PART NINE: Tartarus
It was the smell that lured him to the dock. There was something different infused with the familiar aroma of damp and brine. Something pungent, corrosive, and raw.
Gazing out across the foamy sea through the curtain of dense fog he noticed a shape begin to take form as it approached. It was a ship he recognized. The massive pearl and black bulk of the Chess Piece Pirate's ship the Grandmaster seemed to limp tentatively through the swells, clearly having recently sustained some heavy damage.
He tilted his head again and inhaled the sea air. It wasn't just the condition of the ship that had changed since he had last seen it, but the décor as well. There was a trail of blood poisoning the water in the ship's wake, and the explanation for such an extreme amount quickly became apparent. Lashed across both starboard and port sides of the ship were what remained of the crew. Each appeared to have had their legs severed at the knees and they were hung like grotesque living effigies across the hull to bleed out and attract the sharks.
He smiled to himself as he noticed the silhouette of a figure standing where the bowsprit met the foredeck, staring out in his direction. There was no need to worry. He was good at hiding in plain sight. Besides, he was aching to learn what brought one of the fiercest pirate organizations on the Grand Line sneaking back to their shores so soon after their last encounter.
There would be time enough to alert his Master of their arrival after whatever survivors on board had disembarked. There was no need to fear an assault of any kind here. The dead always outnumbered the living on the island of Thriller Bark.
Lady Rook was the first to saunter down the gangplank and set foot upon the ghostly rock that was occupied by one of the six remaining Pirate Warlords. Awkwardly chomping on an apple she gripped using her bandaged right forearm, she boldly strolled across the dock as though she was the most dangerous pirate upon the island.
In truth, it was more an effort to put as much distance between herself and the ship as quickly as possible. She had been surrounded by the stench of decaying flesh for too long and she was desperate to take in a deep breath of untainted air. At first the agonized screaming had been the worst of her problems, but after a few hours, the noise had stopped and was eventually replaced with the rancid, inescapable odor of death. Before long she had begun to prefer the screams.
It had been an unfortunate chore to cut apart her former crew. After they had arrived and saved her from the marine's clutches they had assumed all would be forgiven, but nothing could change the fact they had abandoned their position at Russet Peak and left the rest of them behind to fend for themselves. None of the Chess Piece Pirates were ever meant to be taken alive, and such a disgrace had tarnished their reputation. The oath breakers had to be made an example of, but that had left almost no one remaining to crew the ship.
Their arriving at Thriller Bark would not only be an opportunity to recruit some new blood but to immediately put the next phase of their plan into effect. While they had predicted the marines and Black Clovers would find additional troops to help swell their ranks, they never thought the Straw Hats, the actual destroyers of Enies Lobby, would ever have been selected. She had assumed the Navy would have wanted their heads far more than a single monstrous escaped convict.
The resulting defeat they had suffered had been equally humiliating, unfortunate, and had cost them far more than they had anticipated, but the Chess Piece Pirates always planned three moves ahead. A contingency for setbacks had been considered.
As she tossed her apple core into the sea, the hulking brute Pawn stomped down the ramp behind her, a limp and shackled body tossed over his shoulder like a sack of mulch.
"Don't lose that." She instructed him, glancing over her shoulder. "It's our only bargaining chip."
Pawn grunted an unconcerned response as she turned her attention to the remaining figures standing on the ship.
"Bring the chalice." She called to the leader. "The rest of you stay with Rameses. Make sure he doesn't lose his temper."
She closed her eyes, cracked her neck and bent sideways to stretch her arms over her head, causing her shirt to slip and better expose her cleavage.
That's when she heard it.
"Gotcha…" She whispered.
With the speed of a striking cobra, she drew her remaining blade and stabbed it underhanded sideways and upwards to her left, burying the point into something soft and meaty.
There came the bellow of an enraged, wounded animal, and Absalom, the part-man, part-lion general of Gecko Moria's army materialized before her, falling to his knees as he clutched at the bloody hole in his shoulder.
"You wretched bitch!" He snarled as he glared up at her.
She not-so-gently placed her blade under his chin and smirked. "I told you last time that if you ever got close to me again, I'd give you a new scar. Besides, a mouth breather like you could never be silent enough to sneak up on me. You weren't even downwind. What's the point of being invisible if you can't be stealthy?"
She wiped the blood off her blade using the shoulder of his overcoat and sheathed it again.
"You're too predictable. I knew all I had to do was flash some skin to draw you close enough to strike."
Absalom bared his teeth as he stood, looking furious enough to bite into her neck, but the towering hulk of Pawn standing just behind her made him reconsider and back down with a pathetic disappointed huff.
"Is he here?" Rook raised an eyebrow.
The golden-haired monster glanced at her wounds before taking a second look at the Grandmaster's damage.
"Yes. What happened to you?"
"You'll find out when you bring him to us."
"And if I decide you're not worth his time?"
"Then I'll decide to add you to my collection." She tilted her head back toward the corpses strung from the bow of her ship before motioning Pawn to step forward.
"Besides, we have a shadow I'm sure he'll be interested in."
Absalom examined the unconscious figure the giant was carrying for a moment and his eyes went wide with surprise and alarm.
"How did you…?"
"Painfully." Rook cut him off. "Take us to Moria. Now."
Upon entering the inner courtyard of the mansion located at the exact center of the island, Lady Rook began to feel the first drops of rain. The heavy oak doors slammed shut behind them and she heard the cranking of a heavy drawbridge being hoisted up. Whatever plan the Pirate Warlord had in store for them, it clearly didn't involve them leaving the same way they had entered.
Absalom stopped in the middle of the cobblestone floor and the swordmaster paused directly behind him. She had tried to conceal the favoring of her wounded leg as best she could but doubted it mattered. During her last visit, she had been venerated and treated like a cherished ally, but the Warlords valued strength more than loyalty, and her weakened condition at that moment must have been so obvious it offended them. She felt like a broken stallion being led to a sterile room to be pitied for a fleeting instant before it was euthanized.
