You can, this time around, actually feel it as you make to hop off of Earth Bet, your awareness spread out in a way that it isn't often so as to include… You aren't exactly sure how to put it, yourself on a purely metaphysical level? The imaginary construct of what is 'you' existing in the place that isn't a place? A self-contradictory existence made of what defines you in the nonexistent space between spaces?
Either way, you become aware of this, part, aspect? This side of yourself, strangely latched onto this infinitesimal small yet large bubble of physical reality, dull plates that may or may not be eyes pressed up against the set of parallel dimensions all attached or corresponding to Earth Bet, an undulatingly still mass of abstract flesh (or thought?) wrapped around the edges to hold yourself steady as you project yourself into your cast-off body.
Then you detach, your physical presence on Earth Bet ceasing to be as the rest of yourself wedges itself off of this particular dimension, pulling what you can only describe as tentacles out of it- leaving just a single, thin strand of rope- or chain-like flesh-metaphor behind right in the time and place you just were; this is how you return to where and when you came from, you realize.
Looking closer, you see a couple of similar… organs, you suppose, panning out into the distance, all of them connected to other dimensions. The other places you visited before. Of course them all being in different directions is, again, more metaphorical than literal, a trick of the mind to try and rationalize a place that doesn't really do space.
Understanding what is going on, much as you simultaneously don't quite, as though there was two sets of senses and minds at play interpreting what's going on. Except one of these two minds is all but completely nonfunctional, barely bothered to do any thinking at all and badly synchronized with the more active one.
It's a little annoying. Like it tickles the back of your mind, or a word on the tip of your tongue.
But regardless, much like you were planning to, you 'push off' of Earth Bet, drifting into the infinite sea of possibilities spanning all the non-space you could care to observe. You do wonder, a little, where you'll end up; you can manage to pick a general 'direction', a 'theme' of sorts to dither towards, but the rest is largely out of your control.
Then again, you're kinda sure your larger self would notice if you were potentially killing yourself by inserting your body somewhere and shift things around accordingly, so at least there's that. You guess.
When yourself, Taylor, Sarah, Sherrel, Kate and the priestess of the Goddess of Light you… appropriated back in Thule appear, you do so in the usual fashion- everyone being buck naked, that is, all gathered around one spot.
A spot in the middle of a small copse of trees, that is, as you quickly find out by taking a look around. "So," you say, filing away the experience you had coming here and instead unpacking what general knowledge you could glean as you entered this dimension, transmitting it to everyone that came with you in the process. "The world's flooded and went to shit, huh?"
"Autocratic government with a loose hold over most of humanity, everyone lives on disparate islands with their own culture and everything…" Sarah grins at you. "This looks like easy pickings."
"Except the 'World Government', or however they call themselves, have a lot of those Marines," Kate points out. "And I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of actually strong people around. The vague idea of 'also, there's magical people that ate super-fruits' isn't exactly reassuring."
"Well, I did try to find somewhere like that," you shrug, raising an eyebrow at her. "You saying we should be careful?"
Kate, for her part, grins. "Hah, fuck that shit, I'm saying we should get more guns!"
"Just asking to make sure, but we're gonna be pirates, yeah? Not like we're about to play nice with the guv'ment," Sherrel notes, to general agreement shared across the group. "Cool. Guess we're gonna need a ship."
Note to self, make sure you get a ship built before Sherrel does- you're sure it would be perfectly functional, but you don't trust tinkertech to keep you afloat, literally. Much better to have a ship and let her modify and upgrade it with her special brand of 'care'.
While you were talking, Taylor went ahead and started pulling stuff out of her shadow, seeing as she- much like yourself- can just do that, treat her own shadow like a convenient storage space. Following her example, you do the same, dispensing some clothes for everyone so the priestess can stop trying to cover herself with her hands; not like she has anything anyone present didn't already see in some capacity anyways.
Once the entire party is dressed, Taylor keeping her costume in her shadow and Sarah leaving hers in yours, you take a moment to really take stock of the situation.
"Well, let's get going then," you immediately say, because it's not like standing around in the middle of nowhere is gonna get you anywhere. "I'm pretty sure I hear people sounds thattaway, so we even got a direction to go off of!"
Sherrel throws Sarah, Kate and Taylor a questioning look. All of them shake their heads simultaneously, in varying degrees of exasperation. "Yeah, not a vampire thing, pretty sure he just has a wild animal's senses," your sister shrugs.
That is both hurtful and untrue. Any vampire could do this much if they tried, you're pretty sure.
As it turns out, the island you happened to land on has a town on it. A small one, to be sure, but a proper town- by the standards of this world, at least, you're pretty sure. You got a good feeling for this kind of thing.
It also is a port town, though it'd be kind of hard not to be a port town when pretty much every piece of civilization imaginable is built near the ocean by necessity. This place's geography kind of necessitates that much, what will literally everywhere being an island; you have to have a port of some sort to be connected to the rest of the world, and if it's just a single catwalk extending into the ocean so small boats can dock at them.
The locals don't exactly suspect anything when your group of six arrives, casually strolling right into town and pretending to be part of the normal folk all around… Though it seems you're drawing a lot of looks for some other reason.
Not that you care. You've got places to be and plans to make. "How's it looking?" You ask, glancing at Taylor.
"There's a military base adjacent to the town," she frowns in response. "Or a Marine base, I suppose. I can see an exercise yard, barracks, an administrative complex…"
"Guess we have a nice first target to hit. Any idea about where we are, geographically?"
"South Blue. We'll probably have to get a ship like we thought," Sarah shrugs, having skimmed the thoughts of a few of the people you passed by so far, casually wandering along the main thoroughfare of this place. "Whenever we decide on a direction to sail to, anyways."
"We'll figure it out as we go, I suppose." Not that you intend to set sail before you get a proper read on the land, one way or another- consuming the right people should do the trick, as it usually does. "Of course, we don't exactly have any cash they'd take around here, so… Thoughts?"
"We can always go to a restaurant or something on the next island," Sherrel suggests. "Just grab some valuables here and go, do the whole pirate thing real good."
"We gonna need a crew, too," Kate adds, stretching her arms one after the other. "Unless the boat's gonna be fine with just us, anyways."
"Put it on the 'maybe' list, I suppose. We could just use robots or undead or something, but having a few mooks around for the chores might be nice," you muse aloud.
As you talk and decide on your next steps, you still continue to receive way too many looks from the townsfolk, whispers and stares following you wherever you go. Frowning, you tilt your head, trying to figure that one out- your clothes are simple stuff, nothing that really looks out of place compared to what the locals wear, so why're you standing out?
Ah, you got it. "Crap. I think everyone's being hit with how beautiful all of your are and it's making us stand out."
"Nah, pretty sure that's 'cause you're showing off your abs, Gabe," Sarah tells you.
You, in turn, look down your chest, the open shirt you're wearing stylishly hanging off your front. "I thought this was sailor fashion."
"Salty seamen fashion, maybe," Kate smirks, eyes narrowed. "Now all we need is a Capn' Blueballs to complete the look."
"Oh, do I get to be coxswain then?" Sherrel mirrors her, nudging your side. "Someone has to make 'er sway just right while the crew handles the big, swingin' cannon balls, eh?"
"Please, let's not get into piracy puns. We can torture each other plenty once we're actually at sea," you beg, half-sincere already.
At least Taylor won't do this to you. She's the one vampire you can trust to keep a level head for all of this.
"If we find any booty, do we call dibs or do we split it up fairly?"
Never mind.
Some more considerations are made and decisions are come to, as a group, of course. Being able to telepathically exchange thoughts and ideas that would be too bothersome to put into words proper is pretty convenient for situations like this, time and time again, even without the Thinker around to coordinate stuff- you've got a copy of her consciousness stowed away inside your shadow, but without an appropriate server farm of a body, there's not all that much use in activating her.
But yes, having determined your first order of business, the six of you split up, though the Priestess (who still has yet to earn herself a proper name as far as you're concerned, by the by) stays with you; you can collectively cover more ground like this, and it's not like you have to have everyone work at the same thing at the same time anyways.
Besides, using telepathy, you can… not so much act as a hivemind, really, as you can just be a hivemind, come to think of it. Everyone present in your collective being aware of what everyone else is doing and thinking on demand is pretty much the definition of a hivemind, right?
Like, you've all got individual thoughts and desires, but you can and do connect those with each other a bunch of the time. You're pretty sure that counts.
A blonde bombshell of a woman was surveying the docks of this humble island, one of many like it in the South Blue; humming and sometimes murmuring to herself, she went around inspecting the ships in port, her long legs emphasized by the short pants she was wearing the least suggestive part of her to comment on.
Disregarding the onlookers, she seemed to be deep in thought. Surely, an appropriately burly sailor could find out what she was there for and, with any luck-
No, as it turned out, she was the type to mercilessly kick anyone getting in her way straight in the balls, then throw them to the tides to have a salty bath until they managed to come back ashore. For a select few of said sailors, this experience only served to make her even more attractive, new worlds being discovered or else found again anew.
Now, the biggest issue, for the moment, will probably be to actually find some malcontents that'll be suitable to be the backbone of your very own band of pirates; seeing as you're planning on committing a few nice and proper atrocities for the sake of becoming more and more powerful, like you've done several times before- it's just not all that easy to find good candidates for mass human sacrifice assistant positions, y'know?
It's most of the reason why you decided to split up. It's not like you absolutely need a crew larger than what you already have, but having a few more people to boss around should do wonders for everyone's mood… Particularly Sarah and Kate's.
Speaking of which…
The tattoo'd brunette walked straight into the seaside bar, the weapon she was holding a little off compared to what everyone was used to, but easily recognizable as a gun of some sort.
"'Ey, barkeep! A bottle of whatever's your strongest stuff," she ordered, fully intending not to bother paying. Taking a demonstrative seat at the bar, she immediately rotated around to rest her arms on the counter, grinning at the room full of men. "So, any of you lot got any balls on you, or am I leaving port without company?"
Suffice it to say, she would make her selection of 'proper pirates' based on whoever was above average in the soon ensuing bar brawl, personally weeding out the ones unsuitable as thoroughly and violently as possible without breaking the candidates in question entirely.
Personally, of course, you're mostly concerned with their attitude, far and above their strength in combat. It's not like you can't just juice anyone you end up grabbing here up a bit, you certainly have more than enough ways to do so at this point, but by contrast, someone that's hesitant about doing what you'll want them to do will probably be more hindrance than use.
Sure, sure, it's just as possible for you to just adjust their attitude towards a life of crime and mass murder for fun and profit, but if you have the choice, your preference is always gonna be someone that enjoys their job over someone who needs to be worked into tolerating it.
Well, all that said, finding someone like that at random in a mostly law-abiding and perfectly normal settlement like this one, that even has a Marine base built into it, is a tad bit hard. Probably not impossible, but, yeah, not all that easy.
Luckily for you, Sarah is being as wonderful as always and using her power to analyze everything you hear and see on the side to give you an edge on this one. It's direly needed is all you're saying.
"It sure sucks he won't be coming home ever again, huh?"
The teary-eyed youngster glared up at the blonde woman, the pain of the beating he'd just received already forgotten. "Shut up! You don't know anything about my brother!"
"I know enough. He was with the Marines, wasn't he?" She said, looking back down at him. Her smirk was all he could see, it and the gold of her hair falling like a curtain. "But they killed him."
"Big bro would never mutiny! He was so proud of becoming a Marine!"
"Well, that just means they killed him anyways," she coldly told him. "Are you ever going to do anything about that or will you just cry about it all your life?"
"What's anyone supposed to do about it?!" He grit his teeth, the old anger at the news of his brother's 'dishonorable discharge' coming back, always simmering beneath the tears. "They don't care! And I-"
"Oh, i could think of a way to honor his memory or two… Maybe even give the Marines the middle finger and get away with it." Not seeing it anymore because she'd started to walk out of the alley, he could still hear the smirk on her face. "Not that many pirate crews would have a crybaby like you."
His blood went cold, the old thought accompanying the old anger coming back in full force, no, a thousand times stronger than ever before.
"But hey, if you come to the docks soon, maybe you'll find us. And maybe we'll take you, so you can show him his death wasn't for nothing."
Honestly, correctly identifying promising potentials for something as vague and ephemeral as one's readiness to break any all laws, of the land, the people, the sea or nature itself, however you want to put it. Much as, yeah, you would like to say you can just take a five minute walk and stumble over a psychopathic mailman or something, coincidences like that don't actually happen all that often when you aren't manipulating probability or something similarly insane.
And here you are, having left Alicia back home. What a waste of an opportunity, eh?
For now, you just shrug, spotting a nice-looking little restaurant on the wayside. Just as you consider whether to take a seat and see what people around here eat, lack of money be damned, Taylor comes by, dragging behind herself a handful of ruffian-looking people tied to her wrist by ropes of silk.
In passing towards the meeting place, she throws you a small bag tinkling with the sound of coins, taken, as you know through telepathy, from the people she beat up and decided to conscript into the crew- you think the technical term is 'shanghaied'? Though there aren't really any drugs involved or anything, so that may not be right.
Well, there you have it, anyways. Waving the Priestess along, you go right ahead and take a quick break.
It was a day like any other for her when the man came inside, accompanied by a female attendant. There had been some noise out back earlier, maybe a brawl, but then, that wasn't anything for her to worry about.
She just did the dishes and waited the tables, and when she was lucky uncle didn't hit her she closed up the shop. Life wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either, and as long as she just-
"Mhm… Cute," was the first thing she heard, turning to see who has talking- and looking straight at the most perfectly chiseled set of abdominals she'd ever imagined.
Face as blank as her head, she slowly looked up, and up, the tall, handsome guest somewhere between smirking and smiling at her. All of a sudden, she felt like a small animal, being scrutinized by a very, very big one. "Eep!"
"Yup, you'll do just fine," he said, promptly taking a seat, his white-haired attendant stiffly taking position next to him. "Say, have you ever wanted more in life than what you ended up born into?"
"Uhm, uncle taking over father's restaurant didn't bother me at all, but I really shouldn't spill my life's story right at patrons, that would just be, ah, improper…"
"No, no, I'm interested. Go ahead, tell me everything… And maybe, if you wouldn't be opposed, I might just sweep you off your feet into a whole different life. Wouldn't that be nice?"
She did, in fact, spill her life's story.
It's a motley bunch, the lot you ultimately drummed up to man the ship you will be sailing (that doesn't exist yet, granted, but you'll get to that when you get to it), all gathered up in a large group near the docks. A small variety of thugs, ruffians and scoundrels, punctuated by a couple of youths and the girl you picked up mixed in there, none of them bearing any particularly outstanding levels of fitness, equipment nor seafaring skills.
A couple of them are probably decent in a brawl, while a few of them, dragged here by Kate, are sailors by trade, but those are the exceptions rather than the rule. But well, you can work with just about anything, not like you plan to need people to actually sail once you're done setting everything up.
No, you really just want a few minions on hand you don't need to actively keep animated or program yourself, in case anything comes up you can't be arsed to deal with. All in all, they're no less than fifteen individuals, a small amount for a proper ship, but respectable enough for a mostly unknown pirate band like yours… At least for the moment, anyways.
The 'unknown' part, not their numbers. You don't really plan to have hundreds of people running around for little practical reason. Maybe pick up a new crew member here and there as and when the situation calls for it, but that's about it.
Now then, to impress upon these impressionable souls how this whole thing is going to work, right here out in the open. "Alright you sorry lot, listen closely. From this day forward, you're all pirates, and I'm your captain. If anyone wants to question this state of affairs, now's the time."
"Are we really gonna be pirates?" "I dunno about this." "We're all dead when the Marines find us." "Who cares about that. Why's he the captain?"
That's a good question right there, so you waste no time to point right at the speaker. "I can tell you why, actually," you say happily, quieting the group, the other vampires (and the Priestess) arrayed to your sides and all. "Because I said so and nobody can tell me otherwise."
"Oh yeah?" The man in question replies eloquently, throwing a glance at your lovers present at the moment. "Maybe I'll- ahhhhh!"
You were mildly annoyed by that, so of course you engaged your telekinesis Plasmid, pulling him into the air to make him float right in front of you. "And that's one example made," you explain over his girlish shrieks, arms and legs flailing in a panic now that he doesn't have solid ground under his feet anymore. He was probably a bad fit for your little piracy operation anyways.
And so you fling him straight out towards the open water, redirecting his weight as you go to really get some mileage out of the casual blast of force propelling him. The man disappears in the distance in short order.
And then there were fourteen left. A tragic sacrifice, but hopefully the example will be enough to show you mean business. "Don't get any funny ideas, by the way. I don't want to go around having to do this again once you're actually members of the crew," you note, your smile not budging one bit throughout the entire interaction.
A good couple of the remaining candidates for piracy gulp, but none of them say anything. Good enough for you.
Crew in tow, your next concern, logically, is to get on the ship acquisition part of this venture. Now, you absolutely plan to either build one yourself or else work off of an existing base, and a quick think around has you agreeing that the latter is probably the better option- nobody wants to waste time hanging around here while you get the whole situation sorted out from scratch.
Just stealing any old ship would be kind of… plain, though, wouldn't it? Also, as much as you're looking forward to taking your crew of motley rascals off this island and really get to work forming them into the acceptably useful force they could be with some effort, polish and supernatural assistance, they themselves still aren't particularly… pirate-y, y'know?
They're just conscripted civilians still, for all that you're fairly sure you could get them to do a lot of pretty heinous shit if you particularly wanted, after their experiences so far. Mostly their experiences with the girls, but you'd like to think punting a motherfucker into the endless ocean with the power of your mind also helped in their regard.
Luckily for you, there's a perfect opportunity to blood them up a bit (heh, blood puns never get old when you're a vampire) and find yourself a ship to start with right around the proverbial corner. Though naturally, throwing a bunch of random people at the local Marine base just like that isn't exactly what you'd call a 'good' plan.
…You'd kinda like to task them with attacking it and see what kind of plans they'd come up with anyways, but no, you probably shouldn't go with that idea, no matter how funny it would be one way or another.
Instead, you may as well get started training them properly. By which you of course mean pumping them full of potions, some of your blood and some tonics- really just the basic stuff, but it should be enough to give otherwise unremarkable individuals the strength they need to take on actual military personnel, considering the height of the Marines' armament is what amounts to a bunch of single-shot muskets.
Muskets. You know, considering the government governing them calls itself the 'World Government', you were kind of expecting something… more. But hey, all the better for you, right?
Not making any effort to hide what you're doing, you approach the wall of a nearby warehouse, reaching into the shadow you throw to pull out a certain leather bound suitcase, congratulating yourself for packaging the many short, wide glass vials inside of this thing to look appropriately stylish just in case you ended up dealing with some starving refugees or underdeveloped savages in this until recently unknown dimension.
Not that these guys are all that far from either of those things, really. "There you go. All of you, drink one of these potions each," you say, opening the suitcase to reveal the dimly glowing contents, all inside their own little compartments, before you hand it off to Kate and pull out the next one. "They'll give you that little kick you'll need."
"You sure this is safe?" "Doesn't sound like the normal pirate package." "Idiot, didn't you see? The cap'n's a sorcerer!" "I dunno 'bout no magic, but this's looking real shady." "Jeez! Where are all your balls?"
That last one came from the girl you brought aboard yourself, the slim, short brunette proving herself to be twice the man all the big, burly dudes around her are. Huffing and puffing, she approaches Kate, who just smirks. "That's what I asked them when I grabbed 'em, too."
Pulling out one of the potions, she eyes the clear, golden fluid inside for a moment before she pulls out the stopper keeping it securely inside, then throws her head back and the contents of the vial right after, drinking it all in one go.
Swallowing it, she stands there for a moment, blinking. "Oh. Ooooh… I think… I'm feeling like a whole new person," she says, dusting off her slightly worn dress. "…Did my breasts grow a size?"
"That's one of the side effects, yeah," you shrug. "This All-Curative heals you of a lot of things, from developmental disorders to mental ones, to an extent."
Kate, already bored of waiting, sighs and shakes her head. "He's saying you could get a bigger dick if you drink this stuff, you idiots," she incorrectly summarizes your explanation.
Suffice it to say, the rest of the future crew is a lot less hesitant afterwards. You should remember this trick for later, you suppose.
Meanwhile, the girl seems like she's still up for being a good example to the rest of the men. "What do the others do?" She asks as you ready the second batch of potions to be ingested.
"Well, these ones," you say, holding up a vial whose insides are filled with a mostly clear fluid, momentarily shimmering in the light like it was oil reflecting it in a rainbow-like patina here and there, "keep you feed for a week straight once you drink them. Mostly just because I figure we can deal with the logistics of food later, once we've gotten our ship seaworthy. And these," you add, using your other hand to show her a seemingly empty potion vial, "cleanse you of all poison and the like, in addition to preventing oily skin or hair-"
She takes the Cleansing Potion from you without waiting for the rest of your speech, drinking it faster than you can follow for a moment. "Mhm! Tastes like… nothing?"
"That's what they do, yeah. Now…" Seeing as everyone is finally getting over themselves and just taking their damn medicine (this is literally for their own good here, after all), you continue right on along by holding out a hand, focusing hard for a moment.
From inside your own skin, you try to get a bit of a feel for your blood, moving lazily through your veins like the magma it resembles lately, probably due to certain life choices you've been making relating to summoning literal demons, occasionally invading hell yourself and all those kinds of things. It takes effort, real effort, far and beyond doing this same thing to someone else, but after afew moments, you manage to take control of some of it, a thin, literally boiling strand of red rising from your wrist.
The blood gathers, growing more plentiful, and with another conscious exertion of will you make it stop bubbling in the open air due to its heat. "Once you're all done, you get to drink a little bit of my blood! Aren't you excited?"
"Eeh…" "Eeh…" "Eeh…"
"Did I mention drinking my blood can confer magical powers you'll need shortly?" You add with a raised eyebrow. "Just take what you can get and try not to embarrass yourselves."
"Nom!"
You look at the girl, who is currently hanging off your arm, her mouth closed over your wrist so her lips 'inadvertently' all but kiss it. Behind you, Sarah sighs, turning to ram her forehead against the same wall you used to throw some shade in a convenient spot earlier. Naturally, she leaves a small impact crater in the brickwork. "Another one?!"
"Good spirit," you say, not acknowledging that particular bit of byplay in the least. "Though if it's worth anything, I was just going to make it float to everyone as a little ball. Oh, and before I forget-"
You reach into your shadow once again (with your non-occupied arm, of course), taking out a particular syringe, already primed and ready for use.
"-I hope none of you are afraid of needles, because-"
""AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!""
You flick the syringe, enhancing gravity to make the grown men fleeing like children at the sight of you holding it drop to their knees, one and all.
"Are you guys sure these are the right men for this job?"
The attack, such as it was, was both very sudden, as unforeseen an event as it could be, as well as utterly clear and out in the open.
A man only later becoming known for what he was openly and casually approached the gates of Marine Base SB-17, making no particular efforts to hide nor acting suspiciously in any way. Likely for this reason, the guards on duty did not immediately react, instead waiting for him to approach before they stopped him.
"Halt! What's your business?" One of them asked, visibly putting effort into being as professional and stern as was expected of his position. "If you'd like to enlist, you'll have to speak to Captain Wishmere, but he doesn't take applications until-"
"Oh, no need, but thanks," the man interrupted the guard. "You see, I'm here for somewhat of the opposite. As a pirate, I'm about to attack this place and screw all of you people real hard."
The guards exchanged a glance, going from confused to nervous to wordlessly trying to decide whether he was serious. Any such questions answered themselves, however, when he simply stepped forward between them, one arm cocked back to perform an almost leisurely punch straight towards the gate, except it still was so fast neither of them could keep up or react in time.
The gate proceeded to shatter out of its hinges, the lock smashed and bent, but still holding even as the heavy doors were sent flying back into the courtyard of Base SB-17.
Mouths and eyes open wide, the guards were in shock. This state of their lasted until the unidentified attacker snapped his fingers, bringing them back to consciousness. "Go ahead you guys, you know what to do."
Just like that, a group of masked attackers emerged from the surroundings, armed with clubs and a few flintlock pistols. "Alarm! We're under att- rhk!" And, as one of the two guards had to find out the hard way, far more strength than most around these parts.
Then some of them revealed themselves to have claws. The screaming started.
Things were going a little fast, he thought. This morning, he'd been down in the alley with the boys, same as any other day. Playing dice, jeering a bit at passerby every now and then, doing a bit of gossipin'… What you did when the sleepy bumfuck town you lived in didn't have anything else worth doing.
They'd even joked about something new happening just to get over the boredom of having nothing to do but do some work on the side, when the could. Well, within a single day they'd become pirates, gained magical powers and now they were running around the Marine base the town was built around beating up its garrison.
"Shoot them! Shoot them!"
"It's useless! Hyahaha!"
Being thrice as strong as a regular man made this a lot easier, so there was that. What would've been impossible to even imagine before was now easy, the trained Marines like children before them as they beat them to a pulp. And even when they tried to organize a proper defense, meeting the gang with a hail of bullets from their guns…
Well, they just bounced off. Harmless. And then they went in and clobbered their heads in.
"C'mon you lot, we got 'em on the ropes!" Someone was in one of the buildings to the side of the training field, because a wall came down just then, two Marines squashed under it and screaming, surprised. Inside, the girlie that'd somehow gotten wrapped up in all this held up two of those sabers the boys in white and blue used, shouting and flailing them wildly at a third one trying to keep the armory out of their hands. "…That girlie's way too eager for this."
"Probably why she's here. 'Ey! Let's stop wasting time, we can go and-"
"So this is the pirates with a death wish?" A loud voice called out, stomping out of the main building. "I'm feeling generous today, so if you surrender, your executions will be nice and painless. How about it?!"
"Shit, it's Captain Wishmere!" The tall, wide man was known well enough around town, being the commander of the local Marines, his huge sword scraping across the ground as he sharpened it along the way, then slung it over his shoulder.
But, without him knowing, a figure appeared behind the Marine…
So. Apparently, people in this dimension can just be, like, freakishly huge, and nobody seems to consider this particularly weird. Most of the townsfolk you saw was proportioned perfectly normal, but this Captain Wishmere, the commanding officer of this base, is easily three, three and a half meters (the metric system kind of stuck with you after Earth Rapture), and his width matches his height as well- he's got to weigh over twice as much as the average adult human male, at a rough guess.
And, seeing as you can literally feel weight in a pretty large area around yourself, your rough guess may as well be a scientifically bulletproof research paper. Just saying.
Not that any of that particularly helps the man when he tries to get this situation under control. "I'm feeling generous today, so if you surrender, your executions will be nice and painless. How about it?!"
"Shit, it's Captain Wishmere!" One of your pirate hopefuls seems to be getting caught up in his appearance, too, as the Marine captain swings this huge slab of a sword around over his shoulder, seemingly readying to attack.
Honestly, you'd give your little crew some decent odds in a fight against him, if they actually worked together. Wishmere obviously has experience and some level of borderline superhuman strength going purely thanks to his physique, but they've got numbers and the powers you gave them to even the playing field.
Though a few of them would probably get themselves hurt or catch a bad case of death in the process, you guess? Hard to predict that far, to be honest, not to mention the little issue of them not exactly being used to working together instead of getting into each other's way and all, so this is at most a vague hypothetical, for now.
