Author's Notes: I seriously didn't mean for this chapter to take so long. There was just a stream of delays, most of them real life related... including the sudden death of one of my dogs. Poor Frankenstein... I'll miss you...


Chapter 28: Rumblings of New Beginnings


Ranma took a moment to cast his eyes out across the horizon, taking in the strange vista that still surrounded them; sea-clouds beneath them, like an ocean of milk, and regular clouds gathering up above, with chunks of island-cloud drifting like icebergs.

'Two days we've been sailing, and this place is still incredible. I'm almost kind of glad we ain't reached our first sky-island yet... but not as much as those two are...'

An unthinking smile crossed his lips as he watched Miriam surging through the sea-clouds like a living speedboat, Harumi clinging to her shoulder and whooping with glee. It had taken little time for the half-fishgirl to adjust to the new medium, and it had the added benefit of keeping most of the potential nasties away.

Yes, there were bigger creatures than Miriam living in the sea-clouds, but most of their bulk was either flattened, sail-like protrusions to catch the wind, balloon-like gas bladders, or both. Miriam, in contrast, was a solid hunk of muscle, bone and teeth. Anything that tried to prey on her usually found itself swimming for its life if it was lucky, and on a one-way trip down her gullet if it wasn't.

'Gotta admit, she don't look like much of a killin' machine at the moment,' Ranma amusedly noted to himself as Miriam leapt like a dolphin, sending a great wave of sea-cloud washing out in all directions, and eliciting a shriek of delight from her boyfriend.

The Stormbringer rocked as the white pseudo-liquid slapped against its hull, Miriam chasing her own wave as she pulled up alongside the ship, allowing Harumi to wave to a figure leaning over the gunwale, watching them with rapt fascination.

"Miss Penelope, come and join me! You have to try this - it's so much fun!" The crossdressing swordsman gushed, smiling enormously, eyes shut tight as he basked in the sheer joy of his current situation.

"Oh, I wouldn't want to interrupt you," the mink began, shaking her head sadly.

"Then ride with me - Miriam's big enough for both of us, aren't you, my lady?" Harumi affectionately stroked his hand through the wotan's seafoam green locks... and it might have been Ranma's imagination, but her hair looked both better cared for and longer than it used to be...

"But I'd be far too heavy!" the mink protested, trying to sound insistent despite the longing look she was casting at the white waves.

"Oh, please - my left buttcheek probably weighs more than you do!" Miriam scoffed, before reaching up and plucking the archaeologist from the deck like a squid grabbing a crab. "Down you come, and hang on tight!"

Penelope yelped, but didn't struggle as she was affectionately dropped onto Miriam's back, throwing her arms around the wotan's neck and clinging on for dear life as she surged back out to sea.

Ranma watched them go, before the sound of splintering wood mixed with a distinctly liquid splashing made him turn his attention back to the center of the deck.

"Not bad, dearie, but you need to snap your wrist more sharply - like so!" Kodachi announced, demonstrating what she said and slicing an empty barrel cleanly in half with her whip-sword.

Nabiki nodded, eyes focused on Kodachi's arm, brow furrowed in concentration. She clutched her hand in a tightly curled, spread-fingered claw, crimson seeping from her palm and flowing in defiance of gravity to form a swirling orb of blood.

"Like this?" The vampire zoan asked, putting action to words just as Kodachi had done. As she swung her hand, the vital fluid flowed outwards to assume a form similar to a whip, the gory lash striking another barrel set up as a target and this time it scythed clean through it.

"I did it! I'll give you this; you know your whips," Nabiki chuckled, smiling proudly as she recalled the blood into its orb-like form.

"Think fast!" came the sharp command from Ukyo, even as she sent an empty liquor bottle arcing as high overhead as she could, given that the underside of the balloon was in the way.

Nabiki's head snapped up, and two fingers flicked in the direction. Faster than though, the ball of blood shaped itself into a blade-like shape and launched itself at the target like a bullet, shattering it into a spray of crimson and splintered glass.

The zoan smirked, the shadows of the balloon and the unnatural pallor of her sunscreen-caked skin making the crimson of her eye pop, adding to the eeriness of the sight.

"Make it a challenge, why don't you?" she scoffed sweetly.

"If you ask!"

An Amaguriken-fast volley of bottles came hurtling from the opposite side of the deck - and these ones were being launched directly at Nabiki! She flinched back, and then visibly steeled herself, pointing her hand in the direction of the oncoming barrage. Blood blade bullets barrelled from her palm in rapid succession, each striking a bottle and smashing it to pieces, glass shards raining onto the deck with an almost musical air.

One bottle slipped through the counter-fire, but at the very last second before it smacked squarely into Nabiki's face, she simultaneously stepped aside and swept up a hand that was now wrapped around a blade of dark crimson. The bottle split neatly into two clean halves as it sailed past her, striking the wall and shattering into powder.

"Your reflexes are certainly improving," Kodachi observed casually.

"Well, it probably helps that the Devil Fruit's doing at least half the work," Nabiki admitted, swishing her blade of blood too and fro as if testing the weight before absorbing it back into her flesh.

"Alright, you've gotten the knack for calling the blood out when you need it down. Now it's time to see just what you can really do with it," Ranma announced, sensing it was time for him to step up as 'chief sensei' in this session.

"What do you have in mind?" Nabiki asked, looking expectantly at him and summoning a baseball-sized sphere of vitae into existence once more.

"We've tested speed, now it's time we test control - make another of those blood-balls," Ranma ordered her, all business for once.

Nabiki blinked in puzzlement at the command, then furrowed her brow as she flexed still-developing mental muscles, a second sphere of gore emerging from her palm and drifting up to hang like a macabre bubble next to its predecessor.

"Good - now make two more... That's it; now four more - you got it! Now just keep doublin' and doublin' again until you can't make any more!"

Nabiki's brow furrowed in concentration, feeling a very real sense of exertion slowly creeping up on her. The first few spheres of blood had been effortless... the first few dozen? That was like she was doing one of her exercises from back in Nerima. The first few hundred? That was starting to make her sweat. And now she was up to her first few thousand...

Ukyo whistled appreciatively. "She looks like a danmaku boss come to life."

Ranma watched Nabiki's efforts with approval, smiling as a still-alien feeling of pride warmed him.

'Y'know, I never really thought I'd ever be any kind of teacher... I mean, that's for old farts like pops. And pop wasn't exactly the best teacher in the world, so what good was I supposed to be at it? S'weird how it feels... nice... to see the others getting stronger 'cause of something I helped 'em with. Hey, wait a moment...'

Brow furrowed in concerned, he nudged Ryoga gently in the ribs with his elbow, asking, "Does she look kind of pale to you?"

"How're you supposed to tell under all that sunscreen?" came the sincere reply from his rival turned first mate.

A legitimate question; since her very painful sunburn, Nabiki had taken to slathering herself with an herbal sunscreen that Shampoo had cooked up, swearing by its efficacy. The result was that the Devil Fruit-spawned vampire looked a lot paler than she had before her fateful meal.

A more observant individual might have noticed the rivers of sweat running down her face, which were starting to cut through said layer of sunscreen...

'Keep going... keep going! You can do this!' Nabiki bit her lip, focusing on the sting of her canine puncturing her flesh to try and drown out the increasingly insistent aches running through her whole body, making her limbs tremble with the effort.

Though Nabiki would have quite insistently refuted it, there was one trait she shared in common with her little sister, and also with Ranma. A trait that could be either blessing or curse, depending on the situation...

'It hurts... but I can't give in...! I didn't choke down that putrid fruit to stay the weak link in this group! I can just see the smirks on their faces if they think I'm whining because it's hard... I won't let them beat me... I WON'T!'

That trait being 'stubborn pride'.

Unfortunately, stubborn pride had its limits, and Nabiki found herself discovering she had pushed herself way past hers...

Every single one of Nabiki's blood-balls suddenly burst like a punctured water balloon, creating a localized sanguine downpour that almost - but not quite - obscured the sight of Nabiki collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Nabiki?!"

Ranma was in motion even as the last of the blood splashed across the deck, blurring across the intervening distance to Nabiki's side. The rest of the crew followed instinctively, crowding around their fallen quartermaster, before freezing in place at what they saw.

"What the hell?!"

The fallen zoan was sprawled flat on her face, having somehow transitioned from human form to her werebat "beast" form. This was weird, but not shocking. What was shocking was that she had somehow shrunk down to about twelve inches tall.

Shampoo pushed forward and delicately scooped the shrunken bat-girl up, cradling her in her hands like a precious doll as she examined her from all angles.

"She okay - just exhausted. Pulse a little weak, too, but not worry weak," came the official diagnosis from their medic.

"Then why's she so tiny?" Ukyo voiced the question on everybody's mind.

"Shampoo not know - never see anything like this before!"

"Maybe she's run out of blood?"

As one, the others turned to Lilith, who stared calmly back at them and shrugged her shoulders. "Well, it's only a guess, but she's still just a zoan, not a logia. She might have more blood than the average person can spare, but eventually she's got to top it up. I mean, I can spit way more than I used to before I ate my Devil Fruit, but eventually I need to stop and drink some water, you know?"

"Vampires in the myths are characterized by their eternal thirst for life's blood... It would make sense that Nabiki may need to feed on others to replenish or extend her own reserves of blood to manipulate," Kodachi reasoned patiently, tapping her lip as she mused over the idea.

"So, she'll be okay?" Ranma asked as he glanced nervously between Lilith, Kodachi and Nabiki's shrunken, still form as it lay cradled in Shampoo's hands.

Which chose that moment to stir, Nabiki climbing to her knees before reaching up with her wings to cradle her skull, moaning softly.

"Oh, my aching head... worse than the brainfreeze I had after I won that ice cream eating contest in Junior High..."

She pushed herself upright, wobbling slightly on unsteady legs, and Shampoo instinctively jerked her closer towards her chest, causing the vampire zoan to stumble backwards so that only her back pressing against Shampoo's breast kept her upright. That seemed to finally snap Nabiki to her senses, crimson eyes going wide as she took in the now-gigantic forms of her crewmates.

"What happened to me?! Ohh... I feel awful..."

"We think you sort of... bled yourself dry," came Ranma's hesitant response, trying not to look as guilty as he clearly felt.

"That explains the fainting... why do I look like this?" Was her response, delivered in the chilling tones that had earned her the reputation of Furinkan High's Ice Queen. Shampoo shivered as a sudden chill washed over her skin - like somebody had just pressed a mini-Nabiki-sized snowball directly against her bosom.

"I have no idea!" Ranma immediately shot back, folding his arms across his chest and shrugging.

Nabiki promptly fell flat on her face, necessitating some hasty fumbling from Shampoo to keep her from falling off.

"It could be some sort of power-save mode? Like, you don't got enough blood to stay awake at full size, so you shrink down to a point where what you have will do?" Ukyo interjected, a doubtful expression on her face.

"I don't remember Shampoo or Lilith ever doing anything like that," came the flat statement from Nabiki.

"True, but neither of their power sets revolve around manipulating something so fundamental to their anatomy as blood. In fact, combined with what Ranma-darling has said of your healing abilities, I do wonder just how close the comparisons are between your abilities and those of a standard Logia..."

Nabiki opened her mouth, preparing to rebut Kodachi's logic, but then closed it, thoughtfully stroking her chin with one thumb-claw as she considered it more fully.

"So, wait, if her problem is lack of blood, won't drinking some more change her back? I mean, she'll probably replace it eventually, but wouldn't that fix it sooner?" Came the sudden intervention of Ryoga.