She glanced back at Pawn, still holding their prisoner, and the mute third pirate. If not for their gift they may have been dead already. Their hope had been that the shadow master's curiosity would overpower his fondness for merciless executions. So far, that risk seemed to be working in their favor, but she didn't intend to spend any time celebrating.
"Why here? Why not inside? The rain is coming." She demanded an answer from the patchwork lion.
"He's selected here as good a place as any to-"
She didn't wait for him to finish. Striding forward she shouted up the staircase towards the tower that served as the central mast of the island.
"Moria! Stop your parlor tricks and get down here! If I get soaked, I'm going to break your stupid horns off and put out your eyes!"
Absalom snarled in quiet fury, enraged by her contempt towards his master but before he could utter a word to reprimand her, a high-pitched hissing cackle began to echo throughout the courtyard. She winced at the offending sound but planted her feet and stared at the top of the steps as the massive form of Gecko Moria emerged from the darkness.
Standing a good ten feet taller than even Pawn, Moria was equally as grotesque as he was huge. His pear-shaped body accentuated his large pointed head and the impish fiery eyes of a gleeful child as it tore the legs off an insect. He had twin rows of devilish fangs that easily rivaled that of any colossal shark and wherever he moved a cold debilitating darkness seemed to follow him like a stench.
He unfurled himself like a giant spider from his dark hole, moving much more quickly and gracefully than anything so big should have been able to. He began to march down the steps to meet his guests, the wicked smile on his face so large it strained the sutures that ran up his neck and chin.
In appearance, Gecko Moria was the fiercest of all the Pirate Warlords, but in aspiration, strength, and strategy, Rook considered him the most flawed of all his counterparts.
As Moria continued to cackle the courtyard around them began to fill with dozens of horrific stitched-together zombie creatures, each chuckling a death rattle of their own. Amongst them was Doctor Hogback, the squat vampire-like scientist who recycled bodies for Moria's collection of shadows to animate. Floating in midair a few feet above him with the aid of an overlarge parasol was a young pink-haired woman named Perona. She had enormous dark eyes and a mischievous smile that could have doubled as a satisfied sneer.
"Why Colette…" Moria exclaimed as he continued descending the stairs, his approaching heavy footfalls threatening to buckle her legs beneath her. "Have you toppled the World Government already? There's no way you could be returning to me so soon after our last encounter. You were adamant you would never need to set foot upon my shores again, and that you found me… "repulsive…"
Moria stopped on the bottom step and stared down at her, his eyes wide with amusement and hunger, and his mouth open wide enough to swallow her whole with enough room for Pawn's upper half.
Rook didn't flinch. She had spent the past several weeks staring into the bottomless crimson eyes of Juzo Rameses, and the hatred and torment she witnessed there made Moria's scathing gaze feel like a light snowfall.
"You were right." She responded, cutting to the chase and keeping her voice flat. "I failed. Not because of Rameses, but in spite of him."
Moria roared another piercing, broken shriek of arrogant laughter.
"But how could this be?" He bemused sarcastically, "I granted you one of my own to accompany you, yet still you were vanquished?"
She removed her bandaged left arm from its sling and held up her bloodied hand with its missing fingers.
"I misjudged my quarry." She stated simply. "I need a new crew and some more tricks, and I need them now."
For the first time, a flicker of disappointed confusion appeared on the Warlord's face. No doubt convinced she should be groveling to him for aid, he seemed put off by her attempting to give him commands.
"And why would I do that? I seem to recall you promising me free reign over the Grand Line and all four oceans in addition to twenty new ships for my fleet after you assassinated the High Admirals. Yet I recently heard mention over a Navy channel the demands you made to the young Navy officer about having the Warlords replaced with your own crew."
"You're right. I said exactly that because I knew she would never agree to it. Are you going to whine about having your feelings hurt or are you going to help?"
Moria stepped down fully into the courtyard and made towards her at a casual walk.
"I see no reason why I should. There's less of you now than there was before, making you less of a threat, and to aid you a second time I feel would be a waste of my valuable resources."
"I've brought goods to exchange." Rook countered, her neck starting to ache from staring up at him at that angle. "I have someone here I think you'll be interested in. Someone perhaps who's shadow would be a suitable fit for your frozen pet up there."
She nodded her head towards the tower.
"Show me…" Moria's enormous smile spread across his narrow face like an infection.
Lady Rook turned and nodded to Pawn, who unceremoniously shrugged off the figure who had been lying over his shoulder and tossed the unconscious form upon the cobblestones at Moria's feet.
The Pirate Warlord glanced down at the offering and poked it with his boot tip, rolling it over to expose a dark-haired woman wearing a breastplate. A silver streak ran down the front of her face amongst her tousled locks.
He raised an unimpressed eyebrow at Rook.
"And this is?"
"Callisto the Valkyrie." She replied, her voice deadpan.
Moria wailed with laughter that was immediately echoed across the courtyard by his brainless horde of undead minions.
"The Valkyrie has never been overpowered. It's rumored that she's an immortal, a ghost even, and completely immune from harm."
"You still believe in ghost stories?" Lady Rook gave an amused smirk. "Well, on second thought, look who I'm talking to."
For the first time, she took a confident step forward and put her boot's heel down onto Callisto's neck.
"One thing she's not immune to is rum. Even in a drunken, half-paralyzed stupor she nearly killed us all, so I'll admit there's something to the rumors, but here she is all the same. Courtesy of Juzo Rameses and the Chess Piece Pirates. Do you want her or not?"
Moria seemed to reconsider. "How do I know that's really her and not some tavern wench you've kidnapped?"
Rook snapped her fingers and the third pirate, his face concealed behind a red shawl, came forward and placed the chalice beside the unconscious woman.
