just escape from their grasp entirely. Hence, it was better to just keep the pipsqueak around so their crew would benefit by association.
Third, none of them felt comfortable with the idea of hurting the family of a former and now current comrade. Pirates only survived by being a close-knit group and internal divisions were deadlier than a fleet of marines.
Things being as they were, the crew unanimously decided to welcome their new crewmembers and tactfully never mention the unspoken suggestion. It helped that the captain promised that their next fruit would go to Sarquiss and that he’d use their new gold to procure more devil fruits as needed.
The question then became, did she want a devil fruit? And if yes, which one?
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