Ranma nervously rubbed his neck, and Nabiki sheepishly looked away, though when her eyes flicked over to Ranma, there was a hungry gleam in them, her tongue dabbing at her lips at the memory of Ranma's blood sluicing down her throat.

"Ryoga volunteer to give blood?" Was Shampoo's dry reply, the cabbit zoan arching her eyebrow as she looked at him.

"Are you nuts?! I'm not letting her bite me!" Ryoga immediately recoiled at the very notion.

"She does need to learn how to take her own blood without losing control of her appetite at some point," Kodachi observed mildly.

"Then you do it!" He shot back immediately.

"I will be happy too... once she has her appetites under control," Kodachi regally announced, buffing her fingernails on her short and then examining them.

Ryoga glared indignantly at her. "You chicken!"

Nabiki rolled her eyes at their argument. "Gee, don't everybody volunteer at once," she squeaked, only to cover her mouth in mortification at the ridiculously cutesy high-pitched chirp.

"Shampoo be happy to collect blood for Nabiki," the Amazon purred, holding up a menacingly-large needle whose tip glinted ominously in the light.


Meanwhile...


Penelope felt like her cheeks were about to split, she was grinning so hard as she rode Miriam's back through the White Sea. The wind whipped through her hair and whistled in her ears, which flattened themselves against her scalp for protection, and all the while the spray of sea-cloud sprinkled against her fur, its indescribably sweet taste on her tongue...

"C'est incroyable!"

Harumi laughed, and Penelope swallowed nervously at the almost musical sound. "Aren't you glad we brought you out here now?"

"Oh, oui! I never imagined - !" Penelope suddenly stopped short, her gaze snapping from her human companion and out across the milky expanse through which they were being carried. She swept from the clouds beneath them to the increasingly dense cloud layer above, tail waving defensively behind her and fur bristling.

"Non! Madame Miriam, we must return to the ship! Now! Tout de suite!"

"What? But we just got out here!" Protested the wotan, even as she ceased churning through the clouds.

"There is being a thunderstorm coming - a big one! We must return, or you will being ze fried fish!"

"How do you know that, lady Penelope?"

"It is being a mink thing - zere is no time! We must go - now!" She yanked on one of Miriam's long, fin-like ears for emphasis.

"Ow! Easy with the ears! I'm going, I'm going!"

"I am sorry, but I would not be doing so if it was not being most urgent! Vite maintenant!"

Miriam grunted. "Well, if you keep slipping into Fraucen this much, it must be bad - hold on!"

"Ca va-!" The last vocal elongated itself unnaturally as Miriam exploded into action, shooting forth like a supersized torpedo and turning Penelope's apology into a yelp.

Within seconds, Miriam was clambering back aboard the Stormbringer, Penelope and Harumi sliding down her slick back to flank her, nimbly evading her tail as it flicked back and forth.

"Captain, we got a storm incoming - what the hell happened to Nabiki?!"

"A storm? Great, that's all we needed! Nabiki, are you dying?" Ranma glanced over at her as he spoke.

"Obviously not," she scoffed.

"Then you'll just have to wait! Stations, everybody! Batten down the hatches, check the rigging, you know the drill by now!"

The Kamikaze Pirates surged into action, spreading out in organized chaos; after so long on the Grand Line and the East Blue before that, they'd learned where and how to get their ship ready for approaching storms. Nabiki spread her wings and took to the air, instinctively flying up to hang upside down by her feet from one of the web of ropes crisscrossing the underside of the balloon so she could watch the chaos unfolding below her.

All around the Stormbringer, both the sea-clouds below and the increasingly thick layer of clouds above the surface of the White Sea were darkening from their previous pale milk through to ominous gray, and then to a menacing black. Rumbles of thunder became audible, even as the wind began to pick up, tugging at their clothes and hair like a thousand bored children.

"You know, I kinda thought we'd be safe from storms up here when we're actually in the clouds!" Ryoga observed as he tugged experimentally on some of the rigging.

"Hah! You wish! White Sea storms are way worse than Blue Sea storms!" scoffed Lilith, the cobra zoan having shifted to her naga-like hybrid form and twining her tail around the abbreviated mast with a death grip.

"What makes you say that?" interjected Ranma, turning to face their temporary guest with a bemused expression.

Lilith opened her mouth to speak, only to be cut off by the thunderous, crackling roar of a pillar of lightning as thick as a caravel's mast, its searing light making them all squint their eyes for protection against the blinding flash. This was nothing unusual, they'd seen plenty of such lightning bolts on the Grand Line... it was the first time they'd seen such a bolt shoot upwards however...

"Nevermind, I get the picture!"

As if a dam had been broken, lightning began to surge from the White Sea, and rain down from the clouds above it. The great bulk of the Stormbringer's temporary balloon shielded them in any case, but this seemed to be more an electrical storm than a deluge... which wasn't that much comfort, on reflection! Working with a coherence that would have been almost unthinkable in Nerima, the Kamikaze Pirates steered their ship onwards through the gauntlet, paying close attention to the glowing patches of seacloud that foretold another upward eruption.

"Cloudbergs dead ahead! And something beyond that - it looks like a giant seacloud waterfall?!" Umok roared from his fortified bunker in the crow's nest, voice booming above the wind and the thunder.

"Oh, great, that's all we needed!" came the indignant squeak from Nabiki, who had decided that dignity could go hang when she was currently easy prey for a strong gust and was currently riding out the worst of the wind by nestling as firmly down the front of Shampoo's shirt as she could get.

"Actually, that's a good thing! It means we're getting close to a sky-stream up to the White-White Sea, and that means a sky-island!" Lilith called out absently, even as she triple-checked the under-rigging.

"Which won't do us much good if we get holed by a damn thunderbolt first! Shampoo, are you sure you don't know some crazy Chinese Amazon technique for punching lightning?" Ukyo complained.

"If Shampoo knew such a move, Shampoo be using it by now!" the zoan shot back.

"But that's still something to consider later!" was the absent yet still loud interjection from Ranma.

Within minutes, the Stormbringer was entering the field of floating island clouds that surrounded the base of their ticket to the next layer of the sky-seas. Which was less of a blessing than one might have assumed, since now the lightning was flying not only from both vertical planes, but also horizontally, as cloudbergs randomly absorbed electrical charges and then explosively released them in various directions.

Fortunately, the Stormbringer was built by the giants of Shay-lot, and they built their ships tough. Which still left the hull picking up its share of smoldering scorches and sporadic craters as lightning bolts blasted its wooden hide.

"I can't believe we came all this way to die in a damn thunderstorm!" Ryoga howled in fury.

"We ain't dead yet ya pessimistic jerk!" Ranma spat in response.

"The sky-stream is almost upon us - turn right at the next fork!" Umok boomed like a watchful deity.

The timbers of the Stormbringer's hull groaned in protest as it was forced into a turn far tighter than most captains would have dared, its side scraping against one mercifully small cloud-berg and knocking it aside as it finally pushed through the obstacle course and made it into the churning... well, "headwaters" of the cloudfall... but that drifting cloud-berg struck another, one that was visibly crackling with electrical energy.

That single contact was enough for the lightning to discharge itself, boiling through the triggering cloud-berg and then hurling itself squarely at the Stormbringer. It sailed through the air at just the right height to clear the gunwale without striking the balloon, and should have blasted dramatically but harmless past... if not for one little issue.

Dyna screamed in agony as the high-intensity voltage struck her directly, the bolt practically bending to attach itself to the single greatest concentration of metal on the deck. An electronic shriek of pure pain mixed with the whistling howl of water flash-boiled within her tanks, excess steam screeching out of her vents and filling the air with vapor. Her claw snapped spasmodically, her spidery legs beating an unnatural tattoo on the deck as the energy earthed itself through her mechanical body. It was over in an instant, and yet it felt like an eternity to Dyna, whose hair stood on end and whose steely skin glowed red hot.

She crashed to the deck, the continuing scream of steam escaping from her vents undercut by the sizzling sound as superheated metal bled heat into the slowly scorching wood. Her glowing eye slowly faded into darkness, making her face seem all the more like a lifeless doll's.

"Dyna?! Ah, shit, medic! I mean, mechanic! Ah, hell..." Ranma moaned, shaking his head as he took in the fallen form of his crewmate.

"No time for that, Ranma darling - here comes the tricky part! Lilith, grab her and get her below decks - the last thing we need is for her to fall off during our ascent!" Kodachi interjected, without even looking away from where she was manning the wheel.

The cobra zoan instinctively began to slither towards the downed fembot, only to stop and turn an uncertain expression towards Ranma. "...Captain Saotome?"

"You heard the lady, snap to it!"

"Aye-aye, cutie!" Lilith actually saluted, before she giggled and slid her massive bulk across the deck. She easily picked up Dyna with only a hiss of protest as the still-hot metal sizzled against her scaly fingers before slithering into the ship's interior.

After that, there was no time to consider their downed crewmate; instead they were busy wrestling to guide their ship as it proceeded to defy gravity and sail up the pillar of sea-clouds, following it in twists and turns as it corkscrewed higher into the infinite sky...


Some time later...


"Well, we've reached the top of the upwards stream; Lilith assures me that we should reach the first sky-island soon. How is our fallen crewmate?" Kodachi asked as she poked her head into the Stormbringer's galley, where the rest of the Kamikaze Pirates had gathered around Dyna's scorched form.

"Good question. Ucchan?"

"Hey, gimme a minute, Ranchan! This is a little different to lighting a gas-powered portable stove! Okay, I think that should just about - do it!" Came the triumphant response from the half-visible chef. Steam began to pour from Dyna's vents as Ukyo crawled out of the fembot's interior and shut the access hatch behind her. Shampoo handed her a rag, and Ukyo happily wiped the grease from her face and fingers as she took a step back.

Dyna's eyelid slowly opened, her iris glowing faintly.

"Unit...online..." she buzzed, an electronic slur in her voice, doll-like features betraying a never-before-seen vulnerability.

Cheers erupted from the assembled pirates, Ranma grinning broadly as he reached out and gave Ukyo a brotherly slap on the shoulder. "Alright! Nice going, Ucchan! How are ya, Dyna? That was a pretty nasty shock you just took!"

"Ch-ch-checking systems... please hold..." Was the droning response, the gynoid's eye pulsing rapidly.

"Major systems... still operational. Error. Error. Mobility impeded. Legs nonresponsive. Arms nonresponsive. Manipulators nonresponsive. Error. Error. Error..."

"Let me see."

The Kamikaze Pirates instinctively stepped aside in response to the commanding tone in Kodachi's voice as she stepped closer to the stricken gynoid. Miriam followed close behind, leaning over to join her in studying Dyna's scorched hide.

"Hm. The problem is that I was never the most mechanically inclined, and certainly not in the more advanced aspects of cybernetics!"

It said much of how far Kodachi had come from her days as the Black Rose of Saint Hebereke that she could admit to such a failing, and so casually. As she knelt down to reopen the access hatch, she added, "But it's always a good idea to start with the most obvious issues... a short circuit, perhaps?"

"I don't know what that is, Kodachi, and I'll admit I don't have much experience in metalworking outside of when we made that engine-thing, but could it be something structural?" Miriam asked.

"Whilst welding the joints together would be possible, I doubt a singular lightning bolt could do that much damage to all of them simultaneously... Ah-hah! Here's the problem - the lubricant tank is empty! Looks like the lubricant flash-boiled and burst a feed-tube..."

"Can you fix it?" interjected Ranma.

"I believe so, darling; it's a fairly straightforward operation. We just need to purchase a new connective hose - even something made from island cloud should suffice, at least while we're here - and replace the lubricant. A simple trip to the market should suffice," Kodachi confidently proclaimed, emerging from the access port and closing it behind herself.