"That's the secret to her strength. She uses it to temporarily harness Devil Fruit powers. Don't ask me how. I gift it to you as a bonus."
Moria's intrigued features returned to looking skeptical.
"I've heard of no such trinket."
"Well, then I'll keep it." She shrugged and bent forward to pick it up when Absalom intercepted her hand and scooped up the silver cup in his clawed fist.
"My Master…" He hissed as he glanced up at his overlord. "It bears the mark of the Celestial Dragons."
Moria's fiery eyes went wide and he bent forward to pick up the Bounty Hunter to examine her more closely.
"She is one of the Navy's favorite weapons. If I cripple her, they may not look upon me with much favor hereafter."
"They don't look upon you favorably now." Lady Rook responded without missing a beat. "When was the last time you paid any attention to their laws? Anyway, who says they have to know? Let them think she went down with the Navy Ship that carried us."
Moria seemed to ponder the proposal as he stared down at the limp woman in his clawed hand.
"I'll accept your offering. I'll also accept your ship, what's left of your crew, and your oath of loyalty."
Lady Rook felt the ranks of zombies close in around her as Moria spoke.
"That's not going to work for me." She responded as she drew her sword with her good hand. "You don't want to negotiate? Fine. Keep Callisto and the chalice. We'll return to our ship and leave your island permanently. Be warned though, Juzo Rameses is waiting for us back on the ship, and he's just itching for a confrontation."
"And I'm happy to oblige him." Moria took another step forward so he was close enough to crush Lady Rook beneath his foot. "I'll have his shadow as well. I hear he's a bottomless pit of rage and destruction. If the Valkyrie's shadow doesn't suffice for my giant, his most certainly will."
Lady Rook watched as the zombies began to flank them. On either side of the Warlord, two new figures had appeared whom she judged to be more formidable than the rest.
One was a skeletal samurai with a blue shawl and a white robe who gracefully pulled a gleaming black katana from a sheath at its side while staring at her with the bottomless black pits that served as its eyes.
The second did not appear to have any eyes at all. It was a lean mechanical figure who seemed pieced together from various strips of jagged metal and overlarge round rusted gears. It had broad shoulders, wiry arms, and clawed metal hands, but what was most unnerving about it was its lack of any features. Indeed, its entire head seemed to be a simple black cone with a variety of spikes protruding from the crown. From the nest of spikes, a wisp of gray smoke escaped as if a furnace was operating at half-capacity inside the skull. It wore a thick, purple cloak and clutched an overlarge sledgehammer in its metallic claws that looked even heavier than its owner was.
"Moria…" Rook pointed her sword point towards him. "I'm warning you. Stand your puppets down. If you capture or kill us, the remaining Chess Piece Pirates will set aside their current plans and make you their priority. Surely by now you've seen the state of my ship and have a sense of what we do to those who betray us."
The towering vampiric beast leered down at her with a manic ecstasy in his eyes.
"The Chess Piece Pirates are just another band of ruffians, be it with higher than average aspirations. Pirate bands such as yours rise and fall with the tides. But I am constant. I am a Warlord. I have the might of the Imperial Navy and my Shadow Army at my beck and call. You should have reconsidered your allegiances."
"You think the Navy will avenge you if you fall?" Rook spat. "You're nothing to them. A pitiful figurehead representative of a fragile truce. They would replace you without a second thought because you're just another pirate. An unstable pirate on an extremely tight leash."
Moria's smile reversed itself into a snarling frown as he bent forward and backhanded the woman as hard as he could, sending her flying back to crash into Pawn's bulk, her rapier clattering free across the cobblestones.
The Warlord pulled his gargantuan scissors from behind his back and held up Callisto's limp form, displaying her to his surrounding hoard like a hard-won token of victory.
"After I take this shadow, I think I'll bite your head off Colette." He raised his eyebrows menacingly. "Then I'll kill your men, shackle Rameses and burn your ship. No one will even remember the Chess Piece Pirates ever existed."
Lady Rook spat a wad of bloody phlegm onto the stones beneath her as the sky opened up and the rain began to pour.
"King and Queen will kill you for this, Moria…" She threatened him.
"Your King and Queen aren't here." Moria hissed as he began to peel the shadow from Callisto's form like an outer layer of skin as he raised his scissors to perform the cut.
There was a silence as the rain seemed to pause in midair and that single second of time seemed to extend itself into several dozen. Lady Rook watched as Callisto's eyes shot open and green fire erupted from within her skull, its light suddenly blinding Moria and all his undead slaves.
Callisto tossed her head back and shattered the chains that bound her, and the force of the explosion splintered the bones in the giant Warlord's hand to fragments. The scissors fell from his other hand as he bellowed in rage and pain.
In one delicate, fluid strike, Callisto spun in midair, caught the back end of the scissors with her toe as they were in freefall and kicked them forward, burying one of the blades directly into the Warlord's swollen belly.
The rain resumed its normal rhythm as the Valkyrie landed smoothly on one knee, her eyes still blazing with unholy fire as she looked up into Moria's petrified face.
"But the Queen is here…" She whispered.
Green flame exploded beneath her as she launched herself forward and smashed her fist directly between Moria's piercing eyes and knocked him over backward and flat on his back.
"KILL THEM!" Absalom roared as he vanished from sight.
Rook drew a hidden sword from Pawn's belt and met the black blade of the undead Samurai as it leapt forward at her.
The mechanical guard charged forward arching its massive hammer, but the third pirate tore off its red turban revealing the familiar venomous snake eyes of the Navy commander Shu. He shot forward to intercept the strike and caught the hammer directly between his hands. The metal weapon disintegrated into loose brown shards of dust, rusting away halfway down its handle.
Pawn roared and pulled two long-chain whips from behind his back with menacing hooked anchors attached to the ends. He swung them across both flanks of zombie soldiers and speared them like trout on spikes.
