It had been two weeks since the four crews had gotten their mission and they had reached reverse mountain. Despite hardships, they had made it to the natural phenomenon. However now the crew had a dilemma. There was no way to get back to the blues through reverse mountain. There were underground caves that could lead to the North, however no crew had coasters with them. Though two of the crew had fishmen/merfolk with them, they had no way of getting the oxygen breathing humans down there with enough air.
Roger looked up the side of the reverse mountain. Climbing it would be hell on earth but It was the only option they had. He had decided to take a small number of people with him. The final list came down to 2spooky, Hiding, Stripes, King and Reagen. Roger noticed that he was the first one to arrive at the mountain, but he knew that the others were all going to arrive within an hour at most. He had heard rumors of where the other three crews had been, but he hadn't really heard anything conclusive. Still, he patted himself on the back for his achievement of arriving first. Just as he was materializing such thoughts of superiority, Tekking's ship sailed right next to his. His ship was in a sorry state, covered in holes burn marks all over. His sails were torn and it was a miracle he had even made it that far.
Tekking wanted to die. Muna had followed them from port and relentlessly chased them on their journey. Another marine that Tekking had never seen before was there. He was rather boring, even after he remained standing despite the hole one of Joyboy's cannon balls left in his torso, Tekking struggled to remember him. Those two attacked them every other day for two weeks. Every time, Muna would launch cannon balls with her repelling abilities and Tekking with Ohara's assistance would try and cut them down. Muna would eventually get on their ship where she and Tekking would have a scuffle before she inevitably fell into the water. Then her marines would save her and she would have to chase them down again. At first Tekking was thrilled at having his own marine rival, but after three hours of cutting down cannon balls only for Muna not to die again lost its novelty. Tekking also had figured he'd have to scale the mountain. He had settled on just taking Joyboy, Ohara, Saige and a newer member called Joel. Joel was a character to say the least. He was 17 years old but didn't really look it. He wore a brown suit with a black tie and leather dress shoes. He had fluffy black hair and a white mask. The mask was crude and was clinging to his face via a string. It looked to be made of paper mache and was made specifically for his face. The mask had not a speck of dirt on it. Even after long battles, he did not have a drop of blood on his mask. Tekking looked out to Rogers' ship and motioned for parley with his hands. Before he could respond, The two other ships rolled up.
The three captains really should have kept their mission a secret from their crew. There had been several mutinies since the crew had found out about the glorofied suicide mission. The once three hundred strong crew had shrunk to less than 60 people. Animak refused to let Nux and Briggs kill the deserters, he theorized that they still might be useful in the long run. Tekking jumped down from his ship and climbed onto the rant pirate's huge boat. Roger did the same along with Hiding. The captains patiently waited for Rusatge who joined them a minute later.
"You look like hell" Nux chuckled as he got an eyeshot of the clearly exhausted Tekking.
"Fuck you, Nux. A marine rear admiral and some sort of all healing zombie captain have been on our ass for the last two weeks" Tekkig sneered back at Nux who only laughed.
"Since we're all here, I propose we work together" Animak said, adjusting his visor.
"Why the hell would we do that?" Rusatge asked, "I'm fairly confident that I can finish this mission with my crew alone"
"Well, none of us can get our entire crew over that mountain. Bringing the whole crew would also be a dead give away that we were the ones who commited the deed" Animal responded.
"How is our bounty gonna rise if they don't know if it was us" Tekking asked, with a raised eyebrow.
"The rise in bounty is part of the agreement, meaning Kong will personally raise it. If he had not mentioned the bounties then using our crews to make a big show would result in the higher bounty on its own. I have the idea that Kong or his shadowy figure wants this to be as secretive as possible" Animak said again. "Lowering the number of players to only our strongest and most capable participants will not only raise our probabilities of reaching our goal but also keep us from being easily identified." The captains all seemed to see the merits of this idea.
"How many will you all bring you?" Briggs asked.
"Including me, 6" Roger said
"5, including myself of course in the count" Tekking said
"I have 6 as well," Responded Rustage.
"We have four division commanders, so our total is 7 people" Animak noted.
"Do you have a way to get all your men up that mountain?" Nux added.
"I have a mermaid who's coming with us who can go under," Rustage responded.
"I also have a fishman who can go under, he's a freshwater fishman but he should be fine" Roger added.
"I can carry Nux and mouse with me" Melody interjected, showing off her suction cup hands. Roger and Briggs both said they could climb the mountain just fine themselves. Roger said he'd use his acid to make foot and hand holes while Briggs laughed at the prospect of a fun challenge. Tekking said that Ohara could use his fruit to get himself up reverse mountain and that Joel should be able to scale it without trouble.
"Ok, then that means that I need to make 15 platforms with my cards to levitate us all up there"
"Captain, I have a question," Hiding said.
"What is it?" Roger responded
"How will we claim the prize if there are four crews, seven captains and 24 conspirators?". The ship deck grew silent. Kong had never told them to work together or that each crew would get their own billion berries, he had thrown out the offer to as many people as possible hoping at least one would take the job. Not counting on the fact that all of them would want it.
"We'll make it a race" Tekking said rather matter of fact.
"Didn't you say we would all have to work together to make this work?" Rustage asked pointing to Animak. Before he could answer, Tekking elaborated.
"Not to kill the noble, but to claim the prize." He said, "We work together to kill the noble, then we'll start killing each other...The first to claim the prize wins the whole game." The captains all seemed to like the idea and vowed to meet in one hour to start climbing.
Rustage went to talk with his crew. He called on April. After a minute she rose out of the sea.
"April, I want you to swim under this mountain when we head out. One of Roger's guys is going to go with you. Try to play nice" Rustage said. April looked rather ok with the news, taking it better than Rusatge figured she would.