"Diagnostics complete. Recommendations acceptable to this unit as well," came the interjection from Dyna.

"...Do you have to talk like that, or are you just doing that because you feel like it?" Ryoga wondered, head tilted to the side as he gave the fembot a curious look.

"Data unavailable," came the immediate response.

Ranma sighed and scratched the back of his head. "Well, nothing else for it... we needed to hit the market for supplies anyway, so we'll see what we can do about fixing her when we get to this island. However long that's gonna take."

"Sky-island dead ahead! Arrival in fifteen, twenty minutes, if the wind keeps up like this!"

"Well, that was convenient," Kodachi observed without a hint of irony, even as the crew began filing back out onto the deck.

The sky-island before them had a craggy, weatherbeaten feel to it, like a storm-eroded mountain peak rendered in white. Its outline was of a crescent moon, curving "wings" of steep, sharply angled island-cloud flanking a wide, central bay, into which the Stormbringer was now sailing. Past the central beaches lay a sprawling tangle of a city, the only large body of housing that the Kamikaze Pirates could see as they approached.

Lilith surveyed the island triumphantly, smiling wistfully to herself even as she nodded. "Thunderhead Bay! A more wretched hive of scum and villainy you won't find in the White-White Sea... also, they throw some killer parties! Last time I was here, I had this threesome that was to die for... twins, they were. Didn't start out as a threesome, but they were identical, you see, and -"

"None of us want to know that!" Ranma cut her off, his cheeks blazing red, as were those of all his crewmates.

"I kind of do but at the same time I don't, you know?" A blushing Ukyo murmured to an equally appalled-yet-intrigued Kodachi, who nodded in fellow feeling.

"Anyway! Do you think we'll find what we need in the markets here?" Ranma pointedly demanded of Lilith.

The cobra zoan shrugged nonchalantly. " Well, it's not the sort of stuff I normally buy, but I'd expect so. I couldn't begin to tell you where to start looking, though..."

Ranma grimaced, then sighed in resignation. "Well, we need to at least try - we can't just leave her all stuck together like she is! Besides, can't hurt to further stock up on supplies while we wait for the Log Pose to reset..."

Murmurs of assent and a wave of agreeing nods greeted Ranma's words. With just one little note of dissension...

"If that's the case... how about fixing your quartermaster before we go ashore?" Grumbled the vampire zoan, who had least managed to switch from riding around in the valley of Shampoo's cleavage to the marginally more dignified position of doing so from atop her head.

"...You don't think you'll snap back to normal any moment now? I mean, your body does replenish blood naturally..." Was the weak response Ranma gave, clearly trying and failing to stay optimistic.

"Do I look like I've turned back to normal?!" She hissed, baring more teeth than should have fit in her mouth.

Ranma wilted in the face of Nabiki's glowing, crimson-eyed glare. "I guess we do need to hurry things along..."


Minutes later...


Glug. Glug. Glug. Glug. Glug...

"Sheesh, where do you put it all, girl?! Combined, that's probably enough blood for you to drown in!"

Nabiki ignored Ukyo's disbelieving question, resolutely swallowing the crimson fluid filling the breakfast bowl that had been appropriated as an easy way for her to ingest her recent 'donations'. She tipped up the proportionally-sized cauldron to ensure the last precious drops of vitae slipped down her throat, long tongue instinctively shooting forth to lick clean any stray remainders.

"Okay, that's a bowlful of blood from everybody on the crew - c'mon, ya gotta be feeling something now!" Ranma slapped the floor to emphasize his statement.

Nabiki lowered the bowl and looked her captain and kind-of sort-of boyfriend coolly in the eyes. She opened her mouth, ready to deliver a retort that would have doubtlessly been both cutting and pithy, only to interrupt herself with a loud, wet belch. The shrunken zoan's whole body shimmered like a bad TV reception, and then the next thing any of them knew, she was back to her original size and human form once again.

She cautiously felt herself over, then smiled in naked relief. "Phew! Okay, definitely want to avoid that happening again!"

"Well, at least you know about it now so you can avoid it... as for the rest of us... okay, who wants to go ashore?"


And so...


The answer to Ranma's question, it transpired, was "everybody". With the obvious exception of Dyna. Even Umok had deigned to descend from his crow's nest hideyhole to tag along with them.

"You've been living in the crow's nest this whole time?" A disbelieving Lilith asked, having gravitated to the imp's side as he floated along with them.

"I had seen him, but I was believing him to be a half-feral pet monkey that somebody had dressed up as a joke," confessed Penelope, who was studying Umok with equal fascination. She had reverted to the all-concealing attire she had worn when they first met her, mask and all.

"Gee, thanks," rumbled the imp, who pointedly blew a smoke-ring at Penelope. She grimaced and waved it away with a clearly disgusted air.

"The simple explanations are that I like my privacy and that I am very much not a combatant. Staying out of eyesight is generally better for my continued well-being," Umok continued, tapping the ash off of his cigar.

"Then why are you here?" Ranma couldn't resist sarcastically interjecting.

"Obviously because he couldn't take being cooped up in that ship anymore - that's why /I'm/ here with you on this pleasure jaunt," sneered Ryoga, slinging his umbrella over his shoulder.

"Just let Umok help you make sure you find your way back before nightfall," was the languid response, and the sheer nonchalance of Ranma's reaction only made Ryoga's scowl deeper.

"If it's okay with you, Captain Saotome, I'd like to get some clothes. Harumi has been a darling with the needle and thread, and I appreciate your generosity, but the hand-me-downs are a little...tight," Lilith interjected thumbs hooking themselves into her collar and tugging in a vain effort to loosen her top a little. Since she looked like she had been practically poured into her outfit, well, it didn't really achieve much.

"Yeah, sure, go right ahead," Ranma said, pointedly keeping his line of sight away from Lilith's general direction.

'I trust you girls now, but that don't mean I'm gonna pour gas on an open flame!'

"I'll go with Lilith. I need to look into updating my wardrobe anyway... see if I can get a parasol or two," Nabiki sighed loudly.

"I said it before, I'll say it again; I really think you could pull off the Gothic look now, dear..."

"If you like that style so much, why don't you wear it?!" The vampire zoan barked at Kodachi, who just smiled and shrugged in response.

"I would love to, but alas, I must accompany our darling captain to ensure we require the necessary parts to repair our fallen crewmate."

"Ukyo coming with Shampoo; we get more food," Came the nonchalant assertion from the ship's medic, the chef nodding her agreement with this plan.

"Lady Miriam and I have... plans," Harumi observed with almost diplomatic vagueness, prompting rolling eyes from everyone present except Penelope and Lilith.

"So long as you don't set the town on fire while we're still in it, I don't care what you two do on your date," Ranma rolled his shoulders as he spoke.

"Ranchan! You got no romance in your soul," scolded Ukyo, lightly smacking him in the shoulder as she did.

"Don't worry, captain; I'll keep Harumi under control," Miriam giggled, teeth flashing with intimidating brightness in the sun.

"...Somehow, it ain't him I'm worried about... So, what about you, Penelope? I'll be going to see if I can track down this lube and replacement tubing with Kodachi."

The mink tilted her head quizzically, reaching under her veil to scratch her chin. "Moi? Well... I was wondering if it would be alright for me to accompany mesdemoiselles Nabiki and Lilith?"

Ranma and the two girls she had named both looked at her with naked curiosity.

"Well, I certainly don't mind, but I didn't think you were the fashionista type," was Nabiki's reply.

"Hey, if it gets you out of that horrible getup, I'm all for it! You're too cute to be going around covered up like that!" Lilith added.

'...Wow, I think I can feel Penelope blushing from here,' Ranma marveled to himself, though he made sure to keep his mouth firmly shut. Despite accusations otherwise, he could be tactful when he had to, thank you!

"Non, non! It is not for ze clothing, it is being for ze company of Lilith!" protested the mink.

The cobra zoan practically blurred across the intervening space, hooking her arm around Penelope's and pulling her close.

"Why, you only had to say!" She laughed merrily.

The other Kamikazes could practically see the embarrassment rolling off of Penelope like waves of heat from a fire as she unhooked her arm and pointedly stepped away.

"I was not meaning to flirt!" The mink cried, ignoring Lilith's pouting protest of "What, is it my breath?" before continuing, "I was wanting to talk more about zis place and ze history of it - we have not had ze chance to really talk about ze White-White Sea, and zis is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me, non?"

"Party pooper. But okay, sure, I got a few stories to share, and we were kind of busy just keeping the ship afloat until we got here... But, if you decide you'd rather do something more fun..."

Penelope squeaked like a mouse and skipped away as Lilith playfully reached out as if about to grab her butt. From the smile on the skylander's face, it was hard to tell if she was serious in her intent or if she was just teasing the poor mink. Well, poor skunk, really.

And with nothing more to say, the motley crew of misfits and oddballs broke into their different clusters and went their separate ways.


Nabiki/Lilith/Penelope


'If there are gods, they have a strange sense of humor...' was the black thought rattling around Nabiki's subconscious at the moment.

It had nothing to do with the fact she needed a new wardrobe; whilst she was always frugal with her own money, she still relished the chance to indulge herself. Nor did it have anything to do with the fact that Kodachi's suggestion actually wasn't facetious; not only did the style's emphasis on covering up skin match very well with her new aversion to sunlight, she really /did/ look good in it. No, the thing bothering Nabiki was that, even despite her Devil Fruit-granted second puberty, which had necessitated their seeking out a clothing shop catering to... well, the more top-heavy kind of woman... Nabiki was still the flattest girl present.

"Oooh, I like this one! What do you think, girls? Is it me?"

Lilith twirled around happily, giving Nabiki and Penelope a chance to admire her newest choice of outfit, which she had changed into out of her original attire - one of Shampoo's former qipao. Her new outfit was... well, a lot less covering. The pants looked like they might have been jeans, but somebody had cut them down to a set of tight thigh-high shorts, whilst the top was basically a glorified bikini.

"You look like you'll need sunburn cream as badly as I do," was Nabiki's flat assessment, only partially fueled by jealousy.

"Oh, I don't sunburn. Skylanders are pretty tolerant of sunlight in general, but since I ate the Snake-Snake Fruit, I'm pretty much immune to the sun. I can lie on a nice flat rock under the sun at high noon and it's the nicest nap I've ever taken," came the cheerful response.

"...I hate you. From the bottom of my cold, black heart, I hate you," was Nabiki's oh-so-witty response, spoken in the flattest deadpan that she could manage. And as somebody who had shared a grade with Tatewaki Kuno since Junior High School, that was quite something.

And it rolled off of Lilith like water off of a duck's back. She just smiled seductively and moved closer to a motion that could only be more accurately described as slithering if she were actually in her hybrid form.

"I like you too. You know, if that cute captain's been neglecting you... I wouldn't mind helping you scratch the itch..."

She didn't try to touch Nabiki, and Nabiki was seventy-five percent sure she was just joking, but she still stepped away from the older woman, feeling her treacherous cheeks burning at the blatant flirtation.

"Do you ever stop?!"

"It's not my fault you girls are so cute... and so repressed," came the immediate reply, Lilith giggling and grinning in amusement at Nabiki's response.

Nabiki bit back the instinctive urge to snap back that she was not repressed, thank you very much.

'...Is this how Akane feels all the time?'

Before she could really begin to examine that rather disturbing thought, Penelope presented her with a welcome distraction by holding up a pair of elbow length women's gloves.

"Do you think that zis would be good for your new outfit, Nabiki?" the skunk-girl politely inquired.