Callisto walked across Moria's chest as it heaved beneath her, drawing in great gulps of air. His undamaged hand clung to the lone blade of his own scissors embedded in his gut. The second blade's handle bounced freely off his ribs as he shuddered in pain.
The Bounty Hunter looked down into the Warlord's hateful eyes.
"You were never worthy of the title, Gecko." She whispered with the faintest hint of humor at the edge of her voice. "You've been on borrowed time ever since the Warlords were established. By tomorrow, nothing you've ever built will be standing and your bones will lie in darkness forever at the bottom of the sea."
She turned and idly placed her hand on the handle of the scissor's free blade.
"My one regret is that I can't make this last longer, but the sooner you're gone, so are your friends."
Blood gurgled in Moria's throat as he attempted to cry out.
Callisto shoved the handle upwards, driving the second blade into the pirate's side, shearing through meat and bone to arrive beside its twin inside the rancid sack that was his stomach.
Black blood spurted from the wound and began to paint the courtyard floor beneath them as Gecko Moria heaved a final death rattle and his eyes opened wide as he realized his life's blood was abandoning him.
With a ferocious explosion of noise, the undead around them began to collapse as their shadows abandoned their meat cages and escaped into the sky.
The samurai dueling against Lady Rook suddenly crumpled forward to land at her feet. Its black soul ripped itself free from between the teeth and the katana fell harmlessly into a nearby puddle, the rainwater already beginning to darken as Moria's foul blood pooled.
Lady Rook's own shadow accomplice tore itself free from her and flew beyond her reach far up into the storm clouds above. Unphased, she spun and pulled her curved blade from where it was tucked in her hat band and hurled it sideways seemingly at nothing. It flew for half a moment before implanting itself solidly in midair as fresh blood spurted outwards from an invisible source.
The swordmaster calmly walked forward towards her prey as Absalom shimmered back into focus and collapsed onto his knees, her weapon lodged deep inside his thick neck.
He dropped the silver chalice as Rook squatted next to him. She grabbed the back of his head in her damaged left hand and took hold of her projectile in the other.
"I've been wanting to do this for so long…" She gloated as she dragged the knife across his throat, spilling the general's perversions down the front of his cloak and between his knees.
"Grab the chalice!" Callisto pointed from atop Moria's lifeless bulk as it began to roll into a far corner of the courtyard.
Picking her way over several fallen zombie corpses Lady Rook scooped up the goblet and walked back towards her commander.
"Sorry about the boot on your neck." She apologized to the other woman as she knelt by the dead Warlord and held the cup to his open wound. "I had to sell it."
Callisto tossed her wet hair out of her eyes. "I'll return the courtesy someday soon, but in the meantime, we need that hand of yours repaired."
The Chess Piece Monarch leapt down beside Lady Rook and took the now full chalice from her hand. She chanted an incantation and emerald flame danced around the edges of the cup before it evaporated into white smoke. She handed it back.
"Your abilities won't be half as strong as his were. It's too watered down to be as potent, but it'll be helpful enough."
"Let's get this over with." Rook took a deep breath and drank from the cup. She nearly retched after a single swallow.
"Oh, holy celestial shit!" She spat furiously before covering her nose with her left wrist and forcing herself to drink the rest in four deep gulps. She hurled the empty cup down at her feet and covered her mouth as if trying to prevent herself from being sick, but after a moment she straightened up and an inky darkness seemed to congeal behind her eyes. She smiled as the color returned to her cheeks and there came a great tearing sound as four shadow claws emerged from her bandaged hand to replace the fingers Tashigi had removed.
"Yes…" She whispered as she stared at her new hand. "In both darkness and in daylight, now I can grip a sword again."
She picked up the black katana the samurai had dropped. "Not normally my style of blade, but it will be more than adequate to execute Roronoa Zoro and his Navy cheerleader."
"You should be able to restore life to about fifty or so of these carcasses by drawing back some shadows," Callisto informed her. "We need as many as we can get."
"I… I feel them…." Rook smirked as she waved the sword above her like she was conducting a symphony and several dozen shadows returned to the bodies they had moments before abandoned.
Callisto turned to see Pawn dragging a flailing Hogback towards him with one of the chains in which he had ensnared the oafish scientist. Shu was holding the mechanical man under his boot, torturing him as he slowly rusted his iron form from spiked helmet to pointed boot. There was no sign of the parasol carrying Perona anywhere.
"Stop." She instructed Shu and walked over to stand beside the scrapheap soldier.
"This one isn't a zombie like the others?" She asked.
"No." Shu hissed. "He's some kind of contraption."
"Restore him. Now." She commanded.
Shu complied by resting his hand on the creature's back and after a moment the patches of rust had vanished from his metal limbs. His color returned to a shiny oil black, improving him beyond the condition he had been upon their arrival.
The faceless being stood up and adjusted its cloak, its clockwork joints ticking and whirring audibly from inside its mechanical chest.
"What is your name?" Callisto asked.
"I have been assigned the name Cronin." The robotic soldier responded in a deeper, smoother voice than any of them would have expected.
"Do you have free will, Cronin?" Callisto asked.
"I have the freedom to serve Gecko Moria by protecting my creator, Doctor Hogback."
Callisto turned to look at the squat figure of the Doctor sweating profusely, helplessly entangled in one of Pawn's tentacle chains.
"Doctor Hogback created you? You serve as his bodyguard?"
"I do," Cronin replied matter-of-factly.
Callisto strode over to their captive and held her hand out in front of her as if pointing at him. She clenched her fist and turned it slowly as though tightening the hatch on a submarine door. Doctor Hogback squawked as he was lifted up into the air by an invisible force, his face going blue as he fought to breathe.
"Answer my questions honestly and I won't kill you." She stated remorselessly, the green fire dancing behind her eyes momentarily before she opened her hand and he fell back to earth again.
Hogback gasped as he groveled upon the wet stones, beads of rain running down his bald head.