Particularly as the next thing that happens, with everyone looking at Wishmere… is the sound of a record scratch echoing out, the spell you've prepared earlier going off the moment you show up right behind him.
Just a little joke on your part, made purely for the sake of your own amusement.
Then, of course, you go right on to turn your fingers into claws, using your objectively superior levels of physical strength to spear through the good captain's back, hand ripping through his skin and muscle, pushing past the spine and coming out the front of his chest holding his heart, having gone between the ribs.
Score! It's easy to just treat people like they're made of cardboard when you have superstrength going on, but accurately navigating through the rib cage and ripping out a specific organ the size of the heart takes some actual skill.
"You were saying something about executions?" You drawl, knowing he's still got a few last moments to live you shouldn't waste. "Sorry, those were postponed indefinitely. Have some death yourself instead."
Then you crush the organ still feebly attempting to beat in your palm, simultaneously pulling at all the blood inside his body to drink it all down. All over the base, the others are doing much the same with whatever Marines ranked higher than the fodder they could find, thereby completing your strategical objective.
With that done, you look around the remaining combatants, the Marines in their uniforms of white and blue, your pirates in whatever everyday clothing they're in. Wrenching your arm back out of the man you just murdered, you give them all a happy and pleasant smile, the blood still draining into your mouth all the while the corpse falls right to the ground.
"Rise as my servant," you intone, not particularly bothering to hide the spellcasting you're doing; the body of Wishmere groans, a wet, dragging sound as his insides were so recently reorganized by your literal hand, and before everyone's eyes he does just as you bid him, pushing himself back up into standing position.
His empty eyes become yours as you synchronize your senses. Gulping down a deep breath of air, most of which is wasted as it escapes through the hole you made in him, he roars.
Except he doesn't roar like a mindless monster or anything. Oh no, you've got the puppet strings and you're using them. "AAAAATTENTIOOOOON! ALL MARINES!" He shouts with a hint of the inhuman shriek only those that can breathe through the wounds punched into them can produce, imitating how he would address them during regular training- you know this thanks to having just eaten him and all. "KIIIIILLL! YOURSEEEELVES! NOOOOOW!"
In the silence that follows, you shrug almost audibly. "Well, you heard the man. Let's assist these fellows with their duties, eh?"
You're not quite sure whether it's you casually killing their leader or subsequently turning him into an undead servant to terrorize them with, but the Marines seem to be oddly dispirited after the whole affair, doubly so when you send him around to hunt them down and ensure none of them survive.
Or when you start to do the same with the other by now dead Marines, adding to the general fun and chaos all around.
Your newly appointed minions, on the other hand, are emboldened once they get over the shock. "Yeaaah! That's our captain!" "The sorcerer captain is gettin' ya!" "Let's kill 'em all and make them do the dishes for us!"
You know, on the one hand, people in this dimension get carried away pretty easily. On the other hand, you absolutely support the attitude that leads the girl you picked up to see you raising the dead and thinking 'hey, this is a solution to doing chores', so… There's that, you suppose.
Seriously, girl's a real good fit, you hadn't even expected her to adapt this rapidly and easily to this whole gig.
With Kate leisurely walking around and yourself acting as an additional spotter, to make sure none of the Marines manage to get anywhere, anyone that gives you the impression they're too focused and know what they're trying to do gets shot through whatever walls are in the way; with Kate around, there is no meaningful cover, and with your assistance it's impossible to hide as well, so you sweep through pretty efficiently.
Plus, you know, the undead you have running around. Even without modifying and improving them, just the basic enhancements they get thanks to your magic, compared to when they were alive, kind of make these guys downright terrifyingly strong for the level of combat taking place here.
…Alright, you'll admit the Marines got some good teamwork that one time they managed to lure one of them into position to be hit with a cannon ball after they repositioned some of their reserve cannons around the base, but hey, in your defense, you just let them run on automatic mode once you give them their commands, and now that it's happened once all the others know to avoid this kind of situation.
It's not quite the same as the VI you threw together on Remnant, but your undead can actively learn from each other. If that isn't a good investment in terms of minions, you don't know what is.
Of course most of them will become raw material for your boat soon, but that's just how it is, you suppose. Ah well, you can always make more next time you decide to kill a bunch of people. Speaking of getting a ship going, though, Sarah, Sherrel and Taylor went ahead and looked into taking one of the Marine ships anchored at this place for yourself.
Because duh, you weren't exactly not going to just steal one while you were at it. There aren't too many idle ships around, of course, but you do get to pick between three that should fit your needs- and say about them what you will, but their former owners did maintain them pretty decently.
You still ended up finding some material faults in one of them, probably having been repaired one time too many after someone fired cannons at it, but honestly, it doesn't really matter all that much. You mostly want it to float on water and have a decent frame for you to work off of, no need to be particularly picky beyond those points.
"Oh shit, I just realized something." "What is it?" "The captain can do these things, yeah?" "Oh yeah. The things." "So why keep us around?" "You know, that's a good question." "Oh shit, we're gonna be killed for more of the things, aren't we?" "Help, the captain's gonna do things to us!"
Fighting back the urge to rub your eyes in exasperation, you snap your fingers at the crew mates having this particular conversation, dropping down from the roof of the base. "If I wanted that, I'd have just killed you guys right away instead of feeding you potions and my blood," you tell them as you get going towards the Marines' docks. "Now come on, get everyone to loot everything they want before we move on. We got some work to do before we can leave this island."
Really, these people. It's not like they could stop you if you decided to just kill them, so what even is the point of worrying about it?
So Captain Wishmere was… kind of a huge dick. He made his subordinates train day in and day out, not to let them become stronger, but to make each and every one of them personally acknowledge he was the strongest, running them ragged in the process.
Uncaring about the many accidents this caused, he had to kill a few of them when they complained or requested he take it easier on them, one of the many reasons he was ill liked by both the Marines under his command and the townsfolk. However, he did not actively oppress the latter beyond collecting increased taxation from them, as he considered their status as civilians to be an implicit admission of weakness and submission in itself.
Alright, lessee… Extreme enough morality, that's for sure, giving the score a boost. However, while Wishmere was exceedingly strong compared to normal people, he wasn't downright insurmountably strong, nor did he have any powers beyond the ordinary, relatively speaking. As such, I'll award you… 9 BP for him, I do believe.
BP now at 718
Progress now at 36/80
Using the zombies you turned some of the Marines into as the fight developed, it's pretty simple to move all the bodies over towards the ship you chose to use for your own purposes. You actually did consider just taking it as is, pretend to be Marines and all to ambush a few of their ships out at sea, or sneak into harbors that normally would take issues with pirates docking at them all casual-like, but ultimately discarded the idea for a few reasons.
Chief of which being that you don't want to avoid trouble. If anything, you want to get into as much of it as possible for a while- you'll likely need some extra biomass anyways, considering your plans for your vessel. You may also have just massacred and repurposed the townsfolk, but considering this little town is where your crew is from…
Well, you figured you may as well take it a little slower on them, just in case they have any particularly well-hidden backbone just waiting to come out and be an issue the moment you commit mass murder against every man, woman and child in sight, some of which being people they'd know. There's always the next island, of course, but for now, you'll just have to work with what you have.
Your undead workers carry the non-animated bodies over by the handfuls, piling them up next to the docked ship in question. It being what seems to be a fairly average Marine vessel, it has three masts, the back one of which bears a small, triangular sail mostly meant to let it navigate easier by turning it, you think (look, you're no professional sailor, you're working off gut instinct here), as well as a total of six cannons on each side, plus four on the bow (or the front, if you've caught onto the jargon correctly already).
Its hull is also painted green and bears the word 'Marine' on it on both sides as well, not to mention the sails having the same in addition to the sign they put on everything that belongs to them. Not that any of that matters, now that you've got your hands on it.
"There actually should be at least five to ten of these docked here, but it looks like this Wishmere guy had them sail out on training exercises constantly, so a bunch of them are at sea right now," you mention as the pile of bodies nears around a hundred, some of them threatening to tumble down and slip into the water until you wave a hand and make them stop. "We could go and hunt them down, but it's probably not even worth the trouble."
"At least he collected a bunch of money from the nearby islands for us," Sarah adds, having dug into the records and related documents she found inside this base.
"Yeah, he was a huge dick about it, too." "Tore down houses when people couldn't pay his Protection Tax." "I kinda miss that grilled potato stand." "Well I don't, it was bad for our business."
There's not much you have to add on that end, having literally gained knowledge of all of it after you consumed Wishmere's soul yourself. Instead, you gesture towards the trio of Mirelurks Taylor split off herself earlier, one of them carrying a brand new treasure chest in its claws. "At least that money's ours now, so that's something. As pirates, we gotta have some treasure, right?"
"Right! Also, uh… Not to stick my nose where it gets cut off, Captain, but what are you doing with all of… those?" One of your pirates asks, pointing in the general direction of the bodypile.
"Right, just watch. This will be a temporary thing, but you may as well get used to it right away," you say, one hand moving in a sweeping gesture towards the ship.
Is if in response, the corpses float a few inches off the ground, their entirety shifting as you redirect their weight. In short order, they're pressed up against the side of your ship, positioned just where you want them- a few slide off, but you just have them reposition all across the hull's length.
"Change, twist, morph and mutate," you intone, never really having worked towards changing this particular chant- you never needed to, considering you usually just use it to do work in the leisure of having plenty of time, to really make the best of what you have and construct what you really want.
So, too, do the bodies you're currently focusing on become seemingly liquid, flowing apart and forming a hexagonal pattern over the hull, bones briefly visible before the flesh resolidifies over them. The arms, however, are fused, a few of them at a time, into paddle-like limbs, their tips flaring out into fin-like protrusions sticking well below the water.
You do, however, deliberately keep some of the skin on hand. "What do you guys think, should I cover the sails or remake them completely? They'll be able to turn by themselves once I put some sinew and muscle in there, but I don't want to leave the Marines' symbol on there."
Turning to receive their opinions, you see your crew staring at either you or the ship, a few of them green around the gills- yeah, one just straight up hurls as you watch.
"Really," you sigh, "you'll have to get used to these things, because I, for one, refuse to sail a ship that doesn't move by itself. There'll be a lot of dead people in this thing by the time it's done."
Getting everything loaded on board takes a few more minutes than you'd like, if only because the human element takes a bit to get used to working around you modifying the sails to let them work on their own, a thin layer of muscle allowing them to hoist or set themselves as needed, all connected to the rest of the network of flesh you've drawn over the outside of the ship.
But hey, you aren't in a hurry for the time being, so it hardly really matters at the moment. "Why're we bothering with cannonballs again? We got a couple better ways to blow shit up," Kate says as the heavy ammunition is brought aboard, several times the amount Marine ships of this size would usually carry, according to the soul you recently incorporated into yourself.
"Honestly? Just because we can," you tell her as the two of you lean onto the railing of your ship, watching the loading process as it happens. "We're pirates, may as well shoot huge-ass cannon balls around, you know? Would be a waste not to use the cannons."
"Yeah, guess I get that," she shrugs, dark brown hair waving in the breeze as she grins laconically. "Whatever. I'll go explore the captain's quarters with the others."
Oh boy. You already know the first thing you'll have to expand on, once you really get going renovating this little cruiser of a ship- get some proper space for yourself and the girls, maybe with an integrated jacuzzi somewhere, that's always a hit, and a couple rooms' worth of space for the bed you'll need to fit everyone.
Among other things. May as well make a list and go over it as you get down to business later on, you suppose.
All in all, you pillage a good part of the Marines' armory, including a couple of extra cannons, plenty of food and of course all the money Wishmere was taxing from the people both of this island and the surrounding ones under his authority.
Funnily enough, the gathering of taxes isn't actually something Marines of his rank are supposed to engage in, and technically speaking there's no actual taxation imposed on the people out here at all- but on the flipside, as the highest-ranking officer in the area, the captain could just decide to implement it anyways and nobody cared to countermand him, so it was de facto a thing in the end.
Says a lot about how they operate, you guess. Good thing you've never been one to give a single fuck about what the authorities think ever since you died and made yourself boss, eh?
Once everything's stowed away, you don't bother with any sort of ceremony; you simply make sure everyone is aboard and make the call. "Lift anchor! We got a lot of water to cover, so let's get to it already!"
Of all things, of course you had to find yourself in a flooded alternate reality of some sort, after bumping into that flooded version of Earth. Ah well, you'll play around a bit, see where you can find yourself a few challenges in a real fight, of any sort, and maybe just amass a bunch of treasure or something while you're at it already anyways.
Getting everything loaded on board takes a few more minutes than you'd like, if only because the human element takes a bit to get used to working around you modifying the sails to let them work on their own, a thin layer of muscle allowing them to hoist or set themselves as needed, all connected to the rest of the network of flesh you've drawn over the outside of the ship.
There's worse ways to spend time with your girlfriends.
The water churns with the passing of your vessel, the rowing arms of the flesh attachment splashing the water even as the sails read the winds by themselves, propelling you across the water at considerable speed. Out here at sea, the wind is actually growing pretty strong, so the sails are putting in more work than you'd been expecting, in fact.
…Note to self, eat a few more sailors in the near future. Just so you have an accurate idea of how this whole shipping thing works when it doesn't involve, like, massive container ships like you played with designing once or twice. It's not like anything particularly catastrophic's about to happen, but you prefer to have the knowledge and experience for things you do before you do them and all.
Maybe you're just spoiled due to all the experiences you've absorbed from your past victims, but still.
Your departure was probably seen by at least some of the townsfolk, so you expect word of someone attacking and subsequently wiping out the Marines in that town will be spreading sooner or later. However, as long as you don't make any further waves, you shouldn't be easy to follow, unless some super esoteric powers or abilities come into play, so you definitely have some time before you have to actually worry about anything in that direction.
Not that you were all that worried to begin with, but hey, may as well take advantage and get some stuff done on the sly before you get back on everyone's radar, right?
Which, incidentally, is exactly what you're doing right now. Though mister, what was it, right, Wishmere, you've already almost forgotten despite your perfect memory, though he didn't really pay much attention to what was going on around him most of the time, he did at least keep up with reports that might be relevant to his job, for all that he barely did it as such; he just kept ready to assert his dominance should anyone 'threaten' it, such as by being stronger than a random civilian in his presence.
Not a particularly enlightened mindset, to put it mildly, and the cause of a relatively unfriendly working environment to say the least, but all that aside, he was at least vaguely aware of a brood of Boateaters in the general vicinity of the area he was tasked to guard. A type of Sea King, those- a collective term for large, aquatic creatures.
By which you mean very large. The size of whales at a minimum, generally. You're actually getting the feeling they've got a lot of pretty fucked up animals swimming around here, considering these particular things aren't anything out of the usual.
Boateaters, as the name may imply, are relatively small for what they are, though that's really just because they're juveniles of their species. Essentially eels of humongous size, these particular creatures have a tendency to attack anything coming near the territory they claim, and due to their size they very much can swallow and eat anything up to the size of a rowboat whole.
That's pretty much it, their whole deal- they attack and try to kill things, using their huge bodies to launch themselves at their targets and biting into them, just eating them outright if they're small enough to fit into their mouth, which just so happen to be studded with stupidly long and sharp teeth. Generally dark green, brown and black coloration, some of them also grow short fins to better maneuver underwater, but otherwise, yeah, just oversized, hyperaggressive eels.
Normally, they're just fought by Marines keeping some distance from them and strategically firing cannons at the area they inhabit, which usually drives them away in short order. The point there isn't to kill them, because it's really hard to actually fight something like these things, and really more to just make them migrate away from routes humans frequent, to drastically reduce the headache they are.
Wishmere, of course, had absolutely no intention of dealing with them himself, but he had been planning to make some of his subordinates, particularly those that had been doing well during training, fight them hand to hand. Essentially feeding them to the… not fish, but eels, rather, to get rid of them.
The man constantly felt threatened in his position as the 'strongest' in his little fiefdom. Seriously exhausting to deal with, you'd imagine…
Funnily enough, Boateaters tend to just engage in cannibalism when their territories dry up and they've been chased away from richer hunting grounds for long enough, sharply limiting their numbers as fully grown Sea Kings. Those, on the other hand, are commonly known as Shipeaters. Pretty rare for them to stick around South Blue, and when they do… Well, that's when the Marines send a bunch of ships at once.
They're kind of a bitch to handle as well.
However, actually getting to the place the Boateaters supposedly relocated to recently will take a while, so for the moment you're just going through the cruiser you took for yourself and making that list of changes you'd like to implement in it step by step. Having a clear plan is always important for these kinds of projects, after all.
And while you're doing that, you're also going ahead and putting the insides of the ship as they currently are in order. "You there, put the cutlery away properly so it doesn't break in the first storm we hit. You lot, stop gawking at the sails and sort our cargo, I want it all organized next time I go below deck! And you-"
"Hey, uh, Captaaaaiiin~?" You're interrupted from organizing this rabble by one of them, clearly trying to stop the barrage of orders you've been giving off from continuing. Look, you have to straighten these guys out so things run smoothly, so you can then back off and leave them to run things on their own once you're sure this ship's crew won't implode on itself the moment you turn your back. "How about our Jolly Roger?"
"Right, the flag." "It's kind of important, isn't it?" "If you talk about pirates, you gotta talk about their Jolly Roger." "Can't be a real pirate without one."
"And there you have it, Capt'n. We need the ol' skull and crossbones, else nobody will take us serious!"
…That would bother you a little, you suppose. Like, only a little, you don't care for what other people think about you all that much, but if you're already playing the part of a pirate…
"Alright, I'll figure something out," you say, nodding decisively. "Don't think you lot get to slack off in the meantime."
""Awwwwww…""
"Get everything organized, then you can take a break. Now hop to it!"
A Jolly Roger, the infamous flag known to herald piracy, skull and crossbones a symbol of fear and terror as much as it is an identifying mark, in this dimension, of the pirates using it; not only does it serve to make it clear you're a pirate up for business, it's a sort of banner that symbolizes what kind of pirate you are, in some ways.
Not everyone takes it quite all that seriously, of course, but you did catch that much from your general knowledge injection upon dimensional entry. Naturally, being somewhat inclined towards creative expression and handicrafts as a whole yourself, you can't just put up some random flag, at this point.
No, pretty much all the pirates out there (and, this era being called the Age of Piracy for a reason, there's a lot) have their own Jolly Roger, symbolizing their own… well, way of life, philosophical position, however you wanna call it. Again, for many it's just a tongue-in-cheek way to show off what their pirate crew or captain is all about, but even then- you refuse to just do something random.
Not entirely so, anyways. Having asked around the others, it turns none of the vampires you brought with you have any particularly strong opinion on this, aside from Sarah's suggestion to give the skull fox ears (that was denied by everyone else in short order), so it mostly comes down to something that works for yourself, first and foremost.
Not everyone has to really get what it's all about, so you can draw on a lot of symbolism in this regard. And, well, you have a couple options there. In the end, though, you decide not to go too crazy with it, mostly keep it to the traditional structure- it has to stay recognizable as a Jolly Roger, after all.
A skull and crossbones, as per the usual. Except you added a coffin, lying horizontally in the skull's jaws, the stylized insignia of the Lord Street Crypts once more finding good use. Additionally, the skull's right eye is filled out with the symbol you adopted as your own back in Remnant, the conveniently circular maker's mark that also decorates Last Embrace.
Having disappeared inside your quarters for a bit with some black cloth and white paint that you had lying in the cargo hold, you emerge with the completed article, hoisting it yourself in short order. In the wind, it almost looks like the skull is eating one coffin after another, chomping down on them as your sign twinkles in its eye.
You also made a second, larger version to fit over your middle sail, which you naturally waste no time adding over its animated surface area as well, corners bound up by literally melting them into the flesh and skin. This one is less actively moved by the wind, so instead you just drew it so the sign always looks like it's gazing back at anyone that looks at it.
"That's a beautiful flag, cap'n. Looks real… real." "I like the gem in the eye. Gives it some character!" "Idiot, it's not a gem, it's an orange slice!" "Aah, you wanna go?!"
You consider correcting both of them by pointing out you originally meant it as a stylized, abstract representation of the moon and the night sky… But honestly, it doesn't feel worth it, so you leave them to the ensuing scuffle as a few of the other crew members get sucked into it.
You got your Jolly Roger nice and visible to anyone that cares to look, that's all you really need for now.
"I still can't believe you're doing what you're doing."
Uyehara Yoshiaki was inside the place often dubbed the Council Room in common parlance, frowning as he beheld what may be called his political nemesis, if only by process of elimination. They didn't exactly clash often, they just didn't get along.
"You will have to be a little more specific, I am afraid."
Father Simon Wales, the closest thing to a pope a mad cult could have, was the only other occupant of the room at the moment, the rest of the council having already left. His wide-brimmed hat laid on the table, the man's beard could not hide his age, but the one thing that belied it were his eyes.
The eyes of someone that hadn't lived through half the things everyone knew this man had.
"Everything. The whole… religion thing. I simply cannot fathom how anyone could look at a monster that does nothing but harm on every conceivable level, including the spiritual, and decide to revere it as a deity."
"…" The old man with your eyes beholds the young man with old eyes for a long moment, taking in him and the question he asked. Then, slowly, a smile stretches over his lips, distorting his entire face into a chuckle that seems to know no end before what little reality they have in this mad limbo's wonderland reasserts itself. "Ah, I shouldn't be surprised. You are far too intelligent to have realized."
"Now what's that supposed to mean? If this is another one of those emotional intelligence things, I'll scream," Uyehara half grumbles, half warns. "I get enough of that at home."
"Hahaha, yes, the misses certainly keep you on your toes," Wales says, unable to help himself but laugh at the 'misfortune' on display. "But no, it is another issue entirely. And in truth, I do think you deserve the truth."
"I would much appreciate not being lied to, yes."
"Very well, no lies it shall be! Not that I would lie, of course. My religious practices disapprove of such things."
"Yeah, yeah, just misguide the other person, I get it. I realize he never lies outright. Now will you get to the point or do I have time to grab some popcorn first?"
"What you have to understand," Father Wales continues, unperturbed, "is that the exact nature of our… man-shaped predicament is unique in many ways. He took on some semblance of vampirism and some such, but we both know he later discovered this to be nothing but a ruse, an abstract association inadvertently turned real."
"So what, no reason to get all superstitious," the younger council member argues. "Unless…"
Brow furrowed, he glared at his counterpart, thinking furiously. The man, for his part, let him, obviously not seeing a need to interrupt the process.
"Is that what you're all about? He can turn the unreal real, in some ways? As an act of… divine creation, to borrow from theological terms?"
"Almost, but not quite," Father Wales grinned, obviously enjoying getting one over on his scientifically-minded colleague. "Think. Upon his Ascension, He recreated himself, His true self using nothing but half-remembered, dissociated templates and universal commonalities. That much is true. It is a feat of immense power, to be sure, but I agree with you it is hard to truly call divine."
Uyehara wasn't a fool, of course. The closest thing to a true fanatic had just admitted to him the God he revered wasn't a god. There obviously had to be a catch somewhere, a trick. Why else spread an entire faith system based on-
"The cocoon," he half hissed, half groaned, eyes shooting open wide. "He-"
"He recreates himself in a minor way each and every time," Wales completed the thought for him, sounding like the cat that got the canary. In many ways, that was just what he was. After all- "He is remade, and for all that we, all of us in this place, are dead, we all are a part of him. Not his physical form, but the true one we only witnessed recently. We can influence what he becomes."
"It's all based on his own knowledge as available to everyone here." Uyehara Yoshiaki closed his eyes. "That last revelation only happened recently. He wasn't conscious enough until now to recognize himself until this last jump. How-"
"It was a guess, and it barely mattered before anyways," he was waved off. "What matters is that His domain is to turn the imaginary real, however it works. And what is faith if not the determination to believe in something?"
'Dismay' was a weak word to describe the expression on his face. "You're trying to make your own god."
"Faith, my friend. Faith is the key. We all are part of Him already, and in time, our faith will bear fruit. It is the one way I could think of to make a difference, when my head cleared… And I was already doing it at the time," Father Simon Wales Smiled. "We pray not to the god that is, but to the God that will be. He knows, of course. He knows everything we think and do. He has not stopped us. We Will Be Part Of God, The Ultimate Destination Of All."
"…You're insane. You're actually, completely, thoroughly insane. Nobody has any idea how any of this whole… supernatural thing works, and you're, what, trying to harness it?"
"That is what Faith is all about, as the young'uns would say, no?" The light in those eyes was bright enough it felt like it could physically blind anyone that looked him in the face now. "Our deity will not be some abstract concept. He will be where all of us go, He will be our paradise and we will be His conduits. After all, if a man can bend reality, if up is down and souls are preserved after death in a state like ours, what will you call this, if not a miracle? What are we, if not the larval stage of God?"
"…"
The truth was, as always, perhaps more horrifying than any comforting lies and rationalizations one could think of. Of course, whether this truth was the truthfulness of Wales' half-mad ramblings turned religion or Uyehara Yoshiake's consideration of him hopefully being wrong on all accounts remained to be seen.
With your ship in as much order as is really required for a pirate ship, your own Jolly Roger out there for all to see (and learn to associate with the acts of terror you plan to commit in the near future), your next step is to get the crew to a level that…
Well, to get them to a decent baseline of capability as pirates. Yes, you distinctly remember not picking them out for their skill or strength in battle, nor their experience with this kind of job, but that just means it's about high time you got started with getting them working on being at least passable at this whole thing.
You won't demand they spontaneously develop first-rate sailing skills or anything, particularly as you plan to have most of the ship working by itself by the time you're done with it, but in the meantime you do believe it'd be a good thing to give everyone a turn at shooting the cannons, steering for a short bit (despite this thing running automatically already, yes) and just doing every job around the ship at least once over the next couple of days.
There's a couple reasons for this. While pirates should be able to just do what they want, in your opinion, if they want to have a ship actually sail in the direction they want they should have a general idea of how to make it do so without falling apart midway, and a modicum of willingness to get their hands dirty when push comes to shove has to be injected into them at a young age in their career.
Pirates, you believe, are no different than children in some ways. And contrary to your daughters, you don't care to coddle these ones. You forcefully made these people join you as pirates, you never promised they'd have an easy time of it.
Granted, you also institute a shift system to let half the crew just do whatever they want at all times for the couple of days your impromptu little training program will take place over, so it's not like you're pushing them all that hard. If anything, you'd say you're being pretty lenient and gentle with them.
There are plenty of rocks out in the ocean, poking out of the water. You bring out a scoreboard and make a game out of letting everyone shoot the cannons. One of the mooks wins the impromptu contest by a landslide, interestingly.
That aside, things run pretty smoothly, overall. You're making some good time, especially as the undead attachment you grafted onto the ship is getting a little better at doing its job one bit at a time, and while the wind isn't massively favoring your direction it isn't a great detriment, either.
Kate and Sherrel are inside your quarters, discussing potential ways to blow things up to be installed inside your ship, something you gladly leave them to- inserting yourself into the conversation wouldn't actually be particularly productive or anything, you feel. Meanwhile, Taylor decided to try diving alongside the ship, keeping pace with it by way of sheer determination and stupid levels of vampiric athleticism.