Nabiki reached out and took them from her, an examination that was originally feigned becoming more serious as the qulity of what she was handling sank in. She experimentally tugged one glove on, and then held out her arm, fingers splayed and then flexing as she studied its look and how it felt on her skin.

"Not bad, actually! But... hey, Lilith? How do you transform clothes?"

It felt better than it should to see the flirtatious cobra zoan on the backfoot for once, her confusion written on her face.

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"Well, these gloves are far too nice to rip with claws or shred when I grow wings. But you - you were practically being squeezed in those clothes, but you turned into a giant snake and back without so much as bursting a seam! What's the secret?"

Confusion gave way on Lilith's face to understanding... and then right back to confusion as she crossed her arms under her bust and tilted her head, visibly puzzling over something.

"I... have no idea!" she finally announced.

"You what..."

"I've never really thought about it. I honestly just don't think about my clothes at all when I transform, they just do," Lilith shrugged in emphasis.

Nabiki drew in a deep lungful of air, intent on giving Lilith her most ear-blistering lecture, only to catch herself at the last moment. She exhaled slowly, tapping a finger against her lips as she examined the stray thought which had distracted her.

'Transforming clothes... by not thinking about it? That... That sounds almost like Zen... I wonder...'

She looked at her hand, but then her eye went to the price tag dangling unobtrusively from it, and even though she had the conversion rate memorized, it was still enough to make her wince.

'But I won't be experimenting with this pair!'


Shampoo/Ukyo


"Buy my fish, pretty ladies! I promise you, the best fish in the market, and at prices you can't beat!"

The merchant, grinning a broken-toothed grin, held one specimen of his wares out towards Ukyo, who recoiled with a grimace, even as Shampoo pinched her nose shut beside her. A rather justified reaction, since even if neither of them were too familiar with the intricacies of sky-sea seafood just yet, you didn't need to be a particularly skilled chef to realize that the fish covered in a glistening layer of gelatinous mucus and emitting a stink fit to burn away your nosehairs was probably best kept outside your stomach.

"Forget it!" Ukyo spat.

Shampoo nodded, nasally adding, "Shampoo not take that fish if you pay Shampoo!"

A look of apparently genuine confusion bloomed across the seafood merchant's face. "What are you saying, pretty ladies? My fish is so fresh, guaranteed!"

An explosive snort of disdainful disgust from a stall across the street distracted the two chefs turned pirates from calling the fishmonger out on his blatant lie, turning to look at a massive, muscular brute of a man.

"Pah! They're saying what your own nose should tell you, Unhygienix! Your damn fish stink! Why, I've never smelled-!"

SPLATCH!

And that was when the clearly rotten fish sailed across the street and hit him in the face so hard he nearly fell over.

"I dare you to come over here and repeat that!" shouted the enraged fishmonger, tapping defiantly on his stall as he did so.

The other merchant peeled the fish off of his face with a sickly wet slurp, revealing a thunderous expression that was no less menacing for the thick layer of mucus smeared over it.

"I'll be glad to! Here I come! I'm going to shout it down your ear - your fish stink!"

Even as he bellowed this, he charged over the street and smote the fishmonger across the face with the fish that he still had clutched in one meaty fist. The blow sent the fishmonger crashing into a pile of his own fetid goods, but he bounced to his feet with admirable speed, grabbing a fish in each hand and counter-charging.

"My fish are fresh!"

As the two men fell to brawling in the middle of the streets, a great cry came up from the surrounding crowd.

"A fight! A fight!"

"Yay, a chance to fight!"

"Fight-fight-fight let me in it!"

Within moments, a massive free-for-all brawl had erupted around the fishmonger's stall, easily two or three dozen men - and a few women - beating merry hell out of each other with rotten fish.

The only ones not either directly caught up in it or shouting encouragement from the sidelines were Ukyo and Shampoo, who were watching the scrum with equal parts confusion and appalment.

"What the hell...?" Ukyo began.

"Oh, don't worry, this happens at least once a week... people basically pay Unhygienix to stay on this street for the excuse to have fights," explained one of the stallkeepers who hadn't rushed out to join the scrummage.

"Why fishmonger sell such bad fish?"

"Oh, Unhygienix is a little..." the merchant meaningfully rapped their temple repeatedly with an index finger. "Insists on selling only fish ordered from Lutetia, which is on average a two-week journey from here, instead of fishing for local catch..."


Ranma/Kodachi


"Okay, I'll admit it, Kodachi, that was impressive - how'd you know they'd be selling hoses there?"

"Oh-hohoho! You'd be surprised what they teach you in an all-girl's school, my darling," Kodachi laughed - a softer, milder version of her usual manic cackle, covering her mouth with her hand as she did in the manner of the high-born of Japanese society. Despite her attempt at modesty, Ranma could see from the grin on her face that she was all but preening at the praise.

"So, where are we going to find lubricant? This ain't exactly a mechanized society..."

'Seriously, I've been wondering that since we got here!' Ranma privately mused to himself.

"Whilst I doubt we will find anything like the mineral-rich machine oils that were so prevalent in Japan, I'm sure we'll find something suitable. Lubricants have been in use since the Bronze Age at least; any kind of plant-based oil should suffice. The trick is finding something that should remain liquid as opposed to congealing or igniting. We could theoretically fill her lubricant tank with melted fat from our kitchen, if we didn't need to worry about it congealing inside her joints - and cleaning set fat out of machinery is the last thing we want to be doing..."

Ranma narrowed his eyes at her. "That example sounds a little too specific..."

Kodachi's cheeks turned a rosy shade of pink and she looked away from his gaze, sheepishly pressing her index fingers together. "I... may have attempted to oil my target shooting rifle with spare beef dripping pilfered from the kitchen..."

Ranma couldn't help but burst out laughing, and Kodachi shot him a wounded look.

"I was six years old!"


Ryoga/Umok


Head down, shoulders hunched, Ryoga stomped forward with a surly determination, barely looking at his surroundings. People took one look at him and collectively decided to leave him alone, ensuring his path remained clear of any human obstructions.

Floating lazily along behind him and just over his head, Umok took a deep inhale from his ever-present cigar before puffing out a series of six smoke rings.

"You do know I'm happy to lead the way..."

"Oh, shut up! I'll get where I'm going eventually!" Ryoga barked at him.

He redoubled his steps, striding as fast as he could without outright breaking into a jog or a run. He took a left, then a right, went down several intersections, two more rights, a left, up one street, down another, and then finally another right.

He looked up triumphantly... only for his face to fall as he took in the sight of the Stormbringer, its Jolly Roger flapping with what he felt was malicious jolliness in the ever-present breeze.

"...You've been at this nearly an hour now," Umok informed him, tapping a fingernail inquisitively on the crystal face of a pocket watch. "Are you sure...?"

Ryoga let out a ferocious snarl of pure frustration and Umok wisely shut up, resuming his silent vigil as the Eternally Lost Boy turned around and went back the way he came...


Nabiki/Lilith/Penelope


A party of three women roamed through the market; two very pleased with themselves, judging by the smiles on their faces, whilst the third, heavily clothed from head to toe, looked very unhappy despite her concealing garments.

"You two are being terrible! Zat poor man..." Penelope sighed and shook her head in dismay.

"Oh, please, you saw the prices he wanted! It's not our fault he couldn't handle a bit of haggling," scoffed Nabiki, whose triumphant smirk failed to even waver at the scolding.

"Besides, if you got it, flaunt it! You could too, if you didn't hide your pretty face and that gorgeous body in that overdone potato sack of yours," giggled Lilith, who nudged the disguised mink with her elbow for emphasis.

"My clothes are being practical, fashionable, and form-flattering despite their purpose!"

"They're also pointless - the simple fact you don't have wings means that you're going to stick out like a sore thumb here anyway, so why run around in your own personal oven? Besides, you're already a pirate, so the Marines are going to want to capture you and make you a slave anyway."

Penelope stopped and looked at the Mythic Zoan, her appalled stare palpable even through her veil. "Ze Navy exists to stop slavers, not work for them!"

Nabiki let out a bitter laugh, remembering a fateful encounter in the East Blue, only to blink in surprise as she realized she was being echoed by Lilith. She turned an inquisitive glance on her fellow zoan, eyebrow raised.

"Something you want to share?"

What she got in return was an uncharacteristically icy look, Lilith staring back at her in a way that was eerily reminiscent of her serpentine alter-ego.

"No."

And then she turned and pointedly walked away from the two of them, leaving Nabiki and Penelope to exchange confused looks before they had to hurry to catch up.

"I am thinking we offended her..."

Nabiki didn't get a chance to reply to that sorrowful observation. She was a little distracted when the sour-looking skylander ran right into somebody as she stormed off... somebody who was nearly as big and burly as Miriam...

Lilith bounced off the nearly four-meter-tall mass of muscles with a startled grunt, hand reaching up to cradle a tender nose accidentally crushed in the collision.

"Hey, watch it! People walking down here!" The snake-shifting skylander snapped scornfully.

'Oh, this isn't going to end well...' Nabiki lamented. Instinctively, she shifted into her hybrid form, newly clawed fingers pinpricking against her palms as she and Penelope hurried to join them.

The hulking figure turned to face her, and despite her new Devil Fruit-granted powers, Nabiki couldn't help but swallow at the sheer size of him. He was an enormous muscle-bound skylander man, his size made all the more obvious by the hexagonal pillar he was carrying over his shoulder, which was easily as tall and as wide as Nabiki and probably weighed a lot more. Strangely, the outfit he wore almost resembled a Buddhist monk from back in Japan; khaki robes and a necklace of red prayer beads easily the size of Nabiki's fist. Torn sleeves on a white undershirt revealed bulging biceps adorned with what looked like flames, their tips angled down towards his wrists.

His face - massive, square-jawed, with a scruffy sideburn-beard hybrid - was split into a toothy grin. "Oh, I'm sorry - I didn't see you down there, little lady."

Apparently, either Lilith wasn't the kind of girl to stay angry for long, or she had more of a sense of self-preservation than it first appeared, because the cobra zoan promptly adopted a more conciliatory attitude.

"No, no, I'm sorry, it was my fault - I let my temper get the best of me. Though I guess you're used to people running into you, huh, big guy?"

Nabiki and Penelope both sighed in relief as the hulking skylander guffawed with apparently sincere joy.

"Oh, it happens all the time! No harm, no foul - I'm just glad you didn't get hurt!"

"Oh, you're too kind... wait a moment, I know you from somewhere... oh, my stars, you're Mad Monk Urouge!" Lilith gasped, pointing a finger for emphasis as she stared at him with open jaws and wide eyes.

Nabiki nearly scratched herself with her own claws from facepalming too hard.

Strangely, he didn't seem at all offended by her declaration. If anything, he seemed proud, grinning harder and laughing again.

"You've heard of me, then?"

"Of course! You're the Captain of the Fallen Monk Pirates - the only skylander pirates to set sail for the Blue Seas in... well, I don't know in how long?! Not to mention, I'm a huge fan! Tell me, did you really drink the only bottle of Le Sang du Monde Perdu? The wine said to be from the Void Century?"

"I most certainly did! And I regret it immensely - no wine survives for 800 years; I was sick for a week!" Guffawed the grinning pirate.

Ignoring him, the excited zoan continued, "And who could forget how you stole a Celestial Dragon's tribute boat and used it to throw an island-wide month-long party?"

"That one's exaggerated - it was only three weeks long and it wasn't that big of an island." Was the modest response that comment elicited.