"What exactly is Cronin?" She knelt forward to better hear the wheezing pig of a man.
"He's a fully functioning automaton!" Hogback belched. "He runs on coal, and the hotter the furnace is within him the more powerful he becomes. At his strongest he can lift seventy times his own weight. He is impervious to pain and immune to fear."
"Is he capable of repairing himself if need be?" Callisto asked.
"He needs minimal repair," Hogback responded desperately. "His clockwork components are self-setting, magnetized by the rotation of the moon. Please, my lady…."
Hogback began to whimper as he crawled forward and begged.
"He is but a prototype. A new project of mine. I could manufacture you an entire army just like him if you desire."
"Not really." She stood back up. "How does he decide whose commands to follow?"
"He owes his allegiance to whoever will allow him the freedom to reach his full potential," Hogback stated as he attempted to meet her gaze.
"Which a prototype normally doesn't do." Callisto turned to face the Frankenstein monster of metal and heat.
"Gecko Moria is dead. I killed him. I am Callisto the Valkyrie, Queen of the Chess Piece Pirates. I'm giving you the opportunity to choose your own fate. I could use a being of your talents on my crew. Join me and you will be given the opportunity to reach the pinnacle of your potential. Remain loyal to the fallen and you can join him in death."
Cronin's metal head seemed to twitch as he considered.
"I choose to exist. I choose to impose my strength."
Callisto bent her head towards Hogback.
"Good. Then kill him."
"My lady!" Hogback wailed, straining against the chains. "You promised you wouldn't kill me!"
"I'm not." She replied simply. "I'm leaving it up to Cronin."
"Please! I can assist you!"
"Ugh," She rolled her eyes. "I'd cut your throat the first time you opened your mouth and laughed. You and Moria, the most painful laughs on the Grand Line. Future generations will thank me for ending that noise."
Cronin stepped forward and placed his hands on either side of Hogback's head without hesitating.
"Cronin! You are my creation! Think about what you're doing!" The stout man pleaded.
"I am examining the strength of my compassion. It appears you did not provide me with enough." Cronin replied emotionlessly.
"NO! NO!" Hogback wailed as his desperate pleas turned into a scream of pain as Cronin forced his head sideways until the neck snapped. Pawn recoiled his chain and the lifeless body of the Doctor collapsed onto the cobblestones like a limp fish.
"I knew I liked you," Callisto smirked at Cronin. "Now, how many prisoners does Moria have here?"
"Eighty-seven." The mechanical man replied.
"All various pirates?" She asked.
"Affirmative."
"They've likely noticed their shadows restored and they'll be capable of moving in sunlight. Release all of them from their cells. Tell them the Chess Piece Pirates are recruiting and they can either join us aboard the Grandmaster or stay here and burn. We'll have food and drink awaiting them."
Cronin snapped to attention. "It shall be done, Lady Callisto."
"Did Moria inform anyone we had arrived?"
"Negative."
"Is he expecting any Navy visitors anytime soon?"
"Negative."
"Good. Go and get those cells open then." She dismissed him. "And if you find Perona, tell her I'd love to have a chat."
Cronin clomped away unbothered by the rain, a haze of smoke still escaping the funnel of spikes atop his mechanical crown.
Shu, Pawn, and Lady Rook gathered around the soggy form of Gecko Moria. About forty or so of the bigger, stronger zombies staggered forward to stand obediently behind their new shadow master.
"Where's the samurai?" Callisto asked Rook.
"Couldn't recall that shadow, unfortunately. It's long gone." She replied with a shrug.
"Pity. That one would have been useful."
"Not if I'm the one using his blade." Lady Rook sheathed her new weapon with her new clawed shadow hand.
"Shu, until Bishop resurfaces you will hold the position in her place. You've proved your loyalty." Callisto declared.
The former marine bowed. "I am honored to serve you, my Queen."
"Now return to the ship with Pawn. Cut down our old crew and drop them in the drink. We need to prepare for the arrival of a new crew."
Shu and Pawn bowed and made their way towards the courtyard door. It took less than thirty seconds for Pawn to break it open by tearing the iron hinges off the wall and then collapsing the drawbridge.
"Rook, send a couple of your new friends to gather as much coal as they can for Cronin. Have the rest of them escort you to the docks. I believe our other friends will be arriving shortly."
"What about Rameses?" She refastened the curved knife back into her hat brim.
"I'll deal with him momentarily." Callisto licked her lips. She raised her fist into the air and Moria's body was lifted several feet above the ground and left to hover there.
"Bring out that new blade of yours…" She smirked.
Blackfoot Sanji lowered the spyglass as the pirate ship temporarily under his command, the Kraken's Fang, made for the smoking heap of charred wood that was floating lifeless upon the sea.
"It looks like the Marine Ship Rameses was imprisoned on," Etain spoke from beside him. "Guess we won't know for sure until we get there."
Sanji handed the spyglass over to his newly assigned first mate.
"It is." He stated simply. "Look at the mast."
Etain focused the telescope for a moment before her jaw fell in shock.
"What the hell? Is that…?"
"Vikander. Yes." Sanji nodded.
The Navy magistrate was suspended above the water upon the masthead like a scarecrow, a clear sign to whoever came upon the wreckage that it had once been his ship. The man appeared to have had his appendages torn off and then sewn incorrectly back together. His legs protruded from under his shoulders and his arms flopped limply from down below his knees. His head was perched atop a wooden stake sticking out of his neck and his dead eyes were being nibbled at by seagulls. A single spiked quill protruded from his torso, impaled between his ribs.
"We need to get a closer look." He instructed the foxtail pirate. "Realign the cannons and then lower two lifeboats. Be prepared for a trap. Pick four men you trust enough to leave you behind if you get impaled."
"Sparkly." Etain grimaced as she handed back the spyglass and walked towards the main deck.
