The Next Shichibukai?

A Turning Point!

The news had finally gotten out and had shaken the world. The URA and the Shichibukai, Trevor, had fallen. Of course, the complete information of a Buster Call had never been released, the slaughter of thousands of URA-goers had gone unheard. However, the champion, the warrior who brought this new golden era around was 'The Kid Coyote' Mikoto. His status had been promoted and apparently there was word that an invitation to him was extended offering him the position of the man he had just defeated. It was friendly gesture of the Marines to the guy who saved them the trouble of taking down the psychopath. Of course, the offer was still pending. The captain's thought on this situation was…

"Heck no!" shouted Mikoto as he wiped another stream of sweat from his face. This Geppou technique training wasn't going as smoothly as Mikoto had thought. Then again he didn't really know what he was supposed to be doing. He assumed jumping into the air and flapping his arms counted as training, at least according to Ridley it did, but it didn't seem to be getting any results. His dad's book didn't quite help out either, while there was documentation on the Geppou technique along with Soru…frankly his dad didn't have a clue as to how people used them either. There was guesses and experimentation, but no real solid info. However, this wasn't currently the real problem Mikoto was facing. The fact was that Lily was hopefully in jail, probably the only time somebody was hopefully in jail as the only other option was Lily was dead. And Mikoto had done decided he would do something about it…Rosa wasn't having it any other way. Despite this Mikoto didn't want to accept the offer of Shichibukai status. Which meant the remaining option was…to attack the jail she was being held in.

"Mikoto!" squealed Sage as she walked up to him and whined, "think this through. Think about what our options are! We either wage war against the Marines or we have them as allies! It is obvious which choice we should pick!"

"Yup!" Mikoto said as he nodded his head vigorously. "We attack at dawn!" Mikoto barked as he jumped back into his training session, although it was already obvious to everybody else on the crew that this 'training' wasn't accomplishing anything. "Our options are either to blaze our own path or become military dogs." Mikoto paused as he thought about his choice of word. He was already halfway there to the second one, but he supposed it didn't matter. He made his choice clear. "So where is she being held?" asked Mikoto turning around and looking at the rest of the crew.

Enma was flipping through the paper. He had a feeling it was going to come to this, he was hoping to see that she and other civilians on the island of the URA were transported to some minimal security prison that they could easily break into, but no such luck. He just sighed and shrugged. Her name wasn't even in the obituaries, if it was in there this entire conversation would become moot. Of course, he wasn't going to say that he was secretly hoping to see Lily's name in that section out loud. He'd just leave it be, especially with Rosa in the room. She was beaming like a beacon though now that she knew the Infinity Pirate's next goal.

"Let's do this," she shouted, apparently all sense of danger was null and void to her when her sister's life was on the line. "We'll barge in there and we'll demand my sister back! I don't care if we have to go to hell to do it! We'll do it!" Enma felt a little annoyed that she was kind of spamming the word 'we' into her sentences. She had been a part of their crew for less than a month…and yet apparently she felt obligated to squeeze that word into every sentence…did Mikoto even ask her to join? Enma kicked back with that thought in his head until he realized something important. Did Rosa ever actually join their crew? He never heard Mikoto offer her the position…he never heard her accept it…was it possible that she was just using them? She'd use them to free her sister and then ditch them the first chance she got? Enma opened his mouth to speak and voice his concerns, but Ridley's whooping interrupted him.

"Imagine our bounties!" shouted Ridley as he kicked back and looked at the ceiling. He stopped his guitar playing for the moment to dream. "I mean I beat Karasu! Just imagine it! My bounty is probably sky-rocketing! I probably have a higher bounty than you now, Mikoto! I should be the captain in that case!" Ridley narrowed his eyes and looked at Sage, who did very little at the URA. "You, low bounty person, can be the cabin girl." Sage growled at him and resisted every urge to tell him off, more important issues than their bounties were at hands. Like their lives if they went to Impel Down or any of the other jails. She turned around and tried to reason with Mikoto, but he was already too far gone in Ridley's conversation…

"No way!" shouted Mikoto jumping on top of the table and striking a pose, "did you forget? I'm the captain and I took down Trevor!" Mikoto went over and snatch the paper from Enma's hand and rushed it over to Ridley shoving the first page in his face as it proudly contained Mikoto's face plastered on it as the man who took down the tyrant…although the Marines did manage to somehow squeeze in their how he couldn't have done it without their help. "See I'm the Shichibukai candidate! My bounty has got to be one billion!"