"Ohh, and this one I've always admired the most... seducing an entire nunnery from the Church of the Starborne Wyrms!" Lilith giggled with salacious glee, eyes momentarily glazing over as she contemplated scenes that neither Nabiki nor Penelope wanted to think particularly hard about.

"Ah, such pretty ladies... it wasn't as hard as you'd think, they don't technically swear vows of chastity so much as they swear to reserve themselves only for men as highborn as the Celestial Dragons..." Urouge added conversationally, likewise looking off into the distance with a fond smile of reminiscence.

"Either way, you're my hero! You're not really my type in the looks department, sadly, but..."

And without further ado, she half-jumped, half-climbed up the far taller pirate until their faces were level, kissing him loudly on the cheek before dropping nimbly back to the ground.

"Well, I'll take that as a compliment! Now... Hang on a moment, don't I know you?"

Nabiki swallowed the instinctive "oh, crap!" reaction as the hulking skylander pirate turned his attention to her, stepping past Lilith and advancing on her.

"I don't think so, Mister Urouge," she said, trying to be as diplomatic as possible.

"No, no, I have a memory for faces, and I think... yes, I do know you! You're with the Kamikaze Pirates! I met your captain!"

Nabiki's shoulders slumped as the resignation came crashing down on her like a ten-ton weight to the head, unconsciously whining, "What did Ranma do now?!"

"...What? Your captain and I got on just fine, little lady! It's rare to meet a fellow pirate with such a sense of humor to him. And I was very impressed to hear of how he won the Dead End Race - taking down Gasparde, too; that was no simple feat!"

Nabiki sighed in relief, which only made Urouge look more confused, despite his grin never once wavering. "I thought... never mind. Did you want me to pass a message on?"

Urouge simply shook his head, waving his hand for emphasis as he responded, "No, no, just surprised to see that you made it here. We don't get many pirates from the Blue Sea up here in the White-White Sea... of course, that could be because of the bounty hunters..."

"...Bounty hunters?"

But Urouge ignored Nabiki's question, continuing as if she hadn't spoken. "But then, surely pirates as strong as your crew should have no problem defending yourself against the godless dregs that inhabit places such as this! Pass on my well-wishes to your captain, would you?"

And with that he turned and walked away, humming something to himself that might have been a hymn, or might have been a bawdy ditty.

Behind him, three female pirates (well, two pirates and a temporary guide, at least) exchanged uneasy glances with each other before turning suspicious looks on the crowds around them. It was if they were seeing the dirty, bedraggled, and frankly rather thuggish men and women surrounding them for the first time.


Shampoo/Ukyo


Despite everything that Lilith had told them about dials, seeing them in reality was still quite a rush. The dial stalls were like a veritable Aladdin's cave of wonders to the two foreign girls, whose barely restrained pokings and proddings were regarded with a mixture of amusement, bemusement and disdain by the stall keepers.

"You sure you want that many water dials, miss?" One merchant asked, looking at the half-dozen shells Shampoo had placed before her.

"Shampoo sure - we sailors, we always need fresh water!" The cabbit zoan assured her, nodding eagerly.

"Alrighty, dear; that'll be six hundred million extols..."

Shampoo gawked at her, then did the brief mental calculation for the exchange rate and bodily flinched, dismay writ large upon her face.

"Nabiki not be happy with Shampoo," she sighed, even as she dug out her wallet. "You take beries?"

"Hey, like you said, we always need reliable sources of clean water," Ukyo interjected, before turning back to the merchant she was dealing with. "So, when it comes to cooking, what're the merits of heat dials vs flame dials, and vice-versa?"

As the chef debated over her purchase, Shampoo took her new dials and wandered over the next stall. As she took in the many shells - lamp dials, according to the sign - her eye fell on one small shell in particular. This one had a particularly strange look; a flat spiral, but with prongs sticking out of it around its edge that almost made it look like a stylized sun. It was glossy black in color, almost like obsidian.

"Hey, old man, what dial this one?" Shampoo asked, beckoning to the distracted stall keeper before pointing at the dial that'd caught her eye.

"That? Gotta admit, young lady, Ah don't rightly know. Ah found it in mah granny's box of treasures. 's clearly a dial, but Ah'll be dadgummed if'n Ah can figure out what it's for. Lot of dials across the sky-seas you can't get no more, or people just plumb fergot how to work - guess'n it's one of those."

Shampoo looked at the strange dial again, and then, on a whim, asked, "How much for it?"

"Eh... tell ya h'whut; gimme one million extol an' it's yers," shrugged the stallkeeper.

Shampoo took one last moment to weigh it over, but then nodded and reached for her wallet again.

"Is deal."

'Even if it is just a novelty, that is literally the price of a can of soda. Besides, perhaps there may be something in Dyna's memory, as battered as it is, that may be related to this...'


Ryoga/Umok


Six scarred, rag-clad thugs circled around the single smaller teen, grinning like sharks that just found a school of sardines.

"Okay, boy, we'll make this easy; you hand over your wallet an' anything else valuable, we'll only rough you up a little, got it?" Jeered the biggest, ugliest and most scarred of the bunch, who was clearly the leader by virtue of those same qualities.

And that was when their 'victim' exploded forward, his umbrella leaping into his hand and whirling around faster than the human eye. In one seemingly effortless motion, he struck the leader over the head and literally clubbed him into the ground, his face hitting the compressed island cloud so hard it became the epicenter of a crater six feet across.

"You should'a left me alone!"

The remaining gangbangers tried to bring their weapons - a motley collection of makeshift clubs and knives - to bear, but they were like butterflies before a storm. The stranger moved lightning, his every blow landing with the force of a thunderclap. Men twice his size went flying, smashed into the "ground" or hitting walls hard enough to crack them - and the only reason they didn't go straight through them was because their "victim" didn't feel like hitting them that hard.

Within seconds, the intended victim was the last man standing, surrounded by the groaning bodies of his would-be assailants. He paid no notice to them, instead glaring up towards the skyline... and in particular the Jolly Roger /still/ flapping jauntily there.

"And I'm still in the goddamned docks!?"

An indecipherable bellow of pure frustration spilled from his bared fangs as he swung his umbrella around wildly, the lack of anything worthy to bludgeon only fueling his rage.

Umok slowly lowered himself down from the roofline, and gingerly patted Ryoga on the shoulder.

"Come on... let's just grab something to eat, okay? I saw a takeout cart not too far from here..."

Ryoga turned a blazing gaze towards the imp, who met his stare coolly, holding it for the few seconds before the fire died, snuffed out like a candle in the wind. The Eternally Lost Boy gave a sullen nod, and began obediently following the imp away.


Ranma/Kodachi


"Hey, buddy, it ain't that I want to talk ya out of makin' a purchase, but I gotta know - you really need a tun-worth of grease? I mean, pitch, I'd understand, you Blue Seas types always need pitch..."

"It's a long story, but yeah, we need it," Ranma replied absently, his attention focused on Kodachi as she sized up the barrel of lubricating grease they had just bought, even as he unthinkingly handed over the precious berie notes to pay for it.

"Suit yourself - hey, lady, you're gonna -"

The merchant's jaw dropped as Kodachi smoothly lifted the barrel, easily over a thousand kilograms of liquid weight, up onto her shoulder and held it there. Ranma watched this display of strength and smiled proudly at how far along one of his weakest crewmates had come in her training.

"Ah... nevermind. Thank you and come again... I guess?"

And with that, the two teens left the merchant behind as they set out back into the streets of Thunderhead Bay.

"I told you we'd find what we needed, Ranma darling!" Kodachi proudly announced, the grease sloshing dully with every step she took.

"Yeah, I'm glad you came with me - I'd have been lost looking for this stuff on my own," Ranma admitted.

"Oh-hohohoho! But I'm sure you would have adapted and overcome in the end - that is one of the many things I do admire about you, my love; your uncanny ability to triumph in the face of adversity! ...Darling? Whatever are you looking at?"

Ranma had looked away from Kodachi's gushing praise with embarrassment, only for his wandering gaze to fall on something that actually had successfully distracted him from her. It was a noticeboard, the kind of thing he saw in every town or village they'd visited since arriving in this crazy world. More accurately, it was what was /on/ the noticeboard that drew his attention...

He didn't even realize he was walking forward until he reached over and tore the bounty poster from the board. A bounty depicting a very familiar face.

"Have they issued a new bounty for us already...? No, that's for Lilith?"

Ranma nodded and mumbled something affirmative, eyes still fixed on the image of Lilith with the legend "Wanted: Alive Only" and the price-tag for thirty-seven million, three hundred thousand beries printed below it. As unexpected as that was, there was something else bothering Ranma about it.

'I mean, yeah, I'd expect the pervert responsible for this to try an' focus on her boobs, she ain't exactly lacking there, but look at her face. She don't look sinister... she looks *scared*...'

Before Ranma could really follow that train of thought, Kodachi's voice dragged him back to reality, making him shift his attention back to her.

"So our guide has some skeletons in her closet. Are you truly surprised, darling? She admitted to having crossed paths with Shiki before we did, and surely even he would balk at kidnapping the innocent..."

"No, I ain't really surprised... but that don't mean I'm not gonna demand an explanation when we all get back to the ship," Ranma replied, folding up the bounty and tucking it inside his shirt.

"But of course, that is only logical," Kodachi nodded sagely at Ranma's choice of actions, only to let out a girlish yelp of shock as a sudden uproar swept over the crowd around them.

"Fire! Fire! Get some water! Fire!"

As the people around them yelled and shouted, scattering in various directions, the startled pirates looked over in the direction the first panicked voice had come from. To their surprise, they could see smoke billowing into the skyline, and even sporadic tongues of flame.

"We gotta help!" Ranma reacted without even thinking - but before he could spring off towards the fire, Kodachi reached out and snagged him by the arm.

"That would be unwise, darling!"

He turned to her, his feelings of betrayal written on his face. "How can you say that? People could be in trouble!"

"That direction - that's where Harumi and Miriam headed after we parted ways, remember?"

Ranma's face flickered through a series of expressions as he processed that information. Kodachi made out confusion, contemplation, realization, embarrassment, and anger before he finally settled on resignation.

"Seriously? I expected better of those two, out of all of us..."

"Now, dear, it may be something entirely different. They may have nothing to do with this at all," Kodachi soothed him.

"Hey! Those two there - they're part of the same pirate crew what started the fire!"

Ranma bit back the instinctive bitter laugh, whilst Kodachi's face twisted as if she'd bitten into a sweet candy only to find it'd been swapped out at the last moment for a peeled lemon. A trick Genma had pulled on him at least three times on the trip to Jusenkyo. The first time he'd tried it /after/ Jusenkyo, Ranma had made a very spirited attempt to take that lemon and stuff it into a particularly uncomfortable crevice of his father's body, after which Genma had given up on what had once been one of his favorite tricks to pester Ranma with relative subtlety.

"...I wish to have words with our erstwhile crewmates," Kodachi announced, her casual tone belied by the icy sharpness of her words and the look in her eye that Ranma knew from personal experience promised a great deal of pain for whatever fool had dared to provoke the Black Rose's wrath.

"But for now... Black Bloom Blizzard!"

With the kind of lazy ease that only came after rigorous practice, Kodachi snatched her sword from her side and extended its blade into its whip shape, twirling it vigorously in a spiral that sent a blinding cloud of black rose petals whistling madly through the air. Anyone who was even looking in their direction cursed and cried, clutching at their faces or shaking their heads in an effort to clear their vision.

And by the time the air was clear, the two teenage pirates were long gone...


Minutes later...


"There's the ship!" Ranma instinctively cried out as he and Kodachi sped across the rooftops, leaping from building to building as if they were running over the streets below.