Sanji looked back at the floundering wreckage. Vikander's corpse was a message. Rameses knew they'd be pursued, and he had absolutely no fear of them, be they Navy or otherwise.
He had no idea how Rameses had escaped, but he suspected it hadn't been without help, and he was hoping to uncover any clue that could help him determine where the brute was going and who else they were up against.
As he lit up a new cigarette, he took inventory of what was available to him. The Kraken's Fang was small for a warship but had more cannons and ammunition than the Straw Hat's ship had. The crew was twenty-five strong, but Ink was the only Devil Fruit wielder, and aside from Etain's eagle-eyed accuracy with a crossbow he had one fire-breather and one guy with an iron jaw who could chew through stone. The others were mostly competent with blades, but Sanji would have bet all the money on the Grand Line that he, Luffy, and Zoro together could have laid them all out without breaking a sweat.
That meant Rameses most definitely could as well.
He had no idea how he was supposed to defeat the spiked demon with only what he had available. His primary concern had been keeping his crewmates out of harm's way. It wasn't until he had succeeded in leaving them behind when he realized he was sailing into certain danger both short-staffed and injured. His shoulder wound had barely healed, and he could still feel the echoes of the blows the satyr woman had delivered him reverberating in his chest.
This time the strategy had to be different. They couldn't attempt to take him head-on like they had before. They needed to trap him, incapacitate him before he knew what was happening, and then drop him into the sea the way Marion had done to her cleaver-wielding crewmate all those years ago. That would require stealth, a foolproof plan, and absolutely no mistakes.
He prayed he had the capacity to lead this new crew across a tightrope as thin and treacherous as that.
After boarding the lifeboats he, Etain, and four men rowed towards the wreckage to better inspect what was left. The seagulls perched upon Vikander's corpse didn't pay them any attention as they passed underneath them.
"Be on the lookout for any surviving marines," Sanji instructed them as the lifeboats began to approach the debilitated ship from opposite directions.
Upon arriving close enough to smell the blackened wood of the foredeck he realized there wasn't much left to see. Most of what remained was the husk of the outer deck and random shards of flooring or furniture. There weren't any bodies to be found anywhere, living or otherwise.
Etain loaded her crossbow and trained it upon the charred debris. "This wasn't an explosion. The frame is mostly still intact. This was slow and precise. Looks like someone disabled the rudder and then set the whole ship ablaze."
Sanji peered down into the depths and noticed something reflect the sunlight from beneath the wreckage. He stood up and removed his suit jacket, tie and shoes before tossing his cigarette aside.
"I'll be right back. Don't wait more than five minutes."
"What are you…?" Etain began, but Sanji had already dove forward into the sea and began kicking his legs furiously towards the point the light had reflected from.
About thirty feet down he discovered the lifeless body of a man tangled in chains being held suspended from somewhere above.
He reached forward and turned the man's head to face him. It was Captain Iro. The man had undoubtedly been thrown overboard wrapped in the chains, but for some reason hadn't been allowed to be dragged into the darkness below. It appeared he had been intentionally tethered to the ship as it burned, likely as a morbid representation of the old sailor's expression: "The Captain always goes down with the ship."
The wreck hadn't completely sunk yet, but it wasn't going to remain floating much longer. Sanji tugged at the chains with all his might in a vain attempt to free the man and return his body to the surface, but it was no use. Iro was hopelessly ensnared, and it would have taken several men with plenty of air to collectively haul the weight of the captain and chains together.
As Sanji was about to depart he noticed the knife protruding from Iro's boot. Its gleam had been what had caught his eye from the lifeboat above. He shifted his weight and pulled the knife free, then he spotted the cut down by the man's ankle. Sanji paused and shoved his floating bangs out of the way of his eyes. The cut looked to be self-inflicted and based on the design was clearly meant to be a symbol of some kind.
A few moments later Sanji's head broke the surface and he gasped for air.
"Help him!" Etain cried out to the men as they dragged the soaking wet chef aboard one of the lifeboats.
Sanji dropped the knife on the deck and coughed as he mimed writing something on a piece of paper. "Get us back to the ship."
The captain's quarters aboard the Kraken's Fang were still adorned with warm, dark velvet curtains, candelabras. and full-length mirrors from when Etain had been acting captain. Sanji didn't care. In fact, he had already vowed to sleep in the kitchens until his tenure with this crew was over.
He sat at the head of the table wrapped in a blanket with a fresh cigarette between his lips and Etain, Ink, and their navigator, and old gray-haired seabird named Argyle gathered around.
Etain unrolled the maps while Ink squeezed his fist and dripped a fresh supply of the black liquid from the sac under his palm into the quill bottle. After he had finished Sanji began to sketch the wound Captain Iro had carved into his ankle.
"Those are the wings on Callisto's breastplate," Etain stated before he had even finished. "That bitch, I knew I didn't like her."
"I thought Callisto agreed with you at the meeting that Rameses needed to be executed." Sanji raised an eyebrow.
"She did, but it must have been either a ruse or she's changed her mind since then." Etain conceded. "She may have suggested it just to avoid suspicion later."
Ink picked up the recovered knife and stared thoughtfully at it.
"Callisto examined Rameses's cell before they set sail. She knew he was bound with chains in that water tank, and we all know who could easily have broken those chains on route."
"Shu." Sanji muttered as Ink set down the blade. "So the Chess Piece Pirate's ship catches them, Shu frees Rameses and they cripple the ship. They kill Vikander and then maybe Callisto gives Iro a chance to surrender and save his remaining crew."
"More likely she made him watch as Rameses executed them all." Etain grimaced.
"In any case, he's thrown overboard while still alive and uses his own knife to cut into his ankle as he sinks, praying in his final moments someone would find him amongst the wreckage and realize what happened." Sanji theorized. "Okay, what do we know about Callisto? What kind of Devil Fruit power does she have?"