Come to think of it, it might be somewhat of a developing hobby on her part. Diving, you mean. You remember her doing the same on Earth Fallout, for one, and scouting for crustaceans of interest, or any other sunken treasure in sight, is far from the worst way to spend her time.
Though from what she's seeing, the ocean does go pretty damn deep all over, at least so far. That sunken treasure stuff might take some actual effort to actually look for. Also, no cool crustaceans yet, though you expect that to change sooner or later.
After all, one of the places you plan to visit, here in the South Blue, is somewhat famous for its crabs- but you'll get to that when you get to it.
Oh, and as for Sarah… She's currently in the middle of redecorating the area you plan to turn into your bedroom slash hibernation chamber. Making plans for the furniture and decorations and whatnot. The two of you even agreed that you'd put some appealing plundered valuables on the walls at some point, to really fit that pirate vibe and all.
That said, while you were planning on joining her shortly, it turns out you end up somewhat… preoccupied in short order instead.
"Sir! I have no idea how to use a weapon, sir!" Of all the things for the girl you picked up from that restaurant to shout once she approached you, you were kind of expecting that one. It wasn't the top of your list, but it was in the top ten, you suppose, right next to 'I have never had anal sex before' or some variation thereof.
"I see," you reply, nodding. "That is indeed an issue. What do you suggest we do about it?"
"I request instruction? Sir?"
"Alright, first off, remember we're not Marines, so there's no need to call me sir. Secondly, come here, I'll show you how to hold a sword without letting it fly out of your hand the moment you hit something."
It certainly does come in handy, to have eaten so many people that used swords themselves. Standing behind her, you proceed to instruct the girl, holding her hands and showing her how to adjust her grip as necessary whenever she starts to slip, something she seems particularly happy about.
You can literally smell the happy hormones wafting off her when you focus. It's actually kind of nice, like patting a pet and receiving grateful squeaks in return.
Of course that ends up with you giving the whole crew a quick lesson on not dying with a weapon in hand, or at least not for stupid reasons such as accidentally stabbing yourself because you're entirely incapable of holding it properly. It ends up a bit of a mess, but everyone has fun, so it's perfectly alright with you. And, while you're at it, you also hand out some of the pistols you stole of the Marines, back when you took the ship.
Flintlocks, of course, but they're in good condition and you have plenty of ammunition for them. Good enough to have all your little pirates keep one of these mostly plain, functional guns on themselves for now, in lieu of better alternatives.
Another thing you'll get to sooner or later. It's not a priority or anything, but you can work a little more on the equipment front when an opportunity presents itself.
When you make your way into Boateater-infested waters, it is easily discernible that something is going on by the fact something collides with your ship's hull, causing it to shake just a little bit. Some captains, especially those commanding a vessel with a shell of solid steel, might disregard this as just their imagination, or some particularly hefty flotsam of some kind.
Those captains would be idiots, of course, particularly here in the South Blue, where Boateaters are a known phenomenon. Swiftly stepping out towards the railing, you command your ship mentally, adjusting course and looking down into the water.
There's a few ways you could do this whole thing, ranging from just imperiously gesturing with your hands while you engage the Sea Kings you can already feel coming from all directions (their blood signatures are pretty easy to make out, what with their body size) though telekinesis, gravity manipulation and probably some hemokinesis on top to jumping into the water yourself to get into what amounts to an underwater fist fight with a bunch of giant monster eels.
Or you could, of course, just ask Taylor or Kate to take care of killing these things. They'd be perfectly happy to do it for you, and probably appreciate a chance to warm up before you get to the series of mass murders you're planning right now.
A single Boateater is, generally speaking, no real threat to an actual ship, or at least not as long as it's dealt with properly. While they can and will attack targets larger than themselves, their method of attack generally is to just swim at something really quickly, then biting it until they can eat a chunk out of the thing in question, if it's too big to swallow whole in the first place.
Normally, a ship being attacked like this can just sail away from the offending juvenile Sea King, removing itself from the territory it's focused on at the moment; while they will give chase for a short time, the things dislike moving outside of the area they're laying claim to, and will generally let go long before either their teeth or the ship's hull give in under the force of their jaws.
That, of course, is the scenario of a single Boateater, and doesn't really apply in the case of a whole batch of the things coming at you at once. Generally, you have a decent chance at getting away still, if you notice what's going on early on, but once you have a dozen of these things biting and thrashing and dragging your ship any way they can things tend to get… hairy, to say the least.
Well, if you're a normal sailor of some kind, anyways. Much as a sufficiently large pack of Boateaters is a serious issue to any ship, a sufficiently powerful Gabriel is more than enough to put a stop to any number of these things.
Quite literally so, as you have plenty of ways to utterly cripple their ability to attack your ship. Or them. Same difference in practical terms, really.
That said, it wouldn't do to not to show off some of your power for the peons; your crew has yet to really earn your good graces, through loyalty or at least being reliable enough you don't need to look over their shoulders all the time, so reinforcing the understanding that challenging you is what experts might call a bad fucking idea.
So you don't just make use of the entire ocean whose weight you can draw on, the easy availability of massive amounts of water actually pretty damn convenient for your gravity control, and instead just… push them up, really, lifting the Boateater that struck first up past the ship's hull and into the air.
"Alright everyone, we're here," you announce amidst the spray of water as the dark-skinned giant eel 'falls' up into the air, wiggling angrily and trying to snap at anything in sight on the way. "Get to the cannons before-"
"I'm here," Kate announces, raising a musket she took from the Marine armory. A pull of the trigger later, the loaded musket ball is propelled straight at the Boateater's head… And explodes.
Literally, it goes up like a mail bomb's worth of C4, generating a shock wave that bathes the entire deck in a squall of pressure and warmth as the air passes, along with a veritable rain of blood, fat and bone fragments.
All that remains is a limb, barely twitching headless corpse, the blood still inside of it 'mysteriously disappearing' as you watch. "Any more of 'em?" The brunette grins, slinging the stolen weapon over her shoulder. "I've been itchin' for some target practice already."
"Never mind, don't bother with the cannons then," you translate for the crew's benefit. "We are keeping at least one of these things for everyone, though. Get a sample soul in everybody's stomach and all."
"Captain, do we search their stomachs for treasure?" One of the crewmen asks, likely having misheard you. "These buggers swallow anything they can find whole, so sometimes there's treasure inside of 'em!"
"Sure, why not? I was looking to recycle them for biomass anyways, may as well take a quick look while I do it," you shrug, ripping the next Boateater out of the ocean- only for Kate to, once again, shoot it in the head already. "Assuming the loot survives their deaths."
"Please bitch, as if I'd miss their heads at this distance."
Spontaneously choosing to play along, you transform, silently approaching Kate to wrap your arms around her waist, your breasts pressing against her back. "Oh, but you just love it when I get all bitchy," you growl into her ear, batting your eyelashes with the kind of grin you don't see outside the bedroom normally.
For some reason, the entire crew's hearts skip a simultaneous beat, a bunch of them looking like they've just found god. Throwing them a glance, you huff at just how stupid they manage to be, sliding a hand through your raven hair and throwing it over your shoulder before you transform back.
Immediately, half the crew falls over, now looking like god just abandoned them instead. Really, just what demographics did you end up drawing on for your crew? You'd say something about men, but even the sole girl you recruited is among them, playing along.
"You lot get your heads out of the gutter and prepare to clean the deck. It'll need a swab once we're done here anyways."
Even Kate breathes a sigh of relief once you're male again, your open shirt no longer swelling to try and contain your chest behind its flabs of cloth. Honestly, this is all nothing she hasn't seen before.
It's some hard work, being a fisherman dealing exclusively with giant, over-aggressive and always hungry mega-eels. Lucky for you, most of the actual work is being made a lot easier thanks to your various powers and magic, and so all the 'hard' part is taken out of the equation from the start.
With most of the heads already removed by way of your fishing method, you basically just split the remaining bodies down in half, following what actually is a half-remembered way to prepare raw eel when cooking with the stuff. Once the spine is out, anyways, though you don't particularly bother with this step yourself.
Instead, you're a lot more interested in the creatures' stomachs, aside from their general use as masses of dead meat for you to adapt to other uses later. Every one you open is a chance at some sort of treasure.
Predictably, the entire crew cheers every time you open up a juvenile Sea King like a loot box, grumbling in disappointment every time it turns out not to contain anything of note. Despite their name and reputation, Boateaters don't all have undigested boats sitting inside of them or anything; most of what you get are just marine animals they managed to eat recently.
There is one exception, though, in that you actually do end up finding an actually intact mid-sized boat inside one of them. Its mast is broken and there's no sign of whoever used to sail it, but aboard it you do pick out… a treasure chest!
It's filled with some half legible treasure maps, of all things, along with some actual treasure, gold and silver coins, some jewelry, that kind of thing.
"Huh. Must've belonged to a treasure hunter or something, before it was swallowed," Sarah remarks, having come on deck when you started cutting industrial amounts of meat apart using your magic to form dead flesh according to your will. "Most of these maps are probably already used, but they didn't manage to bring the latest treasure back to civilization before their boat got eaten."
Not about to question what she put together using her power (that just gets her in a bad mood and require extended periods of pampering, as you know from experience), you nod and move right on along. "Guess we'll just throw this stuff in with the rest of our treasure, see if we'll find some use for it down the line."
More importantly, you have some great wealth of fresh, raw meat you just pulled up, enough of it in fact you have to keep it floating nearby instead of actually on the ship to avoid sinking it with the weight. Finally, you're cooking with some real gas over here.
Soul Gained: Boateater x1: Juvenile Shipeater, a species of Sea King notable for often swimming around the South Blue while young, in search of the large amounts of food it requires to grow. Essentially an eel large enough to swallow a boat whole, as per the name.
With all the necessary resources to make some actual headway at your fingertips, you can finally make some real headway. Of course you don't just go around slathering meat into the general shape of a ship, nor do you just haphazardly layer some muscle over the hull of your cruiser and call it a day.
No, if your borderline mad science projects and their undeniable successes have taught you anything, it is that you need to have a clear idea of what you're doing and how it'll fit in with the overall project you're trying to complete, whether that's a hilariously lethal combat robot or weapons system or a whole-ass airship the size of a massive city.
Luckily, you're also very used to coming up with plans for this kind of thing, so you already had a few plans and concepts to gun for in mind before you went into this. In the end, what you chose to work towards was basically a smaller variation of something you already did once elsewhere, just adapted here and there.
The Santa Sarah was a good first run for a few of the functions you intend to include here, after all. Particularly the diving mode you aim to implement.
First off, you replace most of the hull with toughened flesh, instead reusing some of the metal used in its construction for an outer layer of the stuff to make it almost look like normal. 'Almost' being the operative term here; sharp eyes might make out some of the raw, red muscle in some of the joints. You could've fixed that up, but truth be told it works just fine either way and you couldn't be arsed, not when it even looks cool on top.
The rest you divided between adding an additional, thin layer of steel in this fleshy outer plating, just to ensure the CS Grand Cruiser (the CS stands for 'Cryptic Ship, because you always name something after your gang) can easily shrug off everything up to and including sustained cannon fire with ease. Speaking of, though, the cannons also get an upgrade!
With just a bit of flesh-based engineering, you've enabled them to actually aim to a small extent, basically putting an aim-assist mode into the whole construction of each of the sixteen cannons your Grand Cruiser bears. Additionally, while they can and still do fire off these explosive cannonballs the Marines turned into standard issue, and do so with greater velocity even thanks to a little rework of their insides, letting them 'squeeze' things a bit for better results by narrowing the pipe part of themselves, in layman's terms, you even added some… alternate firing options.
Well, it's really not much, just harpoons tipped with Boateater teeth as barbs, plus ropes made of woven sinew that the ship can pull in to draw whatever was hit nearer. It's just a fun little way to conveniently ensure other ships can't escape boarding attempts, as well as the obvious utility in hunting Sea Kings in case you need the crew to actually contribute there one day.
Then you've also got… Well, doors made of flesh that can open on their own, using the same muscle structure as you'd find in an elbow joint, incidentally, and of course a must-have for lengthy voyages- a convenient mechanism set at the bottom of the ship that draws in salt water and desalinates it, essentially providing fresh water to the entire inner structure of the cruiser through a series of fleshy pipes.
Yes, that does mean everyone can shower frequently. Yes, that was a driving force in this design, seeing as you don't want to spend days or even weeks on end bathing in the stink of your crew. No offense to them, but fuck their mortal tendency to develop body odor unless washed frequently.
"Whoa, this shit looks so cool!" "Open. Close. Open. Close." "Hey, does this mean we're officially riding a magic ship?" "Pretty sure it was already magic when it steered itself." "Yeah, but that was gross-magic. Now it's cool-magic."
"I wonder," you sigh, "whether you guys are just weirdly adaptive or whether they put something in the water back on that island. Also, you may want to hold your breaths just in case."
"Why's that, captain?"
"Because we're about to submerge."
When the Grand Cruiser tilts forward, a bunch of them scream. When it continues to move straight into the same direction, they all scream, including a certain girl clinging to you with both arms as you stand there, watching how this particular function works out.
Then, when their watery death fails to materialize, some of them manage to stop, and behold the bubble of air around the Grand Cruiser with wonder as it continues to sail under the sea. The ones that continue screaming need a bit longer yet, but then, that's just business as usual around here, you're getting the impression.
"How's that for a magic ship, huh?" The wondrous things you can do when you can make dead, animated flesh do magical things and apply those things with a touch of cleverness.
Cryptic Ship Grand Cruiser (CS Grand Cruiser): A modified cruiser originally stolen from the Marines, since heavily modified by way of dead flesh being formed to replace and add to its structure, then animated.
Flesh Hull: A thick layer of unnaturally hardened flesh is layered with the former hull, providing excellent protection and resistance to most attacks. Also regenerates, as do any fleshy parts of the ship.
Self-Guiding: Undead ship parts take over the control of the sail, as well as a fleshy, undead equivalent to an engine enabling further propulsion. Additionally, outright magical effects add to this function, making the ship faster overall.
Death Cannons: Undead structures allow cannons to aim themselves with greater accuracy, firing cannonballs at greater velocity besides. Can also fire harpoons lined with Sea King teeth instead, their sinew-ropes directly connected to the ship's hull so they might be pulled back in as needed.
Diving: The ship may dive beneath the sea at will, maintaining a bubble of breathable air using magical means. As the sail loses its use, overall speed is reduced while in this mode of movement. May run out of breathing air eventually.
Miscellaneous Convenience: Doors may open and close automatically using animated muscles, salt water from the environment is automatically desalinated and distributed from a central tank throughout the ship as needed, using fleshy pipes that function similar to bowels in living creatures
It is now night
This dimension has a pretty nice night sky, all told. Probably just the lack of light pollution, but it's a nice sight to witness regardless, once you're done testing the diving function and resurface.
The crew is initially confused at not being tired at all yet, which is when you mentioned that they need much less sleep after they drank your blood. You also tried to explain to them they still will need some later, so they don't crash for a whole night at some point, but by that point they'd already broken out the ale they stole back from the base.
And hey, you let them party a bit. If that's how they want to spend their nights, let them.
There are some things about yourself you try to stay on top of, and actively work on when they come up. Bad habits, one may call them, though you figure in your case it's going beyond that description and straight-up bordering some form of psychosis or something.
You never ate enough psychologists to really get a grip on the exact definitions here in a practical way, but you're pretty sure that it bears to call these things out when you realize you're falling into familiar patterns that you probably shouldn't.
Well, it's not like you're some massively insane psychopath, of course, nor are you constantly plagued by some inability to understand social norms or whatever, but yeah, there's a couple things about your own behavior that go back all the way to when you were alive.
And, while you generally are proud of who you were then as much as you're proud of who you are now, for all that you have your differences with past, alive-Gabe, even you will readily recognize you have some bad habits built up over your youth that haunt you to this day.
But enough beating around the bush, the specific issue you mean is that you avoid other guys in general. There. You never really got along with other boys when you were a kid, and that kind of colored your interactions with people as you grew up- and still continued to not exactly click with anyone your age if they were male.
Maybe it had something to do with how much nicer girls always were to you, or maybe it's you subconsciously avoiding the other boys after a few (mostly failed) attempts to bully you, before you got a hang of how to make yourself a far more bothersome target than any of the other kids liked, but either way, it's a thing in the end.
Women, you can easily get along with. Gay guys? Surprisingly enough, they work just fine for you as well, heck, just look at Ethan. And if you make a conscious effort to reach out and try to get to know someone, you wouldn't even notice that bit of awkwardness you feel any time you try to interact with anyone that doesn't fit those two categories.
But if you aren't? Heck, you subconsciously try to avoid so much as learning people's names, because you know knowing them better just ends up in unnecessary drama as soon as you sleep with their girlfriend, wife, daughter, mother or whoever else they might care about. It's happened to you so often before, it's hard not to expect this series of events to play out in some way.
Got a part time job in high school? Fucked the manager's wife the very next day. Tried to join the football team to get a little manlier? Slept with the team captain's girlfriend, so he threw you out. Heck, knew a cashier at the local mall by name? You fucked his daughter in the mall toilets every weekend while he worked.
It's just… always how it turned out. And at some point, it felt like you weren't seeing guys as people anymore, and more just kind of like props in the vicinity of yourself and whoever you were going to have sex with next.
And yeah, you also had some serious issues seeing girls and women as people occasionally, rather than as just the next fuck, that is, but at least their thoughts and reactions always still somehow mattered to you, y'know? They were never as completely irrelevant beyond the same old stock phrases and opinions you just had to navigate past real quick to get to the meat of any real social interactions you had.
You know, the meaty thighs, the squishy bits, the horizontal tango. Take your pick.
Which brings you right back to the issue at hand. You don't really… like your crew, for the most part, save for its one female member. That's not through any fault of their own, if anything they've done really well adapting to your absurdities. It's just that, well…
They're mostly guys, and you've had basically nothing but bad experiences with other guys unless your gaydar was pointing them out as okay to associate with, is what you're saying. And it's kind of been coloring the way you think of and interact with them.
Which absolutely isn't fair to them, of course. You know and understand as much. It just still takes some real effort to push yourself out of this particular groove you feel into when you were, like, twelve? That sounds about right for when you stopped bothering to try and get along…
Probably better described as a gradual process, but whatever. Point is, you really should try to be more personable with the men. Which is exactly why you don't just piss off and leave them to their drinking and assorted merry-making while you do your own thing.
No, you take the leftover Boateater filet, after having halved its body and all, and cut it up to grill it piece by piece right on deck, under the starry night sky.
Grilling giant pieces of raw eel on a lattice made of said eels' spines is definitely a bit of a new one, even for you, but the principle of it is pretty familiar, so you don't really need to think much about how to do this one. You'd have liked to have some, like, soy sauce for this, you think (BBQ sauce wouldn't work with the eel, you think), but even with just some sprinkles of salt, the meat's perfectly juicy enough to be delicious just like this.
Really, it just downright overflows with flavor every time you bite into it. It's some good eating, is what you're saying, despite the strictly limited supply of condiments you have to go with it.
The crew seems to agree as well, considering they're singing and dancing by now, the party on deck fully ongoing. Taking the opportunity for what it is, you eventually call all of them closer, Boateater slices dripping with juice in everyone's hands and mouths. "You've all done a lot better than I was expecting, by the way," is how you address your crew, casually handling the grill you threw together yourself despite the heat of the coals you're using for fire (for now, anyways, you'll probably get a more convenient method in place later). "I was totally expecting at least a few of you to flunk out at some point."
"Aww, shucks, boss." "Not sure that's a compliment, actually." "It sounds like one, though!" "Like, this pirate thing ain't so bad, so far."
"Yes, quite," you say before the usual random hubbub can continue. "Figure it's about time I actually got to know all of you. Get some names to your faces, you know? If we're all gonna be pirates together, we should know who everyone else is, at least."
When nobody has any real objections, or they're all too busy chewing on the soft, yet just chewy enough Boateater slices the size of an arm each you already handed out anyways, you continue.
"Let's start nice and slow and just have everyone introduce themselves one at a time, I guess," you suggest, starkly reminded of that one time you ended up working part time as a kindergarten teacher for a few weeks. "Names, aspirations, those kinds of things. Who're you and what do you want to do in the future?"
Gesturing at the nearest fresh pirate, you kick things off as best you can. "Well, uh, I'm Jerry I guess, and I always wanted to be a shipwright growing up. Build my own ships, that kind of thing?"
And that's pretty much how it goes from there, the entire crew going through with this despite the downright palpable awkwardness in the air. Turns out you have a whole menagerie of characters on board, with life goals as simple and unassuming as building ships or owning your own restaurant all the way to sailing every ocean in the world at least once.
Which, hey, kinda niche, but it sounds like a perfectly nice thing to want to do with your life. Many people around don't see so much as more than a single island, so you definitely get why someone would develop the desire to go out there and explore the world.
"How about you, Captain? What's your big dream?"
…Kind of an innocuous question, but it's a good enough one, you suppose. You may as well play along with this whole 'let's get to know each other' process you kicked loose.
"Honestly, it's not much of a dream, not really," you shrug, "but I'm in this whole thing to have fun, get bitches and lots of loot. Fight strong people, see cool places, those kinds of things."
Crossing your arms behind your head, you lean back and smile.
"I'm not gonna pretend to go out of my way while I do all of that, but while we're at it anyways, I don't mind if you guys go and pursue your own stuff on the side. Oh, speaking of which- I got something for all of you."
Sitting up, you pull a certain book bound in a bunch of human leather and solid gold that forms decorations and embellishments, many of which look like skulls and swords and stuff, out of your shadow at an angle that makes it look like you literally pulled it out of your ass.
"Nearly forgot to have you guys read this."
"Is that a magic book?" Johnny (one of the Johnnies you have on board, anyways) asks.
"You could say that, yeah. Here's the way it works, the memories and thoughts of a bunch of people are copied inside this thing's pages, so by reading it you can learn how to do what they did. It basically lets you learn what they knew directly, though there's a few caveats," you explain, holding the Necronomicon by its spine with one hand, letting it dangle a bit.
Obviously fed up with this treatment, the golden skeleton on said spine swirls around the sword it holds, poking at your palm. "Perhaps it is best if you let me explain," it says, its dry, ever-sardonic voice clearly coming from the book itself.
""It can talk?!" The entire crew cries out in unison, all of them rocketing backwards for a moment.
"It indubitably can and it indeed does," your creation informs them politely. "Now if the peons would kindly remain quiet for a moment?"
The crew exchanges a few looks, but does as asked, all of them spontaneously dropping to the floor to sit down like this was story time back in the kindergarten.
"Good. Well then, as my creator told you, within my pages lies untold knowledge and practiced skill of minds far greater than yours. However, while I shall confer these things straight unto you, as your minds are feeble and miniscule, doing so will leave you lethargic and distracted for some time as the information is incorporated into you."
"What this guy means," you say when understanding fails to materialize on the pirates' faces, "is that your brains will be full and sleepy for a couple days while they digest stuff."
There you go, they got that one.
"Yes. As I was saying." If you didn't have almost complete power over it, you'd almost suspect this book was annoyed at having to deal with stupid people. Though, 'stupid' isn't quite right- they're just severely under-educated, really. Not their fault or anything. "I shall you to select some fields you may educate yourself upon with my help. Form an orderly line, if you would."
Whelp, better leave it at this for now. These guys will take care of the rest on their own from here.
With your ship in proper working order, now, complete with the gimmicks you require as a minimum standard if you're gonna be a pirate, as well as your crew both becoming at least marginally useful and likely too lethargic to get up to all that much trouble for a few days, it's high time you set your next course, still using what knowledge of the surrounding waters you have thanks to the last human soul you bothered to consume.
The general idea, as far as you're concerned, is to head towards the Grand Line, the particular area on this planet that's generally considered to be the place where strong pirates go for one reason or another… or, alternatively, as the pirate graveyard of this age, considering most pirates don't cut it there. A tumultous place, where navigation is a lost cause without specialized equipment and danger lurks on every path.
It's exactly where you should be headed, in other words, considering both infamous pirates and the World Government as well as the most notable of its Marines can be found there. Not to mention the 'legendary treasure' said to lie at its end, the so-called One Piece.
You're not about to go nuts all over it the way so many pirates apparently do, only to get their hopes and dreams broken alongside their dicks when they try to breach the Grand Line. Still, you may go for it if you end up in the area anyways, it's just no real priority for now far as you're concerned.
No, your interest lies much more in the places you'll visit in the more immediate term. Speaking of, regardless of whether you'll sail straight towards this one place you know as the entrance to the Grand Line, Reverse Mountain, or stay in the South Blue for a bit before you do anything else, you're planning to head to more or less the same direction for a bit either way.
The 'twinned' islands of Crab Crab Island and Coconut Island are where you'll go first, to restock on some supplies, possibly commit some atrocities and plan your next steps from there. Satisfied with putting further planning off until then, you instead turn your focus towards more important things for you to do.
By which you mean Sarah. You'll do her. Because she's been a good girl and waiting all this time for you to get done getting things underway, despite the increasingly urgent need to be spoiled you've been feeling rising inside of her. As such, your duty, as her brother and husband, is pretty clear, eh?
Your sister is, it has to be said, a very beautiful girl. Young woman, really, if you want to be technical about it. Her bright, pale-gold hair, dainty button nose, cute smattering of freckles she only has sometimes these days and more are enough to qualify her as a prime beauty even amongst beauties, and you will personally fight anyone that claims otherwise.
That's without even mentioning her shapely form, from her breasts that ended up growing a good bit after she became a vampire (they were perfectly palm-sized beforehand, now they're larger enough to take some proper and thorough handling, much to her enjoyment whenever you handle them) to her slightly slimmer waist leading up to her pleasingly curvy hips.
She doesn't have any sort of exaggerated hourglass figure, instead just looking very feminine and grabbable, like it'd be a lot of fun to grab her by the hips and nuzzle her nose with your own, any height difference between you be damned.
Oh, and you haven't even gotten started on her personality. The way her eyes glow animatedly whenever she talks about something nobody else around knows or figured out yet, regardless of what color they are at the time, that little mischievous grin when she's about to ruin somebody's whole career and life on top just by saying a few words…
Sarah Livsey, to say it in as few words as possible, is absolutely, positively, downright apocalyptically beautiful, cute, adorable and attractive, both as a person in general and when 'merely' considering her appearance.
And none of these things can keep up with just how much more appealing she becomes when she's gasping your name, moaning sweetly in-between the kisses you press against her mouth, her bare limbs entangling around your back as you pound her into the bed inside the Captain's cabin you took over for yourself.
Her sweet, tight pussy is all but stroking your cock with every thrust into its depths, velvety folds, Sarah's soft, yet tensile thighs squeezing at your hips as though to urge to go harder, faster. Hooded eyes do much the same as they stare into yours, her uneven breath tickling your skin as it rises from her wet lips.
"Gaaabe," she mewls, having been reduced to calling your name somewhere around the twentieth time you pounded her to a new peak, fingernails scratching at your back hard enough to tear rivets into stone, not that it so much as irritates what she's working on now. "Mwaaah…"
Obligingly, you kiss her again, dipping down in time with a new change in your rhythm, slamming your cock as deep into her as you can again and again, scattering your sister's hair around the bed while you hammer right at her deepest point. A human woman would be in a lot of pain while you do this to her womb, but as it so happens-
"Yeeees…! Gaaabe…!" Yup, Sarah just wants more.