"And it seems to be okay!" A relieved Kodachi added, huffing rhythmically as the burden of carrying her load at such high speed over such a distance began to wear on her. Though she fought on valiantly, her steadily reddening features and the rivers of sweat starting to run down her brow made it obvious that even with her training, her stamina was being pushed to its limit. Raw strength wasn't her forte, unlike Shampoo or even Ukyo.

In blurs of motion, they descended onto the docks, bouncing around like fleas on a hot skillet until they had sailed up the hull of the Stormbringer and onto its deck. Kodachi dropped the tun of grease with a loud thud and then collapsed to her knees, groaning in relief, whilst Ranma instinctively snapped into the now slightly less uncanny role of acting captain, head twisting around as he took stock of the situation.

"Everybody alright?!" he cried without thinking about it.

"What the hell's your problem?" Ryoga demanded, looking up from where he had been playing cards with Umok in the shade.

Before Ranma could respond, Shampoo's voice suddenly rang out from behind him in relieved tones, the cabbit zoan having combined her lapine leaping ability with her feline stealth to arrive without Ranma realizing it.

"Airen! Kodachi! You both okay!"

Ranma turned instinctively to face her, giving him the perfect view of a red-faced Ukyo joining him, puffing slightly from the effort of moving so fast and expression thunderous.

"Wait up, ya long-eared varmint! Oh, Ranchan! You're alright!"

"Ucchan, Shamps, it's good to see you! Where are the others?"

"We're up here!" Came the voice from above, and everybody's heads tilted upwards to take in the sight of Nabiki descending from the sky in her werebat form. Her huge wings beat against the air with lazy flaps, seemingly unbothered by the weight of the two young women clinging desperately to her prehensile foot-claws as well as their assorted clothing.

She placed Penelope and Lilith's feet on the deck before releasing them, descending to stand between them and Ranma with a deft flurry, her half-human form melting back into the semblance of the girl she had once been.

"So, somebody care to explain why the whole city seemed to decide we were firebugs?" Nabiki asked dryly, fixing Ranma with a cold, cutting stare.

"Hey, it wasn't me!" Ranma snapped back, metaphorical hackles bristling as he added, "Why would you think I'm responsible, anyway?!"

"Because based on past experiences, it was either you or Ryoga, and chaos of that kind tends to follow you around," Nabiki shrugged as she spoke.

"I... okay, yeah, that's fair. But it wasn't me this time!"

"Then who was it?"

The whole ship shuddered, everybody having to brace themselves from the impact as Miriam suddenly leapt onto the deck, the shockwave rolling through the toughened wood. The sound of her panting echoed off of the balloon as she carefully dropped Harumi from where she had been cradling him before slowly pushing herself back to her feet. Wisps of smoke drifted from blackened spots on her skin, whilst Harumi's dress was torn and splattered with filth. Neither looked particularly happy, but both flinched at the look on Ranma's face as he whirled angrily to face them.

"What the hell happened out there, Miriam?! Of all the crazies on this crew, you were the last one I expected to set the place on fire!"

'...I've been the shortest person on the island my whole life, but I've never been made to feel small by somebody smaller'n me...' Miriam noted with some dark, bitter amusement.

"It wasn't her, Captain Saotome, it was me," Harumi interjected, stepping forward and visibly interposing himself between his captain and his girlfriend.

"You?" An incredulous Ranma echoed, staring at the crossdressing swordsman as if he'd sprouted a second head.

"Don't you dare try to take the blame for this! Captain, I'm the one who started everything; if I hadn't thrown that drunkard pyromaniac clown into the bar's beer cellar by mistake..." Miriam declared, holding her hand in front of Harumi in a makeshift shield.

"You only had to do that because I got so careless when I was fighting those three nuns whose drinks I spilled..." Protested the crossdressing swordsman, who pushed his way around the intruding limb.

Miriam scowled, clearly about to protest, only to visibly cut herself off, a puzzled expression washing over her features. "Wait, was that before or after the bar was invaded by a flock of angry geese?"

Now it was Harumi's turn to look baffled, and he scratched his head before uncertainly replying, "Um... I think before? The geese definitely didn't get loose until that one asshole stuck his hand up my skirt and then screamed about it..."

"Okay, okay, enough !I don't wanna know any more!" Ranma hollered at the top of his lungs, waving his hands in dismay.

"You poor dears were obviously provoked," Kodachi sighed sympathetically.

Sighing, Ranma turned his back on the clearly embarrassed couple and refocused his attention on Lilith. "Can we set sail now? I don't think we're gonna be too popular here..."

"Oh, Thunderhead Bay gets set on fire at least once a week. Well, they /try/ to set it on fire, anyway. It doesn't really do any damage - it's all built from cloud-stuff! Tends to just smoulder... honestly, they'll probably be more impressed than anything," the skylander dismissively waved her hand at the idea.

"...Somehow, I don't buy that, but even if that is true, I know for a fact that this island is crawling with bounty hunters! An' speaking of bounty hunters... when were you gonna tell us that you had a price on your head?!" Ranma demanded, pointing an accusatory finger at Lilith.

She stared at him, visibly confused, before laughing. "Sneh-hahahaha! I don't have a bounty - I'm not a pirate!"

"Then what's this?" Ranma brandished the bounty poster he had taken with a vicious flourish.

She glanced at it, and was about to dismiss it, only to suddenly stop. Her usual grin faded away, pupils shrinking as she focused on her replicated face. In an impressive burst of speed, she darted forward and snatched the bounty sheet from Ranma's hands. She held it tightly before herself, the taut-stretched paper rustling in her trembling grip.

"No... no! No-no-NO! Kubera, you sniveling, twisted, scheming, vicious, flat-chested, little BITCH!"

Baring serpentine fangs in a vicious, open-mouthed snarl, she tore the bounty poster apart, ripping it into ever smaller pieces, spewing profanities as noxious green venom dribbled down her chin and left sizzling, smoking puddles on the deck. When the sheet was so much confetti, she threw back her head and screamed, a verbal outpouring of hate and despair that left the Kamikaze Pirates collectively wincing.

And then, as suddenly as the outburst had begun, it was over. She wiped the toxic froth from her lips and smiled sweetly at Ranma, shifting her stance to emphasize her abundant curves.

"Oh, that's just a silly little disagreement between me and an... old girlfriend. I'm sure nothing will come of it."

"Thirty-seven million isn't exactly chump change," Nabiki dryly asserted.

Lilith's grin twitched, a slightly manic gleam in her eyes, but otherwise gave no sign she'd even heard Nabiki's commentary. "Anyway, I'm afraid the Log Pose won't have reset until tomorrow morning, so we're stuck here for the night."

"Terrific..." Ranma sighed in resignation.

"If you'll excuse me, captain, I'm feeling rather tired - I'm going to my room to lie down..."

Lilith didn't even wait for Ranma to reply, instead turning and striding off as fast as she could go without actually looking like she was running. The eyes of her temporary crewmates followed her as she went, silently judging.

"That woman ain't tellin' us the whole story."

"Ukyo have remarkable talent for stating obvious."

"Well, Ranma? What are you going to do about this?"

Now everybody turned to look with confusion at Ryoga, who was standing defiantly, arms crossed and challenge in his gaze as he stared back at Ranma.

"Why would I do anything? So she's got a bounty, so what? She's not officially part of the crew, she's been nothing but helpful to us, and she's our only guide in the sky-seas. Besides, it's not like we didn't have bounty hunters and marines coming after us anyway." Ranma shrugged nonchalantly once he'd spoken, clearly dismissing Ryoga's concerns.

"What if she's dangerous?!" His rival turned first-mate snapped back.

"We're all dangerous, Porchetta, so what?" Ranma lazily shot back.

"That's not the point, and you - Porchetta?" Ryoga interrupted himself, the confusion on his face mirrored by the other pirates. Unnoticed by everyone else, even Lilith had stopped and turned back to hear Ranma's explanation.

"Well, I need something to call you now you don't turn into P-chan anymore. So I figured Porchetta - it sounds like a girl's name, it starts with a P, and it's a kind of fancy bacon," Ranma grinned mockingly as he finished his explanation, the smile wilting at the cool looks he got from everybody else once he was done.

"Ranma, darling, I love you, but that insult is just plain terrible." Kodachi sighed and shook her head in dismay.

Ranma pouted and hung his head. "Alright, fine, I'll think of something else. The point is, we got no reason to be afraid of Lilith, so leave her alone; we all got skeletons in our closets."

"Suit yourself! But when you wake up inside her gullet, don't come crying to me! OW!" Ryoga yelped as a belaying pin flew through the air and bounced off his skull.

"I am not a cannibal!" Came the indignant screech from Lilith, who stuck up her nose with a haughty "hmph!" of dismissal and stormed into the galley, slamming the door behind herself.

Ranma smirked at Ryoga, who scowled and rubbed his head, before shaking his head and sighing. "Anyway, if we gotta hang around here, we don't gotta make it easy for 'em - let's weigh anchor and move this ship out to deeper water. They want to come for our heads, they can work for it..."


Midnight that night...


'Just because I'm a bat zoan doesn't mean I always want to take the night watch!'

Nabiki huffed irritably to herself as she leaned over the gunwale. She knew it was sensible, but still, it was the principle of the thing! Though as she took in the incredible sight of the crescent moon reflecting in the shimmering sea-clouds, which rippled hypnotically under a gentle breeze that whispered through her hair, she couldn't help but smile.

'As crazy and dangerous as this world gets... it's still beautiful too. Maybe I should show this to Ranma one night... a little tsukimi wouldn't be a bad date...'

Her smile deepened at the idea, only for it to vanish like the morning dew as something caught her attention. Her long, elfin ears twitched as she registered the soft splashing of oars sliding into sea-clouds. Peering down, she watched as a small boat rowed its way towards the Stormbringer, crewed by three figures in battered, much-stained clothes. A tall, scrawny, beanpole of a man with a face that reminded Nabiki of a spaniel that'd just been kicked; a curvaceous woman whose dull eyes gave the zoan the impression that she probably had more boobs than brains, and, at the prow of the boat, a short, pugnacious heavily scarred little man so squat and gnarly with muscles that the impression was of a severed giant's hand that had somehow learned to walk around on its own in search of somebody to punch.

"Can't you idiots do that more quietly?!" hissed the squat little thug.

"I don't see you taking a turn at this shit!" harshly whispered the woman.

"Shaddap before you give us away!" loudly breathed the third.

Nabiki watched patiently and with no small amusement as they pulled up alongside the ship. The little man, evidently their leader, pulled out a grappling hook and cast it high into the air. She was almost surprised when, instead of falling straight back down and hitting him in the head, it actually sank its barbed tines into the gunwale right by her hand. The little bounty hunter gave the rope a few tugs, and then busily scurried his way up the rope with all the speed and awkward efficiency of a fat-bellied spider.

He was so focused on his mission that he didn't even realize he had an audience until he was practically nose to nose with Nabiki. She could /hear/ his heartbeat start to race, and it sounded like sweet music in her ears. She grinned at him, a slight prickling in her gums as her fangs sharpened in anticipation.

"Boy, did you pick the wrong ship!" She cheerfully chirped.

His eyes bulged and he opened his mouth - but Nabiki wasn't interested in playing around anymore. Her fingers wrapped around his throat with a vicelike grip before she lifted him into the air as effortlessly as plucking a dandelion. He clawed desperately at her wrist as she leaned over the gunwale, grinning down at his panicking partners, before she hurled him back down like a human ball.

He hit the boat in a thunderous crash, the wooden frame shattering into pieces and pitching all three bounty-hunters into the milky morass of sea-clouds. Nabiki watched them flounder and yell, and grinned viciously.

