Crossing

Characters: Clione, Law, Bepo, Penguin, Shachi, Heart Pirates. Rating: K. Warnings: None

"So how are we getting away from here?" Clione wondered as he finished bolting down the repairs to the Tang's roof. It needed more work before he'd confidently call it watertight but Law had decreed that it was time to go, and that they could finish those repairs on their way back to the Grand Line.

"We're sailing," Bepo told him, as if he was stupid. Well, obviously they would be going by water, but… the Sea Kings?

"Are the Kuja going to guide us back?" he asked hopefully, glancing over at the remains of the Sea King Rayleigh had battled on his way in.

"I doubt it," Shachi sighed wistfully, appearing in the doorway having evidently finished the engine checks Bepo had asked him to do – after all, there was no wind in the Calm Belt so if their engines failed on them, they really would be Sea King snacks. "Such a shame…"

Clione couldn't help but agree as he glanced over at the torn barrier depicting where Mugiwara had crossed into forbidden territory every warm-blooded male on their ship would have killed to enter, if killing would have been enough to gain entry.

"Well, they only sheltered us because of Mugiwara," Penguin pointed out, as despondent as the rest of them as he slung a commiserating arm around Shachi's shoulders. "They don't care about us at all."

"That doesn't mean we know how we're getting back," Clione pointed out. "Do we even know the way?" He immediately realised that he'd made a mistake as three pairs of eyes turned to look at him disapprovingly.

"Of course we know the way," Bepo exclaimed. "All those female humans have put fur in your brains!" Penguin and Shachi reached out to lightly cuff him around the head and he mumbled an apology to their affronted navigator, who huffed.

"That aside," Shachi muttered, "why is Captain so confident we'll get through in one piece? We're not like Rayleigh. Isn't this basically suicide?"

"Why are you grumbling?" Law asked, coming up behind them. They jumped, having thought he was still talking about things with Rayleigh.

"Don't do that, Captain!" they groused in unison, turning to face him. He smirked as he leant against the yellow external wall of the submarine's main cabin, glancing up at the patchwork repairs.

"Everything ready for us to leave?" Law inquired, ignoring their complaints. "We should be gone before Mugiwara-ya gets back." Clione suspected he didn't want to see what damage the other captain had invariably done to his injuries, and was no longer in a charitable mood towards him after the mess the rubber man had made of his infirmary.

He hadn't raised his voice, but it was the cue for the entire crew to gather in front of him, taking advantage of the fact that they were still docked to have an entire crew meeting while no-one was forced to keep an eye on their bearings.

"Bepo."

"Aye!" the Mink began, standing straight and dwarfing most of the crew in the process, the gigantic Jean Bart sitting down but still taller than the rest of them. "From here we need to bear that way-" he pointed in a direction that made no sense to anyone else, but that was Bepo's job anyway. "Our Log Pose is pretty useless now, thanks to Amazon Lily, so if we follow that we'll just end up spending another month or so in the Calm Belt before the magnetic route spits us out, and there's no guarantee it'll lead us back to the Grand Line rather than East Blue."

"But is crossing the Calm Belt at all possible without the Kuja?" Uni asked, to the agreement of many of the crew, Clione included.

"With the right ship, it's possible," Bepo told them all confidently. "It's how I got here from Zou."

"And the Tang is 'the right ship'?" Clione asked, frowning. "How? A submarine isn't going to save us from the Sea Kings."

"Of course not," Law agreed. "We won't be submerging. We'll use the Tang's engine to travel without wind, the same as when we followed the Kuja in."

"And the Sea Kings?" Ikkaku asked. "We can't fight them off the entire way. We're not monsters like the Dark King." Law chuckled.

"Did you know the Marines use the Calm Belt all the time?" he asked. Most of the crew nodded.

"Something about Vegapunk and kairoseki," Uni commented. "How does that help us?"

"Penguin and Shachi have told you all the story of how we got the Tang several times," their captain pointed out. "Work it out yourselves."

The distant screeching they'd barely registered over the sounds of repairing their ship stopped, meaning that either Mugiwara was dead, or Jimbei had successfully calmed him down and the pair of them would be soon returning to the shoreline, where Rayleigh was sitting with Mugiwara's trademark hat.

"Start the engines," Law ordered, striding over to the edge of the deck, Kikoku clutched firmly in one hand. "We've been here long enough."

Barely reassured, the crew scrambled to do as they were told. The familiar hum started up, and barring Uni – who stayed in the control room to steer – they slowly made their way back to the deck, watching their wake nervously as they headed away from Amazon Lily and the safety of the cove that had been their shelter for the past two weeks.

"Are you positive we'll be okay?" Clione asked, biting back a gulp as he thought he saw a shadow pass below the ship. It was far larger than anything he'd ever seen before that day, and he really hoped it was his imagination. Nothing like that had been anywhere in sight when they'd followed the Kujas.

"Do you want the optimistic answer or the realistic one?" Law asked him. Clione shuddered, muttering about insane captains and their equally insane crews.

"If the Marines can do it, so can we," Shachi grinned, slapping him on the back. Clione lurched forwards slightly, and caught sight of a fin breaking the surface of the water some distance away. It was easily the size of the Tang.

"How?" he asked weakly, trying and failing to not think about how the owner of that fin wouldn't even consider the entire ship a mouthful.

"Kairoseki hulls aren't World Government-exclusive," Penguin pointed out, coming up the other side of him and whistling at the sight of the Sea King, still a safe distance away, although still visible – which was more than they had been when they'd been safely tucked in the Kuja ship's shadow so 'safe' was a relative term at best. "At least, not after we stole one of their precious kairoseki-hull ships eleven years ago."

"The Tang has a kairoseki hull?" Ikkaku asked, echoed by several other crewmates in their confusion. "But Captain-"

"It's only the outer hull," Law told them. "Enough to conceal the ship, but not enough to affect devil fruit users on board. Many Marines have eaten fruits too, remember."

"Well, yeah…" Clione trailed off, still eyeing the shadows in the water dubiously. Despite Law's words, the captain hadn't stopped clenching Kikoku once since they'd entered the waters, and didn't appear inclined to change his stance any time soon.

As he watched two Sea Kings begin to duke it out on the horizon for some unknown reason, he decided that they couldn't get out of those waters and back to the safety of the Grand Line fast enough.

That was probably the first time anyone considered the Grand Line 'safety'.

Does the Polar Tang have a kairoseki hull? Who knows, but they had to navigate away from Amazon Lily somehow and I doubt the Kuja helped them, so unless Oda says otherwise I'm going with 'yes it does', especially as I think it was originally a ship designed for the World Government (and therefore theoretically Vegapunk had a hand in its design).

Thanks for reading!
Tsari