"Then mine's one billion and one!" shouted Ridley shoving the newspaper aside and pressing his head against Mikoto's forehead. "I'm going to have the biggest bounty of the crew!" Mikoto quickly brought his head back up and into Ridley's head and the two began shoving each other back using strictly their head, although it was obvious that with Mikoto's hard head he'd win in a matter of seconds.

"Found it," said Hiro-Shu as he looked at the newspaper and flipping it over to them. It had only taken him a matter of seconds to find it, despite Enma scouring over it several times. Hiro-Shu pointed to a small section where it mentioned a new jail that was built over the last fifty years. All of the pirates from the last generation had never even put their foot into the building. It was a shame, but it had to be built after Impel Down's reputation had been spoiled.

"Zenith Gaol," read Hiro-Shu aloud and then he immediately gave way into the explanation of the building as he remembered it from previous papers. "After we, the Blue Sea Dwellers, made friends and alliances with the Skypiea one of the first things we gave them was a jail to hold the imprisoned. Zenith Gaol was the masterpiece of them all, modeled after Impel Down, but designed in an even more terrifying process." He saw that he had the crew's undivided attention in explaining the lay-out of the building. "There's the ground level that lies flat on Island Clouds which make-up Skypiea. There's nothing special about that, however, the next few floors are the interesting pieces. They go down."

It took the crew a few seconds to register this and even after that Mikoto still didn't seem to fully understand what they were talking about that until Maria spoke up, "but you said it was in Skypiea or the clouds, going down would mean…it is in midair?"

Hiro-Shu nodded, solemnly. "That's correct," he lifted his right hand up and then placed his left hand below it. "My right hand is the clouds that the ground level of Zenith Gaol rests on. In it are probably one or two other levels, however, beneath that are two or three other levels that are hanging in the air. In other words if you were to try and escape from any of those levels you'd have about fifty stories to fall first."

"So do people jump out regularly?" asked Mikoto, "you know to escape?"

"Only an idiot would do that," said Hiro-Shu as he continued his explanation. "You see the jailers have two methods to prevent this. The first is the ship that follows beneath the jail. Its covered in spikes, so if somebody lands on it they'd die. If they land near it the Marines onboard would pick them up. The second is the monsters that fly around it."

"M-monsters?" shuddered Sage, an obvious tone of reasonable worry on her voice. Nobody else seemed to be bothered by the thought, but then again Sage was probably the most logical and clear-thinking out of them.

"Yup," pointed out Hiro-Shu. "They regularly throw meat out of their windows and that brings massive flying beasts around the island. Gryphons, sky snakes, basically the Sea Kings of the sky regularly circle the place in hopes of the food they throw out."

"And any idiot stupid enough to jump out of the building," brought Enma. The entire crew looked over at Mikoto, who had apparently grown bored with conversation and resumed his Geppou training, which included jumping up and flapping your arms trying to fly. Ridley couldn't help, but utter a laugh as he looked at his own practical joke in action. Enma sighed and shook his head, "What's the plan?"

Hiro-Shu looked over to Maria. "We'll work on it. Everybody else should just sleep and recover. I'm not sure how much time we'll have, but I promise you I'll work on getting this done." Hiro-Shu turned around and Maria went to follow, but Hiro-Shu stopped at the doorway and looked over at them. "We may not be going up against Trevor, but this place will probably be worse than even the URA. Take this time to relax…"

The crew piqued up at Hiro-Shu's words. They had no idea how to react to them, it was like he was saying that this place was hell or even worse. They managed to fight their way out of the URA, they dragged their butts all the way this far into the Grand Line and now…now they were in trouble? What was all the other crap they went through? That wasn't a walk in the park…even Mikoto had to admit that. He was still stinging all over from all of his fights. His wounds were slowly healing; they'd be fine given another week, which was probably the amount of time they had left.

Ridley stood there for a few more seconds as he fingered his guitar strings. "No worries," he sighed as he stretched back in his chair. "No worries, no problems…we're a good crew. We'll make through it together, right?" Ridley paused as he looked around. He could already tell the truth was weighing heavily down on their minds. They had seen the truth behind all of the smoke and mirrors of being a pirate. Sanada had died, Lily was captured, the old man and Abel had given up. For every one Pirate King that rose out of the fog of war…there were millions of those guys. "No need to answer," said Ridley as he strummed his guitar.

"No need for you guys to come either," Mikoto said out loud as he looked around at every in the room. "If you feel faint…worry…or fear here. I think now would be the best time and place to back out. I think of you guys as my friends first, crewmates second. I don't want to force any of you into this. I don't want any of you to die if you want to sit this one out or…or even head back home now…feel free. Starting here and out the journey is just going to get harder, scarier, and deadlier. The lifeboats are…" Mikoto's entire body was ripped from his seat. He hit the ground hard and it probably set his healing back another day or two. The entire crew was up and next to him and all of them were about to slap him, however, the man who got to him first was…Enma.