More. More. More. Your desires intermingle much like your bodies do, telepathic connection melding your minds to the point both of you are clearly and fully aware that the only concern either of you have is the other, right now.
You're satisfying her. You're satisfying yourself. You're satisfying each other. The more you do so, the more you need, an infinite, exponentially growing need for each other that demands more no matter how much you have.
Making love, you think, has never been this direct, immediate, desperate, and it's the best thing you've ever felt, no matter how often you do it.
Tongues intertwining, lips pressed against each other, the only thing you can think of being the rutting, violent urgency of touching and being touched, of fucking your love into your Sarah, you come, blasting her with cum that's as much proof of your act as it is an extension of your penis, slamming against her womb in an extension of the insistent thrusting that has been making her utterly beautiful body shake like an earthquake, poor breasts going ungroped because you're busy hugging her close with all your might.
Even afterwards, though, the simmering, wet flame of your mutual lust is far from quenched, and the only thing that interrupts you… is Taylor leaning between you to kiss first Sarah, then yourself, soon followed by both Kate and Sherrel in quick succession.
Time to go all out and become one with all of them, you suppose…
In the end, you do manage to fuck the others into a coma (the exact nature of which you still do not quite understand, considering they should be immune to this kind of thing as vampires) for a day and a night straight, leaving them cuddled up around the room while you just shrug and go to sleep yourself, hibernating while your ship keeps to its course by itself.
It definitely is pretty convenient. That said, it's a very new experience for you, to be in corpse-like hibernation while inside an actively moving vessel like this; sure, technically you're always moving because the planets you're on tend to be in motion, but normally you're mostly staying in one place relative to that when you do this, y'know?
Leaving your body on a ship is… Well, different, is all. Not on a mechanical level, mind you, but more because you can still vaguely make out a sense of movement while you keep track of things through what senses your ship possesses, tapping into them through it.
You can't exactly give it any commands, in this state, which is perhaps the most annoying part here, but you can at least keep up with everything that happens. You did keep some eyes around at strategic locations, both to let this thing navigate its surroundings and to give it a few separate perspectives that allow it to better aim its own cannons, and now you get to make use them as well.
Making steady progress throughout the night, the C.S. Grand Cruiser sails on regardless, never taking breaks, never erring. Through the biological microphones you used in its construction instead of ears (let's be honest, most baseline biology is woefully inadequate compared to technological improvements like this one anyways), you can hear how the crew talks amongst itself all the whole, providing you with another avenue of mild entertainment.
Apparently, a ship that sails itself is a bit of a headscratcher for most of them, but particularly the ones with previous sailing experience; not needing to actually do much of anything means there's a lot more time in the day for them to do whatever they want than they'd otherwise have to expect, it turns out.
This led to them just kind of milling around doing whatever, though a handful decks of cards have become a pretty central part of this impromptu community build by them aboard the Grand Cruiser. You guess there's a reason a lightweight, relatively small thing like that, that allows for people to occupy themselves with in an engaging way, has been a staple of societies all over many different dimensions as far as you've seen.
The cards themselves are different from what you're used to, of course, as are the rules of the games they play with them, but while you were at it you went ahead and learned as much about them as you could.
As the first evening after your orgy dawns, most of a day having passed, they also figure out where you stored the remaining Boateater meat you grilled, their hunger driving them to explore those rooms below deck you… reorganized more heavily, with keratinous growths on the walls that extend into cupboards and such.
You even left them a note saying to help themselves to it. They do, after some kind of unexplained pause as all of them scream something about how touched they are.
Look, you're having them ride your ship and do your bidding; it'd be downright counterproductive of you not to feed them, wouldn't it?
Still, the Grand Cruiser continues to make good time throughout, speeding through the waters of South Blue. You do watch what happens underwater as well, having installed some of the eyes you made down below the waterline too, and while there's plenty of weird animals down there (you saw a few manta rays with something like bunny ears, you're pretty sure), it's a pretty calm journey overall.
Until, that is, you hit upon a Marine cruiser, a ship similar to your own Grand Cruiser before you refurbished it.
You briefly consider getting yourself woken up, to take charge of the situation and ensure it all goes as you want… But to be honest, this is a single ship's worth of Marines you're talking about here.
It's really not a big enough deal to be worth your attention, you figure, or at least that's the impression you want to give the crew. Now, if the situation was different, you'd be going out and personally massacring them for their souls one by one yourself, of course, but as it stands, you'll arrive at Crab Crab Island and Coconut Island soon enough anyways.
So… Yeah, screw it, you'll let the others take charge here. Specifically, you're letting Kate take charge, because apparently her desire for bloodshed is far from satisfied as of yet and she's the first that got up after you fucked everyone.
The Grand Cruiser submerges as soon as she instructs it to, thanks to your wise foresight in having given command privileges to the other vamps that came to this world with you, and proceeds to approach the Marine cruiser underwater, hidden beneath the waves. Meanwhile, the crew is being gathered up to actually be combat-ready, Taylor staying on standby should the need arise.
Just in case you need a biblical kind of judgement rendered unto anyone. Or something goes really, really wrong, you suppose, though Kate's force of personality should be more than enough to push through this fight by itself, in your humble opinion.
When the Grand Cruiser emerges again, it is from right next to its target, your ship rearing up as though it was a torpedo fired from the bottom of the sea. Not giving your enemy time to react, its first act is to fire a full broadside, ramming one explosive cannonball after another out of its cannons and into the other ship.
Just as said ship is shaken by the impacts, the Marines aboard scrambling to react, Kate starts shooting at them, nailing what looks like their captain straight in the dome with one of her enhanced musket shots. She screams at the crew to get a move on and, just like that, the fight is on.
…And then it's over pretty quickly, as thanks to the enhancements you gave out and their immunity to bullets, said crew can just run at the Marines, swing the swords (technically they count as sabers, you think) at whatever limbs they have to until they can't move anymore and move on, overwhelming the enemy in short order.
Breaking through walls with some effort, they quickly take control of the other vessel, even when some of the Marines still holding back the tide attempt to get the sails to catch the wind again and make some distance from the Grand Cruiser. They're doomed to failure, of course, as the tooth-tipped bone harpoons come into play then, your ship having just been waiting for a reason to use them.
If this thing had what it takes to have a personality, it'd be one vindictive, petty bitch, you're pretty sure. As it stands, though, that's probably more just some projection on your part.
The harpoons crash into the other ship, some of them in the holes made by the cannons, some just punching through its hull- you note that, although they do penetrate, they don't do so as smoothly as you'd like. A sufficiently thickly armored hull might be able to leave them stuck in itself, and therefore easier to shake loose, rather than being penetrated to let them bite so deep they're nigh impossible to get loose without some serious work.
You may need to consider getting some better cannons… or, better yet, devise a dedicated mechanism. Cannons are for firing projectiles, not for shooting out harpoons like this, after all.
Regardless things proceed fairly well, and none of the crew hesitate as they cut down the Marines one after the other. A couple of them do get in trouble- three Marines, having figured out their guns are useless, engaged in close combat and managed to pile onto one of your crew members, but Kate sorted that out right quick by improvising a standard issue Marine flintlock pistol into a shotgun, using her powers.
Blasting all three of them full of holes in one shot, of course. You'd expect nothing less from her.
"Dammit…! We were to scout for the Trapper Pirates, who'd have thought…!" Famous last words, those. Kate wastes no time and drinks the blood of everyone dying or close to death, of course, because why waste the souls, right? Still, with her knowing what was going on aboard this particular ship, you have some more context to go off of.
Apparently, the Trapper Pirates, a particularly notorious pirate crew here in the South Blue, has been sighted in the general area, so this patrol was one of several meant to narrow down their location. Being named what they are for a reason, they apparently leave traps around wherever they go, from oily nets meant to entangle ships in something highly flammable floating on the ocean to contraptions that highly resemble sea mines from what you can tell from second-hand knowledge of them.
Interesting. Very interesting. Not too important for now, though.
You make short work of the Marines, all in all. Well, your people do- same difference, at the end of the day. The survivors, which you have a few of, are divvied up among the currently awake vampires, with Kate, Sherrel and Taylor each taking their fair share and Sarah only eating the one before hurrying back to your side.
She really doesn't need to, but it seems your sister decided to take care of your body while you aren't using it. Draping it somewhere that would be comfortable if you could feel anything, dressing it, washing it… Smelling it…
You know what, you'll just leave it to her. No need to pay too much attention to that whole thing.
As for the now depopulated Marine cruiser, anything of use is taken from it while the prisoners are discreetly disposed of, their bodies loaded onto the Grand Cruiser along with the rest of what loot you can find on it. Fresh ammunition, particularly the ever-heavy but also ever-handy explosive cannonballs, some more swords, muskets and pistols… All that good stuff.
Nothing outstanding, but then, what can you expect from a military ship? They sure weren't carrying any particular valuables onboard. At least their kitchen was well-stocked, which you do consider a plus; the Grand Cruiser didn't really have any food on it when you first took it, as it was going through resupply at the time, so you were planning to just feed the crew Boateater and what vegetable scraps you could dredge up before you left port, but this does make things easier.
Even if these guys look like they could just eat sliced giant eel for every meal forever.
Navigational charts of the South Blue and all other stuff you could find a use for plundered, including some of the steel they use for constructing these things, the Marine cruiser is left to drift off on its own, the blood on its deck the only proof of its crew's violent death. So much for the Marines, you suppose.
Your Grand Cruiser, on the other hand, continues on, set to reach your next destination well before midday.
So. Crab Crab Island and Coconut Island, two islands that are close enough to each other they may as well be considered the same one… except their inhabitants would never agree to any such thing. Sharing a narrow strait that carries a strong current between the two, it's perfectly possible for a ship the size of a cruiser to sail through it, but only just.
Both islands are populated by a town around the size of the one you passed through when you first arrived in this world. The islanders also, as it so happens, hate each others' guts.
The reason for this is pretty simple. And profoundly stupid as well.
Crab Crab Island is host to a great amount of coconut trees, growing rabidly to the point of requiring constant effort to hold them back from growing into and through its buildings. Many of which, for the record, are built into and around these palm trees.
By contrast, Coconut Island is overrun by masses of crabs on a constant basis, crowding the beaches and making nuisances of themselves. They're a chore in and of themselves, for trying to keep them out of town itself similarly requires constant effort.
Both of these islands are named after what's on the other island, and the diet of their respective inhabitants consists largely of the respective foodstuff. Coconut Islanders, then, blame Crab Crab Islanders for the way the constantly falling coconuts from their island fall into the sea, nourishing the crabs… Which in turn pile up as they age and die, get washed off the beaches and are carried to Crab Crab Island by the weird sea currents around the place, becoming the fertilizer that fuels the palm trees' growth.
Additionally, both islands feel they should have the name of the other, but neither is willing to be the first to give in and give up their own.
As a result, the islanders often gather on their respective islands' beaches, hurling insults whenever they see their counterparts on the other… in turn attracting attention and gathering more of their own people as well as their enemies.
Pretty much every evening, the heckling eventually develops into more, and so Crab Crab Islanders go from words to coconuts, throwing them at the other side of the strait to try and hit the people there, only for the Coconut islanders to return the favor using crabs that wave their claws and legs in the air as they're launched by the dozens.
It's apparently a pretty famous feud around these parts. Both islands also export loads and loads of coconuts and crab meat, respectively, which is a thing, you suppose. Competing with each other in all matters, this, too, is a reason for them to scorn the other, despite both of them attracting the exact same amount of ships to themselves, generally speaking.
It is now day
29 days left in this dimension
403 days since rising from the grave
You're awoken by being fed blood, as per the usual, not quite in control of your body for a bit until you reconnect to it in full. For a change, though, you're fed this blood mouth-to-mouth by Sarah, who seems to be taking inordinate amounts of glee from ensuring kissing her is the first thing you do as you get back into operating order.
You know what, sure, why not. There's worse things to wake up to.
The Grand Cruiser sails the bottom of the sea, or at least as far down as the ocean goes around here- it's not terribly deep, to be honest, so that's kind of an empty boast. Still, you keep your ship further down than most ships would ever go, letting you appreciate the steep cliffs of the islands' foundations reaching far, far down.
Down here, the currents are just as strong as they are closer to the surface, which is if anything explained by these geological features, you suppose. Your ship still manages to push against them, positioning itself around the area you want to be, though not without some slight turbulence involved.
The air bubble projected by the magic you imbued into it holds just fine, the Grand Cruiser just has to adjust and tremble a bit every now and then along the way. Doesn't stop you from standing right on deck once you're up and moving, rejoining the rest of the world in existing as a person and all.
There's no grand signal you give or anything, no big deal to be made out of things as the crew gathers up behind you, so you just command the Grand Cruiser to rise.
And rise it does, going up right between the two islands you're here for, straight towards what'll pass for the introduction of yourself and your merry band to this world proper.
You did have to come up with a name, of course, to fit in with local pirate customs and all. No, the rest of the crew wasn't asked about its input, you're trying to be more open to these guys and all but this is an executive decision they don't get to influence. They'd probably just come up with stupid and generic-sounding stuff anyways.
Bubbles trail the Grand Cruiser as it ascends, the rapid shift in the placement of your bubble causing a sort of pseudo-friction with the water surface around it- they're the only herald of your arrival, bursting up and disappearing for a scant few moments.
The moments between them showing up in greater numbers, up there, and your vessel ramming up onto the surface of the ocean, shooting straight upwards for a few seconds before it crashes back down, the bulk of its hull and the undead, partially armored 'oars' shown to the world until it tilts back down.
You used your gravity control to keep everyone on deck actually on deck, by the by. No, no need for them to thank you, the ungrateful pricks.
Your arrival does not go unnoticed, as some youth were hanging around the beaches of both islands, presumably engaging in some recreational mutual screaming matches in preparation of the evening, when their parents would join in.
Naturally, as they see your ship, so too do they see the Jolly Roger you painstakingly painted onto its sail and black flag, clearly marking this out as a pirate ship.
"P-Pirates!" The call goes out once the shock settles a little. "There's pirates coming from the sea!"
"No dumbass, they're coming from under the sea!" A kid from the other island replies, disagreeing by reflex.
"Shut up, crabhead! That's sof- sophit-"
"Moron! Coconut face! Can't talk to save your life, that's how dumb you are!"
See, this is exactly why you're here. These poor, primitive islanders are letting their hatred for each other erode their very society, down to the education of their youth. After all, if these kids had half a brain between them, they'd have rubbed enough neurons by now to run screaming back home and alert the adult, rather than stand there and scream at each other.
Good thing you've got the perfect solution to all of these issues. "You really should take a step back to the initial premise of that argument, boys," you drawl, loud enough to be heard over their voices. When they look at you like deer in the headlights, you sigh. "Pirates are here. Focus on that."
"Yeah, we gonna fuck you up!" "Dude, there's kids present!" "Right, we gonna screw y'all!" "Didn't the boss say we'd only screw half of them?" "Way to ruin the reveal, man."
Right, this isn't gonna do. You need these youths to do something for you, after all, and this lack of tension isn't helping. "Now listen here, we've come to settle the dispute between these two islands once and for all," you say, gesturing towards both Coconut and Crab Crab Island with both hands. "Run back home and tell all the adults to come to the beaches."
"What if we don't wanna, huh?"
"Yeah, right, like anyone will believe anything you say, crabrat!"
You snap your fingers. The Grand Cruiser adjusts the angle of its cannons one last time- and fires off not one, but two full broadsides, violently blowing up the edges of the towns on both islands simultaneously.
"I'd suggest you hurry," you casually say, projecting your voice even louder to better communicate your absolute, thorough disinterest in continuing this 'discussion', "before I decide you brats make for good target practice. Now."
Miracle of miracles, sending the kids to gather the townsfolk actually works. What's more, maybe it's their actually functioning survival instincts, the one that sometimes just aren't there in younger specimen, maybe it's the rising construct of ice you've been lifting out of the ocean, using your slow, almost carefully ponderous cryokinesis rather than any concrete spell to shape it from little better than a bridge of frozen ocean into an actual arena, going down a bit to allow people on the beaches to spectate properly.
You'd carve the audience seating as well, but as it turns out most baseline humans would literally freeze their asses off if they tried to sit on it for any length of time. Better to make them all stand.
The people here seem… pretty average, to be honest. They're well fed and none of them are falling over due to any particular diseases or other issues that you can see, and none of them exhibit the freakish proportions you've seen in some select individuals in this dimension- look, not to body shame, but having an upper body thrice the width of your waist is a bit much, just saying.
Now, before the townsfolk can get up to too much thinking (clearly, these people aren't very good at it), you take charge of the situation, stepping up onto the bow of your ship. "Ladies and gentlemen!" You greet them, sketching a short bow towards both sides of the strait one after the other. "Welcome to the definite conclusion to the feud that has been occupying your islands for far too long."
Some among the crowd look like they're about to say something, maybe shout, from the way their heartbeats shift, air entering their lungs visible through their cardiovascular systems as they expand. You, of course, nip that in the bud, letting your intimidating aura out to press down on them all.
Not physically inhibited in the slightest, a couple of the people present still almost faint- it's an active challenge to keep yourself imposing enough to do the job without letting anyone just lose out on the most exciting event of their lifetime by means of unconsciousness.
That just wouldn't do, now would it?
"The rules are simple!" You exclaim once you're sure you've firmly established your audience's attention should be on you. "Both islands shall elect their strongest fighter to send into the arena. Two go in, one comes out."
Gesturing at the frozen ground before your ship (that's held in place using ice braces you also added underwater, just for convenience's sake), you make the bottom of the arena rotate, using cryokinesis to carve geometric patterns into it. Both for steadier footing and just because you can. The demonstration of obvious 'magic' also helps to ensure these people know you aren't fucking around, you'd hope.
"The winner obtains the right to decide how these islands shall be named and which of them is ultimately better than the other, in addition to a fabulous prize in solid gold I hereby pledge to hand out." Of course you aren't exactly gonna use your own gold for that- you've got a plan on exactly where the prize will be coming from. "Any questions?"
You trust the implicit threat of ultraviolence spreading from you like a choking cloak answers any of those, but it's only good manners to offer clarification for these kinds of things, you believe.
"W-what," one of the men from crab-infested Coconut Island stutters, raising a hand, "what if we don't?"
The exact nature of the question could be fairly broad, there. 'What if we don't want to' is one option, though an unlikely one. You'd bet more on 'what if we can't agree on a single representative', or maybe even 'what if we don't have the right guy available right now'.
The answer to all of these possible questions, however, is one and the same.
You smile. It's the single most casual, friendly and open smile you can muster, the same one you always use for moments like this. "Everyone dies," you tell him, voice amplified to be clearly audible for everyone in sight.
"E-everyone?" He asks. You raise an eyebrow at him. "S-sir?"
…Eh, good enough. To confirm he heard you correctly, you nod. "Everyone. I'd suggest you get to choosing… now."
You get the acute feeling the townspeople from both islands might have tried to put up a resistance, if it weren't for two key facts. Well, three, really. One, you keep on blasting them with your intimidation aura whenever you feel they're not huddling amongst each other enough, ensuring that no matter how badly their short-term memory is they don't forget they're in the presence of someone they really, really shouldn't try to mess with.
Two, your crew, including your girls, makes a show of eyeing them up whenever they make the mistake of looking up at your position too much, openly handling their weapons and, in Taylor's case, growing branching, ominously twitching, hooked and chitinous limbs that seemingly reach out towards them, gesturing as though to rip their veins out of their flesh.
The rest of the crew also does take its distance from her, incidentally. They'll get used to her at some point, you're sure.
Oh, and number three, to fight back against you would mean to have common cause with their neighbors… And, as much your presence obviously is nothing good for anyone present, they all do seem to agree that they never will agree on anything with those crab munchers slash coconut rubbers.
You won't even pretend to think too deeply about what kinds of invective these people invent for each other. What matters is that, pirates or no, they've collectively come to the conclusion that this is a great opportunity to 'get one over' the other side. Which they're not even wrong about, technically speaking.
Of course potentially lethal combat is a bit of a step up compared to how they usually fight, but then again, this would be the definite end of any such hostilities, some among them argue. The final and absolute way to decide things once and for all. It has some appeal to these people, you're pretty sure.
Well, works for you, at any rate. As long as they play along with your game, half of these people will live, at a minimum. Why, that makes this entire thing a downright humanitarian mission, by your standards when really getting things going.
Yes, sometimes you're a lot nicer, but that's really just a matter of circumstance- whether or not you can be arsed to commit what would definitely be considered war crimes in any civilized world or not. It's really that simple.
The representatives- or 'champions', if you want to use the words they use- of the two islands are chosen within acceptable time limits, in the end, so you don't make any particular examples out of random members of these two crowds you've gathered. On Coconut Island's behalf, a brawny, bare-chested fisherman is brought forth, a harpoon in his hand as he steps out of the rest of the people on that side.
Apparently, he made his name killing a giant crab with his bare hands a few years back. You don't bother with his name, nor his opponent's, for that matter, a similarly muscled lumberjack that is apparently Crab Crab Island's leader when it comes to tree extermination. He certainly got the biceps for that; his arms are literally the size of logs themselves.
The two meet in the middle of the arena of ice you created, right between the two islands, and size each other up for a long moment. You do notice their beards, if nothing else, are a study in differences; the fisherman's is slender, but long, coming down his cheeks and chin in thin ropes, whereas the lumberjack's is thick and bushy, like a literal bush even, but barely going down below his own chin, instead spreading out to the sides of his face.
"This has been a long time coming, just so you know," the lumberjack growls, fingering the hand axe he brought along for this little fight.
"Right back at ya, overgrown landrat," his opposite number hisses back, own hand on his harpoon. "Putting aside the islands, I've been wanting to do this for a long time."
"Pfah! You called my daughter ugly, you son of a crab!"
"Big words, coming from you! Who told you to insult my wife first, palmface?"
"That shitty excuse for a pie was what it was, and-"
"Now, now," you interject in all the vitriol coming out like pus from a deep wound, "we're all reasonable people here. Let's leave the words behind for a little and see who's in the right after all, yes?"
Raising a hand, you gravitationally shove the sea around the arena, causing just the right amount of spray for dramatic effect. Then…
Well, you swing it down. "Fight!"
The fight is… Well, better than you expected, though certainly still far from impressive compared to what you're used to. Both men are strong and tenacious, much like you were hoping for, exchanging blows in short order without any need for further encouragement, the lumberjack's vicious swipes countered by his opponent as he quickly dodges and returns the favor by thrusting his own weapon at any extended parts of his enemy's body.
While they're both still fresh and rested, it's hard for either of them to make much headway, beyond a steadily rising number of scratches and shallow cuts bleeding both of them, rivulets of red running over their skin and dripping onto the ice. However, as the ritual combat you spontaneously thought up earlier continues, something quickly becomes clear.
The lumberjack one, while taking his fair share of nicks and bruises as weapons and fists are exchanged, obviously has the edge in endurance, whereas the fisherman starts to flag just a hair earlier than him, despite his greater strength and speed. Realizing this, both of them adjust their strategies, one trying to delay and truck along, the other trying to get an angle to inflict the deciding wound.
Things intensify. An opportune axe strike misses, its sharp blade hacking off a piece of beard, the return harpoon thrust dodged at the last moment, barbed tip scratching past the lumberjack's arm painfully, but he gets away, pushing back into his opponent's space.
Realizing this isn't working, the fisherman visibly changes tactics, taking deep breaths and steeling himself. Not immediately obvious to most, probably, but it's obvious to you. As the crowds continue cheering from the sidelines, he glares at the lumberjack, giving off a loud roar as he dives straight at him-
And takes the axe to the side without complaint, his thick, corded muscle catching it when it bites into his flesh deeply. "This is nothing! I fought crabs that hit harder!"
With his opponent's weapon stuck for a moment, he has all the time he needs, the lumberjack not fast enough to pull his axe back out to avoid the full-bodied move of his enemy ramming the harpoon into his stomach, letting it pierce his body in full and emerging from his back.
They stand there for a long moment, paralyzed by the weight of their fight's conclusion, respective weapons stuck inside each other and looking over each other's shoulders.
Then, slowly, the lumberjack falls to the side, a trickle of blood flowing from the corner of his mouth. "Damn… it…!"
The townspeople falling silent as they remember this was a brutal fight to the death rather than a bar brawl, you step in by clapping your hands, the sound echoing over the arena. "A good fight," you announce, getting up from the Grand Cruiser's railing you were lounging on so far. "Really. Better than I was expecting. Now… For the reward."
Not willing to give anyone involved time to let their brains catch up with the situation, you reach out towards the combatants, powerful Plasmid-based telekinesis taking hold of the mortally wounded lumberjack- he might actually recover if nothing too important was hit, but you wouldn't bet on it. Though he certainly won't get a chance to find out either way.
Catching him by a shoulder, you smile genially at his glare, the rough flight from the arena to your ship leaving him in worse shape, in anything, blood covering his chin and all, and go right ahead to open your mouth.
Aghast, the dying man can do nothing but watch as your jaw opens up inhumanly wide, your gaping maw full of razor-sharp shark-teeth glinting in the sun. You bite into his neck like you were chomping into a chicken nugget or something, blood drained quick enough he can feel it leaving his body all at once before he even bites it all the way.
Soul consumed in short order, once he actually dies, you rip your teeth back out of his stringy flesh, the abundant amount of muscle making it a small bit of effort to extract your biters out of him properly. Not saying a single word, you proceed to raise the corpse up above your head, focusing.
Before the eyes of everyone around, you really exert one of your more esoteric powers (or combination thereof, really), using your alchemy much more spontaneously and casually than usual. Fun fact, physically transforming the molecular structure of matter is very doable using this particular branch of your personal reality manipulation, though it does take all of your focus and attention to get it right.
It's a slow, progressive thing, but it's visible within the first thirty seconds already. The tips of the body's hair, including the beard, shift in color, going from dark and gruffy to a shining gold, reflecting the light of the sun and spreading over his body slowly, but steadily.
Within five minutes, you've turned the dead man into solid gold, having worked from both the inside and the outside at once to make it all look a little smoother, rather than holding onto an outwardly already gold-ed body for five minutes straight.
"There you go," you casually say, flicking a finger against the now also golden harpoon before you casually toss the lumberjack's statue of a corpse over onto Coconut Island. "Your gold prize. Don't spend it all in one place."
The good part is, the townsfolk are so flabbergasted and shocked by what they just saw, they don't even realize your crew is similarly shocked after seeing you tun a dead man's body into gold.
"And now to ensure the winner's side gets the last say in all things contentious," you tell the Coconut Islanders, pointedly ignoring the ones from Crab Crab Island. "We are the Dead Sea Pirates, in case any of you were wondering. You wouldn't have heard of us before but, well, we never left survivors before, so that's just obvious. You lot should be honored to be the first people we spare. As opposed to your neighbors."
Thrusting one arm out, you grin.
"No survivors on this side of the strait. Take anything that catches your fancy, bring anyone that still moves in ten minutes to me. I could do with a few more snacks."
Crab Crab Island is the one that ends up razed to the ground, in the end. It's for the best, honestly- its name is just as wrong as the other island's, but the repetition in it annoyed you just a smidgen more, so really, you can say its inhabitants had it coming.