"You couldn't catch a cold, much less the Kamikaze Pirates!" She mockingly shouted down at them

And that was when the bullet struck her in the eye.


Ranma literally leapt out of his bed in shock as a sudden, horrific screech echoed through the Stormbringer's halls, tripping over his own bedding and faceplanting right onto

the floor.

"What the hell?! Oh, gods, Nabiki!"


Nabiki staggered back, hands clasped over her face. She could feel her Devil Fruit-altered anatomy surging to life, something that was less panic-alleviating than one might expect. There were no words to describe the feeling of her skull piecing itself back together, skin and meat and sinew weaving itself back over the crater where her eye had been, jellied eyeball recohering and reinflating inside its socket.

For terrifying seconds, she was blind, before the pain vanished. Nervously, she moved her fingers and then cautiously opened first one eye and then the second, sighing in relief as she realized she could see out of both of them. Then what she was seeing registered and she bared her many fangs in a vicious grin straight out of a nightmare.

What had once been a beautiful vista was now choked with a veritable armada of bounty hunters, who had seemingly commandeered every small floating vessel to be had in Thunderhead Bay. There were rowboats and small sailboats, fishing boats, cargo tugs, what Nabiki could only describe as motorboats with dials for engines, rafts - she even saw one particularly brave or stupid bounty hunter sailing a stolen door with a boat oar. Men and women closed on the Stormbringer as fast as they could, brandishing a dizzying array of swords, knives, pistols, rifles, boathooks, nets and even a smattering of torches and pitchforks.

Nabiki had yet to be really trained in projecting ki, or manipulating her battle aura. Even Ranma and Ryoga were still fumbling their way towards higher understanding of those fields of martial arts, and as such neither felt qualified to begin teaching it yet. But Nabiki had a certain natural talent (one of the reasons why the Saotome/Tendo marriage pact was a thing, after all), a lifetime's experience in channeling her rage so that it burned cold rather than hot, and right now was about as pissed off as a bull elephant in musth when the nearest female was over the next horizon.

The end result was that as the rest of the Kamikaze Pirates (and also Lilith) came stampeding onto the deck, they were greeted by the sight of Nabiki looming ominously over the gunwale, a billowing cloud of writhing shadows creeping across her skin and tracing patterns of hoarfrost on the deck where she stood. This frigid battle aura wreathed her like a cloak as she spread arms that had become wings, crimson eyes burning like hellfire in its embrace before she exploded out over the side.

"Which of you fucking little pissants shot me in the eye?!"

A volley of gunfire greeted her challenging screech, but she dove through it, twisting and turning as if she had been flying her entire life; the few lucky bullets that struck her might as well have been spitballs for all the damage they did, her flesh reknitting itself almost as quickly as it was torn. She struck the first boat like a thunderbolt from heaven, twisting around in mid-flight to perform a diving kick that shattered it into pieces before she launched back into the sky.

But even as fast as she was, Nabiki couldn't be everywhere at once, and the various scum choking the seas around them evidently were either too greedy or too stupid to flee at the sight of a Mythic Zoan picking off ships one after the other. The bounty hunters abandoned their efforts to fire at her and instead charged for the Stormbringer, their sheer numbers ensuring that they crashed against its hull like a tidal wave of unwashed flesh and began scaling its sides to pour onto the deck.

Of course, that meant they had to deal with the rest of the Kamikaze Pirates, who were ready and waiting for their arrival...


"There he is, that's the captain, he's the big bounty!"

Two or three dozen bounty hunters charged at Ranma, who took in their complete lack of any semblance of strategy or martial form with contemptuous indifference. He simply crossed his arms and waited, and then, as the first clubs and swords descended towards his seemingly vulnerable flesh, he moved...

His would-be captors might as well have been standing still as Ranma surged into motion, hands and feet flying with unearthly speed and uncanny accuracy into vulnerable spots. Groin, spleen, liver, esophagus, middle of the chest, lower face, upper face; his style was called "Anything Goes" for a reason, after all, and in this situation Ranma felt no shame about using such moves. If anything, he took pride in how he was able to control himself so that his blows were merely agonizingly painful rather than maiming or fatal.

To an outside observer, Ranma simply seemed to blur from the center of the cluster to its exterior, before the men who had attacked him collapsed unconscious on the deck. Ranma looked at the dozens more who had paused in their efforts to sweep onto the Stormbringer's deck, and gave them a darkly cocky grin.

"Alright, here I am - what are you gonna do about it?"

His grin widened as the bounty hunters visibly and collectively flinched... and then fell as they suddenly rallied with a roar and resumed charging towards him.

"Wow, you guys are slow learners, ain'tcha?"


"Get the girly-boy, the one who fights with an umbrella!"

Ryoga's head whipped around in confusion. "Huh?! You mean me!?"

Men swarmed towards Ryoga, waving weapons and bellowing in excited anticipation. The Eternally Lost Boy scowled thunderously, gripping the shaft of his umbrella in both hands before swinging it around in a new move he had been working on. The force of his blow displaced the air, creating a concussive gust of wind that struck the amassed bounty hunters like an ethereal cannonball, literally blasting them apart like bowling pins and even carrying many of them over the gunwale and into the sea-clouds below.

"I am one hundred percent MAN!" He roared defiantly at his would-be assailants.

"Unless you've been splashed with cold water!" Ranma cheekily interjected.

Ryoga turned a thunderous scowl towards his hated rival, only to blink as he watched his nominal captain merrily bouncing on the heads of bounty-hunters like some demented flea.

'He looks like that guy from the video game arcades, the one who wore red and blue. What was his name again?'

A bounty hunter came charging towards Ryoga, who smashed him across the face with his umbrella without even looking at him.

'I know it was some western name with an M... Miguel? Mickey? Mikey? Ugh, no, that's not it!'

Despite everything they had seen, greed trumped prudence and more bounty hunters charged Ryoga, howling their bloodlust as they came.

'Damn it, that's going to be bugging me all night!' Ryoga mentally lamented, even as he absently cracked skulls and broke ribs with vicious blows from his umbrella.


"C'mon, scumbags! I aint got all night!" Ukyo shouted, hurling a flurry of spatulas like throwing knives that left men staggering back, crying and wailing as they clutched the bleeding wounds where the unusual projectiles had embedded themselves. Those who evaded this attack and continued to advance found themselves smashed flat with deft blows from her iconic battle spatula.

"Ukyo no using fancy new fire technique?" Shampoo observed, having assumed her hybrid form and lashing out with a high-speed volley of kicks so fierce that they launched bullets of wind, whittling through a crowd of would-be hunters like a machine gun.

"On our ship? With that balloon hanging overhead?" Came the incredulous response, Ukyo taking a moment to point upwards for emphasis before adjusting her a grip on her battle spatula and hammering a man flat to the deck with an overhead strike, before scooping him up and launching him like a human cannonball to knock half a dozen men or more clear over the side.

"Shampoo stand corrected," the Chinese zoan conceded, backflipping nimbly away from a wild sword-slash and into a handstand that allowed her to deliver a double-footed kick straight to her assailant's chest. He took easily twenty men with him before they sailed out over the gunwale and into the sea-clouds below.


"Insolent wretches! You dare to bead the Black Rose on her own ship!? Suffer for your affront!"

Blooming Garden wove an intricate knot of razor-edged shards, its manifold edges glinting almost hypnotically in the light of the moon as Kodachi vented her spleen with scything twirls that split clothes and flesh with equal aplomb. Those who somehow found their way through the tangle through sheer dumb luck or perhaps some modicum of skill regretted it as Kodachi fired near-point blank at them with a pistol in her free hand.

"This chick's a lunatic!" Howled one thug, clutching the gash a stray bullet had dug in his bicep.

"I am not crazy!"

Kodachi's vengeful shriek cut above the chaos of the battle, her whip-sword snapping back into its solid form before she skimmed across the deck to attack the fool who had so dared to sully her name, crossing the intervening distance in the blink of an eye.

"Thousand Swords!"

Blooming Garden flashed to life in Kodachi's modified version of her famous "Thousand Clubs" technique from the life she had left behind. Her blade seemed to split into a thousand different swords, coming at her victim from all angles, leaving the thug with no idea where to even begin defending himself.

Between one blink of an eye and the next, he collapsed to the deck, naked save for the gore spilling from hundreds of bleeding wounds that traced from his head to his feet. Kodachi hunkered over him, not even breathing hard, eyes gleaming in the moon and a cruel, feral grin on her lips.

"Who shall be next to fall to the thorns of the Black Rose?! Come, I thirst for your blood!"


"...I thought I was supposed to be the vampire," Nabiki giggled to herself as she heard Kodachi's latest proclamation, watching as grown men who easily had to outweigh the gymnast three or fourfold cowered before her.

"Mmmph? Mmph mmmpr mpphhhh!"

"Hm?" Nabiki looked back at the man she was holding off the deck as if he were a bag of shopping, one taloned hand wrapped around his face in a crushing grip.

"Oh, that's my Devil Fruit! What, did you think I was a fruit bat?" She asked playfully, grinning sweetly and letting him get a very good look at her teeth.

A muffled scream and what sounded like pleading spilled from her would-be assailant. Nabiki's stomach growled and she licked her lips unconsciously as she became more aware of the sweet, sweet smell of blood drifting on the wind, panicked tears dripping onto her fingers in response.

'Down, girl! Don't lose control - don't lose control!'

She refocused her attention on the thug, and then recoiled as the smell of stale sweat and harsh liquor was joined by the distinct acidity of urine.

"Yech! Don't you have any dignity?!"

Her arm snapped to the side, her victim's shriek dopplering as he sailed far out over the sea-clouds and came crashing down. Nabiki's admiration of her feat of strength was brought to a sharp end as somebody shot at her - she dodged at the last moment, but the bullet tore open her cheek in her distracted state.

She turned an icy stare on her would-be assailant. "Now look what you did!"

The man went pale as her wound literally unmade itself, torn flesh knitting together and sealing without even a hint of scar tissue.

"Not only are you making it really hard to stick to my diet, but do you know what Ranma will do to me when he hears what just happened?!"

One instant she was still, the next instant she was in the man's face, her claw sweeping around and clutching the back of his head before smashing him face-first into he deck.

"He's going to force me to work on my reflex training, that's what!"

She blurred into motion again, swept-kicked another would-be shooter and punched him off the ship whilst he was in midair, then blurred across the deck into a palm-thrust to do the same to another.

"Seriously, you have no idea what training under him is like! He's insane!"


The clash of sword on sword gave way to a chorus of pained shrieks and gurgles as the losers fell to the deck, clutching at bleeding wounds or unconscious from hilt-strikes to vulnerable spots.

Harumi flicked the blood from his swords with deft ease and shook his head mournfully. "If you fall to the likes of me, then your training is sorely lacking."

A sudden prickling on the skin and a blur of motion in the corner of his eye brought him into a defensive motion painstakingly taught to him by Ranma and Kodachi. His blades snapped up in a perfect crossed parry, catching a spherical projectile... which burst in a shower of liquid, splashing all over the crossdressing swordsman. Harumi gagged at the sudden harsh aroma that assaulted his nose, the reek of harsh, crudely refined liquor burning his nostrils.

"Oh! Ugh, that's nasty!" He wailed, trying to wipe his face with a relatively dry strip of his dress.

"Ahahahaha haaaahaha-UUUUURP! 'Scuse me..."

Harumi went pale, head snapping in the direction of that voice. His shoulders slumped and his face fell. "Oh, not you again..."