"Don't talk like that," said Enma as he shifted around, straightening out. Ordinarily he was well composed at the very least, but hearing Mikoto talking like that reminded him of when he joined the crew. It was back when Mikoto had second thoughts after his fight with Karasu, they had come a long way since then. They weren't going to handle another setback like this. "We all joined this crew of our volition. We'll leave when we're done with our dreams and we see the rest of ours through. We're friends." Enma left quietly.

Sage extended a hand down to Mikoto to help him back, apparently feeling bad about wanting to slap him. She lifted him to his own two feet quickly, Mikoto patted himself clean and was about to say thanks when he suddenly found himself back on the ground again, his other cheek now burning. Sage looked down at him, her hand fully extended from her slap. "I've been through hell and high water with you so far. I'm not turning back now. We won't die…you won't let us…and we sure as heck aren't letting you die." Sage pivoted on her heel and walked out on Mikoto who was still on the floor, dazed about being slapped around twice by two of the people he had just called his friends moments ago.

Ridley walked up to him and crouched down beside him. A smile plastered on his face. "What the heck is wrong with you? We've traveled this far. Compared to the hell we've been through…the next one will probably be worse…but we'll get through it." Ridley got up and was about to leave, but he stopped quickly, turned around and launched a swift kick to Mikoto's gut. "I'm going to have the higher bounty!" With that Ridley turned around and left.

"Do you want me to call Enma back in," asked Rosa as she crouched down next to Mikoto and looked him in the face. "Then again there's a good chance he'll slap you again."

(-at Zenith Gaol-)

The large man stood planted in the center of the small room. He was the Warden of the jail. Not a single thing happened in this prison that he didn't know about. He was constantly on watch of the entire prison. He was a Marine before he insisted on transferring on here. From there he quickly gained control of the prison and became the Head Warden. He studied the fall of Impel Down and even the construction of the other two jails that were made in response. He wanted to make sure that his prison was the best, he didn't want it to fall in the same way. As a result he had several safety precautions in place.

He had the utmost dislike for all things pirate and as a result he made sure no one in his prison had even the slightest hope of ever escaping. He made sure they knew at least that. He smiled as he had just finished his fifth check of the prison for the hour. He would do another six before it was up, but for now he could take a break while the rest of the prison guards took over the duty of examining the cells.

A male Longarm stalked outside of the cells first, behind him he dragged a long trident that bumped against each row of bricks and temporarily jumped into the air. He kept his pace going forward, he didn't care about the prisoners who were whooping in the cells around him. He found them tedious and boring charges. He yawned as he looked at one of them, his eyes examined the previous pirate captain. He used to be a famous killer upon the Blue seas, but now he was reduced to a mere shell of who he used to be. He looked upon his right hand where a small sheet of paper was held. The Longarm thought about the Vice Warden.

He had never seen the Vice Warden in person. He had seen the various notes he leaves amongst the prisoners and had read them, originally believing them to be the prisoners trying to conspire together, but he quickly realized the truth. The fact that the Vice Warden delivered them. He still didn't understand the writing on most of them, his writing was chicken-scratch as best. But still he knew well enough that when a prisoner had one it was not good news. The next day the prisoner would 'mysteriously go missing' according to the official file that was going to be submitted to the World Government, but the entire prison staff knew the truth. They were fed to the beasts that surrounded the place.

The Vice Warden considered them his 'babies' according the Head Warden, who the Longarm assumed was the only man to ever see him. The disastrous birds that circled the prison were his pets…his children. And as a result the Vice Warden apparently felt a need to feed them whatever he had a surplus of on hand. That meant the prisoners would be picked up from their cells with their screaming filling the halls in the middle of the night. Next a high-pitched whistle could be heard, then the sound of flapping would fill the air as the monsters landed near the prison, anxiously awaiting their fill. Loud cawing became a nightmare for the prisoners here. The Longarm doubted they would ever think of a bird as anything less than a terror ever again.

The Invasion Plan

I really had a hard time deciding should Mikoto be a Shichibukai or not. I mean, I actually would've preferred Mikoto to be one just cause I think that sets things up so much nicer and is a very original turn for most stories, but I believe Mikoto wouldn't do it...maybe a 30% he would...but that's still not enough for me to go against my gut instincts!

Anyways, I need some inspiration! My writing speed for this story and Iron Hammer kind of bottomed out lately. So mention something to get my blood boiling again! OCs, actual One Piece, a killer manga, something that inspires me...or just review a lot. I need some kind of motivation or inspiration get going...