Said inhabitants take a moment to really work through what you just said, mentally, but the screaming starts just fine when Taylor proceeds to take control of the crabs on the winning island, making them storm the killing field and eating the people in it alive.
Good old Taylor. She never lets you down.
The crew follows along not long after, jumping off the ship and onto the ice constructs you put all around it earlier to run along and onto Crab Crab Island. Chasing the fleeing people with swords and guns drawn, you decide to leave the rest to them.
And the vampires. Kate, Sarah and Sherrel went ahead to cut the fleeing audience off further into the overgrown island, hopefully feeding aplenty and leaving some human sacrifices for you.
Taylor? Taylor is everywhere now. You literally lost track of where she's operating when she started to physically disassemble the town on Crab Crab Island by herself, using however many millions of bodies she's putting to use there.
Ah well, you'll just lean back and watch the massacre for now. This is the life, really- you don't even bother committing atrocities yourself anymore, you have people for that. Mass murder has never been this easy.
When exactly sixty-five survivors are herded together as your share, to make up a full sixty-six (the only reason Kate and Sarah called it at that point is that there weren't enough victims on hand to get to six-hundred-and-sixty-six), you just sigh at their sense of humor and get going off your ship, having gone out of your way to make the Coconut Islanders as profoundly uncomfortable at how comfortable they are in your presence for the last hour or so.
Ah well, you'll just make some short work of these little happy meals before you go through the loot and dislodge what ice you have to in order to get the Grand Cruiser mobile again.
"So, hey… I had a thought. Why are we even doing this?"
"What, you mean looking through the houses?"
"Yeah, kinda. the captain can just make gold, right? So… Why bother pillaging and plundering and stuff?"
"Know what, that's that a good question. Think it's got something to do with the, y'know, blood thing?"
"Huh? You mean when it moves after he kills someone?"
"Yeah, didn't you see? Happens every time, and he always drinks it. Could be what gives him his magic."
"Oooh… Makes a lotta sense. So we gotta keep on attacking places so the magic keeps working?"
"Would explain it, is all I'm saying. And while we're at it, may as well rob the people we have ta kill, right?"
"Right. Waste not, want not and all that."
"'Xactly. Not like these people're gonna need their stuff anymore anyways."
The two pirates were silent for a short while as they rummaged through the building they'd broken into. It was only when gunshots rang out in the distance, the last of the townsfolk that had failed to attend their last judgement call brought to heel and soon consumed, that they spoke up again.
"Sure sucks to be one of these chumps, huh?"
"Sometimes you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes, an island's just the wrong place," the other pirate shrugged. "Yup, sure sucks to be on it."
"I'm getting the feeling we'll be seeing a lot of wrong places to be in from now on."
"More like we'll make them be that. But hey, that's just how the buck rolls."
"Deep, man. I'm thirteen and that's deep."
"Oh shut up, and help me pull this up- the floorboard's hollow, there's definitely something here."
The loot being carried to your ship, when all's said and done, is more or less what you can expect from a mostly bumfuck nowhere island in the middle of nowhere; it's household goods that someone figured might be useful on your voyage, some jewelry, a few small piles of Belly… Nothing particularly out there, but you have it added to your very own collection of treasure.
Come to think of it, you'll have to figure out your crew's payment system at some point. You are putting them to work, so while you wouldn't say they're entitled to a fair share of your proceeds (purely because you're wary of breeding entitlement in general), you still do think you actually should be giving them some kind of remuneration.
Now, giving them a productive role in life and pumping them full of magical power-ups, while something you could argue fits the bill of that, shouldn't be taken as an excuse not to pay your workers or anything. Not only is it a slippery slope to consider non-currency as 'payment' for services rendered on principle, it feels like you'd be indirectly making them pay, by way of withholding their pay, for the equipment and such they need to do their job.
And if there's one depth you refuse to sink to, one hole so squalid and morally reprehensible on a fundamental level even you will not resort to diving inside, it is the institution known as the US education system. Needing teachers to spend their own salary on teaching materials is a testament to the destitution of the society which has brought forth such practices and nothing less.
'Nuff said.
But anyways, the valuable belongings of Crab Crab Island's inhabitants join their bodies on your ship in short order, the additional biomass perfectly welcome- you store them inside a vacuum-sealed flesh pocket for now so they'll keep for a bit one way or another. With that all done, there is little that keeps you here, of course, so you soon get ready to embark once more.
There's plenty of places all around the South Blue you could sail towards, though your ultimate goal is and remains, as determined via vampiric consensus already, the Grand Line, where monsters and monstrously strong pirates are both said to be found. The only question, in the meantime, is the route you'll take there- or rather, what places to depopulate for fast food purposes.
You can hardly wait.
The island of currently undetermined name behind, the Grand Cruiser sets out into the wide blue sea once again, weighed down by a few hundred bodies and what loot was loaded onto it alongside them. You'll actually have to look into increasing your ship's carrying capacity, so to say, at some point, because as it turns out there's a reason the Marines' regulations prescribe only so many cannonballs to be carried by any type of ship.
Simply put, too much heavy shit will screw over your ability to navigate in water. You have plenty of ways to get around that, of course, it's all just a matter of clever engineering… Though Sherrel has you beat in that respect, you think.
While you weren't looking, two additional rooms popped up inside the Grand Cruiser, filled with some machinery made partially out of the animated flesh you've filled it with, and the cargo hold is similarly enlarged beyond what it should be. The weight of the loot and ammunition inside does not seem to affect the rest of the ship as it should, so that's one less concern, you suppose.
How exactly this happened, though, you aren't quite sure. "I didn't think you could do any wet tinkering," you comment towards Sherrel as you enter the room she's working inside of, the second to be enlarged, now.
It also just so happens to be the captain's cabin, which was already noted to require some more space before. Not a coincidence, you're sure.
"I didn't either, until I got bored here on board," the blonde bombshell of a Tinker shrugs, elbow deep inside an opened panel on the ceiling of your room, stretching pleasingly to the eyes as she works. "Then my power just kinda shrugged and here we are."
"Hm. Well, that's a new one, I guess," you shrug, coming closer to see what she's doing and if you can help her. "Think your Passenger decided it wanted you to work with what you have?"
"Don't know, don't care. There's ships around and I can work with those just fine as is. Not complaining, though, it's nice to be flexible about raw materials." Peeking into the opened ceiling, Sherrel bounces on the balls of her feet, still standing on your bed to reach inside properly, nudging something in there. If you remember correctly, that should just be some cables made of muscle in that area, in essence. "Actually, mind coming over here?"
"Sure, what do you need?"
"Little closer… closer… Yeah, like that," she says, smirking at you when she jumps with her lower body only, long, shapely legs (most legs are shapely where vampires are concerned) wrapping around your shoulders so she can sit on them. "Perfect. Just needed a stool and some eye candy."
"I'm pretty great at both of those jobs," you confirm, smiling back. "Just say the word if you need me to striptease."
"A tease is what you are, yes," Sherrel huffs, pulling at you to rub your face up against her crotch. "Looking forward to having our new no-clothes zone already."
She's not the only one. Kate's been mentioning she wanted to sunbathe 'properly' while you're on your pleasure cruise a few times already, in fact. That's probably gonna be a thing sooner or later.
There's plenty of other work to be done on your ship even with Sherrel already doing a lot, of course, from functional upgrades required to be up to your (admittedly high) standards to quality-of-life stuff that would be pretty nice to have just on principle.
You're on the right track about that already, you feel, with the glands on the ship's underside that take in seawater for desalination and all, providing plenty of water to both water and wash the crew regularly- the ship actually 'tastes' the water, somewhat, and can therefore even alert you in case there's any crap in it that it can't just 'digest' away.
It's really just a fine-tuned application of the esoteric concept of a 'tongue', all things told. Nature went and built chemical detectors into a lot of living beings only to screw it up halfway through, as usual, but you totally can adapt the idea for your own work.
Incidentally, the salt that's taken out of the water during this 'digestion' process is stored separately, just 'cause having salt is also important. Any leftover that you don't feel the need to keep can just be shat back out into the ocean, but as it is it's a great way to source your very own sea salt for culinary purposes!
And for trade, if you care to bother at some point, you suppose, but when virtually every settlement has access to the ocean, even if it's a bit less immediate for some due to being built further inland on the bigger islands around, salt isn't that hard to get in most places anyways. So the value's somewhat limited, though if you ever happen to find somewhere that changes, yeah, you got, like, all the salt you could want and more.
That doesn't mean you're quite done, of course. In fact, after you're done with your first real atrocity in this dimension (military personnel is one thing, but massacring civilians is on your Geneva Convention Bingo Checklist for a reason, and that is to be crossed out), the first big project you undertake is to get all of the alchemical devices you'll need to make your own potions in this place ready aboard the Grand Cruiser.
Potions and other miscellaneous stuff. Actually, you're pretty sure that Rust Pulver (Why'd you use the German name for 'powder' for it again…?) fired out of your cannons in great quantities would be a hilarious way to deal with some of the Marines' ships, just for a start.
In fact, the image of magical bombs synthesized right here on the ship and launched at any that dare oppose you is kind of a pirate-y image, isn't it? You kinda like the thought, is all you're saying.
Another thing you did before you got to work on all of that, of course, was to make use of one of your many personal advantages to get extra work done on the side. Which, in this case, doesn't even mean growing an additional arm using your extensive capacity for shapeshifting!
…Well, it kinda does, actually. Conquest being one-armed and all that. But yes, you brought forth the soul of the Viltrumite berserker (bit of an oxymoron, you know) to go and kill some huge creatures around this area and bring the biggest body he can find back to you.
It's basically what Viltrumites are there for, and he even feels a deep and abiding fashion for the killing of things! You're basically doing him a favor, really. He doesn't see it that way, of course, but while he can try to hide it all he wants, you literally feel his exuberance at the prospect of violence and death.
He's also disappointed every time it turns out there's no actual fight for him to have, but hey, that's just something he'll have to live with. Or, y'know, be dead with. Whatever suits him best.
Now where'd you put the molecular salt shaker? You have some work to do, alchemy isn't the kind of thing you can do half-baked.
Making undead, by and large, is pretty easy for you. It's a task you're well-accustomed to, you've done it more than often enough by this point to be quite familiar with it, to say the least, and while they're not your answer to anything and everything by any means, you do get creative with them every now and then and they solve any problem you design them to.
Really, it's everything you could want or need as long as they aren't prone to spontaneous failure or anything. As long as you make them well, put the proper amount of thought and planning into them ahead of time, they never lack as far as tools go.
Honestly, while individual combat capability is still the main thing you look for in yourself, you have your ways to ensure even your weaker undead can be and remain… dangerous, even to enemies that would normally completely squash them outright. That only goes so far, but, well, there's a reason you never did try to send any against a Viltrumite or anything.
The concepts and plans for undead capable of making it through a fight with one, or at least taking such an enemy with them, are all still strictly in the planning phase. Doesn't help you'd need to use up some actually serious resources to construct any of them.
Biomass comes cheap, but good soul fragments, forged into something with the ability to empower the flesh as much as needed, not to mention to grow and truly think, rather than the kind of half-aware thought construct your undead make use of to 'learn' via iterative improvements, those are a different story, and much more annoying to gather and get just right.
It's kind of the difference between VI and AI, if that makes any sense. The analogy isn't perfect, but it works for you, so whatever.
The reason you're even thinking about all of this is that Conquest decided to get cheeky and fly right in the direction you came from, when you released him. Joke's on him, though, in that while all that was around the area was crabs, well…
There were some pretty big crabs hidden in the wider area around the island pair that shall not be named because you feel just a little bit of your will to exist leave your body every time you have to even think 'Crab Crab Island'. Like, c'mon guys, it was high time someone came and forcefully renamed it at this point.
Pretty big crabs Conquest proceeded to methodically crush one by one, just diving into the ocean while holding his breath to reach them, then applying brute force as required. Until you told him to stop and bring you a few live ones.
The end result of the entire affair effectively comes down to you not making more undead, at least for now, and instead sitting down with Taylor to figure out how to best keep a breeding pair of the things in or around the Grand Cruiser. On the one hand, it's kind of a logistical issue, and one that'll require some actual consideration down the line- at least until Sherrel just randomly adds an extra room you can flood with water for them to stay in or something.
For the time being, Taylor just has them cling to the bottom of the Cruiser's hull, which doesn't help with the whole weight thing, but it's bearable, for now.
On the other hand, though, all the giant crabs Conquest already did utterly annihilate find other uses, some of them thrown in with the rest of the bodies you've accrued on Those Islands for later usage (you may still make undead out of the lot, after all), some being brought on deck and grilled as appropriate.
Waste not, want not and all that.
"Honestly, I think it's kinda fitting we're eating crabs now. What with what happened to the island-that-will-not-be-named."
"Whuzzat, sir?" "Do you mean Crab-"
"Yes, I mean that island. Don't say its name. It's just annoying me now," you sigh, interrupting the usual comedy routine of babbling coming from the crew. "That's what bothered me the most about the place, in retrospect."
"The name?" "I dunno, it's Cr-"
"I know, it's simple and downright stupid, is the thing. Why the repetition? Just using 'crab' once would've been enough."
"Yeah, why did they call it that exactly?" "Pretty sure they just wanted to keep the names about equally long?" "That's probably it. They were measuring dicks, after all."
"Still utterly stupid," you complain, ripping a fresh crab leg out of its body, where it's been broiling away on your grill so far. These giant crabs are surprisingly easy and convenient to prepare, if you know how, and it took you only one or two tries to figure that out. "They got what they deserved."
You then proceed to eat the grilled crab leg, chomping straight through its thinner, more flexible shell as you go, unhinging your jaw to turn your teeth into the closest equivalent of a woodchipper as you go. It's surprisingly tasty, for all that humans would literally just lose teeth trying to do this.
As a few of your crew can attest after they tried imitating you.
Cracking open the central torso of your current crab with your bare hands in a feat of strength even most other vampires would be hard pressed to repeat as casually, you lift it off the grill, hauling it instead over to the table laid out just for it- letting the human crew eat the steaming flesh straight from it. The process repeats with the claws, providing a considerable amount of fresh meat for everyone.
They immediately start shoveling it into their mouths too, even before you have time to pour on the melted butter. Stuff's pretty delicious either way, so you can't even fault them for it or anything.
The Grand Cruiser sails on, the feast provided by the sea fueling the crew. It's the perhaps most inefficient part of your ship, but you know what, you're kind of starting to like them. They're growing on you now that you're making an effort to let them, like a flesh-eating fungus. Just like that, in fact.
"So we totally gotta sing sea shanties, right?"
"I dunno, 's not like pirates have to keep to any rules or anything."
"We still needed to get our Jolly Roger though," one of the pirates said, gesturing at the ever-present, ever-watching skull plastered onto the ship's sail. "Kinda sticking to convention there."
"How will anyone know we're pirates without one? That's just common sense, man."
"So what about the shanties? I'm not sure my singing voice is up to scratch."
The only mostly mundane female pirate among the crew shyly raised her hand at this point. "Um, I don't know any sea shanties to sing. Is that a problem?"
"You normally sing a shanty for the rhythm anyways," one of the pirates with prior experience manning a ship chimed in, mercifully sharing his experience with these particular former landlubbers. "When the crew's gotta work in concert, everyone singin' the same song helps 'em work together. 's not something that's come up, 'cause…"
He motioned for the self-sailing ship that was, even now, adjusting its sails and changing course to lean against the tide.
"Makes sense. That's why they're all so simple and repetitive."
"Say that again, you! Shanties are art!"
"Shitty art that's there to do a job, nothing more."
"Ah?! Alright, that's it, I'll-"
"Not do anything stupid before the Captain decides to get involved," one of the others said, getting between the two. "Let's not push our luck, yeah?"
"…Fine."
"…Yeah, you're prolly right."
"Good. Now kiss and make up!"
"Go to hell!"
"Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!"
All just another day on the CS Grand Cruiser, as it turned out.
There's still a lot of work to be done, of course, even when the sun goes down after a long day of committing massacres and partying over them. In fact, especially now that the crew's either milling around drinking (they found a few barrels filled with booze in the town you had them plunder, so most of them are currently in the process of getting hammered to 'dispose of this dangerous substance') or resting is when you can really get back to a few things you thought about working on.
With Taylor's giant crabs hanging around and more or less taken care of, you can now get back to what you originally planned to work on- turning all that meat you have lying around into something that can procure more meat for you. Flesh has a high turnover in your hands, in more ways than one.
Now, as much fun as it would be to just slap the human bodies into the crab bodies like filling into a turkey the day before thanksgiving (in a family that actually celebrates, anyways), you've long since graduated from such simpler methods when it comes to crafting undead. Oh, sure, you'll do it if time constraints are an issue, or if the psychological effects are what you're after, but when it comes to pure strength, there are better ways to use the biomatter involved.
Do more with less, that way you can do more in general and all that. Unless you really just can't be arsed, you absolutely can do better with just a little care and forethought. There's a reason you often think of bodies as biological machines- and when they're undead, you have a lot more freedom in your design process than when alive, just saying.
So you take a step back for a moment, and you use it to think big. While you could be making a couple of mid-sized undead, doing so just kind of runs counter to your personal design philosophy, what with you favoring big and individually dangerous ones that you can then field several of if circumstances allow and demand as much- swarms would be an interesting idea for a supporting mechanism maybe, but that's a thought for later.
For now, you just want to put something together that'll manage to survive mostly anything this dimension can throw at you, something that can sink ships, single-handedly siege islands and defeat enemies small and large in equal measure.
You take stock of the resources at hand, limiting yourself to them both for the sake of making yourself actually think about how to use them, be creative, but also to avoid getting stuck just gathering more and more materials ad infinitum because you always think you can do just a little better with just a little more.
And then you get to work.
The crabs' obvious use, taking aside culinary ones, is in their shells, of course; while their inner structure is academically interesting and their twitch muscles are superior to human ones, you'll be improving on those parts in the finished product anyways, so you don't bother preserving any. You just extract all the particularly edible bits and pieces, keeping everything else for your project.
As for the human bodies, yeah, you'll be honest, you're just remaking them entirely, extracting every last bit of bone to add to the crabs' shells and transforming the remainder into some of all the muscle and sinew you'll need, fusing them up into larger pieces one by one.
Your creation, as you envision it, is a demented mix between a humanoid, a Kraken and a crustacean, of sorts, with thick plates of armor protecting four segmented legs that let it navigate not unlike your SP1D3R robots (that can fold against the rest of its body into an almost solid mass while it swims, so its dynamics are actually workable for that purpose), in addition to a curved upper body bearing the same amount of protection as well as two human-like arms and hands.
A short, thick neck is protected by even more armoring, a vaguely reptilian head distracting from the rest of its real functions; with all the extra brains you have on hand, you basically hid a small network of such all over its upper body, meaning that destroying the skull's contents is actually a waste of time.
Actually getting the neural wiring done right is a huge pain you spend the better part of three hours on, by the way. Brains are fiddly. Making dead brains work by adapting them to the giant abominations you make and hooking them up to all the new nerves and stuff? Don't even get yourself started on that shit.
Now you might wonder where the 'Kraken' bit comes in, of course. That, dear future victims, is all in the tentacles coming out of its back, of course, thick, strong limbs that can snatch up anyone or anything within a surprisingly wide reach. Whether to drown them, smash them or use nearby objects as improvised weapons slash ammunition by slinging them at a target, these babies do it all.
…Of course you still are somewhat limited in terms of materials, meaning the undead you painstakingly craft here is a tad bit smaller than intended in the end, and doesn't have anywhere near the number of tentacles you want. That said, you do make sure to set it up to be easily readjusted later on, once you have a few more mass murders' worth of dead people to add to it.
Heck, its 'belly' is basically storage for extra bodies as well, and you made it so it can inflate quite a bit, thanks to the flexible, segmented armor pieces you specially make for it.
Then of course you decide to go ham with it, and use some of the magic you can imbue into your undead to let it regenerate… and fuel that regeneration into overdrive with anything it's eaten, as long as its composition fits the bill.
All in all, it's a pretty good start, you'd say.
Crab-kren (Name Pending)
A semi-aquatic abomination made for the purpose of flexible warfare in a mostly flooded world, capable of attacking both human-sized enemies and other monsters its own size or larger. Standing on four legs and bearing significant amounts of armor, it is tough enough to easily withstand punishment that would obliterate most buildings within moments.
When traveling underwater, its legs fold against its body, allowing it to move with less water resistance, and its magical enhancements allow it to propel itself in addition to any tentacles it possesses at the time. Highly dangerous at any range, but the closer it comes, the more ways it has to hit an opponent until it wins.
Minor Effects Increased Density Decomposition Immunity Increased Toughness
Weak Effects Increased Toughness Increased Dexterity Increased Underwater Agility
Basic Effects Increased Durability Increased Swimming Speed Increased Accuracy
Strong Effects Regeneration Fear Aura Underwater Acceleration
Major Effects Extreme Attack Speed Hydrokinesis (Minimum Range) Flesh Assimilation (Consumed bodies)
Imbued Spells Suppress Life Shadowstep
Constructing what amounts to yet another cap in your feather, as far as horrible undead abominations against all that is good and just in the world go, underwater isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world, but as you find after a bit of getting used to it, does have its advantages. Mostly in terms of the small-scale logistics involved; having everything just kind of float along means much less hassle in the order of construction, if nothing else.
Sure, you could just use your control over gravity for much the same effect anywhere else (and the thought of being able to actively work in zero g conditions on the regular is kind of amusing, especially if you ever get around to, say, space travel or even just orbital engineering), but really, you're just liking the relative secrecy on top.
Not even the crew knows the Grand Cruiser is now towing a giant undead aberration underneath itself for now, as you went to great lengths to keep the thing hidden underneath the hull. Anyone that dives into the water is quickly going to see that something is there, of course, but even then, it could be anything.
A secret weapon? A parasite Sea King of some sort? A really bad case of aggressively growing sea algae? Really, who's gonna guess it's a giant, twisted zombie under your control made out of some of your latest victims?
But with it done, or at least functional enough and ready for expansion later, you climb back aboard, shaking the seawater out of your hair and off your body before you go on to clear your throat. "Everyone, come out and line up, I'm gonna punch you in the souls to make them come out of your bodies a bit!"
For some reason, you have to chase a few of the crew halfway across the ship to give the Aura. Well, some people are just a bit like that, you suppose.
You did have to slow the cruise down a bit while you worked underwater (and you just now realized that 'The Cruise' is an amazing way to casually refer to your ship, actually), but while the following bit of exercise you can only describe as 'herding cats' still keeps you busy, you can do that part just fine at full cruising speed, so that's exactly what you have the Grand Cruiser do.
It's smooth sailing, too, as you cut straight into the midst of the South Blue, passing by a few high-traffic routes (according to what knowledge you've absorbed so far, anyways) that might make for tempting areas for a pirate to target… if you could be arsed, that is.
Robbing whatever merchant ships and such you could find on them before sailing off into the distance, ahead of any retaliatory strikes from the Marines, might be an effective tactic, at least for the average pirate. The kind of pirate that has to actually run away when a cruiser's worth of Marines is out for their blood. You, on the other hand, have some larger prey in mind already.
For as much as islands are somewhat inherently limited in how much population they can support, whether on account of sheer living space, food supply or any of the host of other logistical issues that come with highly concentration population density, they're basically what you have to work with in this dimension, by and large.
Luckily for you, there's plenty of rather large of such landmasses around, some of which actually are settled and contain enough people to be worth your attention after all. While most may contain a few hundred people at the most, some thousand here and there in some medium-sized cases (looking at those twin islands that shall not be named), some islands contain entire kingdoms.
As in, actual society structures organized with a king or queen at the top, which seems to be the general trend of governance as far as most of this world goes; the World Government, for all the bluster of its name, mostly just collects taxes from any such 'recognized' kingdoms, giving their heads of state some amount of say in select things. You think, anyways.
Your overview of this world's political structures is… spotty, to say the least, and seeing as the seat of the World Government is on the Grand Line, which you have relatively little knowledge of for some reason (Probably related to how few people know about its going-ons in the four Blues, which is where most of your background knowledge seems to have come from?), so you'll just leave that aside for now. Not like you won't find out more the moment you eat the right people anyways.
Anyways, kingdoms are a thing, their laws are generally followed in their 'territory', unless the World Government says otherwise, yadda yadda. Point is, there's a few kingdoms in the South Blue you could go after for now, seeing as your plan is to head to the Grand Line anyways to find out what the fuss about it is all about.
The choice on which to target was pretty simple, actually, you just figured you'd focus on the largest collection of fresh meat you could hit on your way to Reverse Mountain- the place your knowledge ends at and the Grand Line begins, pretty much. Which, by the process of elimination, leads you straight to Samba Kingdom.
In case the name sounds somehow familiar, you're… around eighty percent sure that there's some kind of cross-dimensional cultural osmosis going on, because yeah, Samba Kingdom is basically what you remember about old stereotypes of Brazil tuned up to eleven. The climate around its area is warm around the year, clothing straight out of Brazilian carnival is the norm and dancing is not so much a pastime as it is a way of life for a not inconsiderable part of the population.
Like, not everyone's super fanatic about it, but it really is an over-proportionally well-represented hobby, and the king himself is said to highly value passionate and skilled dancing, to the point he holds regular dance tournaments and sponsors dance teachers throughout his kingdom. Which, hey, is more responsible than most rulers around these parts, you think.
He doesn't demand any advisors perform a dance routine before speaking to him nor does he exile anyone found incapable of swift and agile movement. You haven't seen too many actually civilized places, but the feeling you get is that he's pretty reasonable about his passions and position, all told, especially when you start comparing.
Too bad for him that his kingdom's on the way and you feel like some takeout before you get started on the rest of your journey.
In other, more immediate news, Taylor finally got around to making some new clothes for herself, meaning she's not hanging around in costume all the time. Using spiders split out of her own body, she can spin silk at honestly terrifying speeds- actual combat speed, you mean, using enough spiders at once to tie people up or weave thick, tough strands for whatever she may need to mess with whoever faces her.
It's not exactly a mainstay strategy for her, mind you, but it's possible and effective enough. Taylor just prefers to make use of venomous insects she can easily create out of her own flesh in combination with a screen of whatever other bugs she can find in a given area, generally, and she hasn't exactly fought so many foes she's forced to resort to this kind of thing to mess with them yet.
Turns out nobody wanted to get Skittered after she started to make a name for herself, for some reason. There was actually a few threads on PHO made by people that got paranoid about bugs and claimed she was nearby whenever more than two insects were around at once.
There were memes. It was pretty hilarious. Especially the 'Cockroach Skitter Watching You' one, someone put in a lot of effort and made a whole bunch of bugs 'staring at' the camera and all.
Anyways, the only real reason that it took Taylor this long to spin silk clothing for herself is that she had other stuff to do, but now, with a couple dozen souls fed to everyone important, she's taken an hour or two to get those clothes done, in her usual style.
Like, her 'at home' style, the stuff she wears when she's among the rest of the gang and going about her daily business. Which amounts to strips of cloth strategically wrapped around her body, secured by a few ribbons here and there, to maintain mobility and let her use her powers easily.