"She doesn't." Ink stated. "My twin sister was at port a year ago and watched her deliver a bounty to Vice Admiral Stainless. He commented that no one without devil fruit abilities could have apprehended as many pirates with devil fruit powers as she had, and he implied she was hiding something. She dove into the sea, swam to the far side of his ship and with her bare hands turned it 180 degrees in the water before climbing back on deck and used the admiral's own jacket to wipe her face. The crowd parted for her after that like she was royalty. Some fear her even more than the Navy Admirals."
"So why would she betray the Navy and help the Chess Piece Pirates all of a sudden?" Sanji asked.
"Same reason Shu would I guess." Argyle shrugged. "They began paying them better."
Sanji stroked his chin. "Are you saying the Chess Piece Pirates could pay her more to keep Rameses free than the Navy could to keep him in chains? I doubt that. There has to be something more to it."
"So much has changed since Enies Lobby." Ink offered. "Allegiances have shifted. She may know something we don't. Maybe there's a war coming she thinks the Navy can't win, and this is her way of showcasing that her loyalty is now available to the highest bidder."
"Maybe it's just a small faction of Navy dissenters. Maybe Shu and Callisto are being paid off by someone higher up the ranks." Etain theorized.
"A civil war within the Navy…" Sanji murmured pensively. "I could see that developing."
He bent forward and put his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his fists.
"Let's assume Callisto and Shu are taking orders from someone else. Someone who wants to keep Rameses free. That means Rameses is just a weapon being used for a higher purpose. To cause conflict or to eliminate the opposition under the guise of a single random maniac." Sanji stated.
He stood up and tossed the blanket off his shoulders. "One thing's for sure. We can't win this on our own. We need help."
"So who do we ask?" Etain crossed her arms. "All of the Black Clover's allies have been decimated and you benched your own crew. I doubt the Navy will help unless it's on their own terms. Not even Smoker would break ranks to come help us based only on a hunch."
"I know someone…" Sanji said slowly. "But we'd need to contact her right now to have any chance of her getting here in time."
"Who's that?" Ink asked.
"Someone with a lot more ships than we have." Sanji bent down and looked at the map. "In order to use Rameses, they have to let him think he's in charge. His entire endgame has been to eliminate the Black Clovers. He failed at Russet Peak, so where would he go to finish the job?"
The three Black Clovers turned to glance at each other.
"The Port of Damocles," Etain muttered. "That was our home once. Rameses is probably eager to see what's become of it since he's been locked away."
"And if someone is secretly hoping to start a war, it would make sense to select a Navy trading post as a target." Ink added.
Sanji examined the map. "Even if that's not his target, it's a perfect place to meet with the friend I have in mind. Let's set course for there."
"The wind is with us," Argyle noted. "If Rameses made directly there, we may even catch them before they arrive."
"I'm going to contact Smoker and tell him what I found." Sanji slid his suit jacket back on. "The Navy will find the wreck eventually, but they may never recover Iro's body. He has to know what we suspect about Callisto and Shu. But before I do, let me make that long-distance call to an old friend."
Sitting atop the central tower on Thriller Bark, Callisto gazed down into the hollow stone chamber and marveled at the frozen giant Gecko Moria had been hiding from the world. He had spent so long waiting to find the perfect shadow to animate his ultimate warrior and unleash it upon the world, and now its potential would forever be wasted.
The irony was had he bothered to use any shadow at all and awoken the beast to defend the island, she likely would have never bothered to bring the Chess Piece Pirates here at all. Not that she felt they couldn't have beaten it, but it would have taken too much time and cost too many resources, and there had always been the possibility Moria would have stolen away during the fight and fled to Navy Headquarters. She doubted that on principle any of the Pirate Warlords would ever choose to run from a fight and dishonor themselves, but if there was an exception to that rule it would have been the former shadow master.
Crocodile's defeat had come as a pleasant surprise to her, as it had displayed a chink in the Navy's armor. They were not infallible in their decisions and neither were the precious, carefully selected Warlords in their strength. So much of their reputations had been built upon the terror stoked by the marines via word of mouth that it was a relief to see them eat those words for once and desperately try to vilify Monkey D Luffy in an attempt to save face.
Then barely had they recovered from that embarrassment when Enies Lobby had been destroyed, ironically, in part because of the exact same pirates who had dethroned Crocodile. Suddenly, unchecked vagabond pirates were seen as more of a threat than they ever had been before, which had finally provided her the opportunity to set her plan in motion.
A seventh Warlord replacement had not even been confirmed before the Navy was trying to salvage what they could from the catastrophe that had claimed more marine lives at once than any other single event in history. She knew she'd be able to get away with capitalizing on the chaos, perhaps even to the extent of eliminating a second Warlord, but moving forward she would have to be more cautious.
Her prey was wounded and bleeding but not quite incapacitated, and with five more potential pirate threats prepared to come to their aid if summoned, she wasn't quite ready to strike at the heart of the World Government just yet. She would need to remove at least a couple more before the High Admirals were angry enough to become reckless, and each of the remaining Warlords were each tricky in their own way. As of yet, she had no surefire way to remove any of them from the gameboard without risk of defeat or exposure.
What she did have in the meantime was Rameses and his ability to stir up the hornet's nest and leave bodies in his wake. What more could she have asked for than a pirate whose only desire was to throw himself into harm's way and kill as many perceived enemies as he could?
Vikander and Shu being selected for the task to pass sentence and transport Rameses hadn't been accidental. King had made sure they were the ones chosen for the assignment specifically with the strict instructions that Rameses be taken alive. Neither had known she was involved with the plan until after they had set sail, and by then she had already grown tired of the magistrate's pomp and bluster. He had gone off-script when he suggested the Straw Hats be taken into custody as well, no doubt looking to further pad his reputation, but their involvement had never been part of the plan, and as much as she had enjoyed singling out Nico Robin, imprisoning them would have forced her to rethink her entire strategy.