"Listen, it'll be very important that you get us a ship, climbing this thing is going to take a while and your path is remarkably quicker. It needs to be small enough to be able to be sailed by less than 25 people." April nodded as Rustage gave her instruction on where to take the ship and how she would have to make sure to not lose the Base pirate's fishman. He walked away and told her to wait by the side of the mountain for a moment.
"Dana!" Rustage called out. After a few minutes of rustling under the deck and the occasional scream from a crew member, Dana emerged with Jones behind her.
"What is it, captain?" She asked. Her appearance was more or less the same as before, except for the lack of helmet and the addition of Rustage's Jolly Roger decal on her jacket.
"You two will be coming with me on our mission, tell Connor and Daisy to be ready in an hour for our departure." At the mention of Daisy's name, Dana grew quite agitated. The newest development over the last two weeks was that the newbie and Daisy hated each other. A story of two parts really, Dana had been verbally abusive to Daisy a few times and Daisy had tried to kill her a few times in her sleep. Other than that, Dana had been getting along pretty well with the crew. She had gotten especially close to Jones. Though maybe it was just because when she was especially tired she'd ride on his shoulder instead of walking.
"You bitch, get your stuff together before I blow your ass all the way to the south blue." She barked as she went back down. Jones laughed and followed her as he ripped apart a turkey leg. Rustage sighed and said:
"Joshua, until I get back you're in charge. Keep the ship hidden and defend it if it is attacked. If we're not back in two weeks, assume we're dead and leave"
Tekking should have been gathering for supplies and prepping his crew on what was about to happen but instead he tried to pull himself together in front of Barry. He held onto his first mate with tears in his eyes. A dangerous mission like this one might see him dead before their next reunion so he was anticipating the worst. Of course his team already knew they were going along. Saige was sharpening her swords and changing her damaged bunny ears to cleaner and springier ones. Ohara was practicing with his devil fruit, he had never climbed a mountain so he wanted to make sure he was safe. Ohara had eaten the saw saw no mi, it gave him the ability to conjure up buzz saws in the air and control them at will. They could be anywhere from one foot in diameter to twenty feet in diameter and spun incredibly fast. He could balance on one blade with immense concentration letting him ride it. Joyboy was also having a tearful goodbye as he would have to leave his beloved cannon behind. Joel didn't really say anything. He just sat there and looked out to the distance. Tekking looked out into the distance as he addressed Barry.
"Barry, I need you to stay strong. I know it's going to be hard but if I don't come back...You are the captain. Don't look back, old friend"
Nux out of all the pirates had the highest bounty, hence he needed to put the utmost effort into not being spotted. In his chambers he sat along with Melody. She grabbed his mechanical arm and carefully removed it. The arm was screwed into his shoulder and covered many sacrs. Nux refused to tell anyone how he had lost the arm. Even Briggs and Animak didn't know. Melody had never asked him about it, despite her naturally curious nature. Putting his arm to the side she stood up and walked over to the wardrobe. She rustled about until she found another arm. This arm looked really natural and matched Nux's skin tone. It was lighter, though it still felt like metal. She walked over to him and he lifted out the little stump on his shoulder, what was left of his arm. She attached it and pressed one of the buttons near the top. Nux clutched onto the bed railing in pain as the screws and wires drilled into his shoulder.
"It's done Nux," Melody said as she stood up. She grabbed his red coat and handed it to him. Nux grabbed it and threw it around her shoulders. He walked over to the wardrobe and pulled out a white hoodie with a blue wavy design around the bottom and cuffs.
"You wear it, I can't have any of the scrubs wearing it while we're gone" Nux said as he adjusted the mask on his head. Melody nodded and put her arms through the sleeves and zipped it up. It was too big and reached her thighs. They both walked out to find Animak wearing a pair of sunglasses.
"Where is your visor?" Nux asked as he cackled at the sight of Animak in shades.
"So it does look stupid?" Animak sighed as he took them off. Nux immediately stopped laughing, he closed his eyes and shielded Melody's eyes. Evan, who was walking from the same side, didn't get so lucky. He screamed at the sight of Animak's eyes and fell to the floor. Animak put on his visor and held out his hand for Evan to stand up. Evan looked away in embarrassment.
"Well we're just about ready to go" Kor said as he tried to hide his laughter after seeing Evan fall. "Who are you going to leave in charge?" Nux stares at Kor, as if that was the stupidest question that had ever been uttered by a human being. Nux responded,
"Well Billy of course"
Roger was trying to explain the mission to Stripes who couldn't sit still to save his life. Stripes was strong and could probably defeat all of the other Fishmen easily, but he was also a brat who couldn't really take things too seriously. Stripes got distracted at least three times during the instructions, looking at the maps on the walls or trying to sharpen his teeth. Roger gave up and just gave him the strict order to follow the mermaid from Rustage's crew and to do as she told him. He didn't look too happy about taking orders from someone from another crew but agreed nonetheless. Roger walked out of the deck to find his team getting ready for the trip. Reagen was trying to decide whether it was more important to bring more pistols or more ammunition. She decided finally to just bring four flint locks and a few cases of ammunition which she stuffed in her trench coat. 2spooky was cleaning his rifle and his belt was filled with many flintlocks. His glasses were replaced with a pair of goggles that appeared to help with sniping. Hiding had a cutlass swung over his shoulder, his calico jacket filled with den den mushi, all peacefully sleeping. King was sharpening his glaive, while periodically taking healthy swigs of rum. Roger called for his fishmen.
"Listen up. I'm putting you guys in charge. Make sure nothing happens to the ship. If the news reports our death, burn the ship and go to the rendezvous point"