Apparently, she actually has an easier time letting bugs emerge from her body when she can just push them out of her skin, rather than also having to account for an added layer of clothing in the way. She can do it and does so all the time, of course, but it's the difference between wearing casual clothing with a gun holstered at your hip and being in full combat gear, having to handle a rifle all the time.
For some reason, the rest of the crew either stares blankly when she's around now or else just flees on sight, weirdly enough. "Are you sure I don't look… weird?"
"Nope, same as usual," you tell her, even as in the background two of your sailors desperately grab a third one that just fell backwards over the railing, nearly dunking himself into the ocean. At the speed you're currently going, he'd be shit out of luck usually, though you'd totally have kept him from falling all the way yourself if need be. "If anything, you look especially suited for the pirate thing we're doing."
"Hm. Got it." Nodding decisively, Taylor turns her head towards your right, staring into the distance. "A ship just entered my range."
"Oh, anything interesting?" You ask, well aware she can perceive only so much through her bugs… But much more than she could have when she first got her power. Literally, through telepathy you've been able to personally experience this massive jumble of warped perspectives yourself, and it did get marginally easier to decipher over time.
Especially when Taylor started using specially bred bugs made to make this easier, courtesy of Riley. Even so you don't consider it all, well, meaningfully easier to sort through, but Taylor's power does help there as well, you're fairly sure.
"A black flag. They're pirates. Their captain is… very fat. I can't tell whether they're male or female."
"Not even with your bugs on them?" An eyebrow raised, you tilt your head as well. Normally, their sense of smell is able to clear that kind of thing up just fine.
"No. They stink too much of both. Literally, the body odor is… piercing." She looks you in the eyes, over the rim of her glasses. "It makes me a little hungry, actually."
It's a sorry sight as it drifts into view, tattered sails and squeaking planks characterizing the ship you're currently steering towards. Granted, that has absolutely nothing to do with Taylor and more with poor maintenance, overall; it all looks a lot more like material deterioration than damage caused by her bugs.
Of course before you have the time to really note that, you're somewhat preoccupied by the stench. As Taylor said, this ship stinks to high heaven, of far more sweat and blubber than you can believe is healthy.
You're really, really trying to be generous here, but no matter how little fresh water is available to wash yourself with on long voyages, and crews on ships sailing along for any length of time naturally end up reeking to some extent sooner or later, this is beyond any natural occurrence. It just stinks that badly.
Reigning in your enhanced sense of smell when the wind really picks up and brings you a full blast of this ship's unholy waft of body odor and excrement, you decide that, yes, Taylor absolutely wasn't kidding.
Also, sending your crew in to plunder the ship, already emptied of living beings not under Taylor's control, would be a serious ethical failure on your part as their employer. Maybe it's just your instincts as a member of the secret blood-drinking elite in control of an evil organization, but not even you are cruel enough to make them go in there without some form of protection.
So you get some of it, in the form of a series of masks you mold out of the flesh of the ship, animating each of them to filter the air and all. It's a bit of a temporary measure, but you absolutely intend to unmake these little undead in short order anyways, so whatever.
Actually looting the ship goes quick, in equal parts due to the only outwardly inanimate masks you make your people wear, the reek that is clearly detectable even from your ship without one of them on and the superstitious issues they have about 'ghost ships'.
When they claim this is one, you plainly state that no, it was filled with people until Taylor sighted it, following which all of them died and were eaten up to and including the bones. For some reason, this does not seem to reassure them.
What is it with people being difficult over the most innocuous of things sometimes?
Onboard, your spooked pirates find some treasure, a couple thousand Beri taken from some merchant ships just like you were thinking about earlier, according to Taylor (who did, y'know, consume these pirates' souls and all), along with a handful of maps of the South Blue. Which is actually quite nice, as they give you a much more complete overview of this particular part of the oceans spanning the world.
It's not insanely necessary or anything, but it should help you plan your journey a bit better going forward. Just as soon as Taylor's currently apparent desire to cuddle up to you is satisfied.
By the time you're back in your personal cabin, her and Sarah are firmly engaged in a classic double blowjob the moment you sit down, taking turns deepthroating your cock all the way to its base (a feat a professional once described as 'nope', for the record) and playing with your balls, groping and rubbing at each other all the while.
Good times. Good enough for you to take another quick nap while the Grand Cruiser keeps moving.
Slumbering away in the midst of your vessel's innards, you once again remain dormant for a time as you're carried off towards destiny! Which, in this case, means a lot of rhythmic consumption of human life, you suppose. About what you can expect for yourself at this point, really.
The Grand Cruiser runs into a few other ships now and again as you plow through the waves straight towards Samba Kingdom, though most of those are summarily avoided by diving underwater for a time, thanks to the early warning you generally receive from either Taylor or Sarah, who actually uses her power to great result in keeping you apprised of anything going on even in the distance.
She's not as foolproof of a detection device as she'd like to make you think, though she's still pretty good, all told.
That said, not quite every ship you happen to cross gets to be avoided like that. Not only do the girls remain awake, and therefore in need of plenty of fresh blood, you also continue to have your crew cuts its teeth against both civilian and military vessels every now and then, rarely going more than three days without attacking someone or something. The additional loot and bodies don't hurt either, of course.
Throughout the entire time, though, the Dead Sea Pirates keep a rather low profile, no matter whether you stay in hiding or strike by surprise from below the sea. It's a bit of a balancing act, but while you're all for gathering some notoriety and letting fear of your very name spread across the world, you also pointedly prefer to keep the initiative in anything you do; allowing the World Government's lapdogs to track you kind of runs counter to that, all in all.
A topic to revisit later on, when you've committed mass murder on a scale that actually registers on a global level. Why, it just so happens that's the next thing you plan to do!
But yeah, anyways, the crew gets used to living on the Grand Cruiser, even when it dives for sometimes extended periods of time, and to assaulting other ships, to some extent. Meanwhile, Kate gets practice blasting said ships clear of any real opposition using what amounts to massive amounts of power-assisted buckshot fired from literally any guns she gets her hands on and Sherrel goes on to install a few 'minor' upgrades on your own ship.
Including a temporary turbo-charge that lets it ram into anything in front of it, a wedge-shaped ram at its front so it can just breach straight through soft targets such as other ships and, just because it absolutely had to be, mortars, hidden in the inner workings of the flesh that makes up your vessel's more 'interesting' design choices.
You aren't sure whether you should be relieved they aren't laser mortars again (still nonsensical) or aggrieved that they instead shoot solid shadows of some sort now. It's almost like Sherrel actively goes out of her way to find new ways to do weird shit!
And no, you being able to do the exact same thing using your magic is no excuse.
But hey, at least everyone seems to be having fun; Taylor's taken to just caring for her little colony of giant crabs while most of this is going on, having them produce a clutch of eggs already even as the journey continues, feeding the things with the occasional school of fish or other, larger, aquatic creatures you come across.
The crew, on the other hand, goes through the crab meat you went and saved for them, in addition to any rations plundered from the ships the girls decide to attack. It's some good eating all around, for all that some fresher stuff wouldn't go amiss, you think.
Fun fact, they actually know about scurvy in this dimension, and so there's quite a bit of fruit among the looted food items everyone gets to have a taste of. Says something about this place's knowledge base, and people that actually put effort into finding the cause of and treating whatever maladies can be found all around.
In the end, though, the journey goes pretty well overall, you'd say, and you arrive near the Samba Kingdom with relatively little trouble, submerged beneath the great blue sea and readying for your assault.
It'll be showtime soon. Not quite yet, you still have to actually wake up first and all, but… soon.
You're currently circling the island Samba Kingdom stands on, quietly scouting it out via Taylor's split entities (which is a cooler way of saying she spit out a bunch of bugs she's using to get a feel for the lay of the land, as far as her reach lets her) and getting everything ready for bit of action. The weather's pretty temperate for the area, meaning it's kind of hot, but not unusually so, and there's few clouds in the sky.
Geology-wise, the island in question is covered in a couple large patches of jungle-like forests, downright rainforest even, pretty damn green and lush and filled with plenty of unpleasant fauna from snakes to jaguars and entirely different kinds of creatures entirely, ones that resemble known animals but most certainly aren't- neither crocodiles nor alligators, to your knowledge, are supposed to be bipedal, for instance.
That aside, though, plenty of the island is also more or less tamed, allowing for large plantations and a few villages to flourish. The largest settlement on it, of course, seems to be its capital, a massive port city set into a bay that has since been outgrown by it.
The streets aren't exactly paved in gold of course, but still, the entire place looks reasonably wealthy overall. And yes, people literally are dancing in the streets every now and then, according to Taylor.
The way you see it, there's a few options as to how you can approach this entire thing, and the way you do so is heavily influenced by what you want out of all of this. Only thing is sure, though; no matter what you do, chances are there'll be plenty of casualties involved.
But then, you are a pirate. Widespread death and destruction kind of come part and parcel with your job description. And really, it's these people's own fault- if they didn't want to be massacred for your own convenience, they shouldn't have grown souls and blood for you to consume and all that.
It is now day, by the by (we're not about to be too anal about the exact times here, what matters is that about a day of awake-time has passed since you last did anything)
404 days since rising from the grave (ERROR ERROR ERROR)
28 days left in this dimension
Well then, your crew wanted sea shanties and, as it just so happens, your plan calls for a decent amount of music as you get started. As such, once you properly woke up (Sarah fed you blood mouth-to-mouth again), you got everything ready, including drilling the crew on synchronized dancing and such- as it so happens, they're actually surprisingly good at it, too.
It has to be something in the water here, you're sure of it. Then again, they also did show some marked improvement over their surprisingly high baseline once you unlocked their access to your telepathic net, letting them coordinate each and every move they make.
It's not usually what you think of when you consider the many advantages of telepathy, but yeah, putting on a hammer performance like this is indeed one of them after all. Ah well, it does make things easier for you as well.
You have the Grand Cruiser resurface some ways off the coast, where you may have been seen coming from the depths of the ocean if someone happened to be watching with binoculars at the time, but otherwise too far to be sighted normally. Your Jolly Roger, of course, is currently down, because you can't anyone see you're obviously pirates yet.
Instead, you have to use some other flag, because sailing around without one is about as big of a no-no as sailing with a black one to begin with. Thankfully, there were plenty of other ones to choose from, but while it would be hilarious to roll up with a Marine flag and all and pretend you were one of theirs, nobody thought to keep any of the uniforms from the Marine ships you've sunk so far, so that one's pretty much out.
Should've thought of that before you removed the inscription on the sides of your Cruiser. Ah well, whatever, you'll live.
Instead, you end up going with one of the flags taken from one of the merchant ships the others took down during your nap, which should do well enough for your purposes.
Everything set up and the worst of your modifications to the ship hidden (you did have plenty of replacement sails you picked up from those other Marine cruisers, so that's simple enough at least, and the animated arms rowing can be hidden underwater much as your Crabkren), the C.S. Grand Cruiser soon openly sails into the port of Enredo, the capital of Samba Kingdom.
And, as it does, you have everyone get into the spirit of things by singing, in unison, that sea shanty you mentioned earlier, making it a point to fit in- sailors dancing across the deck to swab it as they sing, the rhythmic thumping of yourself knocking against wood to lead the song.
Your performance drifts across the water, heralding your arrival in the port proper. It certainly won't be the last song being sung in this place… Though it won't be far off, if you have your way.
You imagined, when you first heard of this place and how it's like, that the inhabitants of Samba Kingdom would be basically Brazilians, with maybe a bit extra flair thrown in for good measure; some more colorful clothes here and there, a few particularly notable local customs and stuff, maybe shops that sell carnival supplies year round even, that kind of thing.
You weren't entirely wrong with that, mind you, but seeing the man coming out to greet you as your ship settles into its place at the docks, folded capsule of undead flesh and bone underneath shifting subtly to fit, wearing a massive headdress made of colorful feathers, a brightly colored patchwork of cloth for a jacket and Hawaii shorts of all things, you just about give up any hope you had.
Hope for finding anyone from this place you'd want to keep, that is. Look, you don't kink shame and neither do you fashion shame, but some kinds of fashion crimes just don't mesh with your own aesthetics, alright? And while trying to find some way actually weaponize clashing styles of dress would be kind of funny, it's not what you're really here for.
Letting the shanty peter out, you take long steps over your deck, coming to greet the man nevertheless. You'll kill him later, in all likelihood, but until then you may as well be polite. "Hello there!"
"Olá senhor," he greets you back, not even trying to hide the obvious Portuguese. This is literally as if someone bastardised Brazilian culture, tuned it up to eleven and transplanted it straight into this dimension. "Don't let us stop your rhythm, but I fear I must ask what brings your ship to great Samba. The usual paperwork, I'm sure you understand."
"Oh, what brings any ship to these shores, senhor?" You ask, knowing at least enough Portuguese to properly pronounce that much. "We come to dance and celebrate, of course!"
"Well, not the usual, but I'll take it! Still, there remains the matter of-" Before he can bother you with talk of docking fees or other bureaucratic nonsense, you flash him a grin, your eyes shifting almost imperceptibly as you transform just a bit, a slight, just so noticeable influence exerting itself onto his mind, your very presence changing and twisting to fit your needs.
"Now, now, who needs any of that? We're finally here, and it's finally time, why waste a single second?" Your grin grows wider as your crew gathers behind yourself, splitting into two rows with your girls at the very end- so they can slip out and split off later all the easier. "Come join us, we have plenty of dance and song left from the journey!"
Snapping your fingers, you wordlessly instruct the crew to get started, all of them shouting "Whoopah!" simultaneously and singing along as you jump off the ship, following you in orderly lines and grabbing the harbormaster and his retinue to pull them along as they go.
Time to get this party started proper.
It takes a little time to get things started, as you sing and dance, yourself in the lead, your crew following after you, having a surprising amount of fun just doing their part in this little charade. However, as you keep on going, more and more people see what's going on, falling under the subtle spell you're been building up- your very presence is spreading a certain kind of enthusiasm, pulling people in, making them just a bit more likely to join in on things.
You sing and dance all the way, moving, swaying and swirling in the rhythm more than you're walking, but that's just par for the course, you suppose. And, though you can hardly believe it's actually working, that's exactly what ends up happening; one by one, the citizens of Samba Kingdom are drawn into the spontaneous dancing session, helped along by your magic working its way into their heads, nudging them into line.
It's all a mix between basic psychology and a little bit of magic to smooth things along, really. People like to go along with what crowds of people are doing already, so once you get the ball rolling things just kind of snowball from there.
At some point, the goons you brought along also pick up some maracas and a pair of trumpets, adding their contribution to the music you've got going on and enhancing the experience a bit. You've got most of the instrumentals going on by just using magic straight out, having set up a repeating cycle of the background music you need here ahead of time, but you do appreciate the enthusiasm on their part.
Eventually, you ultimately pivot to dancing, well, samba, letting Sarah, Kate, Sherrel and Taylor take turns as your partner all the while you stay in motion, slowly dragging the entire throng of people you've managed to attract into the direction of Enredo's Royal Square, steadily closing in on the next stage of your plan.
Well, 'plan'. It's really more a checklist of quick steps to take as you destroy this kingdom to get some extra juicy rewards out of your work. Same difference in the end, but you like to think it matters. You aren't massacring all of these people randomly like you're getting some fast food- you're putting thought and effort into the process, okay?
They probably won't thank you for it, you're still coming in and unreasonably murdering a massive amount of people for your own convenience and gain, but hey, that's only fair. Doesn't stop you from at least not being completely thoughtless and disrespectful about the whole thing.
Like, you'll still absolutely be a disrespectful shit about things if and when doing so is convenient, you don't care about it all that much, but some minimal effort isn't all that much for you to put into this kind of stuff.
Bursting out into the Royal Square, the place many a dance competition has taken place in this kingdom, you swirl and dance yourself in complete abandonment of normal limits, pulling Sarah's body against your own with all the passion, desire and technical skill you can muster, all of which are considerable in their own ways respectively, the citizens streaming along, singing and dancing and acting as they, too, cannot contain themselves.
In short, things went pretty well on this end- and why are your goons running stalls selling refreshments on the edges of the Square? Dammit, you might actually have to pay attention and babysit them every now and then. This goes, like, way beyond the level of initiative you expect from them.
Not complaining, to be sure, but… Yeah.
Snapping your fingers, you shut the music you've been keeping running as you went off, kissing Sarah deeply in the last moments of the afterglow following the dancing, her waist bent backwards so she can stare up into your eyes. In the silence that follows, the crowd, until now loud and full of life itself, quietens down as well, letting everyone hear it loud and clear when the applause rings out.
Looking up, the elevated platform reachable from the palace adjacent to the Royal Square (hence the name, duh) is occupied by none other than the king of Samba Kingdom himself- Moqueca, wearing the traditional headdress in addition to what you know to be his usual kingly getup and all.
It speaks for itself, really.
"Marvelous!" He exclaims, obviously quite happy with what's going on right now. "A great demonstration of classical Sambaian dance, and a great festival mood to boot! I don't think we had one scheduled, but I approve!"
"A pleasure to know you do, your majesty," you reply, your voice kept in check for the moment, merely clear and spreading everywhere instead of forcing its way inside skulls or making stone shake.
"And you! You are a great dancer if I have ever seen one. And not to brag, but I see a lot, huahua!"
"I figure I'm decent enough," you shrug, not particularly bothered at just being as casual as can be in this situation. After all… "It's really too bad there won't be any dancing in this place for a while once we're done here."
"Oh?" Opening his eyes wide enough to keep you in his sights no matter what, King Moqueca takes a step backwards just in case, the bodyguards accompanying him (not visible from below, but obvious to your senses, as they've got blood running through them just fine). "And why would that be?"
"Well, I'm the Captain of the Dead Sea Pirates," you inform him, sending the crowd behind you into a frenzy of whispers and discrete attempts to leave the plaza you lured the people on. Naturally, you can't have that, so you snap your fingers. "Your lovely kingdom was on our way, so we decided to come by for a visit. The good kind of visit, with hostages and all."
In the background, the crisp crackle of ice coming into being can be heard, as several walls of ice rise to block off the three major roads leading to the Royal square, in normal times a place to gather the populace for announcements and large-scale public dancing or contests, now a convenient place for you to hold a couple thousand people for a moment, courtesy of Kate and Taylor working some Cryomancy while you kept the focus on yourself and the king.
"That! Is a violation of Samba Kingdom's public construction code," said king points out as soon as it becomes apparent you're removing ways out of the Square. "But, being pirates, you clearly don't care, huahuahua!"
"That's one way to put it, I suppose," you muse aloud for the sake of appearances, if nothing else. "Our demands are pretty simple. Send someone to defeat me and, should they win, everyone gets released and we skedaddle off and away. Sound fair?"
"Huahua! It's a shame for someone like you to be a pirate, isn't it? But I doubt you'll be convinced by me," Moqueca says, gesturing with one hand- too low to be easily seen from this angle, again, but you once more notice it just fine.
"Pretty much. Oh, but don't worry- it doesn't really matter who you send." Looking him square in the eyes, you grin, teeth sharpening as you do, and a wave of fear spreads visibly through the crowd, rippling through it moments before an even more noticeable heaviness lays itself over the entire Royal Square, preventing them all from moving.
Yes, you are securing the hostages by making them heavier. Yes, it really is as convenient and simple as it sounds. All that practice and research on your Esper power really paid off.
"It'll all end the same way anyways."
The woman that ultimately emerges to confront you, after your declaration, is not exactly the kind of strapping warrior you'd expect the kingdom do send forth, at least judging from appearances alone. Short, wrinkly and visibly withered, the old woman that emerges from the palace takes her sweet time getting down the stairs, garbed in black and using a gnarled, twisted walking stick of some dark brown wood to keep going, the ticking and tocking of its tip against stone almost painfully loud and slow.
You don't let it bother yourself, patiently waiting for her to arrive. When she does, you see a glint of recognition in the eyes of many of the townsfolk around, though none of them speak up quite yet. They probably aren't helped by the blanket pressure you're putting on all of them, making it a bit hard to speak at all.
That honor falls unto the king himself instead, who clears his throat and steps forth once more. "Introducing, to any that may not know her… Grandma Vovo!"
Chuckling quietly, the old woman walks out in front of you, brushing her gray hair behind her ear with one hand. "Just call me Vovo, dear. Sorry I take a while to move in my old age."
"That's no problem, ma'am, it is how it is," you shrug, giving her a smile. "So, how should we-"
Before you can finish your sentence, a red blur shoots from the woman straight towards your head, slapping against it from the side before withdrawing. It doesn't even hit you all that hard or anything, which is why you aren't already in the process of tearing down that royal palace and using the rubble to bludgeon the old bitch to death right now.
"Ah thought we were gonna fight, ya poopy brat, what's this lame shit, eh?" The creature now facing you instead of 'Vovo' is humanoid, but only just, covered as it is in spotted red and black scales, standing on two feet but balanced with a long, vertically flat tail, a little hunched over and speaking with an old woman's voice.
"My bad, I thought we were letting the elderly out of the retirement home one last time," you grin, casually wiping off a little bit of slime left behind by her tail as it slapped you, Last Embrace sliding out of the shadow beneath your clothes and settling on your forearms by their own initiative as they sense you getting ready for a beatdown. "A Devil Fruit, huh?"
"Dang right, little shit," she confirms, thin tongue slipping out of her mouth for a second. "Better be ready for an ass kicking, I've been itching for a dance all month!"
"Grandma Vovo ate the Sara Sara no Mi, Model: Newt," King Moqueca announces, raising a fist in the air. "That's why she's been the royal caretaker since my grandfather's time. Now-"
Grunting in annoyance, the old lizard flicks her tail at his direction, splattering another bit of slime onto the front of the balustrade he stands behind. "Shaddup, Lil' Momo, this ain't no enemy I can take it easy on! Bugger off while I fight him here, ya?"
"No running, actually. Be a waste if I let him get away before I deal with you old crone," you drawl.
Kate knows to shoot the moment anyone makes a credible attempt at escaping this situation from her elevated position up above the roofs already, so you don't even bother thinking anything at her.
"Pfeh! No respect for the elderly, I tell ya!" Vovo gripes at you.
"Please, as if you'd care for it," you laugh her off. "A bitter old cunt like you doesn't give a shit what people call her."
Grumbling, the half-newt doesn't move from her position, tail pressed against the ground and ready to help her push herself in any direction she needs to while her lizard eyes are fixed on you, elongated, soft fingers slowly oozing some of that surprisingly clear slime of hers, keeping them moist and sticky as she waits for you to give any indication of what you're about to do.
Well, she's already smarter than most assholes you've hammered with a hearty bit of ultraviolence to date. You can tell she already knows she's probably gonna die and just refuses to give up before she makes you work for it.
You know what, just to make a point, you'll go ahead and take it easy on this one yourself. Smirking, you raise your hands in a shrug, shaking your head as you leisurely walk towards your opponent this time around. "Well, much as I'm sure everyone loves watching two people stare at each other," you tell her, "let's get this show on the road already. I'll even let you have the first hit."
Absolutely, thoroughly, obviously not trusting a single word you're saying, Vovo actually takes a cautious step backwards, repositioning her tail. "Feh. Already had that one, I'll pass."
"Quitting while you're ahead, huh?" You grin at her. "I see where you're going with this, but I'll only let you stall for so long, you know?"
"I don't. No idea what you're on about," the half-newt woman snaps.
"Ah well, I suppose I can just entertain myself whenever I get bored of this particular charade," you shrug, looking her square in the eyes, regardless of how apart they are in her current form. "Who should I start with? The king? Or his subjects? I'll even let you choose."
Still approaching her slowly, Vovo finally decides she can't keep you at bay without taking a risk any longer- and lunges straight at you as her answer, her tail pushing her from behind and letting her accelerate much more than her already considerable physical strength should allow.
She's fast, and she's strong, and her transformation into some newt-based monstrosity gives her some additional advantages, from the sticky, yet smooth mucus covering her skin to the fingers wrapping around and sticking to anything they touch. Combined with her increased physical mass, you can see how she'd be a serious threat in close quarters combat of any kind.
Too bad for her, though, that you're much, much more of one. Meeting her charge head-on, you maneuver below her in short order, grabbing the scaly, murky skin clawed fingers to get a good grip and slam her right back where she came, using your own wildly disproportional strength to full effect.
Not intending to give her a chance to speak up and waste more time again, you jump right after her, only to eat another tail strike to the side, this time. Not particularly bothered still, you simply grab on, rushing straight along its length and ramming your fist down on Vovo's hip joint, breaking it just like that.
Growling, the woman uses her other leg to pivot around you, trying to either make you let go or get a grip on you in exchange. Once again undaunted by her maneuver, you climb around towards her back as she moves, using her increased size against her and getting yourself a nice spot at her back to work with.
Where you promptly grab her by the back of her shoulders and lift her into the air, slamming her back down head first by bending yourself backwards in a classic wrestling maneuver. The force of your move shakes the stone beneath you, a pain-filled croak escaping the old woman despite her monstrous form as her spine bends uncomfortably.
You let go of her at this point, able to see she's actually seriously hurt by now, blood vessels inside of her body burst here and there and muscle straining to keep her going as normal. "Is that all?" You ask, making her stop a moment of your own volition this time.
"Well, old age wears everyone down, ya little shit," Vovo gasps. "Shouldn't let that bother ya. You'll feel it yourself soon enough."
You stand there for a moment, letting the situation soak a bit, so to speak, the mucus from her skin covering yourself quite annoyingly. It's really just kind of sticky and yucky, but that's really all it can do to you.
Yup. 'To you'. "Ah, do you mean the poison, perhaps?" You ask, the old woman stilling when you mention you're perfectly aware of it. "I know newts can be poisonous, so I figured that's what that first tail slap was for. You tried to hit me with it right away, then stall until it started working."
"Cheh. No idea what you're-"
"I'm immune to poison, by the way. It doesn't do anything to me." You shrug, enjoying the sheer level of utter, pissed-off annoyance hidden in her eyes all of a sudden. "It was a good strategy, to be fair, I gotta say. You couldn't exactly have known."
"So what? Guess you not gasping on your knees is proof enough, but that just means I hafta beat your ass the old-fashioned way." Despite her words, old Vovo makes no move to attack, obviously still looking to stall despite the uselessness of it all.
As proven by the explosion that rings out from the ocean just as she finishes talking, a great fountain of water erupting into the air high enough to be seen from the Royal Square. Sherrel really did some good work on the weapons back on the Grand Cruiser.
"And that would be the Marines coming to the rescue. If they hadn't just been sunk just short of the finish line," you stage whisper, shit-eating grin on your face. "Any other hopes of winning this one left, or should we finish it?"
"…Anyone ever tell ye you're a massive dick?"
"A few people, here and there. I figure they're just jealous."
Right, then. This is about as far as you're gonna get here, you're pretty sure. "Kind of a shame, this. You almost have what it takes to be a bit of a fight instead of a quick lunch. I suppose even a Devil Fruit will only get you so far."
The old woman goes to say something, maybe call you a dick again or even a cunt, this time, but you have to admit that no matter how amusing it is to trade insults with this grandma, you do have things to do today. So instead of letting her speak, you just… move very, very quickly, closing the distance between the two of you in an instant, or just so fast there's no functional difference for your opponent.