Shambling towards him was a clown. Big shoes flopped loudly on the deck, black, orange and red jester's motley stained with spilled booze, vomit and charred patches. Under a painted white-and-black face with a wide-eyed, happy grin leered a cruel sneer, eyes fixed with manic intensity on Harumi.

"Hey, kid! It's Uncle Charlie! I tol'ja that I'd be back fer ya! Ya think I was gonna let ya just get away wit' burnin' down th' Pink Lady? That was Uncle Charlie's fav'rit' bar!"

"You're the one who burned it down!" Harumi protested.

The drunkard clown ignored him, continuing to rant. "Well, Uncle Charlie ain't gonna stand for it, y'hear?! Yer fancy-schmancy swordplay don't let ya cut good ol' booze, do it? Got that purty dress all soaked in Uncle Charlie's best moonshine! All it'd take is one little spark... one tiny, purty spark... and FWOOSH!"

He chuckled madly, reaching into a pocket and pulled out a lighter, which he deftly ignited with a single flick of his thumb. He stared into the little dancing flame as if hypnotized, his real grin stretching into a mirror of the one sloppily painted across his face.

"Fire... ain't it purty? Nothin' as purty as fire... 'cept booze, a'course! But you... you gon' be a purty fire... any last words?"

"Fore!"

The clown blinked in confusion. "Wha' kinda last words izzat?!"

And that was when Miriam brought her anchor scything around, hitting the clown with the flat of it and launching him out over the bay, landing somewhere back near the docks.

"I think that's what they'd call a slice, my lady," Harumi giggled softly.

"Hah! Well, I never was one for golf," Miriam admitted, grinning widely as she did.


"Hey! Back off! I'm warning you!" Lilith spat metaphorically, retreating from the crowd of men who were advancing towards her, lustfully leering at the buxom woman in the admittedly very revealing garb... little more than a glorified bra and a knee-length loincloth.

"Man, it's nights like this that make you glad to be alive!" One of them slavered.

"Don't get too worked up - she's worth money!" Snapped another in reprimand.

"You'll regret this!" She warned them again.

"Regret earning three hundred seventy billion extols?! Psh-yeah, right!" Cackled one of her assailants.

Lilith's beautiful face twisted into an enraged scowl, her pupils shrinking into serpentine slits. Glossy blue-black scales bloomed across her body as she grew and grew, legs melding together to form a sinuous tail. The once-imposing men suddenly seemed so small as she reared up like the cobra she now resembled, hood spread wide and tongue lolling between glistening fangs.

"And what do you say now?!" She sneered.

"There's one of her, and fifty of us! Get her!"

The cobra zoan's eyes grew wide in disbelief, staring dumbfounded at her attackers. That shock gave them all the time they needed to rush her, closing the gap and impeding her ability to spit venom at them now they were inside her range. An incongruously girlish squeal came from Lilith's lips and she flailed with her arms and tail.

With the strength of a Carnivorous Zoan behind them, her blows landed with devastating power, launching men across the deck and more often than not clear into the sea-clouds surrounding the ship. But a melee fighter, Lilith was not, and her opponents used their superior numbers to their advantage. They literally swarmed over her like ants, grappling onto her larger frame and dragging her down, hooks and ropes and nets being used to augment their hold and their pull.

"No! Stop it! I won't go back! *I won't!*" Screamed Lilith, tears washing thickly down her scaly cheeks as she thrashed and squirmed, writhing with all the flexibility her serpentine frame permitted, but even she found fifty men - a number that grew by the second as more bounty hunters piled in, lured by the struggle - to be a challenge to overcome.

"Look at her cry! Stupid bitch; nobody's gonna help you now!" Boasted the ringleader of her would-be captors.

"Incorrect."

That single word, spoken in a cold monotone voice, cut through the jeers and cruel laughter... and was then followed by the mechanical click-click-clik of Dyna's rotary rifle whirling into life and disgorging a hail of bullets. Men writhed and screamed in agony as the shots tore into their flesh, and the disruption of their unified onslaught gave Lilith the chance to finally put her superior size and strength to good use. She thrashed and bucked and writhed, men flying from her scaly form only to be smashed across the gunwale by her tail.

Within seconds, the mob had been violently dispersed, nothing but groaning human wreckage remaining. Lilith slithered cautiously over to Dyna, hastily wiping the last tears from her face, beaming with delight at the stoic gynoid.

"Sne-hahaha! You sure saved my bacon there - I owe you one! Hey... how'd you know you could shoot them all without hitting me?"

"I did not know," Dyna flatly replied, before awkwardly spinning around and scuttling off to rejoin the fight.

"Hah! Funny girl! Wait... that was a joke, right? Right?!" Lilith called, slithering after her.


"Hey, Chester? Whut th' hell is this thing supposed to be?" One bounty hunter asked. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew. With a ragged greatcoat that looked at least a size too large for so slender a figure, he reminded Penelope of nothing less than a scarecrow absconded from some distant farmer's field.

"Don't rightly know, Lester. Maybe it's the crew's pet?" Suggested the second, who might as well have been the former's identical twin brother.

"Well, she certainly got plenty to pet!" Leered Lester, and Penelope defensively tried to cover her chest with one hand whilst the other continued to grip her machete defensively.

"Lester, yer a real sicko," drawled Chester.

"Well, why else would they have a critter whut looks like that?!" Lester protested, gesturing at the mink.

"I am having ze doctorate, s'ank you!" Penelope protested.

"So is she worth anything?" Lester asked Chester, completely ignoring her.

"I am standing right here!" The mink shouted.

The second of the two men pulled a bundle of bounty sheets from his coat, thumbed through them, and then shook his head. "Nope. Might as well kill 'er an' move on."

"Right oh!" Lester declared, whipping a pistol out from his coat and pointing it right at Penelope.

Who slapped it clear out of his hands with a casual backhand, rolling her eyes before she followed up with a punch that sent the spindly bounty hunter hurtling backwards as if he'd been launched out of a cannon.

"I am not being so easy to kill," she chided them.

"You furry freak!" Snarled Chester, fumbling for his own pistol.

"And you are ze one who lost to zis 'furry freak', so what is that saying about you?" Penelope calmly rebutted.

Chester opened his mouth and began to spew profanities... only for the tirade to die still-born as a heavy piece of metal - some part of the ship's rigging whose name Penelope neither knew nor really cared to identify - fell from above and hit him squarely on the head. His eyes rolled up in their sockets and he collapsed bonelessly to the deck.

Penelope looked up at the spider's web of rigging that encircled the underside of the balloon, smiling as she gave a grateful nod. "S'ank you, Umok. 'E was most unpleasant."

"We academics need to stick together," the imp replied, pulling out a fresh cigar. "Watch your back, by the way."

Penelope immediately whirled around, foot snapping up in a high kick, just like her savate instructor had painstakingly tutored her. The heel of her foot slammed into the temple of the bounty hunter who had been rushing up on her from behind and sent him crashing sideways, unconscious even before he hit the deck.

She smiled proudly as she took in the sight of what she'd done. 'Monsieur Batrox would be proud,' she thought to herself, before she shook that off and rejoined the fray, attacking the first would-be bounty hunter to catch her eye.


Dawn of the Next Day...


The rising sun stained the sea-clouds an ominous bloody crimson hue, a fitting color given the sheer volume of debris and semi-conscious bodies now floating in them.

Harumi pitched the bounty hunter he was carrying over the gunwale, waiting for the splash to die down before he asked, "Are you sure it's safe just throwing them off the ship like this?"

"Oh, it's fine; the current will carry them all to shore," Miriam assured him, dumping her armload of near-bodies over the side.

"Besides, they came here in the middle of the night looking to kill us for money. I don't really care if they live or not," Ryoga growled darkly from his own pile of disposals.

"A fair point," Harumi conceded, diplomatically not mentioning that, despite Ryoga's words, the Eternally Lost Boy made sure to pitch his bodies as close to the shallow "water" surrounding Thunderhead Bay as possible, and the flotsam - human and otherwise - was already piling up on the beach.

Once the last bounty hunter had been unceremoniously booted off of the Stormbringer, Ranma made a show of dusting his hands off before smiling proudly at his motley crewmates.

"Nice work, guys - you were all awesome!"

Kodachi belted out a full-throated laugh, and everybody winced at the outburst. "But of course, darling! Such pitiful riffraff never stood a chance against the Kamikaze Pirates!"

"Sne-hahaha! Seriously, you guys were something else - those were hundred to one odds, or worse, and you didn't even seem to be trying!" Lilith interjected, grinning with admiration.

"It's all in the training... and speaking of training, I saw that little debacle last night - you were damn lucky that Dyna stepped in when she did! We're going to have to give you some martial arts training too while you're here," Ranma announced firmly.

"Hey, I'm not part of your crew!" The cobra zoan protested.

"Don't care. I'm not going to let you get killed just because you let your Devil Fruit turn you into a one-trick pony," Ranma bluntly informed her.

"...Well, I guess it couldn't hurt..." Lilith conceded.

"Shampoo may know fitting style, Airen. Is Snake Style Kung Fu sub-school from China; Cobra Style!"

"...So, the cobra zoan knows cobra kung fu? Don't that sound like a joke to you?" Ukyo asked her.

Everybody turned and stared pointedly at Ukyo... and in particular at the giant okonomiyaki spatula strapped to her back.

"What're ya all looking at me like that for?!" She angrily demanded.

Ranma pointedly turned back to Shampoo. "How much ya know about this Cobra Style, Shampoo?"

"Is no Shampoo's specialty, but Shampoo read about it in books of great-grandmother. Is part of Five-Fold Imperial Snake Style; Adder, Asp, Cobra, Python and Viper. Shampoo know enough to at least teach basics.. is all about long range attacks, whip-strikes, throws, and long range moves. Is good fit for girl with poison spit and giant tail for legs, no?"

Ranma nodded in recognition before turning to Dyna. "So, how's the new lube holding up, Dyna?"

"All appendages at full operating capacity. All systems optimal." She extended, adjusted, rotated and otherwise maneuvered her manifold limbs to emphasize her point.

Ukyo suddenly snapped her fingers, drawing the attention back to her. "Hey! That reminds me, we found something in the market before everything went crazy yesterday, didn't we, Shampoo?"

"Oh, yes! Shampoo forget in all craziness. Dyna know this?"

The Chinese Amazon hopped over to Dyna and held out the strange dial she had purchased the previous day. Dyna's single eye burned brighter than they'd ever seen it, her usually implacable, doll-like face showing naked shock. One of her manipulator arms gingerly extended and carefully took the strange, glossy black shell, holding it up closer to the gynoid's eye.

"I...I know this..." She breathed. "I don't... it's important, I know that, but I can't... I can't remember what it's called..."

"Well, if you recognize it, then that must mean your homeland is out there somewhere! Kodachi! Is the Log Pose ready for us to move?"

Their helmsman sprang over to the ship's wheel with her trademark leaps, reaching out to tap the mounted wheel before saluting in Ranma's direction. "Yes, captain darling!"

"Then let's set sail! Dyna's homeland is out there, waiting for us to find it!"


Chapter End & Closing Notes


Another filler chapter, I know, but we needed to introduce our heroes to sky-sea civilization a bit before we really threw them in the deep end. I promise, the next five chapters will be a LOT more action-orientated! That was probably half the reason I had such a hard time working this chapter out, in all honesty...

As I said in the last chapter, I want to commission a full-crew piece, considering the different pieces I've assembled over this fic, so donations would really help. But, recalling that the Straw Hats changed designs after the time skip, would it make sense if the Kamikazes likewise got some "art upgrades"? Dyna is planned to have one, but what about the rest...?