The look in his eye when he had invited her to his cabin for a private drink had been the final nail in his coffin.
She turned her head a fraction to look over at Lady Rook as she climbed the stone steps to stand beside her, looking down at the horned silhouette of Moria's lifeless beast.
"Moria's former prisoners have boarded the Grandmaster. A handful didn't get their shadows back and refused to comply, but I took care of them." She reported. "The others have arrived right on schedule."
"All of them?" Callisto raised an eyebrow.
"Well, apparently Don Krieg's ship didn't survive the momentum down the mountain as it hit the waters of the Grand Line, but I noticed a few of his men scattered amongst Kuro and Buggy's crews, so who knows… I probably would have killed the big galoot anyway. I doubt he would have been thrilled about taking orders from a couple of women."
Callisto stood and stretched. "It doesn't matter. They are all just cannon fodder. You'll lead the attack with Shu and Pawn. Make Sure Rameses is front and center. I'm taking Cronin to run an errand. I'll meet you after it's done."
"I've been eavesdropping on the Navy channels. Still no word of Bishop, and not even a hint that Iro's ship is missing. They're claiming Russet Peak was just a skirmish with Whitebeard's men." Lady Rook stated as she flexed her new clawed shadow fingers. "Have you made your final decision about the Straw Hats? I know you thought they might distract the Navy for a while, but we don't need any loose ends."
"You just want Zoro's head." Callisto gave her underling a sideways look.
"Yeah…" Lady Rook smirked and nodded without bothering to deny it.
Callisto shrugged. Her plan had relied heavily on the Navy not knowing who their enemies were and keeping the Straw Hats in play seemed a perfect way to keep them wasting their resources and spreading themselves thin. After all, those kids seemed the most obvious threat to their sovereignty being involved with both Crocodile's fall and Enies Lobby's destruction, but after her brief interaction with them, it seemed like they surprisingly had no personal vendetta against the World Government and were just as likely to aid them as they were to ignore them. Their choosing to help the Black Clover pirates against Rameses had been completely unanticipated and chances were they would be more a hindrance than a help moving forward.
"If Zoro enters your crosshairs again, kill him. If possible, I'd like to speak privately with Monkey D Luffy, but if they continue to interfere, you're right, it's safer to take them off the board."
She paused a moment to examine the sky before glancing back at Lady Rook.
"Cover your eyes."
The former bounty hunter clenched her fist and a green spear of lightning descended from the dark clouds above and blew a hole through the head of the creature below. Its skin began to shrivel and burn as fire spread inside its hollow ribcage.
"Shame we can't use it." Lady Rook lamented as she lowered her hand from her face. "I would have loved to try letting him loose across the Grand Line."
"Rameses is difficult enough to control. Your skills are better put to use on the battlefield, not playing puppet master to a being as unstable as that." Callisto responded. "Moria was a loud, pompous, bombastic fool. Everything had to be big and menacing and extravagant. The irony was for a shadow master he never once considered the option of hiding amongst them while he schemed. We won't make the same mistake."
A fiery pillar erupted from the top of the tower and blazing ash and debris began to rain down on the island on all sides. Rook pulled the silver chalice from her pocket and idly tossed it down into the flames.
"The bit you told Moria about my needing that was some quick thinking." Callisto acknowledged.
The purple-haired woman smirked. "Big man with overlarge scissors to compensate for his small intellect. I knew he'd appreciate the use of a prop. Just as you requested, we've got his head impaled on the bowsprit."
"Excellent. That'll send the message that the reign of the Warlords is coming to an end. In a few hours this entire island will be consumed by flame and then swallowed by the sea." Callisto proclaimed. "It's time we leave it in our wake."
From a distance, the single skeletal figure watched from his free-floating vessel as a few dozen ships departed from the island of Thriller Bark as it burned. He had no idea what had transpired that brought about the return of his shadow, but he didn't care. Not having to hide from the sunlight any more was an immense boost to his spirits.
As he sipped his cup of tea, he toasted good health to whoever had defeated Gecko Moria and was about to pull out his violin and play an uplifting tune when there was a thump on the deck behind him.
He turned to find a woman with a pink parasol collapsed on the wooden planks behind him. Apparently, she had ridden the winds as far as she could to escape the blaze and had finally decided she was better off on board with him than trusting herself any further to the gales and open sea.
The woman clenched her teeth and hissed as she sat up clutching at her elbow.
"Bump your funny bone?" The skeleton asked before bursting into a jolly chortle of laughter.
She ignored him. "I need to contact the Navy. Callisto the Valkyrie is planning to attack them or at the very least the Warlords. She killed Gecko Moria and burned his island."
The young woman panted for breath as she looked up with momentary confusion at the skeleton's wild head of hair.
The scrawny undead figure seemed to consider a moment. "Moria took my shadow and abandoned me to drift out here for all eternity. If what you say is true, I owe this Callisto the Valkyrie my thanks."
She stood shakily and folded up her parasol and glared at him. "I get that, but I'm not doing this to avenge Moria, I need to save my own skin. If the Navy finds out I survived her attack they are going to assume I helped her and betrayed them, but if I warn them, they keep my bounty frozen and I earn their protection."
"How honorable." The skeleton sipped his tea, his blank expression revealing nothing.
She paused to take another labored breath as she stared into the skeleton's hollow eyes.
"Yeah, you're right, I'm not honorable. I normally I wouldn't care at all, but she's going to kill a lot of people, and I know there must be someone out there you care about enough to stop her. Moria's plan was to conquer using shadows, but this woman is looking to drown us all in blood, and however much I hate the World Government I'd rather live under their rule than serve under hers. Are you going to help me or not?"
The skeleton stared at her a moment longer and then returned his cup to the saucer with a soft clack of porcelain.
"If innocent lives are at stake, then of course I will assist you." He bowed and tipped his hat. "But first may I ask you a question?"
"What?" She asked, annoyed.
"May I see your panties?"
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