That's really the whole 'trick' behind your little Flashstep maneuver. You just accelerate the movement of your physical body to ludicrous degrees, fudging the physics involved along the way a bit to make it all work out. But yeah, at the end of the day, you just go real fast.
One clawed hand clamped down on her flattened mouth, you shake your head at the woman, understanding at just how utterly outclassed she was this entire time dawning on her as she realizes what just happened- and just how easily you could've killed her all along. You really were just playing with her, ultimately.
"Whatever you're thinking, it doesn't really matter at this point, does it? You're dead." With that, you grow an additional pair of arms out of your back, long and twisted and strong enough to give you the leverage you need here, and grab Vovo by her scaled shoulders, head and neck, dragging her up into the air and directly above your face.
Your face that proceeds to ever so slightly pull itself apart to make space for your growing, dislocating maw, more and more teeth growing in what was your mouth until moments ago. By the time you bite down on the slightly slimy neck and shoulder, piercing through scales and straight into poisoned flesh, your jaws are large enough to fit even your victim's enlarged head inside of them, not that your aim is so atrociously bad it really matters at this point.
Draining what feels like a couple extra gallons of blood compared to what you expected down your gullet, you tear a sizeable chunk of toxic flesh out as you push the body out of your mouth again, chewing once, then twice before swallowing and returning your bodily proportions back to normal.
The blood and the meat both burn a bit as they go down, but honestly, you can deal with that. Not like it's the worst pain you've ever felt eating or drinking something, not by a long shot- it's barely anything compared to some proper Mexican food, for example.
And no, this isn't some weird racist joke, you mean food made by humans, not Mexicans as such. Their blood isn't really any spicier than anyone else's, as far as you can tell.
Dropping the dead body to the ground, you pull your extra arms back in, rolling a shoulders a bit. 'Hey, that was some of the most metal eating action I've seen, and I've seen Ethan pull a shortcake night.'
'Thanks, Kate,' you send back, appending a mental smiley to your reply as you turn to face King Moqueca, ignoring the sizable chunk of the populace arrayed behind you. In a very real way, none of these other people matter right now, beyond the use you will make of them shortly.
As for the king in question, he's currently… running down to meet you, slightly out of breath but otherwise pretty much fine. Glancing up at the mucus that got stuck to his balustrade earlier, you now realize that 'Grandma Vovo' used it as a secret form of communication with him, her memories assimilated into your own; she could manipulate the color and properties of her mucus, so they had a whole code about what colors mean what.
In this case? The dim red means to say this is a fight she doesn't expect to win, so he should look for a way to escape. Except the man himself obviously realized there was no way out, so he stayed instead. Probably unwilling to let Vovo die by herself.
He wasn't lying, the old crone really was his caretaker for most of his life, she stuck around and made sure the guy didn't get himself killed as a teenager and all. He actually did think of her as his own grandmother, you're pretty sure.
"Dead Sea Pirates!" He exclaims, coming to a halt before you, right next to Vovo's very dead body. Then, without a second thought, he throws himself to his knees, pressing his head against the ground. "Please! I do not acre what you do to me, but if you happen to find it in your hearts, please be lenient with my people!"
…Well, way to put you on the spot there, man.
'I'm conflicted.'
'Don't tell me you're actually considering this?' Sarah asks, sending you a quirked eyebrow 'emoji' over telepathy.
'I won't say I'm moved on a heartfelt level or anything, but this man's got some stones trying to trade his life in like this, just saying.'
'Yeah, man's got some balls," Kate agrees. 'You sure we ain't gonna declare him bourgeoisie and just send him to the guillotine without listenin', though?'
'What are we, French? Nah, I'm just kinda torn now. Not every day a prospective meal pulls something like this.'
'It's the difference between taking all of these souls, one way or another, or leaving them to spread notoriety about us.' Taylor. 'Up to you.'
You wait a moment to see if Sherrel has anything to add, though the Tinker, currently sitting back on the Grand Cruiser just sends you the equivalent of a one-shouldered shrug to signify how little she cares which way you go here. No pressure everyone, you suppose.
"Tell you what," you say, stepping up to Moqueca and looking down on him from right there, "I was planning to just kill everyone, but I like your style. In honor of your sacrifice, we're only gonna wipe out all the armed forces around your capital and anyone still in the palace by this point. Sound good?"
Trembling a little, the portly man doesn't move from where he's kneeling, back refusing to budge an inch. Ah. He's afraid. Well, he's essentially dead and all, the reality of the situation is probably just sinking into his hind brain right now.
"I asked if that sounds good," you repeat patiently, tapping one foot right in front of where his head meets the pavement. "We can always go with the original plan, if you'd prefer."
"Th-that sounds good! Great! Just short of perfect, even!" Tears streaming from his eyes, he finally manages to look up, watery gaze half-blind but still cognizant.
"Never let perfect be the enemy of good, I always say," you note… And lash downwards with one arm, casually decapitating King Moqueca by pulling on his head with telekinesis even while you radically redefine gravity as it pertains to him and his surroundings in new and exciting ways, effectively tearing it straight off his neck.
Holding his severed head out to the side by his hair hidden amidst the headdress, you let some of the blood drain out of it, all the while giving him a last few moments before his brain shuts down to see the inhabitants of Samba Kingdom cry behind you, all of them apparently having caught a bad case of the feels. Then, taking hold of all of the blood rushing out of his dead body, you drink it all up like an overly huge and long noodle, absorbing his soul to match the last one.
"Whelp, that's that," you announce, dropping the beheaded monarch's head next to his body as move. He actually told his guards not to interfere no matter what happened, which explains why you could execute him just fine without dealing with them first. Now they've moving, though, apparently unable to hold still after you just killed their king. "You guys stay put while I go have the rest of my snack, 'kay? Pinkie promise~!"
Yes, you decided to be cute at the populace that just witnessed all of this, doubly so as they still can't actually move- you still haven't lifted the changed gravity on any of them, after all. They'll get a chance to do more than breathe and slowly shuffle under the strain of their own weight once you're done here and back on the ocean.
Alright, so in terms of gains, the True Souls obviously are full tens each, as always, and so is Vovo on account of being a Devil Fruit User, marking her as far and beyond the danger of most people combined with being a generally good person. Not the best, old age and cynicism make her only a generally good one, but it's enough for our purposes to declare her a full score.
As for the king… He's a good guy, but his guards were either dead or ordered not to interfere, and he himself had pretty much no combat potential beyond the average middle-aged, kinda overweight dude. He still was more dangerous than most due to his position, but I don't feel he can be worth more than eight BP overall due to the specifics of the situation here.
BP now at 774
Progress now at 42/80
Juggernaut (Unarmed Combat) gains 100xp, now at (350/4000)
Supernatural Sense (Observation) gains 100xp, now at (869/1500)
Organizational Breakdown (Organization) gains 1450xp, now at (2025/1500), perk gained
Acrobatics 6 gains 2350xp, now at (5230/6000)
Music 7 gains 1350xp, now at (2331/3500)
Feint (Sword) gains 1500xp, now at (1950/1500), perk gained
King Moqueca XXII, or as he may have called it in his youth, 'that same stupid old name twenty-one kings had before', hoped he had been a good king throughout his life and would be remembered as such.
He wasn't a brave hunter of pirates like Moqueca XV had been, nor did he have a record of instating public works like the waterways Moqueca XIX had been known for, to this day feeding Samba Kingdom's plantations and people both, he would be the first to admit. In his own way, he had tried to live up to the examples of his ancestors, enriching the culture of his beloved kingdom and expanding the horizons of its citizens.
It helped that he also, like all the kings before him, loved dancing and music, to the point he could engross himself in (and personally write) technical manuals on the topic. Moqueca XXII simply happened to focus on his passions in an official capacity more than most of his predecessors, who had to work hard to make Samba Kingdom the place it was when he took power at the ripe old age of twenty-eight, following a particularly unfortunate misstep of his father's while dancing classical Sambaian folk dance.
It was a tragedy to be sure, though he'd had plenty of time to get over it by this point. A loss like that lingered, but it became easier to live with in time.
The man was idly thinking about these things because, according to his last recollection, he'd been alerted to a spontaneous festival happening, a parade made up of citizenry marching and dancing and singing through the streets of the capital. He'd gone out to meet them, in the process soon realizing that pirates had infiltrated or perhaps even begun it.
It was a shame, too. The lead dancer had been absolutely phenomenal, Moqueca wouldn't have hesitated to hire him as a dance instructor or perhaps palace guard, depending on his preference. Smooth, perfectly controlled movement, a flow that would not budge in storm nor on waves, passion that positively oozed from him… If only he hadn't been a pirate.
Or at least considered a change of career. These things happened, much as the World Government made a point not to advertise them. As one of its members, he would likely have managed to swing a pardon for the entire crew, as long as it wasn't too notorious.
But alas, it was not to be. Instead, Grandma Vovo had taken one look at who Moqueca presumed to be the Dead Sea Pirates' captain and motioned for him to stand back as she went to confront him, looking more serious than he could recall seeing her in his entire life.
Considering he'd known her since he was a baby, that was saying something about the old hag, huahuahua!
The rest was history, of course. Grandma Vovo… died, and so did he shortly after. Not before he had time to beg for his people's lives, at least, for all that it had been hard- the sheer fear of the mysterious pirate had been overwhelming, up close. Last he could remember, his disembodied head was falling to the ground, as particularly morbid and un-jazzy image as it felt like.
Before his eyes stopped working, he could still see the citizens behind his executioner, their tears mirroring his own. And such concluded the life of Moqueca XXII, his only hope being that Moqueca XXIII, his son, would be well and take over where he had left things off.
Picture his surprise, then, when he regained consciousness moments after his own death, inside some kind of ruins that did not correspond to anything he could ever recall seeing before. Not to mention the compulsive need to move, one foot set in front of the next, only to find himself surrounded by a colorful cavalcade of people in all ages, sizes and forms, their features and clothing clearly showing they came from vastly different islands.
In short order, Moqueca was led to a young man that looked like he was spectacularly fed up with something. Hopefully not him- he may not be a sight for sore eyes himself, huahua, but this person seemed deeper aggrieved than the dead(?) king would facilitate, if he said so himself.
Looking up from the book he was reading, the bespectacled, black-haired fellow gave him a nod. "Hello. Please don't mind the 'guards', we've had some issues with people pranking new arrivals before."
"I see," he said, not seeing anything at all but unwilling to break the flow of the conversation. "In that case, would you mind explaining where we are? And why I am not in control of myself?"
Following Moqueca through a doorway into an armory of some kind, the young man sighed, shaking his head. "Believe it or not, this is the afterlife. Sort of. It's where everyone that died a certain way goes."
His heart clenched a moment. "Everyone?"
"Please go on in, grab something that feels right and tell that horrid old woman to stop beating people with her cane. It shouldn't even be possible in here, people are literally incapable of hitting each other."
"Yes… Yes, that does sound like Grandma Vovo."
And if it was cowardly or even horrible to think this, he was glad that, if nothing else, someone he trusted with more than his own life was with him, as soon as he found her again anyways. A shame that his son would have to make do without either of them from now on, assuming he survived, but it was something.
"By the way, your last request actually worked out. It's the first time I've seen Him actually spare people he intended to kill. So… good job, I guess." His mood soared. "Even if he still also ate all the administrative staff he could find. And your guards, they tried to avenge so they got eaten as well."
His mood soured again. Still, at least they would be… somewhere in this place? Moqueca would have to inquire further in short order.
But for now, it was all he could do to lift the heavy sceptre he'd felt inexplicably drawn toward, regaining control of his limbs as soon as his hands took hold of the thing. "Uff! If I'd known being dead involved heavy labor, I would have led a more active lifestyle, I think."
"…You know, that's not the worst sentiment I've heard about dying."
Mhm… So. The World Government is kind of a thing, as you now intimately know thanks to a certain former monarch's memories. It also is… Well, you don't want to say it, really, but it's kind of a joke.
They aren't really doing much governance, far as you can see, beyond policing the known world for piracy. And rooting it out by any means necessary, primarily using the Marines as their private army slash peacekeeping force.
Why do you call them a private army? Because that's essentially what they are. The core of the World Government is made up of the World Nobles, also known as the Celestial Dragons or something, and they essentially can just order them to do whatever they want through an actually rather interesting legal process.
That is, if a Celestial Dragon does something, it's automatically legal. Boom. Just like that. This naturally means that there's plenty of room for corruption, which explains the rumors and observations King Moqueca was privy of on those occasions he traveled on official World Government business, being head of one of several member nations of the Gov' that occasionally rubbed shoulders with these illustrious figures.
Mostly in terms of slavery, widely practiced by the Celestial Dragons in spite of it being supposedly outlawed by the World Government. Then there's talk of the Marines basically being pirates themselves when it comes to the inhabitants of islands not officially recognized to be part of the world by the World Government and the picture practically paints itself.
It's actually quite funny, but as it turns out, you aren't fighting some vast, bureaucratically inclined administrative complex whose evils are a result of logistical difficulties and a lack of fucks to give. No, you're essentially dealing with the largest, most well-organized band of pirates in this world, headed by the World Government itself.
The only reason they can really act with the impunity they do, of course, are the Marines, their ever-loyal, law-abiding pawns. Their military strength is what basically props up the whole charade and the reason they're generally regarded as the 'good' guys is really just a lack of informational transparency, in the grand scheme.
That said, they absolutely are enough to do what they World Government needs them to, from essentially committing genocide whenever the need arises to essentially extorting member nations. Because that's also a thing, yeah. Samba Kingdom mainly made the money they needed to pay them off by exporting massive amounts of cacao beans, in essence providing them coffee, and due to the high price of this luxury good more or less broke even overall.
In general, though, if an island is prosperous enough to potentially amass any real amount of wealth overall, the World Government approaches it to 'gently suggest' it become a member nation of itself, admittedly being given a say in important matters on a global scale in exchange. And if they fail to do so, or can't pay the horrendous amount of tribute they demand from everyone, well…
The Marines exist for a reason. Things break. Islands are converted into human hunting grounds. Wink wink nudge nudge.
Overall, feeding on the memories you ingested in Samba Kingdom gives you a greatly improved understanding of the context and background of many things happening in this dimension and its political landscape, for all that it's worth. And, more importantly, you now also know that there's some actually really powerful people amongst the Marines, particularly their higher-ups.
Devil Fruits! Mysterious powers! Secret agencies! There's a lot of fun stuff to be found and eaten, just waiting for you- and most of it is waiting all over the Grand Line, much like you already surmised, but now you have confirmation.
They won't know what hit 'em when you properly sink your teeth into the World Government at large…
New bounty: Leader of the Black Sea Pirates, Wanted Dead or Alive
Appearance: Artist's rendition (No pictures available)
Crimes: Regicide, Murder, Resistance against World Government Members, Battery, Foul Language, Coffee Endangerment
Amount: 100,000,000 Beri
The Grand Cruiser sets out to sea once more as soon as you're done on Samba Island, assured that you are on somebody's radar after you went around and left an entire city's worth of witnesses to your actions, not to mention the Marine ships you had blown up and all. You don't exactly expect government forces to actually track you down anytime soon, mind you, but your name and flag should be known by now, at least.
There's just not much anyone can really do when you're casually cruising below the water, is all, unless the World Government has access to some secret submarine fleet you don't know about. Considering the last monarch you consumed doesn't know about anything like that, you'd say you're pretty safe on that account, for now.
In other words, you're free to go back to sleep in relatively short order after the couple of hours spent on mild, recreational mass murder. It's a bit weird still, to spend so much time being immobile, waking up to do just the one thing or two and then going back to being a corpse again, for the record- even when you did something similar back on Remnant, you usually spent at least a day or two awake at a time, doing stuff and all.
But ah well, you'll live. Un-live, whatever. Point is, you're getting places without straining that metaphorical chain slash tendril keeping you in the right place and time and iteration of Earth Bet, all the while giving the girls plenty of extra time themselves. Which is really the most important reason behind you not just going anywhere you want within minutes.
You could do it just fine, just build a teleporter on the ship and integrate the Thinker in it, job done. Or even construct an actually technologically advanced ship in the first place, then add the undead parts and just fly everywhere at extreme speeds. You have plenty of options if you'd like to go for it, is what you're saying.
But yeah, you don't just avoid taking the easy, probably over-engineered to hell and back, option here for more reasons than just wanting to keep to the aesthetic you made up in your head. While you're in transit and essentially dead to the world around you, Sarah, Kate, Sherrel and Taylor get to use the additional time you're buying for their own projects and training, much as the few days you win for them this way are, well, only a few days.
Not your fault it really doesn't take all that long to move between islands when you're riding a self-driving ship going faster than sails alone would let it, using ocean currents the same way it would use the wind when underwater and generally just going non-stop as it is, rowing ceaselessly and cutting through the water like nothing.
Look, you're deliberately taking it slow and easy, but that's still only by your own standards. Those just happen to be above the rest of this world. Or most worlds at this point, you're willing to bet.
For the moment, your goal continues to be the 'entrance' to the Grand Line, with only a very minor detour on the way; there's a relatively small island you happen to know about through the salvaged souls Taylor pulled out of the Marines that died near Samba Kingdom, having waited in the waters below for their ships to be destroyed.
It's mostly known for its trade, being positioned in a fortunate location between major islands and the crossing of several of South Blue's trade lanes, naturally causing plenty of ships with wares to buy and sell to dock at it. More importantly for your purposes, though, is its equally thriving black market, ironically well-known among the Marines as well.
The more crooked ones anyways, and the ones that are regularly sent to buy stuff from the place their superiors don't want anyone knowing about. Or just to check for any Devil Fruits that may come up at the place, not that this seems to be anywhere close to a regular occurrence.
Most of them tend to just be sold to the World Government, at least in the South Blue. You'd look into stealing any of the things they have yourself, but as it turns out the Marines actually transport any Devil Fruits they get to the Grand Line sooner or later, so there probably wouldn't be all too big of a haul for you in it.
Now, if you ever get around to finding out where they stash them exactly, well, that idea goes back on the table, of course. But back to the black market, for now you're just looking to acquire some useful tools from the place.
Specifically, a Log Pose, one of those little specially-made compasses made to make it possible to traverse the Grand Line, given normal navigation is supposedly impossible over there. It apparently works by 'tuning in' to individual magnetic fields produced by the islands out there to guide ships between them, essentially giving you a route to follow through the Line.
You could just use magic for much the same result, pretty easily so in fact, but you kind of want to have the full pirate experience, and that means getting yourself a Log Pose and seeing where it brings you, apparently. It's not like you couldn't also find yourself an Eternal Pose to some nice part of the place, then head straight towards it either, but part of the fun is not knowing where you'll end up, in your opinion.
It's important to keep things fresh and interesting every now and then. Unless you have any pressing business, anyways, or something or someone just plain annoys you, in which case all bets are off, naturally.
By the by, the name of this island you'll be visiting? Tradewind Island. Yes, the name does kind of piss you off for being just that obvious, but at least it's no Crab Crab Island, so you may be convinced to spare it your wrath while you're there already.
May. You haven't decided whether to summarily massacre the place yet.
Tradewind Island, as it turns out after only a couple days of Sherrel tinkering, Kate shooting the shit and eating her fill of seafood, Taylor bringing aboard a bunch of said seafood from her frequent dives all around the ship and Sarah still playing with your body while you aren't using it, is kind of just a huge open-air market for the most part, with a residential area and some warehouses almost tucked away to the side when one enters the harbor.
It's actually somewhat interesting from an anthropological perspective, but you're not here for any of that so you don't think about it too much, aside from having Taylor get some memory-footage of the place from an aerial perspective. If anyone else wants to at some point, they can go ahead and analyze it later over the telepathy network.
What matters here and now is that you have tons of people selling all kinds of things… And, if one knows where to look, things the World Government doesn't want sold in general. Not that this stops people from doing just that, so whatever, really. There's a black market and you intend to visit it.
The Grand Cruiser's flag is taken down, along with its middle sail, both of them replaced in short order, disguising your ship as anything other than a pirate's, long before you're close enough to be easily seen from the island, giving you plenty of time to rise above the surface and pretend your ship is a normal ship cutting through the waves normally and crewed by normal people and all that.
Simply put, you're pretending not to be pirates again, which is really a very pirate thing to do if you've ever heard of anything that is. You also did make sure to hand out some of the random cash you've got lying around from the various incidences of plundered treasure you've been racking up to the crew, so they can enjoy their time off.
Look, running a ship is very different from running a gang, because everyone is up close to everyone else twenty-four seven and all the tasks that need doing have to be done reliably at all times so the journey doesn't end in a watery grave halfway through, but that doesn't mean you've completely divorced yourself from your usual style of leadership. If the opportunity comes up, letting the crew out to play a little is an obvious choice.
With everyone else quickly deciding how to spend this free day you're giving everyone, you soon disembark once the Grand Cruiser slides into place at the docks of Tradewind Island, stepping off your ship flanked by Sarah and Taylor (who chose to go with you, of course). "Weather's looking good, huh? May as well make the most of it."
"Mhm," Taylor agrees without much deeper thought on it.
"We should go shopping once business is done with, I'm sure we can find some nice stuff around here," your sister adds.
Naturally, you can't just go right ahead and do your thing on this busy island. No, as soon as you walk down the pier towards the rest of the trading town on this island, an overweight, bald man with a large mustache comes to intercept you. "Hello hello! Welcome to Tradewind Island. Docking fees are-"
"Stop caring about our ship and drown yourself in two hours," Sarah commands the moment it becomes apparent he's interrupting what is gearing up to be a little date.
"What was I doing again?" A slightly pained, twitchy and lopsided smile is the only indication this man just casually got his mind fucked. "No ship, no fees, of course, my bad. Please enjoy your stay!"
"So much for that," you nod to him as you continue right on, unimpeded. "A bit heavy-handed though."
"If he didn't want to be Mastered, he shouldn't have been in our way. He put himself there, he only has himself to blame."
Checking up on what Taylor immediately pointed out as the right direction, having already canvassed the entire town using her modified, vision-friendly bugs before you ever set foot in it, you beeline it towards the 'black market' parts of Tradewind Island. Well, you call it that, but it's not like there's some clear dividing line between the black market and the normal one.
Simply put, it's just a matter of shops selling illegal goods clustering together over time, not so much hiding their existence as they are shrugging and just paying off the occasional Marine when necessary, buying protection from the law as long as they aren't going too far with the kinds of business they do. It's a perfectly fine arrangement that rarely, if ever, gets challenged, and if it does all it means is that a new spot opens up in the high-stakes part of the market.
It's not like there's exclusively illegal goods for sale here, either. Rare and exotic wares are just as commonly extolled as ones that would get you a second look from a Marine, which just means you have plenty of additional things to look at.
It's nowhere near as huge and varied a selection as you've seen in Hell, of course, but then, there's few places that really could have such huge marketplaces due to sheer logistical issues that simply aren't a problem down there. What you have here is honestly just fine for your needs, so you can hardly complain in any case.
The first thing you do is to look for the place that sells Log Poses, which aren't even illegal, technically- just rare outside the Grand Line, which makes a form of sense, you suppose.
Nobody around the four Blues that's even halfway in their right mind wants to go there, because it's scary and dangerous as fuck, whereas any real use a Log Pose has is exclusively limited to the Grand Line itself, so there's simply not much demand for them in what you've already dubbed the non-insane parts of this world.
…Or less insane, in any case. You can't talk about the other three, but the South Blue has been plenty insane so far in its own ways.
Anyways, finding out where to go would be as simple as asking someone and getting yourself pointed there, if Sarah wasn't using her power as a matter of course, exclusively because she can and she wants to be the one to tell you where to go.
It's pretty cute and her power is the kind of thing that can just do this, and so seeing as she isn't limited by the headaches her power used to give her when she was still alive, you really can't object or anything.
You are, however, waylaid when you come across a stall selling what look like conical shells, winding around themselves. "Come one come all! Miraculous tools from an island in the sky, the likes of which you've never seen!"
It's not like there aren't plenty of bullshit artists embellishing the worth of their wares all over the place, but this one seems like he's really going out there if he's trying to pass off random seashells as something more.
"Alright, I'll bite," you smirk as you approach his stall, fixing the middle-aged salesman with an even stare. "What's the trick?"
"No tricks, no scams and no swindling, dear customer!" He smiles at you, widely. "These are carefully selected Dials, as they are called, easy to use, you'll see!"
Lifting up one of the shells he's hawking, he wipes his hand over it as he flips it around so its flat side points up with a flourish, obviously making a show of this whole thing for everyone else in earshot as well.
"These are a rarity beyond anything else you'll find here, good sir, a tool that can take in- and release- sound! Making them Tone Dials, in fact. Just listen!" Pressing the apex of the shell, he holds it out towards you.
"These are a rarity beyond anything else you'll find here, good sir, a tool that can take in- and release- sound! Making them Tone Dials, in fact. Just listen!" The shell repeats his words in his voice, perfectly replicating them.
Actually intrigued (and still looking for how this guy's pulling this one off), you covertly overlay Yoshi, taking a closer look at the shell using his analysis power.
As it turns out, it's actually legit. A biologically-grown sound recorder, shell harvested from an actual organism somewhere naturally possessing the ability to absorb and release sound.
Interesting. "How much for two of these?" You ask, immediately causing Sarah to brush against your side as she steps forth, taking over the haggling in your stead.
Ten minutes and mutual swearing, beseeching the heavens and calling each other the most unreasonable, moronically thick-headed person on the island later, two Tone Dials in your pockets ready for later testing and review, you're back on your way to the Log Pose merchant.
"He was serious about the sky island thing, by the way," Sarah mentions off-handed. "Or he believed it, at least."
"Definitely some weird shellfish going on in the clouds if that's true," you say, glancing up at a cloudless sky. "Guess we'll put it on the list of things to look into if they come up."
"Nnnh, feels nice to just be spontaneous," your sister smiles, stretching a little. "Right?"
Taylor nods silently, not saying anything. It's a good idea to address her anyways, you decide, just to make her feel included even when she already knows she is.
But back to the business you actually came here for-
"A million Beri. No more, no less."
"That's literally ten times what a Log Pose worth!"
"Don't like it, don't buy." Crossing his thick arms, the man selling the things makes a show of not looking at your group. "Not my problem if you don't have the money."
The value of the Beri, the currency used by pretty much most of this world as far as you know, is a pretty interesting thing. A single one isn't really worth shit, the entire monetary value adjusted for what seems like it would be some kind of huge inflation, not unlike the way some Asian countries used to deliberately inflate their currencies for trade reasons back on Earth Bet.
There are, however, no competing kinds of money around, or at least not on any scale that would necessitate any such maneuver. At any rate, prices for pretty much any given kind of good differ drastically from island to island, with most meals costing a couple hundred Beri, all in all.
This is not necessarily proportionate to other goods and services, of course. Clothing, for example, can set you back five hundred Beri for a good jacket or pair of pants, whereas brand clothing will take thousands of Beri at the minimum, whereas a good weapon will be tens of thousands.
And you aren't even talking a gun or anything, even decently forged swords are damn expensive depending on where you are and who you're talking to. Not to mention actual luxury goods, or, say, really rare and expensive things like Devil Fruits.
Which brings you to the man standing behind his stall, resolutely refusing to look at your group and making a show of ignoring you. A hundred thousand Beri is a considerable price tag, but it is the market value of a Log Pose, and not actually all that expensive when you consider it as the price of admission for the Grand Line.
And when you call it market price, you mean it's what you should generally expect one of the things to cost when going out to buy one, to be entirely clear. Which makes it all the more insolent to demand literally ten times as much.
So.
Your mind magic, or so you have taken to calling the particular branch of your magic that seems to focus all around microscopically precise changes in a target's brain or brain equivalent, from what you've been able to tell, is pretty interesting.
Not entirely unlike the whole Necromancy thing with its major 'basic' spells to raise the dead, along with plenty of separate spells to facilitate their creation and use in various ways, Mind Magic has some central spells you understood how to cast almost instinctively when you first gained access to this type of magic as a whole, though both of them have almost overwhelming amounts of depth to delve into as you grow more proficient with them.
Specifically, they're the spell that allows you to analyze and read a given person's mind, then use the second spell to make changes to it. They're the key to this whole thing, and have incredible amounts of potential use cases in your hands.
Normally, you don't much like relying on them, because let's be honest, you have a lot of fun just using words and long-term manipulation to get people to do whatever you want. This time, though, you have neither the time nor the inclination to bother- and while you could simply compel this man to follow your commands much like Sarah sometimes does, and did just earlier, this seems like it would be a good moment to really rummage through your toolbox.
Get some practice in with this kind of stuff, see just how far you can take it, that kind of thing. The situation is very different compared to just experimenting on a few hundred prisoners for the sake of establishing a baseline, after all.
So you look at the man that doesn't look at you, and you speak the words that herald the beginning of his end. "Reveal your thoughts, your memories and mind!"
You take care to be somewhat quiet so at least half the black market doesn't realize something is going on, but there's no hiding your resounding voice from your target, at the very least, its overlaying, almost physically dense set of meaning explained in increasingly inhuman logic and detail experienced by even the slowest, least capable of minds. "Wha-"
"Mind and body can all be changed!" Not giving him time to ask any questions (or what's up with the swarm of spiders building up inside his stall, just in case you're too slow to stop him from shouting), you cast your second spell, now ready and perfectly positioned to get to work.
What you just did essentially is the combination of opening up the body of a surgery patient during an ultrasound examination, giving you a direct way to see what is going on inside, and readying your tools from the scalpel to the hatchet, so you may get right to work.
You just need to cast both once and you can do pretty much everything you could want within the spells' effects… Starting with you quickly going down a mental 'list' of functions and flipping the switches for voluntary movement as well as conscious control of breathing, in effect shutting both down in this particular man that just had to go and piss you off.
Only to then turn the latter back on, because he immediately begins to choke, as the brain is a very sensitive and intricate organ and its wires don't so much cross as they continually swirl around each other just waiting for an opportunity to entangle everything within reach.
"Barry? Really?" You raise an eyebrow as you really get to dig into the information you now have access to, opening up and dismissing mental 'windows' as you look for self-identity and where it links to in this particular braincase. "Nice name, I guess. Now let's see what your pliable little mind has to offer, hm?"
Fear spikes. You note the reaction down for later and start playing with that particular dial, seeing what else it is connected to inside Barry here.
Finding out exactly why this merchant here treated you the way he did is both surprisingly complex and simple, at the end of the day. While you don't actually find any reasons for his actions in his short-term memory, following some associative links from the last couple of minutes eventually leads you to a set of memories that explain his behavior. Somewhat.
Simply put, it's a long list of rejections Barry received from just about every woman he ever propositioned, from his childhood to the present day. He apparently was not particularly appealing to be around throughout his entire life, a combination of his unfortunate appearance and his lack of positive personality traits to make up for it, and so, well, grown-up Barry just hates any guy more romantically fortunate than him.
It likely didn't help that there were plenty of rumors about him when he started to lash out, staring at attractive women and cussing at those his own age that wouldn't give him the time of day. To cut it short, the man's an incel if you've ever seen one, judging by the memories you're skimming.
Unfortunate. You were hoping to gain an understanding of him so you could deconstruct his sad little mind properly, but someone so thoroughly divorced from reality as this guy is honestly pretty hard to actually comprehend.
Like, he literally just tried to fuck you over on the price of his wares because he saw you on a date with Sarah and Taylor. Setting yourself aside, shooting his own business in the foot like this can hardly be called a sound decision.
Ah well… Good thing you're here to fix this unfortunate motherfucker up a little, one way or another.
At the end of the day, you suppose the issue is pretty simple when you sum it up- this person is experiencing an immensely twisted perception of the world, and relationships in particular, due to fundamental delusions built up by his inability to figure out how to get laid.
That's really it, you think. And, while you could go and rebuild him as someone a woman could stand to be around for any length of time, now that you have access to all the funny bits of gray matter sloshing around in his skull, that sounds like way too much effort to put into something like this.
Instead, you decide to be a little more… direct about this, and turn your attention towards the mechanisms by which Barry rationalizes his lived experiences and his own actions, allowing him to live in his weird delusions instead of facing reality.
And then you turn them off, excising all of the deeply held, shitty views you can find in his noggin' like you were using a vegetable peeler, scraping and cutting and chopping your way through the entirety of his worldview and ideology, if you even can really call him just being kind of a dick to everyone that much.
Blinking your awareness back into your eyes, instead of the mental interface you've taken to using for these kinds of things, constructed piece by piece as you experimented with these spells (it's a real pain in the ass to try and follow linked emotional triggers when you don't actually have any way to interface with the whole thing), you see that Barry is spasming even more than before, trying his very best to say something.
Checking up on his speech center, it looks like it's slowly reconnecting functionality, in fact, so you go ahead and accelerate that process. "Whaaad… did du dooo…?"
It never gets old how people act when you fuck their brains directly (and not in the fun way). "Oh, I went ahead and fixed some of your damage," you tell him without so much as a twitch out of place on your face. "You're welcome, by the way."
"I haaade… thiiis…!"
Oh, yup, looks like his consciousness is trying to rebuild his bullshit personality already. This is why making large-scale changes to human minds is such a huge bother, they always try to 'recover' after you improve on them, their personalities changed but often taking on aspects of what they were before you got your hands on them.
It's an issue with how brains are structured, you're pretty sure; even if you remove conclusions, they just follow the same trains of thought they did before you did so to arrive at the same or similar results anyways. They're kind of stubborn like that.
Luckily for Barry, you aren't giving up on him just yet, though! All you need to do is to keep on removing bits and pieces of his thought processes, rewiring bits and pieces until you've achieved a sufficiently large paradigm shift he finally snaps his perception of how the world is and works into a less insane mindset.
"I'm about to mess with your voluntary muscle contraction again, try not to shit yourself," you inform him as you continue to happily snibble away at his neurons. "Or fall over or something. And don't worry, once I'm done here I'll just go ahead and delete all your memories of today- it'll just be a bad dream you can't quite remember."
If you were some kind of emotional vampire of some sort, the sheer, panicked fear response to your words would feed you for a week straight. As it is, though, you simply continue to ensure Barry becomes a better person- like therapy, just a lot more intrusive and direct and with immediate results.
So not like therapy at all, thinking about it. Ah well, you're sure one day Barry will think back to his former self and wonder how he ever became who he was, embarrassed about his behavior and all. Or not. You aren't about to waste any effort whatsoever in finding out.
"Think we should grab an extra Log Pose while we're at it?" You ask, leaning against the stall's counter to point down its other side. "They're in the safe right there, the combination is-"
"Four-Two-Six-Nine-Six-Eight," Sarah says before you can, vaulting over and opening the small, armored container in a flash. "They come with these little armbands so someone can keep an eye on them at all times. Black or brown?"
Holding them up for you to judge, you suppose fashion may as well be the deciding factor here. "I like the rough leather aesthetic, but black suits your complexion better," you ponder, rubbing your chin. "What do you think, Taylor?"
"…Black. Definitely black," she agrees with your conclusion. "Sarah isn't suited for a rugged look."
"I can totally pull that kind of thing off, thank you very much," your sister immediately pouts, crossing her arms and looking away much like Barry did earlier, almost making you just laugh at how ridiculous she's being.
"Please, being a spoiled princess works way better for you."
"Yup."
"Oh, why do I bother spending time with you two?" In a great huff, Sarah comes out of the stall again, Log Pose well in hand, essentially a three-dimensional compass inside a large glass bead whose needle points you where to go once it tunes to a magnetic field. "See if I let you spoil me again."
"I'm pretty sure I saw some fruit cocktails served in coconuts earlier, let's start there, then," you smile, holding back a chuckle and the urge to stroke her hair, instead holding out a hand for both your sister and Taylor. "Shall we?"
You still have a date to get to after all, completely disregarding the drooling, highly confused man left behind in your wake.
Tradewind Island really isn't big, even when you count the parts of it not filled with buildings and people and all such; this place doesn't really have any industry of its own by any means, serving exclusively as a trading port and making money in the process. It's kind of like how medieval towns that sit in opportune places would grow purely through trade, except for how all streets are ocean currents and the logistics work out a little differently overall.
Same principle still, though. This dive of an island has its large, central market, where pretty much anyone can come to buy and sell anything they want… As long as they pay a nominal fee for the space, anyways, or else get their wares sold before the island's people sweep through to check for any 'squatters'.
Then it has the warehouses, where ships can unload their cargo so it can wait for the next one to bring it elsewhere, provided a fee for the usage of the storage space, of course, all of them set off to the side of the whole place, and some residential areas for the more permanent denizens of Tradewind Island- the people that make the money from all of this, the ones that do the work on keeping everything running and all those things.
That still leaves out one important part of this whole establishment, however, one that's, really, indispensable when you have a decent volume of ships coming and going on a scale like this. Those ships, after all, have crews, and those crews can't be kept locked up below deck like animals, much like some captains would like to do just that.
Long story short, there's plenty of bars around, plus a few brothels here and there, making a token effort at hiding their nature on account of prostitution being technically outlawed by the World Government. Not that Marines are particularly bothered, for the most part, but appearances have to be upheld and all that jazz.
But yeah, entertainment. It's a thing and it's important, to keep bored (and non-bored) sailors occupied with something, whether that's drowning themselves in cheap ale or playing cards, dice or any other game of chance they can easily get their hands on in a drinking establishment.
It also is where you find some of your crew, after a little stroll all across the island to look around, take in the sights and all that. Having gotten into a fight with a bunch of burly-looking sailors, they're already getting into trouble the moment nobody keeps an eye on them- you won't admit it, but it really reminds you of home, to be honest.
You still tell them not to waste time and beat the crap out of the other guys so everyone can get a move on already. Of course, you spoiling the fact your boys will win hands down gets the other crew riled up, but, well… You did juice your little pirates up something fierce, to be fair.
With all of the advantages to straight up being plain stronger than they should be all across the board to a serious degree, the fight doesn't exactly last long while you go ahead and take a seat at the bar. "You got anything non-alcoholic in here?" You ask, gently reaching to the side of your head to catch a thrown bottle, setting it down while Sarah and Taylor plop down to your sides.
The barkeeper looks at you, glances at them and then at the violent chaos currently consuming his place. Obviously deciding this is the kind of thing firmly belonging into the category of 'not his fucking problem', he gives you a nod, his twirly mustache twitching at the sound of wood breaking over someone's head. "We also serve coconut milk and orange juice."
"Huh. Go figure. Some juice would be nice, I guess."
Waiting for the girls to put in their orders, you turn around to watch as the last of the bar brawl plays out, the other crew going down in short order.
This really was about to be expected, to be honest. If your guys lost, you'd have had to seriously consider what the fuck was going on, when they got aura, thralling, potions, skills copied through the Necronomicon and all and still somehow managed not to outdo some random assholes in a bar in the middle of nowhere.
Casually going on to drink, you're about to put it out of your mind… when the doors to this dive slam open, revealing a big, particularly burly man behind them, his extremely curly, dark hair falling down the sides of his head to meet the… extensive amount of more hair growing on his chest, styled into two braids slung back around up his shoulders.
He's kind of eccentric even by local standards, you're saying.
"Me boys!" He shouts as soon as he actually sees how this place looks, decorated with unconscious bodies as it is. "Who did this to you, me boys?! I won't stand for nona' it!"
Sipping your orange juice, you lean down to try some of Sarah's coconut milk when she offers.
"What, these weaklings?" "They weren't none too tough, big man!" "How 'bout you take 'em back on yer ship so you can feed 'em more momma's milk?" "They sure need some more, hahaha!"
"Rrrgh!" Growling and showing his teeth in sheer anger, thick veins start to show on the man's forehead… And the rest of his, his arms and basically his whole body, anger making him look even weirder and less human than he already was. "Nobody talks like that to the Black Bear Pirates!"
Your crew looks at him, speechless. Then, they slowly pivot to look at you instead, none of them saying anything just in case- probably because this just became a dispute between pirates or something and you're, like, right there?
Not that it matters, really. "Huh. Never heard of 'em," you note aloud, taking another sip. This stuff isn't exactly the best juice you ever drank, you'd be surprised if it was considering this is just a seedy bar mostly serving alcoholic beverages, but it's actually pretty decent, fresh, bit of sugar in it, but not too much, plus some spice you can't quite seem to make out. "You sure you guys are real pirates?"
Staring you down (and failing utterly due to the fact you summarily refuse to take this man seriously), the apparent captain of the Black bear Pirates takes a heavy step towards you. "I'll-"
You snap your fingers. "Yeah, nah. Guys, beat him a little and throw him out, would you?"
Just another day on Tradewind Island, you suppose. Come to think of it, should you have announced who you are at some point like that idiot did?
…No, you decide once you see the two dozen Marines chasing the beaten form of said idiot through the streets, it would probably just have been more trouble than it would be worth. As the guy that tried to do it is finding out, dodging bullets and swords whenever the Marines get closer as he runs.
"Is this what people felt when they watched Looney Tunes back in the day?" You wonder aloud.
All in all, your stay on this island is mostly unremarkable, if pleasant enough. You don't really figure you should play around with reality-distorting powers too much here out in the open, mostly just because explaining shit away takes too much effort to be worth it and you simply can't be arsed, but neither do you really feel like massacring this entire place while you're here, either.
So with both training yourself and recreational mass murder out, you basically just relax and enjoy your time in the shine of the tropical sun. Both Sarah and Taylor can use the practice, while you're at it, seeing as both of them are still somewhat affected by sunlight, if nowhere near as bad as they would have been a couple months of relative time ago.
Kate? Kate doesn't care, she's weakened by the sun still as well but she also gets to thug it up around the marketplace, mugging people with some of the crew and generally being a souped-up delinquent. Girl is having too much fun to let the headache and general un-wellness bother her.
Ultimately, you end up lying back on the deck of the Grand Cruiser, sipping on some more of that coconut milk straight through a straw stuck inside a coconut itself. You bought some more of the stuff while you were here, having had plenty of chances to try it out.
Ironically, the coconuts used to produce it? Yup, they came from a certain island with a certainly stupid name. Small world, huh?
The reason you go out of your way to stay on deck like this is to oversee the return of your crew, by the by, whom you told to get back to the ship by sundown. It's not like you can't just monitor them through your telepathy network, of course, but it's important to be visible and easily noticeable when you plan to hand out punishments to anyone that fails to show up in time.
The peons have to remember their place every now and then, and if that involves polishing the cannons to a spit shine, then that means your cannons will be shiny in case any of them take too long. And seeing how late it's getting and how far some of your crew are from the harbor, you expect to have some shiny weapons indeed.
They'll probably be done in a day or two of work, if they put in some effort. You look forward to making them do just that purely because you can and they screw up a very simple task.
The only thing left, now that you're ready to leave the island and go see what actually interesting sights this world has to offer, is a little bit of cleanup- well, not even that, you're just grabbing a quick meal before you're off.
There are, after all, Marines stationed on this island, presumably due to its relative importance as a trade port; in itself, it's entirely too small to be worth this kind of attention, you're pretty sure.
Even so there's not too many law enforcement officials (if you can even call them that) present on the island, more there to keep public order and to throw out any pirates that are too obvious about who they are than anything else. The real enforcement happens on the seas, at least in theory, at the hands of the patrolling ships keeping the trade lanes clear of piracy as best they can.
Doesn't exactly stop you from taking the offered bag of snacks when it's right in front of you.
"Halt! What's your business at the outpost?" One of the guards standing around the medium-sized building used as a barracks, Tradewind Island's jail and townhouse, sort of- its administration isn't really centralized enough for that, technically.
"I'm here to see you fine people about an opportunity for a meal, as a matter of fact," you tell them. Then, not giving them a chance to respond, you fall onto all fours, fur growing out of your body as it twists and warps, bone grinding and shifting as you grow into a large, half-canine creature, mouth shifting forward into a snarling muzzle.
The first Marine is bit in half faster than any of them can react, his blood snatched up and drunk moments before your teeth snap shut entirely, letting you eat half his torso in one bite.
"Ala-argh!" Number two doesn't make it long either, thrown straight up into the air by a swift tackle that has him land straight in your maw as you rise to greet him on his way back down, your form growing just large enough to do the job without having to tear down all the buildings in range.
The screaming has already begun. It'll end when you decide it does and not a moment sooner.
"Pirates! Piiirates! Pirates in town!"
"We know, the Black Bear Pirates were arrested already."
"No! Other pirates! They attacked the Marines and released the Black Bear Pirates!"
"Who're they?!"
"I think I heard them called the Brown Sea Pirates!"
"Are they saying the sea turns brown wherever they pass because everyone releases their bowels…? That's kind of terrifying, actually."
"This is Marine Outpost 1131, Tradewind Island! We are under attack! The Black Bear Pirates have been released by the Dead Se- argh!"
"Hello? Hello? Are you still the-"
The crunch of a crushed Den Den Mushi was all that remained.
"Immediately issue a bounty for the Dead Bear Pirates!"
"Men, there's reports of more dangerous pirates moving into this area, likely looking to hit Reverse Mountain and enter the Grand Line. The most dangerous of them are the Black Dead Bamboo Pirates, named after carnivorous plants growing on an island far in the south. I expect all of you to be on your feet and at 'em the moment they show their ugly mugs!"
By the time you've made your way to Reverse Mountain, there's a handful of things that have become apparent. For one, the Marines have built up a sort of blockade in front of the entrance to the Grand Line, an even twenty cruisers patrolling its vicinity and keeping a watchful eye for anyone coming close.
Honestly, you aren't exactly sure why they're bothering; any pirates that attempt to cross into the Grand Line are either going to die horribly there, because it's the Grand Line, or else are strong enough to thrive in that environment, in which case no amount of simple, low-level Marines are going to be able to stop them anyways.
The problem either takes care of itself or can't be solved like this, so why would they go and waste the manpower involved? You must'vereallypissed them off when you kicked Samba Kingdom in the balls… Or they're massively underestimating the Dead Sea Pirates and really, really want to kill you themselves for some reason.
More importantly, though, is Reverse Mountain itself- and its name does make alotmore sense, now that you can see what's going on with it.
Really, extremely fast water currents rushing towards it and flowingupthe damn mountain? The fuck is this shit? It's absolutely not natural, you refuse to believe it- this has to have been planned and designed to look and work like this.
Anyways, though, there's a bit of a minor issue. The waterways leading up Reverse Mountain, that you're very obviously meant to be riding all the way to the top, aren't particularly deep. Meaning that not only can you not easily keep diving down below the Marines' ships and notice both, even if you were to resurface to climb up the mountain, the giant capsule of undead chitin and bone underneath the ship wouldn't be able to fit there while you did so.
Normally not a problem, you'd just shift it around a bit and figure out the exact logistics, but doing that while the Marines bombard you with those explosive cannonballs of theirs would be… a bit awkward, you'd think. You may need to go ahead and figure out a morethoroughsolution to this little kerfluffle, after all.
Honestly though, if they really want to live, these guys will just have to know better than to be in your way. You doubt they will know better.
"Captain! Boss! Chief!"
Casually standing at the Grand Cruiser's steering wheel so you can pretend you're actually steering (you are, but not physically using the wheel- your ship can adjust its course based only on what you want just fine), you throw a lazy look at the already panicking crew, having just returned to the ocean's surface.
"There's Marines! What do we do?" At least they aren't completely losing their minds- you suppose having been given a couple demonstrations of your powers means they're at least reasonably confident this amount of enemies won't stop you for long.
"You? You guys don't do anything," you chuckle loud enough to be heard across the entire ship, and then some. "I've got this taken care of already."
Fun fact, it takes you a while to manipulate the weather using your power to interact with the atmosphere directly, as the way you do so involves a very large amount of very minute changes that, step by step, cause the result you want. The entire process is very, well, procedural, and just takes a little bit to add up most of the time.
That said, while you can't go and, say, be on one side of a planet and influence the weather on the other side out of nowhere, you don't exactly need to have line of sight to the sky or anything like that. You can be inside a building, underground or even deep underwater, and it works just fine.
In other words, yes, you've actually been doing your thing with the weather for over half an hour already by this point, drawing in clouds, sending them ahead of yourself as the Grand Cruiser cruised and changing them along the way.
The end results? Those are something the Marines currently in sight are about to get some firsthand experience with.
Scrambling to respond the moment you come into sight, as your Jolly Roger immediately informs the Marines as to what sort of customers you are, the blockading ships adjust their formation, spreading out slightly to better intercept the Grand Cruiser should you try to break through.
Little do they know, you intend to very casually float along right between them once they're all dead one way or another.
One of them, holding a megaphone and clad in the uniform of a commanding officer, so likely the captain of one of these cruisers, moves up to the bow of his ship, breathing in deep.
"Death Hand Pirates!" He shouts, completely embarrassing himself with the wrong name. "Your reign of terror ends here! You will die long before you reach the Grand Line!"
"Likely story," you reply with a raised eyebrow, speaking at normal volume and yet still letting your voice echo across the water to reach the Marines. "You got the name wrong, by the way. Unless you got the wrong guys?"
"No way! That flag is the flag of the Death Hand Pirates, as sure as I breathe!"
Another Marine captain, from the boat next to him, chimes in at this point, using his own megaphone. "I told you, they are the Dead Foot Pirates!"
"Wait," Marine number three joins the 'conversation' you're having, "I thought they were the Bear Pig Pirates?"
"…" Your silence grows so oppressive its sound briefly overwhelms the blowing of the wind, the rushing of the very waves and, indeed, the Marines, for a brief moment.
You know what, you're not the type to insist on these kinds of things. If people get your name wrong, you don't really care, it's just whatever. Popping your top every time someone's being stupid is just a waste of your time and energy.
But this? This really is getting pretty ridiculous at this point. You'll have to carve your name into these ships by the time you're done with them.
Raising a hand towards the sky, you direct attention towards the deep-hanging, heavy clouds currently obscuring the sun. Deep, heavy and somewhat red, in fact.
You snap your fingers even as you sigh, feeling like the moment got kind of stolen from you by all this stupid. "You know what, you guys just die, I'll leave a note with the right name on your ships once I'm done."
The rain that comes down is, unsurprisingly, red. Seeing as it's blood you're making the sky disgorge onto this particular part of the ocean, that goes without saying. It also is highly acidic, which is something you can do- makes it kind of tingly when you turn massive amounts of it into swarms of bats, extending your own distributed self all over the place, but most importantly it makes the Marines scream and clutch their faces for protection.
Turns out this strategy is surprisingly effective. Who knew that widespread, well-distributed acid works wonders against a military that doesn't issue eye protection to all of its members?
By the time you make a concentrated effort to break down the ships, a couple of them just straight up break in two under the force of the massive streams of hundreds upon hundreds of bats slamming themselves right against their decks, diving from far above and using their unfair durability combined with the use of gravity manipulation to make them heavier and more durable on top.
It's pretty hard to actually concentrate when you're doing so many things at once and still using your human-shaped brain on the side, but as long as you don't actively have to fight or something, it's manageable enough, as always.
Eating all of the Marines is mostly a matter of timing at this point, as you continue to overwhelm them, about as one-sided as it goes. The acid blood rain actually stops fairly soon as you make sure not to keep it up for too long- the Grand Cruiser can use the same magic that lets it maintain a bubble of air underwater to protect itself from it, but you don't want to risk the ocean becoming so acidic around you that your ship just gets fucked by it afterwards.
The bats converge around yourself, their glutted forms swirling around in an immense spiral stretching from the clouds to the water's surface, and are absorbed into your 'main' body in short order. Everything is silent for a while even once they're all done, the around ten minutes of slaughter over already.
Turns out you can be ridiculous efficient draining the blood out of people like this, not that this one's anything new, admittedly. Looking around the ship, you breathe out, having accidentally taken in some air as well during this little feeding rush that needs expelling now.
"Well? We still got a mountain to climb. Let's get a move on as soon as we're done literally spelling out our name."
Taylor, having stayed at your side throughout this series of events without budging an inch, chooses this moment to speak up. "Do you think we should wear name tags?"
"Excellent idea. Some people apparently need us to."
What is left behind, by the time you're done rearranging the ships the Marines took here (and taking any salvageable food from them, while you were at it- they're mostly military rations, but you can feed a bunch of them to the minions all the same) is, if you're willing to be magnanimous about it, somewhat of a statue.
If you're more realistic about it, of course, you really just tore them apart, then used the steel beams and such to nail piece by piece of the ships onto the rock of Reverse Mountain, spelling out 'Dead Sea Pirates' for the idiots in charge using the wreckage. It's about as utilitarian as you could make it, but just keeping this whole thing legible and at least somewhat pleasing to the eye makes it a work of art in its own way already, you reckon.
The ascent up Reverse Mountain, now that you're done with everything else and the cocoon of hardened undead flesh you obstinately persist in calling your Crabkren (you will make this name a thing at some point, dammit) fastened to the back of your ship instead of the bottom of its hull for the moment, is pretty tumultuous, insofar as the Grand Cruiser's 'oars' basically stretch out to function as legs instead for a bit, the path as shallow and turbulent as it goes against gravity, water not so much flowing as it storms up the waterway carved into the mountain.
Well, it would be turbulent for most people. As usual, having an undead ship do your work for you means a lot less trouble with small things such as 'not dying horribly because rocks are hard and ships can only take so much of pounding against them'.
Being somewhat of an expert on the matter of pounding, you can agree that most things just kind of give up the ghost at some point of it, the question is just how long it takes to get there.
The air rushes past you as you ascend one of the four waterways leading up to the top, the Grand Cruiser shaking and aching just as violently as the elements it is defying, but it doesn't even take two minutes to climb the enormous mountain at the pace you're racing at, shooting straight up into the air for a few moments.
Honestly, this kind of reminds you of a roller coaster at this point. You used to ride one with your childhood friend, back in LA, long before you went on to study in Brockton Bay- she really loved it to sit on your lap, rubbing her ass against you while everything was moving really fast.
You even had sex like that once or twice, but then, she was up for it pretty much any time as long as it involved getting her ass filled, so that's really nothing much new.
Still reminiscing, you don't really pay much attention as the Grand Cruiser comes back down the mountain, half the crew screaming their lungs out even though you went out of your way to take precautions against anyone tumbling off the deck- there's organic ropes made of muscle fibers wrapped around everyone, ensuring they won't fly straight off the ship.
…Once you arrive in it, the Grand Line seems to be experiencing torrential rain, some of it colored an off-red. Did you inadvertently influence its weather earlier?
You can tell this'll be a barrel of fun already.